Fratelli d'Italia pt. 4

Image by marc e marc via FlickrI'm on a roll, and these ones shouldn't take me too long.

• Banks - I often felt that in England, the banks were rather lacklustre in their customer service. I worked all week, and had the day off on Saturday. Why did they usually close early? So I wasn't too pleased to find that it's even worse here. They mostly seem to be open in the morning even on weekdays and I think some days they're just closed, like bars. Bloody skivers. One time I had a cheque to pay in, so I had to pop in before going to work; how rubbish is that? I seem to recall hearing that Italian bank charges are among the worst, if not the worst, in Europe. Service please.
• Tobacconists - This one's not annoying, just intriguing. Where do you go to buy bus tickets? Why, the tobbaconist's of course. Silly me for not thinking of that.
• Prices at bars - I was opining about this one at work the other day. You can never see the prices in Italian bars. They're legally required to display them I think, but basically they're usually "on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard'." What I don't get is why. Surely a bar with reasonable prices which advertised them better would get more customers. No?
• Display of opening hours - It happens that since I made a note to write about this, I've seen a lot more opening hours, but still - quite a lot of the time you have to guess when shops/offices are going to open. For a native it's not too hard to guess, unless they're gratuitously unpredictable (and sometimes they are: mon-wed-fri in the morning and tue-thu in the afternoon with 2 hours on sat for special appointments, for example), but even then there's usually a margin of about an hour where you're not sure when you should go out. Is it too much like hard work to put a sign up?
• Bus timetables - I'm a graduate. I find it hard to understand Italian bus timetables. They seem principally to be composed of a highly detailed grid of exceptions (not on holiday, mon-fri only, mon-sat only, only during term time, not from june-august). There's very little regularity, so every stop has an individual entry (not like the summary "every 1hr" kind of thing you get in Blighty), making the visual prospect quite daunting from the get go. They tend to be geared towards schoolchildren, so you have buses every 5 minutes in the morning and every once in a blue moon during the day. If you ask the little old ladies who populate Italian bus stops if they know what's going on, they'll tell you it's a mystery to them as well. No wonder everyone drives everywhere. I seem to remember that Thatcher woman justifying cuts in the public transport budget by suggesting that if you see a man on a bus over the age of 14, you're looking at a failure. Very Italian.

Feast of St. Joseph

Image via Wikipedia

Today is the feast of St. Joseph, which means that it's Fathers' Day in Italy, so this is my first ever Fathers' Day - it's a nice feeling.

Luckily, none of the following will be expecting a card, but happy Fathers' Day to my Dad, my brother Adrian, who's also a new father, my brother-in-law Lorenzo, whose little girl turned 1 recently, my father-in-law Carlo, and me mate James, with his two wonderful little girls and a further wonderful child in the oven.

Unfortunately it's a day mixed with sadness in Offagna. A father of two little girls took his life tonight.

To you, O blessed Joseph,
do we come in our tribulation,
and having implored the help of your most holy spouse,
we confidently invoke your patronage also.
Through that charity which bound you
to the immaculate Virgin Mother of God
and through the paternal love
with which you embraced the Child Jesus,
we humbly beg you graciously to regard
the inheritance which Jesus Christ
has purchased by his Blood,
and with your power and strength
to aid us in our necessities.

O most watchful Guardian of the Holy Family,
defend the chosen children of Jesus Christ;
O most loving father,
ward off from us
every contagion of error and corrupting influence;
O our most mighty protector,
be propitious to us and from heaven assist us
in our struggle with the power of darkness;
and, as once you rescued the Child Jesus from deadly peril,
so now protect God’s Holy Church
from the snares of the enemy and from all adversity;
shield, too, each one of us by your constant protection,
so that, supported by your example and your aid,
we may be able to live piously, to die holily,
and to obtain eternal happiness in heaven. Amen.

(Ad te, beati Ioseph, an ancient prayer to St Joseph)

 
Related articles

• St Joseph: Model Husband and Father - A Reflection for the Feast of the Holy Family (adw.org)
• The Tradition of Burying A Statue of St. Joseph to Sell A Home (judithlrebholz.wordpress.com)

Fratelli d'Italia pt. 3 - 150 Year Anniversary Edition

Image via WikipediaToday, as fate would have it, marks 150 years of Italian unity. Hurrah! A lot of Italians aren't sure it's worth celebrating, but most people will be enjoying the day off to think about it. Anyway, it's nice timing for resurrecting my series on Italian quirks:

• Extravagant waste - This would be another thing to do with Striscia. It's a funny sort of programme; does a little bit of lots of things. One of the things it does is a bit like Watchdog, but it doesn't limit itself to consumer affairs - it deals with dodgy affairs at a political level too. One of these is wasted public money. Local councils, regions or whatever, pay to develop schools, hospitals, parks, you name it, which are then instantly abandoned. It's not too hard to explain in itself, just common or garden corruption. What I don't understand is how no-one ends up in prison for it. It's clearly a crime people aren't particularly afraid to commit, because it keeps on cropping up on Striscia, but why on earth not? It might be a bit tricky to pursue the mafia, but local politicians have offices; they're in the phone book and everything. And then, it's spectacularly obvious. It's public money wasted in a gratuitously extravagant way - in bricks and concrete, and whatever one uses these days. I mean, short of building a Wasted Public Money Memorial Hospital and then driving through the streets in one of those van with loudspeakers shouting "I am pissing away your taxes!", I'm not quite sure what you'd have to do to get arrested around these parts.
• Precarietà vs. Cushy Public Sector - I'm rewriting this one, apparently at a distance of 5 months from the first attempt! Here's a funny thing; in the world of work, Italy has two diametrically opposed problems at the same time. Monica tells me that part about the public sector is improving, but anyway. Chronologically, the first problem is that, apparently, public sector workers are practically impossible to fire. Perhaps this says more about employers not wanting to go through disciplinary procedures, but I couldn't tell you. Anyway, they can, by common consent, get away with murder and keep their job for life. Tim Parks told an amazing story about a woman who apparently clocked in at the office, left her coat on her chair and prosituted herself all day for years until someone decided to check what the hell she actually did. The other, more recent problem is precarietà ("precariousness"), the term that Italians use to indicate that someone is on a short term contract, like practically everyone in my office for example, and especially the young. The disastrous social effects of widespread precarietà are obvious, with workers struggling to find the stability that they need to settle down, something which helps to explain why the average Italian waits so long before marrying and having children. How the hell can a government not intervene in a matter like this? Anyway, not much use waiting for Berlusconi to do anything about it. He's too busy trying to save his wrinkly (no matter how hard he tries) skin.
• Facebook - Now, seriously. Facebook is all well and good. I like Facebook; I use it. But it's not news. Something to do with an Italian love of gadgets I expect (apparently they're second only to us in wasting time on mobile phones), but every so often there's a story about Facebook on the news, about Berlusconi being annoyed about the groups that criticise him (thousands, obviously), groups that offend people with Downs syndrome, FB-based lobbying groups (as much of a waste of time here as anywhere else, I assure you). Then of course, every programme has a Facebook group, and one of our biggest clients insists on trying to do viral marketing through FB apps - trust me, it would take a seriously compromised immune system for that particular virus to take hold. Get a grip! Who gives a cazzo volante? It's only a chuffing website.
• Strikes -  So... why do Italians strike? I fear the answer can only be because they like striking. I'm definitely in favour of the principle of worker solidarity and striking, and Italy, like us has a long history of socialism and collective action. But here it's so futile; it's devalued currency. I can only really see it as a day off. Apparently the bus drivers strike every year, to coincide with the new school year. But how did it get this way? What happened to the Italian left that they complain so much and achieve so little? Anyway, wiser heads than mine have been trying to answer that question for a loooooooong time.
• Scusa, ma... - I like this one. If you were translate this literally, it would be "Excuse me, but...". The perfect starting point for a quintessentially British phrase right? Such as "Excuse me, but I appear to have become enveloped in flames. Unfortunately the pain is exquisite. Could I possibly borrow some of your water?" In Italian, it's quite another story; there's no apology going on, it's a popular way of preparing the interested party for criticism. To take it to the extreme (as it might be understood on television for example, in one of the many 'healthy' debates), you might translate it as "Pardon my frankness, but I'd like to explain why you're a moron...". It's not always so pronounced of course, but in any case, sorry doesn't always mean sorry. Quite often it's the prelude to a thorough takedown.

Related articles

• No mood to party (bbc.co.uk)
• Dissent in the ranks (bbc.co.uk)

A Fly Lands on Ambrose's Nose

There's a nursery rhyme that Gabriella has been singing to Noemi. Apparently it's very old, and I couldn't find it on the interweb, but we like it.

I decided to set myself a challenge and translate it into an English version that you can sing to the same tune. I don't think I did a bad job! Perhaps I'll do an MP3 later. Done: ambrose.mp3

«Oh, perbacco» diceva Tommaso,
«Se mi viene la mosca sul naso
Io di certo qui dir non saprei
In tal caso che cosa farei.
Che ne dite amici miei?
È una cosa che fa pensar,
che fa pensar.»
Ad un tratto la mosca pian piano
Sul nasin di Tommaso posò.
«Povero naso!»
esclamava confuso Tommaso:
Ohilì, Ohilà!
A farsi furbo così imparerà.

"Oh, my goodness" said Ambrose,
"What if that fly came and sat on my nose?
In that instance I couldn't tell you
What on earth I would venture to do.
What's the solution according to you?
It's a thinker and no mistake,
and no mistake."
The fly suddenly chose to repose,
Gracefully perched on the nose of Ambrose.
"Oh my poor nose!"
cried a baffled Ambrose:
Hey here! Hey there!
That'll teach him to think with more flair.

Related articles

• How many onions can fall out your nose beafore you have to go to the doctor (wiki.answers.com)
• Dog Has a Map of the World on Nose (neatorama.com)

Noemi Natalie Dobson

God Save the English Part 2

Image via Wikipedia

Food: This is like shooting fish in a barrel. I shouldn't talk about English cuisine. Let's just say that after 4 years in England the only English food I really liked was apple crumble. I like cottage pie too but with an Italian touch.

I remember the first time I saw my English flatmate opening a can and pour the contents into a plate. To me it looked like cat food but as far as I knew she didn't have a cat. Then to my horror she started eating it. I had a look at the can. It said spaghetti hoops. It was just horrible and disgusting to me. Cat food is more appropriate.

But England never failed to surprise me every day. I found out that you also put spaghetti in cans. This is just mental. There ought to be laws. You should not put spaghetti in cans. Never. For any reason. It can't be done. It's against nature. Italians know that of all the kinds of pasta, spaghetti requires special care in cooking. It's very easy to get the timing wrong and then you can't eat them. As soon as they are cooked they should be seasoned and eaten because otherwise they get sticky and horrible. So to put them in a can is out of the question.
But just when I thought it couldn't be worse than this, my then friend Mark told me one day he had ravioli on toast for lunch. What? I said with my usual horrified expression. He explained me that he opened a can of ravioli and poured it on toast. I almost fainted! Images of my mum and my nan spending afternoons making homemade ravioli came into my mind and a certain feeling of disgust and pity filled my stomach. Ravioli in a can? Why do you do such things England? Why don't you love your people enough to nurture them with proper food? That day I honestly felt pity for Mark who had never tasted proper ravioli and according to me never had proper food. Thank God I saved the man from English cans and opened to him the paradise of Italian cuisine and my mum's delicious lasagne.

Loose shoes: In England you seem to have very loose shoes that you can take off at anytime and everywhere. This is something else that really shocked me and my friends during the first weeks. Students would take their shoes off during the lecture, in the library, in the cafe, everywhere. But it wasn't just students, I noticed it in the town library as well as in other public places. Why? It's not as if it's that hot in England that you need to take them off all the time and then it's just not very nice to do it in public. This is something that made us quite uncomfortable, especially if we were talking to the person who suddenly took their shoes off. A very uneasy feeling. And yes Mark, quite unihygienic too, as your countrymen do like fiddling with their feet quite a lot.

Related articles

• God Save the English (dob-log.blogspot.com)

God Save the English

Here is my revenge Mark!

I lived in England for 4 years. No day passed without me thinking "What is this?", " How is it possible..." or "Why would anyone do that...", and very very often "Bloody weather!". I missed my country a lot. I missed the changing of the seasons; in England there's only one season, the rainy one. Obviously I missed the food, the sunshine, my family and friends and more generally the personal contact. But I stayed, and I 'm happy I did because England gave me the man of my life, my lovely husband, soon to be a lovely father.

Talk to your baby: This is actually something I came across a few days ago reading the Guardian online. But it provoked my usual reaction of "How is it possible? Why? What?". Basically, the article talks about the difficulty that English parents encounter in talking with their little ones. It starts with a question: "Do we need to talk to our babies?". And I say: "Do we need such a question?" Of course you need to talk to them, but most importantly, it's not a need, it's a pleasure to talk to babies. Apparently not for the English. They need to be taught, they need resources and materials from the National Literacy Trust to talk to their offspring. This left me quite bewildered as my husband would say. Personally, I just need my baby. I started talking to him when I was 4 months pregnant and I've carried on since then.

TTYB aims to help parents and carers to get
over the embarrassment factor – "I feel stupid talking to my baby" – by showing
how much difference such communication makes to emotional and learning skills
later in life.

I can't believe a parent could feel embarassed talking to their baby. After 4 years in England I can believe an English parent could feel that way. But it's still something beyond me.

"facing-baby" buggies. A simple idea, but one which – if well executed and
developed in large enough numbers – can have a disproportionate impact on
countless lives.

You can rotate the buggies as much as you like but you still need to talk to your babies. That's what makes the big difference. Good grief, how on earth can you find talking to your baby embarassing or even stupid? What can actually have a disproportionate impact on your babies is if you talk to them! Not if you rotate the bloody buggy! I simply can't get my head around it and this happened quite a lot during my stay in England.

Taps: Yes, taps. Cold water, hot water: that kind of tap. Let's talk about it. My dad coming out of my loo exclaimed: "Bloody hell Monica, am I back in Pakistan? Didn't progress reach this country?". Wise words dad, wise words. I wish I had an answer.

We had a mixer in the kitchen sink, but even with that I could tell you which side the hot water and the cold water were flowing out without mixing. Impressive! Why on earth you've got this separate taps business I don't know. Why? Why? Is it that difficult to make a mixer in England? In the morning I always had to decide whether to scald my face with hot water or freeze it with cold water because even if I decided to open both taps and mix the water in the sink, by some kind of English magic the water wouldn't mix properly. In England the hot and cold water are parted like the Red Sea. So very annoying! I wish someone could explain to me the existence of separate taps in the 21th century in a progressive country like England. To me it's a mystery.

Door opening etiquette: Well, this is something me and my friends found pretty annoying during the first few weeks in England. We got used to it in the end but it was still a bit/quite annoying. The very first week we slammed doors in the faces of many English people but we noticed that people opened doors for us, so we gathered that something was wrong. Hard to say what. So we applied the door opening etiquette. But it was annoying. Reminding yourself at any given point in the day when passing through a door to look behind you in case anybody was around so that you can leave it open. And there are such heavy doors in England! At least build lighter ones if you want me to keep them open for you every time I pass through them. Going to the library on rainy days was always a nightmare. You had to hold an umbrella and books and make sure to hold the heavy door open for the person behind you. Don't get me wrong (yeah, yeah - and the rest - ed.), it's not as if we enjoy slamming doors on people's faces in Italy. We leave them open if someone is really close or if someone has problems getting the door open. In England you leave doors open for people miles away from you! That's too much! I would enjoy it a bit more if you made lighter doors.

The Rinsing business: This is something that really shocked me and my Spanish, French and German friends. To find out that English people don't rinse when they wash up. Gosh, that's very very strange at the very least. And very unhygienic (it was only a matter of time - ed.) at the most. Do you realize, English people, that you are actually drinking and eating soap? The fact that after a bit the foam disappears from the dishes doesn't mean that they are clean! I just can't think about all the bacteria breeding on those dishes and I just can't think about how many times I've eaten and drank from those glasses. Before drinking or eating, I would make a mental (mental is right - ed.) sign of the cross and recommend my body to God. This is not just me being paranoid. All of my European friends agreed with me and they all had the same shocked face as I still have when I think about it. This again is something I can't get my head around.

Related articles

• Fratelli d'Italia (dob-log.blogspot.com)
• In praise of ... Talk to Your Baby (guardian.co.uk)

Fratelli d’Italia pt. 2

Image by marcoPapale.com via FlickrPart 2: we shift to television, as I said before. 

• TV Debates Generally - I already mentioned politicians arguing on televisions, but they're certainly not the only ones. On Striscia la Notizia they frequently draw attention to the phenomenon with a sort of chart called I Nuovi Mostri ("The New Monsters" - I believe it's a nod to something rather more cultural) where they basically run through the people who've made arses of themselves on TV in various ways during the week. Some people seem to get invited onto TV shows specifically to argue - if you didn't know that Berlusconi was behind Italian TV you might suspect Jeremy Kyle had something to do with it. The thing I really don't understand is the lack of intervention by TV presenters. There's a certain naivete about it all: when someone, either in the audience or properly in front of the cameras, is shouting over the top of someone else, so that the whole spectacle has become entirely farcical, a presenter might implore some dignity, a bit of calm, but the idiot somehow retains use of the microphone. Note to Italian TV people: when you take a microphone away from someone, it makes them harder to hear. Thank you.
• Repetitive, Crap TV - The most obvious criticism that you can make about Italian TV is that it's lousy. I generally get told at this point that English TV isn't up to much at the minute, plus, you have to stay up later than I do to watch the good stuff. Fair enough. Bad television isn't strange in itself: what I'm curious about is the way in which it is bad. There's a spectacular lack of variety: a good number of programmes are on every working day, such as Renegade (old, American, shit, ugly protagonists with bad clothes) and Squadra Speciale Cobra 11 (silly German series about a special branch of the traffic police with implausible storylines and obligatory scene with cars exploding on the Autobahn - Monica reserves a special scorn for Germany's contribution to Italian TV). There are also programmes on every day which aren't bad, but there's simply no need to repeat  them, such as The Simpsons ('Woo-hoo!' = "Mitico!" btw) and Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, which even runs on Saturday I think - basically, you can tell that it's the day of rest when even Gerry Scotti isn't on the idiot box. I was recently reminded of the extraordinary fact that the Mayans (before the Spanish decided to destroy their civilisation) believed that the sun would cease to rise if they ceased to offer human sacrifices. One wonders how such a situation could arise, but I suppose you start small. Perhaps in 100 years, Italians will believe that the sun will not set if they neglect to broadcast Striscia every single day of the week including Sunday (or Veline/Velone/Paperissima to appease the god of the summer hiatus), as is their current practise.
• Films on really late - More of the same scheduling madness. Again, I am penalised for my early nights, but it seems a bit over the top to me. Some of the best films that I see in the terrestrial schedules begin at somewhere around 11:30, whereas the lousy ones (Big Mama is on at a watchable time this evening, for example) get the primetime slots. The way I see it, the films must cost the channel the same amount no matter when they broadcast them, though the revenue from advertising must be higher before midnight. So isn't it in their own interest to give us the best films in the evening, and the bollocks at night?
• Veline
  Apparently there was a feminist movement in Italy once. This explains why there is civil divorce and legal abortion. However, I frequently wonder what happened to all the feminists; there's still rather a lot of work to do. I allude in this instance to the veline, properly speaking a feature of Striscia, but representative of Italian TV in general. With varying degrees of sobriety, there are a lot of women on TV whose only purpose is to act as eye-candy. Striscia's veline, as the wikipedia article says "perform short dance breaks or stacchetti, always finishing up on the news anchors’ desk. They usually perform in swim-suits or tank tops and sing pop tunes as they dance." They do nothing else, except for the strange style of staged publicity that they have here for the shows' sponsors. Apparently the veline are meant to be a parody of the bimbos (strange use of Italian by us by the way - a bimbo is a male child) but I don't buy that story for a minute. Now, I have an ambivalent relationship with feminism (if you were to use the term "feminist literary theory" for example, I would immediately feel contempt) but I'd feel happier if they came back and addressed this outrageous affront to the dignity of women. As I say, this phenomenon exhibits itself with varying degrees of class: the most crass examples I'm aware of would be Ciao Darwin and Chiambretti Night, which I can't watch and the most tasteful Che Tempo Che Fa. But the last example is perhaps the most depressing, because it's a good programme, but they employ this completely superfluous Scandinavian woman. She may be elegant, she may have a reasonable amount of clothes on, but she's still purely decorative.

Update: I received, in response to the last part, a link to a documentary on the subject. And I see that there's even an English version.

Related articles

• The nightmare of Berlusconi's media empire (newstatesman.com)

Fratelli d’Italia

Image via WikipediaI would have liked this to be my first ever proper bilingual blog post, but for reasons which will soon bcome clear, this is not really on the cards. I only have so much free time...

Anyway, this is inspired by an exchange in the kitchen at work. We were talking about English pronunciation, which led, naturally enough, to the conclusion that the English are strange. It must have been Manu (that’s Emanuela, not Manchester United) because I proceeded to vent my indignation in her direction, with a combination of gusto and bad Italian – my cool was lost, though I wasn’t at all offended. Us, strange? That’s a bit bloody rich considering what goes on in this country – that was the gist of it. Ever heard anyone in England start a sentence with "If this was a normal country..."? Me neither, but in Italy, every now and then...

I didn’t get to the point of saying “You want a list?”, but I thought it might be fun to blog one. Some of these things I just find interesting, and some I find very annoying. The only key element is that I think they’re a bit (or bloody) odd.

• Berlusconi
  I know, I know – it’s too obvious. However, in the same way that the Nazis tend to find their way into discussions on morality, if you start talking about Italy’s problems, there’s one of them which is always, inexplicably, on the telly. Where to begin? A man who clearly should not be left in charge of organising a piss up in a brewery, who is a gaffe generator of Prince Philippian proportions, whose political efforts are all concentrated on keeping himself out of trouble, who thinks that Italy gains by association with Muammar al-Gaddafi (who’s always popping into the country for a visit), who is a walking conflict of interest as far as his media empire is concerned, who is compromised by his alleged criminal history which he (coincidentally of course) takes measures to ensure are not investigated – I’m amazed that a single Italian could vote for him, let alone the requisite majority.
• Berlusconi’s Smile
  I feel that this deserves an entry in itself. If I were in charge of Italy, I don’t think I’d be smiling. He, on the other hand, always has this cheesy grin on his ridiculous mug (which, by the way, is beautified with a hairdo that looks uncannily like shoe polish) – happy as Larry. There’s no small amount of discontent in Italy at the moment; how is it that no-one has taken the trouble to punch that smug grin off his face?
• The OppositionOn paper, being the political opposition in Italy must be a piece of cake, right? "Hey," they might say, "you know that moron who's in charge of the country, the one who looks like a used car salesman? If you vote for us, the worst that could happen is that a different moron will be in charge." At this point I imagine the populace desperately breaking down the doors of the voting stations. It's not quite like that. You can't entirely blame the electorate. They don't (by their own admission usually) really do politics here. I've been here about two years, and if you asked me what policy differences exist between Berlusconi's Popolo della Liberta and the principal left-wing opposition party, the Partito Democratico, I honestly couldn't tell you. I may be partially to blame for this, because reading the papers is something I never got the hang of in English, let alone Italian, but I'm sure the PD could get their message (always assuming that they actually have one) onto TV if they put their minds to it.
• Politicians on TV and in the Camera
  Two words that you might hear a lot in Italy are "pazienza" (patience) and "vergogna" (shame). They like to tell each other that they should have these important characteristics. In the case of the second, the sense is "You ought to be ashamed of yourself". This applies especially to politicians I think. Now, Italians don't have a problem with talking, and sometimes shouting over each other, whereas we don't. It takes some getting used to, but there's nothing essentially wrong with it. Variety is the spice of life. On the other hand, when I see Italian politicians on TV I often find myself thinking "But you know you're on TV, right? That people can see you, and that you're behaving like a child?". They call each other names, shout over each other, throw tantrums, refuse to let other people speak, and so on. And it's not much better in their parliament, the Chamber of Deputies. I seem to recall a fight breaking out once. If you think Prime Minister's Questions can get a bit juvenile sometimes, think of Italy and count yourself lucky.

I made a list of things to cover, and I've just done 4 of about 27, plus things continue to occur to me. It so happens that the list switches from politics to the telly at this point, plus, I've had request to break this mother down into smaller sections, so I will.

Related articles

• Italy's problems go deeper than Berlusconi | Alberto Toscano (guardian.co.uk)
• The European Elections (dob-log.blogspot.com)
• Berlusconi (dob-log.blogspot.com)
• Nuns and Voting (dob-log.blogspot.com)

 P.S. Monica has sworn revenge in the form of blogging about the peculiarities of the English. I hope she does.

Brewing

Image via Wikipedia Just a quick note to say how much I'm appreciating my parents' birthday present (birthday in may, but the moment was not opportune) - the BruBox! Apparently to the extent that I'm basically giving them a little publicity. They don't supply direct, but they do list stockists.

It's a little cube for brewing 10 l of beer in about the simplest way possible. I reckon I might even manage to do it with a small baby about. It's something of a godsend in this mysterious country where they know (almost) everything about food, but nothing about beer...

I wonder how I'll get the next packs.

N.B. It does make a bit of noise though. I'd advise the presence of multiple walls between the kit and, say, a pregnant wife.

Say it with water! pt. 2

A follow up post. Mostly because I had a look at the video that my friend mentioned in the comments. He asked me to let him know what I thought, and I asked him if I could blog about it, so here we are. I transcribed the bits I wanted to mention in the video, but I only took down references to the bible, so perhaps the translation used was a bit different.

There was also a comment from Scott which is worth putting up if I am blogging again:

Just to point out, since you began the discussion, that not every instance of "baptism" in the New Testament means a baptism of water. When it says "so many of you as were Baptised into Christ Jesus", it does not mean water baptism. (like when Jesus says "you cannot be baptised with the baptism that I am baptised in".

Most theologians consider there to be three baptisms:
1. Baptism of Salvation
2. Water Baptism
3. Baptism with the Holy Spirit

The video makes the same point more explicit: "baptism" means "immersion", and can be interpreted, according to context, in ways which have little to do with water. As I said at the time, I don't see anything in the bible which says that Romans 6:3-8 isn't related to water baptism. What's more, John 3:3-8 links spiritual and water baptism. I also think Romans should be read in the light of Matthew 28:18-20, but that is perhaps a bit abstract.

Leaving aside the factual accuracy of whether or not most theologians say that there are three baptisms, it is in any case possible that they occur simultaneously. The fact is that a wealth of interpretations are available. My starting point is the teaching of the Catholic Church rather than the bible, partially for that very reason. I won't say any more on that here, but I will give you a link to a previous post about the same thing.

Moving on to the video more explicitly ... well, I'm back where I started really: I'm not really sure where the idea of baptism as an expression of faith comes from. I can't think of a passage that suggests it. My friend said that biblically "it's a public statement of a decision to join/follow" and the video repeatedly stresses that public aspect.

My friend was kind enough to say that it'd be okay for me to blog on the video (I don't think it's his technically) so I'm very conscious that I shouldn't be gratuitously critical, but I just don't see it. I think I went into the biblical picture of baptism pretty thoroughly for some bloke with a keyboard and an internet connection, but the verses that indicate that baptism is an expression of a pre-existing spiritual reality - I just didn't see them. Where are they?

"...a person being baptised in the name of Jesus is saying publicly that they've been immersed in Jesus and that they're taking on his characteristics."

"The bible says that a person has a spiritual baptism as soon as they believe in Jesus."

And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession—to the praise of his glory.
Ephesians 1:13-14

For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.
1 Cor 12:13

It doesn't say that baptism expresses immersion in Jesus, it says "we were all baptized by one spirit into one body".

As for "the bible says that a person has a spiritual baptism as soon as they believe in Jesus", I just think that's wrong, especially the "the bible says" part. The verse given from Ephesians - which in fairness probably isn't intended as a proof text - doesn't even mention baptism. You might perhaps read it together with other passages to make this argument, but to me it seems that this is simply a case of going beyond the text.

More technically, if you look at the points that I marked in italics, you'll see that the second is translated by the NIV as "having believed". The word is πιστευσαντες in Greek, and, from what I understand from John Dobson, that's a straightforward literal translation. Now, "having believed, you were marked" could be read as "at the moment that you believed, you were marked", but it isn't necessarily the case. The only certainty is that belief comes before being marked. If for example I say that Steve, having caught the 8:45 to Exeter, went to the 11:15 church service, there's nothing logically wrong with what I say, though you may wonder what Steve did to kill the time. Therefore, that "as soon as they believe in Jesus" also seems unwarranted to me.

I marked "when you heard" as well because I noticed that it actually has the same form as πιστευ-σαντες; it's ἀκου-σαντες. I'm sure that there's a good reason why the NIV translators went for "when you heard" but equally I think that "having heard" may perhaps be more literal. I won't labour the point because I'm still learning Greek after all.

"...but the bible also says that alongside this inside experience, the outside experience of water baptism should happen too."

Peter replied, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Acts 2:38

"They're saying Jesus has washed away their sin"
"They're saying that Jesus took the punishment for their sins at the cross, washing them clean in God's sight[.]"

And now what are you waiting for? Get up, be baptized and wash your sins away, calling on his name.
Acts 22:16

It doesn't say that baptism should happen in addition to a spiritual experience, it says "repent and be baptized [...] for the forgiveness of your sins". And it doesn't say that baptism expresses being washed clean of sin, it says that we should "be baptized and wash [our] sins away, calling on his name." Does baptism wash our sins away? Does calling on his name wash them away? This verse (or at least this translation) doesn't make it clear. Taken together with John 3:3-8 and Acts 2:38, I think the natural conclusion is that water baptism somehow washes our sins away. St. Peter even writes that "baptism [...] saves you". (1 Pt 3:21)

"They're saying that, in Christ, they've been born again to a new, eternal life with God."

We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
Romans 6:4

...having been buried with him in baptism and raised with him through your faith in the power of God, who raised him from the dead.
Colossians 2:12

The bible doesn't say that baptism expresses being born again, it says "we were [...] buried with him through baptism [...] in order that we too may live a new life" and that we were "buried with him in baptism and raised with him through [...] faith". Both verses say that baptism into death actually precedes new life. And Jesus says "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water" (and the Spirit) (Jn 3:5).

They're saying that they now carry Jesus with them at all times.

[A]ll of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.
Galatians 3:27

The bible doesn't say that baptism expresses carrying Jesus with you, it says that whoever is baptised has "clothed [them]selves with Christ."

Perhaps this has been a bit repetitive, but basically I don't just disagree with the emphasis that the video was placing on publicly expressing faith, I don't even understand what the biblical basis for it is.

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