h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

It has been a busy week in the Holme Valley. With Christmas finally out of the way, I've been able to begin the much needed re-organisation of the office. So far I have re-organised two bin bags of filing into the recycling, so I am going well.

Tig has been troubled with a problem with one of her claws, which I think I finally solved by pulling the offending bit of old claw off the new one underneath. Ouch! Anyway, she's now moving at normal pace again. That's the trouble with furry children, they can't tell you where it hurts. Russell has been taking his tablets like a good un, and eating like a house-end, so at least from his point of view, it's a positive start to the new year. Kitty remains welded to her "cat bed" in Colin's house, especially when the central heating is on and it's snowing or hailing outside.

The surprise development over the holidays though has been the growth of Dusty into the bad ass momma cat that rules the streets, now she has taken over possession of our bed. It's been quite amusing to see Russell's eyes grow as big as saucers as he sees her emerge from under the very duvet where he was sitting not a moment before, and the other morning Dusty was under the duvet and Nigel was on top of it; he then got off and I watched him pad very warily through the office, watching out for Dusty at every step, little knowing he'd just been rolling on top of her. Not the sharpest pencil in the box. This morning I left Dusty and Nigel in a state of armed neutrality on top of our bed. Like two muggers in a late-night railway carriage, neither wanted to be the first to fall asleep, for fear of what the other might do. They'll learn.

Of course, this week, the whole holiday has been overwhelmed, by a tidal wave.

We watched the news with dropping jaws, as each day brought further statistical carnage. Unlike other previous disasters, this is also one which has been played out on the internet. So much so that I found myself locked in a bitter controversy, on a message board, with someone who asked where God's compassion was in all of this. The problem is that God's compassion isn't newsworthy, so it never gets reported. All those acts of selfless kindness, the cancer patients who go into remission, and the people who are miraculously saved from some disaster of their own making, are hardly a blip on the newsometer. Whereas disaster footage ...well, good news is no news and bad news sells news.

Also, by definition, the mind of God is unknowable to mankind. That assumes you believe God to be eternal, omniscient and omnipresent, by definition, we cannot know what God knows. Therefore, theologically, it is entirely possible that God had a reason for this act which is unknown and unknowable to us. In the same way as we cannot imagine a being that could take upon itself the guilt and sorrow of 60,000 deaths, when we know from our own experience how terrible having just one death on our conscience would be. Of course, to God, life and death presumably do not have the same meaning as to us.

But then people ask "why did his creation (man) turn out to be so imperfect". This is a question I have often asked, and the only answer I can come up with is that it is to do with free will. Although God knows that man may go astray, mankind has to be allowed the free will to make his own mistakes (such as not having a Tsunami early warning system, which I understand will probably now be one outcome of this disaster) even though God knows how it will turn out, he/she/it has allowed mankind the freedom to learn by making mistakes.
You will never "prove" God's intentions one way or another - that is why religion comes down to faith in the end. Who is to say for instance that the Tsunami warning system which will be evolved as a result of this cataclysm would not save twice as many or a hundred times as many lives in a potential future disaster? Or that God didn't intervene, in the many miracles of personal survival now coming to light?

Incidentally, all this is no comfort at all to anyone who has suffered a loss in this disaster and I am sorry for my tone if you have, and you are reading this, but I was trying to respond specifically to the theological points.

I have just spent some considerable time logging on to the various blogs available which carry news of the Tsunami relief efforts and the impression I have gained is that people in the aid agencies are faced with the biggest thing that has ever hit them, are doing absolute wonders, but that thousands - maybe hundreds of thousands - of people who managed to survive the Tsunami are still going to die because of the limited resources available to the aid agencies and the lack of any overall co-ordinating forces on the ground which can use modern, up to date telecomms and monitoring to make sure that things get to where they are needed. Already on the blogs we are seeing people in one location posting things like "don't send any more blankets here, it is a waste of time, what we need is rice" etc., while another location is crying out for blankets, and by the time everything gets to where it should be, it may be too late. The aid agencies are doing heroically, as usual, but it needs something bigger than what we can provide by holding jumble sales and telethons.

People in the UK have been brilliant as usual, raising millions in three days for the appeal, but by the time this money is processed and turned into practical help, again, time will have ticked by. There are organisations in the world that already exist that have the materials and the manpower and the technological know how to take over the aid operation and make it work in time. Primarily of course, the US armed forces. Like it or not, the USA has the wherewithal to do this, but not the political will. Obviously there are some things where the UN can safely be left alone! Sorting out WMD in Iraq, no, that's Bush's baby, but rescuing survivors of third world people, nope, that's one for the UN. Our own government is just as bad. Not a word out of Blair, no commitment to send troops to help.

I have long argued that apart from the essential forces needed for our own defences, the weapons industry and the world's armies should be transmuted to a world wide disaster relief civil defence organisation under the control of the UN. The same technology used to guide a missile can also be used to locate survivors and guide supplies to them. Maybe now is the time to start on this process.

If Bush and Blair want to be seen as the world's policemen and taken seriously, if they want people like me who they have turned into cynical non-believers by their cherry-picking actions to start believing in them again, get some boots on the ground in South East Asia, NOW and set up a telecomms network for the aid agencies to coordinate their efforts before yet more people die, this time of a surfeit of blankets. If ever there WAS a time for unilateral UKUS intervention, this is it.

So, it's been a pretty serious week, and by the time it got to New Year's Eve, I was feeling decidedly muted. We thought we would go out for a meal, but there were no meals to be had. One pub we phoned very helpfully said "as it's New Year's Eve, we have stopped doing meals in favour of a karaoke!". Well, thanks a whole bundle there. In the end, we ordered a takeaway from The Balooshai, the best curry house in Huddersfield by a country mile. Only trouble is, you have to go and collect it, they don't deliver. Town was deserted. Rainy, empty streets, and the only vehicles around were taxis and police cars. Happy New Year.

We ended up going to the Sair, a traditional pub, at Linthwaite, where they brew their own beer and weave their own curtains. Or vice versa, having tasted the product. Despite a notice that claimed to welcome dogs, they made us leave Tiglet in the car, so we didn't stay long. Then we came back, to celebrate the bongs at home, me with Talisker, Deb with Amaretto. I swept the old year out, in the way Granny Welgate had taught me, and came back in with a piece of coal. No sign of life from the neighbours, and apart from the fireworks, you wouldn't have noticed anything going on.

Un-noticed by anyone, then, a New Year slipped in. The sheep have started lambing (at least on The Archers) in the New Year snow. This reminds me of the stories about the genesis of the Council for the Protection of Rural England, when Gerald Haythornthwhite of the Sheffield and Peak District branch back in the 1940s, used to go and organise volunteers to look for lost lambs in the snow. This in the worst post-war winter we have ever had - 1948. I have a photo of Granny Welgate and her neighbour digging themselves out of their back gardens at Elloughton Dale. The snow drifts are higher than their heads.

The idea of the lost sheep in the snow always makes me think of the Bible, and the parable of the lost sheep from Luke 15: 3-7:

"Which of you men, if you had one hundred sheep, and lost one of them, wouldn’t leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one that was lost, until he found it? When he has found it, he carries it on his shoulders, rejoicing. When he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbours, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’ I tell you that even so there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, than over ninety-nine righteous people who need no repentance."

The discovery of the lost sheep, for the shepherd, is, perhaps, routine. What would be a miracle to a shepherd? Three strange, rich, wise, foreigners, turning up at a stable where a child had been born because of a lack of Christmas accommodation? And their claiming that they had been led there by a star?

Next week, as well as Epiphany, marks the traditional anniversary of Plough Monday. The farmers' traditional prayer is "God Speed the Plough" . This day (January 7th) is traditionally the first Monday after the Twelve Days of Christmas is over and represents getting back to work after the holidays. On the Sunday before Plough Monday, ploughs are taken to church for a special blessing. On Plough Monday, however, you are supposed to decorate your plough and have your plough-boy (called a Plough Bullock or Plough Stot) drag your plough all over the neighbourhood asking for "plough-money" ("a penny for the ploughboy") which is supposed to be spent in "a frolic," and food and drink. At the frolic, or banquet, later that day, the whole village joins in Mummers' plays, enacting ritual combat and symbolic death and revival, and Molly dancing. A queen, known as Bessy, is then crowned and farm workers do sword dances around the ploughs.

So: next week contains both redemption - for the lost sheep who comes back to the fold - and hard work, for the ploughboys starting the year to come. Well, I have always welcomed both, so keep 'em coming. As Paul Simon said: I need a shot of redemption

And to all you lost sheep out there - the aid is on its way, just hold on. Hold on. You may feel the shepherd has let you down, and I don't blame you. But maybe you don't know the whole story. Maybe you can't know the whole story. Come back to the fold, and come back to us.