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

Went to Muizenberg. I have always associated that place with Satanism, and guess what, the woman in the flat next to where I was staying, had a full-on Satanist ritual in the middle of the night, which I had to listen to, but which I found it surprisingly difficult to remember in the morning. Weird.

I decided I wasn't comfortable there so I came home early.

I cannot for the life of me imagine why I got DSTV here. I never watch the telly.

I see Popbitch have finally succumbed, and they format their emails now. Shame.

There must be an awful lot of Satanism in Chatham. Interesting that CCFM has chosen a building smack bang in the middle of all of it. Very intense place, that Muizenberg. There, right on the Main Road. There was this place, I went in there asking for food, they had none; and the people were sitting slouched and ill-tempered. It wasn't very nice. Hoo-yah; I have a sound instinct for devilism. It isn't very nice.

God is much nicer. Rather stay with God. He is better than the debil.

So, Muizenberg. Always known it, mind. Sometimes I feel like hiring a van with a loudhailer and driving very slowly up and down the Main Road in that place, reading from the Psalms.

The Lord my God has made me stay in some right weird places, in my time on this planet, learning for Life. I have had to sit next door to diabolism of a bad kind. Not your actual bloodletting, mind; but boy and girl yawling ad inf., not very nice. Last night it was a call-and-response thing, a man doing the call and a woman doing the response. On and on it went. I should like to have taken an recording and played it back to them in the day; I should hope they would have been ashamed out of their practices; but the whole place is full of it. All of them, loving the Deuil, hating life, loving death. Very difficult. I cannot truly think that anyone would honestly choose that path, if they knew truly how lovely is Jesus and how upright and righteous our Father and how delicate and quicksilver the Spirit of God; but if you are turn'd that way in your youth, you will follow the path of perversity to the bitter end. And lo! the end thereof is bitter, and bitter indeed is it; for to have an whole eternity of loss, and sorrow, and bitter death; wouldst really have it so, cut off from God, and all that's good? Nay; for tis rare wickedness, that would so endure. And yet the wicked would not quite so endure, because they imagine they will evade the punishment for turning away from heaven; they think themselves to win with Satan. Which is a sad denial of the truth. Theirs is loss; and there's no accounting for the loss.

So sad it was. I was sitting out in the yard, and the woman and her little daughter came out of their flat, and there was a darkness around them, the girl rushing past as in shame, the woman staring in challenge. How dreadful is it when people follow the dark. Oh, what a sadness. They gain nothing from it. They are sore deceived. Does she know that she is deceived, and yet follow on with it, despite knowing she is damning herself despite herself? To be truly evil and perverse, it would have to be so. Otherwise you wouldn't be truly wicked, just deceived and sillytune. Oh, how dreadful is it all, how dreadful and keen, the love of demons, yuck! filth is it, and filthy does it. Shamefully crept on their master's tongue, horrid, nastily done, and shameful. Very unpleasant. Thank Jesus we are saved from these horrendous forces, which would otherwise have us, we are so weak. What most people think of as life, you see, and the forces of life, and the countings, and the dealings with the fingers, and so on, this is death, and it is the devil's dealing; this is how you may know what's what. Hell's apple's cast the lot into the dark. There is none goodness in the earth, no, none; all are bound to darken and to fall; and all need JESU, and the mercy of God to save from hell's farrowing and spight. For Jesus has died the death of all, and taken away the sting of the grave of death's victory. So we must all come to JESUS and humbly thank him for taking away our sin in himself, suffering it and its punishment, for all men on the Cross.

Wicked men did their worst to Jesus, and the power behind their wickedness, which we heard so loud and noisily last night, took its chance and piled onto Jesus all the sin and blight of time and stench of wrong. The blockages of evil, did come upon to Jesus our Friend and the Helper and Healer of our souls; and he was curs'd with it, and it did have its way as he hung naked unto death and death's score.

Yet tetelesthai...

tetelestai

what is this? Third person singular perfect passive indicative of the verb teleo, I make an end of.

What would it be in Aramaic, I wonder.

They say Britten's best years were 1939-1959. The late music is, however, very special.

It is with great anticipation and excitement that I begin to consider Words vol 3, on the Wisdom literature. I shall look at all the Wisdom books as a whole and select fifty-odd words, possibly a few more in case I get stuck. Well, I'll have to make my own selection of the most important words of the Wisdom books. Tov, ra', 'or, 'asher... down to yitron in Ecclesiastes. I shall have to think of the shape of the book. The words will want to tend in a certain direction. I've never been very good with structure or form, so will have to pray and sit lightly on this aspect of the book's construction, and let it happen with God. Then I've got to consider where and when to give any commentary. Thinking of writing short essaylets - perhaps 300 words? - to give the whole direction and focus. Just a few, sprinkled in throughout the word studies.

Word studies have gone out of fashion, and are discredited; I'm sure any half-awake student could have a field day deconstructing my work and dismissing it. But since I started for Helga I've been very conscious that I'm not writing for the academy, and I've left the academy behind in a very conscious way. My standards haven't slipped, but I'm not worried unduly about providing a justification of my method, although I may write something in the Introduction about it.

People meet, and exchange views; who's to say how they should do it?

Of the making of many books there is no end. I've started late! Let me continue now and provide the world with at least some evidence of having been here, when I depart.

In the meantime I've got Vol 2 to format and ready for printing. Or I might collect Vol 1 and 2 together and tout them round the publishers. Nothing seems to be happening with the printing of the illuminated edition; I've lost interest, quite frankly. Not spending any more money on that project, which shows no sign of coming to an end. Like pouring money down the drain when it could be better spent printing further volumes of my work for the people who really appreciate it.

Did a bunch of work on the formatting of Volume 2. There are some nice pieces in this Volume... I am pleased to have kept up the variety, although not all of the pieces are about one single word, sometimes I examine a concept and words surrounding it. There are several of these looser pieces in Vol. 2.

It is interesting that in Hebrew, you "bow down" to worship (shachah), whereas in New Testament Greek, you lean "towards" (proskyneo). Exemplifying the differing relationships made possible by the different covenants.

Gosh I'm tired. But I said I'd go to Cavendish to pick up my trousers today, so I'd better go. It's dark and wet out. Well, damp. I don't know if it's actually raining. I've also got to go to Stellenbosch at some stage, but not today; I don't feel like driving all that way without having slept the night before. This is how I experience ageing, this, and my eyes of course. I can't drive crazy long periods like I used to be able to. To think, on one occasion I left Johannesburg at nine in the morning, and got to Stellenbosch at eleven that night! People do this as a matter of course, all sorts of people, even people my age; but I haven't been able to do this since, oh my mid thirties I suppose. I think by 40 I had already started going downhill - what a thought! I barely feel I've made a start on life, and look, I'm falling apart at the seams. Thank God there's an Afterlife to look forward to, an Eternity with God.

I said to Jesus the other day, "I love you". And he answered me, and replied, saying, "I love you too". It was Jesus, not the Holy Spirit. Quite a shock! I wouldn't like to be on the wrong end of THAT voice... very scary. Oh those poor people I was next to yesterday, oh I feel sorry for them. So must Jesus, the Kind, the Good, the Merciful. How good he is, yet how badly do his enemies treat his lovely face.

Anyway we've got Eternity to look forward to. I hope it's nice and warm in Eternity. The Scripture about "mansions" actually refers to our present lives, not to the future, or to eternity. The word mone means "temporary dwelling place" and refers to our tents of flesh. It means us as the places where God stays, not places where we stay in heaven. Of course the Father promises a new heaven and a new earth, so we can probably expect to see cats and dogs as well. It does say there won't be any sea, though.

I was bad the other day, I was hit on by a JW but I didn't argue, or try to help her see her dwile, I just told her I was a Christian, and closed down the conversation. I feel bad about that. But I wasn't in any state to hold a theological conversation. I was tired.

Well in the morning I'll go to Claremont and possibly have breakfast again, even at the Spur, why not, lovely big breakfast, the "Ranch" breakfast, including a steak and chips and bacon and egg and mushrooms, YUM. Serious YUM. Oo lekker, can't wait. I'm hungry; didn't eat yesterday, and the day before all I had was two measly pies from the shop, served by two gentlemen sporting little frowns like wispy beards. Muizenberg's hectic. Real hectic. I'm glad I don't live there. It's pretty mild here, really. But I shudder to think of the goings on I heard last night. Oh dear, how sad. They're in for a dreadful shock when they finally encounter the Truth. Have mercy, Lord. Actually it's quite hectic in South Africa as a whole. Having said that, England's hectic too. The whole world is in a hectic state, getting worse and better while Jesus waits to return. Nothing like a visit to Muizenberg at night to wake up your faith.

Paul Daniel did a funny fundamentalist impression.

Last time I tried the radio, it was a stream of madness, so I switched it off again. Just tried it again. A stream of madness. Terrible. My holiday, short lived though it was, really did reset my tuning circuit. It was horrendous really. I'm ever so glad to be out of there. Terrible! Poor Gertie (the servant). Imagine having to live there, like that all the time. Lord in heaven. Mind you I've never liked it by the sea. Much prefer inland.