Having talked about bringing all that life into the world, coming up to Easter when the whole of Greece is in symbolic mourning until the day of resurrection, let’s talk about death. They say (who says? I forget. Must have read it somewhere) that when you reach a certain old age you’re lucky if you have more than half a dozen friends you have had for forty years. Sounds logical and what brought it to mind is that now at the ripe old age of eighty-one, minus a few weeks, not a few days go buy but we hear of another old friend who is no longer with us. It is inevitable; they grow old as we grow old, they pass way as we must pass away. Of course we lost friends too young from one cause or another and that was always sad but it would seem just as sad that friends one has known for the major portion of one’s life are no more.

"Our Constitution is in actual operation. Everything appears to promise that it will last; but in this world nothing is certain but death and taxes," said Benjamin Franklin at the ripe old age of eighty-three. He also said, “The Way to see by Faith, is to shut the Eye of Reason.”

I am delighted to say that, despite the final roll call, we still do have more than half a dozen vintage friends and hopefully will have for a while yet, no matter how short the time. But, at the ripe old age of eighty one, death sits on one’s shoulder and is frequently brought to mind – whether he is there to smile with you or cry with you depends upon what you believe. Do you believe with faith or do you believe with reason? Faith tells you that there is something called God and a something called the soul: that the soul is eternal and exists after the body’s death; that is, consciousness continues in another realm. Reason tells you the exact opposite. Death to all intents and purposes is death but it is impossible for many people to accept their total extinction, that they will simply disappear into an everlasting dreamless sleep for that is, for me, what death is. Death means you do not breathe, you do not see, you do not hear, you do not feel and, in due course, you either go up in smoke or you slowly decompose. You simply are no more and what is left of you exists in the memory of others and what you may have left behind. So for those who see by reason death holds no fears. Anyone who has been put under a modern anaesthetic has already in a way experienced death as there is absolutely no memory when one comes around, unlike sleep when on waking one is once more conscious; can remember dreams and incidents in the night.

And for those who believe in faith, maybe they can answer this question: for someone in a long coma, sometimes amounting to years, what is happening to the soul? Where might it be all that time and what doing?

There is of course always the phenomenon of out of the body experiences but that could be put down to hallucination.

So those of faith do not look forward to death or at least look forward to it with some trepidation and seem on the whole unwilling to ascend to that Promised Land. Again there are exceptions, there always are, and I am referring to Muslim martyrs in the shape of suicide bombers who go to paradise and the seventy virgins waiting for them. The questions here are what happens when you’ve gone through your quota of virgins and how do you fuck them anyway, virginal or not, when you have no corporeal body with which to do it? And if you are a female suicide bomber what reward awaits you in Paradise? As always women seem to come off the worst. It really is a man’s world and man’s Paradise. After all at one time it was believed that women didn’t have souls anyway.

So finally we come to those who want to die. I am sure they are can be found both in faith and reason but, whatever the cause, that is it, life no longer holds meaning for them. I think in particular of assisted suicides (something I fervently believe in) because of incurable illness and the case of Tony Nicholson who suffers from locked-in syndrome: that is his brain is fully functional, his body is fully paralysed and he wants to die. He communicates through the use of an electronic board or special computer, saying his life is "dull, miserable, demeaning, undignified and intolerable"

He cannot do it for himself but he wants to make sure any doctor who helps him will not be indicted for murder. The case is going through the courts again but I am afraid he stands little chance of having his wish granted unless he or family can afford for him to go to Switzerland or Holland. It is against English law and likely to remain that way.

An interesting programme on Skai – our intrepid reporter going in search of the world’s largest family and, boy, did he find them! It was very interesting that they were all products of religious belief. Firstly a fundamentalist family in England – twelve kids. The house, every inch of wall space, was plastered with religious posters and shelves with more than one Bible whilst daddy was telling us that the Bible said it was right he should have all these children, that he did not want his children growing up to believe that they were descended from monkeys, that there was no scientific or logical basis for evolution but there was for creationism, i.e. that God made the world in six days and the Bible, the sole source of wisdom by which to live, every word dictated by God, tells it as it is. That was the gist of it all anyway. The indoctrinated kids were not asked how they felt about all this and their sequestered lives but if they had been I doubt they would have contradicted their father anyway.

So across the Atlantic to Canada where we find another fundamentalist family, Rumanian immigrants, who beat the English family by two – fourteen kids – the same beliefs. But that is small change compared to, back across the world to the United Arab Emirates where a jolly sixty old has fathered no fewer than eighty-four… eighty four! - By seventeen wives and he hopes to make it a hundred. He boasted that he could make love ten times a night! Somehow I find that impossible to believe but, if true, how do his wives cope? Currently he lives with four wives, as the Koran dictates, having divorced his previous thirteen who evidently weren’t going to bear him anymore children. We were not told how these divorced women were living. Have they just been discarded as so much rubbish having passed their usefulness? I would have liked to have known more of their situation.

Back to Europe, Spain this time and a holiday home for Catholics with large families.

The total this time is seventeen so it’s no wonder they needed a holiday. Anyway, back home in Barcelona our intrepid reporter discovers that they lost two babies from a congenital heart condition and that six of the remaining suffer the same condition and have to be continually monitored, if not actually treated. Now you would have thought that anyone with a modicum of thought would have decided, having lost two babies to an inherited weakness, that they wouldn’t have any more kids who might, indeed would suffer the same condition and, in turn would pass it on to their children. This is not only selfish it is reckless. The wife was saying she was looking forward to having more. What is it with these religious people that they can’t see the result of their selfishness? It beggars belief.

Over the last few evenings we watched again the BBC’s “Elizabeth R” starring Glenda Jackson. Every episode written by a writer of renown, first rate performances, and it is such a pity the BBC seems no longer able to produce programmes of this quality. It got me to thinking: the kings of England on the whole have been a rather nondescript lot, even those best remembered historically, Richard the Lionheart, Henry the Fifth were deeply flawed; they were human and a product of their time after all but who today would no doubt be classed as war criminals if nothing else. There have however been four monumental monarchs in the shape of England’s queens – Eleanor of Aquitane, Elizabeth the First, Victoria and Elizabeth the Second. Maybe the last two simply for the extraordinary length of their respective reigns but memorable all the same.

Winter is back. After a couple of days of glorious warm sunshine it’s once more heavy cloud, rain, and cold. Yet spring must be here if one looks around and sees everything budding and blossoming. The almond all pink, the plum trees with so much blossom they look as though they’ve been buried in a snowstorm. Let’s hope the winds of Crete keep off. The clematis has put out his first green leaves and spring flowers are in full bloom.

In the glorious Mormon state of Utah evidently the powers that be have passed a bill banning the photographing of animals! Now what do you suppose has brought about this ludicrous piece of legislation? It is highly suspicious. Is it because in the glorious Mormon state of Utah they treat their animals so abominably they don’t want the rest of America, or the world for that matter, to bear witness? Perhaps one of the animal welfare societies in America ought to seriously look into it. We share this planet with other animals. They need us, we need them, and they deserve our respect. Dogs for instance: guide dogs for the blind have been with us a long while but now it has been discovered these animals can be trained to do much more than that. Opening doors and using cash machines and helping with the shopping do not sound like very impressive feats - until you hear that they have been achieved by dogs. Six puppies have been trained up in tasks like these to help injured servicemen and women live their lives and no doubt there will be more. St.Bernards really are rescue dogs as are those now trained to sniff out the location of casualties buried in collapsed buildings or sniffing out drugs. What about huskies and guard dogs and where would the shepherd be without his dog?

There are too many instances of cruelty to animals where cruelty could be avoided. I think in particular of the decimation of wild life either for profit (rhino horns, elephant tusks) or simply for the hell of it (hunting). It really is time mankind grew up and accepted his responsibilities to the planet and all its inhabitants.

Some other responses to the good Cardinal Keith O’Brien:-

Scottish Secretary Michael Moore said the government's consultation on gay marriage was not aimed at forcing religious groups to endorse same-sex marriages. He told BBC One's Andrew Marr Show: "We're not seeking to change religious marriage and we're not seeking to impose it on religious groups. What we are saying is that where a couple love each other and they wish to commit to each other for their life then they should be able to have a civil marriage irrespective of their sexual orientation."

Labour deputy leader Harriet Harman, a former equalities minister, said she thought it was right to have same-sex marriages. She added: "I don't want anybody to feel that this is a licence for whipping up prejudice. What you're talking about is individual people and their personal relationships, their love for each other and their wanting to be in a partnership or getting married. I think we should support that."

Margot James, the first openly lesbian Conservative MP, accused the cardinal of "scaremongering". She said: "I think it is a completely unacceptable way for a prelate to talk. The government is not trying to force Catholic churches to perform gay marriages at all. It is a purely civil matter."

Ben Summerskill, chief executive of gay rights organisation Stonewall, said: "When you read the insulting tone to which Cardinal O'Brien descends on marriage you sense an argument already lost.

I'm in favour of civil partnerships and equality. But, you can not in my view redefine marriage on a whim” Peter Bone Conservative MP "It wasn't in our manifesto. It wasn't in Labour's manifesto. It wasn't in the Liberal manifesto. Nobody in my constituency before this row has ever come up to me and said this is an important issue that needs to be dealt with. It came completely out of the blue and it should certainly not be put before the next general election." Mr. Bone said he believed marriage could not be anything other than the union of a man and a woman. "I'm in favour of civil partnerships and equality. But, you can not in my view redefine marriage on a whim."

Mr Cameron publicly supported gay marriage at last year's Conservative Party conference, and the Home Office said last week the government believed a loving and committed couple should "have the option of a civil marriage irrespective of their sexual orientation".

Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone will launch a consultation later this month on how to make civil marriage available to same-sex couples. She has said she wants to challenge the view that the government does not have the right to change marriage traditions. "It is the government's fundamental job to reflect society and to shape the future, not stay silent where it has the power to act and change things for the better," she said.

Many church leaders believe gay marriage would represent a further significant step in marginalising traditional religious values in society.

The Church of England’s stance is it will not allow its churches to be used for civil partnership ceremonies unless the full general synod gives its consent. And now some individual comments:-

For the first time I can remember, I find myself in agreement with a cardinal. For the VAST majority of people in this country the word marriage describes the union of a male and a female, hopefully for life and predominantly for the purpose of raising and nurturing the next generation. As he say's, with all the legal rights already in place, the redefinition of the word marriage is the issue here

I find it increasingly unacceptable that most religious leaders sit in their ivory towers and decree the terms of the religion that they are representing whilst holding an ever diminishing understanding of society as a whole. It’s sad that the positive aspects of a religion are lost as these people increasingly marginalise not only themselves, but also the religion as a whole.

It is purely a civil matter and nothing to do with religion, why can't they have a purely civil union, and leave marriage as it was intended to be? A civil union is, to all intents and purposes, a 'marriage', at least according to the legal definition...it has all the legal protections and rights of a marriage...why is that not enough?

Marriage equality sends a strong message to young people that gay relationships can be just as committed and loving as heterosexual relationships, reducing bullying and emotional damage done to gay kids.

When I was a kid I remember we used to play a card game called Happy Families and I wonder if it is still played today or whether computer games have taken over entirely and such innocent pastimes belong well and truly to the past. The pack of cards consisted of a number of families, the butcher’s family, the baker’s family, etcetera and consisted as I remember of mom, dad, son, and daughter, the perfect module. The idea was to collect as many families as possible by asking opposing players if they held a particular card. If they didn’t you lost your turn to ask. The person who ended up with the most cards was the winner. What brought this to mind was my never ending wonder at the reasoning of the human mind: how it makes excuses, how it explains, how it analyses, how it arrives at conclusions true or false. Of course nurture plays the biggest part in your thinking. If you’ve been brought up to believe that something is true and you continue to believe it then your thinking will most definitely be biased in that direction. Think of fanatical Nazis who were willing to continue fighting and to die in an almost destroyed Berlin even when they knew it was all over and the Russians were baying at their heels.

The government's plans for gay marriage have been criticised by the most senior Roman Catholic cleric in Britain. Cardinal Keith O'Brien, the leader of the Catholic Church in Scotland. He said the plans were a "grotesque subversion of a universally accepted human right". He said the idea of redefining marriage, which David Cameron has said he supports, would "shame the United Kingdom in the eyes of the world". He said it was wrong to deliberately deprive a child of a mother or father. "Same-sex marriage would eliminate entirely in law the basic idea of a mother and a father for every child. It would create a society which deliberately chooses to deprive a child of either a mother or a father." Really? How come I never thought of that?

So the Cardinal has found a new and previously unmentioned reason for opposing gay marriage. (I still hate that emotive word and wish it had never been used but there you are, for good or bad it is there.) He’s not maintaining that homosexuality is unnatural or any of the other reasons put forward for homophobia but because every child deserves a mom and a dad – i.e. Happy Families!

Right Cardinal O’Brien just think for a moment and carry your reasoning on a step further. What about (a) Divorce? Now I know divorce is forbidden to Catholics but Catholic couples do separate so children of those marriages do not have both a mother and a father. They are with one or the other. Outside of the faith divorce is now so common the lack of both parents is even more obvious. And what about (b) the unwanted children who are farmed out to homes and foster parents thus losing their own natural mummy and daddy? And what about children who lose their parents at an early age through an act of God - an accident for example? (c) What about unmarried mothers? There was a time, not so long ago in fact, that when a girl gave birth out of marriage it was considered shameful and a disgrace but today kids hardly into their teens are popping them out like peach pips with no thoughts of marriage and in many cases don’t seem to know or care who the father is, and the boy certainly doesn’t want to know and accept the responsibility. There was a case fairly recently of a boy who had fathered six children all from different girls, thought nothing of it and was all for carrying on in the same fashion. Maybe he was a catholic and believed contraception to be a sin. But those six children do not have a daddy and more than likely will not have one. Give me your thoughts on that, Cardinal O’Brien. And finally what about those children born to abusive parents and whose lives are a misery, sometimes ending in early death, for example baby Peter who suffered 160 injuries before he was murdered. I shouldn’t think if he, so young, had been in a position to chose, would he have cared about having both a mummy and a daddy.

I know it might seem a bit late, or a bit early, depending on your point of view, to talk about Christmas but an article in the news caught my interest. All right go on, say it, he’s on his hobby horse yet again, we’re back to religion. The article is headed “Is Christmas Under Attack?” Well, it wouldn’t be for the first time. In the seventeenth century the Puritans decided Christmas had become too much of a raucous boozy festival and banned it as idolatrous and this was continued by the Puritans in New England. Christmas was celebrated by most people in England as an occasion of revelry, of overeating, of drinking. Christmas was a rowdy holiday.

In America up until 1894, December 25^th was just another twelve hour working day but then, in that year, it was made a legal holiday.

So what is Christmas and how did it start? Basically it is a festival celebrating the winter solstice. The Romans called it Saturnalia, the date December 22^nd, and they lit lamps and candles to hold off the winter dark, hence our Christmas lights. When Christianity became the accepted religion in the fourth century the church did not ban all the pagan customs related to the solstice but absorbed them and no one knows the actual date of Jesus’ birth but December 25^th is as good a guess as any. The solstice was observed in the Germanic countries by Yule and the Christmas tree appeared in the 15^th or 16^th century. I doubt anyone today has the facility to burn a Yule log but other pagan symbols like holly and mistletoe are still with us.

Perhaps the article’s headline is slightly misleading: it’s not Christmas that is under attack but all the phenomena that surround it and that really have little to do with celebrating Jesus’ birth. Cards came in officially in 1843 and we now have electronic greetings and it’s big business but just how many Christmas greetings actually mention among the happies and the merries the name of Christ? Oh we get pictures of the stable and the three wise men but offhand I can’t think of much else in the way of Christian symbolism. There is no doubt though that Christmas is a booming industry and booms ever larger and longer with each passing year. There is a huge ‘Christmas Shop’ in North Carolina, open all year, that is a treasure trove of tacky tinsel and trinkets, all glittering red and gold, a child’s wonderland, and when I visited it in mid-summer, it was heaving and doing a roaring trade. But to the article - Dozens of US congressmen have pledged to protect Christmas from attempts to undermine it. So is the West's foremost public holiday really under attack? One of the most famous family scenes in history, the nativity, appears to be facing threats from all sides. A tug of war is going on over a nativity setting on a courthouse lawn in Texas, with the Freedom from Religion Foundation urging it be removed or an atheistic solstice banner put up nearby. In South Carolina, a state hospital has banned a nativity scene from its premises. It's part of a wider assault on the Christmas tradition, say some Christian groups, who also point to a rule barring congressmen from sending Christmas cards through the official congressional post. Theirs is a very modern crusade over the place of religion in public life that has been taken up on both sides of the Atlantic. In the UK, rumours the very name "Christmas" had been replaced in some places by "Winterval" provoked outrage. I should think so too – bloody ridiculous. Political correctness in England has led to a downgrading of Christmas, for example nativity plays in schools, in case those of another persuasion have their noses put out of joint, this despite the fact that, when questioned, those of other persuasions say their noses aren’t put out of joint. Then there are town councils that have toned down their Christmas themes for fear of causing offence.

In the US Congress 67 Republicans have sponsored a non-binding resolution "the sense of the House of Representatives is that the symbols and traditions of Christmas should be protected for use by those who celebrate Christmas". The resolution "strongly disapproves of attempts to ban references to Christmas" and "expresses support for the use of these symbols and traditions by those who celebrate Christmas".

Republican presidential contender Rick Perry used a recent advert to complain that children could no longer celebrate Christmas openly, and that President Obama had launched a "war on religion". “There's something wrong in this country when gays can serve openly in the military but our kids can't openly celebrate Christmas.”

But if anyone is fighting against Christmas, they seem to be losing the battle. Indeed, the vast majority of Americans celebrate Christmas with most incorporating religious elements into the observance. "We're inundated with Christmas," says Max Brantley, a journalist and political analyst in Arkansas. "Christmas is not in danger, and the notion that the US congress needs to waste time with a resolution that asserts it's in danger is just silly." But many believe there is a battle to fight, to preserve the Christian traditions, and it's a conflict in which they are in ascendancy, with the vast majority of people on their side. No doubt, even if battle lines are somewhat obscure, in the words of the old hymn, ‘Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war…’

Let’s talk about shit. Hey, whoa there, boy! Why would anyone want to talk about shit? It’s something naice people do not mention. Well, for one thing it makes a change, not necessarily the most agreeable one, but a change nevertheless and, after all, we all have to do it, even the Queen of England. What made me think of it was, we watched again that delightful television series, ‘The Victorian Farm’ in which a Shropshire farm, derelict for 150 years was brought back to life by an intrepid trio; with local assistance when necessary and, when we got to the end of it, I said that something was missing. We had every aspect of Victorian farming life both agricultural and domestic but never was there a sight of or mention of a privy. The closest we got to any form of personal hygiene was Ruth in the bedroom standing in a basin having what passed as a shower by pouring water over herself from a ewer –and it was cold! Brrr! Now in an earlier series, ‘Tales From The Green Valley’ where our intrepid trio plus two went further back in time, to 1620 in fact, and lived the life of a Welsh farm of the period, we did actually have a privy. In fact we had a derelict privy that had to be demolished and replaced. So why was such an important aspect left out of the Victorian one I wonder? Maybe it was just nobody thought of it or considered it to be unimportant. But, whether you like it or not, it is a subject to be discussed.

In China twenty women invaded a gent’s toilet as a protest at the lack of facilities for women and have threatened to take their protest to Beijing. In one Indian state where there simply are no toilets at all, an official said women should not be expected to defecate in public. Presumably that means it’s okay for men to defecate in public. I remember as a boy at boarding school, a group of us walking through a wattle plantation, if one was taken short, it was down with the trousers and squat right there and then while the others stood around and waited, and wiping one’s arse with a clump of grass. There was no feeling of embarrassment or shame. It was just something one had to do. After all shitting in public is nothing new. Which palace or castle is it in England that has a privy, or a ‘necessary house’ as it was called with a row of eight seats? Presumably my lords could talk of weighty affairs of state whilst relieving themselves. I mentioned in an earlier Blog about the guy somewhere in Asia (I can’t remember where) who won a prize for producing the biggest dump and I believe the palace of Versailles has fifteen hundred rooms and not a privy in sight. With a couple of thousand or more people shitting it soon mounts up. Presumably when one part of the palace became uninhabitable they simply moved to another part while the servants went in to clean up. And I have sometimes wondered how theatre audiences managed in the days before theatres had toilets. I presume the ladies had their servants provide them with a chamber pot and the men could go outside and piss against the wall (where the chamber pot no doubt could also be emptied) – but what did they do if they were suddenly taken with a dose of diarrhoea? It doesn’t bear thinking about. And what about early doctors studying a patient’s faeces in order to make a diagnosis?

Also growing up in South Africa one was warned never to eat fruit or vegetables bought form itinerant Indian farmers without washing it thoroughly as they fertilised their land with their own faeces. But there is nothing knew in that. In Georgian London and other cities, and even earlier, night soil men collected the town’s sewage to cart it into the countryside where farmers used it as fertiliser.

Privies of course do come in various shapes and sizes from a hole in the ground to Turkish: that is just two places to put your feet while you squat, not always easy for the old and infirm, to ones one which you sit down in comfort and read a magazine. I believe when the Greeks first heard of flush toilets they were aghast that anyone would want such a thing inside the house. Then there is what I call my magic privy which was in Liberia. In the early morning I was directed to this little hut inside of which all I found was a floor of clean white sand. On being reassured that this was indeed a toilet I used it and, when I visited it later in the day, all I found was a floor of clean white sand. When the old flush toilet in the courtyard here was pulled down the builder went everywhere trying to discover where all the shit had gone and failed to find any. Where oh where could it have gone to? So you see, it is a fascinating subject with many ramifications, hardly any of which have been touched in this little essay. For example I have ignored the sexual aspect of shit (yes, we’re back to sex) euphemistically known as chocolate by copraphiliacs, one story of which goes, I don’t vouch for the veracity of it, that in Victoria’s glorious reign a certain member of the royal household who was of a somewhat fastidious bent but also into shit had a special bed made with a glass canopy so that he could lie there and watch the young lady squat and do her stuff without the necessity of wallowing in or swallowing it, dabbling or paddling in it. Good clean fun wouldn’t you say?

I don’t know just how many expressions there are using the word shit but the Italians have a good one which is ‘Eat shit and die!’ And on that note I’ll call it a day.