Let’s save the world… prove Jesus

I’ve been given a vision, it’s been sanctified and verified by god himself, I claimed his gift of faith, and i have faith that it is so.

If the New Testament of the bible is ‘on the money’ then people really need to know about it, and quickly. You might say that there are plenty of people out there trying but the fact is that they aren’t very good at it. They’ve had 2000 years to do it, and there are still a large majority not realising what happened in Judea. If it’s true that there actually is an afterlife… and unless we tell Jesus we accept his sacrifice we’re doomed to hell… then, well the race to save peoples souls should be on the news on a daily basis - we need a daily updated on the souls saved - maybe involved some sort of tracking technology. So why isn’t it?

I think, in my not so humble opinion that it’s the way  go about telling others… it’s almost like we want to keep it to themselves. We’re happy to leave it to the shouty street preachers… who just come across as deranged and deluded. Or to manipulative and cheesy Alpha Course types.

So how do we do it? We need to find a Unique Selling Point, we need to focus on the things that are common to all of the other non-true religions and leave them to one side. There are millions of decent moral, right thinking, loving people who conscientiously adhere to their factually inaccurate faith. Everyone who has a faith is really convinced that they commune with their respective god, and that he answers them and guides them and has a plan for them (to some degree). Amount and depth of faith isn’t impressive at all… lest we’d all be turning to militant Islam. But they are all of course being deluded by Satan, except for Christians. Simply using manipulative phrases like ‘Jesus loves you, why don’t you accept the free gift’ gets seen for what it is…the religious equivalent of ‘when did you stop beating your wife’.

We must remember that if the NT is a reliable message from god then we know that he loves and wants us all to know about the Jesus salvation narrative. The most wonderful gift he gave us, something no other faith has, is the historical events that happened in Israel 2000 years ago. Let’s not get caught up in the mumbo jumbo and benign brain washing of the worlds churches - lets stop all this obsession with ‘faith’ - we don’t need to rely on faith, we have facts, that’s what Jesus gave us. He didn’t need to, the resurrection could have been a meta-physical spiritual battle or could all have happened in the middle of the desert so we’d never know.

We need to be confident in that, we need to put it all on the table. We need to accept that a loving god wouldn’t make it difficult for us, if we approach the evidence with an open mind and with our logical and rational heads fully screwed on then he will bless that. Logic and rationality are gifts which he gave us, and he insists we use it lest we fall for the devils seductions. In order to prove the truth to the world we have to be open to the idea that the Jesus stories aren’t in fact real, and that the Jewish messiah could still return and ask why we fell for the devils trickery re: the Jesus church.

Let’s not peddle this self-defeating nonsense that Jesus doesn’t want to make it too obvious too us so we can have free will. This belittles our lord, and threatens to be a barrier to salvation as it makes people rightly suspicious. Jesus could have been a lot more subtle if he’d wanted to - maybe appearing for a moment in each of our dreams and giving us the salvation choice. Instead, if we’re to believe the NT he appeared to lots of people doing magical signs to convince them - sometimes 5000 in one go. Are we saying he respected these peoples free will less than ours?

God won’t punish you for applying your reason and rationality and assuming Jesus wasn’t who it’s reported he was… until you’ve assessed the evidence and decided he was (or wasn’t).

It’s like when you were a kid and your dad said… don’t get into a car with any strangers even if they say they that I sent them to pick you up… make sure you are 100% convinced they are who they say they are. I’d rather you rejected someone I might genuinely have sent for you, than get into the car with the wrong person, that’s the actions of a loving parent.

I’m not talking about getting a bishop with a doctorate in theology and an obvious agenda to write a book packed full of ultimately true, but logically very dodgy assumptions. This is the definition of preaching to the choir - this will be accepted with the same open minds that we read Dawkins! Maybe we should sponsor a panel of the worlds smartest and most qualified people, a cross section of the intelligentsia (perhaps those who are currently non-aligned to any religion but who have proven themselves open minded) and get them to carry out a thorough investigation and publish the results at the UN for all to see, where they can be challenged and assessed.

How could anyone object to that? Let’s make sure they report back before the rapture.

Jebus: Martyr or Murderer?

‘Murderer’ is over egging an already well egged pudding - but it has a nice controversial rhythm to it. Anyway, let me tell you a story passed down to me for generations (say).

They say Jebus was born miraculously in a small town just north of Cardiff, a thousand years ago during the English occupation. He was a bit of a thinker and philosopher and when he came of age some people started to say he was ‘the one’, god’s messiah.

As he travelled into Cardiff one spring morning crowds gathered to greet him as their saviour, he didn’t do anything to correct their assertions so the rumours grew - as they did quite often in those times. He did a bit of a speaking tour talking about god and hinting that he was their long-awaited messiah, but then things started to go a bit sour.

There had been rumours of wondrous miraculous happenings, so a caravan of the sick and the needy started to follow him around. One day he was on the way to a wedding when some people stopped him and said… about 10 percent of our children die before they reach the age of 2… what can we do about it? But instead of telling them about water purification, antibiotics and general child heath care (which if he was god, he would have of course known) he said… sorry, I’m on the way to a wedding… but you’ll like this… while I’m there I’m gonna take some of that pure water which you need, and then I’m going to turn it in to wine, yazam! We is going to par-tay. The villagers used their god-given rationale and knew that this couldn’t be the actions of a loving god so they continued their messiah search.

It kept happening… one day on the way to a friend’s funeral… a group mothers came to him and said, our children have all died in the last month of an infection, dozens more are sick, they were innocent kids who we loved, if you are god can you be merciful and raise them from the dead? He said… hmmm , nah sorry… but tell you what how’s about I resurrect my mate Lazarus instead. The mothers where less than impressed, especially when he refused to give them any hints as to why infections spread in the first place (which he of course would have known).

The mothers decided that if someone had this kind of power, yet chose not to use it (apart from the odd party trick), and chose to let these innocent children die that it was tantamount to murder, or at least man slaughter, certainly not the actions of a loving god - so they continued their search for a messiah. Jebus wasn’t the one. There were later rumours of a personal resurrection, but he’s conveniently lifted himself up into the clouds to heaven… the mothers rolled their eyes with a chuckle and continued to worship Yahweh like they always had.

But maybe the problem was that their minds where too small to comprehend the wonder of why Jebus was actually god’s son, and if only they had opened their hearts a little more to Jebus they would have believed… as opposed to following the non-related Jesus of Nazareth who WAS of course, the one, as his actions and the evidence is a lot more compelling.
Happy Easter

Pro Human Life

Not that I’m chasing hits and controversy!!… 

Some people hold all life as sacred, I however do not.  I hold that human life is sacred (unsurprisingly given that I am one), but by proxy I kill and eat animal and plant life for food.

So what then IS human life, what make us human? Is there a difference between an acorn and oak tree? Grape juice and wine? A maggot and a fly? is a tadpole a frog? Is an egg a chicken? More importantly do I consider an non-viable foetus to be a human, with equal rights as any other human?

Well, I actually don’t know. Sometimes I think yes, sometimes I think no.  All I’ve managed to do is distil my ethic from life=good/death=bad to ‘at what point do a consider the item inside a pregnancy to be human’. Stem Cell? Embryo? Foetus? moment of birth?

At whatever point that is then it must have the same rights as me, before that it’s just part of the carrier’s body which if left unharmed by medical intervention or indeed natural miscarriage, has the potential to be human.

I really don’t consider the ‘morning after pill’ to be the killing of a human, and when someone miss carries in the first few months i’m not sure of the need to mourn…hmmm…easy to say i guess

I’m what the American press call a flip-flopper, if my list of quotes on this topic were put together over the last 5-10 years … well let’s just say no one could every accuse of me of being intransigent.

Storm in a ocean sized tea cup

Well, the time has come. The lead story on the news at ten tonight will no doubt be “BONG:Question Monkey breaks his silence on the Archbishop Sharia row”. Doubtless some of the lesser informed hacks won’t even realised that I WAS keeping a silence.

My take on it is this, it very much depends on what he meant (duh), either it was a completely run of the mill comment which actually didn’t need to be said and it’s just an obvious truism, or it was a shocking affront to democracy and the rights of man.

I have a private members club, let’s call it Fight Club (patent pending), in this club all the members consent to occasionally having seven bells knocked out of them. According to the law of the land GBH is illegal, but the way we enforce law in these matters is very much down to consent - if you consensually choose to have someone staple your privates to the floor, then the law isn’t involved, if you don’t consent then it very much is.

I would though expect the police to keep a close eye on it to make sure every one really is consenting - and there should be no question of what the over arching law is.

So is this what the Archbishop meant, that we should respect and recognise marriages, annulments and arbitrations? If so, then I’ve no problem with it - and I really don’t know why it’s been such a big deal. I fear though that he meant more than this, that he’s suggesting that the law should in some way take into account peoples ‘faith’ and beliefs. The words ‘Thin edge’ and ‘wedge’ come to mind… I do respect people who stand up for what they believe in, like for instance when Quakers refuse to fight in WW2, but its entirely right that they should go to prison for a while… the law has to apply fairly to all no matter what hocus pocus you say you believe.

A better way for the Archbishop to make Muslims feel more respected and equal would be to disestablish the Church of England! It’s an anathema that a Muslim MP has to swear allegiance to the Queen when he or she enters parliament - as opposed to just swearing to fairly and honestly represent his or her constituents. I await the Archbishop’s response to my challenge

What price truth?

It’s revealed this week that the Bloody Sunday enquiry has now cost £180m! One of the relatives was quoted as saying “You can’t put a price on it” Well, I think you can. We could have given the families £12m each in blooming compensation, if I was the family of one of those killed I’d far prefer that to hearing some judge saying ‘ok, looks like they were unlawfully killed’.

Is every other killing in Northern Ireland going to be investigated in the same way? Are the lives of these 14 somehow worth more? Somehow more tragic and more in need of investigation?

To compare - how much of the Iraqi tax payer’s money would we recommend they spend in 30 years time investigating the 950 Shiites who died in the bombs and stampede tragedy a few years ago - I work that out at £12billion. The sad thing is that large killings and bombings in Iraq don’t even make the news these days - yet the truth about 14 killings 40 years ago during a de facto civil war is worth £180m to people - i don’t get it.

No words needed

I wanna be like you hoo hoo

I’m not really a ‘Mr Angry’ character, if I was I would probably be a better and opinionated blogger. I tend to give celebs and people in newspapers the benefit of the doubt - saying things like. I don’t really know Peter Andre, who am I to have an opinion on him, likewise Jade Goody or Prince Philip. I say this as cover for the fact that once in a while a someone says something, or a story emerges that really gets to me and makes me into ‘Mr Angry from Bristol’.

My local infant school recently made the local Points West news over a teacher racism scandal. Click here to read the story on BBC.

I’ll paraphrase it. The school was putting on production for parents of Jungle Book, when the teacher was apportioning out roles, she asked the 7 year olds, who wants to be a monkey? Of course, every hand was pushed high in the air, and the teacher chose 5 kids. Two of the kids were black brothers (I mean they WERE actually brothers).

That’s pretty much the story. When the they got home they excitedly told their mum and step father (indecently their step father is white). At this point the parents hit the roof, and demanded an explanation from the school, and the suspension of the teacher. Why? Because it was racist to cast the black kids as monkeys.

There was a massive hoopla with BBC Points West covering the story for a couple of days and newspaper interviews from teachers and parents at the school.

It made me really sad. What on earth did these parents think they were doing. What exactly did they want the teacher to say… “sorry kids you can’t be monkeys because some idiots in the 1970s used to use monkey as a derogatory term for blacks”.

My son will quite likely go to this school in a few years, and it really annoys me the idea that he would come home from school asking why his friend Billy wasn’t allowed to be a monkey because he’s black.

The MOST annoying thing is, that the school seemed to pander to the parents, instead of laughing them out the school… or maybe make them attend some basic classes!

What’s that they say, political correctness gone mad.
There you go… once you’ve typed that phrase in a blog, you really ARE “Mr Angry”.

Juries are gullible TV watching amateurs

As I finish my stint of jury service, I really hoped I wouldn’t be writing blogs along the lines of ‘I’ve lost my faith in the jury system’. But I have, a little bit. Both juries I sat on started of their deliberation saying ‘The police were rubbish here weren’t they’. It’s like they expect every drug den to be descended on by a team of 10 CSI officers who cordon off the area for a square mile and rummage in all the hedge rows for that one really small, but vital and interesting clue.

All the defence had to do in either case was to ask a policeman a question like, so did you finger print the back left hand side of the gas cooker (or the like) and the when the policeman says ‘eh, no’ The jury takes an intake of breath like they’ve just been handed their plot line.

So in the end it doesn’t mater that the nice young ‘misguided’ crack dealer had more gear on him to service an army, and hundreds of pounds in his drawer (which he just ‘found’). The jury say, well there’s not enough ‘evidence’ here - we know he did it, but it’s the police’s fault.

I can imagine how easy it must be in a complicated fraud case to put doubt in the mind of a jury, which is why I now run contrary to my libertarian instincts and say, in a lot more cases, it should be decided by a panel of judges rather than gullible, TV watching, think-they’re-so-clever amateurs like me.

Some nice pod casts

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/culturevulture/podcast.xml

Paste that into your iTunes postcast bit… the best one, i think, if the Stephen Fry/Hitchens one on blasphemy - interesting as always. The theos among you will like his references to CS Lewis. If only that tw*t Hitchens would shut up a bit, which he does, after someone in the crowd shouts at him .

I think Stephen Fry is great but i think, as i say, Hitchens is on of the most annoying arrogant people on earth. Even though i agree with the large part of what he says - which just shows that sometimes it about ‘how you say it’.

You can listen to the MP3 here.  The first ten mins and the last ten mins are the best.

It’s not exactly a ‘debate’ as both are in more or less in agreement. It reminds me somewhat of those Greenbelt ‘debates’ i used occasionaly attend (but in the other direction).

Blessed with faith

Last week I was walking down High Street minding my own business, when I was stopped by David Blaine and his ‘Street Magician’ camera crew (not really). He did his trick, the one he does on his TV show, he levitated before my very eyes. Like everyone I had the ‘whoa, that’s amazing’ reaction. Blaine walked on down the road, leaving in his wake his mesmerised audience.

I thought about it later in the day and for a moment thought - did he actually do that? Is he actually magic? Only for a moment though, because I know it’s impossible, and even though I’d seen it with my own eyes, I knew it was more than likely a trick, not a phenomenon. Not to say that impossible things don’t become possible, but Joe Normal tends to need a lot more evidence than one performance, under the circumstances of the performers choosing.

So, I don’t believe, or have faith that he really levitated, because it’s impossible according to the laws of physics. Yet I have friends and family who believe that a guy known as Jesus of Nazareth was born of a virgin, walked on water, raised people from the dead including himself. Why do they believe this? Because its written in an the Bible. In Gospels written decades after the reported events by guys who were trying, lets say for altruistic reasons, to get their religion up and running.

I recently met a lady on a couple of occasions, a friend of my wife’s, who literally believes EVERYTHING. You name it, she’s into it. Acupuncture, Reiki, homeopathy, astrology, cupping, Feng Shuiand that’s only the ones she mentioned in the 2-3 hours approximately I’ve been in her company. I’ve no doubt that she’d have no problem accepting the Jesus miracles as a positive probability. However, most people I think are open minded but heavily sceptical about miracles and physics defying events unless they are proven beyond reasonable doubt. For me, it’s really the only way to get on with your life - we can’t assume every claim of magic to be probably correct - the world would completely unpredictable - I wouldn’t want to get out of bed never mind get on a plane, in case aerodynamics suddenly changed its nature.

So why do intelligent people believe the Jesus stories? Let’s make no bones about it, smarter and more thought intensive people than me have decided in their heads that Jesus walked on water, turned water to wine and in some cases they believe that he guides them in their day to day life! (though obviously Gabriel only appeared to Mary, not Mohammad - THAT would be ridiculous). The answer is faith. I think it’s the same with most religions, but in my culture, Christianity is the major force, and a lot of my family and friends would describe themselves as having a faith in the god of the bible. I have recently had some interesting debates with them, and when it comes down to it, they don’t usually focus their argument on trying to convince me that the bible is reliable when it talks of physics-defying events, they say its at this point in your journey you need faith, and faith is the key.  An intellectual discussion usually turns into a theological discussion, and sometimes I get the feeling they are dancing and gloating in the space between that which we know and that which we don’t yet know. It goes… we don’t know everything, therefore anything is possible, therefore my position is intellectually sound - all i need is to declare my faith!! As soon as they proclaim that it comes down to faith, they admit that they can’t convince me that its true with evidence based enquiry alone - I need faith. In fact if it could be shown to me in an convincing manor, then it would no longer BE a faith.

The problem is I don’t have faith. I could pretend that I do, I could try to talk myself into it, but deep down I don’t have faith and I can’t help it. You can’t make a decision to have faith, I can’t decide in my head that I believe that David Blaine levitated in front of me - even though THAT happened before my eyes! So how can I believe the heavily processed story of a man 2000 years ago who apparently did some physics defying stuff. You can talk someone into believing facts through evidence based inquiry but whether I’m Joe Bloggs or Pope Benedict, faith is something you have or you don’t.

Debating the probabilities and possibilities of various iconic events and the evidence thereof, is destined to lead nowhere. Because depending on what religion you’re talking to, your faith has to be different. It’s not ok when talking to a Christian to say you have faith that you will be re-incarnated when you die, or to a Muslim that you have faith that Jesus was the son of god. To be a Christian you have to have been blessed with the ‘Christian’ faith - I wonder how many little children in Surrey wake up one morning and say mummy, I’ve just been given the faith to believe that Mohammad was a prophet of god.

So either you’re A) lucky and were brought up as a Christian and pretty much taught the bible as fact, so the need for faith is minimal, or you are B) someone who believes absolutely every extra-physical hoodoo, without extended inquiry, or C) god decides to bless you with faith in later life.

This is a dilemma, because it’s not my fault that I don’t have faith. If you believe in the god of the bible then the only outworking of this is that some are blessed with faith, faith is god given. If it is something that some are given and some aren’t then why do Christians try to convert people and tell them the ‘good news’, they might have some success with the lady I know who believes everything from astrology to Reiki, and obviously a child will believe pretty much everything a trusted adult tells them, but as for the likes of me, according to John 3:16 I’m doomed to a fiery eternity because I don’t have faith, which is a smidge unfair I think.

There are of course valid attempts to explain the quandry, but the logic seems quite circular - usualy about ‘letting god do the work’… but there’s a big assumption which has been breezed past - which is of course his/it’s ultimate existance and involvement. Most times when i hear people stuggling with these questions - i fear they have missed the elephant in the room, that it might just all be in their heads.

Tuesday lunchtime’s alright for fightin’

A conversation stirred up recently about fighting as a kid, and whether I’d ever been in a decent fight. I’m not sure if it was an lead-in to try and convert me to some Fight Club esque underground cult or more of a general conversation starter - can never be too sure . I was transported back to high school, it was circa 1987, the Dukes of Hazard was on telly every Saturday evening, Aha were all the rage and Liverpool FC still won things.

I wouldn’t describe my self as a bully or a bullyee, I was one of the middle ground kids, not a complete sado and not in the really cool groups. Ok, I did play the flute in the school band… and ok you’ve forced it out of me, i was in the computer club, and ok I did… nope, enough!

There was one guy who decided to have a pop at me, take me out for a spin as it were, see what I was made of… he decided to concentrate on one thing, and stick to his game plan. I have/had a bit of a stammer so he just kept calling me M-m-m-monkey (substitute monkey for my real second name - I bet you’re shocked that I’m not Mr Q Monkey). He kept at it… all the time.

Lets be clear, even then, I couldn’t give a rat’s ass, but you know how these things work, he was taking a liberty and I couldn’t have that now… could i? So I went for a few counter punches… the you’re sad head shake and tut …. the boooooring jibe… the ignoring and pretending I didn’t hear him… even the your ma’s your da! (only makes sense in N Ireland - in fact, it doesn’t even there) … I then dealt out the pièce de résistance I know you are but what am I routine …. I kept this up for about a day - even though it made no sense in the context.

Then he escalated maters, in retrospect he probably regrets it, just as those Serbs who assassinated Archduke Ferdinand in 1913 probably… anyway… sorry … he stabed me in the arse with a compass. I jumped to my feet in second period English to deliver a soliloquy worthy or the great bard himself, im gonna kick your head in at lunch time! That was it, I was tied in, he was tied in , neither of us wanted to be, but there it was. Next stop Somme, Ypres, Paschendale (ok, I’ll ill leave the poor WW1 metaphors).

To set the scene, the bully in question (yes, bully! Lets call evil by it’s name!) was reasonably well built and I knew for a fact he been in a few rumbles before. I had no delusions that this was gonna end with anything other than me being beaten up - my only hope was that the dinner ladies steped in and saved me and I could summon up a look of phew, you’re lucky they were here or you’d have been in trouble.

When lunch time came I tried my best to play it all down, fight? What fight? I’m just having my lunch   was my line. But to no avail. A crowd was gathering in expectation and they wanted action. I was pushed to the middle of the circle as was he, strutting around looking relaxed like Ali in Zaire, I was more like rabbit in headlights. I figured one thing out - I needed to get out of there with at least one good thing to talk about, one good ‘did you see when I ….’ story even if I’m telling the story from my hospital bed. I resolved to get in one decent punch in his face, if I could mark him I could claim victory quickly before I was pounded to the floor… maybe even claim ‘fight over’ and run like flip! (rules like this DID sometimes apply).

First up we were pushed together, the crowd roared in excitement… come on , hit him… then the lull when they realised we were really just engaged in close hugging the occasional dead arm and nip. Then we broke up, I had my chance, I took a swing and caught him right on the nose, really, really well. He fell down and the crowd feel slightly silent. I don’t think there was any blood but I’d obviously really hurt him. It was great! But then, it all got weird, out of defeat he managed to successfully scramble for the moral high ground saying awww, what you do that for, flip sake we were only mucking about… then his friends joined in, then everyone did, tutting at me saying… what a physco, can’t even take a joke. To this day, I don’t get it, but sometimes it’s only fair to look at ones opponent with respect and say, I may have landed the only punch but he won the battle for hearts and minds.   A good lesson learned.

9/11 is over

THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN is one of my favourite commentators. His book, The world is flat, is probably my favorite book of the last few years.   Not exactly laugh a minute, but I’m a bit of a politics/tech/economics/future geek

check out this article in the New York Times.

Link To Article

The Gardener of Good and Evil II

In a recent post, i gave myself the lofty task of deciding on the nature and causes of good and evil. Then realised that i know nought, so left it.

But i think I’ve found out that someone has already done the job for me. Alfred Nobel. His prizes set out to reward those who advance knowledge in areas of certain human progress - maybe these are the definitive areas of goodness - and the cause of this advancement, is ‘Good’.

So… Physics, Chemistry, Literature, Medicine and in recent times Economics.

Now, all i need is someone to start giving out prizes for evil … oh yeah, thats the Big Brother final.

(will really have to think of a better ‘pay off’ gag than that!)

Pacifist Immorality?

you’ll have noticed I’m going for less ‘banter’ posts lately, its tough segueing between Sushi Akabusi and the nature of morality 

Pacifism always sounds like a noble thing, like environmentalism or altruism, but does it really stand up to moral scrutiny?

I have a friend (who will probably read this - and argue very well in the opposite direction) who said once that he wouldn’t accept a job at the Ministry of Defence, because he was a pacifist and couldn’t justify being part of an organisation which makes plans and tools to kill people.

The question here isn’t, is it ok to be violently aggressive to get your own way - while there’s probably a decent discussion to he had there, I’m more interested in the idea of pacifism in terms of - never using violence in any form (ala Ghandi/Buddha), no mater what the circumstance.

How moral is it, to stand by non-violently when someone is assaulting and robbing your next door neighbour, or to refuse to pull the gun trigger when someone is about to explode a bomb in the preverbal school bus. If I think I am a pacifist but would pull that trigger, then surely if im part of a community and a country then I need to be willing to, if not join the army if required, but at least support the idea of having a well trained standing army, ready to kill others, in order to protect the weak from tyranny. In a sense, step in to help a neighbour or defend my family - on a global scale.

OK, you might say that excursions like the invasion of Iraq were immoral, therefore if you were involved in or supported our military, you make yourself morally responsible. But maybe that’s the just the way it is in a democracy, each of us get a vote, and we ask the elected government to do certain things, one of which is to protect the country from outside aggression and in some cases intervene around the world, in the interest of our country. You don’t get to choose exactly where the government spends your taxes (apart from at the ballot box), and you don’t get to opt out of moral responsibility for what the elected government does. Or maybe you do. Anyway, I digress.

Im not sure pacifism can automatically claim the moral high ground.

What should I say to get off Jury Service?

In May I was called upon by her majesty to attend jury service, unfortunately/fortunately my wife gave birth to a baby the week before – which was very good of her, meaning I didn’t have to attend

It has however been rescheduled for October, and whilst, if I’m honest, im quite looking forward to it, I’ve been thinking of ways to not get picked for the jury – just for the laugh

• Just fall asleep after every question, for 10 seconds or so
• Every now and then, worriedly look sharply to the right, then quickly left
• At every tense moment hold my nose,  accusing the barrister of farting
• Say things like, I’ll be great at this, I can normally tell just by the look of them if they are guilty or not

ideas welcome…