God our Father, shepherd and guide,
look with love on Pope Benedict XVI, your servant,
the pastor of your Church.

May his word and example
inspire and guide the Church,
and may he, and all those entrusted to his care,
come to the joy of everlasting life.

Grant this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God for ever and ever.

Amen.

Habemus Papam!

Who'd have thought watching a chimney could be so exciting?

This is Jones the Steam. Have you Idris with you?

I have no intention of commenting regularly on the election but this proposal of the Conservative party caught my eye today: More Faith Schools.

I went to a Catholic Primary School and then a Catholic Secondary School for three years then a non-denominational/Church of England Secondary School for four years. In the Catholic Secondary School I will not pretend that everyone was morally perfect, there were teenage pregnancies, drug users etc, but we were taught about moral issues - these were discussed and I know that a lot of people came out with strong views about these ideas. In the non-Catholic school I didn't feel the same sense of moral grounding. Things were discussed in terms of school rules, rather than moral right and wrong.

I have also done some voluntary work in Catholic first schools (the equivalent of Infants) and Dragon Dada and I recently applied for schools for our Dragonet. I don't have much experience of non-denominational Primary education but I'll say this for my experience of Faith schools - they do teach right and wrong.

Prince Charles shook hands with President Mugabe at the Pope's funeral today. From the sound of the report, he was rather taken by surprise when the Zimbabwean President leaned across and held out a hand. I can well imagine that in a similar situation one might well instinctively grasp the proffered hand seconds before the brain kicks in and curses loudly, playing back a list of "Things I'll Say/Do If I Ever Come Face To Face With X" to the abashed hand. The third reaction, following after the other two would be along the lines of, "Oh bother*, what are the Press going to make of this?"

There's been a hasty flurry of statesmen from the Prince's spin-doctors reassuring the British public (and Press) that the Prince does, in fact, oppose Mugabe's regime and offering proofs. As an attempt to further diffuse the situation, criticism is deflected from the Prince with the playground chant of "And anyway, he did it too, Miss, he did it first!" as we are reminded of Jack Straw making the same faux pas.

The thing that really caught my attention was the final paragraph of the article I've referred to, giving a quote from Jack Straw in his own defence:

Mr Straw defended his actions saying the serious disagreement between the two countries did not justify being "discourteous or rude".

Does it not? I would have thought that this would be perfect justification for discourteous behaviour! Given t that this is a goodwill gesture, would it not be a good chance to make a statement that we do not have goodwill towards people who behave in such a fashion as President Mugabe? Surely, in civilized society, rudeness can make a great statement where it is unexpected.

* Insert expletive of choice.

Every so often I read a headline that makes me smile, rendering the content of the article irrelevant. Like this one:

Galactic Pancake Mystery Solved.

Aha! Read on to discover one, more, all or none of the below...

... who makes the best pancakes in the Galaxy!

... where you can buy them!

... who killed the Galactic Pancake!

... where the Galactic Pancake came from!

... how many eggs are needed to make a Galactic Pancake!

... where the Galactic Pancake goes on its holidays!

and many more...

This made me laugh. I'm looking forward to the new Star Wars film myself, and my brother James is definitely an even bigger fan, but I can't see either of us queuing for seven weeks, let alone outside the wrong cinema. We have lives!

We're flying to the U.S. on holiday soon and it's going to be a long flight. In preparation I've bought some books - for myself and for my Dragonet. My order arrived yesterday and I am now faced with a problem, because I opened the box to check the order and the books are now loose:

I can hide the books away for the next few weeks to prevent my Dragonet from reading them before the flight. But how am I going to stop myself from reading my books?!

Amnesty International have reported that executions worldwide in 2004 were the highest for nearly a decade, with 3,797 people executed. The worst countries were:

1. China - at least 3,400 (sources inside the country estimate the total to be nearer 10,000)
2. Iran - at least 159
3. Viet Nam - at least 64
4. USA - 59 (down from 65 in 2003)

"Despite the worldwide trend towards abolition, these figures highlight the ongoing need for concerted action by the international community to consign the death penalty to history."

"It is worrying that the vast majority of those executed in the world did not have fair trials. Many were convicted on the basis of ’evidence’ extracted under torture."

The abolition of capital punishment, despite these figures, did advance, with another five countries abolishing the death penalty for all crimes in 2004. Bravo Bhutan, Greece Samoa, Senegal, and Turkey. At the end of the year 120 countries had abolished capital punishment in law or practice.

See here for the full report.