Advent 2011

Advent has begun. 5 weeks till Christmas.

It has to be remembered by Catholics that Advent is a penitential season, a time of preparation for the Christmas Celebrations. There has to be more than just shopping and gift buying and drinking.

We need to assess our lives, make changes, and renew our religious life.

Bit it seems that every year the religious dimension gets smaller for more and more people.

Yesterday we celebrated St Andrew's day as we will be closed on the actual feast day. Every class did a little performance. But it could have been Burns' night, as there was scant acknowledgement that we were celebrating the life of St Andrew.

There are difficulties in that we really do not know very much about his life. But surely there is more to a saint's day than humorous songs and poems?

Today we had a visiting theatre group from London performing Oliver Twist. A cast of 2, with minimum scenery.

The children enjoyed it in bits, but for the adults, it was pretty grim stuff. London accents which were difficult to understand when lines were delivered fast. Not really pantomime stuff at all. The children enjoyed the chase scenes, but there were no catchy songs or snappy dialogue.

There is a gap here waiting to be filled by Scottish talent. Do Hopscotch still exist? Visible Fiction?

Tomorrow there will be a large scale National Strike in protest at the Government's plans for pension reform. Basically, everyone will have to pay more into their pensions, work longer to get to the pension, and receive a reduced pension.

I believe there are other ways to address pension problems. Maybe everyone could have the same per centage contributions. At present the range is quite wide, with some people paying nil contributions. Politicians I believe and maybe some Civil Servants?

Another issue is that single people with no dependents can nominate another to receive a reduced pension following the death of the pension holder. This is crazy. When you die, your pension should die with you, unless you are leaving a wife and children who need that income.

And of course the chaos caused by the greed of Bankers has to be sorted by non bankers, and that is another reason for the financial straits many of us now find ourselves in.

It will be interesting to see the reaction tomorrow and what further developments will occur.

Photos are from flight Baltimore to Newark.