Thursday 26 September: Starry, Starry Night

Wow – the best was pretty much saved to last. We were graced with an inspiring contribution to the conference in the morning, and with an awesome evening at the Observatory in the evening.

The lecture in the morning was without doubt one of the highlights of this Congress. The context, of course, made the topic (‘Calvin against slavery’) particularly loaded: for many years the Dutch Reformed Church in South Africa (a Calvinist church) was one of the mainstays of the apartheid regime, and provided theological justification for the oppression. Our lecturer left little doubt that Calvin himself regarded slavery as an appalling evil – why? Simply because all human beings are created in the image of God. ‘You and your fellow human being are the same’, he wrote. ‘Treat them like a beast and you become a beast yourself, because you renounce the image of God which is imprinted in us all’. It’s really for insights like this that I have grown to love Calvin’s theology and writings. Especially if you allow for the fact that he lived 500 years ago, these sentiments are extraordinarily adventurous and spring directly from his grasp of the nature of God as love and grace. ‘In some lands’, he says in one sermon, ‘such as the countries of the East, Greece and North Africa, this type of servitude still exists. However it is for the best that its usage be altogether abolished, as it has been among us’. Equally moving was the applause with which this paper was received, by a thoroughly international and multi-cultural audience, including of course black and white South Africans. Wonderful.

There were other good contributions to enjoy during the day, but many of us were reaching that point in the week where you just feel as if your brain is full to capacity. The periods of discussion after various presentations (including one in the late afternoon which I was privileged to chair) were getting shorter and less creative, and there was a general sense of tiredness around the place.

But we perked up at the Boyden Observatory, that’s for sure. It’s about a half hour’s drive out of Bloemfontein, which is far enough to leave behind the light pollution of the city. It’s also set high up on a hill, and we arrived in the late afternoon, in time to enjoy panoramic views over a river valley, bathed in a pink sunlight, with the plains apparently extending endlessly in the direction away from Bloemfontein. Within a short time we were blessed with a dramatic sunset, as we tucked into a picnic meal, with copious amounts of South African wine provided by our hosts. As you can imagine, the atmosphere became very relaxed indeed. Not that Calvin would have disapproved. One of my favourite of his sayings comes in his commentary on Psalm 104: ‘It is lawful to use wine not only in cases of necessity, but also in order to make us merry’. It was pretty merry, by the time we were called to order by a Professor from the University Physics Department, who gave us a lecture on the progress of the search, in which he is involved, to find planets in the universe whose conditions might most approximate to those on earth. He was humorous and judged the occasion well. He reminded us that our galaxy is a tiny part of a Local Group of galaxies, which is a small part of a Local Supergroup of galaxies, which is an infinitesimally small part of the universe. He quoted a famous astronomer (I didn’t catch the name) who said, ‘The universe is a big place… perhaps the biggest there is’. And then we were divided into three groups, and each group in turn was taken first for a brief ‘live’ introduction to the night-sky in the southern hemisphere, then to see the observatory’s 1.5m telescope (the third biggest on the continent) and then to look through a slightly smaller telescope at what appeared to the naked eye to be a star-less stretch of sky, but which proved to be filled with thousands of stars. The operator of the larger telescope described it as a digital camera which an unusual large lens on the front.

The professor used a lazer to point out the stars in the sky. I don’t ever remember seeing Mars or Saturn before. We saw the Southern Cross and its two out-lying pointer stars, as well as Alpha Centauri, the Scorpion, a red dwarf (I think!) and lots of other features (including our nearest star, which is still, I think…, four light years away). I’m afraid I’ve forgotten most of the specifics -- except that there was also an iridium flare from a satellite… and then, wonderfully, a meteor shot past as if scripted. We almost burst into applause, as if it was a firework display!

‘Awe-some’ is an overused word these days, but this really was.

That was yesterday. Today the congress has finished, and I’m about to head off for the airport, to fly to Johannesburg, and then (I hope by car) to our (I mean Lichfield’s) partner Diocese of Matlosane, where I should be by tonight. I’m not at all sure what the internet facilities will be like though, when I’m there… so there may not be further blog postings until Tuesday of next week. Silence in the next few days will just mean I’m out of web-reach. Probably just as well, given England's current cricket score (68-5; ugh).

Wednesday 25 August: The Mountain Kingdom

Well. That was memorable. We’ve had an ‘excursion’ today, to the independent Kingdom of Lesotho – an experience not to be quickly forgotten.

We set out early this morning. We were on the road by 7.30. The journey took us past some still poorer townships than those we visited last Sunday morning… vast, sprawling (sorry, it’s the only adjective I can come up with at this time of night) expanses of corrugated iron dwellings, without either electricity or running water. Scary.

When we got to the border, it was like being back in the 1970s: we all had to get off our fleet of three coaches, file on foot through the SA emigration customs, across the border to queue again to get through the Lesotho immigration. Then it was back onto the buses.

On the Lesotho side of the border one of our number noticed that a roadside café had ‘VR’ daubed on its wall. Victoria Regina. She’s the reason Lesotho was never subsumed, like other African kingdoms, into the republic of South Africa. At a certain point in the mid 19th Century, soon after the first (French) missionaries arrived in the area, the Afrikaaners appropriated parts of Chief Mushoeshoe’s territory. He appealed, successfully, to Queen Victoria for protection – and the British Crown then, as it were, underwrote Lesotho’s independence for the next one hundred years or more.

When I was working in the Diocese of Durham in the mid 1990s, the Diocese of Lesotho was our partner. So I was hearing about, and indeed praying for, this part of the world years ago. But this was my first visit. (It’s not strictly my first visit to South Africa in general though. I was briefly in Durban and Cape Town -- as a nine year old in 1970!) The journey took us across flat, dusty, grassy plains on the South African side of the border, and then at once up into the mountains which define this country. From time to time we passed the round, thatched mudstone houses that I associate more with Zulu settlements. Inevitably, the poverty in Lesotho eclipsed even the most severe we have encountered in South Africa. We were seeing it at the driest time of the year: everything looked brown or sandy or ochre. But apparenty, in another two months, when the rains have come, Lesotho is as verdant as England. I was struck when, at once point in the day, our Lesotho host gave us a traditional blessing: ‘Peace, Rain, Prosperity’. I felt a long way from home at that point… We’d say, ‘Peace, Sunshine, Prosperity’!

Our destination today was the headquarters of the Evangelical Church of Lesotho – which is the oldest church community in this country, founded by those French missionaries in 1833. The name of the place is the name given to it by those two intrepid pioneers. They called it ‘Morija’, after Mount Moriah, where Abraham met with God. It’s where the LEC now has its seminary, archives and printing press.

We’ve become used to a saying, when things at the Congress haven’t gone precisely to plan: TIA. This is Africa. It was TIA all day today. Mostly on account of the chaos at customs, we arrived at our destination an hour late. We were greeted with tea and cake, and then to a longer-than-expected presentation on the history of the LEC. Either side of this, however, were some unscheduled ‘extras’: an opening prayer which included some congregational singing by our hosts, an then extended introductions and welcomes, with several local dignitaries, including one local chief (without whose blessing we could not feel safe nor at home, according to cultural tradition), each invited ‘to say a few words’. By the time the first session began (an elegant study of what ‘Theology’ looked like in Calvin’s Geneva – in short: immensely practical and, unusually for that period, inclusive of lay people) we were running almost two hours behind schedule. It was a neat cameo of the culture clash between the westerners and the Africans. Many of us were twitchy about the departure from the schedule. It was clear our African friends were not in the least bit bothered. It was fun, though, to see two of our number officially presented with the conical hat and decorated blankets which constitute the principal items of national dress. We pressed on with a paper given by a scholar from Lesotho on Calvin’s influence on the preaching of the pioneer missionaries, and sat down to a late, late lunch at about 3pm. We were then given a swift tour of the community: the earliest church to be founded in the kingdom, the seminary, the archives and museum and so on.

We left at about 5.00pm for the capital city, Maseru. There had been hopes of some time to shop there for souvenirs – like the trademark blankets that local people wear to protect themselves from the cold. But the time had run out on us. So it was quickly into a hotel for yet another extravagant banquet of meat (pork, chicken, fish and lamb all at one meal!), rice and salad, with naughty deserts, before we set off to return to base, only to be required to go through an even more elaborate exercise at the border: we dismounted from our coaches to pass through customs at the Lesotho side, re-mounted to cross no-man’s land, dismounted again to pass through customs at the South Africa side, to re-mount for the rest of our journey. I was pleasantly surprised when we got back a few minutes before 10pm At one point in the day, I was sure it would be midnight.

If you’ll excuse the pun, the Mountain Kingdom will definitely be a congress highlight. We know we're in Africa now.

Tuesday 24 August: Unexpected Day!

Hmmm… despite a highly organised programme, today didn’t turn out for me at all the way I was expecting.

At breakfast time, a senior colleague of mine, with whom I’ve worked closely at previous congresses came over to explain that overnight he’d lost the sight in one eye. He had had a cataract operation in the Netherlands a few weeks ago, and although everything had been pronounced well, a complication had obviously developed. He needed now to find a doctor and perhaps to get some treatment. His difficulty was, that he was due to deliver a paper to the conference this afternoon – would I please cover for him by reading his text in his stead. ‘Actually, Franz, no’, just didn’t seem like an option. So of course I said it would be a privilege. Whereupon he handed over his text and some supplementary papers.

So I checked out the morning programme and decided that I would skip the first session in order to have a read through of his paper. Or two. The first session was, in any case, a rather dense looking theological study to be delivered in German. The second session looked more interesting – an account of ‘Calvin’s Catholicity’. But I figured 90 minutes of preparation would be enough.
Unfortunately, there had been some delay on the photocopying of the English translation of the first paper. So unknown to me, the first two sessions were switched around and while I was in a sideroom reading through Franz’s work, I was missing the session I had hoped to attend. Heigh ho.
In the event, for one thing I was waiting a bit anxiously for GCSE news from home (which came through by text and was fine!), and for another the preparation took a bit longer than I expected, and for another I was feeling a bit peeved at missing the ‘Catholicity’ paper, and for another the sun was shining outside… so the upshot was that I skipped the second session too and spent a relaxing hour in the gardens instead, soaking up some rays.

Then, after lunch, I read Franz’s paper. It was an odd experience, but I was glad to do it. He’s a fine scholar and he had put together a strong argument for the case he was making – but he’s a Dutchman whose English (while stacks better than my Dutch!) is a bit Germanic… so I was trying to ensure it was his voice that people were hearing, while tidying up the grammar and syntax at least a bit! In the event his doctor’s appointments went well in the morning, and he was not only able to be there (albeit with a huge patch over one eye), but was able to field questions after I’d delivered his talk. And he’s been reassured that the eye will right itself in a few days.

I did attend one of the afternoon sessions, but I’m afraid by 5.15 I’d had enough for the day. My brain was full. So, now into the swing of bunking off, I took myself off for a walk round the University Campus during the last session.

Now we’re back at the accommodation, as early as we’ve managed it so far (8.15pm local time). We’re all intending to have an early night, since we’re departing by coach tomorrow at 7.00am for the kingdom of Lesotho, for a day’s excursion. Should be great.

Except of course, that it may turn out as unexpectedly as today.

Monday 23 August: Long Day!

Ok. I have to admit that was more like work. But I did get to see the site crocodile.

Our coach from the accommodation to the conference venue left at 8.10am for opening worship at 8.30, leading directly into a first session. We had a coffee break of half an hour at 10.30, lunch at 1.00 (for an hour… but in my case involving a meeting ), and another coffee break of half an hour at 3.30… but we’ve only just got back to the Lodge now (admittedly after a formal dinner at a prestigous local restaurant) at 10.00pm oui time. We certainly know that the Congress has begun.

The first main session was an overview of what was an important year last year in the world of Calvin scholarship. 2009 was the 500th anniversary of Calvin’s birth, and all kinds of events (conferences, exhibitions etc) and publications (about twenty new biographies alone!) were arranged to mark the occasion. The speaker gave us a summary of what had happened, laced with humour and salted with some wise reflections on what it all might or might not amount to. It was good to hear her emphasise that, just like all the prominent figures in the Bible, Calvin should always be remembered warts and all – he was, after all, the most vigorous preacher of the grace of God, and was fully aware of his own weaknesses and shortcomings. Among anniversary conference venues in 2009, many were predictable: Geneva, Belfast, Pretoria, Dordrecht. But others were less so: St Petersburg, Seville – and Beirut, even! We laughed at the news that a piece of public sculpture (a bust, in fact) has even been erected to mark Calvin’s cutlural contribution in… Havana, Cuba; and at the news that the American Postal Service issued commemorative stamps last year, to acknowledge the legacy of Abraham Lincoln, Gary Cooper and Bob Hope… but not John Calvin.

There was a substantial paper on Calvin’s understanding of reconciliation (a loaded subject in this part of the world). The paper was given in German, and I’m afraid that in common with some others I was unduly distracted by the poverty of the English translation which had been prepared for those who did not wish to rely on their German. It was comical – some splendid typos like ‘tree positions’ instead of ‘three’ and ‘dump symbols’ instead of dumb; as well as some very clumsy, clunky English sentences: ‘Like this were to clarify, how itself that the holiness of the Christian Church in the life of reflecting their mutuality and were to do’. Even given the tortuous nature of theological German, it’s gobbledegook!

Not wishing to gloss over a very competent introduction to Calvin’s early formulations of a doctrine of the Lord’s Supper, a highlight of the day for me was a paper looking at Calvin’s whole work as standing in continuity with the medieval and patristic monastic tradition. It’s a counter intuitive idea, because Calvin had some trenchant criticisms to make of the monastic orders of his own day. But the speaker made a good case that Calvin was attempting to take the monastic life out of the monastery (or at least to plunder the monastic treasury) and make it accessible to ordinary Christian believers – he coined the nice phrase ‘the Monkhood of All Believers’. He pointed out Calvin’s commitment to Psalm singing by lectionary calendar (we had done some of that, lustily, in our opening worship, in the Genevan style), and to a daily pattern of prayer at set times (or at least set occasions, rather like the monastic office). He emphasised Calvin’s view that all Christians have a high vocation and, given the degree of accountability of citizens in Geneva to the authorities for their behaviour, posed the idea that Calvin functioned as a bit of a secular abbot. I found it thought provoking, I must say.

This evening we’ve enjoyed an official conference dinner, hosted by the Rector of the University (the Vice Chancellor). He is a remarkable man… Prof Jonathan Jansen. (He told us his father is Abraham, and his mother is Sarah and that all his brothers and sisters, like himself, have biblical forenames… except one, ‘and he’s the only decent one among us’.) He told us how he had abandoned a Christian faith as a teenager to join the struggle to end apartheid (because the church, classically, kept telling him not to engage in politics but to remember his ‘citizenship is in heaven’), only to find that the anger he developed became a liability to him in later years. ‘I’m ashamed to tell you this today’, he said, ‘but I came to hate white people’. But he subsequently came (through a journey that introduced him to Liberation Theology and Black Theology) to realise that he himself stood in need of forgiveness and of the presence of God in his life, that it was only in being forgiven that he found a capacity to forgive. It was an inspiring speech from a man with a touch of Mandela about him.

The only drawback was that the venue was c-c-c-c-cold. It’s the end of winter here. The climate is very predictable and all three days we’ve had clear blue skies, lots of sunshine and temperatures in the middle of the day in the early 20s. But in the early mornings and in the evenings and overnight, it is cold. It dips to freezing point in fact. And most of us had dressed for the conference day, not for the dinner – or had assumed that the dinner would be in a well-heated venue. But we were in an usual place out in the countryside outside Bloemfontein, in a wooden structure with thin walls. It was pretty, but not warm… and even the large open fire in the downstairs courtyard only thawed out our feet before we got on the coach to return to our lodging. My heating is on full blast tonight and I can gradually feel the blood in my feet unfreezing!

Oh, and the crocodile was a disappointment. He looks very sorry for himself, like any wild animal in captivity. He lies in his pool, which is heavily fenced in, and barely moves. Why should he? His food is tossed to him daily, and in any case, there’s nowhere to go. Must be a parable of something.

Sunday 22 August: Surprised by Joy...

With apologies to the author of the biography of C S Lewis by that name, today has been a day of joyful suprises.

I had been telling people over the last couple of weeks that I was expecting to find some of the contrasts in South Africa disturbing – between white and black, rich and poor in particular – and that I expected to be exposed mostly to white wealth in the first half of my stay here and mostly to black poverty in the second half. Actually, the reality of black poverty has been opened to us by our wealthy white hosts from the outset.

Bloemfontein is part of South Africa’s Afrikaans heartland. It’s in what was, after all, the Orange Free State. This is hardcore Boer country – the part that gave Kitchener and his colleagues such a hard time 120 years ago. And our conference is being held on a University Campus (in fact, still called the University of the Free State). Most of the students and staff (but not all) are white, as you would expect; and the University plant is every bit as privileged and posh.

But first thing this morning one of the options presented to us before the official start of the Congress programme was to visit a Sutu-congregation: a church in a local township, whose services are held in the local indigenous language. About a dozen of us went first to a recent church plant, where we were applauded one by one as we conference delegates introduced ourselves. We were asked to do so in our own native language. So I was the boring one, relative to colleagues from, say, Taiwan or South Korea. The Dutch and German delegates could make themselves understood, at least a bit, because of the proximity of those languages to Afrikaans – which at least some of the Sutu speakers seemed to know. The biggest cheer was reserved for an American who had served for some years as a missionary in the Congo, when she greeted them in what was obviously an African language.

The poverty in the township was startling. No doubt things are better now than 30 years ago, and no doubt there are parts of the world where the poverty is still more extreme. But we have nothing like this in England. Many buildings are still made only of corrugated iron. Most dwellings, packed tightly together, are simple single-storey boxes of breeze-block or brick, maybe 5m by 5m, with a corrugated iron roof, often weighted in place only by more breeze blocks and brick-piles. Inside there may be one room, or two or possibly three; no more. Many homes still have outdoor toilets. Most of the township roads are not metalled, but are still just dusty, rutted tracks.

We went on to a full-scale church service. It was a bit odd to sit through a 25 minute sermon of which I didn’t understand a word… it was an exposition of Jeremiah 23.1-9, all very impassioned, but all incomprehsensible because it was all in Sutu. Somehow the language barrier mattered much less when it came to the hymn-singing. Not only could I sway gently to the music (I was probably among the less inhibited of those present, but it felt a bit like sharing the dance-floor with a bunch of teenagers at a disco: if you can’t compete, and imitation will look phoney, you’d best just do your own thing in a relatively inconspicuous way!), but I could also clap to the rhythm (which seemed like the most natural thing in the world in this context, which I don’t often feel at church in England). Even for a person as cerebral and verbal as I am, the meaning of the words didn’t matter too much – the joy in the church was contagious.

Then, after lunch, another joyful surprise… I found that my beloved Newcastle United’s first home game of the season was live on terrestrial TV. So I spent a delicious 45 minutes watching us go 3-0 up against Aston Villa. (I relied on a text from home, however, to tell me the final score was as the Congress began at half time. It was 6-0 – I’ll put that again since I won't often have opportunity – it was 6-0.) This was to be surprised by joy a second time in the day.

The Congress opened with two sessions: a brief act of worship, with the sermon (again, contrary to my apparently prejudiced expectations) delivered by a black pastor, and again with a black gospel choir singing before and after; and then an opening lecture, delivered by Dr Dolf Britz, a member of the theology faculty here and our principal host. He spoke movingly about his conversion to the evil of apartheid and about his painful recognition of his part in bolstering an oppressive structure. This was the third and biggest surprise of the day: ‘I didn’t just steal the land of the indigenous people’, he said, ‘I stole their lives’. He was exploring this against the context of Calvin’s treatment of Isaiah 61.1, and his understanding of Jesus as the fulfilment of the prophecy: ‘the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners’. It was hard not to think of Nelson Mandela in connection with the final clause, and about Archbishop Desmond Tutu in connection with much of the rest.

And did I mention that Newcastle won?

Saturday 21 August: Bains Game Lodge, Bloemfontein

This is work. Honest.

But I confess it's as much pleasure as business ever gets. I arrived safely in Bloemfontein this afternoon and am now settled in the conference accommodation at the Bains Game Lodge (www.bainsgamelodge.co.za -- take a look, you know you’re curious). So here I am, sitting in the late afternoon sunshine under a clear blue sky beside an open air pool, with giraffes and zebras and various other game just out of sight.

The conference begins tomorrow. This is the 10th International Calvin Congress. It meets every four years and brings together scholars with an interest in either the theology of the French reformer, or the history of his time, to review research progress in the interval. A long time ago (it really does begin to feel like a long time), this is the area in which I completed my doctorate – but I’ve had difficulty staying up to date with the subject and I’m expecting to do a lot of catching up in the next six days.

Calvin was born in Noyon, France, in 1509; he left that country as a religious exile in the early 1530s and spent most of the rest of his life acting as a sort of Chief Pastor and City Theologian in Geneva, where he died in 1509. He was probably the first ‘protestant’ (though he would not have known the word) to articulate a coherent theological account of the Christian Faith for non- (or anti-!) Papal churches. For various reasons (most having to do, in my view, with developments in later ‘Calvinism’), he has unfairly become a bigoted and tyrannical figure in the popular imagination. In fact his writings are passionately rooted in the grace of God, giving them (especially if you make allowances for the bloody age in which he lived) an extraordinarily world-affirming and life-affirming flavour. I’ll be attempting to drip-feed into this blog some of the gems in Calvin’s thought over the next week or so.

The journey on from Dubai was pretty uneventful. I slept some of it, or snoozed anyway in half hour bursts. We left at 4.40am local time (1.40am UK time) and arrived in Johannesburg at 10.00am local time (9.00am local time). The flight path basically took us down the east coast of Africa… over the Gulf States and then Ethiopia, Uganda and Tanzania, before moving inland over Zimbabwe. We flew, so the computer consoles at our seats told us, right over Dar es Salaam, and Harare, among other places.

I had a three hour stopover in Jo’burg – during which I think I was probably conned (though not too expensively), over some excess baggage charges. A porter had attached himself assiduously to me in baggage reclaim, and (genuinely helpfully) had guided me through the labyrinthine halls to the right check-in for my onward flight to Bloemfontein. But there he’d had a conspiratorial chat with the check-in staff, and had apologetically explained that my bags were too heavy and that she wanted to charge me an excess fee. I duly handed over a credit card, which was swiped (I mean, through a card reader; I don’t mean it was nicked!). I asked what the charges would be and he (not she) explained that it would be one figure if applied to the card and a second figure if paid in cash. Like a lemon, I opted for the lower figure and paid cash. It was only as I walked away that I realised that i) I had no receipt; ii) I had no proof that any charge was due; and iii) I may yet discover that I paid both by credit card and in cash. Not to worry. Haviing already had a glimpse from the plane of the poverty in which many black South Africans are still living – the townships are visible from the air – it’s hard to escape a feeling that a little appropriate redistribution of the worlds wealth was taking place, that’s all.

The good people of the University of the Free State met me on arrival, and delivered me to the Bains Game Lodge, where I arrived soon after Pakistan had sealed their Test victory over England – and in time to follow the afternoons Premier League football. The Chelsea-Wigan game (6-0) was on terrestrial TV here, when it will not have been in England.

This trip is work, though, I repeat – honest.

Bloemfontein-bound

I’m an hour into a four-hour stopover at Dubai International Airport, after a six hour flight from Birmingham, en route to South Africa. When I set off, England were comfortably placed at 130 for 2 on the third day of the third cricket Test against Pakistan. By the time I landed we'd collapsed to 221 for 9. Hmmm.... From here it’s another seven hours to Johannesburg and then an hour’s hop to my initial destination at the University of the Free State in Bloemfontein. I'll find lots more to say about that in the next few days, I guess - but basically I'm combining a conference on the legacy of the reformer John Calvin (on whom see my blog to celebrate his 500th birthday last year, at http://petewilcoxblogspot.blogspot.com/2009/07/calvins-500th-anniversary.html) with a visit to the Diocese of Matlosane, which is partnered with our own Diocese of Lichfield.

This is my third visit to Dubai, but I’ve yet to get out of the airport. But then, the airport is vast: a city in itself. It must surely have taken over from Singapore as the air-gateway to the southern hemisphere and the east. When I was last here, in 2008, it was a building site. Planes had to land about a mile from the main terminal, and everything depended on shuttle-buses.

Now it’s state of the art and huge – 200+ departure gates, to all kinds of exotic destinations in China and the Far East, Australia and New Zealand, all parts of Africa and the Indian sub-continent… all those cities we’ve heard of, but wil almost certainly never go to… Hyderabad, Dar es Salaam, Osaka, Jakarta. As a result, the aiport is just a great place to people-watch. Every skin colour and ethnic group passes by and every imaginable language can be heard. The facilities are terrific – not least, laptop charging points here there and everywhere, with free wifi (or weefee as I discovered recently it is pronounced in France).

I’m flying with Emirates. Very comfy for a long haul. The journey today took us east from Birmingham over the North Sea, across the Baltic and over Poland, then turning south over Hungary and then Turkey, Iraq and Iran, to the Arabian Peninsula… Abu Dhabi, Bahrain and Dubai.

Flying over Iraq felt odd – not just because of the recent history (and the withdrawal of the last US combat troops just this week), but because of all the ancient (and for me, especially the biblical background). We flew over the River Tigris, which gets a mention in Genesis 2. Modern day Iraq is ancient Ur of the Chaldees, and Babylon – and of course Babel, which brings us back to this amazing multi-cultural, multi-lingual airport!