This month we’re loving

Supermarkets now all hand out free monthly magazines to their shoppers. These are usually glossy publications with recipes and promotions of particular products. The Co-op magazine is particularly good and the Marks and Spencers food magazine (‘What’s Fresh at M&S’) is particularly bad. I only noticed this because I rarely shop for food at M&S, but their August 2019 edition includes an article that intrigued me. This is headed:
    ‘This month we’re loving... Our celebrity tasting panel take their pick from our new summer-ready treats’.
The four celebrities are Emma Willis, Paddy McGuiness, Amanda Holden and Rochelle Humes. Each have supposedly selected a different M&S food product and include a sentence in its praise. For instance, Emma Willis says “I’m picking the Smoky Chorizo Slices, they really fill you up, they’re tasty and make you feel like you’re on holiday”.

This all invoked a volcano of cynicism within me. Can we believe that these four people take a break from their busy lives to gather and taste a range of food and wines before finally selecting their favourites? Did they actually compose the sentences in the praise of each product? Or is it more likely that they just attached their names to this advert drafted by an advertising agency in exchange for a fee plus a smidgen of the publicity needed to maintain a celebrity career? If my cynical views are correct, then there is a further question: why should anyone be influenced by what three presenters and an actress recommend? None have, as far as I know, claimed any expertise in the appreciation of food and wine. But I suspect that the marketing men know what they are doing. People are most likely to be influenced by those they admire, and the greatest admiration is for people who appear on television.

Hymns, ancient and modern and incomprehensible.

One of the more miserable features of my secondary schooling (apart from sport, the cadet force, Saturday morning attendance and the dreary lessons) was morning assembly. This followed the practice at that time of a broadly Christian service comprising the Lords Prayer, various other prayers, and a couple of hymns. It was all rounded off by an address by the headmaster about various school matters. These occasionally included warning and admonishments about behaviour in the showers after sports day. Since I left for home as soon as possible after compulsory sport and avoided the showers, I had no idea what he was warning us against.

I also had no idea what the various hymns were supposed to mean. There were a few that had good tunes that could be sung with enthusiasm (Jerusalem, He who would Valiant be, Oh God our help in Ages Past), but most were dreary affairs. Even worse, their words simply made no sense. One I particularly puzzled over was Teach me my God and King. I now learn from Wikipedia that it was based on a 17th Century poem called The Elixir, written by George Herbert. The most obscure verse was:

‘A man that looks on glass,
        On it may stay his eye;
Or if he pleaseth, through it pass,
        And then the heav'n espy.’

But this verse was hardly any better:

‘A servant with this clause
         Makes drudgery divine:
Who sweeps a room as for Thy laws,
         Makes that and th' action fine.’

Even the hymns with good tunes were obscure: Jerusalem seemed to aspire for a better society, which struck me as a good idea. He who Would Valiant Be suggested that we should aim to be pilgrims. What that could involve was unclear, although I understood this better a few years later when I read John Bunyan’s book Pilgrim’s Progress. My incomprehension extended to Christian theology. I never understood the idea of the Holy Trinity and still do not.

This might of course indicate a failure on my part to comprehend abstract thought. Other people do not seem so handicapped. For several centuries, different factions of Christians argued over the precise nature of the Holy Trinity, as well as transubstantiation and justification by faith.  These arguments have at times involved warfare, persecution, torture and execution. This willingness to consider slaughter to defend an abstract idea is not of course exclusive to Christianity or religion in general. In the 20th Century, millions have been led to their death in the name of such secular abstractions as ‘the nation’, ‘communism’, ‘democracy’ or ‘fascism’. The hymns and prayers of my schooldays now seem only a feeble protection against such evil.