Shopping for God

Muahahahaha...after the school programmes this morning, Lori insisted we go to lunch still in our witch costumes. We went to the Cactus Cub Lounge, not a particularly up market place, but we drew quite a range of reactions from being blanked to having a guy come over and insist on showing us a magic trick. It was fun, but itchy.

When the guy had shown us his magic trick, I said to Lori,
'You've pulled.' And yet again, I failed horribly to explain this most British of expressions, so anyone who would like to try, be my guest.

Especially for Canadian Karen, the little girl from Saturday night who was afraid of her father, was in the front row this morning. She clearly survived the weekend.
'You have a British accent,' she said,
'English,' I corrected her because she had threatened to kill me Saturday, also because there is an RP English accent which I in fact have, but until they come up with one that is RP and encompasses Scottish, Northern and Southern Irish and Welsh too, I shall continue to correct.

When the play was over, she was first in line to go into the Haunted House, but she wouldn't move. After a couple of minutes all the rest of the kids were shouting at her to go in. I was prepared to just push her in but felt it might get Lori into hot water so didn't.

So, in other news, interestingly, it turns out that black women are responsible for the high numbers of young black men in gaol. How fascinating. Yes, they are far too independent which apparently and without any logical link, forces black men to commit crimes. Ah, hang on, could it be that black men who commit crimes end up in gaol? Could THAT be the link? I think I've discovered something.
Sleepy and I used to continually have to deal with a black kid at Mayhem whose behaviour was appalling. Without fail he would claim that he was disciplined because he was black. Without fail we retorted that he was disciplined because his behaviour was dreadful. He even tried this line on a member of my department who was from Senegal. She looked him up and down and said,
'Boy, I am WAY blacker than you.' And she was.

And of course if black women are responsible for crimes by black men, it turns out, yet again, that women are responsible for being raped. Jess McCabe of the F-Word deals with this tired and poisonous old chestnut. It's this simple. Whatever the circumstances, just don't rape.
I do love that the Muslim cleric is called the mufti though. Gives new meaning to mufti day.

After the miracle of the safe driver yesterday, for some reason my attention was drawn back to the Richmond Christian school this morning. It is on a stretch of road which is like a strip mall for places of worship.
In most places, if you set up as a Church, however spurious, you can avoid taxes. In Richmond, if you set up on designated farmland and promise to farm a proportion of it you can avoid taxes.
On a short section of Five Road are the following places of worship that have done just that, only they have forgotten they need to do the farming bit. In a row is, the Bethel church, The India Cultural centre (looks like a really big Mosque), the Islamic Cultural Centre (looks like a really big Mosque), a Buddhist Temple, the Vedic Cultural Centre, the Peace Evangelical Free Church, the Chinese Evangelical Church and the Baptist Evangelical Church. These are not small buildings, the Buddhist Temple is the size of a small asteroid.

No Synagogue though. Perhaps there aren't so many Chinese Jews, who knows.
Me, I'm off to my place of worship - well one of them at any rate - Ikea, I hear you calling.