What word sums up your life?

It being Valentine's time of year and all that, the Harper ventured across the portals of the Scribbler Card shop in Victoria Station. Didn't really know what to expect (and I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised) but there was almost unmitigated filth shouting its underhand-wares from the counter tops... the business is built around the word "muck" (and its less happy friends...)

The pleasant young man behind the counter said that, apparently, that "muck" is good for business. Interesting if you think about the heart being attracted by what it finds that it feeds on most: the word 'beauty' in Greek is 'kalein' - to call. Kinship being that which attracts, I'm not sure if most people would wish to own up to kinship with the sort of thing/word that was used on the front of the large majority of the cards at the shop - wouldn't you clean that sort of thing off the bathroom floor!!!???

Please, if you are so minded, do go and have a look - and maybe a complain - for yourself. I toyed with taking a photo of the display for blog purposes, but thought rather not.

Nick the Bapvic and I were talking about the moral issues involved for the businessperson who owns the chain. Should they be making money/creating jobs/paying tax and exploring their talent to do so whatever the cost? Or should they be seeking something other than the 'mucky dollar' first? Maybe even seeking the Kingdom...


What one word sums up your life? It's a good question I think. I've once or twice thought I liked the word 'Hope' as a sort of watchword: Hopeful is a character in Pilgrim's Progress as some may remember.

If I had to express an opinion about it, I'd probably vote against allowing cards of 50's housewives plus four letter word/euphemistic caption to be sold. One on its own doesn't look so offensive but multiply it by a few hundred and it begins to get pretty aggressive...


FOUR LETTER WORD EUPHEMISM INUENDO SEXUAL CONNOTATION KNOWING COMMENT SARCASTIC ASIDE DEMEANING PHRASE SUBTLE PUTDOWN GRAPHIC IMAGE OF INTERCOURSE WORD REFERRING TO EFFLUENT WORD SUGGESTING ONANISM BODY PART OF MAN SLANG FOR GENITALS IMPLICATION FOR BODY PART OF WOMAN PERSON CONSIDERED ONLY ON GROUNDS OF POTENTIAL SEXUAL GRATIFICATION PERSON REFERRED TO BY THEIR SEXUAL ATTRACTIVENESS AND WITH NO OTHER REGARD FOR THEIR PERSON SIZE OF GENITALS HINTED AT SLANG WORD FOR HOMOSEXUAL TOURETTES DISEASE MOCKED BECAUSE OF ITS ASSOCIATION WITH VULGAR LANGUAGE SWEAR WORD BLASPHEMOUS REFERENCE TO CHRIST MOCKING REFERENCE TO PERSON OR PERSONS OF PARTICULAR SEXUAL ORIENTATION.......

You get the picture?

If that 'merry list' is unpleasant enough to read in the format used, imagine it without the little drapery above and in the direct form. And that's good for business???!!!

'Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things.'
Philippians 3:8

Sow an action reap a habit; sow a habit reap a character; sow a character reap a destiny.

Meanwhile, I've got to be careful of 'casting first stones...' but there's a war on, and people at Scribbler don't seem to realise the fighting is taking place right over their shop counter,  and they're the victims...!

Shocked of Battersea.

Grazie!