English lacks a number of what could be quite useful words,particularly in the suffix departments labelled, ful and less.(Thats full to people in the USA.)

Just to take an example, think of the word, wrongful.We use this in relation to a person beingunjustly arrested.Surely the wordshould be wrongless.If youve donenothing wrong, then how can your arrest be described as wrong-ful?

We think of certain kinds of marriage as loveless.Why then dont we call those marriages thatlast for 50 or 60 years you know the Darby and Joan kind that get reported inthe paper as loveful?What aboutthe person who wins several prizes at once in Lotto?Isnt he luckful?(If ever I have occasion to possess a Lottoticket, I can always be described by the more familiar luckless.)

And dont we often wish politicians were more speechlessthan speechful, and would let us have a truthful earful?

Isnt it curious that we describe certain kinds of sunlessrooms as airless, when in fact only a vacuum can be airless.All rooms are airful, though not all aresunful.

One of the most commonly used adjectives is awful, whichis a shortened form of what used to be a word of great strength: awe-full,meaning full of awe.It would be farmore accurate to describe most awful things these days by its opposite.We should be using that awkward littlesquashed down word, awless.

Turning to another awless area of life, dentists must bepleased that we are toothful rather than toothless.Equally chiropodists should be pleased withfootful people even if they are wearing footless tights or fingerlessgloves.(Actually havent you thoughthow much more couth it would be to give someone a fingerful rather than afistful?Though Im usually prettyfistless when it comes to such occasions.)

Im sure the peaceful would like to see a lot more hatelesspeople around them, while most mothers would be grateful for willess children,rather than grateless and wilful ones (when you use the word willess however,you can see why its never really made the grade.And should it be spelt with two ls orthree?)

Actually I was being truthless when I said Id made alengthy study of this matter.Theseendful curiosities first distracted me in the middle of listening one morningat church to an otherwise interesting sermon.

It was there that I saw that weve managed to retain sometwin words.Even in our less thanGodful society we still have sinful and sinless, faithful and faithless,graceful and graceless, joyful and joyless, fearful and fearless.

How come all these kept their opposites, when lustful has nolustless, or topless no topful, or bottomless no bottomful?(The mind boggles.)

I guess they were successful instead of successless.

PS. Thanks for mydaughters listful help.

This item first appeared on my old WorkReport.blog back in 2011. Unfortunately, like everything else on that blog, it was deleted summarily by the company who ran it. I've included it here because it's linked to from another blog.

Anglian Worms is a small business run mostly by AmandaJennings on an industrial estate some eight miles past Fakenham inNorfolk.The business works out of acouple of former Nissan huts.

Amandas been running the business for around 18 months, andis only now beginning to make some profit out of it.She has a farming background, and saysfarmers in general are helpful to one another when it comes to problems anddifficulties.Worm farmers, though, arekeen on keeping their secrets.

The first hut has an office, small worm plastic boxes,larger wooden-encased sections, and a lot of horse manure.Plastic sheeting heats up the manure andcooks it, making the process of breaking it down a good deal quicker.

In the second hut there are some twenty large boxes set onthe concrete floor. They were built by her husband (whos a farmer) and arearound three metres by two. A few thousand worms live in each of these - andmultiply.

Like any business, the biggest issues come with themarketing. (Though the physical work involved in worm farming is considerabletoo). Worms can be sold to fishermen - via fishing shops - to home gardeners,and in some other areas.However,getting a foothold in these areas is a major task, one thats still taking up agood deal of Amandas time.With theincrease of interest in things ecological, however, she seems to be in theright business.

Worms dont need much looking after: watering when itswarm, and feeding. In Anglian Worms case the food comes from a combination ofthe horse manure and peat. The heavy work is in turning the horse manure,filling up the boxes, and packing.Hardest of all is sorting out worms from the peat/manure mix. This is done by hand, one or two worms at atime.

Having the large box containers on the ground bringsproblems in terms of needing to bend over and reach down to get the worms.If she was starting again, Amanda says shedmake her worms more accessible.

I could probably get on and dosome more of the novel, but its near ten, and I dont know if I want to getonto it tonight. Apart from that, its not warm in here, and Im in the middleof a bit Im not enjoying muchalthough at least Im writing it. I went back andbegan the sequence Id missed out earlier because I couldnt work out how to doit. It wasnt nearly so hard as I thought. In fact, its never the writing thatshard, its the getting started, and yes, I know I should write at least fiveminutes if nothing else, but five minutes is never enough to get into it.

Note all the excuses: too late inthe evening, not warm in the room, writing a section Im not enjoying writing, five minutes isn't long enough to get started.

On the other hand, note that I was still writing the bit I wasn't enjoying - when I wasn't procrastinating. Furthermore I'd gone back to a section Idmissed out before, discovering Id worked out how to do it in the meantime. (I think I'm talking about two different sections here in the journal, but I might not be.)

Perhaps seemingly least, but not necessarily: Its better to write for five minutesthan for no minutes.

Procrastination is my biggest problem. One excuse I didn't use here is: 'I don't know if it's worth carrying on with this book because I've had so many problems with it.' But problems are part and parcel of putting a story together, especially if there's anything complex in the plotting. I've had immense problems with the latest children's story I've been writing for what now seems like years. And have solved most of them eventually. No doubt, since I'm probably only halfway through it, there will be more problems to come.

Anywho, I'm impressed with my younger journal self; I was 60 at the time. I was prepared to keep on writing through a section I wasn't enjoying. Not that this meant it wasn't a good piece to work on, but that it was hardto write.

And it's also encouraging to see that I'd sensibly had left a section aside when I couldn't sort out how to do it - this required guts on my part because I don't like leaving (writing) things undone. even now. But better still, the problem with the section, whatever it was, actually got solved by the fact of leaving it aside.

Lastly: it's better to write for five minutes than not write at all. Why, do you ask? I'm sure you already know the answer, but I'll jot it down anyway, as a reminder to myself as much as anything else. It's better to write for five minutes, because once we've got into that five minutes, we usually carry on writing, and not only does more get done than we anticipated, we remember how much we enjoy the sheer fact of writing...

I first became enthused about rememberingpeoples names when I read an article in the Readers Digest - an entire bookon memorization had been condensed into a mere three pages.

The article claimed you could recallpeoples names by associating the uniqueness of their faces with some relatedobject.Perhaps, I thought, this wouldhelp me keep track of who my customers were.But when I looked for the complete book at the library what did Idiscover?The last borrower had forgotten to bring it back.

Fortunately this is a subject on whichthere are plenty of books, so I borrowed something else.

I discovered that this association methodis a common memory trick, but I also discovered that its very difficult tomake conversation with a complete stranger while simultaneously focusing ontheir facial features.

Suppose you meet a Mrs Burton.You may note that her furrowed browresembles her namesake Richard in his latter days.Your brain cells may connect this to craggyWelsh mountains or coalminers safety helmets or How Green Was My Valley.

But while youre doing all this mentalleaping and bounding, Mrs Burton may be wondering whether youre anunenthusiastic conversationalist, or merely someone whos on too muchmedication.

And six weeks later shell be startled tobe addressed as Mrs Green, or even Mrs Taylor.

Then theres Mr Brown, a man who hasnt asingle outstanding feature about him.Peering at his face is like looking for an oasis in the Sahara.The likelihood is that in future meetingsyoull call him Mr Bland.

Anyone whos had to attend any sort ofgathering will have noted how hosts insist on introducing you to people in anoffhand way, tossing in a word or two about them, and then dragging you off tomeet someone else.Or they throw aroomful of faces at you and say, Let me tell you all these peoplesnames.And, encouragingly, they add,Of course youll forget them anyway.

Worse, even in Anglican circles, wheretradition ought to reign, people no longer introduce others by both Christianand surnames.It becomes a majorundertaking to hang hooks on a succession of Georges, Bills, Bobs and Brians,let alone Claires, Susans, Gillians and Joans.

Having practiced hard at home, I know thatthe memory system works - and my brain knows it too.But given the opportunity to multi-task, mybrain prefers to sulk.

Perhaps Ill have to adopt the irritatingapproach someone recently used at church, on me.During our conversation, while I struggledto scan his face for spots or scars, cleft chins or twitches, this newacquaintance hammered my name onto the end of every sentence.

I have no idea who he was.But at least I remember who I am.

This piece was originally intended for the column in the NZ Anglican magazine,Taonga.

Hi,my names Mike Crowl, and I need to confess that Im a bookaholic.I dont have any control over this - itisnt helped by the fact that I have to work in a bookshop.My life has become unmanageable. Well, its not my life so much as mybookshelves theyre unmanageable.

Can I blame them for my condition?Oh, I cant.

Imtold that a Power greater than myself can restore me to sanity, but the problemis, Im sort of working for that particular Power, because its a Christianbookshop

Soits His fault.Oh, I cant blame Himeither.

ApparentlyIm supposed to turn my will and life over to the care of God - as I understandHim. Hmm, according to what I do understand, Hes infinitely superiorto me in every respect, so I only understand a little bit of Him.No excuse, huh?

Ineed to make a searching and fearless inventory - of my bookshelves.This should be fun!Oh, you mean I need to do it now, not whenIve finally read all the books.Actually I may not read them all Ive only just caught up with oneIve had for thirty years.

I have to admit to God, and myself, and toanother human being, the exact nature of my wrongs.The trouble is, that the bloke I share my shop withis a secondhand bookshop dealer, and hes even more of a bookaholic than Iam.My wife reads books; my Aged Parentreads books (some of them several times over); my children read books. Oh, whatshall be done with me, wretched man that I am!

Am I entirely ready to have God remove mydefects and shortcomings?Does this meanI have to send all these books to the local secondhand dealer?But I work with one!

So I need to make a list of all personsIve offended by lending books to them? Does anyone remember who they lendbooks to?Shouldnt I be asking all myfriends why they havent given the books back to me?

Ive got to make direct amends to suchpeople where possible?Have I got topay them for borrowing my own books off me?

Right, so I need to make a personalinventory.Right, so I spend severalweeks putting all the books on my computer and then Ill know whos borrowedthem.Oh, I dont think Im quitegetting the picture here and Im not sure how some of this stuff is helpingme with my problem.

Okay, so Ive had a spiritual awakeningas a result of following these steps, and tried to carry this message toothersbut, just a minute, if I tell them Im a bookaholic, will they still buyany books from me?

MaybeI need to join a different group like a monthly book reading club.

This piece was originally intended for the column in the NZ Anglican magazine,Taonga.

Classic long books are full of greatthings, rubble and trivia and most deserve to be read more than once.

This year I became a member of theIve-read-The-Lord-of-the-Rings-twiceClub, though I must admit it was a struggle.I was determined to re-read it, having what I thought were fond memoriesfrom thirty years ago of my first reading, and inspired by the three movies,but it turned out to be a sometime exciting, sometime turgid, sometimeoverblown, sometime extraordinary book.With songs.

Ive also discovered that Im an honorarymember of the I-dont-seem-to-be-able-to-finish-a-book-by-Thackeray Club.Neither BeckySharp or Barry Lyndon havemanaged to entice me beyond the half way mark. Something more interesting has always turned up, and these two languishunacknowledged in their peculiar long-winded story-telling.

Last year I read The Count of Monte Cristo.Its as if, as I get older, I need to take an annual journey into somehuge novel, in order to say Ive done it, or just to prove I can stick withit.This book, like many of AlexandreDumas, was hastily written, with some sections thrown together monthsapart.Theres no doubt its badlyplotted (a colleague wrote the outline, apparently) and it has a longdigression in the centre.The hero is astrangely uneven character, some of the characters behave very oddly, and yetits extraordinarily enjoyable.

When these 19^th century serialwriters are at the top of their form, they plunge your imagination into what isbest about storytelling.At their worstyou have to keep reminding yourself that they wrote to horrific deadlines and hadto get something out to theirreaders, even if that something was mostly padding.(Dickens seems to be one of the few serialwriters who was able to overcome this problem by his sheer genius andhumour.)

Id love to sit down and read some of themagain: the Anthony Trollope Barchesterseries, many of Dickens best novels (Ive read Bleak House twice which has one of Dickens more sympatheticallyportrayed Christian characters in it), and Middlemarch,that wondrous achievement of George Eliots, which wasnt produced in serial format, and which she abandoned afterwriting some hundreds of pages, and began again.*

But will I live long enough?

This piece was originally intended for the column in the NZ Anglican magazine, Taonga.

* I havelived long enough to read Middlemarchagain; there were some disappointments, some oddities, and quite a bit of enjoyment. I've written a rough review on Goodreads which I'll add here:

My memory of this book was that it was terrific, and a wonderful read. Well, I was younger then, and something about it must have clicked with me to think so.

This second time round, I found some of it turgid, to say the least. I didn't enjoy Eliot's author comments much, although they, like everything else, improved as the book went on. I found it took a long time to get moving, and yet the last 100 pages or so are top notch, moving along faster than you can keep up. It's as if she spends most of the book setting things up, and then all of it comes to a great climax at the end. It's just that the setting up is long-winded.

I didn't enjoy her minor, representative characters who she introduces into certain sections as a kind of chorus on the events. Apart from their general meanspiritedness, they all sound much the same, and you feel there might have been a better way to do this. Compare these to minor characters in Dickens, who often outshine some of the leading characters!

Sometimes she explains her characters far too much, and doesn't give them room to explain themselves - which they certainly can do, when allowed. However, these explanations are interesting for their psychological insight, and are certainly ahead of their time, coming closer perhaps to Henry James in their style.

I wonder how many readers over the years have breathed an enormous sigh of relief when the abominable Mr Casaubon dies, somewhat prematurely, and alone. Now, you think, things will improve for Dorothea. Nope, they don't much, and in fact things go far downhill for several of the characters before the book ends. But Eliot doesn't leave us at the bottom: perhaps improbably she lets Mary Grant and Fred Vincy marry; Fred never really seems to have changed, although Eliot claims he has. She finally allows Will and Dorothea to marry, which is a relief, too, but Lydgate and his self-centred wife are condemned, you might say, to struggle on for two or three more decades. Not everything can be solved in this particular world.

The book is about a lot more than the married lives of its characters: politics and reform, medicine in a time of transition, money and greed, Christianity and the lack of it. There are almost too many subjects for one book. But at least it has a heroine with spunk (even if she is missing for chapters at a time in some parts of the book) and a few men who are mostly her equal. None of your wishy-washy Dickensian heroines here...!

Why read about Bach?Well, in recent years I find Im playing hismusic more and more and enjoying it.I was introduced to him some forty-five years ago by a teacher wiseenough to believe that students should get to know great music even if itdidnt necessarily enthral them.The teacherrecommended laying out good money on the two volumes of the 48 Preludes andFugues, and I did.I learned a fewscattered pieces, sight-read those I could get away with (without the teacherknowing) and ignored the rest.But itwas like puddling in Bachs paddling pool, rather than swimming with him in theocean.

Thetwo volumes travelled with me to England and back, lost their covers, andoccasionally got a dusting off - mostly to see if I could still get my fingersround their intricacies.

Butnow, in my grandfather years, Ive begun some dedicated work on theseastonishing compositions, and the efforts been rewarded so mightily all I cando is enthuse about their creator.

Thereare passages in Bach when you feel as though youre doing a kind of knitting except Bach never bothers with plain and purl.There are places where youthink the piece should finish, but the grand old genius frolics on for anotherdozen delectable bars.Sometimes hestops right in the middle of something and hives off in another direction, at adifferent tempo, and with different material.How unbaroque!

Thereare bars when the clashing chords are so twentieth-century you ask: did he knowhe was preempting Stravinsky or Messiaen?Sometimes hes so intent of keeping thevarious voices running that hell swap them back and forth between the handsuntil the brain goes into meltdown.(Eidam says Bach could effortlessly hold half a dozen different voicesin his head, being thoroughly aware of them at all times.)

Orhe writes passages of astonishing mathematical structure, taking a subject andplaying itself against itself, upside-down, back to front, slower, faster andnot just one voice against another, but several together.(He often improvised in such a way withoutblinking an eye.)

Andthen there are the sublime moments.Inthe middle of something thats already taken wings he opens a window to heaven just for a couple of bars. You wonder if God hadnt elbowed him aside -Excuse me, Jo! - and written those bars himself.

Irecall one particular Bach orchestral concert in London.There was a moment in the evening when themusicians, the audience and the angels took off, skimming along Bachs greatriver of joy in such a way that forty years later I still get emotional at thethought of it.

Whata man!

This piece first appeared in The Juggling Bookie column in the New Zealand Anglican magazine,Taonga.It was written in 2005

If youre going to complicate your life,make sure you do it thoroughly.Julyand August this year were jam-packed with complications.

Id been asked to take the part of MrBeaver in a full-length adaptation of TheLion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.Julywas rehearsal month, with five performances in the last week.I havent acted in a play for at leastthirty years, so not only did I have to learn a heap of lines, I had to workout how to build a character from scratch, how to relate to other people on thestage, and how to ignore the fact that during the performances various closerelatives sat scrutinizing my every move.

To my surprise, I was able to forget who Iwas and become exuberant and eloquent.Furthermore I shared with around fifty people that wonderful sense ofbeing part of something larger than myself, and actually did the thing wellenough to impress the aforesaid relatives.

However, as soon as the play was over, Iwent straight from that euphoric state into intensive preparations for shiftingour shop, and then into the hard work of the shift itself.All within a fortnight.

We last shifted four and half years ago,and werent planning on moving again in a hurry.Loathe to vacate, I didnt organise thisshift as well as the previous one, and when, on the Saturday, I finally stoodin the midst of a sea of boxes and shelves all thrown togetherhiggledy-piggledy into a room Id thought previously was more than spacious, mybrain said, Im out of here, and refused to function.

Nevertheless, with a little forcefulencouragement from my wife, my brain returned to its normal working habits, andwe began the task of putting things where they were most likely to spend thenext stage of their lives.

Now I had to play the part of The Manager,a role that doesnt allow for time off in the dressing room. And while all of us, volunteers and staff,had a sense of being part of something much bigger than ourselves, I dontthink wonderful came into it.

Equally, Im not sure that on this occasionI managed to impress the rellies as well as I did in the play. Playing yourself isnt half as entertainingas playing a Beaver.

This piece first appeared in The Juggling Bookie column in the New Zealand Anglican magazine,Taonga.It was written in 2005

It pays for Christian booksellers to have acouple of side talents: being able to pick winners at the races, for one, andbeing able to juggle.

They have to have a nose for up-and-comingwinners, or, as theyre called in the trade: the latest trends.In my decade or so of being a Christianbookseller, Ive seen several trends push to the top of the pile, including aFeminist trend, a Spirituality trend, a Spiritual Warfare trend, and, perhapsmost famously, a Celtic Christianity trend.

I remember when you could put the wordCeltic in front of anything, and people would lap it up.Celtic Christmas music?Yep, there are still a couple of those albumson our shelves.But what about, How toCelebrate a Celtic Ascension, or the Celtic Book of Herbs and Garnishes, orBible Stories for Little Celtic Ears?

Im kidding.Though people have thought OC Books was short for Outstanding Celtic Books.)*

Now the latest trend is Postmodernism:Postmodern Evangelism, Postmodern Preaching, and how to find the real gospel inThe Simpsons, Harry Potter and The Matrix.Alternative Worship is only a neckbehind.Hmm, I see that the slowstarter, Islam, is coming up fiercely on the outside.

Booksellers juggling in their shops mightkeep the punters amused for a time, but I really mean it to represent jugglingour customers broad-ranging requirements.

The feminists will want to know whyRosemary Radford Ruether and Elizabeth Schussler Fiorenza havent got thewindow to themselves, while the End Times patriots will be sure the Last Dayshave come if you havent got all of theLeft Behind series on a massive display-stand just inside the door, andadditional copies in precarious stacks on the counter.(Having feminists in the window may alsogive them cause for concern.)

HillSongs will be blaring from speakers at one end of the shop while Taize sings demurely (and occasionallyout of tune) at the other.

Woe betide if youre a new Christian, orworse, a Seeker.The overwhelming rangeof material catering for every species of Christian - except those who dontyet know anything - is likely to send them back to Whitcoulls for a no-frillsno-pictures NIV.

No doubt Christian Booksellers throughouthistory have always had to deal with a broad range of tastes:Got the latest Manichean in yet, mate?Ive done me dash with those Gnosticnovels.

This piece first appeared in The Juggling Bookie column in the New Zealand Anglican magazine,Taonga.It was written in 2003, and was the first column under the Juggling Bookie masthead.

*Otago Christian Books

Image courtesy Penguin Random House

At the time the NZ Catholics film critic, Graeme Evans, reviewed Dogville, I hadnt seen the movie.Nevertheless I was puzzled about his claimthat conventional religion is now regarded as box office poison, and that theonly way in which film-makers can present religious content is by disguisingit, and conning the audience.

Well, Ive now seen the movie, beensurprised, shocked and amazed by it, and perplexed that anyone could miss thepoint that the main character, Grace, suffers increasingly as she offers(Divine) grace to the most ornery collection of villagers youve everseen.(People have missed the point, however: some reviewers saw it as an attackon America.)

Dogville, which hasnt been widely distributed in NZ, requires its audienceto spend most of the film thinkingabout what they see.No easythree-point sermon here.

In the last couple of decades, theology hasincreasingly been debated in movies, many of them made in Hollywood.

Leaving the oddball Christian connotations of TheMatrix trilogy aside, there areplenty of other movies dealing with religion, God and spirituality, often witha Christian perspective.

Some of them are fantasies, such as JimCarreys two movies, The Truman Showand Bruce Almighty. (Carreys Liar, Liar is another moral movie.)

I delighted in the way God was presented inBruce Almighty.His Hehas sense of humour is infinitely more subtle than Bruces, He haswisdom, wit and compassion, and you have no doubt He knows what Hes doing.

Then theres Brother, Where Art Thou?, whichin spite of being based on Homers Odyssey, not only has a river baptism sceneearly in the piece and a redemption scene much later (in the midst of a KuKlux Klan meeting, no less), but sports a one-eyed prophet (Cyclops he turnsup in Dogville too) who sets the maincharacter thinking very seriously about Gods providence.

The peculiar Keeping the Faith dramatizes the moral dilemmas of a Rabbi and aCatholic priest. The Rabbi comes off asthe lesser moral character, seeming to have no compunction about making madpassionate love to a woman hes not married to, while the priest actuallystruggles to overcome the same temptation.

Theres the very strange Dogma, which for all its crazy casting,foul language and off-the-wall moments, still asks solid questions about whyhumans are offered grace, and why Christ should have died for them.(God appears in two guises in this one,alongside angels, demons and a very strange toilet monster.Dont ask.)

And theres The Man Who Sued God.Ifyou can get past Billy Connellys foul-mouthed leading character, youll findthe film is interested in matters much deeper than whether the insurance notionof an Act of God has any real meaning.

Finally, theres Signs, in which Mel Gibson makes a better case for belief in God,perhaps, than he does in The Passion.

Disguised or not, con-job or not,spirituality no longer seems to be box-office poison.

A scene from Dogville

This piece was written for The Juggling Bookie column in the New Zealand Anglican magazine,Taonga, in 2004, but possibly not published at the time.

Last year we began dancing classes.Coming in a bit late, at week three, wefound the other learners still trying to get their feet to do as they weretold.Without looking at them.While smiling.

Wethought it would be really difficult, but soon discovered it doesnt take a lotof talent to dance.Most people canmove in time and get the steps right.Itjust takes practice.

Weassumed at first wed learn enough to get us into the Rogers/Astaire mode, butno: we were learning Rounddancing.(Thats right, as opposed to Square.)Round dancing uses common steps like the Cha Cha, the Rumba, and the Two-Step - but only as a basis for an infinite number of variations. And in order not to have to remember thesequence of all these variations, a caller tells you whats coming up next, andyou get on and do it.

Thus, allied to the art of keeping yourfeet from tripping over themselves - or your partners - is the art ofremembering what these variations require you to do.Many of the names bear little relation tothe movement you perform.Though in the Fence Line you stretch your arms outbefore and behind, in the New Yorker youfling your outside arm back and your inside foot forward.Its easy once you know it, but the reasonfor the title is lost in the mists of choreographic history.

The movements for The Sliding Door, The Scissors and The Hitch (not hitching your trousers up, gents) relate to theirtitles, but the Fan moving into the Hockey Stick is a bit of aconundrum.

In the early weeks, connecting the intendedmovement to their arcane names wasnt too difficult.But when we got to the Two-Step, we foundvariations piled on variations.Theresthe basic box-step, and the reverse box, then progressive boxes (which is amisnomer), left boxes (which go full circle) and a broken box - whichisnt.Its both frustrating andenlivening, and shows that old brains are as good as new ones at learning.If you practice!

However,the problem with practicing at home is finding enough room.The earlier dances we learnt didnt move toofar from their starting place, but the Two-Step grazes all over the field.By the time weve done an eight-step Crab Walk, weve squeezed through thedoor of our lounge and out into the hall.The following steps take us to the front door; in the wintertime thatswhere we stop, and go into reverse.

Maybe in the summer well open the door,trip lightly down the path and out onto the street where theres not onlyplenty of room, but possibly a ready-made audience.

This piece first appeared in The Juggling Bookie column in the New Zealand Anglican magazine,Taonga.It was written in 2004

Ghost writers used to be invisible.Consider the Holy Ghost Writers who tookdictation from God for the biblical canon.Most were swept into the ranks of Anon, or worse, had their books namedafter someone else.

Back when this column was written I surfed the Net to see if being aChristian ghost writer was a common trade, and found one called Charlene Davis.Charlene (who, to keep therecord straight, is a Christian writerrather than a Christian ghost) used to run a site called busymomsrecipes.com.At that time it had an interactive CDcontaining 42,000 family recipes; a downloadable e-book: Make Your Own GiftBaskets!; and generous five-days-a-week Tips For Busy Moms!

All accompanied by exclamation marks!!

Now when you try and link to busymomsrecipes it seems to take you to some dark place on the Internet.

One of Charlenes ghost-writing ventures was: The Ultimate Baby Naming eBook its proper author was Jesse Horowitz.The book, were told, contains the 21 Biggest Mistakes To Avoid inNaming Your Baby! (How to makeabsolutely certain that youve considered all possible religiousinterpretations of any name before deciding on it) And a foolproof, new way to choose the perfect name for your baby!!

Charlene is also an editor.Im sure shes pleased that editors, likemost ghost writers, are invisible.Oneof her recent jobs was: Confessions of a Womanizer! by Stephen E. Chatman. (Note her influence in the exclamationmark!!)

On hersite Stephen E. Chatman made the following claim: Ordinary mencan't compete [with me] because I am not a regular adorer of women.I am specialized, a champion of sexualdesire.

Hmm.Such comments make me, as a man, want to be invisible.

I said earlier that invisibility was themain trait of ghost-writing.No more.

The famous Left Behind series had a very visible ghost writer in the person ofJerry Jenkins.It appears that TimLahayes contributions to this series consisted of the original idea andthirty-page outlines for each book, or approximately one thirteenth of thetotal series.Lahayes name sold thebooks, but the person who did the hard graft was Jerry Jenkins.

Then the visible ghost writer was GregDinallo, who is mostly known for several fast-paced Cold War thrillers writtenaround the early 90s.Whether he suited Lahayes fastidious readers is another matter: the comment of one reviewerregarding Dinallos own novel, Red Ink,is a little ominous: I would have preferred if this book had been written in invisible ink.

Maybe theres something to be said forbeing unacknowledged, after all.

This piece first appeared in The Juggling Bookie column in the New Zealand Anglican magazine,Taonga.It was written in 2004.The version above has been updated.

While trying to find out whether there are any booksrelating to the topic of Second Childhood (not that Im considering droppinginto it at any moment, or am in real need of figuring out how Ill cope) IGoogled across a particular title that had some relevance to the matter inhand.

Rhymes of second childhood: a gift item for those who at last have come to their senses, byArthur
Stavig.It sounds just the thingI need, except that its out of print.

The curious thing is that it was advertised, along withseveral of Mr Stavigs other titles, on a site entitled Economics Student Books(sic).I couldnt quite see theconnection, except in a peculiarly postmodern sense, but it was a little likegoing out in the rain looking for a dry dog and stumbling over a frozencat.Im sure you understand what Imean.

Perhaps the piece deresistance (if I may be so bold as to show off my electrical learning) ofMr Stavigs featured works, was Dear Elmer: the unuxpurgated (sic) memoirs of a bloviated Norwegian.

Now before you suspect that someone has had a little mishapwith the spelling of Mr Stavigs title in regard to unuxpurgated, a word whichI think henceforth will enter my vocabulary as a way of bemusing mygrandchildren (and perhaps making them think I really have entered my secondchildhood) let me point out that it also appears in with this spelling onAmazon.com.

Bloviated, on the other hand, is a perfectly respectableword, meaning to discourse at length in a pompous or boastful manner. One George Rebeck, (a person who doesnt reside on an Economics site)wrote: the rural Babbitt who bloviates about progress and growth.Hmm.Perhaps my grandkids might think Im bloviated.

This almighty phrase, (which turns up three times in a rowon Google), first appeared in the UtneReader for November/December 1991.

Oh, you want to know what on earth an Utne Reader is?Its a magazine founded in 1984 by one EricUtne, and it reprints the best articles from over 2,000 alternative mediasources.Alternative to what? The Utne Reader?

But we havent finished with the inimitable Arthur, whoplainly has a sense of humour even without his titles being mangled. He also wrote: Things youve always wanted to know about lutefisk but were too politeto ask. As we all know, a lutefiskis a dried cod soaked in a lye solution before its boiled to a gelatinousconsistency.

Oh, if only all of us could reach the stage of gelatinousconsistency!How untroubled the worldwould be.

Or perhaps gelatinous consistency is really just SecondChildhood

This piece first appeared in The Juggling Bookie column in the New Zealand Anglican magazine,Taonga. It was written in 2005

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