1

Today, dear reader, The Morbid Adventures Of Minge is one year old. Hurrah!

I thought today, then, would be a good day to switch to New Blogger. Sadly, I'm not allowed:

Thanks for your interest in the new version of Blogger! Unfortunately, we cannot switch your Blogger account at this time, because one or more of your blogs cannot be moved. Please see our help article for more information.

What a pack of shunts.

My first post contained only one word. I added to this some months later, amending the entry as a part of a contest. Early posts were almost always superficial and typically rants about celebrities. There were no details of adventures and nothing seemed to get morbid. However, it did get morbid eventually, though it took some time, with this adventure.

I started blogging in order to keep in touch with my wee pal, Aaron (that's not his real name). It worked for while, amazingly so, as he's so bad at keeping in touch. We'd both make blog entires about twenty times a day. Then it all went horribly wrong and he deleted his blog. A new one was soon begun, but, sadly, it hardly gets updated.

Not long after starting my blog, I found the NEXT BLOG button and Michèle. I thought she was a wild and interesting bohemian character and began following her musings and adventures. Commenting then became a must and, through comments, I found other bloggers, some of whom went on to becoming great friends, even visiting wee Minge.

I also found that one can search for other bloggers with similar interests to oneself through clicking on the appropriate key words in ones own profile. That's how I found Hildert. He likes Sophie B Hawkins, too.

Blogging is fabulous. One can vent, spread gossip, learn, even make friends. I don't know what I did with all my time before I discovered Blogger. Oh, yes, I had a life, dear reader.

I've just been looking back, dear reader, over all the garbage I've posted over the past twelve months...

I have changed, and here is the proof. However, some things stay the same. I was as obsessed with Big Brother this time last year as I am now. Something else I was obsessed with last year which, sadly, has never been repeated, was a series of ortopsy programmes by Dr Gunther von Hagens. Click here, here and here for a reminder. The pictures (none of which are gory) are more interesting than the text. Oh, and still on the topic of pictures, remember Heath Ledger in the nuddy? And the dirtiest photograph of Will Young pre-Mrs-Henderson-Presents. The last post I'll direct you to, dear reader, for picture alone, is this one. I miss Edith like you wouldn't believe.

Of course, all this was a year ago. A lot has happened since then. Like the founding of Rumours Of Whores! Other highlights concern travel, namely, Brian coming here and me going to Japan with my beautiful beau.

Looking back always makes me look forward, wondering what's to come. I can't claim to have been bored over the past twelve months and am sure not to be during the next twelve. However, I just hope and pray for me, and for you, that our adventures are more exciting than morbid.

Oh, but, shit. I can't let this pass. Exciting! Nice to be morbid.

In honour of this auspicious anniversary day, I hereby offer Happy Birthday by Altered Images. Enjoy.

In other news:

New rules outlawing businesses from discriminating against homosexuals have been upheld in the House Of Lords. Hurrah!

Homosexuality, basically, is providing a Galileo moment in the church and culture, but it’s been overdue since Darwin.

The scriptures assume a flat earth throughout. They know nothing of the human egg and sperm, or any other fact of biology.

Homosexuality is now as obvious as the round Earth. Social stigma long kept same-sex orientation underground, where it could be denied. Religious authoritarians still want it in the closet.

Same-sex people found one another in secret, or kept their relationships quiet. Now that stigma has lessened, gay people are living openly and pairing (or tripling) off. Walk through any urban neighborhood with cafes on a nice evening and you would need willful blindness not to see, and a hard heart not to share, the happiness of same-sex people who are finding joy in one another.

We now realize that scripture offers no wisdom on cosmology, geology, biology, or medicine. In all public areas, the appeal now is to evidence, not tradition or authority. Are "morals" an exception? As others have pointed out, to the extent that the scriptures provide rules, most of them are disregarded nowadays as unreasonable or unworkable. (Forget eating shellfish - Take no thought for the morrow, anyone?)

Nor are the supposed rules about homosexuality all that clear. Leviticus MAY outlaw anal intercourse (what does “sleep the sleep of a female with a male” actually mean?) But many gay men, maybe half, don’t practice anal intercourse – are they in the clear? Paul in his letter to the Romans supposes that sexual perversity is caused by idolatry – which seems unlikely - and he disparages men who turn away from the natural use to lust after other men – but gay men do not turn, they develop so, from the womb.

If the people are the church, they have moved on from the old system of tradition and authority. Experience, reason, and evidence guide us today. Churches command the presence, much less the allegiance, of fewer and fewer. Can the institution move on now, and learn from the people who have moved on? Maybe it has left change until too late, and new forms and associations are arising outside.

Oh, and before I finish this wee rant, I'm reminded of this old chestnut (you need to scroll down a wee bit, dear reader).

I had my last visit to the dentist (for a while) yesterday. My teeth are now fixed, thankfully. Now, if Only the rest of me was in good working order! My dentist is called Mr Jeffrey and he's really nice. I didn't feel a thing. Well, only a wee prick. His words, not mine.

I quite like the location of my dentist. It's in the Bruntsfield are of the city, which means it's quite posh. Furthermore, this also means that on entering the surgery, my jacket is taken and hung on a hanger. I used to have to lay it on the floor when I went to my old dentist in Bathgate.

The photographs I'm including here, dear reader, are images I took with my camera on the way to the dentist. I see this lovely house not long after getting off of the bus as I cross Bruntsfield Links. The dentist's office is opposite the site of the former Edinburgh Hospital For Women And Children. Click here to see all that remains of it, the buildings themselves now having been turned into flats.

Nothing stays the same, does it, dear reader?

Oh, and before I go, this article is suggesting that if Morrissey does represent us in the Eurovision Song Contest, he'll need a dance routine. Now that, I'd pay to see.