Inerrant words

shreena‘s posting about how Tony Blair may allow “faith groups” a role in policy making has lead me into an interesting discussion, touching on evangelical pressure groups, inerrancy, Total Depravity, and, of course, gay bishops. Just got round to posting another thing to it, which is why I mention it.

Punting out to Grantchester on Saturday night was hard in the heat, so the other PaulW ended up doing most of the work. I think he’s got a much more efficient style, as I was splashing more. Punting back in the dark was enlivened by low branches. As we were returning, we also saw some youfs wandering along the Meadows looking for some sort of rave thing that was supposed to be happening, but heard no repetitive beats.

Still too hot, although aircon is working here at the moment. Dancing tonight should be interesting.

1 Comment on "Inerrant words"


  1. You know, I still haven’t come up with a really satisfying answer to the question somebody in our punt asked, “What’s the difference between a party and a rave?” At the moment of asking, I was all ready to come up with an e-generation friendly response, but then it kind of disappeared when I thought about it for a millisecond more….

    A lot of the events that the media characterised between 1988 and 1992 as “raves” were actually called “parties” by the promoters and public; likewise, the police unit that was established in the summer of ’88 when “raves” were reaching their popular zenith was called the Pay Party Unit.
    The Kent police had been calling it the Acid Party House Unit, but found that name stirred up further parental and media concerns about drugs. Acid house refers to the music and not to the drug; the drug of choice at parties was always ecstasty. The tabloids constantly got that wrong at the time. The police were in fact moved to action not to control drug use, but to control noise pollution. There’s a rather sweet quote from Kent Divisional Commander Ken Tappenden, who sas “The music was deafening, but I have to sa this, it was fairly foot-tapping music even for bobbies who were standing about for eight hours.” I love the idea of these Pay Party police standing at a rave tapping their feet to the beat!
    It was chiefly the noise pollution element that led the Pay Part Unit to seek and destroy the parties, and which forced the locations of the parties themselves to constantly relocate and to be kept secret until the last moment, resulting in ravers driving around the M25 from service station to service station tring to find the party. (You didn’t think “where’s the party?” had so literal a meaning, did you?) That’s what Orbital named themselves after.

    I believe there is a legal definition of “rave music” which includes that phrase of yours, “repetitive beats”, but as far as I’m aware, a party has alwas been a party, unless you were a Sun reader in which case it was an “illegal rave” (probably featuring people dropping “acid”…..)

    I still don’t think you’re going to find one in Grantchester, though! Idiots….

    Reply

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