I always used to wake up in the morning to the Today Programme on Radio 4. Thought for the Day was the spur that got me out of bed and heading for the bathroom. I have kicked the habit now and so I missed a contribution that may have postponed my shower. It was Madeleine Bunting, pure Maddy at her inspiring best, defending faith.

To place faith and reason in opposition is false … faith is vital: whenever we get in a car, a train or an airplane, we are expressing our faith in the responsibility and expertise of other people … Any difficult decision - having a baby, making a long term commitment to a partner - is about faith …

Inevitably, she brought in a familiar theme,

Other cultures understand how human beings need faith and how to strengthen it, but our culture I believe, having lost much of its religious faith, has lost its insight into the nature of faith altogether…

and so on, and on …

She concluded:

We need, I think, to re-examine our prejudices and resurrect the idea of faithfulness. There are important values embedded in this word: ‘a faithful account’ is accurate and true; ‘in good faith’ is about a promise; ‘to keep faith’ is to keep that promise. These principles of constancy, integrity and commitment are how we build the faith of others- our children, partners, colleagues, friends - in ourselves just as, in turn, they build our faith in them. Faith is how we accept what is beyond our control, and recognise each other’s freedom. How we relate to each other must be full of faithfulness if we are to create communities, a society. Faithfulness is about living with trust and confidence instead of anxiety, fearfulness, suspicion and cynicism.

There is a slight problem with all this guff - language. The same word can have different meanings and Bunting managed to use the word ‘faith’ in every sense except ‘belief’, its religious form. She was talking about trust, loyalty and truth. Are we really prejudiced against trust, loyalty and truth? Do they require resurrection? If so where did they go? Is Christopher Hitchens writing books about the need for distrust, untruth, and disloyalty?

In these senses, faith and reason are certainly not opposed, they are contingent on each other, but this has nothing whatsoever to do with belief. Trust, loyalty and truth are based on analysis, judgement, affection and experience. However, when, for example, the religious ask us to have faith, they mean us to suspend judgement and embrace belief. It is not the same thing at all. Sorry Maddy, but you have to do better than the use of slippery euphemisms to shake my faith - in a liberal, secular society.

Hat tip Will

A reader writes:

Can I Just Say…

Do you want to see a picture which screams smug, self-satisfied, southern, wing-nut and/or cunt? Meet Phil Spencer, presenter of one of those shite property programmes–Location Location Location.

He is the twat behind this deliberate “let’s ‘create a storm’ around a bog standard ‘it’s-grim-up-North’ wankfest, so beloved of London based media hoors. And I do not care, if it’s all based on official data–it is rank, prejudice-reaffirming crapola, the quality of which is demonstrated by the fact that they can’t even spot that ‘Boro is a town and not a ‘city’ (I also seriously doubt if the picture in the link is a Middlesbrough Street).

All of this, of course, is from an idle, fuck-faced parasite whose business does not have an office north of leafy Knutsford.

However be in no doubt as to what this really is about–hence my irritation. It is about poverty–that’s right poverty not location–that’s what determines quality of life in this context. The data they misuse are things like mortality rates, take up of disability benefits etc, most, if not all of which, are standard and well known, indices of deprivation.

So what a fucking fantastic idea; lets get a Chelsea based contributor to lussoluxury.com to make lite-entertainment about where most human suffering is concentrated (including it must be said a couple of deprived London Boroughs).

You don’t need to watch to confirm this assessment, here is his fuckwit of a co-presenter, Kirstie Allsopp:

What I want more than anything is to champion, not condemn, the places on the worst list as there are some real diamonds in the rough.

Oh yeah, precisely how–a roughoslummery.com alternative to the above?

Patronising, two-faced, mendacious cow. “Diamonds in the rough”? I care nothing for your Sex in the City derived fantasies and can assure you that we neither need, nor want, you as a champion.

Fuck off and die slowly you well matched pair of wankstains.

Channel 4 give your head(s) a shake.

Parmo! Parmo! Parmo!

Today, there is welcome news that Nouri al-Maliki has committed himself to prevent attacks by Kurdish rebel elements over the Turkish border.

Iraq itself has suffered from cross border attacks over the past four years, either by non-state actors moving across the Saudi Arabian or Syrian border, or from state-sanctioned forces from the Iranian regime. It is therefore perfectly correct that Iraq should ensure that such attacks on Turkey stop immediately as a matter of principle, quite apart from the practical consideration that a Turkish response to prevent such attacks would endanger one of the few successes in Iraq.

A comparison can be made with the Palestinian Authority, which while under the control of Hamas continued to launch rocket attacks against Israel. No real undertaking to prevent such attacks was made, indeed Hamas was actively behind such attacks, and Israel therefore saw a legitimate reason for militarily intervening in Gaza to prevent further attacks. Iraq is therefore correct to make the move to prevent further attacks on Turkey. So long as the Iraqi government is making strenuous attempts to control such violence, non-violent mechanisms should be used to discuss disputes between what are essentially two democratic governments.

The Ethics and Public Policy Center and the Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs at Georgetown University hosted a debate between writer Christopher Hitchens and Oxford University professor Alister McGrath on the role of religious belief in the modern world. The debate was held on October 11, 2007 in Gaston Hall, in Georgetown University’s Healy Hall. (1 hr 40 min 35 sec).

Heston Blumenthal’s new Chicken tikka masala recipe is so complex most average mortals will starve before completing it, and that’s assuming they obtain the logistical help of Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan.

Heston turns his attention to Chicken tikka masala. The search starts at his local curry house in Cookham, Berkshire, but soon takes him to Delhi where he tries to unravel the complicated roots of this dish. On returning to his restaurant in Bray, Heston tries to build his own tandoor but soon realises that most people aren’t able to dig a five-foot-deep hole in the ground and line it with fire bricks. So, he comes up with a more accessible solution - a barbecue, but with a few bespoke alterations.

In Cambridge, Heston puts a chicken breast through a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan to see how a marinade affects the meat as he tries to create the perfect sauce.