It was The Boyf's Nan's 100th birthday at the weekend. She's had a colourful life, that one. I can totally see where The Boyf gets his genes from. She ran away to London when she was 16 and ended up dancing at the Folies Bergere. Got pregnant out of wedlock at an early age (not the done thing at all in those days), and was sexually active up until about 6 years ago (she had an affair with a 60 year old gardener - and she was 94! Go girl!). Anyway, it meant that we travelled up to the Midlands for another weekend to go to her party, and The Boyf decided to take me to Coventry for an afternoon as I'd never been before.
Coventry was a lovely town, by all reports. Very Shakespearean. This is a photo of what the town used to look like (this is one of few original buildings still remaining)...
However, during WWII Coventry was heavily bombed (many of the ammo makers were located in this region), and afterwards the town had to be rebuilt. It now looks like this...
And this is what they built to replace it (the looming monstrosity in the background)...
If I were God I wouldn't be best pleased. Being decidedly non-religious I always find it perplexing yet wonderful that so many people spent so long building beautiful temples to God(s) who's existence is unproven. When I visit a beautiful church or cathedral I marvel at the workmanship and dedication, all in the name of a fictitious being. I applaud their dedication whilst deriding their conviction. The new Coventry Cathedral appears to have been slapped together from pre-fabricated chunks of concrete in a couple of weeks, much in the way a new McDonald's Drive-Thru can appear over a weekend. I think it shows the state of the Christian church when something that would have taken 10's of years to lovingly craft by hand is now just cobbled together. Speaks volumes. I have to say though that some of the details were quite interesting. The sheer size of the space is amazing, but Lord knows why they bothered making the ceiling so high up. It must be a right pain when they need to give it a slap of fresh wood-stain.
My favourite bit was the stained glass wall, although more glass and less concrete would have been better.
Pretty, isn't it?
I also liked the depiction of the Devil on the wall outside. He has quite a large penis, which made us giggle. He'd do well at The Hoist.
On the way out of the Cathedral a beggar was harassing some blue-rinsed women for change, allegedly for a coffee. They refused prompting him to shout "Not very Christian are you!". He looked at me. I looked at him. He said, glumly "You're not Christian, are you", to which I replied "No. We were just inside to make fun of the devout". I looked up at the Devil and decided to give the beggar some change. Hopefully he got drunk and had a good evening. The Christians wouldn't agree of course, but bringing the Devil out always seems like so much more fun...
(PS - sorry the photos aren't great - I took them with my phone)
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