Tuesday, April 28, 2009  

THE MINISTER WRITES . . . . .

"Shock" is the word that probably best sums up the reaction in the City to yesterday's Budget. "Shock and disbelief". Shock that the Chancellor could have got his "sums" so spectacularly wrong”

. . . . . so said one political commentator.

But is such criticism of the Chancellor fair? Shouldn't we the general public take some responsibility for the current state of the world's financial affairs? After all, it’s not that we all didn’t see it coming, is it? Did we really think that the universal juggernaut of finance-driven stupidity would not eventually run out of control? Remember those adverts: "Poor credit history? No problem! County Court Judgements? No problem! This loan! That card! No problem!"

Walk into any shop, business or factory today, and you are immediately aware that there is indeed, a problem. And whatever fault may lie with the Chancellor and his sums, any possible salvation is in our own hands. In the words of the old evangelical preachers, we must be intellectually "born again". This means repentance for financial sins committed, forgiveness for insatiable greed, and an honest commitment from all parties concerned, to stick to the budgetary requirements of our situation and our environment.

Paul

SUNDAY SERVICES DURING MAY and JUNE 2009

- always at 10.45am -

May 3rd Paul

May 10th Kate Taylor

May 17th Paul

May 24th Paul

May 31st Robin Boyes

June 7th Jonathan Coggan

June 14th Paul

June 21st Paul

June 28th Paul

ANTHEMS FOR MAY 2009

May 3rd: "Worship" - Geoffrey Shaw

May 10th: "Now the green blade riseth" - French carol,

arr. Anthony Norcliffe

May 17th: "Pleasure it is" - Cecil Cope

May 24th: "Above all praise and majesty" - Felix Mendelssohn

May 31st: (WHIT SUNDAY)

- "If ye love me keep my commandments" - Thomas Tallis

ANTHEMS FOR JUNE 2009

June 7th "Blessed angel spirits" - Pyotr I. Tchaikovsky

June 14th: "O Lord I will praise Thee" - Gordon Jacob

June 21st: "Day by day" - Martin How

June 28th: "Let all the world in every corner sing" - Eric H. Thiman

ORGAN CONCERTS

Now into our 16th year, the 2009 Grand Series of Summer Organ Concerts, here at Mill Hill, commences rather later than usual (May 26th), due to holiday being arranged to end on May 3rd and the subsequent necessity to have at least 2 weeks for preparation prior to the start of the series. Nevertheless, 14 weekly concerts, on Tuesdays at 1pm, are lined-up for a veritable banquet of splendid music to be given by 7 guest performers and 7 others by our Director of Music. Admission is, as usual, free, with a retiring collection taken towards the defrayment of expenses and the organ fund. Full details of the upcoming series appear as a poster elsewhere in this edition of The Record. As a newcomer to our organ-console we warmly welcome, on June 9th, PAUL DEWHURST, the Director of Music of Pontefract Parish Church. We shall be pleased, too, to welcome again, after 7 years, STEPHEN POWER (now Choir Librarian and an alto lay-clerk at Southwell Minster), who is to play for us on June 23rd. Of his 3 concerts during June, our Director of Music, ANTHONY NORCLIFFE, will give a concert, on June 30th, entirely given over to music of Handel, the 250th anniversary of whose birth occurs this year. Over the years we have seen our audience numbers considerably increase. It would be terrific, however, to see more of our Mill Hill brethren

Do make a regular date with us!

MILL HILL CHAPEL (City Square Leeds) 2009 GRAND SERIES OF SUMMER ORGAN CONCERTS on WEEKLY TUESDAY LUNCHTIMES at 1PM

MAY 26th - SIMON LINDLEY (Leeds City Organist & Leeds Parish Church)

JUNE 2nd - ANTHONY NORCLIFFE (Mill Hill Chapel)

JUNE 9th - PAUL DEWHURST (Pontefract Parish Church)

JUNE 16th - ANTHONY NORCLIFFE

JUNE 23rd - STEPHEN POWER (Southwell Minster)

JUNE 30th - ANTHONY NORCLIFFE (HANDEL PROGRAMME)

JULY 7th - CHRISTOPHER CIPKIN (Reading University)

JULY 14th - ANTHONY NORCLIFFE

JULY 21st - JEFFREY MAKINSON (Manchester Cathedral)

JULY 28th - ANTHONY NORCLIFFE

AUG. 4th - JOHN SWINDELLS (St. Michael's, Tenbury Wells)

AUG. 11th - ANTHONY NORCLIFFE

AUG. 18th - CHRISTOPHER NEWTON (St. Bartholomew's, Armley)

AUG. 25th - ANTHONY NORCLIFFE

Admission free ~~~~~~~ Retiring collection

WHY ARE SCIENTISTS MAKING TRIPS TO SUCH PLACES?

Jaques: "Here comes a pair of very strange beasts..."

(from, "As you like it" by William Shakespeare)

Unitarians are interested in man, so too are scientists; what separates them is the experimental approach that scientists adopt. In order to understand man better, scientists also frequently turn to other animals to complement their studies.

I need hardly point out that Darwin investigated many other animals in order to understand how man has evolved to become the person he is today. When I was a biology student. I spent quite a lot of my tune on experiments breeding tiny fruit flies. Fruit flies produce offsprings in a matter of days so you can breed several generations in a very short time - it is a wonderful opportunity to study their genes and some of these genes are shared with humans. Furthermore, the chromosomes of fruit flies are very large and quite easy to examine under the microscope. This is why, for many years, fruit flies have been one of the favourite organisms for scientists to understand how genes (including those of humans) do their work.

Later on when, as a research scientist, I was studying learning and memory, I spent quite some time examining how small mammals, such as rats, learnt MM to solve maze problems and what factors caused them to forget what they had learnt. These studies complemented other experiments I carried out on humans in the same areas of learning and memory.

Animals such as fruit flies and rats are known to scientists as "standard model animals" because they are ideal animals to throw light on the problem at hand - the former to study how genes conduct themselves over several generations and the latter to throw light on human mental processes. There are also "model plants" but I shall restrict myself here to animals.

Recently, scientists have discovered some other animals that can be used as "model animals" and some of them live in rather unusual places. Hence, scientists need to visit these places to study them. There is space here to describe only two of these new "model animals"

About 30 million years ago, during the ice age, water temperatures in Antarctica fell to zero and most fish left the region to find warmer areas. The "icefish", however, remained and became remarkably adapted to the extreme conditions and still remains there today. For example, it developed a digestive enzyme that also acted as an anti-freeze. Because the cold water holds more oxygen, the icefish no longer needed red blood cells to carry oxygen and so it lost them. The genes responsible for the loss of red blood cells, and how they work, are of great interest to scientists studying human anaemia so they are examining this fish to provide clues. The icefish also needed to explore slightly more shallow waters to supplement its feeding. Fish normally rise by expanding an air sac, known as the swim bladder, but icefish, while they were content to live on the bottom, had no need for a swim bladder and so they gradually lost it. Now. in order to exploit the more abundant food in shallower waters they have opted for a different mechanism in order to rise: they have developed extremely light bones. The loss of bone is so great that their bones are transparent and their brain can actually be seen inside their skull. There is a condition in humans, called osteoporosis, in which the bones become thin and fragile so that they break very easily. Scientists studying this condition are now examining the genes of the ice fish to discover how genes can bring about such bone loss and, hopefully, counter it.

My second strange beast is the blind "Mexican cave fish" that lives in underground lakes in the caves of Mexico where they feed on tiny organisms that also live in the lakes as well as the protein rich droppings of bats that inhabit the caves. These fish have not seen light for over a million years and, during this time, they have lost all sense of sight (though they have a keen sense of smell).

These fish can interbreed with related surface dwelling fish that can see, and, by breeding these two strains, scientists are coming to understand those genes responsible for loss of sight. This has obvious implications to the malfunctioning of genes that cause retinal damage and cataracts that can result in blindness for human beings.

When I think about scientists who travel to the freezing conditions of Antarctica or the cold, dark caves of Mexico, I can't help thinking how lucky I was when sitting in my warm laboratory with my "model animals" so close at hand.

Derrick Pritchatt

CONFLICT or UNITY?

There is no greater cause of conflict in our world today than the diversity of race, religion, culture and creed. Israel, Kosovo, Northern Ireland, Russia, Spain, Africa, India, Indonesia and elsewhere : this is fundamentally the case. Yet whether we are Jew, Muslim, Christian, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Bahai or a member of any other religious faith, we share the same universe; the same planet Earth; the same environment; the same human biology and the same evolutionary process of nature. Clearly then, without a movement toward greater unity as one world and one people, there will be no peace.

Leeds is a modern city, which incorporates people from a variety of cultural and religious backgrounds. Their children sit alongside each other in schools, and lie alongside each other in hospitals. Yet the traditions of previous generations present obstacles and barriers to the natural and necessary integration of modern-day communities. It is now imperative that human beings everywhere embrace a vision of the "oneness?" of God and of Humankind. Peace and harmony for future generations depends directly upon the success of this challenge. Of course, such unity will not come easily or overnight, and there will be many objections along the way. Nevertheless an attempt must be made, and where better to begin by way of example to the world, than in our fine city of Leeds?

This matter will not go away, and it is of little use hiding in our Synagogues, Temples, Gurdwaras, Mosques and Churches, and thinking that we can continue safe in our exclusive, cultural and religious, traditions. As intelligent and responsible adults, we have a duty to our children and to our world to address the problem now. If you share our vision, or are in sympathy and agreement with our views, then perhaps you would like to make contact with us, and together - whatever our differences - we might begin to find and establish that vital path to greater unity.

Paul Travis

posted by Charles P Travis | 7:00 PM