Recollection in Bristol

Another visit to St German's this morning to sing the Solemn Mass. Nice to have a late relaxed start to my Sunday. I was asked if I'd be willing to cover more regular duties during Fr Dean's absence, and said yes for three of the four Sundays of the coming month. October Sundays are already fully booked, though nothing beyond that so far.

We drove over to Bristol to see Amanda and James after lunch, and Owain came and joined us, which was delighful. He told us all about his visit to Bristolian artist Banksy's Dismaland Bemusement Park in Weston super Mare, and showed us photos he'd taken on his 'phone. He said how much he'd laughed, how much it made him think, with its hard-hitting satirical social critique of modern consumer society, ruthlessly mocking the fantasy escapist ethos of Disneyworld, and reminding the audience of the many horrors of injustice and violence which mar the contemporary world. 

We also reminisced about life in St Agnes Vicarage when Amanda came to live with us, Owain was a toddler, thirty five years ago and there were aspects of life in the St Paul's area that had some of the bemusing characteristics of Banksy's Dismaland. We drove him back to his place in Redfield on our way home, passing through the edge of St Paul's, down Ashley Hill. Superficially, it all looks less run down now than it did in those days, but looks can deceive, Owain suggested. 

It's thirty three years since we left the St Paul's area, for me to do the career break R.E. teacher training course, which made an adult educator of me, rather than a schoolmaster. Two years later, I bought my first home computer, and a decade before the internet became public property, slowly found my way into understanding the coming digital era and what it meant for society as well as science. 

Sixteen years earlier, as an undergraduate researching data to back my final year Chemistry project in Bristol University, I awakened to the important potential of the development of Information Science, then in its infancy, and the use of computers as its tools. The data processing mainframe computers of those days filled a large room, yet my Amstrad CPC 464 in 1984 was just as powerful, if not more so. How much further have computers and information technology come in the thirty years since then, and the world is such a different place due to what can now be achieved for better or worse through data processing of every kind.