You are what you eat (allegedly)

I'm now in a Telford hotel room, just a few miles from where the local BBC news has reported that a special "God's Acre" service has recently been carried out on the grave of Richard Munslow, the last known sin-eater in England, at St Margaret's Church, Ratlinghope.

The Reverend Norman Morris explained that "It [Sin-eating] was a very odd practice and would not have been approved of by the church, but I suspect the vicar often turned a blind eye".

The BBC report also helpfully explains that sin-eaters were generally poor people who were paid to eat bread and drink beer or wine over a corpse, in the belief they would take on the sins of a person who had died suddenly without confessing their own sins, and so allow the deceased’s soul to go to heaven in peace.

So logically, as a sin-eater wouldn't have been able to acknowledge these unknown sins prior to their own demise, and would therefore always need someone to consume their unconfessed sin collection, isn't it surprising that there were ever any believers unable to see the flaws in it as a career choice?

So the pot said to the kettle ....

Walking across London because of the tube strike, I've just (30 minutes or so ago) been handed a religiously-focussed magazine (Awake) which states in the first 2 sentences of the first article,
"A new group of atheists has arisen in society. Called the new atheists, they are not content to keep their views to themselves."

As the views of the distributor weren't sought either by me, nor anybody else who politely took a copy without first looking to see what it was (I admit to thinking it was one of the free Time Out style supplements & just dropped it into a conference bag), it's got me wondering whether the irony is deliberate, or is the writer subtly advocating some form of theocracy where people like Stephen Hawking are prevented from making assertions like the one last week?

The proof of the pudding is in the (ch)eating..

"This is only an allegation," says Ijaz Butt, chairman of what is surely an utterly discredited Pakistan Cricket Board, adding that, "At this stage there will be no action taken because there is still no charge or proof on that account." Possibly not proof as defined by a criminal law court, but the evidence of cheating described in the News of the World at the weekend is as damning as anything you could ever hope to see.

Unfortunately, according to some of the participants in today's plagiarism workshop, the PCB's lack of decisive action is not unique and draws parallels with the attitude of some senior educational managers who fear legal action if students are penalised by lecturers, moderators and exam boards for collusion, plagiarism and the passing off of other's work as their own prior to some form of "official investigation".

Noting that both the PCB and the International Cricket Council are currently striving to maintain any semblance of credibility with their very public failure to act, surely it's time for Education's default position to be one of trusting the lecturer who identifies malpractice and place the burden of proving innocence on the accused student?