We’ve noticed lately that the editor has been AWOL from her desk several times on the very flimsy excuse of 'getting out there to meet the folks'. Indeed? We know an excuse for skiving when we see one!
The latest escapade is taking her to that elegant Yorkshire location of Harrogate for the General Meeting (now known of course as QuakersinYorkshire) on 21 October. And we see that she has persuaded Friends there to help her put an issue of the magazine together.
You have to hand it to our editor – an outing and an issue in one swoop!

As some of you know, Eye is an avid blogger with several collaborators. For those interested in stepping into the fray after reading David Austin's article (see page 6), we bring you the Eye guide to online journaling:
* Keep it simple. Sign up for a free blog at Blogger and you can choose a nice template and write without getting too bogged down in all the jargon of website production.
* Don't be timid. Blogging is easy and accessible to all ages on the most basic computers. Different Friends see blogging as a form of ministry and outreach, a place for their own points of view or an easy way of maintaining a Meeting news page.
* Speak truth to power. Published comment is no longer confined to newspapers - if you write about current affairs, you might want to send a link to your blog to your MP regularly.
* Be sensible, but not paranoid. Your blog is public so don't write anything you wouldn't say to a stranger or write to The Friend.
* Join the Quaker conversation: Quaker Quaker has the most comprehensive guide to the Quaker 'blogosphere', covering ministry, discussion and general Friendly chatter. Interact with other bloggers by linking to blogs you like or leaving comments on posts that speak to you.

Comfort is not a Quaker concept. The rabbi of the Bevis Marks synagogue – the oldest in Britain and one of the best-preserved houses of worship of its period still in use – found himself recently apologising to visitors on the London Open Weekend for the uncomfortable benches. They were built by Quaker joiners, he explained.

At Quaker Quest in Friends House this Monday, the subject was Meeting for Worship. It was a well attended event with many young faces and the 3 speakers in the panel were all middle aged women with short silver hair. They did comment that not all Quakers are like they three.

During their talks about Meeting for Worship, they read much from the book, Quaker Faith and Practice, while emphasising early on that these words are no creed.

Late on one Friend mentioned that there is always a table with flowers in a vase on it, during Meeting for Worship. She told it like it is so for always.

Has it been so for always? What are the origins of the flowers in the vase on the table? Are the flowers necessary?

The worldwide market for flowers is traditionally volatile and many crops are managed in countries where labour rights are abused. Let us hope that the flowers in the Meetings for Worship across Britain Yearly Meeting are coming from fairly farmed fields.

Going back to that Gandhi Woodbrooke stay for a moment… Ronald Watts has been in touch to tell us that Jomo Kenyatta, Kenya's first president, was an unknown student at Woodbrooke about the same time as the Gandhi visit, using the name Johnston. The log which reported his stay has been withdrawn from open access. Ronald was told by the library that this was due to over-use by Gandhi researchers! Eye is astonished to learn from Ronald that the current FWCC figure for Quakers in Kenya stands at 133,825.

We recently marked the centenary of Gandhi's wonderful peace concept of satyagraha. Eye, being of more recent birth, did not know of the historic visit the great man made to Woodbrooke in the 1930s – 1931 to be precise, during the weekend of 17 to 19 October.

Myths build up around such events, and Eye tried to confirm the little story in the Woodbrooke Tour booklet that Gandhi brought his own goat to the centre and cooked his meals on the floor, burning a hole in the carpet! Was it true?
We turned to the excellent account in the Woodbrooke Journal of summer 1997 by Chris Lawson, which detailed the visit. Gandhi was in England for the Second Round Table Conference on the future of his country (and tailed by British secret service personnel). Indeed, he drank goat's milk, but it was from a local farm animal, collected by the warden's son, Martin Cadbury. His meals were cooked by his own entourage, but no information is forthcoming about damaged carpets. Gandhi, however, did sleep on the floor.

But what caught our Eye was some of the candid statements he made during a large, gathered meeting held on the Sunday of that weekend in the Common Room. And this one in particular:

'The rate of interest charged by the Indian bania (moneylenders) is nothing compared to the loot carried on by the British bania through a juggling of currency and merciless exactions of Land Revenue. I do not know of another instance in history of such an organised exploitation of so unorganised and gentle a race… The extravagance of the princes was nothing compared to the heartless squandering of Ccrores of rupees in New Delhi to satisfy the whim of a viceroy in order to reproduce England in India, when masses of people were dying of hunger.' You can be a man of peace but still pack a punch.