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Well, after a rather depressing week last week (or at least, the second half), I had a good weekend! On Friday evening, Philippa came round for dinner and we just spent the evening practising some music for Sunday morning (as we were helping with the music at the chaplaincy) and relaxing.

On Saturday, we went down to London with my parents so we could all meet up with Philippa’s parents and talk about the wedding next year. It was good, we were able to see the church and the place where we’re going to have the reception… it was quite exciting!

We got back and were quite tired, so decided to watch a film. Yesterday, we went to the chaplaincy service in the morning, and in the evening we went into Wivenhoe to have a drink at the Rose & Crown, and then back to mine and watched a DVD.

Philippa is now living on campus for the summer, so we were able to walk along the Wivenhoe Trail – it was really nice!

Anyway, that’s all for now…

Well, I said I’d post something else when I actually had something to write, so here I am! Just a few more thoughts about earlier really.

I’ve never been affected in such a way by a terrorist attack before. It really hit me hard this time. I think this was because I’ve never had such a level of personal involvement before… I know loads of people who live and work in London. Fortunately I believe them all to be safe! Also, I travel down to London quite a bit… this morning I booked myself on a course down in London, very near to Moorgate station. Liverpool Street is the gateway to London from here, I travel on the underground round there virtually every time I’m down in London…

… not only could that have been my friends involved, it could have been me. And any of us could have been killed or injured.

And it’s like that with a lot of people. London is the hub of England, and important in the UK. Those terrorists weren’t striking at London. They were striking at all of us.

I was wondering earlier as well, “how could people do such a thing?” One person said to me, they hate our way of life – i.e., we have a lot of freedom here which they resent. This maybe has some truth in it, but I don’t think it’s the whole truth. We do have freedom here, yes, and we do have a great way of life – warts and all, I don’t think it’s a bad system. But at what price?

When you gain wealth and comfort at the expense of others, that causes problems. I don’t think the UK’s rise to prominence has been exactly morally upright at times, and I don’t think all of our foreign policies and dealings have been … well, Christian.

And I believe that it is possible these bad decisions we have made in the past are coming back to haunt us. Why do people in some other countries hate us so much? Not because we have a good way of life, but because they think we’re having a good way of life at their expense.

If we are to deal with this problem, the solution is not (as George W Bush and others might say) to exterminate the terrorists. No. We have to win people’s hearts – we have to act ethically and morally and be seen to act ethically and morally. Which is why I think it’s such a shame this has to happen in the G8 summit – where people are putting pressure on the government to do the right thing, progress is starting to be made.

We need to start treating other countries as we would want to be treated, and remember that we have a privelidged position to be able to help these other countries.

Heh… I’ve just listened to the song “Fix You” by Coldplay. The music seems to sum up my mood pretty well, the words don’t really, but I’ll post some anyway:

“Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you”

Take care all, stay safe, and I pray that God will protect us.

Just wanted to post up about the terrorist attack on London this morning. I really don’t know what to think at the moment.

I just wanted to post up a message saying I’m thinking and praying for those who were involved and their family & friends! I hate to sound too much like George W Bush, but we will not be defeated by terrorism.

Being a Christian I believe that God has already won the victory and good will ultimately prevail, but it still doesn’t make it any easier to see the news come in when things like this happen – especially when people you know and love might have been involved (although fortunately I think most of the people I know are OK).

Well, I didn’t think it would happen, but – I’m getting paranoid about spyware, adware, trojans, general malware. I keep wondering whether I’ve inadvertantly turned my computer into some spambot, or something…

Admittedly, it is quite unlikely. I’m behind a router, I keep my machine up-to-date, I use a firewall, and – most importantly – I have quite a good idea about the risks, I have an idea of what I’m doing security-wise.

And yet, there is so much malware around these days, I still wonder whether some of it might have got through… not necessarily a virus, but how can I be sure my machine isn’t sending out spam messages?

I think soon I’m going to make the move over to a Linux desktop. I already run it on my server machine. Windows is just too much hassle! What they gain with ease-of-use they lose with security.

I don’t really think I’m infected, but still… the best way to be sure? FORMAT C: ….

I realised last night that I had some news which I’d told a few people by e-mail etc, but had never got around to posting up here.

I am … engaged! (To Philippa, in case you were wondering). I have sent round an e-mail, but I thought it would be good to announce it to the world publicly, as I probably missed off loads of people.

We are getting married on the 24th June next year, so if you know me and are reading this – keep that day free! (Unless I don’t like you, in which case, don’t bother 😉

Anyway, just an FYI really…

Um, not much to say really. Friday night: didn’t do much. Went round to Philippa’s for dinner, then went for a bit of a walk… nothing exciting! On Saturday, I didn’t do all that much… I recorded a new breakbeat mix which is up online (let me know if you’d like a copy). In the evening, me and Philippa went to “What?” bar again with a friend from last year’s DJ Soc. It was good, I enjoyed it!

Yesterday, we went to church with Jon and Sarah (a couple of friends we know from uni), and went back for dinner with them afterwards. And in the evening we went into Wivenhoe to get some fish & chips, before watching ‘Bill Bailey – Bewilderness’ in the evening.

So now you know…

I was going to post this before, but I got distracted. When I say “before” I mean, some time ago. Anyway, you know those little things which get on your nerves? Not very much, not enough for you to actually do anything about them, but they just exist for the sole purpose of annoying you?

Anyway. One of those things things is – links on websites opening up the link in a new window. It’s SO ANNOYING!!! You’re happily browsing through a website, and all of a sudden a new window opens when you click on a link (usually through the use of target=”_top”.

There really doesn’t seem to be much reason for it, other than if you open up an external link in a new window people can come back to your site. Great, nice one. If there is still stuff on the original site I want to visit, I’ll middle-click on the link and open up a new tab in Firefox, no worries about a new window!

I could write more about this, but I won’t. All I’ll say is, if you’re a web designer and do this without at least warning people – your website will incur my displeasure. Which is not a good thing.

I went to another breaks night last night. It was at the “What?” bar in town, formerly known as Act One bar. One of my friends from the DJ Soc (Dudley) was playing. I really enjoyed it! I have to say, Colchester nightlife is definitely going up in my estimation, they’ve had a couple of good events in the past week and apparently they’ve had a few good acts down here over the past few months or so.

I’m definitely going to have to get more into breakbeat type stuff, at the moment I think it’s probably what I enjoy going out to the most…

Well, it’s that time of the week again! – Time for the customary ‘The Weekend’ post. Let’s start with Friday evening. I had dinner at Philippa’s, with Luci, and then we went into town to V-Bar for a while.

On Saturday I went into town, bought a few things… in the evening, Philippa and I went to a breakbeat night at Club Forin. It was pretty good – I really enjoyed it! It was very tech-breaks / electro kind of style (I wouldn’t really describe it as “Nu-Skool Breaks” like they had on the flyer…) but it was worth going 🙂 One of the best nights I’ve had out in a while, as there aren’t many decent dance nights in Colchester.

Anyway. On Sunday I went to the chaplaincy service. I had to play a couple of songs (Philippa did another couple) – the first time I’ve actually played in a worship session! Seemed to go well though, even though it was quite short notice (we found out on Saturday). And then in the evening I went to see “Batman Begins” – it was definitely one of the best films to have come out recently! Well worth watching 🙂

Anyway, that’s all for the time being…

Zeth wrote quite a long post on Crossring today about secularism, and the Co-Op – “the ethical bank”.

I won’t reproduce it here, but I think it’s worth a read: read it here (you don’t have to register to read).