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“There’s more evil in the charts than an Al-Qaeda suggestion box”
— Bill Bailey, ‘Part Troll’

I can confirm that this is, in fact, completely true.

I’ve just listened through Now 70, and the second half of the second CD was actually painful for me to listen to. It’s just so vapid, so devoid of anything original or even any particular message, it’s like having your soul sucked out by a … soul sucking machine (it also sucks our your decent metaphors).

It was so bad I had to listen to ‘Blackbird’ by the Beatles just to clear my head. Now I’m listening to ‘Stairway to Heaven’. Oh yeah. Absolute Radio have got this slogan – “Discover real music”. I didn’t realise how bad the alternative was :-/

Still, on the plus side there are a few good songs on there – I like (well, that’s perhaps too strong a word, but ‘find quite tolerable’ perhaps is better) a lot of the rocky stuff they have (The Hoosiers, The Kooks, The Feeling) and they also have some songs which I have in my collection (Coldplay – Violet Hill and, bizarrely enough, Pendulum – Propane Nightmares). So the album wasn’t all bad news at least!

And the reason I’m listening to this? Well, I will explain that in a subsequent blog posting! 🙂

I had a rather nice weekend, although unfortunately Phil was away at a hen weekend (I should point out that Phil being away had nothing to do with me having a nice weekend!)

On Friday night I went to Rollerworld and Quasar with 21. I didn’t actually skate, but I think all the kids did and really enjoyed it. After what happened in May (i.e. breaking my tooth while ice skating) I’m rather wary about doing anything like that, so I was quite glad just to sit it out and watch from the sides! Afterwards we had a round of Quasar, which was quite good fun. Although I am absolutely terrible at it – I would fire off about ten shots at someone without hitting them, and they’d turn round and shoot one at me and hit me!

Aaaaanyway, that was a fun evening. On Saturday we had a guy round from British Gas to service the boiler. Although he did manage to service the boiler OK, it seems like we’re actually going to need to get a new boiler installed in the fairly near future. That’s an expense we could live without, but I guess these things have to be done. It will actually save us a fair bit of money in the long run (our boiler is currently very inefficient) so it will be worth having. Annoying about the timing, but there you go! Such are the perils of owning your own house.

In the afternoon I did a bit of shopping in town, and then in the evening I went to Pizza Express for Sarah’s birthday. There were quite a few people there – I didn’t actually know a lot of them, but there were one or two of Jon’s old work colleagues and Sarah’s friends who I’d met before so that was good.

On Sunday morning I went to church, and then stuck around for the student lunch afterwards. There were quite a few students there in the end – around 35, I think. I helped out with a few bits and pieces like clearing up, but mostly I was just there to eat the food and talk to the students! I hope we have a few come back to the church, they seemed like a nice bunch.

After I got home, I decided to get the decks out as I’d been listening to a few of my old mixes and felt rather nostalgic. They haven’t seen the light of day since we moved house, so I was a little rusty, but I really enjoyed it! Digging through some of my old tunes, great fun. What I need to do now is retrieve the rest of my old records from my parents’ house, quite when that will be I don’t know.

Right, I think I’ve rambled on for long enough now… that’s pretty much it!

I’m ashamed to admit it, but… I’ve started learning to play “Stairway to Heaven” on the guitar. Just the intro bit. I tried it not long after I’d started learning, but I couldn’t manage it! Now I’ve been playing a bit longer, I think my fingers are a bit more nimble so it’s a little easier for me. Still pretty difficult, but just about possible.

So at some point I may be able to go into a guitar shop and act out the scene from Wayne’s World (Wayne starts playing a guitar, assistant says “Hey!” and points to a sign saying ‘No stairway’, Wayne says: “No Stairway. Denied!”)

I’ve also been learning “Blackbird” by the Beatles, which is a great song although uses a really weird strumming pattern which I can’t seem to emulate properly. I’m gradually getting there with the guitar, although I still don’t think I’ve got strumming patterns nailed yet. Fingerpicking, too, is something I’d like to get into more.

Ah well, onwards and upwards! I don’t think I’m doing badly for 9-10 months. Hopefully I will be able to do more ‘progress reports’ soon!

I’m talking about weddings, of course!

Last Saturday was Andy B and Helen’s wedding, which was held at St Osyth Parish Church. We managed to get there in good time (it doesn’t take very long from Colchester). It was a beautiful day, Andy and Helen were really lucky! Anyway, the service itself was lovely – although I don’t think the organist was very used to playing new songs. Not that it spoiled the service, of course, but it was quite amusing nonetheless!

Afterwards we headed back home for a while (the joys of going to a wedding near to home), and then went back for the evening do. It was a really good evening as well – we were able to catch up with a couple of people (Naomi, Ran and Katie) who we hadn’t seen in over a year, as well as see Sarah and Jon (and a friend of theirs, Rachel, who we’d met once before). We had a good old dance to some of the old cheesy tunes – unfortunately the DJ seemed to have a real fondness for “Megamixes” – he played four or five that I counted! I did dance to the 60s one, but in general I’m really not a fan of them. The Beatles megamix, for example, basically took a load of choruses from the Beatles’ songs and arranged them into a rather soulless track which is rather less than the sum of its parts! Still, it was all good fun, and everyone had a good time! Many congrats to Andy & Helen as well 🙂

On Sunday we went to church in the morning, and then went straight to my parents’ for lunch. We had a nice afternoon there, and I managed to pick up all my old CDs. It was a real trip down memory lane, reliving my mis-spent youth (well, not really).

In the evening we went to the all-age service at Nansen Road, where I played guitar for some of the songs. The service went well, despite me managing to forget my capo (and therefore not being able to play some of the songs!). Afterwards we headed for home, and watched “Stephen Fry’s America”.

Don’t ask me why, but this cartoon made me laugh like a Hyena on laughing gas. (Yeah, crap metaphor, but what you gonna do?).

(Note: the cartoon doesn’t display properly with the current blog design, it gets truncated, so you’ll have to click the link above to see the full version)

Just wanted to say, I’ve booked some tickets for me and Phil to go and see Keane at the O2 on 13th February next year! In internet terminology, “w00t” 🙂

I’ve been wanting to see them live for ages now, “Under the Iron Sea” is probably one of my favourite albums ever, and the new album (“Perfect Symmetry”) is shaping up to be a good one as well. So, yay!

Aaaanyway. In other news, I watched “The 40 Year Old Virgin” last night. Strangely enough, one of the messages the film seemed to give was that “it’s OK to wait” – the main character was treated with dignity and not portrayed as a complete loser. Despite some of the rather vulgar humour, it was actually quite an intelligent film and I quite enjoyed it. Won’t be buying it on DVD though 😉

We had a quieter weekend this time round! On Friday evening were at ’21’, where I was doing the talk (on Grace). It seemed to go pretty well, Grace is a very big subject but I hope that the kids understand it a bit better now 🙂

On Saturday we did the usual shopping in the morning, and then spent the afternoon in the garden. I mowed the lawn, which hopefully will be the last time we have to mow it this year! In the evening we met up with Anne-Marie and Sarah and went for dinner at Sloppy Joe’s. Although it was very busy we managed to find a table and had a nice dinner, and then afterwards we went to see “How to Lose Friends and Alienate People”.

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect about the film because I didn’t know much about it other than the fact that Simon Pegg was in it. It was very good – reminded me a bit of “The Devil Wears Prada”… but much funnier! There were some absolutely brilliant moments in it, although it has to be said – it wasn’t as sharp as Shaun and Hot Fuzz. In other words, it was more like “Run, Fatboy, Run” than the Simon Pegg / Edgar Wright style films. Still it was a very entertaining watch and definitely worth seeing / buying if you’re a fan of Simon Pegg 🙂

Anyway. On Sunday we went to church in the morning, and then went round to Simon and Lara’s for lunch. We were meeting up with a few other people to discuss the student work at Fordham over the next academic year, and it all seemed quite positive. In the evening we went to the service at Eight Ash Green, and then came back and watched “James May’s Big Ideas” on alternative energy.

I’ve been watching the news over the past few months and it does seem that we’re quite close to a breakthrough in alternative energy. I reckon in 10-20 years, 50% or more of our energy will come from renewable sources. We’re certainly closer to a viable renewable energy source than we are to Artificial Intelligence or flying cars!

Aaaaanyway. I think that’s just about it from me!

Ok, this is probably one of the most random articles I’ve read in a long time. So strange, in fact, that it’s virtually like something out of “The Beast with a Billion Backs” (the latest Futurama offering, in case you didn’t know).

I should say, before I start, that I do realise this is an article from the Daily Mail and probably isn’t a shining example of investigative journalism. Nonetheless, I want to make a wider point which I will come onto shortly.

I won’t go into the details of the article (it’s worth a read, even if just to make you slap your forehead and go “WTF?”). I just can’t quite believe those women are comfortable with the arrangement – do they have so little self-respect?!

The strangest thing about the story, though, is that he is apparently a ‘Messianic Jew’ (i.e., a Jew who believes Jesus Christ was the Son of God). But then he goes and says things like this:

‘God was telling me I was a king. Not the Messiah, as has been suggested, but a Messiah. What God was showing me was that I would have a significant role in a Jewish revival, that a true nation of Israel would rise up and the world as we know it today was going to be severely judged.

“A” Messiah? Hmmmmmmm… not quite sure that one works! But it gets worse.

And so from this Philip came up with the idea of making these women without heads his wives. He would be their head, their protector – their ‘husband’.

He found passages in the Bible which seemed to give the all-clear. So was this the guiding hand of God, or a terrific scam by someone who wanted to have sex with lots of women?

And then goes on to deny that it’s a scam, saying “I’m not that clever!”. Hmmmm once again (about the scriptural support for polygamy, that is).

The problem with the Bible is that it actually doesn’t explicitly condemn polygamy. For example, it seems to be allowed in Exodus 21:10. But, Genesis 2 seems to be pretty clear: “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” Not his “wives” – but “wife”. Jesus affirmed this in Matthew 19.

The hard part for me is, why were David and Solomon not condemned for the wives and concubines? Solomon had about 700 wives and 300 concubines! That’s a ridiculous number, to be honest. But it’s not condemned… as such: “He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray. As Solomon grew old, his wives turned his heart after other gods, and his heart was not fully devoted to the LORD his God, as the heart of David his father had been” (1 Kings 11:3-4). [Interesting side note: look at Deuteronomy 17:17]

So, Solomon’s heart was turned to other gods by his wives – but having that many wives doesn’t seem to be frowned upon.

The best answer I can come up with at the moment is that those times were different – they lived by slightly different rules. Poloygamy itself wasn’t a big issue at the time – although the original plan for marriage was always for a man to have one wife (and a woman one husband), at that time – because of the people’s hardness of heart – God had bigger fish to fry.

I don’t really know, to be honest, that’s my best guess at the moment. But any comments are welcome!

Something weird just happened on Facebook.

As some of you may know I have a Facebook Photo Uploader desktop application. I was looking about the “about” page for it (checking if there were any new death threats / hate messages on the discussion forum), and then clicked on the “Browse more applications” button.

I then clicked on the “Desktop” tab, to only show desktop applications. Nothing… no apps at all. I noticed the language was English (UK), so I changed it to English (US)… and still got nothing. So I changed it to English (Pirate) – and got a whole bunch?!!!

Ah well, at least Facebook has a sense of humour, apparently!

I’m talking about weddings, of course! We’ve now been to six weddings this year – only another two to go before the year is out…

It went very well, anyway. It was in Cambridge, so we travelled up by train on Saturday morning and got there in plenty of time. The journey up was actually fairly painless, even though we had to go via Liverpool Street! The wedding service was lovely – Mike spoke really well, and the band were great. We particularly liked the songs that they sung during the interlude – the girl who sang had a lovely voice! They really did justice to the Celtic version of “When I Survey”.

Anyway, afterwards we went to the Regal (a Wetherspoons pub) for lunch with Roy and Janette and the boys, and then had a wander round Cambridge. Despite it raining, we managed to stay mostly dry and get to the evening do without problems. It was at a hotel called the University Arms, which is very nice (if expensive!). So we had a good time catching up with a few people from church who we hadn’t spoken to in a while. Gavin and Sarah offered to give us a lift back home, which meant that we didn’t have to spent two hours on the train (plus the walk to and from the station at both ends).

All in all it was a great day, and I wish Chris and Ruth all the best 🙂 (Not that either of them will read this, but the sentiment was there).

On Sunday we went to not one, not two, but THREE services! Two in the morning, and one in the evening. The morning services were harvest thanksgiving services, and so there were a few people there who don’t normally come which was nice to see. In the evening, Andy was doing the first part of a series of “Firm Foundations” courses – this was was on “Worship: The Principles”. We both very much enjoyed it, and it was good to see quite a few people from outside the parish coming – including quite a few from the St Albright’s congregation.

Right, I think that pretty much brings you up to date with the weekend. My copy of “Dig Out Your Soul”, the new Oasis album, arrived today and I’m actually rather enjoying it. I didn’t quite know what to expect, but I’ve really been liking what I’ve heard so far. I will try and post up a fuller review of that when I’ve had the chance to listen to it a few times!