workin' 9 while 5...

The dangers of wi-fi

2007-05-25T01:39:00.000-07:00

I didn't actually see the episode of ~~Paranoia~~ Panorama, but the discussion here and the helpful information here clarifies things.

Meanwhile, I wish I'd gone to a nursery that features performances by Bob Dylan

Un-joined-up thinking

2007-05-17T12:27:00.000-07:00

Apparently pregnant women need twice as much folic acid as everyone else. So now they are going to add it to flour so that all our bread is enriched with it. But do they not see?! This is only going to make it harder for pregnant women to get twice as much!

It's only taken me 5 months...

2006-12-07T05:32:00.000-08:00

...but I've finally got round to putting up some photos from the big day!!!

(I just included this one cos I think it's funny that everyone's photographing my brother moonwalking)

...but I've finally got round to putting up some photos from the big day!!!

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wedding

Galileo? Galileo? Galileo? Galileo? Well maybe not quite...

2006-11-03T06:41:00.000-08:00

...but still, for a poor boy from a poor family this looks like quite an achievement. I guess it explains why he's always modelled his hairstyle on Newton.

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A Message from some US Troops...

2006-11-03T04:41:00.000-08:00

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The Dawkins Delusion?

2006-11-03T04:36:00.000-08:00

A quote by Keith Ward in the Tablet:

So why can Professor Dawkins only see the bad in religion? Why is he incapable of making an objective, “scientific”, study of it, in all its diversity? Why is he unable to make distinctions between the many different forms of religious belief? I do not know the answer to these questions, but I do know this apostle of reason, when confronted with the word “faith”, suddenly becomes irrational, careless of truth, incapable of scholarly analysis. I really think it must be some sort of virus, and I wish my colleague a speedy recovery.

Also a very good article by Madeleine Bunting in the Guardian: No wonder atheists are angry: they seem ready to believe anything

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General silliness...

2006-10-17T07:32:00.000-07:00

Aishah Azmi, the support worker suspended from Headfield C of E school stated that she objected to removing her veil in the presence of male colleagues. When questioned by Peter Sissons on BBC news as to whether the school had known before her appointment that she would be wearing a veil, she replied that she wasn't aware whether or not they had known. She admitted that she hadn't volunteered the information. So she then found herself in great difficulty when she was asked how the male governor who had interviewed her had failed to be aware that she wore a veil.

On the other hand, "the World's Greatest Newspaper" the Daily Express leads today with the headline "Veils should be banned say 98%". Anyone brave enough to look any further discovers that the 98% refers to 98% of Daily Express Readers. So, very unsurprising after all, and hopefully wholly unrepresentative of the general population.

So, fat chance of a civilized debate.

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Fire Bible...

2006-10-11T08:30:00.000-07:00

Apparently, (ie. according to Justin Taylor on the Reformation21 blog), this is not a mickey-take.

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A Straw Man?

2006-10-11T04:38:00.000-07:00

Andrew comments on the Labour Party's recent issues regarding veils here.

I myself think that whilst the turban and the skullcap are likewise 'visible statements of separation', what makes the veil different is that it practically implements that separation (which the others do not) in a potentially unhelpful way. If, as is often said, most communication is non-verbal, then much of this will be facial. And for one person to cover their face when in a conversation puts the other person at a disadvantage. As such, his point is valid.

I have heard neither Straw nor any of his Labour colleagues express a desire to legislate against the wearing of the veils, merely an admission that he finds it unhelpful and has expressed that view in his constituency surgeries. Living in a society with freedom of religion is a very good thing, but it is also good when politicians promote expression of responsibility with those freedoms.

I doubt if any muslim will significantly change their practise with regard to veils due to Mr Straw's statements. However, I don't think that they should be shielded from being politely made aware that such practise causes some of the people with whom they share a society (and this includes people such as Jack Straw who have promoted religious tolerance) difficulty.

I agree with Andrew's rejection of the argument about the wearing of the veil being a provocative act (this is not an argument I have personally heard espoused by Straw nor any of his colleagues in the mainstream parties). But the same judgment ought to be applied to Straw's comments (likewise Andrew has not himself used this as an argument against Straw) - people using Jack Straw's words as an excuse for religious hatred are responsible for their actions, and should be held responsible as such.

I am glad that we live in a multicultural society (although Andrew's classification of muslim cultures in Britain by their country of origin raises questions about the level at which a community or culture can, does and should acquire an identity), I am proud that we have freedom of religious expression (in contrast with many muslim states) and wish it to increase and be promoted. But this ought to go hand in hand with the freedom to encourage responsibility with those freedoms.

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GTD Software picks...

2006-10-11T03:38:00.000-07:00

Having talked below about the low-tech leaning of GTD, I can't omit to mention a couple of my favourite pieces of software. First off is GTDTiddlyWiki Plus, an adaption of Jeremy Ruston's brilliant TiddlyWiki. This is a client-side wiki with a GTD bent. The great thing about this is that you just save it on your machine (or a USB stick - it also has an upload plugin if you want to host it so it's always accessible wherever you are) and then get going.

For a more data-driven approach there's my app of choice, iCommit by Rainer Bernhardts. This is a hosted solution, so you're going to need an internet connection when you want to use it, but it has the advantage of a very intuitive interface and a comprehensive implementation of GTD.

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Merlin Mann and David Allen's new podcast

2006-10-10T08:35:00.000-07:00

Very excited about this. David Allen, author of Getting Things Done has teamed up with Merlin Mann of 43 Folders for a podcast called Productive Talk.

Allen's Getting Things Done is the most influential productivity method in decades and differs from many other methods by focussing on common-sense rather than over-prioritising. Mann has done much to popularise GTD, particularly amongst those of a geeky persuasion, through his website 43 folders and the invention of high-tech tools like the hipster PDA.

There's a few things that attract me to this method. It's about finding what works rather than making life even more complicated. And unlike many method, it suits the way my mind works. I've always liked the great Donald Knuth's explanation of the growth of computer science as a subject, and in a similar manner these ideas are tools I can relate to:

This is the true explanation of why computer science became a university department so fast all around the world. The reason is not that computers are important tools for mankind, or something like that. The reason is that there were these people out there who had this way of thinking that never had a home before. They get together, they can communicate high bandwidth to each other, the same kind of analogies are meaningful to them. All of a sudden they could come together and work much more efficiently, not in someone else’s territory that wasn’t for them.

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Top 50 Christian Books

2006-10-09T06:44:00.000-07:00

Christianity Today have published a list of their believed top 50 books that have shaped evangelicals. A number of people have expressed confusion and scepticism about the number 1 result, Prayer: Conversing with God, by Rosalind Rinker. I definitely hadn't previously heard of it, and the view of prayer in the 1950s portrayed by Christianity Today doesn't fit with the view I have been given by my elders, and have read of in other books (maybe the view described is simply that of the US). Some have suggested however that CT was looking to make a point about prayer.

Another surprise in my opinion is the choice of the Living Bible at number 6. I don't disagree with it's inclusion, merely with it's description as the first in a new wave of modern English translations. Whilst it does not cover the whole Bible, J.B. Phillips' New Testament in Modern English was published earlier and was well-received and well-read on both sides of the atlantic. Also, whilst the LT may have influenced it, it seems to me that Eugene Peterson's The Message has made the Bible accessible to a new generation of evangelicals. Plus, the Living Bible talked of Paul going into a cave to "use the bathroom".

ThinkChristian ask readers for the top ten books that have influenced them. I would say:

The Return of the Prodigal Son, Henri Nouwen
A Way Through the Wilderness, Jamie Buckingham
Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, Eugene Peterson
The Divine Conspiracy, Dallas Willard
Desiring God, John Piper
Renovation of the Heart, Dallas Willard
Escape From Reason, Francis Schaeffer
Leap Over a Wall: Earthly Spirituality for Everyday Christians, Eugene Peterson
The Pleasures of God, John Piper
The God You can Know, Dan Dehaan

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Shocking...

2006-10-09T04:46:00.000-07:00

An amazing story of a shameful abuse of the Ship of Fools Mystery Worshipper feature, which appears to have been used by a vicar in an act of blatant self-promotion. A good singing voice and wonderful fashion sense are not necessarily the first things I look for in a Church leader - a degree of integrity would come higher up the list as far as I am concerned - but maybe some more Romeward-leaning anglicans would feel differently, at least so he seems to think.

"I was a bit distracted by the voice of the priest vicar. His singing voice was so wonderful one wanted to turn around and peer down at him in the way that one always looks at singers doing a solo."
"Fr Peters wore a lovely gold cope for the procession and then changed into a gold chasuble for the rest of the Mass, matching the gold dalmatic of the deacon"
"I was told beforehand that Fr Peters was a good preacher and those people didn't lie. In fact, he was one of the best preachers I have ever heard. The congregation are lucky to have him so regularly"

Link

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anglicanism

EXTREMELY sinister object in German field

2006-09-29T04:34:00.000-07:00

Click on this google maps link and see if you can guess what the small dark line in the centre of your screen is. Then zoom in - but you may want to have a glass of whisky to hand.

Hotting up

2006-09-14T01:38:00.000-07:00

This article is a blow to the global-warming skeptics. It amazes me the number, particularly in the US, of normally sane (and admittedly less-sane) folks who are so blinkered on this situation. Partisanship surely plays a significant role in this situation though. The US is so polarised on this issue - and democrat poster boy, past-presidential (and potentially future-presidential) candidate Al Gore writing a book and making a film about the impending dangers will convince some, but for many republican supporters it will put sensible science into the same category as the rantings of Michael Moore. However, research such as this only adds to the overwhelming evidence that solar variation theory falls a long way short of accounting for the global temperature rises seen over the past decades.

Maybe the US government could recruit South African health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang (aka "Dr Beetroot") to peddle their dodgy science. Come to think about it, ex Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf must be looking for a job...

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Please pray!

2006-07-25T04:22:00.000-07:00

As, some of you may know, in a little more than four days I will be a married man. I cannot wait for saturday to come and am really looking forward to it, however the past week and a half have been absolutely hellish. I have been in the process of moving house, trying to get prepared for the wedding, and being separated from Hazel by 150 miles for the past few weeks has not helped. That would've been trying enough but it's pretty clear that Satan has been trying to make the most of the situation by getting me down, and trying to cause as much trouble as he can in some of our circumstances. So if you could please pray, both for me and Hazel, it would be very much appreciated. I'd particularly like to get a proper night's sleep in the next few days (the problem is finding the time as well as actually getting to sleep).

Thank you!

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wedding

Gerv's Guide To Writing Good Propaganda

2006-07-13T08:34:00.000-07:00

A very interesting post by Times Online columnist and Christian computing blogger Gervase Markham on the Gay Police Association's anti-Christian propaganda: Link

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Six

2006-07-11T07:56:00.000-07:00

The number of matches England have won in the knockout stages of World and European Cups since 1966.

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The goalie has got football pie all over his shirt

2006-06-28T01:11:00.000-07:00

A glance at the Metro this morning elicited the following three discoveries:

Rio Ferdinand is quoted as saying he will consider England's World Cup campaign a failure if we do not reach the final.
Frank Lampard is quoted as saying he will consider England's World Cup campaign a failure if we do not beat Portugal.
Owen Hargreaves is quoted as having told his fellow player's that they are responsible for England's World Cup fate.

I can only conceive of two possibilities:

a) they are trying to line-up post-playing careers by advertising to the TV companies that with their talent for stating the obvious they are ideally suited for the profession of footbal commentating.
b) these 'facts' (3 being an actual fact, 1 & 2 being steps in the right direction) have really just occurred to the players - which I guess this would explain a lot.

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Why 4th July is so worth celebrating

2006-06-27T09:09:00.000-07:00

I invite you to share your moral outrage at this heinous filth by a pair of occidental philistines: The nihilism of soccer.

Oh, and how anyone can come out with such rubbish when they believe that FOOTBALL is something which involves the conjunction of HANDS with a PROLATE SPHEROID is beyond me.

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I can't answer - I can't answer that

2006-06-22T06:39:00.000-07:00

So I was passing through the Winter Gardens on my lunch break and there was a bevy of young schoolchildren singing, dancing and percussing their way through some songs, accompanied by some adult musicians. A sign next to them introduced the event as a "Magic Carpet Ride" featuring pupils from various South Yorkshire schools, with "Richard Barnard, Zoe Palmer, Luke Goss and Rikki Thomas Martinez.

LUKE GOSS?! It couldn't be, could it?

Actually no, but it had me wondering for a while.

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sheffield

Titanic: the Sequel

2006-06-19T15:57:00.000-07:00

Check out the trailer here.

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films

Some prophetic words from the 3rd Earl Russell

2006-06-19T14:47:00.000-07:00

Bertrand Russell, who was far from being the religious type, finished the penultimate chapter of his History of Western Philosophy with the following words:

...I feel a grave danger, the danger of what might be called cosmic impiety. The concept of 'truth' as something dependent upon facts largely outside human control has been one of the ways in which philosophy hitherto has inculcated the necessary element of humility. When this check upon pride is removed, a further step is taken on the road towards a certain kind of madness - the intoxication of power which invaded philosophy with Fichte, and to which modern men, whether philosophers or not, are prone. I am persuaded that this intoxication is the greatest danger of our time, and that any philosophy which, however unintentionally, contributes to it is increasing the danger of vast social disaster.

Although I disagree with him about where humanity's impiety is directed, he seems to have predicted the late 20th and early 21st centuries pretty well.

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...the most tip top, top cat

2006-06-07T08:49:00.000-07:00

A brilliant article on a judge who has ordered that a cat named "Meow, Baroness Penelope Cat of Nash DCB" must return a domain name similar to the product of a large bank: Link

However, Mr Hill continued, "it is equally well-known that the common cat, whose scientific name is Felis domesticus, cannot speak or read or write… Therefore, either the respondent is a different species of cat, such as the one that stars in the motion picture Cat From Outer Space, or the respondent's assertion regarding its being a cat is incorrect."

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This has to be heard to be believed...

2006-06-06T04:33:00.000-07:00

I've always thought that what the world has been missing is some Cherokee gospel yodelling. But it turns out I've been wrong.

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Raaagght Naaace

2006-05-23T05:16:00.000-07:00

I'd meant to link to it a while ago, but this interview with Richard Hawley in the Grauniad a couple of weeks back was very amusing. Both Hawley (unsurprisingly) and the interviewer give a good sense of life in Deedarland. Particularly poignant was the following enquiry:

Will the people change too? Will men - including hairy-arsed bus drivers - still call each other "love" and "duck" if Sheffield becomes the Stuttgart of the UK (the council's dream)?

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A New Golden Era

2006-05-22T08:27:00.000-07:00

What a glorious result! The second goal was a bit freaky but we definitely deserved the win. I was reading an article by Saint Graham de Taylor on saturday and he was saying how the comparisons between Boothroyd and himself were unfair on AB. I think he was correct regarding the situations being very different, that Boothroyd has surprised everyone by winning promotion to the premiership as a complete unknown in his first season of management. But a talent they do share is their ability to instill huge amounts of confidence in players who you wouldn't expect to have any reason for it - and prove everyone wrong as a result.

Now whilst I'm maybe not as willing to make bold statements about where we go next as either Aidy or Chairman Graham Simpson have, the fact is that few would have taken their aims seriously at the start of this season, yet they have been vindicated. It's great to see the club so united and focussed, much more so than last time we were promoted, and our youth system is much more thriving than it previously has been. I enjoyed ITV's interview with Graham Simpson - when asked what his reaction would be if Mourinho came and knocked on his door saying he wanted the Watford job, his response was that no-one could knock on the door whilst Aidy Boothroyd is here.

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Come on you 'orns!

2006-05-10T02:33:00.000-07:00

Well, last night got the job done. It was far from the prettiest match ever, but we're on our way to Cardiff thank you very much. I unfortunately won't be going but all being well the money saved will be able to take me to one or two premiership matches next season.

The reporting I've seen of the brawl between Adrian Boothroyd and Fitz Hall has been pretty scandalous I think. Looking at the replays, particularly the ones from along the touchline, it looks pretty clear (clearer than in real-time) that Boothroyd was trying to get the ball and it slipped away from him. Meanwhile, Hall elbowed him in the face.

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Four Things

2006-04-06T13:17:00.000-07:00

Four Jobs I've Had
Not nearly as interesting as Val's I'm afraid.
1) Spending all day counting cash in a Sainsbury's cash office.
2) Serving the finest italian coffees in a bookshop.
3) Building a stage for a brummy orchestra.
4) Trying and failing to inject some semblance of order into the filing system of a Japanese car company's marketing department.

Movies/Shows I've Been Addicted To
1) I seem to remember there being something about the president of the United States.
2) Saved by the Bell.
3) Breakfast (ie BBC1 morning show, and still am).
4) Start the Week on Radio 4.

Four Places I've Lived
Very boring I'm afraid, in fact I'm not sure why I bothered doing this.
1) Watford
2) Broomhill
3) Crookes
4) Norfolk Park

Four Popular False Assumptions About Me
1) That my surname is 'Wilks' and I am in the national Ultimate Frisbee Squad, or indeed that I can even throw a frisbee (these always seem to go together).
2) That I regularly win games of Trivial Pursuit in 2 goes.
3) That I like potatoes.
4) That I am the person to ask how to do strange esoteric things with Microsoft Word or Excel.

Four People I Look Like
1) Supposedly Nicholas Cage, but that's nonsense.
2) Billy (Jeremy Sisto) from Six Feet Under, but that's just the current hair and beard arrangement.
3) Leo Sayer.
4) Don Henley circa 1976.

Youth Hostelling with Chris Eubank

2006-04-06T12:47:00.000-07:00

Dont know if anyone else has seen any of Dinner with Portiallo - you'd need cable/freeview or the like as it's on BBC4. It's one of the most surreal things I've ever seen - Michael Portillo and a bunch of guests, the one I saw included Rosie Boycott, Ken Clarke, Angela Rumbold and Gerald Kaufman at a dinner party, chatting about some chosen subject - in this case the year 1973. I don't know who thought it up, but they'd obviously been taking something. I'm not sure whether they were just looking for a bit of a concept, just pushing the established boundaries regardless of them needing pushing or what. Oddly though, it kinda works. It enables you to have a civilised discussion involving about eight people, simply because half of them have their mouths full (although this suffered when they'd finished a course, and they began to all talk at once). And also, there are some oddly entertaining moments, like Rosie Boycott being blissfully oblivious of a piece of food hanging off her chin. I'm actually quite surprised that people agreed to do it, as I imagine being filmed eating, let alone trying to have a high-brow discussion at6 the same time, causing quite a lot of self-consciousness.

I have to say, Portillo, possibly epitomises an odd pattern I;ve noticed over the years - ie. that Tory politicians turn out to be amazingly likeable when they aren't actually in a place of huge influence in their party or the country. Take Major, Billy Hague (although it'll be interesting to see more of how he fares as shadow home sec), IDS, hey even occasionally John Redwood! They all turn out to be pretty nice chaps as long as you know that they won't be in any position to feed their own grandmothers to the bugblatter beast of Traal. Oh, and Portillo holds another place in my heart: he is the closest I have come to achieving a longheld ambition, finding a white man called Denzil (it's Portillo's middle name).

Some technology well worth splashing out on...

2006-03-29T04:26:00.000-08:00

if you have a spare 10,000 euros

Dead people I would like to have met #1

2006-03-29T04:13:00.000-08:00

Zeno of Elea (circa 490BC - circa 430BC): I think I'd just like to know what planet he was on. He is mainly known for producing three paradoxes to support his case that motion is impossible. First there was his dichotomy, that motion is impossible since "that which is in locomotion must arrive at the half-way stage before it arrives at the goal." (ie, each journey can be divided into an infinite series of finitely small sub-journeys. Then there was the achilles: "In a race, the quickest runner can never overtake the slowest, since the pursuer must first reach the point whence the pursued started, so that the slower must always hold a lead. And then the arrow: "If everything when it occupies an equal space is at rest, and if that which is in locomotion is always occupying such a space at any moment, the flying arrow is therefore motionless."

Grrr...

2006-03-29T03:47:00.000-08:00

When I was at university, I had a lecturer for Computer Architecture and 3D Computer Graphics who was a bit of a character. For one thing, he looked very much like an aged King Arthur caricature with long curly blond ringlets and a short pointy beard. But he also had an extremely deep hatred of technology, which seemed very strange considering he was a well-known authority around the world on the above subjects. He would come into lectures and launch into a discourse bemoaning the red light that would flash on his departmental phone when somebody called, before then moving onto the methods used by Pixar to make Toy Story. Apparently he got so annoyed by this light that he had to cover it with a few layers of masking tape.

At the time I was utterly confused by this apparent dichotomy, but more and more I'm coming round to the view that maybe he had a point. I do think that we are in danger of having an addiction to technology, so we will invest in supposedly useful items simply because it's small and electronic rather than it actually helping us. Prime offender here is the PDA. Can someone tell me what advantage it has over a pen and paper?! It just takes longer to record things, but you feel like you're being more productive. The people it helps most is employers, by blurring the boundary between it's employees' work lives and home lives.

Real progress is represented by the Hipster PDA.

No alarms and no surprises...

2006-03-29T03:46:00.000-08:00

Simon, your base ministry is Teacher!

Teacher - 23
Pastor - 18
Evangelist - 16
Apostle - 13
Prophet - 11

Great C S Lewis Quote

2006-03-29T03:42:00.000-08:00

The great thing is, if one can, to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions in one's "own" or "real" life. The truth is, of course, that what one regards as interruptions are precisely one's life.

A dark day

2006-03-21T14:45:00.000-08:00

Today, it would seem, my iRiver iHP-140 mp3 player has played it's last song. Long will it be cherished in my memory. I maintain that it wiped the floor with a 'pod any day of the week - unfortunately it's charger socket could only handle so much. Well, my walks to work and back are going to be much less boring from now on without some Librivox recordings to keep me sane.

A very interesting and incisive...

2006-03-19T16:11:00.000-08:00

...article on culture and mission by Frederica Mathewes-Green.

Lovng the storm-drenched

I'm not sure...

2006-03-13T15:49:00.000-08:00

...what I think about things like this. The second and third points are very good points I think, and if they had come first maybe it would be OK. But there's something in me that always cringes when I hear an apologetic that goes along the lines of "what are the chances of the universe randomly producing life?". It's a very tired argument that just doesn't work. Not because it's wrong, but because it's loaded with assumptions, and it's always clear that the apologist believes that everyone, including those who oppose their view, will share those assumptions, when generally they won't.

The real point of contention is meaning. The apologist is trying to prove that the universe was designed and made by an intelligence, by saying "what are the chances the universe would end up like this?" But that argument begins with the assumption that there was some intention or aim that it should have ended up like this. Which is essentially what they are trying to argue. So it's a completely circular argument. To think of things on terms of the odds of the universe ending up with intelligent life is to say that intelligent life has some higher meaning. Maybe so, but no reason has been given to say so. As is often pointed out, there could be billions of universes with different parameters, and eventually intelligent life would become likely in one of them. It's meaningless to say "what are the chances of it having been our one?" because we're going to have to be in the "intelligent life" universe in order to think of such things. And who's to say that the different parameters of other universes would not produce things with equal meaning, whether that is more advanced life of a different nature, or a cold dark void. Likewise, there could be just one universe (any anyhow, from within a universe it is hard to conceive of any meaningful difference between the existence of one or many universes), in which case the most likely universe to have come into existence is the one we are in, simply because we are in it.

No, the argument is not one of what are the chances? It is a much more basic one. It is "does this universe have meaning?" I believe it does, mainly (or entirely?) through the ability to interact with the divine. A majority of people on this planet would say they believe in some kind of spirituality. Many of them would say that there are events where physical, emotional and mental phenomena some how are affected by this spiritual realm. They have had "spiritual experiences". If it is true (which is where faith comes in), there is absolutely no scientific reason why this should be so. That a self-created physical universe should "break in" to this otherwise unconnected spiritual realm of existence defies logic. How has this connection been made? But if a physical universe is created by a spiritual being, who creates people in his own image to appreciate his material creation and through it to somehow comprehend his spiritual existence - that a creator should create such a link seems wholly rational.

I must say

2006-03-13T15:14:00.000-08:00

...it is very entertaining seeing Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh destroying their credibility by suing Dan Brown. Whilst the Da Vinci Code is a load of twoddle, at least it is sold as fiction (the first page list of "facts" being no less fiction than the rest). Baigent and Leigh's book, the Holy Blood and the Holy Grail (which they wrote with Henry Lincoln), has been marketed for the past 25 years as history. Beginning with a bizarre mystery of how a 19th century French priest amassed huge wealth after finding some parchments in his Church, they explain how Jesus never died and his bloodline continued through a dynasty of Frankish kings and on through a secret society which has been manipulating European politics for hundreds of years and continues to do so now. Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln have purveyed their silliness through books and TV programmes pretty much ever since. So yeah, of course Dan Brown used their ideas. But it was very much their ideas, their imaginations, which he used, rather than history - which they have implicitly admitted by suing him for libel. After all, you can't copyright history.

Oh, and by the way, in between the two books being written (and this is something they all do their best to ignore), it was shown that the "mediaeval manuscripts" Baigent, Leigh and Lincoln based their work on were written by a couple of French anarchist in the 1960s Baigent et al had been strung along the whole time. So maybe it's the late Pierre Plantard and Phillipe de Cherisey who are really the victims here.

And while we're on social networking sites...

2006-03-13T14:42:00.000-08:00

...US-based business social networking site ZeroDegrees uses a pretty broad definition for City. English users are offered in excess of 2000 options in the city select field when registering, including the well-known cities of Abbess Roding, Baker St, Buckingham Palace, Charnock Richard, Cold Norton, Donkey Town, Fiddlers Hamlet, Good Easter, Hertfordshire, Houses of Parliament, Matching Tye, Port Sunlight, Snodland, Stainland, Summer Bridge, Thong, Turton Bottoms, Up Holland and Water.

For anyone into myspace/social networking services...

2006-03-13T14:31:00.000-08:00

New antisocial network isolatr has launched:

Link

Proof that standards in British schools really aren't high enough...

2006-03-09T06:10:00.000-08:00

Link

Counting down

2006-03-06T04:55:00.000-08:00

It's now less than five months till the most exciting day of my life: getting married to Hazel. Plans are afoot with all the preparations, although in that sense five months seems not very long at all. In every other sense it seems like a PAINFULLY long time.

Improbable Aural Sensations

2006-02-10T01:27:00.000-08:00

Has anyone heard William Shatner's cover version of Common People? It's crazy, but brilliant. He spends most of the song atonally growling the lyrics a la Leonard Cohen, and then later gets a bit more tuneful and energetic, before being joined by some other bloke.

But my favourite crazy celebrity song at the moment is Macarthur Park by (the) Richard Harris, which he did in the 1968. King David, Bob Dylan, Ira Gershwin, have all written some great lyrics, but surely few come close to this great chorus (it was written by Jimmy Webb):

Someone left the cake out in the rain
I don't think that I can take it
'Cause it took so long to bake it
And I'll never have that recipe again
Oh, no!

Now I thought...

2006-01-18T14:55:00.000-08:00

...those phone numbers you could call and play them a bit of a tune and it would identify them were an impressive feat - Check out songtapper.com. You tap the rhythm of a melody and it comes up with a shortlist of possibilities. It takes a while but my test case (Livin' on a Prayer) came top of the list. Having said that, considering the other items on the shortlist (Summer of '69 (Bryan Adams), Neighbours Theme (Reg Grundy)), I could canceive that it just spews out a list of the most likely tunes people are going to test it with.

Pure Genius...

2006-01-18T01:57:00.000-08:00

The root of some amount or other of evil

2006-01-11T14:19:00.000-08:00

Don't know whether anyone caught Richard Dawkins' programme "The Root of all Evil?" on channel 4 on monday night. I gave him up until the first break before I decided he was being too silly to waste time on. His argument was something along the lines of "Here are some people who have faith in silly things... therefore all faith is silly. Some people who have faith use it as an excuse to kill people... therefore all faith is evil and is responsible for all(/most/some) [more on this below] evil. QED"

I hope that this isn't just me being vindictive, but hearing Vine wipe the floor with him last thursday lunchtime on the wireless was one of the most entertaining experiences of my life. Beginning with Vine questioning the statement "the root of all evil", Dawkins first said that he wouldn't defend that to the hilt, to which JV naturally expressed incredulity at the appropriateness of using it as a title. From here on you could hear Prof Dawkins squirming:

RD: I think that religion is the root of a very great deal of evil.

JV: It's not the same thing [as the root of all evil].

RD: Let's move on to the next point then.

JV: Well, no. Let's not. Let's stick with this. Your programme is called the root of all evil...

RD: It's boring what it's called.

JV: But surely it is a false statement.

[Loooooong pause]

RD: Let's go on.

JV: But it's the title of the programme.

[Another long pause]

RD: It is the title of the programme, it is a title which is partially defensible...

JV: Well "all" is not partial.

RD: I agree with you. [More annoyed] I agree with you, now let's move on.

JV: Well I'm confused about this - you're saying the title is wrong, but it's partially defensible, or what?

RD: Yes

JV: So how can you defend a false statement?

RD: This is such a boring discussion [it was this statement, most of all, that made it clear how confused Dawkins was, as the discussion's entertainment value was roughly equivalent to the "goodness" of the cakes made by a certain Mr Kipling], why can't we talk about the programme itself?

At this point Professor Rich had the bright idea of cutting his losses and just launching into what his argument was (religion encourages people to take actions which they can excuse themselves from having to justify). But Vine wasn't quite willing to let him off the hook...

JV: If, it's not the root of all evil as you have now conceded, is it your argument that it is the root of most evil or just some evil?

RD: Yes, I think probably most evil in the world today, if you look at the violence in the world, if you look at the wars in the world, I would think it's the root of most evil, yes.

JV: If we say it's the root of most evil, how do you explain that the three greatest mass-murderers of the last century, Stalin, Mao and Hitler, did not have a religious creed at all.

RD: Hitler was a Roman Catholic and he justified his hatred of the jews on Christian grounds. Stalin was an atheist, no doubt about that. However, it would be completely false to suggest that Stalin or indeed Hitler did what they did because of any tendency to atheism, the same goes for Mao. Religious people will justify evil on religious grounds. Atheists who do evil things just happen to be atheists, just as they happen to have moustaches.

Now, I see three glaring flaws in Dawkins' argument here:

1) He says "Religious people will justify evil on religious grounds" and "Atheists who do evil things just happen to be atheists". Hitler justified much of his evil on supposed (ie. supposed by Hitler) scientific grounds (supposed science being Dawkins own discipline).

2) His claim that atheists who do evil things just happen to be atheists is false. Their atheism is itself a belief that they will not ultimately be held to account by a morally and powerfully superior being. This gives them the psychological freedom to do as much evil as they please without any consideration of any undesirable consequence for them.

3) Mao didn't have a moustache.

Anyway, a couple of minutes later we had:

JV: So, you accept then that your comment that religion is the root of most evil is also wrong.

[Do not adjust your radios, despite this yawning chasm of a pause]

RD: Errrrrm. No. I don't think I would accept that because I am talking about history as a whole including today when Stalin is fortunately gone, and including the whole sweep of history when most of the wars, at least in European history, could be put down to religious differences.

And so on, with more and more clutching at haybales...

The Lib Dems...

2006-01-11T14:10:00.000-08:00

...always struck me as such a nice bunch. And now it turns out they're a bunch of back-stabbing psychopaths who wouldn't even lift a finger to save their own grandmothers from the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal. However Mark Oaten, behind his youth and inexperience, hides an incisive mind with an unusually accurate view of the world. As of today, I hope he makes the next Prime Minister - When asked about his perfect day today he said he would be in his greenhouse with his family listening to Watford winning 3-2.

The Secret Life of Si...

2005-12-23T03:39:00.000-08:00

It's nearly Christmas and at Sheffield Technology Park there are few people around - which is a relief. Cos if there were they might find me hard at work in a Watford shirt listening to Bon Jovi.

A Spring in My Step

2005-12-20T13:29:00.000-08:00

Am absolutely loving the Barenaked Ladies/Sarah McLachlan medley of the best bits from God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen and We Three Kings - it's about the most fun track I've heard in a long while. Plus the fact it's not every day that you get such fab artistes singing lyrics like THIS:

God rest ye merry, gentlemen,
Let nothing you dismay,
Remember Christ our Saviour
Was born upon this day;
To save us all from Satan's power
When we were gone astray.

O tidings of comfort and joy,
Comfort and joy,
O tidings of comfort and joy!

From God our heavenly Father
This blessed angel came;
And unto certain shepherds
Brought tidings of the same;
How that in Bethlehem was born
The Son of God by name.

O, star of wonder, star of night,
Star with royal beauty bright,
Westward leading, still proceeding,
Guide us to that perfect light.

Born a king on Bethlehem's plain;
Gold I bring to crown Him again;
King forever, ceasing never,
Over us all to reign.

Glorious now behold Him arise,
King and God and sacrifice,
Hallelujah! Hallelujah!
Worship Him, God Most High.

John Spencer...

2005-12-17T04:29:00.000-08:00

...who plays Leo McGarry has died. It's interesting reading the article to see how much he had in common with his character. He was an amazing actor, which became increasingly evident in the 6th West Wing season. Will be missed

Am excited...

2005-12-16T10:17:00.000-08:00

...about Radio 3's A Bach Christmas. Have always had quite a fondness for Bach - I guess it's the fact that he's a particularly "left brain" composer, which gives me a lot of hope. The things that I most admire and enjoy are expressions of creativity, but I organise my thoughts and process in a very rational, orderly way (I organise my surroundings to compensate for that!). But Bach makes me realise that order and precision, with his patterns and sequences, can be very creative things.

My love of our public broadcasting service is at an all-time high at the moment, having recently realised just how good radio is. Having grown up being force-fed Radio 4 I hated it until I rediscovered it whilst at university when I began many a Monday morning having been up all night finishing a deadline with a good dose of the Today programme followed by Start the Week with Paxman. But I've recently been enjoying 2 and 3 too. A bit of Breakfast on BBC1 in the morning is always good to start the day with. Anyway, got to go now. News Quiz time...

So I wonder...

2005-12-13T02:59:00.000-08:00

...how much of our carbon oxide emission quotas we have left now?

You used to like the sad songs of doom and gloom...

2005-12-13T02:47:00.000-08:00

Having once mistakenly bought every Christian/insomniac's favourite pre-Coldplay album, White Ladder, I feel a slight sense of annoyance with myself that every so often I hear the single from David Gray's new album and absolutely love it. I feel a sense of trepidation that I might accidently buy this one and discover it is equally tedious, or else I might be missing out on something genuinely pretty good. Having said that, White Ladder did have a pretty cool EXTREMELY hidden track - if only I could work out how to rip it. (NOTE: if you do have Life in Slow Motion and it is good, please don't tell me - I'm trying to avoid frivolous spending so would rather remain in ignorance)

And how good...

2005-12-08T05:09:00.000-08:00

...is the Jeremy Vine show on Radio 2?! I didn't think radio that good existed outside of '4. Quality chat with decent music too. And what other radio show has a house poet? And you can't knock a channel with a newsreader called Fenella Fudge!

DC United?

2005-12-08T04:28:00.000-08:00

So, Cameron it is. I think I'm the only person who believes this, but I can't help thinking that his very Blair-a-like-ness is actually going to stimulate a policy-driven politics that has been absent. For the last few years, watching PMQs has always been like being asked to take sides in a row between the Milkybar Kid and the Childcatcher (although from Major onwards Tory leaders have always seemed like really good guys after they've quit - so it's nice to see good ol' Bill Hague back on the front bench). But, it's just been pure panto. The Conservative Party image has been so distasteful that it's been pretty difficult to take them seriously and to not view Labour in a positive light simply for not being the Tories. But now, they are looking young, sprightly and vigorous - it is conceivable that they could have a positive, shiny finish. And so, in perceiving the two main parties, much of the parties spin will be cancelled out, since the Tories will now have some chance of spinning positively. Now, the very thing that IS going to distinguish them in people's minds, for the first time in years, is going to be... policy. Oddly, though this new dawn seems to have not just done the Tories a favour, but also Blair. Watching PMQs yesterday he seemed to be bathed in a different light from in recent months. Suddenly he seems a lot less tiresome and annoying now that it is clear that he is not the only person in the world who is so naturally unnaturally-charming. And Brown was looking like he would be a step BACK to the times of left-wing Labour leaders with minimal social skills.

Holy Tango

2005-12-07T15:18:00.000-08:00

Wow... this has to be the best poetry book EVER. Francis Heaney has written the Holy Tango of Literature, a collection of poems/plays which in his words answers the question "What if poets and playwrights wrote works whose titles were anagrams of their names?", and best of all his publishers have allowed him to make it available as an eBook under the Creative Commons License. I've always thought the world has been a poorer place for not having a T S Eliot work entitled "Toilets", an Ogden Nash verse "Hen Gonads" or an Oscar Wilde play called "IRS Law Code" - until now. Anyway, maybe one day I'll be famous and people will be desperate to know my thoughts on mini owlskins

The West Wing Season 6 Episode 13...

2005-12-04T06:53:00.000-08:00

...Surely life doesn't get much better than this

What better way...

2005-10-26T02:21:00.000-07:00

...to enhance that classic "warm" Les Paul humbucker sound than by...

...plugging it into a toaster?! Hottie Amplifiers

What is...

2005-10-25T15:53:00.000-07:00

...George Bush's favourite "novel", is considered a fable about transformation in Cambodia and an anti-capitalist morality tale in Germany, and is rumoured to have had its film rights sold for £1 million?

Oh well, guess it's downhill from here...

2005-10-25T03:05:00.000-07:00

This is absolutely amazing - you can save yourself splashing out a good £30 on DVDs with these two:

Star Wars
Empire Strikes Back

Now let's hope they don't go and spoil it with the next (/previous) 4 by using tons of needless CGI ;-)

Happy 210th Birthday...

2005-10-21T03:25:00.000-07:00

...to James Wilson

Myers Briggs

2005-10-20T05:42:00.000-07:00

Steve Cochran did a very good cluster evening for us last week on Myers-Briggs. Was pleasantly surprised - found it amazingly interesting and insightful. It was interesting to really get the distinctions and to try and identify which type ourselves and each other were.

I remember posting a mickey take test that came out with results like SEDF - sober emotional destructive follower. Well, I've since found this, which gives you an alternative take on your actual personality type. And it's ABSOLUTELY spot on when it comes to mine. So I am willing to offer a year's supply of marmite to anyone who can guess which personality type I am.

West Wing Season 6

2005-10-17T07:12:00.000-07:00

"Hurrah!" is all I can say. Well, OK, maybe I can manage a bit more than that. I think that if the first two episodes are anything to go by, then they have managed to get over the mere "amazingly good-ness" of the past couple of seasons and get back on track with being simply mindbogglingly superb. They don't seem to feel the need to make every episode into a self-contained constant spoonfeeding of spectacular drama (ironic that they've done that whilst trying to find peace in the middle east), and for the viewer it's back to that pleasant feeling of struggling to keep a handle on the subtlety of what's actually going on. There's been some brilliant direction too in the last couple of episodes (the intermingling of the simultaneous Jewish and Muslim rites being a good example), and Bartlett seems to have got himself an extremely loud clock in the Oval Office, which has served well to shiver the spine in some tense moments between him and Leo. Admittedly, Will Bailey and Kate Harding still only serve to make you realise that Sam was less annoying than you thought. And in the few minutes or hours that passed between seasons 5 and 6 Josh did a lot of working out.

Annoying that More4 decided to spoil the episode 2 cliffhanger with their trailer for episode 3 though.

Mmmm....

2005-06-13T07:25:00.000-07:00

You scored as Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan. You are an evangelical in the Wesleyan tradition. You believe that God's grace enables you to choose to believe in him, even though you yourself are totally depraved. The gift of the Holy Spirit gives you assurance of your salvation, and he also enables you to live the life of obedience to which God has called us. You are influenced heavly by John Wesley and the Methodists.

Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan

82%

Emergent/Postmodern

68%

Reformed Evangelical

64%

Fundamentalist

57%

Neo orthodox

54%

Classical Liberal

46%

Roman Catholic

46%

Charismatic/Pentecostal

43%

Modern Liberal

29%

What's your theological worldview?
created with QuizFarm.com

It's been a long while...

2005-06-13T05:49:00.000-07:00

...since I've posted. A lot has happened. Went to my grandad's ("Grandfather's")funeral on friday which was a seriously profound experience. It was sober and sad in terms of parting, but it seemed clear to everyone that beyond that there was no reason for it to be sombre. It was a time to be joyful for him - that he is reunited with my Grannie, that he is no longer having to struggle with the mental and physical trials of old age, and that he is with his Saviour.

Particularly moving was one of the hymns, "I cannot tell". His memory had deteriorated over the last couple of years which had in almost all senses been a very negative thing, but my Aunt explained how in one respect it had been positive. He had a piece of paper in his Bible with the words of this hymn, and every few days my parents or my aunt would get a phone call from him talking of this hymn which he had "discovered". It was clear that each time this happened he was coming to it freshly, as if for the first time and it clearly spoke to him powerfully each time of God's love for him.

I came away with a lot of admiration for him, and also a lot of recognition of some of the things he enjoyed - some things that I enjoy but don't make time for. It's increased my awareness that I'm not good at resting to work - that I spend so much time running on empty and I'm desperate to learn to do things differently.

One of the things I've come back to in the last couple of days is liturgy. I think tradition for tradition's sake is a bad thing, but sometimes things have become "traditional" because they've been tested by time and generations have found it helpful and good. I love this post-communion from Common Worship for instance:

Father of all,
we give you thanks and praise,
that when we were still far off
you met us in your Son and brought us home.
Dying and living, he declared your love,
gave us grace, and opened the gate of glory.
May we who share Christ’s body live his risen life;
we who drink his cup bring life to others;
we whom the Spirit lights give light to the world.
Keep us firm in the hope you have set before us,
so we and all your children shall be free,
and the whole earth live to praise your name;
through Christ our Lord.
Amen.

Something I've been working through at the moment is John 6, where Jesus is teaching and his disciples find what he says difficult and offensive, and some of them "withdrew and did not walk with him anymore." It makes me think how stubborn I can be. Would I be offended by Jesus (after all it must be pretty humbling to spend much time with someone who's ALWAYS right!)? I'm good at convincing myself that I know best, but could/can I swallow my pride enough to accept that what Jesus says is right even if I can't see or understand why? I believe that Jesus' precepts stand up to scrutiny, but after all the scrutiny is ended and I'm left with the stark choice of my way or his way, it has to come down to what Peter had to say: He [Jesus] has the words of eternal life. I don't.

Is anyone NOT a cultural creative?

2005-05-23T05:41:00.000-07:00

You scored as Cultural Creative. Cultural Creatives are probably the newest group to enter this realm. You are a modern thinker who tends to shy away from organized religion but still feels as if there is something greater than ourselves. You are very spiritual, even if you are not religious. Life has a meaning outside of the rational.

Cultural Creative

69%

Romanticist

69%

Postmodernist

50%

Fundamentalist

38%

Idealist

31%

Materialist

25%

Existentialist

25%

Modernist

What is Your World View? (corrected...again)
created with QuizFarm.com

When I say L U V, you better believe me L U V...

2005-05-17T03:33:00.000-07:00

Weighing in on Ruth's moral debate, I personally would at least read it, mainly because one of the many things I seem to have inherited from my Dad is an enjoyment of being stimulated to anger. When it comes to newspaper-reading, obviously the content of what is reported matters, but in terms of interpretation and opinion, I don't particularly want to read something that is just likely to make me nod my head in agreement. Now of course, having said that, there are limits - frequenting a BNP conference or reading the Daily *&!% (although I'm getting worryingly into melaniephillips.com - and I find her quite insufferable) isn't my idea of a good time, and there really is something quite scary about Michael Howard (it says something when it was ANNE WIDDECOMBE who pointed that out to us!). But then again I have noticed myself drifting slightly less leftward than I once was, so I'm clearly not immune to what I take in - I do think it is important, however, to be able to defend my values to myself, and if not, then to adjust them.

Whether linking to it is immoral I guess depends on whether one would say that to be a conservative is immoral. The struggle that conservatism has is convincing people that their ideology is better for society as a whole and not just a subset (just as liberalism has to convince people that success and hard work will be adequately rewarded). Michael Howard said on the party leader's Question Time that the question he applies to every issue is "what is best for Britain?" and yet a few moments later he said that of course he would allow victims of humanitarian evils into the country. To me that suggests a contradiaction, and that he isn't quite able to believe that his own ideology is best for society.

Where the Conservatives has really failed (although maybe it should be applauded over some other parties for trying), I think, is in communicating a connection between morality with the good of both the whole and the individual. With circles of concern having become so small, personal and individualistic (which I don't think the Tories can really absolve themselves from having played a significant role in) it is difficult for a statement about morality to not immediately end up being a statement about rights or equality. But surely unbounded freedom, when it is made the most of (which if we're honest it will be) leads to unbounded consequences - it's just that consequences are for a later time or for other people to deal with. And so when the party of small government, the party who seem least willing to help, are also the party most willing to make statements about their possibly being an element of right and wrong in people's choices, then it is natural that it puts some people's backs up.

I am, however, pretty certain there are many Conservatives who are not anagrams of "Virginia Bottomley", but sincerely believe that conservatism (possibly as something distinct from what was presented in the election campaign) is good. They're yet to convince me, but they are welcome to try.

The Fog of War

2005-05-16T05:10:00.000-07:00

Happened to watch this last night... was very interesting. It was a film in which Robert McNamara (US defense secretary during the Cuban Missile Crisis and the early years of the Vietnam war) discussed his life and gave 11 lessons which he had learnt. They were:

1. Empathize with your enemy.

2. Rationality will not save us.

3. There's something beyond one's self.

4. Maximize efficiency.

5. Proportionality should be a guideline in war.

6. Get the data.

7. Belief and seeing are both often wrong.

8. Be prepared to reexamine your reasoning.

9. In order to do good, you may have to engage in evil.

10. Never say never.

11. You can't change human nature.

A lot of those got me thinking... lesson 11 is something that the Christian is very aware of (as is 3), but a couple of the others have interesting consequences if accepted. Lesson 2 is something that I could definitely do well to take on board at times, but the one that really gets me thinking is actually 9. I guess it comes down to asking yourself if that is an acceptable axiom to live by? Is it a correct and even righteous view of the world that says that in order to reduce the evil in the world, evil acts will probably be necessary. I wonder what leads to a more chaotic value-system: that, which says that evil may be necessary in order for good to come about; or what I guess is the more common contemporary view - that the moral value of an act is judged on the basis of it's intention, so killing can be good if the end is good. McNamara seemed to take the view that killing is always bad, but we should do bad if the end is good (but not call the act good). It was very interesting to see that there were some actions during his tenure as Defense Secretary that he clearly felt a deep sense of responsibility for (there were some that he didn't too), and that some of those that he believed were right even though he felt a sense of guilt as a result of having had to make those decisions.

For anyone who's ever read a computer science academic paper...

2005-05-11T03:53:00.000-07:00

...you may want to:

a) seek professsional help.
b) check this out.

The writers of this managed to get one of their "papers" accepted to The 9th World Multi-Conference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics.

I managed to become author of "Decoupling the Partition Table from the Ethernet in Evolutionary Programming" - lots of realistically incoherent stuff about "psychoacoustic configurations" and the "Italian toolkit for randomly visualizing partitioned hit ratio" before a paragraph entitled "dogfooding our approach". Still, marginally more coherent than this.

That's John Fushaanoo, tonight on BBC2...

2005-04-28T02:55:00.000-07:00

Question Time tonight, unfortunately not from Wembley Stadium, with all three leaders having a 30 minute slot, should be quite interesting. Watch out for any bulges in the back.

Also, here, you can get your very own virtual Peter Snow who will pop up at irregular interviews and tell you the news. Like a Microsoft Office Paperclip except a lot more useful and less irritating.

With a few flippant clicks of my mouse, democracy is senselessly butchered at my hands...

2005-04-27T05:16:00.000-07:00

Who should I vote for?

Your expected outcome:

Keep-Illegal-Dolphins-Out-Of-Our-Cities Party

Your actual outcome:

Labour -2
Conservative -5
	Liberal Democrat 27
UK Independence Party -4
	Green 36

You should vote: Green

The Green Party, which is of course strong on environmental issues, takes a strong position on welfare issues, but was firmly against the war in Iraq. Other key concerns are cannabis, where the party takes a liberal line, and foxhunting, which unsurprisingly the Greens are firmly against.

Take the test at Who Should You Vote For

Mmm, considering the above results, and that the public whip election quiz told me I should vote Conservative, I have demonstrated that either:

a) "issues" are overrated, and should not be used to decide where I put my cross.

b) the internet is overrated, and should not be used to decide where I put my cross.

c) I should've thought ahead so that I could be putting the cross by my own name.

Considering there is probably some truth in a and b, and c is too ghastly a thought for anybody to bear thinking about, looks like I'm going to have to go on the typical things like personality or my favourite colour (which at least for the purposes of this discussion is not green or blue).

Question Time...

2005-04-07T00:23:00.000-07:00

...saw about 25 mins of last night's edition and found it just depressing. I switched on part way through a question that seemed to be about how John Paul II would be remembered. David Blunkett gave a horrific answer about there not being moral absolutes, and against my expectations Petrina Holdsworth (chairman of UKIP - a nice bit of anti-PCness in her job title) was pretty good, and Michael Ancram was generally very good, saying that he wanted our spiritual leaders to place truth above modernisation. But what was really depressing was the audience. Now, I don't think I do agree with the pope's views on contraception, and obviously unprotected sex is only one of a number of means of HIV/AIDS transmission but when Ancram mentioned safe sex not just being about contraception, and pointed out that the pope had been a strong campaigner against the world's failure to provide treatment to AIDS sufferers in the developing world, one woman turned on him and angrily asked him what he could possibly mean by safe sex if not contraception? I couldn't believe it. The one thing that people were unable to admit was that we as species have failed. There was a lot of talk about being progressive, which in many ways is a good idea, but people use the word as if humanity, after however many thousands of years of making a mess of our lives and our world, is just around the corner from getting it right and solving all the problems that we've got ourselves into. I know that this word is not part of the modern frame of reference, but sin is destructive, and in many cases the people who suffer are not the ones who are guilty of the particular sin. So people are often passed HIV through no fault of their own, but as humanity we've cocked up and we're all responsible. We demand our freedom to do what we want and then wash our hands of any guilt for what happens afterwards. As Edith Schaeffer wisely pointed out, we do have freedom of choice, but we don't have the freedom to choose the consequences of our choices. It's funny, Romans 1 has always seemed quite harsh to me until last night, but now it makes a little more sense - professing to be wise we have become fools, and God having told us a better way, has continually accepted our demands for freedom to do what we want and has "given us over to a depraved mind". And we just continue to portray Him as the bad guy.

I'm back...

2005-03-29T00:34:00.000-08:00

...after a short tour of the South East of England. Mainly been in Woking and Watford, visiting both mine and Hazel's parents. Went to Les Mis on saturday night which was cool. Had a scary moment on saturday night when I dipped into my old A-Level chemistry books and realised that I find them strangely interesting, so I've brought them back to Sheffield to read.

Mmmmm....

2005-03-21T01:09:00.000-08:00

Have felt quite uneasy about a lot of stuff that I've heard, read seen recently. It feels like there's an increasing sense that it is wrong to think that what you believe is true - it is wrong to think that other people should believe what we believe. Now it's all very prudent, it's safe, it stops people getting offended or recognisably hurt by us... but... Jesus said, "If you continue in My word, then you are truly disciples of Mine; and you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free." Jesus says we will KNOW the TRUTH. There isn't any uncertainty in that. Ahhh, but people have believed and told us that they have known the truth before, and we or others have followed them and they've been wrong... whether they are people that we've known or Munsterites or whomever. Yes, they have... so why not make our response to strive harder to continue in Jesus' word and be His disciples, His students. To ask Him to make us sure of His truth and for Him to protect us from any other ideas that may get in the way of that, or take us off His path. To discuss and allow God to use each other to challenge our ideas but to ultimately be submitted to Him knowing that behind all the doctrine etc. there is a real "person" with real opinions (ie. Truth) that He wants us to KNOW and be confident in, a solid rock for us to build our foundations on. And if we are only prepared to get ourselves low enough He will teach us.

I don't know especially much about post-modernism etc. or emerging church, but it does scare me. There seem to be so many dirty words these days: "religion" (I liked what Richard and Ben had to say about that, even if they might not agree with me on this!), "obedience" (because apparently to want to live lives of "obedience" to God smacks of "religion"), "law" (I think we need reminding that God's law is GOOD, and is a key part of God's design for fulfilled lives - it is legalism, ie. enslavement to the law which is not good), "Bible" (because to read the Bible encourages a legalistic attitude) and "truth" (because to believe in truth mean us and the people around us will have to come to terms with being either right or wrong). The last thing that the post-modern world and the people in it need is not a post-modern gospel or a post-modern church. They need the original gospel, presented where necessary in appropriate 21st century language and idioms - just like Jesus presented the gospel in appropriate 1st century language and idioms - but it must be the same gospel, ie JESUS CHRIST. We don't need a church that says, hey everyone that came between Jesus and us got it wrong and therefore a) we can't get it right or b) we, unlike them are doing it right. We and the world need one that recognises itself as part of The Church, that owns it's history and is prepared to say that we've got it wrong in the past and we'll more than probably get it wrong again but we are determined to walk ever closer to Jesus and become ever more confident of the truth He teaches us. That feels it is appropriate to have corporate beliefs because Christianity isn't about what we can each make God into, but about what God can make us into. A church website I saw recently said "We are an immature church. But we are trying to grow up." I think that there should be an element of that attitude in every Church.

But this is offensive, it says that everyone else is wrong whilst we have the truth. It doesn't take into account the progress we have made in human thought, the lessons we've learnt about how we should treat each other etc., it doesn't take into account the lessons I'VE learnt! But the gospel has always been exactly this offensive - it's always gone against accepted wisdom; it's always required its adherents to accept that there is a better wisdom than that of me or humanity.

And because I'm English...

2005-02-17T06:57:00.000-08:00

You Are a Conservative Democrat

Frankly, the way most other Democrats behave embarasses you greatly.

You pride yourself on a high level of morals, and you have a good grasp on right and wrong.

It's likely you think America needs to get back to its conservative, Juedo-Christian values.

Why aren't you a Republican then? Because you believe the goverment helps more than hurts.

What political persuasion are you?

To Pete...

2005-02-09T01:04:00.000-08:00

I'll take that bet.

(Eth's go' a mouf full o' cookies!)

Things I do plan to do this weekend...

2005-02-04T08:29:00.000-08:00

a) see the Motorcycle Diaries
b) get a lot of sleep and bathtime
c) get lots of guitar practise
d) get a much-needed (see right) haircut from Horinouchi's Salon
e) begin the Purpose Driven Life

Things I don't plan to do this weekend...

2005-02-04T08:23:00.000-08:00

a) sleep at St Pancras Station
b) dress up as a cloud
c) walk to Sheffield from some dark corner of the peak district
d) become dehydrated by dressing in a dinner suit and a wetsuit at the same time
e) die my hair ginger

Mmm...

2005-02-04T08:11:00.000-08:00

...not sure why none of my template changes are working.

I'm back...

2005-02-04T08:03:00.000-08:00

Yes, I have returned after my self-imposed virtual exile. Sure I'll have more to say later, most of it no doubt completely inane.