February 2012
14 posts
John Peel's Records To Be Put Online →
John Peel’s record collection, consisting of around 25,000 vinyl LPs, is to be put online in virtual form for an Arts Council project entitled The Space.
25,000 and they won’t find better than this.
I must be a homophobe, I just don’t feel like one
Within hours of the Coalition for Marriage petition going live online, Guardian journalist Grace Dent had outed the Bishop of Carlisle on Twitter as being a signatory and therefore a ‘homophobe’.
Interesting isn’t it? No debate, no nuance, no agreement to disagree. Oppose the changing of the definition of marriage and ipso facto you hate and fear gays.
Given that I agree with the beliefs of the...
Matthew Parris on the Patronisers of Faith →
Beware (I would say to believers) the patronage of unbelievers. They want your religion as a social institution, filleted of true faith. It is the atheists, who think this God business matters, who are on your side.
As an unbeliever my sympathies are with fundamentalists. They seem to me to represent the source, the roots, the essential energy of their faiths. They go back to basics. To those...
Evangelising the Kings way
Published originally in the February issue of The Treasury.
Think of your church building. Does it have a notice board? What message does it contain? With what does it compete?
Perhaps yours is a rural church with only a few houses around it; maybe its in a housing estate with only a pub and a newsagent to add colour to the rows of identical terraces.
Mount Pleasant is not like that. It’s...
10 Reasons to Believe in a Historical Adam →
Argue about a young earth or an old earth, debate six days or six “days” but reject the notion of a real Adam and I can’t really see that there’s much of Christianity left.
Mattel could finally release the Back To The... →
Mattel say,
This totally awesome 1:1 replica of the hover board from the BTTF 2 and BTTF 3 films includes multiple whooshing sounds and will glide over most surfaces”—except for water, unless you’ve got POWER. But also, everything else that is not water, because Mattel also notes that it “does not actually ‘hover’—check back in 2015 for that feature.
Which sounds a bit pointless but is still a...
BBC Music Showcase →
One of my new year resolutions was to get into classical music. This brilliantly presented site is helping me do just that.
(Though when I’m doing my Welsh homework I’m going here instead)
Why Dawkins will come to regret being right and...
Ho, ho, ho. Richard Dawkins doesn’t know the name of his own ‘sacred text’! Ha, ha,ha, Giles Fraser owned him live on the radio!! Epic Fail, Dawkins!!!
If you missed the Today programme on Tuesday, the recording of Dawkins V Fraser (after The Thriller in Manilla, The Imbroglio in the Studio, anyone?) is available all over the internet and the inevitable youtube clip is good for...
Empire: What Ruling the World Did to the British... →
I got this for Christmas and just finished reading it. Pretty much agree with this review- if you’re looking for an answer to the question he claims to be posing you won’t be satisfied. However, if like me, you want an overview of Empire and to know the story behind the myths, (Khartoum, Eden, Mau Mau etc) it’s a readable and even handed account. Good stuff.
Footballer Ravel Morrison hammered for homophobic... →
Though going by his use of English, homophobia is the least of his worries.
Marriage Counselling: A review of Real Marriage
The following was published in the February edition of The Treasury.
Mark Driscoll may have passed you by but for young Christians he is big news. Flick through the downloads on your nephew’s iPhone and you’ll likely find a podcast from Mars Hill Seattle, Driscoll’s 7000+ member ‘mega church’. Access his video app and you may find a brilliantly produced recording of one Driscoll’s sermons...
Superbowl Sunday →
For those of you who want to know what all the fuss is about tomorrow.
And for those who couldn’t care less remember,
So, hate the game. But try to understand the players. Millions play high school football. 10,710 get Division I football scholarships. Only 90 will wear a uniform this Sunday. This is the culmination of endless games of catch with Dad in the backyard, of 6 AM wind sprints...
Guy Davies on last weeks EMW leaders conference →
Includes these tips from Stuart Olyott on being great,
Don’t arrive at church at the last moment and then leave quickly. Talk to people. Get to know them. Visit the sick. Open your home for meetings. Don’t neglect family life. Don’t often be absent from church. Know your Bible. Get to grips with theology. Pray for people. Don’t criticise them. Pray for your pastor and the...
Anakin and Luke could have learned something from... →
It’s odd, but the more I look at these, the more sentimental I get.
January 2012
26 posts
Real mix up
I’ve been writing an article for inclusion in The Treasury this month about a book called Real Marriage by American minister Mark Driscoll. I mentioned this to somebody over the weekend and he got very het up and said “Isn’t he the man who called British ministers cowards?
I’d not heard of such a thing but a quick Google showed that indeed he has been quoted as saying...
QR Codes Are the Roller-Skating Horses of... →
If you come across such a harbinger of modern mobility, you grab your smartphone, fire up one of the numerous Apps that are meant to decipher this code, hold your camera in the direction of the code like you were actually taking a picture, wait for the autofocus of your mobile camera to get a clear image and if all works well you are being redirected to some website.
If you really wanted to know...
Hard to believe now, but there was a time when... →
37 Signals recalls what it was like to be different and own Apple,
We had to deal with incompatibilities of all kind. There was the ridicule of overpriced shiny white plastic. We were somewhere in between the “first they ignore you” and the “then they laugh at you” state of adoption. But for those of us who endured it, the result was not disillusion but a hardening of the resolve. Macs were (and...
Fonts In Use – Norwegian Bible, 2011 Editions →
Fonts In Use (one of my favourite websites) assesses the Norwegian Bible published at the end of last year. The publishers tried to produce three versions (traditional, literary and digital) with one consistent theme, which doesn’t quite work, but the literary edition looks beautiful, and may well be the one that reads best.
Things you don't see anymore #20 →
Feu Orange
Pundits Folly on Twitter
I’ve had an account for a while now and have finally decided to try and use it. My account is @punditsfolly or you can click the button on the left.
High Speed Rail →
Infrastructure is our family silver as a nation. It is our inheritance and our legacy. It helps define our greatness and our greatest days. It is the very furniture of a dynamic political economy. So I’m delighted it’s back in the news, back in fashion and back on the agenda of forward-looking politicians. We are talking here of what we will leave the next generation to make their lives and...
Anne Atkins' Thought for the Day →
Relevant, passionate and as much of the gospel as you could realistically expect to hear on the BBC.
The best piece of cricket fielding ever? →
“Please be good. Please be good”
Hello →
Watch this, then email the link to the loved one/film geek in your life.
c/o DF
Gray Nicholls relaunch the GN 100 Scoop →
Really evocative writing from the Guardian Sport blog,
Part of its magic was the sound it made, a great hollow ‘whump’ that pre-dated the current, plosive crack. You couldn’t help but feel a bit superior with a Scoop in the bag, and that was half the battle. I got my first hundred with one, on a distant field long ago, forgotten by all but me.
Right Titles
Preparing to preach in Penyrheol Community Church over the weekend, I was struck by this little truth.
If you had to write to a Lord how would begin your letter?
Wikipedia suggests the following.
Normally one refers to or addresses Baron [X] as Lord [X] and his wife as Lady [X]. In the case of women who hold baronies in their own right, they can be referred to as Baroness [X] as well as Lady...
Five Years After Banning Outdoor Ads, Brazil's... →
Is there any single improvement we could make in Britain today that would be better than this?
Simile/metaphor of the day
Today’s competition ends in a tie between this description of footballer, Andy Carroll,
[who addresses] the ball with the finesse of a man booting an old hubcap along a motorway verge.
and this one of Ed Milliband,
[who should] learn to smile less like somebody trying to get the lid off a jar of jam.
Terry Eagleton reviews Religion for Atheists by... →
Question: What would Christianity be like if you could take God out of it?
De Botton believes in the need for a host of “consoling, subtle or just charming rituals” to restore a sense of community in a fractured society. He even envisages a new kind of restaurant in which strangers would be forced to sit together and open up their hearts to one another. There would be a Book of Agape...
119 Amazing Facts →
36. The only number whose letters are in alphabetical order is 40 (f-o-r-t-y).
Also, number 41 is my type of trivia and 13 is unsettling.
The Most Incredible Space Imagery →
To misquote Johnson, when a man has tired of photographs peering into deep space he has tired of life.
Things you don't see anymore #19
Comedians making jokes about the food in the BBC canteen.
(Rarer than I thought, the best I could find in a trawl of the internet was this Harry Hill style sketch)
Noah... →
…knitted.
Why girls don't like Lego, what Lego is doing... →
What Lego has done over the last few decades is take a truly wonderful gender-neutral toy, infuse it with boyness, and tell every kid who’ll listen that the toy is not-for-girls. Now, stuck with only 50% of the kid market, they’re going after girls by overcompensating. And, to top it all off, they’re shaking their heads and doing “science” to try to figure out girls, as if they’re some strange...
And on the subject of giant companies struggling... →
What killed Kodak?
Where can you get good books in the UK? →
I could write for fifty years and still not be as funny as Paul Levy. Not even sure how he gets away with being so rude- it must be his cheeky grin. Here he reviews Christian bookshops. Special attention should be paid to the following,
The Met Tab bookshop is quite literally a sensation. Anything that doesn’t have the imprimatur of the minister doesn’t get sold, apart from one...
Whatever happened to Sony? →
I haven’t had need to buy living room tech for years so when I recently bought a TV and Blu Ray player I was amazed that Sony wasn’t the go to gadget company anymore.
This guy explains why.
Eric Liddell's 400 metres win, 1924 →
When I was a boy we spent every May Day bank holiday driving into the depths of East Anglia to a preaching rally (which, to an 11 year old boy was about as exciting as it sounds).
Every year I was allowed to choose a book from the bookstall and one year I chose one with the picture of a runner on the front. It turned out to be about a Scottish Christian and athlete called Eric Liddell and he...
Opinionated Type's Fonts of 2011 →
Hard to see beyond Ideal sans for me, but Pluto Condensed gives it a run for its money.
MÂN BETHAU: Dw i
I’ve started a new column in the Treasury which takes bits and pieces I’ve learned while studying Welsh and brings them round to the Bible. Because of the way things translate in Welsh and my dubious proficiency in the language, I may be on a hiding to nothing (or neud rhywbeth diddiolch) but here goes…
Way back on October 3rd when I began learning Welsh, the very first phrase...
December 2011
21 posts
"Orangeade" →
This was the codeword that would allow a civil servant in London to be put through to Burlington, a secret bunker in Corsham, Wiltshire, warning that it was about to become the last bastion of British government after Soviet nuclear bombs had devastated the country. The procedure, detailed in the 1962 Cabinet Office War Book, released under the 50-year-rule, is a brief, chilling guide to what...
1 tag
Sticking around after Christmas
Did you know that the three kings in the carol weren’t really kings? They were more likely wise men or ‘magi’ and there were probably more than three of them. Also they didn’t come to the stable, they turned up to see Jesus a lot later.
You did?
Oh ok. Well did you know that the stable was probably more likely to have been a cave? Or that the inn keeper could have been a relative of Joseph? Or...
Merry →
As Christmas comes to a close, John Gruber sums up being a dad perfectly.
The sound of Christmas
Move over Mariah, there’s a new Christmas favourite in town.
FAO preachers; Remember it's a wonderful life →
I know it’s been tough going these past few weeks. Christmas is a demanding time and there’s a whole heap of pressure on you. Well there’s two days to go and plenty of opportunities still to come your way. Suck it up, give it your best shot and take on board this post via Stafford Carson.
A kid with attitude →
Carl Trueman’s christmas article epistomologises Wizzard superbly.
Especially noteworthy though, is the following paragraph,
I wonder if it is coincidence that at the very moment when childhood - or, perhaps better, childishness - seems to be permeating society, atheism and the militant rejection of Christianity are becoming so trendy. There is nothing more childish than the repudiation...
Things you don't see anymore #18
Christmassy videos on Facebook.
Where’s 2011’s flash mob?
David Cameron: "I am a committed – but I have to... →
Dear reader,
I know what you’re looking for, but frankly I could write that article standing on my head.
Yours faithfully
Jonathan
Assimilation Watch
Watching on as The Christian Institute morphs into the Daily Mail.
Today’s outrage- Christians are ‘evil’ for backing marriage, says Tesco R&D boss
Christians are “evil” if they resist the redefinition of marriage to allow for same-sex marriage, the Head of Research and Development at Tesco.com has said.
The inflammatory comment came as news emerged that the supermarket giant is...
Obituary of Boris Chertok →
Boris Chertok, who has died aged 99, was a Russian rocket engineer and a key architect of the Soviet space programme; he played a crucial role in launching the Sputnik satellite and ensuring that Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space.
In 1957, Chertok was busy testing the newly-created R-7 rocket, one of the world’s first intercontinental ballistic missiles, which he had helped build with...