you can't control the message

blog:off

2007-08-02T09:39:00.000+01:00

It’s ending as it started. More of a whimper than a bang.

I’ve said it before: blogging is the thing that drops off the “to do” list first when the “real” bites back. And sometimes, when things hurt, stuff happens, life comes in to focus more sharply or just gets busy, blogging goes out the window. And rightly so.

I wonder if it’s a bit like friends on Facebook – sometimes, they really are your mates but most of the time, not. And when mates are really what you need, the internet ain’t going to love you back, buy you a drink, console you.

I like to converse, drink coffee, prop up the bar, banter, cook and eat, connect with. Blogging and being - different tools, different times, different needs...

I think I’m also (not so) secretly addicted to the feeds. It’s time to stop.

I’m not as thoughtful a blogger as Ben.
I’m not as witty a blogger as jonnyfun or Fat Roland.
I’m not as incisive a blogger as Kester.
I’m not as dedicated or frequent a blogger as Mike at feig-city or Mark at Way Out West.
I’m not as crafty a blogger as Sal at Tinkering Times.
I’m not as sharing a blogger as L1z at Reach Out and Touch The Screen.

I think I’ve basically run out of pixel-based, QWERTY-formulated words.

You might still find me at Reel Review or posting messages about herons at Sanctus1 but till then, nuff said here at least.

You can’t control the message.

fame and fortune at last...

2007-07-17T18:34:00.000+01:00

Well, fame anyway...

BBC Magazine Monitor Letters 170707

Chuffed.

creative trespassers... and Richard Hammond

2007-07-12T15:03:00.000+01:00

This morning (in fact, this week) I’ve mainly been head-down on a focussed task, getting information in from people in a certain format to publish… Both concentrated and dull to some extent.

But in amidst that, I had a conversation with a new colleague who mentioned these two snippets of quotes, both of which hugely appealed to me.

Richard Hammond (on winning the 2007 Royal Society Junior Prize for Science Books):
"Perhaps all children need is the confidence to approach a subject with enthusiasm and an open mind."

Arthur Koestler (from his book The Sleepwalkers):
“…that this age of specialists is in need of creative trespassers".

Nice.

technorati tag: richard hammond, arthur koestler, creative trespassers, royal society junior prize for science books

what matters...

2007-07-10T14:14:00.000+01:00

"Health is largely an obsession, what matters is can you still sing." George Melly, RIP

technorati tag: george melly

notice:- no, i'm still not interested in joining...

2007-07-10T12:25:00.000+01:00

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

kapital...

2007-07-05T10:56:00.000+01:00

Kapital – last night was the world-premiere for Greg Hall/ Steve Martland film commission for Manchester International Festival. Apparently the three “Londoners” (those two and Alex Poots, festival director) cooked up the title in a café in Finsbury Park – and I think that about says it all.

Simon Mellor said in the post-film Q&A that he thought that Manchester was one of the main characters in the piece. And I couldn’t have agreed less. If you’re a Cockney, why come to a strange city and try and make a “Mancunian” film?

My feeling overall was that it could have worked as four short films. Actually, it could have been one short. In fact, I recommend you watch the well-edited one minute trailer approximately 75 times instead of catching the full director’s cut…

It was like watching an art installation film piece in a cinema; it’s certainly no feature film. Nice try MIF, but features budgets tend to have another nought on the end of them. As a result of that, and I suspect also the providence of the director, this really isn’t a film worth seeking out. More Krap-ital than Kapital.

technorati tag: kapital, manchester international festival

email disclaimer

2007-06-22T15:02:00.000+01:00

You know the thing, the lines at the bottom of a big company email...

This email may contain legally privileged and/or confidential information. It is solely for and is confidential for use by the addressee, unauthorised recipients, confidentiality, blah, received it in error, notify, rubarb rubarb, unless expressly stated, contractually binding, whatever, liability, blah, intended recipient, sanctioned, viruses transmitted, blah, blah...

Sorry. Nodded off there for a mo...

So it was a bit of a breath of fresh air to get this today - am sure the lawyers would have a field day with it, but hey.

We have an email policy* which we would like you to take note of. It’s not the most exciting of reads but it is important. Deep breath - here goes…

We love emails; they are quick and environmentally friendly and if we ever print an email we promise to use recycled paper and then dispose of it responsibly. Please try and do the same.
This email and its attachments are intended for the above named only and may be confidential. If this email has come to you in error – do not panic! Take no action based on the email, nor copy or show to anyone, simply reply to this message highlighting the error. We would be awfully grateful if you could do this.

Although great time and care has gone into creating this email from [company], please be aware that Internet email is not a 100% secure communications medium. Bear this in mind…you can always give us a call or pop in for a coffee instead.

Although we have tried our very best to make sure that this email and its attachments are virus free, we do advise that the recipient (i.e. you) ensure that this is the case. Be careful!

Oh and enjoy your day. Well done for reaching the bottom - call us for a certificate.

*not really an email policy but an important message all the same.

busy bee

2007-06-20T11:14:00.000+01:00

I have been particularly so these last few weeks (work, life, stuff, more work). But I'm back now. Well a bit more than the last month or so anyway.

Blogging - it's the thing that fills a gap when the rest of life's stuff calms down a bit.

100 days

2007-06-20T11:10:00.001+01:00

100 days.

We wait for news (which you used to bring us).
We sign petitions, we lobby, we hold vigils, we blog.
We wait in hope.

technorati tag: alan johnston

webby five word acceptance speech...

2007-06-07T11:06:00.000+01:00

Neat! Here's some I like...

News
BBC News - Webby: Alan, we're thinking of you.

Newspaper
The Guardian - Webby: Please free Alan Johnston now.

Science
HubbleSite - People's Voice: houston we have a winner

Artist of the Year
Beastie Boys: Can anyone fix my computer?

Lifetime Achievement
Meg Whitman: Bidding starts at 99 cents.

Lifetime Achievement
David Bowie: I only get five words? Sh*t, that was five. Four more there. That's three. Two.

Person of the Year
Chad Harley & Steve Chen: YouTubers, this is for you.

Social Networking
Facebook - People's Voice: im just here for bowie

Fashion
ZOOZOOM 'The Original Online Glossy' - Webby: not just a pretty face

Lifestyles
DIYNetwork.com - Webby: Now let's get hammered.

Religion and Spirituality
Religion & Ethics Newsweekly - Webby: to all our colleagues, thanks

Religion and Spirituality
What Is Enlightenment? - Webby: get enlightened, or die trying

Youth
Nick.com - Webby: have sex, make more kids

technorati tag: webby awards

editors

2007-05-23T13:18:00.000+01:00

OK, OK, I’ll admit it. We really wanted to go to Saturday’s The Best Disco in Town Live 2007… But somehow M and I found ourselves standing in the spring sunshine of a Warrington Tuesday evening waiting to see these blokes called Editors instead - and no, Sec C, it’s nothing to do with books! ;-)

Last night, two years on from The Back Room, those nearly-Brum boys made their comeback appearance at the Parr Hall in Warrington. Yes you read that right – one of the UK’s bands of the decade playing in a municipal hall in a small northern town sandwiched between the urban corridor of Liverpool and Manchester. You may well ask why…

Tom Smith was on fire – the comparisons with Ian Curtis are fair, but he’s much much more as well. It’s like he’s got an electric pulse running through his veins, making him convulse and twitch. His guitar’s more like a piece of armour AND a weapon, than an instrument. Chris Urbanowicz wouldn’t be out of place playing guitar with Franz Ferdinand or Placebo, and Russell Leetch as part of Robbie’s backing band (sorry – it was the jeans and suit jacket). And Ed Lay just sits out there at the back, getting on with the real business of bashing your heart into the rhythm of his drumming…

But as ever when you're trying to convey something no-one else experienced, all of that completely undersells them. This unstyled, rag bag of slightly geeky musicians played above, beyond, out of themselves, giving us way more than everything they had, whilst still checking we were ok, they weren’t losing us, it was going ok?…

My gig of the year by far – subtle, electric, buoyant, and yes (that awful muso journo short-hand) anthemic. The new stuff from the upcoming album An End Has A Start sounds just as good as The Back Room – maybe even better, but it was hard to tell on one listen… Time will of course tell.

And thankfully all this – a neat hour and twenty of short, sharp rocks - without the swagger of the Kaiser Chief’s pitiful attempt at a second album (everything is average nowadays – you bet).

technorati tag: editors

happy 45th birthday, alan johnston...

2007-05-17T09:43:00.001+01:00

To Our Own Correspondent, Alan: "For more than 50 years on this programme, the news has been broadcast from our own correspondents. Today - with apologies to you - I want to send a message to one of our own. Day 66 of Alan Johnston's captivity is also his 45th birthday. Most likely there will be no candles or cake. But my hope is that somewhere, somehow, Alan will be able to listen. His family, his friends, his colleagues all miss him. We want him home. Our birthday wish is his immediate release. Happy birthday Alan."

(Jon Williams, World Editor, BBC News, Jerusalem)

technorati tag: alan johnston

birthday wishes for Alan Johnston...

2007-05-15T15:51:00.000+01:00

Another way to show that you haven't forgotten Alan Johnston's abduction - 64 days today since he vanished - the Media Guardian site reports:

The BBC's kidnapped Gaza correspondent Alan Johnston turns 45 on Thursday and the corporation has issued an address for people who want to send birthday cards as a show of support. Johnston has not been seen since he was seized at gunpoint in Gaza City on March 12.
Last week, he was named broadcasting journalist of the year at the annual London Press Club awards, where the BBC director general, Mark Thompson, paid tribute to Johnston and the courage of his family. Readers who wish to send cards should post them to the World Affairs Unit, Room 410SE, BBC Bush House, Strand, London, WC2B 4PH.

technorati tag: alan johnston

in the middle of the room...

2007-05-14T12:22:00.000+01:00

Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to present...
a man whose musical and comedic talents stretch to clowning about whilst singing about funerals
the smaller-in-real-life-but-still-somehow-larger-than-life
vaudeville-esque
tragi-comic musician
and Huckleberry-Finn-The-Musical-wannabe (better they never make a reality find-a-star show about that!)
...Duke Special!

At the end of last night’s rapturously received Manchester Academy gig, for the last encore, he and the band leapt off stage, walked through the crowd, busked an improv number about being in the middle of the room, someone playing the spoons, etc. And then ended with a fantastic necessarily-unplugged version of John Lennon Love. And all about two feet from where we were standing!! I always say that M picks the best spot to stand at a gig… ;-)

Catch him now while you can still see him in some intimate venues – or at Greenbelt. Do it – or have another boring bank holiday weekend.

technorati tag: duke special

breathe deep

2007-05-04T14:47:00.001+01:00

As seen this morning on Oxford Road...

technorati tag: oxford road

the day before yesterday...

2007-05-04T11:01:00.001+01:00

film sense-orship

2007-04-30T16:13:00.001+01:00

Too young to see the film you star in because of the BBFC rating? Then make sure you get it shown in Bristol (a la Shane Meadow's This is England).

At last, an authority showing some sense over film censorship - and adjusting the certification to a 15. If only this had happened for Sweet Sixteen as well. Sadly, it's too late now.

technorati tag: BBFC, this is england

The Wiki-master interview

2007-04-30T16:00:00.000+01:00

A fascinating glimpse into Jimmy Wales' take on everything net-ty.

> So what prevents renegade users editing each other into oblivion, and Wikipedia from becoming the world’s most unreliable resource?

> “It’s really about having a good community, having certain values within that community, and making sure the community has the tools they need to monitor the quality and maintain it over time,” says Wales. “Those are the real keys to what makes it work.”

technorati tag: wikipedia, jimmy wales

"15 minutes" - this sunday

2007-04-30T11:53:00.000+01:00

15 Minutes (18)

The final in our Heroes and Villains series (and the last in this run of films…)

This Sunday, 6th May

Doors: 6.30pm Film starts: 7pm prompt

VENUE CHANGE ** please note that we've moved venues (contact for location details) **

If you want to explore the film's themes and issues: Post-film discussion: 9.15pm onwards Evening ends: no later than 10pm

Feel free to bring your own food, drinks and snacks.

IMDB listing and technorati tag: reel spirituality, 15 minutes

big voice for the little guys

2007-04-25T18:03:00.001+01:00

howies do it again - a wealth of info on good ideas and good people, for our good planet home.

Little Big Voice lectures

technorati tag: howies, little big voice

Alan Johnston

2007-04-17T18:03:00.001+01:00

life on mars?...

2007-04-11T09:34:00.000+01:00

Guess what? Sam was in a coma all along (cf Bobby's shower dream).

Sam's brain tumor and the swelling were the cause of his coma, and once operated on, he was hunky dory and back in the real world. All the 'clever' clues were actually his ward name, the room number, his surgeon... (It was around this time - 15 minutes from the end - that I started shouting at the TV.)

Except that once Sam was back, it didn't feel real to him. The life he'd longed to go back to - his family, the present - felt so much less real to him that he jumped off a roof - killed himself - to get back to 1973. And all because he'd promised Annie he wouldn't 'just leave'... Ah...

Questions...
If the 1973 life that Sam was living in ultimately was and felt more real to him than the present, why did he always want to go home so badly from 1973?
And why did he make the 'slightly' drastic choice of death in order to go back?
Surely he knew that was a cop-out (pardon the pun) - his mum, his girlfriend, his mates and colleagues would be distraught, guilt-ridden, at his recovery and sudden suicide?
One minute he was telling us that it was good to talk about it, the next jumping off the roof - why?
A copper of such principle, such a modern, ethical man, wouldn't choose to kill himself for racist, mysogynist fantasy-land?
He spent months trying to convince them that their methods made them corrupt, violent, sexist pigs (sorry again) - and yet he chose to go back and be one of them?
lf this is all correct, surely it's more accurate to say he was actually more mad than in a coma? Or both - the coma sent him mad?

And more...
Why did the Beeb commission a second series in the first place?
Why did I ever start watching it anyway?
lf it's true they made two endings, can they please let us see the other one?
Doesn't Jon Wilde's son's explanation seem so much better, more real, more satisfying?
Does it make me feel any better that one of the country's best TV critics doesn't seem to know what it means either?
Does all this mean Janet Street Porter's right, we get the TV we deserve?...

So many questions, and nere an answer to be found. Auntie, do the decent thing and 'Gene Hunt' the 80s spin-off now...

technorati tag: life on mars

resurrection sunday

2007-04-08T14:01:00.000+01:00

Be the change...

2007-04-08T11:27:00.000+01:00

Sanctus1 and Be The Change presents the Change the Dream Symposium

Where on Earth are we going?
And what can we do about it?

These are two of the questions that lie at the heart of Change the Dream. It explores the link between three of humanity’s most critical concerns: environmental sustainability, social justice and spiritual fulfillment.

Using video clips from some of the world’s most respected thinkers, inspiring short films, and leading edge information on the state of the planet and its people, the day allows all of us to gain a new insight into the opportunity we have to shape the direction of our world with our everyday choices and actions.

Monday 7 May (bank holiday), 10.00 - 4.30
Nexus, Dale St., Manchester, M1 1JW
0161 236 0100

Cost: £10 (£5 unwaged) - any profits will be donated to suitable charities.
Fairtrade tea/ coffee provided. Lunch not included – bring or buy your own.

For bookings and info, please email bethechange@sanctus1.co.uk

technorati tag: be the change, sanctus1

a realisation...

2007-04-08T10:23:00.000+01:00

If you close your eyes and listen hard, the sound of rain on a hood sounds a lot like the patter of rain on a tent.

Thought that was worth sharing...

technorati tag: rain

some friendly post-gig advice to the young knives...

2007-03-30T09:56:00.000+01:00

You rock! Just don't do what you threatened - and come back with the quintessential sh*t second album. Please.

technorati tag: the young knives

last night K9 saved my life...

2007-03-30T09:46:00.000+01:00

Last night, whilst browsing around the Museum of Science and Industry, I was nearly attacked by a walking, talking Cyberman...

...shot at by a Dalek...

and blasted by an Ood...

but K9 saved my life! Phew...

technorati tag: doctor who, museum of science and industry

Reel Spirituality - Leon, this Sunday

2007-03-29T10:17:00.000+01:00

Leon (18)
The third in our Heroes and Villains series

This Sunday, 1st April
Doors: 6.30pm Film starts: 7pm prompt

VENUE CHANGE ** please note that we’ve moved venues (email Sanctus1 for location details) **

If you want to explore the film’s themes and issues:
Post-film discussion: 9.15pm onwards Evening ends: no later than 10pm

Feel free to bring your own food, drinks and snacks – I think there might be free popcorn!

Next month, the last in the series of Heroes and Villains:
6th May - 15 Minutes (18)

technorati tag: reel spirituality, sanctus1, leon

my weekend...

2007-03-27T12:32:00.000+01:00

Happy times. Happy birthday C!

the tribe...

2007-03-27T12:31:00.001+01:00

Having heard some of their stories previously, it's great to see Jim Gilmore's take on The Tribe written up for a wider audience. Go read - it's thoughtful, reflective, empowering stuff...

technorati tag: the tribe, emerging church

fight, fight, fight...

2007-03-16T13:56:00.000+01:00

My mate Iain has always been an argumentative/ pedantic type but now he's picked the mother of all fights with the government's Chief Bulldog himself - John Reid. Go Iain, loving your work...

Reid wrong about comfort of smoking, research shows - smoking is not associated with better quality of life or increased pleasure.

Results from a study that investigated links between smoking and pleasure and quality of life showed no evidence to support a controversial comment by the former health secretary John Reid (now the home secretary) that for some people their only enjoyment was having a cigarette (Public Health 2007 Mar 2, doi: 10.1016/j.puhe.2007.01.005). [*this bit is Iain's research*]

"We found no evidence to support a claim that smoking is associated with heightened levels of pleasure, either in low socioeconomic groups or in the general population. In fact, our results suggest the opposite: that smoking is associated with lower levels of pleasure and poorer overall quality of life. As a group, smokers have lower levels of pleasure and quality of life than those who have never smoked, with ex-smokers in between," say the authors. The report says that in June 2004 Dr Reid claimed that people in lower socioeconomic categories "have very few pleasures in life and one of them they regard as smoking."

He added, "What enjoyment does a 21 year old single mother of three living in a council sink estate get? The only enjoyment sometimes they have is to have a cigarette." His comments, say the authors, brought criticism from other political parties, the BMA, antismoking groups, and others. "The health secretary's assertion that smoking is a source of pleasure seems to contradict established epidemiological knowledge about the association between mental health and smoking," they say, "Despite this, no evidence based interrogation of his claims has been conducted."

In fact, the researchers say, until now no analyses of the association between smoking and measured pleasure or quality of life have been done. To see whether pleasure and better quality of life were associated with smoking, the team from Peninsula Medical School in Exeter and Cambridge University analysed data from a study of 9176 men and women aged 50 years or more who took part in the health survey for England."

technorati tag: smoking, john reid

star-mega-bucks

2007-03-16T13:35:00.000+01:00

Unusually for me, I was pretty much forced into Barstucks (as we affectionately call it) for a meeting the other day. And was horrified - nay, angry - nay, amazed - all of those and more! - that they've got a Starbucks book for sale on the counter.

Ne'ermind the music, the paraphenalia, the Times, the mugs, the coffee (which is after all what we went in there for the in the first place)... a book! By someone with a PhD no less!

Starbucks Experience: 5 Principles for Turning Ordinary into Extraordinary

Another money spinner - surely. Another opportunity to expound their "brand values" - of course. An opportunity to get under their skin, immitate, de/re-construct, learn from them, be challenged by them - that too?

technorati tag: starbucks book

jennie-come-latelys...

2007-03-07T11:02:00.000+01:00

Even though we know it, it's nice to be reminded once in a while that we're the Jennie-come-latelys... ;-)

technorati tag: ladies loo

some friendly post-gig advice to The Hours...

2007-03-06T14:25:00.000+01:00

Some friendly advice to The Hours following last night’s Academy 3 gig (aka best venue in Manc):

We came to the gig already loving the songs. But please learn a bit of patter to keep us with you between numbers.

To Antony Genn - lose the guitar more often. When you played People Say you looked really free, it came alive more. Do it more often, hire someone else to play your parts if you have to.

Try not to play venues the same night as a sold-out The Rifles gig – you’ll end up getting the disappointed dregs of people who couldn’t get in to see them. This will only pain and annoy your real fans.

Consider not playing a song about your dead dad as the first number after the encore. You’d just got us jumping when you went off stage and then it was a hard change of tempo to pull off (hence the aforementioned Rifles dregs talking through it – unforgivable but…)

Never, ever let your drummer wear a short-sleeved button-up black shirt. He looks like a hotel bellboy.

To Martin Slattery – try not to look like a rabbit caught in the headlights from the moment you come on stage. Maybe close your eyes once in a while or look at your keys if you can’t stop staring at us in a slightly off-yer-head way.

Finally - don’t try so hard. You ARE rock stars. So stop *trying* to be one and just be. You’ve seen how Pulp, Elastica, Joe Strummer and Black Grape did it, and now you’re having to work your way up again on your own terms. That must be tough. But try to enjoy it – during People Say and Ali in the Jungle last night it finally came across that you were.

PS Antony – nice teeth. ;-)

PPS We loved it, really we did. Monday night rocks! It’s the new Saturday you know…

technorati tag: the hours

quote...

2007-03-02T11:16:00.000+01:00

Picasso: "The best way to preserve tradition is to have children, and not by wearing your father’s old hat."

(from The Forgotten Ways)

technorati tag: picasso quote

the sixth “slightly weird” thing about me…

2007-02-23T12:01:00.000+01:00

6 - …is what happens while I’m sleeping. I have chronic nightmares and talk in my sleep.

The former was most prevalent when I was a small child and bordered on night terrors. I only ever had about half a dozen recurring nightmares which I just kept revisiting. I still have very vivid dreams almost every night.

The latter, I seem to always have done, probably always will do. It seems to happen especially when I’m stressed or very busy. My mum has had several perfectly coherent mid-night conversations with me over the years – all of which I’ve had absolutely no recollection of in the morning!

technorati tag: me, sleep talking, nightmares

happy birthday sanctus1

2007-02-19T11:58:00.000+01:00

Yep, now we are five! Happy birthday Sanctus1. Love you all.

technorati tag: sanctus1

sorry, I must have misheard you... you said climate-change gigs where?

2007-02-16T10:27:00.000+01:00

'Johannesburg, London, Shanghai and Sydney are among the host cities [for the Live Earth gigs]. Three other concerts will take place in the US, Brazil and Japan, with the cities still to be decided. There will also be a concert in Antarctica.

At the press conference, organisers said Live Earth "will become the model for carbon neutral concerts and other live events in the future".' (BBC News report)

(Insert your own polar-bear-under-palm-tree punchline/ despairing head shake here)

technorati tag: live earth, climate change

blog famine/ feast...

2007-02-13T17:25:00.000+01:00

I’ve been far too busy at work (new contract, since you ask – wonderful, passionate, scary, big, important stuff, which might or might not leak on to here at some point in the future).

Things that I’ve not blogged because of being busy:

Steve Chalke’s interview in Education Guardian

An interesting but old Naomi Klein interview

And last week’s PHENOMENAL (and I don’t use that word or the CAPS lightly) Duke Special gig. It’s not too late to catch him on the road round the UK. Do it. I urge you.

Plus JonnyFun’s tagged me to let you know "six slightly weird things that you probably didn’t know about me". Now this is hot on the heels of the "five things that you probably didn’t know about me".

Frankly I think you all now know more things about me than most people I see daily so I might not take up the tag (shushes shouts of “spoil sport!” from the back). But then again I might if anything strikes me…

technorati tag: nonsense

tinkering times...

2007-02-07T12:30:00.000+01:00

Thanks to Sal, I ended up spending an hour or so on Monday night making envelopes out of magazine pages and writing cards to send to people. Sal's new year's resolution is to send more real post to people... I like that!

technorati tag: homemade envelopes, tinkering times

cynicism, realism, resignation, whatever...

2007-02-06T10:43:00.000+01:00

I am hereby officially tendering my resignation as an adult who is overly nostalgic about childhood.

I have decided I wouldn’t like to accept the “responsibilities” of an eight year-old again. I always thought McDonald's was more of a punishment than a treat. I never spent endless summers playing in the mud – I was too busy reading indoors, complaining about being bored, falling out with friends, or arguing with my brother. I hoarded my pocket money, counted it obsessively and pestered my parents as often as I could for a “raise”. The trees on our road were all dead from Dutch Elm disease, and the closest I got to altruism or a bake sale was a Blue Peter “Bring and Buy” – and only then because I fancied Peter Duncan and wanted to get on TV.

I don’t think there was a time when life was that simple. I knew my colours, times tables, and nursery rhymes, but there were the things that I didn't know that did bother me – I once asked my dad why they couldn’t just print more money to stop people being poor. I was all too aware of all the potential for things to make me worried and upset – my brother being hit by a car, some of my family emigrating, the cat getting run over… I wanted to think the world was fair (but I knew better because once my whole class got held in detention for something that one girl did). I wanted to think that everyone was honest and good (but my mum was a magistrate and I quite often sat at the back of court waiting for her, so saw quite a lot of loss and punishment). OK, I did believe that anything was possible (but I still think it is). I want to be continually aware of the complexities of life AND be overly excited by the little things too.

I don't want my day to consist of easy nostalgia about how life was better back then… and in the time I’m waiting for the somewhere over the rainbow to arrive, I recognize that I’ll have to settle for computer crashes, piles of paperwork, depressing news, how to survive more days in the month than there is money in the bank, gossip, illness, and the loss of loved ones… Life’s like that – it was when we were eight, whether we knew it or not… But I do still believe in the power of smiles, hugs, a kind word, truth, justice, peace, dreams, the imagination, humankind, and making angels in the snow.So I’m keeping my cheque book, my credit card bills and my pay slips, if that’s alright. I am not officially resigning from adulthood.

(Without apology to this.)

technorati tag: adult resignation

bad, bad habit...

2007-02-06T10:35:00.000+01:00

Realisation - Top Gear is porn for environmentalists.

I feel dirty thinking about, but I love it.

technorati tag: top gear

lost property...

2007-01-31T10:41:00.000+01:00

Lost property - do you know the owner of this?

It used to be Quay Bar, then briefly was Canteena. Then it seemed to be some dodgyish club after Canteena closed down. Now it's a graffitied, smoke-stained, broken-windowed, boarded up mess.

Does anyone know if it is Uncle Tom's Cabin or not?

technorati tag: urban splash, manchester, castlefield

...in black...

2007-01-29T11:18:00.000+01:00

Some days, without knowing why, you get up and feel like wearing black, yeah? (OK so I have an inkling...)

Today was one of the days. And it was justified it turns out - I heard two personal, terrible, tragic pieces of news this morning.

The Man in Black (who wore it for "the poor, the broken down, the prisoner, the sick, the lonely, the old, the mourning ones") himself sang:

What have I become?
My sweetest friend
Everyone I know
Goes away in the end
And you could have it all
My empire of dirt
I will let you down
I will make you hurt
If I could start again
A million miles away
I would keep myself
I would find a way...

Sadly, very fitting.

technorati tag: johnny cash, hurt, the man in black

0 degrees...

2007-01-22T17:25:00.000+01:00

It was with a sense of anticipation that we trudged through Manchester’s cold and windy streets to the 0 degrees of separation gig at The Bridgewater Hall. I’d been offered a free ticket through work, and we decided it was an interesting enough bill - four folk/ acoustic artists including Vetiver, Juana Molina, Adem and Vashti Bunyan - to spend the £15 to get M in too.

I’d heard of Vashti Bunyan because of her 60s renown, and subsequent thirty year absence from the music scene. On that basis alone, we decided the others were surely worth the punt – they were after all on the same bill as the English Joni Mitchell. In the end, Bunyan seemed to be the one holding the night back, whilst the young ‘uns jammed their way to a memorable gig. Sure, it was nice that they all collaborated on each other’s numbers but I left thinking that Bunyan might have good reason to have shunned recording and performing for three decades… Her intros to each song were whispered comments on this track that she’d written nearly forty years ago and was now dedicating to her children. Hmmm.

But the others – where to start! Juana Molina was like the bastard step-child of Imogen Heap and KT Tunstall’s foster parents (yes she is that weird!), with her red velvet party dress and click-your-heels-together red sequin pumps. Vetiver were so laid back they were horizontal, but ticking over just enough to demonstrate their Americana roots. And Adem launched us into another world…

The Guardian last week gave it a four star review. I’d give Juana, Vetiver and Adem a solid four stars, and (you guessed it), only one for Bunyan. A five star gig then, but not quite in the way that I was expecting…

technorati tag: 0 degrees of separation

let it snow, let it snow, let it snow...

2007-01-22T16:45:00.000+01:00

There was a flutter last night in central Manchester, and (promises, promises) apparently some more to come later tonight too...

Woo-hoo! Winter's here.

technorati tag: snow

into great silence...

2007-01-18T16:03:00.000+01:00

I read recently that one of the golden rules of creative writing was “don’t tell the reader, show them”, meaning that explanation is patronizing and ultimately detracts from the narrative. Philip Groning might well have had this line in his head when he filmed his three-hour documentary, Into Great Silence, about the monastery, La Grande Chartreuse, and its order of Carthusian monks.

I’m so glad he chose not to make an “explanatory” documentary – this was immersive cinema, which is exactly what it needed to be. I don’t think it could have been anything else. In that sense, it reminded me a little of Koyanisquatsi. Put simply, it was a series of beautiful moving-photographs, capturing the natural and built environments, the rhythmic daily life of the monks, and of course the silence…

Yes, I had little idea what the chants all meant; yes, the on-screen quotes jarred occasionally (especially when they’re in French and German, thus subtitled right at the bottom of the screen in English); yes, I spent the first 30 minutes feeling acutely aware of the rustle of every single person in the sold-out cinema. Even a little explanation (a smooth voiceover by Morgan Freeman a la The March of the Penguins?) would have killed it.

What’s more, you can’t exactly rush a film that took 16 years even to get permission to make and is essentially about a life of intense, focused, reflective contemplation measured out by seasons and in rhythm to a 900 year old daily pattern. To try and fit it into a neat 120 minutes would have felt wrong. Like slow food is to McDonalds, this is to your average Hollywood blockbuster. I am also struggling to think of the last time I was in the cinema with such a respectful audience. OK, I was the youngest by about twenty years, but a less cinematic bunch I couldn’t have imagined. I reckoned everyone else there either was or wanted to be a priest or a nun…

On reflection, it would have been difficult to make a film about the life of this monastery that wasn’t beautiful. My memories of it now are only of elementary essentials: shafts of light, flickering candles, simple food, snow, sunshine, reading and writing, chants, wooden spoons, long corridors, and of course that silence…

The daily reality of the monks’ lives was to me a mix of the unexpected and to-be-expected. The unexpected? Them sliding down a snow covered hill and whooping in delight, the plastic bottles, their electric razors, feeding the cats. The expected? The monks praying, praying, and then praying some more - in the flickering light of the chapel, in their simple wooden cells, at all times of the day and through every season. And that silence…

It’s not a lifestyle that I would want to live, but it’s an incredible and privileged glimpse into a life a world away from mine. The monks’ economy of action and focus of attention is something that I envy on one level – as if everything has become so simple and so condensed and so thoughtful that nothing else matters.

To start with I felt a bit voyeuristic watching them move slowly about the monastery, but my initial worries that there were no main characters to hang 167 minutes of “action” on were put aside as, even without words, the men came to life on the screen – the young one, the ancient and stooped gardener/ cook, the novice…

Towards the end, one old monk – who was blind and partially deaf – said a few simple sentences about his beliefs. One of those stuck with me: “The world has lost any sense of God. It is a pity…” And it was the one time that I wanted to speak out and break that silence…

technorati tag: into great silence

love you too...

2007-01-12T15:06:00.000+01:00

My morning latte from the ever-wonderful Suburb. Awwwww...

technorati tag: coffee, suburb manchester

view from a window (this morning, 8.15ish)

2007-01-08T12:01:00.000+01:00

Sleb Big Bruv...

2007-01-04T14:07:00.000+01:00

Stick a fork in me - I'm done.

Because Mark Lawson's Comment is Free article is all I'm going to need to read about this entire series. Ta for that, Mark.

So early, so easy, so painless. Now pass the fork...

technorati tag: celebrity big brother, mark lawson

Reel Spirituality: this Sunday - The Life Aquatic

2007-01-02T11:21:00.000+01:00

New Year’s resolutions - See more films? Do something new? Get 30% extra from your Sundays?

Then come along to Reel Spirituality!

This Sunday, the last in “The Outsider” series…
7th January - The Life Aquatic (15)

1st Sunday of the month at Nexus
Doors: 6.30pm Film starts: 7pm prompt

If you want to explore the film’s themes and issues:
Post-film discussion: 9.15pm onwards Evening ends: no later than 10pm

Feel free to bring your own food. Drinks and snacks available on the night.
+ Book stall of film and spiritual books +

The next series is “Heroes and Villains”
4th February - The Proposition (18)
4th March - House of Flying Daggers (15)
1st April - Leon (18)
6th May - 15 Minutes (18)

See you there? Hope so.

technorati tag: the life aquatic, technorati tag: reel spirituality

...and the divine baby, born in squalor in a strange town?

2006-12-21T11:09:00.000+01:00

technorati tag: christmas, engage

in a packed programme tonight...

2006-12-20T12:25:00.000+01:00

...it's Happy Christmas from me, and Happy Christmas from him!

So, we're off up north for a few days in a wee while, and things might be a bit quiet round here till the new year. Until then, wishing you and yours a happy and peaceful Christmas.

technorati tag: happy christmas

five things...

2006-12-18T13:55:00.000+01:00

Darn that emergentkiwi! Just as this was starting to calm down, and I thought I’d escaped the possibility of being tagged, he went and got me…

Five things you probably didn’t know about me:

1 - I won a public debating competition when I was a teenager and as a part of the prize, got chauffeured to London to visit Parliament for the day with Dr Liam Fox MP (the now Shadow Secretary of State for Defence).

2 - In sixth form, I took two extra classes and dropped one - S-level English Lit (failed), GCSE Latin (grade A), and A-level Maths (dropped, it was my fourth subject anyway). Incidentally, I’ve got a GCSE in Photography (grade A).

3 - I have never (knowingly) told anyone how I vote in elections – I strongly believe in the notion of a secret ballot.

4 - For the first decade or so of my life, I was inseparable from my small toy rabbit called Jasmine (given to me by my great aunt Chrysle at my birth, and named by my brother after a similar Teddy Edward character).

5 - I knew within a week of going out with M that he was the one for me forever. Sometimes you just know, right?

I tag Ben Edson, Reach Out And Touch The Screen, Jonnyfun, Cris Acher, and Malcolm Chamberlain.

technorati tag: silly quiz

well, who am I?

2006-12-15T10:54:00.000+01:00

I'm the darkness in the light
I'm the leftness in the right
I'm the rightness in the wrong
I'm the shortness in the long
I'm the goodness in the bad
I'm the saneness in the mad
I'm the sadness in the joy
I'm the gin in the gin-soaked boy

I'm the ghost in the machine
I'm the genius in the gene
I'm the beauty in the beast
I'm the sunset in the east
I'm the ruby in the dust
I'm the trust in the mistrust
I'm the Trojan horse in Troy
I'm the gin in the gin-soaked boy

I'm the tiger's empty cage
I'm the mystery's final page
I'm the stranger's lonely glance
I'm the hero's only chance
I'm the undiscovered land
I'm the single grain of sand
I'm the Christmas morning toy
I'm the gin in the gin-soaked boy

I'm the world you'll never see
I'm the slave you'll never free
I'm the truth you'll never know
I'm the place you'll never go
I'm the sound you'll never hear
I'm the course you'll never steer
I'm the will you'll not destroy
I'm the gin in the gin-soaked boy

I'm the half-truth in the lie
I'm the why not in the why
I'm the last roll of the die
I'm the old school in the tie
I'm the spirit in the sky
I'm the catcher in the rye
I'm the twinkle in her eye
I'm the Jeff Goldblum in The Fly

Well, who am I?

[Divine Comedy's 'Gin-Soaked Boy']

technorati tag: divine comedy, gin-soaked boy

a tale of two spaces...

2006-12-13T13:40:00.000+01:00

“Black box” and “white cube” - in the arts, we bandy these about to mean two very different kinds of spaces.

A black box refers to a theatre space – dark, contained, flexible, experimental, in-the-background, technically sparse, (a)live. It brings to mind the experimental off-Broadway studios of the 60s and 70s, bearded men in polo necks doing monologues, “worthy” and “wacky” performances, earnestness…

White cube refers to a gallery space – clean, bright, light, simple, neutral, literally and metaphorically a blank canvass. The phrase has been so adopted into the cultural firmament that it’s the name of one of the most famous contemporary art galleries in London (conceived and run by Jay Jopling, art dealer extra-ordinaire). (In)Famously, Martin Creed won the Turner Prize a few years ago for his lights flashing on and off in a white cube…

But hearing the phrases seemingly anew a couple of weeks ago, it struck me that both these places are: for experimentation and experience; for creating work and challenging perception; for providing physical and mental space to encounter ‘the other’; and for hosting and confining both the work and the viewer for the duration.

So similar, so different. Why have we placed these two spaces, indeed two artforms, at one of each end of a spectrum, made them seem so opposed, when in fact they have so much in common?

technorati tag: black box, white cube

first beta post

2006-12-12T15:44:00.000+01:00

I'm no techie but even I think that the introduction of the beta Blogger format/ system is a good thing... As I work out what it all does you might find some differences in layout and style in the coming weeks.

technorati tag: beta blogger

gig of the year!

2006-12-11T13:02:00.000+01:00

So last night, courtesy of Lisa (you doll!), M and I went to see Seth Lakeman at the Academy 3. The best of the venues in the Academy, it's so small that you can smell the performers' sweat. And what a sweatpit it was! Despite a slightly static but appreciateive crowd, Seth and band "folked" their socks off. By the hour and a bit was up, they had nothing left to give - all 110% had gone into the show they'd treated us to. A pleasure and a privilege - and surely the coolest double-basser ever!

Best gig of 2006, no quibble Officer Dibble.

technorati tag: seth lakeman, manchester academy

swapsies

2006-12-04T10:30:00.000+01:00

Tekin and I are undertaking a little experiment this week - reading the newspaper that the other one normally takes, thus he The Guardian and me The Independent. I think we both think we'll have ended the week converting the other to our normal reading matter...

technorati tag: the guardian, the independent

the expectations of a veiled woman...

2006-12-01T16:51:00.000+01:00

A veiled woman.
Waiting.
Concealing.
Patiently expecting.
For the advent of the peacemaker, god-with-us son she carries.

In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin's name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, "Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you." Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, "Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end." "How will this be," Mary asked the angel, "since I am a virgin?" The angel answered, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God." "I am the Lord's servant," Mary answered. "May it be to me as you have said." Then the angel left her. (Luke, chapter1)

technorati tag: veiled woman, advent

lost...?

2006-12-01T16:49:00.000+01:00

Sara just found a tenner down the back of her keyboard whilst doing her Friday desk tidy. The (post) modern equivalent of coins down the back of the sofa? Result!

technorati tag: lost and found

a new work-walk scrawl that summed up my mood this morning...

2006-11-27T17:50:00.000+01:00

technorati tag: graffiti

an old fashioned laser quest...

2006-11-27T17:47:00.000+01:00

Maybe that explains why this one had to shut down?

technorati tag: laser quest

is this jesus?

2006-11-27T15:22:00.000+01:00

technorati tag: is this jesus

whether the weather...

2006-11-24T16:08:00.000+01:00

Am I the only weather geek who has the Beeb’s RSS weather feeds in my feed reader? (Probably.) Al and I always say that Auntie has trouble telling the weather whilst looking out of the window but today’s feeds take the biscuit!

So far for today (and issued today) I’ve had three:

The forecast for Manchester (M1), United Kingdom on Friday: light rain. Max Temp: 10°C (50°F), Min Temp: 10°C (50°F), Wind Direction: S, Wind Speed: 12mph, Visibility: moderate, Pressure: 985mb, Humidity: 96%, UV risk: low, Pollution: low, Sunrise: 07:47GMT, Sunset: 16:02GMT

The forecast for Manchester (M1), United Kingdom on Friday: light rain. Max Temp: 11°C (51°F), Min Temp: 10°C (50°F), Wind Direction: S, Wind Speed: 12mph, Visibility: moderate, Pressure: 985mb, Humidity: 96%, UV risk: low, Pollution: low, Sunrise: 07:47GMT, Sunset: 16:02GMT

The forecast for Manchester (M1), United Kingdom on Friday: light rain. Max Temp: 11°C (51°F), Min Temp: 8°C (46°F), Wind Direction: S, Wind Speed: 12mph, Visibility: moderate, Pressure: 985mb, Humidity: 96%, UV risk: low, Pollution: low, Sunrise: 07:47GMT, Sunset: 16:02GMT

Wow! Three feeds just to tell me the max temp could be one degree higher and the min two lower.

What is the point?
(rhetorical - for those of you who are feeling funny/ overly serious)

technorati tag: BBC, weather

Shhhhhhhh...

2006-11-21T11:06:00.000+01:00

It's No Music Day today. Observe it. Or Bill will come and see to you... That's Mr Drummond to you.

technorati tag: bill drummond, no music day

reel spirituality - OLDBOY (sun 3 dec)

2006-11-20T17:32:00.000+01:00

Reel Spirituality (from Sanctus1)

Ba-humbug! Who needs twee Christmas films when you can have award-winning Asian extreme?

OLDBOY (18)

Sunday 3 December

The third in our 'The Outsider' series - four films exploring alienation, isolation, exclusion and ‘the other’

Every first Sunday of the month at Nexus
Doors: 6.30pm Film starts: 7pm prompt

If you want to explore the film’s themes and issues:
Post-film discussion: 9.15pm onwards Evening ends: no later than 10pm

Feel free to bring your own food. Drinks and snacks available on the night.
+ Book stall of film and spiritual books +

The Outsider series concludes...
7th January - The Life Aquatic (15)

Heroes and Villains
4th February - The Proposition (18)
4th March - House of Flying Daggers (15)
1st April - Leon (18)
6th May - 15 Minutes (18)

technorati tag: reel spirituality, oldboy

t-shirt design?

2006-11-17T18:05:00.000+01:00

I seriously hope that someone somewhere is producing a T-shirt with the following slogan:

"Ben Bradshaw made me do it…"

technorati tag: Ben Bradshaw, recycling, packaging

squirrel jam...

2006-11-13T18:06:00.000+01:00

There are days when language just seems to fail me. Not because I don’t have an adequate grasp of it, but that somehow it doesn’t quite suffice for the task in hand.

As a child, when I couldn’t describe what I did want or make a decision, out of frustration I would sometimes say I wanted “squirrel jam” – originating from the inexpressible thing that I wanted on my toast because I didn’t want any of the other things that were on offer.

Today I want the linguistic equivalent of squirrel jam. If a noun is something that names name a person, place, thing, quality, or action, and a verb expresses existence, action, or occurrence, then today I want a nerb or voun or something.

For instance, I hate it when people refer to me only as “M’s wife” or “S’s sister”. Nope, I’m Laura. Yes, I am married to M, and yes S is my sibling, but I’m not purely defined by them either – I’m my own person…

So over the next little while I’m going to propose a list – of things I am/ not, of things I do/ don’t – sort of based along these lines. I am married to M/ I'm not M’s wife – that sort of thing…

Does this all make sense, or is it just more squirrel jam?

technorati tag: language, squirrel jam

sorry seems to be the hardest word...

2006-11-13T13:10:00.000+01:00

"I think religion has always tried to turn hatred towards gay people. Religion promotes the hatred and spite against gays. But there are so many people I know who are gay and love their religion. ... I love the idea of the teachings of Jesus Christ and the beautiful stories about it, which I loved in Sunday school and I collected all the little stickers and put them in my book. ... But the reality is that organised religion doesn't seem to work. It turns people into hateful lemmings and it's not really compassionate." (Sir Elton John in The Observer Music Monthly)

Sorry Sir Elton - it wasn't me but I can't deny we did do it. And I think saying sorry for things we personally didn't do but have to take some responsibility for can sometimes be a step forward...

technorati tag: elton john, religion, sexuality

i used to think 'one' was an anti-poverty song...

2006-11-10T17:03:00.000+01:00

...not any longer. Long live Bank of America!

HT: jonny

technorati tag: U2's one, bank of america

fifteen

2006-11-09T17:25:00.000+01:00

M mentioned this morning on the way into work that I'd not written much on the blog of late. “Not true”, I cried. Turns out he meant I’d stuck up some phonephotos but not actually written much else. Oh… So I’m here to address the issue.

One of the things that I didn’t get around to blogging about (cos it deserved a post all of its own) was my surprise trip to fifteen whilst we were in London. Yep, that’s right – one of the world’s biggest Jamie fans got to eat in one of his restaurants. And the worthy one that helps da kidz dontchaknow…

It. Was. Stunning. The whole thing, from start to finish, was like a dream (apart from the fat, sluglike, snobby couple who were sitting on the next door table, and were from something far more nightmareish).

We went for lunch and had a great selection from the set menu, plus a glass of wine each. I opted for the chickpea and herb soup (much sexier than it sounds) and Mark had the goats’ cheese and beetroot salad. And then we both had the braised rabbit (drool…). [It’s amazing how many carnivores have got all “you ate a bunny rabbit?!” at this point when I tell people in conversation. C’mon you eat lambs don’t you?] Gorgeous! M declined to eat desert on the grounds that he was full (there IS a first time for everything!) but I managed to scoff a panna cotta with apple puree and mini donuts. YUM!

No sign of Himself – but well worth it nonetheless. Now we just have to go back to the Big Smoke sometime having saved our pennies for the six course tasting menu with wine… (gulp)

technorati tag: fifteen

a sneaky peak at some of my re:source "homework"...

2006-11-07T14:12:00.000+01:00

As part of the culmination of the re:source course at the end of November, we're supposed to present to our huddles what we've learned and our thinking over the year.

Not being the most conventional person (!) I've opted to do visuals for mine, one sheet of collage/ writing covering each of the five weekends - mission, culture, leadership, church and transformation. Here's a peak at my sheets for leadership and transformation.

technorati tag: re:source course

things we do to lessen our office's environmental impact

2006-11-06T15:54:00.000+01:00

Use degradable bin bags, return our laser cartridges, print on both sides of every sheet of paper, and then recycle it...

Plus the usual fairtrade coffee and milk in bottles bought from a co-op, recycled toilet paper, etc etc. Any other ideas?

our building floodlights when it rains

2006-11-06T15:46:00.000+01:00

technorati tag: floodlights

no sex please, we're the church...

2006-11-06T15:23:00.000+01:00

Men in leadership in the church – listen up! (unless of course you think that listening to a woman might be part of the problem…)

Do you find the anonymity and fatigue of the road too tempting? Do you feel like your wife has let herself go and succumbed to laziness? Do you think that having a female assistant (God forbid, co-leader?) is a temptation too far? Do you ever think about sticking closer to Jesus to avoid sin?

Then get yourself over to Mark Driscoll’s blog for his handy hints on men and women working together in church, in the wake of the Ted Haggard allegations…

[The BBC has the back story about Ted Haggard here.]

No but seriously…

You couldn’t make this up, and Ben’s comment about laughing/ crying goes for me too… How 19th century and sexist does this all sound? I’m utterly convinced that unless and until men and women can model working together in church as partners, equal in God’s service and with gifts to offer together – whilst NOT having it off together all the time - no-one is going to take us seriously.

I work closely with male freelancers, designers, artists, chief execs and programmers every day. I’m the female third of an emerging church leadership team. I’m friends with men, see them in the street, get served by them in bars and shops. My husband even lets me out the house unaccompanied... So why is church seen as being so different, such a hot bed of inappropriate sexual desire and activity?

Anyhow, I think that Mark Driscoll’s given me, Ben and Cris a lot to think about in advance of our Sanctus1 team meeting this week… like – do we now need a third party chaperone? ;-)

technorati tag: mark driscoll, sexism, church

a busy manchester bee

2006-11-03T14:54:00.000+01:00

technorati tag: manchester, bee, mosaic

some london film festival highlights

2006-11-01T17:34:00.000+01:00

Walking the red carpet three times and papping the paparazzi

The soundtrack of Breaking and Entering (by Underworld and Gabriel Yared)

Seeing Charles Clarke (ex-Home Secretary) going into Odeon West End - either to the screening of Bobby or Princess (I know what I'd prefer to imagine the answer to be!)

M and I observing the “10 Minute Rule” (talk about anything but…) at the end of each film, and then (mostly) all hell breaking loose as we both simultaneously try to say what we thought of it, how many stars, etc

technorati tag: london film festival

reel review

2006-10-25T10:21:00.000+01:00

So, it's nearly here... tomorrow we're off to the Big Smoke for the London Film Festival! As a result I won't be blogging here for a good few days.

Join us over at Reel Review is you want to know what we've seen, who we've spotted, etc etc.

technorati tag: london film festival

nobody knows you when you're down and out...

2006-10-24T15:09:00.000+01:00

reel spirituality - kes

2006-10-24T11:08:00.000+01:00

Don’t go to a cold and rainy bonfire party - join us for a cosy film night…

KES
by Ken Loach (rated PG)

The second of four films exploring the theme of “The Outsider” – alienation, isolation, exclusion and “the other”.

Every 1st Sunday of the month at Nexus, Northern Quarter
Doors: 6.30pm Film starts: 7pm prompt

If you want to explore the film’s themes and issues:
Post-film discussion: 9.15pm onwards Evening ends: no later than 10pm
Feel free to bring your own food. Drinks and snacks available on the night.
+ Book stall of film and spiritual books +
See Sanctus1 for more details.

Other films in this series include:
3rd December - Old Boy (18)
7th January - The Life Aquatic (15)

IMDB listing and technorati tag: kes

you know autumn has arrived when you find these in your lawn...

2006-10-24T10:35:00.000+01:00

everything i ever learned about cultural relations, i learned from spooks

2006-10-23T15:11:00.000+01:00

No really, it's true! Worrying but true nonetheless. Spooks - the TV series where nothing is ever as it seems. Watch tonight's second parter to understand what I mean (we saw it after last week's episode on BBC3).

So in that context (!) I had a really interesting and varied week last week:
Last Saturday, I was affirming my views of the oneness of the world and all of its inhabitants, and my integrated place in it, through a symposium developed by the Pachamama Alliance
Tuesday, I was speaking about the dekhomai/ MBS/ Jesus Deck thing at the Faith to Faith conference
Friday, I was at the MBS fair, actually doing the dekhomai thing (see Ben's posts)

What a great and varied week, talking faith, spirituality and interconnectedness with everyone! And nothing was as it seemed/ I expected. FtoF people were so welcoming and challenging, and made a very short journey from their interfaith conversations to the world of MBS. Dekhomai was busier than expected for a Friday and I had several very encouraging conversations with people who were really searching. Jonathan and I even chose Jesus cards at the start of the day - The Innkeeper and The Dove. Perfect - hospitality and peace. (And as an aside - what might cultural non-assimilation mean for the MBS/ new age crowd who become followers of the Christ?)

Oh for more weeks like this...

technorati tag: spirituality

right and right again

2006-10-23T15:05:00.000+01:00

Sam Wollaston is right and right *again*, about Robin Hood (pants! bring back The Doctor - and pronto!) and Torchwood (jury's out - don't worry, he'll be apologising for giving that a chance later in the month as well).

Torchwood was so bloomin' BBC - clunky, cheap, not scary, kitsch without meaning to be. There were some good lines, and I'm usually first in the queue for RTD's telly output, but this was well below par, despite its apparently good overnight viewing figures...

++ UPDATE ++
Urgh - and I'd forgotten that pathetic Silence of the Lambs take-off as well.

Well, Sam - how's that apology shaping up?

technorati tag: Torchwood

mr pot meet mrs kettle?...

2006-10-19T10:00:00.000+01:00

(BBC News Magazine)

technorati tag: heather mills, max clifford

apparently heaven's short of a few angels...

2006-10-19T09:51:00.000+01:00

welcome to our two new office mates...

2006-10-18T17:39:00.000+01:00

...or Big Boy and Little Boy as they're known to you and me. (Guess which is which - go on.)

S rescued them from the Chinese Arts Centre because they were remodelling their foyer and didn't have anywhere else for them to go. Now at least they have a home. Well, an office anyway. More specifically, the corner of A's desk... Welcome boys!

tomorrow is one day in history

2006-10-16T15:25:00.000+01:00

A mass blog for the national record. The History Matters campaign has designated 17 October a day for the public to make historic. We have chosen 'an ordinary' weekday of no particular significance to ask you to write a one day on-line diary.

Help us publicise it. Participate. Urge others to do so.

reel review

2006-10-16T14:30:00.000+01:00

In advance of our trip to the London Film Festival, and because we've been meaning to do it for ages, M and I have started a film review blog.

It's called Reel Review.

Maybe see you over there sometime...

the arndale's stairway to... (where?)

2006-10-16T14:25:00.000+01:00

talking or doing?

2006-10-11T11:36:00.000+01:00

“An older, wiser woman once said to me that there were two choices with this stuff - you could either talk about the place of women, and make that your project, or you could choose another project and just bash down the resistance and take your place in the world, but you can't do both.”

[From Maggi Dawn's reflections on occasionally being asked to comment on the place of women in church]

there are some films you just can't blog about...

2006-10-04T17:10:00.000+01:00

...and Gaspar Noe's Irreversible is one of them.

the story of the lost cheque

2006-10-04T17:01:00.000+01:00

Imagine a woman who has ten cheques and loses one. Won’t she clear her desk and scour her account, looking in every folder and bank statement until she finds it (or discovers that her colleague hasn’t paid the invoice in the first place)? And when she finds it (or is belatedly given a cheque by said colleague) you can be sure she’ll call out to her colleague: “Lunch is on me! I found my lost cheque!”

Based on true events.
(With due deference to the Story of the Lost Coin, Luke 15)

the outsider's view

2006-10-02T14:37:00.000+01:00

In addition to the Donnie Darko showing as the first of the “Outsider” series for Reel Spirituality, M and I watched two other DVDs this weekend which (with hindsight) fitted the theme well – Napoleon Dynamite and Lost in La Mancha.

Napoleon Dynamite is a quirky indie film charting the nothing happening, small-town life of the protagonist – dealing with his dodgy salesman Uncle Rico, his chat-room-wannabe brother Kip, and his new friend Pedro’s campaign to be elected school president. It’s a film in which almost nothing happens – but I guess that’s Idaho for you… The tagline is “He’s out to prove he’s got nothing to prove”. Exactly.

Fulton and Pepe’s documentary of Terry Gilliam’s doooomed and never-completed feature film, The Man Who Killed Don Quixote, is a brilliantly revealing insight into the paranoid, fragile and tempestuous process of film-making.

A decade after he first had the idea, and on a budget of only $34m (ie tiny! but still the biggest budgeted feature film using only European financing), Gilliam and his crew are beset by problem after problem after problem – overhead noise from the nearby NATO airbase, the mother of all hail storms and subsequent flash flood, the illness, absence and conflicting schedules of the cast, many pan-European linguistic and geographic co-ordination problems, and an eventual insurance claim for a cool $15m. Frankly, it makes even my hard weeks at work look like making daisy chains in the sunshine…

Two films about fantastical dreamers, filmic outsiders, maybe even victorious losers in a way… Oh, and I fully expect the “Vote Pedro” backlash to start any minute via the comments!

maybe if they learnt to check punctuation and grammar...

2006-10-02T10:24:00.000+01:00

words only ever used in tabloid newspapers

2006-09-28T12:14:00.000+01:00

Another in the occasional series of the same name.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you... "romp".

causality and correlation

2006-09-27T10:08:00.000+01:00

They’re all wrong.

I’ve yet to hear one commentator give the real reason why the delegates cheered and wept at the end of Tony's speech to conference yesterday, or as Nick Robinson puts it, “like every great showman, he left the crowd wanting more”.

As Levitt and Dubner remind us in their excellently accessible, holiday-read explanation of “real-life” economics (like there’s any other sort?), we need to understand the difference between causality and correlation.

The delegates didn’t cheer for however-many-minutes in a standing ovation because they love TB and want him to stay on for a “full third term”. They did it precisely because they know he’s going. And thus the affectionate farewell has begun…

And while we're on the speech to end all political goodbyes, what a bold and risky use of Take That’s Never Forget to walk in to! It paid off. It’s now ranks as one of those tracks I’ll never hear the same way again. like I used to think that U2’s One was a love/ hate relationship song, now I think it’s an anti-poverty anthem. Once you’ve heard it that way, you can’t unhear it.

reel spirituality

2006-09-26T11:04:00.000+01:00

1st Sunday of the month at Nexus
Doors: 6.30pm Film starts: 7pm prompt

If you want to explore the film’s themes and issues:
Post-film discussion: 9.15pm onwards Evening ends: no later than 10pm

THIS MONTH - 1st October
Donnie Darko: Director’s Cut (15)
The first in our 'The Outsider' series - four films exploring alienation, isolation, exclusion and ‘the other’

Feel free to bring your own food. Drinks and snacks available on the night.
+ Book stall of film and spiritual books +

Upcoming films include:
5th November - Kes (PG)
3rd December - Old Boy (18)
7th January - The Life Aquatic (15)

high on hope

2006-09-25T11:29:00.000+01:00

Well, last night's Sanctus1 service, High on Hope, seemed to go pretty well and a few people said some nice things about it afterwards. Here's the prayer that I wrote for one bit of the service, using naive hopes as prayers.

So here’s hoping and praying for a place…
Where the grass is always greener
Where there’s light at the end of the tunnel
Where we give peace a chance
Where hope springs eternal
Where love conquers all
We wait in hope for the LORD
He is our help and our shield.

So here’s hoping and praying for a place…
Where we’ve got all the time in the world
Where every cloud does have a silver lining
Where we always look on the bright side of life
Where good things come to those that waitWhere we do to each other as we would be done by
We wait in hope for the LORD
He is our help and our shield.

So here’s hoping and praying for a place…
Where the road to hell isn’t paved with good intentionsWhere good hearts aren’t hard to find
Where hope is not abandoned by those who enter there
Where nothing’s too good to be true
Where we don’t have to be cruel to be kind
We wait in hope for the LORD
He is our help and our shield.

So here’s hoping and praying for a place…
Where we don’t have to take the rough with the smooth
Where it’s not a jungle out there
Where we don’t see through rose tinted glasses
Where no-one has to put a good face on it
Where we don’t worry and are happy
We wait in hope for the LORD
He is our help and our shield.

So here’s hoping and praying for…
Sight for the blind and healing for the sick
Freedom for the prisoners and good news for the poor
Release for the oppressed and love for each other
And the coming of God’s upside-down, inside-out, topsy-turvy kingdom.

11 into 5 goes...?

2006-09-22T16:38:00.000+01:00

I’m a lucky young lady.

M decided recently that we should do something suitable to mark my upcoming birthday. Nice. He decided that he should share the idea with me, to sound me out and to give me time to get properly excited about it. Even nicer. Sooo…we’re going to the London Film Festival! Very nice!

And yesterday after days of pouring over the programme and website, I got to choose and buy my our tickets.

We’re seeing 11 films in 5 days – and amongst the highlights that I picked and managed to get tickets for:

Little Children – the new Kate Winslet film which is apparently the best thing she’s done in years

Princess – a Japanese live action/ anime film about a brother seeking revenge for his dead porn star sister’s memory…

Bobby – directed by Emilio Estevez about the assassination of Robert Kennedy

Two films about mysterious deaths in Hollywood – Infamous and Hollywoodland

Christopher Guest’s new film, For Your Consideration

Anthony Mighella’s Breaking and Entering with Jude Law and Martin Freeman

Plus a film about a female suicide bomber in New York, called Day Night Day Night

I’ll try and post up some reviews when we get back…