It's not that bad, Mr Sainsbury

It's been quite a while since I last posted anything on the blog. To get things restarted, I thought I'd share this bit of a Sainsbury's receipt that has already done the rounds on facebook. Sometimes there are just things you can't anticipate with abbreviation and initials.

It's actually cranberry raspberry and apple flavoured sparkling water and doesn't taste bad at all.

A welcome return

Just wanted to say that I am delighted to see that The Beaker Folk of Husbourne Crawley are blogging again. They took a break which looked rather final, but it looks like they couldn't resist a comeback. Burton Dasset, Archdruid Eileen and Hnaef are all back in business. If you're new to this phenomenon, try this post to get you in the mood. People suffering sense of humour failure need not apply

Bit of election fun

The Official Monster Raving (William Hill) Loony Party has a very entertaining mancifesto [sic].

"1. Health & Safety: We propose to ban Self Responsibility on the grounds that it may be dangerous to your health

2. M.P's Expenses: We propose that instead of a second home allowance M.P's will have a caravan which will be parked outside the Houses of Parliament. This will make it
easier as flipping a caravan is easier than flipping homes

3. Eurofit: The European Constitution which will be sorted out by going for a long Walk."As everyone knows that walking is good for the constitution"

4. The speaker in the House of Commons will be replaced by the latest audio equipment

5. To help the Israel/Palestinian Problem, we will get rid of the old road map, and replace it with a new sat nav instead.

6. European Union: It is proposed that the European Union end its discrimination by creating a "Court of Human Lefts" because their present policy is one-sided.

7. Education: We will increase the number of Women teachers throughout the education System as we are strong believers of 'Female Intuition'

8. Immigration and Population: I propose that we cap the population of this country. We have too many people for such a small country, so we will Cap the number of people residing here at present rates (approximately 63 million, give or take 10 mill ) on the basis of one out, one in (excluding Births).

Regarding Immigration... Any Person who can prove that theyor their descendants emigrated to the U.K before 55 A.D can stay. All the others will be repatriated to their original country. (Well we haveto draw the line somewhere)

9. We will ban all forms of Greyhound racing. This will help stop the country going to the dogs.

10. Afghanistan, Iraq and the War on terror. There's nothing funny about this. however as we have not found any taliban terrorists in Derbyshire. Our Soldiers can all come home"

The late Screaming Lord Sutch would be proud of them

Schizophrenia Sideline

...was the code I had to type to post an item on facebook just now. It is fascinating to see what combinations of words come up at random as part of the anti-spam protection.

It sounds a plausible candidate for the title of an unreleased King Crimson album from about 1972.

Lent Blog 20: Why be Anglican/Episcopalian

For some reason I didn't see this when it came out, so I thought it was worth another airing. It may or may not be genuine, but I'd like to think it is:

Top 10 Reasons to be an Episcopalian/Anglican

(from the comedian Robin Williams, who is an Episcopalian, on an HBO special circa 2002)

10. No snake handling.
9. You can believe in dinosaurs.
8. Male and female God created them; male and female we ordain them.
7. You don't have to check your brains at the door.
6. Pew aerobics.
5. Church year is color-coded.
4. Free wine on Sunday.
3. All of the pageantry - none of the guilt.
2. You don't have to know how to swim to get baptized.

And the Number One reason to be an Episcopalian:
1. No matter what you believe, there's bound to be at least one other Episcopalian who agrees with you.

9 Lessons and Carols

I felt this cartoon by Dave Walker deserved recognition
More at http://www.cartoonchurch.com

Personal Ordinariates: A view from Craggy Island

To be read in a strong Irish accent. Similarities with a popular Irish sitcom are purely coincidental.

D: Ted, Ted, where are you, Ted? We’re getting women!

Father Jack briefly wakes and shouts “Girls!” and various obscenities before succumbing again to the effects of drink.

T: Now what’s that you’re on about, Dougal?

D: Priests, Ted. The Holy Father is inviting the Anglicans to come, so there’ll be women everywhere, there will. I like that vicar of Dibley – you know, the nice smile, the chocolate, and all the crazy people. I’d love to have her here, I would. Mind you, she’d have to get used to not being surrounded by nutters.

T: No, no, no, you’ve got it all the wrong way round, Dougal. The women are the problem.

D: Now why would that be Ted?

T: The Holy Father is inviting the Anglican clergy who don’t want women priests and Bishops to join us.

D: Why would he do that, now, Ted?

T: That would be an ecumenical matter, Dougal.

D: Well, at least we’ll be getting a few more priests in the church, eh? We could do with a bit more help on Craggy Island. Let’s get one to say mass tomorrow and we can go on the beach or stay in and play Buckaroo.

T: Ah, there’s a problem with that, Dougal.

D: What would the problem be, now, Ted? I know where you hid the Buckaroo. I found it while I was hiding Jack’s whiskey.

Jack wakes again, yells “Drink!” and is placated with a large slug from an open bottle.

D: Back to this problem, Ted, what is it?

T: Well these Anglicans, they’re not really priests.

D: But I just thought you said they were.

T: Not exactly, Dougal. You see they think they are, but the Holy Father doesn’t.

D: So let me get this right, Ted. The Holy Father is inviting priests who aren’t really priests to become priests so that they don’t have to be with the women priests who aren’t really priests either.

Ted hesitates slightly

T: Yes, that’s about it, Dougal.

D: So why would he do that Ted?

T: That would be an ecumenical matter, Dougal.

D: But Ted.

T: (wearily) Yes Dougal.

D: These priests, who aren’t priests but want to be real priests like us.

T: Yes

D: What will happen to them?

T: Ah, well they believe they are the proper priests, unlike the women priests, so they want to be accepted by a church that has real priests, which will say that they aren’t real priests, only lay people, but is willing to ordain them to be real priests in a church that hasn’t got any women priests. It’s simple really, Dougal.

D: Who’d be a Protestant, eh Ted?

T: Ah. That would be an ecumenical matter.

Jack bursts back into life.

J: GIRLS! **** ****

Dave Gorman, Lancaster Grand

Just back from the excellent Dave Gorman on his SIT DOWN, PEDAL, PEDAL, STOP AND STAND UP tour at the Lancaster Grand. He's going from the southernmost to the northernmost bit of the British mainland via the westerly and easterly extremities. On a bike. He asked us not to leak the details of his content online, so I won't.

Cereals, parents and post boxes feature.

I love the Grand. Dating back to 1782, it's an intimate and wonderful building, staffed by volunteers and a very different experience to the much more contemporary Dukes around the corner.

Catalogue Review

Album listed in latest catalogue from Christian bookshop: Hip Hope 2009. Don't do this to me!

Plenty of Bibles on special offer and surprisingly few books with titles along the lines of "Jesus can fix _______ in your life". I do believe Jesus can help people with all kinds of issues and problems; I'm just not convinced it's always as simple as some of these book titles imply.

Couple of conservative evangelical books with truth/teaching in the title and book on Romans in the same section - think I can guess the line they will take.

Glad to see the book on Darwin doesn't appear to be "only godless pagans believe in evolution" but was disappointed there were no items by Stormie Omartian, which has to be the best author name ever found on a Christian book.

Healthy Eating?

Took this photo in ASDA the other day:





No they're not!!

Church on Sunday

Attended worship at Lancaster Priory again on Sunday as Debbie was preaching. (Excellent sermon by the Rev Mrs on cleansing of the Temple in John 2) The Priory has a strong choral tradition, so not really my cup of tea, but they do it very well.

As is the case in many such churches, the notice sheet gives the music used in various parts of the communion service. One section was credited as Wood in the Phrygian mode, which immediately made me think of fitted kitchens with marble tops and Neff ovens. 'Would you like wood in the Phrygian mode, sir, or perhaps a fridge in oak mode?'

Evensong was due to feature How in A flat. Go on, make up your own question, e.g. "How in a flat did they score 4 against Man Utd?" etc.

What is it about Christian music that lends itself to humour? Takes me back to student era sniggers about You shall go out with Joy (she was the pianist) and to cap it all Lord, you put a tongue in my mouth (yes it's a real song in Songs of Fellowship) It gets worse - the next two verses say he put hands on my arms and feet on my legs. Take a look if you don't believe me.

Inside Today

As an experiment, the BBC Radio 4 Today programme have commissioned a Youtube video to see how quickly it spreads round the globe, so i thought I'd blog it here.

Excellent and very funny.

Labels

I occasionally drop into the nakedpastor blog, where some good cartoons appear. I enjoyed this one about labels and the accompanying post.

How much is our potential, or the potential of others, limited by what is said to us, or what we say to them.

Maybe chickens can swim too...

Sex and Sexuality

...was the title of last night's InSpire, which is our Sunday evening contemporary worship / teaching / learning together / eating nice cake and biscuits. We're doing one or two "hot potato" subjects this term (featuring hot potatoes for eating) and Steve did a great job last night helping us to engage with a highly personal subject.

One light-hearted moment was a reading illustrating how it's very easy to use / misuse the Bible in such discussions. It's a response to Dr Laura Schlessinger when she was outspoken about homosexuality in 2002. Thanks to Andrew for the URL. Read it here.

Pity it had to be a humanist website to publish this!

Swearing

The whole Ross / Brand thing has raised quite a debate about bad language on TV, and more generally in society. I've recently corresponded with a friend who was somewhat surprised at the amount of swearing he heard in a church context. It was timely, then, that Clive James decided to address the issue on Radio 4 on Sunday in his contribution to Points of View. In it he also refers to Frank Skinner's experiment in eliminating swear words from his routine, which had little effect on the number of laughs he got.

Skinner's observation in an interview I heard was that he was surprised how well it went. He will continue to use swear words, as they are more dramatically and comically effective when rationed, but add punctuation. As he puts it "clever swearing, the beautiful, eloquent swearing", referring to Chaucer as a literary precedent!

James is in sympathy with this view and suggests that laughs from audiences that are shocked / embarrassed by over-use are very different from proper laughs from an audience that has been amused by clever wit and humour.

Best to read the article - he puts the case much better.

Strictly Fun

Let's be clear - I don't watch Strictly Come Dancing. I live with X-Factor addicts, so the choice wouldn't be open to me anyway.

It's been fascinating to see the fuss being made about John Sergeant's departure and the apparent pressure he felt under because he was surviving when better dancers were voted out.

Sounds like a sense of humour failure with some people. It's a bit of fun for Saturday tea-time, not a technical context for dancing excellence. If you want to go to a 'proper' dancing contest, I'm sure the Tower Ballroom, Blackpool could oblige.

That's the trouble with letting people vote - they don't always choose the 'right' result!

To see Paxo interview Sergeant, click here

Starbucks Church

I loved this video, which I discovered via David Keen's blog. Although some of the references are very US, I fear we can recognise enough for it to be a lesson to us all!

Just for fun

Found this blog by accident from a friend of a friend (allegedly)

The Beaker Folk of Husborne Crawley

It's a brilliant spoof of Celtic and other forms of Christianity (spoof? we're serious I hear them cry). Druidism as satire on Anglicanism. I like it.

A couple of highlights I have so far discovered are:

Your cut-out-and-keep guide to Beaker Factions

and

Report from the Druidic Gorsedd Investigation into Human Sexuality

They also seem to have a devotion to the music of the late Kirsty McColl, and oblique references to Gabriel-era Genesis.

Michael Palin for President

Thanks Dan for this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jf1y9s73Nos

An Apocryphal Wedding Story

Image via Wikipedia

A clergy colleague in Nottingham once told the story of a wedding where the couple requested the theme from Robin Hood (ie Bryan Adams' Everything I do...) for the organist to play as the bride entered. However the organist made the quite understandable error of playing the theme from the TV series from the 1950s:

Sing up

Robin Hood, Robin Hood, riding through the glen
Robin Hood, Robin Hood, with his band of men
Feared by the bad, loved by the good;
Robin Hood, Robin Hood, Robin Hood!


He called the greatest archers to a tavern on the green,
They vowed to help the people of the king,
They settled all the trouble on the English country scene,
And still found plenty of time to sing...


If it happened, it must have been a bit difficult for the couple, but I bet you hope it really did take place.

 

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