I developed some photos this weekend – the last of the UA Meet batch, and a bunch from days out to Formby and Chatsworth. Links are below.

I was supposed to be going out for a meal with Adrian , Lori and a couple of others last night, but events conspired against me somewhat and I couldn’t make it (PA at church this morning, but a wedding yesterday meant that I couldn’t get in the church until gone 7pm to start rigging, and then had to be at church for 8:15am today, so couldn’t have stayed out late anyway; bah I say, bah). Ah well. Maybe next time. The band sounded good, anyway, and for a change I didn’t find anything to pick holes in about the sermon (Frank does actual research and preparation for his sermons, which is a Good Thing, especially after last week’s fiasco), so despite being utterly knackered, I’m quite happy.

Did get to watch a bit of Eurovision, though. Norway were clearly robbed, although apparently Naomi won £40 in a sweepstake by getting Greece. She’s been down in London all weekend, so I’ve pretty much had the flat to myself. So, in the absence of any wind, I’ve pretty much been playing video games all weekend: the rather fabulous La Pucelle: Tactics, to be precise. If there is any greater videogaming experience that a Nippon Ichi tactical RPG, I don’t want to know about it, frankly.

Anyway, those photos:

UA Meet 13 – Saturday and Sunday.

Formby – featuring pictures of a red squirrel. In black and white. Fabulous.

Chatsworth – the first batch anyway; more to come when I develop the second film.

Not a terribly exciting post, this one. Sorry. I’ll try and do better next time. Maybe.

It was bought to my attention (thanks, octarine) that my RSS feed was slightly broken: the dates were in an invalid format which apparently broke some aggregator software. In fact it transpires that the dates were utterly, utterly broken anyway, so I’ve fixed that now. Just a quick heads up. If you’re bothered, the RSS feed is here.

Yesterday, I wanted an Xbox 360.

Today I want a PS3.

• 1 lunatic preacher with a broom
• 3.5 hours spent windsurfing on Saturday
• 4 new blisters from windsurfing on Saurday, of which:
  • 2 have healed
  • 1 has burst
  • 1 has burst and gone all manky and infected
• 6 pints of beer consumed (and two glasses of wine)
• 7 plasters used in a single day to try and cover the burst blisters (plasters were clearly not designed for people who sweat or move their fingers)
• 45 minutes sat in a traffic jam on the A6 on the way out of Manchester
• 19 hojillion people at Chatsworth House on Sunday afternoon

I need to remember Natural Studio exists, because they appear to have some of the highest quality acoustic instrument samples I’ve ever heard.

Hmmm. This website describes me. Well, me in the past, obviously.

(via flippity)

I could write a long tirade about Church this morning, but instead I’ll link to this essay by Michael Spencer (aka iMonk) who puts it far better than I could. I’m sorry, but I really don’t understand why someone standing at the front, telling us stories about Toronto, continually (and inexplicable) sweeping a broom and going “ooh, yes, more Lord, ooh” all the time is supposed to be spiritually helpful. ‘Nuff said.

(it’s quite a long essay, but don’t let that put you off; it’s worth reading, I promise)

I said I had some issues with the name “Redeeming The Arts”. Jeni offered up an explanation, but I think I should probably expand on it slightly, just to make things slightly clearer.

Before I start, I should make a couple of important points. Firstly, I’m not arguing against Christians using art as a form of worship or expression or whatever – I’ve seen wonderful pieces of art produced as acts of worship, and I think that’s just as valid a form of praise as jumping up and down and singing “Jesus Love Is Very Very Lovely” or whatever. Secondly, neither do I think that “Christian Art” is necessarily any ‘worse’ than “Secular Art” (although listening to a selection of CDs down in Wesley Owen may colour your opinion on this one somewhat). And thirdly, I’m not claiming that it’s not the case that a lot of art in the world either speaks against Christianity or, far more often, utterly ignores it (whether this is actually a problem or not is something to be considered, certainly in the second case). It’s specifically the use of the word “Redeeming” I have a problem with.

Redemption, in the context of Christianity, (ignoring the arguments about the mechanics of atonement for a moment) basically means something being brought back to God: according to Christian theology, mankind was redeemed through Christ’s death and resurrection on the cross – thus, mankind can now again approach God and be restored in a relationship with Him. Importantly, there is a presupposition of a previous “higher” state for mankind from which he has fallen, and then through the redemptive act he is able to return to this higher state – and thus be considered “redeemed”.

When a Christian talks of “Redeeming the Arts”, therefore, there is the same implicit presupposition that the arts have, in some way, “fallen” and need restoring to God. Now, leaving aside for a moment the dubious arrogance of the idea that, were this the case, they could be redeemed by human work alone (in the context of mankind’s redemption, nothing man could do could possibly bring about his own redemption) I’m not entirely convinced that “art” can be fallen – and therefore, whether it can be redeemed. Is any art produced by a fallen human automatically displeasing to God? Because that’s effectively what is being claimed here.

If we argue, though, that art is human expression and therefore, as it’s a product of mankind and as mankind has fallen, it is also “fallen” or “ungodly” (I really don’t like that word) then surely it is redeemed by exactly the same process as that which redeemed mankind?

I guess what I’m saying is that I have a problem with two things: first of all, the idea that the arts need redeeming at all, and secondly, that if the arts are fallen along with the rest of mankind, whether the works of man can redeem them. So, that’s my piece. Thoughts?

As a child, I moved around the country a fair bit – my Dad worked (and still works, indeed) for the highways department, and the trouble with civil service jobs is that promotions don’t happen very often – it’s often easier to move 300 miles across the country to a job than wait for the one directly above you to open up. So, we did, several times.

Moving around as a child can be pretty traumatic – leaving your friends behind, losing your beloved bedroom (complete with Transformers wallpaper) and moving into an unfamiliar place are all experiences that no child would really choose to go through.

The worst problem, though, is one of language. Now, in theory, everyone in this country speaks the same language (apart from the Geordies, but they’re just a bit special so we’ll ignore them) – English. But we all know this isn’t entirely true. Regional dialects spring up – hence the Great Barmcake/Bap/Muffin Wars of 1843, for example – and this is nowhere more profoundly noticable than in the school playground.

The issue is that, even if you look like you fit in at school (and God knows, I never did), the moment you open your mouth and exclaim “Wow, that’s skill!” the entire playground falls silent and looks at you as if you’re speaking martian.

“You know. Skill. Like, good. Brill.”
“You mean… Wicked?”
“Er, yeah. Wicked!”

And everyone points and laughs at you and you feel very, very stupid indeed.

What is even worse, though, is when a phrase from one part of the country turns out to mean something completely different somewhere else:

“Miss! Kieran’s got a benny on!”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Kieran, Miss! He’s got a right benny on!”
“I won’t have that sort of language in my class. Go and stand in the corridor.”

Of course, it turns out that, in that part of the country, the phrase for “having a tantrum” was “throwing a mardy”. And “having a benny on” meant something very, very different indeed, and probably wasn’t something you should be saying in front of teachers.

Is it any wonder, then, that I’ve ended up the scarred and fractured individual I am today, having had to edure a childhood of inadvertantly saying to people “Kieran’s got an throbbing great stiffy and is waving it around in the playground at everyone!”. Childhood, eh. Precious memories.

We’ve got a freezer a work now! Woo. We’ve already tried making Irn Bru lollies (a cup of Irn Bru left in the freezer turns into a slush of caffeine, E numbers and sugar, apparently), but we need more ideas. So. Leave them in the comments, and maybe we can have a regular feature of “What Chris is freezing at work this week” or something.