Linda Smith dies of cancer at 48.

‘How I hope my epitaph would read’ is a redundant question, because, if everything goes according to my plan, I’m taking you all with me. — Linda Smith, Just A Minute

I’ve not been paying too much attention to the Christian blog scene lately (other than following Richard and Sven‘s musings). Seems like I ought to be, though, because there’s lots of courting controversy and dangerous liberal postmodern stuff going on, and you know I love all that.

First of all, Michael Spencer poses the question of whether Paul really was all that perfect, and whether we need to temper our view of him.

Eric ‘leif’ Rigney has stopped calling himself a Christian. But it’s okay, he still believes it all. He just doesn’t like the label and the things that come attached to it in the greater public conciousness. Very interesting.

Finally, Real Live Preacher explains how he came to his conclusions about homosexuality. There’s actually a series of posts about this, and they’re all worth reading – his viewpoint closely mirrors mine, except he can express it far better than I.

That streetlight on Upper Chorlton Road has abridged the Bible even further.

Naomi and I went to Wales for the weekend. Yesterday, we walked a little way up Snowdon, which was very cold, but looked exceptionally pretty in the snow:

We stayed overnight on Anglesey, and today we did the obvious thing every tourist has to do when they go to Anglesey:

In other news, when did phone cameras suddenly get the point of almost-usability? I’m really quite impressed with those pictures, considering they were taken with my (free) phone. I’ve got about 70-odd (hopefully rather better) other pictures on my SLR, though – I haven’t sent any film off to Peak for ages, so I should have a load of new pictures to bore you all with soon…

Iraq slips towards civil war.

Someone asked me for an abridged version of the Bible. So I wrote this.

If you’re a Truly Reformed type or have otherwise had a sense of humour bypass and might not see the funny side in this, or if you’re going to pick theological holes in what is clearly a silly spoof, please don’t bother reading this or leaving any comments or anything. I really can’t be bothered.

GOD: Let there be Stuff!

[There is Stuff. Some of it doesn’t work.]

GOD: You suck! Follow these rules!

[They don’t]

GOD: Alright, here’s my son to teach you how to do it properly

[They kill him]

GOD: Aha! But by killing my son you’ve gained eternal life because of a loophole!

[People don’t really get it]

GOD: Oi, you. Here’s a vision of the end of time.

John: How do you expect me to write *that* down?

GOD: Just, y’know, do your best.

[He writes Revelation. No-one, including God, understands it]
THE END

(via JV, via UA, via, uh, me)

I have succesfully avoided bowing to peer pressure and I haven’t bought a ukelele.

However, a combination of peer pressure and going to see Seth Lakeman again at the weekend means I’ve gone and bought a mandolin:

Fortunately, it turns out they’re really easy to play and I’m already picking my way through cool sounding folkish melodies. Either that, or I’m just brilliant. I’m going for the former, though. Yay for folk music!

I mean, I expected it to be bad. I really did. But even so, it exceeded those expectations completely.

Okay, to be fair to it, it’s quite stylish and not bad visually (discounting the comedy costumes). But the acting is wooden, the storyline unoriginal, more confusing than it needs to be and yet simultaneously not half as clever as it thinks it is, and there are plot holes you can drive a truck through.

However, there’s a scene where you nearly get to see Charlize Theron’s nipple, so it’s not all bad. (plus, there was a trailer for Evil Aliens which looks awesome in an Emily Booth In A Splatterhouse Version Of Sean Of The Dead Except With Aliens kind of way.)

Twenty people were rescued after becoming trapped when they fell nine feet as a floor collapsed during a health and safety meeting at a firm.

You know what I mean. Every so often, a craze will sweep round the office – be it making rubber band balls, or constructing bridges out of coins, or some sort of origami, or whatever. Every now and again a day will be wasted on some silly craze in the office.

Well, I think we’ve hit the pinnacle of weird in our office now: Ukeleles.

It all started the other week when Trav wanted something to do in his hotel room other than watching porn and staring blankly at the wall wondering why his life had come to the point where he was willing to live in a hotel for a week in exchange for working 7am-midnight for five days. So he wandered down to Forsyth’s on Deansgate and bought a £20 ukelele. It’s a nasty little thing – the tuning pegs aren’t geared so it goes out of tune faster than you can say ‘Aloha’ and the spacing of the frets is… dubious at best. But that didn’t stop every vaguely musical person in the office having a go and trying to get a halfway recognisable tune out of it.

And that’s where it should have ended. Except it didn’t. And other people have started buying them. The sound of “Duelling Banjos” plucked out on an out-of-tune instrument with only four strings rings around the office. And it shows no clear sign of ending.

Paul just mentioned buying a banjo. I think things may be getting out of hand.