Adrian and the Magical Morning

I got up early today, with the intention of doing some extra revision before church. I had a good walk in the crisp air, and then managed to not do any revision before leaving for church. I did not think much would happen, but going to church is a good part of the week, and I am pleased to go even when it seems quite mundane.

As I got to the door, a student whom I had not seen before shook my hand and said "hi, now, I'm going to need your help to get through this".

Ok, I'm intrigued.

We stop just inside, as people are milling about, chatting. Drawing no attention. He introduces himself as Adrian. I say that I am Sam. He tells me of his mission. He is not a Christian, but has come to church as someone suggested it. He's made a New Year's Resolution to say "yes" to things people ask him to. And furthermore, to introduce himself to as many people as possible, to encourage them to give him things to say yes to.

I have not got further than the cover, but this idea is based on a book, which sounds like it may be interesting. By that man who tried to set up his own country on BBC2.

So I introduced Adrian to some people after church. It was possibly one of the most fun things which has happened to me at 11am on a Sunday morning.

As I said in the title of this post, it seemed a little bit magical. Like something which happens in films. I'm just grateful that it happened to be me who got randomly involved in this piece of Interesting Life.

A nice cup of TEA

A perusal of the BBC News showed me the encouraging progress from the Church of England's current difficulty with women being bishops.

The proposal for compromise and making sure everyone is happy and having a nice time seems to be a very wise one. TEA.

This seems to stand for Transferred Episcopal Arrangements, amounting to having ever-so-slightly magical 'flying bishops'. If your parish gets upset at the idea of a person... who wears a dress and a funny hat and has more ornamental jewelry than most... should be a woman, they can ask to have a man in a dress instead to come to do some of the more tricky bits of liturgy.

But I'm sure that as long as tea is a central method in the Church of England, things can't go too far wrong.

Some time ago, Dave Walker of CartoonChurch.com blog had this insightful analysis of the potential problems of Women with mitres.

The Internet knows everything. Discuss.

http://blog.outer-court.com/prejudice/

A map of the world, with what The Internet, according to Google, thinks are stereotypes of each nation. Achieved by searching Google for " is known for", and documenting the top results. Cunning.

So, is this what the whole world thinks of each other? That "Sweden is known for..." Austerity, drinking coffee and carving Viking longboats? That "Bolivia is known for..." lack of understanding and impunctuality?

Perhaps. It could also be that this is what the English-speaking, computer-literate, internet-posting world thinks of each country.

Facinating.

Counting down the days

If (like me) you still haven't exhausted your annual desire for calendars, but fear that all that is left in the shops is less appealing than "2006 in Braille", "Corporate policy documents of 2006" or "The year ahead, Britney's behind", all is not lost!

Dave Walker has again published, completely free, his Cartoon calendar for you to print out yourself.

I'm not sure if it is quite as funny as last year's, but it may be because I've seen most of the cartoons in it already. The orange juice instructional month was particularly effective, and has actually changed my life. In a small way.

N.B. Since I wrote my previous post about Flickr, I have become one of a sad breed who log in regularly to check the latest 'views' count and 'comments'* which people may have made on my pictures. Feel free to have a good look through my photos, and comment on ones which interest you for any reason.

I continue to upload my more arty and interesting photos from the vast vat of old ones on my computer, in the hope that I may, some day, achieve the "Explore Interesting Photos" page which Flickr compiles every day. I don't know how they calculate it, but it seems like a reasonable life ambition.

* Here seems as good a place as any to say that, while leafing through the Wesley Owen catalogue, among the range of Marketable Christian Products**, Joyce Meyer's book, 'Approval Addiction' (presumably how this is not a good thing), was noted as "climbing to #2 in the charts". Irony on a stick, anyone?

** Seriously now, am I too cynical for my own good? But seeing the cover advertising yet another Matt Redman product milking the "Blessed be your name" title, set me off feeling like virtually everything in the WO brochure is glossy Christianity - just enough humility to be trendy, but not so much as to hinder the sales or upset anyone enough to really change lifestyles.

Flickr Flickr Flickr

In the last few days I have returned to the wonderful thing that is Flickr. After being re-inspired to publish online some of my photos, and not having the botheredness to write my own gallery software, I'm filling my Flickr account with more and more stuff.

I don't know how they manage to pay for hosting it, as there are few adverts and vast numbers of users, but it seems very good so far.

It also has that Funky-Trendy-Cool feature of providing a 'feed' of thumbnails for your website, so I have plastered redwelly in them, as a cheap and cheerful way of bringing some life into an otherwise rather dead page.

So woo for Flickr, and woo for interesting photos. Here are mine.