We had the first read-through yesterday for the Bursledon Player's next production - Sinbad the Sailor and Mystery Island. Just about the right amount of young people turned up - not so many that it would have meant turning people down (or having an enormous chorus), but not too few, so I'm not going to have to ring round last year's cast who didn't come back yesterday and plead with them. This year I'm co-writing it with Rachel again; she does the jokes and I do the plot - except for the sections where she does the jokes and the plot and I just write it down.
I have to say I do like writing pantomime - I can have lots of fun finding different ways to use the traditional characters, and I just love the feeling when I think of a line that seems like it doesn't add much, but is going to be a serious bit of plot three scenes later.
Now I need to get it finished and off to the actors asap, so that they can start learning their lines. Maybe next year I'll have more than Act 1 written before auditions. Maybe.
Monday, December 13, 2010
Thursday, December 09, 2010
A baby in a stable
Last Sunday Peter gave a talk based on John the Baptist's preaching in Matthew. He asked how we can preach the gospel, using an example of some 19th century ideas about hell and damnation - rescuing people who are "hanging over the edge of the pit". We were asked to think about whether or not that kind of language (or those kind of ideas) are right today - what would John the Baptist be saying now?
I've been thinking about this, and though I don't claim to have any well-worked out answers (and certainly not final or authoritative ones!) I can't help coming back to my previous thoughts about who church is for. Is it for people who don't necessarily feel they need to be there, but like the company or think they should show their face once in a while? Or is it for people who know they need something, but don't necessarily think that they'll find it in church? I know there are lots of other kinds of people between these two extremes, but my feeling is that the church in general has quite a lot of the former and not enough of the latter.
I'd really like to see the church being a first resort for anyone who is lonely, desperate, unhappy, friendless, addicted, ashamed or bewildered. But I don't believe that those people will seek out Jesus (especially not in the church) as long as they are lectured or talked down to by people inside the church. I don't think that they will come - even if they are invited - if the church is seen as a group of people who think they know best, telling the rest of the world just how wrong they are.
I think that the church has something of an image problem. Strangely, I believe that the wider culture is actually helping with this. Church is increasingly being seen as a refuge for the intellectually incompetent, the social misfits, the bizarre fringes of the human race. And that's a good thing. I think that we as a worshipping community should identify strongly with that. We are not the people who have got it all together. We are not the best of the best, or even the middle of the average. We are the people who are beginning to grasp just how massively we've messed up. But we come together on a Sunday morning (or a weekday evening) because we have found a hope, an answer, a love that will never give up on us - and we'd love everyone else to find it too.
Of course, as a church we don't have to do that. Nobody says we have to admit our failings in public. We can stand proud, knowing that not only are we children of God (true) but that he has revealed himself to us (also true). We can let everyone know that they need to be saved (this, I think, is referred to as "speaking the truth in love"), and then we can shut the doors of the church and sing our groovy up-to-date worship songs, with a request that the last member left will please turn out the lights. We can, in short, give the world the church it expects.
Should we? I can't say for sure, but in a couple of weeks time I'm going to be celebrating the birth of the Son of God, and he wasn't born anywhere that people expected. The King of Kings and Lord of Lords was born in a stable. We could do worse than think about what that means for us.
I've been thinking about this, and though I don't claim to have any well-worked out answers (and certainly not final or authoritative ones!) I can't help coming back to my previous thoughts about who church is for. Is it for people who don't necessarily feel they need to be there, but like the company or think they should show their face once in a while? Or is it for people who know they need something, but don't necessarily think that they'll find it in church? I know there are lots of other kinds of people between these two extremes, but my feeling is that the church in general has quite a lot of the former and not enough of the latter.
I'd really like to see the church being a first resort for anyone who is lonely, desperate, unhappy, friendless, addicted, ashamed or bewildered. But I don't believe that those people will seek out Jesus (especially not in the church) as long as they are lectured or talked down to by people inside the church. I don't think that they will come - even if they are invited - if the church is seen as a group of people who think they know best, telling the rest of the world just how wrong they are.
I think that the church has something of an image problem. Strangely, I believe that the wider culture is actually helping with this. Church is increasingly being seen as a refuge for the intellectually incompetent, the social misfits, the bizarre fringes of the human race. And that's a good thing. I think that we as a worshipping community should identify strongly with that. We are not the people who have got it all together. We are not the best of the best, or even the middle of the average. We are the people who are beginning to grasp just how massively we've messed up. But we come together on a Sunday morning (or a weekday evening) because we have found a hope, an answer, a love that will never give up on us - and we'd love everyone else to find it too.
Of course, as a church we don't have to do that. Nobody says we have to admit our failings in public. We can stand proud, knowing that not only are we children of God (true) but that he has revealed himself to us (also true). We can let everyone know that they need to be saved (this, I think, is referred to as "speaking the truth in love"), and then we can shut the doors of the church and sing our groovy up-to-date worship songs, with a request that the last member left will please turn out the lights. We can, in short, give the world the church it expects.
Should we? I can't say for sure, but in a couple of weeks time I'm going to be celebrating the birth of the Son of God, and he wasn't born anywhere that people expected. The King of Kings and Lord of Lords was born in a stable. We could do worse than think about what that means for us.
Tuesday, December 07, 2010
It's my birthday
Got up this morning to presents and cards on the dining room table and birthday greetings from my family. Today I am 44. It's difficult not to feel old sometimes - after all, I've only ever been younger than I am now, so comparisons are bound to be unfavourable - but it did occur to me that 44 is exactly halfway between 22, when I was recently married and had just started a family and a career, and 66, when I shall be able to retire. I think I shall describe myself not as old, or even middle-aged, but as having both experience and potential.
Monday, December 06, 2010
Facebook: just when you thought it couldn't get worse...
Yesterday I posted about the proliferation of cartoon pictures on Facebook. Today when I logged on I saw this:
!!ATTENTION: the group asking everyone to change their profile picture to their favourite cartoon character is actually a group of paedophiles. They doing it because kid's will accept their friend request faster if they see a cartoon picture. It has nothing to do with supporting child ...violence, ITS ON TONIGHT'S NEWS copy and paste this to your status! Let every one know !!
I probably should have guessed that someone would scream the p-word at some point. And the problem with a warning about paedophiles is that you must MUST MUST!!! pass it on. Except that this looks like nonsense to me. Let's see... there are multiple punctuation mistakes. There are capital letters to call attention to the REALLY IMPORTANT part - which is not about the group of paedophiles, it's about "tonight's news". Oh well, if it's on tonight's news, it must be real, right? But what news? Where? If this is so important that it needs exclamation marks at the beginning, why not include a link to the news item?
But most nonsensical of all is this: if a group of paedophiles believe that children will accept a friend request faster (by which I assume they mean "are more likely to accept a friend request" - surely the speed with which they accept is immaterial), then it is to that group's benefit to be the only ones with cartoon profile pictures. If everyone has a cartoon picture, then any advantage those cunning paedophiles might have had will be lost. It would be utterly self-defeating.
The genius of this is that if I didn't change my picture to a cartoon I was clearly in favour of violence against children, but now if I do I could easily be one of those devious paedophiles.
!!ATTENTION: the group asking everyone to change their profile picture to their favourite cartoon character is actually a group of paedophiles. They doing it because kid's will accept their friend request faster if they see a cartoon picture. It has nothing to do with supporting child ...violence, ITS ON TONIGHT'S NEWS copy and paste this to your status! Let every one know !!
I probably should have guessed that someone would scream the p-word at some point. And the problem with a warning about paedophiles is that you must MUST MUST!!! pass it on. Except that this looks like nonsense to me. Let's see... there are multiple punctuation mistakes. There are capital letters to call attention to the REALLY IMPORTANT part - which is not about the group of paedophiles, it's about "tonight's news". Oh well, if it's on tonight's news, it must be real, right? But what news? Where? If this is so important that it needs exclamation marks at the beginning, why not include a link to the news item?
But most nonsensical of all is this: if a group of paedophiles believe that children will accept a friend request faster (by which I assume they mean "are more likely to accept a friend request" - surely the speed with which they accept is immaterial), then it is to that group's benefit to be the only ones with cartoon profile pictures. If everyone has a cartoon picture, then any advantage those cunning paedophiles might have had will be lost. It would be utterly self-defeating.
The genius of this is that if I didn't change my picture to a cartoon I was clearly in favour of violence against children, but now if I do I could easily be one of those devious paedophiles.
Sunday, December 05, 2010
Change your facebook profile picture to your favourite cartoon character
A couple of days ago some of my friends on Facebook had this as their status: "Change your Facebook profile picture to your favourite cartoon character from your childhood and invite your friends to do the same. Until Monday December 6 there should be no human faces on Facebook, but an invasion of memories. This is to support no violence towards children." Yesterday, it had changed to "Change your Facebook profile picture to a cartoon character from your childhood and invite your friends to do the same, for the NSPCC. Until Monday (December 6th), there should be no human faces on Facebook, but an invasion of memories. This is a campaign to stop violence against children." The NSPCC Facebook page says "A warm welcome to all our cartoon friends! We are incredibly grateful for your support to end cruelty to children in the UK. Although the NSPCC did not originate the childhood cartoon Facebook campaign, we welcome the attention it has brought to the work we do. If you would like to find out more about how you can get involved, please visit our website."
I haven't changed my Facebook picture to my favourite cartoon character. This isn't because I don't support the work of the NSPCC or the other organisations working to reduce the incidence of cruelty to children. It isn't because I'm a heartless git who is happy for children to suffer. And it isn't because I just can't think of what my favourite cartoon character would be. It's because putting a cartoon picture on Facebook WILL NOT MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE.
Never mind that some well-meaning soul decided that this "campaign" was from the NSPCC, though I admire their positive response. This will do nothing to stop people being violent to children. Nobody who regularly beats their children because they themselves were beaten as a child, nobody who sometimes whacks their unruly toddler round the back of the head because they don't have many parenting skills, nobody who is addicted to alcohol or drugs and sometimes doesn't feed their children - and certainly none of the tiny tiny minority who set out deliberately to be cruel to children - will change their behaviour one little bit because there are suddenly pictures of Pikachu and Bagpuss all over Facebook.
If you want to reduce violence to children, give money to the NSPCC. Or get off Facebook and volunteer.
I haven't changed my Facebook picture to my favourite cartoon character. This isn't because I don't support the work of the NSPCC or the other organisations working to reduce the incidence of cruelty to children. It isn't because I'm a heartless git who is happy for children to suffer. And it isn't because I just can't think of what my favourite cartoon character would be. It's because putting a cartoon picture on Facebook WILL NOT MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE.
Never mind that some well-meaning soul decided that this "campaign" was from the NSPCC, though I admire their positive response. This will do nothing to stop people being violent to children. Nobody who regularly beats their children because they themselves were beaten as a child, nobody who sometimes whacks their unruly toddler round the back of the head because they don't have many parenting skills, nobody who is addicted to alcohol or drugs and sometimes doesn't feed their children - and certainly none of the tiny tiny minority who set out deliberately to be cruel to children - will change their behaviour one little bit because there are suddenly pictures of Pikachu and Bagpuss all over Facebook.
If you want to reduce violence to children, give money to the NSPCC. Or get off Facebook and volunteer.
Friday, December 03, 2010
The politics of snow clearance
I've just moved our car out of the estate and round to Tesco's car park, from where I will hopefully be able to move it later when Peter needs a lift down to Hamble. It took some initial work with the shovel to get it out of our road (and then again going up the hill), but as I drove along there were small groups of people (mostly men) who were clearing sections of the road. People were getting together - not just clearing their own driveways, but getting the public road clear. And when cars got stuck, two or three people would give them a push.
So is this a failure of local government? Although a lot of people live on our estate, the council don't grit the only road around it that everyone uses. Should we expect our local council to repay us for our taxes by getting the roads clearer, faster, in winter? Or is this The Big Society? People getting together, untrammelled by prescriptive regulation, to really sort out what needs to be done?
I suspect it's not really either of these alternatives. Local and national government are repeatedly unable to deal with extreme events like a couple of inches of snow, and perhaps should be better prepared and respond faster. On the other hand, they can't be everywhere and do everything. And I don't think that people get together because they are feeling empowered by Dave's big idea. I think that generally people tend to look out for each other, and they don't think it's an unusual thing to clear a bit of road - particularly if that means another driver is less likely to slide into your parked car.
I guess we get the the government that we pay for (and nobody wants to pay any more tax); but please don't politicise human goodwill and pretend you've brought about social change.
So is this a failure of local government? Although a lot of people live on our estate, the council don't grit the only road around it that everyone uses. Should we expect our local council to repay us for our taxes by getting the roads clearer, faster, in winter? Or is this The Big Society? People getting together, untrammelled by prescriptive regulation, to really sort out what needs to be done?
I suspect it's not really either of these alternatives. Local and national government are repeatedly unable to deal with extreme events like a couple of inches of snow, and perhaps should be better prepared and respond faster. On the other hand, they can't be everywhere and do everything. And I don't think that people get together because they are feeling empowered by Dave's big idea. I think that generally people tend to look out for each other, and they don't think it's an unusual thing to clear a bit of road - particularly if that means another driver is less likely to slide into your parked car.
I guess we get the the government that we pay for (and nobody wants to pay any more tax); but please don't politicise human goodwill and pretend you've brought about social change.
Thursday, December 02, 2010
Real life
For the last week I've been meaning to post something about how astonishingly busy I've been. I expect it would have been a lighthearted look at how many different things I'd been involved with, with a serious undercurrent to make the reader think "Hey, this guy really is incredibly busy."
Unfortunately I haven't. And the not very lighthearted reason is that I've been busy, tired, and procrastinating. When I used to be employed full time - especially in the months before the NHS and I parted company - I imagined what life would be like when I was having to do all kinds of things to try and raise money/get people off our backs about debts. In my imagination I would get up early, work hard all day, and then when evening came and my loving wife and family beckoned me to come sit with them and maybe watch a movie, I'd ruefully but resolutely smile and explain that no, I had some more work to do.
Reality (as is often the case) is somewhat different. Yes, I do get up early. Yes, I try and work hard to get some money. But I don't work hard enough or for long enough to get sufficient money to stop the graph on the household budget looking like the advanced slopes at St Moritz. Because in real life there are lots of other things that need doing, where a smiling refusal doesn't make any difference. And come the evening, frankly I'm so exhausted that I've hit the settee before you can say "Why don't you come and sit down?"
Part of wanting to be a writer is the discipline of writing when I don't want to, or when I'm tired, or when there's too much else on. This blog ought to have daily entries, except in extremely unusual circumstances. Right now, I need to get my act together.
Unfortunately I haven't. And the not very lighthearted reason is that I've been busy, tired, and procrastinating. When I used to be employed full time - especially in the months before the NHS and I parted company - I imagined what life would be like when I was having to do all kinds of things to try and raise money/get people off our backs about debts. In my imagination I would get up early, work hard all day, and then when evening came and my loving wife and family beckoned me to come sit with them and maybe watch a movie, I'd ruefully but resolutely smile and explain that no, I had some more work to do.
Reality (as is often the case) is somewhat different. Yes, I do get up early. Yes, I try and work hard to get some money. But I don't work hard enough or for long enough to get sufficient money to stop the graph on the household budget looking like the advanced slopes at St Moritz. Because in real life there are lots of other things that need doing, where a smiling refusal doesn't make any difference. And come the evening, frankly I'm so exhausted that I've hit the settee before you can say "Why don't you come and sit down?"
Part of wanting to be a writer is the discipline of writing when I don't want to, or when I'm tired, or when there's too much else on. This blog ought to have daily entries, except in extremely unusual circumstances. Right now, I need to get my act together.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)