What I’ve Been Doing
What I have been listening to…
Arctic Monkeys - Favourite Worst Nightmare
Incubus - Light Grenades
Handsome Furs - Plague Park
Yeah Yeah Yeah’s - It’s Blitz
What I have been reading…
William Golding - Lord of the Flies
Cathleen Falsani - The God Factor
Charlie Brooker - Dawn of the Dumb
Cornelius Plantinga Jr - Not the Way its Supposed to be: A Breviary of Sin
What I have been watching…
The Apprentice
Big Brother
Family Guy Season 4
Alias Season 1
Filed under: General | 4 Comments
Heart of Darkness
About two weeks ago I finished ‘Heart of Darkness’ by Joseph Conrad having read it quickly by my standards in the unusually sunny weather. Although I’m glad I’ve read it, I don’t really see what all the fuss is about. I mean it was alright, but not as amazing as many intellectual fellows would have me believe. Here are my positives and negatives regarding the book:
One thing I thought Conrad did well, was his use of language in describing the scenes throughout the book. He used alot of interesting and uncoventional metaphors. However I did find this to be a negative at times, as he could spend half a page describing something and lose me in the prcoess.
Another positive was the way that Conrad built the story up as Marlow headed for Kurtz’s station. I really got into the story because of the way Conrad built the tension. I also felt like you could see Marlow slowly descending into some sort of odd madness or obsession with Kurtz or the idea of the man. This meant I was really anticipating the moment they finally met. Sadly I found this to be a bit of a let down. But perhaps that is he point. The ending seemed to me a bit flat and an anti-climax to the tension that was built in the majority of the story.
However there is part of me that thinks Conrad did this to make a point about about false hope or reputation or something. I need a bespectaled literary expert to guide me on that one.
One strong positive for me, was that when I wasn’t getting lost in what Conrad was trying to say, I did feel emmersed in the story. Conrad’s writing really painted a vivd mental picture for me to the extent that I felt like I was travelling down the river with Marlow at certain points. Which sounds a bit stupid, but I know what I mean. His depiction of the natives that Marlow encounters also helped me to see how they were viewed at the time of writing which I found very interesting.
So overall, I found the book to be mainly good, but I felt a bit let down by the ending and often found myself getting lost in Conrad’s over descriptive sections (which is probably due to my mind not being able to handlke that sort of stuff). I probably need to reflect on it more to really get it, so I’ll do that. Perhaps by watching Apocalypse Now, wcih I only found out the other day is based on the book. Mental.
Filed under: Literature | Leave a Comment
Tags: books, Congo, Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad, Literature
To Kill A Mockingbird
I’m feeling pretty good this morning, cos I have finished the first book in my classic literature personal challenge thing. The first book I have read was Harper Lee’s ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ and I flipping loved it. Here is my short review:
I thoroughly enjoyed ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ for a number of reasons. The first and most obvious one is that it was well written and engaging. I really enjoye Lee’s writing style and the way she paced the narrative. I particulary liked the way she would build a section of the story and grow the tension. It made the whole book really engaging and made me look forward to reading more and find out what happens.
Reason number two, is that it was set in Deep South Alabama. Any book that has this instantly has my vote. I gained great pleasure from reciting characters in a southern accent (or my attempt of one).
Reason number three: the characters. I loved all of the characters in the book and found that thye obviously made the story more likeable. My favourite was Atticus Finch. He was a bit of a legend.
Reason number four was the sense of humour and playfulness across the book, even though the story deals with issues such as rape, racism and prejudice.
The main part of the story which stood out to me was when Atticus advises his children to not judge someone before they had ’spent a day in their shoes’ or seen things from that persons perspective. I really liked the insightful nature of this point and found it to be a really helpful illustration for when Jesus spoke about not judging people, loving others and treating people with grace. You need to put yourself in someones else situation and mindset before you start self righteously condemning their actions. How do you know that you wouldn’t of acted the same or even worse?
So in summary I thoroughly enjoyed ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’. I found the book engaging and easy to read and Lee seems to have struck the ideal balance of story telling, poignancy and humour. This meant that the story was very readble and that the statements it had to make on issues such as judging or racism came across well, without being too heavy.
So 1 down loads more to go. The next book I’m gonna read is Joseph’s Conrad’s ‘Heart of Darkness’ which I’ve been told is a bit depressing. Whoopie. Can’t wait for that.
Filed under: General | Leave a Comment
Tags: Alabama, Atticus Finch, books, Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
Today, I have decided to actually do something I’ve intended to for a long time. For anyone who had read some classic English Literature, there are some books which are considered ‘must reads’. For ages I’ve had the intention to read more of these books and now I’m gonna try and do it. With all of these books, I may know the story, or of read small bits, but its about time that I read the books as a whole.
I’m well aware that I will almost defintely not complete this and in all honesty I probably won’t start till I’ve finised reading Yes Man by Danny Wallace. But hopefully in an effort to make myself do it, I intend to write a short review of each one on here.
My list so far is:
To Kill a Mockingbird – Harper Lee
Catcher in the Rye – JD Salinger
Grapes of Wraith – John Steinbeck
Lord of the Flies – William Golding
Heart of Darkness – Joseph Conrad
Catch 22 – Joseph Heller
The Great Gatsby – F Scott Fitzgerald
Moby Dick – Herman Melville
Ulysses – James Joyce
The Time Travellers Wife – Audrey Niffenegger
Crime and Punishment – Fyodor Dostoyesky
I also want to re read:
Of Mice and Men – John Steinbeck
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader – C.S.Lewis
I also feel compelled to add at least one book by Charles Dickens (I think I might go for A Tale of Two Cities) and Jane Austin. Now I’m well aware that Austin makes me sound like a gaylord, but I think it has to be done.
I’m also gonna check out:
Winnie the Pooh – A.A.Milne
Just because it will be funny.
I’m also aware that I have omitted some proper classics, such as the Lord of the Rings trilogy, but I want to have a list that looks achieveble.
Filed under: General | 8 Comments
Tremendous
Upon browsing through a book of Christian Hymns I came across No 469 by Charles Wesley. The third verse is:
Come, all ye souls by sin oppressed, Ye restless wanderers after rest, Ye poor, and maimed, and halt, and blind, In Christ a hearty welcome find.
Brilliant. Just brilliant. The phrase ‘hearty welcome’ should be used alot more in contemporary worship songs.
Filed under: Christianity | Leave a Comment
Tags: Chrisitanity, Hymns
A Coptic Good Friday
My church doesn’t really do the main events in the Christian calender. Not compared to a more tradtional church anyway, and there is part of me that wishes it did. Although I’m glad that these periods of the year arent treated with rigid traditionalism in my own church I still miss the ceremony and focus of these times in other churches.
This last Good Friday, I went to a reflection on the day by an Egyptian Coptic Priest held at an Anglican Church. It was awesome.
It wasn’t like breathtaking amazing, but it was refreshingly different. First of all, the priest himself was a bit of legend. He had a great sense of humour, a deep mind and an obvious strong love for God. So he was great to listen too. He did a very biblically focused reflection on the implications of the cross.
For me though, the best bit was when he stuck on a CD of some Coptic chanting. For alot of people they found this bit boring or overdone, but for me, I felt like this way of worshipping God was hitting on something that often the Western Church misses. The focus on contemplation of the message given and a repitition of basic truths.
I believe that in the West we struggle to stay still and reflect and as a result we miss out. It was great just to do nothing for about 10 mins but just meditate and focus on what had just been said.
So even though I didn’t 100 percent agree with everything that was said doctrinally, who cares? It was great to spend some time seeing how another culture worships the same God and stay still and quiet in contemplation of what Good Friday actually means.
Filed under: Uncategorized | Leave a Comment
Music, Books and TV
What I have been listening to…
Kanye West - 808s and Heartbreaks
Modest Mouse - We Were Dead Before the Ship Even Sank
Athlete - Beyond the Neighbourhood
Mr Hudson and The Library - A Tale of Two Cities
What I have been reading…
Anthony Beevor - Stalingrad
Rob Bell and Don Golden - Jesus Wants to Save Christians
Paul Beasley-Murray - The Message of the Ressurection
Charles Bukowski - The Pleasures of the Damned
What I have been watching…
The Apprentice
24 Season 7
Lost Season 5 (on TV) and Season 3 (on DVD)
Shipwrecked: Battle of the Islands
So there it is. I have shamelessly ripped off my friend Simon’s format, but i’m sure he won’t mind. I have however subsituted his section ‘what I have been drinking’ with ‘what I have been watching’ as I am by no means adventureous enough in that department.
Saying that, I am trying to try as many beverages as possible that I haven’t had before. Yesterday I had a Hertfordshire brewed ale. It was lovely.
Filed under: General | 5 Comments
Tags: books, music, tv
De-baptisms and Indoctrination
So I don’t wanna be going on some crusade against atheism, but lately, something in relation to it has been bugging me quite a bit. I feel like in popular culture, and particular the media, extreme religious views are being ridicuiled whilst extreme athiesm is often being championed. I believe there is nothing wrong with having a go at something (espically the weirder end of religous beliefs) but it is important that you are balanced and well argued in doing so. Increasingly, I keep on reading more and more stuff from strong athiests which is not well argued or even that reasonable. The problem is that no one seems to see this and no response is given.
A recent example is the ‘Letter of the week’ in the Radio Times. Its from a Mr Harris who is writing about the recent programme ‘Deborah 13: Servant of God’ a show following a young Christian girl. He starts his letter:
‘a young person who clearly has neither the experience nor yet developed the intelligence to rise above the indoctrination foisted on her by her parents’
Perhaps its just me, but straight away this guy sounds incredibly biased against all things Christian and displays poor reasoning. His basic premise, is that she can’t really have an genuine faith of beliefs of her own because she is too young and has clearly just been brainwashed by her parents. First of all, this logic states that the education system is defunct, as all children are clearly incapable of making any decisions or learning anything, so we should wait until they are at least 18 before we teach them even the slighest detail.
But this can’t be what Mr Harris believes. So he clearly is starting off straight away from the belief that all Christianity is rubbish and that it only brings negative things to the world.
Second, it is quite patronising towards the girl in question. Who are we too say that someone is incapable of holding a belief or worldview that they have because they are 13? And why is it that people often regard religious education as indoctrination, but all other education is seen in a different light? Don’t we all get our basic beliefs from our parents and teachers. If Mr Harris teaches his children there is no God, is he blindly indoctrinating his children? I imagine he would argue strongly no and that he is just teaching his children the truth. Yet this would be the same response of many Chrisitian parents.
He goes on to say:
“Watching her trying to justify her stultfyingly crippled reasoning in an adult world was painful enough, but to see her dissolve in tears at the end because ‘Jesus loves me so much’ was just horrible.”
I find the first statement amusing. Mr Harris once again shows his complete lack of impartiality and lampoons young Deborah for poor reasoning, a crime which he himself has just commited. With regards to his second statement, I havent seen the young girl breaking down into tears, and I might well find it cheesy or contrived, but is it really so bad that a young person would believe this and find comfort from it? Why does this man find it so sickening that a young person would believe that they are loved and important to God in comparsion to so many young people in Britain today who believe that they are worthless, ugly or insignificant and who go to often damaging great lengths to find any form of worth or affirmation.
Ok so my small rant there is over, but I just find it bizarre that such a poor and obviously biased argument could be deemed worthy of ‘letter of the week’ in a popular magazine.
I have nothing against athiests and have alot of respect for some well balanced, well reasoned arguments from sone athiests, but why is such poor arguing like this often supported and celebrated?
Another example I saw recently was with a man, John Hunt, who wants the church to renounce his child baptism. For some reason Mr Hunt is so upset with Christianity that he want the church to renounce his child baptism. I agreed with his conclusion that it is odd to baptise young children who have no awareness of the ceremony they are partaking in, but I also agreed with the churches conclusion that there is no point in renoucning it as it is a historical event. It happended, deal with it.
I liked the church in questions response which was “if atheists and secularists believe baptism is so meaningless, why are they are letting it upset them.”
Good point.
Mr Hunt’s answer to this was:
“Evangelical noises are getting louder and louder.
“The recent change in European legislation has led to religious beliefs not being challenged at all, and there’s no limit at all on what anybody can claim as a valid religious belief.
“I think it’s important that more people speak out and say they don’t subscribe to the historic beliefs of the Church.”
I’m sure most people would agree with me when I say that this response is just plain awful. It makes very little sense, doesn’t answer the question in hand and isnt even really true.
Again, it seems to me that reactions such as this from extreme athiests, hint more towards the existence of God then disprove it. Their arguments often sounds more like the reactions of someone who has been hurt, rather than the reasoned musings of someone who has naturally come to that conclusion.
Its my hope that soon when I read another of thse articles that this poor reasoning is identified or that a response is allowed.
Filed under: Christianity | 9 Comments
Tags: atheism, baptism, Christianity
Crosswords
One of the things that has always bamboozled me in my short life, are prize crossword clues. By that I mean not the normal crossword where the clue is straightforward. Believe me, I have no problem with that. It’s with the crossword that has an almost cryptic clue. I know there is a method to doing them but I’ve now decided to find out how.
If I’m not explaining myself very well, I will give some examples.
Normal crossword clues:
Feeling of disgust (9) Answer: Revulsion
Medical Centre (6) Answer: Clinic
Match of the Day presenter (4,7) Answer: Gary Lineker
There we go. Nice and simple. All straight to the point, and tests your general knowledge and vocabulary.
‘Cryptic’ crosswords clues (taken from a recent crossword in the Radio Times):
Quibble over direction of ship’s trail (5,5)
Inclination to spell osprey, oddly (5)
Two creatures joined by adhesive compound (7)
Now, what’s that all about? Seriously. These clues do not follow the rules of the previous crossword clues. If I tried to do so with ‘Two creatures joined by adhesive compound’ my answer would be something like “Tortoise-glued-to-dog” and that clearly can’t be right. For a start the answer should only be seven letters long. Oh dear.
So clearly there must be another method. What I have gleaned from other places (which is probably wrong) is that you work out what each part of the clue is getting at, and then join them together to make the answer.
Therefore, the clue “Sad time, getting smoke blown back (6)” could be ‘Miswin’. I came to this conclusion because: Another word for a sad time could be misery, smoke could be blown back by wind, so I took the ‘mis’ from misery and the ‘win’ from wind and formed my answer.
But hold on. That can’t be right. Miswin isn’t even a word and that reasoning was stupid. So I’m stumped.
I do think however, that I worked out 2 Down from the Radio Times more complicated crossword. The clue is “Redhead’s favourite choice biscuit (6,4)” and I think its ‘Ginger Nuts’. This is because redhead’s are commonly designated as gingers, and ginger nuts are popular biscuits. Am I right, I don’t know, I really don’t.
The whole thing is just weird too me. It sounds like the ramblings of a madman. Here are a few examples from the Radio Times crossword:
” French animal in hut is not hurt at all (9)”.What?! Is there a vicious rumour circulating that a Parisian shack dwelling snail is wounded, which is being denied?
“Worker grabbed by lion in shed (4,2)”. Pardon Me? What is this with animal’s in sheds?
“Basket for girl entering jetty (7)”. For goodness sake. In a few weeks I’ll probably find out the answer is something normal like ‘cheeses’. And why? I don’t know, but apparantely lots of middle class people who read the Independant do.
I can make up crossword clues like this too. Here are a few examples:
“Man in hat discusses cutting of wobbly pipe (7)” Answer: Curtain
“Flying adjective goes to China, perhaps? (6,3)” Answer: Church Pew
“Far away King for box of Rhubarb (3)” Answer: Cow
Anyway, rant over. I don’t get these type of crosswords and need help.
Filed under: General | 2 Comments
Superbowl
So a week and a half ago, I stayed up till the early hours of the morning so I could watch the Superbowl. As an English person who is both an admirer and cynic of American culture, here are my thoughts:
1 – First of, I thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing. It was very entertaining. I imagine if I watched the sport more regulary, I would find the matches a bit too long and I don’t get the whole Superbowl adverts thing, but very entertaining none the less.
2 – There is no way, no way that the sport should be called ‘football’ while the real football is referred to as ’soccer’. Now I know this is a common observation, particulary by English people, but it is a travesty that kept annoying me throughout. The reason why is obvious: the high majority of American football is played with the hands, while football is played predominatly with feet (except by goalkeepers). Why is it called football, why?!?! And why is it that in Britain we lie down and accept this injustice. Why do we sometimes refer to football as soccer on news reports?? Something should be done.
3 – The key difference between American sports and English sports commentary that I can identify, is that the American commentary is interested mainly in statistics, while the English game is not. Take for example when talking about a game. Whilist an American person might say something like “Smith is a good defensive player as he has had a 76 percent success rate in tackling,” Brits would say something like “Smith has been really solid at the back lately, other teams arent gonna get past him easily.” Ok, thats not a very good example, but you get the idea. Statistics are very important to American commentary, while its more useful for ‘interesting tit-bits’ for Brits.
4 – Another key difference appears to be the actions of players after they succeed in the game. While the American Football players tended to celebrate after what might be demeaned a not so important tackle, Brits only seem to celebrate with a decisive moment in a game (such as scoring a goal or a try). The American players tended to celebrate with chest beating, over the top hand gestures and alot of enthuasism while this behaviour would most likely warrant dissaproval in English sports. I believe this reflects the difference in attitudes towards success for the American and Brits. For Americans, success is always admired and celebrated, while to do so in England, is often seen as arrogant. Your allowed to celebrate you success, but not too much, and you cant be too open about it.
5 – Bruce Springsteen at the half time show, was just irritating.
6 – My favourite bit, was most probably when a group of players (such as the Arizona defence) would announce their names and their colleges. A number of them looked like they were struggling to remember these details.
Filed under: General | 7 Comments
Tags: American Football, Superbowl
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