Tolerance

I read this article on Neil Bennetts’ blog and found it fascinating and challenging. It focusses mainly on worship and related stuff but has a lot to say to those of us who lead ministries I think. I wish I was that thoughtful and articulate. A must read.

Fishing today

Oh what a day… well 6 hours. Went to Norton Fruit Farm – not the most beautiful lake in the world (more of a very large puddle) but thought I’d give it a try. Well here’s the first fish…

My biggest ever fish (by a substantial margin). A lovely Mirror Carp of 21lb. All in all I had 10 big carp for just about 100lbs. Very happy with that! Click on the Flickr link on the side bar to see some of the other fish. C

Minty Fresh

We bought an electric toothbrush a couple of weeks ago. My teeth (usually a bit yellow and furry) have never felt cleaner. I recommend it.

My breath still smells bad though… answers on a postcard

A win at last

Wolves win convincingly 2-0

Trinity Tigers win 1-0 (I’m clearly the man of the match )

England win at rugby (just)

All we need now is the cricket team to do something

Julian Graves

I went into a Julian Graves shop today assuming that all their food was healthy (I thought they were a health food shop) and so bought Chilli Nuts and Yoghurt coated banana chips. Apparently that stuff is really not healthy at all.

Just checked their website. Nothing about healthyness there at all. Very disappointed.

Jose Mourinho

I really like this guy which is why I am THRILLED that he has left Chelski. Mourinho is one of the best managers football has ever seen and Chelski are going to realise this the hard way. It also shows just how much Abramovich sees Chelski as a play toy. With Avram Grant taking over (no one has heard of him) watch them fall like a rock. For those fans longing for a non-football loving billionaire to take over their club beware. I don’t like Chelski and now he’s gone I’ll dislike them even more.

As for Jose… I hope that he stays in England – preferably feels a call to the Championship to the best club in the world. However, I’m probably more likely to take over there than he is. Perhaps McClaren might suddenly resign and give Jose the England job. One can dream… However, I guarantee you that there are CEOs of football clubs looking for a reason to sack their manager to get him. Spurs are a possible destination (another club that is interfering with a great manager and going to make a huge mistake), but I think sadly that Spain will be the likely destination.  

Real Madrid are due a change of manager I think

Stranger than Fiction

Got this out on Monday because our local DVD rental place has nothing else but crap horror on the shelves.

PLOT: Will Ferrell stars as Harold Crick who finds himself in the middle of a story being written by Emma Thompson. She is trying to think of a way of killing him off so he sets out to find her to stop his death.

REVIEW: Will Ferrell cannot, repeat CANNOT do serious. At all. Nor should he try. I fell asleep and missed the end. I haven’t bothered to put it back on to finish it. However, Dustin Hoffman was great and funny. Maggie Gyllenhall was weird and quirky (as usual). Emma Thompson was also weird and quirky. Queen Latifa was rubbish. The story was just too odd for me. 6/10.

IMDB give it nearly 8/10. Clearly I’m wrong.

Prayer

Have finally picked up and started to read the Phillip Yancey book on prayer (have had it for nearly a year). Already I have begun to underline bits and I’m finding it a really great read. The thing I love about Yancey is that he’s not afraid to really ask the difficult questions about the Christian faith and he hates (as I do) the trite rubbish that sometimes we come out with in response to them. If I’m honest I have rarely heard of half the people that he quotes and have probably never read them either but thankfully he has and it does mean that this book has weight and substance.

I’ll probably blog a fair bit about this as I get through it, but heres a taster for starters (he’s thinking about a river outside his house)…

“It occurs to me (Yancey), thinking about prayer, that most of the time I get the direction wrong. I start downstream with my own concerns and bring them to God. I inform God, as if God did not already know. I plead with God, as if hoping to change God’s mind and overcome divine reluctance. Instead I should start upstream where the flow begins.”

Johnny Vegas and Evangelical Christians

I watched this last week on channel 4 very sceptical about what would happen – the usual interviewing of right wing republican gun crazed war toting evangelical ministers who fulfil every stereotype that I hate. There was a bit of that, but what did seem to happen was that we saw a bit of Johnny’s personal search for meaning. He was clearly close to being an alcoholic (if not already one) and looking for some kind of transformation. His one conversation with a church leader from Colorado Springs (who came across really well thank goodness) was a really interesting interview. And the books this guy recommended to Johnny were great – Ragmuffin Gospel by Brennan Manning, and something by Henri Nouwen. Anyway, I tend to avoid watching programmes like this because I just feel hacked off that “evangelical” tends to equal George Bush and his mates. And I’m definitely not one of them…

European Qualifiers

Two good results. We drop Lampard and win (theres a surprise). I have to say that I wasn’t (and still am not) in any doubt that we would qualify for the Euro Championships next year. I’m not sure why people got so stressed out about Heskey playing, Barry coming into the side and Lampard being injured – was I the only one that felt this increased our chances of a) playing well b) winning??? Clearly, Heskey plays well with Owen and makes goals for him – look at their record for England and Liverpool. Barry is solid, dependable, and creative and based on the last two games was the best England player. I’d drop Joe Cole for the next game, keep Heskey on the bench, and encourage Lampard to stay injured. If I’m honest, I’ll have more faith in McClaren if he makes the bold decisions to keep faith with players in form and not just players with a good reputation.

Anyway, the outstanding result of last night was the Scotland game.

Next game against Estonia – definite win. Five points clear of Russia. Draw against Russia on the astroturf and probably draw against Croatia and we’re there.

 Team (barring injuries) for the next couple of games…

                                                Robinson

Richards               Terry                    Ferdinand                          A Cole

Wright-Phillips                    Hardgreaves                             Barry

                                                  Gerrard

           Owen                                                                Rooney

Saving a sheep

Feeling proud of the fact that I rescued a sheep that had fallen in a stream (muddy cess pool) last Friday. It didn’t say thank you. Apparently though if sheep get really stressed then they have heart attacks and die. Grabbing it by the scruff of the neck and dragging it out of the river might be the end of it. Oh well…

Infrequent Blogging

I’d be doing a whole lot more if we had internet at home… I have to confess feeling tempted to do something nasty to BT. I spent 50mins in a queue last Thursday waiting for a BT operator to answer. During that time I built 2 shelving units and an office chair. When I explained that to the lovely BT man (who was by far and away the best BT person I had spoken to and I’ve spoken to quite a few) he didn’t find it funny. Oh dear. Anyway, we have a phone line and hopefully by the end of the week we’ll have t’internet (listening to Peter Kay again).

Don’t get me started on call centres abroad…