Look what arrived in the post today by recorded delivery! Very exciting!
Anyway, back to packing for a few days away in Aberdeenshire. I hope the weather stays as glorious as it has been down here. I heard from a friend in Aberdeen this morning that he had an air-conditioner working away in his study because it was so hot!
I burst out laughing this evening while catching up with the events at Wimbledon today. I was watching a few games of the Hewitt vs Roddick game when Andrew came into the living room to join the rest of the kids. Suddenly without warning Andrew shouts out, "YOU CAN NOT BE SERIOUS!" When I burst out laughing he kept it up, he knows his audience!
How on earth did my wee five year old son know about John McEnroe's most famous outburst (which you can see above)?
After I regained control, he told me it is from a Wii advert for the new Wii Tennis game.
We have a blissfully quiet house today. The children are all over in Cambuslang playing with their cousins, Carolyn is working away on psychology stuf, and I am on holiday this week (well supposed to be, anyway). A couple of new DVDs came through the post today from Tesco DVD Rental. To be honest, I can't even remember adding the film I watched this morning to the rental queue, but I really thought it was great.
The film documentary was Blindsight, the story of an expedition into the Himalayas by a group of blind Tibetan teenagers and their guides, including Erik Weihenmayer, the first blind man to reach the summit of Everest.
It is a wonderful story of courage, companionship, friendship and challenge. [There's more...]
Organist, Robert Ridgell plays a tribute to Michael Jackson in the
postlude for the service from June 28th at Trinity Wall Street Church, Broadway, New York.
Beat It and ABC come together
seamlessly in this performance. Majestic.
Love vanquishes time. To lovers, a moment can be eternity, eternity can be the tick of a clock. (Mary Parrish)
Have you ever experienced that slightly odd sensation of glancing at a clock with a ticking second hand and it appears that the clock has stopped and then it restarts again. One's perception after glancing at the clock is that longer than a second passes before the second hand continues its march around the clock face.
Or perhaps you have been in a traumatic situation and it seems as though time slows down? You become more aware of what is happening around you, your memories more clear in a stressful situation such as a near miss in the car.
In a very accessible paper, entitled Brain Time, David M Eagleman explores the current research into the neuroscience of our perception of time. It makes for fascinating reading. [There's more...]
Many thanks to Stewart Cutler who Skyped me tonight while I was working on tomorrow's service to remind me that Bruce Springsteen was playing live on the Beeb. A new window with the live feed was rapidly opened on the computer!
What a fantastic gig! And the first time Bruce has played at Glastonbury. A great warm up to his concert in Glasgow later in July. Can't wait! Especially as I now have my own Bruce song, Outlaw Pete, though I stress not all the details in this song are correct!
[Update: now available on the BBC website are video highlights.]
I spent four hours this evening at the Village Theatre, East Kilbride for a dance performance that our two older girls were performing in. It was quite a marathon even for us in the audience, and the dancers have two more shows to do tomorrow! The children had quite obviously put many hours of practise into their performances and kept us entertained despite the length of the evening.
The penultimate part of the show was a combination of drama and dance that included a number of songs from Madonna and the late Michael Jackson, including the full dance routine from Jackson's awesome video to the song Thriller. It was quite poignant, really, and this part of the show was dedicated to his memory. There is no doubt that Jackson was a stunning performer: his electric dance performances, most famously including the "moonwalk", his innocent voice, great song-writing, and perfectionist production values will far outlast the more troubled and dark aspects of his life. [There's more...]
Members of St Andrew's will be saddened to hear of the death of Matt Robertson. Matt, aged 92 years, had been a member at St Andrew's and at the Stonefield Church before that for just about all his years.
The funeral service for Matt will take place on Tuesday, 30 June, at 12:30 p.m. in the Church and thereafter to Daldowie Crematorium.
Yesterday the BBC carried a story and short video (see above, but with caution) based on their interviews with 27 previous inmates of Bagram prison in Afghanistan. None of these people were charged of any crime. And this, remember, perpetrated by the Bush/Cheney regime in our name, and in the name of promoting freedom and democracy.
As Andrew Sullivan notes: "Its story comports with everything we know about Cheney's determination to torture prisoners using the techniques perfected by the Communist Chinese."
The BBC interviewed 27 former inmates of Bagram around the country over a period of two months... None were charged with any offence or put on trial; some even received apologies when they were released. Just two of the detainees said they had been treated well. Many allegations of ill-treatment appear repeatedly in the interviews: physical abuse, the use of stress positions, excessive heat or cold, unbearably loud noise, being forced to remove clothes in front of female soldiers. In four cases detainees were threatened with death at gunpoint.
"They did things that you would not do against animals let alone to humans," said one inmate known as Dr Khandan. "They poured cold water on you in winter and hot water in summer. They used dogs against us. They put a pistol or a gun to your head and threatened you with death," he said. "They put some kind of medicine in the juice or water to make you sleepless and then they would interrogate you."
Hyacinth Bucket (pronounced 'Bouquet' by Hyacinth herself) has entered British folklore as the tyrannical housewife obsessed with how others perceive her in the 90s BBC sitcom 'Keeping up Appearances'. Here Hyacinth (played to perfection by Patricia Routledge) is pictured with her long-suffering husband, Richard (Clive Swift).
Over lunch with John Bell, who Carolyn and I had the pleasure of hosting earlier today, one of the things we talked about was how the preconceived notions we pick up of Bible characters or stories flavour our later reading of the Scriptures. John mentioned Zacchaeus and the Samaritan woman Jesus met at the well as examples. [There's more...]
There was much good humour and hilarity outside the church this morning as folks gathered for the church-organised holiday, this year to Oban. As ever, May Shaw had done a sterling job getting everything and everyone organised for the trip including enlisting me as the official photographer before everyone headed onto the coach.
Though perhaps May was a little too organised when we heard the church door rattling and the alarm going off after she had locked up... Good thing the coach had not yet arrived! And now May will be regretting asking me to bring camera to wave everyone off!
I hope the weather is good and that everyone has a great time in Oban, and on their day in Iona.
Byron and Linda Symeonoglou have been worshipping with us in St Andrew's over the last month or two while they have been in Scotland. It has been their first experience of the Church of Scotland and a delight for us to have them become a part of our community in St Andrew's during that time. They return to their home in Zimbabwe tomorrow, but graciously took me up on a suggestion I had made to Byron a couple of weeks ago that they might want to say a few words about life in Zimbabwe during a service.
They did so this morning in our All-Age service that was themed around how we still find the Kingdom amid chaos. Very appropriate for the situation in Zimbabwe at the moment. [There's more...}
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