Well finally the kebab ming has been removed…. Only to be replaced by a Costa cup!  I wonder how long it will stay….

I saw an article on TV last night that made me really sad.  It was an article about Revival Fires Church in Dudley, where many of my friends have been visiting.  The coverage was about miracles that had been happening there and was incredibly sceptical, portraying Christians (as usual) as a bunch of nutters.  They said that what the church was doing, was illegal, cruel and damaging.

The basic essence of the debate was that the vicar apparently claims that he can cure cancer, MS and other ‘incurable diseases’.  Now firstly, I was disappointed that the vicar did not defend himself on camera.  Instead, he pushed past and refused to even acknowledge the presence of the interviewer.  Hmmm, not a great start.  If he had spoken, I rather hope, that he might have pointed out that it is God doing the healing and not himself.

Instead we got an enraged MS sufferer saying “how dare he get people’s hopes up” and a doctor who slated him.  The very worst thing ab out the report, was that I almost found myself agreeing with the cynics!!  I was ashamed of myself.  The reason I was cringing, was because YouTube videos were being shown, that made the whole process look like a very strange stage performance.

I have very mixed views when it comes to miracles.  I absolutely believe in them 100% – in my mind, there is no doubt whatsoever, that God can and does heal every sort of disease. However, as someone who has an every day ailment, I know only too well the difference between “can” and “does”.  God certainly definitely CAN heal every sort of illness.  God certainly definitely DOES heal what He chooses to heal.  And that is up to Him and not me.

The mixed view is in relation to the ‘display’ of miracles.  People chase miracles a lot and we have to be so careful here.  They say “but it is all about God’s glory!”  God does not need to do magic tricks to display His glory.  He is not Derren Brown.  He IS glory.  Who He is, is majestic and who He is, is whom we should be seeking.

As an example….  I had a car accident recently.  The compensation is taking AGES to get sorted, because it has to go through my insurers, a solicitor, a medical group, a physiotherapist and various other parties.  I am doing it the correct way, because I do not believe in taking reward where it is not due.  I would expect to get hurt in a car crash, therefore I am only claiming for actual lost work because I am self-employed.  If I were employed I would get paid anyway.  I could go to an ambulance chasing firm and probably be awarded a very hefty sum, but this is of little benefit in the grand scheme of things because everybody still pays for it and it only gives me temporary alleviation.

In the same way, if we go ‘ambulance chasing’ miracles instead of seeking God as instructed in the insurance policy (the Bible – oh the cheese!) then we only ever achieve short large payouts (people become Christians with no roots in the Bible or in God and only last as long as the magic).

The Bible preaches the same message. Jesus, after healing people often told them to go home and not tell anyone what had happened.  Miracles are a manifestation of glory, not glory themselves.  God is glory.

I, like anyone else, praise God when someone is healed of cancer.  It is truly amazing.  But if our ministry is based on the premise of counting miracles instead of souls, then those whom we have placed on pedestals with the magic hands, will simply fall off.  The tower of Babel fell because its roots were in power and selfish ambition.  The tower of self is a similar beast.  One that we always try to build and that will always topple.

As for the TV show, I do wish that they would be a little more gracious.  They were asking why no legal action had been taken against a man who says he can heal the sick.  The reason was that the Christian belief states that God can indeed heal the sick.  I don’t personally see that this is any more of an outrageous claim than that of one who practices alternative therapies.

If God is blessing Dudley then God bless Dudley.  If He is not, then He is the judge, not some documentary.

It would not be fair to be controversial without airing the opposite view.  This one from Weon made me think…..  Thanks buddy, I am not always right.

Weather is indeed a chaotic thing and does tend to move in cycles. This has been used as an argument against global warming for ages. There are graphs that show the average temperature of the earth fluctuating going back thousands of years and so it was posited that the current upward trend is indeed just another part of this cycle. In fact, to read about this you should look up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hockey_stick_controversy or Google for Hockey Stick Graph.

However, the global temperture rising (much) faster than at any other point in the history of the planet. When you put the rise in temperature alongside the graph for the rise in CO2 emissions (one of the main greenhouse gases) you can see a very clear correlation. As the human population continues to grow at an exponential rate so does our consumption, and therefore our waste emissions. There is loads I could go into but I’m not going to here. Suffice to say that I am not a sceptic but I do agree that it is important to check all the facts first. There was a great three-part documentary on this very topic on the BBC a while ago called “Earth: The Climate Wars” that took a very balanced view on both sides of the argument. Sadly it’s not available on iPlayer but it does seem to be on YouTube! http://bit.ly/haDaM Anyway, that’s enough for now. Oh, please fix your site so I leave a comment without having to switch browser!

*GASP!* Shock horror!!  There, I said it.  I am a global warming sceptic.  I got into trouble for writing an essay at school once about it.  We were asked to provide a viewpoint, so I decided to take the “against” viewpoint and provided a lot of scientific evidence to support it.  Only, my teacher didn’t like it.  I was hauled into his office, where he tried to tell me that the earth is billions of years old because of “all the proof”.  I asked what this proof was and the only method he could come up with, was one that has been proven wrong.  He said that he had to give me an A, because it was well written, but he didn’t like it.  So he sat, staring at the paper, then maliciously wrote “-” by the A.  Oh well, I thought.  It was one of those occasions where he wasn’t even really sure why he’d hauled me into the office, he just ‘didn’t like it’.

Anyhow, back to global warming.  What I do not wish to do, is come across as ignorant, arrogant, irresponsible and uncaring, because this is not the case.  I believe that we have a huge responsibility towards God’s creation and that filling the air with chemicals and pollution is not going to do the planet any good, let alone people. I am all for the development of green cars, etc.

However, I am always wary of media hype, particularly that which results in the public spending lots of money in areas where we previously didn’t have to.  So there is a huge government drive to save the planet (replaced more recently by a “global recession”), coining new phrases such as “carbon footprint”, “carbon neutral” etc.  Suddenly we find ourselves buying compost bins from the council (veg is bio-degradable anyway, all you are doing is buying a PLASTIC bin which is not ‘footprint-friendly’), paying 5p for plastic bags, paying extra tax to recycle things like paper (bio-degradable and a renewable resource) and investing in things like energy saving lightbulbs, which take more energy to make than they save above regular lightbulbs!

Finally today, the BBC echoed my sentiments on the matter.  Weather is a chaotic process (cf. the second law of thermodynamics) and it is incredibly difficult to prove anything based upon patterns if you compare temperatures from over the years.  In fact, scientific “proof” is a notion that barely exists.  Science is a series of educated predictions, therefore all we can really muster is ‘scientific evidence’, which is a very different thing.  Scientific evidence is vital in the discovery of many things – medical advancements, how the world works, animal behaviour etc etc.  If the evidence leads to a conclusion that works, then bravo, i.e. there was evidence to suggest that milkmaids with cowpox did not contract small pox so the vaccine was invented.  There was no ‘proof’, it could have been sheer coincidence, but it worked.

However, the ‘evidence’ for global warming, in my opinion, is a little flawed because of the practicalities involved with predicting a chaotic process.  I think that we should all be environmentally responsible, but please question your methods of doing so, rather than trusting the ‘latest thing’.

Before: cracks, bumps, scratches, peeling paint

After: Yes there IS a difference!

So… This was a bit of a mission in the end!!  The paint was impossible to strip (got there in the end with the aid of a heat gun!), then I tried to go for a cream and gold effect, but the weathering just wasn’t working!  So now I have a cream and ever so slightly weathered look.  It is going in our bedroom, not the sitting room, but I need to move the furniture around first, so here it is in the lounge!

Well I am finally trying to get Pink Sky online, so Marksteen at ASHA very kindly took some shots for us…  There are about 400 but here are a select few….

I am a little sick of the state of our streets at present.  Every time I walk down the High Street, there is the stench of wee, vomit, grease and spilt take-aways.  It makes the whole town look shabby.  The club owners should clean up, but if the council keep licensing them, then they should also clean up!

Mark and I have this game, where we have to spot stuff when we are out on the road.  Four weeks ago, on the way to my physio appointment, we were spotting a hot air balloon, a pink bike (my choice), a spilt take-away and someone on crutches.  I was incredibly annoyed, because whilst I found the pink bike, Mark managed to spot the crutches man (we were driving down College Road past the hospital so inevitable really!) and the hot air balloon within about 5 minutes of each other.  To top it off, he got out of the car and THERE IT WAS.  A spilt take-away by the park.

Now.  I often park my car by the park, as you get two hours of free parking and there is almost always a space.  However, 4 weeks on, the spilt take-away is STILL THERE!!!

4 weeks on, the kebab meat is not recognisable.  The bread has turned to a peculiar form of mush and the onion rings are still intact.  The plastic knife is still by the polystyrene carton and a few vegetables float in the congealed rain-enhanced sludge.  Disgusting.

I could be a responsible citizen and pick it up and throw it in the bin.  This would be stupid.  Instead, I propose to photograph this mess for every week that it remains on the pavement and create a book from it, which I will send to Cheltenham Borough Council as a Christmas present.

I have always been mystified, as to why on earth anyone, regardless of whether or not they are Buddhists, would want to display Buddha, (a fat old man, despite having sat underneath a tree for 40 years).  For a guru that discovered the way to peace, harmony and enlightenment, he isn’t half odd looking. And he really doesn’t make a good shelf adornment.

So here is the first in the series of “Ugly Buddhas”….

So here we are, it is here again…. X-Factor has hit our screens!!  I am a habitual X-Factor watcher even though the whole thing from start to finish is a complete set-up.  You must read Chart Throb by Ben Elton – excellent read and very insightful.

Out of the hundreds and thousands of auditions, the only ones that make it to our televisions are those who are going through, or those who are horrific and therefore boost the ratings.  I imagine that the rest don’t even make it in front of the judges and probably perform in front of some production crew.

Ben Elton divides the contestants into three categories, the clingers, the blingers and the mingers.  A healthy balance of each will get through for the following reasons….

Clingers:  These create a good sob story that gets the nation weeping in their seats and voting out of sympathy.  There is also a great news headline about how the people who bullied them are now laughing on the other sides of their faces.

Blingers: The ones that look good.  They win the votes of all those that fancy them.

Mingers: Purely for good television.  How do Susan Boyle or Paul Potts become stars?  (Actually I thought they were both excellent despite the horrible media coverage).  The mingers give hope to all those other 45 year old mothers of 13 children, who smoke 60 a day and don’t want to work in Tesco anymore.

So here we are, the final 12 and coincidentally they make a remarkably ‘balanced’ mix:

Boys (Cheryl Cole):
Lloyd Daniels – 16 years old – this is the new baby face, cf. little Irish lad last year Eoghan.  He will get the cute factor/teenage girl vote.  He has the floppy blonde hair, the slightly cheeky face and not much confidence.  Definite clinger, because he will get knocked out near the end and his “dream will be over”.

Rikki Loney – He is a bit like Justin Timberlake, so he thinks.  Blinger.  Won’t last long.

Joe McElderry – Nice lad, good voice, lovely smile.  He may well win – clinger.

Girls (Dannii Minogue):

Rachel Adedeji – the slightly alternative one.  Blinger.  Hairstyle from the 80′s.  Nice voice, but won’t win because Alexandra won last year.  We can’t have Aretha-style divas winning more than 2 years apart (think Leona Lewis, followed by Leon, followed by Alexandra), otherwise it damages the careers of the previous winners.
Stacey Soloman – Minger.  She has a fantastic voice and would really like to do something ‘wurfwhile’ for her little boy.  Great singer, but shouldn’t speak too much on TV.  Will get quite far.
Lucie Jones – Lovely girl, clinger.  Comes from a tiny Welsh village.  Really nice voice but will be regarded as a Diana Vickers.  The pity is that this girl can actually sing really well but I have a horrible notion that between the media and the X Factor they will pretend that she can’t.

Groups (Louis Walsh):

Kandy Rain – Excellent TV in the making.  A bunch of ex-strippers (yep definitely mingers) who want to change the public perception of their past.  So they did this by auditioning in basques and, well, underwear really.  They won’t last long, just long enough to wind the public up as Simon makes lewd comments and Louis says that they are amazing.
John And Edward Grimes – shudder!!!  Mingers who think they are Blingers.  Utterly devoid of talent HUGE egos, rude, horrible and disgusting individuals.  They will go far, because they cause a public outrage which will win free weekly media coverage for the X Factor.  Watch the pages of the Sun for “SHocking outburst”, “Double Trouble” and all sorts.
Miss F.R.A.N.K (a new group formed from three girls that didn’t make it – Shar Alexander, Shanice Davis & Graziella Affinita) – I don’t mind these girls.  They are clingers because they weren’t good enough individually (so they “need” this more than anything).  

Over 25s (Simon Cowell):

Jamie Afro – Blinger.  The public LOVE this guy.  He’s ok but just a bit irritating.  He certainly needs a haircut (think Rhydian Roberts).  I think he will be the favourite to win and then, just like Rhydian, won’t win at the last minute.
Danyl Johnson – Blinger.  The good looking teacher guy.  A real performer but totally OTT.  He’ll probably get most of the way, but I don’t think he will win.  He’s a teacher – not cool reading for HELLO magazine.  Bring back the strippers.

Olly Murs – I think this lad clinger (customer services rep who wants a change of career “really nervous” “hard song” “just felt really emotional singing it”) will be quietly alright and will slip through a few weeks.  He is a good singer.  I am just not sure the public will fall for him votes-wise.

So there we are, my X factor predictions for 2009.  I am not being rude using the cling, bling and ming terminology and they are not necessarily viewpoints I hold myself, but I am just stating how I think it works.

It might be love…. JosephJpseph kitchen stuff…. Absolutely beautiful!!  If you’re ever stuck for a present for me….  www.josephjoseph.com It is just perfect!