4Thought

Channel Four have been running a great wee series called 4thought.tv just after the Channel 4 news. One of the young people interviewed from N Ireland is a young person involved in one of our projects. Thought-provoking stuff indeed. Still time to watch all the episodes so far on 4oD. Local talent Foy Vance on tomorrow night.

The weekend before last I finished reading Bear Grylls’ book on his record-breaking climb to the top of Everest, Facing Up. I’ve been a fan of the Born Survivor series for a while so it was great to find out what he was like as a writer and I wasn’t disappointed, this is a great read. Neil has also written a great post about Bear and his achievements recently.

What I love about Bear Grylls is his youthful exuberance and constant positivity. He’s received a bit of a slagging here and there because when filming the Born Survivor series he doesn’t always sleep in the wild on every night of the experience particularly on the night before a particularly strenuous climb etc. I’d say he’ll always have a few critics of the programme – that it’s not a true wilderness experience etc – but then at the end of the day that’s not what the programme is about, it’s a demonstration of survival skills for the armchair viewer and to become proficient you really need to get out there and do a course or something. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen Survivorman on the Discovery Channel, the guy in it, Les Stroud, really goes the whole hog – whereas Bear Grylls has a camera crew, this guy is the camera man and carries his camera equipment (or uses parts of it to make a fire) with him so that he can document his trip himself as he is left in the wild to just get on with it himself. It’s a good show but to be honest he comes across as one of the dourest people in the world and by the middle of the show you just feel like there is no joy in anything and you wonder why you would bother trying to survive anyway. Bear’s enthusiasm and love for life is in stark contrast and for me he ranks up there with the likes of Bruce Parry and Ray Mears, he’s got a different approach and different strengths to them but he makes a great contribution to TV.

The thing that has always come through in the TV shows is Bear’s faith and he’s openly said it’s not his crutch but that it’s his backbone. In one episode where he’s in the Ecuadorean rainforest he wakes up in the morning and spots a beautiful flower on it’s own in the tree canopy above him. He describes it as an example of the extravagance of God’s grace that He would place something so beautiful in a place no-one is likely to see.

Bear’s faith comes through even more strongly in this book – his appreciation of godly wisdom, he’s not afraid to ask others for help and for prayer, and he recognises the central place of prayer in his spiritual walk. He shares a letter from his grandfather who writes, “Keep on in there, your struggles are a triumph for guts and Godliness.” Bear responds, “The words guts and godliness struck me hard. It was all that I aspired to.” I find those words resonating within me too. The guy’s definitely got a lot of depth.

Incidentally Bear Grylls is just back from a fundraising adventure to Antarctica where he got injured kite-skiing (as you do!).

TRIBE
I got a couple of interesting CDs this week and I'm just getting my first listen to one of them. Actually there are 2 discs on the album, it's Bruce Parry Presents Amazon Tribe: Songs for Survival. Disc 1 includes songs inspired by issues affecting tribal people and by the recent TV programme, Amazon, and is written and performed by a number of famous names. It was the first track that really attracted me to buy the album as it provided the theme music to the TV show and I just love it, there's something very uplifting yet slightly melancholy to it, it's a feel-good track, makes you feel like you could take on the world in an ambient, mellow kind of way. There's a fair bit of musical variety on the first disc, some tracks I instantly liked on the first listen, others I think will be growers. Interestingly one of the songs on this disk is an Irish folk song, Carrickfergus, sung by Razorlight's Jonny Borrell. Pretty good too, his gravelly voice suits it quite well. The second disc takes recordings of tribal samples collected by Bruce Parry on his travels and creates some pretty funky dance/experimental tracks (one is called Don't Touch the Dusty Fruit - now there's something you didn't think you should take into consideration!) Again I think some will be growers whilst others grab you immediately but it's really cool to hear how they've blended some of the tribes' voices etc into the tracks.

Bruce Parry's TV show was absolutely brilliant. He's such a great presenter, he's just a people-person through and through and a real grafter so no wonder he endears himself to people of all the tribes he visits - he just gets stuck in and is up for anything. There's no way you could be prejudiced towards the people he encountered on his journey, the way that he spent time getting to know loggers and cocaine producers meant that you saw them as human beings trying to survive like anyone else. The only thing I struggled with was how Bruce made himself so vulnerable to pretty scary stuff by seeking out experiences of shamanic rituals. However I think the success of the programme is how it really highlighted some of the big issues affecting not just the survival of tribal peoples along the Amazon but the survival of the planet.

So I'm well pleased with my purchase and what's more all the profits from the album sales go directly to Survival International, a human rights organisation for tribal peoples around the world.

(I'll post on my other CD aquisition another time!)

I love the West Wing. I first got into it about halfway through Season 1 when it was airing for the first time on Channel 4. I got to watch most of Season 2 but then it switched to More 4 or RTE and I didn’t have cable/satellite and actually it totally passed me by that there were 7 full seasons made of the show in total. I was chuffed when friends leant me seasons 1-3. Season openers and finales are always so good but last night I finished watched season 2 with the epic ‘Two Cathedrals’ episode. Absolutely awesome viewing. Although I’d seen this episode before I appreciated more the second time round just how good an episode this is with brilliant acting from Martin Sheen in particular. And the final Brothers in Arms sequence is inspired – a bit of Dire Straits is always hard to beat. It’s probably illegal that it’s on Youtube but seeing as it’s there I’ll share it here:

Just when I thought I was safe…
…jetlag hit today – I’ve no recollection of my alarm going off this morning and didn’t wake up until 10.40am – oops! I was so out of it. Work was definitely more of a struggle today compared to yesterday, and I’ve definitely got post-holiday blues. Heigh ho. What’s more depressing is that another 14 weeks of Big Brother kicks off this week. Is there no justice in this world?

Christmas, kayaking & gifts

Well it’s turned out to be a busy Christmas, but busy in a really great way. I’ve been able to get caught up with a lot of friends and family, and the craic has been good. But I think I’ll be going back to work for a rest, I’m shattered now! I haven’t got half the things done I wanted to get done but hey, those things (like thinking up my dissertation title, cleaning my windows, putting up pictures in the flat etc) can always wait till another day. Anyway it’s priceless to spend time with the people who matter to you. I did manage to clean my car out on the inside, it was boggin’! Oh and I made butternut squash soup which I’ve been in the notion of for ages. The only thing that spoiled Christmas, and only slightly at that, was that I had constant heartburn from Christmas Eve to Boxing Day, and that was before I’d got started to any Christmas treats!

A highlight of course has been kayaking and the club got together twice in the last few days – woo-hoo! On Thursday we headed to Omagh and took a spin down the Mourne River which had some good sections of rapids but no real playspots. However I managed not to swim at all! And then yesterday we headed to the Bann and did a different section of it than we usually do. There was a fair bit of water so it was running at Grade II. I swam just a couple of times, but I managed a roll coming off a rapid which gave me a real buzz, hee hee!

Oh and I got some fantastic presents! The new U2 book – excellent reading; a couple of seasons of the MASH TV series – my all-time favourite TV show! And the ultimate Christmas gift…a garden shed!!! Now I’ll have somewhere to store my bike, and maybe I’ll even start cycling to work. And of course it’s good to know that whenever I manage to get my own kayak, it’ll have a home, hee hee!

Well Mark has tagged me, so here's 5 things you may or may not know about me:

1. I once made it onto the front cover of the Farming Life – I think I was about 5 years old, my brother was farming at the time and one of his sheep lambed extremely early, so they took a picture of me holding these two wee lambs one under each arm. High cute factor!
2. I got my tonsils out when I was 17 and came out of the anaesthetic talking to a nurse about a German textbook.
3. My first ever album (an LP – yep, one of those big black round shiny things) was A-Ha’s Hunting High and Low. Morten Harket was my pin-up in my early teens.
4. My other pin-ups in my teens were Philip Schofield and Tom Cruise, oh and I quite liked Michael J Fox too (yes, those were the days of Gordon the Gopher in the Broom Cupboard, Top Gun and Back to the Future!)
   
5. My first ever CD was U2’s Achtung Baby album. When I got stressed out practising the piano I used to play tracks 2, 5, 7 & 8 to get the rage out of my system then moved onto the more mellow tracks before finishing up with ‘One’ and ended up perfectly calm and serene!

Ok, let's spread the love and see if Peter, Pointy, Will, Emma & Dave will divulge some personal trivia!

On being hired (& thankfully not fired like ‘The Badger’)
Don’t really want to say anything about the new job yet because I haven’t got a start date due to pending paperwork – police checks, medical etc. Some might call it superstition, which I don’t agree with, but I just don’t like counting my chickens until they’re all hatched. And to be honest there’s part of me thinking – did I dream this? Maybe they made a mistake? What if they change their minds?! I guess it’s normal to have those kind of irrational thoughts. Anyway, thanks to all who have got in touch with words of congratulations, I’ve very much appreciated all your support in the midst of all my uncertainty over the last few months.

Square Eyes
Why is it that there’s always lots of good stuff on TV just when you don’t have time to watch it, but when you do have time, there’s sod all! I wouldn’t mind getting a look at some of the Winter Olympics events, and I have to confess that I’m well and truly sucked into Invasion now, yes, I’m even setting my VCR to record it so I don’t miss an episode! Unfortunately my 4000 word Social Policy assignment is desperately requiring urgent attention. The aim is to complete it by 10pm next Monday night (in time for ER…oh my word, I think I’m turning into a TV addict…I’m losing my principles!) without having burned any midnight oil. Might take a miracle but hey!

Born Again
BBC1 screened a documentary called ‘Born Again’ the other week which I found pretty interesting but also a bit cringe-worthy. Northern Irish novelist, Glenn Patterson, (who I’m told writes some great novels) explores the concept of being ‘Born Again’ and it’s importance to evangelical Protestants in Northern Ireland. It was kind of depressing that in the end Glenn was still turned off by what evangelical Protestantism in this country is offering because he felt it spoke more about death rather than life.

What I wish I could have said to Glenn was that if he was to grasp more of what all the ‘born again’ stuff is about, then he’d have to encounter God himself and the amazing person of Jesus Christ, and be open to the Spirit of God. Like Aslan in the Chronicles of Narnia, God is not tame and can’t be limited to the boxes our church put him into. Jesus draws us to himself because he is a person as well as God.

It’s kind of weird but in the last year or so I’ve become really uncomfortable in Christian/church settings. It just all seems a bit twee and out of touch somehow. When I say out of touch I’m not necessarily focussing on the whole ‘let’s get church into the 21st century’ kind of thing or let’s make sure we’re ‘modern’ and have Powerpoint and all that. It’s more that I wish churches & Christians (myself included) could be more real and effective about communicating what our faith means to us in a real way minus the secret ‘you-have-to-be-in-the-know’ jargon. And I’m uncomfortable with the whole trend of cultivating ‘Christian celebrity’. There seems to be this idea that in Christian circles – especially in Northern Ireland – it’s all about who you know or you have to be ‘someone’ before people embrace you. You have to have a certain passion or calling for something before you are accepted and then you can be put onto a pedestal and lauded as being a man or woman of God. Aren’t we all children of God? Aren’t we all equal?

I’m not very good at expressing these thoughts so maybe this doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. I’ve got to work through this stuff & try & figure out what I’m thinking. I don’t mean this to be a major attack on the church, or even a rant, I just want to try and understand better where I’m at, and where this train of thought is taking me. Maybe part of it is that I’ve become a bit bitter because I’m in a place where I’m kind of isolated with being in the middle of moving and I’m not completely settled anywhere in particular. Maybe things will change once I move to Belfast (which incidentally is happening DV next month if everything goes smoothly, watch this space). I guess the bottom line is that I’m just uncomfortable with being surrounded by Christians and I have no desire to go to the latest gathering or Christian event these days.

Things of course could change over the next few months. The move to Belfast will definitely be an interesting time as I seek to find some kind of spiritual home. In many ways I’m looking forward to it – I want to get to know people and make friends, I want to get involved in a community and the life of a church. Over the last year or so I’ve just been a pew-warmer – it was just a season when after my burnout I needed to take a back seat and receive – but I think I’m ready for something new and fresh, so watch this space!

I have to confess that I’m kind of getting sucked into Channel 4’s Invasion, albeit somewhat reluctantly. I’m not usually into the kind of drama series which plays on the whole "the aliens are coming to get us" thing. Plus this series seems to be following Lost’s example (which never grabbed me) of dropping little clues and mysterious/random events here & there just enough to keep you guessing without actually providing any resolution (must be the latest ‘fashion’ in TV productions). I don’t think I’d be in the depths of despair if I missed an episode of Invasion, but still, I’m intrigued. Hey it kills an hour on a Sunday night and delays the onset of ominous thoughts about Monday morning’s imminent arrival (although thankfully work was a wee bit better this week, felt like I actually did some constructive stuff, but I still don’t know if I have a job after March).

What rocked & what sucked
What rocked about last week:
- The new series of ER reaching Channel 4 screens
- Watching a repeat of Michael Palin’s ‘Himalaya’ series – the one where he does Tiger Leaping Gorge, Lijiang etc – all the places I visited last August. I watched it with my parents and was madly yelling at the TV everytime Michael Palin set foot on a bit of ground I just might have walked on…I want to go baaaack!!
- Steve Coogan & Rob Brydon on the Chris Moyles show on Radio 1 on Wednesday morning, don’t usually find them funny, but they made me chuckle to myself on my way to work – always an achievement at 7.45am.
- Kayaking yesterday – I was teeth-chatteringly cold, couldn’t feel my fingers or feet, my legs were cramping up, was making quite a few mistakes, but I was having an absolute blast
- Getting the completion date settled on the sale of my house
- Managing to swim 52 lengths in just under 40 minutes, mainly I think because the pool felt like it was in the Arctic circle & I just blattered my way up & down to keep warm!
- Hanging out with Mr & Mrs Peter Martin - a good way to start the weekend - thanks guys!

What sucked about last week:
- Work.
- The end of the Without a Trace series
- Spending 14 hours driving to & from or for work
- Expecting to hear about a job I’ve applied for but there’s been nothing in the post so far
- Trying to get my head round the question in my social policy assignment due at the end of next month
- Desperately wanting to escape off abroad somewhere for some adventure & fun but knowing that escapism isn’t the answer and that the grass can be greener on the other side
- A bit of my exhaust on my car needing replacement.

And the award for...
...the most original Christmas present goes to…my brother-in-law Norman! He got his wife (my sister, Alex) a…wait for it… SHE WEE!!! …Ok an explanation just might be necessary:

My sister & her husband have their own business as asbestos surveyors which involves a lot of work outdoors in the cold and in uncertain conditions. For my sister this can be a bit of a hassle when it comes to wanting to relieve herself and one day she was so fed up that she declared she was going to invent something for women to enable them to pee like men. Well a couple of nights later they were watching TV and Dragon's Den was on – the show where entrepreneurs get to pitch their ideas to successful business people in a bid to procure funding to make their ideas happen. One of the entrepreneurs was a woman who has invented the SHEWEE which does exactly what Alex wants and lets women pee standing up! It was designed with female soldiers (apparently they have to put camouflage paint on their backsides if they want to pee when in combat) and arctic research scientists etc in mind and although the Dragon's Den people didn’t take the inventor seriously she’s got production off the ground. I’m thinking one might come in handy on kayaking trips!

Monastery update
If you didn’t see the last episode on Tuesday night (or indeed if you’re not in the UK), then check out Tony’s story – one of the participants relates his faith journey as a result of his 6 weeks at the Monastery – cool stuff!

A Taste of the Monastic


I’m really impressed with BBC’s reality series The Monastery, where a Benedictine monastery in England opens its doors to 5 lay-people for 40 days and nights to give them a taste of the monastic life. I’m amazed at how positively Christianity is portrayed in it – usually British TV will do everything to put down anything to do with Christianity. Actually I think this is the best piece of evangelism I’ve seen in years. I’m very impressed by the monks and the Abbott in particular – he seems to have a lot of godly wisdom, is able to say the right thing at the right time and understands where these guys are coming from. Anyway the whole experiment seems like exactly what Jesus did – he offered people the chance to follow him and do all the stuff with him, he didn’t ask them to take a degree course or make a profession of faith. Peter, James and John and those guys just got stuck in with what Jesus was doing and lived the life. And it’s the same with these guys in the Benedictine monastery, they’re getting this amazing opportunity to be immersed in Christian spirituality (though it’s not forced down their throats) with the result that they’re really engaging with God himself! There was an interesting article in the Belfast Telegraph last Friday about one of the participants, Gary McCormick (it’s class hearing his strong Larne accent on the show!) and it turns out he’s written a book about his life. And the Tall Skinny Kiwi has also got some interesting stuff on monasticism here. Unfortunately there are only 3 episodes in the series and the last one is next Tuesday night, but I’ve read that they hope to do it again. Let’s pray that it continues to be something that God uses for his glory.

Have you seen the ad for Jacob’s Figrolls? It’s brilliant! It’s an animated one and the character is voiced by a wee girl with a really broad N. Irish accent. She describes how fig rolls are made from aliens from the Planet Fig who put the figs in the rolls. At the end she says that the aliens make them because they’ve got loads of arms and can do it "more quicklier"! Awww!

MAKE POVERTY HISTORY
Tonight Make Poverty History is going to make television history. At 19.58, across almost every TV channel, a short film featuring Brad Pitt, Bono, Cameron Diaz and many more famous faces, will show exactly why the opportunity we have this year to bring an end to poverty shouldn't be wasted. It's called "Click" because in about the time it takes for you to click your fingers a person dies of extreme poverty. Dies, often, for want of medicine that you or I could buy over a counter at any chemist.

Do tell everyone you can to watch the launch of "Click" tonight - it's a really remarkable film. If you can't get to a TV you will be able to see it here after 20.00. Please forward this mail on to a group of your friends, and ask them to join us at too. Thanks for your support. Together we really can make poverty history. - Bob Geldof

Jamie's School Dinners
I don’t know if you watched this programme over the past few weeks (or Parkinson when Jamie was on). I only saw a couple of episodes but it was pretty enlightening. I can’t get over the crap they feed kids in school. Apparently they spend more on the food given to prison inmates. There’s something wrong with that! I really admire Jamie because he is genuinely trying to do something about it and he tries so bloomin’ hard! He’s heading to No. 10 Downing Street soon to try and get the PM into action over the issue and is taking a petition with him asking for more money to be spent on school dinners. He’s got well over 100,000 and is looking to reach 150,000 so get more info and sign up here!

Sorting out the brats!
I have to say I was sad to see the end of Channel 4's Brat Camp series - it was compulsive viewing! Though it's probably not the kind of recommended viewing for a youth worker who has just burnt out! But actually I found it quite encouraging. I'd never seen the first series and when I saw this new series advertised I thought it was going to sensationalise and glamourize bad behaviour by young people. And it did to a certain extent. But actually I was really impressed with the staff of Turnabout Ranch because they seemed to really get to grips with the young people's core issues. And the boundaries were so clear that the young people had no choice but to co-operate. By the end of the series it seemed like, for the most part, the camp has made a huge difference in the young people's (and their families') lives. What was less encouraging was that many of the parents seemed to have unwittingly contributed to their kids' issues! Not that I want to start a parent-bashing session - I am so glad I don't have teenagers to bring up! But the young people seemed to have so much unprocessed anger/hurt stored up within them because of relationship difficulties with their parents. I also had a look at the Ranch's website and it's interesting because they mention having Christian values. I'd love to know more about the extent of those Christian values especially when the ranch is based in the predominantly Mormon state of Utah. And there was this one scene where they showed a rancher giving advice to one of the kids - he basically started preaching about Judgement Day - hmm, a lesson in how not to empathise!

The Great Adventure
"Life is best approached in a spirit of exploration, adventure and enterprise…Chance, unforeseen circumstances and uncertainty are inescapable features of life and absolute safety is unachievable." (Campaign for Adventure)

In the light of Ellen MacArthur’s outstanding achievement, Libby Purves makes a good point.

Speaking of which, I was absolutely glued to the TV yesterday morning watching Ellen MacArthur’s arrival in Falmouth after 71 days sailing around the world solo – totally inspirational stuff!