Something that you don't see very often..

I have long had an affinity for the Methodist Church, and I noticed this last month and meant to blog about it then but with one thing and another didn't get chance.

Some of you may have heard about Westboro Baptist Church (Kansas, USA)'s plan to picket a performance of the Laramie Project in Basingstoke (UK).
Now Westboro Baptist Church, to me, represent not only the worst element of organised religion but also the worse elements of humanity.
It was nice to see the Methodist Church of Great Britain along with Baptist Union of Great Britain, Evangelical AllianceUK, Faithworks, Theos: the public theology think tank and the United Reform Church all publicly speaking out in a joint statement against they group and their planned protest.

It is good to see that organizations that promote a religion that is based on Love and fellowship standing up and demonstrating it. A lot of noise is made by fundamentalist Christians about the wrongs of being homosexual and quite frankly that goes against the teachings of Christ.

When Jesus said '...Love thy neighbour...' he did not say 'love they heterosexual neighbour', nor did he add any other qualifier to the statement. Why? Because he meant just what he said, that regardless of who that neighbour is, what they do, what colour they are, who they sleep with, where they come from or any other difference you should love that person.

If the Christian faith spent less time in the public eye (are you listening Pope Benedict?) telling people what not to do and more time showing solidarity, fellowship, support, understanding and love towards the populace of the world then perhaps they would have more success and the public perception of them would alter for the better.

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Time For Change

Did you know that 1 in 5 people have Dandruft?
Did you also know that 1 in 4 people have, or have had, mental health problems?

Recently the Time For Change campaign was started to help bring an end to mental health discrimination.
A better of understanding of mental health conditions amongst society would improve the life experiences of people suffering from them. One of the main problems faced by sufferers of mental health conditions is the feeling that they will face stigmatism or ridicule from other people, I know for a fact that is was a problem for me for a long time.

Please take a moment or two to have a look at the Time For Change website, it contains things that may well make you rethink your ideas about Mental Health conditions.

Music to get excited about.....

On the 24-09-02 Lamb of God release "Wrath", their new album. Having heard the track "Contractor" on the recent cover disk from Metal Hammer, I can honestly say that I can't wait to get my hands on it.
If it is anywhere near as good as Sacrement was then it'll be another album that won't be leaving my player for a long time.

Something else to look forward to this year is the release of "Pray For Villains", the new album by Devildriver. I'm a commited Devildriver fan, having seen them live on two occasions now, and their albums keep improving with every release so I can't wait for this. It should be out this summer on Roadrunner.

I love music and it's ability to change a moment, enhance a moment and speak the emotions of the soul mean it is more special to me than most things. Heavy Metal has always, and will always, have a special place in my soul.

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Belief-o-matic!

I was having a little browse of the web today and found this :

Belief-o-matic at Beliefnet.com

Now how seriously you take the results of doing this is up to you but it made me smile (the disclaimer at the start is worthy of a read if nothing else) and got it pretty spot on.

So you're probably thinking why was I looking at Beliefnet? Well I have long had an interest in the roots of faith and religion, though I have to be careful with how far I get into it because I suffer from the OCD subcondition called Scrupoulosity. And having been laid up recovering from an operation I have plenty of thinking time, and I've managed to make it healthy thinking time as well (which those with OCD will be able to relate to). So there was me mooching around various sites and I chanced upon Beliefnet. Seems a cool site may be worth a look, if you're interested in that sort of thing.

Rok on
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The ongoing quest.....

the quest to find the slipknot phone call is not going well, but I will not be beaten.....it's got to be out there somewhere..........

Mark&Lard's phone call to Slipknot - the search continues

I have embarked on a quest. One that is fraught with frustration and probably doomed to failure but, hey ho, here we go.........

Back at the turn of the century, when Mark and Lard did afternoons on Radio 1 they made a spoof call to Slipknot. The resulting comedy included the imortal line "Oh Clown" in the campest accent ever and was so funny it nearly caused me and the guy I was working with that day, Paul, to crash the van!

My quest is a simple one. To find a clip of that sketch so we can relive our near death experience on the roads around Sowerby Bridge!

Can you help?
So far my googling has produced nothing of merit......

The search goes on.......

Secret Girl Lessons

As a male of the species have you ever found yourself wondering where girls get the seemingly endless wealth of skills and knowledge that only they seem to know that enables them to gain the upper hand is 90% of situations?

Needless to say, I have. And recently a friend of mine suggested that this could be down to "Special Girl Lessons" given to girls as they approach maturity. Now this got me thinking, when would these lessons have been held without our (the lads) knowledge?

Having given this much thought I think I may have struck upon the answer.
It must have been at a time when we (the boys) were distracted by something important (sports or blowing things up) so that we wouldn't notice them (the girls) getting something we weren't. Also it would have had to be disguised as a practice that was so dull to the male mind that any boy who did happen to notice would have no interest in wandering over and joining in.
What, I hear you ask, could this be?

NETBALL!

Sounds ridiculous?
Well just stop and think about it.
In Netball you have a sport that involves a lot of standing around (plenty of time for passing on knowledge) and is fundamentally none contact (and therefore completely goes against the full contact, destructive nature of adolescent boys).
So whilst we were all kicking each other in games lessons, the girls were on the netball courts pretending to play netball whilst the Special Girl Instructor (disguised as a PE Teacher) was passing on the secrets to being an effective female in adult life!
That's why they always seem to have the advantage!

Of course if you were to enquire with one of the fairer sex about this they will deny it completely, after all they wouldn't want the secret to get out and have future generations miss out on having the upper hand, but this wall of silence and denial could be taken as proof.

'nuff said.

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