These thoughts of mine

Cyclists

2012-02-16T14:08:00.001Z

I love cyclists, because I love cycling. I love the speed down the hills, the challenge up the hills, the feeling of being miles from home and the only way to get back being me and my bike. I love on road, off road, mountain biking. I love cycling alone or with other people. I love how it is faster than walking and more versatile than driving. I love how it can keep me fit and save the planet. I respect people who cycle, and love that they do it, but I sometimes also despair.

When I see a cyclist in the middle of the lane instead of on the left, or when I see a cyclist without a helmet, or ignoring a red light, I understand why drivers get annoyed by cyclists. I love cycling, but even I get annoyed when I see (or sometimes don't see until nearly too late) a cyclist without proper lighting. Over the last couple of months this has happened a lot. As a driver, I am quite happy to slow down for a while and sit behind a cyclist to give them space. I will overtake giving them plenty of room. But I get infuriated when they seem to think themselves invulnerable and above the law.

So if you cycle, thank you. Please keep cycling. But please don't annoy drivers by being almost invisible and by ignoring things like red lights and rights of way. If we want drivers to respect our right to cycle, we need to show that we can abide by the rules just like everyone else.

The genius of Rowling

2012-01-10T20:24:00.003Z

A number of times, I have been asked for my wisdom on the appropriateness of the Harry Potter books for teenagers and children of varying ages.

I was asked again last week, and had a bit more of a think, and I spotted something brilliant which I hadn't thought of before.

When asked about the appropriateness of the books for teenagers and children, my initial reaction is that they are too dark for young teens and below. Even the first couple of books, often considered more lighthearted, contain quite disturbing images, such as Quirrell/Voldemort, mandrakes, petrification. However, I have noticed that I have found these, and other images (e.g. inferi, 'flesh, blood and bone', the Longbottoms, the baby-headed death eater, Katie's cursed necklace) more disturbing as I have got older. I've also noticed that not everyone finds such things particularly disturbing.

I think this is because Rowling writes a very good balance between detailed description and leaving things open to the imagination of the reader. This means that younger, less mature, readers, may not imagine these images so graphically as older readers. Of course, younger readers may also have a more active imagination than older readers. But the point is that, although Rowling famously describes her world in great detail, she leaves the perfect amount of room for imagination. I find that the majority of fantasy authors swing either one way or the other - most actually sacrifice the detail of the world for the sake of imagination. While this would work for many genres, it doesn't work for fantasy.

The thing I love about reading fantasy is that only half the point is what actually happens in the book. That's what most genres do - tell a story about some characters - but that's only half of the fantasy genre. Fantasy authors, by the nature of what they do, describe another world in which their stories take place. They are true creators, inventing whole new kingdoms, cultures, histories, magic systems, even languages.

Many fantasy authors seem to sacrifice some of the detail of describing the world for the sake of readers' imagination. They leave me enjoying the story but frustrated by my lack of knowledge of the world. Such authors include Joe Abercrombie, Raymond Feist, David Gemmell, Ursula Le Guin, JRR Tolkein, and Guy Gavriel Kay. A few authors sacrifice the imagination for the sake of lots of detail. They leave me feeling stifled and dictated to. Examples are Robert Jordan, Brandon Sanderson, George Martin. Not that any of these writers are bad - I enjoy them all. Not that they are, for this reason, necessarily worse than Rowling. But Rowling treads the line between these two tendencies perfectly (although at the same time she is a bit of an exception to the fantasy genre because her stories take place in this world).

Rowling's world is described in considerable detail, but much space is left for imagination, and many things are left unexplained. This, of course, gives rise to fan discussions and debates and, fairly uniquely, a set of articles published here. Some of these (ok, all of them) are obviously the product of obsessive fandom (in which I unashamedly include myself). But many simply enthusiastically expand on and attempt to fill in the gaps in Rowlings description.

These gaps are not large enough to leave me feeling short-changed by the books. Because the scope of the world she creates is large, the books can incorporate lots of detail to keep me satisfied, while still leaving much information out and open to imagination and theorising.

Other authors I have read who write on similar or greater scales include George Martin, Steven Erikson, and Robert Jordan. Martin and Jordan describe their worlds in great detail, but leave me feeling a little overawed by the complexity. This is not a bad thing (in fact I love it), just a contrast to Rowling. Erikson, who I have recently started reading, seems similar to Martin and Jordan.

Rowling does not leave me feeling swamped with complexities (even though the books are detailed). I think this is because her books are not on as large a scale as Martin, Jordan and Erikson. But at the same time, she does not leave me feeling frustrated by the lack of information.

This way that Rowling writes, with a balance between detail and gaps, means that her books are very accessible, and hence very popular. They are not as overwhelmingly and intimidatingly detailed as some fantasy books. They are more detailed than others, and therefore not frustratingly incomplete. They have the advantage of being set in this world, and therefore have the familiarity that is so comforting to readers new to the genre. One facet of this balance is that the darker elements of the story are, to an extent, left open to the readers imagination. This widens the span of ages who can access the books on their own level - I would suggest that younger readers might gloss over the brutality of some images in the books.

I'm surprised I hadn't thought about this in detail before. But I'm glad I thought about it now. The combination of the scale of the books, the amount of detail included and the amount of detail left out is clearly very popular. Rowling is a bit of a genius when it comes to making her stories accessible.

Drinks and food

2012-01-07T16:44:00.000Z

This is a post that has been brewing for many months.

When out at a social gathering (bar/pub/restaurant etc), people are generally fairly happy to have drinks bought for them by someone else. However, when if comes to buying food, people are rarely happy to let someone else buy for them.
What are the reasons for this difference? Some thoughts...

Buying someone else a drink is often a matter of convenience - only one person goes to the bar rather than several.
There is an assumption that someone else will get the next round, so it evens out by the end of the night.
People basically don't like receiving something for free, no strings attached.
Food costs more than drinks, so people might think they 'owe' someone more.

Is it as simple as this?

Creating and consuming

2012-01-06T18:14:00.002Z

In the February issue of Empire, Andrew Stanton, director of Wall-E, Finding Nemo and the upcoming John Carter, was reported to have been asked who he made the film (John Carter) for. His response?
"That's the worst way to make a movie. I do not listen to The Beatles because I think they know what I want; I listen to them because I want to know what they like. It's not designed from the outside. I've been asked that question for 20 years at Pixar, and I've given the same answer: we do not think of who the audience is. That's the worst way to make a movie."

I've been thinking about this a bit over the last week or so. I think I partly agree and partly disagree with it. I agree that asking what the audience wants is a bad way to make a film. Film-makers should make films they want to make, not films they think people want to see. This is the same for other forms of entertainment - plays, books, music etc. The creator should just create.

However, I'm not so sure about what he says about the reasons for listening to music. It seems like he is implying that listening to The Beatles because you think they know what you want (i.e. you think you will like it) is not as valid a reason as listening to find out what the artist likes. I disagree. I think the creator should just create, but the recipient/fan can listen for either reason, equally validly. Whether it is music, films, books or whatever, there is nothing wrong with consuming the entertainment because you enjoy it.

Reasons for creating vs reasons for consuming. Creating should be for creation's sake, not to pander to the public's whims and wishes. But consuming 'because I think they know what I like' is just as valid as consuming 'to find out what they like'.

I think. Or am I wrong about this?

Things to look forward to in 2012

2011-12-21T13:20:00.001Z

In roughly chronological order...

Continuing reading The Malazan Book of the Fallen

Returning to Monday night football
Game of Thrones series 2
Kingdom by Bluetree
June Project - in half term!
The Dark Knight Rises
Lord of the Rings Lego
Weddings (including one of my oldest friends and my sister (not to each other))
London 2012
Red Dwarf series 10
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey

Albums of 2011

2011-12-20T17:42:00.001Z

I only got a few new albums this year. Here they are, in ranked order:

1. Matt Redman - 10,000 Reasons
One of Matt's best albums, only pipped, for me, by The Friendship and the Fear. Excellent congregationally, and with one of the best worship songs of the last decade in 'Here for you'. More thoughts here.
2. Stoney+ - The Scene and the Unseen
I saw Stoney supporting Athlete about a year ago. Quite unique and very interesting to listen to. My personal 'unknown band of the year'.
3. The Temper Trap - Conditions
Really cool album with barely a weak point. Catchy and lively. I shall be keeping a close eye on this band.
4. Coldplay - Mylo Xyloto
Not as good as some of their previous efforts, but still some great songs on this.
5. Lou Fellingham - Step Into the Light
Quite similar to Phatfish really, but nonetheless good. Some really nice songs here.
6. British Sea Power - Valhalla Dancehall
BSP are awesome and everything, but this just isn't as good as previous albums. It's still good, just not as good.
7. Tim Hughes - Love Shine Through
Really quite disappointing, as explained here.

Also, a few decent EPs this year:
Flight Brigade - Flight Brigade; Shaw Court Sessions - a total of 11 great songs from a band I discovered for the first time this year. Lovely stuff.
Stoney+ - The Soar Before - Just 4 songs from the aforementioned Mark Stoney and co.
The Listening - The Listening - Formerly The Rock'n'Roll worship circus, some great stuff on this EP.

Soundtrack of 2011

2011-12-20T17:11:00.001Z

Following previous years here, here and here, it is now time for my soundtrack of 2011.

Athlete - Wild Wolves

Just lovely. Only on the Black Swan bonus disc, but a great song. I was lucky enough to see them play it live twice about a year ago.

Flight Brigade - Planes, Trains and Motor Vehicles
I discovered this band at The Vane Tempest Sessions in Durham, and this was the song that grabbed me the most.

(no video)

Hans Zimmer/Lisa Gerrard - Now We Are Free

Not new at all, but still very special. Gerrard's voice is immense. One of the best film ending songs ever. "Not yet, not yet".

Lifehouse - Simon

Another song over ten years old. It's always been huge. This year it's probably become my favourite by Lifehouse.

Lou Fellingham - See the Lamb of God

I saw Phatfish play at Spring Harvest this year, and this song was the highlight. They built it up much more than on the recorded version. Massively epic.

Matt Redman - Here For You

The best song off his latest album. A lot of people are saying this is the best worship song since 2002's Consuming Fire.

Matt Redman - We can change the world

Touted at the June Project 2012 video song, this is also from Matt's latest album.

Matt Redman - Oh This God

So is this. Musically probably my favourite on the album, and with better lyrics than it is given credit for.

Sigur Ros - Flugufrelsarinn

This is here simply because of the chord change at 3.56 (and later places), which is apparently just G to A, but sounds awesome.

Sigur Ros - Gong

Everyone knows what Sigur Ros do (if you don't, the above song is what they do), and everyone knows that they are amazing at what they do. Gong is simply not what they (normally) do, and they're still amazing at it.

Soul Survivor - Our Hope

(no video)

A Spontaneous Song from Soul Survivor which, unlike most of the spontaneous ones, is immense.

Stoney+ - Jailbird

This just has a really catchy chorus. It's a weird, but additive, song.

Stoney+ - Ghost

With some of the best lyrics I've ever heard, this song also entered my 'contenders for greatest song of all time' list this year.

Stoney+ - Underdog

(no video)

Just another very cool song from Stoney. Some brilliant imagery.

Stoney+ - Let it go

(no video)

This has a very catchy riff and a very cool trumpet part. I never get bored of it.

The Temper Trap - Love Lost

Temper Trap released a very good debut album this year, and while I can't pick a favourite track, this is right up there.

Films of the year

2011-12-18T20:30:00.000Z

This year, I decided to keep track of the films I have watched for the first time.
Here is my list, from the worst to the best, with a few comments for each film:

32: Black Hawk Down
This was just rubbish. Almost entirely a big shootout scene. The plot is boring (barely even present) and the action uninspired and repetitive.

31: No Country for Old Men
Nothing actually happens. One guy looks for another guy. That's it. Nothing interesting about this.

30: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Unconvincing, overlong (an unusual comment from me), overcomplicated, difficult to follow. Completely failed to hold my interest. If it had, I might have enjoyed it. But the first thing a film must do is hold my interest, and this failed at that first hurdle.

29: Tropic Thunder
One of those Ben Stiller films that some people find hilarious but are actually just a waste of time. It's meant to make me laugh. It didn't.

28: Blade Runner
The first on this list that I don't think is complete rubbish.
A classic, really? It's just weird. A couple of good action scenes, but little else on offer here.

27: Atonement
Had potential, but ultimately just completely failed to convince me. For more detail, see this link.

26: The Hurt Locker
A series of tense and dramatic set pieces, with no plot to hold them together. Occasionally spectacular but unfortunately there just isn't a plot.

25: Despicable Me
A mindless laugh. Except it wasn't funny. Except in a couple of places.

24: Invictus
On paper, brilliant - Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon as Nelson Mandela and Francois Pienaar during the 1995 Rugby World Cup. On film, disappointing. Very forgettable. Which is why I can't say much more - I can't remember much about it, except that it wasn't very good.

23: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Nothing particularly wrong with this, except that it was ludicrous. No explanation was given for the central idea of the baby being born old and getting younger, and everything else hangs on this. Not impressed.

22: Spy Game
Seemed like a good film, but I didn't follow it. I don't mind complicated films, but they have to explain themselves. This one didn't. Things that seemed significant were not, and things that seemed insignificant were not.

21: Legends of the Fall
Just very overdramatic really. A family drama/romance, but neither the drama nor the romance convinced me.

20: Hereafter
Some brilliant ideas, and some great scenes. But an awful ending. Right up there with Vanilla Sky as one of the most disappointing endings ever.

19: In Bruges
Funny in places. Merely silly in others. An ok film. Glad I watched it, but wouldn't watch it again.

18: Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
Classic story, reasonably well done.

17: Disturbia
The first on this list that I would watch again.
Fun, lively and exciting. A reasonable film.

16: Taken
Liam Neeson eat your heart out. Fairly mindless, but very watchable. Gripping. One particularly superb scene.

15: Shrek 4
I was wary, after the disaster of Shrek the Third. But this was much better. An adequate end to the series, though not as good as Shrek 2 and nowhere near Shrek 1. Even managed to explain time travel.

14: The Departed
A good film. Nothing amazing, but a good film.

13: Mission Impossible 4
Great action film. A right laugh.

12: 127 Hours
Very watchable indeed. James Franco is excellent, as is the soundtrack. A bit short for my liking though.

11: The King's Speech
Not as good as everyone says, but still a good film. Brilliant acting throughout. Plot is a bit weak though.

10: X-Men First Class
Another good x-men film. A good film in its own right, but also linked to the original series really well. A difficult film to make, but it was very well done.

9. Unknown
Really cool action film, kept me guessing until the end. Very nicely done.

8: The Blind Side
Quality film. Nothing spectacular, but a good story well told.

7: Rise of the Planet of the Apes
Andy Serkis, I take my hat off to you. Yet again. Really good film all round.

6: 12 Angry Men
Really cool. Great concept, wonderfully done. A genuinely excellent film.

5: Face/Off
Ditto (though in a very different way).

4: The Social Network
Brilliant screenplay and acting. Other than that, I'm not quite sure what makes this film so good. But it is so good.

3: The Fighter
It was always going to be great. Mark Wahlberg is great, but Christian Bale and Amy Adams (robbed of an Oscar) are superb.

2: Black Swan
Properly intense. Squirmtastic. Gripping. Amazing final scene (literally one of the coolest scenes I've ever seen). More on 127 Hours, The King's Speech and Black Swan here.

1: Never Let Me Go
The most emotionally intense film I've seen since Bridge to Terabithia ripped my heart out and smashed it apart with a sledgehammer. Parts of this film are jawdroppingly beautiful. Carey Mulligan, I salute you. I think I have a new favourite actress (sorry, Nicole Kidman). More on Hereafter, Never Let Me Go and The Fighter here.

Matt Redman album ranking

2011-11-20T09:56:00.001Z

From 5 minutes thought, here is my Matt Redman album ranking:

The Friendship and the Fear

10,000 Reasons

Father’s Song

We shall not be shaken

Intimacy

Where angels fear to tread

Facedown

Passion for your name

Beautiful News

Wake up my soul

That is all.

Five stars

2011-10-29T22:23:00.000+01:00

The five star rating system is commonly used to rate manythings such as hotels, films, music, and players on Football Manager games. Football Manager got me thinking about thefive star system when I discovered that on the 2011 version of the game, thebest player in the game, Lionel Messi, was 4.5 stars. How can the very best of thousands of playersstill not be in the equivalent of the 90-100% range?!

There are two problems with the five star system as aranking system – one obvious and practical, one less obvious and moretheoretical.

Firstly, things are often given half stars, such as 3.5stars out of 5. Why not just rate thingsout of ten instead, and make everyone’s life easier?

Secondly, upon examination of the five star system, I seethat there are several possible ways to use it, which make various amounts ofsense.

The first way to use this system is with a uniformdistribution – so the top 20% of films get 5 stars, the next 20% get 4 stars,and so on. This is the most helpful way,because you can immediately tell roughly how good a film is from the number ofstars it has. Sadly, this is also theleast used way. It is also impracticalto use for something like films – because how can one tell how a film willcompare to as yet unreleased films?

The second way is with a normal distribution – so the manyfilms get 3 stars, some get 2 and 4, and few get 1 and 5. This is less useful, because so many filmsget the standard 3 stars, but more often used than the first way. It also suffers from the same drawback as thefirst way.

The third way is with an arbitrary distribution – so the revieweror critic basically guesses the star number based on how good they thought thefilm was. This is unhelpful becausethere is no standardisation – one critic may give a ‘reasonable’ film 3 stars,another may give a ‘reasonable’ film 2 stars.

The fourth way is the checklist system, often used forhotels – so a hotel gets four stars if it has certain facilities orservices. This is more helpful, but can’tbe used for things like films or music.

The five star system is generally very unhelpful, becauseyou never know the criteria the reviewer is using (unless you have read all thereviews by a reviewer, which is just silly). Now I think about it, the same could be said for out-of-ten orpercentage rating systems. The numbersare fairly meaningless. Therefore givinga film a score, out of anything, is a waste of time, unless (a) you are goingto give a score to all the films you have seen, and (b) people are going tolook at all those scores – then a ranking list could be produced by the readerto helpfully indicated what you think of films compared to each other. In which case, forget the scores and justproduce a ranking list! (Some readerswill be smiling at this point as I attempt to justify all my ranking lists).

A much more helpful way of communicating thoughts on filmsetc is with a full review. If peoplewould prefer a score out of 5, or 10, or 100 because they are too lazy to reada review, tough. An isolated score islargely unhelpful. If you want my scoreout of 10 for a given film, you will have to listen to my score for every filmI have ever watched. Good luck withthat.

Concept albums

2011-10-29T21:53:00.001+01:00

Until recently I had never heard the term concept album. I don’t know why, I must have just never comeacross it. Then I researched Coldplay’snew album Mylo Xyloto on Wikipedia and found that the album was a conceptalbum. I found that a concept album isan album that is ‘unified by a theme, which can be instrumental, compositional,narrative, or lyrical’.

Thisinitially confused me, because I have always thought that a vital ingredient ofany album is a unifying theme. Forexample, my all-time favourite album, Lifehouse’s No Name Face is aboutidentity, and the theme and how it is discussed is one of the excellent thingsabout the album. The idea that only somealbums have a unifying theme is strange to me – I would think that if an albumdoesn’t have a theme then it shouldn’t be called an album. It’s just a playlist.

Lookingfurther, it seems that many (most?) concept albums have focussed around animaginary character, two of the most famous being Sgt Pepper and Ziggy Stardust. But if the theme can be ‘instrumental,compositional narrative or lyrical’, then the vast majority of recordingsshould be defined as concept albums – a quick scan of my music collectionreveals a total of zero albums that are entirely disjointed. While the definition above seems oftenquoted, reviewers and critics usually look for characters and stories whenlabelling a recording as a concept album. This is a bit silly, really. NoName Face has never been called a concept album, but if Jason Wade(singer/songwriter for Lifehouse) had come out and said that the album wasabout Mr. X who is struggling with his identity, it would have immediately beenlabelled as a concept album.

When itcomes to Mylo Xyloto, Coldplay have said that the album is about ‘twoprotagonists, Mylo and Xyloto, who are living in an oppressive, dystopian urbanenvironment, meet one another through a gang called "The Lost Boys",and fall in love’. This isridiculous. These characters are nevermentioned, and the lost boys only get a passing mention in one song. There is no significant mention of dystopia. The songs are generally about relationships,that is true, but there is nothing within the songs themselves to suggest thatthis is a story about two particular characters. If Coldplay had not explained what the albumis about, it would not have been labelled as a concept album. The only thing that can be said for MyloXyloto as a concept album is that the songs could be argued to show theprogression of a (any, not a specific) relationship throughout the album – the firstfew songs are about the past, then there are songs about meeting and falling inlove, then breakup and reconciliation songs. There is a progression in the track order. But this is equally true of otheralbums. As argued elsewhere, thoughtfultracklisting is part of what makes a good album, and is not a particular markof one of these so-called ‘concept albums’.

An albumhas a theme. That’s what sets it apartfrom a playlist. The whole concept albumthing is an attempt to classify albums that are about specific imaginary characters. I don’t know much about any other of theseconcept albums, but Coldplay’s example is pitifully poor because there isnothing in the album itself to suggest the existence of such characters. I’m not saying it’s a bad album (I amremaining silent on that question for now), just that it’s not a concept album.

Weather

2011-10-15T19:04:00.002+01:00

I am a big fan of the John Ruskin quote 'there is no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather'.
Why do we have to spend so much time complaining about the weather? Why can't we be happy with grey drizzly days as well as clear sunny days? What exactly is it about some kinds of weather that people dislike? Do you really think it will always be sunny in heaven?
We need to be grateful for the heatwaves and the thunderstorms, but we also need to be grateful for the muggy days and the drizzle. Varied weather is part of a glorious creation, so stop complaining.

Ron Weasley

2011-09-24T13:21:00.002+01:00

Ron Weasley: a major character in the Harry Potter series and one of the best friends of the hero. A favourite character of many people. But not mine. Not even close. I don’t really like Ron that much. He just seems so…useless. He’s a muppet. He abandons Harry twice. He has very little conscience. He’s immature. I don’t understand what Harry sees in him and I don’t understand what Hermione sees in him. I love Harry, Hermione, Ginny, Neville, Luna, Dumbledore, Hagrid and the rest, but I’ve always had a bit of a barrier to liking Ron.

So I did some research to try to answer the following questions:

1. What does Harry see in Ron that I don’t?

2. What does Hermione see in Ron that I don’t?

I started by googling ‘What does Harry see in Ron?’, which threw up nothing, and then ‘What does Hermione see in Ron?’, to see if other people had similar thoughts to me. A few quotes from this search:

“Just got through re-reading Order of the Phoenix and The Half-Blood Prince.
It's easy to see what he sees in her. Hermione's cute, has got brains, and loads of magical talent. Too much the goody-two-shoes know it all, true, but she's basically a good catch.
But all I see in Ron are three minorly admirable qualities: he's tall, funny and loyal. But Hermione never laughs at his jokes and his loyalty is mostly to his mate Harry.
Granted, the Weasley clan is a great plus: Ginny seems like she'd be a great sister-in-law, the twins are well on their way to riches with their magic shop, Charlie is dragon breeder and Bill is a banker, and even if Percy is a prat, having family in the Ministry of Magic is a dead useful contact. But she can still be Ron's friend and get to hang out with his family.
Basically, I don't get it. What gives with the Hermione/Ron attraction?
NO, I'm not jealous. I'm puzzled.”

“Anyway, what makes the relationship seem improbable to me is not the fact that Ron and Hermione bicker but just that I can't see what she sees in him. Hermione's a pretty good catch - after she fixed her teeth, it was apparent that she at very least cleaned up nice. And she's smart, capable, confident, and so forth - she's got a bright future ahead of her. Ron, on the other hand, simply doesn't bring as much to a relationship. He's not that smart. He's never described as particularly good-looking. And ninety percent of the time, during their adventures, he's sort of deadweight (except in the ridiculously contrived chess game in the first book, whose ending in general was pretty contrived.) Plus, he's got a real wussy side, as revealed in his performance as keeper.
Not like there's anything wrong with Ron, but Hermione seems to leap into most aspects of her life with a view towards improving herself and achieving. Most real high-achiever types like that that I've known generally have fairly high expectations for others. It's one thing to pal around with someone like Ron, but it just doesn't seem likely that Hermione would be satisfied with a guy who's frankly much less intelligent than she is and probably won't be doing nearly as much with his life. It just doesn't seem likely to me that Hermione would want someone who doesn't challenge her.”

“In general, ISTM that what women almost universally want in a man is one who is playing the lead role in his own life. He can do that confidently, humorously, heroically, tragically, or whatever, and different women have different preferences when one breaks it down like that. But few women are looking for the insecure guy who's always being pulled along in others' slipstreams because he doesn't know where he wants to go on his own, and the more self-assured the woman, the more unlikely that is.”

These quotes, especially the first, sum up what I was thinking.

Next, it was time to look at the books. I read through the series to find occasions where Ron is particularly likeable/honourable/a good friend and occasions where he is mean/negative/a bad friend.

In book one, Ron is generally a good friend to Harry and loyal to and protective of his family. He is initially rude to and about Hermione; once they become friends there are no particularly good or bad signs from him towards her.

In book two, things continue well for Ron – he sticks up for Harry and Hermione, reassures Harry, and shows bravery in following the spiders into the forest and going with Harry to the Chamber of Secrets.

In book three, he defends, encourages and reassures harry, and sticks up for Hagrid. At times he is a good friend towards Hermione, but he becomes nasty and malicious towards her over the Scabbers incident. He does, however, take the first step in making up with her.

In book four, Ron shows signs of being protective of Hermione and is generous to Dobby. Unfortunately, he also has a phase of rejecting Harry and not trusting him. He later apologises Harry and encourages him, but then has a row with Hermione, borne out of jealousy and mistrust and resulting in rudeness to and rejection of her. Overall, not a good book for Ron.

Book five is better for Ron – he shows loyalty to Harry, defends him and celebrates with him and sticks up for him. His friendship with Hermione has no particular highs or lows.

In book six, Ron is fairly pathetic with Fleur and Lavender, and spiteful to Hermione. His best moment is his promise to stick with Harry at the end of the book.

In the final book, Ron is protective of Hermione and Ginny. Of course, he becomes tetchier than the others when guarding the locket horcrux and eventually abandons them. On his return, he encourages and motivates the others.

In summary, Ron’s main strengths seem to be his bravery – he never shies away from dangerous or scary situations– and his loyalty – he sticks up for his mates and his family. Unfortunately, books 4 and 7 contain massive incidents of disloyalty, which almost cancel out this positive trait from the rest of the series. He is also known for being funny – Ron gets many of the humorous one-liners in the series.

On the negative side, his betrayal of Harry in book four and then Harry and Hermione in book seven stands out. He also has a mean streak and has much less of a conscience than the other two. Most of the admirable things Ron does are simply done alongside Harry, in the classic sidekick role, whereas Hermione has strengths in her own right.

A few more quotes from the internet, this time highlighting Ron’s appeal (unfortunately all from the Ron/Hermione POV, but it was all I could find):

“Ron admires Hermione's abilities, but has also seen her vulnerable, and has not rejected her. For a super achiever, this is a huge thing. His regard is unconditional, and that is also huge.”

“Hermione most likely intimidates most of her classmates, as well as the older kids. Now that they ARE the older kids, who is she to turn to? The faculty? Ron has shared good and bad with her. Despite their acrimony, she and Ron share many of the same values.”

“Another thing which occurs to me is that in the books, we really only see Ron and Hermione as they are viewed through the eyes of Harry Potter. We see Ron only as Harry sees Ron and only when Harry sees Ron. We don't see the moments that Hermione and Ron share together without Harry present. Harry sees Ron as his friend and as a bit of a goof, but he doesn't see him as a BOY the way an adolescent girl would see him. There must be aspects and sides of Ron which Harry never sees, conversations with Hermione which he never hears and attractive attributes which he never notices because he's a boy who likes girls and never looks at Ron "that way."”

“I don't think we should undersell Ron's loyalty. Loyalty is far more than a minor qualilty in the HP universe (for example, it is Harry's loyalty to Dumbledore that saves him in Chamber of Secrets). I think those who have already mentioned that Hermione is not as pretty as Emma Watson hit the nail on the head: Hermione is picked on mercilessly until the troll incident in PS (hell, even Ron says something like, "she's miserable--of course nobody likes her" before said run-in), and obviously she is gravely insulted by Malfoy and the like afterward. Ron is always there, and because his life is not screwed up like Harry's, he's there in a more complete sense. I think Hermione really appreciates that.”

Is it just me, or do these seem like clutching at straws? The best that people can say about Ron is that he’s ‘there’ and that he’s gone through good and bad with Hermione. Except of course, he’s not always ‘there’ (he abandons her and Harry), and much of the ‘bad’ that she’s been through was his fault (said abandonment, the Yule brawl, the Scabbers incident).

From the much-less-written-about Harry POV, as mentioned above, Ron just does what Harry does. He has very little going for him in his own right. One reason for Harry’s friendship with Ron could be that at the beginning of book one, both of them were alone and quite insecure, so they stuck together. They become familiar and share experiences, and these things breed friendship. But this is all I can come up with. This is probably enough, because boys are capable of being good mates based on a few memories and plenty of banter. Yes, Ron lets Harry down at times, but he always comes back and apologises (credit to him there) and at many other times he sticks by Harry.

His eventual relationship with Hermione is harder to fathom, for the reasons given in the first set of quotes above. It just makes no sense.

So, can anyone explain? I can just about deal with Harry’s friendship with Ron, but Hermione’s is simply unconvincing. He is mean to her, he abandons her, he argues with her – what does she see in him. Anyideas?

TV music

2011-09-24T12:36:00.002+01:00

It is quite common that I hear a song on TV that sounds good, but the programme doesn't show what the song is. When Soccer AM uses backing music, they always show what the song is and who it is by. This is brilliant. All TV programmes should have to do this.

Prophecy - part 2

2011-09-21T20:14:00.000+01:00

A few months ago I wrote about the theme of prophecy in mytwo favourite series of books, HarryPotter and The Belgariad.

The summary is here:

“In The Belgariadthe prophecy is a conscious personality, one of two destinies, trying to setthings up to its own advantage. One ofthe two prophecies will be fulfilled, and one will not. If Garion’s prophecy is fulfilled, thingswill look very different from what will happen if it is not fulfilled.

In Harry Potter,the prophecy is a prediction that may or may not be fulfilled. The fulfilment or otherwise determines thefate of many characters. In a way, theonly difference is the consciousness of the prophecies. In both stories, characters can choose tofollow the prophecy or not, but the fact that The Belgariad’s prophecy is conscious means that it has much moreof a direct say in what happens. This isparalleled in Harry Potter by thecharacter of Dumbledore, who knows the prophecy and helps Harry deal with it,giving him advice and instructions. Thecombination of the spoken prophecy and the character of Dumbledore combine tohave a similar role to that of the conscious prophecy in The Belgariad.”

A friend read the post and suggested a follow-up postcomparing prophecy in these two series and Christian prophecy. So here are a few thoughts.

In the Belgariad, the Prophecy is conscious, rather thanjust a message given by someone to someone else. It guides its own fulfilment, though anotherprophecy is working against it for the opposite outcome.

In Harry Potter, the prophecy is a message rather than acharacter. Like the Belgariad prophecy,it was given at a certain time through a certain person (Trelawney), but, beingnon-sentient, it cannot work towards its own fulfilment. Dumbledore takes the role of guidingcharacters towards the fulfilment of the prophecy, acting like a chessgrandmaster, much like the consciousness of the prophecy in the Belgariad.

In Christianity, prophecy is a message from God, giventhrough a person. Like the Harry Potterprophecies, is it not conscious and can take no action. While Harry Potter prophecies seem to bepredictions of the future, Christian prophecy is not necessarily. In Christianity, prophecy is a message fromthe all-powerful character (God), rather than being the all-powerful characteritself (as in the Belgariad), or having the all-powerful character act on itsbehalf (Dumbledore in Harry Potter).

This can be summarised in the following table:

	Belgariad	Harry Potter	Christianity
Consciousness of prophecy	Yes	No	No
Given by	Itself	Unknown	Deity
Given through	Human	Human	Humans
Given to	Group of humans	Everyone, via the Hall of Prophecy	Humans
Enacted by	Itself	Very powerful human	Deity

Christian prophecy is more similar to the Belgariad, becausethe Prophecy in the Belgariad is basically a god, who speaks to humans. In Christianity, God speaks to humans, butthe prophecy is the message, rather than God himself. But the difference is only one ofterminology. In Harry Potter, there is no god, and the prophecy is themessage. Dumbledore plays part of therole of God in Christianity and the Prophecy in the Belgariad in terms ofguiding humans to fulfil prophecy.

Spooks

2011-09-21T18:28:00.000+01:00

Spooks is a very popular series. On paper, I should like it a lot. It ticks my boxes. People are surprised that I’m not a fan. Here is an explanation.

In this sort of multi-series drama, both plot and characterare key to enjoyment. The plots ofindividual episodes or shortish sequences of episodes keep short-term interest,and the characters sustain long-term interest over many series. From what I’ve seen of Spooks (about 12episodes), the plots are generally reasonable to excellent. Series 2 episode 5 was one of the greatestpieces of TV I’ve ever seen.

I started watching Spooks at the start of series two, as myDad and sister recommended it to me, rightly saying that I would like it. I did like it, a lot. But after series 3, I lost interest. During the second series, the plots ofindividual episodes held my week-by-week attention, but the characters held mylong-term attention. Three characters inparticular – Tom, Zoe and Danny. Theywere engaging, I got to know them, and I wanted to see more of them.

Then swiftly, all three were gone – Tom at the end of seriestwo and Zoe and Danny during series three. I have no objection to killing off characters as a concept, but allthree so quickly was too much. In along, many-series, drama, characters are what holds my interest, because whilethe plots are good, they generally form short, one or two series stories. The stories of the characters are whatsustains my interest over a series or several series. When the three characters I cared about wereall cut, I lost the interest I had. Thesmall, one or two series stories were not consistently excellent enough for meto watch without the appeal of the longer, character-based story arc.

In contrast, the recent HBO series Game of Thrones has aplot that is not episode-based. Individual episodes do not have their own plot, as they often do inSpooks. Game of Thrones is seven serieslong, and the single, continuous plot holds my interest as well as the storiesof the individual characters. And theydon’t kill all my favourite characters at once.

Lord of the Rings book to film changes

2011-08-24T10:29:00.000+01:00

There are always changes made when a book is adapted to make a film. People have varying opinions on such changes. Here are my thoughts on the major changes in The Lord of the Rings films, together with verdicts on whether I agree with the changes.

Frodo leaves the shire very soon after Bilbo. In the book, there is a 17 year gap before Frodo needs to leave.
I’m fine with this change. Plotwise, there is no need for Frodo to stay for 17 years, and would have slowed the film down and required extra explanation in an already very info-heavy opening to the film.
Verdict: Agree
No Old Forest/Tom Bombadil sequence. In the film there is a 3 or 4 chapter sequence between leaving the Shire and arriving at Bree where the hobbits meet a character called Tom Bombadil.
Again, I’m happy with this omission. The Bombadil sequence does very little, if anything, to advance the central plot of Frodo taking the ring to Mount Doom and it’s inclusion would have massively slowed the filmd down and delayed plot advancement. In fact, I didn’t particularly like this section in the book – I found it unnecessary and an obstacle to the plot.
Verdict: Agree (improvement to the book)
Arwen rescues Frodo instead of Glorfindel. In the book, Glorfindel is the one to bring Frodo across the ford to Rivendell.
There are a lot of characters in this story. They can’t all be included in the films or it would get messy. Glorfindel is only a minor character and therefore no great loss. This change also helps with the next one, the expansion of Arwen’s character.
Verdict: Agree
General expansion of Arwen’s character. In the book, Arwen o€nly has one line. Her character is massively expanded in the film.
This is a good move as it makes the Aragorn/Arwen relationship more believable and gives it more depth. I’m not a fan of every aspect of Arwen’s expansion, but in general it was necessary to help Aragorn’s story.
Verdict: Agree (overall)
Aragorn’s character change. In the book he is more confident and willing to become king.
I think the changes make Aragorn more interesting and less perfect. I like his slight reluctance and his fear that he will fall like Isildur.
Verdict: Agree
Warg attack and Aragorn’s fall. In the book, the warg attack occurs before Moria rather than on the way to Helm’s deep. Aragorn does not fall off the cliff in the book.
This is a difficult one. The warg attack had to be either moved or omitted for the sake of pacing in the first film. I have no problem with it fitting in where it did, but also probably wouldn’t have a problem with it being omitted. Aragorn’s fall was pretty contrived and obvious but does help to heighten both the tension and his relationship with Eowyn.
Verdict: Indifferent
Elves at Helm’s Deep. No elves come to Helm’s Deep in the book. Instead they stay to defend Lorien from orc attacks.
The Elves do fight in the book, just not at Helm’s Deep. I like the element of hope that their arrival gives and I think that it was important to show that they were fighting alongside men to save Middle Earth rather than sitting around doing nothing. It would not have worked to show Lorien battles, so Helm’s Deep is a good place for them.
Verdict: Agree
The ents don’t initially go to war. In the book, the ents go straight from the entmoot to Isengard. In the film, they have to be tricked by Pippin into going.
This is poor – it makes the ents look stupid and makes them more of a joke. The reason given for the change was to give the hobbits more of an active role, but this was unnecessary. They could have just persuaded the ents to go during entmoot.
Verdict: Disagree
Faramir takes the hobbits to Osgiliath. In the book, Faramir lets Frodo and Sam go, and doesn’t try to take them to Gondor.
In the book, Faramir easily resists the ring’s temptation – as Philippa Boyens said, this ‘strips the ring of its power’. In the film, he more realistically is weaker, like other men. He doesn’t fall to temptation in the end like Boromir did, but he needs more of a shock in Osgiliath to persuade him to let the hobbits go.
Verdict: Agree (improvement on the book)
Gimli’s character changes. In the book his character is fleshed out more and he is not just comic relief, as he is by the end of the film.
I don’t have a problem with reducing the roles of Gimli’s and Legolas’ characters – it would have been nice to have had more of them but I understand that not everything can be included. However, reducing Gimli to the comic relief farce that he is, is the worst of all the major changes. It is unnecessary, as (a) the film doesn’t need any injection of humour at this stage, and (b), he’s not even funny anyway! In the third film, almost all of Gimli’s lines are intended to be a joke. Not necessary, not funny, not acceptable.
Verdict: Disagree
Frodo sends Sam home. This doesn’t happen in the book – they enter Shelob’s lair together.
Another difficult one. This is against Frodo’s book-character and is a pretty huge change in the Frodo-Sam relationship. However, it does allow all of Gollum’s hard work a pay-off, which is important for tension, and it allows Frodo to enter Shelob’s lair alone. The sequence is well done, and overall I think it is a good change. Mainly because Gollum has spent lots of time trying to drive a wedge between the hobbits, and needs some sort of result from this.
Verdict: Agree (overall)
Scouring omitted and different Saruman ending. These are separate but related changes. In the book, Saruman retreats to the Shire and starts causing trouble there. On their return home, the Hobbit’s find the Shire greatly changed, and rescue the situation, killing Saruman. In the film, this ‘scouring of the Shire’ is omitted and Saruman’s death moved to Isengard.
Much has been said about the ending of the film. My verdict is here. Although I am in favour of the so-called ‘multiple endings’, including the scouring would have added another twenty minutes after the film’s climax. This would, I believe, have been too long. It is a shame that the theme of the homelands suffering indirectly from the war is not included, but I always thought that theme was a bit dodgy anyway, because they do not suffer indirectly but rather directly from Saruman, one of the chief antagonists. So overall I agree with the omission of the scouring, and therefore also with the altered Saruman ending, much of which (the conversation with Gandalf and Theoden) is actually present in the book.
Verdict: Agree

So, I mostly agree with the changes made. There were generally necessary for pacing or plot reasons. The change in the ents is a shame and the change in Gimli an even bigger one, but no film, not even The Lord of the Rings, is perfect.

Ways to lose

2011-07-31T17:15:00.000+01:00

There are two ways to lose at something.

Losing because you play poorly/make mistakes/mess up
Losing because the other person or team are 'just too good'.

It seems that most people would prefer to lose the second way. 'We did our best, they were just too good'. This completely baffles me. I would much prefer to lose the first way. My thinking is that if I lose because the other team are just too good, there is nothing I could have done to change the outcome. If, however, I lose because I made silly mistakes, I know that next time I could win.

I hate the powerlessness of losing to a team who are 'just too good'. If I make mistakes, I only have myself to blame, and I can deal with that. It is in my power to change that.

Similarly, I prefer to lose because I make mistakes rather than because a team-mate makes mistakes. I have very limited power over my team-mate and can do a limited amount to help him/her improve. I have much more power over myself and my own improvement.

Everyone I've spoken to has said they prefer to lose the second way. Is there anyone out there who agrees with me?

Best lyrics ever?

2011-07-30T23:17:00.003+01:00

I know 'best lyrics ever' is quite a claim, but the lyrics to 'Ghost' by Stoney certainly deserves nomination.

Hear the song here. Lyrics are below.

Looking back through the window in the door the now has closed.
The looking glass that loss has tinted rose,
And the secrets of the path we never chose.
We lose ourselves there and we fall into the arms of the unseen
Of all that never was but should have been
Beyond the day that woke us from the dream.

And it’s a little late to speculate on what we could have done.
It’s a little late to overstate the obvious
We considered every move we made
We did what we thought best
So release the fist of dirt into the grave
And lay the ghost to rest

Let it go with the hurt of all the promises unkept
The pride behind apologies unsaid
And the tradegy of hope we left for dead.
Because it's as fruitless as the tears in the sour milk we spilt
On the ruins of the tower that we built
And the silence and the loneliness of guilt.

And it’s a little late to speculate on what we could have done
And so easy now to overstate the obvious.
We considered every move we made
We did what we thought best.
So throw down the fist of dirt into the grave
And lay the ghost to rest.

This ones over
No phoenix from these ashes will arise
So let the tears upon the lashes of your eyes
Fall to the desert ground and bring new life.
Walk away now
I'm not saying that we can or should forget
Just don’t cloud your every sunrise with regret
The curtain hasn't fallen on us yet
The curtain hasn't fallen on us yet
The curtain hasn't fallen on us yet.

Bruce Almighty

2011-07-29T11:43:00.000+01:00

I’ve seen Bruce Almighty several times, and at last have got round to what I’ve wanted to do since first seeing it: writing down all the different things it covers with respect to religion, faith, God etc. I think it is quite remarkable how much is crammed into this 90-minute film. Here is a list of the themes and ideas that crop up (no particular order or structure to this list).

The contrast between the first and last scene in Bruce’s attitude to his job and life in general

A reference to Chariots of Fire– a film about conflict between faith and profession

Bruce’s wife’s name is Grace, and she embodies that to him

Bruce’s initial view of God as either ignoring him completely or as a mean kid with a magnifying glass burning ants

God sending signals/signs/messages through mundane things such as pagers or road signs

Tongue in cheek jokes e.g. omni-presents, ‘smite me o mighty smiter’, many references to the number 7

God saying that his light is bright for most people who live their lives trying to hide from him

God’s complete knowledge of Bruce

The big questions of the film are how to handle ultimate power and how to make someone love you without affecting free will

Other themes include abuse of power and how and why God does or doesn’t answer prayers

Biblical references such as walking on water, parting red sea

The futility of using power for one’s own life and petty gain

The problem of God just saying ‘yes’ to all prayers

Everyone wins the lottery (classic prayer) one cause of the mass riot

Music includes ‘God-shaped hole’, ‘You’re a God’, ‘What if God was one of us?’

Even God can’t force love – Bruce tries

‘No matter how filthy something gets, you can always clean it right up’

‘Since when does anyone have a clue about what they want?’

Promotes everyday miracles e.g. ‘a teenager saying no to drugs and yes to an education’

Bruce’s life changes as he starts ‘being the miracle’ (helping people rather than just himself)

Reconciliation with arch-rival Evan

Honesty of Grace’s prayer vs token flippancy of Bruce’s, then Bruce’s true prayer

Bruce’s surrender to God’s will finalises the change in him, even via a road accident

The only time Bruce asks what God wants him to do, God says he wants Bruce to pray – about whatever he really cares about

Bruce understands what it means to see people through God’s eyes

Olympics Tickets

2011-07-27T16:15:00.000+01:00

One year until the 2012 Olympics seems like a good time to comment on the ticketing system.

The plan was simple: everyone bids for the tickets they want. If any sessions are oversubscribed, tickets in each price category are allocated by random ballot. If any tickets are left over again, they may be purchased by any bidders who got nothing in the first round. Simple, and fair. But flawed.

Flaw one: the vast majority of people bid for the cheapest tickets, meaning that these tickets were enormously oversubscribed and many people ended up with no tickets at all.

Flaw two: as anyone who has played dice-based games will know, theoretical fairness and equality rarely occurs in practice. Therefore some people were lucky enough to get all the tickets they applied for, while others got none.

Flaw three: the second round of ticket was not a random ballot, but first come first served. This meant that it was possible for people who missed out in the first round to eventually acquire far more tickets than those who won a few in the first round.

A far fairer system is not difficult to devise. Here is such a system. Everyone bids for desired tickets as originally planned. For any oversubscribed sessions, beginning with the most oversubscribed, a random ballot is used. Then the next most popular session is balloted, but people who already won tickets in the most popular session are excluded. The process continues until all bidders have tickets. Then all bidders are again included as the process continues, until all sessions have been balloted. Finally, if any sessions still have spare tickets, a second round of bidding occurs in exactly the same way as the first.

In this system, all bidders will receive at least some tickets, and bidding for more tickets leads to proportionally more tickets gained.

That took me all of about 30 seconds to come up with, but an Olympic Committee of goodness knows how many people couldn’t.

The ticketing fiasco is the most disappointing thing about the Olympics so far, including the appalling logo.

10,000 Reasons review

2011-07-22T13:15:00.000+01:00

I’ve had Matt Redman’s latest album for about a week and have listened to little else. This is partly because I have always been a massive Redman fan and wanted to know what the new album was like, but partly because it’s simply very easy to listen to and makes me want to keep listening.

Before hearing it, a friend claimed that 10,000 Reasons could be as good as The Friendship and the Fear. That is an enormous claim. By the end of this post I hope to have an opinion on it.

As an overview, 10,000 Reasons consists of 11 tracks and was recorded live at a worship conference in America. This gives it a feel similar to that of Facedown – the congregation can definitely be heard. The songs are generally bigger and rockier than most of Matt’s earlier stuff. It is certainly very different to The Friendship and the Fear. But Matt has shown that he can pull of the rocker style just as well as the more intimate one.

Track one, We are the free, is energetic, optimistic, anthemic and celebratory (as you might guess from the title). Thumping base, crunching guitars and rapid hi-hits leave you slightly breathless by the end. The live setting is noticeable from the first seconds and continues throughout the song. This is an excellent album opener. Catchy, upbeat and immediately memorable.

Track two, Here for you, is more ponderous but not boring at all. It is a very singable song of commitment (‘we are here for you’ being the refrain) with a great melody. The music kicks in after about a minute and builds into a huge middle 8. It’s quite a long son, at 5:56, but could be shortened to make a great opener in a worship set.

Track three, Holy, is initially a smaller, less epic song than the first two and feels more like the Madd Redman of old. It’s a simple song, but effective, making use of lots of repetition. The relentless singing of ‘holy, holy, holy’ could possibly be a little too repetitive but only slightly so. The song goes on for over 7 minutes but impressively holds your interest by cycling through builds and drops. A simple song, but solid and effective

Track four, Bless the Lord, is similar in some ways to ‘Holy’ with its simple lyrics and piano driven style. It is more directed at the worshipper than the songs so far (‘bless the lord, o my soul’), and it centres on Jesus as well as the more generic ‘the lord’.

Track five, Fires, suffers from having an identical intro to ‘There is a voice’. It is upbeat and catchy, but has a slightly annoying rhythm. A prayer to God to keep our fires burning – this is a decent song, but probably the weakest on the album.

Track six, Never Once, is classic Matt. These sorts of songs are his absolute forte – perseverance in adversity. This joins the list of Blessed be, Never let go, and others, and holds its own with them. It has solid verses and an excellent chorus with some lovely piano over the top of the guitars. It is only 4.5 minutes, but seems more epic. The second chorus at the end, a la ‘You alone can rescue’ is a really nice touch. A high point in a strong album.

Track seven, Where would we be, is a decent song, but perhaps more forgettable than the others. It is a song of gratitude that has a similar style to much of the alum – a big sound, a strong melody, it fluctuates between quieter piano/acoustic guitar-led sections before the drums and guitars explode it again. Solid, nothing wrong with it, but doesn’t have the zap that many of the other tracks do.

Track eight, We can change the world, is a change of style from most of the rest of the album – more like track one, it is fast, energetic and dreams of the possibilities of living as we might. This is one of those really exciting songs.

Track nine, Magnificent, is another simple but very effective song. It proclaims God’s magnificence and other attributes, and again keeps the focus on Jesus. This son takes a little longer to get into than some of the others, but it is a very good song and has a brilliant chorus entry.

Track ten, Oh this God, is another song of passionate commitment and promise to God. Musically it is possibly the best song on the album. It is another son with a big sound, but is distinct from the other songs on the album – there is no sign of repetition or lack of ideas yet.

Track eleven, Endless Hallelujah, is a beautiful way to end the album, looking forward to heaven. A lovely finish. It starts small, builds to a big sound but doesn’t overcomplicate and has a perfect re-entry into the chorus. This final song is clearly still live, a theme that has run throughout the album.

Overall, an outstanding album. Only ‘Fires’ slightly lets it down. Is it as good as The Friendship and the Fear? It does some things better, such as the live sound and the excitement of tracks 1 and 8. In other areas, such as rawness and intimacy, it is weaker. Overall I would say that The Friendship and the Fear is a bit stronger, because it has more variety, both musically and lyrically, has more material (14 tracks to 11), and, let us not forget, is a masterpiece recorded when Matt was only 22 years old.

To finish, a quote from Matt:

After years of experience, the worship leader concluded, “You can have clever chord progressions. You can work hard at getting some sort of nice sounding lyrics, but at the end, I just want a song that connects people with God.”

That is exactly what these songs can do. Well done to Matt – this is an incredible album that proves that Matt Redman still, after nearly twenty years, sets the standard for worship music.

2 thoughts on tennis

2011-07-01T15:20:00.000+01:00

I have two thoughts about tennis at the moment.

The other day, I timed a set of tennis, and timed how long the ball was actually in play. I discovered that the ball was in play for 14% of the set time. This is really poor. I know that tennis (like any sport) is difficult and tiring, but really, 14%?! Surely they don't need rests every 2 games, given that they get reasonable rests between points.
People are getting excited about the amount of diving that it happening. Nothing wrong with that, it is exciting to watch. But should it really be that novel? Shouldn't we see players diving for shots in every match?

Game of Thrones

2011-06-21T22:10:00.000+01:00

Many books have been adapted into films. Sometimes the film is a success, sometimes not.

Occasionally a book or series of books comes along which film-makers would like to film, but, for various reasons, it would not work. Usually the reason is that the books are too long. The classic example of this is the Harry Potter books. As explained in another blog post (point 2), these books contained far to much material to make into good and faithfully-adapted films. For years I have been saying that the Harry Potter books, if filmed, would only work as a string of TV series.

On a related note, I've just finished watching Game of Thrones season 1. This is how long books should be filmed. It was outstanding. Game of Thrones was based on the first of a series of books called A Song of Ice and Fire, by George R. R. Martin - each of which is over 700 pages long. Far too long to make into feature films, but superb as a 10-hour-or-so series. Watch it online or buy the DVD when it comes out. If you are the sort of person who likes to read the books before watching the films/series, the books are also outstanding. Highly recommended.

This is how some books need to be filmed. Forget the feature film model, it doesn't always work. The HBO (which after all stands for Home Box Office) model works brilliantly. So if there are any budding directors out there, when you re-film the Harry Potter books, do it this way please.

Lazy Album

2011-06-08T22:05:00.000+01:00

Recently the Kaiser Chiefs released a new album, with a difference. There were 20 tracks posted on their website. Fans could pay £7.50 to select any ten tracks, in an order of their choice, and design their own album cover.

I am not a fan of this.

Part of producing an album, in my view, is not just producing the songs but working out the track order to make a complete work, and producing the artwork. An album is more than a random list of songs, it is a list of songs selected in a certain order so that he album works as a whole. The Kaiser Chiefs might think they’re being clever, I think they’re being lazy.

On a related note, one album I enjoy is Pushing the Senses by Feeder. The track listing is as follows:

Feeling a Moment

Bitter Glass

Tumble and Fall

Tender

Pushing the Senses

Frequency

Morning Life

Pilgrim Soul

Pain on Pain

Dove Grey Sands

This album has plenty of good songs (including the outstanding Morning Life), and works well as a whole.

A few years ago, I recorded the album onto an mp3 CD to use in my car. Bizzarely, the track order was lost and the songs were recorded In alphabetical order as follows:

Bitter Glass

Dove Grey Sands

Feeling a Moment

Frequency

Morning Life

Pain on Pain

Pilgrim Soul

Pushing the Senses

Tender

Tumble and Fall

The album in this order was vastly inferior to the original track listing. Dove Grey Sands is a good closer, but not a good track two. Feeling a Moment has an intro that only works as an opener. Pain on Pain into Pilgrim Soul is incongruous. I could go on. It just doesn’t work. Feeder wrote 10 good songs (well, really 9 good songs and one weaker song (Frequency)), but they also made the album greater than the sum of its parts with an appropriate track order. Kaiser Chiefs have written twenty songs, but have failed to select about 10 that work together around a theme, have failed to produce a track order, and have failed to produce the album artwork. It’s not postmodern, it’s just inadequate.

Optimistic innocence

2011-06-06T22:31:00.000+01:00

On Saturday I played in a charity mixed netball tournament no a team that began at ‘Kings Church Durham’ and ended as ‘Jose’s Magic Army’. It was generally a good day. I’ve always loved competing in sports tournaments, and this was the first competitive sport I’ve played since last October – partly because of graduating and being ineligible for the wonderful GCUFC and partly because of injury.

However, part way through the competition, I found myself almost speechless with anger, for reasons that I will explain in a moment. Over the last couple of days I’ve been thinking about why I got angry, what my team mates said to me to calm me down and encourage me, and my thoughts on their responses. I have particularly been comparing my experience of netball with my experience of Ultimate Frisbee, the sport I am most familiar with playing.

One of the rules of netball is that “No player may come into contact with an opponent in such a way that it impedes the play of that opponent.” This includes the clarification that a player may not “push, trip, hold or lean on an opponent or use other forms of physical contact”. This is pretty clear – netball is a non-contact sport.

Ultimate Frisbee is similar: “When the disc is in the air, all players must attempt to avoid contact with other players, and there is no situation where a player may justify initiating contact. “Making a play for the disc” is not a valid excuse for initiating contact with other players…Some incidental contact, not affecting the outcome of the play or safety of players, may occur as two or more players move towards a single point simultaneously. Incidental contact should be minimized but is not considered a foul.”

It could be argued that Frisbee is slightly more lenient, allowing for some contact that doesn’t affect the outcome of the play or the safety of players, but essentially these rules are the same – both sports are non-contact.

I have played Frisbee for about 8 years, and have learnt several things about the nature of the sport as non-contact:

Minor contact is allowable until it interferes with play. This is due to the second part of the rule quoted above (a caveat that, as far as I can tell, netball rules do not have).
Because of the self-refereed nature of the sport, if there is contact that interferes with play, players call the foul and, if necessary, play is reset and replayed.
Inexperienced players are, to an extent, forgiven for not always following the rules due to ignorance or inexperience. Experienced players endeavour to teach them the rules and set a good example of following the rules.

This is the perspective from which I came to Saturday’s tournament.

In most of Saturday’s games, the extent of contact allowed seemed quite like Frisbee. This was a surprise to me, because I had expected the umpires to be stricter in enforcing the rules – from past experience of watching, playing and talking about netball, it had seemed that the non-contact nature of the sport was taken very seriously, compared to other technically non-contact sports such as Frisbee and basketball.

In a couple of games, however, I got very angry at the fact that my marker was blatantly breaking the rules by leaning into me, initiating strong contact and preventing my movement. I attempted to hold my ground, though without pushing back, and was pushed hard enough that I had to take steps backwards to avoid falling over. In a semi-contact sport such as football I could completely understand this way of marking, and would use my strength and weight to lean in as well. But in netball, a sport that has a ‘no contact’ rule with no caveat such as the one in Frisbee, this was clearly cheating.

Two things frustrated me the most. One, that the umpires rarely, if ever, blew for these fouls, even though they were basically continual for the entirety of the games. Two, that the worst players for this were the most experienced – players who play regularly for teams rather than players like me who were beginners.

As I said, I got worked up into a speechless rage, which doesn’t often happen – I can usually rant relatively eloquently when angry! My team-mates helped calm me down and I did enjoy most of the rest of the day. There were a few things that they said that really got me thinking.

One response to my anger was along the lines of ‘That’s just how it is. Players bend the rules all the time, and not just in netball’. This, of course, is true in many sports. Football is the most obvious example – players diving to win free-kicks or penalties, players tussling and holding shirts at set pieces, etc. Two points in response. Firstly – yes, this does happen all the time and in many sports, but I think I was surprised at it in netball, given my expectations of strict adherence to the no-contact rule. Secondly, that is no reason not to get angry at it. The argument of ‘that’s just the way it is’, is not a strong one for me. The rules are there to make the sport safe and fair. They should not be broken. I have nothing against being competitive or playing hard or playing to win…so long as it remains in the rules.

Maybe I’m being naïve. Maybe I’m too idealistic. Maybe it’s my sporting background. I grew up playing footy with mates, but in terms of competitive sport, my experience was limited to athletics, cross-country, and tennis – all quite individualistic sports where players don’t really come into contact with each other. They tend to compete ‘at a distance’. Post-school, my main sport has been Frisbee. If you don’t know, the genius of this sport, beyond the speed, skill, or excitement, is ‘The Spirit of the Game’. This is so completely fundamental to the sport, it deserves full quotation. If you can't be bothered to read it, the essence is: respect players, be truthful not cynical, call your own fouls.

1.1. Ultimate is a non-contact, self-refereed sport. All players are responsible for administering and adhering to the rules. Ultimate relies upon a Spirit of the Game that places the responsibility for fair play on every player.

1.2. It is trusted that no player will intentionally break the rules; thus there are no harsh penalties for breaches, but rather a method for resuming play in a manner which simulates what would most likely have occurred had there been no breach.

1.3. Players should be mindful of the fact that they are acting as referees in any arbitration between teams. In such situations, players must:

1.3.1. know the rules;

1.3.2. be fair-minded and objective;

1.3.3. be truthful;

1.3.4. explain their viewpoint clearly and briefly;

1.3.5. allow opponents a reasonable chance to speak;

1.3.6. resolve disputes as quickly as possible; and

1.3.7. use respectful language.

1.4. Highly competitive play is encouraged, but should never sacrifice the mutual respect between players, adherence to the agreed-upon rules of the game, or the basic joy of play.

1.5. The following actions are examples of good spirit:

1.5.1. informing a team-mate if they have made a wrong or unnecessary call or caused a foul or violation;

1.5.2. retracting a call when you no longer believe the call was necessary;

1.5.3. complimenting an opponent for good play or spirit;

1.5.4. introducing yourself to your opponent; and

1.5.5. reacting calmly towards disagreement or provocation.

1.6. The following actions are clear violations of the spirit of the game and must be avoided

by all participants:

1.6.1. dangerous play and aggressive behaviour;

1.6.2. intentional fouling or other intentional rule violations;

1.6.3. taunting or intimidating opposing players;

1.6.4. disrespectful celebration after scoring;

1.6.5. making calls in retaliation to an opponent’s call; and

1.6.6. calling for a pass from an opposition player.

1.7. Teams are guardians of the Spirit of the Game, and must:

1.7.1. take responsibility for teaching their players the rules and good spirit;

1.7.2. discipline players who display poor spirit; and

1.7.3. provide constructive feedback to other teams about how to improve their adherence to the Spirit of the Game.

1.8. In the case where a novice player commits an infraction out of ignorance of the rules, experienced players are obliged to explain the infraction.

1.9. An experienced player, who offers advice on rules and guides on-field arbitration, may supervise games involving beginners or younger players.

1.10. Rules should be interpreted by the players directly involved in the play, or by players who had the best perspective on the play. Non-players, apart from the captain, should refrain from getting involved. However for calls relating to “out-of-bounds” and 3“down”, players may seek the perspective of non-players to assist them to make the appropriate call.

1.11. If players cannot agree what occurred in a play, the disc shall be returned to the last

non-disputed thrower.

I have played Frisbee for long enough that this attitude is now ingrained in me. I’ve noticed how I often make calls against my team when playing other sports. For example, in rounders, if I know my team mate is out, I will argue for that decision. On Saturday, after a baseline pass was given to my team, I corrected the umpire by informing them that it had clipped my finger on the way out and the decision should be reversed. I am not trying to sound ‘holier-than-thou’, I am not trying to make Frisbee sound better than any other sport, but this is the viewpoint from which I approach sport. I try to apply the Spirit of the Game to any sport I play. I believe it is the only way to remove cynicism and cheating from sport.

I do not have the sporting experience that others do, that perhaps make them more immune to the kind of cynical breaking of the rules I experienced on Saturday. In fact, I have to opposite experience. Maybe this is why I get so angry, more than others, when I observe cheating in sport.

Another response from my team-mates was the advice to do the same thing back, or ‘give as good as I got’. I think I reacted quite badly to this. I do not believe that the fact that other players are cheating (because, when you get down to it, that’s what bending the rules is – trying to gain an advantage though unfair and illegal (no matter how minorly illegal) play) gives me the right to do the same. Again, maybe I’m being naïve. Maybe I sound holier-than-thou – that is not my intention.

On reflection, I think part of this reaction comes from my personality – I am quite idealistic – and part of it comes from how I approach all sport like Frisbee. This is why I was particularly angry at the fact that the worst players were the experienced ones. In my Frisbee background, inexperienced players might break rules my mistake, but experienced players would do so only rarely, and would not break rules deliberately.

Unlike many of my posts on here, this is not me trying to prove a point or argue an opinion. It is more a reflection on why I reacted badly in a situation. Unsurprisingly I guess, it was due to both my personality and my experiences. Maybe I’ll get used to sporting cynicism someday. Part of me hopes I will, so I can just chill out a bit. Part of me hopes I don’t lose this optimistic innocence.

The Convincingness of Atonement

2011-05-20T23:07:00.000+01:00

If you're looking for a theological post, unlucky. This is about the film. You'll need to have seen it to understand what I'm on about. I watched Atonement a couple of weeks ago. I was disappointed - not because it wasn't 'my sort of film' or because I didn't like the acting or anything like that. Simply because it did not convince me. The plot was not convincing.
Arguably the two main plot hooks are the relationship between Robbie and Cecilia and the false accusation of rape made by Briony. The rest of the plot hangs on these. But the Robbie/Cecilia relationship was unconvincing to me - I just did not believe their mutual attraction. And the idea of the false rape accusation was also very difficult to believe. On top of this, the idea that Robbie sent the wrong letter to Cecilia (the short, typed one rather than the longer, handwritten one) is similarly unbelievable, even laughable. Many parts of the film were quite good, but because the whole plot hung on a series of situations which I was not convinced by, I thought the film was poor.
It is probably worth mentioning here, the difference (in my head at least) between 'unrealistic' and 'unconvincing/unbelievable'. Most films are unrealistic, from Toy Story, to LOTR, to Fight Club to Notting Hill. But the stories are skilfully told and the settings are skilfully designed so it is possible to suspend disbelief for the purposes of the plot. In LOTR for example, while orcs and hobbits are clearly not real (unrealistic), given the intricacy and complexity of the world shown on the screen (or in the book), I do not find the story unconvincing. I completely believe it as a story set in that world. Atonement is more realistic by far, but far less convincing - I can believe the existence of the characters and places, but it is so poorly done that I am not able to suspend my disbelief to believe the story.
To me, what is important in a film is not whether it is realistic but whether it is convincing.

Who should lead the church?

2011-04-25T22:31:00.000+01:00

I rarely use this blog to just link to another site, but I found this very interesting.

http://www.relevantmagazine.com/life/current-events/op-ed-blog/25384-who-should-lead-the-church

Bittersweetness

2011-04-25T17:05:00.000+01:00

I recently finished reading Maggie Furey's Shadowleague trilogy. In short, it's good - pacey and gripping, with a range of interesting characters and situations and some unique features to the fantasy-world setting. I am very pleased to have read it.
ALERT: SPOILERS FOLLOW.
One (of few) complaints, however: the ending was too happy. In the last few chapters of the third book, several characters seemed about to die. While difficult to read the deaths of characters I had come to care about, it seemed appropriate that the conclusion of the story should not be without real loss. However, these characters that had been about to die, all recovered in a series of minor dei ex machina. Glossing over the problem of dei ex machina, my specific problem at the end of the Shadowleague is that not enough people died. It was not bittersweet enough. Victory was achieved...but at no cost.
I have a continual problem with unconvincingly happy endings. Bittersweet endings are so much more poignant and satisfying. This is the biggest problem I have with the Harry Potter series - not bittersweet enough. Also one of the best things about LOTR - beautifully bittersweet.
The Shadowleague is a good series and I recommend it. But it suffers in the same way as many other stories - it lacks the bittersweet ending.

Random triplet

2011-04-09T10:52:00.000+01:00

Three entirely unlinked comments from the past three days.

1. At cell on Thursday, we had a go at writing Psalms. Emma included in hers the phrase 'awaken me with your joy'. I liked this. The idea that we are asleep without joy until God awakens us.

2. Yesterday, I saw a Facebook status which read 'just saw Hagrid' referring to Robbie Coltrane, the actor who portrays Hagrid in the Harry Potter films. I didn't like this. It is wrong to associate actors with the parts they play so closely as to say you saw Hagrid when really you saw the actor. It's not fair towards the actor or the character. There is a danger that Coltrane becomes nothing more than Hagrid, or that Hagrid becomes defined by Coltrane's (outstandingly poor and limited) portrayal of him.

3. This morning, I listened to 'I Still Remember' by Bloc Party. This is a superbly summery song and is therefore very appropriate for our recent weather.

Love Wins

2011-04-02T13:15:00.000+01:00

I was intending to write a review of Rob Bell's latest book, Love Wins. However, this Evangelical Alliance review is pretty much exactly what I would have written, so just read that instead.

I shall only add this, quoted from my review of The Shack:
Having said that, of course he is a heretic. Yes, the book is good, but yes, there’s also heresy in there. But so what? I doubt there’s ever been a book written (Bible excepted) that doesn’t contain some heresy. People, chill out a bit! Books are written by humans, they’re going to have errors in them! But that doesn’t mean all books are worthless! This book (and Chalke’s) are really good and well worth reading. Neither book is perfect, so you have to read them carefully, take the good stuff, and dismiss the misleading bits.

Love Shine Through

2011-04-02T10:11:00.000+01:00

I’ve read plenty of reviews of Tim Hughes’ latest album on the internet. They are overwhelmingly positive. But they are also wrong. Some quotes:

‘the most complete album Tim has ever made’ – Louder than the music

‘the songs here are unremittingly strong’ – Cross Rhythms (10/10)

‘fills the gap left by Delirious’, ‘a wonderful offering’ – Amazon (curtrently on 5 stars, which on Amazon is an impressive feat)

‘more than just 11 fantastic worship songs, it’s an inspirational experience for worshippers everywhere’ – Eden

Now, I think Tim Hughes is great. Consuming Fire is probably by second favourite worship song ever. Maker of all things, You, Happy Day, Holding nothing back, Everything, Whole world in his hands…the list of great songs goes on. And I do not think that Love Shine Through is an awful album. Not at all. But it is nowhere near as good as many internet reviews claim. It’s ultimately a bit of a disappointment, given Tim’s previous releases.

My thoughts might (probably will) change in time, but for now, here they are.

Chris Juby summed this album up better than I ever could. He said (paraphrased) ‘there are lots of moments that make me go “yes!”, but there is not complete song that make me go “yes!”’. That is a great summary. Each song has something cool about it, but there are a total of zero great songs on there. The best song on paper is Jesus Saves, but the version on this album is hideous. It is so thin and weak, and sounds like it was recorded in a rainforest. Of the 4 minutes of the song, only 30 seconds actually works and sounds like Jesus Saves should sound. It should sound big and exciting, but most of the song is small and whimpery.

So, what are the highlights? For me, they are tracks 1, 5 and 12.

Track 1, Counting on Your Name, has an opening minute that sounds like Tim was trying to be Sigur Ros. And it sounds quite good, but it is not the way to open a worship album! After this uber mistake, there is a decent song about depending on God. I don’t agree that the phrase ‘counting on your name’ sound like gambling on God and merely hopeful that he’ll be enough. To me, that phrase means ‘depending on your name’. This is a good song, but sadly I am completely aware that part of the reason I like it is that it sounds like Matt Redman!

Track 5, All Glory, is one of the more downbeat songs on the album. Solid lyrics, and a beautifully catchy piano part. In the second half, it builds (at last, as it starts to get boring), but makes too much use of a gospel choir. Je ne suis pas un fan of this. But cut this out, and it becomes a good song. Well done Tim.

Track 12, At Your Name, is an interesting one, because it is also track 6. Track 6 is a longer and much quieter version which doesn’t really work and goes on for too long. Track 12 is much better, a genuinely good song. The one weakness is that the line in the chorus ‘Yahweh Yahweh, we love to shout your name O Lord’, sounds a little clunky. But generally, a good song. It really should have been placed at 6, and the other version put at the end.

One other track to mention – track 2, God Is Coming. A good example of what Tim does better than almost anyone else – building into and then releasing anthemic choruses. This track sounds very like much of Holding Nothing Back, his previous album. Unfortunately, the lyrics sound like an enthusiastic but ultimately inexperienced 14-year-old wrote them. They don’t say anything, they don’t go anywhere, they’re just words. Shame, because the musical side of the song is good.

I know this sounds like I’m slating the album as a whole. It’s really not that bad, it’s just really not that good either. It’s ok. It has a few really good songs, several that are mediocre, and a few that are weak. It’s not a bad alum, it’s just not as good as I’d hoped for based on Tim’s previous work, and the massacre of Jesus Saves is hard to forgive.

(Disclaimer: I’m writing this from a listener’s point of view, rather than a worship leaders point of view. I imaging worship leaders may have other comments).

Hair Reactions

2011-03-21T17:36:00.002Z

There were reactions at three stages of my sponsored haircut: the announcement, the perm, and the final cut.

The reaction to the announcement was generally impressive – nearly £2000 raised for charity so far. The kids at school got really into it, understandably – seeing a teacher with a stupid haircut is worth paying some money for! Friends were superb – mental gifts of up to £100, people who I’d only met twice gave money, some people who I hadn’t seen in years popped up and shoved in a tenner. Brilliant response. The staff at school were mostly disappointing. My department gave generously, as did a handful of others, but most people just didn’t. This disappointed me as I can only put it down to laziness.

The reaction to the perm was hilarious – friends laughed a lot and gave good banter, people were keen to see photos. Kids at school couldn’t believe it – some were literally in tears, some collapsed against walls laughing, some couldn’t speak for minutes. I must admit, I didn’t expect quite such a strong reaction, but was glad to be able to entertain!

The reaction to the final cut was the most interesting. The number of people who have said ‘it looks really good’, ‘it really suits you’, or ‘you look so much younger’, or who have asked if I like it, was astounding. People genuinely think that I care what they think about how I look! I do care about how I look, but I don’t really care about what people think about how I look. Sorry. It worries me how much of a fuss people have made over my physical appearance in the last 10 days or so. Yes, I look different. Get over it. There is no need to keep commenting on it a week later, when you’ve seen me several times that week. I can understand that it looks different, but there is no need to keep saying it. Please find something more interesting about me to comment on. My hair is one of the most uninteresting things about me.

On a hair related note, thanks should go to my former housemate Simon McConway for the idea of having a competition between different hairstyles to raise money, my sister Jenny for taking all the photos, East Durham College for doing the perm for free, and James Rainey for the final cut.

Subverting Christmas

2011-03-21T17:28:00.000Z

I've written about Christmas before. This post, in a way, summarises my thoughts towards it.
Christmas is celebrated on 25th December, right? It is thought that this date was chosen because a pagan festival to the sun was already celebrated on this day. Basically, Christianity subverted the festival that was already their and turned it into a Christian celebration of Jesus' incarnation.

Fast-forward a couple of thousand years. Christians now find themselves living in a culture which holds what is essentially a pagan festival on 25th December. And it needs subverting again, to turn it back into a celebration of the incarnation.

Specifics to follow sometime.

6 down...but still 3 to go

2011-02-15T17:50:00.000Z

I recently reviewed three films I'd seen at the start of 2011. I've since seen three more. Here are my thoughts. Spoilers follow.

Hereafter can first, starring Matt Damon as an ex-medium. The film follows three storylines (Damon's character, a French journalist, and a bereaved child) and weaves them together. This can be done with three characters (though not with many more...Love Actually, Crash...), and all three storylines held my attention. I genuinely cared about the characters. The plots were interesting and the film was entertaining. Unfortunately, the ending was pants. Very disappointing, given the previous 90 minutes. The film tried to deal with death, and did this well in terms of the presentation of the characters' various experiences of death, but very poorly in terms of what it was trying to 'say' about death. More could have been done in this area to make some sort of a point. Not an awful film, but disappointing, as it could have been much better.

Next was Never Let Me Go. I was pretty sure it would be very good, but wasn't certain. Fear not, it was very good. Best film so far this year, eclipsing Black Swan and The Fighter (see below). The story is of three school children who discover they have been bred to be organ donors (it's set in an alternate England) and their friendships as they grow into their twenties. The acting is excellent (even Keira Knightly does a decent job), the visuals are beautiful, and the plot is brilliant. Carey Mulligan is simply incredible. This film moved me more than most do...I think the only other films to have made me cry in the cinema are the three LOTRs. Not a lighthearted film at all, not a happy ending at all...but those types of films are often the best.

Lastly, The Fighter. I'd been looking forward to this one for a while, mainly because I am in love with Christian Bale. The story is of a Boxer (Mark Wahlberg) whose career is doing down the drain, partly because his brother and coach (Bale) is a crack addict. Enter ladyfriend Charlene (Amy Adams), and it all kicks off. The three leads and supporting cast are great, the fight scenes are good, the interaction between the characters is mesmerizing (especially Charlene). The biggest let down is the presence of Wahlberg's 6-or-7 sisters, who essentially act one character, just with 7 bodies. No uniqueness, few names to get hold of. Subsequently, I didn't care about them and they annoyed me. Reducing them to 1 or 2 proper characters would have been better. But other than that, another really good film.

Tentative ranking so far:
1 Never let me go
2= The Fighter, Black Swan
4= The king's speech, 127 hours
6 Hereafter

Having been to the cinema so much recently, there are another three films to see next: The Adjustment Bureau (Bourne meets the Matrix), Fair Game (looks proper intense), and The Rabbit Hole (Nicole Kidman, woop!).
Thoughts on these will follow.

The Rise and Fall of Grey College Ultimate Frisbee Club

2011-02-02T20:05:00.000Z

Having recently finished playing for Grey College Ultimate Frisbee Club I thought I’d try to write a history of the club so far. This will be partly my memories of the club and partly some comments on various events over the years. Therefore, it will read partly like a history and partly like a diary.

2003-2004

GCUFC was founded officially in the autumn of 2003 by Ed Gay, then a third year engineer at Grey. It was initially a club for friends to play Frisbee – at this stage it was the only college Frisbee club in Durham. Training was on Tuesday lunchtimes and Friday afternoons and consisted of simply playing Frisbee. I remember going along for the first time and being amazed at the skill and movement of some of the players, not understanding the concept of space, and being taught the forehand by Alex Wilcox. At this stage the club had about 12-15 players, about half of whom were freshers.

Later in the year, I think in the spring term, the club was invited to the ‘Northern Alliance’ tournament with DUF (Durham Uni) and Too Many Pies (Newcastle Uni). The conditions were very windy and the pitch on which we played DUF 1 was in line with the wind. This meant it was very hard to score into the wind and we only lost 6-4. I remember watching one player I was marking catch the disc in mid-air and land inside the endzone, the first time I’d seen this done.

At the end of the year, I was voted in as captain (in those days we didn’t have president/captain/treasurer roles, just one leader called the captain), and only one player, Hannah Stone, graduated.

2004-2005

The majority of players continued form the previous year and a fairly large number of freshers signed up, expanding the club to over twenty players. We started training the freshers up and soon had the basics of the game mastered – it was useful to have plenty of 2^nd, 3^rd and 4^th years to teach the freshers. A second Northern Alliance tournament was held, which led to Grey’s first ever victory, 7-3 against DUF B. We also lost only 8-5 to Too Many Pies, an early sign of the talent in the team as we took on university level teams.

At some point during the year, I think just before Christmas, I was contacted by a girl from Chads who had set up a team there and knew of a team starting at Hild Bede. We agreed to play a mini-league in the second term. I divided the club into two teams to produce a four-team league, and Elliott Hampson and Simon Meadows stepped in as joint B team captains. Each team played three matches the following term. Grey finished top of the league, including a 30-2 demolition of Chads, while Grey B finished 3^rd, behind Hild Bede.

By this time, the existence of college clubs had come to the attention of Mike Bee, DUF captain. He suggested an end of year one-day tournament and offered to organise it. This tournament happened after exams at the Shincliffe Pitches. Grey A and B were present, along with Trevs, and a Chads/Collingwood combination team known as ChadWood (despite requests for Chads and Trevs to combine to form ‘Chavs’!) Grey A won the competition, comfortably winning all their games, while Grey B finished third. Plans were made to start a more formal league the following academic year. Ben Jiggins was voted in as captain again, while Dave Grimm, Ed Gay, Sarah Walker (Senior), Alex Wilcox, John Shimmin and Kathryn Smith graduated.

2005-2006

The following autumn, seemingly thousands of freshers signed up at the freshers fair. In reality it was more like 200, and those who actually made a regular commitment to playing boosted the club numbers to over 60. These numbers stunned DUF, who had nowhere near as many players. This made us feel good. We expanded to three teams. Martin Greenbank took on the role of club and A team vice-captain, Jimi Davill was voted in as B team captain, and Paul Furley as C team captain. Jimi also became our first ever social sec. The league expanded this year, to include Collingwood A and B, Trevs, Hild Bede and Aidans.

The captains met to discuss the league rules – such rules as if a team can’t field the full 7 players, games down to 5v5 are acceptable, or that there is a hard cap of 17 points on games. One frustrating thing about later years in GCUFC was that some of the rules that had been set out in this meeting were changed and the changes were not communicated to players.

The Cs won their first game, beating Collingwood B by a point, while the Bs struggled in their first few games, losing several by narrow margins. The A team started very impressively, dominating every game and not allowing opposition teams a look in. Over Christmas, a Cuths team was formed, full of players who had been playing for DUF. They played fixtures quickly to catch up with the rest of the league and were looking strong for a while. When they faced Grey A, I was away at a family event so Martin led the team to a solid 11-6 victory, inspired by a fine Rik Smith performance. The As went on to win the league, with the Bs finishing 7^th and the Cs 8^th.

In the spring term, a couple of significant things happened, one personal and one on a club level. The personal one was President’s Guest Night (PGN), the main Grey social event of the second term, aimed at people who participate in college clubs and societies. It is the event where colours are given to those players who are about to graduate and have performed admirably for the club. As captain, I was asked to nominate up to three players to receive colours, and I picked Phil Gray, Simon Meadows and Sarah Walker, all of whom had been very good A team players and had also contributed to the club off-field. When it came to the night of PGN, my own name was also announced with the other three. I was at first confused at the announcement, and then it was revealed that the club, knowing I wouldn’t award colours to myself, signed a petition to the sports reps at college to allow four colours awards for the club, and to give the fourth to me. I remember walking up to the stage to receive the award and then sitting back at the table just feeling stunned. It was a fairly simple gesture from the club, but it meant a huge amount to me – it meant that my effort and hard work had been recognised, and people were grateful for it.

The other significant event, or string of events, involved relations between GCUFC and DUF. Grey A enquired about going to the university regional tournament at a 3^rd DUF team, a request which DUF rejected, saying that as non-DUF players, we could not play under DUFs name. This was a reasonable response, but a disappointing one, and I think it caused some resentment in the Grey squad. In response to this, Mike Bee, now DUF A vice-captain, emailed me requesting that I encourage Grey players to go along to DUF trainings to gain skills and experience. I explained that I would do so, but that I thought Grey players were reluctant to go to DUF training because doing so would jeopardise their chances of playing in Grey A matches, due to not having attended as many training sessions as those players who hadn’t gone along to DUF sessions. The strange combination of Grey players not wanting to train with DUF and DUF not allowing Grey to play in the uni regionals was the climax of the tension between the two clubs that had been steadily building that season. In fact, several Grey players saw the creation of the Cuths team as an intentional attempt by DUF to form a team that would stop Grey A from dominating the league – a theory supported by the facts that the Cuths team was composed almost entirely of DUF players and that it disbanded at the end of the year so the players could focus on DUF.

At the end of the year was the college cup. Most teams who had played in the league attended; memorably Hild Bede brought several barbeques. I can’t remember many details about the day, though I know I threw up at one point and I remember losing in the final to the Uni/Cuths team – I think the score was about 8-5.

At the end of the year, a club constitution was written to make things more official. The roles of president and captain were separated and the role of treasurer was created. Rik Smith was voted in as president. I graduated and was given special permission by the college captains to continue playing the following year, as I would be doing a gap year in Durham working for Kings Church.

2006-2007

This season was very different for me. Although I was still playing for Grey A, I had no responsibility for the first time in two years. This took a bit of getting used to but was ultimately a really nice change. I enjoyed just being able to play, and contribute to the team, without having to be constantly thinking about tactics, drills, players, matches etc.

Rik took on the presidency and did a fine job. He took the club to the next level by organising for us to go to outside tournaments like Northern Winter League. This gave players lots of extra experience at playing at a higher level. There was still a bit of resentment felt towards DUF from last season, so it was great to almost beat them at one NWL tournament. We had an equivalent of our B team (3 As, 4 Bs and 3 Cs), and they had an almost full-strength squad. We were level at 5-5 before losing 9-6. A full Grey A would have destroyed them that day.

Back in Durham, Grey had 3 teams in the league again. Grey A were captained by Dave Dodd, the Bs by Paul Furley, and the Cs by Poul ‘Samwise’ Alexander. With no Cuths team (they were now concentrating on playing for DUF), the main threat to Grey A’s dominance looked to be Aidans and Collingwood A. We faced Aidans first, I think. I seem to remember a bit of rivalry had been building from the previous year, when meetings in the league and cup had been feisty affairs. Grey A certainly had felt that Aidans were not the most spirited of teams. When it came to the league match this year, Aidans were not happy that I had special permission to play, and we were forced to negotiate that I could play every other point. This really wound me up, especially as this was the one time my parents had come to watch me play. There was nothing we could do about it, however, so I played the upwind points and managed to help us win all of them. We won a hard-fought and bad-tempered game 7-3. The Collingwood game came later in the year, after they had already beaten Aidans, so it was basically a championship decider. This Collingwood team were really good. They’d looked excellent all season and had beaten all the other decent teams in style. We knew we were up against possibly the biggest challenge we’d ever faced in the league. We needn’t have worried. Solid handling, well-thought out tactics, 2 layout Ds in the first 2 points from Matt Knight and myself, an intense mental game and hard defence meant we won 14-0, a scoreline that no-one would have predicted. The best moment was at 6-0 when we’d been defending our line solidly for several minutes (Collingwood even thought they’d scored at one point but their player landed outside the endzone). We managed to take possession several times but had failed to get out of our own half. Then I took the disc on our line, Xander ran long, and I put up a pitch-length huck which he took down superbly, just inside the Collingwood endzone. That was the killer point. I won MVP that day – it’s one of my fondest on-pitch memories for the club.

The B team played incredibly well all season and managed to secure fourth place, beating Hild Bede on the way. An outstanding season for a B team, in a year that had seen Trevs B, Collingwood C, Johns, Mildert join the league. The C team also played well, finishing 9^th out of 12 teams.

Towards the end of the year, another competition was introduced, giving the A team another chance to dominate. The College Festival of Sport was a one-day tournament featuring all Durham colleges and many sports, to find an overall college winner. I can’t remember many details about this or any other festival of sport in later years, but I do remember that these were yet more competitions in which Grey continued their outstanding, unbeaten streak at college level.

Unfortunately I can’t remember what happened to the Bs and Cs in the cup, but I do remember the As. We cruised through the early stages, beating Grey B to a pulp along the way, and met Aidans again in the final. Aidans had brought along some DUF A players to help them. I still disagree with the rule that allows DUF A players to play in the cup, but that’s another story. So, we were up against the old enemy, to regain our cup title. We went 5-1 down. We weren’t playing well at all, and then, for some reason I still am not sure of, everything started clicking. The drops disappeared, the movement was efficient, the D was tighter. We won the next point very quickly – just two passes. Rik popped the disc to me in space, Chris Rodd ran long and I picked him out. The momentum had changed and, from 5-1 down, we fought back to win 8-5. That felt really good, especially against Aidans. A great way to end the season. At the end of this season, several players such as Rik, Dave, Chris and Ed moved on to join DUF, leaving a sizeable gap in the A team that would need to be filled. Rob Balmer was voted in as the new president.

2007-2008

This year, I started a PGCE and Maters in education, allowing me to continue laying for Grey. This was a season of stability and growth, as far as I can remember. Rob did a great job as president, getting us to NWL tournaments as well as Edinburgh beginners and a variety of other outside tournaments. The club maintained 3 teams, with Alex Jamieson, Eley Haslam and Marc Etherington as the respective captains. As usual, I can’t remember much of the B and C teams’ seasons, though I don’t think they were as successful as they had been in the previous year, which was, and still is the strongest overall year in the club’s history. The A team were strong once again, with very little threat from any other team in the league or the festival sport. In the cup, the As lost in the final to another DUF-heavy Aidans team. Colours were awarded at the end of the year, but the rule about colours only being given to finalists seemed to have either disappeared or been ignored by now, something I was not happy with. I think it is a bit farcical to honour a person’s career for the club in that way before they are at the graduating stage of uni. The trend of giving colours to non-finalists continued into future years, which is a shame.

One final thing about this year – I believe Alex Jamieson to be the best captain the As ever had. He had big shoes to fill, following such a successful previous season. The As had lost a lot of quality players, but gained more good players who mostly had decent experience. It was a very hard to job to gel a new team together quickly in order to continue the dominance of previous years. But Alex did a superb job, was an excellent leader, and outstanding motivator and a good tactician. I was very proud to play under him, gutted that I never had a chance to captain him myself (he was in the C team in my final year), and touched to see him cry when he finished the job – I believe that he and I remain the only captains to be so emotionally involved in our jobs.

2008-2009

Mike White took over as president for the next year and continued Rob’s trend of entering us into lots of outside tournaments, giving great opportunities to gain experience at higher level Frisbee, and also spreading the name of Phoenix Knights, our open team name, around the country. The club shrunk in terms of numbers this year so we downsized to two teams with Sam Jones and Stefan Kemp as captains. Graduates of Grey had by this time set up an alumni team called Ashes which provided a chance for alumni to play together from time to time. I don’t know whose idea this was, but it was an excellent one. The A team this year was a strong one, which quality from top to bottom. This was the year I moved from playing handler to playing in the endzone, due to our wealth of handlers. I loved the chance to run more and to score more. I forged a lethal partnership with Jack Butters – I think we must have scored about 100 points between us that season. I scored 10 in one match, against Collingwood B. Success abounded again for the As, winning the league, cup and festival of sport again.

Links with DUF were now a lot stronger than in the past, which was both a good and bad thing. A good thing, because positive relationships with other local clubs are always good, and it helped the league to build momentum as more players from different colleges new each other. A bad thing because it pulled people away from Grey – players started going to tournaments with DUF B and therefore missing matches for their Grey teams. These conflicted loyalties caused a few rifts within Grey, mainly between the older players such as myself, Alex and Ant, and the younger ones who were now running the club. Luckily, this season the A team was strong enough to cope without a few players each weekend.

At some point, possibly this season or possibly a previous one, but after I had finished as president/captain, DUAU (the university sports team) took over the running of the league, which had previously been organised by DUF, and the cup, which had been organised by the Grey president. This made our league more official and provided better organisation, though it started to cause problems in later years.

2009-2010

The club entered the next season with our first female president. Emily had been B team captain last year and now took on the top role. Although we had had excellent female players in the past (most notably the legendary Sarah Walker (Junior)), and Eley had also been a captain, this was another step and was great to see. Grey has had a perennial problem of not having many female players and there was hope that Emily would help to change that.

Ant Bailey and Alex Pettitt were the clubs new captains. This year, I found myself in the B team. Emily acknowledged that I easily had the ability to play in the As, but said that they were concerned about the As gelling together and knew I that as a teacher I wouldn’t be able to attend Wednesday trainings. I knew this argument didn’t make sense – many of the As had played together before and it was actually the B team, consisting largely of freshers, that would have the trouble gelling. I believe it was also thought that my experience would help the B team, and that this was more of the reason for the decision. Nevertheless, it was hard to take, with my past commitment and time playing for the As.

The As dominated yet again this year, winning the treble again. The Bs enjoyed a successful season, finishing a record-equalling 4^th in the league and also getting third place in the cup. And here is where I try, and probably fail, to not sound arrogant. Although there were a few decent players on the B team, I was by far the most experienced and skilful. I found it frustrating playing with inexperienced players. They did not move where I expected, they threw away what I thought to be easy throws, and they dropped lots of catches. I persevered, trying to teach and encourage as best as I could, but I desperately missed playing for Grey A and often felt like I was carrying the team.

There was also the issue that club figureheads started giving preference to DUF over Grey. This was not the same as the previous year because it now happened more often, with more players, and with more significant players. When a club’s most senior and respected players, in fact its leaders, start abandoning the club to play for local rivals, it sets a very poor example of commitment to the junior players at the club. I believe this to be, not the only factor, but the most significant factor in the downfall or GCUFC. Other factors include a shrinking in the size of the club due to, I believe, lack of community spirit and lack of players living in college, a lack of commitment from some senior players to training, and a lack of hardcoreness – training would often finish after a couple of hours rather than continuing for four just because it could. But the biggest factor was players prioritising other clubs over Grey. It comes down to why you play Frisbee. Do you play for yourself, and therefore take every opportunity to gain personal experience and skills, and play at the highest level that you can, or do you play for your club, and therefore sacrifice your personal development and opportunities to play at higher levels, in order to make your club as successful as you can. It seems that as players deprioritised playing for the club over several years, the standard of players and teams declined.

I almost left the club at the end of that season, even though I was eligible to play for one more. In the end I stayed, because I knew I wouldn’t be able to not play while still being eligible. I loved the club too much, and had invested too much in it, to give up now.

2010-2011

Mark Savage became the next president, while Jacob Hicks and George Hicks (no relation!) were the new captains. I was moved back into the A team, and it was so good to be playing with more experienced players again. However, the club was much weaker now than it had been two years previously. Many ex-Grey players were now playing with DUF, and both the A team and B team struggled to get enough players to turn up to matches. Senior players missed trainings and matches, or turned up hungover and few freshers stuck with the club.

DUAU were now causing problems too – most matches were played on the school pitches because Mary’s field was in such poor condition, but because of the nature of Frisbee and the large number of games being played, the school pitches were soon in poor condition too. This meant games had to be postponed and the fixture list became very clogged.

Then came the day that I’d always known would come, but I’d hoped it would be after I’d left. I had already received the news that, after graduating in January 2011, I could no longer play for Grey due to insurance reasons (another situation caused by DUAU). However, I intended to continue supporting the team in matches. In the first term we were still unbeaten, though looking weaker than ever before. Then in the first match of the spring term Grey A faced Johns. Not only did Grey A lose at college level for the first time ever, they were demolished by 11 points to 2.

Johns were a decent team who worked hard, but were nothing special. Grey however, were missing their captain through injury, their most experienced player (me) through ineligibility, one player through other commitments, two players who simply did not turn up, and had one vice captain returning from injury, another hungover, and a president hungover. Little could have been done about illness, injury and the ban, but the other problems showed how much the mighty Grey A had fallen.

The team that once could field a 14-strong squad of university level players, the team who would only concede a couple of points to the next best team in the league, the team that could win forty minute games in twenty minutes, the team that trained and trained and trained, 3-4 times a week, the team that balanced socialising, studies, commitments to other sports and were still fiercely loyal to the club and to each other, the team that would grab every opportunity to play an extra half hour of Frisbee, the team that refused to give up, refused to stop running, and considered every point conceded to be a personal insult from the opposition…that team was no longer. Over the past three years or so, many things have contributed to GCUFC, and particularly Grey A being less passionate and committed than it had once been. No individual people are to blame; it has been a combination of factors. I suppose that I am the only person in the world who fully understands this, being the one person who has seen and been a part of the entire story.

As someone who has invested hundreds (possibly thousands) of hours into the club, on and off the pitch, playing over a hundred games, it is both hard and satisfying to look back over the last eight years. It is hard to see the recent decline of the club, and to think back over past difficulties and struggles. It is satisfying to remember the matches, the victories, the socials, the tournaments, but most of all the dozens of players we have produced. I am immensely proud to have played with the players I have at this great club, to have had the honour of leading some of them and coaching most of them. To anyone who has ever played for GCUFC: thankyou for your contribution to the club that means so much to me.

Prophecy

2011-01-29T09:07:00.000Z

This post is about the theme of prophecy in my two favourite series of books: The Harry Potter series, by JK Rowling, and The Belgariad by David and Leigh Eddings. This will contain spoilers, so if you haven’t read the books but intend to, you have been warned.

Harry Potter

In Harry Potter, Harry lives the first 11 years of his life with his Aunt and Uncle because his parents die when he was a child. He was told they died in a car crash. On his 11^th birthday, he discovers that they were actually killed by Lord Voldemort. He later learns that the only reason Voldemort killed them was that they were protecting their son, Harry, who was Voldemort’s real target. It is not until Harry is almost 16 that his headmaster, Albus Dumbledore, told Harry the reason Voldemort wanted to kill him in the first place. Dumbledore tells Harry of a prophecy that was made about a year before his birth:

The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches…born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies…and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not…and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives…the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies…

As Harry and Dumbledore discuss, the prophecy means that one of Harry and Voldemort will kill the other. However, Dumbledore is very clear that the prophecy is not to be viewed in a fatalistic way. As Dumbledore explains, one of Voldemort’s. spies overheard the first half of the prophecy as it was made. Voldemort believed that Harry was born with the power to vanquish him, and therefore set out to destroy him while he was only a baby. In fact, the prophecy did not specify that Harry himself was the child in question – Neville Longbottom, a contemporary of Harry’s, also fulfilled the requirements of being born at the end of July to parents who had defied Voldemort three times. But crucially, Voldemort singled out Harry, who he thought to be a greater threat. The result was that because Harry’s mother died to save him, the curse that Voldemort used on Harry did not work. Harry was ‘marked as Voldemort’s equal’ by the scar that the curse left behind. He had ‘power Voldemort knows not’ because of his mother’s sacrifice, which gave him unique protection against Voldemort and which he would not have had if Voldemort had not attacked him.

Voldemort had not heard the second half of the prophecy, so did not realise that in attacking Harry, he would hand him the weapons necessary to defeat him.

All of this means that if Voldemort had not chosen to attack Harry, Harry would not later be in a position to defeat Voldemort. It was Voldemort’s personal choice that fulfilled part of the prophecy.

Sixteen years later, Dumbledore impresses on Harry that Harry himself now has the choice to continue to fulfil the prophecy. Harry can choose to ignore the prophecy if he wishes. There is no destiny that forces him to choose one course of action or another. However, unfortunately, because Voldemort continues to follow the prophecy, he continues to hunt Harry, so in the end, it is likely that one of them will kill the other. But not because of the prophecy. Because of their choices.

The prophecy does not dictate what will happen. As Dumbledore explains to Harry, there are many prophecies that have been made and never fulfilled. Although this is not explained explicitly in the books, it seems that some wizards, such as Voldemort, view prophecies as things which must be fulfilled, whereas others, such as Dumbledore, do not. The interesting thing is that after all Dumbledore’s insistences that the prophecy only describes one possible future, rather than dictating the only possible future, in the end, Harry and Voldemort do end up battling to the death. But not because the prophecy forces them to do it; rather, because they choose to do it.

The Belgariad

The Belgariad is a less well-known series of books, so perhaps requires some introduction. Written by David and Leigh Eddings, The Belgariad is a five book fantasy series starring Garion, a simple farm boy who gets caught up in a quest to fulfil a prophecy that will decide the fate of the universe. The series has a slightly more ‘epic’ scale than the Harry Potter series, though I would class it as heroic fantasy rather than epic fantasy.

Since childhood, Garion has experienced an audible voice in his head that knows what he is thinking, is often described as ‘dry’ and certainly seems to possess a personality and a sense of humour. The voice accompanies Garion for a while, sometimes giving him advice or instructions, and then at last reveals exactly what it is. Firstly, the voice explains to Garion that originally the universe had a single purpose, a destiny. Then something happened that wasn’t intended, and from that point on there had been two possible fates of the universe – one good and one evil. The voice in Garion’s head is the consciousness or awareness of one of these fates.

Later, the voice directs Garion to a document which is the record of one of these prophecies and which states:

Behold, it shall come to pass that in a certain moment, that which must be and that which must not be shall meet, and in that meeting shall be decided all that has gone before and all that will come after. Then will the Child of Light and the Child of Dark face each other in the broken tomb, and the stars will shudder and grow dim.

It turns out that Garion is currently the ‘Child of Light’ (a title that passes from person to person at times), he embodies one of the prophecies and has to reset things to how they should be. A converging point is coming, after which only one of the two prophecies will continue to exist. Garion has a task to do, and if he succeeds, all will be right. If he fails, then chaos and destruction will follow. As a result of this, everything that exists will become a part of whichever prophecy prevails. Everyone has two possible destinies – for some people, the differences are small, for others, they are enormous. The universe, and the prophecy, has been waiting for Garion for millions of years.

So how does this work out in the story? How does this conscious prophecy interact with other characters? As already described, sometimes it talks to Garion and instructs him. Sometimes it speaks through Garion directly to other people. It is able to influence and manipulate other people directly – it is not restricted to being inside Garion’s head.

This sounds quite all-powerful, but it must be remembered that there is an alternate prophecy of equal power working against the prophecy in Garion’s head. And there are certain things that are forbidden or impossible, even for the prophecy. The prophecy itself argues that the very term ‘prophecy’ is misleading, as nothing is said about which prophecy will win or lose, and nothing about the future is certain – there are two possibilities for everything. The confrontation between the Child of Light and the Child of Dark is going to happen, the whole universe is rushing towards it, but no-one can predict the outcome.

One of the most interesting moments comes when a throwaway remark from a minor character causes an event that changes the course of the story. It is discussed that the throwaway remark might have been the only reason the minor character was born in the first place. As one character comments, ‘the prophecy leaves nothing to chance’. The prophecy does everything it can to make things ready for the final confrontation, but in the end, no-one knows what will happen until it happens.

I must admit that I am not as expert on The Belgariad as on Harry Potter. But as far as I can work out, the role of the prophecy is to direct events so that the crucial characters are ready for the confrontation when it occurs – that they have had the right experience, they know what they need to know, and they are in the right places at the right times. The prophecy cannot do anything, but it influences people as necessary to make sure everything is ready, and the alternate prophecy is doing exactly the same. Another important point is that the major characters on the ‘good’ side are aware of the prophecy and are cooperating with it, they are not merely puppets. The prophecy cannot force anyone to do anything, but it influences where it can.

Comparing the two

In The Belgariad the prophecy is a conscious personality, one of two destinies, trying to set things up to its own advantage. One of the two prophecies will be fulfilled, and one will not. If Garion’s prophecy is fulfilled, things will look very different from what will happen if it is not fulfilled.

In Harry Potter, the prophecy is a prediction that may or may not be fulfilled. The fulfilment or otherwise determines the fate of many characters. In a way, the only difference is the consciousness of the prophecies. In both stories, characters can choose to follow the prophecy or not, but the fact that The Belgariad’s prophecy is conscious means that it has much more of a direct say in what happens. This is paralleled in Harry Potter by the character of Dumbledore, who knows the prophecy and helps Harry deal with it, giving him advice and instructions. The combination of the spoken prophecy and the character of Dumbledore combine to have a similar role to that of the conscious prophecy in The Belgariad.

One of the main themes in Rowling’s books is that of fate and choice and she is clear to make the point that characters are able to make choices. The Harry Potter books are anti-fate. The Belgariad, on the face of it, seems more pro-fate, but reading carefully I see that it is not. To me, the prophecy in The Belgariad is very like some views of God. He will speak to people, try to reason with them and give them advice, even instructions, but he will not force them to do anything. He is like the chess grandmaster who can see the big picture of the game of life, can predict the opponents moves and is ready with an infinite number of counter-moves, but when it comes down to it, he lets people make their own choices. Very like the character of Dumbledore.

There are also Christian parallels in the Harry Potter ideas of fate and choice. Harry is clearly a messianic figure and just like Jesus (and Garion), he finds himself to be the potential fulfilment of a prophecy, but the prophecy does not force him into any particular course of action – he chooses his path for himself.

Harry, Garion and Jesus are all the subjects of a prophecy, they all have roles in saving the world in some way, they are all guided by seemingly omniscient characters (Dumbledore, the conscious prophecy, his Father), and they all make their own choices about how to live their lives and how (and even whether) to fulfil the prophecy made about them.

Film ending songs

2011-01-27T17:22:00.000Z

Here is a tentative stab at the best five film ending songs, i.e. the song played at the end of the film, as the credits roll. So, as yet in no particular order:

May It Be - Enya - The Fellowship of the Ring
Gollum's Song - Emiliana Torrini - The Two Towers
Into the West - Annie Lennox - The Return of the King
Now We Are Free - Lisa Gerrard - Gladiator
The Call - Regina Spektor - Prince Caspian

The question is, is it significant that they are all performed by women?

How clean is heaven?

2011-01-27T17:18:00.001Z

http://asbojesus.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/badnewsgoodnews.jpg

Do you agree with this? I think I do. I've been thinking a bit about heaven lately, and what it will be like. I anticipate a potential post entitled 'Will we poo in heaven?'

Oscars 2011

2011-01-25T18:31:00.001Z

Here's who I would pick, for the categories I can be bothered to write about. Note that I haven't seen every film in the nominations, so these views are slightly flawed but as always highly opinionated.

Best Picture - Inception. I've heard that The Social Network is very good but, frankly, if it was as good as Inception, someone would have tied me down and forced me to watch it by now. I've yet to see The Fighter, and I expect that to be excellent, but I'd be amazed if it was quite as good as Inception. Black Swan is quality, but not quite that quality. The King's Speech, other than the acting, is very mediocre. True Grit is by the Coen Brothers, and is therefore rubbish.

Best Director - Christopher Nolan (Inception). Yes I know he's not nominated, but he should still win. Of those who have been nominated, I could cope if Darren Aronofsky, David O Russell, or David Fincher won. Just please, not the Coen Brothers.

Best Actor - Colin Firth. No debate.

Best Actress - Natalie Portman. One reviewer summed it up as a 'career-defining performance'. Fact.

Best Supporting Actor - Christian Bale. He is going to be awesome in The Fighter.

Best Supporting Actress - Amy Adams. She is also going to be awesome.

Best Original Screenplay - Christopher Nolan (Inception). By a mile.

Best Animated Film. Toy Story 3, obviously. Pixar should never, ever lose this award. Unless it's up against Shrek 1.

Best Adapted Screenplay - The Social Network. I've heard this is excellent.

Best Art Direction - Black Swan (not nominated, but since when did I care?)

Best Cinematography - Inception. Do not argue.

Best Sound Mixing - Inception. I said, do not argue!

Best Sound Editing - Inception. You have been warned.

Best Original Score - Hans Zimmer (Inception) You get the message? It's one of the greatest films EVER.

Best Film Editing - Inception

Best Animated Short - Day and Night (Inception was neither animated nor short)

Best Visual Effects - Inception

Totals: Inception wins 9, The King's Speech wins 1, Black Swan wins 2, The Fighter wins 2, The Social Network wins 1, Toy Story 3/Day and Night wins 2. I missed out Best Song, Best Costumes and Best Makeup, plus all the random ones.

I doubt this will come true, and therefore I will disagree, as I always do, with the award. Oh well, I'm happy knowing that Inception is amazing, The King's Speech is overrated, and the Coen Brothers are crap.

3 down, 3 to go

2011-01-22T00:05:00.000Z

In the last two weeks I've been to the cinema three times.

First up was 127 Hours, starring James Franco as the bloke who goes trekking, gets trapped in a gorge for 127 hours and has to cut his own arm off to escape. The film is a good watch. The fact that the amputation scene is famous is important, because if you know it’s coming (as I did), it adds a lot of suspense the film. James Franco gives an excellent performance, especially considering he has no other actors with him for most of the film. At 90-odd minutes, it’s not excessively long, and the momentum and pace is maintained despite the relative lack of anything happening. The main weakness with the film is that, basically, nothing happens. The plot is tiny. The direction isn’t anything to write home about either. But Franco is very impressive, and the soundtrack is also very good. A decent film.

Next was The King’s Speech – about the stammer of King George VI and his struggle to overcome it. Yes, Colin Firth really is as good as people say. His performance alone makes the film worth watching. Geoffrey Rush and Helena Bonham Carter are also as brilliant as ever. The performances, as in 127 hours, are the reason to watch the film. The script is good, and very funny in places, but held back by a frankly uninteresting and very obvious plot. Therefore, massive respect to the actors for holding my attention (if a film has a poor plot, that is normally enough to turn me off). Another decent film.

Finally, Black Swan – with Natalie Portman as a ballerina cast as the lead in Swan Lake, whose paranoia develops into disturbing hallucinations. I joked before seeing the film that I was going to watch Portman go insane for two hours, but that really does summarise the film. Again, the performances are excellent, particularly Portman herself. Choreography, design, camerawork, costumes, music – all great. This film is full of suspense, a real squirmer. It’s not easy to watch at all, and frankly makes a mockery of the classification system, being a 15 despite explicit violence, language and sex. Oh, and drug use (nearly forgot). But it is really, really good. The best film so far this year.

I don’t think I’ve ever been to the cinema this regularly before. But it’s nice. And there are another 3 films I hope to see soon: Hereafter, Never Let Me Go, and The Fighter. I shall let you know my thoughts in time.

Deathly Hallows alternative version

2011-01-03T14:12:00.000Z

I never thought I’d write this post, for two reasons:

1. I never thought I’d read the thing I’m about to review.

2. Even if I did read it, I never thought I’d be this positive about it.

I have just finished reading a 660-page fan-written version of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. It was written before the real book seven was released, and is the author’s version of the book.

I was emailed the PDF document by a good friend who knows my love of Rowling’s books. He had received it from another friend who claimed it was ‘even better than Rowling’s version’. Of course, this is both madness and heresy, but it caught my interest enough to make me read it.

Given my very low opinion of fanfiction in general and my hatred of all things commercialising the HP books, it is very surprising that I have anything positive to say about it.

The plot generally goes down the ‘destroy the horcruxes’ line, and this quest forms the backbone of the book. Most of the fleshing out is character-based, rather than more backstory. This has pros (I always love character development), and cons (JKR is all about backstory, so this book feels incongruous with the rest).

The book is mostly from Harry’s point of view, but Ginny and Hermione (and possibly Ron, I can’t remember) get sections too. This is a nice change, but like the lack of backstory, makes it stylistically different from JKRs books, where (apart from a few lines in book 1), the only non-Harry POVs are from minor characters (Frank Bryce, the Muggle Prime Minister, Narcissa Malfoy).

The book reads in a not dissimilar way to the real HP books. The writer has a similar style to Rowling and clearly knows the characters and first six plotlines well. The meaning of Dumbledore’s phrase ‘in essence divided’ (book 5, chapter 22) is explained, for example. Characters such as Fleur, Umbridge, Pansy Parkinson and Percy are nicely developed.

A few incidents are out of character, but that is to be expected from fanfiction. Sometimes incidents are included for no bigger reason than to include them – they don’t tie in with the overall plot – here is part of the genius of Rowling – everything affects the plot. In this version, it doesn’t.

Of course, this wouldn’t be a Ben Jiggins review without some heavy criticism, so, things that were disappointingly poor:

There were no mention of the Deathly Hallows – given that this is the title of the book, this is a pretty enourmous oversight on the part of the author.

The vast majority of the character development is based around the romantic relationships of Harry, Ginny, Hermione and Ron. While mostly adequately done, this is not JKRs style and,frankly, stinks of cheap fanfiction. Other character development includes everyone neatly paring off. Vomitacious.

Some important characters get little or no page time. These include Hagrid, Neville and Luna.

Wormtail is not redeemed. He does not fulfil his debt to Harry. An idiot could have predicted that he would do so at some point and in some way, but this writer missed it.

There is no explanation of the famous ‘gleam of triumph’ (book 4 chapter 6) – this was a classic discussion point pre-book 7, but this writer just ignores it.

The manner in which the horcruxes are destroyed is too convenient. Essentially, they can all be destroyed by the creature that is guarding them. This is neat, but way to easy. And yes, I know that in the real book 7 Ron speaking parseltongue to access basilisk fangs is laughable, I agree. But I’m currently reviewing this fan-written book, not JKRs version.

The explanation given for why Dumbledore trusted Snape so much is hugely inadequate.

There is no explanation of the significance of Harry’s eyes.

One particular revelation about Dudley is appallingly ridiculous, and it’s conclusion is painfully poor.

Like in JKRs version, there weren’t enough deaths, and the deaths that there were were mostly very minor characters. It was too neat and not bittersweet enough.

Having said all that, I was mostly impressed. I didn’t realise fanfiction could have this much quality. While there were no actual jaw-dropping moments, there were several that raised my eyebrows or made me gasp. The tension and menace in certain parts of the book was real and gripping. The book was enjoyable to read.

I don’t think this will persuade me to read any more fanfiction, certainly not for the moment, and I don’t think it has enhanced my enjoyment or understanding of the original series. But it has definitely influenced my opinion on fanfiction as a concept, and for that, it was a worthwhile read.

Soundtrack of 2010

2010-12-31T15:38:00.004Z

Following my soundtracks of 2008 and 2009, here is 2010. It's a shorter list than normal, I'm not sure why. Links go to Youtube videos. Alternatively, search Spotify.

Anberlin - Dismantle.Repair
Classic Anberlin - quality rock music and lyrics with depth. The drums alone are excellent, but the vocals and guitars complement them and each other perfectly. The relentless repetition of the chorus from 3.15 onwards is brutal and inspiring. D.R links wonderfully with 'Fin', the following track on the album.

Athlete - In between 2 states
This track has no lyrics so it is unexpected that it draws my attention so strongly. For some reason, this song just got inside my head this year. It's the best instrumental opening track to an album that I know of. I only wish it lasted longer!

Athlete - Rubik's Cube
What excellent imagery (listen to it and you'll understand)! Genuinely superb. Very clever, and the song builds brilliantly. A song you can lose yourself in. A high point of the Black Swan album.

Evanescence - My Immortal
An old song, but wow. The simple piano, the famously haunting vocals, the subtle build through the bridge, and *that* crash at 3.04 - the best musical explosion ever? Certainly a contender I think. This song not only made my soundtrack of the year, but also entered my 'contenders for greatest song of all time' list.

Hurts - Devotion
This song makes the list because I think it is the only song I've ever heard that treats lust as a problem to be dealt with. A refreshing change from most popular music. It also has an interesting (and I think very wise) idea of how to battle it. Big respect to Hurts for this one.

Jesus Culture - Your love never fails
Jesus Culture both inspire and annoy me, but this song definitely falls into the 'inspire' category. Musically and lyrically it does everything that Jesus Culture do best. As a congregational song it could work but would be tricky, but as a standard piece of Christian rock worship, it is exemplary.

Muse - Invincible
Yes, I know you know who Muse are and I know you know this song. It's one of their most famous. But I just love the unabashed positivity. It brings a nice change from Muse's usual mood. It has the upbeat optimism of cheesy pop, but without any of the cheesiness or poppiness. A great example of Muse's quality.

Muse - Map of the problematique
Very different from Invincible, but no less excellent. Musically, possibly my favourite ever Muse song. It is not possible for me to not get excited about this song. The beat, the drive, the riffs, all of it. And at 2.18, an incredible moment of music.

Sixpence none the richer - Still Burning - sorry for the lame video, it was the only one I could find!
Lovely, just lovely. I struggle to find other words. Beautiful song. I won't try to preach from it at the moment, but one day I might.

Sixpence none the richer - Tension is a passing note - video is a cover but an ok one
What an interesting idea...'tension is to be loved when it is like a passing not to a beautiful chord'. This song never ceases to make me think.

StrangeDay - Wonderful - no video available
A wonderfully positive song. Fun, catchy, upbeat, great melody, and a really good message. Unfortunately you can't hear it, but trust me, it's a great song.

The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

2010-12-13T20:02:00.000Z

The latest Narnia film is the best, but the least faithful to the book. It is the best, in fact, partly because it is the least faithful to the book. Allow me to explain by means of a short review and some comments on adapting novels to films.

The latest Narnia film is good. Its particular strengths are:

Peter is gone. This is the biggest strength, because William Moseley was shocking.
The effects look good, on a par with Prince Caspian, which is an improvement on The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.
There is only one lame gag (when Eustace faints after seeing a minotaur).
Eustace (Will Poulter) is excellent. Fact.
The adaptation is good (see below).

Its weaknesses are:

The adaptation is not perfect (see below).
William Moseley's face appears on screen at one point.
They're still trying to force romance into the films.
At the end of the day, the stories aren't outstanding - what makes the books so good is the theological depth. This depth is seen to an extent in the films but is limited.

The adaptation:

The book is essentially a series of tenuously connected island episodes. It has very little plot. The overarching storyline is the search for the seven lost lords, and it's just not very good. The film needed to adapt this plot. Therefore they added into a driving force to the plot and changed the order of the islands.

The driving force that was introduced was the idea of an evil dark island (the island of nightmares from the book), which produced a green mist which acted as the embodiment of evil throughout the film. The quest was to find the seven swords of the seven lords, which would enable to dark island and the mist to be destroyed. The mist was introduced at the lone islands and explained at the dufflepud island. Then came deathwater island and dragon island (merged into one island), Ramandu's island and dark island - the order is changed to make the plot work.

Other than that, the incidents at the islands are similar to in the book. The exceptions are that the Lone Islands section is condensed, so the overthrow of Gumpas and appointment of Lord Bern is excluded, and that Ramandu does not feature, his daughter takes his place. Both of these are mistakes. The Lone Islands now seem rushed and the only reason for Ramandu's exclusion is that his daughter is prettier.

The adaptation gave the story drive, momentum and purpose and gave it more of a climax than the book.

If this film had stuck to the book like the first one did, it would be a very poor film. What works in books doesn't always work in film, obviously. Prince Caspian did the same thing - it is the weakest of the seven books, because very little happens, so the film-makers fleshed it out with an extra couple of battles. To the purists out there, this is called adaptation. It is necessary. LOTR did exactly the same thing, e.g. the removal of Tom Bombadil. Adaptation sometimes works well and sometimes doesn't. With The Dawn Treader, it generally worked well. Not perfectly, but well.

Mingling

2010-12-13T17:51:00.000Z

A question, about which I have been cogitating for a while, but which came up in conversation this weekend:

What is the minimum number of people required for one to be able to 'mingle'?

This can be taken further:

What is the definition of mingling?
What is the minimum number required for mingling to be (a) possible, and (b) guaranteed.
How does (a) the physical position (e.g. walking, sitting, standing), (b) the location (e.g. indoors or outdoors, amount of space) and (c) the context (e.g. party, meal, chilled gathering) affect the answers to question 2?
Is there a formula to predict the likelihood of spontaneous mingling being (a) possible and (b) guaranteed in any given group situation.
Should I do a PhD in this?

Answers on a postcard. Or just in a comment.

Athlete gig review

2010-12-02T09:28:00.000Z

I went to see Athlete last night. Only 6 out 11 of us made it. Damn snow.
Anyway, it was very good. Two supports, who got on slickly and didn't play for overly long. Stoney were very good, probably the best support I've seen since The Kissaway Trail a few years ago (coincidentally at the same venue). Alice Gold was ok, fairly average support.

Athlete opened with only Joel on stage, with an acoustic guitar. He played You Got The style - it was very cool but the crowd were appalling. It was a bit empty due to the snow, but even so...it felt like I was the only one singing and indeed, when Joel stepped back from the mic so the crowd could sing a line alone, they did not sing! However, it was a cool way to start the gig. Then the rest of the band came on and went into Superhuman Touch and Hurricance, both of which sounded good and were fun. Then Twenty-Four Hours took me by surprise. It's not one of my favourite songs of theirs, but they played it brilliantly and really built up the second half. I actually felt my jaw dropping. One of the highlights, and the most unexpected.
Then came Beautiful and Black Swan Song - both great singalongs, both nailed by the band. The crowd were a bit more into it by this point. It had also become clear by now that one thing that was making this a decent gig was the lighting - it's hard to describe and I'm in a lazy mood, but it was some of the best gig lighting I've seen. Tres bon.
Anyway, the second half of the gig then mellowed out a bit - Back Track was lots of fun, El Salvador was very well received, then Tokyo, Out of Nowhere, Westside and Tourist. Then came the Outsiders. This one was excellent, really cool, and they played the long outro which was good to see. Finally Wires (obvious but good ending) - the crowd were much better by this stage and were singing along heartily. The song ended with only Joel on stage again, playing a repeat of the middle eight.
The encore was excellent too - The Getaway, Half Light and Chances were three of the best all evening so we finished on a high. Chances in particular was a great way to end.
The band performed well. There wasn't quite enough adaptation of the songs for my liking, but Joel is a great frontman and there were all good to watch. Plus the lighting was awesome.
Highlights: 24 Hours, Beautiful, and the last 5 (Outsiders to Chances).

Inner circle review

2010-12-02T09:13:00.000Z

Warning: this post displays epic geekery.

I categorise bands/artists that I like into three 'circles'. The inner circle are my very favourite bands. I just love them. The second circle are other bands I think are very good. They generally fail to get into the inner circle for one or more of three reasons: they have not produced enough music yet; their music is too variable in quality; or I just don't quite like their music enough. The third circle are other bands that I like and regularly listen too.

Today there is are to alterations to the inner circle. Anberlin are moving back into the second circle, on the basis of a relatively weak 5th album and a slightly disappointing gig. Athlete are moving into the inner circle.

This leaves this inner circle as: Athlete, British Sea Power, Delirious, Idlewild, Lifehouse and Mew.
The second circle is: Bloc Party, Coldplay, DCTalk, Easyworld, Editors, Enya, Feeder, Muse, Anberlin, Matt Redman, Oasis, Sigur Ros, Stellastarr* and U2.

Sledging fail

2010-12-02T08:57:00.000Z

Yesterday I went sledging with some friends. The slope we were using had two sections. I was completely unable to get onto the lower section. I'd either stop early or slide of the edge. For some reason, this got inside my head and I got really frustrated. I didn't care about doing the lower section, or I'd have just started halfway down. I just wanted to try the whole thing. My friends gave me advice but nothing I tried made any difference. I tried different starting positions, different amounts of leaning, different positions on the sledge, different sledges, different leg positions. No win. What frustrated me was not that I couldn't get onto the lower section. It was that I wasn't improving. There was nothing I could do to get there.

It's a bit like losing a competitive sport match. There are two ways of losing - losing because you played badly, or losing because the opposition were simply too good. I think most people prefer to lose by just being outclassed, because they want to have played as well as they can. I disagree. I would prefer to lose because of playing badly, because then at least I can go away and improve, I know there is something I can do to change things next time. I don't like losing at all, but especially if there is nothing I could have done to do better. Just like the sledging - I hated being unable to change anything to improve.

Snow (2)

2010-11-27T18:27:00.000Z

Last winter, I wrote about how snow has the potential to bring out the best in people.
This winter, I want to mention how it can also bring out the worst in people. For example, throwing snowball at innocent strangers' cars, houses, or bodies. Or leaving Tesco carpark littered with trolleys. This saddens me.

Complete albums

2010-11-22T14:15:00.001Z

You know how some albums somehow seem more complete than most? Either because of the themes running through the songs, or the clever track ordering, or some mysterious x-factor which makes the album hang together beautifully.
I surveyed my music to find which albums seem particularly 'complete' in this way. This is not the same as looking at which albums are the best. 'Completeness' is only one aspect of what makes a good album. You may notice the absence of excellent albums such as Californication, Viva La Vida, Silent Alarm, The Decline of British Sea Power, World Service, An End Has A Start, Origin Of Symmetry and others - great albums, but lacking this particular factor.

'Complete' albums are:
Cities - Anberlin
Beyond The Neighbourhood - Athlete
A Weekend In The City - Bloc Party
Glo - Delirious
Pushing The Senses - Feeder
Can I See Heaven - Heat
The Remote Part - Idlewild
No Name Face - Lifehouse
Sam's Town - The Killers
The Friendship And The Fear - Matt Redman
Frengers - Mew
And The Glass Handed Kites - Mew
Takk - Sigur Ros
October - U2

Albums that came close, or were just spoiled by the odd song:
Black Swan - Athlete
Lifesong - Casting Crowns
A Rush Of Blood To The Head - Coldplay
Jesus Freak - DCTalk
This I sWhere I Stand - Easyworld
A Day Without Rain - Enya
Franz Ferdinand - Franz Ferdinand
Happiness - Hurts
100 Broken Windows - Idlewild
Absolution - Muse
Black Holes and Revelations - Muse
(What's The Story) Morning Glory - Oasis
By The Way - Red Hot Chili Peppers
Escape - Sabio
() - Sigur Ros
Harmonies For The Haunted - Stellastarr*
Falling Down - Steve
Empty - Tait
Tom + Olly - Tom + Olly
Achtung Baby - U2
All That You Can't Leave Behind - U2
How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb - U2
Revived - World Wide Message Tribe

Looking over these lists, I notice that I have something close to a list of my favourite albums. Which suggests that, for me, 'completeness' in an album is a very important factor in how much I like that album.

Deathly Hallows Part One

2010-11-22T13:32:00.000Z

To everyone (individuals, websites, magazines etc.) saying that the latest Harry Potter film is good/impressive/brilliant/insert any other positive word here.

It is too late.

Maybe they've learnt to act now. Maybe the characters have depth now. Maybe the effects are convincing now. Maybe the makers have learnt to adapt the novels now.

It is still too late.

It's one big saga, not 8 isolated films. Just because one bit is good doesn't make the rest of it good. Just because a mindless action film has one good chase scene, that doesn't make it a good film.

The filming of the Harry Potter books was doomed from the start, for reasons described here. The fact that the films are improving doesn't stop them from being a disaster.

Swimming

2010-11-22T11:19:00.000Z

They say that swimming is really good for overall fitness. Now I see what they mean.
I've just been swimming (proper lane swimming) for the first time in my life, in an attempt to stay fit while injured. I was in the pool for 20 minutes and now my whole body hurts, and I have a headache. I hope I get better at this.

Power to the referees

2010-11-21T22:42:00.001Z

So, Scottish football referees are planning to strike next weekend because of the criticism and threats aimed at them by some clubs/players/managers/fans.
People are giving them criticism for making mistakes.
They are making mistakes because (a) they are under a lot of pressure, (b) they are often deceived by players cheating - by diving, by not owning up to fouls or handballs, and (c) they do not have the technological help that is available in other sports and is required in football.

Several things must be done.
Firstly, hawkeye-style replays must be allowed. For goalline incidents and other incidents in the penalty box. Referees should be allowed to us TV replays. The argument that this would stop the flow of the game is nonsense. TV replays would be far less disruptive than the current arguments when a decision is questioned. For decisions that the referees do not use replays for, each captain should get, say, one appeal per half, like in tennis.
Secondly, blatant diving and simulation should be a red card offence rather than yellow. Over-the-top theatricality after a minor foul should be a yellow card offence (therefore a referee could give a freekick to the attacking team for a foul by the defending team, but also book the attacking player for making a meal of it).
Thirdly, only players involved in an incident, plus the captains, should be allowed to speak to the referee. If any player is abusive or disrespectful to the referee, they should be booked.
Fourthly, if a player is booked or sent off for cynical cheating, diving or abuse, they should also pay a heavy fine, proportional to the league they are playing in. So premiership players should be fined about 2 weeks wages for being sent off for diving.
Fifthly, referees should have the power to retrospectively give red and yellow cards for incidents they did not see in the game.

In short, more power to the referees and less to the players.

Reluctant praying

2010-11-09T21:24:00.000Z

Why are most Christians (either in the world (I doubt), the West (possibly), the UK (likely), or my friendship group (it certainly seems so)) reluctant to pray? I don't mean in general, but in certain situations. Such as saying grace. Or 'opening in prayer' (or closing for that matter).
I think it might be because these situations happen so often that it seems hard to be original and to say something that doesn't appear mundane and generic. How many ways are there, really, to say thankyou for food? And opening in prayer is such a generic thing, 'thankyou that we can meet here together, please be with us and speak to us blah blah blah'. People don't like to volunteer for these things because they don't know what to say while still sounding genuine.
I don't know any solutions to this yet. But it's a bit worrying, and this is a bit of a tip of an iceberg-sized rant on prayer and how we do it, which is not yet formulated enough to write.

Halloween

2010-11-02T21:26:00.000Z

My objections to Halloween are not theological. I don't have a problem with dressing up as witches/monsters/vampires etc. It's just a laugh.
My objections to Halloween are social. In what other context would it be acceptable for children (and sometimes adults) to approach the houses of complete strangers, knock persistently and aggressively on the door, and expect to be given sweets? It's incredibly rude when you think about it. I object to this.

Disappointing films

2010-11-02T21:15:00.001Z

Warning: spoilers below

Last week I watched two films: The Illusionist and Kick-Ass. Both were disappointingly...well, disappointing.

The Illusionist looked good - a bit like The Prestige, but with Edward Norton and Jessica Biel. It started well and kept me interested. The problem was that it just didn't work.
Basic plot: Magician (Norton) and princess (Biel) fall in love, but she is betrothed to the prince. They fake her murder (by the prince), then the magician puts on lots of shows before running away with the princess.
This doesn't work for three reasons:

After faking the murder, the magician hangs around for literally years, for no reason other than to put on shows that involve seemingly conjuring dead spirits. Why didn't he just run off with her straight away? No explanation given.
Some of the magician's tricks are explained. Fair play. But the conjuring spirits thing, which is the main trick in the film, is not explained at all. Frustrating.
Throughout the film we are lead to believe that the princess is dead. The fact that she isn't is revealed in the final scene as the chief of police pieces together the evidence. However, he didn't actually discover any of this evidence himself, it just 'appears' in his mind in the last scene. Completely unconvincing.

Kick-ass was a film I wasn't sure about but I was told it was very entertaining. Basic plot: teenager decides to try to become a superhero, discovers other people are doing a similar thing, and gets mixed up in battling a gang.

The main problem I had with kick-ass is that it didn't seem to know what genre it was trying to be. There were elements of superhero, epic action a la Matrix, comedy, romance, spoof, high-school movie. But none of these held any water because there were so many other things going on. The only styles that could have really worked were comedy and spoof. The problem is, it just wasn't that funny.

The frustrating thing about all this is that both films had potential to be decent films. Both failed to fulfil. Disappointing. Does anyone agree with me about these two films? Or did anyone come to a different conclusion about them?

Injury

2010-10-26T10:54:00.000+01:00

Fact 1: I like sport, a lot. I like watching it and playing it. This year, I was hoping to do 6 sports regularly.

Fact 2: I have chronic tendonitis in my left knee. I've had it for about 10-12 years but it's got a lot worse in the last 12 months or so.

Fact 1 + Fact 2 = Decision 3: I went to see a physio, who recommended reducing activity and gave me stretches and exercises to do.

Decision 3 = consequences 4: I am only doing 3 sports, having dropped running, cycling and breakdancing; and 5: I am doing half an hour of stretches and exercises a day.

Fact 6: Consequences 4 and 5 do not seem to be helping, my knee is getting no better.

Fact 6 leads to possibility 7: I need to further reduce sport, to allow my knee to heal more effectively.

Possibility 7 leads to implication 8: I may stop playing football and volleyball, and just play frisbee, until my knee is better.

Implication 8 causes likelihood 9: I will get bored and frustrated. I am already bored and frustrated at having to drop running, cycling and breakdancing. I will not be pleasant to be around if I have to drop football and volleyball too.

Likelihood 9 results in requests 10: if you pray, please pray for my knee; and 11: if you have any practical suggestions, either about how to help my knee or about how to deal with lack of sport in my life, please let me know.

The Sunshine Underground

2010-10-25T17:17:00.000+01:00

This is a band I recently discovered after hearing one of their songs on Spotify at a friends house. Apart from having a really cool name, they also make quite good music.

To be perfectly blunt, I don't really know how to describe them. Indie-rocky-dancy-techno-ish I guess. Somewhere between the Klaxons and Franz Ferdinand maybe? They're not superb, I'm not going to rave about them as if they were about to become one of my favourite bands ever, but they are definitely worth a listen. They're a lot of fun. Spotify them. The best tracks are: Wake Up, Borders, Panic Attack, Spell it out, Change your mind, Here it comes, One by one, The Messiah.

Unique feelings and GCUFC

2010-10-25T17:05:00.002+01:00

You know there are some things that cause unique feelings, that aren't replicated anywhere else?
Some of mine are:
Boxing day
The smell of Hebron Hall
Seeing teenagers worship
The final scene of LOTR
A new season for Grey College Ultimate Frisbee Club

The last one has happened recently. I'm now in my 8th season playing for GCUFC. The uni team asked me to join, there were several opportunities to leave, but, although I want to be as good at frisbee as I can, I want to do that with GCUFC. And I love it at the start of the season when we start playing again after the summer and when freshers turn up to learn how to play. I love teaching new players and watching them learn and improve.

Happiness by Hurts - album review

2010-10-25T16:51:00.000+01:00

I discovered this band when I saw my sister and brother talking about them on Facebook. The usual research on Spotify followed, and then a purchase from Amazon.

I'll be the first to admit that Hurts are not my usual sort of band. As my sister commented, they are a bit poppy for my usual tastes. I'm not sure why I took to them really. Some of it (mainly Blood, Tears and Gold, but also Stay) is definitely a bit poppy for me, but most of it I really enjoy. I guess it's just a bit different. Elements of modern pop, but also some nice drum rhythms and cool synth work in there. It doesn't sound like much else.

Interestingly, the second half of the album is definitely stronger than the first. Illuminated and Evelyn are haunting, Better than love so 80s it's amazing, Devotion is on my soundtrack of 2010, to be publicised in a couple of months, and Unspoken and The Water are just gorgeous. Whereas the only standout track from the first half is Sunday.

If you'd like to listen to something a bit different, give Hurts a try. Don't be put off if you don't like some of it, I reckon there's enough good songs in there to make it worth your while and your money, and there are two or three absolute gems.

There are far better reviews than this on the internet - NME's is the best but the link broke just as I was trying to insert it here. Sorry about that.

3-track sequences

2010-09-24T17:58:00.000+01:00

While listening to Bloc Party's 'A weekend in the city' yesterday, I was reminded of how brilliant the three track sequence from tracks 8 to 10 is. The led me to ponder other three track sequences that I adore.

I decided to browse my music collection and note down such sequences. I expected to find maybe 20 or so. I found 88. 88! Insane! Many of those consisted of more than 3 tracks, some even hit double figures, several accounted for entire albums or almost entire albums. And this is not counting the many superb songs I know that just don't happen to occur as part of such sequences on their albums.

I am once again amazed at (a) how much awesome music I own, (b) how lucky I am to own it, and (c) what a huge effect music has on me.

If anyone is interested, the sequences are below. Apologies for the lack of consistency in capitalisation.

Anberlin – Cities – Godspeed/Adelaide/A whisper and a clamour

Anberlin – Cities – Inevitable/Dismantle.Repair/Fin

Anberlin – New Surrender – Breaking/Blame Me! Blame Me!/Retrace

Ash – Free All Angels – Walking Barefoot/Shining Light/Burn Baby Burn

Athlete – Beyond the Neighbourhood – Airport Disco/It's not your fault/The Outsiders/Flying over bus stops/Second Hand Stores

Athlete – Black Swan – Superhuman Touch/The Getaway/Black Swan Song

Athlete – Tourist – Wires/If I found out/Yesterday Threw Everything At Me

Bloc Party – Silent Alarm – This Modern Love/Pioneers/The Price of Gas

Bloc Party – A Weekend in the City – Song for Clay/Hunting for Witches/Waiting for the7.18/The Prayer/Uniform

Bloc Party – A Weekend in the City – Kreuzberg/I Still remember/Sunday

Bluetree – Greater Things – Life's Noise/Burn Me Up/For You

British Sea Power – The Decline of British Sea Power – Fear of Drowning/The Lonely/Carrion/Blackout/Lately/A Wooden Horse

British Sea Power – Do You Like Rock Music? - Lights out for darker skies/No Lucifer/Waving Flags

Casting Crowns – Lifesong – Praise You in this Storm/Does anybody hear her?/Stained glass Masquerade

Coldplay – A rush of blood to the head – In my place/God put a smile on your face/The Scientist/Clocks

DCTalk – Jesus Freak – Coloured People/Jesus Freak/What if I Stumble?

DCTalk – Jesus Freak – In the light/What have we become?/Mind's eye

Delirious – Glo – God you are my God/Glo in the dark part 1/God's Romance/Investigate/Glo in the dark part 2/What would I have done?/My Glorious/Everything

Delirious – King of Fools – Sanctify/Deeper/Revival Town

Delirious – King of Fools – White Ribbon Day/King of Fools/History Maker

Delirious – Kingdom of Comfort – God is Smiling/Give What You've Got/Love will find a way

Delirious – Mezzamorphis – The Mezzanine Floor/Heaven/Follow/Bliss

Delirious – The Mission Bell – Miracle Maker/Here I am Send Me/Fires Burn/Our God Reigns

Delirious – World Service – Rain Down/God in Heaven/Majesty/Inside Outside

Easyworld – This is where I stand – Try not to think/100 weight/Junkies and Whores/This is where I stand/A stain to never fade/Demons

Editors – The Back Room – Lights/Munich/Blood

Editors – An End has a Start – Smokers outside the hospital doors/An end has a start/The weight of the world/Bones

Enya – A day without rain – A day without rain/Wild Child/Only Time

Evanescence – Fallen – Going Under/Bring me to life/Everybody's Fool/My Immortal

Feeder – Comfort in Sound – Just the way I'm feeling/Come back around/Helium/Child in you/Comfort in Sound

Feeder – Pushing the Senses – Feeling a Moment/Bitter Glass/Tumble and Fall

Franz Ferdinand – Franz Ferdinand – Take Me Out/The dark of the matinee/Auf Achse

Heat – Can I See Heaven – One Sacrifice/Can I see heaven/In love with God/To love you more/Arms of love/Arise and Shine/Can I see heaven part 2

Idlewild – 100 Broken Windows – Little Discourage/I don't have the map/These wooden ideas/Roseability/Idea Track/Let me sleep

Idlewild – Make another world – You and I are both away/Ghost in the Arcade/Once in your life/Finished it remains

Idlewild – The Remote Part – You held the world/A modern way of letting go/American English

Idlewild – The Remote Part – Tell me ten words/Stay the same/Scottish Fiction

Idlewild – Warnings/Promises – El Capitan/Blame it on the obvious ways/Disconnected/Goodnight

Kato – Welcome to my world – Natural High/Javaman/Heaven Help

Killers – Hot Fuss – Jenny was a friend of mine/Mr Brightside/Smile like you mean it/Somebody told me/All these things that I've done

Killers – Sam's Town – Sam's Town/Enterlude/When you were young/Bling/For reasons unknown/Read my mind/Uncle Jonny/Bones

Lifehouse – No Name Face – Hanging by a moment/Sick cycle carousel/Unknown

Lifehouse – No Name Face – Only One/Simon/Breathing/Quasimodo/Somewhere in between/Everything

Lifehouse – Smoke and Mirrors – Halfway Gone/It is what it is/From where you are

Live – Birds of Pray – Heaven/She/The sanctity of dreams/Run Away

Matt Redman – Facedown – Facedown/Breathing the breath/Mission's Flame

Matt Redman – The Friendship and the Fear – There is a louder shout to come/Believer/Bowing Down/Deep calls to deep

Matt Redman – The Friendship and the Fear - Knocking on the door of heaven/Once again/Can I ascend/Can we walk upon the water/The way of the cross/I need to get the fire back/The yoke is easy/The friendship and the fear/In the waiting

Matt Redman – Intimacy – The heart of worship/Now to live the life/For the cross

Matt Redman – Passion for your name – It's rising up/The cross has said it all/I will offer up my life

Matt Redman – We shall not be shaken – We shall not be shaken/Through it all/You alone can rescue

Matt Redman – Where Angels Fear to Tread – Blessed Be/Befriended/When my heart runs dry

Mew – And the glass handed kites – Circuitry of the wolf/Chinaberry tree/Why are you looking grave/Fox cub/Apocalypso/Special/The zookeeper's boy

Mew – Frengers – Am I wry? No/156/Snow Brigade/Symmetry/Behind the drapes/Her voice is beyond her years/Eight flew over, one was destroyed/She came home for Christmas/Shespider/Comforting sounds

Muse – Absolution – Apocalypse Please/Time is running out/Sing for absolution/Stockholm Syndrome

Muse – Absolution – Butterflies and Hurricanes/The Small Print/Endlessly/Thoughts of a dying atheist

Muse – Black Holes and Revelations – Take a bow/Starlight/Supermassive black hole/Map of the problematique

Muse – Origin of Symmetry – Plug in baby/Citizen Erased/Micro cuts

Muse – The resistance – Uprising/Resistance/Undisclosed desires/United states of Eurasia/Guiding Light/Unnatural selection

Oasis – Be Here Now – D'you know what I mean/My big mouth/Magic Pie/Stand by me

Oasis – (What's the story) Morning Glory – Hello/Roll with it/Wonderwall/Don't look back in anger

RHCP – By the way – Cabron/Tear/On Mercury

RHCP – Californication – Around the world/Parallel Universe/Scar Tissue/Otherside/Get on top/Californication/Easily

Sabio – Escape – Mother/Frozen/Carry me

Santiago – Dance – Fade/Ne Puritans/Pyrotechnophobes

Sigur Ros - () - Vaka/Frysta/Samskeyti

Sigur Ros – Takk – Takk/Glosoli/Hoppipolla/Meo Blodnasir/Se Lest/Saeglopur/Milano/Gong

Sixpence none the richer – Divine Discontent – Still Burning/Melody of you/Paralyzed

Stellastarr* - Harmonies for the haunted – Lost in Time/Damn this foolish heart/The diver/Sweet troubled soul/Born in a fleamarket/On my own

Stereophonics – Roll up and shine/The bartender and the thief/Hurry up and wait/pick a part that's new

Steve – Falling down – Zealous core/My ever my all/M/Fine/Falling down/Divine design/Smile/Hunger/Hey now/I am here

Strangeday – Blink and miss it – Lead me on/Fearfully, wonderfully/It'll be alright/Trust in you/Wonderful

Tait – Empty – Spy/Talk about Jesus/American Tragedy

Tait – Empty – Carried away/Empty/Unglued

Tim Hughes – Here I am to worship – Maker of all things/May the words of my mouth/Here I am to worship

Tim Hughes – When Silence Falls – Beautiful one/You/Consuming fire/Giver of life/Whole world in his hands

Tom and Olly – Tom and Olly – Little things/Daydreamer/Trouble/Let me tell you

Tom and Olly – Tom and Olly – Love at the disco/Sun is shingins/Dream of change/Paint a smile/Jamie/City stars/Falling

U2 – Achtung Baby – Zoo station/Even better than the real thing/One/Until the end of the world

U2 – All that you can't leave behind – Beautiful day/Stuck in a moment/Elevation/Walk On/Kite

U2 – All that you can't leave behind – New York/Grace/Ground beneath her feet

U2 – How to dismantle and atomic bomb – Vertigo/Miracle drug/Sometimes you can't make it on your own

U2 – How to dismantle and atomic bomb – City of blinding lights/All because of you/A man and a woman/Crumbs from your table

U2 – The Joshua Tree – Where the streets have no name/I still haven't found what I'm looking for/With or without you

U2 – Gloria/I fall down/I threw a brick through a window/Rejoice/Fire/Tomorrow

U2 – War – Sunday Bloody Sunday/Seconds/New year's day/Like a song

World wide message tribe – Techno intro/Reach for heaven/In my life/Alleluia

World wide message tribe – The cross/Life/O come all ye faithful

I wish kids were more confident

2010-09-11T17:31:00.000+01:00

This week, I had PCC (PSHE (Personal, Social and Health Education), Careers and Citizenship) with my form - yeah, that's why we call it PCC. It really boring, except for the times you get to talk about sex drugs and rock'n'roll.
Anyway, at the start of the new year I decided to do a lesson about looking back on last years achievements and setting targets for the future. At one point I got them all to write down, individually, 3 things they were good at. They then showed the list to a friend, who was to add one more thing to it. I then asked for some volunteers to tell everyone what was on their list. No-one volunteered.
My form aren't particularly shy, and it was very unusual that no-one wanted to speak (though, in this circumstance, I wasn't surprised). I asked then why no-one volunteered. Various answers were 'it can come across as arrogant', 'people might disagree with you' and 'it's not very modest'
This frustrates me - that kids aren't confident enough to admit to others what they are good at, and that they worry about what people will think of them if they do. I know it's important not to brag about one's attributes and skills, but I think it's important to be able to acknowledge and admit them.
It's partly the old 'British modesty' thing, and it's partly that people just aren't confident enough about themselves.
If I could change one thing about the world, I would raise everyone's self-esteem.

The crux of deathbed regrets

2010-09-08T16:57:00.003+01:00

A post from the master of graphs and Venn diagrams, Jessica Hagy.

http://thisisindexed.com/2010/09/the-crux-of-deathbed-regrets/

If you can get your head around it, it's a good point well made.

Twilight

2010-09-02T13:19:00.001+01:00

I read the Twilight Saga this summer. I wanted to know what all the fuss is about. Now I've read them, I'm still not sure what all the fuss is about.

I guess they're easy to read, which helps with the whole popularity thing. There's kissing and fighting, so maybe something for everyone?

But generally, I found the series unfulfilling, disappointing and unconvincing, mainly for the following reasons.

The classic vampire mythology (coffins, stakes etc.) is dismissed as (I quote) 'all myth', allowing Meyer to set up her new 'sexy vampire' mythology. This is convenient but flawed, because now I could write a book about vampires and dismiss classic vampires and Meyer's vampires as 'mythology' and write that real vampires are actually made of jelly and smell of lavender, and actually prefer a diet of lettuce and rubber. That Meyer shows such disrespect for the fantasy/horror genre mildly insults me, and I'm not even a particularly ardent fan of that genre. Compare with (inevitably) Rowling, who takes the original mythology of ghosts, werewolves, dragons, sphinxes etc, and applies it to her stories, while maintaining the integrity of the original myths.
The story centres around the relationship between Bella and Edward, which is fine – it's basically a romance story. Not particularly my thing, but that's ok. But their relationship is portrayed as so perfect! When they're together, they never seriously argue, or if they do it's written in a very light-hearted way. Also, Bella's descriptions of Edward focus on his 'perfect, godlike body' and 'flawless, angelic face'. Only once that I can remember does she describe what she likes about his character, and that is only when someone directly asks her. This is all both vomit-inducing and unrealistic, and basically emotional pornography.
The story, while easy to read, is mostly slow paced. For large sections, nothing actually happens. There's no pace or excitement, which is a bit of a problem for novels that try to mix the genres of romance and fantasy. Only for a few chapters part way through book 4 was I really gripped, and that was possibly because the focus was off the two rather boring lead characters and on Jacob, who is way more interesting but gets much less page time.
Several times, questions were set up and kept me pondering, and then never actually answered. For example, the question of exactly why Bella smells so good to both Edward and James is set up in book one, as though it will be revealed later and will form a vital plot point or twist. In fact, it is never revealed. This is very disappointing. Again, contrast with Rowling, who sets things up in one book and reveals their importance 4, 5, 6 books later.
Most of the story is written first person from Bella's point of view. A short section is from Jacob's POV – this is a really nice change but unfortunately comes across as gimmicky because it is the only other POV used and is relatively short. If the books had had several POVs, or if Jacob's POVs had been more like 40-50% of the series, it would have worked. Written as it is, it doesn't.
There are so many deus ex machinas! For example, how the two alpha's discover they can communicate, how Nessie can communicate to Bella and not get stopped by Bella's shield, and, the massive one, how Jacob imprints on Nessie (disgustingly and unconvincingly convenient) – I thought Meyer was having a laugh and was about to say 'only kidding, that would be stupid!'
By the fourth book, the series had become something of an X-men ripoff. Every other vampire has some sort of superpower (the origins of which are disappointingly not explained) and all the talk is of how to combine the powers to win the battle and how to take out the enemy vampires with key powers etc, etc. All very well but painfully unoriginal.
There is no payoff at the end of the story, no climax. Everything is set up nicely for a big confrontation, and then they all say sorry and go home! No-one even dies (well, only one minor character who we've never actually met before and therefore have no attachment to). An incredibly weak ending.

Overall, a big disappointment. Ok, so I wasn't expecting a masterpiece, but I also wasn't expecting to be so continually disappointed and bored. It seemed as though some author somewhere had written some really good books, and I was reading some trashy fanfiction based on them.

Reviews such as 'Move over, Harry Potter' are at best laughable and at worst blasphemous, and I side with Stephen King, who said "the real difference between J.K. Rowling and Meyer is that Jo Rowling is a terrific writer, and Stephenie Meyer can't write a darn. She's not very good."

Lifehouse Intros

2010-08-24T18:45:00.000+01:00

I have a friend called Joe. There are many reasons that I like Joe. One reason is that he doesn't get annoyed by my habit of creating lists and rankings of bands, songs, films, books, sports teams etc. A second reason is that he actively encourages me and does the same himself. It often gets silly – a couple of weeks ago we were debating the 'Five Greatest Lifehouse Intros'. After some cogitation, here is my ranking – not just 5, but 10 (I am so cool...).

Quasimodo
Take Me Away
Disarray
Blind
Smoke and Mirrors
Just Another Name
Spin
Anchor
Easier To Be
Unknown

Inception

2010-08-23T17:25:00.000+01:00

Warning: Some spoilers below. If you haven't seen this film, don't read on. Watch it instead. At least twice. Here's the trailer, if you're interested.

Inception, directed my Christopher Nolan (Memento, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight) and starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Cillian Murphy and Ellen Page, is the story of Dom Cobb (DiCaprio), an 'extractor', who can enter people's dreams and extract information from their minds – kind of psychological espionage. Cobb and his team, including Aridane (Page), are hired to perform 'inception' – the opposite of extraction – the planting of an idea in a target's (Murphy) mind without detection.

It's basically a crime/action thriller, with some psychological stuff thrown in. There is plenty of action and suspense, but with a very complex plot that makes the heist in Ocean's Eleven look painfully obvious. Added to these are brilliantly conceived ideas about how dreams work and a very personal story following DiCaprio's character.

The film was well received by critics and the public (87% on Rotten Tomatoes). In my opinion, it is about 50 times as good as Avatar and an early contender for film of the decade. It is genuinely one of the best films I have ever seen. That's one reason I saw it 3 times at the cinema (an honour only otherwise given to the three Lord of the Rings films). The other reason is that there's so much in the film that second and third viewings were necessary – the second to completely get to grips with the plot and themes, and the third to look out for hints about a theory a friend and I had about the film.

I will now attempt to explain exactly why the film is so good.

The plot. The storyline is involved and gripping. It is complex but well-explained. It makes you concentrate but doesn't make concentration a chore. There is plenty of suspense, but it is genuine rather than forced and interspersed with humour.
The concept. The idea of sharing dreams and extracting and planting information is interesting but fairly unremarkable, but the way Nolan incorporates so many features of dreams (e.g. they seem real while you're dreaming, they seem to last a lot longer than the 5-minutes or so of real time that you dream for, you start in the middle of a dream and can't remember how you got there) is very clever and makes the concept convincing. Combined with the complexity of the plot, this makes you think a lot and gives plenty to talk about.
Ambiguity. The ending is ambiguous and open to interpretation, but not in intriguing rather than an annoying way. In fact, the whole film can be interpreted in various ways. This has given rise to multiple internet discussions and theories in a very similar way to The Matrix about 10 years ago. Again, this makes you think hard, which most people don't do enough.
Cobb's story. Dom Cobb (DiCaprio) has a very personal motivation for taking the job offered to him, and his story (and backstory) gives the film a very personal angle as well as the standard heist/action stuff, and also adds a lot of suspense and tension, shown in the interactions between some of the team.
Score. The music is by Hanz Zimmer, who I consider to be one of the top 3 composers in film. In many films the music is good but nothing to write home about, but Zimmer's score is excellent and really adds to the mood of the film.
Effects. One effect in particular – a hotel corridor with gravity that keeps changing direction, filmed in a revolving set. This produces one of the coolest fight scenes ever.

Seriously, make sure you see this film – you won't regret it.

Films of the decade

2010-08-22T22:26:00.000+01:00

Having produced a series of 'Albums of the Decade' posts at the end of 2009, I thought I should also produce a 'Films of the Decade' list. I tried to do this, but couldn't get 10. I either got stuck on about 4, or, having included a few more, rapidly shot up to about 15. So instead of going for the best films of the noughties, I've picked out 10 films from that decade that, for various reasons, you should watch. This is not my top 10 (you'll notice an absence of Stardust, Shrek 2, The Prestige, Equilibrium and others that would have been contenders). Instead, it's just 10 films I recommend that you watch, if you haven't already. Films in alphabetical order. Links take you to trailers.

A Beautiful Mind (2001)

Because it's some of the best writing and acting of the decade and because it's a superb portrayal of John Nash's life.

Bridge to Terabithia (2007)

Because it's jointly the most moving film I've ever seen (with Return of the King) and because its message is an important one. Review here.

Gladiator (2000)

Because it's just awesome - acting, script, action, music...you name it.

The Lord Of The Rings (2001-2003)

Because it's the best damn film ever. Do not argue with me!

Memento (2000)

Because the storytelling style is so unique and because it will make you think hard, which is something you don't do enough.

Moulin Rouge (2001)

Because of it's unique wackyness and because it's actually a really good film too.

Shrek (2001)

Because it's the one of the cleverest films of the decade, and also very funny and moving.

The Dark Knight (2008)

Because it's almost the perfect action film, and because Christopher Nolan deserves to be on this list twice.

The Last King of Scotland (2006)

Because even though I'm not very into this sort of film, this one gripped me, and because the lead actors are superb.

Up (2009)

Because it represents so much about Pixar – excellent animation, the ability to make moving films about animated characters, and their strongest theme of unlikely friendships.

Playground games

2010-08-22T18:11:00.002+01:00

I'm just wondering...what are your top five playground games? I think mine are:
1. Bulldog
2. Forty-forty home
3. Build up tag
4. Off-ground tag
5. What's the time, Mr Wolf?

...and all the Kings men

2010-07-27T15:25:00.000+01:00

About a year ago, I read a book called 'Why Men Hate Going To Church', by David Murrow. It was basically about why and how the church is geared more towards women than men. One thing the book discussed was the relative proportions of women and men attending church services.

I decided to find out what sort of 'gender gap' my own church, Kings Church Durham, has. Each Sunday service from September 2009 to July 2010 I counted the number of over-18 men and women at Kings. I decided on the over-18 cutoff because young children are generally brought to church by their parents, rather than of their own accord and, while teenagers tend to have more choice, I had to make a cutoff somewhere.

I counted numbers at each different type of Kings meeting – Morning Worship, Crux, Connecting with God, prayer evenings, evening services, evening guest services and the AGM. I used the numbers to produce a simple percentage – the percentage of the congregation that were male. I also calculated a 'minus team percentage' – the percentage if the 6 female and 10 male staff and interns are discounted, as they are required at the services as part of the job.

All this resulted in many Excel spreadsheets and graphs, but the most important are below:

The average totals for each service are interesting but not that unexpected. For reference, the most people at any service was on 11^th October, at 313 people. This was the first Sunday of the student year. The highest at Crux was 48, Connecting was 149 and prayer meeting was 52.

The male percentages are much more interesting. Here they are in table form:

Service type	Male %	Male % minus team
Morning Worship	43.26	41.5
Crux	61.32	60.48
Connecting	41.61	38.59
Evening (joint)	39.66	34.51
Evening Guest	42.59	40.41
Prayer meeting	49.87	42.19
AGM	55.56	51.72
Average over all services	43.9	41.31

So, overall, Kings has averaged 43.9% this academic year (41.31 excluding team). Morning worship is typical of this percentage. Connecting, joint evening services and evening guest services are slightly lower. Prayer meetings, the AGM and Crux get successively higher, up to 61.32% male at Crux (60.48 excluding team).

A few comments:

Surveys seem to show that male % in churches is generally below 40%, so Kings is doing better than average, but still well below 50%.
Possible explanations for the variations in services are: Connecting and similar services have lower percentages because they are more 'emotional', crux is higher because it is more 'academic', prayer meetings and AGM are higher showing a balanced (or even male dominated) 'core' in the church but a female dominated periphery or studentdom.
This survey does not examine male percentages within certain age groups.
This survey is purely attendance based, it does not look at involvement in cell groups and other church activities (though I would hazard a guess that the only church activities which are male dominated are setup and worship).
The December 2009 address list give a male % of 44.29%. The most up to date cell list gives 43.93%. These are consistent with average service attendance.
Not all services were counted. Sometimes I was either absent or not in a position to count.

The overall message?

Kings, like almost every church, needs more men.
There is something about Crux, prayer meetings and the AGM that attracts more men than women.

Hebron memories

2010-07-27T15:20:00.000+01:00

Long time, no blog. It's been a busy few weeks with moving house, my housemate's wedding and the end of term. But here are the summer holidays. 6 weeks until school restarts.

At this time of the year, I would normally be in Dinas Powys in South Wales, a few miles outside Cardiff, leading a Scripture Union camp called Hebron. I've been to Hebron ten times, but 2009 was the final time we ran it. For various reasons, it was decided that Hebron would cease to run from 2010.

I heard this news in November 2009. It has taken me this long to write about it because I wanted to let the news sink in completely first. This has taken a while because of the deep impact Hebron has had on my life over the last decade.

I first went to Hebron in July 1999. I'd had a rough year at school (year 9), and did not enjoy my church at all. I was vaguely adolescent which just made me feel weird too, as it does to all teenagers.

I went to Hebron that year with 2 friends, Daniel and Tom. I won't try to describe what the camp was like, partly because I am nowhere near eloquent enough to do it justice, and partly because each Hebron year tends to fade into several others. But I remember a few things specifically, from that first year and the following two.

I met a whole bunch of people who were in the same situation as me – struggling at school, trying to hold together a faith, and just looking for some support or even just someone to say 'me too'. Rob, Kirsty, Jo and Paul are all people with whom I am no longer in touch, but they had a deep effect on my life over those three years.
My friends from camp, and also the leaders, loved me for who I was. This sounds cliched, but I hadn't reached the stage at school (an all-boys grammar school) where proper friendships had formed. At Hebron they did, and I was accepted for being me, not bullied into being someone else. The leaders in particular were inspirational in their love, service and respect for us.
I really connected with the worship times at Hebron. The worship at my home church was a complete turn off but at Hebron, like at Spring Harvest, I met with God in ways that I didn't elsewhere.

Hebron 99, 2000 and 2001 saved my faith, for the reasons above and for other reasons. It changed my life. I remember the 5-a-side football competition, the puppet workshops and performances (Heavenly Pie!), the BBQ on the lawn, round the table table tennis, going to see Shrek and The Phantom Menace at the cinema, visiting the Big Pit, Nexus, Rob climbing inside the pool table, buzz groups, wallball (the greatest game you've never played), Paul's hair, the shadow wall at Techniquest, breakfast talks, pitch and putt at Barry Park, Colin yelling 'Freedom!' and nearly giving us all a heart attack, Phil and Becky just sitting with me for about an hour on the last night of 2000, Matt's underwear theft, signing notebooks (in the days before MSN!), trying to sneak into the girls corridor, and last-night testimonies showing how it was my no means just me who owed their faith to that camp.

For the next seven years I returned to Hebron as a leader. I'd done a bit of youth work before, I was in love with Hebron, and I felt like I owed about 50 weeks of leadership and service to it. I knew leading would be different and tried not to draw comparisons with being a camper. But, me being me, I inevitably compared and the conclusion was clear. Being a leader was what it was all about for me. I was wired just right to be a leader on that camp. It was completely natural for me, and, while I've done youth work in lots of other contexts, I've never felt the same way about it as while I was at Hebron. Many of the most emotional times of my life have been when leading at Hebron. What made it so significant?

It was a chance to give back to the place, the people and the event that had changed my life. It was a chance to work with teenagers, who are far more interesting and exciting than adults. I worked on a team with some great friends like Becky, Dan, Dave and Ruth, Paul, Jenny, Amy, Matt and Phil. And worked under two of the most amazing Christian leaders I know, Colin and Margy, learning from them and being guided and encouraged by them. I could to use my gifts in preaching, organising and puppetry(!). I saw so many lives changed over those seven years. I saw people meet God for the first time, meet him in new ways, recommit their lives to him, discover his calling on their lives, grow in knowledge and giftings, and build such strong friendships with each other.

I remember blaring music on the minibuses, powerboating in Cardiff bay, the prayer tents, death swimming, shower pranks, washing up teams, the animal game on the sofas, running the bank, building towers of squash bottles, trying to learn the names of 65 teenagers on the first day, wandering round Cardiff city centre, sardines, football on the beach, piggy-backs in the sea, telling the doughnut story and explaining that God owns all your jeans, late night walks with other leaders, early morning prayer meetings, booking cinema tickets for 80 people, getting a turkey at tenpin bowling and beating Tom by a point, sleepovers in Rising Brook church, finding out that Dan lived with Aaron from Strangeday, Father Abraham, the prayer evening in 2007, sleeping in the tiniest room with Dan and Paul, the lying down game, fancy dress parties, Phil's 50^th birthday. Most of all I remember watching kids worship. This is still one of the things that is most guaranteed to make me cry – seeing teenagers worship. My favourite photo in the world is of one of the worship times at Hebron 2005.

Hebron had an unexplainable impact on my life. Colin and Margy were like parents to me when I was there, and I can't thank them enough for all the support and opportunities they gave me. I am still very sad that Hebron is over, but very grateful for the effect it has had on me.