Music that I need

Sometimes I’m sad/stressed/fed up/depressed. Just generally down. I have created a playlist to listen to at these times. Sometimes I listen to it on shuffle, sometimes I select certain songs. Here is the list, though more songs will probably be added over time:

Here without you – 3 Doors Down
Enough – Barlow Girl
Your Love – Bluetree
Praise you in this storm – Casting Crowns
Hollow – Cathy Burton
The Scientist – Coldplay
What if I stumble – DCTalk
The weight of the world – Editors
I want tomorrow – Enya
Only time – Enya
Child in you – Feeder
I’m happy to be here tonight – Idlewild
Worlds apart – Jars of clay
Simon – Lifehouse
Broken – Lifehouse
Easier to be – Lifehouse
Run to the water – Live
They stood up for love – Live
Never let go – Matt Redman
The Father’s song – Matt Redman
Blessed be – Matt Redman
Perfect time – Maire Brennan
At the foot of the cross – 100hours
Underwhelmed – Quench
Blessed tune – Rock’n’roll Worship Circus
Escape – Sabio
Control – Sabio
Mother – Sabio
Frozen – Sabio
Carry me – Sabio
Melody of you – Sixpence NTR
A million parachutes – Sixpence NTR
Will you be there – Skillet
Run – Snow Patrol
Chasing cars – Snow Patrol
Lost in time – Stellastarr
Love and longing – Stellastarr
A friend of mine – Strangeday
Fogpilot – Strangeday


Now a few comments:

1. Yes, Sabio really are that good, though only about 7 people in the world seem to have heard of them. I’ll write about them sometime.
2. If there is such a thing as a 2 hit wonder, Snow Patrol may be it. Run and Chasing Cars are huge, the rest of their stuff is mediocre.
3. Some of the most intense songs I have ever heard feature here – namely Worlds Apart, Simon, Mother and A friend of mine. These songs are just so emotionally draining just to listen to, it’s insane. But so good.

Does anyone else have certain songs or playlists like this? I'm talking the type of songs that just pick you up and calm you down when you need it?

No Name Face

There are some albums that sometimes I just need, that’s medically need, to listen to.

These are:
Escape (Sabio)
The Friendship and the Fear (Matt Redman)
Divine Discontent (Sixpence NTR)
A Day Without Rain (Enya)
Jesus Freak (DCTalk)
No Name Face (Lifehouse)

The greatest of these is the last. No Name Face is Lifehouse's first album from 2000.



Of 14 tracks, only 1 (Somebody Else’s Song) does not make me think ‘I LOVE this track’, and it’s still a really good song.

A total of 6 of the songs (Hanging by a Moment, Sick Cycle Carousel, Simon, Quasimodo, Everything and Fool) are of the level that makes me liable to crash while driving. These 6 would all be contenders for a 20-track CD of my favourite songs ever. 6 out of 20 from one album is insane.

The other 7 songs (Unknown, Trying, Only One, Cling and Clatter, Breathing, Somewhere In Between, What’s Wrong With That?) are all easily in my ‘amazing’ category. These are all songs that would dominate many albums, yet they’re all on this one album, and aren’t even in the top 6 on the album!

My latest attempt to rank the 14 tracks, for anyone who cares (that’s you Joe), is:

Quasimodo
Simon
Sick Cycle Carousel
Everything
Fool
Hanging by a Moment
Only One
Breathing
Cling and Clatter
Unknown
What’s Wrong With That?
Trying
Somewhere in Between
Somebody Else’s Song

But that’ll probably change. Anyhow, the album is amazing. It is also, interestingly, the most expensive album I have ever bought - £16.99. Bargain!

Richard Dawkins - The God Delusion

Richard Dawkins eh? Who doesn’t have an opinion on him? Christians can’t stand him, because he attacks them, theologians can’t stand him, because he’s a lame theologian (being a biologist and all), scientists can’t stand him, because he twists scientific theories to try to disprove the existence of God and discredit any form of religion.

Actually, what I just said was a gross generalisation. It’s true that Christians do generally despise Dawkins, as do many theologians. However, while some scientists think he’s a complete idiot, others don’t have a problem with him. But the generalisation I just made is exactly the sort of think Dawkins does in his latest book, The God Delusion. This is the first of his books that, by his own admission, actively sets out to convert people from religion. And it is full of sweeping rhetoric, backed up by incomplete and often simply incorrect facts and logic. He seizes on any piece of evidence that supports his doctrine, and ignores anything else. Not a great scientific method really. A large proportion of the book is Dawkins citing various problems with certain religious beliefs or practices, which leads him to conclude that all religion is completely evil. Classic.

I could write for hours on the errors in the book, but it’ll be more interesting to highlight some of the things Dawkins does well. By the way, I’ll assume that if you’re religious, you’re not creationist. That’s a whole different blog, one I’m not inclined to write at the moment. So I’ll assume you might believe in God, but you are also happy with evolution is some form. So, the three things Dawkins does well in the book…

After the introduction, Dawkins spends a chapter critiquing the respect that society gives to religion. This is something that I think has been nudging away at my subconscious for a while, but it wasn’t till I read The God Delusion that my thoughts were clarified. Dawkins points out that religious faith is treated as if it is ‘especially vulnerable to offence and should be protected by an abnormally thick wall of respect’. We feel happy to argue and debate heatedly about Labour vs Conservative, war in Iraq vs no war, Chelsea vs United, Windows vs Macinthosh, but as soon as we talk about religion or faith or even the origins of the universe, people seem very concerned to give a huge amount of ‘respect’ to others and are much less inclined to engage in intellectual debate.
You can’t defend uttering public statements such as ‘homosexuals will burn in hell’ by claiming freedom of speech (because that doesn’t include hate speech), or freedom of prejudice, but you could claim ‘freedom of religion’. Religion trumps all!
The bottom line is that religions, like any other theories, philosophies or schools of thought, should be (but generally aren’t) critiqueable and open to debate, and should, frankly, be able to defend themselves without whining ‘but you’re insulting my beliefs’. Can you imagine such a phrase carrying any weight in any other argument? But where religion is concerned, people seem to think we have to give beliefs an extra-wide berth, no matter how ludicrous or even evil they may be. Religion and faith must accept that they, like everything else, must be open to scrutiny.
This is Dawkins’ first point, and I wholeheartedly agree with him.

The second of Dawkins’ ideas with which I agree is that many classic arguments for God’s existence are rubbish. Dawkins easily dismantles Aquinas’ five proofs, the argument from beauty, the argument from personal experience, and Pascal’s Wager. None of these hold water.
Unfortunately he also tries to tackle the argument from scripture, claiming that the New Testament is in all likelihood historically very inaccurate. Big error there. He doesn’t give any sources, so I couldn’t follow it up, but various pieces of evidence, summarised here, indicate that they are in fact accurate.
Because he skims over this issue, he manages to completely ignore the argument from Jesus, which is possibly the only argument that he could not defeat (more on this later).

The third, and last, thing Dawkins does well is the science. He is a very good evolutionary biologist, and in chapter 4 (idiotically titled ‘Why there is almost certainly no God’), he explains how the argument of irreducible complexity is flawed. Irreducible complexity is the idea that certain biological structures, such as the eye, could not have evolved bit by bit, because they require all their many parts to function – to remove just one would stop it working, i.e., it is irreducibly complex. Dawkins brilliantly explains the flaws in this argument, from an evolution point of view. It’s clear that when he’s talking about what he actually knows about, he is very, very good. By the way, he also explains that evolution is not based on ‘chance’, as is commonly thought, but is actually a highly systematic process. For this argument alone everyone should read this book. It will make you understand how evolution, a concept that in the scientific world carries as much weight as the existence of the atom, really works.
Incidentally, for anyone who goes on about how the theory of evolution is ‘only a theory – it hasn’t been proved’, I would like to point out that, in science, a theory is ‘a coherent group of general propositions used as principles of explanation for a class of phenomena’ (Dictionary.com). This does not mean it hasn’t been proved. It’s just the way scientists talk. It’s like the theory of gravity, the theory of relativity, particle theory, the theory of evolution. Just different bits of science.

Now we come to the central theme of the book. Dawkins’ writing goes something like this:

Anything that has been created is less complex than its creator. A creator cannot make something more complex than itself.

So far so good. As Dawkins says, the horseshoe doesn’t make the blacksmith. Next…

The universe is incredibly complex. Some people try to explain its existence in terms of a creator (God). But this God would have to have been created by something even more complex. And this God-creator would have had to be created by something even more complex. Where does it end? The problem of complex existence just escalates and is never answered.

Yep, that’s it. Dawkins’ proof that God doesn’t exist is the classic seven-year-old playground line ‘so who made God then?’
I have to admit that my flabber what slightly ghasted. The might of one of England’s greatest scientific minds can come up with nothing better that ‘so who made God?’
Of course, the problem is that Dawkins approaches the problem from a completely scientific point of view, and doesn’t allow for the idea that there could be things that are not physical and material. He makes no allowances for the supernatural or for an eternal God. The discourse continues…

Darwinian evolution by natural selection, however, provides a mechanism whereby more complex things evolve from less complex things. Evolution, not God, is the explanation for the universe.

This is very interesting. As a sincere scientist and a sincere Christian, I completely agree with Dawkins that evolution explains the diversity of life in the universe. I agree with him that, even though physics has not yet produced evidence of how the universe itself started, and chemistry has not yet produced evidence of how the first lifeform came about, this does not discredit the fact that the production of the universe and everything in it could one day be explained by scientific theory.
However, this does not prevent the possibility of a supernatural world, angels, demons, or God. The best evidence for the existence of God is not that the world exists. The best evidence is Jesus (I told you we’d come back to him – now we’re here).

It has been said that the historical figure of Jesus as recounted in the (historically accurate) gospels and other ancient sources, could either truly be God, or else insane or a con man. Not strictly true. He could also be genuinely mistaken (though this might come under a mild form of insane). But he certainly wasn’t just a good man or a wise teacher. He certainly was both those things, but not just them.
The sheer volume of crazy miracles that happened around him, the revolutionaryness of his teaching, the number of prophecies, over which he had no control, that were fulfilled in him, the fairly weighty evidence pointing towards his resurrection, the way he treated both his friends and enemies, all add up to a lot of evidence that Jesus of Nazareth was indeed God on earth.
This can’t be scientifically proven, like the fact that there is a sun, but I reckon it’s a lot of evidence. Enough to stop anyone conclusively saying ‘there is no God’. Jesus provided enough evidence to at least make a question of it.

In the end, when Dawkins sticks to what he knows about, he’s great. But he really doesn’t know enough about religion, or maybe he just ignores vast amounts of it. If you’re not religious, The God Delusion is worth reading for the science, but not for the attacks on religion. I’m sure you can some up with better evidence against God if you wanted to. If you are religious, it’s worth reading, again for the science, but don’t get too frustrated or offended by the rest of it. It’s better to laugh at Dawkins than take him too seriously.

Reasons why Enya is great

1. Her music is unarguably beautiful. I know of no-one who would deny this.
2. Her songs have been featured on all sorts of films ant TV programs (most famously The Fellowship of the Ring), and she was asked to write the score to Titanic.
3. She is statistically Ireland’s second biggest musical export, after U2. In most other countries, other than UK and USA, she would be first.
4. She sings in ten different languages: English, Irish, Latin, Welsh, Spanish, French, Japanese, and three invented languages (Loxian, Quenya and Sindarin). That is genius.
5. She has become so iconic of new age chillout music that such huge songs as Adiemus (by Karl Jenkins/Adiemus) and Now We Are Free (by Lisa Gerrard), are frequently attributed to her.
6. When asked what genre her music belonged to, she replied “Enya”. That is so cool.
7. She has done all this without even giving live performances.

Give the kids more credit

There was a good article in the Metro today. Essentially it questioned the way we downplay academic achievements at GCSE and A level every year, because ‘the exams are getting easier’. We (society) give the youth of today all sorts of grief for 99% of the time, and when they do work hard and apply themselves for once, we don’t give them any credit. Is it any wonder that youth culture, and with it culture in general, is spiralling downwards?
It is true that the exams are easier than they were, but teaching is also better, and the emphasis is changing from knowledge to skills, which are harder to examine. It’s not as simple as easier exams, and we should remember to give teenagers credit for the work they do.
Truth.

Belbin Team Roles

Belbin team roles

I just did a little test in a book on teamwork, to find out my Belbin team role. It wasn’t an official test, but nonetheless fun and interesting. Apparently, my primary role is a shaper, followed by coordinator, implementer and monitor-evaluator.

According to Wikipedia…

The shaper is a task-focused leader who abounds in nervous energy, who has a high motivation to achieve and for whom winning is the name of the game. The shaper is committed to achieving ends and will ‘shape’ others into achieving the aims of the team. He or she will challenge, argue or disagree and will display aggression in the pursuit of goal achievement. Two or three shapers in a group, according to Belbin, can lead to conflict, aggravation and in-fighting.

A Coordinator often becomes the default chairperson of a team, stepping back to see the big picture. Coordinators are confident, stable and mature and because they recognise abilities in others, they are very good at delegating tasks to the right person for the job. The Coordinator clarifies decisions, helping everyone else focus on their tasks. Coordinators are sometimes perceived to be manipulative, and will tend to delegate all work, leaving nothing but the delegating for them to do.

The Implementer takes what the other roles have suggested or asked, and turns their ideas into positive action. They are efficient and self-disciplined, and can always be relied on to deliver on time. They are motivated by their loyalty to the team or company, which means that they will often take on jobs everyone else avoids or dislikes. However, they may be seen as close-minded and inflexible since they will often have difficulty deviating from their own well-thought-out plans.

Monitor Evaluators are fair and logical observers and judges of what is going on. Because they are good at detaching themselves from bias, they are often the ones to see all available options with the greatest clarity. They take everything into account, and by moving slowly and analytically, will almost always come to the right decision. However, they can become excessively cynical, damping enthusiasm for anything without logical grounds, and they have a hard time inspiring themselves or others to be passionate about their work.

How enlightening.

Bluetree - Greater Things

British Christian Rock is in decline.

The days of Kato, Steve, Quench, Bottlerockit, Jars of Clay, Jennifer Knapp, Rebecca St. James etc are gone, and the likes of YFriday are left trying to fly the flag alone.






















Of course, there is one band who were around before any of these and are still going strong. They have a total of 13 studio and 4 live albums, a mix of heavy rock and calm worship, and have broken into America. I’m talking, of course, about Delirious, who number among their songs such brilliance as Lord You Have My Heart, Thank You For Saving Me, Did You Feel The Mountains Tremble, Obsession, Deeper, History Maker, King or Cripple, Investigate, My Glorious, Awaken the Dawn, Rain Down, Majesty, Inside Outside, Now Is The Time and Our God Reigns. Just in case you needed reminding. Delirious have single-handedly dominated the British Christian Rock scene for well over a decade. No-one else comes close. Fact.

However, Delirious have announced that they will be finishing as a band at the end of 2009. That is going to leave a huge gulf in the Christian music market, and I wonder which new bands will appear to fill it.

Well, until someone realises how great Strangeday are, I expect that one such band will be Bluetree. Bluetree are a 6-piece from Northern Ireland, whose debut album, Greater Things has been out for a few months now. I genuinely think these guys could be as good and as big as Delirious. That’s how much I rate them.

Greater Things has 13 tracks, but given that track 8 is a one-minute interlude and track 13 is a remix of track 11, the album basically divides into two halves – tracks 1 to 5 are lively, upbeat, passionate, and tracks 6 onwards (with the exception of Standing Out) are more chilled, calm and reflective. The two halves are very different in style, but the quality runs throughout. The songs are slightly more ‘churchy’ than the usual Delirious stuff – more like the old Cutting Edge albums. Some of the songs could be used in worship sets, others as reflections, but all are God-centred, which tends to be fairly standard for Christian debut albums.






















I could go on with a detailed breakdown of the album, but I can’t be bothered. All I’ll say is:
1. Visit the Bluetree Myspace to sample three of the sample tracks, God of this City, Life’s Noise (the opening track) and Each Day.
2. Order Greater Things from Bluetree’s shop or Purashop
3. Go to the website to see what the band is all about
4. Enjoy the album!

This could be the biggest Christian album of the decade – no exaggeration!

England Football Team

This is what the team should be, assuming all players are available:

------------------------James-------------------------

Richards/Neville---Ferdinand--Terry/Woodgate---A. Cole

-----------2 of Hargreaves/Barry/Carrick------------

----Gerrard----------Rooney-----------J. Cole----

------------------Owen/Crouch


The full-back should be encouraged to play high up the pitch to provide extra width. The 2 central midfielders give extra defensive cover and act as the playmakers. Gerrard, Rooney and Joe Cole should mix it up. If Crouch plays, he is a target man and should not drop off too much. Ferdinand should be captain.

Thoughts anyone?

Olympic Thoughts and Awards

Now it's all over, I have some thoughts on the Olympics...

• I’d forgotten how much I enjoy watching athletics.

• The medal table should be done on points, with Gold = 3, Silver = 2, Bronze = 3. We still come 4th.

• I don’t care what anyone says, the athletics are the core of the Olympics – sport at its purest. The athletics matter more than any of the other sports.

• The only sports that should be in the Olympics are those where the Olympic Gold is the biggest thing you can win. Therefore football, for example, should be removed, because the world cup is bigger.

• Rebecca Adlington was brilliant. But she does not deserve to become a Dame.

• What was with the weird pig and monkey on the TV intro?

• The GB performance was very good. However, all we did was fulfil potential. Unexpectedly good performances came in gymnastics, womens 400 hurdles, mens high jump, boxing, sailing, swimming and taekwondo – about 8 medals. Disappointments were: heptathlon, 4 track relays, BMX, mens 800, womens 1500, sailing, mixed doubles badminton, gymnastics, womens javelin, womens marathon – that’s 13 just off the top of my head. We could have done so much better. Which shows the potential is there, it’s just about producing the goods on the day.

• Having said that, we still underperformed in the athletics. Danvers, Mason and Ohurogou were great, but Sotherton, Idowu, Radcliffe, Farah, Rimmer, Sayers, Tomlinson, Pickering, Baddeley, and all 4 relays were below par. This saddens me immensely.

• Horses failed drugs tests – that just makes me laugh.

• The opening ceremony was great, but no-one will EVER beat lighting the torch with a flaming arrow. Ever.

• When were flags invented?

• Volleyball is very cool; I would like to play it sometime.

• Diving commentator Leon Taylor is incredibly annoying.

• Why are records broken much more in swimming than anything else?

• Usain Bolt is a really nice guy.

• Kelly Sotherton made me cry.

• The judging in the boxing, diving and taekwondo was a joke, and clearly biased towards the host nation. Something must be done, though I have no idea what.

• The Jamaican Olympic team was 51-strong. 39 were sprinters. Wow.

• Beth Tweddle was robbed in the high bars. She did four moves which were harder than anything anyone else did, including an original move, and only made one mistake (a step on the landing). She came 4th. Robbed.

• Jake Humphrey is an excellent presenter

• Gabby Logan is a lot better on the BBC than ITV

• Adrian Childs has annoyed me for a long time, but he’s actually quite good as a vice-presenter. But he cannot anchor.

• Hazel Irvine is the greatest – she presented over 100 hours of live action from Beijing.

• Sue Barker is past it. She says ‘er’ too much.

• Lisa Dobriskey should win a gold medal just for being the sweetest person on the planet. However, what an error – she should have won, but got boxed in, twice, and then tried to overtake on the inside. Error.

• We could have got 4 medals in the track relays. We got none. That is not good enough.

• Do not select a heptathlete and an 800m runner in the 4x4 relay. You idiot.

• Michael Johnson is the greatest pundit, in any sport, ever. Fact.

• Sarah Stevenson’s story was crazy, but not the craziest. She was denied 3 points (one head shot and one body shot). But 17-year-old Aaron Cook was denied about 8 in his Bronze playoff. Bit of a sham.

• We compete as Great Britain, but have Northern Irish athletes in our team. Therefore we should really be competing as the UK, which includes GB (England, Wales and Scotland) and Northern Ireland. This angers me.

• The British national anthem at the closing ceremony had harmonies, and the second verse! And it sounded like a Christmas carol.

• Why Leona Lewis?! Get someone with a bit of pedigree.

• I think Beckham’s a great guy, but getting him in just to kick a ball is lame. Talk about milking it.

• The symbol of the London 2012 Olympics thus far is an umbrella. Great.

• The anthem should be changed for 2012, to Land of Hope and Glory.


And my Olympic awards...

Best British moment – Rebecca Adlington in the 400m freestyle

Best British overall performance – Chris Hoy. Three Golds, ‘nuff said.

Biggest British disappointment – Kelly Sotherton came 4th. I think this was her big
chance to win

Best British newcomer – Rebecca Adlington

Best international performances – Usain Bolt and Michael Phelps, obviously

Biggest farce – Sarah Stevenson and Aaron Cook, and the taekwondo saga

Best commentary – The athletics team. Always.

Worst commentary – Leon Taylor in the diving

Biggest hopes for 2012 – Martyn Rooney, Jason Kenny, Rebecca Adlington, Lisa Dobriskey and Tom Daley

Unluckiest moment – Shanaze Read – crashing in the heats, semis and final

Most jaw-dropping moment – when Sarah Stevenson was originally not given the quarter-final win

Funniest commentary – “Oh, what a dismount! That man deserves a biscuit!”

Random Humour

Christianity magazine sometimes has little cartoons. I found a couple of old ones which amused me...

(shown as a bookshelf)
Apocryphal books of the Bible not included in the final shortlist:
The Letter to the Editor
Psalm Like It Hot
Ready Steady Habakkuk
The Proverbs of Nancy
The Epistle to the Epistlonians
The Book of 1st Class Stamps
The Book of ASDA
The DaVinci Code: Revealed
The Gospel According to Gary
The Axe of the Apostles
The Catalogue of Argos
The Guinness Book of Records
The Illustrated 4th Book of Moses, commonly known as Painting by Numbers
The Jokes of John the Baptist - "You'll Laugh Your Head Off"


(with a picture of CS Lewis working at his desk)
One Evening, C.S. Lewis is struck by a brilliant idea for a series of books...
The Chronicles of Banarnaramia:
The Magician's Nostril
The Iron, the Fridge and the Bathrobe
The Horse and His Boil
Prince Caspar the Friendly Ghost
The Voyage of Dawn French
The Silver Stairlift
The Second to Last Battle
The Last Battle
The Timetable of the Last Train to Battle

Great Britain > Australia

The Aussies are clearly jealous of our current Olympic success, because their latest insult is 'You can only win when you're sitting down', referring, I assume, to our success in cycling and rowing. Indeed, as of 11.20 GMT 21/08/08, 19 of our 40 medals (47.5%) have come in these disciplines, plus canoeing and equestrian, which are clearly included in sitting down.
My initial comeback was "well you can only win when you're lying down". How mature of me. Indeed, looking at Australia's own tally, 21 of their 38 medals (55.2%) have come in swimming, triathlon and water polo, which involve lying down. That amused me.
Mock the Week tonight had a better comeback: "At least we're good in sports where humans are the best. Look at you - you're only good at swimming, and every fish on the planet is better at it than you!"
This could be extended - even Usain Bolt and the Jamaican sprint team would lose to a cheetah. Incidentally, did you know that Jamaica sent 51 sportspeople to the Olympics, 39 of whom are sprinters? Fact.
Anyway, put any animal in a boat or on a bike and they'd be stumped. So whatever the Aussies say, at least our heroes really are the best on the planet, not just the best of our species.
While I'm on the topic, if you were to enter an animal into each Olympic discipline, what would you choose and why?

Fast runners

Well done to Usain Bolt. Massive congratulations. Two Olympic Golds with two world records is unprecedented, and he looks able to go faster. And he’s only 21.

What makes him so fast? Easy – he’s 6 foot 5, and has very long legs.

Well, based on that theory, England striker Peter Crouch, at 6 foot 7, should be even faster, but in fact Crouch is slower than a lame, 3-legged, 90-year-old sloth.

Whenever I walk or run fast, people tend to complain that they can’t keep up because they have shorter legs. Tired of explaining their error, I’m writing my explanation down, so I can simply say ‘I refer you to my blog’.

Running speed is based on two things: stride length (the length of each stride, duh) and stride rate (the rate of strides, e.g. 100 per minute). To run faster, you can either take longer strides, or take them more quickly.

PhD studies show that up to speeds of about 6 metres per second, both these factors play a part in running speed, but above 6 metres per second, the factor that increases speed is in fact stride rate, not stride length. So if you want to run faster, take quicker strides. My long legs are of no help to me above 6m/s.


















If you are already bored of the science and maths, think back to Peter Crouch – why is he so much slower than England compatriot Michael Owen? Because Owen moves his legs faster, even though he has little legs.

On top of this, it is possible to overstride, which means taking strides that are too long for your body to cope with. This slows you down. There is an optimal stride length for each person. Mine is probably longer than yours, but that means that each of my strides takes more energy, because I move my leg further. Each of your strides takes less energy, but you can take more of them.

There is an argument that taking more strides is more tiring because of the energy needed to lift the feet against gravity. Probably true, but I suspect insignificant. If it was significant, Crouch would be faster than Owen, and you’d be Olympic champion.

I said I'd turn to Mexico

In an earlier rant, I said that if John Terry regained the England football captaincy I would start supporting Mexico.

Damn.

I was semi-serious, because of my disapproval of Terry, not only as a captain, but as a human being. I was pretty sure Rio Ferdinand would get the job, so wasn't too worried about making such rash promises. Now, however, Terry has been named captain by manager Fabio Capello.

Unfortunately I can't bring myself to abandon England, but I'm definitely not happy with the choice. Just wanted to reiterate that.

Dancing

A few definitions from Dictionary.com:
• to move one's feet or body, or both, rhythmically in a pattern of steps, esp. to the accompaniment of music
• to perform or take part in (a dance): to dance a waltz.
• a successive group of rhythmical steps or bodily motions, or both, usually executed to music.

I think the fist and third of these are inadequate because they would include tapping one’s foot as dancing. This certainly isn’t the way the word is commonly used.
It seems that when people talk about dancing they either mean performing or taking part in a dance (e.g. a waltz), or the improvised body movements that occur to popular music. It’s the second of these that I wish to discuss, and it’s a discussion that’s been brewing for years. Sorry to anyone who’s offended by it – none intended.

I don’t dance much. There are many reasons for this, one of which is that I don’t like the music. I struggle not to hit something when The One And Only is played, so I’m not about to stand up and start bopping with an expression of enjoyment on my face. I’m quite fussy about my music, and it’s usually not the danceable type. The main exception is ska music, though some people would debate whether skanking counts as dancing. Because I don’t dance much, I’ve had plenty of time to watch other people dancing, and I have made a few observations.

Some people are really good dancers – they are aesthetically pleasing to watch. These people are either technically really good, or very inventive (a friend of mine mimes every individual word in some songs, it’s genius).

Some people can get by – nothing impressive but not embarrassing to watch. They tend to wiggle a lot, and lead the way in the ‘organised dances’ (such as Reach for the Stars by S Club 7)

Some people are not very good dancers at all, but they know this and embrace it and have a good laugh at themselves. Much credit to these people.

Some people are really quite unconfident. They don’t appear to know what to do with their bodies and are actually quite hard to watch. They don’t seem to want to just dive in and see what happens and therefore adopt various coping mechanisms.

One coping mechanism is to form up in a large circle, facing inwards. These circles usually have a few people in the ‘can get by’ category (‘good dancers’ tend to be lone rangers). The unconfident seem to think that by associating with the can-get-bys, their incompetence and unconfidence will be overlooked. Because of the circular formation, participants can concentrate on singing to each other, so what the body is doing becomes less important. The dance moves themselves include swaying, bouncing on the toes, and swinging the arms.

Another coping mechanism is to ‘look cool’. This technique usually involves standing slightly slouched, with feet moving slightly, but with a determinedly relaxed expression. The key part is to survey what other people are doing and scan the outer perimeter of the room, in order to convince onlookers that you are completely unconcerned with what your own body is doing.

The most amusing coping mechanism to watch in action is the chatting. The unconfident dancer will try to wiggle for a few seconds, realise he or she is fighting a losing battle, and engage in brief (a few seconds) conversation with a nearby friend. This allows them to stop dancing for a few seconds.

In terms of relative abundance, most dance floors I have seen contain very large numbers (about 60-70%) of unconfidents, usually male. About 30% tend to be can-get-by’s and laugh-at-selves, with good dancers being very rare.
The unconfidents do not look happy to be there. They try to, but aren’t usually good enough actors. However the can-get-bys and laugh-at-selves encourage them enough to keep them there. If an unconfident is receiving individual tuition from a can-get-by, they tend to gain confidence and become a laugh-at-self, but unfortunately there aren’t enough can-get-bys for every unconfident to benefit.

The thing with dancing is that, ideally, it should be both enjoyable for the dancers and aesthetically pleasing for the onlookers. Good dancers, can-get-bys and laugh-at-selves all seem to enjoy it, and good dancers are also aesthetically pleasing. Unfortunately the unconfidents are not aesthetically pleasing and don’t appear to be enjoying themselves, although they try to make it seem so. It’s all quite upsetting to see.

Another observation: if a group activity is happening, the participants will generally invite people in the vicinity to join in. If these people don’t want to join in, they will politely decline and the participants will continue with the activity. However, if the activity is dancing, this is not enough – the participants will continually badger the onlookers to join them on the dance floor, sometimes resorting to physical action. This is another reason I don’t dance much – I’m very stubborn and the more people try to get me to dance, the less I am likely to do it. I don’t fully understand why people (and it’s often the can-get-bys) feel the need to do this but I’d be very interested to know. To be honest, it makes me quite angry when it happens.

"Get the gospel in there"

A week or so ago I was talking to a Christian friend about my job and he asked me “what do you say when people say ‘so you’re science teacher and a Christian?’ ”. I said that I hadn’t faced that situation yet, but that I’d probably throw it back in their face with something like ‘yeah, aren’t you?’ or ‘yes, it makes more sense to me than anything else’. My point was that I’d try to make them explain why they thought the two might be inconsistent and then try to answer their queries.

My friend then made some sort of comment along the lines of “and then you’d swing it round to get the gospel in there”. What he meant was that he’d expect me, as a Christian, to manoeuvre the conversation to a point where I can hit my colleague with “God-loves-you-so-much-he-sent-Jesus-to-die-for-you”. At the time I let it pass, but it really grated with me. I have a problem with the idea that the aim of every conversation should be to talk about Jesus’ death on the cross.

Why can I not have an intellectual discussion about science and religion without trying to turn it into a preach? And who is to say that my colleague would not encounter God through that conversation, without any mention of Jesus?

The standard ‘four-point gospel’ or ‘two ways to live’ seem like very narrow views of the gospel. What about the good news of God’s love expressed through his creating and maintaining of the world, something that would flow far more naturally from a discussion of science and religion? Or what about bringing my views on abortion to a prep-room discussion, without discussing Jesus? Or trying to explain God’s love in the midst of reports of another natural disaster? There may be times to explain what I believe about Jesus, and what his crucifixion and resurrection were all about, but I don’t think I should be trying to bring that into every conversation.

I can think of little that would put me off God more than some Christian who tried to twist every conversation into a preach about my sin and Jesus death.

This approach also has overtones of seeing colleagues as projects to be worked on rather than people to be loved. The main command of God is to love, not to preach or convert. Sometimes (rarely) loving someone will involve telling them about what Jesus was all about (e.g. four-point gospel, though personally I’m not fan of that). More often it will be nothing like that. It will be helping them out with a task, giving them a gift, listening to their concerns. “Love is a verb”.

When it does come to ‘converting’, it’s about helping people move closer to God. We’re not called to make converts, but disciples – and disciples keep learning. They don’t just step across a line and stop, they charge right across the line and keep running. Therefore Christians should be focused on where they and others are going rather than where they are now. It’s not about getting a confession of faith, or repeating a prayer. It’s just about helping people understand what God is like and what he’s done (and that is not limited to the cross, though it includes it).

The central point of a person’s walk with God may not be the point when they say they believe (I didn’t even have this moment!), but the point they first experienced someone giving them something for nothing, or when they stood on top of a mountain and saw the beauty of creation, or the time they went to church at Christmas and were challenged with a different thought about baby Jesus, or even when they lie on their death-bed and look back on God’s faithfulness.

So if I’m asked how I can be a Christian and a scientist, I probably won’t mention Jesus, and I might not even mention my God. I might just explain how I see no contradiction between science and religion, or I might describe my worldview of the natural and the supernatural. But that might be exactly what my colleague needs. They may have been preached Jesus at dozens of times and know all the theory but have hit a stumbling block with science. Then surely helping them past that would be much more appropriate than hitting them with two ways to live again. Our conversations should be natural and our lives focused on expressing God’s love in all sorts of ways. And we shouldn’t narrow down God’s work to a three day period 2000 years ago.