Sirens, and Ben Hur.

So it turns out I was wrong about Henry's. If you're reading this on facebook you'll see from the comments that apparently it used to be called Mount Pleasant Inn, so the sign I saw was just a relic from the good old days. So as far as we know it'll stay Henry's for the foreseeable future. Everyone breathe a sigh of relief...

After a week of study and the exciting new part time job I've taken on (decided I quite like the whole working in an office thing. Its surprisingly enjoyable) I thought I'd watch Ben Hur on Friday night. Being a postgrad, amongst other things, entitles you to free 24 hour dvd rental from the library, which can't be bad, and they have a fairly good range of films considering. Anyway, if you've never seen the 1959 classic that is Ben Hur then do see it. It has one of the greatest actions scenes I have ever come across...the chariot race is so brilliant partly because there's no camera trickery involved..when Charlton Heston's stunt double flips over the front of the chariot and scrambles back that genuinely happened (although apparently not intentionally). Admittedly the bodies crushed by the chariots are just dummies but I happen to think it still beats the computer generated stuff you get nowadays.
There's some brilliant lines too - my favourite being when Ben Hur gives his potential missus a broach 'It's especially for you' he says with more than a hint of pride; 'it's a broach for a woman'. Don't know why but I laughed out loud at that point.

Speaking of brilliant lines, the best thing I heard all weekend was this from an elderly couple in town, as they watched an ambulance screech past:

Woman: (Irritated) Very loud isn't it?
Man: Yes, unnecessarily piercing!

I weighed this up, and decided, on balance, that the number of lives saved by the loud siren (as opposed to the ambulanceman just shouting out of the window or something and arriving too late to the scene of the accident) was probably high enough to merit a small amount of discomfort on a shopping trip!

Anyways, tiredness beats me, I'm going to go and do something non-taxing like watch Top Gear. I'm indulging myself with a lazy evening.

All the best
Dave

Not like it was in my day...

I have three complaints today. I know that's quite a discouraging first sentence but that's life.

1 - They're changing the name of Henry's Bar. I noticed the other day as I was wondering back down Blackboy road and towards home, that there has now appeared, amidst all the scaffolding and general redesigning, a sign which says 'Mount Pleasant Inn.' Seriously. What sort of a name is that? As Jim Butler said yesterday as I was round his house to sample a homemade cheesecake of his and Lisa's creation (which was amazing by the way, but I'm getting distracted here) it's going to make the place worse just because it won't be Henry's any more, even if they keep all the decor, the pool table, the random signs etc. I would therefore like to appeal to anyone else who frequents the place to keep calling it Henry's. It is, and always will be. Besides, it seems an insult to the old guy who leans on the bar whilst his dog takes potshots at your ankles to call it anything else...it is basically his home after all.

2 - My second complaint. The uni library is now a bastion of appalling service. Basically they've replaced all the humans with machines. Instead of taking your library book to a counter, you now pass it through a machine to take it out. Instead of returning your library book to a nice librarian, you now put it on a machine with a big conveyer belt which takes it from you without a single word of thanks. It gets worse. There are now bright sofas all over the place, which make it feel a bit like a building society. And there's a big thing in the middle where you go to get advice or something, which they call 'the pod'. Oh my.
And certain members of the library staff seem to have been taken over by robots since last year too, such is their lack of charisma and warmth.

And that's all. I know I said I had three complaints, but I'm depressing myself now, and I hate being overly negative, so I'll leave my rant about people not understanding Dickens for another time...

I've started reading The HunchBack of Notra Dame by the way. Read Les Miserables over the summer and it was spectacular, and so far Hunchback seems very good to.

Anyway, that's enough for now. I should take a picture of my beard some time. I'm pleased with it so far though it still looks a bit sparse.

In the meantime, take care
Dave

Once again, it's been a while.

It's been a huge while since I posted anything, so I thought I would for a change. By a while I think I mean half a year. Never mind. In my defence its been a long time since I've had time AND something to say AND, frankly, really felt like it. Good defence, I think you'll agree.

I got a job today, just a wee part time one but it'll help keep me fed AND the bonus is that its for a book wholesaler, so its not a million miles from the book industry aspirations I have. Its a bus ride away on the other side of the city, but I secretly don't mind buses at all, there's always lots of interesting people on them - this morning, for example, there were a multitude, even a galaxy, of old ladies who, it seems, do exactly the same journey at exactly the same time every day since they were able to predict to each other who would next get on the bus. On the way back was an old man with a cap who said things like 'humph' and chuckled to himself, and had a barking cough which made the bus shake every so often.

Oh, by the way, I'm now doing an MA - still at Exeter, but, it seems, a bit more work than the undergrad. It's in English with Victorian Studies, and basically the second bits just to make me feel like I'm not repeating the same stuff all over again. I'm loving it actually, lots of victorian Dickens-ness (developing a nack for putting Dickens into every essay, verging on every sentence).

Also today I've been reading Little Dorrit (brilliantly, that was work). I've also been getting hugely excited about my latest venture (as some will tell you, I have crazes. But I think this world has need for people with crazes, just so long as there are also people who are a bit more consistent*) It's called SHARD (Students Highly Animated about Reading Drama) and it essentially consists of anyone who wants to sitting around someone's house for an evening, with a pint perhaps or a glass of wine, and reading plays. It's drama without the committment which I can see for many might seem a very bad thing, and I think they're probably right in a sense, but then drama without committment is far better than no drama at all. I've been pleasantly surprised at the keenness of lots of people I've spoken too, so I think we might meet for the first time Saturday week.

I'm boring you, sorry, but presumably you're reading this partly to find out what I'm up to, so harsh as it might be, I'm inclined to say you brought it on yourself.

Anyway, I ought to rap things up here. I'm heading for dinner with James and Lisa now, followed by the cinema to see Rendition. I'll let you know what its like (partly as a necessary outlet because James justifiably dislikes it when I launch into my critical analysis of a film on the way home.)

All the best

Dave


*Please don't be confused. The goatee I have recently begun to acquire is NOT a craze. That is what I would describe as an experiment which every man must (and mostly will) at some point undertake. And now seemed like a good time. It's a bit like national service in the States.

Worship

It’s not about me.

It never was.

And it won’t ever be.

And no matter what I say, nothing will change the irreversible fact that worshipping God can only ever be totally about God.

It can only ever be about standing before my father (he’s my father! That’s my dad, do you see him?),
before my maker (See him there? He made me!),
before God (he’s the God!)
and proclaiming his name before mine.

More of him, less of me.

(Less selfishness, pride, arrogance, self-pity, self absorption, self, self, self.
More beauty, goodness, truth, holiness, God, God, God.)

Why?

Why bother?

Why does it matter?

Why remove myself from the picture?
Wait.

Do I get scrubbed out? Do I lose my personality in worship? Do I become a faceless, nameless, characterless blob?

As I proclaim his name, and lift my eyes, and my hands, and my voice, am I turning myself into an automaton? A robot? A worker ant, programmed, voiceless?

Valueless?

Unless…

Unless what?

Unless somehow, for some reason, I find my value in worshipping the living God.

Unless…

I was designed,
knit together,
created,
knotted,
stretched,
moulded,
melted,
crafted,
welded,

in order to worship God.

Unless worshipping God is what I’m made to do,
is my primary function,
is my purpose,
is the very reason I exist,

The very reason for my being…

The very summit of my existence.

Then, and only then does worshipping God,
(lifting him up with every little fibre of my body,
giving all I am to him)

make sense…

Because if that’s what I was made to do,
that’s where I’ll find my satisfaction.

Because that’s where the value is.

And as
I fall deeper
And deeper,
in love with Him.
Step
By little step
I come closer to him.
I see more of him.
I become more like him.

And I become more like the me he always meant me to be.

That’s worship.

Could this blog be any more sporadic?

Well it's been a while since I've posted anything, so I kind of feel like I should, for old times sake...

Checking through my dissertation repeatedly as I am at the moment I have discovered with a certain amusement mixed with fascination and (for no apparent reason) just a hint of sadness that many of my sentences are considerably, even very much, longer than they need to be and that consequnetly it is easy to forget the point of the sentence as explained in the opening of aforementioned sentence, by the time one reaches that which is signalled by the use of punctuation such as the full stop, or period as it is known to American readers, that is namely the end of the aforementioned (several times over) sentence.

I also, obviously, have a bizarre habit, as is clearly the case, of asserting everything by claiming, evidently, that it simply must be true and leaving things at that.

I need to get rid of some of those habits before I do my Masters (which will be here in Exeter by the way, not sure that was definite last time I posted).
Speaking of which, I had a very entertaining meeting with my tutor today in which she expressed what can only be described as distress that I have no plans to do a PHD after my masters, let alone become, as she put it 'a Victorianist'. Let me make this quite clear, I do not want to be an academic. I have nothing against them, and some are very pleasant, but, frankly, if God had wanted me to become an English professor, he would have blessed me with a tweed jacket to match (read that metaphorically or literally as you will).

I seem to remember showing lots of reminiscing photos and as my undergrad days are slipping away ever faster, and a lot of very good friends are going too, I'm going to continue that wee tradition here. On the left is my amazing hall group from last year when they were just wee first years. I say wee, but Dan is clearly quite a lot taller than me so that's probably not really accurate. On the left is Tim at my 21st Bday party, doing what he does best. He's an unusual one, our Tim. Note in the background the fish being fried by an 11 watt lamp, perhaps partially explaining the high death rate in those early days...

The past few weeks in the life of the world's most sporadic blogger..

It's been a while since I updated this, I admit, but that's life, I'm a busy person (even though an English student).
So, to very quickly summarize, my last few weeks have involved the following...

1) Childhood Death in Victorian Literature - the dissertation is coming along fairly well, I've written just under half in a first draft and I have planned in fair detail all of it, so now its just a case of getting on with it.
2) Nearly being eaten by Dartmoor ponies - one of a couple of little trips while I was in Exeter for the first bit of the hols, involved a walk with Luce and James on Dartmoor including incredibly violent Dartmoor ponies and very steep gorse infested slopes.
3) A 22 mile cycle ride - which might not sound a lot but James and I really are quite unfit and besides, I actually cycled about 26 due to a moment just before lunch when I went sailing past James and didn't realise for some time that he had stopped a while back.
4) The world's greatest homemade dessert - several weeks in the making apparently and created for me by Hazel (Oi, you at the back, stop aah-ing)
5) Returning to my homeland - Farnborough is as exciting as ever, and I am sorry to report that all my mates are still gripped by the craze that is the card game 'Killer Bunnies and the Quest for the Golden Carrot', even Tom who is supposed to be defending the country. What can I say?
6) A new tie, and other new items of clothing - it's a long story, but suffice it to say these were formly the unwanted garments of Hazel's parents and grandparents, whom I visited yesterday.

Northern Ireland: Things it taught me.

Just to reassure you, I did return from Northern Ireland, I just haven't got around to writing anything here for while. The following things I learnt as a result of our trip:

1) If you step off your plane in a new part of the world and it is windy, rainy, and cold, that place might well be Northern Ireland.

2) Getting lost in Belfast is potentially risky, especially if you end up on the Falls Road. Gladys advised us English to keep our mouths shut and our accents locked away. Here its worth making my first profound observation about Northern Ireland. It might seem from the news that things are all rosy there but you couldn't help feeling the division all over the shot - there are still villages which can be described as Republican or Unionist strongholds. And no-one has done anything about that anti-British murals dotted around areas of Belfast.

3) Waiters in Chinese restaurants don't much like groups of eight ordering only a jug of water instead of real drinks. They tend to be keen to get rid of you after an hour or so, their circling approach to 'encouraging you to leave' is strangely similar to tactics employed by the Stasi.

4) The youth of Belfast like to hang out at the Odyssey, seemingly doing very little and wearing slightly less.

5) Its quite important when you're hiring a car to work out things like how the headlights work before you drive. That way you avoid the risk which Rebecca ran of driving us into the car park of an IRA pub to test them out. Once again Gladys' helpful advice meant that the naive English didn't get killed.

6) An Irish potato farm in Limavady is exactly as you'd imagine it. Right down to the copy of farmer's weekly on the kitchen table and the tractor calender.

7) The McCollum clan are an immenesly hospitable bunch who like to feed you cake and let you feed the lambs or, in my case, talk to the 'more mature' sheep. Limavady itself is a very attractive part of the world which I would be tempted to describe as 'Seriously Farmy' if that wasn't a label already given to a bran of mature cheddar. It is, however deceptively far from Belfast.

8) Northern Irish motorways have only two lanes apart from a briefly extravagant patch of motorway in Belfast which slightly overcompensates with four. A roads are country lanes and B roads are known in the rest of the UK as 'farm tracks'.

9) The Giant's Causeway is slightly smaller than you;d expect but is immensly beautiful. The Northern Irish claim this was the sight of a mudfight between a Scottish and an Irish giant. The Irish giant's aim being somewhat lacking, he missed Scotland and the resulting clod of mud is now known as the 'Isle of Man'. No jokes. Be warned if you go on a day which is windy enough, and with a mixture of hail, snow and what quite possibly may be bricks, you will return to the car looking slightly as if you have been right in the middle of one of these giant battles. Also be warned that with a direct Northerly wind blowing at you from the Atlantic, drinking tea can be a messy experience.

10) We English have been, and very often continue to be, a load of total ignoramus's when it comes to understanding not only what our meddling has done to Ulster, but also quite how immensly spectacular this country really is. The views over the snowy mountains on Monday morning on the way to the wedding in Belfast were, quite simply, magic.

The wedding itself was excellent fun. Kirsty (the bride) looked fantastic and the elusive Derek (the groom) was finally revealed to be a thoroughly nice man (he was, no doubt, a thorughly nice man before, but we'd never met him, you see) Myself, Hazel and Gladys went to the sit down meal at a posh hotel/castle by the sea, and the others joined us for the ceileg..Keildgh...ce...Scottish Dance... at the end.

The photos attached aren't actually from this wedding, they're taken my brother's a few weeks ago, but thought I'd attach them anyway because I've only just got them. One is of my bro looking rather noble and dangerously clutching a sword and my new sis in law, Rachel, and the other is of myself and Hazel.

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