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05/20/2006

The Unconvinci Ode

So, last night I joined a wide-eyed, opening-night crowd of Belfast's best to see The Da Vinci Code. Apart from the front row seats (Has Tom Hanks put on weight or was the screen just fifty million times bigger than normal?!), and the fire evacuation in the middle (Thanks for the free ticket Warner Village) the movie I thought was a decent adaptation of the book and a bit undeserving of the bad reviews. But, setting that aside, seeing it did remind me that, as Ian McKellen has remarked, it's a load of codswallop. But the way they overlapped history in that weird see-through way was rather nifty...

My quote of the movie was Sophie Neveu near the end... "We are who we protect, what we stand for". Made me think that we can say we said things for Jesus and did things, but he asks a deeper question, like what did we really stand for... the poor, sick etc? But then, maybe it was just the french accent made it seem philiosphical, in true french style.

I went to see the Da Vinci Code
Mystery, conspiracy, suspense
The portents, what did they forbode
I think not a lot of sense

But nice history/thought overlapping special effects...

Later

12:35 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

05/16/2006

So close... so far?

So so far we seem so close to actually getting an Assembly up and running in Northern Ireland. It's been 8 years from the Agreement and about 3.5 from the last assembly went bust (go to jail, do not pass go, do not collect £200 - but all MLAs definitely collect your huge salary). So have we landed on Free Parking this time? Or is it back to the clanger...

Monopoly may not be too bad a metaphor. The going round in circles seems a lot like experience here. But I think things have not really (or only) been going round in circles. There has been a change. The moving to the extremes in politics has I think created the centrifugal force we need here to get some stuff shifting and sifting and getting a real process out of circular movement. I think things have been centrifuged to the surface... weapons, spying, intentions... As I watched the first assembly meet it felt like a lot less was hidden than the last time, like people's cards were on the table this time for real. The debate over the UUP and PUP alliance is I think a signal of things being in the open this time round. This can only be a good thing. And does anyone else see the irony of Sinn Fein boycotting debates with Paisley?

So, where to from here. I am not too sure, but I know there is an opportunity to leave the past behind and move forward to what and who we are meant to be. I still look though for the centruge effect as in the next while, wether from now to June, or owards to the autumn, there is a sifting takes place and shift ensues. May what needs to be cut off be cut off decisively and what needs reconciled be reconciled...

So with that call to the heart, I'll sign off... Later.

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05/12/2006

Ready, Steady, Blog

As I start this blog, I have been asking myself, why do I blog? Is it for you [the reader], or for me? I reckon, in true boring fashion, that it's both. So I blog to hopefully say something that makes sense... hopefully. And I write to get some strands of brainwave into some order on (cyber)paper. As well as just to have some space to reflect. I feel happier now.

So I'm about to start nightshifts for three nights. I find it hard to think straight during these times. Work and sleep become the two sides of my weirdly inverted life-coin for a while. I get frustrated because I find there is so much I don't know and don't get (and don't have time during these times)... and I really want to know about things, not because of the knowing, but because so many things, like new views on theology, ecclesiology, power relations, lesser spotted areas of European or Irish history all sound so good and relevant to life right now. I'm thinking the challenge is to read life as well as books. To think at the interface of idea and experience. Is this not being essentially prophetic? So experience and idea interchange as heaven and earth interchange? If the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand, it really is at hand and we need our minds renewed in Jesus, as we need compassion in our hands...

I must go sleep now. May I have nice dreams, as the sun outside fights through...

01:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

05/10/2006

I blog, therefore I am

Probably not best translation from the french, my title, but apt nonetheless. So I begin my blogging space. Not much more to say... later

07:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Recently Read

Robert Crais: The Two Minute Rule
An airport buy... I hear a gasp - trash, trash... indeed. I must admit that I sometimes look up and see my very own blue moon and go pop-fiction trigger-happy at the airport bookstand. This time was on the way back from Brussels and I had just finished Christine Falls and had no book for the plane, and I took a chance... and wasn't diappointed. The thrills, the suspense, all the good ingredients and this really is some of the better writing in the popular fiction genre - quick, easy reading and very enjoyable. A deserving three stars. (***)
Benjamin Black: Christine Falls
A really good read. I considered giving this one four stars, but want to maintain the integrity of my scoring system and just couldn't give it such high praise, though praise it gets (3.5 would work if it existed!). Black (Banville) does a great job in this genre and what was a brilliant aspect to the work was it's constantly changing narrative perspective. It takes a good writer to seamlessly shift perspectives and not have the book disjointed or piecemeal. I had worked out the plot early on, a little bit of a disappointment, but not so much so that the book did not hold suspense. It's not just a detective mystery. The charater depth and complexity give it body and this is why I turned the pages in quick succession - not to see the solution to the mystery, but to see what happens next to the characters - the accomplishment of a good novelist. A recommended read, without doubt. (***)
Markus Zusak: The Book Thief
I'm not sure just what to say about this book. I like reading historical fiction, especially from interesting angles. Leisel Meminger's Nazi Germany comes alive here and I surprised myself how much I was enthralled with Zusak's writing. I shan't say much more other than this book emotionally affected me more than any other in a long long time... words don't quantify the ending... oh yes, and Death is a great narrator. (*****)
Martin Scott: Embracing Tomorrow
If you know Martin, you know he talks from experience and has something serious to say about this subject. The book carried a lot of weight for me and stirred me inside around the prophetic. The Prophets and Justice chapter flags up a much side-lined but foundational role of the prophets. And his closing chapter on Prophets and Transition hits to the heart of where we find ourselves - the inbetweeness mixed with the huge expectancy mixed with the lament over the past... Very practical, deeply rooted in Martin's life and experience of prophecy and being a prophet and above all a stirring and provoking book. Definitely recommend it. (****)
Alexander Litvinenko: Blowing Up Russia
Well... not sure what exactly to say here. I wouldn't usually have bought this book. And the News of the World calling it "Explosive" wasn't, believe it or not, what attracted me. I was interested because how many other authors have been poisoned by Plutonium 210? Add to that tyhe recent bullishness of Russia on the world stage and I thought, actually this might be interesting. And it is a provoking and interesting read, though it is tough going. There are just so many names and initials and abbreviations that I felt like I was digesting alphabet soup, with bread de tabloide on the side. Whilst a tough and somehwat annoying read, the interesting parts of the content about Chechnya, Putin's background and the failed Ryanzan bombinig have drawn me to look at other works in the area, namely Jon Snow's 'A Russian Diary', and Martin Sixsmith's 'The Litnevonko File'. A two star though for its dryness. Only read if the subject matter can keep you spooning the soup! My subject interests surprise me sometimes... (**)
Colin Bateman: Belfast Confidential
Great read. I always think it's a sign that a region or a city is normalising when decent popular fiction can be written about it and sell well. The Northern Ireland 'situation' has hit the shallow paperback - happy days! I liked Bateman's style and voice, his satire on up-and-coming Belfast, but yet the palatable sigh of relief that permeates the book that it's a satire of a new materialism and pseudo-celeb world and not bombs and bodies, ideaologies and cyclical history. Entertaining read. Not totally sure though if I could hack any more of his books in the immediate - I probably will over the summer though. (***)
Andrew Pepper: The Last Days of Newgate
This is the debut novel of an English lecturer I had at Queen's and a brilliant debut it is. It combines two things I love - a good mystery written in a historical setting, pre-Victorian London and Belfast to be exact. A hard-hitting, fast-paced novel that charts the underworlds of London, confronts the grusome lawlessness of the time, but plays on the unwritten laws that are all around at the period - powerful rich and oppressed poor, hypocritical morality and blurred lines of justice and crime. (****)
George Orwell: 1984 Nineteen Eighty-Four
A Classic. I have to admit that I wasn't expecting it to be so graphic. I did recoil at times, (I'm a big wus). It was chilling and disturbing and made me glad it wasn't real. Probably would have been better before 1984, and I reckon when it was written, in the middle of the war that it would have hit the social psyche pretty deeply. I have to agree with CS Lewis on it though that some of the passages seemed like filler. There wasn't really that much point to many of them, and they added nothing to characterisation. But this is one of the classic and cult texts of the century and the social comment is hard to ignore. Very glad I read it and would recommend it. Big Brother is watching you. (****)
Jim Wallis: God's Politics: Why the American Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It
An amzing book. Wallis has simply so much experience in the area of faith and society that it is hard not to listen to what he has to say. Also, this is a refreshing voice from America that isn't the Christian Right. Whilst the work isn't an academic or theological exposition (which is good for me), it is packed with experience of what has and hasn't worked and some very insightful perspectives. If you're interested in social change or faith and politics, or even just contemporary America do take a read. (*****)