Dream on dreamer, life gets in the way

On Sunday I had a rather bizarre thought that still plagues me occasionally. I'm writing this blog entry in a vain attempt to clear it from my mind. The initial thought was, what's becoming of the old Woolies in Hanley? The answer still seems to be “nowt”.

So then of course my thought was what would I do if I were to re-open this fairly large and nicely located space right in the centre of Stoke on Trent's main shopping area? Would any funds be available from the council to help kick-start something? After all they're not gonna want an eyesore in their central shopping thoroughfare. However judging by the above article it's not even clear where the council stand as to who currently owns the property. (Same goes for their Longton, Stoke and Burslem branches)

My thoughts seemed to conclude on the idea of a shop that sold almost exclusively locally made goods; be it art, pottery, food, music ... whatever. The back of the shop would be a place for local musicians to play acoustic sets and do CD signing sessions, perhaps it would work as a comedy venue too - with a coffee/juice bar to boot. There could perhaps be a way to work with Cross Rhythms (who of course I still have strong connections with), in order to have a place in Stoke that sells a wide range of good quality Christian music.

After watching a recent Panorama it was clear that Woolworths were selling CDs and DVDs at a loss. If this shop actually happened (and that's a huge if), aside from that Cross Rhythms collaboration idea, CDs would only be from local artists. As with all local produce items would be sold in a co-operative manner – in other words the shop and the artist/producer would agree a set rate of what their cut from each sale would be.

Local artists (in a varied forms of media) could perhaps display their work around the shop in order to add to the aesthetic of the place and of course provide them a valid avenue of potential revenue. Staffordshire is considered the creative county yet the past fifty years has seen a decline in the pottery industry with little coming along to replace it in terms of creativity. Our innate local talent needs to be championed more.

After a short amount of research it turns out at least one council has worked with local creatives to stop the old Woolies becoming an eyesore. Stroud District Council (Gloucestershire) has been given temporary permission to jazz up their town centre store. They're tapping into the £3m government initiative to help communities reduce the impact of empty shops, stopping town centres from becoming ghost towns. The better known example of a reborn former Woolworths store is that of Wellworths in Dorchester.

I'm sure this will just remain a pipe dream but at least now I've typed up some of the bare bones of my idea it will hopefully stop bugging me ... unless someone else out there has the know-how and/or the passion to help make this happen and gets in contact with me.

What's with all the effin' and jeffin'?

Earlier this week I watched In The Loop with Lisa. Much to both our surprise she really enjoyed it and it goes without saying that I did too. The story was solid and the slightly rejigged and extended cast of The Thick of It were all on top form. But with both the TV series and the film what really brings home the oats are the semi-improvised oneliners. Many of these highlights were provided by the mighty spin doctor supremo Malcolm Tucker, whose gritty wit was strong enough to put down the highest of ministers and the largest of Americans.

Cross Rhythms (for whom I present a show) have a resident film critic and their review was bound to touch on the matter of the colourful language. At the time I did wonder whether I should have been laughing so hard at such coarse language but then my rational has always been about how the other person perceives it. Someone can call me whatever they like and it's unlikely offend me unless there is real venom behind their words but I of course am sensitive to other people's feelings and generally don't tend to swear. So I am fairly comfortable to see someone swear in a fictional backdrop as no-one is genuinely going to be hurt by those words. Also the character of Malcom Tucker (and his fellow Scottish press officer) would be significantly diminished if his blunt language was refined, in other words he wouldn't be Malcolm Tucker.

On another note the almost boundless cynicism that ripples through the film will almost certainly be met with bemusement in Obama-infatuated America. We here in the UK shouldn't encounter any such problems when the extremely realistic truths echo through the picture, watch out for the line about MP expenses (filmed before the Jacqui Smith saga) if you want an example.

Cross Rhythms are always rolling out great articles, here's a couple of recent highlights: Check out Ben Jack's unpacking of the sickening compensation culture that we all too happily seem to be embracing and Mike Rimmer's ever relevant challenge to Christians who want to make good music and get out a contemporary and thought-provoking message at the same time.

If you're easily offended don't go and see In The Loop, if you have a backbone I heartily recommend it. Lisa will testify that you don't need to be a politics/satire nerd to enjoy one of the best British films in recent memory.

“Science is the answer to how. God is the answer to why.” Discuss

One of my most recent facebook status' was a paraphrase of something someone said in a recent BBC documentary. The programme was called Did Darwin Kill God? and the paraphrase was taken from Francis Collins, “Science is the answer to how. God is the answer to why.”

He's a very interesting man who for more than a decade headed up the Human Genome Project. He's a firm believer in God whilst being an active and influential scientist, another quote attributed to him is, "Evolution is God's way of giving upgrades."

My facebook status garnered a few comments and quickly descended into a full blown debate on the merits of science and faith, which ultimately lead me to the conclusion that a more accurate description of my own position would be, “Science attempts to answer how but God will always answer why.”

For me science is very important - without it many of the things we take for granted wouldn't exist, I wouldn't be able to travel to work nor would my job exist; without the scientific discoveries over the centuries we'd still be stuck in the same position we were in thousands of years ago. I guess there may be a small band of Christians that wouldn't have a problem with that but most can surely acknowledge that as knowledge and technology increases so does the human experience.

Most Christians happily take advantage of the comforts that modern technology can provide, nor would anyone want to see the medicines and treatments that have been worked on for decades be simply taken away. And yet the majority of conservative Christians seem to have this rather worrying phobia of science, as if there really is only one option Science or Religion.

There are very very few places where there is even the potential for the bible and science to clash yet a lot of Christians do get rather hung up on them and as a result seem to have a rather wary view of science. In defense of fundamentalist Christians I would say that it isn't the role of science to answer the big philosophical questions of life, strangely enough that's more ... well ... philosophy than science. Lets make sure it's only the bathwater we throw out though, the vast majority of science is there to further our existence. It's to improve our health, our technology, our transport, to better understand our surroundings et cetera.

You'll have noticed I've not yet expressed my position on the whole creation versus evolution debate, I'll leave that for another day. The other debate that might be worth delving into off the back of this is does modern technology make life too comfortable and stop us from being fully aware of our own humanity?

Harry Hill and the Gurkhas

Rightly so Harry Hill has been once again been named the UK's best entertainment performer at the Baftas. For some bizarre reason some news organisations have decided to focus more on the fact that Jonathan Ross lost:

SKY News

The Herald


The best man won, FACT. That's the story isn't it?

Another recent story to take my interest is the government's decision to limit the number of Gurkha veterans allowed to settle in the UK. These are guys who were on the frontline of numerous battles and wars for the UK and yet we seem to have refused them entry. Thankfully public opinion seems to be on the side of rewarding them for their bravery. Joanna Lumley has been battling over this issue for years and now the Lib Dems have taken the debate within parliament.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8019745.stm

Clegg et al seem to be doing a better job of getting the political headlines at the moment, despite it being the Conservatives' spring conference. The Lib Dem leader has urged his fellow party leaders to back his plans for reforming MPs' second-homes allowances.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8019853.stm

Both Clegg and David Cameron have thankfully rejected the PM's plan for a flat-rate fee based on attendance at Westminster.

This week I have been mainly

This week I was mostly listening to
Through Solace – The World on Standby
Absolutely stunning! It’s been so nice to follow over the last few years this bands evolution from metalcore start-ups to serious players. Technically very impressive and a nice more melodic edge to their still-brutal sound.
The Devil Wears Prada - With Roots Above and Branches Below
I managed to get hold of the two-track promo of their forthcoming album (comes out May 5th). I can guarantee I'll be giving airplay to the wonderfully titled Assistant to the Regional Manager.
The Glorious Unseen - The Cries Of The Broken
One on the few worship bands that are able to create truly original music. You could kinda describe it as emo worship. This is the EP that bridges between their amazing debut and their forthcoming follow-up.

This week I was mainly watching
Flight of the Conchords
I noticed that Series 2 of the ‘New Zealand musical two-piece based in America’ comedy is soon to hit UK screens so I decided to re-watch Series 1. It’s wonderful low-energy comedy; probably the second best comedy HBO has ever been behind.
The State of Play
An American political thriller that follows a journalist's probe into the suspicious death of a Congressman's mistress. What I didn’t realise until afterwards was that it’s a film adaptation of a 6-part BBC serial by the same name, which first aired on BBC One in 2003. The fact I now wanna watch the TV series should be testament to my enjoyment of the film.

This week I was mainly reading
Nothing out of choice really, I read about 5 pages of The Shack (I’m so bad at finishing books). It was mainly lots of contracts and things I needed to sign.

Other things of note from this week
I got a new car. Initially it seemed surprisingly simple, as the week went on it got more stressful and more taxing. Oscar the Octavia is dead long live Carol the Corsa … don’t worry I wont actually call my car that.

On Monday the cam belt snapped and the wheels came off on Wednesday

The New Labour project is dead. That's not to say that the Labour Party are definitely lame ducks a full year before the next general election* but that a number of the key values of the Anthony Giddens-inspired Third Way were broken, neigh shattered, yesterday in the face of the grim reality of our current economic conditions. To quote the BBC's Nick Robinson, “Britain is in the sharpest recession, has the highest borrowing and is about to experience the biggest public spending squeeze since the war.”

To increase the tax rate for the highest earners is to go against one of the key tenants of New Labour, not penalising high achievers. To break Gordon Brown's golden rules and announce yet another target completely missed goes against their 'end of boom and bust' boast. The net debt forecast is double what Gordon Brown deemed acceptable for a western economy, it's hit a whopping 79 per cent of GDP. You don't need to understand the figures to realise that an overhaul is needed on what it is to be a power-seeking social democratic party.

Granted, Alistair Darling did not have an envious job to do, whatever he was gonna say was not gonna be music to our ears but the sheer magnitude is simply staggering. David Cameron's reaction to the budget was clearly that of a prime minister in waiting and Nick Clegg's reaction made me chuckle too. Considering the magnitude Darling was remarkably daring to suggest that we'd be on an upturn by this time next year, certainly Labour will be banking on this being the case if they have any chance of once again holding off the Conservatives.

There were a couple of other eye-catching moments, one being supposedly we'd get two grand if we scrapped our ten-year old motors in favour of a new one. The fact is that the government would only meet half of that figure and the dealers will do everything in their power to not let that eat into their own overheads too much. For one thing, you're not gonna see so many people being able to barter down new cars from their initial ticket price.

Perhaps the most New Labour element to their budget was their claim to either find a job or train up an under-25 who has spent more than one year out of work. It's commendable but is surely one of those things that's easier said than done and would soon be full of loopholes. Gordon Brown would suggest that New Labour is all about aspirations, making sure people make the most of their potential and increasing opportunities for people to go out and achieve but now he's taxing more those who have achieved.

For the record, the cam belt refers to my car. On Tuesday I had to say goodbye to Oscar the Octavia.

* Under the assumption that the next general election is spring 2010.

The cheats way out

Today I've been inspired to write two seperate blog entries, neither of which I'll publish right now.

One was on a truly historic UK Budget, as delivered by Alistair Darling, however I've not fully digested all the detail so I'll save that for another day. The other was on how some Christians view science, I've not quite finished writing that but I promise to publish it very soon.

So instead I'm going to cop out and draw your attention to an article my friend recently wrote,

http://www.localmotoring.com/pages/local-motoring-news.php?b=2&a=1161

My old school friend Paul Forrester wrote a lovely message to me last week saying how he'd enjoyed reading parts of my blog so to return the favour a few of our mutual friends (if no-one else) may find the above link worth a view. I certainly enjoyed reading it.

Tomorrow I promise to actually write something of merit myself though...