got a brain? - come see brian

there are few finer things in life than a brian houston gig.

you really should come and see/hear him this saturday(1st december) in willowfield church. it should be an amazing gig and he will have his band with him (including dave "don't fuck with me" mcnair, fresh from hanging with bono in dublin).

you can get your tickets here.

the money raised goes to christian aid's work with people with HIV.

nuff said.

crown jesus dickheads

i don't like fundies. is that so wrong?

fucking christmas

christmas balls

i don't know, maybe i'm just getting old, but i find myself angered by all the talk of christmas, and in particular the emphasis on "what are you getting?"

since september people have been talking about what to get the kids for christmas, and asking bethan (who is two) what she is getting from santa.

now, i have heard the gibberish talked for years about the commercialisation of christmas and putting the christ back into christmas. i am tired of listening to people shouting about councils in england putting up signs saying "happy festivities". (i think that usually prompts a "it's political correctness gone mad"). i don't particularly care about those things, anymore than i care about the commercialisation of hallowe'en.

but my daughter is two. do you have to encourage her greed, coveting, and consumerism so early in life.
honestly, she would be happy enough with one toy, so why is she taught that she needs everything in the fucking argos book?

apparently, it would be unfair and mean to limit the huge volume of toys, clothes, sweets, and novelty items that she gets to an amount that she could actually enjoy.

i think there is probably a reason why they call children who get everything they want "spoiled" or "ruined". these are not good words, and they are not something that we should wanting for our children.

it all seems very ugly and immoral to me that we are all going to get and eat so much. at the same time if we don't consume our economy might collapse and people will be out of work, so maybe there is a future in promoting shopping as a socially conscious way to act. maybe not.

i don't to be all "grumpy bastard", but i really don't think this whole thing is healthy. what's the answer - i don't know.

maybe things like present aid are the way forward. or freecycle. what do you think?

load of balls

in rainbows

i think i might pee myself

belfast beards salutes you...

sebastian chabal

rugby world cup

here's hoping this string of shit doesn't ruin the world cup for ireland.

whatever the weather

hello again

this summer, maybe more than most, people have been talking about the weather quite a bit.

i find it amusing and bewildering as to how many people actually believe angie phillips and her gang of weather guessers. the fact that the forecast changes between the lunch time bulletin and the tea time one surely is an indication taht they are talking out of their arse.

i don't know why they put the time on the "forecast", like saying at 8am tomorrow the weather will be...whenever they quite clearly have no idea what the weather will at 8am tomorrow.

but people continually fall for it, saying things like "it's supposed to get better on tuesday" or, "the forecast said it was going to rain, and it's lovely" .

i was in sligo at easter time and a guy said to me "they say it's going to be an amazing summer - the best for years", i was back there near the start of july, and teh same guy said "they say the rain's going to be with us all summer".

the fact that they clearly didn't know what they were talking about at easter, didn't stop him believing totally what they said in july.

anyway, i'm beginning to sound like one of those shit tv programmes about thingsthat really annoy people - did anyone ever see brassed of britain. maybe i should just phone big stephen nolan and tell him about it.

found this profile on angie, if anyone is interested..http://www.randomshite.co.uk/angie-phillips.html

proud to be...

i had a quite weird day on saturday.

bethan (my daughter) was away with my sister and her family to see fish in portaferry, so the rest of us (ruth, my wife and joe, my baby son) headed into town to relax, have lunch, spend some hmv vouchers, have coffee and stuff.

on the way into town, we spotted some people dressed very unusually, but didn't really think anything of it. then we realised that it was the annual "pride" march in belfast.

i have never been in belfast for pride before and am more used to seeing old men in collars and flute bands marching, so i found the whole thing very different.

i was surprised to see a couple of things,
firstly, there where loads of people parading. i had no idea that there was such a large gay community in belfast.
secondly, the response of the crowd was seemingly one of cheering and acceptance, and i didn't see anyone heckle or shout abuse at the parade.

these were both pleasant surprises. i thought that maybe belfast is becoming a more tolerant place and maybe even a more fun place.
i am sure that there was some free presbyterians condemning everyone to hell somewhere, but i didn't see them.

i don't know what the ethos of the pride parades is, but it made me ask what i am proud of.
i seem to have spent a lot of effort feeling anything but proud of my culture, class and faith - certainly not proud enough to parade declaring it.

i don't know what it is that makes me want to hide, or run away from, these things. i guess i am thinking that pride isn't a good thing and puts others on the defensive and judges others.
maybe i am reluctant to declare myself an evangelical christian because i am not proud of some of the attitudes and statements that come from people calling themselves this - particularly about sexuality.

maybe rg, will explain the psychology behind this, but maybe there is no real explanation other than i am a chickenshit who doesn't want to be labelled and defined.

i was proud to be from belfast on Saturday though.

beards and blogs

just thinking about beards..

beardiness is more a state of mind than a state of face.

you can have a beardy perspective on life and be completely clean shaven. i have thought of some things that might characterise a beardy.

beardies are likely to play the guitar.
they are likely to read the guardian.
they are probably not any good at football (or really any sport).
they are likely to be a member of (or at least sympathetic to) greenpeace.
they probably watch the west wing - and think toby is the best character.
they act like they don't much care about their appearance.
they think they are "alternative" and have insight that others cannot see.

as you can tell i really haven't found a specific purpose for rmy blog. it's kind of weird - like a personal diary that is available for anyone to read.

if you have read this far i would appreciate it if you added a comment and maybe you could add some characteristics of beardies aginst non-beardies.

peace out rabbit

must have seemed like a good idea...

i have just seen a very very strange thing.

the live earth gig at wembley headlined by madonna.

it was all going very well, the foo fighters doing full on rock poses and running about the stage, then it went to the pussy cat dolls being interviewed - they are incredibly dim - and then it went back to the stage for one of britains best loved actors.

when i heard this introduction i thoughtmaybe sean connery, ewan mcgregor, anthony hopkins - at a huge stretch maybe hugh grant. but i was wrong. britain apparently loves terrence stamp more than all of these.

i don't even kno who he is, and neither did the crowd, but he came on and spoke shit for about 10 minutes. it was hard to watch.

then madonna came on.

i have seen madonna do things like this before and she always seemed to know how to do big gigs like this. but not tonight...

the term "car crash tv" has never been more appropriate. it was horrible and i couldn't watch, but at the same time i couldn't stop watching.

after an overwrought opening song with a choir of children and a lot of bad lyrics, she then put on a guitar.
madonna may be able to do many differnet things, but MADONNA DOES NOT ROCK.

"lets see you jumping if you care about the earth, you fuckers."

it was dreadful, and it got worse when she tried to do the rock poses and runa bout teh stage in a ffo fighters style - it maybe seemed more ridiculous because the foo fighters had just come off stage.

i thought ok she'll pull it back with the next song, but then she introduced it by saying

"talking of global warming, lets meet my ramony gypsie friends..."

i felt like screaming NOOOOOOOO at the tv but it just wouldn't stop. these two guys who looked like they were pretending to be gypsies came on and ran about teh stage in a way that looked like they were taking the piss.

it was just so bad that i felt i had to express my horror, disbelief and bemusement at it all. jonathan ross, edith bowman and graham norton appeared not have noticed how dreadful it was.

anyway i don't want to come across as a cynic about the climate change cause and about these kind of events, because i think that doing something evn if it is flawed is better than slagging everything from the side. so weel done madonna, but please, don't ever try to rock again.

some christians really piss me off

don't know if anyone willever read this but i feel the need to vent my spleen and i may as well do it here.
i have just read an article on the bbc news site about a christian teenager who is taking her school to the high court becasue she feels that they are discriminating against christians by not allowing her to wear her "purity" ring http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6229098.stm.

i don't know if there is something wrong with me or not, but i get annoyed when i see things like this.
it is part of the whole "society is being secularised" bullshit that (to my mind) a worryingly large group of christians fall for.

it frustrates me, because it just doesn't seem important enough a thing to spend all your energy on as a christian. why not spend your time and energy standing up for others instead of looking to protect your place as a christian in society.

teh girl just sounds so self righteous in a way that gets under my skin, but it is near the end of the articles where the real villian appears.
her dad, "the pastor" talking of the sign of a wider conspiracy against christians.
it's things lijke this taht make me want to conspire against them.

if anyone ever does read this i would be interested to know if i am alone in thinking this, or if you disagree, i would love to hear from you.

pj