Sunday 26 April 2009

it's about time!

To quote @destraynor:

"Ryan Giggs is a role model, an amazing man, an inspiration to me in my life. Reading this brought a real smile to my face."


I don't care what your opinion is the decision to name Giggsy the PFA Player of the Year in this particular season. Now in the twilight of his career, for him to have finished up, as he probably sadly will in the next couple of seasons, without having been awarded this honour would be an absolute travesty.

Against, courtesy of @destraynor: check it out.



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Saturday 25 April 2009

i am second

Courtesy of Shane, here's an amazing bit of video from Brian Welch, formerly of Korn... I remember reading a huge feature a few years ago with him in Rolling Stone where he talked about finding faith, making the choice to leave Korn, and trying to put his life back together with amazing results. Even if you find yourself dismissive of his "oh so obvious" testimony, check out the last minute or so for his succinct account of why it all makes sense to him.


BBrian Head Welch - I Am Second on Vimeo.

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Friday 24 April 2009

jackman's fountain


The Fountain was a better-than-expected Aaronovsky film and Hugh Jackman vehicle (for me, anyway.) But other fountains are in Jackman's sights: along with Operation of Hope, the X-Men star has donated $50k to long-running mediatree favourite cause, charity: water. You may remember - particularly if you were there! - that the mediatree bash T in the Barn had charity: water as the main cause; so I, like many across the globe, am really pleased that Hugh stuck his hand in his own pocket in such a great way, and even more so that he chose such a great charity. What's more, he used twitter to do it.

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we built this city on rock and roll


Geocities will cease to exist later this year, Yahoo have announced. For many, this is irrelevant. For me, this is heartbreaking. Geocities was my introduction to site-building, simple as it was. Only recently I was reminiscing, you may recall - 'peteswayuk', march 7th - about the wonders of the network's chunky goodness. And soon it will be gone. Yahoo seem to be hinting at a summertime cull, and will be letting us know how to 'save our site data' then.

Sigh. All things must end. See that graphic? I loved that graphic. I spent weeks on end shouting at that graphic. And now... sigh...

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Thursday 23 April 2009

good grief: part deux


As a follow-up to something I mentioned a while back ['good grief', april 6th] I take great pleasure in sending some kudos the direction of the Venerable Chris Liley, Archdeacon of Lichfield Cathedral, who politely told the BNP to clear away off with themselves when a candidate tried to use his Cathedral for a photo-op. Sir, you are a legend.

Chris wrote about his own version of events for the Guardian's Comment is Free today [Thursday]. Of course, he's already getting a little backlash in the blogosphere - ["Had many same sex marriages in your cathedral recently?"] but on this occasion, sir, leave those to one side. You did a good thing for the right reasons, and for that we salute you.

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Wednesday 22 April 2009

hold on, pet


The lovely Maguire & I are a alt. folk band from Belfast (sort of), full of lovely people singing lovely music. They recorded and distributed three tracks last year, and they've got another three online now...

Facebook Page
Myspace Profile
Bebo users Click Here

More importantly, they're playing a wee show in Belfast next Tuesday (April 28th), at the eternal Oasis cafe - click here for the Facebook Event.

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Thursday 16 April 2009

and so i tell you from afar


I'm not a fan of blogs being used for personal/confessional writing: at best, it can come across as forced and unsettling; at worst, it's an inappropriate medium for telling people what they should know already if they actually care about you as a person.

Of course, like all human axioms this is made to be broken - anyone who has ever spent five minutes on the excellent PostSecret will know that such things can not only be therapeutic for a reader, but also must be immensely enlightening for those who anonymously 'confess'. I never intended, in terms of blogging, to pitch my writing anywhere other than somewhere between commentator, informer, and secondary source. Whilst I do write regularly about personal activity - focusing, obviously, on endeavours underneath the loose mediatree banner - I'm generally quite careful, in the style of the best new media practitioners which I observe and aspire to emulate, to keep 'real life' something which remains offline.

However, as one begins to effect the other, I have found in the past few months that such lines have become blurred. In an attempt to therefore comment on 'real life' without going as far as to 'spill completely' (a term concocted once at a funeral, as it seemed a very appropriate one for many things at the time), as I maintain that open writing is not really an appropriate forum.

Allow me, therefore, to make the following comments and observations. Having read the above by way of disclaimer, you've been warned.

[1] Shortly before Christmas, a friend passed away suddenly. It was weird, and I still struggle to put the experience into words - I recommend to you instead the reactions David Crowder relates in his excellent cowritten book, Everybody Wants To Go To Heaven (But Nobody Wants To Die).

It was weird for many reasons, but one I can actually articulate is this: she wasn't a friend I spoke to every day, hell every week; instead, there were two or three intense periods each year when I would hope to be brainstorming and writing, and then actually enacting youth work with her. Aside from that, I would have contacted her randomly, usually either in relation to a shared love of folk music (upon which I was consistently being told off and educated) or every time anything (and I mean anything relating to The West Wing came up. (For example, Richard Schiff was once playing in a celebrity golf tournament. My immediate reaction was to fire off a message akin to, "Toby's playing golf on ITV!' I recall the reply being something like, 'I literally just screamed at dad that I had to tell you about that...'

There was, and still is, a huge outpouring of grief because she was someone who affected so many in such a variety of ways. When she was alive, I would probably not have said we were tightly close; but since her death, I have been repeatedly reminded and told otherwise. Certainly, there is a huge area of life which is still very stained (in the good way, for the few who were in Kilbroney yesterday) by her joyful memory.


[2] It has slowly dawned on me that I was more financially free as a student than I am now. This mightn't sound like much; in fact, more often than not I take a little kick from realising that I don't care for finance much beyond getting by. However, after nearly twelve months of doing just that - barely scraping by - I'm finding it's getting very old. Although there is no immediate solution to this, the frustration continues to grow. Because of the nature of the media work I do, so much of it is goodwill - and either way, what financial payment does turn up is always reasonable but far from sustaining. As for 'real life' - I got very sick of job interviews for things that always seemed just out of reach (knowingly coming second, it turns out, does hurt more than it is cool), began temping, and am still at least a few months away from escaping that.

I know where I want to go in life and to where I feel called, and it's my responsibility to make sure I do everything I can to get there. But it's hard, isn't it?


[3] I was 'home' today doing a bit of gardening - original home, not current home, as it were. It is a very sad thing when you realise that home is no longer where you have lived the longest.


[4] God doesn't cause suffering; and in fact, we are never tested by pain and sin beyond what we can bear, as the text says. But, as Job found, pain does go right up to the line. There have been a few occasions in the past when I have found this; sadly, another one is currently in progress. I don't ask for sympathy, but learning. I've also found the current sermon series by the calmer-and-less-divisive-than-he-apparently-used-to-be Mark Driscoll (of the other Mars Hill Church), entitled Trial to be amazing and appropriate. I would heavily recommend the whole lot to anyone with a soul, but men in particular, as it is to men that Driscoll would seem at his best when addressing.


[5] I feel like I've written my best music over the last 12-18 months; I don't mean that to sound big-headed. But people responded well in the past, and there's been excellent feedback since. In no way, shape or form can I afford to record or gig them, in terms of money or time. And I hate it as much, in most cases more, than anything else mentioned in this article.


That's all - back to YouTube videos next time, I promise!
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Monday 13 April 2009

where the wild things are

Saw this trailer last week but forgot to post. Very, very excited. Watch in HD and full-screen.



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Wednesday 8 April 2009

happy chappies

Just caught this report on BBC News, so have found the web report on it; the National Secular Society, a pressure group representing non-believers (which is not an issue in itself - I mean, someone gave Mary Whitehouse a voice, and we've all been paying for it since) are calling for churches to foot the bill for hospital chaplains. Here's a key paragraph:

A Department of Health spokesman said it was "committed to the principle of ensuring that NHS patients have access to the spiritual care that they want, whatever faith or belief system they follow".

The spokesman said: "Chaplains do an extremely demanding job, often in difficult circumstances, and their skill and dedication is highly valued by patients, relatives and staff within the health service."

A Church of England spokesman said: "Spiritual healthcare has long been acknowledged, by both medical practitioners and the churches, to be an intrinsic part of caring for people in hospital.

"NHS Trusts pay for chaplaincies because they see them as part of their duty of care to patients, not because the churches force them to."


We who believe accept that health comes in three strands: physical, mental and spiritual. However, if you don't have Christian faith, or indeed outside of any of the major religions, then perhaps the third of these does not enter thinking and thus the position of the NSS can be easily understood. But I'm relieved to see that, for the timebeing at least, the NHS are pretty adamant that this is not something up for discussion.

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crowder does spinal tap

David Crowder* Band, currently in studio working on their next record, Church Music, produce a steady stream of youtube vids, documenting what they're up to...

However, it looks like they've just started a new series of Spinal Tap-esque rockumentaries. And here's the thing - the first one is pretty flippin' funny.



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Monday 6 April 2009

good grief



I can't really summon the appropriate language to comment on this. [I can, but it's unprintable.] So I'll direct you to the good bishop Cramner's cleaner diatribe instead. The saddest thing is that I can, of course, instantly think of Anglican folk on our own lump of rock that would probably go with this. But as the previously-mentioned blogger discusses:

When it comes to the BNP, [Cranmer] has a dilemma. Does he cover their outrageous advertising campaign and provide them with ‘the oxygen of publicity’, or does he ignore them altogether, thereby leaving unchallenged their assertion that they are a Christian party; indeed, more Christian than the Church of England?

If the BNP were a Christian party, they would drive Jesus to atheism.


The mixture of pity and anger my soul feels is untenable.

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Sunday 5 April 2009

freefalling

This gent is my hero. Mr George Moyse, of Bournemouth, completed a parachute jump from 10,000 feet to raise money for the RNLI. Worthy enough of note in itself - but amplified by the fact that Mr Moyse is 97. Having watched his interview, well... all I can think is, "I probably won't be so sharp and coherant in my 60s..." What a man.

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Friday 3 April 2009

black and gold

The good folks at Dawsons Music shops have YouTube'd sections of a video I was involved in directing, cutting and authoring for their Bangor store last month. Click here (or on the right) to check it out on the Showcase page. [I love it when people have the good manners to put projects I was involved in online so I can show 'em off...]

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