Swivelling Seats

A story unfolds before us, slowly but surely light is shed on a mysterious object. Music begins, light hearted, jolly, moving us along in this tale. Suddenly the spotlight falls upon the swivelling chair and dvd player in the centre of..... the car!!! Amazing. Astonishment follows as the music stops being soft and going into a bit of frenzy. A pause ensues and then the razzle dazzle wonder amazing guitar rift kicks in and the story ends.

Hazaah!! All of a sudden all your problems are at an end, the solution of life is clear. A car with swivelling seats and a dvd player. Its so simple you are amazed you didn't think of it before. The kids will be amazed. The sky will always be the most techincolour blue you could ever imagine, and the grass greener than green. All because you bought the car with the swivelling chair and dvd player.

This is of course the story of modern advertising, no longer selling a product on the product itself but on how it makes you feel, on the association you will have with it. The advert I am alluding to here is a particularly one for a car thats circulating at the mo which has as its main selling points a swivelling chair and a dvd player, but there are others. For instance I was particularly gripped and almost sold on how a mobile phone would improve my mood, not because of the phone, but because the phone was shown with laughing people and beautiful scenery.

Modern advertising is scary in its ability to sell us the solution to life in the form of a materialistic item. I'm not rallying against captialism here. I actually really quite like capitalism and my materialistic objects. Its just scary to think people actually think (myself included) that we will find satisfaction in a car or a phone alone, and that comes from associations with things that having little to do with the phone, things that often are gifts from the Lord or reveal his glory. All harnessed for a marketing campaign. Crazy.

Dynamo

I've been struggling a bit of late. Meeting with God in prayer and reading my Bible has been more of a hurdle than a desire and as such i've been avoiding the hurdle quite successfully - sadly.

As a consequence of this of course, i've been struggling with other things. Today its back to jobs again. I seem to have no focus, look at jobs and see only a bleak abyss, and am just generally a bit downcast. I did watch an episode of Band of Brothers yesterday in which one of the characters remarked that a particularly bleak situation they were all in seemed to have no end, and this is the key bit, at least as far as they could see. Later in the episode an unforseen development resolves their dilema, and this made my heart leap knowing that as long as I trust in God and keep chipping away things will happen that will help resolve the job situation, amongst others, that right now I cannot even contemplait.

For the moment though I am struggling to bring things before the Lord whilst I feel a bit like I have a huge creative dynmo lurking inside me, spinning away and seeking to explode in a fit of productivity, and yet, for the moment I have very little to do - or at least it seems that way.

Tales of Endurance

I finished a book today. In itself thats not entirely a blog worthy event, and, especially now that I am post-thesis and pre-employment, I have been reading quite a bit more than I did in the past. But, the book I finished was so facinating, so vast in its topic, that I decided to give it a bit of mention on here.

Entitled 'Tales of Endurance' and written by a chap called Fergus Flemming, it sets out in the form of short chapters to tell the tale of western exploration over a period of around 700 years. However, accepting that that would require a massive study and write up the like of which would take 20 years to read, let alone write and research, Flemming hand picked a veritable who's who of exlporers and their exploits and set about producing a handy 600 page (thereabouts) journey from Marco Polo in the late thirteenth century to the fateful exploits of the Italian led airship expedition that set out to discover vast swathes of the Arctic in the 1920s.

And I was gripped for the entire journey. Flemming opened my eyes and introduced me to new and unknown figures, whilst joining the dots and providing the missing pieces of the tales and lives of well known historical personalities, such as Scott and Shakelton. It was a journey that ranged from the frozen wastes of the Arctic and Antarctic, to the searing heat of Sahara dessert, taking in epic mountain and jungle treks as it went. It was a grim adventure, men and women battling through immense difficulties and harsh conditions, only to die from run-ins with the locals, scurvy, exposure, and starvation to name but a few maladies. On many occasions though it was also a tale of people overcoming those maladies and escaping hopeless situations, and although Mr Flemming was not entirely enthusiastic about this point, so so many of these men and women battled on seeking and trusting in the Lord. Amazing!

It was also filled with interesting little bits here and there, the three that amused me the most being:

a. Thomas Jefferson believed that native americans were actually a lost tribe of Welshmen!!
b. Mount Everest, which we pronounce Ev-rest, should actually be pronounced Eve-rest (as in Adam and Eve).
c. The main motivation for the first British expeditions to climb Everest was to build character.

Great book.

Demise of A Computer

For the second time in the history of this blog I'm writing about the demise of a computer. Most specifically my laptop, which, after two and a half years of faithful service (well maybe two years and nine months to be more exact) has almost died. I say almost as it will still work tentatively under battery power as long as the fan doesen't kick in. If the fan does kick in its all over but it is still just about continuing.

Anyhoo, I am thankfully writing from a new shiny model, which thanks to the wisdom of John Knight and the immense generosity of my parents and great aunt Ed, is working well and beginning to usurp the functions of its predecessor.

I hope that I don't seem all materialistic writing about what is ultimately a material object. Rather I am writing as its a poigniant thing in this technological age when a laptop goes awry. Facebook and MSN are, sadly, crucial to me remaining in touch with the wider world right now, while job hunting takes place on my trusty laptop, and its an essential impliment for helping me and Steph to stay in touch with each other. So a laptop becomes far more than an object, it becomes a medium to a much wider world.

And more than that, theres a certain sentimentalism to my old laptop. It essentially bore the brunt of a massive thesis research project and write up (and I do mean massive - the keyboard was pummelled), held literally tens of thousands of photographs, was also a medium of communication, and more recently provided a key lifeline to Steph and acted as an entertainment centre to help me through nights of spiritual attack. It did a lot in other words, and silly as it seems it is a bit sad to see it consigned to the rubbish pile.

Perhaps you think i'm crazy for being sad and sentimental about a laptop but its been a trusty material object.

Democracy

I can feel a little buzz inside me right now. As I type I'm watching BBC News 24 with my Dad and Boris Johnson has just been elected Mayor of London. Over the space of the last two days the Conservative Party has just won a very substantial proportion of the local election vote nationally and can now lay claim to the London Mayor.

Now, before I go on here. This is not a big, lavish pro-Conservative post. I do have a certain tendancy to support the men in blue these days, but this is not an Conservative fan club, nor does their victory specifically leave me with a buzz.

Rather, I feel that with the Conservatives registering a level of success and Labour apparently in a slump, politics and the political process is coming alive a little. Sure, I still live in a place where I can pretty much gurantee my vote counts for nothing unless I vote for Labour, but it aint half interesting when the government no longer seems all powerful, all sweeping, as it did most recently under Tony Blair. Now it seems that the voter, the average man and woman on the street has some influence with the peeps in London and that we aren't a mere commodity that is easily ignored.

To recognise that fact makes me all the more thankful that the Lord has blessed this country in so many ways. To be in a land that inspite of all the ways in which we seem to be in decline gives its people the ability to influence their government is a great joy. I was in the polling station yesterday and while it was obvious that the turn out would be verging on the pathetic and that the place was deserted I was so thankful that I could go in and vote, aided by two friendly assistants and not face oppression and intimidation. It is a great blessing.

So, there you go. Democracy. Not perfect, and not sure to solve things we want to be solved, but it is a blessing from the Lord.