Newcastle

I hear that a Nigerian consortium has put in a bid for Newcastle Football Club. Presumably all the club has to do to receive the £420m is to send off £10m, to pay the necessary taxes ...

Signing On

As an unemployed person, I now have to go and sign on each fortnight. I am in the process of finding a new pastorate, but these things cannot be rushed! The young lad I see has his questions he has to ask me (I think they are on his computer screen on front of him). However, as he realises, "Pastor" is not a run-of-the-mill job. The previous time he said that he had to look up their website to see if they had any vacancies, but sad (though unsurprisingly!) to say, they didn't have any for a Pastor.

In times past I've heard some horror stories of people who have come into contact with a job centre (or one of its previous incarnations) but I must say the staff here are pleasant, and last time they kept apologising because we were kept waiting.

So, it's not a bad thing to go through what many people have to go through when they find themselves redundant. But I, like many of them, hope it won't be too long before we have to bother the staff no more at the job centre!

Miscellany

It's been a while since I've blogged and a number of things have caught my eye, so thought it was time to update all of you out there.

My wife had an appointment to go to the "Ophthalmic Department" of Orsett Hospital. When she arrived and asked for the Ophthalmic Department, she was told to follow the signs for the eye clinic! Is this another case of dumbing down? Or maybe it's just a way of cutting the cost of those signs!

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On the one hand I don't want to go on about misuse of apostrophes, but on the other hand ... Painted on the window of a nearby pub that does food are the words, "All your need's catered for!" Clever use of 'catered', pity about the apostrophe. I want to ask, "What about my needs to read correct grammar?

Then, again within a mile of home, I found this wonderful sign up on the window of a shop that was closing down. It's pictured here, but you will probably need to click on the picture to see a larger image in order to read the all important small writing on the green poster.


It's pretty rotten really. It means if you buy a left shoe, you have to buy the right one as well!

Put your fingers in your ears!

Yet again, following on from the previous blog, if scientists actually recreate in the LHC what happened at the Big Bang, will we be able to "Listen Again" on the BBC website?

If so, my advice is turn your volume down first!

LHC again ...

Following on from my last blog, I've heard a number of people asking why the LHC particle accelerator was actually built, seeing it has cost so much, and will continue to cost so much. Well, according to the BBC, "the Large Hadron Collider will re-create the conditions just after the Big Bang in an attempt to answer fundamental questions of science and the universe itself. "

It reminds me of a quote from a book entitled God and the Astronomers by Robert Jastrow, founder of Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies. The book was published in 1978 and Jastrow described himself as an agnostic. This is the quote:

The scientists' pursuit of the past ends in the moment of creation. This is an exceedingly strange development, unexpected by all but the theologians. They have always accepted the words of the Bible: "In the beginning God created heaven and earth" ... For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.

I like it!

God is in Control!

As you may know, at 8.30 am this morning the massive particle accelerator in Cern, Switzerland was due to be switched on. This enormous machine (a 17 mile ring buried 100 metres down) is designed to give answers to questions about the origin of the universe, among other things. Some have said it might produce a black hole which will go on to swallow the earth. One scientist even lodged an EU lawsuit to try to stop it happening.

However another scientist has said that fears have been 'exaggerated' and the possibility of it happening are 'miniscule'. Even a 'miniscule' chance of ending the world doesn't seem like a risk worth taking, or am I missing something?

Anyway, I was going to write something erudite about this, but my wife rang me this morning. She was on her way to work and at 8.30, when the machine is supposed to be switched on, she turned a corner and there was a beautiful rainbow. It only lasted a few seconds and then it faded. She said it made her cry.

You see, the Bible says that God gave us the rainbow after the great flood as a sign that he wouldn't destroy the earth like that again. God said to Noah, "This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth." (Genesis 9:17)

You see, God is in control! He decides what happens when in our universe. It is safe in his hands.

No prizes!

Congratulations to whoever has just looked at my blog! If you skipped down to the bottom of the page you are the one thousandth visitor! No prizes, though - just the joy of reading my rambles!

More English Misdemeanors!

You may remember my examples of poor punctuation found on signs within about a mile of where we live. See
http://ericgreymatters.blogspot.com/2008/03/im-fan-of-lynne-truss-who-wrote-eats.html

Well, I've been out again for some more English misdemeanors. Here are two, still within a mile of where we live. Click on the picture to obtain a larger image. First of all, we need to remember we aren't living in America! We spell it "Centre" over this side of the pond.

And then the troublesome apostrophe. I don't particularly like contracting 'and' to the single letter 'n', but if we must, it needs to have an apostrophe before to signify the 'a' is missing and after to signify the 'd' is missing. In other words, it should read Fish 'n' chips. Having said that, the fish and chips the shop sells are brilliant! So I don't hold the slip-up against them!

Even as I walked down the road before I took the pictures, what should be coming towards me but a car towing one of those mobile food outlets you often find at open air fairs, etc. We saw it earlier this summer and I took this picture.

If you haven't worked it out, it's 'confectionery'. Never mind, I'm sure the sweets are very nice!

That's the end of round two of my one-man attempt to improve the nation's English. Well, it's worth a try!

Back to the country ...

Although we feel at home in Brentwood since we moved here last year there's one thing we do miss from living in Suffolk. And that is, watching BBC's regional news Look East. Here on digital we get London news. However, we can get a very snowy Look East on terrestrial.

As we were in the 'depths' of Essex recently and saw Look East again, we thought we'd watch it tonight through the "snowstorm".

And we were rewarded! Instead of the gritty London stories we heard about:

• a miniature railway where the steam engine had been derailed due to vandalism, even though it was only travelling at 5 mph (no injuries to passengers);
• the growing of different strawberry varieties to see which taste best (complete with a colour card to see when they are the correct colour to pick);
• a fire in a village called Cold Norton (perhaps it should be renamed now!);
• a teenager who has taken over as landlord of a pub in Thornham Magna.

Oh the joys of rural life!

A New Era ...

Well, today is my first day 'unemployed' (for more information about this, see my July blog "The Reason Why" - http://ericgreymatters.blogspot.com/2008/07/reason-why.html ).

Yesterday in church I spoke of the fact that the church has been going through difficult times and that it was a spiritual battle that God had allowed. I quoted Luke 22:31 where Jesus at the last supper said to Simon Peter, "Satan has asked to sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers."

So the church must remain faithful through this current time and be encouraged that Jesus is praying for us! And, when we are through all this, God wants to use the experience to strengthen others! I then challenged people to be part of the "Fellowship of the Unashamed". *

So it's a new 'era' for me. I've never been unemployed as such before. But, as I've said earlier, I'm going to use this time to do some study that I've not as yet had time for and, of course, setting the wheels in motion to find a new pastorate.

I read Psalm 71:17-18 recently:

Since my youth, O God, you have taught me, and to this day I declare your marvelous deeds.
Even when I am old and grey, do not forsake me, O God, till I declare your power to the next generation, your might to all who are to come.

I believe there's still work to do, declaring God's love and power!


* See http://www.godswork.net/inspiration6.htm (although I removed & altered one or two bits).