Can anyone out there remember the days when there were less than three TV stations in the UK? Or only three radio stations (excluding Radio Luxembourg)? I can! Daytime viewing was a test card. Not only that, but TV programmes were black and white. In fact, I think most of my childhood memories are black and white, so perhaps the whole world was slightly lacking in hue!
A wonderful poem on unanswered prayer by Pete Greig in his book God on Mute: first there is prayer and where there is prayer there may be miracles but where miracles may not be there are questions and where the are questions there may be silence but silence may be more than absence silence may…
Are you happy? Do you know it? Do you show it?
It has always amazed me how much a smile can change a face and make it more attractive, better looking – male or female. Those smiles which are just on the cusp of bursting into laughter are by far the most attractive, and they are infectious. When a smile becomes laughter, things start to happen.
What would we do without hands? For most of us, very little. From our earliest moments, even before we are born, we use them.
Even in the womb, a baby will start sucking its thumb. The baby is perhaps learning the skills that it will need to feed once it is born. Once the baby is born, it will continue to suck its thumb, but will soon discover that those funny looking things at the ends of its arms are not just good to put in its mouth.
I have been known to be a bit clumsy. I am also a master of the understatement!
You are in the supermarket, by the stationery counter, and someone walks up to the shelf, picks up a pen and puts it in his/her pocket, then just walks out of the store. Your natural reaction is to think, “He stole that.” You might even start to shout about it, or run to the security man and tell him. People shouldn’t be able to do that. They shouldn’t get away with it. It’s stealing. It’s wrong. It’s sin. “Thief! Stop thief!”
The more I think of what Stephen Hawking has been saying, the more I am at a loss as to why he is so far from the truth! What does he see when he looks up? An equation? Has he ever seen a sunset and marvelled at the beauty of it rather than thinking that it is merely light passing through dust particles? I am not just getting at him. I feel sadness about the power of a theory which is blind to the beauty of creation.
I have just finished reading Riven by Jerry B Jenkins. It was a long read, a hard read and at times I wasn’t too sure that I wanted to keep going, since it had a theme running through it that I just felt wasn’t going to be easy. I like my novels light and this…
Stephen Hawking says there is no need to invoke God to set the Universe going. He adds: “Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going.”
Sorry, God, you are not needed – someone greater than you has spoken. Never mind the fact that he doesn’t say where the law of gravity came from in the first place.
I remember the first multi-choice exam I ever sat. It was in History, and I thought it was a brilliant idea, especially when I got the result. As far as I can remember, each question had four possible answers, so my chances of getting the the right answer went up from zero to one in four! It was easier to think about which one to pick than to think up an answer. History and I parted company soon after.
We all like choice, and the more choice we have the better, eh? Sometimes we make the right choice, sometimes the wrong one. Sometimes we get spoiled for choice, and we end up flipping a coin. Sometimes, though, we are spoiled by choice, not for it.
There is something totally different about Cambridge, and when my son, Simon, was at university there, Libby and I really enjoyed going down to see him, especially in the summer. The River Cam runs through the town, and one of its real attractions is punting.
A punt is a shallow longboat with a short platform at each end. The punter is not the guy who goes and places a bet on the horses for you while you go in the boat! The punter is the one who makes the boat move. He stands on the platform at the back of the boat, and pushes it along with a long pole. It takes a bit of time to learn, but once you master it, you feel great. You glide through the water and the only sound is the drip of water as you pull the pole up out of the water, move it forward and push into the bottom of the river with it again. If you are daft, you can also sing “O Sole Mio” and think of Cornetto ice creams.
Those who know me know that I am follically challenged, and it is good when I find a passage about things outnumbering the hairs on my head. It gives me a chance to make light of it. I have never had a problem about being bald, so it doesn’t worry me when people make jokes about it. It is obviously something I cannot deny, so why should I? If people have a go at me, I can always point them to this passage and ask where they stand.