Books For Men

If you go into [name of famous Christian bookshop deleted] you will find a section on feminist theolgy. A large vibrant challenging section at a convenient browsing height.

Tucked away on the bottom shelf (Freudian?) you will find a tiny, rather apologetic, "men's section".

Well it's right to be apologetic about it.

Whereas the feminist section is full of affirming, inspiring, provocative, positive stuff the books for blokes are appalling.

They fall into two types.

The first type is about sex. Not having any, to be precise. How it's a real problem, how you have to pray harder and harder every day and how you can never truly succeed because the danger of falling away is always present and defeat is always round the corner (there's probably a witty turn of phrase here, but it won't come). Even Stephen Fry would find them hard going. Dispiriting, insulting, repetitive, strident books. Who writes whole books about this? Yes it's an issue, men are obsessed by sex, but come on, give us a break, change the record, can't you say anything uplifting, a whole book?

Still the feminists may say there is a need for such books. They won't say that about the second type. They'll do more than that - if they knew they existed they probably would want to burn the shop down.

For the second type says that the man is the head of the household and it's all his responsibility to keep his wife from falling into sin, for she can't do it herself, she's too weak and it's only to be expected that if he relinquishes control, the household will go to hell (literally). He is to be her teacher, her instructor, her example and yes her disciplinarian. I kid you not. Woman can only be saved one at a time by her strong man, who shows no weakness.

Per-lease. The first type is insulting to men, the second type to women.

So, can someone try and write us a truly masculinist theology book, please? Just one?

Dangerous Element

No-one ever shouts Water! Earth! Air!

Fire!

That's the destructive one. So a flash flood or a mud slide can be massively destructive but they follow the geography. The fire will burn whatever it finds in any direction. The air must be polluted or thin to be a hazard - pure oxygen is dangerous because of the fire hazard. In a tunnel, the fire is the most dangerous, creating choking smoke and forcing you away.

The blonde may be glamorous and the brunette sultry, but the redhead is fiery and that's her attraction.

Rivers are watchable when they are gentle and babbling, air when it is fluffy clouds and rustling in the trees and earth - when it's a placid pasture? But fire is more exciting and fascinating the more out of control it gets.

The Holy Spirit came in tongues of fire.

We splash about in the water, we take the air for granted, we might have a mud-fight when we're small, but we all love playing with fire.

Flaming Effervescence
Igniting Iridescence
Rock'n'roll Radiance
Emerging Evanescence.

Set The Controls For the Heart of the Outback

Wonderful digeridoo sound.

Also:
The Great Gig in the Sea.
Wish You Were a Kangaroo.
The Lunatics are on the Grass.
Time and Money.
We Don't Need No ...
Astronomy Domine but no Interstellar Overdrive
and no Gnomes.

Thanks to Bruce and Sheila.
To find where they come from, go here

It's Oh So Quiet

Come on, you didn't really think so, did you?

If I appear to have been quiet recently, you haven't been in my car. I was suddenly struck by the number of magazines there are now for metalheads. There used to be just Kerrang! and Metal Hammer, but now there's Terrorizer, Powerplay, er, Rock Sound and there's even some coverage in Classic Rock, and I think I've missed one even so. This is a whole subculture. And I want to explore and see what I like.

So I've been playing the free CDs you get from these mags in my car. Loud. Including Norwegian and Finnish, thrashpunk, sleaze, metalcore, emo, stoner, sub-genres and sub-sub-genres, from guys who stand around a lot wearing black and looking broody, and not a few who look like they need a hot meal and a bath (that's the girls).

There used to be Anthrax and Slayer but they're a bit touchy-feely these days.

Alexisonfire, Dimmu Borgir, Dark Tranquility, Dead Man in Reno, Wednesday 13, The Poodles (er how did they get in?), Draconian, - you get the idea.

Now some of it (well quite a lot of it, actually) still sounds like screaming over noise, but there's quite a lot of decent stuff.

Anyway the results should be coming to a CD near you soon.

13 is a Lucky Number

Oops I'm 15 minutes late. Now I have to look for some lace.

Two Out of Three Ain't Bad

One disaster after another but we are getting there. This time tomorrow we might be back to normal?

It's All In the Game

Results from the Centerparcs games convention:

Field Archery - won easily by Tim.
Ten-Pin Bowling - Tim won 2-1 but Paul claimed the highest 10-frame score and was leading in both unfinished games.
Table-Tennis - Chris an easy winner.
Wine Tasting - Indecisive is perhaps the kindest word.
The boardgames tournament didn't run, weather disrupted the Adventure Golf, and the chess challenge was refused.
A Special Mention for Dedication to Exercise, especially bike-riding (known colloquially as "The Angela") is awarded to Doreen.

Communication Breakdown

Last time we went away for a few days we found the email had switched itself off and we lost 8 days of messages. This time we came back to the phone not working. At this rate next time we'll come back having lost the power of speech.

At least the glass has all been cleaned up.