Interesting articles in The Press

I was interviewed for The Press yesterday, very boring, but hey! Click here for photo, can't find my comment anywhere tho...

In reading the said newspaper the other evening I came across a classified ad for a clothes drier. All fine, until I saw that it was going for 50p, and yet it costs £5 to advertise in the newspaper!! That doesn't make sense!

Other interesting articles were the local Co-op that installed a device that emits a noise that only teenagers and 20-somethings can here to deter them from hanging around outside. How random! I almost want to go there and see if I can hear it! Full Story

Secondly, a new shop opened last week called Joy (I believe there is one already in Norwich's Chapelfield). To celebrate this launch, they agreed to give the first 25 people to strip down to their underwear a free outfit. Not entirely sure what I think about that! Full Story

Oh and people have been knitting jumpers for penguins...

African Snow

I went to see this over a week ago, but I've been a slacker in getting round to blogging about it!

My friend Lydia went to see it on Wed, and here are her thoughts.

I don't really have any great thoughts on it, so I shall just jot down my randomness in the order it comes to my head!

Very interesting to go to a play, where there is just one white actor and the rest are black. Seeing as though I've come from Norfolk where we're a little slow on catching up with the multiculturalness of the rest of the country, and now moved to York, where it's even more predominantly white (we do joke that my housemate is the token black person in York), it was quite weird to go to a performance in the city centre where the roles were reversed. But I appreciated it. It got me thinking.

On top of this, the black actors also played white people. I didn't twig this until Wilberforce came into the story! Again a little confusing, but an interesting take.

Unlike Lydia, it rather spoiled the play for me, having seen Amazing Grace the week previously. It's the same story, just from a different angle, so a times it felt like covering the same ground - potentially I needed to have a longer gap between the two. I did appreciate understanding the story from Olaudah Equiano's point of view though. It was a very long play. Both the film, and the play made me cry.

The question the performance is asking, is can a victim and abuser ever be reconciled? I don't think they really answered it, that wasn't the point, but it was good to get people thinking about it. As Christians is sometimes really easy to throw about words, saying that we should forgive each other etc etc. But seriously, John Newton caused Olaudah Equiano and his people so much pain, asking for forgiveness is asking a lot. I guess it can only be done with God's help.
There's so much hurt and pain, revenge and unforgiveness in this world.

Easter

Easter Sunday

We celebrated Easter as a house today. Probably the first time I haven't been with family at Easter.

Lorna, Bek and I went to church together this morning for a packed and lively service complete with entertaining children dressed up suitably for the Easter story with one particular boy running around with a sword shouting, 'kill Jesus!'.

We then met Lillian (our housemate) in town, grabbed ice creams and went for a walk around the walls. It was a beautiful sunny day. Following this we went to a celebration in the city centre organised by One Voice. There was face painting and crown making, and a red carpet to have your photo taken on to symbolise how we're all stars/unique/special to God. There was worship and an open air service involving an address from the archbishop and 21 baptisms. We were impressed at the speed and enthusiasm at which the archbishop carried out the baptisms, especially since each one got dunked 3 times - something I've not seen before! We were also impressed with his directness throughout the service for example telling the band to do just one song and not 'dither' about.

I was annoyed with the press though. They were around the whole thing like a swarm of bees, ignoring relatives of those being baptised who wanted to get closer to take photos.
Story here

We finished the day by sharing a roast together (cooked by Lorna) and just having a good old chat. Topics including whether Mary was always a virgin, to a strategy on getting into parliment, to the death penalty and anglican litergy.

Sarah and Helen's Trip to the Beach!

Oh the joys of Scarborough :D

Hover over pics for description