a blog by howard jameson @ gatheringgrace.org

This could well be worth going over to Rome for!

Have been browsing Tomtom's turn-by-turn prat nav options for the iPhone. The one for WEstern Europe lists coverage as being...

Andorra
Austria
Belgium
Denmark
Finland
France
Germany
Gibraltar
United Kingdom
Ireland
Italy
Liechtenstein
Luxembourg
Monaco
Netherlands
Norway
Portugal
San Marino
Spain
Sweden
Switzerland
Vatican City State (Holy See)

The Vatican City??!!??

Is it worth 'going over to Rome' to see what anybody would need need a sat nav for in the Vatican? (unless Dan Brown has something to tell us in his next offering).

Google maps shows some streets here...

View Larger Map

but if you click on the satellite view they seem to be mostly paths around the gardens.

For the record...

...my Farmer's son joke has had a pretty decent airing this week at Collective Worship. The final results are in, and all votes have been carefully checked.

The number of people who laughed at this joke each day are as follows...

Monday - no laughs

Tuesday - 3

Wednesday - no Collective Worship as a Teacher Training Day

Thursday - 8

Friday - 0 (although one of the teachers smiled).

So I just made double figures adding all four days together (bearing in mind each house has, I think, 240 pupils).

Are we downhearted? No! Did we nod 47 times during the course of the assembly? No!

Great judgments from the past...

To rank alongside all those famous Beatles rejection letters we now have...

It's a collection of clichés and stock characters which I can't see as being anything other than a disaster

...written to John Cleese initially rejecting Fawlty Towers.

Young people today - tut!

A football manager has just been on the telly talking about trying to encourage young people to come to football matches.

"In 3 to 5 years time these 16 years olds will be 21".

No flies on that man...

Slightly cheesy Churchy moment...

Looking for something or Sunday I found a site offering ringtones of Taize chants - Wait for the Lord anyone?

If its Taize does that mean you are supposed to let it ring...and ring...and ring...

If you recall Reggie Perrin's mental image of a hippo every time his wife's mother is mentioned then that might explain why I get these recurring images of a...sorry, but in order not to offend any ladies reading who may be a) Methodist, b) violin players and c) don't shave their legs - the rest of this post is censored.

Living with disappointment...

...is one of the defining characteristics of ministry. Take this little exchange today over coffee...

"You know you mentioned about being made clean on the inside", I was asked.

"Yes," I replied (try to remain calm on the outside - this is just casual conversation - but this could be a break through moment on this person's spiritual journey!!).

"I wanted to shout colonic irrigation," I was told (try to keep smiling- it was nothing really)

"Thanks for not shouting," I said, struggling to hide my disappointment, "have another Party Ring."

You don't always get to laugh in a meeting (sadly)

But I was still chuckling this morning with the following...

"Eats, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation" (Lynne Truss)

...style paragraph.

In 2008 it was noted that the urn delivers water very slowly and is very stiff to turn on and off causing water to be spilt on Phillip’s foot. It is very old and Jane and Jane think it should be replaced either from Jenny’s hall funds or from Ladies evening funds, although these are currently saving up to replace the hall curtains.

With sincere apologies to the age-ist connotations of the reference to Phillip's body parts.

A question

What does Emperor Ming have on his poppadums?

Mongo chutney

Dr Who at prayers?

Was it just me or did one of my colleagues really say in a prayer...

...and we pray that we will see a Time Lord...

Harvest in the barn

Nobody wants to go home. We might have to have a lock in.