A Methodist Minister

Stop the world - I want to get off!

I have always believed that it is vitally important for us ministers to be conversant with both current affairs and cultural trends. The old adage was , ‘Bible in one hand, newspaper in the other.’ That was OK when a newspaper was all that was needed to keep up, oh, and possibly a ‘wireless’. Wasn’t life simple in those days? I have for sometime been suffering from information indigestion.

Let’s start with newspapers. I love to buy and read a newspaper, I mean a real newspaper, not a red top. Something like The Times or The Telegraph or The Guardian. In fact most days I read all three, well, I skim through selected articles of all three of the internet versions. I actually very rarely buy a newspaper at all, except for the Methodist Recorder, which I feel obliged to buy – well somebody has to! We used to take the Evening Chronicle for local news, but I recently cancelled it as I only really read the back pages and that was making me depressed.

I love books too. Here I must make two confessions. Firstly I love buying books, especially second hand, but I would rather declare undying love for Sunderland AFC than part with any books. Hence my collection grows ever larger. Secondly I think I have an addictive personality - don’t worry, alcohol and mind altering chemicals are not a problem – I am a collector. John Grisham is a good example of this. I once purchased a copy of ‘The Firm’ for 20p at a church fair. Having read and enjoyed it whilst on holiday I realised that this guy was churning out books at an exponential rate, so I am always on the lookout for my next Grisham and of course having bought them you have to read them. The trouble is its not just Grisham, it’s also Thomas Hardy, although fortunately he’s not writing novels any longer. I started with JRR Tolkien and read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings after which someone recommended that I should read The Silmarillion, but I found it impenetrable and was cured of Tolkien.

I also love films, or movies as they seem to be called these days. I was brought up in the countryside long after the more local cinemas had closed. A visit to the cinema required a 40 mile round trip, so we didn’t go very often. Even when we did go we were sometimes late. I remember going to see The Sound of Music, we arrived 15 minutes into the film, but stayed on at the end and watched the first 15 minutes of the next showing. So I’ve got a lot of catching up to do. It’s mind boggling to think of the sheer number of films that get churned out each week and that’s just in the English language. If you listen to the critics then the real quality is French or Japanese or Romanian cinema. And I would really like to see them all, except for the nasty, unpleasant ones that are a waste of everybody’s time. And I think theoretically I could thanks to Sky Movies and Sky Anytime and Sky + and the fact that DVDs are dead cheap these days. But watching movies takes up a lot of time.

I really love music as well; all kinds of music such as U2, Kings of Leon, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Beyonce, Les Miserables, Delirious, Keith and Kristyn Getty, Green Day, Opera, Male Voice Choirs, Barbershop. Well, not all kinds of music, not C&W or Jazz or what used to be called Soul. But I like enough to keep me going. Fortunately I spend a fair bit of time in the car which gives me the opportunity to listen to music, that is when I’m not listening to Radio Five Live. I Tunes is great isn’t it, now suddenly all those back catalogues are instantly available at 67p a shot.

Talking of I Tunes, we now have podcasts to keep us up to date. I subscribe to several including two BBC Five Live programmes, ‘Fighting Talk’ and Simon Mayo and Mark Kermode discussing the week’s film releases. Both are produced weekly and are about half an hour in duration and needless to say don’t always get listened to.

But nowadays what with podcasts, I players, Sky +, You Tube et al you need never miss out on anything ever again just so long as you have 30 hours in your day.

I also love sport and live events. Somehow football has lost its appeal just at the moment. I’m not sure why. Watching cricket is the perfect way to spend an English summer’s day (remember them?) but that will have to wait until retirement. In the next few weeks we are planning to see a T Rex tribute band, Beyonce, Clive James, Evita, Michael Ball and Ladysmith Black Mambazo. You see we never know when we might be back in the countryside again.

So trying to keep up with news, current affairs, films, music, sport and live events could be a full time occupation. To help in this task I have been taking lessons from the younger members of our family in watching a film on the television with at the same time a laptop balanced on my knee displaying the internet newpapers and plugged into my IPod belting out the new U2 album.

The trouble is it all merges into one and I wake next morning thinking I’ve just watched a movie about MP’s expenses with a rock n’ roll soundtrack.

Stop the world I want to get off!

posted by Richard @ 4:25 PM