So in the early hours of the morning, the news that Saddam Hussein had been executed. Sadly I suspect that it will further divide Iraq, and certainly will change little in the disintegration of the country, as can be seen by the differing reactions in Sunni and Shia areas of the country. There are also awkward questions coming up in discussion forums as, amongst a number of issues, people consider the fact that he was executed before a number of other cases against him had been prosecuted – cases that have awkward questions with regards to the involvement of the west. Having said that the BBC seems to be getting in relatively quickly with a comment piece implying that even after his death Saddam will continue to haunt Bush – probably the biggest certainty after the events of this morning.
Monthly Archives: December 2006
Politics Courts the Blogsphere
It looks like the rise of the blogsphere is going to make a significant difference in the way upcoming political campaigns are going to be conducted. We got the first hints of this with the news that Robert Scoble has been invited to travel with John Edwards newly announced campaign for President, launched recently in New Orleans. Scoble is not alone – there is also a team from RocketBoom traveling with them too.
Now politics blogs aren’t exactly anything new, and RocketBoom have previously put in political segments, but Scoble, who is very definitely a tech blogger is a bit of a new departure, and after the adverse reaction to the mixing of politics with a tech conference at Le Web last month, an interesting move. Certainly Scoble looks to be treading carefully with an explicit statement that he won’t be linking to political stuff on his link blog, and his comments thus far being as much about how the mechanics of the campaign and mainstream media work as political comment. It will definitely be interesting to see how it goes, and also to see quite what happens when our next big election comes around in the UK. I’ve got no doubt that we may see something similar from David Cameron when the time comes.
John Edwards in New Orleans originally uploaded by Hamletphase.
The Runaway Bride
So after all the building excitement, we’ve had The Runaway Bride, this years Doctor Who Christmas Special.
The episode was a definite fast action romp, with the previously leaked chase sequence turning up pretty early on, as Donna, the bride in question takes a taxi in order to try and get back to her wedding, which from the pre-credit sequence, she mysteriously vanished from as she was walking down the aisle.
The question of how she transferred across billions of miles of space from her wedding into the TARDIS was explained as being due to her being saturated in Huon particles, a small amount of which are present in the heart of the TARDIS itself. Presumably the large amounts of power that the Doctor had been using to make his last communication with Rose resulting in the long distance attraction of the particles in Donna bringing her to the TARDIS. The Doctor uses the same effect later in the episode to bring the TARDIS to Donna.
It transpires that Donna has been inadvertently working at a company that was formerly part of Torchwood, but following the destruction of the London Torchwood at the end of Doomsday, the company is now being used as a front for the Racnoss, the last of whom is using the resources of the company to try and revive members of her race who had been hidden millions of years ago in the core of the Earth. The aforementioned Huon particles being used to reactivate them, but needing to be in a large enough concentration, Donna has been used as a human container, with the particles being gradually built up over the previous six months. The wedding is also part of the plan, as the Racnoss human agent had agreed to marry Donna in order to allow him to continue the plan.
Needless to say the Doctor foils the plan and saves the Earth, and the episode finishes with the Doctor asking, and Donna refusing to go with him. Instead, the Doctor uses the TARDIS to produce a snow shower (which probably explains the unseasonal London snow fall in Eastenders I guess) and then departs.
All in all it was a quite entertaining hour for Christmas Day. Donna was definitely different from Rose, and unlike last Christmas where Tennant spent the majority of the episode incapacitated, this time around it was definitely him who was the star of the show. The episode carried on at a breakneck speed, with some spectacular sequences. The TARDIS chase was definitely one of the highlights – and definitely something they couldn’t have done before the advent of CGI. Having said that, the spectacular Racnoss – a giant spider, wasn’t produced in the same way – this was apparently actually built.
The story was dated as present day, dropping it in as a further part of the latest continuity/dating hiccup that I expect will rival the UNIT dating controversy from the seventies for confusion. In much the same way, Rose was dated present day, and then subsequent return visits to Earth were said to be months in the future, particularly Aliens of London which is twelve months later. This pushes the events of both The Christmas Invasion and Doomsday into the future, making both the present day dating of Runaway Bride and the main Torchwood series somewhat problematic.
Anyway, as with last year, the episode was followed by a preview of the upcoming series, with flashes of Martha Jones the new companion, some nice shots of the Globe Theatre from the upcoming Shakespeare episode amongst other things. However, at the end of the trailer we also get confirmation of the return of the Daleks, in a story that is set in Manhattan in the 1930’s. Certainly much to look forward to.
Glow Stick Christingle
I posted a week ago that like Chelmsford Cathedral, we were trying out Glow Candles in our Christingles this year. We’ve just got back having sung in the choir at the second of the three Christingle Services today, and acted as stewards for the third, and all in all the new style Christingles seem to have gone down pretty well.
There certainly have been complaints, and indeed the Rector was fielding a number of grumbles of the sort being raised by MP Eric Pickles in the article in the Telegraph, with grumbles about health and safety gone too far, taking the magic out of the service, and so on, but universally the comments weren’t coming from the children or the parents. Certainly amongst the children of the choir who attended the 4pm service, in fact one of the choristers said she wasn’t interested in the orange or the sweets, but only wanted to take away the glow stick, and various of the other children were having a great time rushing around the lawn outside the parish centre in the dark with the glow sticks too. There were also a number of positive comments from parents, who in previous years have had worries with their younger children, and had a fairly stressful time through that part of the service keeping an eye on their offspring making sure they didn’t burn themselves. Indeed, one parent actually thanked us for taking the decision to change.
Whilst the glow produced by the Glow Candles probably isn’t as bright as the candles would be, it certainly is enough to be effective, especially at the later services where it is dark outside, and was certainly enough for people to be able to read their service sheets by.
The change to Glow Candles was also used to make a theological point. Since once they are lit they stay alight as people left the Church, this was to symbolise everybody taking the light of Christ out into the world – something we couldn’t do with candles.
Whilst by no means do I think this is the end of the discussion, it certainly seems to have been pretty successful in terms of the target audience. I’m sure when the time to organise our Christingles comes around again we’ll have people arguing for a return to candles. I took some snapshots of the 6pm service, which can be found here, which hopefully will give some idea of the differences with using the Glow Candles – it will also give some idea of the numbers of people we have to handle – upwards of 250 people at each of the three services, with even people sitting in the choir stalls behind the altar at the 6pm service.
All Downhill from Here
Tonight we had the first part of the end of the busy Choir Christmas schedule, with the traditional carol singing around the village. As usual we kicked off at Warren Lodge, and then moved on to the Queens Oak near the Church, and then on to the Greyhound in the village.
Unfortunately, for several of us it was a decidedly frustrating evening. It was pretty disorganised anyway – the only people with carol books were the few of us who had brought them along, and most of the rest of the choir ended up busking off the carol sheets. Although we didn’t have a full turnout from the regular choir (there are a number of coughs and colds going around) we had a pretty large number of people, with a lot of old choir members coming along, and I still think we produced a pretty good sound, however we sang significantly less that we have done in previous years. That may be something to do with the lack of people – at the Queens Oak there were a number of empty tables, and the Greyhound was pretty quiet too. As a result, of the number of perennially favourite carols that in previous years we have done in every location, we didn’t do so tonight. Certainly if, as we are we’re coming into the pubs and causing a good deal of disruption to the people in the pub, and although we do it for free, we’re collecting on behalf of the Children’s Society, and I think we really need to give people, however many or few their are, their money’s worth – something I don’t think we did tonight.
Anyway, there is not much time to consider the Carol Singing, as tomorrow is Christmas Eve, and we’re into multiple Christingle services again, followed up with a dose of Midnight Mass, and then another couple of services on Christmas morning too.
What is making things somewhat more stressful at the moment though is that we have had a warning from the local Police about a couple of gentlemen casing out Churches – indeed we believe we’ve already had them in the Parish Centre. They have been spotted at a number of Churches across the Berkshire/North Hampshire borders, and are apparently after keys. If that seems a bit odd, bear in mind what are the most valuable things most Churches have.
In most cases, things like video equipment and computers, if the Churches have them on site, will be second hand donated stuff – more often than not with anything like that I tend to bring my own equipment rather than use the Church stuff. In terms of money, there is usually little left about. There might be the odd few pounds in collecting tins, but mostly that wouldn’t cover the petrol costs of these guys driving between the Churches. What is of real apparent value is the silverware. Whilst most of the really valuable stuff is usually in a bank vault somewhere, most Churches will have some sort of silverware around that gets used week by week, whether that be chalices, an altar cross or whatever. The majority of Churches will ensure that this sort of stuff is locked away, hence why the thieves will be after keys – I guess with it being Christmas there is probably the hope that some of the really valuable stuff will be brought out of the vault too. Having said that, we don’t have that much around that is high value silverware – what is used week by week is much more of sentimental value to members of the congregation, being given in memory of various loved ones over recent years, rather than anything particularly historic. Having said that, that probably won’t make much difference to potential thieves, and given the chance they’d probably steal them on the off chance they are valuable. Needless to say, with the prospect of large numbers of visitors around at Church over the next couple of days, it’s an additional worry we just don’t need!