Borrowed off a friend at work. Actually really enjoyed it, although it bordered on being a bit too graphic for my liking.
Attention all Shipping
I don’t think travel books are my favourite genre, but this was a pleasing little read. It felt a bit like hard work towards the end, mind.
Finished Miss Garnet’s Angel
Really enjoyed this, and it finally inspired me to get around to reading the Apochrypha
Going Postal
This was actually fab – best Pratchett for a while, I reckon.
H’mm – not as many as I thought, but then it is only since August, and I’ve been reading lots of “churchy” books. I’ll probably do a list of those somewhere.
Can’t say I rate the O2 website – except on price, I suppose. I ordered the phone, as you know, and got the usual flurry of confirmation e-mails. However, after a few hours, I got another e-mail that informed me said phone was in fact out of stock, that it would be shipped as soon as they had stock (and the figure of 5 days was banded around), and in the meantime I could check my order status through the website..
Could I heck! Apparantly there’s meant to be a “My Orders” section – no such thing. I sent off an e-mail, and got an almost instant stock response telling me that the web-shop was either down (try again in two hours), or it was a problem with my browser. Needless to say neither of this applied.. two hours later (two days later, come to that) still no ability to check my order online.
… However, barely had the “out of stock” e-mail arrived, then another one arrived telling me it has been dispatched, and I could track on DHL’s website with a magic number! I put in the magic number, and yes indeed; there it is; “marked for collection.” Quite how something can be out of stock and then collected for delivery is a little beyond me….
Still if it is going to turn up on Monday or Tuesday, as promised, I’m not complaining. To be honest if it doesn’t turn up for a few weeks I’m probably not going to moan too loudly!
Needless to say I coulnd’t leave my Psalmic musings hanging, so I thought I’d start by doing a Google, and Lo and behold
a nice exposition of Psalm 42 came up, by Ray C. Stedman. The whole page is worth reading, but his dealing with verse 7 resonates with my intuitive understanding of what the Psalmist is getting at.
He is still despondent. His remembering of the past has not worked. Usually it does. Usually this is enough to deliver us from this nagging fear that God is not going to do anything at all. But now it does not, and so he tries to help by remembering something else: an experience that he had when he was in the northern part of Israel near Mount Hermon, at the head of the Jordan River, on a little peak of the range where Mount Hermon is located, called Mount Mizar (which, incidentally, means “little mountain”). On that occasion he could hear the waterfalls of that mountainous region, the thundering cataracts. He became aware of how they seemed to be calling to one another, “deep calling unto deep,” and it reminded him that the deeps in God call out to the deeps in man.
One of the amazing things about nature is the silent voices that call to one another across vast spaces. The moon calls to the deeps in the sea, raising the tides. Twice a day the waters rise in tides across the earth, because of the moon calling to the ocean. You know how the sun and the rain call to the deeps in a seed, causing it to stir with life and to spring up and grow. There are vast distances that call to the deeps in wild birds, causing them to wing their way across trackless wastes to lay their eggs; there are voices that call to certain fish, sending them across the seas to spawn. In this way the Psalmist is reminded that God also calls to man. There are deeps in God that correspond with deeps in man, and he calls to them. The Psalmist specifically names two here: the deeps of the love of God, and the joy of God, calling out to the corresponding deeps of prayer in the believer.
At our work prayer group this week we were looking at Pslam 42 (As the deer…), and we all found ourselves tripping up over verse 7:
Deep calls to deep in the roar of your waterfalls;
all your waves and breakers have swept over me
On one level I love this verse, as it’s so evocative – Matt Redman certainly thought so too, but when you actually stop and take stock, it’s not at all clear what it actually means. Perhaps we’re used to depth being a positive thing; “how deep is your love?” or “she’s such a shallow person” – yet there’s also being “out of your depth”…
The context suggests the pslamist is somewhere between desperation and despair at this point, and one commentary I read said that this verse talks about the depths of despair, and misery upon misery being piled upon him.
How can this be, you ask? Well, it turns out that O2 have a special web deal of said phone for eighty quid, which includes a free bluetooth headset. Ok so I don’t need a bluetooth headset, but this deal beat the pants off expansys’s 180 odd, or indeed the best eBay can do.
I will probably need to unlock it, but that’s only 15 quid or so; not too fussed about that. But I did want to take advantage of this deal before it vanishes!
I’ll give the headset a try, and if it’s better than my current one, I might do an eBay. Or I could keep it as a spare, I suppose…
On the subject of ‘free verse’ type music, how could I forget to mention Katie Melua?
There are nine million bicycles in Beijing
That’s fact, It’s a thing we can’t deny
Like the fact that I will love you till I die
It’s sort of displaying parallelism too – the Old Testament poetic metric of reinforcing an idea by either expressing it in another way, or constrasting it with it’s opposite. For instance, Psalm 2 has
I’ve identified something of a trend in my recent music ‘likings’ – many of them bend or break the traditional rules of rhyme and rhythm. For instance Juliet Turner lyric:
I will not be leaving you
cos that is not the way I do things
Can’t get worse, might get better
Has always been my way of thinking
…
or perhaps
I’m standing next to lady liberty
She brings a sentimental tear
A little water in the eye
Always good to have a cry
Take some time to wonder why
Then business as usual, business as usual.
Of course KT Tunstall is another
My heart knows me better than I know myself
So I’m going to let it do all the talking
I came across a place in the middle of nowhere
with a big black horse and a cherry tree.
Ok in this verse she does go on to rhyme “talking” “walking” and “tree” with “me”, but this pattern doesn’t hold in the second verse; “two” and “tree”. Writing the lyrics down only half captures this tho, and they play fast and loose with the rhythm too, particularly Juliet Turner (count the syllables in the Lady Liberty lines!)
Not that this is a new phenomenon – songs like Park Life, Cool for Cats do the same kinda thing.
I was trying to decide if Hayley Hutchinson fits this pattern… The best I could manage was her bridge:
Sing to me some sweet meleody
I don’t think it’ll help me sleep
I’m tired but I’m so guilty
I cut you down with my honesty
I would probably also edge the Kasier Chiefs into this category – although they do rhyme, there’s something a little odd about their structure and timing.
Phew – on holiday! Going to stay with my Mum in London, which will be the first time A. and B. have seen her since Easter, I think. My sister and neice are also popping over, so that’ll be lovely.
The downside is that we need to pack, and try and think of everything Ben will need. He’s asleep at the mo, so we’re just putting our feet up, but I guess when we wakes up we’ll start loading up the car in preparation of a good start in the morning.
We’re planning to watch Lost tonight, and then have an early night (which probably means a normal night, as the clocks have changed).
Oh yes, and my toy budget recently had a cash injection – a couple of sales on eBay, and then an honororium from Wiley books for reviewing a book proposal has pushed me well in toy budget surplus. In celebration I ordered a new wireless optical mouse (my old one is driving me nuts as it doesn’t work properly – and in fact it completely gave up the ghost just before I started writing this, so the new one is timely) and a bluetooth dongle.
I’m mainly saving up for my new phone though.
The question then hangs over what to buy with next year’s toy budget – a new GPS or a Sony PSP? I won’t be able to afford both, but reckon one might be a go-er.
I think that Terry Wogan has a lot to answer for; he keeps bringing music to my attention that I really like, and so I end up visiting iTunes. Doesn’t help my saving up for a new phone.
The latest is Juliet Turner, an Irish singer-songwriter responsible for the most catchy Dr Fell and Burn Your Black Suit (which is also the title of her second album). One of the unusual thing about her music is that she has a really strong irish accent, and it seems to be fairly rare to hear strong accents in songs these days.. I actually thought the song was about Dr Phil at first!! There’s plenty of examples of non-accents: for instance, would you think Kylie was Aussie from her singing? Would you think
KT Tunstall is Scottish? Or Charlene Spiteri? Then again other examples of accents showing through would be The Proclaimers, Gazza, … um all I can think off just now.
Juliet also did the frankly odd Business as Usual (“I’m standing next to lady liberty”), which I didn’t realise was hers until I listened to it. Don’t get me wrong – I like it – it’s just not your usual popular music. Her accent is not quite so pronounced in that one, which is why I didn’t attribute it to her.
