Still Listening

I ate out twice today…


The first was a meal with my Advanced English class from the school, sort of around lunchtime.

Then, after a haircut on Queen Street and a coffee with Nigel, it was time to catch-up with old friend Bill.

I was keen to see this guy. The last time I’d seen him was five months ago, when he’d dropped the bombshell that his doctor had just told him that he would completely lose his hearing within two years.

Now, five months later, as I waited outside Starbucks, I prayed and wondered how this meeting would go. Would I now have to speak a bit louder? Would I find in him a newer, stronger commitment to God? Or could he have become, well, a bit jaded?

Of course not. In the event, predictably I suppose, we just met up and ordered our burgers as usual, and started yakking away about life, the universe and everything almost as though we were avoiding the subject, which of course we weren’t.

So, once we were out of the obvious catch-up subjects, I asked him “How’s the hearing?”

At this, a slightly perplexed gaze came over his face.

He told me that five months ago a heck of a lot of people had been praying for him, and for his hearing. For insurance reasons he’d gone to see another doctor for a second opinion. The second doctor had concluded that the first doctor had been wrong. He was, in fact, fine.

And five months later, he was still fine.

Wow. Big sigh of relief. Even bigger long conversation about whether this was the work of God, man or chance. Would he have been okay if no-one had prayed? Can prayers go back in time? Had he in fact been okay all along, or had he actually been healed?

I had to admit that of late, ever since reading Michael Duncan’s book Who Stands Fast – Discipleship in Tough Places I have been taking more on-board the idea of open theism – that the future is unwritten, and therefore God does not know what our future is.

Two important points to emphasise here:

1. Michael Duncan says in the above mentioned book that he does not believe in open theism.

2. Hand on heart, I’d say that I now believe both open theism and closed theism. I think that God has set some of the future in stone, but left other stuff up to us, and this is why there appears to be evidence for both in the Bible.

So anyway, Bill pointed me to how Abraham, having been told by God to leave home, apparently either disobeyed or was unable to carry out this instruction, and went to Haran with his dad instead.

Before our ancestor Abraham had gone to live in Haran, the God of glory appeared to him in Mesopotamia and said to him, ‘Leave your family and country and go to the land that I will show you.’ And so he left his country and went to live in Haran. After Abraham’s father died, God made him move to this land where you now live.
– Acts 7:2b-4, Good News

(there’s more about this back in Genesis 11-12)

This also all overlapped with the topic of how difficult I had found it to return to New Zealand the last two times.

When we finally went our separate ways again, I heading off to Hope City Radio to drop off another 10-hour DVD of past shows for repeating, I think it’s safe to say that we hadn’t come to a single ‘nother conclusion all evening.

But I really valued spending the time pouring over all this stuff.

God's Plans Fail

I realised today that God’s plans fail. This is normal.

Garden of Eden – failed.

Attempt to discipline Adam and Eve – failed.

Trying again with their descendants – failed.

Starting everything off again with Noah and his family – failed.

And so it goes on…

Saving the Israelites from Egypt – failed within one generation.

Moses – failed to keep him from sinning too, despite regular visits.

Saul – failed.

David – failed.

Jehoram… well you get the idea.

Eventually we get to Jesus, and God’s (presumably last) attempt to save mankind from sin, and… still he fails to win back a colossal great chunk of mankind. Some would say most. Even if you believe that everyone is saved, the plain fact remains that many people have not chosen to turn back to him.

And in every one of the above instances it’s mankind that screws up and makes God’s plan to heal fail.

If God wanted to make a blade of grass, I don’t think that would go wrong.

But if it’s something that involves us – well.

Cession | Careers Evening

Tonight was open evening at Cession - a chance for everyone to see what the different bits of the church do. We opened with a sketch parodying what the creative group does when planning its input into each service. I’m clearly a little uncomfortable in this, something I deserve I guess...


In fact the evening proved a good opportunity to take photos of people in a fairly normal environment. Friends who I might otherwise never get an excuse to photograph…

Inane Introspective Trivia

I've been sent one of those questionaires on Myspace that you can respond to by posting your answers into another bulletin.

Here were mine.

Q. What is your occupation? Human Resources Administrator / Teacher.

Q. What color are the socks you're wearing? Barefoot at the moment.

Q What are you listening to right now? Millions of New Zealand insects holding a rock concert outside my room window.

Q. What was the last thing that you ate? A bowl of Weet-Bix, Sultana Bran, Ricies, sugar and milk.

Q. Can you drive a stick shift? Yes, badly.

Q. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? White. (that’s every colour)

Q. Last person you spoke to on the phone? A caller for my flatmate Cathy.

Q. Do you like the person who sent this to you? I barely know her, but I’m sure she’s a kind person.

Q. Favorite drink? Milkshake.

Q. What is your favorite sport to watch? I can’t watch sport – I much prefer playing.

Q. Have you ever dyed your hair? Never.

Q. Pets? 3 family cats in the UK, but no pets here in New Zealand.

Q. Favorite food? Pizza. ANY pizza. Cold, old, reheated, just pizza!

Q. What was the last movie you watched? "Dave" starring Kevin Kline as an accidental President, followed by "Man Of The Year" starring Robin Williams as an accidental President.

Q. Favorite day of the year? Christmas Day, with my family.

Q. What do you do to vent anger? I try to pre-empt it by having realistic expectations.

Q. What was your favorite toy as a child? A puppet emu.

Q. What is your favorite fall or spring? Spring.

Q. Hugs or kisses? I have never been allowed to offer either.

Q. Cherries or blueberries? Not sure I’ve ever had a blueberry. Don’t go much on cherries either. I like Cherry Coke though.

Q. Do you want your friends to post this too? No, go do something wild! LIVE life!

Q. Who is most likely to respond? No-one.

Q. Who is least likely to respond? Everyone.

Q. Living arrangements? Flatmates David and Cathy, here in Auckland.

Q. When was the last time you cried? A year or so ago now.

Q. What is on the floor of your closet? Shoes, an x-ray and an empty backpack.

Q Who is the friend you have had the longest on your (Myspace) friends list? Probably my flatmate David.

Q. What did you do last night? Updated my blog. Now it’s only 9 months behind! :) (http://www.stevegoble.org)

Q. Favorite smell? Vanilla, freshly cut grass, freshly baked bread, freshly fallen rain, all those things.

Q. What (who) inspires you? Jesus, Jim Henson, The Goodies, Babylon 5, Red Dwarf, Doctor Who, The Simpsons.

Q. Favorite dog breed? Golden Retriever.

Q. Number of keys on your key ring? Just the one in New Zealand. Sometimes I have an office key here too.

Q. How many years at your current job? 6 months.

Q. How many states have you lived in? None – not in the U.S.

Q. What are you afraid of? Rejection – girls have always punished me for managing to tell them I like them. For well over 10 years now I’ve found it insurmountable to even say that. Too damaged.

Q. Ever drove Heavy Machinery? Only a truck.

Q. What is your favorite hobby? Writing / radio / film-making.

Hong Kong Fluey

So much for my bad back.

I’d told Cathay Pacific about it in advance by phone, I’d told them while checking-in at Heathrow Airport, and I’d told them a third time at Hong Kong. I even showed them the doctor’s certificate. Yet they still managed to put me in the worst possible seat on the flight. You see, front-row seats are the only seats with no seat in front of them, so they have to stow the in-flight TV in a metal box underneath the seat… right in front of where I was sitting behind. The simple result of this was that my left leg had legroom, but not my right. For 11 hours. And if you know me, I’m a slightly tallish fellow.

Anyway, that didn’t turn out to be my main problem.

After we’d left Hong Kong, as I turned the pages of The Man In The Rubber Mask, I began sneezing.

More and more.

I hadn’t sneezed once before or whilst in Hong Kong, and now I seemed to be coming down with precisely the sort of thing that they give you an infrared scan for there.



By the time we touched-down in Auckland, I was quite definitely coming-down with something of my own. Not a good state to be in when about to ask to be let into a country.

Then, while waiting for my bag by the conveyor-belt, a customs dog came bounding-up, knocking over my coffee and wanting to go through my bag with an enthusiasm that only dogs posess, but I had already eaten the offending banana on the plane.

Once outside, I spotted Flatmate Dave’s silhouette waiting for me in his car. At the same moment my phone warbled that I had a call coming in from him. A call that turned out to be from flatmate Cathy. I could only see one silhouette in the car, who didn’t appear to be on the phone, and yet I was having this phone-conversation with Cathy who my phone said was Dave. After 24 hours in the air, this was all far too confusing for me to make sense of.

24 hour flights always disorietate me. Especially when they turn the world the other way up too.

Anyway, we all 3 reunited, and drove back to the flat, where due to my further time-management 6 weeks ago, I also had a freezer-meal and a made bed waiting for me.

I opened some of my post. Christmas cards, mainly.

A few hours of sneezing (or snoozing?) later it was time for church, so I texted Rhett who duly showed-up with Sarah to give me a lift to Cession. Without them, I wouldn’t have gone. Catching the bus would have just been too complicated for my tired, jet-lagged, diseased brain.

I walked into church in something of a daze. I tried my best to look awake. I totally failed, as always. The bright broad daylight outside just made things worse. It was all wrong. I wanted to be wrapped-up cosily in bed at night, not socialising outdoors in the sunshine.

Yes, yes this definitely reminded me of previous 24-hour flights here.

Tired and exhausted, I actually fell asleep during Brett’s sermon, which he’d broken up into 3 sections just keep me believing that he’d finished when he hadn’t.

The worst, most unforgivable, moment came when Brett, making some sort of point, openly asked the entire congregation “Who here is over 35?” I think only one hand sheepishly headed upwards. Mine. Today was, by a staggeringly unkind coincidence, my 36th birthday.

And, because this was my crazy life, I had spent part of it opening Christmas cards.

The following morning, Monday, I dragged myself out of bed, hauled myself across Howick into work, and somehow croaked my way through 3 hours of Advanced English.

Of course I talked about the flight, my back, and how I appeared to be coming down with flu, but still didn’t want to admit it. Then I went home. Then I went back to the school again for the evening Pre-Intermediate class. Then I went home again, and straight back to bed. It was now Monday night, and I was choking back jet-lag, flu and a very irregular return to work.

Tuesday, thank God, was Waitangi Day – a public holiday. All day.

I slept right through, with the heater on. And the cooler. And a hot water bottle. And the windows open. And the Tuesday sun beating down through a blisteringly hot hurricane onto a deafening crowd of hissing insects just outside.

Flu is a terrible thing, yet we forget how horrible it is because it passes. I think the worst thing about flu, apart from the sneezing and the coughing, and the dryness, and the headaches, and the heat, and the cold, and the peeling lips, and the sweating, and the sheer crippling exhaustion, and the return of my bad back with a vengeance, would have to be… the madness.

Half-awake, trying to make sense of your exstrainperate dreams…

I needed to buy a chair. Unfortunately New Zealand was still using the old bartering system as the norm. Of course, I had nothing that a furniture store could want, so the normal thing to do was to take something else, swap it with a third party, swap that with another third party, swap that with another third party and so on, until I would have exactly the right item to swap for the chair. Everyone in New Zealand was so used to this system, having grown up with it, that they could all easily perform multiple swaps pretty well without even thinking about it, but the most important thing was getting the details right on what you wanted to "purchase." I couldn't figure out how anyone could use this system to specify details, and anyway, I was in the bed I was buying, there was a lot of money changing hands, and that all affected who won.

At one stage I mustered the strength to heave myself out of bed to go and refill my hot water bottle, and found the house deserted, as everyone else had gone out go-karting for the day without me. Just as well – I wouldn’t have enjoyed go-karting in my pyjamas.

Finding no food in the house, I gritted my teeth and forced myself to decide to trek out to Food Town to buy some more food. Unfortunately this meant getting dressed, which would be another big complicated operation. Instead the phone rang, and neighbour Pauline came over with some chilli she’d fried. I really didn’t think my stomach (itself having ongoing issues with antibiotics) would like it, but she was right – it was exactly what I needed. I never went out, heck I never got dressed – I crashed straight back into bed, still surrounded by the bowls of water I’d placed in my room to humidify it.

After my 32 hour spiral through exhaustion, I finally stumbled stiffly from my room on Wednesday morning because I had to somehow go into work again, and listen to my class tell me how they had all spent their great sunny summer public holiday. And then I went home for a few more precious hours before going in for the evening class again before bedtime in preparation for the next morning.

Welcome back, Goble.

The Man in the Rubber Mask by Robert Llewellyn

I can count the books I’ve read in one go on one hand, and I’m not out of fingers yet.

It’s not that I found Robert Llewellyn’s The Man In The Rubber Mask (lent to me by Dave Pitman) to be an impossible book to put down, just that it’s an easy read.

Robert Llewellyn writes about his role as Kryten in the TV series Red Dwarf, and other related moments in his acting career. There are plenty of anecotes, and most of them are funny.

There were times as the third series wore on where a new Kryten line would make us all laugh simply because it was so tortuous. The standing joke was that Rob and Doug would write me a five-page explanatory speech, telling the rest of the crew how black holes work, or that time dilation would save us from the horrific fate overhanging us. This speech would be very long and very hard to learn, and it would usually start with the word ‘Listen…’ At the end, Danny would smile, show his teeth and say, ‘I was with you until you said listen.’ This would of course bring the house down.

There are also brief appearances by Tony Hawks and Arthur Smith, who appear in Hawks’ own autobiographical books about crazy bets that I’ve also read in recent years. And I smiled when he recounted his appearance on KYTV, because I was there for that – sitting with Matt in the studio audience!

The most interesting section though has to be the final one, about the production of the doomed US version of Red Dwarf, for which Llewellyn was surprisingly retained. The difference in TV culture between the UK and US sounds huge, and it’s obvious that he really enjoyed the experience.

What a shame it all finished-up shaped like his head.

Man Of The Year

I first watched the comedy movie Dave in 1993 on an Air 2000 flight from Kos with Mastersun. It featured Hollywood funnyman Kevin Kline in a dual role as both the American President, and an ordinary guy who happens to look exactly like him, and has to take over his job as American President when he gets sick.

Dual role films are never a good choice for flights when the TV is hanging from a faraway ceiling somewhere down the aisle. A lot of it made no sense to me, simply because I honestly didn’t know that both characters looked the same.

Today (ish) however, on Cathay Pacific flight CX254 from London to Hong Kong, I got to watch most of the movie again on my own personal seat-back TV, and I enjoyed it a lot more. (even despite the first lady's slightly difficult-to-explain loose ending that the film prefers to ignore)

Anyway, on my second flight today (ish), (Cathay Pacific flight CX 107 from Hong Kong to Auckland) I chose to follow it with a completely new film instead, and watched Robin Williams' Man Of The Year.


It featured Hollywood funnyman Robin Williams as an ordinary guy who becomes the American President, when someone else should be.

Hmm, it seems like any old fool can get into the White House these days.

Anyway, this was an odd drama. It seemed quite unbalanced to have Williams’ extended improvisations (I assume he was improvising) coming from such a lonely isolated character, but then that’s what makes him real.

The film is also edited very strangely, going off at big tangents with characters who don’t appear to be important. Again, though, this gives a it a feeling of uneven reality.

The central moral dilemma that Williams’ character faces is also a good one. He discovers that he only became President because of a computer-glytch, which no-one else knows about. Does he ignore his good principles by keeping his fake victory a secret? Or does he let his good principles be ignored by allowing his opponent to take his place?

I think he should hire someone who looks exactly like him to take the rap, but that’s just me.

Toilet Humour

In a locked cubicle at Hong Kong Airport:

Flight Of The Procrastinator

The thing about travelling 10,000 miles, is that each journey feels like it might be the last.

Every time that I have left New Zealand, I have wondered how long it would actually be before I returned.

And each time I’m planning to leave the UK, I wonder if I will actually go through with it.

There’s a curious difference in perspective between those two questions. The difference is that I know I can stay in the UK forever if I choose, but time in NZ must be fought for.

Remaining in NZ forever is impossible at the moment.

On the other hand remaining in the UK forever, is so certain that it will happen even if I do nothing.

So, although I’ve spent most of my life in New Zealand for the past 2½ years, the law still insists that my home must be in the other place.

And the easier option is always tempting…

I kept a lower profile about my visit to the UK this time.

I only caught up with a few friends, like to have another jar with Mickey, ...


...to have a coffee with Uncle Travelling Matt…


...to do some more filming with John, (and to view last October's rushes together)...

...to play Uno with Chris...


...and to beat Herschel at Road Rage.

I also revisited some old haunts…




...and enjoyed the spectacular local weather.

However I also had to look up flights.

Then I had to find cheaper ones. MUCH cheaper ones.

Then I had to actually book them.

I’ve said it so many times before, but I’ll put it yet again here:

My NZ life is harder than my UK one, but I need the challenge, or I stay asleep in bed all day.

The easier option is always tempting.

Somehow, just as the library was closing, I managed to buy a ticket.

So today, yet again I found myself saying goodbye to my mum at Heathrow Terminal 3. We ate some of the cricket chocolates, and vowed to finish the rest whenever I next come back. That’s the sort of long-term commitment my family makes. We’ll watch the next black-and-white Doctor Who story (The Dominators) at some point too.

So I boarded Cathay Pacific flight CX254, sat down, looked out of my port window at the dark London night sky, and waited for it to start taking me back.

It took a while. They had to de-ice the wings or something. So I looked at the mini-TV screen in front of me that would be my friend for the 12 hours to Hong Kong.


For some mad reason it was showing the live feed from the underside of the Airbus A340’s fuselage. I could see the airport technicians walking about just underneath me, vehicles driving past in the distance, and all the de-icing going-on. Between this and the view from the window next to me, it was like a stereoscopic image made for someone with their eyes a metre apart. I craned my head to look at everyone else’s screens, but no, I appeared to be the only passenger on the flight privileged enough to be getting these pictures. I watched, finding great fascination in something that was actually very trivial and mundane.

Eventually we taxied around the airport, and now I found my TV was showing the runway’s big stripes rolling under the plane’s front wheels, like a gigantic conveyor-belt. We increased in speed and bolted up the runway, the stripes now whipping underneath us like a running-machine set-on spurt mode. I had never experienced a take-off like this before. The best bit was that I would soon see London’s twinkling night-time landscape turning beneath us, as we cruised over the capital and climbed higher into the night.

Alas, as soon as our wheels had let go of the ground, the image snapped-off, never to return. Now I could merely see that we had over 12 hours to go until touching the ground again, and that would only get me as far as Hong Kong.

The same phrase as usual flooded through my brain.

“No turning back now…”

It Started With Swap Shop (not!)

Ask any group of Brits of a certain age what they watched on Saturday mornings as a kid, and you’ll see an instant polarisation take place.

In one corner will be the Tiswas fans, shouting “Compost Corner? COMPOST CORNER!” at each other, while in the other will be the more intelligent kids like me who watched Multi-Coloured Swap Shop.

”Swap Shop” ran for 6 years – a very long time when you consider that it would be on all morning each Saturday, and as a magazine-show was predominantly talk-based.

The memories are too long to list here, but this reunion show was as long as an original edition, and reunited pretty well everyone who’d ever been regularly on it. In terms of chronicling Swap Shop, the show really did its subject justice.

The second half of the programme also dealt well with what happened to the strand after Swap Shop itself had finished, citing several long-running shows in the same mould, but not even mentioning stuff like The 8:15 From Manchester or It’s Wicked!

And that slightly smug self-important attitude was my only real problem with this show. It should have been up-front and honest about chronicling the history of merely that slot on BBC-1, instead of arrogantly claiming that Swap Shop was the first ever Saturday-morning show on any channel.

Despite my allegiance, the plain fact remains that Tiswas actually did come first (Swap Shop was the BBC’s response to it), and Saturday Scene of course beat both of them.

What on Earth is the BBC’s problem?