Revelations: Muslim and Looking for Love

After the exhumer in the last episode, and the Commando Chaplains in the one before that, Revelations lightens the tone in this fifth entry in the series, with a film about a Muslim marriage agency in Birmingham.

Though it may sound as though its subject matter is dating and arranged marriages, this is perhaps more of an examination of singleness.

Opening interviewee: "The million dollar question is: Why haven't I found anybody? ... If I got even fifty pence for every time I got asked, 'Abid I can't believe you're not married', I would be seriously wealthy."

Lina: "I've achieved a lot in my life. I've got a good career, I do a lot with myself, and I've got a lot to be proud of. But one thing everyone focuses on is 'Why are you still single?' 'Why have you not met someone?'

Instead of getting rated that little bit, just for achieving what I have in my life, everyone focuses on one thing – 'Why aren't you married yet?'

And you know what? I don't know how to answer that question. Like, shall I go away and write a list of flaws down about myself, and then come back to them and be like 'Oh well maybe it's this, or maybe it's that?' Ohh, I get all depressed. I don't know, I just am single."

As the four months of this doco develop, you can't help but root for at least one of these introductions working-out. One potential match meets with their parents present. That doesn't work. Another meet with the guy being outnumbered by the girl's friends. Funnily enough that doesn’t work either. By the end of this film, no-one has found anyone, not even the couple who meet behind closed doors from the camera.

Mind you, with much of this inevitably played-along for the cameras, I guess it's hard to be certain.

Lina: "I understand the importance of marriage, but I would rather be fifty, single and very happy than pressured into something and very depressed in a, in a relationship that I'm just not happy with, just because everyone's talking about biological clocks and sell-by dates. It's just not gonna work on me."

Review of Revelations: How To Find God here.
Review of Revelations: Muslim School here.
Review of Revelations: Commando Chaplains here.
Review of Revelations: The Exhumer here.
Review of Revelations: Divorce Jewish Style here.
Review of Revelations: Talking to the Dead here.
Review of Revelations: How Do You Know God Exists? here.

Revelations: The Exhumer

Peter Mitchell is a professional exhumer. He digs up dead bodies for money. I'd love to know what an amateur exhumer does it for.

No, maybe I wouldn’t.

Like last week's film Commando Chaplains, this fourth entry into Channel 4's Revelations series is compelling viewing, if for no reason other than because the stakes are so high. With every dead body that has to be relocated (and Mitchell has overseen the relocation of an incredible 30,000 of them), there is a gallingly similar upheaval in someone's life. As you see the mud and earth getting irreversibly rearranged, you can't help but perceive that someone's emotions will never be the same again either.

Inevitably there are two sides to this coin, and in this film it's a relative versus an organisation. One guy wants to move his parents' graves together, and has to convince the Church of England. An Egyptian woman finds herself up against an excavation project to uncover a 5,000-year-old Sphinx Road, which sees bodies buried as recently as just two months ago getting relocated.

Project Manager Tony McHale has the most telling insight on everyday life as an exhumer though:

"With this sort of job that we do, you've got to have a good sense of humour, and you must learn to switch off... I worked for a funeral director's first, and we did the first child, and people said well how do you feel about that? I felt nothing for the child, I felt for the relatives – the mum, the dad, brothers and sisters, people that was in that church, because my belief is once you're dead, you're dead. It's the people that are left that suffer."

This was another absorbing, respectful documentary, and a good advertisement for cremation.

Review of Revelations: How To Find God here.
Review of Revelations: Muslim School here.
Review of Revelations: Commando Chaplains here.
Review of Revelations: Muslim and Looking for Love here.
Review of Revelations: Divorce Jewish Style here.
Review of Revelations: Talking to the Dead here.
Review of Revelations: How Do You Know God Exists? here.

Read The Bible On The Internet

A week ago on Sunday morning, I completed reading the Message Bible. You can read my review here.

What I didn't mention was that I don't actually own a copy of the Message Bible.

No, for with my completion of the good book in that paraphrased translation I have also completed another long-standing, and somewhat meaningless, ambition – to read the whole Bible over the... oh, you read the title.

It might sound like it's not that different online to on a page. Yeah, I think it is.

With a book, it's much easier to thumb back to check stuff that you've read earlier. With all due respect to bible.com, biblegateway.com and biblos.com (the three sites I've regularly used), it's just not so easy to navigate on a screen, because you can only see a part of it at a time.

It's also harder to mark particular passages that stand-out, without getting through a lot of glass. Lately I've started copying and pasting specific verses that I want to make a note of, for whatever reason, but even those bulging Word documents are themselves tough to scroll through.

Sure – you can do a search on a particular word or phrase, but those notes that I've made will mostly never be seen again, camouflaged-away as pieces of microscopic magnetism, which even if visible would still be impossible to read until decoded.

Since I left my copy of the God's Word translation in my other hemisphere, I've been catching-up with that online lately too. It's a little rarer to find on the world wide web (although not as scarce as copies of the Good News), so I used to read the downloadable pdfs at the translation's own site godsword.org.

Hrrrrm. Pdfs. I don't like those. You can print them out to read them like actual pages of the book, sure, (as I have done) but on a screen I just find Acrobat annoying. Always asking if you want to update, scrolling heavily, and all those out-of-sight notes at the foot and in the sidebar.


I was therefore elated to recently discover the whole God's Word version also hiding away on biblos.com, with others. Sure, "Iim" can look alot like "Lim" on-screen (Joshua 15:29), but overall I found this much easier on the eyes, and more comfortable to scroll-through.

Until the early morning of April 21st this year when I read Judges 4:13...


Somehow that didn't look right. I went back and looked it up on the pdfs…


Oh, em, jee, they're Marvel UK-ing the Bible!

I'm sure it was just a one-off glytch (not that unusual on these online-Bible sites, which will sometimes accidentally format a heading as part of the next verse, and they have now fixed the above instance), but there was only one possible effect that I could allow this to have on my reading. I would have to reluctantly go back to reading those awkward pdf-copies.

And so all was well again. Until last Saturday night. I don't know if it's a fault in the file, or in my pdf-viewer, but this was how the Book of Isaiah finished:


Back with open arms to biblos.com:


Yessirreebobaroonee, there's nothing quite like flicking through parchment.

Marvel Team-Up (US) #145 vs. Spider-Man Summer-Special (UK) 1985: Hometown Boy

Writer: Tony Isabella
Penciler: Greg LaRocque

The Daily Bugle sends Peter Parker (Spider-Man) to Cleveland to cover a science-fair. Jim Rhodes (Iron Man) is also present, hoping to make a few business contacts. However neither hero realises that Mark Scarlotti (villain-for-hire Blacklash) is also mooching around, churning over the mess he has made of his personal life.

The meat of this story is in that it's mostly told from Scarlotti's point-of-view. We get to see his estrangement from his parents, his rejection by his friends, and his hopeless employment prospects. He's a villain who really wants to make good, but life just doesn't seem to be offering him that option.

Or is it? When old school buddy Rusty throws him a line hoping he'll bite and land a security-guard job, Scarlotti initially turns it down, reasoning that he wants something better.

I say initially, because the offer to meet Rusty's boss remains open, but before anything can develop, the mob are making him a counter-offer. I guess tellingly, Scarlotti jumps at this chance...


At least, I think he's being offered a job. There are four speech-balloons in that clip, but clearly two people's handwriting. There is only one letterer credited – Diana Albers – so I guess the editor must have been through changing these, and several other, lines before the original US publication.

It's the sort of rewriting that we're used to getting in reprints in the UK, so of course I just had to cynically wonder – did Marvel UK's version by any chance endow the panel with a third set?

Yes, they did.

Here's the same excerpt from this tale's reprinting in the British Spider-Man Summer Special 1985:


Yeah, yeah, they cut-out the pivotal moment at which Scarlotti was offered the hit-job. It's what sets the rest of the story in motion, is part of the reason why he busts-up the bar for the next two sides, and is the whole reason why he strikes at the science-conference and spends the rest of the issue battling Spider-Man and Iron Man, but that doesn't matter. Marvel UK cut the whole of that page.

Still, at least they were good enough to convey all of that plot-setting in the following specially-designed page which replaced it:


As if removing such a key plot-development and replacing it with an advert for the mag that you had already bought wasn't creative enough, Marvel UK also saw fit to tone-down Iron Man's jibber-jabber. I'm no expert, but in the US version, the African American inside the Iron Man costume definitely sounds a bit, erm, funky:


Now see if you can spot the subtle adjustment in the retelling for British readers:


Ahhh, good old Marvel UK.

You can always depend upon them to make a face of things.

Lethal Weapon 3

I saw these films listed as 'drama' recently, but by the time we've reached this one, they’ve unquestionably become a comedy series.

After all the sweat about the bomb under Murtaugh's toilet in 2, here we open with a much bigger bomb that neither party seems quite so worried by. Sure – Murtaugh's playing the agonised straight man to Riggs' happy-go-lucky foil, but therein lies the problem.

In the opening movie, Riggs was unafraid of death because he genuinely wanted to die. There was a terrific deleted scene in which he was able to walk-into a hail of gunfire because he was secretly hoping to get hit. But those demons are now long since exorcised, yet he still thinks nothing of possibly getting both himself and his best friend blown to bits.

Even the bomb itself is a cartoon one, complete with considerately-included beeping, red LED countdown and coloured wires. Thanks, bomb-makers.

This opening sequence is very well executed, and sets the tone well for everything that follows. Riggs is reckless because he's a regular movie-cop, and accordingly doesn't have the fear of death that a real person would. The woman only hates him because she's going to go to bed with him later. Joe Pesci is in the film because he was popular in the last one.

If this were drama, then it would be wooden, predictable, cardboard drama. If it be comedy on the other hand, then these well-worn stereotypes do their job well.

Could it be a comedy-drama? Maybe, if it were all set in a remotely believable world.

Where the comic formula does fail for me in this one is that the main players are all a little nastier this time. When the villain, who thinks he's God, is fighting the woman, who thinks that she is, I just couldn't root for either.

That said, the woman (I'm sorry I can't even remember her name) fits right in with the regular leads, mainly because she's as hopeless at her job as they are. If she works for internal investigations, then she really ought to have dealt with Riggs and Murtaugh on many, many previous occasions when they've broken the law, mainly by murdering people, including those with diplomatic immunity, and not even in self-defence.

Still, looking forward to the last (as yet) instalment.

Review of Lethal Weapon here
Review of Lethal Weapon 2 here
Review of Lethal Weapon 4 here

Divine Intervention

Truth is missing.
Those who turn away from evil make themselves victims.
The LORD sees it, and he’s angry
because there’s no justice.
He sees that there’s no one to help.
He’s astounded that there’s no one to intercede.
So with his own power he wins a victory.
His righteousness supports him.
He puts on righteousness like a coat of armor
and a helmet of salvation on his head.
He wears clothes of vengeance.
He wraps himself with fury as a coat.
He will pay them back according to their deeds.
He will pay back his opponents with wrath and punish his enemies.
He will pay back the people who live on the coastlands.

- Isaiah 59:15-18 (God's Word)

So... God waits to see if we intervene first?

Eternal Punishment

The sidebar notes for today's reading in my God's Word Bible read as follows:

Today
Thank God that
even though you
deserved eternal
punishment, he
saved you. Thank
Jesus for taking
the punishment
that you deserved.

The phrase that I find challenging here is: "you deserved eternal punishment".

1. If the eternal punishment stated is to pay off some sort of debt, then how can little old Hypothetical Harry – alive for a mere 120 years tops – possibly run up a debt that gigantic? Surely Harry is incapable of this, unless the debt is unjust.

2. If Harry deserved eternal punishment, and Jesus took the punishment that Harry deserved, then Jesus must therefore continue to be punished forever, or he just hasn't paid off Harry's debt yet, and indeed never will succeed in doing so.

3. The purpose of punishment is, I reckon, to teach someone not to do wrong again. Therefore, if you punish someone eternally, then you continue to punish them regardless of whether or not they have learnt their lesson. So there is no benefit to either party.

Is the phrase "you deserved eternal punishment" valid? Does the word "eternal" really mean "without end"?

Transformers: Revenge Of The Fallen

Last night, after a day in London, I was heading home from Leicester Square when I spotted that Transformers 2 was about to begin at the famous Odeon in about six minutes. Well, I was in no particular hurry to end such a great day out.


The screen looked a bit bendy, but I didn't care. Transformers 1 had been a fairly mindless adventure, particularly towards the end, so as I tonight settled-down in the back row with my bar of Boost and bottle of Ribena, I switched my brain firmly into the off position.

Inevitably, the non-functioning of my cranium for the next 150 minutes makes it hard to really be objective, but I think this was a good decision.

I didn't follow the plot, and was turned-off by the whole thing even more than I had already turned myself off, but in my mind the film could do no wrong. Again, the last half-an-hour particularly was just big alien robots firing at each other, exactly fulfilling my low expectations.

The entire tone of this is one of wanton carelessness, and as such it feels completely different to the first movie. That had a story. That was about humans. That was fun.

This on the other hand was about CGI. Big, violent, firey, long, noisy, long, CGI. And it was long as well.

Many sequels make at least some attempt to emulate the good things of the original. These guys made no effort, and were quite unashamed about it, which is completely cool with me, because they were so up-front and honest about this intention from the outset.

My initial concerns that I perhaps should have gone to see the fuller version in IMAX for a very similar price turned out to be unfounded. By the end of the night I had had my fill of this.

Thank you for completing my day off so well.

Please don't misunderstand me, it's not a bad film, it just doesn't contain anything above average.

Exactly five out of ten.

Torchwood: Children Of Earth

It's Torchwood's finest hour!

Well, five hours actually, stripped over five nights Monday to Friday, and telling a story that takes place over the same amount of time.

As a result, it can feel a little stretched-out to fit the format at times. Day One sets things up, Day Two has the aliens announcing that they will arrive on Earth tomorrow, Day Three sees them arrive, Day Four has them giving Earth a 24-hour ultimatum, and then Day Five wraps everything up in the usual manner. Had this been a three-parter, then maybe the aliens wouldn't have dragged their tentacles so much.

Day One is uphill work from the work go though. Less than two minutes into the first episode, every single child in the entire world freezes and becomes a zombie for a minute.


Yes, all two-billion-odd of them, including by implication Luke, Maria, Clyde and Rani from The Sarah Jane Adventures, but we don't see that. One of the inherent limitations of making an 'adult' version of a family show (Doctor Who) is that it just cannot go there, no matter how conspicuous the characters are by their absence. And, get this, yes, as usual, in the entire world, not one adult remembers this global-zombification afterwards!

Oduya: "Right now this thing's random enough to go unnoticed, and if anyone files a news-report, you'll be crushing it. So far we're the only ones with the software clever enough to piece this all together, well, us and Torchwood."

That's right – noone thought anything of all those kids freezing en masse at the zebra-crossing above. Eurghhh, it's going to be a long five hours...

Meanwhile at the hospital Jack and Ianto are rumbled as employees of Torchwood. Maybe they shouldn't hang around there so much.

Dr Rupesh Patanjali: (pointing at car with large 'TORCHWOOD' sign on front) "You're Torchwood!"

Jack: (getting into car with large 'TORCHWOOD' sign on front) "Never heard of them!"

This could have been directed for comedy, but instead the director kept the sign out of shot.

It transpires that in this story, far from being a top secret organisation, this week Torchwood's existence is known of by just about everyone.

- Rupesh: "This whole city talks about you!"
(Jack and Ianto eyeball their weariness)

- Ianto: "Ask about Torchwood and most people point towards the Bay."

- Jack: (sarcastically to Lois) "You're working for the home office and you've never heard of Torchwood?"

So much for, in The Christmas Invasion, Torchwood being so secret that even the PM wasn't supposed to know of their existence. I guess all the recent invasions have changed that. Still, at least they're no longer independent, and have gone back to being "paid by the Crown" again.

In a psychiatric ward, at another hospital, Clement MacDonald sniffs Gwen and declares her to be three weeks pregnant. Just how many pregnant women has he previously sniffed and known so much about to hone such accuracy?

Jack has a bomb planted inside of him by government baddies, who include the guy who I had been successfully fooled into thinking was a replacement for Owen. So Jack decides to stand in the middle of the Hub for it to detonate, presumably so that the team will lose as much stuff as possible. Maybe one of those compartments in the morgue might have been a more shielded place? Even the toilet?

Jack blows-up. Every child in the world chants "We are coming back." The 'next time' trailer comes on. Eurghhh, it's going to be a long week...

Or not - ignoring the world's amnesia of such high-profile zombie-wranglers the Sycorax and Trueman, Day Two is MUCH better!

The only real gripe I really have with it is that the government baddies, knowing of Jack's ability to reanimate, gather up his remains and actually put them all in the same body-bag. It's almost as if they want him to get better.

The government finishes decoding the schematics that the aliens have radioed through of a big glass tank that they want built for their arrival, and an inherent flaw in the plot gets addressed.

Frobisher: "When they can communicate like this, this kind of detail, why do the thing with the children?"

Decker: "Because they can, and because they want to scare us."

Whew for that.

The bulk of the second episode is about Gwen, Ianto and Rhys going on the run, and rescuing Jack. This is all good fun, particularly Rhys begging Lois for some money for chips.

Day Three finds our reunited heroes deciding to hide-out in, of all the dumb places, an old Torchwood warehouse. It's probably the stupidest place on the planet to pick, and it comes as no surprise whatsoever when a later instalment sees them inevitably busted there.

While waiting for the aliens to arrive, Jack and Ianto scheme to have sex. I don't know what this is supposed to make us think of the characters.

One of this story's greatest strengths is its opportunity to dwell on and explore its situations. The second half of Day Three concentrates on the British government's representation of the world in making "first contact" with the 456. (they remind me of the Macra) These scenes go on forever and are thoroughly absorbing. We get to observe these talks practically in real time – something that would have been very difficult in the regular 40-minute format.

Although communication with alien species is now a fairly everyday occurrence in the Doctor Who world, these scenes still hold all the awe and terror of Earth's first encounter with extra terrestrial life, making you wish they hadn't pulled that trigger so many, many times in recent years, devaluing it so.

The actor playing the Prime-Minister sadly pantomimes the role like he's Anthony Hopkins. Just what kind of comedy must have resulted from his über-ruthless pre-election TV clashes against that lunatic clown Harold Saxon? It must have been like watching an episode of Pinky and the Brain. Now if only the Master had been played so dry. Not ideal, but close enough.

Day Four reveals that in 1965 Jack traded eleven children to the 456 in return for the lives of the rest of Earth's population.

Jack in 1965: "Why do you need me?"

Human agent: "Well, assuming twelve children can be found, then we need someone to deliver them."

Jack: "What in case the aliens are hostile? You need someone who can't die?"

Agent: "Actually we need someone who doesn't care."

Today the aliens' demand is a little higher. Today the aliens want 10% of Earth's children, (fortunately they seem to like base ten as well - maybe they have ten tentacles each) or they'll kill everyone. A bit daft really – they should just kill the other 90%, but hey, they were a bit high at the time, and can hardly be expected to think straight.

Once more the action remains, at length, in Whitehall, and it's riveting. The powers that be initially discuss the obvious option of attacking the alien negotiator in the tank at Thames House, but discard the idea because it would be "a declaration of war - a war we can't win." It's so refreshing to see the characters in this story having time to brainstorm alternative options.

Next they're onto haggling over the number of kids they can "get away with", before eventually conceding and moving onto a concrete selection strategy for actually sacrificing 10% of Earth's children (or "units") without their own complicity becoming public.

Lois is present throughout, wearing the secret video-camera contact-lenses from Reset, which enable Jack, Gwen, Ianto, Rhys and Clement to eavesdrop on the whole thing. Much of these episodes are so shakily filmed that the lenses appear to have been used by the BBC too. Gwen sums up the whole dark conversation in amazement.

Gwen: "God, they're really gonna do this."

We never really find out how the rest of the world deals with the crisis, or why no-one plots to exploit a less-defended land-mass like Africa.

And so to Day Five. After the dreary start, days two, three and four have been brilliant. But then they didn't have to resolve anything. Final episodes are always much tougher to tie-up. Would Torchwood manage it?

Not entirely.

It's still quite watchable, but when, about twenty minutes in, the Prime Minister tells Permanent Secretary Frobisher to sacrifice his own children for PR purposes, it's clear that believability has been dropped. What possible reason could the PM have for thinking that Frobisher would ever permit this? There can be none.

And sure enough, from this point onwards, it becomes hard to reconcile many of the other characters' decisions too.

Our heroes threaten to expose the recording of the government's scheme, but then chicken-out and don't. Then they’re trying to think of ways to tell the public what's happening. Dur.

The government issue the cover story that the kids are going to be bussed-off to have jabs against the aliens' influence. Yet when the army show-up with buses, they're taken by force and noone has any idea why.

And it is fairly public information, because the tens of thousands of army troops have all been told what's going on.

I guess it goes without saying that the aliens can just make the zombie-kids board their spaceship, and can even take their spaceship around all the schools to pick them up themselves.

Then Jack saves everyone by, as usual, building a machine that reverses the alien negotiator's control and blows it up, forcing it to retreat back to its ship. It just does. It doesn't matter how.

Worst of all, this is exactly the "declaration of war – a war we can't win", as avoided in episode four. Naw, the aliens just don't retaliate. They just don't. They don't carry out their threat to wipe out our species. That's it. That's yer ending.

Overall, this was an excellent five-part story, marred by awkward shaky camerawork, some mistaken direction (the director repeatedly doesn't get the difference between analogue and digital signals – something you'd expect a TV man to) and, above all, a plot that is as standard as they come.

Once more – I really enjoyed this – but the story is a straight remake of The Sound Of Drums / Last Of The Time Lords.

Consider:

Both stories open with one of our friends (Tish / Lois) starting a job working with the Prime Minister of Great Britain.

Both stories feature the evil British government planting a time-bomb in and blowing-up our heroes' base. (Martha's flat / The Hub)

Both stories see our heroes immediately going on the run from the government, changing cars to avoid detection, getting found via a CCTV camera, and then choosing to hide-out in an abandoned warehouse.

Both stories feature the US berating the British Prime Minister for initiating first contact with an alien race independently of the UN.

Both stories feature our heroes' invisible observation of said first contact.

Both stories feature an alien vessel unexpectedly turning out to contain a human child from earlier in the story, wired into a gasmask.



Both stories are resolved by the main protagonist reversing the aliens' own technology against them.

Both stories conclude with the death of someone who the main protagonist is both responsible for, and attached to by birth.

I don't mean this unkindly, but both stories are written by the same author.

For all that, although the similarity of the first half couldn't avoid giving away the probable events of the second, it was much, much better executed this time, and as I say, I really enjoyed it.

More Torchwood of this detail would be a good thing.

How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Message Bible

Now at last there is a translation of the Bible that puts everything into plain modern everyday English, so that anyone can understand it.

Even better, most other modern English translations make this claim too.

Maybe its standard inclusion in these things is because language changes so rapidly, that we regularly need a new version to replace all those quickly-outdated pieces of slang.

But Eugene H Peterson's The Message: The Bible In Contemporary Language – published in full in 2002 - has an edge.

He's translated the whole thing on his lonesome. Free from the constraints of being responsible to a team (and having to write to a consistent, agreed voice with each of them), Peterson's work feels much more personal. He's on-record as aiming for vitality and freshness with which to impact the reader, and after a decade of hard work, the result is a translation that surely reclaims the freedom and personal voice of the original texts.

Ahab answered Elijah, "My enemy! So, you've run me down!"

"Yes, I've found you out," said Elijah. "And because you've bought into the business of evil, defying GOD. 'I will most certainly bring doom upon you, make mincemeat of your descendants, kill off every sorry male wretch who's even remotely connected with the name Ahab. And I'll bring down on you the same fate that fell on Jeroboam son of Nebat and Baasha son of Ahijah—you've made me that angry by making Israel sin.'"

- 1 Kings 21:20-22

This translation may be many things - including controversial - but one adjective it never deserves is boring. Jeremiah 43 begins with the heading "Death! Exile! Slaughter!"

I think it was sometime last decade, at some Christian event or other, that I first came across a copy of the Message's New Testament, because he was initially publishing the whole thing in stages as he got it down. It wasn't until early '04 in New Zealand that I saw a copy of the whole completed work though – without any verse-numbers! Now the Bible really was starting to look like a more readable book.


Fig. 1: The Message Bible. Many things, but never boring.

Dipping into it on the internet, I'm afraid I began to enjoy it a little too much. Going initially to bible.com and selecting the Message translation started to make the Bible interesting for the wrong reasons. You see, bits of it were, how do I put this, perhaps unintentionally funny.

The governor invited Barnabas and Saul in, wanting to hear God's Word firsthand from them. But Dr. Know-It-All (that's the wizard's name in plain English) stirred up a ruckus, trying to divert the governor from becoming a believer. But Saul (or Paul), full of the Holy Spirit and looking him straight in the eye, said, "You bag of wind, you parody of a devil—why, you stay up nights inventing schemes to cheat people out of God. But now you've come up against God himself, and your game is up.

- Acts 13:7-11a

The king was furious and put the screws to the man until he paid back his entire debt.

- Matthew 18:34

How well God must like you— you don't hang out at Sin Saloon, you don't slink along Dead-End Road, you don't go to Smart-Mouth College.

- Psalm 1:1

Look at that guy!
He had sex with sin,
he's pregnant with evil.
Oh, look! He's having
the baby—a Lie-Baby!

- Psalm 7:14

Well okay, so maybe those passages were written with the intention of being humourous, but the book's propensity for inventing new words still made me feel as though I was actually chuckling at its jamminess.

She answered GOD by name, praying to the God who spoke to her, "You're the God who sees me!

"Yes! He saw me; and then I saw him!"

That's how that desert spring got named "God-Alive-Sees-Me Spring."

- Genesis 16:13-14a

In October '07 I was invited to read the whole of the Book Of Ruth across three services at Cession. We were coming at the services from the angle of storytelling, so I went through a heap of different translations looking for the one that sounded easiest on the ears.

I generally found the Message's chatty syntax the most natural to convey out loud, and it quickly won me over. It even had lines where Peterson had gently slipped-in the odd explanation of unfamiliar local customs.

Ruth quietly followed; she lay down to signal her availability for marriage.

- Ruth 3:7b

But there would still occasionally be moments that I could only describe at the time as "toe-curling". For example, straight after the above helpful line came this one:

In the middle of the night the man was suddenly startled and sat up. Surprise! This woman asleep at his feet!

- Ruth 3:8

In the end, I gave up and did the reading from the God's Word translation instead. Less gripping, but I think I also floundered less. It has now been nearly two years since I first wrestled with how to deliver that line effectively, and I'm still at a complete loss.

I confess that for a long time I even jokingly referred to it as "da funky message bible", often whilst waving both hands in the peace gesture. Not very nice of me really.

And yet, the more I read it, the more it won me over. If you only read the Bible once in your life, make it this translation!

So what are the elements that make-up the Message's own unique voice? There are four that I perceive:

1. Its engaging prose:

This is what Hezekiah king of Judah wrote after he'd been sick and then recovered from his sickness:
In the very prime of life
I have to leave.
Whatever time I have left
is spent in death's waiting room.
No more glimpses of God
in the land of the living,
No more meetings with my neighbors,
no more rubbing shoulders with friends.
This body I inhabit is taken down
and packed away like a camper's tent.
Like a weaver, I've rolled up the carpet of my life
as God cuts me free of the loom
And at day's end sweeps up the scraps and pieces.
I cry for help until morning.
Like a lion, God pummels and pounds me,
relentlessly finishing me off.
I squawk like a doomed hen,
moan like a dove.
My eyes ache from looking up for help:
"Master, I'm in trouble! Get me out of this!"
But what's the use? God himself gave me the word.
He's done it to me.
I can't sleep—
I'm that upset, that troubled.

- Isaiah 38:9-15

Hezekiah rallied the people, saying, "Be strong! Take courage! Don't be intimidated by the king of Assyria and his troops—there are more on our side than on their side. He only has a bunch of mere men; we have our GOD to help us and fight for us!"

Morale surged. Hezekiah's words put steel in their spines.

- 2 Chronicles 32:6-8

Trying to take all this in, the disciples said, "Master, where?"

He told them, "Watch for the circling of the vultures. They'll spot the corpse first. The action will begin around my dead body."

- Luke 17:37

2. Its clarity of teaching, which sometimes includes more of an interpretation than is usual:

"When times get bad, people cry out for help.
They cry for relief from being kicked around,
But never give God a thought when things go well,
when God puts spontaneous songs in their hearts,
When God sets out the entire creation as a science classroom,
using birds and beasts to teach wisdom.
People are arrogantly indifferent to God—
until, of course, they're in trouble,
and then God is indifferent to them.
There's nothing behind such prayers except panic;
the Almighty pays them no mind.
So why would he notice you
just because you say you're tired of waiting to be heard,
Or waiting for him to get good and angry
and do something about the world's problems?

- Job 35:9-15

The skeptic swore, "There is no God! No God!—I can do anything I want!
I'm more animal than human;
so-called human intelligence escapes me.

- Proverbs 30:1-2

"The world is full of so-called prayer warriors who are prayer-ignorant. They're full of formulas and programs and advice, peddling techniques for getting what you want from God. Don't fall for that nonsense. This is your Father you are dealing with, and he knows better than you what you need. With a God like this loving you, you can pray very simply.

- Matthew 6:7-8

"Here is a simple, rule-of-thumb guide for behavior: Ask yourself what you want people to do for you, then grab the initiative and do it for them. Add up God's Law and Prophets and this is what you get.

- Matthew 7:12

"There is far more at stake here than religion. If you had any idea what this Scripture meant—'I prefer a flexible heart to an inflexible ritual'—you wouldn't be nitpicking like this. The Son of Man is no lackey to the Sabbath; he's in charge."

- Matthew 12:6-8

"You have minds like a snake pit! How do you suppose what you say is worth anything when you are so foul-minded? It's your heart, not the dictionary, that gives meaning to your words. A good person produces good deeds and words season after season. An evil person is a blight on the orchard. Let me tell you something: Every one of these careless words is going to come back to haunt you. There will be a time of Reckoning. Words are powerful; take them seriously. Words can be your salvation. Words can also be your damnation."

- Matthew 12:34-37

Then David prayed, "I have sinned badly in what I have just done, substituting statistics for trust; forgive my sin—I've been really stupid."

- 1 Chronicles 21:8

(that bit used to really confuse me in other translations)

Don't, by the way, read too much into the differences here between men and women. Neither man nor woman can go it alone or claim priority. Man was created first, as a beautiful shining reflection of God—that is true. But the head on a woman's body clearly outshines in beauty the head of her "head," her husband. The first woman came from man, true—but ever since then, every man comes from a woman! And since virtually everything comes from God anyway, let's quit going through these "who's first" routines.

Don't you agree there is something naturally powerful in the symbolism—a woman, her beautiful hair reminiscent of angels, praying in adoration; a man, his head bared in reverence, praying in submission? I hope you're not going to be argumentative about this. All God's churches see it this way; I don't want you standing out as an exception.

- 1 Corinthians 11:10-16

3. Its unashamedly modern perspective. See how many modern perspectives you can spot in these next four clips:

Moses said, "If your presence doesn't take the lead here, call this trip off right now. How else will it be known that you're with me in this, with me and your people? Are you traveling with us or not? How else will we know that we're special, I and your people, among all other people on this planet Earth?"

- Exodus 33:15-16

I looked at the earth—
it was back to pre-Genesis chaos and emptiness.

- Jeremiah 4:23a

"But if you just use my words in Bible studies and don't work them into your life, you are like a stupid carpenter who built his house on the sandy beach. When a storm rolled in and the waves came up, it collapsed like a house of cards."

- Matthew 7:26-27

(slightly mixed-metaphor there)

When you're given a box of candy, don't gulp it all down;
eat too much chocolate and you'll make yourself sick;

- Proverbs 25:16

4. Lastly, its huge sense of fun:

GOD took one look and said, "One people, one language; why, this is only a first step. No telling what they'll come up with next—they'll stop at nothing! Come, we'll go down and garble their speech so they won't understand each other." Then GOD scattered them from there all over the world. And they had to quit building the city. That's how it came to be called Babel, because there GOD turned their language into "babble."

- Genesis 11:6-9a

He also installed the latest in military technology on the towers and corners of Jerusalem for shooting arrows and hurling stones.

- 2 Chronicles 26:15a

For David had lived an exemplary life before GOD all his days, not going off on his own in willful defiance of GOD's clear directions (except for that time with Uriah the Hittite).

- 1 Kings 15:5

After the death of his father, he attended the sin school of Ahab, and graduated with a degree in doom.

- 2 Chronicles 22:4

A proverb quoted by fools
is limp as a wet noodle.

- Proverbs 26:7

This is God's earlier Message on Moab. God's updated Message is, "In three years, no longer than the term of an enlisted soldier, Moab's impressive presence will be gone, that splendid hot-air balloon will be punctured, and instead of a vigorous population, just a few shuffling bums cadging handouts."

- Isaiah 16:13-14

"Gilead has become Crime City—
blood on the sidewalks, blood on the streets.
It used to be robbers who mugged pedestrians.
Now it's gangs of priests
Assaulting worshipers on their way to Shechem.
Nothing is sacred to them.

- Hosea 6:8-9

The Sheer Nothingness of Moab

"Turn Moab into a drunken sot, drunk on the wine of my wrath, a dung-faced drunk, filling the country with vomit—Moab a falling-down drunk, a joke in bad taste.

- Jeremiah 48:26

And finally…

War to the death on her water supply—drained dry!
A land of make-believe gods gone crazy—hobgoblins!
The place will be haunted with jackals and scorpions,
night-owls and vampire bats.

- Jeremiah 50:38-39a

When is the Marvel Comic version coming out?

:)

Today's celebrity Bible-Reader is... Roger Hargreaves

Mister Pride will fall flat on his face.
No one will offer him a hand.

- Jeremiah 50:32a (Message)

Revelations: Commando Chaplains

Complete with dramatic music, the opening narration of this documentary-film has something of The A-Team about it:

"Afghanistan 2009. The front-line in the war against the Taliban. One of the most dangerous environments in the world, and home to 8,300 British troops. For these combat forces, there is the ever-present risk of injury and death. But among the thousands of armed soldiers, there is one group of men whose only weapon is the Bible. These are the Royal Navy Chaplains."

Although the above voice-over is accompanied by shots of helicopters, shooting and explosions, this actually turned out to be a documentary following, as detailed above, two Chaplains within the British armed forces in Afghanistan. Whew – I was starting to wonder where the Cylon was.

"But what has prayer got to do with war? To the Taliban who believe in a Holy war, the answer is obvious. But the British armed forces? Do they need men of God on the front line?"

Far from seeming out-of-place, as the narrator initially seems to suppose above, Nigel Beardsley and Bill Gates appear to have been fully accepted by their comrades, due not just to having trained alongside them for six months, but also because they simply live through it all day to day with them.

Bill: "You'll see a difference here straight away, in that Army Chaplains carry rank and Navy Chaplains don't... In the Royal Navy the Chaplain adopts the rank of who they talk to. That means that the lowest Marine at four-five can talk to me at the same level as the most senior Officer. So no-one can talk down to me and I don't talk up to anyone."

But what do they actually do? Help soldiers feel better about, um, killing people?

Nigel: "I have been asked on many occasions what am I doing in a fighting force in an area where we're killing... I have an understanding I'm not here to fight. I'm here as a spiritual person to give a moral level to those in command, and the guys and girls on the ground. I'm here for them. Not to necessarily condone war, but to try and bring peace and understanding."

Well, there's much more to the answer than I have room to quote here.

Though they make ongoing efforts to build bridges with the local religious leaders too, smoothing the Army's occupation of their territory, Bill and Nigel also find that too much of their job descriptions come looking for them. Some of their parishioners have limbs blown-off. Some of them die. Some of them have a need to just do something to remember friends who fell years ago in the past. That so many men come to talk and take pocket-crosses from them in private suggests that there's a real spiritual side to this conflict.

Bill: "I'd never claim to have all the answers, and as such I think it's quite wrong to come out with trite, simplistic answers... For me God is great, he is vast, and is beyond comprehension... Paul writes, 'At the time it is as if we look through a glass dimly, but when we get to glory, all will be revealed,' and I really believe that. So I don't have all the answers, but for the lads, I do try and listen to what they're saying, and then try and point them in the right direction. But there's no satisfactory, immediate answer to any of their questions... I've found God to be good, and as such I recommend him to the lads."

Review of Revelations: How To Find God here.
Review of Revelations: Muslim School here.
Review of Revelations: The Exhumer here.
Review of Revelations: Muslim and Looking for Love here.
Review of Revelations: Divorce Jewish Style here.
Review of Revelations: Talking to the Dead here.
Review of Revelations: How Do You Know God Exists? here.

Today's celebrity Bible-Reader is... the Robot from Lost In Space

Warning! Danger!

- Jeremiah 19:15b (Message)

Today's celebrity Bible-reader is... Noel Edmonds

doom or no doom.'"

- Jeremiah 18:12b (Message)

Torchwood: The Dead Line

Author Phil Ford is fast becoming the Terrance Dicks of new Doctor Who.

Here he knocks-out yet another straightforward story that does the job, ticks all the boxes, makes a couple of minor mistakes, and doesn't resemble the rest of his work. Ford's becoming a bit dependable.

While I don't usually like stories told in flashback (because you have to wait ages for them to catch you up), this tale of a deadly sentient phone-call from the 1970s had my attention almost throughout. Once more radio Torchwood's dependence on clean dialogue – and lots of it – makes room for plenty of reasoning, and sparkle between the characters.

If Asylum was a good chance to flesh-out Andy's character a bit, then this time it's definitely Rhys' turn. The sound of the brash ringing telephone from yesteryear is really chilling, especially when it can be heard on the other side of a wall from the characters.

Though Gwen does get hit by a car that she must have seen coming, and we're back at a hospital again, the plot's real weakness is at the end when everything is, as usual, resolved by someone pressing a button that handily just undoes everything. But the journey to that scene is terrific.

Radio Torchwood - quite good.

Doin' The Milestones Push (OI!)

This morning my mum was going on the local church's day out for seniors to Hampshire, so I tagged-along as a volunteer.

In practical terms this meant that I got to go on a free coach trip, and spend the day pushing a lady who was not my mum around in a wheelchair, because she had a broken arm.

Milestones is a nine-year-old historical town, constructed using similar design and materials to buildings within the past century-ish. Spookily, it never rains at Milestones, because the entire village is contained inside an even larger building in Basingstoke. I guess that must be the way every neighbourhood was built back in the increasingly ubiquitous "the day".


For me, these family day-out museums always conjure-up thoughts of cordoned-off waxworks, enhanced by film of a costumed actor's face enthusiastically chatting about how life used to be in olden times.

I wasn't disappointed.

The very first section featured just such a digital-projection of a costumed actor, who even managed to actually use the phrase "in my day". Priceless. (literally – I'd got in for free remember)

Ever on the cutting-edge of technology, the museum also issued everyone who wanted one with a sort of long mobile-phone handset which, when a number from the map was punched-in, would play a recording of information about the corresponding section. Juggling this, the map, my rucksack and the wheelchair, I quickly gave-up using it, but others thought it was fabulous.

After I'd learnt how to wrangle the chair around cobbled-streets, our group decided to head back upstairs for lunch. Temporarily returning her handset, my mum spotted a couple of low-speed electric buggies sitting idle. Enquiring further, we learnt that they were complimentary buggies, but had been prebooked for the day. However, if the patrons in question didn't return from lunch, then my mum was welcome to take one out for a spin!

One tasty meal later, and we found three of the things still sitting unused downstairs, so after a quick lesson, off my mum set with the rest of us walking, or trundling, in the tracks of her tyres! The irony of such a modern vehicle making its way down such ancient-looking streets was not lost on me.


We made it through the town to an in-character talk about saving money during the war, which concluded with us all singing Somewhere Over The Rainbow, We'll Meet Again and The Lambeth Way. Given how well-suited these tunes were to the retired audience, I had to slightly wonder why they even bothered with the lyric-sheets. (the "OI!"s and the thumbs to the last track were not written-down, but everyone - including me - inserted them anyway)

Then it was into several other areas including, as one of our party put it, the "modern" era section. This contained, among other loudly-coloured items, a record-player (sadly not working today so we couldn't play the Jimmy Young 78), an early home-computer with a cassette-machine built-in, and a toy Dalek!

Just off one of the cobbled streets was also a camera shop, and I was intrigued to spot in a display-case a fully-spent, but undeveloped, cartridge of Agfa Super 8 ciné film. I had to wonder just what footage had actually been shot on this to leave it in this condition, and sadly accepted that, unless it had been specially run-through for the museum, those priceless pictures would almost certainly never now be processed and seen. Agfa Super 8 - I think there's only one lab left in the world that will develop that now. (filmrescue.com) I have some stuff of my own to send there shortly.

Finally it was to the costume tent, where one could dress-up in garments from yesteryear, and photograph each other in the olde wolde streets outside. Alas, as I scanned the items on offer, I had to concede out loud that "These clothes don't look much different to what's in my wardrobe anyway." So I sat that one out.

Piling back into the coach, it had all been a good day.

Back home outside the church, I was faffing about in the milling crowd of goodbyers, trying to swap email addresses and return one of the group's four wheelchairs to inside the building. Suddenly a lady in a sling made her way up to me and determinedly said "Thank you very much."

I was completely taken by surprise. Maybe this is the wrong thing to say, but despite having spent the day wheeling her around, intently observing her face to gauge when she wanted to move on, and generally chatting and passing things, I don't think I'd really noticed.

More about Milestones Museum here.

Torchwood: Golden Age

I found this less-engaging than yesterday's episode, which was a shame, as some of the ideas were quite good.

Torchwood's Indian branch, the bubble in time, the shipment of computer equipment addressed to Jack's namesake...

Once it slid into discussing Jack's old flame though, I'm afraid I rather lost interest. I wasn't sure if Jack had worked for Torchwood India for a while, or whether he'd only gone there to close it down. The Duchess' surprise at hearing of Torchwood Cardiff also seems to open-up problems with Torchwood's confused back-story in the TV series. Ultimately, I'm sorry to admit that I started nodding-off, and had to rewind the tape a few times to catch what I'd missed.

Ianto tries to evacuate a building at one point by setting-off the fire alarm, so everyone... screams? Whu...?

Some of the dialogue was a bit audio-ish too, but that's a tough learning-curve. I do like the vocal direction on this series though. There are thoughtful pauses between many of the lines, making them sound a lot like they're being delivered naturally.

The music too is consistent with the main TV series, and particularly the opening two-note atmosphere tells you exactly that you're back in that same world again.

One more to go!

Lethal Weapon 2

Not sure if this is really a sequel or a remake.

More drug shipments, more shooting people without consequences, more destruction of Murtaugh's home, another swimming-pool battle, and poor Riggs has to face up to the loss of his wife all over again.

Not to mention the two leads' continued ineptitude at their jobs. Just how many times do they leave the witness who they're supposed to be protecting alone in the car? When Getz is finally kidnapped, you can't really empathise with Murtaugh's anguish.

It's more aimed at comedy than the first film, and the type of comedy that it's going for is pantomime. Many of these scenes seem to be self-contained sketches in their own right, most notably the one when Murtaugh pretends to apply for residency in South Africa. Joss Ackland, as the villain, camps the whole thing up, and successfully creates an ogre who you really want to see shot and killed at the end.

When I saw this at the cinema in 1989, I had a real problem with the legal repercussions of Murtaugh's final execution of him though, and twenty years later, I still do.

Fun entry though.

Review of Lethal Weapon here
Review of Lethal Weapon 3 here
Review of Lethal Weapon 4 here

Torchwood: Asylum

After last year's Lost Souls special, Torchwood returns for more radio episodes, and on the strength of this opener, it's finally found its stride.

It took a few minutes to get into, but about a third of the way through I realised that I was hooked. It helped that this was written well for audio, and played effectively by the regular cast. The scene in which Gwen is interviewing the girl at the police station, and we can hear all of her non-verbal responses, had me listening intently.

The script was excellent too. The girl in question comes from later on this century, complete with slightly different vocabulary. The actress who plays her delivers it all so naturally. This sure doesn't sound like actors reading their lines for the first time.

I guess it helps that this was broadcast at 2:15pm in the early afternoon, when all the sex, violence and swearing had to be toned-down or left out. What we had instead was a more thoughtful dialogue-based show, which required one to engage one's brain.

Yeah, this was maybe the best episode of Torchwood so far.

Doctor Who: Planet Of The Dead

Just above okay.

Aside from the red double-decker bus on the alien planet, Planet Of The Dead has some original ideas going for it. The Tritovores who, unusually for aliens, we hear speaking in their own language. The flying aliens who swarm to create a portal. The ongoing context of the Doctor operating on his own.

It is slow, but while this is initially just weak pacing (the Doctor awkwardly sitting around doing nothing again), I quite like having the chance to hear lots of characters talking for a while.

I do think they should start filming London scenes in London now, or just move the Earthbound action elsewhere. Since we cannot place where any of these events are supposed to be happening, it makes the whole thing feel a bit weird. London's quite small, if you live here.

Overall this is, like The Next Doctor, another okay story. If, from now on, the show can regularly be this standard and above, then that's good news.

Today's Celebrity Bible-Reader is... Al Gore

The earth will become a wasteland for those who live on it
because of what the people living there have done.

- Micah 7:13 (God's Word)

Cat delivering monologue at start of talk show.

Local talk by the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children tonight.

STAR TЯEK: NEMƎSIS

Directors of popular spin-off sequels will often say that their film is intended to both please fans of the original, and also function as a stand-alone story that the general public will be able to enjoy too.

You know the sort of paraphrase - Even if you've never even heard of this series, you'll still be able to understand what's going on!

And it doesn't appear to be that hard an equation to make fly. If it's a good stand-alone story, then it'll probably only need a little bit of tweaking to avoid contradicting a pre-existing one.

It's been done – see Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle, Mission: Impossible II... good stand-alone sequels all.

Star Trek X has a lot going for it too. It features some nice action sequences, particularly Picard and Data's scraping escape-flight down the corridors of Praetor Shinzon's ship, which has something of the air of Red Dwarf about it.

The strategic stand-off in space between the two main protagonists' huge vessels is well-executed too. Part of the credit for this absorbing battle of wits must go to the tremendously well-cast Tom Hardy. You can really see his character in his eyes, and even the scriptwriter knows it.

Best of all, this is an even-numbered Star Trek film. Having dutifully sat-through Star Trek IX a couple of years earlier, when I subsequently went to the cinema in 2003 to see this tenth one, I'm afraid that I allowed my Trek superstition to get the better of me.

Alas, from the very opening, for me at any rate, Star Trek: Nemesis didn't cut it as either a stand-alone story, or an entry into the Star Trek canon.

Problems as a stand-alone story:

- In the opening scene, when security has clearly been breached, it takes everyone present almost half a minute to think of calling for help. They all just sit there and watch the special effect doing its thing unchallenged. A little surprising from a director who's such an experienced movie-editor.

- Soon after Data has met his double, Picard also meets his double. Although this is a fairly big coincidence, no-one in the film makes the connection.

- When the Enterprise's main computer is accessed, no-one suspects that it just might be newcomer B4.

- The possibility of just recloning Picard, or Shinzon, or even just either of their blood, is neither discounted nor considered.

- B4 is seen to have returned to the Enterprise without explanation.

- No-one sees Data floating across space from the Enterprise to Shinzon's ship, although they are facing each other.

Problems as a piece of Star Trek:

- The actor Wil Wheaton, who played Wesley Crusher for several seasons of the TV series, returns for Riker and Deanna's pre-wedding-reception (I'm not really not sure what it was), but gets not a single word to say.

- No-one appears to remember Worf's long relationship with the bride.

- Although when we last saw him in the final episode of Deep Space Nine he became Ambassador to the Klingon homeworld, in this film Worf's back just working on the Enterprise again, without explanation.

- Midway through watching this film today, my mum asked "Where's Spock?" Good question. Although the film is all about the Planet Romulus, the Federation's Ambassador to that planet is never even mentioned. He really should have been the one briefing Picard with the mission, instead of Janeway. Better yet, he ought to have gone along to lead it. Slacker.

- Upon discovering Data's 'brother' B4, no-one remembers similarly discovering Data's other 'brother' Lore, who was a recurring villain in several TV episodes.

- Although the logically-thinking Data returns to Shinzon's ship with a plan, it hasn't extended to bringing some form of 24th-century timed-detonator (eg. a grenade) with which to give himself a moment to escape. Or replicating the Emergency Transport Unit. Or having Picard send it back for him to re-use. Or using another Transporter such as the ones on the Enterprise's shuttlecrafts.

It really only takes a few throwaway lines of dialogue to tidy up the above.

Perhaps they should have given the movie to a director who knew both storytelling and Star Trek, such as previous Trek movie directors Nicholas Meyer, Leonard Nimoy, or Jonathan Frakes.

They might still have had a successful and popular series on their hands. Instead, this film's legacy sadly appears to be that it is considered to have caused the death of the original Star Trek canon.

As it is, I'm afraid I found this to be an oddly-numbered movie in disguise.

But then, I really liked Star Trek XI...

:)

Revelations: Muslim School

Part two of Channel 4's Revelations series follows two students through their first year at a Muslim school in Nottingham.

Producer / Director Tanya Stephan sets a much less judgemental tone than in Jon Ronson's film last week, and the result is a life-decision that is much easier to understand.

Despite the series' title, there isn't very much that's revelatory about this entry. The only development that took me by surprise was the kids' huge uncertainty about, when they died, whether they would go to Heaven or Hell. They hoped Heaven, obviously, but they just didn't know.

I was concerned that these particular kids seemed to have concluded that right & wrong are determined by rules (I think it's the other way around), but I perceive this as being a much wider-held perspective, followed by individuals regardless of any faith.

Review of Revelations: How To Find God here.
Review of Revelations: Commando Chaplains here.
Review of Revelations: The Exhumer here.
Review of Revelations: Muslim and Looking for Love here.
Review of Revelations: Divorce Jewish Style here.
Review of Revelations: Talking to the Dead here.
Review of Revelations: How Do You Know God Exists? here.

Co-Dependence Day

My very good friend, and long-time flatmate, Davy Crockpot got married in Botany this evening, and I was genuinely disappointed not to be able to... err... fit it into my schedule!

Nonetheless, by the conjuring of the World Wide Wedding Web, not to mention best man Phil, here's the video-telegram that I sent to the happy couple's reception...