Postcards From The Hedge

Mary, Joseph and a Chocolate Rabbit...

2006-06-24T11:56:00.000-07:00

BBC NEWS | UK | Cadbury recall after health fears

Isn't it exciting when national news affects your everyday life? Today in work I had to take cadbury bars off their shelves to send them back in case they had somalia. Sometimes you watch the news and it all seems so foreign, yet here we have the heartbreaking story of some poor cadbury bars afflicted with the dreaded semolina, or custard, or rice pudding, I can't remember. and this story directly affected me today as I returned these bars to their maker.

and isn't that a bit like Jesus?

Actually, I'm not sure why it is, but it seems that that's the thing to do on these christian blogs. So I'll leave it there. if anyone works out how Jesus is like salmon or trout or even pike then I'll buy you a bar of cadburys... (I know where you can get them cheap!)

My Music List

2006-05-01T09:26:00.000-07:00

I have been tagged by Mr Spence

The rules: List seven songs you are into right
now. No matter what the genre, whether they have words, or even if they’re any
good, but they must be songs you’re really enjoying now. Post these instructions
in your blog along with your seven songs. Then tag other people to see what
they’re listening to.

Here are my seven songs...
(in no particular order)

Sitting on the Dock of the Bay - Otis Reading
It's just such a summer song! Chilled out, wasting tiiiiiime. It could be my motto for life! Plus it has that whistling outro. Genius!

Soul Sister, Brown Sugar - Sam And Dave
Brass to die for, harmonies that would make the Bee Gees blush. Gotta love a bit of classic soul! again, another summer song!

Let's Call The Whole Thing Off - Ella Fitz and Louis Armstrong
Fabulous lyrics, full of sly little plays on words and with fabulous rhyme scheme, which Gershwin doesn't mind deviating from for the craic...

" You like vanilla and I like vanella, You saspiralla, and I saspirella
Vanilla vanella, oh, chocolate strawberry! Let's call the whole thing off"

I love the combination of the voices here. The sweetness of Ella's voice coupled with the gruffness of Satchmo's is fabulous. So many people have done this song, but i think this is the benchmark... again it's another summer song!

Eumir Deodato - Also sprach Zarathustra
No music list would be complete without at least one completely obscure song, and this time it's the turn of Deodato's seminal hit. It takes the form of a jazz/funk fusion/classical crossover (one of the more neglected genres, I feel!) Seriously though, this song is awesome. He takes Richard Strass's classic (from 2001: A Space Oddysey) and lays a backbeat like you would not imagine, coupled with keyboards, bass and a funk guitar solo from God Himself (not God as in Eric Clapton [see below for details] but the other one.) *Paul stops now as he realises he is becoming a little blasphemous*

Layla (Unplugged) - Eric Clapton
I love how this is the same song as the Derek and the Dominoes mastery of electric wonderness, but yet done with a fairly spartan set up of just 2 acoustic guitars, a light drumkit and a piano full of soul, it becomes something so new. While the Dominoes version is a full blown rock anthem, the acoustic version has an entirely different vibe. It's slow and offbeat with, for the most part the piano doing most of the work until halfway through, slowhand pulls off a bluesy solo worthy of his nickname (not slowhand, his other nickname [see above for details]). The song has such soul you can't help but click your fingers.

U2 - Yahweh
One of the most overtly spiritual U2 songs from the How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb album, yet my favourite (not for that reason). It's a fabulous tune, yet typical U2: simple, yet with with The Edge's effects processor playing for Ireland. The Lyrics are just awesome...
"Take this soul, stranded in some skin and bones,
Take this soul and make it sing"
and
"Take this heart, take this heart, take this heart and make it break"
and
"Yahweh, Yahweh, always pain before a child is born
Yahweh, Yahweh, still i'm waiting for the dawn"

Yeah i know it's great. Such a good song to end an album on. Totally uplifting.

finally...

The Animaniacs - Wakko's Two Note Song
This is such a good tune. One of my favourite cartoon songs ever! The story goes that Wakko (the one with the bizarre liverpudlian accent) has an accordion and makes a song using two notes, but Professor Scratchansniff tells him it's not really a song. So the animanics proceed to turn the the tune into a song by putting backing music to it. The song travels through genres, from hard rock with wailing guitars to lounge via baroque, and ends with a big band finale. By the end professor is convinced and sings along. It's a song about reconcilliation, about brotherhood and ultimately about redemption.

There, done! if you don't like it tough, cos it's my blog.

I don't know who to tag, as I don't think anyone actually reads my blog... so I'll tag anyone who wants to do this! There's no elitist "chosen ones" on this blog thank you very much. This is for all, and all who came can gain salvation... I mean, can write a music list.

The Vision - Pete Greig

2006-04-16T17:38:00.000-07:00

The Vision is Jesus
Obsessively
Dangerously
Undeniably
Jesus

The Vision is an army of young people
You see bones? I see an army
And they are free from materialism
They laugh at 9-5 little prisons
They could eat caviar on monday and crusts on tuesday
They wouldn't even notice

They know the meaning of the matrix; the way the west was won
They are mobile like the wind, they belong to the nations
They need no passport
People write their addresses in pencil, and wonder at their strange existence
They are free, yet they are slaves of the hurting, and dirty and dying

What is the Vision?
The Vision is holiness that hurts the eyes
It makes children laugh, and adults angry
It gave up the game of minimum integrity long ago, to reach for the stars
It scorns the good and strains for the best
It is dangerously pure

Light flickers from every secret motive
Every private conversation
It loves people away from their suicide Leaps, their Satan games

This is an army that would lay down it's life for the cause
A million times a day its soldiers choose to lose,
That they might one day win
the great well done of faithfull sons and daughters

Such heros are as radical on monday morning as on Sunday night
They don't need fame from names
Instead the grin quietly upwards
And here the crowds chanting again and again
"Come on!"

And this is the sound of the underground
The whisper of history in the making
Foundations shaking, Revolutionaries dreaming once again
Mystery is scheeming in whispers
Conspiracy is breathing
This is the sound of the underground

And the army is disciplined
Young people who beat their bodies into submission
Every soldier would take a bullet for his comrad in arms
The tattoo on their back boast "for me to live is Christ, and to die is gain"
Sacrifice fuels the fire of victory in their upward eyes
Winners, Martyrs, who can stop them?
Can hormones hold them back?
Can failure succeed?
Can feer scare them, or death kill them?

And a generation prays like a dieing man with groans beyond talking
With warrior cries, sulphuric tears, and with great barrow loads of laughter.

Waiting
Watching
24-7-365

Whatever it takes they will give
Breaking the rules
Shaking mediocrity from it's cozy little hide;
Laying down their rights and their precious little wrongs
Laughing at labels, Fasting essentials
The advertisers cannot mold them
Holywood cannot hold them
Peer pressure is powerless to shake their resolve at late night parties before the cockerel cries.
They are incredibly cool, dangerously attractive, on the inside
On the outside they hardly care
They wear costumes to communicate, and to celebrate
But never to hide

Would they surrender their image? Or their popularity
They would lay down their very lives
Swap seats with the man on death row, guilty as hell
A throne for an electric chair
With blood and sweat and many tears
With sleepless nights and fruitless days

They pray as if it all depends on God
And live as if it all depends on them
Their DNA chooses Jesus
He Breathes out they breath in
Their subconscience sings

They had a blood transfusion with Jesus

Their words make demons scream in shopping malls
Don't you hear them coming?
Herald the wierdos, summon the losers and the freaks

Here come the freightened and forgoten, with fire in their eyes
They walk tall and trees applaud, Skyscrapers bow, Mountains are dwarfed
By these children of another dimmension
Their prayers summon the hounds of heaven and invoke the ancient dream of eden

It will come to pass
It will come easily
It will come soon
How do I know?

Because this is the longing of creation itself
The groaning of the spirit
The very dream of God

My tomorrow is His today
My distant hope is his 3D
And my feeble whispered faithless prayer
Envokes a thunderous, resounding, bone shaking "Amen!"
From Countless Angels, from heroes of the faith, from Christ himself
And He is the original dreamer
The ultimate winner
Guarenteed

Four Things...

2006-03-26T01:55:00.000-08:00

Four jobs I’ve had in my life

Bouncy Castle Supervisor
Call Centre Person
Bag Packer
Tesco Garage Man

Four movies I can watch over and over

Airplane
Zoolander
Rambo (for sheer comedy)
Desperado

Four places I have lived

Bangor
Marondera (Zimbabwe)
Maforga (Mozambique)
Dallas (for like a week!)

Four TV shows I love to watch

Lost
The Simpsons
Family Guy
Neighbours

Four places I have been on vacation

Paris
Somewhere unpronouncable in Holland
Geneva
Victoria Falls

Four of my favourite dishes

Fajitas
Sausage supper
Sadza (tastes like nothing, but I LOVE it!!)
Special K with berries!

Four websites I visit daily

Hotmail
I-Am-Bored.com
Bebo
BBC News

Four places I would rather be right now

Bed
Zimbabwe
Somewhere sunny (like Zimbabwe)
Bed

Dancing...

2006-03-16T07:40:00.000-08:00

Yeah, so I have a new idea for a programme to run on Saturday nights, now that Strictly Dance Fever is finished, and that ice thing is almost over. It's called Strictly Ice Come Dance Dance Revolution Celebrity Love Fever Brother. In it, minor celebrities such as Jodie Marsh, Abi Titmuss, Timmy Mallett and some bloke who used to be in Hollyoaks will compete on a dance mat wearing ice skates to see who is the best. The public then phone in and pay 25p a call to decide which of them is the biggest loser. if they lose the vote, they will be sent packing, or exterminated by a dalek. I'm not too sure yet. Maybe they should be tossed into a labrynth with david bowie and have to escape the dalek, and if they do, they win their freedom...

Anyway all the celebrities will be put into a big glass house somewhere with cameras everywhere so that we can watch them all the time. And the male and female who get the most votes will win a prize of some description like sleeping in a tent or a banana or something.

I think it might just work...