It’s cold inside, there’s no kind of atmosphere

Did my prayers in the form of a poem yesterday and they went down very well.  Here’s one verse to give you a flavour:

For the homeless and the unemployed

with little income or support

for families whose heart is void

for those who try to hold the fort;

whose lives may seem unending struggle

with far too many things to juggle

in these household’s hearts be there

Lord in your mercy:

Hear our prayer.

The last line is a response from the congregation, so that they become a part of the poem.  I wasn’t sure how well it would work in terms of being prayerful but from what people have said it worked very well.  It’s mostly in the delivery I think – I needed to let the rhymes be there but not emphasise them too much, and also to read slowly so that the rhythm didn’t run away with me.

But!  Disappointment today because I wanted to do a vlog; however, Daniel’s video camera is broken and he says the other one isn’t too good, so once again my plans are on hold.  I have also thought of starting my own youtube channel for yoga videos.  I’ll keep you posted.

Talking of post, a friend had a parcel from Canada which was causing a number of problems as he had to keep taking time off work to wait for it not to turn up; in the end he redirected it to us.  It arrived: a flat, rectangular package which I assumed was a calendar or a photo.  I took it round.  He opened it.  It contained – a card.  ‘That’s nice,’ I said.  ‘What else have they sent you?’  He turned the package upside-down and inside-out.  ‘Air,’ he said.

‘Better than tobacco,’ I said.

Why anyone would bother to FedEx a card at ten times the cost of posting it, neither of us could fathom.

Watched the Christmas ‘Rev’ again yesterday – a total gem.  This got me thinking again about sitcoms and how they’ve changed since the 70’s.  A staple of sitcoms is ‘there’s no escape’ and it used to be easy to think of situations you couldn’t escape from – usually, marriage or family, and social class.  Now that society is more mobile and divorce more common, people have to work harder to think of ‘sits’ to be ‘com’ about – but this often results in much greater creativity.  Where could you be more stuck than in a spacecraft with the hologram of a person you can’t stand and the ship’s cat who has, over the time you spent in stasis, evolved into something like a human being?  Or – you could write about a vicar.  Rev is stuck because he has a true vocation – unlike the Vicar of Dibley he actually seems to believe in God (though he doesn’t go on about it) and to genuinely care about those he serves.  But he’s not just a naive victim – and therein lies the strength of the character: whilst knowing exactly what is going on, he still hopes for the best.  He is Candide with balls, basically.

If you haven’t seen the Christmas episode, get to it before it disappears from the iplayer.

Too late!  I’ve just looked and it’s not there.

Ah well.  Today I shall be mostly… strapping myself to the swivel chair until I’ve done my tax return.

There’s a brilliant scene in a sitcom about that:

http://www.youtube.com/verify_age?next_url=/watch%3Fv%3D_VAnIepBxDQ

Kirk out