The electronic stream of consciousness

Cead mile failte an Aird Govhair!

Hmm I seem to run a civil rights lovefest, how interesting.

Being, as I occasionally am, bored of Cambridge on a dull Saturday, I took myself off to London for a cultural day out.

I decided to visit the Saatchi gallery. I did this with some trepidation as I wondered - would I actually like Britart up close and personal? The answer, slightly to my surprise, was yes. I think to appreciate Damien Hirst or Tracy Emin you have to see it in the flesh - a shark or sheep in Formaldehyde is strangely moving when it's right there in front of you - and even Emin's unmade bed is impressive.

Of course there is a lot of bad art there, some dull paintings, and some very poor photography. Why do conceptual artists take poorly composed and badly lit photos of themselves? To sooth their massive egos I suppose. Two things, though, impressed me. The decision not to rope off works, so it felt like you could tidy up Emin's bed, or touch the scarily lifelike sculptures; and placing it in the formal surroundings of County Hall, with all its dark panelling and pillars.

On to another impressive building - the Natural History museum - with its elegant neo-romanesque style and multicoloured bricks, like some vast italian cathedral. Unfortunately the inside doesn't match the outside. They've gone for an "experience" style, with lots of push buttons and artists impressions of dinosaurs, great for kids, but oddly patronising for adults. They cram so much in you can hardly see the building, which is a shame as all the walls I could see are covered in carvings of fish and plants, but they're all hidden behind hoarding and scaffolding. You're forced to walk round in a fixed path so I spent most of my time trying to get out of each gallery.

I escaped as soon as I could to the V&A across the road. What a contrast! The V&A is an old-style "glass cases" place, and it's wonderful, partly because it was almost deserted. It is amazingly eclectic, I was looking at tomb effigies of English kings, turned the corner into a gallery for modern architecture, and on to 20th century furniture (including the dining table from my old college room, Corpus haven't changed their furniture since 1950). From 17th century clavichords you segue to 1970's dresses by Ossie Clarke.

It's fabulous, and deserves to be better known, but that might spoil it of course

This may turn into a long Anglican whinge so bear with me..

I've been thinking a bit lately about attitudes in the Church. It all started on Saturday when I was singing in the parish choirs service in King's chapel. A number of local church choirs get together to sing in a kind of festival of church music. It was a shame the choice of music was so poor. A bad piece by Archer, an appalling hymn whose idea of harmony was having eight bars of middle C for the basses etc. Of the few decent pieces the conductor murdered If Ye Love Me. [ or If ye love me ( gasping breath!) keep my comman-DUH-munts as he would have it].

Then I realised that for most of the choir this was the height of church music, many had been practising for weeks, which made me feel guilty about turning up 2 hours before the service to sight-read my way through it. This was also fairly high church (cassock and surplice all round). So of course the great church music of the cathedral / chapel tradition which I am used to is very much the exception and not the rule. It seem a great shame that one of the great cornerstones and achievements of the Anglican church is being almost willfully ignored by most of its members, and perhaps are ignoring what the church was is (and should be?).

In a similar vein I discovered the website of Cambridge City church here. This is a super-charismatic evangelical church here in Cambridge. Among the gems on their site:

"Brickfields [the name of their building] is situated on the right hand side, between the Mazda garage and the shed factory."

Their "prophetic picture" of their church is an image of King's chapel, clearly they secretly long to be Gothic high Anglicans...

and their justification for the absolute truth of the bible:

We know that because it says so in the Bible. Now you may say, 'hang on, isn't that a circular argument?' But in fact, any argument for an absolute authority on truth will always be circular - for example, we might say: 'I use logic to work out what is true, because any other method would be illogical'.

[A circular argument is still a circular argument, we don't use logic to find what is true, only what is true given certain assumptions are accepted. The statement on logic is actually illogical, and a tautology, in itself.]

When will evangelicals realise that their acceptance of the absolute truth of the bible is a belief, and not a necessary part of Christian faith, and certainly not a certainty.

I may have fun poking fun at evangelicals, but then I read a sermon on Genesis 1 on the Stag website here. Yes its the old God created Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve argument. Sometimes I think the sooner the church schisms over the gay bishop debate the better...

A belated Happy Birthday to mirabehn

Thanks to mirabehn and evil_nick for the party on Sunday, it's always nice to get of of stuffy Cambridge for a day.

Thanks also to ixwin and vectorious for a longer than expected lift through the home counties!

[Thanks to Mum and Dad, I am proud to accept this Oscar/Bafta...]

My LiveJournal Sitcom
Being leonato (UPN, 2:30): leonato (Jon Voight) and purplepiano (Gene Kelly) try out for a volleyball team. Later, randomchris (Joshua Jackson)'s new friend alienates mirabehn (Scott Bakula). Also, gnimmel (John Turturro) teaches andrewwyld (Soleil Moon Frye) about pacifism. Later that day, the_alchemist (Bill Paxton) takes evil_nick (David Cassidy)'s brother on a date and ends up necking. Crazy results follow.
What's Your LiveJournal Sitcom? (by rfreebern)

i quite like the idea of being Jon Voight, but mirabehn really isn't Scott Bakula.

Haven't updated for a few days because:
1: my home computer got infected with the horrible Blaster worm which took ages to clear up.
2: much more pleasantly I've been playing the tourist while I've been up north.

I've been wandering round the Black Isle, a spooky name for a not very spooky and very attractive area on the other side of the Moray Firth from here. Failed to spot any of the local dolphins.
I've also been wandering round the local whisky distilleries (there's only 50 or so in a 20 mile radius!) and been getting the hard sell and the hard stuff at Glenfiddich, Glen Grant, Glenlivet, Glen wherever... (hic!)

Aah for the easy life, and the cows are back.

Thank God for the Arts Cinema! Just as I thought the summer was going to be one long drought of bad big-budget blockbusters along come two great films: Buffalo Soldiers and Goodbye Lenin! to cheer me up.

Both are fantastic and hilarious (go see 'um!), of course me going to see them had nothing to do with their respective stars, Joaquin Phoenix and Daniel Bruhl being very good looking, oh no not at all, ahem, ahem, cough.

[drooling quietly]

Not a productive day, went a departmental joly outing for pub lunch, then our computers crashed, so a typical phd student day of no work really.

Speaking of nothing to do... having been in some cast or other since October, and having done 4 plays in 2 months, I now find myself with no play to do and at a bit of a loose end.

Luckily merrythebard's readthrough of LOTR will keep me in thespy mode for the weekend. I've just noticed I need to do two rustic accents, should i go for Somerset [ooh aarh] or Yorkshire [ey ooop], and can I do either? With enough alcohol I tend to slip into my native Cumbrian, but since we will be alcohol free, and as Cumbrian sounds like Geordie to moist people this isn't an option. Oh well...