Who do you think you are?

i've put some photos on flickr of Foundations September Service Who do you think you are?
click on photo or link above to see them all

Banksy again

Meant to blog this a few days ago but not got round to it. Banksy has an art show in a warehouse in LA, amongst the other pieces which includes a great graffiti piece of 2 older women knitting jumpers with slogans and a piece which continues Banksy's assault on Paris Hilton's 'musical' career, is an amazing piece which is an elephant situated in a lounge environment! The elephant is painted the same pattern as the flock wallpaper (aside from the ethics of painting an elephant...) I thought this piece was brilliant. Gayle informed me that on Radio 4 that morning the presenters were discussing why on earth Banksy would put a pink elephant in a lounge and they didn't seem to get it (or maybe this was fained ignorance?) - but strangely it is a metaphor Gayle and her colleagues use all the time at work - in the context that racism is the elephant in the corner that no one ever talks about and pretends is not there.
Apparently a spokesperson for Banksy said the elephant represents poverty - the elephant in the corner some people choose to ignore. There are pictures of the show at the BBC news website

Another Banksy piece that hit the news last week was he had managed to get a life size replica of a Guantanamo bay detainee in the enclosure of Big Thunder ride at Disneyland

Freshly Squeezed Water

Last weekend Gayle and I (and Gayle's parents) ventured down to the Organic food festival at the Harbourside. after getting over the shock of having to pay £3.50 each entry fee (compared to last years free entry!) we had a great time. Making the most of our fee we grazed our way round the stalls with hordes of Bristolians enjoying the organic fayre that was on offer.
I particuarly enjoyed the organic beer (no surprise there) and the cheese and breads they had on offer. The most hilarious stand was a "Freshly Squeezed Water' seller, I am sure they were just selling filtered water but the name made us laugh so much we never got to find out what it really was!
We also enjoyed a demonstration by Sophie Grigson (famous chef type) and the owner of Quartier Vert and the newly opened Bordeaux Quay on how to use stale bread - yes really!

One thing that did occur to me whilst we were browsing was how exclusive this Organic food club is. we could have spent a fortune on food (20p a plum in some cases) and with the £3.50 entry charge, it means this type of event is only open to people with a certain amount of money, if the Soil Association are wanting to encourage us all to eat more healthly and more organically they need to to review how accessible these kind of events are, so it at least it would be open to the masses! Interestingly the cooking demos were sponsored by Sainsbury's, which was quite a surprise to us, but unless we use our consumer power to influence the supermarkets i guess they will never change. I personally think it was a clever piece of marketing by them!

Women's place

Of late there seems to be many conversations happening around me that are about gender issues and inequalities. We seem to manage avoid discussing this subject frequently.

How do we start these conversations in a constructive way?
How to we enable people to be able to voice their experiences without it becoming a blame game?

Discussing this with my wife it felt like as men we often assume that because women within our groups are not being vocal about their feelings that everything is alright (appreciate this is gross generalisation) and so carry on regardless, thus making it harder for women to voice their experiences, thus making us men assume everything is ok for them and so the circle goes on.

This conversation has been going on for years within the church. Alternative worship groups and Emerging churches don't seem to have broken this male dominated culture. Though in the established church there is a higher representation of women than men within the congregations the men are still the ones that hold the power primarily, what are our alternative worship groups doing to challenge this inequality?