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?

Greenbelt 06 - pictures

I have posted my Greenbelt pictures on flicker, there are some nice ones of the Foundation Poetry shed!

Greenbelt 06

Just back from Greenbelt 06 - good to catch up with friends, and spend time with people from foundation. I even got to spend sometime with my wife this year, who had managed to delegated some of her normal responsibilities to Ben and Ian who did a fantastic job with the New Forms cafe. The farm seemed to be the highlight of Gayle's weekend, who now wants a pig as a friend for Frank! I also had a great birthday - thank you foundation for the amazing chocolate cake. I have some pictures and reflections to come but my initial thought is GB needs to bring back the edginess and risk into areas of the programme. I am sure also that conversations within foundation started at Greenbelt will rumble on for sometime!

The masked ball

last weekend Gayle and I made what is becoming an annual pilgrimage to the Beautiful Days festival nr Honiton Devon, with some friends. We had a great time despite the somewhat dodgy weather and it is good to get Gayle away from the computer the weekend before Greenbelt! Beautiful Days is a festival set up by the Levellers and the festival is a mixture of music: ska, punk, folk and reggae and a few other genres thrown in for luck and art including sculptures made out of exhaust pipes and good ale!
I have uploaded some pictures on flicker

Last weekend i revisited my youth

Last weekend I revisited my youth, not as you might expect by drinking and clubbing but going on demos!! Friday, Gayle dragged me along to a demo in the city centre organised by the Unions to protest against the attack that had happened on Christopher Kasozi was severely injured in an unprovoked racially motivated attack in the city centre. With about 80 people there at short notice, it was good to make a stand and say Bristol will not tolerate racism. It was also good to meet up with old friends who I use to go to many a demo with and was then persuaded to go on a march the following day against the war in Lebanon and our governments lack of intervention. I know it is easy to have a simplistic view of these situations but I think many of us feel there is a real injustice at work and that the west seems to be happy to let Israel carry on killing innocent people. The demo on Saturday started with about 100 or so people leaving castle park and as we marched through town and up to the top of the Park St we were joined as we went along by people out for Saturday shopping, by the time we reached the top we had several hundred people following us. We had an interesting interaction with the police on the way past college green as there was another protest going on in support of Israel. The police were quite concerned that there was going to be a clash. I guess it was people exercising their right to freedom of speech. The change for me was that in earlier days myself and friends would have got involved in a fight -maybe we are too old for that now or perhaps just a bit wiser.
Have a look on flicker for some pictures

My reflections on Bristol Blah

It seems some time ago already that Blah came to Bristol but the thought provoking stuff is still rumbling around...
the topic that is still going round in my head is that of "flat leadership"
this came up as a question at the end of the sessions, about whether this can really be achieved.
When thinking about Foundation - I think we need to be honest about the leadership structure we have at the moment. My personal reflection is that, even if our aim is to have a 'flat leadership', currently we don't, I personally don't feel we have flat or representative leadership and that rather than pretend we do, we need to be open about who is leading/steering the group.

My next question is whether there is such a thing as flat leadership? In all the alt worship groups and emerging church groups it seems there is always a figure-head, someone who represents the group (ie at the Blah: Karen Ward for COTA, Ben Edson for Sanctus1, Paul Roberts for Foundation) rather than fighting this maybe we should be thinking about how that person(s) can reflect the nature of the group instead of a personal opinion?

Maybe the conversations should be more about how and by whom the decisions are made that this 'figure-head' will represent, rather than how we are achieving what might never be achievable?
Are the people who are steering the group representative of the wider group i.e. men/women, married/single, gay/straight, with children/without children, professionals/non-professionals, employed/unemployed, evangelicals/liberals, intellectuals/real-world doers. Where are the decisions made - in what context? Is everyone who wants a say getting a say? and what is the process by deciding the view we are going with - those who talk the loudest and the most?
And where does God fit into all this?

Foundation go to the beach

These are up a bit late but here are some pics of Foundations' trip to the Gower mid July.


















click on flickr or the picture to see more

The Beat goes on ...

after going to Make Poverty History march in Edinburgh last year, we felt it was only right we supported the local action to remind Mr Blair of what still needs to be achieved! it was a bit of a reunion of those who went last year from Cotham, with the sad exception of Kathy Allen.

speeding fowl

seen on a recent walk

Irish Embassy

Yesterday, as the chair of Bristol Playbus, I was asked to go to the Irish Embassy in London to pick up a cheque for the work Playbus does with Irish travellers in Bristol. I met with the Irish Prime Minister, Foreign Minister and the Irish Ambassador. It was a good day out with Guinness flowing freely from about 11am and very little sandwiches to soak it up with! All in all the guests had a very merry day!

Banksy back in town

this can be seen from Park St!

Juggling

This is brill! (thanks to Andy Wray for the link) Make sure you watch with sound up
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4776181634656145640

Cultural experiences

this last week has seen us taken in quite a range of gigs!
last Tuesday we headed to a quaint little venue in Frome called the cheese and grain, to see New Model Army, 25yrs since they were last in Frome gigging, and they sounded just as good as when they started! For once I didn't feel like I was the oldest person in the audience! Not only was their music great but their politic message as ever outstanding!
Saturday took us to Portland Sq - not a place I would normally suggest spending a Saturday night, but we went to see Circomedia's contribution to Bristol Old Vic's Mayfest programme. The artists spuspended themselves over the audience in the refurbished church. One company was a single artist working on the ropes, the other company was 2-4 artists working on a bar and ropes. AMAZING is the only way to describe what they do! It was like watching ballet in the air. Their sense of balance and lack of fear of dropping to the floor had the audience gasping. If you get a chance to visit this venue to see circus skills in action I would highly recommend it!
Bank Holiday Monday then took us to St George's Hall to see Martha Wainwright, singer song writer, daughter of Kate McGarrigle and Loudon Wainwright III, and sister to Rufus Wainwright. Having only recently been introduced to her music by Gayle I was not sure what to expect, but we had a very entertaining night, with beautiful music including guest star Kate McGarrigle! and highly entertaining and witty chatter from Martha. She is extremely talented but is not at all pretentious and came across as extremely normal, she laughed her way through her guitar going hideously out of tune mid-song and the string then breaking and then having to ask an audience member to fix it for her as she continued the show. If you get a chance to see her - do! She is brilliant (next local gig is next weekend at the Wychwood Festival in Cheltenham! Unfortunately we can not go)
A weeks feast of the arts!

Playing

On Monday we had planned to go out to the countryside for a walk but as the weather was so awful we decided to go to @Bristol and went to Explore and the IMAX. Having never been before I hadn't really appreciated how much fun you can have at a science museum!
We spent a very happy day playing on all the experiments, testing and comparing our sense of smell, speed of reactions, word recognition and playing virtual volleyball! We also saw the 3D film 'Sharks', which was an excellent nature film, though the glasses you had to wear were rather silly! Despite the cost (it is not cheap) I would highly recommend it as a day out (not in the school holidays) for adults who want to play again!

Being frank about Frank

About 3 weeks ago I let our dog (Frank) out into the garden, when I returned to let him in, he and the garden (and very quickly me) were covered in blood. Not really knowing what was wrong with him - I charged up to the vets where he was put under anesthetic and they found he had torn his ear in several places. It transpired that our neighbours had attached a piece of sheet metal to the top of a post on our adjoining fence and it had acted like barbed wire on Frank's ear.

There then followed 3 weeks of vet visits and a very very sad dog! Unfortunately for Frank his ear would not heal and everytime they looked under the bandage it would start bleeding again.
After 3 anesthetics in a week , about 8 vet trips and a huge vet bill, he finally was allowed to have the bandage removed on Saturday but still has to have his collar/cone on to prevent scratching out the stitches. Instantly he was transformed from a very sad dog that seemed to have lost the will to live, eat or drink to the naughty, hyper-active dog we have all grown to love!!
Think the moral of the story for me is GET DOG INSURANCE - having grown up on farm we took care of a lot of the ailments animals would have, ourselves, only getting a vet in, when absolutely necessary, I guess I had not really appreciated the need to insure my pet nowadays! Gayle thinks her biggest lesson is: do not pander to the animal during illness, as you pay the price afterwards with a distinct lack of discipline and obedience!

The heart and soul of Cambodia

The first weekend we were in Cambodia we headed north to Siem Reap with the main purpose to visit the Temples of Angkor. There are about 19 temples (or wats) in the area - spread out over some considerable distance. The temples are a source of inspiration and national pride and they are a point of pilgrimage for all Khmers, and a huge tourist magnet - who come in their thousands to see this Wonder of the World!
The temples are in various states of disrepair, some being allowed to be consumed by the jungle around them, others are being restored through international agreements with other countries ie America, Germany and Japan.
We started our sight seeing at 4.30am to climb to the top of the highest temple (Phnom Bakheng) for sunrise, scrabbling up a large rock face in the dark hanging on to roots and trees was not an experience we will forget! but nothing prepared us for the magnificence of these structures. Built between 9th and 14th Century, they are feats of construction and reflections of mans commitment to their gods.
I could bore you with details of each temple we saw but I think some of the photos would be of more interest ....
Phnom Bakheng Temple




Breakfast of mangos at a sacrificial table!
Bayon- this temple has over 50 towers with 216 huge (approx 12ft high)smiling carved faces



Spring cleaning at Bayon!
Angkor Wat - the most famous of the temples at Angkor and the largest


We are not sure why these beautifully carved women have particularly shiny body parts - one can only guess!



Monks are a very common sight at the temples. The different shades of orange robes denote how long you have been a monk.

Traffic Management

As alluded to in the previous post the roads are quite simply chaos theory at work!! Despite this I think we can learn from them.
The roads are so hard to describe as you have to experience it to know what it feels like! (Italy and France have nothing on Cambodia). Most people get around on little motorbikes (called motordops) and bicycles or 4 wheel drives!
No one is quite sure what the traffic laws are in Cambodia - but this does not seem to matter - the main rule seems to be - worry only about what is in front of you, the things behind you will worry about themselves! Cross roads are the most fun (read scary), though there are traffic lights and even a seconds counter telling you the remaining time left on red or green, most people ignore them or at least the last 10 seconds before they change so you are hurtled out in to the junction with traffic coming at you from all sides, the feeling that over a hundred motorbikes are heading straight for you is something I reckon everyone should experience at least once in their lives! and somehow everyone misses each other...


1. Traffic Jams
We rarely encountered a traffic jam but when we did, even then we managed to squeeze our way through, even if it meant taking over the pavement, driving through the forecourt of a petrol station or through someones front lawn - we got through. Bearing in mind about 100 people were doing the same thing in the opposite direction!

2. Car sharing
well that should be bike sharing really - Cambodians have the most amazing sense of balance and it was a common sight to see a family of 6 all seated on a motordop and with their shopping (bags of vegetables, live chickens and sacks of rice), or see someone on their way to market with 10 live pigs strapped to the back, or 25 live ducks hanging from their feet strapped to a plank of wood or people delivering TV's - we saw one bike with 3 men on and 6 TV's stacked up! or people on their way home from hospital holding up their IV drip as they were whizzed through the streets. Women generally sat side saddled with their legs crossed as if they were watching daytime TV, children from the age of 1 were perched in front of the driver. Anything that could be lifted on to a bike was transported by bike! Essential motordop gear is high heels (for the girls!) sun hats, gloves to keep the sun off you and a towel and sunglasses to keep the dust out of your face, no helmets, no leathers, no boots!
To get goods in and out of the city for people the common way is to load up a mini bus with people and goods, they would not leave the market until they were full and by full I mean people on the roof and ladders were used as extension seating out the back of the van - how any of the vans had suspension or could move is actually a mystery to me!
A slightly more dangerous mode of transport was lorries that were transporting a large amount of goods - these were stacked up as high as humanly possible and then people climbed on top for the journey home. On a serious note this is dangerous - as when lorries swerved or braked suddenly their passengers were thrown to the ground and often died.
Cambodia certainly could teach us a thing or two about sharing transport - imagine if we all did this here - how empty our streets would be !

3. Transport for religious leaders
A common (but continually endearing sight) was the monks on the back of motordops. Monks are able to stop any motordop, van, car or bus and ask to be taken to their destination without charge, in exchange for a blessing! Maybe the C of E should consider this for their clergy to cut costs!



Travelling in Cambodia was exciting, life threatening, entertaining, frightening and fun! Having said all this there are real problems with road traffic accidents outside the city where roads are wide enough for one way traffic but often are accommodating traffic travelling 3 abreast on each side! This aside it did make me seriously wonder about the lengths we go to with traffic management and control - maybe we should adopt a bit more chaos theory ...
I have just recieved an email from my father-in-law (Jack) suggesting another Cambodian traffic management idea for the M5 in the avon area - "on Bank Hols and other busy days they allow traffic to travel on the M5 in any direction if there is a space but it would be wise you also mentioned the speed would be reduced to say 25mph while travelling in that Somerset area - but at least the traffic would be moving and it would add a certain interest to the journey"
this really happens in Cambodia!