Catholics have the Pope
Anglicans have the Archbishop of Canterbury
Baptists (in the UK) have Jonathan Edwards (not the Triple Jumper).


At the start of the month it was the annual Baptist Assembly, held this year in Blackpool (of tippy-over ship fame - it's STILL there) and our contingent just happened to end up sitting next to Jonathan Edwards (General Secretary of the Baptist Union) and Alistair Brown (Director General of the Baptist Missionary Society - BMS).

Mrs T fixed up yonks ago for Jonathan to come and speak at our church in November to celebrate our Church Anniversary..  Woohoo!!  



Julie, Mel and Carole meet the Head Honcho's  -Jonathan (L) and Alistair (R).  

hmmm... do I detect a bit of Fangirling...?  ;-)

Joke of the Day...  The Data Protection Act.

I came home this afternoon to TWO messages on our answerphone from our Doctors Surgery.  Are they creating work for themselves, why does it need two people to give us the same message.  Please would we call about an 'Admin' matter.

So I phoned.

I was Number 1 in the queue for 12 minutes, then decided something had gone a bit wrong, so I hung up and tried again.

I got through to Stalin's wife - or someone else with a degree in brusque-ness.

It was to do with Simon and no, she could not possibly tell me what it was under the rules of the Data Protection Act.

'If it's an 'Admin' matter' I said, 'can I help?' - thinking he might not have chaged his address or collected a repeat prescription.  Simon is busy, it is exam season, it is approaching the end of term, the last thing he wants to be doing is fart-arsing about trying to call the surgery when he's supposed to be marking exams to a deadline.

'No, we can't possibly tell you what it's about, he has to ring the surgery for himself.'

'But he doesn't have time to do that - well not when you are open anyway - are you open at 9pm? He can call then.'

There was some muttering and I was asked to hold the line.

A minute or so passed.

'I have special permission from the Doctor so that I can tell you that he needs to make a routine appointment to see the Doctor.'

'Oh... I said, ok, I'll tell him.. bye'.

Was that it?

All that rubbish and wasted time just to say the Doctor wants to see you?

Simon, the Doctor wants to see you.  Apparently I have just breached the Official Secrets Act by telling you this, so I thought in for a penny... in for a pound, by blogging it I'll surely get a prison sentence and a stay at Her Majesty's Pleasure for daring to break for Data Protection Act

I bet he's fallen into some government initiative screening group. 

Can't see him phoning much before September though if it isn't urgent.  He'll be either working or working on Fusion until August, then he can have two weeks off and then he's back at work to prepare for the next Semester.

There's nothing like wandering down the stairs in the morning, opening the living room door to find the dismembered remains of a small Starling strewn over your rug.

So that was my start to Monday.

It's SAT's week for Year 6.  I know these tests are primarily to assess how the school is doing rather than the pupil, but you can't help worrying about what it says about the level your child is working at.  Any attempt to encourage DD to work on a few things has been met with two heels firmly dug into the carpet, so we didn't pursue something that was only serving to make everyone feel miserable and stressed. 

We are not worried about her English and she has a good grasp of Science and is performing consistently.  Maths however... well it depends who shows up to take the papers.  DD or Miss Fluff-for-Brains.  If DD shows up I'm sure things will be fine.  If her alter ego, who thinks 2+2 is 22 shows up then we're all in trouble.

The biggest problem for DD this morning is going to be deciding who to take as her mascot to sit on her table.  Let me remind you that this is the girl who has more cuddly toys than Hamley's Toy Shop and they are all named.


EDIT 8.07am - Pinky has been chosen to go to school.  I have written a note to hopefully smooth the way as Pinky is slightly bigger than the regulation coffee mug-sized cuddly.  If she has Pinky with her then DD is invincible.

Praise God for Factor 30 Suncream!!!

I very nearly spontaneously combusted in the heat this afternoon - our car themometer was registering 31 degrees when we finally extracated ourselves off the grass in the park and ambled our way home. 

I think Churches Together pulled off a good one, although I think there is ample room in that format for a spot of Inter-Church Rounders!

Lots of men in clerical collars and smart trousers looking rather warm in the heat  -respectfully representing their various churches and congregations in time honoured and slightly serious fashion.

... Whereas our Pastor Stephen, represented his congregation by ambling up to the microphone in board shorts... LOL! 

We definitely won the loudest shout when they called out all the churches....  I mistook the venue for the Chiefs at Earl's Court and gave a particularly loud shout, only to be sternly glared at by someone not used to loud noises in church services I bet.

BUT I must mention the complete madness going on in our church this morning before all the Pentecost in the Park business... Kudos for Judith for taking audience participation to a whole new level! 

Not many people can have half the church doing laps of the place in the style of Jewish Wedding Dancing...!

It was fab!  I certainly FELT the spirit today.

More please!!

"Tony Blair is giving advice to Prime Minister Gordon Brown and has told him how to win the next election, Cherie Blair has said. "


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7393530.stm

Wow...!  So it took TWO of them to get the country in this mess...  Stunning achievement guys!

Do you think Tony Blair also knows how to win the Eurovision Song Contest?  We need a bit of help with that too...



Blair and Brown makes me think of these two.  

Actually... I'd much rather listen to these two...

It is my sister's birthday today.  She won't mind I'm sure me telling you that she's 35.


Her Facebook profile tells me that she's having a birthday 'do' this evening  - my invite must have got lost in the post ;-), so I very much hope that the massed ranks of the Lancashire Constabulary have been placed on alert, and neighbours issued with tin helmets just in case the party at Chez Claire gets a little out of hand...

Honestly... how's anyone supposed to work when stuff like this is going on outside the office...



Dave Coulson is speaking at the next Fellowship Lunch, so today he checked that he could get his Honda Goldwing through the door...as you do.



Got thought the doors...


Ha!  It fits...!


Ooh... Now comes the tricky bit... reversing out...


Nah... just turn it round in the church..  (so glad it's Friday and the chairs are cleared!)

Somebody at ITV needs to apologise to Catherine Tate...


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7390193.stm

It discovered that [Catherine] Tate's show was the rightful winner of the People's Choice Award [British Comedy Awards, 2005], but said there was "insufficient evidence" to explain why Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway had been given the prize.

Their report added: "Robbie Williams was invited to present an award. It was understood that he would be happy [to do so] if the recipients were Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly.

"In order to ensure his attendance, this assurance was given." 


It is astonishing that ITV would pander to the demands of someone like Robbie Williams.

As for Catherine Tate, well she's currently hanging around with that Doctor bloke so she's possibly not too worried about missing out on a prize she rightly won three years ago, because being on Doctor Who gives you more credibility than being presented with a prize by Robbie Williams.


Catherine Tate gets her hands on a FAR BIGGER prize... Although it's a bit big for the mantlepiece.

Our friends Rob and Lois are out in Benin at the moment and every month a small group of us from the church get together to pray for them - we've been doing this for the last four years.  This July they are coming back to the UK for a year before going back to serve for possibly another 4 years, perhaps in another African country.

One of the issues we were praying about last night was their children's education.  Not immediately, but when they return in 4 years time.  Alison, Lois's sister is a teacher in a middle school elsewhere in the county and she was telling us about the system that our local pyramid is adopting, which they are having their first year of at the moment.  It made me worry.

At the moment, nationally, children in the UK sit SAT's at 7(Year 2), 11 (Year 6) and 14 (Year 9).  Because Bedfordshire is one of the only counties in the UK still with the three tier system (Lower, Middle and Upper Schools instead of just Primary and Secondary schools), the Year 9 SAT's results seem to be being affected by the Middle/Upper transfer.  As the parents voted and said 'no' to changing the school system (that issue is not dead in the water yet), locally, the schools are finding a way round it for themselves.  What they have decided to do is have the children sit the Key Stage 3 SAT's in Year 8 at the end of Middle School, so that when they transfer to the Upper School all they have to do is concentrate on their GCSE's.  Alison's school trialled it last year and this year is their first proper year of doing it.  She told me she was worried as some children are finding it a real struggle and she gave the example of one girl she knows coming out of the Shakespeare paper in a complete state because it was all too much.  What worried me is that getting DD to do ANY SORT of home study for her Key Stage 2 SAT's (which are next week by the way - oh deep joy), has been like pulling teeth.  Does this mean that we have another two years of fighting with her to look forward to as they seek to stuff three years of teaching into two?

I'm not really looking forward to that.

The worry in terms of Rob and Lois is that the upper school that Alison's children go on to is closing their doors to anyone who has not taken this 'fast track' route.  That means in four years time, if our upper school adopts the same policy, then Rob and Lois might have a problem getting their children into the school when they return.