What I Thought About on Queen Victoria Street

It was late. The sound of drunkenness was echoing through the empty streets and there was a chill in the air. I was walking toward Reading Station, disappointed, melancholy and exhausted.

"I just don't belong here," I said to myself, softly.

I'd been to a birthday party. Or rather, birthday drinks - with a great crowd of people I have never met, and a handful of people I only just half-know. In a darkened upstairs bar at one of Reading's more popular venues, we jostled and drank and tried to chat over the consistent thud of the DJ, while tall women and men in tight tee-shirts swarmed around the bar. I was feeling out of place.

The thing is, I just don't enjoy that kind of thing. It started when the barman downstairs warned me that it was 'a private party up there, mate' as I climbed the staircase. I hate it when people I don't know call me 'mate'. It's patronising and belittling and annoyingly infectious.

"I'm invited mate," I said, politely. He looked at me with a raised eyebrow.

I don't enjoy it because I don't understand it, I think. I don't get drunk, and certainly have never been so drunk that I can't remember a 'good night'. I don't really dance (although there wasn't any dancing anyway) and when it comes to socialising and meeting people, I am hopeless at the best of times. Turn the lights off and the music up and I don't stand a chance.

And so it was that I was walking dolefully along Queen Victoria Street at midnight, thinking about all this and how I just don't seem to belong to the world I'd just tried to be a part of. I like talking to people and listening to them, getting to know them soberly and intelligently. Am I growing steadily more old-fashioned? I must admit, I do sound a bit like my Dad. But then, I was like this when I was younger too. At University, I'd always have chosen the quiet night at the pub rather than the one that ends up with vomit and a headache. Maybe I really don't belong.

But that has to be OK doesn't it? I mean, we are all different after all.

Record Breakers

If you're under 25, find someone who isn't and ask them this question:

"What do you need if you want to be a record breaker?"

I'm willing to bet my worldly goods they'll go misty eyed, give you a knowing smile and proudly tell you that the answer is of course 'dedication'. If you're lucky they may even burst into song or a bit of air-trumpet.

The reason for this odd reaction is the classic kids' TV show, Record Breakers. Record Breakers was great. It ran from the 70s right through to 2001 and featured everything you could think of to do with world records and record holders. There were interviews with the bold, the brave and the bonkers - everything from the longest fingernails to the fastest talker - and frequent record attempts right there in the studio. It was the perfect concoction of entertainment and education, thrown together happily in a studio filled with wide-eyed children.

The show as I remember it was presented by Roy Castle, himself a world record holder and tap-dancing fanatic. It featured all kinds of others too: Cheryl Baker (a Eurovision starlet in the 80s), athletes Kriss Akabusi, Linford Christie,* and of course the legendary Norris McWhirter...

Every week, Norris would settle into his Mastermind-style chair, fold his fingers gently together and answer questions from the impeccably well behaved collection of children encircling him in the studio. He was, I suppose a bit like a Guinness Book of Records Egghead. Only he was nice about it. And do you know what, I think he knew everything - actually, everything ever asked of him.

As if the record attempt during the show was not enough (dominos, backwards talking, playing Chopin's 'Minute Waltz' in under a minute)... the highlight of every week was the closing credits, which famously featured Roy singing 'Dedication' and playing the trumpet. Gosh I did love Record Breakers!

The reason I'm mentioning it today is that I was thinking about Roy Castle on the bus. I'm not sure what brought it on - maybe the bus stop in Castle Street, or the inane conversation of the teenagers on their way to school. Either way, Roy was there inside my head, reminding me that today, a work day where it couldn't be less appropriate, 'dedication's what you need'...

The trouble is, I thought to myself, I'm not sure kids today have got that message. Dedication? They'd be channel hopping before Roy had fixed trumpet to lip, tantalising themselves with TOWIE or Hollyoaks. The point, I remind myself, was that you can achieve anything with a little inspiration and of course, hard work. Nothing is impossible, kids.

In fact, the whole premise of Record Breakers relied on children being interested in stuff - that interest hooked them in, and held them there and before the last stopwatch beeped out, they'd learned something and been inspired to 'be the best'... and they'd been inspired by someone who genuinely believed that each of us has the potential to be great...

... and I'm just not sure that happens any more. And I don't think it's because children are different, not deep down. The world has changed, but when you look around, you've got to admit that that is a great message isn't it? Shame. I just don't know whether today's Norris McWhirter in immaculate suit and tie would be as roundly respected for his statistical knowledge and gentle eloquence - or shouted at in the street by yobs who'd learned the word 'boffin' and how to combine it with filthy adjectives. Poor Norris.

I arrived at work, finally, to find the telesales team (all young girls in their early twenties) discussing Big Brother and why black people don't take the protective covering of sofas.

Roy, I am sorry.

Thank you for being a record breaker.

*We don't mention Fearne Cotton on this blog, thank you.

Mr Woodlow

"It's no wonder your company's so ***** and it's going down the pan," said Mr Woodlow. He'd been building up to this head of steam, right from the moment I'd introduced myself. "No-one ever gets back to me," he chuffed, "and then when you finally do, what you produce is a ******* pile of **** that looks like the kind of **** that's been put together by ******* children!"

"Look, if I can..."

"No you ****** can't, just get somebody to come out here and talk to me or don't ******* bother." Click.

"Mr Woodlow, let me.... Mr Woodlow?..." The phone was dead. I hung up and exhaled.

Later, I was walking through Reading town centre. It was the kind of day that just felt like the beginning of Autumn: brilliant blue sky, low and bright sunshine, and crispy leaves blown about the park by a cool breeze. They danced across the grass between the shadows. I thrust my hands into my coat pockets and walked briskly past. I can't do this for much longer, I thought to myself.

I still think that. But it's not just the likes of Woodlow that shape my thinking. The world is packed with Woodlows: frustrated and insecure, biting and snarling when they believe they're hard done by. Nope, not Woodlow; rather, the season itself.

This year the urge to go back to uni is stronger than ever before. I don't know why that is, but suddenly, just today, I found myself missing my friends, missing the adventure, the freedom, the youth and the liberty that university brought. Perhaps it's the weather. Yep, regular readers will notice of course that this does happen every year. And yes, I'll get over it - but today, a good 15 years after I first went to Bath, I still found myself longing for all that it held for me. In fact, I broke down in tears about it today... which is a silly thing, isn't it?

This feeling wasn't helped when Facebook told me something I didn't want to know. I am going to write down one day, all the reasons why I loathe the spambook, but way up near the top will always be: finding out things you just don't want to know. Today it told me something very painful about my family that will not be easy to handle or discuss. And I hate that I had to find out so coldly and impersonally.

Someone I know just tweeted that the 'squeaking duck gets shot.' I get the picture. I shall stop whinging. And anyway it's late (1am) and I should be dreaming. Knowing me now, I'll probably dream about shooting Mr Woodlow through the reeds with a rifle.

God I am sorry. I've got a long way to go.

9/11 and the Audacity of Hope

There are some moments that change things for ever. We all have them. They can be the shortest events - a gunshot, an ill-chosen word, a bad decision. Like a stone in the pond, you could blink and miss the impact, but the ripples are hard to ignore.

Today, the USA and the civilised world are soberly remembering the horrific events of one morning, ten years ago. It's easy to forget the sense of fear and uncertainty that followed that day - what had happened had been so utterly awful and real. No-one knew whether that was it, or whether every major city, every landmark and every one of us, were also targets.

The ripples of course are easy to see, looking back. Two terrible wars, many thousands of lives wrecked and a world that still lives in the shadow of the war on terror. We watched the world change in a single morning.

-

In the midst of all of this, I found myself thinking about hope today. On September the 11th, I was curled up in the living room, watching it all unfold in front of my eyes. Hope could not have been further from my mind as the second plane screamed into the South Tower. And what of hope when those buildings crumpled into piles of acrid dust and rubble?

Yet in despair, there is always room for hope. Obama himself, titled his book The Audacity of Hope. It was based (indirectly) on a painting by GF Watts showing a blindfolded woman, desperately clutching a harp and playing the one remaining string. I don't fully know what the book is about, but I love the phrase, the audacity of hope; that in the very heart of desperation and sadness, hope can be the smallest sound or the tiniest spark, audaciously defying the darkness.

My situation is not desperate, but there are times when I despair. It's always good to be reminded that hope can triumph when all else fails.

The Last Ever Camp

This is it then: the last ever Barnabas Camp. It certainly feels like it too. It feels like the end. It feels like the end of a very long road... and the beginning of a very uncertain one.

July 22, 1999. The lights on the hillside flicked on one by one as the sky grew darker. Laughter from the caravan next door and silence in my tiny dome tent. I sat cross-legged watching the night fall and the long day disappear. Clouds rolled across the Cornish sky over hills and fields that gradually merged into the darkness. I was of course, alone. Mark and Linda, who had driven me there, had started the long trek home, and apart from the Thomases, drinking hot chocolate in their warm caravan, there was nobody else on the Royal Cornwall Showground. Perhaps it was the long journey, perhaps the uncertainty of what the week would hold and what Barnabas Camp would be like, that made me so afraid. Whatever, I remember being incredibly lonely and tearful. I watched the sun set, prayed, then zipped up my tent and climbed into my sleeping bag.

There have been many camps since then of course. They've changed my life. There have been heatwaves and downpours, upsets and new relationships, friends, worship times, baptisms, astonishing teachings and incredible deliverances. Many marriages were kindled across a windswept field or in a rain-lashed youth barn. Many incredible things have happened over the years, both at Wadebridge (1998 - 2005) and here at Monkton Combe (2006 - 2011). Many friends too, have come and have gone.

There is though, no time like the present. And the present, this last year here at Monkton Combe, is a fascinating moment for me. No longer a worship leader at Barnabas events, no longer a member of the youth team or ministry team, no longer really anything other than a familiar old face, I find myself sitting in this little box room, just as tearful and as lonely as my 21 year-old self, wondering just how I got here... and what might be next.

"It's not the same without you up there Matt," said someone nodding at the stage.

"This is where I need to be," I said firmly. My heart was breaking though. Obedience is difficult.

-

There is a conflict here. I don't know how many people can sense it, but it's here and it is bubbling. This camp, this last camp is the last event for some people. And there may be some people I will say goodbye to at the end of this week that I might not see again. And the thing is, when it's people you love, people who have been part of your family for years, it feels... just so wrong.

The road ahead is nothing but uncertain.

icebergs

"No man," scribed the priest, squinting his tired his eyes in the candlelight, "is an iland, intire of it selfe." The flame flicked and shadows danced across the parchment. He stopped and creaked backwards, surveying the empty room and running a hand across his beard. He was of course, alone, and the words that still hung black and wet before him rang like the bells of St Paul's in the silence. "No man an island," whispered he to himself. "Connected, together, not... alone." Quietly, he sank the quill into a small pot of ink and returned to his work.

It's been almost four hundred years. I've often wondered just what prompted John Donne to write that. No man is an island. As a scholar and a minister, he would certainly have been familiar with First Corinithians - the interconnectedness of the body of Christ, the many parts as one, the outworking of being together. He went on to write about how if one man dies it affects him, just as if a part of Europe were "washed away by the sea" and how he is inextricably "involved in mankinde." It's hard to believe that this was a new thought for Donne. Rather, I get the impression that essentially, through the poetry of seventeenth century English, he's simply reassuring himself.

For me, living in twenty-first century Britain, I think I understand a little of what he means. He is right - we are all connected, and one man's action impacts another man's life in ways Donne could never have imagined. For me though, I'd say we're much more like icebergs.

Hear me out: I'm not trying to be clever. I just think that in lots of ways, as individuals we float along, drifting and bumping and splitting off and floating by, all the while with a whole other story going on under the water.

Recently, a number of couples I know have been in a lot of trouble. One man appears to be on the brink of a breakdown and walked out on his wife. Another is trying hard for things not to be so awkward with the family he left for another woman. Meanwhile, a lady I know is trying as hard as she can to be dignified and gracious on Facebook while her separated husband is being astonishingly indiscreet and vile. These are all things that happen - and it occurs to me that there's a lot of chilly behaviour from a lot of floating people out there.

As for me, I often feel that drifting sensation. At work, I bash into people. Sometimes at church, I accidentally say the wrong thing, and often I have the wrong thing said to me. Ice chunks splinter off, and water refreezes, and on we go. Then there are other times altogether, when it genuinely feels like I'm floating alone in open water.

"Connected together," he must have wondered. Why does it not always feel like that? Perhaps the answer is because we actually know that we should be. Maybe Donne got it right after all, maybe there is some deep inner idea hardwired in us that we must... belong, regardless of what we do on the surface, or what happens in the 9/10ths of our hidden lives. What I do, whether it's buying fair-trade coffee or smashing into you like the Titanic, will definitely have an impact.

I guess we all ought to remember that, whatever ocean we're floating in.

2011

We've been here before. Fireworks light up the London sky, silhouetting the famous skyline in the December night. The air is thick with coloured smoke pouring across the river, and thousands of revellers link arms and gloved hands on the embankment. For the sake of Auld Lang Syne, they sing, more from blind enthusiasm I suspect, than any desire to bury the hatchet and live at peace with their fellow man. After all, observes Rich, they'll all be heading for the same tube stations, the same trains and the same seats in a minute. No time for all that selfless stuff.

We watch the scenes of the London Eye, illuminated blue, the bright Westminster clockfaces showing 12:15 am and the dark snaking Thames weaving through the city. And with a flick of a remote control, the TV screen goes black and the year 2011 begins.

We've been here before, I remind myself, looking around the room. There's a bright red bauble perched in the branches of Cerys and Rich's tree and a bulb flashes slowly on and off in its spherical reflection. Time, I think to myself, has spun our own little globe once around the burning sun. The snow, the spring, the leafy hot summer and misty autumn have all come and gone, and we are here. What will we make of it, this new year?

I'm not one for predicting, but I suspect it'll be a mixed bag. Last year was, and the year before that was as well. And it always is. And anyway, like a blank piece of paper or an untouched canvas, what lies ahead is almost entirely down to us. Make of it what you will, says the one who holds the stars. Ok boss.