Christ Church Huntingdon Blog

 Click here for audio.  Do you want the bad news or the good news? I wonder how you normally answer someone who gives you that option! I think normally we want to get the bad news out of the way so that we can be cheered by the good news. Christianity contains both bad news and good news. I wonder what your version of the bad news is. None of us can be in any doubt that there is something seriously wrong with our world. Sickness, wars, natural disasters, politicians being shot in front of crowds of thousands and their murder watched on screens across the world by millions. What’s the bad news? Is there a root cause? There doesn’t have to be a root if you think everything is a bit meaningless, but for those of us who think that things should have a rhyme and reason, what’s the bad news? Many people think it’s political . In our polarised world where the algorithm tells us the news that we want to hear, it’s the other people’s fault [1] . Other people think it’s educati...

 Click here for audio. I wonder if you’ve seen the BBC TV programme “The Repair Shop” [1] . It’s great TV. Make sure you catch up on Episode 21 of the latest series, still online if you just missed it [2] . A Cypriot Shepherd’s Bag mauled by a dog, a broken sewing machine, a 6 foot cuddly toy dog, an old clock. None of these things look very impressive at the start, but as the experts start to work on them, restitching, restuffing, oiling, greasing, pulling apart then putting the pieces back together you begin to hear the story about what makes them so precious, and you see the joy on the faces as they are fixed and made new and returned to their owner. It was a gem, and our whole family loved it. What was most moving to me on this episode must have been the barometer-thermometer-clock that Ken from County Durham brought in to be restored. It was no piece of junk, it was awarded to his dad, Bob, for his bravery as one of the rescue party first on the scene at the tragic Easingt...

 Audio here . Good morning and welcome to thought for the day. If you are into sport you will know the name of Scottie Scheffler. The American is the world’s current No1 golfer having won an Olympic gold, three majors, the US PGA championship and the British Open championship. Well for a guy who has been world number one for well over 100 weeks, and who has earned more than £67M in prize money, you might be quite surprised to hear him say “This is not a fulfilling life”. What? Fame, fortune, global success, and he says it’s not fulfilling? “It’s fulfilling from the sense of accomplishment” the 29 year old says, “but it’s not fulfilling from a sense of the deepest places of your heart” [1] . "There are a lot of people that make it to what they thought was going to fulfil them in life, and you get there, you get to number one in the world, and they're like, 'what's the point? I really do believe that because, what is the point? Why do I want to win this tournament ...

 Click here for audio... I watched a great programme the other day with my family. It’s called Undercover Boss. Some of you may have seen it. It features the CEO of a large company putting on a disguise and working as a low level employee of his own business to see how his workers get on. In the episode I saw, Todd Pederson, CEO of Vivint (a large tech company in the US) don long hair and a fake beard to work undercover alongside others. He was shocked to see that Ed wasn’t given the correct protective equipment to work on a roof, Alma didn’t have enough support in the warehouse, and one employee Will wasn’t given any time off work when his wife faced cancer surgery. His time as undercover boss allowed him to make some changes to how the company functioned, and he was willing personally to pay thousands of dollars to alleviate certain situations of suffering that he found his new friends in, including legal battles, hospital treatment, and for one family helping them to purch...

 Click here for audio. Head teacher Jeanette Hart at Osmaston CofE Primary school in Derbyshire got a bit of a surprise last month when a boy brought a hand grenade into school [1] . It was a show and tell assembly, and since the class had been talking about VE day, this particular lad thought that he’d grab the family heirloom, a world war two hand grenade, and bring it into school. Mrs Hart told the BBC, “It was quite an eventful assembly. It was going fine and there was a boy who brought an old bullet case in, which I knew about, but then his friend produced a hand grenade from his pocket… That I was not expecting”. What followed next was that the head ended the assembly, moved all the children to safety, rather nervously deposited the grenade at the far end of the school and then called in the police and Army explosive experts. Well fortunately the grenade wasn’t live, and everyone was able to get back on with their day, but it ended up not your average day for Osmaston Primary...

For audio click here .  A few days ago I heard Mike Amesbury being interviewed on the radio [1] . In case you don’t recognise the name, he was the MP for Runcorn and Helsby who in October last year got drunk and punched a member of his constituency to the ground, repeatedly beating him and saying “You won’t threaten the MP ever again will you?” Well the incident was investigated. Amesbury lost his place in the Labour party, he appeared in court, was charged and spent some time in prison. He was ordered to carry out 200 hours of community work, and recently stood down as an MP triggering a by-election. What do you make of him? I actually feel sorry for Mike Amesbury. Let’s be clear, what he did was utterly out of order and it’s right that he has stepped down. He owned his mistake, pled guilty and describes the events of 26 th of October as a series of mistakes. The whole process has led to significant mental health challenges for him, and currently he is struggling to find a job. M...

 Click  here  for audio.  I wonder what you think about AI? Artificial Intelligence. I enjoyed the Christmas Wallace and Gromit with Norbot the robot who helped a jailed penguin steal a blue diamond (although that sounds like a local garden centre!), that was pretty harmless fun, but real AI- well people say it's either the key to the future, or a bit too scary. There’s a novelist and screenwriter called Ewan Morrison and he’s just written a book called “ For Emma ”. I haven’t read it, but I heard him talking about it on the radio . In the story, Emma is a Harvard Graduate that offers her brain to be implanted with an AI computer chip that is going to herald the next advance in pushing back the frontiers of artificial intelligence. Tragically she dies as a result of having this chip implanted, and her father is devastated. The writer Ewan Morrison said that he was trying to tap into the longing people have for something big to believe in, and I quote.. “we live i...