Christ Church Huntingdon Blog

 Click here for audio.  Good morning and welcome to Thought for the Day. They say that “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me”, but I don’t think any of us think that’s quite right. You can still be struggling from the pain of words many years later long after any physical hurts have healed. Why do I raise this this morning? Well the Bible has a huge amount to say about our words. The book of James – most likely written by Jesus’ half brother, James, talks about our words by focusing in on the part of the body primarily responsible for generating words, the tongue. And it says, you know how a bit is a small piece of metal put into the mouth of a horse, and yet with it, a rider can control the whole direction of travel. Or think of a rudder on a big ship. Relatively a small piece of wood or metal in comparison with the whole ship, and yet it has huge effects. In the same way the tongue is one of the smallest parts of our body, but it can...

Audio here .  Good morning and welcome to Thought for the Day. Beachcomber Ryan Stalker from Weymouth , (click for pictures) had a bit of a surprise the other day when walking along the seafront at Osmington Mills on the Dorset Coast. He saw some rubbish washed up on the beach. Nothing out of the ordinary there. But on further inspection the big plastic item turned out to be an intact wheelie bin. Yes like our beloved HDC wheelie bins that line our street on a Monday and Tuesday (depending on where you live), a whole wheelie bin had washed up on the Dorset shore. But this particular wheelie bin turned out to have come all the way across the Atlantic from Alabama in the United States. Once this hit social media, Americans went wild, and managed to track the item by its bar code to one of three particular missing wheelie bins. And this one went missing in Hurricane Sally in September 2020. So the barnacle encrusted wheelie bin had travelled over 4000 miles in nearly 6 years. Talk abo...

Recording here .   Good morning and welcome to my Thought for the Day entitled what an "oppor-tuna-ty". Well I’ve been doing a bit of research and a tin of tuna will set you back about £1.50 in the Huntingdon supermarkets these days, though you might be able to get a budget tin for more like 80p if you hunt around. So guess how much Kiyoshi Kimura paid for his bluefin tuna in Tokyo last month? Answer, a staggering half a billion yen. That’s £2.4million for a fish! Well that must be the most expensive fish ever sold [1] . Apparently big blue fin tuna (and this one weighs in at 243kilos) sell for big money. But the first tuna of the year at the opening fish market in Tokyo in January are particularly sought after. They are believed to bring good luck. Mr Kimura who is known as the “Tuna King” bought the fish for the record breaking amount (yes £2.4M) for his restaurant chain Sushi Zanmai, and one customer said after eating some of the Sushi containing this fish “I feel ...

 Click here for audio... Happy New Year! And welcome to 2026. Well done for being up and about at this time of the day, and whether you had a big night out or a quiet night in, I hope you are in good health and good heart.  Well what does 2026 hold? The answer is no-one knows. Will we have a year of good news or bad, or a bit of a mix? I typed the question "What will happen in 2026?" into the internet and here are some of the answers I got, and I quote... No one can know for sure, but here’s a  realistic, high-level look at what 2026 is likely to be like  based on current trends... AI will be everywhere , not just chatbots: built into school tools, games, phones, search, and creative apps. More schools will  adapt to AI  instead of banning it—teaching how to use it responsibly Some  jobs  will change, not disappear—people will work  with  AI. Music, art, and videos  made  with  AI...

 Click here for audio. ( A big thank you to Lee McMunn who takes the credit for this illustration, and for sharing it with those in the AMiE network, you can read his carol service talk on this theme here ).  I wonder if you have seen the TV programme " Traitors " hosted by Claudia Winkelman. It's been hugely popular, with the last season of Celebrity Traitors attracting 15 million viewers. In case you are not familiar with it, the programme features a group of contestants hanging out in a Scottish Castle to take part in a kind of elimination competition. Each day they participate in challenges to raise money for their charity. Some of the competitors are called "Faithful" and others are called "Traitors". The Traitors know who each other are, and they can band together to so called "murder" others, meanwhile the Faithful have to try and work out who they are before it's too late. It's been hugely popular, and another series of Celeb...

"The Message of Christmas for the World to hear" It’s great to be here on the playground tonight Thanks all for coming on a cold murky night. It’s good to hear carols sang so beautifully And all topped & tailed by our own Mrs Lee. If you’re from Hartford please give us a cheer… And those from St Peters are you anywhere near…? You sang Little Donkey - and turning down lights, Away in a Manger for cold winter nights. But there’s just one carol that pricked up my ear “The message of Christmas (for) the world to hear”? What is this great message, what does it all mean? What lies behind Christmas and gives it its sheen? What is the great key that can turn sadness to joy for adults and kids- every girl and each boy? Children like Evan and Devon, and Bevan The kid in year four who keeps shouting “six seven”?! I guess it’s the presents, is that where it’s at? Stockings from Santa and stuff just like that? You could get a phone or a bike or some jumpers Or even a toy from...

 Listen to recording here .  Is it a bird, is it a plane? No it’s a comic worth over 9 million dollars!! When three California brothers finally came to clearing out their mum’s attic after she passed away, they came across something quite remarkable amongst a box of old newspaper clippings. A pristine copy of “ Superman 1 ” – the first ever superman solo title comic published way back in 1939. Well, although there had been rumours from their mum of a rare comic collection somewhere,   they didn’t expect to find anything of value up there, they were just clearing stuff out. But exactly two weeks ago today that comic went on auction at Heritage Auctions and fetched a record breaking $9.12 million (that's nearly £7million). (Well maybe I can share that with my wife as a reason for keeping all that stuff up in the loft and in the garage. It might be worth something one day! Not sure that will go down well!) It’s a lovely story, and those 3 California brothers, who ...