CEN March 07

As I suddenly realise that the deadline for April's Church of England Newspaper web-watching column is today (oops) here is last month's:

March 2007

Spring in the air vicar. Add your own punch-line. Meanwhile, a few resources and ideas to cheer your heart and help you step into spring with a spring in your step.

Last minute ideas for Easter sermons? Try Sermon Spice to slip a video clip into your talk. ‘Give your message some motion.’ Family Worship Resources has free MP3 files and backing tracks for Easter songs.

Leaves of Life is a worship resource from the Children’s Society for churches, children's groups and schools to run between Easter and Pentecost. This could also be the month when Visual Liturgy Live is available. It will help with service planning.

25 March 2007 will mark 200 years since a Parliamentary Bill was passed to abolish the slave trade in the British colonies. Visit Set all free for ideas and resources, even at this late hour.

Council elections soon. Forgot to take your vote with you when you moved? Wonder what elections are going on down your way? The Electoral Commission will be helpful. Aboutmyvote will help you register.

Need to get about in the car this Easter? If you’ve never used Multimap give it a go. Enter the postcode of your destination and zoom in for a detailed map. Especially good for the last bit of a journey into suburbia where the roads were designed by committee. Others have recommended Streetmap, Google Maps or the Ordnance Survey. I found the latter had a limited zoom-in facility. New Popular Edition Maps will tell you what your home looked like in 1940 and you can help build up a database by clicking your postcode onto an old map.

No one likes the flip-side of an unregulated internet, which is the amount of illegal content out there. If, for whatever reason, you are exposed to images or content of child abuse, criminal obscenity or criminal racism report it to the Internet Watch Foundation. It is also good to make sure children in your church or on your church premises can see the ChildLine phone number. Visit their site and order a poster or two. Stop It Now is a campaign. ‘Our aim is to stop child sexual abuse by encouraging abusers and potential abusers to seek help.’

Back in January I enthused about the weirdness of a site dedicated to spotting abandoned shopping trolleys. Always be prepared to be out-weirded. Go to Pavementgear where the whole site is dedicated to stuff found at the roadside. How do so many people lose one shoe?

If you want to try recycling the junk in your house then The Recycling Factory is a good start. They will turn your old printer cartridges and phones into cash.

This column receives nothing for product placement but Bing! have a couple of natty storage solutions which you may love as much as I do. Especially good if you have too many pairs of shoes and an ugly kitchen bin. If you have too many kitchen bins and ugly shoes they can’t help.

Distraction of the month (and I’ve given up online gaming for Lent) was Joey Green, the wacky scientist’s Wackyuses site. You can clean the loo with cola and shave with... well you wouldn’t believe it. Go look. You’ll find unusual facts there too.

Laugh of the month came from the Darwin Awards, ‘Honoring those who improve the species by accidentally removing themselves from it... thereby ensuring that the next generation is one idiot smarter.’ One of their many mottos; ‘Where evolution hits the pavement.’

Hot competition though from Save the Internet who seem to have overlooked the idea the internet brought us in the first place, that constant change is here to say. Similar concerns from Hands Off the Internet supporting the four principles of net neutrality.

Blogging is a great way to meet new people but to huddle together for warmth try Christian Bloggers, ‘The source for Christian news’ so they say.

All this too much for you? Find out when it will all end. Go to The Death Clock and answer a few simple questions. it will tell you the likely date of your death and provide a nice, on-screen countdown in seconds. My healthy body, low BMI and optimistic nature will see me going to 2051, apparently. That’s a lot more columns.

Mustard Seed Shavings has the archives.