CEN September 2008

You will find my web-watching column for the Church of England Newspaper in this week's edition so here is last month's:

Do you want to create your own home page? Find out the time in South America? Write notes on a web-page notepad while a ladybird walks over the screen annoying you. Poodwaddle is the place for you. It's gonna be big. Brilliant inventiveness.

As is CarrotMobbing, which is '...organising consumers to make purchases that give financial rewards to those businesses who agree to make socially beneficial choices.' In other words a load of customers turn up and spend money if a firm is being particularly ethical or sacrificially green. A carrotmob is therefore the opposite of a stickmob. If we could be a carrotmob to the idea of Fairtradeclergyshirts that would be good.

Many people (OK, bishops) have been saying that the Chief Rabbi's speech was the best thing about the Lambeth Conference. He has helpfully put a video of it on his website.

My diocese of Bath and Wells have just had a diocesan conference. Happy to report the Hayes Conference Centre, Swanwick is bigger, better and more helpful than ever. The vast conference entertainment budget (one sponsored event and one freebie) was used on The Isaac Project and TyTe. The former is a comedians' co-operative; the latter a human beat-boxer. Beat-boxing is making rhythmic noises using nothing but your mouth, voice-box and a mic. The Bishop of Taunton, The Rector of Bath Abbey, the Archdeacon of Bath and the Diocesan Missioner can all do it now. I know. I was there.

Talking of money, the crunch and squeeze going on in the economy at the moment may have left some people needing debt management advice. If you want a particularly Christian perspective on this try Christians Against Poverty.

Ecclesiastical are sponsoring a competition for young people to make a one minute film about the true meaning of Christmas. Visit Truemeaning for details.

I experienced my first internet bereavement this last month. Tom Allen, who blogged as the Big Bulky Anglican, passed away. I read him regularly but we never met. His daughter posted the news about his death. Hmm, the last post. I think he'd have liked that. RIP.

Bloggers shouldn't really be judged until they've been at it a few months. I can't tell you how many I've begun to enjoy and then the posts have stopped. Having lost the Big Bulky Anglican I've discovered the Lanky Anglican. Looks promising. Another new blogger is A Man Breathing, an ordinand and fire-fighter.

I also came across the blog of Pete Rollins whose book How (Not) to Speak of God has been a great help to me. A sample story from there to entice you:

A minister is sitting in her house when she hears a banging on the door. When she opens the door she discovers one of the church members standing before her. He is barely holding back tears.

'What’s wrong' asks the minister, seeing that this man is obviously in distress. 'Please can you help', replied the man, 'A kind family in the area are in great trouble. The husband lost his job and the wife cannot work due to health problems. They have three children to look after and the man’s mother lives with them as she needs constant care. They have no money and if they don’t pay the rent by tomorrow the landlord is going to kick them all onto the street, even though its winter.'

'That’s terrible,' said the minister, 'Of course we will help. Anyway how do you know them?'

'I’m the landlord,' replied the man.

Those of you who enjoyed the video of my kidnap back in June may like to visit the website of Timebasedmedia the home of Dave Neal whose brilliance provided the special effects. This plug to thank him for doing the work for nowt.

Mustard Seed Shavings has all previous columns, except July's which I lost in a crash. Three words computer users hate, 'Drive controller failure.'

Disguise.com, cannot be found.