A man was riding his Harley along a California beach when suddenly the
sky cleared above his head and, in a booming voice, the Lord said,
'Because you have tried to be faithful to me in all ways, I will grant
you one wish.' The biker pulled over and said, 'Build a bridge to Hawaii
so I can ride over anytime I want.'

The Lord said, 'Your request is materialistic, think of the enormous
challenges for that kind of undertaking; the supports required reaching
the bottom of the Pacific and the concrete and steel it would take! It
will nearly exhaust several natural resources. I can do it, but it is
hard for me to justify your desire for worldly things. Take a little
more time and think of something that could possibly help mankind.'

The biker thought about it for a long time. Finally, he said, 'Lord, I
wish that I and all men could understand women; I want to know how she
feels inside, what she's thinking when she gives me the silent
treatment, why she cries, what she means when she says nothing's wrong,
why she snaps and complains when I try to help, and how I can make a
woman truly happy.'

The Lord replied, 'You want two lanes or four lanes on that bridge?
 

Moose Hunting

Two Irish hunters got a pilot to fly them to Canada to hunt moose.
They managed to bag 6.
As they were loading the plane to return, the pilot said the plane
could take only 4 moose.

The two lads objected strongly. "Last year we shot six.
The pilot let us take them all and he had the same plane as yours."
Reluctantly, the pilot gave in and all six were loaded.
However, even on full power, the little plane couldn't handle the
load and went down.

Somehow, surrounded by the moose bodies, Paddy and Mick survived
the crash.
After climbing out of the wreckage, Paddy asked Mick,
"Any idea where we are?"
Mick replied, "I think we're pretty close to where we crashed last  year."

What an odd time of contrast.

The UK politicians are arguing and upset over the stories being made up by a government aide about the competitors. Perhaps some ideas were a little extreme and upsetting, but is it really unexpected?  In sport the art of "sledging" (making comments to put your opponent off) have been around a long time. But politicians won't let go and will make the most of being upset....

Contrast that with the crowds at the Liverpool football match over the weekend. Historically football fans have not been given a good reputation but last Saturday they proved just how sensitive and loyal they can be. Today marks the twentieth anniversary of the worst sporting disaster in the UK; the so called Hillsborough diaster in which 96 supporters of the Liverpool football team were crushed to death. Last Saturday the crowd sung, with the greatest passion I can recall, the Liverpool "anthem", 'You'll never walk alone'. Then the entire crowd, Liverpool supporters and their competitors were asked to be silent for a minute as a tribute and mark of respect to the 96 victims.

That silence was unbroken amongst tens of thousands of people. Silence in such a crowd is so powerful and all those people in the crowd contributed to a beautiful  but sad moment.

People or politicians? Give me people every time!

I saw the Pet Shop Boys on TV last night and it is the first time I had seen them for ages.....they were older and different from how I remember them and yet the voices were the same.

I guess we all hold an "image" of people we only listen to and it often surprising when we see someone whose voice we know from radio or the telephone. We might say 'It's good to put a name to the face' but often we are surprised as our imagined version and the real thing may be very different.

I can't recall exactly when the Buggles sang "Video Killed the Radio Star" but there is something in the lyrics that is true. But it is not just the Radio Star, but their audience's imaginations too that are killed, or at least weakened.

As a child we did not have TV in the house and the soaps were all on the radio, their original home. I have hazy recollections of 'Mrs Dale's Diary' and 'Waggoner's Walk' and, of course, the longest running radio soap of all, 'The Archers'. Listening I had to imagine how the people looked, the rooms or other scenes they were in. I imagined the colours and the action. I knew they were really in a studio but I suspended reality and imagined.

When I had children of my own, long car journeys were made exciting by listening to books like Wind in the Willows or Alice in Wonderland being read by the likes of Alan Bennet or Stephen Fry. Again our imaginations ran riot and I remember sitting in the car, having arrived at our destination, listening to the last few 'pages' of a chapter.

Now it is all presented to me on TV, DVD, CD, PC or whatever and my imagination is almost redundant. 

Progress must be made and life must change; I am not against modern things nor change, but we need **************** will be the life-blood of what pulls us out of this "crunch" of the economy. Who has the imagination to think differently, boldly, 'out of the box'?

Where will this revitalisation come form? I can't imagine.