I saw a sign on the back of a bus on the way to work the other morning advertising television rental. I have to say, I think it’s a long time since I saw one of those (the advert I mean, not a bus). Radio Rentals and Granada left our high streets many years ago, when renting went out of fashion. But it looks like the credit crunch has led to the return of a lot of old ideas.
I wonder what’s next.
Although there’s still some counting going on at the edges, the American election is over. I’ve got slightly mixed feelings about it, because personally I favoured Barack Obama, but I know that my American Republican friends are very disappointed by the result.
The first, and probably most important thing about the election, is the incredible turnout. For this to be the biggest voter numbers in American election history indicates that people have really engaged with their system, and that can only be a good thing. I also think that it’s a real challenge to us in the UK, where democratic engagement has been on the slide for a long time. What can we do to energise ordinary people the way that the two American parties have other the last few months?
The second thing that I think is very interesting is the odd effects of their particular electoral system. All voting systems raise their own peculiar effects (for example, here in Northern Ireland, we mainly only vote for idiots or gits, with the challenge being to identify which category any particular politican falls into. But I digress). One peculiarity of the American system is the cascade effect which amplified a small difference in the actual votes cast into a very large majority in the electoral college. On the electoral college votes Obama has roughly a 2:1 majority. But on the ground, he had only 52% of the actual votes cast. That means that behind those headline figures, this election was really close. While that won’t bring much comfort to Republican supporters right now, I think in time that it will, because it means that as a party they are not actually down and out.
I also worry for the new president. This election victory seems to me to have some parallels with the election of Tony Blair in the Labour landslide of 1997. The UK was a country that was fed up with an unpopular government, desperately wanted change and so chose a young and dynamic new leader. Unfortunately, the New Labour project constantly struggled with the weight of that expectation, because of course it could not live up to all those hopes and dreams. I think it’s fair to say that Barack has even more pressure on him to deliver, and given the current state of the world, even less chance of delivery. He has a unique opporunity, as I think most of the world is behind him right now, but that won’t last long, and isn’t much good if he can’t bring most of America with him.
But most of all, my thoughts are with him right now, as in the next day or two he will have to deal with the funeral of his grandmother, the lady who brought him up for many years. I’m sure in his heart it’s not quite the celebration he was hoping for.
I’m really happy for Lewis Hamilton, for managing to win the Formula 1 World Championship yesterday. But I have to admit that I feel really sorry for Felipe Massa, who lost the championship tragically. He came in first place, in front of his home crowd, and couldn’t have done any better. And everyone thought that he had it in the bag, until he then lost the championship in the final seconds.
I’m happy for Lewis, who managed to win, but not by much.
I wonder what is going to happen to the other guy tomorrow. This week might be a great week to be black.
A friend was described in his Japanese medical report as having an “elevated level of abdominal circumference”.
That’s the most wonderful description of overweight that I have ever heard.
Today I went on a day trip to Hiroshima, the first place where an atomic bomb was used in anger. This is the Hiroshima Peace Dome, one of the very few buildings that survived the blast, and the resulting temperatures of 3000° C.
As expected, it’s a slightly scary place. The pictures of the city before show a typical Japanese city of the period, except for the fire breaks that had been specifically created to protect the city from bombing. Needless to say, when the atomic bomb came, it wasn’t what they were expecting.
The pictures of the city afterwards just show a wasteland, with a handful of remaining buildings. A lot of people died horribly. We actually met one of the survivors, who talked us through what happened.
Walking back through the city to the station, it was odd to think that the streets we were walking through had been that wasteland. I’m glad that they have kept the peace dome as a memorial. A terrible thing was done, and I hope it never happens again.
It doesn’t take much for gadgetry to impress me, as I always like a new toy. But I was completely stunned when I found noise-cancelling headphones on the plane to Japan yesterday. They always make a difference to the entertainment experience on the plane, so I usually carry a pair. But I’ve never found them supplied by the airline. Well done ANA!
Oh and thanks for not going bankrupt before we got to travel too.
Earlier today, I watched the street outside my house fill up with water, as it rained all day. Then the rain eased a bit, and the flooding went away, and I went out. That was a bit of a mistake.
Trying to get home tonight was mental. Every road I took ended with roads closed by flooding. I saw houses with water at the front door, I saw a road with a bulge like a volcano because of the pressure of water under it, I saw water running down roads like rivers. In the end, after much driving around, I managed to get to my street, but I couldn’t get down as far as my house. I abandoned the car on a dry footpath a few doors up, and waded home.
I reckon there was over a foot of water on the footpath, so it was even deeper on the road. The jury’s out on whether I’ll be wearing those trainers again. The water flooded my garden, and was well up the drive, but stopped short of my house.
It’s a scary feeling to drive round your own town and see so much chaos. Its even scarier when you realise you might not be able to get home. But I’m very thankful that my home was safe when I got here.
I set out on my bike today with high hopes! I was doing to have a really long cycle, round interesting places, on my day off work.
I was going to cycle out via the Comber Greenway, (a really nice new, smooth path), then from Comber to Newtownards, Newtownards to Donaghadee, then along the coast road to Bangor, along the coastal path to Helen’s Bay, then back home along the main Bangor Road. I reckoned it might be about 40 miles, which would be a new distance record for me.
But when I set out I discovered that my trip computer thingy has kicked the bucket, and wasn’t registering the fact that I was moving at all. So as a result, I have no idea how far I actually went. But that was okay – I could cope with that. Then I realised how noisy my bike had become – the chain definitely needs oiled, and possibly the gears need some work again. But it was still moving, so I could cope with that too.
I made it through most of my route (even against a bit of a headwind along the coastal bits). But then the real problems started on the coastal path between Bangor and Crawfordsburn, where I felt my left pedal a bit wobbly. I stopped and discovered it was actually loose. Using the two tools at my disposal, my foot (to kick it with) and my cycling spanner (from Tokyo), I was able to tighten it up a bit. But it loosened again pretty quickly. After a few such repairs, it finally fell off on the Bangor-Belfast road, about 8 miles from Belfast. Another repair, but it was clear that I wasn’t going to be able to nurse it all the way home (cycling with just one leg is very difficult, it turns out). So when I saw a taxi at a petrol station (one of the big black cabs), I asked him if he could take me and my bike home. The bike fitted perfectly, so I made it home without any further drama.
But my bike won’t be going any further than the repair shop for the foreseeable future 🙁
Last week was a long week. I was down to Craigavon every evening for my church’s annual summer work – a Holiday Bible Club (a la CEF) for the children, and a summer scheme for the teenagers. Must have done 50 miles every night, and wasn’t home until 11:00 any night.
But we had a really good week. We had a team from Briarwood Presbyterian Church, which is in Birmingham, Alabama with us, and I have to say they were really good. Thanks to them going round the schools to promote the clubs, we had a good number of kids through the door, and thanks to them being there, we had enough leaders to run the clubs properly.
But more than that, we had a team who were just full of energy and enthusiasm, who were happy to do anything to help, and were really good with the kids. This year we had a very mixed team, of male and female, yound and old, mental and quite sensible, and it was quite nice to see that variety at work. I guess it gave it more of a feeling of a family.
And of course the real excitement came from the fact that on the final night, five girls became Christians, which was brilliant.
Anyway, much respect to the Briarwood team of 2008. They completely rock, and I hope they have a fantastic time in Maze and Ballinderry this week.
The long-awaited Lisburn 10k was this evening. Four of us ran it for ACTS Ministries – Nikki, Stephen, John and myself. I am pleased to report that we all made it safely round, and got our medals at the end.
It was an interesting experience. I followed my race strategy, which was to put my MP3 player on at the start (a small, light one – not my big clumpety iPod), and ran to the music, as I usually do. It worked pretty well for me. I started to flag a bit coming up to the half-way point, but was revived by knowing I was half-way, and listening to Hey Ya, by Outkast. This set a faster pace, sounds a bit upbeat, and gave me the chance to ponder the lyrics:
“If what they say is ‘nothing lasts forever’
then what makes, then what makes,
then what makes, then what makes
love the exception?”
which I thought was worth some consideration.
Likewise at about the 8km mark when James Morrison sang:
“Well I know that it’s a wonderful world,
but I can’t see it right now
I thought that I was doing well,
but I just want to cry now.”
it didn’t feel completely out of place at that stage in the ordeal.
But at the end, I felt pleased to come in at under an hour (54 mins 34 seconds by my watch – official timings still to come), and to be still able to walk. Never have I been so pleased to hear the Kaiser Chiefs, which was the music for a final fast push to the end. Mind you, it took nearly as long to get out of the car park afterwards as it did to run the race. Anyway, I’ve achieved something unexpected, and I’m pleased. Goodnight world 🙂