One of my flatmates went to look at a studio flat at the weekend for next year. I see by his weblog that the other is conscious that he needs to be looking for a new flat.

I have been aware of this situation for several months now. I know I have to be looking for a new flat for next year. I haven’t taken the initiative yet. I’m pretty sure that I can advertise for one. It still hasn’t stopped me from feeling sleepless about it.

The next of the Sunday afternoon events at Opoho Church is going to be the Labyrinth. Cool! I’ve done it once years ago and I’m looking forward to doing it again. In practice it is a meditative walk through a maze on a circular pattern. A zen or tai chi walk with the chance of following one’s breath. Coffee will also be provided.

A modest proposal

I suggest that a predator-proof fence should be put up around Castle Street and the area be declared a student wildlife reserve. This will keep out identified pests such as police, fire and other emergency services. Inside that area students will be allowed to party and burn sofas to their hearts’ content. Safari vans with specialist guides will be available to drive visiting tourists through the enclosure for their amusement and safety, at a fee. It worked for Hashbury, it can work for Castle Street. Perhaps it could underwrite the new Carisbrook development.

Best line: “People are different today. Ten years ago, if a policeman told them to move along they would.” Yeah, right! Sorry, inspector but you seem to have forgotten the Easter Tournament riot on Castle Street in 1999 very quickly!

I got around to watching Howl’s Moving Castle at the weekend. I am very impressed. Normally I am manga-intolerant. I find that they are about as fun as supervising a Sunday School class (where everyone else has some sharp instrument of destruction!) I don’t care for manga. Howl’s Moving Castle is simply a beautifully made movie. Every scene is rich in detail, pure magic and surprise. The cuteness of the characters is played down and they all behave sensibly within their limits. I would possibly rate it more highly than the original children’s novel – Diana Wynn Jones doesn’t so much have plot holes as plot lurches. And it is an anti-war movie that doesn’t overstate its argument.

It’s the kind of movie that I’m thinking who is the right people to show it to. I can think of some. Perhaps I should buy a copy for myself.

I note from the Listener’s Hollywood page that Zoe Lucker is being reported as casted for the Rani for the next season of Doctor Who. A little browsing shows that this is being denied by the BBC. A pity, as the production crew have hinted that the Doctor is not the last surviving Time Lord.

Personally I favour a story where another TARDIS is found stuck in the Time / Space Continuum and the inhabitants have been there so long they have reverted to a primitive lost-colony society. Classic Doctor Who story-line.

Weird thought: we are now less than 8 years away from the Centenary of the First World War.

I have started working on editing the next edition of the Presbytery News for Dunedin Presbytery. It is slowly coming together. People in the presbytery are providing articles, photos and flyers to be included. I hope I can finish by next Friday. I’m still mastering text boxes. I haven’t figured out how to flow from one text box into another, but then, I haven’t read the help yet.

It’s not helped by the fact that Kmail on my linux box has corrupted, at least, it appears to have done so. Kmail is no longer reading the boundaries between email messages. On Cryp’s advice I have changed to using mutt, which has no such problems. I am reminded that I like mutt for its shininess. I miss Kmail’s links.

On another note:

boro, short for borogroves, a creature once described as mimsy.

park, a place for plants and animals, like borogroves.

pyro, someone who burns things down, an arsonist.

To quote Flanders and Swann, don’t you know that this is the last nesting place for mammoths in the whole of Wessex?!

Waves to Steg 🙂

Soulspace

Church has organised a series of six alternative worship services. Last Sunday afternoon was Contemplate Peace, an opportunity to write prayers, light candles or sit still for a while and enjoy the calm of the moment. People left feeling better, including the intellectually-handicapped man with whom I sit each week.

In the off-chance that this appeals to someone local this Sunday, 13 August, at 4.30 pm, will be a Micro-Retreat for people who don’t have time for the full-length version.

Be warned, the idiom will still be Christian.

Tragically the deaths don’t seem to stop. I was looking at the paper today and noted the death of Petrus ‘Peter’ Cornelius Aloysius Paardekooper, died aged 77 at the Little Sisters of the Poor, 4th August 2006. The funeral was listed for Sacred Heart Church so I guess that this is the same family that Mike St. knew before his departure from Dunedin.

My commiserations.

(1915-2006)

I was sorry to hear at church today that Mignon McPhail had died in Gore. She had died earlier this week and her funeral was yesterday. Members of the church travelled down to Waikaka Valley church to attend. She had been in poor health previously for about five weeks. The funeral was well-attended with people coming from Gore, Dunedin and the local farming community of which, in a previous life, she had been part. She was mentioned in today’s Peace Sunday service as someone who had wanted everything to be right, even down to the hymns at the funeral, and had stood up for peace and justice.

Mignon, mi alasharia la, shantih, shantih, shantih.