Not peddling the word of God be a valid message of the gospel in our lives.

4:1 no capitulation. There is such a lot of pressure to give in. “Do not lose heart”!

He who has prepared us for this very thing is God. 5:5

So when Now Then magazine put out a call for vegan recipes,  it seemed a good opportunity to provide my Calzone recipe. Here it is, in all its glory: enjoy!

Ingredients

• About 200g of strong bread flour (around 12% protein is best).
• Warm water.
• Few spoons of salt.
• Few spoons of sugar.
• Dried instant yeast (assuming you aren’t a brand of vegan that cares about fungi. If you do, miss out the yeast, it’ll still work, but the bread won’t be as tasty).
• Tomato passata (the own brand stuff from Co-op works fine).
• Veg.
• Herbs/spices.
• Vegan mozzarella style cheese.
• Soya milk.

Recipe

Dough

1. Prewarm the oven to 70°C (If you want to get the dough ready quickly. It’ll be tastier if you leave it to rise over 4 hours without extra warmth, but it’ll take 4 hours.)
2. Mix the salt, sugar and yeast in a bowl.
3. Stir in the flour, so it’s all nicely mixed.
4. Carefully add water, mixing by hand, until you have one non-sticky ball of dough.
5. Knead it on a floured surface for about 5 minutes, until your hands ache.
6. Turn off the oven, chuck the dough back in the bowl, cover the bowl with a teatowel, and put the bowl in the oven.
7. Leave to rise for an hour.
8. Take it out, knead it some more, and roll it into flat round pizza bases.

1. Fry a load of onions, peppers, mushrooms, garlic, chilli, spinach, soya mince – whatever you want in your calzone.
2. Mix in some herbs & spices – I usually use mixed herbs, paprika and mild chilli powder (but loads of it, so you get the taste of the chilli coming through).
3. Put a few dollops of passata in with the veg.
4. Heat the rest of the passata in a pan/microwave.

1. Preheat oven to 230°C – the higher the better.
2. Pop a pizza base on an oven tray.
3. Dollop veg in to the middle.
4. Cover the veg in cheese – you can use soft cheese, or nothing, if you prefer.
5. Using a pastry brush, make the edges of the base wet with milk.
6. Fold it over, and squidge the edges together to seal it.
7. Paint the whole top with milk, to make it go extra brown in the oven.
8. Cook for 10ish minutes, until brown.
9. Serve with hot passata on top

Then eat all yours, then eat what your wife couldn’t manage, then look longingly at the one saved for tomorrow… Man, do I love pizza…

On Sunday, our little family got a little bigger. The beautiful Neriah Grace Lowry came into the world at 7:30pm. Just like Joen, the journey to Neriah was hard work.

Once again, thanks to everyone who followed the blow-by-blow account on twitter – read it here - including at least two people over the age of 80. Who says social media is just for young people? Anyway, enough of that, on with the story…

I’m currently working in Lincoln, around 1-2 hours from our home in Boston, and in the month preceding labour, Katherine seemed to enjoy sending me texts containing phrases like “baby’s coming!”. I would frantically call her, where she would explain that she simply meant “at some point”, so she was tidying the house in preparation. By my estimate, I had at least 4 heart attacks in January because of communication like this.

On Friday, my parents-in-law came up to help look after Joen. I have successfully not thrown milk at either of them, which is a significant improvement over last time! It was brilliant to have them around so Joen could get used to them before we disappeared to the hospital.

Just like last time, we sailed past the due date (15th January), and ended up going into labour a few days before we were booked for induction. On Saturday at 4pm-ish, Katherine started to have her first sporadic contractions. By 7pm, they had become regular and painful.

12 hours later, there was very little progress. Lots of pain, but no progress.

At half 8, they were down to every 2 minutes, and rather intense. We rang the hospital, who advised us to come in. I was a little hesitant to do this, since last time she’d had similar symptoms for 10 hours+, but was only 3cm dilated when we made it in to hospital. However, deciding it was for the best, we threw everything into the car and scurried over to the labour ward.

As the tweet below shows, I was right not to be too keen:

From this point until 10:30am – about 12 hours later, there was very little progress. Lots of pain, but no progress. One midwife thought she was up to 4cm, but on re-examination 5 hours later, a different midwife felt that this couldn’t be the case.

They decided to break her waters at 11, which really kicked things off - she had 12 very painful contractions in the space of 30 minutes. She soon ran out of relief from the gas and air, and was given her first dose of morphine.

By 3, the morphine was wearing off, and Katherine decided she wanted an epidural. Unfortunately, the anaesthetists were busy in theatre, and I was going a little bit frantic in wanting to sort her pain. Given that I currently work in palliative care, where I am comfortable prescribing piles of opiates every day, it was so frustrating not being able to hurry up her analgesia.

They eventually gave her some more morphine at 5pm, just an hour and a half after I had suggested it, and she was finally able to settle down a little. The contractions had been going steadily for hours now, and she had dilated to 9.5cm!

It was at this point that a light of rage appeared in Katherine’s eyes.

At 5:50, 10cm was reached, and Katherine began to push. I will open myself up for criticism here and say that I don’t think was really pushing that hard at first. We hit an hour of pushing with no baby, and the Registrar doctor came in, and told us that she was going to have to use forceps as the pushing was going on for too long.

It was at this point that a light of rage appeared in Katherine’s eyes. Given a 15 minute reprieve, and spurred on by the midwife, “Come on Katherine, we don’t need forceps!”, Katherine began to push like a successful Sisyphus. After just 3 more contractions, there was a screaming head sticking out of my wife, and just one more later and our beautiful daughter was released into the world.

Although disappointed not to use her shiny tongs, the doctor seemed happy enough getting to play with needles and thread, sorting out the second degree perineal tear, and even found time to quiz me on the theory of Obstetrics – I will be working under this registrar in April!

We were both fairly oblivious to this, since there was a disgusting, blood covered angel dripping on us, and looking into our eyes. Glorious!

This is Neriah.

Full name: Neriah Grace Lowry (or “Nia” for short).
“Neriah” is Hebrew, and means “Light of God“. We pronounce it “Ner-ee-ah”.

She was born at 7:30pm on 20th January 2013. She weighed 7 pounds 9 ounces.

Her hobbies include avoiding accidental injury from her boisterous older brother, submitting to being sniffed suspiciously by dogs, and throughout remaining surprisingly content. We don’t know much else about her.

After a night spent weeing the remnants of my chocomilk binge last night, I got up in time for the 8am prayer meeting in the chapel. Still bleary eyed, I followed this with a painfully substantial breakfast, which, although lacking in vegetarian sausages, made up for it in sheer volume.

We also got to meet the CMF Junior Doctors Committee, and had Vicky Lavy nagging us once again to grab a wheelbarrow, and buy as many books as physically possible from the CMF bookstall.

Bible Teaching – Genuine Faith

Nourishment over, we settled down to listen to Steve Burmester teaching on “Genuine Faith“. We was introduced with a question, due to his background in pharmaceuticals: “What is your favourite drug name?” The answer? “Raloxifene”. Doesn’t it roll off your tongue beautifully?

95 year olds were asked what 3 things they would change if they could live again. They said: 1. they would slow down and reflect on things more, 2. they would risk more, and, 3. they would do more that would live on after they died.

In James 4, he talks about the brief nature of life: “What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes“. The passage makes it clear that we shouldn’t boast and be proud of our own achievements: its pointless. If we feel that we can plan everything of our lives, we will be disappointed – look at the recession. As James says: “Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow“.

Just as the old people said in point 2: Risk. As one person said faith is spelt “R.I.S.K.”. It is the perseverence and steadfastness of going through trials that helps us to build our faith, that helps us to put our hope in God, rather than our own plans. As James 1 shows us, its not that we can’t plan, but we shouldn’t put all our hope and security in a future that we can’t predict. We shouldn’t think we can forsee and prevent all difficult times, but instead trust that the God who loves us will see us through the hard times.

How we deal with success and wealth is just as important as how we deal with hardships. Indeed, in the West, we need to learn this lesson more, since we have so much wealth, so many gifts: so many opportunities to bless others, or temptations to feel that “I have worked hard, I have earned this, this is all mine!”

Albert Einstein is travelling across America on a train. The ticket inspector comes, and asks for tickets. Einstein can’t find it anywhere, he is looking in all his pockets, in his coat, but simply cannot find it anywhere.

The ticket inspector says “It’s fine, Mr Einstein: you are a very famous person, I’m sure you bought a ticket!” She walked on, but on looking back, saw Einstein on his hands and knees looking under his chair for the ticket.

She returns, and says, “Mr Einstein, its fine, we know who you are, you don’t need to worry.

Einstein looked at her, and said “I thank you, but I too know who I am. But what I don’t know, is where I’m going…”

Our identity is important, and it is valuable to know who we are. But we shouldn’t be distracted by that into thinking we are in control of every tiny aspect of our lives.

Seminar – Miracles of healing: happening in Britain today?

Our first seminar of the weekend, with Andrew Fergusson - is on whether we see healing in the UK. He is the author of “Hard Questions about Health and Healing“, and a former GP. He mentioned the excellent price that we can pick up the book for about 8 times – I suspect Vicky Lavy had a hand in this…

We went round the group of 20 of us, and it appears that almost every church has some form of regular prayer for healing in church each week, with many having organised healing ministries.

Andrew pointed out that this has changed. 20 years ago, far less churches practiced prayers and ministries for healing.

Margaret had a serious cancer, causing terrible pain in her leg. Medication wasn’t happening. A pastor laid hands on her and prayer, she felt something like “a jolt of electricity” in her leg, and then from that moment until she died a year later, she had no more pain in her leg ever again.

What is that? Is it a miracle? It didn’t cure her cancer, but at the same time, her severe pain stopped permanently.

The dictionary defines a miracle as these below. Is it 1, 2 or 3?

1. An event contrary to the laws of nature and attributed to a supernatural causel
2. Any amazing or wonderful event;
3. A marvellous example of something “a miracle of engineering”.

We can look at some examples of healing, for example Luke 5:12-14; there are a number of apparent likenesses between most biblical miracles:

• Obvious examples of gross physical disease.
• At that time incurable and most remain so today
• Physical means almost never used
• Cures immediate
• REstoration complete and therefore obvious
• No recorded relapses
• Regularly elicited faith
• Verification without publicity.

There is an important element here: as doctors, and as Christians: truth matters. We should not leave our scientific, analytical minds at the door when we look at healing. Evidence matters.

Andrew feels he has never seen reliable evidence of a person having an amputee regrowing a limb, the blind seeing, the dead being raised to life. As he says, “By the dictionary definition, we haven’t seen valid evidence of a level one miracle“. He has seen many, many stories of difficult to explain solutions, and release of pain, or wonderful improvement in health.

As a last, very deep point: If we are going to have a theology of healing, we need a theology of suffering.

Bible Teaching – Faith at work in our actions

After an unendingly vast lunch, and a 2 hour walk, it was time to move on with the afternoon, and our next session with Steve Burmester, on the topic of faith at work. After only about 5 hours of sleep last night, and a fair amount of exercise, I was barely awake – a feeling familiar to me from the Developing Health course.

Many people, on deciding to go paragliding, get right to the edge of the cliff, before deciding they don’t want to go ahead.

James is looking for this doublemindedness in people. The desire to do something good, against the desire to behave badly.

In James 2:1-4, he says “For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place,” while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there,” or, “Sit down at my feet,” have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?”

 A church invited a guest preacher. The day for the service arrived, and the congregation filed in. There was a tramp, sat at the back of the church, smelling of whiskey, and they sat far from him, leaving him two empty pews to himself.

It came to the point where they were looking around, wondering where the guest preacher was, when the tramp got up, walked to the front, and put on a dog collar, and preached from James 2.

If we treat people wrongly, we treat God wrongly: James 3:9 – “With [our tongue] we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people who are made in the likeness of God“. Another passage talking about our double minded behaviour.

Every human life is a reflection of divinity, and every act of injustice mars and defaces the image of God in man.
Martin Luther King, Jr

Just treating someone with inequality, is that it is sin. And thus no better than any other sin.

Lance Armstrong was struck off recently for taking drugs, but the excuse that many cyclists used is that “everyone else was doing it”. Unfortunately “everyone else does it” is no excuse.

Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment.
James 2:12-13

1. We all need mercy.
2. We need to show mercy to others.
3. This triumph is available to us all.

CMF Update

Pete Saunders started talking next to update us on the work of the Christian Medical Fellowship. We started with a video about CMF. Well, we would have done, but there was a technical glitch, so here it is below:

There are currently 4000 CMF doctors, and 800 CMF medical students. It is not a London office, but a national fellowship. They link with churches, hospitals and individuals.

• Twitter at @UK_CMF
• Facebook at facebook.com/ukcmf.

STAT is “Short Term, Able to Travel” – who are people open to Teaching, Specialist service, Locum support, Emergency help in International work.

Conferences

CMF are involved in about 100 conferences, including:

• CMF Student conference
• CMF Graduate conference
• International Christian Medical Dental Association World Congress
• Christian Nurses and Midwifes Student conference
• Where is my Neighbour? conference.

Find out more at the CMF events page.

Advocacy

CMF works to protect those who lose their jobs for protecting moral values, those of concerns about Euthanasia, Abortion, and Faith at work.

Seminar – Time Management, Jesus Style

Richard Vincent was leading the seminar, my final study session of the day.

What are pressures on your time?

• Family
• Work
• Commuting
• Church
• Socialising

• No choice – things I need to do
• Things I should do
• Things I want to do
• Prioritising between them is a varied process
• How they make you feel

What can we learn from Jesus?

“Early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. Simon and his companions went to look for him, and when they found him, they exclaimed: “Everyone is looking for you!”
Mark 1:35-37 

He guarded his quiet time. We all shared our experiences of the difficulties of setting aside time each day, but once interesting fact: we all really enjoy doing it, yet still find it really difficult to set down to it. It is a battle.

“At daybreak, Jesus went out to a solitary place. The people were looking for him, and when they came to where he was, they tried to keep him from leaving them. But he said, “I must proclaim the good news of the kingdom of God to the other towns also, because that is why I was sent.”
Luke 4:42-43

He established priorities. We live unhelpfully busy lives. We also don’t find solitude enough, especially with the intrusion of smart phones and the internet.

“Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman. But no one asked, “What do you want?” or “Why are you talking with her?”.”
John 4:27 

He made time for individuals. It can be harder to take the initiative, rather than just see friends that opportunities naturally present each other.

“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are – yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”
Hebrews 4:15-16

He did not sin. Hopefully our understanding of grace is that that we can show it to others equally well.

“Then Jesus said to them, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath.”
Luke 6:5 

He rested. We need to plan time off, and have a Sabbath attitude in each day, even when that isn’t possible.

After this, we spent the evening chatting, playing Cranium and “Table slap”, making awful medical and Christian jokes, and I finally went to bed at 2:30am, after a long discussion about how to improve the Malaysian health care system.

Coupled with this, my phone contract was up for renewal at the end of September. For a few extra pounds a month, I can join the world of up-to-date shiny new devices.

It would seem that my path forward is simple – but I’m hesitating. You see, I don’t want to be the person that buys something *because* its new and shiny. I don’t want to join the cult of new. I’ve got an 8 year old car, a house that needs doing up, and one of my dogs is starting to show a few hints of arthritis; I love old stuff!

I also love efficiency. I see technology as tools, tools for me to get stuff done. For the first time since becoming a doctor, I got my own room this month; and I’ve loved setting it up just right, so that I know where urine specimen bottles are, so I can maintain eye contact with patients whilst typing, so my every motion can be as effective as possible, giving me time to do the important stuff.

Generally, I like my technology new, because new tends to be faster, tends to be more efficient, allows me more time to get stuff done. But my current phone browses the web, checks emails and takes decent photos. It turns on quickly, it loads information fast: I don’t believe that my workflow will be sped up by a new phone.

I’ve been distracted by newness. As Robert Murray McCheyne said:

“Sit loose to this world’s joy, time is short”

 

Inspired a little by my friend Jon, who recently downgraded from an iPhone 4 to an old, non smart Nokia, I’m going to skip this upgrade, and be content with the incredible phone I already have, and maybe try to rely on it a little less.

I’ll take you through some of our key moments with some photos:

This is our new home: Orchard Cottage, on Woodthorpe Avenue. It’s on the slightly nicer side of town, but needs quite a lot of work! The garden hasn’t been touched for about 2 years, so we are having rather a lot of pruning done at the end of the month, and some building work after that…

Joen has settled into things well, and both he and the dogs are loving the big new garden. As you can see, there are cat flaps everywhere, coupled with awful red carpet in the kitchen, and mammoth spiders in every room. Katherine hates all 3 of these things, especially the eight legged monsters.

One of the key aspects of our corner of Lincolnshire is that it is as flat as a pancake (In fact, if you read this study, its likely that its considerably flatter, since it would appear that pancakes are not terribly flat). The downside: its a bit boring. The plus side: we can cycle everywhere. Joen has decided to live on the edge though, since he has now worked out how to remove a cycle helmet, rendering it useless.

Alongside the uninteresting terrain, there is considerably more sky visible, so sunsets and dawns are rather beautiful to behold. Sadly, the road I take to work each morning is almost due East for large sections, meaning I can barely see beyond the brain melting glow of the sun. The unending flatness means that a 44 mile round trip is just about doable on bike, although I’m not achieving it every day.

I have begun my GP training, which involves hundreds of hours spent reflecting, signing sick notes and prescribing amoxicillin. Here you can see my office, with a photo of the family, and a coffee mug, recently filled on my most extravagant new purchase, a DeLonghi EC 152 Coffee Machine.

As mentioned above, we have several fantastic beaches, 20 miles or so down the road; and we have made the most of them already. Here you can see Joen swimming, playing and eating the sand on the beach at Chapel St Leonards.

Finally, the most important photo is that of our new child, around 50% ready now. Probably a she (the ultrasonagrapher wasn’t completely sure), we look forward to her arrival in January!

Thanks to everyone for your prayers, support and hot meals over the last month, especially Eagle, Sadie, Daniel, Tammie, Hannah, Helen, Micky & Rachel, and thanks for the unpaid manual labour of Nick & Jon!

A few nights ago, we said goodbye to some great friends, Joe & Lois, on their way to live forever(ish) in Zimbabwe. This, on the same day that the senior partner at my practice retired, and my wife and I decided to move to Boston in 2 months.

I’ve been feeling a tremendous amount of emotion, as if something tangible has been torn from me; my brain is looking into the future, and feeling a loss that hasn’t even happened yet.

Why such a response? It’s strange, because I’m genuinely happy about all these changes!

I’m joyful that two friends are going to live in my favourite continent, under huge, romantic skies and terrifying political regimes, with a vast multitude of surprisingly friendly insects to keep them company.

I’m pleased that a fellow doctor is taking up a well earned retirement, with his health, his wife and the money to enjoy his days following his heart’s content.

I’m excited that my family and I are moving to Boston, a town I’d barely even heard of until Tuesday, and yet will soon be calling “home”.

So, if these are all such positive events, why am I so sad? I thought I’d look a little through the breadth of our literature and culture to find some consolation. In this, as with most emotions in life, Shakespeare has something apt to offer:

Parting is such sweet sorrow.

 

As one GCSE revision website explains this, the quote above puts my feelings in a different light: “It is therefore delightful that parting can hurt so much“. The sadness just reflects how much I love the Ovendens, how much I value my colleague, how much we treasure our Sheffield friends.

Tennyson made a similarly iconic statement (which is just as well, since that’s what famous poets are meant to do):

I hold it true, whate’er befall;
I feel it when I sorrow most;
‘Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all.

It is better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all. Whilst most people know that quote as used in a romantic context, it was actually a poem written by Tennyson about losing a good friend.

In realisation of this, I’m going to try and avoid being sad about this any more. In fact, the next two months needs to be a celebration of everything and everyone we love, value and respect in Sheffield. I want to laugh with you all – as The Jam said:

To be caught smiling is to acknowledge life.

 

Let’s really acknowledge life together, my friends. For a final verse (if cut in half), I leave you with Philippians 4:1:

So, brothers and sisters, I love you and miss you. You are my joy…

 

And yes, I’m 5 ft 9, and yes, I can’t shoot straight, and yes, I’m rather unfit, and yes, I always try to spin the ball on my finger, but instead drop it every time, but the fact remains – I love basketball.

I think it epitomizes everything I enjoy in life: simple, achievable goals; competition; sunshine; spending time with friends; Michael Jordan; being shamed by 12 year olds at the park…

Today I challenged one of the practice partners, Dr Hegde, to a game. I left this message on his screen:

I brought a basketball to work today. The question remains…
Are you man enough? …

Halfway through my second patient, a reply popped back on my screen:

Although I am sure I would undoubtedly teach you a basketballing lesson, I have a meeting this lunchtime, why don’t you use the time to have a practice.
Regards,
Air Magic Hegde

My impression? I need a basketball nickname! Recommendations in the comments please…

This Easter I’ve been acting in the St Tim’s Passion Play. For those of you not familiar with the concept, it’s a reenactment of the biblical account of Jesus living, dying and resurrecting.

I was cast as Judas. This, of course, was treated with a great deal of humour from, well, everyone who knows me. There were cries of “type-casting!”, and I rather enjoyed pointing out that last time I was in a passion play, my role was “Second Demon”, so this was a promotion, of sorts.

And so the preparation began: there were lines to be learnt and countless rehearsals to attend. My wife bought a costume for me (by ransaking the bottom shelves of the least appealing charity shop in our high street). Jokes were made during practices – my favourite being Jesus getting everyone to flamboyantly clap, hands above head, during the buildup to the crucifixion.

Slowly, piece by piece, a sincere production was put together. Yet in the midst of it all, I rather failed to consider if there might be any deeper meaning to my role.

Soon enough, Good Friday was on us, our first performance begun, and, to a packed church, the birth and life of Jesus unfolding. I turned up, changed into my authentic 2,000 year old clothes, then waited behind the stage for my part. My only concern was the recollection of my lines, no deeper thought running through my head.

Then, my first scene came “Disciples chatting about Jesus”. Improvisation of some bible verses aside, this went well, and I moved onto “The Last Supper”, which played out without a hitch.

My final scene was an easy one – no speaking part; simply walk on with some soldiers, hug, kiss (and ultimately, betray) Jesus, then off again on stage left.

Our cue came, and on we marched. I hesitantly walked up to Jesus; crying, loving Jesus, who embraced me wholeheartedly. Then I kissed his cheek, his tears on my lips, and it hit me:

I am Judas.

Suddenly everything moved so fast. I stumbled back, and the soldiers swooped in. I walked off stage hesitantly, and stood behind the curtain, watching on as my Lord was thrown around, beaten, whipped and murdered. I weeped for a few moments, because it became very clear:

I am Judas.

Sure, my name is Chris, and I’ve never been near Nazareth, but the point remains: for me alone, Jesus would gladly have suffered the cross.

But he was wounded for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his stripes we are healed.

Isaiah 53:5 (ESV)

So, remember: don’t resent Judas, he is a reflection of all of us. We are Judas. Over the next two days, try to reflect on that, because it really is at the heart of Good Friday. And it will make Easter all the sweeter!

A few years ago, a friend of ours with Asperger’s gave us a hand blender for Christmas.

I absolutely love the concept of comparing the two values; the comparison would never have occurred to me, but to do so adds a spark of brilliance to a humble food processor.

Sometimes people with abnormalities in the way they process ideas – such as autism or dyslexia – have a beautifully “outside-the-box” way of looking at the world. I have another friend with severe dyslexia who delights in making up new words, such as “Le Grange!” meaning “Brilliant”. He has an incredibly rational way of looking at life that somehow runs along completely different lines to mine, but results in very similar conclusions.

Sadly, the blender has just died – Katherine was using it, when a grinding noise occurred, and it caught fire – but as I mourn its passing, I thought I’d just use it to celebrate flashes of joy that can come from a change of perspective.

Not much has happened.

A kick up the bum

I got all excited, I made a design, and then I did about a day’s work on the CSS. And then nothing. In order to nag myself into getting more done, I have decided to launch the unfinished theme. This is it. As you can see, its a little rough round the edges.

Shamed into action

The hope is that I will actually want to have a working site, and will thus push on with, well, finishing it.

“Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort.”

Paul J Meyer

Multiple header sizes…

Are an important part of website design

Even though I never…

…use ones this small!

Things I could do

As you may realise, I’m also using this post to throw a variety of elements into the blog, so I can check I have styling for them all. I also need to display some numbered and bulleted lists, but I can’t think of a relevant list to write. So, instead…

My favourite colours:

• Blue
• Purple
• Golden Yellow
• Black

Least favourite books ever:

1. Granddad with Snails
2. The Go Between
3. Not really got any others.

The end of the post

Thanks for reading! Keep nagging me to finish this!

Let worship be the fuel for mission’s flame
We’re going with a passion for Your name
We’re going for we care about Your praise
Send us out

Matt Redman

In the last 8 years, I have visited Harrismith, a small rural town, one of millions of tiny dots on the world map, six times. I’ve spent 24 weeks – nearly 6 months – of my adulthood in this place. Each time I return, I feel like I’ve been away for a few days: friendships pick up where we left off, as if no time has passed at all.

Back in England, I pounce on every accented black person I meet, eager to practice my Sotho, or my Zulu. It’s rare that a week passes where I don’t look up the weather in Harrismith, or hover ethereally over the town in Google Maps.

There’s a little something of Africa in my blood – hopefully not TB, bilharzia or malaria – its a passion. A passion to see the beautiful people of this beautiful country filled with joy, to learn from them the lessons of glory that they have learnt, and passing on to them the glimpses of the Kingdom we see in the west.

On this trip, we have worshipped in many ways: as a family in prayer; saying grace over meals with friends; playing guitar with the worship team; filling in charity paperwork; clapping and dancing in the township; buying Christmas presents for orphans; and sitting on the bonnet of my car, looking at the sky.

Through it all, so far, no bushes have burst into flame, no clouds have cracked open with a deep bass voice proclaiming how I must lead my family. Yet, when we tell people here that this might be our last trip, that we are waiting to hear from God on whether we should come to stay, not one person has given the faintest credence to the possibility that we might not return.

When we left England, there was a great deal of fear inside me, fear that I would not find out the answer to the question: what is His plan for us? That question remains, but the fear is gone. Just as 3 weeks ago, there was only a sliver of a moon in the night sky, tonight the moon is full, and so is the hope for our future.

Lord, send us out.

• Volunteering at Hope House children’s home.
• Organising a party for those with no family to stay with over Christmas.
• An end of year event at the bible school in Makgolokoeng township.
• Running a men’s and women’s social for Freedom Church
• Volunteering at the local hospital and clinics.
• New charity and church websites with videos.
• New computers for the charity and children.

God is giving us a real opportunity to celebrate and build relationships here, with 3 parties at Hope House over the next 2 weeks, bonding socials at Freedom Church, an end of year celebration at the Makgolokoeng Bible School, and a week long art fair at Rheola’s (our generous host who runs income generating craft projects in the township).

Today we visited Hope House, where the children immediately took my phone and started taking photos: tw0 of which you can see on the right. The level of love the children need is very intense: they run into your arms at the first opportunity, and both of us found our eyes moistening throughout the afternoon. Joen, on the other hand, was fairly shocked, having never been borderline attacked by 27 black kids. They loved him, although we did have to stop them putting him in the sit on car that they raced at breakneck speed aroudn the concrete. Over the next few weeks, we are going to take them out in groups for ice cream, or round to our house for DVDs, for cooking: general family time they miss out on.

I am finding the work in the local hospital very rewarding: my smattering of Sesotho is already coming in useful, and I love the air of friendly faith in the hospital. Last night around 2am I was dancing around the kettle with the senior sister, singing “Ke a bina hobane Modimo o motle” – “I am singing because God is good“.

We currently do not feel any closer to knowing if this is our long term home: for now, we are focusing on thanks and praise, and trusting that He will reveal his will to us.

Love you all,
Chris, Katherine and Joen.

I write this from Heathrow airport, with a grumpy Joen perched on my lap. He and Katherine are participating in a frequently repeated battle over our desire to provide him with nourishment. His opinion is that if he wanted something unpleasant in his mouth, he would put it there himself: a point underlined by his frequent oral intake of fistfuls of dog hair.

The latest tactic, in his attempt to be the first chubby, anorexic, one year old, is squealing whilst throwing his spoon on the floor. Then, when Katherine stoops to pick up the spoon, he grasps my neck with surprisingly sharp fingernails. When Kat brings the spoon back into play he then starts again from the top. We suspect his eventual aim is to exasperate us to the point of agreeing never to feed him again: tonight those terms sound increasingly appealing.

Our request from you all, is prayer for peace as we embark on a 12 hour flight to South Africa.

More from us soon!
x Chris, Katherine & Joen

I’ve long wanted to monetise my blog. My eventual dream is of quitting my job, writing a blog post each day, then spend the rest of my time in the pool. The pool in my personal theme park.

The first step towards this happened last month, when Luke from gearzap.com contacted me, asking if I would like to review a bag. Excitedly, I emailed back, politely enquiring if they fancied paying me by purchasing a rollercoaster, or log flume. They declined, but I still got a bag – the Cool Bananas 24Seven…

Appearance 8/10

I’ll be honest, I was a bit hesitant choosing a bag like this. Compact, leather styling, shoulder strap: its a man bag. If you disagree with that statement, it’s probably because you own a similar looking bag and are in denial. That said, it does look pretty good, slung over one shoulder, as I casually stroll along the road, a Starbucks coffee in one hand, an iPhone in the other… kill me.

Joking aside, it’s a fairly sexy looking bag, from the material covering the majority of it to the faux leather. Internally as well, the 24Seven all seems very nicely put together, with nice chunky zips and little pockets for pens and the like. Taking stuff out, and putting things in, you know you are using an attractive piece of kit.

Comfort 6/10

After a month of taking the bag around with me, I still don’t love it. A large part of that comes from my general preference for rucksacks over shoulder bags: when walking along rucksacks are anchored to your back with no freedom to put you off your stride - shoulder bags tend to bounce off one’s back occasionally, slightly jarring you. Sadly, the Cool Bananas bag does this more than most, likely due to the portrait placement of the laptop, making the straps closer together and thus even less anchored. Of the many bags I own, this would be my least favourite for any protracted period of walking.

The strap is also much too thin. Think cotton tshirt thin. This means the strap gets twisted really easily (see photo on right): as a cool metrosexual guy, I like to grab my bag and chuck it over my shoulder before heading to the indie bookstore: I don’t wanna be left behind by my friends as I try to rearrange the shoulder pad to face the right direction.

Practicality 6/10

My normal modus operandi is a rucksack, with room for my laptop, charger, mouse, jumper, bottle of water, deoderant, magazine, sketch pad, headphones, spare ethernet cable, kitchen sink… Downsizing to a smaller beast meant I had to choose just the bare essentials. It is refreshingly focussed knowing “I only have stuff with me that I need”.

Whilst not having unnecessary items with you does make bags lighter, it does come with one important issue: you no longer have necessary items with you. I found myself limited to the point that I could just about fit my laptop, charger, mouse, sketchbook and wallet inside. And then it was overfull, making the lovely Cool Bananas logo a bit mishapen (see photo on right). And there is no more room. Want to pack a sandwich for lunch? Either eat it at breakfast, or carry it seperately. And I really don’t want to carry it seperately: that’s why I have a bag!

The 24Seven feels very heavy. I found it harder work for my spine than other shoulder bags, and it seemed heavier than my rucksack, even though it had about 1/3 of the contents. Due to it continually bouncing on your back, you also end up feeling a little bruised and uncomfortable.

Build quality disappointed me: after just a few uses the already negligible shoulder strap began to fray a little, reducing it to almost imperceptible (see photo on right). Unplanned fraying looks bad, which is very important to us trendy Apple store frequenting chaps: if I wanted to look bad, I could just buy old jeans, rather than these £100 distressed Levis that bring out the colour of my eyes.

Conclusion 7/10

I did enjoy trialling the 24Seven, but its unlikely to last me the 24 hours a day, 7 days a week that it promises - the strap would drive me mental, and I would feel irritated everytime I had to walk somewhere with it. There would also be no spare room for a toothbrush. Or a sleeping bag. Or a bed.

However, using it less often, I can see a real place for this bag. For taking a laptop to a coffee shop, or just chucking your wallet and magazine in it, I think it could be great. And frankly, just having it sitting on a chair unused will make all your NME reading friends respect you at least 15% more.

I was happy with the result, and others liked it to – it even featured on the front cover of the second Web Designer’s Ideas Book!

As time went on, I became more interested in frequent blogging, and the art of creating sites in WordPress, and so decided to change from having an external blogspot blog to having one located here at allaboutchris.org/blog.

From time to time I made some visual adjustments, but the home page has remained identical for 2 years now. And I think that needs to change, so this post is to bid farewell to it. It may not go today, or tomorrow, but its days are numbered…

The problem

Risk is an interesting phenomenom in our society. On the one hand, environmental health can shut you down if you make a sandwich without washing lettuce; on the other, there’s no legal barrier to sitting on a flimsy metal frame with half inch wheels, doing 30 mph on uneven tarmac as lorries overtake you at 70, with a feeble layer of polystyrene as your sole protection.

When doing 13 mph down my road, I’m not too worried about lorries, but I am very concerned about the lady in the Corsa who hasn’t looked in her wingmirror, and is about to open her door. Or the chap who overtook me on a high street, then turned left, causing me to crash into the side of his car. And I say I’m not too worried about lorries, but I don’t love it when they force you off the road into a ditch and you lose a front tooth.

The root of the problem is that cars are large, fast vehicles with limited visibility, often driven by impatient people. As a cyclist, its easy to despise the more obnoxious drivers, and paint them all with the same brush. Certainly, the operator of the car that hooted me last month whilst I was traversing a free flowing, highly dangerous roundabout fully deserves a slap.

However, we do need a little perspective; after all, many of us cyclists are drivers at other times, and all of us know how easy it is to forget to look in the mirrors before turning left, how easy it is to miss the cyclist hidden behind a truck, or in line with the sun.

Last week I pulled out at a cross roads after very carefully trying to assess if there was a bike coming down the hill. Despite my best efforts, there was a cyclist, who I very nearly brained. Whilst his not wearing a helmet implies there was little brain to risk, the point remains: cyclists are vulnerable, and, ultimately, feeling vulnerable is not the same as having fun.

The SOLUTION

I actually tried to come up with a realistic solution to the problem here.

The biggest issue is that not only are bikes very vulnerable, they are also vastly in the minority. Multiple studies show that the more people there are walking and cycling, the safer it becomes. In Amsterdam, you are twice as likely to be murdered as killed cycling. Overall, in Denmark and Holland, countries with much higher rates of cycling, you are three times less likely to die when riding.

So, the best way to make the roads less dangerous, less terrifying and thus less offputting to cyclists is to get more of us out there. Which probably means I should write a 5 things I love about cycling series…

Thanks for reading. This is the last article in my Five things I hate about cycling series. Read the rest here…

The problem

Every cyclist knows it: the moment when your heart sinks, and so do your tyres.

Punctures are the intermittent pain that haunts cycling, especially those of us with road bikes (and thus skinny tyres). They may strike sporadically, or you may go through periods where they appear to be an incessant companion; either way, one constant remains: to cycle is to puncture.

The botheration is threefold: time, expense and frustration.

I have to be at work at 8am. I usually leave around 6:15, arriving at work around 7:20, have a shower, eat some food, and I have maybe 5 minutes to spare. If I get a puncture, I need to squeeze an extra 20 minutes into that. That’s assuming that I have actually brought my repair kit, unlike last time…

Whilst inner tubes aren’t terribly expensive, I find spending money on them very painful. I think its knowing that I am paying money for a task that I find very unpleasant. If you’ve ever changed a tyre on a road bike, you’ll know its a dirty, fiddly, finger trapping exercise, perfectly designed to cause annoyance. No one ever enjoys paying their dentist, and I don’t like buying inner tubes.

All this leads to a great deal of frustration. On more than one occasion I have felt like smashing up my bike and buying a Ferrari. The main thing stopping me is doing this is a desire to be healthy, and a lack of a spare £120,000. However, no such barrier prevents me from being grumpy and outspoken about my hatred of all things rubber for several days after a puncture.

The SOLUTION

This one took some thought. Solid rubber tyres don’t go flat, but they also require physiotherapy at the end of every short, bumpy journey. The key will be to reduce the frequency and irritation of punctures.

For frequency, the government simply needs to implement my plans to provide brand new glass-like roads across the nation. As a result, I will enjoy biking more, and get significantly less punctures into the bargain.

For irritation, I propose that all cyclists are followed by a support vehicle à la Tour de France, promptly swapping bikes for you at the first sign of trouble.. Whilst this will cause an increase in emissions, I will fund the carbon offsetting out of the savings I make on new inners. The cars themselves can be paid for out of penalty taxes on towns with too many hills. Sorted.

This article is part of my Five things I hate about cycling series. Read the rest here…

The problem

There are two issues that cause my blood to boil here: road layout, and road condition. Come with me for a moment, as you go on an imaginary cycle around Sheffield.

You hop on your bike, wobbling as you attempt to navigate around all the pot holes on your residential street. You make a turn, making it to the main road, where the road surface is heavily worn tarmac, with raised sharp pebbles showing through – the technical term for this type of road is a “tyregrater”.

Vibrating through that, you find yourself on a lovely smooth run of tarmac, and just start to get some momentum running… when you hit a series of speed bumps the width of the road, with nowhere for cyclists to skirt round them.

The incline increases, and soon you are in a speedy downhill, but immediately have to start braking heavily, because at the end of the road, the sharp hill ends suddenly with a traffic light, a traffic light that stubbornly remains red no matter how much you glare at it.

Then you turn left onto a cycle lane. The cycle lane appears to pass through several car parking spaces (with cars in them), a bollard and a set of railings. Its also on the edge of the road, where many uneven layers of tarmac over the years have combined to leave a craggy 45 degree slope. After a few minutes you come straight to a roundabout with cars racing round so aggressively that your death would have been certain, if you hadn’t just gone over a massive hole in the tarmac surrounding a drain cover and punctured both tyres.

You throw your bike in the nearest dumpster, and get on the bus.

While this is a (mild) exaggeration, I have actually had all of these experiences, and have several of them every time I hop on my bike. I hate feeling like a second class road citizen, but being on a bike, this is often the case.

Road layout

My biggest bugbear with road layout comes in the form of cycle lanes. Renowned amongst seasoned cyclists for being unsafe, unrealistic and unhelpful, I generally tend to avoid them, at the same time resenting the money that is spent on them.

Warrington Cycle Campaign runs a Facility of the Month, which applauds, in a tongue-in-cheek manner, ridiculous, dangerous, deceitful and plain stupid cycle lane examples from all around the UK.

I have included my own submission, with a caption to accompany it below:

This delightful two way cycle lane, near the University in Sheffield, is a beautiful example of urban cycle planning. Located right next to one of the most dangerous roundabouts in the city, the track used to join the dual carriageway at right angles, leading to a distressingly deadly arrangement.

Happily, the city council obviously listened to feedback from cyclists, and helpfully installed some railings between the end of the cycle lane and the main road. Since this, there have been no reported accidents on this 3 metre track!

Is this because cyclists ignored the track from the beginning and just take the filter lane on the left, which gently and safely feeds into traffic? Or is it due to the visionary work of Sheffield City Council? I leave the decision up to you.

Road condition

When it comes to road condition, especially in Sheffield, we have had some hard winters over the last few years, with a lot of freeze thawing, leading to many roads resembling a patchwork of repaired sections of tar. Unfortunately, lumpy road + inner tubes that are 3mm thick can only lead to one thing… but I will cover that in another post shortly.

The solution

The solution, on this occasion, is partly realistic, and partly less so.

Firstly, its time for the council to spend a lot more money on roads. Lets spend a few hundred million, and get some nice smooth roads. We’ll probably save the cost on petrol savings from the reduced friction. Well we won’t, but still, let’s do it.

Secondly, we need to change all the signs, so that cycle lanes become “car lanes”, and the bikes are given the sole licence to ride on the rest of the roads. Absolutely guarantee you would see a lot more cyclists around!

This article is part of my Five things I hate about cycling series. Read the rest here…

The problem

So why is that you ask? First off, if you aren’t male, you may not be aware of the scale of the problem. A 2006 study showed that if you exercise 14 fit men for an hour and a half, they will produce nearly 16 litres of sweat between them. As a comparison, your average bucket is about 9 litres. Men literally are capable of sweating buckets.

This wouldn’t be a problem if our society wasn’t so discriminatory. One side effect of civilisation, it appears, is that there is no such thing as sweaty professionalism. Apparently the ideal businessman does not have wet patches back and front of his suit, and it seems that most people don’t want their doctor to be dripping whilst they examine you.

Unfortunately, on the scale of sweatyness, running from 1 (A rock) to 10 (Really old Brie, wrapped in socks, in a plastic bag, in monsoon season), I hit about a 9: I am definitely a sweat monster, especially when I have to deal with hills.

This all ends up frustrating me, since I can rarely use cycling to replace my normal mode of transport without knowing that I have somewhere to change afterwards. It means that I have to pre-plan every trip, often having to check out new locations at least once before I can cycle it.

Replacing a 10 minute car trip becomes rather impractical, since it becomes a 30 minute cycle, followed by a 10 minute hunt for showers, and 20 minutes making myself look presentable. And when the showers are locked/being replaced/filled with stacked chairs – all of which have happened to me – it can be a real problem.

A few years ago, I cycled 7 miles to work, only to realise I had forgotten my suit! It is hard to express the extreme misery I felt inside when I realised that I was going to have to cycle all the way back home, grab a suit, drive in and be an hour late for work into the bargain. If I could have cycled in a suit without fear of drowning, this problem would go away.

The solution

This brings me onto my solution for Sweating – compulsory laser treatment for all men, coupled with a readjustment in the attitudes of society toward odour. Sorted.

This article is part of my Five things I hate about cycling series. Read the rest here…

I don’t actually hate hills per se, just hate that I find them the biggest mental obstacle to getting out on my bike more.

In fact, I tend to savour the “burn” that hits you whilst you climb up them, and the post-exertion endorphins after the hill levels out. The feeling of achievement at the completion of a big climb is fantastic too.

The problem

What I don’t like is that when I contemplate going for a ride, the first thing that jumps into my head is “Nah, can’t be bothered”. This is probably because I live in Sheffield, erroneously renowned for being built on 7 hills, like Rome. This is wrong - Sheffield is worse, it has 8.

Leaving my house in Sheffield, I can cycle about 2 miles without pedalling, zipping down roads of seemingly ever increasing grade. The downside of this is that every single ride I ever take is followed by an ankle grinding crawl back up to somewhere high above the cloud line.

And it’s not just me. When London first trialled their cycle scheme, they had a problem with bikes disappearing from the stations at the top of hills, and the stations at the bottom being too full. The problem has been even worse in Paris and Barcelona, both cities that have more hills. In Sheffield, I suspect they would need some kind of continual conveyor belt, back up from town into Crookes.

The solution

This brings me onto the perfect solution for Hills – the city council needs to built a ski lift up to my house. Sorted.

This article is part of my Five things I hate about cycling series. Read the rest here…

My tires were slashed and I almost crashed but the Lord had mercy.
My machine she’s a dud, I’m stuck in the mud, somewhere in the swamps of Jersey.
“Rosalita”, Bruce Springsteen

So, last week I was cycling to work. It’s a 15 mile trek with some pretty chunky hills, but not too bad in general. However, as I was rolling down the off-ramp off the A61, just a mile from work, I went over a pebble.

I saw it ahead of the front wheel, maybe 30 centimetres away, too near to avoid. I saw it coming, and had time to think just one thing: I hate that pebble.

Moments later, there was the double bump, as both wheels went over it. Then seconds passed. Maybe 3. Just enough to give me the tiniest of hope… and then the vibration started, handlebars shaking whilst I pulled over to the side of the road. I stopped, just as both wheels went flat, as skinny wheels became useless rims with rubber hanging off them.

As I walked a mile to work, I decided my next blog posts are going to be about what I hate about cycling. So, in reverse order, over the next few posts, I am going to cover my five least loved aspects of bicycling:

The top five things I hate about cycling:

1. Cars
2. Punctures
3. Terrible roads
4. Sweating
5. Hills

Today, I am boasting sharing about my greatest achievement in geekdom so far: I have become a medical expert advisor to Lifehacker.com!

Now, many of my friends don’t know what Lifehacker is. I know this, since the last two weeks has been littered with many conversations along the lines of:

Me: “Hey, ever heard of Lifehacker.com?”
Person: “Err, no? Why?”
Me: [sigh] “Never mind”

Lifehacker, by their own description, is a site with “tips, tricks, and downloads for getting things done“. It appeals to geeks who would like to take the same approach to their life and productivity as they do to their computers. Just as I am not happy when my mouse stops working, or my PC is slow, why should I be happy being overly reliant on caffeine to wake up, or getting poor value when haggling prices?

Anyway, my input to this venerable temple to the ironic procrastination of  20-somethings is a medical opinion on the best way to wipe your bum.

Read the article on Lifehacker to see how they used my input, or see my full article, “Medical Evidence on Wiping Your Bum” over at the MedRevise blog.

More guestpostness tomorrow, after which I promise to return to original material!

One Tuesday night a month, my twitter feed becomes an irritating and alienating place for my followers, with endless repetitions of #sywp, alongside jabbering about SSL, Custom Post Types and the many amorous moods of @mkjones.

Since we are trying to publicise the community, we are hoping to make the official SYWP blog a little more lived in. As a result, I just wrote a roundup of this month’s meeting. There’s a snippet below:

This month was attended by the usual bunch of marauding geeks, with free coffee prepared and waitered by the servant hearted Kimb Jones. This nearly made up for the disappointment of Jag Gill failing to provide cake…

Anyway, there were three main talks this month (aside from the usual debates on the command line vs GUI, and on whether iPads are pointless). As ever, you can read back through the twitter stream for #sywp, and imagine you were there too.

First up was Paul Marshall, talking about his company’s experiences using Buddypress…

Read the rest at http://wordpresscommunity.thegisthub.net/2011/news/may-roundup-events-security-and-wordpress-on-windows/

Join us at the next SYWP at the GIST Hub on the 2nd Tuesday of every month. More information on the community group site…