New Claim

Just read in the Independent that some Canadian scientists are claiming that what makes a man gay or increases the chances of him being gay are the number of older brothers he has. (They claim some gene a mother develops in her womb after giving birth to many boys contributes) Apparently the more older brothers he has the more likely he is to be gay. Better watch His Royal Highness, he has three older brothers!

But really now, how do they explain lesbians then?

What a load of rot.

The Leadership of the Anglican Church Awakes

Read today in the Times that the Archbishop of Canterbury has decided to split the church. Effectively those churches who remain faithful to biblical teaching stay in and those that choose their own way, in this case by ordaining gay priests, shall effectively be out. This is a good thing – it has taken the Anglican church, in fact all churches too long to definitively outline the Christian stance on this. It seems that nowadays to say that you believe homosexuality is a sin, is tantamount to social death. Well Christianity does state it is a sin. The next argument pro gays then give is that if you believe homosexuality is a sin then you advocate violence against gays. Not true. Christians do not advocate violence against gays. They also say that to believe homosexuality is a sin is the same as whites saying blacks were inferior back in the day and that as times changed with regards to race, that the church must modernise and accept homosexuality as a natural and good occurrence. Rubbish! God’s word is immutable. It was never right to discriminate re: race and being the race you are is not a sin, you just are. Indulging in a homosexual lifestyle is a choice – many people argue that people are born gay but there is no prrof of this. There are however plenty of examples of people becoming gay after bad experiences with members of the opposite sex.

Christians should be able to state without persecution that they believe homosexuality is a sin. We are all given free will and are able to decide what type of lifestyle we lead. This is between you and your God – but in terms of Christian leadership, you cannot possible be living a sinful life and be in church leadership! Those Anglicans who believe it is right to do so are crazy!

You could argue that the Bible is ambiguous on lots of things, but no one with a brain in their head can state the Bible is ambiguous on homosexuality. It states categorically that it is an abomination, and there are no instances where it is condoned. If these Anglicans want to indulge in a homosexual lifestyle, they should be honest enough to hold their hands up and acknowledge it is contrary to God’s will and not try to twist things. Also this ridiculous claim that Christians are homophobic is a lot of crap. No one is afraid of homosexuals or homosexuality and as far as I know a phobia is a fear. We simply believe the lifestyle is sinful Agree or disagree but don’t trample on our right to freely express ourselves. So I am glad the top leadership of the Anglican church has remained true to Biblical teaching. It is the right thing to do. I pray that they will be given strength now to pay attention to the needs of the world and not have to spend much more time on this issue.

Football Everywhere

Well the fottball fever has truly taken hold especially in our house. I have no hope of redeeming the remote from His Royal Highness' grasp so I am reduced to reading voraciously. In the meantime, the job search continues. I got a temp job last week but am again free this week. Funnily enough I don't feel stressed. I wait to see what the future brings.

At the moment, summer has once again disappeared here in the UK. Right now it's freezing and the weather forecast tonight said we might get frost tonight! Frost I ask you?!!!! What next? Mi cya tek dis ya cowl counchi no longer you know! I count down the days until I visit the rock at the end of next month. Pray for me that I don't freeze to death before then.

Later.

Football a tek ova!

Started a temp job today and while I am glad of the opportunity to earn some money, I am once again reminded that I loathe the traditional office environment. I have worked two places in my life where the working environment was good, my colleagues intelligent and fun and the work fulfilling. Apart from that my work experiences have been miserable. You know what made those two expereiences so great? Not money. What made them great was the fact that you were judged on your output and its quality, not how many hours you spent in the office, there was flexitime, you could see the results of your work, my bosses allowed me and my co-workers to get on with it and the co-workers were lovely. How I wish I could find this again!

I am a football widow like many others. Added to this Wimbeldon starts next week - and Seymour does love his tennis. The other day, after switching back and forth from the US (or was it the French?) Open and World Cup, he then switched to the darts - that's when I lost it. It turns out he will watch any sport except ice hockey and American football. I am doomed!

Looking for Work

I'm geting a bit nervous about this job serach thing now. After I was made redundant I thought I could take a week off and then start to look for temporary work while applying for permanent roles. But so far, the agencies I've contacted say there isn't much work out there. Hope something turns up soon - the redundancy money won't last forever!

Meanwhile I suffer through daytime TV. Daytime TV in the UK as in many parts of the world I guess, consists of repeats of crap you don't want to watch. I'm starting to get really bored and lonely staying at home. I always thought I could work at home and I guess I could if work involved meeting with people often, but it is getting really old.

Wish me luck.

Big up Asafa!

Just a quick line to say Big up to Asafa. I saw his race in Gateshead today and it was fantastic! It's lovely to see a young man so skilled at what he does and also so calm and cool about the business at hand - running well.

Gatlin didn't show - don't know why. Could have something to do with poultry used by the Colonel. . . .

Can't wait for Asafa to duss him good and proper!

More jobs for media people & the odd English

Read today that TVJ is going to launch a sports stations. Good news for media professionals - hopefully this'll mean more jobs. I'll wait to see what transpires.

Because of the World Cup, the place is full of English flags and there is a whole heap of debate about whether or not this is good! This country is indeed weird. There are people in a quandrary becasue they feel it is in bad taste to wave their flag! I ask you! What on earth can be wrong with being proud of your country? This is one of the more ridiculous aspects of the English - and I make that distinction. The Scottish, the Welsh and the Irish don't have this problem. Just the English.

To the English who feel this way I say stop being foolish. There's nothing but good to come of being proud of your conutry and exuberantly exhibiting that pride by waving your flag. Take the stick out or your collective areses and relax - and let the rest of the people who want to wave dem flag wave it in peace.

Honestly! Of all the things to get worked up about.

The Search for Employment Continues & Taxing the Fat

I've been busy over the past few days, trying to plan a wedding and trying to get a job. Getting a job is proving to be the more strenuous task.

Sometimes I wonder why I bother to produce a CV - they are rarely required nowadays. Practically every job I see advertised, requires that you send off for a tome-like application pack upon which is written in bold type 'Do not send a CV, it will be ignored' or something to that effect.

And the forms they do provide, rarely have enough space for you to shine on. Now if you aren't allowed to show off your CV, and the only place you have to prove your case for being granted an interview, is a form with tiny spaces, how do you go about giving the best impression?

I take as much advantage as possible of the 'please continue on a separaet sheet' line - that's my answer.

Wish me luck with the search.

To be honest, I'd much rather stay home and write - but until I can earn enough for the mortgage et al in this way, I'm stuck with the 9-5.

In other matters, there was a documentary on More4 a few nights ago, in which a man put forward his thesis for taxing the obese directly, according to their BMI, in order to recoup the costs of obesity on the public purse. One thing that struck me was an interview he did with one guy who is so fat he hasn't been able to move from his home or do anything for 10 years. His upkeep costs about £100k per year - paid for by the tax payer.

I agree whole heartedly with the programme maker in this respect. People who smoke or drink have to pay tax on their products which helps offest the cost of treating smoking and drinking related health problems - why not the obese? Especailly as obesity related illnesses are due to outstrip smoking an ddrinking ones.

The attitude of many overweight people disgusts me. On the programme almost all overweight people intereivewed, said it wasn't their fault they were overwieght, that proposing a tax is discriminatory and that everyone should be happy to pay for obesity related diseases.

If you choose to kill yoursefl by smoking, you get penalised. If you choose to kill youself with excess food and too little exercise, why not penalise them too?

Bottom line is that if you are overweight, it is most probably because you eat more that your body needs, and don't excercise enough. It's not any more complicated than that. It is also a personal choice to be fat - may be difficult to lose weight - I know about that - but it is a personal responsibilty to do so.

The programme maker got a question asked in parliament and has gone about making his proposal in an effieient and systematic way. I wish him luck.

First Taste of Redundancy

As I'd mentioned some time ago, at the beginning of May I was made redundant. This is the first time in a 16 year career that this has ever happened to me and I was quite surprised when it happened. But not sad. This last job hasn't been a good one. The immediate co-workers I had were great - but management was terrible. Hadn't a clue.

Now I've worked places before where management has had its fair share of bad eggs, but never anywhere where there was no discernible leadership - this last job was exactly that.

Take my redundancy and that of a few others. I know they are trying to save money after a loss - but they clearly haven't thought through this exercise. I was asked to leave with there being no capacity to do the job I was doing. It's not like there were others available who could do my job (which paradoxically involved bringing in new business), I was pretty much it, given a change in direction for the other people who were previously working with me.

I feel sorry for my former colleagues, becaus they did need my expertise and skills and they will suffer. But I'm not sorry to be able to start afresh.

I've always had to take a job to pay the bills - now I can take the time to really find something to do that I like, even something that I love. Ideally, if I could write full time for a living I would, but I am nowhere near earning enough to cover my bills through my writing yet - so for the time being I will be back in the rat race soon. But with some hard work and targeted submissions, by this time in two years I plan to be fully independent. Wish me luck!