New look for the Blackburn Diocese website

Occasionally I call in on our Diocesan website to keep abreast of news and developments. Imagine my surprise when I found that after years of the same gaudy template, we have a swanky new look!


I haven't had the chance to check out the navigation or the content yet, but it does look much better than it did!

Temptation!

My current personal mobile phone, an HTC touch, has been OK for the past 11 months; only OK though. It's a Windows Mobile machine and, on the surface, it seems to do an awful lot. The problem comes when you've been using it for a while; your email piles up, you fail to delete text messages, you have a few unwanted applications, and before you know it the phone freezes and needs to be reset. I've done this at least half a dozen times in the year, and unfortunately this involves putting the phone back to its factory settings and losing all your personal data. Grrr. Irritatingly, I have also managed to destroy the 2 styli that came with the phone, and am now improvising with miscellaneous pointy objects to avoid buying a ridiculously priced replacement. 

When I got the phone, it was Orange's best stab at an iPhone competitor, and whilst I'm sure that they have some better machines on offer now, the O2 monopoly means that when my Orange contract ends in August, I'll be moving to O2 for the latest iPhone.

As I already have a 5th Generation iPod for my music, I think I will be fine with the 16GB 3GS. I now need to wait for the end of my contract in August, and then go through the palaver of 'porting' my number across from Orange to O2. That will be fun.

E-books revisited

Mark Vernon has some interesting points about e-books. I've previously posted in support of the medium, following the acquisition of a Sony Reader for Mrs Lanky, and following Mark's persuasive piece, I still think they have a place.

I think Mark's right to insist that there is something about the embodiment of a book in paper form which is different from the embodiment of an e-book. I don't think you can argue an e-book has no embodiment, but you could say that its embodiment is non-unique, given that the reader-unit looks the same and feels the same with any book (apart from the content of the screen).

My wife loves her Sony Reader, and for someone who reads books by the tonne, it makes sense for her to have one. However, I share some of Mark Vernon's opinions,and as I don't currently read many books, I'd extend the issue to itunes. I still prefer to buy a CD; partly for the confidence brought by the posession of an incorruptible (relatively) 'embodied' artefact. You have bought a CD rather than some data.

I realise there's an amount of inconsistency here. CDs look very similar to each other, and are only unique due to the data they contain, and maybe a bit of printing on the top. Maybe it's less about uniqueness and more about the particularity of each artefact.

hmmm...

Wise words of caution for web users

Phil Cooke has an interesting post on extracting urine from swimming pools! He reckons that taking something off the internet is like taking pee out of a pool; referring particularly to people having trouble getting jobs because of the dodgy stuff they've put on Facebook. Once its posted, you can't really unpost it!

Common sense!

It looks like the major mobile phone manufacturers are finally going to do what we all want them to do, and agree on a single standard for chargers. It seems that the micro USB plug/socket is the favoured technology, and that new chargers will be more energy efficient. Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, LG, T-Mobile, Orange, 3, AT&T and Vodafone have all backed the plan, so it looks like it might actually happen.

That annoying preaching voice

We all know someone who does it! In a one-to-one setting, they're completely normal. You give them a pulpit, a microphone or just a congregation, and they wheel out the preaching voice. Thanks to Maggi Dawn for drawing my attention to this post by Phil Cooke. It echoes an opinion I've held for a long time; preaching should be done in an accessible and familiar way.

I know a few ministers who suffer from this affliction, and it's not a pleasant experience from the cheap seats. There are some people who I want to give a firm shake by the shoulders! I want to ask them if they know what they actually sound like; they probably don't.

When I first started hospital radio, many years ago, one of the first things I was made to do was to listen to a recording of myself. It's a horrible but formative experience, and I think every preacher should do it too. You can, of course, go too far and become obsessive about the physical aspects of your voice that you can't change and that's not the aim of the exercise. It's useful to identify the little habits we all have, like the annoying repeated utterances such as 'um', 'er', 'like' and the ubiquitous 'ok', which you don't really notice until you're forced to listen properly.

Ultimately, sermons are a form of communication. To be successful, the mode of communication needs to suit the audience. The current audience is highly skilled in communication, and does not need/want to be talked at.

One final thought - the condition of the 'preaching voice' is often linked to CHAS (comedy hymn announcment syndrome). This is where the worship leader announces the next hymn by reading out the whole of the first 2 lines in a heartfelt and dramatic variant of the preaching voice. I have noticed that this seems to be more common in the more evangelical setting, though it does have a counterpoint in more traditional churches: 'Our next hymn is number two hundred and thirty three, TWO THREE THREE!' - sound familiar?