Taster Jottings

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To read a Jotting, just click on it.

1 - Reader’s Digest: I suppose you could call the Hurrell household “bookish”. We all like reading. So much so that when Naomi (our eldest) was younger she had her nose stuck in a book so often that the Lady Mog (my longsuffering wife) and I invented an imaginary device – rather on the lines of a pelican bib – which would support an open book via the shoulders, and allow uninterrupted reading to continue in tandem with other processes, like eating, walking, and possibly sleeping…

Theme: The Devil tries to convince us that he doesn't exist.
2 - A Sad State of Affairs: Now you must promise not to tell a soul. OK? I’m going to admit to something I haven’t told another single human being. And when I tell you, you’ll understand why. Brace yourselves, here it comes: there’s something my mother-in-law and I have in common! Right, I’ve said it. There’s no going back. This time of year we’re both a bit S.A.D. That’s why now, in February, we’re still celebrating because a couple of weeks ago we survived. [W+(C-d)]xTQMxNA — Pretty impressive, hey!

Theme: God is Light and we reflect His light.
3 - Birds: Quite a few of my musings occur when I take Jasper (the dog) for a walk. I will probably return to this theme from time to time, and this jotting was certainly conceived on one of them. It concerns migrating birds and their undoubted ability to read the London A to Z. You see, I have witnessed flocks of them, over the months, flying in perfect “V” shaped formation up Southwood Drive, left down Collingwood Avenue then making a right at the junction with Oakdene Drive, finally drifting towards the A3, and onwards…

Theme: Being open to the desires of the creator.
4 - Invisible Links: From time to time my career has rubbed shoulders with the aerospace industry. This frequently meant flying in strange aircraft with either the door off or the windows out, thereby allowing unrestricted air-to-air filming, or the ability to jump, unimpeded, if I felt like it. One time I found myself at the vast sheds at Cardington in Bedfordshire, the home of the R101 and the base of Airship Industries. It was from there I flew in the Airship 600…

Theme: How important it is to maintain regular prayer links.
5 - Freedom: On a shelf in my office, where I am currently sat, randomly jotting, there resides one of my treasured possessions. It’s what I call my “symbol of freedom”. It’s a strange looking object, a chunk of reinforced concrete, which I have set on a wooden plinth to remind me on a daily basis, of how fortunate I am. The plinth is about four inches by four inches, (as you will see I have not yet gone metric) and the concrete resembles a two-inch high, rather mouse-nibbled, chunk of cheese…

Theme: Remembering that true freedom comes from being Born Again.
6 - God Knows…: I’ve been re-reading Bill Bryson’s A Short History of Nearly Everything. Bryson, if you remember, is the man who has walked Felix-like across various continents, islands and the like, giving us his uniquely, witty, travel books on America, the UK and practically everywhere else. I am a great fan. After so many years on the road his wife asked him if he wouldn’t mind stopping in one place for a while, (possibly so that their children might remember what he looked like) so he decided to hang up the hiking boots and remain static for more than a few weeks.

Theme: Despite the fact that we have more "knowledge" available than ever before, we still know very little, when compared to the Creator.
7 - Born Again: It seems to me that the media in general, and journalists in particular, are among the most irresponsible groups on Earth. They permit themselves double standards that no other professional body would allow. They seem to have sold out to the god of ratings, and the desire to sell more air-time, newspapers, magazines and periodicals - whatever the cost to others The media are quick to criticize the general populace, for not displaying what they self-righteously hold up as “Christian values”, but on the other hand they are happy to deride those who publicly declare their faith and genuinely try to live by those values.

Theme: Rebirth is something that can happen on a daily basis.
8 - Palm Sunday: Over the years, and certainly during my marriage to the Lady Mog, donkeys have featured heavily. On second reading, perhaps that didn’t come out quite the way I meant it! The association began when we visited the Greek island of Santorini, on honeymoon. The main town, Fira, is 1000ft - that’s about 600 steps - above the little port. In those days, the choice was either to walk (fine in the down direction) or take a donkey ride (a serious option for the journey up). I was really taken by these unassuming beasts of burden.

Theme: Humility is synonymous with strength.
9 - The Greenhouse Effect: There was, in the dark mists of yesteryear, a time the Lady Mog and I refer to as BC. In those halcyon days our lives were our own. We could lie in until lunchtime if we felt like it. The bathroom was not constantly “in use” and overflowing with strange agents, scrubs, cleansers and non-specific potions, all bearing exotic sounding names and, as far as I can make out, all meant for female teenage use. That time, Before Children, is now a distant memory.

Theme: The symbolism of Death, burial and beauty.
10 - Communication: Some years ago a well known, much respected, but I must admit rather conservative Christian newspaper, (no names no pack drill) asked me to write a substantial article on how I saw my place within the Christian music scene, in the UK. In those days there was a vibrant and burgeoning crop of bands, groups, and singer/songwriters. All working in what we called “outreach”; taking the Christian message to theatres, coffee bars, clubs and concert halls.

Theme: The need to recognize that we are living in a post-Christian society.
11 - Decline & Fall: From time to time during my somewhat bizarre and varied career I have had the joy of meeting some delightfully off-the-wall people. One of them I met like this. I was due at Broadcasting House to record a Pause for Thought. My brief was to go straight to the studio but when I arrived at the appointed time, the previous session was overrunning. Imagine my surprise, as I entered the control room to be regaled by what sounded like a small zoo. As I had never seen birds or animals in the hallowed corridors of the Beeb, I was fascinated to find, not a menagerie but a rather gentle, unassuming man, who possessed a unique talent - he could mimic any animal or bird you liked to mention.

Theme: God cares for us as individuals.
12 - By All Means: I’m sure I’ve mentioned my three Great Aunts before. They were sisters in a family of fourteen children – one of the others being my grandfather on my mother’s side. They boasted exotic names: Jessie Matilda, Grace Fredrica, and Hannah Rebekah. They never married and always lived together, pooling their meagre resources, as each sister played her part in supporting the other two. Auntie Jessie was the “Martha” of the three; she looked after the practical running of the house. Grace was the “socialite”, always offering tea and cakes, which Jessie would faithfully produce, while Annie (Hannah) was the “businesswoman”. They were all a huge influence on me as their Christian faith carried them good-naturedly through their frugal lifestyle.

Theme: Try to be inventive about your witness.
13 - The Nick of Time: In one sense it seems like an eternity: in another way it’s just like yesterday. Somehow, it doesn’t seem possible. What am I on about? Well, it’s a year, almost to the day, when a column first appeared here on the back of In Touch. It began with 39 WWWWW’s and, believe it or not, this is the 13th Random Jotting. Doesn’t time fly when you’re having fun! In the time it’s taken to publish those 52 articles the Earth has revolved around the Sun, just the once. At the same time (to coin a phrase) also spinning on it’s own axis. It got me thinking about time and how we seem to be created almost to sense specific periods of time, and respond in some way or other. We even talk about having a body clock.

Theme: None of us knows how much time we’ve got.
14 - Mind the Gap: Now this must remain strictly between you and me. Before I spill the beans you must promise it won’t go any further. They say all of us have a skeleton in the cupboard: I certainly have mine, and it goes back to my time at junior school. And in my loft I have a mounted black and white picture to prove it. The school was Robin Hood County Primary, Bowness Crescent, Kingston Vale, and it represented the borough in – wait for it - maypole dancing. There I am in short trousers with skinny little legs and knobbly knees, giving it some as I dance to a ditty roughly resembling The Archer’s signature tune.

Theme: There’s nothing I can do by myself.
15 - Waterloo Sunset: When he penned “Waterloo Sunset”, Ray Davies, of the Kinks, wrote one of the most memorable and lasting songs of the sixties. The lyric and the melody are in absolute sympathy, and the mind-pictures he paints evoke memories for anyone around London in that decade. Moreover, it has stood the test of time and as the sun still sets over Waterloo, a daily reminder. It is of special significance to me because one hot, sultry, summer evening I had one of the most unnerving experiences of my life while crossing Waterloo Bridge.

Theme: How little we know about our neighbours.
16 - Oh for the wings…: Let me tell you about my friend Freddie. Freddie is a cameraman and he lives in Switzerland. He is a gnarled, gentle, alpine man who speaks English with a lilting Schweizerdeutsch accent. And he’s one of the nicest people I have ever met. But Freddie has one fault – he is a tad accident-prone. On one occasion while filming a technical test, he set fire to his camera. And while filming with me on the Bob run at St Moritz he managed to get run over by a bobsleigh. While shooting stills in an open canopied aircraft he leant over so far to get the shot, that he and the aircraft parted company. It resulted in his first, and I believe only, parachute jump! You get the picture? He certainly did.

Theme: Like the angel on a mission, we have a similar one.
17 - Sticky Buns: About twice a month a meeting takes place at my house where two men, admittedly not in their first flush of youth, but with minds stuck in their twenties, meet for coffee and sticky buns. It’s a tradition or an old charter or something. With my longest serving friend, Pete Bye, who happens to worship at Christ Church Surbiton, we spend a couple of hours setting our respective Churches (and sometimes the whole of the evangelical world) right on various points of doctrine or belief. It’s a harmless practice because if we were to convey our thoughts to anyone else I doubt if they’d be inclined to listen. When we’ve exhausted our subjects, Pete goes back to his desk and continues his work as a musician and musical arranger, and I go off and do whatever I do, if I can remember what it is.

Theme:Don’t be afraid to say what you think.
18 - Nutcracking for the Timid: There are those who will tell you that your schooldays are the best days of your life. My view would be that they might be guilty of a terminological inexactitude. Although I look on my primary school days with affection, life at senior school was certainly not all it was cracked up to be. It was due in some part to shyness, but mostly to “not-dealt-with” bullying. Maybe I’ll tell you about that another time. So, for a variety of reasons, I found senior school tough going, but there was one subject I loved and that was English. I could escape into the words, and nowadays, whether it's songwriting, scriptwriting or the odd random jotting, I always experience a sense of pleasure, satisfaction and fulfillment when I reach that last full stop.

Theme: We all have individual gifts, get cracking – use them.
19 - Wait a mo!: For me, quotes from famous people are one of the joys of life. But who writes them down? I have a mental picture of strange little men (or women) following famous potential sources with a notebook and pen, writing down those quotable quotes for future publication. I’ve a book full of Oscar Wilde’s. There’s a great story. He was out with a friend when he heard a good quote. “Did I say that?” Wilde enquired, “No, Oscar”, came the reply, “But undoubtedly you will.” The quote relevant to this jotting, however, was not made by Oscar Wilde, but by John Lennon.

Theme: The moment we have now is precious, it can never return.
20 - Lost & Found: Now I don’t want you to get the idea I make a habit of it, but there have been two significant occasions in my life when I have “lost” one of my children. The first was a good few years ago on a family holiday. It was Weymouth beach and it was very crowded. My son, then about four, who has always had an independent streak, decided to go walkabout. It happened in an instant. One minute he was there, making sand castles, then in the twinkling of an eye, he was gone. There suddenly seemed to be as many people on the beach as there were grains of sand. Panic began to set in. Goodness knows what terrible fate had befallen him. He must have been washed out to sea or abducted by some evil sunbather. Just as I was about to go to the police, I turned a corner and there he was, totally absorbed in a Punch & Judy show, an unperturbed member of the audience, absolutely oblivious of anything else.

Theme: Go back a stage, don’t begin our witness where we imagine people to be but begin where they really are.
21 - What’s in a Name?: While ferreting around in the dark recesses of my mind (not a place for those of a nervous disposition) I strayed into uncharted territory. Place-names. Then I thought, hang on what about church place-names? Then I thought, what about those churches who join with us on high days and holidays. You know, Fetcham, Hook, Send and Dorking. Then it struck me that the names actually reflected what we as a church and as individuals, are called to do. So, how about this, in no particular order?

Theme:A name game: I’m sure you could play yours.
22 - Thai Break: It is of course Wimbledon fortnight. You know, the time when it rains and Cliff sings his greatest hits a cappella. The rules for tennis changed in the 1970’s. Up and until then if a set was drawn you played on until there was a clear winner. As a teenager I remember watching Pancho Gonzales lose the first set 22 – 24 before he went on to win a match that lasted well over 5 hours and involved 112 games. Nowadays we have the tiebreak, the rules of which are marginally less easy to understand than the offside rule in football. But it’s a Thai Break that brings me to my subject for today’s slightly unusual jotting: Pastor John is going off on one.

Theme: Never forget the translators without them we wouldn’t have The Book.
23 - Batteries Included: The other Thursday I did something I have never done in my life before. It followed a perfectly normal business lunch with a colleague. We were in our favourite restaurant just down the road from Carnaby Street. We’d had much to discuss and now it was time to go our separate ways. “Where have you got to get to?” she asked. “Waterloo Station.” I replied, thinking she might suggest we shared a cab. “That’s fine, I’ll give you a lift.” We wandered around the corner to a car park that advertised something approaching the national debt for a day’s parking, to the bay where her vehicle was parked. And there it stood: petite, just a month old, and reckoned to be the greenest car on the road. That was reflected in its spray-job - bright green with yellow sunflowers. Flower power lives. Just big enough to accommodate two people it stood resplendent and ready to take us on our journey. I climbed abroad, strapped myself in and she started the engine. It was completely silent. Spooky.

Theme: Christians need each other, don’t stop meeting together.
24 - Agincourt Revisited: One of my neighbours works for The Evening Standard. He drives one of those vans with the orange and white chevrons and a space on the side for today’s headline. I looked out of my window the other day and the bulletin read, “Europe: It’s war with France”. It was the first I’d heard of it. I knew we were active in various parts of the world, but France! So I checked the sky for the odd Chinook or Tornado, and popped up to the A3 to see if I could spot a convoy of tanks or armoured vehicles heading for Portsmouth and the Channel. Nothing. I wondered too how friends I have in France were being affected by the conflict. How had their lives changed now that battle had commenced? Before you Francophiles lose any sleep. let me assure you that we’re not actually at war with France, despite The Evening Standard’s headline…

Theme: Get the context right and the application will follow.
25 - Body & Soul: Almost as soon as our eldest daughter, Naomi, could read, she began to devour literature like a ravenous wolf. Rather than be glued to the goggle box she would have her head in a book, so much so that the Lady Mog and I invented an imaginary device. It would be worn round the neck like a harmonica cradle or a pelican bib, into which an open book would slot so that she could continue reading while walking, shopping, eating, or multi-tasking in whatever way she chose. Today, she is still a bookworm, so it was not surprising on a recent visit to Kingston that I was steered into Borders for a browse. It was there I spotted a number of hardback book jackets each claiming "His (or her) new bestseller." How do they know? Hardbacks precede paperbacks, so there’s nothing to go on, and book jackets are designed well in advance of publication…

Theme: 100 million and still going strong.
26 - Shore Thing: Last year we didn’t have one at all. This year, as a family, we’ve had three already. And we’ve been to a couple of others. If I remember rightly the first time I saw Neil Salter doing this he was wearing a cowboy hat. The last time I saw Alan Lucas doing it he narrowly escaped serious injury. Thinking about it I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed a woman doing it, except, perhaps on one of those daytime TV programmes, where they teach you stuff you already know. It’s become a strange male preserve. Men (not Neil or Alan) who wouldn’t dream of doing it indoors consider it a kind of male right to do it outside. In the old days the necessary equipment required was quite cheap and simple. I think the first one we had cost about a fiver. But time has passed, our extended family has grown and today it needs to be three times as big and costs about sixty quid.

Theme: Be prepared to face the future.
27 - Just as I am: The other morning I woke up with a brilliant idea. In order to make my witness more effective I need to raise my profile. I’ve decided to become a celebrity! All I need is a PR consultant/publicist, a stylist and a personal trainer. With their help, I will be able to reinvent myself after which I will be able to spread the eternal gospel in today’s society with amazing effect. So, with that in mind I drafted the following letter to Max Clifford look alike: Dear Mr Consultant, It is my earnest desire to further the Gospel more effectively, so I am writing to you to ask you to represent me. I want to have the kind of influence that will last for a minimum of two thousand years, going on eternity. I feel sure that if you felt it possible to put me on your books I could be a successful itinerant musical evangelist, working with great effect in today’s post Christian society.

Theme: No need for a makeover – come as you are.
28 - I Got Rhythm: By the time you read this I will have undergone a "procedure" – thanks to Kingston Hospital NHS Trust day surgery unit. Some months ago I was diagnosed as having an irregular heartbeat. Something had gone wrong with the electrics. The problem could be rectified, I was confidently told, by something called cardioversion. As Word’s spellchecker could not recognise this, I was a little concerned, but a swift surf of the Internet proved that such a process did exist and that in a high percentage of cases the heart’s rhythm was returned to normal and it was possible to survive the treatment. In the old days I imagine, the procedure was relatively simple. You were strapped to a hard flat bed and a strange looking metal device, made up of concentric circles leading to an antenna on the roof, was lowered over you while the medic, who would undoubtedly be called Dr Frankenstein, waited for a passing thunderstorm.

Theme: We all need a change of heart – have you had yours?
29 - Shrine, Jesus’ Shrine: Did you know that the first package holiday was organized one hundred and sixty four years ago, when Thomas Cook took a party of temperance campaigners on a twenty-mile train-ride from Leicester to Loughborough? Somehow, these days, the terms temperance and package holiday seem diametrically opposed. Package holidays came into their own during the late sixties and seventies and nowadays make up a multi-billion pound industry. As a family we’ve been on a few, and one year found ourselves on an Airbus, bound for our holiday apartment in Cyprus. We consider ourselves pretty practiced in the art of the package holiday, knowing that on the first morning we would be expected to meet our holiday rep – "poolside". There are always a number of "excursions" available – coach trips to various other parts of the island, the inevitable "Greek Night" with free wine (which tastes like anti-freeze and if spilt will melt Formica!). But the one that took our eye was a three-day cruise to The Holy Land…

Theme: A journey to Jerusalem.
30 - Latin Roots: Here’s a question. What popular programme has been on air for 54 years and uses more Latin words than any other? I can tell you it’s not a schools programme on Channel 4, or an Open University course on BBC2. Nor some obscure cable channel with just a few hundred viewers, all located somewhere in the lofty heights of academia. Any ideas? We’ll come to it later… The Englishman’s home, so they say, is his castle. And the grounds of his castle are also seen as his pride and joy. So I suppose it’s not surprising that one of the biggest commercial success stories of the past 15 years has been the Garden Centre. Mention a potential visit to either of my children and they immediately lock themselves in their rooms and only emerge when the lady Mog and I return laden with plants, pots and compost.

Theme: A garden, just outside a city wall.
31 - Cobbles & Cloaks: In my time as a "freelance" I have produced quite a few conference roadshows. One, in particular, I remember because the venue was a theatre in a Manchester television studio. Now, producing a conference is very like putting on a show. You have a set, which normally boasts a back projection screen, all the technology to put pictures on it, a lectern for the speakers to hide behind and autocue to remind them of their words. By the time we get to the theatre my work is practically done. I would already have worked with the speakers to help hone their words; suggested ideas for their speaker support material and rehearsed them in their delivery. At this stage the emphasis would be on the hardware, the sets, the sound and the lighting. Specialist professional crews come in to do this, so I decided to take a break outside for a lungful of fresh air.

Theme: The public face and the private reality.
32 - Taking Steps: I believe in fairies. No don’t laugh. I’m serious. We’ve got them at home and they’re all different. You might want to know why I’m so sure, well I’ve got proof. To explain, we’ve got to go back a few months to when we had a new shed. Not an earth shattering event but significant enough in the Hurrell household. Sheds, you see, have to have a base to stand on and due to my recent incapacitation the Lady Mog undertook to lay the base. We ordered up the sand and the paving stones and after a few days back-breaking toil, low and behold the neatest flattest base any self-respecting shed could desire. When the men came to erect it, and after a quick check with their trusty spirit level, they expressed their surprise that it had been laid by a woman…

Theme: Learning to see what’s actually staring us in the face.
33 - Older & Wider: A few years ago a black and white picture appeared in the Surrey Comet. It was a photo depicting the class of 1956 at Hinchley Wood School. It had been put there because one member was coming back to the UK on holiday, having emigrated to Canada some years ago, and suggested that if people recognised themselves and contacted the published address a reunion was on the cards. Hinchley Wood is a mixed school and the venue was to be the home of the then head girl. She lived in a beautiful detached house situated high above Dorking in about 10 acres, affording stunning views of the Surrey hills. It had a swimming pool, a huge patio, a gazebo and barbecue area. Ideal. On the day, the weather was spectacular. When I arrived quite a few were already there and judging by the size of the cars in the car park all doing very well. It was a peculiar sensation. Apart from one Christian couple I’d seen from time to time, who had been childhood sweethearts at school, I had not met any of the others for 26 years.

Theme: Sometimes forgiveness is not easy.
34 - Body & Soul: At its most basic, food is there to fuel our bodily needs, but it’s a great deal more than that. It involves that skill we calI cooking. And I love doing it. I put the blame mostly on the shoulders of my Grandfather – that’s the one on my mother’s side. You see he was a master butcher so even in the hardest of times he was able to obtain the finest cuts of meat (sorry all you vegetarians but for us "the carnivore is definitely not over"). There are legendary stories of huge aitch-bones, brought direct from Smithfield, enough to feed the entire street. My grandmother, being a very tiny lady, could hardly lift the joints he brought back, therefore he would invariably do the cooking, and he taught his two sons to cook as well. So I was brought up in an environment where it was perfectly natural for men to toil over a hot stove. In those days the television was not full of male celebrity chefs.

Theme: We need food for the body, and for the soul.
35 - Out of…Into…: Would you indulge me and do a little practical experiment? I want you to close your eyes and tell me what you see. I bet there are all sorts of latent images and colours floating around behind your eyelids. That’s because you are not experiencing absolute darkness: to achieve that you have to be in special circumstances. And, it’s a fact very few people have ever experienced that kind of total darkness. During my years as a Gospel Folk singer I needed to do a little tent making in a forlorn effort to make ends meet. I had displayed a modicum of personal skill as an amateur photographer, so I decided that I might be able to scrape a living taking pictures. It was at a time when the word digital appertained to the fingers and had no connection to "the revolution" of the mid 1990’s.

Theme: Darkness cannot overcome light.
36 - Web Technology: They say necessity is the mother of invention. I like to think it’s also the father of inspiration, the necessity being my weekly jotting deadline. In order to get inspired I like to have the solitude of my office which some of you will know is in the garden about half a dozen steps from my back door. It looks a bit like a mini French gite and it’s a sanctuary that houses my old steam driven computer on which I endeavour to scribe this weekly missive. With the deadline looming I realised I didn’t have a solitary idea for the theme. Complete blank. I left the house somewhat dispirited and made my way to the workplace ready to boot up the aforementioned, in the hope that somehow inspiration would have its way - only to find the barriers were up.

Theme: The inspiration of the Spirit.
37 - Room Service: Some claim to have had the Toronto Blessing. I have imagined others experiencing the Manitoba Manifestation, or the Vancouver Vision or maybe the Alberta Illumination. But nothing compares with my own, recent, challenging, life-changing encounter. Some call it the Croydon Conspiracy; I know it simply as the IKEA Experience. It began with the Lady Mog casually mentioning that our bedroom could do with a "tart-up". "Just a lick of paint and Bob’s your uncle", she said. "Of course", she went on, warming to the idea, "if we had a new carpet we could rethink the colour scheme and naturally the mirrored wardrobes will have to go" (so lovingly crafted by me about 18 years ago) "And the curtains won’t match the carpet and as to the rest of the furniture, ugh", By the time she had finished I could hardly bring myself to sleep in the room. So I did what all dutiful husbands do in those kind of circumstances, I uttered those two time honoured words, "Yes, dear."

Theme: Unpacking the Bible.
38 - When Hurrell met Durrell: One of the perks of my job is that from time to time I get to meet interesting people. Some years ago I was asked to direct a video hosted by television presenter Philip Schofield on the work of Jersey Zoo. Part of it was to be an interview with its irascible founder, the late writer and conservationist, Gerald Durrell: among his many books you may remember the famous, "My Family and Other Animals". I looked forward to the encounter. GD had a reputation for not suffering fools, so I made sure I had done my homework and briefed Philip as comprehensively as I could. Proving the consummate professional he is, the interview went like a dream so we all breathed a sigh of relief and went off in search of "other animals". To my surprise it was neither Philip nor Gerald who made a lasting impression but a huge silverback gorilla named Jambo.

Theme: The gift of gentleness.
39 - Straight Talking: So I said to my cameraman, "Give me an eyeline shot. I want you to pan from right to left so we end up with that post box in bottom left of frame. We’ll go with the talking head until she reaches that spot, then we’ll change to the baby legs and tilt up until we get a bcu on the boat race, she’ll still be doing her piece to camera." He nodded in complete understanding, "I’ll have to pull focus on the tilt," he said, "because there’s no way I can stay sharp over that distance." "No problem," I replied, "and if she dries on the long walking talking I’ll cut away, otherwise we’ll be here all day. Oh, and when we do the reverse make sure I don’t cross the line." He went off to do a white balance and stick on some bars and tone. Meanwhile my PM had returned with the bacon rolls, so it wasn’t long before we were ready to turn over on the first take of the day. You see, in my line of work we don’t use jargon!

Theme: It’s not what you say, it’s the way that you say it.
40 - To sleep, perchance…: It normally begins like this. There is a concert hall, it’s quite big - audience capacity two thousand five hundred. It’s about seven pm. It begins filling up, which is good because I’m due to play there. As people take their seats there is that familiar burble of conversation, mixed with the buzz of anticipation. Spool back to about two o’clock that same afternoon. I am getting ready to leave the house to travel to the venue, but I have a distinct feeling of unease. It could be my guitars need to be re-strung and I have been too busy. I can’t find my precious thumb-pick, without which I will not be able to play, or the car won’t start. When it does the traffic is awful or the map I have been given is misleading. I’m lost. It seems that every conceivable obstacle is being put in my way to prevent me from getting to the venue in time for the concert…

Theme: The value of dreams.
41 - Picasso’s Freedom: The other Saturday morning I dutifully accompanied The Lady Mog to the ladies’ fashion floor of Marks & Spencer. As we explored the never-ending points of sale, my eye was diverted from the garments on offer to an advertisement on the wall featuring four ladies. One was of slightly more mature years than you normally find displayed on a fashion department poster. I recognised her immediately. She still has the same impish mouth and fantastic eyes that look as if mischief is never far away. Just looking at her took me back forty years. She was the first superstar model, and an icon of the sixties. The years have been good to her, from the gangly teenager of yesteryear she has matured, and is undoubtedly more beautiful now than she was then. And the camera still loves her. I refer to none other than…

Theme: Respecting the boundaries we are given.
42 - Play it again…: A couple of months back I was getting very concerned. It was September; I was in Tesco’s, and not a sign of a single Christmas pudding. Even the aisle with the banner heralding "Seasonal Items" only carried the fading leftovers of autumn. I felt like doing an Adrian Mole and writing to the chairman pointing out that some of us like to plan ahead so what was his store doing putting his loyal customers in the position of having to join the fearful crush nearer the festive deadline. I remain, your obedient servant etc etc… I shouldn’t have worried. A week later and there was enough Christmas fare to last until Easter.

Theme: Christmas No.1
43 - Life’s a beach: Among the more bizarre ideas designed to attract tourists to London in 2006 is the recent decision by Lambeth Council to create an artificial beach on the South Bank. It will mean importing thousands and thousands of tons of sand, erecting restaurants, a 1000 seater open-air cinema and, I’m told, barbies on the beach will also be a feature. Earlier this year on the south coast, Brighton hosted The World Sand Sculpture Festival, for which they had to import 10,000 tons of special sand from the Netherlands – the kind sculptors need to create their masterpieces. And, judging from the pictures masterpieces they were, featuring sights and events from ancient Egypt. Although it’s now closed it was a stunning show and you can still catch the pics, just Google your way to Brighton and I’m sure you’ll find them.

Theme: When we’ve heard Christ’s words, we should act on them.
44 - Daily Mirror: Before the days of giant theme parks, where queuing for hours to experience a one minute gut-wrenching thrill is the norm, we used to escape from the hum-drum of suburban banality whenever the fair came to town. The sights, sounds and smells brought to us by the raggle-taggle fairground folk, often of Romany stock, introduced us to a temporary but wonderfully romantic other world. Bumper cars, roundabouts, rifle-ranges, candy floss (which introduced the need for dental floss) the helter-skelter, the ghost train, the hoopla, and of course the hall of mirrors. You would hear shrieks of uncontrollable laughter from this particular side show, when the sight of uncle Horace with a pin head and a tweedle-dum body set us off into paroxysms of mirth.

Theme: What do you see in your mirror?
45 - Promises, promises: Back in April I introduced you to my three great Aunts, Jessie, Annie and Grace. They never married and shared a house in New Malden, pooling their meagre resources. They were Godly ladies who had a profound influence on me during my formative years. Mostly they spent their time in the back room. It was decidedly "below stairs", untidy but welcoming. They had a large dining table often covered in knitting wool, crochet, papers and plates. They spent most of their time there. Mostly, they would sit in three un-matching armchairs of ancient vintage and in winter knew the value of layers as they kept warm in front of their only source of heat an open coal fire. They had no central heating.

Theme: Seeking wisdom.
46 - St Moritz: Take the plane from London to Zurich, nip downstairs and get the suburban train to the Hauptbahnhof and from there take the main line to Chur. Cross the platform to the smaller gauge mountain railway and in the fullness of time you’ll end up in St. Moritz. And, miraculously, so will your equipment and personal luggage. I found this out a few years back when I was commissioned to make a film about advanced composites. I took quite a large motley crew, who were separated from their equipment and personals at the airport, but were reunited with them due to Swiss precision, at their final destination. As you will all know we are currently in the middle of the 2005/6 Bobsleigh season. And it was to film a special bobsleigh, made from these immensely strong but lightweight materials, that took me to St Moritz…

Theme: The run of a lifetime.
47 - Silence in thought: My parents were members of the Open Brethren. They went to the assembly at Mount Pleasant Gospel Hall in New Malden, so from as far back as I can remember I was taken along with them "religiously" twice, sometimes three times, each Sunday. Evenings were essentially for the preaching of the Gospel, and mornings exclusively for The Breaking of Bread, what we would know as "The Lord’s Table". Some of you will be familiar with a Brethren service, but for those who are not, here’s a potted explanation. A Gospel Hall is a fairly austere place. Mount Pleasant was no exception. Brown and cream walls, open rafters and a wooden floor. The hard upright chairs (the kind with little racks on the back for your Bible and hymn book) were laid out about four rows deep in a rectangle around the table…

Theme: It’s good to be quiet.
48 - New Age: Those of you who are familiar with these jottings will know that from time to time I meet with an old friend for what we call a sticky buns event. It’s like a coffee morning for two, where we discuss the meaning of life, the universe and everything, while munching Danish pastries. Knowing that I am always on the lookout for ideas for jottings he brought along a cutting from a well-known Anglican newspaper (so it must be true) that is very relevant to us this Christmas morning. It makes clear that most of us have broken the law in getting here today. It concerns a law on the statute books dating back to 1551, I refer, of course, to The Holy Days and Fasting Act which demands that anyone attending church on Christmas day may not use a vehicle of any sort to get there. If they do then the vehicle can be confiscated and sold, and the proceeds given to the poor. Many years ago my bun-eating friend introduced me to a man called John Haggai. He is an American minister who told us the following story. With a friend whose surname happened to be Solomon he was driving to a venue where he was due to preach.

Theme: Going from Law to Grace.
49 - Day One: Do you realise it was six years ago today that many people believed civilization as we know it would come to an end. The new millennium would bring with it a computer problem so devastating that financial institutions would be in melt-down, planes would drop out of the sky, communications networks would fail, hospitals would be forced to close and, worse of all for anyone of YPF age, MSN would be cease to exist. The perceived disaster cost industry across the world billions of pounds. Massive efforts were made to avert the problem. The greatest programmers sought to find a fix. The media had a field day. And it became known as the millennium bug.

Theme: New year resolutions
50 - Act One: I don’t think I’ve told you about the time I worked as an actor. It was a glittering career that lasted all of one day. But it was at Stratford upon Avon! Here’s how it went. At that time I was working closely with a marketing outfit as well as doing my weekly stint on my gospel music programme for BBC Radio London, called "Sound Out". The company had successfully provided a variety of marketing services for the Wool Secretariat and it was time for the annual conference for about 200 delegates held, not at "The Royal", but the Stratford Hilton. The marketing company were good at all things visual and had made a great slide/tape presentation to demonstrate what they had done in the past year and what plans they had for the Wool Secretariat in the future. Half way through this presentation they stopped and announced that "to be fair" they were giving a rival agency the chance to present…

Theme: Never take your local church for granted.
51 - Acid Test: I was a teenager before I learnt to swim. When it came to water I was always a bit of a wimp. It may have been partly due to the fact that neither my mother nor my father could swim - dad went to the coast armed with a huge rubber inner tube, culled from an 18-wheeler artic. - or more probably, it was down to The Coronation Baths Hall. You see, they were all we had in Kingston, in those days; no tropical overheated "Kingfisher": going swimming then was a Spartan test of physical stamina. Kingston Baths, as they were more colloquially known, were not heated, at least not so’s you’d notice. You changed in communal changing rooms, hung your outdoor clothes on something resembling a galvanized metal coat-hanger with a basket underneath for your shoes, handed them in to a man who looked as if he would never give them back…

Theme: How fact can lead to faith.
52 - Hi-De-Hi - Bye-De-Bye: I want to take you back to yesteryear, to a time when the nation was between world wars and when package holidays were a thing of the future. I also want to introduce you to a Christian man of vision, and one of the finest anecdotal preachers I have ever heard - but we’ll come to him later. The year was 1936 and a new holiday phenomenon was born (although I wasn’t!). Billy Butlin brought to the UK an innovative concept, where family-fun, food and frolics were encapsulated in "The Holiday Camp". The idea was simple. Accommodate families in small chalets – rows of them – the kind that resembled army barracks; basic in the extreme, concrete, unheated and, if people were honest, jolly uncomfortable. Call the guests, "Campers", and provide them with an army of attractive "Redcoats" to entertain them, inexpensive food in great neon lit and Formica clad dining halls to feed them; an outdoor unheated swimming pool, a couple of bars with exotic sounding names…

Theme: The need for a break.