A new beginning

I haven't posted for such a long time that I actually had to find my blog by following someone else's link.

Here's what made me want to post again....

All in the best possible taste

I was a little bemused, while looking for the latest news of Fopp's closure, to come across the following advert in the sponsor's section of Yahoo's search page:

Looking for Music Zone or Fopp?
It's closed down. But why not visit HMV for all your Music and DVDs?
http://www.hmv.co.uk/


This advert was displayed alongside the news that HMV had just bought six of Fopp's stores, and were planning on adopting the brand. Now there's a way to rub salt in the wound.

Hi Ho

It's amazing how much of a difference a good job can make. I've just finished my second day, and am already marvelling at the joy that comes with being able to look forward to going into work. I am now drawing my first salaried wage, my new workplace is warm, the work is good, my colleagues are friendly, it takes twenty minutes to walk there through at least three routes (so it doesn't get boring), i get an hour's lunchbreak and a nice window view of the tops of trees. But, best of all, I get a desk drawer that looks like this.

It's been a whole month since I last posted something. How did that happen? I know Facebook is partly to blame. Otherwise, it seems that the more you do with your life, the less time you have to record it.

So, to recap, I quit my job, got a new one, quit that and got an even better one. I've been to Alton Towers, the Hay Festival, a wedding, a leaving party and a birthday party, stayed in the Plaza hotel, and I've done the washing up....once.

I should probably write about it.

(Not the washing up, the other stuff.)

Die Hard!

Thanks, Rich.

When A Single Word Will Suffice

According to Philip Yancey, it was Jesus who is most likely to have coined the term "hypocrite" in it's modern sense, that of someone who claims to be one thing when they are another. Coming from the name of a Greek actor from around 500 BC, it's such a perfect encapsulation of a term that it's hard to find a synonym of equal weight and succinctness.
In the novel 1984, George Orwell places a high importance on the use and existence of words as a means of self-identification. If we had no word for freedom, he argues, would we really fully understand that we were not free? And even if someone were to grasp that concept, how would they communicate themselves to others? In this way, by eradicating words and restricting their meaning, the government are able to control a nation.
So I was thinking, if Jesus was indeed the first person to use the word hypocrite to mean someone with double-standards, what implications does this have? To have God himself invent a term may mean that the notion of hypocrisy was such an important one that he himself introduced the term. Should the words introduced by God have more weight, more significance, than others?
I think there may be a novel in this. Or at least a small cult following.