Mark Tiddy’s Blog & Website - Thoughts of a Christian Youth Worker & Musician

Those readers who follow the blog closely will notice that I’m posting two posts on top of each other, they could go as one but it’s better if they’re separate I think!

Anyway, here is post one…if you read this before post two appears you have way to much free time!

Tonight using my trusty Orange Wednesday me and Jo went to Norwich to the cinema, I haven’t been to the cinema in a long time and although we went aiming to see Narnia we ended up seeing Hancock because the queue meant we missed Narnia.

I’m a bit of a Will Smith fan and think he is a brilliant actor, Hitch is one of my favourite ever films and although I’d heard a few bad things about Hancock from someones facebook status I really wanted to see it because the trailers I’d seen made it look awesome…and I wasn’t dissappointed.

The film flew by, a brilliant story-line, a very surprising twist that I didn’t see coming and an awesome ending. With the amount of Superhero films around at the moment Hancock could have just been another superhero film but it wasn’t, it’s very different from any film I’ve ever seen….well worth watching!

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I stumbled across this on youtube this morning…enjoy

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Mark and Angela at church tonight told me that Stand For Christ (my other website) was featured in May’s Youth Work magazine, so I grabbed it from my office, had a rummage and sure enough…it is!

There are some very positive comments on my site published in a couple of paragraphs which is very nice…I do however feel slightly guilty that so much of the site doesn’t function at the moment…however I’m working on a complete re-build.

To read my youth work article click the image.

For the whole article click here

If you’re interested in stand for christ head to www.standforchrist.co.uk although I advise that you wait until I finish the new design first…updates posted here!

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I appear to have writers block at the moment I just haven’t thought of anything particually interesting to blog…however truth be told I’ve been pretty busy (and will continue to be)…

Macland - Those regular readers will have read that in the last week I have upgraded to a MacBook, my MacBook is of the rather sexy white, 2.4ghz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2gb Ram, 2mb cache variety and I’ve spent the last week installing lots of fun applications, sorting out a new backup system for my documents and making a way for them to sync beautifully.

I got a rather nice surprise when I discovered that the USB port on the end of the PS2 connectors for my PC’s wireless keyboard and mouse actually made both the keyboard and mouse a USB  wireless device which works perfectly with my macbook…I’ve also discovered how to output my MacBook onto my monitor alongside mounting an external NTFS formatted drive…all in all a very geeky week.

Band-land - Another part of my week included a band practice with Joel, John and Decca. The four of us have formed what appears to be a band…which is awesome because it’s something I’ve always wanted to do…the scary part is that I’ve entered into vocals and piano (and sometimes guitar in a Matt Belamy-esque kind of way), there’s even some demo’s lurking out there in the web!

Youth Work Question

Perhaps the most exciting development for me this week in bloggerland is a comment from Theresa on my ‘About Me’ page, firstly because it shows I have outside-my-known-readers readers which is always a novelty. Secondly because answering the question made me think. Theresa enquired how she could get into youth work having done children’s work for sometime, alongside how to train in the given area…I replied in the form of a comment on my About Me page, however here is my reply for anyone else interested in youthwork.

Hello Theresa,

Good to hear you’ve been reading my site and I hope it’s been useful, I guess the first thing to do with getting involved in youth work would be to do some volunteering, most training courses like you to have had some experience, it’s also a great benefit to you to have had some before you enter training.

If you’re part of a church offer to help out with one of their clubs, they’re always grateful for new volunteers, if you’re not I’d recommend talking to your local council about opportunities they have for volunteering, most are understaffed and so appreciate volunteers. There will perhaps be a bit of a wait as CRB checks will have to be done, you may also have to fill in a volunteer contract (agreeing to child protection acts etc).

As far as courses go some youth services (state) offer introduction to youth work courses either for free or for a small cost, these are great for understanding the basics. If you wish to take training further there’s a variety of choice, I am currently on the Oasis Youth Work and Ministry course which covers both secular and christian youth work and gives you a BA Hons degree plus a JNC Level 2, places like CYM (Centre for youth ministry) also offer similar courses.

If however you’re not so interested in church youth work or a Christian course I know people who have done youth work degrees both with Anglia Ruskin university (Cambridge) and also Chester university, both of which I’d recommend.

Mark 

Anyway that’s all I’m blogging for now…I’m currently listening to ‘The Hoosiers’ album ‘The Trick To Life’ which I absolutely love…which is odd because I’m not really an indie fan.

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Saturday night just gone I was on P.A. at ‘The Point‘ and I got a bit artistic with the desk…enjoy, admire and feel happy

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In order to live up to reputations of the occasional geeky blog here we go…In the last week I have…

1 - Read that Netscape will stop offering support, which means the death of the Netscape browser - link to article

2 - Installed Firefox 3 BETA on my laptop

3 - Installed Internet Explorer 8 on my laptop…

now to expand…

Netscape - It’s sad to say goodbye to what was once a web browser more popular than internet explorer…however in fairness I never really used it, and last time I installed it (about 2 years ago) it was slow and sluggish so I got rid of it.

Firefox 3 Beta - Firefox 2 is being used by more and more people, I’ve been using firefox for about 3 years now and would never turn back…firefox 3 is the beta version (meaning it’s testing not public release) and has a few new features, including an address bar which is more advanced (Click screenshot to left to view what I mean).  When it’s released and the plugins are bought up to date I think it’s going to be so much better than the current firefox.

If you don’t have firefox click here to download it.

(it’s better than internet explorer!)

(by far!)

Internet Explorer 8 BETA - When IE7 came along they’d basically took on board everything Firefox and Safari had been doing for years…and copied it…producing a far less speedy and reliable one…internet explorer 8 was released a couple of days ago on beta release and in fairness is not really that different…there’s a couple of little features which might make things like checking your facebook status more easily etc…however it’s never going to beat firefox…so avoid it!

Anyway…geeky blog over…I shall return to geekiness soon no doubt! :p

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This isn’t going to be an insightful blog…

firstly I have a cold but instead of sleeping this afternoon I have rediscovered my love for php! I’m re-programming huge chunks of standforchrist so hopefully it’ll have more features…look sexier and be more useful in the next couple of weeks.

(for those who don’t know standforchrist is my website. www.standforchrist.co.uk)

Secondly last night myself, matt and john got together for a jam and what is now a band! We’re kinda piano-punk in a Relient K kinda way…I’ve ended up on piano (something I guess I never expected to play in a band) and vocals (just as unexpected) but we learnt 3 of my songs and sounded pretty good for a first practice.

So if you want a band of christians in about 3 or 4 months time let me know! We’re cheap and easy

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This article on the BBC News Website suggests that finally people have woken up to the fact that when people buy a CD they like being able to rip it to their computer and put it on their mp3 player…a process which is currently (and stupidly so) illigal, however it may all change….about time too!

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News article Link - This article on the BBC shares how Paris Hilton was released after just 3 days due to a medical condition (probably make-up withdrawal symptons), she has however been tagged for 40! Though I don’t think they need to, the press seem to follow her quite well!

Unfortunately this means my hopes of them losing the key and forgetting about her didn’t come true, actually she should have been put into a proper jail and been left at the peril of butch lesbian prisoners!

Oh well, life goes on…also I read today that one of the Big Brother contestants has been thrown out for using inappropriate language…oh how the world is now sure to come to it’s end…[/sarcasm]

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So last night people’s lives were changed…or rather lost as millions tuned back into the reality world, waste of life that is ‘Big Brother’, Big Brother is one of those programmes which bugs me because of the very principal of it, channel 4 seem content on playing God and much like the sims we seem to like watching (by we I mean everyone but me).

To me the concept of Big Brother is much like having consenting sex with someone who’s drunk and then taking advantage whilst they sleep (which I haven’t done). By this I mean, it’s something that is morally wrong yet as a society we accept it (other than the sleeping bit!) because it’s almost been promoted as ‘ok’. Channel 4’s relationship with the contestants/ no-hopers is similar.

Channel 4 get permission from these people to let them into the Big Brother house then once people are there they take it one step too far. The choice of housemates is obviously meant to lead to trouble creating a surreal world where people who are so completely different are all thrust into one place, stuck together. (perhaps much like church!!!).

The more I hear about Big Brother the more I think it’s channel 4 exploiting people, the contestants, although consenting are really only consenting because of 2 things:
1- The chance to win money at the end
2- The possibility of fame

In our culture fame and money seem to be given priority by people which of course is why people agree to taking part (or at least I suspect a lot of the reason).

I guess this blog is slightly more constructive than my Big Brother blog a while ago, however my view point remains, Big Brother is the biggest waste of time you could possibly find, it exploits people and causes people to waste their lives away either watching or being part of it.

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Wow, just got back from the Reel Big Fish gig and showered! I was soaked from everyone’s sweat! (nice), RBF were awesome tonight (even though there was no Matt Wong), I managed to mosh myself into the second row, what a gig!

Here’s some fairly poor photos!

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Tonight Reel Big Fish are playing at the Cresset and I’m going, am getting quite excited and am listening to loads of Reel Big Fish and getting quite in the mood! Bring on the ska!!!!

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Anyone who is vaguely in touch with the musical world will know that in the last couple of months Avril Lavigne released her new album ‘The Best Damn Thing’ and having sat around this morning listening to it I thought I’d comment on it for you to all read.

Since her last album Avril has married Derrick Whibley (lead singer of Sum 41) so his influence is on the album, in fact he produced a couple of the tracks. The album also includes Travis Barker doing some drumming on a couple of tracks and as a whole the album feels very Sum 41ish in parts, however it has poppier moments such as ‘Girlfriend’ which was the single.

As an album it’s not bad, songs don’t require thought nor amazing lyrics but it’s probably Avril’s best album yet (though part of me misses the poppiness of her first album), however the thing that bugs me is that for a girl who’s got married in the last year the songs don’t seem personal, a lot of the songs seem to be about relationships, for example the single Girlfriend ‘Hey hey, you you, I don’t like your girlfriend, I could be your girlfriend’ etc. I’m not convinced that it’s a personal song!

One good thing is that the normal version of the album isn’t Parental Advisery which means it’s accessible and open to all, however they have merely blanked out the words rather than replaced which is a shame because it means you get silly gaps, perhaps it’s just a marketing ploy to make people buy the more expensive ‘Deluxe’ version which is PG and includes a DVD. It’s just as well Blink 182 didn’t blank out naughty words on ‘Take Off Your Pants & Jacket’, there would be no words left!

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Yesterday I discovered that in July Bad Religion will release their first album for almost three, years they have a new song called ‘Honest Goodbye’ on their myspace, it’s got the same feel as The Empire Strikes first which means it’s promising, I still find it vaguely amusing that after almost 20 years of ‘God Slagging’ Bad Religion haven’t come up with any arguements no one else has already used! oh well…

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Everyone have a listen to the music on the myspace link below, it’s by a guy called John Galea, it’s really good kinda popish stuff, reminds me a little bit of meatloaf actually, well worth a listen

www.myspace.com/johngalea

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