Mike's musings

Humour and theology

At the time of posting, Google searches on the phrases "if God had meant us to laugh" and "if Jesus had meant us to laugh" bring up no hits. I'm not sure whether this should be considered good news or bad. Neither am I sure why I'm wasting my time on such research...

Labels: laughter, theology

Review

(backposting) Some work on preaching today: special occasions (funerals, weddings, baptisms) and times of year (harvest, Easter, Mothering Sunday, etc.). Useful and interesting.

A very inspiring evening worship (starting with Joan Osbourne's "What if God was one of us?"), then supper, then the Review!

I ended up taking part - to varying degrees - in 5 items, and being satirised in 1. The latter was a sketch taking the piss out of me for my extravagant demands on the choir and the issue of the Methodist Worship Book issue. Apparently some people were worried that I might get offended, but I laughed throughout and was prevailed upon to take a bow at the end...

The five items I was involved with were:

• madrigals: we sang "Fair Phyllis" straight and slow, then introduced ourselves as a high culture item, then "The Silver Swan", then explained that madrigals were really popular culture, and sang "Fair Phyllis" again, fast with suggestive facial expressions... ("up and down he wandered, up and down, up and down). Lots of laughter.
• backing singer for Charles' critically acclaimed "I am the very model of a Curate Non-Stipendiary": genius
• 1st soprano (at soprano pitch, in full drag) in Rossini's Cat Duet, with Brenda as 2nd, and the marvellous and very patient Lizzie on piano
• straight man (the interviewer) for Gary's piece about twins (him and Andrew) separated at birth as part of a nature or nurture experiment, one sent to Suffolk, one to Luton
• a piece I'd written about recruiting a new Archbishop of Canterbury, with me on the phone as the recruitment consultant: "I've got some standard text here... 'The Church of England is an Equal Opportunities Employer...' You're _not_? Really? ... 'We welcome applications from ethnic minorities...' You've got one already...?" It's satire, folks. Went down well, despite my last minute concerns that it wasn't funny, and that I'd look like a complete prat.

In bed by 0130. Unlike the folks who stayed up till 0530. Really.

Labels: ERMC, laughter

Voice recognition

Honestly, this is really difficult stuff, but this video had me crying with laughter.

Not recommended for:

• pregnant people
• people with a bad cough
• people with any sort of abdominal injury
• people who have stitches in any part of their bodies
• people who believe that computers (particularly those running Windows) are of any use whatsover.

Labels: computers, laughter