(Excuse the strong language around the four and a half minute mark.)

A man of measures.

No pleasures or treasures are mine to feast,

Just measure my measures and see me police:

Not falling to extremes.

I follow examples and hold back horsey tears,

For I am a man of measures.

A man of measures I am,

A man of measures.

A functioning example.

If tempers kept and hampers kempt,

Or fevers starved with virgin hemp,

My manly measures here here,

A man of measure here here.

A man of measures I am,

A man of measures.

Not dwindling years or wasting years,

I fall to clasp the china cups and crystal ornaments.

I measure gulps in tunnel vision,

And guzzle procrasts.

I measure men to measure them,

A man of measures I am.

A man of measures I am,

A man of measures.

In publicizing glee,

I freeze the zones of open goals,

And ask for grumpy Harlem.

I drizzle open scabby gapes,

And beg of peanut fritters,

But never eat of it to eat,

And never beat a seat a feat.,

To treat a handbag like a meat,

Or heat that silver on a spoon the spoon is melting ‘fore the swoon.

A man of measures I am,

A man of measures.

When you decide you’d like to buy a Kindle spontaneously from Tesco, but know you probably won’t.

When you think you’ll chance it at the box office for a 1:30 matinee.

When Romans 7 is better than you remember it being.

When you’re still reeling from last night’s glorious victory against your wife in Guess Who (which is actually called “Who’s Who” in our house, great Christmas present from cousin Victoria).

When you can’t wait to eat that satsuma.

When you’re praying that to do list will get do’d.

When your last spoonful of coco pops also has a cat hair in it.

You know it’s time to start blogging again*

*or just keep the felines away from the cereal.

I typed the words “I want a…” into the search bar and one of the results interested me quite a bit: “I want a… fresh start.“ It got me thinking, why have a large number of people have typed that phrase into Google?

We know that a fresh start is something God has desired before, God destroyed the whole world with water, only saving eight people including a man called Noah.

I heard a sermon on Psalm 51 last week and have read it again since, it really is a wonderful place to turn to for assurance of forgiven sins, as well as for an example of what our own forgiving attitudes should look like.  ”Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” (Verse 10) David want a fresh start and when God forgives us, that’s exactly what he gives us.

I watched the film Funny People  the other day, which I wouldn’t necessarily recommend (you can make your own decisions) anyway, the best line in it came at a point where the lead (played by Adam Sandler) had messed everything up in various ways and his friend decided to be honest with him:

“You’ll never be happy, ’cause you’re always gonna be stuck with yourself! Unless somehow you can get away from you, you’re always gonna be miserable.”

We all have problems, no one is happy with their lives, but when it comes to finding the root cause of those problems, we always point the finger elsewhere, whereas the issue is quite the opposite. We need to get away from how we are naturallym 2 Corinthians 5:17 – “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” But what is it to be “in Christ”? Well, by nature we are all in Adam, 1 Corinthians 15:22 says that “in Adam all die” so we can’t be in Adam, so how do we becoming Christ’s? Numerous passages tell us that this happens “through faith”. So put your faith in Jesus so that you can have this fresh start, so that like David in Psalm 51 God can wash away all our  iniquity and cleanse us from sin.

I had to go all the way to old Bebo to find any sign of a link for you to listen to it…

Here. The tune is food enough for you to enjoy without understanding the words, but even better if you do.

It’s by a band called Frizbee, they are from Blaenau Ffestiniog, that is my Nain’s home town. The song is called “Ti (Si Hei Lw)” Ti means you and Si Hei Lw is a phrase I have seen in a book of Welsh lullabies, but I’m sure Arawn or another Welsh reader of this blog will explain to me the significance of the phrase.

I really haven’t had the urge to write for such a while and I wouldn’t have if jonblog (who’s new look blog is fab) hadn’t tweeted me to do so and follow WordPress’ suggestion to write about one’s ‘favourite summer sound’. I felt too constricted by the imperative to just write about a sound so I widened the margins to include summer as a concept, but now I feel I will widen it even further and just use summer as a spring board for yadayadayaing (to tip my hat to Seinfeld once more).

Summer is good though on the whole, it’s just generally a happier time. I often ponder what the weather will be like in heaven, I know that it will not be unpleasant (baby bear weather if you like). But will we have such beauties as snow and frost? Frost is beautiful when it sparkles in the sun, but is unpleasant to touch and inconvenient when one slips over upon it. More biblical study should be done by me on the criteria for heavenly features. The main thing will be the absence of sin and the presence of Jesus. That’s what I should look forward to most, but part of me just keeps wondering about the little details like snow whether we’ll be able to levitate.

At this point for no particular reason I am going to stray defiantly from the subject of heaven and summer and anything relevant to this post, because I want you to sympathise with my excuse for not blogging: busyness. I preached two sermons last month and am preaching another this Sunday (in Shrewsbury if you’re in town) we’re also working in the Christian Bookshop in Aber as well as moving from our upstairs flat to the downstairs one. We also had the arduous experience of having two holidays in a row, one to the Greek island of Santorini and the other to South Wales’ Gower peninsula. I also entered a play I wrote into a competition called ‘The Bruntwood Prize’ and I am currently praying that it would win – I believe that if it is line with God’s will, he will answer that prayer, for his glory! Do pray, if you feel the urge to! If I won, it certainly would make this difficult third year of University in which we have to decide what career path to follow an easier one, I’d have a sort of justification for dedicating more time to the writing of plays, because in some way a gift for writing plays would have been noticed on paper. But there are thousands of options for the post-graduate and there is a plan for me; I just don’t know it yet. It’s exciting really.

So, summer. Tis a funny one.

I first watched it about six months ago, after hearing it was nominated (or won?) a Southbank Show award. I’m now re-watching it. I very rarely do that.

What makes it so good? It’s the huge effort that has clearly been put into it, the human nature that has been so expertly observed in the character as well as the fact that aspects of local radio that have been pasted into the show’s set-up. It’s painfully real, yet at the same time ludicrous.

So, you can watch it if you want, but no one’s holding a gun to your head.

1. ‘Comedy’ Dave from Radio 1, not too far from broadcasting house. I hear he uses the term ‘comedy’ very lightly.

2. Big marquees and a red carpet and lots of cameras and lots of big signs for the ‘Glamour’ awards.

3. The Laughing Cavalier in the Wallace Collection.

4. Statue of Franklin D. Roosevelt in Grosvenor Square.

5. Bits of Nineveh that they stole and put in the British Museum for all to see.

6. A very tasty cinnamon swirl.

7. A sculpture by Jeff Koons, outside the Royal Academy’s new summer exhibition.

8. A shop called ‘Nain Carpets’ which is funny because ‘Nain’ is what I call my Grandmother.

9. A Japanese omelette made before my very eyes in a very trendy restaurant.

10. Installations all to do with the ocean in the windows of Selfridges.

It was a fun day. A little tiring though.

• The bit where you see the suit and cos it looks like transformers but not lame so it’s not lame.

• The bit where you see Paltrow and Junior have an argument which is clever cos they done it with them speaking over each other at the same time not taking turns to speak so it’s like real life or bigbrother so it’s reality.

• The bit where you see 3D computer things that like float in the air cos it’s like Minority Report but you can make it bigger and smaller like a iPad so it’s better.

• The bit where you see AC/DC songs in it cos they are the same as the ones we like from Virgin Radio and it’s heavy metal but not like screaming and that so it’s alright.

• The bit where you think Tony Stark is like Dick Cheney cos he makes weapons cos he talks to people in the army and is America so it’s like politics.