Saturday's thoughts

As I sat in Canterbury high street, it seemed to me that the city had lost itself.

I had walked through the clinical Whitefriars and down the high street and it just didn't seem to have that 'mystery' factor that made it different to other cities.

But I was to be proved wrong, and right, in one go.

I found a seat under a large tree near cafe rouge and read the paper. Soon people sat next to me. I can't remember most of them specifically, but they sat there.

A man then stood in front of me for quite some time. Then a little boy came up with another child, and a woman, perhaps his mother. The boy said to the man - who the family clearly knew "can I have an ice cream?"! "What's the special word?" came the inevitable reply, "please" the boy said.

And then, "you're looking smart today..." the boy looked at the man and waited.

I smiled, as did his mum and the man.

"He's learning quickly" she said and laughed.

It was nice to see some humour in the world; something that made the world such a good place to be.

And so there is something here that makes Canterbury different (and the same) from other towns: it wasn't the shops, or the fashions, or the tangible material things that made this world a lovely place to be. It is the people. Small moments, little actions. Real people, real life.

Its worth writing about.

inQuire front page

Even better than the link...

Here is a picture of a recent front page.

The one I stayed up until half past 3 in the morning to do!

inQuire link

Here is the link for inQuire's website: www.inquirelive.co.uk

I'll try and get some pictures of inQuire too.

As promised 2

The last inQuire seems rather some time ago now.

I looked at it again the other day thought and I was really pleased with the front page especially. I worked really hard to get that story. It was on Canterbury City Council's use of the RIPA.

That, for everyone who doesn't know what RIPA (I was in that situation before I wrote the story!), is the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. And it allows local councils to use covert surveillance to monitor people who they think could be committing crimes. It means councils have used CCTV to watch people fly tipping or other 'minor crimes'.

CCC have used this 23 times in five years.

And also in the final issue of inQuire, I wrote a piece for the features section of inQuire about whether Easter has lost its true meaning!

I was really pleased with this piece, as it gave me a chance to write about Jesus' last days in Jerusalem, and his death and resurrection.

It was hard to write, and certainly made a change from the news writing I usually do, but great to have something in the features section for my portfolio.

As promised 1

So, North Korea.

I reckon we (the West) might be wrong.

In the past, with Iraq, the USA and Britain were convinced that they had WMD. But, after many years inside Iraq, none have been found. So what is stopping the West being wrong again?

Apparently North Korea was launching a weapon which could in the future be used for nuclear weapons. North Korea dispute this. So who should we believe?

Blogs to come

North Korea, its launch, and the Western media,

the final inQuire,

friends,

and leaving University.

Blogs to be written and posted soon...

24 hours

I thought about something I would share with the world recently...

Life sometimes seems SO busy that I worry about the future, and the past.

Especially at the moment, with my degree nearly at an end; I am looking for a job and want to finish my degree well with the essays I hand in.

So it was with these thoughts in mind, that a new, more postive thought came to me: the brilliance of the 24 hour day.

I say Praise God that He invented the day as 24 hours.

We cannot affect the time outside of these 24 hours, it is only these hours we have each day, and that is all we need worry about.