electrifying the ordinary

It's now been at least three weeks since my passport got an outing, so it will be happily open to be stamped on Thursday when I arrive in Kolkata (Calcutta). I'm going out with a few great guys from one of the HTB pastorate's to help run two Alpha Conferences in Kolkata, as part of the My Hope India project.

The title of this post is a quotation from Eleanor Roosevelt, heard yesterday at the South West London Vineyard's 'Women's Day' in Putney. A friend and I went along, out of curiosity, a desire to meet with God and with other women and to be anonymous for a day! We did all those things and more, and I'm so grateful for the witness of the women in that cold, ugly school hall yesterday.

They weren't all beautiful, in the world's sense of beauty.

In a vague attempt at lightening the mood on a Friday afternoon, check out these t-shirt designs from Busted Tees (who I am in no way endorsing!)

It was about time the 'visited countries' map got updated. Here it is, as of October 2006. I'll be adding a few more next year. My travel still only comes out at 10% of the world though... Sigh. A long way to go.

In case you haven't realised yet, I'm kinda into art... for me there's a quasi-religious quality about standing in front of a beautifully crafted artwork... the energy from a canvas or sculpture is almost tangible and can leave me deeply moved, or angered, or peaceful.  When life gets too much,  too fast, too busy in the city of lies that we live in, I take myself off to a gallery.  Usually I go alone, thus my thoughts can run wild without someone else's opinion cutting through the air next to my head. 

What on earth made me utter such a rude and insulting comment to a complete stranger at a drinks party, glass in one hand, canape in the other? Well, that's a good question! My mate Sarah and I were invited to a rather 'odd' drinks party in a converted chandelier factory in Covent Garden on Saturday afternoon. The party was unusually, not what it seemed... we were actually taking part in a piece of 'performance art' called CLUB CLASS, the brainchild of FrenchMotteshead, two artists.

Kandinsky: The Path to Abstraction is currently on at the Tate Modern on the South Bank.  The Tate is absolutely, 100% my favourite place in London,if not in the UK... and it opens until 10pm on Fridays.  Having got bored of fighting my way through unappreciated tourists on a Sunday afternoon, I went along expecting a few committed gallery-goers and none of the usual rabble.  I was almost right, most people appeared to be more interested in the artwork than the shop, but there were hundreds of them!  I had one of those moments when I realised that my bright idea wasn't too original.