Maggi Dawn » random nonsense

Noah’s Nuggets???

maggi dawn — Sat, 03 May 2008 10:59:24 +0000

A while back I posted some marvellous "wash away your sins" soap. I never got round to getting some – I’m now kicking myself for not remembering to buy a bottle on a recent trip to the States.

Now I discover*, amazing but true , that you can buy a totally Biblical treat, and munch your way through "nutrition God’s way" with a snack bar containing the seven foods of Deuteronomy. Did Moses order them to be wrapped in plastic, Iwonder?

You can also buy God-is-Love chocolate, Bible Gum, and "Testamints" – the mints with a message. I can’t guarantee that Biblical Sweets won’t rot your teeth, just like the normal ones. But they could just make you laugh out loud, especially if you decide to feast yourself on – wait for it – Noah’s Nuggets. Yes, really. Pause for silent mirthful weeping. (Oh, I’d really better get that soap now…).

*(according to The Times)

sauce for the goose

maggi dawn — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 08:42:31 +0000

AnneDroid tells an amusing story about cooking lunch for a judge with a recipe from the prison…

The IDEAS of March

maggi dawn — Tue, 04 Mar 2008 08:56:43 +0000

Last week I posted about a local cultural event which will take place in Cambridge on 15th march – the date known as the Ides of March. There was a soothsayer in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar who went about intoning "Beware the Ides of March", and it came to pass that it was on the Ides that Brutus did the dastardly deed… The Ides and St Patrick’s Day have always been easy dates for me to remember because they are either side of my birthday.

Now I see that David amusingly misread the Ides of March into the Ideas of March…

If you live in the east of England you’ll be needing some good ideas for keeping warm at the moment. The temperature dropped below freezing again last night, requiring an extra layer of bedding and clothes, and anxious bubble-wrapping of the spring flowers that have already courageously bloomed, only to have their lovely petals frozen off. A few years back we had a good idea for the 16th March – instituting St Megingaud as a Robinson Chapel feast day (purely in order that we could go out for a mid-Lent birthday chocolate party, I admit) – that was an idea that has lasted a full 4 years now. This year St Megingaud coincides with Palm Sunday, when my Choir and I will be visiting All Saints Stamford to sing Evensong, with yours truly preaching. And chocolate – dairy free – will doubtless feature at some point in the day too.

Tell me your ideas for March, blog readers.

winter

maggi dawn — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 08:47:57 +0000

It’s that hibernation time of year again. Christmas is over, and now it’s just a couple of months of cold, wet, dark, until the signs of Spring will emerge. My body may want to get up and go to bed with the sun, but a go-slow is not an option in term time. Term moves so fast and relentlessly that if you don’t stay two steps ahead of everything you get flattened and never get back up again. At least, that’s how it feels. On with the show…

picture from Aletheia

wriggling worship

maggi dawn — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 09:56:29 +0000

This is Wednesday’s comedy moment – "Hello Pastor" from Ship of Fools. You have to listen right through the clip to the dance mix at the end to get the funny bit.

what the tourists don’t see

maggi dawn — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 16:08:16 +0000

had a long overdue day off yesterday, and did something I don’t do too often – only if there is an out-of-town friend to show around – clambered up to the roof of King’s College Chapel. A few years back I was the Chaplain there, so I know the building well.

The fantastic carved, fan vaulted ceiling is a famous sight, but clambering about in the ceiling/roof cavity you can get a picture of how the stones were fitted together in the late 15th/early 16th century.

Right up on top of the roof, though, (and I say this despite struggling somewhat with vertigo) not only do you get a great view of Cambridge and the surrounding countryside, you also get a magical sense of being removed from the stresses of everyday life.

In a county of flat fenland with no hills this is about as close as you get to being "on top of the world".

Yesterday we watched the sun set on one side of the Chapel as the moon rose on the other. Pure magic.

I think, therefore I am

maggi dawn — Fri, 12 Oct 2007 08:13:00 +0000

René Descartes is sitting in a pub, he’s had a bit too much to drink, and is beginning to feel the effects.

“Another beer?” asks the landlord. “I think not,” says Descartes, and promptly vanishes.

trees

maggi dawn — Sat, 19 May 2007 08:47:00 +0000

I love trees. They inspire me, make me feel good to be alive. I love them in winter, when they stand stark against a pale sky. I love them at twilight when they look full of secrets. In the spring when the light yellow green leaves begin, the freshness of that colour seems full of promise and hope. In the summer the sheer abundant lushness of great boughs of green and red and brown is enough to drown in. In california once I lay underneath a grapefruit tree in a friend’s garden, and took about a hundred photos all at different angles.

In the park where I take my son to play there are enough different trees to keep a photographer as well as a tree-climbing boy very happy indeed.

We went over to Burghley the other day, back when the sun was shining, where there is a sculpture garden and the new Garden of Surprises, both of which have astonishing art installations set among trees, making you see the landscape in a completely different way.

The artist who set these strange figures up on a branch must love trees too, I think.

stuff happens

maggi dawn — Thu, 04 Jan 2007 10:26:50 +0000

I was searching the web this morning for a Simone Weil quote which I had written down without its reference. As so often happens with such searches, I came across something that had nothing whatever to do with what I was looking for but happened to be on the same page. This made me laugh out loud, and I had to pause for a coffee break. Oh, and then I found the source for my quote on another site entirely. Which is also one of those things that just happens most days of the week.

Stuff happens. What do the world’s religions have to say about this vexing existential problem?

Taoism: Stuff happens. Who gives a stuff?

Hinduism: This stuff has happened before and will happen again.

Buddhism: The stuff that happens doesn’t really.

Zen: What is the sound of stuff happening?

Islam: The stuff that will happen will happen.

Judaism: Lord, why is this stuff happening to me?

Evangelicalism: Jesus, we praise you and just wanna ask why this stuff isn’t happening to someone else?

Catholicism: Stuff happens because you deserve it.

Open Theism: Stuff happens to God too.

Pentacostalism: Tuffs appensh.

Anglo-Catholicism: Verily, verily, stuff happeneth.

Atheism: Stuff happens. Then you die. No more stuff.

Rastafarianism: Let’s smoke the stuff.

Link: connexions ? Blog Archive ? Stuff Happens.

Five Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Me

maggi dawn — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 08:23:51 +0000

"You’re going to love me or hate me,…" writes Roger von Oech, as he tags me this morning with this little meme. It’s impossible to hate Roger, the brains behind the Whack Pack. So I have no choice but to break the habit of a blogtime and join in the game.

Five Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Me

1. I once lived in Norway for a while, and learned to speak the language moderately well.

2. I once learned how to drive a tractor, and to shoot a 357 Magnum, while I was staying on a cattle ranch in Texas. Have never done either thing again, before or since. From choice, I would never go near a gun again.

3. I dream of giving up the ministry and doing something completely different.

4. I have vertigo. Stand me on a tower and I feel as if I’m falling when I’m not really.

5. I carry round little notebooks in my bag,

and write down interesting quotes and bits of information I come across,

and in idle moments make sketches of the people I’m with. Not many people get to see these.

I now tag these five people to give us five random revelations…

Dave Walker, Simon Barrow, Ruth Gledhill, Dave Paisley, AKM Adam