Harry's Blog

I bet he gets in a lot of trouble for this, poor bloke.

A Church of England vicar has said that he is fed up with officiating at cremations where Tina Turner is played as the bodies of people with no hope of resurrection are “popped in the oven”.

The Rev Ed Tomlinson, 35, said he wondered why he bothered as mourners listen to ear-splitting songs and bad poetry during cremations. He feared that his presence at funerals was “pointless” and said he had a hundred better things to do with his time.

I have to say, I actually agree with him. Full story in The Times Online.

I've made it pretty clear in the past how I feel about the increasing dumbing down of the once great BBC News presentation - the silly pointless live linkups etc.

One other thing that's getting on my goat is the way the news deals with people who wish to retain their anonymity. Often these people are filmed from behind, in shadow or without the camera pointing anywhere near their head.

So far so good. But what's really odd and rather irritating is how these people are given a name. For some reason, "This man, who wishes to remain anonymous told us..." isn't good enough.

Instead the reporter usually says something like, "We spoke to Dave...not his real name...about his experience..."

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Did you know I have more than one blog? See that link in the top right to something called "grumpygamer"? That's my tech, gadget, music and videogame blog. Over the last few days I've been making some changes ready for it's rebirth.

And to celebrate I've written a review of one of this autumn's most eagerly anticipated videogames - Forza Motorsport 3 on Xbox 360.

Please do check out my review.

Dear Santa,

I've been a good boy this year. Not been too cheeky or nowt like that. So I thought I would send you a list of presents I would like. I've been good, honest.

• Epiphone Tony Iommi signature G-400 SG Guitar
• Blackstar Series One 45 amplifier
• Canon EOS 7D DSLR camera
• Audi R8
• Mute button for children

Thanks

PS If you can't get it all on your sleigh I'd settle for the guitar, or the amp, or the camera.

I received an answer phone message today from Barclays Fraud Prevention, asking me to call 0800 389 1652. I'm glad I actually called the bank before doing a Google search of the number.

If I'd done the search I wouldn't have been able to confirm the attempted (but not successful) fraudulent activity on my bank account. Why?

Well as you may know UK is chock full of complete idiots, most of which seem to be online. And doing a Google search for 0800 389 1652 will lead you to many websites owned by such idiots which claim that this is not a genuine Barclays number.

These people who claim the number is false are either deeply stupid or are actual bank fraudsters, I think the former is most likely. So let me make it quite clear - 0800 389 1652 - really is Barclays Fraud Protection.

Well if Christianity is ever going to prove to people it's not a crock of stupidity then it's not going to get much help from the organisation Living Waters, which has put together a quite astonishing version of Darwin's Origin of the Species.

An entire generation has been (and is being) brainwashed by atheistic evolution, and it's radically changing the culture of our nation.

In an effort to combat this, we produced a special 280-page full color cover edition of Origin of Species, which contains a 50-page introduction. This introduction gives the history of evolution, a timeline of Darwin’s life, Hitler’s undeniable connections to the theory, Darwin’s racism, his disdain for women, and his thoughts on the existence of God. It lists the theory’s many hoaxes, exposes the unscientific belief that nothing created everything, points to the incredible structure of DNA, and the absence of any species-to-species transitional forms.

The mind boggles really. Living Waters is your God so small he needs the protection of liars like you? But who am I to argue? I'll leave that to a much more learned soul, St Augustine -

It often happens that even a non-Christian knows a thing or two about the earth, the sky, the various elements of the world, about the movement and revolution of the stars and even their size and distance, about the nature of animals, shrubs, rocks, and the like, and maintains this knowledge with sure reason and experience. It is offensive and ruinous, something to be avoided at all cost, for a nonbeliever to hear a Christian talking about these things as though with Christian writings as his source, and yet so nonsensically and with such obvious error that the nonbeliever can hardly keep from laughing.

I'm with St Augustine on this. Creationism is just plain laughable. By the way this site is now the top Google search for "dinosaurs didn't exist", which is nice.

I'm going to try to update more this week. Certainly the tech part of the site is due some reviews - I've promised to write a review of the Vypyr 75 guitar amp and there are some other bits and pieces I want to write for that blog too.

But in personal terms how are things? We're doing well thanks. Baby Will is a little bundle of joy. Though he's started to develop a partiality for mummy, which is lovely, but doesn't help me a great deal when I'm on baby duty. The twins are doing great. Far too naughty and annoying as toddlers their age are, but smart funny and fun too.

The sun is shining and it's a beautiful day in Dorset. I own a Les Paul. Life is good.

I Left Pat on the naughty step for two long yesterday. So while he was sat there bored he decided to up the ante of naughtiness. Except it didn't go exactly as planned for him and soon he was crying his head of to us.

The stupid lad had put a little stone up his nose and it had stuck.

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Americans Observing 9/11 By Trying Not To Masturbate

Our gorgeous, beautiful, amazing, happy, smiling little baby boy is two months old now. Doesn't time fly?

Can any of you lend me a grand? See Canon has just announced the EOS 7D camera and I'm lusting after it.

What is clear is that the Canon EOS 7D is replete with features, many of which seem like a fulfillment of an enthusiast checklist. Other features are clear responses to just about every corner of the digital SLR market, features that are heretofore only seen on one or two cameras from Nikon, Pentax, Sony, Olympus, and even Canon's Rebel line. The end result is that much of what Canon users may have admired in other cameras is now available in the Canon 7D. - imaging-resource.com

Any of you want to buy a Canon EOS 50D and battery grip?

Okay I admit it, I'm an unfit blob. No it's not all laziness, I've come to realise recently the biggest block to me getting out on foot more is my feet. I have flat feet, with the right one causing me quite some pain. But now I have solved this problem.

Walking any distance would make my right foot ache quite badly along the right side. I have a tendency to lean the foot over onto that side which means it takes all the weight. The other problem is that it makes me very likely to go over on that foot and sprain my ankle.

This has been the bane of my life really - constantly hurting my ankle and my aching foot which make me less likely to do any walking. Until last week.

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A bit of a wander around Forston starting in Charlton Down. This is the first time I'd explored these public footpaths. It didn't go entirely to plan - the map was rather confusing at one point and lead me half a mile across the wrong field. I then had to trudge back again.

But I had a good walk over three and a half miles, with all the rough ground and up and down it felt much further.

All of these pictures were taken with the rather wonderfully sharp Tamron 17-50mm f2.8 lens.

Photos appear after the jump...

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This is a picture of the Mediterranean Sea. Do you see anything wrong with it? No. Then like me you're likely to be from Planet Earth.

But I think you have to prepare yourself for a shock.

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