Especially for Mr Random

This post is dedicated to Mr R and any other Star Wars / Lego / Video games fans passing by (so Ming and Rueben then). Star Wars Lego 2 is finally starting to get reviewd on the American game sites (click here to read the IGN review). Although I never got the original game, I gladly tip my hat to UK based game developers Travellers Tales for flogging an obscene amount of games of everyone but me and creating a great entry level expirence for young fans.

Here's some of my favourite screen shots from the deluge of pics floating around at the moment, dedicated to anyone who put the hours in to unlocking Jango Fett (take a bow, you know who you are!)





























Go on Chewie, rip their little plastic arms out!










Heh heh heh. It's Yoda in a gold bikini.









This is still funny. Right?

A special message....

The scarry big haired family have a special message for everyone on the Broadway Youth page:

"Hey everybody over in Ing-er-land and all you beautiful folks in sunny Chesh-Ham, Bucking-Ham-Shire. Say Hi to the all the nice people across the pond Junior!"

"Sure thing sir. Hi everybody. Do you have back combing where you live?"

"Of course they do son, they ain't savages.
Any-hoo, the family and me, we want to extend a good ol' fashioned welcome to everybody from
YOUTH ALPHA at Broadway Baptist Church over in sunny Chesh-Ham, Bucking-Ham-Shire. We got our selves some real good news for you guys. Ain't that right honey?"

"Sure is Hon'"

"Well don't by shy baby cakes, tell em' what it is!"

"Sorry Hon', the hairspray kinda made me a little light headed for a secon' ther'ah.
Y'all are in for a treat. Tonight Youth Alpha is back, 7.30PM TO 9.30PM down at lill' old BROADWAY BAPTIST CHURCH over in sunny Chesh-Ham, Bucking-Ham-Shire. And what betta way-ah to get started then with a big ol' tradional British CHOCOLATE FONDUE."

"Thas right. Bring along something to dip in the chocolate (not ya finger boy!). and DON'T BE LATE.
Ya'll have a good ol' time now. Say bye to the nice people Junior!"

"Yes sir. Bye everybody. Or as you British say,
'Cheerio old chap, TTFN.'."

"Junior! What have I told you about the indescriminate use of national stero types?"

"But Pa..."

"Go to your room!"

YOUTH ALPHA - BACK TONIGHT
CHOCOLATE FONDUE NIGHT
7.30 TO 9.30PM @ BROADWAY BAPTIST CHURCH

Mahbenjah's special note to any America readers:
"I'm so sorry!"

Is this the worst video game in history?

Well folks the quest for histories most appalling video game begins here.
Click here to toddle over to the Tunnock's website and witness the horror that is "Snack Hunt".

Use your arrow keys to guide the severed head of a 50's style young boy around a yellow maze gobbling up his weekly quota of Caramels as he goes (see two posts below for more of this important issue). So it's Pac-man. Or Ms Pac-man, I am no sexist! But without the ghosts (i.e. the challlenging and fun elements).
Instead of dodging specters, you guide the slightly disturbing image of the poor decapitated boys bonce around the maze within a time limit. I've read that severed heads are conscious for up to a minute and it seems brave of Tunnock's to commission a video game based on this theory in order to sell their 4 million bars this week. But I guess you have to keep up to date with market trends in this day and age. Sadly the game moves so slowly that I am convinced it is impossible to complete the mazes within the given time limit.

Check it out, have a go, but be careful. If it starts to feel like fun you maybe suffering from an undiagnosed mental health problem. If so please see your GP immediately!

Do you know a worse video game? Don't keep it to yourself, tell the rest of us where to find it!

Things to do to relax after your fist day back at school

Had a rough day in your educational establishment of choice?
Stuff those herbal remedies in the swing bin and try one of these ancient relaxation methods suggested by our expert*.

1. Eat your entire weekly quota of Tunnock’s Caramels in one sitting
2. Do a painting of a dog using only things you find in the kitchen cupboards like Marmite and Tip Top.
3. Get the bus to Amersham, take photos of all the public convinces there and build up the website you started yesterday
4. Challenge yourself to a game of mercy
5. Find out who was number 1 in the charts when you were born, Google for their contact details and write to them to let them know how your life has turned out so far. Give their song a rating out of 5 based on how accurately it reflects your life or personality
6. Rub some Deep Heat on an apple and watch to see if anything happens
7. Stand on your head for a bit
8. Try to beat yesterday’s bread eating PB. Come on, you can do it! Go! Go! Go!
9. Read two different translations of the same Psalm.
Click here
and here!
10. Find an old magazine or book and pencil in all the o’s

*Field of expertise is;
“which comics are worth borrowing from Chesham Library”.
Hey, it’s an import and recognised academic discipline!

Are you doing your bit for Tunnock’s?

You know how it is, you’re supposed to be working but then something that seems far more important forces you to down tools and consider it for some time. Like this for example:

When was the last time you ate a Tunnock’s Caramel?











You know, the caramel wafer bar with the thinnest covering of chocolate scientifically possible and the 1940’s style packaging. When was the last time you ate one of those? How many would you say you eat in a year?

You know how the foil wrapping proudly claims “4’000’000 made and sold each week”. Rueben has figured out that for that to be true every man woman and child in the UK has to eat 4 bars a year. And you know what, I checked, he’s right.


















I haven’t had one in about 5 years. I used to eat them when I was at school so maybe that’s how it works; school pupils eat 6 a year and adults only have to have 2. But that still means I’m 10 down. And that’s without counting my years as an infant. Crumbs, I’ve got some catching up to do. This explains that feeling I sometimes get when I think I’ve forgotten to do something important but can’t remember what.

Learn from my mistake; don’t let yourself become a Caramel victim.
Keep your quota up.

Things to do on your last day of FREEDOM!

School's are back very very soon. Here’s some suggestions for how to spend the remaining hours of the holidays.

1. Write a poem about cheese
2. Watch TV all day and write a log of everything you watch including adverts
3. Draw a picture of your own face, tear it up and rearrange it as you please
4. Phone everyone you know and ask for money. When they ask why you need it say “Ooooh, what a personal question!” and see what they say
5. Go to the park and start a conversation with a goose
6. Borrow a video camera, hide in a wardrobe with it and jump out screaming when one of your family members passes by. Be sure to video their ‘emotional response’
7. Watch Countdown then write a strongly worded letter of complaint to Channel 4 giving a minute by minute breakdown of how it offended you
8. Kiss your Mum goodbye
9. See what household objects you can balance on your head. Avoid sharp things like knives and massive weights like washing machines
10. Dress up like a popular character from history
11. Take photos of all the public conveniences in Chesham, rate each one out of 5 and post your finding on that information-super-highway thing everyone’s talking about
12. Using an eyebrow pencil or novelty item, spend the day with a moustache. This is especially fun for girls!
13. Start a blog about your adventures in time travel
14. See how much bread you can eat today, make that your Personal Best. Build on it everyday and see if you can’t double your PB by the end of the month. Then do on a diet
15. Give every item in your kitchen cutlery draw it’s own name, then make little name tags for all your new found friends

Anyone got any other ideas?

go karting......hurts

i just back from go karting for my grandads 70th, it was a whole load of fun, but wen so many people keep bumping into your back because your braking to avoid someone else, and the seats are made of plastic, it bruises your back, and mine is killing me right now, owwwwwww the pain

Free* Cafe' and F.B.I. ready to go

Here they are, the dates for the relaunch of Free* Cafe' and F.B.I.
Drum roll please.


Free* is back on Wednesday 13th September, 3.25ish pm to 5pm. Welcoming year 6 and up.

F.B.I. is back the next week, Wednesday 20th September, times are the same.
You will need a new invitation for F.B.I. but we'll give these out at Free*

See you there

Go to Chesham High? Got a myspace page?

Then click here to visit the myspace group for Thank God It's Friday,
the new name for the school's Christian Union.


Then why not sign up as a member?
It's a pretty snazzy looking page so have a shuffty.

Beat the crowds to the latest soundz

Those people look very excited don't they.

Could it be because they are about to rush over to their computers and click on the link below?

To visit Mahbenjah's own page on Garageband.com and stream or down load some shoddy MP3s at an extremely low bit rate?

Feverish with anticipation at savouring two pieces of Benja-magic on their MP3 players?

Or maybe they've just never seen a camera before,
they are PRETTY exciting first time you see one dontcha think?

Click here and reach for the cotton buds!

Edit (especially for Mr R) - hit the link to go to the page, on the right you should see a music player with song titles and those triangle 'play' buttons.
Or hit the 'songs' tab at the top of the artist section.
Disclaimer: yep I know it's a pretty rough user expirience. Sorry folks!

Cheekiness: Quality or Curse?

This week I have adopted a new policy:
"Be a bit cheeky to shop venders"
Not rude you understand, just a bit cheeky. So far it's been a modest success.
Here is the harvest of stuff I have thus far reaped through cheekiness :

A red frisbee
A Nintendo DS accessory kit
An extra stamp on the Ming's loyalty card in Cafe' Nero



So there you have it; cheek.
Try it yourself and post news of your winnings!

wohho, and no, but yay at the same time

well, unfortunatly the school term is looming closer and closer evey tiny milisecond and every mili mili mili second, qhich also means free*cafe will be starting soon, and fbi, yaaaaay, id just like to know when they start, and im sure everyone else would too

oh i got my action replay, but i bet you dont even know what it is

GUESS WHO'S BACK?

Mahbenjamin that's who!
I've been sleeping in a tent and doing my buisness in a ... um, you don't want to hear about that.
OK, it was a bucket. A bucket with a toilet lid bolted to the top and full of a nasty blue chemical.
Urk, the memories are fresh, upsetting and a bit surreal :-)
(I ought to point out that this was no by choice, I had no humane alternative kids!)

For the last week I've been the guest of the first Chesham Boys Bridage company on their annual camp, somewhere in Hampshire. My job was to write a little bible study book about Jesus for two small groups to go through every morning and help out the small group leaders (Carl and Brian), flog sweeties to the boys twice a day in that great british institution "the tuck shop", play my guitar, lead worship songs, games and bible teaching in the nightly "devotions" meeting and generally try to get along with and encourage people. This was my second time on a Boys Bridage company camp and it was what our chums across the pond would call "a blast". It's nice to be home though, I missed Park_2002 quite a bit.

Over on Broadway Youth TV in my abscene Jango's Fretts has had 1300 viewings. Turn up for the books that, aye. It's not even that good!

Hey, tomorrow there's a Wizard of Oz theme wedding at Broadway Baptist church, IMAGINE THAT!

New Video Alert!

Click here to toddle over to Broadway Youth TV and watch a brand new video. We haven't used it at Youth Alpha or Free* Cafe or noffink, so it'll be brand new to most people.

Have a goggle, then leave a comment here to tell us what you think it means.

so, ummmm yeah

seems a loooong time since any posted anything...... so yeah, heres something, going camping tommoro, should be a laugh, twas raining a while ago it twas, stuff that was outside got wet, yes it did, and ummmm, yeah, goobye, yeah, oh and ummm, have a button

Dont click here.

more stuff, did you know this was the 78th post?? well it is, and i have added my first youtube video, even though its not really mine, apeals to gamers and fps(first person shooter) fans, more stuff to come soon, perhaps, bye for now

human chipping

i just found a small article on the interweb about which can be found by using the following link, and be reading bens raw threads i will hopfully make it a hyperlink thingy

ta da, hopefully a hyper link.

(linked edited 08/08/06 by mahbenjah)

"Put that whizzy space sword away ya pilock!"

Over on Broadway Youth TV we've just added an oldie but a solid gold-ie, all the way back from November 2003.
'Prison Break - Paul & Silas do time' is one of the best little stories in history and we made this video when we were studying it with Sunday Morning Kids Church, back when the likes of Iain and Jonny were in Sunday School... ahhhhh. This is the only Broadway Youth video so far to spawn it's own catch phrase (see above) so enjoy!

Click here to watch it!

A special message for Matthew Ingle....

heh heh

Sarah is a GENIUS!

Hey, did you know Sarah (from St Mary's Church) has a degree in Computer Animation? HOW COOL IS THAT!
Check out these great stills from two of her films and character sketches:








Click here to visit her web site
and see animals plays jazz
( I told you cat's were developing apposable thumbs in a bid to take over the world. I TOLD YOU!),
see gold fish find love
and watch a boy fall over.


What's not to love?

Hellllllooo Belgium

Nish is that little red dot you?

Best internet video you'll see today

No really. Ming-oh, Mr Random, Rueben and Stephen should espeically like it.

Click here and enjoy!

Zurich Baby!

We just got back from two nights in Zurich with Parky's Mum and Dad. See that little red dot on the map on the left? No not that one, the one in the middle of Europe. That was me in Zurich airport at about 6 oclock this afternoon. I had 3 mins to check the site and leave a comment (for the princely sum of 50p) and, er, I stuffed it up. But I DID get to sit on a stool made out of one of those keep fit gym balls and now I really want one. A gym ball chair that is, not my own airport. Although that'd be okay I spose'.


Top stuff from Zurich:


1. How many fountains? (one on every street corner it would seem)
2. How many sculptures? (one on every street corner it would seem)
3. I saw an expensive designer storage box with a 'fake' bad drawings on it. You know the type, looks like it was done by a child but really drawn by a graphic designer. It had a picture of two children holding lizards by the tale and inserting them head first into their mouths. I tried to take a photo and got a proper telling off by a shop assistant. Oops. The other assistants ignored me and chased a little bird that was flying aound the shop.
4. Trams. These are great as it turns out.
5. A really, really big lake.
6.The italian chef who seemed to think that we were looking up words like "tagliatelli" in an English/German phrase book and ended up showing me different types of pasta to check I understood whilst I said things like "yes, spaghetti, good".
7. Nintendo DS games cost £50 in Switzerland! (£25 on Amazon.co.uk)
8. Travel cards get you on trains, trams, buses and ....boats? Cool.
9. Some of the graphtti was pretty cute e.g. cute little faces spray painted on bins
10. We ate in a vegetarian resturaunt and didn't realise until we finished and the waitress told us the awful truth. It made me re evaluate my fellow dinners. Nice meal though.

Oh, and it rained a lot. But I thought that was cool. How's Chesham been?

Ben

And over on Broadway Youth TV....

This weeks broadcast is the funny, but shoddy "Who is Jesus?", the second ever Free* Cafe' video. Boy, but that seems like a long time ago. Boy, but we've got a lot better at making them since then! Click here to watch it, but don't forget to grit your teeth during the painfully sincere bit near the end. You have been warned.

All due credit goes to Ian and Sam (Broadway & St Mary's) for coming up with the funny bits and displaying a considerable range fo silly voices.
Here's some stills for your pleasure. I 'potpouri' a fantastic prize for anyone caught using them as screen savers or wall paper!






Look, it's everybodies favourite intrepid reporter: KC Cranium. I wonder what tom foolery is he up to today?






That's it K.C., make a fist! Punch the air! Show everybody you mean business!







ahem..."when I asked for a BIG HAND that's not what I had in mind." I-thank-you!






Mahbenjah obscured by TV interference. Good!







Excellent question. What do you think?



PS you can download this video in all it's glory from www.freeinchesham.co.uk and keep it and watch it every day.

Attention all Cokneys!

You know how it is, you're wearing your best whistle and flute (suit) when along along comes a lady whose whistle and flute (cute) and takes an intrest in you, whistle and flute (too boot). When round the corner comes some whistle and flute (great hairy brute), whose a whistle and flute (new recruit) in his whistle and flute (salior suit) and gives her a whistle and flute (salute). Next thing you know you're whistle and flute (all by yourself in the market watching the pretty girl and the sailor walk off arm in arm and whistling a mournful ballad to yourself)!

It's happened to us all!

Well Cockneys, you're in luck:
just click here for a great site that helps you find words that rhym and you'll never have to use the same piece of rhyming slang twice in one sentence ever again. That's potpourri (a guarantee)!
And it comes recommended by Nish Nash, so that's a mark of quality if ever I Wing Chun (saw one).

Here's a poem I wrote in about 10 seconds using the site. Write your own and post it on here now!

Did you ken
when young Ben
was camping in the glen
he took up his pen
and wrote "i doth reject zen"
"for it is only when"
"I pray to the Messiah"
"I cease to be such a pariah"
"for which I'm truly grateful"
"Yay. Amen".

Benjamin

PS nothing rhymes with 'orange', seems a shame that.

Well I never....

Have you seen the little map down there on the right hand side?
It keeps track of how many people have visited this page and where they are in the world.
And get this.... we've had our first visitor from outside the UK, all the way from America no less.
Hello American people every where. How are you? Alright? Good. Have a nice day and all that.
Anybody from Chesham going abroad on your hols please look us up in an internet cafe or something and make us feel like some kind of haven for international bright young things (post a comment if you get this 90's indie reference, oh go on).

Moaning

Ben has been moaning that I haven't posted for a while. I have been far too busy!! I have spent a week in school sorting out my classroom and then doing an essay and now I'm doing cool stuff I never normally get to do, like baking and hanging out with my Grandma.,

It's official... summer holidays are justTHE BEST!!! Yay!

Infected Brain

Yo homies! I'm on a study week at the moment so I'm keeping my pretty little head down. It's going alright so far, I've got quite a lot done.
Enough about me, what's going on with you? No! Really? Like a pendulum do, huh? Sounds nasty.

In the last week my brain has been totally infected with what my brother yesterday called "that song with the whistling in it by three blokes with Scandinavian names" (or Young Folks by Peter Bjorn and John to you, this is their website).

So... what are the sounds cluttering up your mind at the moment? Any tunes that refuse to leave you alone? Add a comment or do a whole post. Go on.

Super smash bros. brawl

as you all know, one of the most popular games at free* cafe is super smash bros. melee, and if i remember correctly, ben has the nintendo wii (i heard they are gonna change the name....again) on reserve or something, but anyway, here is the link to the new trailer for super smash brothers, brawl, which is the new 1, and yes ben, wario is here.

The Empire Strikes Back!

Please note: Mr Random's views on England's ownership of the rest of the UK and his plans to resurrect the Empire (via a really big bridge) do not reflect those of Broadway Youth, Free* Cafe', Intentse, Youth Alpha or Broadway Baptist Church, crumbs they probably don't even reflect him on any given Thursday. So please don't get too excited dear reader.
If you would like to join Mr R in informing all Scottish and Welsh people every where that they are infact English people with funny accents, please see your G.P. immediately.

Nice to have you back D-boy!

Ben

Good ol scotland

scotland now belongs to england, cos i sed so and because i went there, it NEVER gets dark (well on the beach anyway) (i meen truly dark, like cant see a thing dark) i went there with a few of bens possesions, which i will be returning wen we have time to make aragments and stuff, oh and walers belongs to england now, because its attached to it ad were bigger than they are so we get it, and thats also the reason we get scotland, and if we build a realllllly big bridge, we might get ireland too, how does sound, no more confusion as to whart country your in!!! above is the current map, below is the new one... well i couldnt get my photoshop to work so there isnt a new map.....just imagine one

The Island - a prison that feels like home

No not ITV Celebrity Love Island! We refer to the Ewan McGregor film. Over on Broadway Youth TV you can now watch a classic Free* Cafe' video from earlier this year featuring clips from the movie and a dose of Bible.
Click here to watch it right now.

Bye bye Intents

Or is it Intense? Or Intentse? Depends who you talk to. However you spell it, it’s all over now. Here’s what we did today:

We started with a the classic ‘get everybody holding hands and twisted and see if they can untangle themselves. We tried it groups of four and did alright. We tried it with groups of eight and…. had mixed results. SO….. we tried it with 36 people. It almost worked. Almost.

Mingle gave the talk on everybody’s Sunday School favourite, Daniel and the lions den. Or Daniel chapter 6 if you prefer. Click here to read it. Incidentally, as I write this a blonde boy on my television is assuring me that Fosties are “gonna taste great.” But I’m unconvinced. I digress….

We had a good group time today. I was in quite a big group but it went pretty well. Some people said some really interesting things.

Carl was up on stage for the third day in a row after the group time. This time The Ming was interviewing him about how he became a Christian last summer. Then the Big M talked a bit about his own experience of getting closer to God. They both did really well and this was my favourite part of the day. After all that we played some water games, got incredibly wet and had a half hearted go at a round of Absorb-a-tron (see yesterdays post for details of this trail blazing game!). Sarah and Carl got me proper proper wet. Thanks guys!!! After around of http://www.whatisultimate.com/ Ultimate Frisbee we got stuck into the BBQ. Whilst Phil, Imi and I discussed leg room on economy flights (how rock and roll can you get) and why you should never put a hot dog in your friends hand bag, lots of people had fun singing very loudly to children’s worship songs they learnt at Back Packers whilst wearing wigs of many colours. Ben (from Emmanuel church) looked strangely like Dennis the Menace in his.

And thus Intents (Intense) (Intentse) is finished and I have a week to use for study.

Ben

Your love is teaching me hooooooooooooooow to kneel

Day three of Intents, you know, that holiday club for young people in the town of Chesham. No? Well it’s a holiday club for young people in the town of Chesham. Yep, really.

Minutes before I was about to leave for Intents the rain suddenlly hammered down. I waited for a bit and then prayed for the storm to stop just long enough for me to walk to Intents in the dry. Literally a second after I prayed, Malcolm (Broadway Administrator and Chesham all star) pulled up in his car and drove me down there. How’s about that for service!



Whilst I was praying with fellow Intents leader Sarah, Bernie and John, the sun came out and the soggy people who’d been helping at Back Packers all day cheered right up.

We started off the afternoon’s session with a game that deserves to go down in the history of great 'made up on the spot' ice breakers: Absorb-a-tron!

How’s it played?

Get 30 or so wet teenagers,


Split them into two teams,

Put a jug on the floor for each team,

Explain the one rule very carefully – DON’T MOVE THE JUG!

Give both teams 5 mins to ring out their clothes and hair into the jugs and find other methods of filling them with water

Regularly kick over each teams jug so the game doesn’t end to quickly ☺

Try it at home kids!

Sarah from Free* Café got me very wet (cheers for that!) and Catriona (sorry if I’ve spelt that wrong) came up with a pretty impressive method of carrying water with her hat.

Today’s talk and group discussion was on Daniel 4. This is an amazing chapter of the Bible and easily one of my all time favourites. It’s a person letter to everybody in the world from the most powerful man of the time. In it he explains how it took 7 years of mental illness and loosing everything he had before he’d accept God’s authority over him. You can read it here.

To spice up the talk we all acted out Nebuchadnezzar’s dream (at one point we got to be chain saw wielding angels) and Carl acted out a mental break down to a sound track of fuzzy guitars and some funny noises made by me. I got a bit embaressed and stood behind a screen to make my noises, so I missed what Carl did. It seemed to work though. Nobody was laughing by the end of it. Then we went through all the moments in Jesus life were he submitted to God and gave him a cheer. And boy oh boy there are some good ones,just looks at this one, oh and this one,this one is good too, and this one is amazed me when I first read it ten years ago. The point was pretty simple: human beings are selfish and proud. We were never designed to be our own bosses and real, fulfilling life starts when we submit to God.

We listed to Vertigo by U2 whilst we reflected on Daniel 4. The last line of the song is:
“I can feel your love is teaching me how,
your love is teaching me how,
how to kneel”.
Which sums up my own relationship with God pretty neatly.

You can play a Vertigo video game here.

Stroof this was a long post.

Ben

Oh boy did it rain on Wednesday night!

Yesterday started with a right old drama. I got to work and found out that the storm had knocked out our power. Apparently the power was down at the Back Packers site too. I went to Café Nero to prepare for Intents because it was so dang hot in my office (let's hear it for laptops!). The girl serving behind the counter was telling all the customers that there had been two inches of water flooding through the shop that morning and loads of rats scuttling about (she was very careful to point out that critters were “outside” the café, heh heh). What an exciting start to the day, huh.

It was all over by 1pm when the power came back.

Nothing lasts forever?

Check out the video from Intents yesterday. It starts with photos of people and things that had a lot of influence at one time or another. Followed by pictures of stuff that just isn't going to last forever, even if you wanted it to. It's based around the dream in Daniel chapter 2 (see the posting below). Have a look and post a comment.
click here to watch it

Ben

Man has dream about a rock

Intents day two
We kicked things off with some icebreaker games I got off that thing where all the computers in the world are connected together, like a big motor way for zeroes and ones. (Youth leaders take note: I nick a lot of game ideas from this site here, it’s a really useful resource) We played a game of Chinese Charades, a bit like Chinese whispers but everyone stands in a single file and have to pass a word down the line using actions. One team were pretty good at it. The other team managed to turn a perfectly passable bit of mimed peddling (for the word 'bicycle') into something that looked like pushing a lawn mower and didn’t involve leg movement at all. Failure like that takes a particular kind of inattention, which should be applauded. Sort of.☺

I gave a talk on Daniel chapter 2 out of (yes you guessed it) the Bible. Click here to read the chapter, it’s a beaut! It features a nightmares and nocturnal threats of decapitation, who could ask for more? It’s one of those bits that everybody who went to Sunday school thinks they know really well, until they read it again and see all the details and the layers that it works on. As you can see, I enjoyed getting ready for this talk.

Carl and Phil (both young people from Emmanuel church, I think) kindly volunteered to come up on the stage and pretend to be Daniel and King Nebuchadnezzar. They did a pretty good job of it and pulled some high quality facial expressions between then.

We played a short video after the talk to help people to reflect on the message of the chapter. It’ll be up on Broadway Youth TV some time soon.

We split the discussion groups today so they were smaller and we got to chat more. Then we played that old chestnut where each group has to make an outfit out of newspaper and other old junk. We dressed up a girl called Sophie as a super hero (I swear it wasn’t my idea!), she had a cape and everything. Didn’t win mind you.

Ben

Meanwhile..... over on Broadway Youth TV

Crumbs, Jango's frets is now the most watched video on Broadway Youth TV. Didn't see that one coming! Shame it's not one of our best, aye. Click here to watch it

First day of Intents

Intents week is finally here. At 4pm-ish the Back Packers lot (kids holiday club) cleared out and we moved in to the main tent. Mingle got things started off by getting the 28 or so young people and adult leaders moving about a bit. Then I got them chatting about some of the more important questions in life, like Elvis or the Beatles, Summer or Winter and Barbie: style icon or tool of the oppressor?

Sarah Shelly from Emmanuel Church gave a talk and got us reading Daniel chapter 1 from the Bible.Click here to read it yourself. This is one of my favorite books so I'm looking forward to spending some time with it this week. We split everybody up into groups to discuss the chapter. The group I was in was massive, but everybody seemed really nice and there were a couple of people I know from Free*. We talked for quite a long time and didn't get through all the questions (oops, that's probably my fault). I think tomorrow we're going to split the group up to see if we can get through everything.

To finish with we played a game that involved moving dry food from one place to another using various things stuck in our mouths; chick peas with a drinking straw, marsh mallows with a tooth pick, a polo with some spaghetti. We didn't do to badly considering we had such a big team. Then somebody had the bright idea of trying to see who could spit a chick pea the furthest, which turned out to be one of those rare sports that I'm not completely rubbish at.

My other lasting memory of the day is Nish and Lydia's aggressive teaching style. They were trying to teach me French you see.... and I'm just not very good at listening and repeating simple sounds. It's amazing I learnt to speak really.

Ben

Last lot of bowling pics

With one pin to go, Dan tries out on of those ramp things. What a comedian.












Surely he can’t miss, can he? The ironey would be far to sweet....













.... Apparently he can ☺












Slumby celebrates a strike.
Apparently no one ever told Ben that it's rude to point.

Matthew gets a spare

Matt takes a wobbly run up in his much vaunted “radical style” and let’s the ball fly!













3 pins remain to taunt him.








The computer gives some helpful advice:
Hit them with a bowling ball










Can he fix it?












Yes he can!!!