Friday 27 November 2009

Fail blog

Oh dear. this really is a good website. Well, not exactly good, but the creative and ungrammatical (or should that be unsyntactical?) use of the word 'fail' all over the shop is only the icing sugar on the icing on the cake of amusement.

Just one to whet the appetite...

what's in a name?

Well, if the name is PET-CESSORIES, then an unfortunate allusion to something you might put somewhere you might not want to think about.

And yet, remarkably, that is the name of some pet equipment shops in and around Cambridge (and maybe elsewhere for all I know). It's not clever really, is it? Now, Axcessories, a hardware shop, that would be a good name. Maybe someone's thought of it, but Pet-cessories? Please...

On the M1 from Sheffield to Leicester this afternoon we did, however, see a very good company name on the back of a white van:

PYROTECT

that is actually quite good for a fire-retaring services firm. Well done to them. But Pet-cessories...?

Iconoclastic Controversies!

Discussing what seminar papers we were going to write for today's NTI moot on 'Idolatry', and running through 'Are sin and idolatry synonymous?', 'Review Tim Keller's book Counterfeit Gods', 'Why does 1 John end the way it does?'we came across 'Assess the contemporary relevance of the iconoclastic controversies in the Orthodox church of the first millennium'. And of course that's the one I chose.

Better still, it's the perfect name for a Christian Rock band, n'est-ce pas? And the best track on their debut album would surely be 'Fallen into the eisegetical pits' (co-incidentally, a chapter from Greg Beale's meaty We become what we worship: a biblical theology of idolatry [2008]).

All comedy on this post courtesy of JR from Cornerstone.

Tuesday 3 November 2009

a draw, a palpable draw!

At long last I have achieved more than 0 in a correspondence game of chess with Charles! It's only half a point, but it's a start. And what a fun game it was. The swashbuckling King's Gambit was whipped out, and pieces were sacrificed all over the shop. If I had castled long and kept my King out of danger that piece sacrifice might even have netted me more (but, then, I always think that, and history is against me!)

1. e4 e5

2. f4 exf4

3. Nc3 Nc6

4. Nf3 Bb4

5. Bc4 g5

6. h4 g4

7. Ng5 Ne5

8. Nxf7 Nxf7

9. Bxf7+ Kxf7

10. Qxg4 Bxc3

11. Qh5+ Kf8

12. bxc3 Nf6

13. Ba3+ d6

14. Qh6+ Kg8

15. 0-0?! Ng4

16. Qxf4 Be6 (the doubled pawn charge is rather neat...)

17. c4 Qxh4

18. c5 dxc5

19. Bxc5 h5

20. Qxc7 Rh7

21. Qd6 Rf7 (the dance of the rooks, and I was very pleased with the next move, which saves the game...)

22. Rf3! Rd8 

23. Qxe6 Qh2+

24. Kf1 Qh1+

25. Bg1 Nh2+

26. Ke2 Nxf3

27. Qg6+ (draw by perpetual)

Phew!