The Blame Game
Right, can I recommend The Blame Game! It is on BBC1 on a Friday night and the presenter, Da from Give My Head Peace, along with four Irish comedians try to find out who is to blame for various aspects of the news during that week. Unfortunately, if I understood the last bit of it tonight correctly that was the last one of the series! Although they will be one Radio Ulster on Saturday mornings – did I hear 11am correctly? Tonight it covered snow, the education crisis (Methody has said it may go private – the catchment area is Sandy Row!), schools’ rugby, the Dublin riots and Lent.
Tonight they also asked who was to blame for the biggest bank robbery in the UK.
Apparently it is because England hasn’t gotten over Windsor Park and they just couldn’t have us having the biggest bank robbery in the UK. So they decided to up the ante. You see, all they’ve done is set up a challenge for goodness’ sake!! The police in Kent have already arrested fourteen people and got some of the money back. The bail was set at something like £100,000 – now, please could someone tell me where the logic was? A year on all the PSNI have done has been to arrest one guy who was on the CCTV leaving the place. Hmm… Yes, I can see how that might have been hard to spot. Colin Murphy, one of the comedians, reckons that the police were probably watching Spotlight when they saw it!
About the schools’ rugby. Well, I’m biased. I love rugby and I like watching the schools’ cup. On Monday I will be travelling, along with a large part of my school’s fifth and sixth year, to Ravenhill (that would be the Ulster rugby ground – where Ulster won tonight. But who could be surprised as O’Sullivan loves his Munster players and so they were missing eight or so of their best players and he doesn’t like Ulster players so we weren’t missing all that many) to watch my school play Lurgan in the Plate final. The Plate is the thing below the Schools’ Cup – so this is kinda the final below the Schools’ Cup final which is annually played between Methody and Inst or Methody and Inst or Methody and Inst every year… (Ok, so sometimes Campbell gets a brief chance). So, despite loosing to Friends we’ve got further than them. So, we’ll be going down there to loose our voices in time for the school concert on Thursday and Friday night.
At the end of The Blame Game “Da” reads out some headlines from newspapers and one of them this week was “Are we ready for a Mormon for the President of the USA?” and Colin Murphy replied “Well, we’ve already had a moron…” which I greatly appreciated. Naturally.
Now Tony Blair has come out saying that he asked God about going to war with Iraq and I just cringe… Is it right to do that? I don’t think so. Well, it’s ok to consult God, obviously! But to almost pass the buck to God because He “told you to” go to war…? I don’t think that’s right! And I think it makes the Christian faith look like a joke.
Tomorrow night I am (hopefully) going to the cinema with Rose and other Rach to see either Final Destination or Walk the Line. It should be good – especially as I made it that we had to go tomorrow night because I went home sick from school this afternoon. Thankfully I’m on the mend and should be ok for tomorrow night.
Rachxx
Tonight they also asked who was to blame for the biggest bank robbery in the UK.
Apparently it is because England hasn’t gotten over Windsor Park and they just couldn’t have us having the biggest bank robbery in the UK. So they decided to up the ante. You see, all they’ve done is set up a challenge for goodness’ sake!! The police in Kent have already arrested fourteen people and got some of the money back. The bail was set at something like £100,000 – now, please could someone tell me where the logic was? A year on all the PSNI have done has been to arrest one guy who was on the CCTV leaving the place. Hmm… Yes, I can see how that might have been hard to spot. Colin Murphy, one of the comedians, reckons that the police were probably watching Spotlight when they saw it!
About the schools’ rugby. Well, I’m biased. I love rugby and I like watching the schools’ cup. On Monday I will be travelling, along with a large part of my school’s fifth and sixth year, to Ravenhill (that would be the Ulster rugby ground – where Ulster won tonight. But who could be surprised as O’Sullivan loves his Munster players and so they were missing eight or so of their best players and he doesn’t like Ulster players so we weren’t missing all that many) to watch my school play Lurgan in the Plate final. The Plate is the thing below the Schools’ Cup – so this is kinda the final below the Schools’ Cup final which is annually played between Methody and Inst or Methody and Inst or Methody and Inst every year… (Ok, so sometimes Campbell gets a brief chance). So, despite loosing to Friends we’ve got further than them. So, we’ll be going down there to loose our voices in time for the school concert on Thursday and Friday night.
At the end of The Blame Game “Da” reads out some headlines from newspapers and one of them this week was “Are we ready for a Mormon for the President of the USA?” and Colin Murphy replied “Well, we’ve already had a moron…” which I greatly appreciated. Naturally.
Now Tony Blair has come out saying that he asked God about going to war with Iraq and I just cringe… Is it right to do that? I don’t think so. Well, it’s ok to consult God, obviously! But to almost pass the buck to God because He “told you to” go to war…? I don’t think that’s right! And I think it makes the Christian faith look like a joke.
Tomorrow night I am (hopefully) going to the cinema with Rose and other Rach to see either Final Destination or Walk the Line. It should be good – especially as I made it that we had to go tomorrow night because I went home sick from school this afternoon. Thankfully I’m on the mend and should be ok for tomorrow night.
Rachxx
posted by Rach @ 11:29 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
As has been commented to some extent here, I think most of the reaction to the comments is more of a joke. What he actually said, that he prayed to God in seeking to come to an understanding and decision about going to war, is hardly controversial. If religion means anything to Christians, it must embrace all parts of your life - it would be a strange act to go and exclude God from this part of his work.
What seems to be the case, certainly from the headlines that’re somehow extrapolated (with a lot of twisting) from his words, is that there are a lot of people out there that have a knee-jerk reaction ready in advance. And the majority of what I’m reading is along the lines of either “I don‘t like what he decided, so how dare he come before God and then decide differently to what I think” or else an allergic reaction to the very mention of God in public. A lot of people need to get a sense of perspective, to treat what he said with some more fairness. This is hardly George "I’ll see war as an instrument of Godly good and freedom, and not be too fussed about killing people, then go and sprinkle rose petals over Ghandi’s grave as a testament to peace" Bush territory.
Rugby: Boo!
Walk the Line: Yeah! Go and see it.
Ok, yes, they weren't on Bush's level and that is something I am incredibly grateful for. And I do think God should be consulted but... oh, I don't know.. I do think there has been a bit of a, as you say, knee-jerk reaction to it but I can't help but wonder what he hoped to accomplish by saying it. We all know his beliefs - how will the Muslims, and other religions which he governs over, react to this?
Rachxx
Despite my rather strongly worded retort, I do share some of your sympathies. I don't like to see God used as a token or banner for someone's ideology or agenda, and so have very very sensitive feelers for anyone saying summit like that in the public. But in this case, as is quite rightly pointed here:
“I was appalled by the news this evening, which implied that Tony Blair was using God as an excuse for going to war. The excerpt from the interview that was shown gave a very different interpretation. The very thing that the newsreaders were decrying, stirring up religious hatred, they were guilty of. He said that as a Christian, his conscience was shaped by his faith in God and that God would judge his decisions. The news report implied that God told him to go to war. IMO totally inaccurate and indefensible broadcasting. Very worrying too in these unstable times.”
We have to look at how it's filtered by the media - who're more interested in a headline than any nuances or effects of what they say and pass on by distortion. If Tony had pretty much mentioned God, most reporting would’ve been various shades of lurid - partly cos there seems to be an almost pervasive secular anathema to talking about the sacred in our public spaces.
ps. I must say my fairly crude and undeveloped sense of justice was heartened to hear that the people behind that massive robbery are gradually being pulled in. Good-oh.
"you are far across the ocean
but the war is not your own
and while you're winning theirs
you're gonna lose the one at home
do you really think the only way
to bring about the peace
is to sacrifice your children
and kill all your enemies
the politicians all make speeches
while the news men all take note
and they exagerate the issues
as they shove them down our throats
is it really up to them
whether this country sinks or floats
well i wonder who would lead us
if none of us would vote"
(Words: Larry Norman Song:'Great American Novel' 1972)yet how they resonate today...hum!?
"There are two great lies that I've heard; the day you eat of the fruit of that tree you will not surely die and that Jesus Christ was a white middle class republican. And if you want to be saved you've got to be like him." (Words Derek Webb 2006)
Post a Comment
<< Home