Filling in the gaps - part one

I needed to scan my visas, so while I was borrowing my friend’s scanner I took the opportunity to do something I’d been meaning to do for a while - scan some of the harder to find cover artwork that’s been missing from my iTunes library. I figure there must be others out there who have these CDs but are missing digital copies of the cover art, so I’m sharing them here for your benefit. That has to be fair use, right? This’ll be part one of a continuing series, but it'll be a while before there’s another one. I’ve started with some stars of Greenbelts past: four albums each by Coastal Dune and Why? They’re not terribly good scans, and the sleaves themselves have suffered some wear and tear, but they’re better than nothing. The Till We're Old cover isn’t square, so I’ve saved it as a PNG. Transparency appears to work in coverflow within iTunes, but not in coverflow on the iPhone. If you have better versions of any of these, leave a note in the comments.

Rising Sun

Past experience has taught me that I ought to write up my thoughts on Greenbelt as soon as possible, else I end up saying nothing at all.

There’s something somehow unique about Greenbelt. I just love it. Unexpected tragedy excepted, the end of Greenbelt is the saddest time of my year, in a way that even the end of Glastonbury can’t match. Greenbelters sometimes joke that it’s the third festival after Christmas and Easter, made all the more apt this year by the peculiar preponderance of carols. So, to misquote Wizzard, today I really do wish it could be Greenbelt every day.

That would, of course, be both foolish and impossible. Festivals exist to celebrate and inspire the lives we live for the rest of the year. So what were my highlights of this year?

First, Beth Rowley, who was simply stunning. And she played Greenbelt before she went massive, so it felt like one of our own coming home. Stephen Sizer never ceases to impress, with both his factual knowledge and his ability to cut through theological nonsense. He also pretty much saved my faith a few years back, by being the only writer able to offer a comprehensive biblical explanation for why my God is not a racist, so that was another point in his favour. Following her appeal last year for the church to rediscover the sin of usury, Ann Pettifor was this year calling for a Grand Jubilee cancelling all first world debt. Yes, that includes your mortgage. Her place in my mind as the greatest prophetic voice of our time is just about secured. Finally, Believe is a terrifyingly brutal yet thought provoking play in which Linda Marlowe portrays four women from the old testament and forces us to consider the impact of faith in today’s world. I needed a visit to the organic beer tent when it was over, but it’s probably a highlight not just of this Greenbelt, but of all eleven I’ve been to.

I guess part of what I love about Greenbelt is that, after all that time, I can barely walk around the site without bumping into someone I know. So my lowlight would be not having had the time to catch up with everyone I would have liked to, knowing I’d not even spoken to others, and also that some who should have been there weren’t.

Oh, and seeing my name in the programme was kind of nice too. It made me feel important, even if it wasn’t really deserved.

Radiohead on a Spectrum (and a printer, a scanner and some broken hard drives)

Chewing Pixels is fast becoming my number one place to discover the curious and the beautiful online. I don’t think I’ve shared any of his links outside of Facebook before (I do most of my blogging there now), but I’ve been too active on there of late, and this place has been looking rather neglected. Anyway, this time it’s the graduation project of one James Houston, until recently a student of Glasgow School of Art’s graphic design course. It’s a remix of Nude from Radiohead’s In Rainbows album, but he explains more at his Vimeo page.

Beyond this, I have had several posts in draft for a while —a sort of mini series of technological complaints— but I just can’t seem to find the time to finish them off. If I’m feeling energetic I’ll get them up over the next week and a half. I know this is supposed to be a blog about faith and prayer in Bradford. Maybe I’ll get back to that once I return from my travels. I the meantime, I’ll try and post some updates whenever I can find an Internet cafe.