The Church of Chrispians

Why hello there (General Kenobi). It's me, yet again. Can you believe this is my third post in a month?? Insanity. Anyway, I thought I'd do something a little different in this post and look back over some of the songs I loved listening to this year. They're not necessarily songs which were released this year, just some of my favourites. In no particular order, here they are, with links to Spotify and a little bit about why I loved them. If I get my act together, I'll try to come back and add YouTube links too. I hope you enjoy!  #1 - Poundshop Kardashians - Sam Fender Sam Fender released this song back in 2018, but sadly it's no less relevant two years later. It takes on a lot of the stupidity and ridiculousness that comes with the modern world we live on, calling Trump an "orange-faced baby" and suggesting bluntly that "we idolise idiots." But a couple of lines which really hit home are in the second verse when he sings: we laugh at them dishev

If you missed the first half, go read it first! Here's the link: https://bit.ly/37SbrnM --- As promised, I'm back. The tale will not be left unfinished! So where were we? Oh yeah. So at the very end of October, I took a brave step and decided to try streaming. It wasn't anything special, I didn't have a facecam or an overlay, or anything really! I'd not even thought much about the game, I think I just played Europa Universalis IV, and took the lead from the streamers I'd watched, trying to interact with the people watching (who, admittedly, I already knew) and to make it a fun experience. That first stream was really weird for me. I'd never given much of a thought to what actually went on behind the scenes. All of a sudden, I was aware that I had to keep one eye out for new followers so I could welcome them, keep one eye on the stream output to make sure the quality on stream was good as in game, keep one eye on the chat so I could actually converse with p

Honey, I’m home! It’s been a while but I didn’t forget you, I just wanted to wait until I actually had something good to say. Turns out we could be waiting a long while for that, so in the meantime, here’s something else. Working from home was a weird thing to get used to this year, and I've never been known for my ability to write in silence. As I write this, I'm even listening to a podcast in the background! But British daytime TV quickly gets very boring indeed, so I rediscovered something I hadn't watched in years and logged into Twitch to watch something a little more interesting. It was actually really great to jump back into some streams that I used to watch a few years ago, and look at how they have (or haven't) changed! Twitch has very quickly replaced TV as my main entertainment source for the moment! I think there's something in knowing that I can watch virtually any game I want to, or jump into someone 'just chatting', or something I haven't

As ever, it’s been a while since my last post. I think I’ve now accepted that I’m never going to be as fast at writing these as I’d like to be… although as I write that, I find myself thinking that I’m not sure this should be something I rush out. Surely it’s better to take my time, to have actually something worth saying? Hmm. That’s a rabbit hole for another day. Anyway, if you’ve made it here, welcome to another ramble from me, the ‘Feelings Freak.’ I seem to remember saying when I posted my first BLM blog post that there were more on the way – never fear, that is still very much my plan! Sadly, as is often the case, real life got in the way for a number of reasons. I graduated university at the end of June and somehow managed to get a job (nope, I don’t know how either). My plan was to write a weekly journal-type post to help process my thoughts on the week gone by, but on Friday morning, I received the heartbreaking news that my grandma had passed away. She’d suffered over the las

This post is a reading of Martin Luther King's speech The Other America , given on the 4th April, 1967. It can be found online at https://www.gphistorical.org/mlk/mlkspeech/mlk-gp-speech.pdf , or watched on YouTube at  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJu_YDgw9rU *** ‘A riot is the language of the unheard.’  – Martin Luther King (1967, p.2) Recently, and perhaps unsurprisingly, this quote from Martin Luther King has been shared widely on social media. But, as is often the case with quotes used online, this approach means we lose the all-important context, and so this post aims to explore the wider context to understand what King intended. Context The quote comes from the 1967 speech The Other America, which King gave at Stanford University. It came ten days after a speech he gave in New York City where he expressed his opposition to the Vietnam War (Hartford, 2007). The Other America set out how King perceived there to be ‘two Americas.’ ‘One America is beautiful

The phrase "we are part of something far greater than ourselves" is one which has been thrown around a fair few times - so many in fact that some brief research into the origin of the quote left me more confused than when I started. But we're not here to discuss my Google search history, thank god. As I think I've discussed a couple of times on here, I've been volunteering in my local community's food bank as a response to COVID-19. It's an experience that continues to be incredibly rewarding and eye-opening. But the inspiration for this post came from a discussion with one of my very best friends about not knowing what to do when someone thanks me for the help we're providing through the food bank. I have no doubt that if you're reading this, there's a good chance you're thinking, "well, you do what any sane human being would do and accept the thanks!" Which has occurred to me as well, don't you worry. But the anxiety I h

Two posts in a day? Absolute madness! The man is clearly unstable and needs to be sectioned as a matter of urgency! Well, until they come and take me away to my luxury padded cell, I'll keep typing. Maybe I'll get it done before they get here. I was really lucky to listen to a talk from someone who I really respect this morning on finding peace in a pandemic, and it's a topic I've been thinking about a lot myself recently. It left me really thoughtful and inspired, and so I knew that I wanted to write something about it as soon as possible, in what is quickly becoming my very public online diary. There's not a lot to find peace and solace in at the moment. Turn on the TV and you'll be lucky to avoid COVID-19 getting a mention. Switch to the news and you'll be even luckier to watch a single story that isn't about the pandemic. Talk to those around you and you'll be the luckiest person on earth to avoid the virus sneaking its way in conver

I worry so much about titles for these posts, to the point where I don't want to write a post until I have the title nailed. As you can see, in this case, I've decided to take a new approach. Ready? No, wait, hold on, hear me out. So what I do is - and I know what you're thinking, but stick with me - I think about what I'm going to write about, and THEN... I put that word in the title! Absolute insanity. Doesn't make for snappy, imaginative titles, but it lets me get to the good bit, so you know, pros and cons really. Anyway, this post has been a long time coming. I first had the idea a week ago, but as ever, life got in the way. Luckily for me, life got in the way in such a way that it gave me more to write about! Yay! The ongoing journey to improving my mental health has involved me confronting some of the demons from my childhood which I'd managed to suppress thus far, to the point where I didn't even see them as demons anymore. They'd just been blo

A note before I get into this - I worry that I can come across as having a 'holier than thou' attitude or seeming hell-bent on self-promotion in my writing. I don't want that to be the case, I am by no means perfect and I'm an incredibly flawed individual, prone to making mistakes as much as anyone. I just want to make sure I put that out there now. I hope you enjoy reading 😊 COVID-19 has shown me the worst side of humanity. The side that's individualistic, buying up all the supplies in supermarkets so that the elderly and vulnerable can't get what they need to survive. The side that's prone to panic, making completely irrational decisions without stopping to listen and think for a second. However, you can't have darkness without the light, and I've also seen the best of people. As part of the response to the pandemic, some of my local community have come together to co-operate and be there for the people who really need help right now. I'm

This blog post has been a long time coming - don't worry, I'd not forgotten about it altogether! I've had several ideas come into my mind since I wrote the last one, but a combination of falling somewhat behind with university work and then falling ill with COVID-19 meant that it's taken me longer to getting round to it than I had hoped for 😂 Nonetheless, here we are, we've made it, so sit back and enjoy as my beautiful words enter your eyes. The title for this post jumped into my head earlier today though whilst thinking about my mental health, and I decided that now that I was feeling a little bit better, this was the time to strike and get writing! The question itself - "Why would you want to be something you hate?" - was one that I actually asked to one of my best friends, who was opening up to me about his own mental health issues. Without going into detail on what we discussed, it was a question that just came out naturally, but one which le

WE MADE IT GUYS! And by "made it," I here mean, we're on the second post. Much like running, if I can do two in a row, the third is made just that little bit more likely, so you know, we're onto a winner here. Okay, I'm onto a winner, this isn't a team sport. Or is it? I don't know. Should I be having a conversation with myself here? No. Will I stop? Eh, probably not. Anyway, my food is in the oven, so I have approximately fifteen minutes to get this done. Or longer. But then I'm accepting that it will be burnt. *shrugs, having already accepted the prospect of a cremated cod fillet* It feels like weeks since my last post, which is a really surreal and confusing experience. COVID-19 is beginning to hit the UK hard, and in one week, we've gone from social distancing to pubs, clubs, restaurants and theatres being closed. I've never experienced anything like it in my - admittedly so far, quite short - life, and the uncertainty around how long t

At long last, and with the help from one of my closest friends, I have overcome some of my huge anxiety, and I'm writing a blog. I find it quite liberating that I might throw this out there and no-one will read it. No bars have been set, I can say what I like. Screw you anxiety, you don't get to win this time, get back in your hole. Anyway. WELCOME. If you made it here, I have to question what life choices led you to this point, but nonetheless, WELCOME. I don't really know what this blog will be yet. At time of writing, coronavirus has come to the UK and social distancing measures are in place, which is an interesting time to be alive. It's not the way I expected to start a new decade, that much is for sure. Nonetheless, life goes on, and a big thing which I'll be doing is  making sure that I look out for the people I know, especially the most vulnerable but even those who might seem "stronger." We're all only human at the end of the day, and we