Christ Church Youth Blog

OK, so the new Soul Survivor arrived yesterday.  I think it's a good cd, with some fantastic songs on it, and is something that I am and will play to death for a few weeks.  But, will the cd as a whole last?  I don't think that it will be played as much as any of the last 2 or 3.  There are some real gems on there, but some pretty ordinary songs too.  I must say though that the cd is far better than what I thought it would be, as I was a bit disappointed the with some of the new songs this SS.  However, a few of those songs work better on a cd that you sing along to as opposed to in a worship event.  It's probably unfair to compare them, but I think that Chris Tomlin's 'Hello Love' is a far better cd, and SS would have done well to have included at least a few of those songs at this year's festivals (whilst the cd wasn't yet released I am sure that they would have at least known a few of the songs).

At P2 this week we are looking at consumerism and there is a link in the material to the Tearfund webiste, where they have a calculator that works out how much money the workers who made their clothes would have earned.  (It is a little old and it is an average calculator, but it is quite frightening.)  Check out the following link - http://youth.tearfund.org/lift+the+label/fashion/ - then click 'clothes calculator' and put in roughly how much you think you paid for your clothes.

I haven't seen any of Sunday's action yet, but have seen the results.  Spurs are clearly in a spot of bother.  They will clearly be alright in terms of relegation, but I doubt that they will be in Europe next year.  The money flowing in and out of White Heart Lane will probably lesson if they finish in the bottom half of the season again.  I think that the whole Ronaldo penalty incident at the Man Utd game glossed over the fact that United's second goal was fantastic - sadly not much has been made of that.  Well done Hull and Wigan, who gave a real come-uppance to 2 teams who were obviously thinking that by turning up they were going to win after recent results.

Oddly, there is actually not much to say about this derby.  That seems to go against recent history.  Liverpool did not appear to play very well, but outclassed Everton and deserved their win.  I think that Everton should have had a penalty when Skrtel fouled Fellaini, but I also think that Torres' third goal should have stood.  The 'budge' by Kuyt was marginal at best.  I think that Cahill was unlucky to get a straight red, but maybe should have had 2 yellow cards - one for the tackle, the other for walking away from the referee.  Still, because the ref gave him a straight red there is a possibility that the card will now be reduced to a yellow and he won't have a ban.  But, overall the best team won and that is why there was little controversy.

As a part of the blog re-fit I have added an extra blog category - Everton FC.  So, what about EFC at the moment?  I see a team that just hasn't got going yet.  It is basically the same team as started last year, apart from the over-rated James McFadden and the under-rated Lee Carsley, and the attacking work rate of Andrew Johnson.  Segundo Castillo looks promising in the place of Carsley, but time will tell how good he is.  Fellaini cost £15 million and should be a world beater for that money.  So far, he has not proven himself to be a Stoke or a Hull beater, struggling a bit in both matches.  It would seem to me though that Everton's biggest problem is that as a team they have not got going yet, largely because there has been no knitting together of the new players as they were all in so last minute.  Given time though this team could be a very good Premier League team.  Unfortunately, David Moyes doesn't seem to have the energy that he once had, as if the stuffing has been knocked out of him.  I wonder how much he is struggling to properly motivate the players when he is obviosly struggling to motivate himself.  This week Everton went out of the Carling Cup to Blackburn - that was no surprise.  Next week, the expectation has to be that they will go out of the UEFA Cup to Standard Liege.  On Saturday, you would have to say that Liverpool look the most likely team to win due to Everton's struggles.  However, the cliche does have some truth to it, that it can be really hard to predict a derby game.  Also, with the Man Utd game apart, Liverpool have also been struggling for any kind of form this season.  The fact that Everton played better against Liege than Liverpool did is evidence of that.  But, all in all, for Everton these are slightly tricky times.  Still it could be worse, we could be Newcastle!

I wish that the BBC wouldn't do this thing of only letting you know when Spooks is going to be on at the last moment.  I know that it kind of fits with the way that the show is, but it can't do their ratings any good, and it does my head in not knowing.  Interesting that Spooks: Code 9 has had such bad reviews.  I didn't think that it was as good as the main Spooks series, but it is still clearly in its infancy and has good potential.  I think that the makers of Spooks: Code 9 have unfortunately shot themselves in the foot a bit by creating such an environment in 'modern day' Britain.  It does pose interesting questions though about how people would cope if there was a nuclear bomb in London - especially when we witnessed what happened in New Orleans a few years ago when Hurricane Katrina hit.  Would anarchy become a norm or not?  Anyway, looking forward to this autumn's Spooks.

We got this cd at the end of last week and haven't stopped listening to it since.  Occasionally you get a cd that you like every track on, and this is one of those cds.  What I especially like is that I reckon most of the songs could actually be sung in church, which Christian cds are notorious for not being like.  Favourite tracks are 'I will rise' and 'Exalted (Yahweh)' both of which sent tingles down the backs of our necks and caused us to feel like we were joining with the angels in heaven.  If you are into worship cds then this is a must - the best Christian cd I have heard so far this year by a mile.

Recently there has been talk about this amazing physics experiment on the French-Swiss border and how there is an estimated 50,000,000 – 1 chance that the universe will be destroyed or something.  That was never going to happen.  Why?  Because we already know how this world will end.  Jesus will come back and God will create a new heaven and a new earth.  It is not in mankind’s hands.

Use the 3 words in the title to complete the above task.  You can use the words in any order, but they have to be used as they appear - eg you can not make any word a plural.  Add a comment to the blog to place your entry.

At a YGG social last term we had a great laugh playing Spinnergy and we thought that it was something that we could quite easily do on the blog.  So, at some point each week I will spin the wheels on Spinnergy and take a card and we will see what comes up.  Add a comment to the various Spinnergy blog entries and we will see what people can come up with each week.

There are going to be loads of things going on this term.  It's kind of obvious saying that because the end of this term is Christmas.  How mad is that?  But before then we have a car wash / litter pick day, so that we can get a load of hours on our Hope Thermometer.  We have a sponsored 24 Hour Hockey Match for charity.  The Quantum of Solace is realeased (just had to mention that).  And we will this year be going along to the Alsager Bonfire Party (instead of having our own) and the switching on of the lights and the street party on that evening.  All of this of course goes alongside all of the usual stuff and more.  If you are unsure of the dates or if you have lost your sheet, then you can download a pdf from the main Christ Church Alsager website.  Go to the youth section and the youth noticeboard.

Thought that I should make some kind of blog about the new Premier League season.  The problem is that this has been a summer of nothingness on the whole and so there hasn't been a lot to blog about.  I think that the final Premier League table will be similar to that of last year.  The top 2 will be the top 2.  3 and 4 will remain 3 and 4.  Spurs, Villa, Portsmouth and maybe Everton, will be the next 4.  The teams battling relegation will be Stoke, Hull, WBA, Middlesbrough and Wigan.  The other teams will be those who just hang around at the top of the bottom half of the table, and are usually going to be toward the end of Match of the Day, unless they are playing a big team.  As for Everton - well, hmm.  It's hard to know what to say.  Dodgy goal that Blackburn won on last week?  Yes.  But, Blackburn easily deserved their win, and so in a sense justice was done.  Everton faded away last year because the already small squad had been made even smaller during January.  Now, a shrunk smaller squad has been shrunk again.  That is a big problem.  David Moyes talking about the need to bring in 6 or 7 players, he isn't joking.  I think that if Everton can get in 4 really good (I am holding back from saying 'quality' because I can't see that happening) players, then Everton will be in the band of 4 behind the top 4.  The youngsters coming through seem to be a good group and so they can help the squad numbers out a bit - but they cannot be seen as being first team players every week yet.  If Everton cannot get in 4 really good players then Everton will be in the group of nameless teams at the end of Match of the Day each week.

This has really maken me laugh.  We are not bothered about the Aussies and how well or badly they do.  Frankly they are just another country to us.  But, they are really bothered about it, and have been so public about their being bothered that us Brits are now checking the medal table every day just to see how much further ahead of Australia we are.  The Aussies don't want to lose to GB, yet they are the ones who have created a competition within the competition.  They have also made some comical comments about us Brits only winning things that we can sit down in.  True, but at least we have been winning things!  Team GB have been fantastic.  I would love to see some kind of statistic that rates the number of gold medals in comparison to the size of the population.  Jamaica would probably be at the top then, but I reckon GB may be second.  Not sure.