Virtual Methodist

Last weekend there was a whole hoo-haa about the injustice of 50 year old Dublin Tesco employee Mary Byrne getting axed on the X-factor ... Even prestigious Anglican bloggers have been vexed by it... However, I'm not convinced that the X-Factor being unjust is particularly newsworthy... Indeed, whether the decision as to who stays on is decided by a democratic phone-vote, or by a Cowell-dominated cabal, justice is unlikely to play a huge part in it all. But today, my thoughts are not primarily with a 50 year old singing Mary from an unprestigious area of Dublin, but a somewhat younger singing Mary, from an equally unprestigious village in northern Palestine. Carrying on the story from yesterday's annunciation, we turn to Mary of Nazareth's song of praise to God in the light of his promise of pregnancy to Elizabeth, her elderly cousin being fulfilled. This familiar song of praise, read or sung in various forms not only in advent, but throughout the year, should resonate powe...

Yesterday I may have been looking forward to Sunday, but today it's Saturday... And in honour of that here's a video that I posted on fb last month... I and many others nearly died laughing at it. So its certainly worth another look. This was Saturday night TV in the UK before Simon Cowell and his ilk got the hold of it... But where they got this audience from I do not know... Perhaps they kidnapped some Church Senior's Group and dosed them with hallucinogenic drugs before wheeling the Bay City Rollers on stage. This is rock and roll at its best... Ear trumpets, knitting needles and woolie bunnets! BAY CITY ROLLERS & ANN MARGERET SATURDAY NIGHT @ Yahoo! Video Cheers

I wonder what Simon Cowell would make of this? Being a little under the weather over the weekend I ended up watching the nonsense that is "The X Factor" and remembered again why I loathe these programmes... What passes for talent in Britain's pop culture these days is so mass-manufactured and over-produced that it has no real depth or authentic poignancy. That is occasionally subverted in the auditions and more frequently in "Britain's Got Talent" but in both, the genuinely talented is more than swamped by those who are simply wanting to ape other artificially produced celebrities and those who are more to be pitied than scolded. The following entry from "Ukraine's Got Talent" would never make it within a million miles of its British equivalent because of form, subject matter and, most importantly, its length ("Sorry dear, it has to be less than 3 minutes...")... It's long even by the standards of most of the things I post...

Well, as prophesied last week there will be a Hallelujah chorus this Christmas... Unfortunately the Simon Cowell/Alex Burke version of Leonard Cohen's song rather than the Jeff Buckley version... Although Jeff apparently ran her a very close second... making this the first time in history that the same song has held first and second slot in the British single's chart. But anyway, thought I'd take the opportunity to post this little ditty by my mate Mitch Benn, from the Now Show on Radio 4 last Friday/Saturday. Sadly not enough people rallied round, but then WhyNotSmile posted this wonderful little version, by our latest favourites the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre Company on her Facebook site. It's my No 1! Cheers

The poor girl had won the X factor, but by the time Alex Burke had stopped crying (which was an incredibly long time according to some) the knives were already sharpened... Not only here in Northern Ireland, where Eoghan Quigg's failure was put down to some kind of huge anti-irish conspiracy... but also among those who loathed the idea of a Cowell-produced version of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" being number one at Christmas. Now, to a large extent I am one of those people... her version was overblown, but it could have been worse... It could have been Eoghan singing it! Or worse still, Cohen himself ! But this has produced a huge surge of support for the threatened Christmas single by Peter Kay as the Northern Irish Transexual "Geraldine" which is unashamedly aimed at causing Simon Cowell maximum annoyance. After all this is the season of "Goodwill to all men - except Simon Cowell." It has also sent a huge number of people scurrying to it...