In recent months, many friends, colleagues and acquaintances have entered the realms of blogging.  I have enjoyed reading their stuff, left the odd, not very erudite, comment and finally given in to the suggestions that I should join the fun, so here goes!

One of the biggest challenges seems to be choosing a name for the site - some are witty, most are quite punchy, this one is just long (like my essays, reports, etc).  So why have I chosen it?  The logic is roughly as follows: -

• As a student in Manchester I used to spend some of my ‘free’ time sitting in the food court of the Arndale Centre drinking coffee and planning my essays on the serviettes kindly provided by Baker’s Oven, who also served a very acceptable bacon butty.  I guess there’s some sort of irony in considering ‘The Fourth Gospel and Anti-Semitism’ whilst munching bacon, but there you go, it somehow fits with my experience of life and the flavour of my ramblings

• If I’m in a coffee shop I tend to order Fairtrade lattes and, if the choice is there, will opt for ‘skinny’ in a forlorn attempt to keep the inches from settling on my hips!  Something about ‘skinny’ seems to fit the depth of these musings too.  That and the fact that a ‘skinny latte’ is an oxymoron – and therefore makes a suitable metaphor for the incongruities, “creative tensions” and enigmas of life and of theology.

• Food courts seem to epitomise early 21^st century life in Britain.  You could as easily be in the Arndale in Manchester, Fosse Park outside Leicester or any of a hundred other places.  You pick and mix what you want to eat/drink, watch people/TV/both/neither and in so doing discover all sorts of interesting – if irrelevant – thoughts whirling around in your brain.

• There is something fleeting, provisional and unfinished about eating in a food court – there are no proper edges, the food tends to come in paper or polystyrene cups (except from Costa or Baskin Bobbins) and the average dwell time must be around 15 minutes (excluding queuing!).  This seems to match my theological (and other) musings – ideas snatched from here and there, mixed together and enjoyed before the pressure of life moves me on to something else.

So this is it, a skinny Fairtrade latte in the food court of life!