This coming Sunday is Pentecost Sunday, one of the great excuses we have for doing something creative in worship.  Our service will be both familiar and unfamiliar in pattern and delivery.  Whether it feels like Genesis 11, Acts 2 or Revelation 7 (readings we will be hearing in diverse human tongues) remains to be seen.

We will be using a GRF radio short from a few years back (they'd forgotten they made it when I asked them about it!), music from around the world, and some mildy whacky approaches to prayer.  I am looking forward to it greatly.

Veni Sancte Spiritus...

... So, I post about what a pain Norton is being and lo, it finally behaves.  There's a moral there somewhere!

I am probably very sad but I find the little digital switchover robot rather endearing and will miss him/her/it once the job is complete.

Today BBC2 analogue where I live has been turned off "permanently for ever" in the nice, tautologous words of the leaflet.

The plus part of the switchover is that BBC Alba (pronounced more-or-less as al-le-bu not al-bu) will now extend and reach more people.

So, later on today I will be re-tuning my digibox and waiting for the next set of annoying messages to tell me about final switchover in a couple of weeks time!

... or, running Norton live update on normal broadband.

I have a lovely new computer that boots up promptly and is raring to go once all the software is finally updated.  The fly in the ointment is Norton which is preloaded with definitions almost nine months out of date.  The problem with this is that when it tries to live update it has (so far) always timed out and failed.  At the time of typing this, it has got further than on any previouis attempt, so I cautiously hopeful it just might get there.

I know there are other virus software packages out there, even free ones, even ones that are not annoying, but this is what I have, so what I have to get to work sooner or later.

At home I have very fast broadband, which makes my normal broadband at church seem slow especially when it is clogged up by Norton's antics.  Ah well, it will help me learn patience.

Yesterday and tomorrow I have time with folk from NBLC in Manchester who are up in Glasgow for their staff retreat-cum-away-day-day-day.  As they are staying a short walk from the Gathering Place, albeit working with folk from SBC (no, not that SBC) they asked me if I could make some suggestions for activities for yesterday afternoon.  Most of them came on a West End walk with me (forcing me to do some homework on history/culture!) which included seeing the Dali in Kelvingrove (now re-sited in a better, if less than ideal, location) and eating cupcakes in a cupcake-shop.  In the evening they took me with them for a meal and to see the film Senna which was an interesting and poignant portrayal of the racing driver's life using a lot of archive footage as well as some reconstructions.

Today they are off looking at some projects in Motherwell with Stuart Blythe of the Scottish Baptist College and then tomorrow they gather in the Gathering Place for some reflective space before they head south again.

It was great to catch up with their news and to meet staff members who've been appointed recently.  It was great to show off my patch to people.  It was great to be part of a bigger Baptist scene.  And it will a privilege to host them tomorrow in our sparkling, refurbished lounge.

All good fun.