Mon 5 What a time - there's a lot of uncertainty at the moment. First of all, the people doing the Narnia publicity have no record of our order so it's going to have to arrive by express delivery for us to do our own overprinting. But waht does the material look like or what kind of messages can be made from it? Don't know. Then again, there are these talks for Radio 2 but the date of recording is up in the air and that's before even thinking about the content. Plus, we're between computers while we wait for the broadband connection to take effect. Teaching this Thursday about the Oxford Movement and that's about the last specialised subject I'd choose for Mastermind.

Still, lots of encouragement too. Paul and Mel are visiting Jamie for membership tonight. St David's Praise went well, too, I think they could have done with a couple of songs less in the second half but apart from that it was great. The horn section was as good as I remember. I played second and my regime of a week playing high notes at full volume for twenty minutes paid off handsomely. I was able to retain that Hollywood sound right up to the last couple of items. There was lots of that glitzy whooping playing throughout the evening. Arrangers love that and they'd put it in every number of they thought the sections could play it. I have a suspicion that the better the horns sound year on year, the more they pile on. Oh an Peter Idris Taylor stopped me in the corridor and referred to my post on this site about the SWBA rally on September 11th. Yet another illustrious reader of this very page! Hi there, Peter.

Vavasor Powell is no relation I don't think. As soon as I started to read on him in the Unversity library I realised I'd already come down this road but perhaps 18 years ago when I was studying Thomas Hardcastle the 17th century pastor at Broadmead Bristol. Powell and Hardcastle were brothers in law both having married daughters of the governor jailor of Chester castle where they were imprisoned for illegal preaching. Powell was twice married then, first to a widow called Mrs Vavasor and then to this lady but died childless. Sorted. Again.

Wed 7 This business of changing computers is not quite as easy as I thought. Some things are much better of course but I haven't yet been able to update this site from home even though I have the correct programme.

A very interesting chat about the Baptists with the Raglan Festival committee the other night. While we were chatting (in the Beaufort) the bell ringers came in. They are currently looking to change their bells and it'll cost a cool 4 and a half thousand pounds so Shirley was talking to them about grants and possible sources of funding.

Margaret Davies came round yesterday.

Thu 8 The Narnia material has still not appeared - this is very disspiriting because so much could be done. Patience.

Today is the fortieth anniversary of the close of the Second Vatican Council. I know that because I spent the latter part of the evening yesterday listening to Guy Gilbert on Radio Notre Dame. What an unheard of, astonishing boon this broadband is! Radio Moscow one moment then Notre Dame. For the uninitiated, Guy Gilbert is a Roman Catholic priest aged seventy now but known by all as the pretre des loubards (no accents on this computer) - that is, the priest of the what? thugs? gang members? He is a familiar figure on chat shows with his long (thinning now) hair and leather jacket covered with badges. He was supposed to be talking about the impact of Vatican II last night but we had the usual hilarious rigmaroles of him greeting all his prisoners and nuns and bishops who listen to him. He told the story last night of the convent where the nuns were forbidden to listen to him (he uses quite a bit of 'colourful' language) but then they found the mother superior listening to him so now they all listen together. Anyway, he told of how revolutionary it was for him as a younbg priest not to have to wear the soutane and to be able to say the mass in French and to say it facing the people. He pronounced himself in favour of woman deacons and it crossed my mind to take part in the phone in on that subject but listened instead to this remarkable programme which goes out throughout the French-speaking world every Wednesday evening. What a luxury!

Chose to teach on the Social Gospel today instead of the Oxford Movement.

Sun 11 The Narnia material has arrived - hooray but now there's going to be a mad rush working out how to use it. Still, I'm preaching on turkish delight this morning and Father Chjristmas next Sunday evening so I know that much.

Monday 12 The Raglan Festival concert on Friday evening was a big success and probably only made a very slight loss but had the merit of keeping the festival on everyone's radar. The new banner for the 2006 festival was stunning. We opened up as the Jonny Quick Band (JQB) and apart from forgetting a few endings and arrangement details it was pretty good with a much more solid sound from the keyboard amp with the bass going through it. Hair were perhaps a little out of place but cheerful enough. They might have been better off in a smaller venue where they could build a better rapport but they're nice blokes - I spoke to them before the gig about St Julians in the 1970s and the remarkable music scence there was around John Oliver who took the (augmented) school orchestra onto national television and to the USA in bicentennial year. Absinthe closed the evening and it was like being back in the 1970s again with them too. Powerful Free, Allman Brothers covers and some great originals - you completely forgot they're only seventeen. The drummer plays in the Elim church in Brecon and knows Allan and Jane Greaves. He did a long, pounding drum solo. Got home about 1.30 I think after putting the room straight.

A pretty good Sunday, too with the Turkish Delight sermon going down well after an excellent chiuldren's talk from Mel on the temptation of chocolate biscuits. The distribution of Christmas material in the afternoon and then Faith in the Community in the evening. A much reduced attendance at that and both my talk and Joan's were a bit out of place to the congregation who turned up. We were quite well represented, though - over twenty I think - and the evening was notable for the first appearance by the younger drama group. This is not DRAMATIC but Megan McCartney and Emily Goncalvez with Rhydian. By the way, Catherine is doing a colossal amount of work in connection with the DRAMATIC evening and the Sunday school presentation.

Recording for BBC Radio 2 on Wednesday and I've managed to get the house style so well now that Karen liked the theme of both the talks I sent in straight away and barely had to tweak them at all. That buys me a bit of time in this early part of the week. An added bonus is that I get my name in the Christmas Radio Times as part of the Bob Harris show this Saturday night. I used that as an example of pride but really there's more of a case to be made for self-deprecating humour given that the talk goes out at 2.30 in the morning. If you go on the Roy Noble programme on BBC Radio Wales all kinds of people come up to you and tell you they heard it but no one has ever mentioned the Radio 2 talks at all. My theory is that most people are drifting in and out of sleep when they come on - except the lorry drivers, I hope - and don't notice the Pause for Thought at all. I sometimes think that's exactly the effect they aim at.

Thu 15 Great morning at the BBC. The recording was quite easy except I developed a whistle on my ess sound and that caused a little bit of hassle. Saw Roy Noble and Frank Hennesy after so I was able to give the CD to Frank directly rather than asking Karen to pass it on.

On the way back I got some books from the Lighthouse and then in the evening we went to the carol service in Monmouth. Saw David Davies - he looks exactly the same as when he was teaching me and he was belting it out on the Charpentier prelude they did. A remarkable thing - we chose a row at random and sat down then a few minutes later I could hear that our neighbour was speaking to someone further along with quite a French accent. So I asked her if she was French and she turned out to be the mother of the twins in David's class who are half French! We had a great chat and will certainly get together in the New Year, perhaps with the French couple in the village. Rachel's reading went well and there is a great atmosphere at the school. There was a staff choir which is a great sign of involvement, I think.

Wed 21 A great Christmas weekend at the chapel. On Friday evening Jonathan had pulled all the stops out - there was a smoke machine and lights as well as the full sound system. We had an incident with the boys before we began, We'd decided to keep all the children together downstairs but they were adamant that they were going upstairs. That cost them admission to the event. The thing itself was great. We had Sam Thomas on guitar, me on bass and Jon on drums for the carols. They were very attentive during my Narnia talk and afterwards Rachel sang some songs by Green Day etc with Sam on guitar and Matt Bowen on drums. We must do more of these.

On Sunday there was a full church for the Sunday school presentation which was very good and then again in the evening for carols by candlelight. Lots of visitors from the village. The Raglan Light Orchestra played well and once again people were very attentive during the talk. Unfortunately, Jonny didn't turn up so it was the Jonny Quick Band minus Jonny singing 'Santa Claus is coming to town' but it seemed to go quite well, regardless. We are launching 'Christianity Explored' really on the back of that - there was an invitation on every seat and most were taken.

Today I'll be distrubuting the Son newspapers.

Wed 28 Just got back from the BBC which is like a ghost ship. No one from the religion department was there so Karen suggested I could tell security I knew the way and just mosey on up by myself. They were very loath to allow that but after some phone calls to the Roy Noble studio they finally came round to the idea. Everybody was very mellow and relaxed, including Jenny the producer.

It's been a great time for Christmas. On Christmas Day we had the video projector and computer set up but not yet permanently installed. The place was packed downstairs with about twenty in the balcony. Mel was in reflective mood and remembered the times when there would only be about half a dozen people on Christmas Day. I remember leading worship with just the guitar it must be two years ago and now there's the Raglan Light Orchestra sounding pretty good.

Doing the new rotas for reading, praying and children's talk. There are now 26 people prepared to read so people's opportunity only comes up a couple of times a year now!

Fri 30 Charles's party was a hoot. I spent a long time chatting with Cerys Spooner and her husband. She is the sister of David Wybron who played the clarinet in the quintet we had at school so it's strange how paths cross so far down the line. David is acting head at a large comprehensive somewhere I can't recall. A bit later in the evening we set up the instruments in a kind of minstrels' gallery that divides what was the original Baptist chapel. Doug was at the back with a reduced drum kit, Matt had his acoustic guitar and I was on bass and Jonny sang. Of course, Matt broke a string as he often does and Catherine and I filled in the gap with a few songs accompanied by Doug on the drums. Promising. We did all our best songs at the start of the evening unfrtunately so the performance of the Jonny Quick Band had a downward curve . . . Oh, I had a good chat with Doug's son, is it James? about music generally. There was a large turnout of perhaps thirty.

Working out this morning how to teach the synoptic problem and pentateuchal criticism. I remember more than one well-meaning minister local to Spurgeon's floundering around in that kind of territory. Very capable people, too.