Mud, Wine and religion

Reader, I have just landed an acting job in which I shall be spending a Sunday afternoon knee deep in the depths of the Thames. What a job. However, the scruffy six year old within is ridiculously delighted. A chance to roll around in mud? What could be better? I really do have a big love for those roles where I get to mess myself up. Whether that be with fake cuts and bruises, mud in my hair or prosthetics all over the place. I mean, don't get me wrong, I love just a nice simplistic rom-com as much as anyone, but horror movies are just more fun! Apart from when you have to walk home covered in fake blood and mud if there's no cleaning apparatus around...yes, that's happened before.

In other news, am doing jolly well at the new job! Selling wine seems to suit me. I've managed to overshoot my target two days out of three and the only day I didn't was the day they put me on a really hard campaign, which no one seems to do too well on. It was one where you have to call people who quit wine plans ages ago and try and convince them to buy wine, and barely any of them are up for it. The most common replies I experienced were:

• Sorry, we quit because we couldn't afford it and we still can't. Don't you know there's a recession on?
• I've given up alcohol because of an operation/my liver failing/diabetes/my weight.
• I'm pregnant.
• I hated the service you gave me, you're an awful person for calling me and let me now list all the reasons I won't buy from you ever again.

And then once...

• We cancelled his account because he died.

Gulp.

The worst response I had was when I was having a perfectly nice conversation with a lady who was quite interested in a wine plan, and could vaguely hear her husband in the background yelling something, but I assumed he was being jokey or asking her to ask me what wines they had. We rarely get a really angry response because we only ever call people who are members of the wine club and who have ordered through us before, so in general they sort of expect us to call. In this case, the man grabbed the phone off his wife just as we were closing the deal and screamed at me 'Sod off! I hate these bloody cold calls, don't you ever call us again!' then hung up on me! I was pretty shaken up after hours of people saying either 'ooh yes please' or 'oh no thanks, we've got plenty of wine' so instantly pressed the DO NOT CALL button. At least no other poor call centre worker will have to deal with his rudeness! I do feel sorry for his poor wife though, what a horrid man to have to live with.

Finally, a friend of mine is a keen debater and was telling me the other day about a debate he is trying to set up between Atheist Richard Dawkins and Religion philosopher William Lane Craig. You see, R. Dawkins is highly famous for his rejection of there being a God, which is fine but his arguments can be a little nonsensical. E.g. If 2+2 is 4, Michael Jackson must be dead. Useful stuff. And thus far he has refused to debate with William Lane Craig (who is widely seen to be someone who fights for there being a God but is actually very logical and reasonable instead of a mental preacher man who thinks we're all going to die in a fiery pit for enjoying champagne) listing a whole series of invalid and frankly silly reasons. It would be a really interesting discussion and rather than Dawkins picking on small fry, he'd be arguing with someone on the same level as himself, making interesting viewing/listening for both sides of the argument. Below I have listed the link to a video my friend has made as a sort of trailer as it were for a tour Craig is doing and a enticer to Dawkins for the very debate he seems to be shying away from. It makes interesting viewing so do have a look! (as well as the debates going on in the comments section!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1ldYmg0lpE

On that note my lovely people, I'm off to babysit, have a great evening!

Ash

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Religion, running and a rockin' good time

I am in pain Reader. Why am I in pain? I shall tell you. I am in pain, because today I did my second jog of the week. Now, if you've been reading this blog since the early days, you will know that I am about as athletic as a potato with a bit of rot sitting in. I gave the whole running thing a try earlier this year when I was getting into character for my graduate film from drama school and that nearly killed me, but for some reason, I have agreed to go running every other day with my mum, round our local park, in ugly clothes and trainers. I look like an asthmatic chav.

Why have I agreed to do this hellish task? Well, to be fair, it is for a very good reason. Recently, a friend of the family passed away from cancer, the second mother of a friend to have done so in a few years. So mum decided to do the Race for Life. And in a moment of weakness, she reminded me what a great cause it's for. I thought 'yeah, you know what? I haven't done much good for charity, save giving some money here and there. This might be a really good thing for me to do, in memory of the wonderful women I know that have passed away.' The thought of losing some weight was also pretty tempting. The thing is Reader, that I had forgotten that running is actually jolly hard work. And after two sessions, my calves have frozen in fear, my arse is throbbing (I think I need sports knickers if such a thing exist, to reign in my wandering flab) and going up stairs is agony. Plus, I'm not sure it's going to help me lose weight, I'm eating more than usual to compensate for the exercise! Although saying that, it is quite nice going round the park and seeing all the baby swans and stuff. Even though the other lady joggers (who, by the way, are scarily buff and toned and never seem to sweat or get out of breath) look at me pityingly. I think they can tell that I'm not cut out for the whole running thing...but I shall persevere. After all, it's for a good cause so I'd look pretty mean if I backed out now! 

The other slightly astonishing thing I did today was go to church. Now, anyone that knows me will be able to tell you that although I'm quite spiritual, I'm not the most religious of people. I was raised by agnostic/atheist parents, who were over-ruled by my heavily catholic Irish grandparents. So I lived in a very chilled house religion wise, but still did my communion and confirmation. For a stage when I was 14, I even wanted to be a nun. Then I did my confirmation classes and had a whole bunch of arguments with the nuns about how wise it really was to tell a bunch of Tottenham teens that contraception was a sin. I mean, really. Then I started a debate about why God would have given women clitorises if he didn't intend sex to be for pleasure, and what constituted as abortion. Needless to say, I was not their favourite student, and it put me right off really committing to religion. I also travelled a lot as a child, and when I came back, my understanding of faith was a little odd. My gran got very worried when I started asking her where the offering tables were in mass one sunday when I was about 5. She asked me what I meant and I replied 'You know, the tables with the food and incense for the Gods, so they make the sun still come up every morning'. Poor Nana. So now I believe what I want to believe. Which is basically that there is a higher power who loves us all, there is a heaven with everything good in it (including deep fried brie, seasides and horror films) but no hell (hell is just the absence of heaven), that if you're good to your fellow humans and animals then good things happen to you too, Karma exists, prayer works and deep down, everyone has something good about them. Which is enough for me really. I don't like to be dogmatic. But going to church today was nice. I like the traditions of lighting candles for people, singing the hymns out of the old dog eared hymn books and kneeling in the pews to pray with the soggy wafer on your tongue, trying really hard not to chew it. It's all quite comfortable and pleasant. Saying that, there were so many depressed looking people there, I wanted to get them all cheering and energetic with a Sister Act style gospel sing-a-long! 

Right Reader, it's late and I'm knackered, so for now, tarrah!

More later 

Ash

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