De La Mennais Brothers: Making Jesus Christ better known and loved by young people

Today I taught the other members of my staff/pupil band, "The Brothers Of Funk Instruction", some top tunes for our next "gig"/school concert: All These Things That I've Done (The Killers), About You Now (Sugerbabes... yes, the Sugarbabes!! Sounds great in a rock format), Sit Down (James), Deeper (Delirious), Run (Snow Patrol) and a personal fave, All Kinds Of Time (Fountains Of Wayne). They picked them all up really quick which is terrific, considering that other than myself, the band members' ages range from 12 to 15. The band is a floating collective of about 8 musicians, swapping in and out members for different songs, eg. drums... those not playing the main parts chip in on tambourine, backing vocals, etc... We learned the songs in an open rehearsal during tonight's Open Evening in the school. Prospective pupils and their parents could wander in and out on their way around the school. Two other pupils also came and performed (both female singer-...

I am really liking "Scott Pilgrim vs. the World" (saw it last night). At the same time gloriously silly (concept), wildly imaginative (visuals), wonderfully funny (dialogue) and just plain adorable. "Step up your game Scott, time to break out the 'L' word..."

It's been a VERY busy start to the school year (new job...) but I have to write about events yesterday at Hyde Park. I took a group of young adults from Southampton and Liverpool (the latter coming down to meet us in London) aged between 14 and 22 and a family of friends from Liverpool to the event at Hyde Park that culminated in the Papal prayer vigil. All of our group absolutely loved it, and so did all those around us, it seemed. The day just flew by. The music + dance... yes, was at times gloriously cheesy, but also at times quite beautiful and mostly very well performed. Young Liam McNally sung his heart out and the arrangement + performance of "You Raise Me Up" (most definitely NOT a fave song of mine) actually had me (and loads of people near me) choking up. As did the wonderfully moving testimonies of faith from people during the "Heart Speaks To Heart" section at the end of the afternoon, esp. from the parents of the young Catholic murdered a coupl...