Talking about stamps... and baseball cards... again

I sort of still collect stamps, although it's not something I'm doing as actively as in the past. Last year, the society I belong to, the British Thematic Association, started doing meetings on Zoom. I presented about my collection back in March 2021.

The Zoom meetings are recorded, so if you would like to hear me talking about my collection of stamps featuring the Statue of Liberty, you can watch it here:

Since then I was asked to present again (virtually) at the Newport Philatelic Society back in November, and in March I'm due to present to the Caledonian Philatelic Society based in Glasgow.

I haven't added anything really to my collection for ages, except for a few things I inherited from my dad's collection as Cathy and I have been sorting through it. My collecting focus has switched to baseball cards, specifically cards featuring Tony Gwynn, the all-time greatest player for the San Diego Padres. I closed out 2021 on 1,052 different cards featuring Tony. One week into 2022 and I had a nice mail day when two envelopes arrived containing 3 new cards for the collection.

The card on the handwritten note came from Nashville and is from a set released in 1999. The others were from a collector in the UK and were released last year. My blog about baseball cards is currently on a midwinter break, but these cards will be featured on there some time this year!

End of an era: after 14 years I have closed down my freelance theology website

You may have come here as a redirect from www.freelancetheology.com - don't panic! That was meant to happen.

In January 2004 I launched a Typepad site (remember Typepad? No? Oh well) which I called 'freelance theology'. The idea was that people could submit a question and get an answer from a 'real, live theologian' (i.e. me), which would be non-partisan and give all the different angles on the subject.

The Typepad venture was quite successful. In 2006, with a lot of help from my friend Ian,  it was transferred to a Wordpress blog. Another friend, Matt, designed my logo, with a heavenly cloud one end and a hellish flame the other. The F had a halo. The G had horns and a devil tail. The idea was that somewhere between heaven and hell was freelance theology. After a couple of years, I transferred the web hosting to Dave, who has been a great help with technical stuff ever since.

Freelance theology got me into some interesting things. I wrote a chapter for a book about Jesus. I had a regular interview slot with Paul Hammond on UCB radio and even went to their lovely studios a couple of times as their live Friday morning guest. If you are one of the people who read my freelance theology posts, who commented, who asked a question, then thank you. Thank you for being part of it. I appreciate it.

The site has been on hiatus since November 2016 and I didn't post at all last year. I had been thinking for a while whether it was time to wind up the project and with the web hosting renewal bill coming in, I have decided it is time to call it quits. In 14 years I answered 222 questions, and I apologise to the handful of people who had questions pending, which I won't be answering now.

It has been a wrench to close it down. I was 'Jon the freelance theologian' for a long time, but I don't really want to be him any more. I started with lofty aims - possibly even pretentious, arrogant aims - of providing impartial knowledge, sharing all the sides of arguments that are often much more complex than people realise. I still think there is a place for that on the web. I just don't think I am the person to do it any more.

It got hard to be impartial. Being blunt, there is so much in the modern Christian subculture that is either toxic or just plain stupid, I found it really hard not to be sarcastic and / or damning. I was asked a few questions that left me rolling my eyes. And I started to drift away from answering questions and posting excerpts from talks, or comments about other things I saw in church life. Those weren't what freelance theology was about. I could feel the drift and I didn't like it, even though it was my website and my rules.

Rather than let mission-creep overtake the site, I decided it was just time to bring it to a halt. I remember a conversation I had years ago with my dad about church-related activities and he said that people found it easy to start things, but hard to stop them. It is hard to stop. But it is the right thing to do and now is the right time.

Ignite Cardiff - 40 Letters and More (or what I didn't give up for Lent)

I've never been very good at giving things up for Lent. This year I decided to do something positive and wrote a letter to a different person every day. (Cathy did as well.)

Ignite Cardiff is a fabulous regular event which anyone can apply to speak at. I pitched the idea about speaking about the Lent Letters project and got accepted. I was first up on the night and you can watch my talk here - it's about five minutes long.


After the talk I had loads of very positive comments about it and several people said they were thinking of writing letters to people. So far two people have tweeted me to say they actually have done it, which is really lovely.

I asked Sim_n how many he planned to do and he said 7. This next chap went a stage further.

I think that's a really cool bit of art there.

One of the things many people commented on was how cool it was to get a hand-written letter through the post. Hopefully a few more people will have that pleasure soon.

(Not all post is fab post. Check out the barmiest junk mail I've ever received.)

A collection of Shrewsbury scarves

I've recently had an article published on the When Saturday Comes website sticking up for half-and-half scarves, with a bit of history of the ones I own. Here are some photos and additional comments.

Half-and-half scarves, if you don't know, commemorate games between clubs. They often feature the date of the game. Here are the four I own. Two are from the same game.

You'll notice the Arsenal one circumvents copyright issues.

I have some other scarves too. A vintage one from before the move to the new stadium, one that was for sale at the Wembley play-off against Bristol Rovers, and the 125-year anniversary scarf.

The Wembley one is a nice memento of a pretty horrible game.

Generally in life you only need one scarf. But these are more than that. They are a record of fandom. With the demise of the much-maligned 'Clippy' the Lion from the club badge, there are new scarves being produced for the forthcoming season. I probably will end up buying one.

Some other bits of writing & stuff

Occasionally I engage in some self-promotion.

A pessimistic article I wrote for When Saturday Comes has attracted at least one angry commentator detracting my status as a Shrewsbury fan. Surprisingly I'm less than bothered.

I don't usually plug stuff I've written for work, but I was involved in the creation of a recent white paper about the guiding ethos in the NHS, and whether its founder, Aneurin Bevan, would recognise it. I found it fascinating to write it and maybe you'd find it interesting.

While we're on the subject of work stuff, I had the privilege to direct some information videos about work being done to prevent falls among elderly and infirm people back in May. They're now online, so if you want to rate my ability as a documentary film-maker, you can watch them here. I suggest the ones filmed in Cardiff and Llanidloes - if you like dogs you have to watch the one from Llanidloes. (I was helped massively by a very talented cameraman / editor - this is his website.)

Leaders and followers

After several months tweeting for work, I have decided to tweet as myself. You can follow me if you wish at http://twitter.com/jongudmund

Actually no 'if you wish'. Follow me, follow me now! What are you waiting for?

And that's Jonny Danger, for the win

Total Film have got a list on their website of the top 20 Star Wars t-shirts.

Guess who's number one! *Go on, guess baby!) Oh, yeah, that's right - Feel the Force from Fair and Bare. Can you feel it!

Check out the complete list here.

I guess this just goes to prove that "I raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaawk!"

Well, it's up and all is revealed

Well, all is not really revealed as such as I'm keeping my clothes on for this project but T-SHIRT THEOLOGY is now up and running.

This is the blog based on an idea I had for a book, which who knows may one day become a book. But for now it's a blog and you can read the very first post right now!

Let me know what you think.

Can you feel it? Well, can you?

Yeah, yeah! My t-shirt concept got made at Fair & Bare. Go buy one now and experience the kind of lovin' only we Jedi know!


Order here

Are you a grouchy hippo?

Kev Kennedy asks the question.

Insider's guide to depression

If you're interested in knowing what it feels like to be depressed, then you can read my story on the new Looking at Life site.

Also - check this out: peurile, but funny!

Wowsers!

My joke about male turkeys suffering more from bird flu is on the 'more soon' tag line on Newsbiscuit. Woohoo.

(Wait for the rolling headlines to move round to it!)

Online philosopher

Check it out - I'm now a news commentator!