Bill Cahusac's Blog

pimped!

How do you turn this:

into this:

The answer? A partnership between the Metropolitan Police, MTV, EMI and our good friends at XLP with the aim of reducing youth violence in the capital, providing young people with new skills and experiences. 

The vehicle was filled with music-based equipment, including a fully functioning recording studio, a mixing desk, pro-speakers and subs, three wireless laptops and a digital video camera. 

The van has also had a sound proof booth for vocal recordings installed and a 40in plasma screen and Xbox console with wireless controllers placed on the side of the van along with a basketball hoop. It will be managed by XLP and used by young people across select London boroughs including Southwark, Lewisham, Bexley, Newham, Tower Hamlets, Greenwich and Islington. 

The icing on the cake for us up in Tollington was that it was launched on our patch. 

Up in TP we are hugely excited by this new initiative and are looking forward to seeing it making a difference to young people in our area, as well as across London. Thanks to Sarah M for the photos.

Advertising space

They say that there's one thing worse than being talked about, and that's not being talked about.

So when I read this I found myself smiling.

"There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life" 

I love it on many levels- even though the sentiment is supposed to be negative it's the kind of advert that I suspect many people might think was thought up by the church to get people thinking. The fact that the humanist society have done it seems to me to make it all the more ironic. 

Paranoid Android

Looking back I remember a time when I wasn't afraid. When I wasn't looking over my shoulder. There are memories of my childhood where I didn't know fear, but that seems so long ago now.

Fear of invasion, fear of revolution, fear of pandemic viruses, fear of our neighbours, fear of losing everything, fear of our children being corrupted, fear of young people, fear of identity theft, fear of being alone. 

We are being stalked by fear.

Pick up a newspaper and you'll read it there. Turn on the television or listen to the radio and you'll see or hear it. It's everywhere. Like a malignant tumor. 

Recently it's got worse. I see it in people's faces, and I hear it in their words. Ask them why and some of them won't be able to tell you- all they know is that they are afraid. 

Perhaps the nature of modern communication has made these fears seem more real than before. It could be that the media have stoked it up. And we are now faced with a generation growing up who even at the age of 5 or 6 are afraid. We have unknowingly passed it on like a virus.  

Culture has helped- it has programmed us to feel afriad. 

The answer could be tighter boarder control, ID cards, detention without trial, a new vaccine, curfews, Megan's law, biometric passports, online communities and social networking sites.

But the reality is that to a greater or lesser extent what fear does is suffocate freedom. Because when we feel afraid we often we long to feel secure. Then, before we know it, in our attempt to secure our freedom, our rights, or our safety we become it's slaves. Robots that no longer think the issues through, but simply allow ourselves to be told.

I'm not trying to make some kind of political statement- we need certain things, institutions and laws  in place in order to allow society to function. We also need to be honest about the fact that there are ideologies out there that are intent on evil. 

But I believe that if we only ever look in or out we will never be truly free. 

We need to look up. 

To look at the one who promised that his love casts out fear, and who beings true freedom. Not an escape from the realities of life, but a confidence that nothing can separate us from his love and that no matter what may not happen in the stock markets he will be with us if only we call upon him. 

Then perhaps we will begin to know his love, sense his presence and begin to take the first tentative steps into freedom.

Towards a love that casts out all fear.

Fake Plastic Trees, Life & All That....

The beauty and bleakness of "Fake Plastic Trees" was brought home to me recently as I reflected on Mark Sayers' excellent book "The Trouble With Paris" (my book of the year) having just watched "Alesha: Look but Don't Touch" on BBC 3. I was reminded again of much of what Mark talks about in his book, namely that much of what we aspire to isn't actually real. It is hyper-reality. 

I thought about how so often many want to look as good as the person or celebrity on the cover of a glossy magazine, and more than that, we want to have the kind of life that we are told that they live. 

The only problem is that they don't actually look like that or have the life we read about.

Most of it is fake. Literally. 

Fake fake smile, fake smooth skin, fake agelessness, and in some cases fake happiness.

I knew that most photographs in magazines were manipulated, but had no idea that, with the exception of when they want a celebrity to look awful, the photos are all re-touched. More than that, in the documentary Alesha was told that she would stand out if her picture was unaltered- and not in a good way. It seems that we can spot reality a mile away and we don't like it. 

We want to, but it would mean that the fairy tale we can so often aspire to is exactly that- a fairy tale. People in their mid thirties and beyond have wrinkles. If you drink tea, coffee of a can of fizzy pop it will stain your teeth. And the celebrity who is always at every party may actually feel as insecure and lonely as the next person. Worse than all that, not only do so many of us aspire to the fantasy, but we can often allow it to affect the way that we look at real people who do age, have teeth that don't almost blind you and don't look fantastic first thing in the morning. 

When you think about it in the cold light of day it is completely insane. 

So why do we do it? Why do we allow ourselves to be sucked in? To believe in the myth of eternal youth and the lie that fame and fortune make you happy? I think it is because the reality is too painful. 

We are all getting older. We are all going to die. No amount of tooth whitening, botox or surgery can change the facts. And we don't want to face the painful truth that life for most of us isn't what we dreamed it might be, or worse still, can be droll and mundane at times. And it all seems so hopeless. 

Except of course that it isn't hopeless. We have been offered an invitation by Jesus to live in a reality that can begin now and go on for all eternity. This life is just the prologue. We have been invited to join his dance. A dance that will beat to different drum. That speaks of truth, beauty and of love that knows no bounds and is unconditional-  of a wild and dangerous freedom.  

It will not all be plain sailing- it will be tough, challenging, painful and filled with joy. A life that is beyond anything we could possibly imagine.

And it will be real.