Coffee Moaning and it is Good Friday. It is a time to reflect on the ideas of faith, sacrifice and humility. It's about a man trying to get his fellow humans to live on a deeper, spiritual level, but not afraid to call out hypocrisy when he saw it. It is a time of rebirth and renewal, spring with all its new life and a time to start again out of dormant winters of our lives. It's also a day for a chippy tea!
Speaking of chippy, let's see what Mark has on the agenda.
Title is "Having Faith, Freddie the Seal, Arctic Easter, a Summer of Love and Favourite Emojis." Talk about from the sublime to the ridculous.
Mark is busy making noises, he looked like he was on the hunt for a troll
, but it looked like it wasn't. Always on the hunt for those trolls is Mark.
Roll call. He is singing now. There is a big old wheelbarrow over his right shoulder. More roll call with the usual suspects. Faith said she used to use the upside down face, until she found out what it meant. (I've used the upside down face emoji, going to look. Oh. It denotes sarcasm, so no worries for me
) Mark talks about the Daily Star, its lampooning skills. Today's headline is "Free Old Fart Test-Worried you are no longer hip and trendy? Well let us help!" Something about a guide to check to see what the yoof are saying behind your back. (Why should I give a flying fig? They are young and stupid.) Mark:"Do you think we are a bunch of old farts." (No, I'm like a cool vintage velvet blazer or a cheeky expensive bottle of red. )
Nads is on Loose and it is a special 1.5 hours.
It's a holiday, a day of rest, but then again they do say no rest for the wicked, am I right?
Mark is having a hard time a getting around the word observant. A Hometime has landed with Nads trying to get to the bottom of a bottle of tequila.
Dawn is happy being an old fart. (I can smell her from here.
) Mark doesn't like the emojis with a face so small, he can't see what they are. (Like this?
) Can he see this?
Talks about the really annoying one that you can't tell what it is. (Well,
-unamused
expressionless
confused. ) "Send a clearer emoji." Question-What do emojis say about you? Anne Marie finds the
offends her.
Mark likes to do a peach with a punch of wind.
The chatbox is FILLED with emojis. Gabrielle has done a
and YouTube has held it back. Mark has a sip of his coffee and still looks like a
. Zoe has a drunk face
. This is Nad's fave
. "The up there for dancing, down there for prancing." Michelle has the x for eyes one. "Pair of scissors behind the head?"
"It's Good Friday! Good Bloody Friday."
(Do you remember a time when that word wasn't said in good company. Yeah I know it's Mark, but still. Blasphemer!
) Mark says it's a funny time of the year, Nads gets excited about it. (Must be all the chocolate she is going to scoff down and then we get to experience the days of regret afterward.) Mark goes on to say that it is a very religious day, "you've got to be respectful of that." (Excuse me, please refer to the first sentence in this paragraph, the one with quotations around it.
) "My family never celebrated Easter"
Shocker! 
He says not egg hunts. Most people when they say celebrate they mean the old going to church, meeting with family and Easter dinner, the end of Lent. "Apparently for Nads it was all about blowing eggs, whatever that means." He did watch Jesus Christ Superstar on telly. (Ah yes! Remember the blasphemous versions in the schoolyard? Jesus ended up knocking off his bollocks with dustbin lid
) Mark tells us about sitting on his granddad's lap watching it and sobbing uncontrollably when he was crucified.
"I must have been so distressed, I must have been about 8 or 9." (Be real Mark, it was 25 years ago
.) Josh says he hated it. Mark wants a clarification-was it JCS, Easter or eating chocolate? Sarah Clemmy was an egg steward in Avenham Park in Preston. "That's so cooool." Jane mentions the garden. "I know what they mean by the darling buds of May." Josh clarifies it was JCS. Mark says now he was 7. He and Mads went to see JCS at Regent's Park. Clarifies he is not a a musical or ALW fan, but he enjoyed it.
Theology lesson from Mark as best as he can. Good Friday "it was the day Jesus was crucified and then we have all the rest of Easter, the Resurrection and everything else."
Wow, that was so succinct and detailed, I'm blown away. 
Oh here we go the old religion is good at the core, but the doing
tit-not into that. (I would love to walk into the church on the reg, but they want you to join, join and I'm not really a joiner
) "But then it gets so contorted and messed up." (Has he every attended church?) Mark goes on about the people who knows who have strong faith and that there is a calmness around them. (Well it is about giving your burdens to a higher power. I remember our theology teacher saying if you want to sum up what was in this case Catholicism, it is the serenity prayer
, Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference. Someone isn't working the programme.
) Mark says he has been slightly envious of people with faith. (That is like being slightly pregnant.) "As a historian too many people have died over this."
That old chesnut. Xander sticks his two cents in. Mark doesn't like the organized part of religion. (Oh what does he know? Neither Mark nor Nadia were brought up in a faith so shut it!) HIT THE THUMBS UP GUYS! Claire Ross Reade joins in to comment on the thumbs downers, claiming they haven't got out of bed for 3 months. (Next they are going to say we all live in our parent's basements. WELL BRING IT ON
witches!) "It makes you feel good to put goodness in the world, but for some putting badness in the world make you feel good too." He sounded like children's presenter then,
one who snorts lines off of George the tortoise. "You just got to feel sorry for them really, you do."
Alfie found the April Fools broadcast funny. Does Alfie have a pulse? Maria S doesn't do religion, "I do faith." (OOh, we are just so right on, blah, blah, blah. Do they realize that they sound as pompous as those militant church going snot rags?) It looks like Amoeba Records might be coming back according to Kate Gets a Pen. Mark says he was going to wear his Amoeba tee, but felt sad because it shut down
Some Godless person is banging above my head 
Someone Somewhere says a lot of it is allegory and not to be taken literally. (Well, duh. Do you really think Lot's wife was turned into a pillar of salt?) Someone asks what spiritual means, they have never found anyone who could define it. (Someone who can't be arsed to participate, but does believe in God, but it isn't on trend to, so they hedge their bets and say I'M SPIRITUAL!
) Mark says it's a good question. "It's ineffable, it's unpindownable, but I think it's a belief in us having something around us and dictating life that is beyond what just goes on in here
points to head...some sense of the spirit,
gesticulates with hands some sense of a cosmic larger than us feel...sense to the world"
Well that was clear as mud.
Mark mentions his 12 step and how he doesn't think of God the way they do in the programme. (I think they say a God/higher power of your understanding actually.) Talks about humans ability to create and "that's why we are an arts based family."
"creating without hurting someone, without financial gain is quite spirtual."
I am getting a sense of Jesus when he knocked over tit in the temple about now.
Mark shows us his t-shirt of the raving storm trooper. Talk about festivals. Mark's fat finger just froze the screen. Anthony mentions the Jesus of Nazareth series as a child. Mark playing the edgy RE teacher, telling us about this day being religious, but also paganistic-"Which is why we have eggs, because let's face it, Jesus was not eating eggs." (Well no, cuz the Last Supper was 3 days earlier, duh.) Goes on about eggs being symbols of fecundity.
(In the Jewish faith, they are symbols of mourning). Someone makes comment of not findng any Easter eggs. Mark reiterates that the Tesco's in Streatham apparently has some.
Shout out to Joshua, a chatter's son. Ellen said as a child she found the crucifixion story very scary. (It's supposed to be.) Mark talks about his time in school at age 7 and the Old Testaments, how for him it created "a fictional landscape of movieness." WTAF? "It was so cinematic." That's why he likes the Tedster's stories, they transport him. Someone says morons are underrated. "I'm a total moron. I love behaving like a moron." Sheila has said God has helped her to keep sober.
Nanny Di went back to get her 2nd jab. Mark's gran was agnostic. Remember the slag heap that fell on the school in Aberfan? (I don't cuz I wasn't born yet.) So she was one of those people, a tragedy happens and it's God's fault for not intervening, (Forgive me Jesus, but EFF that!) but she hedged her bets. Charlotte leans towards Buddhism. Okay, so get this, if Nads was to spontaneous combust (my words, you can make-up your own scenarios-it's fun!), Mark would relinquish all his worldly goods to go into retreat. A friend of his did and he toyed with going, but what held him back was his friend Neil who said "You'd have to give up all your records." Mark said he can't, but Neil said you can give them to me and Mark was like "No, you won't look after them like me." That, my fellow Tattlers, is when he realized he wasn't cut out for Buddhism. Just let is sit there with yourselves.
There is a Buddhist temple in their neighbourhood and this chick catches the bus down by their house. He sometimes has chats with her and it is "really sweet." "We don't understand what each other is saying, but there is such a warmth between us, there is such a, such a bond formed over 20 years. She sees something in me, I see something in her..."
He clarifies he aint having an affair, "she is much older than me." (So is Nads.
) "There was such a calmness." One day, Mark's employee lost his iPhone and 2 months later she handed it to me saying she thinks it's his colleague's phone. (She could have nicked it
) "She doesn't walk, she sort of hovers down the street." Mark says she is his Yoda. Mark got a text from Nanny Di. She is feeling a bit woozy, but is going to come over. Nanny Di will be over for Easter. "Guess who is coming to our garden?" Sky Elise asking about another GFH, yes. LISA IS COMING. MORE THUMBS UP GUYS! MP is still laughing at the black screen in Hometime. Mark tells us about his granddad who went to the a staunch Catholic school, the usual stereotypes and in his later life he renounced the church. (I'm sure they are so sad of that.) There is a member's live later. His nan wanted him to get christened just in case. Nanny Di is hereeeeeeee. Lucy says she is an atheist-not that she doesn't believe in a God, just not convinced there is one. (I think that makes you agnostic. These chatters man.)
Mark has a theory. "I wonder if we are the aliens from another planet that landed here as some kind of microbe or amoeba...started as a germ, crawled out of the sea, became humans and created religions, because in our DNA we knew we came from the stars."
Okay. "God is cosmic, God is the universe. I beginning to sound religious, Christ."
(Right, 30 Hail Marys, 42 Our Fathers, 20 Glory Be's and then jump off the nearest cliff!) Mark says he doesn't understand daily bread.
When they said daily trespasses, Mark thought that meant God knew he went to the local building site, peeled back the corregated iron and went to do dangerous things with electrical cables.
Yes, finally Freddie the seal. You know, the seal that was attacked by the dog, senseless death. I didn't know this, but it was named Freddie as in Mercury, because of its entertaining antics. "We need to steer clear of seals." Mark says it's an important message to keep dogs on leads
. "Seals sit along side otters for me." Give seals space campaign. Mark says wave at it, say Happy Easter and leave it at that. Mark asks if we are serious expecting snow this weekend? (Yeah the weather has been doing its own thing here, balmy then warm, then cool, then cold.) Mark watched the Octopus Teacher and says it's good. (Don't let that put you off, I LOVED THAT FILM
) "Arctic weather, that frightens me." (I hate the fact that it make me comfort eat
) He then says they rarely get it right. HIT THE THUMBS UP GUYS, COME ON! JUST DO IT, THE THUMBS UP ICON FOR ME. I KNOW IT ANNOYS OTHER PEOPLE.
I ain't bovvered. Mark forgets what he was going to say. Oh the
went on again. "Has anyone noticed the vested interest the newsgatherers have had in this flipping and flopping of news around COVID?" Nothing going on and this Arctic plunge is a news click. Mark did an arctic plunge. An SAS guy that told him that 10% of people get a heart attack who get out. Mark told him he didn't put that in his risk assessment. SAS guy told him to shut the eff up and pushed him in.
If the Arctic Plunge happens he hopes to use his arctic training.
Mark wants everyone to send fart emojis to someone they know and say "Mark made me do it." Skye Elise hates snow, rather have rain. COAMP episode is about positive of negatives of being parents. Next week will be about the Summer of Love. No not 1967, not even the 89 one that happened in the UK. Mark thinks there will be one this summer. (Good luck. We are in lockdown that isn't a lockdown right now. A meme is going around showing our Premier with the title "Ontario Reclassifies "Grey Zone" To The "IDK, You Fuckin Figure It Out" Zone.") Mark goes on about escorting da yoof through this. CHECK OUT THE HTSM HRT CHAT, DAVINA MCCALL GAVE IT A SHOUTOUT. WE ARE GOING TO REVISIT IT. HAVE A LOVELY EASTER. SUNDAY SHOW EASTER SPECIAL. MEMBERS LIVE TONIGHT AND A VLOG HAS JUST LANDED. GROUP HUG. FART EMOJIS MARK MADE ME DO IT. HAVE A LOVELY DAY. I hope you have a good weekend!
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