That Makka Pakka\u2019s got his work cut out for himself, hasn\u2019t he? It seems that his whole purpose for being is to clean. Not, in itself, an unworthy cause, but he does seem to be rather fixated with cleaning stones, which frankly, is a hiding to nothing in my book!<\/p>\n
Let me explain. A little background to begin with, methinks, before you all press the HOME button and banish me to obscurity forever. Makka Pakka is a small, light brown, er, thing<\/em>, that lives in The Night Garden, which is a children\u2019s television show broadcast on the cbeebies<\/strong> channel in the U.K. I say small, but to be honest it\u2019s hard to tell as the programme makers seem hell bent on winding me up by messing with the perspective of every character in the show! For example, the Ninky Nonk (don\u2019t worry, there\u2019s a point to all this – there\u2019s always<\/em> a point) is a sort of train made up of about 5 very differently shaped and sized carriages. It comes up to Igglepiggle and Upsy Daisy\u2019s knees. Or at least it does some of the time! The Ninky Nonk roams wild around the garden, seemingly controlled by invisible forces, drawing to a halt wherever and whenever it feels like it. Pulling up alongside Upsy Daisy\u2019s lower legs, the camera angle changes and all of a sudden she is dwarfed by what is now the largest toy \u201ctrain\u201d in the history of mankind. Very confusing indeed and not a little annoying. They are (the programme makers), as Shaun Ryder puts it during of The Happy Mondays\u2019 \u201cStep On\u201d, \u201ctwisting my melon, man! Call the cops!\u201d. Quite, Shaun, quite. But I digress.<\/p>\n Makka Pakka spends his days cleaning stones, and most anything else that he happens across. And before any of you castigate me, I\u2019m not being sexist. He<\/em> is, of course, strangely genderless, as are most children\u2019s toys for some extremely obscure reason, but inside the rather fetching brown suit, there is an actor, and a male one at that, so for the purposes of continuity, Makka Pakka is a he<\/em>! I can change the earlier \u201cmankind\u201d to \u201cpersonkind\u201d, if you wish? Any takers? Then I shall continue. I\u2019m guessing that the cleaning of stones is a fairly thankless task. It\u2019s not one that I\u2019ve undertaken on a regular basis like my fine, furry friend, but it seems reminiscent of National Servicemen painting stones white to edge parade ground borders – an utterly pointless task foisted upon them by an army that didn\u2019t want them, and an army that they didn\u2019t want to be in, if you get my drift! The thing is, once cleaned, he doesn\u2019t seem to do anything with them. If he had any sense he\u2019d bag \u2018em up and sell them to his hapless Night Garden chums as Pet Rocks or Door Stops or any number of other useful things. But he doesn\u2019t. They presumably end up where they came from, on the ground, attracting dirt, awaiting their next Makka Pakka clean! He must, however, be driven by something to continue on this endless task. And it has to be said, the Night Garden does contain a particularly fetching collection of clean<\/em> stones!<\/p>\n You\u2019re getting restless now, aren\u2019t you? In my experience, serving church can sometimes be a thankless task (see, I told you there was a point. You can be remarkably lacking in faith for Christians!). As a Worship Team, we\u2019ve had an ongoing issue with loudness over the last 3 years. Good Lord!!! Have I touched a nerve? We began addressing the problem by DIing all guitars and basses, banishing amps to the history books. We then moved everyone to IEMs (In Ear Monitors) to further reduce \u201cstage\u201d noise, but not surprisingly, the problem persisted because we were avoiding the actual issue which was, of course – the drums! (By the way, if you\u2019re wondering what that music is in the background, it\u2019s Gerry Rafferty\u2019s \u201cBaker Street\u201d album. And NO, it\u2019s not Bob \u201cI\u2019ll have a blinking P\u201d Holness playing the sax solo either! You people will believe anything<\/em>. Not a usual listen, you understand, but I thought I\u2019d revisit him since his untimely death. Anyway, it makes a change from the Clash\u2019s \u201cLondon Calling\u201d which I can\u2019t seem to stop listening to at the moment. \u201cJimmy Jazz\u201d, \u201cSpanish Bombs\u201d, \u201cLost in The Supermarket\u201d. F.A.N.T.A.S.T.I.C!).<\/p>\n Drums. The bane of the lives of, well, about 3 people as it turns out. Roughly 1% of the congregation at the time, but a loud 1%! The solution, or rather the only affordable solution, seemed to be an electronic kit. We couldn\u2019t (can\u2019t) afford an acoustic cage for the kit and apart from that they don\u2019t make the drums any quieter, they just prevent the noise from hitting anyone outside of the cage, so spare a thought for the poor person inside it!. Anywhos, we\u2019re blessed with a small project recording studio at our church \u00a0– run and engineered by my goodself (and Bekah, one of our drummers) and we bought an electronic kit about 18 months ago for there. One Sunday, I decided to drag the kit out for the aforementioned Bekah (lovely girl) to play. It wasn\u2019t without it\u2019s problems. Frankly, it sounded awful – phase issues left it sounding like a top of the range Tupperware set. Anyway, needless to say, after the service we approached one of our most vociferous detractors to illicit an opinion on what we believed to be the future of Worship as we knew it.<\/p>\n \u201cLovely.\u201d came the reply, \u201cShame you couldn\u2019t hear the drums though.\u201d!<\/p>\n I\u2019ve developed a bit of a soft spot for Makka Pakka of late.<\/p>\n Cheers<\/p>\n Nick<\/p>\n Other posts you might like:<\/strong><\/p>\n