A Church of England book published this week says bald and overweight people should be regarded as worshippers with "special needs" alongside the blind, the deaf and worshippers in wheelchairs. The advice is an attempt to make churches more friendly to newcomers and therefore increase attendance at services.
The book, Everybody Welcome, warns that bald people could be "in trouble from those overhead radiant heaters some churches have unwittingly installed" and that special arrangements may need to be made for people who are overweight. "Some pew spaces and chairs are embarrassingly inadequate for what is known in church circles as 'the wider community'," the book says.
Also, consideration should be given to recovering alcoholics who want to receive communion wine, it suggests, and for those who "find loud noises from organs or music groups distressing".
The Church's drive also includes ideas such as encouraging worshippers to make eye contact, to smile and to remember people's names. Source: Telegraph.co.uk
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A reader warns of the dangers of hot water bottles: "A number of years ago, my lovely husband put me to bed after a few too many and filled a hottie from a freshly boiled jug. I hugged that hottie all night and awoke to find I had to peel it from my rib cage, leaving a 50 cent sized burn below my left breast. Lesson one, always fill a hot water bottle from the hot tap only. Lesson two, those hottie covers Nana crocheted - they're priceless."
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Classical composer Gustav Holst was once ticked off by a Cotswold farmer for playing his trombone too loudly and making his sheep lamb early, researchers have discovered. Newly found archive material on the composer of The Planets reveals he would often play the trombone as he walked home when he was then a student at the Royal College of Music and too poor to afford the train fare. Once, an irate farmer rushed up to him and said: "You are causing all this trouble with our sheep. They are lambing too soon, with this noise going on." Source: Telegraph.co.uk
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James May of the British television show Top Gear is planning to build a full-sized house out of Lego materials for his new series James May's Toy Stories. On Saturday, more than three million Lego bricks were delivered for the task and he's enlisting the public's help. The house will be life-size with a staircase, toilet and shower. The series will also feature an attempt to create a Scalextric version of the Brooklands racetrack in Weybridge. More than 20,000 pieces of Scalextric will be laid out and members of the Scalextric Club will go head-to-head in a 4.4km race. Source: GetSurrey.co.uk
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Today's Webpick: A song for homesick kiwis. Watch it here.
These are the very best online videos from Ana's online magazine Spare Room.
