蜜芽传媒

From Leslie Griffiths, Methodist Minister:

听

I know I鈥檝e already talked about the Manic Street Preachers so I鈥檓 sorry to mention them again. I鈥檓 in danger of becoming Radio Two鈥檚 Bore of the Year! But I鈥檓 intrigued by them, perhaps because they鈥檙e Welsh or because, as a preacher myself, I love their readiness to shout the odds about the bewildering and often wicked world we live in. Futurology, their 12th album, has just appeared and the reviews are stunning. One track in particular, an instrumental called 鈥淒reaming a city,鈥� caught my attention. The city in question was founded by a Welshman, a man named John Hughes from Merthyr Tydfil who went out with his entire family and 73 taffies at the invitation of the Tsar of Russia to build a factory in the Ukraine. The city built around the factory was named after Hughes 鈥� Yuzovkva- but now it鈥檚 called Donetsk and it鈥檚 in the news because of the shooting down of the Air Malaysia plane. The Manics didn鈥檛 know about that, of course, when they made their recording but that dreadful event has certainly given an ironic twist to their song. A city that was begun in the hope of building a new world, degenerated into an industrial tyranny around the armaments industry before ending up as a backdrop for terrorism. Thus are dreams dissolved in tears. The collapse of dreams is recorded again and again in the pages of the Bible 鈥� people seemed totally unable to keep focused on the good. But no book gives a clearer vision of the qualities 鈥� Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love - upon which our best dreams might one day come true. I salute the Manic Street Preachers for worrying away at these important themes and forcing people like me to do some serious thinking about the way our world works.