Quick diagnosis and treatment of strokes saves lives.

Remember "STR..." and look for

S   Ask the person to SMILE .
T   TALK. Ask them to SPEAK A SIMPLE SENTENCE coherently (such as "It is sunny today").
R   Ask them to RAISE BOTH ARMS .

If any trouble with these, call an ambulance.

Fuller details here. Memorise them and pass them on!

Browsing through the latest newsletter from Ekklesia I came across a "so true" article by Gene Stoltzfus about making the anger in us a force for good. He draws his conclusions from his work with Christian Peacemaker Teams. Read the article in his blog (or republished by Ekklesia).

To add thoughts from Julia Cameron, in her book The Artist's Way, as she speaks of how to think when we find that we are angry: "Anger is fuel... anger is meant to be listened to... anger is a map. I like the idea that, if we don't let it overcome us or turn into hatred (as Gene puts it), it helps to show us the way forward.

4 THINGS YOU PROBABLY NEVER KNEW YOUR MOBILE PHONE COULD DO

There are a few things that can be done in times of grave emergencies. Your mobile phone can actually be a life saver or an emergency tool for survival. Check out the things that you can do with it:

FIRST Emergency

The Emergency Number worldwide for Mobile is 112. If you find yourself out of the coverage area of your mobile; network and there is an emergency, dial 112 and the mobile will search any existing network to establish the emergency number for you, and interestingly this number 112 can be dialled even if the keypad is locked. Try it out.

SECOND Have you locked your keys in the car?

Does your car have remote keyless entry? This may come in handy someday. Good reason to own a cell phone: If you lock your keys in the car and the spare keys are at home, call someone at home on their mobile phone from your cell phone.

Hold your cell phone about a foot from your car door and have the person at your home press the unlock button, holding it near the mobile phone on their end. Your car will unlock. Saves someone from having to drive your keys to you. Distance is no object. You could be hundreds of miles away, and if you can reach someone who has the other 'remote' for your car, you can unlock the doors (or the boot). Editor's Note: It works fine! We tried it out and it unlocked our car over a mobile phone!'

THIRD Hidden Battery Power

Imagine your mobile battery is very low. To activate, press the keys *3370# Your mobile will restart with this reserve and the instrument will show a 50% increase in battery. This reserve will get charged when you charge your mobile next time.

FOURTH How to disable a STOLEN mobile phone?

To check your Mobile phone's serial number, key in the following digits on your phone: * # 0 6 #

A 15 digit code will appear on the screen. This number is unique to your handset. Write it down and keep it somewhere safe. When your phone get stolen, you can phone your service provider and give them this code. They will then be able to block your handset so even if the thief changes the SIM card, your phone will be totally useless. You probably won't get your phone back,but at least you know that whoever stole it can't use/sell it either. If everybody does this, there would be no point in peoplestealing mobile phones.

The information above is as received in an e-mail - I have not checked it.

I've been impressed by the work of artist He Qi.

He has produced a mural for the new offices of CMS in Oxford, and they used his picture of the Three Kings as a Christmas Card. At the time of writing, both of these are on the front page of his web site.

Mark Berry features another on his blog, with a moving poem for Christmas Eve also.

If you are feeling stressed, it may be because your angels are out of balance. (Thank you, Toni!)

I have a lot of respect for the Archbishop of York, so when he cuts up his clerical collar as a protest about President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe I take notice.

The Guardian yesterday included an article about an art installation in Trafalgar Square (London). Called The Journey, it draws attention to sex trafficking in the UK. "£10 extra for kissing." This issue really gets to me, as does anything that turns people into objects instead of helping them to flourish. Follow the links if you want a harrowing experience.

I wonder whether, like me, you've felt that time seems to travel faster as you get older? Somehow there does not seem to be so much time in the day.

It occurred to me a while ago that maybe time feels propotional: as you get older, one day is a smaller proportion of your whole life. I now discover that even scientists have proposed this! All this wisdom comes from an article on the BBC website, reviewing a new book by Steve Taylor of Manchester University: Making Time. You need to read the article (or the book).

He talks of sportsmen training themselves to heightened perception (being "in the zone") and of how we can make more of time through paying more attention (because that way our brain receives more "information"). This second aspect sounds like a rediscovery of the teaching of spiritual writers as they encourage living in the present moment, and paying attention.

Opposed to this particular spiritual teaching is the practice of trying to be somewhere else by using a mobile phone excessively; or not paying attention to local birdsong (or traffic noise) through addictive use of MP3 players!

This weekend I picked 12 oz of blackberries that were growing wild in a nearby car park.

They were succulent, large, and very tasty - but unusual for July. If this is due to climate chaos they are not complaining; neither did we as we ate them.

More good quotes, from Mark Berry's blog. See category "quotes" for more.

My favourite of these (I used to work for Intel):

"Failure is just part of the culture of innovation.  Accept it and become stronger."
Albert Yu, Senior Vice President of Intel

I found myself remembering today that William Wilberforce committed his life to two objects: "the suppression of the slave trade and the reformation of manners." Manners in his language may translate better as moral values today.

This year we celebrate the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade (although there is still work to be done). What about the second object?

I feel a call to this. In Britain today people moan about bad behaviour, such as "road rage" and "binge drinking" while at the same time struggling to reinvent values to improve British society. I don't see that we need to reinvent values: the core Christian values, that we once inherited and developed, seem to appeal to all "people of goodwill" regardless of what religion they claim. What is sometimes called the Golden Rule summarises part of this, the way that people should relate to one another: "do to others as you would like them to do to you."

It seems to me that when we note what is good manners, or bad manners, we are well in touch with our own values and the values that our society aspires to. So it would be a good way forward to share Wilberforce's second object as well as his first: the Reformation of Manners.

This is not a crusade to change others: like all good leadership it needs to start with "me" and the example that "I" set. Let's go for it!