Guest Post: Reverend Richard Littledale - A waste of money

Down the toilet

An old friend of mine used to do a party trick. He would ask for a £5 note and then say that there were three songs on it. He would list the songs off as “God save the Queen” and “Rule Britannia”. In answer to the puzzled expressions on the audience’s faces he would then rip the note in half, hand it back to the poor volunteer and say “Who’s sorry now!”. There must be more useful things to do with paper money than that, surely?

Origami artist Won Park would say that there certainly is. He can transform American Dollar bills into anything from a Koi Carp:

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to a camera:

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There is no doubting the skill involved – but couldn’t the money be turned into something a bit more lasting?

Maybe one of his other sculptures gives a clue:

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Without the need for any clever folding or origami magic – paper money could be turned into a real toilet. Far from flushing that money down the drain, it could be turned into a life-changing piece of sanitation. This is what you do:

·                 Take 12 £5 notes

·                 Flatten them out, rather than folding them

·                 Send them to Toilet Twinning and twin your loo

·                 Visit your loo’s location on Google maps

·                 Avoid all party tricks which involve tearing up (yours or other people’s) folding money.

The Rev Richard Littledale is Pastor of Teddington Baptist Church in Middlesex and is a graduate of Spurgeon's College, London and Saint Andrews University. A tutor at The College of Preachers, he has a particular interest in innovative and effective communication. His preaching has featured on BBC Radio 4 and he is a regular on BBC Radio 2’s Pause for Thought. He is the author of Stale Bread?: A Handbook for Spreading the Story and The preacher’s A to Z and writes as a columnist for The Baptist Times. You can find his blog at http://www.richardlittledale.wordpress.com/

His new book Who needs words: a Christian communication handbook, was published last week in print and on Kindle