Ceeeeelebrate Good Times - COME ON!!

Ok, admittedly I probably don't deserve any of this cake after a whole month of not blogging (something of which I am deeply ashamed) but this is to celebrate my 100th post. Yay!!

To celebrate, as well as uploading this cake, I thought I would make a list of all the challenges I have set myself over the past 100 posts regardless of whether or not I've actually achieved them. So here goes:

1) Glyn Reads

Ever the visionary, when I set up my blog, I decided to start not one, not two but three (oh yes that's right - three) different blogs. As well as the infamous "Confessions of an Innocent Man" which has been well read and loved by dozens all around the world (a statment which bore a certain degree of truth before Lucy Aitken-Read moved back to England and thus ended my internationally appreciated blog status), the eager and willing blog reader could also find the Glyn Harries anthology (containing all my finest works of sketches, poetry and other such writings) and then the Glyn Harries Book Review blog in which I would read a book and then give my opinions on said book before rating it. As such the blog reader, rather than having to read the book themselves, would simply read my review of the book and then would know what to think (this saves on the ghastly chore of formulating one's own opinion). Whilst both of these secondary blogs have not been updated as much as I had originally intended, it is the book review blog that has been the most resounding failure. With a total of two posts in which I reviewed Rob Bell's Velvet Elvis and Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code (both of which I'd read before setting the blog up and the last post being posted on the 16th April 2006) the idea soon fizzled into cyber oblivion. It would have perhaps worked better had the idea for a book review blog not coincided with the time in my life that I grew bored of reading books. So not the best of starts. Well...as you mean to go on.

2) Glynn Harris
My first challenge. I discovered a man who had taken my whole name and violated it beyond recognition. He worked as a golf instructor and tutored one of my, then, youth members. I set myself the challenge to meet this man and try to convince him that he was spelling it all wrong. Didn't happen. Didn't even come close. Didn't even start in fact. I made absolutely no attempt to get in touch with this man. I'd call it a failed attempt but there was no attempt. So I guess it's just a failed.

3) The Challenge!
Perhaps the finest moment in this blog's illustrious history. I set myself the challenge to have a lie published in a national paper. This I achieved when the nation believed that Condoleeza Rice's first name was aramaic for "love of the unknown" thanks largely to the Metro's letters page. Unfortunately, despite the success of this achievement, this challenge also, ultimately, ended in failure. Not satisfied with a mere mention in the letters page, I promised to keep going with the challenge. The challenge was going to be extended. I was going to have more. More lies. More publicity. More mischieviousnesses. Unfortunately, I realised that I had no tricks up my sleeve other than writing into the Metro letters page and promptly retired. If I'd left it alone, this could have been a brilliant success. But alas, once again my ambition far out-weighed my drive and I am left with another failure. Ho-hum.

4) Dirty Stinking Pedestrian

At last, success. On the 27th July 2006 I set myself the challenge that by 27th July 2007 I would be driving. Here is me in my Corsa as a symbol of my completion of said challenge:

(Note: For the sake of integrity, I should tell you that I am actually posing for this photo. The car was completely stationary and I was not, at the point that this photo was taken, doing anything that I could not have done one year ago - or indeed 15 years ago. You're just going to have to take my word for it - I can actually drive now).

5) Anday!

About the same time as promising to learn to drive, my friend Andy was spending his working hours commenting on other peoples blogs. These comments were usually abusive and attempted to derive something that resembled humour (Andy is, by my own admission, not funny). The most annoying thing is that old man Andy (if you're wandering how old, think of your own age and then add a few years) refused to set up his own blog so that others may comment on his life and musings. I therefore determined that I would make Sunday "Anday" and post a story about Andy every week so that the masses may know of his meanderings. This too was destined for failure. After two weekly posts in which I revealed a photo of Andy sleeping with his cat and regaled you all with the tale of Andy being caught naked with the cleaner, this feature (like so many before it) fell by the wayside. However, it wasn't a complete loss as Andy now has his very own blog which is really rather good and I would recommend it to anyone who is still reading this post (I'm guessing if you've got this far it's because you should be doing something more important and are looking for other ways to procrastinate - in that case, read Andy's blog).

6) Campaign to Boycott HMV!

Ummm, once again, it just didn't happen.

7) Procrastination Hall of Fame

Much like the Glyn Harries Book Reviews blog, the Procrastination Hall of Fame did not take off quite as well as I had hoped. After a single, solitary post the idea just kind of stopped dead. It's a shame because I'm still desperately in love with it. I just wasn't sure where to take it (how do you research and measure other people's procrastination?). Maybe one day I'll be inspired and driven to pick it up again and run with it (although that sounds worryingly like another failed challenge in the making) but in the mean time it just lies there, beautiful, expectant and lifeless.

So there you go. 100 posts and a rich tapestry of unachievements. I'm almost proud to have such a fine legacy of failed challenges and abandoned features. Maybe one day I'll come up with something that sticks.

Sorry it's been so long since I blogged. And sorry I've been so infrequent. August sees a Summer School and a holiday so it's shaping up to be another dry month blog-wise but I have a few new ideas up my sleeve come September (something to keep me regular as it were) so we'll see what happens.

Thanks for reading.

Before it's too Late.

Having noticed that I've only blogged thricely during this fair month of June, I thought I'd get a quick post in before July arrives.

The blog world seems to have dried up somewhat in recent weeks and months. Posts seem to be getting more and more sparse and bloggers seem less willing to share their tales and comments. I was sad to see Lloyd retire his weekly Thursday Thought as it seemed to poignantly reflect the decline in blog interest. Maybe it's the rising popularity of other web-based phenomenons such as Facebook. Maybe the novelty is wearing off. Maybe blogspot has just had its day.

Alternatively, maybe it's just me and my friends who are being lazy whilst the rest of the blogging world is alive and cyber-kicking.

Who knows?

In other news, I won an award for my blog. Yay! The coveted Mitchie Award for best blog post. Truly a great day for everyone here on the Confessions team and proof that it doesn't matter how pretentious it is to create your own awards, giving them out will always be well received. Thanks John.

Kiwi!

Possibly the saddest and most beautiful thing I have ever seen:

Now I Remember...

So last night I decided to finally get back with the programme and went and signed up for a couple of 21st century cyber necessities that I've been putting off for a while:

1) I joined facebook

2) I downloaded msn messenger

Facebook, obviously, is fairly new in the grand scheme of things but messenger is something that I don't think I've done since I was at uni. I know it's a really popular form of communication but I couldn't quite remember why I've been avoiding it for so long. Well now, at 10.45 the next morning, I remember exactly why I was so reluctant to jump on the bandwagon. Two pretty major reasons:

1) It is almost 11 o'clock. I've been in the office for a good couple of hours and all I've been doing is frantically chasing round all my facebook buddies who have added me to their friends lists and have left me messages and I've been catching up with people I haven't seen in donkey's years and I've been leaving them messages and inviting other people to add me as one of their friends and at the same time, I've been chatting to mates on msn and all the while I have got absolutely no work done. Now I am not the most productive person in the office at the best of times. Why you could put me in a room with nothing but a computer, a power drill and the andrex puppy and I'd still find the one thing to do that wasn't work. Throw facebook and msn into the mix and I'm pretty stuffed.

2) Then there's reason number 2 (and this is the big one). No sooner had I logged on to msn this morning than I got a message from a girl whose email address I didn't really recognise, asking me how I was. After a while it transpired that neither of us were totally convinced that we knew each other at all and she wasn't sure how my email address had gotten onto her account. So we typed back and forth for a while (trying to work out where we might have met) before things started getting a little weird. First of all, she was very concerned that I might be bored in my office and she wanted to know what she might be able to do to alleviate that bordom (this was coupled with a little yellow round face giving me a saucy wink). Well it was really nice of her to be so concerned but I assured her I wasn't particularly bored and actually had quite a bit to do. She then asked me if I was single. I stopped writing back at this point. Who the heck was this girl?! What kind of person says stuff like this to someone they're not sure they've ever even met? I decided to sign out before she started giving details of what it was exactly she wanted to do to me.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I am staying well away from msn messenger from now on. I think I'll stick to forms of communication that don't involve me being pounced on by nymphomaniacs.

And the Rest!

So here's a video I made of the rest of our time at Wigley last weekend. Please bear in mind that:

a) This was my first attempt at editing anything and

b) Most of the footage I had of the weekend was from the music video (see last post) so a lot of it will be the same as the "Lollipop" music vid.

But other than that, I'm pretty pleased with it. Enjoy.

Mika Breaks Wigley!

Just got home from an awesome weekend spent in Wigley. Matt White, Matt Leeder, Christina, Michelle and I went to see Roland and Joan (Michelle's mum and dad) in their beautiful house up North (Christina took the opportunity to practice her Northern accent - it probably has to be heard to be believed). It was a really nice weekend and although weather conditions left many of our plans scuppered, we were still able to produce this work of absolute genius on the Sunday (credit to Matt L for his editing skills):

All in all, a pretty productive weekend methinks.

My New Phone - Sexy But Useless!

Earlier this week, I got myself a new phone. It's very attractive. It's colourful, it's slim and holding it makes me ever so slightly happier.

The problem is that, like so much in this day and age, my sexy new phone, despite being aesthetically pleasing, doesn't have a great deal going on upstairs.

Let me explain.

For the past year, I have been using this phone. It has served me reasonably well for the past 13 or so months but last weekend, it decided to up and die on me. Bit by bit, it just collapsed. Imagine a mobile phone having a stroke - it was something like that. First of all, it was just the downwards button that didn't work. Slightly annoying but I could live with it. Then the cancel button stopped working so that if I were, for example, writing a text (I can hear all those that know me scoffing but let's just imagine), and I made a mistake, I was unable to correct that mistake and would therefore have to go back to the main phone screen and start again. Then, my phone entered new realms of weirdness by allowing me to receive calls and speak to the person on the other end without allowing me to hear them. I was having to answer the phone like this:

"Hello? Hi, I know you can hear me but I'm afraid I can't hear you. This is all one way over here. I'm not entirely sure what's going on. Just some new development in my cutting edge, state of the art mobile telephone. I can walk and speak to you, I just can't hear you. I know you might be trying to say stuff now but don't bother coz I'm just getting silence through the earpiece. Maybe these new fangled things require some special attachment to enable a two-way conversation. Who knows? Anyway, if you're still there, may I recommend you phone the house phone. The number is...."

After that, piece by piece and button by button, my phone just stopped working until Tuesday morning at 09.14 the screen went blank and my ailing phone passed on. So, after an extensive mourning period, I went out Tuesday afternoon and bought myself my new phone.

Now here's the problem (and I do hope you've stuck around long enough to read this because this is the important bit). Because my old phone has died and all my numbers were saved on the phone (and yes I know I should've saved them onto my SIM card - thank you for your hindsight), I have lost all my contact details. Which is why my good looking new phone is is not a great deal of use right now.

So I write this blog to ask a favour of you all. If you have my number and feel that I should have yours, please send me a text with your name in it so that I can build my contacts back up.

Thank you.

Have Passed Test - Now Will Someone Please Teach Me to Drive!?!

So about a week and a half ago, while I was skipping back and forth within my timeline, I passed my driving test. Woo hoo! I did pretty well. First attempt and I only got four minors (four measly minors). So I've been feeling pretty good as you might imagine. Having passed my test, my job (specifically the travelling from school to school bit) is going to be one heck of a lot easier. I won't have to rely on friends, family and colleagues to cart me around the place. I am now one step closer to independence. All I need now is a car. I have passed my test and all is well.

There's one slight problem though.

It turns out that I can't actually drive.

On Monday, I was at Straight Ahead (North East London Divisional Youth Chorus to all you salvos (some choir to everyone else)) practice in Romford. The deal was that I would make my way there with Paul Leverett (the awesome bassist of the cutting edge and convention defying band Electralyte to all you Christian rock band enthusiasts (some bloke that plays bass to everyone else)) and then I'd get to drive back. Excellent. It might seem pretty trivial to all you drivers but I'd never done that trip before and I was pretty excited about it. After the practice had finished, a small group of us decided to get something to eat and Christina and I were sent out to reserve the table. She said I could drive. Yesss.

I was eager to get out fairly soon as I didn't want an audience watching me ready to make their judgments on my newly recognised driving skills. So Christina and I left as soon as we could and got in the car. The car was facing the fence, next to Paul's (you remember - the bassist) car and needed a simple reverse maneuver to slide out and get out of the carpark. Easy right?

Yeah.

I thought so too.

I got in the car, positioned the chair, did all the safety and mirror checks and started the engine. So far, so good. Just as I was getting ready to move, another car was coming towards us from my right. I'd let them go. Nope. They were going to let me go. Ok. I had a bit of an audience now but that's ok. They could watch. Let them see how someone who only got four minors in their driving test does it. Christina was next to me to support me and see me through the process. She knew from experience that reversing was not yet my forte. But that's ok. This was going to be different. I now knew the key to reversing was to always remember to look out the back window and not to try and maneuver backwards with the solitary visual aid of my rearview mirror. As long as I did this and as long as I took it nice and slowly, I was going to be fine. I would just reverse out and be on my way. So I checked all my mirrors again, shifted in my seat, made sure I had a clear view of the back window and slowly lifted my foot off the clutch.

We lurched forward.

Apparently another key to reversing is to put the car into reverse. Who'd have thought?

Ok, so I'd made a bit of a mistake and the car that was waiting for me had seen it. But that was fine. Everyone does it at some point. So I laughed it off, put the car into reverse and tried again. By this point, a few people were starting to leave the hall and enter the carpark. My audience was expanding. Ok, so here we go again. Mirrors, shift, back window, car definitely in reverse, foot off clutch. Flippin' yesssss. We were going backwards. I'd have celebrated even more had I known that this was pretty much as good as it was going to get. Keeping my eyes carefully fixed behind me, I started to turn the car. This was going well. I was nowhere near the wall. I could make a smooth turn out and leave everyone feeling suitably impressed.

"STOP!!!"

I stopped. Apparently, despite my back end being very deliberately and carefully clear of any obstacles, my front end was worryingly close to Paul's car. Christina gently warned me that I was little close (the "STOP!!!" didn't come from Christina by the way. She is, without doubt, the best person to be in the car with when you're a new driver. I'm not sure where the "STOP!!!" came from). Paul, who had by this point joined the audience and was now quite keen, for obvious reasons, to take more of an active role in the proceedings, asked (surprisingly graciously) if it would be at all possible for me to position the car so that it wasn't actually touching his before I continued to swing into his back door. "No worries" Christina reassured me, "we'll just go forward a bit and get into a better position". So I went forward a bit. But I certainly did not feel in any way that I was in a better position. I was at a really odd angle, lodged somewhere between the fence and Paul's car. Reversing would send me back into the car. Foward and I'm in a fence. Christina suggested that I reverse the other way into an emptier part of the carpark and attempt to turn round there.

"You don't want to do that mate" Jon Mitson, suddenly appearing at my window, told me I had to reverse and then swing right. So I tried that. Great. Except now I was at the other end of Paul's car inbetween that and a brick wall. Brilliant. I reversed a bit but I was too close to the wall. I pulled forward a bit but I was too close to Paul's car. I reversed a bit, trying to go right. I went forward a bit, trying to go left. Back and right. Forward and left. Back. Forward. This is not going well. The audience I was so keen to avoid had grown to accomodate most members of the Salvation Army within the UK. Thousands of people were eagerly watching me as I Austin Powered my way out of the car park. Forward. Left. Back. Right. Everyone's watching. Oh crap. I'm starting to panic. Stop watching. Forward and left. Back and... yup! It's happened. I've forgotten which way I need to steer to go in the directon I want to go. I want to go that way. Is that left? Man, I can't even remember which way that way is. What if I turn the steering wheel this way? Nope. Going in the wrong direction. I'll try turning it the other way. HOW AM I STILL GOING IN THE WRONG DIRECTION!!!?! A commitee has now formed to discuss ways of getting me out of the car park. "Turn the wheel all the way round", "No - the other way", "Go forward", "Go back", "You're good, now you can go forward", "No don't you'll hit the car". STOP HELPING!!! Christina takes the steering wheel and does some weird kind of magic with it. Good, we're going in the right direction. Christina can steer. I'll just go back and forward. Back. Forward. Back. No that's forward again. The "Get the Moron Out of the Stinkin' Car Park" committee have now given up all hope of ever getting home and form a sub-committee to set up tents. Forward. Back. Forback. What?! Argh!!

So eventually I make a smooth turn out and leave everyone feeling suitably impressed. We pass Matt White who looks like he could do with sitting down and counting to ten before talking to me next (did I mention that it was his car?). So Christina and I get to Nando's but were too late to book a table so we all had to eat at Frankie and Benny's instead.

As we left and headed toward the car, I held the car key out to Matt in such a way so as to communicate that I didn't feel I deserved to drive the car home as had previously been agreed. I knew I'd have to insist despite all the pep talk the group would give me about getting back on the horse. I knew I would have to answer the concerned questions of "are you sure you don't want to give it a try?" by looking down at my feet and nodding my head humbly.

Well none of these things were spoken but I'm sure we were all thinking it as Matt quickly grabbed the key from my open palm and hopped in the driver's seat.

Hmm. Might be a bit too soon to start up my own chauffeuring business.

Back to the Future.

Ok so Mel was right. This whole going back in time thing was a stupid idea. There have been so many things that I've wanted to blog about which I haven't been able to because I'm in the past and then when it does get to the right point one week later, it's not such a big deal anymore. So this is me firing up the flux capacitor and travelling back to the 23rd May 2007.

It's good to be back.

This Time Last Week...Part 2

Wow. What a manic week! (Thanks John). I've had a really busy few days. And have so many stories...

(Seriously, this whole going back in time thing has flopped completely. I should have just blogged about ROOTS this time last week and been done with it - so that's what I'm going to do now)

Ok, so had a good time at ROOTS. Filled with foam fingers, big tents and, er, being in Southport. Some highlights of the weekend (in brief):

1) The music

2) The speaking

3) The dancing (I wasn't quite expecting this last one either but the rhythm got me)

I know I said I had so many stories but it's been a while now (even for someone who has gone back in time one week) and they're pretty long stories as well as numerous and I'm running out of time and quite frankly, despite the length and number, they're not overly interesting. So I'll spare you.

This time travelling has not worked out as planned.

This Time Last Week...Part 1.

Wow. What a manic week (should that sentence be finished with a question mark? It's more of an exclamation than a question but is that grammatically correct? The burden of my linguistic curiosities often weighs me down)./?/!

I've had a really busy few days. And I have so many stories. And, whilst I would quite like to do them justice, I am painfully aware that doing so could result in the boredom of many. So I have decided to set my blog back a week and spend a little time each day reflecting on the events of 7 days ago. So ladies and gentlemen, if you will permit me, allow me to take you back to Thursday 3rd May 2007 (following "permit me" directly with "allow me" seems strange. Should I have done that? Oh the questions):

I'm in the car with Matt Leeder on our way to ROOTS (I'm not sure why exactly but this always has to be spelt with capital letters) as we while away the miles talking, laughing at weird town names and working our way through a packet of Minstrels and some Haribo. Actually, looking at the time, that's not true. Scratch that.

I've just got in after having "delivered" some lessons on environmentalism at St Peter's school. I put the "delivered" in inverted commas as "delivered" probably isn't the best word to use. It was more like thinking about the lesson that I had planned whilst the four seperate year 7 classes entertained themselves with a variety of impromptu activities. Discussions of recycling, resource consumption and lifestyle choices soon gave way to the more important tasks of chatting, drawing, calling out film quotes ("my tiny nipples went to France") and experimenting with how long you can aggravate the class by spraying Lynx before someone hurls you out the window. I was reminded by one of the teachers afterwards that it's a rough school and that I shouldn't beat myself up about it but you can't help leaving things like that feeling like the worst teacher slash schoolsworker in the world (hmm, probably didn't need to spell out "slash"). I guess I just have to find better ways of engaging kids with such behavioural issues. One of the RE teachers gave me a few handy tips.

Anyway, time for ROOTS. I'm just finishing off the packing while I wait for Matt Leeder to come and pick me up. I should probably get some sweets for the journey. Hmm, wander what I'll get.

Terracotta Chinese Weeing Man.

This poem is dedicated to Andrew and Verity (Leonard) Hill for their brilliant but impotent gift:

Terracotta Chinese weeing man,
I look at you with your bowler hat and briefcase
And I ask “how can one so posh be oh so rude?”
You’re smart in part but also nude
Oh terracotta Chinese weeing man,
Will you wee for me?

How do you work terracotta Chinese weeing man?
We have tried and tried to fill you up
But over and over you disappoint.
Oh Andy and V do you like mocking me with stories of wee?
Oh terracotta Chinese weeing man,
Will you wee for me?

Terracotta Chinese weeing man,
If one should see such novelty at Southend Beach
We would surely call thee obscene.
But you are from China terracotta Chinese weeing man
So we label thee “CULTURE?”
Oh terracotta Chinese weeing man,
Will you wee for me?

Such look of surprise terracotta Chinese weeing man
It’s as if thee does not expect to wee
But why then surprise for you do not wee
No wee for thee nor me nor V
Andy you said he would work, you said he would wee
Oh terracotta Chinese weeing man,
Will you wee for me?

Terracotta Chinese weeing man,
You stand and stare and I despair
For you are naught but ornament to me
I will think of thee on the lavatory,
Doing what you could not be
Oh terracotta Chinese weeing man,
I will wee for thee.

Bummed Out at the End of an Awesome Day!

This is Glyn. Glyn is sad. You can tell because, when he's sad, he talks about himself in the third person (a kind of detachment thing I suppose). Glyn is bummed out because this evening he tried to do something that he hasn't done in a number of years - and he was unable to do it. He was never brilliant at the thing that he tried tonight when he did used to do it many years ago but he always assumed that when you knew how to do it, you'd always know and was therefore expecting to be able to do it - but he couldn't. It wasn't even that he was just rusty. He actually just could not do it. Whatever part of his brain had enabled him to do this thing in the past (for confidentiality reasons, Glyn is unable to disclose what that thing actually was) has gone completely now. Vanished. Removed completely from existence. Glyn might has well never have known how to do this thing. It was an extra sad time for Glyn because all of his friends, who had also tried the thing (and many of them had not done the thing for a number of years either) were really pleased at how well they all managed to do the thing. But it's a shame that Glyn feels this way at all because the rest of the day had been absolutely brilliant. In fact, when Glyn focusses on the day rather than the thing, I am suddenly much happier (see? back into first person). I've had an awesome day. A day involving picnics and frisbees and rounders and my first ever flip flops (thank you Chell) and friends and barbeques and home made burgers (thank you Roland) and getting lost and dancing and music and sitting out under the stars and Risk. So I guess it's not really appropriate for me to gripe about "the thing" when I've had such a great day. Maybe the above picture shouldn't be so morose then. It should have more colour. More life. More pizzazz. Something like this:

Procrastination Hall of Fame!

After many a thought about procrastination since I blogged about it last week, I have decided to set up a blog dedicated to the art of procrastination.

Actually, that's not entirely true. It was after reading John Mitch's blog in which he wrote his own eurovision song and I said it should be in the Procrastination Hall of Fame and then I thought, "hey, that's not a bad idea" and it was then that I decided to set up a blog dedicated to the art of procrastination (don't worry John, the song'll be in there).

So ladies and gentlemen, I present to you: The Procrastination Hall of Fame!

Needless to say that I really need to have something finished by tomorrow morning and will likely be up most of the night getting it done but there's a small part of me (albeit a very small part) that thinks it was worth it.

P.S. I also doubt it will last more than two posts (three tops).

Gotcha!

For all those who continue to be concerned for the whereabouts of my laptop, I think I may have found it:

I'm sure it's one of those anyway.

P.S. I have no idea what Shut Down Day's about (if pushed I'd guess it had something to do with shutting down something but what and why? These are questions that I cannot answer) but it seems we've missed it anyway.

How Rude?

This morning, during my driving lesson, a song came on the radio which got my instructor quite riled up. It's that one by Sandy Rivera (see above photo) about licking ice cream and lollipops and other such sexually explicit confectionary. It made him angry because his 5 year old daughter, who doesn't understand the connotations of what she's singing, often dances round the house belting out hearty renditions of the tune. It made me think of another couple of examples when innappropriate lyrics have been warbled by innocent voices.

I remember when I was a kid singing along (quite passionately) to "Girl I Want to Make You Sweat" by UB40. I'm not sure if I'd have been able to offer any suggestions, at the tender age of 10, as to what was making the poor girl cry but I certainly didn't clock the strong references to, what now seems to me, pretty forceful sex, bordering on rape. I had no idea. Even my grandparents would be subject to my sung tales of how I was going to push it, push it some more.

Another story that came to me was when I was in Manchester with Rhema Theatre Company and I stayed with a family one week while we were on mission. One evening the family invited me to join with them in a game of Playstation Karaoke. We got into pairs to play the duet game and I was teamed up with the family's 8 year old son. He chose for us to sing Maroon 5's This Love and I, not being wholly familiar with the song at the time (but knowing it was a good tune) was quite happy with this. The song started and I couldn't believe it. This 8 year old was happily and unwittingly singing about all the things that he does to keep his girlfriend satisfied and I, unsurprisingly, decided to opt out (I was unable to sing the rude lines because they were rude but was then unable to sing the rest for laughing). The father apologised and explained that his son, of course, had no idea what he was singing.

I guess this happens all the time in our current pop culture. I'm just not sure how to react to a child singing innuendos. Do you tell them not to sing it and then have to explain why? Or do you just let it slide because, as far as they're concerned, what's wrong with licking a lollipop?

I Sleep in Crust!!

I want the world to know that I have been living in Matt and Christina's spare room since December and I have not once changed my bed sheets. I am not proud of this but it's part of who I am and PEOPLE WILL NOT CHANGE ME!!!!

So to Matt White and Matt Leeder who are trying to blackmail me with this piece of information, it's not going to work. You can change your own darn sheets.

I'm happy for mine to look like this.

Procrastination:

(pro-crass-tin-ay-shun)
noun
1. the act of procrastinating; putting off or delaying or defering an action to a later time

noun
2. slowness as a consequence of not getting around to it

(pro-crass-tin-ate)
verb (used without object)
3. to defer action; delay: to procrastinate until an opportunity is lost.

verb (used with object)
4. to put off till another day or time; defer; delay.

verb (intr.)
5. to put off doing something, especially out of habitual carelessness or laziness.

verb (tr.)
6. to postpone or delay needlessly.

10 Interesting Facts About Procrastination

1) Procrastination derives from the latin procrastinare meaning "defer till the morning" - from pro meaning "forward" and crastinus meaning "belonging to tomorrow" (from cras meaning "tomorrow").

2) The word procrastinate was orignially coined in 1548 by Edward Hall in The Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Famelies of Lancestre and Yorke and was recorded as an English word for the first time in 1588.

3) "Procrastination" was dictionary.com's Word of the Day on August 17th 2002.

4) Here are some pictures of people procrastinating:

5) The physiological roots for procrastination are thought to come from the area of the brain called the prefrontal cortex which "acts as a filter by decreasing distracting stimuli from other brain regions. Damage or low activation in this area can reduce an individual's ability to filter out distracting stimuli, ultimately resulting in poorer organisation, a loss of attention and increased procrastination" (Wikipedia).

6) Paul Graham argues that not all procrastination is bad:

"There are three variants of procrastination, depending on what you do instead of working on something: you could work on (a) nothing, (b) something less important, or (c) something more important. That last type, I'd argue, is good procrastination."

7) Procrastination is thought to have more to do with anxiety than laziness.

8) Here is a good example of where procrastination can lead:

9) The internet is both the best friend and the worst enemy of the procrastinator.

10) 20% of the population identify themselves as chronic procrastinators.

Hmm. Interesting. I should probably get on with my report.

The Greatest Milkshake in the World!

Sunday night was one of the best youth fellowship evenings I've known for a while. Thanks to a moment of inspired genius from Christina White, we spent it making milkshakes. If you've ever been to Shakeaway then it was that kinda thing with the guys choosing what flavours they wanted from Twixes and Oreo Cookies and Skittles and fruit and then mixing it with milk and icecream to create awesome milkshake flavours (if, for whatever reason, you've never been to a Shakeaway, then get on it straight away - ignorance is no longer an excuse).

I was in charge of milkshake production (see above photo) and for those of you who want to make your own, I found this was the best way to do it:

For a pint of milkshake, fill a pint glass two thirds full with milk and put into liquidiser (blenders also work but not as well as the liquidiser). Then add three scoops of icecream (for thicker/creamier milkshakes then you can add more but this is the best amount to use for a good consistency if you're making milkshakes for a whole youth group and don't want to run out of icecream). Then add whatever you want to flavour your milkshake with (can be anything - sweets, chocolate and fruit are the most popular options but Shakeaway do a cucumber flavour milkshake and there's even a place in London that sells marmite flavoured shakes). Blend for about a minute and then pour. Magic.

It was all very nice and pleasant but then, I came up with the ultimate in milkshake flavouringness:

Barbeque Chicken Pizza Flavoured Milkshake.

It was awesome. We had a whole pint and between about 6 or 7 of us brave enough to give it a go, we managed to consume about a tenth of that. The tasting consisted of a brief sip, tasting the concoction, realising what we'd just done, scrunching our faces in disgust (those watching were way ahead of us on that one), stomping, flapping our arms, covering our mouths, making muffled "Hmmm! HMMMM!" noises, finally swallowing and then taking great pride in what we'd achieved.

Needless to say, it was a guy thing.

The Big List!

There seems to be a big fuss over bloglist positions these days. Everyone seems to have a different method. Andy Hill takes the alphabetical approach while Kirsty takes the week off to calculate blogging consistency ratios. Everyone else, it would seem, measure the worth of their own blog by how high up they appear on other people's blogrolls. As such, I may have caused some offence. I should clarify that I have no such system. People appear on my list simply by the order they were put on the list. The only exceptions are Kirsty and Becky (Wainthropp) as they were added as replacements for people who simply weren't blogging. So please don't read anything into it. It really doesn't mean anything.