Legolas

As you may have guessed (or read, seeing as I’ve written it several times), I’m a little nervous about the big Cut which is drawing dangerously close. How far back has my hairline gone?! I decided to look at the positives and negatives…

Positives:
1. Raising money for a good cause, obviously!
2. It will look like I come from Essex.
3. My earring will be more visible (so I’ll still be a rebel :-D )
4. It won’t take me ages to get ready on a Sunday morning.
5. I won’t be slowly turning into Bill Bailey.

Negatives:
1. It will look like I come from Essex.
2. I’ll lose a ‘distinctive feature’ – no-one says ‘You know John, he’s the one with the short hair.’
3. I won’t be able to go to fancy-dress parties as Legolas from ‘Lord of the Rings’ (I always thought that it would be really cool to go to a fancy-dress party as Legolas, but since I’ve had long hair, NO-ONE has thrown one!).

Then I got bored of pondering over positives and negatives and decided to make myself look like Legolas. You have to admit – it’s pretty good:
And then I decided that I should take a jokey photo too so that no-one thinks I take myself too seriously:

Portu-gals and Portu-geezers

Apologies for not blogging in a little while, but I've been in beautiful Lisbon, Portugal - that really is a stunning city. There will be more about that later... Hope everyone's had a great summer (so far - there's more to come!)

This will be a short blog (I'm still recovering from the jet-lag ;-) ), but it just dawned on me that I haven't written an update about the Great Haircut for a little while. Well, I can now tell you that we've raised just over £500 now (nearly €750), so it's all going very well! The month of the Cut is now nigh... I'm terrified.

Anyway, people have now started donating money internationally, with the first donations coming in from Germany! Thank you very much! The following message is just to tell those kind ol' Germans how they can donate, should they want to:

Hallo Deutschland! Jetzt könnt IHR auch was spenden (falls ihr das machen möchtet!) Ein guter Freund von mir in Deutschland wird das Geld überweisen. Schick mir einfach eine Mail und ich werde die Bankdetails weiterleiten. Vielen Dank!

(By the way, the title of this blog is actually irrelevant, but I came up with it on holiday and I wanted to use it... This is not my most interesting blog, but there's some good'uns coming - promise!)

GREAT NEWS!

Last night I went to London to see Evita again - I was so excited! (This second trip was a present - I really can't afford to go to the West End every month!) Anyway, I had a great time, as I knew I would. I am such a fan of that show.

But, more importantly, while I was there, I noticed that one of the performers on stage (front row, second from left) had very short cropped hair and a receding hairline - yet he was still on stage in the West End! How great is that?! The dream is still alive. My lack of hair in September will not block me from becoming the West End star I'm destined to be!

I'll sleep easier tonight now.

Help Me Buy a Goat! (part 4)

(For those who want to know about what I am raising money for, click on 'Help Me Buy a Goat!' in the right-hand column.)

Happy August! Collecting sponsors for my haircut in September is going well. I’ve been really surprised at how it’s caught people’s imaginations. Thank you once again. Two interesting things to report today:

1. The total so far is £373, a whopping £230 increase on this time last week. In terms of money I have actually been given, the total is £10, but I do trust all those who have sponsored me! And, to be honest, I really wasn’t expecting any money before the deed had been done. Unfortunately, it looks like I’m really going to have to go through with it now!

2. A wig company has agreed to buy my hair from me – more money to add to the total then when that comes through! Not sure what they’ll be paying for it yet – but I’m sending them some good hair, complete with natural blond highlights. People pay to have their hair look like mine (and soon they actually will!)

Everybody Needs Good Neighbours (including the Germans)

I am aware that growing numbers of Germans have started reading this blog. Welcome! They all speak good English and they have no problem understanding what I write, but they haven’t understood what is so cool about the picture I used on my first blog (the same picture I use for my profile). Please spare a thought for our Teutonic cousins who have no knowledge of the joy that is Neighbours.

For those of you that don’t read German, I hope you don’t mind, but I feel it is my duty to explain to them what they have missed out on. Just think for a moment – these people know nothing of Harold and Madge Bishop, Mrs Mangel, the Coffee Shop… Lassiters! So the following blog attempts to rectify this. Bear with me.

By the way – and I swear I only found this by chance – http://perfectblend.net/ is running a poll to find the best ‘Neighbour’ of all time. I had nothing to do, so I voted. You have to choose ten (in order of preference) and in October they will announce the list and, ultimately, who has won. My top Neighbours (not in order) were: Harold Bishop (although he was top of my list – of course), Madge Bishop, Karl and Susan Kennedy, Lou Carpenter, Scott and Charlene Robinson, Janelle Timmins, Helen Daniels and Mrs Mangel. Anybody disagree with me?!

(I was a little unsure whether or not to add that last paragraph and run the risk of removing all credibility from my blog. I went for it. I think I pulled it off.)

Für die Deutschen unter uns

Hallo Deutschland. Heute muss ich etwas erklären – warum finde ich dieses Bild (auch mein Profilbild) so toll?

Also, Neighbours (Nachbarn) ist eine australische Soap Opera, die wirklich sehr beliebt in Australien und Großbritannien ist (und anscheinend auch in Island). Hier wird jede Folge zweimal pro Tag ausgestrahlt und es gibt viele (besonders Studenten), die beide gucken. Neighbours ist einfach toll. Glaub's mir. (Nachbarn wurde auch von SAT.1 ausgestrahlt und lief in Deutschland 844 Episoden lang in den Jahren 1989 bis 1995 laut Wikipedia.de). Kylie Minogue, Delta Goodrem, Russell Crowe u.a. haben alle mit Neighbours angefangen.

Schon gut. Warum ist das wichtig? Neighbours spielt in einem fiktiven Vorort in Melbourne. Die Strasse (‚Ramsay Street’) ist aber eine echte Strasse (die in Wirklichkeit etwas anders heißt), die man in Melbourne finden kann. Als ich das letzte Mal in Australien war, habe ich die Strasse gefunden. Der beste Tag meines Lebens. Harold Bishop ist vielleicht der berühmteste Charakter der Serie – auf dem Bild steh ich VOR SEINEM HAUS! Jeder Engländer und jeder Australier würde dieses Haus sofort wieder erkennen.

Daher ist dieses Bild wirklich, wirklich cool.