Happy Birthday! (Part Seven)

So, here we are at the end of the Mitchenstein First Birthday week. This'll just be a short post because, well, let's face it, I've had quite a lot to say recently! But it's been quite a lot of fun actually. Although I've had to clear up on several occasions that it's not actually been my birthday. LOADS of people have been blogging for over a year and never mentioned it, but hey, why not? But let me tell you that blogging every day is harder than I'd thought!

It's been a good ol' year: haircuts, goats, tube journeys, toilet hunts in Hendon, travelling to random islands, Mr Bounce, Mitchies, headlining at the Albert Hall, posing as a French horn player, tittles, quotes in many languages, Liechtenstein, being Legolas (well, pretending to be Legolas, I wasn't actually him), meeting celebrities, HoDo-ing, Glynjohnball... Oh the memories.

Final thoughts:

1. The Mitchies. Definitely going to develop that idea next year. Next year's Mitchies will be partially voted for by you the readers (providing you go for it, obviously). I'm already working out how that's going to go. But that's not for another year, so I'll probably forget about this by then (nah, I won't).

2. Yesterday I posted my ambitions for the next year. Today I was thinking that there's one more I didn't post. Over the next (blogging) year, I'm going to attempt to 'seize the day' more - do some really exciting things. That's the plan. Recently - and I've mentioned it before - I've been acting a little old before my time, and it's remarkably easy to say 'No' to everything. But I'll try to change that. Wish me luck!

Here's to the next year! Who knows where we'll go?!

Happy Birthday! (Part Six)

Announcing...

The Mitchenstein Blog Awards 2007

(The 'Mitchies')

"As prestigious as you want them to be."

Welcome to the Mitchenstein Blog Awards 2007, as part of the Mitchenstein first birthday week. Yes, it's pretentious and presumptuous to have my own blog awards, but why not? (Other than the reasons I just gave).

So, this year there are five Mitchies to be presented, perhaps next year there will be more categories ('Best Supporting Blog', etc.) but for this year they are these:

Best Project Blog 2007

Celebrating blogs that have a specific aim or project in mind.

Winner: Owen Powell and Alex Horne - World in One City

Best Newcomer 2007

Celebrating those new bloggers who have made an impact. This year the award has been split between two new bloggers, both of whom occasionally take slight breaks from blogging, but with their posts and their comments have given their all to promote the blogging cause.

(Who writes this stuff?!)

Winners:
Andy Hill - Old Enough to Know Better

Katie Allen - Random Thoughts of Katie

Lifetime Achievment Award

Potentially a one-off award for 2007, this acknowledges those who jumped on the blogging bandwagon at an early stage and have never... well, jumped off it.

Winner: Tim Jones - Magic Musings

Most Addictive Link 2007

Celebrating those who are to shoulder the blame that you never get any work done.

Winner: Graeme Howell - The Impossible Quiz

It should be pointed out that in a very close second place was Chris Hinton with his Flight of the Hamster.

Best Blog Post 2007

This is the Mitchies' equivalent of the Best Movie Oscar. This is, in my opinion, the big one, celebrating the best blog post written during the year under review.

And the winner is...

Glyn Harries: The Day I Lost All Respect for Andi Peters

Keep on blogging!

N.B. This year it is entirely by chance that no-one won two Mitchies. I certainly didn't choose my favourite blogs and then invent categories for them. I had the categories and then chose the blogs which best suited them. Honest. It just dawned on me that next year, people should also be able to vote for who they think is the most deserving... What an idea!

Happy Birthday! (Part Five)

Welcome to Day Five of the Birthday Week. Now if there was a day that I thought I wouldn't be able to get a post written, that was today, so I've just managed to get the time to jot this down.

Before I start though, I must say I'm a little worried about the power I seem to have... Let me explain. In my last post, I briefly encouraged the readers of this blog to purchase a copy of Mr Bounce the next time they buy something from Amazon.co.uk, and mentioned that it would be good to see whether we could raise the position of the book in the Amazon book chart. Yesterday, Mr Bounce occupied the fairly lowly 80,353rd position. Today it has managed to jump up a whopping 60,000 places to position 17,181 (as of Wednesday morning). Sixty thousand places?! Now, I'm not saying that that has anything to do with me and my little ol' blog, but I think we can say that it definitely does, and apparently thousands of people read this and do everything I say. (I think that's a fairly safe conclusion). So now what? I'm a little bit unsettled by this new-found power and I'm not too sure what to do with it... Maybe I can fight crime.

ANYWAY, that was not the subject of today's blog. Oh no. In my first ever post, as well as mentioning a few of my favourite things, I also gave some ambitions for the coming year. They were (in a slightly abridged form), these:

1. Get a piece of music published by The Salvation Army.
2. Get a book published (or rather, take steps towards getting a book published).
3. Lose some weight.
4. Start a blog.
5. Start a gospel choir.

I then admitted that these were probably more life ambitions, rather than just for the next year, but this is how they've gone:

1. No I haven't had any music published. But then again I haven't written any, so this was unlikely.
2. Well, I won't say much about this yet, but WATCH THIS SPACE!
3. I have, my friends, lost 16lbs in the last two months (that's just over 7kg for my European friends). Yes, that is amazing.
4. Admittedly I'd already achieved this one when I wrote them down last time.
5. No, I haven't started a gospel choir.

So actually they're going kinda well. So here are the new ones for the next blogging year:

1. Get a piece of music published by The Salvation Army.
2. Lose a little more weight (I'm nearly where I want to be!)
3. Start a gospel choir.
4. Be able to speak another language fluently by this time next year. As you know, I am a little bit of a language freak, so I'm actually trying to learn three languages at the same time... We'll see how that goes.
5. Get a new hobby.
6. Keep this blog going.

So that's where I am.

Take care and see you tomorow!

PS. I can now add Lingala and French to the languages I've had comments in. So that's nice.

P.P.S. And congratulations to my friend Jóhanna who, I didn't realise, has been blogging for nearly four years. Now that is impressive (It turns out that not everyone makes as much of a song and dance out of a blog birthday as me, but never mind). She used to have her own blog too (the other one is a group one she started). Maybe she'll be inspired to start that one up again... Well done!

Happy Birthday! (Part Four)

So here we are on Day Four of the Birthday week - over half-way through the celebrations. And there's no sign of letting up!

In my first ever post, I wanted to introduce myself to the world (well, 'world' is maybe slightly excessive, but to the people that would read this blog), so I wrote down a few facts about me. I think the time has come to update them now. So I will. Here goes:

Favourite Book:
2006: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
2007: Mr Bounce*

Secret (and perhaps slightly embarrassing) Fact:
2006: I own three copies of Disney’s Hercules on DVD (it’s for the gospel-style music!)
2007: Accidentally going to toilet in a cupboard in McDonalds in France (I've mentioned this here before, so it's not so secret, but it's still pretty embarrassing, all these years afterwards)

Favourite Character from Friends:
2006: Phoebe
2007: Still Phoebe I'm afraid (but I must say that Rachel and increasingly Ross (I know!) are coming close...)

Thing That Annoys Me Most:
2006: People who don’t have locks on their bathrooms
2007: Yeah, the bathroom thing still gets me (it's mainly in Australia it seems - I don't get it!), but people who panic in SubWay because 'I've never ordered here before, I don't know what to do!' I'm finding quite annoying (they spoil SubWay Wednesday).

Favourite TV Show:
2006: Kath & Kim
2007: Kath & Kim still, I'm afraid (Friends is, of course, a given, but I mean current show)

Prized Possession:
2006: My Hokey-Cokey Elmo
2007: My Tickle-Me Elmo EXTREME (Yes, that's right)

*Mr Bounce is without a doubt one of the funniest books I've ever read. Once when Glyn and I, together with two others friends, read it, we were in tears. It's got everything you could want from a book - humour, sadness (there's some really moving moments), hope, surprise and it's so short that upon reading it, you feel you've really achieved something. And nothing can prepare you for that twist at the end. But my favourite thing about Mr Bounce is the fact that on the bottom of several pages it says 'And you can guess what happened next, can't you?' and then you turn over and something happens that you NEVER would have guessed. And I like that. For those of you that haven't read Mr Bounce it only costs a mere £1.79 from Amazon.co.uk, so why not throw a copy into your shopping basket next time you buy something from there? (At time of writing there were only four copies left, so you'd better be quick). Let's see if we can move it up from place number 80,353 in the Amazon chart.

Mr Bounce, a classic

PS. I promised some of my friends a particularly good post today and told them that they should check online today to see it. However, due to unforseen circumstances (that sounds impressive), I've had to move it back a couple of days. Not that this post isn't good, but it's not the best post I've written.

Take care and see you tomorrow!

Happy Birthday! (Part Three)

Well here we are on the third day of the birthday celebrations. This non-stop blogging malarky will be the death of me, but there's more to come! Today:

Mitchenstein in Statistics

Number of posts (before this week): 55 (I managed more than one a week on average (just), so I'm pretty chuffed with that.)
Number of comments altogether: 217
Number of comments by me: Well this would take ages to count, but it's probably higher than it should be.
Languages of posts: English, German
Languages of comments: English, German, Swedish, Icelandic (thanks Jóhanna!)
Number of languages William Booth quote has been found in (see right-hand column): 24

Those statistics were more for my benefit than anyone else's, but that's allowed. Anyway, this brings me on to the subject of 'comments'. Now, I don't consider myself to be a comment-hunter, but let's face it, it's always nice when someone leaves a little comment on your blog, isn't it? Anyone who denies that probably isn't telling the truth. But I don't think that the success of a particular post can be determined by the number of comments it gets.

Liechtenstein
However, on my very first day as a blogger, I wrote a post about Liechtenstein (Mitchenstein in Liechtenstein), the tiny little country that gave this blog its name. I'd originally written a post called 'Mitchinson in Liechtenstein', but thought 'those two names are so similar, that if one of them was changed slightly, the title would sound much better'. And I couldn't very well change the name of Liechtenstein, so it was mine that was sacrificed. Anyway, I maintain that this was the best post I have ever written - witty and informative. I can't believe that anyone who read this post didn't learn something about Liechtenstein that they never knew before. It took me ages (the published version was the third draft!). The public reaction? Zilch. Nothing. Niente. Which was fine, but now it's so far back in the archives that probably no-one will ever see it. If, my friends, you were to give me one little present for this blog birthday, nothing could top a small sign of acknowledgement at the bottom of that post :-D

Here's a picture of Liechtenstein to inspire you:

Happy Birthday! (Part Two)

Well, I don't generally post on consecutive days (mainly because it keeps comment numbers down... No scrap that, that makes me sound like a comment-hunter. I don't usually post on consecutive days because... well, I wouldn't have enough to say), but this is, of course, the Mitchenstein birthday week and I will be posting every day this week - and will do my best to keep them interesting!

For today's post, I thought it would be a good idea to introduce the 'Friends who blog' (on the right hand side of the page) - some of them you'll know and some of them you won't. I will endeavour to give an interesting fact about each of them (for some it may be hard...):

Andy is a testament to the power of blog. In 'real life' I don't think I've said more than two sentences to him, yet in the blogosphere, he has become a mate and is both a very good commenter (it's a word) and a fellow language freak (it seems). He's a new blogger and although his blogging has slightly slowed due to a house move, he's sticking at it pretty well (says experienced me).
FACT: When my first girlfriend wanted to break up with me (I was 13 - obviously I'd had other girlfriends before that... at playschool like, and even got married a couple of times I believe), it was Andy's sister-in-law that she got to do the deed. The pain is still real.

Me and Glyn go way back. We became mates on the same weekend as above-mentioned sister-in-law dumped me, over ten years ago. And we've been mates on and off ever since. By 'on-and-off'' I don't mean that there were times when we weren't mates (at least, not to my knowledge anyway), but we didn't always see each other particularly regularly. But we were nearly in a pop-group together (oh yes) and we co-created Glynjohnball, and them bonds can't be breaked. Glyn's blog is hilarious (when he gets round to writing it).
FACT: Glyn can't understand Scottish people. Like at ALL. Never go to a Scottish person's house with him unless you want to spend the entire time translating.

Tim is the oldest blogger I know. Not in age, but he's just been doing it for a million years (well, three, but that's pretty old in the blogging world) and he was the main inspiration behind me starting up Mitchenstein. Me and Tim know each other from a gospel choir we used to sing in, but now he spends his time fighting crime. And making me traipse around London buying freakin' Twinkies.
FACT: Tim makes me traipse around London buying Twinkies. I'm not bitter.

Matt is in charge of The Salvation Army's youth work in Essex (and some other less important areas), so he's kinda important. His blog's always interesting because he seems to be up to something new and exciting every week. There's something he doesn't like because we were discussing it on the coach the other day, but I can't remember what it was.
FACT: Matt is from Northern Ireland, but we're gradually beginning to understand him. Fortunately, nods and smiles got us through those difficult first few months.

I grew up with Stacey and she's my oldest friend (again, not in age). She's kinda like my little sis (although I'm scared of her) and whenever we catch up we always end up in tears (of laughter, generally). She's fairly new to the blogging world and - dare I say - not particularly consistent, but maybe that'll improve...
FACT: She wants to call her children 'Alice in Wonderland' and 'Green'... and she knows a man with 21 hobbies.

Anna is from Switzerland, but she's really nice. She generally writes her blog in German (well, she calls it German, but take it from me - even if you have a degree in German, you still won't get what on earth she's on about). She goes to my Salvation Army church and has settled in really well - and it's so nice to be able to talk to her in German if we don't want others to understand (I guess that's kinda mean actually, but as an English speaker, it's not often you can speak and not be understood by everyone). She likes cheese and cuckoo-clocks, she says.
FACT: Anna is the only person who has ever given me a mug that moos.

Stephen hasn't been blogging very much recently, but that's understandable as him and his family are going through a very hectic/busy/exciting time (I should think). Stephen and his wife, Lynley, are about to be made Salvation Army officers and will soon be moving up north to 'Tsalvation Armeh as they say up there. These are exciting times!
FACT: Lynley's an Australian who has lived here for a long while, but curiously still has a very Australian accent... I reckon she just puts it on. :)

This post is becoming very long, so I'll take the final three together. Andreas is a Swede I met when I was living in Sweden, Philipp is a German I met when I was living in Sweden, and Daniel is a German I met when I was living in Germany! Got that?

Andreas and his lovely wife Helena live in Stockholm, but were very kind to me when we all lived in Northern Sweden. Apparently I reminded them of Harry Potter (with my English accent) and I learned from them that Essex Girls aren't just famous in the UK. Andreas is running the risk of being removed from the column though, unfortunately - he hasn't posted since September!
FACT: Andreas and I have been planning for nearly two years to meet up and watch all three Lord of the Rings films back-to-back, but we haven't got round to it yet...

Daniel and I met at a Salvation Army music school in Germany. We haven't seen each other for two years, but that'll all be changing soon! He's hilarious and has such a way with both English and German that it's always really funny to talk to him. Could blog a bit more though!
FACT: Together Daniel and I are planning to write a brass band piece incorporating excepts from the Carmen opera and mixing them with the trance song, Hardcore Vibes. Wish us luck with that.

Philipp was a real mate in Sweden - when I hit my head and lost my memory, it was Philipp who spent a VERY uncomfortable night on my bedroom floor so that I wasn't on my own. Unfortunately, I had also forgotten that in the wardrobe I had a whole heap of pillows that would have made his night more bearable... but oh well. Philipp is a bit of a fan of Bob Dylan... Imagine my love of Mars Bars and multiply it by a squillion. He is not the most conscientious blogger in the word, but he is getting better.
FACT: Philipp is a Swabian German, speaking a very interesting Swabian dialect. To speak Swabian. you just need to add 'le' to the endle of all the wordsle, it seemsle.

Katie also has a blog.

This was, without a doubt, the longest post I've ever written, but I've actually really enjoyed doing it. Hopefully it wasn't too much of a chore to read! Maybe you think I should have your name on my 'Friends who blog' list - if so, let me know! (In return, I'll be checking for my name on yours...) ;-)

Take care and see you tomorrow!

Happy Birthday! (Part One)

Yes, exactly one year ago, I sat down (on my second attempt) and started this blog - and you heard the word 'mitchenstein' for the first time (I'm guessing). So that makes today this blog's birthday. (Like, d'oh).

I'm fairly proud of myself (and that's why this post is pretty self-congratulatory, but someone's gotta do it).

When I started (fatter, hairier and younger), after having been inspired by Tim, Matt and Glyn, I didn't know how long it would last for, whether I'd be able to keep up people's interest, etc. But I'm pretty proud of how it turned out (bar the slightly dark days of the 'Greatest Neighbour of All Time' poll). It's been a lot of fun.

And a lot's happened in a year. Some bloggers have stopped, such as Jóhanna, while others, such as Stephen, Andreas, Katie, Andy, Stacey, Philipp and Daniel have joined the blogging world (with various degrees of success - well done Katie and Andy).

To mark this momentous occasion (I'm fairly surprised my phone hasn't been ringing off the hook today with all the messages of congratulations... was this date not in your diary?!) this week I will be adding a post EVERY DAY. And I actually will. This isn't one of those Glyn-type things where I'll say I'll do something and then stop after doing it once, like the Procrastination Hall of Fame, Anday or A Day by Day Report of Roots 2007 (Sorry Glyn, but I couldn't think of examples from other people...)

So, here's a few memories of the year gone by, and keep checking back during the week!

Where's Wally?

Where's Wally?

Did you see him?

There he is!

Sorry that there's been a little gap in blogging on my part recently - what with me headlining at the Royal Albert Hall and so on, it's been very hard to find the time to sit down and blog... But I'll make up for it next week! (You'll see).

So yes, last week, a group of us went and sang at The Salvation Army's Gospel Arts concert at the Albert Hall in London. And it was pretty cool. The choir was made up of young people from The Salvation Army all over the country (including one guy from Scotland in a kilt, so those of us sitting in the row in front of him had to be pretty careful whenever turning around). The sound from 500 voices was really exciting and it was great to be a part of. The Salvation Army definitely knows how to do big events. I think sometimes some people wonder what the point of big events like that is. Personally, I think it's great, because you get to see that you're part of something so much bigger; there were hundreds of people there that have probably lost contact with The Salvation Army over the years and it provides a great opportunity to minister to them; it's also pretty cool to see how much musical talent we have in the Army - and if you're leaving thinking, 'What can I do to make my life better and what can I do to be a better Christian?', then I think the point of the whole thing is pretty clear.

Here's one other picture which is pretty cool but may not show up so well on here:

Take care!

Detective Me

So I was sitting on the tube this morning, reading my copy of the Metro (free newpaper given out in London in the morning). And I see an advert for Piriton, an anti-allergy tablet. I look a little closer at the picture and see a nice-looking High Street, with a nice row of shops and a beautiful view of the Thames and the London Eye in the background. 'That's a nice High Street', I thought. And then I saw it. Saw through what they'd done. This lovely High Street in Westminster (presumably) is in fact Southend High Street, not in Westminster, but Essex, with the shop fronts changed and the London Eye added in the background. How observant am I? (Southenders can feel free to confirm this - you can see Woolworths and the Royals Shopping Centre, people!). Now Piriton, did you really need to add the London Eye? Is the world's longest pier (recently voted top pier by the National Pier Association) not enough of a landmark?

Even though it's everywhere in the news at the moment, and we're probably all a little fed up of it, I'm just adding this last bit so I can remember what was going on when I read this post in a few years' time:
The new Olympic logo. Now, those of us who are fairly familiar with the United Kingdom, would have known in advance that the powers that be would try to create something 'fun', 'groovy' and 'modern', yet fail (any of the parties would have done it - it's just how we do things). However, in actually developing a logo that hurts people, I think they surpassed all our expectations. Tony Blair said that this logo would be life-changing. I'm not exactly sure how, but I'm sure it will be.

Something Funny

Do you want to hear something funny?

Well, do ya?

Well, apparently, the little dot above an 'i' or 'j' is called a... Wait for it... tittle!

I needed that... This week with its three-day exam proved to be pretty heavy! At first I quite liked the idea of bringing an exam paper home to work on the two essays I needed to write - but it was pretty stressful. I felt so guilty every time I went to eat something or went to the toilet, thinking 'I should really be working'. At least with a three-hour exam it's over and you can just forget about it - but for THREE DAYS?! Argh. I spent the three days solid working on the essay, completely losing track of time, and evidently, the ability to communicate with humans... Hence my - 'I must say, that really is very good' comment on Glyn's blog.

This summer's not sorted yet, but I've already planned next year. As part of my bid to visit every country in Europe, I plan to visit every country in Europe. I was quite happy when I discovered that there's a direct railway line between Slovenia and Greece, taking in like a million countries on the way (Well, three - five in total). That would be so cool. Anyone up for it? (Preferably people I know).

Speaking of different countries, as we were, the worldinonecity people have published a list of the countries they haven't met anyone from yet - do you know any people living in London from countries on that list?!

I saw Matt Barbet on Carnaby Street the other day - that's four D-listers since October! How rock and roll am I?

ADDED: Tomorrow night I'm singing a song at church called 'I Will Offer Up My Life' - I think it's called that. Anyway, I've been practising it, but in the middle of the chorus I keep going into 'You're So Vain'... That's a little worrying. Stephen, if you're reading this, I won't sing that on the night. I hope.