The Best Day!

I am a bit of a Neighbours fan - those of you who read this blog regularly may have been able to deduce that information for themselves... (By the way, for those Germans that read this blog - and I know I have a few - you might want to look at this post, just to find out what I'm talking about).

Anyway, knowing this, my sister booked us places on the... wait for it... official Neighbours tour! I know! (And she laughs at me for liking Neighbours so much, but I couldn't help but notice that she'd also booked herself a place on the tour...). It was the coolest day. And here's why:

So, departing from the centre of Melbourne, the tour drives out to the suburb where Neighbours is filmed. First stop, Erinsborough High School.

The next stop was the famous Ramsay St. Now, this wasn't my first trip to Ramsay St, so I already had all the photos of me standing like a total tool in front of each house (see my first ever post for an example). So we thought we'd have some fun this time and show off our skills just in case a casting agent happened to be walking by...

Ok, so we did a couple of cheesy photos first:

My sister on the Ramsay St. sign (?!): But then: Sad outside Steff's house.Oh no! A fight outside Paul's house...Shocked outside Paul's house...Dead outside Karl and Susan's...
And they were filming their Christmas episodes, so look out for these guys! (Although, thinking about it, that won't be until about March 2008...)

Anyway, you should have seen my face when my sister told me that as part of the tour we got to... wait for it... meet an actor from the show! So we were standing at the studios (Stop Three) and then a big 'G'day guys!' comes from behind, we turn around and see Frazer and Ringo (or Ben and Sam as I call them...) coming round the corner. Apparently it's unusual to meet two cast members - they must have heard I was coming.Us with Ringo and Frazer.

Autographing.

I'd assumed it would just be a quick handshake and autograph or something, but we had like half an hour just chatting with them. They were very nice guys and really down-to-earth. And don't worry, I played it cool.

As you can see.

This is Frazer's head. He's actually doing an autograph here (for the second time, the first one said 'To Don'... I corrected him, then made a joke, he laughed. It was a good joke.)

And does anyone know any Neighbours fans called Don? (Although I doubt that anyone called Don is a Neighbours fan.)

Australia is only about two/three months ahead of us with its episodes, but I managed to catch a couple while I was there and it's completely changed... The theme tune's been jazzed and funked up (ok, maybe 'funked' is slightly too strong a word) and they've changed the way they film it (apparently it's digital now), which means that it looks like a film. It's all very dramatic.(Neighbours: The New Generation it says on the trailers). They've got rid of a whole heap of characters and got some new ones in. And now, do I tell you what happens? Hmm... Well, I wouldn't want to spoil it for you, but there's a dramatic wedding, a surprise pregnancy (it's not Harold - it's not that much of a surprise), an English policeman and a new family...

It just keeps on delivering the goods, doesn't it? :D

And I think my sister may have enjoyed it after all...

Australia (and a few other things)

And why the long pause in blogging? Well, I've just come back from Australia, where I went to see my sister, my brother-in-law and all the family over there (and there's a lot). We spent some time in Melbourne (where my sister lives), went over to Tasmania and then some more time in Melbourne. Now, no-one likes looking at other people's holiday photos (I particularly hate it), so I'm just going to intersperse a couple of them with this blog. Because it's fun to share.
Now Australia is a great country, as anyone who has been there will probably tell you. It's got it all - sun, surf, beaches full of fun, beautiful, sporty people, platypuses (I checked with wikipedia and apparently you can say platypuses, platypi or just platypus), Dame Edna, etc. The list goes on.

But it can't be all good, can it? Is Australia really an earthly paradise? I decided to compile a list of 12 great and not-so-great things about Australia. And not the kind of things that everyone might think of. And here it is:

Great Things About Australia

1. Australian animals are pretty cool, aren't they? Wombats, platypuses, kangaroos? It's unfair that one country got all those. This is me with a wallaby. We'll call him Squishy and he will be my wallaby.
2. Only Australia would give a road a name like this: 3. Only Australia would make stamps like this: 4. Australians are so proud of their country and I find that kinda cool. And it's great how they try to preserve their history - anything older than ten years gets a special plaque on it as an historical building. 'Australia's oldest Post Office, built 1976', etc.

5. On our first day (man I was jetlagged) we went to an Aussie Rules football game at the Melbourne Cricket Ground. And Aussie Rules is actually pretty cool! Contrary to popular belief, there are rules, and once you've got the hang of them, it's a good game to get into. Me and my brother decided we had to choose teams to follow and we bought football shirts. I went for Carlton, being the team my cousins follow, only finding out later than Carlton are permanent fixtures at the bottom of the league. But, I am a man of my word, and I'll keep following them. And I'm sure my support will make all the difference next season.

6. And now the greatest thing of all. Australia still has this:
Not-So-Great Things About Australia

1. Australian English. Now, I'm a big a fan of Australian English as the next guy and, although I do say so myself, my Aussie accent is amazing. And I love the way that no-one calls anyone by their proper name and that you can just make up a word and put it in a sentence and no-one will notice and will still understand it anyway. And Aussie English and Essex English aren't really that far removed. BUT there are traps - we get fooled into believing we're ok with Aussies when they speak, but no. Don't get shocked when a guy tells you how comfortable 'thongs' are and if an Australian tells you that they have a great 'park' next to their house, don't be surprised when you get there and see it's just a parking space.

2. The fact that Australia has Vanilla Diet Coke might tempt me into making the big move over, but the fact that Australia has no yoghurty Special K means that I won't be ringing removal companies just yet.

3. You probably believe Australia to be a civilised country. But it's not true. Hardly ANY Australians have locks on their toilet doors. What's that about?!

4. They may have had great success with Neighbours and Kath and Kim, but Australian TV sucks. You're sitting there watching a morning TV show and all of a sudden it turns into the Shopping Channel, telling you that you can buy five LegMaster 3000s for the price of one and if you order within the next ten minutes using a blue credit card, they'll chuck in another 5 and a LegMaster 3000 hat. There are only about five different adverts that just repeat constantly and every other one will be for a mobile phone ringtone. You get the picture.

5. And Australia gets cold. I'm a big fan of cold weather, but I wasn't expecting it there! I knew it would be a little colder in the south (it was their winter after all), but I never expected snow! (Ok, we did have to go up a mountain to see it). And I was the idiot who didn't even take a coat...And this second picture is the view we actually travelled up the mountain to see. This is an aerial view of Hobart. Enjoy. (And the stupid look on my face is due to the fact that my sister's husband, Brett, pulled down my hood just before the photo was taken and it was UNBELIEVABLY cold.
6. Ok, I'm out of negative things for now.

Ok, all in all Australia is pretty great after all. And it's a pretty beautiful place (This is the view you were supposed to see in the previous picture).
And for one last thing before I move on, meet Scott and Charlene, the platypuses:
And now for some other things:

1. It's always cool when you've been away to have a little look to see what's been going on in the blogosphere. And what has been going on? Well, at first glance, nothing, but after looking a little harder: Glyn has MORE than made up for his recent (but fairly lengthy) lack of blogging; Andy has updated us on his fireplace (?); Daniel has remembered that he has a blog (and maybe he could remind Patrick) and Anna has posted a photo of me looking a complete tool (but she looked good!). And, speaking of people from Switzerland (Anna's from Switzerland, if you hadn't seen where I was going), Philipp Hutter has now joined the blogging world. Good stuff!

2. And speaking of Philipp, as we were, thanks to him and Lizette, I now have the William Booth quote in Chinese and Igbo (there aren't many people who can say that). The list is growing! (By the way, you might not be able to see the Chinese characters, but I can see them on mine - and that's what counts).

3. Somehow, Alex and Owen (of www.worldinonecity.blogspot.com - recently interviewed by George Alagiah) have discovered my blog and seen that they won a Mitchie. That's quite funny really. They left a comment on that post - and I'll be keeping them to their word!

4. I have become a MASSIVE Scrubs fan - what a great show. How did I not notice that series before?! Would anyone else join my Elliot Appreciation Society? (And did anyone else notice she was the second Becky from Rosanne?)

5. And congratulations to my sister for getting into The Salvation Army's Melbourne Staff Band. Now my sister and her husband are the first married couple in the band's history. Well done! (On being in the band, not on being married. Lots of people are married.) :)

You'll notice that I've been quite bloggy today. Unfortunately I'm entering another period of exams, so I'll be missing from the blogosphere for a little bit again, but I think I've given you enough to be getting on with...

An Englishman in Plön

What a motley crew...

Ok, it's taken me a while, but I thought I'd just put up a few pictures and say a few things about The Salvation Army's Music School I went to in Germany a few weeks ago (as promised!). I've been to a fair few Music Schools in my time, but there's just something about the German one that's really cool. And it's great to be at a Christian camp with so many different types of people - and of course seeing old friends and meeting new ones. And here's a little of what went on!

The big football tournament is a pretty big tradition at Plön. I'm the fine specimen in the middle, wearing the blue Faroe Islands shirt (that must be a first). This was shortly before I had my lights knocked out by a goalkick to the face (thanks Oli!)... I don't really remember the rest of the game...

Soaked with a tray (the photo descriptions write themselves really).

P Paddy. Patrick does rap.

Yes, this is me as a pirate (man, to anyone who wasn't there, this music school must seem a little weird...). One of the team events was to dress some people up as pirates in about twenty minutes, using whatever you could find. I think we did pretty well! Yeah, the colour of the headscarf isn't particularly manly, but as we didn't have so long, we couldn't be choosy (and at least mine didn't have flowers on it). And the most impressive thing? I didn't actually have a beard then - Clara did it with a mascara brush. I think she has a fine future ahead of her in the fake-beard mascara industry.

This game hurt.

The youth choir. We're laughing because we were doing 'Let's Get It Started' as a fun item at the Vorkonzert (basically like a talent night and a time to perform all those pieces that weren't quite good enough or didn't fit into the final concert at the church) and we'd just sung the 'Let's get it started, HUH!' bit...

Ruben - my room-mate. Oh the parties we had in Room 210...

Daniel steals my thunder...

One very cool thing that they do is an open-air concert on the Saturday in the town centre (done by one of the bands). We don't do that enough. I'm the good-looking top baritone player...

The final concert is in a great church in the town centre. This was the youth choir singing 'O Happy Day'.

My observations...

1. Germans don't like Marmite (and who could blame them?)

2. NEVER order an After-Eight Ice Cream Sundae.

3. A lot of Germans do this when they're thinking about something...

Sarah can do it better than I can - and Daniel does it even better, but he does it anyway, so that's not so impressive. I'd never noticed it before (nor had many Germans), but I left a trail of self-conscious people behind me...

4. Translating into German on the spot in front of like a million people is HARD!

5. And for all British guys, German girls seem to really like the way we pronounce the name 'Chandler' (worth remembering).

Thanks to Rebecca for most of the photos! (Not entirely sure what I'm doing here...)

The lake at the Army camp. Pretty cool, huh?

An Englishman in Plön (Introduction)

Howdy! Ok, so a week has passed since I got back from Germany and I haven't been able to write anything about the Plön Salvation Army Music Camp yet, but I know you guys are busting for a little bit of what went on, so this is a little introduction and a proper post with pictures, etc. will follow:

So, a little taster:

Herr, Deine Güte Reicht So Weit

This was our newly-formed male vocal quartet giving it some on the talent night - check out the beat-boxing courtesy of Andrew Mackereth. And it doesn't get much more international than this group (an Englishman, a German, a Moldovan and a Swiss... actually, that would be a pretty catchy name for the group).

So, if you need a male vocal group to special at some event, look no further ;)

That was Plön:

Credit to Patrick for uploading the video - cheers!

Rostock

Ok, so now I'm being told off for not blogging in a while - but if you look at my last post, I did warn you that that would be the case! But, Philipp Reutter, your words have been heard, and here I am!

Well, I've just come back from almost two weeks in Germany - the biggest part of that time was spent at The Salvation Army's music school in Northern Germany in a beautiful little town called Plön, up in Schleswig-Holstein. The last few days were spent in Rostock, visiting friends I had made when I was living and studying in Sweden. As I'm still waiting for some pictures and things from music school, and I still don't know exactly what I'm going to write about that yet, I've decided to give you a little recap from Rostock first. You'll just have to wait for the other stuff - don't worry, it'll be ok.

Anyway, even though I was absolutely shattered after music school, it was still really good to get to Rostock and see Grit and friends. This is us:

(You can see that I look a little tired!)

Going to meet someone you haven't seen for two years and then falling asleep for 12 hours at their house may seem a little rude, but Grit was very nice about it! We had a really cool time - it didn't seem at all like two years had passed since we saw each other. And the best thing we did?

Jungle Speed

Jungle Speed is actually a French game we got addicted to in Sweden. It's fast, fun and potentially lethal. I used to be really good at it, but I'm not as young now as I used to be and some of my moves were a little rusty... Here's some action shots (this may have been the only time I've played Jungle Speed and not ended up bleeding, which was nice):
Grit, Katja, Diana and Volker

Katja, me, Diana and Volker

We also played Cluedo (or Clu-ay-do as they say there). I was certain that it was Frau Weiss in the Billiardzimmer with the Pistole... so you can imagine my surprise when I found out that I had in fact done it.

Another strange thing was that as soon as I arrived in Rostock, my German was amazing! If only the people from music school could have heard me then...

And the stupidest thing I did? Yes, I was pretty stupid. Now, imagine that you have a particularly heavy allergic reaction to a certain fruit... we'll say strawberry (I'm not going to tell you what fruit I actually do have a strong allergic reaction to, because that would be like Superman writing on his blog that Kryptonite kills him, and that's just stupid). Now, if you have an allergic reaction to strawberry, then the last thing you should do is probably drink something called strawberryade. Which is exactly what I did. Not the cleverest thing I've ever done - and believe me, I've learned my lesson now!

So thank you to Grit and Diana for a great time in Rostock. If anyone ever spots Jungle Speed for sale in England, let me know!

Race Against Time

A pretty big time restriction right now, so I'm going to attempt to get as much down as I can in a very short time!

See you on the other side...

Point One:
As those of you who read Katie's blog will know, we had a little day in Hamburg (where I lived for a little bit) this week. And very nice it was too (and hot - I reckon it was close to 40. Katie thinks I'm exaggerating, but it was 34 degrees at 8.30pm and MUCH hotter during the day. Maybe Philipp can tell the the temperature from Hamburg on Monday?!). I can't really add too much to what Katie said about it - she did quite well in retelling the day's events - but I can add a couple of pictures that she didn't have, mainly because I didn't give them to her (By the way, Hamburg's a particularly nice city, so if you're ever in the area, drop on in).

Me by the Small Lake (I'm not going to mess around with fancy photo comments).

Me and Katie by the Small Lake. It's amazing that this picture turned out well... The lady that took it for us was, in her own words (well, translated), 'not that good with technology'. We assumed she was just being modest, but when she tried to take a photo with the camera facing her, we saw that she in fact wasn't (modest or good with technology).

While waiting at the airport, there was the customary mad rush to get a seat. You know how it is - there's no member of staff around or anything, but one person gets up and the rest zoom to the desk. It was boiling hot, uncomfortable and claustrophobic. I thought to myself, 'I don't know whether I care enough about sitting next to Katie for this to be worth it'. The man next to me laughed, because I'd said it out loud.

Point Two:

NAMED AND SHAMED

As recently mentioned on Andy's blog, there has been a distinct lack of bloggage on the part of certain people whose blogs I check fairly often. I thought that maybe if I mentioned them, they'd be shamed into writing something. On his blog, Glyn wondered whether this is the beginning of the end for blogging. No. I certainly have no plan to give up yet. And actually, I know that more people are reading this blog than ever before AND that other friends are now starting to blog, so that's good stuff.

So come on Matt, Glyn and Tim (Graeme just saved himself by posting yesterday).

I've noticed that three of the above names are Mitchie award winners. And this has troubled me. Have some of the above people, on winning a Mitchie, now decided that they've achieved all they can in the blogging world and that there's no need to carry on? NO. The Mitchies were meant to encourage bloggers, not discourage them. Oh no.

I should mention that there will be a very slight blogging break from me for a little while, but not for long - and I'll be back!

Point Three:

Speaking of new bloggers (which I was a few lines back), Anna (who, rather excitingly, was enrolled as a Salvation Army soldier last week), has given up Bebo and finally jumped on the blogspot bandwagon. So that's good news. And now we don't need to pass a mini-exam every time we want to write a comment on her blog.

Point Four:

And I've seen the new Harry Potter film. And it's not bad. A little long, but there's some really good bits. I made the following observations:

a) There is, in fact, a limit to the amount of time you can sit and watch Daniel Radcliffe rolling around on the floor.

b) I want to be Luna Lovegood's friend.

Point Five:

If I had my own music awards, I decided this week that I would give out the following awards:

Best Key Change 2007: The Feeling - Never Be Lonely

Best Opening Line 2007: Mika - Stuck in the Middle ('I sit and think about the day that you're going to die.')

But I don't have my own music awards.

The Godfather

Isn't this little guy cute? And look at the baby he's holding!

Apologies for not blogging a little earlier, but I was kinda waiting for a certain thing to happen first - and today it did! This little chap, Oscar, was born at 11.45 this morning to my friend Danni. That's pretty exciting (he was only seven hours old in this picture). And as you may have guessed from the title of this post, I was asked to be the baby's godfather, which is also pretty exciting. It was very nice to be asked and I'm very chuffed, but at the same time it's a little scary because I've realised I'm at the age where I can be a godfather. I'm growing up!

I'm taking the godfather thing pretty seriously - I think I'm taking it more seriously than Danni had planned when she asked me! Apparently (according to the dictionary), a godfather is supposed to support the spiritual welfare of the child in question. Now that's a pretty big task, but I'll try to live up to it and hope I'll be able to help in some way.

So, on hearing that Oscar had been born, I headed into town to buy something for him. I'd already bought the card (so I was pleased that he was a boy after all, or that would have been £2 down the drain...) Now I really wanted to get him an elephant, I don't know why. I went into mothercare (written with a small 'm' because they do it too) to find my elephant. I found lots of little toys that were all very cute, etc. blah, blah but I really wanted an elephant. Fortunately my mum (yes, I was with my mum, so maybe I'm not so grown up after all) found a shelf of elephants. And I bought him Humphrey, which I kinda wanted to keep, but I would have felt a little guilty. I forgot to take a photo of him (Humphrey), but the good ol' internet helped me out here.

In other news:

1. The other day at cell group, we were discussing (I say 'we', but I didn't say anything because I was the newby), about how 'nice' Christians should be and what being 'nice' was all about. And then the next day at Songster (choir) practice, the reading was about being 'nice' and what that really involved, whether Christians are too nice, not nice enough, etc. Isn't it weird when that happens?

2. I've seen on these blogs that sometimes people discuss books they've been reading and give their views on different theories and ideas. So I thought I would do the same too. The other day I was reading Mr Busy (which Katie bought for me, because I have a reputation for being quite busy), which I sat and read and enjoyed, but I realised afterwards that My Busy isn't particularly busy at all, but merely does things quickly. This presents a few problems:

a. Mr Busy is, in fact, nothing like me at all.

b. Should I write and complain that Mr Busy is really the story of someone who would better be named 'Mr Fast' or 'Mr Quick', although this could overlap with Mr Rush, which I haven't read.

c. How many of the other Mr Men are fraudsters, claiming to be something they're not?

3. The other day, someone told me that my blog is unusual because it is, and I quote, 'pointless'. I didn't really know what to do with that, so I thought about it and put it on my blog.

A Bit of Day-Seizing

Well I've had a very interesting day. And here's why:

As those who you who read this blog often will know, I'm a bit of a fan of the World in One City project, whereby two guys are attempting to meet a citizen from every country of the world living and working in London (within the space of a year) to prove that London is the most international city in the world. And they're doing very well in that, having found citizens from 106 countries at the time of writing. They've been interviewed on the BBC and in the London Paper, so word's getting round. Good for them.

But why am I telling you this again? Well, on their website (see link in right-hand column), they put up a list of those countries they haven't met anyone from yet. So there was me scanning the list, seeing the countries you'd expect to see on such a list (if you knew such countries existed), such as Kiribati, Nauru, Palau, etc. And then getting towards the bottom of the list I saw 'Ukraine'. Now, as you probably know, I am not from the Ukraine, nor am I ever likely to be, but one of my best friends is. Determined to stick to my motto of 'seizing the day' I decided to email these guys and tell them about my London-dwelling, Ukrainian friend, Alina.

So today, me and Alina met one of the guys from the project in a pub in the centre of London. And he was very nice too, and evidently chuffed to be getting country number 105. It was a pretty busy day for him as he was meeting us, a Uruguayan and a Luxembourger all in the same day (when have you ever done that?). I was particularly excited as this meeting was marking two 'firsts': (1) the first time I've ever met a comedian, and (2) the first time I've ever taken part in 'a stupid boy project' (see previous post). So keep checking their website to see the write-up of Ukraine - it may not come up for a little while. And maybe I'll get my name up in lights yet.

I think that was a good bit of 'day-seizing'.

In other news:

1. I managed to convince an Australian working in Quiksilver that I was one of his countrymen.

2. I learned that Colgate had some difficulties when they first started advertising their toothpaste in Spain as 'colgate' in Spanish roughly translates as 'go hang yourself'.

All in all, a productive day.

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!