Announcing...

The Mitchenstein Blog Awards 2008
(The 'Mitchies')
"As prestigious as you want them to be."

Yes, that time of year has come round again. Presumptuous and pretentious it may be, but the Mitchies are back for a second year (see what I’m talking about by clicking here).* However, this time, the awards are going to have input from you, the readers. Everyone has their own group of blogs they regularly check – perhaps you know a really good one I’ve never heard of. So let me know!


Here are some ideas to help you:
The most thought-provoking blog?
Best blog photo 2008?
Best newcomer?
The person we most want to get back to blogging?
The most entertaining blog?
The most conscientious blogger?
The best supporting blogger? (Those comment-writers amongst us)
The best make-up? (Nyah, maybe not)

And, the big one:
The Best Blog Post 2008 (Any post written since 23rd June 2007 is eligible. As long as it’s good, obviously).

Email themitchies at hotmail dot co dot uk ** with any suggestions you may have and they’ll all be announced during the Mitchenstein second birthday week at the end of June. Feel free to mention them on your blog!

The only thing left to say is:

VOTE PORTUGAL AND NORWAY!!

(Iceland is good too...)
(in Eurovision now though, not the Mitchies, obviously).

*Why not? It keeps things lively. And me out of mischief.
**I've only just found out why people do this - I always thought it was to look cool.

PS. The above picture is, of course, an Oscar award and not a Mitchie.

Phlog (Photo Log)

My German friend Patrick has been living in ol’ Blighty for a good eight months now. We don’t get to meet up much because we’re both lead too darn interesting lives. Last time we met up we went on a tour of all things Army (click on January 2008 in the right-hand column for the pictures) and the time before that we visited all the places on the Monopoly board (click on October 2007 to see pictures of that – see, we really don’t meet up that often). Both of those days rocked, so the pressure was on to find something interesting to do today... What could we do...

SO, I introduced him to my friend Samuel L. Jackson...
While I had a conversation with Robin Williams about bringing Mork and Mindy back. He explained why it just wasn't possible... I stopped to chat with Ant and Dec about my latest film project... Before stopping to chat with those less fortunate than ourselves... Patrick explained his latest film idea to Spielberg, who really just seemed more interested in the camera I was holding... There’s always time for a Shrek hug...But I hugged him for too long and Patrick and The Rock got annoyed with me for holding the day up. Although to be fair, it really had nothing to do with The Rock...Before finding Johnny Depp just staring into the mirror (perhaps wondering when he should have stopped making Pirate movies. After the first one, Johnny.)... I showed Warney my flipper... And cycled with Lance Armstrong... While Patrick danced with Tom Jones... We rubbed shoulders with world leaders... And checked out Simon Cowell’s hairy knuckles... I had this photo with my friend Britney, who – let’s be honest now – is a bit of a poser. Who carries a pole round with them just in case a photo opportunity turns up?

All in all, a fairly successful day.

End of an Era

Do you ever get the feeling when you’re suddenly taken back to your childhood? That happened to me today. As you know, I’m a bit of a Neighbours fan – and people, it looks like it’s survived the move to five – but instead of turning off the TV at the end and getting on with some work, I left it running and on came Home and Away. I used to love that show... Coming in from school, I’d sit and watch Citv, before Home and Away started at 5.10pm on ITV, directly followed by Neighbours at 5.35pm on BBC1 (back then it didn’t go up to BBC15 or whatever we’re on now...). They were the biggest shows at school, and everyone used to talk about them – does anyone else remember that?

Anyway, just before the show started, the announcer... well, announced that this would be Sally’s final episode. Yep, after 20 years as Sally Fletcher, Kate Ritchie was moving on to bigger and better things. Finding it pretty cool that I’d managed to come across this particular episode, I sat and watched it – and wow. It was like I was a kid again. Not only was it a long time since I’d seen the show properly, they’d also brought back half the family that arrived with Sally in the very first episode – which I remember (I’ve always had a weird skill for remembering little things like that in perfect detail. Ask me what I had for tea yesterday – go on, ask – and I’ll have to think about it for a good long while. And actually I didn’t manage to have any tea yesterday, so that probably plays a part. But ask me what I had for tea on Friday and I’ll be like... well, it was fish and chips, because Friday is generally fish and chips evening... but ask me about Thursday and I’ll be like, no idea).

I digress. It was early 1989 I believe, so I would have been 5, and I remember coming home from school and Mum telling me that there was a new show from Australia which had been recommended by one of her sisters (a lot of our family live in Australia). We sat down together to watch it, and I remember seeing Sally, Pippa and Tom (and Carly, Lynne, Frank, Stephen and Bobby – I told you, this is the kind of thing I remember – I didn’t even have to check that on Wikipedia) arriving in Summer Bay. I don’t know why I felt the need to write this down, but it was kinda weird sitting (again, next to my Mum) twenty years later, watching Sally, along with Pippa, Stephen and Carly who had come back for the episode, leaving the Bay. Weird, but kinda cool.

And recognise the location of these pictures from 2005? (the top one is with my cousin, Ellie).

Bus

It seemed so simple. Take the bus from the airport to the city centre. How hard can it be? So instead of ending up here:

How did we end up here?

This explains it (have the sound up high):

Yes, we were travelling to Kaunas, the former capital of Lithuania and today the country's second city. And we had a great time (once we eventually got there).

And my highlight?

These people put banana on pizzas! Banana. And man, it really works. Try it. Ham, pineapple and banana - you may scoff now, but scoff you will. It tastes great.

Here's a couple more shots...

Photo stressed... Is there a monument or landmark that Katie hasn't cut the top off?

Hedgehogs and Sealions

In the middle of all the exam stress, it was nice to go out with some friends to celebrate my brother's 18th birthday...

We forced him to do the cheesy pose with his presents (although he made it cheesier than we'd expected):

Hayley laughed a LOT here - the hedgehog in the front is in fact Josh's head.

It's so weird to think my little brother is 18... Although it's sometimes hard to remember: just a word of warning to you - if you're ever having a conversation with him and you happen to leave a slight pause after the word 'but', be prepared for him to insert the words 'face' or 'head' before you get to carry on... Worth knowing ;)

So, not a paticularly long post, but a little update nonetheless, and a nice break from work! One other thing - I'm a bit of a fan of impressionists. Alastair McGowan and Ronni Ancona used to have me in stitches. (Did you ever see Ancona's Yoko Ono? Man, that made me cry with laughter - sometimes I'm just on the train or something, I'll think of it and start laughing again. Beginning to understand why no-one ever sits next to me on the train). Anyway, a friend pointed out this video to me of a Celine Dion impersonator giving a message to the fans of Eurovision (yep, it's coming round again). She nails it - and the facial expressions when she starts singing are priceless. And at the end of the video we get to see some examples of Swiss fashion. Those people have style ;)

A Bit of Everything

Time this baby was updated! It's been a crazy month - besides the normal study I've been preparing for a couple of Icelandic exams (the annoying thing being that I've chosen to take them), but things are going well. So what's going on?

Well, a while ago I mentioned a concert I was doing and that I'd put some videos up once I could. They've still not been sorted out yet, so I thought I'd put a couple of audio clips up. Why not? The first one is a great song called 'Breath of Heaven'. The second one is a little (read: lot) more tongue in cheek. Some of it's in Icelandic and my friend Johanna (from Iceland) wanted to hear it...

Those of you who travel round in London regularly will be familiar with the various free papers that get handed out as you walk around (I say 'handed out' - the LondonPaper guy actually chased me when it looked like I was going to walk past - and I was. The ink comes off on your hands). Anyway, my personal favourite is the London Lite. Every day they have a photo of someone in London reading the Lite, and if that person sees themselves in the paper, they can win £50. You won't believe the number of times I've hung around in various hotspots holding my Lite and trying to look nonchalant, but they've not got me yet.

But is this not Ken Livingstone?!If the polls are to be believed, he might wanna pick up that £50.

Two final things:
1. Some friends of mine (and maybe of yours) are doing sponsored events to raise money for great causes. Andy and his wife Verity, are doing a fat bike ride round Essex to pick up funds for the Little Havens Children's Hospice (had to think about my apostrophe there) while Stacey and Hayley are running for Cancer Research. Click on their names to view the pages.

2. I made up a joke! And I think I did make it up (sometimes it's a tough call, isn't it? I SWEAR I made up 'cool beans!' but no-one believes me. It had to come from somewhere.).

Anyway:

Why was the Jehovah's Witness late?
Because he had to go round the houses.

I thought that was quite good. I may need to tweak the wording slightly, and I want to run it by one of my Jehovah's Witness friends...

Take care.

Chavs and Celebs

This is a cab, innit?

1. I recently read this story in the Metro newspaper and thought it really deserved sharing.
This is what happens when a 19-year-old chavette thinks it would be a good idea to use Cockney rhyming slang when phoning directory enquiries to book a cab from her home in London to Bristol Airport.

Operator: Hello, Directory Enquiries.
Chavette: Hi. I wanna Joe Baxi.
Operator: Er... (checks) ... I’m afraid I can’t find anyone by that name.
Chavette: (irritated) It ain’t a person, it’s a cab, innit.

The operator duly gives her what she asks for and puts her through to the nearest supplier of cabinets, Displaysense.

The sales advisor at Displaysense seemed equally confused.

Chavette: (fuming) Look love, how hard is it? All I want is your cheapest cab, innit. I need it for 10am. How much is it?

The sales advisor tells her £180. The stroppy teenager gives her address before hanging up.

The next morning, rather than being picked up by a cab, the young woman had the cabinet dropped off.

Priceless.

2. One of the interesting things about being in London is that you occasionally see ‘famous’ people while walking around (I usually just see people from Big Brother, who generally hang around Oxford Circus – although I recently saw Connie Fisher and Dave Gorman too.*)

Have any of you seen the new Kit Kat advert with Girls Aloud? Where Sarah Harding’s walking down the steps in front of all the photographers, before she stops to have a break, have a Kit Kat. That advert was filmed on the steps of UCL. As I walk to the station, I generally walk around the front or around the back of UCL, depending on how I feel at the time – it makes no difference. However, on this night it did make a difference, because if I’d walked around the front, I would have seen this: Instead I walked around the back and saw this: Not that I’m the biggest Girls Aloud fan in the world, but it would have been interesting, and would have perhaps provided a slightly better photo for the mitchenstein365 page.

*Not together, I should add. He seemed to be wearing a t-shirt that said ‘I’m Not a Celebrity’ which threw me off at first. Just like when Girls Aloud did a French version of Can’t Speak French. My mind can’t deal with that.

We Was Robbed

So this is the Southenders team that entered the quiz night at Hadleigh Salvation Army. We were the smallest and youngest team there (on average), but we did pretty well! We came fourth out of eight teams which wasn't bad!

Having said that, we were robbed. We came fourth, one and a half points behind the team who came in third. So how were we robbed? Well, one of the questions referred to the British Crown Dependencies. 'Name the two British Crown Dependencies'. The only problem was that I knew there were three Crown Dependencies (Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man). So I got all confused. The answer was the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands, but this is technically wrong as, as I understand it, the only thing that connects Jersey and Guernsey is geography. Politically they're completely seperate, so the question was WRONG.

Ok, fair enough. So we lost one point? But NO! On this round, we had played our joker, meaning we got two points for every question. Had the question been right, we would have got two more points and come in third. Third is better than fourth. It's the difference between a podium finish and a non-podium finish (There was no podium unfortunately).

And Glyn only gave our play-doh Leaning Tower of Pisa five points, when it clearly deserved more, being both recognisable and entertaining.

This was a pretty big weekend actually. On Saturday night I did the concert I mentioned a few posts ago, and I was really happy with how it went. I sang Lost, Sway (in English and Icelandic!), Everything by Michael Buble, Breath of Heaven, Bui Doi and finally We Beseech Thee from Godspell. I was pretty nervous, but really satisfied with the final result. Hopefully I'll be able to post a video or two fairly soon.

Afterwards, we went out to celebrate the concert (or was it for Anna's birthday? I forget... ;) ) to a Tapas restaurant. And it was really nice - but mega confusing. This is me working out my order:

The food was great - the only down side being that the meatballs were slightly more garlicky than we had thought. My mum refused to speak to me all day. Anna, me, Josh and Paul managed to stink out the bandroom the next morning and apparently Andy and Tracy's corner of the hall was pretty powerful during the Sunday morning meeting!

Easter and A Little Book

I'm a big fan of Easter and it was a good Easter weekend. But busy of course!

On Good Friday we had the open-air service in the High Street which went well - and the heavens opened as soon as we'd finished, so that was lucky! The band stands at the top of the High St and people from the various churches in the town walk the length of the High St carrying a large wooden cross. We certainly get noticed (you'd have to be pretty stupid to miss a big wooden cross and a big brass band) and let's hope it made some people remember why Good Friday is a public holiday.

And then Easter Sunday came. We had Easter breakfast at the Salvation Army, but being the big kid I am, I'd already eaten two Cadbury's creme eggs and a tube of mini-eggs (and I wasn't feeling the best for it, but every year's the same).

This year for Lent I'd given up fizzy drinks - and I'd found it really difficult actually. I drink nothing else. I reckon a good 75% of my body mass was Diet Coke before Lent started...

Josh very kindly brought a bottle of Diet Coke (two in fact) to the Easter Sunday morning service for me and I got stuck into them pretty much straight away. But the amount of chocolate I'd eaten, the speed at which I drank it and the fact that I hadn't had anything fizzy for seven weeks made my face go like this:

Then we went outside and played in the snow (Fortunately my uniform dried in time for the meeting).

In other news, the little book I wrote a chapter of has been published. So that's pretty exciting:

And look what I found when I went into my favourite bookshop:

106 Not Out: Something Different

So this post marks the end of the 100th post ‘celebrations’. Thanks to all those who guest blogged for me!

Just for something a little different, I thought I’d post a video today to round the week off. My brother has become quite the music techie, so we thought we’d try something new out. So this is the song Lost, originally by Michael Bublé, but sung here by, well, me. I will just point out that this was for fun, we only had five minutes in which to record it, and, as is my way, I have been – unintentionally – slightly creative with the lyrics (You should have heard the words I made up when I had to sing ‘O Holy Night’ at school once – some of them weren’t even words).

So here it is:

The picture incidentally is of Hobart, Australia.

The only thing that remains is for me to wish you all a fantastic Easter. And, as I wrote last year, I hope you all have a great weekend, whatever you're doing. I really love Easter Sunday - there's always such an exciting feel about it. So if you're not doing anything this Sunday, why not check out a local Salvation Army or other church and see what's going on?! You’ll never know if you don’t try! (And you can’t say I don’t try!) :D

PS: I know it took me a while, but I’ve now updated my Project 365, and I must say, a couple of the March photos are pretty good!

105 Not Out: Guest Blogger 4

Guest Blogger: Tim Jones

Multi-talented Multilingual Men
Recently I had an interesting discussion with a man who has been retired from his career for a number of years, a man who had travelled a lot as part of his job.

He had spent a number of years in Germany, Cyprus and a number of other exciting and exotic places and was bemoaning the fact that nobody spoke English. I could kind of understand his point of view. In the Army bases where he worked (in case you hadn't figured that out), the majority of people would be Anglophones. This though doesn't mean that he shouldn't try. He was very much of the opinion that as English is one of the most widely spoken mother tongues and, arguably, the language of world business, everyone else should make the effort.

Everyone knows, and can probably identify with the British language tactic when abroad. LOUDER and SLOOOOOWWWWWEEEERRR! As painful as it is to admit, some/most/all of us have used it on occasion.

This, however, is John's blog. He is a linguist and has asked me, another linguist to guest write for him. I know that this blog is read by an audience in various locations around the globe.
The census that will be taken in 3 years time will ask participants to provide details about which language they speak. In relation to this, the census information and questions will be provided in one of 24 languages

1. Albanian/Kosovan
2. Arabic
3. Bengali
4. Cantonese
5. Croatian
6. Farsi
7. French
8. German
9. Greek
10. Gujerati
11. Hindi
12. Italian
13. Japanese
14. Polish
15. Portuguese
16. Punjabi
17. Russian
18. Serbian
19. Somali
20. Spanish
21. Swahili
22. Turkish
23. Urdu
24. Vietnamese

Plus Welsh I imagine.

In a survey conducted by Battlebridge Publications, results showed that over 300 languages were spoken by the 850,000 children asked in London.

On a fairly regular basis I am required to use another language than English. Speaking French and German and small amounts of Nordic languages, and in a central London working environment, I am sometimes needed to give directions, answer questions and on the odd occasion, translate for people who have fallen victim to crime.

I really feel that the opportunity to learn another language should be seized. Whether ordering a McDonalds when in Paris to speaking Faroese or Igbo, it demonstrates a real respect for other cultures. It is a respect that is frequently forgotten in our frankly arrogant "I speak English so everyone else should" society.

À plus tard,
Bis später,
Until next time,

Timmy Magic

Tim has his own blog here.

104 Not Out: Guest Blogger 3

Guest Blogger: Katie Allen

World Book Day

I thought this post would be a good opportunity to promote World Book Day. Actually, it's probably a rubbish opportunity to promote World Book Day, as by the time it's published it will have long been and gone. But you can be extra prepared for next year...

On Thursday, 6th March 2008, schools and bookshops all over the country celebrated the wonder of stories by dedicating an entire day to the theme of fairytales and favourite books. And man, did our school celebrate in style... (for those of you who don't know, I'm a primary school teacher). Staff and pupils all dressed up as their favourite book character, we had a parade, wrote book reviews and generally had a great time! I am a big, big fan of the Mr. Men, and think that my enthusiasm has rubbed off on the kids. There were a few children who were dressed up in professionally made Mr. Men outfits, which was nice. But one child in my class really went to town, and made his very own cardboard cut out version of Mr. Strong. I think it's ok to put his photo on here as you can't see his face at all (it wasn't a very practical outfit, manoeuvring through doors and sitting down proved to be a bit of a problem):As for me, I just put on the first thing that I pulled out of the wardrobe that morning...It's quite hard to tell from this photo, but I haven't been very well this week. The day before this was taken I was sent home from work ill (which has never happened before) and the only reason I dragged myself in the next day was because I didn't think the chance to dress up as Alice in Wonderland would come along again for a while.

Unfortunately, having survived the entire day being cheery and pretending that my head didn't pound every time someone shouted 'ARE YOU ALICE IN WONDERLAND?', I got into my car and realised that I'd run out of petrol. Which meant that I had to stop at a petrol station. In rush hour. I didn't take any photos of the incident, but I imagine it looked something like this:Anyway, I tried to act nonchalant and went to pay for my petrol (feeling like I was in a scene from Enchanted).

The following conversation ensued:

Me: Number 7, please.

Shop Assistant: Sorry, I haven't seen it.

Me: What, the amount?

Shop Assistant: The rabbit.

The people behind the counter were still chuckling as I drove off. Next year, I'm coming as The Invisible Man...

Katie has her own blog here.

103 Not Out: Detrainment

Is this the only country in Europe that can’t cope with any type of weather varying from the norm? It snows, our schools close. It’s sunny, our roads melt. It’s rainy, our trains stop.
We had a pretty windy and rainy night, and given what I've just told you, I was surprised to see the trains running completely to schedule.

A rainy platform:I’ve now been sitting on a stationary train for over forty minutes. We were going along quite nicely before the train suddenly stopped and the lights went out (somewhere near the M25). It was announced that the wind had brought the power cables down and that ‘we weren’t gonna be going nowhere for a while’. The deadly silence of the morning commute was suddenly interrupted by voices calling the office (‘The train’s just stopped. We were literally running nicely and then the cables came down’ [the train was literally running?]). Some workmen arrived a little while ago. I’m debating whether or not to drink my bottle of water... I don’t want to be stuck needing the toilet in case we’re here for a while... We’ve now been here over an hour. Hmm... It’s kinda cool how the ol’ East End atmosphere comes in after a while. No-one usually speaks on a morning commute, but if this goes on much longer, we’ll all be sitting around the ol’ Johanna doing the Lambeth Walk (Oi!) and eating pork scratchings.

Nothing’s happening. This is the view from my window. I’ve had a long time to examine it. Ok, he’s just announced that a new train is coming with some extra staff to help him (?). Then another train will come and they’re going to ‘transfer us’. Right, this is going to be good.

(Forty minutes later) The girls next to me have started playing the Bluetooth game now. Apparently I’m sitting on the train with a Big Daddy and some Hot Lips.

This is going to be exciting. The driver has just told us that the extra staff have arrived:
Apparently we’ll be transferred soon... He’s asked us to wait a little longer (not a lot of choice there). In a few minutes he’ll explain how the transfer will work (!). Apparently we’re going to be – and I quote – detrained in ten minutes. That’s a first.

Well, I’ve been detrained now. And it turns out that detraining is a technical term for climbing out of the driver’s door one by one (easier said than done), jumping down onto the track, crossing over the track and climbing into the next train. They’re doing it carriage by carriage. We were the first. This is going to take a long time.

Detraining 1.1:

Detraining 1.2 (My finger covered the lens in all the excitement):
Man, I got on this train two and a half hours ago. Still detraining. Just found out that the power lines actually came down on the train – apparently it was quite scary for the people in that carriage. But that was why we were unable to move forwards or backwards to the closest station.

Someone just phoned in to work and I’m sure they asked to speak to Susan McNaughty. Evidently, the guy sitting next to me is trying to get the word ‘disembark’ into his phone conversation as many times as possible.

For future reference, detraining takes well over an hour.

On the move! I left my station three and a half hours ago.

And we arrive in London. A one hour trip has taken over four, I’ve missed my lessons anyway and I’m going to treat myself to a chocolate chip shortbread biscuit. Which, to be honest, wasn’t All That Great.

And that was my train journey.