Monday, May 19, 2008

Sorry about your weight

I may have blogged about this before, but I enjoy listening out for corporate speak. McDonalds are typical. Before they had a partnership with Coke, they had their own cola drink. It was obviously policy for all the restaurant staff to correct customers if they asked for a Coke to say "McDonalds Cola?". I would always pause and say "Oh I'll have an orange, please" (Ha Ha).

It now seems policy for staff to say "Sorry about your wait" when the food is more than a couple of minutes in coming. There are several things about this quote, firstly the staff delivery the line with as much feeling as "Can help you" in the first place. So they are obviously not sorry themselves. As it seems to be customer policy to apologize for the food to take some time, perhaps it McDonalds corporate who are showing sorrow. Now we all know this isn't possible, so perhaps they think we will all think McDonalds is a wonderful company if they staff show remorse for late cold food and we will all spend more money there.

So I have decided they they are not apologising for the late food but for selling fattening food, hence "Sorry about your weight". I have decided to join Heather on her diet, thus spending less time in McDonalds more time eating vegetables.

Having said all this we had breakfast there last Saturday.

Thursday, May 08, 2008

Roots 08 weekend II

Having been on the Roots "behind the scenes" team now for a number of years, I notice a trait within the people who work there. This trait is their single mindedness to achieve the mission of the event, to provide an event which inspires and equips the Salvation Army for spiritual renewal. Everyone works towards this aim.

I want this for my home church/corps in Liverpool. This weekend our songsters are going to Cardiff to sing in their corps, I hope that they recognise a single mindedness in us this weekend, to sing praises to the Lord and to glimpse him through us.

Grandma 1906 -2008

My Grandma died last week. But it was a happy event for our family. She was 101 and was ready to go to heaven.

About 1906
Roosevelt was the American President
The Prime Minister was Henry Campbell-Bannerman (In fact he was the first Prime Minister)
Sadly Liverpool won the first division title
More happily Everton won the FA Cup
The first radio broadcast in 1906
Cornflakes where invented in 1906

Of course the main world event of 1906 was the San Fancisco earthquake.

Grandma was 6 when the First World War started
She was 33 when the Second World War started

Grandma left school and went to work in the cotton mills of Burnley when she was only young.

She went to the Salvation Army Training College, her flag was removed from the main assembly hall recently to make way for newer flags.

There is a small book that she wrote with the help of my mum, of her life which is really interesting.

Grandma shared her birth and death year with Albert Hofman, the man who invented LSD??!!

Roots 08 weekend I

Well, Roots 08 has been and gone. And I sit here thinking about all the work that went in, and all the new people I met and the worry etc. (I have run the stewarding team (with Heather) for the last four years). We had more than 70 stewards this year which manned 8 different locations with 21 different time slots more than 650 stewarding events.

I can't think what my highlight was. Overall I think it was a relieve that everything went OK and people where kept save. The Big Top didn't burn down. Nobody pinched half of the resource zone. Everyone worked really hard to make sure it was a success.

I took Tuesday off on holiday and normally I would go back to Southport and see the Big Top in different states of decommissioning. This year I didn't because it was Grandmas funeral at our Salvation Army. We had a good band and almost a full Songsters. A lot of my family came down from Aberdeen to the funeral and it was really great to see them. I wish we could have spent longer together as I have not seen them for some time and some I have not met at all yet.

I must get to Aberdeen soon.

I'll post some pictures when I get them.