Advent #3 - 6th December: Christmas Dinner

The canteen at work prepared Christmas dinner for us today. We where going to pay £6.50 for three course dinner, but they forgot to give us the parsnip soup. So we paid £5.00 for main course and pudding.




Actually, it was not too bad. I took a picture, it's my first Christmas lunch so it counts as a Advent entry number 3.

Oh No! Heroes has finished

I've just watched the last episode of the first series of heroes.

Hiro is always talking about Star Trek, he's a big fan and can do the vulcan salute thing.





So I have just have one query:

How could hs he go through the whole first series without recognising that his dad is, in fact, Mr Sulu from the original Star Trek?

Advent #2 - 5th December: The corner of wrong

At work they have been decorating the canteen with Christmas decorations. For some reason they have decorated the coffee machine with the following unusual "thing".



I'm not sure if it's scary yet, but I do have to look at it every time I get a coffee.

Advent #1 4th Dec: Santa and Scrooge

Heather is trying to do a picture everyday up to Christmas, thought I would have a go. Here is number 1 (late starting).

At work, Barry, the outdoors man, has brought in a Father Christmas for use on the high ropes. All the students have to give him a hug or a kiss before he lets them down.

Barry must feel an affinity for Santa Claus, both having outdoor jobs and climbing etc. Unlike Jason (friend at work in picture) who is having a bit of a "Bah, Humbug" moment because Barry has hung Father Christmas in the staff room.

Calm Down! Calm Down!

December is almost here and I am guessing that we (Liverpool Walton Sally Army Band) will play about 250 carols in the open air and one Beatles song (All You Need is Love).

But it's the Beatles song that we have spent longer rehearsing than any other carols. This is because the BBC have asked us to participate in the Liverpool Nativity which is to be broadcast live on BBC 3 on December the 16th.

I know that we will only be on screen for 10 to 30 seconds but I don't know how many people will see or hear us.

The paperwork involved in getting on telly is amazing. Everybody has to give their name address, date of birth and passport number, presumably so the BBC can come round to your house if you play a wrong note and make your life a misery.

If you get a chance tune in and cheer us on, we will appear at the new Liner Landing stage, presumably when Mary and Joseph gets off the Mersey Ferry. (That, not so well known part of the Christmas story) (presumably singing Ferry Across the Mersey).

Expect Liverpool cliches will abound, I am thinking of kitting the band out in fuzzy wigs and (yellow?,) red and blue track suits. (We could even stage a fight, "You playing my part! Calm Down! Calm Down! eh! eh! eh! eh!")

Sally speak

I have been thinking about Heathers posts (and here) and about a recent visit to Transitional Church Weekend. It seems every church or corps claim to be welcoming, which makes perfect sense as nobody would claim to be unwelcoming. But are we really welcoming. I have been thinking about the "Sally Speak" we use.

You will often find the Officer saying "We will stand to sing the first song". But if someone actually did this they would be standing on their own for a considerable time before the rest of the congregation joined them. What actually happens is the Officer will say this and then go on to tell everybody about the song. Then everybody stands and sings. Don't believe me? Watch next Sunday morning.

The band and songster "message" is not in the form of a letter or even a note, but a carefully rehearsed piece of music.

The offering is a plate which you put money on. Which is immediately followed by somebody saying a prayer not down the microphone.

Even singing is something the man in the street may not have done. Young people don't sing in secondary school, unless they joined a specific choir. They listen to music all the time, through mp3 players but don't join in.

I look at some of the words we sing and I find them difficult to understand. I can't imagine what the man in the street thinks if he hears (nevermind understand) some of the stuff we sing. Perhaps we should use Song Books and use the overhead digital projector as a glossary to the words of some of the songs.

I will look for some more this Sunday.

Glossary
Meeting
When a group of people (usually wearing dark suits) come to meet in the hall for a couple of hours to sing songs and listen to the officer.


Officer
The guy in a dark suit who sometimes leads the meeting

Songsters
A group of people in dark suits who stand up and sing a song in the middle of a meeting

Band
A group of people in dark suits who sit and play brass instruments

The trouble with you lot is ....

(Warning Sally Army post)

I have spent a very long weekend at Sunbury Court (near London), attending a Transitional Church weekend. I think we sat though easily 10 hours of lectures my head is spinning with too much information. I need time to think it all through, but there are some highlights that have stuck so far.

• Alan Burns wants to interview some of the early Christian Mission people to see if they where cheesed off with the new fangled Salvation Army.
• "The trouble with you lot is you're not traditional enough!"
• Early Salvationists didn't wear uniform to meetings on a Sunday. They wore them to work in the morning.

It was good to make some new friends, (York people, Isle of Man people, Scottish people, (Although I must apologise to the Scottish Cadet who wore his Scotland shirt on Saturday night (Scotland lost 2.1 to Italy thus being knocked out of the European cup... again) worse still Isreal beat Russia thus keeping England in the competition, so again sorry (Will pass this on said Scottish cadet)))

It was good to see some good friends that I haven't seen for a couple of months/years join us on Sunday.

The sad thing is ..... they are all Divisional Commanders (a bit like bishops in Sally speak)!!!!

But never the less it was good to see you all. (As they are DC's they won't read blogs or even know what they are.)

Youth sub groups

I have been looking into the groups young people put themselves into. I have a few categories below.

Emos
Emotionals. They like to be a bit sad. They are defined by their music and their clothes, I think. I know a Emo who has a really long fringe and likes to hide inside his black hoody top.

Goths
Like to wear a particular type of clothes and chains. Again defined by the music they listen to and the black clothes they wear. I think they may lobby their parents for body piercing.

Trendies or Scene People
Bright happy clothes usually expensive. Obviously mortal enemies of the Goths and Emos.

Scallys
All scallys refuse to belong to this group. Every knows who they are apart from the people who are scallys. They usually wear sports equipment, track suits etc.

I will add to the list as more occur.

A blog roll

I have decided to start a blog roll, I like Johnny Lairds idea of asking people to be included. If you want to be included in my blog roll, drop me a comment and I will check you out.

Working out the meal costs

We have just been out for a meal with the Cookies and Pearsons in London. There was thirteen of us, so working out the split of the costs was a major deal. Despite having an two accountants, a civil servant and a doctor. In the end the doctor worked it out.

I'm thinking that I could use this situation to help me persuade Heather buy a new Apple laptop. Seeing as Will now has one.

We are planning to go out tomorrow and visit all the monopoly sites??!! I will let you know how we get on.

Children

Some very good friends of mine, recently had cause to look after their two young nephews for a couple of days. I think they found it a bit of a shock. Lynsey (for that is her name(no point in hiding now)) described her morning of trying to get kids out of bed into clothes, breakfast eaten and off to school, with a look of horror that I rarely see from her. Because Lynsey and Neil are precise and careful people. I can imagine Neil out with the hoover before a spot of dust manages to hit the floor of their lovely house (although he can't change the wheel of a car:)).

Neil was so traumatised by the experience he went to work (as a solicitor) with odd shoes on.

iTrip

We have bought a iTrip for our iPods. It turns your iPod into a small radio station so you can use a radio as speakers. I was coming home last night from a stressful day at work unwinding listening to the Best of the Monkees. I got stuck in the Mersey tunnel for half an hour, but my radio kept on getting interference from another nearby iTrip. So I decided to listen to theirs instead. For the rest of the journey home I was able to listen numerous other iPods. I invented a new game "place the tune to the other people in their cars".

Great Sport.

Grandma

I was thinking the other day on the way to work about Grandma. She is 101 years old now, she has given up jogging and the local rugby club has stopped asking her if she can turn out for the second team, but she still managers to get to most of the meetings at the corps.

She is starting to get more and more confused. It was her birthday the other day and it was great to see her surprise everytime she noticed the same box of Uncle Joes Mint Balls we had bought her. She kept on forgetting that we had bought it for her and she would put it back in the same place and then pick it up several minutes later "Ooh are these mine", "Yes Grandma they are for your birthday. You are 101 today". "No, I'm not that old". Mum caught her later on doing the sum on the back of a piece of paper "1906 - 2007".

Grandma was in her 40s when Hilary and Tensing climbed Everest. Television wasn't available until she was in her 20s. She was in her 50s when the first motorway was built. She has lived through 2 World Wars. She left school when she was young to work in the local mill and she entered the Salvation Army Training College, I the first or second session at Denmark Hill.

She is pictured here with her latest great grand child who was born 100 years after she was.

Quizzes

We do a few quizzes at work. It helps with team building and we have a laugh.

Question: What is carried by a Aquaduct

Long silence

Prompt: The clue is in the word AQUAduct

Long silence

Answer: Ducks?

Future for Socks

The future is a bit bleak for Socks the Blue Peter cat.

It's that time of year again #1

.. when Salvationist start their annual keep fit campaign around their local houses for Annual Appeal. I did write some hints last year and so I am going to apologise if any of this is repeated, but it is what I was thinking last night as I ploughed down "Long Lane" (as the name implies it is very long).


1. Play "guess the age of the occupant" as you walk up the drive. Young married, retired, married with kids. Based on type of car, size of house, type of furniture, type of door etc.

2. Notice again that Vauxhall can't make red cars.

3. Good signs on approaching the house, Car with fish sign in back window, religous icons in the porch.

4. Not good signs, no car at all at the house, no lights on in the house, boarded up windows, workmen outside the house.

5. Knock on door, youngster answers "Its the Salvation Army ....", "'I'll get my mum" they reply and go upstairs "Noooooo!!". Three minutes later a harried parent appears with in a towel or dressing gown. "Can you help the Salvation Army in their Annual Appeal?" you ask sheepishly.

6. Go to a door, all is black, you knock on the door and ring the bell. Wait. As you are just about to leave, a light goes on inside. You wait. The light goes off. You wait. Then you leave.

7. Walking down the garden you see the family watching Coronation Street inside. Ring the bell and knock on the door. No one answers. They watch you walk away from the house. Resist the temptation to wave.

8. Knock on the door. Usually a bloke answers, "Would you like to help ...." etc. "There's nobody in" is the reply. Smile to "nobody", thank them and leave.

9. You always think of the funny answers when you are walking back down the drive. Knock on door, "Would you like to help the Salvation ...." etc. "How?" is the honest reply. "Put some money in the tin?". "Oh right fine". What I should have said is "or can you play a Trombone".

Happy Birthday Grandma

We went to Grandmas 101st birthday party on Monday. Heather and I had considered what to buy for her but struggled. What do you buy somebody who has everything they need in their flat and perhaps wouldn't remember what it was anyway.

Its only recently Grandma has started to forget things, but she seemed to have such good time on her birthday. All her daughters and son's in law where there, Mary (my mum), Ruth and Alice. She loves sweets and cakes and she had a lot.

We decided to buy her some Lancashire stuff (because she was born in Burnley). We got her Lancashire Tea (like Yorkshire Tea but not as famous), Eccles cakes and Uncle Joes Mint Balls.

I am getting old ... or perhaps?!!

I spent Tuesday helping Will, Debbie and Katie move to Denmark Hill. I went with Will in the big 7.5 Tonne van (surely it's illegal to drive one of those without a proper license, but Will did a good job (will need to apologise to a bus driver in Liverpool about his mirror, but Will was just getting used to the size of the thing then). Debbie followed in her car with Katie.

During the drive we decided that there is one phrase I cannot use, that is "I remember going wrong at this junction.....". I used this twice during the trip and Will did precisely the same thing. The first time was at Oxford services "I remember going the wrong way of this junction and having to go all the way to Bicester to turn around". That cost us 20miles. The other one was "Be careful going over the Vauxhall Bridge, I always get the wrong exit towards the Oval there" That one only cost us a few minutes but just as annoying in a large van.

We spent the evening carrying Wills belongings up to the 2nd floor flat. 5 flights of stairs and 40 stairs. It wasn't long before I was out of breath and I didn't believe how tired I felt. I must be getting old.

The answer was next morning I came down with a heavy cold. This must have accounted for my tiredness whilst carrying Will and Debbies stuff.

Thats possibly, isn't it Doctor Will??????!!!!!!!!

Heroes

I have added Heroes as one of my favourite TV shows. I must admit that I have not really got into some of the recent American imports (24, Lost etc) so this is a first for me. My brother Peter says they are all the same and they will string you along with unresolved plot lines between series and never really deliver.

So, we'll see........

Differences between France and UK

We got back from France last week and I have been considering the differences between the two countries.

1. France has longer and straighter roads. Because France is bigger and so therefore the roads need to be longer reach all the towns. They are straighter because France is bigger and so everything is more spread out, so you don't need to drive around things (for instance London and the M25).
2. French motorways only have two lanes generally. This means that French drivers generally will drive two inches from your rear bumber at 80mph and flash their lights if they want to get past.
3. All French people wear really nice clothes, but I couldn't find where they bought them. All shops in French towns sell tat, bread or chocolates. The conclusion is that French people buy all their clothes from secret shops, so foreigners can't buy them.
4. French yobos clear up after themselves.

I will post some more when I remember them.