London

We have been in London this week, staying with our lovely relatives (here). There are things I like and about London and things I dislike. I feel a list coming on:


Likes:
1. Museums and art galleries (we have been to most over the last few days)
2. Public transport is relatively cheap. (if you buy the special cards etc)
3. Its good to go on holiday to.
4. You're never far from a coffee shop
5. Surreptitious celeb. spotting (no pointing or shouting (no looking actually, you are only allowed one glance), I think I saw a few today but not too sure)

Dislikes:
1. Getting anywhere in a car is virtually impossible and or intensely annoying.
2. Once you get somewhere it is impossible to park your car.
3. Sometimes there are too many people on the pavements. It is difficult for them to walk down the road without bumping into you.
4. Everybody apart from me seems to know where they are going.
5. Buses and bus drivers.
6. Everyone in the free newspapers seems to be moaning about Boris, (they voted for him, so shut up)

Olympics II

I enjoy watching sports that I haven't seen before. I watched a swimming competition with the sound turned down on the telly, so I guessed the rules.

30 swimmers meet at the starting line. They decide on who is "it", probably by "dibbing" ("One potato, two potato, three potato more..." etc). Then the all dive in the water, swim for two hours and chase the guy who is "it" and try to pull his swimming costume off or kick him in the face.


The guy who is "it" (who seemed to be British) tries to shake them off by swimming in the wrong direction. Anyway, the British guy got kicked etc, but didn't lose his costume so he got silver medal... result.

Ikea again!!!

As I have been on holiday I have been painting Matthews bedroom. Which of course means that his existing furniture looks tatty as soon as it is moved. We decided to help him improve his toy storage system which seems to be covering every bit of space on the floor.

I went to Ikea with the full intention of enjoying the experience. In fact we had tea there and it was quite pleasant although they seemed to have turned the air conditioning to create Arctic conditions presumably to encourage customers to eat up and go and spend money on worthless/useless tat.

Working through Ikea with Heather reminds me of my favourite scene in Bugs live trailer.

Insect one "Don't look at the light"

Insect two (heading towards blue insectocutor light) "I can't help it, it's soooo beautiful"

I took a firm hand last night. She had to hold my hand or the trolly I was pushing. It was a close call when we walked through the smelly expensive candle section, but she stayed away from the blue light.

We picked our furniture and went to collect it from the "warehouse". They have obviously spend a fortune on computer equipment which tracks where each frame and shelve are. Only to be let down by staff who seem to put the stock wherever they want to. We spent a good twenty minutes looking for something called a Trofast which turned out to be with the chairs or Hedvka (as they say in Ikealand).

Yet again I found my temper fraying.

Olympics I

I have been quite taken by the Olympics in Beijing. I'm on holiday now for three weeks and so will be able to watch the last week of games. Just two things that have caused me concern:

Has anybody else noticed that the BBC music sounds a bit like the old cockney favourite "My Ole Man" (The where he is dillying and dallying not when he is a dustman)

Sport scientists, since Usain Bolt won the 100m at what appeared a dawdle, have now decided that the ideal size of sprinter is over six foot. For those people over six foot, this is now an big disappointment. At school we have traditionally been given the discus and the high jump to compete at. Who knows what the world record would be if tall guys had competed.

Perhaps I shouldn't have started ...

I don't know if any of you have been in this situation.

Scene: Kitchen, teatime. Alistair (son), Heather (wife) and myself present.

My friend Jason rang Alistair today, and Alistair has been relaying the conversation to Heather and I. Jason studied near Liverpool and we playing in the SA Band together for a couple of years.

Heather: It's good to here from Jason.

Kevin: Yes, I remember when we used to play Christmas Carols in Church Street. We used to place ourselves opposite Miss Selfridge so we could (trailing off as he realizes where this is going)

Heather: Perhaps you shouldn't have started that sentence ...

SuperLambBanana day

Saturday was SuperLambBanana day. Jeanette, Glyn, Heather, Jim, me and 4 small children went on a tour of Liverpool which included catching all the SuperLambBananas in the centre of Liverpool and a history man to give us interesting information.

Here are some pictures:















Matthew decided to kiss every LambBanana he met.
















The smartest looking LambBanana





















The people of Liverpool where so impressed with Ringo Starr's contribution to the launching the Capital of Culture year, they had him painted yellow, stuffed and mounted in front of the Beatles museum at the Albert Dock.




















Despite being married for nearly 23 years Heather and I are still being stalked by her Dad.

I know what he does during the year!

Heather and I have decided to "redo" our living room, decorate, carpets etc. With this in mind we went to B&Q, Homebase etc to look at new fireplaces. There was plenty of choice bit nobody who could really help and advise us. So we went to a small shop in Birkdale, Southport which just sells Fireplaces called "Blazes".

We walked into the shop and had a look round. A small man with a beard sat at a desk asked if he could help. So we explained that we where looking at changing our fireplace.

"Where do you live?" he asked

"Ormskirk" we replied

"Where abouts in Ormskirk"

"On the corner of Burscough Street and County Road"

"Oh yes I know the type of house"

He then went on to describe the type of flue that we possess and a pretty accurate description of our fireplace. He then on to tell us what we had to do to get a modern looking fireplace.

We where very impressed.

But after telling Jason, at work, about this man we have to ask the following questions. Who knows a lot about fireplaces? When I walked into the shop was there a slight whiff of reindeer droppings? (how do I know what reindeer droppings smell like) Did he laugh with a bit of a Ho Ho Ho!?

I bet its him!!!

New Christians

I have just got back from a tea at our church/corps for new Christians. We all had a fabulous evening (thanks Val for the great gammon). I think the hope was that new people to our church would recognise us as ordinary people. Heather and I will be running a Journeys course on Friday evening from next week, so we need to plan for that.

The next time I will meet some of these people will be on Sunday when I will be wearing my uniform. I spent some time explaining that will be the same person even though I will be look odd.

MacBook

Well I have finally left the Microsoft family and bought a Macbook. This is my first post on my lovely new Macbook. Does it look any different?

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.

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.

Trying not to be bitter

Alistair has just taken delivery of his new Macbook. I'm trying not to be too bitter, but I am writing this post on his shiny white new laptop and I am very impressed with the equipment (the keyboard, although it looks fragile, is firm and reassuring, the screen is bright and very clear.) and the operating system (It does loads of really cool stuff). 

I am now saving up...

Alistairs birthday

Alistair is 18 on Friday. We had a surprisen birthday party for him on Saturday night. He really had no idea, he was totally surprised. Despite following one of his friends from school into the Salvation Army car park!!?? Heather and I both took Friday off to prepare food and get the place in shape. All his cousins, uncles and aunties where there and Deb and Will came from London.

I'll post the picturs on my new Flickr account.

I like this ... Ubuntu

I have been increasing getting fed up with Windows products. So when a PC at home required a rebuild, I have installed Ubuntu Linux. It comes with all sorts of software (including Open Office, same as Microsoft office but free), it looks great and is really easy to use.

I would highly recommend.

The Apprentice

A new series of Apprentice has just started on BBC 1. All the relevant stereotypes that have done the series proud over the past few series seem to be present.

Eye Candy for the boys
Eye Candy for the girls
Pompous idiots abound
Upper class idiot
Ex Barrow boy
Piece of rough for both sexes

All with "made up" job titles. (Global Pricing Leader?)

I like these .... Biscuits

Heather reckons these are the best biscuits in the world

Marks and Spencer Viennese biscuit Selection

I agree. We have almost eaten all of them tonight.

Getting around Ikea

On Saturday we went to Warrington Ikea. So I have devised the following rules for getting around.
Rule 1. Go around with friends. Make sure you take friends with you to Ikea, You can then focus on taking the mickey out of Ikea with friends rather than just Heather (Because she has heard all of your jokes, although she still laughs politely).

Rule 2. Don't even try to use the shortcuts (the store have installed "men short cuts" which bypass part of the store.) You will get to the end of the store and realise you haven't been to all parts. So you will need to back track and find the bits you have missed.

Rule 3. My friend at work tells me that you need to look out for women in the car park crying. Apparently there are lots, they are crying because they have had a row about what they haven't bought or because they can't get what they have bought into the car.

Rule 4. Always walk slightly ahead of the group you are with. It adds an element of urgency to the expedition.

Rule 5. Never let your guard down. Even towards the end of the store, when you get to the check out, there are items which seem you can't live without. But when you get them home, you will a) wonder what they are for b) Have already bought six and forgotten about c) They will have broken before you get them into the house from the car.

Rule 6. Don't go with kids. You will never get them out of kids bedrooms.

Rule 7. Go just before lunch, so you can spend most of your time in the cafe.

Thanks to Glyn and Jeanette for the inspiration and for the good time on Saturday

I like this .... Design

I have just seen this guy on telly and his stuff looks great

Marc Newson