Most embarassing

I was watching telly the other night, channel hopping as normal (I own the remote control). When I came across a programme, "Teenage Embarrassing Bodies" (Only for the brave). I must say at this point I am a bit squeamish when it comes to real blood and guts on telly. I can watch pretend stuff all day, but real blood makes me quake behind my 13inch Apple laptop screen.
Heather on the other hand does not seem to be squeamish at all, in fact she made me stay on the programme. I didn't watch, just heard the sound, which seem to go a bit like this:

Male teenager: I have a bit of a problem down there (pointing)
Doctor: Lets have a look then. Drop your trousers and sit up here.
Male teenager: OK (jumps on table and drops his shorts)
Kevin (Shouting at director): Cut away, cut away, Ohh do I need to see this (then hides behind laptop) Tell me when its finished.
Doctor: (Sharp intake of breath), Ooh that looks sore
Male teenager: Is that normal
Heather: Don't look yet
Doctor: How many partners have you had?
Kevin: Do we really need to know this? Can I look yet?
Heather: (shouting) NO!
Male teenager: (smiling) I quite active in that department, but no permanent partner. Just lots of different ones.

The programme went on in similar vein for an hour, I think, then repeated on C4+1. I wandered where the embarrasment was in this show. It certainly wasn't on any of the teenagers featured on the show as I don't think they would have volunteered to share there rashes and growths with the nation.

I was the one embarrassed hidden behind my laptop. Can I look yet.

Heroes

We are watching the new series of Heroes on Wednesday night. We have to watch each show twice, on BBC Two then on BBC Three before we can get what is going on.

Is this just us?

Pets

I work with some strange people. A colleague of mine was telling me how her chinchillas had eaten through the cable which supplied power to machine which provided oxygen to her fish. Who promptly died. She was upset by this because she was beginning to "bond" with her fish. I don't know what happened to the chinchillas, I presume they survived electrocution.


Rather than buying new fish she bought an Axolotl. Which looks like this.

I think you must admit its a strange looking thing. She insists that this creature gets excited when she comes into the room. I keep searching her face for some sort of irony but cannot see any at all.

I get appalled looks when I explain my first impressions of small animals is that I wander how far they would travel if I kicked them.

Annual appeal 4

Another nights collecting, and it finished early as most people seem to go out on Friday night (surprisingly). But I did find myself getting a bit up tight with a couple of people who live in very large houses out of sight from the main road. The first bloke surprised me when he came to the door as I was admiring his lovely Austin Martin DB7 car. He said he didn't do business at the door so I thanked him and left. The next guy at a bigger house came to the door with a napkin and he couldn't possibly give any money because he was eating dinner.
Hay Ho, never mind, nearly finished.

Annual appeal 3

Second day collecting and Ray and I are doing Long Lane. It is an interesting fact how Long Lane has got its name. It's not to do with it's width or even it's height but it's length, it is long. This has a special appeal to door to door collectors as not only is Long Lane long, but it is straight. So when we have finally finished collecting, we have to walk the long length of Long Lane back to the car.
Long lane starts with old houses populated mainly by professional people who get home late, who are not in when I call. And finishes with older retired people who won't open the door because it's too late.
At least the copper jar was given to me near the end of the evening so I didn't have too far to carry. And Gill drove down Long Lane to pick us up, happy days.

Annual appeal 2

Sadly (or not) collecting was canceled tonight. But that gave me the opportunity to play with my new iPod Touch. I shall update my blog from this device when I get to grips

Annual appeal 1

Here we are, third week of September, time for Salvation Army Annual Appeal. It's been our first night out collecting today. On the way round it seems traditional that I make up a blog entry. But I have struggled tonight, but Will has posted a motivational video on Youtube, check it out (Hi Ho, it's off to work we go).

I promise to think harder tomorrow.

Big Bang Day

Tomorrow is big bang day, so radio 4, on the bbc, is making it a feature. Tomorrow, we could know how everything works or we could blow everything up. If everything does disappear in a black hole tomorrow, there will be a lot of egg on faces at CERN.

I just hope before they turn the thing on they have built in the reverse polarity button or have designed a feature so they can fire a tachyon burst at the new black holes. (it always works in Star Trek)

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??!!