Monday 27 February 2006

The David Icke email was a hoax.  My friend Justin owned up to the elaborate prank after seeing I’d gone “public” about it here. He said he did it on Thursday night while he was bored at work. I’m not sure whether I should be angry or relieved. Apologies to you, Mr Icke, if you get here as a result of googling yourself and wondered what on earth this was all about.

Justin, for his part, has obviously been very bored at work lately - he’s just recently created both a website, made through the rather excellent and easy-to-use Google Pages website creator, and a blog.

Neither of which, currently, link to me. Which just adds insult to injury.

Sunday 26 February 2006

This evening's church was Sandyford Henderson, a Church of Scotland about 25 minutes' walk from me. I'd heard good things about it - good teaching, friendly, and lively. As this was exactly what I'd heard about Findlay Memorial and The Tron, both of which disappointed, I didn't hold out much hope of being surprised.

But I was! Gold star number one for the welcome - no less than three people said "hello" or "welcome" as I came in, and as I sat down in a seat a cheery guy came over, sat next to me and said, "hi, I'm Chris." It transpired his name was Chris. We chatted both before and after the service, and he introduced me to others sitting around us who were equally friendly. That was all so refreshing - and as I've said before, being friendly to new people costs nothing. Consequently I gave twice as much in the offering as I normally would!

The second gold star is for the seats. Although this was a traditional church building, the interior was bright and fresh, and I learned that it had been gutted a few years ago in a major renovation, and nice comfortable seats were put in instead of the traditional rock-hard pews. They were padded, had arm rests, bible holders for the people behind, and the best thing was they had horizontal bars at the bottom, about six inches above the ground. These would, I assume, be shelves for prayer cushions in a Roman Catholic or Anglican place where they go in for the whole kneeling-to-pray malarky, but here they made for perfectly-positioned foot rests. Inspirational!

However, you don't judge a church purely by its seats, as a girl I got talking to mock-sternly pointed out to me when I raved about them to her. The sermon - just under thirty minutes - was substantial in terms of content and message, and the delivery by the visiting preacher was easy-going, chatty and conversational. The worship was not exactly dancing in the aisles but the praise band was excellent, the hymns well-sung, and the accoustics of the beautiful interior made it all sound outstanding. It was a bit surreal singing a modern hymn to the tune of Land of Hope and Glory though…

So Sandy H gets the thumbs-up. A lively place, lots going on according to the intimation sheet, and a keen eye for visitors. It joins Destiny in the second round.

Thursday 23 February 2006

Just twenty-four hours after my light-hearted appeal for authors to contact me to recommend books, I have received an email. From a most unexpected source:

Simon,

Hello there! I thought I would rise to your challenge and recommend my book to you.

I am aware that the title The Biggest Secret: The Book That Will Change the World” is a significant claim, but it wouldn’t be made without strong evidence to back it up. You will find it in all good book shops, and many bad ones. Here is a link to the Amazon page for it:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/0952614766/qid=1140713948/sr=1-5/ref=sr_1_3_5/202-0924752-0372601

I hope you enjoy it! If you do, there is much more background on my website:

http://www.davidicke.com/

Good luck with your mullet quest! I am ashemed to admit that I had one when I was a presenter on Grandstand!

Yours,

David Icke

Not being a big fan of lizard-based conspiracy theories, I politely declined Mr Icke’s invitation.

(this blog was originally lost when I transferred my blog from simonvarwell.co.uk to WordPress. I put it in and backdated it, writing it as accurately as I can based on my memory and the original email.)

Wednesday 22 February 2006

One of the nice features of two blogs I regularly read, those of Peter Moore and Gareth Saunders, is the ability to leave messages and read those left by others. Often people will leave their website details in their message too, so you get to browse around and see what sort of people read the same blogs as you.

It was through Peter Moore’s blog that I received an email out of the blue a few weeks back from a guy called Justin Brown, a New Zealander who had recently busked door to door around Britain as part of a bet he lost. He told me he’d written a book about it, and that I might like it.

Now I don’t know about you, but I’ve never had a writer personally recommend their book to me, so who was I to shirk the invitation? I bought it, read it, and enjoyed it. It’s a nice little tour of England, Wales and Scotland (well, Glasgow and Edinburgh) through the eyes of a foreigner, and an intresting observation of British people on their own doorsteps. He even gets to talk to J K Rowling and his top busking song is called “Kentucky Fried Kitten”. I can recommend “UK on a G-String” as a fun read.

Anyone else want to personally recommend their books to me?

Tuesday 21 February 2006

Niall’s back!

Regular visitors will notice that I’ve been plugging the blog of Niall [username and password both "nevnev"], who I went round Eastern Europe and the Middle East with in 2001, and who got me into mullets. He returned just a few days ago from teaching English in South Korea, and I’ve been really enjoying his blog about living and working in a new country and learning a new language. It was really funny most of the time, although he sort of got bored with updating it latterly. Around the time he started going out with a girl, it seems…

My own dabble with Korean came when I received a parcel from Niall a few weeks ago and had to sign something and post the contents back, meticulously copying the return address from his parcel on to my own. Apparently it was flawless and Niall was most impressed with my Korean script. I’ve no chance of matching Niall’s grasp, however - he apparently frequently surprised and impressed Koreans with his command of the language and will no doubt become much better when he returns later this year.

But first he has a few months of catching up with Scotland again, and I’ve decided I will go through to Aberdeen next weekend to meet up with him. I can imagine Niall’s delight at having his first pie in two years from Thain’s 24 hour pie shop on George Street. It’s only been a couple of months for me, and I’m gagging for one already…

We’re considering a trip to Shetland in the early summer, somewhere I am a big fan of but Niall has never been to. If that comes together, it will be a chance to relive our old travelling days - hopefully without the fly-infested tent, Swedish murderers or hellish overnight buses.

Sunday 19 February 2006

The church-hunting over the last three weeks has been a bit of an experience.

The first place I tried was Findlay Memorial, an independent baptist church that had great teaching but lacked a certain oomph in its praise and lacked a whole barrowload of oomph in the welcome department. When my flatmate came along in the evening, nobody talked to us. We were sitting at the back, two six foot plus guys, looking very obviously out of place and new, and nobody decided we were worth talking to - not even the two folk who squeezed past us at the end of the service to get out of the pew. In the end I suggested to my flatmate that we should count to ten, and if nobody talked to us, we'd leave. So we did, they didn't, and we did.

Week two was The Tron, and I take a vindictive and thoroughly unchristian delight in telling you it boasted a non-existent welcome, excruciatingly uncomfortable pews, heavy and cumbersome hymnbooks (and heavy and cumbersome hymns, come to mention it), and a shockingly awful, dull, uninspiring and rambling sermon that lasted a whole hour and left my flatmate and I so drained of the will to live we headed straight to the pub afterwards to recover.

Honestly, what is it about churches and rock-solid pews? Why is it an essential part of the Sunday morning experience to have your backside numbed and cramped beyond the pain barrier? It maybe explains some churches' condemnation of homosexuality - anything they can do, our pews can do better. Or worse. And as for crap welcomes, a bit of politeness and a keen eye for people who look lost costs a church nothing, and can gain so much in terms of bringing folk into its community.

Tonight, we both tried out Destiny, a charismatic church on the south side of the city. Being of good presbyterian stock, this sort of malarky was a new experience for me, and I found it bizarre (in a good way) that it was as much like a club night or a gig as a church service. The atmosphere was relaxed, and the praise was very lively, led by a very talented band. Although the fact that the band kept playing in the background for the first half an hour or so blurred everything together, and it was hard to tell when we were meant to be praying, listening, singing, standing, sitting or giving our offering (and I can tell you they take credit cards).

The sermon was good, however - well-presented, well-delivered, to the point, and not too long. The venue was beautifully laid out, the seats were grand, and the congregation (or should that be crowd) seemed a young and dynamic bunch. The welcome was a bit stunted, however, and we couldn't help wondering if it was just a symptom of the big city. We're both used to smaller places, so perhaps this is something we'll just have to get used to in Glasgow.

So, loads more places still to suss out, but three down, and one gets voted into the next round.

The search continues…

Thursday 16 February 2006

I've just paid a visit to DeadBrain, one of my favourite satire sites. It's got some great stories on its front page at the moment, including news that Denmark is planning to invade Iran over the burning of Danish flags, and a report on Prince Philip's arrest while attempting to get a job as a reporter at the Daily Mirror.

They turn the news upside down and inside out with highly amusing and biting results - do pay them a visit.

Monday 13 February 2006

Up until tonight, my experience of Glasgow wit was The Herald’s diary column and rambling drunks on Sauchiehall Street. However thanks to a night out with three joinees at The Stand comedy club, I now know different.

There’s seemingly stuff on seven days a week at The Stand, but Monday nights are a regular slot for improvisation gang Dance Monkey Boy Dance, who the other joinees are big fans of.

Each Monday there’s a prize draw for two free tickets, and didn’t I just win tonight’s one. DMBD member Raymond Mearns dragged me up on stage and as my email address was on the card he asked about my website and we ended up talking mullets for a few minutes; me stuttering my way through my explanation while being blinded by the stage lights. Then later, between sketches, another of the team read out bits of this site they’d printed out backstage. I was mortified, but not for the first time I was glad there’s nothing (very) incriminating on here.

The comedy itself was brilliant, with a great mix of silly sketches, songs and humiliation of unsuspecting audience members. Dance Monkey Boy Dance were crude, but very, very funny. I’ll definitely go back. Especially now I have free tickets.

Saturday 11 February 2006

Greetings from Glasgow. It’s been a couple of weeks since I last blogged, because it has taken a while to get the wireless internet connection set up in my new flat. I’ll not bore you with the details, because I barely understand them myself - suffice to say that convoy-running friend and computer wizard Kieran was instrumental to it all.

First impressions of Glasgow are good - the flat is great, the part of the city I live in is lovely, and my first week of work has gone very well. I’ve also been out lots, with a mixture of joinees and new friends, which has been nice. However, the tap water’s minging (or pure rank, as they’d say down here).

More about everything another day, though - I’m just off to Edinburgh for the evening to meet some friends. It will be strange to take a train journey of less than two and a half hours…