Lost in Lost

The finale of series 2 of Lost has just been on telly.

What can I say except…. woah.

Oops

As many of you know, I’ve been attempting to write up my mullet-hunting experiences in recent months. Many people have told me it would make a great book, so perhaps if I scribble it all down, one day it might be.

The writing process is frustratingly slow, but because I’m off work today and Monday due to local holidays, I am attempting to use the free time for writing.

I’ve been spending the afternoon on my Albanian chapter. In a nutshell, I visited Albania in 2003 to track down the village of Mullet, but it seemed that due to either errors in transliteration or spelling, or just my bad research, it turned out to be called Milot. We drove past it anyway, me in a very grumpy mood.

Oops indeed.

However, while checking a couple of facts about Albania on the web this afternoon, to help me with the chapter, I stumbled across a very detailed map of the centre of the country. It seems my planning was even more rubbish than I thought.

I’d best stop writing this blog before I scream some most unsavoury expletives. Except to say: who fancies a trip to Albania?

Someone’s found one of my fivers!

Great news! I got a telephone call tonight from someone who found one of my fivers!

I have to say I was wondering whether or not I would ever hear from anyone about the project, and so was delighted to learn that one of them had been picked up.

The finder had been given it as change in the pub this evening, and phoned me up straight away to tell me. They said they would send me a photo of them with the note, and then sign and release the note again themselves to see what happens to it.

And yes, you’re probably wondering how they got my number, because I didn’t publish it on my website. Well, that’s because they had my number anyway.

In one of those freakish small world coincidences, the finder was none other than my joinee friend and fellow pub quiz team member, Chris.

So, let’s get this straight. I find a fiver signed by the still mysterious Sheila Sergenson. I sign it myself, and spend it in a pub. A few weeks later, one of my friends gets it as change in another pub. What are the chances?

More news as soon as Chris sends me the proof, but as I say, I was delighted. So much so that I forgive him for calling right in the middle of Lost.

Devilstick Peat

My friend Devilstick Peat has just set up a website!

I first met Peat in 2003 when he, Kieran and I teamed up for an aid convoy to Albania, under the banner of Kieran’s charity aidconvoy.net. Peat has done a lot of humanitarian aid work all over the world, including in the Middle East and Balkans, putting his circus and clowning skills to great use.

His website contains a lot more about both the serious and fun sides to his work, and is well worth a peek.

Famous people

I went to the chippy tonight because it’s Saturday and I couldn’t be bothered cooking. Guess who was in front of me in the queue? Go on, guess.

Oh, alright, it was Billy Connolly.

In. My. Local. Chippy.

Which reminds me, I was walking to work the other day and I could have sworn Robbie Coltrane drove past me in a Cadillac. And I saw the bald bloke who played the bank manager in City Lights, on Byres Road not long ago too.

None of them recognised me.  Not that they let on, anyway.

How can I share my blog feeds?

I currently use Google Reader to read my blogs. A web feed is a means of subscription - things like Google Reader are websites you can log into from anywhere, a bit like an email account, and they tell you what updates there have been in all of the blogs or other websites that you have chosen to subscribe to. It means you can read your favourite blogs all in the one place rather than having to remember to visit them all individually.

Meanwhile, on my website I have a list of my favourite links, including blogs I read. Only it’s all a bit out of date - every time I subscribe to a new blog I’ve discovered, I can never be bothered to update the page, I just add it very quickly and simply to my Google Reader subscription list.

What I’d love to do instead is rearrange my links page to say something like “click here for friends’ Flickr pages and click here to see all the blogs I read“, and then manually add any other interesting websites I read which don’t have web feeds. That way, you’d be able to see what blogs I read - which are now more than the ones I have on my links page. However, Google Reader doesn’t seem to do that - there’s no way (as far as I can see) of going public with the blogs you read.

So, tech-savvy readers (and I know there are a few of you!), your assistance is required please!

1. is there any way of me sharing my feeds from Google Reader?

2. failing that, is there another easy-to-use web feed service that will let me read my feeds just like with Google Reader, but which would also allow me to tell the rest of the world what my favouite blogs are? I’ve heard that Bloglines can, but I’m not sure.

I hope this blog makes sense. I have to confess my head is hurting a little from trying to explain myself. But maybe that’s because it’s Friday night and I’m tired…

Jumping off cliffs

I was away this past weekend at the Abernethy Trust outdoor centre in Nethy Bridge, helping out at a youth trip away with my old church in Inverness.

The weekend was an exhausting but fun-packed time of various outdoor activities such as rock climbing, archery, canoeing, zipslides, assault courses, silly games, and not much sleep. I was really glad that Chris, Hilton’s youth worker, invited me along to help out because I really enjoyed the trip and the chance to catch up with folk.

However, some activities involved two of my great fears - water and heights. I opted out of the canoeing without a moment’s hesitation, but tried to confront my vertigo by taking on the rock climbing and abseiling. It made me realise how infrequently I push myself in this way, because with both of them I tried and quit twice, despite the reassurances from the staff members working with us. Later on we did crate climbing - building a tower of crates as high as you can, climbing up it while held by safety ropes. I redeemed myself by putting in a valiant performance.

I think the difference there was that fellow group leaders (who I knew well and who I knew fully appreciated my fear) were holding my safety ropes, rather than centre staff who didn’t know me at all. That I trusted my friends more than the centre staff made me realise that earning and giving trust is more about knowing people well and building friendships, rather than just having the skills, qualifications and experience for the task in hand.

Less dramatically but perhaps just as daunting, Chris had invited me to do the “God slot” on the Saturday night. I spoke a little about trying figure out what God’s plan was for our lives, and touched on various bits of the Bible including Job to illustrate that sometimes stuff happens to us which is less about our interests and more about God’s greater plans.

I also explained a bit about what had happened in my life since moving to Glasgow, such as my church search. I described how my blog review of St Silas that commented on the lack of welcome led to lots of email feedback, some interesting experiences on my second visit, and most recently me being asked to help out on the welcome team (now is that irony or poetic justice? I’m not sure).

I kicked off the session by playing one of my favourite music videos, Glosoli by Sigur Ros. The surreal but beautifully shot video (which I’ve blogged about before) portrays a boy walking through bleak Icelandic scenery, drawing other children to him who follow without question or hesitation (and you know kids, that’s just like Jesus…). It ends with the boy leading the group up a steep hill where they run off a cliff - no safety ropes, tut tut - and fly into the air and far out to sea.

But there’s one bit right at the end when a wee boy who has been struggling to keep up falls far behind the rest of the group, and when he reaches the edge of the cliff, he just jumps and falls. And then the video ends. We had a bit of a debate at the end of the evening about what we thought that meant and what happened to him, and whether that meant he was being abandoned or was just going off in a different direction or something.

What do you think happens to him?

Sporks On A Plane

I saw Snakes On A Plane last night for the second time, and it was just as fantastic as when I saw it on the opening night.

Due to the eager cult following on the internet, the film adopted a lot of fan comments and suggestions, mostly inspired by the sort of things they’d expect a no-nonsense Samuel L Jackson character to say. This culminated in the legendary line “I have had it with these mother****ing snakes on this mother****ing plane!“

But I reckon that a better line was when SLJ is trying to find anything that could be used as a weapon. He asks a stewardess if there’s any silverware. She holds up some plastic cultery: “this is all we’ve got”.

A pause. A look of disdain, contempt and exasperation comes over Jackson’s face.

“Sporks!?”

I can’t quite explain why, but the way he says “sporks!?” is one of my all time favourite cinema moments ever.

See you later, Alligator

I was at the pub quiz at the Basement bar on Byres Road last night. To commemorate the death of Steve Irwin, our team was called “See you later, Alligator”.

Well, it was going to be either that or “Crocodile Tears”.

The exploits of the great environmentalist and TV personality are paid an even more solemn and fitting tribute by Justin, who blogged about the parody of Irwin in South Park.

101 Ways To Distract Your Preacher

After church this evening, a group of us were sitting in the pub having a drink and a chat, discussing the service. The conversation moved on to distracting things we’ve experienced in churches. A friend mentioned that in another church, she had heard of someone sitting at the front of the balcony right in the minister’s line of vision, opening up a flask of tea and having a nice hot drink in the middle of the sermon.

It got me thinking (as many things do lately). What else could we do to put preachers off their sermon delivery? Much in the vein of 101 Things To Do at a Christian Music Festival (which incidentally is still a bit short of 101 suggestions!), I’d like to try to come up with 101 Ways To Distract Your Preacher.

Before you all think I am some sort of Christian anarchist subvertive (though I’ve been called worse), I would emphasise that this is just a wee bit of fun. Preachers (good ones, at least) do a grand job of explaining God’s word and many of them and quite literally change the world, and I’ve been lucky to have listened to some brilliant preachers.

So please note this is a purely theoretical exercise so please don’t try this at home. Well, actually… yes, try it at home. Just not in church. Unless you’re really bored, of course…

Anyway, I’ll kick off, please join in with your own ideas.

1. Sit on the front row of the balcony, right in the preacher’s line of vision, with a nice flask of tea.
2. Hold up hymn numbers at the end of the sermon, offering a score.
3. Just as the preacher stands up to begin, stand up where you are, say thank you, and begin delivering your own sermon.
4. Go and stand at the front and do similtaneous translation into the language of your choice.
5. Tut loudly and hiss “is he finished yet?” to your neighbour.
6. Fall asleep and snore loudly.
7. If the sermon is on an Old Testament text, shout out “preach the Gospel!” If it’s a New Testament text, stand up, declare yourself a Jew, and walk out.
8. Whenever the preacher refers to a particular verse in the Bible, look it up and shout “got it first!” loudly.
9. Frown at the preacher. Intensely. Right throughout the sermon. Without blinking or looking away.
10. Pass a bag of crisps along your row of seats.