“Very friendly, very Scottish”

A fellow joinee, Alex, set himself the task of meeting 150 other joinees this year. Not the first joinee to pursue a “stupid boy project”, and certainly not the last I am sure.

I was met-joinee number 57, and met him in the Cock Tavern, the hang-out of London joinees, while I was taking a break from mullet-hunting in Suffolk this summer.

He describes me as “very friendly, very Scottish”. I don’t remember doing anything extra-specially Scottish when I met him like wearing a kilt, shouting “freedom” or headbutting him – it must have just been the fact I was holding a pint at the time.

He’s recently completed his quest. Congratulations, Alex!

No Dog’s Thank’s

A bunch of us from church went to Aberfoyle for a walk on Saturday.

We climbed the Fairy Knowe, a hill on which people leave messages, trinkets and bits of cloth for fairies (it’s a strange story). The place has a slight Blair Witch Project feel to it. I’ve uploaded a few photos from the walk so you can see for yourself.

The title of this blog comes from a sign in the main car park at Aberfoyle, and is quite possibly the worst apostrophe crime I’ve ever seen, and I am struggling to get my head around what sentence might include no dog’s thank’s.

Of course, no dog’s thanks is easy – that would refer to the thanks that is given by no dog – eg “no dog’s thanks was forthcoming, despite the huge delivery from the Bonio people”. But no dog’s thank’s defies grammatically correct usage, as far as I can think. Any ideas?

10 Things I’ll Never Do

I’ve been “tagged” by David McCarthy – which I have discovered means you have to fill out the same blog questionnaire as the tagger (in this case, “10 things I’ll never do”). I don’t normally go in for filling out surveys online, and have never been the most candid blogger either. Plus it’s very hard to say that there’s certain things I’ll never do: how can I fully predict what lies ahead in life? That said, I’d better not ignore a direct commandment from my minister, lest I get in trouble with him…

So – 10 things I will never do:

1. Get used to the taste of Glasgow tap water.
2. Sign up for a MySpace account.
3. Like the taste of vodka.
4. Become a minister.
5. Vote Labour.
6. Vote Conservative.
7. Turn evangelical.
8. Like loud, cheesy nightclubs.
9. Get bored of going to interesting places.
10. Be effective first thing in the morning.

The home group from…

A friend at St Silas, Maggs, was asked by the leader of the drama group to write a sketch about a bad example of home group worship. She roped me into helping, and we threw a sketch together one evening.

It was performed at church on Sunday, although sadly I missed it as I was in London, so haven’t heard any independent reports as to how it went. I did see one rehearsal though, and the actors did a grand job of it there.

David has blogged the script, so feel free to have a read. I think it’s really funny, but then I’m biased.

K4

Well, I survived the weekend in London.

Much fun was had, much kindness spread around the centre of London, and much money raised for charity. And I had a great time catching up with old joinee friends and making new ones.

I’ve got a set of K4 photos on my Flickr page, plus a separate set for the few hours on Sunday afternoon when I headed off by myself to be a tourist along the Docklands Light Railway.

So a great trip, but I am absolutely shattered after four days with not very much sleep.