You're not leaving!!......SLAP!

This is what you're waiting for. I hope I didn't build it up too much.

At the weekend I had a most enjoyable weekend scuba diving in the town of Oban on the west coast of Scotland. Whilst the rest of the UK took cover from sleet, snow, high winds and baltic temperatures, we enjoyed two days of what can only be described as summerish weather. If you were in the UK this weekend, observe the photos and gasp in wonderment. I even got sunburnt!






The diving was great, as was the company, and I saw many exciting things:
A conger eels
Mermaids purse (shark egg)
Starfish feeding frenzy (yep, those critters can go crazy when there's a tasty crab to be eaten!)
Gary Glitter (not quite, but someone looking a lot like him)
A girl riding a bycycle down a very narrow single track road next to the sea with a snowboard on her shoulder. (maybe she was going to use it for wakeboarding)


Watching Scotland beat England at the rugby was particularly entertaining. This weekend also saw the annual Scottish Young Farmers conference decend upon Oban, with 400 young muscley types who sweat beer painting the town red, and we watched the game in a partizan pub full of them. There were probably only 4 or 5 England fans in whole place, and they got a lot of abuse. And Scotland won (for the first time in 8 years or so and deservedly so) -cue much dancing on tables and hugging of complete strangers. Comeon!





Saturday night the whole group of us had an 80's themed fance dress party. My costume was supposed to be Magnum PI - you can decide for yourselves how successful I was. I don't know how many of you ever tried to drink with a fake moustache on, but it aint easy. The hair had a knack of soaking up the beer before it reached my lips, and unfortunately the accumulated moisture was too much for it in the end and it breathed its last and feel off my face after a mere couple of hours.



Anyway, a very strange night ensued. We had planned to go to a few bars and end up in Oban's only club, but then we discovered the juke box in the first pub had an astonishingly wide selection of 80s classics which immediately got pumped full of small change. However, this was NOT the kind of pub you would go to under ANY normal circumstances. It was a locals local, small, very busy and full of people with no teeth, large women with moustaches and tatoos and several lonley alcoholics in severely inebriated states. I was VERY scared as we walked in. I'm guessing that had we been in normal attire we would have been immediately piocked up and hurled back through the door. As it was they seemed to appreciate our choice of outfits and welcomed us with open arms, slurred words and gep-toothed smiles and we stayed their for several surreal hours. (We did make it to the club eventually, but it was so pap and such a waste of £6, it's not worth mentioning)


And finally, my favourite story of the weekend. On Friday night we tried to get into Oban's only 'classy' (note the inverted commas - i say classy because it had a bouncer on the door. and an alleged dress code), only for the bouncer to turn me away because I was wearing tracksuit trousers. On reassesment of my outfit (trackie bottoms, blue hoodie - chosen for comfort on the 3hour car journey), I realised I'd never looked more like a ned/pikey/charver/scally/chav (choose your colloquial term appropriately) on a night out in my life. As we were debating what to do next, one of the guys decided he would have a word with the bouncer. A short conversation followed, after which the bouncer went inside, only to reappear and let us in. But what had Dougal said to make him have a change of heart?

"We're all member's of Edinburgh University Sub-Aqua club, and that guy you're not letting in is a devout Christian"

Evidently, my faith gives me license to wear comfortable clothes and not be a threat to the management or other customers! As it turned out, everyone had much more to worry about with the young famers turning up and throwing bales of hay around....

"It's ok, he's a devout Christian..."

Hold your breath for a fantabilocious post soon to come. It's so great, I can barely wait!

11-4. My word.

Parkour, or free running (for the less culturally suave) is a sport originating out of France involving running around town, jumping over, through and off stuff. A more technical description can be found here at Wikipedia, but essentially its having a body stacked like a machine, wearing lots of trendy 'urban clothing' and acting 'street'. You also have to have fine poise, balance, technical ability, flexibility and most of all lots of balls (which isn't to say grils can't do it, I've just never seen them) to make sure you avoid landing on your head.

To see what I'm on about, check out these 'traceurs' (prakour practitioners) in action. They're flipping amazing!

So why do I mention this interesting, but slightly random sport? Well, walking through the university campus last week, I spotted 3 young whippersnappers aged between about 11 and 14, fully decked out in urban clothing, running throuhg the campus. But as I looked to see who was chasing them, I discovered that they weren't just running, they were FREE running!! Only they were rubbish at it. For the most part they were too short to properly vault barriers, and they weren't able to leap far enough to cover the gap between walls. But still, kudos for them for having the balls to face ridicule in the face and give the sport a shot. But they've a looong way to go.

In other news this week was the universities Christian Union's missions weeks. Edinburgh put up a huge parquee in the meadows and had a ton of events and stuff going on. It was a super week and loads of really cool things happened, not least the sports day event on thursday afternoon, comprising of a medley of egg and spoon and sack races etc. Tres fun, especially as we won and the prize was a 3 man catapult capable of throwing eggs 150feet (it's supposed to be water balloons but we only had eggs. Fortunately we missed the old lady walking her dog.)!


The fabled prize

Team victory!

Kelly Clarkson believes WHAT?

So the weekend. Aston Villa lose the football, Scotland lose the rugby. Everthing back to normal then. Last weekend (with Villa and Scotland both winning) was blantantly an anomaly. It also was a stormer of a weekend in other respects. 720 miles driven, 700 or so folk having the oppertunity to hear the gospel, and 3 people comign to Christ. Yep, it was Agape's stonking National Studnet conference. We drove the 6 hours down to Kidderminster with 20 or so students and had an ace time. I had the fun (and simple task!) of leading a seminar on God's sovereignty in evangelism, which was a great experience, and just gerenarally had a great time gettin to know students better. The guys from Edinburgh really loved it and gave a testimony to what had happened in the CU on Friday night, which to be honest, could have done as the main talk, the spiritual content was so good! Man, it got me pumped! For a full run down of events, check out Andy Dixon's report here.

This was followed by the now annual Vellacott Super Bowl party - a late night extravaganza of hot dogs, cookies and other strange american snacks, and of course spending 2 hours trying to understand the intricacies of American Football. Home at 3:30 and then spending the next 2 days feeling rotten because of utter exhaustion. Fun times.

And so the rest of the week has been uneventful. Edinburgh for once has failed to provide me with unusual sites. The Hari Krishnas are still farting around the royal mile and there is still the people standing outside the 'mind school' on north bridge, but I've got used to them now.

One remotely intersting thing of note is that I have manged to keep to my new years resolution of going to somewhere new every week (thankyou to Antica for the suggestion). Indeed I have so far discovered several funky spots. So far my favourite has been the honeypot, a little bistro hidden underneath George IV Bridge. Crammon Island I'm sure would also be a favourite if we hadn't had to hide out for half an hour in the car waiting for the rain to die down. Today's new place was Cafe Roma, an italian restaurant that had a cheap lunch deal. Nothign special to be honest, but I guess I couldn't have hoped for a hit every time.

Anyway, i'm spouting rubbish now, but I relaised I hadn't posted for 10 days, so thought I would give you some semi-amusing drivel to pass 3 minutes. The pictures are from the weekend

Team Edinburgh

Team Seminar!

Team National Team!

Who's Job Is It Anyway?

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Why is it that every time I come to write a new post, I want to start it with a big-text based sigh? I resist most the time, but this time I couldn't supress it. Tomorrow sees the start of Agape's National Student Conference, probably the biggest event of our annual calender (with the exception of summer projects), and a wonderful 6 hour drive to get there, encompasing all the delights of the M6. The weekend will be awesome, but the drive will be tedium. And if I can't stay awake it will end in post mortem.

So, this is my 50th post on here. Cue whistles, bells and party poppers. Or actually, you don't really care. What it really shows is that I'm an ego-manica who has nothing better to do with 20 minutes periods of his day than write fluff about himself. Oh well, at least I still think I rock. Go me!

And so it turns out that I have nothing interesting to write about, save for the good old emergency British topic, the weather. On Monday and Tuesday, it was the coldest I've ever felt in Edinburgh and in the evening on Monday, we were treated to a rare spectacle of freezing fog. To be honest, this was pretty darn beatiful, with ice crystals suspended in mid-air drifting in the breeze, but I didn't have my camera with me so you'll just have to believe me.

And to brighten the post with pictures...I was thinking about my degree today, so here's some memories from it.




Someone needs to give me something interesting to write about.

I can breath for the first time....

Friday night, I ventured into Quentin Tarrantino's favorite cinema. Well, they claim it's his favourite cinema. And he definitely went there to see their first screening of Pulp Fiction. And I'm pretty sure he's called it the most beautiful cinema in the world or something. Anyway, safe to say it comes highly recommended by one of the most cult directors of my generation. And it's only 10 minutes walk from my flat. I think that's pretty cool. So it's the Cameo cinema in Edinburgh and you can also read lots of fun information, including substances to my statements, about it here.

The film seen was A Cock and Bull Story which is very funny indeed. If you've ever seen any Alan Partridge, you'll find it hilarious. If you're American, you probably won't find it funny at all. Although Gillian Anderson is in it. But then she's Canadian, isn't she. Anyway, the cinema sat a sum total of about 70 people and the screen was probably only about 4 times the size of a 42 inch plasma TV. I guess the best way to describe it was earthy, although I've no idea what that really means. But it was much more atmospheric than the multiplex, and when the audience laughed, the whole placed buzzed. Which I liked.




OH, and the Demon Barber (to the right of the cinema)? It's great

What is it about extreme tiredness that makes me very good at it? I have resigned myself to a perpetual state of it for the rest of the term, but I sure hope it isn't always gonna be this bad. Maybe finally the weight of responsibility is catching up with me. Anyway right now, my head feels like it's at the bottom of swimming pool filled with treacle and is fighting to get to the surface for air. I was supposed to go to a birthday party tonight, but I would either be completely unable to converse with anyone, or would just end up making someone cry. And one day, I'm going to get the bottom of this narcolepsy thing.

Anyway, the last 5 days have been immensely fun, and probably been a major contribution to my current state of mind. When I have more mental virility, I'll write about it.

Sorry for the turdish nature of this post. It isn't funny (some would say I never am), but is merely a stop gap to keep those people who complaing when I don't post happy. enjoy

I'm Already Dead. Think About It.

So it seems I'm getting more inconsistent. Another 10 or more days since a post. Mostly because I couldn't be bothered. Christmas seems to have squeezed all inspiration from me. Or maybe nothing interesting happens in my life these days. I haven't even taken any pictures recently. And its raining outside. Probably. hmmm what a depressing load of rubbish I'm writing.

Happy thoughts
So at a certain request (unfortunately my lack of imagination means I finally have to bend and inflate her ego by writing about what she wants). Her chosen subject is "Candy".

Apparently this is the correct spelling of the word, although upon first hearing the word, I thought she wanted me to talk about "canned ee". A quick Wikipedia search for EE turned up things about electrical engineering, Estonia and bra sizes. Even with my extensive imagination, I can't imagine any of them really being canned, and the B-ster is hardly a hardcore pillhead, so it's unlikely to be canned ecstasy.

However, think about that for a moment. If you know Brittney (If you don't you can find pictures of her here (I'm not invading your privacy Britt, just increasing your traffic!!)), just for a few seconds imagine her at an illegal rave in a warehouse in Macclesfield. Wearing a yellow PVC jump suit, with a whistle surgically attached to her mouth and cyalume glow sticks being waved in an elaborate fashion above her head, she dances the night away to pumping happy hardcore whilst grinning manically at everyone. Ok, it could never happen, and I've never been to a rave, so I don't really know what peopel really look like, but the idea made me smile for a good couple of minutes.

Anyway back to the point. Canned Ee. So the letter E? More Wikipedia searches fascinatingly tell me that the HTML code for E is "E". Brilliant. Apparently in the Romanian language it is also a symbol for parthenogenesis. A can full of rat embryos?? In fact the only logical conclusion I can conclude with is that she is talking about Vitamin E. You know how health concious Americans are. That must be it. But why on earth Brittney wanted me to talk about a can of vitamins, I've no idea. I know nothing about nutrition. Let me leave you with some pictures instead...






Ohhhhhhhhh. She was talking about sweeties? Why didn't anyone say earlier?? Got some cross-cultural issues there. Well my favourite sweeties? A tie between Aniseed balls and Jelly Babies. Favourite chocolate bars? Boosts with guarana. And anyone who says american 'candy' is better than British is clearly Amrerican or lieing. Hersheys tastes like cardboard that someone's covered in brown paint. Reeses Cups and Butterfingers are specifically designed to make you sick or die of obesity in the space of two weeks, which ever comes first. Give me a liquorice allsort anyday.

I didn't mean it, I just want you back for good

Sooooooooooooooo......17 days since a post and two people have begged me to blog. And I mean literally begged. They got down on their knees and threatened self harm if I didn't write. So rather than further burden the weakened back of the NHS with attempted suicides, I thought i'd best write.

By the way, in case you have any expectations, I doubt anything will be particularly interesting but who knows what might come out of my head?

So Christmas was fun. Lots of sleeping and playing old computer games. I managed to get a new highscore on every table of Pinball Fantasies on the old Amiga, which had stood for a good few years which gave me a good sense of inflated achievement. And then, as many of you know, I went to Wengen in Switzerland from the 26th to 2nd of January. Quite simply it was probably the best snowboarding trip I've been on (rivalling Tignes last Easter).

The snow was pretty much perfect with fresh poweder 4 days out of 6 and although it was apparently very cold (minus 17 C) you never really felt it. The powder meant I was able to keep Dixon (and his bother and my dadat bay for the morning) I rode with him, leaving them eating my proverbial snowy dust. Seeing my dad and Andy flounce around in knee deep snow was a sight to behold!

The people we went with we're also great. We were travelling through Oak Hall, which for those who don't know, is a cheap Christian holiday company. It is also particularly infamous for being a place for women scared of being left on the shelf to pick up husbands, leading to the alternative name, Bloke Hall holidays. Don't worry, I wasn't picked up, but what it did mean is that there were lots of fun people to hang out with. Most the people there were groups of friends in their late 20s (or my family), and it made for lots of fun.

The highlight of the whole week, however was not the discover of a real life Fawlty Towers, but of Shaun, the "professional" musician. He can't ski or snowboard (probably due to the lack of balance caused by his overhanging beergut), but he lives in a ski village, where he does nothing but do his work as a muscian. To be found in Sima's Pub almost every night, he'll belt all sorts of classics including Sting's Englishman in New York, James Blunt's You're Beautiful and Eric Clapton's Wonderful Tonight, and if you're lucky may even play most of the notes and not leave it all to his clever machines ("EasyJet charged me £180 to get this gear accross!").

Unless of course, he's drunk. Then he'll play Sting twice in a row and get bored and leave the stage. This however, leaves his guitar free for much fun to be had playing Perfect Day, Back For Good )featuring special duet from Shaun) and (this took balls frinm Ed) Beautiful One. Equally beautiful (in my humble opinion) was the certain character belting out Eternal Flame to rapturous cheers from the crowd. What a bar. Viva Apres Ski!

8 and a half hours sleep total over new years eve and the next night interspersed with 6 and half hours boarding wasn't much fun, but making fresh tracks in the powder was worth it! and now I'm back in beautiful Edinburgh. We had crazy fog weather on Wednesday which made the most grogeous sunset at dusk around the castle, but I didn't bring my camera (and had even held it in my hand before deciding not to take it out! grrr), so I can't show you how amazing this city is (again). And now it's so cold I can't type, so I'll leave you with pretty pictures.


Andy and Jason - Oak Hall stalwarts!

New Year flares

Clan Lindop

To the person who suggested it, we're not gay! Just happy

p.s. Does anyone else think Dry County is a flipping AMAZING song? How rock should be. 9:51 minutes (12:10 in the live version) of genius epic (November Rain falls in the same category).

So this is Christmas...

Okay...so Derby officially sucks. As a city that is. Derbyshire the county is gorgeous. The city however, just depresses me. Granted, the older bits are sort of nice, but for the most part nasty glassy shops/bars have been squeezed in and the place looses its character. Then there's the indoor markets, which whilst being fun and cheap (I wish edinburgh had one) to be honest, are full of teenage mums and unemployed people (not counting the people who work the stalls), and at this time of year shelves and shelves of Christmas tat. I mean, who buys a plastic santa with a bulb stuck up his bum that will sit in a corner and glow ominously? Actually, I know part of the answer to that question, because I've seen the windows of the houses of the people who hoard them. Now I just need to find out who actually lives in them.

And for my final rant on this topic, i present the German Christmas Market. The one in Derby touts itself as 'The Original German Market'. But how original does it have to be to be original? It can't mean 'original' as in 'the only one' because every city I've been in this month has had one (Edinburhg, Liverpool, Birmingham...). Does it mean the first market? Surely thats in German?? Maybe it means 'the first market to come and slum it in the centre of some dreary city for a month'. But if it was the first market to come here, then surely they would manage to find a city more presitigious and less slumy than Derby?

Anyway, I still love the countryside out here. Its beautiful and smells of country and afternoon walks when its cold and the sun is going down and the mud is still hard and frosty are great. I wish I had my car with me (or my parents weren't using theirs for work), so I could escape further into the hills and see all the places I was forced to go for walks under duress when I was a kid.

So what actually have I been up to since I've been back? Mostly nothing. And it's been great. I've walked the dog a couple of times, I've slept in until midday a couple of times, Ive read some books, I've acheived some new highscores on old Amiga computer games I haven't played for 10 years, and I've even been out drinking in the afternoon with an old friend.

And this mornign I ventured into town (which sparked the rant above). Bus prices have gone up, they've even re-painted them from a tasteful burgendy to a kind of vomit/tangerine mix. Nando's have even managed to put in a restaurant since I was last here, supporting my theory that they're challenging Starbucks for world domination (to my knowledge there's still only one in Derby).

But probably the most exciting (and not very at that) moment was being stopped in the street by a guy about my age asking "excuse me sir, do you have a sense of humour"? When I answered that I thought I was very funny, he then asked me if I liked dirty jokes. Which I found odd. To my mind, dirty jokes aren't really associated with a sense of humour, rather they indicate a lack of a sense of humour, because the only thing you can laugh about is smut and inuendo. But then, maybe I'm a snob. Anyway, apparently this guy was a student selling a christmas book of dirty jokes for £2 (roughly the price of a pint - I'm not suspicious) to support his student loan. I duly declined, and walked 10 yards further on, only to be stopped by another guy doing exactly the same thing.

I hope the sheer length of this ramble has gone someway to making up for my lack of posting recently. Congratulations if you've made it this far! And apologies for the lack of photos, but I really can't be bothered uploading any through a dial up connection.

will write something new and exciting sooon, I promise. I'm back home in Derby, so who knows what excitment I'll get up to..... (spot the sarcasm)

Calm down! Calm Down!

Well here are the usual apologies about not posting for ages, but I have been away in Liverpool for a week. May I take this opportunity to thank the guys there for looking after me so well. I had an awesome (insert fake American accent when expressing this word) time!

Anyway, with so many stories to relate, where do I start? Well I must mention that I now truly believe Liverpool has it's own evolutionary culture going on all of it's own. I may disagree with it's European Capital of Culture 2008, but it's certainly scoring highly in an attempt to go for British Capital of weirdness. In a mere 6 days, I saw more things I wouldn't expect than I might in 6 months somewhere else.

In no particular order, here's a list of unexpected stuff I can remember (and haven't already banished to the 'please don't ever remember me' part of my brain):
Santa Claus being driving down residential streets blasting out hymnal music
A man in a wheelchair wheeling himself down the middle of a road
A blatant transvestite at a black tie screening of Narnia
A midget and a giant gay couple (sort of - there was at least 2 foot difference between them)
The random meeting of friend from school I hadn't seen in 4 years. Twice. In 2 days.
Scallys (OK, not unexpected but still repulsive)
Beatle's songs greeting me as I arrived on the train (should have been expected, but I hadn't imagined it could be that tacky).
John Prescott at the Maritime museum (For those of you who are American, he's the Deputy Prime Minister - the equivalent of Dick Cheney)

N.B. in case my musings leave you with the impression that I think negatively of Liverpool, let me reassure you that I actually quite like the place (some of it anyway), and had a great time there!!

Highlights of the week included sock wrestling, at which I believe I was overall champion, seeing as the second bout should be declared void due to certain participants cheating. Also up there was persuading the majority of the Americans to eat haggis (this one was 33% pork lung, 21% pork liver and 1% pork heart - mmmmmmmmm) and seeing them actually enjoy it. Oh, and if you ever get the chance to play SingStar, do it. You wont regret it.

The rest of what happened to me is probably not especially interesting to most of you, so if you want a more detailed report of Al's Campus Project to Liverpool. And briefly, Manchester, let me know.

Worthy of not however, is the fun I had on Saturday and Sunday, traveling down to Coventry and then Bristol to catch up with Ed, Chris and Lucie, some of my best friends from uni. We hadn't seen each other together for a really long time, so it was really cool to catch up. We ate in one of my (now) favourite restaurants ever, and on the flight home, you could see the fire continue to rage at the oil depot, 150 miles away, which was pretty surreal.

Here are some photos of the fun I had.


Turns out even Liverpool can be pretty sometimes!

There are things everyone has to do when going to Liverpool....

Boy, that maritime museum had everything - pretending to be naval officers and nurses, old school phones, and even a slave exhibition that smelled of poo

The scary thing is that Kevin almost suits it

It's St Andrew's day, so let's eat some haggis!

For those of you who don't know what haggis is, here is the Wikipedia definition (with only a few words removed to make it flow better):

Wild Haggis are creatures native to the Scottish Highlands. It is generally held that the haggis is a three-legged bird with vestigal wings like an ostrich or an emu. Each leg is believed to be different length, a short leg and two long legs, allowing it to run rapidly round the mountains and hillsides which make up its natural habitat. It is also believed that male haggis run only clockwise and female haggis run only in an anticlockwise direction. However, this only occurs when it is disturbed from its normal routine of sleeping on the heather which covers the hills and mountains of Scotland. During Haggis Season, Wild Haggis are hunted, and their meat served up as a local delicacy, the well-known Scottish food, haggis. Scotch eggs are this creatures eggs.

Wild haggis can sense also vibrations in the ground produced by other animals, including humans, and this, along with its nocturnal habits, explain why living specimens of the haggis are so rarely seen. However a haggis can easily be caught by running around the hill in the opposite direction. A group of Haggis is sometimes known as a heap.

There are two species of haggis, one with longer left legs and the other with longer right legs. The two species coexist peacefully but are unable to interbreed because in order for the male of one species to mate with a female of the other, he must turn to face in the same direction as his intended mate, causing him to lose his balance before he can mount her. As a result of this difficulty, differences in leg length among the haggis population are accentuated.

So Wednesday was the day of our patron saint (when will we get a national holiday for it??), St Andrew. Tradition therfore required that we eat some haggis. The brighter one's amongst you will have noticed that infact, wild haggis are a myth, and that the words I removed from the wikipedia description were mostly 'folklore'. Amusingly, however, a survey in 2003 revealed that one-third of American's believed haggises were real animals. What I find particularly hilarious is that 23% arrived in Scotland believing they could catch one. Oh, how my sides hurt.

So as the more discerning reader will note, haggis is actually, little more than some sheep offal cooked up with some oats and stuff traditionally in a sheep's stomach. Whilst my dinner yesterday had a synthetic bag, the primary ingredient was indeed sheep's lungs. And yes, it was very very tasty.

And finally, a little present especially for my good frined Jonny Arundell. Watching this video made me think of you thinking of me. Hellmans delight .
I apologise to any of the rest of you who watch it and actuallly gag. i did. It's at your own risk folks!!

Shake that thang

If any one knows a ska or funk band looking for a saxophonist, or can think of ingenius ways through which I might seek out said band/interested persons then please let me know.

Ode to Hummus

Hummus my dearest, I love thee
You're the greatest thing to be made from chick pea
All the other dips could never compare
When I eat you, I'm walking on air.

I love you with carrots, crisps and especially flat bread,
I guess it's obvious that you're my favourite spread.
The perfect partner with Turkish coffee,
Hummus my dearest, I love thee.



I always wondered why they never asked me to do advanced English courses.

Ne-ver forget where you're coming from....

Ok, so whilst I can admit I have some quirks (occaisional nighttime hallucinations, a penchant for playing cheesy music on my guitar, possible narcolepsy), rathern than list 5, I want to share with you an annoying quirk that has afflicted me for years.

This affliction raised it's ugly head most recently on Tuesday afternoon after I had helped a friend with her research psychology disertation (apparently I'm pretty good at multi-tasking) and I had walked halfway home before I realised I'd left my newly purchased football boots in the lab and completely forgotten them. The cold walk back to campus gave me enough time to ponder my ability to completely forget things in aspurt of total absent mindedness and amnesia, and to consider the full extent of things that have gone missing/I have managed to forget about.

So in no particular order, here's my top 5....

1. Car Keys (replacement cost £50). Eighteen months ago I somehow managed to lose my car keys. No biggie I thought, I have a spare set and the old ones will turn up at somepoint. Unfrtunately it turned out that the spare set didn't lock the boot (which was already unlocked) and as I was doing a lot fo diving at the time, could prove a little tempting to a thief. So, I looked EVERYWHERE for them and they were not to be found. So i arranged for a garage to fit a new lock (£50) and get new keys. However, the afternoon before the service, I was sorting out some clothes that had been washed, and what popped out the pocket of a pair of shorts, but my keys! And yes, I had already looked in them!

2. Car Stereo (value £150). Somehow after a football match, I lost the facia for my car stereo. For 3 weeks I looked high and low, visited the bars I'd been to and couldn't find it anywhere. After being resigned to losing it, it miraculously turned up under the drivers seat. Which was nice.

3. Passport (replacement value £65ish). Leaving a flight one winter, I was strolling to the exit, looking forward to the vast expanses of airport corridors to strech my legs, when I got a tap on the shoulder from the guy who'd been sitting next to me. He was holding my passport. And I had no idea I'd lost it.

4. Leather Jacket with wallet (Combined total £150ish). When I was 15, my uncle got married in Vienna. Whilst waiting for our bags, I visited the toilets and hung my jacket (only containing a wallet - my dad looked after my passport on this trip) up on the door of the cubicle. I did what I had to do, left, and got on with the day. A few hours later my uncle turned up at our hotel to say hello and turned up clutching my jacket, before I had even realised it was missing (yes, I am THIS absent minded). He'd been at the airport picking someone else up and had heard my name accross the tannoy, and picked up the jacket. It turned out some decent fellow had handed in my jacket, restrained from half-inching the wallet, from which they got my name and by some amazing coincidence my uncle was in the airport when they broadcast my name.

5. Phone (twice) This post is far too long already, so I'll spare you the details, but I've lost two phones, once at a gig (Electric Six if you're wondering) and once in a muddy puddle at a retreat centre. Somehow the muddy puddle one was found and returned to me a few days later.

If the list were to be extended, I could add a jumper left on a football pictch, a jacket left on a train, micromachines left on a beach (I was VERY upset) and if I could be bothered to think harder many more. I admit I'm one of the worst people in the world at looking for things, but my absent mindedness is a serious affliction. It has even caused me to miss a university exam, which for some reason I thought was in the afternoon but was actually in the morning (if you ever want to physically feel adrenaline injected into your body, try doing this). And I'm not sure what I can do about it!

Anyway, well done on reading this far. You have been priavelged enough to join with the rest of the internet world in finding out an intimate part of my personality.


And as a treat, check out this video, it's beautiful

And to fulfill my promise to the Brittster, also check out the Evangelistic Linebacker, which is hilarious!

I saw her praying, while I was DJing

Frankly, I'm disappointed. I expend hours of energy writing a detailed report on the beauty of sea cucumbers for your benefit, hundreds of you read it (I know because I have spies) and then 3 people reply (one of whom talked about something else). That's gratitude.

Anyway, now I've stopped being a miserable git, I'll talk about something else. It turns out I've been tagged, which is apparently some bizarre online version of kiss-chase or tag (suprisingly enough). I'm supposed to reveal 5 quirks about myself and then tag 5 more people. But I'm not going to do that. Well not unless one day I get completely stuck for something to blog about and fancy ripping open my heart and laying it on the table for you all. I also don't necessarily think I'm quirky. I'm just me. :)

So, continuing my theme of resurrecting old material because I'm too lazy to think of new stuff in the hope that some of you reading may not have seen it before....I present the return of DC Southpaw. Yes indeedy, Baby didn't just get back, Baby got Book.

Altogether now.... "I like big bibles and I cannot lie, you Christian brothers can't deny....."

I know you're dancing...!

Pearl harbourer

Now that the furore regarding my hair has died down, I feel it appropriate to answer some FAQs and let the matter go to bed (something I need to get better at myself). Anyway, yes it does make me look 5 years younger, yes I have had my first shave in over 3 months making me look an extra 3 years younger and yes, I'm going to let it grow back because I don't like getting ID'd (not that it has happened since the cut, but it's only a matter of time - the last incident was around the time of my most recent shave back in August).

With a lack of anything else amusing to write about, I feel there is a need to educate you, my dear readers in some of the ways of the sea. Now I realise I may have blogged about this in eons past, so if this isn't new, skip the rest and abuse me in the comments section, but I believe this information of enough importance to share with newer readers.

So here begins the science lesson about the mighty echinoderm, the sea cucumber! Contrary to popular belief, these creatures are much more than a sub aqua version their distinctly sessile terrestial namesakes. In fact they have nothign in common at all, apart from vaguely looking like each other (apparently). By enlarge these beautiful animals are pretty boring - the graze the sand, sucking it up, gleaning the nutrients (derived from tasty decaying matter) and pooping the sand back out. However, they are only boring until you discover the amazing fact about them.....

First of all, they breath through their anus. That is, they don't have gills because they aren't fish, but the pump in water through their bum and do the gas exchange around there. However, the story doesn't end there - a brilliant little oppertunist known as the Pearl fish has decided to grasp the oppertunity and take up residence in the sea cucumber's rectum. So the fish wait until the fish breathes (I don't want to be too graphic here), avoids the protective anal teeth (I'm not making this up!) and then darts inside. Opinion is divided as to whether it's a parasitic or symbiotic relationship, but if you ask me when there's a fish sitting inside you nibbling on your gonads (another endearing trait of the pearl fish), I'm not too sure you're going to be too pleased about it. Especially when the fish gets bored and rather than exciting through the entry route, decides to eat it's way out through your gut. My vote is firmly with the parasitic.

(The pearl fish exits and enters our poor holothurian friend Mr. Sea Cucumber)

Anyway, apparently a third of all sea cucumbers have got one of these little blighters in them. And now approximately a third of you will be able to amaze your friends with your fascinating scientific knowledge!

(Credit to John Arundell for the post title (that's how to avoid plagiarism KC Clarke!))

Feel the magic, hear the roar....

So the fabled pictures appear. Of me looking really stupid. But you asked for them. So I say give the public what they want. Someone said yesterday that it made me look like Brian Laudrup. They may have a point. Anyway, send whatever comments/abuse you want my way. It'll grow back.

And if you've forgotten how I used to look, check the post below

Anybody who has my phone number, please remind me to call the council tomorrow...I keep forgetting.

Do the Pussycat Dolls actually need more than one member?

"I love technology, but not as much as you you see..."

Friday night saw match 4 of the Edinburgh Poker League season. Now normally, this wouldn't be worth too much of a mention, but this particular evening saw the return of the illustrious Tom 'Thor' Schmidt, my old flat mate. Nothing special about that, you might be saying, merely the return of an old friend, right? Wrong! Tom was infact joining the table all the way from LAS VEGAS!! That's right, through the miracle of the world wide web, microphones and webcams, Tom was able to take his place and not only match the 20 participants, but come streaking from behind to actually win the whole thing! This was an impressive feat worthy of a poker master from the casino town, and all credit should go to him (even if he did take me out).

The picture is of him beating down our local hero Dave Redfern (who also had a mighty late streak to take second place)



Other fun things this weekend included a trip to Murrayfield to watch Scotland play Argentina (Scotland lost 23-19 virtue of a pretty dodgy ref), courtesy of a free ticket. The seat was
awesome - 3 rows back on the 10m line (well at least I could see everything going on on my side of the pitch!), so I didn't feel to bad about going on my own. But it's a wierd feeling to be watching international rugby with all the trappings of huge pyrotechnics and fireworks and pipe bands in a 65,000 seat stadium , when there are only 20,000 people there. It just felt empty. But I guess it'll be full when we get mauled by the All Blacks in a couple of weeks.














One more thing - tomorrow is the day I finally get my hair cut. Barring a bit of a trim in August, it's been growing from this in November 04:



To this:




















Who knows what it will turn out like? Mullet or Mohican? The anticipation is almost tangible.....