Archive for June, 2006

Paul cuts hair? Yes!

Thursday, June 29th, 2006

One of the best friends in the entire world has done something that none of us thought he ever would do…

Paul has cut his hair!

His long, beautiful (according to some) hair!

Go on his flickr account to see the pictures
BULLET POINT not for the faint hearted, he is very pretty!

For all of you who can’t be bothered to look, here is the end result…

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5 facts about Hungary

Thursday, June 29th, 2006

In a few weeks time there are a group of us off to Hungary. I’m getting really excited about this so I thought I’d do a bit of reading about the country on wikipedia. So here are five things that you never knew about Hungary…

  1. The Ballpoint pen was invented by a Hungarian called Biro.
  2. There are 2 main rivers in Hungary The Duna and Tisza.
  3. There is a Calvinist Minority in Hungary of 16%
  4. Budapest the Capital City of Hungry has the biggest Tesco’s in the whole World!!!!
  5. The Currency of Hungary is HUF

There you go 5 amazing facts about Hungary.

Winner

Monday, June 26th, 2006

The winner of the most recent caption competition is….

ME!

Sorry guys but Hayley has decided that my entry of…

“If you don’t shut up I’m gonna drown you in that apple crumble!”

is the winner!

You’re right Marilyn

Friday, June 23rd, 2006

I never thought I would say this but last night I agreed with something that Marilyn Manson said!

Shocking I know!

I was flicking through the music channels on Sky and caught some of ‘The Fight Song’ by Marilyn Manson…now as a guy I think he’s a bit of a prat but the song is quite catchy…

and one of the lines from the song is, “I’m not a slave to a God who doesn’t exist”

and when I heard him say that…I thought

“Yeah! You’re right!”

“Me neither…”

“I’m a slave to a God who DOES exist!”

AGM Time

Monday, June 19th, 2006

So, on Monday CYM (the organisation that Gareth and myself work for) are having their AGM and for some daft reason we have been given our own slot. But the big question is what are we going to do? It needs to be different, memorable and tell everyone about what God have been doing in our lives in the last year.

Any ideas…?

Please, Please

Monday, June 19th, 2006

First off I want to apologise for it being so long since I last posted, it’s been a busy week so hope you all forgive me.

I heard a wicked tune on Saturday and haven’t been able to get it out of my head yet…some of you may mock but it’s McFly’s new single ‘Please, Please’! I don’t care what anyone says I like McFly, they are cool! And when I heard about their new song and what it is about my respect for them (especially the drummer) went through the roof!

You see, Harry (the drummer) when filming a movie called Just My Luck had a brief fling with Lindsay Lohan…Yes, you heard me correctly, Lindsay Lohan as in the fit actress…she’s so hot that even though she is a ginger she is still hot! The song is all about his relationship with her.

As soon as you can, you need to hear it! It’s very catchy and very good!

To watch a bit of the video click here it’s great

Foo Fighters

Tuesday, June 13th, 2006

Last night I went to maybe (probably) the best gig that I have ever been too!

The Foo Fighters kicked off their world tour of doing an acoustic set in my wonderful town of Ipswich at the Regent! Yeah, World Tour starting at The Regent! It was the first time that they had ever done the acoustic session live and they chose Ipswich! How cool is that!

BULLET POINT I know that I am over using the exclamation mark but can you blame me? I went to see the Foo Fighters! Come on!

Anyway, back to the point! Me and Mark were sitting in the ninth row! Dead centre, nine rows away from the Foo Fighters! We weren’t as lucky as the Baxter who was in the second row! She was off to the side but still, second row!
There was one point before the show started that we did get very nervous though…a big massive tall fat man walked into the row in front of us and both me and Mark were praying hard that he didn’t sit in front of us and thank the Lord because he didn’t!

All throughout the walk from Mark’s to the Regent (only five minutes) we discussed who we thought were going to be the opening act…many an act was discussed…two of my guesses were that it was going to be the grand return of Daphne and Celeste or that Tim Cooper was going to be unleashed to the masses…no one took my suggestion of the rapping duo of Kev and Crug seriously either! I don’t know why?

The opening act turned out to be a guy by the name of Scott Matthews who I would advise people to have a listen to because he was really good. Really bluesy and really good guitaring…sounded a bit like Jeff Buckley which was cool. The highlight of his entire set was after one of his songs where Mark yelled out “I LOVE YOU SCOTT!” to the reaction of absolute silence except one bloke in front saying “Who’s Scott?” There will more of Mark’s heckling later!

So then after the interval, the real game began! Man, we was so excited! The Regent erupted when Dave Grohl came out! It was incredible! He had a standing ovation and all he had done was come on stage! Then followed the next round of Mark’s heckling but this time it was in response to another heckle and I joined in. A guy in front (weirdly enough, the same guy who asked “Who’s Scott?”) yelled out “God! God!” towards the Grohl piece, to which Mark yelled out “God? Where?!” and I yelled “His name’s Dave you idiot!” Granted, Mark’s comment was funnier but I enjoyed mine non the less.

So, he started by playing the ever so beautiful ‘Razor’ from the acoustic disc of the most recent album ‘In Your Honor’ and half way through the rest of the band appeared on stage and joined in. I was shocked to see Pat Smear (the former Nirvana touring guitarist and former Foo Fighter) in the line-up as they had an extended band for the tour.

Every song played was amazing, even songs that I usually don’t like all that much were enjoyable. Such as ‘Virginia Moon’ from ‘In Your Honor’, I’ve heard it on the album and don’t rate it that highly but live it was better. The highlight of that tune was when Dave Grohl introduced he said that the mandolin player in the band would sing Norah Jones’ part. Her name was Petra and so this caused me to yell out “Petra” in the Goran from Slovakia stylee…it made me, Mark, Baxter, Rach and Phil all laugh even if it didn’t you!

The song that maybe made my evening was ‘See You’ especially because it is kind of an album track on the sublime ‘The Colour and the Shape’ and so the young emo kid fans didn’t know it! But it is the coolest up-lifting tune!

Then followed the next bout of Mark’s heckling…Dave Grohl was telling the audience how that usually at the “rock” gigs he drinks Coors Light beer but because it was a special acoustic gig he was drinking “F#*£ing Shiraz!” to which everyone laughed…Petra laughed loudest and he turned round to her and said jokingly “what are you laughing about?” to which Mark yelled out “She’s laughing cos you drink Coors Light!” again Mark’s heckle was met with silence! Except one guy behind us who said reasonably quietly “That aint funny?!”
All in al, it was such an amazing night that was capped off perfectly with a lovely rendition of ‘Friend of a Friend’ which is a song about Kurt Cobain and then as you could have guessed ‘Everlong ‘was played. One guy in front had been pissing me and Mark off all night though by shouting at every break between songs “Play Everlong!” Surprisingly enough, it was the same guy who had asked “Who’s Scott?” and had called Dave Grohl “God” What a weirdo!

‘Everlong’ capped off an amazing night and the best gig I have ever been too!

And I have a cool ass t-shirt to remind me of the gig! And Mark and The Baxter have plectrums of Dave Grohl’s!

Sorry for rambling loads but if you don’t like it, don’t read it! Ha ha!

Turd Day

Monday, June 12th, 2006

I’ve just finished the CYM Boy’s weekend and it was a really great weekend and so much fun! A highlight was getting a ten foot long by four foot wide piece of tarpaulin and doing a slip and slide with a hose and washing up liquid! It was a right laugh!

The best bit of the weekend was getting to know the leaders a lot better and having a laugh with them. One conversation though between two of the leaders does have to be noted as it made me and the two other leaders almost wet ourselves laughing.

Big strong American ex-Marine: Have you heard of the Christian Band ‘Third Day’?
Northern Irish youth worker: Umm, yeah, I’ve heard of them
Big strong American ex-Marine: Did you know that MTV said that if they weren’t openly Christians and didn’t release Christian music that they would be the second best band in the world behind U2?
Northern Irish youth worker: That’s rubbish!
Big strong American ex-Marine: (Stunned silence)
Northern Irish youth worker: Well it’s like me saying that I would be the best musician in the world if I wasn’t crap at music!
Big strong American ex-Marine: (More stunned silence)

Looking at it written down, it may have been something were you had to be there but it made me laugh so there!

Anyway, big shout out to Martin for having the balls to challenge Shane!

Not another caption competition

Friday, June 9th, 2006

I’m now off to lead the CYM Boy’s Only Activity weekend and so I’ll love you and leave you with a fun caption competition to play with over the weekend…

mark and his kid.jpg

BULLET POINT Sorry Mark, it’s your own fault buddy!

Retrosexuals from days gone by

Wednesday, June 7th, 2006

A lot of adoration does come the way of the current line up of the Retrosexuals and because of such Retro-mania I thought it was time that some of the under-appreciated former members of the merry band that is The Retrosexuals to get the air time that they deserve…

BULLET POINT if you don’t get a mention then you obviously have never been a Retrosexual

First up…

Laura Baxter a.k.a The Baxter or Lou

Laura was actually one of the fabulous four that started up the Retrosexuals and if I remember correctly it was actually Laura who told us about the pub quiz in the first place, so you could be as bold as to say Laura created the Retrosexuals. She has recently not come as often as we would like but there is a seat waiting for her on her return!

Becca Dean

Poo Bum Poo Bum! Becca joined us a lot last year and was amazingly great in offering lifts home for us walkers (me, Kev and Paul) and always offered a smile! Also, she will always be remembered for having the best trampoline in her back garden that me, Kev and Paul played on at her birthday party!

Debs

Debs (She’s so cool that she doesn’t need more of a name than that…she’s like Bono or Cher) used to work at the co-op with the Baxter and joined our merry bunch almost from the start. She used to keep me company as a smoker in the team and was always sharing her rollies with me. Also, her cousin is Gav Moss and she dressed up as a cowgirl at a fancy dress party so how could she not be cool?

Brett

Brett was Debs’ boyfriend and we used to rely on him for the difficult weird questions about art that he seemed to know. Brett was always good for being a round and also joined me and Debs as the smokers. Brett is now the manager of Zest nightclub in Ipswich.

Jilly

I’m not really sure how Jilly came into the pub quiz team, none of us went to school with her or went out with her, she just arrived one day. I think she went to church with Mark and Paul but I’m not sure. Jilly was very useful when it came to questions that needed actual intelligence.