Hayley vs. Gareth

I’m sorry for the lack of posts recently, I know I’ve got a few to catch up on that I’ve promised and a few more new ones in mind…but unfortunately I am doing a degree and I’m a bit dumb so written work takes time!

Click on this link to watch the “promos” of the three American Presidential candidates that they filmed exclusively for WWE…they are hilarious…do you smell it? This cannot be missed

As promised to him, here is a public (well internet) apology for the accidental deleting of one of Tom’s comments. I apologise to my good buddy and hope that this will see him return to his commenting ways.

Love to the T-Dog

Today as I have just remembered is my rebirthday, meaning the day I became a Christian.

I became a Christian 5 years ago today!

DISCLAIMER: I am a Christian. I am trying my very best to love the Lord my God with all my heart, soul and mind and also am trying my very best to love everyone else as much as I love myself. However I think it is not unloving to poke fun at people, in the following blog post I will be poking fun at Hillsongs Church and if you think you might be offended by that or tempted to excommunicate me from the body of Christ then maybe you should stop reading now. I hope that people read this blog in the spirit it is intended which is harmless fun and a bit of poking fun and is not intended to harm anyone.

So, with that out of the way, I want to tell the story of how whilst in London with Mark, we almost went to Hillsongs. Three Sundays ago now (whoa how much time flies past!!!) I went with Mark in the morning to his church, which is the Clubhouse (where he works and I had my placement) community church. It was pretty good. Fairly normal Sunday morning service, quite nice, felt like a good community feel and people were friendly. A guy called Simon preached/spoke/or whatever is the cool or acceptable way to say that and he was pretty good, he spoke about pride which I think is a subject which bothers us all (whether we are insecure or not) and is not spoken about much or challenged and considering Augustine said it was the mother of all sins (meaning every sin goes back to being about pride) I thought it was a good subject.

Anyway, we then went round a guy called Phil’s for lunch, Phil works with Mark and I affectionately would refer to him as Beard Phil or Phil Beard because of his very mighty beard! After a really nice Spag Bol, me and Mark went a found a pub which was showing the Liverpool vs. Everton game and whilst there we debated on going to Church that evening and where we would go.

Our options that we ended with that were fairly close to the pub we were at were; somewhere called the Metropolitan Tabernacle which I personally hadn’t heard of but Mark told me it was Charles Spurgeon’s (not related to Zoe but famous 19th century theologian/evangelist type) church and he joked that they unfortunately think that he is still alive (in that it is very old school) and is like ultra-reformed super evangelical type church. The other option was Hillsongs.

And forgive me Father (that’s Yahweh not Brian, although Brian can forgive me too) for I have sinned because we decided we would go to Hillsongs and I’m sorry but the reasoning was, “cos it’ll be a laugh”

So, we wandered down to Hillsongs which was about a fifteen minute walk away on Tottenham Court Road. On the way we discussed why we wanted to go to Hillsongs. We wanted to see if the rumours are true. We wanted to find out if it really is more like a show than a service. If it is only “beautiful” people on stage. If they really do “pogo” for the Lord. If they do really take a collection at every possible moment. If they all do shout out “YOU” with pointing a lot during singing. And the rumour me and Mark really wanted to find out if it was true, is that they assign you your seat as you come in according to how “beautiful” you are! I wanted to know if they would make me and Mark sit in different places or stick is both in a quiet dark corner so that no one else noticed the two “normals” there!

Unfortunately, for me, you and perhaps for them. We didn’t get in. Was it because we weren’t good looking enough? No. Although that would be funny. It was because me and Mark perhaps naively thought that evening services at Church were at half six…why? Because they are that everywhere else! Hillsongs starts at five so we missed it.

Bum. So after all that excitement and wondering if I was fit and healthy enough to pogo and find out what Hillsongs was really like and if it was just like Tom said it would be (and I trust him and advise you very strongly to read his blog on Hillsong and in general actually), we didn’t even go!

Instead, we wandered down to the road to go to the cinema…which I will talk about in my next blog entry!

So, in the first of my series of posts about my fun time in London over Easter I thought I’d start with talking about when I got my tattoo done, and since Brian asked (good commenting buddy) I will deliver!

I had wanted a tattoo for years and had spent time debating over that time figuring out what I wanted to get and where about on my body I wanted one.

Finally I decided on a design, at college in the chapel they have like a sheet type thing (there’s probably some fancy word for it) with like designs on it and one of them they had had a Celtic symbol for the Trinity on it and when I saw it I thought I’d like that as a tattoo, so I went on the old interweb and got a fairly crappy looking version of it, then I passed it onto my graphic design student friend Kate Feaver (name checked!) and she tarted it up for me according to my requests and put a red outline round the black.

So, with my design sorted, I decided that I would get my tattoo when I was seeing my main man Mark Walley in London for my alternative placement. I decided to get it done at the same place as my mate Mark had his tat done, which is a place called ‘Diamond Jacks’ in Soho. I had popped in to book my tat and then went back the next day to have it done. It was pretty funny, they said to get there when they opened at 12 but I didn’t know that for them opening at 12 meant actually about quarter past, so I had fifteen minutes to kill in Soho whilst I waited for them to open. Either side of the tattoo place where sex shops and over the road of the little side road it was on was an ‘adult video store’ and so surprisingly enough, I decided to go to the Somerfield three or four doors down to wander round there for fifteen minutes!

So, when Diamond Jack’s actually opened I went in to have my tattoo done! A guy called Gino did my tattoo, he was quite a big guy from somewhere in South America I think but I don’t know, probably actually from Peckham! The tattoo itself took a monster two and a quarter hours to do! and they don’t hurt as much as some say they do (well I didn’t think so or my own didn’t), it was very strange feeling and don’t get me wrong it did hurt a bit but not drastically so, was mostly painful when he would go over the bone-iest bit of my shoulder and the more underside of the arm, where its a bit more flabby (lol) and it would occasionally cain if I started to get comfortable and relax in that it wasn’t hurting much, then I think adrenaline would wear off and it would hurt…stupid relaxing!

When Gino had done all of it, he then cleaned it up a bit and then put cling film over my tattoo that I needed to keep on for a day (mmm sexy!) and then underneath the cling film below the tattoo he put a little strip of like kitchen towel and when I asked him what it was for, he was like “that’s for the blood” mmm yummy!

Now, after two and a bit weeks of having my tattoo, its pretty much fully healed I think, I went through the lovely scabby stage and even if I do say so myself I think it looks pretty good!

Oh and for those who want to have a look at it, here is a photo I took on the iMac they had at my alternative placement…

I’m now back from my two weeks in London on my Alternative placement.

I can’t be bothered to post fully about it now but in the next week or so I shall blog separately or together about the following things;

• Overall good times in London
• Seeing Juno with Mark
• Getting my tattoo done (oh yeah!)
• Going to Camden Town with Mark
• Books I read whilst there
• Almost going to Hillsong church
• And probably loads of other things too