One Man and His Blog

…a picture can say more than a billion words ever could.

Having likened my situation a few days ago to the Beatles, today I’m drawing comparisons with the Sex Pistols:

Johnny Rotten once sang, "don’t know what I want but I know how to get it".

Today, I realised that I know what I want, but I don’t know how to get it.

Hmmmmm…

There now follows a commercial:

About six months ago, one of the lads in our youth group – we’ll call him Sam, because that’s his name – started raving about Urban Pie. It took me a while to find it, but now it’s become quite a regular haunt. It’s a new eatery in Birmingham, on the side of the Bullring, and as the name implies it’s all about pies; or, as their blurb puts is, "gourmet handmade pies, deep filled with the finest ingredients". There are a vast array of pies available there, ranging from the traditional (steak and kidney) to the slightly-less-traditional (chicken balti) and all available with mash, gravy, beans, peas – garden or mushy – or any combination of the above that takes your fancy.

The style of the place is quite fast-food oriented; counter service, disposable packaging, plastic cutlery, breakfast bar style seating, takeaway available etc. But then, its genius is in its simplicity – as one of my friends summed it up the other day, "the bottom line is, you’re getting pie in a box". Yep, it comes in a box (tough enough to hold the gravy), the corners of which can then be opened out to create a sort of big plate (which somehow manages to hold the gravy in, even though you think it won’t).

Perhaps the best part of the set-up, however, is happy hour. After 5.00 until closing, all the pies are half price. This has been a very useful thing to know on evenings when I’ve been going to something in town and haven’t seen much point going home from work only to turn round and come back into town again. It’s also cheaper and tastier – although probably no healthier – than McDonald’s.

Well, Urban Pie came to my rescue on Friday evening in one such event, and today a group of us headed over there for lunch after church. It was good; in fact it was very good. Just like Sam from the youth group, I am now heartily endorsing Urban Pie to you, especially if you’re in Birmingham and fancy an early evening cheap pie and a cheap pint (beer is also half price after 5). I know for my regular readers that very few of you are likely to find yourself in this predicament often, but if the situation ever arises, tell them Sam sent you. It will mean nothing to them, but I’d just love the idea that they’d keep getting people coming in saying "Sam sent me" and have no idea who Sam is or why he’s sent you. And then smile to yourself as you enjoy your pie.

It’s been a hard day’s night,
And I’ve been working like a dog,
It’s been a hard day’s night,
I should be sleeping like a log…

Three questions I’ve always wondered:
1) What exactly is a hard day’s night?
2) When have you ever seen a log sleeping?
3) Or indeed, a dog working?*

Anyway, there are two reasons for me quoting this to you today, gentle reader. The first is that I have had the most exhausting week at work that I can remember, and I have indeed had a long, long sleep to recover – it’s very rare that I can get ten hours’ worth in, but that’s what I managed. The second reason is that, arriving home last night, I found the A Hard Day’s Night film was on the TV. I’d never seen it before, so I watched about half an hour or so of it. Blimey, it was odd. None of the Beatles were natural actors (I thought George was the best of them, and even he seemed a little stilted), the action seemed to lurch from scene to scene with little connection between events, and most confusingly of all Paul’s grandad was Albert Steptoe after a groom and a shave. Yet despite all of this, I was kind of enthralled, amost wishing I’d been alive in the ’60s to be a part of this mayhem where grown men lark about in fields for no apparent reason.

* OK, I suppose you have sniffer dogs, guide dogs etc; but it always makes me think of a book I read at primary school where dogs behaved like humans, worked in offices, drove cars etc, and kept people as pets who they would take out for walks.

Now, about this eight-day week malarkey…

I’ve said it before, and the other night I said it again – life would be much better if someone would actually get on and invent teleportation as seen in Star Trek.

Think of the possibilities. Fancy having lunch in Barbados, but have to be back at work by 2? You could do it! Want to visit your far-flung friends but don’t fancy a slow crawl down the motorway to get there? Sorted! Running late for that all important dinner date? Not any more, you’re not! Want to go out for the evening, but concerned about your personal safety getting there and back? Have no fear, the answer is here! It would save us so much time, and probably a heck of a lot of money that we currently spend on transport costs and the like.

However, the voice of reason (i.e. Housemate Dude) quickly spotted a potential problem that I’d overlooked. As with any new invention designed for good, there are bound to be some people who’ll try to misuse it for their own gain. What’s to stop a burglar teleporting into your house, grabbing as many of your possessions as they can carry and disappearing again? Perhaps we should only be able to teleport in and out of public spaces; or maybe adopt Housemate Chez’s suggestion, which involves the teleportation beams automatically cutting out after an unauthorised person enters the room, effectively leaving them trapped there.

So, you see, it’s not as ridiculous an idea as it looks. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I wonder why we don’t invest hugely in it. Of course, there are probably more vital things I should be thinking about, but that’s another matter. Beam me up…

Dear Angry Man At The Train Station,

What’s your problem? Yes, I agree it’s very annoying to keep getting different reports of which platform your train is arriving at, but when the platforms are adjacent to each other and can be reached simply by walking a few metres, you’re never in danger of missing the train. So why shout at the bloke from Network Rail? He’s just doing his job – which doesn’t include deciding which platform each train pulls into, but does involve trying to help passengers reach their train by giving them the most accurate information he can.

Next time something like this happens, for the sake of your blood pressure, listen to your girlfriend/wife/female accomplice of indeterminate role, calm down and get over it.

All the best,
Your fellow commuter Steve

Dear Girl I Met A Few Weeks Ago,

Hello. Remember me? I’m sure you do; we met at that party, and we seemed to get on quite well. Then we ran into each other a few days later, and had a laugh and a joke, and then I think I may have taken the joke a bit too far. And now I keep seeing you about, in the supermarket last weekend, and on the train today, but I don’t know what to say as I think I’ve freaked you out, and you appear to be ignoring me.

I’m sorry if I stepped out of line or made you feel uncomfortable. I just want to be friends with you, nothing more than that.

I know there’s almost no chance that you’ll ever see this, but I thought I’d say it anyway.

With grovelling apologies,
Steve

So, here in Britain we’re about eight hours away from it. Now of course, Mondays are never popular, but this one’s particularly unpopular. Yes, my friends, we are about to enter – at least for those of us in Britain – The Most Depressing Day Of The Year.

It’s official – some researcher types have researched it (that being their job) and concluded that the third Monday in January is the pinnacle of misery for Brits. Christmas has long since finished; Easter and its associated bank holidays are a long way off; many New Year’s resolutions have already been abandoned, and many more are turning into a struggle; the weather’s cold and wet; it’s dark when you wake up and dark when you go home; and to top it all off, it’s Monday and thus the start of another working week. All in all, it’s not looking good.

So what to do? How to turn a crappy day into a happy day? Well, my advice (no, I don’t remember you asking for it either, but there you go) would be to do something, or maybe more than one thing, that you really love doing. Whether it’s going to a particular place that brings back fond memories, eating a favourite meal, spending time with a friend who you value, or just setting the alarm ten minutes later so that you can have a lie-in, find something you can do to brighten your day. Or better still, if you can think of something that will brighten your day and someone else’s, then do that.

I’m not entirely sure what I’ll do yet, but it may involve a favourite meal, and some quality time with friends. And possibly a pub quiz too.

Happy Mondays, everyone…

What can I say? It’s been one of those weeks where I’ve just not known what to blog about, so I’ve ended up starting to write something most evenings but abandoning it pretty quickly.

So what’s happened this week? Well, work’s gone bonkers. Our department head broke a bone in her foot while on holiday over Christmas, and earlier this week one of our team leaders also broke a bone in her foot, so they’re both off work and the remaining managers are being stretched trying to cover for them. Meanwhile, the rest of us seem to be even busier than usual, with lots of… what’s the right way of saying this?… issues which are not straightforward to resolve. By the end of the week we were all saying how exhausted we were, and no doubt when we go back to work on Monday morning we’ll all be saying how quickly the weekend has flown and how we don’t feel ready to be back there yet. (Actually, there’s something quite significant about Monday, which I’ll talk about in my next post…)

This week has also seen the youth cell have its first two meetings of 2008 (it normally runs on alternate Fridays, but on this occasion the dates were rejigged so we had two consecutive Fridays), and it’s been emotional. Literally. Without going into too much detail, there were some issues that needed raising, and the reaction to them was rather more intense than expected. However, following our second meeting, things seem to be, if not entirely resolved, then certainly moving forward.

And then there’s God doing those God things that only God can really do. At cell this week we were talking about the things that help and hinder our relationship with God, and some of it was quite eye-opening for me. Now, just lately my housemate Chez and I have got into a pattern of getting back from cell and then spending a while talking through how we’re feeling about anything and everything. Well, this week the talking went on much longer (and probably would have kept on even longer than that, if I hadn’t had to get up at 6 the next morning) and has actually spurred me on to spend some proper times with God, something I’ve never been particularly good at doing in the past. Chez was supposed to be going to some church conference thing in Manchester this weekend, but due to an unexpected drain on her finances she couldn’t go. So instead, we’ve been doing our own shambolic but enjoyable conference at home; we’re jokingly referring to it as the ‘Moving Forward With God Conference’, but really it’s little more than us getting together a few times each day to make tea and sit in front of the fire and pray and read the Bible a bit. But that’s exactly what I need at the moment, and it appears Chez is the same. We’ll probably have a couple more conference sessions tomorrow, following which we should be equipped to go back out into the world on Monday.

Anyway, that’s the basics of my week covered. But enough about me, how have you been?

If you have happened upon Neil’s Random Wiblog in the last day or two, you may have noticed his post involving comically-named people. Well, that reminded me of a little story from my friends’ wedding a couple of years ago, involving a very unfortunately-named gentleman and a slightly mad uncle…

The day before the wedding, one of my colleagues was telling me about someone of their acquaintance who was – shall we say – blessed, with the surname Foreskin. Now, my first thought (aside from childish sniggering) was to wonder how many generations of Foreskins had gone before without one of them thinking, "Hmmm, this is kind of embarrassing, maybe I should change my name."

So the next day I’m at the wedding reception, sitting with some friends in the bar during that bit between the meal and the evening entertainment, and I shared the saga of the unfortunately named Foreskin clan and my amazement that they hadn’t considered a change, and my friends, sharing my immature sense of humour, all found this rather amusing too. But then, out of nowhere, an old man sitting behind me leaned over my shoulder and said, in a rather fruity but well-spoken voice, "I’m terribly sorry, I’m not entirely sure I heard that correctly…"

Thinking I’d offended the gentleman in question, I started to apologise, but the old man simply replied, "Oh, no, no, no, that’s fine." Then a brief pause, and then he asked, "…so, tell me – how is the old foreskin now?" Somewhat lost for words, I kind of spluttered, "erm, it’s fine thanks." Cue much hilarity from my friends. "Oh, good," replied the old man, "and do you still have it, or have you had it off?" This, gentle reader, was one of the few times in my life when I was actually properly lost for words. "I, er, I really don’t know how to answer that!" I responded, and the old man wandered off back to the conversation he’d been taking part in before, and my friends and I collapsed into hysterics at this bizarre exchange.

Postscript: this story was much repeated over the weeks and months that followed, however it came to light a few months ago (well over a year after the incident) that the tale had not yet reached the couple whose wedding we were at. As it transpired, the mad old man was actually the bride’s uncle and has a habit of having these strange conversations with people. I’m not sure if the rest of the family have heard it yet, but it sounds like being one of those stories that will be wheeled out for many years to come; although hopefully it won’t be cut short… (sorry, had to get one gag in.)