10/31/09

Veggie Week 1

So I’m here at the end of week 1 of my veggiexperiment and so far (other than accidentially sticking a small piece of cold chicken in my mouth before thinking ‘hang on’ and spitting it out promptly) I’ve succeeded. I haven’t actually missed any meaty stuff other than the smell of the forbidden fish and chip shop yesterday.

I have however learnt a few things on my journey so far…

ASDA’s veggie mince tastes like poo…. Morrissons is nice

Quorn Chicken-style pieces aren’t too bad either,

Shops are awful at labelling things as veggie… it took me ages to find some fresh pasta this morning that actually had a veggie logo… I guess some cheeses can’t be vegetarian.

As far as feeling goes I’m not really feeling any different, they say meat stays in your system for 7 days so I’m not meat-free however I’m not sure that the lack of meat has made me feel different on a dietry side of things.

I am however, already feeling like I shall end up eating less meat after this experiment, there are some pretty good, tasty alternatives outthere!

More updates soon!

10/28/09

Album Review: Forget & Not Slow Down (Relient K)

For a long time now I’ve been a big fan of the punk-rock band Relient K and they’ve always been a band to show variety mixing pop-punk with piano riffs and even ranging to do songs with a hint of country.

Their latest album release ‘Forget and Not Slow Down’ was brought for me by Jo for my birthday last week and I eagerly stuck the CD in to listen to what they’d been up to since their last release however it was only during some long drives and loud music last week that I’ve really got into this album.

This is the first of Relient K’s albums that actually has a title the same as a track on the album and as with all their albums it shows the band maturing however unlike their last album (Five Score & Seven Years ago) this album has a clear and consistant feel about it with a feel similar to their 2004 release ‘mmhmm’ which I’ve considored to be their best for a long time.

The album opens with their first single from it ‘Forget and not slow down’ which is a catchy pop-punk song and as the album progresses the tracks flow perfectly into each other before the album finishes in true Relient K style with the song ‘this is the end’ which has a perfect mix of light piano and heavy rock. Some of my favourite tracks on the album so far include the tracks ‘I’m over it’, ‘This is the end’ and ‘If you believe me’.

I’d recommend you have a listen to this album on Spotify, Alt Press or just go and buy it on itunes!

10/26/09

Bowling for Soup Live

On Friday night Jo and myself headed to the 02 Academy in Sheffield to see Texan punk-rock band Bowling for Soup who were being supported by The Leftovers, MC Lars and Zebrahead.

I first saw Bowling for Soup live when I was 17 in Norwich and they were infact my first gig so seeing them is always special and with their new album ‘Sorry for Partyin” seeing them return to true-form (I shall blog on this album later this week) I was really excited about this gig and even more so when hearing that the incredible MC Lars would be supporting them.

So we queued up outside the venue at half 6 waiting for the doors to open surrounded by a mixture of students and 14 year old emo’s all eagerly awaiting the gig. Upon entering the venue which I’d last been in during a Ben Folds gig it seemed very full in comparison and the balcony was open this time so we headed upstairs to get the best view of the bands.

The Leftovers opened the gig with a set of their high energy pop-punk which was let down by unbalanced vocals but they were good and having since listened to them on their myspace page they are better live than on their empty-sounding studio recordings.

Next up was ‘post-punk laptop rapper’ MC Lars who I’ve been following for a few years primarily thanks to ‘Download this Song’ which he recorded with Jaret of Bowling for Soup. MC Lars gave us a high energy set of catchy rap songs including ‘Hot topic is not punk rock’ all accompanied by some fantastic video/animations on the screen behind before introducing Jaret and concluding his set with a live version of ‘Download this Song’.

Third up were Zebrahead who I first saw live (and disliked) with Bowling for Soup back in 2007 and once again I was not impressed by them, their performance although energetic was hindered by a constant bass buzz that had Jo and myself clutching our ears and despite their best efforts Zebrahead still don’t cut it for me…even with an awful cover of ‘Girlfriend’ by Avril Lavigne.

Finally Bowling for Soup came onto the stage kicking off their gig with ‘The Bitch Song’ which was the only song from ‘Let’s do it for Jonny’ that they performed…surprisingly missing Belgium out of their set list. They continued playing a fantastic set of songs from all their other albums including the songs ‘Punk Rock 101′, ‘Come back to Texas’, ‘Girl all the bad guys want’ and ‘This song sounds like a dance song’ before concluding their encore with ’1985′. Unusually they even played their song ‘Two Seater’ which I’ve never heard them do live.

Their set was, as usual filled with energy and funny remarks to each other and as always they invited everyone to their houses in Texas. Bowling for Soup are one of those bands who in spite of their commercial success always seem to have fun during their gigs and never seem bothered about messing around a little bit, making them one of the most fun bands to see live.

During the gig I managed to take a load of photos which I was really happy with, here’s a couple:

One of the band

10/25/09

Nick Griffin on Question Time

I very rarely tune into politics however the media got me but after all the hype about Nick Griffin of the BNP appearing on Question Time I gave in to the media and watched the episode on iPlayer (you can do the same here) and also watched Nick Griffin’s YouTube response to the experience on the BNP website (which you can google yourself because I’m not linking them!).

In his response Nick Griffin claimed that the format of Question Time was different to usual and he was bullied (although apparently this didn’t bother him), having never watched Question Time before I have no idea if it was that different but I do know that there was a lot of stuff directed towards Nick Griffin and I wasn’t convinced by His performance!

Griffin seemed to spend a lot of time digging himself holes, he couldn’t define what British was yet flatly denied that it was just white people, he denied being racist and then presented what appeared to be racist views and perhaps most worryingly he said that he’d like Britain to be made up of ‘mostly British people with a Christian ethic’ (or something to those lines). Sadly I don’t see a lot of Christian views in whatever message he is trying to get out there.

The problem is mainly that although Griffin may state that the BNP isn’t racist the policies he referenced don’t seem to suggest that, he talked about the media making things up and mis-quoting him yet couldn’t deny any examples of things he’d said.

Sadly more and more people seem to be voting for the BNP and I suspect this is more a result of feeling let down by the main parties rather than truly buying into the BNP, on the surface you can understand why people vote for the things the BNP presents in their adverts however beneath the surface it’s a stupid thing to do.

I think the BBC were right to have him on the show however probably missed the point of the show by it being primarily directed at questioning the BNP as a party, I don’t think the show will have done them any harm but nor do I think it’ll have done any good.

Anyway there’s an opinion from someone who’s about as political as a snowman, I’m sure people like Carl with have much more in-depth insights and opinions of it.

10/25/09

Veggie Update!

So last night was my first main meal as a veggie in my month of veggie experimenting and I managed to bake a fairly successful and tasty mousakka thanks to my Delia cookbook.

Mousakka is a greek dish made with Aubergines, nutmeg and cinammon amongst other things…it’s sort of like lasagne but with aubergine instead of pasta and no tomato.

Here’s a photo of my finished product!

10/24/09

Veggiexperiment

A while ago Goywonder whose blog I read set himself 2 targets, firstly to give up alcohol for 6 months and secondly to blog everyday, those targets/experiments have since finished however they got me thinking.

Alongside this thinking of blogs with challenges I seem to know more and more people who are vegetarians and I’m usually flippantly remarking to ‘just give them a carrot’ when it comes to feeding.

Finally the residential I was on a couple of weeks back fed us 3 meat-filled hot meals a day (although one day I did have 1 veggie meal!) and so the thought of meat has been on my mind.

In light of these thoughts and a little bit of curiosity I have decided to set myself a target: to give up meat for 30 days.

That’s right, until the 23rd November I shall not be eating meat, I shall be laying my carnivorous side to rest and seeing how easy it is to be a vegetarian, I’m not doing this for animal welfare or any of those ‘but it’s too cute to eat’ reasons but I’d like it to achieve a few things for me.

Firstly I hope that my experiment will make me more aware of what I eat and more aware of the choices we have when it comes to eating. I hope the experiment will encourage me to experiment more in the kitchen.

Secondly I expect this experiment to open my eyes to the challenges a vegetarian faces, how easy or hard it is to avoid meat in products…this means that the jelly will be staying on my top shelf for a few weeks!

Finally I wonder if I’ll find myself missing meat or not noticing, I wonder if this experiment will change my diet…we shall see!

As I start…

As I start today the target seems daunting, I don’t really know exactly what I’m going to be eating or how I’ll be approaching a sandwich without a dead animal between the slices of bread but we shall see (I’m being hardcore and giving up fish too!).

I’m confident that I can manage it but I think it’s going to be a challenge…tonight I shall be cooking vegetarian moussaka with the help of my Delia book and I’m thinking stuffed peppers sometime this week but other than that my mind is blank!

I shall keep blogging updates to let you know how I’m getting on and what I’m learning!

I seem to have a load of other things to blog at the moment so in the next few days expect blogs on:

- The BNP leader Nick Griffin on Questiontime

- Bowling for Soup, MC Lars, Zebrahead and the Leftovers: My gig experience

10/15/09

Scripture Union & Prostitution

As I mentioned on my last post and on my twitter account this week I’ve been away on a Scripture Union schools work training week and I’m sat in the ‘chill-out’ area of the Kings Park conference centre using the wifi and taking some time out after 3 and a half days of sessions on schools work.

I very rarely get to go on conferences and things like this and so it’s good to have some time away, the sessions are useful and the food is really good however with so much to take in and a brain close to bursting I’ve decided to take some time out before tea.

Having done bits and pieces of schools work before it’s been interesting to hear what others are doing and also interesting to hear that the sorts of things I’ve been thinking of for Hunsley Christian Youth Trust seem to be along the right lines, it’s also been great to network with other people doing similar things this week.

There’s so many things I could blog on but I feel a blog on schools work perhaps isn’t what I’m aiming to do here…although I don’t think I’m doing anything as such by this post more updating.

On a complete side-note there’s been some really interesting comments on my blog on John Sentamu and Prostitution (link) and the question of ‘is it safer for prostitutes for it to be legal’ has been discussed. I think it’s a very interesting topic to consider, as a Christian I cannot possibly agree that prostitution is ok and in some ways I feel that legalising it would make a statement suggesting that it is ok however on the flip-side legalising would give us a variety of benefits.

The most important of these benefits would be that we would be able to protect the girls who are prostitutes in far greater ways than we can at the moment, police would be able to monitor and visit brothels without being a threat to those who run them and potentially helping the girls out would be far more accessible.

The real question is really one of asking ourselves whether legalising something in order to regulate it and to provide more safety for those involved should happen when the thing we’re legalising is wrong…discuss!

10/12/09

Off, off & away!

I’m off on a Schools Work training week with Scripture Union this week so will probably be away from blogging…I have no idea if the conference centre has WiFi but I’ll be taking my Macbook just in case!

I’m sure I’ll have plenty to blog on when I return!

10/11/09

John Sentamu and Prostitution

I’ve been following John Sentamu (the Archbishop of York) on Twitter for quite some time now and today he alerted followers to his article in ‘The Sunday Times’ on prostitution which you can read here

In the article Sentamu discusses the problem of prostitution mentioning that 75% of those in prostitution become involved before they are 18 (this is in Europe) and that 90% of prostitutes have been forced to take part in sex or a sexual act. From these statistics Sentamu suggests that the government should take action against those who use prostitutes.

Sentamu also challenges the glamorisation of prostitution through shows such as ‘Secret Diary of a Call Girl’ and suggests that prostitution is actually the opposite stating:

We are meant to believe that these sex workers are independent women, empowered by the hold they have over men, who sell their bodies for money but who treat it like any other job. They can walk away at any time, remain emotionally detached and, in short, nobody is hurt by this simple business transaction.

Another Time article (here) mentions that in Sweden criminalisation of coercion caused prostitution to plummet.

So what should be done? Britain does have a prostitution problem and often it involves illegally trafficked girls who are subjected to terror and violence. I think the idea of taking those who use prostitutes to court could work to help lower the number of prostitutes, however it does also have the potential to force prostitution underground to a place where it becomes even more difficult to track down and potentially putting the girls in more danger.

Sentamu starts an interesting discussion in his article which is continued by Ruth Gledhill in the second article I linked and it’s great that he is coming out and standing up for morals and I hope he’ll be listened to. It’ll be interesting to see what else develops in this discussion

10/10/09

The Invention Of Lying

Last night Jo and I went to see ‘The Invention of Lying’ in the cinema. I went to the film largely because of Ricky Gervais being the writer, director and main actor in it so held high expectations as we entered the cinema to catch the start of the film (and the Orange adverts which don’t beat the ones from a few years ago).

The film starts with an introduction to a world where there is no such thing as a lie and you see Mark (Gervais) going on a very honest date, arriving early to pick up his date who informs him that because he was early he cut short her ‘me’ time and has no hope for this date….Ricky informs her that he knows he’s out of her league and is likely to be sacked the next day.

Sure enough he is sacked and after being evicted from his house for not having enough money for rent he goes to his bank to withdraw his final money and upon hearing that the computer is down lies to the cashier (the first ever lie in the history of mankind) so he can withdraw extra money…the computer comes up and shows up his lie but because lies don’t exist it must be a mistake on the computer.

The film shows Ricky Gervais’ writing and acting at his very best with a very dry sense of humour running throughout the film. Ricky incorporates his atheist views as a key part of the film when he lies to his dying mother that she won’t just have an eternity of nothing but will go to her favourite place in the world…following the nurses overhearing the whole world gathers on his doorstep where he invents ‘the man in the sky’.

Alongside this the film has a love story running throughout in a world where people only look for equally matched partners.

Gervais said in an interview that he expected a ‘revolt’ in America because of the atheist side of the film but as a Christian I didn’t take it that way at all, it was a funny, dry-humoured film in true Gervais style, with a fantastic concept running through and some good sub-plots (if plot is the word!) and actually had some good messages to take away.

I thoroughly enjoyed the film and would recommend you go and see it, hopefully this blog doesn’t contain too many spoilers too!

10/10/09

New Look, New Features

Every so often I find myself bored of my blog template and for the last week have been toying with new, slightly more ‘news’ orientated templates online and have finished my search with this new look.

Not a lot has changed on here to be perfectly honest apart from two minor things!

Firstly ‘Featured Posts’ – The featured posts section contains some highlights of my blog from recent weeks.

Secondly ‘Social Networking’ – My posts now have the option for you to share on myspace, facebook and twitter!

Finally in theory my blog should update my twitter when I make a new post…I shall find out when I click publish!

Enjoy!

10/9/09

Big Brothers Sophie

I’m not a fan of Big Brother (infact very happy it’s been axed!) nor am I a fan of those who go into the Big Brother house. Alongside this much like Russell Brand I have a love-hate relationship with The Sun newspaper although 9 times out of 10 alongside the BBC news website I read The Sun’s website too.

Clicking onto The Sun yesterday I saw an “article” explaining how Big Brother’s Sophie Reade had bravely opened a new Ann Summers in Oxford Street and modelled some of the stock.

It wasn’t this that interested me but that Sophie has a slight difference from the usual models you see demonstrating underwear….she isn’t completely stick thin. We seem to have this stupid attitude where somehow this country or rather the media has made girls feel like they need to be thin, feeling that a size 8 is fat and it drives me crazy so I think it’s good that someone who isn’t ridiculously thin is being shown like this and it’s so much more attractive than the stupidly thin models. If we can get this message of curves rather then stick-then out there then perhaps girls will begin to be more confident and have more self esteem.

The other reason I’ve chosen to show this skimpy picture of Sophie on my usually family friendly blog is because of the middle-aged man in the background not so discreetly taking a photo of Sophie’s bum using his mobile phone…I wonder if his wife will notice him in this photo!

(This blog will go down in history as the only blog post I’ll ever do that says something positive about Big Brother or it’s contestants!)