I’ve updated my template from the one I designed to plug my album…think of it as a sign of things to come in the next few weeks…I’m planning to write a few new posts and get back into blogging again properly.

Until then…Mark

I’m not a stranger to changing rooms with showers…even changing rooms with communal showers, after all they were present in the school changing rooms back in the day but no one ever used them!

My problem with them is two-fold…

Firstly I’m ten minutes drive from the gym, I have a nice warm shower at home and I’d much rather use my own shower….if I wanted to shower with other men I’d join a rugby team! Don’t get me wrong I’m not scared of male nudity…I’m not in the least bit homophobic and I’m perfectly comfortable in my own sexuality but I’d never willingly choose to see naked men. Give me the choice between naked man and no naked man and I’d be sure to pick the latter.

Secondly if you need to shower in the gym then that’s perfectly fine and if I had to enter the world of naked men in order to clean myself here would be the process I’d go through.

Carefully remove clothes…placing a towel around certain places to cover my modesty (or inadequacy before some funny commenter makes the joke!)…next I would wander into the showers and  turn on the water, carefully checking the temperature. My next move would be to remove towel ensuring it is hooked up in a place both close yet not under the shower! This would be followed by a quick shower before having a quick dry and once again covering modesty and wandering out. I’d then do that thing where you put the essentials on under your towel and so on and so forth revealing as little of myself to the public as possible!

However what many males from many different walks of life seem to do includes letting the inner nudist in them out…there’s no covering up…no walking out the shower with a towel just letting it all hang out in a way only Adam did before he realised he was naked!

So in summary… I don’t understand the need to wander around naked…I could justify a shower but if you have to get naked in the changing rooms be naked for as little as possible! Maybe you’re reading this and thinking I’m a little homophobic…I’m not…just don’t like to see naked men!

(this post is dedicated to Lucy)

Although the above reads like I was a vaguely active child with sport I was never passionate about it. I’ve never (and probably never will) follow a football team and generally to me sport is just sport.

However it wasn’t until I was at high school that a real dislike for sport came about. We had this sports teacher who in reflection was probably just bummed that after whatever he’d spent his life doing he’d wound up teaching kids PE and so decided that the only worthwhile sport to teach boys was to alternate between rugby and football with the occasional indoor ‘beep’ test.

To top it all off I don’t believe he was ever any good at any of the sports…he was slightly over weight and hilariously was took out and injured by the student teacher during my last year and spent a term limping about before realising that limping gave him sympathy and so continued to limp throughout the remaining term…however in his senile state he often forgot which leg he’d injured and so the limping foot varied.

Anyway aside from my rant about my PE teacher it was through this teacher that I gained a passionate dislike for sport and avoided it at all costs…and with the odd exception of a youth group cricket match or table tennis game I continue this inactivity to this day.

So back in January when I considered joining a gym and back on Day 21 of lent finally joined and took the induction session it was with no surprise that a Facebook update about heading to the gym prompted ‘you? the gym?’ and ‘I never thought I’d read the words ‘Mark’ and ‘gym’ in the same sentence’ as responses from shocked friends.

However I have to say that I am really enjoying being a member of the gym…the different machines are good fun and I find it a really good way to escape for an hour with some music at the same time as pushing my body. I’ve found that the treadmill is my favourite of all machines and often find myself returning for an extra 5/10 minutes of running before leaving.

I guess the point of this blog really is to communicate my new found love of the gym, express my general dislike for all things sporty thanks to a senile, over-weight PE teacher (you know who you are!) and mention that I have a new place to escape to when I need to take time out during the day!

I have a love/hate relationship with London…I got quite used to the business of our capital city during my 3 years studying with Oasis with the more-regular-than-I’d-have-liked trips to London…catching a 7:15am train, rushing past the slow moving crowds at Kings Cross Station and shoving my way onto a tube train which could only be described as a business-man mosh-pit.

Whilst I didn’t amazingly enjoy those early mornings, long days and the general business of London I do look back on that time with some fondness…largely the sarcastic comments we’d make during lectures to each other…10 youth workers in 1 place is not a good combination as we seem to put on the persona of the young people we work with!

However despite my dislike for busy places London is a great place to visit occasionally…it’s crawling with interesting stuff to do and places to do and on Friday myself and Jo went down to London to ride the eye and go on the boat cruises (the Christmas present I got for Jo after she talked about wanting to visit London properly).

The London Eye was the view from the office block where I had lectures and so actually riding it was an interesting experience, we had a beautifully clear day and so could see for miles and miles from the top and the experience of being inside this pod looking down upon London was great…although a glass floor may have been the icing on the cake.

Surprisingly though the river boat was my favourite bit of the day….we took the boat from the London Eye to Greenwich and the commentator on the boat was fantastic…he was informative but at the same time interesting mixing his facts with pub guides, sarcastic comments and a generally dry sense of humour.

The other part of London we spent some time in was Camden Market…we visited Camden back in January and the market there is fantastic but continues my love/hate relationship with London. The hundreds of stalls are great to browse through, the smells of the Chinese, African, Mexican and numerous other foods are fantastic and make you hungry and some great little shops hidden within the madness.

The problem with Camden is that all the sellers are very pushy which tends to put me off having a proper browse because you feel under pressure and whilst for many people I suspect this sells plenty for me it just puts me off and I wander away!

The best bit of Camden was this independent music shop on the main street full of records and CD’s…I walked away with Blood Sugar Sex Magik (Chili Peppers) and Welcome the night (the Ataris) for £1 each…bargain!

To conclude this post here’s some photos….

The interface is very similar to Spotify but with the addition an an ‘inbox’ where your friends can recommend music to you as can mflow. Songs recommended to you in this inbox can be previewed in full…but that’s where the good stops!

The majority of previews on mflow are 30 second snippits which I can already do on iTunes if I want to listen to part of the song and so perhaps the only extra function that mflow offers is the ability to recommend music to friends however if I want to do this I can already text them, mention it to them in person, tweet them or facebook them so whilst it’s nice of mflow to combine the two for me I’d much rather listen to songs in full on Spotify, get music recommendations from friends by Facebook or Twitter and not clog up my computer with another application.

Mflow? no no

Article Link (if you can call it an article)

and my favourite…

Whilst the Christian section was a bit naff the rest of the shop was amazing…containing hundreds of books with a nice ‘booky’ aroma about the place I spent quite some time browsing and was especially impressed with the CD’s which seemed to consist of all the singles I owned as a child and their shelf upon shelf of Christian books.

I left the shop having spent £5 on a CD single of ‘You only get what you give’ (New Radicals), a beasty New Bible Commentary Revised and individual commentaries on Revelation (part 1), Revelation (part 2), a commentary on the letters to Timothy, Titus and Philemon, a commentary on the letters to James and Peter and a commentary on the letters to John and Jude…plus a book containing 44 John Wesley sermons….absolute bargain shop!

Today I needed to go to the Apple Store in Meadowhall and had some time to kill at the same time. This is all well and good but Meadowhall is one of my least favourite places…it’s big, there’s no logical order and you can barely move.

The thing I’ve noticed about both Meadowhall and Supermarkets in comparison to using the butchers, farm shop etc is that there’s a distinct lack of soul. When I go into a supermarket to shop everything’s very plain and impersonal. There’s not really a sense of product expertise and I tend to find myself wanting to get out as soon as I possibly can…I run out of energy and patience very quickly in a supermarket.

Comparing this to using the local shops the experience is very different…I’ve seen the same staff in the butchers, farm shop, bakers etc…they all know about their products and it’s a fairly relaxing buying process.

I’d elaborate on this more but having got home at 3 last night and having been rudely awaken by the builders (not the dustmen) at 8 my eyes are literally closing…so I conclude supermarkets and huge shopping centres with duplicate shops have no soul.

(except you Apple store…you’re lovely!)

Every so often I get handed magazine cuttings from Christian magazines and I have to say whilst they are given with the best intentions they do make me laugh! Recently I was given a page from Christianity Magazine titled ‘Sex and singles’ from their ‘Dear Maggie’ agony aunt section.

Now it’s not that I disagree with the answers given but the problem with a Christian Agony Aunt in a widely read Christian magazine is you can’t be realistic…your answers have to match up to the most conservative Christian doctrine imaginable and so here are the three questions given in this article and a summarised version of the answers.

Question 1: I am now in my 30s and a virgin. Even though I believe that being a virgin has been the right thing. I dread the day one of my secular friends of acquaintances brings up the sex topic in relation to me. How can I deal with this?

Answer 1: (Summary) – don’t worry about it!

Question 2: Is it ok to kiss random guys in clubs to let some sexual tension out? Is this ok for a Christian?

Answer 2: (Summary) – No

Question 3: In your experience, how much does the physical influence the relationship side of a relationship?

Answer 3: The answer didn’t draw in any of Aunt Maggie’s ‘experience’

Whilst these questions in a secular context such as The Sun’s Dear Deirdre would have been answered in a secular way and very unhelpful to the writers I can’t help but feel that those who wrote in knew the answer before they asked it…there’s not really any advice…just the answer you’d expect.

A bit of reality might be helpful!

Whilst I love marmite and love this idea I am a little cross about the prospect of a marmite cereal bar and the reason behind my anger and upset is quite simple…ME AND HEIDI CREATED THE CONCEPT FIRST!

Back in September (link) I blogged about our attempt to make Marmite flapjacks which I believe this cereal bar is obviously trying to be…so if you buy a Marmite cereal bar in the shops remember the concept was here first!

From Baking With Heidi & Marmite

Today in preparation for tomorrow night’s youth group murder mystery/pudding party Heidi and myself attempted to make a cheesecake and actually it was pretty easy to make!

It was simple a case of mixing a load of crumbled digestives and butter, pressing them down into a base (in a tin!) and then mixing up some icing sugar, some soft cheese and some lemon juice before adding whipped cream (we made a lemon one!)…if you’re interested the recipe was something like: 300ml cream, 125g digestive biscuits, 75g butter, 300g soft cheese and 60g icing sugar (plus 1 lemon)…try it, it’s easy…I’ll let you know if it tastes good tomorrow!

I went back today to have a fitness programme put together…the gym there is very clever and you get given little USB style devices which go into each machine which tells you your programme, what to do, automatically adjusts the machines as you work through and tracks your progress.

The programme set for me includes a variety of activities aimed at variety and tackling everything from cardio to strengthening muscles and so I’m looking forward (and also dreading) giving it a test run either this evening or in a day or two.

I’m hoping that overall my levels of fitness will increase from unfit to fit and it’ll give me something active to do…we shall see!

The gym also has a decent sized swimming pool which I shall also test swim at some point!

I had a few things I wanted to blog yesterday so I’ll pan them out over the next few days however last night I went to ‘South Cave’s Got Talent’ which was a fund-raiser for Lucy heading off on mission…there was a good turnout of people both to watch and to perform a variety of talents, I had also been asked to be the sound/video geek for the evening so thoroughly enjoyed playing with P.A’s and actually made my electro-acoustic sound nice through the PA system (perhaps part of that was because I wasn’t playing it!).

It’s always interesting to see people from church doing things you never expected and there always seems to be a sense of humour in people you’d never seen before or a talent you just never expected and church things like this always seem to be good fun.

It also reminded me that I need to get into some open-mike nights and the-like because whilst I didn’t perform last night I keep desiring to have a go sometime and with a lot of my spare time spent mixing a potential album at the moment I think I need to get some music out there!

As I blogged back on day 5 I love having a house to host people and lent seems to be in part a time of hosting friends…in the last few weeks Joel, Vicki, Caroline, Dave, Mike and Yvonne have all passed through at various times for various lengths of time and it’s been so nice to be able to catch up with people….alongside this the regulars from South Cave have popped in many-a-time.

A really simple recipe that I was given a few weeks back was one for Spanish Chicken, it’s quick to prepare and makes a nice main course for guests so to make this blog useful here’s some instructions!

Ingredients: chicken (1 breast per person), chopped tomatoes (tin…1 tin = 4 people), 2 cloves of garlic, 1 onion, tomato puree and syrup.

Instructions: Assuming you’re cooking for 4 people fry the chicken breasts in some oil for 3 minutes a side, in another pan fry the onion (chopped) and garlic (also chopped), then add the tin of tomatoes, the table spoon of tomato puree and 2 table spoons of syrup and cook for a few minutes.

Then put the chicken in a dish, pour the tomato sauce stuff over it, cover the dish with tin foil and pop into the oven (pre-heated to 180 degrees) for an hour. Simple and tasty!

I’ve spent much of today planning my second lesson on the Amish for the A level students tomorrow and one part of the Amish belief which I find myself agreeing with more and more is their belief in the separation of church and state.

The thing is in principal there isn’t anything wrong with a nation being ‘Christian’ especially if the laws and morals of society are based upon Christianity (or perhaps that should read ‘based upon the teachings of Christ’) however in Britain our so-called Christian country doesn’t seem to be any more!

Whilst many of our countries morals (such as murder is wrong!) match Christianity and our country is blessed with freedom for Christians to practice without being persecuted the national identity of Christian seems to me to cause some confusion!

For starters the most recent census of South Cave said that 80% of the villagers are Christian (this is around 3,200 Christians!) and whilst I admit that we never really know who is and isn’t a Christian I can’t help but feel that this statistic is incorrect.

Facebook has proved an interesting tool with understanding people’s religions thanks to the ‘religious beliefs’ section of a profile and I’m amazed at how many people I went to school with are Christian/Catholic/Protestant yet actually they’re probably no more Christian than I am a tea-pot (feel free to dispute my position as a tea-pot!). I don’t mean this in a judgmental way but in a way that says ‘is being Christian an identity that comes with being British?’

If this is the case then there are some serious misconceptions out there…misconceptions that perhaps we would not have if the church was not attached to the state.

To finish this blog on a controversial one liner what’s going to happen when Princes Charles becomes king? Are we seriously going to have a non-Christian head of the church?