Movember Fun

I’m growing a ‘tache.
For charity.
A men’s health charity in fact.

And I would love love love it if you could sponsor me. It’s easy really, click through and hit the ‘donate’ button. £1, £10 or even £100; all are welcome.

My Mum sponsored me a tenner, and left me a comedy limerick:

A moustache is a way to donate.
But remember the food on your plate,
when eating your food,
take care now, you dude

and don’t let the crumbs be your fate.

My sister, not to be outdone, did the same (both on the tenner and poem front):

I heard you’re trying to raise a stash,
by growing a handlebar ‘tash.
But remember, when you’re through,
The Village People may kidnap you

and make you dance YMCA for cash!!

Thing is about my family, they’re a competitive bunch and, well, my Mum came back again!
Mum, over to you…

A man whose moustache looked a fright
Was OK till he went out at night
when out came the moon
The girls they did swoon
then screamed when he turned on the light

A man who liked to drink gin
Grew a ‘tash that was long & quite thin
It wasn’t a joke
when, like a sponge, it did soak
& his glass had nothing left in!

A man who ate lots of goulashes
Had a ‘tash that was made of eyelashes
It fluttered each day
in quite a good way
But the glue gave him lots of red rashes.

A man wearing jeans colour RED !
Wanted a moustache to match (he once said).
He dyed it quite bright
and thought he’d done right
but he stopped the traffic instead

A man down in Maida Vale way
Grew a moustache that helped him portray
the man that he is
all Whatley & whizz
And the rest – well I shouldn’t say!

Amazing. Lost for words really.. Grinning, but lost for words.
They’ve donated, you should too.

Thanks all.

Birthday Blog

Today is November 21st. My birthday.

Last year my other half laid on the best birthday experience ever; including all my friends, all my geekiness and nearly all of London’s Soho district.

It was fantastic.

This year has been – amazingly – even better. Friday night I was out with work for a huge, multi-celebratory knees up. Three birthdays, two leavers and one awesome award win meant that it was the perfect combination for getting the whole company out together. It’s a rarity for all of us to unwind like that and it was definitely well overdue for some of us. I guess I got home about 4ish maybe? But even then didn’t get to sleep until the very early hours (what with deciding to carry on partying with everyone at home way back in the vale). Brilliant.

Last night was my actual birthday party; friends old and new, a few work colleagues, best mates from home, some family (it’s my sister’s birthday today too) and it was one of the best nights out I’ve had this year.

A night of music from the 80s, filthy fairy cakes, beetlejuice-based hilarity, Marmite-flavoured chocolate… the list goes on.

Looking through my phone this morning there’s only a few photos to show off what a great night we all had (I’m sure others took many, many more), however I did find one video. One very special video.

Big love and thanks to Bryce & Camilla for today’s #vlomo10 entry. You guys rock… X

Switzerland

Zurich International

Moleskine entry: April 1st, 2010

There’s a bunny in bag and he’s made of chocolate.

I’ve been to Switzerland today well, at the time of writing I’m technically still in Zurich; sat in the plane, awaiting departure. We’ll be on our way back to London shortly. It’s been a long day.

Why Zurich? Work, surprise surprise. But still LOTS of fun nonetheless. If I can talk about them by the time I write this up then you’ll know that it was… SKINS

If all you can see is an image of my moleskine, then sorry – can’t talk about it just yet. But if it’s not, then you can tell that the meeting was successful. Win.

It’s Easter this weekend (hence the bunny) and I’m looking forward to some proper R’n’R.

Chill Winston.

That is if this flight ever gets a move on. I was up at 5am this morning to be at London City Airport for 7am, leaving at 8.

It has been a long day (and it’s nowhere near over yet).

We were originally scheduled to land at 1945, that’s now looking like 2115. Damn. Quick drink with the office lot then off to meet the girlfriend who’s out somewhere near Westminster…

The date at the top of this page is April 1st. Fools’ day. I didn’t play any tricks (although I heard about some crackers). My mum and I used to try and get each other every year. She emailed me today and said it was a quiet one.

I miss my mum. She kind of rocks.

X

This is my iPad post

Last week I was approached to write a piece about the iPad. But if you read here regularly, you’ll understand that it’s not something I’d typically do. However, I’m not proclaiming to have uncovered something new or shocking about the product, I just fancied putting a few thoughts down about how I feel about it because someone asked me to.

The original piece I wrote is now up where it should be available here (after said someone changed their mind at the last minute), and is a reasonable assessment of my thoughts on the subject. However, the very idea of writing a piece about Apple (a company about which I have never had any interest in writing about), forced me to look at the brand in a whole new light.

I am, as you may guess, no Apple fan. I have never owned an iPod and I will never own an iPhone. Though the keys I’m currently tapping away at belong to a MacBook Pro, a lot of the posts here were first written in my moleskine (my true creative pallette) then transferred to this page at a later date.

A zealot I am not.

iPods enforce iTunes. iPhones enforce iPods. I don’t like the iProducts, because I like to do things my way. Mine. Not Apple’s.

I digress.

When I was eight years old, my father bought my sister and I the complete Encyclopedia Britannica; appendices, indexes – the lot. This was before the Internet, before the Web, before Wikipedia.

The Encyclopedia Britannica got me through school. I used to sit and read through the pages, sometimes just for fun. ‘Let’s see what I can learn today’ was my daily motto. It was a thing of wonder.

When I look at the iPad, that is what I see.

Not a great big iPhone, nor a simplified MacBook Pro. Just a small boy, spread out on the lounge floor. With his school books on one side and the iPad on the other, he’s laying there, doing his homework.

For that reason and for that reason alone, I think I might get one.