Amazing

I went to the London Mens Convention yesterday, which is an annual Christian convention running from 10 in the morning to 5 in the afternoon. There are people leading singing and explaining parts of the bible, with the aim of encouraging Christian men to keep following Christ, and to persuade those there that already do not.

There were so many awesome things about the event that will probably be very hard to explain unless you were there too.

Firstly, the venue. It was held at the Royal Albert Hall. I'd heard of it before, but had never seen what it looked like... Unbelievable. Here's a pic of the place I found on the web, however it doesn't do the magnificence and opulence much justice. Sure beats the tin shed at Katoomba.


Next there was the singing. The venue was at capacity, so there would have been almost 4,000 men singing in unison. If you've ever been to mens convention before, you'll know what I mean. When we sung holy holy holy (hymn version, not funky version) it almost felt like the roof would collapse. The singing was led by Stewart Townend, who has written a fair chunk of the songs that we sing at church. Apparently one of the good things of him being the music leader is that there was a much greater representation of people from charismatic churches there than would have otherwise been, as he is from a charismatic church, and almost a mini celebrity to them. It also meant that we often repeated the last verse or chorus a few times :)

Thirdly there was the people giving the bible talks. A guy named Vaughan Roberts gave the first talk on romans 1:1-6 on what exactly the Christian message is. Very very good I thought.

Then good old Al Stewart from Australia gave two talks from Revelations - one on hell from 20:11-15, and one on heaven from 21:1-5. Both were very powerful, but particularly the one on hell. At one point he was talking about how many churches these days either don't believe in hell, or don't really teach about it, and got SO fired up. He said that if you're in full time Christian ministry and don't believe in or teach about hell, then you should quit your job and find another. Very passionate Christian man. What a great advocate for Christ, and Australia for that matter.

The last talk was on evangelism, and was by a man named Rico Tice. He's a full time evangelist, and so knew the topic very well, and could give lots of practical help. Basically the most important thing in evangelism is personal prayer and bible reading.

Fourthly, getting to know other men from my church was fantastic - and what better place to do it than around God's very own words.

Lastly, I just found it really encouraging being in a room with 4000 other men all keen to learn more about Jesus and encourage others to do the same. I was surprised at the large percentage of men in the 65+ age bracket. Many would have been Christians more than twice as long as I have been alive, and so it's encouraging to watch them still singing praises to God with so much enthusiasm.

Bring it on!

I just realised today that last Friday was the 21st of March. Many important things have happened in history on this date - in 1963 Alcatraz Prison was closed, in 1921 Poland became an independent republic and in 1413 Henry V became King of England.

However, what came to mind for me was that the 21st of March is the date of one of the two equinoxes for the year. These are the two times of the year when the sun is directly above the Earth's equator.

The following implications come to mind*:

1) For Thea and I, we are getting closer to summer which means the days are getting longer. However, the 21st of March is when the days are getting longer at the fastest rate - at about 3mins 58secs per day in London! On the flip side, you down in Aus are quickly approaching winter, and your days are getting shorter by about 2mins 7secs per day. Unlucky...

2) For those of you living directly on top of the North Pole, you would have seen your one and only sunrise for the year, and it was the first time you would have seen the sun in 6 months! The sun will not go down again until the 21st of September, where you will be without the sun again for another 6 months. Be sure to stock up on candles. Reverse ditto for you at the South Pole.

3) For those of you living in Pontianak in Indonesia, the sun will rise at exactly 6am due east, will be exactly overhead at 12 midday, and will set at exactly 6pm due west. If you are out and about that day, be sure to wear some serious sunscreen.

So, in conclusion, summer is coming, and it's coming fast. Bring it on!

*Disclaimer: I haven't actually studied any of this, and most of what I have said is purely off the top of my head. If you have studied Earth Science in any way, shape or form please feel free to tear to shreds any claims I have made.

Scotch

I bought a Glenfiddich 18 yo the other week. Only had a wee dram so far, as it's not the kind of thing you simply gulp down.

On the way back from NYC I bought a Glenfiddich 15yo duty free. I'm keen to have both the 18yo and the 15yo in the one sitting to try and appreciate the difference side by side. Both the same malt from same distillery, so all things being held equal it should be interesting.

I also have some Chivas 12yo for more everyday occasions. Cheap, but I think reasonably tasty considering.

Generally I have the scotch neat, however I've read a few times of people adding a little water to help 'release the flavour'. I'm not too sure, however I'm hardly a connoisseur. Wouldn't it just water down the flavour?

Those who drink whisky, what's your experience with different malts, ages, and ways to drink it? Those who don't, you're missing out...

Start spreading the news...

Thea, myself and our vagabond shoes did some straying last week. Unlike the city itself, we did do some sleeping, so I'm not sure if that renders me ineligible to be king of the hill, or top of the heap, but I'll sure have a good crack at it nonetheless.

NYC is good fun. We saw most of the standard tourist stuff, as well just some walking around the different areas of Manhattan. Many thanks to all who gave suggestions of what to see.

Personally, one of the highlights for me was a beer I had at a restaurant. It was called Cream Ale, by Sixpoint Craft Ales. Very very tasty. A hoppy, golden ale that was such a welcome taste, as although I'm enjoying the English way of beer, it's not always as hoppy and fruity as we like them in Aus.

Some photos of NYC are on our photo website. Feel free to check them out.

Central park is beautiful. The entire park is man made. Every tree was planted, every stream and lake was dug. And this place is HUGE. Amazing.

Also, we went to the top of the Rockefeller Center, which has an awesome view of the city and the Empire State Building. We went to the United Nations, which is International soil. You can buy UN stamps there, but you can only post them there. I wonder if the workers there have to pay US income tax...

Other places we visited were Wall St, Soho, Little Italy, China Town, Greenwich Village, Time Square, Ground Zero. It was tops. We didn't catch the boat to the Statue of Liberty, but we could see it from Manhattan.

On Sunday Thea and I went to Justin Moffatt's church. Afterwards he invited us back to lunch at his place. It was very nice. Nathan Tasker was also there. He's doing well in the States.

It's been so cold lately. It was snowing as Thea and I walked to the supermarket on Monday. Brrrrr. The locals say this is the last cold we'll have, and spring should arrive very soon. I don't mind the snow though - it's much less depressing than rain.

Did everyone have a nice Easter?

facebook

I had lunch on Friday with a friend from high school. He left at the end of year 8 because his family moved back to the UK, so I haven't seen or heard from him in over 10 years.

It all came about because I was thinking of people I knew in this country, and he came to mind. I searched on facebook and found a guy that had the same name, and graduated Uni in '05 making him about the right age. So I took a punt and sent the guy a message, and it turned out it was him and so we met up for lunch. It was great to see him and catch up on what we've both been doing for the past 10 years. He went to Cambridge Uni too, so one weekend we'll go up there and he'll show us around town and his old college.

It's funny how those sorts of things happen on facebook. Have you had any random facebook experiences?

NYC

Thea and I are going to New York City next week. We leave Tuesday evening and arrive back Monday morning. I'm so excited, as this has always been my #1 place I've wanted to visit.

For those who have been before, what are the must see and dos in NYC?

The Antipodean Haven

Of the 9 people I work with, not one is British. My two bosses are Canadian, there is a New Zealander, 2 South Africans, another Canadian, two Poles, and an Indian. The majority of the teachers we recruit are Canadian, New Zealander or Australian. There are very little British recruits.

I live with two South Africans. On weekends we sometimes hang out with their South African friends. The only 2 Brits I have met are from Matt's work. At church there are obviously some British people but there are also a lot of Australian and South Africans (so much so that there is one service with singing in Afrikaans on Sunday evenings).

All this got me thinking... Are there any British people in Britain? And then I remembered this article from the BBC. As with most citizenship quarrels in politics, it always ends up in the realm of education. It is clear from the title of the article "Schools 'must teach Britishness'" that the British culture as they understand it is "under threat". There is a massive debate going on at the moment about the loss of British culture due to constant influx of immigrants and as a result, citizenship lessons in British schools are getting a huge revamp. As the subheading on the article says, "Schools in England should teach 'core British values' alongside cultural diversity." Of course this debate has been the vehicle for a lot of discussion on curbing religious extremism in the wake of the London bombings in July of 2005, but I am still curious to think about the future of "Britishness". What exactly is it? Is it dying out? Will the typical "whinging Pom" still exist? Will they actually become decent at cricket? And what about Australian culture? It is interesting to think (well it is to me) about how cultures evolve...

What are your thoughts? Do cultures die out or do they evolve?

Bizarre British Bits #3

The keyboard here is SOOOOOOOOOO annoying. Obviously the letters are in the same place, so for some changing keyboards won't be a problem. However, when you spend ALL day in front of a computer, most of that time being programming of some kind or another, it is REALLY annoying when some key keys (he he) are in an unfamiliar place.

Here is a pic of the UK layout.
The main troublesome keys are:
The @ key, which is now located near L. Obviously gets used a lot when emailing.
The | key (called pipe), which is now next to Z instead of near enter. This gets used a lot in programming, particularly in SAS.
The " key, which is now above 2 (where the @ should be).
The # key, which is now next to enter, and has been replaced by £.
The \ key, which is now next to Z instead of up near enter. This gets used a lot when specifying paths (like c:\program files\... etc)

Whaaaaaaaaaaat?

Well, that's the end of my rant. It's useful that my laptop here has the normal keyboard layout, otherwise I'd probably adjust completely to the UK keyboard and then have the same problems I'm having now when I return home at the end of the year.

truly yours
your biggest fan
this is Stan
(I like that song...)

yo, wuddup?

Hey everyone. Sorry for the lack of posts lately. Haven't really gone anywhere exciting lately, so doesn't feel like there's much to blog about...

On Monday we had a crazy storm. The wind was seriously strong, and the rain was pretty much horizontal. Apparently on the south west coast they had 85mph winds and lots of flooding. That's nuts.

We went to Brick Lane on saturday night for dinner. It's India food central. Lots and lots of curry. Very tasty. Not the most convenient to get to for us, as Wimbledon is south west London and Brick Lane is east, but it's worth a visit I think.

Also went baby clothes shopping on Sunday! SOOOO much fun. If you haven't heard, there is another little Lovell in the world (Anu and Jaime, not my sister). Isaac Peter Lovell. So exciting. I wish I could be there to support them and give the baby a hug, but I guess that will have to wait.

What's news in the world of Australia? I read on SMH (indirectly through Guthers blog) that there was a shooting in Eastwood. That's crazy stuff. We grew up there! Dave Beast lives right near there, I wonder if he heard the shots...

Anyway, off to bed. Night!

Oh, Thea says hi too :)

Bizarre British Bits #2

Soft drink in this country is backwards.

a) Sprite is lemon and lime flavoured
b) Fanta is yellow, not bright orange
c) Soft drink cans are 330ml not 375 ml and the bottles are 500ml not 600ml
d) They make 150ml cans which you can buy in multi packs in supermarkets
e) There is no Lift or Lift equivalent - that means no Solo or Pub Squash either
f) There are Diet Coke varieties with vitamins in them
g) Among the standard varieties are Lilt (tropical flavour), Irn Bru (weird Scottish drink) and Tango (like Fanta)

Whaaaaat?

Bizarre British Bits #1

Inspired by a fair few people doing lists lately (the most recent being Guthers - go have a look), I've decided to share things that strike me as strange in this country. I'll randomly post them as I think of or observe them.

So, #1:

After traffic lights are red, they go red AND amber together for a couple of seconds before they go green - cars can go at this stage too. Whaaaaaaaaaat?