Thursday, October 05, 2006

Wow...



I wish I could have been at this guy's job interview...

And, he's a teacher.

Things I'm Enjoying

  • Moo Mini-Cards - As a Flickr user, I was able to get a pack of 10 mini-cards totally free! (No postage, no shipping, no fee at all!) The quality was great - the cards are full-colour, two-sided, printed on thick card stock. I was very impressed. Not that I know what to use them for...
  • Read It, Swap It - Yes, I've mentioned it before, but it's great. My old books...nearly gone. Replaced with high-quality used books as a fraction of the price. (All you pay is postage - usualyl between 60p and £1.30 a book.) And, the customer support from the RISI team is amazing (amazing for any site, much less a totally free one).
  • Skyscanner - Great for those "so where do I fly now?" moments.

Beating Retreat

Goodness...in all the uproar this week (see below), I completely forgot to tell you about Beating Retreat.

No, it's not my new behaviour management seminar ("Sign up now for Beating Retreat! Three days in the wilderness will do wonders for those unruly children!"). Instead, it's a military ceremony.

Evidently, the official Beating Retreat is a huge military hoopty-ha in London. In Windsor, however, we had our own mini-Beating Retreat on Sunday just outside the Castle. The band of the Queen's Life Guard (military folk, not pool watchers) played a 30-minute concert and then marched back into the Castle, processing by the Governor of Windsor Castle, Air Chief Marshall Sir Richard Johns.

I have pictures. And yes, there are an awful lot of the same people...I was crowded in at the barrier and couldn't move...and the band didn't move much either.

(As a side note, it seems that Chief of Air Staff (which Sir Richard was before becomming Governor) is the Air Force equivalent of Chief of Naval Staff...except the Chief of Naval Staff gets called the First Sea Lord...it just sounds cooler.)

As another related note, Sunday morning, I churched (probably not the proper word) at St. George's Chapel and sat in front of one of the Military Knights. As yes, he was dressed like the guys in the picture on the site.

Duct Tape

When I was little, we used to be at a church where the air conditioning system was installed using nothing but duct tape (as the story goes).

Heh.

That's nothing.

Air conditioning installed with duct tape.

Amateurs.

Try holding a cathedral together. Now, THAT'S a use for duct tape!

Canterbury Cathedral has just announced that 20% of its marble columns are held together with duct tape. (And they have hundreds of them...columns, that is.) As a result, the Cathedral has launched a major, £50 million campaign.

Man...you can buy a lot of duct tape for £50 million...

Mixed Feelings

I'm not sure what to say. In the past week or so, Windsor has been host to something quite nice as well as something terrible.

This morning, I heard about attacks at a Muslim-owned dairy quite nearby. The whole story is a bit hazy, but the dairy was attacked by people throwing petrol-bombs. (Story here.) (Before you get worried about riots here in Windsor, the only way I heard about it was that someone at school heard about it on the radio this morning...it appears to be quite isolated to that small area. It's less than a mile from my house, but I didn't know about it until today.)

A week ago, we learned that the Queen personally approved plans to convert one of her private offices at Windsor Castle to a Muslim prayer room so Castle employees had a place to pray, particularly during Ramadan.

Goodness, if the Head of the Church of England can abide Muslims praying in one of her private offices, certainly the people near the dairy can abide Muslims praying on their own property.

Half-Term

It's almost that time again!

Yes, it's almost half-term. That time when, after six or seven weeks at work, I'm free to trot about the free world. Thanks to the miracles of modern technology, I'm able to search thousands of flights to hundreds of destinations at the mere flickering of fingers across a keyboard.

And where does this half-term's adventure begin? At Heathrow Airport, jetting across to Amsterdam for a coupld of days. Then it's off to Copenhagen for the rest of the week (with a day's jaunt to Oslo in there, too). Finally, it's back to Heathrow to figure out how to get to Chelmsford Cathedral to sing at two services that Sunday.