Flash mob with a difference...

The parting of the Red Sea

A couple of days ago, research was featured in several news stories offering a scientific explanation as to how the waters in the Red Sea could have been parted for Moses. Some concluded that therefore the miracle of the waters parting was not down to the intervention of God, but merely fluid dynamics.

The fact that the waters could have parted at all is no surprise to bible believing Christians. If in the first case one believes in God then His ability to perform the miraculous is a given and so does not present a problem. If however, one struggles with the concept of an miracle-working God, then this research may be of interest, in as far as it appears that what happened is indeed feasible, thus adding weight to the accuracy of biblical account.

So was it an act of God or a freak of nature? If it was a freak of nature we would have to rewrite the account as follows:

After the Israelites had been allowed to leave Egypt, they reached the red sea. However, Pharaoh had second thoughts about releasing his workforce and gave chase. Thankfully, as chance would have it, when Moses stretched out his hand (as directed by the voices is in head), the wind began to blow in just the right direction and at just the right time to open up the sea to allow them to cross on dry land. As the Israelites finished crossing, the Egyptians came to the red sea, saw their chance and followed. Thankfully for the Israelites (and unluckily for the Egyptians) the wind ceased and so the waters came crashing back and removed the threat of an Egyptian attack, thus saving the fleeing Israelites. 

I don't know about you, but the story without God leads to an account which seems more incredible than actual history that the bible claims to record. Furthermore, if the researchers had read Exodus, they could have saved themselves all their efforts into how it happened.

Exodus 14:21: 'Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea, and all that night the LORD drove the sea back with a strong east wind and turned it into dry land.' And if they had read Exodus 15:8 they would have found that it was 'by the blast of your [God's] nostrils the waters piled up' and in verse 10: 'But you blew with your breath, and the sea covered them.'

So I conclude that either the whole story is false, in which case the research is interesting, but of limited relevance in relation to religion. Alternatively, if we believe the biblical account, but ascribe the events to natural causes, we have to accept an awful lot of chance, coincidence and good luck for it to have happened without God. So my view is that God did indeed use the wind – but it wasn't a freak of nature, it was God intervening to save his people – just as we have known and believed for centuries.

Goodbye The Good Agency. Hello God.

After working for over seven years The Good Agency, yesterday my final day was upon me. I've known this day was coming for about two years... but I still can't get my head around what's happening. After an incredibly hectic day I was presented with a card and some vouchers. The card was a piece of technical brilliance, a carefully hand-cut folding TARDIS card (our studio manager had truly outdone himself, I personally thing the BBC could sell this idea). A short time later, a number of us headed off to celebrate my leaving. Everyone has been really nice about it – although I'm still surprised at most people's reactions when discovering I'm going to Bible college – the usual response is an exclamation of blasphemy. 

It was about 10.30pm when I made my weary walk home from the station. Having handed back my mobile phone and said my goodbyes, I was incredibly aware that this, was it; I have waved goodbye to my nice stable job and have stepped out in faith in what I believe the Lord has told me to do. Part of me is petrified at what I have done, but the other part can't wait to see what the Lord will do.

Logos for Mac is coming...

As mentioned in my last blog, I have now handed my notice in and am due to start at WEST on 14 September. In preparation for my studies, I took some time to research what  Bible software was available.

After surveying the options, I found that the Logos software came highly recommended and seemed to be among the best you could buy... but it had one great downfall; it was for PC only. Having used a Mac for most of my life, this was a great disappointment, but not anymore. As of October Logos have a new Mac version of their software - perfect timing for me. Now all I've got to do is work out how to afford it when my income will be a mere shadow of it's former glory! See below for more details about Logos for Mac etc...

Logos Bible Software is giving away thousands of dollars of prizes to celebrate the launch of Logos Bible Software 4 Mac on October 1. Prizes include an iMac, a MacBook Pro, an iPad, an iPod Touch, and more than 100 other prizes!
They’re also having a special limited-time sale on their Mac and PC base packages and upgrades. Check it out!

I've handed in my notice...

Okay so it's now pretty much common knowledge – I have finally handed in my notice. This was a surprisingly difficult thing for me to do, but it's done. I start my 3 year course at WEST on 14 September 2010. Scary stuff, but I'm pretty sure that's where God wants me to be at the moment!

Goodbye advertising... hello Theology.

I don't have an iphone, but this amusing...

And for anyone that cares, here's Apple's answer to the rumpus...

Patio cleaning.

My wife, Claire, thought it would be a good idea if we cleaned our patio. At first I thought this was a bad idea as it sounded like a lot of hard work, but when I had had time to think about it, I realised that it would be much easier to clean the existing patio, than to lay a new one.

So Claire borrowed her Dad's pressure cleaner and half a day later we had a nice shiny 'new' patio.

We didn't quite realise just how dirty it had been... and I have to admit that it has transformed the area from a rather uninviting unkempt space to a nice bright and colourful arena of relaxation.

That night we had a BBQ – could've eaten our food off the floor it was so clean :)

We've got a shark!

Some friends of some friends had their aquarium split and so needed to find new homes for some of their fish. They had a 6" shark which urgently needed rehoming and so we decided to take him in. Obviously we called him Jaws.

Apparently he is a Silver Shark or Bala Shark, is omnivorous (thankfully he hasn't eaten any of the other fish yet) and can grow to between 6"-14" long – although in our tank he probably won't get much bigger than he already is. Phew.

Getting him in there was tricky, since he was larger than the opening in the top of our aquarium, but my wife was boldly and poured him in, whilst I stood by, armed with my marigolds, in case he flipped out of the tank and I needed to wrestle him back in. Thankfully the marigolds where not needed.

The other fish are certainly aware that he is there, keeping to the opposite side of the tank, but they are beginning to relax now as he seems good natured and seems to be settling in well :)

A cool little music/film project...

In our studio at work we have what is known as the 'Creative ipod'. This is where anyone in the creative department can dump their favorite songs onto a monthly playlist for the enjoyment of all. Some of the songs are pretty dire, but it's also introduced me to music that I would have otherwise never known about.

Here's one of my latest discoveries...



Check out the God help the girl website for more information.

I felt like an old man.

As I boarded the train to Waterloo, I was looking forward to my daily read. In this case I had elected to continue my brain melting education in New Testament Greek. But as I sat down and to begin my struggle with participles, aorist infinitives and the like, my concentration was shattered by the unleashing of a tinny tirade of Heavy Metal music from a few seats away.

I tried my best to ignore it and tune out, but it really was incredibly loud. After reading the same paragraph, the same paragraph, the same paragraph time and time again I had had enough. What was this person doing to their ears? To get it that loud they must have modified their ipod to deliver this ear torture.

And so before I could stop myself, I found my face peering through the gap between the seats to see the source of the irritant. Unfortunately I caught her eye and then found myself acting out turning the volume down, whilst informing her that 'it's a bit loud', a fact I'm sure she was well award of. She looked a little taken aback, before, thankfully reducing the ear-puncturing music to a more polite level.

I slinked back into my seat feeling as surprised as she was at my little outburst – but at least I would be able concentrate on my Greek now, or so I thought. Unfortunately all I did was worry about whether I had acted in a reasonable way and if I had been right to speak up... and so round and round went the same paragraph, the same paragraph, the same paragraph...

Everything's coming to an end.

As usual, I left my house with only a few minutes to get to the train station. As I hurried along the pavement I came to an abrupt halt with my foot hovering over a pigeon's corpse. To be confronted with death at 8.38am was a bit of a startling beginning to the day. I stood there for only the briefest of moments before carrying on my charge to catch the train, but the pigeon cadaver seemed to imprint itself on my mind. It looked strangely peaceful with no obvious wounds.

Due to various reasons I had got behind with Ashes to Ashes, Lost and 24, but had stored the remaining episodes on Sky+. And so it was, that in a very short duration of time my wife and I saw 3 of our favourite TV shows come to an end.

24 was full on, action-packed stuff to the end. We had little inkling of how that was going to end, and of course it leaves Jack free to go on and save the world in the up-and-coming 24 film. All-in-all, I think they managed to end the TV series very well.

The same can't be said for our other two favourite shows. The end to Ashes to Ashes felt weak and predictable, but at least it offered a certain amount of, shall we say 'closure'.

The end to Lost was another thing altogether. The show ran over 6 seasons and although my wife was growing weary of all the mystery, I was still loving it. Brilliant entertainment. It's just such a shame the ending was so inconclusive. The few mysteries that they tried to answer just seemed to generate more questions. I think fans were hoping to see some great revelation and I think the writers knew that, but unfortunately had nothing to satisfy the year's of speculation. They rounded up the story by showing a mystical great reunion of the dead/lost. A bit of a cop out and not very original (had just watched Ashes to Ashes – same sort of thing). I think they were trying to give us a satisfying ending, which whilst still being shocking, was happy. And so both shows brought their stories to a close by trying to deal with that one last door that we all have to walk through – death. They depicted death as being a place of final closure, with nice hazy light, where everyone is happy and it's all good... and I think that's how most people like to imagine things end. Reunited with friends, happy, peaceful and warm.

Hmmm, shame people don't take more notice of how God says it's all going to end. It's only through Jesus that things will end well. Apart from Him, there's certainly not going to be any nice hazy light, forgiveness and happiness. Let me quote from John 3:16-18...

'For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God's one and only Son.'

So there it is. When we die we either stand before God saved and forgiven or condemned.

In a way, that dead pigeon I saw had it easy, it's end had come and it wasn't morally responsible for it's life. But as for us, we are... everything will end one day, but the question is, how will it end for you? Personally eternal life through Jesus is my preferred ending. What's yours?

Eurovision Song Contest 2010

I realise it's been sometime since the Eurovision Song contest has finished, but I've been busy.

It's been years since I've actually watched this rather peculiar Euro tradition, but as it happened I was at home and so tuned into this year's entrainment.

To my shame I have a dark and embarrassing secret: I actually really enjoyed it. Some of the acts had me laughing; some had me cringing (like the UK's entry); but some (in a Euro-poppy kind of way) were really good! I have whittled out the totally awful entries and compiled a playlist on Spotify... but beware. This list of songs contains some nutty entries, like Armenia's 'Apricot Stone' – apparently something of a symbol in Armenia!  But to the uninitiated it seems a trifle odd.

Click on the pic to see my top 19 Eurovision songs from 2010. Enjoy.

Cherries and preaching.

After a long day at work, I came home, cooked dinner and cleared up. It was about 9pm and I decided to go and water the plants in the garden. The evening air was refreshingly cool and I noticed that the little cherry tree in the corner of my garden was laden with ripe fruit.

It gave me a great sense of satisfaction as I grabbed a pot and filled it full  with freshly picked cherries. All I had done was planted the tree two years ago, occasionally watering it, and lo and behold there were branches full of fruit!

After preaching last Sunday I was feeling a little downcast. I had studied Ezekiel chapters 40-48 for weeks and had worked extremely hard to make head and tail of it. I preached for about 53 minutes (far too long) and was exhausted at the end of it. I found it hard to preach and I think people found it hard to listen to.

In the past few days I have been studying John's account of Jesus feeding the 5000 with five small loaves and two fish. As I was reading a commentary on this passage it developed the thought that God can take our small abilities, efforts and gifts and use them to feed the multitude. I found this to be a great encouragement – and one that was reflected in the bountiful harvest of cherries. I did what I could to enable the tree to grow, but God made it grow and produce ripe abundant fruit. Praise God, it's all down to Him!

Why do children do this?

I came home from work one evening and noticed tucked neatly under one of our dinning room chairs, my wife's shoes. My eldest daughter had decided that these would make the perfect hiding place to store some treasures that she had found. These included:

• A magic wand
• a box of fairy magic things
• a decorative flower ornament
• 2 lipsalves
• some eye shadow
• our kitchen timer.

Why she thought that the shoes were the perfect home for her hoard I don't know, but I'm sure in her mind is all made perfect sense. Very cute... that it until she hides the car keys or the TV controls!

I got hit by a car.

It was swelteringly hot, the trains had all been delayed and I was stranded at Waterloo station with hundreds of other commuters waiting for a train home. After slowly baking in Waterloo (which I realised is basically a giant greenhouse) a train became available and the hordes descended on the unusually shortened train. As we sweated our way home I was reading a commentary on Ezekiel as I am preparing a sermon on Ezekiel's final vision in chapters 40-48. And so with my mind full of such things as the River of Life I finally disembarked and came out into the fresh air.

There was a car parked on the side of the road and a fellow commuter had just gratefully climbed into it. Anticipating that the car was about ready to head off, I crossed the road behind the car. Unfortunately, the driver decided that for some unfathomable reason he needed to reverse. And so despite swathes of people crossing the road all around his car he choose that moment to reverse and decided he didn't really need to check his mirrors and so he drove into me. Thankfully the noise of my body and wedding ring impacting his boot made sufficient noise to alert him to his error and he applied the brakes.

There was a pause – I was stunned, he was surprised. He eventually managed to enquire "Are you alright mate?", to which I mumbled "Yeah". It felt wrong. I had just had a close encounter with his car and I felt like I should have said more, but I had nothing. He had just nearly run me over, I could have died, but my wit failed me and so after barely spluttering 'yeah' I walked home feeling slightly embarrassed.

How to fix a leaky kitchen sink trap.

Our kitchen sink is in desperate need of replacement, but as I don't want to replace it just yet, when it became apparent that the trap at the bottom of the sink had rusted through, another solution was needed. I borrowed some Kitchen and Bathroom Silicon from my Father-in-law, and found an empty orange juice bottle. I then cut a suitable portion of plastic from the bottle to form a patch and provide some rigidity. I dried the leaky trap and then smothered the area and patch with silicone. I wiggled the patch into place and there it has stayed. No leaks, no expense – my kind of repair.

Alien plant-life discovered

I was picnicking in Bushy Park awhile back when I came across what could only be described as some very strange Stalagmites. The woody protrusions were like nothing I have seen before.

Perhaps they are the roots of a tree or the remains of a heavily pruned bush... or perhaps our world is being slowly and covertly overtaken by a strange alien root monster that is pushing it's legs throughout our world...

Check your gardens, be on your guard. These things could eat the triffids for dinner and have you for afters. Ahh.

* UPDATE* – Apparently these are the roots of an unusual Conifer plant – the Bald Cypress or Swamp Cypress (Taxodium distichum) – which has roots projecting above ground and are for the plant to breath.

Shopping online with Tesco

So there I was, in my lunch break at work, doing my monthly Big Shop at Tesco's website. And I came across this 'deal' below...

Quick everyone, rush to buy two soups for the price of three! Bargain.

Mr Grasshead

Ladies and Gentlemen, let me introduce... Mr Grasshead. [Crowd applauds]

He was given to me by my company [Wow, gasp the crowd].

No, I'm afraid I wasn't singled out for this extraordinary privilege – everyone got one. [Ohhh] I'm not entirely sure why they gave all the staff these grass heads – I think it had something to do with Earth Day... [Er?] Indeed.

Mr Grasshead was born about 3 weeks ago and I gave him his first haircut yesterday. And as he was looking particularly dashing this afternoon, I thought now would be a good time to introduce you to him. Say, 'Hi', he doesn't bite.

I'm sure he'll continue to grow into a fine lad – I'll keep you updated. [Hurrah, cry the crowd].

Chessington World of Adventures

To celebrate our youngest daughter's birthday we decided to take them to Chessington World of adventures. There were two cunning things about this.

1. As we are local, we got free tickets
2. We went in term time

The first is an obvious boon; the second the icing on the cake.

I took a day off, Claire wasn't working and the kids weren't at school. I'm not a fan of parks with rides etc, but I have to admit it was a brilliant day out. There was hardly anybody there. We had no queues for any of the rides; walking past the 'Only 30 minutes to wait from here' signs and jumping straight on. Usually you have to wait so long for a ride and then it's all over in minutes, but we could stay on the rides if we wanted, take as many goes and generally have a great time. And as our youngest daughter was just over the critical 0.9m high she was able to go on most of the rides, and they were tame enough so that even I enjoyed them. Brilliant fun, definitely the way to visit the only thing Chessington is famous for.

The new Daleks.

The new Daleks; I don't like them. Not because they are scary, menacing or are going to give me nightmares (they may, but not because they are scary), but because they look like cheap, shiny, plastic toys. The old style Dalek looked rugged, military and dirty – like they knew what it was to be in a war. Their appearance was functional, basic and  slightly unsettling (see far right of pic). But these new ones? Their multi-coloured, badly proportioned new looks make them unbelievable; I mean who designed them? They have moved from the iconic to the laughable. I know this is a nerdy post, but somethings have to be said. It's a very sad day for the Daleks.

It's alive!

I had the rather boring job of taking some wilting daffodils down to our compost bin the other day. But when I opened the lid I was quite taken aback. An audible busy buzz of activity hit my eardrums, as countless little creatures went about their business of eating and living. You could almost see the compost crawling and wriggling with life, and upon closer inspection I could in fact see some of the multitude of very excited critters in full feasting mode.

I felt privileged to have seen and heard this little snapshot into the mechanics of our living ecosystem. I'm not a particular fan of bugs, wood-lice, slugs and worms, but they're out there, billions of them right now, all working away recycling the our waste into something useable and of worth. Our world and the one who made it never ceases to amaze me – He's brilliant.

Bits and bobs.

It's been a busy few weeks. Here are the headlines:

• Grandear Neal turned 100 on Monday 29 2010. Congratulations to Grandear.
• The future is a little clearer – WEST have said 'Yes'. Roll on September.
• I have conjunctivitis, so although the future maybe a little clearer, my eyes aren't. Humbug.

Anyway, looking forward to this Easter time when we remember and celebrate the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ!

Headphones

I was recently given an itunes voucher and so after carefully whittling down my selection of songs I purchased them and put them on my ipod. It's been some time since I have used the standard ipod headphones, but as I listened to my music on the way to work I was astonished.

I used to think that the standard ipod headphones were pretty good, but I was extremely disappointed – there was no bass and they sounded really thin and tinny. I think I've become a little spoilt and have got used to the headphones I use at work. When I got to work I plugged in my Sony MDR-XD200 headphones – what a revelation. Suddenly the sound filled out, plenty of bass and the music came alive. I love Apple products, but if your main headphones are the standard ipod ones, try upgrading and you'll never look back.

A strange nighttime revelation.

A couple of days ago our home telephone line went dead. We still had internet access, but when we picked up the phone there was no dialing tone, nothing. After a few days I rang Sky and navigated my way through the maze of automated menus. I must admit I was impressed with just how many options they felt it necessary for me to spend my limited life listening to. In fact so prolonged was the task of menu navigating that by the end of it all, the automated female voice was actually showing signs of irritation. Brilliant touch Sky – it actually made me smile to think that the computer was even more fed up having to spout out the tedious list of choices than I was having to listen to it.

Finally I got to speak to a human being, but as it transpired, even after going through the above, she was not the right person and had to transfer me to another helper called Linda. Linda took my details and then as I was at work and not at home by the faulty phone, arranged to ring me back later that evening, which she duly did.

We went through all the tests, unplugged and checked all the phones, tried the test socket, before Linda decided our line was fine and that it was our 'box on the wall' that was faulty. Trying to hide my skepticism I listened to my options. I could pay for Sky to enlist BT to come and look at it, but if it was my 'box on the wall' it would cost me a £99 call out fee, plus an hourly fee. The other option was to contact a local independent. I contacted my Dad.

About 15 minutes my Dad has the main box in bits and diagnoses there to be no fault with it, but that it is the line that is dead, it showed no vaults or anything. So planning to contact Sky in the morning, we went to bed... and this is where it gets a little weird.

In the middle of the night, in that strange place in between sleep and the real world I thought I heard a tinny voice. I couldn't understand what it said, but it seemed to be coming from the phone on the bedside table. So I picked it up, but there was nothing, still dead. As you can imagine, Claire was a little intrigued at my actions. Still we drifted back into that happy place of slumber. As I slept, the whole phone thing must have been playing on my mind as I dreamt that now the phone was fixed.

A little while later when the alarm burst the bubble of sleep, I lay in bed semiconscious – all the time thinking the phone is working, the phone is fixed. When I finally mustered the energy to reach out and pick up the receiver  you can imagine my surprise at hearing the reassuring buzz of the dialing tone. How weird was that?

The trials of eating on a train.

Every now and again I have to eat on the way home from work so that I can get out quickly to get to a meeting on time. The other day I picked up a Big Tasty Meal from McDonald's. Now, the key to eating a McDonald's on the train is to get your meal early, allowing yourself enough time to obtain a good seat.

By a good seat I mean one at the end of a carriage that has the back of the next seat facing you – not an open 4 seat space with another passenger facing you. The 2 seater space is perfect, because if you sit in the window seat, not are you hidden from most other passengers while you eat, but you can also wedge your coke or milkshake between the wall and your seat – freeing up a much needed hand.

However, due to McDonald's not anticipating my need for a Big Tasty (without bacon) I had to wait a good while and so only just caught my train. And so there I was, surrounded by passengers all wishing I wasn't unpacking my freshly cooked junk food. There was one window seat left and so despite the obvious annoyance and overspilling bulk of the large man sitting in the seat next to it, I squeezed myself into position and filed my drink in the aforementioned holding place.

I pulled out the fries and began to unpeel the ketchup. But due to the large man occupying more seat than he had paid for and the resulting awkward angles of my arms, the sauce somehow flipped out of my hand, narrowly missing my jeans and ended upside down on my cleverly concealed drink. This was not ideal. To execute a clean-up exercise was going to be tricky and embarrassing. So I took the option of pretending it hadn't happened - and thankfully so did everyone else. Bless the English.

And so I munched my way through my meal, desperately wanting a drink, but fearing the mess that would result. The Big Tasty itself was also tricky. It had been blessed with an over generous portion of lettuce and the sauce was belligerently refusing to stay in the bun. Such was the spectacle, that an elderly gentleman could stand it no longer and held his newspaper absurdly high in protest, using it as makeshift barrier to block out the eating disaster that was occurring in front of him. I felt bad, but what can I say? I was hungry, the food was playing up, I was squashed and my drink was disabled.

Still it could have been worse – the ketchup could have landed on the big man next to me. I'm sure his manners wouldn't have been so English then.

Wishing the road was as flat as my tyre.

My sister's fiancé and I were on our way to the pub. It was an evening organised by my local church to go and eat good food and listen the story of a pastor from Kosovo.

After a short and uneventful journey we were just 30 metres from the pub when Jon spotted it – a large pothole in the road. I spotted it slightly later, about one second before I drove over (or should I say into) it. There was a muffled bang, followed by the unmistakable flap flap and hiss of my tyre deflating. It was dark wet and very annoying.

Thankfully Jon sprung into action and within about eight minutes we had the spare on. Phew. Feeling like true men who had triumphed over adversity we got cleaned up and settled down for a pleasant evening.

When we came out we noticed someone else parked nearby, boot lid open and a small crowd of men around the car – they too were afflicted by the hard-to-spot hole in the road.

Life can be like that. Just when everything seems to be going okay, bang something happens. And let's face it, much worse things happen than a flat tyre. But I think it's how we deal with these unforeseen events that matters. Stuff happens; sometimes stuff that we can't prepare or carry a spare for.

The pastor from Kosovo shared with us the stories of some people who had suffered badly and lost most of the earthly possessions due to the war. In their time of need they called out and found God. I wonder when the things in our lives goes 'bang' who/what in our time of need we call out to?

A strange occurrence

So there we were, my wife and I floating in the middle of a huge flooded square. We bobbed around beneath attractive, sunny buildings, struggling with what appeared to be our recycling bin. The thing simply refused to open - no matter how we prized at it, how annoying. Amidst our struggles to keep afloat and wrestling with the wretched bin, we found ourselves drifting into one of the surrounding buildings. We swirled through a doorway and into a rather dull room. The bottom half had been painted green with the rest a grubby grey. Despite the water being halfway up the walls, we weren't too worried, but we were becoming increasingly annoyed by the stubbornness of the recycling bin. An indistinct noise made us look as a stranger stepped in through the doorway. The water had gone, yet our bodies were still attempting to swim. We laughed at the stupidity of the situation.

And as I woke up I could not stop giggling. It was all very amusing, apparently. Claire was also now awake and feeling that she had missed something, enquired as to what was so funny. Needless to say, the dream didn't seem half as amusing when I tried to retell it through tears of giggles. An intense dream that even a few weeks later brings a smile to my face. Our minds are funny things aren't they?

The new/old shoe phenomenon

So Christmas and NY are over and we are into 2010. So what did I get for Christmas? Lots of goodies: A greek NT; books; DVDs; Chocolate; socks; a shaver etc etc. I also got a new pair of trainers! My old ones were looking a little grubby and sorry for themselves, so a quick visit to Amazon and a new pair were ordered.

The thing that always amazes me about new shoes is just how old they make your other footwear look. As I really liked my old trainers I ordered exactly the same pair as before – although they have tweaked the design (for the worse in my opinion). Anyway, since the opportunity had presented itself, I thought I'd capture the old/new shoe phenomenon for all to see. And while we're on the subject of trainers, 2010 will be a year of training, but more on later in the year :) Wahey, welcome to 2010 – it rocks.