In a few days time, '5 on the fifth' will return. Take 5 photographs on the days leading up to the 5th and publish those on your own blog and then add the link to my blog so that others can see your images. You can either take 5 random pictures or follow this months theme, which is: NEW
This latest 30 second movie took a long time to make. I first had the idea around 6 weeks ago and I had a few people agree to send clips and did not. Then a few kind people sent clips and they were poor vision and/or sound. The rest were used. Thanks to you all... young and old - I appreciate your one second.
This clip shows one of my favourite quotations with help from various bloggers, tweeters and friends. I am proud of this one. Thanks again to all that took part - I will arrange a proper list of names soon.
The guy is sexy, he's gay, he's a professional footballer. He could well also be a hero to many. And he is back on my blog... here's Anton Hysén again!
I was in Edinburgh last week with a groups of clients and I noted that some words and phrases kept cropping up in different presentations. Some are cliches, some are just popular at the moment:
"so on and so forth"
Now this is a phrase that I doubt people use in daily speech, but when they stand in front of a group, something strange happens. They (and I) used phrases that we have never used before. I don't like this one - why not just say "etcetera"?
"myself"
I hear this a lot during presentations and interviews. Rather than saying "me", people say "myself" as if they want to sound clever.
"outwith"
Not a word that I heard until I worked for a Scottish company. It's a commonly used word north of the border and there is nothing wrong with it - I mention it just to show how strange language can be. Everyone knows it's meaning in Scotland, but if you ask someone in London, they assume that it's defination is 'without'. It actually means 'outside' or 'beyond'. For example, "the document must not be used outwith this company".
"iteration"
Used over and over during several sessions and not a word I have ever used. It means 'the act of repeating a process usually with the aim of approaching a desired goal or target or result'. I will now try and shoehorn it into conversations.
"it goes something like this..."
A phrase that my manager uses constantly. It's his way of pausing and also emphasising that he has considered the topic carefully before. I think that he overuses it and therefore makes it less effective.
It's strange how people find my blog. A few dozen people found it by typing the words "zac efron naked" into Google. My blog may has featured Mr Efron in the past, but not naked... unfortunately. And such searches certainly don't contain real images!
The top 5 searches that brought me readers so far this year were:
The Mondrian one confuses me. I had one blog entry mention Mondrian as a favourite artist and lots of people come by (though not that many click on other pages). The really obscure ones also make me wonder how Google really works.
As for the other topics, I suppose that I should be surprised that Fernando Torres doesn't feature!
I have written a review for a film we watched last night called Archipelago and you can read it on the IMDB or just read it below!
Snobbery in action - 1 star out of 10
This film is a perfect example of where reviewers like to show themselves as being superior to the "common man" by rating an awful film with high marks. They then aim to justify the review by saying that "we" just didn't get the movie. This is an amateurish film on every level, yet the so called risks it takes in terms of style are seen by professional reviewers as something special. No dear reviewer, the risks made for lazy and ineffective viewing and could, in fact, be classed as simply annoying. The script takes you nowhere and there are a few scenes which leave you puzzled as to why they were included. Most seem improvised and add nothing to the storyline and just highlight how poor the acting is. A scene about judging the sex of a lobster seemed the worst filler in any movie I have seen in my life. The camera is fixed rigidly in place, focused on anything other than the action (and I use that word loosely). If the director had used that approach once or perhaps twice, I would consider it to be arty. To have the actors "act" off camera most of the time became baffling. I have no doubt that a group of high school students could have made this film and probably have done a better job. The film gets one point from me merely for the scenery on the beautiful Scilly Isles.
I am exhausted as I type this on my iPhone. I am sitting on an Easyjet flight from Edinburgh to Luton and it's Friday evening. I won't be home before 8pm.
I travelled to Edinburgh on Wednesday evening and immediately went out to dinner with 4 colleagues. We went to a lovely Italian restaurant in the city centre. It know it's silly, but I found the Italian/Scottish accent to be funny.
I stayed at a different hotel to the usual one and had been upgraded for some reason. The room was very big and had a Nespresso machine and also a Bose player. So I lay in the bath drinking a top notch coffee and listening to my iPod through the Bose! Very nice.
On Thursday morning we welcomed 20 clients and presented to them all day before getting them to hotels. Actually, our delegates were the support staff of the advisers I usually deal with. Such people often have a greater influence of where business goes than the business owners. I had been suggesting for over 3 years that we run this kind of event.
It was a bit of a logistical nightmare as we had to use 4 hotels. Edinburgh currently has a huge medical conference on as well as a marathon and lots of tourists, so hotels were full. The group of 25 went to a restaurant called Gusto and had a good laugh. More drinks followed and a few of us whimped out at midnight. The rest carried on until 3am and so Friday was a little subdued as more presentations were given, followed by a buffet lunch and then taxis and flights. This was the view from our meeting room...
The original Hard Rock Cafe in London is 40 years old in June and they are having a number of special events including an evening at 1971 prices. There is no chance of getting in though. The Evening Standard published an old recruitment advert.
There is no way that you could specific age ranges these days or specify that certain staff must be young and pretty! How times have changed.
I used the last of my holiday leftover days yesterday.
I toured North London starting at Alexandra Palace. I was disappointed that the BBC tower was cover in scafolding so you cant see much. I had forgotten how many hills there are in this part of the city. It seemed that the buses didn't line up, so I had to take some strange routes to go west.
Here is a view from Alexandra Palace down to the City and on the right is the Shard beginning to take shape.
And a view of the huge Olympic rings at St. Pancras International.
So here we go again, it's Eurovision time. It's that time of the year that I moan about the music and the political voting. And this year I also get to complain that Jedward are representing Ireland and I just know that the X Factor loving chavs around the UK will vote for them. Jedward cant sing! And the hair looks ****ing stupid. Calm calm calm calm. At least they CAN just about look good sometimes - without the idiotic hair style...
The best looking guy in the competition is from Sweden, it's Eric Saade. Someone on Twitter said that he looks like a Bel Ami 'model'. Works for me.
I've been working at the Gherkin today. London was grey and busy, but it's good to visit once in a while. There's not much to report, other than I enjoyed seeing (perving over) the cute City guys.
Something I will share with you however. Someone I know on Facebook is in the USA was moaning about the price of petrol. They say that they usually pay $3.65 a gallon and the local garage was charging $4.05. I had to add a comment to their status to remind them that the UK equivalent is around $6.00 a gallon. They don't know how most countries tax petrol to death! On the flip side, now is a good time to move to Venezuela where fuel is subsidised by the state is currently 12c a gallon!
To end today, here is a picture of the nearly completed Heron Tower.
Ex-England rugby player Danny Cipriano has been in the news this week. He was actually suspended from The Melbourne Rebels by his fellow players! It seems that cute-but-dim Danny isn't concentrating on his rugby as he potentially should be. Anyway, he's so sweet and looks younger than his 23 years in my opinion.
We went to a local steam fair today that raises funds to keep an old working Mill open. It great fun, not seeing the traction engines necessarily, but looking round the stalls, watching the shows and a flying display of 1930's planes was a good way to pass the time. Seemed like thousands turned out.
There was an amazing show featuring birds of prey including a couple of Bald Eagles. There was a stall that sold fresh coffee beans, ground to your specifications - so I bought some for the stove espresso pot. We also bought some flour milled on the premises.
After a few hours in the sunshine, we went to Pete's brothers for meat meat and more meat. He knows how to arrange a barbecue!
Bin Laden is dead. Even if laws and accepted international protocols were broken... I don't care. I am glad that this evil man is dead. I hope that the good Muslims around the world can start to stand out from the crowd. There are too many people who have highjacked this religion and made it out to be something aggressive and negative. Islam needs some major PR work me thinks.
The Bad:
The last 5 on the fifth had the lowest turnout for many a month - I appreciate those that make an effort to share their images, don't get me wrong. I'm doing something wrong in my promotion obviously. I am thinking about the next step...
The Ugly:
It has been reported that Prime Minister David Cameron supports new proposals which could ban same-sex kisses on pre-watershed television (i.e. before 9pm). The government has commissioned an independent review into the regulation of television content and into the future of the 9pm watershed by the chief executive of the Mothers’ Union, Reg Bailey.
How stupid and narrow-minded is this?!? As the great saying says... "some people are gay, get over it".
I am currently putting together a new '30 second movie' and need some help from you.
The movie will be made up from various people saying specific words. Therefore, I would want you to record a movie saying that one word clearly to camera. It will take you all of one second to make it!
If you are willing to take part - drop me an email at sfchapman@hotmail.com and I will tell you the word I need.
Welcome to '5 on the fifth', a posting where you share 5 photographs taken on the days leading up to the 5th of the month. Remember to mention my blog on your own blog, so that your visitors can find the other contributions. You can take 5 random pictures or follow my suggested theme, of which there are 2 this month: CLOTHES or HAPPY!
You no longer have to leave a comment with your details (though comments are welcome) - just complete the form below including your name and location in the 'link title' field and like magic, you will appear in the list of contributors.
My images are happy ones with smiles...
1. Drain guy 2. Pete's mum 3. Kate on a biscuit box! 4. Me 5. Peter Griffin
Remember a while ago I mentioned Anton Hysén, the first openly gay professional footballer? Well, he was all over the press after his coming out and is now on the front cover of a magazine I have never read, Attitude Active (affiliated with fluffy camp Attitude magazine I assume).
To my surprise, Anton's never had a boyfriend. Looking like this, that will change soon!
It's been a busy few days. We watched the Royal Wedding on Friday. Despite my reservations at having a Royal family at all, I really enjoyed the day which was covered brilliantly by the BBC. London looked great and the organisers did very well. A local man in the village where Pete's mum lives was involved in the arrangements for the evening event and he said it was a very interesting affair!
On Friday night our neighbours, Tom and Mandy, came round (the couple who refer to Pete and I as their gaybours). I cooked a lamb tagine and it worked really well. We used the blackberries from our home-made blackberry vodka to make a drunken fool. Basically it's whipped cream, meringue and blackberries. It didn't quite work as the fruit had soaked up so much vodka, that each bite was like drinking a shot of alcohol. They left us after 2am. We were all very drunk.
On Saturday, we got up very late and had a slow walk into town where we bumped into Pete's brother and his girlfriend. So we ended up having lunch with them before looking around the shops.
On Sunday, we drove to Grafham Water and walked the 10 miles round the reservoir in a cooling wind (actually quite windy) and a very hot sun. We were knackered at the end of it. Here are some pictures from the past few days...
In a few days time, '5 on the fifth' will return. Take 5 photographs on the days leading up to the 5th and publish those on your own blog and then add the link to my blog so that others can see your images. 
