Hello there. :) I’m Steve, and I’ve always been a bit plain and simple really.
I don't drive, never went to uni, and have never drunk a glass of alcohol, so I guess I have yet to grow up. :)
Today however I’m an English teacher/radio ma Site statistics:Click here
I'm sorry, my subconscious mind is still busy. Please hold. 2006-03-07 19:00:00 I had a dream this morning...In the dream, I went out and about somewhere with about 6 girls, who snuck off when I wasn't looking. In a deserted street, I found a cordless telephone and its big old base unit sitting on a stone bollard, playing staticy classical hold music. I picked it up to take it to the police station.To get there, I took a short-cut through a stairwell in a block of flats, unsure whether it was private or not, but it came out on the platform of an underground train station.A smoking woman approached me and I was told she was going to sue me. I offered to shake her hand, but got no response, not even facially. She said someone (an old woman I think) had fallen down the stairs, as though my taking the shortcut had caused it. I asked her what time this had happened at. She answered "Five to Mash"I realised that I no longer had the cordless phone or its base unit, so I said I'd be right back as I had to go back and get something. She seemed to understand, and m Read more:sorry
, Please
Any Day Now... 2006-03-01 08:59:00 Flatmate Dave and I were over at Phil's the other night - projecting my New Zealand photos onto Phil's wall as a slideshow.So we got to the above one of me at the deserted train station at Matamata (where the Hobbiton set from Lord Of The Rings is) and I said my usual piece about how, despite the tracks, and millions of tourists, there haven't been any trains there for years. I was forgetting that Dave, of course, is a train enthusiast. "Oh yes there have," he blurted out. "There was one last year."
Doctor Who: Children In Need Special 2005 2006-02-27 08:59:00 "A telethon? I remember those!"Flatmate Dave's interest was piqued. We were about to watch the next episode of Doctor
Who, which happened to be a special 7 minute long episode that had been made exclusively for the BBC's annual Children
In Need telethon in the UK. I was quite pleased - were it not for the VHS that I'd been posted from England, Flatmate Dave would never have seen this. (unless he'd watched it on the internet)Terry Wogan's introduction - nice bit of continuity with the original series - he introduced The Five Doctors in 1983 don'tchaknow. After a budget-saving recap and opening credits, the episode turned-out to a real cheapie, featuring only the 2 regulars and set entirely inside the TARDIS. Read more:Special
Doctor Who: Bad Wolf / The Parting Of The Ways 2006-02-22 08:59:00 Babylon 5, The Prisoner, Quantum Leap, The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, Seinfeld, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine… these were all great shows, whose final episode served to embody the best of all the instalments that had gone before.How fitting then, that the final 2 editions of the first new Doctor
Who series, should proudly champion all the weakest aspects of this underaiming season. Part One: Bad WolfThe start of this silly penultimate episode was very good. For some reason, Flatmate Dave thought the recap on the start was a preview, so as usual he muted the sound while I looked away. This was a tremendous benefit to the opening. The Doctor had amnesia. He didn't know where or when he was, or how he had got there... and neither did I! That made it quite claustrophobic and sinister. He was trapped in a house. As he looks back and forth between the huge furniture, his housemates, and the door to the diary-room, the hilarious truth dawns - yes, he's locked in the Big Brothe
AuntieJoanandUncleEric 2006-02-18 08:59:00 I have no memory of my grandparents, so I don't know what it's like to have one. Gran/Grandpa is a toy that I never got for Christmas, and I've still no idea why all the other kids raved about it.People tell me that I've missed-out, but I don't feel that way, as I genuinely don't know what they're talking about.Throughout my life though, I've had a few aunts and uncles.The two stalwarts of that position would have to be AuntieJoanandUncleEric. I list them like that, because in our house it's always been said as just one long word.They lived in Luton, which when I was young, was an unimaginably long way away. They would represent one of my first instances of recognising people who I hadn't seen for a long time. From that perspective they contributed to my long memory, and the importance I place upon coming through on the promises I've made.One time they took us out around Whipsnade Park Zoo, where we also had a ride in a cable car. Hanging in a shaking cabin abo
Strange Light In The Sky Photographed Over Howick 2006-02-15 08:59:00 No, it's not a UFO, nor is it the sun, nor is it a flashbulb reflected in the window. This fiery orb is actually the moon photographed from our flat! Good luck Commander Koenig.And here's Auckland Central, as seen by Shane and myself while heading home from church cel-group tonight. Read more:Strange
, Photographed
Nothing To See Here 2006-02-08 08:59:00 Last Wednesday, after teaching English to Korean mate Chang-Hung, I was on my way home when I decided to take this photograph of myself in Grafton.As you can see, there was absolutely no terrorist activity behind me whatsoever. I first encountered the Auckland Sky Tower on March 7th 2004. I subsequently enjoyed a meal up in the revolving restaurant, and lived just next to it for 9 months. For someone with so little sense of sense of direction, it was a great landmark by which to find my way home.Even when I moved to Howick, I was still not quite free of its gaze, so to demonstrate this point, today I took this photo of it, next to the War Memorial at the top of Stockade Hill here in Howick.Found it yet? (click on the picture to enlarge) Read more:Nothing
Star Turn 2006-02-02 09:00:00 Tim downstairs recently told me a bit about his trip to the Solomon Islands a few years back. I asked him to write some of it up for this blog, and he was kind enough to do so. It's a fascinating 10-minute read, but if you're in a hurry, I've highlighted what I think is the most interesting bit in blue. Take it away Tim...Back in April 1997, I was travelling to the Honiara, Solomon Islands, with a team of 12 people from my church in Auckland, Howick Community Church, for a short term mission lasting a few weeks.The whole trip for us had many unknowns, like what we would be going to be doing the next day, or even where we were going to spend our first night in Honiara.We arrived in Honiara about 8:45pm, on a flight from Auckland via Port Vila, Vanuatu. It was about 28° even then, and the humidity was something that most of us weren't quite expecting, and a 737 load of people crammed into what felt like a small wooden building with two immigration counters, with no airconditioning w
Parachute 06 2006-02-02 08:59:00 Nearly 2 years ago someone gave me the fascinating book Brave, Mad And Memorable by Rob Harley.5 months later, I found myself at the Family Television Network in Warkworth, where they showed me the edition of Extreme Close-Up that the same author - Rob Harley - had presented about Trevor Yaxley.A few months after that, Phil Guyan of the Christian Broadcasting Association gave me a CD, which was presented by - you guessed it - Mr Harley again.Without elongating this story too much, I ran into this man's work again and again, ultimately editing tapes of his sermons for broadcast on national radio, and adapting another of his books - The Power To Go The Distance - for the same purpose.I always assumed that one day I would meet the man himself, so when I came across a seminar that he was giving at Parachute
this year, I took full advantage of the chance to shake his hand and say hello afterwards.Next, after part-attending two of Wayne Alcorn's seminars (and a bit of Phil Baker'
Doctor Who: Boom Town 2006-02-01 08:59:00 Sadly, the new series' weakest script yet.I shall skip the continued forcing of American Jack Harkness into a story with no part for him, and begin with the good stuff. I liked seeing Cardiff, and I liked seeing the 4 of them charging around it. Great fun. I particularly liked spotting the electronic read-out board on the platform of Cardiff Station. I haven't seen one of those for a while. The 4 of them striding fearlessly into the town hall without a plan was quite fun too. And the dramatic mind-games of Margaret Blaine's final meal, by which I mean the dialogue. That was good. However… First off, a recap on what didn't work earlier - we are asked to continue to believe that the female Slitheen still has the same voice as the woman whose body she later took over, and that the rotted skin she wears, including eyeballs, mouth etc. is still fresh and sweet-smelling after 6 months. Second, we're asked to believe that she survived being blown-up. Okay, but we could easily Read more:Doctor
That Friday Lack-of-feeling 2006-01-28 08:59:00 Last night, I repeatedly woke up with numb arms. At one point, I woke up to find both arms numb. This is exactly why I do sit-ups.I dreamt I was being attacked in a school playground, and successfully defended myself.Yesterday I passed the car numberplate HIDEHI. Today I passed one that said HIDEHO. I wonder if they're related?Today I also went bowling in Botany with some Chinese friends:Handy my arms were back on. Read more:Friday
City Lights 2006 2006-01-27 08:59:00 City Lights
is a 4-day project sending teams of Christians out to do community-work around Auckland, New Zealand.I got assigned to a team renovating a safe-house for ex-teenage prostitutes.The first day was a bit of a nightmare, as after church last night, I'd got absolutely no sleep, and had had to get 3 early buses into YWAM without knowing what I would spend the day doing with complete strangers. Oh, and it turned out I spent it labouring - heaving overgrown bushes out of the earth.Here we all are gelling as a team on our first day.Don't sand so, don't sand so, don't sand so close to me.Clean comedian Cameron Blair presenting the project video.Trent vacuuming where I would subsequently paint.The garden. (There were many more people than me that did this!) It was by turns hot, and drenching.It must be said, that first day also summed up just what was so great about this project. Every day I got up, heard a brilliant speaker (Mick Duncan), met a heap of friends, helped peopl
Guidelines September-December 2004 2006-01-22 08:59:00 Some people read the Bible every day. I don't do that.Generally, I've found that imposing a sweeping blanket rule on the future, regardless of variables, is to make a decision without being in posession of more facts. There may be days when you actually don't have the time. "Oh but you should always make time" people may protest. Sure - but there's a difference between making time for reading the Bible, and making time for reading the Bible every single day regardless of what God may have planned instead. That, believe it or not, is idolatry.When I was a teenager, I used to begin each day with a single-sentence prayer. Over the years I added so much onto it, that it became about 20 minutes long. I just couldn't focus on the day at hand until it was out of the way. And it had become a major hassle that I didn't want to do. But I had to get it out of the way before bedtime, because then I had my evening prayer I had to say, about many of the same things. Talk Read more:Guidelines
, September
, December
Doctor Who: The Christmas Invasion 2006-03-06 08:59:00 Well, one has to wonder just what the Doctor
Who Programme Guides of the future will have to say about this one…The newly-regenerated Doctor collapses in front of Rose, Jackie and Mickey, who are all uninterested in the outcome of the Dalek invasion. Rose has forgotten that the Doctor has just claimed to have "given his life" for her. They all decide the best thing to do is to haul his unconscious body away from the TARDIS and up several flights of stairs, before undressing him and forcing him into a pair of pyjamas.Rose cries that "her" Doctor has left her, which of course serves her right.Meanwhile, the alien Sycorax know the Doctor is on Earth, so they send three spies dressed as Santa Claus to play in a brass band, and shoot at Rose and Mickey with their trombones. When this fails, they decide to attack them at their flat, by hiding a large Christmas
Tree in their living-room and waiting a few hours until they have noticed it, whereupon it starts furiously spinning towards th Read more:Invasion
Doctor Who: Season 27 Trailers 2006-03-10 02:01:00 Traditionally, trailers have always come before the movie.I prefer to watch them afterwards, to avoid having the plot given away. I want to experience being told the story as the writer/director originally intended.To that end, today, courtesy of TV-Ark, I sat down and watched the BBC-1 trailers for the season of Doctor
Who that I have just finished watching.Surprisingly, this actually included "new" footage that had not been in the show. Read more:Season
, Trailers
Everyone in this picture is now dead 2006-03-21 08:59:00 Well this blog doesn't get much more trivial than this. Here are some ants in our kitchen eating poison and taking it back to the nest for their queen. This is about as cruel as I get.Expecting nightmares in which they all come back, forgive me, and offer me milkshakes.
Church Search 2006-03-13 08:59:00 On 25th July 2004, I joined a new church.
I'd just arrived in NZ, and I didn't want to spend the next couple of months trying a different church every week. I figured that I needed to put some roots down and make a few friends, and that meant picking a church and sticking with it.
A chance meeting on a Christian weekend back in the UK had furnished me with the contact details of just this one church in the area, which just happened to be within walking distance of where I was staying. So that first Sunday afternoon I'd strode up and down across town (this was Auckland after all) and crept into the service.
It was one of those slightly embarrassing "youthy" churches, complete with rock band, but I got with the local culture and was sorry that I had to leave early to go see a Buster Keaton movie at the current Auckland Film Festival. I particularly liked that one of their self-professed aims was "to build whanau" (family)
Over the coming months I went on their teaching Read more:Search
, Church
Now I Know What Made All This Blue 2006-03-22 08:59:00 Dropped into ACB this evening to find that Lionel had posted his spare phonecard and NZ stamps back from the UK to me. Also waiting for me was a Burger Fuel voucher and a very long bank statement from ANZ, making up for the many that they have still not sent to my new address.
Afterwards, it was off to Chris Riding's place - bizarrely the same building where I had tried (unsuccessfully) to get a room in June last year.
Chris, as well as being incredibly patient, (it took me over an hour to locate his house again) is an html genius, and was kindly tweaking this very blog from green to blue for me. I have made other odd textual changes myself between these two screengrabs, but see what you think:
Green's a nice colour, but I think white and blue are more "me" I like white clothes because they get so many good references in the Bible, and blue is just a very simple relaxed colour, like the sea and the sky.
Chris also has a beautiful view from the road outside his h
Doctor Who: Season 27 Trailers And Review 2006-03-10 02:01:00 Traditionally, trailers have always come before the movie.
I prefer to watch them afterwards, to avoid having the plot given away. I want to experience being told the story as the writer/director originally intended.
To that end, today, courtesy of TV-Ark, I sat down and watched the BBC-1 trailers for the season of Doctor
Who that I have just finished watching.
Surprisingly, this actually included "new" footage that had not been in the show.
There was an oft-repeated generic shot of Christopher Eccleston's Doctor being chased down a corridor by an explosion.
There were ITV-esque shots of the Doctor and Rose standing like statues in the TARDIS, posing at the camera and saying nothing.
We also had other shots of them both talking to camera, in character, inviting the potential audience to come with them on "the ride of a lifetime"
It all gave me a curious sense of optimism. I remembered this feeling from before I had watched the episodes - when everyone and his d Read more:Season
, Trailers
Night Work 2006-03-23 10:53:00 Finally got an early night tonight, for the first time in absolutely ages.
Then at half-past-midnight my mobile phone rang.
Calls in the middle of the night tend to carry with them an air of urgency. When you live on the other side of the world, it stands to reason that the call maybe from someone at home, where it is daytime. Could be important. Blearily I answered.
It was my flatmate, standing a mere 3 metres away in the corridor.
"Steve - I've just bought a sofa, so I need you to come out to the street and help me to carry it in" Read more:Night
!rotinaJ 2006-03-24 12:29:00 Patrick Casey, he of Hope City Radio fame, can currently be seen on ALT TV circa 18:15 on Friday nights playing a comedy sketch as Murray The Geek.Anyway tonight I popped-in to see him just before the show, only to be introduced to ALT's President Of Programming Thane Kirby who, with just 30 seconds to air, suddenly press-ganged me into playing a comedy janitor on the live show.My appearance was barely fleeting. I stood there with a vacuum cleaner and, as comedically as possible, ducked out of the way, as the presenters of their flagship Action News programme swept past me in the corridor, followed by a camera, and into the studio.And that was it, over.Giving me an appearance that was so brief and silent was probably a wise move however, if my edition of That Friday Feeling on Hope City Radio later that night was anything to go by.The theme of this week's show was backwards. So I had reversed the usual playlist order, put the introduction at the end of the show, read all the vers
The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy - TV Series DVD 2006-04-03 08:59:00 I don't like DVDs.More specifically, I don't like all the extras that come with them.I mean - imagine you've just seen the most amazing mind-blowing film of your entire life. You've just lived in this other world, you've just been this other person, you've fought the odds, felt the feelings, laughed, cried and found a new way of living. And then the closing credits roll and you sit there actually missing the characters that you've spent the past couple of hours with.What's the first thing you do?That's right - watch it all again, only with the director and actors pointing out all the mistakes.(sigh…)I suppose it's a bit like watching a magic trick and then immediately being shown how it was done. "Oh but I like to know how tricks are done," people will protest, people who have no magic in their lives.Anyway, at a loose end tonight I found flatmate Dave's DVD copy of the TV series The Hitchhiker
's Guide
To The Galaxy
and decided not to watch it.I mean
Bad Fowl 2006-04-03 08:59:00 After we'd attended St Columba Church in Botany the other morning, Flatmate Dave was kind enough to buy me a chicken sandwich for lunch.
So after thanking him, I rather rudely put it on the top shelf of the fridge to eat the following day.
But the following day, the chicken had gone off. And so had the beef I'd bought on Saturday. In fact it was all getting a bit room-temperature in there.
Do you know why? Yes, every time we'd closed the door, the little light in the top, immediately above my chicken sandwich, had been staying switched on.
Yes, our fridge had officially become a cooker.
Doctor Who And The Schedulers Of Pain 2006-03-27 09:59:00 *** If you're not a Doctor
Who fan, then please don't bother reading this. Really - save yourself. ***Well, I've just spent the last half an hour reading up on New Zealand's long history of screening Doctor Who. Apparently they showed the very first episode less than a year after the UK did, in 1964! Not only that, several missing episodes were recovered here (including the last one that I watched with my dad - The Lion), and it was a New Zealander who used to cine-film clips of the show off the telly, saving what is now the world's only known copy of, among other things, the start of the very first regeneration scene. And that caring really is the difference between viewers and stations, as the next 20-years showed a dogged commitment by NZ's broadcasters to what I call LWT (London Weekend Television) principles. I couldn't possibly list the whole lot of broadcasting atrocities here, but the most unbelieeeeevable instance would have to be the incredible 5-year break in tra
BACK IN TIME - A Thinking Fan's Guide to Doctor Who 2006-03-26 09:59:00 Q. What's even more embarrassing than being a Christian? A. Being a Doctor
Who fan too.I of course am both, and have been both since about 1982.Growing up feeling sleighted for both of these allegiances inevitably led to some sense of insecurity, so how relieving that Steve Couch, Tony Watkins and Peter S Williams have at last written a book about both subjects together. Read more:Guide
Never Drink Two 2007-10-15 01:59:00 Despite having never been a drinker, tonight I was pleased to have contributed in some small way to Cession Church's 80s trivia quiz, part of a service on alcohol... Read more:Drink
Recommend Site To A Friend
