A long time ago (well, 5 or 6 years ago anyway) corporate anthems were all the rage in the world of the internets. Back then I worked for a computer games company called Infogrames. Infogrames was quite a big company at the time with offices in France and New York and was responsible for games like Unreal Tournament and Alone in the Dark…our studio however was in sunny Sheffield so we were that little bit removed from the corporate side of things. I still remember the day when we all received the company email announcing with pride that we now had our very own corporate anthem to stir our proud souls. It was a very funny scene as a studio of hairy programmers and geeky artists listened in stunned silence to what follows, which I found thanks to the wonders of Facebook, just click the little arrow but be warned, it’s stirring stuff:
A couple of people tagged me to do this eight things meme and it’s been sitting unfinished in WordPress for weeks. I can’t remember the rules and I won’t tag anyone (I don’t think there’s anyone left to tag) but here’s eight random things about me:
1. Ever since I saw The Glenn Miller story when I was very young, I’ve been madly in love with Jimmy Stewart. If any of his films come on I just have to drop everything and watch him. I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve watched Harvey.
2. I spent a day as a bridal hairstyle model in Mexico in order to get some extra money. I was toe-curlingly awful at it and it still pains me to watch the video. I have heard that the videos were on sale all across South America at one point though so maybe I’m famous in Guatemala.
3. I’m terrified of anything that’s mouldy or rotting and my worst fear is to die of gangrene. Lovely eh? I think it might have come from hearing a story when I was very young about a friend’s aunt whose hand fell off while she was brushing her hair. I guess I was a little gullible.
4. I play the flute…at least I used to. I was a member of the Dublin Youth Orchestra when I was in school. I gave up because I would get such terrible stage fright.
5. I hate tea, coffee and alcohol and have never even had a drag of a cigarette. I’m such a rebel!
6. On the other hand, I used to be a bit of a tea-leaf. I remember shop-lifting for the first time when I can’t have been older than 7 or 8. I stopped abruptly when I was 12 and have never done it since…promise 🙂
7. I love playing online first-person shooters, in particular I’ve spent many an hour blasting away on Counter Strike, Soldier of Fortune and my favourite, Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. I get slagged about this hobby all the time but I don’t care. It’s escape and stress-relief all in one.
8. Hmm, last random fact…the first concert I went to (without parents…that doesn’t count because it was Wham! and that’s just not as cool) was U2’s Joshua Tree concert in the old Croke Park on the 27th of June 1987. I was 14 years old and I’m actually quite surprised I was allowed to go. I went with a group of friends but we got separated just before U2 came on and I spent the concert being protected by a big burly biker guy close to the front of the stage. It was probably the best concert of my life. The opening song was Where The Streets Have No Name, it starts off really quiet but as soon as the bass and drums kicked in the whole crowd erupted and started to jump up and down all together. I was so small I was lifted off my feet with them and it was terrifying and exhilarating all at the same time. Everytime I hear the opening bars I’m transported back.
This is the actual concert. I’m somewhere in that mass of bodies at the front right of the stage:
I had to double-check that I wasn’t reading The Onion when I saw this one. China has announced a new law banning Buddhist monks in Tibet from reincarnating without government permission. How does that even work? Do you get “deported” back if you’re caught?
According to a statement issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs, the law, which goes into effect next month and strictly stipulates the procedures by which one is to reincarnate, is “an important move to institutionalize management of reincarnation.”
I posted before about joining Bookmooch. Well, two months on and I still love it but one thing it hasn’t done is clear space on my bookshelf. The pile above is a portion of the books I have to read and doesn’t include a couple more that sit on my bedside table and there are more on the way! It’s just too much fun though, I love getting these book packages from all over the world and the little notes and postcards that come with them.
There is a housing estate linked to my road by a small opening in a wall. Around here it’s considered the “bad part” of town, as much as this town has one, possibly because it’s a council estate and compared to the leafy streets in other parts, this housing estate is a little rougher round the edges.
I love to go on long walks that bring me through both worlds, in fact I’m just back in the door from one now. It struck me this evening, like it always does that the streets in the supposedly safer areas are always completely deserted. As I walked along one of my favourite routes, past old Victorian houses hidden behind gates and tall bushes, the only person I saw was a woman retrieving her run-away dog. She caught him up and was struggling with the lock on her gate when I passed and she gave me a reluctant nod and a suspicious eye when I smiled at her.
The contrast when I reached the housing estate near my home couldn’t have been greater. Here the houses are crammed close together and the streets are so narrow the cars have to inch their way along through the space between all the parked cars. The place was heaving with activity. Children of all ages playing football, riding their bikes, sitting on the walls playing with dolls. Their parents and older brothers sitting on kitchen chairs out in front of their houses enjoying the sunshine and having a natter or doing a bit of work on their gardens or cars. As always happens when I walk through there I was greeted by everyone whose eye I caught, even the young kids playing football gave me a “Howaya.” One little girl ran along beside me as I walked and asked me “You have a little girl don’t ya miss?”
I love walking through this estate because it’s like I get to step back in time to what it was like in the housing estate where I grew up. One of the games I spotted being played was an old favourite we used to call Kerbs. Two people stand on opposite sides of the road and the object is to throw a ball so that it bounces off the edge of the opposite kerb. If it bounces all the way back to you you get 10 points…only half way and it’s 5. It gave me a jolt of reminiscence and I wanted to join them, just like when I walk through in the winter time and I get the smell of coal fires and mince dinners.
It’s the rough part of town and yet I always feel safe there.
