Chicago Bound
by John Walker on Jun.15, 2006, under The Rest
So kiddoes, I’m off.
I’ll be on email throughout the next two weeks, but not on the phone.
I’m off on my ho-ho-holidays!
Talk to you from the other side (of the ocean).
F***ball Hideout
by John Walker on Jun.09, 2006, under The Rest
First of all, yes, it is VERY funny that the title makes it look like I’ve invented a new sport of competitive doing sex. But there are teenagers reading, and they’ve never heard of “sex”, so it’s important we all smile inwardly and do our own jokes about “scoring” and “golden goals” in private.
More importantly: it’s started, which means there’s no escape.
So look, the best thing for all of us to do is gather together here, in this paragraph, and huddle for warmth. If we look after each other we can get through this with as few casualties as possible. Obviously some people have to be killed for entertainment purposes.
I also suggest climbing to the tops of hills or towers. It has been my experience this week that these are ideal locations for avoiding mention of it all. You don’t have to climb to the tops of the same hills or towers I did, but you do have to climb to the top of a hill or tower or you’ll get stabbed to death. Those are the rules.
My plans for hiding include going all the way to America to preside over my kingdom once more, which will be happening next Thursday. It happens that I hid in Chicago four years ago at this time, and I shall do the same once more. If you live in Chicago and bump into me while I’m there, please could you do me a small favour and not ask me every thirteen seconds if I’m missing the f***ball, or if I want to know how “England” are doing. The last part is bad grammar, if nothing else. England is not a plural noun. Also, only 11 or 15 or 34 or whatever people are playing, not 59 million. I don’t point this out only to be smug, but also to say that really it should be the case, like war, but even children and old people are forced to play too, so all 59 million people are on the pitch at once. It may seem impractical for some reason you’ve concocted with your pessimism, but think about it properly: there wouldn’t be any hooligans hanging around outside causing trouble, eh? See. Exactly.
In other news, I’ve been rather overwhelmed by the number of emails and instant messages and physical assaults in alleyways I’ve received over there not being any Brian’s Guide for a bit. Not very many people look at it, but it seems that all that do are very dedicated. I’m sorry it’s not been happening lately – there are two reasons: 1) It requires me to get around to doing it, and 2) My tablet pen is broken and it’s really annoying to draw with. I’m about ready to start it up again, but I’m not sure it would be a great idea to do it now, as I’m in America next week, and then off somewhere else as soon as I get back, and not around really until July. So then, ok. Brian’s back in July. And if I don’t keep my word then you have my full permission to put a bundle of £10 notes into an envelope and post them right to my house.
Please start your bets for how long it will be before I post a reworked version of my Why The George’s Cross Is Awful post in rage and fury.
And finally, my new camera arrived today, and at my own suggestion pointed out to me by someone else, it would seem appropriate that my previous camera, broken beyond being of use to anyone, be destroyed in the most entertaining fashion imaginable, and this moment captured in photographic form on my new camera. It turns out this idea isn’t as mad and out-of-here-kerazee as it first sounds. It turns out that before cameras had been tamed and domesticated, this was the process by which older wild cameras would pass on the responsibilities of the herd to the young. So, suggestions please.
What DO those people do at Christmas?
by John Walker on Jun.09, 2006, under The Rest
I was reminded of this clip for one reason or another, and so dug it out.
It’s worth an airing. From an episode of Radio 4’s Heresy – a David Baddiel-fronted comedy discussion programme, where received opinions are challenged. It was December 2004, and the panel including Victoria Cohen and Armando Iannucci were discussing the received opinion that Christmas is too commercialised. Baddiel turns to the audience for someone supporting the position, and, well listen.
What is most terrifying is – well, what she says, but also – not the woman’s being completely oblivious to the bedlam she’s creating, but that she’s laughing along with everyone without knowing what she’s laughing at.
Adventure #3: Brown’s Folly
by John Walker on Jun.08, 2006, under Photos
If there’s one place I haven’t wasted, it’s Brown’s Folly. It’s my favourite place in the area, and I’ve taken everyone I can to visit. But every single time forgotten to take a camera and torch. Well this time I sure did take a camera – my crappy old senile useless one, and it lived up to its reputation. So excuse the photographs – they are the best the mad old bucket could manage. I forgot to bring a torch. New Camera is in the post. There are exciting plans for Old Camera. But tonight was its swansong, and it arsed it up royally.
I discovered Brown’s Folly early on during my time living in Winsley. I had been chatting with the fantastic vicar of the church I had worked for, preparing for some work for an essay, and he had given me some of the history of the village. That evening I decided to have a drive around, still having a car back then, to explore a bit more. I drove through Conkwell, purely because the name makes me laugh, and discovered that Conkwell is the sort of place you know you’ve been through by discovering you’re not in it any more. I think it’s a single farm and some trees. My meandering about led me all over for a good while, and then eventually to a tiny narrow road leading up an incredibly steep hill. I think I still had my Micra back then, which was barely capable of going along flat roads, let alone this astonishing climb. Forget all the hills I’ve mentioned in the last couple of days – this one is the mightiest of them all. ROARING up in first gear the tin machine finally made it, and I noticed that on the right there was a dirt carpark and signs of some manner of paths to walk. I made a mental note to come back during daylight.
A few weeks later, with a pleasingly spare afternoon, I drove myself to it once more, which is quite an achievement in itself for someone with my total lack of sense. The area is on Farleigh Rise (nowhere near Farleigh Hungerford, I should add), just above Bathford. I had no idea what it might offer, and I could not have been more rewarded.
Since I have been at least ten times, taking all who dare venture near to show them the fantastic series of bizarre delights it has to offer, in all weathers. And never remembered a camera because I am a massive idiot. But I’ve been there in the snow (New Year’s Morning) and in the rain in Spring and in the crunchy Autumn, and most of all, in the blazing sunshine. Tonight was the latter.
Driven by the lovely Jo, we followed the usual path from the carpark to pass everything in the order I first discovered it. And by discovered it, I mean: walked along the pre-made path following the nature trail signs. The very first thing is to walk through the woods, which is always a fantastic way to spend time, but rarely better than when discovering a quick nip from the main path (to the left, preferably – to the right is a terrifying drop to your grizzly death) reveals the existence of caves! CAVES! The area was one of innumerous sites around Bath used as a quarry for mining Bathstone, and it turns out has quite elaborate and accessible mines below.
The caves are supposed to be protected with locked metal fences across their entrances, apart from the one above which has no tunnels. However, gates are either broken or entirely missing, and some swinging freely with no locks. More peculiar is one cave which can be climbed inside has a sign on the inside telling you about the various species of bats that live in them. These excellent inhabitants give Brown’s Folly the status of a Special Site of Scientific Interest.
There are a number of caves dotted along the route through the wood, which eventually ends in a gleaming gap of sunlight.
When I was a teenager I went on a number of week-long hikes with friends in various hilly areas, generally dragging along at the back and complaining that my legs hurt. And we encountered a lot of kissing gates, at which it is of course traditional to kiss whomsoever you might be with. Being all boys, and not enamoured by the idea of kissing one another, we invented the sub-tradition of kissing the gate itself. It’s something I’ve carried with me ever since, and something that reminds me to email Greg back – sorry if you’re reading – and find myself feeling obliged to kiss the unpleasant tasting metal of every kissing gate I pass.
Going through this kissing gate (American readers see here) takes you out into what I’ve always thought of as Teletubby Land. The switch from woods to rolling hills is peculiarly immediate, with the most incredibly breathtaking view on your right.
The brilliant plan by Jo and me was to have a barbecue on the hills, so with a disposable tray bbq and carrier bag of meat and bread we sat in front of the incredible vista and cooked. Tummies sated the third and final stage of Brown’s Folly was next. The folly itself.
The first time I visited I was already incredibly pleased to have found somewhere so very gorgeous, and so very interesting. So when walking up the steep path to see what was higher up and seeing this:
I was a little surprised.
(I love that in this picture it looks as though the tower roams silently through the woods, sliding up behind people and then probably frying them with its evil laser).
The tower was built by the owner of the local quarry, Wade Brown, in 1848. As with any folly, it serves no purpose at all, and in this case was built by Brown to provide work for people during a time of depression. It was then renovated in 1907 by Sir Charles Hobhouse who then owned the estate, who apparently used it as a hunting lodge. None of this information can be gleaned at the folly itself – it’s an utterly anonymous building. And I like that about it. It seems fitting for its purposeless existence to be left unexplained to those who might stumble upon it.
The walls are blank (but for the small stone engraving reading “WB 1848 / CH 1907”) from ground to the very top (perhaps 40ft high) where there are four windows, but for a door. When I first visited the door was shut, with apparently no means of opening it. Rusted metal, it has extra blocks and bars all over its edges, and while there’s a pull handle, it appears to be on the same side as what look like the hinges. I pushed and pulled, shoulder-barged and rattled, but it seemed quite stuck. And then, not really knowing why, I gave it a firm kick (it’s a tough metal door, not fragile at all – a kick was not going to worry it) and it burst open. The hinges were on the opposite side, and the pull handle meant for pushing. (The door is fine, by the way. It is simply slightly bigger than its own frame and wedges. Pulling it shut again renders it equally stuck).
Inside the floor is covered by the broken remains of what must have once been the platform near the top, cages that once blocked the windows, ragged blue tarp, and a few dozen empty lager cans. It’s a sad state. Looking up is far more rewarding, however, as you see the stone steps that are mounted in the walls themselves, and not held up by any other means.
Looking like they were designed by David Bowie’s goblin minions, they are in a bad state, crumbling threateningly and without handrails for most the way up. But that wasn’t enough to stop me then, and it’s not enough to stop me now. How could anyone resist? Climbing up is terrifying, not being sure if the steps will hold, and with nothing to balance yourself. I’m not sure why I should suddenly feel so imbalanced when stood on a two foot wide step, simply because it’s thirty feet high. I don’t suddenly lurch sideways during the majority of my life, so it seems strange that I should feel so wobbly in such circumstance. But it’s worth it. As mentioned, the viewing platform is at the bottom of the tower in pieces, with only two steel girders remaining besides the steps. But the walls are at least foot and a half thick, and the window sill makes a surprisingly safe-feeling ledge to rest on.
The view from the top is absolutely wonderful, and the tower itself is intricately beautiful.
The folly is very magical, if somewhat dilapidated. Exploring the bricks around the ground level reveals stone-carved graffiti dating back to the 19th century, and all the way up until, well, the time I took my youth group there and they added their own with surrounding chalk. It would be a shame to see it restored, as its decay is beautiful, but it would be nice to see it at least cared for. It’s hard to wish too hard for that though, because any attention would surely lead to its being sealed off as the enormously dangerous safety hazard it clearly is, or worse, “fixed” until it became a plexiglassed monstrosity of tourism hell.
So here’s my campain: Don’t Save Brown’s Folly.
I made my way back down to where Jo was staring at the view from the hillside. It had produced a sunset, creating a fitting end for the third adventure.
Adventure #2: Avoncliff to Farleigh Hungerford
by John Walker on Jun.07, 2006, under The Rest
As I mentioned, when living in Winsley I wasted a lot of opportunities. Winsley’s an odd place. It’s about a mile square, and now that I’ve left it has no residents between the age of 18 and 40. It’s the sort of place parents think would be a good place to raise children, but children go out of their mind with crazed boredom – beautiful hills and open fields, rivers running through gardens, and even the modern estate a friendly and quiet area. (It has a secret poor area hidden behind some walls but no one talks about that). With one shop and half a pub, it really should be lived in by only retirees, and it wouldn’t take much for that to be the case. But there are worse places to live, and having worked for three years with the teenagers who live there, I’m aware it produces good people.
I think my failure to explore it properly boils down to being very lonely while I lived there. Increasing my sense of isolation by standing in the middle of an empty field wasn’t all that enticing when I was already going stir-crazy for company in the middle of the populated area. When friends came to stay it all changed, and I would excitedly drag them down tiny stone passageways to show the beautiful countryside, and occasionally make the downhill treck to the nearby Avoncliff to get food at the restaurant down there, and have them smell the World’s Most Disgusting Smelling River.
This is the canal. No the water’s not going up hill, just an odd-angled photo. Like I said, Escher.
Avoncliff, despite the wretched fumes mysteriously belching out of the water, is extremely pretty. It has a low river running alongside the railway, and then fantastically an aqueduct carrying the canal over the river and traintracks. This leads to the creation of an Escher-like bridge confusion where to get to the railway platform from the other side of the canal and river involves going down and under the canal, up the other side, then across the bridge, and then back down again.
And so it was yesterday I decided I wanted to visit a castle. Looking at those nearby I saw that Farleigh Hungerford Castle was only 2 miles walk from Avoncliff, and the train stops at Avoncliff if you ask nicely. Seriously. When you get on you have to ask the conductor to stop the train there, and he lets you out his narrow door at the front, onto what I heard someone else say was the smallest train platform in England. To catch a train from there, as I later would, you must hold out your arm and flag it down. A very strange feeling. People should have been waving me off with hankies.
It was no easy journey. Fifteen minutes from my flat I realised I’d not brought my wallet, and so had to go all the way back. Weaker men would have been defeated by a half hour’s setback, but not me. I continued on to Waterstones to buy an OS map of the area. While the castle was meant to be only two miles from the station, nowhere said which two miles, and all internet maps ran out of detail once you zoomed that far in to that remote a place, and as has been recently established, with no sense of direction there’d be little hope for me to simply guess. Well, as it turns out, Farleigh Hungerford exists on the meeting point of three different OS grids, and manages the impressive feat of apparently featuring in none of them. I was going in blind. Feel the foreboding air.
An abortive attempt at buying a new camera filled in the time before getting to Bath Spa train station, so once more the accompanying pictures are taken on my increasingly senile old box, which is not only reluctant to give up its contents to the computer, but also seems to enjoy a spot of splattering splodges of colour into darker areas, and then going incredibly super-bright for no reason. A new one has been bought from Mr Internet, and this post is tributed to the life of my seven year old camera. May you smash to bits satisfyingly.
Let out onto Avoncliff’s teeny platform I made straight for the restaurant/pub to ask for directions. Inevitably the locals would have four or five parties a day popping in for FH Castle directions, so they’d roll their eyes and once more spell out the route. “I’m sorry, I’m from Yorkshire,” said the middle aged barman, in a tone that seemed to imply he believed he was currently in Yorkshire, and it was quite mad of me to have asked for directions for somewhere as far away as the South West of England. I spied a map of the local area on the bar and unfolded it.
Well there we go then. I feel like I’m already there, so vivid is the marked route!
That’s right – Farleigh Hungerford Castle is, it appears, illegal to mark on a map. Don’t believe me – follow the link to “View Map” on the Castle Explorer site.
A man sat at the bar – nay, at one with the bar – said he could give me directions. Then he sucked long and hard at his teeth, looking up as if picturing an outside world he’d not seen in years, and held an arm out confidently. And then swang it around by 180 degrees. Eventually settling somewhere between the two he entirely failed to give me directions for how to get out of the pub garden (I wish I were kidding), and boldy sent me off with instructions that would have had me walk straight into the river and then back to Bath.
Taking matters into my own hands I chanced upon a mounted sign ten yards away from the pub. I forgot to photograph it, so you’ll have to believe me when I tell you it featured the slightest hint of anything south, but did, once more, assure me that the castle existed. Just not how to get there. But from my fifteen seconds of research before I left, I remembered my hastily scrawled note telling me to try to go through Westwood, and Westwood featured. Not, I should add, anywhere near where the map above pretends it is. The sign gave one stern warning about all who chose to head to Westwood: “Steep hill” it declared in black text in the remote blank green at the bottom, much as a fearful explorer might have marked his map “Here Be Dragons”, before hurriedly sailing home.
A steep hill held no fear for me. I’d gone 200 yards behind my house not 12 hours ago! (It was not 12 hours ago. It was 18). I impressively clomped my way up what was indeed a steep hill, but it was a very sunny day, the trees were very green and the sky very blue, and it was a pleasure. And then as quick as you like (unless you like something unreasonably quick) I was in Westwood. (Appropriately only surly white people with too much money live in Westwood, but fortunately none of them seem to think themselves gangsta rappers). From here I must need only find a signpost and head down the next hill, and I would surely be in Farleigh Hungerford. There are no signs in Westwood.
That’s not quite true – there is a sign back to Avoncliff. But that’s the only one. And there were no people to ask. So given two choices I chose the one that felt the most like carrying on in the same direction and set off once more.
So remember that bit before about not having a sense of direction? After about half an hour I began to think something had gone wrong. I had walked for a long way down a long road with no signs at all. It was very pretty, and there was some manner of town in the distance, but it didn’t look the sort to contain a castle, and my feet were beginning to hurt in my rubbish shoes. It’s horrible to turn back and walk the way you came, but it was that or go all the way around the entire world on this endless road, so back I went.
Fortunately bunny rabbits kept me company on my march of failure.
Reaching Westwood almost an hour after my last visit I found it to now be a bit more populated, with a whole one person walking her dogs. She told me to head in the very opposite direction to that which my amazing instincts had chosen, and to keep going until I reached a road, cross it and go past a church, and then it was just past there. Hurrah! Off I went, feet a bit sore, but with a goal. It was getting a bit mid in the afternoon, but it was just down the road and past the church.
The lady really wasn’t kidding about the path taking me to a church. It deposited me neatly at its front entrance. It was a tiny and beautiful building, reasonably plain and then suddenly enormously elaborate at the top of its tower. I poked my head inside, and an eight hundred year old man sat in the entrance looked up and said hello. He invited me in to have a look around, and I had a quick peek. It was archaic, but clearly still in use, probably for a congregation as old as its bricks. The walls were covered in plaques and signs and wooden shapes with dedications to parishoners who had died, suggesting that a lot of people had been very loved in there. I obligingly dropped a coin into a box appearing to be collecting money for recovering the cushions, or some equally vital evangelistic exercise, and then the extremely kindly octo-centurian told me the next stage of my journey. I was to go through the graveyard, turn right, and follow the road. It would soon take me to the castle.
Now my legs were aching a bit. They hadn’t done much more than half an hour’s walk for a bit too long. And now they were getting close to another half hour’s along this road. I was sure the friendly church warden had told me it wasn’t very far. The road widened to acommodate a few houses and I stopped to ask a lady who was piling children into her car. She told me that I now needed to go down this road, go down the hill, and then up the other side, and it was on the right. It was as if each person were posted at positions along the route to give their specific share of the directions. None must know the whole route – they might mark it on a map!
By this point my feet were throbbing, feeling swollen in my crappy walking shoes, and there was a fair ache setting into my legs. To be expected for being as lazy as me, but I couldn’t help remember that I’d be reversing this route (bar the detour) in a short while. And it was uphill on the way back. I was never more aware of this than when descending the crazy-steep slope before groaning up the other side. I could see the castle! I had made it!
Fifteen minutes before it closed.
So there was time for an ice cream, but certainly not time to spend £3.50 on a ticket to have a proper explore. But I did not let my seeming failure bring me down. I was there – I had made it, against the wishes of the evil cartel of cartographers, against the desires of extremely lost Yorkshiremen, and against the evil scheming plans of Britain’s useless signpost manufacturors. A return visit must be had (preferably by helicopter) to explore the crypt containing “portrait coffins”, and to go inside the crumbling towers.
Just in case you think I’m exaggerating about this map business, here is the map included on the castle’s own pamphlet:
Not only is the castle marked as bigger than a city, but the it’s got BATH ABOVE BRISTOL! What in the name of unholy cartography is going on?!
So I’d love to tell you all about it, but I’d only be repeating what’s on the website, as I’ve absolutely no idea. I subtly hinted to the main at the ticket counter that with only 15 minutes to go, charging me for a micro-peek beyond the main pathway wouldn’t be entirely necessary. He told me what time they open in the morning, the horrid tight-arse ponytailed meanface.
So I defiantly took photographs from the public right of way the carved its way through the very middle of the fort. That showed him.
Sat on a decaying bench outside the grounds I rested my weary legs for the whole five minutes I could spare, noticing that the hourly train left in one hour. It was hotfoot (literally) it back there and then, or have most of an hour to wait. Back I went. Without getting lost once. But OH MY GOODNESS it hurt. And hurt and hurt. My useless shoes have left my feet as only stubs, and my usless legs are still moaning and complaining about any movement. I’m such a colossal wimp.
But not colossal enough that I’m defeated. Oh no. This very night I’m off once more, to finally document Brown’s Folly – my favourite find in the whole area, and finally remember to take a camera with me.
Adventure #1: 200 Yards Behind My House
by John Walker on Jun.07, 2006, under Photos
One of the more stupid things I ever did was live in the tiny village of Winsley for two years and never explore it properly. It was partly because my social life existed in Bath, so spare time was spent there, and partly because I’m stupid. Before I moved away I decided to walk around the area I’d only given cursory exploration, and discovered a little too late that I lived somewhere exquisitely beautiful.
Since moving into Bath I’ve never taken it for granted. I walk the ten minutes into town most days, and never fail to enjoy the architecture, the peculiar alcoves and stone passageways that mysteriously cut narrow ways through the walls, and the fantastic skyline of spires and steeples against whatever colour the sky may be that day. However, true to form, I have been here two years and entirely ignored whatever may lay behind me.
One of my favourite things to read are Rev Stu’s travel pieces. Obviously he writes extremely engagingly – there’s a reason he’s the man half the games writing industry have made their careers by copying – and in these pieces there’s a far more personal touch, despite the infuriating impersonal pronouns throughout. And like so much of what I do in my life, I find myself lamely copying him, but on a far smaller scale. So here is the first of this week’s three adventures.
Nothing is so intrepid as walking 200 yards behind where you live, so that’s where my journey took me. The thing is, the 200 yards behind me are near-vertical. The hill on which I live begins relatively steeply, but keep going past my flat, around the corner, and it looks more like a wall than a road. I have lamented the incline when visiting the local GP atop its first peak, but on this particular clement evening my plan was to keep on going up until I ran out of up to go on.
The aim was to secure the very best view of Bath imaginable, the collection of gleamingly white and beige buildings sitting conveniently in the bowl of a valley. So with camera out, I tromped up the hill with a vigour in my step, snapping photographs in front and behind.
A streak of tiny pink came rushing toward me from uphill in the form of a seemingly unaccompanied, entirely naked two year old boy. Two thoughts: 1) if this kid is lost and scared, what on earth would I look like helping a naked toddler in the middle of the street. 2) I’m holding a camera and now surely only seconds away from prison. My camera hastily shoved in a pocket to ensure no onlookers mistook me for some manner of documentary paedophile, I was relieved to see an entirely clothed mother come around the corner trying to retrieve her escapee. Awkward smiles were exchanged, the tiny streaker’s broad grin given a friendly hello, and I continued on my way unarrested.
I have no sense of direction. I don’t mean: I have a bad sense of direction, and often make mistakes. I mean: I have no sense of direction, like deaf people have no hearing and dead people have no pulse. I’m not being self-effacing. I’m not exaggerating for comic effect. Look, what’s wrong with you, why can’t you just accept it? I have none. As if the region of the brain responsible for it were entirely missing. When new to Bath I once walked for fifteen minutes in a straight line and finished back where I started. That was scary in the extreme. Although I still suspect the town of some sort of Dark City shenanigans.
So this means any unaccompanied journey for me is fraught with possibilities. I’ll set off in a direction, not really sure which, and then attempt to remember any landmarks I might walk past in the hope of ever coming home again. Deciding I wanted to make what would be a very short walk a bit longer, I turned right instead of left once as high as I could get, and managed to walk in what would have appeared to onlookers as a calculated and ingenius circle. Unless they were close enough to hear me mumble, “This road just seems to keep going down, and in the wrong direction,” followed by, “I’m going to have to head back soon because this is getting silly,” and then finally, “How the HELL am I HERE again?!”
So that achieved and some exercise performed, I plodded off the other way to get some views.
Bath is endlessly beautiful, and utterly peculiar. Turning corners reveals constant surprises, and the hill behind my house held plenty. There are no patterns to the architecture, other than the presiding rule that only Bathstone may be used, and no red bricks at all. So a road can contain something like this:
And then this:
Next door to this:
And then you turn right and see this:
However, as nice a place as it may seem, it’s not safe for graffiti MANIACS.
More views were snapped from the vantage point of a seemingly three foot high wall, but of course walls on near-vertical hills don’t stay three foot on both sides, revealing a good twenty foot drop the other side. But it looked pretty.
And then excellently, in my usual fashion, I decided to trudge in a random direction to see where it took me, to find that it took me to exactly where I’d started, only realised when I recognised the same grafitti on a gate. I am dumb. But also lucky. This is where I get to live.
Making Boobies Better: Epilogue
by John Walker on Jun.05, 2006, under The Rest
As you’ll have been unable to miss, there’s been a big pink button on the right of this blog (or somewhere scattered at random below your keyboard if you’re still so deeply and twistedly stupid as to still use Internet Explorer) for the last few months, promoting Kim’s fundraising for the Avon Walk for Breast Cancer.
And if you follow the link now (and add on another $700 that’s come in), you’ll see that the amazing $10,000 has been reached!
Kim did the walk yesterday, and is now complaining loudly to any who come near about the aches and pains in her legs.
You can see them for yourself:
So huge-o-congratulations to Kim for not only walking too far for a single day, but also managing to raise such a flipping huge pile of money. Kim – you are a star.
And also giant-o-thanks to everyone reading here who donated money toward the fundraiser of someone you probably don’t even know. It was incredible of you.
If you weren’t incredible, but would still like to be, obviously the more the better, so get the donations in quick. And remember folks, every penny goes toward helping boobs. What better way to use it?
Week Of Steak
by John Walker on May.30, 2006, under The Rest
You might think you’re a man, unless you’re a woman or something, but you’re not. Because Tim Edwards is a MAN.
He’s going to eat steak EVERY DAY FOR A WEEK.
Guantanamo Bay: With Children’s Facilities
by John Walker on May.28, 2006, under The Rest
Kim forwarded this to me.
More than 60 children have been held at Guantanamo Bay
The story has gone totally unreported by the BBC, and is buried on Yahoo.