April fool?

Hello there! Now, the image above is going to be come more and more nonsensical as time passes - well, after the 1st of April, anyway. For the 1st of April is the day I am going to shave my head! No, there's no political cause/charity involved, simply the shedding of my winter coat (that I've been growing for over 1 1/2 years now), and going back to the shaven-headed wonder that I had during my stay in Montpellier.

Tell you what *is* for charity, though (see what I did there?): I have set up my fundraising page for the Bupa Great North Run 2007! The address is http://www.justgiving.com/mikehiggins, so please dig deep! I really appreciate the sponsorship, last time I managed to raise over £160 for Cancer Research, but this time my target is £300! I will be running for Mind, the mental health charity. It's a high target, but I think it's an extremely worthwhile cause, and hope you do too. You can also see chart my progress and that of those I will be running with on our blog: http://greatnorthrun.blogspot.com. Please have a read, and leave some comments of support!

Other things that have been happening include recently celebrating 4 years together with the lovely John. It seems like a long time ago when we were fresh faced and innocent (well, I was!), but here we are, 2 flats, several snakes, fish and frogs later... If you're a myspace bunny you can check out the progression of his latest tattoo, which he is hoping will win him some prizes at the tattoo show we are going to in a couple of weeks' time in Peterlee.

De retour!

Mike gives France a big thumbs up!

Well I'm back after a week in France, and yet more wrangling with French bureaucracy/administration!

I had arrived in France on the Wednesday, hoping to be able to:

a) Buy my train ticket to Paris from the machine with my card
and
b) Pay a cheque into my account and use the money when I arrived.

How wrong I was. My payment was refused, and then when I tried to pay the cheque into a machine, the card was retained, supposedly at my request. When I questioned this in the branch, I was told that my card had surely been cancelled due to lack of use, and that, at least in theory, I would be able to get it reinstated and returned the next day. I told them that there was no way I could wait a week and collect a new card from Montpellier (which is in the south of France, whereas I was a few hundred miles away), as even disregarding the distance, I was travelling back to England within a week. They told me to phone the branch to get a fax sent over to start the procedure, and to come back the next day, when they would phone a call centre, and get this whole damn mess sorted out. And pronto.

I returned home and phoned the bank (obviously, I didn't get through to my branch, rather a national call centre), and explained my predicament. The wonderful lady said she understood my predicament, and that she would 'faire le necessaire', i.e. that she would do what was needed to get it sorted. Brilliant, I thought.

Needless to say (again), the next day when I returned to the branch, the lady said that my card had not been reinstated, in fact, the branch had faxed to say that a new card had been ordered and sent to, you guessed it, Montpellier. Needless to say (haha), I am now cancelling my account with LCL, never to return again. The evil swines.

On a brighter note, I had a fabulous week in Paris, which, as do most stays in France for me, involved a lot of food and drink (and a little running, remember I am supposed to be in training, see my other blog for details), including making a roast dinner for some frenchies! I explained as best I could that this would be far from a traditional roast, especially given that I was:

a) Rolling some sort of faux chicken 'joint' from 6 chicken breasts
and
b) not in possession of any gravy powder (apparently impossible to obtain even in cosmopolitan Paris, especially on a monday [shrugs gallically])

I also told them not to tell anyone that I had done it this way. Ever. The English have enough of a bad reputation regarding food as it is. They were, however, fascinated to see a yorkshire pudding being prepared ('Oh yes, it'll rise. No, it's supposed to look like that. Honest.'). I was shooed out of the way of the glass oven door so my friends could watch the spectacle.

Paris also brought me my first sight of the "Rando du dimanche" (organised by the mayor, Bertrand Delanoë), which we noticed was underway when a policeman on a bike shut down one of the streets in front of us by furiously blowing his whistle, followed by several yellow-shirted instructors, and close behind by some 200-odd rollerbladers, at which point the police and the instructors sped off to the next junction. It looked like great fun, though I can't imagine it happening in Leeds (imagine the hills!).

The last big moment of drama came on the flight back to Leeds. We were told before take-off that the weather conditions on both sides of the channel meant that there could be a little turbulence before reaching cruising altitude and upon landing. Leaving Paris was fine, and it was pretty much unbroken cloud before beginning the descent towards Leeds. As we crossed the city, it started to get a little bumpy, but I was too busy looking out for the university, our house and any other recognisable landmarks. As we got up to the north of Leeds, it started to get noticeably worse, and by the time we reached Asda (fairly close to the airport), things were getting pretty bad. The air hostess had already been on to reassure us that it was normal and nothing to worry about. I would say we were about 5 seconds from landing (I could clearly see the airport car park) when things were so bad that the pilot whacked on the power, and pulled us back up. At this point, the plane was going up and down/side to side/all over the place. The stewardess kindly informed us that 'as you may be aware, the pilot has been unable to land at Leeds-Bradford airport', and that he would contact us shortly. Apart from worrying whether we had soiled our grundies, we were a little concerned that they might have been taking us to Manchester or Doncaster, which was further exacerbated by the pilot saying that he was being 'rerouted' by air traffic control. Turns out he was just going around for another go, which was much smoother' and the landing was accompanied by a little round of applause from the passengers! Pretty scary stuff.

Need a holiday after all that!

Merry Christmas Everyone!

So here it is, merry Christmas, everybody's having fun.

And this means we are in Newcastle this year (after being dahn sarf for another tequila frenzy last time), getting ready for the big day. We've dodged the fat lasses on the Quayside with their ill-advised clothing (Thursday), braved Newcastle city centre (yesterday), and have so far managed to avoid the Metrocentre (though I'm sure we'll go before the week is out).

Since I last wrote I've been trying to get on with my business, earning enough money to make a living, and going on Business Link courses in Bradford (of all places). I've been carrying on with teaching (demonstrating) at the University of Leeds, and have also managed to graduate (again)!



This is a picture of the back of my head, other graduation photos are available here.

And most unlikely of all, I actually have my degree certificate from France (after they took ages to produce it, then wouldn't give it to me, and finally had to do another one when they realised they'd put Mrs. on it), which means that you can all break out the crap jokes about the three degrees.

So it's onward to New Year and beyond (back to Leeds for New Year's Eve and a holiday in France in January), I hope to see you or hear from you all soon!

Look to the future now, we've only just begun...

Going Solo...

Thought an update was due on what I'm up to - since completing the MAAATS course at Leeds Uni, I've been working from home as a self-employed translator. For the moment, it hasn't really involved all that much translation, although my site is now up and running, so tell your friends, families and pets that I'm available for your French-to-English translation needs!

I have, however, been doing some site design, including redesigning Logan's site (which should be online very very soon) and a few other bits and bobs, such as working as a demonstrator on the uni course I've just completed. How could I have predicted upon entering the doors of the French department this time five years ago that I would have come so far (er, to ERIC, next door).

Aside from that, we've been going through final preparations for the Cancer Research 10k, you can read how things are going on my 10k Blog, including how we got on when we did a practice 10k this weekend. And, don't forget, you can still sponsor me if you haven't already done so!

Halfway there...

1 month 5 days to go before the big day - my fundraising total is now at £52.50, so I'm just over halfway to my target of £100. Training has been continuing over the last week, despite injury, and Jenny has now signed up too. For more news, see my 10k blog (Please leave comments of support too!).

Please keep sponsoring me, I appreciate your support, together we can reach my £100 target.

In other news, I am now officially no longer a student! I handed in my extended translations last Wednesday, though the last official day of the course was the 31st (Thursday). I took the weekend off, and started working on my website this morning. Of course, I have 1001 things to be getting on with, so I don't imagine I shall have a spare second to myself for a little while now. It's all a little scary, I hope I'll have enough money to see me through this month! I received news of the job I've got at the university on Thursday, it's only part time (4 hours per week), but it's a start, and every little helps...

Cancer Research UK 10k Run

Hello all,

Just a quick one to let you know that I am taking part in the Cancer Research UK 10k Charity Run on the 8th of October at Castle Howard, York. I need your help to raise some sponsorship money for this worthy cause. You can visit my sponsorship page at http://www.10ksponsorme.org/mh10k, all donations are secure and sent electronically to Cancer Research UK. If you are a UK taxpayer, Justgiving will add an automatic 28% bonus to your donation at no cost to you.

You can also track my progress, and see how I'm feeling in preparation for the event on my new blog, dedicated to this event at http://mh10k.blogspot.com. You can also leave messages of support to keep me focussed and motivated!

I appreciate your support!

Quit Smoking

I am saddened today to hear the news that Allen Carr has lung cancer. John bought me a copy of his book in 2004. At the time, I wanted to quit smoking, but it was never the right time. I was a little put out that he had bought me the book, to be honest, but I was curious. I started reading it, with the firm belief that it wouldn't work for me, and quickly became gripped. And boy did I smoke a lot of cigarettes (you can carry on smoking whilst reading, and I found that I smoked a lot more than I would have otherwise)! It's not full of horror stories, it doesn't bang on and on about your health or the money, it just tells you stuff you already know about cigarettes. And more importantly, shows you how most of the things you believe to be true about smoking aren't really true. It really changed my viewpoint, and I was soon worried that although it might work, that the change wouldn't be permanent. However, by the time I reached the end I was convinced that I could give up smoking for the rest of my life. And here I am, nearly two years later, feeling better and healthier (and, more importantly, free from the cigarette, which had been ruling my life).

I never had it as bad as Allen Carr did - He was smoking 100 cigarettes a day when he discovered his method (which is likely to be the cause of his illness), but the point is that his method works. Have a look at his website, see what you think.

Tattoo

As promised, here is a picture of my tattoo. It's been finished for a little while, but now it's all healed (and everything and everything) so here it is. The last bit I had done was the little swirls here and there (which don't actually show up on the picture very well). Not even sure how many hours it was in total, though I think it's been over 6... And for anyone who's thinking of asking, no, I'm not planning on getting the other side done...

On another note, sorry for all of you who have received random emails. Yahoo! Mail is being weird at the moment, sometimes the emails come through and sometimes they don't. That and the fact that Feedblitz has been playing up have had me tearing my hair out. However, it seems to be working now! If you aren't currently subscribed, you should be able to do so here using the box on the right (under my picture), you just need to enter your email address and click 'subscribe me'. You then go to a page where you enter in some characters for confirmation, then they send you an email. You just click on the link that says 'Click here to confirm your registration'. Simple really (!).

En vacances!

Hello again!

Just got back to Leeds after a wonderful week away in France! We took the Megabus down to London, and then the train back to my parents' place in Sussex last Saturday, then set off on the ferry on the Sunday morning. We had our only spot of rain for the week (if you discount the - literally - two drops in Rennes) on the way out of Dieppe, but as we carried on down through Normandy and into Brittany the weather cleared, and it was hot and sunny from then on.

After settling in on Sunday evening, we got up bright and early on Monday to catch the train (for free, only a coin machine on the station platform, and no conductor) to Rennes to meet Kim, who was staying with Sev for a while. We walked around the city, had lunch and did a little shopping, then when Sev got back from work we all went up to Dinan for dinner, taking a walk down to the old port to enjoy bolées of good breton cider before heading back to the town for some galettes...


On Tuesday we headed over to the west coast of Brittany to visit the little port at St. Goustan, then headed along the coast to Arradon, where people were sailing around the archipelago, before heading back to the house.


Wednesday was a day of cleaning, painting and hedge trimming at the house, although we managed to get to the beach at Pléneuf-val-André for a little while and some swimming, although the water was a little chilly in places (I won't say which places)...


On Thursday we headed back to Normandy, where John and I were staying with Babeth. We had a long walk around the town, and I showed John the places I used to shop in, where I used to live and work. That night we headed to the beach in Fécamp to see the Retraite aux Flambeaux, which should be a torchlight procession down from the church at the top of the cliffs, Notre Dame de Salut into the town, but instead took the form of thousands of motorbikes heading onto the seafront.

This was all really a preparation for Bastille Day on the 14th. We spent a few hours on the beach, swimming in the (admittedly colder and more treacherous, but somehow easier to manage) sea, and then prepared ourselves for the evening. We bought what seemed like several hundred bangers and headed to the beach to enjoy the fireworks.

Then it was the end of the week, or so we thought. On Saturday, we got up and got ready to leave for England. However, due to a technical problem with my phone (user error?), we missed our ferry! I won't bore you with the details, but you can read what happened here... Luckily, there was another boat at 8pm, so we had a few hours to kill. We were told by the woman at the tourist office that:

a) There was no bus to the port
b) There was nowhere to leave our luggage
and c) There was nothing we could do in the town if we had our cases.

We spent the afternoon nursing various cokes, coffees and beers, outstaying our welcome at a few of Dieppe's finest establishments (and some of the worst, too), before catching the ferry back to England!

All in all, a very good week, lovely weather, lots of good food and drink and great company!

See the photos here (including some taken at my sister's place at the start).

The Projects at Hifi

Went out last night to see my friend J. Low's band The Projects at Hifi in Leeds...


Twas a wicked night, apart from a silly woman called Emily who was standing next to me in the crowd, who said in a rather loud voice pretty much as soon as they started playing, "They're very good, but she's miming!". Cue a very long, drawn out conversation about how Jen wasn't miming, which ended up with me asking Jen to sing "Emily doesn't believe I'm singing live, I'm not miming" along to one of her songs! Cue stupid Emily woman leaving with her tail between her legs.


Much appreciated getting a shout out before Averse (keep your ears peeled for the forthcoming remix), made some of Jen's housemates a little jealous, though, hehe!
All in all, well recommended, next time there's a gig in Leeds I shall be telling everyone (they're mainly York-based), although you can check out their stuff on their iSound page, or if you're a myspace fiend, their profile is www.myspace.com/thebristolsound...


More photos from last night here...

Still Recovering

Well, this weekend sure was fun! Around 20 of us from the Centre for Translation Studies took a little trip to the Yorkshire Dales to stay in a 'hut' owned by the university... Which generally involved a lot of booze, much singing of Moulin Rouge until very, very late in the morning, and not very much, er, walking!

We all settled in the hut, arriving at various points of the evening on the Friday, and proceded to eat most of the largest pot of spaghetti I have ever seen (Jo Drugan managed to snack on what was left upon her arrival the next day) and onto an evening of poker and firewater (personally speaking).

We did manage a little wander the next day, however, taking in the sights, sounds, smells and, er, sheep of the area around Selside and Horton-in-Ribblesdale. The journey was a little rambling, but we managed to find our way, passing through the only patch of the area where I received mobile signal (only to receive 2 text messages from the previous day from Dragos!), and passing Serge coming back the other way, surprisingly!



We did manage to watch the match, which was a little disappointing for those of us not supporting Portugal (Rute and Sol were sitting in the corner of the pub, Rute kept clapping her hand over her mouth everytime she yelped when Portugal got a chance!)...I would have preferred to continue the walk a little further, to Pen-y-Ghent (which I'd been eyeing up ever since our last little excursion to the Dales, when we climbed Ingleborough) and get back to Horton-in-Ribblesdale in time for the France-Brazil match, which would have been infinitely more interesting...

More drinking, copious amounts of curry and yet more poker (mixed with a little Rummikub) followed, thanks to Kirstin for starting the Moulin Rouge thing sometime after 2 or 3am...

So that was this weekend - no lasting physical effects other than the thousands of insect bites (I don't think any of us were spared!), though there are lots of photos, some of which are here, or you can see the whole set here:

On holiday?

Hello all,


Just another short one (ahem) - bit of a weird week. I've finished my uni work, just the summer project to go.


That doesn't mean I'm on holiday (honest) - I've just registered this morning as self-employed! This is the first step to gettin my business started up, it's all a little scary really. I'm sure I'll end up badgering my friend Katie (her new business, Live The Lingo has just gone online). Watch this space.

Aside from that, the flat is an absolute tip, we're packing for our move this weekend to our new house (the palace of glittering delights, henceforth tpogd), see the above photo. I'm sure we'll get it all sorted, just looking forward to getting in there (and getting out of here). One problem is that we're likely to have no internet for a while in tpogd while Orange get their arses together to switch it over. Our phone number's changing too, get in touch to get the new one. I'll send out the address for tpogd at some point too!

Gmap Pedometer

This is great. Period.

If you're interested in running, cycling, walking etc, and want to know how far you've been (or how many calories you've burnt etc), you can use this to map out your route.
If you're a techie loser like myself, this can be exported as .gpx to be uploaded to your gps unit so you can have a route to follow.
Everyone else might just like to see how far it is to the shops....

Various news items

Hello again,


Just thought I'd post a little update on here:

New house!

Yes, it's that time of year again! We've just signed for a new place just down the road from where we are now (contact me for address details) - it's an absolute palace (basement, living room, bathrooms, master bedroom, plus office/spare room), just on the edge of Meanwood. We're really looking forward to moving in on the 17th June, and we're looking at having a house cooling party (for moving out of our old flat, which'll be reasonably empty) before we hand the keys back on the 30th of June.

Tattoo (again)

My tattoo is now nearly finished, I went back to Physical Poetry on Tuesday to get all the little stars filled in. Just a few more swirls to go on before it's complete - I'll get photos up when it's done!

End of Uni

We're all stressing out in uni once again (that's why I'm wasting yet more time by posting on here, rather than completing my essays), as we've got our last deadline before the summer project to hand in on Friday. I'm sure we'll all feel a lot more chilled out this time next week (deadline is at 12 on the 9th), and we'll probably already be in the pub by then! From then on, just the 10,000 words of translation plus the accompanying commentary (boo..)...

And finally...

Last thing is that our summer holiday is booked! We're off to Brittany to stay at my parents' place (between Dinan, Dinard and St. Brieuc) for a few days, then of to stay with Babeth and David in Fécamp in Normandy (where I spent my gap year teaching before coming to Leeds). I'm all very excited, and impressed at the money that can be saved by taking the Megabus rather than catching the train down to London!

More news soon...

Geography

This is going to be a shameless plug, really. My sister's boyfriend has just put a new album out, I've heard it, and it's brilliant! It's a kind of Jack Johnson/Bob Dylan/Paul Simon/Barenaked Ladies kinda thang, though it's hard to label. The best thing to do is to go to his myspace profile: www.myspace.com/loganwilson and have a listen there. He's also got a website up and running at www.loganwilson.com which is worth having a look at. The album will soon be available from iTunes and other music stores, but in the mean time you can email him on info@loganwilson.com for any further info... Happy listening!

MySpace stole my life

A place for friends, alright. Or for having no friends (unless you're this guy called Tom, in which case you have 78,165,521 friends - and counting), as, this week, MySpace has stolen my life. I'm not the only one, either. In the last couple of days another of my friends has fallen victim to the myspace curse. One of her friends contacted her on MySpace to tell her that she had a funny email about being addicted to MySpace - I told her to message me on MySpace so I could put this funny text up on my MySpace profile (www.myspace.com/gontofe, since you ask). This thing is taking over my life - I'm logged in all day long, fixing my profile rather than actually getting on with my uni work! It's the kind of obsession that has to stop, but it's truly addictive.
For the non-initiated, MySpace allows you to put up details of your interests (music, films etc), photos, movies, links to other sites, blogs etc, and share them with your friends (who have done the same on MySpace). You can also set up groups, forums and send each other messages. The problem is, it becomes very quickly addictive, and it becomes hard to find time to get on with work/studying/fulfilling bodily functions, such as drinking water/etc. In fact, some of you may have come here from seeing my post on MySpace. It really is hard to break the chain.
At any rate, it's time to go and cook some dinner. In the mean time, take care, and I'll see y'all on MySpace!

Tattoo

Now that it's settled down a little bit, here is a picture of my new tattoo. Granted, it's not actually finished yet, it needs filling in with all the little stars and a little tidying up. I've already booked the appointment for the 30th of the month at Physical Poetry just up the road with Dave, who did the original centre bit. The last bit (just the five stars) took around 3 hours, I can probably expect the same again for the filling in. Luckily, it wasn't too painful, just felt a little bruised afterwards. Even the bit on the shoulder wasn't too bad!

In the meanwhile, John's waiting to be told when he can start getting his back tattoo started, not sure as yet how long it's gonna be, how much it'll cost, or how big it will be!

I'll post photos on here when it's done.

Buy my T-shirts!

Hello all,

Having seen an endless stream of lame-ass T-shirts on the internet, I've decided to make my own lame-ass T-shirts.

Please buy them from http://www.spreadshirt.net/shop.php?sid=143241. There are a varying array of men's and women's t-shirts, some more offensive and funny than others, all extremely stylish.

Go on, buy one! You know you want to!

Douce France - ou comment se faire envoyer chier

Just got back from a week in France, visiting friends, eating so much food, walking and getting sunburnt.

There's no doubt that spring has sprung down there, although given that I spent the week in the south, I'm not surprised. One of my friends didn't seem to think that it would be that hot, although it was regularly over 20 degrees with blazing sunshine.

And France's wonderful administrative processes reared their ugly head, too. People don't seem to hesistate in telling you where to go over there, which can prove amusing sometimes, depending on whether you are on the receiving end or not. Two examples from my bank:

1) I went to pay money into a branch in Paris and query a charge. The lady at the counter seemed happy to give me information about the charge, but when I tried to pay money into my account without proof of ID, I was shocked to hear her tell me, "in that case, we don't want your money". I was tempted to suggest that with an attitude like that maybe they didn't want my business at all!

2) Slightly more amusing (not on the receiving end): In another branch there was an old hag at the front of the queue who had a long query. Just before she left, the charming young lady behind the counter told her that she "didn't want to get annoyed with her any more", which raised a few smiles.

Unfortunately, this wasn't the end of it all, seems there was something in the air. Earlier that day, I unfortunately had to go back to Paul Valéry University to collect my degree certificate. I had taken care to bring the papers I needed, and we set off. Upon arriving at the university, I was shocked to see security guards grouped around the entrances with dogs. Seems that they were expecting trouble after the demonstrations against the CPE that had been taking place in the last few weeks. We managed to get in (using my friend Marion's teacher card, my student card long having been lost), and eventually found our way to the office we needed, only to see that it was closed. Considering that it's only open three days a week anyway and even then only for three hours in the morning, this was a little rich. We eventually managed to find someone who was willing to ask the people inside (yes, this is Paul Valéry, they make no attempt to hide the fact that they are there) to help us, considering I had come from England to collect the document. In short, we were told that they could not help us, they were closed, and I would have to pay to send them the documents I was holding in my hand and for them to issue the document that was sitting in a drawer behind the door. I had to resist the temptation to throw a chair through the window of the office, as I didn't fancy seeing those dogs any more close up.

On my way back to Paris at the end of the week, I found myself on a new concept TGV, the IDTGV. The idea is that the train has two mood zones, one called Zen and the other Zap. In IDZap, it would appear the idea is that you turn your walkman up as loud as you can to drown out the music blaring out from the bar, or the screaming kids around you. In Zen, I believe, you have to stay silent, trying to slow your heart rate so as to not irritate your neighbour. The ironic thing is that I'm sure that posh people book into Zen on the bottom deck, so as not to be irritated by the other passengers, yet it turns out that the Zap bit is in first class on the upper deck, and has larger seats, and a trolley service etc. All quite amusing really.

One final thought - we had a few discussions about young people, jobs, immigration and integration with various people while in France. Just as I was on the RER (another different kind of train, not to be confused with the Métro, the TGV, the TER etc) going back to the airport, a young second generation north african man came walking down the train, and started playing playing old French songs on an accordeon as we reached Le Blanc Mesnil station. He was busking (and being thoroughly ignored by most people, especially the Italian family who where filming him, except when he turned 'round, when the father pretended to film his children and out of the window). I think this says more about integration than most of the other conversations that we had.

The Projects

This is my friend Jen being a rock chick. She's in a band called The Projects. This band is the reason she's been travelling to York several times per week and working bloody hard. Forget the fact she's doing research for her MA at Leeds Uni in something phonetic, the music is where it's at.

The band have been refining their sound over the past year, and have created some good soulful, funky, trip-hop wonderment. You can listen to their stuff on their isound page. They will be even more happy if you listen to their stuff on isound between April 17th to May 15th, as they have entered a battle of the bands competition, and you can help them win by listening to their songs (no need to vote). They'll love you, as they'll get a whole host of wonderful things (and you'll get a warm fuzzy glow inside for knowing that you've helped them.