Two Thousand and Great weeks 18, 19 and 20

Dear all

I’ve been a little busy the last couple of weeks, taking on one of my biggest challenges this year, cycling from John O’Groats to Land’s End. 

To see an account of the journey go to the categories on the right hand column of this blog and look at the JOG – LE entries.

Without giving too much away, I think it’s changed me a bit, we’ll see in the forthcoming weeks and months – but i’ll say this, I loved it.

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Other things that happened whilst I was away – I received some certificates through from the animals that I have adopted. 

Goggles the Sheep at Deen City Farm – (who I should hopefully be shearing on the 1st June) and Piran the Seal (who should be getting released back into the wild shortly)

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Forthcoming challenges include the entering the Gloucester Cheese Rolling on Bank Holiday Monday, I’m going to try and give blood this week. (Having seen what usually happens on the cheese rolling days, I might need too in advance…)

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Not too many words here but there’s plenty in the  blog – please leave comments. 

Keep challenging me, and I’ll keep accepting

Rob

www.justgiving.com/twothousandandgreat

Two Thousand and Great – Week 17

Dear all,

It’s getting ever so close now. This time tomorrow I’ll be on a train somewhere in Scotland heading for Inverness.

Things finally got sorted this week with the arrival of my new bike, I managed to get the make and model I originally applied for and spent the rest of the week making sure I had purchased everything else on my list from insect repellent, reflective vests to first aid kits. It’s quite an odd experience cycling with full panniers as they throw the balance of the bike out slightly but it’s far more comfortable than carrying the weight on your back.

On Tuesday morning I met meeting Mark Beaumont – he might not be the most instantly recognisable name but if there is anyone I needed to talk to about a long distance cycle ride it was him. In February this year Mark completed his world record setting 18,000 mile circumnavigation of the globe by bicycle -  He first completed the end to end cycle ride as a 14 yr old and talking to him about his ride and experiences was fascinating. He did tell me that cycling from Scotland to Cornwall was doing it the wrong way due to prevailing winds but also admitteed that he did it that way too – and it doesn’t seem to have done him any harm.

This weekend I had to go along to Dean City Farm to do a compulsory Health & Safety course so that I can shear a sheep on the 1st June. I thought the farm was great, it had a bit of everything with gardens for people to grow their own fruits and veg through to massive farm animals like cows and alpacas. The farm itself runs on donations from the people who visit it and the riding school which is on the site. To say thank you for all their help organising the shearing (with tutoring from one of the top instructors int he country)  I  adopted a sheep called Goggles that can be seen here -With the seal I adopted in March and the sheep I slowly seem to be completing Rich’s challenge which involved building a giant arc and asking London Zoo for 2 of each of their animals.

Saturday I had originally intended to celebrate my last strange day of the month with Hug an Australian Day but I read about something else this weekend and it sounded a bit more fun. Which is why I  need your  help to complete my final strange day of the month - Hairstylist appreciation Day -  April 30th is the day to appreciate hairstyles. Hair style makes a statement. You can have a hair style that makes you look like a thinker or one that gives you a sporty look. It is no more cutting the hair and styling them, but it is more of giving you a look that will make you feel different. I’d like you to send me a photograph of you with either your best (or preferably) worst haircut ever. I will create an online gallery to help celebrate the day. (remember it’s about making a statement!)

I’m off now, wish me luck. I’ve created a separate site for this challenge…

http://www.justgiving.com/robdanavell-cyclechallenge 

I know I have already asked a lot of people, but if you could forward this to family and friends It’d be most appreciated.

Keep on challenging me and I’ll keep on accepting.

Rob / Devani

http://www.justgiving.com/twothousandandgreat

Two Thousand and Great – Week 16

Dear all

I’m starting to feel quite nervous about the cycle ride now, but in order to get over this I threw myself into a couple of strange days and did some very important background work on a couple of challenges that are coming up in the next few weeks.

I did have a bit of a setback with e ride last week but it’s nothing I can’t get around. I received a call from the shop which was a bit mangled by my answer machine so I popped around to the shop to check whether my new bike was ready for collection, I was told their delivery had been put back by the factory by a little and wouldn’t be arriving until the 19th May. As many will have noted this meant that the bike would effectively arrive after my planned ride. The guys in Cavendish Cycles though have been magnificent and we are expecting a Brand new bike from a different manufacturer this week. Not the usual preparation to an end to end cycle I guess but everything else is organised I just need the two wheels.

As some might remember I ended last weeks e-mail saying I as going to try and kiss the two redheads in the the band I was off to see that night. After a quick recount, it is apparent  there’s only one red head in Los Campesinos despite what this video might suggest.… That said I did manage to get a kiss of the lovely Alex which made a great gig even better.

On Wednesday I got a call to tell me I am to be featured in Mac News, sadly for my sartorially inclined supporters this isn’t an overcoat periodical or for the techno freaks another branch of the Apple empire it’s the quarterly magazine from Macmillan Cancer Support – I’ve had to provide a bunch of photos and a few words and hopefully it will provoke a few new challenges and more support for the cause. I would say it’s available in all good newsagents but I’ve never actually seen it, but will find out how to get a copy.

On Thursday someone sent me a link to a night which just might solve my Burlesque challenge problem not knowing what to expect I went along to the Bethnal Green Working Mens Club for a night run by the legendary Whoopee Club. Glancing at Time out who described the night as follows -  The Male Tournament of Tease nights bring in an audience who are not interested in the Chippendale / hen-night stereotype. Compered by the fantastic Fred Bear of Bearlesque I witnessed an x-factor style show where wannabe boylesque stars performed to a judging panel including burlesque queen Fancy Chance and a room full of braying punters. I saw a man with a Sparks moustache slither his way through a wire coathanger, a very bad drag act putting back anglo chinese relations at least a century and an delightfully camp take on rambo / an officer and gentleman before I had to catch my tube home. They have another heat on the 19th June and I am seriously considering entering, For more information check this out…

As with everything nowadays I have to go on a Health & Safety course this weekend, but it’s for a great cause. I have been speaking to the lovely livestock Manager  at the Dean City Farm about helping them out on the 1st June for their annual Sheep Shearing Day, as someone who is scared of cows the idea of a farm is fairly scary but also I think it could be great fun. 

I ended the week with a couple of strange day challenges, Friday was National YoYo Day and I celebrated by getting a handful of people to join me in a spell of yoyo which I recorded and made into a little movie  - soundtrack is supplied by the awesome Kate Goes… 

I’ve discovered a love for yoyos and think I’m going to take it along on the ride, so hopefully I can master a few more tricks by the time I get back. 

Following the musical theme Saturday was Independent Record Store Day – I went along to Rough Trade East who had put on a day of live bands and DJs to help celebrate the day – One thing that struck me was that Brick Lane really seems to have changed in the last few years and it was barely recognisable once you had gone past the Truman Brewery. 

The streets were full of angular haircuts and people dressed like opal fruits going in and out of shops that appeared to be designed to be seen in and not to buy anything from. I was very pleased with my days shopping as I managed to find possibly the worlds oddest record, where super producer Dangermouse and Banksy had decided to reimagine Paris Hilton’s album  – it’s interesting, with audio clips from her tv shows juxtaposed with dance music in the words of Paris herself “It’s Hot”.

I also popped into a few different music shops in the area, one just as they had the Spurs FA Cup song on 7″ in the window – I also stumbled across the Duke of Uke where I picked up a copy of The Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain’s second album Precious Little which has their marvellous covers of Smells Like Teen Spirit and Psycho Killer on it. Check them out they’re fantastic. 

Highlight of the day was Billy Bragg though strangely his chat between songs was probably better than the music, he spoke of growing up working in a record shop and selling EMI India’s back catalogue amongst rants on MP3’s and why shopping online will never replace flicking through records in a stores racks.

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New challenges this week include:

Blessed be the cheesemakers

I have been challenged to enter the famous Gloucester Chees Rolling festival – for anyone who is unaware of what goes on take a look at this video for inspiration. 

Circle line Twister

I have to play a game of Twister the whole duration of the Circle Line (changing carriages every 15 minutes)… I have to bring a few volunteers with you – but the idea is to get as many people joining in as possible and I can’t explain why I am doing it. (I have to act like it’s a normal every day occurrence.)

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Keep on challenging me and I’ll keep on accepting.

Rob / Devani

http://www.justgiving.com/twothousandandgreat

Two Thousand and Great – Week 15

Dear all

An odd week for me but hopefully it’ll all work out. 

I received the voucher to buy the new bike for the ride but have been told it’s not going to arrive until a couple of days before I am due to start the ride, which means I have to continue to do the practice runs on my old bike which doesn’t have the panniers and the unfamiliar weight on it, which is putting my preparations back a week or so but shouldn’t change the result.

I read about a lady called Ann Spencer this week who at the age of 62 decided to challenge herself to do the ride from Land’s End to John O’Groats and her account was brilliant. So many people’s blogs seem to focus on trying to be a travel program t talking about historical moments at sites they ride through or stay at  rather than an account of the journey. Hopefully I can learn from this as her writing was thrilling and invigorating.

Since posting up the route on my myspace page, I’ve had lots of advice on distance cycling, everything from wearing hard souled shoes and clean socks everyday (John Lenahan would be proud – a man also spending the year on a strange mission wearing a brand new  pair of socks everyday  http://gratuitoussocks.wordpress.com through to the traffic vagaries of the Scottish Highlands. Hopefully I can take everything in, it’s so close now I just want to get on with it.

This week I am also going to celebrate 2 strange days, starting on Friday which is Yo-Yo Day, i’m going to try and make a little movie for you all, (if only because I have the perfect song for the soundtrack)

On Saturday it’s Independent Record Shops Day and I’ll be making my way down to Rough Trade East where they are putting on a number of live acts instore (including Billy Bragg – but I’m not sure i’m allowed to mention that) and trying to find that illusive copy of Charles and Eddie’s debut album Duophonic. 

I had an incredibly generous sponsorship pledge this week from a talent agency who I have worked with for several years. Speakeasy look after lots of great speakers and presenters and they have pledged to give 2% of all commission from my company’s bookings for the next 12 months

I have to run now as I’ll be late for the band I’m seeing tonight the brilliant Los Campesinos! where I’ll also be trying to kiss the 2 redheads in the band…

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New challenges this week include - 

The Monopoly Pub crawl 

As the person setting the challenge is a student they have challenged me to maximise the money raised by asking others for money. I have to visit a pub on each of the monopoly board squares and collect money, for every pound that I am given the sponsor will match it to the sum of 10p in the pound or 20p if I have an alcoholic drink in all the bars….

(I guess everyone who knows me will know what sum the sponsor is going to end up paying per pound….)

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Keep on challenging me and I’ll keep on accepting.

Rob / Devani

http://www.justgiving.com/twothousandandgreat

Two Thousand and Great – Week 14

Dear all

We’re 99 days into this adventure and due to historical precedents new regimes are always judged on the first 100 days…  so here’s a little review and a preview of what’s happening next.

Well the first thing I have to say is thank you, I have been blown away by the support that I have received so far. I never really knew where this was going to go at the start of the year, I just had a very simple goal to raise £10,000 for a charity that means a lot to me. Two Thousand and Great has taken on a life of its own, leading to many, many  strange experiences and the chance to meet so many new people who are all willing to help.

So far I have tried to live the day as a deity, formed an orchestra, swam lots…, grown a beard and talked my way into so many places and so many kisses.

The next 100 days promise to be even more thrilling as I take on some of the biggest projects of the fundraising year including cycling from Lands End to John O’Groats,The John & Yoko Challenge, Shearing a sheep, giving blood, bell ringing, and at least nine more strange days.

Unsurprisingly the major thing that has been dominating my time is the preperations for the cycle ride, as it is only 3 weeks until I start my little journey I have been ensuring everything is in place, so I know where to go when / if things break. How to fix most problems that might occur and what Red Lion pubs are en route – to make the already quite daunting ride a little bit more interesting, someone has set me a challenge along the way to take pics outside of pubs of that name. 

Ok to the much promised route…

(if you go to my myspace link at the bottom  these details are much more easy to follow as it is all hyperlinked and shows you routemaps and details of the all places I am staying.)

April 29th  Train from London to Inverness

April 30th  Train from Inverness to Thurso and a short ride to John O’Groats

May 1st John O’Groats to Helmsdale

May 2nd Helmsdale to Caribsdale Castle

May 3rd Carbisdale Castle to Loch Ness (I’m going to swim with Nessie)

May 4th Loch Ness to Crianlarich

May 5th Crianlarich to New Lanark  (via Glasgow where I have arranged a pucker up kiss)

May 6th New Lanark to Minigaff

May 7th Minnigaff to Carlisle

May 8th Carlisle to Carnforth

May 9th Carnforth to Chester

May 10th Chester to All Stretton

May 11th All Stretton to Slimbridge

May 12th  Slimbridge to Street

May 13th  Street to Exeter

May 14th Exeter to St Austell

May 15th St Austell to Lands End

May 16th Lands End to Penzance (and a train home…)

The ride will also take in a few landmarks like Glastonbury to see the cows performing on the Pyramid Stage and a visit to the cemetary where Richard is buried. I wanted to drop into the seal sanctuary to visit Piran but ti’s just a little out of the way.

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Wish me luck!

Keep on challenging me and I’ll keep on accepting.

Rob / Devani

http://www.justgiving.com/twothousandandgreat

Two Thousand and Great – Week 13

Dear all,

Is it just me or has the clock jumping forward an hour put everyone into a spin? Just a short email this week due to the week being foreshortened by the bank holidays and late e-mail last week.

The long weekend seems to play havoc with my usual  routine,Tuesdays weekly swim was moved to Wednesday and everything since then seems to have been a bit of a jumble..

On Thursday I met up with another girl brave enough to respond to one of my social networking site posts – asking if there’s any red head girls willing to meet and kiss me. These meetings I can reveal are very odd, I’m not sure if it’s the knowledge that two absolute strangers have agreed to meet for a dangerous liaison, or if and when they do arrive the beard scares them off? You see it’s very different if you’re just approaching someone in a bar and asking the question straight out rather than going through a weird series of I’ll agree if you can prove it’s not just an over elaborate ruse to kiss me type thing emails. 

Aside from that there were 2 more red heads kissed for the challenge this week, one of which a Norwegian girl I managed to confuse by thanking her in her native tongue – it’s lucky as the only other words I know in that language are random foodstuffs and the word for always… actually I might just have said to her always after the kiss and then left like some strange Mills & Boon type man in the night.

The weekend was a blur of peoples birthdays which meant lots of fun but little in the way of sleep or challenges ticked off, I was amazed that at neither party there was a redhead to kiss but a I had a great time with friends and a stylophone (they’ve just been re-released with an MP3 socket so you can play along to your favourite tune. I might just have to buy one to get out if I’m ever on a bus and there’s a kid playing drum and bass on his phone – these things are much louder and if you can imagine the delight of a vibraphone over a perfectly designed pop song you’ll understnad just how annoying it would be.

The party on Saturday was a bit different as I was invited to play a few tunes alongside Paul and Ghandi with what was possibly the cheesiest playlist ever… I think I counted 4 plays of Sexy Back by Justin Timberlake but as they say, the public gets what the puvlic wants. (i’m just upset I missed the lapdance as I was trapped behind the decks but that’s a completely different story).  

On Sunday I saw the family for an afternoon of Bin Laden jokes and a chance to see my neice, I’m not sure she knew what to make of the beard – but she’d better get used to it as I have been challenged to be the entertainment on her 1st Birthday in September and if she was scared of the beard now, she’ll be petrified by then.

It’s late now so I’m heading off.

I promise a full and real update next week – including the cycleroute etc…

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Keep on challenging me and I’ll keep on accepting.

Rob / Devani

http://www.justgiving.com/twothousandandgreat

Two Thousand and Great – Week 12

Dear all

Happy Easter, I hope everyone had lots of fun and isn’t too gorged on mini eggs and silver foil.

I started last week with a strange day challenge at the Imperial War Museum to celebrate Submarine Day – you can see some pictures from the event here  or video here -  It was a lot of fun and the interactive exhibit was very informative. Not quite the same as getting on a naval sub as was the original plan; but, great nonetheless.

On Thursday I hosted one of my monthly Hang The DJ club nights where we invite people to bring along a few records to have a go / learn to DJ. As it was the day before the long weekend the bar was packed, but we still had a number of people come along and play a few tracks which was brilliant. (I also managed to add another red head to the pucker up challenge)

On Saturday I had planned to celebrate National Seal Day as my final strange day challenge in March – I had been told that there are seals in the Thames Estuary and planned on a trip to Southend to then get on a pleasure boat into the estuary. When I awoke it was snowing and the thought of getting onto a boat in arctic conditions didn’t really appeal so I went to my fall back position. The Age Exchange Reminisence Centre Games Day in Blackheath.

I saw the event advertised in Time Out which inivited people along to play boardgames against old people. I went along to the centre and it was brilliant, it’s like a little slice of the 40’s with hundreds of memorabilia stuck to the walls. I entered a few of the games and competitions playing things like Carom, Bar Skittles, Quoits and Shove Ha’penny – with real half pennies. I got involved in the totopoly tournament which was a strange variant of monopoly from the fifties based on horse racing where you had to train horses and then race them which lasted about 2 hours – hence several pictures.

After this I joined a game of Scrabble with 3 lovely ladies, the first two ladies put their words down and it was all going swimmingly, the next lady added the word GDAZ – obviously I looked a little surprised, to which she responded “In Polish it means…..” It was at this point I realised I had no chance of winning the game. I thought the centre was brilliant and I had a lovely slice of cake with some nice old ladies. 

I did feel guilty about not celebrating National Seal Day so to make up for it, I have adopted a seal pup from the National Seal Sanctuary in Gweek Cornwall that can be seen here. The sanctuary have decided to call all their rescues cornish names this year and Piran was found on St Piran’s Day this year. As he is named after a strange day I thought I had to help him out.

On Bank Holiday Monday I finally got around to finishing the route for the Land’s End – John O’Groats cycle ride and started to contact various hostels along the route to stay in.

I will be adding a fully interactive route to the groups (as soon as I work out how), but I am really starting to look forward to the ride now.

Still discussing dates with the Troubadour about when to hold the John & Yoko Challenge but it looks like mid to late June. I have also chatted to Dean City Farm who are hoding their Sheep Shearing Day on the 1st June about trying to complete that challenge.

In other news I have been talking to some lovely people from the Central Council of Church Bell Ringers regarding that challenge and think I have finally ome up with a fail safe method of finding 2 girls the man of their dreams – one of the original trio has pulled out for an unknown reason, but that has to make it easier than harder surely.

No new challenges this week, but I still have plenty to be getting on with.

Keep on challenging me and I’ll keep on accepting.

Rob / Devani

http://www.justgiving.com/twothousandandgreat

Two Thousand and Great – Week 11

Hi all

It’s been a really topsy turvy week with a couple of big adventures and some great news.

I had intended to celebrate a strange day on Monday 10th but it was slightly affected by the weather – National Life In The Cracks Day was kind of difficult to complete as most of the pavements and cracks were a few inches underwater. My idea of photographing and identifying all of the animals I found in pavement cracks and identifying them down to their latin names had to be cancelled, so I’m searching for a different challenge later this month.

Tuesday included a trip to the deep dark depths of Shepherds Bush to meet a couple of redheads that I had contacted via the ginger netwroking group redhedd.com. I spent a lovely evening in the company of Emma and Natalie, before finding myself involved in a very elaborate mugging atempt. 

Two kids had obviously hatched a plan of the best ACME variety, whilst one caused adistraction the other attempted to dip my pocket. All good so far, unfortunately for the distractor, he decided to shake my hand as part of the ruse, which meant I still had hold of him when his friend realised I knew what was going on and ran off. This left me in a very strange situation where I was holding on to a kid who had tried to mug me but was more interested in getting home from the night out than going to a police station, I really should have done the citizens arrest challenge but I didn’t fancy getting stabbed or filling out a load of forms only to see the kid walk free with a caution at most. I love London and always feel safe in this city, but it could so easily have been a different outcome.

On Wednesday night I went to see one of my favourite bands at the 100 Club, Misty’s Big Adventure  inspired by the lunacy of the band  (unfortunately missing Erotic Volvo) I decided to go on a bit of an adventure myself and I made serious headway into the Pucker Up Challenge and kissed seven redheads in one night.

To help me develop a routiine for the Burlesque Challenge later this year Kitty Klaw from the Ministry of Burlesque  invited me along to one of their  – Movers & Shakers nights @ the Met Bar - Movers and Shakers is designed and produced to provide a professional platform for aspiring burlesquers to stand up tread the boards and get noticed. 

I found myself surrounded by pencil skirts and animal prints, corsets and back combed hair  but that’s enough about the men… The girls were glamorous, in your face and at times very funny. Compered by the irrepressible Dolly Rocker the night flew along with a mixture of comedy songs, contortion and titilation. I left the venue with as many questions as answers but I did make some great contacts including that of Lord Dashwood  one of the few Boylesque stars on the circuit  who has agreed to help me devise a routine.

After receiving a letter on Friday morning from my first choice venue for the John & Yoko Challenge The Hard Days Night Hotel – turning me down. I was thrilled to hear back from The Troubadour who have offered me a space to do my challenge. They have recently opened a new space,  which is a luxury artists hideaway. With a 2.5m square Phillip Starck double bed, antique furniture and all sorts of other extras it is the perfect place to host the challenge. We’re currently discussing dates and as soon as it’s decided I’ll let you all know about the bidding process and the publicity that will surround it – TV, magazines, newspapers etc…

I had a quiet weekend which involved a couple of swims – I was going to try and celebrate Zeitgeist Day on Saturday to make up for Monday’s missed strange day but the event I had planned to go along to was cancelled  – That said take a look at the Zeitgeist day website the movie is thought provoking to say the least.

Sunday was supposed to be a fishing trip with the boys but it was raining and the fish would have got wet so we cancelled it. 

Tonight I’m off to the Imperial War Museum to get photographed with some submarines for Submarine Day. I tried to get onto a Navy Sub, but for some reason they were reluctant to allow a bearded man with a rucksack onto a nuclear powered vehicle – I have to say a huge thanks to Barbara from the Ministry of Defence who did everything in her powers to get me on board but I did leave it kind of late to get offiial clearance.

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New challenges this week

The bells, the bells – Learn how to bell ring and perform in an official ringing -  we will pledge £100 -  If you can manage to pull off performing at St Pauls Cathedral after your training we will donate a bonus of £50

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Keep on challenging me and I’ll keep on accepting.

Rob / Devani

http://www.justgiving.com/twothousandandgreat

Two Thousand and Great – Week 10

Dear all,

I hope you’re well; week ten saw another completed challenge and a very strange day indeed… (those of a particularly strong religious nature might want to avoid the top bit of this email)

Tuesday 4th March was Holy Experiment Day – it started in strange fashion, a late night phonecall to Tooting Leisure Centre revealed that Tooting Bec Lido opens to the public in June and not at 8am as I had kind of expected, this meant that we had to change venue for the first attempted miracle of the day – walking on water. After convincing the manager to allow a camera onto the poolside, I then had to convince the lifeguard to allow me to go in wearing a costume – as my video will attest it was harder work to get the logistics sorted than to actually walk on water. 

The next miracle I attempted was to turn water into wine, I realised that I didn’t have enough people believing in me to make the walking on water work. To counter this I found myself a disciple / believer who also acted as an inpartial observer as I attempted this biblical event. In what only can be described as a miracle / camera trick (you decide) I managed to re-enact the magic, I do have video evidence to prove this but as with all sensitive materials it is proving hard to upload onto Youtube but as soon as it is up there you can see it.

The final miracle I attempted was to try and feed the 5,000 using 4 loaves and 5 fishes.  From what I can tell this isn’t possible, no matter how thinly you spread the fish around there’s always going to be bread left…

As I was upset at not managing to equal the miracle I started trying to get my head around the whole Feeding the 5,000 calculation – a study in 2006 showed that the average height of a European male was 5 foot 9 looking back to the 1900’s the average was 5 foot 2 which is loss of 7 inches or around 9% of height over 100 years.

If we follow this trend backwards making successive generations lose 9% of height per century it is possible to deduce that  in AD 33 the average height of a European male would only have been 6 inches. I managed to make just over 100 rounds of sandwiches My bread was 168 cm2 so divided by 192 this equals a 0.875 cm2 of sandwich per person, not much of a meal even for a tiny person.

I’m also concerned about the types of figures the gospel was based on. To use a modern example – where figures are given for large gatherings eg. the anti war march of February 2003  - according to the organisers 2,000,000 people marched the streets of London, The police came up with a figure of nearer 750,000 and if you were in Hyde Park it was more like 25,000. What kind of accountancy instruments were the writers of the gospel using? Did they abacus the 5,000? Were people allocated an individual numbered receipt to say they had received their portion of fish and bread? Or like with my effort did people return for seconds? could Jesus have basically fed 12 hungry people?

To finish Holy Experiment Day I went to watch the quarter finals of the Laughing Horse Comedy finals where I saw 11 comics die -  granted it was a tough room with little atmosphere and they were all very new – but, as it was a quarter final three people had to go through to the next round so in essence there was not 1 but 3 resurrections.

Secondly I am sure on a taste test I would have beaten Jesus hands down, I had smoked salmon and white bread with lemon and pepper, unleavened bread and raw fish stood no chance – as Jamie Oliver might have said bosh nosh bosh! Or something equally incomprehensible.

I found out that Jesus also mended a mans withered hand, if only Beadle had lasted another month I could have helped him…

The Pucker up challenge has also had a little boost I’ve been invited along to join a ginger army that is being put together in a couple of weekends time. At my clubnight on Friday I also managed to get my first mother daughter redhead kiss.

Talking of my clubnight Fresh Air @ Smoke it was a bit different as for the first time ever I was completely sober – the sobriety was as a result of the Mahayana Buddhist vegetarian diet  challenge which ran from Friday at 7pm to Sunday at 7pm.

In my research I couldn’t work out whether eggs or milk were allowed so to be on the safe side I avoided them, the hardest thing was going through the ingredients of vegetarian pasta sauces and dressings only to find traces of garlic or onions in them and ruling them out. The Mahayana Mahayana Buddhists specifically avoid eating strong-smelling plants such as onion, garlic, chives, shallot, and leek, as they tend to excite senses.

That said I did managed to find some things to buy and cook which can be seen here  I wasn’t totally sure how to prove I had completed this challenge but my housemate can vouch for every major meal I ate and the time and the time I spent looking at every trace element in each product to make sure I didn’t break the rules. To keep within the buddhist rules I also managed to refrain from sexual misconduct, lying, anger and greed. – (unless the redheads kiss detailed above means I failed.)

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New challenges this week include:

Stupid cupid – find 3 girls a boyfriend / love of their life by the end of the year.

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Keep on challenging me and I’ll keep on accepting.

Rob / Devani

http://www.justgiving.com/twothousandandgreat

Two Thousand and Great – Week 9

Dear all

How is everyone? We’re now a couple of months in and everything is going well so far…

As it’s the first e-mail of the month I would usually put up a copy of the weigh-in slip from the machine at Boots but it was a little screwy today and took my measurement in height as 5″2′ which kind of threw out my BMI score. The weight was 17st 4 which means I’ve lost about a stone and a half so far. 

The cycling is going well, i’m doing about 60 miles a week to and from work, if my legs feel tired now I can only imagine how they’ll feel doing that amount everyday for a couple of weeks.

I’ve planned a couple of Tooting to Brighton bike rides in the forthcoming weekends, riding down camping over and coming back – to get used tp the distance, it should be lots of fun.

Challenges coming up this week include the first strange day of March which is March 4th – ‘Holy Experiment Day’ – I am going to try and see if I can replicate a few of the miracles in The Bible – the list so far includes trying to walk on water, trying to turn water into wine and feeding the 5,000 with 5 loaves and 4 fishes. I thought about healing lepers but thankfully that disease appears to have been eliminated in the UK, so I am going to buy a tube of Cream E45 and give it to someone with eczema and offer them some salvation.

This weekend I am also going to take on the Buddhist diet challenge from 7pm Friday til 7pm on Sunday – this means no meat, no onions, garlic, chilli or artificial favourings and no alcohol.. I picked this weekend so I can join one of my DJs in his year of sobriety at one of my clubnights – Fresh Air @ Smoke’s strapline is ‘dancing on tables and drinking others under them’ which is about par for the course and i’ve never been sober enough to remember the end of one so it’ll be different.

Meeting lots of nice redhaired people through social networking sites and redhedd.com (it’s an interestng community) so hopefully we’ll see a huge surge in the pucker up challenge shortly.

Still no luck on finding a woman willing to let me deliver their child but have done a bit of design work over the weekend and going to get some posters into maternity wards and midwife waiting rooms shortly to try and help my efforts.

Sadly I don’t think I will be able to complete my mothers challenge to get married, the 29th Feb has been and gone and I only received 3 proposals – (I had vowed to accept the 4th, which was kind of dangerous as the party I was at was very drunken and it could have come from anywhere or anyone.)

That’s not to say I’m at all disheartened I’m loving the challenges and working out how to acheive them.

(I know someone came up with a new challenge for me on Friday and I just called them to ask what it was, but they were possibly in a worse state than I was on that night so they couldn’t remember either – if it comes back to us then I’ll let you know.)

Keep on challenging me and I’ll keep on accepting.

Rob / Devani

http://www.justgiving.com/twothousandandgreat