Time-Flight

Well, thanks to the combined help of Singapore Airlines and the New Zealand Immigration Service, and one of my flatmates keenly opening my post (thanks for your enthusiasm buddy :)) here I am finally holding the paperwork that I need to both pop home to the UK for six weeks, and to subsequently return here to teach English afterwards. Originally my 12-month ticket had only been valid until last Thursday, however in a rare move the airline agreed to extend its validity by three more days, meaning that this will actually now be my first trip home for over a year!

It’s all just as well – last Thursday I had really been too ill to fly anyway.

The picture above was taken last Saturday, on the day of my new visa’s arrival. Appropriately enough, the assorted bunch of friends behind me are my motley flatmates – Tim downstairs, flatmate Cathy and flatmate Dave. (Smokey refused to join us)

Flatmate Dave is also a time-traveller, as immediately after this picture was taken, he popped out for a couple of hours claiming that he was just popping into work. When he returned however, although only two hours had passed for us, clearly about 50 years had passed for him…


Who knows what adventures he had been off on in that time?

And here’s Nicola refusing to believe his explanation:


After he’d gone again (to fight the Daleks or something) I began the long weary process of packing my bags to go all the way around the planet home again, pausing only to down a quick drink in The Barrell with Tim and Nicola.

The following morning Tim had kindly agreed to skip church in order to give me a lift to Auckland Airport, where he also took an ‘after’ photo of me, to go with the ‘earlier’ one I had taken last time I went home in July 2005.

Before: (8th July 2005)

After: (24th September 2006)


We said our goodbyes, and he returned to his car as I turned away from my last Kiwi friend and towards the airport’s sliding entrance. Then I stopped and turned back as he was still opening his car door. I shouted:

“You were the first person I saw, and the last person!”

He grinned, enjoying one last time an amusing memory that was exactly one year old today, before I turned around again, and we really did go our separate ways.

My bag contained a thoroughly-wrapped bottle of wine as a gift for someone, so just for once I had my bag checked in as FRAGILE. Also, the check-in assistant was kind enough to put me in emergency exit seats all the way to London! Yay Singapore Airlines!


The guy sitting next to me was going to visit his son in Singapore. It’s funny how you develop a certain “team-ness” with whoever you sit next to on a flight.

I only watched 2 TV shows on the flight – the episode of The Simpsons containing Mr Burns’ See My Vest number was well-known to me, but I was absolutely elated to also find an episode of Futurama that I’ve been looking forward to for AGES! It’s the one when Fry goes back in time to avert the events of the very first episode. It’s not the show’s finest hour, but I think Futurama in general is even better than The Simpsons.

That was all I watched though. I’m slowly getting used to these 26-hour journeys, and really no longer need the TV. This time I’d come prepared with all my photos from the past year to label. It was good to use all that down-time to get some work done.

This also had the benefit that, when we landed at Singapore Airport, I was able to retake near-identical shots to the ones I’d taken here just over a year ago when travelling in the opposite direction.

Before: (23rd September 2005)



After: (24th September 2006)


Before: (23rd September 2005)



After: (24th September 2006)


I also got to take some original ones:





But best of all – yes, you guessed it – I got to ride once again on The Singapore Monorail!


(Ahhh, it’s my lifelong dream to be a conductor on one of those things)


After buying a Singapore Monopoly set for Herschel and some souvenirs for my mum (who served in the army in Singapore many years ago), I boarded my second flight.

Again in an emergency exit seat, this time I sat next to a guy who was going on a business trip. Wow – what it must be like to get paid to go to sleep on a 12-hour flight.

Then this morning, at 5:05am, we finally touched-down at Heathrow Airport.

As we were trudging through the terminal towards baggage reclaim, the guy who’d been sitting next to me for the last 12 hours had a follow-on flight to catch, so we bade each other farewell and he turned-off to head through a different door to me.

Then I realised that the last thing I had said to him was “Have a nice time visiting your son.” As he vanished from my life, I remembered that it had been the guy on my first flight who had been visiting his son – this guy was here on a business trip. I sincerely hope that my strange parting words provided him with something to occupy his mind on his following journey.

After waiting the traditional age for my FRAGILE bag, I found it had been bashed around so much that several items inside (not the wine bottle fortunately) had been smashed to pieces, and it had been broken into as well. Nothing seems to be missing however.

Then the emotionless staff behind the desk at the bus station avoided eye-contact with me, and flatly denied the existence of the bus I was asking about.

Then, at Hatton Cross Station, the bus driver refused to change my £20 note, insisting that I get off and go buy something to get some change, and then wait for another bus. Oh yes, I’d landed back in miserable old England all right. It was up to a Chinese girl on the bus to help and change money with me.

I reached my front door at 7:30am. My plan had been to surprise my mum by waking her up with a cup of tea. As I quietly turned the key and pushed open the door, I knew that I was too late. I could see the door to the living room was open, and the light inside was shining out into the corridor. That meant that she was up and having breakfast.

I walked up the corridor, turned into the living room doorway and saw my mum for the first time in just over a year.

I said “Hello.”

She looked up, registered that a complete stranger was apparently standing in her living room, gasped in surprise and clasped at her chest.

Oh dear, I seem to have this effect on people.

Who am I?

Well here I am about to take-off at the end of another crazy year in New Zealand, so I guess, just like this time last year, it’s time to once again ask the question: What have I learnt about myself?

1. I can’t organise. I really only have room for one idea in my brain at a time. I can’t pack a bag for the same reason. Don't even think about asking me to cook.

2. I can’t leave anything unfinished, just like this blog.

3. I always want to find the best way of doing everything.

4. I’m very thorough. Sometimes people mistake this for slowness. I know some people think I take a long time in the toilet/shower/bath, but you can be sure that I'm thoroughly clean afterwards.

5. I have no sense of direction. In a faraway country I have learnt this many many times. Thank God for getting me a room next to the easy-to-spot Sky Tower.

6. I like to take the opportunities in life. There's an episode of The Simpsons in which Homer pretty well sums it up:

Marge: "Homer, just because someone asks you to let them fire a cannonball into your stomach, doesn't mean you have to say yes!"

Homer: (heartbroken)"Marge, in some ways you and I are so different."

7. Doing the right thing is incredibly fundamental to me. So much so that I’ve never consciously noticed this before, but it’s always been my main driving motivation, throughout my whole life.

Goodbye Mr Goble

Eight days ago was my final lesson teaching English to members of the Korean Salvation Army.

It’s been a slightly trippy four months. I’ve got to know so many of them, and had so much fun with them all, yet there haven’t really been any big moments that stand out.

It’s just been fun, laughter and hopefully some learning all the way, every Friday for the past while.

I guess that means it went well.

Then last Wednesday was my final evening pre-intermediate class at the Chinese migrant school. The beginners’ teacher was away, so I had to take both classes at once. A couple of old students came back just for the last one too, and I was genuinely surprised when I found that they’d all got me a goodbye present.

And then this morning I was to have my final kids’ class. As my bus in was late, I started walking, until the bus driver pulled up alongside me between stops to let me on.


These are easily my best students, as they’ve been learning English more as a first language than as a second one. I’ve also been teaching this class the longest, although the entire register has changed since I started about 10 months ago.

With term finished today, tomorrow I fly home to the UK for the first time in over a year. As a result, I’ll start next term a bit late. I guess that makes me the one thoughtless individual who’s spoiling everything for the majority.

Queen Street, designed by Escher

Listening

Bumped into my mate Bill (not real name) on Queen Street today. He hurriedly told me that he’d just been told by his doctor that he would lose his hearing in a couple of years. With us both rushing off to different places, (on opposite sides of the world) we took five minutes to stand in a car park together and pray. As we went our separate ways, I had to reflect on how much higher I prioritise prayer in the face of disaster, as opposed to in the face of okayness.

I mean if Bill had not received such a numbing diagnosis, would we really have stood praying in front of passers-by in a car park?

If the world was perfect, would we pray at all?

Doctor Who: Season 28 Buses And Review

The latest season of Doctor Who got underway on Prime TV here a couple of months back, and this time Auckland’s bus advertising really kicked into gear:





There were also billboards on Queen Street...


...and down by Auckland Harbour...


...which by today had changed to a more generic Prime TV advert:



I’ve seen the whole of season 28 now, and I think it's a heap better than season 27 was. The obvious hook to hang the improvement on is new lead actor David Tennant, who as Doctor 10 is livelier, more versatile, and funnier than Doctor 9.

But let’s be fair here – he’s had better material to work with. There have been a few more episodes this season written by contract writers, and once again these have proved the show’s original multi-authored format to work better. (the episodes in the 1960s-80s series were written by many different authors, while a whopping 14 of the new ones are all by the same, apparently overwhelmed, in-house writer)

To illustrate my point, let’s look at the similarities between last season and this one.

Episode 1: (Rose / The Christmas Invasion)

Both are written by the same in-house writer.
Both are set on present-day Earth.
Both feature a public alien invasion.
Both put Rose centre-stage for most of the episode, only concentrating on the Doctor towards the end.
Both guest-star Jackie and Mickey.
Both feature an alien attack in a shopping-centre.

Episode 2: (The End of the World / New Earth)

Both are written by the same in-house writer.
Both are set on / in orbit around Earth 5 billion years in the future.
Both feature Cassandra as the villain.
Both also coincidentally guest-star the Face Of Boe.

Episode 3: (The Unquiet Dead / Tooth And Claw)

Both are set on Earth in the past.
Both feature a real-life historical character. (Charles Dickens / Queen Victoria)

Episodes 4-5: (The Aliens Of London / World War 3 / School Reunion)

Both are set on present-day Earth.
Both feature aliens masquerading as humans in positions of authority.
Both guest-star Mickey.

Episode 6: (Dalek / Rise Of The Cybermen)

Both are set on a slightly futuristic version of ‘our’ present-day Earth.
Both feature the return of a famous classic monster.
Both feature an extra short-term companion who is also Rose’s boyfriend.

Episode 7: (The Long Game / The Age Of Steel)

Both feature an extra short-term companion who is also Rose’s boyfriend leaving.

Episode 8: (Father’s Day / The Idiot’s Lantern)

Both are set on Earth within living memory.

Episodes 9-10: (The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances / The Impossible Planet / The Satan Pit)

Both are two-part horror stories, featuring zombies.

Episode 11: (Boom Town / Fear Her)
(I sincerely hope the super-pretentious Love & Monsters was a one-off)

Both are set on present-day Earth.

Episodes 12-13: (Bad Wolf / The Parting Of The Ways / Army Of Ghosts / Doomsday)

All 4 episodes are written by the same in-house writer.
Both feature parodies of current TV shows, with presenters playing themselves.
Both feature the return of the classic monster from a few weeks ago.
Both feature the sudden return of the Daleks at the end of the first episode.
Both feature a hidden second alien power showing up and fighting the main enemy in the final episode.
Both stories revolve around 2 syllables that have been (awkwardly) forced into the background of most of the preceeding episodes.
Both stories guest-star Jackie and Mickey.
Both feature swarms of Daleks attacking the Earth.
Both feature the Doctor sneakily sending Rose away to safety, only for her to find her way back again.
Both feature the Doctor telling Rose goodbye in the final scene.
Both goodbyes are immediately followed by a stranger appearing in the TARDIS as an end-of-season cliffhanger.

There are a couple of episodes I missed-out, but even these seem similar. The Girl In The Fireplace and The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances have a lot in common too, and are both by Steven Moffatt.

Ultimately though the new formula as a whole seems to boil down to zombies, (The Unquiet Dead, The Long Game, The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances, The Christmas Invasion, New Earth, School Reunion, Rise Of The Cybermen / The Age Of Steel, The Idiot’s Lantern, The Impossible Planet / The Satan Pit and Army Of Ghosts / Doomsday) disembodied faces, (The End of the World, / New Earth, The Idiot’s Lantern, Love & Monsters and Fear Her) and aliens publicly invading a present-day Earth where no-one remembers the previous episodes in which this has happened. (The Aliens Of London / World War 3, The Christmas Invasion, Fear Her and Army Of Ghosts / Doomsday)

Not to mention the ratings-terrified kissing.






Remember when it was different every week?

Now, that Children In Need Special was refreshingly original...

:)

UPDATE:

... as was Attack Of The Graske...

:)

Goodbye Meat Burger

Ten months ago, someone at the youth hostel that I used to stay at got all possessive over the free food that other people had left behind, and stopped me from taking any when I was starving. So a few minutes later I bought myself a McBurger, before unfortunately noticing a tramp.

Today the opposite happened.

Whilst checking my mail at the hostel, I was told that the employee in question had now left, so I disregarded their year-old one-off demand, and took away some free Weet-Bix that some departee had kindly donated for someone else to enjoy.

Afterwards on Queen Street, I saw a bag lady called Victoria. I asked her if she wanted a burger, and a few minutes later we were sitting in Burger King chatting away over our meal. Alas, I was genuinely sorry to leave her smile behind me as I had to go catch my bus. As I got to the escalators, I glanced back at the table where I’d left her, but couldn’t see her. I wondered whether she’d been real. With another trip home looming, it all reminded me a bit of Rex.

As I caught the bus out of Auckland’s Central Business District, I realised that I was unusually on an express bus, taking a different shorter route back to my flat in Howick. I looked out of the window. The motorway flyover was climbing high above the area that I had come to know as home. Way below were the warm lights of Newmarket, a familiar place at an unfamiliar angle, getting smaller beneath and behind me. It was like looking out of an aircraft window, and as usual I wondered if I was seeing those darkened disappearing streets for the last time.

Mission: Uncomfortable

Tonight at church, five people with a past in mission work were invited up to the front to be publicly questioned about their mission experiences by Jacob. Four of them were very happy to help. One was not. Can you tell which one?


That’s right – the one who looks like a grand piano just landed on his escape vehicle.

I felt like such a fraud. There I was with all these heroes who’d worked with people all over the world, while my claim on the word ‘missionary’ was simply that I worked in an office. Oh I’m not belittling the value of what CBA does, just that my swivel-chair was a long way removed from slumming it in Calcutta. Mind you, I think that juxtaposition was exactly why I’d been asked onto the panel – to expand people’s awareness of where the mission field was.

I'd brought a prop with me, which was that everything I was wearing had been given to me by someone at some stage.

I also had a pat soundbite that I’d come armed with, which I never plucked up the courage to use. It was so obvious, that I thought someone else was bound to say it, so I never got around to it. I’d wanted to say that the mission field was in all walks of life, and that we (everyone in the room) were all missionaries.

It just sounded a bit too crowd-pleasing, that’s all.

THE GUEST HOST 2

My klown friend Herschel is taking a well-earned holiday from his children's-award-winning blog this week, (the ongoing rumours about the studio 'resting' him are not true) (he's told me) (to say) so today I had the dubious pleasure of filling his shoes. Klown shoes. No, of course I couldn't.

Consider my humble offering here.

Hey - he covered for me once y'know!

The School Of Rock

School Of Rock makes little effort to be anything other than exactly what it is - a fun, thoroughly undemanding movie.

Jack Black plays Dewey Finn, a failed rock player cum schoolteacher, who sets-out to, during school hours, secretly transform his class of kids into a prize-winning rock’n’roll band.

There are few surprises along the way, but a ton of rock in-jokes and a charm that renders the well-trodden story okay.

Best of all, a couple of Hollywood clichés get casually turned on their head, even if the final scene does show a crowd of mindlessly zealous parents getting calmed down by the miracle of rock’n’roll.

7/10

The Origin Of stevegoble.blogspot.com

F R E E W E B S P A C E !

Words have never impressed me (they’re just sounds and symbols that we hopefully agree upon) but it’s hard to ignore the universal pull of the word “free.”

It was the 30th June 2004, and I was killing time in Teddington Library. I’d just made email contact with someone I’d met on a weekend away with the Association Of Christian Writers, who knew a few contacts in Auckland that I might be able to stay with when I got there in 3 weeks’ time. Now I was surfing various NZ employment sites, when I happened upon this advert for free webspace. Writing and publishing has always appealed to me, so I signed-up immediately, and within minutes had published my very first post.

It's true!

Jeffrey Hunter is the new Doctor Who!

Within minutes I was already getting feedback from Herschel over at the local TV station.

From: Steve Goble [mailto:steve_goble@hotmail.com]
Sent: 30 June 2004 12:03
To: Herschel Krustofski
Subject: Set the video...in black and white!

If it's on the internet, then it must be true.
http://stevegoble.blogspot.com

From: "Herschel Krustofski"
To: "Goble"
Subject: RE: Set the video...in black and white!
Date: Wed, 30 Jun 2004 12:07:20 +0100

Wow. You have a blog and it's full of true information... Cool!

Time passed, as indeed did half of the planet, and eventually a forlawn Herschel dared to ask the inevitable…

Herschel Krustofski wrote:

By the way, what happened to your blog? No updates in four months?!

From: Steve Goble [mailto:goblesfridge@yahoo.com]
Sent: 28 October 2004 14:03
To: Herschel Krustofski
Subject: RE: Star Wars Holiday Special directed by Jacques Tati

I can't even remember the blog's address. Remind me.

True story.

Trev from church drives an ice-cream van. When he bought it, it was a bright shining MR WHIPPY van. He got it's W.O.F. (M.O.T.) approved, and for 6 months successfully sold ice creams from it to all the kids around the suburbs of Auckland. Then MR WHIPPY’s people got wind of what he was doing, and determined to put a stop to him. They told him that MR WHIPPY was extremely displeased at his name being used without his permission, and insisted that Trev stop. Trev was outraged, incenced even. But when all was said and done, Mr Whippy was after all right. And so it was that, after much prayer and soul-searching, Trev reluctantly got out his paint-stripper, went to his ice-cream van, and scratched-off the letter 'W'.

From: Herschel Krustofski [mailto:herschel.krustofski@klownkollege.ac.uk]
Sent: 28 October 2004 14:04:36 +0100
To: Goble
Subject: RE: Star Wars Holiday Special directed by Jacques Tati

So now he's a hippy, maaan?
"That's Mister Hippy to you, son."
http://stevegoble.blogspot.com

There it was. I’d written an email to Herschel about blogging, and had then immediately gone and written an entire post after it without even realising!

In fact, so little did I realise it, that this was what I immediately went with for my second post.

And then, after nearly another 4 months had passed, on 14th February the next year…

Herschel Krustofski wrote:

How's your blog coming along? I've not checked it in a while.

From: Steve Goble [mailto:goblesfridge@yahoo.com]
Sent: 15 February 2005 09:500
To: Herschel Krustofski
Subject: RE: RE: Lost episode found and restored

Neither have I. It'd be nice to know what I've been up to lately. As it is I can't even remember the login.

Herschel Krustofski wrote:

The last message on there states that, appreantly, YOU do all the work. Oh, how we laugh in blog-reading-land.

From: Steve Goble [mailto:goblesfridge@yahoo.com]
Sent: 15 February 2005 10:01
To: Herschel Krustofski
Subject: RE: RE: Lost episode found and restored

Apparently that includes spell-checking.

Herschel Krustofski wrote:

O'Dh!

It was around about this time that I met Joe, who had started his blog 6 months after me, but was doing great things with it – chronicling his journey around the world with lots of funny text and pictures. By March Frank had discovered Blogger too, and was similarly thrashing my pathetic total of 2 short posts.

5th March: time for my thrice-yearly third post.

A week later, on 12th March, I found myself pacing around the Pacifika festival, deep in thought about blogging. I felt thoroughly inspired, and dreamt of going back and recapping not only my experiences in New Zealand, but everything else from my first 34 years of life. I knew better than to commit myself to such a foolhardy target though, and decided to just do one post, whenever I felt like it.


I’ve no idea what surreal thing my profile text had said before that point (though it may be buried somewhere in Herschel’s subconcious), but it was clearly time to change it. The wording that I settled on has remained relatively unchanged until today:

I'm an English Christian attempting to serve God in New Zealand, 14,000 miles away from where I grew up. I've spent the last 8 months serving Him in a backpackers hostel. I'll admit straight away that I don't fit the typical backpacking model - at 34 I've never smoked, taken drugs, drunk alcohol, had sex or been out on a date. But despite my failiure to match-up in these regards, I do have a daily plan: 1. Let God provide for my needs. 2. Let God decide what happens to me. 3. Try to do whatever Jesus would. This might work better if I was any good at it. I have no financial income, few regular tasks, and no evidence of any future. To the outside world it may appear that God, or I, or maybe both of us have failed. In truth, I'm learning to rely upon God's unfailing daily provision (I have everything I need), His coincidence-defying appointments (unknowingly volunteering for a week that perfectly matched my gifts) and, most of all, to trust Him. (You'll see)

This was good. The 3-point plan had never really been consciously in my head before, but now that I had defined what I was doing in NZ, I realised that I had been following this all along.

Putting my life into words also helped me to both define who I was, and who I wanted to be. And I felt like I had achieved something occassionally.

However a problem developed with this text – some readers took it a bit literally. I started to get emails from people, congratulating me on giving up everything to live the life of the early Christians, and asking which church I took my new converts to.

I was hardly preaching the gospel here, and the one time that one of my friends had actually come with me to my (then) church, I had felt thoroughly, thoroughly embarrassed by it.

Gradually my life changed. Today I no longer live in the thick of the mission field. I have a job I believe in, I share a flat and I’ve found a church that I actually like. Great shades of Presley – I’m think I’m some version of normal.

Also, I’ve met a spread of different Christians with different beliefs to each other – the active, the passive, the encouraging, the cynical, the extreme and the open. I’ve also experienced tiny little aspects of Christ’s suffering, and tried to follow his silent forgiving example throughout. Somewhere along the way I slowly formed my own opinions, and so early this morning I finally updated my profile to reflect my faith’s subtle shift from the apparent extremety of God's words, to balance:

Hello. :) I'm a Christian, and I'm utterly harmless.

I've never taken drugs, smoked, drunk alcohol, had sex or been out on a date.

I can't even tread on a spider.

Yet bizarrely, Christians are often portrayed as obsessive zealots, picking one truth about God, and exaggerating it out of all proportion no matter who gets hurt.

I think any belief about God requires a gentle, delicate, precious sensitivity.

And a willingness to suffer for someone else's mistakes.

When I hurt, that's normal. But when someone else hurts, I just want to help them somehow. People are beautiful.

When Christ died on the cross, I don't think it was really just to pay-off a mean god to like us again.

I think the crucifixion is simply where perfect love will ultimately lead us.

Hence, I'm learning to rely upon God's unfailing daily provision (I have everything I need), his coincidence-defying appointments (people seem to just show up) and, most of all, to embody his soft, gentle, all-forgiving holy spirit.

It’s not set in stone, and it will change as my own faith and beliefs hopefully develop, but it helps me to be able to put what I believe into words. That way, at least I know what I think I believe.

Words. They mean so little. Yet they also mean so much.

I Can't Do This

Whilst trying to get to sleep this morning, I kept starting to drop off, but then suddenly waking in shock and sitting bolt upright. At one point I woke up, and was able to recall what I had just been dreaming about, at the moment of my terror. I had been dreaming about 3 dancing pigs playing violins and performing the theme to Scrubs.