Col’s Weblog

As you will no doubt know from my previous post - Our Wedding: The Big Day - Claire and I got married at The New Mill restaurant and you may be wondering “Why get married at a restaurant?”.

Well, I hope to explain our reasons here.

First off, neither of us is particularly religious, so a church wedding was off the cards from the beginning, especially when you consider they charge just as much as venues and the local council charge for civil services.

We also didn’t want to do the local registry office thing. Wokingham’s registry office is quite a small place and isn’t the most exciting or interesting of places to get married.

So our only choice really was to find a licensed venue. To keep things simple we opted for a single venue for the ceremony, breakfast and evening reception. We did our research, drew up a short list and booked our “viewing” appointments.

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Interesting links for 13 Jun 08 - 15 Jul 08:

• Crap Idea - The new must have festival essential. No more horrible smelly porta-potties.
• Building demolition based on old Japanese game - This is very cool and very clear, and best of all, very neat and tidy. Imagine they demolished buildings like this in the rest of the world.
• SA Govt awards R3.6bn in ARV contracts - Now this is a government showing it's serious about HIV/AIDS. No other country in the world has made such a large commitment, and this is on the start of things to come.
• Teens use technology to party in strangers’ pools - I guess happy slapping just isn't that much fun anymore.
• Du Toit lights up Olympic team - This is impressive. Natalie du Toit has made history by becoming the first athlete to ever be named and compete in BOTH the Olympics and Para-Olympics in the same year.

Claire and I have now been married for 11 days, and whilst we don’t have our official photos yet, I thought I’d detail our big day for those that couldn’t attend.

This is actually the first of a series of posts that I’ll post over the next few days as there’s so much to write about and I’d rather give it to you in bite sized chunks than one large mammoth post, though each of the posts may be quite large.

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This is just a quick post to let all those that couldn’t attend out wedding know all went brilliantly well. Everything fell into place and we had a fantastic day with no problems at all.

For those who did attend: thank-you very much for joining us and for your generosity. If you’ve got any pictures you’d like to share, please feel free to email them to Claire or me.

Yesterday Claire and I had a peaceful relaxing “mini-moon” in London and we’re off for a “family-moon” bright and early tomorrow with Mum and Sam.

I’ll write about all the details of the wedding, mini-moon and family-moon once we’re back as it will be a computer-free week for all, and I’m a bit short of time now.

Well, it’s nearly a month now since I got my Vibram Five Fingers and I’m happy to say I’m still very impressed with them. More importantly, I’m also still injury free and starting to really notice my feet adapting.

To get a true reflection of the effects of running in the Vibrams, I’ve run exclusively in them. My “normal” running shoes have been relegated to the status of a fashion item (I wear them with shorts when flip-flops aren’t appropriate) and plan to keep it that way.

The first few runs were a little fairy-like as I ooohed and aaaahed each time I encountered a small stone or some particularly course tarmac, but now I hardly notice them. It actually feels like I’ve got a lot more cushioning under my feet than I really do.

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This time next week, Claire and I would have been happily married for a whole 2 ½ hours (assuming things finish at 14:30 on the dot). I can say pretty much everything is in place now. We’ve got a couple of things to finish off, like place cards and the music, but nothing major. It should hopefully all fall into place on the day.

If you’re coming to the wedding ceremony, be sure to be on time. I’ll be at the venue from 13:00 and the ceremony will start at 14:00 sharp. I’m prepared to turn a blind eye if you surreptitiously slip me a couple reddies when nobody is looking .

Whilst we don’t have much to do, this next week is going to be hectic. It’s all getting so exciting now.

Who’d have thought South Africa would be trail blazing with it’s affirmative action laws? I certainly didn’t, but given the news today, it looks like the UK will be adopting a page from the South African book in the newly announced “Equalities Bill”.

Whilst most of the bill is designed to rule out discrimination and bring a whole lot of older laws under a single bill, it has a “positive” discrimination clause in it which will “allow firms to discriminate in favour of female and ethnic minority job candidates“.

Surely this is hypocritical, and leaves a nice gap in the law for abuse. You either condone discrimination, or you don’t. This isn’t something that should be conditional. I’m very much of opinion that fair’s fair. If you’re perfect for the job, you should get it, regardless of your race, sex, class or creed.

Last night’s F-Word featured probably the most disgusting cheese in the world: the casu marzu.
This is a sheep’s milk cheese from Sardinia, Italy that is effectively a Pecorino Sardo, but taken a stage further in the fermentation/maturation process.

After a couple of weeks of maturation, the top of the cheese is cut open and the cheese is left open for the flies to get at it. Yes, the flies; and this is intentional. Once the flies get in, they lay eggs which then grow and become larvae which eat, digest (and poop) the cheese. This turns the cheese from a hard cheese to a pungent soft cheese with live wiggly worms in it.

Apparently some people eat the cheese with the worms in, and others like to remove them first, but a sure sign that the cheese is good to eat is the worms are still alive.

I’m quite a fan of cheese, but I don’t think I’m brave enough to try this one.