I forgot to do my Top Ten Tuesday this week, so apologies for that.

Anyway, those of you who know me off of Edinburgh may or may not know that I’m off to the big smoke this weekend.

I’m gone from Friday to Tuesday, and while I’m away I hope to catch up with some old friends from small group, the Republic of Dalkeith Road, hax0ring and general larking about, watch the first F1 race of the season in a posh bit of London, visit Wembley (that’s a big place where they have cup finals, Newcastle fans), Watford, Wapping and White Hart Lane, and perhaps pay her Maj and the PM a visit too.

Should be fun, photos will appear on facebook when I come back!

New format this time, instead of 100 arbitrary facts (I’m not that interesting) I present to you my top ten top ten lists. You can find other such posts here and here. This is a list of my favourites and may not be an indication of what is actually “best”. Booya.

List I: Top ten Bible books

I Ecclesiastes

II Gospel of John

III Revelation

IV Proverbs

V Genesis

VI Acts

VII Romans

VIII Ezekiel

IX Gospel of Luke

X Hebrews

List II: Top ten Non-religious books

XI L’étranger by Albert Camus

XII Lord of the Flies by William Golding

XIII La Peste by Albert Camus

XIV The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon

XV Eureka! The Birth of Science by Andrew Gregory

XVI Fermat’s Last Theorem by Simon Snigh

XVII The Miracle of Castel di Sangro by Joe McGinnis

XVIII The Story of the World Cup by Brian Glanville

XIX Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck

XX La Symphonie Pastorale by André Gide

List III: Top ten Movies

XXI Terminator 2: Judgement Day

XXII The Terminator

XXIII Serial Lover

XXIV Return of the Jedi

XXV A Beautiful Mind

XXVI Juno

XXVII The Dark Knight

XXVIII Batman Begins

XXIX Spiderman 2

XXX Casino Royale

List IV: Top ten TV shows

XXXI Doctor Who

XXXII Peep Show

XXXIII Torchwood

XXXIV Mock the Week

XXXV Have I Got News for You

XXXVI QI

XXXVII Match of the Day

XXXVIII Give My Head Peace (RIP)

XXXIX Futurama

XL Gavin and Stacey

List V: Top Ten Radio Shows

XLI I’m Sorry, I Haven’t a Clue (RIP Humph)

XLII The Now Show

XLIII The News Quiz

XLIV The Chris Moyles Show

XLV Sport on Five

XLVI The Scott Mills Show

XLVII Mark and Lard (I know it’s not on anymore, but still)

XLVIII Fighting Talk

XLIX Stephen Nolan

L Richard Bacon

List VI: Top ten Pet Hates

LI People standing at pedestrian crossings and waiting, having not pressed the button

LII Cyclists going through red lights & riding on Jawbone Walk

LIII Smug Mac users & Apple fanboyism generally

LIV People saying “3AM in the morning” or “5PM in the afternoon”

LV “Apostrophe’s” or, worse, “comma,s” where they aren’t supposed to be

LVI Windows Vista

LVII James Allen on ITV F1 coverage

LVIII People who shout “Come on [insert British player here]” at Wimbledon

LIX The general attitude towards Mathematics these days

LX The obsession with celebrities

List VII: Top ten music artists

LXI Muse

LXII Green Day

LXIII REM

LXIV Ting Tings

LXV Manu Chao

LXVI Arctic Monkeys

LXVII Amy MacDonald

LXVIII Snow Patrol

LXIX Blink 182

LXX Bloc Party

List VIII: Top ten countries other than the UK & Ireland I might want to live in

LXXI Canada

LXXII Monaco

LXXIII Germany

LXXIV New Zealand

LXXV Australia

LXXVI France

LXXVII Denmark

LXXVIII South Korea

LXXIX Luxembourg

LXXX Switzerland

List IX: Top ten on my iTunes most played

LXXXI Still Alive by GlaDos (from the Portal soundtrack)

LXXXII Machines by Biffy Clyro

LXXXIII Pork and Beans by Weezer

LXXXIV Folding Stars by Biffy Clyro

LXXXV Jesus of Suburbia by Green Day

LXXXVI Great DJ by Ting Tings

LXXXVII Imitation of Life by REM

LXXXVIII Supernatural Superserious by REM

LXXXIX Mr Rock & Roll by Amy MacDonald

XC From Despair to Where by Manic Street Preachers

List X: Random Facts

XCI I once played a former Romanian Olympic Table Tennis player. Surprisingly, I lost

XCII I’m currently watching “This Morning” in KB House

XCIII I like Roman Numerals

XCIV I couldn’t tell you exactly how long I’ve been a Christian for

XCV I don’t like it when it’s hot

XCVI My favourite Ice cream flavour is Mint Choc Chip

XCVII I don’t take as many photos as I used to

XCVIII The best thing to put on toast is peanut butter

XCIX Maps are great and I could look at one for hours

… and finally…

C Writing lots of things like this is really hard!

Thanks for reading, I don’t think I’ll be doing another one of these again somehow, but you never know! Cheerio!

Springtime is brilliant. The sun comes out, you can walk around in a t-shirt and it’s warm. But unfortunately, it also means that exams are over and it’s time to say goodbye to people you love as they decide to end on to pastures new.

So, for the benefit of those of you that will be saying “pip-pip” to Edinburgh (and in some cases single life as well), I would like to say that it was really brilliant for me to have been part of your life these last few years or months, and that life won’t be the same knowing that you are round the corner or up the road or down the corridor or whatever. It was a pleasure for me, and I hope so for you too. Please keep in touch, and let me know what your plans are for the next wee while at least. May God give you untold blessings and a fire that burns for Him forever.

“Yes, that’s right, you’re going. You’ve been gone for ages. You’re already gone. You’re still here. You’ve just arrived. I haven’t even met you yet. It all depends on who you are and how you look at it. Strange business, time…”- A traveller

So I went to Amsterdam this weekend to see Iain and it was a hoot. I’d been before, so it wasn’t so much about sight-seeing this time, but about people. It’s a brilliant city with friendly people, but the only real touristy thing we did was to visit the Amsterdam ArenA, the day after Ajax had been dumped out the Champions League by FC Twente (incidentally, if you think the UK media is too big 4-centric, the headline “Ajax fall into the UEFA Cup”  tells you everything- it’s all about the big clubs and FC Twente are the villains here, probably because they are certainties to get KO’d in their qualifier). There’s also an interesting wee cafe where a cat takes residence, sleeping in flower boxes and generally walking around like he owns the place.

Iain’s flatmates are really cool, if somewhat borderline insane (in a nice way), and made a nice change from the flashers I currently live with. Hopefully they’ll come up to Edinburgh soon and we’ll relive those memories, none of which I can currently recall. What happens in Amsterdam stays in Amsterdam though eh? I have a funny feeling I left something behind though…

Today I walked home through the chilly May air with an air of satisfaction I haven’t felt in a while. Granted, today hasn’t been exactly great (I had to blow £45 on repairing my mobile phone and I was still feeling shocked after saying something I really shouldn’t have yesterday) .

Today was the day I “officially” (?) stood down as PG colloquium organiser (basically I have to find someone to give a talk to the other PhD students every week and send everyone a raft of irritating emails reminding them of this) and it was a job well done, if I do say so myself, but it’s largely thanks to a certain Mexican friend of mine who sent an email which seemed to motivate everyone. So Enrique, I am in your debt.

Also, in an unrelated issue, I’m off to the Netherlands this weekend after the Navs barbecue on friday in order to settle some old scores. I’ll let you know how that went when I get back. If you desire a postcard, email me your address.

I’m leaving the country (Scotland) for the weekend, heading to Brum/ Northampton to see Chris Rath. I’ll be back Monday and will hopefully post on my experiences (including a Premier League game) and put some photos up when I get back.