Welcome to Simon Varwell's website

Other random stuff

This page contains various other bits and pieces that don't really fit in anywhere else.

There's not a huge amount of order to it, but that will make it all the more exciting for the both of us, won't it?

First, check out my Flickr contacts - they're mostly friends of mine whose photos I keep up with, plus a few folk I don't know but whose photos I love. Flickr's a great site - not only is it a place to store photos, but it's also a chance to explore others' pictures, join in discussions about common interests, and play fun games like "Guess Where Aberdeen" (which I am truly rubbish at).

I do read lots of blogs, and currently read them through the Google Reader. It's a brilliant blog feeder, but annoyingly there's no facility yet to publicly display what blogs you read. This means I can't tell you who all I follow without putting them all in here individually, which I currently can't be arsed to do. But until such point, here for starters and in no particular order are just some of my friends' blogs that I read: Gareth, Donald, Justin, Mark, Niall and Claire.

That's a neat segway to David McCarthy, my former minister in Glasgow. His blog links to a number of other bloggers in the church who I read. The church is St Silas, an episcopal church which I was led to in a search that to my surprise has become somewhat infamous in Christian internet circles. However, both before and after Glasgow, I have been a part of Hilton Church of Scotland in Inverness, who have both a website and a blog.

You might have noticed in my blog I like a bit of religious satire. If you do, check out the hysterically funny IRC Bible - the Bible, written in the layout, vernacular and technical gibberish of internet chat rooms. Ship of Fools is also worth a peek.

Moving from religion to cults, I'm a joinee. A joinee is a member of Join Me, a collective of tens of thousands of people all over the world who perform Random Acts of Kindness. It was started by a bloke named Danny Wallace a few years ago. It's been a fantastic way to make new friends and of course make the world a much better place. I heartily recommend that you become a joinee. Don't worry, it may be a cult but as the Leader says, "there's no space travel involved, and mass suicides are generally frowned upon." Joinees gather across the UK and beyond on regular occasions for "join meets". I organise the annual Inverness meet, and (occasionally) look after the Join Me Highlands website.

Another people-based thing I am involved in is One Big Friendly World, an attempt by two English joinees to make friends from every country in the world.

And talking of the world, I read a lot and my favourite genre is travel-writing. Some of my favourite authors are Peter Moore, Dave Gorman, Tony Hawks and Charlie Connelly. They are all very engaging, inspiring and funny.

Dance Monkey Boy Dance are funny too. They're a fortnightly improvisational comedy show at The Stand comedy club in Glasgow which I went to when I lived there. The line-up includes the very entertaining Raymond Mearns.

Comedy is something you listen to. As is music. My favourite bands include Sigur Ròs, Kent, Mùm, Banco de Gaia and Mogwai. Oh and liveplasma is a wonderful site - it tells you what bands are similar to others, so you can enter your favourites and find out who else you might like. Even better, build your own radio station with Pandora.

My favourite station is BBC Radio Five Live, which together with the BBC News website, forms my single source of information about the world. I do enjoy news satire too, such as Dead Brain.

Now... what else? Ah yes, if you've got a problem, you've nowhere else to turn, and the A-Team are booked up for the next fortnight, try All Experts. Other people who do good things are my friend Kieran, who runs aidconvoy.net, and Peat, who's a complete fool.

And finally, let me urge you to drink Innocent smoothies. They taste great, they're good for you, and the company is a lovely bunch of people.

I think that's more or less all I can think of for now. Well done for reading this far down. Have a biscuit and a sit down. Or if you're already sitting down and eating a biscuit, stand up and do something else.

And do I know you? Are you hurt I've missed you out? Email me on gimmealink@simonvarwell.co.uk.

That's all, folks!