99 Red Balloons

This song sprang into my mind the other day. It's quite a bouncy song and like most songs the lyrics pass by quite quickly. Given Nena are German (Nena is the name of the band, as well as the lead singer) the English lyrics are doubly hard to take in compared to normal 80s pop, but if you do listen you'll find it's actually a quite biting anti-war lyric.

The original song was in German, but it was picked up in the US and England so they wrote some new fluffier lyrics in English. The English version tells much the same story, but is not a direct translation of the original. The lyrics are dreamier and two of the verses appear to have been switched so the song can creshendo on tales of Jet Fighter pilots imagining they are Captain Kirk, and the explosions they create.

I've since learned the English version Song has been covered in a US garage rock type band called Gold Finger. And in deference to Nena they swap the penultimate verse of the English one out and sing the penultimate verse of the German one. But this means that they're actually singing the verse about the war ministers twice and missing out any mention of Captain Kirk. Or perhaps that was the point.

Anyway it amused me and I thought I would share.

A quiz

OK several songs reduced to a synposis, can you name them?

1. Somehow a load of ballons get released into the sky and drift off to the horizon. This causes alarms to go off and there is an all out alert. Trigger happy generals send off pilots in Jet fighters (each one considering himself to be somthing of a hero). There is a war for many years and the city is destroyed. In the dust we find a balloon, and let it go.

2. An admin worker, bored of her job, dreams of going back and witnessing the Hiroshima bomb from close quaters

3. A man bored of his life answers a personal ad as a form of escapism, the woman seems to like all the things he does. So he writes back and agrees to meet in a bar whereupon he discovers the ad was placed by his wife, they have a laugh and their love is rekindled.

4. A musician tries to comfort his best friend's son who is feeling bad about things at home and suggests the boy go out and find a woman to share his life

Planning Ahead

What a hectic few weeks that was.

Already looking forward to what I'll be doing next year, but aiming to conserve the 12.5 days holiday I have left until the end of April.

Possibilities.

There are several big international camps to go on, either taking Scouts if they can be bothered, or as part of the staff. CamJam, NorJam, Smuggler, Nailer and Charnwood spring immediately to mind but there is also the Serbian National Jamboree which seems to be generating interest along with Nordjam in Iceland and other events.

And also SAGGA is going to Sweeden (dates temporarily misplaced, but it's around the end of July/begining of August).

I'm back

... and despite grumbles, I wouldn't have missed being part of it for the world.

And so it ends

Most of the scouts are off site and the IST party has finished. Now I am at the back of the site in the area known as the Baltic sea with some fins and dutch
ritually burning a sauna. I don't know why because I an not Finnish.

But it is a camp fire and nice.

Yes I have been drinking.

I'm in the press...

Well the Eurojam newspaper at least.

Read it here.

Lots of lessons to be learned, some by me.

A bit too much us and them here for my liking- this needs addressing for 2007 where we need to be one staff team even if we are recruited by different methods. Still on the IM team 97% of us have been great, with only one or two "JOT"ers beening a problem.

I'm considering researching a management training programme, and offering it to the Scout Association, Scouting 2007, whoever needs it to train those in positions of responsibility

An, er, interesting time

Eurojam is going well, things are interesting.

However due to the fact everyone who saw me this morning said I looked knackered, I had a lazy day. The first lazy thing I have done since I started as I have been consistently hard working otherwise.

So my Uncle Ron went and picked me up in Chelsmford, and we went to see my Aunty Joyce for the afternoon. We talked about a lot including how things are going here, and my Auntie had some interesting theories as to why people perceive me as they do, and what I could possibly do to change my luck.

Will let you know about my jobs, and the team after the event. Suffice it to say there are still one or two people who make the mistake all crap managers do of mistaking confidence for ability.