Of Annual Review Parts 1 & 2

Wow! Is our marketing team on fire at the moment or what? We've just developed a great Powtoon Promo for our flagship event. Click Annual Review of Employment Law Conference to preview. We've also just put together a great video promoting our next conference at the Ramada, Belfast. To preview this take a look here : Legal-Island AR Event

Of Going after Russian with the Cavalry

I don't want to speak too soon but I think I may have cracked this learning Russian melarkey. Since the beginning of the year I've worked out how best I learn, when in the day works well for me and just what type of language course or courses suits me best.
I'm doing a hour every day first thing in the morning before I swim. This is an hour's audio work with Pimleur's Russian. This course is great if you just want to learn how to say Russian phrases but if you're after grammar it's next to useless. Enter Michele Thomas's "Russian Foundation Course" by Natasha Bershadski. This is by far the best thing I found if you want to get to the centre of what is a very complex language and make your way out alive. Finally, there's RussianPod101.com which, for a monthly subscription, gives you access to a whole suite of lessons online from Beginners right through to Advanced. Their lessons are in short bites of around 20 minutes. They're best I find for learning the written language and improving your vocabulary. Vocab is best augmented by introducing associations and the more silly and vivid the more they're likely to work for me at least.

I've also discovered what doesn't work for me. You can buy a host of Apps offering the Top 1,000 Russian words to learn but unless a word is in context I struggle to remember it. Russian films with English subtitles haven't helped much either. If they're good I tend to forget it's a language lesson and up enjoying the movie. If they're bad (and there's a good few Russian films in this league I've discovered) I tend to nod off.

Above all, you have to keep at it. It's a slog but one made much easier now with Apps, and MP3s and Ipads. How we managed in years gone by with just a teacher and a piece of chalk I'll never know. Perhaps most of us never did.

Of When there's Overweight and OVERWEIGHT

I jumped on the electronic scales this morning at the Antrim leisure centre to check whether this new fitness regime is paying off or not. One thing startled me; another worried me and a third thing amused me.
It seems I'm 6 ft 1in tall. I had always thought I was 5ft 11 3/4inches. Clearly, I've be misleading medics, tailors and suit hire people since I was 18 or thereabouts.
I now weigh 13lbs 7st 12 oz which is a full two stone lighter than I was this time last year. Well done the Tim Ferris diet and Barry Phillips for the discipline for keeping to it for it's not the tastiest grub going.
My BMI is 25.1. According to the print out, if you're 25 or less you're of an ideal weight. So this makes me overweight. What amused me is that if I were to end up in the next category I'd still be overweight but the overweight is in uppercase! It's a very pc world we live in. Or should that PC?

Employment Law Conferences

We're full out at Legal-Island at the moment working on our big five employment law update conferences
The great news is that they're selling really well. So well done team Islanders it looks like all the hard work and forward planning is paying off.

Of Food Inglorious Food

I'm on a diet at the moment. It's tough going but the weight is falling off. I jumped on the scales at the end of last week to find I have lost almost a stone since the end of the summer. The aim is to get under 14 stone by the end of the month which means I've another half a stone to shed. I'm working largely off Tim Ferris's book "The Four Hour Body" and this is what he recommends scrapping :

* All diary products
* All drink except water
* All fruit - far too much sugar
* All bread
* All chocolate, cakes and buns

No much left you might think? Well, as he says himself you're on a diet to lose weight not to spoil your taste buds. You've got to enjoy abstinence to do this well, oh and an awful lot of lentils.

OF One Great Weekend after Another

I never thought I'd say this but I'm holding out for some bad weather right now. For each weekend we get to the forecast is great and we seem to spend just a few minutes in the house -Friday to Sunday. It's great to enjoy the outdoors but at some stage we're going to have to start the decorating, change the carpets and clear out the garage.

This weekend we attended Northern Ireland's first ever Russian festival and it was superb. Anna sung three traditional Russian folk songs with a few others which was lovely to watch. She was in traditional "Russian dress" she had purchased at Junction 1 in Antrim! She did look quite Russian although she did look a bit like a 60s hippy too! There was Russian food on offer too which was a novel experience. Cabbage in pasties takes some getting accustomed to but then so does our black pudding I suppose.

On Sunday we cycled from Cultra to Bangor along the coastal path which was just wonderful. Sunday lunch at the Salty Dog was terrific. Blue Jasmine by Woody Allen topped a great weekend.

Of Belfast Speakers Circle Round II

It was the second meeting of the Belfast Speaker's Circle last night and a cracker it turned out to be too. Members contributed a huge variety of material from Shakespeare to Keats, Tolstoy to WB Yeates. There was even a children's nursery rhyme and an old Cornish folk song.
It was rich, last night. Powerful, and utterly compelling.
For anyone wanting to practise their public speaking in Northern Ireland this is the place to do it.
Onwards!