Adam Bird - My Personal Blog

Last week I wrote about a team of people who are on the cusp of fulfilling of a dream, to drive a fire engine around the world and how it reminded me of things that I’m still to do. Namely a road-trip across America, to see the sights, enjoy the tastes and smells whilst embracing a diversity of culture that is barely rivalled in any other country on the globe. Someone else once had a dream. He spoke about it in-front of millions and was ultimately murdered in cold blood because of it. His name was Martin Luther King. Imagine then if you can, an alternative road-trip, one that’s taken in a DeLorean like Marty McFly, which allows you to drive across America whilst zigzagging through the great space-time continuum. How different would your story be? What would you have made of Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement, which you probably learnt about, like me - in school? Add to the learnt dates, names, facts and figures, an understanding of the depth of feeling and assess how ...

Somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean sails a freight ship carrying its usual load of shipping containers heading for Europe, or Valencia in Spain to be exact. Within one is an extra special shipment, a Fire Engine affectionately known as ‘Martha’, who is on her way back to London after an epic nine month global journey which has seen her circumnavigate the globe in the name of charity. I first heard about Follow that Fire Engine towards the end of 2009 as the first Facebook event invitations got issued from a friend of a friend. James Morrow, or Jimbo as he was introduced to me by my good friend Stuart, ironically a fire fighter himself. These event invitations were fundraisers for an expedition of people, who were raising money and awareness for their pending trip. An ambitious journey which would see them driving a fire engine around the world aiming to raise money for three charities close to the hearts of all of them, whilst attempting to break a Guinness Book Reco...

Last week a friend suggested that I have a look to see what national day/week it was and write a blog post upon the subject. A great suggestion I thought, but the timing was slightly out. The only day in March that really appealed to me was World Book Day , but having already published my post for the week I thought I’d save that particular subject for the future. Since then, I’ve been assigned a task - to write an article about my local Library and so this week, I’ve concocted a blog post which is a mixture of all of that! My article, which I have submitted as part of my writing class was to look at our local library and talk about it, as if writing for a newspaper perhaps. With it came a 500 word limit; meaning I was up and over that long before I’d even made an introduction! Within it, I spoke about our own central library in Gravesend, how Kent County Council are going against the current trend and are actually placing some much welcome investment in the form of a redevelo...

In today’s modern society it seems that in general terms it has become very easy to moan about anyone and everyone, via either a Facebook status update or a tweet, but voicing gratitude sometimes gets forgotten or isn’t as widely recognised. In this, my latest #postaweek2011, I’d like to thank Apple for their excellent customer service and highlight the problem in which they resolved for me, just in case anyone reading this also has the same problem happen to them. First of all, before I begin, I owe an apology to those kind Facebook friends and family of mine who openly offered me sources of inspiration to base this week’s blog post upon. I was perhaps a little hasty in sending out an SOS seeking a topic after what I falsely believed to be writers block. Based upon the excellent suggestions made to me I was able to find out a little more about the crisis in Libya, this years Fair Trade Fortnight and that erm, coughs, Justin Bieber was actually born in Canada! But there was one s...