Challenge Kev is where this blog started. It’s where I tried new things, successes trumpeted and failures giggled at.  Started on Facebook after being inspired by a fellow curiosity junkie, now coming to you from wordpress.  Like a franchise I suppose but without the oodles of cash coming my way.  It used to be about the 75 challenges.  Now it’s about taking on any challenge as well as gentle musings and funny stuff.

The Challenges: 75 of them, all nominated by friends.  Some fun, some impossible, some just wrong.  Here they are: (completed challenges in bold)

1. Give up alcohol for 6 months. – STARTED AND FAILED SO FAR……month number 4 now completed!  An attempt at the last two months has failed miserably, try again after xmas??  And finally completed!!  
2. Find a willing participant and play leap frog.
3. Don’t eat all the pies.- STARTED and considering completed as pie intake has dropped by (by my unscientific reckoning….)at least 50%!
4. Grow a MASSIVE beard!! But I’m gonna keep going, ZZ Top style…..
5. 50 jaeger bombs in a night………BOOM!
6. 48 hours of eating like a vegetarian.
7. Attend pre-season rugby training.
8. Read a book from cover to cover in 4 weeks and write a review – The Snowman – Joe Nesbo
9. Get your name and picture in a local newspaper.
10. Build a machine/piece of equipment that can throw a water balloon over a set distance to hit a specific target.- Tried and FAILED!!  And now completed!!
11. Find someone called Brian and make him your leader as in Monty Python. Create a FB page called “Honk if you love Brian” with a pic of you both and get as many fans as possible.
12. Take part in a dancing class (of your choice) and with your partner choreograph a routine for FB viewing. – STARTED PRACTICING MY MOVES!
13. Drive a super car at Knockhill.
14. Spend a week without using any technology (except car, got to get to work somehow!!). – Completed on holiday with Miss Harrison
15. Take a basic car maintenance course.
16. Go on a weekend cycling trip – at least 50 miles a day. – Our Coast and Castles trip!
17. Find a woman for Mr Morris.
18. Raise £100 for charity by selling something you make yourself.
19. Find a pub with the same name (chain pubs don’t count!) in every Scottish city, buy someone in the pub a drink and have your photo taken with them
20. Write a poem and post it on Facebook. It must be a minimum of 10 lines long and on the subject of being Scottish.
21. Create your own cocktail and film yourself making it in the style of Charlie Sheen’s cooking show clip on Youtube (with similar dialogue).
22. Go out for a night dressed as a woman (dress, tights, lipstick, the works) and try to get two phone numbers – one from a woman, one from a man!
23. Walk Ben Nevis and say a short prayer to the god of wind in the correct Native American dialect when atop the mountain (evidence of research to be provided). Next month!! And completed!!
24. Get your class/school of misfits to achieve the Rights Respecting Schools Award level 1 from UNICEF by the end of the year. – Trying…. and done!
    
25. Make a photo story book of your life, where each major event is documented and easily understood through a photograph. The pictures should in all reasonable circumstances include the real people and places of importance, with the exception of those individuals likely to accost or attack you should you reappear in their life.  Facebook does this!!
26. Read the Song of Ice and Fire series by George RR Martin. 5 books, each around 800 pages long. This series reinvented the fantasy genre and is utterly immense. Your life will be better for it.
27. Hunt a rabbit with a bird of prey. Once the rabbit is dead, take it home, butcher it and cook it yourself with the recipe and pictures of the procedure uploaded for all. Now these are difficult my good friend, but certainly achievable.
28. Look after Mr Fogg’s dog for a week. Trying to find a suitable week.
29. Potterthon.  Over the course of weekend watch all the Harry Potter films back to back, ending up with a cinema trip to see the last instalment.
30. Take part in the Paul Clyde Treasure Hunt.- Being organised while we speak!!  And completed!! 
31. The 6 Degrees of Bacon Butty challenge. The Kevin Bacon game comes from a series of experiments carried out in the late 60s by a guy called Stanley Milgram. The Milgram Experiment was to ask someone to get a letter hand delivered to someone on the other side of the country, by passing it to someone they thought would know someone going in the right direction. Small Worlds theory is, there are 6 degrees of separation.   So the challenge, after all that gubbins, is to have a letter hand delivered to a lawyer in California. Doesn’t matter which one, just get there by hand. – Letter is on its way!!  And arrived, thanks MIKE!!
32. Loony Dook.  Does what it says on the tin.
33. Jazz Hands!  Organise, or participate in, a flash mob of some sort of a description.Found one, more dancing…..
34. Make contact with 10 other Kevin Johnston’s via facebook. Select the most interesting one and meet for a pint (this may involve some travel). Posted photographs to prove this essential. Perhaps you could even get 2 t-shirts printed saying “I’m Kevin Johnston” and wear them for your photo shoot? Hopeful messages sent to other lucky Johnston’s…
35. Eating a sugar-covered jam doughnut without licking your lips.
36. Cleanse, tone and moisturise for a week (twice a day).
37. Apply, audition and appear on The Weakest Link (they film it in Glasgow now so no issues with travelling and no excuses) and try get one round further than me. APPLIED!!  An got an audition!! And accepted but filming now finshed, sad times….
38. Shear a sheep. – Mrs Ross is organising…AND COMPLETED!!
39. Go to a life drawing class.
40. Take part in a bake off!  CAKE BAKED AND LOOKING GOOD FOR THE BAKE OFF!!
41. Make your own wine/homebrew/moonshine. Tastes good, final tasting will be New Years Eve!
42. Take part in a sprint Triathlon.
43. Visit 15 UK places with amusing names e.g Dull, Lost etc.  STARTED, first few in the bag! And completed!
44. Run the Bupa Great North Run – Edinburgh 10km. Date is Oct 2nd, and you get to run for charity too, a good cause as well as a challenge. – Applied and in training!!  And now completed in good time!!
45. An Edinburgh festival related challenge to be completed in August (obviously!) – Get a photograph of you with your arms around 5 different types of performer e.g. comedian, musician, street performer etc. BUT – it can’t just be anyone, they must all be taller than you! So you’ll end up having 5 photos of you with 5 different very tall performers!
46. Grow a comedy moustache/beard and sport it for an entire month (think Movember!)
47. Get a man-makeover. Get female friends to give you a full makeover, i.e. let them dress you up, apply makeup where they see fit, wax you if they think its necessary – and then hit the town.
48. Throw a party and invite ALL your facebook friends! – Charity ceilidh
49. Midnight hike/walk for 24 hours or the equivalent to a marathon could do it on or around 21st June as the longest day of daylight. Could even raise some funds for charity along the way.- Caledonian challenge entered!
50. Abseil or climb rock face. – And completed!! Thanks Libby!
51. Camp somewhere isolated for two nights in the summer without luxuries. You could even sleep for one night under the stars with no tent.
52. Beat a world record of your choice and get it confirmed and in next year’s Guinness book of records. E.g.  Beat the record for most Forrero Roche within 1 minute or the most people u can fit in your car or something mental.
53. Make and upload a music/comedy/impressions video on you tube and try and get as many hits as possible.  Challenge Kev TV channel set up and running!
54. Eat a tablespoon of cinnamon powder, from what I hear this would fit in well with your YouTube challenge! – Made me sick but completed.
55. Run a half marathon in fancy dress.
56. Take a flying lesson – any type of flying machine permitted. – booked!! and completed!
57. Spend a week without drinking any cups of tea. – On hols in Corfu!!
58. Become a Padi-trained Scuba diver.
59. Do a skydive.
60. Ride an Ostrich into the sunset.
61. Appear on any quiz show. APPLIED!! and got call about Hostile, so I’m considering it done.
62. Make a video, put on YouTube and get 1000 hits.
63. The 4,000kg Deadlift challenge! 80kg – 5 sets x 10 reps = 4,000kg total accumulative weight lifted. – Working on it! And done!
64. Kettlebell Express: Complete 100 reps of 20kg Kettlebell Swings as fast as possible! Rests are allowed but we are looking for the fastest time possible
65. Take a photo next to the 4 corners of Britain county welcome signs i.e. Sutherland, Northern Ireland, East Anglia, Cornwall.
66. Enrol in an extra-curricular course of your choice.
67. Sport an entirely new hairstyle for one month.  For new hair, read no hair!
68. Complete one calendar month without wearing jeans. – No Jeans July was a great success!!
69. Tell one kid once to never give up. – Every day at school!
70. Complete a Rubik’s Cube.
71. Drink aquavit in it’s home country
72. Visit a bridge named after someone you know abroad – ask for details!
73. Eat Fløtemysost or syltetoy on vaffler
74. Visit a nordic ski jump
75. Find a cheap route to Trondheim for free whisky and hospitality when you get there!!!

Easy……….

Completed challenges in bold.  As you can see I’m still finishing them off and I come back to them occasionally.  Not many to go, athough I have added some unofficial ones (most outdoor related), and I do take the odd notion to do stuff that interests me, such as walking, snowboarding, film making, publishing, writing, eating etc.  The world is a big place, and 75 challenges just isn’t enough to appreciate what an amazing world we live in.

I hope you like what you see.  If not, why not?…

K