The Horror Show?

For some reason I always seem to be behind on my posts (I still have another Oot and Aboot one to do....) and here is no exception....I suppose it doesn't matter, as if you post immediately then you might not have time to reflect, but if you don't then you might forget things

About two weeks ago now I went to the NME Rock n Roll Riot tour at the Astoria. Normally on these things you would see three or four upcoming bands with decent reputations, although my main reason for attending was to see the Fratellis. I like the Astoria as it has unreserved seating, which means if we get there early enough we can sit down (which to old people like me is important). We did have some tube issues so ended up walking down Tottenham Court Road from Euston, which did mean walking past Spearmint Rhinos, which was interesting as I didn't know where it was really.

The first band on were quite clearly the most memorable. They've even been on the front of NME which is some feat, they are The Horrors. I'd love to tell you what their music was like, but I can't because it was simply the loudest thing I've ever heard at a concert. It was dark on stage so you couldn't really make out what the band were doing, except the keyboard player who was kind of hunched down, knees bent swaying from side to side. The lead singer (if 'sing' is the right word) stalked the stage, shouting incomprehensible lyrics, and at one point joined the mosh pit (if that is the right word, seemed like a lot of kids swaying to be honest). At the end hey smashed a guitar, which I thought for a reletively young band might prove expensive. The kids seemed to love them, my ears didn't, and Susie complained of hers ringing the next day. I did see the singer milling around the bar later (he had a distinictive white checked waistcoat on, you can see him in it here), and asked him whether they smashed a guitar every day, and even then he was hard to understand. I got the fact that the guitar cost £90, but it was either a 'spare' or a 'spur' and it was the first time they had done that. I heard a song of theirs on XFM the other day, could still only make out some of the words!!!!!

Bands two and three, The Dykeenies and The Maccabees passed me by, can't even remember anything specific about them, although the former are Scottish.

The Fratellis were good I thought, played all their album plus some other songs, and I think they have a fairly strong album. They also ended on a cover of Goldfrapp's Ooh La La, which sounded pretty good too.

Back to the loudness though, do you think this means I'm getting too old to go to young people's concerts, and should maybe start attending, I don't know, James Blunt, or maybe Daniel O'Donnell shows?

My laptop is kinda broken....

It fell of the table, and now it won't charge, think the pin or something is broken....anyway, seems it is going to cost a minimum of £130 (that appears to be the charge just to pick the thing up and look at it, not even to fix it) which is scandelous as, apparently, this kind of thing isn't covered under the accidental damage warrenty, cheeky bastards.....maybe my father in law can help (hope so, need my cash for Australia in two weeks or so)

I fell out of bed this morning...

the 'other' side of the bed too, don't know what I was doing all the way over there. Luckily I wasn't hurt at all (physically anyway)...

Celebrity spotting

not that I ever partake in it, I could probably walk past even the most famous person on the street and not recognise them, but I managed to recognise a familiar face at Little Britain last week. The show was very good, by the way. It was the first time I'd been to that kind of thing (you know, a sketch show in stage format) but it was pretty funny (obviously all the same characters, in slightly different sketches, with a bit of ad-libbing here and there).

Anyway, I was on my way back from the toilet during the break when I walked past a shortish woman with short, curly, blonde hair. I had a few more sneaky looks and then asked Tina whether she thought it looked like Kylie Minogue, which she did. Woo! During the second half I was distracted a bit by her being there (whe was a couple of rows behind us). She definitely enjoyed herself, and confirmed it was her by waving frantically at David Walliams at the end of the show and the hurrying off backstage after the show....how exciting.

I told Amelia (a real celebrity spotter, she recognised the cast of Chicago outside the theatre) she would have wet herself with excitement had she been there...

Room with a view

In case anybody is interested, my rooms in Toronto looked a bit like this: -







I was going to take a picture of my washing machine and tumble dryer to assist with this story, but forgot, so you'll just have to use your imagination.

Now, the setup was that the top loading washer was below the front loading dryer. I wasn't exactly sure what to do, so I asked Albert and he said to basically just stick the washing in and pour the washing powder over it, and he also told me the settings and buttons to press, which seems easy enough.....except I didn't actually know which one was the washer (having never seen a top loading washing machine before, I think you can see where this is going) so I put the clothes in, poured the powder over the clothes, closed the door, pushed the buttons and then looked down to where the washing machine had started......all well and good you might say, except my clothes were actually in the dryer. So, this basically left me with washing powder all over the dryer (and floor) once I got the clothes out, but I never did it again, so I did learn something, stupid top loading washine machines.

Nobody loves me

or at least my blog, as I've only had two visitors this week.....of course there is nothing new to read, but that's not the point.....I'm very tired from all the driving I've done to day....Victoria and back (1hr each way) and then Manchester and back (4 1/2 hrs there, 2 1/2 hrs back), and I had to put up with 90 minutes of tedium as England couldn't get past Macedonia's defence, oh well, hopefully Wembley will be ready soon and I won't have to do that drive any more

Dirty stop-out

Did you know that Tina didn't come home on Tuesday?

She went to some seminar/presentation thing with work, which apparently had free drinks.......add in a pretty bad day at work and no dinner and I think you can guess what kind of state she was in....I knew something might have to happen when she called me at 12:15, saying she was in a cab to Victoria, which is pretty much the wrong direction, and she told me about 10 times she was "shit-faced". Anyway, after I pointed out she probably wouldn't be able to get a tube back to Euston she said she would get a cab back there and call me once you knew what she was doing.....

About 15 minutes later I got a call from some girl (Irish I am led to believe, and apparently I've met her, I don't remember that) saying that she thought Tina was too sick to get a train home and she should stay with her, which was fine by me. It seems that Tina threw up immediately they got out of the cab at Euston, and then also once they got to her house, good girl kept it in during the cab ride though.

Fair play though, she didn't look too bad when I saw her the next day.