Beware of False Prophets

Another concert last night, again with Susie. This time it was the turn of Welsh Rockers Lostprophets at the Scala. They are (allegedly) part of the EMO craze, but I think it's just more that lots of kids who dress in black like them. In fact, I thought that it was actually some kind of dress code and I wouldn't be let in as I had no black on me. Also, it was possibly the oldest I've eve felt at any concert, but I think that was due to the large number if kids there (or maybe that Susie got asked for ID, yet she is older than me).

Music support came from Haunts, who seemed to have some good stuff mixed in with some not so good stuff. It sounded to me like they were trying to be too clever with their breaks, not quite achieving the staccato effect of the Arctic Monkeys.

Magic (in the loosest sense of the word) support came from some guy (see, he made that much of an impact I can't even remember his name). He performed one trick that wasn't really that great, although he didn't impale himself, so I guess that's good. I can't be bothered getting into it but it was kind of russian roulette involving glass bottles, paper bags and his hand. It killed about 10 minutes watching him, better than nothing I suppose.

The main act had just played Wembley, so I was interested to see why they were playing such a small (less than 1000 capacity) venue. As it turns out, it was so they could try out some new songs, talk to the crowd and basically just have a laugh (sometimes with each other, I had no idea what they were saying half the time, and that's not because it was in Welsh). Also I think they picked songs they wanted to play, rather than would be expected to play, and it was a lot more shouty than I expected, as some of their singles are more melodic.

Shouty rockers meant lots of moshing....I have never had any idea why this is fun, I can find many other ways to bruise myself. Also, a bit of crowd surfing, and some guy jumping off some speakers, which, in a small concert with plenty of kids around, isn't necessarily the smartest thing to do.

Overall, it was a decent enough gig, although they didn't play much that I knew (I think I recognised about 3 songs), I'm not that big a fan of shouty music, and they didn't play my favourite of theirs which is this...

Ah, it's just a baby

Here's a video we took at the zoo, it's taken me a while to get it uploaded...

A mighty fine get-up

Haven't a lot of time to update with what we have been doing in Dubai, but for now, here's a picture of me dressed as an arab...

The best bit was the playground, apparently!

So we had our niece and nephew, Saffron and Sean to stay at the weekend. It was the first time we had had them both to stay when we have both been here (apparently they both stayed whilst I was in Canadia last year, with Tina even giving up our bed).

Figuring they would have a lot of energy (being kids and all that) we thought we'd take them to Whipsnade Wild Animal park, seeing as it just up the M1, so that's what we did. We spent about 6 hours wandering around the many acres, seeing many animals, like hippos and tigers and giraffes and penguins and bison and elephants and rhinos and monkeys and, and, and lots of other things. I've noticed that I haven't posted many pictures up recently, so here's some we took....

I hear they have a wall

And so, it looks like I will be going to China (Beijing or Shanghai or something) to give some training to some, er, Chinese people I guess. This is ramping up the scariness of things I have to do as it looks like I will be there alone....it's not definite yet but if I do go it will be soon, and I reckon it could well be worse than the presentation I had to give as that was only 5 minutes and this is a whole week!!!!!

Stupid slow internet connection.....

We failed miserably to come anywhere close to getting tickets for Glastonbury.... there are some on resale in a few weeks, I'm not confident though :(