What else is there to say?

A little late

2010-03-16T23:27:00.002Z

So today I got a letter from the NHS telling me that my toothy operation has been assessed and it has been decided that it should be done in a specialist oral surgery rather than the hospital, along with apologising for taking so long to organise the appointment......which is all fair enough except I had it done 2 weeks ago......

Brilliant!

2010-03-04T09:55:00.001Z

This is my 200th post, it's pretty self explanatory

What is this, 1985??!??

2010-02-19T17:42:00.004Z

So a couple of weeks ago we decided on an impromptu cinema trip, with mum looking after Bethany. We went to see Avatar, thinking we could just buy tickets on the door seeing as it has been out for ages, but the only cinema showing it at an appropriate time was the Cineworld in Enfield.

Now, I've never been to that one before, and I was absolutely shocked to have to queue for half an hour to buy a ticket. Seriously, it was like being back in the days when the local cinema had just three screens and each one had a queue for tickets. I do always remember the chippie after going to Walthamstow cinema was particularly nice

By the time we got to the front of the queue the film had already started, so we saw Sherlock Holmes instead, which was alright. Maybe we'll get to see Avatar at some point in the future

Yay, Christmas!!!

2009-12-29T11:58:00.001Z

Best of a bad bunch?

2009-12-23T20:23:00.003Z

Look, I got Man of the match in my last game, despite being quite hungover and missing a glorious chance (which was actually at 2-1 up and was at least 8 yards out)

No, I don't have cleanliness issues

2009-12-17T20:46:00.003Z

Yesterday, or perhaps the day before, I went into the toilets at my new office. My company was bought by another and we have moved into their existing office, which isn't as big a change as it might sound as they are based across the road from my old office.

Anyway, there I am in the toilet, which, by the way, had a notice up asking people not to leave bogeys on the wall last week, which was a bit weird I thought.

So, there I am in the toilet, and it was pretty chilly as well. I think this is because there is a window in there and perhaps it isn't as good at keeping the warmth in as it could be. Maybe it is to encourage people not to spend unnecessary time on the cold toilet seats.

Back to the point in hand. I'm there, in the toilet, drying my hands, and it was at this point, having washed and dried my hands, that I realised I hadn't actually been to the toilet first. I really can be a bit dopey sometimes.

That's not her name, that's not her name

2009-12-14T19:47:00.005Z

I wouldn't mind if we ever called her by it, but we don't, so this, in my eyes, whilst it is nice to get the card, is a bit cheeky....

Shut up!!!

2009-10-03T21:21:00.003Z

I went to see Watford against Coventry on Tuesday, as a guy in my office had a spare ticket. The game iteslf was much better than I expected (which wasn't too difficult seeing as I expected a boring 0-0) and finished 3-2 to Coventry with lots of other goal chances.

One thing though, the three guys that sat immediately behind us would not stop talking. It would have been ok normally, as they were talking about football generally and the game occasionally, but for the fact that they were talking rubbish the majority of the time. I thought, perhaps, they were new to watching fooball, or at least watching it live, but it turns out they have been going for at least 15 years, and they are like that every game.

If I was sat in front of them permanently I would go crazy I reckon, or at least tell them to stop saying stupid things like "I didn't know you got a suspension for a red card when it was the result of two yellows" when this has been the rule for many, many years.

Also, sorry for the lack of a post for a while, I will update with news on our LA holiday soon I hope.

And another thing

2009-08-15T23:04:00.002Z

One more thing I forgot to mention about the match last week is that my favourite moment was when I literally threw the 6ft+ centre back to the ground. Not bad seeing as I really was trying to keep myself out of trouble

I did contribute, honestly

2009-08-14T21:06:00.002Z

So it seems I am signing for a sunday league football team, for the first time since I did my cruciate ligament when I was 19. I'm pretty sure I will just be there to make up the numbers and will play most of my games as sub, which is fine by me really as I am clearly not fit enough for a whole match and season.

I played my first game for Real Rifle last Sunday, playing about 60 minutes. I thought I did a lot of running, though didn't touch the ball many times, maybe 10. Difficult when you are playing wide and the team keeps lumping it down the middle, hopefully when the better players play the team will be better, hopefully, otherwise it is a lot of hard work for not much reward.

I was reasonably happy with getting 6/10 for my performance too, seeing as I really didn't do too much, though I did set up a chance with one of my ten touches.

Bethany (and Tina) came to watch as well, doubt that will continue through the winter. Also hoping the showers don't remain cold through the winter.

One other thing, I am shocked I'm listed as a defender, I was thinking I wasn't going to tackle much

More injuries

2009-07-19T09:38:00.002Z

As I posted the bruise on my leg, I thought I might as well post the next injury I got playing football, so here is the bruise on my side, I think from an elbow but I'm not really sure.

Also, I hurt my thumb this week, playing in goal, but actually trying to get my hand out the way. I hope this isn't the start of the end of my playing career, which if I get injured all the time it could well be...

Was it always that small?

2009-06-27T23:02:00.002Z

We needed to practice leaving Bethany for when we go to Stuart's wedding in a few weeks, so last week we (I say we, obviously I have left her with Tina as I have had to go to work) had our first attempt when we went to the cinema and left her with my parents.

Tina wasn't too keen to go too far so, for the first time in at least 10 years, we went to South Woodford cinema. Now I know this is smaller than the 'multiplex' cinemas that we have been used to since then, but I had forgotton how small and cosy it actually is, with a seating capacity of, I don't know, 90 or 100, allocated seats, a screen that looked about as big as the tv we saw in Dubai (or maybe slightly bigger)....and no cup holder.

Was nice though, there aren't many of the smaller cinemas that I used to go to when I was younger left (well, this is the only one I think).

Oh, we saw Night at the Museum 2 if you are interested (Tina's choice, I wanted to see Transformers or Terminator)....it was pretty good I thought, funnier than the first one

We went to the cinema again today, saw Star Trek, which I thought was very good.

I knew it was bad

2009-06-06T11:56:00.004Z

On Tuesday, I took a bang on my knee playing football, and I thought it was pretty bad even though it didn't swell up a huge amount. Anyway, I knew it hurt but I hadn't really paid that much attention to what it looked like until today, and here it is: -

As you can see, it pretty much covers the whole of my lower right leg....bruising is a good sign isn't it though? One thing was that it took my mind of my left ankle hurting (I did that weeks ago and it still isn't better)

Unlucky? maybe

2009-05-31T22:45:00.004Z

Last week we got a parking ticket from being parked on the road outside our flat. Basically the car was parked on the pavement, next to the school markings (you can see them on this map).

Now, technically we aren't allowed to park there, but I'm pretty sure there is a car parked there every day and I have never seen anybody else with a ticket, so what I was wondering was whether we were unlucky and a traffic warden happened to be passing, or have they changed routes so they will check there every day, or maybe perhaps do they have a child that has just started at the school.

Whatever it is, it basically means I have two less spaces to park in (Tina gets the bay) as I don't want to risk another ticket, and seeing as I think I am normally one of the last cars to park on the front, my walk from the car could be getting longer, which is fine unless it is raining or snowing....at least summer is coming

Bah, I knew it wouldn't last

2009-05-09T13:21:00.003Z

So, initially, whenever Bethany was changed or had a bath then she would get quite upset at being naked, and I was hoping this would continue until, I don't know, she was married or something, but it seems she is now getting used to it.....boooo

A touch of class

2009-04-09T21:45:00.003Z

And yet another indication that I am, quite clearly, mature enough to be a parent, check out the first two goes of a recent game of a scrabble-a-like game that made me laugh....

Not wanting to duplicate too much

2009-04-07T19:45:00.003Z

If you check out this link, this is the Bethany facebook album containing plenty of pictures for your perusal

Bethany

A new Spurs fan

2009-04-05T09:02:00.003Z

Here is an exclusive (for now) picture of my daughter, Bethany Alana, born yesterday at 6.10pm, waving at you....

Of course we're mature enough to be parents.....what are you saying?

2009-03-29T23:01:00.002Z

We went to the cinema tonight for perhaps the last time before the baby comes (it is due next Saturday). So you might be thinking we would go see a nice, adult themed move, and in which case you'd be wrong, Monsters versus Aliens it was.

It wasn't too bad, not the best film I've ever seen, but there was a guy there who looked like Comic Book Store guy (without the ponytail) who seemed to like it.

At it early?

2009-03-25T23:38:00.002Z

So I was lying in bed this morning, it was getting on and I had to go to work, so Tina was giving me the odd nudge to try to 'encourage' me to get up. I had my arm across her belly at the time, and then, as well as Tina, the baby decided to start to prod me as well.....I decided I probably should get up at that point.....

A little bit of Tina's.....

2009-03-16T17:58:00.003Z

....what I see.

Here's a picture so you can see what Tina looks like with about 4 weeks to go. She looks pretty healthy to me!

Don't believe everything that you read!

2009-03-15T12:56:00.004Z

On Friday we went to see Ed Byrne's stand-up show in Aylesbury (at the civic centre). This is about a 30-35 minute drive away from home, and when I bought the tickets a few months ago I was a little concerned that it was pretty close to the due date of our baby, luckily he/she didn't decide to pop out to say hello earlier than expected.

The ticket said the show started at 9 (doors at 8) which I thought was surprisingly late for Aylesbury, not sure of the reasoning behind that, probably just because it wasn't London.

Anyway, in a move that is totally unlike me, I decided that we should leave with plenty of time to get there, so we weren't late. We found the place at 8:15, which, I thought, would give us plenty of time to get some good seats (it was unreserved) and use the toilet/get a drink etc. It turned out, however, that our tickets were wrong and the show actually started at 8, so we basically missed the first 10-15 minutes, very annoying. It obviously wasn't all tickets either, as the place was basically full.

With regards to the show, he was very funny, Tina particularly laughing when he was talking about weddings and wedding preperation, and the whole thing lasted about 2 hours, which meant the missing 10-15 minutes wasn't so bad.

The next show at that place was the Lady Boys from Bangkok, I'm not sure that is my kind of show to be honest so I won't be attending.

Also, another thing that made me laugh was, on the way home, we passed a crash that had just happened (well, the police arrived at the same time as we did), and then about 20 metres down the road from the crash was a sign saying "thankyou for driving carefully"...teehee

Good ol' Jim

2009-03-08T22:29:00.003Z

We won tickets to go see Jimmy Greaves' show on Friday. I had to explain to Tina who he was (or at least jog her memory) so she was happy enough to go. It was only in Harpenden so it wasn't too much of a trek.

He was very entertaining, but basically he was just telling (football related) jokes, and not particularly new ones, but still, I didn't expect any less, though I thought that maybe we would have got a few more true stories.....ah well

Ouch

2009-03-03T23:39:00.002Z

I got a ball in the face from very close tonight, my nose really hurts :(

Also, I can't believe how bad the weather was again for playing tonight. I have only been playing on Tuesdays for about a year, and it seems to be the worst day for playing as there have been thunderstorms, blizzards, gales etc etc, and it is never that bad on Mondays and Wednesdays, I don't know why.....

6 weeks to go

2009-02-22T01:22:00.003Z

Just a quick update on the baby for those who haven't already been told, basically, it is not too big but not too small.....I guess Tina might be hoping it remains on the small side.

Also, we had a tour of the hospital at the last antenatal class, it seemed nice enough, though I am still a little concerned about the parking, especially if Watford are at home, as their ground is next door to the hospital. Maybe I can get Tina to keep her legs crossed in that situation. They are not on home on our due date (4th April), but are playing there on the 7th, 11th and the 18th (can we go that long overdue, I'm not sure)

And it was all yellow

2009-02-04T19:14:00.010Z

We have finished decorating the baby's room, here are some pictures: -

And here are a few to show how we have shuffled around our bedroom: -

There doesn't appear to be an instruction manual

2009-02-04T19:13:00.004Z

Yesterday we went to our first Antenatal class (the first of four). Here's a brief rundown on the thrills and spills we had.....

....ok, we didn't really have any. Basically, we had a few group exercise things where we had to introduce ourselves and discuss what we were looking forward to about becoming parents, and what we wanted to get out of the class. Then we had a group exercise thing where we had a list of questions and we had to discuss the answers, with questions such as How long does labour last and When will your water break?

After this, we had another group exercise where we had a pile of cards with things on such as 'Feeling tired', 'Contractions Start', 'Pushing', 'Baby Born' and 'HELP!' and we had to put them in the order we thought they would come in during the labour process. I just stuck the 'HELP' one to me (we had name sticky tags already).....I'm so funny.

So, all in all it was a bit boring, I'm not really a fan of group exercises....oh yeah, we also learned the best position for the baby to be before it is born (that would be head down, facing inwards)....hopefully it will be a bit more learning and a bit less group work next week.

Ouch!

2009-02-04T19:07:00.002Z

Stupid snow!

I slipped over this morning whilst taking the rubbish out, and now my (good) shoulder hurts as I landed on it......I guess at least I didn't screw it up like when I fell on the other one when I was 17

I hope they get relegated!!!!!

2009-01-30T22:13:00.003Z

Now, you might remember a few months ago that I had, perhaps, not the best of days when I went up to see Stoke play Spurs. On Tuesday it was the return leg at Tottenham.

So, I'm a little bit late for the game due to traffic, and all the car parking is full, so basically I have to park at the Tescos about 25 minutes walk away (I had about 15 minutes to get to the game). This allied to the fact my foot was hurting from football the day before meant it was quite a painful journey to and from the ground (especially as I attempted to run to make kick-off, which I didn't).

I found out that Stu had parked in Tescos too, so at least the walk back wasn't so lonely, but then when I did get back I had a ticket on my car, and he didn't. Obviously they picked on me because I was closer to the ground than the entrance to the supermarket. Also, they lied on the ticket, but according to the rules I did overstay the maximum time so I didn't see the point in contesting it.....grrrrr.

At least Spurs won the game this time.....and I don't want to play them again as the are obviously bad luck

What's the point?

2009-01-19T23:03:00.002Z

I started to watch American Pie 2 the other night, on ITV2 I think. It started quite late, about 11:30pm I think, and I was watching it when I noticed things didn't seem quite right. I realised then that they had cut out all of the swear words.

I mean, surely only adults are watching at that time of night and it is up to them to decide whether they want to watch it, and secondly, a lot of the humour is smutty so I just figured there was no point continuing to watch it as who knows what else they had cut.

Stupid tooth

2008-12-22T23:50:00.003Z

It seems I have the beginnings of an abscess forming in one of my back teeth and it is going to cost between 700 and 1200 pounds to get it sorted...... rubbish, what with us trying to save money with the extra body coming in April it isn't the greatest of timing.

One thing the dentist did tell me though was that I had a small mouth, which, as I'm sure you can all agree, is a pretty accurate description of me......no......oh

Looking more like a baby now

2008-12-15T15:28:00.004Z

Here's the second of our scan pictures if you haven't seen it already: -

you can see nose, mouth, arm, leg etc.

no clues as to the sex though, that'll be a nice surprise for us (and everybody else) in April

Apparently it is small but normal (like me.......maybe)

Not used to water apparently

2008-12-15T14:53:00.011Z

We went to Dubai the other week as a break before the baby comes. We decided to go there as we thought: -

a) It would be sunny
b) It would be fairly cheap as we could stay with Terry

Of course, what we didn't count on was Thunderstorms for three or four days, the roads constantly flooding due to lack of drainage and the fact the pound has dropped in value against the Dhirum and so everything is more expensive.....bah

Anyway, here's a quick rundown on what we did, sort of in chronological order

1) Terry suggested we go and try firing a gun. This seemed like a good idea, though I was a bit worried about Tina an dthe baby with the loud noise, and so it proved when we got there so she didn't join us, but simply watched from outside the glass. Apparently it is illegal in Dubai, but legal in Sharjah (which is the next emirate) so we just drove there. I don't really know what else to say about it. It was loud, my first shot was my best, the kickback from the shot was pretty strong, and, er, yeah.

2) So every Sunday in Bur Dubai they have what is called the 'Movies under the stars', whereby they put on two movies for free and you can sit and watch them on M&M beanbags, mmmmm, M&Ms. Each week has a theme actor, and the week we were there was Johnny Depp. This would have been fine, expect it was Johnny Depp drugs films, so we had Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and Blow. Now seeing as neither Tina or Terry liked the first film, we didn't stay for the second (which we had all seen anyway), which was unfortunate as it was a nice night and the bean bags were comfortable.

3) So there is a new mall opened in Dubai called, rather uninspiringly, Dubai Mall. Now apparently it is the largest in the region, and four times the size of Westfield. This might well be true, however it is pretty difficult to tell what with most of the shops not even being open, and a whole wing still to open as well. We spent ages walking by boards saying "xxxxxxx coming soon" and not much shopping. I did have a 'Fatburger' for lunch, which must be a nightmare place to work seeing as the staff have to all repeat every order (so the till operator will say "one fatburger" and the rest of the staff will repeat, and then "one fat fries" etc.). There is a full size ice rink in the mall though so that might give you an idea of the size. When I was standing at the end of it it was like I was playing NHL hockey, I just needed some men to control (I hadn't seen an ice rink in real life before). Tina was really hoping to see some fully clad women skating but it wasn't to be.

4) Terry had seen a balloon go up in the air several times and had been meaning to give it a try, so we agreed that it would be a good idea, which it would have been, had the balloon been in a decent position and not overlooking a power station. You couldn't even really see the palm from where we were so it was just like being in a tall builing, pah! By the way, apparently there is just one guy working on that tall building in Dubai as he is the only one who can breathe up there or something. Here are some pictures though: -

5) Terry had booked us tickets to see the Indian/Canadian comedian Russell Peters. He's a bit racist, we knew that, but he has still been funny what we have seen of him. This time, though, he appeared to mostly be trying to make fun of whatever nationalities were in the crowd for the whole set, which got a bit tiresome. It was funny in parts, but wasn't great overall.

6) We went to the Mall of the Emirates again on a cloudy day (we did want to go to the beach one day, but no days were nice enough). Was pretty much the same as before, except we went into the freezing cold cinema to watch a film to kill some time.....Madagascar 2, it wasn't bad, and the seats were very comfartable and spacious

7) We went to the 'sports bar' at the Hilton for a drink, well, as we were passing. Just one drink mind you seeing as, due to exchange rates and overpricing, my beer cost me £7. Also, it had three TVs up, that doesn't make it a sports bar in my opinion

8) Terry lives right next door to a horse racing track, and luck would have it there was a meet on the day before we were due to come home, so we though we would wander over there (I say wander, I mean drive as it would have been a whole 15 minute walk). Now, when I have been racing before (once in england, once in America) there is obviously stuff to do in between races, like getting a beer or making a bet, but what with drinking and gambling not allowed, it actually made it quite boring, just sitting there waiting for the next race, so we only lasted three (or maybe four) races before we left. Also they appeared to be gicing out free yellow caps and t-shirts, but we obviously didn't get there early enoug to get ones, not that we really wanted some anyway. Here's a picture of the finishing post and parade area: -

9) Two cab rides of note to mention. One, from Dubai Mall to Terry's. Now Terry lives in 'The Greens', on 7 street. Now, I told the driver this, and yet he still struggled ot know where he had to go until I drew him a map with the number 7 on it. Second, I wanted to go to 'The Marina' but ended up at 'The Madinat', must be my accent. Luckily it wa sonly about 10 minutes or so difference in journey time.

10) And here's a picture of me by a big TV: -

Yes, I still care

2008-11-19T23:35:00.005Z

So you might remember last year's day of caring, where I was outside in the sun painting, you know, what with it being September and all. Anyway, someone had the bright idea of doing this year's in November.

The choice I had was, paint the dressing rooms of the local theatre, who, when being renovated a few years back had run out of money, or go to a local common and dig ponds and plant trees. Now, ordinarily I wouldn't have minded doing the latter, but the thing that put me off was the statement that I would need warm clothes and boots, of which I have neither, so, for the second year running, painting it was.

There isn't too much to say, except that we were painting breeze blocks with no sealant, which is a tad soul destroying watching your paint disappear and there still being chunks of grey shining through......but we did our best.

Here's a photo of me painting, I wonder if I'll be doing the same thing next year....

Pay attention man!

2008-11-12T22:48:00.003Z

As part of my season ticket at Spurs, as well as every league home game, I get the first two cup games, and then after that have to buy tickets for any subsequent cup match individually. Tonight, I went to watch us beat Liverpool 4-2, in the Carling Cup, which was our third home cup game of the season, thus I had bought a ticket.

Anyway, I was behind this conversation at the turnstile (note, each eligible match is allocated a number which matches a voucher in the season ticket book): -

Ticket Collector Person - "Ticket please"
Man - "OK, which game number is it?"
TCP - "No, your match ticket"
Man - "Yeah, I have my season ticket, which game number is it"
TCP - "I'm sorry sir, this is a ticketed match, and isn't on the season ticket"
Man - "Oh........"

I hope he didn't come too far to see the game.....

Who steals a lorry?

2008-11-01T13:33:00.002Z

So we were supposed to get a new dishwasher delivered today, but this morning we got a call from Currys saying they couldn't deliver it because it was on a lorry that had been stolen, which is both funny and not, I mean, who steals a lorry?

You had a bad day....

2008-10-24T21:11:00.004Z

.....you're taking one down, you sing a sad song just to turn it around.....

Maybe I should stop starting these threads with song lyrics.

OK, so, here's what happened to me last Sunday (I've basically been in Budapest since then).

First up, I drove up to Stoke to see them play Spurs, mainly because I hadn't been to their ground before. This all went quite well, no traffic or anything, and then we got parked fairly close to the ground, but it all went downhill from there. Spurs lost, getting two players sent off and giving away two penalties into the bargain, which obviously didn't exactly put me in a great mood...

...then, it took 45 minutes to get out of the car park, which, as it was just an area of gravel really, was a bit of a free-for-all...

...then, on the M1, we got stuck a few hundred yards from a car fire (we could see the smoke, emergency services and the charred remains on the ground when we drove past). We were stuck there for about one and a half hours. I was, at this point, a little low on petrol so I turned my car engine and radio off so, it was cold and we had no entertainment, save for a few chats with some of the other drivers. I guess we could be considered a bit fortunate that we were actually driving quite a bit further, unlike one guy who was coming off at the next junction, and had actually wanted to come off at the previous one but had been convinced by his wife to continue...

...so I thought I would call Tina, let her know what was going on, and ask her to get my passport out (as I was going to be home late and it would save me messing around when I got in). She informed me it was not where it should be, so I asked her to look in all the obvious places it could be so she continued looking...

...meanwhile the traffic has been cleared so I could continue on my journey to srop Stu off in Leighton Buzzard. As we had heard that there might be another accident further down the M1, I asked him if there was another way back to Watford and he directed my to another road that headed towards Hemel, and went through a few village type things, so basically the speed limit kept going from 60 to 30 and back again...

...which was fine until I got into Hemel and then got pulled over by the police. Apparently I was doing 75 in the last 60 zone. Luckily, he let me off with a warning as I explained I was tired and was just keen to get home, but, as he was leaving, the cheeky sod suggested I should support another football team as well, just spurs luck, though, we can't even get three points from the police...

...so I got home to find Tina in a panic as she hadn't found my passport, which was now very worrying. Obviously I was considering texting my boss to tell her I wouldn't be able to go, when I thought about checking the laptop bag. Now, I don't have a laptop, but when I go abroad I get use of a 'pool' laptop which I then have to return. The last time I went out was about 6 or 7 weeks ago. Lo and behold, the passport was in the bag, big relief, but basically I had left it in there and handed it back into work, and it was just good fortune that I got the same laptop to use again...

...so it was a bad day but it finished well, like all good stories...

Heartbeat....

2008-10-16T21:26:00.003Z

.....why do you miss, when my baby kisses me?

Sorry, got lost in the song. We went to see the midwife today and she put the thing on Tina's belly so we could hear the baby's heartbeat (is it called a doppler?). It took her a rather long time to find it, which obviously had us a bit worried, but eventually it was found and heard. Apparantly the baby was hiding behind the placenta or something. After it was found, though, it moved and so we could hear the heart beating loud and clear.

Anyway, Tina has been annoyed with it all day for being naughty and hiding, I think that's a bit harsh and it was really just being playful

For those who for some reason haven't heard...

2008-10-08T22:32:00.003Z

....Tina is pregnant, and here's the proof

due the first week in April (in case you were thinking of asking)

Do I really sound like a woman????

2008-10-04T14:17:00.003Z

Seriously mum, I'm pretty sure that I do not sound like Brenda......and should I feel insulted you couldn't recognise your own son's voice on the phone....tut tut

I know I am a little bit injury prone....

2008-09-23T20:56:00.002Z

.....but this is ridiculous. I mean, who strains a muscle (or tendon or whatever) in and around their elbow whilst taking off a sock.....it really hurt as well

skol, skol, skol, skol

2008-09-20T23:31:00.004Z

actually, it wasn't, it was mostly Stella, but I couldn't think of a witty Stella related title......

I was queuing up in the Tesco Express near my house on Friday night, about 7:30 and thought I would be nosey and see what everybody else in the line was buying. As far as I can tell, of the six other people in the line we had: -

Beer
Beer and Wine
Wine
Beer and Vodka
Wine
Beer and crisps

I felt a bit left out just buying some milk. Perhaps this is some kind of indication that I am past it, you know, what with buying milk to take home on a Friday night instead of some form of alcohol.....we'll see I guess

It's working

2008-09-13T09:46:00.003Z

I went to Budapest for a couple of days for work this week. It was my first time there on my own (ooh, scary) and also my first time using the new terminal 5 at Heathrow. Obviously I'd heard the horror stories about the problems it faced when it opened, but then they have advertised consistently that everything was ok there now, so I wasn't sure what to expect.

What I got was....no queue at check-in/bag drop (checked in online anyway), no queue through security, and then, coming back, no queue through immigration and then only a 5 minute or so wait at the carousel, on which my bag came out fifth. So, all in all, I probably spent about 10 minutes doing functional stuff at the airport, which is superb in my opinion. Obviously I'm guessing it helped that my flight time out was 7:50am and coming back we landed at 8:30pm, but still....

I find it funny reading the English translations on menus around the world, but the Hungarians are always pretty interesting. I desperately wanted to try 'Ironed' chicken, and was also intrigued at what a 'donut of potato' was, but alas I had only one evening meal. It was a pretty tiring trip as I left home at 6am and worked until 8:30pm, and then had to be at work for 8am the next morning, so I was glad to get home and relax.

Like a lion

2008-08-25T21:06:00.004Z

On Saturday we went out to a 'Roaring 20's' party in Highbury. Basically it consisted of dressing up in 20's gear, drinking cocktails, dancing in a room that, had it been hired would have cost £1000 (we didn't hire it, it was just empty), which is ludicrous because it looked like it would fit about 20-30 people at most, and getting home at 5am, you know what it's like.

Most of the girls were wearing a combination of beads, headbands and flapper dresses, Andy went looking most like either a jazz fan (Howard Moon springs to mind) or a 1950's reporter, depending on your point of view. Me, I gangster-ed it up (without a gun, a jacket would have topped it off though), see the pictures below: -

Obviously either mine or Andy's outfit didn't quite convey the right message, as some guy asked us, on the tube, whether we were "Hardcore Jews or what?". He was a bit drunk, but still.

I'm still standing

2008-08-14T21:41:00.003Z

I've still got a job, by the way. I got a phone call last week whilst I was at the cricket last Thursday telling me the good(?) news. So far we think 11 people have gone, which takes us down to 55 staff, less than half from when I started. I guess if we don't get taken over then maybe I will have to look for another job......oh well, I'll cross that bridge when I come to it

It's not just fun, it's educational too

2008-08-06T18:30:00.004Z

I'm not just here for your entertainment, check out the word of the day over there somewhere ---------------------->

to learn something new every time you visit.

Don't say I don't think about you guys and girls.

Deja vu

2008-08-05T21:49:00.003Z

So we at work are yet again in the position of waiting for redundancies to be announced. To be fair, it has been almost three years since the last lot so it was about time that morale took a hit. It's all the credit crunch's fault, what with us selling software to banks and banks not buying stuff because they have no money.

So anyway, hopefully soon we will know which of us stays and which of us goes, for those who stay it will be pretty difficult as there will only be about 40-50 people left in the office, down from about 130 when I joined. Whether that is enough to do the work we have only time will tell. Euronet are looking to sell us (we are listed as discontinued operations in their Q2 results), maybe somebody will buy us and invest like we need, maybe not, can't look that far ahead to be honest....oh well, I'll just keep going until told not to.

I'm conflicted

2008-07-31T00:29:00.004Z

Spurs have signed David Bentley, I now can't boo him....that's really not fair

Go Chris, it's your birthday

2008-07-31T00:22:00.002Z

Actually it's not, it's two days after, but, to be fair, I have been out for those two days so this is the first chance I've had to post. You might have to bare (or is it bear) with me, as I am a little drunk now.

Anyway, this is the first birthday in a while where I haven't done anything for myself. Personally, I'm blaming Wendy as she arranged two birthday things on the Saturday and the Tuesday, meaning that I did not have much scope for my own birthday celebrations (had I wanted some). I don't really mind as it saves me having to think of stuff, but then again, I am getting pretty old at 31, and so maybe I shouldn't be out on the lash for my birthday?.......nah, I'll definitely be doing something of my own for my 33rd (we'll get Wendy's 30th out of the way first, yeah?)

......p.s. for those that don't know, Wendy and I share a birthday

I'm sure it wasn't what they expected

2008-07-28T22:48:00.002Z

Teehee, somebody found this blog by looking for teenwild7......I am pretty certain that what they found is not what they were looking for

That never happened with a bath

2008-07-21T21:26:00.003Z

So I just slipped in the shower. The reason I was having a shower is the lack of hot water mentioned in my post the other day. The shower is electric, did I say that, I forget and I can't be bothered to check?

Anyway, I slipped in the shower. It wasn't my fault really. The flannel had fallen from it's normal position straddling the side of the bath, and I hadn't paid enough attention whilst getting in and adjusting the curtain, so I slipped on it, but luckily I grabbed onto the side and not the shower curtain, otherwise there could have been far more damage.

I obviously made a lot of noise doing this, though, as Tina came flying out of the bedroom to make sure I was OK, which I was as I was back stanidng up by then. She had a kind of glazed, shocked look about her which I took to mean she was in a bit of a panic....a bit of reassurance that I was fine helped but she still isn't sure how she got there so quick, maybe she flew....

Anyway, roll on baths again, I have never slipped getting into bath.....out of one, mind you, is a different matter

Nice Head!

2008-07-17T21:44:00.003Z

Look, Wendy was in the paper

she's the one in pink (or maybe it's purple) on the left for those not in the know....

p.s. This is my 150th post, in less than 2 years, that is (.....basic maths.....), 75 posts a year. I'm a bit surprised by that.

At least it's not winter

2008-07-15T22:21:00.005Z

We have no hot water....actually, that's a bit of a lie, we have a kettle and an electric shower, but no boiler.....

....so now I have to be all adult and contact tradesmen and get quotes and talk to them like I have a bit of an interest in how a boiler works, so dull....also I am going to have to spend some money....boooo

I don't really know how much one will cost either, I'm thinking somewhere between £1500 and £2500, at least we have the rest of summer (well, when it starts) to get it sorted

Shocking? not so much for me

2008-07-13T22:23:00.003Z

We went out for dinner last night in a Brewer's Fayre (for Tina's mum's birthday) and then to a pub opposite (to meet Wendy) in Beckton yesterday. Not a lot to post about there, but, I thought I would share the two toilet conversations I heard (one in each place).

First, there was a young white guy talking to his black friend in a pretty stupid sounding West Indian accent, about how (and this was in pretty fine detail) he got a 'nosh' from a fat bird the night before......nice

And the second went something like this (sorry for the swearing)

skinhead 1 - "That fucking mug called me a fucking cunt so I fucking smashed his fucking head in"
skinhead 2 - "oh yeah mate, you were well within your fucking rights to fuck up that fucking cunting bastard proper"

I am so glad I don't live over that way any more....

Boys and Girls

2008-07-09T22:37:00.003Z

We went round to see Spike and Bendy on Sunday to see their new baby, Beth. Before we went, Tina made the point to me that Spike probably wouldn't want to talk about football (he is also a Spurs fan) as he would be more interested in talking about his new baby. I didn't think this would be the case, and, was proved correct when the opening conversation was pretty much about football......I was sure it would be the case seeing as he had probably been talking mostly about the baby since she was born and he needed some "adult" conversation

When we got home, Tina just commented that that was one of the big differences between men and women.....

Take the first left, then drive for two hours

2008-07-07T22:05:00.004Z

So I was in the Shell garage, queueing to pay for my petrol because they are a bit backwards and don't have pay@pump, when this Australian couple come in saying they are lost. They go up to the security guard for directions, but he's all "Sorry love, I'm not from round here" or something similar, so they then come to me to ask.

Now, I'm not that good with knowing where to go, even locally, so I wasn't sure I could help them......but it turns out they were trying to get to Stonehenge.....

I don't know exactly where they came from, but I'm thinking to turn up in Watford means they definitely were lost. Anyway, I managed to point them onto the M25 heading for the M3, but I couldn't remember the A road from there, so I hope they are still travelling in the right direction.

I'm an alien....

2008-07-02T21:20:00.002Z

My stupid head is peeling today, I don't think I've ever had so many comments about anything than I have had today, even Tina's facebook status is about it, so unkind.....

....apparently it looks like someone out of Star Trek, I'm not entirely sure who but I'm going for Neelix from Star Trek Voyager....

except perhaps without the mohican

Could have done with at least one more player

2008-07-01T21:08:00.007Z

On Saturday I played in my first 5-a-side tournament since, I think, I was 15. I did play in a thing with work, but I didn't really count that as there were only 5 teams, and it's not like we had kits on or anything.

So anyway, this was a tournament, 7 players to a team, 10 minutes to a game. We were a bit worried when, at kick-off to our first game we still only had 5 players, but luckily one of them was a goalkeeper. Turns out we only had one more player to come, and he was a keeper too, not the best planning as one of them would have to play on pitch.

We were in a group of 4, which basically meant we had a minimum of 3 games, The guy organising us (Rich) had borrrowed a 'lovely' yellow shirted, blue shorted, white socked kit to wear (yes, I know, it doesn't really go, but beggars can't be choosers). Aware that we weren't exactly the fittest team around, we decided to go for a 3-0-1 formation, play the long ball and hope for the best (I was the 1 up front by the way).

First game, was tiring and we didn't get a shot on target (well, basically I didn't, I scuffed both my shots I had, but I blame the second one on the fact the defender chasing me fell over and it put me off my shot). Luckily our defence held out and we got a 0-0 draw.

Second game we played better, I scored giving us the lead just before half time, which then gave us something to defend. The second half lasted about 15 minutes, though this was probably fair as we were all using time-wasting tactics, you know, kicking the ball miles out of play, taking our time with goal-kicks, throw-ins and corners, there were even one or two cynical fouls and a deliberate handball to stop a quick attack. We held on though, 1-0 to us....yay.

Third game in the group we played the eventual runners up, and they were far better than us, beating us 2-0. They were worried though, as their main defender was on the bench and he came on before half time. I also had the opportunity to equalise at 1-0 down from the penalty spot, but I smashed it straight down the middle, and straight off the bar....very disappointing. They also missed a (dubious) penalty too.

This all meant we were into the knockout stages by finishing second in our group. not bad for having scored only one goal. We had a two hour gap so I filled up with some energy food, a burger and a large slice of chocolate cake.

The knockout game came and, in my opinion, we played our best game and had several chances. I think the other team were quite tired too as they only had 6 players, and also played more group games than us. We didn't quite have enough to beat them and lost 2-1, though I had scored the equaliser, muscling a defender off the ball (I enjoyed that) and we came close a few times to snatching the win.

The 6 players was an issue for us as well, as it meant that most of us had to play all the games, though when Rich asked for volunteers to start on the bench, I'm sure you can guess mine wasn't the fisrt hand up.

Overall, I had a very enjoyable day, considering I thought we would be out of the tournament pretty quick, and we didn't have the best of teams. unfortunately, I fogot to put suncream on and burnt my head, oh well.

Here's a couple of pictures (stolen from Rich's facebook), can you spot me in the first one: -

Oh yeah, and there is a chance that we might get to play in an 11-a-side game at Vicarage Road in the near future, that'll be nice.

How does Bob Marley like his donuts?

2008-06-23T19:04:00.002Z

....wi' jammin

I forgot to mention that, although not totally unexpected, we must have heard about 20-30 Bob Marley songs every day, either from the DJs or by the bands, did get a little repetitive I must say

A bit too "Brits Abroad"

2008-06-21T17:30:00.006Z

Last week we came back from our holiday in Antigua, so here's a little about what we did.......um, not much. Tina wasn't too keen to take any tours or anything this time, seeing as when we went to Egypt I made her climb up mount Sinai, so basically we just stayed in the hotel.

There was a schedule of things to do, including aqua aerobics, water volleyball (which I participated in once, but before lotioning up, and got very burnt arms and head), beach football and beach cricket. Here's a couple of pictures of me participating in the latter two: -

Here are some pictures of the views, starting with the one from our hotel room: -

It wasn't sunny all the time, in fact, on the Monday and Tuesday it rained for 4 or 5 hours solidly, and it pretty much rained a little every day, so we did a fair bit of sitting around reading (and for no reason that we don't actually have a lot of pictures, here's one of me sat around reading)

You might have been wondering abour the title. Well, the reason is that there was a small wedding area near the swimming pool, where several couple got married during the week. Tina was quite happy watching them from the pool, commenting on how good/bad the dresses were. This also meant there were a lot of families around, and in some cases it was a bit like being in Majorca or Tenerife, expecially when, on my last day, about 14 East Londoners rolled up (apart from the accent, I know they were form there because half of them had West Ham shirts on). There was also a lot of (other) burnt people around, most far worse than either me of Tina got. I can only assume that the below is targetted at the "chav" clientel: -

Paradise......maybe not

2008-06-10T21:59:00.003Z

So we roll up in Antigua for a week of holidaying, and are welcomed into the hotel with the line "Welcome to Paradise".......about an hour later I was pooped on by a seagull

I like being paid to give my opinion

2008-04-09T22:27:00.003Z

So tonight I went to one of them there focus groups, where some people sit around and chat for an hour, you know what I'm talking about don't you?

OK, so basically, me and five other people sat around a table drinking and were asked our opinion on The Coral, and, as I'm sure you are well aware, I wasn't shy in answering. We were basically asked what we thought of them as a band, their image, their music, their album covers, their videos etc. etc. This is all because they are releasing a greatest hits album later this year or something and the record company want to know how to market it (I guess). This was all done in three age groups (I was in the middle one before any remarks are made), and apparently they had trouble attracting younger people, I guess maybe because the band aren't really as popular as they once were.

Anyway, sitting around talking, listening to music and watching videos, I got paid £30 for, I wish my real work was that easy to do.

I've got to tell you my tale

2008-03-28T21:55:00.004Z

Hmm, so maybe I should really post things closer to the time they happened, but anyway....

In November I went with Susie to see the Verve at the Roundhouse in Camden. This was the first time I had been there and had heard it was a good venue. Now, whilst I do agree it is a nice building, and the acoustics were pretty good, the fact it was dead flat meant I couldn't see a thing, stupid shortness.

That sometimes happens, but normally it is just the main act I can't see and the support acts I do get to watch as there are less people around. Unfortunately, this time there was no support, just a bunch of projected images (which I'm sure did have a meaning) with some backing music, not really the best way to entertain the crowd members who had been there since doors at 7 (like us).

I wondered what they would be like as they had just reformed, although obviously Richard Ashcroft (lead singer) has been releasing albums and playing concerts since then, and I wasn't disappointed. They played for two hours, which is a good session for an act (I guess they probably had to make up for the fact they had no support), and I think it was 30 minutes longer than the concert they played in the North of England the day previous, lucky us, and they played every song I knew and liked which is always a bonus....here's a couple of videos

So, that's it for now.....I appreciate that I haven't put many pictures up here, I'll try to remedy that next time, oh, and by the way, I lost my pool tournament title last night, losing in the Quarter Finals.

It was!

2008-03-07T17:51:00.004Z

I'm sad because I've just found out that there is no second season of The Class.

We both really like watching it and it's rare that we find a sitcom that we actually enjoy watching and make an effort (well, maybe not that much of an effort) to see the next episode (we only started watching somewhere halfway through so there may still be episodes we haven't seen).....stupid TV executives, what do they know!!!

What a lovely place!

2008-03-03T22:33:00.004Z

I obviously have some classy people working in my office block (note that there are 5 or 6 companies sharing it)

Last week I noticed that someone had scratched the word 'Cunt' ont a metal plate in the lift, and today a guy walked into the toilets, went for a piss in one of the cubicles (with the door open, I mean, what's the point when there are several urinals free), didn't flush the toilet, left the seat up and walked out without washing his hands......nice!

Far, far too old for this sort of thing

2008-02-25T22:55:00.003Z

If you thought this was going to be a cup final blog, you'd be wrong (though I'll probably do that next), mostly because I haven't got round to uploading my pictures yet.

A few weeks back for my brother's birthday we went out to see The Ghost Frequency play a club in London, Sin. I was under the impression that they wold be on at 12, thus allowing us plenty of scope to catch the 2 o'clock train home. Turns out they were playing at 2, which left us with a tricky little issue anyway, but we figured we'd just worry about that when we left.

When I left home, I checked the dress code for the place, and it said smart casual. Now, I can only assume I don't know what smart casual means any more, as I turned up in shirt, trousers and shoes, you know, expecting it to be a fairly strict place. I think I saw one other guy in shoes, not too many in trousers either. Seems smart casual can mean hoodies, trainers, T-shirts, combats, pretty much anything that wasn't shorts or a vest as far as I can tell.

The club was very well ventilated, what with it having several doors open, which I'm sure is great in the summer, but in February, not so much. Another thing even some of Ryan's friends conceded was that the crowd were far too young, and the bar staff were rubbish, I even had a go at on girl after waiting at least half an hour to be served in what was not the largets bar in the world. It didn't help that she kept coming to make her drinks right in front of me.

So we left the club at 4, walked to Euston cos I am silly (Tina wasn't too happy I made her walk), got a bus to Edgware, in which the guy behind almost had his phone nicked by the guy behind him, got a cab back to Watford and then Tina drove home from there, getting us in at 5:30. The craziness that is Tina decided she would then set her alarm for 9 so she could get up and clean the house.......madness

I didn't mean it, really!

2008-02-20T00:20:00.002Z

I'm feeling a bit sheepish this evening because at football I smashed the ball into the back of a guy's head during the warm-up......accidentally of course, just my lack of ability meaning the ball didn't go where I wanted it to. He's quite a nice guy as well so that made it worse, hopefully he won't hold a grudge.

I was disappointed to find out they weren't named after Pigeon Street

2008-02-13T22:13:00.003Z

Pigeon Street, surely you remember?!?? Mr Baskerville was the detective anyway.

Last week I went with Susie to see the Pigeon Detectives play the NME tour (maybe, NME something anyway, they always seem to have a tour going on). As you might remember I saw them play the O2 Wireless festival last year, but they were that good I wanted to see them again.

As is tradition (for this blog anyway), here's my quick rundown of the support acts.

First up (at 6:30pm, which is the time the tickets said doors opened, and is a bit mean if you ask me) were Grammatics. I don't remember too much about them, except they had what sounded like very emotional songs. Oh, and also they had a cellist wearing a short skirt, I wondered whether the front row were listening to the music play really.

After these came, um, The Rascals I think, yeah, I think it was them next. These sounded pretty average indie fare if you ask me, and I had heard at least one of their songs before, which is why I thought I recognised the name. Actually it was probably because of the showbiz friend they brought out to play on the last song, Alex Turner from Arctic Monkeys, and I then remembered that I had read about the fact he was collaborating with the singer on an album. Don't know whether it was just the recognition, but the last song they played was, in my eyes at least, the best. As an aside, I still want to see the Arctic Monkeys play somewhere, but not a big place, and it is very difficult to get tickets for them otherwise.

Third on the bill were Black Kids, who, according to their Myspace page, list themselves as Indie / Religious, though to me they sounded more poppy with guitars (but maybe they were religious, it was difficult to work out what the lead singer was actually saying, he had a kind of wail a bit like Kele from Bloc Party).

Finally the headliners. I was wondering what we would get as they do only have the one album to date, and that isn't the longest. What it was was basically an hour of music, no encore, with pretty much all of the album plus three new songs. This was interspersed with the lead singer swing the microphone, falling on the floor, jumping off drum kits, jumping into the crowd and forgetting the words to, aguably, their most famous song and getting the guitarist to tell him. He also must have opened about 15 bottles of water, taking a couple of sips and then launching them into the crowd, and in the end he looked like he'd just walked in from a rainstorm.

Musically, I thought it was great, but seeing as they have very poppy, upbeat, short, sharp songs, thene there was never going to be much time to get bored, as I can tend to do, during elongated guitar solos.

Here's a couple of videos for those not in the know ;)

Also, I promise not to be so long with my next post.

Um, is it really that different

2008-01-29T23:32:00.001Z

I've thought of something, though it's not about me. I read this article the other day about Dwayne Peel, the Welsh Rugby player, leaving Llanelli to go and play for Sale (which I believe is near Manchester).

I just could help laughing when he made this comment about one of the reasons he was leaving the Welsh club...

"The deal to stay at Llanelli was similar to that offered by Sale - it's about the fact that, not having lived outside Wales, I'd like to experience life in another country for a short period"

Now maybe it's just me, but I don't think that there is going to be an awful lot of difference between Wales and England, or maybe there is and I don't know.....?

It's been a while!

2008-01-23T22:02:00.001Z

Sorry, been mostly playing the Nintendo Wii I got for Christmas, so not really much to say, I'll think of something soon though, promise ;-)

Move along, nothing to see here

2007-12-23T23:48:00.002Z

We had our work christmas meal/drinks on Thursday, and it was surprisingly quiet if you ask me. Not a lot going on, some people got very drunk quickly, some left early and I almost lost my camera and that's about it. I was pacing myself too to last all day but in the end was home at the perfectly reasonable hour of about half twelve, and not nearly as drunk as I could have been.

Maybe everybody is just getting too old for this kind of thing!

The final countdown

2007-12-16T15:43:00.001Z

And now to finish up on what we did for the rest of the holiday. Mostly this involved lounging around in the sun by the pool reading. I say in the sun, but seeing as I mostly didn't get up until about lunchtime and the sun went down about 4 then it was less so for me.

The resort wasn't really near anything, and the entertainment was all in Italian, so we did spend more time than normal in our rooms. If we did want to go to Na'ama bay then we had to get a taxi there, which mean haggling with the driver every time about how much the price was, and this ranged from 40-80 Egyptian Pounds. I hate haggling, and was getting very bored of it by the end. We mostly only went there to watch the football anyway.

On trip we went on was to go quad biking in the desert. I was a bit disappointed with this as we weren't taken over any dunes or sanything so it was all like driving normally (well, as normal as you can get on a quad bike). It was good enough to kill a few hours, and also scary in the minibus as he seemed to spend half the journey getting there driving on the wrong side of the road.

We also went snorkling one day as well, and even Tina got in and swam around, which seeing as she can't swim was might impressive. She was wearing a life jacket and holding onto the safetly ring all the time, but still. We saw a turtle swimmming down deeper, which was great as I had never seen one before. We did take an underwater camera, but it sprang a leak and so most of the pictures didn't come out well at all.

At the resort, I would have joined in games, even though I obviously couldn't understand what the enteretainment team were saying, but the sand was very stony, and my beach volleyball career was curtailed pretty early on by a big cut I got on my big toe when landing on the sand, and so I didn't play anything else.

A beautiful sight, we're happy tonight

2007-12-11T22:40:00.001Z

As a brief interlude between finishing off the pictures and description of our holiday, I'm going to fill you in on my busy weekend. On Saturday we went to a party in Dagenham for some family member that hasn't been seen for about 20 years, I didn't recognise him, but then I wouldn't have been that old whan I last saw him. Anyway, I skipped out of the party early (well, 10:30) to drive back to Watford in preparation for the Hatton-Mayweather fight. That preparation consisted mostly of foreign beers and poker.

Obviously the fight finished about 6, so I went to sleep at Spike's house and woke up around half 12, getting up and coming home for an hour before heading off to Spurs to see them beat Manchester City.

Not content with that, I headed off to Brixton to meet Susie to go to XFM's Winter Wonderland. Unfortunately we missed the first act who were the XFM Rock School winners, so we had to make do with the rest....in order we had

...One Night Only, of who I do like one of their singles. Nothing else of the guitar based rock they played particularly stood out, but I guess it is hard to make an impression when people are still streaming in. Here's a video.

Next up was Kate Nash, who I thought was worse than when I saw her before at the O2 Wireless festival. She is a bit samey, although the piano playing sort of helps jangle things along, but when she went into a couple of dull songs on the guitar, then it did not go down well, with plenty of chatter in the crowd. Seems the XFM reviewer didn't think to much of her as their review mostly just mentions her sparkly clothes. We weren't the only ones to think she was bad as overhearing conversations both in the venue and on the trains home there was a general consensus. No video for her, I'm sure you have heard Foundations hundreds of times already.

To stop the crowd getting bored, Dan Le Sac v Scroobius Pip came on for a three song set. They basically consist of Mr Pip talking, almost poetically, over Dan's beats provided by an apple mac it looked like. I did recognise the first song, here it is.

Supergrass followed with a good mix of new songs and old. The average age of the crowd wasn't that old, so I did wonder how many of them would have recognised songs being played that were upwards of 10 years old, but they did go down very well (they were my favourites of the night). Apparently they are touring as the Diamond Hoo-Ha Men, or something, very weird name.

Next gap was filled by an "acoustic" set by Jack Penate. I'm not sure an electric guitar plugged into an amp is stricly acoustic, but hey. He seemed to be enjoying himslef very much and was very lively, better than I expected too. Here's Torn on the Platform for your entertainment.

Finally we had Bloc Party, who Susie really likes but I'm not overly into their stuff. They played all the sings I knew, which is always good, especially as includes a couple I do like (like Flux, below). There werre also loads of large balloons for the crowd to play with, and the band were certainly enjoying playing what, in essence, is a home-town concert. The whole thing finished at 11:15, which meant by the time we got back to Euston we just missed a train, and being a Sunday there wasn't another one for 50 minutes, and it was cold. We eventually got back home about 1:15am.....I was so tired, in fact I still am a bit.

Would have helped if they had installed escalators

2007-12-08T12:17:00.001Z

On the last Friday of our holiday, I had the smart idea of climbing Mount Sinai, which is, apparently, the one that Moses climbed to get the 10 commandments. This idea of this was to climb overnight so we could see the sunrise. This meant they we were oicked up about 10 o'clock at night, drove for a few hours to the bottom of the montain and then made our way up at 2. It all sounded fine in theory, of course I had forgotten that the walk would be uphill.

We could have got on the back of a camel to walk us up, but that is just for weeds or those unable, and whilst it did hurt, and Tina was pretty much dead on her feet, we continued on foot, as if we can't do this when we are young(ish) what will we be like when we are old(er). The killer going up, though, was the fact there are 750 steps (well, rocks) at the top, so after two hours of walking we then had to get up those. We basically did those in little blocks to break them up, rather than attempting the 750 in one go.

It was a really clear sky at the bottom of the mountain, and we could see so many stars....but unfortunately at the top it was a littl cloudy, so I think the sunrise was not as great as it could have been. Some photos here to show you though.

It was cold up there so we hired a couple of blankets to keep us warm. I think Tina liked hers a bit too much

There were plenty of other people up there to watch. I wanted to get a picture from above walking up where you could see a stream of torches but it wouldn't come out, so here's some atop the mountain.

So you'd think that would be the worst of it, oh no. Coming down was not just a stroll, it was the 'other' way, which consisted of 3,500 steps down, which, I can tell you, is so much harder than it sounds, our legs were wobbling and we had to take several stops. Here are some pictures of the different routes from the bottom, the first being the camel trail and the second the steps down.

Afterwards, we had a trip around St. Catherine's monastary, with the people we went with, and had to endure questions like "Do the monks eat meat?" and "Are there any Earthquakes in Egypt as they cause Tsunamis?"....ah, thrilling. We pretty much slept the rest of the day, and I couldn't walk properly until about now.

Oh yeah, the monestary also surrounds the burning bush (below, not on fire), and a load of skeletons recovered from graves in the hills, weird....

Dive Dive Dive!

2007-12-07T16:42:00.002Z

Actually, I'm going to split the holiday into four posts. As we were there, I thought I would try scuba diving to break up the days. Allegedly the Red Sea is one of the top three diving/snorkling destinations. I wasn't sure if I would like it so I only booked the first lesson for the middle of the first week, but I did like it, and unfortunately I could only go once more.

The first time was good, once I'd learnt the basic signs, and three of us went down to about 12m. I saw lots of fish and coral, and some pictures are below. the good thing was I didn't get told off by the instructor much.

The second time (no pictures) we actually went down to 20m, but I think that was because the other people I was with were experienced divers and so as I was the only beginner the instructor could look after me. Again I saw lots of fish, including a big one which seemed to be as large as my armspan, also a clam type thing opening and closing, and something akin to a puffer fish going from being all open to all closed up....I really enjoyed it all and wished I had gone more, maybe next holiday....

One thing about the second trip though was that my air meter dropped pretty quickly and I thought I hardly had any air left, which was a bit of a panic. I used the instructor's air for a bit, but it turns out that it was the gauge that was broken and I had plenty of air.......still a bit of a panic for a novice like me.

So what are those pyramid shaped things then?

2007-12-05T18:45:00.001Z

We've just come back from two weeks in Egypt, and so I have lots of things to tell you about the holiday. I figured I would split it into three for you, and so first up is our day trip to Cairo.

Now, I was aware that the Egyptian people aren't the most punctual, but today was the best example of that. We were due to be picked up at 4:40 in the morning, which, for those that know me, was bad enough, but the coach turning up at 5:45 was a sickener, we so could have done with an extra hour in bed. The thing is the airport was only 5 minutes away. The flight was due for 6 and so we were a tad worried, but we got to the airport and they just said there would be no problem, and they held the flight for an hour for the 8 of us that were late....which was nice. It was a Turkish flight, um, Pegasus airways or something, although the shortened name looked like fly pigs to me!

There were 8 of us on the trip together, with a minibus and guide in Cairo, which was handy as I don't think I would have liked to have attempted to get around there. Allegedly (according to our guide) it is the 3rd most populated city in the world behind Mexico City, and Tokyo (this seems to disagree though). Driving seemed to be a nightmare as three lanes became six, and the basic rules appeared to "try to get in front of the car in front of you". And the cars were varied with some looking at least 30 years old and some brand new, some with lots of dents and some pristine.

The first thing in Cairo appears to be that it is split in two, but not convetionally. On one side of the road, towards the nile, we had houses, offices and other buildings, and on the other side there were graves (although these were also in the shape of small rooms. These graves apparently go on for several miles, but it is weird as some people actually live there if they have nowhere else to go, and at least one had a satellite dish. Another thing was there were many blocks of flats that looked incomplete. Apparently that is because there is no tax on the unfinished buildings (I don't know if that is for residents or builders) so they never do complete.

The morning was taken up by pyramids and the sphynx. We did go inside the pyramid (second pyramid it was imaginitively titled), which basically consists of a downward passage about three feet high (I banged my head, it hurt, glad I'm not taller otherwise it could have really hurt) leading to a smallish chamber. Of course there is nothing in the chamber save for an empty burial casket, but, you know, it was more for the experience of being inside than what was there. Here are some pictures from the morning.

Also here is a picture of a local police officer and his trusty steed.

And a local tradesman off to market

We had lunch on the Nile, which we thought would be nice, until we found out it was here: -

It was the quickest meal in a restaurant I have ever been to. It was a set menu, but each course was brought out before everybody on the table had finished the one before. I reckon the soup, chicken dinner and ice-cream, plus a beer, took about 25 minutes to consume.

In the afternoon we went to the museum of Egypt, which is probably most famous for housing all of Tutankhamun's stuff (save for the acual casket, which is still where he was found, and the coupld of hundred bits currently on show at the O2. It's incredible how much golden stuff he had, and he died young so I wwould imagine some of the other pharoahs had so much more (before the grave robbers got to it that is). The Gold mask is pretty special.

Final stop in Cairo was at a bazaar, where we really couldn't be bothered to haggle with anybody so didn't buy anything, and instead went to a coffee shop for some tea and a shisha.

Flying home was pretty straight forward, although when we got back to Sharm el Sheikh (which is where we were staying by the way, I don't think I mentioned that before), the coach driver and rep didn't seem to know where the hotels were and were having an argument all the way back. We just made it back in time for dinner, but another couple certainly wouldn't have, and they were getting up the next day to go to Luxor, madness.

The rest of the holiday will follow soon, and note that you are getting the pictures on here before facebook for once.

I was 30 once

2007-11-14T22:51:00.001Z

As promised (I think, did I promise? I might have mentioned it in passing), here are some photos (mostly of me) from my birthday party in July (including some not on Facebook). We bought a bar and set it up in the garden, and the theme was 70's Cocktail. I hired my suit, but burnt a hole in it, but luckily the shop didn't notice.....I guess I can never go back there...

He said he loved me

2007-11-05T22:04:00.001Z

Another concert for Tina to attend with me, we went to see Reverend and the Makers last week (or maybe it was the week before thinking about it, man am I rubbish) at the Astoria.

I really liked Heavyweight Champion of the World when it came out, and then bought the album, and on initial listen wasn't too impressed and didn't really listen to it again. I had already bought tickets for this show though so was always going to go. My brother hadn't filled me with anticipation either as he said he had already seen them and they weren't too special.

So I headed into the concert with doused hopes, but, you know, it's still a gig, something to do to get us out of the house.

Support came from A Human, who were pretty good. I can't really remember what kind of music they played as it was two weeks ago and they were the support, but I do remember that the guitarist and keyboard player wore silver jackets, and the lead singer was fond of a strange pose or two. Definitely entertaining though, and that was good as they were the only support. It was funny really as they were on an hour and half after doors, I don't know whether there was supposed to be somebody on before that.....

Main act came on, lead singer blokey started talking in his Sheffield accent and the music started. I must add at this point that I had listened to the album a few more times on the day, and a few songs had started to grow on me. Of course, Tina hadn't, and coupled with his singing accent she pretty much had no idea what he was saying. Just as well the band were really good. The lead singer blokey (maybe I should find out his name) has his own little dancing style, kinda with his shoulders hunched and his arms bent.....quite amusing really.

Both singles went down a storm, but during the slow song there was far too much talking....I mean, who pays £10-12 to go to a music concert and then talk through the songs, and it happens at others which cost a lot more, I just don't understand it really, especially people who, halfway through a song will say "oh, I love this song, this is my favourite blah blah blah.....". If it is your favourite then why don't you listen to them playing!!!!

Anyway, to summarise, both bands were good, both lead singers were interesting, and I probably won't listen to my brother's advice on concerts again.

Here's some songs

oh, and the guys name is Jon McClure

Maybe it was their first time

2007-10-31T23:09:00.001Z

At Spurs this evening I had a couple behind me, who I'm pretty sure were Canadian, but I'm not 100% with the accents so they could have been from the States (although the guy was comparing tactics to Ice Hockey at one point)....

Anyway, I could just about handle the guy cheering loudly at corners, talking about great Deeeefence, Big Plays and making up words to songs he was singing along to, but I really could have done without the girl, basically every time the ball was in the opposing half saying 'come on, pass, pass, screech, pass, pass, come on, get there, get there, pass, pass, pass, screech, shoot, screech....' or some other such combination.......probably just as well there was only 2 goals otherwise I might be deaf

Is it cos I is old?

2007-10-26T21:39:00.001Z

I was walking along near my old university on Tuesday and there was a young Asian couple in front of me. I know she was speaking English as I understood her, but the guy could have been talking any language as it sounded like this....

ifsdi kb iwergb hkberow gb bkgts ltkr tfdgsl

or something else equally hard to understand, but then he suddenly said 'Antony Hopkins' in the middle of all the garbage.....I really want to know what he was talking about

Have I mentioned before....

2007-10-15T21:57:00.001Z

....that my brother's school friend and flatmate is in a band called The Ghost Frequency? No? oh well.....

We bought their single Nightmare a few weeks ago (youtube is below) on 7 inch vinyl....have nothing to play it on but thought we would buy it anyway.....

It's not my kind of music really, electo guitar synth type stuff, but I'm sure the kids will love it.....they are on their first support tour with Hadouken this week, I'm sure they'll have a great time

Maybe I'll post something more interesting next time, like pictures from my birthday or something

It's the only explanation...

2007-10-14T17:56:00.001Z

...that I can think of, although that doesn't necessarily mean it is the reason....

At the England game yesterday, whilst the teams were announced and the players were being applauded when they were announced, the two people to the left of me stopped clapping at exactly the same time when Sol Campbell's name was read out....they must have been Spurs fans :)

No trouble with reaching pedals or anything.....

2007-10-12T17:13:00.001Z

although I did need a booster cushion.

Yesterday we went Go-Karting to celebrate our big customer go-live in June, We also went out to (vodka) Bar Revolution afterwards for drinks.

I took about 300 pictures but none of me so I won't bother posting as this is just a quick one. My team finished fifth out of eight (just above the relegation zone like Spurs then) but were denied fourth place by 0.2 seconds.....I blame the marshall who told me to slow down on the last bend.

We stayed out until 4, so I got 4 hours sleep.....I feel too old for doing things like that now.

Also, I had the worst possible vodka, it was some kind of chili...vinegar...jalepeno pepper concoction.....It was vile and my mouth took about an hour to sort its life out.....stupid Spike!!!!

The boat trip on Tuesday was postponed because of the weather, although by the time we were due on it there was bright sunshine. Next year maybe now as it is getting darker.

Doing my bit for char-i-dee mate

2007-10-08T18:38:00.000Z

My company was taken over just under two years ago by Euronet. One of their principles or guidelines or something is that they give something back to the community....and so, this year we had our very own day(s) of caring, where we gave up work for a day and went out and did something for someone else.

We came up with two possible events over four days. One was to refurbish and redecorate a Scout Hall, and the second was to help clear and renovate a community narrowboat. Being in Canada, I was left with only one choice, the narrowboat, which, by chance, was the one I would have chosen anyway.

We were the second day to go, some would say we were the glory boys, just finishing off the work that had already been done, which may be true seeing as I didn't see what it was like to begin with. The jobs on the day involved painting, digging, burning, strimming, washing, hammering etc. all around the area, including the boat itself. Because I got there a little bit late, I didn't get much say in what I did, so I basically spent the whole day painting (and taking pictures of others).

We were very lucky with the weather (it was sunny all day), and so it was a good day to be out in the sun, and not at work. Here are some pictures I (or others) took.

I was mostly painting that fence on my own, but then some people started to help me from the other end. Unfortunately, we ran out of green and so had to do the last bit brown, it looked a bit weird.

To thank the people doing the scout hut, they get a cub scout badge to sew onto their shirts or shorts or whatever. To thank us narrowboaters, we get a trip on the boat, with alcohol and a barbecue afterwards.....seems fair to me (it's tomorrow by the way, it's going to rain)

Oh well, it was still a good day had by all I think.

Who am I?

2007-10-02T23:40:00.000Z

For no real reason........

(from googlism, my favourites are in bold)

chris knowles is an accomplished musician on a variety of instruments
chris knowles is a freelance artist and writer based in new jersey
chris knowles is the
chris knowles is chair
chris knowles is continuing research on the use of ethnography in investigating information behaviours by a technical support group with sally
chris knowles is a creative director and producer of time
chris knowles is director of the oxford centre for environmental biotechnology
chris knowles is a sculptural and sound installation and consists
chris knowles is on the case
chris knowles is vice president

No it wasn't wor Jackie

2007-09-30T14:25:00.000Z

On Thursday I went with Tina to see Milburn play at the Astoria.

It was the day of our staff meeting, which customarily has free drinks afterwards, and I think this was the first time I had been and not taken up the free drinks offer. I think I deserved it after taking two or three digs in the presentations. I'll have to make up for it next time.

Support came from Model Radio, I think, I wasn't really sure as I couldn't understand him when he was talking, probably the accoustics and not the Stoke accent. They were pretty good though, although the lead singer's habit of saying 'lets have it', 'lets fucking have this one' or some other combination just before starting singing on every song got a bit tiresome, maybe he was just geeing himself up. they came on really early at 7:15 as well, so I reckon it was pretty difficult playing to a mostly empty venue.

Second we had The Envy Corps from somewhere in America. I thought they were very boring, long guitar parts, a lead singer I couldn't understand when he was either singing or talking, who made every single word last about 6 notes. Was very glad when they finished.

The main men were very good though (although not so much for Tina who did look like she was going to fall asleep, but then she had been getting up pretty early all week). I really like their first album, the second isn't as good, so far, but maybe it will grow on me. They have drawn comparisons to the Arctic Monkeys, which, based on their first album is fair, but I thought live they sounded more ska-like, and reminded me of the Coral's first album.

I don't think the night was a sell-out, as there were tickets still available on the door, which surprised me as they do have some very good songs. My favourite of the night was 'Cheshire Cat Smile', but unfortunately they didn't play my other favourite from the album, 'Brewster'. Very good overall though.

Here's a couple of videos for the uninitiated.

Computers. a programming code that is easy to remember

2007-09-25T22:40:00.000Z

We have a spreadsheet at work used to store mnemonics. These are three letters to represent a word, so we can use the same letters consistently for the same meaning in lots of different places in code...(e.g. ACCOUNT-NUMBER would be shortened to ACT-NBR).

Anyway, I opened up the spreadsheet the other day, but got distracted, and instead of looking up the word I wanted, looked up MNEMONIC instead. It was only when I got back to my code I realised I didn't actually want MNEMONIC, but obviously it was in my mind as that was the spreadsheet I had opened.....I was a tad surprised to see it in there though

Anyway, I found this funny, everyone I told (well both of them) thought I was just silly.

Sir Prize!

2007-09-16T12:21:00.000Z

(note....I composed this post about four weeks ago but forgot to submit it, so have just decided to leave it mostly as it was)
- - - - - - - - - - - - -

So, first up on my Indian food quest was a trip to France so surprise my uncle for his 40th birthday. Unbeknownst to him, a surprise meal-cum-party was arranged in the local Indian restaurant in Eymet (which you might remember is where they live).

Me, Tina, my nan, my auntie Susan and uncle Stephen decided to nip over for a few days to celebrate, but this involved laying low for 24 hours or so. In order to do this, we hired ourself a car and drove around for a bit, stopping on Sunday evening in Bergerac for a meal and some entertainment (in the loosest sense of the word), and then drove to many other places who have names I just can't remember now. Luckily we picked up my cousin Jennifer who could translate for us, particularly useful around mealtimes. Here are some pictures from our jaunt...

David had no idea the extent of the surprise (although he twigged something when he was outside), and it all went pretty much to plan.

Unfortunately we had to come home the next day, buut not after seeing the water fountain in the centre of the village had been 'contaminated' with washing up liquid....not an uncommon occurrence either by all accounts.

One further thing is, I did mention the airport in my previous post about our time in France, but here are a couple of photos to show you what I meant.

Maybe some are, maybe some aren't

2007-09-11T16:30:00.000Z

As I alluded to in my previous post, I was aching on Saturday. That was because I attended the 2nd annual Essentis (that will be the company I work for) sports day on Thursday. Unfortunately, I missed last year's event because I was in Toronto, and the sports day there wasn't really anything of the sort.

We were split into 4 teams, or "schools"....allegedly randomly but you can never be quite sure. I was in team Hogwarts, and, to prevent, or at least lessen the number of, any catcalls from spectators who are of course jealous of my abilities, I made a promise to just be a team member and try not to be my normal competitive self. So much so that, whereas ordinarily I would have been first up to volunteer, I turned down the captaincy of the team. Won't happen next year though (well, the captaincy turning down, I am still going to try and keep any competitiveness to a minimum from now.....we'll see how that goes).

The events we had were (and those I participated in are in bold)...

Rounders, Dodgeball, Tug 'o War, Bean Bag Race, Welly Throwing, Sack Race, Football Dribble, Egg and Spoon Race and Three Legged Race.

I think we had a nice combination of jokey games and team sports. I couldn't not be involved at all with the planning etc. so when I was asked to be a referee I jumped at the chance.....mainly as it allowed me to tell people what to do with no recriminations, so long as I was fair about it.

As it turns out, the teams were particularly fair and kept most people interested until the end. Unfortunately (for me), my team didn't win. In fact, four members of last years winning team won again. But that was OK. I had a pretty successful day personally as our team won our rounders and tug 'o war games, and I won the football dribble race too. I think most people had a good time. I think it is good to have these kinds of events where a lot of the company can go and interract with each other, rather than just in their own teams. We were lucky with the weather too as it was mostly sunny all day....which is good as some people were worried we'd have to come up with some indoor games!

Here are some pictures: -

Unfortunately my camera ran out of battery halfway through the day so I have no tug 'o war or dodgeball pictures.

Must remember to stretch properly next year as I was still aching on Monday....or maybe I am just getting old. I didn't actually think I did that much, but I guess it was the rounders, and also the unofficial frisbee football (like football, two goals, but with a frisbee, and you can't move once you've caught the frisbee) that probably took it out of me.

I also had to give up the trophy (we only have one) that I won at the pool tournament.....I was sad.

One other thing to note is that we were drinking from about 2 o'clock in the afternoon, and so, when the bar shut at 11, we thought it would be a good idea to continue into town. Now that's fine, but I'm not sure nine of us flagging down some guy in a transit van in the car park and getting him to drive us into town, in the back of his van, was necessarily our best bit of thinking. It's not like town was miles away, about 10 minutes maybe, and I'm sure he took some kind of scenic route (not that you can tell when you are in the back of a van, singing football songs and attempting to avoid the panes of glass that are on the floor). 3am we got home.

Step on....

2007-09-09T00:07:00.001Z

I went to the England v Isreal game at Wembley, being the first competitive fixture there since it opened. England won pretty comfortably in what was being billed as a must-win fixture. I always thought it would be simpler than people were making out, but you never know.

I bought the tickets late because I was in Toronto and forgot they went on sale, so that meant I was up in the gods. Normally that wouldn't be a problem, but I am seriously aching for reasons I will go into in my next post, but anyway, I had to drag my aching body up a total of 185 steps, which, even at the best of times is a struggle for an unfit person such as me, and I think I've got to do exactly the same again on Wednesday for the Russia match.

I guess one other thing to mention is that, for the first time ever, I booed one of our players. I normally can't stand that at England games, particularly booing during/after the opposition's national anthem, or if one of our players does badly, but I felt differently this time. The player in question was substitute David Bentley, and it is nothing he did today, but more his actions during the summer when he pulled out of the England U21 European Championships because he was too tired to play, but after the squad had been named, which meant that they could not call up a substitute squad member. If he had pulled out earlier, then I don't think it would have been as much of a problem, but it appeared a very selfish act to do so when he did, as it left all his fellow team-mates short in what might be their only chance to play in an international tournament, and he was one of their best players to boot. I personally think that he should not have been allowed to pick and choose which international games he plays in, and should not have been forgiven and picked for the national team so early......and judging but other reactions I am not the only one.....we'll see what happens if and when he plays again

Way da Hussle

2007-08-29T21:06:00.000Z

As I was at a loose end, and they were short of players, I told the company in Toronto I would turn out for them in a game.

This required me to purchase some new boots, shin pads and socks seeing as I hadn't packed them, but I needed a new pair of boots anyway so I didn't mind too much. Turns out I might as well not have bothered with the socks as I forgot them anyway, luckily they had a spare pair there.

Unfortunately I couldn't wear the number 7 shirt as it was taken, but I got the 8 so it was close enough.

The standard, to be honest, was pretty poor (which was good for me as it made me look good), the pitch was hard and bumpy which made play difficult anyway, but on the plus side there wasn't a lot of tackling which did mean there was time to get the ball down and try to pick a pass.

I started on the wing, was moved to centre midfield and then finally up front (which is where I wanted to play anyway). I had a few chances, one very good one which I fluffed (although I maintain it's because my own team was shouting at me to shoot when there was nobody around me and I could have taken my time) and I was pretty disappointed. I did set up both goals in a 2-2 draw, but it felt worse as the opposition scored in the last minute to equalise.

I did enjoy it though, my first full game for about 10 years, I'm glad I played....

...oh, and the opposition team had a girl playing too....

When we came out it was raining....

2007-08-16T02:40:00.001Z

On Sunday me and Albert went to the matinee of the Cirque du Soleil.

I can't remember the last time I went to a circus, but I'm sure it was some dodgy thing over Wanstead Flats. Anyway, the show we saw was Kooza. We were front row right in front of the stage, which is strange considering we only bought the tickets on Saturday.....

....however, being front row did have it's drawbacks, as, before the show the 'clowns' were play acting in the crowd....one guy was pretending to be a tourist, another a delivery guy etc. One guy, however, was pretending to be a builder, and he had a blower, which he basically used to blow all my popcorn away, and it didn't get replaced, although I didn't mind too much as I wasn't enjoying it. The guy next to me appeared to be very angry when they were near us, almost wrestling with a couple to prevent them getting near him.....I don't know what he expected at the circus.

This guy as well, when he wasn't wrestling, was either moaning about something, or breathing. Now breathing isn't normally a problem, but he had some kind of a nasal isue which meant that he was snorting pretty much constantly, it was very annoying.

The show itself was pretty good. The clowns basically performing skits in between the main acts which were...

- three very bendy girls, bending and balnacing on each other. some of their contortions looked pretty amazing, but their spines must take a hell of a beating, and one of them must have been only 12 or so as she looked very young
- a trapeze artist, who was ok but wasn't anything great
- a couple who performed some dancing and balancing acts
- four high wire balancing guys (two wires on top of each other) who did some run of the mill balancing, back and forwards on feet and on a bike
- a juggler of balls, clubs and rings. I like jugglers, Albert was disappointed at the lack of fire.
- a magician who performed the trick using a member of the audience and misdirection to remove things like his glasses, watch and tie without him seeing. I think I might have been more impressed had I not seen a "how the magicians do it" show once.
- a guy who balanced several chairs and then balanced himself on top of them
- some acrobats who used trampets to launch themselves in the air, or onto the shoulders of their colleagues, sometimes three high
- a couple of guys who used a piece of spinning aparatus with two circles at the end, and performed acts both in and outside the rings. These were possibly the best act in my opinion

and the clowns were pretty funny. The dog who was with them not so much, although he did 'wee' on Albert.

all in all though, it was pretty good

Not the one on MTV...

2007-08-09T22:09:00.000Z

On Tuesday I went on my own to see the Cribs at Lee's Palace. I walked up from the hotel, about a 45 minutes walk, and it pretty much rained for the whole journey....oh well.

It was a pretty small place, which I expected, but it never actually filled to capacity as both the Fratellis and Snow Patrol were playing in Toronto on the same day so I guess anybody who liked British music might have chosen them over this one. Didn't matter to me.

Support came from the in-joke spouting Hollerado, who it seems might not have actually played a proper concert before, or at least not many. They were OK, some songs sounding good, some sounding not-so-good.

Being so small, it seems there are no toilets backstage, which meant that the guys from the band actually had to come out and use the same ones as the rest of them. I spoke to Gary and Ryan Jarman whilst they were milling around, nothing exciting. They thought the venue was pretty cool (being so small), they asked me what I was up to in Toronto, and told me they never tell anyone (cab drivers etc.) what they are doing in town as if they tell them they are in a band it's highly likely they will not have heard of them anyway. I knew anyway, but they have pretty strong Yorkshire accents, which I struggled to understand a bit, so god knows what the Canadian public made of them.

I was speaking to some girls about the band, and one of them was a big fan, not just of the Cribs but of several other British bands (which meant we had a lot to talk about). I don't know if she had been drinking, but during the conversation she asked me if I'd seen them before about 4 times.....oh well. She also said that she doesn't really like any Canadian music, which makes sense I guess, and is coming to England to study (in Oxford, not at Oxford as it is too expensive) and work if possible and was hoping for a Libertines reunion....not too likely in my opinion but you never know.

Another weird thing that happened was in the toilets. I was going about my business when a man came in singing. But he wasn't singing anything in particular, just "Mens....Mens.....Meeeens......Mens......Meeeeeeeeens". It was a little disconcerting.

The concert itself was very good. I was just in front of the stage, in a pseudo mosh pit (I mean, it had about 4 people moshing), as there can't have been more than 50 odd people on the floor in front of the stage, the rest standing and sitting around the edge. I sang my heart out, danced around and waved and pointed like a weirdo....it was great.

Oh, and here's the conversation from the cab ride home...

Me: "Can you take me to the Marriott on Wellington?"
Cabbie: "There is no Marriott on Wellington"
Me: "Yes there is"
Cabbie: "No there isn't"
Me: "OK, just take me to the Soho Metropolitan then"
.
.
Cabbie "I picked up a couple the other day and they took me to the new hotel on Wellington, and that's when I realised there was a Marriott on Wellington"

I couldn't reply.....the big freak....he was either lying or stupid or both

Can he swing, from a web?

2007-08-07T10:46:00.000Z

No he can't, he's a pig.....

Check out what is number 24 in the charts this week....

for all those who have seen the Simpsons movie (which we did just before my birthday, and it was very good by the way) they will know what this is all about, and for everybody else it just won't make any sense

What's going on in the world?

2007-07-23T17:30:00.000Z

I had three meals of Indian food this week, which, seeing as I don't really like it that much, is just a bit weird.....I'll post more details sometime, maybe...

They weren't here for me, I hope

2007-07-14T09:38:00.000Z

Ah, back to my old blogging ways, and not really keeping up to speed, about two weeks ago I went to see Interpol with Susie at the Astoria...

They are about to release their third album, and originally when I heard their stuff a few years back I wasn't too interested, although I know some other people from work who were in on the act from early days, but since then I've heard enough to make me want to see them.

Anyway, only one support act, and it was the Maccabees (who you might remember we also saw supporting the Fratellis). This time we didn't have the Horrors to come on and destroy our eardrums so could hear them more, and also I knew two or three songs from the radio, but they were still only so-so in my opinion.

Interpol themselves were pretty good, although it was a bit weird going to a concert that only lasted about an hour and a quarter, seeing as the last two or three had been far longer, but I think that was fair as they do have a sound that can get a bit samey if you listen to them for a long time.

As always, most of them were dressed up in suits, and they do seem to have cultivated a moody look about them, not depressed, just not smiling, except for maybe the guitarist, who did smile, and also was doing some interesting dancing whilst playing, kind of all bendy legged.

They played most of the songs I knew (which were off the second album) except my favourite, but it wasn't a single so I didn't really expect them to (I've stuck a live version below). It finished by 10 as well for G-A-Y so it meant it wasn't a late one coming home, which is always a bonus.

Not a good sounding noise....

2007-07-07T13:45:00.000Z

I forgot to mention that last week I won tickets to go see The Twang at some small place in London (I think it's called 229), but couldn't go as it was the same day as the pool tournament.....luckily I caught them at the 02 thing the other week, but still, that makes two concert ticket wins I've had in the last few weeks or so, wonder if I'll make it a hat-trick...

My Generation?

2007-07-05T22:15:00.000Z

It seems we are living in an ADHD world, as, on Saturday we went to see Pirates of the Caribbean III, which, I might add, is a 12A, and isn't overly long at 2 1/2 hours, yet the cinema felt the need to insert an 'interval' into the film about an hour from the end. I say interval, although it mainly consisted of the film stopping abruptly and the lights coming up. There was no announcement how long it would be so quite a few people who took a break missed the startup.

Seriously, I went to see almost 4 hours of the Lord of the Rings (Return of the King) without a break, and I'm pretty sure the Harry Potter movies are all at least as long, with probably more kids in the audience, and younger kids probably, as at a 12A I wouldn't expect lots of little ones..... I don't know, it's just weird

Ah, clean air

2007-07-01T00:16:00.000Z

I'm not normally one for social commentary, but I couldn't let today (July 1st) pass without expressing how happy I am the public smoking ban is now in force...

no more having sore throats and smoky clothes after an evening in the pub or at a concert, no more having smoke blown in my face when I would much rather not, and no more of the stale smoke smell in so many places....superb

Going for a dip

2007-06-30T10:23:00.000Z

We had our 16th, twice annual work 9-ball pool tournament on Tuesday, and I won (woo!) for the second time. So Iget a nice shiny trophy to keep on my desk until the next one.

Here's some pictures: -

also, I got the bad sportsmanship award, just for beating a girl in the final...that's just mean!!!!!

(there's more on facebook if you are my friend)