...ruffles...

For my birthday (which was now three weeks ago) Emma took me to Dublin for the day, flight out at 10am, back home by midnight. In between Trinity College, Grafton Street, Temple Bar, and all the other delights Dublin offers. It was a brilliant way of spending a day. Our mid-afternoon break saw us visit Bewley’s Café. According to the Rough Guide, Bewley’s is so much of a Dublin institution, when it ran into financial trouble the Government had to step in amidst public pressure and prop it up until new investors could be found.

I can’t deny that Bewley’s is one nice café; its labyrinthine layout hides a myriad of mezzanine floors and hidden rooms. Nice though it was, I didn’t I feel the magic that whipped that national fervour. My Fanta and pink iced bun were very nice, but it didn’t stir my spirit.

Well of course not, I’m not a Dubliner; Bewley’s has no history with me so it doesn’t exist in my soul. To get to the soul of something, you have to absorb it as much as possible. If I’d been visiting Bewley’s with my friends for years, and shared thousands of hours of laughter and sadness and drama, I’d have a connection that would stir me into action.

It takes years to get a connection with any city, but I can’t get anything at all just by turning up. For this reason we walked the Dublin sites rather than take a bus tour. I’m averse to bus tours or anything that reduces the meaning of visiting a city down to a tick list of ‘things to see’. It separates you from the true soul of the place, you may not really ‘get it’ in a day, but by sitting on a bus you’re guaranteed not to.

Likewise, people love Bar-b-que-ing because it makes a connection with their inner spirit to fend for themselves. It makes little sense on a practical level; you can’t guarantee the weather, it takes much more effort than regular cooking, it’s messier and less hygienic, but people love it. Making the oven, lighting the fire, nurturing it, and cooking it. Bypassing any element of the true bar-b-que-ing process releases another finger from that connection. That’s why I resist the pressure to buy a gas powered bar-b-que. I know they’re more convenient, I can’t deny that gas-powered bar-b-queing tastes exactly the same as proper a bar-b-que. But by rationalising the process, all in the name of convenience we will eventually get to the stage where we won’t bother doing it at all.

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Labels: Holiday

[Phone rings]
"Hello?"
"Hi, it's Nobby I'm at the game so I thought I'd give you a wave, where are you sitting?"
"In Croatia eating an ice cream"

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Labels: Friends

Overnight bombardment hits Najaf, Yngling crew win gold, US army medics accused over abuse, Robertson/Emms take silver, Vietnam dominates Bush-Kerry fray, GB Canoeists Progress, Paris court weighs Arab hate TV …

This is a selection of headlines taken alternately from the international news and Olympic sections of BBCi. The first week of my holiday has coincided with this first week of the games. BBC’s coverage has a brilliant, hypnotic quality about it. Hours can be lost lilting from the archery to kayaking to badminton before racing back to the pool for the much-anticipated final of the 100 metres doggy paddle.

I’ve also been reading Michael Moore’s Dude Where’s My Country, which is much better than Stupid White Men. Moore links the ‘opportunities’ presented by 9/11 to the evils of corporate America. His argument has been galvanised by 9/11 and the Iraq war so he no longer sounds babbling and paranoid.

With these two things occupying my time simultaneously, it strikes me that getting 11,000 people together in a country to compete against each other in a variety of sports is far better than sending 150,000 people to a country to kill defend people.

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Labels: Sport

It’s as if some artistic director spent a few hours dancing around his studio spouting whatever came into his head, and nobody had the heart to tell him no. “Yes, I can see it now, Bjork…. on a forty foot pedestal… surrounded by a million square metres of silk… with DJ Tiesto…. playing trance music… in a cow’s udder….”

Is it me or does ‘Spectacular Opening Ceremony’ actually mean over long fragmented corporate performance art installation? Do we really need to see ‘ancient sport elves rising from the ancient seas surrounding Olympia’ (three hundred children dressed head to toe in lycra body suits and massive papier-mâché heads crawling out from under a parachute) just to kick-off the world’s biggest sports day?

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Labels: Sport

I was drawing a table on the whiteboard in our meeting room. Anticipating that there would be much to write I used the full extent of my 6’ 3” frame to start at the top. Whilst I did, others in the room gave me sarcastic encouragement as they filled the time before the meeting started.

Through the melee someone said “It’s a good job you’re so tall”. To which I turned, bowed deeply, removed my three peaked hat with an extravagant flourish and retorted; “But madam, if I was shorter, I would have started much lower”.

Smug in the satisfaction that I am the funniest person in the whole world, even if nobody laughs, I turned to complete my task.

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Labels: Work

Other people have bigger jobs than me, more pressure, work longer hours, but I’ve only ever been me and I’m feeling stressed. After work on Friday I found myself barely able to contain a mix of emotions; I wanted to laugh hysterically and cry and shout and keep quiet all at the same time.

Since moving jobs eighteen months ago the pressure has undoubtedly increased, however until recently there was just too much to do in too little time. It was fairly easy to rationalise, if not cope, with. Whilst it’s hardly a stroll in the park, there’s less to do now, but I want to do it better. I’m putting this pressure on myself; our often chaotic management could allow me to cruise. But I’m not like that I have a very clear and genuine desire to make a significant impact on the company. This may be irrational and you could argue that a job is simply a mechanism for getting paid and there are more important things in life, which there are, but that’s not me.

The pressure does manifest itself physically, I have what feels like a ball of nervous energy hovering below my ribcage, my emotions are pulling at it in one direction then another, and if it tugs too far in one direction it feels like it will implode. What the consequence of the implosion will be, I’m not entirely sure.

Sounding much more melodramatic than it really is, I can see how people are tempted to relax this tension through drink because it’s an easy short term option. Whilst I’m far from the point of drinking lighter fuel hidden in a plant in the corner of my office. One of the reasons for writing this is to acknowledge the existence of this pressure so that I can manage it better.

Our holiday can’t come soon enough.

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Labels: Work

Emma believes Rachel Stevens has sold out since leaving S-Club 7
Emma thinks she’s a bit more Fraser than Niles
Emma thought twice when responding to the question ‘are you a bit more Barbara or a bit more Margot?’

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Labels: General me

One element of office culture I have yet to fully understand is that of Coffeequette – the art and science of getting hot beverages for work colleagues. 

Firstly, you can tell a lot from how people order their coffee and tea at work. Where you hear the refrain “coffee, white with one” or “tea with a splash of milk” you can be safe in the knowledge that you work for a friendly, probably small, company equipped with a kitchenette. There’ll be short momentary bouts of anger related to people not rinsing their spoons, but the people around you are your friends, feel safe.

However, where you hear the words “Mine’s a 21” you’re in a big ugly corporate with a Nescafe drinks machine on each floor that spits its insipid venom into a small plastic cup. It will peel a couple of layers of skin from your fingers as soon as you pick it up.

If you hear the term, “Tea, nine sugars” you work on a building site.

More complex is the fetching of coffee. There are approximately three schools of thought employed here: -

1. The each to their own school of thought focuses rather firmly on the self. Quite simply when the need takes you, you glide to the beverage paraphernalia and fill your boots without a thought to those around you. This has the distinct advantage of efficiently satisfying your personal needs. However it is at the expense of others. This is a particularly acute problem first thing in the morning when you’re often found tangoing with others who are trying filling their own boots. This results in awkward questions such as “Do you want me to put a bit more water in for your cup” or “Can you throw a teabag in there please” which simply highlights the selfishness of it all.

2. The close community shuffle is a means of engaging with those around you, offering your more caring inclusive side. It means that you are expected to take your turn in making teas and coffees (and always ONE hot chocolate). The upside is that, of course, you are part of the group. The downside is that these groups tend to be like a disorganised peloton, never knowing who’s next to take the lead. I used to work in a department of ten; each person would take their turn in getting the drinks. By mid-morning, and six coffees down the line, I was spent. I could either get a round in for the good of the group, or refrain completely which would leave me getting more than I gave (this would result in extreme agitation amongst others because you hadn’t taken your turn, and because they were going cold turkey). I would simply live off the caffeine for the rest of the day. The next morning the cycle would begin again, meaning I never reached my turn. 

3. The inevitable end to the close community shuffle is the drinks are on me drift. This is where slowly but surely, the close community involve more and more people in the round. Soon enough people are getting drinks for whole floors of people and you’re drinking eighteen gallons a day, you can’t focus on your computer screen because you’re eyeballs are shaking. The collective coffee craving grows and grows and the cycle gets tighter and tighter. Soon you’re getting in nine rounds of forty cups of coffee all by yourself, and everyone else is doing the same. Productivity plummets and you’re made redundant. You can’t keep up your mortgage payments, and you’re thrown out on the street where you freeze to death. Alone.

No, really, my advice is when you flick the kettle on… think.

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Labels: Work

So, this year’s Big Brother has been punctuated by moments of violence and farce. This is surely one of the beauties of the show. The accusation is that Big Brother is just a bunch of stupid, attention seeking wannabes being boring. Well, now they’re destroying each other, isn’t this what the detractors want?

The ‘drunken brawl’ in the house a couple of weeks ago lead to the live feeds being cut from E4 for an hour. Sixteen people watching at 3am on a Thursday morning actually called the police in response to the argument. Que?

I find the live feeds surprisingly resting, on Tuesday I was watching them all doing nothing very much and started to surf the channels. I wasn’t aware, but I was actually on E4+1 (watching the re-run of nothing very much happening an hour earlier).

From channel 164 I moved to 166, which is Overload, a teleshopping channel. At night they show Babestation, a show with a format that is replicated throughout satellite TV after 10pm. The screen is split into four; in each window is a ‘glamour’ girl apparently on titillating callers on premium rate chat lines.

Anyway, I inadvertently tripped over Overload (you can throw in a few “Yeah Rights” in here if you want). Except were no girls to be seen. The bar at the bottom showing the text messages was gently ticking over. The four windows were there, the beds they normally sit on were there. But the people weren’t there.

I watched; hypnotised at this totally dormant show, no test card, no announcement telling us that normal service will be resumed. Nothing. The unmanned fixed cameras just whirred away. It was like Big Brother with no contestants. I watched and watched and watched for maybe fifteen minutes longer than I’ve ever watched a Big Brother live feed.

Eventually, a girl appeared and picked up her phone. Slowly the vacant windows were populated and the show returned to normal. Perhaps there’d been a fire alarm or something.

Over stimulated by the movement on the screen I turned back to E4, never to return to Overload ever again. For the shortest period of time, they seemed to have stumbled on the perfect TV format.

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Labels: TV and radio

Things I learnt about Kwik Fit on Saturday…

Profitability –  “I don’t care (what price they sell my tyres at) as long as they get something in the bank who cares?”

Staffing – “We’re really busy ‘cause we’re short on staff, one of our blokes fucked off in a massive rage this morning, Ynarwumisayin?” – luckily I did know what he was saying.

Stock control – “I need to check whether your tyres are on the rack ‘coz the computer’s gone tits up”

Health and safety – “It’s been a bloody awful day; we nearly burnt the place down earlier coz a gas canister was leaking”

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Labels: General me

Awash with the detritus of a typically modern life, there’s an undercurrent of things that I never get round to doing; paying bills, throwing out old clothes, setting up direct debits, paying people I promised to sponsor, it usually involves money, but the list goes on. It is to my eternal shame and disappointment that one of these things is not seeing or contacting family and friends as much as I’d want.

Grandma Ruffles is particularly neglected. When I wrecked my ankle at Christmas I had to cancel a visit, and when I did it a second time a few weeks ago it got me thinking that six months had passed and I still hadn’t fulfilled the debt. Hop the months slipped by, I simply don’t know.

It’s nothing to do with not caring; it’s just about life taking over. I’m not unique, nor is it an excuse; it’s just the way it goes.

So, I took the opportunity to go over the Grandma Ruffles’ crib last week. She’s getting more frail and hunched, but at least she’s still in her own home. When Grandpa Ruffles died about ten years ago the smart money was that the only practical solution would be for her going to go into a care home. A decade on and with the help of a not inconsiderable number of North African immigrant carers, she’s still in her own place.

The conversation, as always, was rambling and pointless; life experiences filtered by the television leave her world view somewhat narrow. Endless stories told as though they happened yesterday could easily have been fifty years old.

Never the less it was still an enjoyable couple of hours. Perhaps she thinks, like me of her, that it’s a case of out of sight out of mind and the time simply slips away unnoticed.

Or maybe not, her last, entirely fictitious story could tell another tale. Holding an arthritic hand up like a fist she started “Justin, I don’t know if you remember when you were little you were sitting in the back of grandpa’s car with me. We were practicing counting, I would say 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and you would continue, 7, 8, 9, 10. Anyway, we got up to eighty and you turned to me and said ‘Grandma, that’s when you’ll be dead’”.

Maybe a little reminder that, at 88, she wasn’t?

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Labels: General me

After the debacle of Russ’ stag weekend, I suppose it was asking too much for the wedding (a couple of weeks ago) to go off without a hitch. Last year, on the morning of Australia Jo’s wedding, Penny drove to Heathrow to pick up Mike whose flight from Jersey was actually landing at Gatwick. What ensued was a breathless mercy dash from Heathrow to Gatwick, then to the church arriving with just seconds to spare (then I realised how long the service was going to be and made an even more breathless and sweaty mercy dash to the local pub for a wee).

On the Saturday before Russ and Sam’s do, Emma and I were discussing the logistics of getting to the wedding on Sunday. Penny and Mike would fly into Heathrow at about 9am, they would make their way to a local Travel Lodge and we’d pick them up on the way to Egham arriving in time for the kick-off at 3pm.

I joked, thinking back to Australia Jo’s wedding, “They’ll have loads of time, unless Penny’s booked them on a flight to Prestwick by mistake”. 9pm Saturday night, the phone rang. A tearful Penny was calling from Jersey. “We’ve got a problem” she said “we haven’t got a flight tomorrow”.

It turns out that they thought they’d booked their flight on the internet. Realising that they didn’t have a reference number, they phoned British Airways. But BA didn’t have any record of them booked on the flight.

We discussed the options. Ferry? Too long. Another flight to Heathrow or Gatwick? Too expensive. Could Emma’s friend who flies a Tiger Moth get over to pick them up? Possible, but not probable. Only one option was available, a flight to Coventry arriving at 9.45 on Sunday, with the return at 7am on Monday. So I had to pick them up at on Sunday morning, and for the second time in the Russ and Sam wedding preparations, we had a pre-5am start to get to the airport the following morning.

So Penny and Mike finally in situ, the wedding at the splendid Great Fosters Hotel went off with the elegant efficiency perfectly fitting for the bride and groom. Even if it was difficult to explain to the bride’s parents that the reason you’re there is because your oldest friends met them getting dressed in a toilet.

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Labels: Friends

Liz came into the office this morning and told me she was on holiday for the next couple of weeks. As she was going to be away, she wanted me to get someone to take the tea towels from the kitchen downstairs to get them washed. I said I’d do it.

“…or you could get Tina or Susie to do it”

I looked up and reassured her that I could do it.

“Well” she said swatting the air dismissively as though I was joking “there are plenty of women up here who can do it.”

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Labels: Work

Pele from The Hives was being quizzed on Popworld in a section called “The Big Ones” a series of irreverent questions about a range of things from ‘what was the last dead animal you saw’ to ‘when’s your new album out’.

“Have you stuffed a bird?” was greeted with the response “I’m sorry, that sounds like a question about sex”.

This would have been funny enough if he hadn’t, two minutes later, given the exact same answer to the question “Have you wormed a dog?”

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Labels: Music

From Tribal Gathering to Homelands to Glastonbury to the Albert Hall to Somerset House to Brixton Academy. I’ve pretty much nailed every one of Orbital’s spiritual homes. Friday was their last headline show before splitting up, which, given they’re brothers, seems a little odd.

Then again Orbital aren’t just two brothers, they’re a big U-shaped machine made up of keyboards, sequencers, erm, other machines that go bing plus two humans in light specs. As if to prove it, Friday’s crowd went apoplectic when the podium, on which the equipment is placed, was simply rolled to the front of the stage. The Hartnolls are just part of that entity. I’m not suggesting their Roland 303 has decided to go solo, but the human/machine relationship is pretty symbiotic.

At Tribal Gathering they played in a tent which had a stage at each end. When they came on, the crowd cheered and started dancing, it wasn’t until the end of the first tune that people realised they were facing the wrong end and were actually dancing to the lighting technicians (who were also wearing light specs) preparing for the next act (and not very well, Prodigy went on, after two songs someone invaded the stage, tripped over a cable and ended the show on the spot).

It’s a funny crowd, at the Albert Hall there was a bloke in front of us with no top on, punching the air, wearing a crash helmet, backwards. Next to him was the archetypal big fat computer geek sitting expressionless with a notepad writing down the track listing. It’s a varied horde, and one that’s getting older and podgier every year.

Perversely there’s so little fat in the Orbital live repertoire that the set was becoming fairly predictable. Perhaps they’re quitting for fear of becoming the Rolling Stones or Grateful Dead of Acid House. They only played two tracks from the new album, the Halcyon ‘trick’ (where Belinda Carlisle and Bon Jovi morphs and twists around the tune as it reaches its peak) was enhanced with a Darkness sample. The rest was exactly what we expect; Lush, Belfast, Impact, The Box, Satan building to their cover of the Dr Who theme (geeks in the house?) and finally Chime, a tune I’ve never really loved but was simply different class.

It was simply the best gig I’ve ever been to; Rage Against the Machine at Reading Festival, Depeche Mode at Crystal Palace, Radiohead at South Parks, Fatboy Slim at Brixton, The End and Brighton Beach, I’ve seen some good stuff, but this topped them all. The Plump DJs followed, for whom we intended to stay, but we were spent emotionally and had to leave them to it.

They say that the only thing great bands should regret is that they never saw themselves live. In a world of Amy Whinehouse, Nora Jones, Jamie bloody Cullum (watched his awful ‘corporate enfant terrible’ performance Glastonbury on Saturday and felt ill) the departure of Orbital leaves the world a darker place.

By the way, read this and this, and you'd have thought I'd just copied my post from these alone, but I was there, promise.

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Labels: Music

If it’s possible to drone hysterically, Joe Royle managed to demonstrate the art form in all its glory on Monday night. England were in full control throughout their Euro 2004 4-2 win against Croatia. It might not have gone exactly to the game plan, but they carefully eroded the Croatian resistance with superior passing, technique and a variety of attacking opportunities. They never really looked like losing.

OK, so the Croatian’s one-dimensional approach was rewarded with a scrappy goal, and dominant teams do lose from conceding scrappy goals. But playing percentages, teams with better technique win more games than teams with poor technique. Fact.

When the Croats took the lead, Royle lost his head. England were flat, without spark or flair, he said. He ignored the fact there was eighty-five minutes still to play and England were pressing constantly for a goal. Why Royle, an experienced manager, started panicking I don’t know. If Royle had been the manager he’d have had England engaging in operation Alamo before ten minutes had elapsed.

He ignored wholly that Michael Owen was unlucky not to latch onto a couple of probing through balls, or that Scholes had a chance to break his three year duck long before he actually did.

Rooney added the second and Royle was suddenly beside himself “He could well go on and score a hat-trick” he said turning arse about face in spectacular fashion. Of course, his jitters returned when Croatia pulled it back to 3-2, but it was never as panicky as his sweaty palms would have us believe.

Mind you, I was getting the heebee jeebees, we’re off to see Orbital in Brixton on Friday and whilst Switzerland and France were drawing, England topped the group. This meant a quarter final with Greece. On Friday. Thankfully Thierry Henry pinged in a couple of goals and our attentions turned instead to Thursday and Portugal.

Mind you, Russ and Sam must be wondering whether to hire a big screen TV for evening of their wedding. That’s when the final is.

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Labels: Football

There are plenty of stories of great lives lived in London. From house parties in Clapham to Orbital at Somerset House there’s always something good happening. Medieval Night at the Ivory House is not one of them.

Out for a morale boosting company night out, we were served by wenches, entertained by jugglers and magicians, and greeted each course by banging on the table and toasting wildly.

I cannot describe how awful it was, the food was barely edible, there was endless free drink served in glasses the size of thimbles. I cannot count how many glasses I had, but the following morning I woke up with absolutely no sign of a hangover.

The place was full of hen dos, tourists and German families with their Augustus Gloop offspring gazing in disbelief at the proceedings. You suspect that the father’s last trip to London, as a back packer, was spent drinking in Raymond’s Review Bar and getting blow jobs from transvestites.

It was a forty minute tube journey back for the last train out of Marylebone. The last train out of town is a unique experience starting with lots of shouting and yelping, dieing down to silence punctuated by the odd bang and thump as people hit their heads trying to get comfy for a snooze or try to get off at a station which is three stops after the one they’re after.

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Labels: Work

It’s not often you meet a Viz character in real life. OK, so you’ve probably seen a few Fat Slags stumbling around provisional towns after closing time, but there aren’t too many half-men, half-fish goalkeepers outside Fulchester.

Last week I met a middle aged ten year old boy. Oliver is in Emma’s class at school, (Emma being a teacher, not an eleven year old girl, that would make this a very different site indeed). As part of some kind of national initiative they held a sleepover in the school hall.

The girls and boys, completely through their own volition channelled themselves down the gender stereotypes. The girls had a make-over with face packs and make-up, the boys played football. I went along to help out with the football (apparently my face pack making skills weren’t needed).

I wrecked my ankle, again, turning on it innocuously and feeling the unnerving crunch of the ligaments stretching in ways god never intended. So whilst Gareth dribbled his way through a forest of four foot tall Patrick Viera’s and Thierry Henry’s, I sat out and talked to Oliver.

The first thing he said to me was “I know I’m young but my favourite comedian is Lee Evans, he’s always got a joke to lift things when things are quiet” he followed that by telling me his favourite male pop star is Michael Jackson (I resisted a reaction). When I ventured that my favourite pop stars were Busted – figuring that Public Enemy, Depeche Mode, or even Polygon Window would be greeted with a blank face – I was told they were ‘so over’.

Hmm, it didn’t take long to get the conversation going again. Oliver scored two goals (his first for a year). I asked him why he didn’t keep playing to get his hat-trick. OK, here goes…

“I used to play for a boys team, years ago, but at the end of one game I got home and threw my stuff on the floor and said ‘I quit’. That was it; I didn’t want to play anymore. They wanted me to train all the time, but I practice with my brothers and I didn’t want to football to take over my life. I needed more time with my family.

You suspect he meant the wife and kids. Later he was seen wearing his dressing gown over his clothes, clearly resisting the temptation to bring his pipe and glass of cognac from his wood panelled bedroom at home.

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Labels: General me

You don’t know how pleased I am that conversations with my friends don’t circulate around our golf scores, expanding bald patches, or the relative loudness of my shirt.

Coincidentally, Spankee was on the same train as me last week, with barely a hello or how are you we embarked on a rambling conversation about everything from the origins of man and community to the perception gap of techno music (you always think it’s going to be loud, aggressive and abrasive, but it’s melodic, layered and emotional).

Spankee was slightly taken back by my uncharacteristic casual Gap work attire, and the fact I was working. I explained that was in full on crisis management mode at work trying to douse the flames of someone’s incompetence which threatens a fifth of our business. We mused about how our responsibilities had expanded, and how at work we’re almost entirely different people. “Perhaps we have working alter egos” Spanx suggested “Then I could be someone other than normal Graham Spankee”

He worked his way through a couple of monosyllabic American Christian names searching for an appropriate moniker: - Brett, Brad, Todd.

“I think I’m a bit of a people’s champion at work” I mumbled

“Yours is Pete Moss-Campion?”

We agreed that Pete Moss-Campion is a great work alter ego, then we giggled about it like twelve year olds for ten minutes.

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Labels: Friends

I lifted a heavy eyelid. In the half light was Emma looking out the window. It was 2am. She mumbled something and walked out of the room. I heard the front door open, then there was a slam and a clatter pierced the air.

As quick as she’d left, she was back, climbing into bed. I asked what she’d been doing. She’d heard some people outside taking the hub cap off her car, so she went to retrieve it before it was kicked into the road and destroyed.

Befuddled, I asked her how on earth she’d managed to hear it, recognise it as a hub cap being removed, identify it as coming from her car and how it all pierced through her normally impenetrable sleep.

“Teacher sleep with one eye open” she said seconds before closing that eye and snoring loudly.

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Labels: General me

Director Alfonso Cuaron has made a much better fist of Prisoner of Azkaban than Chris Columbus’ primary colouring of the first two Harry Potter’s. Banking left and swooping into the darker layered side of the story, Cuaron’s direction provides the texture JK Rowling surely envisages for the tale (and curiously, rarely captures in her books).

One notable technique he introduces is a series of analogies marking the passing of time through the school year. There’s the single leaf spiralling to the floor showing the onset of autumn, the owl swooping from an autumnal vista into a bleak snowstorm depicting winter, the snow melts around a snow drop portraying the oncoming of Spring.

The most intriguing of all, however, is in the opening scene. Harry, who in the film has just turned thirteen, is in his bedroom at the Dursley’s. He’s hidden under the sheets on his bed secretly playing with his wand, each time he successfully makes it light up he gives a satisfied smile. When he’s finished playing, he lies down and falls asleep with a grin on his face.

Now what in a young boy’s life could that be referring to?

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Labels: Films

Wonder (not real name) is our IT person, Emma calls her my stalker because she seems to have taken a shine to me. I shouted at her today and feel bad. I've got a new laptop, every time I go online it automatically synchronises all my files with those on the server, so I've always got an up to date set of files. However it doesn't synchronize my emails so the set of emails I've got offline, are totally different to the emails I have online.

So, I tell Wonder, and ask her to phone 'John' the IT bloke who set up the laptops with the synchronizing software. I describe him as "her man", we then have to go into a twenty minute jousting session about why he's 'her man'.

Her: "What do you mean, my man?"
Me: "Well, you were looking after him whilst he was here"
Her: "What do you mean?"
Me: "Well I don't mean you're his legal guardian"
Her: "Huh?"
Me: "Just go and call John about the synchronizing problem."

She disappears, I assume to contact 'John'. She reappears 5 seconds later and sits at the desk opposite reading the instruction manual for the laptop (it has nothing to do with the laptop, it's the software on it).

Her (reading): Have you been clicking the red cross at the bottom?
Me: No, that's when I want to dial in, it's nothing to do with that, it's to do with the synchronization.
Her: Have you made sure that you've changed the settings so it retains messages in your Sent Items?
Me: That's not the problem, the problem is that the emails don't synchronise, I've just said that.
Her: I know, I'm thinking of the bigger picture.
Me: THE FACT THE EMAILS DON'T SYNCHRONISE IS THE BIGGER PICTURE.

She then starts jabbering on about something or other. Next time her voice comes into focus she's talking about faulty printer drives downstairs.

Me: "Sorry, you've lost me what's that got to do with my problem?"
Her: "It hasn't, it's the printer drives downstairs, they're not working, it's not my fault don't complain at me"

I wasn't, I don't care about downstairs printer drives. I stare vacantly and she stomps off in a huff.

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Labels: Work

On Sunday, apparently, Panorama ran a programme describing the catastrophic consequences of a terrorist attack on London. I wouldn’t know, I was watching Bra’s Unpadded on Sky (Cue: editor of defunct mid-nineties Lad Mag telling us that “bras were, like, great, yeah”.)

This morning on GMTV my own personal hits generator ‘Big Titted’ Kate Garraway discussed the programme with one of those ‘former police terrorism experts’ light entertainment magazine shows roll out any time they want to scare the living beejesus out of moderately insecure and poorly educated readers of the Daily Mail. The programme on terrorism, she said searching the murky depths of her vocabulary, was ‘Terrifying’.

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Labels: TV and radio

Albeit a very short one. Our cat, Waddle, won a prize in a ferret race on Saturday.

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Labels: General me

Scarlett flares. You wouldn’t would you? You might, a dose of attitude and some self belief and you might. But what about putting it with silver moccasins and a brown batwing jumper. You wouldn’t then, would you?

You wouldn’t because people might laugh at you. Even those who would, do it because they want to make a statement, show their individuality, and push forward the boundary of fashion. All that jazz. We all fear being laughed at. That’s why you see so few people browsing the detergents in Tesco wearing a tiger stripe posing pouch, flip flops and an old school Nike windcheater.

The fundamental rule of clothes is to never buy anything that makes people laugh at you. Unless you’re a clown of course.

On Saturday this bloke called his girlfriend over after pulling out a t-shirt which had a MasterCard logo on it. It had the legend “No woman, no money, no job – Masturbation is the only answer”. They both laughed, “I’ve got to get this” he said before heading for the till.

It got me thinking, or at least noticing, that comedy t-shirts are a plague in British High Streets. Spearheading this is FCUK, who make millions from just one joke. Why? It’s a t-shirt which makes people laugh at you. Not with you, you didn’t write the joke, at you.

I don’t blame British men for adding this ill-advised flourish to their sartorial repertoire. The choice of men’s clothing is dire. Many women love shopping because they can browse shops knowing there’s a good chance they’ll find something which stands out. Blouse, t-shirt, jumper, vest, or the uniquely generic ‘top’. Skirt (mini, short, knee length, full length, fitted, full etc.), trousers (jeans, trousers, linen, three-quarter length, full length. Heals, flat, sandals, flip flops, trainers, boots (ankle, knee – hummana hummana). Suits, trouser, skirt. Linen, silk, cotton, wool. Neck lines… plunging, turtle neck, backless, collars, normal. Red, black, white, pink, blue, turquoise, mint, green, olive, yellow, lemon. Every colour and every shade of colour.

And then the men; trousers or jeans, jumper, shirt, t-shirt, polo shirt, trainers, boots, shoes. Brown, blue, black, grey, white, green. Suit. That’s it. That’s what you’re average high street shop has on offer. It means that browsing for clothes is a fundamentally underwhelming experience so you adopt a more pragmatic approach to shopping. I need a pair of jeans. I will get a pair of jeans.

Men are hardly being encouraged to dress better, make more effort or innovate. David Beckham turns up in lemon, he’s laughed at. Turns up in a nice black suit? Woof woof. Sarah Jessica Parker wears trousers on her head? INNOVATION! INSPIRATION! WHAT A STATEMENT! She’s such a sassy, sexy and independent woman.

The reason men hate shopping for clothes because it’s as stimulating as buying petrol, give me some choice and I’m all over it.

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Labels: General me

As I drive back from work during the winter it’s dark. Dark as, well, the night. Because it is the night. When nights draw in. Like they do. In the winter. The headlights of the car pick up the feint scent of a familiar route and lead me home.

The long winding country roads reveal nothing of what is either side of me, it’s a murderous murk punctuated by the occasional glare of an on coming vehicle, the twinkle of the eye of the local fauna startled by the snarl of my engine.

Spat out from the dowdy urban pit of Wycombe I’m quickly deep in the countryside, into a radio silence, a wilderness. After about fifteen minutes the tranquillity is pierced. In the distance my path is lined by red dots the size of pinheads.

I’m being watched; each dot marks the infrared night sight of a security camera prowling the perimeter of the Prime Minister’s country retreat Chequers. I know it’s Chequers, most people who drive the route will know. The concrete bollards lining the inside of the main gate are a dead give away, but the billion pound security system is well guarded and barely breaks the surface of the countryside idyll.

However, two fucking armed policemen with sub-machine guns wandering through the outskirts of the estate this evening started to break up the malaise I can tell you.

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Labels: General me

Things I have learnt from Annia’s wedding on Saturday: -

• “Comedian rare” is a great way of describing the quality of someone’s speech
• Even though I don’t know whether it’s a compliment or an insult
• Mad Dog Mickey Lewis needs space to dance to Baggy Trousers by Madness
• Regardless of its pressure, softened hotel water doesn’t give you the deep clean you need after three hours sleep
• Nobody knows the legal position if a baby shouts out when the registrar asks of any legal impediments to the marriage
• Boys and Girls by Blur into Euro trance is the single worst piece of DJ programming ever heard
• Star jumps are an entirely acceptable way of dancing to Common People by Pulp
• I’ve grown quite a lot since I was eleven
• It takes less time to forget it’s on than it takes for a hotel kettle to boil
• Saying goodbye to nineteen immediate family members on a Sunday morning is a long process
• Despite Sophie’s (pictured) insistence otherwise, there are no tigers or elephants at Bosworth Hall
• Or mice

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Labels: General me

John Fulkes, the head of sixth form at my old school, died of a ‘natural causes’ last weekend. He was a permanent presence at the school through several generations and seemed bullet-proof. I’ll leave the gushing praise to others, because I haven’t met anyone who didn’t have a beef with him at some point or other. When Emma took her A Levels they taught the wrong syllabus on one of the subjects. The entire group failed but JF chose to ignore the appeals and protestations. If you were a sportsman or had Oxbridge potential you would win far more attention than the vast majority of ‘normal’ students.

He did, however, create in his sixth form an environment that allowed me to develop friendships with some of my favourite people in the whole world. Something he did time and time again for thousands of people. If that’s his only legacy, then he did OK.

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Labels: General me

Bowling for Columbine identified the fear of failure is the lynch pin to dysfunction within American society. Stupid White Men is a naively irritating rant by comparison. Michael Moore’s central argument is that ‘Stupid White Men’ are ruling and destroying the world. A fair point. Amongst some fairly generic views on the environment (we should care for it more) and capitalism (it’s not fair) his central solution is to employ black people and let women rule the world. His proposed solution to Northern Ireland? All Irish Protestants should turn Catholic.

It starts promisingly with a chapter on George Bush engineering his presidential victory through the manipulation of the courts, the electoral register and the media. It ends well, questioning the relationship the Bush family has with the bin Laden’s (although even here it’s their relationship with the respected Saudi oil family not their enfant terrible Osama). The rest is as insightful as an A Level politics and economics essay. Moore reveals that big corporations don’t make people redundant because they’re losing money, it’s because they’re making less profit than they originally promised to shareholders. Greedy white men, says Moore, but anyone who didn’t realise that stock trading is a measured bet against a company’s future growth is more stupid than the stupid (but rich) white men Moore rallies against.

To a moderate liberal like me Bush is undoubtedly a scary right wing fanatic who believes in the power of the market (and the bible) to cure all social ills, but just because Michael Moore is a left wing idealist, it doesn’t make him look any less stupid.

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Labels: Films

Embarrassingly I compromised Russ’ political sensibilities on Saturday by naively assuming point-to-point racing was a charming countryside pursuit. I didn’t realise it’s organised by the same people who run fox hunting. Russ doesn’t like the merciless murder of foxes so he isn’t really into funding the hunt.

The first page of the race card said, “If the hunt it is made illegal this will be the last point to point meeting”. Whilst it has no obvious form of income, point-to-point racing has the entry fee, the betting, food and drink, sponsorship, and the other stalls. You suspect if it were the racing that was made illegal, the hunt wouldn’t survive, not the other way around.

If I were about to be pushed off a cliff for not having a view on fox hunting I’d say that I was against it. Pro-hunt arguments don’t seem sustainable; it’s a labour intensive way of ‘maintaining a happy and stable fox community’. However in the main, it doesn’t affect me on a day-to-day basis. For a good day out at the point to point, I’m prepared to turn a blind eye.

There was a heavy presence of the Countryside Alliance at the event. The CA is the largest pressure group dedicated to countryside living. This is not difficult when you have the ambiguous manifesto and over-simplified worldview they have.

The Alliance is an umbrella organisation supporting all country pursuits, this means 250,000 people joined its protest march a couple of years ago; pro and anti fox hunting groups, walkers and mountain bikers, farmers and city commuters.

So, how does the CA maintain any coherence? Well, their main thrust is that country people should be able to decide their own fate and city people should keep their noses out of business they don’t understand. They have created a conveniently polarised view that the world is made up of city people and country people – and never the twain shall meet.

Short of ring fencing cities and creating countryside border controls it is impossible to clearly define these two groups of people. The symbiotic relationship between the country and the city is conveniently ignored.

Because of the ambiguity, the CA is run by people tailoring the overtly quaint ‘countryside living’ manifesto to their own more radical one. They are also backed by people who support the quaint agenda without realising they are also supporting the radicals. The vast majority of people, who have more liberal yet complex views on the countryside, have no mechanism to voice their opinion.

We live four miles from Kimble, from the countryside, but we live in a rather large town. I work in a large town and regularly commute into London. My time is spent in mostly towns, but part of the appeal of the area is its proximity to open fields. Our friends live in cities, and on farms, and in villages and in large towns. I’m not a welly wearing country dweller, I’m not a world weary city slicker. I am, like most people, a person who lives in a country who doesn’t have a conveniently linear view of countryside living.

The Countryside Alliance conveniently ignores the complexity, choosing to propagate an ambiguous political agenda. As such they enjoy an unprecedented level of support, publicity and inevitably influence that they barely deserve.

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Labels: General me

Did I really hear Arsenal football legend Ian Wright describe Robert Pires’ punch on Gary Neville during last Saturday’s FA Cup semi-final as “Nothing more than a beeatch slap”?

AND, did I really hear Lotus driving management consultant Cambridge educated middle class country boy Graham Spankee saying to the waitress reciting our order in the Thai resteraunt. “Yo girlfriend, yo’ll over that”?

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Labels: Football

Some people have greatness thrust upon them, others have trite irrelevancies. I’m one of those people. Somewhere in the subtext of my story I have been given a heavy burden… of playing Steps bingo.

Steps’ appeal stretched little further than girls under five and gay men, but it still made them shameless millionaires. They were the cursed enemy of music until they grew up, wanted to be taken seriously and split. I saw Lee Latchford Evans on Oxford Street last week. Lee always looked slightly embarrassed by what he was doing. To him Steps was a pub bet that got out of hand.

Big deal, London is full of minor celebs. Have you ever yearned to see Ben Fogle and Dr ‘Foxy’ Fox on the same street? I did that the other day. The Lee spot was significant because a few years ago I saw fellow band member Lisa Scott Lee also on Oxford Street. My Steps bingo card has two names crossed off, is the significance of this starting to become clear to you?

Lisa was buying a suit for her male companion. Incidentally, if it was one of her brothers, that means I saw a member of 3SL, as well, BEFORE they were famous. Bizarrely Lisa was in the middle of a High Street store on Oxford Street dressed in a silver blue mini dress, a stage outfit, if you will.

Now, with Faye Tozer, it’s a case of so near yet so far. Penny’s friend from college is a friend of Faye’s. With some harmless obsessive stalking I could get Faye onto my Steps Bingo card.

I don’t currently have a lead on H although I’m pretty sure a quick tour around the nation’s Pontins resorts and gay bards will soon prove fruitful. Clare, I have no lead on at all. I’m not too worried as I plan for her to be last. When I do get to Clare, I shall stand in front of her with my Steps bingo card and a marker pen. I shall look her in the eye and with a slightly odd smile on my face I shall shout triumphantly...

“Clickety click big fat hips.”

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Labels: Music

“Hello, are you Parts?” I asked the ladies sitting tapping into their computers.

I’d been sent from Services by a girl with a stern pragmatic air about her. She told me that it would take ‘0.8 of an hour’ to fix the broken aerial on my car. 0.8 of an hour, to save you the calculation, is 48 minutes. 0.8 of an hour is not a time convention. 48 minutes is, “about 50 minutes” is, as is “Just under an hour”, “Not long”, or even the expectation management favourite “A couple of hours”. These are all perfectly acceptable ways of relating time to someone. Robots deal in 0.8 of an hours.

I would have booked for the work to be done by Services, but I wasn’t allowed. I had to go to Parts, a desk about five feet away, to find out whether they had the part in. Services, you see, couldn’t possibly talk to Parts themselves. Why should they, what have car parts got to do with fixing a car anyway?

The ladies tapping into their computers weren’t Parts; they were The Desk Between Parts and Services. They were border control, the desk that worked to ensure Parts and Services didn’t communicate or work together. Parts was the next desk down.

When I got to Parts there was a man with a beard slumped on the desk. He raised his head to look at me. “I was clean shaven when I got here” he said. He was lying, judging by the length of my wait he’d been there since before he was old enough to drive. I waited. Whilst I did, a man who I’d seen hovering around the back of Services walked behind the Parts desk. Imagine someone from Services fraternising with Parts. The only thing that would have made it worse would be if he had talked to Parts about, for example, whether they had my car aerial in stock.

“Yes mate” a bloke with a long nose came out from the back of Parts. I’m not a formal person, a “Yes mate” is entirely appropriate in the right environment. Record shops and pubs are “Yes mate” places. The plush dealership of a multi-national car company is not a “Yes mate” place.

I explained that I’d been sent by Services with a rye, ‘isn’t that faintly ridiculous’, look on my face, he listened impassively. “Is the aerial attached through the roof or the light fitting?” a faint flicker of life was evident which may just have been the light reflecting off the back of his empty skull.

I had no idea, so we went outside to find out. He reached over to the remaining stump of my aerial and pulled and yanked at it, then without looking at me or saying a word he set off back towards Parts. I called out, “It may be that it’s just the stalk that’s broken”. He ignored me and didn’t look back. Cut off from the oxygen of Parts he obviously needed to get back as soon as possible.

I couldn’t catch up; by the time I got back to Parts he was gone. He came back a couple of minutes later, thumped about four and a half thousand numbers into his computer.

“That’s £10 then”

I paid.

“I’ll get you a receipt” he disappeared. Then came back with an A4 sheet of paper somewhere on it, it said “1 x aerial = £10.00”.

I didn’t go back to Services to get it fixed, I didn’t want to get involved in their domestic disputes.

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Labels: General me

It was a war crime and terror double header on Sunday. Channel 4’s The Man Who Ate His Archbishop’s Liver, the story of Idi Amin, followed by Panorama on the continuing threat of Al Qaeda. Can anyone remember what Panorama used to cover before Al Qaeda? – “Plum growing in inhospitable environments” or “Quiet day today, but wasn’t it windy”.

I slept badly throughout the weekend; I was awake at 6am on Saturday and 7am on Sunday. I found myself dozing off for long periods whilst the programmes bubbled along in the back of my consciousness.

I don’t know what happened whilst I was asleep, but I think I must have rolled on the remote control switching to the soft porn fests on Men and Motors or Live TV. When I eventually went to bed I had a series of vivid dreams of being subject to terrorist attacks by a crack team of glamour models in blue hot pants.

Which, I guess is the fun side to Terrorism.

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Labels: News

My first live football game was when I was three. Oxford Versus Southampton Apparently I spent the whole game cheering the floodlights. Sweet. As I grew up, I assumed footballers to be the same as me. They were fans playing for their favourite club. As I got older I realised there was a reduced sense of loyalty; players wanted to ultimately play for the big clubs and win cups. By and large, they didn’t come from the towns they played for. However, the basic principles still applied. Footballers wanted to win football games for their clubs.

This was reinforced when the Premiership was formed; a flood of cheap foreign players meant suddenly a huge proportion of the footballing community were never going to make it to the big time.

There is very little logic to being a lower league footballer. By and large the money is poor, the rewards are few and the career is short. Take Andy Woodman, Oxford’s goalkeeper, he earns £40,000 a year, which is OK for a 32 year old man. Except in a couple of years his career will be over. The job he sacrificed everything else for, including an education, and a sustainable source of income will be gone. At the age when many people are trying to find stability in their lives he will be starting again.

The logic, if there is any, is that football is a great game to play, it’s great for attracting pretty girls, and every week five thousand people think you’re the best thing ever. And, once or twice in your short career, if you have a successful season, those people will never forget you for as long as they live. Do you know who Dave Langan is? I do, he works as a car park attendant and is crippled with arthritis. I’ve never met him, but in the mid-80’s he helped Oxford gain promotion to the top division and win the Milk Cup. For me, and the thousands who experienced that, Dave Langan will always be a huge hero. He’s paying for that now, but there are plenty of more successful people who will die unknown. Not Dave Langan.

Oxford are ten games from the end of the season, we’re in a white-hot promotion dogfight. It’s tooth and nail stuff, sometimes we win, sometimes we lose, sometimes other teams win, sometimes other teams lose. The table changes, each game is high tension and high drama. The great thing about lower league football is that it’s not polarised. Bottom teams beat top teams, unexpected things happen. On 8th May, we may be promoted, in the play-offs, or in utter despair because we’ve just missed out. It’s the kind of situation the players, fans and managers are in the game for.

Yesterday, Oxford’s current manager, Ian Atkins was announced as the new manager of Bristol Rovers. He will start in the summer when his contract at Oxford runs out. In doing this he’s taking a step down the league table. Rovers have potential, but are currently struggling. In the here and now, Oxford are right in the middle of something exciting and achievable.

This clearly means nothing to Atkins. He’s got a mortgage to pay, he says, and there was no guarantee of a new Oxford contract in the summer. Fair enough, except if that’s all your bothered about, go and work in a bank. There is far more security and less pressure in other jobs. People get into football for the buzz, the opportunity to achieve something and, when they do, receive more rewards, plaudits and recognition than in any other job. A fact, myth perhaps, that he’s utterly destroyed. This is not about making a mark; it’s about paying his mortgage. In fact, by doing what he’s done, taking a step down for more money, and doing it on the verge of achieving something great at Oxford he’s undermined everything I believe about football.

Ultimately what does he want? Whether promotion is achieved or not, he’s got his security. He’s not an Oxford fan, I know that, but he sets the agenda within his team. If he doesn’t want it, why should the players play, and ultimately what are the fans turning up for?

In the same way that Pop Idol revealed the nasty cynical side of music that has always existed but people don’t want to know about. Atkins has revealed in the most cynical way possible that all the rhetoric about passion and focus is, quite frankly, bullshit. The damage he’s done in this one act has wiped out the two years of work he’s put in to get Oxford into this position. He’s been suspended by the club this morning. Hopefully he’ll just fuck off and Oxford will get promoted. When they do, I want him to be sitting in his securely mortgaged house watching and wandering what he’s done. The smug little shit may think that it’s all down to him, but he can whistle for any recognition he wants from me.

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Labels: Football

Emma was sitting on the table looking bemused, in one hand she held my car keys in the other the deeds to the house. Slowly she was being covered in the clothes I was wearing. Finally, standing totally naked, when everything was gone, I was ready. Black, I said. It came up red.

OK, so this isn’t exactly how I lost my phone in Vegas. It was more of an absent minded packing incident. Apparently when Emma gave the coded signal (“Shall we just check the room before we go?”) I was expected to check that I had my car keys (I did, in the pocket of my jeans at the bottom of my rucksack) and my phone (I didn’t, it was under the bed).

It wasn’t until I got home that I realised it was lost, the fact it was so avoidable was frustrating in the extreme. I could claim it back on the insurance, but having to pay the £50 excess barely made it worth it.

I decided to speculatively contact the hotel, the website only had a phone number for reservations but was spam-bustingly free of email addresses.

I went back to Google, and put in “@luxor.com” perhaps somewhere on the web there was an email address I could use. There was one, deep inside the Luxor website there was an address for their Marketing and Promotions department who look after The Blue Man Group and the Ra topless nightclub. I wrote to them asking for my phone back.

It was a long shot, the hotel has 4,500 rooms, two Imax cinemas, a nightclub, theatre, shops, casino and numerous restaurants and whilst I could isolate the phone to somewhere in room 6016 the size of the hotel meant it was rather like sending an email to the Mayor of Thame to tell him my phone was lost in the sub post office inside Martins the newsagent.

I continued with my insurance application with little urgency or enthusiasm. On Tuesday we were left a card by the postman to say that they’d tried to deliver a package and that it was currently at the sorting office. Maybe it had worked; maybe the phone had been returned. I went to the sorting office and handed the card in…

It was another Brittannia Music Club CD, which they still send me despite endless requests to leave the club. On Wednesday, however, a package arrived from the Luxor, Las Vegas, no note, or complimentary slip, just one carefully packaged Sony Ericsson T310.

Except my phone is a Nokia 465. No, that’s a lie too. It was my phone, how good is that? If that email had arrived in my work inbox it would either have been deleted, or delegated into a black hole where only the lap of the gods would have controlled whether it would have reached a satisfactory conclusion or not.

I think they could teach our company a thing or two about customers. At a recent customer service training day the facilitator asked someone to describe our customers. “Timewasters mostly” responded the women in front of everyone including our Chief Executive. She is most dim-witted person I have ever met, but it’s a view reflected across the whole company.

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Labels: Holiday

It wasn’t looking good; Emma raced to four wedges before Vicki had got from the middle to the outside rim of the board. Nobby had systematically accumulated his wedges with effortless efficiency and was two from victory. Emma got her fifth, even Vicki had bagged four in between hysterical fits of giggles.

It’d been a dirty fight; Nobby tricked Vicki into switching her correct answer of pens to razors in response to the product Bic sells 7 million of every day. Nobby was then denied a wedge when he jumped in with the answer “Thorpe Park, no, Legoland” to the theme park near Windsor. The war of attrition was on.

Ruffles’ game had been pedestrian. Having boasted that the Trivial Pursuit 20th Anniversary edition was easy with badly written and telegraphed questions I had been by-stander whilst the others’ battled for victory. With just three wedges and no rhythm I was resigned to battling for nothing but personal pride.

Emma hovered around to pick up her final wedge, even at one point proclaimed victory when it wasn’t hers. Vicki and Nobby needed two wedges. Ruffles, three wedges from victory, all of which were dotted around the board, stepped up to the plate…

Rolls the dice. What colour on the Irish flag represents the Protestants?

Orange

Rolls the dice. Which actress with a famous novel-winning sister has The Ruling Passion, her own book, ridiculed in a New York court?

Joan Collins

Rolls the dice. For the fourth wedge - Which great tennis player was killed by AIDS contracted from a blood transfusion?

Arthur Ashe

Rolls the dice. Roll Again. Rolls the dice, for the fifth wedge - Who controversially kissed Christina and Britney at the 2003 MTV Video Music Awards?

Madonna

Rolls the dice. Which writer with royal connections claimed royal jelly kept her in the pink?

Barbara Cartland

Ruffles rolls a two, Roll Again, a five, for the sixth wedge and victory…

Which Bugs Bunny character came to earth with his space dog, Commander K-9?

I buried my head in the Dobscrubs’ very comfortable sofa, I could picture the little alien dressed like a centurion with a preposterously big helmet. I could even picture the dog and the little flying saucer he came in. He was. From Mars. A Martian. A Martian. Called. Marvin…

MARVIN THE MARTIAN!! (I shouted whilst baby India slept upstairs)

Victory, from nowhere, six questions and three wedges on the bounce, an unprecedented march of glory. If I hadn’t been so tired, I’d have probably danced around the room.

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Labels: General me

It started with the dementia that seems to result from a long haul flight. When we got back home from Boston a couple of years ago we started cleaning the house, despite the fact we hadn’t slept in over 24 hours. Well, the house wasn’t as clean as the 17th floor corner room we had at the Sheraton Hotel so we got the dustpan and brush out.

In September, when I picked Sara and Gareth up from the airport after their honeymoon I took them home and Sara began unpacking. She was missing something. Amongst the mountains of clothes they’d bought, her favourite Abercrombie and Fitch hoodie was missing. She began to well up as she tried to find that extra compartment in her suitcase. The one she knew she didn’t have. The one she hoped might contain the lost hoodie. When that didn’t materialise, of course, it was all about the bitch that cleaned their room and obviously stole it. It caused more heartache than was really necessary.

Vegas was an opportunity to replace the lost hoodie, Sara had done her homework, there were three Abercrombie and Fitchs (Fitchi?). We went to the one at The Forum shops in Caesars Palace. It was there, the hallowed hoodie, she bought it. Then the next day she bought another A&F hoodie. In fact, in the three days we must have gone into Abercrombie’s four or five times. On the plane there was a glamorous couple, she was willowy and model like he looked like a stylist from The Salon. Within a couple of hours of landing we saw them walking down The Strip, she was carrying an Abercrombie bag (they were also on the flight back – he was in an Abercrombie vest and Von Dutch truckers baseball cap, fer chrissakes).

An Abercrombie and Fitch t-shirt, sweatshirt or hoodie is a badge of honour for a British twenty or thirty something. It’s the North American equivalent of a comedy Spanish sombrero available at all tacky beach shops on the Costa Del Sol.

It’s chic-ness derives from scarcity, that you can’t get A&F in the UK. To wear A&F you have to have travelled to the New World and that’s glamorous and cool and groovy. This is despite the fact that its urban chic style is largely indecipherable from Gap. It’s totally over branded, and its current range is absolutely diabolical focussing as they have on some kind of distressed, un-ironed preppie attire. Clearly the glamour of ‘merica is more seductive than the style it offers.

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Labels: General me

Our famous person when we saw The Play What I Wrote on Saturday was Robert Powell which is OK, considering all the good famous people are currently on Back to Reality.

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Labels: General me

We’re a Will and Grace type household. I don’t mean Emma’s a firebrand redhead and I’m a gay guy, except; Emma is a firebrand redhead of course. Specifically, we’re Jack and Karen people, I don’t mean Emma’s a feisty lady with an acidic tongue and I’m a gay guy. Except Emma is a feisty lady with an acidic tongue… Ooh ducky…

Anyway, Fraiser, Friends, Will and Grace, (I should, given my age and social status, add Sienfeld, except I’ve never really seen it) – I like quality American comedies.

In Vegas we got an insight into how Americans make their TV. Deep inside the MGM Grand Sara spotted a small booth with a couple of men in it. The sign outside invited people to ‘sign up’. I went and bought a cool CBS Sports T-shirt, Sara asked what it was they wanted people to sign up for.

It turns out it was they were testing pilot TV shows and were looking for people to give them feedback. Hoping to see the first episode of “My Mom’s Made of Mince” or “Our Neighbours, The Elks” we put our names down.

It turns out we were to watch Mystery Girl (which has worrying amounts of coverage throughout the web), this is a cross between Sex and the City, and Ally McBeal – a quirky former It Girl becomes a writer for a fashion magazine and subsequently uses her It Girl training (an in-depth understanding of fashion labels) to solve crimes. Oh, and she makes friends with her agoraphobic shoe making neighbour.

Yes, really.

In the final scene after she’d solved the murder, and got her front page story Mystery Girl’s impressed boss turned to her and smouldered “But can you do it again?” to which she turned to camera and said “As long as celebrities keep behaving badly.” Before putting her pencil in her mouth seductively.

It was as bad as it sounds; throughout the show we had keypads on which there was a dial and a display. The default display read ‘50’, if we were enjoying the programme we were expected to turn the dial up (Maximum 100), if we were getting bored, we turned it down (to 0). Every second of our enjoyment, or otherwise, was being captured.

By the end of the half hour my dial read ‘6’, Emma’s read ‘4’, Christ, even my TV obsessed younger sister would have only marked it around a 78.

What struck me about the process was what this did to the programme making. Whenever something visually interesting happened I automatically turned the dial up, any extended dialog, I turned it down. As Homer might say; ‘BOOOORING’.

Assuming I’m reasonably representative of the average viewer (apart from not being American, obviously), what this means is according to their research, there should be more visual impact and less blah. Which, of course, would mean something like The Office wouldn’t get out of the starting blocks. It means that TV will only be made if there’s plenty of bang in the buck. Stories, dialog and interplay are simply not commercially viable. The hollowed out characters in Mystery Girl were testament to this.

I understand that Corporate America needs to reduce the risks that creativity offers but we’re all going to end up pretty numb if we continue to follow this path – all we’ll get is a procession of Benny Hill type shows. All the while there is less and less chance another Office, or Monty Python, or Vic and Bob, or Little Britain, or League of Gentlemen reaching our screens.

God bless the BBC, that’s what I say.

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Labels: TV and radio

The Rough Guide gives you some very simple instructions about Las Vegas; if you want to go and look for the hidden city, the one the guide books don’t tell you about that the locals frequent. Don’t bother, it doesn’t exist.

It’s a refreshingly honest place. Turn up, spend money, have fun, go home. We are not here to enrich your soul or enlighten your being. We are bigger and stupider than anywhere in the world.

On average each of the 29 million visitors to Vegas loses $688 gambling. Each slot machine makes on average $250 profit a day, and each table $2500. The hotels are vast complexes which are pumped full of pure oxygen to keep gamblers awake, there are no exit signs or clocks, and drinks are served free to keep the punters’ gambling creative. Wadda place.

I’ll get round to all the various things we did and saw in good time, but in short…

Stayed at the Luxor, shopped at Caesars Palace, took part in some viewer research for an appalling comedy drama pilot show on UPN, went on the rollercoasters on top of the Stratosphere and New York New York, ate at the Bellagio Buffet, gambled a little, saw the Bellagio fountains visited Elvis-a-rama and saw an Elvis impersonator, ate a dozen Krispy Kreme donuts, saw Lance Burton’s magic show, the MGM Lions and Siegfried and Roy’s Tigers, had taxi rides with one driver who wanted to assassinate the president, and one who thought it was funny to hoot his horn at an old woman crossing the road in an electric wheel chair. Took advantage of the outrageously good exchange rate and bought a stack of CD’s and trainers, saw the gondolas on the second floor of the Venetian, had burgers in the Mandalay Bay resort, but not the Rossini burgers, the one with truffles and fois gras, because they were $60…

But we didn’t get married much to the chagrin of everyone who called, emailed and texted within hours of us getting home. Sorry.

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Labels: Holiday

When I went to bed last night I managed to concoct a theory to do with eggs, potatoes and my current situation. Something about there being a basic human need to trade. If I have a potato and he has an egg, but I want egg and he wants a potato, we trade. That’s it. And if that were the only reason for working, to trade to satisfy a basic human need, everyone would be traders and most jobs would be redundant.

Politics, accumulation, and power are the real reasons people in the modern world work. Satisfying the basic human need is actually a tiny proportion of anyone’s spending. Therefore the angst that has resulted from the political shenanigans that have been going on is what I’m really being paid to suffer.

Just to clarify, I haven’t been sacked, or anything like that. Materially nothing has changed; I still do the same job for the same salary. It’s just according to these job ads my salary, which on Thursday was a good one for the company, now equates to a relatively junior role. Which doesn’t change my material well being, just dents my ego. Which is all rather meaningless in the great scheme of things. I’m sorry to bore you with it.

Right, that’s that. We’re off to Vegas on Sunday for a week in the stupidest town on the planet. I’ll see you all when I get back.

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Labels: General me

Yesterday I earned a good salary in a challenging, stressful but enjoyable job. Today I don’t. The job section of our local paper is advertising four jobs at our place. One of the four is a ‘Head of’, just like me. The job reports to the big boss man, like me. It requires an MBA or equivalent, like me. It offers a salary 30% higher than mine.

What does this mean? Am I being screwed? Am I on my way out? I have no beef about people earning more than me, but salaries quantify your worth to the company. I thought I was part of the solution, a new wave of creative and dynamic individuals hired to turn the company around. Now what? I’m part of the problem? Is a new new wave coming in to solve the problems created by the old guard? Even when this particular member of the old guard has only been in place a year and has never been told they’re going in the wrong direction?

The whole thing smacks of gross incompetence, a common theme at our place, people who earn good money and live good lives making isolated decisions without any consideration for the wider picture. I doubt anyone has even considered what the 30% differentiation communicates to the interested world. Good money does not equal good people.

But why should other people be allowed to make you feel like this? I don’t need more insecurities, I struggle with the concept that my friends hang around with me because they like who I am and not because of Emma or Spankee or a circumstance they’ve found themselves in, I don’t need people to make thoughtless and arbitrary decisions about my worth and value. The calculation is too hard for me as it is.

So what now? I’ll challenge the logic, I’ll apply for the jobs (I’m more than qualified), I’ll make their lives as uncomfortable as possible. And then what? Well, they may tell me to fuck off because they do think I’m an incompetent prick. So in the interim? Beer, flying out to Vegas on Sunday and listening to Public Enemy.

Fuck em all.

Wrong time to blog, I know.

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Labels: Work

To suggest Championship Manager is a popular football management simulation game is like saying your fingers are the frilly things that make your hands look pretty.

The current 4th edition is exquisitely detailed, so much so that there’s a story that Leeds United once tried to buy a fictional Championship Manager player that had been planted deep inside the game.

Personally, I favour Championship Manager 2; partly because the gameplay is less comprehensive so processing power can be handed over to the Angolan 4th Division as well as La Liga. Mostly it’s because years ago I went from managing Oxford in the 2nd division to the European Cup Final with Everton. The game took place in front of my dad’s Amiga at four in the morning, and as we figuratively lifted the trophy I realised my parents were probably upstairs fretting as to why I hadn’t spent my teens experimented with recreation drugs.

In the real world, Jamie Brooks is a prodigiously talented Oxford United striker who two days before a trial with Arsenal was struck down with a debilitating illness called Guillain Barre Syndrome. It nearly cost him his life, and may yet cost him his professional football career.

I’m currently playing Championship Manager 4, and as usual I’m managing Oxford. I’ve let my heart rule my head and let Brooksey rehabilitate on my weighty wage bill. He’s been permanently injured for two seasons, commanding a status of ‘Out for several months with a viral infection’.

During a mammoth session on Sunday a message popped up to say that Brooks was finally available again, apparently (and this is genuinely what it said)…

“Jamie Brooks has resumed full training after his bollock fell off.”

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Labels: Football

There’s something hypnotic about hitting your fridge with a hammer. However rather like dabbling in crack cocaine you really don’t know you’ve gone too far until it’s too late.

I don’t mean thumping a hole in the door to reach the cheese, I mean hacking away the build up of ice. We have huge icebergs packing every crevice and corner of the fridge, our claw hammer lies wantonly on the floor. Pasties and Chicken Kievs whimper quietly deep in the depths of the cold wasteland. I must retrieve them, this I must. I haven’t gone through the filament yet, but I will. Oh yes. I will.

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Labels: General me

We've all done it haven't we? Those cripplingly embarrassing moments which come back to haunt you from time to time. For me, it was accidentally buying my Grandma a three pack of tanga briefs for Christmas. Even now I can't pass a Marks and Spencer without maniacally swatting imaginary flies from around my head.

Poor old Justin, he's 'accidentally' exposed a Janet Jackson booby (or as it's called in Thoroughly Modern Milly - 'a front') during the Superbowl half time show. How lucky she taped what appears to be a small cog from a dishwasher onto her nipple beforehand. How strange that the costume, which looks like it would otherwise withstand a nuclear assault had a weakness around the right cup area. What tough luck, normally when he tries to undue a woman's bra he's all fingers and thumbs.

Whether this was a carefully staged part of the show or not, it doesn't surprise me that the Superbowl needed a bit of spicing up. American Football is the most cripplingly boring game you can hope to watch. Especially as its sold as a sport hell bent on excitement, power and aggression, or at least that's what all the adverts with rambo-esque musical montages of NFL heroes screaming "Let's hurt them bad" would have you believe.

I understand the game - you have six goes (or downs) to move the ball ten yards, if you move it ten yards you get another six goes. If you don't move it ten yards the other team gets the ball. The objective is to move down the field and into the End Zone for a touchdown, worth something like 5 points. It's played in four quarters of fifteen minutes - one hour in total.

I watched a Superbowl final once. During the eighties Channel 4 was more than the visual Guardian it's now become. They used to cover obscure sports like Sumo and Kabbadi, their NFL coverage in particular was exciting and new. 'My team' the San Francisco 49ers reached the final and my A Level timetable meant that I couldn't watch the Sunday night coverage and sleep a little later and get in for Sociology or some such on Monday morning. It was mind crushingly dull, for three hours large men shoved each other and the ball moved inch by inch in one direction, then inch by inch in another direction. In between were endless adverts, or Channel 4 would cut back to the studio where Englishmen with feint American accents would talk about offence and dee-fence.

The half time extravaganza was lavish and expensive, but the sound was ropey and the singers clearly miming, not something that matters when your in Row 4,768 of Candlestick Park. The game ended with a last second touchdown, except in American sport, the last 30 seconds can last up to twenty minutes. It was, apparently, the most exciting Superbowl ever.

Last night I watched the build up, diddy Dermot O'Leary (an NFL fan, apparently) sat next to a monster with a jerry curl afro and nodded along to useful insights like "It's the team with the best team spirit that will win". I watched an hour, which allowed me to see the captain's toss the coin for kick-off (only America can have 6 captains on each side), I also got to see the first twenty seconds of the game. Then I went to bed. Bored.

I woke up this morning to read that New England Patriots had won in a 'thriller' but I now know that it was probably anything but. Anyone who did endure the whole thing would have been thanking god for the right nork of a troubled musical dynasty's favourite daughter.

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Labels: Music

It just doesn't snow like it used to. In the old days you'd get four feet of snow overnight and in the morning you'd wake up to it being bright and sunny. You'd get your wellies on and jump into the nearest snow drift, stand in it up to your neck for hours and not feel the cold at all.

Now snow is grey and slushy and icey, and you get stuck in your car for hours. It took me two hours to drive the half hour journey home on Wednesday night. My dad managed four and a half hours to do the 17 miles from High Wycombe to Thame.

My mum phoned us, clearly worried, at about 8.30. I knew she was worried, because she said "I'm not worried". She was pretty justified, Dad's somewhat demob happy as he careers towards the end of his career on into blissful retirement. He's usually at home by 4.30. His non-appearance was a bit out of character, to exacerbate things further, he didn't have his mobile phone.

Eventually, having trailed a host of websites trying to ascertain something more than 'all roads are hazardous and should be avoided' he appeared. Mum phoned to say he was back and put him on to tell the whole saga.

It had taken an hour to get out of the car park, he said. The traction control and ABS on the Mini is a winner, he said. The conditions were so bad, when he got to Sainsbury's to buy some cigars, the door froze up, he said.

The fact that a pack of cigars took priority over everything else (including my aged mother) didn't seem to strike him as in any way odd.

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Labels: General me

For no good reason yesterday I briefly watched a programme on CBBC called Crush. The show's presenter went to a school, picked out one of the children, David, and revealed to his class the name of the girl he fancied, Katie. David was then challenged take part in a gameshow where the prize was a date with Katie to Disneyland Paris.

OK, bypassing the fact that this is a hideous concept for a children's gameshow, the first round was called 'Getting to know you'. David and Katie went into a booth for three minutes. David had to think up a string of questions to ask Katie. He would then have to use the information he gleaned in the three minutes to answer some questions on Katie's favourite things (Lee from Blue and Ponies, obviously).

David followed up "What's your favourite school?" with "What's your favourite fish?". Oh well, Katie was a bit of a munter.

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Labels: TV and radio

According to Sara, The Last Samurai (or Last of the Summer Wine as it's hilariously known in our house) has Oscar buzz.

The film takes you to back to Japan (not China as stated in earlier editions) about 150 years ago. It's a country in flux; battling the implications of a modernisation programme. Japan's ancient social structures and traditions are being dismantled by a few greedy bureaucrats who see riches in an arms deal with the US. Agreeing to buy the modern weaponry not only secures a trade agreement but supplies the westernised bureaucrats with an arsenal powerful enough to destroy the arcane Samurai that stand in their way. US vets are brought in to train a ramshackle army of Japanese conscripts. Japan gets rich, destroying the samurai and losing its identity in the process. It's all very zeitgeisty, an imperialist regime imposes an ideology at odds with the natural law of a society, only to suffer a cataclysmic cultural kick back. Or something to that effect.

Sounds good doesn't it? Lavish sets, historical context, intricate plotlines; it's got Oscar buzz written all over it.

And then there's Tom Cruise, the westerner thrust into the lost culture, battling the language barrier, struggling to understand the customs played out around him. Is he the silent observer whose battles the contradictions in his head? Nah, he's the most powerful actor in Hollywood, no such understatement here, after all nobody says no to Tom Cruise.

• Nobody says no to the fact he has to become a samurai
• Nobody says no to the fact he's the last samurai
• Nobody says no to the fact he has to be the best samurai there ever was
• Nobody bothers to explain whether an attack by a gang of ninjas is a government backed assassination attempt on the village's powerful leader (BORING!) or a vehicle for Cruise to get cool with a sword.
• Nobody says no to Cruise bucking a thousand years of tradition by turning Japan's Emperor from a distant and impassive demi-god into a compassionate humanist by the power of one well constructed monologue
• Nobody says no to Cruiso endlessly winning mock training fights with other samurai whilst ignoring the sub plot of rampant westernisation happening in Yokahama
• Nobody says no to Cruise falling in love with the only young woman in the village
• Nobody says no to her falling in love with him despite the fact he killed her husband
• Nobody says no to Cruise turning her from the brink of suicide to unstinting love by saying he was 'sorry'
• Nobody says no to Cruise standing with a horse in the middle of a mountain range as the film closes
Nobody, presumably, will say no to him getting an Oscar for this pile of self indulgent shite. The nob.

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Labels: Films

It may surpise you to hear that the picture on the left is not a close up of a skip outside the back of a hairdressers shop. It is, in fact, darts player Andy 'The Viking' Fordham. The woman on the right is UK Pop Idol 2003 winner Michelle McManus. Both had a good day last Sunday. They hit professional highs with Fordham winning the BDO World Darts Championship and McManus clocking her first UK number one.


Unless you were beginning to think my new site accommodated for the blind by automatically switching your browser to a magnified setting it won't have escaped you're attention that these people are larger than your average celebrity.

Being fat affects these two in different ways. For Fordham, it's a huge positive. Firstly, he's supposed to be like this and secondly he's more like this than anyone else in the darting fraternity. He weighs 30 stone and wears a couple of hundredweight of cheap jewellery on his non-throwing arm as a counterbalance. He's the quintessentially stereotyped darts player, which is much easier for the general public to comprehend.

McManus, on the other hand, is a square peg in a round hole and is not so fortunate. It's not that big people can't be successful singers, ask Aretha Franklin, Meatloaf, Luciano Pavarotti, Alison Moyet and Chubby Checker, it's just it's better that pop stars are thin. Let me explain.



The music industry needs a high volume of hits to generate a steady income. The rare and unpredictable commodity of talent doesn't come in an even flow, nor is it available in high enough volumes to pay the bills. Mute records boss, Daniel Miller, recognises that he'll shed a heap of money on Luke Slater and Plastickman records in the four years between each multi-million selling Depeche Mode or Moby album - something he has to grin and bare. In the world of the corporate music industry, where there are investors to satisfy and staff to pay what is needed is a steady income. In order to keep selling records these companies have turned to things more tangible, immediate and predictable. By dancing, flashing cheeky chappy grins, and baring flesh, a good-looking pop star veils their limited musical talents. Kylie is a supreme pop star, but not because of her voice. A pop star's talent is totally different to the talent of Elvis or The Beatles.

The problem is that McManus can't tick many of the boxes a modern pop star should. She's not thin; she can't suggestively rotate her hips like Girls Aloud or do the clench fist of agony patented by Gareth Gates (or wear oversized cowboy boots - I can't find a picture, but you watch). In pop music terms she has nothing but her average voice. It's not a problem that most pop stars have to deal with, but she does. The Pop Idol public viewers vote inevitably chooses a winner who is the most average and with so little in her arsenal, you can't help thinking she's ultimately doomed.

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Labels: TV and radio

We were interviewing at work today. One of the candidates said "It's hard to build relationships over email... unless you're a paedophile of course".

We said: "Um".

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Labels: Work

My left foot was forged on the playing fields of Thame and can shoot, pass, and dribble. My right, to use footballing parlance, is only useful for standing on. I didn’t think it could be more useless, until Boxing Day.

Boxing Day is my favourite day of the Christmas period. The pressures of present buying have gone, and you’re free to get that musty claustrophobic feeling of The Day itself out of your system. 

My Boxing Day is about football. In the morning I join The Men to wheeze my way around the local park for a couple of hours. Then it’s home, shower and off to the Boxing Day game at Oxford. 

This year’s morning game had a good turn out with a good-natured robust game of seven a side. I’d even bought a new pair of Diadora Contaccso Sg Football Boots from Brantano for fifteen quid. After an hour Gareth waltzed his way through our static defence and lined up to slot home his team’s eighth goal. I gallantly careered across to block and planted my right foot in preparation for my final lunge. Except it wasn’t my foot, but my ankle that took my full, and not inconsiderable, weight.

I felt a twisting crunching sensation in my leg and a shooting pain. Gareth suggested I “run it off”, but I could barely stand. By the time I got home swelling the size of a tennis ball began to appear around my ankle. By the time I’d foolishly hobbled to and from Oxford’s 2-1 win over Orient it was going purple.

This was my first proper sporting injury; a sprain, a proper ‘damaged ligaments’ sprain. Chicks dig sporting injuries, it was all “Ooh’s” and “Aah’s” and “shouldn’t you go to the doctors”. I was tended to and waited on for, ooh, about four and a half minutes. What I didn’t realise is that Chicks don’t dig sporting injuries for very long, Lucy was so disinterested that about 2 minutes after seeing it she acted out a What’s My Line charade of a soldier clipping my elevated foot with one forceful downward swing of her arm. Everyone winced… then laughed like drains. I thought an injury would be cool, I hadn’t anticipated the weeks of nagging, dull pain that nobody is interested in. It’s getting back to a normal colour now but it’s going to take six weeks to heal and longer to fix. 

The blood from the sprain flooded into my foot causing it to swell. I wake up in agony as the veins become packed full of goop, the hairs on top of my foot feel like tree trunks. They just don’t tell you about this stuff.


An unforeseen aside of the injury was seeing Jules. I’ve known Jules for nearly twenty years she’s funny, silly, and sporty and bullies you about your posture. I don’t see any of my friends as the eloquent, trained, skilled professionals that they are so watching Jules acting out her role as my Physiotherapist was odd. She was professional, knowledgeable, impassive, and caring. She examined me, massaged my foot and gave me advice about treatment and exercises. She even ranked it as one of the top ten sprains she’d seen. I know she’s trained to do this stuff, but there was something very soothing about it. I can’t wait until I have a CRM web enabled database problem, then I can watch Spankee at work. 

Mind you, she also took away the beer I was drinking saying alcohol was bad for the healing. Then she drank it herself which I presume is some kind of homeopathic alternative treatment.

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Labels: General me

OK, so we’re just about there. I’ve been toying with changing things around for a while and New Year seemed a sensible time to do it. There’s still quite a lot of fiddling around to do, and I think the design needs tweaking (is the old school styling right? is Courier working? is it a little bright? do we want the old logo back?) anyway, I figure it’s time to throw it at the wall and see what sticks.

So what’s new? Not much, but you can make comments on my postings, so you will inevitably meet Barry, resident of Linhope and Spankee’s flatmate. I’m pretty sure he’ll be correcting my spelling and generally hurling abuse in response to each and every post within seconds of it going live.

You can still read about who I am, although it needs re-writing. You can still have free mix CD’s. There’s a load of new links. The decaying Wants list has been replaced by a less volatile list of CD’s, which should help you to get organised if you want to rob my house. I’ve added a cast list so you can put faces to names and there are a few new pictures.

Things look a little plain on the homepage at the moment, the page looks a lot better with pictures, so on the left is a few of the CD’s I’m currently listening to and my plan is to furnish more posts with pictures and links, it’ll look lovely, promise.

Normal service is about to resume, Christmas and New Year was eventful, so prepare yourselves for the story of The Foot and our New Year shindig in Derbyshire.

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Labels: General me