Life After Blog

This Blog Has Moved

2008-06-15T17:30:00.002+01:00

Due to a prolonged period of inactivity, this blog has been jump started at morelifeafterblog.

Sorry for the delay.

Silver F*@!$ng Bells

2006-11-17T12:27:00.000Z

Ok, quick rant for the day:
I was doing some shopping the other day, which was of course early November, and as I went from shop to shop all I heard was Christmas music. It's November. It's too early. I love Christmas, I love listening to all the cheesy Christmas music but there's only so many times you can hear them before the cheesiness overtakes the Christmas sentimentality and this week, thanks to the fact that every shop I went into seemed to be playing 'silver bells' I have had that tune going round my head all week. Even the tried and tested 'singing the jurassic park theme to get a song out of your head' has failed as now I have an arrangement of silver bells in my head that uses the theme as it's backing.
STOP THE CHRISTMAS MUSIC UNTIL DECEMBER!

Well, I'm Back

2006-11-16T12:18:00.000Z

So, it’s been about 5 months since I last posted anything. This hasn’t been because nothing has happened, but more because I’d got bored of writing on my blog (having been writing one for over a year at that point). However, after literally tens of people have been moaning at me to write something I’ve decided it’s time to start posting again. So here we go with a quick catch up of my last 5 months (so apologies in advance if this turns out to be a rather long post).

The big news (which of course 99.99% of you reading this blog will know) is that the wonderful, if slightly foolish, Lizzy has agreed to marry me and on the 21st July next year she will take on the slightly strange name of Grinnell.
For those of you (basically the girls) that are interested in the details:
I asked her to marry me in the gardens of Buckingham palace (this in no way makes me a royalist, it just means that I can appreciate the fact that the Queen does have a rather nice house and gardens and that if I am going to have to be there I might as well take advantage of that). I hadn’t brought a ring before hand since my ability to pick out jewellery is practically non-existent, I brought Lizzy a necklace for Christmas last year that I know she absolutely hates even though she’s never admitted it.
Since then we’ve been busy planning a wedding. By planning of course, I mean Lizzy planning and me saying ‘anything you want dear’ followed by the signing of increasingly large and worrisome cheques.

So what else has been happening?

Well, work is going well and continues as normal (just on my lunch break now in fact).
I went on holiday to Tunisia with Jimmy (our new housemate). We stayed in a hotel where the majority of the guests made me look posh and the staff had seen too many episodes of hi-de-hi. Every morning we were accosted by the entertainment staff to join in the game of water polo and every day we’d say ‘no thank you, we’re quite happy lying in the sun reading our books thank you very much’ and so were christened ‘the lazy boys’.

I am now an uncle. My sister gave birth to a wonderful baby girl, Elisha. I would give details of weight and stuff that I know some people (girls again) find so interesting but I can’t remember them, cos I don’t find them interesting, I was just pleased both Elisha and my sister were ok.

Now all that boring stuff’s out of the way some interesting things:
George Martin, the genius producer of all the Beatles albums (apart from ‘let it be’ that Phil Spector over produced) has, along with his son, gone back to the original tapes of the Beatles recording sessions and remixed a whole new album of ‘songs you know but will have never heard like this before’. Now, as most of you will know, I love the Beatles, but I’ve become increasingly annoyed with the number of different released of Beatles albums that basically are just everything I already own in a different order so I wasn’t that bothered about this release, until I heard the 4 songs posted on the Beatles website. George Martin has taken the sometimes overly familiar songs, cut them down, found different takes, used different arrangements and has made something, that if it lives up the promise of the 4 tracks posted (especially Strawberry Fields and While my guitar gently weeps) will be wonderful to listen to. You should check them out at on the the website.

Right, that’s all I’m writing for now, lunch break, as well as my break from the world of blog, is over. I’ll just leave you with one of the best comments Lizzy has made over these past 5 months:
“I hate driving at night, I have to use my senses”.
How can you not love her?

Guilty Idols

2006-06-04T22:55:00.000+01:00

Lizzy, in case I haven't yet mentioned this yet, is a music teacher at a secondary school in Sutton. Lizzy works with a guy called Gareth. I met Gareth for the first time when me and Lizzy went to see his band, 'Guilty Idols', play at the half moon. I enjoyed the gig and got talking to Gareth. A few months later, having got to know the rest of the band too, they ask me if I want to come to one of their practices and see if I can play keyboard with them. Three practices later and I'm playing a gig with them at the half moon on Wednesday night, we go on at 8:30. Who know's what it'll sound like, but hopefully not too bad! It'd be great to see any of you there, it's £5 to get in. If you want to hear what they sound like without me ( which may be the best way to hear them) go to guilty idols myspace page.
I'll let you know how it goes.

Coffee

2006-05-27T11:54:00.000+01:00

I like my Thursdays. Thursday is the day I do sessional hours for YIP (who I work for) in Battersea. I like them for a few reasons. The kids I work with 1 on 1 there are really good kids. We do a table tennis club which I really enjoy and I don't start to 12:30. Now, in the past I would probably have used this as an excuse to stay in bed for as long as possible, but not any more. Now what I do (at least until my new job starts) is leave at the usual time, get on the bus to Clapham Junction and spend the 30 minute bus ride with my ipod and a book. When I get to Clapham Junction, I spend an even more enjoyable hour before work sat in cafe nero drinking coffee and reading. This is a great way to start the day, especially since I get to drink some really good coffee, which as many of you know, is something that I really like to do.

I don't understand people who don't like coffee, it's a wonderful drink. Now please understand that when I say coffee, I'm not talking about that instant stuff that tastes almost, but not quite entirely unlike real coffee, I'm talking about cappacino's, esspresso's, americano's, real, ground, fliter made coffee and I would encourage anyone that doesn't drink coffee or thinks that they don't like coffee having tried kenko once.

There is definitely a coffee drinking culture in London. Coffee shops are busy, cool and generally places where people hang out during the day in the same way that people hang about pubs in the evening. But on Thursday I heard and saw something that makes me think that maybe, things have gone too far.

There was a lady with a pram in front of me in the line at nero's. The child in the pram can't have been more than 2 years old. She ordered a regular cappucino and a babycino. I had to do a bit of a double take. I'm pretty sure I know nero's coffee menu very well, I've never heard of a babycino. I was also pretty sure that surely something that ridiculous didn't exist and that the guy making the coffee would say that he had no idea what the lady was talking about. He didn't. He actually said 'of course' and turned away to make the coffee. I checked the menu. There was no 'babycino' on it. I wondered what it was, thinking that surely they don't make coffees for kids, that would be silly. But of course, we live in a sometimes ridiculously silly world and apparently a babycino is just a cappucino,served in a small, take-away type cup, for kids. The lady took her drinks and sat down, with kid on her lap, and they drank there coffees together.

Like I said, coffee is good. But surely this is a step too far.

I'm sorry, ok.

2006-05-18T00:58:00.000+01:00

I know it's been almost a month since I blogged and I'm sorry. It's not like I forgot all about you. It's just that when I have sat down to write something I've either been interrupted (actually just deleted three draft posts) or been so struck by the apparently contageous bloggers-block that I've not actually been able to think of anything to say. Today however, I had Hoylus, Matt L and Tim (who I've not seen for ages but was really nice to get a comment from, so Hi Tim) making comments about me not writing anything and, again as you all know, I'm nothing if not willing to bow to peer pressure, so here is a new post about the things that I've been up to this month.

I went to see the Kaiser Chiefs at Brixton Academy. They were excellent.

I watched 'Life Is Beautiful' on DVD and was reminded what a wonderful, powerful and ultimately teary film it is.

Steve, one of the guys who I share, or rather shared, a house with has left to sun himself in Australia, and various other places as he learns how to teach people to sail, scuba dive, windsurf and various other things that you can do if you get bored sitting on a beach. It was sad to see Steve go as I was just getting to know him really well and appreciate the friend that he is before he left to have fun all over the world (no jealousy, honest). The up side to all this is that I now have a permanent place to live and a new room which, incredibly, has remained tidy and clean for an entire month (I'm scared Lizzy will shout at me if it gets into a mess).

This month I've been listeing to the Raconteurs album (brilliant), Richard Ashcroft's slighly inconsitently brilliant new album and anything that my ipod has randomly shuffled to as I walk around.

I've watched nearly two series of Alias with Sparky and Lizzy and am absolutely loving it.

And finally (suddenly came over all Trevor McDonald then, sorry) I watched the last episode ever of the west wing. This was a sad moment for me. Yes, since Aaron Sorkin left at the end of series 4 it's never been quite the same, but a bad episode of the west wing is still better than pretty much anything else on TV. My only consolation is that I can hapily re-watch them again and again on DVD and enjoy them everytime.

Will do my absolute best to post more often since my bloggers-block seems to have, at least for now, gone.

Gigs, Albums and Why's?

2006-03-22T17:55:00.000Z

Sorry, again, for the delay in posting. I'll get the boring stuff out of the way first. Things are still going well with job, girlfriend and life in general. BT finally admitted that we do exist and so have kindly started giving us access to their wonderful broadband so that's allnow sorted. Now for some (hopefully) more interesting stuff.

On Thursday night I went with James Underwood to the first Raconteurs gig in London. It was obviously some sort of big deal as we saw a bunch of music/radio people in the VIP section also waiting to hear exactly what Jack White's new band would sound like. I went to the gig having not heard anything that they'd done at all and came out knowing that I'd be buying the album as soon as it came out. It was proper rock and roll with a bit of pink floyd and an occasional country style flourish thrown in. Jack White is just an incredible, genius guitar player and hearing him play in the context of a band as oppose to him on his own with a drummer was something that everyone should try and see. He dominated the stage, not just because he looked about a foot taller than the other four in the band, but with his sheer stage presence and vituosity. The gig for me was like listening to an album by a new band that you'd not heard before and falling in love with it, except this time it was at a gig, live and loud, and that made it all the more exciting and all the easier to fall completely in love with the exciting, outstanding music of the Raconteurs. You should check out their website www.theraconteurs.com not only because it's just a very cool website, but so that you can listen to a couple of their songs too.

The other night I finally got wound to downloading Graham Coxon's new album 'love travels at illegal speeds' which is a great album title for a great album. Since leaving Blur Graham's made two fantastic guitar driven pop albums that, if they'd been made by a new band and not 'that guy from Blur' would have probably become much more popular. His singing's certainly not the best in the world but his voice is right for the songs which are consistently strong, exciting and excellent. As you'd expect from graham, the guitar playing is fantastic, but he's also got a great band together, which is something that he didn't have for his last album which makes this album sound better than 'Hapiness in Magazines' although I'll need a couple of listens more before I'm confident enough to say that this album is better.

After all that geeking out over music, I want to ask a question. Why are we so crap? Why, for example, do we always leave the washing up until the tea has grown so solid and attatched to the bottom of the mug that it takes 5 minutes soaking and 1 minutes rubbing with the cloth to go away? If we'd just rinsed it under the tap when we'd finished it, wiped it quickly with the cloth it would have been done in seconds. Why, when there's a job to be done, for instance cleaning the bathroom, writing an essay or finally sorting out that bill that should and could have been paid a couple of weeks ago do we, rather than actually just do it, find ourselves suddenly obsessed with beating blackburn on pro evo, fascinated by exactly what Philip Schofield thinks about todays heart warming/tear jerking story on This Morning or unable to do anything without the aid of at least three cups of tea/coffee/cigarettes/west wing episodes or whatever other substance gets you through the day. Why, when we see that the bin in the kitchen is full, do we start a game of jenga with the rubbish, delicately balancing an empty yoghurt pot on top of the pile of old tea bags which in turn are wavering dangerously on the bottom of an upturned empty jar of Lloyd Grossman's Tikka Masala sauce? Why do we do these things? Or is it just me?

The ongoing saga of our internet connection and some more news that's even harder to believe

2006-03-03T16:17:00.000Z

After 3 months of complaining to Wanadoo that our internet connection isn't working properly, and three months of them saying it will be fixed in 5 days (their definition of days could be similar to the ones in Genesis where one day=an age of the earth) we finally had enough and cancelled our service with them. This means that for the last week we've been without internet access and explains the lack of posts from me this week. Today we found out that wanadoo had disconnected us and so I took on the job of signing us up with a new broadband company. This, technically should be easy but of course, isn't. I tried to sign up with Virgin.net. However, and this may explain the name of the company, every time I got to a certain point in the sign up procedure it told me that it really didn't want to go any further and that maybe I should take things slowly and look at some other broadband companies if I wanted that sort of instant gratification that means that it'll actually do what it says it will. So I tried BT instead, I knew their reputation for being cheap, easy and, according to Lloyd at least, going down at least once a week. I gave BT my phone number and my account number, both of which they originally gave me, and they told me they didn't exist and should go away unless I wanted to phone them, which would of course cost more money. So at this point, after 3 hours and 3 cappucicnos in the natural cafe I am no closer to having any sort of satisfying experience than I was when I got here in the first place.

Now for that hard to believe news.
For reasons that are unlikely to become clear at this point [it's a long story involving the charity I work for, a friend that will remain nameless (although certainly not blameless) and a rock and a hard place] I have been invited to join the Queen and possibly her diplomatically challenged husband at the Buckingham Palace Garden Party on the 20th July. I shall be taking Lizzy for moral support and also for the sandwiches. Obviously most people who know me know my particular feelings on the monarchy (somewhere between indifference and complete and utter pointlessness) will realise exactly how funny this is, especially given that I have to wear 'Morning Dress', whatever that is. I'm sure it will be an interesting experience, but just as a side note, I had to give mine and Lizzy's details to the palace this week so that the invitations would reach us by the date of the party. 'Surely the British post can't be that slow?' I can tell you're asking and of course, it's not. The reason the details now is that they need to write the 24'000 invitations (8'000 at each of the three garden parties) by hand. Yes, someone is paid (probably with our own tax money) to hand write 24'000 invitations. Surely the palace has at least one computer somewhere?

Anyway, should go now. No idea when I'll post again, hopefully I'll sort out our internet problems with a phonecall to BT (although I wouldn't bet on it). I wanted to post a poem by Spike Milligan that I discovered the other day, but I can't cos I forgot the book and can't find it on the internet so I'll do that next time.

My Supportive Girlfriend

2006-02-19T16:14:00.000Z

This week, as I've already mentioned, has been half term. This has meant a very busy week for me. It has also meant a nice, quiet week off for Lizzy. Now, normally, as I'm the first to admit, Lizzy works incredibly hard and she absolutely deserves a week of relaxation and lie ins. Because Lizzy works hard I like to think that I support her by doing things like sending her a nice text during the day or helping her out with some of her schoolwork [just to remind you here that she's a teacher] or going to see her school productions. This week then has been a bit of a role reversal and Lizzy, in her own way, has tried to support me. How has she done this? She has also used the medium of text to send encouraging messages. Thursday morning, as I sat on a bus, still trying to wake up properly and surrounded by 13 excited and very loud young people on our way to a football tournament I got the following, encouraging, supportive text from Lizzy:
"I'm watching lord of the rings with a cuppa and some carrot cake! x"

Friday I had the day off and Lizzy suggested we have lunch and watch return of the king together. 'Brilliant' I thought, 'I've got a girlfriend that wants to sit down together and spend a relaxing afternoon watching Lord of the Rings.' Eventually we did actually get to do this, and it was wonderful to sit with Lizzy and watch one of the most incredible stories ever. However, I use the word 'eventually' for a reason. What Lizzy, showing a continuing understanding for my hard week, actually meant when she said 'we'll have lunch and watch Lord of the Rings' is: 'We'll have lunch and then you'll work out how to put up my cupboard doors, then you'll help me sort out my room, then you'll put up my new computer desk having moved my keyboard around and then we'll watch Lord of the Rings.' A saying containing the words 'carrot and stick' come to mind.

[Disclaimer: I want to make it perfectly clear that I had a completely wonderful day on Friday. It was nothing but a joy to help Lizzy set up her room and the text I recieved from Lizzy on Thursday did nothing but brighten up my day and in no way made me just wish I was sat at home in the warmth watching Lord of the Rings with my wonderful girlfriend.]

You just won't believe this

2006-02-16T00:13:00.000Z

My Mum and Dad's church have been wanting to do some awareness and fund rasing about human trafficing which is a terrible injustice that is going on. In a couple of weeks they have a big weekend launch for their project called... wait for it: Stop Human Traffiking. Or, to use the acronym they're actually using: the SHT weekend! There comes a point when you just have to let go and see if your parents sink or swim, I think this is one of them.
Just thought that you'd all enjoy that piece of information.

I'm Knackered

2006-02-15T18:36:00.000Z

I'm knackered.
Three days with large groups of the kids I work with playing different sports, eating food, making valentines cards (just don't ask!) and various other things has finally driven me to the point where I'm now lying on my bed with my laptop on my lap (which is surely the whole point of them anyway) and not planning to move from this spot til I get up tomorrow. I know all that sounds like it might be fun, and some of it was, but you would not believe the bickering and abuse that has gone on over the last few days. AHhhhh!!

Other than being knackered though, things are going well. Spoke to Steve and Em using the wonder that is ichat, they both seem to be having fun and enjoying life as bigshot businessman and wife (Steve has a very cool chair, ask him about it).

Anyway, just thought that i should write something so that the people that say 'you never write anything' haven't got anything to moan about. I know that there's not really anything interesting in this post, so I'll just give you a rundown on the things I'm looking forward to this year:
New albums from Radiohead, the streets and maybe Blur if we're lucky.
The final episodes of the west wing (what will I do when that finishes? other than just watch then all repeatedly on DVD) and the new series of Scrubs.
The return of superman and, with a sense of dread, the x-men.
I'm sure there's things I've forggotten in that list, but like I said, i'm knackered so not particularly thinking that straigh.

Record vs Song

2006-02-09T20:12:00.000Z

Last night in, I presume, Los Angeles U2 won five Grammys including best album for 'how to handle an atomic bomb' and best song for 'sometimes you can't make it on your own'. On winning, Bono said 'don't expect this to give us big heads, it's too late for that. The Guardian covered the event if you want to read a bit more about them HERE.
I read the whole article and there was no mention at all of Greenday in it until, at the bottom of the article where there's a list of the big winners of the night and, alongside song of the year and album of the year is an award for record of the year which greenday won for boulevard of broken dreams (which is a great song). Now my question is this: What's the difference between record of the year and song of the year?
If anyone has any idea please let me know, cos I haven't got a clue!

A Moose

2006-02-06T21:41:00.000Z

I had a roast diner round at Lizzy's house last night. Lizzy has taken to calling me monkey in what can only be described as a very, very bad yorkshire accent after she heard me going on about the Arctic Monkeys and took a liking to the way I say monkey. However, she also sometimes calls Chalie (her housemate) a monkey and has decided that she can't call us both that and so, for reasons that are completely unfathomable to anyone that isn't Lizzy, she has taken to calling Charlie a moose. This sparked a discussion that went something like this:

Lizzy: [to Charlie] You Monkey!
[Charlie starts to make monkey noises and jumps around the kitchen. Lizzy has been thinking about her comment and makes a decision]
Lizzy: I'm not calling you a monkey, that's James. You can be a moose.
Charlie: What noise does a moose make?
Lizzy: [after thinking for a bit] I don't know.
[Charlie and Lizzy leave the kitchen and enter the front room where, along with their other housemates I'm sat]
Lizzy: James, what noise does a moose make?
James: I'm not sure, but I've got a feeling that they honk.
Claire (another of Lizzy's housemates): I thought Geese honked.
James: Yeah, that's true, but I've got a feeling that Moose do too.
Jenifer (Lizzy's other housemate): What is the plural of moose anyway.
James: I think it's one moose lot's of moose, like sheep.
Charlie: I thought Moose were more like cows, not sheep. I don't think they baa.
James: No, not that moose are like sheep. Just that the plural of moose is moose, like you have one sheep and lots of sheep.

Of course I wasn't willing to not know what sound a moose makes so I did some research on the web today and it turns out that they do indeed honk. If you want to hear a moose honk click on this link:
Moose Honks
Incidently, I think hearing a moose honk is the sort of thing that everyone should do at least once in their lifetime. I'm sure that a live moose honk is much more impressive and provides a much better clarity of sound. However, since I don't know many people, in this country at least, who happen to have a moose handy for when they do want to hear one honk, this recording can at least safely allow you to experience a mooses honk without all the trouble of having to cope with the smell and general unpleasentness of having to come face to face, or at least face to snout, with a moose. I don't want to be Moosist here, really, I mean I've never even met one. I just get the impression that they are rather smelly and bad tempered beasts that, if you ignore their wonderful honk, you would rather not meet, especially if you take a look at some of their rather dangerous and potentially neck breaking horns.
I think I've said enough about Moose now.

Oasis vs. The Arctic Monkeys

2006-01-31T17:17:00.000Z

I spent last Friday night at a bar (mook) in Notting Hill celebrating Jenny’s 30th Birthday. It was a great night despite the music being at a level that meant that the following morning, anyone that had spent any time actually talking to people, woke up with either no voice or a very sore throat. I had a great time catching up with some people that I hadn’t seen for a while. One of these people was James Underwood, a good friend and, at least as importantly, someone that I can talk to about music, films and Nick Hornby style top 5 lists with without repetition, hesitation or pause. During a long conversation that included our top 5 lists of last year and various other geeky things, the subject of the arctic monkeys and their huge debut album (Whatever people say I am, that’s what I’m not) came up. The last time I can remember a debut album causing this much of a stir was Oasis’ definitely maybe, so I asked him which one he thought was the best. I must be honest and confess that I can’t remember what he said, but since then I’ve been trying to work out what I thought about this question.

So, which album is better? If we judge on sales then the arctic monkeys (since they do have the biggest selling debut album of all time have sold over 360’000 copies) clearly win. But then if we judge things on sales then that makes James Blunt, Westlife and all the other waste of space ‘bands’ very good, which clearly they’re not. Musically both albums are fairly basic guitar driven albums. There’s nothing hugely inventive or different about the music on these albums from many other guitar albums. They both take a sound that was (or is) progressing and popular at the time but also feel in some ways a culmination of everything that is or was going on in the indie scene. They both come from northern cities, which at first may just seem either a bit irrelevant or just grandstanding on the part of us northerners but it does mean that both bands have made it big without moving to London. This means that both bands have had to build up a following and a reputation in their own cities before being taken notice of by the ‘people in the know’ of the music scene. In the case of Oasis this was done through creation records and particularly Alan McGee, with the arctic monkeys it was with clever use of the internet (which in those ancient days of the mid 90’s was not an option) and for both of them it was an embracement by the music press and people (and more specifically) the teenagers that embrace and identify with the music and the style.

So to the important things, the songs themselves. Both albums are consistently full of songs I love, even the naffer songs on each album (digsby’s dinner or red light indicates doors locked). Neither album really has any great variety on it just slightly louder/quieter/faster/slower songs of the same type. Lyrically the arctic monkeys album is consistently better oasis. Alex Turner has a similar sort of lyrical style to that other great Sheffield bloke Jarvis Cocker, full of whit, cynicism and biting humour. He’s introduced the distinctly phrase ‘mardy bum’ (think ‘stroppy cow’) to the world and my personal favourite ‘There's only music, so that there's new ringtones’. Of course on the other hand we have oasis singing about ‘driving with my friend mr soft; mr clean and mr ben are living in my loft’. Not that all Oasis’ lyrics are bad, cigarettes and alcohol, rock and roll star and live forever are songs that defined my generation and, when I was a teenager expressed my thoughts and dreams better than anyone else. I’ve got to be honest here say that, in the end, no matter what I think musically about the albums, it’s always going to be difficult for me to choose anything over definitely maybe. Mainly because I’m not 15 anymore, and as much as I hate to admit it, and as much as I still love and get excited about music, it just isn’t in the same way as when I was 15. When I was 15 music was my entire world. When a new album, a new song, a new band came out that excited me, it was the most important thing in my life and as good as any new music is, I’ll never quite feel like that about music now.

So which album do I think is the best? Of course Oasis suffer from the fact that the album’s over 10 years old and incredibly familiar to everyone over 16 and that they’ve since released 5 carbon copy albums of varying, but always at least slightly substandard, quality. It’s not really fair to let that dilute the brilliance of Definitely Maybe, but there’s over 10 years of disappointment associated with Oasis that the Arctic Monkeys just don’t have. [Just on a side note, was doing some studio work with an 11 year old this week who happened to mention he like guitar bands but just looked blank when I mentioned Oasis, I must be getting old.] The Arctic Monkeys on the other hand are still at the point where not only is their music still exciting, new and young, so are they. These guys only got their instruments for their 18th birthdays and only one of them has reached 20. If they’ve gone from not really playing to this album in under 2 years and they keep developing musically at the same rate they could be an outstanding band. There is a hope of that when you listen to them that just doesn’t exist anymore when I listen to Oasis. SO which album do I think is better? Well, at the moment I’d rather listen to the arctic monkeys than anyone. Does that make it a better record? Probably not. Nearly 12 years later I still love listening to Definitely Maybe and there’s a remembered excitement and nostalgia when I do. Will I be able to say the same about the arctic monkeys in 12 years time will be a fairer way of judging the two. Of course by then, the Arctic Monkeys could either be as big, exciting and innovative as Radiohead, or bring a vague memory of a half decent album.

I'm back, and I'm sorry...

2006-01-29T13:05:00.000Z

I know it's been a long time but, honest, I ran outta gas. I had a flat tyre. I didn't have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn't come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from outta town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake, a terrible flood, locust's. It wasn't my fault!!

How is everyone? It's been a long time since I last entered the world that is blog but Christmas being Christmas I was busy with the usual parties, families and Christmas cakes, puddings and food in general. Since then things have settled down a bit but our lovely new wireless internet at home has, when it's actually working at all, been doing it's best impression of an early 90's dial-up connection. So I'm sorry that it's taken so long to actually write anything. My Christmas was good, caught up with a lot of friends and was wonderful to see all the Coles clan briefly back in Britain. Got some great presents (the 'Conversations with Bono' book is highly recommended) and got to spend some time with my family, my girlfriend and my friends which was all good.

The new years really been and gone and various lists of top 5's of the year that have been appearing all over the various blogs (although strangely as far as I'm aware only on the ones written by the male bloggers) and there's no need for any more. Then again, there's probably no real reason to add any more blog entries in this blogful world but that hasn't stopped anyone so here are my top 5's of 2005:

Music:
For me, it's not been a great year for albums. A lot of bands have written some good singles and some of the albums I've listened to most were actually released in 2004 and just slowly burnt their way into my life in 2005. That said, my top 5 albums of 2005 are:
1. Come on and feel the illinoise - Sufjan Stevens
2. Get Behind Me Satan - The White Stripes
3. You Could Have It So Much Better - Franz Ferdinand
4. The Back Room - Editors
5. Employment - The Kaiser Chiefs

And my top 5 songs of 2005:
1. Fix You - Coldplay
2. Sometimes you can't make it on your own - U2
3. My Doorbell - The White Stripes
4. Photograph - Jamie Cullum
5. I bet you look good on the dancefloor - Arctic Monkeys
Now I'm not saying these are the best albums or songs in terms of musicianship, but they are the ones I've listened to the most and the songs/ albums that have meant something to me, or excited me over the last year.
As for the worst, most annoying music of the year, for the first time in years someone has supplanted the consistently evil westlife. Congratulations James Blunt, I didn't think it was possible to mix the sheer crapness of westlife, the whinyness of David Gray and the lyrical shallowness of the pussycat dolls, but you managed it. May your huge advertising royalties provide some sort of comfort as you lie in bed knowing that you annoy as many people as seem to, for no logical reason whatsoever, buy your records.

Film:
Again, not a great year for films. There's some films I've enjoyed at the time but will never watch again (the lion the witch and the wardrobe, King Kong). There's some films that have been huge disappointments (King Kong again) but unlike with the albums and songs my top 5 of last year is actually fairly easy to write:
1. Batman Begins
2. Sin City
3. Crash
4. Serenity
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Of course, with a new trilogy Star Wars film coming out it was going to be difficult for any other film to win the prestigious honour of most disappointing film of 2005. That didn't stop many trying, with special mention going to the Fantastic 4 which only managed to stay ahead of Star Wars by having Jessica Alba appear in various states of 'highly amusing and embarrassing' undress as she came to terms with her invisibility powers (having mastered these though, I fear for the sequel). So despite other films best efforts, and despite revenge of the sith being easily the best of the new trilogy, it still is so disappointing to see a star wars film bereft of humour, character and any lasting sense of excitement that only this film could rightly be named the most disappointing film of 2005.

TV:
Unlike film and music, this year has been a wonderful year for television. I watched lots of this on DVD so to say some of it is the best of 2005 may be unfair, but this was the year that the west wing came back from its disappointing 5th season. It was the year of Doctor Who's return. But most of all it was the year that I discovered Scrubs. Therefore my top 5 are:
1. Scrubs (all 4 and a bit seasons of which I've seen for the first time this year)
2. The West Wing Season 6 (and beginning of series 7)
3. Doctor Who
4. QI
5. 24 Season 4.
And the worst thing on TV? Anything with the word celebrity in the title or that includes a public phone vote.

Other 2005 Stuff:
I'm not going to get into any top 5's here, but there are some things worth mentioning about 2005. The Make Poverty History campaign and Live8 concert is something that will stand out in my memory, as is the incredible U2 concert I went to in June.
2005 was also the year I left Scotland to return to London where things seem to go from good to better at the moment.
2005, as ever, was also a year that I managed to get over excited about some stuff that, in retrospect, wasn't really worth it (see the Hitchhikers movie and Star Wars posts for evidence of this!).
My sister and my best friend got married, I only moved house twice (which isn't bad going for me) and I got a real, proper, grown up job.

So that was 2005. Let's hope that 2006 is a great one, which so far, it has been. Already there's been an album that eclipses all of last years, the arctic monkeys - 'Whatever people say I am, that's what I'm not' which will probably be confirmed today as the biggest selling debut album ever. If you've not heard them (and where have you been if you haven't?) they're a Sheffield band that write lyrics like Jarvis Cocker, write music somewhere between the strokes, the futureheads, franz ferdinand and the libertines and are as exciting as Oasis were when definitely maybe first showed up.
And 2006 has also already got a contender for the funniest quote of the year. Lizzy, like her sister Jenny (whose 30th was happily celebrated this Friday) has a tendency to mix up their sayings whenever they try. Please post what you think she was actually trying to say when she uttered the immortal phrase: "there's no point snogging a dead donkey".

I promise to post more often this coming year. Honest!

It was 25 years ago today...

2005-12-08T15:41:00.000Z

It's very probably escaped the attention of most of you, but today it's 25 years since John Lennon was killed. The reason you probably didn't notice this is that you, unlike me, are not a very geeky Beatles fan. However, at this point I must ask a simple question: why not? The Beatles were, and in many ways still are, the most inventive, creative and exciting band that you will ever listen to. I can think of no other band that has influenced so many others, no other band that continually evolved their sound song by song and album by album. Listen to 'I Wanna Hold Your Hand' or 'She Loves you', then listen to 'In My Life' or 'Drive my Car', then listen to 'Strawberry fields forever', 'Penny Lane' or 'A Day in the Life', then listen to 'Come Together' or the the last three tracks of Abbey Road ('Golden Slumbers', 'Carry that Weight' and 'the End'). If you listen to them, you'll be able to tell it's the same band, but the stylistic changes from Rock and Roll to Rock/Pop music as actual art that the Beatles pioneered through the 60's will become completely clear and the importance of their music obvious. Of course, John Lennon was only technically a quarter of the Beatles, although artistically it was mainly him and Paul McCartney that moved the Beatles from a group of teenagers playing music they loved, to a group that was arguably the most powerful artistic force of the last century.

When someone of John Lennon's influence dies young, like with Kurt Cobain, they become in some ways bigger and more precious than maybe they ever were. People talk about what might have been, and in the case of Kurt Cobain that is completely understandable. When you listen to Nirvana's MTV unplugged and some of the demo's that have been released since his death you hear that he was still developing, still writing exciting music. With John Lennon, it's harder to think that. The Beatles had ceased to exist as a band 10 years before John was shot, in that time John wrote some great songs, 'Imagine' obviously being the one that stands out for most people, but personally, there's very little of John Lennon's solo work that equals what he created with the Beatles. If you look at what his friend and writing partner Paul McCartney has released since 1980 there are some wonderful songs ('Maybe I'm Amazed', 'The Songs We Were Singing') but there's also, as much as I hate to say it, some really bad, bored sounding stuff. Lennon and McCartney's writing partnership was probably not much of a partnership in terms of them writing songs together, but they drove each other on and pulled each other away from their more unwise choices, John would always bring Paul's too saccharine side towards the cynical and Paul would drag John's cynicism towards something more uplifting. Of course that's incredibly simplistic, you only have to listen to 'In my life' to know that John was as capable as anyone of writing a beautiful, sweet song and Paul was just as capable of writing darker, stranger music ('Elanor Rigby', 'Revolution 9) but my favourite story of them working together illustrates the point. Paul was sat at the piano playing a new song, 'getting better' to George and Ringo. He hadn't realised it, but as he was playing John had walked into the room. As he came to the chorus for the second time and sang "I have to admit it's getting better, a little better all the time", John joined in from the back of the room "It couldn't get much worse".

To write John Lennon off as a cynical, sarcastic man though is to miss the point, although he was at times both those things. In the late 60's and 70's, as crazy as some of his actions, like tying himself in a bag or lying in bed for days for peace might have been strange and slightly non-sensical, he was a man who believed love and peace were things worth talking, shouting, singing and lying in bed for. It maybe sounds quite hippy like, but it also sounds, even 25 years later, like maybe he had a point. John Lennon, along with the rest of the Beatles, has always been, to some extent, one of my heroes. He was an imperfect man that created great music and deep down believed that maybe if we were all just nice to each other and got on with each other for a change, then maybe the world would be a better place. If you look on TV tonight, the only thing you'll find that has anything to do with John Lennon is a documentary about his killer and the day he was shot. I think it's more important to remember a man that believed in peace and love and created some of the most wonderful music you will ever listen to.

The Constant Gardner

2005-12-02T19:07:00.000Z

Last night I went to see the Constant Gardner with Liz. What an incredible film. Directed by Fernando Meirelles (who also made the amazing City of God), based on a book by John La Carre (there should be an accent over the final e but can't be bothered to do that)and starring Ralph Fiennes and Rachel Weisz.

Lizzy said it was a disturbing film, and in many ways that's very true. It highlights in a very real way the level of injustice that the west forces onto the third world. The central story, which I won't ruin since there's an element of a whodunit to it, involves a British Diplomat whose wife has begun to investigate the use of an experimental drug in Kenya, where much of the film is set. It's a challenging film to watch as you are forced to realise that we, or at least I, live with a huge level of ignorance of what goes on with the permission of our country.

Whilst all these things are disturbing, part of the beauty of this film is that it's also a love story. It's a love story between the diplomat and his wife but it's also a story that's in love with Africa. The cinematography really brings out the beauty of the country and the way the African characters, although generally they are the lesser characters, show resilience, patience and above all respect and love for the people they come into contact with. With that though comes an acknowledgment of the reality of life in Africa and the tough choices that they have to make to survive. This film refuses to see things in black and white and shows the world in true gradients of grey, with flashes of beauty and true humanity shining through it.

One problem with the film though was that there was in no way any constant gardening, but then that would have been a much less interesting film.

Some Time Later...

2005-11-30T14:02:00.000Z

First of all, I'm sorry I haven't posted for a bit, it's not easy at the moment for me to get time to write my blog, or on a computer that has internet access at all for taht matter. Can't do it at work, although having said that, that's where I am now just on my lunch break, and don't seem to have much free time to write on the internet. There's a couple of reasons for that. The first is that it was my birthday last week (the 22nd) and all the going out that those birthday things usually involve, along with the birthday of my housemate who was born less than 24 hours before me.

The other reason for this, and this won't come as a surprise to most people that read this, is my new girlfriend. Now for those of you that this is a surprise for, let me assure you that this is actually James Grinnell's blog you're reading and not someone else, who has accidently posting on the wrong blog. It's actually true, I have a girlfriend! For those of you who don't know, her name's Lizzy and she's a music teacher (who can sing, hurrah!) and after three weeks it's all going incredibly well.

Anyway, enough of that. Was trying to think of something interesting to write about it being my birthday, but couldn't, so I looked up my birth date on wikipedia and these are some of the things that happened on my birthdate:

JFK was assasinated.
The Beatles released the White album.
C.S. Lewis died.
Margaret Thatcher resigned as Prime Minister.
George Eliot was born, as was Benjamin Britten, Terry Gilliam, Jamie Lee Curtis and (joy of joys) Scarlett Johansson.
It's also St Cecilia's day who is the patron saint of music!

Anyway, got to go, I encourage you to look up your birth date and see if you have any cool things that happened on your birthday. Will try and post again sooner rather than later.

Happy Birthday NME

2005-11-10T15:05:00.000Z

This week, NME has published it's 3000 edition. The first issue I brought was sometime back in the early 90's. As a teenager I actually let NME decide my taste. If they said something was good, I'd like it and if they hated something, so did I. The music scene seemed exciting in the mid 90's in a way that I haven't felt since. As Pulp, Blur, Oasis, Radiohead made life changing albums at a time when my life was changing as I slowly turned from child to adolesecnt to adult (although I'm probably still on that particular journey) and NME was there through all that.

Obviously as I grew up a bit I realised that at time NME can be as biased and wrong as any other person. Their constant need to seem much more with it than anyone else has at times frustrated me as they champion bands for months until they become popular and release a second/third album which means that they've either become boring, sold out or just plain bad. Which to be fair, is sometimes true. However in those cases NME has sometimes managed to get it spectacularly wrong (Be Here Now has NEVER been a 10/10 album!)

But on NME's birthday, I don't want to dwell on the negatives, I just want to say that without NME I might not even know some of the music I now love, or would at least have discovered it much later.

On a seperate note, went to see Elizabethtown last night, had a great night and really enjoyed the film. At times it feels like the film has lost its way a bit, but it's a great, life affirming (literally) story with a great soundtrack and I even thought Orlando Bloom wasn't bad in it.

And Kirsten Dunst is as loveable as ever in it.

Birthdays, Comedy Clubs and gigs

2005-11-07T19:16:00.000Z

Feels like I've not written anything on my blog for ages and for once that's not because I've got nothing to say but because I've got loads to say and no time, up til now, to write about it.

A couple of weeks ago I ended up going to 3 birthday parties. The first was for Denise, my friend from the bar who was turning 22, which was an interesting night. Mainly because I got there late because I was working. My friends from the bar felt that I had missed out on a few drinks and to make up for that brought me a quadruple tequila that they told me to down in one which, since they challenged both my manliness and my country (they were all South African or Australian), I was forced to drink. The second was Jake's surprise/fancy dress party. I ended up going as the edge, which mainly meant wearing what I usually wear and growing a goatee and putting on a wooly hat. I'm not usually into fancy dress, but this was a great party, if only because it was with all my new(ish) Roehampton friends and it's always good to spend time with them. Plus it was wonderful to see Jake's face as they took off the blindfold, he looked completely shocked and touched by it all. The final birthday party was James Underwood's 30th which was a great evening spoilt only by a guy who apparently was a professional musician playing guitar and singing all night. He wasn't good. In fact that's probably putting it mildly, there were various conversations based around the best way to get him to shut up, destroy the guitar, the PA or, in extreme though possibly valid cases, kill him.

Last week was also a pretty busy week. Besides the fact that work is starting to get busier, I spent every evening out at some place or another. Monday night I went to see one of my housemates debut performance at the comedy store. There were just three of us there with him and he did really well. It was a gong show, so the aim was for him to keep the audience entertained for 5 minutes. If they started booing, the compare would hit the gong and the act would have to leave the stage. Nev managed 2 minutes and 44 seconds before getting sent off, but his act was so different and he'd done it so well that he was referred to throughout the rest of the night and got to go back on stage a couple of times. They asked him back for the next gong show too, so he's obviously doing something very right.

On Wednesday night I went to see Paul Frith play a gig. Paul plays acoustic guitar and with him was a string quartet (which included James Underwood) and a trumpet player. I don't want to say it was the best gig I've ever been to, cos once you've seen the likes of U2, Paul McCartney, Radiohead a gig at a little club is never going to have the same feeling. Having said that though, although you can't compare it to those gigs, it was something very special. Paul is an amazing songwriter with an amazing voice and he created an atmosphere of true intimacy. No one spoke during his songs and there was a depth to the music that you found yourself getting completely lost in as the music seemed to inspire you on to do something yourself. It felt like he was only playing to you and the songs seems to speak directly to your soul. Sorry for the cheesiness there, but it was that sort of night.

Anyway, that's it for now. I'll try to be a bit more regular with my postings for the next couple of weeks. My main plan for this week is to see Elizabeth town, which is not only directed by Cameron Crowe (who also did Almost Famous, Vanilla Sky and Jerry Maguire) but also stars the wonderful, talented, amazing, beautiful Kirsten Dunst.

"It's the smell"

2005-10-19T17:15:00.000+01:00

Four apparently unrelated events have got me thinking. Firstly, I've started re-watching Buffy from series one. Secondly, I also watched High Fidelity. Thirdly the cassette that now sits proudly at the top of my blog and finally a conversation I had with a couple of my flat mates about owning cd's as oppose to downloading them.

And what I've been thinking is this... is all this technology/itunes/ipod stuff ruining the way we relate to music?

I'll expand a bit. The reason I think (because I haven't actually had chance to talk to Lloyd since he 'pimped my blog') there is now a cassette at the top of my blog is my love of music and more accurately my complete anality/geekiness over music to the point where I have, by some people, been likened to the main character in high fidelity. Watching high fidelity the other day, as Rob was talking about making compilation tapes, and with that reminder of the old fashioned cassette on my blog, I was thinking about all the compilation tapes I've made over the years. From the age of 11-12 I've been making compilation tapes, sometimes for me, sometimes for friends who I think should have better music taste, sometimes for girls I've liked or even on the odd occasion been going out with. As a teenager I used to spend so much time making these tapes, planning them on paper before I would spend my time getting my tapes into the right place and slowly, in real time, copying the tracks one by one onto my cheap C90 cassettes.

But what is todays equivalent of a compilation tape? If I want a friend to listen to something now, I have to get him to listen to it on my ipod or off my computer because, to save on the amount of things I'm carrying round at the moment, all my cd's are boxed up in Sheffield having first been copied to my hard drive. I can make playlists for people, but they're still limited to my ipod and my computer. I can even now easily burn cd's for people, but it's so easy to do, the care and time and thought and effort that I used to put into making a truly great compilation tape isn't needed any more, it's just a case of dragging a few track titles around and clicking burn. It's just not the same.

But the compilation tapes question is just part of something bigger that is bothering me about all this. Now every piece of music I own is basically on one disc and I can pick and choose from that list what I put on my ipod, but then I have 10gbs (depressingly small I know) worth of music on my ipod that is also on one disc. I love this idea. I love the fact that every where I go I always have with me everything the Beatles, U2, Radiohead ever recorded along with all my favourite songs, albums and a good selection of other bits and pieces of music with me wherever I go. Like I say, I love this idea, but there are a number of problems with it. First thing is that all this technology has changed the way I listen to music. It's now very rare that I will listen to an album all the way through, and when I do, it's usually an album that I know really well and love. Since I've got my ipod and my computer I don't listen to albums, I put on a playlist of my favourite songs, or choose to listen to a particular artist or genre. Why is it that there are true musicians out there carefully creating their tracklistings, making sure that one song compliments another and that there's a coherence to the music they've made. What's the point of them doing that if all I'm going to do is stick it in with everything else they've ever recorded, or worse with a whole bunch of other songs by other people? Does this new, wonderful technology mean the end of the album as an art form and that only good songs now count? More importantly, am I the only person that does this? If I am then maybe these questions are irrelevant.

Finally, I'm sure you'll be pleased to know, the buffy link. There's a character in Buffy who is (at least some of the time) a school librarian and he's having a series of arguments with the computer teacher about the importance of books over computers, finally she asks him why he doesn't like computers and he this:

Giles (the librarian): The smell.
Ms. Calendar (the computer teacher): Computer's don't smell, Rupert.
Giles: I know! Smell is the most powerful trigger to the memory there is. A certain flower or a, a whiff of smoke can bring up experiences... long forgotten. Books smell. Musty and, and, and, and rich. The knowledge gained from a computer, is, uh, it... it has no, no texture, no, no context. It's, it's there and then it's gone. If it's to last, then, then the getting of knowledge should be, uh, tangible, it should be, um... smelly.

And this is my final point. While I'm not claiming cd's are smelly, there's something that feels right about owning a cd, reading the booklet, buying it on the day it comes out, having them organised on your shelf that seems to me to show more commitment, more of a connection to the music, than simply downloading a file from itunes. Music is intangible, when it comes down to it, it's just vibrating airwaves, having something tangible like a cd somehow makes it something you can call you own and for some reason, having a file on a computer doesn't seem the same.

I still love my ipod though.

Parties

2005-10-17T17:58:00.000+01:00

This has been a weekend of two parties. Which is good as it therefore, for the first time since I moved to London, hasn't involved Zulu's in any way. On Friday night it was my cousin's son's (no, I'm not sure what that makes him in relationship to me either) 6th birthday party and I, along with the rest of the family in the area and both sets of grandparents (one set of which is obviously, probably, my aunt and uncle) had an enjoyable evening watching Isaac play with his new train set. A train set where, when the train went, the headlights on the train came on. This obviously meant, at least to Isaac, that the optimum way to watch the train go round it's short, circular track was in the dark. This meant that we spent most of the evening sat round in the dark trying to work out which of the grandparents it was that was taking a photo at any particular point. On a separate issue, how do you know what to buy 6 year olds for their birthday? I spent about an hour wandering around the toy aisles in Woolworths trying to work out what he'd like which, in my head at least, included everything from a telescope, a spiderman sticker collection and a star wars figure before I realised I was just thinking of what I'd like myself. In the end I had to give a and phone his Mum to ask some advice and apparently a book about planes was a good choice, although I did find one with stickers in.

Em and Steve's leaving party was also a nice night. I'd spent the early evening at my current housemates art exhibition watching him sell his excellent paintings and drinking the free wine, which of course was the main draw of the evening (apart from supporting my friend obviously). The leaving party was good and would have been excellent if it hadn't been for all the people their that I'd not seen for a couple of years which meant of course that I had to spend most of the night either avoiding them, which didn't seem like a nice thing to do, or having the same conversation over and over again, like my own personal groundhog day. It was nice to catch up with people though and hopefully both Em and Steve had a good, although probably slightly strange night.

The final party I want to talk about hasn't happened yet. I've been invited to a fancy dress party where the theme is pop/rock stars. I'm not very good at this fancy dress stuff so I've got no idea who I should go as or what I should wear once I know who I should go as. If anyone has any bright ideas, let me know.

Talent

2005-10-14T12:02:00.000+01:00

On Monday night I went to an acoustic night at the Half Moon in Putney and was absolutely blown away. Now, I like to think that I can play guitar a bit, sing slightly and even, in my more confident moods, think that I can maybe, you know, if I ever actually sat down and got on with it, write an occasional good song. However, Monday night showed me exactly where I stand on the scale of musical talent, and it's somewhere well and truly near the bottom. I heard about 6 people play, three girls, three lads, none of them signed, all of them amazing. The songs were outstandingly good, so much so that, if I'd had the money, I'd have brought a copy of every one of their home made cd's at £10 a copy. Unfortunately I couldn't afford to do that so had to pick my favourite, which was hard, but in the end had to be a girl called Adelaide Robarts who I fell in love with. She's beautiful, has a wonderful, sexy, raspy voice and writes songs of true beauty. I don't know if there's ever any chance of you hearing her, but if you happen to see her name outside a pub sometime, or if by some, quite deserved, miracle she does become famous then make sure you listen to her, you'll fall in love too.

Talking of talent, the more observant of you will have noticed a new look to my blog, for which I need to thank the incredibly talented Lloyd AKA 'Larddesigns'. He's a great friend of mine and told me he'd (and these are his words) 'pimp my blog' for me. I gave him my user information, logged on today and found this beautiful thing looking at me. Lloyd has an incredible knack of designing something that is uniquely his design style but also uniquely the thing, person, company, he is designing for and I absolutely love the new look he has given this site, it's very me, thanks mate.

As for my week. It's been good. Work is really starting to pick up. Spent Wednesday sat with three of our kids in their class helping them with their numeracy and hoping they wouldn't notice that I was only working things out a split second before they were. I'm not working at the pub this weekend because it's Steve and Em's (my friends I went to Cyprus with) leaving do as they're soon moving to Dubai, which is sad but means we have a party to go to and that I get a weekend away from the bar.

Not Got Much To Say At The Moment...

2005-10-10T16:12:00.000+01:00

Yeah, like you believe that. But actually it's pretty true. Still at the same house, the new job is going well but still very slow (although hopefully things will pick up a bit this week) and everything in London's going well, if not awesomely fantastically well.
There are however a few things I'd like to say about some new films and new CD's, so feel free to accept that I'm doing ok and skip the rest of this if you're not interested.

To start with, Franz Ferdinand's new album, 'It could be so much better' is excellent. Probably better than the first although there's not that smiley familiarity with the new songs yet so it's hard to tell. This albums certainly more diverse. A couple of slow songs and one that sounds almost, but not quite entirely, like the Beatles. Which is of course a good thing. Well worth getting.

Land of the Dead is a film that I was looking forward to. I love all George A Romero's zombie films (yes I know that's very sad and geek-like but I'm not only ok with that, I'm kind of proud of it too) and this one, whilst being different, is still excellent. The main difference with this film is that the zombies aren't actually the bad guys. Ok, so they're hardly soft cuddly care bears and still enjoy eating flesh, ripping arms in half, pulling out belly button rings with their teeth, you know, real zombie stuff. However, in the end, the zombies are the backdrop for a pretty standard apocalyptic earth story. You know, the one where a evil business guy has created a 'haven' which means that all the ordinary (ie not rich) people are left living in craphole and one of those guys, who started off by working for the bad guy becomes the hero and saves everyone and the bad guy gets killed at the end (not really a spoiler, if you don't see that happening in a film you probably shouldn't be watching the film in the first place and should instead go back to your Peter and Jane books). The films worth seeing though and the best bits, of course, are all about the zombies.

Serenity, is Joss Whedon's new film. He's the writer behind Buffy, Toy Story and Alien resurrection (but don't hold that against him) and so I was really looking forward to this film which is his big screen debut as a director. The film is a continuation of Whedon's cancelled tv series 'firefly' (which I now can't wait to watch) and is basically a western in space. Sort of like the original (episode IV, a new hope) Star Wars without the aliens and spiritual undertones. It's set in the future with mankind now living in a different solar system and a sort of wild west environment going on in the outer planets, which is where the crew of the Serenity, the films hero's, work and live. I'm not going to go into the plot cos I don't want to spoil it. I'm just going to say that it's funny, witty, intelligent and damn good fun. I will give you one of my favourite quotes (from very early in the film):
pilot: this is going to get interesting
Captain: Define interesting
pilot: [completely deadpan] my god, my god we're all going to die.

Finally I want to say something about Jamie Cullum's new album. He's one of those guys that I know I really shouldn't like. He's now, more than ever, middle of the road Dad music rather than the Jazz genius that I really thought he would appear to be on his albums (although from all accounts and his DVD, still is live) but I can't not like him. He's a 24 year old who just seems to have gone through such similar experiences to me that I can't help but love his stumbling, at times awkward, lyrics and his half Jazz/half pop sound. I loved twentysomething (the song) from his last album as it seemed to completely connect to how I felt. And on his new album there's a song, photograph, that I just can't get out of my head. It sort of gives me the same feeling that watching American Beauty gives me, that the world is really a beautiful place, but makes it more personal because he's talking about a life that sounds so similar to mine. Anyway, here are the lyrics in all their stumbling, awkward glory. I know they may appear to sound overly sentimental or just plain crap, but they connect with me. Listen to the album, if you like it buy it, if you don't I'd hardly blame you, it probably just means that in this case, you have more taste than me.

Photograph

Her name was written on a photograph,
right next to her red, sunburnt face,
it all had happened in that long tall grass,
about a mile from her old place,
and I can't remember how it started and if it lasted that day in the sun.

We said that we were going to study hard,
we held our books instead of hands,
she held a blanket over cans of beer,
I can't deny I was so full of fear.

It's just another story caught up in another photograph I found.
and it seems like another person lived that life a great many years ago from now,

When I look back on my ordinary, ordinary life,
I see so much magic, though I missed it at the time.

And there's the first time that I tried that stuff,
I think I look a little green,
I remember throwing up behind a bush,
and I found it hard to use my feet,
and who's that easily led little boy who's really off his head?

It was the same night that I kissed that girl,
the tall one with the auburn hair,
I remember laughing coz to kiss me,
she had to sit down on a chair!
she tasted like the schnapps she'd drunk,
and the cigarette she'd stolen from her mum.

And it's just another story caught up in another photograph I found.

When I look back on my ordinary, ordinary life,
I see so much magic, though I missed it at the time.

My New Job

2005-09-28T16:23:00.000+01:00

My new job started this week. So far I've had an induction, an office induction, a cupboard induction (no, that's not a joke) and met three kids, lots of teachers (including one very nice one!) and went to the greyhound track for a staff outing which, in case you were interested, I finished £13 up at. Actually, I'm probably being a bit glib about the work. I've actually really enjoyed it and am really starting to get a good grip on all the things I'm going to have to do, especially with the one on one mentoring stuff I'm going to have to be doing in schools.

Apart from the new job, the new/temporary house is going fine. It's a good bunch of guys that I live with and they all seem to approve of my DVD collection, which is always a good thing. Tonight I'm going with one of my new housemates (who I also now work with) and some other friends to watch the Chelsea v Liverpool match at the pub. That's once I've finished at work since I'm working at a break dancing club in 45 minutes. Don't worry though, I'm not teaching, or if at all possible, taking part in the actual break dancing, just supervising the young people.

Two Months Later

2005-09-22T16:50:00.000+01:00

A lot has changed for me in the last couple of months. I've moved from Edinburgh, via Sheffield, back to London. I've got my first professional youth work job and my first real job of any sort for a good few years. I've worked in a bar full of South Africans and, when not messing about with spits and carrying crates of beer up the seemingly endless stairs, enjoyed it. I've made a whole bunch of new friends, caught up with some very good friends and seemingly lost one or two as well (nothing I've done I might add, they just haven't been in touch with me despite my texts, but there you go).
I've shared a flat with one of my best friends, and his wife, which, whilst I was worried would be awkward since I didn't really know her that well before hand and, well, they are pretty much still fairly newly wed (they got married in February). But this has turned out to be a great couple of months of flat sharing, which ends on Saturday when I move temporarily, to share a bedroom (although, and I can't stress this enough!) not a bed with one of the guys that I've met.
All these cosmetic changes have been great and very much needed, but, and allow me a quick navel gazing moment here, over these last couple of months I've started to feel more and more at ease with myself, my work, my spirituality and started, dare I say this, to feel kind of happy and settled. A lot of the reasons for this is the amazing group of friends (both old and new) I have here and the support, friendship and encouragement they've shown me. I'm sure this feeling won't last, it usually doesn't (you see, I'm still a skeptical, cynical Northener at heart) but for now, well, things are on the up.

And just a quick word to Jo. Don't worry mate, the cleaning has tailed off a bit and, I'm sure as soon as I start work I'll be ready to do nothing as much as possible, it's just two months (with the odd day of work here and there) doing nothing can test the endurance of even the laziest do nothinger, and I don't think I'm quite of the laziest ones, although I'm sure I could get there with enough practice.

Limbo

2005-09-20T16:24:00.000+01:00

Just so you understand, when I say Limbo, I'm not talking about the good kind where attractive and athletic women prove just how flexible they are by walking, bent backwards under a pole but limbo as in 'stuck in limbo'. These last two weeks I've had no sessional work with YIP and I don't start my next job until next week so I find myself with absolutely nothing to do. This is now to the point of just lying in bed all day watching dvd's and trying to work up the energy to leave the house or think of something interesting to do when you're trying to save money, so today my highlight is going to be going online for a few minutes and later, ane you may need to grip something here in order to cope with the sheer excitement of this, get my hair cut. i never thought I'd be in a position where I'm actually looking forward to working, I've always been so good at doing nothing. What's happening to me? Is it possible I'm all doing nothinged out?

A Lot Can Happen In Two Weeks [Updated - with new added photo's]

2005-09-16T14:45:00.000+01:00

Hi everyone.
First of all another apology for not having blogged something sooner. I'm still very limited with my time on the internet, my wonderful cafe has been slightly less wonderful this last couple of weeks as the wireless network has been a touch eccentric in its willingness to work which has meant that when it has, I've had to take the opportunity to do the more boring and mundane things like check e-mails and download songs.

Another reason for not writing anything sooner is that the last time I had the chance was the day after my job interview and I was feeling pretty crap about it. I'm sure you've had the experience, but it's certainly similar to coming out of an exam and realising that all the answers you gave were so completely wrong that you're sure you gave answers on history all the way through your science exam. I can clearly remember at one point saying that I was articulate and then, as they asked the next question, and with my brain screaming at me to say something intelligent and, well, articulate, the only thing I could come up with was to say 'erm' a few times in the style of Hugh Grant in Four Weddings and a Funeral. So, that's my roundabout way of saying that I didn't want to write about my job interview because I was so depressed about it that the thought of talking about it at all was even more depressing.
However, like all those exam results, it wasn't as bad as I thought, and it turns out that I got the job! Which is obviously absolutely fantastic, exciting and basically good. I start on the 26th, so got a couple of quiet weeks and then the madness starts.

Another absolutely fantastic, exciting and basically good thing that has happened since I last talked to you all, is that England have won the Ashes! (which for the uninitiated of you is the biggest cricket victory England have had in my living memory). It was a wonderful moment, I've always been a cricket fan and to see them win against Australia was something I honestly thought I'd never see. Tuesday morning, the day after the victory, I got up early to celebrate with all the rest of the seventy odd thousand sad people that call themselves cricket fans in Trafalgar Square as the English Cricket team arrived in their open top bus and we basically celebrated, showed off and, for some reason, sang Jerusalem.

Strangely enough, for a day that started in trafalgar square, I ended up there again around 15 hours later, and yes, that was the middle of the night. At about ten thirty that evening I got a phone call from a friend of mine to say that he and his girlfriend had just landed in Heathrow and weren't getting a train home to the morning so did I want to meet them in central London for a drink? Since I didn't have to get up the next morning, I decided that it couldn't hurt, and so, having spent a few hours in a late night bar then a late night cafe, I ended up giving them the tourists walk around London at three in the morning. We went to Trafalgar Square, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, the Houses of Parliament, Downing Street, the London eye, the south bank and across waterloo bridge (my favourite bridge for a view down the Thames) and despite walking to all these places, hardly saw another person, apart from a few vaguely worried policemen watching us as we walked down the mall towards buckingham palace pointing out all the surveillance cameras cunningly hidden in the lampposts. It was an incredibly fun, funny and wonderful night as we chatted about everything, nothing and climbed on lions in trafalgar square. I got back home at seven thirty in the morning, knackered, achey and very happy.

Now, sor those who aren't sure what Lard's on about, a couple of photo's that, whilst not great because they were taking at night with no flash, illustrate the point. The first is of AJ mounting a lion in trafalgar square, the second is of Kate enjoying a the statues outside Buckingham palace:

Spitting Mad and Finally the New Phone

2005-09-02T15:26:00.000+01:00

This last week I've sort of spent in a knackered, achey haze. Last weekend (a bank holiday weekend if you remember) I worked 3 14 hour shifts on Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Now this in itself is fairly crap. Add to that the fact that I'm working for minimum wage, with no overtime and no extra pay for the bank holiday. Add to that the fact that (and remember my job is as a BARMAN) I spent all Sunday (day) learning how to make a spit and all Monday making them, as well as lugging spits, carcasses, crates and kegs of beer up and down the apparently limitless number of spiral staircases in the bloody building. It was crap, I was doing stuff that clearly doesn't fall within the job description of 'barman' and I was paid sod all for it. I was doing youthwork Tuesday, Wednesday and I'd arranged to meet a friend first thing Thursday morning, so today was the first chance I had to actually have a good, long lie in (which I did). And the fun thing? I get to start all over again at 6:00 tonight when I start my first shift of the weekend at the bar. I SO hope I get this job next week, cos then I can tell the admittedly nice people at the bar where they can stick their crappy job.

On a good note though, Orange finally sorted out my account and I got my lovely new phone today. I'm back on a Nokia (6230i if you're interested) and now I get to go home and play with it (my phone!) for a bit before I go to work. Which, as a geek, is something I'm looking forward to.

Cleaning

2005-08-25T16:53:00.000+01:00

I want to explain something. I've always been viewed as a messy person, my bedrooms, at times have been known to resemble the aftermath of a nuclear attack if viewed from inside topman, clothes everywhere with an occasional bit of carnage. Having said that, I've always maintained that, especially as far as shared rooms go, I'm as tidy as the rest of the people in the house are. So, when I lived in 'the Manse' along with three other, equally messy guys, the house was kind of a mess. Ok, not just kind of, it was possibly the messiest house I've personally ever lived in. The next house I moved into wasn't any better, but that's because it was with the same bunch of guys and when we got to the house, there were, what appeared to be small molehills in the middle of each of the downstairs rooms so we were already onto a loser with that one. Now, the next time I shared a house with Phil was about two years later. This time there were some tidier people in the house and so, the shared rooms were basically kept clean and tidy.
Fast forward another couple of years and again I'm sharing a house with Phil and (for the first time) Jenny. Jenny, as I've already mentioned is impressed with the way I've kept things clean and done the washing up. Admittedly, this has partly been to do with the level of boredom I experience when I'm not working at the moment which I still haven't found an answer to. I even found myself unable to properly get into the cricket today, although having said that I've still got a running commentary going as I type this. So today I have cleaned 'Monica style' the bathroom and the kitchen. I mean, these rooms are CLEAN!
I need help! I need a job (please let me get this part time job!). I need a girlfriend. I need something to distract me from my cycle of boredom that at this moment looks like it can only lead to me becoming *gulp* domesticated!

Something To Do

2005-08-23T16:06:00.000+01:00

Despite working two jobs at the moment, with one of them being a Saturday job (the bar) and one of them being odd days (the youth inclusion work) it means that I have a lot of spare time with nothing really to do in it. Because of this I've found myself doing lots of washing up at the flat, to the point where Jenny is holing me up as a good example to Phil when it comes to housework, and who thought that would ever happen! I've also watched a whole series of Scrubs in two days. I've read two books, 3 graphic novels, the whole run of new X-Men and the back of a packet of cornflakes. I desperately need to think of something to do to fill the days until I get a full time job (hopefully that won't be too long if the YIP thing comes through).
Maybe I could use this time productively, I could write a book or a song or, well that's all I can think of to do. If you can think of anything I could actually fill this time with, you should let me know.
On the other hand, I've still got another 3 seasons of Scrubs I can watch again.

Late Night Chats

2005-08-22T15:20:00.000+01:00

What is it about late night chats that make them so much more interesting than the normal conversations that you have? It's 2:00 Saturday night (or more accurately Sunday Morning). I've just finished an 8 hour shift at the bar. Some of the guys there have actually been working since 10:00 the previous morning. We're all knackered, we all just want to collapse. But someone suggests 'a quick drink' before we go home and before I know what's going on, I'm looking at the clock and realising that it's 4:45 in the morning. Over the last 3 hours we've gone through funny animal stories (one day I'll tell you my squirrel story, but I'll save that for when I can't think of anything else to write), our lives where we grew up, the problems of race relations in South Africa and New Zealand, the problems with the bar we work at (and how to fix them) and various other topics of conversation (I'm sure music and film came up at one point). It was a great night, even though I got home knackered and collapsed in bed til mid Sunday afternoon.

As a side note, don't you hate it when you're in a conversation and you feel that someone somewhere is entirely missing the point but you're not sure if it's you or not. When we were talking about South Africa and Apartheid, one of the guys there suggested that things were actually better under apartheid because there was no corruption, people generally had a better standard of life and that even lots of black South Africans thought so. This was one of those horrible moments when I realised I just didn't know enough about the situation and could only stutter 'erm's' and 'I'm not sure about that's' in a very English way.

London Calling

2005-08-20T14:38:00.000+01:00

I've been in London exactly a month now. It's been a mad, strange, fun, unsettling, strange (did I say that already?), great month.

The work I've been doing for YIP (youth inclusion project) has been excellent. I'm working with some great people and some wonderful kids. Ok, sometimes the kids want to tear each others heads off with their bare hands, but generally they're really good. In fact, I've enjoyed it so much that I've just applied for a permanant part time job with them which would mean (if I manage to actually get it!) that along with the two sessions a week I'm already doing I'd basically be wroking for them full time, which would be excellent.

My direct boss at YIP is a guy called Joe V who I've met a couple of times and he's a top guy. He's into some really great music and seems to know everyone, from Bloc Party, one of the actors from Garden State (the girl at the party that Zach Braff gets off with if you're interested) to Jeff Buckley's bass player. He reads NME just to look at funny pictures of his friends. Anyway, like I said, he's a great guy and we've already spent a couple of nights out together and been to a gig (where his friend blagged us all in for free to a sold out venue). Plus, when I mentioned that I was thinking of going out to LA at some point he offered to get me in touch with his actress friend, so Joe is now a friend for life, whether he likes it or not.
In fact, to be fair to all the new guys I've met, they're all top guys. Spent all day yesterday playing Football Manager with Sparky and all evening playing poker with a bunch of the guys (including one of the guys who'll be interviewing me for the part-time job, YIP's all a bit incestuous which will hopefully be good news for me).

Other than that everything else is carrying on nicely. My job all last week involved being in a park with 30 odd kids playing cricket and football (which is obviously a good thing of you're me). The bar jobs got very annoying. I showed up for work at 10:00 this morning to be told I wasn't needed til 6 and they'd lost all my details AGAIN! Plus, the tips have gone from £80 in the first week to a constant £30 which is still great, just not as great.

Anyway, still haven't got the internet sorted at my new place, but the guy who knows the password for the wireless network gets back this week, so hopefully I'll be logged onto that soon as this is the first time I've actually been able to get on the internet for about 10 days. Hope everyone's doing ok and I'll post again as soon as I have wither anything interesting to post (unlikely) or just some spare time when I'm bored (which is, lets face it, much more likely).

Here's A Tip...

2005-08-02T14:51:00.000+01:00

Think about it for a second... Have you ever tipped a barman/bargirl, ever?
No, neither have I.
You may be wondering why on earth I'm going on about this. Well, last Saturday I started a new Saturday job as a way of making a bit of extra cash. I'm working in a bar/nightclub. It's a huge place with 4 bars, two dancefloors and two giant screens. It's also completely run and frequented by South Africans, Kiwi's and Aussies to the point where it's possible I was the only English person in the whole place. It was a mad, 12 hour shift and I was completely knackered by 1:30 when we'd finally closed down and cleaned everything and got round to the staff drinks.
However, it was all worth it because I made Â£80 in tips! That's right Â£80 just for serving drinks. No food or waitering, just working at a crazily mad bar. And I still get my actual wages! I don't know whether this is a Southern Hemisphere thing, or just something that we Brits don't do, but I'm glad that I'm working in a South African bar now!

It's Just Not Cricket!

2005-07-29T14:50:00.000+01:00

Ok, to start off with I'd like to say how cool it is to be sat in cafe nero on my own computer using the wireless network. It's so good to be able to use my mac again after a month of annoying PC's!

Anyway, last night went out with a couple of friends to the pub. Apparently the latest craze with these particular friends is to play darts. Now, I've never played much darts but I have dabbled and since with my competitive instincts I realised that there were three of us and that (as far as I knew) only two people play darts at a time, I was hoping to be able to avoid complete humiliation by simpy, gracefully, allowing them to play while I watched.
No such luck.
They introduced me to a game called cricket (which has very little to do with the real game I might add) and unfortunately, this game can be played by three people. One person 'bowls' by throwing three darts, if they hit the bullseye, the 'batsman' they are bowling at is out and becomes the bowler. The batsman then gets to score in the usual darts way before the bowler then gets to bowl at the other batter. The first person to get to a pre-determined score is the winner. And, through a combination of sheer luck and a bit of skill... ok just through sheer luck, I won the first game! And was then rightfully destroyed in every other game we played.
It feels like I'm starting to find my feet in London now. Or at least, I've found the dart board.

We apologise for the delay...

2005-07-27T16:40:00.000+01:00

To start with, an apology, I’m sorry that it’s been so long since I actually wrote anything on my blog. This is mainly because my last few weeks have been completely mad.

I spent half my last week in Sheffield staying at my sisters and her husbands in Derby. Which was nice, but fairly uneventful. Although we did spend a day at Alton Towers, which was the worst trip to Alton Towers I’ve ever been on. It now costs £30 to get in and it was so busy that for my 30 quid I got to go on 6 rides and spent 2 and a half hours in one queue. When I got back, I had two days to sort all my stuff out for my move to Putney, London. So how did I sped that time? Packing and sorting? No. I spent those two days going out with my friends, watching the first Ashes test and sanding down a bench for my Nan. All this meant that, on Friday night, having been cooked for by Tina’s boyfriend (who is a wonderful chef by the way) and going out with Zoe and some of her work friends in Chesterfield and getting in at about 2:00 I had to then sort all my stuff out before leaving at 9:00 the next morning. I did have a great night out though. At one point we were in a place called the beach bar which served its beer in neon pink pint glasses, which I wasn’t a particular fan of, but they played some excellently cheesy music (think the blues brothers, madness, los lobos, early Beatles) and then we went to a club where Zoe’s friend blagged us all into the VIP section so it was all a lot of fun.

I am now writing this sat in my new favourite coffee shop on Putney high street. It makes great coffee and has internet access, which is great since the place that I’m living at the moment doesn’t. It’s wonderful, strange and weird to be back in London. I’m staying with my best friend and his wife, which I was worried would be awkward, but so far (after 4 days) hasn’t been. I start my new Youthwork job next Wednesday and at the moment I’m looking for a second job somewhere, although hopefully got one lined up at a local pub, just waiting to hear back from them. Anyway, that’s all I’ve got to say really at the moment. It all feels very much like a new start, just not sure what it’s the start of yet.

And I promise to try and update my blog more often now I’m a bit more settled, if nothing else it’s a good excuse to have a good cup of coffee.

Crickets, Bombs and Mobile Phones

2005-07-08T23:10:00.000+01:00

Yesterday was a strange day.
I went to my Auntie and Uncles. I did this for a couple of reasons. Firstly because when I'm in Sheffield I have to go and see them, and secondly, if I am going to see them I might as well take advantage of the fact that they have Sky Sports and go on a day when I can watch England again beat Australia at cricket, which we did. However, at about 10:30, as the news came in about the bombs in London the day took a distinctive turn for the worse. I knew that where the bombs went off was no where near where any of my friends or family live or work. I knew that most of them would have been either at work or in bed at that time in the morning. But my immediate reaction was to worry about them. It wasn't until I'd heard from them that the whole weight of what had happened hit. I'd been lucky, but there would be people that weren't and that wouldn't be able to get through to their friends and family. But after realising this, I turned back over and watched the cricket. There just didn't seem to be anything else to do.

I've also got to say that, despite my moaning about him in the past, Tony Blair has done nothing but impress me over the last few days. His chairmanship and diplomacy in the G8 summit has led to some great results for Africa. Ok, there's still along way to go with both fair trade and the environment, but 50 billion in less restricted aid and a commitment that everyone will have access to Aids medication by 2010 is fantastic. As is the commitment to continue talks on trade and the environment. But not only has our Prime Minister done this, but he has reacted to the bombing with dignity, compassion and a determination to do the right thing at the same time as not allowing the terrorists to disrupt the G8 meeting. For the first time in a while, I was proud that he was our Prime Minister.

Today has been a relaxing, ok, lazy day. I've listened to some good music. Talked to some good friends, and been given a free phone upgrade by Orange, which I'm sadly excited about.

Back in Sheffield

2005-07-06T21:32:00.000+01:00

I'm back in Sheffield now. Sat in the room I grew up in, the walls still decorated with the blue and white paint I chose when I was 10, along with the border of ships and planes that I thought was great 16 years ago. But there the similarity to the room I grew up in ends. It's now more of a store room with a bed and my Mum and Dad's computer in it than anything else. And I'm having to use that computer since my powerbook won't connect to their aol service and if you try and do more than one thing on it at a time, it crashes. Which made one of my friends comment that it is obviously a bloke! If this is true, then maybe I finally understand what you women have to put with from us, since this is now the third time I've tried to write this entry and each time I tried to coax a bit more life out of it, it crashed. If this is what it's like to try and cope with a bloke, I can only apologise.

The trip from Edinburgh to Sheffield went fine. Alastiar kindly drove me and my small amount of possessions in the Granton Minibus and Sam and Hannah kindly kept us company on our road trip. It was all good, if tinged with the usual boredom of long distance driving, which was relieved with a bizarre game where we listened to Hannah's ipod and had to mime to the others the lyrics of the song so they could try and guess what it was, especially funny when Hannah tried it!

It's very strange suddenly having absolutely nothing to do. No essays (hurrah!), no clubs, no meetings, no work, nothing. All I have to do is lie in and catch up with friends, so it's obviously going to be a hard three weeks! The boredom is of course put off since I get to talk to some wonderful people, both here and in the strange world of msn.

Last night I got to go out with two of those wonderful people, Tina and Zoe. We went to the forum, which I love, for some Salsa dancing, which I in no way love. Don't get me wrong, I love the music, I just have an ineptness at dancing that is surprising considering the great sense of rhythm I have when it has nothing to do with dancing. Luckily though, Zoe wasn't particularly excited about the dancing, and Tina, whose idea it was, was still too tired from her previous night out to do anything but sit, drink and chat. Which we did, and had great fun. I won't recount the conversation, but I will give you my favourite (anonymous) quote of the night:
"I always used to hear my parents having sex, just not with each other!"

A Middle, End and Beginning

2005-07-04T00:37:00.000+01:00

Yesterday it felt like we were in the middle of something.
And when I say we, I mean we in one of the wider senses of the word. I mean we as in 'we are the world'. As I walked with 200'000 people round the streets of Edinburgh, as I got home and watched live8 unfold on the television, as I listened to Kofi Annan look out across Hyde Park and say simply 'this is the true United Nations, thank you', as I watched two of my heroes, U2 and Paul McCartney sing together and heard U2 again sing 'One' like a prayer, a statement, a judgement and a vision of the future. As I experienced all those things, I knew that there were millions of people around the world who were feeling the same thing. And what we were feeling was that we were in the middle of something. We were in the middle of history. We were in the middle of a unique situation where 'we the people' were, in Will Smith's words, recognising that we needed to be interdependent and were taking responsibility for what goes on in the world. I don't know how much yesterday wil change what happens. But if democracy is truly the leaders following the will of the people, admittedly idealistic I know, but if that is true, then the people have spoken. Let's hope Blair, Bush, Putin, Martin, Chirac, Schroeder, Berlusconi and Koizumi were listening.

Today was the end of my two year residence in Granton. It's been a weird kind of day. Helped with the end of term bbq at club where I spent my time dj-ing from my laptop, spent all afternoon packing then went to my 'surprise' fair well that had been so well put together by my friends. They gave me a t-shirt that had a photoshopped Spiderman 2 poster where they'd replaced half of my face with Toby Maguire's on the ripped half of the mask (I'll try and get a photo). Felt sad to be leaving today. Still have some great friends here and I still care about the work that's going on in Granton very much. I don't regret my decision but I felt sadder at the end of today than I thought I would, despite a great evening.

Tomorrow's a new beginning though. It's almost like I'm starting from zero again. Sure I'm moving back with friends, but they've all moved on in the past couple of years and yes they're still my friends but it's going to be a new dynamic, especially now so many of them are married. Going to spend a great 3 weeks in Sheffield first though, catching up with friends and having a proper summertime like in the 6th form days, even if everyone else will be working! So the next few weeks are all about new beginnings and old friends.

MSNation

2005-06-30T23:38:00.000+01:00

I've not been too well these last couple of days so I've spent today at home, I would have been extremely bored but for the fact that I got to spend time talking to some great friends. One is in the states, two in Sheffield, some in London and one in Greece. Now, if I'd spent the ammount of time talking to these people on the phone that I did, I would now own telewest more money than I have in my account. Instead, I owe nothing. Well nothing more than the broadband line rental. MSN is a wonderful thing. True you can't actually hear or see the person (unless you use a mic, a webcam and don't use a mac) but you can spend as long as you want talking, remeniscing, learning, advising (hope you like the film Jo), joking and having as good a conversation with your friends, with the added bonus that you get to distract each other from the things that you should actually be doing, like work.

On a seperate note, had possibly the most bizarre phone conversation with Sam and Hannah today:
[the phone rings, I answer]
Me: Hello?
Sam: Hi, it's me. Where do Nuts come from?
Me: The grow on trees
Sam [to Hannah]: they grow on trees.
Hannah [in background]: really?
Sam: really?
Me: yes, have you not heard of acorns, or chestnut trees?
Sam: of course, chestnut trees.
hannah [in background]: what about Peanuts?
Sam: what about peanuts?
Me: tree
Sam: ok
Me: why?
Sam: we were just talking about it. bye
[phone goes dead]

There's simpy nothing I can say to follow this.

The Beginning of the End

2005-06-27T21:46:00.000+01:00

I'm now into my last week in Scotland and I'm really not sure how I feel.
Today was the last youth club I'll work at in Granton. We had a barbeque and the young people, as usual, tried to kill each other. I was kind of dreading today, wasn't sure how I'd feel and now that it's over, I'm still not sure how I feel. If anything I just feel numb. You see, when I started work at this youth club, I really wanted to make a difference to the young people here. I wanted to help them move forward with their lives, help them learn that kicking each other isn't necessarily the best way of showing their friendship. Looking back over the two years that I've been there, I'm not sure I've done any of that, not sure I've made the difference that I wanted to. I just hope that in the future, someone will be able to.

Of course, I've still got a week before I leave. Which means that I still need to sort out and pack all my stuff. Still need to catch up and say bye to everyone here. And I still have some stuff to do at Granton, there's the kids club I help at on Wednesday, and the big community Barbeque on Sunday before I leave at the beginning of next week.

Right now though, there's a hollow feeling in my chest, like I should be feeling something, I'm just not sure what.

Glastonbury

2005-06-26T21:41:00.000+01:00

The last three days I've spent all my evenings sat watching the tv wishing I was somewhere else, and for a change the somewhere else wasn't somewhere sunny by the sea, it was a muddy field in Somerset. I've not been to Glastonbury since 1997, and that seems a long time ago at the moment. 1997 was the year that got so muddy there were actually cases of trench foot, the year that Radiohead played the gig of their lives and it was still in the time where you just showed up, chucked your stuff over the fence, went under the fence and didn't worry about tickets. Since then, Glastonbury has had to tighten up on security, now the fence is 10 foot tall and patrolled by professional security rather than the off work farm hands that I'm sure used to do it. This means that the only way to get to Glastonbury is, quite fairly I suppose, by buying a ticket. 122'000 tickets went on sale and within three hours they were sold out as 2 million people were left disappointed. I was one of the disappointed ones. Just to rub my nose in this, I've had three texts today from three separate friends who are all there enjoying themselves and seeing all the bands that I want to see.
Luckily, the bbc's coverage this year has been fantastic and I've got to see nearly all the bands I wanted to. To be honest, I wasn't very impressed with the first day. The Killers were excellent but the white stripes (who were headlining), as good as they were, just didn't seem to fit into the huge Glastonbury stage and atmosphere. Yesterday however, was brilliant. The Kaiser Chiefs played an incredible set, they're the new band everyone will be talking about like Snow Patrol and the Scissor Sisters were last year. Athlete played a nice set, although it seemed a bit jaded to me. Ash were as excellent as ever playing a greatest hits set including my personal favourite 'Girl From Mars'. Keane spoilt it a bit by showing up and singing their nicely dull songs, I love Noel Galagher's comment about Keane 'the biggest three twats in a band are always the drummer, the keyboard player and the lead singer, need I say more?'. But keane left and Coldplay came on and blew everyone else away. The Coldplay set was immense, Chris Martin was on top form messing about with the lyrics and getting the crowd singing along with every song. they even did a cover of Kylie's 'can't get you out of my head' since she was supposed to be headlining today, but had to pull out because of her breast cancer, which she is now recovering from. At the same time on the other stage, Razorlight were showing that despite having only one album they were worthy of a headline spot.
Today's lineup wasn't quite as good. The Bravery, from the two tracks I saw, were excellent. Brian Wilson sang the Beach Boys greatest hits, which is always going to be good to listen to (if you like the beach boys). The recently reformed La's played 'there she goes' and it sounded as good as ever. Other than that today's been fairly disappointing so far, with only primal scream (who I'm not a huge fan of) and Ian Brown (who will be great if he plays some old Stone Roses stuff) to go. It's been great to watch though.
There's something wonderful about live music, even when you're watching it on the tv. I love the look on bands like the Kaiser Chiefs face when they suddenly realise there are 30'000 people singing along to the songs they wrote. Music somehow manages to draw people together in a way no other art form, or anything else I can think of for that matter, can. That's why the U2 gig was so powerful, and why Coldplay and whatever other band you happen to love listening to are so special, because they draw people together and just for a couple of minutes, remind you that there's other people in the world that think and feel like you do.

Coffee and TV

2005-06-25T18:10:00.000+01:00

It's sort of disconcerting when you suddenly find out that more than the three or four people that you know are reading your blog.
For a long time, ok let's not get too carried away here, for the few months I've been writing this blog thinking, probably quite rightly, that there are about four friends of mine who actually read it. In fact, the only reason I started writing this blog in the first place was because one of my best friends had moved to the states, was writing one of her own and told me I should too. However, somewhere in the back of your mind you have this vague idea that maybe, possibly in one of those million to one chances, someone has stumbled across your blog. They've read it and, if not enjoyed it more than anything they've ever read ever, at least found it mildly amusing, interesting or just the right side of weird to be fun to read. However, when you suddenly get comments, then e-mails from someone in an entirely different country that has not only been 'following your blog for a while' but had apparently been slightly evangelical about your blog to the point where there are other people that I've never even heard of reading it, it comes as a bit of a surprise. What makes it more surprising is when the person who has somehow stumbled across your blog happens to be a professional writer, so should be able to recognise the nonsense that is written here for what it is and yet somehow manages to enjoy it anyway. This is all a fairly long winded way of saying a couple of things.

Firstly, as I have probably already mentioned, it's sort of disconcerting to discover that there are other people reading this inane drivel. Since I've found out about this I've been very aware when writing that there should be something of interest or at least something fairly funny to write. Unfortunately, my life is neither particularly interesting or funny at the moment.
I've actually spent the majority of the last couple of days sat watching wimbledon on the tv with a cup of coffee and while this has been perfectly pleasent, hardly classes as interesting and certainly doesn't come close to being funny. When I've not been watching wimbledon, I've been watching Glastonbury. I tried to get tickets this year, but wasn't one of the lucky 112'000 that got tickets out of the 2'000'000 that tried to get them. What I saw of the first day was good, but not mindblowingly so like the last couple of years have been. The Killers were excellent a great set with one of those great moments where the whole crowd take over the singing. The White Stripes were there usual brilliant selves, and the one song (yes, only one, what's wrong with the bbc?) that we got to see from Babyshambles was excellent. Other than that though, and a great couple of songs from The Tears who were the day one headliners of the John Peel (whose comments I missed on the BBC coverage, it's not the same without him) stage, there was nothing aprticularly strong or good. Today should be much better though, I've already seen the highlghts of a great set by the Kaiser Chiefs and a couple of songs from Athlete and KT Tunstall, and Coldplay are eadlining this evening so there's still a chance that it will be another great Glastonbury.
Anyway, back to the point. So now as I write this, I find myself slightly nervous about posting it knowing that there are people who have very little idea who I am reading it and actually hoping it will entertain them, hope I don't let them down.

Secondly, since my Greek friend first commented on my post, I've had the priveledge of chatting on msn a couple of times and now of reading her blog (Froth on the Daydream) since she's now translated it into English. It's very bizarre getting to know someone over the internet, but despite that, it's been great to talk to someone new and someone with such great taste, I'm talking about films and music at this point, not her choice in blog which can only be described as slightly odd.

So that's been my last couple of days. Wimbledon, Glastonbury, cups of coffee and a new friend. Not particularly interesting or funny, but I'm sure I'll think of something for tomorrow.

Like a long summer day

2005-06-24T00:08:00.000+01:00

Now that's been a proper summers day, you know, like the ones that you had in those long summers between A-levels and uni holidays? Ok, it didn't involve a party or a bbq or an evening in the pub like those summers invariably did, but the day itself, well... Got up early in the afternoon, sat talking to some friends in Sheffield, who I'd spent those long summers with, on msn while I watched Tim Henman go out of Wimbledon and listend to the BBC cricket commentary as Australia destroyed England. Went for a walk in the sun then went out with my friends to the cinema to see Batman Begins.

Really enjoyed the film. It's a REAL batman film, the batman from the comics. The batman that is truly scary to the criminals. The batman that moves in the shadows and you never see unless he wants you to see him. In the fight scenes, you didn't see batman, you just watched the thugs as they were picked off one, two or seven at a time. The story grounded what batman was capable of in reality. For once you actually believed that someone could do the things that a superhero is doing on screen without having to completely suspend your sense of reality. Maybe that's why when I came out of the cinema I wasn't sure how I felt. I'm used to having to justify a film in terms of it's version of reality, this film didn't need me to do that, it just needed me to accept that someone would go to immense lengths to make the world a better place, and luckily that someone happened to be a multi-billionaire with a company that happened to make state of the art weapons. Ok might have just ruined my own argument there, but maybe not. Either way, it was a good film and one that will make its way into my DVD collection.

And just so that the day had even more echoes to those long summers, I got home and watched an old episode of Shooting Stars that happened to be on tv.
Weird how things repeat themselves eh.

U2

2005-06-22T14:18:00.000+01:00

It's 2:30 in the afternoon and I've just woken up with legs that feel as if all the tissue apart from the nerves have been replaced with lead. The nerves are obviously still working since they're repeatedly telling me that they hate me for the abuse they've had over the last few days, the football, the long walks and now a whole evening standing and a lot of jumping about. It was worth falling out with my legs though, because last nights U2 gig was incredibly, wonderfully awesome.

I've been lucky enough to see some great live bands. I've seen Coldplay, Oasis, the Manics, the Vines, Radiohead, Blur, even seen Paul McCartney sing 3 hours of Beatles songs (which was also wonderful), but last nights gig was possibly the best gig I will ever go to. The sound that these four people manage to create is truly incredible. The music was wonderful, U2 have some amazing songs and they sound even more powerful and beautiful live. As I stood 6 foot from Bono, the Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen you could see the relationship between them, see as they worked together and how Bono led them through the set. There were little moments when Bono or the Edge would improvise at the end of a song, and the rest of the band responded and went with it. And they played pretty much every song that you'd want them to play. This was the set list:-

'Vertigo'
'All Because Of You'
'The Electric Co.'
'Elevation'
'New Year's Day'
'Beautiful Day'
'I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For'
'Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses'
'City Of Blinding Lights'
'Miracle Drug'
'Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own'
'Love And Peace Or Else'
'Sunday Bloody Sunday'
'Bullet The Blue Sky'
'Running To Stand Still/Walk On'
'Pride (In The Name Of Love)'
'Where The Streets Have No Name'
'One'
'Zoo Station'
'The Fly'
'With Or Without You'
'Yahweh'
'Vertigo'

The music was incredible, but that wasn't what made this gig so special. There was a power behind the music that wasn't just the quality, there was a real honety behind what they said and sing. As they dedicated 'running to stand still' to Daw Aung San Suu Kyi (the democratically elected president of Burmah who this week celebrated her 60th birthday and her 2,523rd day under military detention, under house arrest) and 40'000 people cheered as the UN statement of human rights appeared on the screen, then later as Bono told us "This is the year and this is the moment. Make Poverty History is only a slogan, but behind it is sense. This is the start of the twenty-first century, we can eliminate apartheid, slavery and poverty, and make sure that the journey to equality goes on." and the crowd cheered, and the band kicked into 'Where the streets have no name' it felt like a moment that could change history. Not the concert, but the idea that there were 40'000 people that agreed with Bono, with me, made me feel like maybe the whole Make Poverty History thing could actually make a difference. As the band sang about love, about peace, about co-existence, there was a real truth and depth to what they sang and how the crowd responded. It was a spiritual experience, an emotional experience (yes, there were definite tears in my eyes as they went from 'walk on', through the human rights and into 'pride in the name of love') and that made the concert really stand out from others.

Oh, and I was stood 6 foot from Bono, the Edge, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen and they rock harder and truer than any other band I've ever seen.

Contrasts

2005-06-20T23:47:00.000+01:00

The last couple of days have been days of real contrast. Had a bbq on the beach, which was both unusual and great fun. Other than that though I've been feeling in a real state of limbo. Not really any use here anymore since we're down to our last week of youthclubs. Just really ready to get out of here, but can't go for another couple of weeks. Plus, the number of essays I still have to do is ridiculous. Admittedly that's mainly due to my more relaxed attitude to deadlines (I love the Douglas Adam's attitude to deadlines, he said that he 'loves deadline, especially the whooshing noise they make as they go by').
On Sunday night I got dropped off from a Make Poverty History thing (where I played plugged in for the first time in ages and it didn't go too bad). Still feeling pretty lousy, but there was an incredible sunset, so I decided to go for a walk along the coast with my ipod. As I walked along, listening to the Abbey Road finale (which everyone should try and do this week, tracks 14,15&16 of the Beatles Abbey Road) on one side of the road I was looking at this:

Sorry if you can't make it out but the only camera I had with me (or actually have for that matter) is a crappy phone camera. If you can't make it out, it's a dump with a burnt out caravan. It's a horrible mess.

However on the other side of the road was this:

An amazing sunset! And there was how I was feeling, somewhere on the horizon I can see something good, I'm just stuck in a horrible mess at the moment.

By the way... I'm going to see U2 tomorrow, it's a beautiful day! (sorry for that, I promise no bad uses of lyrics ever again).

Dull Days

2005-06-18T18:22:00.000+01:00

Ok. So you know how I was telling you about the football match? Well, I survived, just. My asthma kicked in after about 5 minutes of playing so had to sit out for a bit so I could get on with that pesky breathing thing that's supposed to be so easy. Luckily we had a couple of extra players so I didn't cause a problem for the team as I sat, sadly gasping for breath. After about 10 minutes, and a bit of the magic ventolin, I got up, got back on the pitch and amazingly didn't completely embarrass myself. Even managed a couple of good touches, passes, tackles and to set up a goal. Actually really enjoyed it, despite the way it managed to prove exactly how unfit I am.

Apart from that I've had two extremely dull days. Tried to do some work on my next essay, but couldn't be bothered so have spent the last couple of days watching scrubs at the same time as staring at my essay. Other than that, I've spent a bit of time learning how to use unicode, got sucked into a food fight (I mean, seriously, a food fight, what am I 5? I hate that I get sucked into that stuff) and discovered, through another blogger who has for some unknown reason decided that reading my blog is actually entertaining, a wonderful photographer. His name is Michael Kenna, check out his website.

Also, just downloaded the new Tears album. I was never the biggest Suede fan, I liked the first couple of albums but haven't listened to them (apart from 'the beautiful ones' which is a song I really love) for ages. The Tears were formed by the lead singer and original lead guitarist of Suede in case you were wondering where the Suede thing came from. Their new, and debut album is brilliant. It sounds like as couple of guys that grew up writing and playing together that have finally got together to write about their lives. Beautiful.

Lazy Days

2005-06-17T00:38:00.000+01:00

I've been incredibly lazy today. Ok, I'd had a VERY late night on Tuesday, but had a lie in Wednesday before getting back here for club, but still didn't get up today til gone midday. The plan was to work on the next of my gazillion essays, but after a coffee and 20 min sat at my computer, gave in and headed to Sam and Hannah's to do (and these are Sam's words) 'something fun'. Apparently what this translates as is me sitting on the settee watching re-runs of 'all creatures great and small', which I loved as a kid and made me want to be a vet until I realised you had to know stuff about science, while Sam played a version of arkanoid on the computer. Not complaining really, actually enjoyed a day of doing nothing. Got home about 40 minutes ago so I could watch the highlights of England beating Bangladesh by 10 wickets at cricket today, and yes I realise that I'm the only person I know that cares about cricket, let alone England winning at it.

There was one heart-attack inducing incident today when, as I sat watching the Simpsons, the window directly (as in 20cms behind my head) smashed when a kid outside through a stone through it. Luckily I wasn't hurt, but it certainly got the adrenaline going, in the same way as when you have a bit of an accident in a car, so was a bit shaky for a bit.

I also arranged for what could be a heart-attack inducing event tomorrow when a friend called to ask me to play football for his workplace tomorrow afternoon. Couldn't think of a good excuse other than 'I'm crap and unfit' which I was never going to say, so tomorrow at 4:30 I'll be playing a competitive football match for the first time in about 10 years. If I survive, I'll tell you about it tomorrow.

A Hello Goodbye Kind of Day

2005-06-15T17:42:00.000+01:00

Just got back from Glasgow. Yesterday was full of goodbyes to people and places, although I got to meet a couple of new people and places as well. I had my last lecture yesterday afternoon, which I was extremely happy about as I was able to say goodbye to college. In the evening I celebrated with some of the third years that were also leaving, then went out with Pete and Michaela. Pete has been a really good friend over the last couple of years and he's heading to London tomorrow to work at Wimbledon and brush shorts with, he hopes, Maria Sharapova, but which is much more likely to be Sir Cliff Richard, so it was a chance to say goodbye and have a good night out. Actually, I had a wonderful night.
Went to Bar Go, which has been a regular haunt of mine and Petes for two years. It's very chilled and they usually play some funky background music. They also project films (without the sound) and last night, for the first, and probably last time, Pete managed to beat me to working out what film it was (Silence of the Lambs if you're at all interested). After Bar Go we headed across town to go to a club called 'the garage' which promised us free entry and good music, and surprisingly delivered on both.
On the way there though we stopped off at 'nice 'n' sleazy's' which is a place AJ, a friend of ours from college, is always telling us we should go. As we were walking in, AJ was walking out, so he came back in to join us for a drink. Asked how his day had been, AJ came out with the best quote we'd heard for ages when he said "I got up way too early in the afternoon". Nice 'n' sleazy's turned out to be a great bar. Full of life and excellent music. Just sorry I found it on my last night out in Glasgow for a while.
The club was good fun, me, Pete and Michaela dancing away to Pulp, Ash, the Libertines, Kaiser Chiefs, Franz Ferdinand, the Killers, Oasis, why had I not been there before? Anyway, ended up there til about 3:30 then got a kebab on the way to Petes where I collapsed in a knackered, happy pile and woke up way too early in the afternoon.

An Evening of Sin

2005-06-12T23:10:00.000+01:00

No, it's not what you think. I just got back from seeing Sin City and WOW!
First thing to say is that this is a beautiful looking film. It's based on a comic book and it looks like a comic in a way no film has managed before. But we're not dealing with a bright spandex filled comic, this comic book film is all about darkness. It's nearly all in black and white but every now and again there's a splash of colour, a red tail light, blue eyes, yellow bastard (the character's name as well as a description), a character to fall in love with. It's all just so visually stunning and, well, beautiful, which is in stark contrast to the film itself.
Sin City is a place of deprevation, depression and desperation. The Old Town is run by the hookers, the rest of the city by the mob and the overly corrupt police. As the film goes on we see snapshots of lives as we follow three main storylines through the streets of the city. The three main storylines all get their heroes, but these aren't heroes like you'll find in a superman comic, this film is all about shades of grey, and the heroes are just the people that kill and torture for honourable reasons. They're flawed, short sighted and in at least one case probably psychotic, but in the violent world of sin city violence needs to be met with violence. And it is violent. Hyper-realistic, white, yellow and red blood splatted violence that at times made me cringe, laugh and cheer, sometimes all at once. The film is brilliantly cast. The lines, taken straight from the comic, could easily have sounded cheesey or just plain crap, but this cast pulls them off and they just feel right.
Ultimately, this film isn't for everyone. I saw this with Hannah and Sam, who both hated it. Maybe it's a boys film, there's certainly a large amount of guns and flesh on display, but I think whether you like this film or not will come down to the films, books and comics you have or haven't loved before.

A Couple of Happy Things.

2005-06-12T17:29:00.000+01:00

Last night I went to my first Ceilidh (a sort of Scottish dance thing). It was a friend from colleges 21st and it was suprisingly really fun. I only got up for a couple of dances, but the first will be memorable as I danced with Michalea (another Ceilidh virgin). During the seemingly endless dance we proved that not only were we unsure exactly what a Docy-do[sp?] is, we also had no understanding of how to do one without banging our backs together and apologising to, or blaming the other person, for getting it wrong. It was a great night though, and anyone interested in seeing a couple of pictures should check out Michaela's blog. Another reason that this was such a good night was to see Pete and Michaela together. Pete is one of the few people that has made this last couple of years bearable, he's a good friend, and a good laugh. He got together with Micheala (and I could be a bit dodgy with my timescale here) about 3 weeks ago, but for a lot of that I've been away. Seeing Pete looking so pleased with the world as he sat and drank wine with Micheala was fantastic. There's something great about seeing your friends happy, and happily I've seen a lot of my friends look that way this past couple of years.

On a completely seperate and even more joyful note, it was announced yesterday by Gordon Brown that $55 billion of Third World debt has been wiped clean! This is incredible and wonderful news. Gordon Brown actually said that "the deal would not have been possible without the pressure that has been put on finance ministers by churches, campaign groups and the public" which is exactly what I, and a lot of my friends have been doing for the last few years so it's amazing to see something begin to happen. There's still lots to do, but lets hope that this momentum carries on to the G8 summit in July.

Doing the Right Thing

2005-06-10T13:02:00.000+01:00

Do you ever get that feeling that no matter what you do, it's wrong?
I've got that feeling a lot at the moment. In deciding to move from Edinburgh, back to London I have, I hope, made the right choice. However, in making that choice, there are some things that have suffered (college, Granton, my friends) and that sucks. You try and do your best by everyone, but eventually you have to end up getting it wrong somewhere so that you can get it right in the end (again, I hope).
Now the worst part of these sort of decisions for me, is when the decision I want to make isn't neccesarily the right decision over all. You end up doing the 'right thing' but feeling like that's the last thing in the world you actually want to do, and the longer you live with that decision the more it annoys you that you've had to make that decision in the first place.
I guess it's all part of this whole selfless thing. I sometimes wish that I could be completely selfish for a bit.

Holiday Photo's and a New Look

2005-06-09T16:44:00.001+01:00

The more visually astute of you will by now have noticed that there's a new look to my blog today. There's two reasons for this. Firstly that I was bored with the dull black thing I had before, and secondly because I'm supposed to be essay writing today and so have been procrastinating by messing about with my blog and learning how to put photo's onto my blog so I could show you a few of my holiday photo's that I got through from Em today.

I know holiday photo's are generally boring to people that weren't there, but basically just wanted to show you a few of them becasue Em took some of them and they're really good, and also (in the case of the first one only) to rub all your collective non-holiday going noses in the fact that this is how I spent the majority of last week:

On the Beach:

Ok, that's it for the gloating. Here's just some nice photo's that you can click on if you want to see bigger (I did a lot of procrastinating today!):

Snorkelling (we saw an octupus you know):

Si and Jo at Sunset:

The Fool on the Hill:

Cute!

2005-06-08T23:17:00.000+01:00

I got called 'cute' twice today. Let me make something clear. If there's one thing a guy (in the non-generic sense this time) does not want to be called, it's cute! Baby's are cute. Kids can, when they're not doing their best impression of satan on a bad day, be cute. Your girlfriend (if you're lucky enough to have one), when she does that shy smile thing when you embarrass her, is cute. I am not cute. I can be good looking, although this is completely reliant on a girl having bad taste and probably having drunk a bit too. I can be 'kind of attractive in a non-attractive way' (a direct quote from an ex!). But I am not cute. Cute to a guy (or at least to me) means 'you're someone I find in no-way attractive and think you look kind of comical in a puppy sat in it's own urine type way'.

And another thing. Had a coffee today with Rosie, the friend who complains when I say I don't like Edinburgh. We were talking about guys and girls, and inpaticular about the whole actually finding out if someone likes you or not thing. I'd told her the other night about a girl I'd been texting, and how, after three days of us both sending texts she'd stopped. I told her this thinking that she'd be able to give me a female perspective on the situation. Was she any help? Well, eventually yes. But first had to go through being called cute (for the first time today), AND THEN being called a girl because I was actually worrying (well, maybe not worrying but certainly very interested) about what was going on with this girl. Just let me make something else clear. Guys actually think about these things too. Sure there are some guys that don't, just like there are some girls that don't, but the majority of us who are actually looking for a girlfriend, rather than a quick snog/shag, are absolutely as clueless about girls ways of showing whether they do (or more often don't) like you as girls are about guys. It's true. We just dont talk about it as much as girls do, but then that's probably true about most things.

And by the way, 24 hours now without any Big Brother. Cold Turkey is the only way to go.

Big Brother - and an apology

2005-06-07T23:34:00.000+01:00

I hate Big Brother.
It started again whilst I was in Cyprus. Have completely avoided any sort of news or sight of it until tonight at Hannah and Sam's. It's rubbish. A house full of self important idiots that think their discussions on how easily they can go to to the toilet makes them relaxed and interesting people. A tv format that was interesting for most of one series (although I'm still annoyed that Anna 'pack away all your fun', the lesbian nun didn't win!) but has spawned so many annoying sequals and copycats that I've lost count. IT"S JUST NOT INTERESTING ANYMORE! so... why, having only caught 15 minutes of the evil thing, do I want to know what's happening now? I'm hooked after 15 minutes!!!
I'm sure Big Brother is the tv equivalent of smoking 40 cigs a day. once you have one, you just want the next. I'm determined not to get addicted again, but it's just so tempting... maybe if I just watch one episode the desperation will go away.

Finally, an apology. I'm sorry (again to those of you who complained already) that I said 'I hate this place' in connection to Edinburgh. Let me say that Edinburgh us a lovely city and that I have some very good friends here, it's just that I don't want to be here anymore and am not happy here. Because I feel like that and because I was coming back from holiday, I just felt like I hate the place. Sorry for any offence caused (Rosie, who by the way has a new blog).

A holiday, a wedding and a decision.

2005-06-06T23:53:00.000+01:00

Wow, that's been a great couple of weeks. Hope your lives haven't been too empty without updates to my blog to read, but if it has, bad luck, cos I've had a great couple of weeks, so I apologise if this post gets a bit long, but it's really three posts. I'm going to do this in chronological order so...

Holiday in Cyprus

After a rather hectic journey to the airport everything was just completely chilled. Landed at Larnaca airport at 4:30 in the morning (Cypriot time, so we'd gained a couple of hours) and was met by a taxi (although it was a brand new merc) and taken to Em's families house in Nicocea. Slept til about 10:00 then spent the morning lounging by and in the pool, enjoying the 35C sun. Had a siesta in the afternoon before heading into the centre of Nicocea to show Jo and Simon (the second married couple) around as it was their first time there. Shocked to find a Costa Coffee but Steve and Em had already made it their local haunt and we sat and had iced coffee's sat on the outdoor sofas.

The next morning we headed to the beach house in the Papadouris' (Em's family) new 4x4 BMW, which is a car I would covet immediately if it wasn't a bmw. Spent the next 5 days lounging on various beaches and the evenings eating and drinking out. The beaches are beautiful. The only drawback is the number of pink british tourists lying on them and the number of topless sunbathers that you really wish you'd never have to see topless. Spent a couple more days on Nissi beach in Agia Napa this time round. A truly beautiful beach with the added bonus of a bar to have a cold beer from in the afternoon, which felt like a real luxuary. Did a lot of snorkelling too, saw an octopus, which was good, but what was even funnier was watching Steve dive down and wave his snorkel at it in an attempt to make it move at the same time as trying to swim away from it in fear.

I'd been aware of a possible problem during the holiday. Sheffield Wednesday (the football team I support, not a day of the week like shrove Tuesday) were playing in their play off final on the Sunday I was in Cyprus and I was scared stiff that I wouldn't see it. I needen't have worried though. Found a sports bar that was showing it. Got there (on my own, the others were, possibly sensibly, not the least bit interested in football) to find about another 20 wednesday fans already singing and shouting along so I joined in. Was a wonderful way to watch a great game of football (although my accent slowly digressed as the evening went on). Had arranged to meet the others at 7:15 (15 minutes after the match finished) but hadn't counted on extra time! At full time it was 2-2, so that meant an extra 30 minutes. I ended up stood in the road outside, watching through what would have been the window, if it had glass on it, at the same time as trying to keep an eye on the road so that I could flag down Steve when he came past. Luckily he saw me, pulled over so I could shout at him 'extra time, give me half an hour' and run back into the bar. We eventually won 4-2, so all was right with the world.

After our days on the beach, we headed into the mountains to spend a day at the Papadouris orchard and village (they don't own ALL of the village, they just run it!). Was a lovely day, walking through the orchards and looking round the monastry there (which has a secret room that they discovered full of old icons and feels exactly like an Indiana Jones movie). Unfortunately, John (Em's Dad) had to leave early so we had, as opposed to previous times, a bbq in the afternoon rather then the evening, which was lovely, but meant I missed the Hucka pipe (or hubbly buubly as we call it). That evening (our last before leaving) back in Nicocea, we went back to Costa Coffee and had a great chat and saw possibly the most beatuiful woman I've ever seen in real life (Steve and Si didn't agree too emphatically at the time as their respective wives were with them, but since the wives agreed, it was fine).

The last day it rained, alot. Spent most of it inside reading and watching the west wing, then headed for the airport.
Holiday Books: The Beach (read it before, but a real favourite, Richard reminds me scraily of myself). The Sparrow (Awful, only read 100 pages), Twelve Bar Blues (a wonderful book about 4 generations of African-Americans that leads from Africa, to London via New Orleans), The Lord of the Rings (I don't need to say anything about that) and The Blind Watchmaker by Richard Dawkins (a book about evolution, natural selection and the beauty of the planet which I'm still reading.
Holiday Music: Jamie Cullum - Twentysomething, Athlete - Tourist, Radiohead - The Bends, U2.

The Wedding

Landed in the UK to discover rather nice weather, which was, well, nice. Spent the night at Steve and Em's then headed straight to Sheffield for my sisters wedding, which to be honest, I'd been dreading. I don't know why cos it was a wonderful day, but we'll get to that. The wedding was on a Friday, but I got to Sheffield on the Thursday afternoon to find my Mum and Dad's full of women, and not in a good way. Emma's (the sister who was getting married) bridesmaids were all staying the night, as was the mum of two of the three young bridesmaids, and they were all getting ready already, which since it was the day BEFORE the wedding and possibly because I'm a bloke, I just didn't get. That evening was the wedding rehersal, which I had nothing to do with, so I took the opportunity to get away from the house as quickly as possible and meet one of my oldest (as in, known the longest, not age) friends (who's name is Tina) for a drink and a game of pool. Isn't it great when you see friends like thatm and even though you've not really spoken for 6 months, you can just carry on from where you left off the last time. So got home later that evening and hid in my old room from the chaos (and the Ronin Keating) that had engulfed the front room.

The wedding day itself was exactly what wedding day's are supposed to be. Emma looked stunningly beautiful in her wedding dress (which I don't even have the right vocabulary to describe, it was cream, it had no back and a veil if that's any sort of help?). Dan (who she was getting married too) looked nervous as he waited for my sister, who was a charactistically 25 minutes late. The service was fun, the three young bridesmaids (including my cousin, Macy) looked really cute, the older bridesmaids (my other sister and Emma's best friend) looked good. The reception was really nice, the speeches were generally dull but short, the wine was good. In the evening there was a disco, which was fun, then I went home with my little sister (not the one who'd just got married). Emma and Dan are now spending two weeks in Bali. They both had a great day they say, so that's all that really counts.

The Last Two Days and a decision.

Saturday night I went out with some of my old school friends, a great night was had, even if they did drag me to a couple of bars that were way too trendy and definitely too expensive. Travelled back to Scotland on Sunday. Didn't want to go back really. Realised that there's nothing here for me now and that no matter what happens, I'm leaving at the beginning of July and I can't wait to get out of here,
Today, I got up, did a bit of work then went into town to spend the vouchers my sister gave me as a wedding present from her and Dan, to me. I have no ideea why the bride and groom should buy me anything, but since it was a £20 gift voucher and the new Coldplay album and Oasis album are both now out, I'm not complaining. Listened to them both now. The Oasis one has, on first listening, 3 good songs, 5 average ones and 3 crap ones, how the mighty fall. Coldplay's album on the other hand, is awesome. Only listened to it twice so far and it's not as immediately likeable as the previous two, there's no obvious single like 'yellow' or 'in my place', but it's consistently brilliant and beautiful and I'm looking forward to getting to know the songs better.
Back to college tomorrow, so that should bring me down to earth with a bump after the good mood I've sustained since I took off for Cyprus. Going to bed now. that was a lonong post.

I'm Going on Holiday!

2005-05-24T00:39:00.000+01:00

The last couple of day's have been really crap. Been writing a ridiculously pointless essay for college that has to be handed in while I'm away. But it's done now! So, this time tomorrow I'll be flying to Cyprus to spend 7 days lying on the beach, reading books and listening to my ipod. I can't wait! Feels like ages since I had a proper holiday (it's actually about two years since I last had a beach holiday like this) so I can't wait to do nothing. I love the feeling of going away to another country, it's like you get to leave yourself behind for a week and just stop.

When I get back to England I'm heading straight to Sheffield for my Sister's wedding, which feels a bit strange and grown up for my little sister. So I'll post again when I can. Until then, hope everyone has a great few days just spare a thought for me on the beach every so often.

The Star Wars Effect

2005-05-20T00:41:00.000+01:00

In 1982 I was 4 years old and my Dad took me to the cinema for the first time...

[fade out to me as an 8 year old queing at a cinema in Paignton]
I didn’t know why, but I was excited. I was stood in a line with my Dad who said we were going to watch a film. I wasn’t sure what that was, but I thought it was something to do with the TV. I was sill excited about the zoo we’d been to the day before. I was carrying a plastic lion with me everywhere. At that point I was going to grow up and be a vet so I could look after the big, scary animals (I wasn’t interested in the cute ones or the reptiles, just the ones that could eat you) so I could prove how brave I was. As the queue started to move Dad told me AGAIN that I had to behave and be quiet if we were going to see this film. This film was ‘"Return of the Jedi"; and as we queued my Dad started to tell me the back-story to the film (my Dad’s a huge film geek too), he told me about the Jedi and about Luke and Ben. Han Solo and Princess Leia. Storm Troopers and x-wings. By the time we were let in I was already excited, when I saw the size of the TV, my mind just couldn’t deal with it. But then the film started and that big TV, the cinema screen, became my first window into another world. Everything looked so REAL (not like the CG we get now) and through those images and sound, but most of all through that story, it made me believe that incredible things were possible. That I could move things with the power of the force. That other worlds existed. That good would always beat evil...
[fade back to the present]

Star Wars is directly responsible for the birth of my now overly active, often warped and weird imagination. Of course, other things influences me in this way, like when I began to read books for the first time and I read ‘Danny the Champion of the World’ or the first time I really listened to the Beatles, but Star Wars started it all. And on Thursay morning, 23 years later I watched the last new Star Wars film I'll ever see. So it was with a mixture of joy and sadness that I sat in the cinema at 12:35 in the morning. But as the words "A Long Time Ago in a Galaxy Far Far Away..." appeared on the screen, and the music started, I was just a young kid again watching the thing that I loved.

The film itself was really good. MUCH better than the other two prequels. I got to see the fall of Annakin as he became Darth Vader. I saw Luke and Leia's birth. I watched Chewbacca help save Yoda from the Jedi Massacre. Sure there were problems with it. But it was a Star Wars film, so part of me was always going to love it (I even secretly love episode's 1 and 2, even though I know they're relatively crap).

But the best thing about this film happened today while I was sat in my favourite coffee shop on Rose Street. It was fairly busy and as I sat there with my coffee, reading my paper, a man and his son sat next to me. The son (who's name was Jack) was bouncing up and down with excitement holding a C3PO toy. He told me that he'd just been to see Star Wars with his Dad. He told me the story of that film and that it was the first time he'd been to the cinema. That his Dad was going to let him watch the old films now. He talked to me non-stop for 30 minutes about Star Wars while his Dad was using the internet. It was like watching myself 20 years ago and when he left I had a huge smile on my face, happy that Star Wars still has the power to excite and let kids take their first step into a larger world.

7 Days Later...

2005-05-17T23:46:00.000+01:00

I've been really uninspired to write anything this last week. Not really sure why since it's been neither the dullest of weeks or the busiest of weeks, but there you go. I'm also slightly sleep deprived at the moment. This isn't due to one of my occasional bouts of insomnia, but because I've been lent seies 3 of 24 to watch on dvd. If you've ever watched a series of 24 then you'll know it's one of those prgrammes that always end in a place where you want to know what happens next, so you end up saying "I'll just watch one more episode" to yourself until you realise you've watched all the episodes on that disc. It is actually very good and very well written, so it's worth watching.

Not really done anything interesting this week. Except that I've got tickets for the midnight showing of episode 3 on Thursday (this time tomorrow night!!!) so I've been increasingly looking forward to that the more I read the positive reviews people like Kevin Smith and Simon Pegg are giving it, but I'm sure I'll be writing about that on Thursday so I won't go into that now.

Other than that, a fairly normal week. Had a good night on Friday playing poker with some friends. Bought (though due to 24 not got round to watching) Garden State on dvd. Today, I bought some new shorts for my impending Cypriot holiday and finally used the live chat (telephone for free over the internet) option on ichat with Jo in the states, which was really cool. Even if she was watching 'not another teen movie' for which there's no excuse.

Right, got to go to bed now. Got the last four episodes of 24 to watch, and the last new Star Wars film I'll ever see to look forward too.

What If...?

2005-05-10T22:56:00.000+01:00

Here's an occasionally fun, usually dangerous game. Especially if you're sat on your own, in a park, on a sunny day, listening to radiohead having been in the pub for a long lunch.
This is how you play.
You sit and think through all the decisions you've made, you know, when you decided to move, when you chickened out of telling that girl (or bloke) how you feel, or left it too late to tell her, when you decieded to commit to being a Christian, you know, those major life decisions (or lack of).
Then you imagine where you'd be if you'd actually made a different decision.
Like I say, it can be fun, but if you're like me, it can get kind of depressing too, so play with care.

A tired week and a General Election.

2005-05-07T16:03:00.000+01:00

Sorry it's been a long time since I posted anything, was away this last weekend at Roots so got back home on Monday evening knackered and haven't really caught up properly since, until today when I've been lying in bet til now (4:05 in the afternoon) sleeping and watching the West Wing. ALthough staying up to 5:00 on Thursday night to watch the general election results come in probably didn't help.

So Labour are back in for a third term, but with a substatially reduced majority. At the momemt it's down to 65 with one constituency still waiting to declare. I'm actually quite plesed about this. I think the reduction in the majority means that Tony Blair is going to have to pay alot more attention to his backbenchers who are generally more to the left than he is and so that can only be a good thing.

The tories did do ok in the end, although I'd be interested to see how much of the voting was decided on peoples attitudes to Tony Blair rather than either their local MP's or the parties manafestos. I think when Tony Blair does decide to leave and (hopefully) Gordon Brown takes over there's a good chance that, especially if the Tories are once again trying to reinvent themselves as the same thing under a new leader, there'll be a swing back to Labour. I just hope and pray that we'll see sensible, strong, compassionate goeverning from the Labout Party over the next few years. No more wars, and hopefully a very positive G8 in July.

And very quickly, I just had another look over the last post, and realised how ludicrously, stupidly, geekily long it was, so I thought I'd summarise it here quickly:
I really like the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy.

The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

2005-04-28T23:34:00.000+01:00

*WARNING* This is going to be a long post, I'm in full on geeking out mode having just got back from seeing the afore mentioned film. If you're the sort of person that like to skim through my longer pieces of drivel (Rosie) then you might want to skip the first bit since I'm just going on about how much I love Douglas Adams and the hitchhikers guide thing in general before I get to the bit about my day and the film a bit later on (I've marked it with a *). You've been warned.

This is the story of my trip to see the hitchhikers guide to the galaxy. One the most remarkable, certainly the most successful books, radio series, films, towels, ever to come from the pen (or more accurately, the apple Mac) of an earth man. The earth man's name was Douglas Adams and if you don't know anything about him, you should check the link. Douglas Adams is my favourite writer. Ok, he didn't write my favourite book, but the way he writes, his view of the world, his sense of humour and love of everything to do with the Beatles, make him my favourite writer, despite the fact that he didn't write Lord of the Rings, which is the only bad thing I think I can say about him. DNA (his initials), like Eddie Izzard, is the sort of person that you always have a sneaky suspicion that you're the only one that really 'gets' how good he is. Sure other people find them funny and interesting and enjoy what they do, but they don't get it quite as well as you do. You really understand where they're coming from and what they're about better than anyone else and because of this, your love for them becomes somehow very personal.

I have loved the HG2TG since I first read the book on holiday in Cornwall when I was 14. Someone had told me I should read it and so, in an act of juvenile rebellion, I stole a copy from a bookshop in Penzance, for which I am now very sorry. Sorry that I stole it that is, not that I read it, because it is a quite brilliant book. I read it from cover to cover four times in a row, so had I paid, I'd have got my money's worth from it. When I learnt that there were more books I got them (this time through the boring and legitimate use of cash) and read them. I loved them too. Then I found out that the books had come about because the HG2TG had originally been a bbc radio series, so I found the tapes of that and listened to them. They were funnier than the books and I loved them too. I then discovered (and I think you can guess what's coming next), that there was also a tv series. So I brought that too (I'm sure Douglas was able to buy a lovely new piece of software for his Mac on just the money he was making from me at this point). The tv series was good, but in an early 80's doctor who type way, it didn't really do justice to the books and radio series. Since then I have read all four of his other books and every Douglasy bit of stuff I could find.

*So, to sum up the last couple of paragraphs, I'm a HUGE Douglas Adams fan. So when I found out that they were finally going to make a film about it two years after Douglas' very sad and early death in 2001 (he was 41) I was both excited and worried. Excited because after nearly 15 years of Douglas trying to get the film made (he likened the experience of getting a film made to cooking a steak by getting a succession of people to walk up to it and breathe on it) it was actually going to happen, and worried because Douglas wouldn't be there to make sure it came out how he wanted and that it would be left to someone who, as good as they were, were never going to be as godlike in there genius as Douglas. I didn't need to worry.

The first indication that things were going to be good came with the news that Martin Freeman (Tim from the office) was going to play Arthur Dent. This is the sort of casting where everyone goes "Ahh yes, of course, that makes perfect sense" but that no-one had thought of before it was announced. The second indication was that Stephen Fry, Douglas' long time friend, was going to be the voice of the guide, which once you've seen the film will make sense. Then the trailers (which if you've followed my links earlier you'll have seen) came out, and they were perfect Douglasy moments.

And so to the film. Actually, before we get to the film a bit about my day:
Had a lie in. Went to the hall. Had lunch. Cleaned the bins. Went into town. Had coffee with Rosie. Got NME. Walked the 20 min to the cinema.

So, finally to the film. Actually, to be more precise, to the film experience. I love the cinema. I love seeing films on the big screen and sometimes, occasionally, if you're lucky, you see an awesome film. And if you're even luckier you'll see it on one of the bigger screens. And if you're even luckier still you'll be sat in the middle, middle of the cinema. And if you really want to push the boundaries of being lucky, there'll be some awesome, exciting trailers on before the film too. The chances of all these things happening together in one film experience are of course astronomically small. Tonight it did.

I sat down with my coke and popcorn in the middle, middle of the cinema. The lights went out. And, with no preamble of annoying adverts for Orange or Renault meganne's the new Star Wars trailer came on! I'd not seen it on the big screen before and it looks amazing and wonderful and I can't wait. Then the Batman Begins trailer comes on and I get to see that for the first time (again, cool, amazing, can't wait type feelings). By now I'm rocking backwards and forwards in my chair with sheer geeky delight. And then, then the film comes on. And it was wonderful.

It opens with a wonderful song from a group of dolphins. It then goes into the story that I am so familiar with. Arthur Dent, Ford Prefect, Trillian, Zaphod, Marvin and the guide are all familiar but this film makes all the familiar jokes and situations seem fresh and new. It allows me, with my near word for word knowledge of the books and radio series to enjoy Douglas' genius as new, and for that alone the film is brilliant. But it doesn't stop there. Some people have been really annoyed that the film hasn't precisely followed what Douglas wrote before. However, I don't quite get that, since the radio series, tv series and books are sometimes slightly different and sometimes entirely contradictory. What the film does is make the HG2TG work as a film, and with such a wordy source material, that is no small feat. Not only that, but the added romance between Arthur and Trillian really added something to the film for me, and since this actually happens in one of the hitchhikers books (although in a very different way for very different reasons) I can't see what people have a problem with.

What this film really does though, is capture Douglas' wonderful, funny, beautiful view of the world. Yes it made me laugh out loud, smile at some of the in jokes and enjoy the spectacle that is the film. But what this film did was remind me what a wonderful world this is we live in. The original radio series ended with Arthur Dent sat on prehistoric earth as Louis Armstrong sang that song. This film celebrates life. It celebrates the beauty of this planet (despite it being blown up 10 minutes into the film). The wonderful yet total ineptness of us as a species. I left the cinema in such a good mood, I walked home (an hours walk) through the rain, smiling to myself and listening to Louis Armstrong sing 'what a wonderful world' on my ipod.

I'm sure that not everyone will get this film. Some people will see it as strange. Some people will find it clunky. Some people will see it as a sacrilege of Douglas Adam's work. For me, it's wonderful, life affirming and above all Douglasy. And it ends with a flash of the smiling face of Douglas Adams. Perfect.

Knackered

2005-04-26T22:37:00.000+01:00

Today's been ok. College was as dull as usual, but I'm used to that.
Absolutely knackered now though. I got home, got some fish and chips cos I couldn't be bothered to cook, watched the football and fell asleep.

Just woken up and thought I'd quickly check my e-mails and the Guardian website before I went to sleep (one of my daily rituals). Found another great article that I thought was worth reading, this time by Richard Attenborough, the director (of Gandhi among many others), actor (he played John Hammond, the old guy in Jurassic Park) and all round good guy.
Richard Attenborough

Oh, and also, the trailer for the serenity has been released. The new film by the genius that is Joss Whedon. Check it out, looks good:
Serenity Trailer

The Longest Day

2005-04-25T21:32:00.000+01:00

That's been a horrible day.
This morning I had to tell my bosses (one of which is my flatmate) that I was leaving. That was at a meeting that we left for at 9:00. It went ok I guess, could've been better. Could've been a lot worse.
Then on the way home we broke down. Flat tyre on the minibus. And I'll tell you something. There's no way any of the grand prix teams could have got the wheel off in 10 seconds. The bolts were rusted on so we had a huge struggle to change that.
Then spent the afternoon setting up the hall. Then two clubs. Then I had to tell the rest of my team that I was leaving, which was horrible and I dealt with it really badly since it turned out they already knew.
Now it's 9:30 and I've got to get a waste of time preaentation ready for tomorrow.
I'm exhausted.
BUT that's it! It's official. I'm moving back home (London) and I can't wait. I'm going to miss one or two people up here, and I really don't like that I've had to leave the project after only two years. But it's the right decision. And I feel a huge wave of relief knowing that that's it.
So, going to eat. Go for a walk to get my head together. Work on the presentation. Go to bed. Watch the West Wing and waste a day at college tomorrow.

The Power of Music

2005-04-24T17:10:00.000+01:00

I guess from my previous post it's pretty clear that I'm not in the greatest of moods at the moment. This was not helped by the fact that I have a meeting tomorrow that's going to be really difficult cos I have to let down some people that I don't want to let down. And also by the fact that I'd just spent 2 hours of my life, for reasons that are unlikely to be made clear at this point, in a room full of old women trying to play music I don't know on the piano.
So I left the hall in an unsurprisingly bad mood.
I put my ipod on. It was on Random. The sun was shining. 'My Generation' by the who came on and I sang along to the 'why don't you all f......ade away' with real meaning. Then 'Hey Dude' by Kula Shaker came on and I walked down the street playing air guitar. THEN the Beatles came on singing 'Good Day Sunshine' and by this time, as I walked into the flat I was skipping (almost literally) along to the music, smiling and feeling good about things. Not sure how long this will last (probably not long), but I've still got my ipod on random, through my stereo, loudly, and just for the moment, life seems ok.

3 Films and a Rant

2005-04-24T15:25:00.000+01:00

This weeks been fairly dull. Not really done anything except work and watch a few films (I'll tell you about then in a minute).

But just for a second I want to rant about ITV's formula 1 coverage. What was it about? 4 laps to go, two cars almost touching as they fight for the lead. They're coming up on traffic, the climax of the race, the battle of the season so far and what do they do? They cut to a 5 minute commercial break! by the time we're back, they've passed the traffic and we're on the last lap. We've missed 3 of the tensest laps in formula one for years. I've accepted that there's going to be commercial breaks during formula one, but surely they could USE SOME COMMON SENSE where they put them. And it's probably worth saying to all the companies that paid to advertise at that point that every single person watching just hated them for existing so they wasted their money, whoever they were.

Right, now I've got that off my chest:
First film I want to talk about is a new cinema release I saw with some friends Tuesday night, The Interpreter, with the marvellous Sean Penn and Nicole Kidman. It's about (and I know you'll die with shock when I tell you this) an interpreter played by Nicole. She works at the UN and seems to speak about a hundred different languages. She overhears a discussion in a language from her home (African) country about an assassination attempt and tells the police and Sean Penn's character takes it on. I don't want to ruin the plot for you, but the rest of the film deals with the result of overhearing this conversation and it's links to Nicole's home country. It's a tense thriller, beautifully acted. But more than that, it deals with the question of diplomacy vs war/violence, still an important question for the world (and the US and the UK in particular) to be thinking about.

Second film I saw before that on DVD. Kevin Smith's (of Dogma, Clerks, Chasing Amy fame) latest film, Jersey Girl. When this came out it suffered from the fact that both Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez were in it so suffered with gigli comparisons, but that was unfair, especially since the main female lead is Liv Tyler and Jennifer Lopez is only in the film for a few scenes, because this is a fantastic film. For those of you who don't know Kevin Smith's films, they are incredibly geeky(possibly why I love them). They're about people who make comic books, they're full of Star Wars references, they're geeks films. This film isn't. Actually it is, but not in the same way. It doesn't reference any other films or comics and Jay and Silent Bob (characters that have appeared in some way or another in all of Kevin Smith's previous films) don't make an appearance. This is about what happens when the geek has to grow up. Ben Affleck used to a big promoter in the city. He was very good at his job. But, when his wife died in childbirth he ended up losing his job and moving from the city to New Jersey, moving in with his Dad and taking a job working in drains and driving a cart. 8 years later, his daughter (again a performance from a kid that isn't annoying) is older and he wants to move back to the city. And that's what the film's about. Ben Affleck (who is really good in this film) has to come to terms with the fact that he's not going to be the big promoter with the big apartment, famous friends and a $100'00 a week salary. He has to let go of his younger mans dream and accept the person that he's become, and the truth that what he is, is actually worth more than he wanted anyway.
Surprisingly, most of Kevin Smith's fans didn't like this film, and I'm guessing that's because they still dream of being actors, film makers, rock musicians and don't want to admit that, for most of them, there's going to be a day when they realise that they're never going to play Wembley Stadium, or get a film released, even if deep down they know that already. Personally, I loved the film. Sure I'm a geek. Sure I'd love to play Wembley stadium, write a film or a book. But I'd just as happily wake up one day with someone I love (especially if they happen to look like Liv Tyler), with the kids sleeping (or more likely downstairs watching tv) and with a wry smile, realise that that was worth more than all the dreams I have now.

The final film is Dog Soldiers. I watched this last night. It is a great film, if you like werewolves, a bit of gore and a bit of horror. It's a sort of mix between Alien, Predator, Evil Dead and Zulu. There's no depth to the film, no hidden message. It's just a great ride. Tense, jumpy and fun, with no CGI in sight.

So that's been my week. 3 films and an annoying formula 1 race. And I don't even like formula 1 that much.

Ever Just Want to Get Out?

2005-04-18T19:14:00.001+01:00

Finished club this evening at about 6:45 and am just in the mood to get out of here and do something, just feeling a bit clostraphobic at the moment so I'm going to have some dinner then then head into town and sit with a coffee and a book.

And a couple of things if you're interested. Firstly, here's a great article by Roy Hattersly on the state of the election at the moment, which sort of covers what I was saying the other day, just with more insight and intelligence.
Roy Hattersley Article

Secondly, I realised the other day that I haven't said anything about the film I'm most looking forward to this year (and suprisingly it's not Star Wars). The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is one of my favourite books, radio series, towel, and the film version comes out on April 29th. It stars Martin Freeman (Tim from the office) and Stephen Fry (as the voice of the guide). Just to show you why I'm so excited, here's a link to the fantastic trailers :
Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Trailers

Oh, and finally, I've learnt how to put links in my blog, cool eh.

A New Coldplay Song

2005-04-17T19:18:00.000+01:00

I don't want to know how my friend got hold of this, but he's just sent me a copy of one of Coldplay's new songs. It's obviously been recorded live so it's not the greatest quality in the world, but it's fantastic. It's called 'What If' and it starts with the usual Coldplay type piano ballad verse with the lyrics asking what if... (there was no right, there was no time, no reason no rhyme etc). It's beautiful verse and the lyric goes on to show that he's asking questions about a relationship (Gwyneth?) he's in so the whole question what if becomes about what if she decided that she doesn't want to be with him anymore. It's a song full of insecurities. When you're listening to the verse you think you've heard it before, it sounds like you'd imagine a new coldplay song would sound, and to an extent it is. But when the chorus kicks in and Chris Martin shoots up to his falsetto voice it suddenly sounds different and new enough to not be boring and move from beautiful to incredible. The song builds and builds towards the end, by which time the full band is playing and it's become a dissonant, clostraphobic mess reflecting the insecurity in the lyrics. Then the sound's just left to fade away. I can't wait for the album if it's all as good as this.

Oh, and the breathings a lot better today, thanks to everyone that asked.

Breathing

2005-04-17T00:27:00.000+01:00

Today's been a fairly good day. I had a lie in. Got up, watched Before Sunset (an absolutely brilliant film, as good as Amytiville Horror is bad), watched a couple of episodes of Scrubs (still great) and went to a friends for dinner which was nice. This evening though my asthma's been playing up and I'm sat here sounding like Darth Vader after running a marathon while holding his breath. I'm sort of used to it by now since I've had it since I was 4, but it still really annoys me when I can't breathe properly, it just makes everything harder to do and knackers you out. But for now I'm going to sit down and finish off the book I'm reading (Stephen Frys 'the liar' which is funny if sort of weird, a bit like him I guess).

The Amytiville Horror

2005-04-16T14:37:00.000+01:00

Went to see the Amityville horror last night. It was a waste of time. It was jumpy enough (to the point where there were some people screaming at certain points) but it was a film that had nothing original AT ALL in it. You knew the story before the first shot was finished. Every horror cliche was there. The little girl ghost who is not all bad, the eveil ghost with a black hat and hook. The stupidity of the characters as they run upstairs rather than out of the door. The house built on an indian grave yard. It was all there and all horribly predictable. So don't bother going to see it, the only scary thing about it is that it was ever made in the first place,

Scrubs

2005-04-14T22:07:00.000+01:00

Now, maybe I'm the only one who doesn't know this, but Scrubs is a brilliant tv programme. I watched an episode on tv this afternoon for the first time, thought it was excellent so I've downloaded the first few episodes and they're brillilant (which I might have already menitoned). I loved Garden State, it was one of my favourite three films of last year (along with Shaun of the Dead and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotlees Mind) and Zach Braff was brilliant in it. I didn't know anything about him then other than that he was in Scrubs, but I'd never watched it cos I thought it looked like a naff U.S comedy and it was on Sky One, and the only thing I've ever liked on there is the Simpsons (i've got all of Buffy on DVD so I don't need to watch that on tv). Now I've watched it though, I can't believe how much I've enjoyed it. Does everyone else know how good this programme is and no-ones ever bothered to tell me? That's the only reason I can think of for never having heard anything good about it.
Maybe you're wondering why I keep going on about films, music and tv programmes I like. It's because there's so much crap out there, that when you finally find something that makes you smile, that you empathise with and that actually makes you think, that's something really big. It's sort of like falling in love, just without the awkwared does she love me stage that usually ends in dissapointment anyway.

A General Election's Coming

2005-04-13T23:59:00.000+01:00

In case you either hadn't noticed or don't know, there's a general election in the uk on May 5th, and this is a rant about all the things that are annoying me about politics in our country at the moment, so feel free to skip to the last paragraph (where I've written a bit about my day) if you're not interested in politics (you'll have your own section of rant especially for you later on too) or if you just can't be bothered.

Over the last few days the main parties have been releasing their manifestos and there's been the usual bickering about 'black holes' in the various different budget/tax plans. The usual claim from the tories that they'll be able to do everything that Labour says it'll do and cut tax (which is clearly crap), labour saying that they're going to run a positive campaign just before pointing out that the tory budget doesn't add up and the Liberal democrats saying sensible things but telling people that they'll have to pay for them and no-one really caring what they say anyway.

What's really pissing me off at the moment is the tories and paticularly Michael Howards inistance on continually talking about immigration policy, and more specifically that we should basically stop immigration into the country (a slight exageration, but only slight). Despite the fact that he's being completely hypocritical (his parents are immigrants), he's also being completely naive if he doesn't realise that by airing the ideas he has, he is actually inciting racial hatred. What pisses me off even more is the fact that the reason he's doing this is that polls show that this is one area that the tories are actually polling well in. What does that say about our country? At best it says that we're worried about housing and population growth in (lets face it) a small country. At worst it says that we're not willing in any way, shape or form to help out anyone that needs it, or give anyone a chance for a better life. What worries me most is that when people (and I include the tories in this) think and say these things, they're not talking about all the Australians, Kiwis, Europeans, Canadians etc that have settled here, but about people of different colour. I hope that's not what they mean, but I fear it is. What do we do if that is the attitude of our country? Other than emigrate ourselves, I really don't know.

Tony Blair.
What can I say about the guy. In 1997 he was a hero. I'm sure it's no coincidence, but that year was the first time I voted, and it was the first time since I was born that Labour took power. I thought he was going to turn all the crap that the tories had dumped on us over the previous 18 years around and to a certain extent, he has. But what was the first thing I can actually remember him doing? After going on about "education, education, education" for the whole of the election, he got rid of student grants and brought in tuition fees. I only mention this because it was the first time he dissapointed me. Since then though, I actually think he's done a good job. He's certainly not left wing enough for my tastes, but he has certainly improved schools, the nhs, the police, the economy (although I figure Gordon Brown who I like much more should get most of the credit for that) and pretty much any other area that governments are supposed to be good at. There's definitely still a lot more improvement needed in all those areas and maybe the last few years haven't been as impressive and things have moved a lot slower than in labours first term, but I think we're generally moving forward (if very slowly). Sure he's had failures (the Lords reform being one that paticularly annoys me) and he made a huge mess of the war. [We should never have allowed ourselves to be bullied into that by the vile dictator George W Bush. But at the same time, I can't help thinking (and Bill Clinton apprently agrees with me here) that by being alongside the states we did slow down and temper the US response. I don't think that justifies it, but I do think that Tony Blair did what he honestly believed to be right, even if I disagree with him.] Would I rather him not be prime minister, actually yes. I think he's become a caricature of himself and that it's time (infact probably past time) that he stepped aside for someone else (Gordon Brown!). Does that mean I can't vote Labour? of course not! I still think that of all the current leaders (Tony Blair, Michael Howard and Charles Kennedy) that Tony Blair is the best choice. And even if I didn't think that, Labour are the only viable option for government at the moment no matter who's in charge (with the excemption of Mandleson). Sure, I like lots of the things that the Lib Dems have to say, and at times they appear more left wing than labour, but, and it's a big but, I don't actually know what they stand for. They have yet to convince me that they can govern and Charles Kennedy is not a leader, despite being a nice guy.

And a quick final rant. There's too many people saying that either they don't care about politics or that they're not going to vote. Whether you like it or not, politics controls much of the lives we live and more importantly the way we interact with each other, care for each other, interact with other countries, make poverty history and pretty much anything else you can think of. So, despite the fact that it's mostly talked about by pompous old men, take an intrest, even if its just fleeting, for the next few weeks.
Deep breath.
Rant Over

Today's been fine. Lie in, luch meeting in town, kids club in the evening (I didn't kill any of the kids so that was successful). Listened to U2 alot. Got home. Spoke to some friends on the phone and on MSN. Read todays paper, got annoyed, wrote my Blog, went to bed and watched an episode (possibly 2) of the West Wing.

In A Dull Lecture

2005-04-12T16:28:00.000+01:00

I'm only in college one day a week at the moment, but the lectures are still fantastically boring, we're doing basic stuff that I covered about 5 years ago. However, technology is a wonderful thing and thanks to the wonders of wi-fi i can sit in my lecture and look as if I'm busy taking notes whilst actually talking to friends on msn, browsing round my usual websites and now updating my blog.
I was supposed to be staying late in college tonight to write an essay, but am so bored by it all that I'm just going to head home. And the fact that there's a champions league match on the tv this evening has nothing at all to do with that decision.
And just in case anyone's interested, I watched the finale of series 6 of The West Wing last night, and it's quite good after what's been a dissapointing couple of seasons without Aaron Sorkin's (the creator and writer of the first 90 shows) input. And if you've never watched The West Wing and have no idea what I'm talking about, you should find series one on dvd (you can borrow mine if you live anywhere near me) and watch it. Be warned though, it's addictive.

Home Sweet Home?

2005-04-11T23:20:00.000+01:00

So the last couple of days have been fairly eventful. I got off the train at 7:00 Friday night and went straight from the station to a local curry house to meet some friends who were up from london for a couple of days. It was great to catch up (and eat a great curry, at the Himalaya if you're interested) and I spent the rest of the weekend with them. Some of it was work, but spent some time showing them round edinburgh, which was really pleasent, and drinking coffee at Neros, which is always good.
One of the things that came out of the weekend, was one of my friends inviting me out to Cyprus for a holiday at the end of May, which I'm obviously taking him up on since it's an incredibly cheap holiday. My friend Emily was born in Cyprus and her family live out there and own (among others) a beautiful house by the beach which I've spent time in a couple of times before. I'm really looking forward to going back there, and spending a week lying on the beach, reading, listening to music, swimming and eating at really good, really cheap Cypriot restaurants. The previous two times I've been out there were fantastic. The first time we went Steve and Em were just friends, the second time they were going out. This time they're married. Which has nothing to do with anything, except that this time I'm going away with two married couples, which could be weird but they're all really good friends, so it'll be good fun, I hope.
Going from Sheffield, to a weekend with friends and then back to work today has helped to convince me that it's time to move on. I've just never settled here, and I'm ready to move on. If this seems like a recurring theme at the moment, it's cos I've been thinking alot about it. So on another subject:
I went to see Sahara last week, and really enjoyed it, and not just because Penelope Cruz is in it. It's a really good adventure film, sort of like Indiana Jones, but with some James Bond thrown in. Go and see it.
Also, I've spent today listening to Athlete's new (came out in January) album again and if you can get past Joel sliding up to every note, it's really worth listening to. It's one of those albums where you think that every song was written about either how you're feeling now, or how you've felt in the past and was written specifically for you.

Memories

2005-04-09T00:10:00.000+01:00

It's been a week since I last wrote anything. The simple reason for that is that I've spent the last week at my Mum and Dads taking a week out. The fact that my Mum and Dad have internet at all is a miracle; that it's slower than an asthmatic ant that’s had all its legs broken and is pulling itself along with its feelers means that if you can check your e-mails without spending 30 minutes waiting for a page to load you've done well so there was no chance of me adding to the blog. So, to the literal 2 of you that have been eagerly anticipating my next post... ok, idly wondering when I'd post again, I apologise for the delay.

The idea of me going away was to hopefully spend some time trying to come to a final decision about what I'm going to do come June when my course ends, but I ended up having a great, if strange week. My Mum and Dad both work in schools and were therefore both on holiday, so we spent the days going around different places that I haven't been to for years. (I spent my evenings having a drink with old school friends, which was nice).
What's struck me most this week though is the way memories can hit you. As we went to the various parks and country walks, round places that haven't changed in the 26 years I've been going to them, I was reminded of so many different events and people; grandparents, first kisses, summer days playing cricket, old school friends, family arguments, ex girlfriends. But it wasn't the memories of these events that hit me, it was the way being back in those places, being reminded about those events, made me remember who I was then, and what I'd felt. It was like an echo of who I'd been, and occasionally it felt like I was that old 'me' again, like a soft focus flash back in a cheap made for tv movie.
If this sounds all a bit sentimental and ridiculous, that's basically because it is both ridiculously sentimental and basically ridiculous, but its been that sort of week.
If nothing else it's convinced me that there's no way I want my life to stay the way it is at the moment. So it's helped make my decision about the future a lot easier.

A Busy Few Days

2005-04-01T22:47:00.000+01:00

The last few days have been really busy. I've been helping out at a kids holiday club all week (apart from when I was ill) which is not my favourite thing in the world (I can't deal with gangs of kids without the use of a baseball bat). The positive side effect to this is that I've had the afternoon and evenings off and so I've had an interesting few days.

On Wednesday I was about to write a huge rant at the stupidity of the Scottish BBC for not showing the England match live, but as I walked out of the coffee shop (where I'd spent a great afternoon chatting to a good friend and drinking good coffee) I saw the football about to start through the window of, what looks like, a very run down pub. But since I like run down pubs and England matches, I didn't really think too hard (at least 2 seconds) before heading in... and having the greatest evening I've had in ages. We won the football (although it was a fairly uninspiring match) but the pub was fantastic! At one point, there was me, the bar staff and the manager just sat down, listening to MY IPOD over the stereo arguing about which was the best Oasis album (obviously a choice of two, Definitely Maybe and Morning Glory). And the rest of the evening was like that! It was like living for an evening in a (admittedly very geeky) version of Cheers, where everyone knows your music. So I'll be going back there at some point!

The last couple of days have been fairly dull though. I was supposed to be meeting a couple of friends in the centre of Edinburgh for a huge underground open air pillow fight. But unfortunately I had to spend the afternoon editing a video for someone so didn't make it. Today we had to pack down and clean after the week, so finished late, and been collapsed at home in front of the tv watching Natalie Imbruglia (extremly beautiful) and Eddie Izzard (extremely funny) on Jonathon Ross and eating Curry. So it's ended well at least.

The Last Few Days

2005-03-28T21:16:00.000+01:00

I've not posted for a few days. There's a couple of reasons for this. Firstly I've been out and away from my computer. Secondly, I've spent the last 36 hour in bed ill, which has been a bit crap (although I did spend some time watching the original Star Wars trilogy, which is sort of like my comfort blanket when I'm ill).
But since I last posetd I've been to my friends 21st. Which was fun, but also slightly mad. Although we did go to a cool bar (bar 38 if anyone's interested) and then to a terrible club where they were still playing the theme from s-express (which died in 1988 as far as I knew). And then we went for a kebab, which I'll always approve of.
Anyway, since then the only exciting thing to have happened is the new series of Doctor Who, which was ok but not brilliant, aimed at kids a bit too much I thought, but then, hasn't it always been a kids programme?
Anyway, that's all I'm writing for now cos I'm still not feeling too well so going to go to bed. I'll try and write somethig slightly more sensical tomorrow.

The Long Walk Home

2005-03-24T14:33:00.000Z

I've been accused by one friend of making Edinburgh out to be a horrible place in my last few posts. I don't quite get why as any negative comments are to do with circumstance rather than location, but just to appease her, Edinburgh is a great place. It's a beautiful city and is a wonderous place to live. That doesn't mean that it doesn't have its problems though. For example:

Last night I had a great time with some friends at a pub quiz in the city centre. We'd done reasonably well at the quiz (we came 3rd) and a couple of questions that allowed me to prove my strange geekiness came up, a Radiohead question (name all the albums, easy) and a question linking the bible, Lord of the Rings and Star Wars, two of my speacilist subjects (I'll let you work out which two). The question, in case you're at all interested, was 'what is the name of a place in the old testement, an alternative name for middle earth in Lord of the Rings and a planet in a Star Wars film?'. So I was feeling pretty good about life as i went to catch the bus home.

A third of the way through the journey, the bus stopped and I was told that, since it was past 11:00, that was as far as the bus went. Now, having lived in London when there's a pretty much 24hour access to everything, this is exactly the sort of thing that does annoy me about Edinburgh. I had to walk 3 miles to get back home, which was made bearable only because of the wondrous thing that is my ipod and a stop off at a petrol station to grab a cornish pasty and can of coke.

Despite this, it was a good and much needed night of fun and I woke up this afternoon (I've got the day off) feeling fairly good about it all.

Chatting with friends

2005-03-21T14:52:00.000Z

Just read my last couple of posts and I guess they're fairly negative, isn't life crap/dull etc type of posts. So here's a positive one.
I guess you've worked out that life at the moment for me is fairly dull. I mean, while a weekend where the highlights are two films is normal enough for me, having to enthuse about the films on the internet rather than with, you know, actual people isn't. When I moved from London to Scotland it was to start a brave new adventure, but thats all seemed a bit flat lately and I was feeling a bit crap about it all.
Last night I got a phone call from my best friend who'd just got back from his 3 week honeymoon in Thailand (lucky git) and it's amazing how chatting stuff through with him made things seem that much better. And again this morning, I got online to find another of my best friends had not only read the drivel that is this blog, but was on MSN and chatting about coffee (always an important subject), holidays (ones we'd had and how much we'd like one) and life in general.
Isn't it great how chatting with friends makes the world seem like a much better place.

And talking about coffee, just want to celebrate my latest gadgety type purchase. It's a mug. Ok, I know that's hardly an impressive thing to talk about, but this mug has a cafetierre type plunger in it. That means that if, like me, you live in a place where you're the only person who drinks coffee, you can make real, proper, beatiful coffee a mug at a time and stop wasting half a cafetierre everytime you fancy drinking real coffee rather than something that only resembles coffee in the way a westlife song resembles real music (badly, in case you weren't sure).

A dull weekend - and a couple of great films

2005-03-20T14:19:00.000Z

Ok, so the weekend was dull.

I didn't really get out of the flat at all as a lot of my fiends have buggered off for an easter holiday and others are busy working or pretending to do dissitations. However, it was saved by a couple of things. Firstly, I discovered the most mind numbing yet addictive game on the web which I refused to stop playing til I got in the top 10 (which I did, number 5, 204 boxes if your interested). If you want to know what I'm on about, check the game out at http://www.hyperlaunch.com/layercake/game/.

I also spent 4 great hours watching two great films. 21 Grams has been described by some of my friends as a 'depressingly boring piece of crap'. They're wrong. It's a fantastic film about how our actions in life can effect other people we don't know for the better, or for the worse. The acting in it is incredible (Sean Penn got an oscar the same year for Mystic river, but I think his performance in this is better than that film). AND Namoi Watts is in it, acting as brilliantly as ever and looking fantastic.
The second film was Finding Neverland. This film really is wonderful. It's about J.M Barrie and his life and inspiration as he wrote Peter Pan. Johnny Depp, who is always fantastic, plays J.M Barrie and Kate Winslet, again always brilliant, plays Wendy. The story follws Barrie, a man who hasn't lost his sense of wonder in the world, and tries to relate that through his life and plays. While writing in the park, he meets Wendy, a young widow, and her three children. The story follow Barrie, Wendy and the kids (including Peter) as they grow closer together and are able to work out their seperate lives into a greater whole. If this sounds a bit too much like some sort of chick flick then it's because I'm doing the film justice. This film makes you examine your own life and look for the sense of fun and wonder that I know it's so easy to lose as you get older and more cynical. Yes at times its sad, and there's kids in it (usually a real disaster for a film) but these kids can act (Freddie Highmore won best supprting actor at the empire awards for his performence). Some people will find this film overly sentimental, but I think that says more about the person watching it than the film itself.

Ok, that turned into a bit of a film review. As this blog gets bigger (and since I'm quite enjoying writing it at the moment it probably will) you'll get the idea that I'm actually a bit of a film, music, book geek, so stuff like that's likely to happen a lot. But those two films are particularly good, so you should try and see them if you haven't.

Well, that's been pretty much my weekend. Apart from watching the 6 nations and enjoying see Wales win the grand slam and us (England) beating Scotland (which is more important now that I live in Scotland than it ever was when I didn't). So a dull weekend with a couple of great films, which is what I called this post in the first place. So maybe I should have just left it there, you'd got the picture already hadn't you?, oh well.

The beginning of all things

2005-03-18T15:01:00.000Z

Ok, I've had this blog for three weeks now and been completely uninspired to write anything. This is probably because I'm feeling fairly uninspired about life in general anyway. BUT one of my closest friends has been moaning at me to write something (mainly cos it was her blog that made me want to write one in the first place). So here it is, my first muddled musings on life.

And todays subject is nothing to do.
If you've seen About a Boy (ok I know Hugh Grant's in it, but its based on a Nick Hornby book so I'm allowed to like it) you'll know the idea that you have to try and fill up your time with lots of things to do. So, in an effort to keep boredom away over my next two days I have off, I have brought two dvd's (Finding Neverland and 21 grammes which are both excellent films I only saw once at the cinema), borrowed a PS2 game from the youth club I work at and am now starting my blog (which means that I'm going to have to spend even more time staring at my computer screen). So, here I am, 48 hours, 2 dvd's, one PS2 game (Star Wars Battlefront if you're interested) and one (admittedly very cool) computer with a broadband connection.
I'll let you know how it goes.