Bit of a Catch up

Hey there, long time no type, anyway, I thought that I had better write something as to what I have been up to for the last month or so.

Firstly, H has now moved in to the flat and the Housemate has moved out. Minus a few bits of legal paperwork being done, H now owns this with me, which is why it has been decorated rather nattily, with major thanks to my parents for painting and wallpapering help.

Secondly, we went to Glastonbury, which was wet and muddy, but not too bad. I enjoyed it, but probably wouldn’t go again as I don’t think that as a music festival it is worth the money. For £200 I would have expected to see more bands, but as the place is so spread out you just can’t get to see that many. Still, everything we did see was excellent and there was a lot to do. It just isn’t for me. What I did enjoy was the smaller Avalon stage, with Flogging Molly being the musical highlight of the festival for me (even after seeing Radiohead).

Thirdly, the death of one of H’s close family. This was sudden and tragic (I won’t go into details, but it wasn’t a nice situation for us to be in). Thus we have spent a great deal of time on the Isle of Wight (me mainly dog walking and Tea making. The funeral was lovely though, it was in a woodland burial site and was a graveside service.

So that was last Thursday and we came back from the Island on Friday straight to a wedding on Saturday. To say that we are completely mentally, physically and emotionally drained at the moment is an understatement. I really could do with a holiday (a proper getaway, not one of these stay at home ones). Still 2000 Trees this weekend. Another 4 day week for me beckons.

Marrakech Pt 2.

Over the course of the next few days we got the hang of the souq’s and how to haggle, we woke up early and got freshly pressed orange juice from the vendor in the Djemma.

We visited some fantastic monuments such as the Ali Bin Yousef Medersa, the 14th century Muslim School. This building is quite spectacular with intricate carvings and mosaics.

For a bit of peace and quiet we headed into the Jardin Majorelle, the wonderful garden set up in the 1930′s and then donated to the city by fashion designer Yves St Laurent.

We also ate some amazing food from Tajines to Kebabs, Prawns, Calamari and Lamb.

On our last day looking around the Souq’s we came across a young guy who was carving on a hand powered lathe and guiding the chisel with his feet. After we had bought some carved ornaments I asked if I could take a photo, which I was allowed to, and then I was told that it was my turn. This was incredibly hard to do and my efforts were quite bodged, but I was pleased with the outcome and had managed to avoid chopping off my toes. It turns out that he had been doing this since he was eleven having learnt from his brother. He was now 17 and a proper craftsman.

After a dodgy start to the week, I had completely changed my opinion about Marrakech, and loved the city, as it is like nowhere else I have ever been before. I think that I would like to go back to Morocco and explore a bit more, but I would probably make sure that I stopped in Marrakech again.

All of these photo’s and a lot more can be found in the Marrakech set on Flickr.

Neglect

I really have been neglecting this site, but then again I have been busy at work.  Not really busy doing a lot outside of work though.   Fatbob and Bimbo did come down last weekend and we went for a curry, attempted to go to HMS Victory, but it rained and then got tipsy with May-Z. 

I also appear to have writers block back again.

Another One

Back Garden 036

Originally uploaded by andyspex

I thought that I would post another one of my photo’s. I do like this feature of Flickr, it makes things much easier.

To Dar

We paid our bar bills at the campsite, had breakfast and then set out on our 2 day drive to the beach at Dar Es Salaam.  The first days driving was fairly uneventful and we made it to our camp at Tembo.  After we set up the tents, myself and Hazel went for a walk with a guide, who took us up far higher and further than we thought we would.  Walking through the Villages we were greeteb by kids shouting ‘Jambo’ (hello) and and a few of the braver ones shouting ‘Mizungu’ (White man).  We climbed to a logging camp run by a dutch company, that have helped the area no end.  They have provided jobs in the logging camp and factory, a medical centre and houses for the local people and a school for the kids.  Now our guide was at university, studying tourism and Geography, whith my background we got on well.  In the camp they have a cable car for transporting the cut timber and workers, the disparity between the european money and the african shanty towns is there to be seen. 

Back at the camp dinner had been cooked and was a fantastic curry made by Dave and a few others.  Dave, conveniently is a chef at 15, one of Jamie Olivers restaurants, and it was good.  We also had chocolate cake and custard for desert.

The next day was the same again, breakfast followed by a long drive to Dar Es Salaam.  Stopping for lunch, we headed into Dar in the afternoon.  This  is the busiest city that we would go to and definately not one that I would like to drive a truck around.  Rich did blindingly well getting the beast around the tight streets, only once having a problem witha turn, almost hitting an car, and once going down a one way street the wrong way, but we got there, and while Marijke was getting our ferry tickets for the next day we hit the slowest internet cafe in the world.

Getting to the Dar beach was a lot easier, we just drove onto a ferry across the water, the sand was amazing and the water warm.  We walked down the beach and then spoke to some Swiss guys who have become my heroes.  They had bought a van in Switzerland and had driven it through Europe, parts of the middle east and down Eastern Africa.  Apart from a breakdown in Ethiopia and one in Nairobi, it had been plain sailing all the way for them.  They were heading towards Botswana and then to South Africa where they are selling their van.  Maybe someday I will do that sort of thing, but I doubt it.

Anyway, next up passports and yellow fever vaccination certificates at the raedy, were off to Zanzibar.

Hidden Gems #3

I could have written this about most songs on The Bends, its by far and away my favourite album, but as I have been listening to A Letter from God To Man off of the Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip album that uses this sample, I am going to write about Planet Telex.

While songs like Street Spirit, Fake Plastic Trees and High and Dry get all of the radio air play, and deserved plaudits for being brilliant, the album opener never seems to get a look in.

From the opening bars of the keyboards to hook you in to the album as a whole, and the start of Thom Yorkes falsetto odyssey, the cry of “Everything is Broken, Everyone is Broken” gets me. I’m not sure what this song is about, probably lost love and broken hearts, if its not, then it damn well should be.

Blood Glorious Blood

I went to give blood yesterday, its the 2nd time that I have done it. Portsmouth Guildhall was full of people, and for those that had walked in there was an hours wait, luckily I had booked, so didn’t have to wait too long.

My blood was checked for Iron, by the sink test (The more Iron you have the quicker your blood sinks). I have a lot of Iron apparently, must be all of the Guiness I drink. So I made it to stage 2 where I actually had to donate my blood. Last time this took ages to do, I must have been having a slow blood day, but this time, I was racing another guy to finish the pint. He even had a head start on the green flashing light, but I caught him up. There is nothing like having a competitive streak.

Anyway, good deed done for the day I went back to the office with my “Be nice to me, I gave blood today sticker” (It didn’t work), and then went to the pub for the Tuesday evening pub quiz, where we came spectacularly last.

Tacky the Dog was returned to my room last night, and has since been put in the microwave for The housemate to find when he is making fajitas tonight.

Small Improvement in Knowledge

As it was Tuesday, I headed off to the pub quiz, which turned out to be much more difficult than normal. The picture round was TV chefs, which for 5 culinary challenged mid-20 year olds was a little bit of a problem.

Luckily however our times at University coincided with the heyday of  Can’t cook, Won’t cook  and we managed to scrape 12 1/2 out of 20.

Somehow in the exceedingly devious and tricky quiz we got ourselves 18, which was quite frankly a miracle.

After a few arguements between various members of the team, we came 3rd. Which was nice!

Good old MCC

Yes, the MCC have decided that there is nothing wrong with the KP switching to his left handed slog sweep, and that is a good thing.  They decided that it is a high risk shot and will benefit the bowler as much as the batsman. 

Anyway, keep going KP, lets see a few more in the one dayer today and have another easy win over the Kiwis. 

The Sound Of South Wales

It started with the Lostprophets, Funeral For A Friend followed suit, then all of a sudden the ‘Sound of South Wales’ was everywhere, from bands like You, Me at Six and Kids in Glass Houses, to American bands like Madina Lake.  Its that highly polished sound, where there is a slightly nasaly lead singer and lots of twangy guitars.  I’m not going to deny it, I quite like the ‘Sound of South Wales’, but I reckon that fairly soon I will be a bit sick of it, like the Brit Pop era when every man and his dog wanted to sound like Oasis.  Anyway, I havn’t done that good a job describing it so I have linked the Myspaces of those bands so that you can see for yourself.

The reason that I am writing this is because I went to a gig last night with the Housemate (He drove, so I was drinking, drinking leads to honesty apparantly and doing things that I may later regret.) and the Sound of South Wales was in evidence in spades.  Mostly because there were 2 Welsh bands playing.  First band up was Canterbury, who I have just found out have recorded their first album.  They were really good live, and their guitarist was excellent.  One of their songs made the hairs on my arms stand up, so that was good sign.  I don’t know what it is called but its not on myspace so I can’t even find out.  Next band up were Viva Machines who were also really good, and Welsh so they had the ‘Sound of South Wales’.  Followed by The Automatic.

I was a big fan of the Automatic, they stood out from the crowd arount the time of their first album by having a sense of humour and a guy that shouted on the songs.  Now they seem to have lost some of that, and the shouty one has left the band.  Their new songs sounded quite good and the old ones sounded as brilliant as everespecially Monster and Raoul, but it was a bit annoying that they came on late and then didnt play an encore.  I know that they don’t have to, but it would have been nice…

Talking of the Sound of South Wales I bought Under the Counter the new album by Goldie Lookin Chain a while ago.  I love the GLC they have been around for a while and have recorded some genius stuff, so why is this album so poor.  My guess is that being dropped by your record label doesn’t help.  Someone sign them to get them good again.

Safe as fuck clart!  You Knows it.

Andyspex signing out Two Thousand plus Eight.  Tidy!