Review of 2009

I have been neglecting this blog for a while and concentrating on my photo blog, which I really enjoy doing.

 

So to kick off this year, I thought that I would do a kind of review of the year for 2009.  I don’t think I am doing a Spex awar this year, mainly because I can’t be bothered.  I am getting Lazy I think.

 

January started off with New Year in the most random pub in the world and a trip to a brewery for May-Z’s birthday, and then not a great deal happened, until February when I started going to Gigs again, Iglu and Hartley was the first of the year.

 

In March, not a lot happened again, but I saw a couple more bands.  April was great though, I met the wonderful H and we had a lot of fun.  I also formed the Victorian Gentlemans Amaretto Drinking Club (Fingers Up) in a pub in Worcester and went to Thorpe Park for the first time that year.

 

May was pretty good, my birthday was superb, we had a lot of fun, and then I went on Safari, this took me until mid June and was one of the most amazing things that I have ever done.  June came and went with more gigs and a trip to the Isle of Wight.  July flew past with Mark Cavendish winning 6 stages of the Tour De France and the Ashes starting.

 

August saw the completion of the Ashes, with England victorious, me failing to walk the Southdowns Way because of injury.  September included Bestival, which was superb, (Elbow were sublime) and Love Albert Road Day which was good too.

 

October was my month of blogging and to be honest it is some of the worst things ever written, I did start taking a lot of photos though.  In November I saw the Flaming Lips, which was about the only thing I did that month.

 

December flew past, with ATP and christmas, and I cooked for H on New Years Eve.

 

All in all, not a bad year.

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday to H.  We went out for a meal last night and she has gone to the Isle of Wight today.  I will be going tomorrow to join her for Bestival.  Its going to be good.

I am not sure who I am looking forward to seeing more:

• Kraftwerk
• Massive Attack
• Elbow
• MGMT
• Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip 
• Seasick Steve

Its going to be good.

Happy Birthday for Yesterday

Believe it or not, the Internet is now 40 years old.  The very first part of it was set up at UCLA for a collaboration between 4 universities.

It is hard to imagine a world without t’interweb as these days, pretty much everybody in developed (or even semi developed) society has a basic grasp of the internet.  They will at least know what it is.  I use it for pretty much everything.  I keep in contact with friends, I look for mucic, I watch TV, I read a newspaper, I would get my weekly shopping on there if you didn’t have to pay for delivery.

Over the last 40 years, what was first used as a tool for shifting nuclear data between researchers has grown into not just a business tool, but a whokle industry.  Hundreds of thousands of people are employed doing stuff with the internet.  Most of which I don’t understand.

So cheers to the internet and all of its brilliance, without you I wouldn’t have wasted weeks on Facebook.

Busy

Hello readers,

Sorry its been a while, but I have been busy. I have been to another gig, the Twilight Sad at the joiners. They were very good. The first support was like the ambient noise you get in some of the art installations in the Tate Modern.

Apart from that dear reader, I have had my birthday and celebrated for a week. I had a big BBQ at my parents house and 21 people came, it was great. SOme of them stayed which wrote off my weekend really, but it was great fun.

Apart from that I have been spending time with H, as well as being ill from taking Malaria tablets before my trip. I am getting a bit nervous now, and in about 48 hours I will be boarding a BA 737 to Nairobi. I feel seriously underprepared.

I thought that I would update you, as this may be the last for a while.

Thanks for reading.

Yours sincerely

Your Fearless Leader.

Dananananananananananananan….

Last night is a bit of a blur really. It was my birthday, so straight from work, 5 of us from the office went for a drink. Then at 6 I left and went and had dinner with H. Then to the Joiners again (2nd time this week) to see Dananananaykroyd. We were joined by The Boy Lord, Indiegirl, Andy and The Jolly Green Dave Ware. The drinking began.

4 bands played, Waking Aida were Mogwai-ish, Japanese Voyeurs had some really excellent riffs and a hot front woman (I think a lot of men in the audience fell in love with her). The video Nasties were alright as were the headliners, but it all got to be a bit of a blur before they came on. It was a good night though.

Now I have a headache. I am supposed to be going out toinght, but I don’t think I am going to. I need some sleep.

Happy Birthday Dad

Its my Dads birthday today, so I thought that I would start off with that.  So Happy Birthday.  Yesterday we went out for Tea and Cake at the 10th Hole as a bit of a gathering with the parents and my sister.  This also turned out to be a useful staging for them to meet H.  She isn’t so mysterious anymore, being a she and the fact that she was nervous meeting my parents.  In the old days you would have called her my girlfriend, but these days its not official until it says so on Facebook.  The thing with this is that you can’t change your status to anything other than being In A Relationship.  I think its a bit early days for that sort of thing, but there you go.  If they had a status of dating that would be better.

Christmas and Other Such Events

So here it is Merry Christmas, everybody is having fun.  Or so we are told.  I had a fairly busy festive period which started on Tuesday 23rd with an evening pub quiz (2nd place again, damn.  Our crown has slipped), followed by a relaxed Christmas eve daytime before going to the pub and drinking quite heartily until gone midnight.

Christmas day came and went at my parents, as did boxing day and the traditional Hayling Island beach walk.

On Sunday the 28th I took myself up to Fairford to stay at Mack and Spanners for a few days.  Becky, Paul, Catherine and Smyles were all there too, so it was quite a nice big group of us.  By the time I came away I felt quite glad that I was single still, there was quite a lot of hen pecking on the go.

Straight from Fairford I went up to the Woo to stay with Fatbob and Bimbo.  Dev and KP came round for tea, and as May-Z turned up we went to the pub, where discussions   turned to the 4 things that men want most in the world, Pies, Pints, Fires and Women in Stockings.  You could tell the 2 single guys in the group as we were the ones talking about the stockings while the others were talking about what type of pie it would be.

As it was New Years Eve we had had the usual arguement of what we were going to do, and as usual had come up with nothing.  In the end we went to the weirdest little pub in the world, called the Fox.  It looked like someones living room and there was a folk ensemble in one corner (I have one in my living room, don’t you?), but we had a great night, KP was attacked by a small boy, who Bimbo then hit.  Dev was called a numpty by a local and 2 dogs fell asleep on me.  Nice.

After a quiet New Years Day, where all we did was go out for a meal and watch Jonathan Creek, we were joined by Ebby on the second before shooting off to Walsall for May-Zs birthday bash, a piss up in a brewery.  This was outstanding value for money as it cost us £7.50 for a tour and all we could drink of their fine ales.  I had a great time manning the pumps and being landlord for the night.  Sadly we had to leave and we made our way back to Worcester, merrier than before. 

On the Saturday we spent a few hours in Malvern, going to the worlds smallest Theatre, the Theatre of Small Convenience.  It is built in an old gents toilets and run by an extremely eccentric chap.  It was a great experience and we watched ”The Tale of the Snowcake Man”.

Anyway, that was the end of the holiday and I am back at work now.   I have a cold and I feel like crap.  This is a rubbish post, I may improve it at some point, but probably not.

Alt. Country.

Caths Cake

Firstly sorry about the lack of postings, I haven not really done a whole hell of a lot so didn’t want to bung up the internet with more crap.  Secondly I have been having a bit of a turning 30 crisis recently, even though this is not for another 18 months yet.  I should probably choose my reading materials more wisely.

Anyway, this weekend I went to Caths surprise 30th, and once all of the old people from University that I haven’t seen for years left with their kids, we got down to the serious task of drinking Baileys and breathing in Helium.  My personal favourite was Martin Luther King’s I have a dream speech.  Think how the world could have been changed if he hadn’t been so shouty, but used helium instead.

Then last night I went to see Micah P. Hinson at the wedgewood rooms, I have seen him twice before, both at festivals, and so this would eb a chance to see a fairly intimate gig.  Until I got there I wasn’t quite sure how intimate it was going to be.  There were tables and chair out in the room and about 60 people turned up in total.  Shame really because it was a fantastic night, and I did something that I can’t ever remember doing at the Wedge, have a conversation with someone that I didn’t know.

The support came from the Retribution Gospel Choir, that feature Alan Sparhawk from Low.  They played slightly psychedelic, mainly rocking songs and came as a bit of a surprise, I suspect that they will feature at some festivals next year, my guess would be at The End of The Road and probably one of the ATP ones.  They hail from Deluth Minnesota, home of Bob Dylan and they added a few covers of his songs.

Then came Micah P. Hinson.  He isn’t your typical frontman, who seems to shy away from the front of the stage, but once he gets going, its difficult to take your eyes off of him.  Singing from behind a big old 50′s style microphone the tone of his voice dominates the room, and his tunes full of their dry wit, got everybodys heads bobbing.  When him and the drummer went into a dualing banjo situation, the crowd went a bit wild.

Probably the worst part of the fact that you had to sit down was the politeness of it all, no one seemed to know when to start clapping and there were moments when the room was completely silent.

60 Not Out

Its my dads 60th tomorrow, so we went out for a meal with some of my parents friends to Rosies Wine Bar in Southsea.  I had a lovely meal, starting with Char Grilled Tiger Prawns and then, Whole Sea Bass in Coconut butter with Sauteed Potatos.  The prawns were delicious and the fish wasn’t bad either if a bit fiddly.  For desert I had a Passion Fruit Tart with red Berry Compote.  The flavours in this were excellent.

There was also a live Jazz Band  called the Freestyle Funk Collective (the female singer sounded great especially when doing the Brand New Heavies Covers) in the restaurant which added atmosphere, although the amount of wine that was drunk did enough of that anyway.  It was a very funny night and Dad was on top form joking about.  Anyway, happy birthday for tomorrow, i’ll see you for lunch.