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October 15 If you're so special then why aren't you dead?This week saw me celebrate my 27th birthday. Hurrah for me!
Now 27 obviously isn't a milestone in quite the same way as 18, 21 or 40 or whatever. However, it is often referred to as 'the Year of Rock Star Death', due to the fact that it's an age when many famous rock stars have popped theirf clogs - including Jimi Hendrix, Kurt Cobain, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison.
This being so, I thought it was only appropriate to mark this latest birthday by throwing a fancy dress party - the theme being 'dead rock stars'!
The party took place last night and I'm pleased to say that it was a riotous success, with friends coming from all over the country and throwing themselves wholeheartedly into the theme!
The pictures I've just uploaded to my gallery hopefully speak for themselves! You can even see reconstructions of the tragic deaths of both Mama Cass, who famously choked on a ham sandwich, and Michael Hutchence - the latter who turned up on the night with a belt tied ready round his neck... and with Paula Yates in tow as well!
Other dead rock stars who put in an appearance included Roy Orbison - who 'drove all night' (groan) from Leeds to attend - George Harrison, Julian Clary*, Janis Joplin, Nico from the Velvet Underground and Sid Vicious.
Needless to say, the sight of Sid Vicious enthusiastically tucking into the pineapple and cheese on sticks - the essential nibble for any party! - provided unquestionable evidence that punk is officially dead!
Myself, I decided to be Johnny Cash! This was mainly for the amusement value of being able to go up to people all night and go "Hi, I'm Johnny Cash"!
Top prizes however for best outfit though undoubtedly goes to Mr Andrew Best, who decided to build upon his namename ('The Lothario') by dressing up as the Walrus of Love himself, Barry White! He actually ended up looking more like Papa Lazarou from the League of Gentleman... or 'Leo Sayer - the coalmining years' as somebody put it!
Nevertheless, Andy's endeavours in getting fully 'blacked up' were a superb effort!
A special mention must also go to SuperKev - or Bill Haley, as he was on the night - who provided hours of fun by bringing along his Plsystation and 'Singstar'!
'Singstar', for the benefit of anyone who hasn't heard of it, is a game where you basically do karaoke, and the Playstation gives you a score based on how in tune you are! There are various different versions of the game, with 'Singstar Legends' featuring mainly singers who are dead - meaning that most of us got the chance to perform as our actual dead rock star alteregos! It was a LOT of fun!
Have uploaded some videos from our mammoth 'Singstar' session onto YouTube - as follows...
- To view JHH and SuperKev singing 'Don't Stop Me Now' by Queen, click here
- To view me singing 'Ace of Spades' by Motorhead, click here
- To view Becky singing 'Son of a Preacherman' by Dusty Springfield, click here
- To view me singing 'Ring of Fire' by Johnny Cash, click here
- To view SuperKev singing 'Wind of Change' by the Scorpions, click here
- To view Andy singing 'My First, My Last, My Everything' by Barry White, click here
* Julian Clary, of course, is neither dead, or a rock star. Nevertheless, John pulled off his choice of alterego with immense grace and style! October 14 I've... been pissin' in the wind. I chanced a foolish grin. And dribbled on my chin...I like to think that I'm a pretty loyal sort of person. Today however, I have a slightly dirty confession of infidelity to report!
I'll start from the beginning...
My mate Gaz is a massive Bristol Rovers fan - and he occasionally plays for the Bristol Rovers fans' team. And with Bristol Rovers in Nottingham today to play against the ginger stepchild of midlands football - AKA Notts County - arrangements were duly made for the aforesaid fans' team to play a match this morning against a Nottingham Forest fans' team.
Not quite sure why they were playing a Forest fans' team as opposed to a Notts fans' team - I can only assume that Notts don't actually have enough fans to make up a team of eleven. Boom boom!
But anyway - as you are probably aware, Forest happen to be my team of choice. Yet this morning, I ended up donning the colours of Bristol Rovers and playing against Forest!
This all came about due to the Rovers boys having been short on numbers, which led to Gaz asking me if I could step in as a 'ringer'. It all felt slightly wrong - but ultimately, a proper game of 11-a-side isn't something I get the opportunity to partake in very often... so I put my reservations to the back of my mind as I headed down to some random sports ground in the rather shady Nottingham suburb of Clifton.
As it was, I needn't have worried too much about taking the forty pieces of silver - as the Forest fans' team were vastly superior and ran out comfortable 8-1 winners. You can view one of the Forest goals - a penalty - on YouTube by clicking here. I actually started as a sub - but I ended up playing for most of the game, as I was called upon to replace a member of the Rovers team who had to go off injured during the first half. By this time, the Rovers boys were already 4-0 down!
I played at centre forward throughout my time on the pitch - although needless to say, with us ending up being on the receiving end of an 8-1 spanking, I didn't really see a great deal of the ball! I dutifully chased every hoofed clearance from defence though, and almost scored with a rasping shot from a narrow angle... so I think I was able to walk off the pitch with head held high.
So, an enjoyable experience overall, in spite of the drubbing. I've always felt that there's something quite magical about the world of 'grass roots' football. The smell of 'Deep Heat' and sweat, the industrial language, the dodgy offside decisions that you invariably get due to the fact that the 'linesmen' are actually subs from the competing teams... you gotta love it, really! October 13 I don't like cricket, yeah... oh no... I love it, yeah...Had the honour today of meeting a man who I really admire - the former cricketer Ian 'Beefy' Botham!
Must say, I'm not really much of a fan of cricket generally - however, I've always had a lot of time for for Beefy. I like the fact that he's a bit of a rogue - someone who's outspoken and doesn't take any crap off anyone.
And I also really admire the fact that, as well as making it to the very top in cricket, he also actually played professional football for a period as well, for Scunthorpe United!
What a guy!
But the coolest thing about Botham, I think, is his tireless efforts in undertaking sponsored walks to raise money for Leukaemia Reserach - a charity which I have supported myself on various occasions, by giving up a few hours to help out when they've organised collections in local supermarkets.
It was Beefy's latest fundraising exploits that led to my encounter with him. He's currently doing a whistlestop tour of UK towns, walking a 12 mile route around each - and today he arrived in Nottingham. Thus, I decided to pop down and join the throng of people who assembled to watch him embark on his circuit of the city.
I got took a few photos, which you can see in my gallery. I also got quite a cool video of Beefy setting off, which you can view on YouTube by clicking here.
I also got Beefy to autograph a cricket bat for me, which will be getting auctioned off at some point to raise money for the Brian Clough Statue Fund!
Incidentally, if anyone particularly enjoys reading autobiographies, I'd heartily recommend Beefy's. Hilariously, it's called 'Don't Tell Kath!' - Kath being the long-suffering Mrs Botham! October 11 Hold me in your arms, I wanna be your only possession...Well, a busy couple of days, both in the name of work and play.
In terms of play - just three days after my rather fruitless trip in search of England goals, I once again found myself heading up to Manchester last night, in order to see a solo gig by Manic Street Preachers frontman James Dean Bradfield.
With leaving straight from work it was all a bit of a rush - happily though, my endeavours were rewarded with a very entertaining evening. After arriving at my friend Mark's house in the suburb of Didsbury, we quickly got one of Manchester's legendary Magic Buses down to Oxford Road... where we had a very shady rendezvoux in a bar with a guy who we'd bought a pair of tickets from for the gig via eBay! I felt like I was doing a dodgy drug deal or something!
Then, we headed down to the famous 'curry mile', where we hooked up with Aron and Phil for pre-gig food and booze... before hotfooting it to the venue just in time to see JDB hit the stage.
Predictably, JDB's set was focused mainly on his recent solo album - however, he did chuck in a good half a dozen Manics numbers as well, including 'Kevin Carter' and 'From Despair to Where'. A really good gig, the only letdown being the fact that one of JDB's backing band whipped out a sax on a couple of occasions. I like to think I'm generally a tolerant soul - however, I firmly believe that saxophone solos are a crime that should be punishable by death...
A very good night then all in all, although I was nevertheless cursing at 5am when the alarm went off on my phone, awakening me from a deep sleep on Mark's sofa and signifying that it was time to get up and drive back to Nottingham in order to be at work for 9am..!
That said, work has been pretty cool this week. As most of you who know me will know, I work for the part of the NHS that provides mental health services across Nottinghamshire - and over the last few months, I've spent quite a bit of time helping organise an exhibition of paintings by patients. This has been an enjoyable task - not least because it has involved me getting to drive around in a white van as a means of transporting pieces of artwork from A to B! And it's impossible to drive a van without feeling like you're starring in an episode of the A-Team!
We decided to put on the exhibition as part of the annual Nottingham Mental Health Awareness Weeks. Today was the launch - and pleasingly, we had a really good turn-out.
If anyone's interested in finding out more, simply click here and you'll be redirected to an article about the exhibition that I managed to blag onto the BBC website as part of my drive to pimp the exhibition via the media!
Also at work, there was great amusement in our office today when we had a CD delivered containing hundreds of photos we had taken at an event we held where patients and carers were basically invited to come along and say what they think about NHS services.
I was a 'facilitator' at this event - which basically meant I had to chair a discussion and write down key points that people made on a flipchart. And amusingly, the photos we got back this afternoon included one of me in front of my flipchart, looking absolutely bored shitless!
Of course, I couldn't possibly confirm or deny whether this was actually the case...!
Amusingly, there was also an arty close-up of my right hand scribbling on the flipchart! You can see both the snaps in question below...
October 08 Oh Manchester, so much to answer for...This weekend saw me win my first England cap!
"What?", I hear you cry. "Rich donning the three lions, and turning out alongside Steven Gerrard, John Terry and co?"
Well, not quite!
What I mean is that I gained my first cap as a member of 'Englandfans', which is the official members' club for the England footy team. I became a member a few months ago - basically, I'd heard so many great stories from people who went to watch England in Germany this summer that I decided I'd start thinking ahead as to how I could give myself the best possible chance of getting tickets for the next World Cup, which will be taking place in South Africa in 2010*.
And, having spoken to those 'in the know', it quickly became apparent that the best bet would be for me to join Englandfans.
It's basically a loyalty scheme. As a member, every time you attend an England home game, you get awarded one cap... while every time you go to an away game, you get two.
Then, when tickets for big games go on sale - World Cup matches, etc - the members with the most caps are given priority.
So... now I'm an Englandfans member, I've decided I'm going to try and get to as many England games as I can between now and 2010 in order to build up my caps - and I decided to set the ball rolling by heading up to Manchester yesterday for the Euro 2008 qualifier against Macedonia.
The game it question was actually my second 'live' footy game of the day, as by the time I took my seat at Old Trafford I'd already sat through a painful 90 minutes at the City Ground, in which a feckless Forest got spanked 4-0 by Scunthorpe. Less said about that, the better!
The Forest game had been an early kick-off - 12.15pm - due to the fact that it was televised by Sky. This being so, it had finished just after 2pm, which meant I had less than three hours to fight my way through the post-match congestion ,and then get up to Manchester in time for England's 5pm start. It was tight, but I made it just in time - indeed, I emerged into the light at Old Trafford literally as Peter Crouch and Wayne Rooney were kicking off!
As you'll probably be aware, the match finished 0-0, with the general consensus having been that it was dire. I must say though, I enjoyed it - it was a buzz being part of such a big crowd (72,000), and I actually thought the match was pretty entertaining as well. A bit scary really - probably shows how much your standards slip when you've become accustomed to the sort of dross that Forest serve up as football these days!
Post-match, I met up with my mate JHH and three of his friends, who'd also all been at the game. Our plan had been to head to Rusholme in Manchester and partake in fine Indian cuisine on the famous 'curry mile' - alas though, a farcical chain of events started off by Manchester's tram system grinding to a standstill resulted in us ending up instead at what turned out to be a woeful balti house in Altrincham!
So, all that rushing about to fit in two games in one day, and what had I got to show for it as I embarked upon the long drive back to Nottingham shortly before midnight? Yes, neither of my teams managing to bloody score, and a really crap vegetable biryani!
Still, at least I got my first cap..!
* There is of course the small matter of England having to actually qualify for this next World Cup - but hey, under the masterful leadership of Steve McClaren, this is surely a formality! October 06 You're so vain, you probably think this song is about you...Someone's just emailed me a weblink to the video for the new single by David Hasselhoff - Aka 'the Hoff'! It is, perhaps unsurprisingly, pure cheese! You can see it for yourself by clicking here. Amusingly, there's actually an internet campaign to get the song to number one in the charts! For full details, click here! October 01 Roquefort and gruyere, slippery brie... all of these cheeses have happened to me...In life, I find there are few things more enjoyable than getting up to something completely random. And this week has been a great week for such shenanigans!
First of all, Monday night saw me attend a monthly meeting of the Notts Parrot Club!
The meeting in question was held in a village hall in Shirebrook - an obscure backwater in deepest darkest north Nottinghamshire. I went with my brother Al and his girlfriend Cat. Basically, I'd heard the meeting was taking place through readng about it in one of the local papers - and with the three of us all being bird-owners, we decided it'd be amusing to go along.
Pleasingly, we weren't disappointed! There were quite a few people there who'd actually brought their parrots along, which was pretty cool! The whole vibe was slightly 'weirdy beardy', but it was nevertheless well worth the trip to Shirebrook. The main attraction was a talk from a guy about owls, which was really interesting.
Meanwhile, today saw more random-ness for Al, Cat and me - because along with Cat's friend Kate, we spent the day at a farm in Lincolnshire, partaking in a cheese-making course!
As someone who loves cheese more than most things in the world, I found the day a fascinating experience! I discovered that the process of making cheese is quite a precise science - for instance, milk has to be heated to very specific temperatures. And there's also lots of elbow work involved, in terms of stirring, and separating curds and whey.
Needless to say, I inevitably ended up getting songs stuck in my head throughout the day featuring prominent use of the word 'way' - only in my head, it was 'whey' rather than 'way'!
There's no other whey...
This is the modern whey...
You get the picture!
Sadly, we didn't get the chance to sample our own cheese - the only way this would have been possible would have been by stayed at the farm for the next week, to see the whole cheese-making process through! I would have been more than happy to do this, as the farm was amazing and had loads of cool animals - including a gang of goats with ZZ Top-style beards, who provided the milk with which we made our cheese! However, though no-one could deny that cheese-making is a noble pursuit, I'm not sure my employers would have been too amused if I'd decided to go AWOL for a week in order to follow the cheese mission through to its very conclusion!
We did however get to try 'one they'd made earlier' - or rather 'two they'd made earlier', because we actually made two different types of cheese... a soft goat's cheese, and a hard goat's cheese. Both were amazing!
The farm where we did the course supplies various farm shops with cheese - so amusingly, the fruits of our labour will eventually be going on sale to the public!
You can see all the drama from our day of cheese-making in my photo gallery, including a snap of my ma enjoying some of the cheese that we brought home with us! September 29 Bottles and cans and just clap your hands and just clap your hands...Can anyone remember the days when you used to get bottles of milk from the milkman with adverts printed on them? (Or indeed, can anyone remember the days when you used to get bottles of milk from the milkman?!) If so - well, my Gran was recently clearing out a load of junk from her garage, and duly discovered boxes upon boxes of these bottles that my Grandad had collected. Ever a pair of deluded optimists, my brother Al and I were like "Wow, maybe these are collectors' items" - and so as an experiment, we decided to slap a few of them on eBay, envisaging a bidding frenzy that would result in me, him and my Gran splitting the proceeds three ways and each being able to retire to our own private island in the Caribbean! Sadly, this has not quite happened - as five days into the auction, none of the bottles have attracted a single bid! Not even the one advertising a panto in Nottingham starring Leslie 'Dirty Den' Grantham! If any of you happen to know anyone out there who may be interested though in the bottles, feel free to tell them to click here, which takes you to the eBay listings! September 27 You're trying hard not to show it, baby... but baby, baby I know it...As anyone who knows me even vaguely well will probably know, I have a tendency to squander hundreds of hours and pounds each year in the name of watching the mighty Nottingham Forest Football Club.
A lot of people who aren't football fans tend to be quite baffled by my unwavering devotion to a team who have frankly been pretty rubbish for more years that I care to remember. I try to explain to them that supporting Forest is a bit like syphillis - once you've got the bug, you've got it for life!
In all seriousness though, what is it that keeps me renewing my season ticket year after year? Well, for any of you who've ever wondered, I recently got asked to write an article tackling this very question. I suspect the article in question will never actually see the light of day in the publication for which it was intended - so here it is now, in its full glory!
Without further a do...
If there’s one thing that can be said for being a Forest fan, it’s probably the fact that it’s never, ever dull. Ever since my dad first took me to a match as a wide-eyed nine-year-old in the late 1980s, I’ve followed the Reds with a passion – and from the sublime to the ridiculous, there’s seldom been a season that hasn’t provided reasons to be delirious with excitement or incandescent with rage. Or sometimes both, in the space of the same 90 minutes!
But it’s the happy memories that linger the longest… and there have been plenty of them during my time as a fan.
Various trips to Wembley… bunking off school during my GCSE year to go and watch Forest away in Europe during the Uefa Cup run of the 1995-96 season… a hilarious own goal by Gary Charles that pretty much secured promotion back to the Premiership for Forest in 1994 - on the ground of their biggest rivals Derby, no less … a whole selection of thundering Stuart Pearce free-kicks… queuing overnight to get tickets for an away match at Tottenham for which Forest had only been allocated 300 seats… meeting Brian Clough and having the great man tell me to “get a bloody hair cut”… the list is almost endless.
But if I had to stick my neck out and pick my very favourite moments of being a Forest fan, it would have to be two of the more ‘quirky’ experiences that I’ve had – the first of which occurred, of all places, at the Glastonbury music festival.
Like most football fans, I’ve accumulated a pair amount of memorabilia over the years relating to my team – and one of the more peculiar items that I own is a lifesize cardboard cut-out of the aforementioned Stuart Pearce!
Now for no particular reason other than the fact that we thought it’d be quite funny, my friends and I decided to take Stuart to Glastonbury with us in the summer of 2003 – and he became a sort of mascot for the weekend as we enjoyed the sights and sounds of the festival.
Being a national hero and all, Stuart duly gained a lot of attention from our fellow festival-goers. But it was only when I was approached by a journalist that ‘Psycho-mania’ truly kicked off.
The journo in question wanted to know why we had brought Stuart with us – and being of the view that the truth was a bit mundane, I brazenly informed him that we were the founders of the ‘Church of Psycho’, and that we were at Glastonbury to recruit disciples!
Hilariously, this story somehow made it into the national news – and as word spread around the festival site, we found ourselves getting mobbed wherever we went by people wanting to pledge their allegiance to the church! Stuart also ended up having the Manic Street Preachers dedicate a song to him during their set on the festival’s main stage!
But the funniest part of the whole episode actually occurred a few weeks after we got home. Concerned that the real Stuart Pearce may have heard about our exploits and that he might be wondering what was going on in his name, I decided to write to him, care of Manchester City Football Club, to explain the whole saga. And hilariously, I quickly received a reply.
“Thank you for taking me to Glastonbury,” his letter read. “It’s been a while since I’ve done any drunken crowd-surfing at a festival!” It was then signed ‘Stuart Pearce, Cardboard Cutout and Coach’. Legend!
Meanwhile, my other ‘favourite memory’ took place in May 2004, when I got to do what I‘d always dreamed of doing as a kid.
Yes, I pulled on a Forest shirt and played a full 90 minutes of football on the hallowed turf of the City Ground!
This opportunity came about through a charity called Football Aid. Each year, they get clubs to give up their ground facilities for a day – and then host a match, with each playing position auctioned off to the highest bidder.
After a furious bidding war, I successfully acquired the number nine shirt for one of the two teams. I paid a silly amount of money, but it turned out to be worth every penny! Not only did my team-mates and I get to turn out on the field of dreams, we also got to use the real Forest dressing rooms! What’s more, we also had the legendary former Reds captain John McGovern on hand as our manager for the day!
So what of the match? Well, the crowd admittedly wasn’t quite the usual 20,000 or so – but nevertheless, I spent much of the first half simply wandering around the lush turf, gazing up at the stands in awe! This probably explains why I barely had a sniff of a chance, and my team went in at half-time 2-1 down.
However, at this point we were roused into action by some inspiring words of encouragement from our ‘gaffer’ McGovern – and within minutes of the restart, as we attacked the Bridgford End, a loose ball fell to me just outside of the six yard box… and I’m proud to say that I thumped it emphatically into the back of the net to level the scores.
Suffice to say, regardless of what happens over the decades to come, I’m pretty sure The Day I Scored At the City Ground will forever remain one of my favourite moments as a Reds fan!
As it happened, it was also a key turning point in this admittedly meaningless charity game - because having hauled ourselves level, my team went on to win 7-4! September 24 Check out guitar George - he knows all the chords...So, another week over. Where does the time go? It'll be Christmas before we know it!
What to report then?
Well, three things of note happened this week.
1) As part of my day job, I had to go and visit an organisation that provides services for Asian people with mental health problems. And as part of this visit, I ended up blagging the most amazing veggie curry for lunch! It was the most delicious thing I've eaten in ages...
2) I went to a wedding yesterday - that of my friends Martin and Kate. I've just added a load of pics to my photo album if anyone's interested. It was a great day, and the undisputed highlight was a moment during the evening reception that can only be described as a Dire Straits love-in!
Martin, you see, is legendary for his unbridled passion for the Straits song 'Money for Nothing' - and so naturally, it was only fitting on his wedding day to get his guests to recreate the song's legendary video! This was achieved by having white headbands handed out to everyone, and then blitzing the room with purple UV lights as the song blared out of the speakers. It was amazing!
Have added a clip of Straits-mana to YouTube, along with a few other clips from the day - as follows...
3) Having grown up in part of Nottingham called Mapperley, it was a source of great intrigue to me recently when I discovered that there's actually a second Mapperley in the UK - and that it's only actually about ten miles away, just over the Derbyshire border!
Naturally, I seemed rude not to go and visit - so I duly arranged an outing there today with my brother Al, his girlfriend Cat, and my Gran!
A very pleasant place it was too - and again, I've uploaded some pics to my photo album if anyone's interested... September 19 The Arcadian dream has all fallen through, but the Albion sails on course, so man the decks and hoist the rigging, because the pig man's found the source...I always like to 'do my bit' to help support worthy causes - and so I hereby feel it's my duty to announce that today is 'International Talk Like a Pirate Day'!
Full details can be found by clicking here. Yarr! September 17 Throw your love around - love me, love me...I got told this weekend by someone that, in profile, I apparently bear a striking resemblence to the actor Paul Walker of '2 Fast 2 Furious' fame.
Not being much a film buff, I must confess I hadn't even heard of the thesp in question! I just Googled him though to find a picture (see below), and it turns out he's not a bad-looking bloke!
So I guess it must have been a compliment really. Who knows, maybe I could get paid shitloads of cash to be his 'body double' in his next film?! September 15 If you don’t give me my football back I’m gonna get my dad on you…Most people who know me will be well aware of the fact that one of my favourite pastimes in life is to charging around a five-a-side football pitch. Footy is certainly not referred to as ‘the beautiful game’ without reason – however, five-a-side can be quite vicious of times, and the regular Thursday night kickabout that I’m involved in has seen quite a few injuries in recent weeks… and I myself was the latest casualty in this week’s game! It all happened when I took my turn to go in goal. Usually I’m pretty useless in goal, but on this occasion I’m proud to say that I pulled off a string of cat-like saves. However, the force of one particular shot saw my right thumb bent in a direction that it’s not really supposed to go in – resulting in pain which saw me quickly hotfooting it down to our local hospital’s A&E department! Fortunately, an X-ray proved that I’d not broken anything – however, I have damaged some of the ligaments round my thumb, and promptly had my arm put in a sling by the nurses. Which was kinda cool - cos having your arm in a sling sort of makes you look like a pirate. And as everyone knows, pirates are ace! Joking aside though, I must say, I was most impressed by the speed of service at the hospital. I was in and out in little more than half an hour. As I know only too well from my own ‘day job’, people are always quick to give the NHS a good kicking – so it’s only fair to give credit where credit’s due… And happily, a night’s sleep spent with my thumb resting on the proverbial bag of frozen peas has led to a marked improvement, enabling me to ditch the sling. This was a relief, because the novelty of looking a bit like a pirate had worn off pretty quickly as soon as I began to discover what a struggle it was having to perform all manner of routine day-to-day tasks with just my left hand. Getting change out of my pocket for the bus, getting the top off a bottle, locking and unlocking doors…. the not to mention visits to the toilet!!! I guess it just goes to show how we take things for granted in life. All in all, the whole saga has only served to increase the amount of respect I have for the one-armed drummer dude out of Def Leppard! September 13 In an interstellar burst, I'm back to save the universe...I love the fact that the world is full of creative people who clearly have too much time on their hands.
September 10 Something beautiful left town; and she doesn't even know it's name...Of the many pleasures that there are to be had in life, I find sometimes that you simply can't beat a good road trip!
My brother Al and me decided to embark upon such an adventure this weekend, down to the west country. Setting off in my trusty Corsa, laden with snacks and with my iPod providing the musical accompaniment, we naturally felt like characters out of a Jack Kerouac novel.
Unlike Dean Moriarty though in 'On the Road', our main motive was to go and cheer on Nottingham Forest in their game away at Yeovil Town.
However, having discovered that it was situated less than an hour from Yeovil, we also decided to fit in a visit to Monkey World in Dorset. The name is pretty much self-explanatory!
So how was the day? Well, I'm pleased to report that the monkeys were brilliant... and though the match wasn't hugely exciting, Forest nevertheless managed to scrape a win to keep their place at the top of the league.
We also made a spontaneous detour on the way home to the Dorset village Cerne Abbas, which is famous for a hill that has a massive picture carved into it of a "naked, sexually aroused, club-wielding giant". These, incidentally, are the words of the National Trust website - not mine!
The Cerne Abbas Giant was certainly an interesting sight - check out the road trip photo gallery if you want to take a look at him!
So, anything else to report? Well, we also had the amusement on the M42 on the way home of spotting BBC Radio Nottingham's commentary team for Forest matches, including the legendary John McGovern, who were also making their way back from the game.
Needless to say, I couldn't resist overtaking them and giving them a cheery "Duh, duh, duh-duh, dub" on the horn! They initially looked quite alarmed - though we had a red and white scarf flying out of the car window, so they probably worked out pretty quickly that we were just a pair of Forest nutters..!
All in then, a pretty cool weekend. Also saw Badly Drawn Boy play a gig at the Rescue Rooms in Nottingham the night before the big road trip, which was ace! September 06 If time is like a broken watch, I'll make money like Fred Astaire...So, just got back from my final music festival of 2006 - which, as far as I'm concerned, means it's now officially the end of the summer.
Sniff!
Still, my trip to Ireland's Electric Picnic with my good friend Zippy was a marvellous way to end the few warm months that our wonderous nation can be bothered to bestow upon us. It truly is a great festival. I mean, how can you not love an event that has a cinema tent that shows the classic late-80s flick 'Weekend at Bernie's'?!
Probably the best tall tale of the weekend involves a certain Manchester singer-songwriter who'd better remain nameless. Shortly before the festival, we had heard from a cast-iron source that aforesaid singer and his backing band recently had an 'interesting' encounter with a very famous female TV presenter - and as such, we decided it was only fair to launch a few heckles when they took to the stage. "Norman Cook says you're all dead!" may or may not have been among that things that we shouted..!
As for other shenanigans - well, the Electric Picnic snaps that I've just added to my photo album on this site will hopefully speak for themselves.
As you'll see, it all starts off with us going shopping for booze... and then there's a snap of tower in a small village in County Antrim which, randomly, is owned by Bill Drummond of KLF fame! There's then some snaps from our epic journey down to the festival site, which saw us set off at 3.30am (don't ask!) And needless to say, it all gets a bit blurry from thereon in..!
I've also uploaded some Electric Picnic video footage to YouTube.com, as follows...
August 22 And we're all city dreamers, racking up sweet misdemeanours...Discovered today that Nottingham Forest have yet another celebrity fan of sorts to go alongside Kenneth Clarke, Su Pollard, Carl Froch and James Dean Bradfield.
Yes... apparently David Nicholson, the recently-appointed new Chief Executive of the NHS, is a die-hard Reds fan!
Suffice to say, Nicholson probably spent today feeling just as embarrassed as I did, following Forest's latest cup humiliation - an utterly shameful defeat away in the first round of the Carling Cup against... Accrington Stanley.
Yes, that's THE Accrington Stanley - as in the team universally regarded as the epitome of the rubbish no-hoper, after they were namechecked in a legendary TV ad for milk in the late 80s!
If any of you want to get a flavour of this latest low for the once-mighty Reds, click here to see some coverage of the game from BBC East Midlands Today, which I've just uploaded to YouTube.
The quality isn't brilliant, as I filmed the footage straight off the telly with my digital camera!
And for some reason, the sound starts to go faster than the pictures... so where there's people speaking, it starts to look like a dodgy pop video where the lip-synching is all out of time!
However, you may spot a familiar face at various points in the footage!!!
August 20 I'll get a guitar and a lover who pays me. If I can't be a star I won't get out of bed...Very proud to say that my brother did a bungee jump today off a massive bridge up in Middlesbrough!
His exploit was all in the name of a good cause - for full details, click here. August 18 Well you're probably alright - but under these lights you look beautiful..Well, I think it's fair to say that my brave leap into the world of blogging didn't exactly get off to the best of starts!
There I was, all excited about the fact that I had my own little corner of the web... only for my site to inexplicably corrupt itself within a matter of days, crashing the web browsers of anyone who tried to view it.
Disheartened, I decided to write off the whole thing as a dead loss. Yet for some reason, the site this week suddenly seemed to start working again!
So here I am, giving it another go. And it had better not go belly up again now, cos I've just spent the best part of an hour adding various new features to the site - including some links to some cool places on the internet, and also a nifty feature that gives you a blast of music when you first visit the site.
But what have I been up to in the month or so since my last entry?
Well, three things of note - two of which can be seen in my photo gallery.
First of all, there was the excitement of a bunch of film-makers visiting my place of work, to shoot some scenes for a movie called 'Control', about the life of Joy Division singer Ian Curtis.
As a massive fan of Joy Division's music, I was only too happy to give up a Saturday to supervise the filming! And it was a fascinating experience.
The film-makers had asked if they could come and film at my work's site because they felt it'd make a good 'double' for Macclesfield District General Hospital, and the scenes they shot on the day involved Ian Curtis arriving at aforesaid hospital to witness the birth of his daughter.
The guy playing Curtis, a relative unknown, was absolutely uncanny. It was like seeing a ghost! And Curtis' wife was being played by Samantha Morton, who's been in proper Hollywood films and stuff!
I also managed to get a nice souvenir of the day, by nicking one of the fake 'Macclesfield District General Hospital' signs that were put up!
Meanwhile, the second shenanigan of note was a German-themed fancy dress party at the home of the redoubtable Mark 'Hornblower' Hornby, a former colleague of mine from my days at Boots. This saw myself and numerous others get dressed up in Lederhosen and get very drunk! Upstaging everyone though was my bro, who grew a luxuriant handlebar moustache and then dyed it blonde, just for the occasion!
And last but not least, my other tall tale from the last few weeks concerns the wedding of my friends James and Tara. Music-wise, the happy couple had wanted to end their 'evening do' with an hour of the guiltiest Guilty Pleasures - and it was decided that there was no better man to bring the guilt than myself!
So, cometh the hour, I plugged my iPod into the sound system, and slayed an eager dancefloor with a barrage of the sort of uncool tunes that everyone secretly loves - from 'Money for Nothing' by Dire Straits to 'Easy Lover' by Phil Collins and Philip Bailey. Pleased to say that my efforts went down a storm - and needless to say, I'm now very much available for bar mitzvahs, christenings etc!
Anyways - hopefully I'll be able to offer more regular updates now this site's back up and running again. Ta-ra though for now...
July 19 If you've lost your faith in love and music - well, the end won't be long...Well, this is my very first entry into 'The Soft Bulletin' - my very own web journal!
It's all quite exciting really. I've always wanted my own web journal, ever since my brother Al launched his - www.goddammit.co.uk.
Alas, my complete lack of knowhow in terms of how to do stuff with websites has always curtailed the dream. However, my mate JHH then introduced me to the concept of MSN Spaces...which does all the hard work for you.
So here I am. Goodness knows whether anyone will ever actually visit this site!
If you are planning to drop by though, I simply plan to scribble a few words and upload some photos whenever I've gotten up to something interesting. I've already given myself a head start on the photos front by uploading a selection that depict some of my adventures of the last month or so. Enjoy! |
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