Best band in the world. EVER.

I guess it seems a bit cheeky to break a long blogging silence by just posting a video and eulogising about how amazing Radiohead are. I sooooo wish we had managed to get day tickets to the Reading Festival on Sunday so we could have witnessed what by all accounts was a phenomenal set. Sadly the BBC only showed about a third of the tracks but what you can see on iPlayer is fantastic. Gemma especially seems to like it when the camera lingers on Jonny Greenwood. Perhaps it's the hair.

(update on 16th Sept - the video isn't available any more :o( but believe me it was awesome!)

Websites that make me happy*

No, it's not that sort of post. Honestly, what were you thinking?

I'm talking about those sites I've either used for years or recently discovered, which tap into my personal loves and interests and/or make life easier. One of the recently discovered ones is Ravelry.com, an online knitting and crocheting community (bear with me) recommended by Arianne, whose role on our agency account I have appreciated for some time but until recently having no idea that we share a love of yarn and needles and generally making cute stuff. So I joined Ravelry the other day and now have a whole load of new patterns I want to try, yarns I want to buy and projects I want to get started on. Luckily with my leave coming up I might even have a chance to get going on some of them before Chewie arrives and occupies my every waking moment.

LibraryThing is another of these kinds of sites. I guess the beauty of both this and Ravelry, and Bloglines and even the dreaded Facebook to a certain extent is the cataloguing aspect of them (tapping into the librarian deep in my core, hmm); where knitting projects, books I own, blog feeds, friends, photos etc are all kept in nice easy places for me to access pretty much whenever I want to. I'm yet to find a gardening website that feeds my soul as much, but there's bound to be one out there somewhere.

Maybe I'm getting old, maybe it's preparation for being a mum, I don't know, but 10 years ago only books and music really excited me in my leisure time, that and drinking cider with various cronies of course :) Now I get far more out of creating stuff, whether it's a little beanie hat for a friend's toddler (it's nearly finished Julia and will be on its way to Calgary soon!), a banana loaf for a Bonfire Night get together, a batch of dahlia seedlings growing and blooming over the summer, or even dare I say baking a baby for the last 8 months. I still love reading and listening to music, at gigs or at home, but they exist more as activities to relax me and for pure enjoyment, whereas the more creative stuff seems so much more rewarding. Maybe I should have been a Home Economics teacher rather than taking up with all this online marketing malarkey.

*and other nice things

21 weeks 2 days

Serious internal jigging about from #1 bambino last night. Ali felt a kick for the first time which was wonderful, he was so happy to finally feel something! Since then the bump has been a bit quiet. I have a worrying suspicion that the Tom Petty album which was playing in the background might have spurred it into action, so I think I'll have to come up with a plan of action for its musical education before the birth that doesn't involve any Dylan, Waits, or Young... We're out for a curry tonight too so that might trigger a few movements - hopefully from the baby rather than my own insides though.

19 weeks

Not much to report on really this week. Still a few little flutterings that may or may not be my digestive system rather than the baby moving. We went to see the Gutter Twins play at the Oxford Academy on Monday night which was a great gig, but very very loud. I hadn't really given it much thought beforehand but now the baby's senses are developing and apparently it can hear or at least sense sound vibrations, I got a slight wave of guilt about whether it was actually enjoying itself while the band thumped out their stuff. I even thought it might stimulate a kick or two "Mum, what on earth is this godawful racket you're subjecting me to?" but I haven't noticed anything. Our unborn child has so far been to 2 Radiohead concerts as well as the Gutter Twins so with any luck it should develop reasonable musical taste, unless Ali decides to play it some Neil Young after it's born of course...

Good article on old-fashioned names on the BBC today as well - not that we'll be naming it Clifford if it's a boy but it's slightly sad to hear that some names are almost obsolete now compared to the drivel that some parents inflict on their kids. If we have a girl I'd like the middle name to be Irene after both Ali's and my grandmothers, and that apparently is not popular at all nowadays which is a shame.

Summer holidays

A rather belated update about our holiday, and life in general over the last month. We've been so busy that I've had no time at weekends, no time in the evenings, and even less time on lunch breaks (what are these, exactly?) to finish updating the random topics I started about a month ago.

So. Holidays - can you tell we've been away? I was annoying everyone at work and most of my Facebook friends I'm sure by doing a daily countdown to holiday time before we went. I hadn't had any time off since last October (had to work over Christmas) and was sooo ready for a break. Ali and I went with Inntravel again after our brilliant holiday to Tuscany last year except this time we were right in the top left corner of Italy, in the Valle d'Aosta region slap next to the Alps. Our hotel was a gorgeous wood panelled antique haven with lots of cheese making implements strewn artfully everywhere and our room had a breathtaking view over wild flower meadows towards the snowy Alpine peaks beyond - truly beautiful. The Michelin starred restaurant was pretty damn delicious too and we managed to treat ourselves to dinner there three times, the other nights making for the Bar a Fromage next door or the local pizza place. On day 3 we took a trip on the cable car from Courmayeur over the top of Mont Blanc and over to Chamonix and I think that has to rank as one of the best things we've done on any holiday we've had together over the last 6 years - it was bloody spectacular. All the mountain walking we did in the region was great, and we saw chamois goats, wild fox, all manner of beautiful alpine flowers and some amazing waterfalls and mountain scenery. That is until Ali stepped the wrong way onto a loose rock on the Saturday afternoon at the end of our first week and ended up in plaster up to the knee for the rest of the trip. After a frankly terrifying journey in the hire car along windy mountain roads to the nearest hospital, during which I was containing my nerves admirably - I am not the most confident driver when driving somewhere I don't know, so add in an unfamiliar car, with the gearbox on the right and having to drive on the wrong side of the road, and you have one very stressed Kathryn - the x-rays luckily showed no break - phew - instead, a possible chip on the bone. As the swelling was so bad the doctors plastered Ali up and then we spent a couple of very slow days, while he rested it as much as possible and I ventured down to the hotel spa to lounge by the pool drinking green tea and reading my books. Lucky I'd brought five with me, eh? By some (un)fortunate twist of fate the weather changed for the worse for our last 2 days anyway so even if Ali had been fit and well we wouldn't have got that much good walking done.

Off to Milan on the Tuesday, another hairy trip down the autostrada for me to drop the hire car off before schlepping into the middle of Milan on the bus. The heavens opened that afternoon and evening so it didn't bode well for the last two days of our holiday but miraculously throughout Wednesday and Thursday we basked in 30 degree sunshine. Lack of mobility meant we couldn't do too much sightseeing but we did go to the Duomo which I found a total let down. Ali called it 'cathedral fatigue' and maybe he's right, but although I could appreciate the beauty of the architecture and the stained glass, and the little chapels and confessionals and the magificent altar were all wonderful, I didn't feel any sense of awe, respect, spirituality, call it what you will. I was almost. Well. BORED. Other than that, we travelled on the Metro to see the Museo della Scienza e della Tecnologia Leonardo da Vinci, except when we got there (and not before, you understand, not on any of the posters or directions leading up to it) we found out it was closed for the summer. I mean, what bright spark thought that one up - oh, we'll close one of the most popular tourist attractions in Milan, for the 3 most touristy months of the year.

Then on the Wednesday night we saw Radiohead play the Civica Arena in the middle of the city. We managed to get in via the disabled entrance thanks to Ali's cast, and the gig itself was, as usual for Radiohead, amazing. The light show was spectacular (all done on low voltage LEDs) and the set was lovely - it was great to hear In Rainbows live now that they're a bit more polished in playing it than they were in Blackpool last year before it came out. It has to rank as one of the smokiest gigs I've ever been to though - even though we were outside in an old amphitheatre, the fact that every single Italian person there was chain smoking made it feel like the grubbiest of British pubs before the smoking ban. A mild annoyance to an otherwise fantastic evening and a great way to round off our holiday. Next year I think I'd like to try another different bit of Italy - maybe Amalfi and the coast. God bless Inntravel.

Kind of holiday related in that it wasn't our holiday but Ali's parents' and nephew Liam's, was the weekend a few weeks ago where they came to visit. On the Friday we took a trip to London to see the dinosaurs in the Natural History Museum and then have a turn on the London Eye. A visit to Hamleys made it into the itinerary for some Lego purchases and overall it was a great day. We even went to Garfunkel's in the early evening for a meal, bringing back memories of my own trips to London with Mum and Dad when I was only a bit older than Liam, who's 8 very soon. In those days (oh so many years ago...) there weren't many other places you could actually go with kids and guarantee they'd eat anything, I guess. On the Saturday my Mum and Dad drove up to complete the party and we had a relaxing (and chilly) couple of hours on a leisure cruiser up to Oxford along the Thames before wandering round a bit and getting the bus back. The boat trip was nice, but took a looooong time considering you can drive to Oxford along the A34 and park up inside 20 minutes.

Knitting I was going to gloss over, as I've slacked off remarkably here. After finishing the tank top and sheep for Archie I got going on a little coat for him, which is age 3-6 months and going to be way too small at this rate if I don't get a wriggle on. Next free weekend (roll on 2-3 August) I'll get back into it.

Music, has been all about Radiohead really. After Milan we saw them again exactly a week later in Victoria Park in Hackney, having an exceedingly enjoyable catch up with friends Matt and surprise guest Susan who'd flown in from Toronto the previous day. Another great gig, but full of complete arseholes. The weather was great and a lot of people had probably been drinking since before noon, explaining somewhat the abundance of idiotic behaviour and general lariness. At least the Italian fans had all been passionate Radiohead afficionados, singing lustily along to every track - but you were lucky to even hear some of the quieter tracks at Victoria Park due to the crowd's hollering. There was also a Pimm's tent, which struck me as mildly out of place. Other than that, no musical exploits to note. We've got tickets to see the Gutter Twins in Oxford in a few weeks time which should be good and loud.

Not one to reinvent the wheel

When somebody else has blogged on exactly the same topic I was planning to write about, I could go down the route of plagiarising their words shamelessly and hoping no-one would notice. However, I'd sooner spend the time blogging on my new gardening and knitting projects (I plan to take pictures at the weekend so I can do them justice) so I can't be arsed to spend ages on a post about the Eels concert we went to on Easter Sunday.

It was at the New Theatre in Oxford and was fantastic. Eels have a special place in mine and Ali's hearts as one of the first bands we bonded over in the early days of our courtship(!) but it was the first time we'd seen them live. Actually it was only Mark 'E' Everett and his mate The Chet on stage but I will hand over to this blogger on the Line of Best Fit to describe the experience in more detail, as the gig they played in Cambridge the following night sounds almost identical to the one in Oxford.

We're off to see Elbow next week and then that's it before 2 Radiohead gigs in 2 weeks in June - hooray!

Gigtastic

This is turning into a bit of a culture blog at the moment (well, TV and music anyway) but we've had a couple of really good gigs this week so I thought I would document them for posterity. Now that it's nearly a year since my first post, it's quite nice looking back and seeing what we've done over the previous months, especially since I started to tag up my posts with basic categories. Much more interesting than my tightly maintained 'home calendar' spreadsheet which is actually very useful for planning weekends away etc but when all's said and done is just a boring bit of excel.

So this week we had Hot Chip at the Oxford Academy on Tuesday night, and last night we saw the Gutter Twins at Koko. It's lovely going into Oxford for a night out - don't have to leave work early, and can eat a normal dinner at home, drive in and park up near the venue, and have a swift pint or two beforehand, all before the main act comes on. Then at the end, it's a mere 15 minute drive back up the A34 and home to bed at a relatively normal time for a school night. Bonzer! Hot Chip were great too - one of those kind of contented gigs, where the music doesn't massively lift you, and you don't go mental down the front, but you leave smiling and seem to have been bouncing up and down on the spot for the entirety of the show. The new album's great and they were on top form live.

I wasn't massively looking forward to the Gutter Twins, it has to be said. The combination of trekking into London after work, having to find somewhere to eat, seeing a band who had the potential to be very dark and depressing, and then haring back to Paddington for the last train home only to get to bed in the wee small hours of the morning and get up a mere 5 hours later to go to work, seemed all too much to take after having already been out once this week (and following a full on weekend at Center Parcs, more of which in another post). However - all in all it was a pretty amazing night. Got into town by 6.30 and we went up to Camden to find somewhere to eat, with vague ideas of consuming Japanese food in a Time Out-tipped restaurant a stone's throw from the venue. We were turned away as we hadn't booked, so wandered up (or frog-marched - Ali was ravenous) into Camden in search of a Wagamama or the like. We didn't find Wagamama, but we did find another Japanese place which had an article in its window from the Observer Food Monthly advertising it as Julian Clary's Favourite Table. Based on this recommendation alone (!) and the fact that the menu offered quite a bit of additional stuff for a sushi-hater like me, we got a table and started to eat - the food was way better than Wagamama's and they even gave us some carved fruit at the end as a little freebie dessert. Fortified we made our way back to Koko for the gig.

First nice surprise was that Ed Harcourt had been drafted in as a last minute replacement support act - his set was only half an hour and very enjoyable (not quite taking away the sting of the £3.80 charge for a pint though). Then the Gutter Twins came on. What surprised me most was how ROCK they were - I was prepared for an hour and a half of doom-laden gloominess, given the 2 frontmen (Greg Dulli and Mark Lanegan) aren't renowned for their chirpy pop sensibilities. There were some tracks that were really upbeat and almost headbanging, and overall it was just good, LOUD raw rock music in a great venue. We had to leave before the last encore (Martina Topley-Bird didn't add *anything* to the track she came on for) and sadly (for us) Dulli announced as we were leaving 'now for some stuff you'll know'. Boo sucks to First Great Western timetables. Still, home by 1am, knackered today, but very glad we made the effort and didn't wimp out.

Coming up, we've got Eels in Oxford on Easter Sunday, Elbow in Oxford in April, and Radiohead twice(!!!!) in Milan and London in June so it's shaping up to be a great year for music so far.

Hurtling towards year end

Despite the very heavy weekend that formed the subject of the previous post, lessons were resolutely not learned last week. Out on Thursday with mate Phil to see Maximo Park at the newly re-opened Oxford Carling Academy <spits contemptuously in memory of The Zodiac> I was planning to get home early before the gig, line my stomach and not drink much. But an hour of crawling home in dense traffic from Didcot put paid to the first two ideas, and so I reverted to my post-university days of drinking cider and eating crisps to fill me up. Hmmm. Actually maybe it was a good job that there was a jam, as it prevented me from going above 50mph on my spare tyre. Who checks their tyres before they set off on a journey? Not me, especially in the pitch dark and freezing temperatures of Didcot Parkway station on Wednesday night. So it was only after going 100 yards or so and realising something was very wrong indeed that I got out and realised I'd been driving on a flat and hence buggering the inside of the tyre, meaning it needed to be replaced even if all that had happened was that some little sh!te had let it down during the day. You certainly couldn't see a puncture anywhere. So now, I owe Ali some serious ironing time on his shirts, after an emergency damsel in distress call. I don't know how I would have got those wheel nuts off by myself but I'm bloody glad I didn't have to attempt it.

So anyway, Maximo Park. After our ill-fated attempt at seeing them earlier in the year, I was really looking forward to seeing if they'd be better, edgier than Dan's lukewarm review made out. And... they were about what I'd expected actually, not one of those transcendent gigs, just really enjoyable - very bouncy bouncy, all the right tunes in the right order, stonking versions of Limassol and Our Velocity, and a venue small enough to see them properly. Most folk there seemed real MP fans as well, and dead excited to be seeing them in Oxford. The one slightly jarring note was Paul Smith's comment "You might know that we're playing a big arena in Newcastle in 2 days time; well, we want you to know THIS IS NOT A WARM UP GIG - we don't do 'warm ups'". Okayyyy then, right you are mate... We were right at the back (the front seemed to be full of members of the local basketball team, or, as I overheard one girl say, 'they breed them big round here') and I could still see. We did admit that the Carling folk hadn't done a bad job at all with the Zodiac - the downstairs space is now the main venue for bands - a lot bigger than before and screens everywhere. Being new I guess it also hasn't got the residue of years of nicotine, tar, sweat, stale booze and general wear and tear - so it felt very clean. The best thing about it though, is that the promoters are obviously getting bigger bands to play there with no trouble - we're already planning Hot Chip and Elbow outings next year - thus avoiding travelling into the big smoke on a school night. Hurrah!

I had a day off on Friday, but not so's you'd notice. Spent it getting the tyre fixed; running errands; doing chores; and packing for the weekend, at the same time checking work email on my smartphone. Humbug. Still, it was the pre-cursor to a fantastic weekend with Stuart and Alison in Manchester, during which I did my traditional clothes overspend with Alison on Saturday in town, much booze was consumed at lunch and a great meal out on Saturday night was had by all. Hangover on Sunday was a mini version of last week's. Hoh well.

We did buy the Christmas tree when we got home though, which I duly decorated with glee, though becoming mildly crestfallen when one set of fairy lights went on the blink due to a missing bulb which OF COURSE we didn't have a replacement for. The now-routine SCD marathon ensued, all very wonderful as always except for the frankly inexplicable perfect 40 for Matt and Flavia's waltz and the fact that the judges had several screws loose and voted to kick Gorgeous Gethin out. Sob. Matt will go to pieces next week, Alesha will rightly win, but the show won't be the same without a re-run of the salsa of week 9.

And so back to work today, with a load of stuff to do and no pre-Christmas feeling at all, just a slight sense of panic. But! Ali has just texted me with the news that the plumber has magically fixed our underfloor heating, which it seems has never worked properly since it was installed 18 months ago. We may even have a warm kitchen for Christmas! And I've just found a replacement bulb for the fairy lights! Ho ho ho!

Life post-cheese

No, not literally. By god, that would be unthinkable. A life without cheese is a life half lived, to misquote Strictly Ballroom...

Anyway, my holding post of a few days ago was really just to get back into the blogging habit again, as it's been a while since I posted anything of note; but my recent discovery that I was listed on the Mostly Books blog and the subsequent nice comments from friends has got me enthused for posting again, as I had let work and other stuff get in the way a fair bit. I know that even when I'm really busy, I will always make time to run through my Bloglines feeds and whenever a new post from a friend's blog appears it cheers me up no end - much more exciting than all those industry techie feeds I read and even (dare I say it) more interesting than the newsy feeds on books, music, eco stuff and the like that I subscribe to. So, good intentions poised and at the ready, I resolve To Do Better. (Capitals are great, aren't they? I feel amost Edward Gorey-ish using them, She Said Archly).

So, what's been going on in our world since the fromagery of late September?

A couple of quite alarming and intense work weeks, where I was planning a big project for January. I'm 99.8% sure none of our direct competitors read this, but even so I won't expand further. Anyway, it's something way outside my comfort zone and I was mightily relieved when the proposal I submitted on 12th October to the US got well received. Phew.

In between this, was a drink-sodden weekend where we went to London to meet up with Ali's folks and some friends they were visiting in Caterham. We met up in a pub just off St James' Square, and basically lurched around Soho all afternoon from hostelry to hostelry. This was the weekend of the England victory over the Aussies in the Rugby World Cup and I was the only English person in the party. Luckily despite all the Scots contingent being desperate to find an Aussie pub to watch it in, we ended up in the Glasshouse just off Piccadilly where I had a fine old time yelling encouragement and generally getting very overexcited. Wa hey!

By 12th I was more than ready for a break, my first day off since starting the job back in early June. After a few days of pre-holiday panic, that was it - done. On the first day of our week off, the Saturday, we were back in London to watch Maximo Park play at the Brixton Academy as part of an XFM night. Or not. I was FUMING at the time and could have written reams but step by step:

- Kathryn and Ali arrive at the venue after a day of mooching in town
- Go in, get patted down, buy 1 pint of cider and a bottle of water for SIX POUNDS BLEEDING TEN!!!!!!!
- Look at the set list and realise MP are not on til 10.30pm. Last train from Paddington is 11.30pm. Fuck.
- Have panicked discussion, look at Ali's Crackberry and realise that all trains are cancelled post 9pm anyway due to engineering works.
- Discuss merits of getting the bus home and then give up in disgust, leave the venue (much to the bemusement of security) and watch the second half of England v France (wa hey again!) in a pub in Brixton, then head off to Paddington to chance our luck.
- Wait at Paddington for an hour and half for a replacement bus service to Reading. Lots of swearing.
- Eventually get to Reading at 12.30am for the last train to Didcot.
- Grrrrrr.....

Sunday was a bit more chilled, culminating in a birthday celebration for our mate Chris in the Yummy Thai restaurant in Wantage. It certainly lived up to its name, yum yum.

Our week off was lovely. 3 days in north Dorset staying in the village of Buckhorn Weston at the phenomenal Stapleton Arms. Beautiful room, comfy bed, LCD TV, walk in shower which was the most powerful I've ever experienced in a hotel, organic breakfast grub, great menu, 2 real ciders on tap :-) and log fires every night. Wonderful, and really good value. We did Shaftesbury, Sherborne, Stonehenge, the Cerne Abbas giant with his big willy (and the faint outline of Homer Simpson remaining on the field next to him, hee hee), and a great walk on the coast and Chesil Beach. Then back on Thursday for some R&R at home, a nice meal at the Crooked Billet on Friday night and Rod, Wendy and their 3 kids over on Saturday for a fab get together. Sunday was spent nursing hangovers (Ali and Rod got stuck into the whisky in the wee small hours of Sunday morning...) and as mentioned before, by the time it got to mid afternoon, I was ready for hair of the dog and some pure SCD indulgence.

Back to work now and it's getting intense, preparing for January. It's bizarre not gearing up for the Christmas rush - reminds me of working in the travel industry in a way, but better, obviously.
So that's me up to date, we've got a rare free weekend coming up so I'll be repainting the front door. I'm actually looking forward to it, in a bizarre way.

Mumbling joyful shudders

There are some occasions when, for whatever reason, words just don't flow as well as they ought. My last cheesey post was one of these, I think primarily because I wrote it on Friday night on the train home from work, and it was in full anticipatory mode. Then of course I never got round to actually posting it up until yesterday, by which time I had to go back in and edit it so that the verbs were all in the past tense and I was writing about things which had happened rather than those I was looking forward to. Hence my dissatisfaction with how it comes across - I wish I'd just written something spontaneously after the event which captured the enjoyment of seeing our friends and eating and drinking all too well.

So. Mumbling over, onto the joy. Yes - Radiohead are releasing their new album, ripe and ready for download in only 10 short days, oh wonderfulness :) Plenty of other bloggers, mostly from the Guardian, are talking about the fact they are inviting folk to pay what they think it's worth for the album rather than setting a fixed price; so I won't also comment, other than to say that any true Radiohead fan should stump up at least a tenner. We have pre-ordered the full double CD with vinyl and book, plus access to the download, for £40. Well, you've got to really. We saw them in Blackpool last May where they played some tracks that are now on the album and so we know they're bloody good. Woo hoo!

Finally, the shuddering. Well, Nigella Lawson is ladling out mayonnaise on the telly. Nuff said.

Musical memories

Ali and I watched a few of the highlights of the Reading Festival during the bank holiday weekend, in between a lengthy gardening session of highly satisfying pruning of next door's buddleias; a great sunny barbeque with some friends we'd not seen for a while (though I did over-cater on the meat and salads front somewhat) and a cycle ride-cum-pub crawl through some of the south Oxfordshire villages near us. This latter was meant to get us out and about in the fresh air - tick - spend some time together - tick - and get some exercise - no tick, could do better. We meandered round some B roads and a few cycle paths, got to the North Star at Steventon, Ali swooned with pleasure at the nectar that was a pint from the White Horse brewery (the name escapes me) and then went to the Cherry Tree for some lunch. Cycling through Sutton Courtenay on the way back, we weren't meant to stop at all, until Ali saw the 'Bank Holiday Guest Ale specials' sandwich board outside the George and Dragon and swerved over to take advantage. It would have been rude not to, as they say.

Anyway, back to Reading. I went 3 times in my yoof (christ how old does that make me sound) - 1995, 1996 and 1998. The first time was with a group of 5 friendly chaps from Cambridgeshire who I used to spend much of my vacation time going to gigs with when I was at university. That first year was amazing - the festival experience became well and truly ingrained into my soul. Highlights were the Foo Fighters' first ever UK festival gig, at which I almost got crushed and nearly passed out from the heat in the NME tent; and seeing Ash, who at at the time were all about 16 and whose official band t-shirt, complete with legend 'three boy hardcore action' on the back, I thought was the height of cool when I bought it. I was even fearless enough to go down the front to the moshpit and go kerrraaaazzzy, something I would rarely dream of doing now in my old and personal safety conscious state. I also (unlike my compadres who were all into US hardcore punk bands like NOFX and Bad Religion) attended Gene's headline slot on the Saturday night in the NME tent and completely fell in love with Martin Rossiter, little realising what a pretentious wanker he was in real life.

Subsequent years were also fantastic experiences and I went to Glastonbury in 2000 which was a whole other level of festival going. I did love Glasto but I do have a special place in my heart reserved for Reading, being somewhat of an indie kid deep down. So watching it on the telly, cider in hand (bad for the diet but that's another story) in the comfort of my own sofa, made me feel quite nostalgic for my mid twenties and the music that was around then.

Having said that, the bands that we saw were a real mixed bag of the good, the bad and the downright pointless. I mean, Razorlight headlining on the Friday night for god's sake. My personal favourites were Maximo Park, mostly because of the tunes, also because I love the fact that you can hear every word of the lyrics really clearly - must be something to do with the Geordie accent - but also (a teeny bit) because the lead singer, Paul Smith, is very fit (ooh what a 90s word). He used to have an atrocious hairdo but has seen the error of his ways and now sports a curly mop topped off with a bowler hat. He's also obviously been in the gym a lot recently...
CSS, Interpol and Kings of Leon were also great, and Trent Reznor doing 'Hurt' was pretty amazing too. Much as I find Zane Lowe a pain in the arse, I did agree with him when he commented that it was good to see NIN 'reclaim' the song as their own from the recent idolatry of the Johnny Cash version, which admittedly does also give the spine a tingle. We did settle down to watch the Smashing Pumpkin (Billy Corgan having roped in a load of jobbing musicians to take over his previous bandmates' roles) trawl through 3 greatest hits before being infomed that the BBC weren't allowed to show any more. Doing it for the fans eh Billy.

Oh, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers were shit, as has been the case all too often recently. I love the quote Mandrew has on his facebook profile from Nick Cave: "I'm forever near a stereo saying, 'What the fuck is this GARBAGE?' And the answer is always the Red Hot Chili Peppers."

Puppets on music videos

are always a good thing in my opinion. So when bengobaz mentioned the Lily Allen "Alfie" video in his blog, I searched on YouTube and had a look - and despite a previous mildly lukewarm (can you be very lukewarm about something?) opinion of her and her music, I quite liked the track as well. The video is just about long enough for it still to be cute but not too annoying:



I like this Interpol video too though it's a bit darker (well less humorous anyway):

Cat Power

Last night Ali and I went to the Forum in Kentish Town to see Cat Power play with her band, The Dirty Delta Blues. Mid-week gigs are always a bit of a mental struggle - sorting out how Ali's going to get into town, where we'll get some pre-gig food, and of course either rushing to get the last train home or Ali negotiating late night London traffic to get out of town and back to Abingdon before finally getting to bed at an abnormally late (for a school night that is) 1am. Normally, however, the gig itself manages to transcend these feelings of mid-week unease by being bloody brilliant.

Last night's show would have been the same - Cat Power performed remarkably, her voice strong and the band perfectly pitched to complement her singing. However, she's not got what you would call a lot of loud songs,and whenever a slight hush in the track came along, all you could hear was the drone of about half the crowd talking and shouting to each other. Really loudly. At one point, Cat Power put on a fake Cockerney accent - " 'Allo Landan, nice ter see yer" and someone in the crowd shouted out "Don't take the piss". Well excuse me, but given that she was having the piss taken out of her during every song through half the crowd totally ignoring her, I thought she was quite justified. I just hope that she and the band couldn't hear the majority of the hubbub from their position on stage.

As there was no hope of really getting into the music I ended up people watching instead. As well as the usual gig suspects (older man in a suit and tie, overly affectionate newly-together couple, random punk with mohican) a girl caught my eye who I really empathised with. She was a short blonde, probably no more than about 5'2", and she was standing right at the back of one of the levels at the Forum. She was with a group of 3 friends, who were contributing to the overall noise of the crowd by having a shouty conversation and also clearly not including her in their chat, and she obviously couldn't see a thing from her position. There was the obligatory 6'10 bloke standing a little way in front of her and she was either too shy to move forward or didn't want to leave her friends so resorted to occasionally standing on tiptoes and craning her neck into awkward positions. She wandered off to the loo a couple of times during the gig and eventually left about 2/3 of the way through. I really felt for her. Her 'friends' sort of shrugged and giggled a bit when she left as if expressing a sort of bemused pity for her, but they seemed like idiots to me.


So overall not a successful gig really, we left just before the encore and headed home through the leafy poshness of Highgate and the awful despair of the A40 through Brent Cross, Neasden etc. We listened to Cat Power on CD, as a lot of the people at the gig should have done - at home.

Easter weekend and beyond

Easter weekend had the potential to be fantastic - we were travelling up to see Ali's brother and sister in law in Manchester, Ali's Mum, Dad, sister and nephew were also to be travelling down from Hawick, and the only foreseeable blot on the horizon was that Stuart and Alison's new bathroom wasn't due to be fitted until this week, so we were showerless for the weekend. We were both really looking forward to having all the family together and enjoying a spring weekend full of chocolate, catching up and generally having a ball.
On the Wednesday prior to us travelling up however, I came down with the nastiest bug I've had for ages. I took the day off work on Thursday and hoped that by dosing up with Immodium (nice, hmm?) I could recover before the weekend and not put a dampener on things. Not to be though - it took me til Tuesday evening to properly feel better and keep some food inside me, and til Friday last week to feel even 80% of my usual self.

The weekend wasn't totally ruined however - I still managed to spend a reasonable amount of money in Manchester's finest shops on the Saturday (every time I go shopping with Alison I always manage to find loads of perfect things that are just right for me and that I can also scrape together the money for - she's either a curse or a blessing, that one) while 'the boys' took Liam out to a farm park. Sunday was the inevitable choc-fest, for everyone else apart from me anyway, and Liam very generously shared out his eggs to those of us not fortunate enough to receive one from our loved ones, are you reading this Ali........ All that and a brand new Dr Who episode on Saturday evening where Liam hid behind the door at the scary bits (evoking happy memories for those of us who remember being similarly scared in our childhoods) and overall the weekend was excellent.

Back to work on the Wednesday after still being ill on Tuesday, and nothing else of note to report til this weekend just gone. Went to see Midlake at The Zodiac in Oxford on Friday night (Friday 13th for those with supersitious natures) with Phil and John and 2 mates of theirs. The band were amazing, the atmosphere just right, and we had a good old moan beforehand about the imminent change over to the 'Carling Academy Oxford' and 'remodelling' of the different floors of the venue. It just won't be the same, corporate bastards, etc, etc. To top the evening off Ali and I had a quick drink in The Bear before getting the bus back to Abingdon, and what beer did they have on but his favourite, Timothy Taylor's Landlord. Pretty near perfect evening.

Ian and Gayle came up for a visit on Saturday night, and it would have been criminal not to sit in a beer garden by the river, so we got off the bus at St. Aldate's and managed to find a table at the heavingly busy Head of the River. Ian and Gayle had great fun critiquing the rowing style of some novice crews out in the early evening sunshine, before we all went off to sample the delights of the cocktail menu at Raoul's. I'll save the eulogising about this place (the best cocktail bar IN THE WORLD, EVER) for another time. Calamari and steak at Branca before wearily wending our way back home on the bus for an earlyish night.

Breakfast outside on Sunday morning in the beautiful, beautiful warm weather, and after Ian and Gayle had headed back to London we paid the ritual weekend visit to Homebase to buy a strimmer (rock and ROLL) and then I pootled about in the garden potting up herbs and mowing the lawn etc. A quick G&T in the evening with Nerys and the weekend was almost over.

Two absolutely top weekends, then.

(Word of the day today on Dictionary.com is 'efficacious'. A really good word.)