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Mark
Mark is in charge of coming up with brilliant ideas on an hourly basis.No one knows, or understands, how his brain works but one thing we do know... he's the chap you want in your pop quiz team, his ability to answer any question on modern pop culture is quite unbelievable, if not slightly disturbing.
- Been swimming
- Shopping
- Done two 2 year old birthday parties
- Done one 30 year old party (with bouncy castle)
- Finished painting Isobels playhouse
- Been to Pizza Express (yum)
- Been to The Sea Life Centre
- Had the wedding photographer visit for a chat and did an impromptu shoot on the allotment
- Ripped out a huge bush at the front of the house
So all in all its been a busy few days and a short week now (woohoo). Its crazy to think that we are only a month away from our wedding, it seems to have fled by.
It's Isobels 2nd birthday today and bless she slept like a log (well i didnt wake up to hear her anyway) and this morning she has been opening her pressies which have included a miniture washing machine and so far most small cloth items have been in for a quick spin.
Tonight when i get home we are unveiling her new trike so there will be lots of excitement there (and pushing up and down in the street I am sure).
This weekend its a freinds birthday and he's having a bouncy castle so that should be fun :)
It's getting cold, to the point where we considered putting the heating on last night, surely its not that time already, people are banging on about a scorching September but i'm still not convinced.
Eating
Constructing a wendy house
Painting said wendy house
Snoozing
Going out for the day somewhere.
Last night we were choosing music for the party at the wedding, all I can say is it's very random and there will be lots of smiles going on. We have also been watching Tim Roth's 'Lie to Me' as i mentioned earlier, its really really good, and its great to be into a series again.
This weekend i will be resting (hopefully!)
The 3 of us went to Pizza Express for lunch on sunday and i can honestly say they do make the best pizza's. You know its good when even the plain old margherita tastes fantastic, and its just great for taking kids.
We didnt really do anything the weekend but we did watch A Bugs Life, Toy Story 2 and Cloudy with a chance of meatballs and Isobel loved all of them.
We have started watching a new series called 'Lie to me' with Tim Roth in. Its really good, check it out.
There will be drinking eating and snoozing
That it all
Blimey its all go here, plenty to do and all that.
Little un has an ear infection and the medicine is Banana Flavoured and she detests banana so as you can imagine its not the easiest thing to administer (i hid it in her weetabix and she troughed 1/2 of it before noticing, very shrewd i thought.
Hope she gets better soon I hate seeing her miserable.
Other stuff included jam making, pickling, paving block laying, shopping and attending a 4th Birthday party
Its all go for me you know.
Prince - Erotic City
Dirty slabs of Prince funk from Purple Rain Prince, I've just put it on the stereo its so great and so wrong. It'l like some dribbling warm olive oil into your ear whilst rubbing up against your leg.
The Ruts - In a rut
Great punk classic this, heard it last night on Radcliffe and Maconie and was dancing round the kitchen a bit as I was washing up.
Ice Cube - Bop Gun
Basically George Clinton's 'One nation under a groove', a bigger slab of funk than Prince (well Clinton is the master), and a great version of it delivered here.
This weekend - I dunno.
He's called norman for the time being, christ knows what we are gonna do with him, I think he will be a pet for a while.
Bit of a nightmare yesterday though as we had to wait nearly 3 hours for the AA man to change a wheel on the van as the jack wasnt big enough to lift it.
But it is still the best way to go to a festival :)
Of festivals that is. We are off to the big chill this weekend so we are hoping the weather is good *fingers crossed*
I think it will be a different experience than last weekend for me, we wont have Jonah's time tunnel tent for one.
Or be camping with Mick Mars
Things i discovered:
- Getting there at about 1:00 and Jonah pouring out a whole bottle of Jack Daniels into 6 glasses for the six of us within 30 seconds of the tents being set up was a great way to start
- Watching Europe for about 3 minutes before deciding they were utterly awful
- Watching the Black Spiders instead who were great and invited the crowd by be unbelivably offensive towards them
- Paying about £20 for 4 cans of Cider appears to be the norm
- Alice Cooper is a very very old man
- Prosthetic Genitalia isn't very nice to look at
- Prosthetic Animal heads on the othyer hand are really funny
- Slaters camp prancing hippo
- Dan being attacked by a group of people in wheelchairs
- What looked like a Terrorvision Tribute act, actually turned out to be Terrorvision
- Getting Unbelivably drunk on Friday night and taking what felt like a week to walk back to the tent only to find it was about 100 yards away
- Dan getting unbelivably drunk on saturday night and not making it back until Jonah found him up against a fence serveral hours later
- Zoe is incredibly knowledgable about 80's era Aston Villa and doesnt like being called a bluenose for some reason
- Pizza express at a festival turns out to be a brilliant idea
- A cooked English breakfast in a pie turns out to be a better idea
- Bourbon at 9:00 is the best was to start the day
- Jasper Carrot appears to have had some form of disfiguring accident and now wears a wig and sings for Anthrax
- There is an Elvis Presley fan in Walsall with a tattoo that reads 'Evlis Lives'
- I look like Tom Hanks in my Pyjamas
- Nobody else takes Pyjamas to a rock festival
- Or a small bucket for peeing in during the night for that matter
- The best spcial guest you can bring on if you are a death metal band is you dad who screams into the mike for an encore
- Jonah's time tunnel tent is a time warping trick of the universe
- My camping box conatains everything you would ever need in life, except a lighter it turns out
- 90% of all food taken to fesivals are pork based pastry snacks
- The new singer in Alice In Chains looks the exact opposite of the last one (but sounds just like him)
- Mick Marrs from Motley Crue had got to be 100 years old
- Slater looks like Mick Marrs first thing in the morning
- Ian Astbury from the cult looks like he's alergic to peanuts
- And he mimes his tamborine as you can see a man behind the speakers doing it for real
- Vince Neil of the mighty Crue wears 'Vince Neil' underwear (probably)
There was loads loads more and I havent laughed so much for ages, it was utterly brilliant every minute of it (even the bits where the Drunken bloke fell on top of my tent with me in it, slater threatening some bloke who was trying to interview him against his will and Jonsey impaling himself on a collapsable chair).
Roll on the Big Chill this weekend
I was out watering the tomatoes last night when i decided to get my camera and take some pics of the produce so far
You can find em here :)
Good weekend, weather was a bit odd as overcast but really warm. I spent saturday strimming and Sunday morning mowing. Manuelle cooked us some great Thai food on saturday night and sunday afternoon we went to a freinds for a BBQ which was all very civilised as Isobel chased around terrorizing the cat.
We watched Sherlock Holmes last night and I was quite impressed, I think its definatly something we will be watching in the future. Top Gear was quite good as well with a very fitting tribute to Ayrton Senna, you forget just how good this guy really was.
Anyway this weekend Danielle is coming round to cook dinner (how lovely) and there's loads to do on the allotment. Theres a huge glut of veg so we are harvesting and eating like crazed people. Still its worth it as its all lush.
Monday night I got home to this:
Blimey
On Saturday night Sadie popped out for a bit so i watched a Documentary titled 'Until the Light Takes Us' which follows the rise of Black Metal in Norway culminating in Church Burning, Suicide and Murder.
It was mad but really good (as I'm a bit of a fan of the genre) but the music was fantastic, there wasn't that much actual Black Metal but plenty of soundscapes by 'Boards of Canada', 'Mum' and other warm electronica outfits. I defiantly recommend it.
Apart from that did bog all else apart from the usual.
Missus loaf made the best soup yesterday with peas, courgettes, basil & mint, it was lush, possbily my new favourite soup (and all homegrown to boot)
Astounding.
Aparently its gonna cost about £12m for The Pope to visit, surely someones having a laugh here I mean his rider would only consist of:
5 x Bottles holy water (sparkling & still)
1 x Hyundai i10 (second hand would do, no more than £500)
3 x Alter Boys for backstage entertainment
1 x Jar m&m's (brown only)
1 x CD 'Now thats what i call top hymns (Vol 3)' (£2 off Brownhills market)
1 x fake Louise Foutton suitcase (probably be able to use the one from the 'Kissing the tarmac Tour 82' )
1 x Support act (Desmond Tutu & Cliff Richard doing a Cannon & ball skit)
you'd get the lot for a grand.
Weekend started with the 3 of us sitting outside the pub on friday eve, then takeaway & tv. Saturday saw us swimming in the morning followed by a bit of pottering i the greenhouse then we came into town shoping. Town was packed due to the weather being nice but Starbucks blended Mocha Frappuccino rulez.
Sunday we lounged in the garden, a freind came over with her baby so there was much frolicking in the paddling pool, whilst we lounged around drinking Crabbies Alchoholic GInger Beer Then later when Isobel went to bed we had a bbq and played croquet on the lawn.
It was a close run match ben Sadie prevailed in the end and beat me 3-2. To be honest there were some suspect descisions in my opinion and the ground was a bit bonky. But I did change the rules 3 times during the game and Sadie put up with it so it's probably a case of sour grapes.
I'm gonna mug up on me croquet skillz for a rematch.
Are on the stereo at the moment and I cant stand them, they are rubbish, it's a fact.
Hope the weather stays nice so we can get out a bit, dont have owt planned but you never know. Swimming is on the list with little un though.
Oh and i might eat some peas.
On the subject of rubbish TV i caught a bit of 'Lee Nelson's well good show' on iPlayer which should have the trading standards people beating their way to his door, its a sub par Ali-G / Enfield Loadsamoney / Little Britain effort which go together like strawberries and bream, its just awful. To be honest i only managed about 4 minutes of it but i had a look online to see what people were saying about it.
It won't be getting a second series.
I also saw 'Miranda' last night which is awful and very funny at the same time. Some of it is real 70's looking at the camera humour and the credits are straight out of and seventies show. According to sources this has been running as long as Lee Nelson and has been commissioned for a second show.
So there you go.
We went to a 2 year olds birthday party, played in the garden (Sadie quite expertaly nutmegged me while we were playing with isobels ball), made come cup cakes which were pretty revolting, then made some more which were lush and popped to Solihull for a spot of shopping
It was just too hot to do much else.
Last night we were out picking strawberries and I was lining the beds with straw and when we had finished we came in and made jam then, ate some lovely pasta (with home grown courgettes & onions) and then put the TV on to see what was on.
There was bog all, absolutley zilch, so we ended up as we often do in these situations watching a rerun of Mock the Week on Dave (woohoo)
Even with the power of t'interweb on my tele where we can watch iPlayer or and of the other similar things for the other channels, there was still nothing on, and when i looked through the TV listings its been like that all week.
Something needs to be done about this surely, even if you dont watch much TV (which we dont anymore) there should always be something on of interest.
I shall be writing to my MP.
In his into speach at the awards he said
"Some people, I think they're called racists, say America is not ready for a black president.
But I know America to be a forward thinking country because otherwise why would you have let that retard and cowboy fella be president for eight years?
We were very impressed. We thought it was nice of you to let him have a go, because, in England, he wouldn't be trusted with a pair of scissors."
As you can imagine the Americans wern't very impressed.
Our performance was epic, just breathtaking astounding, how can 11 blokes make such a balls up of mind boggling proportions is beyond me. We deserved to lose simple as, the thing that annoys me is that poor old Capello will get the brunt of it whereas the shower that were on the pitch on Sunday evening should never put on an England Shirt again. Rooney and Gerrard were abysmal, you either want the ball or you cant be arsed to chase it, and unfortunately there was too much of the latter.
Anyway the other 'epic' this weekend was the headline set by Muse at Glastonbury on Saturday. After a dismal set by Gorrillaz on Friday, the Saturday headliners strode onto stage and showed how it should be done. Every tune was just immense in it's delivery, the sound was massive, yet perfect and it was hit after hit. It was just relentless brilliance.
Check it out
The woman is a talentless, horrible, publicity seeking freak. If I were Brian McFadden I would drive round there straight away, scoop up the children (including the 2 that ain't his) and whisk them away. In fact why he hasn't done this already frankly astonishes me. Those children must have a hellish existence, anyone who tells children to 'shut their faces or I'll knock you out' or yells ‘You miserable bunch, you think you’ve got problems in life!’ at them needs a bit of re-education in my mind (or shooting).
It's not like watching a car crash that would be to easy a similie. It's like watching a load of cute puppies dressed up as flavour flav in a tutu, being pushed towards a giant mincing machine by a maniac David Dickinson lookalike, singing 'The tide is high' by Blondie , utterly bizarre, totally incomprehensible yet incredibly sad.
The program is cut short as she gets a new agent (after sacking the previous 3). It's the people who did Andre and the Melon smuggler, and later sided with Andre. At this point the film maker gets a text from Kerry saying that she no longer forms part of Kerry future plans, and when she turns up there is another camera crew there and Katona goes mental at her for turning up.
Get on that plane Brian !!!
This weekend we are out for lunch on Sunday, so i presume that will now have to work around the match, shouldn't be too bad though as its a 3'oclock kick off.
Last night there was no TV, me and missus loaf pottered round the garden and listened to Radcliffe and Maconie on the radio which is a lovely was to spend a summers evening. I was even drinking Rum & Ting which just bought memories of of the big chill flooding back sitting outside the reggae rum shack listening to DJ Derek playing 70's reggae classics.
Ahh Summer.
We watched the Glastonbury 40th thing last night (we watched a bit of it on Sunday and recorded the rest), anyway the bits in the sunshine look magic and some of the music looked brilliant and bought back some great memories. Looks like the weather should be good for them this weekend.
On a festival note, I am going to Sonisphere this year, a mate has sorted some tickets so the mighty Maiden and the Stooges await us. Not really done a rock festival before (apart from Reading in 97, but that probably doesnt count) so it should be interesting to say the least.
The BBC Gardeners World Exhibition was good on Sunday, however it was a bit pricey, we were fortunate to get free tickets but it was £20 if you had to pay, then another £8 to park, so essentially you are looking at £50 before you even step foot in the door, it doesn't make those bargain begonias look like such a bargain after all does it.
Yesterday when we got back we lounged around the garden with Isobel in the paddling pool, all was well until later on she caught her fingers in the toilet door and got into such a state she was sick (poor little thing). Also she seems to be waking at around 3:AM which isn't doing anyone any good.
I watched 'Law Abiding Citizen' last night, its a good film so watch it.
Oh and I am reading 'Tickling the English' by Dara O Briain at the moment, its quite funny.
This weekend we are going to the Gardeners World show at the NEC so iknow there's going to be loads of stuff that I didnt know existed that I now cant live without. The Food show is on as well so i might be able to bottle Ramsey offstage hopefully.
I watched Ninja Assassin last night, it's bloody brilliant, and I mean bloody, the whole film is drenched in the stuff.
And odd concept i know, as there is clearly something there as it would yelp if you beat it with a chair leg, but at the same time it is completely void of all matter. It's self obsessed giggling plankton thats puts out for the musical fraternity, even if the link is so tenuous that you once borrowed a mates plectrum to pick a bit of kebab meat out of your teeth, chances are yer in. Yet at the same time nothing, absolutely nothing. She's like a black hole, void of any material yet sucks the life out of anything in the vicinity.
I'm sure if you sent her down the large hadron collider the universe would implode in on itself.
Anyway they did a bit of a turn at the end and it was more utterly pedestrian Autotune bilge. What is it with people nowadays and Autotune, you cant turn on the radio without someone warbling in some sort of robot voice as it desperatly tries to match someone who is clearly tone deaf to a vague assimilation of what a top C should sound like. That bloke out of the black eyed peas is all over it like a sweat rash, every thing he turns his hand to has the old Autotune turned up o the max to the point where all of the tunes sound like someone beating a puppy to death with a stylophone.
Stop it, it's rubbish.
Brilliant headline from the New York Post - Here, who said the Americans are always distorting the truth??.
Anyway is was an ok performance by England, not too shabby, but still we should be beating teams like the USA quite easily, and as for the goalkeepers cock up, well these things happen I suppose.
We had a bbq and a couple of mates popped round whilst the kids ran around like lunatics, then Isobel crashed out at 8:15pm which is quite late for her and slept, well like a baby i suppose.
Unlike last night where she didnt go to sleep till about 1:00 - GRRRR!
Last night Sadie madeTom Yum soup which was fantastic, really hot and with huge King Prawns so that was also a bonus.
Tonight if the weather holds out I will be mainly sorting out Broccolli (rave on)
On the book front I have recently read:
Peter James - A Perfect Murder
Very funny book this, its a 'quick read' so its only 128 pages long but essentially its about a husband and wife who cant stand each other any more so they plot to kill each other. I dont think it is intentionally funny, but I found it so and definatly worth the £1.99 price tag.
PJ Tracy - Play to Kill
The fifth book in the 'Monkeewrench' series and although it's perfectly readable its not quite up to scratch with the others. The relationship between the main characters seems to dwindle into obscurity and it doesnt really follow from the lat one (either that or there's a book in the middle I didnt read), so yeah if you have read the others give it a read, if you havent I wouldnt bother.
Mark Kermode - It's only a movie (Reel Life Adventures of a Film Obsessive )
Great book so far (i''ve not long started it), you have to be a film fan to read it, else you could find it hard going with his interpretations of what he remembers from the film and then realising he has imagined most of it. I've still got quite a bit to go but his portrayal of himself as a bit of a buffoon is very funny.
Garry Mullholland - Popcorn: 50 years of Rock & Roll Movies
Another film book but one devoted to rock n' roll films in whatever disguise. Its a real toiley book (ie reading in 5 minute bursts) and comprehesivly covers every rock & roll film ever made (well the ones worth mentioning anyway), obviously it has the mighty Tap, Woodstock and Easy Rider, but there are some more obscure ones that I havent seen and from reading the reviews of them I might just dig em out to watch.
It's the world cup don't you know.
Now I'm all for it, the world cup that is. There's nothing better than cheering on the national side surrounded by yer mates all screaming at the tele. In fact I am one of those what i suppose are the most reviled supporter by the die hard fans, the 'fair weather supporter', only really come out of the woodwork when England are playing.
Despised by true football fans who cannot fathom for a moment that someone shouldn't eat, drink and sleep football (and i mean sleep in your football pyjamas under your football duvet staring at your football picture on the bedside cabinet which has relegated your wedding photo into second place, dreaming of football). Blissfully slumbering whilst dreaming up your perfect back 4 and imagining what it would be like to live inside a football conversing with John (Motty) Motson sitting on a huge football with a football shaped hat delivering football anecdotes, football, football, football.
Anyway thats not me as I said more of a summer football fan but a fan nonetheless. But what I cant abide at the mo is the constant plugging of products on the tele as World Cup editions or sponsors, Lager, Mars Bars, Tampons you name it its got a big red cross on it and being touted as 'support England, buy our confectionery' etc. 'Eat a pastie, support our lads', although how developing chronic obesity helps 11 millionaires ruining a good lawn 3 thousand miles away defeats me.
Just shut up about it and get the game on.
Tonight i'm gonna angle to go to the pub when i get back and then we hit the bbq
Woohoo
Time flies when your content :)
Time doesnt fly however at 2:00am when the baby wont sleep and is jumping and leaping about and screams if you leave her alone.
Bumegg :(
Yesterday we were in Starbucks and some cow was taking up 3 comfy chairs be sitting with her legs over the arms of one into another whilst obviously writing that groundbraking novel which is going to take the world by storm whilst her backpack was taking up the other chair. I felt like going over and telling her to move her feet, (actually I felt like going over and throwing her to the floor and stamping on her laptop), but i didnt I just sat down on a wooden chair sullenly drinking my Grande Mocha. In hindsite i think the plan would have been justified.
Pete Waterman, when will the world realise that a man who singlehandedly killed the music industry in the eighties, who then tried to launch the career of the pop star rivals who sank without a trace due to their awful choice of song and chosing to produce it in exactly the same godawful 80's throwback sound, is probably not the best bloke to write our eurovision entry, and scoring a massive 10 points and coming last probably validates that point.
Bruce Forsyth was on the tele last night presenting Have I got News for you, he was getting on my nerves a bit and it was good to see that Ian Hislop clearly doesnt like him. From what i've heard ol' brucey is a bit of a nightmare when the camera's off.
Check him out, he rules
- The new Tracy Thorn Album is really boring
- The Harry Sidebottom book 'Fire in the east - King of Kings' is brilliant
- Watering veg takes a lot longer than you think
- Mecca bingo is full of Islamophobes (how ironic)
- Whenever someone gets mauled by a dog, the owner will always be their uncle
That is all
Todays tv is pretty much uncensored for decency, yeah there are certain things you cant broadcast but the list of unbroadcastable stuff now would stretch to cover the back of a stamp. I mean she's now long gone, but if she had been here would we have all had to endure That Rebecca Loos woman pleasuring a pig on TV in the desperate search for 15 minutes of fame? I think not.
Come to think of it nearly all reality TV would have been condemned which could never be a bad thing.
Mrs Loaf has gone to London for a few days so she's left us to fend for ourselves, this was Isobel this morning waiting to go Nursery uttering the words "Mummy Gone"
We essentially spent it in the garden, Isobel had her paddling pool out soshe was running around naked all weekend, it must be very liberating to be able to do that. We also had a bbq which was lush, there was a lorra meat going on 7 hard core carnivores and me, there was all sorts of weird marinades happening and loads of San Miguel.
On Saturday we went to see 'Noises off' at the rep which was brilliant, very funny. We also noted that Birmingham is a lovely place to be early evening in nice weather, people are in a good mood and everyones smiling.
I just love the sunshine :)
Obviously this weekend will be spent in the garden or sitting outside the pub or doing all those things that spring to mind when you think of a hot summers day. There will probably be a bbq involved at some point as well and maybe a stroll around the park.
Isobel slept till 7:00 this morning and when she came in to us she was all smiles and laughing, it was a joyous way to start the day, and Ed was in a good mood as well when I got in so its gonna be a good day methinks.
Actually thinking about it, i might get the pimms out
Cheers
Jamies greek thing on TV last night was ok. The chilli salad looked really nice as did the greek salad and it just goes to show how rubbish Greek food is over here. Us veggies just get the odd vegetable floating in oil and the meateaters get unidentifiable meats in kebabs so something needs to be sorted on that.
On a meat note has anyone noticed that David Camaron looks like C3PO made out of ham ?
I suppose i can see her point, lets just say a hot duck.
We are listening to Craig David in the office, i think the end of the world is nigh.
I watched it last night. To be honest it was the first movie we have watched for months as there has been absolutely nothing out but i've always liked Ian Durys music so i thought i'd give it a go.
Its really difficult to rate as a film because the performance by Andy Serkis is brilliant, his look mannarisms and voice are Dury to a tee. However Ian Dury wasn't a very nice man a lot of the time, I don't think it was personal it was just the way he was and as Serkis pulls this off it makes for quite uncomfortable viewing watching someone who you admire acting like a git (imagine finding out that Dave Grohl loves to stab puppies in his spare time).
The music is great although some of the stage shows are very circus in their presentation blending reality with fantasy, but the tunes are still brilliant and the vocal performance is excellent.
So in short, see it if you are a music fan and liked Dury's music, it makes difficult viewing sometimes but gives great insights into what really drove him
How lucky were we with the weather this weekend. It was chucking down elsewhere however we saw no rain at all.
Saturday morning we were swimming then over the allotment planting and digging. We also went to an Allotment Show on Walsall Road, popped into the Jewellery Quarter to look for Wedding Rings and went to the Farmers Market and bought some lovely chutneys (as well as stealing some great ideas for jams)
On Saturday night Sadie made Tom Yum soup which is blisteringly hot yet fantastically tasty. Its got King Prawns, Pak Choi, Yellow Peppers, Mushrooms, Fresh Chillis, Fresh Coriander and Tom Yum paste that Danielle bought us back from Thailand, it ruled.
Sunday was essentially more allotment stuff with Isobel racing around and eating dirt and getting rides in the wheelbarrow. I popped into Bescot market which was particularly hellish however I did pick up a grapevine to accompany the one we have. We also replaced 3 of the beds so now we have 4 strawberry beds all brimming with lovely strawberry plants.
Last night I caught the Boy George thing which was brilliant except it sort of glossed over the bit where he was in culture club. To be honest they could have added an hour and split it over 2 parts, but it was great nonetheless, and very close to the book (he lived in Walsall for a bit don't ya know)
Speaking of books, I have finished The Burning Land (Brilliant Book !) and have now moved on to:
Harry Sidebottom - Warrior of Rome (Part 2)
So far so good, its essentially Romans stabbing their way through Turkey and back to Rome, I'm only a few pages in but its looking good so far, the level of detail is very good and gives you an excellent idea of what it was like to live in those times.
It's been a while since I did a book update although to be honest i'be been a bit slack with the reading.
Val McDermid - Fever of the Bone
Dark and twisted this one from the write of the TV series 'Wire in the blood'. It's the usual serial killer on the loose and group of cops trying to track them down however it deals with some pretty nasty deaths of teenagers (if your into that sort of thing, and if you are your a weirdo). There's nothing new here but still its a good read.
David Shrigly - Grip
I have no idea what this book is supposed to be. It has mental childlike cartoons with very sinister undertones (and overtones) together with bizarre ramblings. It's just wrong on every level.
The Burning Land - Bernard Cornwell
Brilliant return to form for the 5th book in the Alfred the Great series following the physcopathic Uthred of Bebbanberg. I've got about a third to go but its a brilliant blood drenched sword slashathon. Makes you wanna be a viking. and get yer slaughter on.
There's another one and I cant remember what it is, i'll have a look through the pile when i get home. To be honest i'm gonna be lucky if I do 40 this year at this rate, still 40 books is more than some people read in a lifetime so it's not too bad.
Sadie introduced me to a great now outfit, they are a german outfit called The Baseballs and play modern hits in a 50's Elvis doowop style (they all dress accordingly). It's a quite refreshing to hear rubbish songs bought to life in this particular way.
Anyway check em out they rule
I went to see Colin Dunne's performance of 'Out of Time' last night and it was brilliant, the effects that are applied to the taps give the whole thing a very Aphex Twin feel, he's a very talented man (and a lovely bloke to boot).
Last night I watched the first episode of 'Luther'. Sue blogged about it last week but i've only just got round to watching it, I thought it was excellent and will certainly be watching it again. It's got Stringer Bell out of The Wire and he plays a brilliant part so catch it if you can be bothered.
I'm desperate to hear some new music, so if you have any please let me know (no ska though).
Anyway crisis over and i proceeded to open my pressies, this years bounty included:
A digital radio for the potting shed
A sign for my other shed
A Peter James Book
The Dara O Briain Book
Loads of Chocolate
A Bottle of 1985 Glenburgie
A Sickle (which is REALLY sharp)
A paint it yourself garden gnome
A bottle of Jura 'Superstition' whisky
The Latest PJ tracy Book
The RHS Gardeners Bible
Some Socks
A bottle of Rum
A new Jacket
Grip by David Shrigly
Under the Eagle by Simon Scarrow
A Fruit & Veg Book
There still more to come and there's a couple i can't remember but of all of them, this has to be my favorite :)
On saturday we went for a curry then off to a fancy dress party. And sunday was spent in the garden and on the allotment.
I mowed the lawn in the morning (which was about 2ft tall in some places). The 3 of us then had sunday lunch at 1:00 which was a first as i dont think we have ever had sunday lunch at lunchtime in this house and it was very nice. Then we were back outside planting peas and radishes and repotting stuff for the coldframe to grow on.
The evening ended with me and Isobel in the bath then vegging in front of the TV, all in all a lovely weekend.
I am going out for a curry tommorrow night, and Sadie has promised by a Sunday Roast for just the 3 of us for Sunday lunch which will be nice as we havent had one in ages.
Apart from birthday festivities I will be mowing the allotment (which means I have to get some petrol for the mower) and I dunno what else, i'm sure it will all be lovely whatever we do,
Oh and the election....nobody won...suprise suprise.
I don't care it you vote red / blue / the other one or even for some nutter right wing lunatic party, everyone in the country has an obligation to vote after so many millions gave their lives in order for us to do so. So not being arsed to haul your backside down to the polling station is a pitiful excuse, even if you have no idea who to vote for and end up writing none of the above on the bit of paper its better than not turning up at all.
If I had my way non voters would have their faces plastered over billboards with derogatory comments about them being sexually attracted to farm animals.
Last night i re potted over 100 begonias, some courgettes, aubergines and sunflowers....rave on.
Over the weekend we visited the opening at the new MAC arts centre, went to Moseley old hall and visited Shugborough as well as the odd garden centre. On Saturday night, my statement on forgetting to put pegs in the gazebo of 'Don't worry it will be all right', proved foolish words when at 11:00pm I heard a noise outside and looked to find the Gazebo had disappeared and was found halfway up the campsite in a tangled mess of fabric and metal (regular readers will know exactly the same thing happened to us a few years ago at Shell Island). So That involved an emergency clean up operation, but apart from that all was well.
Yesterday we planted out the runner beans. Over the course of the next few weeks i think we will be planting out the rest of the veg (just need it to warm up a bit). And last night we tasted the first of our crop this year as Sadie made a fantastic Rhubarb and Blackberry crumble - it was the greatest thing anyone has ever cooked let me tell you.
Well the weather isnt looking great is it, it looks like it's gonna rain which wont be great, but hey ho these things are sent to try us.
It's gonna be little uns first forray into camping (hence we're not going too far) hopefully she will love it all that running around and the like, should be fun whatever happens.
I'm bored of politics so i'm not even gonna go there.
Well last night Sadie got our Big Chill tickets for this year, my good friend Neil offered his camper van for the trip so we are really looking forward to it. Also what with the wedding and everything being urgent at that point it will be nice to get away fer a few days.
In other news we are camping this weekend in Cannock Chase !
Anyway here's some piccies of us on the beach, in one of them i think Isobel might have a mouthful of pebbles.
We are going to Brighton this weekend and the sun will be shining (apart from it raining a bit on Sunday by the looks of things) so i'm sure we will be down on the beach at some point.
Anyway when they were down I had decided that i was gonna use some of the straighter branches as supports for growing beans, however i realised I needed an axe to lop off the branches and remembered I hadn't got one, so i'm going to have to get one. An axe is one of those things that when you see one in someones shed you think "who on earth actually uses an axe apart from woodsmen", well i answered my own question and though "me thats who except i aint got one" so i'll have to add one to the tool shed collection.
This is what is growing at the mo in the greenhouse
I am suprised as to how well everything is doing, a lot of stuff will need planting out over the next few weeks.
We then planted the King Edwards and Jersey Royals, the Desiree's are still chitting so it'll be a few more days till they go in, we should be sorted for spuds for the next 12 months though if the amount I've planted is anything to go by.
Swimming went well on saturday and after all the digging yesterday and Isobel trying to swim accross the dirt (to the point where her vest and nappy was full of soil), we both got in the bath and she seemed a bit better than as of late so hopefully whatever phobia she had has gone. You can never tell though as kids are so fickle.
I'll also be digging and sawing and planting this weekend methinks, hopefully the weather will hold out as we've got loads of spuds to get in. Don't fancy the mower tho as thats a bum job.
I will be trying to give the meda a swerve as i'm sick to death of the bloody election. Bare knuckle fist fighting is the way forward for these sort of debates I think.
On a different note quite a few seeds are starting to come through, its quite exciting. I am growing Raddish and Aubergine this year as well and I can't even remember if i like them or not, still its worth a punt eh.
Bookwise, i am currently reading Bloodline - Mark Billingham which is the next book in the Detective Tom Thorne Series, again i'm only a hundred or so pages in but it's really good so far. I finished the loss adjuster one Armadillo by William Boyd, if i'm honest it was a bit meh. The reviews on amazon are very good but I found it just didnt grasp me. I find that a good book is one that you try to weedle and extra 15 mins of reading out of before you turn the light out at night but I didnt think this one no where near engaging enough to warrant that.
One thing I am aware of is that i dont think i'm gonna hit my target of 50 books this year I might re-adjust at the end of April and get a more realistic target.
We'll see.
On a final note i stumbled accross some great examples of Sleeveface photography, check em out they are quite funny.
On Saturday morning I was drinking tea in the greenhouse planting seeds then we went to John Lewis to sort out the wedding list.
We had a bbq in the afternoon and I over did the Rum & Cokes so was a bit hungover sunday morn, lunch out at the local pub and a walk round the park helped though. Then it was back home and in the garden to do some weeding.
We will make the most of it i'm sure and potter round the garden. The fence at the bottom is on it's last legs though so that needs sorting (not this weekend though as there will be planting instead). Oh and I think i'm going out for Sunday lunch which will be nice.
Whilst browsing t'interweb last night I cam accross this which is a brilliant Sisters of Mercy Cover
Lambchop - This Corrosion
Anyway its alright, it's got some very mixed reviews over at Amazon, some people think its genius, others a pile of pap, me i'm somewhere in the middle but still have about 80 pages to go.
Video of the day goes to an 8 bit destruction of New York
Tune of the day, well we had confirmation of the big chill line up last week which looks great. Massive Attack are playing so that will be maudlin and depressing, however Ashley Beedle and the other bloke out of X-Press 2 are playing in some band called 'Mavis' and will be playing 'Give it' as they are having guest vocalist Kurt Wagner so that should be great.
X-Press 2 - Give it
- Went to a wedding in Bounemouth which was lovely as we were sans child.
- Went to the reception which was in a pub and consisted of a curry, a disco, a pub quiz, more disco, a karaoke and a late buffet. It was brilliant.
- Visited Attingham Park where there was an easter egg hunt (they have this fantastic walled garden where they grow loads of veg.
- Got out into the allotment and planted Swiss Chard, Beetroot and Broccolli. We also potted up peas, runner beans, french beans and courgettes in the greenhouse. I also planted out the new Raspberry canes which fruit at a different time to the ones already out there so we should get more of a crop this year.
- Visited the Hollybush garden centre, jesus christ they make some money there.
- Watched 'The Fantastic Mr Fox' which was excellent.
- Watched SAW VI which was nasty.
- Watched the last of the 'Wonders of the Solar System' with D:reamboat Brian Cox, its been fantastic.
- Started a new book and i can't for the life of me remember what it's called or who its by.
Other than that i'll be.....we'll I dunno...chubbing chocolate probably.
The book centres around a musician who went into exile, a devoted fan who leads a forum of likewise stalkers who over analyse ever part of the guys life and music, and the guys long suffering girlfriend. It's vintage Hornby really (if your into that sort of thing), i'm not normally a fan but this book held my attention for the duration and at least made me chuckle a few times and it was a real relief after the last one
Tune of the day is a cover of a classic song. So classic in fact that's it's already been posted here as a remix by the Hoxton Whores, but this version is a 1975 brilliant cover.
Spanky Wilson - Sunshine of your love.
I finished The Accidental by Ali Smith and all i can offer by way of a review is "What the hell?"
The book jumps all over the place, has pages and pages of lists of things, breaks into prose in the middle for about 10 pages, the prose then collapses into ee cummings style musings (see below) and then back into what appears to be a normal novel.
Its just mental and mostly makes no sense. I kept going till the end though so I can chalk it up, but as a reccomendation, I dunno, perhaps it you were drinking toilet duck it might make a wonderful book.
Anyway so on the read so far this year list we have:
1. The Gropes - Tom Sharpe
2. Mystery Man - Colin Bateman
3. The Lost Symbol - Dan Brown
4. It's not what you think - Chris Evans
5. Her Fearful Symmetry - Audrey Niffenegger
6. Pandemonium - Christopher Brookmyre
7. Dead Tomorrow - Peter James
8. David Nicholls - One Day
9. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - Stieg Larsson
10. The Accidental - Ali Smith
11. Naked Juliet - Nick Hornby
This last one i'm about 3/4 of the way though so that will be finished soon, its a good book though.
Pretty stress free weekend for us apart from the little un vomming everywhere on Friday. Some freinds came round yesterday and bought us some blueberry bushes and some raspberry canes so they shall be planted next weekend (I think its supposed to snow isnt it later this week)
I did manage to put up a blind yesterday in the most innaccessible place imaginable, it involved all sorts of heath robinson contraptions just to get the screws in, it worked though. I also put up some pics, they are framed polaroids of Me & eBo, Sadie & eBo and eBo on her own. Luckily we have quite a few films left as when we looked at buying them online they are astronomical now that they have stopped making em.
I also watched Shifty which was quite good and only cost £100,000 to make which wouldn't even make a second of Avatar.
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