I came across this the other day thanks to twitter. One of the joys has been to discover that Alison Sudol really is genuinely as nice as I imagined she would be. My favourite tweet to date is one of hers, she says “the problem with living in the wonderful world of imagination is, I can't tell a dust bunny from a monster... in cleaning or in life ( Read more... )

I will have to make an effort and try and post more here, I’m afraid the lure of twitter has been all embracing. So I give you a video, OK, it’s a ten year old song but it’s new to me. I’ve been checking their back catalogue on Spotify and it’s something of a mystery to how I’ve not heard any of their songs. Everyone I’ve played so far I like ( Read more... )

This weekend is the 35th anniversary of the Birmingham pub bombing. Like the 9/11 or 7/7 this was a terror attack, more real, because it happened where I live. Unlike the other two, no one has admitted to the bombing and the bombers haven’t been brought to justice. Memories of the events are still strong and the sheer pointlessness of the targets ( Read more... )

What a day. What a day. England have won the Ashes. Ok, it didn’t quite live up to 2005 but this series has had it moments. It’s been a summer of compelling cricket with twists and turns, highs and lows. From Monty and Anderson’s batting to save the day at Cardiff, Freddie’s bowling  at Lord’s, the Australian fight back at Edgbaston and England’s ( Read more... )

I’m not sure which is my favourite advert at the moment. The John Shuttleworth ad’s are still running but the new Aviva one is brilliant too. It took me awhile to figure out it was Paul Whitehouse. It is a clever piece of marketing to choose Plymouth, yes, you’ve got the comedy accent but also almost noone hates Plymouth (with the exception of ( Read more... )

We (English) football fans are our own worst enemy. When Sven was boss of England he bemoaned the fact the press gave him a hard time over his many substitutions in friendly games. He quipped that the clues in the name. I always agreed with this, friendly’s are meaningless games there to gain fitness or experience. So tonight as I watched the Villa ( Read more... )

A conversation at work today.

“Mark, what do you think about the Ford Ka?”

“I think it’s the spawn of Satan” I replied.

“Sam, what car have you just bought?”

“A Ford Ka” she answered.

Oops.

That’s what I love about Glastonbury to expect the unexpected. I have never heard of The Gaslight Anthem before Saturday but I saw them on the BBC coverage and thought they were brilliant, now every time I turn on the radio someone seems to be playing one of their songs. This is a particular favourite… do you hear something?..is there somebody back ( Read more... )

This is why I love football, Spain, 35 games unbeaten and one of the red-hot favourites for next year’s world cup loose to the US. The US obviously had a game plan to closedown the Spanish strikers and their two centre half’s played brilliantly. I thoroughly enjoyed a compelling game of football.  

On the way home this evening I was sitting in a queue of traffic when up ahead I could see the approaching blue lights of two police cars. Just before reaching my car they stop suddenly in the road, the passenger wildly gesticulating to the driver and pointing to the road they’ve just missed. They wait for a gap to appear in the traffic and start ( Read more... )