Moments and Musings

Every Cloud's Got A Silver Lining?

2012-01-19T18:55:00.000Z

I’ve been having a bit of a rough time for the last week orso. A week ago today I received a letter at work telling me that my post willcease to exist on 31 March 2012. Now I knew this was coming, at least I wasaware of the likelihood as I’d been told last year it was going to happen. Butsince then there had been radio silence on what exactly was happening or when,apart from rumours suggesting that nothing more had been heard as it still wasn’tcertain to happen. So receiving the letter was a bit like hearing that someone whoyou knew was ill and had been for a while had died. It wasn’t unexpected, butit was still a shock – and it still hurt.

The loss of my post makes me very angry when I think aboutit, as for a second time within my current career, the time I have spent trainingfor my specialism has been thrown away for no seemingly good reason. Whilst Iam aware that the decisions were based purely on post rather than anything else(or so I’ve been assured by my section head), it annoys me that other peoplewithin my division with no relevant experience or training are actively seekingto leave and yet their posts are remaining. Of course these people are at ahigher grade, because once again the cuts have removed the remaining lowergrade posts to ensure the higher still have a job.

In reality I suppose I am lucky that the loss of a postdoesn’t mean the loss of my job (at the moment, although compulsoryredundancies must be coming soon as the Department has to reach the 40% target imposed by the Government and they just aren't getting the numbers through voluntary redundancies, and I don’t want to be without a post whenthat happens). Even once my post ends, I will still be employed, but need tofind a different post within the Department. And this too is causing me somedistress. Whilst I haven’t yet been shown the whole range of posts available tothe “redeployment pool” which will be my new home from the beginning of April,the ones which have been posted for general consumption have been insipid,tedious or generally of such poor quality that it is almost enough to induce asevere bout of depression whenever I look at them – and quite often reduces meto tears. I am hoping that once the pool is open to me there will be somethingwith a little more quality about it, but to be honest I’m not holding mybreath. I am also hoping that I can get something in London (not guaranteed asI’m classified as mobile and therefore theoretically could be posted anywherein the country, although being frank I’d rather get posted to the FalklandIslands than Bristol – at least I’d make some decent money and get to seepenguins in their natural habitat!)

Of course, neither of my specialisms are likely to make anappearance, as the IT jobs were all contracted out a long time ago and Healthand Safety doesn’t seem to be very popular at the moment and most H&S jobsare dead-men’s shoes. Unfortunately the biggest H&S section and the one in London, is the one fromwhich I am losing my post anyway.

I have been wondering whether my career would have been anymore successful if I hadn’t followedthe advice that the Department gave out in the late nineties that people shoulddevelop one or more ‘anchors’ – streams of specialism that would see themthrough their career. Maybe if I hadn’t bothered getting all that training,doing all that extra work to make myself more employable and get a betterquality job I’d be rattling along somewhere in a safe job, or maybe I’d stillbe in HR (which come to think of it is a third specialism).

As if my week wasn’t bad enough I also received a lot of badfinancial news too, which, when I received a nasty letter about the Council Taxwas the final nail in the coffin. The despair, pain and general self-loathing whichhad been building up for quite some time erupted like Mount Vesuvius.

Having been in this position depression-wise many times inthe past I know how hard it is to drag myself out of the pit of despair once I’mthere and was seriously considering that I might need to pay a visit to thedoctor (something that Moodscope has been suggesting for a few weeks now) asretreating to bed to bury my head in the sand doesn’t help to sort my financesor find me another post. But then, when I was probably at my lowest point for along time I read a blog post by a friend, Mel,which made me stop and think.

I haven’t yet read The Fault in Our Stars by John Greenas I can’t afford to get it at the moment, but everyone I know who has read it(and that’s a lot of people from the HP fandom) all loved the book and ravedabout how much it had made them laugh and cry, just as Meldescribed. And her admonition to enjoy life, along with her list of thebrilliant things she had done last year made me sit down and think about allthe amazing things I did last year too.

As a natural depressive it’s sometimes hard to think aboutthe good things that have happened as the bad always seems to overshadow them.It’s hard to think about the little pleasures, the enjoyment one has taken inreading a book, for example, when everything in your future looks bleak, or you’restill holding onto the bad things that have already happened. For instance I oncevaguely considered joining a dating website but gave up the idea when I reachedthe question which asked me to explain what I was thankful for. At the timethis question was impossible for me to answer, because I couldn’t think of asingle good thing in my life (I was deep in the midst of the worst bout of depressionI’d had for many years at the time). I’m not entirely sure I could answer itsatisfactorily now, but I could at least cobble together some sort of answer. And afterreading Mel’s blog I could at leastthink about the good things that happened last year.

And do you know what? They really did outweigh the badthings (with the possible exception of dad’s death which was a massive badthing).

Thinking about the good made me more positive, and that inturn made me more determined. I finally tackled all the rubbish that I’ve beenstoring in my flat, meaning to get rid of, but never quite getting round to doingit - meaning that I finally have a little space to breathe. It’s only a startand there’s more that needs to be done, but it is definitely a start and Ialready feel that I can better cope with what’s left (before I often consideredsetting fire to the flat just to get away from it all).

Then I tackled my finances. It turned out that there hadbeen a series of computer errors which were fairly easily sorted once I summonedup the nerve to contact the various companies. Of course finances are stilltight, after all it’s that really long month after the Christmas overspend, butat least I now know that with careful budgeting I can afford to live, although unfortunatelynot in the style to which I’d like to become accustomed – I really do stillneed to win the lottery or marry a millionaire for that to happen.

Now I have to sort out my job, and in particular I need towrite a CV and my competences. This is something that has been giving metrouble since I first found out that I was going to lose my post, but I think I’mfinally ready to deal with it and hopefully with a little positivity I’ll beable to make a good enough job of it to get a decent post.

I did, for a very short while, entertain the idea of leavingthe Civil Service and going to work at Leavesden at the Warner Brothers Studio Tour (which opens just as my post finishes), as it would be an ideal for jobfor me. I even discussed it with a few people, all of whom were equally surethat it would be a great choice for me (let’s face it, a chance to dress up andshow off my knowledge of Harry Potter = heaven). But in realityit wasn’t a good choice. Whilst the job would be great, I imagine the money isn’twonderful and I am far too old, as they are looking for youngsters who arewilling to work for the enjoyment rather than the money. And with my currentfinancial commitments I have to seriously consider the money. It was also toofar away. A huge trek to get to work every day does not make for a healthy mindand body as I already know, even if you get to dress up as a witch at the endof it.

And so next week is my birthday, another potentiallydepressing day when I realise that yet another year has gone by without me becomingsignificantly skinnier, wealthier or more loved. But whereas earlier this week theblack cloud of my despair had already turned the day into something bad becauseof my inability to afford to celebrate in any way, my new more positive self islooking forward to it. Yes, I might be another year older and all those badthings may still be true. But it’s the start of a new year where, if I can keepup the positive outlook, great things could happen. And I know, that evenwithout the money to celebrate in style, I have friends who care for me enoughto make my day special regardless of what we do.

Happy New Year!

2012-01-02T00:20:00.000Z

Happy New Year everyone and welcome to 2012.

I thought I’d start with an early blog post as I’m seriouslyintending to try and post more regularly this year (yeah yeah, I know, I alwayssay that – but this year I’m actually going to do it).

I’m not really one for resolutions, as they are too easilybroken, but with a tough year ahead (some people would classify it aschallenging and relish it, but I’m afraid I’m not one of them and am going tofind it hard going and quite possibly upsetting at times) I think I’m really goingto need to get stuff out of my system and this blog (and the fitness and nutritionblog) will be the way to do it.

I haven’t really got much in the way of exciting things tolook forward to in the near future due to a lack of money and anticipatespending rather a lot of time at home on my own. However, the up side to thisis that I received a lot of DVDs for Christmas and will at least have somethingto keep me occupied whilst I’m stewing at home.

First up will be an episode of Lost a day, which, if Imanage to stick to that schedule, should see me finishing the final series atthe end of April. I will also becatching up with season three of Castle and Fringe and finally attempting towatch series one of Downton Abbey (I have actually watched thefirst episode twice and couldn’t manage to get into it at all, but I am perseveringas everyone else in the world seems to love it, so I must be wrong). I’ve alsothe first three series of Merlin to catch up on (I loved series four) and thefirst series of Bones (to see if I want to get the others).

I also have, courtesy of a fabulous Christmas present fromMrs H3, the ultimate, limited edition Blu-Ray and DVD versions of the HarryPotter films which I never have a problem watching again and again – and I’mhoping that my new LCD tv will make the final films more watchable than my oldtelly.

That’s not to say that there won’t be some good momentsduring the year. My birthday is fast approaching and I expect there will be afancy dress evening at the Sherwood Oak to celebrate as usual (although I haven’tyet decided what the theme should be) - featuring (hopefully) Mrs H3 and theFoxhunter and maybe even other people.

And there will be concerts too. Already booked are Justin Furstenfeld (leadsinger of Blue October) and David Hasselhoff (yes Mrs H3 is VERYexcited about this). I Am Kloot are due to release a new album shortly, which I’mreally hoping means a load of concerts that we can get to, as it’s been far toolong since I last saw them. Also I think Gary Numanwill be releasing his new album later in the year, which should mean moresupporting concerts too.

Filmwise, my interest is taken up by The Woman in Black due out in February, The Hunger Games inMarch and the long-awaited The Hobbit which is out in December. Of course, there is also the final partof Twilight: Breaking Dawn (I still have absolutely no idea why this was splitinto two films, as unlike Harry Potter there wasn’t much story to begin withand the first film had quite a lot of filler in it).

So some tough times ahead, but hopefully with enough brightspots to stop me from sinking too far into depression. Hopefully this newprogramme I’ve discovered called Moodscope will help me to better gauge thingsand help me to stay on an even keel, although after just three days of completingthe tests it suggested that I see a doctor (although it was over New Year whichis always a down time for me).

The Countdown is On....

2011-12-14T22:57:00.000Z

According to the internet there is 10 days, 1 hour and 59minutes left until Christmas. Where has the time gone? It was the beginning ofDecember yesterday. My tree is up, my lovely Snape angel is complete and takingpride of place at the top (although he’s still a little bit big for it, but farmore suited to the role than any of my other Snapes have been) and I have atleast managed to make and write most (although not all) of my Christmas cards.I haven’t yet started wrapping the presents, although I have drunk the wine Ibought to drink while I was wrapping.

Strangely, although I’ve been wearing my Christmas tops (includinga rather fantastic snowman dalek, which satisfies both my nerd and Christmas sidesat the same time), have my workstation decorated with more tinsel and fairylights than Santa’s grotto and have already been to the works Christmas dinner(a bit of a disappointment to be honest, All Bar One) I’m not really feelingvery Christmassy. Partly this is because I’ve got other things on my mind whichare detracting from me enjoying myself and partly it’s because of that pile ofpresents still needing to be wrapped.

This weekend is the Wizarding Winter Fair, which is a replacementfor the Snow Ball and is being held in Macclesfield. Unfortunately I can’t makeit, which would explain why this year, instead of being snowed in (as hashappened the previous two years when trying to get to Edinburgh), itseems that with the exception of a bit of wind and maybe a storm, the weatherwill be fine. Gutted as I am not to be able to join my fellow wizards for somepre-Christmas wrock and fun, Mrs H3 and I will instead be spending Fridayevening celebrating our own early Christmas (due to my imminent departure toSpain) at Bluewater with a meal, presents and Robert Downey Junior (phwoar!) in Sherlock Holmes: A Game ofShadows. I’m hoping that by Friday I’ll be feeling a little more in the spirit.

It occurred to me that I’ve never documented my Harry PotterChristmas tree properly before and so I’ve taken some photos of the tree, Snapeangel (I made the wings from decoupaged glitter card in the end and they lookfab in real life), and the decorations so you can see just how wonderful theyare.

I’m not sure if I’ll get a chance to post again before I goto Spain as I’m pretty busy for the next few days, but if not I’d like to thankyou all for reading my blog, sporadic as it’s been over the last year or so andwish you all a very merry Christmas (holiday season etc.) and a happy andhealthy New Year!

Knitting

2011-12-01T23:39:00.001Z

When I was in my teens I used to knit all the time (itstarted during a phase where I made all my own clothes). I knitted somefabulously intricate patterns: from a jumper covered with multi-colouredEgyptian hieroglyphs and a jewel-bright Pharaoh’s collar to match, tofashionable tops containing the latest and most interesting wools. Nothing wastoo difficult for me to have a go at as several large fluffy cable knit jumperdresses and a very difficult to knit (and hugely expensive) silk and alpacacardigan showed.

And then I stopped.

Thinking about it now I have absolutely no idea why. I’m noteven quite sure when I stopped as I can remember days of sitting at boot fairs,knitting my way through balls of angora wool and I remember showing Jane how toknit when she got pregnant, so that she could make some baby clothes. But atsome point I stopped, and although I made a couple of scarves a few years ago,I’ve not really been involved in serious knitting for years.

Until now.

A few weeks ago I was trawling the interwebs trying to findsomething to go on the top of my Christmas tree (my beautiful Severus Snapedolls are either too big, and thus too heavy or too small and not imposingenough) when I discovered a knitted Snape doll which I thought would beperfect, both in size and weight. There were two choices: I could buy the dollready-made, which was quite expensive, or I could buy the pattern and knit itmyself. I decided to go for the latter and have spent the last few eveningsimmersed in trying to create this doll.

But somewhere along the way I seem to have lost my abilityto knit, or at least, I’ve lost the ability to do anything but row after row ofstocking stitch. Increasing without creating holes in my work is a problem Ineed to solve (Snape’s face depends on it) and, sad to admit, I even had tolook up how to cast off because I couldn’t remember how to do it. Fortunatelyknitting is a pretty well-covered hobby on the internet and so there’s amillion tutorials on every possible subject and even helpful videos, sohopefully the holey face will soon be sorted, but working on the doll hasre-kindled my enjoyment of knitting and I’m seriously considering making ajumper … perhaps I’ll make a Weasley sweater for Mrs H3.

Mrs H3 is knitting too. She started making me a Slytherinscarf for Christmas about three years ago and I’m still waiting for it. She hasrecently moved home and is currently without television or the computer so I toldher she might want to finish the scarf for something to do, a suggestion whichshe didn’t seem too happy with. She has promised that I’ll have it by myfiftieth birthday though – so only another five years to wait!

Photos of the doll will follow once I get him finished. Now,I wonder where I can find a pattern for angel wings?

A Catch Up

2011-11-25T23:43:00.001Z

Here it is almost the end of November and my current totalof words for NaNoWriMo stands at zero – yep I’ve not written a single word. Atleast I haven’t written a word of my novel. I have of course written blog postsfor my other blog, written a bit of fan fiction, made lists of stuff, done somewriting for work, but the novel has remained elusively out of sight. And so,for this year, I officially give up.

And now it’s almost Christmas again. It seems to me like itwas only a few weeks ago that I was writing about it being Christmas last year,time flies so fast these days. I have seen the billboards with the Coke lorry,M&S have released a dreadful Christmas advert and John Lewis have split thecountry with their offering which is either tedious and mawkish or unbelievablycute and tear-jerking depending on which side of the line you fall. I have toadmit to quite liking the advert, although it didn’t reduce me to tears – but thenmaybe that’s because I was picturing something nasty in the present he’s soeager to give.

I’m actually feeling ahead of the game for probably thefirst time ever in my life as almost all my presents are bought and are readyto be wrapped (I can’t actually wrap them until my Christmas tree goes up andthat doesn’t happen until 1 December, obviously, although it may be delayed asI still have to knit my angel Snape for the top of the tree). The only personwho I haven’t yet got a present for is my God-daughter Leanne,but she’s easy to buy for and so I’ll get her sorted in the next few days. Aslong as there’s no problem with the post I should be all done and dusted bynext weekend, which leaves me a few weeks to get cards sorted out, as I haven’tyet got started on those, although I’ve meant to a few times.

One of the nice things about Christmas is the countdown andadvent calendars. Whilst I do have the traditional Thornton’s chocolate one(bought by my friend Richard as he has done every year for the last ten yearsor so) I’m trying to lose a bit more weight and am wrestling over whether toeat it or not. But I also have (and have sent to friends and family) the Jacquie Lawsonadvent calendar. I got last year’s and it was a delight, having a littleanimated scene to play out every day, and I understand that Freddie and Aiden enjoyed it almost as much as I did.

I’ve added a few photos from Halloween and the Labyrinth MaskedBall that Mrs H3 and I attended, along with a few other friends (that’sFoxhunter in the Hannibal Lecter outfit). Unfortunately there aren’t many ofMrs H3 as they didn’t come out too well apparently. As you can see we had lotsof fun – and no, of course we didn’t get looked at all, travelling across London by tube dressedlike that!

Hello World

2011-10-31T00:14:00.000Z

Oh dear, once again my resolution to blog more has beenhijacked by life. It’s been a real whirl since I last posted: concerts,parties, farewells, fun times, job losses, lottery wins ….

Okay, actually that last one isn’t true, but I have been abusy beaver recently. I don’t really want to dwell on the second to last item,which I was rather unhappy about when Ifound out (a slight understatement), but have pretty much got over now, solet’s concentrate on the more fun stuff instead!

Saturday 24 September was the six month anniversary of mydad’s death. I had brought some of his ashes back to Englandwith the intention of scattering them in the Thames,as he’d wanted, having previously worked as a Thames Lighterman, but ithad never seemed quite the right time. As the six months drew nearer, however, itreally was time to say goodbye.

Mrs H3 and I took a journey on the Thames Clipper with aview to inconspicuously scattering the ashes as we made our way down the Thames. However, the boat was considerably busier than we’dexpected and it was impossible to even get near the side of the boat, let aloneempty the ashes without being seen and to add to the stress we were bothfeeling a little seasick. We therefore sailed to Embankment and walked down to Cleopatra’s Needle, which is a nice spot, and after a fewminutes of contemplation and remembrance, added his ashes to the water there.The journey back was on a catamaran rather than a boat and was much better seasickness-wiseand, of course, was much quieter (sod’s law) and we could easily have scatteredthe ashes in the wake. I would love to go on a catamaran at full speed down theThames without it having to stop every fewminutes at the various piers as it would be brilliant fun.

We have been to a few concerts recently, although sadly notI Am Kloot, as astonishingly, they seem to be taking a break from touring. Ican only assume this is because Johnny’sgirlfriend isn’t happy with him being on the road all the time, as he used toplay solo gigs in-between the IAK ones and was therefore touring constantly allyear. Hopefully it won’t be too long before they’re back down South, maybe evenwith a new album (she says hopefully).

Gary Numan played an absolute blinderof a concert (and that’s not just me being biased, honestly). He also made theerror of having a decent support act for the first time since the 1980s – a guycalled Jayce Lewis (check him out) which meant that instead of being able toget a seat, which we normally manage with no problem as everyone stays in thebar until Gary takes to the stage, the place was packed for the support and weended up having to stand all night, which was not fun for my poor old arthriticfeet.

Pete Doherty was, I have to admit, areal disappointment for us. Having seen him several times over the years we’veseen the highs and lows that he’s capable of, but this concert – his last for along time (his words), was absolutely diabolical. Pete has made no secret ofthe fact that he’s had problems coming to terms with Amy Winehouse’s death and sadlyit really showed at Brixton, where once he had come onstage he seemeddetermined not to stop playing for anything. There were no breaks between thesongs, his usual quite skilful guitar playing was a shambles and he spent agood deal of time dedicating songs to Amyand another friend of his who had died recently. His singing, usually a high point, even when he’sbeen stoned out of his skull, was average at best and below par for most of it.It was sad to see him in such a state and can only agree with his assessmentthat he needs to go away and sort himself out.

And so onto the Bluetones, who played a wonderful set atShepherds Bush. I was pleased to see such a good turnout for their final showand Mrs H3 and I both thoroughly enjoyed it, despite Mrs H3 not knowing asingle one of their songs, not even their hits. I have to say that part of mewas pleased that whilst they were entertaining they weren’t totally fabulous tothe extent that I regretted not having been to see them during their previousseventeen years of touring, but I am glad we went to see them at the end.

Marc Almond at Tunbridge Wells AssemblyHalls was a much quieter evening and one for which we were late (as we alwaysseem to be for his shows). This was partially due to bad timing advice from MrsH3’s dad and her dodgy Garmin sat nav, which has a mind of its own and is notalways very helpful. Every time we’ve seen Marche’s always been different and this time was no exception. The first half was mainlyhim sitting on a stool, with a pianist and a harpist for accompaniment, wearinga pair of grey trousers and a black velvet jacket. It was torch song heaven, surroundedby an amazing amount of table lamps and he made us laugh a couple of times whenhe cranked up the dry ice and turned the lights way down low as it reminded usof Echo and the Bunnymen, although we could still see Marc as he sang.

The second half was slightly more upbeat, and included adress change from Marc, into jeans and black leather jacket and his band who were wearing grey suits withHawaiian shirts. What impressed me most were some of the unusual cover versionshe performed, beginning with David Bowie’s ‘John, I’m Only Dancing’, continuingwith Syd Barrett’s ‘Terrapin’ and ending with Lou Reed’s ‘The Bed’ – which heamazingly managed to make sound like a half decent song (I’ve always thoughtthis to be one of the most depressing songs ever written and always had aproblem listening to the original).

I had a little detour last week, without my partner-in-crimeas she was busy elsewhere, to see Rockin’ Republic, a local covers band containingan old friend of mine at a nearby pub. It gave me a chance to catch up with some oldfriends that I haven’t seen for ages and was a pretty good evening andcertainly made a change from sitting in on a Saturday night.

So this takes us to last night and our annual trip to see Alice Cooperat Alexandra Palace, with his Halloween Night ofFear. As always he and his band provided a good show, although it was slightlyless theatrical than in previous years and there was a lot of guitar work, Iguess due to the fact that he had three guitarists including Lou Reed.However, the snake, dead Ethel and theguillotine were all in attendance as well as a giant Frankenstein’s monsterversion of Alice.This year there were a lot more people dressed up, as were we, Mrs H3 as acorpse bride and me as a witch with a fabulous feathery bright red hat. Therewas also a late surprise during the encore, when Arthur Brownappeared onstage to sing his hit ‘Fire’ whilst wearing that famous flamingheaddress. Unfortunately, as ever, wearrived late and missed the support which was the New York Dolls, who I wouldhave liked to have seen, but it also had the added benefit of having missed thefreaks who stab themselves and stuff, that Alice so likes to pepper his showswith. All in all another brilliant evening – and in fancy dress too, which alwayscheers me up.

Tomorrow night is another fancy dress party at the Beacon Court inGillingham where there will be some live bands and on Thursday we are going tosee Blue October, which I’m really excited about as it’s been a long time sincethey were last in the UK.We’re also having a bonfire party at Mrs H3’s house on Friday, where they aregoing to let us set fire to things (mad people). Later in the month we’re goingto a Labyrinth masquerade ball at the Prince Charles Cinema, where we get todress up again and wear masks, before spending the evening enjoying David Bowie’sincredibly tight trousers.

Oh, and while I remember, this week saw David Hasselhoffannounce a tour of the UK in March next year and of course we have tickets for his date atIndigO2. Unfortunately, we were a little too late for the V.I.P. meet and greetoption, but we’ve still got prime seats. Excited? Me not so much, but Mrs H3certainly is and that’s all that matters.

Of course, it’s also that time of the year again. I mean ofcourse NaNoWriMo, that annual torture where I try to force myself to write50,000 words of a story and generally fail abysmally – although last year I didmanage it, but only by writing fan fiction rather than an original story. Thisyear I’m going into it completely blind, with absolutely no plot, no charactersand not even any idea, at this stage, of what type of story I’m going to write.Yep, sounds to me like a cause for failure again too, but I’m not going to letit put me off. So, once more into the breach dear friends!

Autumn

2011-09-17T00:47:00.000+01:00

So it's Autumn. The weather is finally showing signs of being vaguely Summery, although subject to change at any moment and the night's are drawing in. I'm now getting up for work and the gym in the dark and noticing the early morning chill in the air. Also depressingly, the first adverts related to Christmas have already been shown on the telly (thanks Sun newspaper!)

The good thing is that with Autumn comes Halloween and, of course, a spate of concerts. I'm really pleased about this as I've been dying of boredom sitting at home without anything interesting to do but nerd out on the internet.

The first of these concerts is tomorrow - Gary Numan at Shepherd's Bush Empire. I am really looking forward to this as it's a showcase for his new album Dead Son Rising that was released this week and I will be buying a copy at the show (one of the few artists that I'm still getting physical copies of their work rather than just the MP3 version).

Next is a visit to see our old mate, Peter Doherty (assuming he manages to stay out of prison until then) at Brixton Academy, which will be good as we missed out on his last concert due to the snow, swiftly followed by a stop to see the final ever concert by The Bluetones at Shepherd's Bush. Then it's a trip to Tunbridge Wells to spend a pleasant evening with the ever lovely Marc Almond, leading us neatly up to Halloween when we will, of course, be joining horror-meister Alice Cooper on his Halloween Night of Fear tour at Alexandra Palace. Then, just when you think everything's calmed down we'll be going mad over Blue October, finally coming back to the UK and appearing at O2 Islington. Sadly there's no sign of any imminent I Am Kloot shows, or even Johnny Bramwell solo evenings, but I'm hoping they'll be doing something soon.

Currently there isn't anything past Blue October, but after that it won't be long until Panto season starts. Whilst there's no majorly exciting productions this year (with the Hoff reproducing his Captain Hook role in Bristol and Brian Blessed not appearing at all) there are still enough to keep us going for a few weeks over the festive season.

If anyone is checking out my old posts you'll notice that many of the photos and slideshows have gone. This is because the company I was using to host them closed down. I do have another hosting site now so future posts will once again feature photos, but I'm not going to bother to put the old photos back unless anyone is desperately interested. If so, please let me know.

Also, I just want to remind you about my health and fitness journal which you can find here. I'm doing quite well so far, but support and recipe ideas are always welcome - and I've managed to get a post in every day so far, which is more than can be said for here, although I really am trying!

2011-09-07T22:08:00.001+01:00

Gosh it’s been a long time since I last blogged. I reallydid mean to start writing again, but time slipped away as it has a nasty habitof doing these days and suddenly it was time for Mrs H3 and I to go on theholiday of a lifetime (something I will be making a separate blog about in thenear future, featuring lots of lovely photos) and then there was the extendedrecovery from the holiday of a lifetime. Suddenly months have gone by, summer(whatever that is) has gone and it’s almost Halloween once again.

So what have I been doing? To be honest with the exceptionof the holiday - not much. We’ve been to a few concerts and seen a few films,but mostly it’s been a staying in kind of time due to the expense of going tothe USAand to Universal Studios and the Wizarding World of Harry Potterin particular.

I will still try to update this blog slightly more often assuminganything interesting happens – there are a few concerts on the not too distanthorizon, but I will also be keeping a daily journal to record my latest attemptto live a healthier and fitter life which can be found here. Please feel freeto join me over there with any helpful tips, advice or encouragement.

Oh and don’t forget to watch out for the holiday of alifetime special, coming to a blog near you shortly.

In Memorium – Raymond Edwin Sexton

2011-04-25T14:12:00.005+01:00

I am aware I haven’t posted anything for a very long time (four months excluding the Rebellion post-it, which doesn’t really count), but to be honest, I haven’t actually been in the mood or even really been able to write much.

My wonderful and much beloved father spent the past four and a half years battling with prostate and bone cancer. Although it was something I would normally have blogged about, as I have often used this blog as a stress reliever, I was unable to do so as we’d kept the true severity of his condition a secret so he wouldn’t lose heart and give up. As my father was an avid reader of my blog, always wanting to keep up with what I was doing, it was hard to express my feelings on his illness when he was likely to read it and therefore I moved into complete silence on the subject, but then found it hard, especially once his condition became critical, to write on more light-hearted matters.

As you know, I spent three months in Spain last summer, which was actually to help my mother with caring for my father in what we thought (and were told) were his final days. In fact we spent a week in hospital with him, during which we were all sure that it was only a matter of days if not hours before we lost him. However, being the fighter he always was, dad wasn’t ready to go then (despite dire warnings from every medical person to cross his path - the reason we were keeping it a secret and hence my three month ‘vacation’). As autumn drew on, he began to show an amazing recovery – the pain seemingly absent and with his steely determination he forced himself to get himself out of bed, an amazing feat as the muscles in his legs had almost withered away to nothing. Although not well by any means, he was at least able to enjoy some quality of life again – being able to watch the television, read his beloved books and use the computer, and over time had even managed to get himself walking again with the use of a frame.

Unfortunately, a couple of months ago, in his haste to move (impatience ever being one of his faults, as it is mine) he fell and this set him on a downward path. A detached retina in one eye added to a worsening cataract in the other meant he could no longer read, always his greatest pleasure in life and his worst loss, and a swift return of the pain, increasing to the stage where no painkillers could help (and he was high as a kite from the cocktail of drugs most of the time), meant that for the second time in a year we had to prepare ourselves for the worst. Once again I went to Spain, ready to help my mother, exhausted as she was from the constant round-the-clock care she had been providing since his fall – and of course, to say goodbye to my precious dad.

Heartbreakingly, my father passed away, peacefully and finally free from the pain he’d been in for so long, at nine am on a grey and rainy Thursday, on 24 March 2011.

I had been due to fly home the following day, as the coming weekend (containing Mrs H3’s birthday) was going to be the busiest of the year, with concerts by Chas & Dave and Elbow to go to, as well as an England football game at Wembley and a 1970s themed fancy dress party (an excuse for Mrs H3 to finally wear the roller skates I got for her previous birthday!) At that moment all those things ceased to exist for me and all I could think about was being there to support my mum through those first few tough days (although I will admit I was gutted not to be able to do those things so long planned - especially the Elbow concert, which I understand was brilliant).

The Spanish custom is for the funeral to take place as soon as possible after death, usually within twenty four to forty eight hours. However, mum and dad have a funeral plan (if you live abroad you really need to get one of these, seriously, as it really saves you money and a lot of hassle) which allows them to extend the mortuary time, and the people running the plan were incredibly efficient and extremely helpful. Mum, ever considerate of other people, even at such a distressing time wasn’t keen on the funeral happening on the Saturday, as friends of theirs were celebrating their fiftieth wedding anniversary at a party that evening, and there was the question of whether any of the family would be attending and so the funeral was arranged for Monday 28 March.

Mum and I, along with Sam, a good friend of my father’s went to view the body (also a Spanish custom as they only ever hold closed coffin funerals) on Sunday evening. This was a strange time for me as I wasn’t sure I wanted to see him, but felt I ought to, in support for my mother. I will admit I only lasted in the room for a few seconds. The body lying in the coffin wasn’t my dad. He was long gone and I couldn’t bear to see his body lying there, looking somehow artificial. There was also an awful smell, although I apparently was the only one who noticed that. Bizarrely, and I suppose it’s always at stressful times you get these odd types of thoughts, the first thing I noticed was that he seemed to be covered in glitter… sparkling you might say, and I couldn’t help but wonder whether my father had turned into a vampire (although I was careful enough to keep that part of the observation to myself).

Monday was a beautiful sunny day, in total contrast to the day of dad’s death and (possibly because of the old wives tale) it made me feel that he was happy now he was free from pain. As he was an ex-Serviceman, the Royal British Legion (of which he was a member) gave him a Service funeral which was held in a nice chapel in a lovely modern-looking Tantatorio in Orihuela. The coffin, draped in the RAF flag and bearing a poppy wreath and a tribute from my mother, sister and I stood in place of honour as standard bearers carried their flags into the chapel and took their places for the service. This was conducted by a friendly and caring lay preacher called Keith Brown and was heart warming and touching, at times both funny and sad.

Originally mum and I had decided we weren’t going to say anything at the funeral, but surfing the web the day after dad’s passing I found a poem which expressed perfectly just how his last moments had been and how mum, Jo and I felt about his leaving us. As soon as I saw it I knew I had to read it at the service, although every time I read it through the words always left me in tears and both I and the preacher were a little worried that I wouldn’t be able to go through with it.

Although upset and still somewhat raw during the service, I was determined I wasn’t going to cry. If I’d done that the poem definitely wouldn’t have been read as I’d never have been able to stop for long enough to get through it. Instead I gritted myself and tried not to think about the sadness as I waited for my cue, about half way through the service. I was so glad they didn’t play any of the music we’d chosen before my big moment or I’d have been a blubbering mess.

And then it was my turn. Suddenly I had to read the poem (slowly, Keith had told me) and it was then, standing at the lectern and looking out at the mourners that I realized just how many people had come to the funeral. The room was full and all those people were looking expectantly at me as I tried not to lose it up there in front of everyone. I took a long deep breath then launched into an explanation of how I’d come across the poem and finally said the words that meant so much to us:

God saw you getting tired,
When a cure was not to be.
So He wrapped his arms around you,
and whispered, "come to me."

You didn't deserve what you went through,
So He gave you rest.
God's garden must be beautiful,
He only takes the best

And when I saw you sleeping,
So peaceful and free from pain
I could not wish you back
To suffer that again.

Amazingly, I managed to get through it without crying for the first time ever, but almost before I had a chance to sit down mum’s choice of song came on – “True Love Ways” by Buddy Holly and that was it for me. With mum sobbing openly now, all I could do was stroke her arm and try to comfort her as my own tears flowed silently down my cheeks. How we got through the farewell, where mum and I stood by dad’s coffin as the Kohima Epitaph was recited and the standards were withdrawn I don’t remember, I was too busy thinking of dad to take much notice of what was happening. And then they were playing our second choice, dad’s favourite song by his favourite band – “Wild West Hero” by E.L.O. and my tears were no longer silent. The song, always a favourite of mine too, evoked such strong memories of my dad that I couldn’t help but release the pent-up sorrow that I’d been holding inside for so long.

And then it was over and the final Spanish custom (touching the coffin to say farewell) was taking place, with mum and I at the head of the procession. Outside, we talked to the huge quantity of people that had attended and I admitted that I’d been terrified about my reading. Many of them told me the poem had been absolutely perfect for the occasion and most had assumed I’d written it as it was so “from the heart”. I shall state here that I’ve no idea who wrote the poem as it is generally credited as being by an unknown author, although several people have claimed credit for it, if Google is anything to go by.

Flowers are also not a Spanish custom, so instead we had asked people to make a donation for the Paul Cunningham Nurses, who had done so much to help dad in his final year. I am pleased to say that this raised almost five hundred euros for the charity.

And so a month has passed. In some ways it all seems like a distant memory, yet in others it’s still as raw as it was on the morning of dad’s death. I won’t lie, there were a few tears yesterday morning at 8am when I realised that it was exactly a month since he’d left us. A part of me can’t believe that he won’t be there waiting for me when I return to Spain and I know that whilst he will always be with me in my heart there will also be a little part of me missing that will never heal.

Jo, Freddie and I will be heading back to Spain in May, to spend a week with mum – giving her the chance to enjoy her grandson properly, for the first time, and giving us all a chance to say a final goodbye to dad as we scatter his ashes up in the mountains where he used to walk to the dogs.

Goodbye dad.

Leave the Scar - MiM Rebellion

2011-03-25T20:12:00.003Z

A Beautiful Sight.... Really???

2010-12-14T00:16:00.004Z

Oh gawd. I see it’s been ages since I last blogged, so all I can do (again) is apologize. But you see I’ve been busy. No, I really have. Busy sulking about crappy snow and missing concerts; busy feeling sorry for myself with a horrid head cold and blocked sinuses (which I still have incidentally) and also busy with a bit of writing and scrapbooking.

Firstly, I’m pleased to announce that I actually managed to complete NaNoWriMo for the first time ever. As is always the case I left it a bit late to get going, but having an actual plot helped no end and I just managed to squeeze in with 61,960 words on the final day (helped considerably by lack of money to go out anywhere during the month and being snowed in at the end). Yay me!

As I said, the snow, which beat even last year’s Edinburgh Snow Ball stopping quantity, came at a particularly annoying time as it meant Mrs H3 and I ended up missing Marc Almond doing his 30th Anniversary tour and New Model Army, also celebrating 30 years – the first time I was going to see them for about fifteen years (and the first time for Mrs H3). I am keeping my fingers crossed that the weather doesn’t deteriorate (as forecast) for this weekend as it’s the Snow Ball 2010 and I’m determined that this year I will be there.

The only good thing about being snowed in was the opportunity to take part in the latest UKS Cybercrop ‘A Scrappy Little Christmas’. Although my team didn’t win it was a good weekend and it made a real change for me to be able to take part in it fully. My scrapping mojo was in full swing and I got loads done:

Talking of concerts, Mrs H3 and I went to possibly the strangest concert ever last week. Finally free of the snow we made our way to O2 Academy Brixton to see Echo and the Bunnymen who were playing their first two albums ‘Crocodiles’ and ‘Heaven Up Here’ in their entirety, followed by an encore of other favourite songs. I had never got round to seeing the band live before and Mrs H3 didn’t really know them at all as she is too young, but I’d always been rather a fan of the band, and Ian McCulloch’s voice in particular, and was looking forward to seeing them and reliving the songs of my youth.

I have always maintained that I don’t actually need to be able to see the band/singer at a concert to enjoy it, but, as if it wasn’t already obvious by my need to be at the front of every I Am Kloot concert I’ve ever been to, this isn’t true and our evening with Echo and the Bunnymen proved it.

Well before the band came on stage there was enough smoke pumped into the auditorium to wipe out several large colonies of insects, and it didn’t stop once they emerged. To begin with I assumed that it was some sort of mood setting, with ivy covered gates in the background and low lighting making the stage reminiscent of a graveyard, but as the evening went on the smoke didn’t diminish, nor did the lighting improve.

Now I will admit that we were sitting in the circle (being rather too old for standing, except at the aforementioned IAK gigs, where I invariably end up perched on the stage at some point when my arthritis gets too much anyway) and it is just possible that the view from the standing area downstairs was better, but for us upstairs, the band and ‘Mac’ in particular, were almost impossible to see. To be fair, Mac still has the most astonishing voice, and I was mesmerised by it for a majority of the evening – the singing at least, unfortunately his scouse accent meant (to my terrible at accents ears) that I didn’t really have a clue what he was saying when he spoke between songs. But, as Mrs H3 pointed out, without actually being able to see him singing, she couldn’t quite convince herself that it was him singing.

On and on the smoke went, the gates disappearing for the second album, but even a slight lighting change did little for those of us sitting upstairs. Although I enjoyed the concert and especially, as previously mentioned Mac’s voice, I couldn’t help but think several times that I could have just as easily sat at home and listened to the albums. Obviously this isn’t quite true as live music never exactly matches recorded output (except in the case of those crappy singers who mime – and who I would never go to see), but without anyone to focus on the evening became quite surreal, and was, as Mrs H3 said, even stranger than seeing the Flaming Lips.

The other thing I have been doing of course, considering the season, is Christmas shopping. I am particularly pleased that this year I managed to complete all of it without going anywhere near any shops – hallelujah for the internet say I!

Unfortunately, I’m not feeling the Christmas mood, despite spending about twelve hours listening to holiday themed music over the weekend and am so far removed from the holiday spirit that I haven’t bothered to put up my Christmas tree (which usually goes up on 1st December). I haven’t made cards, I haven’t wrapped the presents and even the usual Sinner Sisters CD has been under threat (although I have finally managed to get my act together on recording them, now I just have to send).

So Christmas is coming and I’m actually going to be quite busy. First is an evening with the lovely Tim Minchin at O2 tomorrow night, followed by the Safety Xmas Party on Wednesday. Then on Thursday evening Mrs H3 and I get to spend the evening with The Hoff in Wimbledon where he is playing Captain Hook in panto. On Friday we fly to Edinburgh for the wrocking Snow Ball, which is taking place over two days this year – the actual ball on Friday night at The Lot and a follow-on concert at the Central Library the following afternoon. If you’re in Edinburgh, come along to the Library show – it’s free and it’ll be loads of fun.

Next week will involve the final clearing up of work before the holidays and, as the big day rushes ever nearer, the inevitable need to finally wrap the presents. Much visiting and (hopefully) much eating and drinking will be taking place in the week following that.

So, just in case I don’t get round to blogging again – and let’s face it on this year’s current showing that’s pretty likely – I’d just like to wish you all

A VERY MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!

Happy Halloween, Birthday and NaNoWriMo

2010-11-01T09:06:00.003Z

So it’s Halloween weekend, and although the TV has been full of Christmas ads (just to annoy me I’m sure) and a Harry Potter one (whoop whoop - only 19 days ‘til the new film) it does actually seem pretty Halloweeny.

Partly this is because I have a lot of online friends who are from the US and of course they’re all bonkers about Halloween, but also because finally Halloween is becoming a big deal over here in the UK too.

I love that this is the case because it gives me the excuse to dress up even more often than I already do and Halloween gives me the chance to go to extraordinary lengths (and I don’t just mean wig-wise). This year we decided to forgo the usual Sherwood Oak Halloween party as part of our celebrations and instead went to see Ghost Stories at the Duke of York’s theatre in London.

I can’t tell you much about it, as like the Mousetrap, they ask you not to reveal details to people, but I will say that it is definitely worth seeing. Clever and atmospheric, it was a good alternative to an evening in the pub and far more entertaining, although the scariest bit for me was looking round at Mrs H3 in the dark, and her looking back – as she was dressed as the puppet from the Saw films and looked brilliant (and terrifying).

Although it’s actually Halloween today, we’ve taken a break, except for pumpkins (mine’s Severus Snape) and pumpkin scented candles (loving Yankee Candle’s Moonlight Harvest at the moment). This is because I’m (supposed to be) getting ready for the main event which takes place tomorrow night. Mrs H3 and I are off to join Alice Cooper at the Roundhouse for his Night of Fear and are expecting to have a bloody good time (see what I did there). I’ve got all sorts of great ideas running around my brain as to what to go as, but can’t quite pin myself down to one idea.

Anyway, whatever I come with up with I’ll be sharing in our Halloween album once we get the photos uploaded.

This weekend has also been my sister’s Jo’s 40th birthday and I celebrated it by sending her some flowers and a bunch of balloons that Freddie just loved playing with. That boy is so cute!

Finally, it’s that time of the year again…yep, I mean it’s NaNoWriMo time. Yes, I know I always sign up, and yes I know I always faff about all month not writing anything and then post a whiny blog about half way through the month (which usually comes to more words than I’ve written of my novel) complaining about lack of writing, but as they say, hope springs eternal.

As ever I’ve only got a half formed idea in my mind, or more accurately about 6 half formed ideas, none of which go together (at the moment) – although after discovering that bookstores are now having whole shelves catering to teenage paranormal romance I may do something along that line instead, but I’m really hoping that in a month pretty much devoid of any excitement (apart from the Harry Potter film (did I mention it was out on 19th November?) and the chance to ogle Snape for the minute or so that they’ll give him on screen) that I’ll really be able to buckle down this time and get the job done.

Interestingly, my boss has also signed up to do it so maybe the two of us can encourage each other. Actually…maybe not.

Guns n Roses

2010-10-16T01:44:00.003+01:00

Oh bloody hell. Channel One, or whatever Virgin’s calling itself these days has just ruined my evening by prefixing every ad break with something about Christmas. Give us a break guys. It’s not even Halloween yet and I absolutely, steadfastly refuse to even think about anything Jingle Bells-related until after I’ve been to see Alice Cooper!

So last night Mrs H3 and I went to see Guns n’ Roses at the O2. It was a weird experience in more ways than one.

If you remember, I was heading off to see I Am Kloot, in Nottingham a week ago. Although I had a fantastic time (understandably), due to terrible traffic and crap hotel service from Premier Inns (who, in a continuation of their crap service, still haven’t bothered to reply to my e-mail of complaint), I actually missed half an hour of the concert as they had to take to the stage early. This meant that, very strangely, they were finished and off by 10pm, which coincidentally was the time that Axl Rose and his chums went on stage last night.

Now I must admit I’ve been a bit surprised by the reviews I’ve read of the concerts that were held over the last two days at the O2. They seem to be generally rather anti-GnR and cover the same four topics: that Axl has got fat; that they were late on stage; that Axl had to use an autocue to remember the words of his hit songs and that Slash wasn’t there. In several cases, you could actually be forgiven for thinking that the reviewers hadn’t actually been at the concert as their views of the evening differed so wildly from a majority of the people that were there (and there were huge amounts of comments attached to the reviews proving this, certainly far more than one would normally expect).

Well, sorry reviewers, Mrs H3 and I had a bloody good evening.

Guns n Roses were late on stage: Oh my, really? Anyone who knows anything about GnR, knows that they don’t start early. They never have done. In fact their timekeeping seems to have improved somewhat compared to previous concerts Mrs H3 has attended. Anyway, O2 sent warnings that they were likely to be on late and therefore over-run and even laid on an extra train and buses to help people to get home, so how was this a problem? Everyone going already knew they were going to be late so the 10pm start wasn’t exactly a surprise. Okay, I’ll admit that it was a bit inconvenient being on a work night. But surely when you book the ticket for a concert during the week, you take this into account. You know whether you can hack a late finish and plan accordingly – and lots of people did leave before the end, but Mrs H3 and I were there for the duration even though we knew that meant not leaving the O2 until 1am.

The thing is that whilst they may have gone on late, they put on a brilliant show and can definitely be considered value for money as they were on stage for almost three hours non-stop. No mean feat for any band, especially one of advancing years. Talking of value for money, we’re wondering what Tony Hadley is going to be doing at his O2 Indigo show to make the ticket price of £80+ worth paying.

Axl Rose is getting fat: Is this a crime? We’re all getting older, and part of getting older is gaining weight – except for me for whom the fat has always been an issue. So Axl’s gained a few pounds; so what? So had a lot of the audience! More of a crime for me was his porno ‘tache, reminiscent of Rufus Hound’s excellent facial hair. But unlike Rufus it didn’t suit him and needs to go...now.

I thought Axl was entertaining, both with his fabulous voice, which really shone out last night, and with his constant wardrobe changes which way outdid anything Shirley Bassey would attempt (that man must have the world’s biggest collection of scarves and dodgy jackets), and his enthusiasm and energy was enough to override any interesting taste choices.

Axl had to use an autocue: Well if he did, good for him for wanting to get the words right. I’ve been to many a concert where ‘big’ stars have forgotten the words to their songs (actually, this is a regular occurrence with IAK and part of their quirky charm), and I’m not surprised that he’d want to have a back up there, just in case, when we’re talking about songs over twenty years old. He’s not alone in that and at least he wasn’t miming and still has the power in his voice to carry off the songs.

Slash wasn’t there: The other big thing that the reviewers made mention of was the fact that GnR now has 4 guitarists, and none of them match up to Slash, although all try. This is true. But rather than bemoan the fact that they don’t match up, they could have at least acknowledged that they are fine musicians.

Duff McKagan was there last night, apparently the first ‘original’ GnR members to reconcile and now talk is rife about the others returning. But I think it’s fair to say that the chances of an Axl/Slash reunion are non-existent, based on comments made by both of them, and rather than harp on about how much better it would have been with Slash there, the reviewers would have served the public better by giving the current line up a fair hearing.

Regardless of type of music, I applaud any band that takes the time to leave the stage and go and talk to their disabled fans, as was the case last night and I was disappointed at how negative the reviews came across to most people, as almost every person I told today about the concert said they’d heard how crap they were.

Admittedly, they could have cut the show short by an hour, if they’d not given each member of the band a solo and cut down on the tracks from Chinese Democracy. But as the tour is promoting the album it was always likely that a majority of the set list would come from that album, and I suspect that the lulls in attention/enjoyment were mainly due to lack of knowledge of the material. Certainly, a man in front of us was having a fantastic time, and his enjoyment, and sometimes rather literal dance interpretation of the music kept the entertainment value at a premium, even during those CD moments.

I was pleased that they were happy to have played such a long set and clearly enjoyed doing so, and would have had no problem with letting them carry on all night if it had been the weekend. I am sure that had they been on stage at 8.30pm and performed the same set, everyone would have lauded them, but the late time changed perceptions of what, really was, a great concert.

Zynga Games – Addictive and Annoying

2010-10-12T22:27:00.002+01:00

I was supposed to be watching the England game, but to be honest it’s so boring I’ve decided to update my blog instead.

I’ve just been trying to play a few of my Facebook games and am feeling pretty pissed off at how long they take to play. Partially this is due to my crap broadband connection (thanks TalkTalk for being so bloody rubbish) but partially it’s because of the games themselves. Like a majority of gamers on FB I, for my sins, mainly play Zynga games – a good way to feel frustrated really fast.

The game I play most is Farmville and I freely admit that I love it. I’ve invested a hell of a lot of time, and an awful lot of money, upgrading and buying and have a fine collection of animals and water features that I can’t display because I don’t have the room due to wanting to continue to actually farm.

When I first began to play the game about a year ago, there was little to do except plough and plant your fields and reap your harvests. As time has gone on there are so many parts to the game it’s almost impossible to keep track of what you’re doing. Not only can you do collective jobs to gain items (I don’t bother), you can do collective jobs to gain items for your spa/bakery/winery (I don’t bother). Even though they’ve introduced vehicle after vehicle to save you time with planting, ploughing and harvesting (the latest being the all-in-one combine), you still have to remember to fertilize and then use a previously harvested bushel to improve your mastery stats when harvesting. And then you can make things in the spa using all those bushels you’ve harvested. And all the while you’re collecting vehicle parts and building materials to make the latest shed/nursery/botanical garden etc.

Every few weeks there are new limited edition items to tempt you and I am easily tempted – especially when it comes to animals that can be bred (and strange shaped rocks for some reason). However, this is an area that is really beginning to annoy me. I buy a limited edition horse and put it in my stable. A few days/weeks later my horse gives birth to cute little limited edition foals BUT instead of me getting the reward for this, I have to give the foal away to my neighbours. This pattern is followed for limited edition eggs, truffles, and whatever other ideas they’ve come up with this week.

This would be all well and good if I was getting the equivalent type items back in return. But I’m not. I have a rainbow chicken that lays rainbow eggs which I regularly have to give away. I’ve never seen another rainbow egg on offer from any of my neighbours, nor do I ever seem to get the rarer type of eggs – Rhode Island, Cornish, Scots etc. as they’ve all already gone whenever I try to collect. I even have trouble getting the gold or black eggs. How can it be fair that after the amount I’ve invested and shared, that all I get in return is a brown or white egg containing a white chicken?

It would be much fairer if the things I harvest to go to me, with the option to share another with others, as happens with the special offer trade-ins.

Talking of sharing, this is another incredibly frustrating part of farming. Now, almost every click of the mouse brings up a button asking me to share stuff with my neighbours. Whether it be the aforementioned eggs, or fuel that I found whilst ploughing, bushels of goods I’ve just harvested, or collection items, you can’t get away from the bloody messages. And now, every time you level up or gain mastery you can send various people fuel to gloat that you’ve just beaten them too.

Firstly, these pop-ups are really bloody annoying, but especially when I’m in the middle of trying to harvest my crop. I like to have the farm open at full screen and every time the pop up posts it reduces the screen size. I’m sorry Zynga, but it doesn’t matter what I’ve found/am offering, if it happens during my harvest it doesn’t get posted. And stop with taking me to the gift page every time I open my gift box. If I wanted to send a gift I’d be at the gift page not attempting to get into my gift box. And while we’re on the subject, no I don’t want to post one of those crappy “common” collection items to a selection of people. No one wants or needs these items, we all have hundreds. What we need are the rarer items coming out more regularly – I haven’t seen a red feather or a swallowtail butterfly for months!

And now we have the added excitement of truffle farming. The idea is you send your pigs off, they find a truffle and, yep you’ve guessed it, you give it away. Now if your neighbours are decent, they’ll click the button to accept the truffle and send you one back. Unfortunately this doesn’t happen often. Due to successful collecting on my part, most of my pigs collect either gold or white truffles, but it appears that the people I share with have no interest in sharing back. Surely better is that because my pigs collected, I get one automatically and the other goes to the person whose farm it was on. Then we both win.

Also frustrating is that those of us who play who aren’t in the US get to miss out on all sorts of promotions and offers for limited edition items, although we do get the opportunity to take part in the cross-game offers.

This brings me onto another game I play regularly Yoville. I love this game because you can actually do as much or as little as you want. If you have the urge to collect everything in sight you can, or you can buy a house and spend years decorating it to your style. There are incentives for visiting every day, but if you don’t visit for a month you haven’t lost anything apart from the opportunity to buy furniture from whatever limited edition theme was on during the time you were away. There are things you can make with widgets or things you can click on to share with others like animals, keys, drinks etc. but generally you can ignore them if you want.

Zynga, in an attempt to get people playing their new game, are currently doing a cross-promotion with Treasure Isle. If you play that for a few levels you (apparently) get a lotus pond for Yoville. So far I’ve been playing this game for 3 days and got to level 7 and I’ve still seen no sign of the pond. And I can tell you that Treasure Isle is quite possibly one of the most boring gems I’ve ever played. I shall keep going till level 10, after that it will be another complaint to Zynga.

The other Zynga game I play regularly, although not so much since I’ve come back from Spain is Vampire Wars. Before I went away I had a clan of approximately 3,000 vamps who I looked after, helped and voted for regularly. But lack of time has reduced my time to get involved and so currently it’s pretty much on the back burner. I still enter as often as possible to take my spins etc. but everything else has been scaled back for the time being.

Mafia Wars is the one game that has taken a huge hit in my gaming time. Again I originally started playing only as a cross-over for Farmville, but soon became engrossed in the game. However, this really is a complex game and there are so many different things to do to play it properly that I just don’t have time. As a major amount of my free time these days seems to be taken up with accepting and sending gifts for the various games, now everyone can ask for gifts as well as send them the inbox has increased hugely, I’ve found myself visiting Mafia Wars less and less. I usually visit once a day because of the VW/MW cross-over, but no longer accept gifts for the game, nor do I take part in anyone’s crime sprees etc. In fact, I think it would be fair to say it’s a game I no longer play.

Well I'm Back....

2010-10-05T00:41:00.000+01:00

Hi there. Remember me?

I know, it’s been forever since I last published a blog, but in my defence I’ve actually been rather busy. Pretty much most of my Summer was spent in Spain with my family and since I’ve been back (3 weeks) everything seems to have been a bit of a blur.

In part this is because I’m having trouble settling back into a normal routine after so long spent doing other things and partially because there have been a spate of concerts to attend, beginning with the ever-wonderful Muse at Wembley Stadium and ending with a sublime and utterly perfect evening of wonder with I Am Kloot at the Union Chapel.

I do feel a little aggrieved that being away I missed the opportunity to crow wildly about I Am Kloot being nominated for this year’s Mercury Music Award for their latest album ‘Sky at Night’, so I’ll do it now instead. They didn’t win as they were far too talented and we don’t want them disappearing without trace as most previous prize winners have tended to do. However, it did rob me of the opportunity to remind everyone over and over again that I’ve been touting Kloot as the perfect band for years.

Last week saw Mrs H3 (whom I have missed as badly as if half my soul was missing) and I at two I Am Kloot concerts; the first at Komedia in Brighton, where we have previously seen them and then at the Union Chapel in London, a new and absolutely stunning venue.

Now obviously I always get a little over-excited when I get to see Kloot play live and Monday night was no exception, especially once I realised that they weren’t playing the new album accompanied with all the stringy stuff that Elbow added on as they had at Bush Hall and which we hadn’t particularly enjoyed, and this made my heart beat just that little bit faster.

Whilst I would agree that the new album is worthy of Mercury nomination, to my mind I’m just not sure that as an album it’s any better than any of their previous offerings. I think the reason for this is partially that Guy and his chums have over-influenced the album. Yes, it’s a lovely sounding thing, but Kloot are Kloot, not Elbow and I don’t want them sounding like Elbow. I am aware that Mrs H3’s feelings on this are the same as mine as she gave a huge sigh every time the strings appeared on Wednesday night.

Although the strings were missing on Monday, there was plenty of extra instrumentation around in the form of a huge saxophone, trumpet and, at one point, an accordion. There was a huge increase too, in the amount of people at the gig , due to the Mercury nomination and this was especially noticeable when old classics like “Same Deep Water” didn’t even get a cheer, whereas the new songs were riotously applauded. What was particularly nice was that the increased crowd didn’t result in increased talking through the songs as has been the problem at several of their previous concerts. A new-found respect for the band? I certainly hope so.

I thoroughly enjoyed the concert, although there were some issues with sound quality, at least where we were standing – noticeably at the end of “Same Deep Water” and especially during “Radiation”, when I actually moved to a different part of the room to see if it sounded any better.

Sound quality definitely wasn’t an issue at the Union Chapel. This place really is the perfect venue for a concert. Fully seated, although the pews weren’t hugely comfortable, especially after about 3 ½ hours, a kitchen selling tea – yep – cups of lovely steaming hot tea, and an ice cream vendor who came to us when we realised there was ice cream available. On top of that the acoustics were amazing and after watching Agnes Obel performing her beautiful ethereal music, I was even more excited than usual to be seeing I Am Kloot at work.

And I wasn’t disappointed. I think I can safely say it was one of the best concerts I’ve ever been to and certainly the best I Am Kloot concert. Never have they sounded better and Johnny was in fine form with his banter. Even Pete talked!

There was a slightly worrying moment part way through when people began clapping along to one of the songs – no, please don’t people, I’ve already said, Kloot aren’t Elbow – but fortunately that was short-lived and normal service was soon resumed. Until the end when Johnny ditched his guitar to grab the mike and drift around the stage Frank Sinatra-stylee (yep and I’ve got photos to prove it). It seemed to me that Johnny, at least, was as overwhelmed by this fabulous venue as I and many others were.

I think the evening can best be summed up in words from the boys themselves “everything we ever thought we'd ever want, me and you, it just came true” – everything definitely came true at the Union Chapel and I am so glad I was there to witness it!

Unfortunately, I was then reminded that we wouldn’t be seeing them again until January (just after my birthday) and that set off my post-IAK depression/addiction. Remembering that they still had the Rescue Rooms in Nottingham to play, I decided that I just HAD to go there (you’ll recall that this happened last time they played there too).

So, fortunately this is not the end of my current I Am Kloot journey. Tomorrow I get to experience one last moment of bliss, although in a completely different way.

If you want to check out my Youtube channel I’ve actually got round to uploading the songs I videoed from Union Chapel and Komedia, and I’ve also uploaded the footage from the Muse concert and a previous concert at the Jazz Cafe with Marc Almond...who says I’m not being productive?

Election Anxiety

2010-05-06T09:54:00.003+01:00

The main reason that I’m blogging is anxiety about the General Election. I have a tough decision to make today and the more I think about it the harder it seems to become.

I, like most of the people I know, watched the television debates (although I missed the Sky one as I don’t have satellite TV). Through these I found myself shouting at the candidates rather more than I’d like to admit and came to the absolute conclusion that I really detest David Cameron. There is something about him that just gives me the creeps every time I see him and, as a child of the eighties, who remembers the terrible Conservative years, I just can’t bring myself to even consider voting for them...although having said that, I don’t agree with their policies anyway and I certainly don’t agree with having my pay frozen as a public servant to pay for the debt Britain is currently in, when private sector businesses in general already receive much higher pay rises than a majority of public sector workers do. And if Simon Cowell believes they are the right choice for the country, then I know for sure that they are wrong.

Now if truth be told I’ve always been a bit of a Liberal. In fact, one of my earliest election memories was at Junior School, when I tried to convince my parents to vote Liberal. I have no idea whether they did, nor do I have any right to know how they voted – their choice is their own concern; but over the years a majority of the Lib Dems policies have seemed to me to make more sense than the so-called left and right wing parties.

Of course we have the problem of the voting system which means that, as is always touted at these times “a vote for the Lib Dems is a wasted vote”, but I can’t help thinking that a vote for the Lib Dems proves that people don’t want to be stuck choosing between two parties, both of whom are as bad as each other.

So I guess my affinity lies with the Lib Dems and all things being equal I should vote for them and take pride in my allegiance. But here is where my anxiety comes in. What if my, and others votes for the Lib Dems means that the Conservatives get a majority? Then we’ll be stuck once more in a society that cares only for the wealthy and makes the lower paid poorer, with little hope of the voting system ever being changed and giving the country the chance to elect a government it actually wants.

The other option of course is that it would give Labour a majority and that, in some ways would be almost as bad as the Conservatives getting into power.

The ideal choice, I guess, would be a hung parliament – and of course a vote for the Lib Dems would possibly help towards that. Although I can’t see what a hung parliament is going to achieve in terms of sorting out the economy and bringing the country’s debt back to reasonable levels.

But of course, although I may want to vote for Nick Clegg, with his everyman approach and his generally sensible policies (although I am a little disappointed that in the third debate when the talk centred on taxing the banks he didn’t mention the Robin Hood Tax, which would be the perfect scheme to generate money, and would fit in with all his apparent ideals), in reality I am voting for my local MP, not the Prime Minister.

And once again this gives me anxiety. This year has seen a large number of parties vying for my vote: Labour, Lib Dems, Conservatives, the UKIP, BNP, the English Democrats and the Green Party have all been kind enough to kill trees to produce highly interesting (not) leaflets, although not one has actually managed to make it to my doorstep to actually discuss with me what I want from my MP.

And this is where the problem lies.

Firstly I’d like to say that although I read their leaflets with interest, I at no time gave serious consideration to the UKIP, BNP, the English Democrats or the Green Party because they have nothing to say that I can get behind – although I have to give the BNP 10 out of 10 for comparing Nick Griffin to Winston Churchill (err, I don’t think so!)

The Conservative candidate is someone who I know, because she comes into the pub. I have had dealings with her in the past and she has always been pleasant and helpful. She involves herself directly in community projects and is always helping out with conservation etc. and she regularly sends newsletters keeping everyone up-to-date with what is going on in the area. But at the end of the day she is a Conservative and my inbred hatred of the party is enough to put me off her, for which I suppose I feel a little guilty (but not enough vote for her).

The Lib Dem candidate I have never heard of before, have never seen or heard anything about, nor have I received any other literature or news from the party other than the election blurb. In all honesty I would find it hard to vote for someone that I have no knowledge of, or understanding about what his personal feelings are with regards to the area that I live in (I’m not even sure he lives in the area). Having said that, he does, as Mrs H3 said, have the best name – but I’m not entirely sure that’s a good qualification for election as MP.

Finally, we have the Labour candidate, who has been our MP for the last five years at least. I know he lives in the area, because he mentions it in his leaflets and he does, very occasionally, send out a newsletter, although with nowhere near the frequency of the Conservatives. Whether he has worked hard for us or not is hard to prove, although it appears that our standard of life is no worse than anyone else’s, so he’s not made that much of a cock-up. As a (I suspect anti-Conservative) friend of mine said “Well, we’ve not had a problem with him, so no reason to change is there?” And he’s probably right. Except that when the government pushed through the widely reviled and highly criticised Digital Economy Bill (DEB), our MP wasn’t even at the House of Commons, let alone in a position to vote against it. As this was official MP business, what was he busy doing instead? More importantly, how many other important bills did he not sit in on or vote?

So you can see my quandary – vote for state, vote for local area? Vote for a party that are never going to win under the current rules, or run with a party I have no faith in because of fear of what happens if the others get in. And what if everyone else votes wrong? It’s all too much to think about.

Perhaps I should just close my eyes and take a stab at the paper and see where the cross lands.

Feeling a bit Crafty?

2010-05-06T09:37:00.001+01:00

So, it’s been forever since I last blogged, and after promising that I wouldn’t go away for such a long time again too. I put the blame for this pretty much on Gary Numan, Pete Doherty and Johnny Bramwell for not doing any concerts, so Mrs H3 and I haven’t been out anywhere near as much as we had by this time last year, although some of the blame also has to go to my mortgage brokers, who completely fucked up my re-mortgage application and left me close to destitute for a few months, meaning that I couldn’t afford to go out anyway.

Of course it hasn’t been all doom and gloom. The severe shortage of funds, not helped by the need to buy new glasses when mine died suddenly (another reason the re-mortgage fiasco was such a nightmare) left me alone and at home, surrounded by my never-lessening pile of crafting stash. With all manner of birthdays, anniversaries etc. on the horizon and inspired by reading Tim Holtz’s Compendium of Curiosities book, I felt it was time to get my arse in gear and actually use some of it, both in order to save money on cards/presents and to get my crafting mojo going again (and also to stop Mrs H suggesting, as she has several times, that I sell it as I never use it). There was also another UKS Cybercrop, which I actually only found out about the week before it happened.

And so I’ve spent the last few months, cutting and pasting, glittering and gluing and I’ve discovered a whole slew of things, which I guess I should have known before, but with the extended break from anything crafty had been pushed to the back of my mind.

The first thing I learnt, or maybe the last really, is that I’m far too much of a perfectionist to be a true artist. Not for me slapping a bit of this and that on wherever the fancy takes me and treating any errors as ‘interesting focal points’. The things I make have to be perfect – even the inking has to be precisionally placed.

Hand cutting can be tedious, really tedious: Now of course everyone already knows this, which is why lots of people have things like Cricut. But as a pauper who has stopped buying gadgets I don’t use (remember the Sizzix etc. – yep mine’s lounging in a cupboard somewhere), I had no choice but to hand cut – and not just once either. For the birthday cards I made I printed the messages in my chosen font, stuck them to card for strength, then cut them out. This was followed by covering in some of my favourite papers, which were then cut again. On the second card, which took three days to make, there were also flowers to cut and make. Oh, and once I’d made the flowers I didn’t like the papers I’d used for the letters so had to re-cover and cut them for a third time.

Fun foam doesn’t make a good base for something that is going to be heat embossed: Yep, pretty obvious I know, but I wasn’t really thinking sensibly and soon found that UTEE and foam don’t really mix, but I’d got so far by that point that I had no choice but to continue.

Hot UTEE is better handled with tools than with fingers: I know, I know…this one really is a no brainer. But in my impatience to create enamelled flowers I didn’t bother thinking about how I was going to handle them. Hurrah for cocktail sticks say I!

Distress Crackle Paint doesn’t always work: Actually, as it turned out I’m glad it didn’t or two days work would have been ruined as it wouldn’t have gone with my finished card at all. It may be that I just didn’t use it right, but according to the instructions you paint on a layer, then let it dry and it crackles of its own accord. Mine didn’t – did give a nice glossy sheen though...which isn’t what I want from a crackle paint.

Making Memories tweezers work back to front: These things are so annoying. Every time I tried to do anything I couldn’t. But I’ve lost my proper tweezers (along with just about everything else I needed) so had to make do. They’re almost as bad as the Provocraft Silent Setter, but that doesn’t actually work, whereas with a little concentrated thinking I can actually get the tweezers to pick things up, so these only come in as second worst crafting tool ever.

I need new scissors: No, I really do. I have a fabby pair of X-Cuts that I got at Bonanza, what seems like a million years ago now, and they’ve been great. But when you use them for cutting everything from paper to metal brad ends the blades get a bit dull. After a weekend of hacking at brads I realised my poor X-Cuts are just not cutting it (blah!) anymore. So I need a new pair of scissors and want the Tim Holtz (who else) Tonic scissors which apparently cut absolutely everything. Just need to get some money first.

Trying new techniques when you’re a perfectionist and on a short timescale is really not a good idea: Of course this is obvious too, but when I originally started Mrs H3’s “mini” book, three days before her birthday, I was expecting to paint a few beer mats, stick on a few pictures and decorate with primas, buttons and a few stickers and then hold them together with a few decorated book rings. As you’ll see from the photos, what started as a small project rapidly turned into one some forty odd pages long and it was only an hour before meeting Mrs H3 that I finally found a scrapbook big enough to put the decorated cards in (which I then, of course, had to decorate).

New techniques for me included creating my own decal transfers (hard when you don’t have the correct sealant – I only had glitter mod podge), painting strings of beads and (why, oh why) creating miniature plaques of the Hogwarts Houses and School Shield.

No glue sticks properly when you’re in a rush: I guess this is an obvious one too, but it seemed that for each mat I completed, I stuck everything onto it about ten times. Most frustrating when usually diamond glaze sticks absolutely anything. I even resorted to super glue at one point ... and that didn’t work either!

Primas can do absolutely anything! Yep, that really is a rendition of the Rose of England done in Primas on the page with Henry VIII. And bloody good it is too, if I do say so myself.

So I made some cards, and a mini book for Mrs H3, that turned out to be anything but mini and then finally even did some layouts for the Cybercrop, although I returned to my digital roots for that as it happened to coincide with the weekend that I returned to working at the pub. The results of my crafty sojourn are below, if you want to feast your eyes.

Birthday

2010-01-26T23:29:00.006Z

So, another birthday has been and gone. As tends to be the case, Mrs H3 and I made a weekend of it, with a Mardi Gras party at the Sherwood Oak, where we were joined as usual by Dan - the three muskateers together and dressed up again. Photos from the evening can be seen on my Facebook, or I might get round to putting them on here when I get a moment if my internet speed ever gets back up to normal.

Yesterday I had a few drinks with friends at the pub in the afternoon followed by a nice meal with Mrs H3 at TGI Friday at Bluewater.

My most exciting present was a wand, which is also a remote control, although I think its going to take some lessons before I can work out how to use it properly, and the most personal, of course from Mrs H3, was a mug covered with photos of the two of us from our activities over the last year. Unfortunately, my most anticipated gift, a trip to Chelsea to see Birmingham play tomorrow, has been cancelled - which I can honestly say has really pissed me off. Had it been a last minute offer I wouldn't have minded so much, but this trip had been planned since October, so I think it's understandable that I'm disappointed. I just hope that the game is being played on 5 Live so I can listen to it.

A Bit of a Natter About Films

2010-01-26T23:24:00.003Z

I had been intending to do a recap of the things that I’d done in 2009 including all the bits I never got round to blogging about, but unsurprisingly I was too busy playing games to do it and now, heading into the fourth week of 2010 it seems a little late to drag up the old stuff when there’s so much new coming along.

Between the snow falling at Christmas and the recent horrendous weather that has left me feeling depressed and hibernatory, Mrs H3 and I went to see Sherlock Holmes starring Robert Downey Jr. Now I’ve never really enjoyed a Guy Ritchie film before, in fact I’m not entirely sure that I’ve ever seen one as they’re really not my cup of tea, but the combination of classic detective and sexy actor had me intrigued enough to go. And I loved it. I can honestly say that it’s one of the few films that I’ve seen in the last year that I would happily return to the cinema to watch again and again. Robert Downey Jr is excellent as a grimy sort of Holmes, who might not be awfully canon, but sure makes for good entertainment and because of the subject matter Ritchie wasn’t able to put too much of his gangster stuff into it, but did still bring the fights and explosions. A visual feast (and not just RDJ), exciting and with a half decent story too. I’d definitely recommend it.

On the other hand I’m still not feeling the love for Avatar. I don’t know why, because in every way it should be my perfect film. Sci-fi/fantasy, with beautiful animation (even though it has a dodgy storyline) and the critics and just about everyone I know who has seen it, have universally enjoyed it. But for some reason it still doesn’t appeal to me in the slightest except as a vague feeling that if I don’t see it at the cinema I’ll have missed out on something. However, this feeling isn’t strong enough to actually get me to the cinema.

There are plenty of films coming along that I do want to see in 2010. Of course there’s the first part of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (expect a countdown ticker to appear as soon as the Leaky Cauldron or Mugglenet produce one), although that of course isn’t until November. Before then the big release is Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland in March, starring the usual Burton crew and also an adaptation of The Lovely Bones, which I think is out shortly, based on a book I very much enjoyed reading. There seem to be plenty of remakes in the works like Clash of the Titans, which I’m sure will be visually stunning given the abilities of CGI these days, but I suspect that they will lack something in the storytelling as so many of those films do.

Also released shortly is a Hollywood version of Edge of Darkness, which older people may remember as a brilliant UK television series from the 1980s. Sadly this new version stars Mel Gibson, an actor in whom I have lost a lot of faith over the years and early reports don’t sound promising as for starters the ending has been changed. There is still a temptation to see the film, although I think buying the box set of the original series and re-watching that is probably the better bet.

Anyway, this week I’ve seen two films on television, both of which I’m sure were feted by the critics. One of these was a completely brilliant and surprisingly delightful gem of a film, the other was depressing, violent and relentlessly downbeat apart from the contrived ‘happy’ ending. It has left me wondering what it is that makes film critics label a film as ‘feelgood’. I am of course referring to the film which has been dubbed ‘the feelgood film of the decade’, Slumdog Millionaire. As I’m sure everyone knows by now, this happy little tale actually has more in the way of violence and torture than happiness – so how can it be ‘feelgood’? The film left me thoroughly depressed and wishing that I hadn’t wasted 2 1/2 hours of my life on it.

However, the film that I think should take Slumdog’s title is Akeelah and the Bee. I originally watched it purely because there was nothing else on the television at the time and I couldn’t be bothered to dig out a DVD and because it seemed vaguely interesting. This is a gem of a film and I was surprised at how involved I became with the characters and the story and whilst the ending is somewhat bland and obvious (much like Slumdog Millionaire) it left me with a happy little glow that lasted for the rest of the day – and in my life that’s a great thing.

The Christmas Number One

2009-12-21T11:45:00.004Z

Dave Gorman said on Twitter yesterday afternoon that he knew he’d become an adult when he realised he no longer cared what was number one in the UK music charts at any time of the year. It’s a great quote and I can see what he means, but I guess then that by his logic I’m not an adult because, although I couldn’t care less what’s at number one for the rest of the year, to me the Christmas number one still holds a little piece of magic. Or at least it did until five years ago.

I no longer listen to the chart show. The bands I love very rarely trouble the charts as they tend to have talent and rely on decent music and intelligible new lyrics, rather than electronic re-hashes of old songs and I realised that I gave up listening to anything approaching so-called modern music when Top of the Pops ended in 2006 and Radio Two became a better station than Radio One. But for some reason however, much though I may ignore the charts (and I think I can safely say that I can’t name a single band that have been number one this year) I can’t help but take an interest in the Christmas chart.

Perhaps it was growing up in the seventies and eighties, when all those ‘classic’ Christmas tracks vied for top spot (although as Bob Stanley in the Guardian has pointed out, there have been more than a few duff songs over the years, however I would challenge his inclusion of ‘Two Little Boys’ in that list, especially having seen Rolf singing it last night) which makes me a sentimental old fool at Christmas, but every year I really do truly wish that something other than the X factor winner would get to number one; actually, anything other than the X Factor winner. And finally it’s happened with Rage Against the Machine’s ‘Killing in the Name’.

A lot of people have criticised the RATM song because it’s unintelligible, there’s swearing and let’s face it, it’s not really a Christmas song. But that’s why it was the perfect Christmas number one. Ever since X Factor took over the Christmas charts there have been a growing number of dissenting voices complaining about its domination – as a friend of mine stated when we saw a Christmas number one run-down show on TV last year, “the charts aren’t worth bothering with now ‘cos X Factor’s always number one at Christmas and it’s boring.”

Finally this year the dissenters decided to do something about it and put their weight behind possibly the most inappropriate Christmas song ever. And it worked. It got to number one. And more spectacularly, it got to number one without even selling a single hard copy – it managed to trash the X factor contender by downloads alone. RATM have been gracious (and probably pretty stunned) in their victory and are donating a majority of their unexpected money to Shelter, and playing a free gig next year to say thank you.

Yes the song isn’t to everyone’s taste, although I personally prefer it to ‘The Climb’, but the fact that it sold so many copies shows that people don’t want the X Factor song to be the Christmas number one every year. There has been all sorts of comments about how this is a win for ‘real music’, but I don’t think that this was ever really the issue, as Joe Whatshisname’s song is real music, or at least no more manufactured than 99% of the charts (and I don’t just mean current charts – anyone remember Stock, Aitken and Waterman?) To my mind the real reason that RATM won was because people like me are fed up with X Factor’s domination over the Christmas chart.

I do feel a bit sorry for poor Joe. The boy obviously has a good voice and he seems like a nice lad. But I’m afraid that winning X Factor does not, as a lot of people have suggested, give him automatic right to be number one, and the Christmas number one at that.

Unfortunately for Joe, he had the misfortune to win the show at a time when people are finally becoming so dissatisfied with Simon Cowell and X Factor’s hijacking of the Christmas charts they decided to make a stand and he paid the price, although to be fair the song ‘The Climb’ isn’t exactly a classic. Even my mum and dad, who are part of the target audience for sales thought the song dreary, and several hearings didn’t improve it at all (although it might just have been marginally better than Miley Cyrus’ original).

Had the show finished in August he’d have hit the top spot no problem, after all no-one much gives a damn any more what’s number one at any other time of the year and it’s a little unfair of people to start insinuating that he’s a failure because his song didn’t manage to stem the tide of dissatisfaction.

Unfortunately, I don’t suppose it’ll change anything in the long term. X Factor will still air in the last few weeks before Christmas and next year’s winner will face another challenge – unless Simon does something sensible.

I know...how about the X Factor winner singing a Christmas song rather than some twee but dull ballad?

That Time of Year

2009-11-19T13:11:00.001Z

So it’s that time of year again. I’ve been trying to pretend it’s not happening, have tried to ignore it, even with Jason and Colleen having happy sing-a-long parties and that woman from M&S flashing her underwear, but now I’ve seen the Coca Cola Santa and there’s no denying it...Christmas is coming.

I can’t believe that it’s come round so quickly. I mean I know that as you get older time seems to go faster, but this is ridiculous. It seems like no time at all since I was last fretting over what to buy everyone.

It’s at this time of the year that I give thanks for the fact that I have only a few people to buy presents for. Some people, like Mrs H3 have a fantastic knack of knowing exactly what to give as presents and merrily toil away (as she has been for months apparently) on creating that perfect gift. I, on the other hand, have absolutely no clue what to get for anyone.

I think I’m pretty easy to buy for (although I guess everyone thinks that), but I really couldn’t imagine having a problem getting me a present. I love so many different things, that buy me anything and you’ve probably hit a winner. Of course anything Harry Potter related is a sure fire hit. And no need to worry if you’ve bought me the right book, CD, DVD either – if I’ve already got them I’ll just return them to the shop and swap for something else I don’t have, but I’ll still accept them as if they were the best present ever. In fact any gift at all is just brilliant.

But other people aren’t like this or at least, being more accurate, I don’t see them that way. I have a need to find the perfect present for them and unlike Mrs H3 I have no imagination or flair for such things. And so I spend hours fretting away about what would be a good gift for people that I’ve known for my whole life but apparently don’t know at all and then end up buying them some boring piece of rubbish that they are probably too polite to tell me they didn’t want.

Of course along with Christmas come the cards, which I have also until now, given absolutely no thought to. I’m considering making some, although whether that will actually happen remains to be seen. So you may from get a real card from me, or you may get a virtual one, it just depends on how much I get done. But whatever the case, you’ll know that a lot of worrying and thought has gone into what you’re receiving and that I’m sending it because you are the most important things in my life and I love you dearly.

Inane Ramblings

2009-11-13T00:35:00.003Z

Strange how the mind works isn’t it? Well, mine at least.

This morning I was sitting in the surgery, waiting to see my doctor when I happened to glance up at the LED board. Our surgery has finally hit the 21st Century and now has things like automatic telephone appointments (which are rubbish), a rather whizzy computer system that lets you check yourself in and tells you how many people are still waiting to be seen in front of you (amazingly this morning that was none) and of course the LED board. No longer are we subject to crackled voices calling out our names in a style reminiscent of those railway station announcers, each patient looking around in confusion as they try to work out whether it was them that was being called. Now our names glow red, proclaiming loudly that doctor or nurse whoever is ready to see us (or as is more usually the case, that s/he is now fifteen minutes late).

This morning though, watching the board cycle through its messages about repeat prescriptions and late doctors (although not mine, she says smugly – actually have you ever noticed the wave of hatred that is emitted by others waiting for late doctors when you get called in about a minute after arriving and they know they’re there for at least another half hour yet?) my mind picked up on the final message that The Doctor was twenty minutes late.

Sadly, my heart automatically beat faster at the thought that Doctor Who was working at our surgery and for a split second I wished that I was seeing him instead of the sterling Doctor Raval. Of course then sense kicked in and I realised that it was obviously a locum and so their name wasn’t on the board...but just for a minute there...and yes, before you say it, I already know I’m sad.

♥

So NaNaWriMo isn’t exactly going the way I’d planned. So far I’ve managed about 500 words, which is about 11,500 less than I should have written by this stage. In fact it doesn’t even really make up a plot outline if I’m being honest. I’d like to say it’s because I’ve been outstandingly busy doing all sorts of fabulous things, but I can’t. The truth is that I just can’t be bothered to write, although I am filling the time with other things like reading the latest Terry Pratchett Discworld novel Unseen Academicals.

And then there’s the UKS Cyber Crop which takes place this weekend and is likely to stall me further. This time the theme is The Wizard of Oz and I’m on the Toto’s team. How much I’ll do remains to be seen, but I’m sure there’ll be a Kiefer layout in there somewhere along the way. Amazingly for once I’m actually available for the whole thing, at least at the moment, although that doesn’t mean I’ll actually do it all; which reminds me that I should head on over to the website and check out the classes and see which ones I can actually attempt. As ever the finished layouts will be posted on here (or at least they will if I get my photo account back, as they’ve incorrectly suspended it at the moment).

Sadly I’ve just realised that this blog entry is longer than my story. Time to check out and get on with some writing I think!

A 'write' Challenge

2009-10-28T21:21:00.002Z

Well it’s that time of year again. I mean, of course, the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) which starts on 1 November 2009. Those of you who take note of these things will remember that I took part last year but didn’t manage to complete my novel, although I did write well over the required 50,000 words during the month, just not on my novel. Mainly the reason for this was a lack of organisation over what I was intending to write about and major sidetracking by other projects.

So I’ve signed up again. In some ways I’m even less prepared for the novel than I was last year, although I do have a vague plot in mind, or at least more of a plot than I had last year. However, as this and the last blog post are the first things I’ve written for almost three months it is going to be far more of a challenge. To be honest, I’m not really bothered if I don’t get the story completed again, what matters most is to get back to writing. At the moment I feel stripped of imagination and I’m hoping that focussing my mind on something, however flimsy will clear the block I seem to have erected around the creative part of my brain.

I worked out last year that I had to write 1,667 words a day to complete the 50,000 word target – which seemed easy enough then. At the moment that seems a huge task, but I’m hoping that if I can actually get writing again the job will get easier. At any rate it gives me something to do in those dark and dreary nights of November when we’re not otherwise engaged in going to concerts.

I’m Back!

2009-10-20T22:41:00.004+01:00

Yep it’s true. I’m back and bigger and better than ever.

Firstly, I need to make some apologies.

To those of you who I haven’t spoken to enough, when I really should have done; to those who I argued with and upset and was mean to – I apologise. I apologise for not talking, or for talking too much – for the tears and the tantrums, for the arguing and the pain. Basically, I’m sorry for having been such an almighty pain-in-the-arse.

And the hugest THANK YOU in the world too, to Mrs H3 for sticking with me through thick and thin – you are, quite literally, my lifeline. Without you I wouldn’t be writing today. I love you matey, in all your guises.

There are two main reasons why the blogging stopped, neither of which I really want to go into in detail. Enough to say that the concert season pretty much dried up for the summer (damn you festivals!), thus leaving Mrs H3 and I in the situation of having to make our own entertainment down the pub - although that did produce some interesting evenings as the pictures show, and I have been recovering from an illness which has left me unable and not wanting to write anything, let alone a blog.

But as the words of the song say, I’m picking myself up, dusting myself down and starting all over again and the re-emergence of the blog is part of that.
So, back to the good stuff.

*~* MUSIC *~*

The concerts have started again, although they are a little thin on the ground, especially after the extremely sad announcement that Chas and Dave have split up. Obviously our entire autumn schedule had revolved around their concerts, but neither Mrs H3 nor I have any interest in seeing the Chas Hodges Band. We need Dave to make our evening complete. However, all is not dim on the concert front as we do still have Marc Almond, The Flaming Lips, Gary Numan, Alice Cooper and the mighty Rolf Harris to see between now and Christmas and Mrs H3 is off to see Dizzee Rascal later this week.

This is a weird feeling for me, as I’ve never had any interest in Dizzee (although I quite like Bonkers) and I decided that I didn’t want to see him, so told Mrs H3 she could find someone else to go with her. Of course, now I’m wishing I hadn’t said that as it seems very strange NOT to be going to a concert with her and I’m worried that I’m going to miss something good. So yep, now I’m wishing I was going!

Since I last blogged a million years ago, we’ve been to see I Am Kloot at Relentless Garage who have just released a new album of b-sides and rarities, and who were absolutely fantastic (no, of course I’m not biased). I rather like the venue and it was a joy to see the songs performed by the whole band again, although I was a little surprised by their jazzed up version of my favourite song Fingerprints and not entirely sure that I liked it that way.

We also saw Peter Doherty at the Roundhouse, which I’m not sure was the right venue for him. Although he was good as ever, we got the impression that he wasn’t completely comfortable there and he seemed to be lacking something that we’ve seen at previous shows of his. A good evening, but I think he’d have been happier somewhere where the audience could get a bit closer – the gap between stage and audience at the Roundhouse is huge and their bouncers are numerous and well-prepared. There was never any chance of a stage invasion, which probably ruined Peter’s night a little as he does like to get people up on stage whenever he gets the chance.

A repeat visit too, to the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain. Once again they were very good (although they omitted Psycho Killer from their repertoire this time unfortunately), but the venue, Blackheath Concert Halls, was dreadful. The whole building was over-heated, but the concert room itself was totally airless and it was hard to stay awake because of the heat, although the chairs were so uncomfortable that they did help a little. There was one fan, located in the bar area, which Mrs H3 and I spent most of the break standing in front of (bad luck to anyone else who wanted to get the benefit) in an attempt to cool down. The toilets were acceptable, but the cold water had been turned off, leaving only scalding hot water for hand washing – definitely not needed at any time, but especially when the place was already so warm. All in all the evening wasn’t as entertaining as it should have been and even though the UOGB did several of those clever multiple song mixes including some I’d never heard before, it was hard to think of anything else but getting out and getting some fresh air. This was followed by the worst chips I’ve probably ever tasted in my life from a fish and chip shop that apparently has won awards for being the best chip shop in...well, I’m not sure where...London? the UK? The world? I’m guessing maybe it’s the best chip shop in Blackheath.

We were also fortunate enough to see the always excellent Blue October at the O2 Islington Academy. This is a strange little venue and not being in the mood for heading for the front (much to Mrs H3’s relief I imagine) my view of the band was rather restricted, to the point that in the end I gave up even trying to see them and just enjoyed the blast of freezing cold air from the excellent air conditioning whilst I got lost in the music. There was a bigger crowd than I’d anticipated which I’m hoping is a growing fan base rather than people just turning up on the off-chance, although as Mrs H3 pointed out, rather a lot of the audience were foreign.

There was a chance to meet the band afterwards, but although I wanted to get a hard copy of the latest album Approaching Normal, the whole thing looked rather disorganised and there were a lot of screaming girls around, so we decided instead to just get the hell outta Dodge. Amazingly, the car park that we’d used was almost empty despite being pretty cheap. Definitely a good find for future concerts in that area as getting up that way is a nightmare when the tubes are playing up as they were for the IAK concert.

Finally, Mrs H3, her mum and I all wandered down to the Lewisham Country Fayre (apparently Lewisham is in the country) and had a pleasurable afternoon petting llamas and goats, eating cakes, drinking tea and watching Boney M. Yep, that’s right, Boney M were headlining the afternoon’s attractions. Running through their range of hits (most of which Mrs H3 didn’t know, being such a youngster) the band, who still contain one original member (the woman in red) were enthusiastic and lively and we rather enjoyed the show, although there were some very strange people there – which I suppose livened the proceedings up even more.

*~* FILMS *~*

Now the last time I posted about films it was, of course, excitement at the impending Harry Potter film that I’d been counting down to for over a year. As luck would have it I ended up seeing the film twice on opening day, the first time alone, the second with Mrs H3 and I think it would be fair to say that it comes in as my second favourite of all the films, top place still being held by the Prisoner of Azkaban.

It’s almost time for the DVD to be released and way too late for reviews, but I think my view pretty much fits with the majority of other HP fans – the film was good, but had its flaws. I was confused rather than elated when I left the cinema the first time and couldn’t actually decide if I thought the film was brilliant or rubbish.

As ever there wasn’t enough Snape, although admittedly there was more than any previous film and I was hugely disappointed that they missed the most important line of the whole book out of the film – it wouldn’t have taken too much more screen time for Snape to say ‘DON’T CALL ME COWARD!” I was disappointed too at the lack of the battle at the end of the film, instead replaced by a pointless (in my and lots of others opinion) attack on the Burrow. I was also exasperated by the Ginny/Harry/Room of Requirement scene as that leaves too many important things unsaid or undone for the next film.

In fact that would be my main criticism – too much important stuff not explained. Mention of the horcruxes, but not how they were made, or why they were important. Too much stuff removed and little put in that added substance, although the fish scene was quite delightful.

The ‘unfortunate event’ as it’s become termed by Simon Mayo and Mark Kermode, was wrong and gave a completely different impression of the end of the film to the end of the book. And I have to congratulate too, Steve Kloves for still attempting to ship Hermione and Harry even when it’s completely obvious that they’re never meant to be a couple.

Since then there’s been little on the cinema front either, although Mrs H3 and I did, sadly, waste two hours of our lives going to see The Time Traveller’s Wife which was incredibly dull and just totally crap and the completely excellent District 9 which I would definitely recommend to everyone, although I did find it incredibly sad.

But this week has seen the beginning of the new season and the release of a load of films that I want to see and of course I’m now on countdown for Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland next March (as it’s a little early for me to be counting down to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part One ). Coming up are 9, Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant , New Moon, the Twilight sequel; Where the Wild Things Are and, surprisingly, Guy Ritchie’s version of Sherlock Holmes (or maybe not a surprise as it stars Robert Downey Jr). Out now are Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Up and even Zombieland which received pretty good reviews.

I went to see Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs after good reviews from both critics and friends and thought it was excellent. I went to a Saturday afternoon showing and thus shared the cinema with lots of children, all of whom seemed to enjoy the film as thoroughly as I did. This animated film revolves around the premise of a man who invents a machine to turn water into food and is both laugh-out-loud funny (for children and adults) and touching and although a little mawkish at the end, is generally an all round feel-good movie. I came out of the film feeling glad that I’d seen it, which I think says it all.

I was also impressed with the staff of Showcase Cinema at Bluewater as they had no problem in throwing out a large group of youngsters who were mucking around in the cinema and refused to shut up even after repeated requests from the rest of the audience. The woman who removed them received a cheer from the rest of us.

And the fun doesn’t stop with films. Halloween is on its way and Mrs H3 and I are going to Hendrick’s Halloween Ball - St Anthony’s Dance a fancy dress event at the Troxy ho sted by the Last Tuesday Society. The following night will see us once again dressed up (for a change) for the Sherwood Oak Halloween Party . Expect a huge bunch of photos to appear shortly.

So I think it’s time to shut up now. You see, now I've got going again I can just rabbit on...and on...and on....

Music and Moanings

2009-07-31T23:15:00.008+01:00

So, I’ve discovered that, unfortunately, I am too old for music festivals.

To be fair, I wasn’t really all that much in the mood to go to the Lovebox Weekender anyway. Depression from PMT, a niggling backache and bad hayfever left me wanting to climb back into bed for the weekend and ignore the world, but having spent so much on the tickets I was determined not to waste them. Of course, I was also regretting the choice to go on Saturday, where the line up consisted of little other (from my point of view) than Duran Duran, however much I love them; when Sunday’s line up had Gary Numan and The Doves, amongst others.

Being in the already grumpy mood I was in, I was also unhappy about the weather. Obviously I’d been hoping that in the middle of summer, the day would be long, hot and dry. Sadly, it managed only one of those three things.

It all began so well, considering. Having got to Mile End, having been able to travel on the part of the Jubilee Line that is still running at weekends, with the weather showing signs of being sunny, things didn’t seem quite so bad. But then came the walk to Victoria Park, which the Lovebox website had described as being ten minutes away. I had already been made aware by Kev the beanpole that even he couldn’t walk it in ten minutes. However, we hadn’t anticipated something nearer to a forty five minute walk.

Still trying to get into the spirit, our first stop was the tequila tent for a rather tasty margarita and some excellent Latin American disco, where I became the proud owner of a rather tacky pink and orange maraca.

So, things seemed to be looking up, although more alcohol (which I suspect would definitely have helped the day) was out of the question as I was driving, so instead I moved onto the water and the odd nice cup of tea. There were many food stalls, and all seemed to be fair trade and organic and all those other good things, the choice varied and eclectic. Eventually Mrs H3 decided on a Greek chicken kebab, whilst I went for an organic sirloin steak burger with some divine onion relish (and another cup of tea – yep I know, I’m so rock n’ roll!)

Having checked out the various other entertainment areas (most of which appeared to be hardcore house music) we ended up sitting near the main stage as there were at least people we’d heard of on there. We missed VV Brown as we were debating about food, we caught most of the Rumble Strips, who I personally didn’t think much of, although to be fair we were sitting outside of the area where we could hear them properly and during the break while we waited for Mr Hudson to come on, we went over to the Warehouse stall to get our free ‘Rain or Shine’ kit, consisting of a cheap paper fan and an even cheaper white plastic poncho. This was our best move of the day.

Sadly, by this point I had to admit to Mrs H3 that I was feeling somewhat bored as there wasn’t enough (of interest to me at any rate) going on between acts on the main stage and sitting around was beginning to make my back hurt again.

So back to Mr Hudson, and I was desperately trying to remember which rapper had taken him under their wing (it turned out to be Kanye West – is he a rapper?). Anyway, I thought Mr Hudson was okay although not really my cup of tea, although I did recognise Supanova which means that Greg James must have played it between 4.45 and 5.30am a few times in the recent past (the only time I listen to Radio One these days).

Having found ourselves in the optimum area for viewing and sound, we proceeded to stay and watch Florence and the Machine, who were the only other band that I’d been looking forward to seeing (as Friendly Fires clashed with Duran Duran on the other stage). Disappointingly, for me at least, I wasn’t overly impressed. I will admit that Florence does have a good voice, but her songs were quite boring and even Rabbit Heart, a song which I’ve quite enjoyed when I’ve heard it on TV, didn’t lift the proceedings. Eventually we gave up and instead joined the humongous queue for the toilets.

By now I was fed up of standing (backache and arthritis setting in big time), so we headed for the barrier in front of the disabled viewing area/sound booth and finding a nice central pitch sat down while we waited for N.E.R.D. to come on stage.

It was at this point that it started raining and so we donned our cheapo ponchos and settled in to watch Pharrell and his crew doing their thing. Now I have to say that this sort of music really does pretty much leave me cold, although Mrs H3 was in her element. But, although I was no longer able to sit down due to the rain, I actually found myself starting to quite enjoy the show, especially when they blantantly broke every Health and Safety rule in the book and invited a whole load of fans onto the stage.

But now everything was wet and so sitting down was a no-no, which meant the next few hours were spent standing with all the old age pain that goes with that. Again there was a long wait for the final band, who as Mrs H3 surmised, were obviously waiting for it to get dark so their (admittedly spectacular) light show was visible. By the time Duran Duran had made it to the stage the temperature had dropped considerably and I was now freezing cold, to go along with wet and miserable and the wishing I hadn’t come had returned.

I’m sure you’ll be unsurprised to hear that I thought Duran Duran were bloody excellent, and Simon looked gorgeous, dressed as he was in frockcoat, waistcoat and top hat (definitely feeding a fantasy of mine). His singing too, was spot on, and as had been the case with Voodoofest, it was clear they were thoroughly enjoying themselves. For the duration of their set, I forgot the cold and the rain, almost forgot the pain from standing for so long, and even, for a moment, stopped thinking that I’d wished I hadn’t bought a ticket and experienced some real pleasure.

But then the concert ended and we had the long, long walk back to the station and the even longer trip back home. I was in so much pain by this time and Mrs H3 was so fed up, that we decided that even if we’d had tickets for Sunday we wouldn’t have gone (yep you heard me right, I’d have missed seeing my beloved Gary rather than make that journey again). By the time we’d got home we were determined that we’d never go to another festival ever again.

However, sleep and hindsight made me consider that had the day stayed dry I’d have not been in as much pain as I’d have been able to sit down more and had there not been so great a walk, it would have been fine. As an urban festival Lovebox was nothing like Reading or Glastonbury and I think I’d been expecting it to be like them. Whereas at the larger festivals there are so many different things to do that you can never get bored, even if the music isn’t quite to your taste, unless you were up for getting drunk there wasn’t so much to do at Lovebox. There weren’t enough bands that I liked, I’ve never been into all that house music stuff, and even the fringe stuff wasn’t as entertaining as other places I’ve been so the day soon became rather boring.

So actually, maybe I’m not too old for festivals, I’m just too old for the Lovebox Weekender or any other festival that takes place in Victoria Park. Give me an easy journey and a seat to sit in and I’ll be happy!

Having missed Gary Numan at Lovebox, we did instead get to see him at what used to be called the Shepherd’s Bush Empire (it’s something O2’y these days, as everything seems to be) last Saturday evening - and yes, we had seats.

I had been a little maudlin as Ben and Jerry’s Sundae Festival (yep the ice cream people, and yes, I know I said I wasn’t going to any more festivals) had a cracking line up, including I Am Kloot and the Super Furry Animals. After a lot of considering we decided that it would be too much to try to attend both, although part of me was still disappointed at missing IAK. Anyway, all disappointment was forgotten once Gary took to the stage.

Mrs H3 told me on the journey home that she always enjoys watching my face when Gary comes on stage, as I always look so ecstatically happy to see him. And it’s true. Every time he appears I’m transported back to the first time I ever saw him live and the joy and love that I felt for him then spreads through my entire body.

Whilst watching him this time I was thinking about the number of incarnations he’s gone through over the years and how far away his music is now from what I was listening to and loving so much back in the late seventies. I wondered for a moment whether, if I’d been told, at the time I first saw Tubeway Army on Top of the Pops doing Are Friends Electric? that Gary would eventually be doing hardcore metal music, whether I’d have believed it, or even been such a fan. But, whilst I might not have believed that he would head that way, I would definitely have still loved him.

Music-wise it doesn’t seem to matter what Gary turns his hand to, I enjoy it. I don’t LOVE all of it, but then, personally, I think it would be a very strange person that could say that. But I’ve enjoyed his journey to where he is today, and love the way that he integrates the older songs into his current style. And I love his current style. And when I see him live there is no equal for me... I adore I Am Kloot and often say they are my favourite band, but Gary is a lifelong love that will never die and for me nothing, and no one else will ever come as close to perfection as he does.

So now we have a quiet period. Not much going on in the way of concerts, I assume because of the summer holidays and people going away so nothing interesting has been booked. The next concert at the moment is Peter Doherty (oh yes) on 19th September, followed by concerts by people as diverse as Blue October (yes, they are coming back to the UK and I am very happy about this), Flaming Lips, Alice Cooper, Marc Almond, Chas and Dave and Gary Numan again towards the end of the year.

We found out recently that Dave's wife died of lung cancer, which may have accounted for his absence from the last concert we went to, and others since. I'm hoping that he's back for the three concerts we've got booked for the end of the year, or I fear for Mrs H3’s sanity. My sympathies go to Dave and his family for their loss.

I’m also looking forward to September/October as this signifies the release of the new I Am Kloot Album called B, which contains B-sides, rare recordings and new songs. Obviously this will be accompanied by a tour, which is always good news!

It’s Here! Well, Almost!

2009-07-14T22:24:00.004+01:00

So it’s almost time. The moment I’ve been waiting for so long. Yep, of course I’m talking about getting my Severus Snape fix, erm I mean Harry Potter fix, with the release of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince at midnight tonight. Sadly, it appears that nowhere in the UK, or at least nowhere within travelling distance for me, is doing a midnight showing, unlike the US where there are all sorts of things going on. So I’m relegated to having to wait until the morning to see it. But I suppose, after the wait I’ve already had, another thirteen hours is nothing.

I’ve spent the last three weeks desperately trying to ignore the wealth of clips etc. that have been released in the run-up, but gave up after the London premiere last week, and have since immersed myself in all the hype and am as excited as a six year old waiting for Santa. All my geeky HP friends (and believe me, I count myself as a geek too) are as excited as me and all day the tweets have been flying on the subject of the film and the Harry Potter Alliance drive to get #Dumbledore as a trending topic on Twitter. Facebook too has been flooded with HP surveys and quizzes and statuses that hint towards something momentous occurring shortly.

I’ve just noticed that the countdown ticker on my blog is wrong, as it still shows Friday as the release date. I guess they never got round to changing it; still I won’t hold it against the Leaky Cauldron as they have been somewhat busy recently.

♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫♪♫

Okay, so last time I posted I was heading for the London Ukulele Festival, where I and a number of other uke players were going to try and break the world record. I am happy to say that we did it, with 851 players completely routing the previous 401 player record. Mrs H3 and her parents came with me for support, and I can honestly say that it was a really good day out. I also managed to raise £85 for Cancer Research, not a fortune, but not bad with only one day to collect sponsorship. The photos from the day are below and you can see, amongst other videos, the report that appeared on the ITN news. A picture of my official certificate, when it arrives will follow.

Tomorrow also sees the re-emergence of Mrs H3 out of quarantine, as she’s been suffering with the dreaded swine flu. Fortunately, not serious enough to end up in hospital or dead, although she did pass it to her mum (get well soon Zena), so things have been a bit quiet on the going out front over the last couple of weeks.

However, it gets going again on Saturday with our trip to the Lovebox Festival at Hackney (which I’m now regretting only going for one day, as Gary Numan and The Doves are playing on Sunday), although we are seeing Gary next Saturday at Shepherds Bush, so all’s not lost. I just hope the weather is nice, not sure I can face spending the day waiting for Duran Duran in the rain.

Update

2009-06-14T23:00:00.005+01:00

Okay thought I'd better give a quick update as I haven't got round to blogging again recently. I had meant to do a post with reviews of the films I've seen since the last filmic post, but to be honest I can't be bothered - I'll just say that I've seen State of Play, X Men Origins: Wolverine, Coraline and Star Trek and they were all pretty good. Star Trek was at the IMAX at Waterloo, which I'm not sure was an improvement - probably not, although it's not going to stop me going to see Harry Potter at the IMAX as it has bits in 3D apparently (sadly probably not Severus Snape though). Coraline was in 3D, although I'm sure that wasn't improved for being so, it could have used the 3D far more effectively and sadly, the Jonas Brothers concert film that was shown as a trailer was excellent and showed just how good it could have been.

Anyway, as you'll see from the counter it's now only 31 days until the release of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince and of course I'm getting mega-excited. I've stopped watching all the trailers etc. as I'm fed up of seeing bits of the film and WB have released so much footage now that I feel like I've already seen it. D Day is Wednesday 15th July and I expect to be at one of the first showings of the day - sadly no midnight showing at any of the cinemas near me, as there apparently are in the US, but I think the first showing is about 11am.

Talking of Severus Snape, WB have just released this and I’ve decided that I NEED it. No don’t ask where I’m going to put it ‘cos I have no idea, although I’m happy sharing my bedroom with both Alan Rickman and Severus Snape ;) I don’t care how impractical a 6’ 2” standee is ... I want it!

So to other news. Went to Chelsea Flower Show as usual, but this year Lynnie Lou had the audacity to go away on holiday to Spain with her sister so instead Mrs H3 and I went. Had the usual cracking day and were very lucky to have excellent weather. We got hundreds of photos before the batteries went on my phone and her camera about half way round. Sadly, I didn't get to see James May, but we did see most of the other major TV personalities.

Mrs H3 and I spent Bank Holiday Monday at Hall Place in Bexley where we joined King Henry VIII and his court in watching jousting etc. It was fun and once again we were lucky with the weather. In fact I actually got sunburnt. However, I’m not sure they were expecting the turnout they got as the food court contained only a burger bar, a jerk chicken stand (wtf?) a donut stall and an ice cream van. Queues for all were horrendous and we ended up leaving and driving the ten minutes down the road to Bluewater to grab something from Burger King instead. Anyway, photos to follow when we get round to uploading them, which will be after Mrs H3 returns from her highly exciting holiday in Skiathos.

Coming up next Saturday is the London Ukulele Festival. Having finally got my beautiful lilac sporano ukulele, I signed up to take part in the World Record attempt for the most ukulele's played in one place at the same time, assuming that we go. All well and good, but firstly I have to play (and I believe, sing) The Sloop John B - a tune that I haven't played since I was 12 and gave up guitar lessons. Not only have I had to relearn the chords (and believe me my fingers are feeling the burn) I've had to learn how to tune my ukulele as this warm weather is knocking it out of tune almost every time I play. Fortunately I've found a great online tuner - I have no idea what I'll do at the festival itself though. Hopefully one of the many hundreds of other ukulele players will be able to help me. Secondly, I'm supposed to be raising sponsorship money as it's an event for Cancer Research, but as I’m still not 100% sure that we’re going I feel a bit bad asking people to sponsor me for something I might not end up doing. If anyone’s interested in sponsoring me if I do go, please leave me a message or e-mail me to let me know.

Skype. Since changing to my new computer I’d completely forgotten about Skype, mainly because it turns out that my phone is not compatible with the new software. The old Skype software, plus the new phone software has now been installed and Skype is once again a great place to chat!

Catch Up - The Music Bit

2009-05-28T22:56:00.002+01:00

OMG how far behind am I again?

Sorry, I kept meaning to update but I’ve been busy doing other things … although would have to admit that one of these ‘other things’ was actually playing Mah Jong to which I’ve become completely addicted (the peril of getting a new computer with all those games I didn’t have before) at the expensive of EVERYTHING else in my life.

Anyway, to be honest I was having a problem trying to decide what to write about the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain. Not because they were bad … they definitely weren’t, but because they were brilliant.

Now you’ll remember I was rather looking forward to seeing them, knowing them as I did from clips on You Tube and a rave review that Ron Hopwood gave me about fifteen years ago when they played Chatham Central Hall, and I have to say that they didn’t disappoint. We saw them at the Cadogan Halls, in Sloane Square and the clientele certainly matched the area; in fact Mrs H3 and I were feeling a little out of place amongst all those posh talking la la’s.

And then the UOGB came on stage. Funny, charming and excellent ukulele players; they proceeded to blow us away with renditions of songs like The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and Smells Like Teen Spirit. When they actually managed to convince the (mainly 55+) audience to join in the chorus to a little ‘folk’ song which began with the lines “I am an anti-christ, I am an anarchist ….” I knew we were onto a winner. The sight of all those aged, middle-class patrons bellowing along happily to the chorus of Anarchy in the UK was enough to uplift anyone’s evening. Irony much?

Add to that a stunning rendition of Hawkwind’s Silver Machine closely followed by the Talking Heads Psycho Killer (worth going for that alone, we agreed) and then a northern club singer’s take of that other great ‘folk’ classic Wuthering Heights and you get an idea of how out-to-lunch the entire evening was. Bad puns, silly jokes and amazing playing all added to the good time.

The highlights for me were the medley’s which were breathtaking in their complexity. Firstly a little ditty which they called Plagarism, which blended Life on Mars, My Way and For Once in My Life – and yes, amazingly when you hear them all played at the same time, they really do sound very similar. The encore brought a second such mash-up involving amongst others, the works of Handel, Hotel California and I Will Survive.

Original, exciting and fun, I would recommend the UOGB to everyone. If they’re playing in your area – go see them, you won’t regret it. In fact I believe we’re going to see them again, this time with Mrs H3’s parents, when they play Blackheath in September. (Yep, we’re sooo rock n’ roll!)

The following Monday saw us heading for Guildford and a date with my favourite man, Johnny Bramwell of I Am Kloot. The gig, at a venue called the Boileroom was one of the most intimate that we’d been to and was a real cracker. Johnny was in a good mood; far more upbeat than he’d been at the Half Moon, and soon dispensed with the set list, instead taking requests including the very rarely played Bigger Wheels and Titanic.

Cue me being the ultimate fan girl and heading to the bar for a chat with the great man at the end of the gig, pleased as punch when he recognised me and gave me a big kiss and cuddle, before stopping to have a discussion about why he couldn’t play my current favourite Kloot song Down at the Front at his solo gigs. The moment was ruined a little by a few stupid comments from a bunch of blokes, also at the bar, who I assume were jealous that Johnny had stopped talking to them to spend a few minutes with me, but otherwise it was an excellent evening. I did manage to video a couple of songs, both from the forthcoming album (which Johnny said they’re hoping to tour with in September/October…or maybe January) which can, as ever, be found on my YouTube channel.

Next was the first Chas and Dave concert of the season which was at the Fairfield Halls in Croydon. It was pretty much business as usual, with the Q&A session and the cover versions of others songs in the first half and their Greatest Hits package in the second. Mrs H3 and I had prime seats in the centre of the front row and were in the perfect position to see Dave, looking pretty pissed off for much of the evening. Rumour has it he’s had enough and he certainly looked like that was the case during the first half, although he perked up a bit in the second.

Chas and Dave also recognise us now as we’ve been so many times and we got another few photos with the guys before heading home for the evening, with Dave telling us he looked forward to seeing us at Chatham (yes, of course we’re going).

And so to the concert that we missed … the one that left Mrs H3 and I depressed and sobbing … and no, it wasn’t Dizzee Rascal. I refer, of course, to the reformation of The Libertines in the early hours of 16^th May at London’s Rhythm Factory. To say we were gutted would be a complete understatement. After so doggedly following Pete for all these months, to miss the one concert where he was reunited with Carl and Gary was heartbreaking. We can only hope that now they’ve got together once, more concerts will follow.

Ultravox – Still Raging in Eden

2009-05-04T23:27:00.003+01:00

Last Thursday Mrs H3 and I went to the Roundhouse at Camden along with thousands of others to see the Rage in Eden reunion concert by the mighty Ultravox. This was a new venue for us, but a good one – the sound was pretty excellent for the most part – although deteriorated a bit once out of the domed area. The view left a little to be desired, although this of course was due as ever to my height and my desire to breathe rather than force my way to the front of the room.

The audience had an interesting demographic. Something like ninety five percent was male and aged between thirty five and fifty and most of those were pretty tall. I don’t think I spotted more than about three people under the age of twenty all evening - and they were with their parents.

Ultravox emerged amid billowing dry ice playing the hugely atmospheric instrumental track Astradyne, which they then followed up with a run through of their greatest hits across all their albums including a blistering version of Visions in Blue and other such classics as One Small Day, Dancing With Tears In My Eyes, The Voice, The Thin Wall, Hymn, All Stood Still and of course the eternally breathtaking Vienna.

The twenty three years since they had last performed live disappeared within seconds as the band, clearly thoroughly enjoying what they were doing, got the crowd dancing and singing along to their songs and Billy Currie’s violin solos were, as they had always been, major crowd pleasers.
At the end of the encore Midge, Billy and Chris joined Warren on drums and created a rousing anthem to end the show with flair.

For me, the band sounded as good as they did twenty three years ago, with Midge’s vocals still as strong as they’d ever been and I will admit that several times during the concert I was transported back to the last time I’d seen them during the Set Movements tour back in 1984. However, in complete contrast to just about every other eighties band to have reformed, Ultravox haven’t tried to emulate their original look. Although Warren still has dark hair (I wasn’t close enough to establish whether it was a syrup or if he dyes it), both Billy and Chris have hair that is completely white and Midge is bald. Dressed in suits and smart shirts I have to admit that from a distance (not being close enough to see their faces properly) they looked rather like the sort of middle-aged band one could imagine playing at a wedding and I commented to Mrs H3 (who of course was a bit young to remember their original look and so had no preconceptions) that to me they seemed rather like an Ultravox tribute band.

Now that sounds like a criticism, but I didn’t mean it to be. Ultravox were, and still are, if the concert at the Roundhouse was anything to go by a fantastically innovative and accomplished band and I would happily pay to go and see them at any time. And to be honest I applaud them for not feeling the pressure to return to the look they created back in the eighties.

Mrs H3 videoed Vienna and you can see it on my Youtube channel. I have also begun uploading the videos from our other concerts, with the footage from Elbow’s Brighton Dome concert now on there too.

And now, as Monty Python once said, for something completely different. Tomorrow night Mrs H3 and I are off to see the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain. Now obviously this is partially because of my interest in learning to play the ukulele (still looking for a teacher if anyone wants to volunteer) and partially because they just look bloody awesome.

If they are anywhere near as good as this tomorrow night I’ll be a fan forever!

Whoop Whoop! Birmingham City Promoted to the Premiership!

2009-05-04T02:14:00.006+01:00

Okay so I just wanted to post quickly to say how happy I am that Birmingham City finally managed to get something right and got themselves promoted back up to the Premiership.

Last week would have been better, but wasn't to be, but from the sound of things (I didn't actually get to see the game as the pub decided that a run-of-the-mill Liverpool v Newcastle game was more important than Birmingham's promotion game, just as they did last week with the Manchester United game) we played a good game this week and fully deserved the win and the promotion.

So once again we're back in the Premiership - which is good for me as I'll get to see more matches, and hopefully good for the club too, although I'm a little disturbed about a report in the Birmingham Mail last week in which they reported that David Gold had announced that we wouldn't be buying any new players next season as the £40M they'll get for going up has to be spent recouping the costs of gaining promotion. If that's the case then we'll be going straight back down again at the end of next season and with the number of fans the club has been losing recently, that definitely isn't a good thing.

Anyway, congratulations to the team and also to Alex McLeish, who, although he's not very popular at St Andrews, has done a fine job of keeping Birmingham in the top three (and mainly top two) all season. Fingers crossed that now we've returned to the top flight he'll be the sort of manager we need to keep us up there.

Keep right on!

The Wizard Rock Special Post

2009-04-29T22:24:00.003+01:00

Talking of Harry Potter I want to announce my new Wrock-centric blog. Now that I’ve admitted publically my love of Wizard Rock I feel the need to talk about it almost incessantly. The quantity and quality of Wrock bands interest me far more than a majority of mainstream music these days, with the exception of my eternal favourites.

So if you’re interested in knowing more about Wizard Rock and what’s going on in the Harry Potter fandom’s own music genre then please check out my new blog using the link above or the one in the sidebar.

Music, Music and More...

2009-04-29T19:52:00.003+01:00

So the Peter Doherty concert came and went without much excitement to be honest. The venue was interesting to say the least – Proud at Camden which is based in Stables Market, an old horse stables and hospital. The market is a nice place with an interesting selection of shops (read freaky in Mrs H3’s terms) and Proud is an art gallery and bar during the day; bar and music venue at night. The bar itself is interesting enough, playing an eclectic choice of music, the stables having been kept to provide pockets of privacy, each one with a widescreen TV to show the football (Chelsea were playing that night – sorry can’t remember who they were playing as it wasn’t Birmingham and it wasn’t a very inspiring game). We chose to sit in the one with the black leather seats and the big speakers – which I guess would be called the music area. There was also a room with a table football machine, one with a pole and disco floor and several others that I can’t really remember what was in them but you get the idea. Water was £2 a bottle which I guess is pretty standard for these sort of places.

Neither Mrs H3 nor I had bothered to check the venue out until the day when I looked it up on the net just before leaving work and discovered that the concert was scheduled to run until 2.30am. Now obviously that gave us a huge problem as we were parked at the O2 and the last tube leaves at about midnight and it’s a bloody long journey back to Mrs H3’s house on the night bus which would have meant probably getting home at about 6am. We sat in the bar watching the football and hoping that Peter would grace us with an early visit with club music after, but alas it was not to be.

He finally made an appearance at 10.45pm and launched into a similar set to the ones we’ve seen him do before, accompanied by Graham Coxon on a couple of songs and also – new to us – by a pair of ballerinas. Now I’d love to say that the concert was the best we’d ever seen, just Peter and his guitar (plus the guests) in such an intimate venue – and to be fair he was just as good as he’s been every other time we’ve seen him, but the ‘music room’ that the concert was held in was awful and severely depleted our enjoyment of the concert.

Now I’m usually quite happy in the smaller venues, although Mrs H3 tends to get a bit claustrophobic (she wasn’t awfully happy at Camden Underworld and thinks Half Moon is a little on the small side) but even I was having trouble in Proud. First of all the internet says that the capacity is for between 500 and 800 people (depending which site you read) however, I think that’s wildly optimistic. From what we could see (and admittedly being quite short that wasn’t much) the room isn’t much bigger than Half Moon’s 200 capacity space. And that was the problem. So many people were packed into the small area that it was almost impossible to move.

I’ve been to a few of Peter’s concerts now and I know two things – you don’t want to be down at the front or you end up covered in drinks and god knows what else that his mad fans throw at the stage and you don’t want to get caught up in the mosh when that gets going. The first we fortunately had no chance of doing, as crowded as the room was – the second we had no choice, because even pressed against the wall of the bar at the back of the room we were still in the moshing area.

Being somewhat on the short side my view of the stage was pretty much non-existent for most of the set as the stage is pretty low and there were a lot of tall people in front of me. I found this very annoying as I do at least like to get the occasional glimpse of the performer when I go to a concert. Finally I’d managed to secure a place right at the back, squashed up against the bar which afforded me a very occasional glimpse of Peter and his ballerinas (although I never did get to see Graham) when incredibly tall men happened to sway in the right directions (i.e. apart) and leave a sliver of a view.

Of course my position wasn’t the best. I was in the way of anyone trying to buy a drink – and there were many – and Mrs H3’s position was no better than mine. Add to that the lack of air from all those people squashed into such a small place and the whole thing became rather miserable.

To be honest it didn’t take much convincing for us to decide not to bother staying until the end of Peter’s set and instead try to make it back to the Jubilee Line for our last tube as he didn’t do anything different to what we’d seen before. Happily this turned out be the correct choice as he was only on stage for another five songs (which didn’t include Fuck Forever – and disappointingly for us there was no sign of the Wolfman either), which would have seen us stuck on getting the night bus and incredibly pissed off for having missed the tube.

My personal view of Proud is that they shouldn’t allow more than 300 people into the music room and they should raise the stage by a few inches to give us shorties who are stuck at the back at least some possibility of a view ... or better still arrange viewing in height order (with a strict no throwing policy enforced obviously).

The few photos of the evening have been added to the end of the slideshow of Peter's concerts below. They begin with the marvellous carved horse statues that are part of the restoration project that is taking place at Stables Market.

Anyway, tomorrow is the long-anticipated Ultravox reunion at the Roundhouse which I am very much looking forward to, even though I’ve been struck down with some strange summer cold or something (and no it’s not swine flu – just a sore throat, headache and just general miserableness).

We didn’t make it to the Headphone Disco in the end. Mrs H3 was ill – struck down with the same bug that I’ve now got I think – and as it didn’t start until 10.30pm and finished at 3am it gave us a similar problem to the concert with regards to getting home (neither of us wanted to drive to Islington). Having looked at the Facebook photos of the evening it seems I would have been about twenty five years older than every other person there so perhaps it’s a good thing we didn’t go after all.

Cinema...

On Friday evening we’re heading to the cinema to watch X Men Origins: Wolverine, the first of several films that we’ll be going to see in the near future. We’ve already booked our tickets for the Imax showing of Star Trek on the 27th May and of course I’m still on countdown for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.

Grrr

2009-04-20T11:33:00.003+01:00

I hate how my blog seems to have changed size without me doing anything to it. My banner is too big for the box, although its sized to fit and now the new Harry Potter trailer is hanging into the sidebar and obscuring everything.

How do I make the text area bigger? And how do I get my banner fitting properly again. Anyone with ideas please let me know.

Hurrah another post!

2009-04-19T23:58:00.003+01:00

Okay so I’m trying to be good and blog a little more regularly. Obviously good for me as I don’t have to write ‘War and Peace’ whilst trying to kick start my somewhat bad memory into gear back over a month and good for you not to have such huge posts to plough through.

As usual most of the post will be about music, but first some Harry Potter news. Last week Warner Brothers announced the release date for the film had changed again ... although fortunately by only two days. Anyway, the film will now be released on Wednesday 15th July, which as the ticker shows is in 87 days and I am getting very excited about it. The main reason for this of course was the release of a new trailer last Thursday, which is below. Also you should check out the much better quality HD version here as it’s amazing.

Obviously for me the high point was Severus Snape and the whole “fight back you coward” bit (although I thought the Katy Bell section amongst others was also excellently done) and thanks to the Leaky Cauldron my desktop is now sporting the screen cap of Severus blasting Harry off his feet.

So back to the music. Mrs H3 and I went to the Half Moon in Putney for the latest Johnny Bramwell gig and it was an absolute cracker. Recently released from recording the new album, having announced that Pete and Andy had chucked him out of the recording studio, Johnny was more talkative than at some of the previous gigs we’ve seen, although he was a touch dark and brooding (not that that’s a bad thing in my book). He did an excellent live set including songs from the new album including a fabulous new track called The Moon is a Blind Eye although unfortunately had to stop singing on a few occasions due to interruptions from a rather loud crowd, including a very drunk girl and her friends, who instead of being responsible enough to remove her from the room instead spent the last half hour of the concert loudly shushing her – which was almost as annoying as the girl herself. I have to admit that several times I was debating whether I could give her a quick punch to the side of the head to knock her out without being ejected from the gig – but of course I and none of the others around her, who I am sure were thinking similar things did that.

As I’ve mentioned before talking during concerts is a pet peeve of mine. I can understand friend’s saying a few words to each other occasionally; obviously even Mrs H3 and I aren’t immune to that. But when your conversation is continuous and drowns out the music of the performer then it is most definitely NOT acceptable. What I don’t understand is why people pay to go and see an artist and then ignore the concert to have a chat. If you want to talk, piss off back to the bar and talk there. Don’t ruin my and everyone else who is seriously trying to listen to the artist’s set’s evening. If nothing else it’s incredibly rude!

Sorry rant over.

Anyway, there were two support acts and I have to admit that we missed the first completely. However, the second Jonny Taylor, I thought was rather entertaining (not quite so much to Mrs H3’s taste), although he did sound a touch too much like James Blunt (which is never a good thing). I particularly liked one called London Town which you can hear on the link at his Myspace page.

Before the concert we went to the Lebanese restaurant called Mezza which is across the road from the pub. The last time we were at the Half Moon they were serving food which they brought in from the restaurant and so we decided to cut the middle man and head straight there. The food was lovely. The starter was spiced meat or feta cheese wrapped in filo pastry which was followed by lamb and vegetable kebabs with rice. The service was friendly but not over-attentive and it seemed a popular place. Definitely one I’d recommend.

On Wednesday we’re off to see Peter Doherty (yep him again) at Proud in Camden and then, in a bit of a departure from the normal stuff for us, we’re going to Headphone Disco on Friday in Islington. I’d never heard of this concept of a silent disco until Mrs H3 introduced me to it. Basically you are given a pair of headphones upon entering and you wear them to listen to the music which is provided by two DJs. You can toggle between sounds as you wish and dance away to your heart’s content (yep you know that’s not going to happen!) or you can take off the headphones and watch everyone else dancing to the music that you can no longer hear. It should be interesting if nothing else and we’re on the guest list so it costs nothing except for travel and drinks.

Oh and I finally started uploading stuff to my YouTube channel which you can find here. So far I’ve only uploaded the three videos that I took at the Johnny Bramwell concert (alas not the new track, hopefully I’ll get that at Guildford in a few weeks time) but hopefully over the next few weeks I’ll find the time to upload our videos from the Peter Doherty and Elbow concerts, plus of course any new concerts we go to (and maybe some old ones too ... perhaps the time has come for the guess the song game!). There is also an old and very bad quality video from my old phone which was taken one night in the Sherwood Oak. Feel free to watch it if you wish.

The Birthday Stuff

2009-04-07T23:33:00.003+01:00

So as I may have mentioned previously, last Friday was Mrs H3’s 30th birthday. The weekend got off to a good start for her on Thursday with a birthday party held by her work colleagues, which began at work and continued into the pub where I understand copious quantities of Sambuca cocktails were consumed. I would like to point out that I wasn’t at this celebration as it was expected to be just a few quick drinks after work. However, it went on ‘til well past midnight…dirty stop outs!

On the big day itself, Mrs H3 and I went to the O2 where we first visited the new British Music Exhibition at the Bubble. This is a fascinating journey through the history of British music from 1945 to the present day and includes music, videos, costumes (including Adam Ant’s King’s of the Wild Frontier suit and David Bowie’s Pierrot costume from the Ashes to Ashes video) and much more besides. Highlight of the trip for us had to be the dance room where we learnt to disco dance and (oh I really hate to admit this) do the dance for the birdy’s song which we could then watch back on video afterwards. Unfortunately we didn’t get to learn a musical instrument or record a song as the places were already taken and we didn’t want to hang around for too long waiting. The exhibition has an interactive ticket which you can use to log various points and then look up further details on a special account on the internet afterwards (and yes it does apparently put the dances and any other activities you’ve taken part in on there too) and also includes three free ITunes downloads. I thought this was an excellent exhibition and well worth a visit.

Lunch followed at Zizzi’s where the astute waitress spotted the flashing and giant 30 badges that Mrs H3 was sporting and deduced it was her birthday. Generously she gave us a free glass of Prosecco each to celebrate with our meal, which consisted of their scrummy cheese & balsamic onion garlic bread followed by pizza.

And so it was time to visit the other exhibition currently at the Bubble – Body Worlds & the Mirror of Time. Mrs H3 and I visited the original Body Worlds at Brick Lane back in 2003 and were interested to see the new exhibition. To be honest, although it was much better value than last year’s Tutankhamun, and a damn sight more interesting too, it was pretty similar to the previous show, and with less exhibits. I think we felt that once you’ve seen one plastinated body you’ve seen them all really, whatever strange positions they’ve been put into – although this exhibition does feature (and I really hope I’m not giving anything away here) a giraffe – and bloody huge it is too! As ever there was a section on conception, pregnancy and child birth which I had to skip as I’m far too squeamish about that sort of thing, but other than that we did spend time taking in the whole thing which took about an hour and a half to complete. If you didn’t get to the original Body Worlds exhibition I would definitely recommend it, although it doesn’t feature the plastinated body split into a series of lengthways slides which was for me at least, one of the highlights of the original.

And so we came to the evening when we joined Mrs H3’s parents, her brother and his girlfriend for an evening at an entertainment venue called Madisons in Biggin Hill. This is one of those places that features a set menu which is served whilst the bar staff entertain the customers with a few songs and dancing on the bar and serves cocktails, bottled beers and other expensive drinks. The meal was not overly ambitious, the starters were pate, prawn cocktail, bruschetta and parma ham and melon; the main course a choice of salmon, chicken or lamb shank all served with (lumpy) mashed potatoes and a dessert of either apple and rhubarb crumble and custard or vanilla ice cream. The entertainment was okay though with the undoubted highlight being at the end when they set fire to the bar and a fire eater performed. During the evening Mrs H3 was called to the stage, along with the other people celebrating their birthdays and was presented with a birthday cake that I had bought for her – a small sponge cake featuring a photo of the Hoff (who else). Home once more we finished the champagne that we’d opened earlier in the evening and chatted until the wee small hours before finally heading off for bed.

The following day saw me at work as usual, feeling somewhat tired from the previous late night and early morning (I have so much trouble sleeping in new places). This was followed by the less than inspiring England friendly match and then a meal at the pub followed by a few drinks. We had originally intended to dress up and go to Maidstone for the evening, but everyone who had told us they were going backed out at the last moment and after a few drinks we decided we couldn’t be bothered to go. Instead we stayed at the pub with Dan, Bobby and Martin and had a few more drinks before acquiring more champagne and heading home. Obviously old age (and the late night the day before) was catching up with us, along with the clocks going forward and by the time we’d watched Peter Doherty on Jonathan Ross it was gone 3am.

Sunday began with a visit to the local café for breakfast, and for me the chance to relax for a few hours as I didn’t have to work. Mrs H3 headed home for a birthday party with her family, which I attended later in the day before we headed out for the Peter Doherty concert at the Troxy. The evening was completed in style with a kebab at Lewisham’s finest kebab house. I arrived home just after 2am feeling completely knackered and very glad that I wasn’t working the following day.

The fun hadn’t finished for Mrs H3 though. Keen to continue the celebrations she and her work colleagues went to the theatre to see the musical Le Cage Aux Folles on Tuesday evening whilst I flew out to Spain to see my parents, with whom my sister and my nephew Freddie who is now 3 months old were staying for a much needed few days of R&R.

It's That Time Again ...

2009-04-07T23:09:00.003+01:00

Good grief another month gone already! So once again you get the extremely late and horrendously long update.

Firstly a HUGE apology to Mrs H3 for not mentioning earlier that amongst all the things we were doing recently we were celebrating her 30th birthday on 27th March. Part of the reason for this is that for quite a long time she was panicking about reaching this milestone and I didn’t want to upset her any further with a reminder, but then obviously failure to blog regularly came into it as well and so instead of getting ready for the big event after a complaint that I hadn’t mentioned it on here, all I can do now is report on the weekend and say congratulations on getting through the celebrations and for realising 30 isn’t the end of your life!

The Music Bit…The Deal was for the Diamond and the Skulldozer!

So the last time I blogged we were on the verge of going to see Elbow at Wembley and what a fantastic evening it was too. Completely different from the Brighton gig in so many ways, not least the quantity of people in attendance (obviously, considering the size of the place compared to previous venues, although I have to admit I was surprised at how full the place was – I guess it really is finally their year). It was clear from the moment that Guy and the lads stepped onto the stage how chuffed they were to be there and the huge crowd added considerably to the anthem-like numbers such as One Day Like This, although as I said before I’m just happy to see them wherever they perform (however, not the show they’re doing supporting U2 – and not just ‘cos of the £150 price tag - and annoyingly, the concerts in Manchester with the Halle Orchestra sold out before I even had a chance to read their Myspace blog post about them!)

Unfortunately my snazzy new phone broke (the slider cable broke causing the screen to black out) and had to be sent back to Sony for repair however, once again Mrs H3 and I managed to take copious amounts of photos and video footage (pics below as ever … I really will get my Youtube channel up and running for the videos one day I promise).

So then began the Peter Doherty (yes Peter in the press now he’s turned thirty (just like Mrs H3!) and grown up, although actually he’s always called himself that) tour to promote his rather excellent new album Grace/Wastelands which began with two concerts in Brighton and Folkestone and ended on the Sunday after Lisa’s birthday at the Troxy in London. Disappointingly, for all those detractors who have done nothing but slag him off ever since I mentioned we were going to see him, he is now completely clean and turned up at every gig.

The first at Brighton Dome (where else) was an interesting affair to say the least. The first support band didn’t turn up so his drummer came out and did a few songs, followed by a friend of his who we’d seen at the Royal Albert Hall and hadn’t enjoyed, although he was better than the drummer. Finally came Dot Allison and her band, who weren’t my (or Mrs H3’s) cup of tea at all. Luckily, having parked ourselves in the front row of the stalls seats, we were having fun watching the other members of the audience which took our minds off the support. When Peter eventually made it onto the stage, dressed casually in jeans and jumper, he did so with his full band along with a three piece string orchestra and at one point a double bass player and Dot again (as she collaborated on some of the songs), as well as Wolfman who strangely didn’t sing along to For Lovers as I would have expected. The music ranged from his solo acoustic stuff to full on rock and roll chic with a lot of free-form jazz type stuff in between. At one point there were so many people on stage I thought it was turning into a Sigur Ros concert. However, throughout he was excellent, even if the pseudo free-form jazz stuff didn’t particularly float my boat and with a crowd that was very clearly upper middle class and awfully polite it was funny to see the excitement that songs like Fuck Forever and Can’t Stand Me Now produced. It was a really good, if somewhat different evening to the one I had been expecting. He finished without an encore, which came as a surprise to most of us, but as he’d been hit by a drink thrown by someone in the audience and then almost by a lit cigarette, perhaps not completely so.

The following night at the Leas Cliff Hall in Folkestone was completely different. Firstly, we totally missed the support acts and then chose to go and sit on the balcony to watch the show rather than join the moshers. This was an excellent choice as it turned out as the crowd were very different in culture to the previous night. So was the show. Peter, who was once again sporting the casual jeans and t shirt look performed solo for the most part, with only occasional guest appearances by fellow Babyshambles cohort Mick Whitnall and the always value for money Wolfman (still dressed in the same clothes), to break things up (and no, he still didn’t sing on For Lovers). Peter spent a considerable amount of the concert proving his guitar skills with some lengthy riffs and even more time dodging the considerable amount of drinks that the very rowdy audience threw his way. After promising to finish with Albion, he did actually close with Can’t Stand Me Now. As is our wont Mrs H3 and I didn’t move when the lights went up, waiting for the venue to clear somewhat before heading home and it was lucky we didn’t for about seven minutes later Peter reappeared to do a blinding version of Albion to a by then largely empty room. As ever both evenings were caught in pictures and video.

And so to the Troxy - a beautiful art deco venue in Limehouse, London. This was the last night of the tour, and the last night of a very long weekend of celebrating for Mrs H3 and I. The audience was made up of a selection of the types of people that had been at the others - both the stylish and fashionable and the die hard beer throwing fans and the show was sold out. Once again we opted to miss the support acts, although we weren’t successful in the case of Dot Allison, who hadn’t grown on us at all. The gig too was a hybrid of the previous ones we’d seen – the band and the string section was in attendance as were special guests Graham Coxon, Wolfman (and yes this time he did sing on For Lovers and he was bloody awful – although he was wearing different clothes at last!) and Lee Mavers (the lead singer of 90’s band The La’s), which meant of course that the free-form jazz was back, but also there was the acoustic numbers (which I think on balance I generally prefer) too. Peter had chosen to be more formal for this last evening, dressing in a suit and hat, very dashing and very much in step with the venue. Unfortunately, the late arrival meant that we were quite far back and so my view of Peter wasn’t good enough to take any photos or video, although Mrs H3 did manage to. All in all I felt this was the most interesting of the three shows because of the mixture of styles, although I have equally enjoyed all of the shows just for the opportunity to spend a great deal of time gazing at Peter Doherty who, when clean, is a truly beautiful looking man.

So the next concert on the agenda is John Bramwell at the Half Moon in Putney on Thursday, the first time I’ve seen anything I Am Kloot-related for almost a year. Needless to say I am very excited at the prospect of seeing him (and hopefully Pete) again. I’m really hoping that he might be doing some of the tracks from the new Kloot album that he and the band performed in gigs earlier this year. This is followed on 22nd April by another evening with Peter Doherty in Camden and then the eagerly awaited (by me at least) Ultravox concert at the Roundhouse. Early May brings a visit to see the Ukelele Orchestra of Great Britain at the Cadogan Hall in London as I have become interested in learning to play the ukulele (if anyone wants to teach me please feel free to shout).

Lastly, I just wanted to mention that the new album Hocus Opus One by one of my favourite Wizard Rock bands Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office has finally been released. This long anticipated album is a heavy duty slice of electro-dance pop and is definitely worth a listen so check them out at their Myspace page by clicking on the link. Hmmm, actually while I’m about it I’d also like to mention another excellent new release. Zoë from Split Seven Ways and Malfoy Manor is giving away free (as she often does – check out her Myspace pages) The Broken Bird e.p. under the name Zoë’s Adventures Underground. This is a beautiful piece of work and non-Wrock, for those of you still a little nervous about the whole Wizard Rock thing.

Concerts, Harry Potter and the wonderfulness that is Wizard Rock!

2009-03-04T23:43:00.005Z

So it’s been a little while since the last catch-up again as I’ve got lots of things coming up in the future, but there’s been nothing much of interest going on in the recent past.

Valentine’s Day came and went without troubling me as usual and lack of money meant quiet evenings down the pub in lieu of any real excitement. But that all changed as the first of the two Elbow concerts we’re going to finally arrived last Saturday night after a somewhat drunken and uproarious Friday session that involved rather too much champagne among other things. Now I’m still ecstatic at the fact that they won the Best Band award at the Brits (although a little surprised I will admit) and then followed that up with another win at the NME awards, the well deserved Outstanding Contribution to British Music so was looking forward to seeing them immensely, especially after my disappointment at missing them last year.

So Saturday night found us at the Brighton Dome, tired from the previous night but happy and ready to be entertained. And what a good job Elbow did. The Acorn are supporting them on their tour, which is good as I really enjoyed their album Glory Hope Mountain and thought they did a fine job. But Elbow were sublime. Obviously incredibly happy at their awards and their ‘sudden’ fame Guy was happy to talk and joke with the audience and even at one point engaged in a question and answer session between tracks. The concert was uplifting and every bit as good as the BBC televised one earlier in the year, although of course the songs weren’t just restricted to Seldom Seen Kid as that one had been, nor was there the huge orchestra and choir.

Between us Mrs H3 and I took about 500 photos (see a selection below) and a good deal of video (hurrah for my fabby phone – although I did feel a slight pang for the crap quality of the old Nokia and am considering taking it to Wembley just for old times sake). So on 14th March we’ll be at Wembley with the guys (and possibly David Hasselhoff) doing it all again, except a bit different. It will be interesting to see the band in such a large location and I’m suffering those pangs of all fans whose bands go global, that I’m torn between wanting to see them in such large venues but at the same time still wanting to see them in smaller places. I expect knowing how down to earth Elbow are they’ll be doing a mixture of both for a while.

Also on the horizon are concerts by Peter Doherty on consecutive days at the Brighton Dome and Leas Cliff Hall in Folkestone on 20th and 21st March and after a lot of praying and wishing on my part I Am Kloot, or at least Johnny Bramwell, is finally coming south of the Watford gap again and performing at the Half Moon in Putney on 9th April with an appearance at the Boileroom in Guildford on 11th May. We will be fitting in a visit to the Roundhouse on 30th April to see the newly re-formed (and believe me I’m very excited about this) Ultravox, who I haven’t seen since the Monument Tour in 1982. But the fun doesn’t stop there. It’ll be Chas and Dave time again on 14th May in Croydon and on 18th July Mrs H3 and I will be heading to London for the first day of the Lovebox festival. I am definitely expecting to see an eclectic mix of music there with bands like Florence and the Machine, N.E.R.D. and of course the mighty Duran Duran. The following week will see us at Shepherds Bush for the latest Gary Numan concert.

But one of the events I am most looking forward to is the Hogwarts Jamboree UK on 27th June which is being held in London. Now everyone who knows me knows that I am Harry Potter fanatic (what…you never realized?) and am into everything HP related. Through this I have become involved in a genre of music called Wizard Rock which, having started (rather late I will admit) as a vague interest of mine in hearing bands who called themselves after Potter characters and sang songs about the stories, has turned into devotion to the cause with a considerably increased CD collection.

How to explain Wizard Rock? My personal view is that it’s almost impossible (unless you have a complete hatred of music) not to like at least one of the bands around and believe me, although most of you not in the HP fandom will never have heard of this phenomenon, there are literally hundreds of Wrock bands out there. The musical styles are varied – everything from pop to blues to rap to country, with a healthy dose of comedy thrown in for good measure. In fact, think of a musical style and somewhere there will be a Wrock band that meets your criteria.

Initially started by American bands like Harry and the Potters and Draco and the Malfoys, it didn’t take long before the Wrock revolution spread worldwide (and I mean worldwide as there are bands in Sweden, Australia, Japan, Israel and Canada to name but a few) and Britain can boast what I think are some of the best bands around. Personal favourites are Split Seven Ways, Riddle TM, Peeved, Romilda Vane and the Chocolate Cauldrons, Siriusly Hazza P and the awesome Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office and excitingly for me at least, some of these bands will be appearing at the Hogwarts Jamboree.

Ok so this was a funny moment for me: As usual I had 4Music on in the background while I was working earlier on. On comes the video of Apologize by One Republic. I’m confused: the words are all wrong. Then I realize. I’ve listened to the Ministry of Magic’s cover version of the song so many times now that I’m automatically singing their words, rather than the original. And I have to admit I prefer the MoM version.

So lots of music already planned, with more to come I’m sure. After all Michael Jackson is rumoured to be doing a series of concerts at the O2, which I think must be a dead cert assuming the tickets aren’t stupidly priced, although knowing him…. Plus of course the festivals are just beginning to be announced. I’m really fancying Sunday of the V festival, even though Oasis are headlining on the main stage, as there are plenty of other bands that I love playing (read Elbow, James, Snow Patrol and Ocean Colour Scene) and Keane will be headlining the 4Music stage.

My Birthday and Other Antics

2009-02-07T00:44:00.005Z

Okay, so I’ve finally recovered from the crappy viral gastritis that’s been affecting me since just after the Blue October concert. Initially I thought I’d just overdone the celebrations for my birthday – after all I did rather cane the wine over the weekend, but as the illness progressed it became clear that it wasn’t the alcohol but some bloody virus. On the bright side I’m currently 1 stone lighter than I was this time last week (although unlikely to last with the amount of carby food I’ve had to eat over the last few days in an effort to get well – we all know that carbs (and bread especially) are not my friend).

The birthday celebrations started well enough. Thursday night was Bill Bailey night and this time we sat towards the front of the stalls. Once again the show was brilliant with more than enough differences to the earlier show to keep us entertained, in fact Mrs H3 and I both agreed that we probably enjoyed the show even more the second time. This time round was the added attraction of Kevin Eldon and their Kraftwerk tribute which I always find funny, and with the show so close to ending its run Bill was obviously in buoyant mood and performed many encores before ending with that still hilarious film.

Friday night was our visit to see Jen and the rest of Rainham Amateur Theatrical Society (RATS) in Mother Goose at the Oasthouse Theatre. I still remember the hilarity of our last visit back in 2005 when I, Andrea and various members of the Sinners spent the evening watching Jen performing as Prince Charming in Cinderella and was looking forward to seeing this final pantomime. Jen was on fine form as Jack, Mother Goose’s stupid son and the rest of the cast did an excellent job, especially Dean Caston who played Mother Goose and Simon King and Andrew Stringer as the evil baron and his gorgeously ludicrous camp son. However, Mother Goose isn’t the funniest or most interesting pantomime ever and it was a little hard to get laughing, although once Andrea started, as ever there was no stopping her.

Unfortunately Mrs H3 didn’t have such a good evening. Unaware that she had never seen an amateur production of anything, let alone a pantomime it didn’t even occur to me for one second that she wouldn’t realise that it wasn’t going to be like the professional ones that we saw in December. In retrospect I should have thought and warned her, but sorry, I didn’t. It soon became quite obvious that she wasn’t really enjoying herself, although to her credit she did try to join in albeit a little less enthusiastically than usual. As for me, I enjoyed it just as much as any of the others I’ve seen, and enjoyed it more than Aladdin, and will be quite happily attending any of Jen’s future pantomime showings in the future.

Now I’d love to have done something exciting for my birthday, but firstly it was on a Sunday (not known for being the most exciting day of the week) and secondly I didn’t get paid until the following Friday and so was pretty much broke. So Saturday night was spent in the Sherwood Oak with my friends, having a meal and drinking copious quantities of wine. Mrs H3 and I took the opportunity to try out some of the weirder features on our cameras (note the fabulous negative effect on her and Lynne) which continued once I got home and opened my presents. As ever Mrs H3 shone on the present front. Not only did I get the sparkliest, shiniest converse trainers ever to walk the planet, but better still another of her handmade masterpieces – this year a rather wonderful doll which looks exactly like her (and yes I can attest that her hair looks exactly like that before all that straightening takes place) – proof positive that she can’t get anywhere near a camera without that cheesy grin appearing!

On Sunday we had been intending to go to Howlett’s as something a bit different (and Mrs H3 had bought some spanking new Cyberman silver wellies specially for the occasion), but of course the weather decided not to be kind and instead it poured with rain all day. After spending most of the morning optimistically hoping for the weather to clear we gave up and went for a nice cooked breakfast at the café followed by a shopping trip at Bluewater and a visit to the cinema to see Underworld 3: Rise of the Lycans. I really enjoyed the film, but then I enjoyed the previous two as well and it really is just more of the same. Finally we returned to the Sherwood Oak for dinner and some more wine (quite some more wine). And so my birthday was over, although I did have the Monday off just in case I needed it to recover (I didn’t).

Tuesday of course was the Blue October concert at Underworld and I was incredibly excited by the time we got there. I don’t think Mrs H3 was sharing my enthusiasm for the evening, especially once she found out that the venue was small and below ground, but as ever she tried to get into the spirit of things even when I tried, as usual to get as near to the stage as possible. The place was as hot as hell and heaving, with all 500 tickets sold out before the evening, which I admit surprised me somewhat. Whilst I love the band, I’ve only ever met a couple of other people over here who’d ever heard of them and so I hadn’t really been expecting as large a turnout as there was. Strange really when you think that in the US they play festivals and concerts to 50,000 people. There was some interest in the support act People in Planes and I wondered just how many of the people there were actual fans of Blue October and how many were just there for an evening out.

It became clear immediately when Justin and the guys appeared on stage that almost the whole crowd were there as fans of band. Everyone sang along to the songs; hundreds of hands waved in the air when Justin asked if anyone owned History for Sale and there was as great an enthusiasm for the new songs as for the old. I got the impression that the band was somewhat surprised at their popularity and the reception they received and hopefully they thoroughly enjoyed their evening. I know I, and probably everyone who was there enjoyed it too. Hopefully this will mean a quick return visit as I don’t think I could bear to have to wait another two years to see them again.

By the end of the concert we were, quite predicatably deaf and my throat was raw with my voice croaky, from singing too loudly I assumed at the time. I ached pretty badly too, but put that down to overdoing it at the weekend and it was worth it just for the pleasure of being at such a brilliant concert. Imagine then, my displeasure on waking on Wednesday morning when I found not only were my ears still buzzing, but my voice was almost completely gone, my throat was sore and I had a raging fever.

As I always do when I’m ill I took refuge in sleep – 18/20 hours asleep each day, fighting off the infection. By Friday I felt a little better, enough to actually sit up and watch TV for an hour or so, although then I seemed to relapse with a body temperature down in the hypothermic range and so it was back to bed along with more layers of duvets and blankets and the heating on full. By Saturday morning I had the added extra of dehydration, vomiting and diarroeah; something which didn’t diminish as the day went on and soon I was tucked up in bed for more sleep, although I did manage to listen to the sublime Elbow live in concert with the BBC concert orchestra on Radio 2 while I was there.

By Monday I had to admit that I wasn’t getting any better and I had to visit the doctors. It was of course sods law that it had snowed heavily overnight and there was no way of getting to the doctors but to walk – a journey which was very slow and saw me unsuccessfully trying not to throw up a couple of times en route. Then of course the doctor was late getting in and so by the time I got home again some two odd hours later I was just about ready to die. Sleep of course was the answer and for the rest of the week as well, although food was most definitely off the menu until Wednesday, when I finally managed to keep down a banana.

Now just about fully recovered I’ve finally got round to updating the blog and have just remembered that the UKS cybercrop started this evening too. So I’m off to check out the classes and see which ones I can do.

The Other Stuff including new concerts

2009-01-22T14:33:00.001Z

Mrs H3 and I haven’t just been going to the pantomime for the last 6 weeks. Oh no. We’ve also found time to go to the cinema and to a concert.

Finally, after what seemed like an eternity ‘Twilight’ was released over here on 19th December and Mrs H3 and I went on the opening night. Now as you know I’ve been waiting for this film for ages, so I was extremely excited – enough to forego the alcohol (yes really) at my works Christmas party, which took place in the afternoon.

We had decided to see the film at the O2 Vue – although it turned out that it wasn’t in the huge cinema, but one of the smaller ones. We had elected to eat there too, which turned out to be a mistake as there was a Madness concert taking place in the arena so it was packed and we had to queue for almost an hour to get into Zizzi’s.

The evening didn’t get any better when we went to collect our tickets from the machine. The booking had been lost. After a long argument with the useless staff we had no choice but to buy the tickets again.

So to the film. Almost as soon as it started I knew I was going to love it. Robert Pattinson, looking gorgeous as ever filled the screen and soon I was drawn into the Twilight world. It would be fair to say that 95% of the audience was under eighteen and I had forgotten, having rarely been to a film showing with so many young people, how much they like to talk through films. The whole cinema was filled with people discussing the film, whether it was about the actors, the plot or how it compared to the book.

The girls behind us were no different in that respect except that the one behind me must have been the only person in the cinema who hadn’t read the books and spent the whole film asking her friends who characters were and what was going on.

Distracting as this was it didn’t stop the enjoyment of the film which was a decent enough adaptation of the book. I was already on Team Edward, and thought Robert perfect for the role – although I’ve never been able to convince Mrs H3 of either – she is firmly Team Jacob (poor deluded woman) and couldn’t understand my swooning over Mr Pattinson at all. However, whilst the film didn’t sway her from the Team Jacob camp she did admit that Robert was completely gorgeous.

For me there were a few disappointments, although they were mainly superficial – the overuse of the pale makeup on the vampires (I’m sure that could have been more naturally done) and especially the ‘dazzling’ scene. With the wealth of special effects available these days I was expecting Edward to be truly stunning but instead he was rather lacklustre – a pot full of glitter would have worked better then the final film version.

Notwithstanding my few gripes, I thought the film was excellent, although I would definitely be interested to see it with a more mature audience and without the talking.

The following night we were back at the O2 to see the Bootleg Beatles at Indigo. Once again we were in the Kings Row, but a few rows back from where we had been for Gary Numan. To be honest it was a bit high for us and fortunately there were enough empty spaces for us to move during the interval to a less dizzy height.

The last time I saw the Bootleg Beatles was at Glastonbury in 1995 and I had such a good evening I’ve recounted the story of it many times over the years. I can say that they are just as good today as they were then, and yes they sound – and look – just like the Beatles. Working through the whole catalogue from “From Me to You” right through to “Hey Jude”, they incorporated the fashions and the news of the times. At the end ‘John’ came on and sang “Happy Xmas (War is Over)” after which the encore consisted of “Let It Be”, followed by “Twist and Shout” which they performed as it was the last night of the tour (they said).

I thought it was a fantastic evening, although I was aware that Mrs H3 was not quite as enthusiastic as I to begin with as Chas & Dave (with Pete Doherty in support) were playing the Tap n’ Tin that night and normally we would have gone there instead. However, as the evening went on she was soon joining in as happily as I. It turned out that Pete didn’t turn up at the Tap n Tin (even though all his family did) so we didn’t miss anything interesting , and we’ve already got tickets to go and see Chas & Dave at Fairfield Halls, Croydon in May so all’s good.

Actually the concert season is already looking quite bright. We have the two Elbow concerts in February and as mentioned above Chas & Dave in May. Gary Numan is playing the Shepherd’s Bush Empire on 25th July and I Am Kloot are currently recording a new album, being produced by Guy and Craig from Elbow (lots of happy fangirl squeeing from me) which surely means a new tour shortly, to which I’ll obviously be going to as many shows as possible (alas unable to make either of the dates in Manchester as it’s just outside my finances to go – I suspect it would be cheaper to get to the Paris show than Manchester). However, I was very excited to find that Blue October, whose new album “Approaching Normal” is released on 24 March 2009, are FINALLY coming to the UK. Short notice as its next Tuesday, 27th January at Camden Underworld – but of course we’ve got tickets and I’m completely twitchy with excitement. They are being supported by People in Planes whose album “Beyond the Horizon” I’ve just listened to (and very good it is too). It should be an excellent evening. Also keeping fingers crossed for an e-mail saying that I’ve won the Duran Duran competition tomorrow night, which would see us at a concert with them in London next Wednesday evening.

Anyway, kicking it all off, tonight is a return visit to see Bill Bailey in Tinselworm and of course tomorrow is the final pantomime and then I’ll be celebrating my birthday. Have a feeling it could all get a bit messy, but there might be some decent photos at the end of it all.

Panto Season - The Pictures!

2009-01-15T18:28:00.006Z

So here's the photos from the various pantomimes we've been to. Enjoy...we certainly did!

It’s Behind You! Oh No It Isn’t… Oh Yes It Is…The Great Pantomime Season!

2009-01-15T08:31:00.006Z

Apologies for the length of this, but once I got going I just couldn’t stop. Now you can see why I hadn't posted for so long!

So you’ll remember that Mrs H3 and I booked to go and see a few panto’s last, and this year after the success of our previous foray into the world of Peter Pan with the lovely Paul Michael Glaser in 2007. By the time we’d finished deciding which ones to attend we had booked quite a few and the full season is as follows:

29th Nov – Maidstone – Jack and the Beanstalk
6th Dec – Bromley – Cinderella
13th Dec – Croydon – Peter Pan
18th Dec – Tunbridge Wells – Aladdin
23rd Dec – Chatham - Cinderella
3rd Jan – Catford – Snow White & the 7 Dwarfs
23rd Jan – Rainham – Mother Goose

Jack and the Beanstalk

So on 29th November the Pantomime season began in earnest with a trip to the Hazlitt Theatre for the first night of their panto – Jack and the Beanstalk which starred Jake Hendricks (Father Kieron from Hollyoaks apparently – you know soaps aren’t a strong point of mine) and Michael Fenton Stevens (Mr Griffith from My Family, although he’s better known (to me at least) for all sorts of other things as I found when I looked him up on Google). It also starred a guy called Tom Swift as Simple Simon and he really was the star of the show.

Now as I mentioned in an earlier post the Hazlitt Theatre really is very small so it wasn’t the most lavish production ever staged and being the first night it was rather rough-edged, but the show had a certain charm about it that made it enjoyable for all that. Poor Jack seemed rather out of his depth in places and his lack of audience interaction (even though the cast went into the audience several times) showed that he had obviously never done panto before, but also quite probably had never seen one either. Fortunately, Simple Simon and the Dame more than made up for any shortcomings of the rest of the cast.

Sitting in the front row of the rear section of the stalls, Mrs H3 and I enthusiastically took part in the show, joining in with the singing and the boos and the hisses and maybe went a little over the top with our participation when we returned one of the outsize balloons during a quiet and poignant moment in the show. Mrs H3 also started the first of what was to become regular interactions with the cast when she shouted “Don’t do it!” when Jack asked Jill to marry him.

It was during this pantomime that the funniest child moment of the season occurred. Simon got the kids up on stage to sing Old MacDonald and each child had to choose an animal. Believe me when I say the whole theatre cried with laughter when one enterprising young boy chose a scorpion as his animal. Mrs H3 and I were laughing so hard that we never got to hear exactly how a scorpion sounds, but it was a brilliant comedy moment.

Cinderella

The next visit was to Bromley where we had seen Paul Michael Glaser the year before, to see Cinderella starring Steve Guttenberg and Helen Lederer. From our seats in the third row of the stalls it was instantly clear that about ten times the budget of Maidstone had been spent on this panto – mainly on glitter which adorned just about every surface. The costumes were lush, Steve Guttenberg was excellent as were the Ugly Sisters and the whole pantomime was thoroughly enjoyable. Especially sweet were the incredibly pissed off looking Shetland ponies that pulled Cinderella’s carriage at the end of the first act.

The highlights of the show for me were provided (as is often the case) by Mrs H3. First was her excited and very loud exclamation in response to the ghost song (the ‘it’s behind you’ moment) of “Ooh I love this bit!” But without a doubt the crowning moment was when the glass slipper smashed prompting Mrs H3 to gasp loudly in horror and cry out “What’s going to happen now?” This reaction actually stopped the performance for a couple of seconds while the cast looked at her, amazed that an adult would have such a reaction. I didn’t react that way for two reasons. Firstly I’d already spotted that the silver glitter shoe that they’d been using throughout the scene had been changed for a (stage) glass one, and of course, I knew the story.

The other entertaining thing about this pantomime was the man sitting next to me. It was clear from the moment we arrived that he didn’t want to be there. Obviously dragged along to the show by his girlfriend – who was as enthusiastic about the performance as we were – he refused to remove his coat and sat with his arms folded, scowling, rolling his eyes and sighing throughout the whole evening. At the interval he looked very upset as his girlfriend began to recount to him all her favourite bits from the first half as he disappeared off to the bar. At the end of the pantomime he tried to leave before the cast came back for their final encore and crowd sing-a-long, but his girlfriend refused to allow him to go. Consequently, he was about the only person in the theatre who didn’t stand up and sing and dance along with the cast. It’s a shame that he didn’t just go with the flow and try to enjoy himself, although he did give Mrs H3 and I plenty of amusement.

Peter Pan

Next came the hotly anticipated Peter Pan at the Fairfield Halls, Croydon starring Brian Blessed as the wonderful Captain Hook and Mrs H3 and I were very excited at the prospect of seeing the great man in action. We had procured front row seats for this show and we certainly weren’t disappointed. I think it would be fair to say that the two of us joined in with the pantomime so much that we might as well have been on stage. In fact I’m sure that many people there that night probably thought that we were plants because there was so much interaction between us and the cast.

It began with the usual offhanded comment to me from Hook and Smee, which we of course reacted to. When Smee then forgot his lines because he was laughing so much Mrs H3 helped him and offered to get up there and do it for him. This really set the tone for the rest of the evening.

Brian’s performance as Hook was superb and he really drew out every boo and hiss from the audience, stoking the crowd up until they raised the roof several times. His occasional interjections of seriousness, when he would pronounce gravely that there was a Shakespearean actor at work caused more laughter and even his come back to me on his pronouncement that he’d been educated at Eton – “Oh yes I was, read my book!” was brilliant.

He had a personal moment with Mrs H3 where he recounted various lines, including the ever-popular “Gordon’s Alive!” from Flash Gordon and then moved onto Star Wars before remembering that he was supposed to be doing the pantomime and people were waiting to come on stage. We were serenaded by he and Smee and even the other cast members were talking to and winking at us throughout the performance.

There was a little over-zealousness with the smoke machine which left the whole of the stage and the first five rows of the audience completely hidden by fog, causing me to have a major coughing fit (luckily I had my asthma puffer with me) – which led to a bit of ad libbing from the stage as it took a while to stop. The sighs of relief from the cast as it cleared were audible, as was the groan when the machine restarted – fortunately it was turned off again pretty quickly.

At one point I was approached by a member of the Fairfield Halls staff and told off for taking photos, as it was apparently putting the actors off. This wasn’t true though as while I was being reprimanded Brian was standing a little way downstage gesturing that I should ignore the man and then announced to the whole theatre that his girlfriend had just been told off for taking photos.

And then once again the crowning moment when Mrs H3 shouted out “I love you Hook,” to which Brian replied in surprise, obviously not used to not being booed, “Well, I’m not used to that.” A moment later the room rang with the sound of kids all shouting out “I love you Hook.” It was an extremely confused Hook that had to admit that he’d never had that reaction before!

The evening was an extremely pleasurable one, and for the cast as well as for us I think. They had done three performances that day and I’m sure that last performance was a hard one to drum up enthusiasm for, but hopefully we helped to make it more entertaining for them – certainly the speech that Brian gave at the end indicated that was the case.

This was definitely the best pantomime of the year and Mrs H3 and I agreed that for future pantomimes we really need to sit in the front row for maximum enjoyment (and because we’re good at starting the booing and cheering) and that we’d happily go anywhere in the country to see Brian Blessed in a pantomime.

Aladdin

So next was a weekday pantomime – Aladdin at the Assembly Halls, Tunbridge Wells. To be honest this was a rather late addition to the programme, chosen purely for the fact that it starred Chris Ellison (DCI Burnside in The Bill). It was quite a journey to get to the place and I wasn’t feeling all that well, but we were determined to enjoy ourselves as we were in the front row again.

About fifteen minutes into the pantomime, I began to wonder whether we’d made a mistake in going. Obviously my headache wasn’t helping things, but Chris Ellison was awful as Abanazer, seeming to merely go through the motions rather than get into the role. As a bad guy he was a complete wash out, blandly reciting his lines without any attempt at interacting with the audience. The thought did occur that having enjoyed Brian’s performance so much might have dulled or ruined the remaining pantomimes for us, but I gritted my teeth and tried to enjoy the rest of the show.

Unfortunately it was impossible. Widow Twankey was without doubt the worst Dame we’d seen – I knew as soon as ‘she’ started singing ‘The Boy Does Nothing’ that we were in the realms of truly terrible panto. Add to that the so-called ‘comedian’ who played Wishee Washee – a man who thought he was Elvis and had an annoying catch phrase that got more aggravating every time he appeared onstage, which was far too much for my liking. Then there was Aladdin who was so obviously female she was more feminine than the princess – and neither of them provided a performance good enough to sustain my interest. Finally came the genie of the ring, who did at least provide the one funny moment of the show when she told the audience that when the time came we were to tell Aladdin to rub his ring! (Yes that really was the best bit sadly).

One of the (many) places that the show fell down was in expecting the audience to remember and get involved in too many things – telling them to shout out “hello Wishee Washee” every time he appears is fine. Telling them then that they have to say different things whenever different actions occur makes it confusing and so the audience didn’t really interact at all without prompting from the cast which added to the lacklustre feeling of the evening.

At one stage I, wondering if it was just me feeling lousy that was putting a downer on it, asked Mrs H3 where on the pantomime scale she’d put Aladdin. Without a pause she said at the bottom and that it was rubbish – confirmation that I wasn’t alone. When the interval finally came some 1 hour and 45 minutes after the start of the show Mrs H3 said that she was happy to leave if I wanted to go. Obviously I didn’t want to drag her out just because I had a headache and wasn’t enjoying it, but she reminded me that after Prince Caspian we’d agreed never to miss a meal again because of rubbish, and the idea of a second half at least as long as the first (was this a world record for pantomime length?) with as little talent or fun was less compelling than the idea of watching paint dry. When Mrs H3 suggested we leave immediately, I took her up on her offer and we stopped only long enough to take the obligatory photo with the pantomime poster before making a run for it and heading for MacDonald’s.

Cinderella (again)

Now obviously after the event Mrs H3 and I had discussed the possibility of pantomime fatigue or disappointment after Brian’s sublime performance, but we were convinced that Aladdin was purely a terrible pantomime. The next on our list, Cinderella again, another weekday one, was the last that we’d added – and that of course was only because Joe Swash had won “I’m a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here” and Mrs H3 wanted to see it. It had originally been dropped in favour of the Bromley one (as we only wanted to see one of each pantomime), but after Aladdin I was keen to see whether it was an enjoyable evening.

I have to admit that I didn’t go with high expectations (not knowing who the hell Joe Swash was and having even less interest in who he was) and I’m sure that Mrs H3 was much the same. Chatham is a small venue (although not as small as the Hazlitt Theatre) and after the splendour of the Bromley version I was expecting to be disappointed by the ‘small town-ness’ of it. Immediately on arrival came the first blow (for Mrs H3 at least) Joe Swash had been taken ill and wasn’t appearing (and ended up cancelling all his performances before Christmas). Instead his place was going to be taken by the show’s producer David Janson. Add to that the fact that we were in seats towards the back of the stalls instead of our preferred front of house ones and that there was already smoke billowing throughout the hall (necessitating the use of the asthma puffer again) before the performance and it wasn’t looking hopeful.

However, I have to say that the show was excellent. Not as grand as the Bromley production – although it did have plenty of sparkle, the performances were good - with the possible exception of the fat fairy godmother (although as a fatty myself I thought it was nice to see so many roles for fat people in this year’s pantomimes as all of them seemed to have one cast member who was plus size) and to my mind the replacement Buttons was probably better than Joe would have been. The Ugly Sisters were excellent, certainly as good if not better than the ones at Bromley. I was expecting a flatter climax to the first half, but it wasn’t to be – Chatham too had the Shetland ponies which elevated the pantomime completely. It should also be noted that it was the cheapest of the venues for ice cream – half the price of the Bromley and Croydon ones.

The second half, although not containing the breaking of the glass slipper, did have Mrs H3’s favourite “it’s behind you” scene and I was personally pleased that after being told to guard a big red button throughout the whole performance, they did actually press it at the end of the encore and released a roomful of confetti.

The crowd was a little muted to begin with, but we and a few other hardy souls soon got the place livened up and by the end almost everyone was joining in. Mrs H3 had her opportunity to take centre stage when Buttons complained that no one loved him. Of course her comment was “I love you Buttons” and she waved at him. His response was “I’ll see you after the show.” The hussy replied “You certainly will darlin’” causing a great deal of laughter.

The evening ended with a trip round some of the more interesting light displays in Walderslade followed by a stealth mission to get a photo of the Lindt reindeer car parked in the drive of one of my neighbours. All in all a good night and proof positive that we weren’t jaded – Aladdin really was crap.

There was then a brief respite while we got Christmas and New Year out of the way. Although we could have gone to a pantomime between the two I was waiting for Jo to give birth (she was due on 26th December) so we decided to give it a break in case I got the call.

Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs

Mrs H3 had met the star of our next pantomime while at her work’s Christmas party in a local restaurant in Catford and had spent some time talking to him and sharing profiteroles and wine. She told Antonio Fargas (Huggy Bear from Starsky and Hutch) that we were going to see the pantomime on 3rd January and he said he’d look out for us.

There was some excitement as we took our places in the second row, although there was a feeling that we were seeing the show at the wrong time with Christmas over. But once it started we were soon carried away by the performances and enjoyed it every bit as much as the previous shows.

Huggy the Henchman was good, but better was the Wicked Queen played by Nikki Kelly (from Hi-De-Hi), as were the comedians Francis and Wheatley who as ever stole the show – especially when they talked over Snow White and the Prince singing their love song and introduced a puppet of Yoda into the proceedings. The Dame was fun and even the Prince played by Russ Spencer from Scooch was entertaining, although the comedians were right – he did wear more makeup than Snow White and his singing was pretty bad.

An entertaining and incredibly adult themed panto – caused by considerable ad libbing (they were at the end of the run and I think they’d given up worrying), I estimated that the show was probably about fifteen minutes longer than it had been at the start of the run.

As we left we saw Mr Scooch leaving but we weren’t that interested as we were on our way to take a photo of the giant cat on the Catford shopping centre that Mrs H3 is always telling me about. On the way back to the car we found Antonio and after a brief chat had our photos taken with him after he signed our panto fliers – a good end to the official panto season.

So now only the amateur one left to go to – Mother Goose at the Oast Theatre in Rainham, which I am expecting to enjoy just as much as the last one that we saw there a few years ago. It’s a bonus that my mate Jen is taking part, and Andrea is coming with us. She joins in with these things just as much as Mrs H3 and I so a good evening is assured.

Yes, I know some of you are thinking that we’re completely insane – and that we should have better things to do with our lives – but we really don’t. And before you take the piss – try visiting the pantomime yourself this year and see just what fun it is! Oh and Mrs H3 tells me Bromley are doing Sleeping Beauty this year. No news yet on the star, but I’ll update as soon as we find out.

New Year and (finally) an update to my Blog

2009-01-15T08:18:00.005Z

Okay so I apologize. I know I’ve been rather lax with the updates again, but to be honest I’ve been busy enjoying myself and not really had any time for writing of any description. Mrs H3 and I have been partaking of pantomimes, a film and a concert and I really wanted to do the review of them justice rather than a quick mention so I had to wait to find time to do so.

So, busy with the fun and then with Christmas, with work and play and a nice Christmas dinner at Mrs H3’s mum and dad’s house followed by presents (see the photos below) – yes that is the stunning limited edition version of JK Rowling’s Tales of Beedle the Bard that Mrs H3 bought me - and yes that is an I Love Cheryl t shirt that she's wearing!

This was followed, of course, by New Year’s Eve – not my favourite night of the year, especially as I was working at the pub (a rather slow and somewhat boring evening I felt, due to the lack of customers). It was probably not my sister Jo’s favourite night of the year either this year as she spent most of it in labour (although with an epidural and gas and air, maybe it was a good one for her after all).

Yep, Freddie James, my nephew, arrived into the world at 1.23am on New Year’s Day weighing 7lbs. I’ve just got back from a visit with mum and dad to see him so there will be plenty of pictures just as soon as I’ve uploaded them into my photo album.

Already there are a few things for us to look forward to this month: the 22nd sees a return visit to see the amazing Bill Bailey and then there is one final pantomime in the form of Mother Goose performed by my friend Jen’s acting troupe, RATS on the 23rd. Of course then it’s my birthday, so I’m sure we’ll find something to do to celebrate that…or we’ll end up down the Sherwood Oak as usual. *LOL*

While I think of it I’d just like to say a quick Happy Birthday to all my friends with birthday’s this month who I probably won’t get round to sending cards to, as I’m as unorganised as ever. Lorraine, Claire, Dolly, Pauline, Jen and KJ – hope you all have (or have had in some cases) good days!

I’ve just registered for the latest UKS Cybercrop – The Whodunnit and am on Dana Scully’s FBI team with my old friend Sharona. It takes place on 6-8 February. No idea how much I can take part but I’m looking for new Kiefer pictures to scrap as I write…

My Fantastic New Mobile Phone

2008-12-16T22:42:00.004Z

Woohoo I’ve got a new phone. I caved and went for the new Sony Ericsson C905 that has a fabulous 8.1MP cybershot camera – perfect for pictures and videos at concerts. So far it is wonderful apart from the small problem of not being able to get the back off.

There were laughs galore on the day I got it when, after spending 20 minutes trying unsuccessfully to remove the cover (during which time I must admit I did swear rather profusely) I went to the pub for help where it then took another 7 men another hour to get it off for me. Andrea's other half Nigel was the eventually winner and I was happy in the knowledge that I was unlikely to need to undo the back again as the card slot is on the side of the phone unlike my old one. Wrong, as after spending over 2 hours(!) on the phone to TMobile trying to get my picture messaging set up, their final advice was to remove the back, take out the battery then replace.

Anyway, my pink phone, pretty as it was, was actually rather crap (no scrub that it was INCREDIBLY CRAP) – especially on the concert footage front. I am compiling a little montage of my favourite moments from concerts this year as a little quiz which I shall hopefully post here soon. The name of the game – to guess the artist and the title of the song. Obviously I shall give a few hints here and there, but it’s going to be entertaining fun for all the family.

Anyway, if I haven’t given you my new number yet I’ve obviously forgotten you. (sorry!) Give me a shout and I’ll let you have the new number.

Other Stuff...

2008-12-14T01:30:00.005Z

On Friday 21st November we made our way to the Gielgud Theatre in London to see the awesomely talented Bill Bailey in Tinselworm. Little to say about this without giving away his stage show, except that it was the funniest evening we’ve had in ages. I’ve decided that BB really is the funniest man alive! Many times throughout the evening my ribs hurt and I was crying with laughter. By the time the end came, during which he showed a short film which tied up all the elements of his show, I think I’d stopped breathing from laughing so hard. It was such an enjoyable evening that we’re thinking of going again at the end of the run if we can get tickets. The core of the show will be the same, but his ad-libbing will ensure that the evening is completely different and yet still hysterically funny.

On reading Mugglenet one morning I discovered that Waterstone’s at Picadilly were holding a midnight launch party for J.K. Rowling’s Beedle the Bard on Wednesday 3^rd December including a live Mugglecast podcast. Of course this was a definite for me, although Mrs H3 wasn’t quite so keen to begin with. As luck would have it the evening also contained the premiere of ‘Twilight’ at Leicester Square and the prospect of standing around in the freezing cold to catch a glimpse of the stars (Robert Pattinson, I mean of course – well for me at least) finally sold her on the idea.

So it was that we did indeed stand in the cold for two hours, and actually did manage the tiniest glimpse of RP (see the photo below for the proof). We then spent a couple of hours keeping warm in Pizza Hut before finally joining the enthusiastic (and generally rather young) Potter fans in Waterstone’s. Of course Mrs H3 and I took full advantage of the evening, first getting fine balloon crowns and then getting rather spectacular face paint. I had the somewhat unsettling experience of being filmed and interviewed by a TV reporter whilst my face was being painted. I found it hard as I didn’t have my glasses on and so couldn’t focus properly, and because I was asked questions about my age – did I feel that I fit into the demographic of the average Harry Potter reader? I was enthusiastic and positive which I think was what they wanted. Whether it was used or not I have absolutely no idea, but if you saw a woman with bright red hair and a glittery green butterfly on her face anywhere on TV, then that was me.

So finally at midnight, the book was unveiled by Albus Dumbledore and Rubeus Hagrid who gave them out to all the attendees. The first person to receive their book was a girl from Germany who had come dressed in school robes with Luna’s lion head hat, who had won the dress-up competition. Mrs H3 and I went for the opposite option and became the second to last (me) and last (her) people to receive ours. A little more schmoozing and photo opportunities with the members of Mugglecast (Matt, Jamie, Elysa and Andrew) and then we were out into the night after collecting our Beedle the Bard back pack on the way out of the door.

Of course this meant a walk through Leicester Square still in our face paint and not only did we receive the attentions of several strange men we also got offered the chance to go into many of the clubs free-of-charge. It wasn’t long before we realized that we had missed the last tube (I had parked at O2 assuming that we would be getting the Jubilee line back there) and also the last trains. This meant traversing Trafalgar Square and meeting yet more strange young men to find the night bus to Catford. (It is amazing how popular you become when you’re covered in paint!)

Once on the bus I immediately began to read my book, thinking a 45 minute journey was too good to waste. Mrs H3 chose instead to grin maniacally out the window at people and try to scare them, which I think she did pretty well. A cold walk and then a lift by Mrs H3 back to my car later and then I was on my way home. I finally got in at 3.45am where I quickly finished the final story (of course) before going to bed. Luckily I was working at home the following day - not so lucky for Mrs H3. She not only had to go to work, but had a boring citizenship ceremony to sit through. But we agreed that it had been a completely brilliant evening, and once again a real laugh.

Anyway we’ve now got our tickets booked to see ‘Twilight’ when it’s released on Friday at O2 Vue. This will be after the DS&C Christmas Party – which is shaping up to be rather an interesting afternoon. Have to admit I can’t wait to see it - and after seeing him at the premiere – even Mrs H3 admitted that Robert Pattinson is GORGEOUS.

The Music Bit

2008-12-09T23:21:00.002Z

So Thursday 20th November saw Mrs H3 and I accompanied by Stevie G, to the venerable Hazlitt Theatre in Maidstone for an evening with Chas and Dave. Now you know Mrs H3 and I like a good knees up with our favourite cheeky cockney chappies and so were looking forward to a fun-filled evening.

The first shock for me was the size of the theatre. Now when I was sixteen (and yes I know it was a bloody long time ago, you don’t need to rub it in) I used to work at the Hazlitt – and I loved it. I enjoyed everything about the place, from being in the box office to working behind the scenes, helping with the costumes to sitting in the sound and lighting box, but I don’t remember it being so SMALL.

There was a pretty good crowd for the concert, but unlike the Catford crew they were a tough crowd. There was little movement, not much in the way of clapping and definitely no dancing – except from Mrs H3 and I who were at the back of the theatre anyway. Certainly WE had a good evening and of course there were the obligatory photos with the band (who are beginning to recognize our stalker qualities by now). Mrs H3 was trying to convince the boys to play a gig in her lounge, but they didn’t seem convinced. Funniest moment was collaring Mick the drummer for a photo. He had been trying to eat a Mars bar but kept being asked to do photos and autographs and was getting grumpier and grumpier. We managed to catch him just before he snapped!

I'd just like to point out that Mrs H3 named the folder for the following pictures!

So next up we have the Bootleg Beatles at O2 Indigo on 20^th December. It would have been the Chas and Dave Christmas Party at Camden Palace, but Mrs H3 has a prior engagement that she can’t get out of (the works Christmas do).

I did have a small moment of excitement when I Am Kloot announced a new date on Valentine’s Day next year – but of course it’s in Manchester so Mrs H3 isn’t keen on going. I am waiting to see if they announce any other dates, but am seriously considering it as it’ll have been ten months since I last saw them by then and they are showcasing the new material that they’ve been working on which I desperately want to hear. Fingers crossed they announce some new dates further south soon, although I still like the idea of seeing IAK on Valentine’s Day.

So Onto the Fun Stuff…

2008-12-09T22:51:00.004Z

The last time I wrote Mrs H3 and I were heading to Leeds Castle for their ‘fantastic’ firework display. Unfortunately, it wasn’t really the stunning evening that we’d been hoping for or expecting considering the tickets cost £34 for the two of us. Firstly the fireworks started at 5.30pm; not exactly a useful time when I didn’t finish work at the pub until 4pm and had some networking to do (and I mean real work-related networking not just drinking). To cap it all on the evening in question the weather was appalling. It had rained all day and was torrential by the time of the display. Mrs H3 was certainly pleased she had her wellies – me I was in Converses which aren’t exactly known for their water-repellent qualities. Unluckily I didn’t have a waterproof coat either and was therefore dressed in a wool cape with fur around the cuffs and hood, pretty but definitely not functional in a monsoon. In fact at one point I was seriously upset that I hadn’t thought to bring a black bin liner as that would definitely have been more waterproof than what I was wearing! Mrs H3 did (apparently) have a waterproof jacket, but it leaked so badly she may as well not have worn it. I was wearing my Slytherin scarf though, which was a good thing as by that time my nasty cold had turned into a serious chest infection for which I was taking antibiotics and using an asthma puffer regularly and at least I managed to keep reasonably warm even as I got soaked to the skin.

The display took place over the top of the castle and was supposed to be an impressive mix of fireworks and lasers. Unfortunately, the low cloud meant the lasers were almost invisible and the driving rain – which as luck would have it was coming directly into our faces from the castle obscured the view of the fireworks especially when my glasses got completely soaked. The only point in its favour (considering the weather - although had the evening been fine it would have been an even worse point) was that it was short. We arrived in our watching spot five minutes before the display started (at exactly 5.30pm) and even taking into account walking back to the car and queuing to get out we were back in the Sherwood Oak by 6.45pm. Yep that was it – 1 hour and 15 minutes in total door to door – definitely NOT worth the money, even if there had been no cloud.

So considerably poorer we spent the evening thawing out in the pub, which although a tad frustrating considering the money we’d already spent turned out to be rather more entertaining than originally anticipated. Mrs H3’s red wellies garnered considerable interest from several patrons and eventually by the end of the evening we, with the admirable help of Neil had talked Chris (who may or may not have been very drunk) into drinking a pint of Kronenberg from one of them (I’d just like to point out that Mrs H3 DID have spare boots available).

Below is the video (totally rubbish quality as it was taken on my crap phone camera) of the whole event. To be honest we didn’t expect him to drink the whole pint – a few mouthfuls would have done, but he was obviously enjoying himself, so kudos for that.

Hello Everyone – Remember Me?

2008-12-07T23:01:00.005Z

Okay so I was out of action for the whole of November, although I have to admit I didn’t do much novel writing, even with my hero Philip Pullman and the wonderful Piers Anthony (among others) giving me encouragement along the way. To be honest with only a couple of days to cobble together a plot I was never going to be onto a winner. Time now to get ready for next year’s event and then it’ll be a cinch!

So if you haven’t been busy writing, what the hell have you been up to? I can hear you asking. And it’s a good question. To be honest the answer is a bit of this and a bit of that. I think I’m going to split my news into several posts as I have loads to write about and loads of fantastic pictures to upload, otherwise this will be the longest blog post in the history of the world.

Firstly, and most importantly for my current mood there’s been a huge change around at work, with our Department being revised and renamed (farewell to Claims - but not to the work!), the section I work in being disbanded (hello to Peter and the Safety section) and my lovely boss Nick leaving on early retirement *sob* which has left me working for someone with whom I have somewhat of a problem (a slight understatement), something that has caused me a considerable amount of stress over the last month. I am hoping steps are being taken to sort the situation before I end up having a nervous breakdown – although said lovely boss predicted that it would be about a month before the doctor signed me off and almost everyone I’ve spoken to has told me I’m being harassed and need to go and see Welfare about it. My sleep patterns (never great anyway) are completely shot and I’m dreaming about the boss in question, which definitely isn’t a good sign. With the streamlining I’ve acquired a whole new set of tasks including attending meetings in the middle of nowhere (okay Whale Island, Portsmouth to be precise so far) and so I’ve now got the stress of travelling to add to all the other stresses of my life. Interesting to see how things fare in the next month or so. Looking on the bright side I only actually have another 4 days in the office, what with leaving do’s and Christmas parties and such so I expect I can survive somehow. I’ll also have 8 days of my advent calendar to open tomorrow – 8 pieces of Thornton’s chocolates should go a long way to improving my mood even if I do have another stultifyingly frustrating meeting to attend in the morning.

So onto the exciting stuff – the things I (and Mrs H3 naturally) have been up to in the last month. It’s been fun and almost makes up for the fact that Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince wasn’t released on the 21st as it should have been. Hey look at the countdown – only another 220 days before the film’s out (and 12 days till Twilight – although the release date clashes with the Christmas party).

Oh yes and while I remember on what should have been release day (or was it the day before?) just to tease a bit more WB released a new trailer. Lots of new stuff which had me spending the first one and a half minutes screaming where's Snape? and then the last twenty three seconds squeeing excitedly at how they seem to have actually got it right for once.Obviously we won't know for sure until the film is released, and of course there won't be anywhere near enough Snape action (as there never is) but if the "fight back you coward" is in the right place then I'll be a happy girl.

Halloween Pics and More

2008-11-05T19:31:00.004Z

So I should be busy writing my novel but I’m not. Instead I’m having a quick catch up on here.
Last Friday there was a Halloween fancy dress party in the Sherwood Oak and Mrs H3 and I both dressed up (of course), along with a few other brave souls. It was an excellent evening and the photos are below.

I had bought the most fantastic witches’ hat from M&S and built the costume around that, as you can see Mrs H3’s costume was mainly the most fantastic red patent leather DM boots and a rather bouncy tutu.

So it’s Bonfire Night and all around I can hear the bangs of fireworks, although I can’t actually see anything. I love fireworks but I can’t be bothered to leave the house tonight to try and see them as it’s too cold out there and I’m still full of this horrid cold that I’ve had since last weekend. Instead we are going to Leeds Castle on Saturday evening for their ‘Legend of Excalibur’ display. Mrs H3 is excited ‘cos she gets to wear her wellies, I’m excited as I get to wear my Slytherin scarf – I’m not sure which of us is the sadder! LOL

I mentioned a few weeks ago that we had got tickets for Elbow at Wembley. Since then they’ve announced a full tour (I get a feeling that Elbow are a bit like I Am Kloot on the touring front i.e. they don’t really stop) and the first night is at the Brighton Dome (Wembley is the final night) so we’ve got tickets for that too. Am very excited at this but also hoping IAK are going to tour the UK early next year ‘cos I’ll be going frantic by then as it’s been almost 7 months now since I last saw them live (and watching them on the internet doesn’t count however good they were!)

So I suppose I should get back to the novel. Jonathan Stroud (author of the wonderful Bartimaeus Trilogy) has sent me (and everyone else taking part in NaNoWriMo) an e-mail containing a pep talk and some advice for getting the story written and sticking to deadlines. I’m really behind now as I haven’t written anything on it since Sunday but I’m sure once I get to grips with the plotline I’m thinking about at the moment I’ll have loads to write about.

I've been struck by madness!

2008-11-04T00:51:00.002Z

Okay so I think I may have done the dumbest thing I’ve ever thought of in my life – I’ve signed up for NaNoWriMo.

For those of you who haven’t got a clue what that is it’s the National Novel Writing Month. This wonderful (and let’s face it somewhat crazy) idea takes place in November every year and the idea is for participants to write an original fiction novel of 50,000 words or more between the first and last day of the month.

Now I’ve written a bit of stuff here and there, blogged a bit and I talk a good game but an original full length novel? Not something I’d ever really seriously considered, but then late night (and quite probably drunken) discussions with various online friends made me think it could be achievable.

After all how hard could it be? We’re not talking Booker Prize winning material here and as the site is quick to point out we’re not talking final draft material either. What you should end up with is a solid first draft which is enough to be proud of completing and the basis of something that might just conceivably be publishable someday; even if only online. You also get the accolade of being a winner on the site and get a certificate to say so.

Now of course to write a story you need to have a plot and I do have one – sort of. To be honest it’s a little vague (actually more than a little), but I do know that currently the story will be seventeen chapters which means the chapters need to be around 2,942 words each. This also means that I need to write 1,667 words a day to get the thing finished by 30th November. This seemed like an easy enough task until I sat down on Saturday with my admittedly not very well head on and tried to begin writing it.

1,667 words a day with characters you recognize for something like fanfic is simple, trying to come up with that number of words for an original story when you have no real idea of characters or plot is almost impossible.

Now I have been hampered this weekend by being ill, but I am pleased to report that I was on target with 3,362 words written by the end of Sunday evening, although working at the pub tonight has put me behind.

To be honest I have no idea why I’m doing this except that it’s a challenge and it makes a change from sitting around doing nothing productive in the evenings (oh yeah don't expect a handmade Christmas card this year as I haven't even started them).

Am I mad? Probably, but then I can't help feeling that for this competition being mad probably helps!

Interestingly, this blog entry, which is of course diverting me from valuable writing time, has used up 507 words and took me about ten minutes to write. See it's easy when you don't have a plot or characters to think about!

It's Only Me ...

2008-10-29T00:35:00.000Z

Blimey it’s been ages since I last updated, I hadn't realized it had been so long!

My visit to Spain was exactly what I wanted it to be, relaxing and a good chance to catch up with my parents. I was lucky enough to have lovely weather and even managed to go swimming, although it rained on the last day – but by then the decent weather had transferred to the UK so I got another few nice days when I got back.

Haven’t had a chance to see ‘Mirrors’ yet, although we did see ‘Tropic Thunder’ again as Steve wanted to see it. I’m hoping that maybe this weekend I’ll get to see it (assuming it’s still showing), although Friday night is Halloween Fancy Dress party night at the Sherwood Oak (expect lots of photos as Mrs H3 and I are dressing up) and I’ve been invited to a party on Saturday.

Mrs H3 and I went to see Chas & Dave at Catford Broadway Theatre on 18th October for an enjoyable and entertaining evening and were lucky enough to meet them after the performance as you can see from the photos below. We promised to go and see them again when they play Maidstone next month so we've asked a few other likeminded individuals to come too so hoping to get a bit of a crowd together for the gig at the Hazlitt Theatre, Maidstone on 20th November.

We’ve added another couple of panto’s to the schedule – Aladdin at Tunbridge Wells (18th December) starring Christopher Ellison from ‘The Bill’ and Mother Goose at the Oasthouse Theatre, Rainham (23rd January) which my friend Jen is in.

Although ‘Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince’ is still 260 days away (although that’s much better than the 333 it started at) Warner Brothers seem to have released a new trailer. Completely different from the teaser trailer it shows Ron and Lavender, Romilda Vane and the attack on the Burrow, as well as the cave and what appears to be Dumbledore’s damaged hand and a lovely closing scene featuring Hermione and Harry.

Watch it below:

A General Update

2008-10-01T12:38:00.004+01:00

As I’m off to Spain on Sunday and might not get round to updating again till who knows when, I thought I’d have a general round up on the things I’m looking forward to in the next couple of months.

-- Movies --

At the moment I'm considering going to see 'Brideshead Revisited', although I love the 1981 TV series with Anthony Andrews and Jeremy Irons so much that I'm a little worried I'll be disappointed with the film, just as I was with 'Pride and Prejudice'. I suspect though that the next film will be Kiefer's 'Mirrors' which is now out on 10th October instead of this week as originally scheduled (sorry Mrs H3, apparently it really is scary).

The good news is that 'Twilight' has finally been brought forward. Unfortunately not to the spot vacated by Half Blood Prince as I was hoping, but to 19th December (the same day as my work's Christmas party - guess which one I'll be going to!)

So now I’m focussing on possible upcoming movies. The one I really want to see is ‘Good’ starring Viggo Mortensen, Jason Isaacs and Mark Strong but as yet there’s no release date for it in the UK. I just hope it isn't going to go the way of ‘Bottle Shock’ and ‘Nobel Son’, the Alan Rickman films I’m still waiting to see (now released (or just about) in the US but still with no sign of a release date over here – I guess they are going to be another ‘Search for John Gissing’ or ‘Snow Cake’). Other than that there seems to be a dearth of movies until the new Star Trek film which isn’t slated to be out till next May after being delayed.

And look! Only 288 days to go now till the release of Half Blood Prince - the time's just flying by isn't it?

-- Music --

Well still no sign of that philanthropist giving me free tickets for the Roundhouse next weekend *sigh* but Elbow’s new found fame from winning the Mercury Prize has apparently launched them into the big time and they are doing a show at Wembley Arena (yep, really) on 14th March 2009. Not wanting to miss out this time I’ve already bought our tickets!

And I’m seriously considering Johnny Bramwell at Night and Day on 27th November. Of course I was anyway, but news on the IAK board that he’ll be doing a 90 minute set including NEW songs is more than enough to have me champing at the bit to go. All I need to do now is work out the logistics (and cost of course) of getting to Manchester.

Other than that there are two more concerts planned so far for this year – Chas and Dave (yep those perennial favourites) at the Catford Broadway Theatre on 18th October and the Bootleg Beatles (who I last saw at Glastonbury in 1994 and completely stole the weekend) at the O2 Indigo on 20th December.

-- Panto --

It’s soon going to be that time of year again (…oh no it isn’t; oh yes it is!) and so to get in the Christmassy spirit Mrs H3 and I decided that after the excitement of last year’s Peter Pan with Paul Michael Glaser we’d take in a panto or four this year. It was a matter of making some tough decisions (there was NO way I was going to see Joe Pasquale in Dartford) but finally our panto season looks like this:

29th November – Jack and the Beanstalk (Maidstone)
6th December – Cinderella (Bromley)
13th December – Peter Pan (Croydon)
3rd January – Snow White (Catford)

Among the ‘stars’ we’ll be seeing this year are Brian Blessed (yay, we love BB!), Steve Guttenberg, Antonio Fargas and Helen Lederer.

Off To Sunny Spain

2008-09-29T14:36:00.003+01:00

I’m now on a countdown for going to Spain for some well deserved R&R at my parents. I’m gratified to see that the weather is likely to be good, especially with the deteriorating weather over here. This week is a busy one so by the time I get there I’ll probably be ready for a good sleep.

Mrs H3 has deserted me to go to Dubai with her mum for few days (of course I’m not at all jealous…well not if she brings me back the bottle of Jack Daniels she promised!)

Not having a hectic social life over the weekend did give me a chance to get a bit of Autumn cleaning done and I now have a huge pile of stuff for the tip that will be going this week, so a nice tidy flat is assured (well as tidy as I can get being an inveterate hoarder!) by the time I go away.

On Wednesday evening I’m going for dinner at Lynnie Lou’s. It’ll be a good chance to catch up and have a gossip, as she’s been all tied up recently with sorting out her lovely new house. Then Saturday night is Heidi’s 40th birthday party, which reminds me that I need to make her a card.

So partying Saturday night followed by an early flight Sunday morning. Not a good combination but I’m sure I’ll manage, especially with the prospect of a week off work to look forward to – nicely timed too as I’ll have just finished with the latest round of talks/arguments on our new database and will be needing to get away!

A little part of me is still hoping to acquire some tickets for the Elbow concert which is the weekend after I get back from Spain, although I’m not holding out much hope. If anyone has a couple of tickets they want to donate please let me know (yes I know that’s even more unlikely than me being able to buy them, but you never know there might be some nice philanthropist out there who has a couple of tickets to spare.) *LOL*

I Am Kloot have released the dates of their latest tour. Unfortunately with the exception of two solo gigs by Johnny (both annoyingly in Manchester – one this coming Friday (and believe me I did look into going but it just wasn’t viable either financially or work wise) and one on 27th November – still not yet decided about that one) all the other dates are in places like Poland, Germany, Switzerland, Holland and Austria. Obviously I’m gutted about this as it’s now been 151 days since I last saw them live and to say I’m having withdrawal symptoms would be a major understatement. They are doing a gig in Dublin on 15th December which I am also considering, but I’m really hoping they are going to announce a few UK dates soon…and preferably ones down south. Not all IAK fans are from Manchester you know!

A Bit Late But It's The 'Tropic Thunder' Review

2008-09-28T23:49:00.002+01:00

Oops. I meant to have an update but got taken ill with a bad cold/chest infection so never got round to it. Still better late than never eh?

Okay so we went to see 'Tropic Thunder' a couple of weeks ago. Now as you know I wasn’t really looking forward to the film because of it containing Steve Coogan and Ben Stiller (no idea why I thought I disliked him as Dodgeball is still one of my all time favourite comedy films and he was very entertaining on Jonathan Ross the other week)

Now for Mrs H3 and I the laughter started before the film, during the trailer for the Jim Carrey film ‘Yes Man’ – which is a definite no-no for us so by the time ‘Satan’s Alley’ appeared (sorry you need to see the film to understand I’m afraid – so go watch it NOW!) we were already in stitches. I can honestly say that this didn’t stop for the whole movie nor for about an hour afterwards while we discussed it. Both of us were in agreement that if the film had been out on DVD we would have bought it immediately on leaving the cinema.

The star of the film wasn’t Ben Stiller, Jack Black or Robert Downey Jr. although they were all excellent, but Tom Cruise who stole the whole film with every scene he was in. Now I’m not (and neither is Mrs H3) a TC fan, in fact I’d be hard pushed to name a film of his that I’ve seen (and no I’ve never seen Top Gun) and we were both convinced that he’d make a perfect Wormtail (which has actually been our nickname for him for the last good few years) but it did leave me wondering whether I had misjudged him. Certainly he is perfect for comedic roles, especially those that require a foul-mouthed, badly dressed, badly dancing middle aged man, in fact he could probably give Hugh Grant a run for his money.

I can also say that from my point of view it was worth seeing for Steve Coogan even though I dislike him (or maybe because I dislike him), although I can’t say more without giving away the plot.

Anyway the long and the short is that the film is funny, very funny and if you enjoy Ben Stiller films, or Jack Black films then you’ll probably enjoy it. So go and see it and then you too can laugh over Satan’s Alley like Mrs H3 and I (and check out the website too which I’m not giving the addy for as it’ll mean nothing if you haven’t seen the film … Did I say go see the film already?)

*

Woohoo. I’ve got my new chair. Actually I’ve had it for a few weeks now but after mourning the death of my old chair it was only right to trumpet the acquisition of the new one (and people have actually been asking whether I’ve got it which is a bit freaky!)Anyway it’s a proper orthopaedic chair with loads of levers etc. and it was an absolute bargain as those sort of chairs go.

It also weighs a ton and I nearly put my back out trying to get the box up the stairs on my own (the delivery driver ran when he saw how many stairs it needed to go up). The box was so big it only just fitted on the stairs and I couldn’t actually close the door until it was about 4 steps up. Eventually it was just too heavy and the box started to rip so I let it fall back downstairs and brought up the pieces separately. When I finally reached the bottom of the box (almost as big as me so not good for my back) I found a piece of paper which said that the chair is heavy and needs two people to lift it! Nice of them NOT to put that on the outside of the box where it might have been more useful!

I ♥ Gary Numan

2008-09-14T21:16:00.004+01:00

Okay so I have to say this – I LOVE Gary Numan.

Now of course you all know that anyway. After all I fell in love with Gary when I was twelve, still was when I was twenty five and another seventeen years later I am even now completely and hopelessly smitten. I think it would be safe to say that this is an eternal love (unlike the Bay City Rollers – Dad you were right when you told me all those years ago that I wouldn't love them forever as I’d sworn when I was nine!)

I mention this because last Sunday night Mrs H3 and I went to see Gary at the O2 Indigo and it was bloody fantastic (yes I know it's taken forever to get this review up but I've been a busy girl). This is a nice intimate venue (with comfortable seats for us oldies and not so oldies) and with tickets in the Kings Row VIP bit we had a great view. Gary was on form having just returned from rain-soaked ‘Bestival’ where, according to reports, he wowed the crowd. He certainly did so last week, although to be fair it would have been hard not to with a room full of Numanoids eager to enjoy every moment of the concert.

The set was nice mix of the old and the new, Gary’s previously voiced intention to stop singing his old songs not materialising fortunately. I suspect that many of his older songs will never be heard live again, which is a shame, but there are those that fit into his current darker, more metallic sound like ‘Metal’ and ‘Films’ and those he’ll keep playing, reworked with the heavier feel and of course those old mainstays ‘Down in the Park’, ‘Cars’ and ‘Are Friends Electric?’ will never disappear.

The light show was, as ever, astonishing although too bright for me in places with the strobing effects and the sound level was high, causing almost total deafness in my left ear and partial deafness in the right (which took a day to return properly), although the bass wasn’t anywhere near as amplified as at the Brighton gig.

I left the concert feeling overwhelmingly contented; in fact I’d go as far as to say I used the ‘H’ word in relation to how I was feeling last week. Not being one of nature’s little sunbeams this state doesn't hit me often and it was a bit strange, but a nice feeling. Mrs H3 describes Gary’s music as angry and I think that fits as well as anything. Strange that such angry music should leave me feeling so happy, but then that’s the nature of love – it doesn't work the way you expect.

Mrs H3 took a photo or three and these (or some at least) should follow shortly.

Hurrah and Congratulations!

Just wanted to say a quick hurrah for Elbow who deservedly won the Mercury Music Prize on Tuesday night for their fabulous album ‘Seldom Seen Kid’ which I may have raved about on occasion. It was lovely to see Guy and the guys looking so happy at winning and yes Mrs H3 he still looked like a dustman! Unfortunately we hadn’t got round to getting tickets for their gig at the Roundhouse due to lack of money and of course they are now completely sold out. With tickets going for three times their face value plus now on e-bay I can safely say I won’t be seeing them this time round, instead sitting at home and moping miserably about not going without food for a week to get the tickets before they sold out.

Football

So I am the official fangirl of the Sherwood Oak Football Club and have started a blog to report on their games. Feel free to drop by and leave a comment, or just read about the team’s exploits and look at a few pictures of the guys in action. They really do need all the supporters they can get :)

Films and More

2008-08-27T23:04:00.001+01:00

Hurrah!

Finally there is a film out that’s worth paying good money to see.

‘Hellboy II: The Golden Army.’

Worth it alone for the very funny Barry Manilow scene (rated by MTV as the best moment of the summer) and definitely for Luke Goss’ portrayal of the elf prince (yep you KNOW I’m in love!), this film is superb. Far better than the original ‘Hellboy’ in my opinion, due I think to the ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’ type creatures that positively infest the movie, I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of the film in a way that I haven’t done for ages.

I would agree with Mrs H3’s assessment that the film bears little resemblance to the trailer though. I think the trailer misses out on the fact that this is basically a romance movie, albeit with monsters instead of humans (hence the Barry Manilow section).

However, don’t let that put you off. Guillermo del Toro has done another fine job with this film and has managed to pull off a mixture of arthouse and mainstream Hollywood in one wonderful film. If you love ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’ I’d think you’d like this film. If you haven’t seen ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’ see it immediately!

So the next film we’re likely to see is ‘Tropic Thunder’. Mrs H3 says it makes her laugh just thinking about it. Now I’m not sure whether this is because the film is genuinely funny or whether it’s because she’s thinking of me squirming over seeing it. Sure it has Jack Black and Robert Downey Jr, but it also has Ben Stiller and Steve Coogan and that can’t be good. However, I’m game for a laugh (which is why I refused to go and see ‘You Don’t Mess with the Zohan’) so we’ll go and see if it matches up to the trailer, which does actually have a funny scene in it (the bit with the kid for anyone who’s seen it).

Whilst at the cinema we saw a display for the new Kiefer flick ‘Mirrors’, which I tried to steal as it had an almost lifesize picture of Kiefer on it. The film’s not out till 3rd October, but is at least something to look forward to as it looks like ‘Twilight’ isn’t being released in the UK in November, instead appearing on the original release date of 9th January 2009.

Oh and note the countdown ticker – only 323 days till Harry Potter is out (see 10 days have gone already) … almost no time at all *LOL*

Finally, and for those that like to know these things (mum and dad mainly) I think I’ve broken my toe. Running late as ever, I caught my foot and bent my middle toe right back causing all sorts of pain. By this morning it was swollen and purpley black from the bruising and still painful. Of course there’s nothing I can do about it but wait for it to mend. It’s amazing how easy it is to hit your foot when you don’t want to!

Bleurgh!

2008-08-24T22:58:00.004+01:00

I hate it when a plan doesn’t come together.

There I was on Friday expecting to spend a happy night curled up on the sofa with my book and a couple of glasses of wine. Unfortunately, I spent the evening with my head over a bucket being sick as a very sick dog and trying not to pass out from dizziness instead. No idea why. I thought maybe food poisoning at the time, but after excessive sleep and a feeling of nausea all day on Saturday and continuing into today along with a headache which is only just beginning to fade it makes it more likely that I had a bug. Still fragile today, I have the dubious pleasure of feeling like I spent all day yesterday doing abdominal crunches where my muscles have seized up after all that retching.

Still on the bright side I’ve finished the book and finally know what all the fuss was about (yes of course I checked out the furore as soon as I was done with it, although I’m saving the podcasts for when I go back to work). Not being religious or extremist and being perfectly well aware that vampires don’t really exist, at least not in the way the Cullen’s are portrayed, I actually had little problem with the book.

For me it was every bit as enjoyable as the previous three and the story was just as unlikely as any of the prequels. I can’t really say much without giving away spoilers, unfair for anyone who is yet likely to read it, but I’d have said the story was pretty much predictable for anyone who has a basic grasp of the characters and their motivations. This sounds like a criticism, but it really isn’t. For me the series read exactly like what it was, a teenage romance that just happened to involve supernatural characters.

As I said before I’m a sucker for vampire stories and also for romances, so it fit perfectly into my reading schedule. It reminded me in some ways of the fantastic Freda Warrington vampire series – ‘Taste of Blood Wine’; ‘A Dance in Blood Velvet’ and ‘The Dark Blood of Poppies’, although Freda’s books are far better written and much more adult in tone. I know these books seem to be rare as hen’s teeth to get hold of but if you prefer less teen romance, more classic vampire seduction then definitely check out these books. They are firmly in my top three favourite vampire series of all time, along with Brian Lumley’s ‘Necroscope’ series and of course the quintessential vampire stories by Anne Rice.

In retrospect I don’t regret buying ‘Breaking Dawn’ at all. Yes I was weak-willed as Mrs H3 so kindly pointed out, but I needed to know what happened and now I do and am very happy because of that. And now I look forward to ‘Midnight Sun’, the retelling of ‘Twilight’ from Edward Cullen’s perspective; mainly because I feel it will be interesting to see how the author deals with the vampire side of things properly and I won’t be able to resist reading romance from Edward's viewpoint.

But what to read next? Well I’m currently reading the new Jeffrey Deaver ‘The Sleeping Doll’, that I started last week before I bought ‘Breaking Dawn’ and I’m rereading all the Harry Potters (currently close to finishing ‘Goblet of Fire’). I really want to read Matthew Reilly’s ‘Six Sacred Stones’, the follow-on to ‘Seven Ancient Wonders’ that I thoroughly enjoyed, as soon as I go shopping in Asda to buy a copy. But I’m now wondering whether it might be time to re-read the classic vampire stories I love, after all it’s been a few years since I read the Freda Warrington, the Anne Rice and the Brian Lumley. Oh and while I think of it, maybe its time to dig out George R R Martin’s wonderful ‘Fevre Dream’ too.

A Little Light Weekend Reading

2008-08-22T18:00:00.005+01:00

Okay so I caved in and bought ‘Breaking Dawn’ the final book in the ‘Twilight’ series by Stephenie Meyer. I wasn’t going to, in fact I was determined to wait until the paperback came out; knowing that although I’d enjoyed the first three I could (just about) bear to wait for the paperback to find out what happened.

Except of course I couldn’t.

Now I think I did pretty well considering. I mean the book’s been out for over a fortnight now, so I didn’t crumble at the first hurdle and pre-order from Amazon, nor did I go to the midnight launch party (been there and done that with HP). Even after a couple of days I was standing firm. I didn’t even crumble when the internet was filled with stories about fan backlash with the ending – I just ignored the stories (with some difficulty) even though I was of course dying to know what happened and just why everyone was so upset. But then spoilers started appearing everywhere. On You Tube video comments; on the ‘Twilight’ sites (of course) and more annoyingly, on the Harry Potter sites, as there is a huge crossover of fans between the two series. Still I managed to stay rigid. But then came the onslaught of the podcasts.

Now I listen to a lot of podcasts, and especially to Harry Potter ones like Snapecast, Pottercast and Mugglecast (to name just three of the many). Of course ‘Twilight’ is big news everywhere right now and has been discussed briefly on previous podcasts, but now ‘everyone’ has read the final book the spoilers and more in depth discussion on the books themes are starting on there too. Mugglecast even did an interview with Stephenie. To have to turn off a perfectly interesting podcast halfway through because I’m one of the few people who hasn’t yet read the conclusion to the Cullen saga is frankly annoying.

Unable to go without my podcast fixes and unwilling to ruin the ending of what seems so far like a perfectly good book with heavy duty spoilers I finally gave in this lunchtime and bought a copy. As at this moment I am 204 pages into it (yes, like the others it is pretty easy reading) with another 550 to go. With no plans for this weekend I guess I know now what I’ll be doing; although if it’s anything like reading the HP books I won’t be able to put it down till it’s over.

Expect a late night and a few glasses of wine as I join Bella, Edward and Jacob for one last story (until ‘Midnight Sun’ comes out of course). I can always sleep tomorrow night!

The Sunday Morning Ramble

2008-08-17T11:18:00.005+01:00

I’m writing a little uncomfortably today. My trusty computer chair which my parents bought me as a Christmas present some eight or nine years ago has finally given up the ghost and died. It has survived many years of sitting, wriggling and using as a step ladder. The material was frayed and the padding coming out, but still I sat on that rather than my sofa. It had lost an arm somewhere along the way and the height mechanism no longer worked, but it was a good chair nonetheless. Until Friday night when the metal frame, after years of wear and tear finally sheared dumping me unceremoniously on the floor. RIP to my fabulous chair. I just hope I can find one as good to replace it. If anyone has any recommendations please let me know.

******

Although I’m still upset about the Harry Potter film reschedule (did I mention that at all?), some good news may be just around the corner. Summit have announced that they are moving ‘Twighlight’ into the empty spot left by Harry Potter in the US at any rate. Disappointingly, they were originally intending to release the film in the UK a month after the US release (I really hate when they do that … remember “Sweeney Todd”?), but I’m hoping that they’ll realise with the big furore over the Potter film, and the huge launch of ‘Breaking Dawn’ they have the perfect launch date and they’ll make it a worldwide thing. (Excuse the gratuitous poster below. Any excuse to gaze at the gorgeous Robert Pattinson - loving the golden eyes!)

So here’s to hoping that Twilight hits the UK cinemas on 21st November!

And to help with my wait for ‘Half Blood Prince’ I’ve added a ticker to my blog – Only another 333 days to go!

The Angry Ranting Bit

2008-08-15T21:02:00.003+01:00

Yep I’m pissed off … extremely pissed off. With Warner Brothers. I’m sure by now that everyone knows that the release of ‘Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince’ has been put back by eight, count ‘em, EIGHT months due to Warner Brothers money grabbing attitude.

Now I know I’m not alone in being upset. The Leaky Cauldron crashed from the number of people trying to access the site and comment on their disgust of the situation – over 600 comments in 2 hours, and reports in various world newspapers about petitions and boycotts from what are described by the LA Times as "amongst the most intense devotees in contemporary pop culture" show that the fans are very angry indeed.

This isn’t helped when WB executives release statements which give away their true intentions. Blaming the recent writers strike is useful but doesn’t cover up the fact they’re hoping to make more money by waiting till next July, especially when IMAX produce a press release saying exactly that. After the understandable outrage from the HP fandom at the date change WB’s President Alan Horn was quoted as saying that he acknowledged that the studio would have to pacify fans in the months to come: “We would never do anything to hurt one of the movies or the series. We love our fans.” Mr Horn certainly doesn’t use my definition of the word love!

The first pacifiers came quickly. After months of nothing much in the way of promotional material suddenly there were new pictures: including Snape, Narcissa Malfoy and Bellatrix Lestrange performing the unbreakable vow; Snape and McGonagall with the golden trio examining the charmed necklace and the Slug Club meeting and Christmas party.

Nice to see especially for a Snape fangirl like me (maybe Snape will get more than ten minutes of playing time in this movie after all – a must surely considering the book (and film) is really called Harry Potter and Severus Snape), but annoying too. Forget the pictures and just give us the film!

I guess that explains why the official trailer wasn’t released with ‘The Mummy’ as had been touted by WB at the end of last month, however the publicity machine has already been gearing up for the November release so it will be interesting to see what happens when they have to promote next July. Entertainment Weekly (a huge magazine in the States) is running their 7 page feature on the film this month (it hits the newsstands today) and I am sure there will be others. Hard to see how this missed publicity will be recaptured when the film finally comes out.

So now I have to wait until 17th July 2009 to see the film. WB have helpfully pointed out that this means less of a wait for film 7 – ‘The Deathly Hallows Part 1’ which is due out on 19 November 2010 (assuming of course they don’t shift that date to a more profitable one too), but that doesn’t help. I expected the wait for the next film. I didn’t expect to have to wait another eight months for this one.

Interestingly, as part of the EW article, Steve Kloves (writer of 5 of the 6 HP scripts so far) says that he has just finished the first draft of HP7 Pt1. He is quoted as saying that they (I assume he means WB) are worried that with the end of the book series that the popularity of the franchise will drop and they won’t have an audience for the last films. Perhaps he and the executives at WB ought to take a look at the HP fandom before making stupid statements like that. Not only does it show no signs of diminishing, the number of people enjoying the books and films increases every year as more young readers (and adults willing to take a chance) pick up the stories. The main reason WB are likely to lose an audience is through stupid moves like the one they pulled yesterday!

The Music Bit

2008-08-13T22:24:00.004+01:00

So as well as lounging around eating ice cream and watching the latest blockbusters Mrs H3 and I have also been enjoying the music.

On Thursday 3rd July we were back at the O2, this time seeing Duran Duran. This was a weird experience for me. It was promoting their last album ‘Red Carpet Massacre’ which I have to admit I’d not listened to after the first couple of days of owning it as I wasn’t overly keen on it and so I don't know the words to any of the songs. It was odd to be at a concert and not singing along except to ‘Falling Down’, especially as Mrs H3 and everyone around me was. Of course they also didn't play any of the songs I really liked from the album so I actually, and I really hate to admit this, found myself a bit bored at various points throughout the night. Of course things livened up when they played the old tracks and overall I will admit that the evening was excellent and I did thoroughly enjoy it.

I was unlucky enough to be stuck behind a fat bird with fat hair to match (yes I am aware that I’m not Twiggy) who was dancing like she was having an epileptic fit for the whole concert. Every time I tried to get a picture or video the stage, in fact even just look at it she was in front of me waving her big hair around all over the place. Although we were pretty near the front of the venue I spent most of the evening watching the band on the big screen as it gave me an unobstructed view of Simon.

Mrs H3 says that I’ve been different about Duran Duran since their treatment of me in New Orleans. And I think she’s right. Whilst I didn't expect them to stop and talk to me I didn’t think it was too much to expect a smile or a wave, having travelled so far to see them, especially considering there were so few people there. On their fan club website and when they are on stage they are always going on about caring about their fans, but I saw no sign of that at Voodoofest and being cynical it is easy to think they are just about making money.

That cynicism is even easier to have when you discover that the VIP packages that they sell for an extortionate amount of money (I believe the O2 ones were about £400) aren't so VIP after all. My idea of VIP is for a select group of people to be given the chance to have the top seats and the experience of meeting the band etc. At O2 there were 150 VIP packages sold – certainly not my idea of select, and they were sitting only a few rows in front of us. Did they get to meet the band beforehand? I don’t know but according to the information on the website it’s not always guaranteed. This year I also decided not to buy a programme (and actually stuck to that) and the t-shirt stand was left well alone as they didn't seem to have anything under £20 (the blingy t shirt I liked was £35!). Of course as much as I moan I will still renew my fan club membership and be nervously waiting for tickets the next time they tour, so I guess I’m not too cynical just yet.

In the end we decided against going to the Mighty Boosh festival, mainly due to a severe lack of money and so our next musical outing was to see the rescheduled Pete Doherty show at the Royal Albert Hall. Now obviously we had been eagerly awaiting this since Pete had got himself put in prison back in April and I’m sure Mrs H3 was the same as me in hoping that he didn't do anything stupid before Saturday 12th July came. Fortunately he didn't and the show went ahead as planned.

And it was brilliant. I know a lot of people knock Pete for his drug habit but they are being unfair. If you didn’t listen to a band/singer because of drug taking there would be very few bands left in the world, and the ones left would generally be pretty boring. Pete really does have a wonderful voice; he’s a brilliant songwriter and a consummate performer. When he appeared on stage he was well dressed in a suit, completely clean and sober and drinking tea. Oh and he wasn’t wearing his trademark hat either.

The audience dynamic was interesting to say the least. A mix of hard core fans who are more used to him playing venues like the Tap ‘n’ Tin, seat owners who had come along purely to see what all the fuss was about and others like Mrs H3 and I who just enjoy good music and a good evening out. We were lucky enough to have front row seats in one of the boxes and so had an excellent view of the proceedings.

As the evening went on it was clear that some of the die hards were having trouble with the RAH concept of sitting still and watching the performance. Occasionally they tried to get up and dance but were asked to sit down, this wasn’t what they wanted or were used to. Pete did make a couple of mentions to it, at the beginning asking if everyone was sitting comfortably, and later saying he’d been told by another artist that the best bit about being at the Royal Albert Hall was the respectful silences between songs – his die hard fans didn’t shut up for a moment.

What amazed and impressed us most was his ability to keep going under difficult circumstances. At one point in the evening a guy in the front row was trying to get him to talk to his girlfriend on the phone in the middle of ‘East of Eden’. Pete stopped singing, asked the guy to turn his phone off and then carried on pitch perfect from where he’d left off as if he’d never stopped singing. Shortly after the same man was evicted from the hall after he threw a bottle of water at Pete.

Unfortunately the Royal Albert Hall chose to only have two of their bars open during the short interval and so we missed the first few songs of the second half (including ‘For Lovers’ which I’d been hoping he’d play) as we and a million other people were still queuing for water and the evening was cut short by a stage invasion at the beginning of his encore, which effectively ended the show. However, yet again, even with the stage filling around him he only actually stopped singing when the crowd dragged him too far away from the microphone to be heard. I just hope he had as good an evening as he appeared to be having. I know Mrs H3 and I did, although more than a little disappointed at losing the final fifteen minutes of what could have been an amazing encore.

I was worried that as usual the reviews would show the old drugged up pictures of Pete that they always seem to reel out for stories about him and that the stage invasion would be used against him. Fortunately there were only a few that used this tactic, the rest being fair and respectful and even using pictures of him from the evening which showed how good he was looking. The event was filmed and so hopefully at some point in the near future everyone will be able to see just what a good evening those of us at the RAH had that night.

Since then it’s been all quiet on the music front, although we do have plans to see Gary Numan at O2 Indigo on 7th September and hopefully, when I can afford the tickets, Elbow at the Roundhouse in October. By then I’m hoping the I Am Kloot guys will be back from their festivals and touring again as it’s now been 105 days since I last saw them and I’m having serious withdrawal symptoms. Having caught part of their performance at Latitude on the TV I see that Johnny has had his hair cut and I approve. I think he looks better without the long curls.

A New Game

I think I’ve mentioned in the past that I’m not as happy with my new phone as I could be. Although it’s lovely and pink it takes really crap photos and even worse video. It is so bad that I’ve decided to create a new game for Mrs H3. It’s similar in style to the old ‘Shooting Stars’ game where Vic would sing a song in a club style and the guests had to guess the song. I’m going to do the same with my concert footage. By the time the sound goes through my phone it comes out just as thumping bass. So the game is guess the song, the singer and the concert. With clips to choose from My Chemical Romance, IAK, Gary Numan, Duran Duran and Pete Doherty it should be interesting – especially as they all sound pretty much the same!