Brainwashed

Distressingly today Derby are up against a team that hasn't won a game all season. Of course if you ever want a sequence like that breaking, just call for Derby and we’ll sort it. Predictably the most secure home banker of home bankers duly occurs. Although it might not save Roy Keane’s job. Remember that we managed to get poor old Garth Southgate sacked even though his Middlesbrough side beat us. A mere 2-0 victory against Derby clearly isn’t good enough for anybody these days.

Our ‘chairman of football’ has deserted the sinking ship. Saying he’s off to ‘pursue new challenges’. All very bizarre. He had the biggest challenge on the planet here. He won't really be missed, he was once the real chairman but was moved sideways when the club was bought out. The role seemed to be purely there for the sake of giving him a job. Strangely now the role has been binned. Were we the first team to have a ‘chairman of’ football, as opposed to a ‘director of’?

We have an interesting night out planned this evening. I go to my first ever gig in Leeds, festivals apart. I wouldn’t normally travel this far for a band but tonight’s entertainment are Canadian and may not be over here again for a long time, if ever, and the options were London, Bristol, Manchester or Leeds... so here we are at the snappily named Brainwash Festival.

The Brainwash Festival is in its fourth year and is a bit like Nottingham’s Dot-to-Dot, numerous live bands staged in various venues and in this case over three days. It is also in aid of good causes, this year being Unicef, Leeds St. Gemma’s Hospice and Sheffield Children’s Hospital.

To be honest there’s nobody else we’ve come all this way for but still I’m intrigued to see what two bands I am at least aware of, namely Hot Club De Paris and Pulled Apart By Horses, are like.

We arrive at the venue, which is near Leeds University, in the middle of the set by South Wales’s Taint. Who are it has to be said a little hard on my hearing but appear to be to the liking of a fair portion of the assembled crowd tonight. Their ‘interesting’ not-quite-hardcore, aggressive, punk-ish rock but edging towards prog rock (I was just counting the riffs) rattles off the walls. They certainly generate quite a fervour and have the most sweat drenched drummer I've ever seen but I’m afraid I find my bottle of Hobgoblin much better company. Their penultimate track is so long and so riff filled, having about five false finishes that it almost finishes us off. Then they announce one more. A short one thankfully and one of their better numbers, not just because of its brevity.

My bottle of Hobgoblin turns out to be 5.2% and not the draft equivalent which is 4.5%. I hate it when they do that. As I’m driving this is bad news. If that’s my first concern, my second is that L and I are underdressed for the gig or perhaps we’re overdressed. There are some seriously bad/wild outfits but I’m guessing it's all in aid of Halloween and this lot don’t normally dress like this. Perhaps.

There’s a bit of a sea change next with Liverpudlians Hot Club de Paris. The hardcore audience seems to have departed and a new lot have been ‘bused’ in. Hot Club de Paris come on stage and promptly kit themselves out in Halloween masks and capes.



Then they treat us to a satisfying dose of slightly shambolic experimental indie. ‘Math Rock’ I believe it’s called. Brothers Matt and Alasdair Smith also have a good line in witty banter, at least I think it was witty banter as some of it needed an interpreter. ‘Scouse wit’ I believe it’s called. They also have some infectious tunes when they get around to playing them. Their set was shorter than it needed to be mainly due to the excess of banter; they could really have played a few more had they got on with it but I guess that’s all part of their charm.



The crowd were polite and appreciate which is a bit different to what we get next. The crowd seem to have handed over the baton again and the floor suddenly becomes packed. From heads nodding admiringly to Hot Club’s jangly guitars we get full heads of excitable hair being thrashed frantically around in all directions, as a bunch of sailor boys take the stage. Well sailor boys with a gristly blood speckled Halloween twist.



Pulled Apart By Horses are local boys and boy does it show. The crowd leap into life and explode into the aforementioned mass of hair. The band think they're headlining this festival, the crowd think they’re headlining and in most probability they are. They clearly have a large fan base and a very passionate one.

They are apparently well known for their frenzied live performances and tonight I can see why. Total disorder ensues. Folklore has it that band members have been known to get injured and on one notorious occasion even got hospitalised. Watching them and their faithful perform, one can see why and see the appropriateness of their name.



Their music is a combination of heavy guitars, pounding drum rhythms and vocalist Tom Hudson yelping over the top and is not at all to my liking. They bulldoze the crowd into submission with their heavy ear drum punishment and snappy titles such as 'Meat Balloon', 'E = MC Hammer' and 'High Five, Swan Dive, Nose Dive' which is accompanied by High Fives all round. Somewhere in there is a tune fighting to get out.

Their final song ends with their guitarist handing over his instrument to someone who I think came out of the crowd. He takes over guitar duties before climbing up on to one of the speakers. The crowd then storm the stage and the lead singer along with the now ex-guitarist go the other way, diving into the crowd. Lively gig indeed. Follow that Handsome Furs.

Actually I’m not sure who booked this gig for the Handsome Furs but I guess the band just wanted to play a few gigs over here and took whatever they could get. They’re not so much part of Brainwash as tacked on the end. They’re due on at the late hour of midnight, by which time the bar is closing. So they seem like an afterthought and as a consequence, post Pulled Apart By Horses, and with drink no longer available, the place is already emptying fast.

Handsome Furs don’t look bothered. I think they’re on holiday. I mean what do you do when you fancy a break from your day job (in Dan Boeckner’s case his band Wolf Parade). I suppose you and the wife could redecorate the spare room or you could team up, knock out at couple of albums and then take a vacation touring it around several countries.

They also don’t aid the issue of crowd retention by not getting on with it. The wife, Alexei Perry, is unhappy with the table she’s been given for her synth and electronic gadgets. Then just as we think they’re about to start, singer Dan Boeckner announces the need for a ‘slash’ and a long one at that. Consequently a few more people head for the door. That’s a shame because when they finally come on stage at 12.20 and faced with a 1am curfew they are a treat for the small crowd who have stayed.

After a brief explanation that they’re from Montreal, Canada and are really glad to be here, Alexei kicks off her shoes and the husband and wife team start with ‘Legal Tender’, the opening track on their new album, ‘Face Control’. It’s one of the best albums of this year, it deserves a good live performance, and we get one.

The infectious ‘Talking Hotel Arbat Blues’ is next and seamlessly followed by ‘All We Want Baby Is Everything’. Their sound is simple but effective, heavy guitar over an electronic backing track with Boeckner’s distinct vocals to top it off.

They’re also setting a furious pace, perhaps because they know they’re now on a deadline. They’re also putting everything they have into it. Boeckner strums his guitar like a man possessed and pours out his vocals. He does though need to get the hang of microphone stands, whilst draping the microphone around your neck may look cool, it must make performing a tad more difficult.



In some ways it's a solo performance from Boeckner with his missus there to hit the right buttons for the effects, the samples and the correct drum programme whilst adding a few synth lines here and there. That would be a little unfair though, because she does so with such panache and acrobatics. Her performance is in some ways more engrossing than that of her husband’s. Constantly pogoing with her bare feet on the wooden stage, sometimes on two feet, more often on one and surely she’s smacking herself in the face with all that silverware around her neck. The pair go great together, clearly enjoying themselves and seemingly pleased to be there to entertain us. Exhausted with her effort, Perry theatrically collapses to the floor after each track.



‘Evangeline’ is a little slower and should have offered them a bit of a respite but they don’t let up and soon up the pace again with the cracking single 'I’m Confused'.

Russian influences appear everywhere. No more so than on 'Nyet Spasiba', which translates as 'no thank you'. The title of their album ‘Face Control’ also refers to the fact that if your face doesn’t fit over there, even when it comes to merely getting into a nightclub, no amount of cash will buy you entry.



I incorrectly assume that the album closer, the wonderful 'Radio Kaliningrad', will be the set closer too but no, they have one more for us. A new song ‘Agony’, which also sounds great. When this will be released with Wolf Parade now starting up again I’m not sure.

No chance of an encore with the curfew hour now upon us but a cracking show none the less. Now all we’ve got to do is drive home at this late hour. Yesterday they blocked the M6 for us; tonight they go one better and completely close the M1. We take a scenic 2am detour through Sheffield. Nightmare.

More Than Just A Chance To Ogle

My calf seems oddly better this morning. This is a good job too, because the rolling pin is sitting on the bookcase winking at me. I can see it’s itching for another go.

I test my fitness with a limp around the park with the dogs before we then get in the car and head up the M6 to the Manchester Velodrome. It’s round one of the World Track Cup and we’re becoming regulars. We arrive later than planned due to a predictable M6 nightmare where they close a lane on us and cause a 45 minute tailback.

As we kind of expected Great Britain dominated the day. Although even Chris Hoy had us worried at times. He was not leading from the front in the early rounds of the Keirin as he usually does but instead he was leaving it late and coming from the back to the win those races. Still, win he did, of that there’s no doubt. He certainly turned on the style in the final though, leaving everyone for dead including current world champion Maximilian Levy of Germany, the man who has the misfortune of next year having to defend the world title he took whilst Hoy was out injured.



Victoria Pendleton looked rusty in the sprint and had to fight decidedly hard to beat Olga Panarina of Belarus in the semi-final, losing the first race of three before winning the other two. She was also taken to a third and deciding race in the final by China's Shuang Guo before winning by the narrowest of margins.

She will need to keep looking over her shoulder as we witnessed the next generation of sprinters in Jess Varnish and Becky James, who although eliminated in the early rounds then ended battling through to set up an intriguing head to head for the lower points placings.

Here is the future of British track sprinting



Oops, none of the stars seem to have any qualms about stripping off in front of the crowd. Here they are again dressed and about to do battle.



Probably the most impressive performances came from a very tactically astute Chris Newton who was on top form to win the Points Race and then there was Geraint Thomas. Thomas is already an Olympic gold medallist in the team pursuit but doesn’t usually ride the individual version. However in only his third race in the individual he dominated the competition. In qualifying he set the second fastest individual pursuit time ever, bettered only by Chris Boardman's world record in August 1996, in what is now an outlawed riding position. He then went on to catch his opponent Belgium's Dominique Cornu in the final with two laps of the race remaining. Naturally he’s gutted that the event is set to be dropped from the Olympics

Then finally David Daniell, starting third last, set the fastest time in the 1km time-trial but was then beaten by the last lap spurt put on by, the last man to ride, current world champion Stefan Nimke, of Germany. Still silver behind the world champ isn’t too shifty. Keep a tight hold on that title Stefan, he’s coming to get you.

So a good day out, more than just a chance to ogle the Lycra clad women, while L ogles the Lycra clad men obviously, a great days racing.

Massage Techniques

I decide to run into work and it goes well, really enjoyable. That is until the last half a kilometre when my calf went and I had to hobble the rest of the way. This is really worrying as this is the first time something has ‘gone’ without being provoked e.g. putting a foot down a pot hole, slipping on something, falling off a kerb... I was just running gently on totally flat ground. What’s worse is that I have squash tonight. I just hope it loosens up during the day.

L offers to help; she says she’s learnt some new massage techniques at the gym... the gym? The mind boggles as to what they get up to in there. Good job I’m the trusting sort. She offers to try them out on my calf tonight. Only on my calf? That’s disappointing but apparently it hurts that much, she guarantees me that my calf will be the only place I’ll want it.

Daughter was supposed to be at the Bloc Party gig last night but I think she went boxing instead, that is judging by the right old bruise on her cheek. She reckons she got trampled underfoot in the mosh several times. Several times? Must have been enjoyable then.

This reminds me of the rules of mosh pit survival that we developed in our student years. Vital tips such as always remove your watch and put it in your pocket unless you like seeing it flying across the floor. Also any neck chains, should someone try and hang you with them and ear rings, a mate of mine once almost lost half his ear. We had no advice for nose piercing as they were rare in those days but I guess the same advice exists, just ask Daughter. Luckily we didn’t have mobile phones to protect, whereas these days I assume you need to update your Facebook status to ‘trampled’ in order to rouse a search party to find you. Another tip is to always wear shoes with laces and double lace them, less you lose one or both of them. Someone is usually good enough to throw them on stage for you. Ideally wear either good stout boots so that no one can crush your toes (failing that at least you can kick them back) or trainers with a good bounce so you can keep on the move and out of the way of trouble. Certainly don’t wear any clothes you value because you’re sure to get them ripped, I’ve had many a rare band t-shirt shredded and for girls nothing skimpy unless of course you’re in there for the grope.

I’ve been trying to jog up and down the stairs at work to loosen my calf, it isn’t working. I get the bus home and try jogging bits of the way from the bus stop. I can only manage short bursts, not good but probably good enough for squash. As I resort to walking, a girl jogs past me, and it really was only a jog, but try as I might I can’t catch up with her again. How embarrassing.

My squash opponent has been on holiday for two weeks and ill for three. Good idea that, go on holiday when you’ll ill. So hopefully he won’t be running around much either. The more ill he is, the better really. I’ll take any means of getting a win.

It goes ok. I hop around the squash court, only miss around half a dozen balls because of the limp and even win a game. Can hardly walk now though.

L is offering red hot Caribbean at home and recommends drinking plenty of fluids first. So I make sure I have a pint after our game. I assume by Caribbean she means food and it’s not the name of her new massage technique. Either way it sounds like it’s going to be quite a night. Then she meets me at the door with a rolling pin and I start having second thoughts.

The rolling pin turns out to be an integral part of the new massage technique, well the only part really. Just what do they teach them in the gym? As ever she does pain so well. Just before I black out, I have a moment of clarity and realise what the plan is. Something to do with getting me begging to take her to see a certain Michael Holbrook Penniman Jnr (otherwise known as M*k* to you and me) by the time she's finished with me.

No Biscuit For Him Tonight

A decent cycle this morning, in glorious weather. Well apart from the fact that some comedian had stretched tape across the alleyway that links two streets near our house, presumably with the aim of trying to decapitate a few cyclists with the blunt tape. As I get there, two fellow rouleurs were trying to hack their way through with a cyclist’s multi-tool. These useful gadgets boast dozens of different uses but I don’t believe this was advertised as one of them.

Daughter sends through a nice photo of MD, settled comfortably on the settee. No sure why she wasn’t yelling at him to get off. All the same, no biscuit for him tonight.

After the ride home, it’s a quick snack and then out again as we head down to Rock City. Security is a bit over the top at the place tonight, not only do we see people chucked out for attaining drinks under age and for smoking, no complaints there, but we have an overzealous patrol of the staircase that is our vantage point of choice. For the last ten to fifteen years everybody has lined both sides of the staircase and people passed along the stairs through the middle. It’s not a perfect system but it works. Tonight security seems intent on keeping one side of the stairs and the handrail clear for access. Of course they have to keep doing this all night, as once they’ve moved one crowd on another new lot would appear to take their place. All they achieve is squashing more people up at one side of the stairs and then when the handrail fills up again mid-gig the stairs are completely blocked and no one can move anywhere. Well until security turns up again. They need to sort this one out. Either leave it be, sell a few less tickets or get their wallet out and widen the stairs.

When we last caught Grammatics supporting Red Light Company we were quite enamoured with their slightly oddball sound. Tonight though they seem to play very few of the tracks that they played that night, either that or they’ve heavily rearranged them. If it’s all new material they play then I’m not terribly impressed because the result is actually rather dull. It appears it’s not only me who quickly gets bored with them, as the increasing level of chattering voices and the queues at the bars show a lot of the audience has found something better to do.

Even their Swedish connection, the lovely Emilia, again with her black stocking clad thighs wrapped around her cello, doesn’t intrigue me tonight and her cello, so prominent before, seems slightly irrelevant tonight.



Despite the lack of enthusiasm from the crowd, the assembled throng do occasionally take a break from updating Facebook to applaud at the end of each song and even participate in a bit of a brief hand clap at one point.

Mind you I wouldn’t wish the task of opening for Bloc Party on anyone. Warming up is one thing a Bloc Party crowd certainly don’t need, perhaps Grammatics were given the brief to calm everyone down.

Once they’ve departed the crowd get down to their own warm ups, pogoing to the background music whilst lobbing in the odd random chant of ‘Bloc Party’ for good measure. Then eventually to the accompaniment of a communal shriek, and a salvo of badly aimed glow sticks, the band arrive. Strobe lights drench the stage and we’re off, running and jumping to ‘One Month Off’.



When Bloc Party originally announced their tour dates to promote last year's 'Intimacy' album I was appalled at their decision to play two nights a piece in just three cities outside London during January; namely Glasgow, Manchester, Wolverhampton. Were they now too big to remember their fan base? Thankfully not, the band has toured tirelessly for the last few years and are now back in the UK where they are in the middle of a sizeable UK tour throughout October, known as Bloctober. This tour visits, well, just about everywhere. I apologise. True professionals. Albeit probably knackered ones.

Kele Okereke, shockingly sawn now of his dreadlocks, appears as relaxed and chatty with the fanatical crowd as ever. Seemingly still enjoying being up there before his public, giving no fuel to the rumours, mainly started by the band themselves, that this mega tour may be their last. If not for good, at least for some time. So potentially this is could be a farewell tour.

Next up the classic ‘Like Eating Glass’ before they descend into a run of four tracks off their most recent album. Which is fine if that album rocks your boat, as it clearly does for all those down the front. Personally I find it a rather messy and unnecessarily noisy record where they are perhaps trying too hard to be different but then I’m just old. Tonight a lot of the ‘Intimacy’ stuff just blends into a bit of an amorphous but hugely popular mass.



It’s already become a pretty chaotic and sweat filled night down on the floor, so after the jarring seizures of ‘Mercury’ and the slightly more tempered ‘Talons’, Kele slows things down to give everyone a rest with the rather beautiful ‘Signs’.

At one point the stage is besieged with a barrage of ‘Asda products’, I think they were crisps. I’ve no idea why. I heard someone once lobbed some tulips on stage to get that particular old favourite played but crisps?

The complex electronics of ‘Trojan Horse’ restores the chaos and continues the mythology theme. A couple of cuts from 'A Weekend in the City' follow, namely the rockier numbers ‘Hunting For Witches’ and ‘Song For Clay (Disappear Here)’. Excellent numbers both of them.

Bloc Party are always an engaging band to watch. Russell, on guitar, keeps his head down throughout putting in his usual workmanlike performance whilst Gordon alternates between his bass guitar and his synthesizer for the newer stuff. Oh and the occasional glockenspiel. Then there’s the near naked Matt Tong putting in a shift above and beyond the call of duty on drums.



Despite the electronic shift in style, the band remain at their best when playing their guitar driven stuff and old favourite ‘Banquet’ raises the tempo ever higher, if that’s possible, and the staircase we are stood on develops an unsettling sideways movement.

The highlight though is probably ‘Kreuzberg’, a rarity live according to Kele, although reworked a little tonight, it still sounds awesome and suggests that perhaps more should have been played from ‘A Weekend In The City’, their much maligned second album.

Instead we get ‘Luno’ from ‘Silent Alarm’ which is good but wouldn’t have been top of my choices. One thing you get with Bloc Party is variety because they appear to rip up their set list after every show and start a new one. So if you see them tomorrow 50% of the set would be different and they have the back catalogue to get away with this.

Their newest release ‘One More Chance’ sounds good tonight as does an old favourite ‘This Modern Love’ and the closing ‘The Prayer’.



They return with Kele announcing that we are only half way through the night and asks whether the crowd are up for the second half. They assure him they are. Golden oldie ‘So Here We Are’ is followed by the oddly popular Chemical Brothers-esk (God of) war anthem ‘Ares’. A song which is chaos on stage and chaos on the floor.

Their impromptu November 2007 bit of electro-pop, the single ‘Flux’ follows before naturally ‘Helicopter’ tops things off.

Performance and energy wise the band again don’t disappoint. It’s clear they still has the passion to perform for their fans and Kele announces ‘see you next time’. So perhaps not farewell after all.

We amble up to the Ropewalk to wind down with a few jars.

A Common Marketing Strategy

L is very affectionate this morning. I just hope I didn’t agree to something Mika related in a moment of passion.

It’s a bit damp out but it doesn’t actually rain on me as I bike in, contrary to what the gloomy forecast said.

It’s not been that long since it reopened but Derby’s Rockhouse has announced it’s to close again, probably for good. It’s just failed to make any money. It’s a shame but I’m not surprised. We needed the Rockhouse five years ago but it timed it’s comeback not only in a recession but also just after The Royal had established itself as Derby’s première music venue. I’m afraid I have to say the The Royal is the better venue as well. I hope someone takes over the Rockhouse but I can’t see it, as I don’t think Derby can sustain two similar music venues.

I cycle to the pool where I have a challenging swim, trying to keep out the way of a psycho who is doing four lengths to every three of mine. Every time he overtakes me he knocks me sideways with the huge wake he creates as he power boats past me.

By the time I’ve finished my thirty lengths I’m in need of something strong and I meet L afterwards for a coffee. L’s had the day off and has been over in Derby meeting her parents for coffee and presumably cake. She was impressed by the cafe where they meet, although this may be because the Maitre d' (or whatever the term is) called her a young lady and gave her a kiss as she left. A common marketing strategy I believe. She says she’d definitely going back there. I might accompany her and take my best glare.

Google have relented on the 2000 label limit for blogger and have now upped it to 5000. Obviously I’m not under that yet, having a meagre 9645, but I can probably work with that if my archiving works. They say the limit is due to ‘performance issues’ which I can understand but it’s a bit odd, as all I’m doing is splitting all my labels over separate blogs. I assume everyone else will do the same.

She’s Beginning To Sound Like Me

I leave for work in the car at the usual time but because the roads are so quiet I arrive well early. I forgot it was half term. Which is odd because I was talking to Daughter this morning about her half-term lunches order of Ritz crackers, cherry flavoured mouth wash and vodka, whilst she was preparing to head off Alton Towers. Guess I’ve just got used to these part-time A level students.

There’s some Halloween thing going on at Alton Towers, including fireworks, so she won’t be back until late. She's already texted us from Oblivion. Tempted to say, nothing new there. That’s the ride where they drop you off a cliff into a hole in the ground, so it’s a bit like running down Beachy Head in the mist but more expensive and without the lone piper at the bottom or the free cake at the top. Hope she hung onto her piercing. She's obviously managed to keep hold of her phone, so far at least.


(TGIGreeny's Photography Blog)

Talking of the lone piper. L’s bemused by all the race reviews praising the piper at the top of the 200+ steps by the Seven Sisters. What piper? What steps? She asks. Hmmm. I’m not longer sure she did the same race. She’s beginning to sound like me. She should look at what’s going on around her more, just like I don’t. Seems we might have to go back next year now.

Now here’s a four letter word that slipped through our mail server undetected, ‘Mika’. L’s inexplicably a fan. He’s coming to the Sheffield Academy and she asks me for my thoughts... I can see where this is leading and it’s a sinister and scary place.



She even promises not to wear the tour t-shirt when we're out together. Some people are just never satisfied. I’ve done the Quo, I’ve agreed to Marilyn Manson and I even did the Bay City Rollers and the Osmonds all in one night but I just can’t say no to her, which is how we ended up Eastbourne. Can I take my ipod?

She’s got her eye on the same front row spot we had for Editors, so that she’s got a good view of all the glitter.... is this her idea of being persuasive? Ipod and a blindfold me thinks.

L threatens to impose sanctions until I agree because understandably I’m having a few problems with the question. Perhaps I could go but wear a disguise? I suppose the blog potential is huge, as long as he’s not expecting a flattering write up because I can’t say I’m keen on anything he’s done. Suppose there’s always a first time.

OMG. I’ve just checked setlist.fm and he played eighteen songs at a concert in Canada the other week. Eighteen songs!

I try and evade the issue but what if she puts on her most persuasive outfit tonight? Though even that might not work on this occasion, the thought of Mika is enough to put one off most things, well... unless... but I digress.

I run off to dog class, I might be safe there.

Perhaps We’re In The Wrong Town?

Would you credit it, bright sunshine this morning. Great weather for a marathon. I offer L the chance to ‘see what she missed’ but for some reason she declines. Instead we both have the full English.



Then it’s time to check out of our room, that is after we’ve removed the layer of dog hairs that seem to have magically appeared and covered everything in our room.

We go for a wander around Eastbourne where we stumble across a film set on the promenade. They are filming a remake of the 1947 film of Graham Greene's Brighton Rock. I wonder if they know they’re in the wrong town? We go for a wander along the pier which has now been re-branded Brighton Pier. Perhaps we’re in the wrong town? As we walk along the pier looking at all the acts due to appear at the Brighton Palace, we notice everything is labelled as 1964. It’s like a scene from the ‘Time Traveller’s Wife’ or something similar.



If you see the film and they forget to overdub the sound of dogs barking, that’s us.

After giving the dogs a dip in the now much calmer sea we head back to Nottingham and amazingly the drive back is equally as easy as the drive down.

The Sort Of Daft Thing I’d Do

The chap who runs the hotel, where we are staying, has a bit of a coronary at the time that we have requested breakfast for but he reluctantly agrees. It’s a good job because we are not the only marathonees there and the breakfast room is busy.

Thanks to the cheeseboard last night and the early hour, I pass on the full English but I’ll have double tomorrow.

We are here in Eastbourne for what has been described as the most scenic marathon in Britain. Well possibly. However we will have to return next year to check out the view as the weather dawns wet and misty. It wouldn't have bothered me too much, as I never get around to looking at the view anyway.

The event was originally known as the Seven Sisters Marathon, after the series of chalk cliffs the race traverses. It was first run in 1981 with a field of a mere 182 walkers and 68 runners. It wasn’t quite full marathon distance in those days and didn’t become so until 1986. It was foggy for that first race too and the participants had to follow route descriptions rather than the well marked and marshalled course of today. Many got lost.

By 1984 it was drawing 2500 entrants and a race limit had to be introduced which has varied over the years but currently stands at 1750. Since 2001 the race has been known as the Beachy Head Marathon. Beachy Head being the highest chalk sea cliff in Britain at 162 metres and is the focus of both the start but primarily the last few miles of the race. Of course it’s also one of the most notorious suicide spots in the world, which seems somewhat apt.

In homage to the original organisers, who were the Sussex Group of the Long Distance Walkers Association, they have not lost sight of the origin of the event and have always made sure that the field has a good percentage of walkers in it. Although judging by those who are categorised as walkers, it’s possible to be get away with being economical with your intentions.

At 9am the race starts and the masochism begins, accompanied by a barrage of fireworks, which cools Doggo’s enthusiasm. He had been mad keen to join in, suddenly he isn’t so sure. The runners head off up the first climb, off to do battle with the South Downs and the elements.



The dogs and I jump in the car to offer moral and vocal support at the first checkpoint. As I stand there waiting for the race to come through, close to the nine mile point, I think at first that the weather is clearing up. The swirling mist seems to be swirling away. How wrong I was. Then the first runner appears, battling against the strong side wind and slithers down the by now treacherous trail. It all looked good fun actually. The sort of daft thing I’d do.



After cheering L through we move on to the next checkpoint. The whole event is very well organised, well marshalled and they even have chocolate bars at the checkpoints. What more could you want? Well, apart from sunshine. It’s also a great event for spectators because there are plenty of great viewing points.



Checkpoint three was my favourite, which was in one of the villages, where I even managed a pint at the local pub. Just bit of Dutch courage you understand, for the shorter run I was planning on doing.

After this checkpoint I headed to the finish and started to run the route backwards, keeping going until I found L, which with about three miles to go but this is open to debate. I told a few runners that they only had a mile or two to go and I may have underestimated but if so, I'm sure it helped their morale. Oh and I dragged the dogs with me, uphill, against a strong wet headwind. I’m sure they loved it. As we crested what I assume was Beachy Head I saw the advantage of the low cloud cover, that you couldn’t see the sheer drop off the cliff face that was probably only a matter of feet away.

I got bemused looks and slightly mocking comments as I ran the wrong way along the course but then oddly the same people seemed to have forgotten that I'd gone past them in one direction. When I passed them on my return, with L alongside me, they clapped and cheered me all the way back down again, congratulating me on completing 26 miles. This was nice but slightly embarrassing. I felt such a fraud but smiled politely, nodded and tried to look knackered.

All that was left was the ‘interesting’ downhill section to the finish. This is very difficult when you’re being pulled along by two dogs but probably not quite as hard as having 26 long and undulating miles in your legs.

The public clearly wanted this mad man who had dragged his poor dogs around '26 miles' to get a standing ovation as he crossed the line but I couldn't do that, so to much bemusement I veered off the course and went around the finish. No matter, a kindly young marshal ran after me to try and put a finisher’s medal around my neck. Again I had to politely decline.

L did well, tamed the course and put in an impressive performance. She looked rightly smug afterwards. I am not worthy. Although I think you’d have to be quite insane to do an event like this. So clearly L has already got me earmarked for a future year. I think mainly so that she can come to spectate and have the cheeseboard.

It was a good day out despite the weather and it’s not spoilt too much by the appalling horror film that we watch on BBC2 later. The one where Derby throw away a two goal lead to lose to QPR. Thankfully the Old Ale is still on in the pub.

Supporters Need To Carbo Load Too

We await the end of the Nottingham rush hour and then head down the M1 towards Eastbourne. It’s an amazingly easy drive down considering people have been telling such scare stories, me included. Then there’s the debate of which way to go, clockwise M25 or anticlockwise M25? We go anticlockwise and it works well.

After a brief dip in the very stormy sea, for the dogs that is, we check into our dog friendly hotel. That done we set off to find our dog friendly pub for our dog friendly meal. It’s amazing how well you can plan things with the internet.

L's done her own planning and has planned her drinks and food strategy with tomorrow’s marathon well in mind. This does though extend to a Belgian ale and a couple of halves of the rather excellent locally brewed Harveys’ Old Ale. I load up with a few more and hit the cheeseboard. Supporters need to carbo load too.

Tomorrow L will traverse Beachy Head and a few other hills along with 1750 others who have a oddly been categorised into runners, joggers or walkers. It looks quite pretty on the route map, if the weather holds...

Beyond Zero

I make it to the petrol station with the needle already beyond zero and the red light flashing, which I assume is your final warning before the embarrassment of summoning the breakdown services becomes a necessity, but as I’ve never actually ran out in this car I’m not sure for definite. Sirens may start wailing as I get down to the last half pint, who knows.

MD meanwhile is demolishing someone's garden fence because some cat had the audacity to taunt him from behind it.

Editors play Rock City tomorrow (Friday) but due to L pre-booking the weekend and diarising us to be in Eastbourne, we take a detour up to Sheffield tonight to catch them there. They are a band I have so far been destined to miss, so I’m not letting them escape my clutches this time.

It’s my first trip to the former Roxy nightclub that re-opened eighteen months ago as the Sheffield Academy. It’s bigger than Rock City with a capacity of 2,350. There's also a smaller room holding 500, just like in the other Academised venues that are springing up like a plague around the country. The places are no longer sponsored by that lager but now by a telephone network but as it's only a five year contract, so it’s not worth mentioning their name as presumably it all be soon passed over to someone else.

As we don’t know the layout of the place, we try to get there early to blag a good spot. I rush home, kick the dogs around a bit and make a flask of coffee for us old gits while L pops to the shop for something to make sandwiches with. Rock n roll, not.

We park right next door in a handy but eye wateringly expensive car park, we thought this was Sheffield not London, have they not heard of evening rates? At least we get in early enough to get a very good spot, right at the front and slightly to one side.

Two support bands are on the roster tonight and first up are Manchester’s Airship. Their particular brand of indie pop reminds me a little of Ride or at least how an updated Ride may sound. I’m quite impressed and it’s a shame when their short set is over.



In contrast I don’t really buy into second support band and find Wintersleep a little dull. They start well and finish well but the bulk of their set disappoints. They’re from Halifax's but they aren’t Yorkshire boys from just down the road, that is unless your road is in Nova Scotia.

Editors are from all over, although they are now based in Birmingham. The foursome met at Staffordshire University where they decided that studying Music Technology wasn't the thing for them and being in a band was much more fun. Perhaps the Music Technology studies are now coming in useful, as their new album ‘In This Light And On This Evening’ definitely shows a shift to their electronic side.

Opening with the epic title track, Tom Smith sits at his piano and swears to God, thereby uttering the first of many holy references this evening. Perhaps this is why there’s a ‘Jesus bus’ parked outside, perchance they’ve come to take him away ha ha. The song builds slowly as Smith paints his vision of London but tonight he twists the words to Sheffield, as I’m sure he does for every city he visits. Then the song breaks loose into an explosion of the guitars and the stage becomes a sea of coloured light. Not bad for starters.



The guitars stay out for the excellence of 'Bullets' and 'An End Has A Start' which gets the crowd going before we are slowed back down for the grim and evocative, ‘You Don't Know Love’ off the new album. This loses some vital momentum and that’s my only problem with the evening from here onwards.

The new songs paint quite a bit of gloom about the place and that combined with their unfamiliarity and complexity, means they don’t galvanise the audience like the older stuff does and the Academy cools off quite quickly. It’s a little disappointing and I for one thought the new material would take off better live than it did. Perhaps it's too soon to tour this album in its entirety, only ‘The Boxer’ is omitted tonight, an odd omission in itself as it’s probably more accessible than some of the others. The album only came out last week and people just aren't familiar enough with it yet.

Interspersed with the new stuff are a fair selection from both their Mercury Prize nominated debut ‘The Back Room’ and its follow-up the Brit Awards nominated ‘An End Has A Start’. The band were recently voted the second biggest British band of the decade by the Daily Mail???? Not that they’d know anything about it.

The older numbers never quite lift the crowd out of their stupor though, until near the end that is, as some the liveliest stuff has already been played or is being saved for later. In fact it simply highlighted the differences between the old and new; which are like chalk and cheese.



None of this would probably have mattered if Tom had spoken to us a bit more, perhaps even talked about the new songs but he says little from the off and gets quieter, apart from a muttered 'thank you' at the end of each song. Chatty he most definitely isn't. His ‘Sheffield’ reference in the first song was almost the last of the onstage banter. Lack of banter aside, he’s a busy chap performance wise, giving it everything he's got, as he moves from piano to synthesiser to guitar to microphone.

You get the impression that guitarist Chris and bass player Russell would like to converse with the audience, they’re all smiles and grins but perhaps they're not allowed to.



Poor Chris Urbanowicz, a Nottinghamshire lad from Aslockton, who impressively alternated between lead guitar and synthesizer all night, isn’t even allowed a microphone.



A lot of the older stuff is being played on rotation on this tour and although we do get a real rarity with a brilliant 'When Anger Shows', played for the first time on this tour, personally I’m gutted to not get 'Escape the Nest' or 'Fall', played elsewhere but not tonight, but I always want too much.

After the mid-set ‘dip’ we do get a great finale and the closest we’re going to get to a song introduction, with a 'this is an old one' as they play the fantastic ‘You Are Fading’, the ‘b’ side of their debut single ‘Bullets’ and featured on the ‘Cuttings’ CD. The song may be a bit of an unknown to the casual fan but it’s a live favourite and does sound stunning live.

This sets off a rather good run of songs. ‘Camera’ too sounds much better live than on record and then the crowd are energised as the pace is picked up again with 'Smokers Outside The Hospital Doors'.

Then they close the set with the rather wonderful, and my fave of the new album, ‘Bricks and Mortar’. Six very short minutes of brilliance. Tom bidding farewell and singing about how he hoped 'life was good for you'. Yeah not bad mate since you ask. Encore please.

They return with another moody newbie, the haunting ‘Walk The Fleet Road’, another song that builds slowly and it makes the hairs on the back of your neck quiver tonight. Utterly wonderful. Then finally there’s mayhem down the front as a 'Munich'/'Papillon' double bill tumbles forth from the stage. Now belatedly the crowd are really getting into it and a lively encore is brought to a close with ‘Fingers In The Factories', another song that sounds epic live rather than just plain good on record.

All in all a good gig but not a great one. We crack open the hot coffee and head home.

Woman’s Prerogative

I’m still struggling with Blogger’s 2000 label limit and have started to archive off my old posts on to new blogs I have created, one for each year. While doing this I discover just how many labels I have, namely a mere 9645. Oops. So it’s doubtful my archiving will solve the problem in the short term as I’m using close to 3000 per year.

L bought some new trainers a few months ago and immediately started raving about them. They are Nike ones and it got me thinking that now might be the time to move back to Nike. I always used to buy them and liked them but at one stage they only seemed to produce them in gold, silver or if you were really lucky blue. No such thing as a white pair, so I moved to Asics and haven’t gone back even though Nike do now seem to do normal shoes and not just ones for hip-hop concerts. Then after practically talking me in to buying a pair, she’s changed her mind and now she hates them... suppose it’s a woman’s prerogative to change her mind.

So for that reason and also a slightly more obvious one, I’ll take her latest recommendation with a pinch of salt and I’ll ignore the fact that she’s raving about the new sports bra she’s bought.

The girls head off to a gig, Enter Shikari, not my cup of tea at all. L was close to not going but only because her latest faves, Passion Pit, are up at the Leadmill, with the brill Joy Formidable supporting. Had it not been a training night for MD I would have gone, leaving her with much of a dilemma and also the potential disapproval of Daughter, who also appears to be a fan. Not that I believe Daughter would have chucked up Enter Shikari under any circumstances but she does hate anyone to get one up on her.



MD’s been a bit lively today probably because he didn’t get a night out last night. No matter, it’s his training tonight, so that should knock it out of him. The downside is that now Doggo is blanking me because I took them both to the training venue but Doggo didn’t even get to get out of the car because it was MD’s night. I had thought Doggo might quite like his approaching semi-retirement but I could be wrong on this.

Enter Shikari finish early, around 9.45, obviously thinking of their young audience, so that L and the others will have no problem getting up for school in the morning. I pick them up from outside Rock City and chauffeur some of Daughter’s friends to their homes too. I’m not sure they would have risked accepting a lift had they known just how close I was to running out of petrol. Now I just hope I’ve got enough to get to the petrol station in the morning.

A Real Treat

There’s a real treat for me when I get the bike out of the garage this morning, the first puncture of the winter season. Well at least it happened before I left the house, which is certainly preferable to changing it at the side of the road. All the same it delays me by ten minutes or so. Still, I made it to work on time; that is if you don’t count the time it took me to get changed for work and have my breakfast once I got there. I have an understanding boss; what he does know, he doesn't need to understand.

I head to the pool after work for the Tuesday night lane session, which now seems to be more popular than the Wednesday night one. L is there too, in the gym, and we meet for a coffee afterwards. This might make up for the fact that she didn’t get to the tennis centre gym where she could have got a sauna as well. I’ll see what I can do to recreate hot and steamy at home for her later.

Daughter is out tonight, which means that I can do curry and make it extra hot. Son was also supposed to be out, which means I could have been put mushrooms in it too but his gig, Billy Talent at Rock City, has been cancelled. So the mushrooms become a side dish instead.

Derby predictably get beat at high flying Middlesbrough, despite the fact that Boro were out of form and had lost their last three homes games. If ever you want a sequence like that ending, just call for Derby. We’ll sort it. 2-0 it finishes and Middlesbrough move up to 4th, just one point off the top but what do a club that’s well known for standing by their managers more than any other club do. They sack Gareth Southgate. Which is bizarre, what did he do? Run off with the chairman's daughter?

Star Scrubber

Not much to report today other than to say what a star scrubber L is, no really. After a third wash, in some special stuff that probably escaped from Sellafield, my Survival Of The Fittest t-shirt finally came out white! Now I daren’t even sweat on it.

Then for an encore she gets down on her hands and knees on the kitchen floor and ... well, while I dispose of the dogs, she gets that clean as well. We now have sparkling tiles.

Disposing of the dogs is of course dog training but only for Doggo this week. They have though arranged a special one off session in a few weeks time exclusively for puppies. Not that we have one. My MD is a grown up boy now. Perhaps they'll take him anyway.

After all her endeavours, I can’t keep L awake to thank her. She’s beyond coffee and even turns down my offer of a 70%er, as in plain chocolate.

So instead I see if anyone else has reviewed Frank Turner’s Rock City gig. As usual ‘This Is Nottingham’ has a rubbish review sent in by someone. It’s a disgrace. People email reviews in and I think they just print the first one they get, no matter how naff it is. I could get home, knock one up in ten minutes and email it but then mine would be rubbish too. This chap’s review was so bad that someone else left a comment asking if the review had actually been to the gig.

So I’m going to post my own review underneath it, as I notice you’re allowed a very generous 5000 characters for comments. They'll regret that limit, I could do this after every gig I go to.

About Three Hundred Yards

I’m up at 5am and in Preston for 7.45. Our dog agility team are defending our title in the Club Championships for the North-West region, which we won back in February. The competition is held twice a year.

Doggo performs well although he is clearly in no mood to be hurried. All the same we are clear all day and score vital points for the team. The competition is over by 3.30 and, mislead by the fact that they have a computer working out the results, we’re hopefully that the results will not take the usual two hours to calculate. We are wrong. At ten to five I give up and head off down the M6. Half an hour later I get a message to say that we’ve won again. Are we good or what?

I’m in a rush to get home because we’ve got a gig tonight and a bandwagon that I’m unashamedly going to jump on to... Frank Turner. How has the man stayed under my radar from so long? He’s spent a considerable amount of time working his way up, the hard way, since the demise of his hardcore punk band Million Dead. I was surprised to see what a serial offender he is, as regards trips to the various stages around Nottingham since he went solo in 2005. There were two trips to Junktion 7 then once at the Old Angel followed by four gigs at the Bodega Social before graduating to The Rescue Rooms last year where he ended up ill and retching into a bucket backstage rather than finishing the show. Then came a support slot with the Gaslight Anthem at Rock City in March this year, where we finally caught him for the first time. At which point he was already planning his own headlining show at Rock City. So here we are.

The striking thing that night, supporting the Gaslight’s, was just how popular he was and how much of a good sing-along it was for everybody there; only we hadn’t been invited to the party because we didn’t know the script, that is apart from a few tracks I recognized and realised... so that’s Frank Turner. This time I made sure I turned up well rehearsed.

First though, there’s disappointment on the Beans on Toast front. Firstly that we catch nothing but the last few notes of his final song and secondly that the Beans on Toast T-shirts, that L so desperately wanted one of, don’t actually have a slice of that delicacy upon them.

Beans on Toast (known to his mates as Jay) is one man with a guitar, who comes highly recommended and is mentioned in the lyrics to Frank’s 'I Knew Prufrock Before He Was Famous', of which I feel we'll hear more later. So I guess that’s how he got the gig. He even offers his songs for free download on his website. So apologies to Mr Beanz, we did really want to see you, but it was not to be.

We do catch Fake Problems, who are from Naples that’s Naples, Florida not Italy. I like their first track having listened to it on their website but they lose me a little after that. That said they apply themselves to every song with an admirable enthusiasm and consequently get the crowd on board with them. To me they sound like Modest Mouse on some of their less incoherent stuff or perhaps an undercooked Gaslight Anthem, they’re another band with half an eye on Springsteen. The only thing missing is a song about the American Dream and that duly arrives a few tracks from the end.



It’s a bit of a wait for Mr Turner, more to set up this time I suppose as he has a full band with him rather than just his guitar but eventually he’s with us and it’s bedlam from track one.

Frank is promoting his new album ‘Poetry Of The Deed’ and seven tracks from it are interwoven into a set chock-full of Frank classics. Not that the new stuff puts any of the crowd out of their stride, they know all the words to these as well. Album opener ‘Live Fast Die Old’ gives way to the recent single ‘The Road’ before a reworked and up-tempo ‘Long Live The Queen’ raises the bar phenomenally high. No matter, he has plenty more where that came from and the wonderfully observant ‘Substitute’ rises to the challenge. One of his great appeals is that he writes such wonderful lyrics, ones that you can relate to and about everyday things that we care about, making it difficult not to enjoy one of his shows.



‘The Real Damage’ is another song that puts a smile on your face and is another stand out moment. The addition of the band enables him to slot in the wonderfully rocky ‘Imperfect Tense’. Frank impressing throughout the night, by the sheer amount of energy, emotion and commitment that he puts into every song.



He seems genuinely choked by the reaction tonight and the sheer weight of numbers at Rock City. I’d been watching the ‘sold out’ signs go up on his tour dates but Nottingham remained stubbornly ‘tickets available’ but the venue was decidedly bigger than the others on his tour. When we arrived though they were queuing down the street to pay on the door and apparently the last ticket was sold tonight. As he says he’s come a long way from Junktion 7, well about 300 yards but Frank is clearly moved. He alludes back to the last time he played to a sold out Rock City, when the Million Dead supported Nottingham’s own Pitchshifter on what was supposed to be their farewell tour in 2002. On that occasion a Pitchshifter fan requested he did not return promptly, if ever. There’s no such animosity tonight and he celebrates by playing a very un-punk version of the Million Dead single ‘Smiling At Strangers On Trains’.

Another cover follows later, a request from a friend, Springsteen’s ‘Thunder Road’ and then we’re back in sing-along territory and the crowd punch the air and bellow back every word of the classics ‘Love, Ire & Song’, ‘Father's Day’ and of course the aforementioned ‘I Knew Prufrock Before He Got Famous’. Slowing things down a touch, he closes, as the new album does, with ‘Journey of The Magi’.



We aren’t kept waiting for the encore for long, what’s the point, we know what’s coming. A named checked ‘Rock City’ in ‘The Ballad Of Me And My Friends’ and tremendously storming ‘Reasons Not To Be An Idiot’ before ‘Photosynthesis’ even gets the floor in a mosh. The stage is awash with people as Fake Problems and Beans On Toast come on stage to join the jam and pretty much everyone, from musicians, to sound crew and technicians gets a name check. I’m sure Frank would have worked his way through the crowd had he had time. Then he closed the encore with a stage dive, old punk habits die hard.

As for the singing, well I’ll be well hoarse in the morning. Top guy, top gig. Vive La Frank.

Picking Up The Baton

I get up and escape the wreckage of last night’s gathering to collect some tools from my parent’ place, exercise the dogs at the same time and hope that tranquillity will be restored to home by the time I return. Then I spend the afternoon gardening. I bizarre pastime that I participate in only about twice a year.

L meanwhile runs the half marathon course as planned, well not quite as planned because she comes back reckoning that she’s clocked up fifteen miles and not thirteen. So having done seven or something like that yesterday, she just needs a shorter run tomorrow to achieve her goal.

Everyone is out; we have both ticked out to do list for the day, so time for a hot bath and some chilling. Then Daughter unexpectedly pops home with a friend. Bugger.

Chilling rescheduled we go for L's favourite night, or so she says, which is gym then pub. I join her in the gym. L’s vowed to get so fit she’ll look twenty years younger, so I’ll have to do the same or else if she achieves it, I’ll look like a dirty old man with her on my arm. Except she's too knackered to do any cardio so it's left for me to pick up the baton. 4k run, followed by a 3k bike, 2k on the stepper, a brief 500m row and 2 pints of Mordue IPA 5.1% (nice).

We’ve not shed twenty years yet though; neither of us got asked for ID in the pub.

Then we head down to the reopened Scruffys to try out the food. The menu doesn’t look very scruffy, there’s a distinct lack of burgers (good), chilli’s (not so good) and cheese (definitely not so good), everything at the old place was smothered in cheese. The menu in fact looks, dare I say it, posh although when it comes the food turns out to be quite basic but pleasant with it. The place isn't very busy for a Saturday, so they've got some work to do to make it a success. We'll be back if only because we want to see it do well, the staff were so friendly and because they're replaced the Bombardier with Hobgoblin. It was a good beer night all round.

An Orderly Conclusion

Third day in a row on the bike. The weather looked like it was going to be windy but it wasn’t too bad. On the way I stopped off at a corner shop to buy some coffee. The owner directed me to where he’d got a ‘shelf full’, all Nescafe! Not the best but it’s an improvement.

L has given me permission to nag, kick, cajole, anything I want, carte blanche effectively, that is along as it concerns getting her out of the door and training for next weekend’s jog along the Sussex coast. Apparently 'they', the experts, reckon that you can run in one go what you can do over three days. Really? So L intends to run twenty-eight miles over the next three days. That’s two more than required because the vicious rumour going around is that the Beachy Head ‘marathon’ is more than twenty six miles but I’m sure that’s just hearsay. All the same she intends to be prepared, just in case.

So she does around seven miles tonight and then we head down the Victoria where I go through the map of the Nottingham Half Marathon route with her because that will be tomorrow’s jaunt. Last time she attempted the route it all went a bit pear-shaped, probably due to the lack of marshals (e.g. none). It’s a bit inconsiderate of the organisers not to keep the route marshalled all year round.

Before we depart for the pub we have a last look around the currently undamaged house, yep Son is having another social gathering this evening. We think we’ve put everything breakable out of sight, we’ve even hidden the fruit bowl to prevent the usual fruit fight. There’s not much else we can do, short of redecorating the living room in the style of a padded cell, or maybe that would be too comfortable, perhaps a prison cell would be more apt.

When we get back from the pub, things seem to actually be quite calm. Nobody seems to be trying to rot the roof tiles with recycled WKD. Even the strip poker game, that Daughter stumbles into after returning from her own night out, dwindles to an orderly conclusion.

Just A Bit Of Mist

Today is Blog Action Day, I’m supposed to be participating and blogging about ‘Climate Change'.



They asked me to do this before two years ago, the subject was the ‘Environment’, so I mentioned my environmentally friendly methods of getting to work. So isn’t this more or less the same topic?

Anyhow, perhaps I should by mentioning that last week the BBC were asking ‘Whatever happened to climate change?’. Apparently the warmest year recorded globally was in 1998 and for the last 11 years we have not had any increase in global temperatures. Yep, wasn't it a lovely summer we had this year. The Met Office though still says that from 2010 to 2015 at least half the years will be hotter than 1998. Sceptics say that it is unlikely that temperatures will reach the heights of 1998 until 2030 at the earliest, instead a period of global cooling may now happen.

Perhaps this is why on the 1st April this year a secret plan was uncovered to build an Alpine Ski Area centred around Buckden, Upper Wharfedale, in the Yorkshire Dales. Oh yeah, 1st April wasn’t it...

but then again, the Irish are bidding for the Winter Olympics in 2026. Aren’t they?




Well at least I’m being as eco-friendly as I can be by being on the bike again. Although when I heard rain on the window first thing this morning I wasn’t going to be but the ever persuasive L assured me, as she went out to walk the dogs, that it had eased to just ‘a bit of mist’.

So off on the bike I went and that ‘mist’ just got heavier and heavier and heavier, and I got wetter and wetter and wetter. Just ‘a bit of mist’s she said. Hmmm.



Although I do now realise what a good invention these mudguard things are. Don’t know how I’d managed without them before. Don't believe I said that, I must be getting old.

L wasn't that apologetic later either, although she did acknowledge that it might not have done my Trent Flu any good. Well actually, I think the rain may have diluted the sewage in my body a touch, so at least one good thing came of it.

Still no coffee at work and I’ve forgotten to bring in any of my own, so I’m on the tea again but it doesn’t wake me up.

L’s working late tonight, so as it’s too dark to take the boys on the park we walk down to meet her and get sidetracked into the Plough. As you do.

Hammer And Tongs

Much to my own surprise I live through the cycle ride in. Not anything to do with bad drivers, I can cope with them, more with the fact I still don’t feel 100%, although that might have something to do with the jalapeños on my pizza last night.

I still stop to offer assistance to a chap with puncture as he was flying the cyclists’ flag of distress, e.g. he’d got his bike upside down with the wheel off. He tells me he’s fine and has the repairs all in hand. Good job really, he had a MTB and if I’d offered him a spare inner tube it wouldn’t have been much good to him.

I have an MTB encounter of a different kind on the way home. I momentarily get stuck behind a guy on a commuter bike who is taking the slow way up the hill, that is pedalling frantically in his lowest gear and crawling up it at something approaching walking pace. Whilst I wait until he stops wobbling enough for me to negotiate a safe way around him, a chap on a MTB overtakes both of us. He’s taking the more serious and faster way up, that is dig in, grit your teeth and go at it hammer and tongs in a high gear.

So now I have to give chase to him which shouldn’t have been a problem, had he not been some prodigiously fit geezer who probably liked the challenge of winding up folks on road bikes. Got him eventually and then saw him turn off just afterwards. Ha, yes we all do that when we don’t fancy a battle. Of course he may have lived down there I suppose.

After a session in the pool, I get home to find that Daughter has joined L in town. Turns out not to be a Mother-Daughter bar crawl but instead they hit Top Shop's 20% off student sale armed with Daughter's NUS card but I bet it’s still not as cheap as Primark.

De-caff Overdose

I’m still suffering with the effects of my bout of River Trent flu, so in order not to exasperate (or is it exacerbate?) it I take the bus into work.

Once at work it dawns on me that the dodgy stomach I have at the moment might have nothing to do with the River Trent. It could in fact be something to do with the God awful de-caff coffee I’ve been forced to drink because the proper stuff has ran out and no one with the authority to get more (e.g. a cash and carry card) can be arsed to go because they don’t drink coffee.

You can’t win with the de-caff. Make it with one spoon full it just tastes of... well nothing, just brown water, which is far too close to the River Trent and brings back bad memories. If you make it with more to try and get a coffee ‘kick’ out of it, it becomes an even more nasty substance. Which if you leave to cool, starts to congeal and mutate. I think this must be rotting my stomach lining. I make myself a cup of tea.

The usual email from L checking on my health is slow arriving this morning, probably because she assumes I've take a 'safe' option into work (the bus) and possibly because she's still googling my symptoms. I google de-caff overdose without success.

The wife of one of my Survival Of The Fittest team mates has binned his race T-shirt, saying it was too dirty to put in her washing machine. Durr. What are washing machines for? Women can be so cruel, thankfully L isn’t that harsh. L is actually appalled that he let her do that and asks if he bins her clothes if he doesn't like them. I suggest that course of action to him and he looks at me, horrified, as if any such attempt would lead to his missus doing something unmentionable with a blunt knife.

After work, I take the boys on the park for a brief ball session but within fifteen minutes of arriving it’s too dark to continue, as I can no longer see the random places that MD decides to drop his ball in. So I take it off him and suggest we just ‘walk’, like owner and man’s best friends. MD looks appalled at the thought of that and heads off for a game of squirrel pinball instead. This is where he runs up to a tree to see if a squirrel is in residence, when he finds no one is at home he pings off to the next tree, then the next one, etc etc ad infinitum. It's quite funny to watch really and it wears him out a treat.

Back home, there's a new chef in our kitchen. Son. Blimey. He's cooking spag bol but it’s a meal for one which frustrates Daughter who has many a time cooked something up for him. He does though thoughtfully leave her half a pack of raw mince for her tea. We can’t afford to let them fend for themselves too often, that pack of mince usually feeds all four of us.

There’s also a recount on the result of the ‘battle of the router’, Son says the signal is intermittent upstairs. Time to call in the experts. Right on queue there’s a knock on the door, my mate might be able to shed some light on this before we head off out. Seems I haven’t made a mess of setting it up but one setting is tweaked. Just have to wait to see if that improves things.

We head into town and for the most exhausting pizza I’ve ever eaten. We both try one of Pizza Express's Romana Pizzas, the bases of which are ‘stretched thinner, making your pizza bigger and crispier, so the bold flavours really stand out’. Flavour wise they’re fine, great even but the bases are so thin and crisp you could tile your house with them and take an, arm breaking, age to carve up or perhaps it’s the naff knives they gave us. Don’t order one unless they give you a steak knife.

River Trent Flu?

My body still aches this morning but now it feels more like a flu sort of ache rather than a monkey bar induced one. I leave for a work a little earlier just in case it takes me a longer to disembark my aching body from the car at the other end.

Whether this is River Trent Flu, cyanide poisoning or just a common or garden waterborne disease, you know like Dysentery, Cholera, E Coli... It may, of cause just be a dose of Son/Daughter flu that’s been passed down the family through the usual channels. Our house currently echoes to the musical sound of what appears to be synchronised coughing.

Even our MD, that’s my MD at work not MD the dog, looks healthier than me. Although he confesses to being not quite so mobile yesterday.

At lunchtime L sends me shopping for wash powder; I think my new 'white' t-shirt has used it all up. Whilst I’m there I have a look to see if they have anything that claims to ‘re-whiten things that used to be white’, they don’t, unless it’s called emulsion.

After dog class I finally win a three day long battle with our new router to get the damn thing set-up and working. Result.

Too Much Swinging On The Monkey Bars

I wake up and my legs aren’t too bad. It’s the aching arms, neck, back and shoulders that gets me. Too much swinging on the monkey bars me thinks. I’m just not used to upper body workouts.

Anyhow no time to spend lying in bed feeling sorry for myself because it’s L’s turn to get active today. So we jump in the car and head off to Birmingham where the World Half Marathon Championships are being held. Cool eh? Well actually, she’s not in that particular event but in the Birmingham Half Marathon that is being held alongside it. This is one of her ‘small regular targets’ that L says she needs on her horizon in the run up to her marathon at the end of the month. Small target? A half marathon sounds pretty substantial to me.

It’s drizzling with rain in Birmingham, which is ideal running weather but not ideal spectator weather. Not that Doggo is bothered, yes in a (another) brief moment of insanity I decided to bring the two dogs with us for a day out. He’s very impressed at seeing over 10,000 runners lining up and ready to race. He’s less impressed to see that he isn’t one of them. His agitation sets MD off, so I now have two hyper dogs on my hands. So in the best interests of the eardrums of everyone, I bid good luck to L and head off away from the start to hopefully find a less stressful environment, or at least get out of earshot.

Taking up a position a few hundred yards down the course, I position the dogs behind an advertising hoarding so that they can’t see the race. It works to an extent until Doggo hears people clapping as the race comes past and starts howling. After watching L go past, we move on again, before we are asked to do so.

We head up to the finish where the World Half Marathon is just finishing and hang around to catch the presentations.



Zersenay Tadese took the men’s title for Eritrea, his fourth successive win in the event, lowering the championship record in the process.



Kenyan Mary Keitany took the women's title, breaking Paula Radcliffe’s championship record. Radcliffe again being forced out by injury/illness, tonsillitis on this occasion.

Then we walk backwards along the course to find a good spot to cheer on L.



As we walk the last kilometre down to the 20km marker, it strikes me that we’ve been walking downhill almost the whole time, which is of course uphill for the runners. That’s just plain cruel and to think I (loosely) considered doing this race.



All three of us cheer L on and then attempt to find her afterwards amongst the other 10,000. Once reunited we head home to rest up before heading into town for something to eat and to see if there’s any decent beer on worth celebrating with. Fullers ESB, that’ll do nicely.

I would quite like to have gone out proudly wearing my 'Survival Of The Fittest' t-shirt but it’s now had its second wash and its still looking decidedly off colour. Perhaps I’ll save it for running in.