Spring in my step

Had a nice lie in this mornng, finished watching a recoreded episode of Dr Who over breakfast, before spending a good two hours in the garden. Digging up weeds, relocating the path from under the encrouching grass, cutting the edges and a general tidy round. Gave the lawn a quick cut, and was quite impressed with my effort. Went into town and enjoyed browsing round the many market stalls in place as part of the continental market, bought some food and went and ate it infront of the large screen outside the crucible. This has been erected to allow people to sit outside and enjoy coverage of the world championship snooker taking place inside.

I then popped into fopp and bought the new album by adem. He is an ex-member of a band called fridge, and his debut album, homesongs, was my favourite album of 2004. It just got better with every listen, and I still enjoy it now. I first saw adem supporting the delgados in Leicester, and then agin in Leeds.

I've also seen him supporting explosions in the sky, but have now bought tickets to see his own headline set at the boarwalk next month. He plays a beautiful folky mix, using borrowed sounds from odd instruments and peculiar percussian items. Have just listened to the first track of the new album, love and other planets, and am sure that this will be equally as good.

Judge Dreadnought

The judge who presided over the failed Da Vinci Code plagiarism case at London's High Court has hidden his own secret code in his written judgement, the news story is here.

In his written judgement he has put odd letters here and there in italics, and these form the basis of the code. I had a look at the judgement document but it was a 71 page pdf document, and it's not easy to scour and pick out the letters in italics. However, someone has cracked the code and the fairly dull hidden message can be read here.

T(r)ying ties

I rarely wear a tie, and so when it comes to occasions of state, when one is required. It can often take a number of attempts to atire oneself with a tie that has a good knot and is of sensible length. However, Dave at cartoon church has drawn a guide that is most helpful and should surely ensure that I look quite dapper whenever the wearing of a tie is required. Perhaps I'll send it to the guys on match of the day, as I notice some of the ex-footballers are so bad at donning a tie that they just do without alltogether.

Exciting music news

Some regular readers may remember I was quite excited earlier this year in the knowledge that the much missed Delgados announced they were planning to release a compilation of all their Peel Sessions. Well I can let you all know that this magnificent double album will be released in the UK on June 12th, so make sure you go out and buy it! You'll be pleased to know that some of the fans (including myself) noted the absence of 'Parcel of Rogues' from the original tracklist and asked for it's inclusion which was agreed. This was recorded as part of a Burns Night special, where one of Robert Burns' poems was read over some music they composed. There is even opportunity to listen to one of the tracks on Chemikal Underground's myspace site.
Here you will also learn of the imminant release of a further Chemikal Underground compilation which will include tracks by all past and present bands that the label has put out, including very rare work from Interpol, which I own ;)
And it's not just music, coming complete with a DVD of promo videos and some interviews too.

weekend

I had quite a nice weekend, did a bit of shopping on saturday morning before taking a train to derby to see my sis and give her a birthday gift. After opening the gifts and showing me her new dresses she took me on a walk to local alvaston castle. Despite it's magestic name, it was actually just a grand manor house with castlations. The weather was pleasent and I enjoyed chatting and catching up with my sis, and hearing about the mission trip she'd been on in Poland. That evening I went to meet v at the train station on her return from the second leg of her european tour.
It rained over night, which was just typical, my lawn was becoming more like a jungle every day (well, ok, so that's an exageration, more like a 'cress head' egg that had been left unattended to grow a strangled matt of overlong hair), and everytime I had oppertunity to cut the grass it would rain.

However, after church (a nice sermon from PR, though he finds it increasingly difficult to preach due to his illness, needing the prompt from his notes, yet still has a lot of interesting comments to make) the sun was out and I decided to give it a first cut, and attend to it again next weekend. In fact after the job was complete me and v sat out for quite sometime enjoying the april sunshine.

Miserable weather

It's dank and grey here today, the morning covered in thick fog that has now progressed into a miserable rain shower. However, there are places in the world where rain is celebrated and a dry rainy season is seen as a disaster. Siobhan is in meru, kenya and spoke about the long awaited rains in a previous blog. Today she tells us a bit more about some of the characters in the children's home, which you can read here.

Manchester Passion

There's been quite a few clips placed on 'you tube', should you wish to see some of the scenes from the Manchester Passion.

Joy division - love will tear us apart Jesus breaking bread with disciples.

morrissey and smiths songs including Tim Booth (of the band James) as Judas, singing heaven knows i'm miserable now.

someone in the crowd - some footage filmed from the audience, where you can listen to a not-so-tuneful crowd singing along!

London

Some of the things I did in London:

Met up with some uni friends in covent garden, had a nice meal and shared some recent stories, laughed again at old ones too. Went on a walk around london with v visiting buckingham palace, westminster, whitehall, st pauls, millenium bridge, lambeth, site of old stock exchange, nelson's column (which was hidden by scaffolding). Also saw quite a few guards in all their regalia, seemingly milling around, occasionally marching, and having their photo taken with tourists. Got me thinking about those army adverts, young lads getting excited about being in the army. Right then lad, it's your job to wear this, hold this sword and have your photo taken looking like a bit of a tit. Join the army - be the best!

Went to church on easter sunday morning, which i'd selected by the fact that it had the best website of any located near clapham common. Although the worship was pretty formal, the sermon was actually pretty good and I'll reflect further in my easter blog. In the afternoon we took a 'flight' on the london eye, a term which v considered, at the least misleading, and just stupid sounding. However, it does sound much better than a 'revolution' on the eye, which is the only alternative I could proffer. Despite it's fairly exuberent price, we did enjoy it, you can see for miles and the views are quite spectacular. The angular structural framework of the eye also fascinated me, and made some nice photos. In fact, because the sky was quite dull and grey most of my photos haven't come out with as good as resolution as I would like. Where to go next, no idea, but to take full advantage of v's underground day pass we chose a station, trying Paddington in the hope that we may find an abandonned bear from deepest darkest peru. We saw a little one in a shop window, but more fortuitously we stumbled across London's longest bar. Had a nice meal, watched some football and drank some beer.

Monday v left for france, taking a link to the airport from kings cross station. I decided to leave my large luggage at the left luggage booth, which was near platform 9. Wondered if perhaps we might see platform 9¾ and I got quite excited to find that there is one, so rushed through the wall to check it out. Even though it was nearly 11am there was no train on the platform, I guess it only leaves once a year, so i came back, there's a picture of me entering the platform! After v left I spent a bit of time browsing museums, the tate modern, science museum, and I also found the memorial to diana managing not to injure any limbs whilst enjoying it. The 'fountain' is actually pretty good, and I'm sure i would've loved it as a child, watching the different speeds of water, paddling it with my hands.

So a nice break was had, apart from getting black snot when i blew my nose, does everyone get that in london I wonder?

Trailer

I've been in london for the easter weekend doing some touristy things with v, meeting some friends and visiting some museums. I had a really great time and hope to put a few thoughts and pictures on here later, as well as flickr. If i get chance I may also do a retrospective blog with some easter thoughts too.

Just finished watching the manchester passion, which i thought was really very good. Now I don't know if that's cos I like the music and the story of christ, but I thought it was really well done, apart from the boring m-people/robbie songs that the mary character was singing. In fact the use of joy division 'love will tear us apart' during the last supper was really quite powerful.

Pitta bread reminder

Mogwai teletext review

Doing some food shopping, and I was delving through the packs of pitta bread to find the pack with the longest time before the best before date is reached. Found one with the 18th as a BBE, nice one. And that's my sister's birthday too, I thought.


Hang on....


that means it's her birthday soon... best think about getting her a card and something then hadn't I!

Got another one of those teletext reviews again. Did I tell you I received a £10 HMV gift voucher for one of my reviews being review of the week! I could almost be making a living out of this. Thing is, I never saw my review on it's glorious review of the week pedestal, so don't know which one it is for. Don't reckon this one's a winning review though.

Mogwai

So got up at 4am today in order to take v to the airport, and I can tell you, getting up at that time is just wrong, my whole body was screaming to go back to sleep. but once I'd coaxed it into a bit of life with a quick wash, I was soon feeling fine. In fact it reminded me of the sleeve notes to 'everything is wrong' by moby, where under the heading things that are right, he has listed: staying up really late, getting up really early. I think he is right.

But not all the time....

After seeing v off it was actually quite nice seeing the sun rising, a large orange globe peeking over the top of the horizon, sending shafts of light streaming between the clouds. The roads were still fairly quiet and I made good time in getting to work.

That eve I met up with janet and andrew to go and see mogwai live at the plug in sheffield. I do enjoy seeing this band live. The venue was heaving, but we managed to meander through the crowds and find our way into a small back room that gave a good vantage to the proceedings. To far to observe any fingering on the fret board, but nice and high to be able to watch the whole band without heads being in the way. It sounded great, I particulalry enjoyed glasgow mega snake off the new album. In addition I was extremely pleased to see stuart pick up a bass and sit on a stool, as I knew this meant they were going to play 'new paths to helicon part 1' which has to be one of my favourite ever tracks. It really is quite beautiful.




The show ended with an encore, finishing with the superb 'mogwai fear satan' though stuart seemed to indulge himself at the end playing with all the effects pedals. Causing quite a noise too.



There some more pics on flickr, but they aren't too great cos we were so far away from the stage.

Just sent this review to teletext, so will have to see if I'm successful again:

Can blood boil like this at the sound of a noisy tape that I've heard? So starts their debut album, and still mogwai produce a noise of blood curdling proportions. I doubt Roger Hargreaves could’ve envisaged a character to do justice to the name Mr Beast. Mogwai, however, succeed with their new album. Tonight unleashing the ferocious Glasgow Mega Snake, that even a parsel tongue of Voldemort’s standing would fail to control. Such noise then contrasted with delicate melodies, including the sublime ‘new paths to helicon’.

Greenbelt ticket

Just bought my ticket for greenbelt festival, I'm already really looking forward to it, and I actually got quite excited about the fact that Daniel Beddingfield will be playing. Which concerns me a little, but some of his songs aren't too bad.

Anyway, of more interest, siobhan sends an update to her time in kenya on her blog .

It feels like spring

Today it really feels like spring, the sun is certainly beating down, and feels nice and warm through the window, though I know it's still pretty cold outside. On the way to work I enjoyed the crisp blue skies, the green grass and the flowers beginning to appear. Especially they bright yellow daffodils, which always remind me of the secret garden, cos the gardener in that book called them daffydowndillies.

This is really just a quick post to let you know that I've recently started a bible study blog, with a few others, so we'll see how that experiment progresses. If you fancy a bit of bible study feel free to visit the site and comment.

Backblog

The last few days have been quite busy, and because I don't like writing great long blogs I shall write a few retrospective blogs. That way you can judge by the headings whether or not it is something you want to read.
The cable box is replaced, so the tv is back, not that it's been missed terribly, though replaced just in time to record the repeat of 24.

I've also uploaded some pics from my walk with jonah in north yorkshire a few weeks ago. They are in flickr, just click on the link on the right to view them. Some of them are really good, the snow looks great.

Sunday worship

During the service at cvm on sunday the local preacher, AM, led us in a very useful discussion on forgiveness. Looking at examples of those who struggled to forgive atrocities that had happened to them, and others who had forgiven such things. There were many useful contributions as we accepted the difficulty that forgiveness can bring to individuals, and how as christians we shouldn't act in judgement over those struggling to forgive. One useful comment i remember, is that peter said that he couldn't forgive, and that it was christ in him that forgave. I really am enjoying the way that we are doing church, sitting informally, sharing tea and coffee. Sometimes a formal traditional service, sometimes a discussion, but always an atmosphere of love and acceptance.

I was reminded that the president of the methodist conference, rev tom stuckey, was speaking at a rededication service for one of the circuits oldest methodist societies, 250th anniversary. He spoke well and continued promoting the themes he addressed in his presidential address to conference. To move away from worshiping a tribal chapel deity, to explore the vastness of a creative god that surpasses knowledge. To do theology, talk of god and share wisdom and experience. To be inspired by the spirit of god to explore new ways of worshiping him and sharing him.

Football saturday

Went to a chesterfield match for the first time in a while, with it being a local derby against former european champions nottingham forrest, I decided it was worth going. I'd also managed to convince v that going to a football match is something she needed to experience whilst in england. We went by train and arrived at chesterfield station just as a horde of forrest fans were being ushered into a group surrounded by police and escorted into town. V thought that this was rather strange, and wished she's managed to take a surreptitious photo of the proceedings. Met up with scott and after a bite to eat we headed to saltergate.

Actually the match was very enjoyable despite the defeat. Some good flowing football was played, and with a little more imagination in the last third, plus an improvement to our defence, chesterfield could become strong contenders next season. Picken's goal for Chesterfield was quite superb, a deft shot from outside the area into the top corner. The banter between the rival fans proved quite amusing to v.

After the match we met up with john, a friend from my childhood days in pilsley, and suzanne who were in the area for the weekend. They're both huge liverpool fans, and we found a pub to watch the evening match. It was great to see them both and hear that John's dad has made a remarkable recovery.