Some Ramblings

My life is a bit boring. . . Well OK it's very boring.
Everybody else seems to have a cool existence doing exciting stuff and going to exciting places. All i seem to do is; Go to work; come home to eat and sleep, go back to work, go to ASDA, go to work, go to bed . . . you get the picture.

Anyway, here's a little rundown of what things have happened to me in the past four weeks or so. OK when I say happened to me, what I really mean is things that have happened. . . and I just happened to witness them. Most of the exciting stuff doesn't really involve me.

This next bit did involve me, I was actually there. I was invited to a Secret Gig a few weeks ago by Stephen Langstaff. It was in The Mocha Lounge in Sir Thomas Street, Liverpool. It was a great little acoustic gig, Just Ste and his Drummer Ste who used to drum for Mesemenie (one of many great Liverpool bands that just faded away, when they should have really went somewhere). Mr Langstaff was great, as usual, performing most of the old favourites and a few new tracks. It was like a mini MTV unplugged session, without the TV cameras. Linzi took a few photo's. The light was pretty bad and got worse when they turned out the lights. . . Ever the perfectionist Linzi has decided that all her photo's from that night are not worth looking at and to date she has only shown me one frame. The night ended with me meeting up with a few people from work at The News Bar and then a Kebab.

The following evening Sense of Sound were through to the final six in Last Choir Standing on BBC1. Being totally unbiased :) I can honestley say that SOS were the best choir on the night. The other fve choirs performed to backing tracks and did dance routines. Only Men Aloud (Who incidentally won the competition last night) Actually performed a routine that I could only describe as a Black and White Minstrels number. It measured Gorgonzola on the cheese-o-meter! Sense of Sound performed "Smiley Faces" by Gnarls Barkley.

They were the only choir to perform completely a-Capella. They were that good that it actually sounded like there was a backing track. (Maybe that was the problem). At the end of the show. It went to phone votes. I voted about 100 times for SOS but at the end of the show Sense of Sound and Revelation had both got the LOWEST amount of votes and had to go into a sing off on the next show, the following night. OK with a bit of TV magic the show was recorded straight after the Saturday night show and the judges made a decision based on one song. SOS performed Gabriel by Lamb and Revelation did Lovely Day by Bill Withers, again with a backing track.
Judge who's best yourself. Here's the vids.




Jo phoned me at about a quarter to eleven to tell me that they had been knocked out.
I lost all interest in the competition after this. It was definitely a fix.
Even last night's fnal was a farce. Ysgol Glanaethwy out-performed Only Men Aloud by a mile but OMA won. When they performed their B&W minstrel act as a closing for the show. "Don't Rain on My Parade". . . Sparkly silver ticker tape rain fell onto them. Seems the BBC already knew they would win and had it waiting in the studio ceiling.

Back to my boring life. . . Work has been a bit weird. I've gone from being a hands on , manual worker, running a Spray Drier, to an office waller. spending 8 hours a day doing Excel stuff which I've had to teach myself seeing as the training matrix is a bit of a farce. Anyway I'm back on the drier for the next few weeks.

Another exciting (not) thing that happened was my Huey Pro decided to stop working.
So off I went to Apogaeum in Warrington to return it. True to form It worked perfectly in the iMac they plugged it in to. So off home I went and yep, it's still working.

Last weekend was The Mathew Street Festival. This is the first time I've been ever. I'm ususally away in Scotland or Wales up a mountain, on my bike. But this year I haven't been out on my bike at all. So I decided to go and see, what I have been missing. Sunday was great. I can't believe it was so well organised. I wandered between the stages with Dave D and Gill, Neil, Wardy and Claire gradually getting drunker and more sunburned on my head. Highlights of Sunday were Kappa on the Superlambanana Stage and Chas & Dave on the Tunnel Stage. I danced like a dirty Cockney while making dirty Cockney noises, all of which I can't spell otherwise I'd have written them here. We ended up in the Metro Bar. By this time everything was becoming a blur.
Somehow I woke up at the right station on the train home. I was in bed by half nine. At about 1 in the morning I was wide awake. My sunburned head, had given me sunstroke. Hot and Cold sweats and the shivers in the middle of the night is not fun. Especially when you have got to be up at 7 the next day. I took a couple of Nurofen and drank a couple of pints of water and went back to bed. By 7 I was feeling great and it was back to the station and on the train to do it all again.
I took it easy on Monday I drank only Lucosade and water and put factor 30 sunblock on my poor head. My legs were killing me from all that Dirty Cockney Dancin' the day before. Amy Wynehouse and God Save The Queen were fantastic. Finally we went down to the Water Street Stage to see Vogue a Madonna tribute act. She got changed about 20 times in 45 mins wearing every madonna outfit you could imagine, from the pointy tits thing to a little pink swimsuit. And that was it. End of the festival. Liverpool town centre was full of drunks and heaps of rubbish and amazingly I didn't see one fight or anyone unconscious on the floor. :)
I had one of those moments when I thought I recognised someone in the street and then thought it wasn't him, so didn't say hello. then I thought that it was him and felt guilty for ignoring him. This happens to me a lot. i really should wear my glasses more often.
Claire decided that we were going to the Metro again, She said she had noticed a poster announcing that, Kappa were going to be playing there when we were in there the night before, or she had dreamt it. . . She was right. Kappa made me deaf! My ears were still ringing the next day. I think The Mathew Street Festival is on my list of to do's every August bank Holiday from now on.

This weekend I've done nowt. I'm totally skint and I still haven't paid my mortgage.
I definitely need to start selling stuff. Anyone want a print or a painting?