Kate Swift Rest In Peace.

I only knew Kate for a short while, back in 2007-2008, but she made a big impression on me and everyone else who met her. I was really shocked, when I found out about her tragic death.

You were one of a kind Kate. I can't believe this has happened.

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?

I actually went and used my camera!!!!

Yesterday was an historic occasion! I actually took some advice and got out ant took some photo's. I got a text off Jo, asking me to come down to Liverpool ONE and take some photographs of Sense of Sound. They're trying to get as many people as possible, to vote for them in Last Choir Standing, next week. They were amazing, as usual and the crowd really took a shine to them. Later on when SOS had gone off to perform at the Brouhaha festival. I could hear various bods suddenly breaking into "Cry Me A River" :)

Then I went on a little walk around town and took a few more shots.


By the time I got home, last night, I was in photographer mode:)
I spent most of the evening editing shots and uploading them to Flickr.

I don't do that many "People" shots so I was pleasantly surprised that most of my "Sense of Sound" shot's turned out so well.
I could really get into this photography lark. . . . Pete Carr, LOOK OUT! :)

What's been happening . . .

Last week was a bit crap.

I still can't believe that Derek has gone! It's weird, I was just talking about him a few days before it happened. I got the news by text, which is not the way you want to be informed about a friends death. (thanks Phil). I found a christmas card that he had sent me, but i never received until March or April. He asked me why I didn't turn up to his wedding, I felt really guilty, I kept meaning to phone him, but i never did. It's his funeral tomorrow. Maybe it will hit home, then?

I went back to work after having a week off. I'd spent all week in "night mode". My body clock is back to front. I'm sleeping during the day and I'm wide awake every night. Anyway, when i returned to work at 10 pm, on Tuesday, to start another week of nights. I found someone else sitting in my chair.
While I was off work, the powers that be, decided to transfer me to a completely different job in a different building. So much for communication. I start my new job today at 2 pm. I also applied for another position, I applied for the same job last year. Maybe this time I'll be lucky.

To get myself out of my weird sleep pattern, i stayed up when I got home from work on Saturday morning at 7 am. I decided to spend the day fiddling with my website. I added a new "gallery" page. You can access it from the sidebar of my photo blog page. There will be more gallery pages added in the future.

By about 2 pm i was knackered and had to go to bed., but I forced myself to get back up at about 8 that night. It seems to have worked. Sunday was the same as Saturday. I was washing my mini at 6 am. I got up at 5 am today and added another page to my site. It's a downloads page. I've decided to make some of my photo's available as desktop wallpapers. And that's that really. I might go out for a walk. The weather's fantastic today.

Derek Hannah R.I.P.

My mate Degsy - Col de la Faucille - Friday 4th November 1995 - Here he is, with probably his third or fourth Grolsch of the day.

I did the Italian Job charity run three times. The second time I did it I took Degs as my co-driver. It was the most memorable of the three. He was the worst navigator, in the world. Although he did manage to direct us out of Paris using a street map of Milan!!! He also managed to save my life quite literally. . . But that's another story.

We left the Dieppe ferry at midnight to drive through the night via Paris. We stopped in a rest area on the motorway for a kip and then set off, in the rain at 6.30am for Switzerland. By about 9 we were descending the Col de la Faucille and the sun was shining. We pulled over, by the side of the road, to take in the view of Lake Geneva, below us. All was going well and we spent a leisurely day driving the Swiss alpine roads. We shared a ski lodge with the rest of our convoy and got smashed in a little alpine bar. I was feeling generous and got everyone's meal on my credit card. By the time we reached Italy, the following morning, we had both run out of money and my credit card bounced at an Italian service station. Derek had spent the last of his cash on beer. We were both banking on our wages being paid in, the Thursday before, but they hadn't been. Either that, or we were both completely overdrawn. (This is more likely).
We borrowed about £20 off Phil Sullivan to pay for our tank of fuel (I'm still not sure if I paid you back Phil?) So we were without cash until Monday. But on Monday we discovered that we couldn't use a British switch card abroad. Luckily for us we were staying B&B in our pre-booked hotels. We were guaranteed at least one meal a day. But we needed money for drinks in the bar and fuel. I phoned up my credit card company and got my limit upped to £1500. When I got home, 10 days later, I had lost about a stone and had a credit card bill for about £900. Most of it was for hotel bar tabs. It took me another couple of years to pay it off.

Everyone who met Degsy on the Italian Job in '95 has never forgotten him. As Tony Fidoe put it; "Degsy's a star!".

I'll miss you Matey! You're a Star. . .