Nottingham is named as one of the greenest cities...
Hmmm. Extremely unlikely.
It's Halloween today and as I head off to dog training there is an almighty traffic jam in the middle of Wollaton. The cause... two witches in little black numbers with pointy black hats lingering outside the local pub. Totally disrupting the traffic, with everyone slowing down to admire their hemlines.
Meanwhile L meets a couple of vampires on Ilkeston Road. Just a normal night in Wollaton then.
Luckily both the boys are at dog training tonight, what with trick or treaters and fireworks, Doggo would probably have dug the walls down. Hopefully in the middle of nowhere where dog training is, it should be quiet. It is but when we get back to Beirut, I mean Nottingham, we have to quickly rush him back into the house.
(Monday 31st October)
Monday, 31 October 2011
Sunday, 30 October 2011
Thirty-Ten-Eleven
I take L up to Sheffield today for the erroneously named Sheffield Ten-Ten-Ten at Endcliffe Park.
Last year the race ran on the 10th October 2010, this year 30th October 2011. So Thirty-Ten-Eleven then. Still starts at 10am though and still 10k.
I’ve decided to give this one a miss. I need a break but also looking at the photos of last year’s race put me off. Is that grass they’re running on? It rather looks like it and muddy grass at that. It’s also two laps. On closer inspection it looks remarkably like two laps of Wollaton Park... and I've done that often enough.
I decide to help the boys with their supporting. When I see the bacon sarnie stall it looks even more like the right decision. I’m not at all jealous of L on this one, it looks a very slow course, but the t-shirts are nice.
After which we meet up with Daughter and her flat mates, who are an interesting bunch. The boys seem please to see her, although MD mopes again afterwards when she doesn’t return home with us but he gets over it much more quickly this time.
To help ease his pain we walk them over to Beeston for a pint or there, shepherding Doggo successfully (mostly) past the odd firework display as we go.
(Sunday 30th October)
Last year the race ran on the 10th October 2010, this year 30th October 2011. So Thirty-Ten-Eleven then. Still starts at 10am though and still 10k.
I’ve decided to give this one a miss. I need a break but also looking at the photos of last year’s race put me off. Is that grass they’re running on? It rather looks like it and muddy grass at that. It’s also two laps. On closer inspection it looks remarkably like two laps of Wollaton Park... and I've done that often enough.
I decide to help the boys with their supporting. When I see the bacon sarnie stall it looks even more like the right decision. I’m not at all jealous of L on this one, it looks a very slow course, but the t-shirts are nice.
After which we meet up with Daughter and her flat mates, who are an interesting bunch. The boys seem please to see her, although MD mopes again afterwards when she doesn’t return home with us but he gets over it much more quickly this time.
To help ease his pain we walk them over to Beeston for a pint or there, shepherding Doggo successfully (mostly) past the odd firework display as we go.
(Sunday 30th October)
Saturday, 29 October 2011
Suitably Impressed
I drive out to Ruddington today to the company who installed my double glazing over 15 years ago. The handle of the bathroom window came off in my hand... Clearly I don’t know my own strength. They are more than willing to help and supply me with a free replacement handle. I am suitably impressed.
I am also suitably impressed when Derby score three great goals against Portsmouth this afternoon. Although after that they throw in an almighty wobble just to keep us all interested but still manage to come though 3-1 in the end.
A treat for the dogs tonight, I think. Pet Noodles. Made in just the same way as the human ones with hot water but probably better for you. They even look more appetising.
We stay in tonight to protect the house from Doggo’s digging when the fireworks go off. On Wednesday he fetched a load of wallpaper off the bathroom wall while we were out because the house was presumably under attack. It’s my fault really for replacing the carpet in there with tiles. That carpet was his favourite comfort digging ground, I’ll have to put a mat in there for him.
(Saturday 29th October)
I am also suitably impressed when Derby score three great goals against Portsmouth this afternoon. Although after that they throw in an almighty wobble just to keep us all interested but still manage to come though 3-1 in the end.
A treat for the dogs tonight, I think. Pet Noodles. Made in just the same way as the human ones with hot water but probably better for you. They even look more appetising.
We stay in tonight to protect the house from Doggo’s digging when the fireworks go off. On Wednesday he fetched a load of wallpaper off the bathroom wall while we were out because the house was presumably under attack. It’s my fault really for replacing the carpet in there with tiles. That carpet was his favourite comfort digging ground, I’ll have to put a mat in there for him.
(Saturday 29th October)
Friday, 28 October 2011
Feeling A Bit Retro
I’m feeling a bit retro at the moment, so The Mission’s 25th Anniversary Homecoming Show up in Leeds sounds ideal. I head up straight from work and due to the horrors of the M1 still don’t get in to Leeds until around 7.00 and then for some reason I can't find my usual car park. Well, the one I’ve used once before but I must be getting the hang of the place because I find somewhere much nearer and again cheaper than Sheffield, the most expensive place on earth to park. Well at least in the Midlands and the north.
I rush into the venue at 7.15, allowing just enough time for a quick loo break, had it not been half a mile away in the basement, before the first band come on at 7.20. The rush is to see Salvation, another band of the same era and one not easily seen these days. According to the bands website they have played only two concerts since 1991. In 2004 at a Private Party, bizarrely in my home town of Nottingham, that I wasn’t invited to and in 2007 with The March Violets at the Violets own Leeds homecoming show.
They’re a little late coming on, so a chance to look around. I’m at the Leeds Academy, yes another one of those. Better known, back in the day, as the Town and Country Club and if you’re really old, before that the Coliseum. The place has been out of circulation for many a year, carrying on as a just nightclub, before it got Academy-ised in 2008. Now it’s being used again as a 2,300 gig venue, although with some of those up on the balcony.
Salvation are from Leeds and have had links with The Mission over the years, touring with them quite a bit back in the late 80's. I’m quickly transported back in time by ‘Diamond Child’, ‘She's an Island’, ‘All and More’ and ‘Thunderbird’. Cue jokes about Thunderbird wine. Is that stuff still available? All this accompanied by a gentle mosh for the attending over 40s.
Four of the five band members tonight date back to the heyday of the band, so it’s another reunion on stage this evening. To their credit they sound exactly the same as they did back then, right down to Danny Mass’s distinctive voice. The only thing that has changed is that they’ve got older. I mean we've all got a bit less hair these days but blimey. Danny had such a mop...
Then it’s great to hear the old favourite ‘Listen to Her Heart’ before they end a nine song set with ‘Why Lie?’
Being nicely gothed out after that, it seems a bit unfitting to have the Wonder Stuff up next, who don't really fit the blueprint. No offence boys... and girl. Still I've never been an objector, and I don't think I've ever seen them live. They are billed as ‘very special guests’ tonight, Wayne Hussey and Miles Hunt are the best of mates and have toured together, so it’s an understandable choice.
They start well with ‘Red Berry Joy Town’ with Hunt taking the stage with a bottle of wine in hand. Their set is good and the band lots of fun. Miles Hunt and co clearly love what they’re doing and that comes over from the stage. The downside is the nutters in the mosh pit that they attract. It gets exceedingly lively and this is just the warm up act.
They lose me in the middle a bit, going shall we say a bit baggy and folksy at times. Having a fiddle in the band I suppose makes this inevitable but at least it quells the violent moshing.
Which returns for a lively finish of the all the favourites:- ‘Size Of A Cow’, ‘Don't Let Me Down Gently’, ‘Give, Give, Give Me, More, More, More’ etc. Which causes Hunt to question whether he’ll be in trouble with Mr Hussey for tiring out his audience.
Near the end Erica, the violinist, disappears to change out of her party frock (shame) and returns dressed as a skeleton. Ready for Halloween I assume but still a bit odd.
Personally I think they were given too much stage time but the promoters clearly though two supports with a good fanbase were required to sell out the venue. The alternative would have been perhaps a smaller venue? Because at the end of the day it’s all about the Mission and they’re up next.
If you were a teenager in the eighties looking for an introduction to the world of live music in tight sweaty venues with all the trimmings that go with that you could not really have done better than discover the Mission. They seemed to be in Nottingham almost every other month throughout 1986-1988 and I had many a joyous evening at these fist pumping affairs. Time to dig out the old t-shirts, I’ve got a 1987 one but sadly not one going back to 1986.
I haven’t seen them live since 1990, when a move to bigger venues and the awful ‘Masque’ album tested my loyalty, as it did many others. The band itself started to implode at around the same time and that really should have been that but Wayne Hussey soldiered on with Mick Brown, the drummer, until they disbanded in 1993... before reforming a few years later and playing with differing line ups until finally calling it a day with a run of farewell shows at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire in 2008.
Now it's the 25th anniversary, so there's money being waved around and money talks but Hussey has got original members Simon Hinkler and Craig Adams on board although sadly not Brown. Still it’s got me on board and what better place to rekindle the faith after 21 years than in Leeds where it all started.
What's more they seem to be up for it and it’s an absolutely fantastic opening, as the ‘Dambusters’ theme draws to a close and they open with the slow building, brooding ‘Beyond the Pale’ from their second album, ‘Children’. I think I'm the only one who would choose that as their favourite album. It feels like a proper album, whereas their first album was simply an accumulation of the stuff they’d been playing live. ‘Children’ had the feel that they’d actually sat down and written it. Sadly they only play two from it tonight.
Next up ‘Hands Across The Ocean’, which seems a bit out of place, taken from the ‘Grains of Sand’ album which was basically an album of tracks that hadn’t made the cut for the previous ‘Carved In Sand’ offering.
Thereafter, it’s pretty much early Mission classics all the way. ‘Serpent’s Kiss’ ignites the floor before ‘Naked & Savage’ calms things down again, a touch.
For saying they’ve had less than a month to rehearse and a new drummer (who was excellent), the band sound great, looked relaxed and the old magic was there to see.
‘Garden of Delight’ was as good as ever but I’ve never been a fan of the band playing ‘Severina’ without Julianne Regan who contributed so much vocally to the original.
Hussey reminisces about Leeds and not very fondly. He recalls shooting a video here, in the old Town & Country Club but also of his house being burgled every time he went off on tour. Hussey actually hails from Bristol, Hickler as it turns out is from Sheffield, leaving Adams as the only Leeds native but never mind. Great to see Hinkler really getting into the part, complete with a hat again, nice touch.
I forget how good ‘Butterfly on a Wheel’ sounds but remember how the appeal of ‘Stay With Me’ passed me by and still does. Before which Adams is persuaded to do the ‘Vigilante Man’, which I’ve never heard him do before. The guy really looks like he’s having a ball.
It good to hear ‘Wake’ included with Hinkler at the piano, a very early classic that always used to steal the shows and does again tonight.
Then it’s a not so satisfying ‘Wasteland’ remix followed by a thumpingly good ‘Crystal Ocean’ and finally ‘Deliverance’ which provides quite an ending. Adams and Hinkler leave the stage but Hussey remains to lead the audience in the singing. Then he goes too, leaving just Mike Kelly, the man drafted in to play the drums and thereby halving the average age of the band at the same time. He stays to the end, with the crowd still singing. Very effective and effecting.
After just twelve tracks their gone. As I’ve said, too many support bands. While we await the encore I ponder the fact that many of the audience still look good in basques etc well into their 40s and as for the women...
Hussey returns to play ‘Like A Child Again’ solo, a track that comes from that much maligned ‘Masque’ album and it sounds infinitely better acoustic than on record. With its ‘Like a Hurricane’ reference it leads into, what else but, ‘Like a Hurricane’. Then it’s a soaring (you have to use that word) ‘Tower of Strength’.
Then they’re gone again, returning for the classic that is ‘Blood Brother’ and the traditional cover of Iggy’s ‘1969’.
In all, a very good night. The only criticism would be that it was felt just like a Mission concert from twenty years ago, rather than an anniversary one... well, perhaps that’s no criticism at all.
L has been nagging me all day to take supply of biscuits and to get a coffee for the journey home, to make sure I’m awake. She was after all a good girl and had a biscuit every time I told her to when she was giving blood last night. She also had several when I didn’t tell her to as well but we’ll gloss over that. I do as I’m told but I’m buzzing after the gig so there’s not risk of nodding off anyway.
(Friday 28th October)
I rush into the venue at 7.15, allowing just enough time for a quick loo break, had it not been half a mile away in the basement, before the first band come on at 7.20. The rush is to see Salvation, another band of the same era and one not easily seen these days. According to the bands website they have played only two concerts since 1991. In 2004 at a Private Party, bizarrely in my home town of Nottingham, that I wasn’t invited to and in 2007 with The March Violets at the Violets own Leeds homecoming show.
They’re a little late coming on, so a chance to look around. I’m at the Leeds Academy, yes another one of those. Better known, back in the day, as the Town and Country Club and if you’re really old, before that the Coliseum. The place has been out of circulation for many a year, carrying on as a just nightclub, before it got Academy-ised in 2008. Now it’s being used again as a 2,300 gig venue, although with some of those up on the balcony.
Salvation are from Leeds and have had links with The Mission over the years, touring with them quite a bit back in the late 80's. I’m quickly transported back in time by ‘Diamond Child’, ‘She's an Island’, ‘All and More’ and ‘Thunderbird’. Cue jokes about Thunderbird wine. Is that stuff still available? All this accompanied by a gentle mosh for the attending over 40s.
Four of the five band members tonight date back to the heyday of the band, so it’s another reunion on stage this evening. To their credit they sound exactly the same as they did back then, right down to Danny Mass’s distinctive voice. The only thing that has changed is that they’ve got older. I mean we've all got a bit less hair these days but blimey. Danny had such a mop...
Then it’s great to hear the old favourite ‘Listen to Her Heart’ before they end a nine song set with ‘Why Lie?’
Being nicely gothed out after that, it seems a bit unfitting to have the Wonder Stuff up next, who don't really fit the blueprint. No offence boys... and girl. Still I've never been an objector, and I don't think I've ever seen them live. They are billed as ‘very special guests’ tonight, Wayne Hussey and Miles Hunt are the best of mates and have toured together, so it’s an understandable choice.
They start well with ‘Red Berry Joy Town’ with Hunt taking the stage with a bottle of wine in hand. Their set is good and the band lots of fun. Miles Hunt and co clearly love what they’re doing and that comes over from the stage. The downside is the nutters in the mosh pit that they attract. It gets exceedingly lively and this is just the warm up act.
They lose me in the middle a bit, going shall we say a bit baggy and folksy at times. Having a fiddle in the band I suppose makes this inevitable but at least it quells the violent moshing.
Which returns for a lively finish of the all the favourites:- ‘Size Of A Cow’, ‘Don't Let Me Down Gently’, ‘Give, Give, Give Me, More, More, More’ etc. Which causes Hunt to question whether he’ll be in trouble with Mr Hussey for tiring out his audience.
Near the end Erica, the violinist, disappears to change out of her party frock (shame) and returns dressed as a skeleton. Ready for Halloween I assume but still a bit odd.
Personally I think they were given too much stage time but the promoters clearly though two supports with a good fanbase were required to sell out the venue. The alternative would have been perhaps a smaller venue? Because at the end of the day it’s all about the Mission and they’re up next.
If you were a teenager in the eighties looking for an introduction to the world of live music in tight sweaty venues with all the trimmings that go with that you could not really have done better than discover the Mission. They seemed to be in Nottingham almost every other month throughout 1986-1988 and I had many a joyous evening at these fist pumping affairs. Time to dig out the old t-shirts, I’ve got a 1987 one but sadly not one going back to 1986.
I haven’t seen them live since 1990, when a move to bigger venues and the awful ‘Masque’ album tested my loyalty, as it did many others. The band itself started to implode at around the same time and that really should have been that but Wayne Hussey soldiered on with Mick Brown, the drummer, until they disbanded in 1993... before reforming a few years later and playing with differing line ups until finally calling it a day with a run of farewell shows at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire in 2008.
Now it's the 25th anniversary, so there's money being waved around and money talks but Hussey has got original members Simon Hinkler and Craig Adams on board although sadly not Brown. Still it’s got me on board and what better place to rekindle the faith after 21 years than in Leeds where it all started.
What's more they seem to be up for it and it’s an absolutely fantastic opening, as the ‘Dambusters’ theme draws to a close and they open with the slow building, brooding ‘Beyond the Pale’ from their second album, ‘Children’. I think I'm the only one who would choose that as their favourite album. It feels like a proper album, whereas their first album was simply an accumulation of the stuff they’d been playing live. ‘Children’ had the feel that they’d actually sat down and written it. Sadly they only play two from it tonight.
Next up ‘Hands Across The Ocean’, which seems a bit out of place, taken from the ‘Grains of Sand’ album which was basically an album of tracks that hadn’t made the cut for the previous ‘Carved In Sand’ offering.
Thereafter, it’s pretty much early Mission classics all the way. ‘Serpent’s Kiss’ ignites the floor before ‘Naked & Savage’ calms things down again, a touch.
For saying they’ve had less than a month to rehearse and a new drummer (who was excellent), the band sound great, looked relaxed and the old magic was there to see.
‘Garden of Delight’ was as good as ever but I’ve never been a fan of the band playing ‘Severina’ without Julianne Regan who contributed so much vocally to the original.
Hussey reminisces about Leeds and not very fondly. He recalls shooting a video here, in the old Town & Country Club but also of his house being burgled every time he went off on tour. Hussey actually hails from Bristol, Hickler as it turns out is from Sheffield, leaving Adams as the only Leeds native but never mind. Great to see Hinkler really getting into the part, complete with a hat again, nice touch.
I forget how good ‘Butterfly on a Wheel’ sounds but remember how the appeal of ‘Stay With Me’ passed me by and still does. Before which Adams is persuaded to do the ‘Vigilante Man’, which I’ve never heard him do before. The guy really looks like he’s having a ball.
It good to hear ‘Wake’ included with Hinkler at the piano, a very early classic that always used to steal the shows and does again tonight.
Then it’s a not so satisfying ‘Wasteland’ remix followed by a thumpingly good ‘Crystal Ocean’ and finally ‘Deliverance’ which provides quite an ending. Adams and Hinkler leave the stage but Hussey remains to lead the audience in the singing. Then he goes too, leaving just Mike Kelly, the man drafted in to play the drums and thereby halving the average age of the band at the same time. He stays to the end, with the crowd still singing. Very effective and effecting.
After just twelve tracks their gone. As I’ve said, too many support bands. While we await the encore I ponder the fact that many of the audience still look good in basques etc well into their 40s and as for the women...
Hussey returns to play ‘Like A Child Again’ solo, a track that comes from that much maligned ‘Masque’ album and it sounds infinitely better acoustic than on record. With its ‘Like a Hurricane’ reference it leads into, what else but, ‘Like a Hurricane’. Then it’s a soaring (you have to use that word) ‘Tower of Strength’.
Then they’re gone again, returning for the classic that is ‘Blood Brother’ and the traditional cover of Iggy’s ‘1969’.
In all, a very good night. The only criticism would be that it was felt just like a Mission concert from twenty years ago, rather than an anniversary one... well, perhaps that’s no criticism at all.
L has been nagging me all day to take supply of biscuits and to get a coffee for the journey home, to make sure I’m awake. She was after all a good girl and had a biscuit every time I told her to when she was giving blood last night. She also had several when I didn’t tell her to as well but we’ll gloss over that. I do as I’m told but I’m buzzing after the gig so there’s not risk of nodding off anyway.
(Friday 28th October)
Thursday, 27 October 2011
Mud Surfing
It’s drizzling as I wheel the bike out this morning and then it gradually gets worse as I ride. So, soaked again and this time in both directions as the rain comes back in the afternoon as well.
I haven’t managed to get a squash court for tonight both remaining sets of council courts are booked up. It’s a good job the council closed the surplus courts because there was no demand. We book for Tuesday instead, pulling the rug out from somebody’s regular slot. I don’t like doing that but feel we have no choice.
L is out doing vampire duties tonight, giving blood. Rather her than me. I’d be no use anyway and it would take at least three blonde nurses to bring me round afterwards.
So I get to indulge myself in the kitchen whilst she is out. I enjoy cooking and I particularly enjoy cooking with the radio on and a glass of wine in my hand (which is allowed on a Thursday but not Monday - Wednesday). I top off the indulgence by having the cheese and biscuits to hand, to tide me over until the food is ready and L gets home to share it with me. Meanwhile the dogs urge me to kick their footballs so that they can mud surf across the garden.
L texts to say the deed is done and she’s having a bourbon. I’m initially impressed that they’re serving alcohol to the donors and was about to ask whether it was Jack Daniels, then it dawns on me she talking biscuits. I tell her to have another one to up her sugar levels, she’s earned it, not realising she's already on her sixth.
I decide I best go collect her before she has any more, she probably shouldn’t be wobbling home on her own anyway.
(Thursday 27th October)
I haven’t managed to get a squash court for tonight both remaining sets of council courts are booked up. It’s a good job the council closed the surplus courts because there was no demand. We book for Tuesday instead, pulling the rug out from somebody’s regular slot. I don’t like doing that but feel we have no choice.
L is out doing vampire duties tonight, giving blood. Rather her than me. I’d be no use anyway and it would take at least three blonde nurses to bring me round afterwards.
So I get to indulge myself in the kitchen whilst she is out. I enjoy cooking and I particularly enjoy cooking with the radio on and a glass of wine in my hand (which is allowed on a Thursday but not Monday - Wednesday). I top off the indulgence by having the cheese and biscuits to hand, to tide me over until the food is ready and L gets home to share it with me. Meanwhile the dogs urge me to kick their footballs so that they can mud surf across the garden.
L texts to say the deed is done and she’s having a bourbon. I’m initially impressed that they’re serving alcohol to the donors and was about to ask whether it was Jack Daniels, then it dawns on me she talking biscuits. I tell her to have another one to up her sugar levels, she’s earned it, not realising she's already on her sixth.
I decide I best go collect her before she has any more, she probably shouldn’t be wobbling home on her own anyway.
(Thursday 27th October)
Wednesday, 26 October 2011
Nice Work If You Can Get It
L’s at the gym, despite the fact that the Daily Mail has been issuing dire warnings about exercising in the morning. Although it’s wise to ignore most things in the media and everything in the Daily Mail.
I do actually find running or cycling much easier after work than before. Not that that’s any indication of whether it does me any good or not. One thing’s for sure, that driving to work is bad for my stress levels, as well as doing nothing for my health.
Just to make sure, L goes in the evening as well, with the Daily Mail’s approval.
I meet her there later and we do our pre-drinking, before we hit town, in the leisure centre. We’re on the hard stuff, vending machine mocha. You can’t beat it.
It’s all happening a bit early tonight, at 8.40 Southend's The Horrors quietly shuffle on to the stage at Rock City unaccompanied by any backing music. This is after a venue change from what was supposed to be an intimate Rescue Rooms night, due to them selling that out rather quicker than expected and it’s not far off being a sell out for a second time in the bigger venue.
Then we’re quickly in to ‘Changing The Rain’ off their new album ‘Skying’. It’s a rather ponderous track and sounds ever more so live but from there, things soon pick up. ‘Who Can Say’ from their award winning ‘Primary Colours’ album is much better. Livelier. The same album also probably producing the highlight of the set, a terrific ‘Scarlet Fields’. The new stuff is less impressive but ‘I Can See Through You’, ‘Still Life’ and particularly ‘Endless Blue’ are decent enough but lack the class and the punch of their predecessors.
Throughout, the band beaver away industriously behind a fog of thick smoke and assorted coloured lights. Faris Badwan says little, although he does mumble a few things that we don’t quite catch and introduces some of the tracks.
Then at 9.20 they’re done. 40 minutes and 8 tracks after hitting the stage they’re gone. Perhaps they were just the support... Actually, it’s really a bit pathetic; three albums to pick from and they can only muster the energy for eight tracks. If I’m making excuses for them, then maybe, just maybe, it’s because he’s been suffering from an infected throat, which caused the band to cancel a couple of the dates on this tour, but his voice seems fine tonight, so maybe not. Still, it was good while it lasted.
There then follows a longer than necessary break before the encore and I can't imagine why they need a lie down after that brief performance. That’s assuming we’re going to get an encore. Ah, I see we are.
The encore showcases what was great about ‘Primary Colours’. ‘Mirror's Image’ and ‘Three Decades’ back to back are a potent combination and go some way to alleviating the disappointment of the brevity of the main set, but then it all finishes as ponderously as it started. The band busily jam away to ‘Moving Further Away’, which to me is all intro and no song. It’s musical Horlicks. I'll sleep well. It’s also almost as long as the main set. Midway through it, as nothing much is happening on stage, someone chucks a full pint at the bass player and then Faris himself lights a firework centre stage but I’m still nodding off.
It sounds like a longer ‘Whole New Way’, one of the many tracks they've now discarded. There’s nothing from ‘Strange House’ tonight, unsurprising but still a shame. It would have been a test of how good they are to see how well they could weave say ‘Gloves’ or ‘Count In Fives’ in to the set. Tracks that would fit, at a shove.
The length of the encore means it’s just over an hours toil for the lads. Nice work if you can get it. Eleven tracks in all. On the ‘Primary Colours’ tour in 2010 they played fourteen songs when they came to Nottingham. So they're regressing, shaving three songs off their set list. So don’t arrive late when they next tour... or you’ll miss ‘em totally.
Somebody somewhere is giving them bad career advice. The mumbles from the crowd heading for the exits is mixed at best. It was very good in the middle though, while it lasted.
(Wednesday 26th October)
I do actually find running or cycling much easier after work than before. Not that that’s any indication of whether it does me any good or not. One thing’s for sure, that driving to work is bad for my stress levels, as well as doing nothing for my health.
Just to make sure, L goes in the evening as well, with the Daily Mail’s approval.
I meet her there later and we do our pre-drinking, before we hit town, in the leisure centre. We’re on the hard stuff, vending machine mocha. You can’t beat it.
It’s all happening a bit early tonight, at 8.40 Southend's The Horrors quietly shuffle on to the stage at Rock City unaccompanied by any backing music. This is after a venue change from what was supposed to be an intimate Rescue Rooms night, due to them selling that out rather quicker than expected and it’s not far off being a sell out for a second time in the bigger venue.
Then we’re quickly in to ‘Changing The Rain’ off their new album ‘Skying’. It’s a rather ponderous track and sounds ever more so live but from there, things soon pick up. ‘Who Can Say’ from their award winning ‘Primary Colours’ album is much better. Livelier. The same album also probably producing the highlight of the set, a terrific ‘Scarlet Fields’. The new stuff is less impressive but ‘I Can See Through You’, ‘Still Life’ and particularly ‘Endless Blue’ are decent enough but lack the class and the punch of their predecessors.
Throughout, the band beaver away industriously behind a fog of thick smoke and assorted coloured lights. Faris Badwan says little, although he does mumble a few things that we don’t quite catch and introduces some of the tracks.
Then at 9.20 they’re done. 40 minutes and 8 tracks after hitting the stage they’re gone. Perhaps they were just the support... Actually, it’s really a bit pathetic; three albums to pick from and they can only muster the energy for eight tracks. If I’m making excuses for them, then maybe, just maybe, it’s because he’s been suffering from an infected throat, which caused the band to cancel a couple of the dates on this tour, but his voice seems fine tonight, so maybe not. Still, it was good while it lasted.
There then follows a longer than necessary break before the encore and I can't imagine why they need a lie down after that brief performance. That’s assuming we’re going to get an encore. Ah, I see we are.
The encore showcases what was great about ‘Primary Colours’. ‘Mirror's Image’ and ‘Three Decades’ back to back are a potent combination and go some way to alleviating the disappointment of the brevity of the main set, but then it all finishes as ponderously as it started. The band busily jam away to ‘Moving Further Away’, which to me is all intro and no song. It’s musical Horlicks. I'll sleep well. It’s also almost as long as the main set. Midway through it, as nothing much is happening on stage, someone chucks a full pint at the bass player and then Faris himself lights a firework centre stage but I’m still nodding off.
It sounds like a longer ‘Whole New Way’, one of the many tracks they've now discarded. There’s nothing from ‘Strange House’ tonight, unsurprising but still a shame. It would have been a test of how good they are to see how well they could weave say ‘Gloves’ or ‘Count In Fives’ in to the set. Tracks that would fit, at a shove.
The length of the encore means it’s just over an hours toil for the lads. Nice work if you can get it. Eleven tracks in all. On the ‘Primary Colours’ tour in 2010 they played fourteen songs when they came to Nottingham. So they're regressing, shaving three songs off their set list. So don’t arrive late when they next tour... or you’ll miss ‘em totally.
Somebody somewhere is giving them bad career advice. The mumbles from the crowd heading for the exits is mixed at best. It was very good in the middle though, while it lasted.
(Wednesday 26th October)
Tuesday, 25 October 2011
In Defence Of The Male Honour
I’m back on the bike today. Tuesdays no need longer to be set aside for long runs because I don’t need to do any. I don’t have a half marathon in the pipeline until next year. Which sounds further away than it probably is.
Later, the moment I get on my bike at work and start to ride towards home, the heavens open. This means pulling over and piling on all the wet weather kit I can muster. I had planned on riding straight to the pool and going for a swim but there’s seems little point now. I’ve had my swim on the roads. The prospect of getting out of wet kit and then back into it again after swimming does not appeal. So I skip it.
One thing livens up the damp ride home. I catch and then tuck in behind a nice little bedraggled number on the road down into Sandiacre. Full lycra kit topped off with a waterproof jacket astride a sleek road bike. I know I should go past her in a whirr of testosterone, in defence of the male honour, but there’s always the risk that she might rise to the challenge, fight back and win.
We pull up together at the lights in Sandiacre and exchange the customary pleasantries. An American as it turns out. I wait for her tell me to ‘have a nice day’, which clearly it isn’t, but she doesn’t. Then I realise she’s waiting for the lad on the baby mountain bike that I passed back up the road. He pants up to us in his hoodie and a pair of those heavy cotton tracksuit trousers that have taken on far too much water and are hanging way below the decency line. Only four miles or so to my house he tells her. They do say opposites attract, don’t they.
So no problem defending said honour, as she seems compelled to dawdle along, not exactly with him but just ahead of him, as I push on for home through the rain.
When I arrive in Nottingham it’s barely raining and I don’t think L believes me that we’ve had a monsoon in Derby despite my sodden appearance.
(Tuesday 25th October)
Later, the moment I get on my bike at work and start to ride towards home, the heavens open. This means pulling over and piling on all the wet weather kit I can muster. I had planned on riding straight to the pool and going for a swim but there’s seems little point now. I’ve had my swim on the roads. The prospect of getting out of wet kit and then back into it again after swimming does not appeal. So I skip it.
One thing livens up the damp ride home. I catch and then tuck in behind a nice little bedraggled number on the road down into Sandiacre. Full lycra kit topped off with a waterproof jacket astride a sleek road bike. I know I should go past her in a whirr of testosterone, in defence of the male honour, but there’s always the risk that she might rise to the challenge, fight back and win.
We pull up together at the lights in Sandiacre and exchange the customary pleasantries. An American as it turns out. I wait for her tell me to ‘have a nice day’, which clearly it isn’t, but she doesn’t. Then I realise she’s waiting for the lad on the baby mountain bike that I passed back up the road. He pants up to us in his hoodie and a pair of those heavy cotton tracksuit trousers that have taken on far too much water and are hanging way below the decency line. Only four miles or so to my house he tells her. They do say opposites attract, don’t they.
So no problem defending said honour, as she seems compelled to dawdle along, not exactly with him but just ahead of him, as I push on for home through the rain.
When I arrive in Nottingham it’s barely raining and I don’t think L believes me that we’ve had a monsoon in Derby despite my sodden appearance.
(Tuesday 25th October)
Monday, 24 October 2011
Top Of My Wish List
I’m not a great follower of fashion, well no follower at all really, so somebody else will have to explain to me why the lad using the cash machine at Sainsbury’s had a golf tee through his ear. Quite bizarre.
After the trials of running around Birmingham yesterday, a frenetic dog training session was not top of my wish list for tonight but, actually, it proves a good leg loosener. MD will sleep well, as will I.
I may also have picked up another potential client for my fledgling (as in not really started it yet) personal training career. The dog trainer has just booked to do her first half marathon and, when she notices my Great Run t-shirt, mentions that she is looking for training tips.
She has time on her side, her run isn’t until February but my initial thoughts are who picks a February half marathon for their first one? It’ll be cold then. Well no, not if you’re doing one in Orlando. Great, I get Birmingham, she gets Orlando and where did I do my first ever half marathon? Sleaford, the coldest place on earth, in February 2010.
(Monday 24th October)
After the trials of running around Birmingham yesterday, a frenetic dog training session was not top of my wish list for tonight but, actually, it proves a good leg loosener. MD will sleep well, as will I.
I may also have picked up another potential client for my fledgling (as in not really started it yet) personal training career. The dog trainer has just booked to do her first half marathon and, when she notices my Great Run t-shirt, mentions that she is looking for training tips.
She has time on her side, her run isn’t until February but my initial thoughts are who picks a February half marathon for their first one? It’ll be cold then. Well no, not if you’re doing one in Orlando. Great, I get Birmingham, she gets Orlando and where did I do my first ever half marathon? Sleaford, the coldest place on earth, in February 2010.
(Monday 24th October)
Sunday, 23 October 2011
Top Banana
The race literature welcomes us to the 'former Birmingham Half Marathon' which has been Bupa-ised and is now known as the ‘Great Birmingham Run’ but as this gives no indication to the race distance we won't call it that. It is after all still a half marathon and it’s still in Birmingham.
The blueprint is the same as the equally spuriously named 'Great Manchester Run' which I did earlier this year. That was a 10k by the way. Again they helpfully put your name on your number, just in case you forget who you are and I’m again in the first ‘Orange’ wave along with all the elite athletes and a banana, but more of him later. there are four waves and L starts in wave three (green).
Parking is great and practical at the NIA and of course cheaper than anywhere in Sheffield. Everything is so handy, that we take the dogs and my father.
There’s bound to be considerable focus on the organisation this year following the farce of last year’s 'race for climate change' where a pinch point in the first half a mile caused everyone to walk and the finish descended into a shambles as runners queued up to cross the line. Now though, we get the Great Run's well honed organisation skills and everything runs like clockwork.
We clap as the star runners are presented to the crowd and then a huge roar goes up as the final one is introduced. Ah, Mr Gebrselassie we meet again. No doubt feeling he has to prove a point and show that beating me in Manchester was no fluke. Bring it on.
Then we’re off, funnelled through a bottleneck before the start, so that’s there’s plenty of space when you actually cross the start line. I baulk at having to actually run across the line, preferring to save those twenty metres of energy for later.
The crowd is a little quiet as I set off, perhaps all cheered out after Gebrselassie, but the public around the course more than make up for it.
Due to the lack of congestion, I get a much better start than last year and have to hold myself back a bit as everyone goes off like Usain Bolt on the downhill start. I refuse to get drawn into such a suicidal pace and decide to let the likes of Gebrselassie burn themselves out before reeling them in later.
As we run along Pershore Road heading out to Bournville, it soon becomes obvious that this plan is already in tatters. Here the course doubles back on itself and as I approach four miles Gebrselassie is already heading back and passing the six mile point. Tactics wrong. Again. I give him a reluctant clap anyway.
The elite women go past not too far behind, apparently they were being paced around by a chap dressed as a banana. I dismiss this bizarre rumour; surely it would have been a giraffe. We saw how quick they are last week. I think some folk have obviously had too much blue Powerade.
Yes it’s Powerade and not Lucozade this year. This means attempting to avoid those ‘blues’. There seems something not right about any blue drink, let alone a blue sports drink. Although I still end up with one before eventually getting a red one at the second stop.
There’s plenty of live music along the route including the lady vicar again. The course itself is generally flat until you come into Cannon Hill Park, at around mile eight, where it starts to ramp up. By the time you go through Edgbaston and past the newly renovated cricket ground it’s getting rather serious hill wise.
I don’t particularly feel either my cold or my ribs but still blame them both for my lack of training which means I’m not going to beat last week’s time, which was target number one. I’m certainly not going to be anywhere near last year’s time of just under 1:37 despite getting a much better start. A tight calf for the last two miles doesn’t help although I don’t think it actually slowed me down any either.
A marker at 20k throws me out, particularly as there doesn’t appear to be a 13 mile one. Just how far is a half marathon in km? I try and work it out in my head. Is it 21.1k? Then we’re counting down in metres and the problem is solved. 800m, 600m, 200m, done. 1:40:27. Not bad, considering.
Then someone asks me to remove my chip from my shoe. Seriously, I can’t bend down there yet. I kick my shoe off, wobble as I retrieve it, and then attempt to pull the chip free of the laces. Five minutes later one chip is with the marshal and I hobble off with one shoe on and one shoe off. Ten metres along the road is a woman with cutters who could have cut the dam thing off for me. You should have been down there at the finish love.
Goodie bag wise... I’m sure they must all be in league with each other. More Redbush tea and more toothpaste. Argggh. Although at least there’s a chocolate bar this time. The T-shirt is a bit bland too. Exactly the same as the other Great Run t-shirts with just ‘Birmingham’ replacing ‘Manchester’, ‘Yorkshire’, ‘North’ etc (delete as applicable). At least they have a range of sizes. Cardiff take note. The most annoying thing though is that neither the T-shirt nor the medal say half marathon on them.
15,000 entered. Just over 11,400 competed in the end which is pretty much the same as last year but with a lot less hitches.
My mate Haile won of course in 1:01:29 and looked like he was jogging most of the time. Gemma Steel won the women’s race in 1:12:21, just ahead of the banana, bet she was relieved about that. At least it wasn’t a giraffe eh Gemma?. Seriously though, running 1:14 dressed as a piece of fruit deserves an award of some sort.
I head to the car to rescue first the boys and then my father. He’s been hemmed in the wrong side of the finish by the crowds which are impressively five to six deep along Broad Street. I dig him out and we just get a good position when L bombs past about five minutes ahead of schedule. Well impressive. 02:11:43. Six minutes quicker than last week. Then we all adjourn to the Malthouse for a pint.
Later we try the Admiral Rodney for a change, who have Broadside on and Sunday Lunch, although that wasn’t that great. Then its home to fall asleep in front of the race highlights.
(Sunday 23rd October)
Saturday, 22 October 2011
A Thing Of The Past
A whole day in. Chance to take the boys on the park and even do a bit of gardening. I hate gardening but I’m trying to plug some of the holes in the lawn created by MD. My grass growing attempts are actually coming on ok. I tidy up the rest of the garden but don’t have any means of disposing of the waste as our council have decided to suspend our garden waste collection until April. Chuck it in the normal bin they advise. So much for recycling.
I spend the later part of the day on the bathroom floor, tiling it. So when the kids return at Christmas wet bathroom carpets will be a thing of the past. It’ll be wet tiles instead. Not that we’ve had any wet carpets since they went away.
It's an interesting way to prep for tomorrow’s run. I had contemplated dragging L to a film tonight but opt to finish the tiling instead. Followed by pasta of course.
(Saturday 22nd October)
I spend the later part of the day on the bathroom floor, tiling it. So when the kids return at Christmas wet bathroom carpets will be a thing of the past. It’ll be wet tiles instead. Not that we’ve had any wet carpets since they went away.
It's an interesting way to prep for tomorrow’s run. I had contemplated dragging L to a film tonight but opt to finish the tiling instead. Followed by pasta of course.
(Saturday 22nd October)
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