Small Margins

I actually feel quite sprightly today despite yesterday’s seventy mile plus cycle. Even my shoulder feels fine. So it was worth getting a massage from that attractive young masseur after all.

L feels sorry for poor old England because they got to the top 16 in the whole of the world and don't get any credit for it. She says she would be elated to be in the top one hundred. Perhaps she has point.

The media are slating them but had the USA not got that late goal in their group game, we’d have won the group, played Ghana, probably played just as badly as we did against Germany but scraped a win and would now be facing a quarter final against Uruguay. The media would have them all as heroes. Small margins and a fickle press.

Work has put L in a bad mood, so she heads off to pump iron in the gym. More like she’s sloping off for another sneaky session with Mikael and her audiobook.

I'm dog training again in the evening. What started out as a nice quiet ‘do your own thing’ session is rapidly ballooning in size. It’s now getting far too busy. Mind you tonight there was free tea and ice creams afterwards. Things are looking up.

We Know What We're Doing This Time

This morning we both run the Wollaton Park 10K, organised by the local secondary school. L has entered in advance whereas I check the weather before going down to pay on the day. I nearly didn’t get in. They reached the race limit of 300 around ten minutes after I’d registered.

The course doesn’t endear itself to me. Around 80% of it is across the grass as they seem to avoid the footpaths for some reason, unlike the Run to READ 10k which was the opposite, 80% on path. Running on the Wollaton Park grass isn’t pleasant; it’s very uneven, full of mole hills and pot holes. Real ankle twisting territory and I have ankles that love a good twist.

Perhaps this is why I do a decent twenty minute first lap of the two lap course before going round two minutes slower for the second lap. Still a good overall placing though. Unfortunately both the goodie bag and the t-shirt are rubbish. There’s nothing edible in goodie bag, what use is that? The shirt is a polo shirt with BMW on it, and not a very nice one and that. Not that I got one anyway, as a late entry I got a bag instead. L gave her shirt away. I bet she gets much better goodies when she does the Long Eaton race tomorrow.

I watch all three world cup games today. The first two at home, both are on the dull side but then World Cups are always slow starting. It’s just this one seems to be the slowest starting ever. The first round of games is always lacking in action, things will liven up as the games gradually get more meaningful as teams panic about not making the next round. We hope.

Of course the third game of the day is England’s and we head down to Scruffy’s to see it there, hoping that it will have pulled some punters in for them. All the newspapers, along with L’s cleaner at work, are predicting England to win. So that's that sorted then. I’m not so confident. We shall see. Even if they were good enough, half the team are walking wounded anyway. At least we appear to have a manager who knows what he’s doing this time...

Scruffy’s has pulled them in, it’s packed and we’re early as well. Where are all these people on a normal night? And who’s that sat in our usual spot? on our settee! Oh well. We find a seat although not a good one. Thankfully the chap next to me, frustrated by the view, removes a vase of flowers off the bar. I joke to him that he should move the guy sat on the stool at the bar as well and he has a go.

England score early and even an old sceptic like me expects them to go on and win easily from there, but of course that wouldn’t be playing to the script. The rest of their first half is woeful, as demonstrated by a spaced out James Milner who is withdrawn after half an hour and also sees the end of another centre half as Ledley King is substituted through injury. Did I say we have a manager who knows what he’s doing this time?

The misery is of course capped off nicely by Robert Green’s howler as he fails to gather the much criticised Adidas beach ball that they’re using for these games. So a 1-1 draw then. Still the wine is good, as is the beer and the pizza on the way home, as we both prepare seriously for our respective events tomorrow.

The result and the performance are of course very disappointing but I’m sure the whole country and in particularly the media will pull together, get behind the team and put a positive spin on tonight’s failings. Some hope.

Live At The Kebab Shop

Daughter is out late celebrating the end of the AS exams, which keeps me up. This in turn keeps L up. So then we both oversleep. Yet still somehow I manage, after the problems with the traffic on Tuesday, to get out of the house ten minutes earlier. Consequently I arrive at work a massive half an hour early, as there are no traffic problems. Typical.

I go shopping at lunch time in JJB looking for dogging shoes, where they are playing a mix tape of (presumably) England football songs. It is truly shocking in its content, far worse than the worst of Christmas tapes. If anything ensures we fail miserably again, this will be it.

In the evening we finally make it up to a venue that I’ve wanted to check out for some time. The Plug in Sheffield. I like it. Some places just have the right ambiance and this place has it in spades. Then there’s the good viewing with a high stage, this always helps. There is no tickets to commemorate the event though, L’s not happy about that, instead she’s printed off the confirmation emails but they'll make rubbish bookmarks. She uses all her gig tickets as bookmarks, this is why she has to keep buying more books, one for each ticket.

First tonight, a local Sheffield band called Starlings. Which if we’re being honest is a really naff name, and a very girlie one at that and there’s no girls in this band. As with a lot of new bands around at the moment there’s something a bit 80s about them with their bass and synth pop sound. That said they’re rather good and seem determined to make the most of their stage time. They rattle through their songs in a hurry and it makes for quite a breakneck half hour.



Front man Justin Robson is a strong vocalist, albeit one with terrible knicker line, that is one above his low slung trousers. I’m not at all keen on how he keeps waggling his underwear at us. Thankfully it’s not quite enough to put you off the music.

L’s a big fan of Kele Okereke, so I valiantly save her from seeing him at Gatecrasher in Nottingham with the voddi swilling teenagers and take her to the more refined surrounding of the Plug instead. Of course I like Kele too, well I like Bloc Party but haven’t been too impressed with their direction of late, they have been heading deeper and deeper into dance music. L adores all the electro stuff, I don't, but I thought the main man Kele with just a guitar would be a good way for him to get back on track... unfortunately (for me) that is not the track he intends to be on.

Tonight, there’s barely a guitar in sight and for me the best music = guitars. Instead Kele surrounds himself with electronics, a wealth of percussion and a new three piece band, so this is actually Kele far from being solo. They all take the stage to the sounds of Gary Numan’s ‘Airlane’ and beneath a big neon sign with Kele's name on it. A sign that makes him look a bit like the proprietor of a kebab shop as he delivers the first number ‘Walk Tall’, also the opener to his forthcoming debut album, ‘The Boxer’.



... and yep it’s all very dancey, as too is the next track ‘On The Lam’ but pleasant, in a dancey sort of way. The third track ‘Meet Me In The Middle’ is a bit different, with a slower introduction and those famous yearning vocals of his. His vocals are also supplemented by the lovely Lucy, his new keyboard player and added eye candy, whom Kele seems to be rather fond of despite the fact he’s not supposed to be of that persuasion.



So far Kele hasn’t even touched an instrument but he pitches in with the maracas for ‘The Other Side’. He doesn’t seem to miss his guitar, preferring to be a free spirit, jumping around to his own music and interfacing with the crowd. Perhaps this is his way of letting his hair down or it would have been if he’d not had it all cut off.

Then there’s a treat for the ‘home of knives and forks’, as Kele announces a medley of tracks from a band I ‘used’ to be in. Oooh, Freudian slip... That’s not good news for a band who are supposed to be on a year’s sabbatical. He dishes out ‘Blue Light’, ‘The Prayer’ and ‘One More Chance’ segued together, it turns a so far simply appreciative crowd in to lively one and warms them up for his debut single ‘Tenderoni’ which follows. Its pounding synth beat goes down equally well and almost everyone knows the words. Well suppose they’re not hard to grasp, if you can spell. T-E-N-D-E-R-O-N-I. See! Even I know it.

Then Kele dabbles in a little bit of guitar and I mean a little bit, for the intro of the closing ‘Rise’. It’s only to lay down the backing track, that he records ala Voluntary Butler Scheme. ‘Rise’ is a good closer and my favourite of the night.



He’s clearly enjoying himself and is already over running his allocated slot by the time he returns for an encore. Which he opens with the Bloc Party rarity ‘Your Visits Are Getting Shorter’. He’s overrunning so much that he has to cull a song from the encore. On asking the crowd what they’d like to hear, they opt for the Bloc Party song ‘Flux’ rather than a new song, which is predictable but disappointing.

He’s good but after a promising start it turned into too much of a Bloc Party covers night and that was a shame. There was simply not enough of his own stuff if he’s supposed to be promoting his forthcoming album. If I was you mate, I’d cut out the medley in the main set and play a couple of new songs instead. Then the show would just about have been as perfect as you can get (without a guitar) and still not good news for the rest of Bloc Party.