Grand Ideas

My ears are still ringing from last night. I hope nobody wants to speak to me today.

They wouldn’t be able to anyway, I’m plugged into the Commonwealth Games which streams nicely on my phone.

I see Price Charles got introduced to the Australia hockey team. I can understand why he wanted to meet them but I'm not so sure why they're dressed as they are. Chas doesn't seem to mind though.



Naturally I’m glued to the cycling and to the squash, from which I’m trying to pick up a few tips.

I’ve been having to watching it all on their internet channels because the main BBC TV channels are showing wall to wall swimming. Yawn.

I’m not sure I’ve learned much from the squash. I was hoping that I would turn up for my game tomorrow night a new improved player, but I doubt that’ll happen. It’ll just be the old one with some grand ideas that won’t come off.

Perhaps I would have learnt more from watching the men’s quarter-final rather than the women’s one but I do like those skirts. Anyhow, I best do some work.

At dog training later even Doggo gets a go and he’s more vocal about it than MD. Another bad habit the little one has passed down or should that be up?

(Wednesday 6th October)

Could Be Fatal

It would have been a rather pleasant ride into work on the bike had not the intermittent rattle on my bike returned. I think it always happens when I get the bike wet, like I did in that downpour last week. Best get the oil can out tonight.

It cheers me up when my favourite terrier (not) spotted me and chased my bike again, with its owner still attached to its lead. That always make me laugh.

Then someone tried to wipe the smile off my face by opening a car door on me. I actually heard the click of the door opening and reacted immediately. Which is a very good advert for not wearing headphones whilst on the bike like a worrying number of people do. Losing the ability to hear could be fatal on a bike.

I have a gig tonight and it could be a difficult one to blog. The Twilight Sad appear to have no website, no forum, no recent setlist.fm listings and no live reviews of their current tour. Add to this the fact that, although they have a great line in song titles, the titles bear little or no relation to the song, so much so that the band themselves can’t even remember them and resort to cryptic codes on their own set lists. Then throw in instrumental band Errors as support and you can see I’m going to be in for a tough evening set list wise. Even if the bands were to introduce everything, what with them both coming from in and around Glasgow, it probably wouldn't help as I won’t be able to understand the accents.

So first, Errors, last seen at Summer Sundae wedged between The Besnard Lakes and Los Campesinos. They are billed as co-headliners, which means they get fifty minutes on stage and I suppose theoretically even an encore.

Well, honestly I haven't a clue what they played but it was good and the small crowd at Stealth approved. There was nodding aplenty from a crowd desperate to sing along to their infectious blend of electronics mixed with traditional guitars and drums, but with nothing to sing along to, a good old nod had to do instead. Sorry... I just don’t really go for instrumental bands. I'm not sure of the point but presumably they are. Perhaps, to get their music used as backing tracks by the BBC. Which these days seems to be the ultimate endorsement for any slightly obscure band and in this case the BBC don’t even have to strip the vocals off. How convenient is that?



Errors like everything just so. Their lead man Simon Ward seems a bit of a perfectionist, often signalling instructions to the sound desk and then smiling to himself when it all goes to plan. The Twilight Sad on the other hand are much more rough and ready, brash even. They start loud with the lead track from their new EP ‘The Wrong Car’ and get louder.

By track two, ‘That Birthday Present’, I had already realised that in my eagerness to get a look at their set list I have made a tactical error. I am standing far too close to guitarist’s Andy MacFarlane’s amp because the wall of guitar noise that he is producing is now swallowing me whole. So much so that most of the time I can’t hear James Graham’s vocals at all or the keyboards. I know there are some keyboards in there somewhere.



I consider moving across to the other side of the stage to see if I can hear the keyboards or perhaps moving to the back in the hope that I can hear everything but then a) I wouldn’t be able to see and b) I fear the damage has already been done to my eardrums.

Their albums, particularly their first one ‘Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters’, are quite sombre affairs which did not quite prepare me for the intensity of the band live, where the cacophonous noise dominates everything, unlike on record, where the guitars are reigned in, letting the vocals shine.



More blistering guitars obscure their finest vinyl moment, set listed as ‘hit single’, more commonly known as ‘That Summer, at Home I Had Become the Invisible Boy’. Gripping his microphone in both hands, James Graham’s face is a mass of anguish as he delivers his impassioned vocals. Sometimes I can even make them out and at the moment he is informing us that his ‘kids are on fire in the bedroom’.

He frequently stands sideways to the crowd, appearing lost in his own world and I can see why he’s often compared to Ian Curtis, although isn’t everybody these days. Although this guy even sound-checked like I imagine Ian Curtis would.

‘I'm Taking the Train Home’ is equally piercing and far louder than its vinyl counterpart. The floor starts shaking. Did I mention that the Twilight Sad are loud? Very loud. Not just ear bleeding loud but nose bleeding loud and probably causing internal damage loud too. As I walked down to the gig tonight I had to thread my way through the hoards queuing to get in to see Mumford & Sons at Rock City, probably less than a hundred yards away as the crow flies and this lot are trying to drown them out.



Then a quiet moment. A slow burning start to ‘Cold Days From The Birdhouse’, sung pretty much guitar-less, until the song eventually bursts into life, well exploded if I’m honest and practically blasted the head off the front row. The song as a whole though worked well live and was undeniably the best bit tonight.

Then to close, the noisier but still slow building, ‘And She Would Darken The Memory’ driven again by MacFarlane’s guitar and the powerful drumming of Mark Devine.

Then James Graham thanks us all for coming and for not going to see Mumford & Sons. Wouldn’t have mattered, we’d have heard them from there anyway. I leave with my ears ringing. That was one incredibly loud gig. As an overall spectacle it was rather impressive. 10 out 10 for intensity but a lot less for audibility. I have to say overall the experience was a little underwhelming. I’d go again but next time, perhaps I’ll stand further back.

(Tuesday 5th October)

Interesting Feet

L and I have been intrigued, as well as baffled, by the saga of the Humberside feet. Two feet have been found recently near the Humber estuary but they are not from the same person. Which is a bit odd, suspicious even. A right foot belonging to a man from South Yorkshire was found on a beach in Cleethorpes beach on 11th August but his left foot was found a month later near an island off the coast of the Netherlands. I’m intrigued to how they identified them.

Another foot, which was found on 4th September near Barton-on-Humber, was found to belong to a different man who was from Lincolnshire. How did they know? Did he report it missing? It’s all very suspicious if you ask me.

However Humberside Police, when asked about these finds, say there were no suspicious circumstances. Erm. Are they sure?

Tonight, the boys and I are training, whilst L is off running with friends and I pick her up later from the pub. Runs always finish at pubs, it’s unavoidable.

(Monday 4th October)

The Boys Go Head To Head

I get up early this morning, really early, like 5am early, and head up to Preston for the Interclub agility match, 12 clubs from the region going head-to-head. I car share and have female company on the way up but she’s 63, so I think I got away with it. She can talk for England... Which keeps me awake, alive and actually makes the journey seem quicker, despite the horrible weather on the motorway.

The nature of the event is that all the dogs compete over the same courses against each other for their team, whilst also being ranked individually in their grades. This means I can actually compare Doggo and MD for speed. The result is 3-1 to the old timer. Mainly because MD messes around, gets a few refusals and brings down the odd pole. On the one course where he gets everything right he is two seconds faster than Doggo and that gets him 6th in his grade. Surprisingly Doggo is three seconds quicker on another course that MD nearly got round, only missing the last jump. I thought it would have been closer than that but it just goes to show that there’s life in the old dog yet. Perhaps it’s the diet I have him on.

In fact he’s Mr Perfect at times today, even stopping on his contacts. Well until his last run but we get away with it and score valuable points for the team. Our team comes third which isn’t bad but we’ve become accustomed to winning this event, we’ve won three out of the last five.

As regards my success with Doggo’s diet, L suggests that I mention how much weight I got off him on my CV for when I take up Personal Training. She says it would get me floods of female customers, albeit probably overweight ones, as long as I don’t mention that he's a dog.

I’m sure the technique is transferable. Keep the clients locked in the house during the day, on a lead when away from the house, except when chasing a ball on the park of course, only allowing them the meals I feed them myself and if they’re good they get to sleep at the bottom of my bed. Simple. I should write a book on it, it would outsell the Atkins Diet. As long as I don't have problems with the Human Rights Act though.

Rumour has it that Son had an awesome time last night, so he obviously isn’t missing us or Nottingham too much. It certainly doesn’t sound as if he was Billy No Mates in his room.

(Sunday 3rd October)

Unlimited Free Pizza

Our condemned man is itching to go. He’s waiting with his bags packed when I get back from the park with the dogs.

We head off to Warwick where 5,700 other parents are unloading their baggage this weekend. There are a few suitcases as well.

We are greeted by a very vibrant sight, music blaring from the streets, an arrivals exhibition in full swing, bars and businesses promoting their ways and a nightclub schedule that doesn’t boast a free night until 9th November. An administrative error surely. The men dressed as pizza boxes are there, naturally, they are everywhere at the moment. They are promoting unlimited free pizza which is available all day today, as well as tomorrow, which is Son’s meals sorted at least until Monday.

His accommodation is right in the centre of things, so he’ll never be more than two minutes away from a bar, a night club, a pizza or even a Costa Coffee. As for lectures, who knows? We didn’t see any classrooms. His apartment overlooks a duck pond, so that’s Christmas dinner sorted and the pond, being directly under his windows is looking good for a few party games. He will be sharing but his room mate hasn’t arrived yet, so I can’t report on whether he’s a potential axe murderer or not.



The Vice-Chancellor's makes his welcome address on the same stage at the Butterworth Hall on which we’ll be seeing The National in November. He goes down alright but is just basically the support act for the Student Union’s President who steals the show, although the Vice-Chancellor does come back for a brief encore at the end.

We offer Son a late lunch but I think he’s just keen for us to move on and leave him to sort out his stuff, stock up on free pizza and check out the social scene.

So we head off back towards home and the rest of our day, which includes making an appearance at some friends' joint 50th Birthday celebrations in the afternoon. Then after a quick coffee with L’s parents we head off for birthday celebration number two. A meal with my family to celebrate my parents’ birthday. It’s a Teppanyaki Japanese meal which comes replete with the food throwing antics of our own personal chef. You know the sort of stuff you used to get hung drawn and quartered for attempting to do at school. E.g. throwing chucks of fried egg for his customers to catch in their mouths and tossing whole eggs, still in their shells, to catch on their heads. This is done whilst wearing a hat which has been specially adapted for this purpose.

It’s surprisingly amusing because my brother, his eight year old lad who loves every minute of it (it’s clearly banned at his school too), and Daughter are selected for egg catching duties. All with little success, although my brother does catch one.

Then it’s finally time to dust off the yoke stains head home to our sadly neglected dogs. At least they will be well rested for their event tomorrow.

(Saturday 2nd October)

The Last Supper

MD seems to bark at most dogs he meets on his morning walks but not the dogs he trains with at his agility, unless of course they make a careless error on a course, in which case he often volunteers help and advice to them. So L tries introducing him to a couple of the dogs he usually sees, so that they can be friends. Unfortunately he wasn't having any of it. Oh well. Perhaps it’s too late for them to be friends once MD has made his mind up about another dog.

I was a bit late leaving on the bike this morning. L suggest I pedal quicker, and then adds her usual ‘be careful’. I can hardly do both, can I. So I pedal quicker and put ‘careful’ on the back burner. It was also very windy but I think it was blowing my way as it didn’t seem to slow me down much.

L is torn about going into work today, as she feels she ought to be at home on her little boy's last day. Her little boy? She means our great hulking nineteen year old; who is probably saying his goodbyes to a few hostelries as we speak. That is when he gets back from his GP, where he’s having the required meningitis jab. Which I hope doesn’t put him off his curry tonight.

The other day I blogged about the weirdness of age adjusted performance. L reminds me of the time she won an orienteering competition but because the second place girl was fourteen, the girl was given the win on a handicapping system. That is even though most fourteen year olds who take up a sport like orienteering are going to be pretty physically fit and quicker than someone of our years. She reckons the girl had a ponytail and they give extra points for that... Hmmm. Well I would but I’m not sure it’s standard practice. I can see I’ve reopened a raw wound here.

I too, remember it all so well. It was known as the Galloppen, was run on a league basis and had a totally unfathomable handicapping system. It wasn’t just L. I was out galloppened every year by a chap who was twice my age and also happened to be on one of the organising committees (not that I’m saying this had anything to do with the formula used for the handicapping...). This chap never came anywhere close to beating me on a course ever, in fact I’m sure a couple of times he finished the following day... However he was still champion several years running.

I think we’ve both been psychologically scarred by the experience which is perhaps one of the reasons why we don’t orienteer any more.

The weather turns foul. By 5pm it’s blowing a gale and throwing it down. At least I’ve got full waterproofs unlike L who ran into work and hasn’t even got a coat. At least she’s not cycling or anything crazy like that.

I get home and Doggo takes one look at my bedraggled state before heading straight for the sanctuary of the bedroom, that’s before I even open the back door to show him the rain. Thankfully it doesn’t look as if there’s much will there to go for a walk on the park. Instead, MD and I play football in the garden whilst Doggo continues to hide indoors.

Then we head into town for the last supper. I can confirm that the condemned man ate a hearty meal of Lamb Madras, rice and naan bread. Tomorrow it’s Uni.

(Friday 1st October)

Sheer Genius

I’ve think I ate too much pizza last night. I can barely move this morning. Yet I still attempt to force the pedals round on my bike.

Perhaps L was right last night; it has gone a bit cold. The thermometer says a measly five degrees this morning, surely not. Personally I didn’t think it was quite cold enough for central heating but the radiators obviously had other ideas and turned themselves on. I shall have words.

All the same I decide to go for the long trousers option on the bike, as I attempt to find work through the fog. It’s well gloomy, maybe it’s about time I dusted off the bike lights.

I’ve found the perfect training plan, for women anyway. As trialled by the England Women’s Hockey team. Making them train in a sweat box in just a sports bra and shorts combo is sheer genius. I suggest to L that I think it should be the next part of my training plan for her...

Things going rather well in the world road race championships for Team GB. Time trial gold for Emma Pooley and silver for David Millar.



I should have been reviewing the Emerge NME Radar Tour but unbeknown to me it was a 10pm curfew. Should have guessed really. The doors opened at 7pm and Flats were apparently on soon after, so we missed them completely. Sorry guys. The people who schedule these things obviously don’t have dogs to walk.

Wilder aren’t even here, choosing to only play three of the dates on the tour. Presumably they won’t play Nottingham because they don’t want to detract from their own headline show at the Bodega in three weeks time.

Chapel Club were on at 7.45, so when we arrived just after 8pm it was to the sound of ‘O Maybe I’ being belted out from the stage. We assume it was from the stage, we can’t see it because it's so busy. Full. Blimey, wasn't expecting this. We can barely get in the door. So we head back outside to go up to the balcony. Closed. No balcony. Odd. Ok. So we're going to have to fight for a decent spot. I grab L by the arm and pull her through the crowd. She’s not as rude as me at pushing through. When we get closer we suddenly burst out into a clearing. No one is anywhere near the stage. Why is that people are often too ‘shy’ to stand close to the support band? Anyhow not our problem. Voilà, front row. Again. We always are for The Joy Formidable.

We only get to hear four tracks from Chapel Club, but they are good, very good. Not remotely chatty though. I’m just getting really really into it when ‘All The Eastern Girls’ and ‘Paper Thin’ close the set. We were handed a CD of ‘All The Eastern Girls’ when we walked in which was odd as I thought that was their new single but it turns out it’s just a blank disk to burn the track on to. Odd concept.



There’s not much setting up to do because while Chapel Club have had their drum kit in the ‘traditional’ position at the back of the stage, the Joy Formidable’s Matt Thomas always has his sideways on. I thought this must be due to space constraints at some of the small venues they've played but no, apparently not. Lifestyle choice. I suppose it makes him more visible.



He takes the stage alone, amongst the golf balls in bird cages and what appears to be British Sea Power’s air raid siren at the back of the stage. He starts to play, then Ritzy and Rhydian come on to join him. ‘Cradle’. Magnificent as ever. The golf balls turn out to be fairy lights. Well weird.

Next up, the only truly unfamiliar track of the night ‘Magnifying Glass’, which ends with Ritzy spilling her wine for what she says is the third night in a row. Someone brings her the whole bottle, which she then ignores for the rest of the night. Ungrateful or what.



The new single ‘I Don't Want To See You Like This’ follows but there is a lack of new material considering they have an album coming out in January. In fact there’s less unfamiliar stuff than when we saw them last in Derby and that was back in June last year. What’s worrying me is that they are now referring to last year’s ‘A Balloon Called Moaning’ album not as an ‘album’ but as a ‘mini album’, saying that in January they will release their ‘debut’ album. Which all sounds like record company talk to me and probably, but hopefully not, just an excuse to recycle a lot of the three year old tracks off the previous record. That’s not a good route to take, just look at bands like ‘Glasvegas’. They have been stuck in a creative rut playing the same songs over and over for five years now whilst their audience has got bored and moved on.

Then the band fall back on those three year old ‘classics’ to which they’ve added some intros and some outros, generally extending them. It’s time to crack open the Kopparberg. ‘Greatest Light’. Awesome of course. ‘Austere’. Superb. The sound often isn’t the best in Rescue Rooms but they certainly make it work for them tonight.



It’s quite a show; they’ve clearly worked on their performance and polished up their stage show. Though Ritzy almost gets a symbol in the face when she fronts up to Matt on the drums.

My favourite JF track and the best moment tonight is last year’s ‘Greyhounds In The Slips’ single, simply ferocious tonight, but there is no place in the set for its follow up ‘Popinjay’.

Then Ritz picks up an acoustic and we get a surprise in the middle of the set. Well more of a shock really. I can’t complain, I love an obscure moment and this was one. They play a slowed down version of 'My Beerdrunk Soul', which was their ‘Christmas song’ of a few years ago. It’s perhaps a bit early for all that but then I’m sure a lot of the population have already completed their Christmas shopping. I hope Ritzy Bryan isn’t one of them.

Then it’s back to that non-album of last year and Matt’s orgasmic drumming intro to ‘The Last Drop’. Ritz, very well spoken tonight, thanks us all for coming and they close with an eventful ‘Whirring’. During which I thought she was going to do a 'Leeds' on us with her guitar. At the festival she totally smashed up her guitar but tonight the air raid siren gets it instead. I just hope BSP don’t want it back undamaged. Matt has a bit of a fit with his sticks and Rydian breaks a string on his bass. He starts kicking it on the floor and into Ritzy, accidentally I assume. It’s all a bit unnecessary really. Good gig though.



There’s no encore, presumably because of the damn 10pm curfew. It’s a shame because the crowd seemed up for more but it didn’t happen. We were out the venue just before 10pm. How often does that happen?

Time for a couple in the Ropewalk. Good job we’re in the car. L has a ton of Son's stuff for Uni stashed at her work that she needs to bring home. Blimey how many pot noodles has he bought?