Spies, Lies and Pies

The news about spying today prompts me to think again about an idea I have for a new blog. Basically, my idea is to just report on stories in the news that could easily appear in a spy thriller. Some of the news stories you read, you just couldn’t make up: better than any fiction. I haven’t started such a blog just because if I had the time I would write the novel instead. A lot of the Tom Clancy novels mention how informative CNN is on foreign issues. To the extent that the president always has CNN on in the Oval Room and often hears intelligence first from it. I wonder how true that is? It sounds credible but I imagine there is a bank of analysts producing overview material for the top dogs: they probably use printed material instead of the instantly accessible TV. A picture says a thousand words.

The Futureheads

Not a new song anymore but I still enjoy this version.

England and USA Out Then

Well the good spell didn’t last long, if getting into the last 16 is a good spell. I think the results probably reflect the way the teams played. I’m not that interested in the World Cup now that England and USA are out. I suppose I should try and find an alternative team to support, maybe the Netherlands: I don’t like Germany or Argentina.

I haven’t watched any of the tennis, I can’t remember the last time I was interested in tennis. It is so boring, with matches that seem to go on and on for no particular reason. It really does seem absurd to me why it is stretched out so long.

This weekend was quite eventful, it was our local Judo Club Championship and we had a good time. My wife and a friend had a cake stall and I helped with mats and chairs. The turn out was very good and the quality of the Judo playing was excellent, all the kids really did put such an effort in and the seniors too. On Sunday, we visited a National trust property that held a annual arts festival. we watched a child of a friend’s African drumming performance and then watched while the kids went crazy on the activity playground, it’s on different levels and surrounded by trees and other plants so is a very nice environment to play in. There was singing and dancing and other activities too. A great day out but we were so tired, we didn’t stay too long. Then it was home in time to have some food and watch the England v Germany match. No more to be said on that front!

Hot hot hot

The weather since last week has been amazing, really hot and sizzling. I could get used to this weather. My wife hates it but I think it makes a nice change to have a bit of heat. It’s not too humid, which is good and the breeze is still cool when it comes.

Enough about the weather! I saw half of Avatar the movie last Friday, I thought it was really good. The special effects were amazing. That’s not even 3D or Blu-Ray, just good old DVD quality. I watched an hour and had to go and do some chores but didn’t quite feel up to watching the other half, I’m not quite sure why – I think I could guess what was coming next and I wasn’t going to be any more impressed than I was already with the effects. I would like to see the other at some point however, maybe I’ll buy it some time.

I’ve also seen The Hurt Locker recently too, can’t remember if I’ve mentioned that. Now that was an awesome film I thought. I haven’t seen too many recent war films but that one was very good.

Heatwave

I don't know what the criteria for a heatwave is but it feels like we're in one this week. It has been lovely and hot and warm all week so far. So for my purposes, I shall describe it as a heatwave. People seem a bit more relaxed when the weather is hot.
Lately, I've been over-indulging in food, particularly fast food. It happens slowly but over a period of time it builds up. Eating out. That's my problem - I like eating out. So in an attempt to stop the rot, I'm awaiting a diet plan to come through. I have signed up for the GI diet, via my wife, so hopefully we'll be losing some weight soon. It doesn't help that temptation is all around, either at work where people bring in donuts, biscuits, sweets and cakes or at home where we have chocolates and biscuits given to us for the kids.
I have been watching some of the DVDs I got for Father's Day, Blake's 7 and Sapphire and Steel.

Father's Day

I can't believe all of last happened since my last post - time just seems to disappear! I can't even remember most of last week now. This weekend we had Father's Day on Sunday. I somehow managed to forget my dad's birthday this year, so I made sure he got a card and a gift for Father's Day. I myself got some DVDs I have been after for a while from my wife and kids, which was sweet of them. I took them out for a bike ride in the morning, followed up by another walk and a Sunday lunch in a village pub. The food was lovely and we all had a good time.
This week feels a bit disjointed because I have had to take today off to take my daughter to another town so that she can do a guitar exam. Seems a bit crazy to have the exam in another town but that's the situation. So I had a busy day yesterday and now I get to relax and tomorrow and the rest of the week will be busy. Bit of a stop/start week.
I'll have to do something constructive this afternoon, this morning I'll take it easy but I feel I need to achieve something later, so I might take a trip to the dump to get rid of some of the broken stuff we have in the back garden: I've let it pile up a bit and need to do some clearing so that we can take a bit more pride in the garden: I'll have to do some grass cutting too then. Pity that grass doesn't just need a cut at the start of summer and one at the end. Oh well, have a good week trekkers!

In the closet at Download 2010

This weekend the Download Festival plays host to some of the best bands on the planet:

• ACDC
• Them Crooked Vultures
• Rage Against The Machine
• Megadeth
• Aerosmith
• Stone Temple Pilots
• Motorhead
• Saxon
• Bullet For My Valentine
• Stone Sour
• Killswitch Engage
• Lamb of God
• Five Finger Death Punch
• Atreyu

I've attended only two large music festivals and they were over ten years ago now, infact the Phoenix Festival as it was called only ran for something like 3 years. It did attract a lot of good bands though and I saw some great music. The experience has stayed with me. The first time I went with a friend and stayed in a motel nearby, driving to the site each day. The second time I went, it was alone and I took my tent and camped. It was quite a solitary experience, which was weird with so many other people around. The thing is, when you go to an event like a festival, you see people who are living the alternative lifestyle more than I ever could as someone with a job and responsibilities. You see people who have really long hair, tattoos, piercings, druggie trappings, wearing clothes that look like something out of the Mad Max films. They wear the badge of office: the signs indicate that they are of another class - a class I feel affinity with yet somehow a class I both aspire to and paradoxically one I also look down on. If I bought a death metal band T-shirt it would feel odd and I'd feel awkward and out of place. Even though, I might really enjoy listening to that music on my iPod. I also know that a proportion of those people attending have responsible jobs and families and go as large family groups - I miss that, I would love to take my family to a festival with a group of other families who also like rock music but the truth is my wife has made more social connections than me with other families - I talk to other daddies but they aren't interested in rock music and film and videogames like I am. My wife isn't interested in those things either and there's a limit to how much I can indulge my liking for those things in a family environment. I'd like to know of a club or community for other adults in my situation, does one exist?

One Gold Medal Later

My daughter won a gold medal for her Judo competition last weekend. This Saturday my son has a mini-competition to attend and then the weekend after that it is the local Judo club championship, then another competition after that I think. So we've quite a bit of competitive fighting over the next few weekends.
I've got to take my car in to the local garage for its MOT test this Friday, I hope it passes. I have new tyres to replace the ones that were close to the legal limit, so at least I know it won't fail on tyres.
The World Cup starts on Saturday and England play the USA, so I'm looking forward to watching that match. I haven't really been looking forward to it that much recently but now it's closer I am starting to feel more excited by it. My wife can't understand why I would watch it when our own country team aren't playing but I just like to see different styles of football and I like to watch matches to see good football skills on show. I can't explain it any better than that. It's something to talk about with other men I suppose too, something my wife doesn't really "get" either. She thinks men should talk about how we feel, what fears we have and what's happening with our lives but really they're the last thing we like to talk about. That's perhaps a bit cliched but it's not all that far from the truth.
I mentioned we visted Collectormania recently, well the day after we went I heard from someone else who went that they saw Keifer Sutherland signing autographs there. My wife was ever so disappointed she missed him, she loves him! He wasn't advertised, so perhaps it was to avoid too long a queue: even so there was a very long queue for him apparently!

Collectormania May 2010

Collectormania was good again this year, my son really enjoyed it. being a Star Wars fan he was in his element. Certain characters were dressed up and walking around, including old R2D2 below.
I bought a figure of Marcus Fenix from Gears Of War and my wife purchased photographs of various people for her wall at work.

End of May update

Just as the Eurovision Song Contest was beginning on Saturday night, a friend we hadn't seen for months called and so I didn't watch it live. I watched it on Sunday, after coming back from Collectormania.
I watched it with my daughter on BBC iPlayer. It was a mix of techno pop, slower ballads, chart-friendly melodic metal and pure pop. This year's wierd entries were from Spain and Serbia. We had to suffer Spain's entry twice because of a stage invasion the first time they sang by a guy wearing jeans and a fez! I didn't see the need for them to perform again because they coped very well and it didn't affect their performance. In the end Germany won, after what I said about the Germans in my last post I now have to eat my own words. I thought it was a good song but certainly not a winner. The second place country was Turkey with a metal song, I scored it joint first so I was close to picking a winner. A few songs were equally as good as the winner but didn't really feature in the top five, Iceland's song for instance. But that's the Eurovision. Norway did a great job of hosting the competition and nothing went wrong. One nice touch, which really worked well and made me feel all warm inside was a flash mob dance routine across the whole of Europe. Such a simple idea but one that I think Eurovision should do in the future, you can watch it below.

Eurovision 2010

A quick search of this blog will reveal how I enjoy and lok forward to the Eurovision each year. I don't watch for lasting appeal of the songs - it is rare that I actually remember the songs even on the next day to be honest. I enjoy it because it is a song contest that stretches across Europe and it brings a small glimpse of different national costumes and cultures in the 3 minute country portraits before every song entry. I liked it as a child because the UK or Great Britain actually used to win it sometimes when I was young. Lulu won it in 1969 with a song titled Boom-Bang-A-Bang (believe it or not I don't think it was about sex), but I was too young to remember being less than a year old at the time. Abba won it with "Waterloo" in 1974, it was a win for Sweden but Abba would have been a class above the competition in any year. Brotherhood of Man had a song "Save All Your Kisses For Me" that I think was a Eurovision winner from 1976, it was a ridiculously popular song on the radio I remember as a child. I also remember the skirt ripping-off antics of Bucks Fizz from 1981 when they sang "Making Your Mind Up", another ridiculously popular song. The last time the UK won was when Katrina And The Waves sang "Love Shine A Light", a hideous song in my opinion but most of our entries have been even worse ever since. I couldn't believe it in 2006 when Finland won for the first time in the history of Eurovision with Lordi singing a metal song "Hard Rock Halleluja".
The songs are all song first and then there is an intermission before the voting begins. As a child the voting was the most interesting part. An illuminated scoreboard had lights and scores. Each country was telephoned and a local TV presenter read out their votes, scoring a series of votes across all the countries who they wanted to vote for. As more countries have joined the contest across Europe (with things like the break up of the Soviet Union too), the contest has got larger and the voting more predictable, or should I say political, as each country awards most points to its closest neighbours: statistical analysis of this bloc voting has been studied and the figures suggest it is a real problem: Eastern, Scandinavia, Balkan and Baltic bloc voting are the worst offenders. It means that countries who spread their votes fairly on just the quality of song and performance often end up very low down the scoreboard (that's if any country actually does this).
When things go wrong it is quite funny too. Like when communication breaks down - less likely now we have better telecomunications but I remember phone lines being a problem when I was a child. Or when the computer scoreboard crashed as I seem to remember it doing one year - again less likely. No, these days the amusement is more likely to come from a country with a song and performance that is idiosyncratic: chosen by the public in that country to represent them. We have had some real howlers - especially from Germany: those crazy freaks!
So anyway, here is a link for you to find out more and I hope the UK does well!

Looking Ahead But Not Very Far Ahead

Looking ahead to this evening and tomorrow actually (well, alright and maybe into next week...). Tonight, is the 2010 Eurovision Song Contest (more about that in the next post). Tomorrow, we're going to Collectormania 2010, this time we have the correct weekend! So I'm looking forward to seeing the real General Lee from the Dukes of Hazzard and catching a glimpse of someone famous from the Star Wars films or Doctor Who or some other such famous cult TV series or film. On Monday, it is a public holiday so I don't have to work. I also have Thursday and Friday off, so I will hopefully be going to Brighton on Friday.
My other news is that my daughter auditioned for her school play and would you believe it ended up with the part of the main character of Robin Hood! So not only does she feel like she has to blast us all out with singing at the top of her voice, she now feels she has a legitimate right to do so: hope her head doesn't swell with the fame!

Stop and pause

I was looking through the music section of our local library on Saturday, as I usually do. And I stopped and paused over a CD that looked interesting. I didn't in the end borrow it. I wasn't sure what it would be like. Rather like making a purchasing decision, when you like the look of something but you don't know how it will taste. I decided not to take the gamble. Instead I made a voice clip on my cellphone of the artist name and CD title. The voice recording is a feature I've never used for anything practical before - mainly I've used it to record my son using a weird voice. On this occasion, I decided to play back the voice recording and look the artist up on LastFM and she sounds like just the kind of music I'd like. Typical! Anyway, I'm going to reserve a copy from the library and yyou can watch her  below, the artists name is Tina Dico and I love this song Count to Ten.

Early Riser

I don't know whether it is being away from home or whatever. I have woken up at 4:45am two mornings this week. This is early for me. I don't know why I should wake up at those times, it's not like I set my alarm for that time but it has happened twice now. This morning, I actually booted up my laptop and got some work done, so it was useful in a way. I bet I'll fall asleep earlier tonight than I normally would.
I am looking forward to this weekend. I'm going to take my son up to see my mum while my daughter competes, I find it hard to watch. I usually have to hide a tear in my eye by wiping it away quick, regardless of whether she wins or loses I'm so proud of her because she works so hard and some of these girls are so much bigger than her.

Away Days

My daughter's competition is this Sunday rather than last Sunday, I got that wrong. I did get my tyres seen to though, which was a bit of a relief. They were still legal but had the weather been worse I would have been at risk. Tyres aren't cheap and I had to buy two new ones. I was talking to the mechanic and found out they also do air conditioning re-gassing, so I booked my car in for that on Saturday coming. My aircon doesn't work and with the summer fast approaching I really need temperature control in my car.
Not much else is happening really, hence my posts being fairly quiet. I have been away from home a couple of nights this week, I get back tomorrow, so it has felt a bit like I'm a stranger in my own home. A feeling I don't like very much.
I have noticed that my belly is getting bigger, which I find a bit of a downer. I will have to do something about that. I should diet. You heard it hear first!

Paranormal weekend

It's been a busy couple of weeks since my last posting. A new government is in post and a new man is running the helm with a deputy who day earlier was a competitor. Weird how things turn out isn't it?
My daughter takes part in a Judo competition this weekend, so we'll be cheering her on. I've borrowed the film Paranormal Activity from the Library to watch on my own tonight as my wife is out for the evening.
I should probably go and get my tyres checked and replaced this weekend too.
That's about it, have a great weekend folks!

Would you believe it?

You know when you have one of those experiences that embarasses you and you just have to put down to experience to get past it? Well, yesterday we all got up early-ish for a Bank Holiday Sunday and planned our travel to Collectormania. The venue has changed this year, they moved it from the large shopping mall space to the new stadium further out from the centre. We thought it would be busy and parking might be expensive but we knew we could park near the shopping centre for free and we found out from their website that there was a free bus to Collectormania. So, although it was chilly and a bit wet we did that. Walking briskly we left the car and headed for the bus stop. We considered popping into MacDonald's for a quick breakfast snack but decided against it because of not being sure whether the bus would be on time or late (they're never early are they?). We got to the bus stop but had some doubts. There was nobody else waiting, which I found a bit puzzling. There were no temporary bus signs indicating the free bus to Collectormania stopped at that particular one. So, we decided to wait. We waited. And waited. And then decided to check the website again on my phone, which I did and we were in the right place. Still no bus. By this time the bus was 30 minutes late and we'd been waiting 45 minutes. I suggested we cut our losses and go shopping in the mall, where the shops were now starting to open, because I reasoned that the free bus must have been cancelled. After my wife had bought a dress she needed for an upcoming event, we headed off to Collectormania. We got to the stadium and the car park was quiet, a few cars but nothing like what we were expecting. There were also no signs up and no indication which entry door to go to. So we drove around and pulled up to eat a few sandwiches we had picked up. I re-checked my phone. Guess what? You guessed it, it was on the Bank Holiday at the end of May and not the one at the beginning. It was my wife who told me it was on this weekend, I was a little bit surprised when she told me because in my mind I thought it was further away but I was so excited I wanted it to be this weekend that I accepted it. I looked at the website but didn't pick the date up very easily because it wasn't written in text, it was part of the graphic button and written in yellow I think. So the lessons to learn? Check your facts before you set off! Listen to your inner voice!

Collectormania 2010

I'm excited this evening because tomorrow we're going to Collectormania. I love this show, we see some celebrities who are signing autographs and some collector's memorabilia that can be bought. I'm not really going to buy anything but if I see something that takes my fancy I might do that. I like seeing things from movies and TV in real life. I'm looking forward to what I might find tomorrow.

Trouble brewing

In our town tomorrow there is a march by an anti-Islamic group. Our community is made up of many different faiths and the police are expecting trouble. We are avoiding the town, the library is closed and I suppose many of the shops will be closed too. I can't stand intolerance and I hate the fact that these outsiders are coming to a peaceful community like ours to make trouble in this way.

Soon be May

May is just around the corner. Less than an hour away infact. It's been a busy week workwise, I've got a lot done but there is so much more to be done over the next few weeks. This weekend is a Bank Holiday, which means I have Monday off. The weather has gotten a bit cooler in the last 24 hours and it is apparently going to stay cold for the next few days, including rain. Shame about the rain, we were planning to do some gardening work. Might have to put that off.