Last week a friend and I went along to The Watershed to the film of Lou Reed's stage version of the Berlin album. Being a Grumpy Man DJ the record is of course a bit of a favourite with me, so it was nice to get the chance to see the performance on a big screen. Lou even managed to smile a couple of times, which shocked me.

We've been having quite a few chats recently about happiness and what actually makes you happy. If you have no interest in anything, literally anything - material, spiritual, the natural world, physical well being how can you be happy. Some of us get fulfilment from work, some of us work to earn the money which allows us to indulge our interests or hobbies. If you have no interests or hobbies why would you want to work and you can't think of a job which you would enjoy - what on earth do you do with your time. If time is an endless void with nothing to fill it, what motivates you to get up in the morning? How do you engender a sense of interest and curiosity, where none is naturally forthcoming?

We are off for a long overdue trip to London on Sunday, we shall be staying with Orynthia's Auntie along with two of her cousins. We hope to get along to The Heyward for the Psycho Buildings exhibition and hopefully the Tate Modern as well, it feels like ages since we were there and London, like New York, Paris or Glasgow always manages to offer up a little surprise for us. Hopefully we shall be rid of the miserable weather which looks like afflicting us this week.

Well Bristol was a very social place to be this weekend. On Friday evening I joined Orynthia and her workmates for a river cruise to Beeses Tea Rooms. Much Pirate wear was in evidence, including a rather splendid human representation of a skull and crossbones flag!

Saturday was warm and sunny, perfect conditions for the harbour festival. Tens of thousands thronged the dock area. We saw some nice bands, hooked up with some lovely people and it was even warm enough for Orynthia to eat an Ice Cream, those of you that know her well, will be aware of how unusual an event that is. Highlight of the day though was the 60p ferry across the river which saved us a very long walk.

On Sunday we visited Goldney Hall for the annual Amnesty International fundraiser. It really is one of Bristol’s hidden gem and it was lovely to introduce several long time Bristol residents to it’s spectacular charms.

Those of you that enjoy Murakami would like The Diving Pool by Yoko Ogawa. Three Novellas which leave you with a slightly uneasy feeling, it's her 1st book to published in English, loads more waiting to translated.

Also just read A Moveable Feast by Earnest Hemingway, it's a short memoir of his time in Paris in the 1920's and he hangs out with Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, F. Scott Fitzgerald and others. Very interesting and enjoyable.

Back in lovely sunny Bristol after a few days messing around in middle England. Our drive to Shrewsbury on Thursday evening was so traffic free that I think we must have stumbled upon a theme road which was aiming to replicate the driving experience of 1950’sBritain.

Friday saw a lazy wander around the timber framed buildings which cling to the various hills that this oxbow lake in the making of a town had us tripping up and down. When we got a bit tired in the afternoon, we nipped into a charity shop and picked a few of those film DVD’s which come free with newspapers these days, returned to our hotel and slipped “Defence of the Realm” into the laptop and rested our weary toes for a while.

Pre gig we met up with some people which Orynthia had been chatting with on the Camera Obscura forum and very pleasant it was too. Then off to the gig, housed in the old butter market, we had to endure a couple of support bands and DJ’s who favoured volume over all else, so we were forced to take refuge on the smokers balcony. Eventually “The Obscura” as I’m sure no-one calls them hit the stage and guess what, they didn’t need to blast us half the way to Wrexham with an overstretched P.A. as they have songs, wonderful, wonderful songs, even a couple of new ones to raise our hopes for the next album.

Post gig we caught up with band in the decidedly unglamorous dressing room area, and admired the plentiful amounts of Tea but no kettle, Wine but no corkscrew and Beer but no bottle opener. They did have a bottle of Gin which rather suspiciously was missing a third of it’s contents - someone’s drinks cabinet had been raided at the last minute I suspect.

The next morning we bumped into most of the band again in the excellent Alfie and Billy’s Café. Then after further hill walking we took the short trip to Weston Park a grand stately home on the way to Wolverhampton the location of the Saturday evening gig. Now Weston Park is a place that we have been meaning to visit for around 15 years or so as it has P.G. Wodehouse connection. Indeed many years ago we picked up a leaflet which described the place as almost being a P.G. Wodehouse theme park. Imagine our surprise then when we found no mention of Mr Wodehouse on the present day literature for the place. Indeed with the exception of one member of staff, none of the guides knew that this was the place that he used as his model for Blandings Castle the home of Lord Emsworth.

After a brief tour of the grounds on a child size train ride we drove into Wolverhampton and meet our friend Heather who had journeyed up from Bristol by train. Camera Obscura were playing in the bar at the Civic Hall, which contrary to what you would expect did not contain a working bar. Another top show from the band, who excitedly told us the new world which they had discovered in Wolverhampton - The dressing came equipped with a Jacuzzi, the crazy world of rock n’ roll eh!

So the exciting news that I alluded to yesterday, is that Orynthia has been contacted by someone from Warp Films. They were asking if they could use some pictures of hers in a forthcoming film that they are making. The film will be a documentary about the All Tomorrows Parties music festival which we have attended a few times, however the thing that has sparked their interest is a website which Orynthia made about the forerunner of ATP, The Bowlie festival.

The Bowlie as I’m sure everyone who reads this site will know took place in 1999 at Camber Sands and was hosted by Belle and Sebastian. It was a brilliant weekend, as well as B&S we enjoyed performances from Camera Obscura (unknown to us at this point), The Flaming Lips, Cornelius, The Ladybug Transistor, Teenage Fanclub and many more. From this idea the ATP concept emerged and has been running very successfully ever since.

When Orynthia was in the early stages of teaching herself the web skills which would later pay her wages, she wanted a little project to work on. The idea of a site about The Bowlie was mooted, I wrote some text and Orynthia designed the look of the site and did lots of scanning of photo’s (pre digital!), tickets and the like, she then built the pages. It was never fully completed but that wasn’t really the intention. So there it’s has sat for several years, unknown to most people but with a special place in our hearts. Obviously the good people at Warp Films were looking around the web for any Bowlie related stuff and stumbled across the site. Looks like part of it could become part of music history!

You can see the site here http://www.btinternet.com/~tomory/bowlie/intro.html

Strangely enough we are off to see Camera Obscura a couple of times this weekend, 1999 -2008 we haven’t really changed that much I guess.

Well I think the radio interview went well enough. Orynthia managed to record it and on listening back to it last night it didn’t sound too embarrassing. Don’t the global reach of the show is huge but it was an interesting way to spend part of an evening.

Tomorrow Orynthia, Carl and I are heading over to Cardiff to catch up with one of our newly discovered Welsh cousins and his girlfriend. We are also going to visit Spillers – the oldest record shop in the world! Of course with things as they are in the music world the future of the place is not very secure. Still we hope that this will be the first of many visits.

I’m not really sure how I managed to miss the place before, we’ve been to Cardiff on several occasions and I did work there for a few weeks whilst I was at BT. Somehow it always escaped me.

We might be heading out to The Folk house later on as the strangely wonderful Freeze Puppy is playing. Also on the bill is the interesting Stanton Delaplane, I’ve got one EP by him which is really hypnotic, he sounds like Morrisey being a chorister a unique and interesting voice.

Our house is a bit of a mess at the moment; we are having some work done in the house. Come Monday the bathroom, our bedroom and the dining room will all be in fairly major states of disarray. Those that know me will be relieved to hear that we are getting a man (or 3) in. My DIY skills are on a pair with the English Summers ability to produce endless clear sunny days!

So Mr Collins and I are off to promote The New Parnassus Club via the exciting medium of Radio. We’ve been asked to go on to BCFM 93.2 tomorrow evening for a chat about the ideas behind the night. It’s only a matter of time before we are chatting to Mark Lawson on Front Row. Should you wish to listen we should be on at around 5:45 pm it will also be broadcast live worldwide on their website www.bcfm.org.uk for those of you that don’t live in the Bristol area.

My new season ticket for Bristol City arrived today, in fact it’s not really a ticket, we’ve gone all 21st century and now have a swipe card! It’s strange really I had my first season ticket as a small boy all the way back in 1970. In those days we had a single card to show for the whole season as well. Guess those individual tickets will be a museum piece in the future like corded telephones, 78’s and skinny jeans – oh not those, they are hip again (I think?).

J –A- Double Zee, yes I’ve been listening to a lot of Jazz lately. Mainly mad stuff from the 1960’s and 70’s Art Ensemble of Chicago, Sun Ra, Alice Coltrane and the like it’s great to hear stuff that just blows wild and free. Perfect for lying on the floor and letting the strangeness wash all over you.

One of the big tasks that we've had over recent weeks has been the clearing of books from Sue's house. The vast majority of these have gone to various charities and few others to friends however quite a few have ended up with us. Currently I'm about half way through one of these new acquisitions "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" by Carson McCullers.

At first I found the density of the language and pace of the book difficult to enjoy, then suddenly after around 50 pages the richness of the five main characters in the book leapt off the page and I was hooked. Through these very different personalities we get an insight in the hard world of a poor southern town in 1940's America. That's not to say that the book is without humour, there are some very entertaining set pieces within it. It's great strength though appears to be in observing the understanding or lack of it between people. The brilliant trick of the book is that the one person people choose to spend time with is a deaf mute, giving them a chance to release their hopes, dreams and frustrations to someone who will observe what they are saying without interrupting. The really sad irony is that the one person whose approval he really craves is taken away from him, leaving him as rootless and unfulfilled as the rest of them.

The need that my sister and I have to surround ourselves with books and music is obviously a blessing and a curse. I'd love to live in sparkling modernist house with clean lines and gleaming surfaces, yet how lovely it is stumble across something that you read 10, 20 or even 30 years ago and be captivated by both the item and the memories of that phase in your life. Our house is full of CD's, records and cassettes that will never trouble an amplifier to stir itself into action again but they remain stubbornly unwilling to leave the house.

To be honest some of them should never have been invited into our hose in the first place. Sometimes I just look at them and ask myself what was I thinking. For every Miles Davies there is a King Kurt, for every Nick Drake a UK Subs, for every Sufjan Stevens a Dead or Alive and so the list goes on. Well that's not actually true I've only got one single by both King Kurt and the UK Subs, as for Dead and Alive? They used to good once, before they discovered drum machines honest they did. Well at least I thought so at the time!

We have a little trip on the horizon, nowhere too exotic though. We shall be hading up to Shrewsbury in a few weekends time to see Camera Obscura our lovely friends from Glasgow. The following night they are playing in Wolverhampton, so we shall go to that gig as well.I hope to be able to hear them playing!

Heavy wax build up in my ears is quite a regular thing for me and the ear syringing trip has been something of a joy on many occasions in the last 20 years or so. The ritual in the week before a session takes place is part of the fun, in order to loosen the wax, olive oil needs to dripped into the offending ear when going to bed for around a week beforehand. It's a messy process and I tend to end up with pillows that smell like an Italian chief's apron. I'm hoping that the plus side will be beautifully preserved ears when the rest of me looks old and wizened.

So on the Friday before last I took the short walk to Logan Road, in anticipation that ten minutes later the world would be offering me a cornucopia of audible delights, rather than the the rather gloopy, muddled mess that had been reaching my brain. All started well, as the water sloshed around my inner ear and the nurse made complementary comments about the ease at which the wax was emerging, so my oiling technique is obviously pretty slick, if you'll pardon the pun.

Sadly when the process was finished, the change to the hearing in my left ear was minimal. Maybe some water was trapped which would dribble out later? The nurse said that I should "carry on oiling" (the least known on the Carry On films?) and if things were no better come and see them again next week.

Well the week came and went, and poor Orynthia still had to ensure that she was standing upwind when wanting to mention anything to me. So last Friday I returned with a degree of apprehension, what if all these years of listening to music has done serious, unrepairable damage and the rest of my life would be carried out with the equivalent of a cotton wool balaclava over my ears?

The nurse took a look into my ears and declared them to be in pristine condition, now I was worried. If there was no blockage why was I struggling so hard to make sense of the noises around me? After further questioning she deduced that their may be a blockage in the internal pipework in my head! No problem though, she advised take ibrobufen for three days inhale as much hot steam as you can an the tubes may open up. So that's what I've been doing over the weekend and thankfully it look like it's working.

Fortunate really, as Camera Obscura are not really in the Motorhead stakes when it comes to volume at their gig.

One of the good things to come happen over recent weeks is that we have been seeing a lot more of Sue’s boys. Craig and his Girlfriend Anne stayed with us after the Funeral as they now live in Sheffield. We’ve spent sometime with Matthew and quite a lot of time with Carl.

Carl lived with Sue and it’s fair to say that they lived a pretty insular life. Over the past few weeks we’ve been enjoying seeing the world through his eyes and we introduce ourselves into each other’s worlds.

Yesterday for instance we spent the afternoon and evening in around central Bristol together, initially at The Arnolfini for the Far West exhibition. I had popped into see this the previous Sunday when I was dashing off to catch up with Orynthia, her mum and brother for Sunday lunch at The Louie. I though at the time that it was great and was itching to get back and spend more time in the place. Having done that, I’m not actually convinced that it’s as great as I thought it was on first viewing. It’s still an interesting mixture of ideas around the theme of consumerism and worth a visit if you are in the area.

After a wander around the shops of Park Street we then eased back to the waterfront. This time to the other cultural institution in this part of town The Watershed. We were here to meet up with my mum to see the film “The Edge of Love”. Dylan Thomas and his destructive ways are the centre point of the film, he is someone who has always figured in our family. I think that he was a touchstone for my mum when it came to her Welsh heritage.

One of the few holidays that I really remember us all being at, was a 1970 trip to Laugharne in West Wales. It was in this strange little town that Thomas lived and worked for many years. In those days there was no real Dylan Thomas industry so my parents were thrilled when a friendly local who happened to have the keys to the Boathouse, the place that Thomas called home from 1949 offered to let us have a look around. It was empty at the time, which somehow made it even more special. The refurbished Boathouse is now a splendid museum to Dylan and his works.

The film does capture the dank nothingness of much of this part of the world. At the time I wasn’t much taken with the damp underachieving countryside, with it’s scruffy house’s, shop’s that were always closed and cold damp rooms where the silence shouted out at you as you tried to fill the holiday evenings. These days I rather admire their ability to resist the lure of the conformity that has engulfed so much of the UK.

So almost 4 months have passed and what a time it's been. Many good and and interesting things have taken place, included amongst them a thrilling end to the season with Bristol City, my first venture into the the world of being a classical music DJ/promoter, a chance to catch up with friends in France and a trip to the ATP festival in Minehead.

The bad things though have been really bad.Whilst we were at ATP my sister was taken into hospital following problems with her legs. Sue was struggling with cancer for many years and it had now spread into her spine. Within a couple of days she had completely lost the use of her legs we knew that her life span would be measured in months rather than years.

The rest of May saw Sue coming to terms with the changes in her life. Being forced to stay within the hospital was tough, overseeing the relocation of her pets and finally giving up smoking were also big hurdles which she dealt with. We were set to go off to France for a week on Saturday May 31st, spending half a week with our old friends Bob & Karen in their home in Southern France then heading to Bordeaux 4 days.

On the Thursday night before we were due to make the trip, Orynthia took a call from my mum, as I came into the room it was clear that something was wrong and I assumed that things had worsened for Sue. Orynthia passed the phone to me and said "Aunty Mair is dead".

Aunty Mair was my mums only sister and the one person in the family which Sue kept in touch with through all those years when she thought that family was too hard to deal with. Over the years the two of them kept in regular phone contact, although as they both had health issues and didn't drive actual meetups were few and far between. Just before Sue went into hospital we managed bring Mair and her son Robert over from South Wales for the day so that they could spend some time with her. I'm so pleased that we managed to do that, it was a lovely day.

On hearing the news from mum our initial reaction was to cancel the holiday, however we thought that we would sleep on things. The next morning Mum and I went into the hospital to break the news to Sue. She actually took it well although she was obviously shocked. We spent most of the morning with her and considering all the circumstances she was in very good spirits. It emerged that the funeral for Aunty Mair would take place the following Friday, so after talking to everyone we decided that we would still go to see Bob & Karen but would then cut our trip short and come back to Bristol on the Wednesday evening in order to attend the funeral.

The trip to France was a delight, Bob & Karen were the perfect hosts as they guided us around the ridiculously lovely countryside around their new home. We set off for home delighted that we had managed to get away for a few days.

We returned home in the early evening on Wednesday, I called mum to see how things were and she sounded very down about Sue's condition. It was getting towards 11:30 pm and we were just getting ready for bed after a long days travelling when my mum phoned. The hospital had called her, advising that she should come into the hospital as Sue's condition was very serious.We drove over to Staple Hill, picked up my mum and had a very apprehensive journey into town.

When we arrived on the ward, we waited in an office for the doctor to come and talk to us. I think that we all thought that Sue had already left us. After a short wait the doctor came in and and advised us that Sue was still alive but was not expected to make it through the night. We then went in and sat with Sue until around 5:30 in the morning, the staff were fantastic doing all that they could to make Sue and us as comfortable as they could. Come 5:30 we were exhausted and contemplated going home for a while. The staff said it was impossible to predict how long Sue would last, so we decided to take mum back to our houses and try to sleep for a couple of hours, which somehow we managed to do.

Just after 7.15am I was awoken with a start as the phone rang, It's strange to pick up the phone when you already know what the person on the other end is going to say. The nurse confirmed that Sue had passed away just after 7am. I went into our spare bedroom and woke my mum to give her the news. Within a short space of time we were up and dressed and heading back to the hospital, moving on autopilot as the rest of the city stirred itself for another busy day.

Once again the staff in the hospital were absolutely wonderful. We went in to see her body and the bed was covered with Sue's favourite blanket, she looked peaceful after the struggles of the previous evening. After a brief period we gathered up her possessions and headed away from the ward for the last time.

The next day Orynthia, Mum and Carl who was still living at home with Sue took the trip to Pontypridd for Aunty Mairs funeral. We met up up my cousin Robert and his family. No one knew who to commiserate with first! It was an emotional and tiring day but gave us the chance to find out that are family members that we really like even though we'd never met them before.

The following week was spent organising Sue's funeral. Sue had opted for a woodland funeral and the wonderful people at Heaven on earth helped us arrange a day which I think Sue would have wanted. Lot's of music, no religious content and lovely coffin made of Willow from Somerset. Again the funeral gave us a chance to catch up with friends old and new to mark the end of an exhausting period in our life.

We continued our run of seeing fine films last Sunday, when we saw the excellent Juno at The Orpheus. I was a little concerned before the film started when we appeared to around twenty years older than anyone else in the unusually noisy room. Once the film started the chatter around us stopped, however would I be able to keep up with the teenage talk coming from the screen?

Thankfully the answer was yes, in fact one of the main joys of the film was the cracking script, it’s just packed with great lines and perfect cameo scenes. The cast are perfect, how great it was to former West Wing star Allison Janney in big screen action. Witty, touching and wise, it’s a film that’s well worth seeing.

I’ve been listening to three very different albums this week. The Herbie Hancock album “River – The Joni Letters”, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds latest “Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!!” and the debut album from Champion Lightspeed “Falling Off The Lavender Bridge”. They all work on very different levels, I love feeling like a grown up (I know, I’m 46 but those oldies are right when they say you don’t feel old inside) as I hear something different in the lyrics or music each time I play it.

The Nick Cave album sounds more simply recorded than some of his recent records but his writing pen was still dipped in the same coruscating ink allowing him to spit out those poetically venomous lyrics. The Champion Lightspeed album is an unexpectedly charming record, with idea’s way above some of his indie compatriots.

My friend Simon is in a very interesting band called Little Scratch, have a look at the video for their excellent song On My Way Back (from where I'm going) here.

You can vist them via http://uk.myspace.com/littlescratch

We saw a film in The Watershed last night and as ever the place was buzzing, we decided to go to the cinema early for the 8:30 showing so that we could enjoy a drink and something sweet before the film. Gratifyingly for the people that the run the place it was pretty difficult to find a table with room for us two amongst the crowds. Orynthia queued for food and drink and I set out to scout for a place for us to relax in. This pattern was repeated with several other couples, so a non contact battles of wits commenced as we prowled around the room like Lions waiting for youngest Wildebeest to become detached from the heard and move into our possession.

At first I managed to grab a couple of the high stools next to the small raised counter on the way into the cafe area, a good temporary measure but not the best long term location as Orynthia is rather short, so a lot of awkward clambering on and off would be required if I failed to come up with something better before she emerged with the goodies. Then the tricky job of appearing to be nonchalantly enjoying the ambience of the room, whilst franticly scanning all seats within my sightline for signs of people preparing to depart began.

With three films showing and staggered start times, there was plenty of scope for people to be vacating their seats to catch an earlier film than our chosen entertainment. Watching the crowd is an interesting and nerve racking process on occasions like this, will the table of three with the chap quickly draining his pint glass be leaving when he does so? Is the lady putting some leaflets into her bag getting ready to leave for the showing of "There Will Be Blood"? Of course all the other standing customers are playing the same game, luckily for me, two chairs are vacated on one of the tables which come with inbuilt internet access and it's within a couple of strides of my current location. Within moments I'm off my lofty perch and have claimed the seats for us, seconds later Orynthia rounds the corner with some hot chocolate and a nice piece of orange polenta cake, the perfect way to relax before the film.

The Diving Bell and The Butterfly was the film which we went to see and in different hands it could have been a mawkish and sentimental press the buttons tear jerker. Luckily the director Julian Schnabel was able to bring a great deal of humour and and reflection to tale. I have never got around to reading the book that the film is based on but I remember how much it moved a good friend of mine when he was struck with very serious health problems many years ago. It's a slim book, less than 140 pages from my memory so I'd imagine that almost everything that's in the book makes it into the film. In addition to written word which forms the basis of the work Julian Schnabel brings a fantastic visual sense to the piece, then again as he is primarily known as a painter I guess that should not come as a surprise.

Last weekend we took the near 300 mile trip north to see our friends Kevin & Julie in Whitby, it’s a very long drive. An American colleague of Orynthia’s commented that she loved road trips, then again she is from the wide open spaces of Texas, so the delights of a busy Friday afternoon on the M1 may not have figured too much in her life on the road, if they did she may have a rather different tale to tell.

We were actually reasonably fortunate and only had problems for about forty-five minutes of our outbound trip, however it’s not a journey I’d like to take too often. The welcome was warm and it was good to see the latest addition to their family in such good health. We only really had the Saturday to explore the local area but managed to use the time well, enjoying a leisurely ride on a steam train to Pickering and back, followed by a quick dash around Whitby itself.

Small as it is, at least Whitby does have an interesting little record shop tucked away between all the chipies and pubs, it’s call Folk Devils and I managed to pick up a great Sun Ra album called Some Blues But Not The Kind’s that Blue. I always enjoy a bit of Sun Ra madness, this album is reasonably restrained by his standards and does feature some great takes on a few “standards”. My favourite is a wonderfully eccentric version of Nature Boy where his piano playing is almost as much Les Dawson as it is Thelonious Monk.

In a change from my usual reading diet of fiction, I have just started reading the book White Bicycles by Joe Boyd. It’s an account of his time in the musical world of the 1960’s both in the States and here in the UK. It sounds as though he managed to keep a reasonably clear head, whilst those around him were losing theirs, as was almost compulsory in that world at that time. He does ask why the English are so embarrassed about their folk music compared to everyone else in the world. Daft question really, who wants to hear lots of middle class people singing in daft accents about the life of a medieval farm worker?

A busy and sociable few days ended up with me going to see American hopefuls "Band of Horses" at The Thekla last night. I picked up the album at Christmas after catching them on TV via the Jools Holland show and then hearing the record at a friend’s house. It's a time of year when I often get a little bored with music and go on the search for new things, I well remember the winter of 1978 when I finally "got" punk and new wave and then a few years later when I realised that Hip-Hop was fascinating and exciting music.

When I lived at home with my mum, she would have to suffer my latest musical obsessions. What was the poor woman thinking in 1981 when I subjected her to repeated plays of the wonderful "The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel" whilst I tried to impress upon her the merits of the revolutionary process of making records from other records. She bore it all with good grace as she did when I discovered the intoxicating world of Bulgarian open throat singing and then moved onto Tom Waits.

Anyway back to Band of Horses, after a week or so of heavy play, I started to turn against the album. There are a couple of terrific songs on it but the overall effect is of a record which promises more than it can deliver. In hindsight I think that I was curious about the way the look of the band - all tattoos, grubby caps and sallow skin beneath the mandatory beards, seemed to be at odds with the sweet sounds they were producing. Although they looked like they would smash you to a pulp with a tyre jack if you wandered into the bar they were frequenting, from the sound of them they would be more likely to buy you a nice camomile tea. Having spent a little time in there company last night, and I was standing so close to the keyboard player that I could have helped him out with any of those tinkly high notes, they appear to be charming fellows, and I can see them being huge in a few years time. However much like the record, they didn't quite work for me.

On Sunday afternoon we ventured out to see the latest film from Michel Gondry "Be Kind, Rewind". As well as directing some of the most interesting music video's ever made he was also the director of the classic "Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind" and the glorious "Science of Sleep" probably our favourite film of recent years. I'm not the biggest fan of Jack Black, so was a little concerned that he was in the film and opening 20 minutes or so appeared to be a little forced. Gradually the film relaxed into its wonderfully loopy premise, allowing Monsieur Gondry to bring his marvellous talent for creating brilliant Heath Robinson style low budget effects and heartfelt whimsy. There are some magical moments; I particularly fell for one scene, which shows the locals watching themselves on the big screen in a darkened room. The joy on the faces of the people as they get their moment of fame whilst "the man" waits outside to break all their hearts was very touching.

What a joy it is to have BBC4, last night we the treat of watching 3 fascinating music related programmes, a profile of Jacques Brel, a fascinating look at world of Scottish music which was inspire by the wonderful Postcard Records and finally a show looking at a former star of Postcard, Edwyn Collins and his inspiring battle to overcome the debilitating effects of a brain haemorrhage. How can BBC4 be so good and BBC3 so bad, maybe it’s just my age.

We took the short walk to The Orpheus cinema last night to see Sweeney Todd, the latest cinematic marriage between Tim Burton and Johnny Depp, which of course also features Mr Burton’s real wife Helena Bonham Carter. Now I’m a huge fan of the work of Mr Burton but I felt that the claustrophobic nature of the film made it less of a visual treat than is usual for him. That’s not too say that it’s not an enjoyable film, which it is, for me it doesn’t quite hit the magnificent heights of some of his previous works.

A couple of weeks ago the postman knocked on our door early one morning, an unusual moment as along with everybody else I would imagine the vast majority of the post that we receive are slim notes inviting us to avail ourselves of a fabulous low interest loan or to take on more TV channels than any sane person could possibly wish to view. On this occasion though, he was clutching a huge sack of goodies which those nice people at McSweeney’s had sent across the Atlantic Ocean for me.

It was one of their excellent end of year collections of previously published items, it included an old issue of The Believer magazine, one of the regular quarterly collections – which intriguingly came with a free comb! Just the thing for us literary dandies I suppose. Also included was a collected highlight of the early issues of the McSweeney’s quarterlies, some free temporary tattoos and a novel by Yannick Murphy entitled Here They Come. It’s interesting description of a young girl growing up in an unidentified part of New York in the 1970’s.

Chaos and confusion are the order of the day in the novel and it’s a stark reminder of how much the city has changed since that squalid time. Indeed an interesting point was made in The Guardian this week by up and coming NYC band Vampire Weekend. Their music is a million miles away from the rough and tumble of legendary New York bands like The Ramones, The Velvet Underground or even The Stokes, that’s because the Big Apple is now a place that people want to live in as it’s a safe, comfortable exclusive (if that’s possible in a city of over 8 million inhabitants) place in which to live and bring up a family. Sadly that does mean that it may start to lose that frisson of excitement that the slightly edgy street scene used to offer. If everyone who lives there has a well-paid, sensible job where do the innovators live and work?

Yes, yes, yes we did come back from Glasgow, although I’ve spent most of the time in bed since we came home.

Glasgow was as ever a wonderful experience 4 great gigs, knowing people wherever we went, great accommodation, great curry, a visit to the GFT to see the gripping “No Country for Old Men, great record shopping what more could we want?

It’s odd that many people in England still give us the “Glasgow! Why would you go there?” look. We just find it be the most fun, friendly, welcoming place, packed with interest and surprise on every corner.

Having arrived back in Bristol last Monday tea time, I didn’t leave the house until Saturday morning, having been struck down, finally, by the flu bug which has zipping around me since Xmas. I finally managed to make it the shops at the round to pick up some bread and a paper, the odd thing was that the road appeared to be about as twice as long as it was previously!

We did manage to catch up with some friends and their excitable child in the picture postcard Cotswold’s yesterday lunchtime before dashing back to Bristol in order for me to DJ at the American Music Club gig on The Thekla. Have to say that the band were in fine form, much improved on their gig at Fiddlers a couple of years ago. Sadly whilst I was ill, I missed the Stars Gig at the same venue, Orynthia still went along and it sound like I missed a pretty good night. Lovely person that she is, she returned home with a flower and a CD for me.

Talking of Orynthia, it’s 21 years ago today that we were married. 21 years, some people aren’t that old you know. How can that be? It’s gone very, very quickly.

It’s been a quiet week for us as a bug left Orynthia doing her impression of a nun in a silent order. For most of the last weekend she could only produce the occasional squeak, which was interesting as we had friends staying with us. Thankfully as the week moved on she has been gaining strength although she did have an unfortunate set back last night.

We went to see a friend performing in an excellent production of “One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest” at Trinity. Just as the play was heading for it’s climax, Orynthia was struck by a coughing fit which forced her from her away from her seat and out of the room, meaning that she missed the final dramatic minutes of the performance.

Visits to Trinity are rather sporadic these days and tend to be for non-music related events. It was very different in the early 80’s when it was a regular stop off point for the up and coming bands of the day and I had the chance to see the likes of Joy Divison, Nick Cave, Teardrop Explodes, Monochrome Set, New Order, Death Cult, Magazine, Bauhaus and masses of others in the gloomy church with the bizarre tarpaulin ceiling and enormous industrial heaters which looked more like jet engines than any sort of heater that I’d seen before.

They were amazing things, belting out enough heat to strip the flesh from the back of your legs if you got too close them, yet making virtually no difference to the seemingly always chilly conditions. Things were always slightly haphazard at Trinity I well remember turning up for a reggae gig at the advertised start time of around 9pm, before eventually giving up and going home at round 1am without having seen a band make it to the stage.

At the end of next week we are taking one of our now regular trips to Glasgow, where we will be taking in 4 gigs as part of the Celtic Connections festival. On consecutive nights we shall see King Creosote, Bricolage, Camera Obscura and Teenage Fanclub for what should be a fantastic long weekend. Before that we have another Grumpy Man night to attend to on Sunday at Mr Wolfs where our friend Steve Dew will join us with the rest of his excellent band, Submarine. Upon our return to Bristol, we finally get to see the Canadian Band Stars when they play at The Thekla, so we are going to have a pretty musical week or so.

For quite a while we've been thinking of joining the City Car Club as a way of having access to a 2nd vehicle without the expense of running a 2nd car full time. For a long time we had 2 cars, confusingly for some people they were both light blue Fiat Seicento's. In fact we had 3 cars but the 3rd member of our little Fiat family, a 1971 Fiat 500 hasn't emerged from our garage for about 5 years now, every year I seem to say that it has to go but we never get round to moving it on, maybe it will happen in 2008?

When we bought our Fiat (anyone see a pattern developing here?) Panda a couple of years ago, we traded in both the Seicento's and in the main having one car has worked well but there are occasions when we need to be in separate parts of town at the same time, especially as parents gets older and need a little more help. So we've taken the plunge and taken out a joint membership which gives us access to cars located all over Bristol. Ideally one of them would be located right outside our house but realistically that was not going to happen, there are a couple of options which are around half a mile away from us, which isn't too bad. We have been sent a "magic" card to give us access to all the vehicles, you can book the cars on line and it all looks pretty straightforward. A whole new world of motoring awaits us.

This article caught my eye in The Guardian today, an interesting idea for a different sort of night out. Could it work in Bristol? I've been talking to a friend about it this afternoon and I do think it has some potential, could be a Grumpy Man offshoot.

Talking of which this Saturday marks a bit of a milestone in the Grumpy Man history, when we find ourselves DJ'ing at 2 events in Bristol. Luckily they take place at venue's which are pretty close to each other - The Croft and The Cube.

So onwards and upwards into 2008 we go, I've got a feeling that we are going to be quite grown up and spend a bit of money on the bits and bobs that need doing around the house. As anyone who knows me will testify, I'm not the handiest man around the house so this will entail us "getting a man in". So the painful process will soon begin of us trying to find someone who is competent, reliable and affordable - what fun!
 
In the meantime there are plenty of Xmas viewing gifts to catch up with, I was lucky enough to be given The Flight of the Conchords DVD (not once, but twice) so at the moment I think I'm safe in saying that "I'm the muthaflippin", if you get my drift. Also had a nice Hitchcock box set containing 6 films from the 1950's, so last night we sat down to watch the 1950 film "Stage Fright", a film by the great man which I had not seen before. It boasts a wonderful cast including Alastair Sim, Jane Wyman, Marlene Dietrich and Michael Wilding amongst others. It also features an unusual device for it's time, when we are shown a section of the film in flashback, which we subsequently find out to be misleading. It's a very interesting thing to do as it suddenly switches your sympathies, although apparently it drew some criticism at the time. Nothing quite beats a Sunday evening in the company of Orynthia, Hitch and a cosy sofa.
 
I've been catching up with some old literature over recent weeks, firstly I read Midnight Cowboy which Film 4 kindly put onto TV for me and then I moved onto To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Oddly I've never read the Harper Lee classic before, although I bought my copy in the late 1970's as the £1.95 price tag proudly indicates. I've also been rading the winter fiction issue of the New Yorker and my latest magazine of choice - Monocle. There is a bumper pack of goodies heading my way from the good people at McSweeny's and a couple recent purchases namely You Don't Love Me Yet by Jonathan Lethem and Zadie Smith edited collection of short stories The Book Of Other People. Lot's to keep me occupied there.

Things to thank 2007 for.

Panda Bear: Person Pitch -When I played this for the first time I thought about taking the CD back as I was convinced that it was faulty. Then slowly, the strange concoction of loops and echoes worked it’s magic on me. A fabulous unexplainable record.

Cornelius: Sensuous - Another strange, fractured record which doesn’t ease it’s way into your life. On occasions it even veers close to that most depressing of genres the jazz/rock/funk hybrid that sends all sensible folk running for the hills, and yet… It made a perfect counter point to the Panda Bear album, whilst that record felt strangely random and free flowing the Cornelius disc was almost mathematical in it’s slavish devotion to structure and somehow managed to stay interesting.

Richard Hawley: Lady’s Bridge – The king of croon made another record to make you feel that it was fine to be middle-aged. Great songs, great voice and some wonderful guitar playing it’s just a joy.

Jens Lekman: Night Falls Over Kortedala – A brilliant pop record, nobody writes songs which such awkward honesty as Jens. We finally managed to see him in the flesh this year, it was as wonderfully strange and beguiling as we hoped it would be.

The National: Boxer – They just get better with every record, surely they are on the cusp of making the move into the mainstream, then again they don’t wear the right trousers for that, so I guess it won’t happen.

King Creosote: Bombshell – His records get more polished yet still have the ability to rip at the heartstrings one moment and then put the biggest daftest grin on your face the next. A gem.

Iron & Wine: The Shepard’s Dog – A fuller sound from the Sam and the gang, this record contained one of my favourite tracks of the year, the astoundingly beautiful “Carousel”. A song so gorgeous that it can get away with having one of those faintly ridiculous vocoder type effects of it and still conjure the image spending a warm summer evening, sitting on the back porch with a glass single malt in your hand.

Amongst other treats this year are Arcade Fire – Neon Bible, Band Of Horses – Cease to Begin, LCD Soundsytem – Sound of Silver, Beirut – The Flying Club Cup and albums from Stars, Burial, Pinch, Sharon Jones & The Dap Kings, Au Reviour Simone, PJ Harvey, Rufus Wainwright, The Ladybug Transistor, The Coral, Edwyn Collins, Scarlatti Tilt and The Apples In Stereo.

Having said all that my favourite song this year (although I have a nasty feeling that it may have come out in 2006!) is from local band Slow. The title track of their Seeds EP is so simply and perfectly constructed as to be devastating, I think that I could play it on repeat for evermore and still not tire of it.