Well I’ve made the work decision and I could be leaving. More will be known in the next week or so, but basically its up to the company now. Quite excited by the prospect!

At the moment I am loving the long awaited debut album by the over monikered Martina Topley-Bird, Quixotic is a gorgeous CD. Delighted that she will be playing at the Massive Attack extravaganza in Bristol next month. Also picked up the new CD by the Mink Lungs, although have only skipped through it so far. Finally picked up Street Dad by the grovesome Out Hud. It’s very different to the live band which I saw supporting Radio 4 a few months ago, no vocals for a start. But it’s full of splendid dubby electro tunes. Think New Order produced by Adrian Sherwood, and you will be on the right lines.

Having finished the under whelming Secret History by Donna Tartt, I’ve moved to something much more interesting, Ghostwritten by David Mitchell. His Number 9 dream was one of my favourite reads of last year and this earlier novel by him is just as intriguing and engaging. The echoes and influence of Haruki Murakami still leap out, but it’s fine stuff.

Woke up this morning (queue blues riff in the background) in an extremely tired state. All the result of the weekend exertions at Ashton Court, with a late night BBQ thrown in for good measure.

Saturday was a very sociable day, as we bumped into most of our friends pretty soon, as they gathered together watch Steve Dew's final performance in the now defunct Parkers Barton. Once they finished we set off on the traditional wander around the site, looking for exciting new food stalls, of which there were none and checking out the vast array of 2nd hand clothes. We hung around long enough to catch an impressive performance from Little Barrie, before heading home before the arrival of Robert Plant. We were home only briefly as Geoff and Emma were having a BBQ to celebrate Emma's birthday. Although, we did not arrive until about 10pm, we still managed to grab some very tasty grub before the serious drinking began. Eventually we walked home at around 2 in the morning.

Sunday was more of the same, managed to catch another of the Monday night football lads playing in his band Organelles. Very good they were as well, a gentle, ethereal sound featuring some gorgeous trumpet playing, I'll keep my ears open for them in the future. Sometimes I feel as though I'm the only one of our football crowd that isn't either in a band or in some sort of creative group. We have an eclectic mix of musicians, DJ's, wildlife cameramen, and artists all running around together, in fact on one occasion a few weeks ago, we worked out that we had 7 drummers playing in one of our games! Somehow we still manage to play without any sense of timing! After that we saw another one of Steve Dew's bands, the inimitable Fuzz Against Junk, as they took us back to the days of the psychedelic jams of the early 70's. much to Orynthia consternation we then wandered off to watch riff merchants extraordinaire Gonga, it certainly felt like we had travelled back 30 years in time! By now the clouds were starting to gather and the temperature had dropped a few degrees. Luckily we managed to find a lovely warm tent, selling hot chocolate, and cakes where we could sit down a relax for 20 minutes. Next up were the highly rated Brighton band The Electric Soft Parade, I have to say they we a huge disappointment, so much so that we walked off to stand in front of the empty main stage for 20 minutes to wait for McKay to perform, rather than endure any more of their self indulgent nonsense. Mckay was great, she seemed to be genuinely thrilled to be back in Bristol and put in a storming performance, shame that it was only 45 minutes long, due to the 11pm curfew. It was nice to end the weekend on such an upbeat note.

Excellent piece in Thursdays Guardian on graffiti star Banksy. A former resident of Bristol, he has acquired an air of mystique, through the fact that hardly anyone knows who he is. His reputation rests on the brilliantly humorous and inventive work which he produces. Lot's of his work is on display around town, a few years ago he made the move to London and things look as though they have gone very well for him. A couple of small books of his work have emerged and he did the cover for the latest Blur album, take a look at his website for a snapshot of his work.

You can find a report of his show with pictures here.

Boy oh boy, was it hot in The Cube last night! Still we really enjoyed Wonder Boys. We dressed as cool as we could, Orynthia in her amazing 2nd hand dress from Glastonbury, me in my Shag designed Aloha shirt. That’s cool as in not hot, not as in Milan fashion week. After the film, we nipped into the deserted Bell, where Ian Green told us that he had a picture of his mum and dad from the 1950’s dressed in the same manner. Fine by us.

Everyone getting pregnant at the moment, well a slight exaggeration. In the past 2 days I heard that one of the lads I play football is going to be a dad, as is one of my workmates. Also heard from Australia that Carlson and Cathy are expecting twins! Also down under it’s a matter of weeks before Sorelle and Jen both give birth. Then again, I was chatting to someone else in work, who been caught up in a terrible run of unexpected deaths recently. It’s strange the way these things always seem to come in groups, for the moment I’m quite happy to keep away from both end of the spectrum.

On the music front, I've really been enjoying The Thrills album So Much For The City, its perfect summer pop music, but how can a band from Ireland write so many songs about the USA? Also picked up the Kings Of Leon CD, not quite sure about that one yet. I am enjoying Again by Colder, even if it does sound like it could have been released in the early 1980’s. Last but not least Kraftwerks Tour De France 2003 EP is a fine thing.

D Day is getting nearer for my big work decision. I think my mind is made up, fairly soon I could be heading off in a new direction, only snag is, I don’t really know what the direction is?

What a very untypical English summer we are having. Yesterday it was so hot the our train home was cancelled as the tracks had buckled in the heat! Despite that we still played football last night, how daft are we? For once I managed to score a bit of a blinding goal, as I hit a peach of a short from about 30 yards. I don't know who was more surprised, the lads who are used to my lame efforts every week, or me.

Getting back to the railway tracks issue, I do wonder what happens, in other - hotter parts of the world? Yesterday I think that it was about 32c, pretty warm for Bristol, but no comparision to the tempretures which the lines which snake across the dusty plains of Spain, India and the USA are exposed to. How do these countries cope?

Tonight we are going to my favourite cinema, The Cube to see The Wonder Boys. For some reason, they have decided that on Tuesdays it’s only £2 to see a film. What a bargin. We missed The Wonder Boys first time around, although the feedback was pretty good from our friends.

Things are starting to build nicely for the start of the football season. Bristol City's first league match is on August 9th, however we have lost a couple of important players from last season's squad and at the moment no fresh faces have come in. According to the bookies, we are 3rd favourites to gain promotion behind QPR and Sheffield Wednesday. We do have a couple of pre season friendlies lined up, but I think I'll wait for the real stuff to begin.

On Thursday Orynthia's dad is going home for the day, for a sort of trial run to see how he gets on aroud the house with his wheelchair. Then it's back to hospital for a short time before he comes home for good. They are still hopping to move house, as their current home has dreadfull access problems, loads of steps everywhere, really impractical for both of them as they get older.

Can't quite believe it's Friday again, the week has just flown past. We are aiming for a quiet weekend after lots of recent late nights, and the fact that next weekend will be spent at Ashton Court for the festival. Time to spend a bit of time at home, we've still got stuff to put away following the Glastonbury weekend, if we don't do this weekend it may never get done!

We got some films developed this week, and was quite surprised to see photo's going back as far as last September when we went down to Cornwall for a short break. Consequently discovered pictures from all our recent holidays, Cornwall, Nice and Paris plus lots of other nice shots. If I find any time I'll to make some of them available via this site.

Having finished the Raymond Carver short stories, which were excellent, I finally got round to reading The Secret History by Donna Tartt. I'm about 200 pages in and it's starting to grip, but I can't help thinking that it's taking a very long time to get where it's going.

Don't want to say too much, but I've got to make a very big decision regarding work over the next 10 days. Nervous but excited!

Well since our return from Glasto, it seems like 90% of the conversations I have had with people have been about THAT weekend. I'd forgotten how many people from Bristol go to the festival, those that didn't make it tended to watch lots of it on TV, so everyone has been comparing notes, on what they saw or did. It sounds like everyone who went had a great time.

We had an interesting night out on Friday. A number of artists have been commissioned to create artworks relating to the dock area of central Bristol, included in this group are our friends Anna Oliver and John Pym. This Friday marked the launch of the project, so I meet Orynthia straight from work and we set off to catch some of the work. Anna's work was the first thing that we saw, over recent months Anna has been asking people to send in their stories and memories of the docks (you can see these at her website, see link on right of page), she has taken over a derelict corner of the docks and decorated it with these stories. Some funny and poignant stuff here and anyone who has lived in Bristol for any length of time will find something that triggers a memory. Yesterday we took a look at John's installation, once again he plays with daylight and space in a slightly unsettling way. Worth taking at look at if you can. It's located opposite the main fire station in Bristol and it was good to see the fireman checking it out and encouraging their mates to take a look.

Later in the evening, we ventured up to a pub call The Greyhound In Clifton. Over the past couple of weeks, our friend rob has started playing old Ska, R & B and rock and roll records in the backroom of the pub. Rob had assured us that hardly anyone turns up, so we ventured in expect to find a handful of people. We were somewhat confused to walk in to a small room which featured about 15 very drunken blokes, who were in the later stages of a "stag" night. What joy! We managed to find ourselves a table in the corner which was farthest away from them (only about 10 feet), whilst Orynthia was waiting to be served, one of the happy gang who had been sitting on the Pool table behind Rob, leant forward and just kept going. Landing head first with good old thump! His mates gathered round and managed to get him back on the Pool table whereupon he decided to throw his cigarette away, unfortunately he decided to throw it into Robs record box! Things started to get a bit heated (in more ways than one!) and for a while I thought that we were heading into a classic bar room brawl, with us lot hiding in the corner. Luckily some of the stag party managed to combine with the landlord and calm things down, before the group were ushered away into the night. Not quite the quiet end to the evening that we had planned.

Well, I can still feel the sunburn on the back of my legs, and I could swear that my festival wristband was still in place, but the Glastonbury experience is over!

What a brilliant 4 days, everything went remarkably well. Hey, the lovely John Stapleton even put our tent up for us, the day before we arrived, in order to make sure that we could camp with friends from Bristol!

Arriving on a sleepy site at around 9am was a strange experience. The 70,000 people who were already on site had obviously enjoyed a lively Thursday evening, as people were about as common as a guitar solo in the dance tent. Thanks to John we were able to obtain passes to get into the backstage camping area for the One World Stage, where we had access to reasonable toilets and even shower and sauna facilities!

Whilst we were in the Left Field tent waiting to see Jeremy Hardy (one of the few no shows over the weekend), the sound of rain falling on canvas could be heard, for the next hour it rained pretty hard, before eventually turning into the dull drizzle which greeted us, as walked over to see Chuck Prophet entertaining the small and soggy crowd in front of the One World Stage. Luckily that was about as damp as things got, by the time we had grabbed some food, and wandered over to watch Yo La Tengo giving a sometimes inspired, sometimes indulgent performance the sun was breaking through and all was well. I spent a while relaxing in the backstage area where the luxury of having proper chairs, a bar with no queue and odour free toilets we proving to be very popular. We managed to catch up with Orynthia’s sister and her kids for an hour or so, enabling us to hand over the additional drink and food which we had bought into the site for them. Later we caught a short burst of the Skatelites as we munched our way through a Gambian meal. Then it was over to the main stage to see about 25 minutes of REM. Although to be honest we were so far away from the stage, we had to watch the performance on the giant monitor screens, before we snuck off to The Other Stage to catch a remarkably lively Primal Scream in action. Don’t think I’ve ever seen Bobby G. as animated as he was in this show. Although John and his other “Blowpop” pals were putting on some entertainment in a marquee in our camping area, we retired to bed at about 1am, with earplugs firmly in place, as the party was due to go on all through the night.

Saturday dawned sunny and bright and we all emerged from our tents to wish Jane a happy birthday. Musically the first thing on the agenda was an old favourite of Orynthia’s schooldays, Linda Lewis. A brilliant voice and a lovely personality masked the fact that her choice of songs left a bit to be desired, it was however a nice way to ease ourselves into the day. And what a day it was, the sun shone brightly as we enjoyed great sets by The Thrills and The Stands before heading back to main stage to see the effervescent Polyphonic Spree burst on the stage as the vast crowd melted in the baking sunshine. By way of contrast, I then made my way over to The Other Stage in order to see Interpol. They were great, it can’t be easy to playing brooding music on a hot sunny afternoon, but they managed to pull it off. Amazingly Carlos managed to keep his jumper on for the whole set! Next up were The Libertines, who despite all the problems facing the band at the moment, managed to put in a blistering performance and they deservedly went down a storm with the crowd. We then went back to the main stage to see Suprgrass, must admit that I’ve never really “got” Supergrass, so after 3 or 4 songs we went back to the camp to meet up with our friends before The Flaming lips set. They were the one band that virtually everyone in our group wanted to see and they didn’t disappoint. A madcap wonderfully engaging show, which importantly also features some killer tunes left everyone beaming from ear to ear when they finished their set with a cover of Breathe by Pink Floyd. We decided to ignore the bleating of Radiohead and instead went off to one of the strangest parts of the vast festival site, Lost Vagueness. An amazing area which features a Ballroom complete with Cancan dancers and cocktails, a silver service restaurant with a strict dress code and our destination for the evening The casino. Now to gain entrance to the Casino you have to be dressed up, as most people who go to Glastonbury turn up with 1 T shirt, and a pair of shorts, they will very kindly hire you the most amazing clothes – Ball gowns, Tuxedos, feather boa’s and the like. Luckily for me I managed to get the last man’s jacket, other wise I would have had to wear a dress (as many men did). The entertainment inside The Casino was sublime; a bizarre decadent 1940’s style cabaret review has us alternating between uncontrollable laughter and open-mouthed astonishment. The (cheap) champagne flowed and the whole thing turned into the greatest fancy dress party in the world. We stopped for an hour or so in the Blowpop tent, telling everyone what a fantastic time we had. Finally we staggered off to bed, very drunk long before the 5am finish. Brilliant!

On Sunday we were eased into the day by the occasionally brilliant My Morning Jacket, before heading up to the sun drenched grass outside the Acoustic Stage to see Roddy Frame, after a few years in the wilderness Roddy appears to be right back on form and the large crowd cheered him on wildly. I then took the long walk back to The Other Stage to see The Raveonettes only to be greeted by a deserted field, as they were apparently another no show. Orynthia than watched Macy Gray on the Main Stage whilst I enjoyed The Rapture with guest dancer Bez joining them for their final song. Orynthia walked over to join me and we watched the charming Grandaddy together. As with all the American bands, they were very keen to tell us exactly where in the U.S. of A. they came from and seemed to be genuinely delighted to be playing the festival. By now we were getting seriously tired, so we decided to grab some food then head back to the comfy seats of the backstage area of The One World stage, where we listened to Calexico playing a great set. We managed to drag our legs round to the front of stage area for their last song and that turned out to be the last band we saw. A fitting way to end it for us, as they were superb. Rather than watch Moby or Tricky we went to the Green field area to see the Glastonbury stone circle and see at close hand the breathtaking firework display at midnight from the hill, which gave us an amazing view over the vast and wonderful site. We made our way slowly back to our campsite, taking in the beautiful and relaxed atmosphere of the green field tents and Tipi’s along the way.

Monday morning, we all slept in late, before dismantling the tents and saying goodbye to friends old and new. It was clear that the traffic was going to take a very long time to disperse, so after dropping our gear in the car, we walked back into the site for a final meal, whilst we watched the site slowly being dismantled. We finally left at around 4pm after 4 unforgettable days. So many things to see and do, so much terrific food, from every part of the world. So many lovely people.

Shock news from Bristle's best website!

No more work between here and Glastonbury! I’ve booked tomorrow off for last minute sorting out before the weekend fun begins. Top of the list is a good haircut. I’m long overdue for a cut and a weekend camping calls for hair that requires minimum attention, so off it comes!

Tomorrow is also Orynthia’s dad’s 75th birthday, so we are going across to see him in the hospital and hope to take him out for a bit of lunch if the weather is nice. He is in a wheelchair, so we will just push him down to one of the pubs or restaurants around the harbour.

We are aiming to leave at around 7am on Friday morning, to make the short journey south to Glastonbury. Things get underway around noon, but we are allowing lots of time for the inevitable traffic jams and of course we have to get our tent erected as soon as we can. As well as music, the festival features literarily thousands of other things to see and do. In fact one of the first things that we want to see in a documentary film called Jeremy Hardy Versus The Israeli Army It’s the sort of thing that sums Glastonbury up and what makes it different to any other festival. Although the main attraction for us is the music, many people will go and not see a band for the whole weekend, yet they will have a brilliant time, thanks to the huge array of diversions that are available to them. It’s fair to say that we are both getting pretty excited!

Last night, we managed to have a test run at putting up the tent we have borrowed for next weekends Glastonbury festival. After initially doing it completely the wrong way and wasting about 20 minutes, we started from scratch and up it went, in a pleasingly easy manner. The inflatable mattress fits inside perfectly and the battery operated pump makes that whole inflation thing a walk in the park.

The first time I went to Glastonbury, several friends and I borrowed a tent from a friend of ours. In those days tents weren’t the straightforward things that they are today, so when we reached the plot of land where we set to make camp, we were dismayed to not only be met with falling rain but also with a mass of poles which we had no idea how to fit together. The rain continued to fall, the daylight gave way to darkness and we got no nearer working out a way of assembling the tent. Eventually one of the gang said “Why don’t we just make some sort of structure and then just throw the canvas over it for the evening.” It seemed like a reasonable call, so we joined various bits together, and came up with a frame that was about 20 feet long but only about 2 feet wide! Useless!! Luckily, in those days you could still park your car next to your tent, so we decided to sleep in the cars and listen to the sound of the rain. When we awoke the next morning, it all seemed blindingly obvious and we managed to erect the tent in about 15 minutes. Mind you, the heavy rain and a leaky roof meant that for the rest of the weekend, we had a very damp no mans land along the middle of our fortunately huge tent.

I was very sad to hear today, of the death of Jimmy Knepper. He was a jazz trombonist and came to my attention due to his outstanding work, with the maverick Charles Mingus in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s. I first started to listen to jazz, indeed all music because of my father. I never made much of a connection with my dad’s Dixieland records, but when I heard the music of Mingus, John Coltrane and Miles Davis I was hooked. To me one of the highpoints of their work together is brilliant track called Haitian Fight Song from the album The Clown. It really drives along, my old vinyl version is still one of my favourite records.

Better news today was that Zaha Hadid has actually managed to get a large building built. One of the most intriguing architects in the world, she has been bedevilled by endless setbacks as projects around the world have failed to become actual buildings. Credit then to people in charge of The Rosenthal Center of Contemporary Art in Cincinnati for going the distance. Lets hope it’s the first of many.

The Lloyd Cole gig the other evening was lovely. Quiet, refined and with a steely resolve underneath the apparent gentleness of the songs, the show was a delight. It was quite strange to walk past Lloyd Cole on Park Street as we dashed to see our friend Babs before the gig. We smiled to ourselves and let him pass without having to put up with any inane platitudes.

I was somewhat shocked yesterday, when I calculated that next week, will mark the 25th anniversary of me starting my first job! I well remember the excitement, when I received my first weekly (cash) pay packet of £24! How on earth would I manage to spend all that money? I know that some of the people that contribute to this blog with their comments, were either very small children or not even born in 1978. Thanks for sticking with an old man!

At least I know that I'm well over 1/2 way through my working life. it's all down hill from here.

So, on Saturday we managed to buy an inflatable mattress in preparation for the Glastonbury trip. So at least we will have something comfortable to sleep on. If the weather remains as it is then the ground is going to absolutely rock hard.

The trip to Moles on Saturday night was interesting. We got there just as they were opening up, The main door was still locked, but another door was open and we could see a couple of guys walking around, so we wandered in, went to the bar and got some drinks and no-one asked us to pay the entrance fee! The gig itself was good, first up were The Bitter Springs, whose first couple of songs I liked but as their set drifted on, my interest drifted away. Next up were a band called The Loves, apparently they have been championed by John Peel of late, which is often a good sign. I really enjoyed their slightly chaotic set, sort of Belle & Sebastian meets the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, good fun. They have an album out later in the summer. Vic Goddard, was at his normal eccentric best. He emerged wearing the classic footwear in the Englishman in summer - sandals, with white socks, and clutching handfuls of paper with lyrics scrawled upon them. A set which ignored all the old Subway Sect classics was still very entertaining especially a little section of songs relating to that famous old English seaside resort, Blackpool.

Yesterday, on what may well have been the hottest day of the year, the Monday night football gang meet up for one of our occasional challenge matches. This time we ere pitted against some alleged hotshots from Clevedon. I say alleged, because we eventually ran out 6-2 winners. It was really hot work and playing in the noon day sun was a mad thing to do. Thankfully I managed not to make too much of a fool of myself.

Tonight we are off to see another blast from the past - Lloyd Cole, without his Commotions. Once again it's in the refined splendour of St Georges. So Lloyd and his guitar should sound lovely.

Last night I enjoyed a study in contrasts. Headed out straight from work with current and past colleagues for a combined birthday/new job type, get together (not for me I hasten to add). Anyway we all met up in Revolution, a vodka bar in the heart of the high heels, short skirts, bad music, Friday night drinking part of town. It was good to catch up with some old mates but come 10pm I was starting to feel more and more out of place. The recent sunny weather meant that a lot of very red flesh was on display, time to say my farewells and take the 15 minute walk to The Cube.

Here former Blue Aeroplanes front man Gerard Langley was launching his new limited release CD of him reciting the poetry by the likes of Dylan Thomas, Pablo Neruda, And various luminaries from the beet generation. For this performance he was be backed by the ever expanding Fuzz Against Junk. I took refuge in the back of the auditorium alongside Orynthia, John, Jane and Teresa. Only caught the last 3 numbers and compared to dross that was being blasted at me earlier in the evening it sounded wonderful. On our way out we bumped into our friend Ian from F.A.J. who was delightedly telling us all that some of the obscure folk records he has recently sold on EBAY were being bought by Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth. Maybe a sign of a change of direction for the noisesome New Yorkers.

Tonight we’re heading to Moles in Bath to see an old hero from the glory days of 1976-77. Vic Goddard from the underrated Subway Sect.

Another Bristol & Bath blog added to the links "Dearie Me".

We have added another page to our site about The Bowlie.

Well it looks as though we are off to the Glastonbury Festival after all. The interesting line up did spark our curiosity and thanks to our friend John it looks like we should be able to gab some camping spaces in the backstage area. So at least we will be able to use some slightly more select toilets, they may even flush! There could even be showers in that part of the site!! So all we need to do is get ourselves a tent, sleeping bags and the all-important blow up mattress. I’m sorry, we are just too old to sleep on the hard ground, we need that layer of comforting, soft air between the soil and us!

Last night we went to see the wonderful Tindersticks at St Georges. They were on pretty good form, and the splendid acoustics of the hall really suited the gentle sound of the band. Moody melancholia was the order of the day, not that you would expect anything less from Nottingham’s finest. It was a bit of a trial for Orynthia as she could hardly be described as a fan of the band, I think that she enjoyed the support rather more, the intense and engaging songs of James Yorkstone were lovely.

After the gig we walked down to The Watershed, which was holding its 21st birthday party. Luckily for us John was DJ’ing so we managed to grab an invite to see Bristol’s media set enjoying themselves. It’s hard to imagine a time when The Watershed wasn’t part of the cultural landscape in Bristol. Over the last 2 decades and a bit we have seen so many great things there. Aside from all the non-Hollywood films, which we may have missed out on, we’ve also enjoyed lots of great comedy, literary events and music, a fantastic Jonathan Richman gig in the early 90’s being one of my favourite memories.

I am really enjoying the Raymond Carver short stories, what amazingly affecting tales they are. Bleak and uncompromising but utterly compelling.

A new story from the wonderful Haruki Murakami is always cause for celebration. "The Folklore Of Our times" is no exception, It can be found here in the latest issue of the New Yorker. Not sure how long the link will last though? Catch it while you can it's great.

After football on Monday evening, our discussion turned to subject of the changes at the Glastonbury Festival over the years. One thing however is constant , the thorny issue of the toilet facilities!

When first went, back in 1983, the torrential rain had turned the whole site into a quagmire, the area around the toilets was a huge muddy morass. If you could actually cope with standing in the enormous queue's before attempting the treacherous walk to your individual cubicle, the sight (and smell) that greeted you, was like looking into the bowels of hell itself. People would emerge ashen faced and often in their rush to leave the scene, they slipped and skidded their way to further muddy humiliation. It was gruesome.

The last time we went was in 1993. On this occasion the festival was blessed with sunny weather, however the downside of this was the amazing smell emanating from toilet zones. Talk about weapons of mass destruction, this was certainly set to stun levels, as the excess baggage from 100, 000 bodies fermented in the hot sun.

So we started to talking about potential ways round the problem. Abstinence was my choice in 1983 and 1993, however this is not always an option. A walk into the woods, is an option but as the festival goes on conditions underfoot can become very treacherous indeed and should you lose your balance it can get very messy. So we got to thinking about the famous dog walkers with their popper scoppers, when suddenly Marc had a brainwave. All you need is a large children's bucket, with a large number of plastic carrier bag. Simply place the bag in the bucket, fold around the edges to secure, assume the position, remove the bag, place in rubbish bin! Genius!! This can all be in the privacy of your tent. I fully expect to hear of someone selling "home toilet kits" at the festival this year.

Some pictures from the eurovision party. No photos of the Iceland team I'm afraid.

Ouch!
Played football last night and managed to catch a really painful blow to my back. It was unfortunate and completely accidental, that didn't make the pain any less though. For a split second, some bad memories came flooding back. About 4 years ago, whilst playing on The Downs, I was (unusually for me) involved in a mid air collision, and landed on my neck, knocking 3 vertebrae out of alignment in the process. The next few weeks were pretty dreadful, the next morning I remember sitting on the bed, not quite believing that suddenly, I was unable to reach my feet, in order to put my socks on. I then went through a phase of trying all sorts of remedies, whilst lying of the sofa downstairs. Hot packs, cold packs, pain killers, alcohol, the mind numbing qualities of daytime and very late night TV all made a gradual impression. Then it was off to see various doctors, a chiropractor and eventually an acupuncturist before things finally got back to normal. Three weeks later I was back at work. I guess that in all these years of playing sport, I've been pretty lucky, I've never broken any bones, unlike my good friend Jon Collins, who has taken bone breaking to a level, where we now consider it to be his work as a performance artist.

One of the summer highlights in Bristol is the Ashton Court festival. A 2 day music festival featuring (mainly local) bands, DJ's, Jazz and classical performers, plus an array food and normal festival fare. It's a great thing, virtually free to get it (I think it was £3 per day last year), it's a chance to see bands, catch up with some friends and eat some great jerk chicken in a relaxed environment. The line up's are being confirmed now and I'm delighted to hear the one of the headline acts will be MCKAY who I mentioned here a little while ago. It's also rumoured that the former lead singer with probably the biggest rock band of the 1970's will be performing. Not really my cup of tea, but quite a coup for the people behind the festival. No doubt many people will think that they are on a stairway to heaven!

Had a really nice day at my dads place on Saturday. The only problem we had was the initial traffic hold up's on the motorway, luckily we had some fine CD's to listen to, namely; Belle & Sebastian - Storytelling (soundtrack), The Real Tuesday Weld - I Lucifer and Luna - Live, which combined to ease us through the jams. We set in the garden whilst enjoying a barbecue and we both joined the massed ranks of English people who are a bit on the lobster side of red, thanks to the glorious sunshine.

Sunday was a mixture of gardening, housework and relaxing which was only spoilt when we were listening the news on BBC World service and heard of further problems in Burma, It's so sad that the only time we hear anything about Burma is when there are problems. Maybe one day a peaceful solution can be found, let's hope so.

A couple of my friends caught up with the latest bit of the Massive Attack European tour in Madrid on Thursday evening. Sounds like the gig was great and using that good old Bristol City football club connection, they managed to have a few drinks with the chaps after the gig. The band are really enjoying the tour, 3D was in a state of great excitement as he had meet the God like Ronaldo at a party the previous evening. They also said that when they play the big open air gig in Bristol at the end of August, they will be supported by Lupine Howl, De La Soul and pleasingly The Bees, hope that happens as The Bees are great.

Still on the music front, the line up for this years Glastonbury festival has been released, and for once I almost wish we were going. It features, The Flaming Lips, The Libertines, Interpol, The Thrills, The Rapture, The Raveonettes, Grandaddy, My morning Jacket, Calexico, John Cale, Kings of Leon, Radio 4, The Stands, Tricky, The Coral and The Delagados amongst many others. Then again 4 days on site with 150,000 people could be a bit much to take.

We are off to Devon today to catch up with my dad. The sun is shining looks like were in for another warm day.

We spent yesterday in the glorious majesty of the Victoria and Albert museum in warm and sunny London. We travelled up yesterday morning, on the train with our friends John and Jane, in order to see the highly praised Art Deco exhibition. We arrived with plenty of time to spare, before our timed entry tickets would give us access to the exhibition, so taking advantage of the fact that we needed to be in the South Kensington area, we set off for The Conran Shop. Located in the gorgeous Michelin Building, we treat it more like a museum that a shop. Full of sublime furniture at outrageous prices, it's a place where we have wasted many hours furnishing imaginary rooms.

Then it was onto the V&A, the exhibition itself was a bit of a mixed bag. The initial rooms aimed to explain the roots of the Deco movement, which was a good idea but resulted in lots of displays, with only partial interest for me. Things picked up as we moved through the next room, the highlight being the restored former entrance to the Strand Palace Hotel. Many years ago we saw some pictures of the magnificent interior of this hotel, so on our next visit to London we were delighted to get a reasonable deal in the hotel. We arrived full of anticipation, only to find a bland and functional building with no sign of the beauty we had expected, everything had been removed in 1969! Still at least it was kept safely and this was our chance to see it at long last. The exhibition really came into it's own in the final, which concentrated on Art Deco in the USA. As I have said before, one of the reasons we love New York is the abundance of Art Deco architecture which still exists. Lots of fantastic things to see here, one highlight was a huge scale model of The Rockefeller Centre. The building is so vast that when you see it he flesh, it's difficult to appreciate the scale of the place. We also saw some brilliant furniture, I think that once the American bought into the concept of Art Deco, they did so in such a huge way that millions of objects and hundreds of amazing buildings were produced. Fantastically many of them are still with us today.

After that we had a drink and a yummy piece of cake in the amazing surrounds of The Gamble Room". Is there a more ornate café in England? Or indeed anywhere?

Then we went around the corner to The Science Museum where we spent several happy hours looking at all manner of domestic appliances from this century. You could play with lots of things and also watch some incredible American TV adverts from the 1950's and 60's. Great fun.

From there a quick trip of the top floor of a double decker bus took us to Edgware Road, where we feasted on huge amounts of delicious Lebanese food. Eventually we waddled off towards Paddington, in the warmth of a summer evening. Tired, stuffed and happy.

The hospital visits and general inability to say no to any invitation, means that we have hardly had any time to ourselves, so on Sunday we decided that we weren’t going to make any plans at all, other than to just please ourselves. So after a leisurely breakfast, we did what we do best - watched an old black and film. In fact over the weekend we had a bit of a film festival, watching first of all from 1941 Mr & Mrs Smith, which was that rarest of all films a Hitchcock comedy. Enjoyable, but hardly a classic of the screwball comedy, Hitch was defiantly better at building the tension than he was at tickling the ribs. The next film on the agenda was The man who wasn't there, the Cohen brothers do film noir and do it very well indeed. Great understated performances all round from the brilliant cast. You could almost feel the quiet desperation oozing from Billy Bob Thornton, brilliant. Then last night I watched Kikujiro by the mystery man of Japanese cinema Takeshi Kitano. Radically different in tone to his earlier films such as the marvellous Hana -Bi and Sonatine. Although his work is closely linked with extreme violence, he has always used silence and solitude as part of his strong narrative lines. Kikujiro has more in common with "A Scene at the Sea" an earlier film of his than his art house hits with western audiences. It's a most unlikely road movie, featuring a small time, foul mouthed waster and his efforts to help a young boy find his mother. Surprisingly tender and often very funny, it was a real treat.

Some of you out there in blog land may not be aware of the bizarre phenomenon, which is the Eurovision song contest. For way too many years now, the countries of Europe have come together on one special Saturday every year, to judge each others ability to produce the lamest, corniest and downright bad pop music. It’s a contest which has produced any number of appalling songs over the years but has now become some sort of camp classic.

This Saturday, we went to our first ever Eurovision party. Jonny and Katja were our hosts. The idea being that people were allocated a country and would then attempt to dress in the style of that nation, also if possible to bring food and drink from the country as well. So far, so good, we drew Iceland! Now it’s fair to say that our knowledge of Iceland was pretty limited, so it’s lucky for us that we have the wonderful research facilities that the WWW can offer. Fairly quickly, we had found an interesting page of Icelandic recipes and an interesting sounding Pepper cookie recipe stood out. We could find no specific Icelandic drink, so we purchased an odd clove based alcoholic cordial to take with us. What to wear though? After a couple of fruitless days of thinking and searching for ideas, I woke up on Saturday morning with the blinding obvious idea of wearing very warm clothing. Obviously Iceland is a pretty cold place, so to show solidarity with our Icelandic brothers and sisters, we set off to the party dressed for sub zero temperatures, as the rest of Bristol was walking around in T Shirts!

Our glamorous hosts had bagged Russia for themselves, so we were met at the door by a great Joseph Stalin look-alike. Pretty soon most of Europe was represented in the house and the competition was about to start. Iceland was the first country to take to the stage and we tried to cheer on the rather lame song, which our temporary countrymen had adopted, but it was hard work. At least it meant that I could remove my hunting hat and coat (not that I ever hunt), scarf and extra thick gloves. Next up was the truly bizarre Austrian entry, a marked contrast from the normal “boom-banga-bang” euro song; it bought an amazed hush to the busy room.

Eventually all the songs were sung, the varied collection of drinks were being drink with great gusto by all concerned and the food of Europe was buying scoffed with vigour (those Icelandic biscuits were splendid by the way). The voting began, each nation post votes for it’s favourite song and it’s always great to watch the political elements of the voting. Hence Latvia gives Estonia 12 (maximum) points and vice versa. The race at the top of the leader board was pretty tight between Russia, Belgium and Turkey but it was even more interesting at the bottom. The UK for the first time in its history ended with 0 points a fantastic thing! Was is the result of a post Iraq backlash or was it just the awful song, sung so flat it must have been run over by a steam roller.

Anyway Turkey won, and we all got drunk (except Orynthia, who was driving) as strange fruit liqueurs and vodkas were mixed to produce potent concoctions. Next year it’s going to take place over two days. Can’t wait!

The other day I put up a link to an article on Haruki Murakami. In the piece, it mentions that Murakami translated the work of Raymond Carver into Japanese and spent some time living with him in the USA. Carver is a writer that I have been meaning to investigate for a while now, so at the recent Redland fair I was delighted to pick up a large collection of his short stories. Over recent night's I have taken my first tentative steps into the world of Carver. I can certainly see a connection between the two writers, they both share a deceptively simple prose style and an ability to drag you headlong in the story, within a couple of lines.

During the day I'm reading The Crying Of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon. Once again, this is my first encounter with one of the big names in American literature. After years of recommendations from many friends, one of them finally just slapped the book on my desk and told me to get on with it.

A friend of mine (one of the Monday night football gang) has been producing a new album for a very talented American singer over the past couple of years. It's been amazing for me, to listen to all the trials and tribulations of the tortuous process of making this record. My friend is actually in a different band and this has been a side project for him His main band are not exactly known for speed of their work, but I've been amazed at his ability to remain involved, enthusiastic and motivated enough to see the project through to a conclusion.

Most of us go into work and have a certain routine that we follow through, things crop up and get sorted and we move on. In my line of work, most things hang around for a few days, some last several weeks a small few are with me for a couple of months. So the prospect of working for several years on a CD which lasts about 45 minutes, leaves me with great respect for the tenacity of everyone involved. One of my other friends has been involved in the artwork and design side of the project, and it's been really interesting heading off to football every Monday evening with these two guys and listening to the discussions taking place at all levels of the project, from trying to get distribution in the USA, to what font size to use on the CD sleeve. They are both very talented guys, whose level of care and concern for the project is amazing.The whole thing was further complicated, by the fact that the singer whose album the name is in, lives in New York so obviously time difference's add further difficulties to the whole thing.

Anyway the album finally hits the shops today and on Friday evening they managed to get themselves onto the UK's only non chart-pop music show on Terrestrial TV, Later with Jools Holland. A pretty good show it was to, as they put in an excellent live performance alongside Lou Reed, Goldfrapp, The Kings Of Leon, The Vines and Ladysmith Black Mambazo. The next step is getting radio play and creating a profile for someone that is pretty much unknown in this country. It's a fascinating process, made more interesting for me, because my friend is well aware that he is trying to create great soul/pop music in the way that someone like Aretha Franklin used to do, which in these days of short term, teenage, manufactured pop domination is a pretty difficult thing to achieve.

If you want to see and hear what the project is all about go to www.stephaniemckay.com

Great piece on the excellent Haruki Murakami in yesterdays Guardian.

Well Bristol City won’t be getting promotion this season. The 0-0 home draw with Cardiff on Tuesday night meant that the 1-0 defeat in Cardiff the previous Saturday was enough to keep us in division 2 for another season. No complaints really, on Tuesday Cardiff defended really well, so even though we had almost all the possession in the 2nd half, we seldom looked like getting a goal. Oh well, there’s always next year.

Whilst I was at the match, Orynthia was watching Evan Dando in action and very good he was by all accounts.

We have arranged a trip to London to see the Art Deco Exhibition at the V&A at the end of the month. From all that we have read and seen on TV the exhibition looks fantastic; one of the reasons that we love Paris and New York is that is gives us the chance to see so many great Art Deco buildings. We are going up on the train with a few friends; it should be a spectacular day.

Had a bit a shock in work yesterday, when we found out that one of the guys we deal with was the original (but short lived) drummer alongside the inspirational Pete Wylie, in the great Wah! Heat . He even co-wrote one of my favourite songs of all time, the epic “Some say”. How on earth did he end up working with us?

So this week it's 20 years since The Smiths released their first single, the brilliant "Hand in glove". I well remember hearing it for the first time on the John Peel show, It sounded like nothing else that was around at the time, pretty soon a Peel session followed and the next 3 years were dominated by the band. I'm still amazed when people say that The Smiths were miserable, sure they could be mournful and melancholic, but they were also one of the wittiest bands, although Morrissey was ultimately no match for his beloved Oscar Wilde, at least he threw his hat into the ring.

Having been unable to get into one of their gigs, in the broom cupboard like Moles in Bath, I first saw the band in September 1984 at the Anson Rooms in Bristol. By this time we all knew about the Gladioli swinging excess of Morrissey and the melodic charm of Johnny Marr, but I still recall being swept away with the focus and attack that drove the performance forward. They really sounded like a band who were desperate to show you that they were the best band in the world. A few weeks later my friend Simon Templer (not that one!) and I found ourselves in a Greenwich village record shop, listening to the two guys behind the counter arguing about whether "that Morrissey was a girl or a guy". After week or so, of our wide eyed innocence, as we gawped our way around the sharpest, cleverest and quickest city in the world, it felt good to know at least one thing that our American friends were not sure of!

By the time of the "Meat is Murder" tour, they had become an institution in the UK. Everyone one had an opinion on the band, I particularly liked the response of my friend Steve's dad Les. Whenever The Smiths would appear on the TV, he would shout out "here he is, one note Joe" before quickly leaving the room. The great thing with the band was that the records came thick and fast, B sides were often as good as A sides, artwork was brilliant and the interviews were always essential reading. A whole legion of people grew their quiff's, wore brogues with turned up jeans and started to wear national health glasses, meat was shunned (although not by me!), and we all became experts on 1950's and 60's English literature and films.

Although "The Queen Is Dead" was a fine album, the cracks were already beginning show. We all travelled over to Newport to catch the tour. About 20 minutes into the gig Morrissey was dragged off the stage and the lack of concern or interest on the faces of the other band members was obvious. A minor skirmish resulted from the bands refusal to return and that was the last time that I saw them.

So what legacy did they leave behind? I must admit that I seldom play the records now, although I'm always delighted to come across the band on TV or radio. The court case damaged the reputation of the individuals concerned, so that I could never really look at them with the same sort of affection again. Morrissey has recorded some great solo tracks but many, many more tuneless and worthless ones As for Johnny Marr, it's such a shame that he could never find anyone else who could inspire his guitar playing in the way that Morrissey could. It was great while it lasted and in someways it is better that they had such brief yet intense career. So many wonderful memories.

On the way to visit Orynthia’s dad in hospital on Friday Night, we came across a very strange site. In the dock area, opposite Severnshed and The Riverstation, is a small building, which has been completely covered with pages from the Times Educational Supplement from 1961! Every part of the building is covered, the light outside the door, the step, the windows, everything! It’s makes for some fascinating reading, but what is it all about? I guess that it’s some sort of artwork, but we could not find anyone’s name on this most intriguing piece. On the way home we stopped for a delightful Japanese meal at Azuma on The Triangle.

Saturday was set aside for gentle shopping, we went to a weekly garage sale, which is held just off Picton Street. The flyer promised all manner of 50’s furniture, but in truth the stuff on display was disappointing, in fact we had seen most of it at Redland fair last weekend, after heading up to Park Street we picked up a few CD’s. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs album and the new EP from The Tindersticks for me. The new CD from the splendidly talented (The Real) Tuesday Weld, for those that don’t know (The Real) Tuesday Weld I would describe it as a mixture between, The Magnetic Fields and Mr Scruff, it’s great. Orynthia also became very excited, when she spotted an album by The All Girl Summer Fun Band, a rare sighting indeed in this country.

Saturday evening was spent at Blowpop. Thanks to the generosity of our friend John Stapleton we managed to get a blag to the latest Blowpop extravaganza. And a top line up it was, when we arrived DJ Format was entertaining the huge crowd. Later on the laid back hip-hop of Ugly Duckling provoked a great response from the grooving masses. This was all in preparation for the latest visit to Bristol of that San Francisco phenomenon Breakestra. They did not come on until about 1:15 in the morning, so good as they were, I must admit that we did not last for the whole of their set. On the Gawker front, Roni Size and DJ Krust from Full Cyle were checking out the show.

Well my ticket for the Cardiff game arrived today, so I am very relieved.

Forgot to say that we went to see the film Frida last week. We both thoroughly enjoyed the film, as you would expect vivid colours enriched the film throughout. Brilliant use of Frida Kahlo’s paintings brought stunning imagery to the film.

A little while ago I mentioned that Orynthia had started work on a new website. It’s going to record our memories of the best music festival we have ever attended. It was The Bowlie, put together by Belle & Sebastian; it featured an astonishing array of bands, in a wonderfully simple and intimate setting. Early days for the site but take a look at the work in progress if you fancy a touch of late 90’s indie nostalgia.

Well the sun shone, long and strong at Redland Fair, making for a very enjoyable afternoon. We picked up a couple of great 50’s serving dishes (matching a gravy boat which we got last year) along with a brilliant 5o’s tablecloth. I also picked up a couple of hefty books of short stories by authors that I have been meaning to get acquainted with, John Cheever and Raymond Carver. We also had a game of lawn bowls with Kevin and his daughter Libby. With only the smallest amount of help from the legendary Albert, our coach for the afternoon, we all managed to win one end each. So every one left happy. On the Gawker front, a couple of sightings, once again Adrian Utley was out and about along with another Redland fair regular, Stan Cullimore. The former guitarist with top 80’s jangly guitar fav’s The Housemartins, is now as everyone knows a pretty successful author of children’s books. More strangely his also wrights the scripts for the Basil Brush!

Yesterday Bristol City managed to confuse and upset most of the fans in the run up to the playoff games. I left work early and managed to get to the ground by 4pm, as the box office was open until 7pm I thought that this would allow plenty of time to buy the ticket. However, as I walked into the ground, I saw a long queue stretching out in front of m. When I tried to attach myself to the end of the queue I was told that no one else was allowed to join as they anticipated that they already had enough people in the queue to take them up to 7pm. So today I spent nearly 3 hours in a phone queue , before eventually getting through, allegedly the ticket is in the post. Lets hope so!

So City did end up in 3rd place in the league, which means we have to play Cardiff over 2 legs to earn a place in the play off final, which strangely will take place in Cardiff itself. I’m a bit annoyed with Mr Rupert Murdoch and all those people at Sky TV. They have decided that the2nd leg of the match is worthy of national TV coverage, so the game is being played next Tuesday rather than the original date of next Wednesday. Ordinarily that would not be a problem, however we have tickets to Evan Dando on the Tuesday night! Football normally wins in these situations and certainly I can’t imagine missing a match of this importance, so I’m going to have to miss out on Mr Dando. We saw him when we were in New York the Xmas before last and he was great. After the embarrassment of final Lemonheads gig which we saw, it was a joy to see him back on top form, even if he had gone for the long hair, big beard, wish I was in The Grateful Dead look. I have also been enjoying the new album a lot, but hey being a football fan is akin to have an addiction and I just can’t miss out on the biggest game of the season so far.

The Spike Island show yesterday was great fun, lots and lots of interesting stuff. Some brilliant sculpture and the shock of seeing the biggest live snail I have ever seen! It was a very social occasion and the time between 1pm and 6pm just flew past.

After reading celeb spotting updates for New York on Gawker I though I did do a brief rundown of recent minor celebs that we have spotted in Bristol!

At the Calexico gig, former Bristol resident and still the owner of a fine West Country accent, Polly Harvey watched the gig from the side of the stage, before enjoying a chat with regular gig goer Portishead guitarist Adrian Utley.

Last Wednesday, former Dr Who and star of many TV shows and films Paul McGann spotted whistling loudly at Bristol Temple Meads railway station.

Yesterday at Spike Island, another viewing of man about town Adrian Utley. Also spotted Bansky, who was happy to show us his latest purchase from the show, a brilliant little book for only £3 by the very talented OTTO.

Will we see anymore at Redland fair this afternoon?

Calexico were just spellbinding. What a great band! The records are good but they really are a different proposition in the flesh. The use of trumpets and vibes was beautifully done. They made me wish that David Lynch would make a sort of Grapes of Wrath type film, with them providing the soundtrack. That would be sublime. We also enjoyed the look-a-like potential within the band. Who would have thought that Craig David and a young (but slightly chunkier) Tim Robins would provide the trumpet and vibes. Or that the pedal steel guitar would be played by the larger John from They Might Be Giants. The biggest shock however was to see that Russian premier Vladimir Putin was playing bass! How does he find the time?

Looking ahead somewhat, we have a great few days in store. Staring tonight with the Calexico gig, then we have another 3 day weekend to look forward to. On Saturday Bristol City are at home to Port Vale in the last regular league match of the season, although our defeat at Chesterfield last Saturday means that we have a least one more game to watch this season, as we strive to get obtain promotion, via the torturous play off's.

On Sunday we are going to visit the brilliant Spike Island, which is open over the whole of the long weekend. For those of you that don't know, Spike Island is an old Tea warehouse which has been converted into artists units. From memory about 150 different artists have units in the building, producing an incredible array of work. Sculpture, video, paintings, printmaking, photography, conceptual art it's all there. Normally it's a working building which the public don't really have access to, but from Friday to Monday the public take the chance to view the work and some cases buy it as well. Whilst being able to talk to the people who are producing the stuff as well. Our friend's Anna Oliver (see links) and her partner John Pym will both have work on display. It's a great place to meet up with friends and the hours just seem to disappear when you are in the midst of all this creative energy.

On bank holiday Monday, the people of Redland hope for a dry sunny day, as the annual Redland fair takes place on Redland Green, just around the corner from our house. It's nothing special really, just a collection of stalls selling everything from home cakes to old household bit's and pieces, plus the occasional treasure on the 2nd hand books and records front. Although it has to be said that our DJ friends John Stapleton and Ian Green have normally snaffled all the bargains and are seen wandering into the distance with pile of rare 7" singles and LP's. All the stalls are set up in the area around The lovely old Redland church. When the sun shines it's a pretty good place to be. We normally end up back at our place with a few friends, having the inevitable Thomas tea and cakes whilst we admire each others plunder from the afternoons bargain hunt.

Thanks to the purchase of a new record player, current plays:
The Chills – Kaleidoscope World LP
Orange Juice – Texas Fever mini LP
Lloyd Cole & The Commotions- Rattlesnakes LP
LCD Soundsystem – Give it up 7”
Tamla Motown Presents the Isley Brother LP

Whilst on CD
LCD Soundsystem – Losing my edge (best song in the world at the moment!!)
Evan Dando – Baby I’m Bored
Yo La Tengo - Summer Sun

We have had a very pleasant couple of days. On Thursday evening, we meet up after work and planned to have something to eat in Severnshed, however for some reason it was absolutely crammed full of people, so we popped next door to The Riverstation, to see Petunia and Simon, where we took advantage of the their early evening meal offer. I had a gorgeous meal of Skate wings with Capers. I’d forgotten how much I love Capers, that wonderful acidic zing really adds something to any fish dish. We then nipped over the river to see Orynthia’s dad as he has been moved back to the general hospital. He was in great spits, which was lovely to see.

Last night we went to The Croft, for John, Ian and Phil’s excellent Four Corners evening. Lots of our friends were about so we did more chatting than dancing on this occasion.

On Tuesday we are seeing Calexico, never seen them play live before. I’ve enjoyed the last couple of albums and am looking forward to seeing them. Once again quite a few friends are going so it should be a good night.

So, every day this week, I have been getting up at around 6:20 am to let our roofing guys in. Must admit that it's making me very tired. I know lot's of people do this sort of thing all the time, but the earliest I get up normally is 7am, once or twice a week. I guess that because we don't have kids, and we both work pretty straightforward office hours, with minimal commuting times, we have been pretty spoilt on the sleep front. Orynthia has been ribbing me a bit lately, I have been waking up at around 8:30 - 9:00 am on some weekend mornings, which she takes as a sure sign of old age. It's a well known fact that young people can quite happily sleep all day. Whereas those nice old grandmums and dads have normally read the paper, watched "Gone With The Wind" on video, had breakfast and a mid morning snack, before the clock strikes 8:30 am. So in a way I'm quite pleased that I'm finding it so taxing. Proof that I'm not completely in my dotage!

Picked up a couple of CD's yesterday. One of them is a compilation of bands on the Output label called Channel 2 , including older singles from bands like The Rapture and LCD Soundsystem plus lots of new stuff by bands which are new to me. Most of it is the new electro vein, which is all pervasive at the moment. The other CD is the new one from Yo La Tengo - Summer Sun , only had a chance to give the first few tracks the skimpiest of plays last night, but track 4 "Season of the shark" is just lovely. Looking forward to more plays of this album.

We have actually had some rain here today, for the first time in absolutely ages. It felt quite strange to be holding an umbrella again.

Yeah City won 2-0 last night, so we are back up to 3rd place in the league with only 2 games left. We could still finish 2nd and claim one of the automatic promotion places, and we are now guaranteed a least a playoff place. It was a pretty tense game and to be honest Cardiff had the best of the 1st half, after the break, we played with a lot more pace and deserved the victory. My Friend Steve, who now lives in Madrid, had a text message advising him of the final score and he was so excited he called me at about 11pm to chat about the game, as no one else in Madrid would really share his enthusiasm for a lower level English team. Also pleased to say that there was no crowd trouble at the match at all (from what I saw anyway). The fixture has seen some of the worst excesses of football hooliganism over recent years, and some of the games have been pretty horrible. Thankfully nothing of that nature occurred this time, although I may have injured my voice whilst shouting with joy, when the 2nd goal went in!

Not too much going on here over the course of this long Easter Weekend. We have both been on the verge of going down with colds, so we decided to have a much rest as we could and just take things easy. Apart from yesterday, when we caught up with a lot of family, it worked out pretty well.

Bristol City picked up a couple of draws in the last 2 away games. Tomorrow night is the big game against Cardiff. If we win, we will go up to 3rd place in the league, if we loose, we will be in the last playoff place looking nervously over our shoulder at The team in 7th place. Games against Cardiff are always volatile affairs, so who knows what will happen?

I finally got round to finishing my mix tape for the tape swap being arranged by Tally Ho Sulky (see blog links), it should be winging it’s way to New York tomorrow. It’s a mixture of songs, spoken word, radio samples and all sorts of oddities. I can do a copy for anyone else that wants one, if you do a tape for me!

Orynthia has been working on a new website, which she hope to have up pretty soon. Not going to give away any more away, but once it is finished I’ll have a link to it.

Well this morning all the tiles arrived for our new roof. Which meant that I had to dash downstairs and move the cars out of the way to allow the lorry to get close enough to load them onto the platform which has been erected over our front garden. Apparently the guys are going to start work at about 6:30 am on Tuesday morning. So no chance of an post Easter holiday lie in! The weather has been glorious here over recent days, just hope that we don't get lashings of rain and wind for the few days when we don’t have a proper roof!
We don't have too many plans for the 4 day Easter break, mind you we don't normally do anything special, it's good chance to sit back and relax for a couple of days. I've been thinking about previous Easter breaks and one really stands out. In 1998 we were lucky enough to go to the wedding of Orynthia's Australian cousin Sorelle and her chap Craig. Now going to a wedding in Australia would have been exciting enough, but luckily for us it got even better as they decided to get married in Malaysia! People from all over the world congregated in the beautiful Marang Resort & Safaris, a remote destination near Kuala Terengganu in remote north east Malaysia. We flew into Kuala Lumpur were we were able to meet up with some other relatives before taking the short flight north. Once we arrived at Marang, we met up with the rest of the wedding group, friends and relatives from Australia, Asia, Europe and the USA. The place was amazing, Mangrove swamp and river at the rear, the beautiful South China directly in front of our timber framed chalet. The wedding itself was gorgeous and several of us spent the small hours sitting on the beach, watching the twinkling lights of the fishing boats in the distance, just talking and thinking how lucky we were to be there. It was real treat to able to spend lots of time with friends old and new. We saw some incredible sights in and around Marang, it was a really wonderful time. To top it off, on the day after the wedding I received a fax from a friend of mind confirming that Bristol City had been promoted (only for one season unfortunately). It was quite a way to hear the news, although with the exception of Orynthia, everyone else was completely baffled by my excited state. The link above appears to indicate that the place may not be as well looked after as it once was, indeed it may even be closed, which is a shame.

Last night we went to the Louisiana to see New York band Radio 4 in action.
First up were two guys from Seattle called Plan-B, one of them keyboard crunching whilst crouched behind an i-book, the other playing a slimed down electronic stand up bass. Fairly pleasant noodling in a Boards of Canada type vain for the most part, although Orynthia had to move pretty quickly to avoid the i-book guy, as he leapt into the space between audience and band to give us his best B-Boy moves for a couple of minutes (very nimble they were too!).

Next to squeeze onto the tiny Louisiana stage were Outhud. Now a friend of mine who owns a record shop, was telling me on Sunday that he had been listening to an album by the band recently, which he described as mainly instrumental, dubby, electro. So we were both surprised (he was standing next to me at the gig) when it emerged that the band had 3 singers. I really liked them, they reminded me of either The Slits or Delta 5 (if you know those old, late 70's and early 80's bands?) mixed with early electro like Africa Bambaataa or maybe "Confusion" era new Order. I loved them. Great bass player, cello and loads of staccato keyboard riff's cut through the crowd like a rapier. One of the band gleefully announced that they were selling a CD at the gig but that it did not feature any of the songs that they had been playing (which may explain my friends confusion about the sound of the band.) After taking the stage to general audience indifference, they left it to much applause. I'm going to keep my eye's and ears open for this lot!

By now the tiny confines of the room were packed, indeed after nipping downstairs to use the restroom facilities, I could not get to Orynthia and our friends, so I decided to head towards the front stage area. Because of the strange layout of the room, (the dressing rooms are actually behind the audience, meaning that bands have to walk through the crowd to get to the stage!) the band were already on stage chatting amongst themselves. I got myself into a decent spot, just in time for the band to dash headlong into their set. I'm hopeless with song titles and whenever I rely on memory I'm normally wrong, but I'm pretty sure that they started with Our Town, followed by Start A Fire and I thought that maybe they were just going to play the album straight through. At first the sound was a bit muddy, so the crispness that defines the album was somewhat lacking, although the band were tearing into the songs as though their lives depended on it. Suddenly we got to Save your City and everything just clicked into place with the sound. From then on, the band could do no wrong, and the audience were really starting to appreciate these razor sharp songs. They played a couple of songs which were new to me, at least one of which was off the 1st album (which I have never seen or heard). The set built to a climax with Eyes Wide Open and Dance To The Underground leaving the band looking as though they had swum across the Atlantic to play the gig. As mentioned previously, to get to the dressing room the band would need to force their way through the crowd before coming back for an encore, they quickly realised that this would be a pointless thing to do, so after a quick chat a brooding and menacing version of Pipe Bombs, preceded the final charge through a cataclysmic New Disco. Orynthia is not really a fan of the album but she enjoyed the gig and was even spotted having a bit of shuffle around towards the back of the room. They certainly seemed to be a band that know that they are on top of their game at the moment and they are aiming to make the most of it.

What a great weekend! Started on Friday really when our upgrade to ADSL Broadband went amazingly smoothly. So now can actually watch music video's and listen to streaming radio without the gaps pauses and drop outs which we have become used to over the years.

On Saturday I watched a really entertaining game of football as Bristol City beat Mansfield 5-2. The win moves us up to 4th place in the league. Tomorrow we are away at 2nd placed Crewe and on the following Tuesday we are at home to 3rd placed Cardiff. So by next Wednesday we should have a pretty good idea if we have any chance of finishing in 2nd place and getting automatic promotion, or as I think is more likely we will end up somewhere between 3rd place and 6th place and will have to endure the nerve shredding play off's.

On Sunday afternoon we had an afternoon party to celebrate Orynthia's recent birthday. I took care of the house work, whilst Orynthia baked a multitude of splendid thing. A scrummy cheesecake, huge carrot cake covered in cream cheese icing, enough chocolate caramel slices to feed most of southern England a couple of loaves of bread! My main culinary contribution was the precision spearing together of cheese and pineapple chunks. Loads of our friends turned up and a small army of children set about the task of relocating our possession around the house. Gallons and gallons of tea were drunk along with the occasional glass of wine. Over the past couple of weeks Orynthia has put together a couple of tapes of her favourite songs from the soul and reggae of her youth to heyday of scratchy guitar indie heaven of the early 80's and onwards to the present day. All bases were covered and I'm sure that those tapes are going to be in pretty heavy rotation in the car for the next couple of months.

We are going to see Radio 4 and a couple of other bands at The Louisiana tonight. I think that it's going to pretty hot and sweaty!

Well, It looks like most of the site is back.Whew! Gone for a new look as well!

Well, at least the blogs show now. I'll have to put comments, links back on. We have just upgraded our service to ADSL (nothing to do with my blog problems) so it's all a bit mad on the computer front today! Just noticed that my archives have come back!!

Oops! Look's like I've messed up this page, help!

Some recent CD purchases from Paris and Bristol:
Alpha – Stargazing (made in Bristol, purchased in Paris). Howe Home – The Listener (Howe Gelb of Giant sand under another name). Ignatus – Le Physique (laid back French noodling). Dynamo Productions – Analogue (Top Bristol DJ duo, one of whom is part of the Monday night football gang, finally get their sampletastic album out and it’s great!). Freddy Fresh presents B-Boy stance (26 old school hip hop gems for only £4.99!! I had to ask the staff to check the price, way too cheap, but why complain?).

Forgot to mention another interesting meal which we enjoyed whilst in Paris. On the Friday evening we thought we would head off to the Place D'Italie in the 13th Arrondissement. The area around Les Halles, where we were staying for the last 2 nights, is very touristy and we had a feeling that we may not eat as well in that part of town as we had done in the Rue De Rome area. We read that the Place D'Italie had lots of Chinese and Vietnamese restaurants and as it was a part of town that we did not know, we thought that it may be an interesting place to walk around. Many years ago, on a previous visit to Paris, we stumbled across a tiny but delightful Vietnamese restaurant in Montparnasse. Ordering the food was quite good fun as neither us or the lovely couple spoke much French, which could be understood by the other party. However the food was delicious, so as we settled our bill Orynthia decided to use one of those handy phrases that you find in the back of the guide books, this one basically meant "The meal was very good, thank you". As soon as Orynthia mentioned these words, our hosts became very animated and suddenly produced a bottle of Saki (or something similar), and poured out two large glasses of this potent brew for us. Neither Orynthia or I were sure of the correct etiquette for this sort of drink, so we decided to bite the bullet and knock it back in one swig. This produced even bigger smiles on our host's faces and our glasses were instantly replenished! We could see ourselves being quickly flung into an alcoholic maelstrom and a potentially tricky journey across Paris as our ability to read (or even see!) the metro sign disappeared into an alcohol induced haze, so we decided to take the cowards way out sipping the drink slowly before shaking hands and leaving the restaurant. Anyway I digress, the idea of eating Vietnamese appealed so off we went. The Place D'Italie is basically a huge roundabout with about 8 roads leading off it. Not knowing which road to look for we headed off in the direction of the most neon lights, normally a good indication of a "Chinatown" type area. As we later discovered, we were on the wrong side of the roundabout for Chinatown, but we did discover a very picturesque little area around Rue De La Butte Aux Cailles. We walked around for around 30 minutes, being tempted by various restaurants before we walked past a tiny little African place in the Rue Du Pere Guerin. I guess that the place would hold about 10 people at the most and that most of the trade would be of the takeaway variety rather than eat-in. We had a quick chat with the guy behind the counter, who explained that this place served food from Senegal, it looked interesting so we thought that we would give it a go. I had a fish dish called "Tiebou Diene" which the guy behind the counter advised me is the national dish of the country. It was a rich and tasty dish, which included a huge portion of cous cous, sweet potato and some exotic vegetables which were new to the pair of us. Orynthia had a dish which was a sort of beef curry which was called either Maffe or Yassa. Very filling and very very cheap.

Well, so here we are back at home after our Parisian jaunt. What a fine time
we had. First thing that I should say, is that if anyone wants to have a
real Parisian experience rather than the usual overpriced small hotel room
that most of normally end up with then I would really recommend the great
place on the Rue De Rome that we stayed in. It was so great to be able wake up at what ever
time you want to (no one knocking on the door, to see if they can clean your
room at 9am!). Even better was that most mornings Petunia went off to the
local shops, to get in out breakfast goodies. The croissants, pan au
chocolate, brioche, baguettes, fresh eggs, cheese, ham and yoghurt all
flowed. The area was packed with all sorts of food related places, a
brilliant daily food market, any number of restaurants and more wine and
champagne then you can imagine. The property is located on a fairly busy
main road, but as you enter through the huge wooden double doors which all
these marvellous old apartment buildings have, you enter the tilled hallway
before walking through to inner courtyard, where this ground floor apartment
is located. Consequently the setting is incredibly quiet and peaceful. In
the same way that our stay in the New York apartment benefited by being in
Chelsea, a residential area rather than a tourist one, the same can be said
for the area around this part of the Rue de Rome.

So what did we get up to? Well as mentioned earlier, lots of leisurely
breakfast's where the plans for the day were decided. Then around noon we
head off to our destinations. These included the amazing market at Porte De
Clignacourt (so many wonderful pieces of Art Deco furniture, if only we
could afford to ship it home!), the high rise glory of La Defense (with it
breathtaking view back towards central Paris, along the Champs Elysees), an
interesting walk from the apartment to Montmartre and the Sacre Coeur (which
gave us all the chance to pretend that we were part of the film Amelie,
which we watched on DVD in the apartment later that night), the incredible
Philippe Starck exhibition at the Pompidou centre, The best free view in
Paris from the top the Samarataine depart store, a visit to the slightly
neglected feeling Modern Art Museum in the fading Art Deco beauty of the
Palais De Tokyo, finally managed a boat trip along the river, a visit to the
great market at Place de Batignolles, seeing some inspiring artwork in the
exhibition of advertising from 1920 -1950 including some fascinating world
war two material and lots and lots of sitting around with a glass of Pastis!

And the food, a great meal at the resonant next door to the apartment, a
spectacular 8 course chief choice meal to celebrate Orynthia's birthday at
the tres chic l'impatant, an enormous cassoulat in a hale and hearty
restaurant celebrating the regional cuisine of south west France, hot roast
Chicken & vegetables from the market eaten with amazing bread and a
sumptuous prune tart.

We love the way that a city that can be so manic, can be so relaxed as you
turn the corner into a tree lined side street, with cute cafes and bars.
Also love, the way the market stall holders, take time out to sit down and
eat lovely looking meals from fine China, rather than just grab a sandwich
as they would do in England. Sitting on the steps of a church in the
sunshine watching the world go by. The incredible array of food and drink
that is available, the good grace of the Parisian's who helped us around
their gorgeous city. Never having to wait for more than about 3 minutes for
a metro train to come along. The fact that I could buy a CD by Bristol band
Alpha more easily there than I could here.

Along with New York, it is a place that I feel instantly at home in, it's
safe to say that we will return again.

Well we are back in Bristol. Will right more on the splendid trip to Paris soon. Pleased to see that BCFC managed to pick up a trophy during our trip.

Well, what a great week! Don't think that I'll write too much here, mainly because - that's the wonderful streets of Paris out there, so why would I want to sit in a windowless room typing? And also because this keyboard is really strange - nothing is where I expect it to be, but you do get lots of bonus keys, such as €,ç,à,°,é,and~what fun!
We have eaten so much great food and seen too many wonderful things for me to describe now. I'll do that when we ge home. Will just say that the apartment was fantastic, great part of Paris, any groups of people going to Paris should check it out. We are now in the Les Halles area for a couple of nights before our journey home on Sunday.

Well it’s almost time for our trip to Paris. We are out tomorrow evening so, tonight we will be finalising our packing, in readiness for the flight on Saturday.

Any one interested in hearing something unexpected should take a look at Tally Ho Sulky. 5 red panda’s is organising a swap of mix tapes. Why not join in the fun?

I finished reading Under The Frog by Tibor Fischer, what a great book. It’s a very funny and also very sad look at life in post war Hungary. Following on from that I’ve decided to take another of Bill’s tips away on holiday with me, The Master And The Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov keeps my Soviet controlled theme going. Completed in 1940, it was not published in his native Russia until the mid 1960’s. First impressions are of a curious mixture of surrealism and the bible as the split time frame novel leads us on a pretty freewheeling path.