Another busy week draws to end, and here we are heading into late September and still having lovely summer days. Forgot to say in my last entry that we spent part of last Saturday doing a few f the buildings that were open as part of the open doors day. For those of you that don’t know what that is, I’ll tell you. Basically a lot of interesting buildings that you can only access if you work in (sometimes, live in) are open to the public. It’s a good chance to have a nose around all sorts of interesting places. It’s been going in Bristol for quite a few years, so we have seen most of the places that we want to. This year we limited ourselves to just 4 places, Royal Fort House, nice Georgian house, with crazy plasterwork and fantastic grounds. The Old Baptist College, only a small part of this Elizabethan style building was open, but they had some fantastic stained glass windows. Bristol Grammar school, mainly to see the imposing gothic great hall, as Orynthia pointed out "very Harry Potter / Hogwarts (is that right?) sort of hall. Then finally, The Georgian house, which is open all year round, but have not visited for many years.

This week we met up with our friend Jon Collins for another trip to the Cube. This time we saw a rather odd film called Christie Malry’s own double entry. We went mainly because the film is based on a story by B S Johnson , an experimental British writer that Jon bought to our attention a couple of weeks ago. The film had some interesting moments and Orynthia loved the soundtrack, which was written and performed by Luke Haines. It was a shame that we did not go last Friday as Mr Haines was performing some of the songs live as part of the evening’s entertainment.

On Wednesday, it was down to The Prom (after having some fine food from Burma and Laos in a new restaurant) to see the lovely Munter in action. It’s been over a year since we last saw them play and although the vocals got a bit lost at times, they are still a band that show real potential for great things. They play again in a couple of weeks, when a trumpeter will join them as well. Strangely at that gig, the DJ support is being provided by some guys that work in Orynthia’s office. More proof that everyone in Bristol knows everyone else. It really is just one big village.

By the way the Banana Yoshimoto book Goodbye Tsugumi was fab. If you don’t know her stuff, you should!

Well, the Elvis gig was great. He played for 2 1/4 hours , hardly pausing to draw breath between songs. Loads of the old hits, coupled with a healthy chunk of newer stuff, it all came to an end with a haunting and compelling version of "I want you". The gathered collection of balding heads and old bones, managed to last the pace surprisingly well.

Last night we had a very strange evening! Over the past few years we have developed a liking for that strangest of musical forms "Northern Soul". You know the thing great old soul records from the ‘60’s and ‘70’s, which can only be classed as Northern Soul, if they completely failed to sell any copies at the time. Anyway last night we went down to the splendid Grand Atlantic Hotel in Weston Super Mare for our first full on Northern Soul night out. One of the other distinctive things about the scene is the highly individual dancing style that has grown up alongside the music. In it’s earlier years when most of the following were of younger years than they are now, this would include lots of spins, high kicks and splits. Sadly Most of the crowd that were out last night have left those days far behind, we did catch a few whirling dervish type spins and I did see one high kick out of the corner of my eye. In the main it was mainly lots of sliding rather than stepping, the speed and fluidity of which is greatly enhanced by the copious amounts of Talcum powder spread across the floor. A lot people turned up in regulation "60’s Mod type gear, I can’t recall the last time I saw so many people wearing suits whilst not being in work. The other odd thing is that people don’t really dance together, they are all off in their own little world as they wizz around the floor. The next one of these events is in December, I guess that we will be back for more having brushed up on our technique.

The Red’s continue to go from strength to strength, yesterday we manage to record our first goals and points away from home this season. A 3-2 win at Cheltenham Town, has taken us up to 2nd place in the league

Well, tonight we get a chance to see how the knees of our generation are getting on. Elvis Costello is in town, and for the first time in many years he is playing in a “standing” venue. Will the 30 and 40 something’s be able to last the pace or will we need to be rushed off to emergency seating half way through “Pump it up”?

Played football last night in the midst of a tropical downpour, some excuse for my shoddy performance, I haven’t played for a couple of weeks and have been trying to shake off a cold. Then again it could be that my body rejected the appalling colour combination of green football shirt under orange T-shirt, with a red training top finishing “The Look” quite nicely.

I’ve finished reading “About the author” and it’s the sort of book that could make a pretty good film. The problem with reading it as a book is that you have too much time to wonder why our protagonist keeps making such monumentally stupid decisions. I’ve now moved onto another favourite author of mine, Japanese cult writer Banana Yoshimoto and her latest UK release “Goodbye Tsugumi” Less intense than the writings of Haruki Murakami, her books contain a dream like quality which I find compelling.

Last night we went to the newly re-opened Cube cinema , and the good news is that, it is fantastic. The new entrance means that they now have a beautiful little garden area where you can relax with a drink or piece of home made cake! Better still, you get a nice view of one of those New York style external iron fire escapes. You know the sort of thing, the good guy would jump out of the window onto to slatted iron balcony, before dashing to the drop down ladder at the end, to get to the next level, and so on for the next 7 or 8 floors until he hot foots it down the rubbish strewn back alley before the bad guys can catch him. I fully expect an interactive season of '70's cop films with the audience having to leg it as gunfire ring's out through the auditorium!

I have really missed the Cube during it's enforced absence, the breadth of it's programming its quite extraordinary. And the news that they are selling cake's as well just tops it off. When we were in New York at Xmas, I spent my 40th birthday in the splendid New York Film Forum , which is much bigger version of the Cube (but without the quirky music gigs), whilst there we able to enjoy the interesting home made cakes and drinks that they sold, which include that classic old New York treat of a chocolate Egg Cream . It's is very strangely named as it contains no Egg or Cream! Still it all helped to make the viewing of Dial M for Murder in 3D an even more memorable event. One of the great joys of New York to me, is the fact that you can see films from any era, in the way they were meant to seen rather than on video or DVD. If any of you are ever in New York (and as sensible intelligent people I'm sure that you all intend to be at some time), I really would recommend a visit the American Museum Of the Moving Image , I know its in Queens and that looks like it's a long way out of Manhattan, but the subway takes you real close! As well as being a fascinating museum it also shows an astounding array of old movies. When we were there we saw a bizarre version of Alice In wonderland from 1933 which featured Cary Grant as the Mock turtle, W C Fields as Humpty Dumpty and a hilarious Gary cooper as the White Knight. Guess what, they also have a nice cafe. It all comes back to food in the end!

I'm spending today at home as we are having a new boiler installed, any excuse to have a day off work! Due to impending boiler work, we had to clear the kitchen, consequently we have had to a bit of eating out. Friday night, we went out for a drink with a few of my work colleagues for a drink, on the way to the pub we walked through Queens Square which having one of a series on Friday jazz gigs. Well the music sounded quite nice and we were tempted by the food that available. Some nice looking Sushi and various food cooked on a grill by the people from Mud Dock. Typically, in the midst of an otherwise splendid summer the sight of an outdoor music event in Bristol brought the rain. In fact by the time we reached the food stall the rain was heavy for us to consider eating outside. So we went off to the Spyglass, a newish restaurant which is based around the idea of having a your food cooked on a barbecue. The restaurant is split 50-50 between a boat and the harbourside. I think that if the weather is fine you can sit in the open air whilst enjoying fairly cheep and cheerful dishes. However as the rain was pouring down the awnings were up and the gas heaters were on.

On Saturday, I went to see City in action. We managed to keep our run of home wins going with a 2-0 win over a dour Tranmere side. A deserved win, even if the penalty which broke the deadlock was more than a little contentious. After the match I met up with Orynthia at the Arnolfini before to going to watch the excellent Argentinean film Nine Queens . Full of twists and turns, it kept you guessing right to the end. We did sound real bargain eating before the film. Using a couple of the take away food stalls on the centre, we has some delicious Falafel’s followed Banana and chocolate Crepe’s - total cost of £10 for the two of us.

Sunday was a bit of a family day, catching up with people on both sides of the family then ending up at Orynthia’s Mum and Dad’s

After the thrill of reading The Chosen, I quickly read through a easy reading, wise cracking crime caper called The Burglar In The Closet by Lawrence Block – OK but nothing special. Now I am engrossed in a book called About The Author by John Colapinto. An interesting read, we follow our hapless narrator after telling a big lie in order to make it as an author, I don’t know how things are going to end, but I feel that it won’t be too good for our man.

Luckily the pleasant summer weather continues, which meant that we had a nice Bank Holiday weekend. Football on Saturday was great, a really young City team put on a grand display to beat Wycombe 3-0. Hopes were high, only for then to come back to earth, following a 2-0 defeat at Plymouth on Monday. Which means that after 5 games, we have won all our home matches without conceding a goal, conversely we have lost all our away games without scoring a goal. It looks as though mid table obscurity awaits us.

On Sunday we caught up with John, Jane and Mark Stumbles for lunch at the Hope and Anchor, before Orynthia and I took a walk down Jacobs Wells Road to look at the outrageously expensive new flats that have sprung up along the harbourside, including Bristol’s 1st £1,000,000 flat. We decided that they weren’t quite right for our bank balance or us!

On Monday, we went to our local cinema, The Orpheus to see The Guru. Did not think too much of the film itself. However we did like the fact that it was only £5 for the pair of us, it was a bit of a bargain night out, We do really The Orpheus , it’s a pretty ugly building but it has a really pleasant atmosphere. I often think of the time when they had some problems with the heating in the cinema, strangely it seem to synchronise with the films that were showing, so during Apocalypse Now the heat resulted in the Audience feeling as though they too were trapped in the steamy jungle heat of Vietnam. Then again, I recall another film set in the depth of winter (although frustratingly, the name of the film escapes me) when we sat in heavy overcoats, as our teeth chattered along with the soundtrack.

Well, I finished reading "The Chosen" on the train journey home last night. It really is a magnificent book. Although story is set the seemingly, narrow confines of the conflicts in the world of the orthodox Jews in a couple of New York blocks. It is a book that touches on many universal themes, families, conflict, support and the ability to be your own person whilst trying to comply with the expectations that others have of you.

As I sit in front of this computer once again, the glorious summer sunshine is streaming in through the windows. I’m off to see City play Wycombe this afternoon. Our plans for the rest of the Bank Holiday weekend are pretty fluid. Hoping to catch up some friends and there is bound to be food involved!

The imminent arrival of September means that at last we will have some bands to go and see. We have tickets for our old favourite Elvis Costello and Mcalmont & Butler (new LP is great). We are also looking forward to seeing a local band with the splendid name of Munter, which features a couple of our friends. It’s over a year since we have had the chance to them in action and we and a lot of our friends are really looking forward to seeing them again.

Long time, no write. This is mainly due to the mammoth "24" watching that we undertook. Managed to watch 17 and 1/4 hours of the series between last Tuesday night and Saturday evening. Then on Sunday the final 45 minutes wrapped the series up. I have to say that I really enjoyed both the show and the madly intense way of watching it. We did manage to sneak in a bit of socialising in between shows, notably at a surprise 70th birthday party for Steve Vowles mum on Saturday evening.

I am really enjoying "The Chosen", although it covers some pretty heavy Jewish themes in is written in a way that really pulls you in.

We went round to see Ed last night, he is off to Winchester for 6 months, whilst working on a new contract. To celebrate his employment Orynthia made one her trademark cheesecakes. We managed to eat about 1/2 of it and left the rest for Ed to finish off for breakfast!

I had a pretty tiring day today, due to a meeting that I had to attend in Bedford. The journey back was pretty frustrating as I think I must have stuck behind every Hay truck in the south of England, Still another glorious sunny day, it’s been quite strange to see so much of central Europe disappearing under massive amounts of water.

Well, with only a week to go before the series ends, we have got ourselves hooked on the TV show 24. BBC choice are showing all the previous programmes over the course of this week. So last night we found ourselves watching the 1st 6 shows and I am well and truly hooked. It is going to pretty intense viewing for the rest of the week but I quite like watching it all in a huge rush. Quite a few of our friends have been going through the agonies for the few months and now we are starting to understand what they have been talking about.

When not watching TV, I managed to complete The Sandcastle and I did really enjoy it, in a sort of "old black and white movie on a rainy Sunday afternoon" sort of way. Following from that I have started reading The Chosen by Chaim Potok. Just before we went to Cornwall Mr Potok died and I read a couple of obituaries, which made him, and his books sound very interesting. For some reason I have always been interested in the Jewish New York experience and the articles made great claims for The Chosen, so imagine my delight when I found a 2nd copy for just £2 in a magnificently overstocked 2nd hand bookshop in a small town called Wadebridge in Cornwall. The book is interesting because it looks at the tensions between different strands of Jewish communities, whilst placing those in the context of New York towards the end of World War 2. When seen through the eyes of a teenage boy coming to terms with his place in this society, it makes for a fascinating story.

Our friend Felipe went back to Madrid on Tuesday. It was really good to catch up with him again during his latest visit to Bristol. Lets hope that its not too long before we see him again.

Well the football season got of to a hilarious start, City winning 2-0 against a comically brainless Blackpool who managed to get two players sent off in a couple of minutes and then concede a goal by sending their keeper into our penalty area for a free kick, we get the ball break away and score from about 45 yards into an open goal. Generally low quality football buts lots of laughs.

Went to Ceri and Alan’s lovely house for a party on Saturday evening. Lot’s of BT people and strangely lots of young men in blue shirts.

This morning we went to a great exhibition at Bristol museum based on the Dan Dare comic strips. Loads of great ‘50’s futuristic graphics and it was quite a shock to see the amount of merchandising that was associated with the Dan Dare image. I tend to think of mass market product tie-in’s being something that was created on the back of things like Star Wars. However it’s clear that those crafty business folk knew what they were doing way back in the late ‘50’s – early ‘60’s, Everything from replica rockets to kites and jigsaw puzzles, it was all there. We met up with our friend Simon and his son Thomas in the museum. After seeing the stuffed animals and birds, Thomas announced that he would like Simon to stuffed when he dies. We thought it was quite a good idea, imagine inviting people back to your place and being able to show them your dead parents and maybe grand parents!

After the museum we went round to Heather and Spiders place for a nice get together with 9 other people. Some nice food, drink and conversation on a very relaxed Sunday afternoon.

Back to work tomorrow.

Well, we are home from our little trip to Cornwall and very nice it was too. We had a really lazy time of it. On our way down we stopped at the Bakelite museum a splendid little place, absolutely overflowing with a marvellous collection of vintage household bits and bobs. We were in retro heaven. They also sell the most amazing small caravans. Although they are newly built they look like little Art Deco masterpieces, Very cute indeed. On the Monday of our trip we went to the much-talked about Eden Project, which was only about 15 miles from our hotel. The place itself looks absolutely amazing, it’s the perfect 1960’s vision of the future, I was slightly disappointed that we weren’t made to change into sci-fi style unisex clothing before we started our journey around the domes. We stayed for about 5 hours before out feet gave out on us. Whilst at the hotel I spent most of my time reading. I took an ancient Iris Murdoch novel called The Sandcastle with me. The book is set in a fairly posh but austere English private school and follows the tormented life of one of the housemasters. The pleasantly old fashioned ambience of the hotel made it very easy for me to take the mental journey back to this England that has vanished for ever. The setting for the hotel was absolutely stunning, built atop a rocky headland with it’s own beach, when the tide was out. A series of magnificent sandy bays and coves each with huge cliff’s behind them made for some spectacular walking as the weather lurched between glorious sunshine and the equally glorious misty and moody conditions that Cornwall can through up in an instant.

Back in Bristol in time for the start of the new football season. City take on Blackpool tomorrow afternoon. No new faces to look out for on the playing side but I’m really looking forward to the start of the season.

Our new sofa came today and it’s fab. Our journey back in time to 1950’s continues with this amazingly simple piece of furniture designed by the god like Robin Day.

Well it looks as though summer has really arrived; yesterday the thermometer hit 100 degrees (F) in our back garden. Now for Bristol that’s pretty warm. Playing football tonight could be hard work. I guess I might spend a bit more time in goal than average if it is too warm. As I sit here typing this, the windows are thrown open and the music of Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelly swings through the air. The album is "Swing ’35 – ’39" one of my Dad’s old LP’s which made it’s way to me after he decided that CD’s were the only thing for him. I love the wonderfully relaxed jaunty tone that this music provides, it is amazing that it still sounds so fresh nearly 70 years after it was recorded.

On Friday evening we went to see the excellent French film "Read my lips". The film features some very interesting use of sound, the female lead in the film is partially deaf and we get to hear things in different ways as she plays around with her hearing aids. The film was riddled with the influence of Alfred Hitchcock – never a bad thing in my book.

After the film we met up with a few friends for a quick drink outside The Ostrich. Thought that we would sit outside and had the strange spectacle of watching a young lad running down the road pursued by a large dog. Then a few seconds later a policeman in bullet-proof vest came running along shouting at the youth "Police dog handler with dog. Stop now" Now logic dictates that no matter how fit you are, you can’t outrun a police dog, but having started to run it must be really difficult to actually stop and wait for the dog to leap towards you. We have all seen those police display teams in action, when they set a dog on a man with a hugely padded arm (I often thought that the dogs must think it’s strange when they get to chance someone with two arms of the same size for the first time), and the dog wrestles the man to the ground. So if you are the one being chased it must be well neigh impossible to stand still and wait for the dog to treat you as tonight’s helping of Pedigree Chum. Anyway stop he did, although we could not see the immediate outcome of that but we did see him being driven away by one of the three or was it four police cars that eventually arrived on the scene.

On Saturday we eventually got round to ordering a new sofa, it is a design by the great Robin Day that was first available in 1957, It is a classic, simple design that would be right at home in your local’s beatnik pad. We are very excited and to make it even more exciting Habitat were having a sale this weekend so it was 15% cheaper than we expected. It arrives next Friday, the day after we return from Cornwall.

Oh dear our intellectual credentials are in tatters! Last night Orynthia and I joined forces with our friends, Jon Collins and James Thomas to enter what is apparently the longest running pub quiz in Bristol. We met for a pre quiz meal at splendidly cheap and cheerful "Indian Fast Food", where the heat of my Chicken Jalfrarzi certainly should have woken up my brain cells. Although the turn out for the quiz was not exactly huge, our lack of ability to memorise the innermost details of a Monopoly board combined with an almost total lack of knowledge of the animal kingdom, meant that we finished the competition battling for the booby prize for finishing 2nd last!

Good news for the quirky side of Bristolian nightlife. At long last The Cube is on the verge of reopening. For those that don’t know of The Cube it is a small independently run cinema (and much more) on the site of the old Arts Centre Cinema in Kings Square. It was the home for an amazingly eclectic mixture of the wilder side of the film and music world. The place has been closed for a year due to fire in the Chinese restaurant which The Cube shared an entrance with. We have had some great nights at this fantastically down at heel cinema. It is due to reopen at the end of August and I am really looking forward to it. Often you took the walk along the long corridor into the building without really knowing what you were about to let yourself in for; always interesting, often chaotic it was a shinning star in the Bristolian entertainment scene.

I’ve been reading an excellent article in the New Yorker magazine, which talks about the problem of over qualified, over ambitious people being pushed too far, too quickly by companies who think that the way to succeed in this wonderful corporate world is to get lots of lovely newly qualified MBA’s, pay them huge sums of money and keep promoting them before they get a chance to understand what they or the company are doing. The article went on to point out that many of America’s top performing companies are those that actually have people at the top who have worked their way gradually through an organisation, rather than people who have stormed through like a whirling dervish, having no true grasp of what they are doing because they are incapable of seeing the true impact of the decisions they make. Now I am not an ambitious sort of chap but I do know that the bits of BT that I have been involved have only worked when we have had people in charge who aren’t just concerned with the next big promotion and added share options. Mind you, one aspect of the current stock market crash that I have enjoyed is the crumbling values of these share options which we were told were a gilt edged "can’t lose" bonus. My My, don’t I sound bitter and twisted today!

During the weekend I read charming piece on P G Wodehouse in The Guardian. It reminded me, what a joy it is to read the sparkling prose of the great man. Since the start of the World Cup my reading habits have fallen back to magazines and newspapers rather than books. Time to rectify that and Wodehouse is the man to kick start the reading campaign.

Well the end of busy weekend is here. Once again Ashton Court was the normal mix of average bands and lovely people. We had a very social time amongst tens of thousands that turned up. No major musical treats, my highlight of the weekend was watching people career down the hill, in front of the Academy stage thanks to a track made from bits of cardboard on Saturday evening. A wonderfully haphazard collection of individuals speed towards a metal fence at high speed. Most of them managed to loose their balance and crash to the floor before eating the metal! The sun shone for most of the weekend and we even managed to eat some food which we had not tried before, It was a French sort of stew thing made from Potatoes, Bacon and Cheese which was cooked in an huge pan, very tasty and filling. No Jerk Chicken for us this year but a new West Indian restaurant has just opened on Whiteladies Road, which is excellent news.

Said goodbye to our new friends from Korea today, We spent sometime with them on Friday evening and it was amazing to see the kids playing hangman in English. They have only been in England for a year and the youngest of them is only 7 years old. They were a really nice family the husband is a producer and director of TV programmes in Korea (he works for MBC). Maybe one day we will some of his work on English TV.

Anyway, we are both exhausted, must be all that fresh air, so I think it’s time for bed.

Well the summer looks as though it has arrived and with the 2 day Ashton Court Festival approaching this weekend the timing couldn’t be better. Last Sunday we had the unusual experience of a Thomas visit to the country! On Sunday we visited Slimbridge, home to many thousands of birds who live in close proximity to water, so we saw masses of different types of Ducks, Geese, Swans and Flamingos. Although the birds are free to leave the whole did have the feel of a zoo, so consequentially the initial excitement of seeing so many birds soon gave way to a sort of pleasant "Oh look, there’s another rare South American Duck" type experience. Much more exciting was a trip around the outlying parts of the reserve. We clambered into a trailer attached to a Land Rover were driven out towards the Severn Estuary. For the next 90 mins or so we were able to see a smaller but much more interesting array of wild creatures. The highlights of which was a magnificent swooping aerial display by a Buzzard and later watching a wonderfully bored, fully-grown Hare siting quietly in front of a gate which we were waiting to drive through, eventually it bounced away into the next field. Whilst on this trip our group of about 15 people were guided by a couple of rangers, both of them lovely guys who’s obvious love of their job shown through, as they excitedly pointed out features of the landscape to us. Fantastically knowledgeable and yet completely free of ego, if only all strands of work could produce people who are at the top of their profession and yet have no desire to flaunt it.

During the World Cup we struck up a friendship with a Korean family living just around the corner from us. Now if you watched any of the Korean games you will know that during the tournament it looked as though everyone in Korea was wearing a red T-shirt with the rather strange slogan "Be The Reds" written on it. On Saturday morning the whole family (Mr Choi wearing his recently acquired red T-shirt) came round to present me with a splendid Bandanna with the slogan emblazoned on it underneath the Korean flag. This was passed to me in an amazing box made out of paper in a sort of Origami style by Mrs Choi. A really lovely gift, sadly they are heading back to Korea this Sunday, so we won’t really get a chance to know them.

I love this What time/date is it?. Boy that guy works hard! best viewed in IE I think - but what do I know?

It’s a strange thing but I have found a couple of new TV programmes, which have become "must watch" slots in our week. The 1st of these by a couple of weeks is the splendid Six Feet Under, which always starts with a wonderfully haphazard death (man killed in giant food mixer, former porn star electrocuted in the bath by her pet cat etc) and then goes onto show the attempts to provide the sort of funeral that the family and friends of the deceased want to see for their dearly departed. We also get to watch the painful process of the family who run the funeral parlour business trying to co-exist, when they should not really live in the same state let alone the same house. It’s made by the same people who made American Beauty and it shows. The other show is The Job, yet another show about New York cops. Pleased to say that the emphasis is drawing out as much humour as possible from gleefully acknowledged stereotypical cops, You know the sort of thing, the elderly overweight Irishman, the wisecracking lead man who is not quite as sharp as he thinks he is, the two innocent newly recruited Latino cops (one of whom has not said a word in the 1st four shows, as far as I can remember). This has all combined to produce quite a few laugh out loud moments, which comes as quite a shock after years of drab TV.

Well the Lambchop gig was just fantastic. The Fleece turned out to be a perfect venue for a band on top of their form. On this occasion, Lambchop were a 6-piece band rather than the 12 (I think) who came to town last time. We were treated to a much more varied show this time around; we even had the unexpected spectacle of watching Lambchop "rock-out!" on a couple of occasions. The intimacy of the venue seamed to suit the band much more and the joyfully exuberant response from the crowd appeared to really delight the band.

Just got back from visiting my Dad in Devon, Orynthia was driving, so I managed to relax with my eyes closed whilst listening to Storytelling the latest Belle & Sebastian CD. Now I must have heard this album at least 60 times in the past 5 weeks or so, and still I love it. I really think that it contains much of the band’s best work. Songs like "Big John Shaft" are just glorious. Also blessed with some beautiful instrumental tracks, it is that rarest of all beasts, a CD that I find myself humming and whistling along. I am not normally known for vocal outbursts whilst listening to music. So something pretty special must be going on here.

When we were coming back into Bristol, I decided that if I was a writer, I would try to write something where all the characters have the names of Bristol suburbs. You can guess the sort of thing; Bradley Stoke and Lawrence Hill go into town to meet up with that well-known communist Red Cliff. Later they spend some time with a couple of girls, Hen Grove and a couple of foreign students; Cot Ham from Ireland and Be D’minster from France. Then they go back to Lawrence’s place where he has a blazing row with his dad Bart(on) Hill. Phil Ton calms everyone down etc.

Following a recent attack on a small child by a Fox, The Guardian did a nice
piece on inner city wildlife today. I think it's great that the very rare
and strangely named Black Redstarts can be found on some industrial
wasteland within walking distance of Canary Wharf. Now these birds are rarer
in the UK than the Golden Eagle or The Osprey. Less than 100 nesting pairs
in the country and wisely they have decided that they would rather live in
the heart of the city than waste its time moping around in the dull old
countryside. I was talking to Orynthia about this the other day and I think
that I have worked out why I don't like the countryside. We are sold the
idea, that the countryside is a wonderful place where we can relax and do
anything we want to do, in this glorious open space. Now when I was younger,
I would see a nice green field and would immediately think, wow - what a
great place to go and play football, Upon rushing into the field, I would
discover that the grass was knee high, the ground was full of lumps and
bumps and most likely covered in cow dung as well. In other words useless!
Nowadays the ideal use for a nice green space today, is of course, a
sumptuous picnic. If you can succeed in finding a piece of land where the
aroma of the dung does not knock you senseless, you can bet that you will
need an industrial strength roller in order to get the grass down below knee
height. Now compare this to city, where the parks and public spaces are full
of neatly trimmed grass which just demand to used by human beings. Maybe the
wildlife of the UK has finally worked out that it's time to move into the
city!