The football on Monday evening was actually really good fun. It was really, really cold, and the pitch did have quite a bit of ice on it, but there is something madly exhilarating about running around in conditions which would cause any sensible person to snuggle up in front of the fireplace.

I have been racking my brains over the past few days. A fellow blogger, Jen from Washington has been writing about putting together a list of the 20 songs, which have had the biggest influence of your life. I normally hate being asked to name you 5 favourite records of all time, or best record of the year type things. Anyone that loves music will tell you that favourites change from day to day. However this question has got me thinking, in a way it’s more about the sort of music that has been a stepping stone to a different part of your life, so it could be something that is sort of embarrassing now, but at the time changed the way you thought about things. Music often opens the door to other area’s it can spark an interest in, films, politics, books, history, food, people and places in fact virtually anything. I think that’s why I am amazed when I talk to people that aren’t interested in music. Although I enjoyed my time in school, it’s fair to say that I was not overburdened with academic qualifications when I left. A large amount of the knowledge, which I have acquired, has been prompted by a musician’s lyrics or sleeve notes, making me go away and find out about the background to a story, which they have been inspired to make music by. Sometimes this can be a very direct link, The Clash singing about Nicaragua, on other occasions it’s a bit more obtuse, say Charles Mingus working with beat poet’s this leads me to the writing of people like Kerouac and Ginsberg and then onto people like Lenny Bruce, from here I go to Jewish history and politics and so it goes on. Of course it’s not just education that music provides me with, it’s the sheer joy that a great song can bring to you, moments wistful beauty that can stop you dead in your tracks or the mad adrenaline rush that a powerful band can give you. How do people live without the contrast’s that music can provide for you? Anyway I’m working on that list, when it’s done I’ll post it here, so that you can snigger at my embarrassing choices.

Just come back from lunch and it's freezing outside. Looking forward to tonights game of football! According to the weather people it could be about -4 this evening! I'll just have to run around more than normal in order to keep warm.

Well Christmas began for us yesterday. My dad and step-mum dropped in for brunch on their way back home to Devon. Presents were exchanged (but not opened!) and then last night we sat down and wrote out all our Christmas cards. In fact I went to bed feeling a bit icky, thanks to licking all that lovely gum on the back of the envelopes. Thank goodness that we don't have to lick the stamps any more, I just love those peel off sticky backed stamps that emerged a couple of years ago.

We had a really nice evening on Saturday, went to The Cube to see some interesting bands and strange films. First up were a 3 piece from London called Florida, I wonder if there is a band in Florida called London? They reminded me a bit of the Magnetic Fields, sparse electronic arrangements and vocal's split 50-50 between male and female singers. On occasions it was pretty difficult watching the band, as behind them a very bizarre Mexican film was keeping us amused, appalled, shocked and guffawing with laughter in equal measures. We saw all sorts, as a Christ like figure wondered through a chaotic landscape dealing with an army of toads dressed in strange costumes (later to be blown up!), and old man removing his false eye (prompting huge squeals from the audience) and lots of ritualistic icon smashing and eating. At times the band themselves were distracted by the film and when everyone trooped off to the bar, it has to be said the conversation was more about the cinematic exploits than the musical ones. Next up were the laconic, John E. Vistic , they played using some Clint Eastwood spaghetti western as a backdrop. Very appt for their country tinged swamp blues. By this stage of the evening the rather potent Polish Vodka (in my case) and Polish lager (in Jane's case) resulted in us giggling at the supreme performance of posing and non stop fag rolling by one of bands guitarists. A very jolly fellow, who managed to get through most of the performance, without playing a note! After another break Munter took the stage to a backdrop of wild tango dancing and strange Japanese snake women! They appeared to be beset by on stage problems, most of which we were oblivious to. However the feeling of increasing gloom which radiated from the band hindered rather than helped the enjoyment of the fragile melodies which make this band stand out from many of their local contemporaries. The other problem that Munter have is that they are a very quiet band, unless people come to see them in particular, the general level of chat at a gig can seriously impede the enjoyment of fans (and maybe the band as well). They need someone to tell the rest of the country how good they are, maybe then people will actually come and listen to band, rather than using it as chance to pay to go and have a conversation. By the time Munter had finished, the curfew time for live music had been exceeded, Florida had been supposed to come back on and play another set, so after an impassioned rant from the band they managed to get enough gear plugged in to enable them to play one more song, before we all drifted back into the bar to appreciate the excellent music (Nick Cave, The Smiths etc) being played by the splendid Grumpy Men DJ collective. Orynthia, Steve and I walked home in a very jolly frame of mind.

A couple of the guys that I play football with on Monday evenings are making me quite jealous at the moment.
Geoff is about to head out to Sydney for his normal winter break, 6 weeks in one the nicest cities in the world can’t be bad. We have had quite a few invitations to weddings in Australia this winter, and it’s a real shame that we won’t be able to attend any of them. Now that Orynthia has a permanent job we can plan a bit more, so we are hoping to catch up the family in OZ next October/November time. It’s something that we are both really looking forward to, as it’s been far too long since we have seen some of the gang.
Even better though are the prospects for Mick. In December 19th Mick and his wife start a proposed year off work to travel around Europe in a camper van. The thought of a year off work travelling around Europe sounds just fantastic. Then again, I can never work out how you even start to decide what you take with you on that sort of journey? What clothes do you take, how about music, books and the rest? If you take a look at Bill and Doreen’s website via my friend’s links, you see the inventory of stuff that they took on their mammoth bird watching world tour and some very strange things they took with them. We always get in a pickle packing for a weekend in London, when we know what the weather is going to be like, what if you are going to be in Norway at Christmas and Naples in June?

Whilst I was watching City win again on Tuesday night (13 games without defeat!), Orynthia went see Badly Sung Songs, sorry I mean Badly Drawn Boy. Although I quite like some of his records, whenever I have watched doing any live stuff on TV it sounds awful. However Orynthia and Babs both had a fine time in the company of the strange woolly hatted man.

If you don’t live in England, you might not be aware that our firemen and women are going through a period of industrial action at the moment. Whilst they are on strike, fire cover is provided by military staff using 30 year old fire fighting vehicles know as green goddess’s. Much has been made in the media of the slow response time of these ancient trucks from another time, in the early hours of Saturday morning; I got my first look at one. Walking home from our team Xmas meal at about 2:30 AM I was initially somewhat confused when a police car drove past my friend Ant and I, with siren blaring and lights flashing, but instead of zooming along the nearly deserted Whiteladies Road it ambled along at around 30 miles an hour. I thought that maybe, they were looking for a specific individual in a none to discreet way. Then eventually from behind us the green goddess lumbered into view struggling like a middle aged over weight jogger, when approached with a small incline. It was not a sight to give you confidence in our safety.

A few moths ago it emerged that Euan Blair the son of that Mr Blair (no not Lionel) was going to be a student at Bristol university, cue much excitement in the local media. Mercifully since the start of the academic year, we have been pretty much Euan free in the local press. All that has changed since when the weekend, when that paragon of virtue the Sunday Mail decided to announce that the Mr & Mrs P.M. had managed to do a dodgy bit of work buying 2 new luxury flats near the University and somehow were able to knock about price down from £270, 000 to £250, 000 per flat. This is at a time when things are selling like hot cakes and everyone else is paying the full asking price. Of course it may just be coincidence that full stamp duty (3%) is payable on any thing over £250,000 rather than the 1% that they will know pay. Very nice saving, when it’s all added up. Mind you it does seam a bit odd that everyone in Bristol now knows where little Euan will be living. Not very clever from a security point of view!

Yesterday we had one of those strange days when we woke up to pretty thick fog, and it never really left us. From my office, I normally have nice views of St Mary Redcliffe church and the edge of the picturesque Ashton Court estate. However for most of yesterday, only the vague outline of the church spire was discernible in the gloom. As the clouds of fog, moved slowly around, huge buildings would suddenly emerge, only to be enveloped again just as quickly. I like the way that the buildings themselves appear to be moving rather than the fog, We still managed to play football last night and I think that the murky conditions must have helped, as unusually for me, I managed to sneak forward and score a couple of goals! Talking of football, what an amazing game for the Reds on Saturday, losing 4-2 with 3 minutes of normal time remaining, they somehow managed to win 5-4!

The first round of Christmas shopping went well on Saturday. It’s strange though, because of the health problems, which have recently afflicted Orynthia’s dad, we have realised how much unnecessary stuff her mum and dad have acquired over the years. Most of it sits unused or looked at, or even thought of for years and years and years. All the while, becoming more of a hindrance to making changes to your lifestyle as the task of moving things around or even out becomes just to much to think about. It has certainly made us think about the stuff that we have in our house, which we no longer need or want. The charity shops and rubbish collections have been doing quite well out of us over recent weeks as we make a determined effort to claim back the space within our house. Anyway, the point of that long ramble is that it has changed the way that we think about the sort of gifts that we will be buying for people this year. A lot of the gifts will have a natural life span, so hopefully, they won’t just go into that cupboard or box and sit there for years and years until no-one can remember how the item was acquired in the first place. Many more of our friends or family will be able to eat it or drink it then throw away the packaging and avoid the clutter that we all can be burdened with.

Been buying lots of music by guitar bands recently, people like The Libertines,D4, Interpol, Radio 4 and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. A lot of it very reminiscent of stuff that we have heard before. Interpol certainly owe a debt to the likes of Joy Division and Echo and the Bunnymen, Radio 4 remind me a bit of The Associates, Gang of Four and PIL. Along with people like The Datsuns and The Bellrays it just goes to show that guitars are back in fashion.

Over the weekend we watched the amazing film “Dancer in the Dark” directed by Lars Von Trier and staring Bjork and Cathrine DeNeuve. I don’t think that I have ever watched such a raw and emotional film as this. The film is shot in very naturalistic style, so much so that after about 10 minutes Orynthia asked me if all the cast were non actors. The film focuses on the plight of a single immigrant mum as she battles with failing sight and a wilful young son in small town America. The bizarre musical set pieces are very unusual and amusing, the end of the film is more harrowing and upsetting than anything I can remember. It’s no surprise that Bjork has said that she does not want to make another film, this looked like really tough emotional work.

I’m still reading “The Corrections” by Jonathan Franzen, just over 500 pages into this huge book and it just keeps getting better and better. The individual stories of each member of the immediate family reveal the complex people behind the public persona that they present or which is thrust upon them. All of this is done in a way, which is often humorous as you cringe your way through the mishaps and emotional catastrophes, which they encounter. The book is all leading towards a last grand family Christmas which the mother is begging her errant family to join her for. With Christmas fast approaching it looks as though I’ve picked the ideal time to read this fascinating book.

Hard to believe, but I think it's time for us to start thinking about Christmas! I think that we are going to make a start on the Christmas shopping tomorrow, because before we know it Christmas will have arrived. I can't help thinking about the fantastic time we had last year in New York, we really enjoyed being in a town that was visually part of our Christmas experience thanks to all the celluloid memories we have acquired over the years. Waking up on Christmas morning in our great little apartment on west 18th street, exchanging simple gifts with Orynthia and Ashton, lunch at the splendid Empire Diner and then a long walk along the Hudson river in cold clear intense sunshine. It was a very different kind of Christmas for us, made even more enjoyable for the simplicity of it all. This year, it's back to normal and although you hear a lot of people moaning about the whole Christmas thing, I have to say that for the most part I enjoy it. I enjoy the shopping experience, I do think it's great fun trying to get the right gift for the right person. You can't always do it, but when you spot the perfect present for someone it's a really nice feeling.

We had a lovely evening last night, went over to Orynthia's Mum and Dad's for another get together with Don's brother from Burma. At times, I felt as though I was an extra in the Burmese version of the old Woody Allen film Broadway Danny Rose, as the 4 brothers and 1 sister sat around and swapped tails of teenage high jinks from 50 years ago. The years just seamed to drift away as the stories came thick and fast. Then we enjoyed a huge array of splendid Burmese food (much of it cooked by Orynthia) before heading home.

We had a great weekend in London, it was on of those times when everything just fell into place. The excitement started as soon as we arrived at the hotel, we had booked parking, but this was a new experience for me as the underground car park was accessed via a giant drive-in lift, a new experience for me.

We had discovered the day before our trip that a documentary film called “Standing in the shadows of Motown” was going to be shown twice as part of the London Film Festival. Now my initial enquiries had indicated that the Saturday evening show was sold out, luckily for us we were able to get tickets for the Friday afternoon showing. The film is a long overdue tribute to “The Funk Brothers”, Never heard of them? Well neither had I, but they were the cornerstone of the large collective of musicians that played on all those great Motown records, which were recorded when the label was based in Detroit. Loads of great old footage, combined with interviews and footage from a reunion concert all combined to make an enthralling and moving film.

After leaving the Odeon on Leicester Square, we were able to wander up Tottenham Court Road in a leisurely manner, on the way to our next port of call. This was a small theatre called The Drill Hall, for the recording of a couple of radio shows called “Lloyd Cole knew my father”, an amusing look at the music industry presented by 3 former music journalist’s turned presenters.

Saturday morning, we had breakfast in our nice little apartment and then took the short walk to The Royal Academy, stopping briefly in the always fascinating Japan centre, and to admire the animated clock strike the hour outside Fortnum & Mason. The exhibition itself was a bit of a disappointment to be honest, a few things were nice but the problem may be with us, On our travels over the years, we have fortunate enough to see most of the sort of art that we really like. The problem with this is that it is increasingly difficult to find new things that really excite us. We will keep looking though.

After that we went back to the Japan centre to pick up some food for our late lunch/early tea, which we enjoyed back at the apartment. At about 3.10 pm I was momentarily very confused. I switched on the TV to check for any early goals in City’s cup match against the non-league minnows. I slightly shocked to see a 7-0 scoreline flash up on the screen. 7 goals in minutes, I thought! Before realising that our match had been played earlier in the afternoon. Still a very nice result though.

In the evening, we caught to the tube over to East End of London to see BMX bandits and 3 other bands in a nice venue on the edge of Spitalfields market. Before the gig, we had a bit of a walk round this most interesting part of London, including a walk down Brick Lane, where every shop is an Indian restaurant, complete with hawkers outside trying to tempt you in with special offers and the promise of fantastic food. Having just eaten it was quite easy to resist, our favourite the guy who proudly proclaimed that his restaurant had no special offers, only special food.

On Sunday, we had time for bit of general shopping and lunch before the drive back to Bristol.

After a couple of fairly manic weekends in Bristol, we thought that we would give ourselves a bit of a treat this weekend. Both of us have managed to get Friday off work, so we are heading up to London for the weekend. Managed to get a bargain on the cost of an apartment right next to Trafalgar Square, so we are right in the centre of things. We have a few plans, as always London offers a large array of contrasting entertainments, and it’s just up to us to make the right choices.

I forgot to mention that I’m currently reading Jonathan Franzen's amazing novel “The Corrections”. The book should be compulsory reading for anyone whose parents are starting to lose control of the lives that they lead, It’s a brilliant, funny, moving and thought provoking book.

Last night we went to see Baxter Dury in action, he is the son of Ian Dury, and him and his slightly oddball band put on a brief but very entertaining performance.

Well, what have we been doing during the past couple of weeks; while our little iMac has been out of action? Quite a few of you will know that we have been pretty busy with health related problems on both sides of our families. It’s been a pretty hectic and worrying time, pleased to say that things look as though they may be settling down a bit now (fingers crossed).

Apart from that we managed to sneak out, on bonfire night to see The Boggs. Mark and Bab’s came round for some food before going to the gig and they bought a box of fireworks with them for our pre gig entertainment. Our resident pyromaniac, Orynthia put on a splendid show, as we all oohed and ahhed at the right moments. The gig itself was a strange affair, imagine the scene, church social club with no stage, plays host to super cool New York band, who are best described as the band that could do for Bluegrass music, what The Pogues did for traditional Irish music. It has to be said that the singer has a slightly “difficult” vocal style, but the energy of the band won most of the crowd over, long before the night was out.

Also managed to catch one of Steve Dew’s many bands “Fuzz Against Junk” at The Cube, where an evening of improvised madness entertained the crowd. We made another trip to our local cinema last Friday to see the creepy and uncomfortable “One Hour Photo”. An excellent film, with superb use of colour and sound. Never before has the blandness of the American shopping centre, been so well captured, and made to look so beautiful, in it’s simplicity.

Because of the extra time commitment that we are going to have to make to our families, we decided that we should get another car for running about in. Yes, we have the lovely old Fiat 500, but even at it’s best, it is not really the trouble free, easy driving car that we need. In typical Thomas fashion, we went out the other Sunday, looking for a little run around and fell in love with brand new Citroen C3! We booked a test drive, but within a day, our needs had changed and so it’s back to the hunt for a cheep 2nd hand small car. Probably another Fiat Cinquecento to add to Redland motor museum!

The iMac is fit and well again! Will write more soon.

Well we had a pretty wild weekend from a weather perspective. Gale force winds ripping through the south west. No damage to our property, but I was due to play football yesterday, that was called off, thanks to the weather. Still it meant that we had a nice quite day at home. We have got a few problems with our computer at the moment, so Orynthia spent part of the day trying fix that without any joy. So if we are a bit slow in responding to any emails, that's why. We don't seam to be doing very well with electrical things at the moment. Our Digital radio has also stopped working, so we had to take that back on Saturday. The trouble is that they aren't expecting another delivery until December! At least we can pick up most of the digital radio stations through our TV Digi box but it's just not the same.

We made our 2nd visit to the splendid Wagamama's restaurant on Friday evening, 9 of us went out, a combination of family and friends and we had a really nice evening. The place was packed, in fact because of it's no reservations policy we had to queue outside for a little while. It's quite strange to see long queue's of people outside a restaurant in Bristol, I guess things will settle down in a few weeks.

On Saturday evening we walked up to the Orpheus cinema to see "Insomnia" the latest film from Christopher Nolan, the man behind the inspired "Memento". Once again Nolan plays around with the conventions of time, as the Alaskan setting covers the landscape in 24 hour daylight. Al Pacino, arrives in town as a man with problems. The lack nocturnal rest bite takes it's toll on Pacino's character, as his life starts to unravel, due to the prompting's of cold and menacing fugitive, played by Robin Williams. The film was good rather than great, just missing a certain spark.

The reds go from to strength to strength, another good away win this weekend (our 5th league win in row!), has consolidated our position in 3rd place. Two home matches to come, so let's see if we can keep it going. The draw for the 1st round of the FA cup was made over the weekend, we have picked up a very interesting game. Away to a team called Heybridge Swifts! Never heard of them. Could be very embarrassing if we come a cropper!!

Well we have had some fantastic news this week. After months of contract work at Sift, Orynthia has been made a permanent member of staff. This really is wonderful, not only because it's a great achievement on Orynthia's part, but also because it takes away the anxiety that would inevitably arise as the end of each period of employment would approach. No more buying of the paper to look through the job adverts, no more time spent preparing CV's for job applications. It's really great news, it also allows us to plan a few more things, as we don't have to worry about Orynthia's contract coming to an end in a few weeks.

To celebrate this exciting news, Orynthia has managed to pick up the cold that I was suffering with last week. Now of course, I shuffled around the house feeling sorry for myself, thinking that I was going to die. Orynthia on the other hand eats a hearty meal to fight off the bugs and goes to work as if nothing has happened.

I picked up a couple of excellent CD's yesterday. The writer and broadcaster Charlie Gillett has put together a series of 5 double CD's, each showcasing the musical heritage of a particular American city. The one's I picked up yesterday, cover New York and Chicago. The New York one starts in the 1930's with the like of Cab Calloway and Charlie Parker, travelling through the subsequent decades we encounter the likes of Billie Holiday, Clyde McPhatter, the Chiffons, Bob Dylan, Suicide and Queen Latifah plus many other less well known artists of the 40 track selection. It's the sort of collection that makes me want to have a family party and watch as the differing types of music engage or enrage the various generations. The Chicago one is in the same format but with more blues based music, so here Jimmy Reed and Sonny Boy Williamson start the party rolling before we bump into people like the Staples Singers, Jackie Wilson and Curtis Mayfield amongst others.

The other day Orynthia was clearing the pockets of an item of clothing, which she had evidently not worn for a little while. In the pockets she was surprised to find several small pieces of paper with exotic sounding names written upon them. Her initial confusion then gave way to the realisation that she must have harbouring the remnants of one of our football sweepstakes.

Anyone that has ever watched an important football match in the company of Steve and me, and a large gathering of likeminded people, will be well aware of the benefit that the sweepstake can bring to watching the dullest of games. We try to go for unpredictable occurrences, so that everyone who has a player’s name in their hand really does have a chance of winning something. We normally like to have prizes for the first and last people to score. As that keeps the interest up for the 90 minutes, in addition we always have a prize for the first player to require medical treatment, sometimes the first or last player to be booked. For matches that have a particular historical theme, we may throw in the name of player from a previous era that could be mentioned in the commentary. For instance, if England were playing Germany, it would be quite normal to pull the name Geoff Hurst from the hat, even though the esteemed Mr Hurst has not kicked a ball in anger for well over 20 years. It just takes a mention from John Motson and your initial stake money will be heading back to you quicker than you can say, "some people are on the pitch….".
My favourite though was in a F.A. Cup final a few years ago, when we decided to acknowledge the age old tradition, of the lid of the F.A. Cup being used as an item of natty headwear by a member of the victorious team. This time the excitement of the sweepstake would not been concluded until someone could claim a pound, because their man had placed the valued piece of silverware upon their sweat stained skull. That particular year Manchester United won the trophy, which was duly passed around the excited players. We oohed and aahed as the lid suffered a succession of near misses. At last it reached the often profligate Andy Cole, he raised the lid towards his head…. The owner of slip of paper bearing Mr Cole’s name yelled in anticipation, only for the typical Andy Cole moment to happen, he actually managed to miss the top of his head and crash the lid into his ear!! Groans and laughter all around the room. Credit though to Andy Cole, he was able to compose himself and at the second attempt managed to crown the cranium, as we all collapsed in fits of laughter.

Anyway, on a rather macabre level we did think that it would have been highly amusing if Orynthia had been found murdered, whilst having the name of some of the worlds finest footballers in her pocket. Obviously this list of names, in true Agatha Christie style, would provide a convenient list of suspects for P.C. Plod to work his way through. You can imagine the conversation. "Now then Mr Ronaldo, can you tell me why Mrs Orynthia Thomas would have a piece of paper in her pocket, bearing your name, on the night she was murdered?"

The weekend went well and we managed to do everything that I hoped that we would. Unfortunately, I seemed to have paid the penalty for too many late nights, I managed to go to work on Monday and indeed play football that evening. After that my body just said NO! Woke up on Tuesday, with a throat that felt like I had been swallowing coarse grade sandpaper all night! I’ve stayed home from work for the past couple of days and am feeling better for it.
I’ve used the time to watch a couple of old Spike Lee films. Firstly on Monday I watched Mo’Better Blues. I have played the soundtrack album to this film pretty regularly over the years but it’s been a while since I’ve seen the film I’d forgotten about the way the film bookends itself with the childhood sequences. Great music, good film. Today I finally made my way downstairs at about 11:30 and after a quick bite to eat, I settled down to watch Do The Right Thing. This is still an amazingly powerful film about the way different races get along, or don’t as the case may be. As always with Spike Lee a great soundtrack does not just add to the story, it’s an integral part of the tale. No easy answers at the end of the film and indeed the conflicting quotes from Martin Luther King and Malcolm X give us few clues to the way forward. I think that in many ways. That is the strength of the film. Nobody in the film is right all the time; foolish words and deeds quickly contradict the good things they seem to say or do. Some people just try to get along, which is we can do. Great music, Great film

On Tuesday evening we watched Clockwork Orange thanks to it’s first ever TV showing this weekend. It’s really difficult to view a film like this with an open mind, after so much hype and comment over the years when it has been unavailable in the UK. We both agreed that after the first 30 mins we could have quite easily have turned off as the catalogue of appalling violence, looked to be heading into cul-de-sac. Once our narrator is caught, things started to become much more interesting and it was amazing to see the connections with present day debates on law and order, and the treatment of offenders. Also it was a brilliant portrayal of the sort of political opportunism, which we though was a new invention. A thought provoking and original film, even after this length of time, still very relevant.

I’ve been reading Toby Young’s, How to lose friends & alienate people. A splendidly acerbic account of his period working in New York and the amazing lack of success, in his working and personal life. On the few occasions that I have seen or heard Toby Young On TV or radio, he has always come across as epitome of the English upper class prat. To his credit, he makes no effort to cover up the worse traits in his character and you can see why people failed to warm to him. However from the way he tells it, he makes a pretty convincing case about the lack of humility or human caring that these very high flying people have in their lives. It may well be the same in London but this book should leave a few people squirming. Then again it’s quite interesting to read the reviews of the book on Toy’s website. Virtually all the American reviews, seem to accept that, this is the way life is, and question why Toby Young would bother pointing out the incredible self importance and lack of comradeship in his short lived contemporary’s. Whilst the rest of world finds all very amusing. The other thing that really comes across in the book, is that people only want to know you, if you are of some use to them. A friend of mine, who is pretty successful in his field, has said to me how much he hates New York, although its somewhere that he has to go fairly regularly, he always does it for the shortest amount of time that he can. Now as someone who loves going to New York on holidays I have always found this strange, but reading this book confirms the impression that my friend has given me. Everyone wants a slice of you or is your best friend when you have something they want, if you don’t have what they want – move over!

OK, if you live in or near Bristol and enjoy food, you MUST go to Sawadee, a newish restaurant at 223 Cheltenham Road. It’s the only place in Bristol that you can buy Burmese food (only 1 dish so far, but it’s great) as well as Korean, Vietnamese, Japanese, Laos, Indonesian Malaysian plus the more usual Thai, Chinese and Indian. The amazing thing is that all the dishes cost just £5.99 for wonderfully tasty, fresh, authentic food. We went there last night, with a few friends and every one was very taken with the place. Only our 2nd visit so far, but I’m sure that we will be going many more times.

Tomorrow evening we are off to see McAlmont & Butler at the Anson rooms, the start of a busy few days. On Friday night we might go to a club called Level because Grant from Massive Attack and Geoff from Portishead are doing DJ sets. Then on Saturday evening, we are hoping to have a meal at the newly opened Bristol branch of Wagamamas, before we head off to see cheeky scouse mop tops The Coral. If we were a few years younger, we may well have gone onto Blowpop where our friend John Stapleton has booked the intriguing DJ Krush. I can’t see that happening though. Then on Sunday, Orynthia’s mum & dad are coming over for lunch. Not much sleep to be had, but it should be good fun.

Autumn is starting to head towards us, although the sun is still shining it’s starting to get a little nippy. Whilst walking along the lovely tree lined Redland Grove this morning, a sudden gust of wind sent loads of golden leaves tumbling to the ground. It will soon be time to get out those winter jumpers out.

I have just finished reading Atonement by Ian McEwan. Another fascinating read from this most English of writers. His work often reminds of a line used by Pink Floyd on Dark Side of the Moon; "Hanging on in quiet desperation, is the English way." He is better than anyone else I have read at capturing the stuttering, ham fisted way in which we stumble around trying not to "do the right thing" without causing offence. Ultimately ending up trapped in a morass of hidden turmoil, all because we did not want to cause a fuss or make a scene. Atonement is a superb read, hopefully about an England that is in the past, but I’m not so sure.

Orynthia has been off on a girls weekend, to celebrate a friends 40th birthday. In her absence, I’ve not really done too much. Saw the reds in splendid form yesterday, as we thrashed Chesterfield 4-0. We were a bit worried before the game, when we found out that Chesterfield had never won a league match in Bristol in over 100 years of the them trooping down here to play City and Rovers. Added to the fact they had not conceded a goal in their last 5 games, it looked like one of those sequences had to end. We all thought that this would be the time for them to break their duck. Pleased to say that they were never really in the match, and not for the first time this season, our boys really did play some great football at times.

We went to Bath on Saturday evening with our old friends Ian & Maria. Sad to say that we had a rather disappointing meal in the Bistro Papilion. The food was ok, no more no less, but truly miserly portions left a rather bad taste in the mouth, if you’ll pardon the pun. I’ve known Ian for almost as long as I have been alive, back to pre school days in fact. Back at their house Ian delighted Orynthia by producing an old school photo of us, taken when we were about 8 or 9 I guess. I was wearing a rather fetching skiing jumper, which Orynthia loved. I guess the winters must have been colder back then after all.

On Sunday afternoon, we went to a house warming party. Now the gathering and people were all lovely, but for me the highlight of the day were the bizarre noises emanating from the just behind the garden wall! Let me explain, the house is located virtually next door to the stadium that Bristol rugby club and some other football team use. On Sunday afternoon Bristol were taking on Leicester, in what turned out to be a very keenly contested rugby match. So as we were sitting in the back garden our conversations, would suddenly be taken over by the noise of about 6,000 people getting quite excited. Whereas football crowds tend to have general noise and then a sudden roar as the ball is smacked into the net, the nature of the excitement in rugby is the long build up towards the final crescendo, as the crowd cheer their man or team on the 40 yard push to the line. This all leads to a strange sort of elongated growling noise, in place of the short, sharp, shout that I have been used to being part of at football matches. It was all rather strange and I must confess I found most enjoyable.

After the party, we went off to see The Divine Comedy in action, supported by Ben Folds. Here was another chance to study differing styles of showing appreciation by making noise. I’m not sure if Ben Folds had bought many Americans along with him, but it was really noticeable that his fans (and there were many) did a whole lot of whopping and hollering. Whilst the Divine Comedy audience, were much more in the fevered but polite applause, school of approval.

Actually managed to have a fairly quiet week this week, although we find ourselves going out on Friday, Saturday and Sunday evening’s.

Last night we went to the surprisingly lovely Seymour’s club in that most hidden away and splendidly named part of Bristol "The Dings". I wonder what happened to "The Dongs"? We went to see our friends in Munter once again; they were playing as part of a night of entertainment provided by Black Heart Studios. Munter were their usual brooding and magnificent self. Then the real fun started, the next band up, were the oddly named John E. Vistic. A strange country rock sort of band, fronted by an pointlessly tall bearded man in a slightly dodgy 3 piece suit, topped off with an oversized trilby hat. This man (who may well be called Marcus) entertained us with some high quality between songs patter, delivered in a fine American southern drawl. Odd, given the fact that at all other times during the evening, I would have guessed that Severn Beach was about as far west as his birthplace could have been.

Anyway, for glorious contradictions, they were knocked firmly in 2nd place by the final band of the evening "Zen Hussies" Dressed like Django Rhienhards’s Hot Club combo from the 1940’s they amused, bemused and confounded in equal measures. At times sounding like Jazz version of the Bonzo dog do dah band, singing songs about bouffant hair styles one minute, Battenberg cake and Arctic Roll the next. For 25 minutes they were sublime, then it did become a tad predictable. Most entertaining never the less.
The between band entertainment was provided by some of Orynthia’s work colleagues. The self-styled Grumpy Man playing the sort of music that is normally the domain of those who prefer to wallow in the music from the windswept, lonely side of the street. You know the sort of thing, Nick Cave, Tom Waites and the like. The only problem with them, was that that their wildly grinning, excited faces, in no way matched their Nom De Plume, as they joyfully stormed their way through every record in the male menopause collection

This evening we had one of the first signs of the impending autumn. It came in the form of a smell. Not a bonfire or the rich aroma of damp leaves slowly rotting on the grass. No, this was the true indication of chillier nights on the way, the smell of dust burning on a heater that has not been used for the past 6 months. Now anyone that knows us, will be aware of our fastidious approach to housework. We do make sure that it is done at least twice a year!

A strange coincidence occurred last week. I heard of two people who suffered from burglars breaking into their houses. Now this is both unfortunate and distressing, the strange thing is that in both cases the women of the house are pregnant. It makes me wonder if gangs of cat thief’s (on both occasions, the entry to the house was through a small window) are hanging around outside pre-natal clinics, waiting to follow the expectant mum’s to be, back to the home, in the hope that they will forget to shut a door or window due to hormonal changes taking place within their bodies. Forget stock market fraud, this is the true face of sophisticated crime. Then again, as I said at the start, I’m sure that it is just coincidence.

On Friday evening, we took our first trip for about a month down to The Croft to see John, Ian and Phil whipping up a storm at the latest Four Corner’s evening. Consequently, had a bit of a late night, so enjoyed a nice lie in on Saturday morning. Got up with just enough time left to have breakfast before heading off to Ashton Gate to see the reds in action against QPR. An exhilarating first half ended all square at 1-1. Tellingly we missed two very, very simple chances and lost both of strikers through injury in the later stages of the half. QPR started the second half in very determined mood, and with more than a little help from our unbalanced side, they stormed into a 3-1 lead. We never really got back in contention after that, so our 100% home record has gone. After 10 games we have won 5 and lost 5, looks like we could have another season when we are unable to take points from the top teams in the division.

Saturday evening, Ashton came over, then the 3 of us went into town to meet up with Mark and Bab’s for a quick drink and bit to eat. Then onto that most intimate of venues The Folk House, to see The latest version of Fuzz against Junk, a country band from London called Redlands Palomino Co and McDowell in action. All were enjoyable in different ways.

Whilst Ashton was here, we were able to show him our latest digital gadgets. Along with our Digital TV. converter, we recently picked up one of the first portable digital radios. It’s great, as well as being able to pick the often excellent BBC Radio 6, we can now pick up XFM the London based Indie station and BBC world service, plus a plethora of other stations which I have not really got my head around yet. Anyway, we got a call from Ashton to say that he went this afternoon and bought one of the Digital TV box’s. We should be on commission!