Well. I’m back from a couple days at the very grand Horwood House, a few miles outside Milton Keynes. It actually wasn’t too bad. The other people on the course were OK, and the time passed pretty quickly. The trip also gave me a chance to catch up with my old friend Temps for the evening. He lives about 3 miles away from Horwood House, so it was an ideal time to go out for a meal together. This may seem a bit odd as Temps, still comes to all the home games at Ashton Gate, but it has been known for our conversations to get interrupted by the football from time to time! After a lovely meal in a splendid old pub called The Lone Tree, we popped back to Simon’s house where I was able to say hello after a long absence to Carolyn and their unusually amusing Kids.

As I was driving back I was listening to a very entertaining chat and live session with The Flaming Lips on Mark Radcliff’s afternoon show on radio 1. The band is playing in Bristol in the next week or so. But I messed about when it came to buying tickets and then when Orynthia went to get some last week, it was sold out. It’s a shame, we have seen them twice before and they are an unusual and enjoyable live band. Still it’s a lesson learnt.

Forgot to mention that I finished The Autograph Man by Zadie Smith last week. When I wrote about last, I was not very impressed. However, the next section of the book was far more interesting and gripping. Now it may just be coincidence, but this part of the book was set in New York! Suddenly the book just went to another level for me. Unfortunately, when the action switched back to the London, the intensity of the writing seemed to be lost once again and the book just seemed to drift away.

Hello again, although I feel like I should say “Bonjour”. We have spent the last couple of days looking into French holiday information on the net. We have booked a short trip to Nice, in southern France for our wedding anniversary in February, and we have been researching our proposed trip to Paris in April
The trip to Nice, was a fairly spur of the moment sort of decision, prompted by the fact that those splendid people at Easyjet are having a mad sale. So crazy in fact that before tax our flights are £1 per person each way. That’s right, for £4 excluding tax we can both travel to Nice and back from Bristol airport. How mad is that? We have made a provisional booking on an apartment in Nice, our New York Apartment holiday last Xmas really did convince us that this is the best way to stay in a city. It was so great to get up whenever you wanted, and enjoy a relaxed breakfast. If you want to sample the local produce, you can rustle something up in the Kitchen any time day or night. You also get much more space for your money, which is really nice.

Talking of trips, I have got to away for a couple of days for a fairly pointless training course for my job. Not looking forward to it all, at least it’s only for two days.

Had a bit of a dash around last night. Orynthia and I went straight to our favourite local restaurant “Sawadee” where the food is good, cheep and quick. We both had their excellent Burmese curry and were then ready to dash off to The Cube , to catch the 7pm showing of Morvern Callar . Now because the weather has been so cold, Orynthia had driven our little Cinquecento down Cranbrook Road in the morning, so that after the meal we could just hop in the car, drive the short distance to The Cube and then after the film, the even shorter distance to The Bell for a couple of drinks. All safe in the knowledge that we would not have a 25 minute walk home in sub zero temperatures. Well that was the plan! When we got to the car, the door locks were actually frozen! So I had to run up the road to quickly pick up our other car, drive back, pick up Orynthia and we just made it to The Cube for 6:59.

Now anyone that has been to The Cube, in wintertime will know that heating is not a strong point in this wonderfully eccentric little building. When we purchased our tickets, the guy behind the counter did warn that the heating (such as it is) had not been on for long, and that it may be a bit cold in there. Something of an understatement! It was absolutely freezing. James, Orynthia and I sat there with coats, scarves and gloves on and to make matters worse, the 1st half of the film is set in an obviously cold Scottish fishing port at Xmas time. You really felt that you were on location with cast! Strangely, Later in the film the story moves to Spain, bizarrely the sunshine radiating from the screen actually seemed to make us feel little (and only a little!) warmer.

The film itself is pretty hard work. The first section of the film really is grim viewing, as the dull washed out colours reflect the misery and bleakness of the situation that Morvern finds herself in. Even when the film switches to Spain, the loathsome behaviour of the British abroad made for more uncomfortable viewing. However it’s not without merit, without giving too much away, Morvern spends a lot of time listening to a cassette tape, which has been compiled for her. On occasions, this is put to really good use, particularly when she strides into her supermarket, whilst “Some Velvet Morning” blasts out. Obviously made on a very tight budget, the quality of the sound did make it tricky to work out some the heavy Scottish accents. All in all, I left the film feeling (cold!) quite pleased that I am old enough not to have to go to those dreadful adolescent house parties or ever go on an 18-30’s holiday.

When dashed round to The Bell and were greeted by the welcome site of not one but two roaring fires. Coffees were ordered and the thawing process began.

If anyone wants to learn how to speak "Bristolian" in case they visit our fair city, at last we have an on line dictionary to help you!

Boy it’s cold today, just come back from lunch and it’s freezing. I’m due to be playing football at 8pm this evening. How cold is it going to be then!!

On Saturday night, we went round to Steve Vowles house for a meal. Teresa and Steve Dew were also there for what turned out to be a rather drunken evening. Still we have to make the most of it, because at the end of the month Mr Vowles heads off to a new job in Madrid. It’s something that Steve has been trying to arrange for a while; indeed he recently spent 6 months there, which must have been a useful test run for both sides. At least we know that it’s pretty easy to keep in touch these days and flights to Madrid can be pretty good value if you pick your moment carefully, so we should be able to keep in touch.

Had a really good evening with Kev & Julie last night. The restaurant was a little chaotic, if was the first time that they had opened after Xmas and whoever was in charge of the stock ordering had been somewhat negligent by the sound of things. They even ran out of milk! Still, the food that we had (Pheasant for Orynthia and I) was pleasant enough.

Soon after waking up this morning, we had the treat of a short but pretty vigorous snowstorm. It did not last long, but 7 hours later we still have a sprinkled icing sugar appearance to the neighbourhood.

Whilst we were out doing some shopping today, I bumped into an old school friend that I had not seen for 6 or 7 years. The only problem was that after leaving school, the chap in question changed his name. Now I knew that the one of the names involved was Tony and the other one was Julian, the trouble was that for the life of me, I could not remember which was the current name! I managed to get away with only saying his name once; I plumped for Tony and seemed to get away with it. Mind you I can’t really complain about peoples names. Although most people know me as Tom, some of you will know that my actual name is Andrew Thomas. Tom is just a nickname, which I picked up, in the early years of school life. So the situation now is that the members of my family call me Andrew. Orynthia and all her family, plus all our friends call me Tom. Whilst people who know me from work call me Andy. It can all get a bit confusing, especially when I’m signing Xmas and birthday cards. Orynthia has to say “now you are Andrew to this person” or Andy to this one. I still manage to make mistakes from time. It’s a bit embarrassing when you get confused about your own name.

Not much more news on the body that was found at the railway station yesterday, so I guess we can assume that the person did not die as a result of foul play. It’s strange that something like that can happen and then just disappear from the news stories.

Anyway onto brighter things. On New Years day we managed to catch up with our old friends Kev & Julie, who were back in Bristol for the New Year. We enjoyed it so much that we are going to meet up again this evening for a meal at Hullabaloos on Whiteladies Road. It’s a while since we have eaten there, so it will be interesting to see what it’s like these days. It is very strange to think that it is Friday today, it always gets confusing at this time of year, all day yesterday I was convinced that it was Monday, suddenly we are on the edge of the weekend! Now that’s the sort of working week that I like!!

Last night we watched Royal Tenenbaums on DVD. We saw it in the cinema when it was released and both of us really liked it. I think I liked it even more this time, the whole cast are just fantastic. The film is just packed with so much subtle humour, and as Orynthia has just pointed out to me whilst we were at lunch, the music is great as well. Taken as a whole, it really is a treat.

As predicted on a previous entry, having returned to work, I have managed to get back in the routine of reading again. I am now about half way through The Autograph Man by Zadie Smith. I along with many other people thoroughly enjoyed her previous novel White Teeth; so far this latest offering is not nearly as captivating. Sometimes it appears that she is trying rather too hard, to make pull off a literary trick rather than concentrate on the fundamentals of developing the plot. Still, it may pick up in the 2nd half.

I’ve mainly been listening to the following over the Xmas period: Velvet Underground -box set, Radio 4 – Gotham, Death Cab For Cutie – We have the facts and were voting yes +3, Beth Gibbons & Rustin’ Man – Out of season.

Strange start to the day, when I arrived at Redland station this morning, the sight of several ambulances and police vehicles greeted me. To cut a long story short a body was discovered on the track, the odd thing amongst this sad situation is that the incident did not make the local TV news this evening. Very strange.

Managed to get to the cinema again last night, when we went to see the excellent “Donnie Darko” at The Orpheus. We have been trying to catch up with this film for a couple of weeks and I have to say that it was well worth seeing. I can only really say that it’s a bit like David Lynch directing a teen/ coming of age type film, with the cheery story of mental breakdown underpinning the whole thing. The film is set in small town America in 1988, interestingly the Director: Richard Kelly uses lots of English music from the ‘80’s so we get to hear Echo & the Bunnymen, Duran Duran, Joy Division and more surprisingly Tears For Fears, sending those teenage American kids crazy. I’m never quite sure why English music was so successful in the states at that time, then again I have no idea if these bands were really successful or were they just hip with the “alternative” kids. Anyway, the film is great and I would recommend it to everyone.

We have been starting to make some travel plans for 2003. We are aiming to go to Paris in April for Orynthia’s birthday. It been quite a few years since we last went, when strangely we went in the February and April of the same year, thanks to generosity of the people who run the Eurostar rail service. It’s a great place and another visit is long overdue. When Autumn comes around we are hoping to head off to Australia to catch up with relatives. Because of the uncertainty with Orynthia’s job we had to forego invitations to several weddings down under this year, which was a real shame. Still next October/November we hope to be swapping the damp and murky English weather for something a bit warmer. If we really get our act together, we hope to append some time in Tokyo on either the way over or the way back. We went to Tokyo in 1999 and had an amazing time, fantastic people, interesting food and the best record shops in the world.

So after a week away from work, I joined the small gathering of people at Redland station for the 07:45 train this morning. Going to work at this time of year is always a bit strange, everyone is on half speed and can’t quite work out why they have gone back to work, when there is very little work to do.

I enjoyed the film last night, it’s certainly not the greatest film that Woody has ever made, but it did keep me amused. With the exception of Radio Days, which I really love, most of his “period” films are merely OK. Before Xmas we made a vague plan to go to the cinema a lot during our holiday, unfortunately the cinema screens in Bristol over the last week have been dominated by Harry Potter and The Two Towers, most of the other screens have been taken up with kids films, so we weren’t left with anything to go and see. It’s shame that all the interesting cinema’s (The Watershed, The Arnolfini, The Cube and The Orpheus) were closed for most of the Xmas period, meaning that we were left to suffer at the hands of the multiplex’s.

It’s strange but I did not get round to doing any reading during the break. So much of my reading time is linked to my working life. I normally read whilst I am on the train, and most lunchtime’s I go to the little café on platform 12 of Temple Meads station for a coffee and a piece of cake plus 45 min reading time. It’s almost as though work just gives me a space to find reading time. Anyway, the upshot of my lack of work last week was a complete lack of any reading. I have started to put that right this morning by working my way through the New Yorker double fiction issue which came out just before Xmas.

Having recorded yesterdays radio programme on The Singing Ringing Tree, we listened to it, whilst we drove down to Banwell to see Mark and Babs last night. Take a look at the previous link, for more information on one of the strangest shows ever shown on children’s TV. We went to Banwell Castle for a meal, with Mark and Babs, the restaurant is located in the gatehouse building and is built is lovely arc shape. I had Duck, which was scrummy! Talking of food, Orynthia is starting to transfer some of her old family recipes onto a website. As soon as it is ready, I’ll put a link on this page so that you will be able to cook some of our favourite Burmese treats. As those of you who have eaten at our house will know, Orynthia is a great cook; the wonderful thing about these recipes is that even, someone with basic cooking skills such as myself is able to make a splendid meal.

As a combined birthday and Christmas present, Orynthia’s mum and dad bought me the wonderful Velvet Underground 5 CD box set, we have both been having a great time working our way through the collection. It’s amazing to think that at the time The Velvet Underground sold hardly any records, yet they left an amazing legacy.

Tonight we are off to see The Curse of the Jade Scorpion at The Watershed, with a few friends. I know that Woody Allen has fallen from favour with many critics over the past couple of years, but I still think that his dialogue is a treat to hear. I guess it may just be part of my obsession with all things that are New York related.

BCFC continue to go well. A 4 -1 win at Stockport on Saturday means that we have not lost for the last 19 games. A pretty good way to end the year.

Very excited about this radio show.

Well here we are again, several days later and several pounds heavier! We have had a good but tiring few days. On my birthday we spent an enjoyable time in the recently opened commonwealth and empire museum. It covers an awkward and potentially embarrassing period of British history, it’s something that has shaped the way that many of us live our lives today, so it is important to look at the past and learn lessons from it. It’s not all serious but was very amused to read about the way our glorious leaders continue to export Opium to China, even though the Chinese authorities begged us to stop. Quite interesting, when you think about our present governments views of the Middle Eastern poppy growers that feed current drug problems in this country. After popping out to visit my nephew in hospital, we headed down to The Bell to meet up with some friends and continue the birthday/Christmas celebrations.

Christmas day itself was a quick trip round see my sister and her kids, then over to my mum before we went over to Orynthia’s Mum & Dad’s place for the meal. Quite a gathering, we all enjoyed the splendid food provided by Orynthia and Crescentia. Fat tums all round; we eventually made it home at around 9 PM, where we promptly fell asleep whilst watching Chicken Run.

On Boxing day City were playing at home against Plymouth, unfortunately the police decided that this would be a 12 noon kick off. As always seams to happen the early start resulted in a drab game, when neither side really got going. The inevitable 0-0 scoreline came as no real surprise after the first 20 minutes or so. Still the first 0-0 that I have watched this season, and it was enough to push us into 2nd place in the league. After the match a few friend came back to our place for cheese, cake, coffee and port. Once again we headed down to The Bell. The plan was that we were going to do onto another bar to see Bristol’s oldest DJ in action. DJ Derek, the OAP king of Ska was meant to playing in a small bar in St Pauls. When we got to the bar Derek was their along with only a couple of other people, whilst some dreadful music was being played. We got our drinks, sat down and then watched in dismay as Derek finished his pint, picked up his umbrella and left the bar. The owners of the bar told us that as most of Bristol had been struck with Boxing Day lethargy, so Derek would not be playing. At least it gave us a chance of an early night, so we dropped Ashton home and made our way back to Redland, stopping only to give Petunia and Simon an impromptu lift to a party.

Today, has been a tidy up the house, eat sensibly sort of day. We have not seen anyone else all day, and that’s been quite nice. Back to normal tomorrow though.

Here is a Christmas card for you all. Thanks to Orynthia's skill.

Well after all that talk of birthdays earlier, it is a real shock to hear of Joe Strummers death. As I mentioned recently, The Clash were a really important band to me and many of my friends, they were a band that educated me, as well entertained and inspired. It’s strange but because Punk was against the idea of nostalgia and was about living in the moment a lot of us feel a bit awkward about the fact that musicians like Joe carried on playing. Orynthia and I went to see him at the Closton Hall in Bristol about a year ago. I must admit that I was worried that I would see an old man going through the motions and that it could all be a bit embarrassing. On the contrary it was a fantastic night. Joe played a great mixture of old and new songs, but delivered each one as though it was crucial that he got his message across to you. It was never earnest and lecturing, it was inspiring and invigorating. On the way into the venue, you walk up a flight of about 60 steps, which are split by a central banister. Imagine my surprising on getting about halfway up these steps, when I was greeted with Mr Strummer sliding down the banisters, seemingly without a care in the world. Music in this country just would not have been the same with this man. Thanks Joe.

Well it’s that time of year, when we tend to spend all our time going from house to house to eat and drink and generally just catch up with people. Yesterday for example, we were out from early afternoon, spending time in 4 peoples houses, eating well and just relaxing into Christmas. Saturday evening was spent with Bob and Karen, as they invited a few friends round for mulled wine and mince pies. It was quite amusing to see the increasing anxious looks on Karen’s face, as the assembled young children got more and more boisterous! On Friday evening we went round to see my nephew Craig, as it was his 16th birthday this weekend. To celebrate, he has sold most of his CD collection and spent the money on an electric guitar and amp. Craig and his older brother Carl have made a couple of amusing tapes in the past, using a two string guitar and the bedroom floorboards as a percussion instrument. The 1st one was a Nirvana inspired noise complete with crowd sound effects. The last one was a tape of songs that they had heard of, but never actually heard! An inspired idea. So who knows what Craig will be able to come up with now?

We are smack bang in the middle of the birthday season here. In addition to Craigs, on Thursday it was Orynthia’s uncle’s birthday, today it’s Steve Dew, tomorrow it’s mine and then on Boxing Day it’s Brucene’s. The week before saw birthdays for Teresa and Gus, so it’s another reason why this time of year is such a busy time of year for us.

We just received a Christmas card from our friends John and Jill, they moved to France in September and was amused to hear that posting the Christmas cards, involves a 2 mile cycle ride to the nearest post box for Jill. Worse still the ride back is all uphill!

Yesterday we finally got round to buying a Christmas tree, it’s only about 3 feet high, but it looks great and it just provides that glorious Christmas smell, that only a real tree can give you. We have a couple more things to sort out today and then Christmas will be with us.

Wow, what a glorious morning. I had to leave for the station at 7:30 this morning and emerged from the house into a thick glistening frost. The sun was just rising and as I walked through Redland Green, resulting in a glorious red sky framing the shimmering beauty of the park as birds skipped to and fro. It was a lovely way to start the day.

Took my mum back to the hospital yesterday afternoon, so that the doctors could take another look at her shoulder. Pleased to say that everything was OK. Her arm will be in a sling for a couple of weeks, but she is already feeling much better. As we got to the hospital with quit a bit of time to spare, I had the unusual experience of taking my mum to look at coffins! Very handily placed for the hospital in a wonderful shop called Heaven on Earth. The shop sells all maner of fantasticaly kitch religious items, an incrediable selection of old games from around the world and all maner of weired and wonderful stuff. However, this is all a sideline to the main business which provides unusual and very personal methods of dealing with death, from coffins made from Cardboard to coffins that can be used as a bookcase whilst you are still alive, then converted upon you death, its all here. I've never been to California, but it looks that the sort of place that would be quite at home in that strangest of States.

Tonight, its Orynthia’s company Xmas bash. Partners are invited, so I’m meeting Orynthia at 4:30 and then a coach will whisk us away to a hall in South Bristol. Here we will be fed and watered and also entertained. The Dynamo Rhythm Aces are providing the music. They are a very entertaining local band who play songs by the likes of Motorhead, Nirvana, Sex Pistols and Frankie Goes to Hollywood in a sort of Jazz -Jump-Jive style! Think Louis Jordan doing The Ace of Spades and you will be have the idea. They play it dead straight, which makes even funnier. Should be a good night. Then we only have one more day to get through,Friday is the last day in work for both us before, having the week off around Xmas. Fantastic.

We had lots of fun of Sunday afternoon, as wrapped the Xmas gifts and listened to our Xmas CD’s. The best of which was Its a Cool Cool Christmas.

We had a bit of late night yesterday, I know that’s not unusual at this time of year, but this was a bit unexpected. I was on my way home from playing football for the last time before the Xmas break, when I had a call from Orynthia. On her return home from seeing John, she picked up a message from a friend of my mum’s saying, that my mum had fallen over in town and was in hospital. We dashed into the hospital to see how mum was, this was at about 11:00, and mum was not looking too good and was convinced that she had broken a bone in her left arm. We had to wait around for several hours before the doctors had a chance to take a look at her. It emerged that she had dislocated her shoulder. They pumped her full of drugs and popped her shoulder back in. By the time that we had taken her home and then driven back it was gone 4am by the time we crawled into bed! Luckily for me I’m pretty quiet in work, so I was able to take today off. Orynthia made it into work this afternoon, but is exhausted now, so it’s time for an early night. Let’s hope that this is the last bit of misfortune to hit our friends and family this year. It has been a shocking year for lots of people that we know. My sister has had cancer, her eldest son has had a mental breakdown, and Orynthia’s dad has lost the use of his legs. Lots of our friends have had work related traumas. At times 2002 has been a pretty tough year, roll on 2003!

On Sunday evening we went to see the film Bowling for Columbine. I thought it was a pretty amazing film and really does make you think about the climate of fear that so many people live with. The worst thing is that very often, it is an unnecessary state of mind and the likelihood of suffering an attack of some sort is still pretty slim. However fear breeds more fear and pretty soon everyone is afraid to go out and experience real life. It was great to hear "Take the skinheads bowling" blasting out at the start and end of the film.

OK, here we go. As mentioned below here are 20 (well as close as I could get) tracks that changed my life in one way or another. Quite a few records that I have not played for years, some that I may never play again, but all of them had a major impact on me. I’ve put them in a vaguely chronological order

1) Pink Floyd – Dark Side Of The Moon. My sisters album, the 1st record that made me really listen.
2) ELP – Pictures at an exhibition Oops! Prog rock!!
3) Thelonious Monk – Round Midnight . It’s a jazz thang
4) Magazine – Shot by both sides. New wave arrives and it’s great
5) Stiff Little Fingers – Alternative Ulster. Blistering angry passionate punk
6) Velvet Underground – Sunday Morning. Fragile beauty
7) The Clash – Complete Control. Could be almost anything by The Clash. Great ending.
10) Black Uhuru – Shine Eye Girl. The excitement of 12”Jamacan dub singles. Hear that bass
11) Joy Division – Transmission. It sounded like music from another world.
12) Siouxsie and the Banshees – Hong Kong Garden. Angular spiky punk pop at its best
13) Kraftwerk – Neon Lights. Electronic beauty
14) Motorhead – Overkill. Is it rock? Is it punk? Who cares?
15) Grandmaster Flash - Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on The Wheels Of Steel. Just amazing
16) U2 – I Will Follow. And I did! All around the UK before they became superstars.
17) Echo & The Bunnymen – Do it clean. Great scouse pop
18) The Smiths - Hand in Glove. Being in a shop in New York whilst 2 guys debated Morrissey's gender! Should we intervene?
19) Elvis Costello – I’ll wear it proudly. He dedicated this to us on our wedding night!
20) Massive Attack – Unfinished Sympathy. Bristol can produce great music
21) Portishead – Glory Box. Bristol does it again.
22) Belle & Sebastian – Like Dylan in the movies. Memories of an amazing night at the union chapel.
23) Cornelius – Fantasma. Crazy cut up music from Japan, It’s music Jim but not as we know it!
24) The Strokes – Last Nite. New York strikes back, it’s 1977 again!

So many great bands and individuals that I have not included, as I said these were records that changed the sort of music that I was buying and watching.