So what about the rest of the Connect Festival I hear you ask, well Saturday was one of those annoyingly dry-damp-dry days, luckily we had some fine music we saw some or all of sets from 1990’s The Fire Engines, the Only Ones, Bat For Lashes, Dine Comedy, Teenage Fanclub, Modest Mouse and Primal Scream. Also had a very brief chat with Gerry Love from Teenage Fanclub and received a couple of text messages telling me that City were (briefly) top of the championship, obviously a pretty good day!

Sadly the rain meant that moving around the site was getting to be hard work, this was even more true on Sunday, however we did manage to catch Patrick Wolf, The Kissaway Trail, Tilly & The Wall, My Latest Novel, Bjork, Big Start and a smidge of LCD Soundsystem. So over the course of the weekend we heard lots of great music, just a shame that the weather made the site such hard work and although the food was excellent, some of the general facilities left a bit to be desired.

Monday morning saw catching the coach back to Glasgow and what a fantastic journey alongside the Lochs and through the mountains it was, of course the sun was shinning brightly now that the festival was over! For the rest of the week we were in new hotel on Bath Street, just around the corner from The Glasgow Film Theatre and The Glasgow Scholl of Art. We took of our boots and spent the afternoon on the bed watching The Rockford Files and having a long hot shower – lovely.

During the rest of the week we stayed in Glasgow apart from a brief trip to the west coast town of Largs (home of the “no poo on my shoe” campaign) and the nearby Kelburn Castle. Went to the cinema a couple of times and bumped into Carey from Camera Obscura at the GFT when seeing Calum Foe. Later in the week we meet up with Carey again along with Gav amd Lynsey and Tracyanne plus Francis from Teenage Fanclub at a small club where Tracyanne was DJ’ing. The band are taking a well earned breather at being on the round for the last year, then Traceyanne will start writing the next album and of they will go again. Strangely when we did hit the dance floor we had to share it with a couple of members of Belle & Sebastian, that sort of thing always seems to happen to us in Glasgow. It’s a great place to spend time and the people are always so friendly, I think it has become our 2nd home.

Since we’ve been back I’ve watched one the best games of football that I’ve ever seen when City drew 1-1 with a very impressive West Brom side, to go back to the top of the table again. After years, no almost a decade of watching some mediocre football it was such a thrill to watch such a pulsating game where the only thing it both sides mind was going for a win. All week whenever I meet anyone that went to the game the next 20 minutes would be spent discussing in ever-increasing superlatives that wonderful game. Yesterdays 2-2 draw with Burnley was more of a bread and butter game but to be unbeaten after 7 games in a season where survival is all we ask for is something of a shock.

Aside from that, we are watching the events in Burma with growing surprise and hope. Interestingly today we were with Orynthia’s extended family and someone who hadn’t met them before. He kept trying to bring up the topic of Burma but even at this distance no one wants to discuss the situation there. It’s something I’ve got used to over the years; these things are not just a topic of discussion for them, what happens in Burma affects them, their family and friends. However I could sense his bemusement at the stonewall responses he was getting from the older generation. After several false dawns, some of them appallingly crushed by a brutal regime, maybe things are about to take a change and the family here and everyone in Burma will be able to voice their opinions without fear of retribution.

So what happened to August and September?

Well we were really busy! Most of my computer time was spent either doing publicity for a host of Grumpy Man events or working in my new role as manager of our Sunday football team Bryan Munich F.C. In addition to that we managed to fit in a week in Scotland, including a visit to the Connect Festival.

Since I've last been here, we've had 4 Grumpy Man events, despite the lack of students and people being away from Bristol at this time of the year, we managed to get through them all without too much embarrassment. Grumpy Man is fun to do but the late nights can be a bit of a killer when you have to go to work the next day. The prospect of playing records until 3 am in the morning, then getting up at 7:30 is not a pleasant one when you are 45 years old! Maybe we need some younger blood that is happy to do the late shift for us?

As ever, we had a great time whilst in Scotland. The Connect Festival line up could almost have been hand picked by Orynthia, lot's of her favourite bands (mine to) were playing, so we set off on the early morning flight from Bristol to Glasgow with high hopes. It's a journey that we have made many times in recent years and one which has often been affected by delays, consequently we allowed ourselves plenty of time between flight arrival and the coach trip to Inveraray where the festival was taking place. As luck would have it, the flight was bang on time, meaning that we had several hours to kill in Glasgow before catching our coach, time for us to have a nice breakfast and grab a copy of The List magazine, which had a nice festival guide. None of this took too long, and we managed to jump on an earlier coach then we were booked on, so just after lunchtime we arrived at the site.

The initial feeling for me was of a little bit of disappointment, organisation for getting into the site was sketchy to say the least, and the first signs of mud had already appeared! Both of us are more than a little camping phobic so we had taken the plunge and paid for a pre-erected tent with airbed and sleeping bags provided. Luckily for us this also meant that were slightly apart from the main camping area, so as the site became stickier underfoot the area around our tent remained reasonably firm.

After dumping our stuff in the tent, we made our way into the main arena and were entranced with the local food offerings and the rather splendid Loch Fyne Whisky Bar. Then the wonderful Trashcan Sinatras took to the stage and all was well in the world. After that we actually got round to sampling some of that fine food before watching Jarvis Cocker, King Creosote and the unexpectedly wonderful Jesus & Marychain. We had a brief look at the Beastie Boys (middle aged men) before heading of to bed after a very long day. Of course being the first night of a festival, everyone was in fine voice, so despite the earplugs, it took a while to get to sleep

A few things which have been keeping me entertained of late:

Music - Mainly old stuff which I'm catching up with

M Ward - End of Amnesia
M Ward - Transfiguration of Vincent
The Ladybug Transistor - Can't Wait Another Day
Pelle Carlberg - In a Nutshell
Various - Labrador 100
Jackson C Frank - Blues Run The Game
Grant McLennan - Horsebreaker Star

Books

Christopher Coake - We're In Trouble
Andrew Collins - Heaven Knows I'm Miserable now
Haruki Muarakami - After Dark
Various - Granta - Best of Young American Novelists 2

I discovered Christopher Coake in the Granta BoYAN2 book, picked up "We're in Trouble" whilst in Stockholm. It's a fantastic collection of short pieces, I'm a bit of a soft touch in the cinema and can often be found trying discreetly wipe away a tear. However I think reading the story of an old couple, where the husband is getting ready to die was the first time I've been moved to tears by a book. It was rather strange to be sitting in the sunshine of a lovely little park in Stockholm whilst trying to fight the tears. Not all the stories are in that mode but boy do they make you think about how you would react in certain situations. He's one to keep an eye.

The new Murakami was a very enjoyable somnambulistic piece.

So after an enjoyable but wet time in Norway, we jumped on another plane and made our way to Stockholm. As we waited for our luggage to come through, we wee suddenly hit by a wave of text messages from Bristol advising us that the Ashton Court festival had been abandoned because of the wet weather, we looked through the terminal windows and saw the sun shining through.

The super efficient train link whisked us into to central Stockholm and before we knew we were meant by the owner of our next temporary home. This time we had a very large apartment in the swanky Ostermalmstorg part of town, we were going to be the last people staying there, as the owner was about to sell it and move in with her partner.

Stockholm is a wonderful place, the architectural pomp and grandeur of Paris, the waterside attraction of Venice, the quirky leftfield areas of Berlin, and the cakes – the wonderful cakes of all the best cities of the world!

After coming from Norway, Sweden felt positively like bargain city, now that is obviously stretching a point but in truth it was nowhere near as expensive as we had been led to believe. We particularly enjoyed the excellent set price lunch offers, which everyone appeared to have. If we are reading our guide books correctly the “Dagens Ratt” or daily special system was set up to keep the worker happy by ensuring that they good have a good subsidized meal at an affordable price. Now that’s what I call Socialism.

As well as the huge amount of excellent waterfront walking, viewing and sitting to be done, Stockholm is blessed with a huge number of fantastic parks. Consequently we spent quite a lot of time sting in these lovely surrounding reading books and making the most of the sunshine. When we did venture inside, we spent the best part of a day in the combined modern art and architecture museum. Lot’s of interesting shopping, including some excellent record shops, the pick of these being Pet Sounds in the delightful “SoFo” district.

As the prices were so much friendlier we bought cd’s, went to the cinema a few times, and spent money on clothes and books. Wherever we went we were met charming people who almost always spoke impeccable English. Also saw lots of interesting Swedish design stuff, be it building household goods of clothes the Swedes have had so many wonderful ideas over the years.

Often when we leave great cities after a holiday I try to imagine what it would be like to actually live in somewhere like New York, Paris or Tokyo. Normally I think that it would be fantastic if you were lucky enough to have a large bank balance, now as I indicated previously, you could not really say that Stockholm is cheap but I think that you could enjoy a very good life there on a reasonable income.

I should also say that Bla Porten on the island of Djurgarden may just be the greatest cafe in the whole world!

I hope that we shall return to both Sweden and Norway in the future

We arrived back home in Bristol on Monday afternoon after a lovely trip to northern reaches of Europe.

It was a holiday of contrasts, wet but wonderful scenery in Norway, sunny and perfect metropolitan living in Stockholm. Before leaving the UK we had a pleasant little interlude in Glasgow and hooked up with some friends in Edinburgh, all told a round trip of around 2200 miles.

In Glasgow we made our normal pilgrimage to the wonderful Monorail record shop, within the Mono complex. Bought loads of CD's which they kindly agreed to post to us in Bristol, saving us from carrying them around Europe. In the evening we went to the GFT to see the beguiling Paris, je t'aime. It's a film of many parts as directors such as the Cohen brothers, Wes Craven, Gus Van Sant, Oliver Assayas, Gerard Depardieu and others take us on a fictional tour of 18 arrondissments of Paris. The next day we took the short rail trip to Edinburgh where we spent several hours having a splendidly relaxed catch up with Rhona and Duncan. Then it was off to the airport for the real adventure to start.

For the Bergen flight we were using an airline that we (and no-one else that we spoke to) had not previously heard of - Widroe. The plane was so small it didn't justify a set of steps being wheeled out to it, the door simply opened and 2 small steps dropped down to the tarmac. I'd guess that about 35 people were on board, so it was a flash back to the early days of European air travel! All went well, and later that evening we landed in a very Bergen, a sign of things to come.

Three things immediately strike you about Bergen, it's very cute, it's very hilly and it's very wet. The airport bus dropped us off and with the rain splashing onto our map and email containing the apartment address we set off. Uphill of course, suitcase wheels bouncing over the lovely cobbled streets! Arrangements regarding payment for the apartment were splendidly lax, no deposit to be paid, just turn up at the owners house which just around the corner. If they weren't at home the key would be in the little hiding place and we can pay the full amount by cash or credit card. Our genial host was at home and smiled sanguinely when we commented on the weather as he showed us around our home for the next week. We took off our damp clothes and went to bed looking forward to the next week.

Within a couple of hours of getting up the next morning Orynthia had made her first purchase, a pair of very stylish wellies. The next priority was to sort out some travel plans, the tourist information centre in the centre of town was able to take care of all our needs and we booked a 4 hour Fjord cruise from Bergen harbour and a combination day long trip called Norway in a nutshell which involved travel by train, coach, boat, mountain train, then normal train back to Bergen. Both trip gave us some amazing experiences and sights, luckily for us the weather even held up for us, so whilst we were on the Fjords we could stay outside and gawp in wonder at the amazing views which we were passing. It's probably obvious to say that If you are ever in Norway you should spend some time on the Fjords, the other I would really recommend is a trip on the Flam railway, which runs through the mountains to a station where you can switch trains to join up with the Oslo - Bergen line. It's a classic winding trip through incredible scenery, including a brief stop in front of a magnificent fast flowing waterfall, truly exhilarating stuff.

Other than that we really enjoyed the Museums alongside the large lake near the railway and bus station, the City Art Collection is in a great 1930's building, just along from that you can find the Contemporary Art collection and the Museum of Decorative Art both of which are worth a visit. The funicular ride up one of the central mountains which surround Bergen rewards you with great views, walk on a little further from the stopping and you will have some amazing scenes around Bergen. Amazingly given the normal weather conditions we found in Bergen, we made this trip on a warm and clear day so the views stretched out for miles and miles as Fjord melted into mountain and back again.

Everything that you may have heard about the prices in Norway is true. It's horrendously expensive, even for us English who are quite used to paying rather a lot for food and travel. Luckily having the appartment we could load up with things in shops and eat at home and the duty free booze that we picked up in Edinburgh airport came in very handy!

That's enough for now, update on the Stockholm part of the trip to follow.

Tomorrow we are heading north for a couple of weeks, initially our destination is Scotland. Then we move on for a week in Bergen, followed by a week in Stockholm.


It will be our first visit to Scandinavia and we are really looking forward to it. We hope to get out and about in Norway, with visits to fjords and mountains on the agenda. We have booked an apartment in both places and have sorted out our own flights, so we have a nice circular route.

We hope to catch up with some of the burgeoning Nordic music scene and the same is true for Sweden as well. Could have some interesting food and drink, but the amount will be determined by the cost of things over there.


I’ll let you know how we got on when we return.

So, I went along to The Folk House last night to see Lady Nade. I arrived early and was impressed to see that a very pleasant looking barbecue was being set up in the charming courtyard area, night lights were flickering pleasantly (it was a shame that I had eaten at home) my friend David turned up and everything was lovely.

Nade was on first, so David and I went into the cafe area where the gig was taking place, selected our seats and waited for gig to start. The place was pleasantly full and in the absence of any background music the gently hum of conversation filled the room. The band started, and a strange thing happened - the conversation level got louder. The music was subtle and intense or would have been if people hadn't been determined to talk over it. Why do people do it, is it impossible to stay quite for 3 or 4 minutes at a time? Nade and her colleagues soldiered on but you got the impression that they lost a little heart due to the lack of engagement from the crowd.

The thing that always amazes me when this happens is this, people talk avidly throughout a song and then clap and cheer wildly when it ends, as though it's been the best thing they've ever heard. Is that just a shallow attempt to assuage their guilt as deep down they know how charmless they are being?

When the main band took to the stage, it was disappointing to see that a couple of them had been sitting at one of the worst offending tables. It became clear that a lot of the crowd were friends of the band and they whopped and cheered as though Elvis, James Brown and David Bowie had wandered onto the stage. Brilliantly they then chatted all the way through the songs again - with slightly more enthusiastic applause between songs. I still can't work out why people pay to go and have a chat, why not just go to a pub?

Here is something I wrote a while ago on a similar theme:

“ Here we go, this is a great place.”

“Yep, can see it all from here.”

“Thank God, we got away from all those tall people, we never would have seen anything, stuck behind that lot.”

“You’d think that they would move aside, they must know that that people behind them can’t see.”

“ I love this one! It’s so gentle.”

“Yeah, I listen to it late at night, it’s almost like having a friend in the room with you”

“Spooky!”

“I know, but it is, it really is. It’s great when something really connects with you like that, not many bands can do it.”

“And have you listened to the words? I love the way the meaning can change depending on the mood that you are in. The other day I had a really bad row with Tony, and when I heard this again it said everything I wished I’d said.”

“But you didn’t?”

“No, you never do, do you. It’s only later that everything falls into place. I sometimes think that’s the reason people become writers.”

“What to make sure that they can win every argument?”

“In a way, wouldn’t it be strange if you had to argue like that. Right. stop! This is heading into a row - grab you pen and paper, go to separate rooms.”


“Could you do it via e-mail?’

“Oh no, that’s far too quick! The whole point of it, is that it gives you time to come up with brilliant, seemingly spontaneous, one-liners”

“Of course”

“Arguments could go on for days or weeks, but you wouldn’t be able to refer to them during normal daily life.”

“Brilliant”

“Yeah, so you don’t get any of that red faced, door slamming stuff”

“ I’m rubbish at that. One time the door just sort of went phhhwm. Useless! I wanted to rush back into the room and try again, loosing my big dramatic exit.”

“Sounds like you lost it anyway”

“I always do!”

“So under my new system, you could at least lose after a fair debate, not just because the other person throws more words at you.”

“That’s my other problem. I always end up using the same dumb words again and again. I know that each time I use them, they carry a little less weight, but I can’t think of anything new to say. I’m stuck in this ridiculous loop. In the end the other person doesn’t even have to say anything back, I whittle away at my own self confidence, seeing my reason and logic collapse around me.”

“Thesaurus!”

“What?”

“Thesaurus. You’ll be able to use all those words, you’d never dream of using in a normal row.”

“Of course.”

“Wow, I’ll sound so clever, no-one will dare to challenge me again”

“Shh - I’d like to hear the band, not you two nattering about rubbish”

(Quietly) “If only he knew. We could cut him down to size”

(Quietly) “As long as he gave us enough time to compose a suitable reply. I guess we would have to get his address, we’re posting our response to him - right?”

(Less quietly) “Someone would take care of that for us, a central database would take care of everything.”

(Not quiet at all) “ Genius, not only do we solve all arguments we create thousands of jobs as well. It’s...

“SHUT UP!!”

(Loudly) “Go and stand by the tall guys, they’ll give you all the peace and quiet you want! We’re coming up with a new way for the world to solve it’s problems.”

“Hey, not bad!”

“I’d still like to put it in writing!”

I’ve been the victim of lot’s of rather nostalgic flashbacks over recent weeks. Given that I’ve got a pretty sieve like head, it’s quite odd for me to suddenly have vivid images of 20 or even 30 years ago zipping to the front of my memory.

The main reason for these increased mental time travel is that my mum is thinking of moving into a smaller house, meaning that it’s time for me to finally remove some of my belongings from her house. Given that I moved out over 20 years ago I guess I can’t really complain about the sudden increase in the number of fully laden plastic bags which are scattered around our house.

The majority of the bags are filled with old copies of The Face magazine. When it started back in May 1980 it was an interesting mix brilliant graphics, astute (if rather pretentious) music features and an insight into a fashion world where zoot suit clad hipsters, stood alongside crew cut boys and girls wearing those all important 501’s. As the world of high fashion was (remains) something of a mystery to me those pages were rather less time consuming that the rest of the magazine for me.

Gradually the musical emphasis moved away from things that I had much interest in, the clothing and hair cuts became even more baffling to me so some time in the mid 80’s I realised that I was no longer really interested in what the magazine had to say and stopped buying it. Yet during all that time, I don’t think that I ever threw away a copy, consequently I now have in possession a collection of magazines, which is both fascinating and rather embarrassing.

There are some great features and photos but an equal number of woefully embarrassing articles on the things that those cool kids in London were doing, luckily many of which failed to make the journey down the M4 to Bristol.

Tonight my mum unearthed a collection of material relating to my cricket obsession of the 1970’s. In that special trainspotter way that teenage boys seem to have, I wasn’t satisfied with simply playing and watching the game I had to record everything that I watched as though I was my great hero of the time Bill Frindall (for those that don’t know, he was the scorer for BBC Test Match Special team on crackly old Radio 3).

Amongst countless scores sheets recording a succession of Gloucestershire defeats, all lovingly recorded in my dreadfully spindly spiders scrawl, I discovered a long forgotten letter from the great Mr Frindall himself. Also a list of members of the cricket statistician association, on which the name and address of a precocious 16 year old boy (me!) amazingly finds itself in the company of the extraordinary broadcaster John Arlott. Several invitations to association lunches are in the bag of goodies, it looks like £3.50 would have paid for a rather splendid 5-course lunch had I been able to make the journey to Edgbaston.

It is of course no surprise that a quick glance through the 12 page document reveals the list to be almost entirely male, although interestingly one female name did leap out at me, that of Eleanor Oldroyd, who is now a stalwart of Radio 5 Live, and occasional contributor to Test Match Special! I should have stuck at it, in the famous words on Marlon Brando in On The Waterfront "I could have had class. I could have been a contender. I could have been somebody (instead of a bum)."

Who knows what other treats await me?

Back in the present, it’s going to be a rather strange weekend, as Orynthia and the rest of her team from work have gone to Barcelona for a few days. Not too sure how I will be filling my time, but I may well nip along to the Folk House on Friday evening to hear the magnificent voice of Lady Nade in action with one of her many bands The Outfits.

We spent a considerable part of Saturday in the past, in the morning we had a fascinating insight into an important part of the history of Bristol, the evening saw some more recent musical memories being returned to the forefront of my mind.

The Arnos Vale cemetery is a place that we have been intending to visit for quite a while, a huge sprawling cornucopia of delights for anyone interested in social history and Victoriana it is gradually being restored of decades of neglect. A friend of ours lives next to the cemetery and was invited to take a guided walk around a few of it's highlights, luckily for us we managed to tag along.

Entering from the top end of the site and walking down the hill towards the main gate, we were insistently struck by the both density of the foliage and the graves. The cemetery is built in a fairly steep hillside and a fairly unforgiving landscape it must have been for the poor undertakers as they made their way to the plot of choice. Lots of interesting tombs around the place featuring the great and the good of bygone Bristol. It's well worth a vist if you are in Bristol.

The evening was spent in a haze of C86 nostalgia thanks to the splendid people at Big Pink Cake. We danced, quite a lot - it must have been good!

Another Grumpy Man event coming up this Synday at Mr Wolfs, here in nonance I wrote about the forthcoming entertainment.:

Bonjour, mes amis,

The world of international diplomacy is a strange and murky affair. I'm
sure that you know that from the days you spent living as a Bedouin
goat herder whilst secretly spying for the British government, that
wasn't you? Oh dear I've said too much.

Anyway back to the matter in hand, this Sunday the world will witness a
unique collaboration as the Grumpy Man DJ team join forces with the
mercurial Zed Van Traumat from Bordeaux at the famous Mr Wolfs Noodle
Bar here in Bristol. Zed, as I'm sure he is known his legions of fans
across the sea is known as an agitator and a free poet capable of
leaving audiences spellbound with his performances. He cites the likes
of Leonard Cohen, Lou Reed, and Stravinksky amongst his influences as
well as the wonderful Jacques Brel and Serge Gainsbourg. He will be
backed by a trio consisting of sax, guitar and percussion and should
provide both an invigorating musical treat as well a chance for you to
brush up on your holiday French.

As ever, the Grumpy Man collective have trawled their collections to
find the songs from every musical genre to leave you quivering in you
seat, as you sip elegantly on that last ill advised glass of Pernod
before stumbling into the night. I'm not sure about the rest of the
gang but I've been searching extra hard for any French gems in my
collection and before you ask, NO - I won't be playing Joe Le Taxi even
if Venessa Paradis is virtually a local now!

What's French for Grumpy man? It's £2 to get in, hope to see you there.

Other than that, we've been asked to curate a night of VISUAL treats as
well as Dj'ing at The Cube in late August. It's also been confirmed
that we will be playing in Minehead at the start of December when
Portishead make their long awaited return to the live music world
(other than the tantalisingly wonderful little set they played for
Grumpy Man at Mr Wolfs in February) at the ATP festival. Coupled with
the 3rd Sunday of the month residency at Mr Wolfs it's going rather
well for a group of people who remain refreshingly capable of ejecting
the CD they are supposed to be playing, nothing beats the sudden "sound
of silence" to the get the blood pumping when your standing behind that
mixer. We like to think that we are keeping the spirit of John Peel
alive!

Tom
http://www.grumpyman.co.uk/
http://www.myspace.com/grumpymanmusic
http://www.myspace.com/zedvantraumat 
http://www.zedvan.com/

Had an email chat about opera with a friend from the band Aspen Woods the other day and decided to write him the outline for a Bristol based rock opera (you know the sort of thing, a show cointaing niether rock nor opera!) regarding his life in the Bedminster area of Bristol:

So how long before we see the first Aspen Woods rock opera - The Boy from BS3?

It's the tragic tale, which follows the life of a boy, who's promise as one of the the elite Dame Emily Park skateboard team marks him out for greatness at a young age. Sadly the attention and fame start to turn his head and he is slowly seduced by the bright lights of North Street, leading to a serious addiction to Caramel Lattee's and Clarks Pie's.

It's a downward spiral for the young man, and the emotional ride comes to a head in the the tear jerking Aria "Get I some smokes, if your going to Asdal". In a stroke of genius the producer of the show employs hundreds of migrant East European smokers in as extras to furiously puff away, as a distraught Richy sings about the good old days of watching bands in smoke filled rooms. The emotion of the song coupled with peoples lack of tolerance for smoke, in the current smoke free world means that there is not a dry eye in the house.

Sadly his beautiful young girlfriend finally loses her battle with her spiralling addiction to kitch 2nd clothing from the numerous charity shops in the area and is suffocated by a pair of red velvet loon pants. Richy is distraught and plunges further into his own cafe society hell, now he living purely on Double Espresso's, his wild bulging eyes scaring off even the closest of friends, his skateborading career in tatters as his sells his last board on ebay, to pay for his own crippling addiction.

Then a miracle, stumbling along in search of the latest new cafe to open in the area, he loses his footing and slips into the healing waters of The Malago, the magical stream first cleanses his body, then miraculously his body starts to rejuvenate. Within weeks he back to his best, and is determined to give other people the same chance to start again that he had. He becomes Bristol's own John The Baptist type figure plunging hundreds of unsuspecting local chavs in The Malago and washing the Burberry and Stone Island clothing away.

He become such a local hero that George Ferguson decides to step down as king of Bedminster, bequeathing all his red trousers to Richy in the process. In an emotional finale Richy and George are on the roof of the Tobacco Factory, as a huge crowds cheer from street level. The trousers are exchanged and then tragedy - Richy attempts a fairly straightforward lap around the roof of the building, but his board gets caught up with the ill fitting hem of the newly fitted trouser. Richy plunges to his death.

As the crowds drift away Aspen Woods end the show with a dramatic 45 minute version "Get Happy", reminding everyone that we are all heading to are own judgement day.

So life goes on.

Saturday saw us taking in a few bands as the Dot-to-Dot festival came to Bristol for the first time. For those that don’t know, the festival featured an array of bands spread over 3 different locations. We took a fairly elderly approach and decided that rather than dash around like lunatics we would just watch the bands which we wanted to see, so we even popped home for some food at one point rather than watch some bands that we had no interest in – how grown up!

On the way down we nipped into the car boot sale type thing in The Cube car park and had chance to have a quick chat with the always charming Francois and finally got to meet Elena who is one of the people involved with the upcoming Tom Waits night there. I don’t know what it is about The Cube but I always come away from the place thinking that Bristol is just about the best place in the world.

First up for us where the excellent Fanfarlo, a gentle indie lo-fi gem of a band, then it was the rather more chaotic Ratty Rat Rat, who were messy but fun. We then nipped home before heading out again to catch Architecture In Helsinki, who I was initially disappointed in before being won over. The plan was to go home after them, but I thought we might as well stay around to see the much written about Kate Nash, shouldn’t have bothered. She struck me as a complete fake, with her oh so strident repetitive swearing and look at how shocking I am approach, it was just all a little desperate and tiresome – Don’t believe the hype!

Yesterday. we had a pretty lazy day as the rain lashed down without pause. Took the chance to catch up with a curious film from Hong Kong called Dumpling, which is worth a look if you are not too squeamish. Then more by accident than design we finally got to watch the BBC4 programme Hotel California - LA from The Byrds to The Eagles.

Although I like to pass myself off as someone who loves the 1977 years zero approach of punk, I must admit that the early 1970’s work of Joni Mitchell and Neil Young has always held a certain guilty attraction for me. I think that somehow it’s still coated in the air of sophistication that I aspire too, no matter how much I try to cover it up. It was fascinating to see the change from the hippy idealism to big money success at all costs approach that gradually took. How something so simple and intelligent could become mired in such self-absorption and rampant egomania was a testament to the power of drugs and money. Still I been playing my Joni Mitchell albums all day as imagine hanging out in my boho Laurel Canyon shack. I guess I’ll never learn! Go on give "Edith and the Kingpin" from The Hissing of Summer Lawns album and play and I'm sure that you will see what I mean.

Last night we met up with an old friend, well to be exact my oldest friend, to see a band in a tiny pub in Midsomer Norton. I’ve known Ian since I was around 4 years of age, so amazingly it’s over 40 years of friendship that we have to call on. Because we live on opposite sides of town, we only tend to catch up with each other 3 or 4 times a year but when we do the bond is re-established with effortless ease. How lovely it is to have a friendship such as that.

Imagine then the feelings going through my brain when I received a shocking phone call at home today from one of my colleges. Just over a year ago, two chaps joined us who not only went all through nursery and school together, they have also worked with one another in seven different jobs as well as making music together. All told they have racked up around 25 years of the best sort of friendship. Today one of them turned up at work complaining of feeling unwell during the night, a feeling that had carried on into the morning. He left work with instructions from his long time friend to get things checked, sadly he went straight home and then suddenly had a massive heart attack which has taken Terry from us.

At work I sit next to his long time friend Kevin, so it was clear for me to see the fabulous bond that these two guys had, Given my joy at catching up with my old friend last night, the shattering sense of loss which must be going through Kevin struck me hard. I roughly knew where Kev lives so on the off chance that he would be there; I drove down to see if I could catch up with him. As luck would have it I caught sight of him outside his house so was able to go in and spend a short while with him and his family as they struggled to come to terms with this mornings events.

As always on these sorts of occasions there were tears and laughter as stories were told of events from the past. Last night they had been working together and Kevin’s brother said that he still had the image in his head of Terry getting the crowd going as he took control of the mic to show his MC skills. Tomorrow Terry was due to be taking some local kids that he coached at football to see his beloved Arsenal, so sad that this terrible blow couldn’t have waited at least a few more days, if it had to fall so soon in his life.

Truly a man who was part of his community, I’m sure that many, many people will miss him and his infectious chuckle. Terry’s struggles to stay awake at team meetings and presentations were always a source of amusement to the rest of us, sadly we’ve lost him to a sleep that he won’t suddenly jerk out of.

A few months ago I was sitting next to Terry on a short coach journey back from a meeting, unusually rather than my normal inane chat about football and music we discussed things of a more spiritual nature. Whilst I stated my opinion that death brings an end to everything, he was quite sure that something else would follow and that he had high hope for one that would bring him. I’m sure that he didn’t envisage making the journey so soon but for his sake I hope that his vision of the future is right this time.

Terry Young R.I.P.

On Sunday evening we went to see the "This is England" the latest film from the very talented Shane Meadows. It's a brilliantly unsettling look at life in 80's England. The film charts the progress of a young lad as he make friends with a group of skinheads, showing the way the promise of friendship and a sense of belonging can foster loyalty which leads to some very unpleasant situations.

The kinship offered to the 12 year old by his new streetwise friends tempts him into ever more worrying scenarios. It's a testament to Shane Meadows skill as a director, that you can understand the attractions of being part of this gang. We are allowed to see behind the veneer of the shaved heads and the Doc Martin boots to the witty and supportive soul of the group.

The film is set at the time of the Falklands war, so it's a period I remember well. I grow up in Fishponds, a suburb of Bristol which always had a smattering of skinheads even when the rest of England appeared to be devoid of them. Having said that I didn't ever really have that much direct contact with our local "Skins". In the very late 70's the burgeoning mod and Two Tone scene saw a rise in their numbers, but I was still able to keep out their way. As someone who went to a lot of gigs around that time, I became quite used to huge fights breaking out in the middle of gigs, sometimes Skins were involved, sometimes Punks, sometimes the curious Psychobilly slam dancers who would provoke a little ruck. It was always the skinheads that caused me the most concern, although as I said earlier I had no personal experience of them.

Earlier in the weekend we went out for a fantastic meal at Green's Dining Room at Zetland Road, how nice to have such a wonderful place within walking distance of our house.

Bank Holiday Monday was spent at Redland Fair, as ever a very social occasion for us. I must be getting old as this year I bought neither records or books, yet I did buy a small 50's looking vase - I know, I'm shocked as well!

Tonight we are heading down to The Thekla to see the American band "Saturday Looks Good To Me", not really sure what sort of crowd they will attract as they have a pretty low profile. On Saturday we were meant to be seeing the excellent Absentee, but sadly the gig has been scraped as tour headliners Larakin Love have split up, how selfish of them!

Other than that, we've got tickets for the Venn Festival, Apples In Stereo and The Decemberists sitting in our ticket drawer at the moment.

Over recent weeks I've been enjoying new albums by Panda Bear, Cornelius, Apples In Stereo, Au Revoir Simone as well as the songs for the "Young at Heart" project and the live EP from Joanna Newsome.

I'm currently enjoying a book which I have started and given up on a couple of times of the past 25 years! It's Herzog by Saul Bellow and for some reason I'm really enjoying it's acerbic take on the life of a middle aged man in early 1960's New York. Maybe I've just reached the right age at last, because for all his flaws Herzog now comes across as a very believable man.

Oh yes, Bristol City got promoted - how amazing is that!

Had an excellent weekend, started on Thursday with a visit to The Cube to see Alasdair Roberts. Before the gig we managed to catch up with Gerry Love of Teenage Fanclub fame, who is part of Alasdair's band at the moment. We had exchanged a couple of messages with him about the prospect of him doing a guest DJ spot at Grumpy Man. He was absolutely charming and is indeed keen to join us for a night later in the year. Quite a few other friends were out as well, making it a splendid evening - the band were good as well.

Friday sawn an impromptu Grumpy Man gathering as we all went to a friends wedding reception. This took place in the Ramada Hotel, now when I was kid this place was known as The Dragonara and was known the hot spot of sophisticated middle class dinning because of the restaurant which was housed in the large conical Kiln building. Orynthia and I took the chance to take a quick look inside and the place was certainly buzzing although it has to be said the menu had more than a touch of a retro feel about it.

Saturday was a keep in local day, we made to short walk up to the shops on Henleaze Roadand spent an interesting hour looking at the shops and amazing houses around there before returning to spend some time in the garden. Lot's of time was spent on our burgeoning Vegetable and Herb area we even managed to use a lot of compost from one our compost bins, the amount of excitement that a meal when most of the ingredients have been grown in our own garden is really quite amazing - we must be getting old!

On Saturday evening we went along to the Lansdown in Clifton to see one of the many local bands which I've been in contact with as a result of Grumpy Man. The band in question are "Slow" and very good they are too. From their name and the Grumpy Man connection you can probably guess that they are exactly a speed metal outfit. The band that they are closet to, would be Low and they are able to weave a similarly hypnotic power from a seemingly simple musical format. oh and they do have one absolutely wonderful song, it's called Seeds and you really should give it a listen.

Well it's been a long time.

So much has been going on and most of the time when I've been sitting in front of the computer I've been concentrating on Grumpy Man related stuff, booking holidays or working out all the possible permutations as Bristol City attempt to gain promotion to the championship.

Grumpy Man has been amazing over the last couple of months, I'm sure that everyone who reads this knows that I DJ with a few friends under the Grumpy Man name. I've been doing for about 18 months now and it's been a fun time. In February, we arranged a special guest DJ spot for my friend Geoff Barrow of Portishead fame. Now that was exciting enough as suddenly we started to receive interest from the local media, then on the Tuesday before Sunday night gig, geoff call asking if the band could actually play a couple of songs live? The answer was obviously YES!! The only problem over the next few days was trying not to let the news slip out, Geoff asked that we keep it quiet and somehow we managed to do this. Come the evening people turned up expecting to hear Geoff DJ'ing and were amazed when suddenly Geoff, Ade and Beth launched into a wonderfully atmospheric version of Wandering Star from the first album. Don't take my word for how good it was take at look at the performance here. They then played an equally spellbinding as yet untitled song from the forthcoming album, the crowd went wild. The fun continued until 2 in the morning as the crowd (including Liz Fraser of Cocteau Twins fame) hung around for what was an amazing evening.

Since then we had a couple of other really nice "Grumpy" evenings with lot's of interest from local bands and even more amazingly it looks like we are going to be involved in a couple of ATP events this year. Where next for Grumpy Man?

We've been away for a while.

Part of the reason that updates to this site were shall we say, limited during December, was that I had been asked to write some reviews for a website in America.Previously I've sent a couple of pieces into The Global Cafe myspace site, and when I sent them my list of albums of the year (see below) they wrote to say that they were compiling a top 50 for their newly revamped website, and could I write a short piece on ten of the records which appeared on both of our lists. It was quite an interesting thing for me to think about the phrasing and structure of those pieces and was good fun to do. When their website is updated I'll put a link here so that you can see how badly I misunderstood your favourite album of the year.

It's actually been a very quiet period for us musically of late. We did go to see Fuzz Against Junk on December 23rd as our friend Steve is the drummer in the band and it was his birthday that day. They played with Crippled Black Phoenix, who seemed to have a little less light and shade then when we saw them previously. There are rumours that Fuzz Against Junk may be involved in an upcoming live show in conjunction with the 6music show "The Freakzone", which would be great for them.

On the music buying front, Orynthia gave me a copy of the solo album from Jarvis Cocker which I'm enjoying. I picked up a copy of the debut album from former Imperial Music main man RLF, he now records under the name Bass Clef and the record is called "A smile is a cure which straightens most things" and it's really rather wonderful. If I'd heard it earlier in December it would certainly made it into my chart, in fact it was listed as the tenth best dance album of last year by those hipsters at The Sun! The record itself is reminiscent of the work of people like The Sabres Of Paradise and Mad Professor, heavy on the bass with fascinating aural soundscapes it's well worth investigating.

So that's almost it for 2006, we've had a nice time over the Xmas period. On Xmas Eve over recent years we've spent my birthday visiting some of the newer attractions in Bristol, this year was looking a little tricky as many places closed due to the fact that it was falling on a Sunday. Eventually Orynthia had a stroke of genius and realised that one of the older attractions would be open, so for the first time in years, we took the walk across The Downs to visit Bristol Zoo.

As luck would have it several friends were having a knockabout game of football on The Downs, so we could pause briefly to watching exerting themselves before continuing our journey. Many things have changed since we were last in The Zoo, the majority of the large animals have gone, so no more Elephants, Polar Bears, Camels, Giraffes and the like. Luckily they still have lots of entertaining creatures with plenty of Monkey choices to keep us amused.

The last time (and only previous joint visit) we went to the Zoo has stayed in our memory, thanks to a fantastic lack of customer service from the old cafeteria. I can't remember the exact scenario but it went something like this. The menu had the usual array of food that was available in 1980's Bristol, very much in the "chips with everything mould" So you could have sausage, egg and chips or bacon, egg and chips amongst other splendid choices. However, I asked if I could have sausage, egg and bacon. They obviously had all these ingredients just a case of working a cost I assumed. So it was rather odd to be told that I could not have that as it was not a choice on the menu card. It was a classic example of the English approach to food and service.

Things have moved on a little since then, but to remind myself of the good old days, we went for fish and chips with the obvious choice of drink - mulled wine, all very nice too. As darkness started to fall, we continued our journey and I particularly enjoyed watching the Seals playing around, the Red Panda and some amazing birds.After that we took a lovely walk through Clifton in order catch up with some friends, before heading home at around 10pm.

Christmas day was spent with various family and friends in several houses, before returning home with Orynthia's mother and brother who were both spending the night with us. I obviously slept well, as it 11:15 on Boxing Day morning before I awoke from my slumbers. Then Orynthia dropped me down to the Nova Scotia, so I could catch up the Ashton Gate faithful before our 2-2 draw. Following the game a few old friends and associated children came over to our place for tea, cakes and cheese, some how several bottles of wine were consumed as well. Because many of our friends have moved around it was the first time that some of them had seen each other in years, it was nice to be a catalyst and watch some (very) old friendships being renewed.

Records of the year?

BEST RECORDINGS OF 2006

1. TOM WAITS – Orphans
2. HOT CHIP – The Warning
3. CAMERA OBSCURA – Let’s Get Out Of This County
4. SUFJAN STEVENS – The Avalanche
5. M. WARD – Post
6. ABSENTEE – Schmotime
7. THE DECEMBERISTS – The Crane Wife
8. BELLE & SEBASTIAN – The Life Pursuit
9. JOAN AS POLICEWOMAN –Real Life
10. MICAH P HINSON – Micah P Hinson And The Opera Circuit

11. Math And Physics Club – Math And Physics Club
12. Yo La Tengo –I’m Not Afraid Of You And I Will Beat Your Ass
13. Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan – Ballad Of The Broken Seas
14. The Essex Green – Cannibal Sea
15. The Flaming Lips – At War With The Mystics
16. The Strokes – First Impressions Of Earth
17. Joanna Newsome – Ys
18. Sparklehorse – Dreamt For Years In The Belly of A Mountain
19. Tilly & The Wall – Bottoms of Barrels
20. The Dears – Gang Of Losers
21. Arctic Monkeys – Whatever People Say I Am……
22. Joe Volk – Derwnt Waters Sound
23. Various – The Kids At The Club: An Indiepop Compilation
24. Jim Noir – Tower Of Love
25. The Divine Comedy – Victory For The Comic Muse
26. Francois & The Atlas Mountains – The People To Forget
27. Sol Seppy – The Bells Of 1 2
28. Thom Yorke – The Eraser
29. Little Name – How To Swim And Live
30. Rose Melberg – Cast Away The Clouds
31. Peter, Bjorn & John – Writer’s Block
32. Amy Millan – Honey From the Tombs
33. Sondre Lerche & The Faces Down Quartet – Duper Sessions
34. Various – Stones Throw; Ten Years
35. Tapes ‘n Tapes – The loon
36. Louis Slipperz – Bareback Instrumentals
37. Lambchop – Damaged
38. Cut Chemist – The Audience’s Listening
39. The Concretes – In Colour
40. Electric President – Electric President