I’ve fallen a bit behind with my reading recently, so I only got round to reading The Last Words On Earth by Nicole Krauss today. It was published in the Feb 9th edition of the New Yorker and I found it strangely affecting. Why not give it a go yourself.

As well as trying to catch up on my New Yorker backlog, I’m also reading the excellent Michael Chabon book, The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, which is great fun so far (I’m about 280 pages into this 600 plus page monster).

I also read my first ever complete graphic novel, if that’s the right phrase? It was called It’s A Good Life If You Don’t Weaken by Seth. I just noticed that it’s actually described as a picture- novella on the cover. I started to get interested in these sort of things after seeing the film Ghost World a couple of years ago.

I really like Seth’s style of drawing, it’s very simple yet strangely nostalgic. Sort of reminds of an old James Stewart film, although the book is a contemporary one. I guess it feels old because it’s all down in shades of grey/blue/black.

Our trip to The Field on Sunday evening was a pretty amazing experience. After parking the car, we had a 10-minute walk through the fields to the site of the installation. Here we found masses of fluorescent light tubes, set in rows underneath the main electricity pylons. Then we had to wait until darkness fell, it was absolutely freezing cold, on this very exposed hillside, and poor John and Jane had not bought hats with them (John did not even have gloves!). Eventually the daylight started to go and the tubes started to glow, purely from the electrical fall out from the cables overhead.

It was a strange and spooky experience, which was heightened, by the biting chill in the air, we prompted us to make our departure sooner rather than latter. You can see some pictures here, but they don’t really capture the strangeness of the evening. We rushed home for some hot alcohol to thaw out!

Really enjoyed the Fiery Furnaces gig in Cardiff. The only problem with The Barfly, is that the stage is so low that it may as well be a hole in the ground. Consequently, in order to see anything you have to get yourself right to the front. Luckily RLF, Beren and I managed to do this. The rest of our little group stayed nearer the back and enjoyed the gig less than we did. The band was much nosier than I expected and a lot of the songs were quite different in the live setting, from their recorded versions. Lets hope they make it to Bristol next time.

Talking about music in Bristol, local improv, free rock/jazz kings Fuzz Against Junk finally have their self-titled album released via the eclectic Invada Rocks label. Anyone who has seen them in live action, will already expect the unexpected. I’ve seen them playing as 3 piece doing folky/blues instrumentals then sometimes they are a 6 or 7 piece outfit sounding more like a mixture of Sun Ra and Hawkwind. The record is full of great ideas, once these boys find a grove they really work it.

In a few hours we hope to go and see this. Should be interesting.

And yes City did make it 11 straight wins yesterday, it’s all getting rather strange! We really aren’t used to this sort of thing.

I’d just like to say thanks again to everybody that sent Orynthia and I their best wishes recently. It was really nice of you all to take the time.

The funeral was held on Wednesday morning, and went as well as could have done. It was lovely to see that so many people wanted to be part of the day, quite a few people travelled very large distances to join us. As well as being a sad occasion, many happy memories were recounted, prompted in no small part by the fantastic collection of photo’s, showing Don with friends and family from his days back in Burma, right up to the last family picture taken on Christmas morning, which were on display around the hall.

So now we have to get on with the next phase of our life, tonight we are going over to Cardiff to see the American band Fiery Furnaces at The Barfly. I really enjoyed their album, which came out last year, so am hoping for a good night. It’s actually a bit of a works outing for me as Mark. RLF and Beren are also making the journey. In an effort to avoid too much shoptalk Orynthia and Jane are also coming along to keep us in check.

We have quite a few things lined up for the forthcoming months, The Libertines on March 4th,Trashcan Sinatras and Camera Obscura in London on March 12th,Jonnathan Richmond on April 11th, Lambchop in Bath on April 19th and finally something a bit different Derren Brown the mentalist on April 29th.

Bristol City have managed to keep up their good form, in fact the midweek victory at Grimsby was our 10th win in row, meaning that the team are in their best run of form since 1905! That win also took us to the top of the league, so with 15 games to go, it looks as though we do have a real chance of getting promotion this season.

I am sorry to say that Orynthia's Dad passed away on Tuesday evening. Although he has been through several operations and was in pain for much of the time, he went peacefully in his sleep.

As requested by Ian (see comments below), you can hear the Banana song here

Many thanks for all the kind thoughts and good wishes; Orynthia’s dad is now looking much, much better.

So other than hospital trips, it’s been a fairly quiet week. We went to see the latest Tim Burton film “Big Fish” earlier in the week, and although it is a strange mixture of Billy Liar, Forest Gump (not a good thing in my book) and It’s a Wonderful Life, mixed up with Burton’s madcap visual flair, it works more often than it fails. For the first time in years, we actually missed the start of the film, something I hate doing. I don’t think we missed too much, luckily one of Ashton’s friends was in the cinema and was able to give us a quick run through after the film.

Tomorrow City are at home again, this time looking for their 8th win in a row, so I’ll be at that cheering them on.

On Monday night I’m off to see The Rapture at The Fleece, this is the 3ed date for the gig so lets hope that it actually happens this time. On the music front, the cutting edge albums, which I have bought home this week, are “Waves In The Ether”. It gathers together albums made in 1947, 1948 and 1950 featuring the Theremin and some fantastically over the top orchestral arrangements. It’s barmy and great fun. The other disc is by Ray Ventura & ses Collegiens. Oddball novelty jazz songs from 1935-47, sung in French. It features a great version of “We like Bananas, because they have no bones” called “Vive Les bananas!” Splendid stuff in both cases.

Well we have had a pretty extraordinary time since I last wrote anything here!

Just after my last entry, we received a phone call from Orynthia’s sister saying that we should get to the hospital as soon as possible. We dashed off as quickly as we could, and when we arrived things were looking very, very worrying. During the afternoon and evening the rest of the family arrived, and we took turns sitting with Don and talking about all sorts of memories. It was a long and frightening experience, only eased by the shared feeling of bemused and shocked support that we took from each other.

After the other patient’s visitors had left we were still sitting anxiously around the bedside, when a strange thing happened. One of the other patients put on a cassette of some wonderful old Frank Sinatra songs. The mood on the ward seemed to change, Orynthia’s mum was convinced that Don could hear the songs and somehow the level of tension seemed to drop by a few notches. Eventually we made our way home, making sure that no-one would be stuck at home without transport, tried to sleep (without much success) and hoped that the phone would not ring in the night. Obviously we cancelled our planned trip to Bilbao.

Saturday morning came, without disturbance. Don had been stable overnight and by the time we got to the hospital, he appeared to be a little brighter. Once again the whole family were in attendance, so as well as sitting with Don, we sat in the day room in small groups and also chatted to other patients who were very supportive. It was decided that most of the family would come back to our house for a traditional Burmese meal at the end of the day, and amazingly we left the hospital sufficiently heartened by the day’s progress to turn the meal into a mini celebration, which had the feeling of a Christmas gathering.

Once again Saturday evening saw family members sleeping over, at various homes. The night passed peacefully and when we went into the hospital on Sunday, amazingly Don was sitting up, eyes open and talking. The sense of relief and joy was really incredible. Some of things he was saying were more than a bit confused, but after 48 hours of being out of it, who could blame him. In fact some of the things he said caused us to laugh out loud and brilliantly he joined in! His face turning into a huge beaming smile, one of the most fantastic sights I have ever seen. Sunday evening saw another mass meal this time at Don’s brothers house, with everyone in high spirits.

He still has a long way to go, but the events of this remarkable weekend will live with all of us for a very long time.

Last night I had the unexpected delight of seeing, the wonderful E.S.T. in fantastic form at St Georges. I say unexpected, because the opportunity to go to the gig, only arose in mid afternoon. They really are a brilliant group, who manage to escape the normal confines of a jazz trio, thanks to their innovative approach to sound, which works particularly well in a live environment.

Tomorrow we head off to Bilbao, I’ve stocked up on reading matter for the trip. The 600 plus pages of “The Amazing Adventure of Kavalier & Clay” should take most of my time, just in case I need further stimulus, I’ve got the latest 2 copies of the New Yorker magazine to get through as well. The weather forecast looks pretty good, considering that Bilbao is one of the wettest places in Spain, so we are hopping for lazy spells sitting reading in parks or outside café’s.

The reason for going away at this time of year is that February 4th marks our 17th wedding anniversary. We normally try to go away somewhere to celebrate, even if it’s only a few days in London. Quite often the weather can cause delays (our flight to Nice was cancelled last year!), so I’m pleased to see that the thaw has well and truly kicked in. Tomorrow, we will be driving to local railway station, getting a train to Temple Meads, from their we get a coach to Bristol Airport, from Bilbao airport we hope to get a bus to our hotel. Shame that we can’t fit a boat trip in as well to get most of the forms of transport covered!

So after the biggest build up since the 3rd Oasis album, the snow finally reached us. In the same way that the record was such a disappointment, the expected blizzards failed to arrive. We had a brief spell of snow, which has now frozen solid on the ground leaving everything looking very slippery this morning. Indeed last night, we went straight to the hospital to see Orynthia’s dad and due to some complications which arose when we were there, we did not get home until 10pm, by which time the short walk from the car to front door of the house, had become a decidedly tricky operation.

Bristol City managed another win on Tuesday evening, so that makes it 7 straight victories now. We are only 2 points off the second promotion place, so who knows, maybe this season it may all come good for us. Certainly we have the most balanced team and squad that I have seen at Ashton Gate for many seasons.

In the wonderful world of Imperial Music everything has gone very Ninja! No, we are not leaping around drop kicking customers away from the counter, the Ninja Tunes record label is having a big promotional push at the moment and we been selling loads of their stuff. The likes of DJ Food, Amon Tobin, Cinematic Orchestra and Mr Scruff amongst others have been flying out of the shop, Indeed towards the end of business on Monday, one guy spent over £100 pounds on Ninja stuff, when you consider that these CD’s are selling for £4.99 to £6.99 you can imagine what a huge pile he came to the counter with.

Wow the Camera Obscura gig sure was packed! I’ve never seen so many people in The Cube. A top night though, really enjoyed Jessie’s latest Morning Star line up, in their role as support band. Camera Obscura were great, even if they did have a few problems remembering the words!

Football dominates the start of the week for me, playing on Monday evening and all the weather forecasts seem to thing that it’s going to absolutely freezing! Then on Tuesday City are home against Colchester, bizarrely City have managed to win their last 6 games, amazing when you consider that normally we are lucky to pick up 6 points in the whole month.

Last night we watched the splendid Man Without A Past on BBC4, quirky and understated we both enjoyed it greatly. We also watched the documentary film Etre et Avoir, which was mildly diverting but no more than that. Still it’s great to see this sort of films on TV.

So Orynthia’s dad has had most of his left leg removed. It’s strange though, at first this sounded like such terrible news, but last Friday we had a real scare because of the problems that the poisons in his leg were causing him. So, with hindsight getting the leg removed sounds like the better option, if it stops additional problems within his body. His brother is in the same hospital for an operation today, so at least we can visit both of them at the same time rather than dash from hospital to hospital.

On a much less serious point, I managed to make quite a fool of myself in the shop yesterday. Jumping up from the lower levels of our CD racks, I managed to smash my forehead into one of the (actually pretty thick) hard plastic dividers, which we use to separate the vinyl. Resulting in a pretty stupid looking red line across my forehead, looking like an unfinished mark of Zorro!

Only just over a week to go before our trip to Bilbao, we really need to get organised for that, it’s creeping up on us very quickly.

Had a bit of a mixed bag of a weekend. On Friday we went to see the really rather good American Splendor at The Orpheus. On Saturday I saw Bristol City win their 5th game on the trot, although it has to be said the 4-0 score line did flatter us somewhat. Whilst I was enjoying that Orynthia was with her dad in the hospital. Then on Sunday we travelled down to see my dad in Devon, as he has now returned home from his hospital stay.

Quite a strange day in the shop, time for the annual January clear out. Some stuff being returned, other stuff being marked down. Kept seeing great Jazz albums being reduced and just wanted to buy them all. Still if you like Jazz and still have a record player, why not pop into Imperial Music, Park Street, Bristol and see what takes your fancy.

We are off to see the lovely Camera Obscura on Friday at The Cube, and was delighted to see that their first album has just been re-released, so I picked up a copy of that one straight away!

Well we spent last night in the company of the very strange but always beguiling Howe Gelb at St Georges. We both really enjoyed his album The Listener, which we picked up in Paris during our trip in April. I must confess to only hearing a little bit of his work with Giant Sand, and the vast array of material that he has recorded in the past 20+ years, so we did not really know what to expect.

Fortified by some excellent noodles from Wagamamas and sublime cakes from Boston Tea Party, we made our way to St Georges in a good mood. This was increased when we bumped into several friends in the bar (some of whom, had seats next to us by complete coincidence!). The start of the show was somewhat strange, Howe Gelb shuffled around the stage moving instruments around, whilst music played over the PA. He then walked over to a portable CD player and abruptly stopped a song mid way through, indicating that the show was about to commence.

As it turned out the CD player played an important part in the events of the evening. He used it to play us some unfinished tracks from the new Giant Sand album (joining in with some guitar solo’s as he did so), also using it to have Miles Davis add a trumpet solo to one of his songs and using some of the CD’s as effects by placing them on the stings of his piano, which produced at strange metallic sound, not dissimilar to a harpsichord.

The first 15 or 20 minutes of the show produced a lot of a confusion as Howe ambled around trying to find “the vibe” of the room, seemingly with no real idea about what he intended to do. Eventually he called Jon Parrish onto the stage to play drums and the addition of another musician seemed to have a calming effect, as he went on to perform some beautiful piano based songs. When he switched to the electric guitar things seemed a bit messy again, but that may be down to the acoustics of the room rather than the performer. Anyway it all made for a very entertaining (if occasionally confusing) evening. He is truly a maverick figure, completely at home with the idea of challenging both himself and the audience.

My dad returned home yesterday after his recent heart attack. The signs are good for the future, as long as he can keep away from the Clotted Cream, not easy for the men in our family! Things are not so good with Orynthia’s dad at the moment, but I don’t really want to go into that too much for the time being.

One of the benefits of my new job is that I don’t start work until 10am, consequently I have more lazing around time in bed every morning. This used to consist of me laying in bed watching the breakfast news on TV. However since Xmas channel 4 have given up on having any sort of studio based show and has decided to give us old runs of comedy shows. One of these is called “Everybody Loves Raymond”. I don’t know anything about the show, not sure if it’s been shown over here before (it’s obviously a few years old) but I’m hooked. It still feels slightly decadent to be watching this sort of show at 8am, but why not?

Since Christmas I’ve been reading the Chet Baker biography – “Deep In A Dream”. It’s a pretty brutal book, the level of self-destruction which Baker and his fellow Jazz musicians put themselves through is really quite amazing. I still can’t figure out how Baker made such brutal music whilst his was so busy destroying everything around him.

Things have been a bit quiet on the music front, really enjoying the new 10 inch ep from The Earlies. Had a sneak preview of the new albums by Franz Ferdinand and Lambchop and they both sound good.

Well our trip to London was certainly rich in contrasts. From the cheap and cheerful indie splendour of the Ladybug Transistor gig in shabby old Kings Cross, to the opulent glamour of tea at The Ritz, I think we covered most of the bases.

After arriving in London around lunchtime, we decided to head off to The Design Museum for our first visit for several years, in order to catch the Alison & Peter Smithson exhibition. It was a bit disappointing to find that for one week only the museum was closed for maintenance work! We caught the bus up to Liverpool Street station and then had a wander around the Spitalfields Market – Brick Lane area for a while.

After checking into our hotel (where we discovered that breakfast was included in our bargain price), we set off for the gig. The evening got off to a slightly farcical start when we found ourselves part of a small group of fans (including one of the Ladybug Transistor and the obligatory Japanese indie fans, everyone being very nice and chatty) outside the venue, watching as the staff tried to bludgeon open a very resistant front door. Eventually, the door was prised open and in we went. The night was the middle evening of a 3-day mini festival set up by the people at Track And Field, so we had four bands from the labels roster to entertain us.

First up were Homescience, who were pleasant enough, but seemed to lack any defining quality, which would make them stand out from the crowd. Next were The Finishing School, who I really enjoyed. They are yet another offshoot from The Ladybug Transistor (in fact the whole band minus Gary Olson), Sasha Bell is very much in control of this project, judging buy some other reviews I have read, people appear to have doubts about her voice, but I though it was lovely, imagine Natalie Merchant fronting a more 60’s sounding keyboard lead 10.000 Maniacs and you won’t be far wrong.

By way of contrast, the next band to take to the rather chilly stage area were The Broken Family Band, They are that strangest of all things an English country band. Wonderfully cynical, with more than a touch of early Loudon Wainwright about them, they were very entertaining and certainly went down well with the enthusiastic crowd.

Finally the wonderful Ladybug Transistor arrived on stage, giving us our first chance to see them since discovering them at The Bowlie back in 1999. They played a great selection of their best songs, including plenty from their recent and best self-titled album. Gary Olson has the best crooning voice in the world and we just love the minimal simplicity of Jeff Barron’s guitar playing (also love his strange knee’s and feet together, bottom thrust out stance as he drifts through those beautiful solo’s!). We took the short walk back to our hotel with a jaunty skip in our step.

On Friday morning we caught the tube to Camden and had one of those fortunate instances, where we found a great building by chance. On a whim, on leaving the tube station we went looking for the Jewish museum. Our track was unsuccessful, but we did come across Greater London House, formerly the Carreras cigarette factory. It’s recently been restored to its Tutankhamun inspired Art Deco beauty. A pair of huge cats guards the entranceway, whilst rather bizarrely the building is topped with an enormous row of smiling cats heads, which go the full length of this extraordinary building. Camden itself was rather disappointing, in the old days, you really felt that you could find anything there, now with a few exceptions it appears to either clothing or food, some of which is great, but the variety which made it fascinating is somewhat lacking.

We then made our way back into the west end in order to meet up with Crescentia for our afternoon tea at the Ritz. It was splendid, and even committed cake lovers such as ourselves had to admit defeat in the end and wave some away.

Things are going well for my dad, we are off to London for a couple of days.

On Friday evening we bravely ventured off to The Cube to see the latest knock about from the Coen brothers, Intolerable Cruelty. I say bravely because at this time of year The Cube can be a rather daunting prospect.

We have no problem with their splendidly idiosyncratic programming, or the fact that you can take piece of home made cake or pleasant drink of Polish vodka into the auditorium with you. Nor do we mind the fact that it’s quite likely that the film could start much later than the advertised time (approx 15 minutes on Friday) for any number of strange reasons. In fact all of these things help to make The Cube the wonderful place that it is. No the problem is that winter visits to The Cube, can be similar to sitting in an igloo, wearing only your underwear. To be honest it can be absolutely freezing! Any way this time we decided to go prepared, so as well as coats, hats and gloves, Orynthia came up with the brilliant idea of taking a blanket as well. To be fait to the marvellous folk who run the place, the place was nowhere near as cold as it has been on previous visits (see January 8th2003), but it still gave us a toasty glow, as we snuggled under the blanket like a couple of pensioners on a daytrip to Weston Super Mare.

We really enjoyed the film, a classic screwball comedy, worthy of anything from the 1940’s heyday of that genre. George Clooney was just marvellous as the superbly slimy legal whiz, bought to his knees by the startling beauty of Catherine Zeta-Jones.

We spent yesterday with my dad and step mum, in the hospital in Taunton (thanks for the messages of good will), he was in good spirits. Tomorrow he undergoes the tests, which should give us an indication of the extent of the damage.

So here we are in 2004, the old year ended on a familiar note for me yesterday with a hospital visit! Over the Xmas period my dad suffered a heart attack, luckily it looks as though it was only a mild one, so hopefully things should be alright in the long run.

Mark kindly let me take yesterday morning off, so I set off at 8am for the hour journey to the hospital in Taunton. Orynthia was working, so for the first time in awhile I found myself heading off to a potentially traumatic family situation without her at my side. I have to admit that I was quite pensive during the drive, but was delighted to find dad up and about and in good spirits. The facilities really are excellent. Alongside his bed he has a strange sort of pod, which houses TV, radio, Internet and E-mail access along with a phone, which enables us to call directly to his bed for a chat at any time. He is in a large room of his own, with en-suite facilities, so we were laughingly comparing this with some of the lower grade hotels, which we have both stayed in over the years. It’s good to see the much-maligned National Health Service coming up trumps.

Nature managed to provide a stunning diversion for me during the journey. The day had dawned clear and cold in Bristol. However as my journey took me into Somerset, the spectacular low lying fog over the Somerset levels made for some beautifully mysterious images, as several feet of fog hovered over the fields with the pinkish glow of the winter sunshine peeping through both above and below.

So in next few weeks, my sister will be starting the next phase of her chemotherapy cancer treatment, Orynthia’s mum will be having a heart bypass operation, Orynthia’s dad continues to come to terms with being in a wheelchair, and my dad will be recuperating from this incident. No point in us getting despondent though, it’s just one of the natural consequences of aging, inevitably people of our parents generation will have more health problems. As we can’t actually do anything about those medical issues, we just have to offer the help and support which we are able to and carry on enjoying our free time as much as we can.

We spent last night at home with Caroline, Jane (John was involved with the big Blowpop party) and from about 11:15 Jon and Katja joined us to see the New Year in. With the exception of Jane they all stayed over, although poor Katja had a rather disturbed evening and morning, requiring several visits to the smallest room, not a pleasant way for her to start the year, but I’m sure many others found themselves in a similar situation this morning.

Went back to work yesterday, for my first Saturday working in the shop. It was actually a pretty quiet day, many of the cafés and bars on Park Street were closed, so it felt more like a Sunday really. I like the fact that at this time of year it’s really easy to lose track of the days of the week. Today I’m off see Bristol City play Bournemouth, obviously that would normally take place on a Saturday, so tomorrow I’m going to be convinced that it’s Sunday, better make sure that we both remember to go to work. Then when we get back on track they go and throw New Years day at us, so another day off and more mental confusion for a simple chap like me.

We had a gently social time over the past few days. Met up with a few friends on Xmas eve to celebrate my birthday, had to have a late change of venue for our lunch gathering as the place which we had booked, was not actually serving food, although they had neglected to tell us this. Still we managed to find a nice café on Gloucester Road and had a fine time. After the meal a few of us popped into the excellent Repsycho, where we marvelled at their wonderful collection of the kitsch and the classic from the 50’s 60’s and 70’s.

Xmas day itself went really well, we finally staggered home and just about managed to stay awake to watch Belleville Rendez-Vous. Boxing day was a very lazy, apart from a brief trip to the dustbin, I did not leave the house all day, which was fine.

Whilst I was working Orynthia introduced her cousin Caroline (who is spending Xmas with us) to delights of the ladies lunch club at the Boston Tea Party.

Last night we popped round to see Rick and Louise and as is often the way. I found myself engaged in a long an interesting conversation about music with one of Rick’s friends. Having started off talking about “cool” bands like Joy Division, we eventually found ourselves admitting to our Prog Rock and Heavy Metal past’s. We all have our skeletons in the cupboard.

Record of the Xmas period for me, is the latest brilliant album by Outkast – Speakerboxxx/The Love Below. Really inventive, funny and funky, it’s a great record.