A bit of a spin on the American "Most wanted" playing cards can be found here
I've spent some of my day off doing homework! Mark wants a list of my fav 30 albums of the year, for the grand, Imperial Music end of year chart. It's hard work you know!!

Well that’s my first week in the shop completed (ah the joys of a 4 day week!), and what a great week it’s been. As expected all the people in the shop are great to work with, I really enjoy chatting with the customers, and when we are doing the behind the scenes work, there is always some interesting music being played. As expected, the holes in my knowledge of dance music are clear to see, but in time I’m sure that come. I’m really lucky to be working with Jay who has an outstanding knowledge of Hip Hop and Ralf who knows his electronica inside out. So lots to learn, but what a great subject.

As hoped it’s a pretty sociable place to work, quite a few people have come into the shop, then again most of them are regular customers. After the barren couple of years in the dessert of the Temple Meads area, it’s great to be back in town again. Park Street is a brilliant area to work in, lots of great shops and interesting people, and yet I can still walk across the road at lunch time and sit on Brandon Hill, admiring the view as I eat my lunch, with the Squirrels running around at my feet.

Had a chance to go the swanky invite only Dazed and Confused party tonight, but as Orynthia has only returned to work today after her recent illness, we thought that a night in would be a better option.

This weeks pick ups: Buck 65 – Talkin’ Honky Blues, Josh Martinez – Buck Up Princess, Ladybug Transistor – Ladybug Transistor and the Rough Trade 25th anniversary compilation CD.

So the first day in Imperial Music went ok. It’s came as a bit of a shock to my legs though, they are used to loafing around not really doing very much, suddenly they find themselves being used all day, and I am just about to go and play football, so I guess that they will be pretty sore later on. On the up side, I feel much better for not having to sit in appallingly slumped manner, looking at a computer screen all day.

Spent most of the day working out what sort of music goes where in the shop. The wonderful world of dance music has many sub genres, most of which are a mystery to me, still I guess that will come in time. After that I spent quite a bit of time working out where the music is kept behind the counter, Then suddenly I was let lose on the public and found myself dealing with a till, a credit card swipe machine and chart return reader before I knew what had hit me. I think everyone got the music they wanted and the shop got the money it required, so hopefully everyone is happy. Just for the record the big seller’s today were the two new Ryan Adams CD’s. Why he has to release two on the same day I really don’t understand?

Last night I went to see The Raveonettes at The Fleece. Orynthia was meant to be coming as well, but she has been caught by the flu bug, which is doing the rounds and did not feel up to it. The band made a big old racket, but never really let go, consequently the large crowd was somewhat muted. The best Raveonettes songs are still the ones, which sound like Jesus, & Mary Chain out takes.

So that’s the BT career finished then. Had a lovely last day, so many nice people taking the time to see me off, and as for the digital camera, what a fantastic leaving gift. Thanks everyone.

Also wanted to say that The Lucksmiths gig in Bath on Thursday night was brilliant. What great songs, and beautiful vocals. Why don’t more people know about them?

Last night's Fuzz against Junk gig was a disappointment. They missed the drive and exuberance of Steve Dew on drums, although Keith did his best to replace the irreplaceable, it was just not the same. The other problem was that the expanded FAJ line up just seemed to be too unwieldy. Never mind the forthcoming album is good, so we can concentrate on that for a while. They are playing again on Friday with The Egg at Fiddlers, but we won't be able to get to that one.

One of Orynthia's colleagues is a huge fan of The Egg, so much so that he is going to dash away from a black tie ball, in order to catch their set at around midnight. I really hope that he arrives in his suit, I love it when people wear inappropriate clothing to things. A few years ago, several of us decided to sympathise with a friend of ours who had to go to evening games at the city ground wearing suit (he had to come to the ground straight from work). So there we were, sitting proudly amongst the leisure wearing masses, looking like a group of off duty hit men. Suits on, ties flying the breeze. We did get some strange looks from the people around us, as sartorial elegance is normally frowned upon in footballing circles.

I'm never sure which is the worst scenario, go to an event dressed to the nines (or as close as I can get to that!), only to discover that everyone else is in jeans and T shirts, or looking like a weekender when the rest of the gang are ready for an Oscar party. Dress codes are one of the changes that I am going to have to get used to over the next few weeks. My current job is a suit and tie sort of affair, can't quite see that being suitable in the record shop somehow. I do quite enjoy getting into a suit and dressing up for the right occasion (such as the Dexys gig on Monday), but wearing a suit day in, day out does take the edge off those situations. Part of me has always yearned for those long lost days from the pre 1960's period, when a man would not dream of stepping from the house, without his brogues on his feet, wearing an immaculate 3 piece suit and trilby perched upon his head.

Last night we witnessed the triumphant return of Dexys. The band were on top form, and Kev prowled the stage, looking for all the world as though he was a benevolent dictator from a small south American country in the 1930's. Passionate performance, interspersed with customary on stage chat of the "So Kev tell us ….." which all worked perfectly. This review in The Guardian sums it up.

Today I cashed in my rail season ticket, as I will no longer be using the train to get to work. I also had my last lunchtime visit to the little café on platform 11 of Temple Meads station. For the past year or so I've spent the hour between 12 and 1 in the café, reading a book or The Guardian whilst enjoying a large coffee and a piece of splendid home made cake for the bargain price of £1.99. The memory of their splendid Cherry cake, Flapjack and Bread Pudding will live long in the memory. I'm not really sure what the situation will be with regard to lunch breaks at Imperial, whilst it's true that Park Street is well blessed with trendy cafes, somehow it just won't be the same as popping in to see the pleasant old couple that run the place.

BBC Radio 6, what a great station. Where else could I hear the glorious Take the skinheads bowling by Camper Van Beethoven at 5pm in the afternoon? Magnificent.

I’m starting to get very jealous of our friends Jon and Katja. Next Tuesday they are off to New York for their first visit. We’ve been chatting with them about their forthcoming trip for a couple of weeks and yesterday afternoon, we compiled an email telling them about some of our favourite things to see and do. Later we popped round to see them and bizarrely I found myself thinking that we were going rather than them! I’m sure that they will have a great time, how could they fail to, it’s the best place in the world. Jon’s even playing a solo gig at Arlenes Grocery on November 11th as part of the IPO festival.

We had a very hectic and social weekend, Four Corners on Friday night, followed by a party at my friend Jackie’s house on Saturday night. We made full use of the extra hour, by staying up until 4am. Didn’t really mean to, but as usual in Bristol, getting a taxi home on a Saturday evening was virtually impossible.

You must try this!Go to the splendidiser section of the site. enter your URL of choice, why not use this page and enjoy!

Last night I watched a wonderful programme on the BBC radiophonic workshop. It was a unit which provided all the strange and spooky electronic music for BBC TV and radio shows from the late 1950's onwards. This was in the days before synthesisers and samplers, so they had to invent new ways of making music, mainly by using banks of tape machines, which they loop or cut up to create the desired sounds. The most famous example of their work in this country is the theme music for Dr Who, but the programme was packed with examples of their work, many of which bought back very distant memories of TV viewing in my youth.

Much of the music still sounded amazingly contemporary and inventive and it was interesting to hear about the flood of complaints which some of their "music" attracted at the time. It seemed that things were never quite the same once more sophisticated machinery became available to them. The lack of equipment prompted amazing ingenuity and creativity which was sadly lost when things changed in the 1970's. A few months ago the BBC broadcast a play focusing on the enigmatic Delia Derbyshire, one of the most creative members of the team, it charted he disillusionment with the changing face of the BBC, which prompted her early departure from the team. It also focused on her delight and amazement when years later she was hailed as a inspiration by the likes of Stereolab and Aphex Twin.

The pleasure I took from watching that programme, was a stark contrast to the sadness I felt earlier in the day, when I read about the death of Elliott Smith. I became aware of his work when Elvis Costello mentioned the Either/Or album in his list of albums of the year for 1997. I picked up a copy, which took a couple plays before the full scope of his talent crept up on me. We then saw him supporting Belle and Sebastian in Nottingham, well heard rather than saw, as he was sitting on a chair, so I only really saw the top of his hat. We also saw him hanging around at The Bowlie (although he was not performing), where our friend Stuart had a brief chat with him. The subsequent albums were good but he never became the star, which he was tipped to be, in hindsight that appears to be down his determination to remain his own man, coupled with the drink and drugs problems which I was unaware off before yesterday's shocking development.

So yesterday saw the release of the new album by The Strokes and the career spanning DVD from Belle and Sebastian. Two very different bands, both however have their home on the newly rejuvenated Rough Trade Records. Back in the late 1970's Rough Trade was at the forefront of the burgeoning independent record label seen, which exploded in tandem with punk. I must say that it's great to see the label in such good health again with the likes of The Libertines and British Sea Power also doing well for the label.

Last night was the first cold session for the Monday night football. I've always enjoyed playing in the cold weather, once you get past the initial "What on earth are doing out here…" and start running around it's fine. It also tends to prompt a faster game, as everyone is running around like lunatics in an effort to keep warm. Sometimes when the weather is too warm the games can become a bit languid for my liking, of course the main reason I don't like the warm weather is that the slower game is often more skilful and I was never blessed with the greatest amount of finesse. I much prefer running around like a nutcase and lamping ball into outer space!

Next week is looking pretty busy! So far the schedule looks something like this: Monday - play football, Tuesday - Dexy's at the Colston Hall, Wednesday - Fuzz Against Junk + Damo Suzuki (former member of Can), Thursday - The Lucksmiths at The Porter Butt in Bath, Friday - Last day in work, leaving bash, Saturday City V Sheffield Wednesday, Sunday - The Raveonettes at The Fleece, Monday - Start new job at Imperial Music, I also have of couple of farewell breakfasts, to squeeze in so it's fair to say that it's a pretty hectic time at the moment!

So there I was in the car showroom, struggling to act like the responsible 41 year old that I am. I was there to pick up and pay for our new (new 2nd hand, not new - new, you understand) car (yes another Fiat Seicento, which won't surprise anyone that knows us) when the dreadful moment arrived, the salesmen passed the phone over to me saying the bank just want to verify that you are the owner of the debit card. Fine, I think I know my mothers maiden name, I know my full name and at a push I could probably guess my date of birth, What can go wrong?

The first question throws me completely, "Other than utility companies can I tell them any other direct debits that we have on this account." Instantly I freeze, then suddenly inspiration comes and I mention a charity direct debit which we have, I radiate a warm glow of satisfaction. The follow up question comes and it's the banker "What is your mother's maiden name?" Bingo! I pass the phone back to the salesman with confidence, only to hear him say "Oh no, that's a shame" not really the response I was hoping for. The sales chap hangs up and tells me that my bank have rejected the transaction and that I need to call them.

So I'm covered in confusion, and convinced that not only will I not be able to take the car home, but worse still I'm going to be arrested for credit card fraud and whisked away to Staple Hill police station for the night. So I do the only thing that could save the situation, I call Orynthia! Whereupon I realise that the direct debit information I gave, actually comes from the other bank account which we have, hence the rejection!

A few minutes later, Orynthia calls back to say that she has spoken to the bank, they are not able to do anything without the trader being on the call, so Orynthia gives me all the information she can think of regarding the account and the (ever so patient) trader calls his people again. Eventually the moment of truth arrives and the phone is passed over to me. This time the first question is the "mothers maiden name…" one, I answer and then I get asked the direct debit question again, having been primed I can now answer this one. Then disaster, they ask me how long I have had the account?

I'm sure that once you get past 30 everything that has happened previously, appears to have taken place in the last 3 or 4 years (if you can remember it all!). Question - When did you first see Nick Cave. Me - oh about 4 years ago, actual answer 1985! When did you go to Milan - oh about 3-4 years ago, actual answer 1992. See what I mean. So this sort of question just throws me completely, and I tell the guy on the other end of the phone that I have no idea. He won't take that as answer so, we get into a conversation where he is trying to get me to guess at a date. The best I can come up with is that I know that I did not have the account before we were married, so it's some time since February 1987. "So", the guy say's "we can say that you’ve had the account for 15-20 years?" No, I reply, it's 17 years at the most but it might only be 4 or 5 years. We go on like this for a while and eventually, I think that the chap starts to pity the poor senile person that he is talking to and just seems to give up trying to get a definitive response out of me. He asks me to hand the phone back to the trader and after a nervous minute or two he gives me the thumbs up, and the deal is done.

I drove off into the early evening sunshine, with a relieved smile on my face.

Orynthia and I were talking about scrapbooks last night, in particular the fact that my Grandfather used to keep a scrapbook which I found fascinating as a child. He would cut out all sorts of things from newspapers, sports news, articles on the changing face of Bristol, the occasional polemical comment feature from the national press and assorted other bits and bobs.

When I was young, I found it amazing to read through these scrapbooks, it really sparked an interest in the city I lived in, and this has stayed with me ever since. Thinking about it now I'm curious to know why my grandfather started to collect these fragments. The books started off in the mid 1960's when he would have been well into in 50's. I know that he was forced to give up work well before that, due to ill health, so I guess it was a way of filling the hours. This was in the days before daytime TV, not that he was ever very bothered about TV from my recollections. He would groan his way through Top Of The Pops, with my sister and I, watch the occasional game of football with me, and laugh his way through various 70's TV comedy shows.

He was always a keen reader, and my happiest memories of visits to stay with my grandparents in the country, are of sitting on a bench, in front of the elderberry bush, in the seemingly huge back garden and reading my way though the endless supply of detective fiction that was available in the house. If I was thirsty, I could reach across and pump up some water from the well beneath the house.

Anyway I still wonder why he started to keep a scrapbook at a relatively late stage of his life? Orynthia and I started the conversation because of a section in the Andrew Collins book "Where Did It All Go Right". Apparently his grandfather used to keep folders of cuttings and assorted bits and bobs, and one day Andrew Collins found a folder full of stuff about him, which must have been a bit strange. I don't think that I ever made it into my granddad's book, but once my father was asked to comment on a football match by the local paper, and that was added to the scrapbook. I remember reading that several years after the event and being very impressed, of course these days the Monday edition of the Evening Post has masses of oh so witty, text messages, regarding the weekends entertainment. Somehow they just don't carry the same weight as my fathers comments from all those years ago.

In many ways, web logs such as this are the current equivalent to the scrapbooks of yesterday. Many blogs are crammed with links to other peoples favourite articles and writers. It's nice to think that I'm carrying something on which my grandfather started.

The view from our house

So only 15 working days left before my change of direction. Starting to get very excited about the upcoming changes!!

In true Bristol City style, what should have our easiest game of recent weeks ended up in a disappointing 1-1 draw on Friday evening. Still it was nothing less than Petborough deserved. So even though their equaliser came in the last minute of the match, no City fans could complain about bad luck.

On Saturday evening I met up with Pete and a couple of his mates to watch the England – Turkey match in the Kellaway Arms. It was a perfect reminder of the all the reasons I have for not watching games in the pub. People drifting in front of the screen, constantly, moronic comments from people around us, then a blazing row erupting between a couple of women who were about 3 feet away from me. It was an education, of sorts! Still England played really well and got the result they needed to put them into next summer’s European championship.

On leaving the pub straight after the end of the match, I nipped home to pick up Orynthia and we went down to The Cube. Another very enjoyable night at this wonderful little place. First up were Empress, a new band to me, a two specialising in quiet, sparse soundscapes along the lines of Aerial M or Smog, interesting without being great. Then after a short break the vastly increased line up of The Pastels took to the stage. A different points of the evening 9 people were on the stage including on lead / rhythm guitar, rather than his normal bass, the lovely Gerry Love from The Teenage Fanclub. Have to say that I was very impressed with the new look Pastels. Some gorgeous, brooding new instrumentals being the highlight for me. Apparently these were from the soundtrack to a film called The Last Great Wilderness.

On Tuesday, we will be back at The Cube again for the film Jeremy Hardy Vs The Israeli Army.

If you ever travel around Bristol by bike, on foot or via public transport, then this journey planner is a brilliant thing. Unlike some route planners, it includes routes that cars can’t use. So if I want to know the quickest route for walking from our house to Park Street, this will give me a route, which goes through the park at Redland Green.

Tomorrow night were off to Glasnost to help celebrate Helens birthday. The food is usually great, so I guess we will be adding a couple of inches onto the ever-expanding waistline.

I’m reading The Book of Illusions by Paul Auster. Without reading all his stuff, I have been a fan of his work since picking up the New York Trilogy why back when… TBOI is proving to be a very intriguing read so far, which is in stark contrast to Koba The Dread by Martin Amis. Honestly, I really tried to read it, but it is written in such a slapdash yet heavy-handed way that I just could not manage the whole thing. If ever a book need the attention of a good editor it’s this one.

If you like the Go Betweens or you like hair, then you have to read this it’s a bit scary!

Last night Petunia came round for some food and chat before we headed down to The Fleece, for some rock n’ roll frenzy! Well not really frenzy, but a top night out anyway. 1st up and very early it was, so the audience was the proverbial 3 men and a dog was Adam Masterson. Must admit that I’d never heard of him or his band before, they growled their way through a set of Springsteen pastiches, with all the charisma of a week old cabbage. Maybe the songs are good, but on this showing it was impossible to tell.

Next were new scouse fav’s The Stands. Only about a month since we last saw them headlining at the Louisiana, they ripped through a pretty short set, with the usual aplomb. We liked them even more than usual, as we were able to pinch their seats, when they got up to play. Thanks lads.

Headlining the show was the often erratic, sometimes brilliant Shack. Now few bands have had a tougher time of it than this lot over the last 10 years or so. Yet somehow they are still able to turn out wonderful, tender and touching songs, which often hint at the troubles, they have seen. A genially tipsy Michael Head, seemed to have arrived with no real set list, and was more than happy to engage in banter with the audience and take any requests, which were thrown his way. This willingness to have a go resulted in several songs being aborted well past the countdown! Yet nothing could spoil the atmosphere and no sooner had one song collapsed around the band, than they would launch into one of the seemingly effortless, gorgeous Jazzy, psychedelic, folksy pop songs which make them such a cherished band. The last time they came to town it all went a bit wrong and ended with smashed guitars and barely contained paranoia ruining the gig. This time it was smiles all round and the crowd drifted into the damp Bristol evening with a definite skip in their step.

Before City’s exciting 2-1 victory over Swindon this afternoon, I was chatting to the following people outside The Nova Scotia public house. Graham, who travelled from Naples Italy, Steve, who travelled from Hamburg Germany, Simon and his son from Winslow approx 120 miles away, Richard from Birmingham approx 70 miles away. I felt rather lazy to only have driven about 3 miles to the match. Still we all enjoyed the spirited 2nd half performance and the win that takes us above Swindon.

Great result for Bristol City last night, the 1-0 win at Plymouth followed on nicely from the draw at QPR on the weekend. So 4 points gained from a couple of very tricky away games and we now find ourselves in 7th place, with a home game against 5th placed Swindon coming up on Saturday. Dare I say that maybe, things are starting to look up?

I had a chat with my soon to be new boss yesterday, and it looks as though I'll be working 4 days a week in Imperial Music on Park Street from Monday 3rd November. I'm really looking forward to it. It will be great to get away from endless spreadsheets, interminable internal emails and starring at a laptop all day. It's strange really that I should get so excited about a huge cut in wages, but what is really amazing in the number of people who have said to me that they would love to do what I'm doing. I guess it's a bit of an adolescent dream to work in a great indie record shop and that at 41 I should be doing something more sensible. But why should I?

Whilst in the shop I picked up the new Rufus Wainwright CD, the "best of" Dexys Modnight Runners compilation, a great double CD compilation from Domino records and the new single from Camera Obscura. As we went down to The Bell last night, I've only had a chance to skip through a couple of them so far.

The Domino release is to celebrate 10 years of the label, so lots of great tracks both old and new can be found here. Dexys are the sort of band that people either love or laugh at, I think that if you ever saw them live, you loved them. The early gigs with the fantastic attack that the brass section provided were tremendous, I managed to see them couple of time in those days and they were awesome gigs. However those show's paled into insignificance when compared to the "Projected Passion Revue" show which I saw at the Old Vic In London before the 2nd album came out. The brilliantly menacing string section, which emerged from the existing band played a selection of spellbindingly intense new songs. It remains one of the greatest gigs I have ever seen. Sadly the Too-Rhy-Ay album which later emerged was a pale shadow of that performance and for years Dexys just seemed to mean "Come On Eileen", the curse of wedding disco's for years to come. One more beautiful album came out and then it went wrong for Kevin Rowland, well it looks as though he's back on form and I'm certainly looking forward to his return to Bristol on October 28th.

On Sunday we are going to see the inconsistent but occasionally brilliant Shack and The Stands at the Fleece. It's our first gig for a while, and heralds a run of gigs by The Lucksmiths, The Raveonettes and of course Dexys over the next few weeks.

Finally, Our friend Jon and his Modesty Blaise pals are taking part in the extraordinary looking International Pop Overthrow festival in Liverpool in the middle of October. Even more exciting, Jon is playing a solo set in New York when the next IPO festival takes place in November. Masses and masses of bands playing short sets, it all looks very strange.

Had a great time at Four Corners on Friday evening. Loads of friends were about and it turned into one of those great, unplanned social events. Often the best times are had when things just happen under their own steam and this was one of those occasions. It was topped of when we bumped into Darren, an acquaintance of ours who is a photographer. He had been doing the photos for the opening of some dodgy sounding new bar/restaurant in town. Funnily enough, one of the people at Four Corners had escaped from the same opening bash and gleefully told me how appalling it was. Darren confirmed this as he entertained us with stories of the Minor celebrities, TV soap stars and “glamour” girls on display. Anyway it helped our tipsy walk along Stokes Croft pass very quickly. Before we knew it we home, without picking up the customary Kebab roll on the way!

Maybe as a result of Friday night’s fun Saturday was a very quiet day. This was a good thing for me, as on Sunday morning our Monday night football gang had another of our occasional “challenge” games. Pleased to say that we came out on top again, with a 4-3 victory. We probably should have won by more, it’s good to keep the run going, and we are yet to lose one of these Sunday games.

On Friday we heard that one the great indie stalwarts, The Pastels are going to be playing at The Cube in October. Never been a huge fan of the band, but this time they will joined by Gerry Love from Teenage Fanclub, so it’s a must see.

October is starting to look very busy indeed, a few gigs and lots of social stuff, culminating in my leaving work on October 31st. Trying to think of decent place to having a leaving bash is giving a bit of a headache. Apparently a new ‘80s theme bar has opened in town. It could be a good “ironic” choice; after all I did start my illustrious career back in that strange decade.

Back in August we went down to Devon for the wedding of Ric and Louise. Orynthia has started to put a website together with some of the pictures of that lovely day. You can find it here.

I was given another advance copy of an album on Monday night. It’s in a slightly different vein to Belle and Sebastian though! This one is by young local heavy rockers Gonga. My friend Geoff is involved with their record label and mixed a few of the tracks on the album as well. It’s like the great lost Black Sabbath album, to my ears it’s hard work to listen to the whole thing, but taken a couple of tracks at time it’s good fun. I have to point out though that Orynthia absolutely hates it!

So what is going on with gigs in Bristol? First of all next Monday’s gig by The Rapture gets cancelled. Then The Pernice Brothers also pull their upcoming November show. We are starting to take it personally now!

In more positive news, we were delighted to get hold of a promo copy of “Dear Catastrophe Waitress” the new album by Belle and Sebastian, which is due out in a couple of weeks. It has to be said that it’s a bit of a mixed bag. The good news is that Trevor Horn has not turned then into one of his super lush pop bands. The sound is actually quite stark for much of the record, with the vocals very much at the forefront.

I have to say that I love the opening track – Step Into My Office Baby, mainly for it’s wonderfully quirky musical arrangement. I think that the experience of working on the soundtrack to Storytelling must have had a big impact on the band, as this the opening of the song sounds like TV music from some 60’s carton, something like The Pink Panther. Next up is the title track, which on the first few hearings is not particularly strong. Luckily the next track – If She Wants Me, is one of the best ones on the album, a lovely arrangement with super little guitar solo, quickly followed by a gem of an organ solo.

Piazza, New York Catcher has the feel of a folk song. At first I thought the tempo was all wrong, but it’s growing me now. Asleep On A Sunbeam has lead vocals from Sarah Martin initially before Stuart Mudoch joins in. It’s another grower. I’m A Cuckoo does share a melody with a certain Bob Dylan to my ears and has a very 70’s vibe to it. Northern soul is a big passion for several members of the band, and You Don’t Send me, bears witness to that, very nice it is too.

If I’m A Cuckoo showed signs of someone else’s work then, Wrapped Up In Books, owes a heavy debt to the Farmers Boys version of Out In The country. Lord Anthony and If You Find Yourself Caught In Love are plaintive ballads, with the later featuring a rousing workout for the string section. The song Roy Walker has been around for a while and has a bit of a 6th form am-dram feel to it, but its gonna fill the floor at those indie disco’s. The album closer Stay Loose is a strange one, staccato guitar and a bit of a 1979 new wave chorus don’t seem to fit too well on the Belle and Sebastian shoulders, so to my ears it’s a disappointing end to the album. Still further plays will no doubt bring further changes in my opinion.

Fans of Belle And Sebastian should pick up a copy of Under Achievers Please try Harder by fellow Scots Camera Obscura. It’s a bit of a gem, when it comes to 60's infuencend indie pop.

Another disappointing performance from City on Saturday resulted in a 1-0 home defeat, and a mediocre 12th place in the division is not what we were looking for.

Managed to a bit more cycling this morning when Orynthia and I went up to The Downs. I was fine as long nothing came within 50 feet of me. As soon as that happened I started wobbling like a drunkard. Still have to keep trying.

I’ve had confirmation that I’m leaving work at the end of October. I’m very excited!

On a lighter note than the entry below, I should mention the amazing Vodka drink which we had in one of the local restaurants in Vilnius. It was a bottle of Vodka, which came to the table completely encased in a square block of ice, which was 1/2” thick! A great way to keep your Vodka cold as you worked your through the mountain of food which was presented to you.

As part of the festival a large free “pop” concert was held by the river. We arrived as a smiling young Lithuanian lad was just about to launch himself into a cover version of “Song 2” by Blur. To hear it sung in Lithuanian was just the funniest thing in the world to us at the time.

One our favourite parts of town was Uzupis take a look at this link for more info on one of the quirkier parts of town!

Whilst we were in Vilnius, I was lucky enough to read a brilliant book called Café Europa – Life After Communism by Slavenka Drakulic". Jane read it whilst John and her were in Hungary and thought I would enjoy it. It’s a brilliant collection of essays, in which she discusses her and her family’s life in Tito’s Yugoslavia and the effect that the fall of communism had on her and indeed many parts of the former Soviet Union. It talks about all manner of things from the big issues to the very small.

We have been lucky enough to travel to the Russia, Hungary and on a couple of occasions the Czech Republic. Consequently we have got used to the fact that Eastern Europe is very different to the west. It was however Petunia’s first trip to this part of the world and I think that she was quite surprised at the fact that some of the people (mainly the older ones) could be extremely taciturn and stone faced, even when encountering her naturally bouncy good nature. Drakulic’s book has an excellent chapter on why people behave in that way. Also on why people who escaped the civil war in Serbia, could still dream of returning to a war ravaged land, when given the option of comparative luxury in Sweden. The whole question of race and nationality and what it means to be European is also explored in fascinating but very human detail.

I must admit that it made me ashamed of my lack of knowledge of the recent troubles in the former Yugoslavia. I never really understood what caused the real divisions, in that part of the world and if I’m honest I still don’t. All I know is that the rampant nationalism, which came to the surface after years of being held in check by another form of oppression, is just as terrifying.

So credit to the people of Lithuania and indeed Latvia and Estonia, they look as though they have managed to undertake some huge changes in recent years without falling pray to the violence that has bedevilled so much of the region. The obvious problem is the power vacuum that is left when a puppet regime is toppled and it’s not hard to see why several former communist officials are once again in positions of power, although with very different agendas. How do people learn to govern and lead themselves after years or decades of being told what to do? The parallels with the chaos in Iraq at the moment are all too obvious.

Further thoughts on our Lithuanian adventure.

First of all, I’d like to give a plug to the people who arranged the trip for us. Take a look at Lithuanian holidays for all the details on the sort of trips that they can arrange. This was a bit a bit of a step into the unknown for us, and the company were very helpful and flexible, when it came to meeting our requirements.

The place itself is lovely, loads of quiet lines and cobbled streets provide a mass of happy wandering time, and the fact that the old town area is really quite small means that it’s pretty tough to get lost. Masses of little bars and restaurants are able to offer very affordable refreshments, giving you time to catch up that all important people watching.

The memories of the old Soviet years are still fresh and I would really recommend a trip out the huge TV tower on the western fringes of the town, where you can see a very moving collection of photo’s and articles relating to standoff between Russian troops and the local people back in 1991. 14 people lost their life in one of the key points of conflict, which helped to move the country back to freedom. After that you zoom up to the revolving restaurant to enjoy sweeping views over the city.

Before our trip I knew that Basketball was the most popular sport in the country, however I didn’t know that the European Basketball championships were being held in Sweden during our stay. Amazingly the Lithuanian TV coverage was being hosted in the bar attached to our hotel. Even more amazingly Lithuania went on to win the competition, beating France in the semi finals, then Spain in the final. That game finished at around 11pm on the Sunday evening, then the whole town just went mad. Every pilled onto the streets and pretty soon the place was full of wildly exuberant cheering flag waving people. It was high five’s all round for the next couple of hours, great fun and watch USA they gunning for you in the Olympics next year. I understand that that last time round they lost to you by a couple of points. It’s quite amazing that such a small country can produce a team like that.

We ate all manner of foods whilst we were there, including beaver stew. All very hale hearty, resulting in a few additional pounds for all of us!

Well we are back home. Lot's to write about but not tonight. Once again having updated when abroad, the page looks really odd (all links gone!), so I'll try to sort that our first.

Having a bit of a lazy day today. Only managed to get out of our place at about 2:30 this afternoon, after an long sleep and a slow brunch. I forgot to mention how fab our apartment is. It's huge and fitted in a very sleek and stylish way. Looks like it could be in Wallpaper magazine or elle decoration.

The old town here has lots of great little bars, it's fair to say that we have been enjoing the local produce. Luckily no major hangovers so far. Last night we went to the opening night of a huge new exhibition in the contemporary art centre. Loads of people, were out aall smoking like mad and enjoying the free beer. It's strange but the old town area seems to be full of young people, whilst the larger new town is full of old people. Most of the people we have spoken to have been really nice, friendly and helpful, although we have run into a couple of older ladies with the more traditional Eastern Block idea of service.

For us English everything is really good value for money. Food is very cheap and filling, travel is amazingly good value. The other day we went to Europos Parkas which is about 20km outside Vilnius, although we had somewhat different cost on the outbound and homecoming trip it cost us about about fifteen pounds for the three of us to make the whole trip by taxi. The park itself was a great experience, we were there for about 5 hours, saw some very interesting things. Well worth a visit if you are in this part of the world.

On a less happy note we went to former KGB prision. A very bleak and depressing place, but an essential part of the recent history of this country. It's amazing to see the way people were treated. It was a pretty sombre way to spend our morning but fascinating all the same.

Well here we are in glorious Vilnius. What a fantastic place. I won't write much as the keyboard is a bit strange and we have been drinking a lot of Vodka over the past few days! Everything is amazingly cheap here. A 3 day festival starts on Friday lunch time, so that should be fun.

One new thing for me. After 41 years, I have, for the very first time been able to ride a bike! Very strange indeed. Nobody warned me about the sore bottom part of the deal though!!

Off for more food and drink.

Way too much rushing around going on this week. Enjoyed The Stands on Wednesday night, then last night Orynthia’s company held a 7th birthday party. Nice people, strange food!

Tonight it’s another birthday party, this time for Bo. It’s going to be a 50’s themed party, so Orynthia has a chance to wear one of her great 2nd hand dresses. As I’ve completely failed to get a hair cut over recent weeks, I think a large quiff will be the order of the day for me.

Then somehow we have to be packed and ready to leave for Lithuania at 9am on Saturday morning. I may be able to update this site from our apartment, if not I’ll be back here around September 17th.

On Friday evening we managed to catch up with our friend Bob Jones for a couple of hours, sadly his wife Karen could not make it, but we had great chat for a couple of hours. Back in the mid to late 80's Bob was working in Bristol best record shop, and was involved in putting on gigs in Bristol with various friends. We laughed as he told about the negotiations that went on, as they tried to tempt bands down to Bristol. It was around the time that the Creation Records, C-86 sound was taking off in the indie music world.

They put on a whole series of gigs under the name EEC Punk Rock Mountain in the George & Railway pub. I now work about 50 yards from this sadly derelict pub, it came to light recently that The Vaseline's (so influential for Nirvana) played their first ever gig at one of those nights. Bob was saying that bands only cost around £20 to £30 pounds to book and they would often bring a support band with them. As a member of the audience, we were always entertained and the memory of the free sugar mice has lasted longer than the memory of some of the bands!

I think one of the last straws for Bob was when he promoted a Primal Scream gig in Bristol, when the band in true rock & roll style proved to be very awkward. It was a mid week gig, yet the gentlemen of the band were in no rush at all to play to the expectant crowd. Poor old Bob was virtually begging them to come on stage, and of course we were all asking Bob "When are they coming on". The poor chap was being driven mad by it all. Eventually they deigned to join us at around midnight, consequently most people gave the band around 15 minutes before heading tiredly for the exit door.

I don't think that Bob bothered too much about putting bands on after that. Too much hassle and not enough fun was the problem. Bob and his friends were never bothered about making money, they just wanted to bring bands to Bristol, that they wanted to see. It was really part of the whole indie ethic. Then suddenly and unexpectedly Oasis became the biggest band in the country and the people behind Creation records were being invited to a cocktail party with Tony Blair. Inevitably it all went wrong, good bands got dropped unless they sold thousands and thousands of records straight away, bands weren't really nurtured anymore and the charts went back to being appalling collections of manufactured, over choreographed, stylist driven bands. The good news is that behind the scenes, lots of people are involved in music because they love the thrill of a band connecting with an audience in a small sweaty room. There are still lots of great bands out there and thanks to things like digital radio and BBC radio 6 in particular we probably have more chance of hearing some of these bands than we have before.

Tomorrow night we are off to one of those small sweaty rooms, The Louisiana, to see The Stands. They are a band who are obviously routed in the school of Dylan and The Byrds, but who also have enough individuality to create some special moments of their own. We have also just found out that 2 of Orynthia's favourite bands, The Lucksmiths (Australia) and the Aisler Set (USA) are playing some very rare UK gigs together in Glasgow and Edinburgh in October. Looks like a perfect excuse to take advantage of the cheap Easyjet flights from Bristol to Scotland!

Forgot to say that I finished reading "Everything is illuminated" last week. It is a strange book, but one which is worth persevering with as the final chapters are very touching. I've started reading the stories of John Cheever, he is not an author that I know much about, other than the fact that he had his work published via the New Yorker for many years. Looks like I'm in for lots of mid century American angst, as I work my through the nearly 700 pages which make up this collection.

We had the excitement of a fire drill in work this afternoon. It's quite strange, our building is a large open plan office, on 5 floors with a large atrium area. However it often feels as though the place is deserted. You tend to see the same faces, hanging around in the canteen area (that's me!) or outside having a smoke (not me). Now logically I know that their could be about 700 people in the place at any one time, yet it normally feels more like 70. Consequently it was quite strange to be walking off to the meeting point with loads of other people that I've never seen before. It's always a good excuse for a bit of social chit chat, just disappointing that after only 10 minutes or so we had to go back to work.

Some of Orynthia's Burmese relatives will be in Bristol this weekend. So no doubt we will be getting together and eating the traditional mountain of delicious food.

As a post script to the Massive Attack gig on Monday, I was just told that poor old Grant (Daddy G) broke his foot when he jumped into the crowd at the end of the gig! Rock and roll eh, what a dangerous game.

I've been working hard at my Lithuanian history in preparation for our trip in 10 days time. It’s a fascinating country and we are both really looking forward to our trip. Talking of overseas things, my blog friend Kelpie is trying organise a sort of email pen pal scheme, so that people from different countries can get to find out something about life in different parts of the world. So if you are curious about Cairo, mystified by Massachusetts, or fascinated by France, get in touch with her via her website. It could be the start of an interesting friendship.

I spent the last 30 minutes or so tinkering with my team for this years BBC fantasy football league. It's something that I do with some of the guys in work and some other friends of Bill formally of Bristol but now resident in New York. Last year I was hopeless for most of the season, so I put extra effort into this seasons team. I’m keeping my fingers crossed.

In the world of real football Bristol City have come back to earth with a bit of a bang! After the excitement of the 5-0 win on the first day of the season, we’ve drawn a couple of games in fairly unconvincing style and then last night we lost 1-0 at Colchester, so we find ourselves down in 11th place. Home to Grimsby on Saturday is looking like a bit of a must win game already!

So what about the Massive Attack gig in Bristol on Monday? Well I have to say that I had a fine time. We missed Lupine Howl, so the first entertainment we caught in strangely remodelled Queens Square was the sublime Martina Topley-Bird, who played a short but sweet set of songs, which came with more of a blues influence than her album prepared me for. The sun shined and the good people of Bristol, relaxed into the afternoon with a nod of the head and polite applause.

Next up were The Bees, who captured their eclectic sound to perfection, reggae, pop, 1970’s afro jazz it’s all in the mix. I think they made a decent impression on people without exactly burning down the house.

By the time Goldfrapp took to the stage, Queens Square was getting very full indeed and the queue at the beer tent was longer than the gap between Portishead albums! After being besotted with the 1st Goldfrapp album, it’s taken me a long time to warm to the more commercial sound of the 2nd album. It’s starting to happen for me, but I do wish that we could have had more of the marvellous, cinematic soundscapes, which initially brought the band to our attention.

Final support of the day came from The Streets, now I know that they have many fans and indeed they went down really well today, but I just don’t get it. Oh well.

So at 9:15 Massive Attack took to the stage in Bristol for the fist time since the run of gigs at the Anson Rooms, which marked the end of the Mezzanine tour. Expectation levels were high and if I’m honest I think that carried the band through a slightly patchy opening. Once they relaxed the multitude vocalists did their stuff to great effect. The on stage line changing for virtually every song, reminiscent of the changing formations of an American football team, constantly evolving but always in control. Never the most dynamic performers visually, they have taken to bombarding the audience with an incredible array of electronic information from a giant screen behind the band. It can be a touch overwhelming at times, but is a very clever move. The set was heavily weighted towards the last two albums but enough of the old hits were thrown in to keep everyone happy. For me the highlight was a storming version of Safe From Harm.

At the end of the show the band seemed to be genuinely moved by the reaction, I guess that after the events of the past few months they must have worried about the bands ability to carry on. Well they managed it and I think that everyone that turned up (around 19,000) had something good to remember from the day.

By way of contrast, we spent Saturday evening at a very enjoyable Velvet Underground evening at The Cube. Various singers doing their versions of great V.U. songs complemented some strange old TV and film footage of the band itself. Some brilliant moments along with some chaotic ones. A classic Cube night that once again teetered on the edge of collapse on several occasions, but in tue Cube style, won through in the end.

Well I’m feeling a bit better now. Which is a good thing as we have a busy weekend coming up. Tomorrow it’s the second home game of the season for BCFC. It’s also the game that gives Steve a chance to catch up with the reds, as he is here on holiday for a few weeks from Madrid.

On Sunday we are aiming to take Orynthia’s mum and dad to see the open air jazz in Kings Street, so lets hope the weather holds up for that.

Then on bank holiday Monday it’s time for the big Massive Attack homecoming gig in Queens Square. As well as M.A. an excellent collection of bands make up the bill, Lupine Howl, Martina Topley-Bird, The Bees, Goldfrapp and The Streets should make for an interesting day. It’s the first really big gig that M.A. have ever played in Bristol, and virtually everyone that we know appears to be going. It’s also the first time that the lovely square has been used for a paying gig, so it will be interesting to see how that works out. The weather forecast is good, so all look to be in place for a memorable occasion.

Our tickets arrived today for the Lithuania holiday. Apparently we are going to be driven from the airport to our apartment, by a driver who will be waving our names around on a bit of cardboard at Vilnius airport. It’s always good fun when that happens, makes you feel like a celebratory, albeit a very small one.

Been struck down with some sort of cold bug, so being a man I’ve done the decent thing and spent most of my time in bed!

A couple of new Bristol based blogs added to the links. One is a person I know Paul Baxter and one I don’t The Thought Offering/NYC to the UK.

Off to relax on the sofa again now.

During our little trip to Cornwall we had a couple of very interesting but wildly contrasting meals. Just before leaving for our trip, our friend Jane told us about an old castle, which was located on the one of the hills overlooking Redruth. She started to tell us about the tricky route which you have to follow to find it and the amazing views from the hilltop, but then she mentioned that the castle was home to a Lebanese restaurant. This sounded like an interesting combination, so following an afternoon spent poking around in the 2nd hand shops that Redruth offers, we set off in search of the castle. I should just add that this included one fantastic Art Deco store, which was more like a small museum than a shop. Also found a great record shop, where Orynthia managed to pick up a vinyl copy of the first Monochrome Set album for only £5. We also wished that we had access to a van, as we kept coming across great pieces of furniture from the 1930's and 1940's at half the price you would pay in Bristol.

Eventually the shops started to close, an we decided that it was time to head to hills, in search of fine views and food. After spotting the castle on the skyline, we drove off and eventually found ourselves in the village of Carn Brea. Now Jane had mentioned that last bit of the route was on a pretty dodgy track, so we parked and after checking with one of the locals, set off on the "easy" path. 30 minutes later we emerged at the crown of the hill. The castle was indeed a strange thing, partially built on boulders, it really did have amazing views and it really was a Lebanese restaurant! Now before taking the long walk up the hill, we should have stopped to consider the fact that there had to some sort of road access, otherwise how on earth we the supplies get to the restaurant?

Sure enough a bumpy, rocky track did exist and several cars were proudly sitting in the small car parking area. We decided that rather than wait the 15 minutes or so for the place to open, we would walk back down the hill, pick up the car and come back via the bumpy road.

All went to plan and around 25 minutes later, we once again found ourselves on the threshold of the castle. The interior of the castle was as spartan as the food was tasty. Stone floors and walls and simple wooden furniture, combined with the candle light to produce a suitably rustic atmosphere. The food was a delight and we emerged just in time to watch a fantastic sunset as the sun dipped into the sea off the north Cornwall coast.

The next day we went to the Lost Gardens Of Heligan. Here we spent some time walking around the lovely grounds, sitting and reading, and enjoying a cream tea, whilst fielding calls from friends in Bristol who were having problems with their travel plans, for their trip to Cornwall for the wedding on Saturday. We decided to head off to the coast for some sitting by the sea reading time. Whilst heading coastward, we saw a sign advertising "Mambo, American 50's diner". We skidded quickly to the right and found ourselves eating some of the most cholesterol heavy food you can imagine. To add to the classy tone of the place the Cornish Elvis was giving a performance later that evening. We had left before he started his act, but were fortunate enough to see him waddling around (definitely late period Elvis!) without a care, as his pencil thin female partner lugged all his gear around. We drove round to Polkerris, parked at the top of the village and walked down the hill to the small bay, along the single car width road. Here we sat and read for a while whilst waiting the sunset.

The wedding was great, but I'll write more about that later.

Well we had a brilliant time in Cornwall. Will write more about that soon. Looks like I'll be leaving my job on October 31st!! Only 44 more work days to go!

In other news, we have booked a holiday in Lithuania, Vilnius to be precise for the middle of September.

On a ludicrously hot Saturday afternoon, Bristol City kicked off the new season in emphatic style this afternoon. We thumped a disjointed Notts County side 5-0, bizarrely all the goals were scored by players called Lee! The newly christened “Lee Amigos” are Lee Peacock (2 goals), Lee Miller (1 goal) and Lee Mathews (2 goals). It could well have been more, as we had two disallowed through very tight off side calls. So after one game, we are at the top of division two, mind you it’s only on alphabetical sequence as QPR also won 5-0,Interesting really as we were the two teams who missed out in the promotion play offs last season. Maybe this time we can both get promoted.

Last night we were supposed to be watching the latest up and coming band from Liverpool "The Stands" in action at the Louisiana. Sadly the gig was cancelled because of health problems. It is a shame as they really are a top band, we've seen them a couple of times before, although on the first occasion they were 3rd on the bill to The Coral and we only caught their last few numbers. Orynthia loved them and spent ages trying to find out more about this, as yet unknown band. The only information that she had was their name and the fact that they were from Liverpool, not surprisingly when you enter those two pieces of information into web search engines, you do get masses of information, sadly though it was all about the various stands at the football grounds of Liverpool! All very nice, but not really what Orynthia was looking for. Their debut single is released on Monday and it looks as though it may even chart. Anyway we have just found out that they are due to play with Shack at the Fleece in October, so we should catch them then.

On Wednesday evening, we are driving down to see my dad in Devon. We are just staying overnight before heading on to Cornwall for a few days, culminating in a wedding on Saturday. Lots of our friends are making the trip to the southwest including Steve Vowles, who is having a holiday in the UK, now that he is a resident of Madrid. Very impressed that Steve called tonight to find out how BCFC got on in today’s game. Although he lives in the city which hosts arguably the greatest football team in the world, he has said on many occasions that, great as it may be to watch Real Madrid in action, it can’t come close to the thrill of watching “your” team in action. Luckily he will be able to catch a couple of games whilst he is back in Bristol.

So I finished reading Ghostwritten by David Mitchell today. To be honest I was a little disappointed. The book is constructed in the format of 10 seemingly stand alone short stories, however the stories are linked by characters, who straddle the boundaries of their own tale, often appearing as peripheral parts of the next link in the chain.

I loved the start of the book, the chapters set in in Okinawa and Tokyo were splendid, although obviously influenced by the hand of Haruki Murakmi. An air of calm detachment, so typical of Murakami, cleverly understates the momentous events taking place, particularly in the Okinawa chapter. With my curiosity engaged, I quickly moved onto the next section. The themes of the following couple of chapters were equally engaging, but I thought the book really slumped during the middle three chapters, set in Mongolia, Petersburg and London. These elements of the book seemed predictable and mundane, not something which I normally associate with Mitchell's work. Thankfully the book then springs to life again, with the brilliant story of the Irish scientist, who decides that the technology which she has been developing, is going to be used in unacceptable ways. Prompting her to flee, with interesting results. The final couple of chapters are also captivating, and a few lose ends are successfully tied up, which makes the mid book lull even more frustrating.

I've mentioned here before, how much I enjoyed David Mitchell's second book - Number 9 Dream, a brilliant book which shows real progression from Ghostwritten. If he continues to hone his skills at this rate then his 3rd book should really be something to look forward to.

Haruki Murakami’s short story “The Folklore Of Our Times” is back on line here, thanks to The Guardian. You can also find stories by David Eggers and Ali Smith amongst others, well worth taking a look at.

Last night we went to see the beautiful film “Dolls” by Takeshi Kitano. It’s miles away from the work which made his reputation in this country. Stunning imagery fills the screen as three love stories gently overlap. The mood is quiet and reflective and ultimately very moving.

What a busy weekend! On Friday night, we went to a couple of different events where a couple of my Monday night football pals were involved in entertaining the good people of Bristol. Through August a series of free jazz events are taking place in Queen’s Square, a short walk from my office coincided nicely with the start of The Organelles set, featuring tough tackling Dan on bass, they entertained the small but enthusiastic crowd.

Then we made our way home briefly before heading off to Four Corners at The Croft, where the normal holy trinity of Phil, Ian and John were joined by midfield star Scott Hendy, for a night of top tunes and dynamic dancing, most notably by that whirling dervish, Sarah Clarke.

Saturday evening was spent in the company of some old friends at a 40th birthday party for Rick. Not expense was spared, and the chandeliers in the marquee shone done on the 100 + people gathered together to celebrate Rick’s milestone birthday. A top time was had by all, especially when the power failed on a couple of occasions, and we realised that when it’s dark in the country, it really is dark.

Today we spent a few hours in the blazing sunshine at the harbour festival. Huge crowds of people were out, enjoying the hundreds of stalls and water related activity. Our main reason for going was to see one of Orynthia’s favourite bands from her youth – Heatwave. It’s been a running joke all week, as Orynthia would go up to people saying “Heatwave on Sunday”, they would reply with something along the lines of “ teas the weather forecast is pretty good” causing Orynthia to laughingly shout back “ No, Heatwave, the band!” As British soul / disco bands go they were probably on the best. And even I had to say they have fantastic voices and just seamed to be lovely guys.

Then after spending some time with Orynthia’s mum & dad, it was back home for relaxed tea in the early evening warmth of our back garden.

When we have been at home, we’ve been listening to a great album from James Kirk called “You can make it if you boogie”. It on Marina records, from that part of Germany, which is forever Glasgow. James was one of the original members of Orange Juice, it been many, many years since he recorded anything, but the album is fantastic. It’s just like he never went away.

Last night was the start of a pretty intense social phase. We went to the lovely Red Snapper restaurant on Chandos Road. With my dad and step mum and a couple of old family friends. Lovely meal, I had scallops fried with lardons and mushrooms to start. Followed this with a lovely piece of lemon sole, with capers, baked fennel and mash. Could not resist having a side portion of samphire with it – yum. Finished off with an individual lemon tart served with mascapone cheese. It was all great, Chandos road is one of the hidden gems of Bristol, I’m so pleased that we are within a short walk of all it's culinary delights.

Yesterday Orynthia's dad finally came home from hospital. Must admit I can't remember exactly when he went into hospital, but I guess that it must have been sometime in January. He still can't walk but I think it's a relief to be at home, it saves Orynthia's mum an awful lot of dashing back and forth to the hospital. They probably still need to a more user friendly house, so they still have a bit of upheaval to go through.

I had to make use of the excellent NHS drop in facilities myself yesterday. Ever since the Ashton Court festival, one of my eyes has been looking rather red, which did not worry me too much, but over the weekend, I noticed that a little lump was forming on my eye. So rather than wait a couple of days to see my local doctor, I nipped along to the walk in centre in town. I had to wait about 40 minutes before seeing a doctor, who then informed me that I had conjunctivitis, so nothing to worry about. He gave me some drops to take for a week and that should sort everything out. My only problem now, is trying to get the drops in my eye, rather than on my cheek or forehead! Its fine at home when Orynthia can deliver the drops, but left to my own devices it can get a bit messy.

The countdown to the start of the football season is now well under way. City's first league game of the season is on August 9th, when we are playing Notts County at Ashton Gate. A few weeks ago we lost Scott Murray our top scorer from last season, so I'm pleased to see that we have bought in Lee Miller a promising young Scottish striker and we are also looking to pick up a winger from premiership Middlesbrough. So hopefully, all the old crowd will be able to meet up, in an optimistic frame of mind, in that fine old pub the Nova Scotia for a pre match drink on the day. I was talking to some of the lads I play football with after our game last night, and they were fascinated by the idea that I have lots of mates that I only ever see at football related things. I suppose, it is quite odd that sometimes, I will see these guys 3 times in a week, for several hours at a time and yet in most cases we know very little about each other. Married or single, where they live, what they do for a job, nothing like that really gets discussed. We mainly end up talking about football and music, as we share the moans and groans over the next nine months of being a fan, of a unglamorous team.

Well I’ve made the work decision and I could be leaving. More will be known in the next week or so, but basically its up to the company now. Quite excited by the prospect!

At the moment I am loving the long awaited debut album by the over monikered Martina Topley-Bird, Quixotic is a gorgeous CD. Delighted that she will be playing at the Massive Attack extravaganza in Bristol next month. Also picked up the new CD by the Mink Lungs, although have only skipped through it so far. Finally picked up Street Dad by the grovesome Out Hud. It’s very different to the live band which I saw supporting Radio 4 a few months ago, no vocals for a start. But it’s full of splendid dubby electro tunes. Think New Order produced by Adrian Sherwood, and you will be on the right lines.

Having finished the under whelming Secret History by Donna Tartt, I’ve moved to something much more interesting, Ghostwritten by David Mitchell. His Number 9 dream was one of my favourite reads of last year and this earlier novel by him is just as intriguing and engaging. The echoes and influence of Haruki Murakami still leap out, but it’s fine stuff.

Woke up this morning (queue blues riff in the background) in an extremely tired state. All the result of the weekend exertions at Ashton Court, with a late night BBQ thrown in for good measure.

Saturday was a very sociable day, as we bumped into most of our friends pretty soon, as they gathered together watch Steve Dew's final performance in the now defunct Parkers Barton. Once they finished we set off on the traditional wander around the site, looking for exciting new food stalls, of which there were none and checking out the vast array of 2nd hand clothes. We hung around long enough to catch an impressive performance from Little Barrie, before heading home before the arrival of Robert Plant. We were home only briefly as Geoff and Emma were having a BBQ to celebrate Emma's birthday. Although, we did not arrive until about 10pm, we still managed to grab some very tasty grub before the serious drinking began. Eventually we walked home at around 2 in the morning.

Sunday was more of the same, managed to catch another of the Monday night football lads playing in his band Organelles. Very good they were as well, a gentle, ethereal sound featuring some gorgeous trumpet playing, I'll keep my ears open for them in the future. Sometimes I feel as though I'm the only one of our football crowd that isn't either in a band or in some sort of creative group. We have an eclectic mix of musicians, DJ's, wildlife cameramen, and artists all running around together, in fact on one occasion a few weeks ago, we worked out that we had 7 drummers playing in one of our games! Somehow we still manage to play without any sense of timing! After that we saw another one of Steve Dew's bands, the inimitable Fuzz Against Junk, as they took us back to the days of the psychedelic jams of the early 70's. much to Orynthia consternation we then wandered off to watch riff merchants extraordinaire Gonga, it certainly felt like we had travelled back 30 years in time! By now the clouds were starting to gather and the temperature had dropped a few degrees. Luckily we managed to find a lovely warm tent, selling hot chocolate, and cakes where we could sit down a relax for 20 minutes. Next up were the highly rated Brighton band The Electric Soft Parade, I have to say they we a huge disappointment, so much so that we walked off to stand in front of the empty main stage for 20 minutes to wait for McKay to perform, rather than endure any more of their self indulgent nonsense. Mckay was great, she seemed to be genuinely thrilled to be back in Bristol and put in a storming performance, shame that it was only 45 minutes long, due to the 11pm curfew. It was nice to end the weekend on such an upbeat note.

Excellent piece in Thursdays Guardian on graffiti star Banksy. A former resident of Bristol, he has acquired an air of mystique, through the fact that hardly anyone knows who he is. His reputation rests on the brilliantly humorous and inventive work which he produces. Lot's of his work is on display around town, a few years ago he made the move to London and things look as though they have gone very well for him. A couple of small books of his work have emerged and he did the cover for the latest Blur album, take a look at his website for a snapshot of his work.

You can find a report of his show with pictures here.

Boy oh boy, was it hot in The Cube last night! Still we really enjoyed Wonder Boys. We dressed as cool as we could, Orynthia in her amazing 2nd hand dress from Glastonbury, me in my Shag designed Aloha shirt. That’s cool as in not hot, not as in Milan fashion week. After the film, we nipped into the deserted Bell, where Ian Green told us that he had a picture of his mum and dad from the 1950’s dressed in the same manner. Fine by us.

Everyone getting pregnant at the moment, well a slight exaggeration. In the past 2 days I heard that one of the lads I play football is going to be a dad, as is one of my workmates. Also heard from Australia that Carlson and Cathy are expecting twins! Also down under it’s a matter of weeks before Sorelle and Jen both give birth. Then again, I was chatting to someone else in work, who been caught up in a terrible run of unexpected deaths recently. It’s strange the way these things always seem to come in groups, for the moment I’m quite happy to keep away from both end of the spectrum.

On the music front, I've really been enjoying The Thrills album So Much For The City, its perfect summer pop music, but how can a band from Ireland write so many songs about the USA? Also picked up the Kings Of Leon CD, not quite sure about that one yet. I am enjoying Again by Colder, even if it does sound like it could have been released in the early 1980’s. Last but not least Kraftwerks Tour De France 2003 EP is a fine thing.

D Day is getting nearer for my big work decision. I think my mind is made up, fairly soon I could be heading off in a new direction, only snag is, I don’t really know what the direction is?

What a very untypical English summer we are having. Yesterday it was so hot the our train home was cancelled as the tracks had buckled in the heat! Despite that we still played football last night, how daft are we? For once I managed to score a bit of a blinding goal, as I hit a peach of a short from about 30 yards. I don't know who was more surprised, the lads who are used to my lame efforts every week, or me.

Getting back to the railway tracks issue, I do wonder what happens, in other - hotter parts of the world? Yesterday I think that it was about 32c, pretty warm for Bristol, but no comparision to the tempretures which the lines which snake across the dusty plains of Spain, India and the USA are exposed to. How do these countries cope?

Tonight we are going to my favourite cinema, The Cube to see The Wonder Boys. For some reason, they have decided that on Tuesdays it’s only £2 to see a film. What a bargin. We missed The Wonder Boys first time around, although the feedback was pretty good from our friends.

Things are starting to build nicely for the start of the football season. Bristol City's first league match is on August 9th, however we have lost a couple of important players from last season's squad and at the moment no fresh faces have come in. According to the bookies, we are 3rd favourites to gain promotion behind QPR and Sheffield Wednesday. We do have a couple of pre season friendlies lined up, but I think I'll wait for the real stuff to begin.

On Thursday Orynthia's dad is going home for the day, for a sort of trial run to see how he gets on aroud the house with his wheelchair. Then it's back to hospital for a short time before he comes home for good. They are still hopping to move house, as their current home has dreadfull access problems, loads of steps everywhere, really impractical for both of them as they get older.

Can't quite believe it's Friday again, the week has just flown past. We are aiming for a quiet weekend after lots of recent late nights, and the fact that next weekend will be spent at Ashton Court for the festival. Time to spend a bit of time at home, we've still got stuff to put away following the Glastonbury weekend, if we don't do this weekend it may never get done!

We got some films developed this week, and was quite surprised to see photo's going back as far as last September when we went down to Cornwall for a short break. Consequently discovered pictures from all our recent holidays, Cornwall, Nice and Paris plus lots of other nice shots. If I find any time I'll to make some of them available via this site.

Having finished the Raymond Carver short stories, which were excellent, I finally got round to reading The Secret History by Donna Tartt. I'm about 200 pages in and it's starting to grip, but I can't help thinking that it's taking a very long time to get where it's going.

Don't want to say too much, but I've got to make a very big decision regarding work over the next 10 days. Nervous but excited!

Well since our return from Glasto, it seems like 90% of the conversations I have had with people have been about THAT weekend. I'd forgotten how many people from Bristol go to the festival, those that didn't make it tended to watch lots of it on TV, so everyone has been comparing notes, on what they saw or did. It sounds like everyone who went had a great time.

We had an interesting night out on Friday. A number of artists have been commissioned to create artworks relating to the dock area of central Bristol, included in this group are our friends Anna Oliver and John Pym. This Friday marked the launch of the project, so I meet Orynthia straight from work and we set off to catch some of the work. Anna's work was the first thing that we saw, over recent months Anna has been asking people to send in their stories and memories of the docks (you can see these at her website, see link on right of page), she has taken over a derelict corner of the docks and decorated it with these stories. Some funny and poignant stuff here and anyone who has lived in Bristol for any length of time will find something that triggers a memory. Yesterday we took a look at John's installation, once again he plays with daylight and space in a slightly unsettling way. Worth taking at look at if you can. It's located opposite the main fire station in Bristol and it was good to see the fireman checking it out and encouraging their mates to take a look.

Later in the evening, we ventured up to a pub call The Greyhound In Clifton. Over the past couple of weeks, our friend rob has started playing old Ska, R & B and rock and roll records in the backroom of the pub. Rob had assured us that hardly anyone turns up, so we ventured in expect to find a handful of people. We were somewhat confused to walk in to a small room which featured about 15 very drunken blokes, who were in the later stages of a "stag" night. What joy! We managed to find ourselves a table in the corner which was farthest away from them (only about 10 feet), whilst Orynthia was waiting to be served, one of the happy gang who had been sitting on the Pool table behind Rob, leant forward and just kept going. Landing head first with good old thump! His mates gathered round and managed to get him back on the Pool table whereupon he decided to throw his cigarette away, unfortunately he decided to throw it into Robs record box! Things started to get a bit heated (in more ways than one!) and for a while I thought that we were heading into a classic bar room brawl, with us lot hiding in the corner. Luckily some of the stag party managed to combine with the landlord and calm things down, before the group were ushered away into the night. Not quite the quiet end to the evening that we had planned.

Well, I can still feel the sunburn on the back of my legs, and I could swear that my festival wristband was still in place, but the Glastonbury experience is over!

What a brilliant 4 days, everything went remarkably well. Hey, the lovely John Stapleton even put our tent up for us, the day before we arrived, in order to make sure that we could camp with friends from Bristol!

Arriving on a sleepy site at around 9am was a strange experience. The 70,000 people who were already on site had obviously enjoyed a lively Thursday evening, as people were about as common as a guitar solo in the dance tent. Thanks to John we were able to obtain passes to get into the backstage camping area for the One World Stage, where we had access to reasonable toilets and even shower and sauna facilities!

Whilst we were in the Left Field tent waiting to see Jeremy Hardy (one of the few no shows over the weekend), the sound of rain falling on canvas could be heard, for the next hour it rained pretty hard, before eventually turning into the dull drizzle which greeted us, as walked over to see Chuck Prophet entertaining the small and soggy crowd in front of the One World Stage. Luckily that was about as damp as things got, by the time we had grabbed some food, and wandered over to watch Yo La Tengo giving a sometimes inspired, sometimes indulgent performance the sun was breaking through and all was well. I spent a while relaxing in the backstage area where the luxury of having proper chairs, a bar with no queue and odour free toilets we proving to be very popular. We managed to catch up with Orynthia’s sister and her kids for an hour or so, enabling us to hand over the additional drink and food which we had bought into the site for them. Later we caught a short burst of the Skatelites as we munched our way through a Gambian meal. Then it was over to the main stage to see about 25 minutes of REM. Although to be honest we were so far away from the stage, we had to watch the performance on the giant monitor screens, before we snuck off to The Other Stage to catch a remarkably lively Primal Scream in action. Don’t think I’ve ever seen Bobby G. as animated as he was in this show. Although John and his other “Blowpop” pals were putting on some entertainment in a marquee in our camping area, we retired to bed at about 1am, with earplugs firmly in place, as the party was due to go on all through the night.

Saturday dawned sunny and bright and we all emerged from our tents to wish Jane a happy birthday. Musically the first thing on the agenda was an old favourite of Orynthia’s schooldays, Linda Lewis. A brilliant voice and a lovely personality masked the fact that her choice of songs left a bit to be desired, it was however a nice way to ease ourselves into the day. And what a day it was, the sun shone brightly as we enjoyed great sets by The Thrills and The Stands before heading back to main stage to see the effervescent Polyphonic Spree burst on the stage as the vast crowd melted in the baking sunshine. By way of contrast, I then made my way over to The Other Stage in order to see Interpol. They were great, it can’t be easy to playing brooding music on a hot sunny afternoon, but they managed to pull it off. Amazingly Carlos managed to keep his jumper on for the whole set! Next up were The Libertines, who despite all the problems facing the band at the moment, managed to put in a blistering performance and they deservedly went down a storm with the crowd. We then went back to the main stage to see Suprgrass, must admit that I’ve never really “got” Supergrass, so after 3 or 4 songs we went back to the camp to meet up with our friends before The Flaming lips set. They were the one band that virtually everyone in our group wanted to see and they didn’t disappoint. A madcap wonderfully engaging show, which importantly also features some killer tunes left everyone beaming from ear to ear when they finished their set with a cover of Breathe by Pink Floyd. We decided to ignore the bleating of Radiohead and instead went off to one of the strangest parts of the vast festival site, Lost Vagueness. An amazing area which features a Ballroom complete with Cancan dancers and cocktails, a silver service restaurant with a strict dress code and our destination for the evening The casino. Now to gain entrance to the Casino you have to be dressed up, as most people who go to Glastonbury turn up with 1 T shirt, and a pair of shorts, they will very kindly hire you the most amazing clothes – Ball gowns, Tuxedos, feather boa’s and the like. Luckily for me I managed to get the last man’s jacket, other wise I would have had to wear a dress (as many men did). The entertainment inside The Casino was sublime; a bizarre decadent 1940’s style cabaret review has us alternating between uncontrollable laughter and open-mouthed astonishment. The (cheap) champagne flowed and the whole thing turned into the greatest fancy dress party in the world. We stopped for an hour or so in the Blowpop tent, telling everyone what a fantastic time we had. Finally we staggered off to bed, very drunk long before the 5am finish. Brilliant!

On Sunday we were eased into the day by the occasionally brilliant My Morning Jacket, before heading up to the sun drenched grass outside the Acoustic Stage to see Roddy Frame, after a few years in the wilderness Roddy appears to be right back on form and the large crowd cheered him on wildly. I then took the long walk back to The Other Stage to see The Raveonettes only to be greeted by a deserted field, as they were apparently another no show. Orynthia than watched Macy Gray on the Main Stage whilst I enjoyed The Rapture with guest dancer Bez joining them for their final song. Orynthia walked over to join me and we watched the charming Grandaddy together. As with all the American bands, they were very keen to tell us exactly where in the U.S. of A. they came from and seemed to be genuinely delighted to be playing the festival. By now we were getting seriously tired, so we decided to grab some food then head back to the comfy seats of the backstage area of The One World stage, where we listened to Calexico playing a great set. We managed to drag our legs round to the front of stage area for their last song and that turned out to be the last band we saw. A fitting way to end it for us, as they were superb. Rather than watch Moby or Tricky we went to the Green field area to see the Glastonbury stone circle and see at close hand the breathtaking firework display at midnight from the hill, which gave us an amazing view over the vast and wonderful site. We made our way slowly back to our campsite, taking in the beautiful and relaxed atmosphere of the green field tents and Tipi’s along the way.

Monday morning, we all slept in late, before dismantling the tents and saying goodbye to friends old and new. It was clear that the traffic was going to take a very long time to disperse, so after dropping our gear in the car, we walked back into the site for a final meal, whilst we watched the site slowly being dismantled. We finally left at around 4pm after 4 unforgettable days. So many things to see and do, so much terrific food, from every part of the world. So many lovely people.

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