Well last weekend didn’t really go to plan. Things obviously weren’t right when I realised that I didn’t really want breakfast. Now anyone that knows me, we realise that this is an unusual situation to say the least. I guess it happens about as often as whole week going past without a self inflicted humiliation for the The Labour party.

Anyway I spent the whole day in various degrees of discomfort, including a few periods studying at close quarters the lovely porcelain of our lavatory. In the evening we had tickets for the Calexico / Iron & Wine gig. After managing to have a spell of stability we decided to go the gig. Must admit that I expected to see a 60% full venue as was the case the last time Calexico play the Academy, but this time the place was packed, Not really want I wanted to see as it’s a very uncomfortable place when it’s busy.

Iron & Wine were first on and pretty soon I was struggling to stay on my feet. After about 20 minutes of their set, I realised that I needed to get out quickly or I was going collapse in the heat. As I mentioned the Academy is not a pleasant place when it’s full, trying to take the short walk to outer bar area was horrible. The stairs leading up from the “pit” area were covered with people trying to see the band. Meaning that you had to push your way through people who had nowhere to go (bit of a health and safety issue I’d think). At last I did make it to the seating area and sat there feeling rather strange for a while.

I had told Orynthia to stay in the main room and watch the band, but after a short while she came to see how I was. When she tried to get back in the main room she found it imposable to get back to where she had been or get any sort of few to see the gig, so without seeing Calexico we decided to leave. Good job we did really, as soon as the car pulled up outside the house, I knew that I was in trouble1 I just about managed to make it to the Tulip bed in front of the house, before depositing an unusual load of plant food at their base. The good news is, that almost a week on the plants are looking better than ever, don’t really fancy feeding them in this way on a regular basis though.

Tomorrow should see the last home match of the season for BCFC, amazingly having flirted we relegation almost all season, we could still make it into the promotion playoffs! It depends on the two teams above us failing to win their games and us winning both of ours, but it could just happen, If it does we have the delight of running around getting tickets for the extra games!

It’s Redland fair this weekend, the social event of the year for people round here. It’s a community fair / car boot sale / performance afternoon where we have picked up some amazing things in previous years. The fun officially starts at 1pm, I think Orynthia will have us looking for bargains before that!

I just been sent this link to some fantastic footage of the brilliant and bonkers Sun Ra, take a look it’s genius.

Joe Volk
Wow, where did those 2 weeks go? I guess that we’ve just been catching up with friends and family following our little trip.

In fact over the Easter weekend we had a bit of a family gathering here, to celebrate the fact that one of Orynthia’s cousins had just returned after about 4 months travelling around Southern India. She had loads of amazing stories to tell and pictures to show us. It felt as though we spent the whole afternoon laughing.

Being a Burmese gathering we obviously had way too much food, so on the Monday we invited 4 other friends over to join us in an attempt at eating it all, they did pretty well, but could not quite clear the decks completely. It’s great to have friends who are happy to come and ear leftovers, pretty wonderful leftovers they were though.

I did my little bit of DJ’ing at “Lost In The Woods” last night. It was the first night for the boys in a new venue, The Lansdown in Clifton. The music took place in a lovely room above the bar. The acoustics of the room were perfect for the “voice and guitar” approach of all the guys who played, lovely evening.

Tomorrow we’re very excited about the prospect of seeing Iron & Wine + Calexico playing. It will be interesting to see Iron & Wine in a larger venue, we seen them twice before in St Bonns which is a tiny social club which no stage at the time. Will their intimate sound work in a venue, which holds around 2000 people? I’m sure that it will, we’ve seen Calexico in this venue before and they were great.

We arranged a little trip to London in May. Over the course of 4 days we will be seeing Camera Obscura, Bricolage and Swedish band Irene. In addition to that we hope to catch the Modernism exhibition at the V&A and the Bauhaus exhibition at Tate Modern!!!!

We will be making the trip on the Mega Bus, it’s costing the outrageous price of £4.50 for the two of us. Yes, £4.50! That’s the return price – it’s mad! To be even more cheapskate we are staying in the guest room with Orynthia’s aunties sheltered housing complex, that’s setting us back £5 per night, amazing.

Well we are back home after our mountain and lochs/lakes holiday. It was about a 1700 mile round trip taking in Glasgow, North West Scotland, The Lake District and Snowdonia. Lot’s of amazing scenery along the way, it was also great to catch up with lot’s of friends during the trip.

Whilst in Glasgow we went to see an excellent band called Bricolage. The 1990’s were also playing, they were pretty good as well, have to say though that the highlight was meeting James Kirk. For those that don’t know him, he was one of the founding members of the group Orange Juice. He released an excellent solo album a couple of years ago called “You can make it if you boogie”. Turned out to be a lovely chap, very funny and interesting. He even managed to give us a few tips for things to look out for in the highlands – he was quite the tour guide.

Lot’s more to write, but lots of stuff to catch up with around the house as well. Just time to say that I’ll be playing a few tunes at the next “Lost in the woods” evening. This will take place on April 20th at The Lansdown in Clifton. The performers will be James McArthur, Joe Volk and Jonny Collins, it’s all arranged by those nice people from Aspen Woods. Admission is £3, which ain’t bad.

So were off for a while, catching up with friends all over the UK, should be fun. Only 1 gig booked, that’s Bricolage in Glasgow.

Will let you what we got up to when we get back.

6 – 0! Yes, Six – nil, no matter how you write it it’s still amazing to see City win a league game by 6 clear goals. To be honest it could have even more, so inept were poor old Gillingham, you had to feel sorry for their fans. Such a long way to travel, for such a shocking performance, I’ve never really been sure why people travel such lengths for a game of football. I’ve never really been to more than 5 or 6 away games in the course of season, in fact which the exception of the play off final in Cardiff a couple of seasons ago, I don’t think I’ve been to any away games in the last 5 or 6 games, no matter much City improve, I think that my away days are over, really – life’s too short.

Other than that, I enjoyed a very funny evening at The Cube on Friday night. A couple of my friends arranged the a gig for the maverick Scottish poet Jock Scot, They are putting out “The Caledonian Blues”, the latest album from Jock, which features musical input from erstwhile Bristolian Gareth Sager. The pair of them played a brief but very entertaining set, Sager seemed to get enormous pleasure from making a seat squeak, whilst playing guitar and Jocks poems and banter were entertaining and enlightening about his rather chaotic existence. Free Cider and a DJ set from Geoff, consisting completely of bagpipe music made it a night to remember.

Today we nipped up the road to see “Good night, And Good Luck” at The Orpheus enjoyed the film as any leftie would. Also made me think that everyone looks good in black and white.



Well maybe not quite everyone!

OK we admit it, we are old! A couple of weeks ago we bought a shredder, so we can take care of all those bits of paper which have our vital details on it, before the hoards of international criminals descend upon our casually discarded paperwork, taking away all our hard earned money.

I well remember laughing at Orynthia’s mum a few years ago, when she refused to put anything in the bin, which had her name on it. What excuse do we have for such grown up behaviour, well not much really. It’s just that virtually every bit of post which we receive these days appears to be from some sort of financial institution offering to lend us loads of money, which is obviously lovely and oh so sweet of them. The worry is that as we cheerfully throw these things away, someone else decides that they would like to pretend to be us and suddenly we have a nice little debt to take care of.

Have to admit that shredding is great fun, must remember not shred any actual money, as that would rather mess up our wonderful idea.

We had some top fun in Bedminster on Saturday afternoon, whilst Orynthia was driving along North Street in search of a mid afternoon snack, I spotted a great looking second hand shop, only a couple of doors away from a café/second hand bookshop, shopping heaven.

Orynthia picked up a wonderful old coat for £10 and some great 60’s crockery (3 plates for a £1!), and then we went into the café. After ordering our drinks and snacks we took our place at a table and started to browse through some of the nearby books. It was then that I noticed the chap on the table next to us, nodding slightly over enthusiastically to the generic 80’s hits CD which was playing. We continued to chomp, slurp and browse as the sound of Thompson Twins filled the air, the guy was around my sort of age but looked as though his mum still shopped for his clothes, maybe even dressed him as well. Really mum, those white socks really aren’t a good idea.

Then I started to notice that he was adjusting the volume and skipping tracks, so I guess he was the in café DJ, nice work I thought. Suddenly whilst Two Tribes by Frankie Goes to Hollywood was playing, someone else asked what the tune was? Brilliantly our DJ friend launched into a polemical discourse regarding the cold war atmosphere of 1984, which had inspired the song, he reeled off fact after fact in rapid time, before going onto lament that The Power of Love by F.G.T.H. was a sadly overlooked gem, which wallowed in underserved obscurity, in fact the whole tone of his conversation indicated that he thought the Frankie’s were an obscure cult band that never really got the attention they deserved.

Fair enough if he was a young chap, but obviously that was not the case, as anyone who can remember the days of “Frankie Says…….” will remember only too well, for a while in the mid 80’s we all saw more of them than we did of our families. We amused ourselves looking at books of pie recipes and pictures 19th century Burmese girls, smoking huge cheroots, trying desperately not to make eye contact with our DJ friend, before dashing for the door. Top place though, must go back soon.

Talking of top quality DJ’s Sundays Grumpy Man gig was a little strange. We only played for about 2hrs 30 mins as the evening was also a launch night for Helicon magazine. A few friends were amongst the performers and most of the crowd hung around to hear us putting a lie to the notion that anyone can DJ. My own highlight of the evening was one of my colleagues getting most of the way through an Elvis track, whilst remaining convinced that he was playing Billie Holiday, genius. The next one is on April 30th make that a date in those oh so busy diaries.

We had a wonderful night at the ever more bizarre Seymours on Wednesday evening. In addition to some really rather splendid music, the venue itself provided us with lots of fun; the place is covered with signs instructing the punters exactly what is (or is not) permitted. Best of these, is the sign advising that you should “Keep your Shoes on – Be Safe”. Clearly Sandie Shaw could never play a gig there.

The music? Well the evening started with Rozi Plain and Romanhead playing together. Poor old Rozi must be worn out, virtually every time we step out of the house, she’s there playing with someone or other. Not that I have a problem with that, she has some good songs and interesting arrangements are a speciality of hers.

Next up were M. Craft, not someone I knew much about before the gig. The band he has assembled provided a pleasant, understated backing for his American fringed songs. Nice enough without really standing out, I’d mark them as mid-table performers.

King Creosote however is certainly heading for the top of the league. Wonderful songs, sung with real intensity, making even the murky world of accordion lead folk tunes seem vital. His great band provided superb support, whilst keeping a cheeky grin on their faces at all times. The packed crowd lapped it up, demanding several encores.

Yet another sad death this week, the passing of Ivor Cutler was no great shock as he was in his 80’s, but still came as unwelcome news. As with so may things, I first came across his work on the John Peel show in the 1970’s. He had a unique view of the world, telling the most ludicrous stories in a voice that would normally be used for serious political debate, he was a unique performer. We only saw in the flesh once, that was at the Bristol Old Vic back in the 1980’s it was a strange evening, Ivor appeared to take no pleasure in the joyous reception which he was given, keen to do his bit and get off as soon as he could. Everyone in the crowd loved it, he was like the perfect example of the strange uncle in the family – the kids all love his strange ways, whilst the adults never quite know how to respond to things he says. End of an era stuff.

Another Grumpy Man night at Mr Wolfs coming up on Sunday.

It’s been a very musical weekend around here. Friday evening saw us visiting a wonderfully buzzing and lively Louisiana, a couple of our friends are playing in Amelia Tuckers band, we’d missed a couple of gigs by them recently and had been hearing good things about the shows, so it was time to check them out.

Three other bands were in action as well, because of the early start we missed Rob Sharples completely, Caught a bit of Roger Tarry, who sounded ok without quite having the killer melody lines which his sort of music requires. Seven Days Til Sunday make big confident rock music, which would suit the lighters in the air brigade, not really my sort of thing but other people seemed to enjoy it.

Onto Amelia Tucker, well as I mentioned a lot of positive things have been said about Amelia over the last few months, but after hearing the songs on her myspace site I was not so sure. Pleased to say that the live show had much more of a positive impact of me, vocally much more like Tracey Thorn from the Love not Money period than I had anticipated some of the songs in the short set were excellent. There was an element of over politeness about the show, but you do the get feeling that she could produce something special if she if she could really lose herself in the music and turn up the intensity a notch or two. One to watch.

Saturday dawned wonderfully clear, crisp and cold. I spent the afternoon at Ashton Gate watching a rather messy game of football between City and Notts Forest. At the start of the season, I think that most people thought that we would both be at the top half of the table, slugging in out for promotion, as we all know things have not worked out like that. A change of manager for both clubs has bought improved results of late, but the 1-1 all draw should way both clubs are no better than mid table at the moment.


On Saturday evening we were back at The Cube for another helping of musical dynamite, in the form of Charlie Parr. First up were the now expanded My Two Toms, playing last night as a 4 piece, they were at their melodic best as than ran through a set of splendid instrumental’s with the banjo at the heart of the action. Once again Adrian Cowley played a low key bit in the middle, before the wonderful Mr Parr took the stage.

He played a blistering set, tearing into what some would call folk, or country-blues with the vigour, energy and passion of The Ramones. His big gravely voice can bellow ferociously or whisper with disbelieving horror of mans ill treatment of his fellow souls. He really is the stuff of legend, word is that when he returns to Duluth, the beard of 13 years will be removed, can’t see it diminishing his powers though in any sort of Samson type way as he jokingly mentioned during his set. Let’s hope it’s not too long before we see him back here again.

Next up is King Creoste on Wednesday.

Finally got round to making a visit to the cinema last night when we went to see Capote at The Watershed. It’s a fantastic portrait of the way vanity and selfishness can destroy the most brilliant of people. How strange though that Capote and Harper Lee should work so closely on the book “In Cold Blood” whilst she was releasing “To Kill a Mockingbird” to a grateful public.

Yet, following the huge success of both books we hardly heard from them again. From the little I know about Harper Lee. It looks like she choose a self-imposed exile in much the same way as J.D. Salinger did. Capote’s situation was very different as he promised to produce the next great work right up to his death, able only to produce some enjoyable short stories and a disappointing posthumous release. Sadly the sparkle and wit of his conversation became his calling card rather than his writing. Even that appears to have left him in later life as his comments became spiteful and aggrieved rather than charming.

We are off to see the splendid Charlie Parr at The Cube tomorrow night. One the fondest memories of my time at Imperial Music was the day that Charlie came into the store to play for us. A lovely man, with an inspired take on American blues music it should be a great night. To hear him attacking that guitar of his with such gusto, whist singing with the weight of the world sitting on soul is one of the great things in music.

A couple of other things come to mind. Firstly isn’t it great to have some in the England cricket team called Monty? Pretty soon they will be using ties for belts and having handle bar moustaches once again.

Sadly the other thing is not so good, we were both really shocked to hear that Linda Smith had died earlier this week. She was the probably the sharpest, funniest person in the UK. Never cruel, but able to put the pompous in their place with the most subtle of put-downs, she captured the absurd nature of the British character perfectly. She will be missed.

This weeks gigs were great, Wednesday evenings visit to Cardiff to see a very nervous looking Isobel Campbell was well worth the petrol money. The Point is a nice venue, perfect for the intimate music provided by Isobel and her friends. Eugene Kelly did well in the Mark Lanegan role; one of the highlights was a great version of “Love hurts”

Friday was just fantastic; I met up with Orynthia in Pieminister on Stokes Croft, could any evening have a better start? We then took the short walk to Francois’s, he had kindly invited us round for some pre gig entertainment, it wasn’t just us though, the first 10 ticket buyers were also there, along with most of the band and Traceyanne from Glasgow’s Camera Obscura, plus the splendid Tom (aka Freeze Puppy). So quite a houseful!

Francois played some songs on the piano, and then Freeze Puppy played several spellbinding numbers accompanied by his acoustic guitar. It was all rather magical, to heighten our sense of bemused wonder, we were then asked to take some home made apple tart round to The Cube. How strange to be walking through the so-called mean streets around Stokes Croft, worried that we may be mugged for fruit based dessert! Luckily we made the journey without any unwelcome interventions, successfully delivering the tart to staff at The Cube.

The gig itself was a triumph. Entertaining support came from Sleeping States (who were great) and Corey O’s (very enthusiastic and entertaining set).

Francois and Atlas Mountains started the gig with the now traditional walkabout, before settling onto to the stage and playing a gorgeous set, mainly focused on the new album “The people to forget”. It does seem as though Francois is incapable of writing a song without a simple yet captivating melody, the swoonsome arrangements for the 10-piece band are just superb. There was a brilliantly conceived video link up with masses of associated musicians and friends as Francois played along from the stage. It was clever, funny and touching the best use of video at gig I’ve seen since seeing Cornelius at The Thekla many, many years ago.

Quite simply a night with this lot is just the best fun in town at the moment. They have a self-effacing musical beauty which so refreshing, affecting without being precious, they provide a rare musical treat in these days of over stylised chart wannabe’s. Bristol is lucky to have them.

Isobel Campbell and Eugene Kelly in Cardiff last night.

Forgot to mention that we had a great meal at Junipers last week. I had a fantastic starter of Pheasant with Figs, sounds odd but was delicious. The rest was all fantastic, it really is a lovely place to eat. Better still we had 25% of the final bill thanks to our wonderful "Big fund raiser" discount book. If you live in Bristol and eat out more than, say twice a yeah, you really should get one of these books. The discount we received at Junipers means that our book has paid for it's self already,

Finished reading Saturday by Ian McEwan, an interesting and at time gripping account of one not so ordinary Saturday for one man.

Over recent weeks I've been enjoying lot's of interesting new albums, including work from Belle & Sebastian, Arctic Monkeys, Isobel Campbell, Elected President, Howie Beck, Paris Motel, Jens lekman, Mazarin. Also been enjoying a splendid bootleg mash up single which brings together ODB and The Specials to fine effect..

Unusually for us Bryan Munich were involved in a slightly contentious game of football this weekend. We were playing Redland Ramblers and went a goal down fairly early in the match. Not long afterwards one of our strikers saw his shot pushed onto the crossbar by the hand of a Rambler defender. The ref missed it, which was a shame, the defender refused to acknowledge what had taken place, which considering the nature of our "casual" league is unacceptable. It caused a level of bad feeling, which lead to several bookings and a few unpleasant moments. It's the first time that it's happened in one of our games and left a bit of a nasty taste. if people want to win at all costs that's fine, but they should go to a different league to do it.

We spent Saturday at the splendid wedding of one of Orynthia’s workmates. Once again the wedding DJ entertainment was provided by a couple of our friends, Steve and Ian of Fuzz Against Junk played a section of top tunes whilst placed on the half landing of a very grand staircase, most unusual. The layout of Kings Weston House meant that the dancing was rather more restrained than some recent weddings we have been to, but we managed a bit of flutter around the floor.

Plenty to look forward to this week, tomorrow we are off to Cardiff for the night. Isobel Campbell will be in town, promoting her excellent “Ballad of the Broken Seas” album for this tour she is being joined by Eugene Kelly so it should be a good night.

Then on Friday we will be at The Cube for the launch of the long awaited album by Francois and the Atlas Mountains, we are both so excited about this album (and evening). Some of the best gigs we have seen in the last 6 months have been by this marvellous band. Exuberant, melodious, touching, and fun are a few of the words that spring to mind when I think of their gigs. Tracyanne from Camera Obscura will be spinning some tunes as well as performance from a couple of bands which are new to me – Sleeping States and Corey O’s. Fantastic.

Talking of music, talk is spreading of some sort of C86 twenty years on type event in Bristol. Not sure what form the evening will take yet, but it could be time to squeeze into those skinny black jeans and get the national health glasses on once more!

Where does the time go? A week on and the chaos is gradually receding, most of the records are back on the shelves. Somehow the books appear to have been reproducing, will they all fit? I’m not so sure. Anyway the new carpet is in place, so that’s a room that we don’t need to play around for a good few years.

As mentioned in the last update Sunday saw us embarking of another Grumpy Man evening, and I think that it was the best one that I have been involved in. Only four of us behind the mixer the mixer, playing for nearly 6 hours , meant that I had time to play everything I planned to (and more besides), so we had tunes from the following:
Tom Waits
Rufus Wainwright
Isobel Campbell & Mark Lanegan
Lou Reed
The Coral
Clap Your Hands Say yeah
The Shins
New Order
Joe Volk
Martina Topley-Bird
Au Revoir Simone
Clor
Charlie Parr
Camera Obscura
Shout Out Louds
Richard Hawley
The Smiths
Clem Snide….and many more. We do it all again on Sunday March 12th at the same place. Then on Thursday March 16th I’ll be playing some tunes at Bar Unlimited as part of the “Lost in the Woods” evening arranged by Aspen Woods. My good friend Ian Green will be performing so you can expect the unexpected!

Books and records all over the place at the moment, after fighting off the thought for many years we have finally decided to replace the carpet in our back bedroom. The room is actually used as more of an upstairs sitting room, as that is where the Mac's and aforementioned goods live.

The carpet has been on poor side of threadbare for a number of years, but the judicious placement of various rugs has helped us to delay the inevitable. We started moving things out on Sunday and it went rather well, the only problem being the break up of all those years of placing records in a careful alphabetical order. What fun awaits us, when it comes to restacking the shelves, do we change the system? For years albums and 12" singles have been kept firmly segregated, but why? CD singles and albums happily co-exist so why not 12" slabs of vinyl? What long forgotten gems will re-emerge after years in the wilderness, then again I'm sure that masses of very embarrassing '80's nonsense will leap out at me.

Talking of music, this Sunday will once again find me masquerading as a DJ at the latest Grumpy Man bash, once again it's at Mr Wolfs noodle bar, everyone is welcome.

Over the weekend we watched the fantastically stylish and wonderfully loopy French film 8 women. It was perfect viewing for a cold grey Saturday afternoon. The perfect snow bound country house murder mystery, populated by the most impossibly well dressed women and the occasional crazy musical interlude it made for great viewing.

After that we watched a very different, and very moving programme as Stephen Fry traced his family roots through the heart of one of the blackest periods of European history. On a couple of occasions it made for very painful yet also strangely hopeful viewing. The bleakness of his family story contrasted wonderfully with the amazing optimism of one of the people he came across, the one remaining Jewish person in a place in which he had previously been part of a thriving community. How splendid to be uncontaminated by all the hatred thrown at you, refusing to live your life in bitterness and spite. Truly inspirational!

Phew rock ‘n’ roll frenzy, well not really but we have had an interesting couple of nights this week.

As mentioned previously Wednesday saw the long awaited Bristol debut of Belle & Sebastian. Stuart Murdoch told an interesting little story regarding a trip around the UK, which a few of them undertook about 8 years ago in an attempt to find interesting venues to play. Sadly when they reached Bristol it was a Sunday evening and apparently they struggled to find anywhere which was open, let alone interesting, so that’s why it’s taken them this long to make it here.

The gig itself was great, a nice mix of old and new. It’s amazing how many of the new songs sound like pop classics. That’s pop as old-fashioned hit singles of no particular genre, just good pop songs. Some spellbinding moments with a few of the old songs, notably “Fox in the Snow” and “Judy and the dream of horses”

Memories of that wonderful night when we saw them at the Union Chapel in London in 1997 came flooding back. The confusion as people would jump up from the seats for the fast bits, before quickly sitting down again as the songs slowed. Making for a strange slow motion pogo effect. No such confusion this time around, everyone knows what those songs are about and can pace themselves accordingly.



Last night we went along to latest acoustic night to be organised by those nice people from Aspen Woods, they take place at Bar Unlimited and go under the header “Lost in The Woods”. So on a freezing cold night we took the short walk to Gloucester Road to be entertained by the excellent Katy Tucker and the interesting and unconventional Bij. The cosy environment was perfect for the intimate performances. The unconfirmed line up for the March event looks good as well, worth check out if you are free on March 16th.

When in Cheltenham I got caught up in a bit of 80’s nostalgia. Whilst enjoying my traditional “full English” in the hotel, an article on The June Brides by American writer Dave Eggers took my eye. Now for many people the music of The Junes Brides won’t mean much. However when Orynthia and I got married (19 years ago next weekend since you ask), their album “There are eight million stories” was one of the ones that we both had copies of, there were a few others, feel free to guess.

Mr Eggers piece perfectly captured the strange hold that the work of a band can have over you. The way that years later, you can still find yourself looking for news of a performer, who moved onto a more secure way of earning a living many years ago.

Later whilst trying to finally spend some of my Xmas / birthday book tokens, I picked up the Simon Reynolds book “Rip it up and start again – post punk 1978 – 1984” it does sound more like someone’s specialist subject on an episode of Mastermind than an exciting read. But that’s exactly what a book covering the music of that time should be titled. A mixture of knowing reference and dry fact, which our bible of the time the NME would have revelled in.

Much like Simon Reynolds my real musical obsession started in 1978, previously I’d taken an interest in prog and heavy metal and strangely bits of jazz. However, the combination of spending money (having started work), and a burgeoning addiction to the John Peel show saw me throwing my money at any number of soon to be forgotten guitar bands. What a treat then to turn randomly to page 222 to find a top ten consisting of bands such as “Prefects” “The Cravats” “Notsensibles” “Spizzenergi” “Family Fodder” “Fatal Microbes” “(And The) Native Hipsters”. Should be a good read, before I get into that I’m going to spend my time with the latest book from Ian McEwan “Saturday.

We had a great couple of days, on Wednesday evening we had the chance to reacquaint ourselves with The Strokes. Very fine they were too, I’m not completely convinced by the new album but from the moment they took to the stage they were on top form. Crisp, concise and punchy they were on top form and were a treat to watch from first to last. Support band The Shout Out Louds, did their best, but found it hard to replicate the bouncy fun of their excellent album due to the awful sound which the mixing desk provided them with.

On Thursday evening we made the short journey up the M5 to Cheltenham for slightly early wedding anniversary treat. We stayed in the majestic splendour of the Hotel De La Bere, before enjoying a wander around Cheltenham on Friday.

I’ve just got in after watching one of those games, which remind me why I go to watch Bristol City play football. A full-bloodied encounter saw us beat highflying Swansea City 1-0 on a bitterly cold afternoon. Much shouting and jumping up down ensued.

More music treats in the upcoming week as we get to see Belle & Sebastian for what I think must be the 7th 9th time. It will be the first time that they have played here in Bristol, so I hope that my fellow citizens are nice to them. Then on Thursday, we are aiming to go to Bar unlimited for the latest acoustic night to be arranged by local guitar gods Aspen Woods.

Disappointingly I’ve given up reading Moby Dick, after 450 odd pages. After a sparkling start, I’ve been worn out by the minutiae of detail surrounding Whales and boats. It’s back to dry land for me.

So what’s been going on this week? Well apart from spending quite a lot of time with the lovely new debut solo album from Joe Volk “Derwent Waters Saint”, I’ve been messing around with that new fangled (well, not that new actually) fangled myspace business.

So we now have a site where we can link directly to many of our favourite people and bands. It’s a good way of hearing a few tunes from people that you may have read about, without taking too much of a gamble.

It’s turning into a bit of a mini empire, what with this blog, the Flickr site and now the Myspace site. Where will it all end?

We are in the midst of planning yet another trip to Scotland. This time we aim to venture considerably further north of our traditional stopping point of Glasgow, although of course we will spend time there as well. We are going to venture back in time with a good old-fashioned driving holiday, taking the chance to catch up with a few friends along the way. Time to find a pair of those strange string backed driving gloves that were all the rage in the 50’s and 60’s. At least we have a few months to locate a pair.

Our film week ended on a slightly unsettling note with the film “Innocence” at The Watershed. It was a French study of young girls seemingly kept against their will in strange and unsettling closed society. Featuring some wildly inappropriate scenes it left both of us feeling more than a little disconcerted, not pleasant viewing. Still we saw 8 films in a week, and apart from our last choice at least one of us enjoyed all the others.

After a night off on Friday, Saturday saw us returning to French cinema, this time with much more enjoyable results. We went to The Orpheus to see “The Beat That My Heart Skipped”. Interesting, thoughtful and occasionally funny it was a perfect antidote to the nasty feeling which “Innocence” left us with. It was directed by Jacques Audiard who previous film was the equally splendid “Read my Lips”. Of course it helped that the central figure in the film is called Tom.

Had an interesting character sitting next to me. Of course Orynthia is always interesting, but on this occasion I’m talking about the chap that was on the other side of me. I was impressed when He returned to his seat after just before the start of the film holding a mug of coffee, that’s a mug of coffee mind you, not the normal cardboard cup. So I assume that he must have taken his own mug to the cinema. Then when he sat down, he delved into a large bag of sweets and noisily unwrapped 7 or 8 of them, so that he would not disturb either himself or the rest of us whilst the film was in progress. He also took copious notes, whenever the film changed direction or mood. It all left me feeling very the amateur filmgoer.

He reminded me of those people that you see whilst you are plowing you way around an art gallery. Whilst I stand and gawp at the paintings you can’t help noticing those intellectual looking types – notebook in hand, recording, well recording what exactly? The name of the piece in question, their thoughts about work, notes on the composition? Maybe it’s just a shopping list, whatever it is, I always think that they are getting more out of the experience of me.

Managed to pick up a few CD’s on Friday whilst we out and about. Most were things that have been on my personal shopping list for a while. Such as the albums by The Cribs - “The New Fellas”, The Rakes – “Capture / Release”, the self titled album by Clor, the mini album by Au Revoir Simone – “Verses of Comfort, assurance & Salvation”, all of which I’m enjoying. Also picked up a copy of the new Strokes album and we managed to finally track down a couple of tickets for their upcoming gig at the Colston Hall, which I’m looking forward to a lot. Just a week after that Belle & Sebastian come to town, hooray!