Halloween Photo Essay

Folk Train

Vinny and I met for a beer, and then went on the folk train. We got on at Manchester Piccadilly, and enjoyed the on-train band all the way to Goostrey in Cheshire. The band played at the pub, and on the train home too. Brilliant stuff.

Breakfast of choice

I've got the chicken

If you're out there, Bettsy, this one's for you.

Unfortunate layout

It looks like Palin's involved in the plot. There she is, on the phone, arranging for bullets to be collected, perhaps.

Rock Radio 6 Month Party

"David is going to the Rock Radio party. They've got Aerosmith, Pearl Jam, Van Halen, Crucial Taunt, A Guy Carving A Canoe Out Of A Log..."

What a brilliant night! I met Steve Berry and V! Wow wow wow wow!

The tree out of my window, month long portrait

27th September

4th October

9th October

11th October

12th October

14th October

16th October

25th October

Moan, moan, moan, all you do is bloody moan...

I really hate moaning, but I’ve had a shitty old week, and I’m going to splurge a little.

I’ve been ill. I’ve spent the week coughing up phlegm – syrupy, foul-tasting phlegm – and lounging around with no energy at all. I broke the controller for the playstation on the first day that I was off work, and even the internet has started to bore me. The whole of the wordwide, wonderful, wonderful web to explore, and I’m bored. No smoking, for the sake of my lungs, and no booze, to help me recover. My mood has been rotten all week.

But there’s more. I’ve had the break-up blues in a way I hadn’t imagined I would. I’d been second guessing my own feelings about breaking up for a while before it actually happened. I’d glibly told Liz that, when we broke up, I might not want to be in touch with her for a while afterwards. Months, I’d said. I bet that sounded really strong at the time. It did in my head.

Entirely opposite to what I said, I’ve wanted to get in touch with Liz every single day this week. I've really wanted to see her, to speak to her. In part it’s been because I’ve been so bored, but that’s the smallest part of why. It isn’t because I want the chance to change her mind about breaking up – I don’t believe you can change a mind that’s made up. It’s two things. Firstly, I miss her. I miss her voice, the way she'd listen to me, the lift of her eyebrows that said, “do you really think that?” Secondly, I’m impatient. I really want to be friends with Liz. I’ve grown very close to her, and she’s very important to me. And I want to get started on being friends as soon as possible. I’m itching to get the next step underway. Let's start now!

NAFCO54 vs nafnaf

This old dude is well not trendy, nafnaf all the way

Top pastry top

Keybpard Shortcut Humour

“I can’t even remember the joke, F5 me?”

from tumblr

"He's run right into a brick wall there John...."

"...yes Mark, I'll say."

Paul's cup game was away at Flixton FC. It's a litle non-league place, but it had its own stand, and turnstiles. A taste of the big time for Manchester Dynamo.




The game was going ok, then, chasing down a ball near the corner, Paul ran into the concrete wall around the pitch. Hard. So hard that he broke it.





You can see just how hard Paul hit the wall, by the fact that he broke the top level, and bent the second level.



The third level down was okay. Paul's toe wasn't.



EDIT 20/10/08: Paul has actually broken his toe, and he's out for 4-6 weeks.

NTS 13

Deception, Murder

Eileen persuaded a bus driver to roll over her mp3 player so that she could get it upgraded. Brilliant!


This isn't the aftermath of a murder. Red wine, I swear it's just red wine. Ulp!

We had a great time at Mojo later. I particularly enjoyed hearing Basket Case by Green Day. It's been such a long time since I heard it LOUD in a club, killer song. I was very impressed by one of the bar staff. She strutted up and down the bar playing air guitar to one of my favourite songs at about 3.30am. She made me feel a bit like the song below, about 0.59 onwards...



...schwing!

Cemetery mushrooms, Didsbury Pointless

Pip and I hung out on my day off from work today. We nailed her application form, and then strolled into Chorlton to hand it in, and to cruise the charity shops. In a really unusual turn of events, I didn't find a single thing that I liked the look of. Not in the PDSA, not in Oxfam, nothing. On the way back, I saw these amazing mushrooms growing on a tree in the cemetery. They looked like Quavers.





The piece of 'sculpture' at Didsbury Point continually amazes me with its shitness. Didsbury Pointless, more like.

Tips for a productive Thursday

1. Don't stay up until 4am drinking red wine and watching the Obama debate on CNN.com

2. That's it

Rocks-ford Dictionary of English

AC/DC to ZZ Top, I expect.

Road safe tea

No fronts, no tricks, no soapbox politics…

Kate has a quiet place, between the Wellington pub and the cathedral, where she goes to read. It’s lovely. I met her there after work, and we went and looked around the cathedral. The stained glass was amazing – strikingly modern, but matching the old building too.





Afterwards we went to see Dunk’s new flat behind Carrington’s in Chorlton, which was very nice, and collected him Gethin, Cara, and Al. On then to Pi for pies – I had a tasty wild mushroom and asparagus number, lovely – and beers and chatting. I had a great night, and went home exhausted and smiling.

Liz broke up with me

Liz came over today for a chat, and broke up with me. Her reasons, which I won't share here, were about her rather than about me. I'm sad, but I'm don't want to let that sadness descend into bitterness. The last three and a half months have been thrilling like nothing else I've experienced in a a long time. It's been fun, most of all.

That's my last word on this here. Look at the top of the page. "This blog is some of the stuff I think, and some of the stuff I do." Some stuff is private, and will stay that way.

Unicorn chasing

The weather was beautiful today, fresh and sunny, warm and pleasant. Not typically an October day. I headed out to Chorlton to pick up ingredients for flapjacks. As always, I headed down Cavendish Road, through Didsbury Pointy and then up the side of the Southern Cemetery and Chorlton Park. I still had Liz’s bus pass from last night, but when I passed by her car wasn’t there, so I figured I’d pop in on the way back. Unicorn was out of Jumbo Oats, so I had to buy porridge oats instead. I also picked up some barberries for the flapjacks. I had a lovely walk back, down by Croma to Stockton Road, past the Trevor, the Bowling Green and through Ivy Green to the river, then down past the Water Park to Darley Avenue and home via 46 to drop off that bus pass.



Later I made flapjacks.

Russians

Pippa and I went to see the Stockport Symphony Orchestra perform three pieces by Russian composers.

The overture from Ruslan and Lyudmila, by Glinka.
Piano Concerto #1 by Tchaikovsky.
Symphony #2 by Rachmaninoff.





Chubb is going to join this orchestra next week, so I think I’ll be seeing them again.

A Night in the Museum

A nifty tip from Dunk a couple of weeks ago alerted me to a delicious prospect: an intimate gig in the animal gallery at the Manchester Museum, featuring the charming Mark Morriss of the Bluetones on acoustic guitar. I’ve loved the Bluetones forever, and I leapt at the chance.

The support acts were Becca Williams and Nomad Jones. I really liked Becca Williams, who came across as pleasant and down-to-earth. I thought she was at her best during the upbeat songs in her set, especially the last song, Devil on My Shoulder, which was gravelled and bluesy. I didn’t like Nomad Jones much. His fingerpicking was good, but his delivery was poor. Firstly, he rambled on at the start of each song, explaining exactly what event in his life it was about. Boring! I’m sure that there would be room for two more songs in the set if he chatted less. Secondly, before the last note had finished ringing on every single song, Nomad Jones would lean forward to the mic, stare out at the audience and say, “Thank you.” - a presumptuous thanks, said expectantly before the first clap. Arrogant and rude, I thought. Lastly, I felt really sorry for his girlfriend. The story behind the first song was about Nomad being heartbroken by dumped by a girl in Newcastle. The story behind the second song was something around wanting to be better at washing up for his current girlfriend, who was sat, he pointed out, on a bench near the stage. The story behind another song was about Nomad having his heart broken by an older woman who turned out to be married, the story behind another song was about Nomad having his heart broken by… are you starting to spot a pattern?

Yes, and so was I. Every time Nomad sang a song about a woman he’d known, his poor girlfriend’s face grew sadder. He was basically going through his romantic CV in front of an audience of strangers, with his girlfriend sat right there. How insensitive. She must have felt awful.



Mark Morriss shuffled on in a black polo neck and grey slacks, with a glass of white wine and a cheeky Bluetones smile, and melted every heart in the room over the course of the evening. He was charm itself, well-mannered to the sound man despite the gear starting off a little crackly, politely borrowing a guitar to cover a broken string, and gratefully and humbly enjoying our applause after he’d earned it. He came over as a really pleasant bloke who’d fallen on hard times and was bearing it with a smile. The manager of the Bluetones had stolen all their money, he told us. I pictured a man running off with a suitcase full of fivers. It was an old friend of theirs. Ouch.

The evening was compelling. Mark came across as bittersweet, (“this is a song that was made famous… well, not famous exactly, this is a song that was made known by the Bluetones,”) but good-humoured with it, and still as sharp as ever. When semi-heckled to “Stop apologising!” by someone in the crowd, he smoothly agreed that, yes, he ought to stop apologising, and that the next song was all about stopping apologising. It was Marblehead Johnson. Genius. The man dripped charisma, and we splashed around it like ducks.



You might have forgotten how good the Bluetones are. That voice, those amazing songs – Sleazy Bed Track especially - will remind you. See Mark Morriss. He's pretty good.

Overheard

K: All the dating websites I’ve seen – even that one, that Sarah Beeny website – you’ve got to pay for them all when you sign up. Even on match.com

S: It’s worth it though. And you’ve got nothing to lose.

K: He’s a bit older too.

S: I like older men.

K: I used to, when I was younger.

S: How old are you?

K: Thirty-three. Yeah, so it’s only seven years.

S: I suppose so. I thought you were thirty-five.

K: I am. But the last lot have all been in their twenties, twenty-two, twenty seven.

S: Yeah, well you’ve nothing to lose have you?

K: But I don’t like my photos… I’m gonna ask P___ what he wants from me.

S: Really?

K: I’ve got nothing to lose by asking him, I’ve got nothing to lose by joining that website.

S: Nothing to lose by going out with that 42 year old either.

K: So do I admit to him that I’m looking for a relationship?

S: No. No don’t do that.

For those about to Rock Radio, we salute you

We went to Rock Radio to listen to the tags they’d produced for work. They all came out well, especially “The faster you fly… the quicker you’ll die!” and “Road rage?!… They’ll put you in a cage!” I felt tingles in my arm hairs as I heard The Voice reading out my ideas. They really work, I think. Later on we were shown around the studio, and met Mike Sweeney, one of the DJs. His enthusiasm was astounding, and I got to sit in the studio during a link, which was absolutely brilliant! The thrill of live radio!

Eating my words

Yesterday the weather stank. Terrible, gloomy greyness. “Your calendar isn’t very accurate,” I texted Liz, “this is not the Mancunian October I was led to expect.”



Today the Manchester sky looked this.



I’m glad that I was wrong