The weather was absolutely amazing today. Blue skies, sunshine and warmth. The plants are budding, the insects are buzzing and I had to shed my winter coat when I took Alex the Wonderdog for a walk. Luckily, he went to the dog groomers last Friday and now looks like a shawn sheep. 🙂
Category: Diary
One of the treats I was allowed as a youngster was to stay up late and watch the comedian Dave Allen whenever I stayed with my grandparents. They didn’t mind his bad language and I love the way he pointed out life’s hypocrises and made fun of EVERYONE. I think some of that attitude must have rubbed off. So I was sad to hear that Mr Allen had passed away.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/tv_and_radio/4340115.stm
I hope the BBC and ITV do him justice and put on a tribute show of some kind. Wherever you are Dave, may your god go with you. 😉
You see, I’ve got this new mobile phone and it has a little camera in it. This means that I can document every moment of my life in a series of blurry, low-resolution images. Take last night, for example. I cooked Cottage Pie:
It was very tasty and this was the result:
Gee – ain’t this a lotta fun?
Today, I present a new strand to the website. Yes, folks – I present “Loaf of the Day”. Thanks to the breadmaker we received as a Xmas present, I will be occasionally posting pictures of loaves that I have baked.
Today’s “Loaf of the Day” is a granary loaf:
In the post: My replacement laptop battery all the way from Deutschland. Viva la eBay!
In the post: Alien Vs Predator DVD – OK, not the best movie in the world, but I am a sucker for an Alien/Predator film and a sci-fi action film to boot. I saw this originally last year in LA at the cinema in the Hollywood Renaissance Hotel. The Missus was busy off schmoozing, doing her press thing and I had an hour or so to kill. It was too hot to go for a walk (remember, pale Englishmen and 90+ degree mid-day heat is a bad combination) so I took to shelter in the cinema and watch this film. There was me and three other people. Schweet. Anyway, The Missus didn’t catch the movie so I bought it so we could watch it together.
Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas (Criterion Edition) – I enjoyed this film the first time I saw it and after the recent suicide of Hunter S Thompson, I thought I should get reacquainted with it. I’m a big Terry Gilliam fan and so I am looking forward to watching this again.
Meanwhile, yesterday I blew nearly £100 to buy a replacement battery for my laptop. Not happy…not happy at all about that. 🙁
Today my internet connection was automatically upgraded to a 2Mb ADSL line. The funny thing that there’s no discernible difference between 1Mb and 2Mb. Funny that…
I am a lucky boy. Using my neferious powers and contacts, I have mananged to secure an advance copy of the new Van der Graaf Generator album “Present”. For those of you who don’t know, VDGG are a seminal prog-rock band (probably the ONLY one that is still respected and not tagged with the “dinosaur rock” label) that inspired the likes of John “Rotten” Lydon and Mark E Smith of the Fall.
Anyway, this is the band’s first new material since 1978 and it is really, really good. The only problem is that it sounds like the guys haven’t aged at all – it is classic VDGG material. It is a two-CD affair, the first CD being a load of “proper” song with the second being over an hour of improvisations. The first disc is sweet, the second is so-so. I never really liked this side of VDGG (Darren remembers “The Long Hello” album) so I can take it or leave it. But it has me all juiced up for the reunion gig in May. My tickets are safely secreted somewhere in Chez Lock – they are quite valuable fetching handsome prices on eBay.
Meanwhile, I purchased one of my favourite music mags and it features a nice little interview with King Crimson guitarist Adrian Belew. In it, he reveals a little about the future of the band and it looks promising – just got to wait for the future to happen. 😉