Christmas musings

Well it's all over for another year!

Here are some of my highlights of Christmas 2007.

Going to Somerset (where we stayed at my Sisters) took ages although traffic was good..why?

Planned to stop at services on A36 and have Burger King, but when we arrived it's now a travel chef...plan B Subway in Wells (where there is no Burger King or McDonalds parents please note)

Went to candlelight Carol service at Rowberrow parish church Christmas Eve. Small church, lots of people, standing room only. Very Vicar of Dibley. Question...why when church attendances are falling does a church allow it's "welcoming" door steward to behave like an East German border guard circa 1958. She was unbelievable! Good service though.

Children don't understand that food doesn't cook itself. Presents however change everybodies mood.

As we started Christmas dinner, my sisters new stereo (purchased by her kind brother, she only has the one!) played Olivers Army by Elvis Costello, not very seasonal, but kicked in with Fairytale of New York for Christmas Pud.

Alexander Armstrong seems to have taken over the BBC, he was even in "To the manor Born".

Doctor Who was great and not just 'cos of Kylie.

Finally...Happy New Year.

Border song

For those of you who may be interested, Borders are sending me a £10 gift voucher as a "gesture of goodwill" after the £10 note incident. I believe it's called "CR-ing it"!!!

The ritual of the rhythm of the heat

While the boys and I were Christmas shopping in Southampton earlier today we came upon this drum group.

Actually "came upon" was more "deafened by". As we alighted from the bus (from the station having journeyed in by train) I thought that a jet was taking off from Eastleigh airport. It was only as we rounded the corner that it became clear that a group of drummers besides the Bargate (the ancient entrance to the walled city of Southampton) were "doing their thing" very loudly.

They were excellent and certainly made our shopping trip far more entertaining that we had expected. If you want to sample their sounds (or visuals) then click here.

Bordering on the ridiculous

Last Thursday at lunch time, I visited Borders store in Bournemouth. Now I love Borders, I could spend hours in there but Thursday may just have changed my mind

Having made my choices, The Times, Word Magazine and a small Christmas present, I went to the counter to pay. My bill came to £10.19 and I only had a £20 note. So I gave the girl at the till a £20 note and a 20p piece so that she could give me a £10 note and a penny.

She had another plan and gave me a penny! So I said "Sorry but I gave you a £20 note". "Did you?" she replied, "I don't remember". Now this is a transaction that happened only 20 seconds earlier and her job is to take the correct money in exchange for goods! So not very good at her job and no memory!

She went to her senior colleague and explained my request. He came over and said "Sorry about this but I'll just need to check the till, I won't be long" where upon he printed a journal roll and then in front of the queue, lifted the whole cash tray out and disappeared, into the back of the store, leaving me standing at the counter, in my lunch hour for 10 minutes.

When he reappeared, he placed the till back on the counter and with a face looking like a cat handling it's owner a dead mouse, said "there you go sir" as he handed me the £10 note I should have had 10 minutes earlier.

Now here's the real clincher...he them returned to his till without any further comment. No "I'm really sorry sir, but we do have to check the till and I'm really sorry for my colleagues mistake here's your £10 and have this discount voucher for the inconvenience", no just walked off!

Now firstly, what ever happened to trust or the customer is always right? But far more importantly, why no apology??? It draws the conclusion that no customer is important, just the money in the till.

Unbelievable!!!!!

Title of the year (well for today!)

As a huge fan of the band Yes, Chris Squire releasing a Christmas album with a choir (my new found hobby, see previous blog) is something to look forward to.

True, it feels a bit early for singing "Adam lay Y'Bounden" but when the album has such a great title what the heck!

This Wednesday, Thursday, Friday & Saturday, I am appearing in a musical!

My church are putting on a performance of Roger Jones Jailbreak, based on the story of St Paul in Phillippi. I am part of the choir, singing bass, and although I haven't sung like this for years I am enjoying it immensely. Both of my sons are also appearing as actors so it's a family affair. In fact my eldest son will celebrate his 15th birthday by performing in it on Friday.

While the music is not my first choice style wise, there are some beautiful parts and when the choir is in full throttle, it is an amazing feeling.

I have also established that my voice, while not a thing of beauty, can hold a tune, when it tries hard.

Big old jet airliner

The UK government has two brothers in the cabinet, Ed & David Milliband. Do you think there is a third one called Steve.......?

Way!

While flicking through the TV channels, I stumbled upon the Bo Rhap video which I must have seen hundreds of times.

But this morning I watched it properly and some of the sensations I encountered in 1975 resurfaced.

I first heard it one Sunday afternoon while doing my home work and listening to Annie Nightingale's Radio 1 show. I was a Queen fan so when she said this was the new single i put pen down and listened. But she made a mistake and played at least two songs off the new album. which one was the single? The slow one I presumed and then there was an album track with an operatic bit and a great heavy ending?

It seriously wasn't until at school the next day that I was told "no that's the whole song". But it's 6 minutes long!

Then there was the video! Never seen anything like that before and the effects and everything were awesome. (I know today they look very basic but this was 30 years ago!) We tuned in every Thursday night to watch Top of the Pops just to see it. And that was the only time you would see it each week. And therefore you absorbed every detail, nuance and pose. Freddies overhand piano playing, Brian and Freddie's outfits, Brian's guitar solo, the operatic effects "how did they do that?" and then the ending with the live bombastic bit, dry ice, smoke and everything. All would be discussed with real enthusiasm just because there really was nothing like it on TOTP at the time.

Then there were the lyrics! At Youth Club we would try and sing the whole song. Who killed who? What's a fandango? My best friend Grahame was convinced Freddie sang "Hit me when the wind blows"!

This morning for six minutes I was 16 again.

Wanted cash

Things at Southampton FC have started to get silly. And that is off the field rather than on it!


It's fairly well documented that following relegation from the premiership, the clubs financial position was only really viable if they got promoted back to the Premier League (as it has become in the intervening period) during the next two seasons when they still received the parachute payments from the Premier league. (This is a payment paid to relegated teams to help them adapt to life outside the Premier League, I.E. continue to pay the players the salaries demanded by Premier league players for the remainder of their contracts).


That finished for us at the end of last season and to avoid administration, at the end of last season we sold Gareth Bale, Chris Baird and Kenwyne Jones (something like £15m for the 3) and we all thought that was us sorted financially for this season.

Now this is posted on the website. So that's probably Andrew Surman sold in Jan then (and maybe Grzegorz Raziak). As you can see there is an offer on the table, but the existing shareholders are not happy with it and it's from a hedge fund, which has all sorts of implications I'm not comfortable with.


There is one recurring rumour , based around Microsoft founder Paul Allen, ignore the date on the linked article it's just an example and I can only hope that is true. Otherwise at present a formally financially well run club is going the way of Leeds and Coventry.


And Pompey are 7th in the Premier league.....

Matt and Will's big day out

Today the boys & I spent a glorious day in Chichester.

It being half term, I am off all week and as the weather forecast for today was "clear blue skies" we decided that a day out was in order.


Matt now has a paper round delivering the local paper (his second - the first one ended in the newsagents closing down- not his fault!) so we couldn't go until that was completed. Now to me the "local paper" tells me what has happened today, and therefore to discover that it can be delivered at 10am tends to suggest that it wouldn't meet my definition!


Anyway by late morning we were on our way and after a event free 40 minute drive we parked up and were on our "find lunch" hunt. This was completed at The Buttery where we enjoyed Bacon and Cheese ciabattas (Matt & I) and pizza, smiley faces and beans (Will regressing to a 5 year old!) all washed down with pots of tea. (Earl Grey tea apparantly "smells funny")


After a brief trip around the shops we moved on to the cathedral, which in todays bright sunshine looked at it's absolute best, both inside and out. We didn't have to pay to get in (unlike Winchester, which really hacks me off) and the staff inside were really helpful and informative. The star of the show was the cathedral however.

All in all a day to remember.

Winning Ugly

This week end I thought that one of "my" teams would have to win ugly.

I got my wish...sadly Saints not England!

Systematic chaos

Last night Matt & I together with my good friend John (who flew over from Jersey especially) went to see Dream Theater at Wembley Area. As you can tell by the spelling they are American and if you had to guess what their music sounded like, then based on the picture then you would probably say LOUD! And you would be wrong as it is VERY LOUD and actually well written and melodic and their musicianship is amazing

Now as a teenager I was fully exposed to all the excesses of 70's prog rock and am still a complete sucker for intricate time signatures, keyboard/guitar duels and lyrics that make no sense. With DT you get all of that and more as it's VERY LOUD. They played for 2 hours and included all the songs that we wanted to hear, the visuals were great, the sound excellent and best of all it was the first gig I've ever attended with one of my boys.

Now before you get the "dragging his kids to see bands they don't want to see" face on, Matt is probably a bigger fan than me (although I have seen them before) and enjoyed it just as much as I did. He knew all the words and drummed and clapped along like a good 'un.

We stayed at Wembley TravelSauna. Why do hotels have to have the heat up to tropical and why was it next to the North Circular so that sleeping with window open would mean that you could be cool but not sleep through traffic noise or quiet (window closed) but not sleep through the heat.

Lunch today was at the Hard Rock Cafe, and then the obligatory trip the Apple store in Regent street.

Oh and we won the Rugby semi final as well.

Awesome television

Much has already been written on this subject but here's my two penny worth.

For the past 10 weeks I have been absorbed with "Studio 60 on Sunset Strip" which goes out on More 4 at 10pm every Thursday. Written by Aaron Sorkin, who was the man behind "The West Wing" (probably my all time favourite TV programme) it's a drama that shows life behind the camera on a top rated US comedy show (which as far as I can make out is Saturday Night Live with a slight name change). It's funny, sad, intelligently written, uncomfortable (it pokes fun at almost everyone except Muslims) and has a natural doubleact at it's centre.

Most people know Matthew Perry from Friends, less are familiar with Bradley Whitfield who starred in the aforementioned "West Wing". They star as the executive producers of the show and just have a natural "buddy/buddy" chemistry. Off screen you just feel they probably finish..... each others sentences. They are backed up by a great cast who are probably quite well known in the US but who are all unknown to me. I expect a lot of them to feature in many future imported US series. Talent like that will rise.

It's an intelligent attempt at (I think) showing US TV audiences some of what is wrong with the broadcast system it currently employs. Ultimately it has failed as the very people it portrayed as taking offence to it's subject matter, have in reality done just that. I suspect that the studio bosses were not equipped with the same backbone as the fictional ones, but perhaps that was to be expected. In addition it had the misfortune to be shown on the same timeslot as "Heroes" and as that is of the genre of the moment (well made, good effects and a storyline that you have really concentrate to have any idea whats going on - plus super powers as well!!!) and as a result it didn't do as well in the ratings as it should have. (That being a massive understatement!)

So after one series it got cancelled.

To be replaced in part by a reality TV show based on the film "the Wedding Crashers".

That says it all really.

World gone crazy!

Well I didn't see that coming!

Firstly, despite being everyone's (including some of the team's Mums) favourites to be back in England by teatime having been beaten by a cricket score, England's rugby team reminded us all they are world champions. They did this by beating Australia (just typing that feels good!) 12-10. So, as you can tell by the score, it wasn't a try fest, but the semi-final place goes to the team who scores the most points not who plays the more free flowing rugby. (Ha Ha!)

Then we all sat down to watch New Zealand flatten France, so that we would know beyond doubt that we had better enjoy this feeling as next weekend it would be us being flattened. And even more unbelievably what we did to Australia, France did to New Zealand, only to be honest, more so.

In between that the Saints played WBA and having led 2-0 allowed "the Baggies" back to 2-2. So given our season so far we lose 3-2. But no we won 3-2!

And most amazingly of all, after all of that, I didn't wake up!

Rubbish song made worse shock!

Just when you think Pop music has scraped the bottom of the barrel...along come these two off of BB with their version of....Barbie Girl! Suddenly we're through the barrel and rapidly heading for the Earth's core.

The legendary birth of meatballs 4

As someone who has a 35/40 minute journey to work and back every day, the podcast is a great invention, as most are somewhere near that length and fill the journey perfectly.

Here are some that I enjoy with links (assuming I can figure out how the software does links!)

Firstly Kermode & Mayo film reviews off of BBC Radio 5 Live. They are like a married couple with their squabbling and Mark Kermode's rants are awesome. For me this is what gets me to work on a Monday morning.

Next Baker & Kelly which is a football podcast but with their own twist on the game. It's full of hilarious anecdotes and stupid games, such as relating a famous teams squad numbers to say a Chinese takeaway menu. The caller who played a game high on LSD was a worth the download on it's own.

The Word weekly podcast consists of Mark Ellen and David Hepworth (who used to present the Old Grey Whistle Test many years ago, as well as starting Q magazine) together with a guest (usually a Word staff writer) chewing the fat on the weeks music related stories, articles they are working on for the magazine or things have just got their goat that week. It has a large dose of "grumpy old men" in it, which worries me as I agree with most of it. It ends with the HORA (hoary old rock anecdote) where one of them tells a great story from their past. While the content is good the audio quality is a bit dodgy and has in the past sounded like they're in a cupboard.

Finally for this post the Stuff magazine podcast. This is all about technology and can be a bit geeky, but that probably goes with the subject matter. The sound quality and conversation can be a bit amateurish but it may just be irony!

Enjoy!

Musings

It's been a funny old week!

Jose leaves Chelsea and boy will they miss him. The football may have been less than exciting at times, but they were in the best form since he took over than...well ever. Sadly it's likely to be more Quo than Yazz from now on.*

Blue Peter fixed a vote on the name of a cat! Cue lots of media likening it to the end of civilisation. What has BBC done to upset everyone? I think that it goes Iraq/Kelly/Government/Today with a large sprinkle of ITV etc all trying to deflect focus away from what they have been up to.

The Lib Dems have been at conference in Brighton, which apart from a great handbagging by Mrs Ming on one of the "Young Turks", passed by largely un-noticed. Next week the Labour party comes to Bournemouth where I work, so half the roads will be closed and all the bars and restaurants any where near the BIC will be full of party apparatchiks. Oh and there will be one or two more Policemen around than usual!

*"Down down" as opposed to "The only way is up"

9 November is iPhone day

Apple today announced the arrival in the UK next month of what Stuff magazine are calling "the Jesus phone" by which I hope they mean that it is life changing!

Now when it was launched in the USA earlier this year it was "an event" with people queueing around the block etc etc... Those lucky enough to acquire one were the centre of attention and to date 1 million have been sold.

Now it's our turn. O2 will have the network rights, you'll need to sign up for 18 months and it won't be cheap but it will sell and people again will queue.

But I won't. You see I'm happy with my phone, it does all I need it to. (yes I know I'm showing my age) BUT have you seen the iPod Touch. Now that looks like the iPhone, feels like the iPhone and is a better iPod. Now that i might just have to ask Father Christmas for!

Am I alone in that view or by delaying the launch of the iPhone in Europe to after the iPod Touch launch, have Apple reduced demand for it's own product? Bet O2 were happy when the iPod Touch was launched!

Yesterday was my parents 50th (Golden) wedding anniversary.

Lots of our week on the Isle of Wight was part of their celebrations as we met up with family and presents, best wishes and congratulations were willingly given. In all of it they have carried themselves, as they always do, with great modesty and humility. It was a real joy to see how much they are loved as last night they sat in a lounge full of flowers and gifts.

I am so lucky to have them as my parents and role models.

The Wight album

So we're back and I finally have found some time to write about our trip overseas (well the Solent)

Firstly, as the top photo shows, Southampton is actually a really cool port and to pass the Queen Mary 2 and have an enormous cruise liner in the background was an amazing start. I've lived in the Southampton area most of my life and it took an odd perspective on the port, I've seen change over the years, to remind me just how lucky I am.

The second photo shows "The Needles" one of the Islands most

photographed landscapes. This picture is taken from the top of a down over which we walked on Bank Holiday Monday. The heather was beautiful and yes that is the top of a chair lift you can see to the bottom left of the photo!

In the past any one who arrived on the Island via Cowes was greeted by a large pair of marine sheds with the doors painted in a

distinctive red, white and blue "union jack". This was the home of the British Hovercraft Corporation who built the hovercraft who were the quicker alternative to the ferry. (This was in days before wave-piercers and even hydrofoils) While most have disappeared , the Island still has a regular service between Ryde (ticket to?) and Portsmouth. As the photo shows, as it arrives at Ryde, it makes a pretty impressive sight!

The last photo shows the Isle of Wight steam railway. As a boy my trips to the Island involved numerous trips around courtesy of the steam trains that travelled over the miles of track. In 1967 that all changed when the steam was replaced by old London underground trains and most of the track was pulled up leaving one route down the east coast of the Island and , in due course, the Isle of Wight Steam railway. No visit to the Island is complete without a visit to that.

If I have roots, they are on this Island, the family name is regularly seen on businesses and signs. It is always does me good to visit and "step back in time"

So the time has arrived for the Downer boys to go on their annual vacation and we are off to the Isle of Wight for a week. Now as the photo shows very picturesque but electricity is a recent innovation so wi-fi and broadband, no chance. If we do find a chance we will blog, but unlikely, so to our reader (cheers matey!) we will be back (with photos) in a week.

See, I could be good at this......

Well after yesterdays near miss, today we finally played golf. We being Matt, Will and me, so better really, as all three of us got to hack our way around Ampfield Golf Club.

It nearly didn't happen (again!) as firstly when we turned up at 2pm, a very helpful lady advised us that there was a competition on and therefore we should "come back in an hour and a half or so", but we should then "have the course to ourselves". Then, having visited my parents for a cup of tea, when we returned, the boys spotted the " no jeans or track suits" sign just above the "golf shoes to be worn at all times" sign. Yes you guessed, jeans (Matt), track suit trousers (Will) and no golf shoes (full house). I therefore enquired of a man, outside the club house, how rigidly they enforced the rules? Well you should be OK he said but next time you should comply, before adding "if you get a problem tell them the club captain said it was OK!"

So I paid up (£30!) and we set off. The first few holes were challenging mainly as I tried to explain, while coaching, golfing etiquette. The main issue being getting the boys to co-ordinate making shots, flag removal and return, club selection and golf bag retrieval from the last green! To be fair though as they had never played before, they picked it all up pretty quickly, to the extent that by the turn I was able to card a par! All three of us played some rubbish shots, some OK shots and then that most frustrating of shots the "exactly as I intended" one which makes you think "I could be good at this, with a bit more practice!"

The whole thing took 2 hours and we are all keen to play again Who won? Well modesty forbids......

It's raining again

Will, my youngest son (11), and I decided this afternoon, that as the sun was shining, then this should be the day that we played golf together for the first time. We have had many trips to the driving range, and as Matt, my eldest son (14), was out with his girlfriend (!), this was an ideal opportunity for some Father/Son bonding, rites of passage etc... A good plan, except we were no more than 100 yards from home when the heavens opened. Not expected by the weather forecast but as it is August and I'm in England not so surprising. Exit bonding stage left and enter stage right another trip to the driving range. Still fun but....

National identity crisis

Am sat watching France beat England. Is it just me or has the unnecessary marketing ploy of wearing our change kit turned us into the Welsh?

Delia's boys must go down

My football team, Southampton (The Saints), go to Norwich today having played two, lost two. We are bottom of the Championship and out of the Carling Cup. Exactly one week ago I was excited at the start of the new season and off to the first game with high hopes, based on a good pre-season. The only defeat was at home to Lazio, (who are in the Champions League this season). That was, however, the game that actually showed how we should approach the season as our defence played with lead boots. Two weeks later, enter Crystal Palace, and again the Saints kit man broke out the lead boots and we lost, at home, 4-1.

Monday night, we went to Peterborough, who are two leagues below us and came second. Mind you Sky Sports expected it as they showed it live and they didn't choose it because they wanted the nation to see The Saints "total football"

Today we go to East Anglia, with a new Centre half (bought from the mighty Burnley!). After one week I will be happy with a draw!