Happy Birthday

Will, my youngest son, was 12 yesterday and so this has been a weekend of celebration.

Friday night we went bowling with my work colleagues at Tower Park in Poole. This was the first time that we had done something like this and it was a test that the boys passed with flying colours. They were just themselves and we had a great evening with my bowling even managing to win me both games.

Yesterday we had the traditional present opening and then after breakfast we went to clean the church! (Will was not impressed but as his Mum puts the rota together he couldn't blame me for that one!) This also enabled him to see one set grandparents so that offset the cleaning to a large extent.

Lunch was held at TGI Fridays in Southampton, which was great but I haven't been for a while so when the waitress did her talky bits all I could think of was The Catherine Tate show sketches.

The day finished with a quiz night at Church during which everyone sang "Happy Birthday" to Will who went bright red!

Today was Will's party day! Quaser at 10Pin in Southampton, Will, Matt and 6 of Will's friends with food and cake afterwards. What more could a boy ask for?

Weekends like this are always special.

Ready an' willing

While browsing the Classic Rock website I came upon an entry entitled "see David Coverdale on Loose women again"

Now given the aforementioned Mr Coverdale's reputation you could be fore given for thinking that the link took you to some kind of home made video that only over 18's could view.

But there is on ITV most lunch times a chat show called "Loose Women" and it was on that that he appeared. Boy he must need the album sales!

You can watch it here.

I'm still standing

I had to go to Bristol today on business and being the good son of a Railwayman, I took the train.

At 3.22pm I boarded the FGW train ( comprised of two coaches) to Portsmouth at Bristol Temple Mead station for the return journey. In fact boarded is probably not strictly true as that description gives the impression of striding on board whereas I shuffled on with the dozens of other people as we struggled to find a space to stand for the journey. (Yes you did read that correctly). I then stood all the way from Bristol to Salisbury! That's a 70 minute journey. I did get a seat finally at Salisbury for the final 20 minutes.

Some facts :-

• It was Friday afternoon at the end of the school holidays
• Students were returning to University after the Easter break, the train passes through Cardiff, Bristol, Bath, Southampton and Portsmouth - all have Universities
• A good third of the available seats had reserved tickets on them. (although you had no chance of moving through the train to find your seat so you must ask "why bother?")
• The train to Bristol in the morning had three coaches.
• FGW bought some five coach trains, but mothballed them "as they were unreliable?!?"
• My ticket only gives the right to travel not to have a seat.

My e-mail to FGW has just been sent to express my unhappiness!

After all, as I said to them, next time I'll take the car, I always get a seat in that!

Wishing (I had a photograph of you)

Last night's episode of the Apprentice was another corker!

The task was to set up a photographic business in the Bluewater shopping centre, take pictures, sell them and make a profit. Easy!

There were many many priceless moments. Lucinda (Tim "nice but dim's" sister surely?) announcing that she had never used a digital camera and could not even take a photo with her mobile phone. Yes, you guessed it, she was given the job which only involved technology with the expected comedy moments.

Then there was Simon who volunteered to lead his team (Sir Alan mixed the teams up this week) because his best mate was a photographer and he knew a thing or two. Simon became the living embodiment of "pride comes before a fall"

My favourite moment was when one team decided to use "look-a-likes" and during the auditions one girl turned up as a Britney look-a-like in a tight red vinyl cat suit. Sir Alan's side kick Nick did a facial double take of which Leslie Phillips would have been proud (Ding dong!). It's those moments of camera work that make this such a great show.

While both teams were fairly successful at taking photo's, neither could then get them out of the camera onto whichever medium the punter had chosen. And when they could they put them on upside down (step forward Raef, who clearly would normally have staff to perform such tasks).

The end result was that Simon's team made a loss and the other team didn't, so exit stage left for Simon (after a bit of argy-bargy in the boardroom) and Sir Alan sending Claire home for an early bath. "Get out" he said making us all think she was fired "get back the house". What a tease he is!

Next week they make ice cream....

Coming back to life

On a podcast last week I heard Sir Michael Grade (the man in charge of ITV) talking about the networks Saturday night schedule. The unusual part of it (the rest is reality TV or celebrity game show) is that it includes "Pushing Daisies" a top US show from (I think) ABC. He seemed to think that this would be a good move for ITV as they rarely buy US shows and then broadcast them on prime time ITV1.

I was also recommended to watch the show by my mate Steve ( hello America) who has seen the first series and thoroughly enjoyed it.

So I forgot to watch it on Saturday, but have just watched it via the ITV website. (Unlike the truly excellent iPlayer - which is giving the major ISP's a very large headache - ITV do show US shows on their catch up service).

It's good but after the first episode (never the best way to judge a series) I would have to say not great. Visually it is stunning with great use of bold colours and filmed in a style which reminded me of the remake of "Charlie and the Chocolate factory". The plot is that this guy can bring the dead back to life (what did the deep south make of that?) but then if he touches them within 1 minute they die again. His childhood sweetheart dies (wouldn't you just believe it) and he can't bring himself to touch her and thus she stays alive. But he can't ever touch her again! She by the way is played by Anna (first lesbian kiss on British TV) Friel who has not got any uglier!

There are obviously lots of twists on that theme to use and no doubt the series will develop them as we go.

The only slight thing I didn't like was the main musical theme, used at all times when our hero and his sweetheart are together. It's a direct lift from the theme used in "The Railway Children" when Iain Cuthbertson appears through the steam and I kept expecting Jenny Agutter to appear screaming "Daddy my daddy!"

Finally Anna Friel's character is called Chuck which strangely is the name of the other US series I've just started watching...but that can wait for another blog!

What she did

While out shopping today with my sons, Matt's mobile rang while we were in Smiths.

He answered it and I could tell that he was talking to a girl, it wasn't the best place to have a conversation but he persevered. When he finished, with a big grin on his face, he said "that was Alice from Hadouken!" He had, in fact, been chatting to the keyboard player from his favourite band, who had rung him to say thanks for pre-ordering their new album and to tell him that she'd just e-mailed him a remix of one of the tracks.

The music industry is in a mess, with many of the established labels only interested in spending money on "certainties" whatever they look like. This means that no band or group will ever again get a chance to grow or develop over an arc of say three or four albums before they produce their finest work. All of us have bands who we love who we might never have grown to love if they only had one chance to make a killer album.

Web-sites like myspace and youtube make music more accessible but the real development comes with downloading which means that in reality you don't need a record label. The average teenager with a decent laptop and garageband can produce the equivalent of Sgt Pepper! As Hadouken seem to realise it's the fans who are now the key and phone calls and emails can only help in promoting their art.

Fantasy

I'm off this week, so maybe more regular blogging will be a reality?

I'm in two Fantasy football leagues, both run by newspapers (the Times and Telegraph)

In the Telegraph one I'm currently third (out of eight)in a league made up of my work colleagues. I have just had a cracking weekend with only one of my midfield and attack failing to score a goal and thus a hatful of points. Second place is a distinct possibility!

In the Times league (with friends from Church) I have just slipped down to fifth (again out of eight) having been third for much of the season. This is bad enough but who has just overtaken me to go fourth...my son Will (aged 11). I hang my head in shame (while slightly proud as well)!!!!

Match of the Day

It's been a while, but this afternoon I was reminded why I love going to watch the Saints.

This season has been ( and still could be) difficult. At the start of today's game we were in the relegation zone, with League One beckoning. Today's opponents were Bristol City, they're top of the Championship!

We won 2-0 and frankly it should have been 3 or 4! We played with real confidence and for the first time this season our defence looked relatively solid. That is despite our two on loan centre halves having a combined age of 72!

I have to say that the crowd also played a big part. There was a period just after half time when Bristol started to exert some pressure and from nowhere the fans started singing "Oh when the Saints" . This created a real atmosphere and the players reacted, upped their game and the balance of play switched back to the Saints. Shortly after we scored the second.

The Championship is a very strange league with every team it seems capable of beating almost every other team. On today's showing we should be near the top not the bottom and Bristol City if they get promoted will make Derby County look like a good team.

Finally a BIG thanks to Paul for the tickets and to DA for being continued entertainment throughout the game, often however at his own expense!

The only downside...Pompey are in the F A Cup Final!?!

Dirty deeds done dirt cheap

So daily blogging is not happening!

I watched the latest episode of "The Apprentice" earlier (via my IPT of course!)

The gloves came off this week! The task was to operate a laundry and make as much money as possible. The boys picked "la di da gunner graham" (real name Raef) as their leader, the girls picked Jenny.

The boys had a guy who had been in the army in Bosnia and had "run a laundry there!". They also did some home work, by ringing some laundries up and asking them what they charge. This meant that when they went out selling they were somewhere near the market expectations.

The girls argued! And then they argued some more and just when they were getting somewhere they decided to argue again. Priceless but car crash TV at the same time. The girls had no idea on pricing so when they went to a hotel to pitch a deal they asked £5K for a job he normally pays £200 for! They also lost the plot on logistics and ended up losing two shirts and Sir Alan was not impressed.

The boys won easily and actually seemed to do a good job (or it was well edited!).

The girls lost and Shazia was fired (she had been in charge of logistics and Sir Alan blamed her for the lost items). But Jenny and Lucinda had argued and argued and frankly both were far more deserving of eviction, BUT they are far more ratings worthy that Shaz. Sir Alan knows who pays the bill!