I want to tell you

Hmmmmm...it's been a while since I sat at my keyboard & wrote something to go on here.

So what's been going on? Well my 50th birthday celebrations actually seemed to last well over a week.

They started on the Friday before with a Chinese meal with friends. It was that night that I learned that this was a "big" birthday and that badges and wacky cards would be the order of the day (I've always tried to duck that sort of thing!!). It was a great evening and got the celebrations off to a good start.

The next day my Sister and her family were staying with Mum so we all went out and had lunch near Romsey. It was the first we had all been out like that without Dad so there was an element of sadness, but I still got presented with chocolate cake with candles.

The Sunday was quieter until the evening, when my friends Steve & Luann, who live in Cincinnati and were over visiting, held their normal "at home" at the King Rufus pub. I went along to see them, but friends we have in common took the chance to bring helium balloons with my age on them! On the actual day (a Monday, which I took off of work)) I had lunch with my Mother and then took my sons for a meal in the evening.

The big finale was on the following Friday, when my friends Diana & Roger kindly hosted a party at their house for me. There were about 40 of us there and yes I added another balloon to my collection. It was another wonderful evening, with DJ Matt providing suitable 70's and 80's music. No Yes though, he drew the line at that! Lots more rude cards, some fine conversation and even some dancing (of the Dad variety).

The final post script was last Sunday, when at church, before the service I received my third and final balloon!!

In between all that has been work (challenging to say the least) and dealing with Dad's estate which is nowhere near a conclusion and will need a few more hours yet! Why are tax forms so confusing?

Born in the 50’s

If you drew a Venn diagram of two groups comprising "People born in the 50's" and "People who have not had their 50^th birthday" the overlap would be very small, but I, as I write this, would still be in it!

After Monday however I will only be in the first category.

But thanks to the excellent "Word" magazine I can tell you that I'm not alone in reaching this milestone this year. The following are also 50 during 2009:-

• Simon Cowell – slightly wealthier than me!
  
• Hugh Laurie – I'm the same age as Bertie Wooster
  
• Morrissey – So I can play "Heaven knows I'm miserable now" and connect to the man singing it.
  
• Morten Harket – well let's face it he's not old is he...and I'm the same age as him!
  
• John McEnroe – hmmm thought he was older than that!
  
• Susanna Hoffs (lead singer of the Bangles) – I've taken the day off so it won't be a "Manic Monday"! Ta-da!
  
• Sheena Easton – female version of Morten above.
  
• Ben Elton – no longer "alternative" then.
  
• And finally....the Mini and Barbie - I've only owned one of them.
  

So I'm in good company and actually not old at all!

This is the modern world

"The only constant I am sure of, is this accelerating rate of change" Peter Gabriel from the track "Downside – Up".

Recently two new "concepts" have reached me, namely "Spotify" and "Twitter". Each has had large amounts of media coverage. But my instinct is that both have still not really been understood as to the impact they could have, on both the way we listen to music and we receive the news.

Firstly Spotify. This is a music service where you can "stream" music to your computer, for no charge, and listen to whole albums or if you want, put together a playlist and listen to all sorts of things. . The only price you pay is that every 20 minutes or so you have to listen to an advert, which appears for 20 seconds or so between songs. Last weekend I listened to the new U2 album, before its commercial release. Ok we've had services like this before, but this one is legal. Yes, Spotify are working with the record labels and legally offering this service.

Now I'm of a generation which has a physical attachment to owning music, buying that vinyl gatefold album, reading the lyrics and liner notes and the smell of the vinyl were a large part of the "listening experience"! Those days are largely gone, however, CD's diluted that and downloading music has moved us further away. There is still some demand for a product to hold, but Spotify will allow you to have your music when ever or wherever you want (subject to a broadband connection) and you don't have to pay for it! It has the ability to completely change the music industry. It also raises a number of questions if you are a musician as how you get paid for your art but increasingly live work is where an artist makes any money rather than the music itself. Will a generation ahead look back at us and laugh at how we either owned copies of music or paid for it?

Secondly - Twitter. This is a web based service where you can post "tweets", which are messages of no more than 140 characters. Other uses of Twitter can follow you, and thus read your posts. Then they can reply to you, if appropriate, or post tweets themselves. Following is very easy, you find the person on Twitter and then click on the "follow" button and you're connected! As a technology it transfers easily to mobile phones and iPods and means that mobile tweeting is fairly simple. Out of that has grown a whole phalanx of "Twitterers" mainly well known TV and radio stars, which we can follow and know either what they are doing or what their shows etc are showing, doing or what guests are coming in. In addition media outlets now have twitter accounts and it is becoming the best way of receiving the news as quickly as possible. The Hudson River plane crash was all over Twitter far quicker than the news broadcast media could achieve it. You can also post photos, via a link to twitter, so there were also photos of the rescue on twitter, via mobile phones on the shoreline, while the TV director was ordering his film crew to go there. The potential is unknown, but in an age of hunger for knowledge as soon as possible, Twitter will be, at least for the moment, an important technology.

My Father

Yesterday was Dad's funeral and thanksgiving service and it was all that we hoped it would be.

The burial at the cemetery was, as you would expect, fairly emotional but the sun shone brightly and having all of the family there really helped keep us all strong. One strange thing that i didn't expect was the box of earth offered to us all to scatter on the coffin. Especially as when previous asked by my boys whether it would happen had replied "you've been watching too many American films!"

The timing worked well and we arrived at the Church with five minutes or so to spare. As we were welcomed, I glanced into the church and was amazed to see that the church looked nearly full. We had no idea how many people would turn up, but we hadn't really expected that number!

The service comprised four hymns, two readings, my tribute on behalf of the family and prayers (some of which were written by Dad for services he had taken). My sister and Will did the readings and Matt read Dad's prayers. They all did very well and my tribute seemed to strike the right note. Apart from losing my place a couple of times (don't ad lib!) I got through with no problems, but I had written it and ensured that there were no emotional land-mines!

Afterwards there was tea, coffee and a huge spread of sandwiches, nibbles and cakes and a chance to say hello to lots of friends and family. It was a good hour and half later before we were able to pack up and head back to Mum's, where even more cake was available!

Dad would, I know, have thoroughly approved!

Ghostbusters

The latest 118 118 advert features the boys reinacting a version of the Ghostbusters theme song. It also features Ray Parker Junior and includes the classic line "I ain't 'fraid of no goat" just as a goat appears from the back of a car!
Comedy genius.

Father, son

My Dad passed away last Sunday evening after he could no longer fight against the blood disorder he had had for the last eighteen months.

I'll blog after the funeral and thanksgiving service (which is not until Feb 20th - it's a busy time of year!) with my thoughts about how much he meant to us all.

Mum , Jane and I were with him for the last three days of his life and while we all knew how it would end, it was still a time of love and hope.

He's at peace now and while we will all miss him terribly, we couldn't be happy seeing him struggling with the illness that slowly took all his energy. He fought it as much as he could and late last year after a 6 week hospital stay recovered sufficiently to have Christmas and New Year at home with us all.

This week has been hard for us all but has been made so much easier by all the love and kindness we have received. Mum's house looks like a florist and she has more cards than space to display them. The comments about Dad have been truly amazing and on more than one occasion moved me to tears. I have also been very moved by all the cards that my sons and I have received. All the thoughts and prayers have really really helped.

What's going on?

So here's the story so far.....Saints appoint Jan Poortvliet (JP) as manager at the start of the season and we play good football and on occasions (Birmingham in the Carling Cup) play really good football.

Then it all starts to go wrong and as Steve Claridge (ex-Pompey football pundit) put it "they play great football in the middle of the pitch but can't defend or score goals!" Slowly we have sunk down the Championship and now reside one spot off the bottom. Last game we lost 2-1 at home to Doncaster (!) and the fans started fighting amongst themselves. Most fans want Rupert Lowe and Michael Wilde off of the board and JP had lost the fans support as well, mainly due to one home victory all season.

Last Friday, a couple of days after a board meeting, from which he appeared to emerge unscathed, JP resigned.  I'm sad to see him go but he had in reality only made things worse, despite, for a short time, playing the best football we had seen for a few years. 

The board took no time at all to replace him with Mark Wotte (in the photo he's on the right, JP on the left). He was the Academy Director and Reserve team manager and appears the cheap option as we have no money.

Two things may be relevant. One, we did look at Wotte as manager, before George Burley, so maybe he was who we wanted all along? Secondly Wotte's first action was to appoint Michael Svensson as part of his back room staff. 

It's likely that things will get no better, but hope springs eternal. 

Meanwhile Spurs and Pompey both went out the FA Cup this weekend and Nathan Dyer, on loan to Swansea, scored the first goal against Pompey. In these small things we find joy.