scandalous

By the way, has anyone else heard that they are selling the radio frequencies used by microphones? they reckon it'll be the end of stadium shows forever cos they wont be able to use radios mikes at all. crazyness. cant find any articles on it but its true. and if anyone doubts me, i was once doubted on the accuracy of my research into Micheal Barrymore fisting someone to death. that was true too. no doubt there'll be a petition on tony Blairs website but i cant be bothered to look.

anyway, just thought i'd let you know. and it will affect the 2012 olympic games and probably our hope of staging 2018 world cup.

Dragons coming out of my ears

Quite the busy weekend, involving boozey late nights and sunday fun.

After a fairly standard saturday, we decided to get terribly drunk and thats pretty much what i can remember. gave Pat in London a ring for what seemed like a 10 minute chat but ws probably about an hour of me repeating myself like a drunken baffoon. still, nice to have a chat. I'll plug his record that has been released this month - check it out on http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=86574316

Nice.

then Sunday came at me thick nad fast. after dodging the swimimng question we went for bowling at new brighton. good fun, particularly chasing after frank every five minutes. for a 2 year old, postman pat vans are a little more exciting than waiting for your turn to throw a ball at some sticks. still, he came joint second with an impressive 91. Of course I was hailed victor with a wopping 100 andsomething and celebrated by awarding us all a trip to the fairground next door. A bout of dodgems and various rides ensued, Patrick and Jan taking on the Dragon ride whilst me and Frank rode the catterpiller. Rain, schmain, the rides have it.

Every year I do various fancy dress costumes for the boys. So last night I continued on this years task of making Patricks Horrendous Haddock III costume for the school "dress up as a character from a book day" on Thursday. Am in the process of creating a wooly waistcoat by sewing lots of strips of brown and black material to an old shirt. Making a viking hat from paper mache (and one for Frank too) we were sat upto our arses in wallpaper paste and mewspaper til 6:45 last night. Then My piece de resistance, a baby dragon. Once again I will create a masterpiece to leave the young lad the talk of the town. Its pretty fucking impressive. Once done I might attempt to throw a photo on the site.

And so got drunk again last night and stayed up til 1 sewing. leaving me disshevelled and knackered. no time for early nights though, as I must make sure the costumes are ready for action. A mans work is never done.

sunday blogger yeah

Almost forgot about this lark. too busy doing not much.

I took a long weekend off work last friday and monday to use up holidays and spend a bit of time with the kids. its february half term this week.
Friday, i was going to decorate but Frank was ill so looked after him. then we had a good old sing roudn the guitar in the evening. singing some Guillemots tuens with Frank and Patrick on percussion / guitar / harmonica / vocals. good times.

Went to see the folks on Saturday / Sunday and ended up in an impromptu family gathering. all good fun, had a delicious chinese on saturday eve to celebrate the new year. a day early but i'm not a practicing chinaslamic so dont get all traditional on my ax. Was thinking of you, briefly, mister james as i tucked into some spare ribs and seaweed. of course, over here its not really seaweed. I know because i made some myself tother week and its toasted pak-choi tossed about with sugar and salt. it was lovely.
The boys stayed up late and we enjoyed ourselves until they refused to go to bed. kids, tsk.

Sunday, relaxed as my family entertained the brothers slim. Patrick had a push up and down on me dads old motorbike whilst frank did soem birdwatching with some 'noculars and seranaded us with one of his little ditties on a mandolin.

Monday spent in a secret interview with a company in Liverpool.

Tuesday spent catching up on 2 days missed at work.

Wednesday had a thai curry at dinner time for a lady at works leaving do in the Sawasdee just roudn the corner. lovely place - all orchids and lanterns. very tasty too.

then found out that we had no food at all in the house except a quiche and quarter of a smoked sausage. played right into my hands and so finished off with a curry and wine. We tried a new one out, Chicken Acharia or summat, really tastey with dahl, bindi and chana palak. We havent had a curry for a while and it tastes better and better for the abstinance.

it doesnt get much better. hang on, buzzcocks. perfect. Much more taking the monkeywizz out of silly old preston and lots of laughs.

So that pretty much brings us bang up to date. Franks learnt to get dressed / undressed all by himself so that takes a little bit of stress out of mornings and nights. He's also learning to play guitar and often is to be founs in the front room twanging away and crooning some tune he's just written. brilliant my son. keep it up.

the clams before the storm

The clams were a success, cooked to perfection in a noilly pratt, garlic and parsley liquor with linguine. The biggest clams janets ever seen by all accounts. I, never having seen clams before must trust her word that they were big.
Then followed Prestons little strop in the now infamous storming off of Never Mind The Buzzcocks. good boy Prenton, that'll show em that you're not a prick in real life.
Janet was all a flummox, not only did Guillemots (her flava of the month) get nominated for best live act at the brits, fyfe dangerfield was on buzzcocks too. and he seems alright.

So they we have it, clams 1 preston 0.

Valentines

to all who never got a card, I loves y'all.

planning the summer of fun

Not content with a summer holiday spent in a caravan in cornwall, I went and bought tickets to knowsley park to see the Who, the Coral and the View amongst others. June 23rd. Another big red ring on the calendar. We've decided to take patrick along too, to advance his musical and cultural education. I was on my soapbox to give frank a go, but we agreed in the end that maybes hes a bit young for such excitement. I, for one, cannot bloody wait. although drinking shenanigans maybe slightly subdued as it could be a driving day... but maybe not. we just have to wait and see. if anyone else fnacies it then get your tickets, theyre selling like hotcakes. only a little bit more expensive - about £45 for the day. (its a 2 dayer with no camping, but we just doing the saturday).

And if that wasnt enough, the Charlatans are playing Delamere forest park the weekend before (15th June). but i'm just not sure we are that crazy. Delamere is a great place though, have been for nice days out. infact one of our "lets just do it" days out was at a small bit of delamere that weve never found again, snowstorms and strange goings on with slate grey skys behind tall trees on an exposed hillock. all very awe inspiring and memorable stuff, especially for the kids.

Looking forward to tucking into another bean salad as I am blummin starving.
Also, planning the valentines meal for tomorrow. currently eyeing up some clams / pheasent or if not then lamb. it all depends on the availability of the produce from our locally sourced outlets (fishmonger / butcher to any iceland mum amongst us). I might even finish with a chocolate pudding, but no champagne due to financial restrictions (them tickets to knowsley put paid to my plans for a bottle of pol roger to kick the evening off)

one week 'til pancake day too, the year is coming straight at us, thick and fast.

Saturday noon at the movies

After filling our selves full of live entertainment we picked the kids from nan and grandads and took them for a suprise trip to the flicks on saturday morning.
Charlottes web was our choice, and proved to be a success. I was blubbling like a school girl before the title credits had rolled. We had read it to Patrick "I'm too hard to cry" when he was not too hard to cry and so he enjoyed it. And Frank sat through it and understood the basic themes of "the spider isnt coming back" and cried for a short while in all the right places. no mental scarring that we can discern though that may appear a few years down the line when he is out kidnapping and torturing young farm hands.
Less said about the choice of Frankie and Bennies for dinner the better, its always terrible service, I dont know why we go, probably because its closest. its pretty much a scene out of some sci-fi film - possibly startrek i would imagine - a strange universe of opposites where italian-americans are the least family/child friendly social group on earth with no desire to be warm or welcoming.
so we went home after telling the waitress she was nice but her manager was an arse.
I spent the journey on a rant about the letter i was going to write the minute i got home. Needless to say it is still very much in its formative stage.

Sunday: B&Q followed by unblocking drains, scrubbing the mould off the bathroom walls, cleaning a multitude of makeups and girlie creams off franks face. twice. and hunting high and low in vain for patricks school bag. And a trip to the off-license for a bottle of vin rouge.

Guillemots and a Danish fish platter

After recovering from a spot of flu, I took the good lady to see Guillemots at Manchester Academy on Friday (9th feb for any chance of a google). And after navigating our way to Oxford Road in good time, found our selves a handy parking slot round the back of jabez, we were ready to go. First, a stroll down to Kro 2 for a bite to eat - Danish fish platter with Home made Rye bread. Not sur a bout the rye bread, but the platter was good enough for me. and you cant beat fat chips with cracked pepper.

Missed the special guest. we caught the back end of her finale which left me in no doubt that we hadnt missed much. i thought she might have been the sound check, but she cant have been, because...
...She was followed by the worlds longest sound check. fair enough, there was an enormous array of equipment, props and unlikley sources of musical accompniament on stage but i'm not sure of the need to test each and every article at least 3 times. it last approximatley 20 minutes and add to that a never ending backing track of 20's mississippi blues and youve got a proper warm up act.

Guillemots were very good. all very soundscaped and a little quirky with a hint of am-dram. The guitarist gave good theatrics with his combined use of guitar, bits and bobs (i think isaw a typewriter at one point) and a theramim. He almost made Johnny Greenwood look like a conservative guitar player with no interest in mucking about with his ax. but not quite. very energetic though.
not sure why the singer placed his keyboard so he had his back to the bass player all night, i assume she dismissed his advances earlier in the dressing room.
Good job all in all, quality up lifting tunes with more than a whiff of art-house whackery.
no encore, which i dont mind - theyd played there four best tunes by the end so you knew it wasnt coming, unless they had a secret bobby dazzler hidden up their dressing gown sleeves. they didnt, so we went home.

Clogging up the information highway

Dinner time at last, not that theres much difference between work time and non work time at the minute. On track to enter a post a day, it keeps me happy and away from the public toilets.

Watched smatterings of footy last night between washing pots, and wondering why our proud nation can't produce even a half decent performance for spells greater than 2 minutes in length.
Of course, it was only a friendly and half the squad were sat at home with the fire on having a good old laugh at the expense of the reserve teams attempts to force their way into the managers plans. The Times diagramatics of average player positions showed that only Phil Neville played beyond the left side of the centre circle. I imagine the rest of the lads figured that since hes got two left feet he should be able to perform the roles of both left back and left midfield. Everyone else seemed to be headed towards the right side corner flag, either to get closer to Shawn to make sure his passes reached them, stay away from Phil or to look at the fit spanish bird in the crowd with no bra under her tight top. Theres always one.

At least Buzzcocks cheered me up

They should have televised QPR vs China, apparently after half an hour it dissolved into a fight off between queensburys rules and kung fu. 2 chinese concussion victims and a hospitalisation later and the game is abandoned and Chelseas (the match organisers) vain attempts at biting a chunk of the Asian market go down in a blaze of glory.

Then on to this mornings weather report:

SNOW.
AGAIN.
but proper powdery stuff this time, non of your rubbish frozen ice-snow. still coming down now.

I'm hoping it clears up before tomorrow evening though as we off to Manchester and if I have to drive I'll be the old woman in front of you struggling to control my nerves/car at speeds in recess of 15mph. Beep all you like boyracer, I dont give two hoots. You might die fast and live young, but I'll die slow and live that little bit longer as they struggle to remove the shards of saefty barrier from my broken body.

Luckily we are owt of booze and so a weekend of sobriety looms. the trouble with wine clubs is, you have a great time getting plastered for a week and a half followed by much stress whilst you deciede whether to get more or save money / morning stress of getting the kids ready whilst you nurse your self inflictions. If saturday upholds the prohibition, a good Sunday roast usually brings the beer train back on track.

So there we go, time to get stuck into the Butternut Squash soup kindly prepared by the strife last night. with thick crusty white bread to dip and a mars bar to cancel any beneficial health effects. Dont get me wrong, I'm on no diet (although Jan keeps trying to convince the world and his wife that I have a double chin. !) but making food at home is cheaper than buying and results in healthy options by default.

Time to chow down.

Meols smells

Not sure this thing works properly, but it gives me something to do to take my mind of the intense cold. Otherwise I'd be putting hot potatoes in my pockets to warm my hands til dinner time.

Well, Jans mum was right. Meols smells. Quite pungent last night. There was a stench meandering around Birkenhead on my way home, but I thought nothing of it at the time. It was only when I got home that I noticed it had grown into an adult hum quite the likes of which I hadnt encountered since the last time United Utilities forgot to close the doors on the shithouse.
Almost as bad as Donny market place in the summertime with the abbatoir at full pelt, only this is in the hallway of my house. don't know what I'm grumbling about though, your senses grow accustomed to it after a few hours.

Other than that, its all pretty much hum drum.

Weather? Cold, but no snow.
Dinner? Baked potato with beans and coldslaw.
Anything else of note? No, not really.

Genesis

Dinner break in the office. bored with looking at the bbc website. the result is this.
I spend the odd few minutes here and there catching up on ever other blokes life in the far reaches of the world and so whilst I have a few more spare minutes on my hands I figured I might declare my own comings and goings to the world.

First things on my new web diary are the items weather and dinner.

Weather - woke up this morning, lethargic as usual and somewhat chilled. a smattering of snow in the night has had the predictable effect of grinding us all to a halt. A train frozen to the tracks at Moreton results in some Rev Awdry scene of grumpy engines and fat controllers waving top hats. Luckily the country also invested in Buses as a means of transport. Unfortunatley they didnt invest in many, so all the local commuters have to stand in the freezing cold whilst they send over one double decker every half an hour. At least I remembered to adorn 66% of my most vulnerable parts with scarf and gloves. My hat, on the other hand, is relaxing in the relative warmth of my house. So 45 minutes late, but at least today I had a reasonable excuse.

Dinner - whilst in ignorant bliss of the debarcle awaiting me at the train station this morning, I mixed up some mixed salad beans, last nights boiled rice, some chopped up cucumber, red pepper and a handful of chopped fresh mint leaves with a dressing of olive oil, chinese rice vinegar, salt & pepper and lemon juice.
Once again, my progression from frozen veg and boiled potatoes results in satisfactory satiation.

Well, thats all for now as the little hand nears double top.

If anyone ever reads this, come back tomorrow for more of the same.