Soulful Scotsman's blog

Footsteps in the dark

2009-08-13T20:31:00.002+01:00

Colindale, London, England // 8.32 pm // Mostly clear 21ºc / 70ºf

First post of the month... the way things are going there might not be any more this month either! A backlog of stuff to do is piling up, and I don't see much time between now and Cuba to get stuck into that either.

Obviously lots has happened since the last blog post that I've forgotton by now. Actually, over the last couple of days I've been contemplating whether I should keep doing this blog or not, given that my life is so well documented on Facebook and Twitter anyway. Your thoughts please.

One thing that does stand out in the last couple of weeks is Celtic qualifying for the playoff stage of the Champions League qualifiers. We lost to Dinamo Moscow at home, before rewriting our history books and beating them away to win the tie. This was the first competitive away win in 7 or 8 years, the first time any Scottish team has overturned a first leg home defeat for 50 years or so, and the first time Celtic have EVER done it. It was a special night, and the next leg will almost be as special as we are playing Arsenal! I was hoping to get a hold of some tickets for the game here in London, but season ticket holders get first dibs on the briefs. I'll have to wait and see if there will be a general sale for any remaining tickets. The first leg in Glasgow is next week!

Last Thursday I got the train back up to Saltcoats for another long weekend in Scotland. It almost started with a disaster though. I got onto the train at Euston, found my seat, and proceeded to try and squeeze my luggage into the overhead compartment, which was approximately half the width of my bag. I wasn't going to be beaten though, and after trying to compress it further I tried to force it in again. I gave it one almighty push, my right hand slipped, and all of a sudden I was putting all my forward force onto my thumb, which was bent right back towards my wrist completely unnaturally. I saw, and felt, the almighty pain and just waited for it to pop out of its socket. Thankfully, it didn't, otherwise the trip home would already have been called off in order for a trip to A&E! But the thumb was in complete agony for the rest of the weekend, and still hurts to quite an extent now.

The train journey up there was unusually uncomfortable. The carriage was quite cramped, and I didn't have a window to the side of me. Nothing too bad though. When I got back to my mums in Saltcoats, she had made me a big pot of chilli con carne. Later that night I went to my friend Stephen's, and our friend Big Craig also came along for a good catch up and a few beers.

On Friday afternoon I caught up with another good friend, before getting ready to go out for a meal in Ayr with Stephen and two of his friends. We stayed out in Ayr - the night was ok, but was definitely surpassed by the following night.

On Saturday afternoon my dad came to pick me up and take me to Tesco in Irvine where I got together the ingredients to make Sichuan Beef for my mum and John. Took me about three hours to make, was a wee bit more complicated in a kitchen I'm no longer familiar with, but the end result was fantastic. Barely gave me enough time to get ready to go out though, but I managed.

On Saturday night Stephen and I hit Saltcoats. Although people slag it off, I love going out in Saltcoats. It's my hometown and a large bit of my heart is still there. Plus most of my friends and family. Stephen and I went to our usual pubs, and it immediately became obvious that this was a different kind of night. The town was jumping, and the atmosphere was fantastic. This was also the case in the town's one and only club, the Metro, which has usually been a bit shit the last few times we've been. This time round though we had a great night, despite getting caught right in the middle of a rather large fight (one of the many that night). I also bumped into a lot of old faces, including some people I hadn't seen for at least 8 years.

Sunday. I felt rough. Very rough, and my dad was planning to take me to a fantastic Italian restaurant in the afternoon. I was determined to go, but felt worse as they day went on, and once my dad arrived at mine he decided that it wouldn't be the best idea. Instead, we went back to his for a little while before we headed out on our usual Sunday night pub crawl. Drinking was the last thing I wanted to do. I knew I had to be sick... that way I'd get rid of whatever was in my stomach that was making me feel so shit, and be able to carry on. I felt like I was going to be sick a few times, but no joy. In desperation to feel better, I resorted to desperate measures. In a moment of madness, I induced it by myself - the old two fingers down the throat technique. I'd never done it in my life, never even contemplated it before, but my god does it work! I was spewing away like something out of The Exorcist. Minutes later, I was on top of the world. I don't condone this kind of action, especially as I was making myself sick just so I could go out and drink again, but it did help me enjoy the rest of the day/night.

We met up with my uncle, auntie and stepmum (my dad's brother, sister and wife) and had a few drinks in their local before a lovely, much needed, Chinese meal. After that we all headed into town and to a pub my other uncle was working it, and spent most of the rest of the night there. It was a great laugh, and as always one of the main highlights of the weekend.

Headed back to London on Monday afternoon. The train journey back wasn't half as bad as the way up. Had the day off Tuesday, so I caught up with a lot of stuff. Had a hellish night sleep on Tuesday night, sleeping only for the last 30 minutes before I had to get up for work. Managed to struggle through yesterday at work, and slept like a baby last night.

Speaking of last night, Scotland played their World Cup qualifier against Norway. Getting some kind of result was so important last night. Instead, Gary Caldwell got sent off and the game just fell apart from there. We ended up losing 4-0. We have two games left - both at home against Macedonia and The Netherlands. We really need to win both. I'm not sure we can. Roll on World Cup 2010.

Pride

2009-07-30T19:29:00.002+01:00

Colindale, London, England // 7.30 pm // Partly cloudy 19ºc / 66ºf

Last weekend was quite packed, and lots of fun. On Saturday, a little late as always, Elle and I headed down to Mottingham in South East London to catch up with our friends Ciara and Paul. Paul broke his leg a few months back and is still on crutches, but was getting around fairly well. Elle and I were friends with Ciara at uni, and she and Paul are getting married in the near future, which will involved a trip for us to Northern Ireland. Anyway, the main reason for going down there was for a catch-up and BBQ. The weather was actually really good on Saturday, as was the food. Elle and I even enjoyed the chilli prawns that were done on the grill, despite not being very adventurous when it comes to seafood. After the BBQ we went back inside and had a good few drinks, played some games, and then left around 10.45pm to catch the last train back into Central London.

I woke up fairly early on Sunday, and headed to Wembley again for the second installment of the Wembley Cup. After lunch at KFC, I headed to the Crock O' Gold pub near the stadium to once again meet up with Tam and the others. On the way there I noticed that the whole feeling and atmosphere around the place was different to Friday. It was much more vibrant with many many more Celtic fans than Friday. This day was going to be different.

I got to the pub and found it, somehow, twice as busy as the last time. Just as I got to the front of the bar, I got a text from Tam telling me he was also in the pub. I had assumed they had already been through, got their drinks, and were in the beer garden. So I waited at the bar for my turn to be served. And waited. And waited. For almost 20 minutes I was being practically ignored. I started to feel potential violence surge up inside of me. There are only two things that really really annoy me in life to the point that I'm scared I'm going to hurt someone. For the life of me, I really can't remember right now what the other one is. But the main one is poor, unexplainable, pointlessly bad bar service. Somehow I kept my cool and finally got served, buying two pints at once so I didn't have to repeat the experience any time soon. Just as my pints were arriving, I got another text from Tam. This time telling me the pub was too full, they gave up and went to the stadium! So there was me, on my tod, with two full pints in my hands.

I duly finished them and headed to the stadium too, and caught up with them at the bar there, where the bar service was completely the opposite. I managed the full transaction - request, handing money, receiving - in about 6 seconds. Incredible. Although this was a good 90 minutes before the Celtic game was due to start, so the place wasn't exactly full at that point. Barcalona were playing Al-Ahly on the pitch, but unsurprisingly most of the Celtic fans were more interested in sinking a few pints, which is what we did.

Just before the Celtic game was due to start, we headed out into the stand, and it became obvious that this was a Celtic event. Not a Tottenham event. We had at least three times more supporters in the stadium than Tottenham. In their own backyard! It was a very proud night for Celtic and their fans. We were in fine voice throughout the game, and it paid off. We played a very good night of football, with a very young, almost reserve team, and still comprehensively beat Spurs 2-0 to win the first ever Wembley Cup. I stayed for the presentation of the cup itself before heading home. And the good news is it's likely we will come back next year to defend the title.

Throughout the whole weekend there was not a single hint of any kind of trouble that I spotted. Everyone was on their best behaviour, and it just proved and solidified the brilliant reputation that the team's fans has. I wonder if Rangers can repeat the good behaviour this weekend as they hit London for the Emirates Cup. Somehow I doubt it.

Back to work on Monday, prepared for the radio show on Monday night and did the show on Tuesday night, which was another good one.

Last night Celtic played Dynamo Moscow in the 2nd round 1st leg Champions League qualifier. I was very hopeful about the game given the great pre-season we've had so far. Annoyingly, the game wasn't show on any single TV channel anywhere in the world, which has to be the first time this has been the case for a very long time. Well actually, the Brisbane game wasn't on anywhere either but that was a friendly! Anyway, the only place you could see the game was Celtic's online TV channel, Channel 67. As it happens, I subscribed to this last week to watch the Celtic v Cardiff City friendly, so I was over the moon that I'd actually get to see the first important game of the season.

But no. Celtic obviously completely underestimated the demand. The website was down all evening as it was too busy. I tried several times but failed. I tried to listen via the Radio Scotland website but they didn't have the rights. In the end I had to opt for a less-than-legit stream via a dodgy website, which in the end was a simulcast of the official Channel 67 stream, so obviously some people got to login. Anyway, it was a frustrating game. We played fairly well from the point I saw the game, 15 minutes in. Unfortunately, we lost a goal before that, and that's how the game stayed - we lost 1-0. I can only now pray that we can turn around our shockingly bad away record in Europe and beat them in Moscow next week to qualify for the next qualifying round, where we'll play an even trickier team. If we don't win next week, we won't even see the Europa League.

Day off work today, and I had lots to keep me busy. I left the flat around 10.30 this morning to finally enroll at the local doctor's surgery. To do that, I had to call my old surgery in Reading and request my NHS number. Apparently I should have a card, but I don't ever recall seeing one in my life! I have a general appointment with a nurse in mid-August but I do need to try and sort out seeing someone before that as I need vaccinations for Cuba.

After that I headed down to the Royal Mail delivery office to pick up some vinyl that arrived for me earlier in the week, which was a 1986 vinyl compilation of Earth Wind & Fire tracks called "The Collection". I came back to the flat to tidy and have some lunch after that, before heading out again for a haircut, a quick beer in The Stag in Burnt Oak, then to Asda to pick up ingredients for tonight's meal that I'm cooking.

The meal will be interesting. I've never cooked a fish dish, ever, but tonight it is salmon and asparagus supper. I've never really had salmon before either, and Elle is just a less likely to try seafood as me. But we're going to try and venture into that whole realm with my next few recipes to see how it goes.

Actually, I should go and make a start on that now.

Video blog: Road to Wembley

2009-07-24T23:55:00.000+01:00

Colindale, London, England // 11.55 pm // Partly cloudy 15ºc / 59ºf

Video post: We're on the road to Wemberlee

2009-07-23T19:15:00.002+01:00

Colindale, London, England // 7.16 pm // Partly cloudy 19ºc / 66ºf

Keeps ticking away

2009-07-15T17:23:00.002+01:00

Colindale, London, England // 5.24 pm // Mostly cloudy 18c / 64f

Halfway through the week, and it's been a pretty heavy one so far. Something I neglected to say in my last blog post was that on Sunday Elle managed to do something for me that I had been hoping to happen for 8 years. She found square sausage in England! Square/lorne sausage/slice is a Scottish delicacy, and is something I grew up on back home. Right now, now that I'm thinking about it, there's nothing I want more than a roll and slice with a tattie scone. Anyway, I digress. I noticed on Twitter that some random had said something about square sausage. So I tweeted back something about the fact I've never been able to find it in 8 years is one of the biggest downsides of living in England. She replied shortly afterwards. Turns out she lives in Coventry, and Iceland sell the stuff! Elle headed to our nearest Iceland in Burnt Oak and, right enough, they do sell it!! It's hardly as good as the stuff you get out of the butchers back home, but my god will it do! Now all I need is a place I can buy Scotch pies and bridies...

Monday was my last day of the long weekend. I slept till around 10am and did some DXing. A guy from British Gas came round around lunchtime to do the annual gas boiler inspection and safety check, and thankfully all was ok. Monday afternoon mainly consisted of getting the flat in order, doing loads of dishes, preparing for the radio show and doing more DXing. Later, I headed to Asda to get ingredients for dinner, which has been named "Spaghetti Shenanigans", and is basically chicken and bacon spaghetti with tomatoes, garlic and herbs, with garlic bread. It was, of course, really bloody good. I also came across one of the most impressive things about anything I've done cooking wise yet since I started all this. I'm now fascinated by the process of peeling tomatoes. It's soo easy!

Yesterday I went back to work and was really suffering from tiredness when I got home. But, I still had to head back out and do the radio show last night, which was really good fun. I loved playing that EWF track - it went down really well.

Still not been successful in getting the handyman into the flat to sort out the sealing around the bath. We rearranged for him to come round this coming Thursday, after he failed to appear last Friday (he simply said "I couldn't make it". No shit). Then he turns up yesterday, two days early, when I'm not in, and calls to ask me where I am! I don't know where my patience comes from.

Yesterday I also received the current Celtic home top, which I neglected to buy when it came out last summer. Thankfully, it's still the home top for this season, and is actually the first time I've actually owned a current Celtic football top, after my £10 steal at Tesco in Reading just days after it was no longer the current strip! I'll be wearing the new top with pride at the Wembley Cup next weekend, which I'm looking forward to immensely!

From the vaults

2009-07-12T23:56:00.001+01:00

Colindale, London, England // 12.13 am // Mostly cloudy 16c / 61f

Coming towards the end of my long weekend, and it's been a really good one. It started on Thursday night, when I cooked for us. It was a really simply recipe this time, which was hoi sin and garlic steak and noodles stir fry. I stuck to the recipe, and therefore added no spices which it, in hindsight, probably could've done with, but it was still really good nonetheless.

On Friday, rather than get my much needed lie in, I needed to wake up early as the handyman was due to come round at 9am and reseal the silicon around the bath. Only, the guy never appeared. I called him three hours after he was due to come, and there was no answer. And he failed to respond to the voice message that I left. Two days later, and I've yet to hear anything. I'm pretty sure I'll be taking this up with the landlord tomorrow, and this isn't the first time it's happened.

It's just as well I didn't really have any plans on Friday anyway, so I wasn't put out too much. I ended up doing a lot of cleaning and tidying, and lots of DXing, plus catching up with stuff I meant to do ages ago. Later that evening I headed into town to meet Elle and her friend Olga, and then a load of my workmates for a rare, pre-arranged get-together in a bar in Soho. Elle and I were the first ones there, and true to form the last ones to leave. It was a good evening, and nice to chat to the guys in a non-work setting. I was also glad that Elle had the chance to put some faces to the names she's heard so much about over the last year!

Saturday morning and afternoon was definitely a chilled affair. Elle was definitely suffering more than I was too, due to a slight bit of overindulgence the night before. Still, that evening we went out for a gorgeous Indonesian meal at a restaurant in Colindale that I've wanted to go to since we moved here, "Jakarta". The food was fantastic, as was the service, and it was really well priced too. After that we had a couple of drinks in Wetherspoons and our local before coming back home.

We were going to drive to the restaurant, but we discovered that Elle's car had absolutely no power at all. Not even enough to power the LCD clock on the dashboard. God only knows what drained the battery - nothing was left on - but something did. So that has just compounded the initial problem with the car that caused us to break down on the M1 last month. The joys of driving.

This morning Celtic played the first of their 6 pre-season friendly matches, and the first match the new manager Tony Mowbray has been in charge of. And it was a great start with Celtic beating Brisbane Roar 3-0 in Australia. It sounds like we had a great game, and a very convincing performance. And someone who went to the game told me on Twitter that there was no less than 4 streakers during the game! Next up, Cardiff City a week on Wednesday.

Today has been another really chilled day, again spent catching up with stuff, and doing lots more DXing.

Tonight, thanks to help from a friend in Los Angeles, I came across a series of Earth Wind & Fire demo recordings from the sessions for the Raise! and Powerlight albums of 1981 and 1983 respectively. They are horns demos, and from the sound of the tracks, the songs (which eventually made the album) were in their very early stages, mostly with no discernable vocals, and slightly different structures. And the biggest highlight of coming across this series of recordings is the fact there is a complete, full-length track that has never even been heard, never mind released. And it's vintage EWF. I'm hoping to play that on the show on Tuesday.

The ladder

2009-07-09T20:18:00.001+01:00

Colindale, London, England // 8.19 pm // Mostly sunny 16ºc / 61ºf

Finger f*cked

2009-07-08T18:48:00.002+01:00

Colindale, London, England // 6.49 pm // Mostly cloudy 16ºc / 61ºf

Finding it pretty difficult to type right now. For the second time in a few months, the index finger on my left hand has basically falling apart from the tip. And it's really painful to type on. I'm not really sure exactly what is, but I'm far from getting it seen to by the doctor just yet. I've had a bad history of eczema, but it isn't that. I might have to read up on psoriasis.

Had a really busy, packed weekend. I took Thursday off work and spent pretty much all of the day cleaning and tidying almost the entire flat, in time for my friend Stephen to fly down from back home in Saltcoats and stay for the weekend.

He arrived quite late on Thursday evening, and we didn't do much other than have a few beers and go out for some food. On Friday, we headed over to Wembley Stadium, as that was one of the places he definitely wanted to see. Unfortunately they weren't doing the tour, as there was an event on. The event was in evidence as soon as we got there - it was the day of one of Take That's gigs there, and even at 2pm the place was crawling with kids and grown-up kids wearing t-shirts of Gary Barlow etc! Amusingly, although there was a DJ playing music over the tannoy system, he said he wouldn't be playing any Take That. Although he played plenty of Robbie Williams!

After that, and lunch, a few drinks and a quick change, we headed into town for a couple of drinks before meeting up with Elle, and going to the Gielgud Theatre to finally see Avenue Q. Elle and I wanted to see it for years, but never got round to it. Good job we did too, as apparently it is closing for good in September. It was definitely worth the wait though - it was brilliant, really really funny, and very clever. It was also the first time I've been to the theatre in as long as I can remember! In fact, I don't even know if I've been to a show since I myself was performing as Oliver Twist in the Palace Theatre in 1994!

On Saturday, Stephen joined me as I continued my Central line pub crawl. This time we headed up to the western-most point of the line and back as far as Stratford. It was also the first time I've done it at the weekend, which did result in slightly busier bars. That, and Stephen drinking a good bit slower than me, slowed things down a bit. But we still managed to finish it in time that we got back to the flat, changed, showered then headed out for a night in Camden. We started off at Lloyds No.1 and ended up at Electric Ballroom. Although it's almost like a student night in there, I really do love it in that place. Getting served at any of the bars is amazing - you usually have your drink in your hand in less than a minute! Strangest part of the night - getting chatted up and hit on by someone who I'm sure could've been Stacey Slater from Eastenders!

On Sunday, we had a bit of a slower day, and headed down to Embankment for a few drinks and a meal, before going back to the flat. Later in the evening we went to the local for a couple more and a game of pool.

And on Monday I took him for a tour of work, and a couple of drinks before we came back to the flat and played a lot of Fifa 09 on the PS2. And he flew back home on Monday night.

Yes, that was a lot of drinking.

Back to work yesterday, and it was a bit of a crazy day. And Tuesdays being Tuesday, I did the radio show in the evening, which went really well. But I was pretty disappointed that I didn't get to see the Michael Jackson memorial ceremony, which was definitely one of those big see TV moments.

Opposite of chankin

2009-06-29T20:06:00.003+01:00

Colindale, London, England // 8.07 pm // Mostly sunny 25ºc / 77ºf

As I type this I'm sitting here on the sofa, practically naked but for a pair of boxer shorts, all windows to the flat are open, and the fan is blowing the hot air in the room a bit faster towards me, like it's making any difference. 25 degrees celcius at 8pm - cannae beat it. Why oh why don't we do air con in this country?! Still, I'm not complaining - it's a summer, that's for sure!

Yesterday was just a little bit cooler in the day, 27c was the high. Elle and I had originally planned to go down to Wimbledon and soak up some of the atmosphere, but by the time we got round to leaving the flat there wasn't really enough time for there to be any point. Instead, we risked a trip to Asda in Elle's car, which made it there fine. However, it only just made it back, so it definitely still needs a lot of work done to it, and expensive work at that. Maybe even too expensive for it to be worthwhile keeping the car, but don't try telling Elle that!

After that, we headed on the tube down into Central London for a few drinks at St Christopher's Place, Carnaby Street and Argyll Street before heading home.

Day one of three at work today, and was quite a good day - much quieter than anything we had last week. When I got back, I prepared the Michael Jackson tribute edition of Grooveline for tomorrow, put some more tracks on my MP3 player, and bought tickets for me, Elle and my friend Stephen (who is coming down from back home on Thursday for 5 days) to see Avenue Q at the Gielgud Theatre on Friday night. It's a show I've wanted to see since it premiered in London, although we have gone for the cheapest tickets, so probably have the worse seats in the house!

Where were you when...?

2009-06-28T10:55:00.004+01:00

Colindale, London, England // 10.55 am // Partly cloudy 22ºc / 72ºf

I woke up on a Sunday morning sometime in the Autumn of 1997, around 8am, and turned on the TV in my bedroom. I had the four main TV channels plus a link from the Sky box downstairs. The last channel that my mum had the Sky box on was UK Living. Usually complete drivel as far as I was concerned, but before I turned it over I noticed a caption on screen. "For coverage of a major news story, turn to BBC News". Eh? Why were UK Living telling us to turn over to the BBC. So I did. Immediately I realised what had happened when they were discussing the legacy of Princess Diana. She had died in a crash in Paris. I remember every step I took towards my mum's bedroom where I woke her and told her the news. It turned into the eeriest Sunday yet.

It was Tuesday afternoon in late summer 2001. I was moving away from home in 11 days to go to university. Even at 18, I ironed my own clothes, and I had just set up the ironing board to do my shirt before heading into town to get some more essentials before moving away. My mum was chatting to a friend in the kitchen, so I felt free to turn off whatever shite Jerry Springer was sprouting on UK Living (that channel again!) and instead switch over to CNN International, which I often did. Literally seconds later, they switched to a simulcast of CNN domestic, reporting on an incident which had just taken place in New York. One of the World Trade Centre towers was ablaze. It was just after quarter to 9 in the morning over there. A few hours later, the world would be a very different place. I never did iron that shirt.

It was a warm, muggy night in North West London in early summer 2009. I was sitting on the couch with Elle after a lovely dinner, watching a bit of TV. Just before 10.30pm I switched over to CNN International (that channel again!) just to see what was happening in the world before bed. Again, somehow, I managed to catch the few seconds before a major story was about to break for the first time. Maybe it's a sixth sense. In fact the news appeared in vision, on the flipper, before it was announced. Michael Jackson had been rushed to hospital after suffering cardiac arrest. Shiiiit. That can't be right...he was due to start the gigs which would surely only resurrect his career in a few weeks time. Elle and I discussed the fact that this would surely delay the gigs, meaning we wouldn't be seeing him live on September 1st at the O2. Little did we know at the time that he was already dead. No one will be seeing him live.

These are the three events where I will always remember where I was and what I was doing, even how I was feeling, when I found out for the first time that these events were unfolding. And even though I thrive on news and big events, and even though unfortunately much of that is bad news, I do sincerely hope that there won't be many more of these kind of memories.

I dream of jeans

2009-06-15T00:20:00.002+01:00

Colindale, London, England // 12.22 am // Partly cloudy 15ºc / 59ºf

I'm typing this as I swelter in the living room just after midnight. It's not even that warm outside now (although it's still pretty mild) but it's been a fantastic day weatherwise, and this flat really did heat up through the day, and now refuses to cool down.

Been a nice long weekend off work with lots of stuff happening. In fact, I've hardly stopped which is a nice change compared to the last few weekends when I started to get close to climbing the walls.

On Thursday night I cooked what was supposed to be mustardy pork chops, except I forgot to buy the pork. So I improvised with chicken, and the result was actually really good. Quite a simple recipe but very delicious. It's fair to say I also had quite a few drinks during the course of the evening, and ended up falling asleep on the sofa, waking up at 5.30am, and then going to bed.

I had a substantial lie in on Friday, sleeping till 1pm, which was bliss. By the time I had tidied the flat, had lunch, showered etc it was time to head off to Kenton, just north of Wembley to catch up with my friend Robin, who was set to depart uni halls for Canterbury for the last time, as he's come to the end of his course, with great marks to boot. I got there just after 4pm and we had a good few drinks in the McGowan's pub there, which is a less inspiring branch of the chain compared to the one in Colindale. Nonetheless, it was great to catch up with Robin. It got me thinking that it was a shame that we didn't really do it more often, other than meeting up before gigs, especially since I moved to NW London last summer. Still, there will be many more opportunities to come, not least the Incognito gig in August.

Robin and I parted company just after 6, and I headed south to Paddington, stopped off for some dinner at KFC, and then headed to Hammersmith to join Elle and her workmates for another few drinks. We ended up staying there till around half 11 before heading home for a few more drinks.

And, true to form, I once again fell asleep on the couch. This time till 7.30am, which I think is a record. I can only be thankful it's not the toilet.

Felt surprisingly fine on Saturday though. And after the usual ritual of tidying/lunch/shower I headed out in the glorious sunshine to Twickenham, in South West London, for the annual meeting of the British DX Club, at the Barmy Arms on the north bank of the Thames. I think this is the 4th time I've made it to one of the meetings since moving to this part of the country in 2004, and every time so far the weather has most definitely played along. The turnout this year was fantastic and very encouraging. I spent a great few hours having some really interesting chats with people who I really only ever see during such meetings.

At around 7ish we headed to the usual Indian restuarant, Delhi Durbar. Last year we ate al fresco, but that wasn't an option this year thanks to live bands performing outside The Fox pub across the road. I found the service in the restuarant quite odd this year (and now I say that, I'm sure I commented on it in the past too). For instance, they wouldn't really accept us ordering sundries... instead it appeared they were going to give us a set amount of rice and breads to share between ourselves, based on the number of people, which resulted in at least two naan breads and a portion of rice going to waste. I opted for the green masala, which was a chicken dish based on green chillis and lime pickle. It was a really tasty, spicy dish, although the flavour got a bit too intense after a while. Lime pickle is hardly a favourite of mine anyway, but I liked the idea of having it as part of a main dish, but it did get a bit too much after a while. Still, the food was lovely.

After the meal, the remaining half dozen or so of us returned to the pub for another drink, then I headed back off to Colindale.

I actually stayed up quite late when I got back, playing Fifa till around 4am. Woke up just before midday today, and shortly after that headed down to the Brent Cross shopping centre to their branch of Next to buy a new pair of jeans. Anyone that knows me knows that I pretty much live in the same pair of jeans. And, to be fair, the pair I have right now have lasted me long. But, judging by the holes between the legs, right trouser leg, and both knees, this pair has had it. And the only place I can buy jeans that fit me perfectly is Next, without fail. This is if I can find the place. And I could not. It turns out, thanks to a tip off from my friend Eve's sister, Holly, that there *is* a branch of Next there, but I was looking in the wrong place. So I'll attempt that again tomorrow!

A few hours later, Elle and I headed into town to meet her friend and partner for a meal in Leicester Sqaure. We ended up in the Wetherspoons below Capital Radio, and had quite a few drinks and something to eat. I went for the unusual (for me) option of the chicken al forno pasta dish, as I fancied something light. And it certainly was that - despite being one of the more expensive main meals on the menu, the portion was hardly signficant, but there was something oddly gratifying about that when I had finished. I felt I did good.

So tomorrow is the last day of my four-day weekend, and is set to be a busy one. I'll wake up fairly early and need to do the following: register with the local doctor's surgery, buy jeans, post stuff at the Post Office, go to Asda for ingredients for dinner, cook said dinner and prepare Tuesday night's show.

Break? What break. Although I really can't complain, it's been great.

Video post: Do not adjust your set

2009-06-11T20:27:00.001+01:00

Colindale, London, England // 8.28 pm // Mostly sunny 16ºc / 63ºf

Strike!

2009-06-10T18:46:00.002+01:00

Colindale, London, England // 7.05 pm // Mostly cloudy 16ºc / 61ºf

First blog post in June. Been quite busy over the last fortnight, and even when I've been in the flat with some spare time, I've been preoccupying myself with watching football online. Even though the football season has ended in most of Europe, there is still plenty happening around the world, and a surprising number of websites streaming the games live. The legitimacy of some of the sites is question, but one that is kosher is the Ladbrokes website. I had no idea they stream several games live daily. I've just finished watching the Macedonia vs Iceland World Cup Qualifier, of interest to me as they are in the same group as Scotland. And over the last week or so I've watched stuff from African WC qualifiers to the Indian Premier League to MLS. It's really great stuff, and very addictive. I'm gonna watch a bit of the Faroes vs Serbia at 7.15pm before the England game starts at 8.15pm.

Speaking of football on TV, Setanta Sports seems to be on the brink of ruin. Once again, a minnow takes on Sky, and Sky wins. I've been a huge supporter of Setanta for years, since they bought the rights to the Scottish Premier League, and I'm currently a subscriber to their feed on Freeview. I remember being quite ecstatic when the EU ruled that the English Premiership packages could no longer all go to Sky, and Setanta snapped up two of those. Unfortunately, what was supposed to make Setanta, broke it as they lost one of those packages. Unfortunately for them they put too much reliance on the expected increased subscription numbers, which weren't as high as expected. I'll be surprised if they still exist come the new football season. What happens to live SPL coverage I have no idea. Come on Channel 5, you know what to do!!

Staying with football, Celtic still don't officially have a manager, but it looks pretty likely that it will be Tony Mowbray. The more and more I read about it and think about it, I think he is a fantastic choice for the job. And he's a Celtic man at heart, unlike Gordan Strachan. Can't wait for the Wembley Cup in July.

So in the last couple of weeks I continued the Central Line pub crawl, completing another ten stations last week. Next time I continue the crawl, my friend Stephen from back home will be here, and we'll do another ten stations together.

I haven't cooked for a couple of weeks, but will be doing so twice in the next week.

On Saturday night Elle and I went to her friend Becky's place in West Ealing for what was supposed to be a BBQ, but the poor weather saw to that. Actually, food was still cooked on the BBQ, but we stayed inside. It was a nice, chilled night where we ended up watching a couple of films before we left at 11pm.

Actually, I've watched a few films recently, which is really unusual for me. In the last couple of weeks I've watched The Good Shepherd, The Last King of Scotland and Phone Booth.

This week has seen the start of a 48-hour tube strike here in London. Thankfully I only rely on the tube to get back from work at the moment, but yesterday - a few hours after the strike started - was to be the first time I was affected by it as I tried to get home from the radio station. When I left the station, the Northern line was still reporting good service, but I didn't want to risk it. So I got the DLR from Shadwell to Bank, a bus from Bank to City Thameslink station, and a National Rail train from City Thameslink to Mill Hill Broadway, where Elle was waiting to pick me up. Annoyingly, when I got home the Northern line was still reporting a good service!

Amazingly, that's also been the case for the whole of today! So I managed to do my usual tube journey home (Victoria line from Oxford Circus to Euston, Northern line from Euston to Colindale) with no problems at all. In fact it was quicker than usual, thanks to a couple of closed stations, and the train was emptier than usual as I suppose many people didn't think any line was working.

Apparently 40% or so of tube drivers crossed picket lines to report to work as normal. Good on you.

Video post: Summer in the city

2009-05-30T20:48:00.000+01:00

Colindale, London, England // 8.48 pm // Mostly sunny 18ºc / 63ºf

Video post: Doing something jazzy with peas

2009-05-28T11:52:00.002+01:00

Colindale, London, England // 11.53 am // Mostly cloudy 18ºc / 64ºf

Video blog: Dazed

2009-05-26T16:50:00.002+01:00

Colindale, London, England // 4.51 pm // Light rain 15ºc / 59ºf

Quick update before I head off to the radio station for tonight's show. Been feeling really quite strange for the last couple of days, yesterday particularly. The whole morning at work went by in a blurred daze. God only knows how I managed to do television. As it happens, I've had no complaints so I'm sure it was fine, not that I remember much of it! Today I've been feeling a bit strange too. I'm not sure if I'm finally losing my mind, or if I'm just a bit tired and it is a phase that'll pass.

What is really odd is that I was so completely done in by the time I went to bed last night, but I found it really hard to get to sleep. It didn't help that it was really warm in the flat, but it was still annoying.

Elle finally got back last night around 9pm and we watched a bit of TV before I went to bed.

And no surprises in the news that Gordon Strachan left Celtic yesterday. I'm not one of those people who hated him from the start - I'm actually quite sad to see him go, but as time got on it became more and more apparent that he wasn't really right for the job anymore. Not least judging but some of his strange decisions. (Riordan? Continually playing Hessilink?). No idea who will take over, although Owen Coyle and David Moyes seem to be favourites right now. Personally, I quite fancy seeing what John Collins can do. We'll see what happens in due course.

Video blog: It wasn't to be

2009-05-24T18:31:00.001+01:00

Colindale, London, England // 6.31 pm // Mostly sunny 24ºc / 75ºf

Video blog: The day before D-Day

2009-05-23T15:52:00.001+01:00

Colindale, London, England // 3.52 pm // Mostly sunny 20ºc / 68ºf

Soup for one

2009-05-20T17:40:00.002+01:00

Colindale, London, England // 5.40 pm // Partly cloudy 18ºc / 64ºf

Last night was the 8th edition of Grooveline on XStream East. When I got there, it was the busiest I think I've seen it. For the first time, there was a show before me which starred one of the girls that was at the same induction as I was. Also in the computer room was Katie, who is a girl I used to work with, and the person who persuaded me to join the station. As it happens, right now she'll be on a flight back home to Australia, to where she is relocating for a job at a radio station in Sydney.

The show itself went really well, although it was the most quiet so far, as far as listener response is concerned. Still, I really enjoyed it and thought the music was excellent. And it's always a pleasure to play something from the live session Kaldera did for the show in Reading a few years back.

Elle was out last night, and didn't appear by the time I went to bed. I spent the hour or so before bed watching some more of The Good Shepherd. Anyone that knows me knows I generally don't watch films, but I do have quite a few DVDs, including some that I got from colleagues when I worked at the BBC, so I've decided to start going through them. Although I wouldn't be able to sit through a whole film from start to finish - just too much effort. But I'm quite enjoying this one, and don't have much left to watch.

Tonight I'm having a bath (I'm only mentioning it as it's something I do once a month, showers every day for the rest of the month), tomorrow I'm cooking after work, and I'm off until Monday. Elle is going to her dad's this coming weekend, so I'll be left to my own devices. Sunday is the big, massively important Celtic game. It's also the editorial weekend for Communicaton, and I've yet to make a start on it.

The dirty lowdown

2009-05-19T17:18:00.002+01:00

Colindale, London, England // 5.18 pm // Partly cloudy 16ºc / 61ºf

Very quick post before I head off to the radio station to do tonight's Grooveline.

Glad to say the bluebottles have disappeared. Sadly, that probably means there's not very much left of the poor dead bird that remains in my loft. In a way though I hope the bird carcass with disuade any other birds to make their home above my kitchen. Personally, I think it's a bloody good warning. The message doesn't seem to have got to the family of birds above the living room, at the front of the flat though. They are still pretty happy. For now.

Had an extremely lazy weekend, which was fantastic. It didn't dawn on me until I was on my way to work at 4.30am on Monday morning that I actually didn't leave the flat once between Friday afternoon and Monday morning.

On Saturday night Elle and I invited our friends Stu and Jenn round for a Eurovision party, which involved several drinking games, which included taking drinks when someone fell to their knees, did an "airgrab", winked at the camera, or did a dodgy faux-English language rap. We also did a sweepstake for the scoring round, and took drinks any time our country got points, culminating in the downing of drinks any time our country got 12 points.

In the end, the UK did amazingly well considering our performance in the last few years. I was most impressed by the Azerbaijan entry though. The song was pretty good, they scored fantasticly and the female singer was absolutely stunning. I still need to Google her. And it's ok, Elle knows. And agrees with me.

On Sunday, Celtic virtually threw away their chance to win the Scottish League this season. Now it's all up to Rangers, they have control. This Sunday, it really can go either way.

Nothing much else to report. Some news from back home... one of the guys who I kinda grew up with - he grew up around the same street as me, and although we were far from friends, we shared some friends and did hang out together sometimes - was found dead in his prison cell at the weekend. He had been jailed for attempted murder. Although he obviously made some bad choices in life, he seemed to be a nice guy at heart. He was a dad to three children, which is the saddest part. And my thoughts are with his family and friends.

Lord of the flies

2009-05-15T18:14:00.002+01:00

Colindale, London, England // 6.15 pm // Mostly cloudy 12ºc / 54ºf

Quite a bit of time has passed since the last written blog. Not a huge amount has happened in that time either. Actually, I think I recorded a video blog, but somehow it disappeared into the innards of Youtube.

Bank Holiday Weekend at the start of the month was no such thing for me, as always. One day I might work in a job that honours a normal working clock and bank holidays along with everyone else in the universe. Still, the weather was nice and we had visitors in the form of Elle's sister and her boyfriend. As we tend to do with guests, we did the tourist thing around London: Westminster, Trafalgar Square, South Bank, Canary Wharf, Covent Garden etc etc. On Sunday we went to one of Elle's friends in Ealing for a BBQ, although I had to leave after an hour thanks to a 4am start on "Bank Holiday Monday".

The next installment of the pub crawl took place after work on Monday, with one of my colleagues joining me for the first few stops. I managed to finish off the Bakerloo line quest, and start on the Central line.

Two of the main things on my mind in the last week or so have been insects and football.

On Saturday, my friend Stu came round to watch the ever-important Celtic v Rangers match, which was deeemd to have the power to decide who wins the league. Stu left around 3pm. It was a nice day outside, and I had assumed Elle had opened the kitchen window at some point and it flew in. But I asked her, and she hadn't. Strange, I thought. A few hours later, another appeared. Hmm. Coincidence, probably.

Three more appeared later in the evening, and I started to question if we had a problem.

Saturday night, Elle and I with our friends Stu and Jenn went to our local for karaoke. I was feeling particularly daring and only sang songs that I had never done before, including Mike & The Mechanics with Over My Shoulder.

On Sunday afternoon, the first bluebottle of the day appears - before then, I had completely forgot about the day before. And another. And another. And a few more. Then I started getting worried, as did Elle. At this point, I was managing to let them out of the window one by one.

Later, Elle and I went to the Barnet Council dump to drop off my old PC monitor (got a nice sexy flatscreen LCD one now) and to Asda to get ingredients for the dinner I was cooking later. Two hours later, we returned. I had thought about and worried about the bluebottle situation all the time we were out. I was right to do so; I stepped into the kitchen to find the horrific sight of 21 bluebottles all flying around the vicinity of the window. Thankfully, I was armed with a can of Raid! which I had just bought at Asda, and proceeded to wipe the bastards out with the stuff. I don't know exactly what this stuff does, but I do know that it *really* fucks them over. It's actually quite an amazing sight to see 21 large bluebottles all fall from the sky pretty much simultaneously a few seconds after spraying this stuff. 10 minutes later, when they had all buzzed their last buzz, I was able to count them. By the end of the day, I had spotted and got rid of 49 of the cretins.

Needless to say, I wasn't going to be able to deal with this for much longer, and got the landlord on the case. I also emailed my boss to warn her that I might need to take Tuesday off work (Monday was already a day off) to keep on top of the situation. Good job I did, as Tuesday was the only day the pest control guys could come out. But on Monday, encouragingly, only 6 of the things appeared. On Tuesday, 5, but the pest control guy found nothing. It's probably a good time to explain what I think the cause of the infestation was.

For the last few months, we've had two nests of birds in the loft space above our flat - one above the living room window, and one above the kitchen window. Around the same time as all this shite happened, I realised I hadn't heard the family of birds above the kitchen for a while. They had flown the nest for some reason. Presumably because one of the birds kicked the bucket. Dead bird = rotting corpse = maggots = bluebottles.

But as I said, nothing was found. However, the guy admitted he couldn't access the portion of loft space that I assumed the birds had been living in due to the construction of the roof. A good thing is we found out our loft actually had a complete floor, and we're contemplating what to do with this space.

Thankfully, the following three days - including today - bore no new bluebottles, so I can now assume that the problem has past, the corpse has rotted, and the bastards are gone. Until the next time.

And amongst all that excitement, the Scottish Premier League has also reached a really exciting phase. However, it started with Rangers beating us last weekend, which meant that they were now in control of the SPL, and their own destiny. We kept up the fight by managing a win on Tuesday, and amazingly Rangers screwed up on Wednesday by drawing against Hibs, putting Celtic back on top and back in control, albeit only 2 goals ahead. It's turning out to be one of the closest title races for years, but I have horrible memories of four seasons ago, and the last game of the season against Motherwell, and losing the league by one single goal!

So there are two more games to go. And the Rangers games are just as important as the Celtic games for me now. Rangers play tomorrow, Celtic on Sunday, then we both play at the same time next Sunday for the last game of the season, which will decide the title. I'm really hoping we can do it.

Video post: Ya swine

2009-04-30T18:49:00.000+01:00

Colindale, London, England // 6.50 pm // Mostly cloudy 16ºc / 61ºf

Video post: Sheer greed

2009-04-27T11:36:00.001+01:00

Colindale, London, England // 11.37 am // Rain 10ºc / 50ºf

Adventures in Black Sunshine

2009-04-24T13:55:00.002+01:00

Colindale, London, England // 1.56 pm // Mostly sunny 18ºc / 64ºf

So finally it's April 24th, and time for the Incognito gig tonight. More on that shortly.

But first a short word on my latest cooking masterpiece last night. It was actually really simple to make, as I mentioned yesterday, but it was absolutely gorgeous and just the right amount portion-wise too. The chicken was perfect, especially for being frozen and baked in the oven before being shredded. Next up, lemon and brocolli chicken on Monday.

Did quite a lot of the magazine last night before going off on a tangent and reading up on the history (and lack of future) of teletext. Gripping stuff, I'm sure you'll agree. Although I do sometimes think how amazing the technology actually was, decades before the public availability of the internet. Especially when it came to things like Datafax and Televox (Google those if you're interested).

Rounded off the night by playing some Football Manager where I continue to be the manager of Norway, trying to qualify for the World Cup 2010. Although it can get quite tedious as much of the job is actually just *watching* other matches to scout for Norweigian players to pick for the team. It'll take a while to finish the campaign, and only then will I retire and finally install the 2009 version of the game!

Woke up around 10am this morning and pretty much got straight onto finishing off typing up contributions for the magazine, which I did about an hour ago.

Tonight is Incognito's first London gig in about two years, at a new venue for me (and for them) the Camden Centre, rather confusingly at Kings Cross. Been really looking forward to this gig, especially as Glasgow girl Gail Evans is back in the band, and that the performance is followed by a live DJ set from Norman Jay. Looking forward to catching up with Robin before the gig, and hopefully Claire although it's been a bit of a mission to get in touch with her in the last week or so!

And just this morning I found out about what looks to be a stunning 30th anniversary gig of Incognito at IndigO2 in August! Jocelyn Brown is rejoining the band for the night, and no doubt there will be many other surprises if the 25th anniversary gig 5 years ago is anything to go by. And then a week after that I'll be back there, this time at the main arena, for the Michael Jackson gig! I'm really glad the Incognito gig is on a Saturday night, as I won't have to worry about booking the time off, and there's only a 1 in 7 chance I'll be on-call that weekend (and even then I should be able to swap it).

And to top it all off, the weather today is again fantastic.

Video post: Coooba

2009-04-23T18:45:00.001+01:00

Colindale, London, England // 6.46 pm // Mostly clear 16ºc / 61ºf

Salsa

2009-04-16T17:46:00.002+01:00

Colindale, London, England // 5.47 pm // Light rain 13ºc / 55ºf

I can't help fearing we've now had our summer! The weather yesterday was beautiful - warm and sunny. In the past we have had some really warm Aprils, followed by a generally shite summer. It hasn't really happened this year, besides yesterday. Does that mean this summer will be sunny and warm?

Anyway, on Tuesday night I did the radio show. I prerecorded the emergency backup show first, which will only be played if I am unable to do a live show for that particular week, and I haven't been able to get into the studio earlier in the week to pre-recorded a specific show. As I started the show I thought about exactly what the circumstances would be if the show was ever played out. So I recorded it as if I had probably died! I made no secret of the fact that it was pre-recorded, and that something was probably wrong with me. When I asked for people to email in, I said either I would get them next week, or someone at the radio station will print them off and put them in my book of condolences. And I ended the show with an advert for a free slot on the radio station, Tuesday nights 7 till 8pm! All in all, it was pretty comical. I just wonder if it will ever get aired, and if it does I do hope it's not because I've had a run in with the front of a bus!

Yesterday after work I picked up a few bits and pieces for the dinner I was making. On the way to the shop to get those, I had to walk past a pub. The pub's beer garden was packed, at only 4pm, with people enjoying a nice cold pint in what was the first lovely, warm afternoon of the year. I just *had* to join them, so I did!

Eventually I got round to cooking crispy Italian chicken breast with polenta, green leaf salad and garlic bread. It was very much different to what I've cooked before, but was just as good. I had never used, or even heard of polenta before I made this, so I was particularly surprised to be able to pick up a block of it in Asda!

Over the last few days Elle and I have been looking at holidays. We are getting a step closer to book something. I've booked three weeks off work in late September/early October and we've set our sights on a few fortnight all-inclusive package holidays to various resorts in Cuba. We are going to go around a few travel agents on Saturday to see if we can cut those prices down. If not, we'll come home and book something online, and then go for a celebratory pub crawl from Edgware to Kilburn, down the A5!

About turn

2009-04-14T09:14:00.002+01:00

Colindale, London, England // 9.14 am // Mostly cloudy 12ºc / 54ºf

The rest of Sunday continued on the lazy theme. It was a really good weekend though. Although I missed Elle, it was good to have nothing at all planned. However, now that the weather is getting better, I might be happier to do more stuff out and about at the weekends over the next few months. Exhaustion permitting, of course!

Yesterday, Easter Monday, was just another work day. Well I say that, but it was actually incredibly busy. After work I came home to make the place look decent for Elle getting back from a long weekend back in Walsall for Easter. The night before, I was helping her and her friends with a pub quiz via text, where she texted me what I thought was a substantial proportion of the questions. In the end, most of the questions I answered were right. However, they only got about 30% right! Which were probably most of my answers! And came last. I was sure they were certain to win, but I suppose justice was done as they *were* cheating!

Anyway, Elle came back last night with the wonder of the world that is a takeaway from KFC! Bliss.

I'm not sure if I've mentioned the fact that I received an invite to the first audition of this year's X Factor. It was something that Elle and some other people had been trying to persuade me to do for years, but it just didn't interest me. All of a sudden, when people stopped trying to persuade me, I somehow thought it'd be a good idea to give it a go! So at the end of the last series, I applied online.

A couple of weeks back I got the invite to the first audition at the O2 at the start of next month. Initially I was still fairly upbeat about giving it a go. But as time went on, the more I thought about it and the more I talked to other people about it, I started to wonder what the hell was the point! Firstly, ok... I can sing fairly well, I'll admit that. Various karaoke prizes is testimony to that. But Christ, no where near good enough to get anywhere near very far, I'm pretty sure. Secondly, although I like to think I'm a fairly easy-going, likeable person (I hope!)... I'm hardly Mr Charisma! I don't think I'm outgoing enough and particularly confident enough with singing to be able to perform or impress. And finally, and probably most importantly, I don't *really* want it. It *isn't* my life. I don't have a one-legged granny who is dying of the bubonic plague, whose last wish was to see me sing on tv, and then they'll switch off her machine. And that fact would just shine through, compared to the teeming masses who would break into hysterical crying just at the sight on Simon Cowell's gleaming teeth. Plus, I already have pretty much everything I ever wanted as it is. Why do I need to add this to that; what am I trying to prove?

So if anyone else wants to go as me, I've got an invite here ready to post to you*

* Until I run out of loo roll

Recluse

2009-04-12T12:26:00.002+01:00

Colindale, London, England // 12.27 pm // Foggy 11ºc / 52ºf

I don't really know what it was about last week, but at the end of it I was absolutely exhausted. On Thursday night I just didn't have the energy to do anything. I do have a kind of routine most days, and I just couldn't be bothered with it. Unfortunately, part of that routine is showering, so I didn't even do that. Still, it's just the one day.

I still managed to get through Friday, which was a really long day. After work I came home for a bit before heading back into town and going for a few drinks with some work colleagues in Carnaby Street. It was a really good night, and made me think I should definitely do it more often. I used to wait to be invited, but actually I'm not really sure if that's how it works. I'm thinking if I just turn up around the same time any Friday night, there will be people from work there, who've just done the same thing. It's good to chat to people outside of the work environment sometimes.

Elle left to go home to Walsall on Friday afternoon and she won't be back until tomorrow night. I've used the opportunity to do absolutely nothing at all this weekend other than chat to friends online, do a lot of DXing, and drink alcoholic beverages (in moderation, of course). I don't really have a choice - the week had left me so zapped that I couldn't think about doing anything at all strenuous. And this coming week is set to be a hectic one, with a few new things happening tomorrow to get used to. I'm trying not to get too anxious about it.

I was so tired yesterday that I failed to wake up in time to watch the Celtic game on TV at 12.30pm. Sounds like I didn't miss too much anyway, as we drew 1-1, meaning Rangers cut the gap behind us at the top to just one point when they won later that day. And on my football coupon, I ridiculously backed Hamilton to pull off a shock win at home to Dundee United. If I didn't do that, I might well be £27 richer.

Video blog: Heading on-air

2009-04-07T17:05:00.001+01:00

Colindale, London, England // 5.05 pm // Partly cloudy 13ºc / 55ºf

Catching up

2009-04-06T16:08:00.002+01:00

Colindale, London, England // 4.08 pm // Mostly sunny 17ºc / 63ºf

One of the best things about the shifts that I do, well actually the single best thing, is the days off midweek. Particularly when they form a long weekend, as they do once a month. Today was the last day of my latest long weekend, and I also need to wake quite early so I'll be tired enough to sleep tonight, in time for my 4am wake up.

So I was up at 7.30am this morning and I've done quite a bit of DXing/radio listening this morning, along with starting and finishing preparations for tomorrow night's radio show. I remember the days when it took me up to four hours to prepare a two hour show. Now it takes me about an hour at the most, which is just about right for a one hour show. It's also helped by the fact that I have a much larger library of music now than I did then, at around 5,000 individual tracks. So it goes without saying that no two shows will be the same!

Really glad that the first show is available to listen to on-demand now, although I was a little surprised to find that the handful of tracks I played before 7pm last Tuesday night have been kept into the on-demand stream. Ideally, it would start right at the start of my show. I'll have a word with the station manager about that tomorrow night.

Also made some lunch today, and did the dishes in preparation for tonight's meal of chicken curry soup, which is the last recipe to come from my "Cooking with the Wok" cookery book. Next it'll either be one of my two Indian curry books, my pasta and risotto book or the BBC Good Food Guide meals for 2 book. And by the way, although it's a "soup", I cook a portion that is apparently for four people. With a crusty baguette. So it's pretty much a meal.

Not a great deal else to write about really. Was glad to see CNN have changed their broadcasting hours on Freeview, now available from 7pm till 12am, with the following two hours leased out to a roulette TV channel. A bit dismayed to see the loss of three local radio stations in the last few weeks though. The last few years really have changed the UK radio landscape, with so many mergers of ownership and subsequently output, handing back of licences and stations going bust. Still, at least I've got Colourful Radio, although god knows how long it'll be before they decide it's no longer viable to be on DAB. And where are the DRM receivers I've been waiting for for years?

Shortwave is ever declining too, generally, although there are some pockets of resistance. One of those seemed to be the Voice of Russia, who recently revealed that they were to reinstate a 24 hours a day World Service in English. All good, you'd think. But at the same time, they seem to have all but abandoned AM SW broadcasting to Europe. Still, I'm more positive now than I was several years ago that there will still be lots to listen to on SW in the next decade or two.

Risin' to the top

2009-04-05T13:52:00.002+01:00

Colindale, London, England // 1.52 pm // Mostly sunny 13ºc / 55ºf

As I type this I'm listening to a recent addition to the DAB channels here in London, Colourful Radio. It's a station I was vaguely aware of beforehand due to its presence on Sky Digital, but I hadn't really paid any attention to it. Now though, I've actually replaced Solar with this station! And I've listened to Solar Radio for well over a decade. Colourful is brilliant - much more approachable as far as the DJ's styles are concerned, the mix of music for most shows is far better, and it is more London-centric which appeals to me as, in effect, it's a local radio station with a music policy that wholly appeals to me. And being on DAB, it's much easier to just switch on and listen to compared to Solar's internet stream, which is the only way I can hear it. But it begs the question I continually ask - why the hell aren't Solar on DAB yet?! Surely it doesn't cost *that* much for a Digital One slot these days?!

So quite a lot has happened in the last couple of weeks. I went back home on the 26th of March for a long weekend. The train journey was pleasant and non-eventful. I couldn't believe that 80 minutes after leaving London Euston I was speeding past my old home of Stafford! That's the West Coast Mainline upgrade in action, people!

On Thursday afternoon when I arrived I spent most of the day in the house with my mum and John, then headed to my friends Stephen and Ian's house for a few beers in the evening.

On Friday morning it was an early start as me, my mum and John headed up to Gartnavel Hospital, and their specialist cancer unit The Beatson Centre, for John's last chemotherapy treatment. After that, all the signs are good - his blood levels have come right down to normal, and the hope is that he'll get the all clear. But he still needs an MRI scan shortly to confirm that, physically, he is healed. And even then, he'll need to go up every month or so for the next 10 years to make sure there is no relapse.

On Friday night I headed out into Saltcoats for a few drinks in town. Every time I've gone out there, it's been quieter and quieter. It just seems like no-one goes out anymore! How the Metro nightclub can afford to stay open is beyond me. My forecast is that the place will shut by the end of the year.

Saturday was a fairly chilled day, punctuated by an early start to head to Ayrshire Central Hospital to pick up a prescription for John. When I got back to Saltcoats, I walked through the town for a while, popped in a few places to see people, and went for a long walk along the beach. It's no secret that this is what I miss so much about being home. It's a perfect time just to think about things and put things into perspective. I did a lot of that. I sometimes wonder how I manage to get through life without being able to talk a walk along the South Beach whenever I need to.

Saturday night was spent at my friends Stephen and Ian's house, as Stephen was holding a "dinner party". This also involved him cooking, which is something I've never known him to do in the 22 years that I've known him! Starter was tomato and basil soup, followed by a main of lasagne and garlic bread, finished off with homemade trifle. He cooked for 10 people. I brought round a packet of instant noodles, just in case. But it was great - the food was lovely and the portions were huge. So much in fact that nobody managed to even look at the trifle! The rest of the night was spent drinking lots of alcoholic beverages, singing badly on Lips (the Xbox 360's version of Singstar) and half of us disappearing halfway through the night, only to return wearing 70s gear (photos to come!).

I stayed over at Stephen's, got about 4 hours sleep, and had to get up and go out again for the traditional Sunday afternoon/evening night out with my dad and his uncles! This has undoubtedly become the highlight of going back home every time. That Sunday my Dad had just had Sky installed, so we spent a while looking at all the shite available on there. Wedding TV anyone? Horse and Country? Numerous Nollywood channels?

After that we headed to a lovely Indian restaurant in Ardrossan for dinner, before heading out to all the pubs in Saltcoats that you'd never usually go to. Everytime I do wonder why not though, because I always have a great time! It was a brilliant night, got to meet and chat to a few interesting people, and finished off going to my Uncle John's flat for a few drink before going home.

Then on Monday I came back to London, and instantly started preparing my first radio show.

Which I hosted live at Xstream East Radio in Tower Hamlets on Tuesday night. I really enjoyed the show, and it was great to be back on the air again, and to get lots of feedback during the show. Facebook has helped, as I've created a group which at the moment has 64 members. The station manager seems really pleased with the show'ds debut too. The show page is also now live at www.xstreameast.co.uk, including the option to listen again on-demand to the previous show. Eventually, this will have the last four shows.

After the show, I came back and reheated the soup I had made for us - Thai chicken soup with coconut milk which was, of course, excellent!

Really busy two days at work this week due to the G20 summit taking place in the city. Was really glad it was just a two day working week, although I did almost enjoy the week - I think we did some really great stuff.

Had the day off on Friday, which was the first day off in April. Which means a continuation of the famed pub crawl! After a stunning 11 hour sleep (much needed!) I got the bus from Colindale to Wembley, had some lunch, the jumped on the Bakerloo line for the pub crawl, starting at North Wembley, going up to Harrow & Wealdstone and ending up at the other extreme of the line, Elephant & Castle. The weather was beautiful on Friday, but there was a real lack of beer gardens. In fact, I only managed to sit outside twice - at Kilburn Park and Elephant & Castle.

After the 10 stations, and 10 half-pints I headed back home for a quick change before going back out in Kings Cross for a couple of drinks with Elle, our friend Ellie and her friend. Ellie, usually from Manchester, was in town for a birthday night out of another of our friends, Ciara, the following night.

Which was last night. After losing £2 on the Grand National, and £1 on the football coupon (2 minutes and one goal away from winning £40!) Elle and I drove round to Crayford, in Bexley, for the grayhound racing. There was a good show, about 8 of us there, and we bought the pacakge which includes two free bets, two free drinks and free food. I had some really good luck last night, winning in about 5 or 6 of the 12 races. However, overall I finished 30p down! Was a really good night though. Had a drink in a local pub afterwards, before heading back to Colindale.

And so to today, which nothing much is planned other than a trip to Asda and a lot of chilling. Cooking again tomorrow - chicken curry soup. And preparing this week's radio show.

Souper

2009-03-24T14:50:00.002Z

Colindale, London, England // 2.51 pm // Mostly sunny 10ºc / 50ºf

Scheduled day off today, so I did what I usually do on day off - cook. Although I started off the day by waiting for the guy from British Gas Homecare to come round and repressurise the boiler. He was schedule to come round between 8am and 1pm, and thankfully I only had to wait for an hour. He took 10 minutes or so to do the job. Turn's out there are two ways to repressurise our boiler - the way that it says in the manual, and that for some reason I couldn't manage. And the second way, which I just found about today, is as simple as turning a tap. Job done.

After that, and a shower, I headed to Asda to get ingredients for tonight's meal, Sichuan soup. On the way I spoke to my mum and John on the phone, and had a call from my Aunt Donna in Perth who was having problems with her internet connection.

Made some lunch when I got back to the flat, then made the Sichuan soup, which was actually quite quick and simple. I had a quick taste when it was done, and I'm actually amazed. It looks and tastes fantastic! Looking forward to having that later tonight. Before then I need to go to the radio station in Tower Hamlets and do the last rehearsal for Grooveline and finalise the plans for the relaunch.

Heard today that the TV channel Trouble is closing down at the end of the month. I remember when the channel launched in 1997, I believe out of the old TCC channel. I did watch Trouble for a while not long after it launched, but haven't done so for many years. Still, sad to see a channel disappear which, to an extent, I grew up with.

Video blog: Heedache

2009-03-23T19:15:00.000Z

Colindale, London, England // 7.15 pm // Mostly sunny 8ºc / 46ºf

It's a jazz day

2009-03-20T16:22:00.003Z

Colindale, London, England // 4.22 pm // Mostly sunny 11ºc / 52ºf

I don't quite know how many of my blog posts have been named after a lyric of the song I'm listening to at the time, but I know it's many. And it's happened again here, thanks to Robin Blamires' special jazzy show as part of Smoke Radio's marathon broadcast last week. Robin, if you're reading this, I did intend to wake up to listen to the show. My alarm even woke me up at 4.55am, but I just couldn't pull myself out of bed. So thank you for the link!

Been a few weeks since the last blog. Something that I have been doing every week is going to the radio station in East London to do some more rehearsals for my forthcoming radio show, the resurrection of Grooveline. I've not been giving specific details about the show or station until it is concrete, but we are almost there. At the moment it looks like the show will be launching, available online, on Tuesday 31st March at 7pm till 8pm, and will be so weekly. I've been really pleased with the rehearsals so far. It's sounding more like a real radio show that it has in the past, at least production wise. Features return to the show. And I'm really enjoying the challenge of cramming it all into a neat 60-minute package. There will also be a great show webpage to support the show, featuring the facility to listen to the previous 4 weeks of shows on-demand. I'm really excited about it all, and hope to confirm the details sometime next week.

Everything has been going well at work, but it has all been going an hour earlier. Because I work for an American company, and to American time, and the fact they went into "summer time" 3 weeks earlier than the rest of the world, I've had to wake up at 3am instead of 4am. It's amazing the difference it makes. Getting the car into work in the morning usually, shops are loading up with stock, news-stands are open and milk trucks are out. It feels like early morning. But at the moment going to work, at 3am, news-stands are shut, kebab shops are full of pissheads, girls with their arses hanging out of their skirts are trying to flag down taxis with their ridiculously tiny handbags waving in the air. It feels like late at night!

It's also meant going to bed closer to 9pm, which is even more difficult. Roll on BST!

The last two weekends have been busy, and spent in the West Midlands. Two weekends ago Elle and I went to a reunion-of-sorts in what was my home for three years, Stafford. Elle and I met up with a group of old friends and spent the afternoon and evening going round our old drinking holes, and some of the new venues that have sprung up. Besides those though, not a lot has changed. But it's always nice to go out of London and be able to buy a pint for considerably less than £3!

Also that weekend I watched the Scottish Cup 6th Round match between Celtic and St Mirren. We had beat them 7-0 the previous week. But surprise surprise, St Mirren managed to dump us out of the cup. And pretty comprehensively. Still, we made up for it the following weekend by beating Rangers 2-0 in the League Cup final! I watched the game in a fairly scary Celtic Supporters Club in Wolverhampton.

Which was last weekend, and started with a night out in a pub in Hammersmith with Elle and some of her workmates. On Saturday we drove up to Walsall ready for a night out in celebration of Elle's 26th birthday which was on Monday. We went out in Birmingham on Saturday night after a few drinks at Elle's mums. The plan was to end up at the club Gatecrasher on Broad Street, but we had a few drinks elsewhere first.

Finally, we were queuing up to get into the club, and the queue was moving fairly fast. Our group got to the front of the queue, the door attendant took one look at me, shook her head and said "Nah, he's not going to get in". For a second or so I thought she was joking, but it was soon apparent that she really wasn't. We were asking her why but didn't really give us a straight answer, although something suggested it was what I was wearing (a dressy shirt, smart jeans and black shoes - all well within their dress code for the night). Meanwhile, chavs wearing pretty much tracksuits, and girls with their tits virtually hanging out were all streaming inside the club. For being part of a party of about 7 respectable people, and a night out for Elle's birthday, I was pretty upset.

The door person told us to go to someone else further down, in the hi-vis jacket, and ask *her* why we weren't getting in. So we did. To be fair, I remember looking a bit like a lost sad puppy at this point, but I just couldn't understand in the slightest what the problem was. As it seemed, either did this other women who, on being asked why I wasn't being allowed in, umm'd and ahh'd for a good while as she looked me up and down, trying to find a reason. She couldn't, but she followed that by "Well it must be the shirt. It's just the wrong type of shirt". The wrong t.... the... WHAT THE F*CK?! The wrong type of shirt?! I don't remember seeing *that* in the dress code! By this point, I felt rage bubbling up. This wasn't the first time this had happened to me in Birmingham. And the other time it happened it was for similarly baffling reasons, and *again* on Elle's birthday night out. At that point I decided that I was never going to part with any cash on anything to do with Gatecrasher again, and decided after the night had ended I was going to boycott Birmingham and never have a night out there again.

We ended up going somewhere else where there was no problem. It seems everyone had a good night anyway, but it really did spoil my night. I don't really know why I took it so personally, but I just hate being responsible for spoiling what had been planned for weeks, maybe months.

When it comes down to it, if that is going to be their criteria for the door then I don't want to be in a place like that anyway. And I hope they let in record numbers of drug dealers, people with knifes and those who intend to spike girls drinks in, just because they were wearing the right kind of shirt. The quicker they get shut down, the better. And then with hindsight they may think maybe they should have rethought their entry policy.

Video blog: Post pub crawl

2009-03-05T21:45:00.001Z

Colindale, London, England // 9.47 pm // Mostly clear 5ºc / 41ºf

Video blog: On light-headedness

2009-03-02T19:15:00.002Z

Colindale, London, England // 7.16 pm // Mostly clear 10ºc / 50ºf

Boing

2009-03-01T11:30:00.002Z

Colindale, London, England // 11.30 am // Mostly cloudy 8ºc / 46ºf

So apparently today is the first day of spring. Doesn't really feel or look like it at the moment. I'm sitting here in the living room bloody cold. Granted, I'm wearing shorts and a t-shirt, and the heating hasn't been on for a few days (until a few minutes ago) but it'll still be a while before we're all wearing shorts and short sleeved shirts in the sunshine. In fact, I'm sure I saw some snow forecast for next week!

It was a really long, hard week for some reason. Come Friday, I was absolutely done in. I didn't get a great deal of sleep through the week though, for various reasons. I can't remember which day it was now, but the day of the plane crash in Amsterdam meant absolute chaos at work, and I had my busiest day there since I started at the company. Still it was good experience, although a few alcoholic beverages were certainly required to get over the day!

On Thursday night I went to visit a radio station in East London, with the aim of bringing my show Grooveline back to the masses, plus helping out at a worthwhile radio project. It went really well, and I met the station manager, got a tour of the station, and handed in a show proposal. It seems quite likely that'll I'll get a show, and I've got to go back in again on Tuesday to record a demo. I'm planning to make it a one-hour show. That's completely different to what I've done in the past, where the show has ranged from 2 to 12 hours. But I'm actually really excited by the prospect of producing a tight, concise good sounding quality soul music show. My friend Robin Blamires on Smoke Radio has proved how you can make a 1 hour show sound great and fit a hell of a lot into it without making it sound rushed or stressful, and it's fair to say that the structure and idea of the new Grooveline will be very much based on Robin's show.

It'll also see me bring back two of my old features, plus a new one. Additionally, the radio station provides each show with fantastic, dynamic and easy to update show pages, which I will do my very best to keep up-to-date to complement the show perfectly. And one of the best features of the show page, which I'm very excited about, is the possiblity of listening again, on-demand, to the previous four weeks of shows.

So the first demo will be recorded on Tuesday, and we'll see what they think of that. I'm just looking forward to getting back into the studio, for the first time since last August.

Yesterday I went to the Irish pub in Kilburn to watch the Celtic game, where we absolutely thrashed St Mirren 7-0, which is absolutely brilliant for our goal difference compared to Rangers. I actually believe that game will win us the season. Meaning, I think we will win the league on goal difference only, and by a few goals and no more. Mark my words.

Didn't do as well with my betting on the other SPL games though, getting only 1 out of 4 results correct. I now have £39 in the betting kitty from my original fiver.

During the game I got a really emotional call from my mum, who is caring for John during his treatment for cancer. For the first time since it all started, I cried yesterday. I just felt so helpless being so far away, but I know they appreciate they can call me and let everything out anytime, and I know they can't really do that with anyone else. It's the very least I can do, and I'm going home for a weekend at the end of the month, but it doesn't seem enough. I'm working on making that better.

Last night we headed over to West Ealing to a housewarming party of one of Elle's friends. It was quite a quiet affair, but a good night and a chance to meet some really nice people. Getting back from there at 2.30am was pleasantly easy too, with two nightbuses.

I've just had a visit from our local councillor for the Burnt Oak ward. I think she was pleasantly surprised that she could have a conversation with someone who was actually remotely interested in politics, and someone whose vote she could rely on. Plus that fact that I'm fairly young. I've never worked out if I'm allowed to vote in the Scottish Parliamentary elections. The fact that I've not lived in Scotland for over 7 and a half years might count against me, but it's something I've never checked out for sure.

Video post: So many reasons

2009-02-23T19:38:00.000Z

Colindale, London, England // 7.38 pm // Mostly cloudy 10ºc / 50ºf

Our lives are shaped

2009-02-01T11:32:00.002Z

Colindale, London, England // 11.03 am // Cloudy 2ºc / 36ºf

I've had a great weekend so far, including a couple of fantastic gigs over the last two nights. On Friday night Elle and I went to Kilburn for the Talc gig. Before that though, we went for a drink in a pub just down the road from the venue, called the Brondes Age.

The venue itself was called The Luminaire, above the Kings Head pub. We were on the guestlist so managed to get discounted entry. The place was quite quiet when we arrived, but it soon got really busy and was quite packed by the time the band took the stage around 10.20pm.

Like I said in the last video blog, Talc are very entertaining and they did not disappoint on Friday! Dr Fun and The Gift, ie. Talc, were wearing the trademark suits and bowler hats, and the rest of the band, including Bobby Fame on drums, were wearing "Staff" t-shirts. They played a selection of tracks from both their albums, plus a couple of covers. There was a fair bit of swearing, and a rather surreal moment when Lionel Blair was mentioned in the lyrics of their track "Niteklub", when the band suddenly stopped, and Bobby Fame came to the fore to warn us that Lionel Blair just "appears" when least expected, quite possibly a figment of his own imagination.

As well as being entertaining, they are a really tight band too, especially the horn section which at one point featured the saxophonist playing two horns at once! And I always love to see and hear the vocoder being played live through a Yamaha keyboard, which there was an ample amount of.

All in all, a brilliant gig and a band I'd definitely love to see again. And it appears that, according to Elle, it is the best gig I've ever taken her to, mostly because although she's not a great fan of the music, there was more to it this time which kept her entertained!

We left there shortly after the gig and went home. I was absolutely shattered when I got in, having been awake for almost 24 hours. I almost fell asleep on the couch holding a can of beer which almost sprayed forth on the carpet, so I called it a night.

Felt really really rough yesterday when I woke up. I didn't drink that much on Friday night, but I think whatever I did drink combined with the extreme tiredness really hit me, and I had to go back to bed yesterday afternoon in order to feel better for the evening.

And by the time it got to the Sunburst Band gig last night, I felt totally fine. This gig was at Cargo, which is a club I've always fancied going to. We headed there after some greasy junk food in a local chicken place, and already the place was really busy, even though it was only 9.30pm. The venue is quite small, with an under-the-arches, warehouse-type feel to it. Great crowd though, and a really good atmosphere.

Benji B from BBC Radio 1Xtra was DJing, and some of the stuff he was playing was incredible. Really high quality 70s and 80s soul and jazz funk, most of it completely new to me but all of it fantastic.

By the time The Sunburst Band took the stage, the place was absolutely rammed from wall to wall, which was great to see. And the band tore the roof off the place - their gig at the Jazz Cafe last year was fantastic, but this was something else. I think the atmosphere of the venue helped too. It did take a while for the crowd to get really into it, but by the time the band signed off with the David Bendeth classic "Feel The Real", which was just stunning, I've never seen so many people crammed into such a tight space, dancing and grooving so enthusiastically to a piece of music. Definitely one of the best gigs.

Again, we left shortly afterwards, especially as I realised we could actually catch the last tube back home rather than suffer nightbuses for 1 hour and 10 minutes. And thankfully we did indeed catch the very last tube of the night.

There was one low point to the weekend, and in fact to the past few weeks, and is something I've not yet mentioned. My mum's partner, who has pretty much been a dad to me since I was 3 years old, is battling cancer. It started off as testicular cancer, which is something I've written about in depth before having had a scare of my own in the past, and in the knowledge that I have a higher risk of developing it due to complications when I was younger. John's cancer was missed first time round due to a ridiculous hospital error, which meant by the time he finally underwent surgery to remove the source, it had spread. The outlook is positive and everything looks good for a full recovery, but he started chemotherapy this week and that is never a good experience for anyone. I spoke to my mum for a good while yesterday after she had been to see him, and she was deeply upset at how much he was suffering as a result of the treatment. It's going to be a long road for the both of them, and as always at times like this I really wish I could do more. I'm just glad that my mum, who has had her own serious health issues over the last few years, is there for him. We're hoping John will get home today after the first round of his chemotherapy.

Gigging

2009-01-31T13:05:00.002Z

Colindale, London, England // 1.06 pm // Mostly clear 6ºc / 43ºf

One happy licence fee payer

2009-01-29T17:06:00.003Z

Colindale, London, England // 5.08 pm // Mostly clear 4ºc / 39ºf

Last night Celtic played Dundee United in the Scottish League Cup semi-final. I knew about the game in advance and it was due to be screened on BBC One Scotland, which I don't have at home. Usually, therefore, I'd go to the Celtic pub in Kilburn, but it wasn't really an option last night as I was due to be in bed by 10pm, and it takes me a good 45 minutes to get to (and from) that pub. So I resigned myself to the fact that I'd just have to listen to it on the radio.

A few minutes before kick-off I had a sudden thought. On Freeview, which is the service that I get my TV from, the BBC has a service called BBC Red Button which is effectively a few video streams "hidden" behind the red button on BBC TV services. I thought I would check it out, just for the very small possibility that those lovely people at the BBC decided to let us ex-pats in England watch the game too. I went to Channel 301, which is one of the streams, and was presented with the most beautiful of sights:

"Coming Next: CIS Insurance Cup Semi Final, Celtic v Dundee United". How happy I was!! I actually couldn't believe it.

So I got to watch the game, although it did disappear a couple of times during extra time and penalties as the game moved from BBC One Scotland to BBC Two Scotland and back again, meaning whoever was in charge of playout at BBC Red Button had to try and keep up! It was one of the best cup ties I've seen for years, really intense towards the end of normal time and throughout extra time. And the penalty shootout was something else! It lasted for ages, over 20 penalties, including goalkeeper vs goalkeeper twice! Thankfully, we won in the end but it meant going to bed a good 45 minutes later than initially planned!

On the way back from work tonight I saw two kids playing kerby in the street. For those that don't know, kerby is when you stand at the opposite sides of a road, and you take turns at trying to bounce a football off of the opposite kerb. Every time you get it, you then stand halfway in the middle of the road and keep doing it until you miss. Every time you hit the kerb, you get a point. So simple but soo much fun. I used to love playing it when I was a kid, and was almost tempted to join in, but quickly decided against it before I was reported as being a "strange man" (!)

So, one of the main things I was looking forward to when I moved to London was going to more gigs, and being able to stay later, not having to rush for the last train back to Reading. Since moving here 6 months ago I have been to this many gigs: 0.

But that will change this weekend, as I'm going (for the first time) to see Talc perform live tomorrow night in Kilburn, followed by Joey Negro and The Sunburst Band at Cargo on Saturday night. I might also be seeing Tremain, a band involving my friend Lee (ex-Kaldera) at indigO2 in a couple of weeks. And then I'm hoping to see Incognito perform at the Camden Centre sometime in, I think, April.

Too Hot To Handle?

2009-01-28T16:54:00.002Z

Colindale, London, England // 4.55 pm // Mostly cloudy 7ºc / 45ºf

It's once again getting to the point where every weekend in the foreseeable future is completely jam packed with stuff to do. From now up to at least mid-March, every weekend that Elle and I have is spoken for, mostly meeting up with people and doing social stuff. Not a complaint at all, but I do hope I get to do a bit of resting and recouperation every now and then too.

It all started this past weekend around 3pm on Friday afternoon when I finished work and headed across the road to the pub to meet up with my friend Shuv and his other half, an hour after I gave them a tour around my place of work. We had a good few drinks there on Carnaby Street before I headed up to Chalk Farm to meet up with Stu and Jenn for a few more, by which time Elle arrived back from work and we went for a meal in Camden. It was still early by the time we got back to the flat, but I'd already been out for 7 hours and it was time to call it a night!

The following morning, for the second time, I put on my £1 accumulator bet on the outcome of 4 SPL matches (not including the Celtic or Rangers games). I was listening to Radio Scotland's coverage of the games while getting ready to leave for Dan and Hannah's wedding reception later that evening in Warwickshire. Just before we left, the three of those games being played on Saturday were all the complete opposite of the results I had bet on, and with only 10 minutes to go I decided I had lost.

On the way to the wedding we picked up my friend Pete at Leamington Spa train station. The venue for the wedding reception itself was absolutely in the middle of nowhere. Elle + (B roads x sudden dips in the road x complete darkness) = much praying. That's all I'll say.

But we got there in one piece, and it was good to see quite a few people from uni that I hadn't seen for ages. And for Elle it had been even longer. We were at the wedding from around 8pm till 1am before driving back.

Pete came back to London with us as there was no way for him to get back to Oxford at that time of night. I had to wake up early to regulate my sleeping, and as Pete was asleep in the living room I sat in bed reading my emails in bed. I thought I'd just check on the final scores from the previous day's SPL games, and was absolutely astonished to find that those three games I had bet on had completely turned around in the last 10 minutes, and all of a sudden I had three out of three results correct! It all rested on the one final game later on Sunday afternoon, and I had bet on an against-the-odds result.

Stu came round in the afternoon and we watched the Arsenal game on Setanta. This was after I had finished compiling the radio magazine for the weekend. During the latter part of that game I was keeping an eye on the Kilmarnock v Hamilton score. I had Hamilton down to win, which wasn't likely. Part way into the 2nd half, Hamilton scored! And it was a tense wait till the final whistle, but the game ended 1-0 to Hamilton! Logging into the Ladbrokes website confirmed my success - my return for a £1 bet? £39.30!!

On Sunday night Elle and I went to our local Wetherspoon's on Edgware Road to have, of course, the annual Burns' Supper! The haggis was probably the best I've had for years, although the whole thing lacked a bit of gravy. Nonetheless, the meal was great and fantastic value for money complete with a pint of lager.

My day off this week was Tuesday. In the morning, our handyman finally came round to fit a new extractor fan in the bathroom. However, as he predicted, it has made no difference - there is still far too much moisture from the shower but it looks like it is simply something we need to deal with.

Later on Tuesday I went to Asda to pick up all the ingredients for the latest meal that I was cooking - lamb phall, the hottest kind of curry money can buy/make.

And my god was it hot! Still, it's nothing new to me and I finished it all, as did Elle. It was really really good - another success :-) Next time I'm cooking will be two weeks time, in fact it'll be around my birthday/Valentines Day. But from yesterday I now have a big tub of ghee that I need to use up in 4 weeks, so I'll need to pick my recipes around that.

Recently Walkers Crisps have brought out certain flavours of crisps that members of the public have designed. I think there are 5 in all, and they are limited edition. The idea is that you try all 5, and then vote for your favourite on their website. In the end, the most popular flavour will be retained as a long-term Walkers flavour. So far I've tried "Fish and Chips" and "Builders Breakfast". "Fish and Chips" was ok. It's always a bit odd having a potato snack tasting like fish. I couldn't distinguish the "chips" very well, but I could taste what I assume is supposed to be vinegar. "Builders Breakfast" was ok, but the overall distinctive taste was fried egg, with a slight hint of beans. The only place I've seen these so far is the shop inside Colindale tube station. I think they only other one they stock is "Onion Bahji"...so it might be tricky to track down the "Cajun Squirrel" and "Chilli and Chocolate" varieties!

Video blog: Use me up

2009-01-21T17:54:00.003Z

Colindale, London, England // 5.54 pm // Mostly clear 6ºc / 43ºf

Early bird

2009-01-18T11:14:00.002Z

Colindale, London, England // 11.14 am // Partly cloudy 6ºc / 43ºf

It's quarter past 11 on a Sunday morning, I've been awake for an hour and I'm pretty much fully awake. I don't know why, given that I had a very late night last night. I think I'll pin the blame on getting up at 4am midweek for early shifts. Still, this morning was originally my last lie-in until next Saturday. I know I'll regret this later tonight/tomorrow morning.

Had a good long weekend so far, just over halfway through it. On Friday I did a good bit of catching up with things, and had one of my more productive days of late. I finally sent off to the estate agents the big wad of mail that had been sent for the previous tenants, plus a few other bits and pieces. The handyman from the estate agents was supposed to arrive in the morning to replace the extractor fan in the bedroom. However, there was absolutely no sign of him, and he wouldn't answer his phone. I really need to chase that up.

Eventually I headed to Asda to pick up ingredients for the meal I cooked on Friday night, which was chop suey. It turned out really good, with a whole lot of vegetables too which can't be bad at all. I really do enjoy cooking and it's turning into one of the highlights of the week. Next meal is tomorrow night.

On Friday I started using a new piece of software for chat and social networking. It's called Digsby and it integrates IM programs like MSN Messenger, Gmail Chat, Facebook Chat etc, social networking websites like Facebook and Twitter and email services like Gmail and Windows Live Mail, all in one application. It's a really nice piece of kit and is highly recommended.

Yesterday I did get a bit of a lie in, more because I went to bed fairly early rather than waking up early. I listened to the build-up to Saturday's SPL games on the radio and decided to place a bet on one of the games. So I put £1 on Hearts to beat Kilmarnock, which they did, earning me around £2.60. I think I might end up putting £1 on each weekend's fixtures, but on multiple games, to increase the chance of winning more. I'm only betting on non-Celtic or Rangers matches, which is actually quite good as it gets me more interested in the rest of the Scottish league.

Eventually Elle and I headed out last night and after going for dinner in a chippy we went to a comedy night in a pub in Belsize Park. We saw 5 acts, and they were all really good. I wouldn't be surprised if a couple of them go quite far.

Even just in the time it's taken me to write this I'm starting to feel bloody tired! I can't really go back to bed now, it's against my unwritten rules! Today I'll be watching the Celtic v Aberdeen game hoping we can go 5 points clear at the top of the SPL.

Video blog: Gas man my arse

2009-01-15T17:44:00.001Z

Colindale, London, England // 5.44 pm // Mostly clear 5ºc / 41ºf

Since last night on TV I've watched BBC One.

On radio I've listened to Kiss 100.

Video blog: Increasing girth

2009-01-14T18:19:00.002Z

Colindale, London, England // 6.20 pm // Mostly clear 5ºc / 41ºf

In the last few days on TV I've watched BBC Parliament, Channel 4, BBC One, Setanta Sports 1, E4+1, Fiver, TMF, 4Music, Sky Sports 1, BBC News and Sky News.

On radio I've listened to Absolute Radio, Magic 105.4, Classic FM, Kerrang, BBC Radio Scotland, WWOZ (New Orleans), BBC Radio 4, Real Radio Scotland and Jazz FM

Goo

2009-01-08T08:34:00.002Z

Colindale, London, England // 8.34 pm // Hazy 2ºc / 36ºf

So getting up early on a day off to stay in a sleeping pattern isn't easy at all. I went to bed just before 1am last night, compared to 10pm usually. Ideally I would've worken up at 6am, compared to 4am usually. But I thought I'd give myself an extra hour, so set my alarm for 7am. In the end, I woke up at 8am. Still, I'm pretty sure I'll be tired enough to sleep tonight, especially after what the day has in store.

Last night I made Toad in the Hole from BBC Good Food cookbook I bought Elle for Christmas. It looked like it was straight out of the cookbook when viewed from above. However, I did use the wrong kind of dish, using a glass pyrex dish instead of a metal tin. So underneath the browned sausage and crusty pastry was white sausage and goo. Still it was edible and rather nice, but not one of my best creations.

Today, after a trip to Asda for supplies, I'll be heading off on the third installment of my Northern Line pub crawl, which is part of a larger personal project of mine to have had half a pint of lager at the closest pub to ever single tube station on the London Underground network. So far I have done so at the following stations:

Morden, Tooting Bec, Clapham Common, Kennington, London Bridge, Charing Cross ,Warren Street, King's Cross St Pancaras, Mornington Crescent, Finchley Central, Highgate, Hampstead, Edgware, Old Street, Balham, Colliers Wood, Goodge Street, Burnt Oak, Golders Green, Chalk Farm, Tufnell Park, East Finchley, Woodside Park, High Barnet, Archway, Euston and Tottenham Court Road.

Today, my route is as follows: Hendon Central, Belsize Park, Angel, Borough, Oval, Clapham South, Tooting Broadway, Clapham North, Waterloo and Leicester Square.

I'm quite strict with the rules here. Firstly, I have already been to Leicester Square for a drink. But never a half pint as part of the pub crawl, hence it is in there. Secondly, I will spend no more than 5 minutes looking for a pub in the direction for the tube station that I think is most likely. If I can't find one, I get back on the tube and head to the next station. Eventually, after doing some research online to find the nearest pub, I'll return to the stations where I failed to find one. So far that is the case at Brent Cross, Bank and West Finchley

After today it will leave me with the following stations to visit: Colindale, Camden Town, Kentish Town, Mill Hill East, Totteridge and Whetstone, Moorgate, Embankment, Elephant & Castle, Stockwell and South Wimbledon.

Again, you may notice that Colindale is there, and Colindale is also where I live. Surely I've had a drink here? Of course. But I've never got off the tube, walked to the local and had half a pint! So it stays in there. And once I've finished the Northern Line, I plan to move onto the Bakerloo Line.

Since last night on TV I've watched Channel 4, Sky News, BBC News, BBC Four and Channel 4+1.

On radio I've listened to Soul Central Radio, Capital FM, Supreme Dance, Hot 96 and Eagle Radio (Guildford).

Fairly standard

2009-01-07T18:13:00.002Z

Colindale, London, England // 6.14 pm // Mostly cloudy 3ºc / 37ºf

Last weekend was a fairly chilled one. We had the chance to go out on Friday night but we both opted to have a quiet night in, which was definitely on the cards. Elle cooked and we spent most of the night watching TV and just generally chilling.

Woke up on Saturday afternoon with the alarm, rather than a lie in, so I could make it to Kilburn in time for 3pm for the Celtic v Dundee United game. Despite being the completely dominant team in the first half, we lost the plot in the second half and the game ended up all square. Rangers capitalised on that the following day, so now the gap is only 5 points at the top.

Saturday night and Sunday were spent doing not very much at all. I've made a good start on my tax return for the Tony Ryan show. Through the start of the week I've been trying to gather together all the documents, bank statements etc that I need to complete the return. I expected to have to try and get loads of stuff reprinted and resent to me from the bank, as my filing system is completely non existant. But incredibly, I've found every single page I need to complete the tax return, which I plan to do by the end of the this week.

Been working 5am till 3pm Monday - Wednesday this week. I'm off tomorrow, but still need to wake up early to stay in the sleeping routine. I'm planning an early morning trip to Asda to do some shopping before heading out on the 3rd leg of the Northern Line pub crawl when I plan to visit another 10 stations, and 10 corresponding pubs for 10 half pints.

The weather lately has been so cold. I'm actually not really that bothered by it. I quite like it this cold, it just feels more seasonal and a bit more like home. Actually, I would have liked a bit more snow than what we've had already.

Not sure if it's related to the weather or not but my skin has broken out in some kind of reaction again, mostly on my arms. I'm pretty sure it's eczema, but at the moment I've got nothing to treat it, so it might be an idea for me to finally enrol with a doctor in North London, which is something I've not done since moving here. I've also joined the dental scheme at work, which is good as I'm due a checkup very soon.

As I said before, I'm making a point of cooking more. Tonight doesn't actually count, because it's not one of my own picked creations, but Elle has asked me to try making Toad In The Hole tonight for her getting back from work, so I'm gonna try and make a start on that shortly.

Since the end of last week on TV I've watched: CNN.com Live, Setanta Sports 1, Channel 4, BBC Parliament, Polsat Sport Extra, ITV1, BBC News, Sky News, ITV2, BBC Three, CNN International and 4Music.

On the radio I've listened to: Soul Central Radio, Solar Radio, BBC Essex, BBC Hereford and Worcester, RNE 1 (Spain), NPS Radio 5 (Netherlands), BBC Radio 4, Option Musique (Switzerland), BBC Radio Kent, WDR 2 (Germany), MDR Info (Germany), Rock y Gol (Spain), Gold Luton and Bedford, France Info, BBC Radio Devon, on3radio (Germany), BBC Radio Scotland, SER Radio Madrid, Radio Euskadi (Spain), Rai Radio 1 (Italy), BBC World Service, Radio Sawa Egypt, WWCR Nashville, Radio Canada Int, Cadena Cuscatlan (El Salvador), LBC 97.3, Voice of Russia, WHRA (USA), WYFR (USA), WHRI (USA), Voice of America and Kiss 100

Video post: And there it goes

2009-01-02T18:37:00.002Z

Colindale, London, England // 6.38 pm // Partly cloudy 4ºc / 39ºf

In the last two weeks on TV I'm been watching: BBC One, BBC Two, Setanta Sports 1, E4, BBC News, 4Music, TMF, BBC Three, BBC Parliament, CNN.com Live, CNN International and More 4

On the radio I've listened to: Capital FM, Kiss 100, Magic 105.4, Soul Central Radio, CNN US audio, Galaxy Birmingham, Jazz FM, Gold Wolverhampton, Beacon Radio (Wolverhampton), Gold Birmingham, Heart 100.7 (Birmingham), Mercia (Coventry), Touch FM (Warwickshire), BBC Radio Oxford, BBC 3 Counties Radio, Gold London, Kiss 104.1 (Atlanta), BBC Radio 5 Live and Desi Radio.

Yuletide log

2008-12-23T18:02:00.002Z

Colindale, London, England // 6.01 pm // Mostly cloudy 9ºc / 48ºf

T'was the second last night before Christmas, and thankfully I'm now off work until next Monday, 29th December. It's been a pretty productive week or so. On the weekend after the last blog, Elle and I spent a long weekend together. To be fair, we did spend a good while of it in the flat doing not very much at all, but we rarely get the chance to even do nothing together, so it was quite nice. On the Saturday night we went to Brick Lane, the part of London famous for being full of Indian and Bangla restaurants. We found a really nice restaurant which was rather cheap and although it was unlicenced, they gave us a business card to take to the local off-licence to buy alcohol with 10% off! The food was really good, as was the service.

On Monday evening we went back to Hyde Park to the Winter Wonderland attraction there. The main reason we went there was because Elle wanted to go skating on the ice rink they have there. However, we hadn't booked any tickets in advance, and the next session was completely booked up. And we weren't ready to wait an hour and a half for the next one. The place is open until a few days after New Year so we may still get the chance to go, although I must be honest, I'm a bit apprehensive with the whole skating thing. I've only done it once before, and while I didn't fall on my arse once, it was a long time ago and I had less regard for my own safety then.

I had a real problem sleeping that night (not related to the skating!), and therefore had a miserable day on Tuesday. The rest of the week at work went well though.

On Friday I executed Part 2 of my Northern Line pub crawl, when I visited another 10 stations on the line, and had half a pint of lager at the closest pub to each. I managed to find a pub at each station this time, and I even managed to find a £1 half-pint, which is the cheapest I've found yet in London (barring Wetherspoons on a good day). I now have 20 more stations on the Northern Line to visit, plus three to revisit after research. Then I'll move on to the next line. The whole project is going to take years!

On Saturday I managed to finish all the rest of my Christmas shopping, which has to be the earliest ever for me! On Saturday night Elle and I went up to Edgware for a Chinese buffet. We started to lose faith in so-called "buffets" as they all seemed to become an "eat all you can" affair where you'd pick from a menu, they'd give you full portions, and you'd pay extra for anything you left. Whereas this one in Edgware is a proper "spoon it out of a bucket yourself" affair, and is 10 times better for it. We'll definitely go back again, although apparently there is a nicer, albeit more expensive one round the corner.

On Sunday I watched Celtic thrash Falkirk 4-0 and go 4 points clear at the top of the Scottish Premier League, before heading to my local to watch the first half of the Arsenal v Liverpool game with my friend Stu.

On Monday I sent all the Christmas presents that had to go home to Scotland, and yesterday I wrapped all the rest of the presents. Meaning that I had completely finished organising for Christmas presents 3 days in advance, which has never ever happened!

February next year sees the time for renewal of subscriptions for co-owners of Ebbsfleet United, of which I am one. However, as much as I hate to admit it, I am not sure if I will be renewing. I must admit that my interest in the club has waned. As unacceptable as it is, the novelty has worn off. And I've not been able to devote enough time to participating in the clubs affairs or even simply following the results week-to-week. I really hope I will be in the minority and that many people will continue to support the club.

Over the last week or so on TV I've been watching CNN International, BBC Three, ITV2+1, TMF, ITV2, Sky News, ITV1, BBC Four, BBC Two, BBC Parliament, BBC One, CNN.com Live, CNN USA, 4Music, The Hits, Channel 4, E4, Sky Sports 1, Channel 4+1 and ITV4.

On radio I've listened to Soul Central Radio, Capital FM, Kiss 104.1 Atlanta, BBC Radio Scotland, The Hits, Choice FM, BBC Radio 4, BBC Radio 2, Heart 106.2, Sunrise Radio, Radio Veronica, BBC Radio 6 Music and Jazz FM.

Doff (Day off)

2008-12-11T19:02:00.002Z

Colindale, London, England // 7.01 pm // Mostly cloudy 4ºc / 39ºf

On TV in the last couple of days I've been watching BBC One, ITV1, Setanta Sports 1, CNN International, BBC Four and Sky Sports Xtra

On radio I've listened to BBC Asian Network, On FM, Soul Central Radio, Heat Radio, 2BR (Burnley) and Smoke Radio (Harrow)

Early bird

2008-12-09T17:31:00.002Z

Colindale, London, England // 5.31 pm // Mostly cloudy 5ºc / 41ºf

My daily life has changed dramatically in the space of the last few days as I move from late shifts to early shifts at work. Friday night was my last late shift, which I've been on since I started the new job at the beginning of September. When I got back home on Friday night Elle's sister was here, ready to stay for the weekend, and her dad was at a nearby hotel.

We met up with him on Saturday and they all headed into the city to do the tourist thing. I had to stay in the flat for a while as our landlord was coming round to visit to inspect the new carpet. He arrived about 4pm with his wife - both of them seem really nice. He had a wee look around the flat, seemed quite happy with the condition. I raised a couple of things with him; the fact that we are still receiving mail for the previous tenants and the fact that the extractor fan in bathroom cannot deal with all the moisture from the amazing shower that we have. On the former, it looks like I'll be forwarding all the previous tenants' mail to our contact at the estate agent, and on the latter the handyman Tony, the one who fixed our washing machine, will pop round at some point and look at the options with the extractor fan.

I then met up with Elle's crew on Oxford Street, where we did a wee bit of shopping (buying nothing) before heading to Hyde Park and to the Winter Wonderland there, most of which had been imported from Germany! Loads of German fair rides, and a big German market which we spent some time walking round. Naturally, we had a German beer too, and some cherry mulled wine. Going on the rides was ridiculously expensive though, so we didn't. After that we headed to Piccadilly and Covent Garden for a couple of drinks before going home.

It's worth noting that I have never ever seen London so busy and so absolutely packed as I did on Saturday. Just mental.

On Sunday I made myself wake up after 6 hours sleep, so that I would be tired enough to go to bed at 9pm on Sunday night. I spent most of the morning reading emails and playing Fifa until Elle and Sarah woke up. Elle's dad came round later that day, and they all headed off to Camden Market while I watched Celtic lose 2-0 at Easter Road. So the gap at the top of the league is down to 4 points now.

I met up with the rest of them in Camden after the game, and we went for a drink. Their plan was to go to the South Bank, have a stroll and then go for a meal and maybe a drink before coming back. However, I really had to be back at the flat soon to get ready for work the next day, and go to bed at a decent time. So I left them to it and came back home. Went to bed at 9.30pm.

And woke up at 4am on Monday morning. My car into work is at 4.30am so actually I had too much time, so I've since changed my wake-up time to 4.15am. It's still bloody early though, by anyone's book! I now start work at 5am and finish at 3pm. It's been really good so far - the shifts are noticably longer, but it is nice to be out of work when it is still daylight outside. I also get the chance to see Elle for an hour or two in the evening, and have one midweek day off each week which will be really useful. It's been a taxing couple of mornings, just because I'm not familiar yet with how different things are done in the mornings, and I am also working with people I haven't worked with before, so adjustments have to be made there too. So far, it's been better than I thought it would be. And hopefully I'll continue to be disciplined enough to go to bed when I really should!

Since the weekend on TV I've been watching CNN International, BBC One, BBC Three, Setanta Sports 1, BBC News and BBC Two.

On radio I've been listening to Zee Radio, Soul Central Radio, BBC Radio 2, Chill, LBC News 1152, Solar Radio and Sunrise Radio.

The thick of it

2008-12-05T01:05:00.002Z

Colindale, London, England // 1.06 am // Mostly clear 5ºc / 41ºf

Really really busy day at work today. There was a lot of other stuff going on besides, so I had to do a good bit of stuff pretty much on my own. It was pretty intense, and at one point I was feeling a bit sorry for myself, but in the end - in hindsight - it was bloody good. I was doing a shitload of stuff, and I was managing fine with it. I'm not completely on top of everything, but after today I feel that I really can do most of the job now. There are still a few things to do for the first time, and others to hone as close to perfection as possible, but I came away tonight feeling like a good job had been done.

Bloody knackered now though, and I'm just chilling out with a beer listening to my radio station, Soul Central Radio (dot com). Listening figures for it have settled now and I'll attempt to break some of it down now.

On average I'm getting between 20 and 25 individual listeners every day, although has peaked to 40 one day, and dipped to 3 another day. Total listening hours are all over the place. Yesterday the station was listened to for 9 and a half hours. Many listeners are tuning in for hours at a time. Overall I've had 338 listeners tuning in for a total of 176 hours. It's still the 16th best soul station out of 130.

The station is most popular in the UK, followed by the USA. It's also been really popular so far in Brazil and Spain. And 5 listeners in The Netherlands have listened for a total of nearly 11 hours. So far the station has been heard in 28 countries.

The most popular part of the USA that the station has been heard has been Atlanta by far, with 18 hours listened by 18 listeners. Next is Washington DC at 4 hours by 4 listeners.

It's gone much better that I thought it would, and this is with practically no promotion yet. I definitely intend to try and push the station come the New Year.

And to round off, on TV today I've watched CNN International, BBC One, Channel 4, BBC Three and Channel 4+1.

On the radio I've listened to Soul Central Radio, Jazz FM and Absolute Radio.

What a catch!

2008-12-04T01:20:00.002Z

Colindale, London, England // 1.21 am // Clear 0ºc / 32ºf

The last update was written in Scotland. On Saturday night I went out with my friend Stephen to a few places in Ayr. To be honest, I've had better nights out in Ayr; the places we chose to go out weren't the best choices but it wasn't too bad. Went back to Stephen's new house after getting back from Ayr for a few beers so it was quite a late one.

I couldn't sleep too long on Sunday as I was meeting up with my dad at lunchtime. We headed back down to Ayr to see my auntie and her husband and two kids. The last time I saw the youngest one, my cousin Daniel, it was in July for his Christening. Now, he's practically walking on his own accord!

After that my dad and I headed back to Saltcoats for some food, then out in town for a night of beverages, meeting up with my Uncle John and Uncle Mark later in the evening. This is becoming a regular feature everytime I go home now, and usually ends up being the highlight of the visit.

On Monday I had a fairly quiet day, and spent most of the afternoon with my gran while my mum was at work. My gran, for being nearly 70, is doing pretty well for herself. She found a new man a few months back, and has since been halfway around the world with him, and has at least 4 other trips planned next year!

I flew back to London on Monday night, from Prestwick Airport to Stansted. The departures lounge at Prestwick has changed quite significantly since the last time I flew out from there, and now sports a very nice new Elvis Presley-themed bar. For those that don't know, Prestwick Airport in Scotland was the only place the king himself set foot in the UK, ever.

When I got back to the flat on Monday night, I had to fulfill a promise to Elle. So I helped to put up the Christmas tree and decorations. For those that think it was a bit early, it *could've* been done last Wednesday!

Back to work yesterday and it's been a couple of busy days. I have two more evening shifts, before everything changes and I start early shifts next Monday. That entails waking up at 4am and starting work at 5am, finishing at 3pm. I get one day off midweek plus weekends. It's actually going to be quite handy for Christmas shopping, as when I finish at 3pm I'm pretty much in the heart of London's shopping district to buy some Christmas presents. It also means I'll get to spend a good bit more time with Elle in the evenings. Although I will need to go to bed around 9pm.

Those that know me know that one of my main hobbies is DXing, that being the act of receiving distant radio stations, far outside the original target area. Tonight, in fact less than half an hour ago, I achieved my finest ever DX "catch", and something I've been trying to achieve, fairly passively, for the last 13 years. I received my first ever transatlantic radio station on the MW band using just my portable Sony radio. It was WEGP, from Maine in the USA, on 1390 AM. I've never had any real special setup for MW reception, so the fact I heard this on the internal aerial on the radio makes this reception even more fantastic! It will mean nothing to most other people reading this, but I know that at least *I* will always remember this night...

In the last few days on TV I've watched BBC One, UKTV History, BBC News, CNN International, Setanta Sports 1 and Channel 4.

On the radio I've listened to 3TFM (Saltcoats), Soul Central Radio, Jazz FM, Absolute Classic Rock, LBC 97.3, BBC Radio 5 Live, Kiss 104.1 (Atlanta), Capital FM and WEGP (Maine).

Vive Escocia

2008-11-29T16:53:00.002Z

Saltcoats, North Ayrshire, Scotland // 4.55 pm // Partly cloudy 2ºc / 36ºf

It's the weekend, and I'm spending it back home in Scotland. Had quite a good week, with only two days at work. I managed to book Wednesday off at the start of the week, and had Thursday and Friday booked off already for the trip to Scotland.

On Wednesday, I did something that I wanted to do for years. Unfortunately I had to do it alone as everyone else that could've come with me was working. But that wasn't going to stop me doing a 20-stop pub crawl up and down the Northern Line on the London Underground network. Eventually I want to have half a pint of lager at or very near every single London Underground station. I managed 17 of the 20 on Wednesday, as follows and in this order:

Edgware, Brent Cross (couldn't find a pub), Hampstead, Mornington Crescent, Highgate, West Finchley (couldn't find a pub), Finchley Central, Kings Cross, Old Street, Bank (couldn't find a pub), London Bridge, Morden, Tooting Bec, Balham, Clapham Common, Kennington, Charing Cross, Goodge Street (where Elle joined me after work) and Warren Street.

I had 15 half pints, and two full pints, altogether and it took me about 10 hours. It was a really interesting tour of London at the same time, which was part of the attraction. I went to a couple of Irish pubs, one gay bar and one Indian restaurant alongside some traditional pubs and modern bars. There are a lot more stations on the Northern Line, before I move on to another line, so I'll do them at some point. I don't think I'll do as many as 20 at a time, as it was quite an effort! Maybe 10. And the stations where I couldn't find pubs will be revisited, but I'll do some research online in advance and find the nearest pub that way.

While I was coming to the end of the pub crawl, all hell was breaking loose in Mumbai. I don't know how I manage it, but I always seem to miss the breaking news at work. I've got mixed feelings about not being at work this week. In a way, I'm glad I'm in Scotland and relaxing, especially as my colleagues have been working overtime and also through this weekend. On the other hand, it would be good experience for me if I was there, and it would be an interesting time to be working.

Instead, I just watched the output when I got to Saltcoats, and it has all looked great - they've been doing a brilliant job. The flight on Thursday was fine, and I got to the house at about 2pm. I didn't do anything for the rest of the afternoon, but in the evening I went to Stephen and Ian's brand new house in Ardrossan. They were busy putting pictures up and fitting the washing machine in the kitchen, but we had the chance to have a few beers and a chat later.

Yesterday was a really lazy day, until about 3pm when I went into town for a stroll, a pie and a walk along the beach. Every time I go down there, and see the sea, it's just brilliant. I say it all the time, but I really miss living so close to the sea. I would always head down there if I had to do any thinking, or just wanted to relax and clear my mind. I never took it for granted, even when I had been living here for 18 years, and I still miss it now.

Last night I went round to Stephen and Ian's again, with Stephen's sister Lynsey and her boyfriend. We had a good few drinks, and late in the night I managed to persuade Stephen to come out in town with me. Which we did, going to Wetherspoons for a quick pint then across the road to the Metro club where, once again, I immediately felt twice the age I actually am. I really don't know why we do it to ourselves!

Felt a bit rough this morning, mostly because I didn't drink anything yesterday that wasn't beer, wine or dark rum. Watched the second half of the Hearts v Rangers game this afternoon, and had a bath earlier while listening to the Celtic game on the radio. We won, Rangers lost, meaning we now are 7 points clear are the top of the Scottish Premier League!

Tonight me and Stephen are going out in Ayr, via a pub in Kilwinning that has just re-opened.

This week on TV I've been watching CNN International, BBC One, STV, Sky News, Living 2 and Setanta Sports 1

On the radio I've been listening to Kiss 104.1 (Atlanta), Solar Radio, Kismat Radio, 3TFM, BBC Radio Scotland and Soul Central Radio

Radio Times

2008-11-24T01:49:00.002Z

Colindale, London, England // 1.50 am // Mostly cloudy 5ºc / 41ºf

The last week or so has been busy but it does feel like it has all gone really quickly. Last weekend Elle was back in the West Midlands visiting her mum and sister, which was when I was supposedly going to catch up with lots of the stuff I had to do, and have had to do for months in some cases. Granted, I did do some of it. However I got a bit distracted by creating my own online radio station.

It's something I've always wanted to do, but there are few ways to do it and make it affordable and legal. So I never got round to it before now. Plus, I already had other radio shows at the other stations to keep me occupied at the time. This isn't the case now.

So last Saturday night I spent 5 hours, and £250, and created Soul Central Radio. I opened the service with Live 365 as it's relatively affordable and I don't have to worry about royalities as they cover that as part of my subscription. I'm still tweaking the music quotas but essentially Soul Central Radio is a mix of classic and modern soul music, encompassing soul, funk, acid jazz, jazz funk and soulful house. The music is 40% classic soul, 40% modern soul and 20% soulful house. I have created four different playlists. One is what I call the "4 decades mix", and is a mix of all the tracks on the playlist. This airs mostly in 3-hour blocks, 6 times daily. I also have a classic soul and funk playlist that airs for 1 hour, 3 times daily. Similarly, there is a 90s and modern soul playlist which also airs for 1 hour, 3 times daily. Finally I have a soulful house playlist that airs for 30 minutes once a day. I really like how the station pans out - the different playlists break up the flow, which I think is a good thing in this instance. Plus there are more tracks on there than on most radio stations in the country, meaning less repetition.

I also bought the domain name and some professional station IDs from RPC Productions. Listening figures have been really promising so far, and already the station is 19th most popular soul station on Live 365 out of over 120. It is mostly for fun, but it still allows me to share some great music with the world which I've missed doing since giving up Grooveline and the Soul Cellar. It is also something that I do plan to try and develop as time goes on. The playlist will be updated weekly, and one of my first priorities will be on creating a better website.

Last weekend I didn't do much else than create the station and then listen to it! Had a good week at work last week. Was a bit busier than previous weeks. On Thursday morning before work I spent most of the time clearing the living room and hall of furniture and everything else so that the carpetfitters would be able to lay the new carpet on Friday morning.

They came just before 9.30am, three guys, and were quite happy to move the remaining furniture (a couple of units and the sofa) from one end of the living room to the other as they were laying the carpet. It took them just under an hour and they even hoovered up after themselves!

So the landlord is coming round in two weeks time to see the carpet, and just to meet us generally as we haven't met yet, despite living in the property for nearly 4 months now. Wow, 4 months. In some ways it feels like just weeks, and in others it feels like over a year since we moved! So much has changed this year. All of it for the better, I hasten to add.

This weekend has been great. Elle and I have spent it together from start to finish, which is rare these days. We had a mostly lazy afternoon yesterday, and went out for a meal in Hampstead in the evening. We went to a French restaurant, and the food was rather good. The service was great too. Then we headed to Camden for a couple of drinks before going back to the flat. It was bitterly cold last night, and when I woke up for a drink this morning I noticed a light dusting of snow outside.

We were rudely awoken at 11am this morning by our neighbour downstairs who was playing a trumpet, rather badly. They would play for 10-15 minutes and then stop for the same period of time before starting again. And again. And again. This actually went on for at least 6 hours, although we got up out of bed long before that!

I had the radio magazine to do this weekend, which I finished this afternoon. Otherwise, it has been a really lazy day, other than the hour or so I spent tidying the flat and doing the dishes. Had a bath tonight too, caught up with a lot of my emails (still catching up from when I went home in the summer!) and played some Fifa tonight.

Got a three day work week this week, although that'll potentially be 2 days as I am planning to book Wednesday off when I go in tomorrow. On Thursday morning I fly out to Scotland for a long weekend, returning on Monday evening.

This week on TV I've watched Setanta Sports 1, TMF, CNN International, ITV1 and BBC One.

On radio I've listened to Vatican Radio, CNR 1 (China), Radio Mauritania, Soul Central Radio, BBC Radio 6 Music, Capital FM, Traffic Radio, BBC Radio 4, Punjabi Radio, Kiss 104.1 Atlanta, talkSPORT, Jazz FM and Gold Kent.

Gaaaaaaarlic bread?

2008-11-15T21:48:00.002Z

Colindale, London, England // 9.48 pm // Cloudy 13ºc / 55ºf

Halfway into the weekend and, surprise surprise, I haven't done anywhere near as much as I had hoped/planned. But I do intend to have a fairly late one tonight, so there is still a few hours in the day left.

I got home from work at around 1.30am last night, after staying to help test some new software. That was a lot later than originally planned, and I might well have to go back into work tomorrow and help test it again. The joys of being on call.

Determined to have some kind of Friday, I had a very late one last night while chatting to some friends and my dad on MSN and doing a good bit of DXing.

Woke up just before 3pm this afternoon. I had a message from our landlord about the new carpets being fitted. Looks like that is happening on Friday, so I'll need to make sure the living room and hall are completely cleared by then. It's really inconvenient, to be honest. We've only just began to really settle in the flat, and now I have to disconnect everything and move it again! It also comes during the editorial weekend for the radio magazine, which is also a bit annoying. Still, we'll have nice new carpets by next weekend.

Done a lot of DXing today, and I went out to collect a chinese takeway, which was an absolute beast of a meal in the end. I've never seen portions like it! I'll be working through that meal for the rest of the weekend, no doubt.

The plan for the rest of the weekend is to do more DXing, pay some bills online, make a start on the Tony Ryan tax and make up that CD for the producer of the Radio 4 documentary on home cassette recordings.

In the last day or so on TV I've watched only CNN International.

On radio I've listened to talkSPORT, BBC London 94.9, Shine 87.9, Radio Havana Cuba, Radio Cairo, Roots FM, OnTop, Radio Taiwan International, WHRI (South Carolina), Radio O1 International (Austria), HCJB Ecuador, SW R Africa, Voice of America and Vatican Radio.

Jungle es masseeev

2008-11-14T11:47:00.002Z

Colindale, London, England // 11.56 am // Partly cloudy 14ºc / 57ºf

I'm typing this while listening to some quality drum 'n' bass from a less-than-legit radio station and some catastrophic noises coming from the washing machine. Those noises caused by my incompetence when it comes to laundry. I've put some light clothes in to wash, including several of my light coloured shirts. A few days ago I noticed I couldn't find my usual cufflinks, and figured they would be on one of my shirts in the laundry basket and either Elle or I would notice and take them off before putting them in the machine. Oops. So now with every cycle of the drum I hear the "clink" of metal on glass, and I'm waiting for the crunching noise of machinery dying followed by the gushing sound of warm soapy water cascading onto the two storeys below us.

Other than that, all is well. It goes without saying that I'm glad it's Friday. I've had a good week though, and made some advances with my training at work. There's still a lot to do, but I've been pretty pleased with how the week has gone. I feel like I'm really getting into it now. It's probably the first job I've had where I really feel like I've earned the money I'm given, and don't feel too guilty during the times that there isn't very much to do.

The on-going saga of the missing records continues. Despite several attempts to contact the local Royal Mail delivery office, I can't get to talk to anyone. So I've asked the sender to chase it up at his end and try to claim compensation. I hope he does. In the end, he has his money...from me. And right now I'm 50 quid lighter.

It doesn't give me much confidence in the postal system round here. Also a couple of friends nearby, Stu and Robyn-Leigh, have both had problems with the mail in the area. They're served by the same delivery office and probably the same postman. Despite that, I'm still continuing to add to my Earth Wind & Fire collection on Ebay. Thankfully, nothing of that has gone missing yet (touches wood). But I am definitely less reluctant to buy anything valuable online when it means it might have to come via Royal Mail.

So after staying at work a bit later tonight to do some tests, I'll be spending the weekend in the flat alone, meaning I'll be doing lots of DXing, catching up on stuff I meant to do ages ago, but minimal beer consumption as I'm on-call all weekend.

In the last couple of days on TV I've watched CNN International, BBC One London, ITV1 London and BBC Parliament.

On radio I've been listening to BBC Radio Norfolk, BBC London 94.9, Capital FM, Platinum 87.5 and Shine 87.9

Four points clear

2008-11-13T01:01:00.002Z

Colindale, London, England // 1.01 am // Mostly clear 7ºc / 45ºf

Not a hugely interesting 36 hours or so. Been at work twice...really quiet day yesterday but alot busier today.

The next few days should see me working through my list of things to do. Particularly this weekend - Elle is going back up to her mums, so that'll give me the chance, and no excuse not, to spend the whole weekend doing things I should've done weeks ago. I'll also catch up with a bit of DXing. All being well, of course, as this weekend I'm on-call for the first time, and took possession of the on-call phone earlier today.

Went to Asda this morning before work to get some food and drink for the next few days. Couple of tins of curry, potatoes, beans, a snackpot and a sachet of soup mix. I've decided I should eat more soup. But then I couldn't decide if we eat soup, or drink it. Anyway?

Tonight Celtic beat Kilmarnock 3-0, and Rangers drew meaning we go four points clear at the top of the Scottish Premier League. And a shocker in London tonight as Burnley knocked Chelsea out of the League Cup, qualifying for the quarter final!

I was interested to hear that Sky and Virgin Media have settled their dispute that saw Sky pull their basic channels from the cable platform. I was all for this, and all for Branson being set in his ways, as there is no way they should've bowed down to Murdoch's demands. I've not seen the terms of the new agreement - I don't even know if they've been made public - but I can't help thinking Sky had to give in to some extent, and overall it benefits Virgin Media more.

And Galaxy Scotland has launched, replacing XFM Scotland, which in turn replaced Beat 106. I always thought Central Scotland should have had a dance station. It didn't quite get one with Beat 106, which oddly mixed dance with rock music. It's not really getting one now either, with Galaxy mix of dance and R&B but I definitely think it's more suitable than XFM.

On TV in the last couple of days I've watched, CNN International, Sky Sports News, BBC One, BBC Four, BBC Three, BBC Two, CNN.com Live, Channel 4 and E4.

On radio I've been listening to NOS Radio 5 (The Netherlands), Kerrang!, Capital FM, Choice FM and Rainbow Radio

Video blog: Ordinary man

2008-11-11T13:10:00.002Z

Colindale, London, England // 1.10 pm // Partly cloudy 11ºc / 52ºf

For some reason, Youtube didn't truncate my video this time!

Since the last blog post I haven't watched any TV, and on the radio I've only listened to NOS Radio 5 (The Netherlands).

Greasy sausage

2008-11-11T01:09:00.002Z

Colindale, London, England // 1.10 am // Mostly clear 9ºc / 48ºf

I'm still mourning the passing of the quickest weekend I've ever known. However I did spend all of Saturday drinking and most of Sunday sleeping.

Last Thursday I finally managed to do one of the main parts of my new job, and again on Friday and tonight. For all intents and purposes, it seems to have gone really well so far. But already I just want to have it completely sussed, and feel completely comfortable with it, but I know that'll only come with time. But I've really enjoyed it, and look forward to getting more into it each day. Haven't sweated as much in my life though!

Friday night I chilled with Elle, the TV and some fizzy beverages. Woke up at 11ish on Saturday to finish tidying the flat a little more in prepartion for the evening's activities, then headed to the local pub with Stu to watch the Arsenal game. Being 12.45pm, and knowing I would be going to another pub later to watch another game, then going home to host a party, I decided to take it easy on the beer, by having a pint of Diet Coke first. Then a pint of lager 15 minutes later, and so it began.

I had to leave there before the game finished so I could get to Kilburn High Street in time for the Celtic game at 3pm. But it was in vain, as the ridiculous traffic down the A5 meant that the bus practically crawled there, and I missed the first 10 minutes of the game. We won, but to be fair I can't remember much of the end of the game. This was bad.

I headed back up to the flat where the first guest had arrived, followed by another two. I had sobered up a little by the time I got home, only to be greeted with a case of lager, several bottles of wine, vodka, shooters, and the iceing on the cake - a full bottle of legendary Scotsmac.

Messy.

To be fair, I held it together for a good while (I think). At least judging by the photos. Although I'm pretty sure my Buzz quiz and Singstar scores didn't reflect that. I don't remember getting to bed.

I remember waking up though. And thinking "fuck me, it's gone 4pm". There goes the weekend then. And my head was pounding. Actually, I was really pissed off. Although I did a lot with the Saturday, I completely wasted the Sunday. The weekend had gone.

Sunday evening actually went quite slowly, but I did go back to bed for a hour or so to stop myself being sick. When I woke up again I put the finishing touches on my annual appraisal for work, and was still tired enough to go to bed at the normal time.

I was gonna go to Asda this morning, but actually there was enough food and drink in the flat to go for another few days. Plus it was absolutely pissing down all morning.

As for the subject line, I tried out W1's newest chippy tonight when I was at work. Despite having the usual potato and tin of baked beans in my bag, I decided to go to the chippy for the first time, just to try it. I *did* have to wait almost 15 minutes for my food, but it was really good. Battered sausage and chips Although I felt quite guilty afterwards. I'm not on a diet or anything like that, but I do try to keep an eye on what I eat, and really tonight was just pointless!

Football-wise, Celtic are still 2 points top of the Scottish Premier League but Ebbsfleet are out of the FA Cup after losing to Crewe at the weekend. I've really not been up to speed with all things Ebbsfleet lately. I wouldn't say I've lost interest in the project, but I've just not been that active. I still think I'll renew my subscription and my part in the club.

So our landlord called last week to apologise for not getting in touch before, and to tell us that he wants to replace the carpets in the flat. This is good news, as they were left quite stained when we moved in, despite being professionally cleaned, and saves us having to try and prove which stains are and aren't ours whenever we move out. However, it is also a major pain in the arse only three months after we moved in, now we need to clear two rooms so the carpets can come in and out.

Finally, on TV since last Thursday I've been watching BBC One, CNN International, Sky Sports 1, Polsat Sport Extra, ITV2, BBC News, 4 Music, Channel 4, TMF, BBC Three and Five

On radio I've been listening to Kiss 100, Jazz FM, Radio Prague, Radio Bulgaria, talkSPORT, LBC 97.3 and Capital FM.

Video post: Changing times

2008-11-06T13:10:00.002Z

Colindale, London, England // 1.10 pm // Mostly cloudy 11ºc / 52ºf

This week on the TV I've been mostly watching: CNN International, CNN, BBC One, UKTV History, ITV1, BBC News, E4, E4+1, Setanta Sports 1, TMF, Sky News and Sky Sports News.

On radio: Kiss 100, BBC Radio Berkshire, BBC London 94.9, Origin, BBC Essex, Voice of Turkey, WWCR (Nashville), BBS Radio 1 (Bhutan), BBC 3 Counties Radio, Smooth Radio, WJIE (Kentucky) and LBC 97.3

Video post: No hint of redemption

2008-10-31T12:00:00.002Z

Colindale, London, England // 12.00 pm // Partly cloudy 8ºc / 46ºf

In the last 24 hours I've watched CNN International, BBC News, BBC One and UKTV History

On radio I've been listening to LBC 97.3 and Radio Havana Cuba

Video post: What happened to the music?

2008-10-30T12:09:00.002Z

Colindale, London, England // 12.09 pm // Partly cloudy 8ºc / 46ºf

In the last day I've watched only CNN International on TV.

On radio I've listened to BBC London 94.9, Tempo 94.4, KWHR (Hawaii), Radio Ukraine International and RTBF International (Belgium)

Snow in October!

2008-10-29T11:29:00.002Z

Colindale, London, England // 11.29 am // Mostly sunny 6ºc / 43ºf

Last weekend we had guests visiting in the form of Elle's sister and one of Elle friends. I had to do the radio magazine over the weekend, so I didn't get the chance to go out with them. However I did go out for an hour or two after work on Friday, and met up with a few of my friends from my old job in Reading, in Chinatown. However, they had to leave early to catch the last train to Reading and St Albans. I headed back up to Colindale on the nightbus, and sat up with the girls for a little while.

On Saturday afternoon I headed down to the pub in Kilburn to watch the Celtic v Hibernian game on Polish TV. However after getting my pint and heading to the screens, it was apparent there was a problem. In comedy style, someone had lost the remote control. And the satellite receiver was therefore stuck on the wrong channel (showing Polish men's volleyball...it wasn't even womens volleyball!). After over half an hour of searching the pub high and low, they gave up and the game was not watched. (In the end, we won 4-2) I stuck around for a while, had a couple more pints and chatted to a few friends and my mum and John back home on the phone. Then went back to the flat to finish of the magazine (which took all night). Also at some point that evening, someone took a photo of me and Elle in the flat, and I hardly look my best after 4 pints, looking scruffy, messed up hair and sporting my new Celtic Supporters Club polo shirt! (Can be found on Facebook...thanks Michelle!)

I was up pretty damn late on Saturday night after the girls got back (with their tales of blood and gore on the N5 nightbus). Therefore Sunday was a really chilled day. It would've been topped off perfectly with an Indian takeway from a highly recommended restaurant in Edgware, only it took them 2 hours to deliver! They took Elle's number in case they couldn't find the flat (loads of people seem to have that problem). After an hour and a half (and many phone calls to them), it then transpires that they couldn't find the place, and went back to the restaurant! They didn't even call us!! So I explain to the guy again where we are again, and finally half an hour later the food arrives. They did promise that before they came back out they recooked the meal. Did they f*ck! The poppadoms had the consistency of dishtowels and the chips were cold. As it happens, the rest of the food was really nice but we definitely won't be going there again.

This week I've been starting and finishing work one hour earlier because we work to Eastern Time in the US, and as our clocks changed last weekend, there are now only 4 hours between here and there. So it's been quite nice getting home from work at 10.30pm instead of an hour later.

Last night it also meant that I got to see the full extent of the heavy snow we had in London last night on the way home! I couldn't believe it, even when I saw it. And it was really starting to stick on the ground quite seriously, even up to Kilburn. However, the closer I got to Colindale, the snow was wetter and more like sleet. It was still really strange to see such weather so early in the season.

Late last night I found out some great news, that CNN International is launching on Freeview. I always hoped this would happen one day, having watched the channel for many years. It was supposed happen quite a few years back, not long after the launch of the platform, when Turner were supposed to be buying a slot and broadcasting a timeshare of CNN, Cartoon Network and TCM. For some reason that didn't happen, but a number of years later they launched Nuts TV. which is now making way for CNN. It's only 9pm till 1am nightly for now, but it's still better than nothing. I hope it's a success. From tits to top stories.

Speaking of TV, recently I've been watching CNN International, ITV1, BBC One, Channel 4 +1, BBC Two, BBC News, E4, 4 Music, BBC Four, and Sky Sports News.

On the radio: Magic 105.4, Kiss 100, China Radio International, NDR Info (Germany), France Info, Cope Radio Murcia (Spain), Solar Radio, Galaxy Digital, 107.7 Splash FM (Worthing), LBC 97.3 and Kiss 104.1 (Atlanta)

Video post: Youtube attention span

2008-10-24T13:42:00.002+01:00

Colindale, London, England // 1.42 pm // Partly cloudy 13ºc / 55ºf

For some unknown reason, Youtube has been snipping off about 10% of all my video blog posts. To try and get around that, next time I'll add a minute or so of just music so that if anything is lost, it's just a bit of music.

On TV in the last few days I've been watching: Sky Sports News, Setanta Sports 1, BBC Three, BBC Two, NASN 2, BBC One London, BBC News, CNN International and Five.

On radio: BBC Radio 5 Live, Heart 106.2, Talksport, Platinum 87.5, Point Blank FM and Solar Radio

Video post: Weekend rediscovery

2008-10-20T13:26:00.002+01:00

Colindale, London, England // 1.27 pm // Mostly cloudy 15ºc / 59ºf

On TV over the weekend I watched: Setanta Sports 1, BBC One, BBC News, BBC Four, BBC Three, ITV1 and ITV2.

On radio: BBC 3 Counties Radio, BBC World Service, BBC Radio Wales, Radio Maria (The Netherlands), BBC Radio 5 Live, Voice of Korea, Radio Sweden, Radio Ashna (USA), China Radio International, Grootniews Radio (The Netherlands), Premier Christian Radio, Russian International Radio, Deutsche Welle, WEWN (USA), Voice of Russia, Classic FM and BBC Radio 1

The business end

2008-10-17T12:13:00.002+01:00

Colindale, London, England // 12.14 pm // Partly cloudy 13ºc / 55ºf

Such as the laws of randomness are, this is the first post in 8 days. Last weekend Elle's mum and sister came down to visit us at the new flat for the first time (when does it stop being new?). I came back to some whisky and a chicken biriyani on Friday night which was ideal after a long week at work.

The weekend was great. We did the tourist thing again, like we did when my mum and John were down. The weather was absolutely glorious all weekend too. It was hard to believe it's mid-October when temperatures are in the 70s. We went down to the South Bank, Tate Modern, up to Trafalgar Square. I split from them for an hour or two at that point to meet my old school friend Jenny Paton who was in Covent Garden. We had a great catch-up, and I also met her mum and partner. We might well do it again soon, as Jen might be down quite often.

I met up with Elle and the crew again and we went for a meal on Oxford Street before heading back to the flat.

On Sunday I left the girls to go shopping, and I had a quiet day in the flat catching up with stuff, before we all went to Wetherspoons in Colindale in the evening.

Had a good week at work so far. Getting more and more involved as the days go on. I had a training progress meeting at the start of the week, and the plan for the next few weeks was drawn up. I was due to begin the main part of the job next Tuesday, and have been shadowing that position for most of this week. However, the way I am feeling now, I just want to get stuck into it and I think I might ask if I can start doing the role tonight. We'll see.

Scotland lost against Norway last weekend. I saw the goal that we should've scored - complete stitter, I was absolutely stunned. I really don't think we have much of a chance of qualifying now, but I'm not calling for George Burley's head yet, like most people seem to be. Give the guy a chance!

Celtic play tomorrow, the first game for a couple of weeks. Then the big one against Manchester United on Wednesday. I'm not confident.

I'm going to start making a list of what I've been listening to and watching again. It probably won't interest many people, but I know that a lot of my friends are interested in media and media consumption habits, so it might mean something to someone. Plus I'm a self-confessed geek about that kind of stuff.

So, in true Fast Show stylee, this week I have been mostly watching: CNN International, ITV1, Channel 4, Sky News, Sky Sports News, BBC Four, BBC One, E4 and Setanta Sports 1

And on the wireless, been listening to: Premier Christian Radio, Radio Marocaine, HCJB Australia, BBC World Service, BBC Radio 3, Lightning, Genesis, BBC Three Counties Radio, BBC Radio 4, Vibes FM, Touch FM, BBC Essex, Smooth Radio, Resonance FM, Galaxy, Magic 105.4, The Hits, talkSPORT and V 98.7 Detroit.

Nothing to report

2008-10-09T00:22:00.002+01:00

Colindale, London, England // 12.23 am // Clear 9ºc / 48ºf

I don't actually decide when to write or film blog posts. I let the power and laws of randomness decide. And, unusually, those powers and laws have decided on a second post in as many days. Unfortunately very little has happened since last night.

I'm regulating my sleep quite heavily right now so I don't get too much, and therefore don't have problems sleeping on the following night. I try and aim to go to bed around 2am, and get up at 9am. Either way, I make sure I get no more than 7 hours sleep. It's been working quite well so far, and I'm usually pretty damn tired by the time I get to 2am and had a couple of beers. Like I am now.

But I was late going to bed last night so was up at 10am this morning. It's quite nice to have late mornings and early afternoons free, and I tend to make the flat look decent and catch up with a few things, plus a bit of DXing, before I have to make lunch and shower before work.

In the car on the way home from work tonight, the driver had XFM on the radio. I haven't spent a whole lot of time listening to XFM in the past, but really enjoyed what I heard tonight. The show I heard was called "Xposure" and I assume a lot of the music was from unsigned artists. I always dismissed XFM as a rock and indie station, but there was a lot of electro on the show, which I don't mind listening to at all. Why my 50ish-year-old driver was listening to that is another issue.

Speaking of XFM, the Central Scotland version of the station is soon giving way to a new Galaxy station. I'm quite glad to hear this as I always thought Glasgow needed a dance station. Glasgow actually has a really unique dance music scene, where happy hardcore and gabber are still popular. Not that I expect to hear that on Galaxy, but they definitely need something to reflect the dance music culture. I still think Beat 106 is a sad loss, although I never did understand the mix of dance and rock back then. Now though, I think that would work. A lot of rock and indie these days has a very dance-like undertone. Big in Ibiza too, y'know.

Getting better

2008-10-08T01:13:00.002+01:00

Colindale, London, England // 1.13 am // Mostly clear 11ºc / 52ºf

It's been a week of two halves so far, as we're only two days in. Last night at work was a nightmare. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong. I went into work today saying "today is going to be a good day" and feeling positive. And with help from everyone else, it worked. Two completely different days, which pretty much balances out overall. And I'm hoping it can continue tomorrow.

My training programme has stalled a little due to staffing constraints, but it's not a major issue for me as it allows me to consolidate what I've learned so far. Even today I was doing stuff for the first time, so this will be a valuable week.

The last weekend was a strange one. Friday night didn't go the way I expected and really hoped it would. It's not fair for me to go into too much detail, only to say that because a certain person drunk too much (not me) by the time I finished work and was due to meet them, Friday night's plans were scrapped and I went home annoyed and sober.

On Saturday afternoon I went to the Celtic pub in Kilburn to watch us thrash Hamilton 4-0. And wonderfully, Rangers lost 1-0 to St Mirren so we are now top of the league on goal difference.

Saturday night was a quiet one. I spent Saturday day and night completely resetting the PC to factory setting, reinstalling Windows etc. I did the same for the laptop on Sunday, and now it's like having two brand new computers. Beforehand, they were very close to being thrown out the window in rage.

On Sunday afternoon Elle and I went out for a meal. The plan was to go to the great Indian restaurant on Mill Hill Broadway for their Sunday buffet. However, when we arrived the place was deserted and they said they were closing, despite it being only 2.30pm. So we headed to the Wetherspoons on Edgware Road for a roast instead.

And on Sunday evening I headed to Croydon to meet up with my old uni mate Darren for the first time in couple of years. We had a great catch-up and must do it again some time.

Was great to hear Jazz FM coming back on-air on DAB in London last night. I listened to it while shaving and showering this morning, and it's like it was never away. Saturday nights on the schedule look particularly brilliant, including Mark Doyle's Fierce Angels show, talking the slot that the old Hed Kandi radio show took before GMG killed off the station.

And I'm ridiculously behind on my personal emails, about 3 weeks now, so I've missed a lot of media news, but I did notice that Five has a new logo and idents. Just the fact that the logo is in a circle reminds me of the early-90s Sky logos. I believe the newly rebranded Gold also has a logo in a circle. Throwback to a bygone age.

Video blog: ...not fade away

2008-10-02T13:08:00.001+01:00

Colindale, London, England // 1.08 pm // Partly cloudy 12ºc / 54ºf

Once again Youtube has decided to randomly edit my video blog, but this time only the last 30 seconds or so are missing. You'll get the idea.

Close call

2008-09-28T14:18:00.003+01:00

Colindale, London, England // 2.19 pm // Mostly sunny 18ºc / 64ºf

So week #1 in the new job has come to an end, and to be honest I feel really good about it. There are still a few things I have to improve, as is the case with any change of circumstances and environment. But I feel quite happy that I've made the right choice, and that I'll be able to deal with the new tasks ahead.

However, as a result of the new job I almost lost half of my weekend, as it was decided that we would need to be staffed over the weekend, rather than just the usual on-call setup (and my first weekend on-call isn't until the end of November). So the plans that Elle and I had for Saturday afternoon and evening were almost scrapped until my manager called on Saturday morning to say that we wouldn't need as many staff after all. So the weekend was back on.

I obviously had a lot of sleep to catch up on as I didn't wake until around 2pm. Later that afternoon Elle and I drove to Reading for the first time since we moved away. That was via the local chippy round the corner. The reason for the visit to Reading was to see our friends Tim and Lucy, who have just had their first baby earlier in the week. It was great to see the three of them, and it is still sad that we don't get to spend as much time with them since we moved.

We stayed there for an hour and a half before heading back to London and getting ready to go out in town. In the end, we didn't leave the flat until just before midnight and somehow managed to get very last tube trains to run down to Farringdon. The plan was to go to club Fabric where our friend Jenn was celebrating her birthday. However, when we got there we were faced with a monsterous queue. After speaking to some of the others in the queue and a security guy we acertained that the queue was at least an hour long. Meaning we wouldn't get in till at least 2am. We waited for a while but the queue wasn't moving. After weighing up the options, we decided to bail out, send our apologies and get a taxi up to Camden.

This was much more successful, and we ended up going to the Purple Turtle, which was free to get in, with no queue, drinks at decent prices and pretty good music. The PT is one of a chain of two pubs, the second of which is in Reading and where Elle worked as soon as we moved to Reading in May 2004. The one in Camden is very diferent though, not least the music policy. In Reading, it's usually indie and other kinds of rock upstairs and drum and bass downstairs. In Camden, we walked in to some electro house followed by the theme tune to the movie Ghostbusters!

We stayed there for a little while, and then got the night bus home.

Good day for my football clubs too. Celtic managed a last gasp win against Aberdeen at home, 3-2 which puts us top of the league. But I'm watching the Hibs v Rangers game now, and Rangers have just scored, so they may be top again by the end of the afternoon. And Ebbsfleet United beat Barrow away 3-0, putting us 5th in the Blue Square Premier, which has to be one of the best positions the club has ever been in.

Today, no real plans. We might go out for a meal later. We are definitely making more of our weekends together as we hardly get to spend time with each other through the week now, with the new job. But I also have to be prepare to lose those weekends every now and then too.

Video blog: Flat tour

2008-09-26T10:41:00.002+01:00

Colindale, London, England // 10.41 am // Mostly sunny 16ºc / 61ºf

It appears that my laptop is absolutely hopeless at recording quick capture video on Youtube. Thus, the last half of the blog update has been cut off (but you see the whole flat before that happens) and audio-video sync was lost after approximately the first frame. But enjoy nonetheless.

All change please

2008-09-24T12:24:00.002+01:00

Colindale, London, England // 12.24 pm // Light rain 15ºc / 59ºf

Never before has there been so many massive changes since the last blog post. Last time I was writing about Elle and I starting the hunt for a new flat in London.

Two months or so on, and we found, moved and settled into our new 1 bedroom flat in Colindale, North West London. Not only that, but I have since started a new job - pretty much a promotion - at my current company.

Back to the flat. One day in July Elle and I travelled to Colindale, near Hendon in the London Borough of Barnet, to look at flats. Through the course of the day we looked at 7 flats. Well actually, 6. One of them that we went to in Wembley looked ok from the outside, but no one was there to meet us so we could have a look inside. The flat that we went for in the end was the 3rd property we looked at. As much as we wanted to take it straight away, as we absolutely loved it, we decided to still look at some others. Throughout that day I was petrified that the 3rd property would be taken away from us before we had the chance to make our offer. But the next morning, make our offer we did, and by the end of the week we had signed all the necessary papers and paid the deposit and fees.

Packing up our old house in Reading was a real chore, but we managed it in the end and moved on August 2nd. I booked a man with a van and after loading it up, we had to say goodbye to the place that we had called home for four years, and of course the first place that Elle and I lived together.

Our new flat is on the 2nd floor (3rd floor for you Americans), which also happens to be the top floor. Therefore, carrying all our property from the van into the flat was a real pain in the arse. Thankfully I had a few other pairs of hands to help us. Rather than start to unpack when we had fully unloaded the van, we spent the rest of the day in the pub with friends!

Over the next few weeks we tried to get the place in order. Being a partly furnished property, we had to make many trips to Ikea and Argos to buy furniture for the place. Only last week did we actually fully finally unpack and have all the main items of furniture that we needed. Even now we still need a few things, including a freezer.

One of the main personal reasons for the move to London, other than it being a lifetime dream for me, was to enable me to take the next step in my career. By pure chance, that opportunity came up just a few days after we moved! I applied for a new position, which is a step further up the ladder, and several weeks back I had the interview. Last Monday I was told I was successful and yesterday I started my new job. Last night's first shift went quite well, although it will take me a little while to get used to the very different working environment. Never before have I worked anywhere which such an intense atmosphere and high levels of stress, but I'm very sure I'll be able to adjust to it, and when fully trained be a fully competent member of the team. There are three main parts of the job, one of which has ultimate responsibility for the output of a live tv show. At the moment, I can't imagine what that will be like. But then, before last night I could never have imagined what it would be like to actually do what I did last night! Will training and guidance, I'm sure it'll all be fine.

Thankfully, my sleep hasn't been disrupted either, unlike the first time I started working for this company. Like I said before, that was mostly just through excitement at being in such a different organisation. But I feel quite at home now. I still had a couple of glasses of wine last night to take the edge off the evening, and will likely have a couple of beers tonight, but once I get settled into the new job and into the routine, I'm sure that'll be less and less necessary. I've also been making sure I don't get too much sleep, so that I have no trouble falling asleep when I try. If all else fails, I still have some sleeping tablets.

The move to London and the new job are huge changes. I've easily got used to the first change, and I'll get used to the latter in time. But I'm now at the stage where, at the moment, I have nothing else I want to achieve. I'll be happy to keep things as they are for the foreseeable future.

Elle is getting on well at her job too. For both of us, travelling to work has become much quicker, easier and cheaper. We've not had much of a chance to enjoy London too much yet, but our standard of living has definitely gone up.

Other things: my mum and John were down visiting over the last weekend. We had a good time with them, and shown them around London, did the tourist thing, took them for a tour around my work, went up to John's friend in Essex for the day and ate out a few times.

I need to finish this off shortly as I need to get lunch ready then get ready for work. Up to December at least I will be working Monday to Friday 3pm till 11pm, with weekends off. However, from November I will be on-call on every 7th weekend. Thus, I've had to give up my other radio show in Slough. It was also taking 4 hours out of my Sunday just travelling from Colindale to Slough, plus the three hours for the show itself. Now, having Sundays to do what I want is just bliss.

Give me air

2008-07-23T17:46:00.002+01:00

Reading, Berkshire, England // 5.50 pm // Mostly cloudy 24ºc / 75ºf

I'm sitting here in the bedroom absolutely sweating to buggery. The one big thing I've always hated about living in this house is how unbearably warm it gets when there's a little bit of sunshine outside. Mostly because we only have windows on one side of the house, and this side faces the sun pretty much from dusk till dawn. The heat comes in and stays. We can't open the windows because bees sit and wait in the trees across the garden for the window to open, then make their advance. Our new flat has windows at the front and back, thank god. A bit of air circulation will be a godsend.

There's been a couple of more developments in the whole move. We finally have transport for all out belongs sorted out, arriving in Reading at 10am on Saturday morning, 2nd August. And we're meeting the estate agent at 12pm in London at the new flat.

In the meantime Elle has got us loads of boxes and packing is well and truly underway. I've also notified some companies of the new address. Cancelled electricity and water for the date we're moving out. Same goes for the phone/internet/cable tv.

I need to make a start on the radio magazine, which has to be done before Saturday. On Saturday I'm travelling up to my old university town of Stafford to meet up with the 6 guys I lived with in the first year for a rather large scale piss-up. Even though I arranged it, with hindsight it couldn't have come at a worse time! But I'll certainly be using it to unwind for a night.

Inaction

2008-07-21T18:11:00.002+01:00

Reading, Berkshire, England // 6.13 pm // Mostly sunny 20ºc / 68ºf

For some reason the last half of this video blog has disappeared. Bloody Youtube quick capture.

Moving

2008-07-14T00:19:00.003+01:00

Reading, Berkshire, England // 12.39 am // Mostly cloudy 12ºc / 54ºf

So it's all on. We leave Reading in less than three weeks time. In the last three weeks we have given the landlord our notice of our leaving, viewed seven properties in North London and secured a one bedroom flat in Colindale, in the borough of Barnet.

We need to be out of this house in Reading by 14th August. However if we can leave the property earlier, and if our landlady can give it to someone else earlier, then we might save ourselves from paying rent on two properties for two weeks. We are hoping to move into the new place on the 2nd August. Tomorrow I'm going to speak to the guy at the estate agents and find out if that is a confirmed date or not.

The flat itself is great. It's probably the same size as the place we are in right now, but on one level instead of two. It's in a great location too, not far from the tube station and really close to Asda, KFC, McDonalds and what seems like dozens of pubs, most of them Irish pubs! That's my Celtic games on TV sorted out then!

I just want to be there now really. I've been really anxious about the whole thing, and the waiting on things to happen and the relying on other people. I just want it to be done and dusted and be settling in. I suppose three weeks isn't too far away now.

So I'm just waiting on the tenancy paperwork coming through this week and finding out our exact date of the move. Then we can start to pack, and sort out the van hire for the day of the move.

Also in the next three weeks I have to baptism to go to back in Scotland next weekend. I'm leaving on Thursday and spending a few days there before coming back next Monday. Then I'm back to my home of three years, Stafford, for a reunion-type thing with 6 of the guys I went to university with. And my friend Stephen is in London for work this week so I'll be meeting up with him on Tuesday for a few drinks after work.

Elle started her new job last Monday and so far it has been going really well. We also met up for a drink after work a few days ago as she works in Hammersmith and I work in Oxford Circus, which aren't too far away from each other.

So it's going to be a hectic few weeks. The way things are going, I probably won't get to write or film another blog post for weeks - the next one might well be from our new home in London!

Bird eat bird world

2008-06-25T00:45:00.002+01:00

Reading, Berkshire, England // 12.47 am // Mostly clear 15ºc / 59ºf

So it's all getting a bit mad here, and there will be lots more to come in the coming weeks. Elle is in her last week in her current job, and is going to her new job tomorrow morning for a training course. We are enquiring with our landlady about how much notice we need to give her to move out. And we are planning to view houses in north, north west and south west London next week - I've taken two days off work to do that.

In the meantime normal life plods on. It was editorial weekend for the radio magazine so I spent Thursday and Friday evening on that, finishing it off on Sunday afternoon. On Saturday I hosted Grooveline, which will now definitely be one of the last shows on Blast 1386 as our days in Reading are numbered.

After the show I headed to Twickenham for the annual British DX Club gathering at 4pm. It was a good day and good to catch up with the guys, some of whom I hadn't seen for two years. 3 hours in the pub by the River Thames was followed by a meal in a nearby Indian restaurant, and another drink to wash it down before coming back to Reading. It was a very pleasant evening weatherwise, with all of the eating and drinking taking place outside.

I got a bit of a lie in on Sunday before finishing off the magazine, then heading to Slough for my radio show, which went very well considering it was the first show in three weeks.

This week we've been looking a little more at our options for the move, and looking out paperwork for this house. Plus, of course, work.

As for the subject line, I was walking back from Hanover Square in London, where I take my break from work, if it is nice weather, and found a dead pigeon on the road. That wasn't all - I found a massive seagull pecking away at the carcass quite happily. Cannabalism? Then I felt really sad, as I saw a crowd of pigeons on the sidewalk looking at this taking place with them trying to walk over to the dead pigeon, maybe to see who it was :-(

What a poor way to end a blog post!

Travels

2008-06-18T12:42:00.004+01:00

Reading, Berkshire, England // 12.36 am // Mostly clear 11ºc / 52ºf

So after a rather hectic couple of weeks, here I am back in the house in Reading. How long we'll actually be here for now remains to be seen, but I'll talk more about that later.

Elle was just a couple of days short of being able to take enough leave from work for the usual 2 week holiday, so we had to make our main holiday only one week. However, we also managed to slip in a few days away in the UK before that.

So a couple of weekends ago we set off for Portsmouth to catch the ferry to the Isle of Wight where we had booked up in a self-proclaimed "luxury hotel and spa". It certainly was that. The hotel was in a beautiful part of the island (although to be fair the whole island is stunning) and the hotel itself was well kitted out, and the rooms very nice indeed. We got a ridiculously good deal on the hotel, and I was waiting for the catch the whole weekend. But there was none.

We got to use the indoor and outdoor pool, public and private jacuzzi, sauna, golf course and other facilities for free, and had the option of special treatments for a low price. Also as part of the price we had dinner on the night of arrival, which was really fancy gourmet stuff (complete with table magician!). We also got a full English breakfast both mornings.

We made a lot of our time on the island, pretty much driving around the whole thing over the weekend we were there. On the Sunday morning we headed to the west of the island, to The Needles, which really is a beautiful part of the island geographically, with quite a lot of tourist stuff happening. Including a chairlift which takes a steep plunge over a cliff edge! There was also a glass making factory, which was really interesting, and a sweet factory. We visited the town of Ryde afterwards and had a classy dinner at the local Wetherspoons!

The town we were actually living in was called Sandown, which was a tourist town itself. It actually reminded me of how I expect my own home town, Saltcoats, may have been in the 50s and 60s. It was fully kitted out in all the expected tourist shops, stalls, restaurants, piers etc. But you could tell it was in decline too.

The whole weekend was brilliant, and the weather was absolutely fantastic. The Isle of Wight is a lovely place to visit too, and I'm sure we'll be back at some point.

Then after a night back home in Reading we flew out to Alicante, Spain on Tuesday and onward to Benidorm on the Costa Blana. Our flight out was 2 hours late though, which meant we didn't have much left on Tuesday night, although we did go out for a few drinks after sampling the hotel dinner for the first time.

On Wednesday, the afternoon was a nostalgia trip for me, as I visited a few places that I remembered from the first time I was there in 1995, when I was 12. We went to my old hotel, the Flamingo Playa. It was as if I was there the day after I left in 1995 - nothing at all had changed. We had a drink there and went to some other bars to shelter from the rain, which was the first and last we saw all holiday.

Something about our holidays now is that we always seem to buy a bottle of really cheap gin for the hotel room. This year was no exception, and it was slightly better than the "ginebra" that laced our holiday in Greece 5 years previously! After a few of those, we headed into town. The main idea that night was karaoke, which we found in a bar called "The Queen Vic". I had a couple of beers in there, sang a few numbers, then noticed the sheer amount of spirits being poured for other people's drinks. No 25ml measures here.... each long drink was being laced with at least 100ml of straight spirits. Not one to want to miss out in a good thing, my next drink was neat malt whisky and ice. Half a tall glass full. About halfway though that glass, my memory stopped. Apparently I sang some more, despite not being able to walk or talk.

Next thing I remember was being violently sick at 9.30am the following morning. Apparently I spent a good part of the previous night doing the same, after Elle literally carried me home. I spent the whole of Thursday day and evening in bed. Ill. Very ill. I don't think I had ever felt as bad in my life, and it was such a waste of a day. Still, I managed to go out for a few soft drinks with Elle that night.

On Friday morning, we were evacuated from our hotel, as much of the local area had been cordoned off by police. I assumed it was a bomb threat, as Eta have bombed Benidorm a few times. However, while watching Spanish-language CNN+ later that day, it transpired that a petrol tanker carrying tens of thousands of litres of liquid gas crashed into a bridge alongside our hotel, and there were serious fears of an explosion. Nice.

Otherwise, a slightly more chilled day on Friday, including a few drinks in the Scotsman bar, which is - as I'm sure you can guess - a Scottish bar. I remember spending many nights there with my parents in 1995, and again it has hardly changed since. Except they are selling up after running the place for 35 years.

On Saturday, Elle and I decided to venture north to the city of Valencia. We had to make a mad dash in the searing heat to Benidorm bus station, which helpfully is nowhere near the main part of town. When we got to Valencia, we made a huge mistake by completely underestimating the size of the city. Now I know it is the third largest city in Spain. But on the day, I decided it would be a good idea to take the short walk from Valencia bus station to the port. Two hours and several friction blisters on my groin area later, we arrived at the post. Absolutely buggered.

We took the local bus into the main town later after a couple of drinks and a stroll along the beach and markets, before heading back to Benidorm. It was, despite the 10 miles of walking, a really nice day.

That night, Elle and I went out on a large one, visiting a few of Benidorm's clubs and staying out until 7am. This time, Elle and I swapped places as I carried her home (almost getting mugged by a woman on the way) and she stayed in bed ill all day Sunday.

I spent most of Sunday in the sun, and we relaxed for most of Monday, before flying back to London 90 minutes late on Tuesday.

Benidorm is a really nice place to visit, despite the bad press it gets. The Old Town is beautiful, and some of the views and scenery are stunning. The nightlife is great too, although we didn't partake in Sticky Vicky's show. It was a little pricey due to the strength of the Euro right now (generally, not Sticky Vicky). But we didn't find the pubs that do 1 euro pints until the second last day!

The hotel was really nice, and the food was great. The only exceptions were the rabbits legs and pigs ears. The weather was fantastic, especially considering it had rained for 6 weeks solid until the day after we arrived.

Despite all that, it was nice to get back home and into the routine again. Although it is going to be a very stressful few months ahead, but for a good reason. Elle has secured a new job in Central London, starting in a couple of weeks time. That means that we will be looking for a new place to stay in London almost immediately, and it won't be easy. Hopefully, though, in a few months time we'll both be moving into a new apartment much closer to our places of work, and I'll be able to carry out another one of my dreams, with the woman that I love more than anyone.

Twit-twoo

2008-06-04T21:27:00.001+01:00

Reading, Berkshire, England // 9.29 pm // Mostly cloudy 14ºc / 57ºf

One trophy lost, two more to go

2008-05-15T01:59:00.000+01:00

Reading, Berkshire, England // 1.51 am // Partly cloudy 10ºc / 50ºf

This week I, once again, have tried to get things organised and work my way down the list of things to do. Elle has been away for the last couple of days at her mums. One of the reasons she went was to get a haircut. 150+ miles for a haircut! Jason back home in Scotland did a bloody good number two at the back and sides, but there's no way I'd travel back every couple of months to get it done again! She tells me her hair is rather blonde this time. I'll find out tomorrow.

It's been a pretty dire few days of news, with the increasing death toll from the cyclone in Myanmar, and the incredible earthquake in China. And some odd stories to throw into the mix, including the biggest ever cow!

Had some good news today. It seems by best friend of 21 years from back home, Stephen, will be coming down to London to work next week. He works for a firm that's contracted out to do IT support for the NHS, primarily for the west of Scotland. But they've got a new contract for London, so he'll be here from Tuesday to Friday next week. It'll be great to see him - so far the plan is to meet up when I finish work on Wednesday and find somewhere to watch the Champions League final (he's a Manchester United fan).

Speaking of football, I was very pleased to see Rangers lose 2-0 to Zenit St Petersburg tonight in the UEFA Cup Final. Although I did hope that the game would go into extra time, just so that the Rangers players would be even more tired for their three remaining games in the Scottish Premier League, giving us (Celtic) a better chance at winning the league. Still, the could've won 4 trophies. Now, at best, it'll only be three. And we'll do our best to make sure it's no better than two.

Stephen was actually in Manchester to watch the game on the big screen in Piccadilly Gardens. Only, the big screen didn't work. And in true Rangers style, the fans started throwing glass bottles and bricks at each other. Such a disgrace.

Elle and I are going into town to book a holiday on Sunday afternoon. Although I've only recently realised that we will likely be leaving on the very same day that Euro 2008 begins! We will do our usual "pints per game" competition, which we started during the World Cup in 2002.

Got a call today to ask if I wanted to fill in for someone else's radio show in Slough. Unfortunately I couldn't because of work. I do look forward to one day presenting a "normal" show on the station, just to give it a try. Although I absolutely love doing the soul show on Sunday nights.

Sunny delight

2008-05-11T15:20:00.004+01:00

Reading, Berkshire, England // 3.21 pm // Mostly sunny 26ºc / 78ºf

Talkin' bout roots

2008-05-03T03:10:00.001+01:00

Reading, Berkshire, England // 3.10 am // Mostly clear 7ºc / 44ºf

Video blog post including samples from the new Incognito album

(Facebook users: This is a video post that won't play in FB. You need to follow the link to the actual blog)

Swivel

2008-04-29T21:08:00.002+01:00

Reading, Berkshire, England // 9.09 pm // Mostly cloudy 7ºc / 44ºf

(Facebook users - This is a video blog post. To watch it, you'll need to follow the link to the actual blog)

No Ordinary Thing

2008-04-25T12:37:00.002+01:00

Reading, Berkshire, England // 12.58 pm // Mostly cloudy 14ºc / 57ºf

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