flush

hi there

OK, this is one of those peculiar posts that may be of not interest to some, but could well be fascinating to others. do bear with me, dear reader.

another universal law of children (see last post) is that if you have them in your house, things get broken. an expansion on that is that when they are of an age to use the bathroom the flush is the most awesome thing ever and they want to see it work again and again right up until it breaks, at which point you hear how it was not them that broke it.

can you take a guess as to what happened in our house?

yes, the flush on the toilet that the boys use was broken. not quite 'fubar', but broken and in need of replacement if not repair.

i am, it has to be said, a DIY disaster. i envy the vast talents that friends such as Jayson, Nayeem and Dewaldt have, and of course the kings of DIY for me, my Dad and Grandad. as Jayson and Nayeem tend to stick to cars, Dewaldt is always off camping with impressionable young boys, Dad is bothering Mersey music legends and Grandad is busy holding conversations of a stark nature with people who say "she can't have been all that bad", i had little choice but to either pay someone a large fee to fix it, or have a go myself and risk having to pay someone even more to fix the flush and whatever damage i did.

here, if for some reason you are interested, is the broken mechanism.

i did, just before he went off camping and said "oh dear me, i only brought the one sleeping bag, we will have to bunk up laddie", consult Dewaldt on the ways of buying a new toilet and having it installed. when i explained what was wrong, he said there was really no need for a new one and took me off to his supplier of choice to get a new flush mechanism. two, actually, since there are two bathrooms that the boys use.

Dewaldt then gave me a brief (he is a very busy man) but insightful rundown on how to go about installing it, and indicated that he expected to hear news of how i got on with it soon. as in, best i have got it done by the end of the weekend or i would face consequences, possibly the business end of a sleeping bag.

i had little choice, then. but to go ahead and give it a whirl. the results were somewhat surprising (very surprising, i know Dad), as i managed to get it installed with no damage at all, unless you want to get a touch pedantic and point out a few drops of water hit the ground!

i am in no way an expert on what goes on in the world of toilet mechanisms, for i am not my friend Spiros, but i must say this one looks rather snazzy. i am, needless to say, well impressed with the fact that i managed to do this all by myself (well, Michele made me a cup of tea) and did it properly!

the trick, if i may be so bold as to forward advice, is to basically do the obvious. make sure you have switched the water off for the toilet (there's usually a little tap on or near the pipe feeding in to it) before you start, make sure you have unscrewed and disconnected everything before you take the flushy bit off and, with thanks to Dewaldt on this one, make sure you put it down on cushions and/or towels so you don't break it as you fix it, it being some sort of ceramic thing.

here it is filled with water, lest you think i just shoved the above in to simply show off.

wow. i can hardly believe that i managed to do this "on my own", although the guidance and encouragement of Dewaldt must not be underplayed. to some reading this it all probably seems like a big fuss over a nothing, straightforward job, which is fair enough. i'm one of those many who are terrified at the prospect of this kind of thing, the fear being you break things as you don't know what you are doing and make the damage worse.

victory is mine, then, and to show off, here's a picture of the new flush button!

it's one of those two speed, "half flush or full flush" button things, designed presumably to help save water. in Keith Richards terms, you would use the "i" button when the coppers call and you only have a few lines of cocaine to dispose of before assisting the constabulary, the "ii" button being used when you have a significant amount of coke, plus some grass and probably a few unspecified pills that need to be vanished before you say "how i can i help you, officer?".

if you are reading this because you have a broken toilet, your fixing skills are of my level and you are contemplating having the toilet menders come in and revamp the whole thing, well, your decision. armed with the advice from Dewaldt and pretty much technical jargon-free instructions in the parts package, i found this to be, from start to finish, an hour long job and relatively straightforward. you may not, so proceed with caution. if the flush in your toilet is knacked, though, then as long as you switch the water off first you have little to lose in having a go yourself, so long as you ensure you don't drop and break the top bit. cistern, it might be called.

i wonder what i should have a  go at mending next? i do have a class drill here, after all.....



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

last weekend

hi there

yes, for those of you in the know, yes i do know what i did there with the title is quite clever and is somewhat loaded. i have degrees in this sort of thing, you know.

moving on, and this weekend i have finally gotten around to posting a few pictures from last weekend. i did not, perhaps, take quite as many as i could or should have, but it was a rather busy time. oh well, here's the best of the ones i did take, you can imagine what the ones i did not might look like. if you want to.

off we went for a rather splendid breakfast at a place called, if i am reading the sign correctly. Moyo. it was Richard's idea and yes, on that note, Richard enthusiasts will be pleased to learn of some pictures of him being available later in this post. first off, though, here's William really enjoying and James sort of fiddling with breakfast.

as you can see, William considers any sort of eating to be just champion, to James it is rather a means to an end. and yes indeed that is Coke that James is having for breakfast, just like our friends in America would have i suppose!

it is a universal law that, no matter how enthusiastic William may be about eating, children can only spend so long sitting still. some people (hello Dad) never quite grasped the universal ways of this law, but thankfully most places do. off, then, it was with the boys to paint the rather fine vuvuzela things that they had bought from somewhere.

aah, the vuvuzela. how the world fell in love with the sweet, melodic sound of this during World Cup 2010. the enthusiasts around the world of this device may well be sad to learn that it is on the verge of being banned here - apparently the fans have started taking a shine to twatting each other with it in the grounds. oh dear.

Lyla and Ruby-Lee also had a vuvuzela each, and thus of course they got busy painting theirs too!

for just about the whole time we saw everyone over the weekend Quinn was, alas, asleep, and well covered against the cold wids. there are, i am truly sorry to say, no new pictures of him here to go with the one of his sisters above.

to compensate for that in some small way, here's a fantastic picture of Richard with an extra special guest!

yes, you are not mistaken, that is indeed Derrel, all the way from the USA! i had no idea he was in town, but was very happy that he was! it's always great to see him!

that, by the way, is not one of them Lance Armstrong "Cheat To Win" bangles on Richard's wrist. Richard has a natural distrust of cyclists in general and of anyone who goes to France by their own free choice in particular. that's just the band thingie you have to wear to gain access to breakfast at the place we were at.

speaking of where we were at, there was a lake and as is natural ducks cruised it. James and William discovered this and, against my suggestions that they might not appreciate it, began offering leaves and sticks to the ducks.

those of you familiar with the works of Eddie Izzard will know almost word for word of a routine called The Tyranny Of Ducks. this would be pretty much what James and William experienced when the ducks decided to have a closer gander at just who it was that decided to give them sticks and the odd leaf.

James spent a few moments trying to recall if ducks were biters before i rescued the pair! it was quite class watching the two being mostly excited and a little scared of the approaching ducks, almost as good as that time i took James in with the baby lions and tigers which led to some new holes in his t-shirt. pics of that are on this blog somewhere, probably around 2008 i think.

away from the breakfast place and indeed away from that day, we also went off to see Richard, Erika, Lyla, Ruby-Lee and the sleeping Quinn at their place for the last time on a Sunday for a bit. for quite some time as we visited Richard was doing something most peculiar with them golf stick things that he rather likes.

it looks, as far as i am concerned, like he is cleaning them. when i asked why exactly he would be doing such a thing he mentioned it not being too good an idea having mud or grass on them. that to me is just another reason to leave this golf business well alone. it's an OK game to play i suppose, and in fact i once very nearly beat Richard at it - we were playing the game by that randy chap, Tiger something, on a PlayStation and as i teed off first technically i held a brief lead.

anyway, away from that golf nonsense, Michele very kindly took a few pictures of Richard and I together. here's one of them "proper" photographs for you.....

.....and here's a somewhat more usual type of photograph of the two of us!

whoops, it has dawned on me that i did not take a picture of him doing his usual "moon shot". sorry about that, will have to take one the next time, i suppose!

anyway, that's that from the last weekend. as for this weekend, it has just been a lot of shopping and washing, really - nothing to take too many pictures of! if something of interest pops up, i shall certainly consider thinking of a few snaps!


be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

car

hi there

oh, goody goody. it has only been a few weeks, maybe a month or so, since my last incident with the car. you are all probably wondering what's wrong in as far i have not mentioned anything. well, something very nearly went spectacularly wrong with it - how fortunate that i have friends who are as good as they are wise to the ways of wheels.

in my older age, i have taken to the obscene idea of not having the vibes on at full volume as i potter about the roads. no, i am not moaning that "it's a racket and you can't hear what they are singing" just yet, i just have the volume down a bit. well, down to 35 - 40 instead of the usual max 50. this obscenity has allowed, accidentally, for me to hear the noises that the car makes as it does its thing. and, as it happens, i noted a most peculiar noise from it, one that changed a bit when i hit the brakess.

i mention in passing at verk that i was probably taking the car in over the weekend to the brake menders to see if they couldn't sort it all out. Jayson, my colleague, friend and chief mechanic, was offended at the idea of me going to the brake menders and insisted we go and have a look at it. this we did, although the "we" there means that Jayson looked whilst i sort of stood around and asked "what does this bit do, then?".

Jayson advised me that brake pads take all of 10 minutes to replace if you know what you are doing, and that there would be no need for soliciting the skills of a brake mender. this briefly pleased me as that would mean less expenditure. i was even more pleased when Jayson looked at the brakes and assured me they were "100% OK". this pleasure was somewhat tainted, however, by the fact that this brake perfection implied the fault was somewhere else in the car. i do not know all that much about cars, but i do know the difference between "normal happy car noise" and "upset sad car noise". mine was making the latter.

to this end, Jayson took the wheels for a spin to see if he could detect the problem. in that regard, Jayson promptly took the controls and, as it were, "rode it like a bitch" to see what noise was made and perhaps what bits might fall off.

despite being old and somewhat poorly looked after by your humble narrator (although the stereo oddly is always in excellent condition and soon fixed if wonky), my car is rather celebrated by people who know me. it's what i believe in the trade is called "souped", and can absolutely bomb it. i rarely do, mind, as i quite enjoy a relaxed drive with the vibes. Jayson, as you may have guessed, takes a somewhat different approach.

he parks it rather better than i do, too. you can't see it in the above picture, but at the front there are some grey marks that look like the same shade of grey as one finds on the poles on the shade thingies in our car park. this would be because, due to some deft angling on my behalf, i managed to get the paint off the poles and on to my car without a paint brush.

moving on, then, and Jayson agreed that there was a most strange noise coming from the thing. that meant popping open the bonnet (that's what the thing at the front is, yeah?) and having a gander. this he did and soon saw what the problem was. that thing called a cambelt, known in certain circles as a "timing belt" (cheers, google thing), was on the verge of collapse. bugger.

actually, not bugger. on previous instances, and there has been more than one, i have become wise to the ways of a cambelt after it has broken. cambelts are, if we are honest, twats. they don't just break and get on with it; they break and tend to cause some rather significant damage to the remainder of the engine. something called a gasket and several things by the name of valves tend to get knacked, usually leaving me with a substantial repair bill.

however, with thanks to Jayson and his exceptionally talented friend, large cost and time savings were mine. apparently, if you replace it before it breaks, you can avoid most if not all of the above. this is the argument many have put to me in regards of saying that i should, on a regular basis, take my car for something called a "service". i will look in to it eventually, but for now i am prepared to rely on the wisdom and generosity of friends for such matters.

as you can see, all done and better now, with no reason to trouble the established menders. i am indebted to Jasyon and his talented, wise friend for helping me out with this one!

at home, James and William were very excited to hear that Uncle Jayson had taken Daddy's car apart and mended it. they were very interested and so i showed them all these belt thingies that Jayson and his mate did, and they were impressed. no pictures of them, of course, as i was far too busy keeping their hands away from the hot engine and prone to breaking parts within.

it is my simple and earnest hope to get a number of months of happy driving out of the car without it doing its thing again. if i manage to knack something else, well, i am rather fortunate to have Jayson to call on.

if there is any sort of lesson to learn from this i suppose it would be a strange noise as you are digging some vibes might not be just a Ray Manzarek keyboard fiddle or Mani bass smack that you hadn't picked up on before.


be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Old Grumpy in the press!

hi there

after a prolific run of late, apologies for not much in the way of updates for the last few days. i've been somewhat busy, but more on that soon when i put the pictures through the picture mending thing on the computer and post them here.

in the mean time, though, Dad has been rather busy with his most splendid venture that is known, and indeed these days cherished, as Old Grumpy's Gallery. it has even made the newspapers over in New Zealand (or New Zealand-land, if George W Bush is reading) once again!

as you have read in the past here, the gallery has been in the NZ (George W Bush, NZ means 'New Zealand') newspapers before, but on instances where the gallery has hosted events, press launches and the like. now, though, the time has come for an article on the gallery itself.

no, i cannot really make much of that text out either, sorry. that's just how Dad scanned and sent it. still, it features a picture of Mum & Dad, something that i have not had for quite some time. of what i can make out of the text, though, is that the journalist has very wisely steered away from digging too far into why the gallery, and indeed Dad, are called "Old Grumpy", and kept well away from the particular colour of the shoes he wears on any given day.

somewhat easier to read, i am pleased to say, is the latest advert for the Gallery. here it is and, i am sure it goes without saying, if you happen to find yourself in the beautiful surroundings of Mount Maunganui why not stop by?

in case you are wondering if i get some sort of payment for the intermittent promotion or advertising of Old Grumpy's Gallery here, all i can suggest is that you call in the gallery yourself. a few minutes in my Dad's company and you will soon clock the answer. should you not be able to call in, the answer is nope and if anything it costs me. not long after he sees this i will get a mail that goes something like "saw the blog post, fantastic, here is a list of books, films and albums i want you to send me".

more posts soon!


be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Jadders & I

hi there

who is it that i should bump into within the confines of one of them elevator things than my old chum Jadders, or Darth Jad as he is sometimes prone to being known. as i am aware that there are any number of enthusiasts out there eager to learn of the ways of Jadders i asked if he would not at all mind a quick picture. he was delighted to oblige.

well, OK, the main enthusiast for the ways of Jadders that i can think of is my chum Spiros, who will be rather more pleased to see this picture than anyone else, no matter how pleased you, dear reader, may consider yourself right now.

Jadders, Spiros and i worked together some 14 years ago. they were most excellent days. once, possibly on a Tuesday, Spiros and i received a call from someone in Colombia, probably specifically from Bogota, Cali or even maybe Santa Marta. we had absolutely no idea why the gent called us or what he wanted exactly (or even generally) and thus took the decision to simply transfer the call through to Jadders. as i recall, Jadders and the gent from Colombia hit it off rather well, and it's entirely possible that their telephonic friendship flourishes to this day.

good seeing you, Jadders!

be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



$tone$ - projected cost of Ronnie Wood's next divorce doubles, it seems.

hi there

oh dear. well done on selling out your Hyde Park show in 3 minutes, $tone$. i guess you have clocked how to help Ronnie fund his next divorce with some ease, since you've announced a second date at the venue you once played for a little bit less.

clicking on the link above will take you to a mildly amusing article in which it suggests that those who forked out for the expensive tickets will get "about the same" view as those who shelled out for the cheap ones. go figure.

good luck Ronnie.

be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



radio

hi there

for no declared or apparent reason i thought it might amuse some, well my sister, to a degree to see what has become of a gift from, ooh, 17 or 18 years ago.

Gillian, for one Christmas i believe, got me an absolute king of portable CD players. a JVC one, too, that looked and sounded mega.

whatever became of it? as it happens, it's running just fine thanks, and can be heard daily in our kitchen at verk! here's Euphodia and Jeanette showing off how they look after it probably better than i ever did!

i am sure they shall continue to look after it for the rest of its days, too. i'm using a similar but different one at home, sadly a Sony not a JVC but it does get the job done.

the first thing i ever played on that magnificent stag of a stereo? if i remember correctly, it will have been this album.

Black Grape's It's Great When You're Straight.....Yeah, the title a reference more to the amusing idea of Shaun Ryder being drug free than any sexual connotation, was a magnificent bastard of an album when it was released and i would imagine it still sounds exceptionally good today. to check, however, i think i will dig out my copy and have it on in the car at the correct volume for the rest of the week.

hope you are impressed to see it still going, Gill!

be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hannibal - the tv series

hi there

well, it has happened. i've given updates along the way, but now the much vaunted, looking promising TV series Hannibal, based on that Hannibal, has hit TV. only fair, then, that i offer a review and some musings.

there is little or no way to do a review or pass comment in any detail without the odd spoiler here and there. for those not wishing to be troubled by information in advance of seeing it, then, in short episode one is brilliant, stays as faithful and loyal to the characters as it can and is exceptional, if highly disturbing, viewing. but be prepared for a sort of "parallel universe" or alternate timeline sort of thing going on.

OK, for those wanting to hear nothing more, move along. for the rest of you, just in case you missed the hint above, a *** SPOILER WARNING *** is in place for the whole rest of this post, although i will do my best to not give too much away.

the episode starts in an abrupt manner, with Will Graham (played with excellence by Hugh Dancy, someone i am unfamiliar with) at a crime scene. a very graphic crime scene, hence the bit of text you can see here, and indeed see throughout the episode every now and then.

i'm going to mostly avoid referencing the novel Red Dragon in regards of the characterizations. partially because it's probably been 18 years since i read it last, but mostly because as this is before that novel it's not really a fair comparison. that said, Hugh Dancy plays the part just about right - exceptional confidence and clarity when engaged in empathic channelling, neurosis when having what you or i would consider a "normal" conversation. well written, well cast and very well acted, young man.

going somewhat against what i say above, the single biggest problem with the TV interpretation of Hannibal is the timeframe it seems to have given itself. alarm bells rang for me within the first four minutes of the episode. for fun, see if you can see what's wrong with this picture.

did you spot it? yes, that's right, that is a cellphone in view. a reasonably modern one too. if this series is a pure prequel to Red Dragon, then it simply has to be set in the late 70s or early 80s. why? because to understand who and why Hannibal Lecter is what he is, you have to accept the time frame laid out by Thomas Harris and thus you have to accept that Hannibal was a young boy during World War II. this "alternate timeline" would either age Hannibal Lecter to be a good deal older than he is in the show, or would imply they are to come up with an entirely new reason as to why he has his snazzy nickname.

in fairness, they somewhat limit the "modern" technology in the show, but that it is there at all has created something of a problem in remaining pure to the source material. it is going to be very interesting indeed to see how this plays out. interesting, mindful of the fact that it could lead to disappointment.

moving on, and enter Jack Crawford who, after previously being Dennis Farina, Scott Glenn and Harvey Keitel, now finds that he is a big black dude in the form of Laurence Fishburne.

i had no problem with this casting choice at all. no idea if it was done for any "political reasons" or agenda, but i'd like to think it was for pure casting reasons. if so, it's inspired, as he plays the part exceptionally well. in fact, in the space of 40 or so minutes, you begin to become aware of how they wasted him in CSI, in retrospect.

the character is spot on. calm and nurturing when he needs to be, as he does with Will Graham, and a ruthless bully when required, as he is with this copper in the gents, a scene that gives some rather welcome comic relief to the dark world of the series.

wither the title character? Hannibal Lecter appears for the first time about half way through, eating an unspecified meat (in this case), giving one an incredible chill.

Mads Mikkelsen as Hannibal Lecter. how does that work out? i can only answer that with a question - how does one give a round of appluase on the internet? whoever thought to approach Mads, well done, and a big thumbs up to Mads for taking the risk of accepting the part.

risk? yes, risk. for many Anthony Hopkins is Hannibal Lecter. if you feel the same and nothing will change your mind, well, sorry. of course Hopkins was brilliant in the part. as was Brian Cox and, indeed, Gaspard Ulliel in the often overlooked Hannibal Rising. remakes or re-imagining often fall apart when it gets down to imitation. Mads Mikkelsen plays the part his way, and rightly so.

to give a plot detail, both Will Graham and Dr Lecter have been called upon by Crawford to try and create a psychological profile of a seemingly random serial killer, if that description is not an oxymoron. well, watch the show.

now, from Red Dragon, we know that over the years Graham had consulted Lecter for help with this kind of thing, but Thomas Harris didn't really give many insights into the mechanisms of how this help took place. the creators of this series have thus taken it upon themselves to have Graham and Lecter going around as partners, to a degree.

 

i point that out as some of you may find this rather odd. it's safe to assume that most would have taken it as the "help" would have been in the form of discussions, a la Red Dragon / Manhunter and The Silence Of The Lambs, only without it being in prison. it does feel kind of strange at first, but from my side it was something you soon got used to. 

there are, leaving aside the obvious, four important characteristics of the character Hannibal Lecter. all make their way into this first episode. the first two are his insane levels of vanity and his love of, if even in an anonymous way, flexing his superiority over everyone. the vanity is covered by Crawford's approach, the flexing of his superiority is in of course not resisting doing a copycat murder along the lines of the person he's supposed to be helping catch. 

the above gives you something of a hint of the graphic content i mentioned. it does not get any less graphic. moving on, and a third characteristic relates very much to the obvious thing i mentioned about Hannibal Lecter. this is a rather tame image from a sequence that once you have seen shall both haunt you and convince you that Mads is the right man for this part.

difficult to word the third characteristic without giving too much in the way of spoilers. how about leaving it as he seems to enjoy making people do things that amuse him, no matter how sick or sadistic they are. think Mason Verger in Hannibal. in this instance, though, it's not encouraging someone to cut their own face off - it's rather what he cooks and who he serves it to.

the fourth characteristic, and what makes the novel Red Dragon and to a certain extent The Silence Of The Lambs work, is the rather peverse pleasure he gets from assisting fellow criminals evade or play with the police or FBI. it seems to please his vanity a great deal that he's considered "king of all criminals", and the one that other psychopaths look up to and admire.

i have a slight problem with this being introduced here. at this stage, after all, he is not even a suspect in a series of crimes that no one knows have happened. his vanity has been massaged no end by the FBI. why, then, would he look to help a fellow criminal by placing a warning call?

perhaps the answer is "because he can", rather than any malice aimed at the constabulary. if a twist in each episode will be him giving the suspect or the guilty a heads up it will get tired rather quicky, i fear. it seemed somewhat out of place, but i'm prepared to see where this goes as a plot device.

well, what more can i say? on the basis of episode one, Hanninal is a dark, haunting and most impressive show, waving a good deal of promise and giving every indication that it will deliver on the promise. my great fear, though, is that American audiences will not take to it. the last time i saw something this brilliant it was FlashForward, and large parts of American audiences gave up on the complexity of it. as Hannibal is going to get rather complex, let us hope that enough viewers stick with it to keep it going.

oh, yeah - do not watch whilst eating dinner........


be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

the clever sub

hi there

i am assuming that the current editor or one of the subs at You magazine is or are not fond of Liverpool. whether you agree with it or not, this is an impressive example of how juxtaposition works to get away with saying something without directly saying it.

i'm not convinced that he is any bigger a cheat than any other player in his position, but whoever does the outlay for the magazine cover clearly thinks so!


be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Grumpy and Gerry......

hi there

the more frequent reader of this blog, the type of reader with a good memory, will recall that one of the things i grumble about in the current era of human history is people going to concerts and sticking their phone in the air, taking pictures and making videos and that. rather just go and enjoy the gig i say, let the professionals take the pictures.

take pictures is what my Dad says, which as it happens is no bad thing when he happens to be in the front row at a Gerry And The Pacemakers gig!

it sounds like it was an excellent gig, although i must stress i have not heard from my Dad directly to this end. how do i know it sounds like an excellent gig? because as it was happening on Saturday night in New Zealand, it was Saturday morning here, and i happened to be having breakfast with Richard. this breakfast was disrupted, although not quite disturbed, by Dad phoning - presumably from the concert - and shouting "HELLO HELLO HELLO" a lot down the phone. Richard promptly phoned back and shouted "HELLO HELLO HELLO" at him, although i do not believe one heard the other.

it looked like Dad had a fantastic time, too, since he got to meet the legendary Gerry Marsden after the gig!

and, of course. Dad somehow persuaded Gerry Marsden to do a spot of ad hoc promotion for Old Grumpy's Gallery too!

Gerry And The Pacemakers have a special place in history, of course, as their first three singles all went to number one. this is something that not even The Beatles or The Rolling Stones achieved, and it's not something the world saw again since a certain Frankie Goes To Hollywood did it, almost going one better with a 4th but falling just short. lots of bands have probably done it since, but the charts are so meaningless these days (sadly) that whoever did it will be so disposable no one will think to remember them.

many thanks, Dad, for the novelty factor of sending a picture with your good self actually in it for a change! glad you got to meet yet another musical hero of yours!


be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Rolling $tone$ reveal how much Ronnie Wood's next divorce will cost....

hi there

in 1969, a mere 44 years ago, The Rolling Stones, as they were known then, gave a free concert in Hyde Park. it is remembered and spoken of as one of those iconic moments in rock history.

in 2013, The Rolling $tone$, as they are now known, announce a concert in Hyde Park. this one is not a free one. oh no, far from it. the pricing is as follows :

standing at the back - £95

"regular" standing - £330

seating + Bon Jovi (minus Richie Sambora, presumably) the day before - £1120.50 

observe the big smile Ronnie Wood has in the picture below, in particular if you are considering paying the above money for a "last chance ever, honest this time" ticket to go.

yes, that's right, he's smiling to say "thank you". you know he has recently married again, and you know that this means a costly divorce very soon. The $tone$ seem always keen to get back together to pay his bills, and the idea of "anniversary" performances allows them to add an even better percentage.

with the Hyde Park capacity being about 60,000 you can soon work out that they will do very well indeed out of this show. even better for the band is that they won't have to perform all that much - the infamous incident in which the sound was cut on a Bruce Springsteen and Paul McCartney duet means that they are very serious at finishing shows at 10pm in Hyde Park. they won't make the massive money they did off the poorly received shows in London and the USA last year, but a fair few coins all the same.

what do those ticket prices translate to in regards of in-demand acts? Noel Gallagher, who happily tells charity audiences that they "get no new songs as i am not getting paid" and berates people who have the audacity to live near enough to a stadium to hear his concert without paying, charged £50 for tickets for his O2 shows. The Stone Roses for both the 3 Heaton Park shows last year and the 2 Finsbury Park shows this year charged £55 a ticket. i think those numbers speak for themselves.

considering the poor performances thus far (even allowing for the novelty factor of "oooh, it's Keef! ooh, Mick spoke to the crowd! ooooooh, Charlie sat there looking bored! cor, Ronnie's having a fag! oh right, there's their random black bass player hiding in the background" type of things), the band may have been better off just licensing their music to Pepsi or whoever and just keeping off the stage. the money is all they really particularly want, why bother everyone with this nonsense when their are easier ways for them to get it?

i was, am and always will be a Stones fan. their music is astonishing, and will be played until the last star falls from the skies. but this $tone$ cash cow can just go away, please.


be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Made Of Stone

hey there

yay, some Stone Roses news! as i have not posted much about them for a bit, it's very welcome news too!

of great importance to people going to the London gigs in June, no less than Johnny Marr has been named as one of the support acts. not sure if it is for both days, but great if it is.

of great importance to the entire world is confirmation of the release date for the Made Of Stone documentary,  giving a history of the band and a fair amount of focus on the Heaton Park triumph.

it has a Manchester (naturally) premiere on May 30, and goes on general release on June 6 2013. with some luck the DVD, Blu Ray and bubble chip is released very quickly after that  so those of us in the rest of the world can see it.

there is the remote, and i do want to highlight remote, chance that i appear in this film! neither Michele, John, Lisa or i were interviewed at Heaton Park, but we were rather close and in the background when the film crew spoke to some people. with some great luck whatever those people said was interesting enough to make the final cut of the film!

the important thing, though, is that The Stone Roses, and presumably some of the footage from the amazing gig, will very much be in the film! i know that my sister, amongst many millions of others, will be most keen to see this!



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Finding Nemo 2 has a name......

.....and it is......

erm, yeah, OK then! ten years later and finally they decide on the idea of Dory going missing?

i suppose it's damned if they do, damned if they don't. if the sequel to the most excellent Finding Nemo was anything but a hunt for a missing fish people would be upset, but it's hard to understand why then we have had to wait ten years for a rehash of the story. actually, make that 12 years, as this will not be released until 2015!

the alternate, i suppose, would have been the Cars route. children and adults alike were terminally bored by the first film, and so off they went with a "let us make them all super spies" approach to the second. if there is a third Cars films, and please let there not be, i have no doubt at all it will be Cars In Space. as there was nothing at all wrong with Finding Nemo, i guess "repeat" was the only option.



be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!

Spring springs somewhere.....

hello again

not much really, just sharing this wonderful picture from my Uncle Trevor. if you were wondering what the footbridge at Low Green was looking like at around 7:30am this morning, wonder no more!

glad to see the village isn't bogged down with all the snow i have been reading about!

thanks for the ace picture, Trev!


be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

JG - Everything Has A Sell By

hi there

blimey, i seem to be doing a fair few updates today, am i not? hey ho, if it's interesting, i post it here.

fitting that criteria very well indeed would be the excellent news that my good friend, Jonathan Granville, has released his latest album "digitally" today. Everything Has A Sell-By is available to buy via purchasing one of them download things, which you can (and should) do by clicking these words.

now i know you kids of today like your somewhat illegal, certainly free downloads, but please consider actually buying some music for a change. it's worth it.

there's not a bad track on the album, and one of the best that JG has yet done (which is saying something), Candahar Street, features. for further listening, and for those who wish to try before you buy, do take a spin past his page over on the grand social network thingie, where you can hear those "stream" things of his own songs and indeed, every now and then, his shall we say somewhat eccentric tributes to the drummer out of Genesis.

well, off you go to listen to the music, and indeed i certainly hope you consider purchasing!


be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

how dams works

hello there

i usually leave politics well out of this blog, but every now and then one sees something that is so good it simply cannot be left alone.

i have no idea if this is legitimate or not, but it does sound about right. many thanks to my chum Nicky for sharing this via some sort of political group over on the grand social network thingie.

 

on the basis of the above, i am going to take my pliers and a saw, as well as some sort of sticky tape, to the petrol tank on my car.

this, if a true press cutting of an actual quote, is the cherry on top of the 2013 cake that has seen power outages and the bizarre postal strike. in the not too distant future i expect to add similar tales, and more than likely refer you back to things like this as a point of reference for something or other.

to any school kids who have found this by google for some sort of school project, please, please, please, in the name of Jimi, the Holy Hendrix in Heaven, do not include the above in your project unless you wish to fail for some reason.

be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Loot's insane packaging strategy

hi there

consider me somewhat impressed! loot, one of the first online retailers here but only now really getting to be the biggest and perhaps best (mostly due to improved ordering times, partly down to kalahari not particularly caring for service any more, offering to cancel user profiles instead of listening to queries) on the go at the moment. they have something of a "DVD & Blu Ray" clearance sale going on at the moment and, finding a few titles that i quite liked, i ordered 5.

despite the side effects of the farcical Post Office strike here, which by the way saw a large number of people fired due to their greed and stupidity, the 'speed service' deliveries seem to come through OK. i ordered the discs on Thursday, and one long weekend later they arrived on the next working day.

and boy, did they arrive!

yep, i used my desk chair to give you some sort of idea of the scale of box loot feels obliged to use to send 5 discs to me in. quite a whopper, is it not?

i think i've done a nifty job, thanks to my dazzling skills with MS Paint, of covering up my personal details. if i haven't, please don't use them to impersonate me, you rather more naughty element of the internet fraternity. if i've got something you want, rather please just ask. 

here's one of them "perspective" shots, or whatever pro-photographers call them, so you can see the full size of the box they sent the discs in. staggering just about covers it.

as for what's inside the box, well, one of the items kind of almost sort of justifies the mega-sized box used. behold. 

yeah, that's right, i now have RoboCop on blu-ray, or Blu Ray if that's how you are supposed to write it.  i am very much looking forward to some high definition Clarence Boddicker action in the near future, believe you me. especially as the remake is looking awful.

moving on, as and when you are quite finished drooling over the class titles there, i think the mega box was for the "mega box" containing something called Hellboy and a "Golden Army" figurine. i suspect the figurine is something to do with the second film, the one that i do not remember seeing. that probably means i haven't seen it.

anyway, at R55 ($6 to my American friends, about £3.92 for my friends in England and i doubt anyone i know in New Zealand will be all that interested) it looked like too good a deal to pass on, especially as i was under the impression that my (considerably) better half really liked the first one.

as it turns out, my (considerably) better half wasn't all that impressed with the film. it was "boring", she said, when i showed her the class box, the contents of which you have no doubt worked out are pictured above. whoops.

oh well, it will still look most impressive on the shelf. i thought the first was OK, and as we saw the same set on sale at the weekend for 5 (five) times the price i just paid for it, a bit of a decent deal done!

anyway, time to see if i can't chase everyone off for a very early night so that i can sit back and enjoy RoboCop once again!


be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

McQueen Mints

hi there

here's something really cool that i picked up at the weekend. the same time as Skyfall, as it happens. i would probably have posted them earlier had my (considerably) better half not hidden them in a bag that had her new shoes in. somehow it is my fault that they were in that bag, just because of the trivial fact that i put them in that bag and forgot about them. anyway, moving on.

putting an image of Bullitt on something is a pretty good way of convicing me to buy whatever it is. it should be a way to convince anyone to buy anything, really. at the till in that nice shop where i got Skyfall rather cheap they had these tins for sale, which i have rather stylishly placed one of on top of my copy of the film.

smart, is it not? i had absolutely no idea what was in the tin when i bought two of them (my (considerably) better half has the other in her class bag), but i was hoping it would be something sensible, like a Steve McQueen issue condom. it turns out, alas, that the tin contains some sort of mints. oh well. i am sure they taste quite class, i will try them eventually.

i did have every intention of doing that "loads of photos of people with the tin" thing at verk today, but alas it was rather busy. very busy, to be honest. hey ho, with some luck, should i remember to take the tin in again, i will get some done in, ooh, the next 19 or so days.

i am not sure that owning this tin of mints makes me as cool as Steve McQueen, but it certainly does make me cooler than i previously was. this is no bad thing at all.


be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

bad taste April Fools day jokes

hey there

well, all around the world the usual April Fool jokes and japes should, by now, have come to an end. i opted not to do any on this blog this morning as the ones i did last year got far, far too many hits and visits. i probably upset one or two people with the pranks, and that's something i don't like doing her(e) (thanks Schwirl) by accident - believe me, i much prefer causing deliberate upset to people that deserve it.

as you would expect, the other internet sites of the world have been going great guns with April Fool things, and mostly they have been funny, easy to spot and unlikely to cause offence. a few, however, have sadly crossed that imaginary, flexible line of taste, and presented stories that are clearly fake or otherwise cause some great offense somewhere in the world. here'a a few of them.

perhaps the single most offensive, and clearly one of the more obvious jokes for today, is about that rather unpleasant character Dappy - the one who took to threatening 12 year old schoolgirls that dared to call him - and please use your powers of fantasy with the use of this word - "music" rubbish, all whilst he was the spokesman for some sort of anti-bullying campagin.

yes, the signs that it is a fake story are all there in the headline. presumably this all happened at a gig he was at, for no one would be silly enough to book Dappy to do a concert himself, unless it was part of some elaborate tax dodge that involved putting on shows in empty stadiums. moving on, and this idea that Dappy has any sort of fan let alone fans is of course just pure fabrication. and technically, in the eyes of the law, going on velocity impact and per square inch damage, i am not sure you can legally say that what Dappy does with his hands are punches.

sport is always a good source for April Fool things, and this year has been no exception. the idea of a Scotsman not only playing tennis but also being rather good at it is, honestly, getting a little tired now. the creators of this story are clearly running out of steam with the idea too, since they could only be bothered to make a Scotsman "the second best" in the world. it's all a bit "Alan Partridge interviews France's second best racing driver", now, isn't it?

i understand, and am indeed very glad, that every generation discovers Monty Python. this constant usage of using this young Andy Murray to recreate the Python sketch where aliens get a Scotsman to win Wimbledon is really just tiresome now. rather let him get on with his life, and whatever it is he does when he's not generously posing it tennis gear for these humourists.

football too provides fertile ground for April Fools mucking about. the special kind of dickhead, Mr John Terry, was oddly absent this year, perhaps feeling rather tired from his shenanigans with the law last year. full marks to Sunderland, though, for coming up with the laughable idea that they would sack the usually likeable Martin O'Neill and replace him with a right-wing political activist in the form of Paolo Di Canio, a man whose proclivity to do facist salutes to celebrate goals has seen him shunned by the game.

as you can see, the joke has been extended a bit too far by suggesting that David Miliband has quit his high paying, do nothing job at Sunderland due to Di Canio's politics. what nonsense! as a man who served with Tony Bliar (not a spelling error), Miliband would not doubt have been thrilled to have a nationalist (to put it kindly) employed, and would no doubt love discussing how great wars are with him, since he gave tacit support to so many soldiers being sent off to fight them.

and speaking of war, this April Fool story is just plain daft.

as far as i can see, this Kim Jong Un seems a pleasant enough bloke. other than his name sounding a bit like Donkey Kong, which is class, he's the one that does that whole Gagnamham Style thing, isn't he? why would be want to go starting a war? he's happy enough doing the singing and the videos. besides which, if there's no petrol or oil in Korea, why would anyone think that the US would give any sort of help?

well, that's all the dodgy April Fool stories that i spotted. hopefully you all saw one or two better ones on your travels!


be excellent to each other!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!