Nasher Says Relax, for the book is now available!

hi there

 just a quick update for you - whatever legal obstructions were put in the path of Brian "Nasher" Nash's autobiography being available to buy have now stood to one side. it is now shipping in to stores and, by the looks of sales figures, shipping out just as fast.

i was lucky enough to take delivery of my copy a week or so ago. yes, a review will feature here eventually, but hang on - i am only as far as when the band signed their now infamous record deal.

so far, in my considered and learned opinion (and that's two degrees in literature i have, thank you), the outstanding, full mark reviews this book has been getting are justified. it is the tale of an ordinary, every day young lad trying to make his way in the world that all of a sudden got taken off on what must be the most remarkable journey any pop star in the 80s made.

i am informed by reliable sources that Waterstones is the place to go and purchase a copy if you are in the UK, for those of us residing in the "rest of the world" the best deal and service as usual comes from amazon.

happy reading!



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

The Stone Roses - London / Glasgow / June 2013

hi there

well, in a move that's a surprise but then again should not be much of a surprise, The Stone Roses have announced three major shows in the UK for next year. this is on top of the tour of Australia in March.

the lads start off June in Finsbury Park, a venue i have not heard a bad word about.

no support announced as yet for that, but the support is very much in place for the gig at Glasgow Green the week after Finsbury Park.

Glasgow Green is the place where Mani reckons, prior to the 2012 shows at least, that the band did their best ever gig. it will be interesting to see if they in their own eyes top that performance, or indeed deliver like they did at Heaton Park.

no, i won't be going and thus there's one less person who will be trying to get through and buy tickets on Friday morning! it would be great, but well our budget went on seeing them this year, and we kind of really have to go over to New Zealand next.

the only ticket price info i can find at the moment is that they cost £55 for Glasgow Green, same as Heaton Park this year and much, much, much, much better value than either the ultra high Rolling Stones or ultra low Bon Jovi tickets presently on sale.

links to the sites selling tickets and no doubt more info as time goes on can be found over on the official site for The Stone Roses.

best of luck to everyone who's going to try and get to one of these gigs!



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

Hannibal draws near.....

hi there

Monday mornings tend to be seen as bad things, but how can they be when we have some more images of the imminent Hannibal TV series to look at?

a major thanks to the good people over at Entertainment Weekly for putting these up for fans around the world to see!

and who the world wishes to see, of course, is Dr Hannibal Lecter. here he is in a pose that feels rather familiar, but has in the films been seldom seen.....

i have said this before and have no hesitation in saying it again - casting Mads Mikkelsen as Hannibal seems to be an act of genius. the "seems" to become "is" relies on us seeing the actual show, of course. he can, after all, be only as good as the material given to him.

that said, he has rather excellent support with Laurence Fishburne as Jack Crawford and Hugh Dancy as Will Graham!

one does wonder just how much screen time Hannibal himself shall get, and what the effect of that will be. the success of the character in films so far, obviously the silence of the lambs in particular, was down for the most part to him being the monster you were terrified of, but also the monster you seldom saw. if they show a bit too much of him doing exactly what he did to land in prison then it might risk diminishing the psychological punch of the character.

that said, if it means scenes like the picture below implies, i am sure we can live with it.

is it just me, or is the picture in the background one of the Red Dragon paintings thought of so fondly by the Tooth Fairy?

i am not sure when this is to be broadcast, either in the States or anywhere else in the world, but looking at these pictures, let us hope it is sooner rather than later that we get to see it!


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

V/H/S

hi there

once in a while a film comes along that i really get rather excited about the concept of. i was fortunate enough to see two films that did this for me recently, and sadly neither lived up to the excitement caused by the idea. well, maybe one of them did, but for now let's deal with the one that did not.

i first became aware of a film called V/H/S about a year ago.the outline was that it was a film which had some people break into a house to steal an ultra-rare video tape, and they watched the videos in the house to try and find it. i suppose it grabbed my attention as i grew up in the non-download generation, meaning you had to somehow get video tapes, and certain ones were rare. they are rarer still today, you would imagine, with probably the only copy of some films on tape being binned as people simply don't have video machines any more.

back then, there were many tapes that were "rare". outside of the obvious more adult content films, there was all sorts you could try and get your hands on via tapes passed around. the "biggies" were obviously A Clockwork Orange and The Exorcist, both for different reasons refused a UK video release for many years. other than that, fan shot videos of concerts were always something to look out for, as indeed were things like the "workprint" of Apocalypse Now.

no discussion of rare video tapes would be complete, of course, without a mention of the infamous The Day The Clown Cried. legend has it that the only thing close to a "complete" copy of this film resides on a video tape that Jerry Lewis keeps locked away. if you are unaware of the tale of this particular film, google away!

i had hope that this film would take its cue from the last rare tape mentioned there. alas, no. it's pretty much standard modern horror fare, once or twice being exceptional but for the most part scraping along the line marked "average". overall it is probably worth the two hours it runs for if you are a horror film fan, but the experience shall be tainted by the fact that you know this concept could have delivered a much, much better film.

the above is the end of this being spoiler free, so a nice big *** SPOILER WARNING *** is in place for the rest of this review.

the film starts, with a great emphasis on shaking the VHS camera as much as possible, with a bunch of degenerates making a somewhat distasteful video. for this video they will be paid $50, apparently, which impresses the gang a good deal. one of them persuades the rest of the gang that they can make a good deal more money by stealing a certain video tape, as outlined above. he persuades them, as you do, by means of smashing in their TV with a baseball bat.

off they go, then, and find piles of video tapes. so many tapes, in fact, that they are unsure of the one they are supposed to be stealing.

they also find a dead body, presumably that of the owner of the house and indeed the video tapes. the presence of this body does not fluster them all that much, and certainly does not stop one of them having a look at some of the tapes.

and then we move, for the most part, into watching some of the collection of VHS tapes from around the house.

although a lot of the films have a kind of "found footage" feel to them, they are not quite this in the sense that a, say, Cannibal Holocaust or a Blair Witch Project are. the feel is that these films are ones which are made for and are in the hands of private, certainly underground, collectors. it's more of a voyeuristic slant one has to them than a trip of discovery.

i shall do my best to review each of the videos / films / stories in the order they are shown.


Amateur Night

it takes a few moments to clock that we've moved from the guys into the house on to another set of guys of a similar warped mind, to be honest. they are just as warped as the would-be tape stealers. anyway, the jist of this gang is that they have a set of glasses with a camera hidden in them (presumably not bulky VHS equipment) and their imagination stretches as far as picking up some girls in a bar and making an amateur adult video with them.

despite this gang having all the charm, sophistication and appeal of a random stranger stopping you in the street and asking if you wouldn't mind if they had a bash at proctology on you, they succeed in picking up some girls and so off to a cheap hotel room we go.

 things do not go quite as well as one assumes they had hoped, but at least it does not take the rather disturbing "forced" twist briefly suggested in it.

Amateur Night is pretty short, loaded with nudity of both genders, predictable and not all that bad for it.it benefits greatly in terms of a positive review in comparison to the one that follows it.

Second Honeymoon

dear me, this one was rubbish. as in, i gave great thought to switching the whole film off.

in short, we get footage of a couple who presumably, going on the title, are off on a road trip as a sort of second honeymoon. of sorts, i suppose, the title in retrospect could be a play on words now that i think of the ending.

there are numerous red herrings thrown into the narrative to try and encourage you to "guess" where this is going, but alas these herrings don't get enough air to breathe any suspense. moments where one or both could be in peril turn out to be tedious.

when a rather violent end comes to the story, you are kind of glad it does only as you do not have to watch any more of it. perhaps that is the point, maybe whoever made this segment based it on some people they really did not like and do not wish for you to like them either.

this one is a total waste of time on every level. if you skip this story on the DVD or Blu Ray (or press fast-forward if to "get the feel" you've had the film bounced down to a video tape) you will be missing nothing - in fact you will probably make the film better by doing so.

in between the different stories / tapes being played we get scenes of what's going on in the house. fairly predictable stuff, this being a "modern" horror film, but go on, see if you can spot the slight difference in this scene from the one earlier on.......

moving on, and on to a section that i probably should be dismissing as rubbish, but it has an "odd" something to it that makes it worthwhile.

Tuesday 17th

this one sees us move into the safety of Friday 13th territory (nice play on the date too), for it features some High School kids off to a lake where they probably shouldn't be going.

three of them would seem to have been "tricked" into going by one of them, but that does not stop them going. not when there's the prospect of nudity, sex and drugs on offer. are American teenagers, or all teenagers, really so easily led astray? probably.

if you have seen or are aware of what goes on in Friday 13th films you can pretty much guess what happens next here. it all happens in about 18 minutes instead of 90, though. if this is some sort of post-modernist critique of how easily one could condense a "slasher" film to the parts people really want to see then bravo, but you would suspect that interpretation is accidental.

it's kind of better than it is, if that makes sense, due to a slight twist on the reason for one tricking the others to going there, and indeed the reason for filming. it's not a plot twist i am familiar with from countless other 'slasher' films, so hats off to them for coming up with it.

Tuesday 17th is no masterpiece, but it's pretty good fun whilst it lasts. you don't exactly wish for more, but then again you don't get bored with it.

The Sick Thing That Happened To Emily When She Was Younger 

this one features footage of a video or if you will 'Skype' chat via computers. erm, what's this doing on a VHS tape? surely this would be a bit of a digital file floating around on the internet than on a tape? well, OK, if we assume the owner of the tapes doesn't have a computer, i suppose it would make sense for him to have a VHS made of it.

for the most part, then, this one is conversations between a young girl (Emily?) and her apparently greatly older boyfriend.

there's a touch of flesh flash for you, but mostly it's a lot of dull conversation.

dull except, i suppose, for the bits where Emily is talking about her place being haunted. every now and then she does a tour of the apartment and you get subliminal flashes of what may or may not be someone or something haunting her house.

the whole thing is fairly predictable yet kind of interesting enough in the "jump" stakes to let you watch the full section, i suppose. perhaps i am getting old but the best part of this was that it was mostly a static camera, allowing you to catch your breath a bit after over an hour of very shaky camera.

want some more "dude looking at a pile of VHS picture" action? here you go.......

10/31/98

you know that "they save the best till last" saying? very true here. despite the fact that the film suffers from having the date in that stupid American format, this one is a real winner.

when after a split second us non-Americans have in our minds got the date the right way around you are aware that this is a film set at Halloween. subsequently, we are introduced to a gang of four lads, nowhere near as warped or depraved as any of the other gangs shown, on their way to a Halloween party.

once at the address for the party, there's some confusion going on as the house appears to be empty, seemingly abandoned in a hurry.

it turns out, of course, not to be empty at all. what follows when it turns out there are or is someone or something in the house, we are treated to what can only be described as 60 seconds of some of the best, most effective special effects i have seen in a film. there's a case to say they are a bit wasted appearing at the end of V/H/S, but they do pretty much make the whole thing worth watching if you are a fan of such things.

the ending is rather nifty too, to be honest. 10/31/98 was for me the best and certainly most effective segment of tape watched in the whole film. it leaves you wishing for more like this one, and no doubt we will get a sequel of sorts eventually.

Tape 56

that's the name given to the dull, "we know this is just to fill in the gaps" story linking all of videos watched as part of the film. this section could have been better - how about giving us at least one character to like? - but the makers seem to know it didn't have to be all that good and thus did not bother. as, ahem, the correct tape is never removed or taken, one presumes the intention as mentioned above is to make a series of these films.

V/H/S, then, is not much more than an anthology of really cool ideas for horror stories that could not be fleshed out to full 90 minute films in their own right. in some cases it works, in one certain honeymoon case in particular it's an, as i believe the kids of today would call it, "epic fail".

the biggest disappointment i have with the film is the fact that it takes the idea of a rare, sought after VHS tape and leaves it to one side in favour of a straightforward "let's connect these tales" approach. having an obsessive type being the one trying to get the tape rather than thugs for hire would have made for much more interesting viewing and snippets in-between, but perhaps that's just me. who knows, maybe they shall go for that approach in the inevitable sequel.

a sequel is inevitable and, i would venture, neither unwanted nor unwarranted. as a showcase for some promising film-makers this is a pretty good vehicle, and the better segments look even better when compared to the poorer ones on offer here. any further ones would follow the same pattern here, so there's not that much danger of sequels ruining everything, a la Friday 13th and more recently Saw.

this is just over half-decent viewing for horror fans at any time of the year and the variety factor of it probably makes it ideal for a Halloween screening a couple of days from now. it could have been much greater than it is, but what it is isn't all that bad.


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

the Mount Maunganui Wheels On Main Street event

hi there

i do have every intention of writing reviews for a couple of films i have seen recently (Safety Not Guaranteed and V/H/S). however, as there's been a major event over in New Zealand recently i thought it best to mention it here for all those intrepid google users who wish for both more information and, most importantly, want to obtain some pictures.

the New Zealand National Street Rod Association held a "Wheels On Main Street" event in Mount Maunganui this weekend. today, in fact, but earlier today by New Zealand time standards. it looks and sounds like it was most excellent!

if you are thinking "that's the sort of thing a certain happy go lucky gent might take pictures of" then one would certainly be unable to find fault with your thinking. i have no idea if he was acting in an official capacity or not, but Old Grumpy's photographer in residence, my Dad, was there taking pictures, and even wore his special red shoes for the event.

custom street cars tend to be quite loud and flashy, something which i am all but certain my Dad loved to bits. if young Ethan was around, i dare say Dad expressed his love of noise to him. if not, anyone else near him would no doubt have been informed.

speaking of Dad, cars and young Ethan, this picture from a previous blog post may be of some interest here. i think Dad will have been about the age Ethan is now when this picture was taken, and it certain does show off Dad's credentials and qualifications when it comes to custom street hot rod super wheels street cars!

if you would like to obtain some pictures from this event, or indeed wish to see and speak to Old Grumpy himself (it is a most worthwhile, one off experience), you can contact him via their social network site or even visit them at 245 Maunganui Road.

i hope everyone who went enjoyed the Wheels event, and i certainly trust many of you will get some pictures of your classic cars from Old Grumpy's Gallery!


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

America - Merry Christmas from Bad News

hi there

for some peculiar reason our friends in America are getting a DVD release of the two Bad News films, Bad News Tour and ......More Bad News. clicking here will take you to the place to order, and it shall cost you all of $9.

this is a rather unusual release, since you can get the complete works of The Comic Strip Presents...... for $44, which includes both Bad News films, plus excellent things like the Supergrass film and the formidable A Fistful Of Traveller's Cheques : "this is Hotel Bastardos. you want soft toilet paper? Hotel Gayboy is down the road".

anyway, if for some reason you only want the Bad News films, that looks like an ace deal to me. if you also have the Bad News films on every format imaginable but for some reason want another copy just because it has a different cover, well, welcome to my world.

i am curious as to if the copy of ....More Bad News on this disc has all the swearing bleeped out as all other released versions have thus far. i suspect it's the bleeps that make some of it as funny as it is, but it would be nice to have the unedited version too. on the off chance that it might be, and mindful of the excellent cover for the disc, i suspect i will be placing an order for this. an extra big plus if it features the Bohemian Rhapsody video single, something that i do not believe has made it to DVD as of yet.



let's pretend to be The Who.......

are people really that stupid?

hi there

apologies for the break in updates; i have been unexpectedly ill. well, what other kind of illness is there? do some people expect to be ill?

erm, moving on and today i was browsing the world of blu-ray discs. i had no real intention of buying anything, but one never knows unless they look. i was quite excited when i saw that someone had taken the time, trouble and imagination to "remaster" the ace 60s Batman for this new format, and even more excited when i saw the price.

i was, however, troubled by the warning given against a pink background.

you need a Blu ray player to play a Blu ray disc? really? someone of the requisite intelligence level to use the internet to browse for discs needs telling this? most strange.

i would have thought giving this zone / region information would be more important, but there we go!


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

$ati$faction, or $ympathy For The Devil$

hi there

as previously reported, Keith Richards recently had the audacity and nerve to say how much he "hates charing fans over the top ticket prices", in particular with relation to the over the top pricing for their imminent O2 gigs in November. he must be really bloody angry, then, at what happened with these tickets the moment they went on sale.

in somewhat suspicious circumstances, although no one can prove anything, the tickets for the two concerts appeared to sell out after the site selling them went "live" in a couple of seconds. no joy at all, then, for the genuine fans who were prepared to throw silly money at the band.

in a move that will surprise few, a huge number of tickets for the gigs ended up on that e-bay site within minutes of the tickets going on official sale. and, of course, they are available for sale at a price even higher than the amount Keith hates charging. the link there will fade away into history after the date of the gigs, so here's a screenshot of what the tickets are currently going for.

going on how the ticket touts somehow grab all of these tickets and sell them at vastly inflated price, and mindful of how the band "hates" charging fans high prices but force themselves to do it anyway, i cannot work out why the band went to the trouble of setting up an official ticket channel. they should have just shoved Ronnie Wood in front of a laptop and have him sell all the tickets via ebay. just think of how much more money they could have reluctantly accepted.

i am not sure that The $tone$ trying to destroy any remaning remnants of goodwill amongst fans is the most inspired way for them to be marking their 50th anniversary, but that is their way these days. to those of you tempted by the insane prices on e-bay, i encourage you to rather sit back and wait for their more extensive tour next year.


be excellent to each other! send any spare change you have along to Mick and Keith, they need it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh? Oh! 7 fantastic Bond facts

hi there

well, the world seems to have gone Bond crazy at the moment, down to a combination of this year being the  50th anniversary of the release of Dr No and the new one, Skyfall, being released. i thought i might as well jump on this band wagon, especially as yesterday i sat and watched Goldfinger and From Russia With Love with the boys, both of whom loved them!

here are a predictable in number 7 lesser known facts from the world of the James Bond movies. any facts or figures relevant to statistics are true only up to Quantum Of Solance, for i have no idea what Skyfall has in it!

fan theories speculate that the "00" part of James Bonds' agent number indicates a "licence to kill". that may very well be, but James Bond is 007 thanks to the service route for the bus Ian Fleming took from Cambridge to London daily being the number 007.

Timothy Dalton was approached for the part in the 60s, but turned it down as he felt he was too young for the role. he got his chance some 20 years later when Pierce Brosnan was contractually unavailable for the part in The Living Daylights.

The youngest ever onscreen Bond was George Lazenby, who made On Her Majesty's Secret Service when he was 30. Daniel Craig is the first actor to play the part who was not born when the first film was released.

Gert Fröbe, who played Goldfinger, was probably the most problematic piece of casting in the whole Bond series. as he spoke no English another actor (Michael Collins) overdubbed all his lines. an even bigger problem was that as Fröbe was a member of the Nazi party a number of countries initially refused to screen the film. when a Jewish family came forward and publically thanked him for protecting them and others during the war the threat to boycott the film fell away.

in other casting issues, whereas it is well known that David Bowie was the first choice to play Zorin in A View To A Kill and James Brolin screen-tested to take over the role of Bond from Roger Moore, slightly less well known is that both Clint Eastwood and Burt Reynolds were offered the Bond role. both, perhaps wisely, turned the job down, stating that they felt only a British actor should ever play the part.

whereas Mr Bond retains a love of alcohol, the last time he was seen to light up a cigarette was in Die Another Day. Daniel Craig, then, is the first Bond thus far to be a non-smoker.

which car or cars James Bond uses in a film is always subject to interest from certain fans. they must be constantly disappointed, then, when they watch You Only Live Twice. at no point in this film does James Bond drive a car himself, the only instance of this in the series so far.

well, i trust that some of the above has been of interest to a few of you. i am pretty sure it will have been, as for a bonus fact the best estimates and educated guesses suggest that somewhere between 66% to 75% of the world's population has at some point seen a Bond film. and with good reason, for they are rather good!


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

fixing the glitch in the Godfather box set.

hi there

it is a commonly held view that anyone who owns a DVD or Blu Ray player should have one of the versions of the box set for The Godfather on the shelf. these two films represent some of the finest film making of all time. i have both the first edition and the second "Coppola Restoration" edition on DVD. and the full screen and widescreen editions on VHS. will i ever get the "Blu Ray" editions? never say never.

i have, as it happens, always liked the presentation of the first set.

there is, sadly, a glitch or if you will error in all editions of these fine, fine films. i think you all know what i mean. the set arrives looking like this....

when of course it should look like this.........

i, and no genuine lover of cinema, have any knowledge of this "Part III" business. the world is a better place if such a thing did not exist, for surely it would be a travesty.

Jonathan Granville, and it is my view that all DVD manufacturers should have a statue of him outside their premises to celebrate this, has worked out a way to iron out this glitch in the set. all you have to do is take the box set along to your nearest HMV store and a member of staff there will accept the offending disc and put it in the bin for you.

bravo, Mr Granville, for having the courage to work this out! it is a fine service you have delivered for all film fans. full credit, too, to HMV for giving this sort of outstanding client service. it is a thankless task and thus highly admirable that you undertake it.

i am curious as to if Mr Granville would care to set about fixing other DVD box sets. i note that for a mere £10 one can order this off the internet and have it delivered to Mr Granville. 

this one i suspect would be quite a challenge, but i dare say he is up to it.

thanks again, Jonathan, for helping all owners of the box set!


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

Old Grumpy - open for business!

hi there

my apologies for not doing this update earlier in the week, i've alas been busy with this and that. anyway, you should have gone along to the grand opening and experience the Old Grumpy effect for yourself instead of waiting to read all about it here!

'tis true, what you have heard, if what you have heard is that Old Grumpy's Gallery is armed and fully operational. the sign on the door says so!

i do quite like the very Basil Fawlty emphasis on the "yes" and "open" in the sign above. i am impressed, surprised and it has to be said equally disappointed that the doormat is quite straightforward.

"welcome" is a nice, polite gesture and i imagine all are welcome. i can only assume Mum was in charge of getting the above. if it was left to Dad i guarantee the above would have written on it "no riff raff" or "all potential patrons will be subject to vetting and approval".

on towards the opening and Dad seems to have had a good idea involving booze.

no harm in toasting the start of what we all know shall be a most successful venture!

i gather young Ethan, whose one picture has appeared twice on this blog thus far, has developed a bit of a following on this site. nice one! sadly i do not have any new pictures of Ethan to share here (Dad has no doubt "set him to work" on some sort of construction project), but i am delighted to present his sibling, Melissa, who is the gallery manager. 

Melissa must have, quite frankly, an abundance of talent, ability and patience. i would not even like to think of what it's like being "interviewed" by my Dad to be honest, but i am pretty sure i would fail any number of the points that form part of it. well, i would probably do very well in the section about "getting any music or film requested" as i still appear to have that job (hope Fairport Convention landed by now!).

best of luck, Melissa. i am sure you will get along just fine with Mum.

onwards, then, to visitors to Old Grumpy's Gallery. i am not inclined to put a picture here of every single person that visits the gallery, no matter how inclined Dad is to send me pictures of that nature. here is, however, one of the first, if not the first, person through the door.

who is it? i have absolutely no idea. Dad refers to this gent as a "tyre kicker on holiday from Doncaster". i am not sure he specifically went from Doncaster to Mount Maugnanui to be at the opening of Old Grumpy's, but if in fact he did well then splendid!

if for some reason, by the way, you do wish to feature on this blog, then by all means when visiting Mount Maunganui please stop by Old Grumpy's, tell my Dad that you wish to appear here and then nature shall soon take its course.

on that note, please visit the Old Grumpy's page over one Grand Social Network to both click that you "like" it and to get details of how to get there. and get there you should, really, looking at what they have in stock!

yummy! the fine people of New Zealand will be quite aware of what those items on the shelves are. for those unaware, they are confectionaries and cakes from a company called Loaf. they are exceptionally tasty and well worth getting your hands on. go visit Old Grumpy and buy!

back, briefly, to Melissa. i really do hope she likes having her picture taken on a random, frequent basis. she may well be thinking that he's taking lots of pictures presently, like this one of her wrapping an item in cellophane, because of his "novelty factor" at the gallery opening.

this is, alas, not the case. he is a rampant photographer as regular readers here will be all too aware. Dad has, after all, once taken dozens of pictures whilst just simply standing in a passport queue. which is possibly against some sort of regulations, so let's forget i mentioned that for now.

Mum, of couse, is by now well used to his camera shenanigans, and simply ignores the lens as she takes a quick break to catch up on the news.

a final picture for now of the A Team that helped put this all together with Dad! names are as per Dad's mail, so if they are wrong please accept my apologies and i assure you that Dad will say i simply read his mail incorrectly.

right, next to Mum is Diane, who helped with all the displays and colour co-ordination. i ask you to look no further than any picture of my Dad wearing red shoes to understand how important and probably how difficult that task will have been for her.

next to Melissa is Cheryl. Cheryl is an incredibly talented arts and crafts practicioner, and she has designed and created some special candles for exclusive sale via Old Grumpy's. no doubt i will be getting some pictures of them soon, or perhaps you can follow the link to their page on the book of faces to see some!

well, what can i say but comment on how delighted we all are that everything has gone very well so far! no doubt more updates will feature here in the not too distant future!


visit Old Grumpy's Gallery!

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