Just for general wonderings…
My general wonderings…
‘The Last Devil to Die’ by Richard Osman
The last of the Thursday Murder Club series apparently.
Nice easy read – these books are great. The characters are fab, good easy plot, you don’t have to think too hard.
Nice way to finish a year of reading.
It was a busy year on the gig front – we had challenged ourselves to a gig a month. It must go down as a success. We attended 15 gigs across the year. The only failure was in October: we had Newton Faulkner at The Waterfront booked in, but it also coincided with a mahoosive storm which meant roads were flooded and attendance impossible.
January. Norwich Arts Centre. January is not the best month for gigs. Having decided on attending at least one gig a month, this was one of those ‘sounded like it might be alright’ bookings. Big band, bit folky, good stagecraft.
February. Ipswich Corn Exchange. The year was always going to include Frank Turner, this was a new venue for me. Good support bands: The Wilswood Buoys and Lottery Winners. Standard Frank, good support, great night.
February. Norwich Arts Centre. Beans is always on tour so it is no surprise to hear this is the first of two this year. Solid gig, sing-a-long, great entertainment.
March. The Waterfront, Norwich – downstairs. Great band, rowdy gig, bit short.
March. Epic Studios, Norwich. Another new venue for me. Damon celebrating 25 years in music. Sit down gig, loved it, one of the best of the year.
April. Epic Studios, Norwich. Having seen Lottery Winners twice as support, this was the first headline gig. Really enjoyed it, very entertaining, in the top three gigs of the year.
May. The Waterfront, Norwich – upstairs. This was one of those ‘well we need a gig for May – let’s book it’ gigs. Swedish indie band, good gig, great sound.
June. The Waterfront, Norwich – downstairs. Local funk band. Often seen busking outside Primark. Entertaining evening.
July. Norwich Arts Centre. Another one of those ‘sounds like it might be a good night’ booking. It was a good night. Good band.
August. Fisher Theatre, Bungay. August is always a notoriously difficult month for going to gigs – most bands are on the festival scene. So we were left with a folk night. Not a lot to say really, except, I loved the flute man.
September. Norwich Arts Centre. Sit down gig. Nice evening.
November. Norwich Arts Centre. I love the band, but wasn’t quite sure what to expect because they do a lot of collaborations. As it turned out, didn’t have anything to worry about: great evening’s entertainment.
November. The John Peel Centre, Stowmarket. A first for me at this venue. Second beans gig of the year, and he never disappoints. A spoken word support, and Tensheds on the piano. Fab evening.
November. Norwich Arts Centre. I love seeing Skinny Lister. In the top three gigs of the year.
December. Rock City, Nottingham. Billy celebrating 40 years in music. I’ve seen Bragg a lot, this show was slightly disappointing, can’t quite put my finger on why.
What a year it has been! Seen some brilliant bands, visited some fabulous venues and really enjoyed the whole idea of trying to see at least one gig a month. As for the top three gigs of the year? Considering I am a big Frank Turner and Billy Bragg fan, you’ll notice neither make it into the top three:
1. Lottery Winners
2. Badly Drawn Boy
3. Skinny Lister
Next year we will still be going to plenty of gigs, just without the pressure of seeing one every single month. Here’s to 2024!!
‘All My Secrets’ by Sophie McKenzie
Teenage fiction: a recommendation from one of my students. She even brought the book in for me to borrow, so I had to read it.
I’ve read Sophie McKenzie books on the past, ‘Girl, Missing’ for example, great piece of teenage fiction: pretty basic plot line, tense and exciting, great for teenagers. This book was no different.
This book is aimed at female teenagers and has everything they would love:
It also has everything that would drive an adult crazy:
So there you have it, standard teenage fiction.
After the shenanigans of the last term, this halfterm I had decided that it was to be full up with stuff. And it was. I had homework to complete.
Plenty of parkrunning and long runs, Samaritans, gigs, meals out, reading, allotment action and general merry making was had.
I’m feeling ready for a very important term back at school.
Today you are in for a treat. Not only do you get another daily picture that shows what an exciting life I lead, but you also get to listen to me waffle on about music.
What's brought this on I hear you say. Well actually it was a spam email. Let me explain…
A couple of weeks ago I received an email from a company called Vinyl Me, Please who were inviting me to subscribe to their service. It turns out their service is rather interesting: limited edition LP, original artwork print plus a custom cocktail recipe (not quite sure about the cocktail recipe). You have no idea what the LP will be; it could be anything from rap to jazz to country to funk. The price you pay for the subscription? $38 per month. Yep, you're right, USA only – unless you want to whack another $20 for delivery.
Now, I like a bit of vinyl, it's not the only form of music I buy, far from it – I love a CD, download through iTunes, streaming through Spotify, I've even got bloody cassettes – but like I said, I like a bit of vinyl, so I was interested.
So I googled it, well to be precise, I googled 'vinyl subscription uk'. What did the mighty Google come up with? Well a few bits and pieces. But this company caught my eye: Wax & Stamp.
Now may be a good time to insert today's Project365. Just going off on a tangent: 83 days into 2015 already?!…
So what is Wax & Stamp all about? Well it is a vinyl subscription service based in the UK. For £26 per month you get a couple of LPs (or a LP and an EP) – one chosen by the company, one chosen by some guest selector. You have no control over what is sent – all you know is that it will be a new release – but it could be pretty much anything.
Sounds interesting – but I'm still undecided.
I like Parkrun, I think it's a fantastic idea: a free 5km timed run local to pretty much everyone. Despite thinking it is a great idea and enjoying them, I must admit that actually getting out of bed on a Saturday morning in time to make the start line is pretty rare.
So when I found myself once again at Ferry Meadows Country Park for another Peterborough Parkrun I had my eye firming set on beating last week's time. Thinking back to last week I had started reasonably easy, due in part to starting in the main pack. Not this morning, I was prepared, I positioned myself reasonably close to the front. I wasn't going to start off easy today. The thing with a 5km is that if you want a good time you've got to be prepared to go off hard. That I did. In fact I ran the first kilometre at about 3000mph – you may think this is an exaggeration – but it's not.
After 2km my legs were feeling the fast pace, the voices in my head asking, “Why do you run 5km? It's too short. You're not fast enough!” It felt like I was running through treacle, and bloody thick treacle at that! However, it is at about this point that you begin the second lap and start lapping people – that's always good for self-confidence.
By 3km I had calmed down, of course my legs were still struggling, but less than ten minutes running left, I might be ok. The positivity began to pump through my veins. I looked ahead – I could see a girl – I don't like being beaten by girls. I had a target to chase. It took a while but I caught her up – and passed her – things were going well. It was at this point that it dawned on me that I wasn't wearing a watch – no big deal – sometimes it's nice to just run as well as you can and see what time it gets you. But it would have been nice to see how it was going.
As the 4km marker came into view I finally worked out what had been bugging me for most of the race – there was a fella ahead with something stuck to his back. What was it? It looked like a number. It was the 20-minute pacer! I wasn't even that far behind him!
Suffice to say that I never caught him up. I crossed the finish line about 10secs behind him. My legs were knackered. My chest felt like it was going to explode. But I was happy. Finishing time 20.08. Position? Amazingly… it was 28th again. Lovely jubbly!
Although saying that, do you remember I don't like getting beaten by girls? Well I was. By two! And one of them was only 14 years old!!! Oh well, like I said, I am a middle-aged old git.
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