Just like going on a school trip...

Much happier me today.

My copy of the Good Beer Guide is packed, I've chosen a few well placed watering holes already, all I need to do now is wash some t-shirts and and grab my tool box.

Yes my friends, the people I least expected to come through for me, came through for me and I am going on tour...YIPPEE !!!

I've no doubt this will depress the DoubleD beyond imagining but be comforted by the thought that we will miss you brother.

I may have to figure out some way of blogging the tour. Better find a guide to the nations internet cafe's then.

Playing Catchup

Crikey ! It's been nearly a month since I posted anything here. I'd like to say I've been too busy to drop by but in all honesty I've been in what my bro' would call a bit of a funk. I've been having one of those "oh the pointlessness of it all" months when the ills in the world have been bearing down on me a little to hard...well that's how it's felt anyway.

Good things that have happened this month:

• Those nearest and dearest to me all seem hale and hearty
• I've applied for a new job which has at least given me something to look forward to when the postman shows up each day (nothing yet, I'll keep you posted)
• I've been reading "Ginger Geezer - The Life Of Vivian Stanshall" (thanks Nick) which is a ripping yarn indeed

Bad things that have happened this month:

• Work. Generally. Nothing specific. Just getting out of bed feels like a waste of time Monday to Friday right now (this appears to be the major reason for my current funk).
• Discovered DD can't do the next tour (hell, I don't even know if I can yet)
• Did I mention work ?

I was listening to the Icicle Works recently and came across the lyric "Leave your dreams where they are, They last a while that way" which seemed very appropriate at the time.

I think I may have reached the end of another of those 7-8 year cycles where I just need to do something different. I certainly need to get away from my current "manager", the kind of person I have striven my whole life never to become or to be anywhere near.

Sorry for the overall depressing tone but as I said earlier, sometimes I just need a place to Vent.

Here Comes (There Goes) The Weekend

From Monday morning I work for Friday night
Collect my wages, then try to paint on the smell of soap

Thank you Mr Weller !

I know I use this place primarily to moan about stuff. So as a pleasant surprise I present my weekend (and this may take some time).

Friday

No work today...really. It was Staff Appreciation Day. Now I have to admit that my idea of being appreciated is being given an extra day off, having large bundles of easy to carry cash stuffed into my hot and sweaties and being pointed in the general direction of the nearest ale house. Alas and alack it was not to be. We were transported to Birmingham's Ackers Trust for a "team building morning". The kind of thing that generally fills me with dread. I won't go into details but the team I was in won the day and we were awarded with bottles of wine, which is always a good start.

We were then whisked off to a very nice Italian restaurant to be fed and watered. I left as soon as possible to go home, get my dancing trousers on and head to to one of my brothers fine acoustic shows in the outpost of crumbling industry and poor taste known as Wolverhampton. A fine performance, fine company, lotsa booze and a conversation involving US immigration, dysfunctinal parents and whether Marilyn Manson is entertaining or not later, we found ourselves in a very expensive taxi back home where everyone proceeded to pass out on various sofa's at around 4am. A damn good nights work if you ask me.

Saturday

No alarms, just kinda fall outta bed when it feels right. Kept the kettle primed all morning for the supply of Tea and Coffee to weary rising revellers. Everyone appeared very sprightly considering the previous evenings excesses. Then my wonderful wife cooked up a full English to die for...god bless her x

Suitably fed and watered one of our number headed off to the north for my brothers 2nd show, that night, and a Sunday of mountain biking. The rest of us were headed for the 21st Telford Beer Festival.





One of my great hopes when we moved here was that I might find myself what I call an "old man's pub". The kind of place once described by another of my eloquent friends as all "brass taps and oak" where it's possible to put "a shine on the bar with the sleeves of our coats"...oh boy did I find one o' those. The Crown Inn is a haven for Real Ale drinkers. A no smoking back room and no intrusive music playing, a proper pub to visit for the purposes of drinking ale. It has become mine and my dear lady wife's home from home on Fridays, most Saturdays, occasional Sunday lunchtimes and random Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays too. We tend to stay home Thursday as The Sopranos is on E4 at the moment.

The rest of Saturday was thus spent in The Crown sampling such wonderfully titled brews as Pot Belly Best Bitter, Sadler's Gentle Ginger, Falstaff Voyeuristic Intention and the wonderful Paddy O'Hackers Genuine Irish Stout (brewed in Lancashire !!!). Extra company was supplied by a table full of gentlemen aged between 55-65 who appeared to be chasing down each pint with a large glass of wine and who gradually became rowdier and rowdier until they just slunk off home; a woman at the next table who was most insistent that we should take her 17 year old son as our lodger; a fine looking 13 month old Staffordshire Bull Terrier who took a very keen interest in our bags of pork scratchings and at the end of the night the local chav's put in an appearnce so we could all laugh at their pathetic sense of sartorial elegance. I'm no fan of Pete Doherty but his lyric "There are fewer more distressing sights than that, Of an Englishman in a baseball cap" is one I wholeheartedly concur with.

Sunday

Nothing...absobloodylutelynothing ! Well, I walked Jules down to the station to get his train home (a 7 hour trip while trying to avoid the result of that days Grand Prix). I then walked our hyperactive dog over the nearest hill and went home for a day of doing absolutely nothing.

Another of our local hostelries delivers Sunday dinner (yes you read that correctly, this has to be the greatest business idea I have discovered since coming across the Australian drive-thru off licence). So we ordered 2 in and lounged around the house all day watching bad movies and wondering whether we could be bothered to do anything...the answer was no.

Here comes the weekend - I'm gonna do my head
Long live the weekend, the weekend is dead