Gonzales - Royal Festival Hall

Hot footed it down to 'Jarvis Cocker's Meltdown festival' at the Royal Festival Hall on the south bank of the Thames on Saturday, to see Chilly Gonzales (as you all know, my favorite artiste!). Gonzo was as fantastic as ever. Gonzo was backed up with Mocky on the drums, and between them they belted out some quality drum and piano action, before kicking in with some gonzo "hard touches". Hard touches, because he hasn't had any "Hits". Audience participation was partaken, whistling the choruses to said "hard touches" and humming a melody for Gonzo to jam along to. Rich, who came with me, was gobsmacked at A: How good on the piano he was, and B: How damn funny he can be. A great gig and a great day.

And you will know her by the trail of mess.....

Scooby usually stands at a cool 5ft. He is about 2ft in width. He is fairly heavy, but he is no match for Elizabeth, post scooby-snack (cow and gate).

You can find a pest.........

..........in any conceivable place, when you visit our house.

Miles Hunt, Malc Treece, Vileevils, Pwei

click to enlarge and read

http://www.friendsofoscar.co.uk/

http://www.myspace.com/vileevils

http://www.pweination.org

pics courtesy kingsuperspecial

One difference between Elizabeth and I..........

I take ages to fall asleep, and once asleep, re-awake within no time at all. Elizabeth, can fall asleep in any manner of bizarre positions, and stay asleep for an age!

but first...

Zandvoort - Amsterdam - Forward Planning - Don't Look Back!

For next years holiday, I felt that instead of the usual Disneyland Paris/British holiday park route that I’ve inflicted on my family, I’ll take them to a European holiday camp. I’m not big into butlins and the like, in fact, I hate that kind of thing but Kirsty loves it and Elizabeth is at the age where she’ll find it mildly amusing. This is why I’ve been looking abroad, but not too far. Finally I found somewhere that sounded promising. Center Parcs.
I looked into taking the family into a UK Center Parcs last year, but the combined cost for four days in a wooden hut 60 miles from home was actually MORE EXPENSIVE that a break in New York City. So that was the last time I looked at a Center Parcs. Until I thought about Center Parcs Zandvoort.


Zandvoort is about half an hour away from Amsterdam. I was taken there once by one of my Dutch friends and his dad. We spent a great afternoon just walking around sand dunes and drinking coffee. I didn’t have kids then so I never thought of it as a family holiday option.
Surely, Center Parcs Zandvoort isn’t going to be more expensive than rip-off Britain?
Using my pidgin Dutch, I browsed the site to get a quote for a two-bed roomed chalet for a Monday-Friday stay in May 08. The cost? 349 Euros.

Not bad I though, so I went to book only to find my booking was not to be. You could only book if you lived in Holland. I thought about contacting Mark from Amsterdam, but I still feel guilty for being a bit of an idiot to him once, even though he accepted my apology over pizza and soup. It’s a long story, but to be quick, I was in a perma-drunken haze, lonely, and had been single for an AGE. Anyone female who showed me any interest at all I considered as ‘falling in love with me’. I was so out of touch it was embarrassing. Mark was a flat-mate of someone I that I was deluded enough (courtesy of booze and low self esteem) into thinking liked me. (Just think, I've been practically tee-total for four years now!)

Anyway, I digress……………….

At this point, I noticed a ‘booking from other countries’ link, so I suspiciously typed in the same requirements (imagine me with one eyebrow arched, and maybe wearing a fake beard), for the same chalet, for the same week. Result?
799 Euros.
DOUBLE the cost of booking from the Netherlands. Another example of rip-off Britain.

Shame on ‘family firm’ Center Parcs for taking advantage of Rip Off Britain. They can stick their wooden cabins up there Augustus Gloop Vessel (leave a comment if you understand that).

I eventually found a house to rent in Zandvoort, and have book marked it for May next year. And for a lot cheaper than the Dutch booking of Center Parcs. Add to that the fact that you can fly to Amsterdam from Coventry for around £40 return each, and at last Kirsty will get to go on a plane, something she’s been banging on about for quite a while, with the whole week for four of us coming in at just under £350.
Now I’ve got to get my manky arm up and running so I can get back to a bit of graft. Damn NHS Physiotherapists…………….

(Incidentally, Microsoft Word’s spell-check keeps trying to change the above sentence to ‘Manly’ arm. That programme knows me well!)

DJ Destruction

Stratford Upon Avon

We took off to Stratford upon Avon today. The last time I was in Stratford was for a press junket for the Phoenix festival, the year that Paul Weller, Iggy Pop, and the Beautiful South were playing (94?). My friend Hollie and I travelled on train from Birmingham, only to find out that on arrival I had to interview a press guy from National Express. Hall or Nothing’s PR tried to track down National Express guy, and waved me in the direction of the free bar. I’d never seen such a look of surprise on Hollie’s face! I’m sure she hadn’t seen one like that on mine either It took ages for the National Express guy to turn up, and when he did, I was somewhat unsurprisingly plastered. I remember barely being able to stand up, and asking him a genius-opening question. “So, you run coaches then, or trains?” That went down well. I can’t remember anything else but losing a baseball cap on the train home, and Hollie and I joining heads to sleep, only awaking up to dribbled-on shoulders.
This time in Stratford, the only dribbling was done by Elizabeth, 1. We found a parking place fairly easy. Not too expensive. When walking into the town we found the following place:




If only.

We wondered around town, a lovely picturesque town littered with the inevitable blights of modern capitalist living, McDonalds, HMV, and the like. In the park we watched a fire juggler thinking it would impress her. It didn’t. Seems she thinks the same of fire-jugglers as I, although I doubt she’s aware of the physical constraints of sticking a levellers album up one’s derriere.

We visited Shakespears birthplace, although didn’t go inside the house as I didn’t feel like paying £20 to be surrounded by Americans in an empty old house. Talking of Americans, Kirsty and me went into a tacky ghoul shop, as kirsty had seen the cauldron in the window. Lisa stayed outside admiring the statue of a jester and keeping Elizabeth’s pushchair out of the way of incense. When Kirsty and I emerged from the tat-emporium, Kirsty spotted a pigeon and stamped at it hard so that it flew away. It flew away all right! Straight into the faces of three American teenage girls eating on a bench. You’ve never seen so much panic in your life. Afterwards, when Lisa had stopped laughing, she informed me that the American girls were scared of the pigeons in case they were carrying bird-flu. Suddenly I was proud of Kirsty’s achievements in panicking gullible ill-informed American teenage girls.

I noticed that they were eating burgers, so obviously foot and mouth doesn't worry them.

After the laughter, we did a few shops, and I bumped into Sir Ian McKellen, Magneto out of X-men (for me), or the bloke out of Coronation St (for Lisa). I thought about asking for a pic, but he looked in a hurry, and I have a fear of coming across sycophantic, so instead of talking I just muttered “look it’s Magneto” to a bemused Lisa. It took me ten minutes to think of the acclaimed Shakespearean actors real name I’m afraid. I put this down to the sun, and a huge thirst.

And so, we had some drinks back at the park, and went home, crawling the entire way on a practically grid locked M42.
A good day overall.