Sunday 2nd October

The violence of strangers

Time flies when you're having fun. And, you know, as you get older time seems to fly by whether you're having fun or not. This last month I have spent most of my time working so there isn't that much new stuff to tell. I could go on about work, but quite frankly it's boring. I go to work, stuff happens, or doesn't, I moan about it, I go home. That's it. No really, that is it. These days there's not even any point in playing the 'Conspiracy or Cock Up' game, because it all seems to be Cock Up. Even the good news that a new customer had finally signed a contract was tainted by the fact that the couriers managed to deliver the signed contract to a sister company on the other side of town, who signed for it. At least that wasn't our cock up...

On the music front there's not much news. I was at the usual lastfriday event at The Civic at the end of September. Once again PapaKev managed to line up four decent bands for the bargain price of only two quid. First up were In Her Blood, who didn't make a favourable impression by starting off with the bass turned up too loud. They lost more points by not being particularly tight. Normally, I'd be OK with loud guitars and screaming vocals but I've seen too much of that lately and this lot didn't bring anything new. And if you're not doing that you have to be tight. Also they played too long, although to be fair they seemed to be having a good time. And their last song sounded terrible. I don't know if they were slightly out of tune or out of time but it was a bit of a mess. Second on stage were Sugar³ who have a reputation for tearing up the pubs of Doncaster with their frenetic, old skool, punk. They seemed a little flat but they probably weren't helped by the fact that most of the people who were enjoying them were about two-thirds of the way back from the stage. Their blend of Dead Kennedys/Ramones/Damned/Rezillos licks is enjoyable enough if a bit "1978" but there's something about them that just doesn't get me going. Sorry guys. Third band of the night were Dumpvalve, (from "Huuuurrrrrrggghhh!!!", according to Crazy Eddie) who were replacements for Hiding Place who cancelled not just this gig but their entire tour. They were proper heavy metal and tight as a gnat's chuff. Impressive, but not really my cup of tea. Last up were Little Miss Machete. Have to admit that I spent a large part of their set in the bar, talking to various people, but what I heard was pretty good. They're a sort of rocky Pearl Jam, I think I'd describe them as. I did note that their singer had to sit down for the entire set after damaging his foot, which can't have looked that good on the video they were making. All round some decent entertainment and a good night, although it ended on a downer for me after I sustained some superficial damage requiring a brief trip to casualty. I'm fine, just won't look quite as handsome for a week or so.

In other news, I finally decided how I'm going to celebrate my up-coming 40th birthday. I may have mentioned before that I was going to go to Las Vegas but my company announced, after the start of the holiday year, that they were changing the holiday and adjusting everyone's allowance pro-rata. This left me with three fewer days than I was anticipating and I'd already booked a lot of days off for my REM tour. So I didn't have many days to play with and the Leeds festival used up all the slack, so I don't have enough days to make it worthwhile going to Vegas. Instead, I'll be watching Crewe Alexandra at home to Crystal Palace and then having a few drinks with some old pals the weekend before my birthday. Then I've got to work for a couple of days before going to see Crewe at home to Leeds United on the Tuesday night and then heading off down to that there London. I'm going to see The Fall on my birthday (Wednesday 2nd November), which ought to be-ah really great-ah. (I would have put a link in for The Fall, but their official site seems to have been replaced by a page offering libido-enhancement products, and the MES-endorsed lyrics page hasn't been updated for a while.) And then I'll doing a few touristy-things on the Thursday and Friday. Not sure exactly what but it'll probably include a ride on the London Eye and a return visit to the Science Museum. I'm hoping to have time for a visit to the Tate Modern too. If I can get in touch with them I'd like to meet up with me old MAFF mates for a few beers on Friday evening, too. Then on Saturday I'm going to be running the gauntlet to see Crewe at Millwall. Probably not the best idea I've ever had but I've been to the Old Den so it's about time I saw the New Den. Hopefully, I'll survive that, I might catch a show or something if I do and then have a leisurely Sunday before heading off back home. Not exactly the week or so of gambling and licentiousness I had envisaged but it'll do.

I mentioned a while back that I'd seen an REO Speedwagon for sale at a Truck show and made a weak joke about them not being a 70s rock outfit. Scott very kindly sent me some more info on the speedwagon and a couple of pictures of his trucks. So I've put them together with my picture on this lovely little Speedwagon page.

Talking of Crewe Alex as I was earlier, I've been treated to some puzzlingly inconsistent performances at the home games this month. Following the capitulation against Sheffield United there was a hard-working performance against Derby County in front of the Sky cameras, that they ought to have won. It was a pretty tough game and if I'd been offered the draw before the match I might have taken it, but after seeing Derby go down to ten men and having what looked like a good goal ruled out for offside I felt a bit disappointed they didn't take all three points. Following that there were tough away trips to Plymouth and Reading which yielded only a single point although the reports again suggested Crewe were unlucky not to get more. The next home game was a dour 0-0 against Watford. Neither side really looked like scoring but there was some satisfaction to be gained from keeping a clean sheet. Then, inexplicably, the defence made four blunders in the space of twenty-five minutes in the first-half against Wolves to virtually hand them the game. I was not surprised they were boo-ed off at half-time. I took my nephew to the corresponding fixture last season and he wanted to go home after twenty-five minutes. Luckily he missed this game as I don't think I would have taken much encouraging to leave well before the end. They made a fist of it in the second half, but to be honest Wolves had taken their feet off the gas and were cruising for much of it. It obviously doesn't help when your best 'keeper gets injured, your nineteen strikers can't muster a goal between them, your defence is prone to at least one error per match and the manager seems intent on playing a 4-3-3 formation whose midfield has an average height and weight of about five foot five and 8 stone. They can certainly claim the luck hasn't gone their way but we've had chances against all these teams (even Wolves) and not managed to put them away. Yesterday at Ipswich we managed to score and by all acounts should have had more but once again the second half performance let us down. That's not to say the defenders aren't equally as culpable but, as last season showed, if you can score you've always got a chance. We managed to get up as high as eighth before Dean Ashton was sold and we've only managed to win twice since. I guess it's going to be another long, hard season.

And I'm spent. I'm sure there are more amusing anecdotes and interesting websites that I've forgotten, but that's a consequence of being old and not writing things down. Till next time - adios amigos!

Go on, stick your oar in:

Sunday 4th September

Slip inside this house as you pass by

I managed to survive Leeds Festival, as you can see. Overall, the whole thing was a great experience, with only one or two disappointments. I had a long list of bands that I wanted to see but, as with any festival, scheduling conflicts meant that I didn't get to see all of them. Nearly all, but not quite. Anyway, I rolled up to the festival on Thursday afternoon, met up with Dan and his posse (big Hello to Nat, Will and Matt) after some "comedy" directions, pitched my tent and settled into festival mood. I had been intending to wander up to the Comedy tent and watch a bit of the pre-festival cabaret, but instead we ended up staying up late, drinking, smoking and playing cards in the communal gazebo-cum-tent. Friday dawned sort of grey and overcast, with a distinct threat of rain in the air. After a late breakfast and a few beers we headed off to the main arena. We wandered around the site, popped into the Comedy tent, got a few beers in and then nicked off to see Turbonegro on the main stage. They were excellent, although I suspect they're even better in a small club setting - they looked a bit lost on the main stage. After that Dan and I went to see Towers of London who once pulled out of gig with Disarm. They were alright, nothing special. I had a bit of a break and wandered round the festival site, catching a couple of bands on the Unsigned stage and popping into the Nokia bar. Back on the main stage we caught a bit of Iggy Pop who seems to be stuck in the 70s. Very shouty. Not very good. I wandered off again to see British Sea Power who were one of the highlights of the weekend - any band who get attacked by a giant bear during their final song has to be alright by me. (And no, I didn't take a lot of drugs - there really was a man in a bear costume attacking them on stage.) Then it was back to the main stage in time to catch Marilyn Manson. Top pantomime glam-metal. We scarpered from there to try to catch The Futureheads but the tent was packed. We forced our way in but could still see nothing and they sounded terrible. Beating a hasty retreat from their woeful indie sound we went back to catch a bit of Iron Maiden. They put on a good show and are undoubtedly very popular but I'm not really a fan. After about five numbers we returned to the campsite for more games of cards, beers and smokes.

Saturday. Fried brekkie and a couple of cold ones to get us started and then it was off to see The Black Velvets in the NME Tent. Nothing better to kickstart the day than some good old rock'n'roll. From there it was into the main arena for those bad boys of rap Goldie Lookin' Chain. Not only are they absolutely hilarious but they're extremely well produced - the backing tracks are top quality cuts. Everybody ought to buy their new single 'Your Missus Is A Nutter'. There was an outflux (as opposed to an influx) of people under the age of 35 then as The Wedding Present were next up. As a result I got right down the front. They were brilliant - 'My Favourite Dress' almost had me in tears. Another highlight of the weekend. The downside of being at the front for The Weddoes was that I suddenly found myself surrounded as people rushed back in for Dropkick Murphys. Stereotypical Oirish punk-folk-rock, which I'm afraid is fairly tedious. The Pogues did this sort of thing so much better so many years ago. Saturday afternoon was a dead time for me - there wasn't anybody I wanted to see between Dropkick Murphys and The Coral. As it was I went back to the camp, found the rest of the guys there and we stayed there so long I missed The Coral anyway. We got back to the main arena in time for Queens of the Stone Age. God they were tedious - far too much guitar-wankery and vocal trickery. Some of their songs are alright but they drag them out so long you've lost interest before they finish. following them were The Killers. They were alright but, like their album, you get bored once you've heard the singles. Rounding the evening off were Pixies. Now some people have said this was a great show but I was disappointed. They seemed a bit lacklustre to me. Maybe I was expecting too much. Perhaps I should have gone to see Lemon Jelly instead. A downbeat ending to Saturday night.

Sunday. Dan had predicted a riot and it happened. ("It's the Foo Fighters - there's always a riot when they're on"). More of this later. First band of the day was Nine Black Alps in the NME Tent. Top quality indie-punk, kind of like Nirvana meets the Pixies. They were followed by Juliette and the Licks. For those that don't know this is Hollywood starlet Juliette Lewis' band. Now, she looked hot in her red catsuit but the music wasn't up to much. Bog standard rock'n'roll really. After that it was off to the arena to catch the end of Dinosaur Jr. They didn't sound very good from where we were and didn't look that good on the giant screen either. They saved their biggest hits (Just Like Heaven and Freakscene) till the end anyway so I heard all I really wanted to hear. Then it was off to the Lock Up stage for me to catch Dwarves. Top quality entertainment. Another highlight of the weekend. After that I went to the Comedy tent, where I saw Daniel Packyard do a very good set which climaxed with him crowd-surfing, and then I fell asleep when some other guy was on. Waking to find another guy on stage I got up and went to watch The Caesars instead. Their song 'Jerk It Out' is used on the iPod Shuffle advert. They were pretty good but very 80s. I went back to the Comendy tent to catch a bit of Mitch Benn but as he was late on I had to leave halfway through to catch Sleater-Kinney. Another highlight of the weekend - top quality all-girl power punk. Staggering over to the NME tent I thought I'd get to see Babyshambles but the place was rammed and it didn't sound too promising from outside the tent so I went back back to the Carling tent to catch The Raveonettes. Touted in some quarters as being the new Blondie, I'm afraid they're not even the new Sleeper. Anyway, once they'd finished it was back to the now-empty NME Tent to catch The Tears, Brett Anderson and Bernard Butler's new band. Yes, they sounded a lot like Suede, but that was hardly surprising. They didn't however play any Suede stuff as far as I could tell. They were brilliant though and 'Ghost of You' was my particular favourite song in the set. Top band, and a final highlight of the weekend. Yes, I missed the Foo Fighters and I didn't see Hatebreed as I was watching The Raveonettes, but apart from those two and the aforementioned Coral and Lemon Jelly, I did get to see everyone on my list.

Anyway after the bands had finished it was back to the tents to find the usual last night silliness going on. There were a lot of kids setting fires and then chucking anything on them, usually deoderant aerosols or camping gas cylinders. Every couple of minutes or so there'd be an explosion followed by cheering. The fires near us weren't that big but down at the bottom of the hill, by the market stalls, there was quite a large fire going. It was hard to see in the dark but it looked like there was a portaloo or something burning. Also, there were pitched battles going on between the festival goers and the campsite security. The security guys eventually retreated, the fire stayed burning all night and the "rioters" stayed up all night chucking stuff on the fire, looting the Carling trucks (liberating a lot of beer) and drumming on whatever they could lay their hands on. Once the noise showed no signs of abating by three in the morning the guys decided to retire to their tents. I stayed up, sitting in the communal tent, smoking my pipe and listening to the racket. At about quarter to five, I tried to get a bit of kip but the noise was incessant so I packed up my rucksack and once it was light enough packed away my tent and headed off-site as soon as I could. I wanted to get away early anyway but the noise and disruption made me doubly determined.

My main reason for wanting to leave the Leeds Festival early was to get back for the game between my little smashers, Crewe Alex, and Sheffield United. I was back in plenty of time alright but sadly my loyalty to the club went unrewarded as they lost 3-1 and put in the sort of perfomance that was dreadfully reminiscent of the the post-New Year slump that almost got us relegated. Clearly the 4-3-3 formation doesn't work against teams prepared to battle in the midfield and there didn't seem to be any Plan B for when we get out-numbered and out-muscled in the middle of the park. It's clearly going to be a long hard season for us again.

Here a curiosity for you. I'm a long-standing fan of V/VM, as you all know and even link to their site. Well, here's a news story from their site that you might well have missed. It's all about their involvement in a PS2 advert which sadly never saw the light of day. Feel free to download the actual advert - it's very good. Tip of the day though - if you browse the rest of the site and feel inspired to download the 'Anal Acid' video (it's perfectly safe except for the dodgy title) make sure you do it over a broadband connection - the Windows version takes for-fecking-ever to download over a dial-up, as I can testify. One hour and ten minutes of forever, if you're asking.

If you ever get really bored why not play The Killers' 'All These Things I've Done' word game. It's easy, just try replacing the words 'Soul' and 'Soldier' in the line I've got soul but I'm not a soldier with two equally unlikely similar sounding words to come up with a new nonsensical line. My own favourites so far are I've got dents but I'm not a dentist and I've got piles but I'm not a pilot. Feel free to make up your own.

Finally, lastfriday is dead. Long Live The Civic the new home of lastfriday and now a proper rock venue. It hosted it's first lastfriday event on Saturday (yeah, cue the confusion) and an eager 300 or so people packed in to see some fine bands. First up were Renowned To You. They play what used to be described as power pop in my day - catchy tunes with a bit of an edge of fuzzy guitar - but they're a bit more emo/punk than that. They've still got a few rough edges but very promising. They were followed by sukmunki, whose mix of metal, punk and funk put smiles on people's faces. They included with a fine cover version of Edie Brickell's 'What I Am'. And the guitarist bore a worrying resemblance to an old University chum of mine - it wasn't him though as he didn't have Andy's tattoos. Next up were the hardcore heroes Here Is the List of Your Dead Friends. This was their last gig before lead singer Jamie leaves for university and they pulled out all the stops. Top performance. A lot of people had come to see them and they weren't disappointed. Brutal. Topping the bill and closing the night off were fellow hardcore stars Test Switch Isolator. Equally brutal yet subtly different. Closer in sound to the Napalm Death of 10/15 years ago than the angular Converge-style riffing of Dead Friends, to my ears at least, they put on a good show, including plenty of audience participation. Hardcore indeed. So there it was, the first of the relaunched lastfriday events. There's another one coming at the end of the month - a proper lastfriday event - let's hope they're all as successful as this one.

That's it for this update - pretty much all talk about bands you may or may not have heard of, I know, but that's all I've been doing for the last fortnight. Well, that and working and you really don't want to read about that. I was going to put up some photos from Leeds but have run out of time. Maybe I'll do those at the next update. Or maybe I won't, that's how much of a rebel I am. Later, dudes

Go on, stick your oar in:

Sunday 21st August

Like Noah must have led

Mobile phones. Everyone's got one these days. And they've all got cameras and organisers and games and browsers. And yet somehow, they're not really that much fun are they? There's no comedy value in walking down the street talking into your Bluetooth headset, for example, and there's a limited amount of amusement to be had from ringtones. And whilst you might be able to pose in front of your mates with the latest super-slim, tri-band, Bluetooth-enabled, web-browsing, multi-tasking, video-taking, personal communcations device, no one is going to think you're funny. (They'll think you're a twat, to be honest.) So you can imagine my delight when I found you can get these entirely impractical Phobile handsets for your mobile. Sadly, my phone is incompatible because it doesn't have a jack socket. My boss, Miriam, then revealed her true geek (Burn Her!!!) colours by suggesting that I could get one and rewire a Bluetooth headset to fit inside instead... Anyway, this started me thinking that perhaps it would be even more amusing to take a traditional domestic telephone, something like the Trimphone say, and install a mobile in there instead. Imagine your mates faces when you whack that on the pub table in the traditional "mobile showdown". And the quality yoicks available from walking down the street going "Hello! I'm on my mobile!" Well, blow me if the geeks at Sparkfun haven't gone and done it. And you can buy one. For a shade under four hundred dollars! Luckily, they've included loads of diagrams and stuff, so if you want you can probably build your own. All you need is an old mobile, an old house phone and a bit of know-how. Easy. I expect we'll all have one by the end of the week...

As is usual whenever I update this site, I was back over in South Yorkshire this weekend to see some bands you've only ever heard of through this site. This time it was at a party held at The Civic in Mexborough, home of lastfriday. PapaKev, who organised the lastfriday gigs, now has the lease on the building for the next three years and has been busy redecorating and refitting the place to make it into a proper rock venue. Inside it looks mint. You can see a few pictures on this lovely webpage. It really does look like a home for rock'n'roll. It's got to be the best venue for miles. There are similar venues in Sheffield, but I can't think of anything this good in Rotherham or Doncaster. The gig was a kind of dry run for the imminent return of the lastfriday gigs. Fittingly, Disarm opened proceedings. They blasted through their set with the aplomb of a band with a serious number of gigs under their belt. Top rock'n'rolling metal entertainment. They were followed by the full throttle punk of New Generation Superstars. Top quality three-chord riffage that recalls the heyday of The Ramones and The Dead Kennedys. An absolute blast. Closing out proceedings were Imperial Vipers. They're metal, man, and there's no way you can get that wrong. They're also very bloody good. And were generous enough to invite Brad back onstage to share vocal duties on a cover of the Stooges 'Search & Destroy'. All in all, a top night - the venue looked great and the bands were terrific. Can't wait for the start of the proper gigs. Incidentally, if you're interested, check out the Gig Info on the lastfriday Forum for upcoming gigs. Dogs D'Amour looks to be one not to miss, for example.

Monster Trucks! Yeah! T'other Sunday we had a bit of a family day out (me, my sister, her kids and her boyfriend) to see some Monster Trucks in action at the MEN Arena in Manchester. It was quite entertaining, but due to limitations of space (the MEN isn't exactly huge) there wasn't actually that much the trucks could do. They did the car-crushing bit, had a doughnut (spinning on the spot) competition and then had a freestyle competiton, which involved car-crushing and doughnuts (but not both at the same time). In between times things were livened up by the appearance of a jet-powered car and the Freestyle Motocross team, who did a load of stunt jumps. Sadly though, once you've seen one monster truck crush a load of cars, you've seen them all. And whilst there's some comedy value in watching a truck in the guise of a dog spinning round chasing it's own tail, once you've watched one truck do a doughnut, you know what's coming for the next twenty minutes. Like wise the stunt jumpers - after a while you start hoping one of them will crash, especially that one who seems to love himself just a bit too much... I think we might have enjoyed it more if we'd been able to understand a single word the commentator-cum-compere was saying. We might have at least understood why the only truck to actually complete a proper doughnut (spinning on the spot as opposed to slowy pirouetting across the arena floor) didn't win the competition. Add to that the rip-off prices for souvenir merchandise and it was a day out that didn't really add up to good value for money. Especially as we'd seen Big Pete do the same for considerably less a couple of weeks earlier. Anyway, you can check out some photos from the event on the Monster Jam Europe website. There's more info on the trucks on that site too. Finally, we were afforded a cheap laugh by this picture of Bobby Z, the driver of Monster Mutt. Just what is that thing he's holding?

The other excitement that's been going on in my life is the return of the football season. My little smashers, Crewe, have managed an unbeaten start (one win and three draws) and currently sit in the relatively high position of 12th in the table. Not quite the vertiginous height of 2nd, where we were after one game, or indeed 8th, where we were on New Years Day, but decent enough. We've had two home games and two away. Unfortunately, I couldn't get to Norwich or Brighton but have seen us at home to Burnley and Leicester. The win against Burnley was pleasing as we played all the football and they resorted to thuggery in the second half, even so we nearly gave it away at the end, when only a spectacular save from Ben Williams prevented an equaliser. Against Leicester we took an early lead but once again the defence looked a bit creaky. Even when we went two-up, we were riding our luck. If the Leicester strikers had put their shooting boots on we could have been three or four down. Despite that, it was the referee who changed the course of the game. With Varney through on goal he was bought down. Penalty! No, the ref awarded a free-kick just outside the area and only booked the defender depsite the fact he was the last man. At 3-0 up and facing ten men the game would have been in the bag. It wasn't. Leicester scored just before half-time and then got a penalty early on in the second half. From then on it was anyone's game, with both sides hitting the woodwork, but no one could find a winner. Next league game is away to Southampton, which'll be a grudge match now as my sister's boyfriend is a Saints fan. I'd like to go but I've got a ticket for the Leeds Festival (see below for more details) so I'll be there instead. And I'll have to pack up and leave early on Monday so I can get back to Crewe in time for the home game against Sheffield United on Bank Holiday Monday. It's a hard life as a season-ticket holding, footy-loving, music-folllowing, pie-eating Crewe fan, I tells ye.

Slight aside: I've already referred to Miriam as a geek. Check out her reading list, if you don't believe me, although I daresay she's changed it since Friday (or will after she's read this). Anyway, to make up for the relentless teasing here's a site that I know she'll enjoy: StuffOnMyCat.com. Put as much stuff on your pet cat and take a picture. Featured in the Guardian this week so expect messages about exceeded bandwidth.

As mentioned above, I'm off to the Leeds Festival this forthcoming Bank Holiday weekend. I bought a ticket ages ago and have been having wavering thoughts about going. Obviously I want to see the Pixies and Dinosaur Jr again and for entertainment value the Friday "metal" lineup looks pretty good. (I could be wrong). But I could quite happily live without seeing Kings Of Leon and The Killers, for example. Also, I'm not that great a fan of the camping experience (living in a tent, that is, obviously, I enjoying putting on a brightly-coloured suit and screeching flamboyantly as much as the next man...) and if the weather is bad, the experience is doubly miserable. Add to that the fact that I'm using up three precious days of holiday and you can see why I was somewhat undecided. Anyway, having had a look at the website, there seem to be plenty of alternatives for when there's rubbish on the main stage (including a whole host of obscure-ish metal bands on the Radio 1 stage on Sunday night) so I should be able to find something worth watching for most of the weekend. Must just remember not to get too drunk and lose my phone/wallet/pipe/virginity to a tattooed biker from Goole.... If I survive, I'll be back in a couple of weeks to tell you all about it.

Go on, stick your oar in:

Wednesday 27th July

Find yourself a caravan

So, having spent a few days chasing a band you've all heard of, you'll be delighted to know that I've been back on the trail of bands you've never heard of. Taking advantage of the wonderful rail network I've popped over from Warrington to Doncaster on successive Tuesdays to see Empathy and Disarm in the annual Doncaster Battle of the Bands at Baileys public house. Empathy were up against Last Alley and Freebooting Profiteers in their heat. None of the bands was helped out by the fact that there was no PA provided so they had to rustle one up at the last minute. As a result the sound for all three bands was terrible. Last Alley were meant to be grunge but they sounded more like Hawkwind without the synths. And the vocalist had way too much echo on his vocals. Empathy were next. Top songs as usual but the sound let the side down. I'm struggling to remember anything about the music of the Freebooting Profiteers, although the lead singer did have a nice, cream Rickenbacker six-string. Perhaps that's what swung it for them, for on a night when mediocrity ruled they were judged the winners. The following week (last night) was Disarm's heat. They were up against Sugarcubed and Bambino. Bambino kicked things off and I thought they made a decent start with an edgy Fugazi-esque tune but then the singer opened his mouth and things went rapidly downhill. You can have the greatest songs in the world but if your singer is flatter than Norfolk no one will ever know. Or care. Still, they're young lads and they can definitely get better. Next up were Sugarcubed, who are keeping the punk fires burning. They put on a very good show. Very Dead Kennedys but there's nothing wrong with that. I'd certainly like to see them again. Last band of the nght were Disarm. Probably not their best performance but still top-notch rock'n'roll - the constant gigging has paid off as they're way tighter than either of the other bands. Still, at the end of the evening they lost out by three points to Sugarcubed, which was kind of disappointing, but then that's only the opinion of four peple in a pub after all. On the plus side, I did get a copy of the new Disarm CD and it's very good. It features two Disarm originals and their legendary cover of Blue Monday. Get it while you can.

Last weekend I went to TruckWest, which is a smaller truck-based show, definitely not related to Truckfest. There were a few trucks there, a couple of rides for the kids and a display of car-crushing in the main arena by Big Pete - the world's only lorry-bodied monster truck. Sadly this Not Safe For Work Young Lady was nowhere to be seen. Still, it was a good day out, albeit slightly expensive - the kids enjoyed themselves and I saw a genuine REO Speedwagon for sale. Yep, I thought they were a crap soft rock band from the 70s but no, it was actually the name of a 1930s truck. I've got a picture but haven't downloaded it from my mobile, so you'll have to wait till next time. Or look it up on the web yourself.

I went to see Fantastic Four at the cinema today. It's had some bad reviews apparently. Well, I can kind of understand that. If you're a bit of a fanboy, like me, you'll know they've mucked around with the back story and, indeed much of the front story. The cosmic storm that gives them their special powers still happens but Victor Von Doom somehow gets involved when any fule kno that in the comics he was scarred by an explosion when an experiment went wrong. But leaving that and the numerous other tedious little changes from the comic aside, it's a decent enough 90 minutes of no-brainer entertainment. Rating? Not as good as Spiderman but nowhere near as bad as The Hulk. If it's a wet Wednesday afternoon there are worse things you could waste your time doing.

Finally, just for PapaKev here's a link to the allmusic.com mini-site for Mighty Mighty who, as any fule kno, were one of the bands on the C86 NME compilation tape and can be classified as post-Smiths jangly-guitar indie pop. I can thoroughly recommend their BBC Sessions CD if you're a fan of that genre.

Go on, stick your oar in: