Monday 25th September

Mixed Messages

My proposed jaunt to London was cancelled at the last-minute as The Notoriously Unreliable E.D.D. had to work all weekend so wasn't available. I could have gone down there anyway, but I really didn't fancy mooching round London on my own for the day before going to a gig on my own and going home on my own. Not that I haven't done all of those things before (some, sadly, more frequently than others) but when you're looking forward to spending some time with your brother, they're not attractive alternatives. So instead I spent the weekend mooching around at home, tidying up, taking stuff to the recycling bins, that sort of thing. The one benefit of tidying up is that I found a couple of CDs that I bought a couple of weeks ago and had forgotten all about.

Hey, it was easy to forget about the CDs - I bought a new guitar at the same time have have spent much of the last fortnight trying desperately to get it in tune. Apart from the fact that I had to get the screwdriver out and tighten all the tuning pegs, I also managed to snap what is nominally the G string when attempting to tune it the first time. I ought to point out here that the guitar is a mini one that cost me just under 13 quid from the cheapo publishing store The Works. It suffers from the fact that the frets have absolutely no relation to the frets on a proper-sized guitar, so where you might expect a string to be in tune with the next at the fifth fret, this guitar is in tune somewhere around the fourth. The first fret apopears to have an interval the same as the second fret on a normal guitar. As a result I've given up trying to get a conventional tuning and am trying to tune it to a chord. I almost had it tuned to Fmaj the other night but something's slipped out of tune since. Even if I do manage that, there's no guarantee I'll be able to make use of it, except maybe as a comedy prop in a video, so that's thirteen quid down the toilet.

I noticed the other day that either my mate Jack types in really neat sentences, counting every word, or he uses a tag to justify his text. So last night I fannyed around with the CSS for this site for a bit and after several goes managed to find which tag I needed to change. I could have just looked at Jack's site but hey, that's cheating right? It was simply a matter, or so I thought of adding the text-align attribute to the TD tag. Then I realised this did funny things to the table cells on the left with the links in. Nothing terrible just a noticeable respacing of the text (surprisingly). A quick check of my site code and a look at the CSS and I realised that all I needed to do was update the TD.left class with a different text-align value and Bob would be your Uncle. Of course things are never that straight-forward and somewhere along the line I managed to lose the background clour for the left-hand column. I've managed to reinstate it but I'm not sure it's exactly the same colour. Fortunately I seem to have been using the td.left class for a while so the changes filter through the site nicely till you get back as far as Summer 2004. I'm not entirely convinced this will improve your user experience any, but it looks a bit neater now, doesn't it?

Finally, because it seems to be becoming compulsory, a quick mention for Crewe, whose reward for knocking out Wigan is a home tie against Manchester United in the 3rd Round of the Carling Cup. I would be getting all excited but we drew them at the same stage of the tournament just two years ago. A United "reserve side", costing somewhere in the region of fifty million quids, ran out 3-0 winners on that occasion. I'm hoping we can get a lot closer this time round. I've already had a few enquiries about whether I can get tickets but for those of you who can't get there in person on Wednesday 25th October, the game is also being shown on Sky Sports.

Go on, stick your oar in:

Wednesday 20th September

Too many clues

So much to do and so little time. And no, I'm not talking about all those unfinished documents I've got lying around at work... Just kidding. Anyway, I seem to have tons of things to do at the moment and not enough time to do them in. For example, I bought a newspaper on Saturday and I still haven't had chance to read it. Lord knows when I'll get round to the Sunday papers. Mind you, its all my own fault - if I'm not out enjoying myself, I'm either catching up on my sleep or childminding. Last week I was out on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday last week and Friday night I decided to catch up on my beauty sleep (yeah, I know, I've got another hundred years to catch up on). Take this latest web update as another example - I started it on Monday night but realised I wasn't going to finish it before I needed to get to bed so have finally got round to finishing it off today.

Before I blather on about the rest of the crap that I've been up to, I have to give a big shout out to Crewe Alexandra, who knocked Wigan Athletic out of the Carling Cup last night. It wasn't exactly a steamrollering performance - we gave Wigan more than enough chances to score - but we created enough chances of our own and took a couple to send the pie-munching Premiership poltroons out of the competition. The noise around us as Nicky Mustard (aka Maynard) put the second one away in the last-minute of the game was incredible. Hard to believe there were less than 4,000 there.

Earlier in the week, by way of quiet contrast, Crewe beat both Cheltenham and Millwall at Fortress Gresty Road.(or as I suppose it ought to be properly called Fortress Alexandra.) A week yesterday they were in action against the mighty hordes of Cheltenham. They were, of course, victorious. By the small margin of three goals to one goal. They followed this up with a battling defeat 1-0 of Millwall on the Saturday afternoon. To tell the truth it was a scrappy performance, not helped by a terrible display by the referee. He was rubbish. To be fair, he was rubbish for both sides, but rubbish nonetheless. Still, that made it five wins in the last six games and the defeat of Wigwam means it's now six out of seven. If they can keep this sort of form going, they must have an excellent chance of being top of the table come Christmas.

Last Wednesday night, by complete contrast, it was round the corner to watch my other smashers, Nantwich, against the not-so-mighty hordes of Congleton Town. Having earlier knocked them out of the Cheshire Senior cup the omens were good but Nantwich don't seem to be playing that well at home at the moment. And struggled to a 2-2 draw. It was slight contrast to their performance on the previous Saturday when they beat Silsden 3-1. Still they're still managing to pick up wins away from home so must have a good chance of finishing inthe top four or five at the end of the season.

And last Thursday was a momentous evening when, for the second time, myself, Charlie and his brother Rob won the quiz at the Cronkinson Farm pub. We scored a storming 55 out of 60 and only underperformed in one round when we failed to recall that The Swinging Blue Jeans had a hit with 'Hippy Hippy Shake' and that the song 'I Could Have Danced All Night' featured in My Fair Lady. This time I contrived to win a bottle of champagne, which is still chilling in my fridge.

So as you can see, it's been a pretty hectic week or so, even if it did mainly revolve around football. Well, there's not been anyone on at The Limelight that I wanted to see recently and I haven't been out to catch any bands locally. Perhaps I ought to get my ass in gear and get out a bit more...

Talking of getting out a bit more, work have started looking for my replacement. You know what's really galling about that? The fact that htey're apparently prepared to pay more than £25k per annum to replace me, but not prepared to offer me that to stay. (I realise some of you Southern types might be snorting over that paltry amount, but that's the rough market rate in the North West. Feel free to let me know if you have any vacancies offering significantly more...) In fact, they probably could have offered me less and I'd have stayed but that's not the company way - they won't be held to ransom like that. Ah well, their loss, not mine.

Talking of replacements, I have seen one CV on which the applicant has included the URL of their website. Fair enough, I suppose, if you're particularly proud of it or believe that it enhances your application or both. If that's the case then you'd better make sure you self-censor it pretty heavily to avoid anything controversial or likely to offend. In fact, if you're applying for a Technical Author role it's probably a good idea to have a basic grasp of punctuation too. Of course, I exempt my own site from this rule as I don't give the URL on my CV and it doesn't turn up in the first 20 pages of a Google search on "Jim Lawrence". I'm afraid at this moment in time I can't include a link to said individual, but I will add it at the appropriate time.

Tonight, Matthew, this posting has been powered by Stella Artois and Sheffield Stout - a heady mix of Mathers Black Beer and Lemonade. Can't help thinking I'm going to have a sore head in the morning. Still, only two more working days this week and then it's off down to that there London to meet up with Eddy and pop out on Saturday night to catch Disarm playing at Bar Monsta, supporting Dirty Rig. Be there and be square. It's the new cool.

Go on, stick your oar in:

Friday 8th September

Take this job and...

...offer it to someone else. Yes, for only the second time in my working life I have resigned from a job. The interviews I mentioned in earlier posts turned out to be successful and I have been offered and accepted the post as Technical Author at Galleria Retail Technology Solutions Ltd, or simply Galleria to you and me. As sole Technical Author I'll be responsible for creating the User Documentation and Online Help for their software, pretty much from scratch. So, it's more responsibility and the opportunity to really stamp my own ideas on a documentation suite. Which was pretty much the job that MDS sold me two-and-a-half years ago. Sadly, that never materialised for one reason and another. Even so, I found it a very difficult decision and will be sad to leave. On the other hand the new challenge is exciting. daunting but exciting - I'm going to have to stretch myself and learn some new stuff along the way, but I also get to do it my way. Anyway, anyone got any good RoboHelp tips? Apart from, Don't, obviously...

Tonight Matthew, I am drinking Mead. Specifically, Harvest Gold Mead. Whilst browsing the shelf of some of the more obscure spirits and wines available in Morrisons, I noticed an unholy trinity of drinks there to tempt me. There was the Mead, Scotsmac - a blend of mature British wine and Scotch Whisky (Hhhmmmm, nice!) and Mather's Black Beer - concentrated malt liquor. All at 3 quid or less. I figure the Mead has got to be the lesser of three evils, with it's delicious honey-based flavour. It's a bit too sweet for my liking to be honest, but it's not too terrible. Don't think I'll swapping my regular lager tipple for it though. If I can face it I reckon I'll try the Scotsmac and report back.

Last Saturday I lined myself up a Feast of Football - three games in one day. Alright, one of the games was on telly, but the other two were as live as live can be - Crewe vs Huddersfield and Nantwich Town vs Deeping Rangers. The day started off well with Crewe beating Huddersfield 2-0, dipped a bit when Nantwich contrived to throw away a winning position and lost 2-1 and then picked up again when England thrashed Andorra as expected. To make up for Nantwich losing I won ten quid on the lottery, so all in all it wasn't a bad day. This Saturday will be exciting in a different way - I'm looking after my nephews overnight as my sister is off to see Robbie Williams in Leeds.

I was going to include a couple of links to other bars I visited during my trip to Cleethorpes but the ones Kev supplied me link to places in Thailand and Boston. Well, I know we had a fair few beers that day but I'm pretty certain we didn't end up in either of those establishments...

Go on, stick your oar in:

Monday 28th August

Do you like my neolithic clock?

Well, I was going to do an update last weekend but I ended up having one or two drinks too many in an attmept to drown my sorrows after Crewe's dismal 0-3 defeat at home to Bradford, that I spent all of Sunday recovering on the settee watching bog-all on the telly. Don't ask me what was on though - I can't remember.

Anyway, following that defeat I wasn't really looking forward to the football element of my midweek trip to Grimsby. I was, however, looking forward to the seeing my old mate Kev and drinking lots of ale elements. I set off bright and early and thankfully avoided any comedy capers on the train (there's more about those later though), arriving in Grimsby around lunchtime. It was round to Kev's to drop my bag off and then straight up to Cleethorpes to begin the afternoon of drinking and larking about. We started off in the "Smallest Pub in the World", which is a converted signal box at the Cleethorpes Light Railway Kingsway station.

It really is small - there were two people already in there and when Kev and I went in that was about it. There was hardly enough room for the barman to get by us so he could serve us. Fortunately the weather was quite good so we sat outside in the beer garden, from where the above picture was taken. Kev enjoyed a couple of pints of 4 Dirty Noses and I had a couple of pints of Fugelestou Ale's Marsh Mild. Very nice. Anyway, they're still waiting for Guinness World Records confirmation that it is the world's smallest working pub, but if they don't get that it may be of some comfort to know it's the smallest pub I've ever been in.

From there it was into the heart of Cleethorpes and a chance to drink in some of the trendy new places that have opened up recently. There has been a lot of development in the town over the last couple of years and it seems to be revamping its image. Anyway, we wandered along the seafront took in a few bars, including a stop off in the ever popular Willys, before heading into Market Square for a curry. We followed this with a relaxed drink in O'Neills before strolling off up to the match.

Well, I have to say that Grimsby aren't the same team as the one that made the play-offs last year, having lost a dozen players and their manager, but then Crewe have lost 13 players since being relegated. However, the introduction of Varney and Maynard up front for Rodgers and Higdon changed the way that Crewe played and, with more pace and more direct running at the defence, they looked much more of a threat than they had on Saturday. Lowe, Vaughan, Otsemobor, Varney and particularly Maynard gave the Grimsby defence all sorts of trouble and we were unlucky to be going in only one goal to the good at half-time. It was a good gaol though, with Varney's through ball being excellently controlled by Maynard before he slotted it past the keeper.

The second half was more of the same, with the Crewe side growing in confidence against a Grimsby side that was struggling to string anything together. For all our possession though we didn't score again until the 75th minute, with Varney breaking down the right and pulling the ball back for O'Connor to blast home from the edge of the penalty area. At least that's what the local paper said the following day - I missed it having decided to go to the toilet a couple of minutes earlier when Grimsby had a goal-kick. I was just coming back into the stand when the celebrations started. However I did manage to capture Crewe's third goal - a Ryan Lowe penalty in the last minute, after the ever-busy Maynard was tripped from behind.

So it finished 3-0 and Kev said that that was the first time he could recall watching Crewe win. To be fair, he hasn't seen Crewe that often and when he has we've usually been rubbish (the 1-0 opening day defeat in Grimsby a few years back and the 7-1 thumping at Hull being two I can recall). So, cheered by that, we went back into town for a couple more beers. And I have to say that it didn't seem very far from Cleethorpes to the stadium on the way there but on the way back it was twice as far! We were both knackered by the time we got back to O'Neills. A couple more beers, a burger and a taxi home rounded off the evening.

Wednesday morning I wasn't feeling too bad - a cup of tea and a quick wash and I was ready for round two. We started off with brunch in the Wetherspoons in Grimsby before going up to Cleethorpes for a few beers before I had to get the train home. I had originally planned to leave early evening an get home late-ish but I had to set off a bit earlier as I had a job interview on Thursday morning.

Yes, a job interview. A second interview in fact, having already had a first (surprisingly) the previous Friday. I wasn't really looking for a job - there's plenty of things to do in my current one to keep me occupied and interested until Christmas/New Year and possibly beyond - but this opportunity arose and there aren't many many good opportunities in the North West for Technical Authors. Anyway, the first interview went well - I got some really good feedback - but the second one included a writing test on a piece of the company's software and I wasn't too happy with what I wrote. I think I could have done better. We'll have to wait and see now - I should hear something back this week. I have to admit I'm currently in two minds about the job. Yes, I would like it as it's more responsibility and the definite chance to make my own mark and control the look and feel of a documentation suite. On the other hand it's more work and fewer holidays. But I reckon I'm getting ahead of myself- I haven't even been offered it yet. I think I should concentrate on getting my head down at MDS, finishing the stuff that needs finishing and prove my worth to the team and the company. We've got documentation that needs to go out of the door on Friday and there's still a lot to be done, for example.

On a related subject, I haven't moaned about the trains recently. Mainly because I haven't had that much cause to use them. However in the last two weeks of July, Ian, who gives me a lift to work, went on holiday to Cyprus. Yeah, I know, how dare he? So I was stuck using the trains for that couple of weeks. In the morning things were fine - I could usually get the 8.14 from Nantwich and connect with the 8.35 from Crewe to arrive in Warrington for about 8.50 allowing me to get to work for about 9.00. One morning the 8.14 was delayed by 53 minutes so I had to get a bus to Crewe instead but still managed to make it in for around 9.30. However, in the evening the trains from Warrington to Crewe were always delayed by ten minutes and thus never coincided with a train from Crewe to Nantwich. In fact, for much of the second week the 17.53 arrived in Crewe just in time for me to see my connection pulling out of the station. Which meant a ten minute walk up the road and a wait for a bus, adding an extra 40 minutes on my journey home. Better still though, were the comedy capers I had after my first interview on Friday 18th August. I had arranged an early interview, so that I could get into the office by 10.30 and still leave on time having worked some extra hours earlier in the week. The interview went fine (see above) and I was at Crewe in plenty of time for the 9.50 to Warrington. The weather, it has to be said, had turned particularly nasty and the train was already slightly late when it pulled into Crewe. Still, it wasn't too delayed and I thought I'd still be able to get away from work on time. How wrong I was. As we pulled through Winsford the train slowed and stopped. It transpired that a lightning strike had knocked out the signals and we were stuck till things were fixed. Arse! We were, in fact, stuck for two hours. I was so late into work that I had to take a half-day holiday instead of making up the hours. To make matters worse, Ian's car had had some electrical problems and he hadn't made it to work, so I had to go home on the train too. Still, I made sure the journey wasn't too painful by having a load of beers and a curry with Tim, one of my colleagues, before I got a late train, and then a taxi, home. This tale does at least have one upside - Virgin Trains have offered me a full refund on my journey. Woo hoo!

Alongside my little smashers, Crewe, I have been doing a bit of glory-hunting in watching Nantwich Town. They won their Cheshire Senior Cup game against Congleton, 3-1, and last Saturday (26th) I saw them beat Ramsbottom United 3-1. I'll be popping round the corner to see them play Atherton LR tomorrow night and I hope to include them in my own personal Feast of Football next Saturday, when the staggered kick-off times mean I ought to be able to see Crewe at home to Huddersfield (k.o. 12.15), Nantwich at home to Deeping Rangers in the FA Cup Preliminary round (k.o. 3pm) and then back round to my house to watch England v Andorra on the telly (k.o.5.15).

One final piece of news - the beard is back. It's come back largely by default. I didn't change my shaving habits particularly so a goatee-shaped patch of stubble would develop during the week and then I'd shave it off at the weekend. One weekend I didn't shave it off and then all of a sudden I'm at an interview with a bit of a beard. Well, I can't shave it off for the second interview, can I? And then I had my photo taken at work with it so I can't shave it off before I meet the M.D. as he won't recognise me, will he? Ah well, maybe I'll get rid of it again next weekend....

Go on, stick your oar in:

Monday 14th August

Carrying a glowstick and a small loaf

In a dull moment last week I was pondering the nature of the fakir and wondering how I, as the self-proclaimed fatfakir, conform with the ascetic nature of the holy men. Well, truth be told, I don't. I can't be said to be denying myself anything or challenging myself physically or even performing simple street magic. So, I'm pretty much a fraud on the spiritual front. On the other hand I do get to indulge my love of Carry On-style humor and call myself a fat f*cker without too many people taking offence. So that's Ok then.

I don't like to mention work on here too often, mainly because the world of work is terribly dull but, also, people I work with read this blog. However, here'a development that some of my ex-colleagues might find interesting - our department have recently purchased AuthorIT and are in the process of moving all our documentation and online help over to it, away from the combination of Word, Dreamweaver, Notepad and HelpBreeze that we currently use. We undertook a fairly extensive evaluation of the Authoring tools on the market and decided against Arbortext Epic on the grounds of cost and complexity and against Robohelp on the grounds of redundancy. (I'd like to make the point here that we made this decision a good six months ago...) So the choices after that were fairly limited - we had no particular liking for Framemaker and wanted to put everything into a single source tool if possible. Author IT looks right for us but it does have one or two interesting quirks. The way you define bulleted lists is counter-intuitive, for example. And the native editor isn't really WYSIWYG. But once you've wrapped your head around that, it's fairly straight-forward. I think we'll still make errors in chunking up our documentation into the right size to be properly re-usable, but I think once we've got it up and running properly it should prove a really good tool. Anyone with experience that says otherwise, please speak up now.

With the Football League season well underway, I decided against making the trip to Scunthorpe at the weekend to see Crewe, instead favouring Nantwich at home to Glossop North End. Another wise decision on my part - Crewe scraped a 2-2 draw despite leading twice, but Nantwich strolled off the park 3-1 winners. Not only was there some decent football but I bunmped into my old mate Ian, who was there with his kids. I still haven't managed to win the raffle since my visit for the Buxton game though. I reckon I'll be a fairly regular attendee at Jackson Avenue this season - they have quite a few games when Crewe are away and they're only round the corner so the evening games are no trouble. In fact I'll be round there tomorrow night for the Cheshire Senior Cup tie against Congleton Town. Don't worry though, I'll be getting my Crewe Alex fix next week with the home game against Bradford on Saturday and a trip to Grimsby for the Carling Cup game a week tomorrow.

Go on, stick your oar in:

Tuesday 8th August

Partying like it's 1982

Well, I promised a review of Crewe's opening game of the season and here it is. Despite the day dawning dull and grey, it was actually quite warm and the day brightened up as the kick-off against Northampton approached. Arriving at the ground in plenty of time, I got a programme and a Golden Gamble ticket and made my way nto the Air Products stand concourse. I have to admit that it was probably the emptiest I've seen it half an hour before the game. Possibly everyone knows the prices have gone up by ten pence... Still, I don't mind not having to elbow a dozen or more people out of the way in order to get a pint. Said pint duly consumed it was off to my seat in plenty of time to see the teams run out. Coca Cola have some daft competition on to measure the sound of the crowd when the teams run out. Add my voice to the roar but somehow don't think we'll be challenging the likes of Nottingham Forest or Bristol City. The game kicks off. All the talk on the message boards before the game was of our solid new defence and a probable lack of goals from the front men. Crewe surprise us all by creating a number of chances straight away. Billy Jones has a shot from distance that the keeper gets a hand on. From the resultant corner the ball goes up in the air and drops invitingly for Ryan Lowe to volley into the top corner from the edge of the area. 1-0 after 7 minutes. The lead doesn't last too long as Northampton find space down the right and the winger has time and space to pick out McGleish in the middle. 1-1. Fortunately Crewe aren't thrown by this and continue to create chances. Good work down the right by Higdon and Rodgers gives Lowe the time to take the ball to the by-line and whip in a cross which Vaughan nods in to the back of an empty net. 2-1 Crewe continue to create chances with Rodgers guilty of missing a couple of fairly easy ones. I just get the feeling that he's trying too hard - he's getting into the right positions but not putting them away. He does get the ball in the net but it's rightly ruled out for offside. Crewe's profligacy proves costly just before half-time, when a defensive mix-up gifts Kirk the chance to level the scores. 2-2 The half ends and I've got mixed feelings. Pleased to see the number of chances we're creating but concerned that we're not putting them away and that the defence looks brittle on occasions.

The second half kicks off with Crewe on the back foot and looking very lethargic. Ten minutes of half-assed clearances from defence, misplaced passes in midfield and general hesitancy has the Fatfakir shouting "Wakey, Wakey" as we concede yet another needless corner. Thankfuully Crewe slowly snap out of the torpor and get back in the game. They start creating a number of chances and Lowe, Rodgers and Higdon all miss the sort of chance you'd expect them to score. To be far to Lowe, the Cobblers' keeper makes probably the best save of the game to deny him from a header. With about ten minutes to go Dario takes Rodgers off for Maynard (or Micky Mustard as my nephew dubs him). The decision is not greeted with approval as most of the crowd have been baying for Higdon to come off. To be fair to Higdon he's probably had as good a game as ever in the target man role. He still needs to learn to turn and chase once he's won the flick-on and probably needs to gamble a bit more on where the ball might go, rather than reacting to it, but he's been involved up front and comes back to make one or two important defensive headers too. Micky Mustard bustles about and puts the defenders under pressure and Higdon finally gets the ball in the net only for it to be disallowed for a foul. Couldn't really see anything from where I was -it looked a good goal - but then all the action is happening down the other end of the park from me. Well, almost all the action - there's still time for Quinn to test out Ben Williams in the Crewe goal a couple of times. On both occasions Williams makes fine saves to deny Northampton the win. The fnal whistle blows and the joker in he DJ booth immediately spins Shania Twain's 'That Don't Impress Me Much.' Kind of sums up the mood around me. Personally, I was pleased to see that with Lowe and Vaughan sharing the free-kick and corner duties we've managed to get away from simply pumping it straight to the opposition keeper, and Lowe particularly had a storming game. I also think we can score, even though the attack is relatively inexperienced. I'm a tad worried about the defensive lapses though and wonder if the return of COx will steady the ship. Kempson played well but Baudet panicked at times and Otsemobor was guilty in the run up to the second equaliser. Billy Jones didn't have one of his better games either. Still, last time we played Northapton on the opening day of the season, we got a draw and finished second in the league that season, going back up to the Championship at the first time of asking. And in light of tonight's 3-1 defeat at Doncaster, I'll cling to that omen for a while longer.

Go on, stick your oar in:

Sunday 5th August

Wider skies of blue

Yeah, alright, it's a bit later than planned, but I failed to take into account how knackered commuting by train every day would make me feel and the fact that my knackered shoulder tends to discourage updating the blog as I can't do more than about an hour's typing without feeling some discomfort. And I went to see Crewe's opening game of the season yesterday, but I'll blog about that tomorrow. Anyhoo, that's the pathetic excuses out of the way, here's a potted review of my adventures at the Acoustic Festival last weekend...

The weather having threatened to break all week finally showed signs of turning as Saturday morning dawns grey and dull. It's still quite warm though, so I decide against taking a raincoat. I also decide to have a substantial brunch before departing. It proves to be a good move as the catering outlets are charging the usual festival prices. More shocking though are the bar prices - £2.80 for a 330ml can of Stella! I didn't really look at the price/size ratio when I ordered one but after that first one I was on the Guinness, still £2.80 but at least that was for a proper-sized can. The festival site is set up so that the main bands are playing in two separate marquees, with the running order such that you can move from one tent to the other and not miss a thing. Unless, of course, you want to see any of the acts in the Octagon Tent, which is actually just a gazebo with a few benches in front of it. There's also the usual assortment of tat merchants you get a festivals and a few fairground rides for the kids. Despite the occasional shower the day goes well - the rain mostly happening whilst the bands were on. One minor irritation though was the lack of decent lighting on site once it got dark and the fact that they shepherded everyone out through the one small exit, meaning there was a lot of congestion on the way out, which is not what you want when you've got three kids with you and it's dark. With a bit of forethought they could have put up some lighting and also filtered people out through the wider entrance/exit a bit further down the site. After all that, here are some brief reviews of the acts that I saw on Saturday:

• Ed Tudorpole - In a typical Eddy fashion he comes on about twenty minutes late, although this isn't his fault as the crew have been making some last-minute adjustments having only had 24 hours to assemble the stages, lighting and mixing desks. He's worth the wait though - comic banter, knockabout songs, amusing stories and a special acoustic version of 'Swords of a Thousand Men', which has the crowd in stitches. The kids, particularly, loved him and in 'He's Got a Moustache' he's got a song that'll keep kids entertained forever. If the Tudorpole is playing round your way I can heartily recommend you make the effort to see him.
• Eric Faulkner - Having skipped the folk-lite musings of Virginia Haze in favour of a wander round the festival site, it was back in to the Cheese tent for the former Bay City Roller. It's OK though, he's not bitter. Much. In between sniping at former band mates and record labels he delivers a solid set of old Rollers classics and acoustic favourites. He's also the first performer of the day to rely on the crowd singalongs to pad out his songs and set. Very enjoyable though.
• Ian McNabb - first of the performers I watch in the Mornflake tent. Surprisingly popular and the tent is packed for the former Icicle Worker. He has, of course, produced a large body of work since the Icicle Works split, but sad to say that none of them are ringing in my ears at the moment. Again he relies on the singalong to pad out the set. Still, he gives us 'Hollow Horse', 'Understanding Jane', 'Evangeline' and 'Birds Fly (Whisper to a Scream)', all of which are great, but sadly the rest are sadly disappointing.
• The Animals & Friends - Having skipped the indie-folk toss of Ezio and the jazz-folk of Pentangle it's back to the Cheese tent for The Animals. Actually, The Animals original drummer, John Steel plus Mickey Gallagher (who once filled in on keyboards for a week or so after the departure of Alan Price) Peter Burton (once of the Mindbenders, on bass and vox) and Johnny 'Guitar' Williamson (a jobbing blues guitarist). More a blatant cash-in on the revival circuit than a genuine Animals re-union. They still played a number of the classics from the 60s plus all the expected Animals hits. Trouble is, Peter Burton's Americanisms started to grate after a while. He might actually be American for all I know but he sounded more like a Geordie pretending to be American. The band were actually pretty good but the fact that it isn't really The Animals up there undermines the experience.
• Dennis Locorriere - Moving out of the Cheese tent we end up near the back of the Mornflake tent whilst the voice of Dr Hook does his thing. Have to say I hadn't been too bothered about catching him, but by god I'm glad I did. Time hasn't diminished his voice, and he could sing the phone book and it'd sound great. He didn't take himself too seriously either, sending himself up on occasion. He seemd to be going down great although it was difficult to see from where we were. Played all the Dr Hook hits and finished with a superb rendition of 'Sylvia's Mother'.
• Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel - We skipped the delights of Elkie Brooks in order to secure a good position to see Steve. Kicking off with Here Comes the Sun' and 'Judy Teen' his set promised much. Sadly, he doesn't seem to have written too many good tunes since sacking the original Cockney Rebel. He also relied heavily on the singalong most notably wehen he forgot the words of one number mid-song and launched into 'Mr Tambourine Man' instead. (Of course, we should have responded by singing along in william Shatner-style, that would have freaked him out.) The middle of the set was pretty turgid stuff but he saved the day with a few good numbers and a storming version of 'Come Up and See Me (Make Me Smile)'.

Despite feeling knackered after all the walking around of the previous day I set off in plenty of time in the morning, making a detour via the supermarket, where I stock up with lagers to avoid the exorbitant bar prices. There are no bag searches on the gate and it becomes obvious that most people have made the same decision. In contrast to the previous day I spend about ten quid on site as opposed to more than forty. Yes, I even managed to resist the temptation to buy a ukulele... I also took a folding chair, which was both a blessing and a curse. I enjoyed the sitting in it, I didn't enjoy lugging it from tent to tent. All in all though, another top day, which also featured the following:

• Cheshire Chord Company - a 78-strong women's choir, based in Warrington, and known for their acapella version of the Kaiser Chiefs' 'I Predict A Riot'. They gave us a good mix of barbershop standards and pop songs, including the aforementioned 'Riot'. Not the sort of thing I'd normally go out of my way to see but their version of 'Lady Madonna' was oddly affecting.
• The Blues Band - Paul Jones (ex-Manfred Mann) and assorted pals churn out a decent enough set of blues standardas and R'n'B classics from the '60s. It's good stuff but yet no different from the sort of thing you can see equally talented guys playing in the back of your local boozer for five quid or less. Yes, these guys might have actually written one or two of these numbers, but if you're too far away to see them properly and the sound isn't that good then it could have been anyone up there.
• Mike Peters - The former Alarm front man has obviously dragged all his mates from Rhyl down for the day. The tent is packed. He doesn't disappoinnt, delivering a charming set of old and new stuff and being generally quite likeable despite being Welsh. The fan club insist on singing along and he nakes the most of it. Sadly, my nephew Will decides he needs a wee about two songs before the end and I have to take him. I can hear the strains of '68 Guns' wafting over as I wait for Will to finish washing his hands.
• 3 Men + Black - An irregular pick-up band featuring the vocal talents of Pauline Black (ex The Selecter). This time the three men are Eric Faulkner (who obviously has no home to go to), Roddy Radiation (The Specials) and Nick Welsh (Bad Manners). Eric's a late replacement for Stranglers guitarist JJ Burnell, who is still stuck on the motorway. Sadly, we're stuck up the back of the tent (eating fish and chips) and the sound isn't that great. Still they deliver some great acoustic versions of old ska classics and Pauline Black's voice sounds great. I think I'll have to try to catch these guys playing again.
• Chumbawamba (Acoustic) - It's the same guys as played at the folk festival a couple of years ago, as opposed to the full band. They get the audience to singalong, but doing parts of the choruses, rather than the full-on karaoke that some of the others have employed. They almost alienate the audience with an ill-judged remark early on but thankfully the guy realises he's blundered. A good mix of traditional songs and teheir own compositions in a set that flew by.
• Glenn Tilbrook - The former Squeeze front man gets his acoustic guitar out and suddenly them old bittersweet songs have a new poignancy. Makes the puzzling claim that he and Chris Difford didn't get on for most of the time they were in Squeeze. The band were together for more than twenty years, so he can't have disliked him that much, can he? Still, he delivers and 'Up The Junction' in particular sounds as fresh as if he'd just written it. Sadly I can't stay till the end as the Cheese tent is filling up in anticipation of the next act and I need to get in to help lay claim to our space.
• Hayseed Dixie - Undoubtedly the draw of the day, if not the weekend. The tent is absolutely heaving and people are looking for any bit of spare space near the front. Having sent Roger in an hour earlier we've got a good postion in the middle. It's just as well as the sides are being filled by people standing up. Of course, by the middle of their set Hayseed Dixie have pretty much everyone standing up and jigging about a bit. Except for the old couple in front of us who, strangely, only stand up and dance when the band play relatively slow number 'I'm Keeping Your Poop In A Jar'. They are pretty much a one-joke band - heavy metal covers in a hillbilly style - but it's a good joke and they do it so well. They even chuck in a storming version of Green Day's 'On Holiday' preceding it with a hilarious tale of how they were asked to mime it on Top of the Pops. For me, they're the absolute highlight of the weekend.
• The Stranglers - Sadly, after the High-energy clowning of Hayseed Dixie, the Stranglers were always likely to be a bit of an anti-climax. To be fair, they weren't bad but the downbeat nature of their music and performance wasn't doing it for me. so I headed off to beat the crowds.

Overall, it was a pretty good weekend. I didn't really get to see any of the bands in the Octagon tent except in passing (taking Will to the toilet, usually) but The Band From County Hell sounded pretty good in a Pogues-style and my sister said that Jan Graveson was really good on Saturday night. The bar and catering prices were a rip-off but with no bag checks on the gate it was easy to bring in your own booze and nosh (Roger bought in fish and chips on Sunday, for example). It'll be interesting to see if they're a bit more strict next year. I think the organisers also need to think about the positioning of the Octagon tent - it was too close to the Mornflake tent and so there was a bit of cross-pollination between the two in terms of sound. I think there were enough marquees still up from the Nantwich Show that they could possibly have made more use of those, positioning the Octagon acts a bit further awy, perhaps. The other thing I'd think about, if I was organising it, would be making optimal usage of the two main tents by having more acts on and forcing people to choose between the two tents. Glastonbury (and plenty of other festivals) have one main stage and then a number of satellites and I think they should go down this route. Make the Mornflake the main tent, have fewer top names but they all play there, the Cheese tent becomes a lesser lights stage and the Octagon then used for breaking acts. The only other thing I could moan about was the fact that Tom Hingley was advertised on the posters but we never saw him on the actual bill. Sandi Thom was also advertised but thankfully she pulled out. To be honest, if it hadn't been on my doorstep, it's not the sort of festival I would have gone to, but I'm already looking forward to next year.

Go on, stick your oar in:

Tuesday 1st August

When the weather breaks

The prescription sunglasses finally worked last weekend when the weather duly broke on the weekend of the Acoustic Festival. Not that it mattered - a good time was had by all. A report will be appearing on here on Thursday, all things being well. There'll also be a Nantwich show summary and some other stuff. I spent a couple of hours working on my BT rant today but that's still not finished. I suspect BT will have ceased to exist before I finish it. Of course, once I've got that out of the way, there's all the other web projects that I want to do that I still haven't gotten round to...

Go on, stick your oar in: