Tuesday 2nd October

Quick and Dirty

Apologies for leaving it so long between updates but for some reason I seem to have no spare time in the evenings. It can't be because of work because that's just ticking along nicely, so it must be down to my hectic social life... Or it could just have been the other project I've been working on. It's nearly ready now, but don't go getting all excited. It's not worth it.

Anyway, you'll be pleased to know that there's absolutely no progress to report in the on-going saga of the erroneous gas bill. I've received a replacement statement from British Gas, that states I owe them no pounds and no pence, as expected, except this doesn't relate to the period which includes the erroneous bill. Hhhmmm. However, I'm working on the principle that no news is good news and until the bailiffs arrive to seize my worldly goods, I assume this is being sorted out. Of course, having said that, I'll get another erroneous bill tomorrow along with a demand for further costs...

Tip of the Day: Part 45 Don't go ordering custom T-shirts on the Internet late at night and after a couple of beers. It'll all end in tears. Especially if, like me, you order some comedy t-shirts to celebrate seeing Pavol Suhaj score an unlikely goal for Nantwich Town and a) you realise you've spelt it "Pavel", b) the shirts don't arrive in time for the Saturday game and then c) the Slovakian Scorcher whacks in a superb volley during said game. Ah, comedy, like making love to a beautiful woman, is all about timing and mine's obviously terrible. I'm now hoping Big Pav goes a couple of months without finding the back of the net so I can offload them at Christmas...

In Pub Quiz news Amanda Huggenkiss completed a notable hat-trick of wins recently. Having won with a reasonable 48, (a full five points clear of the pack) we then notched up a storming 54 (out of a possible 60) the following week with an under-strength team, before completing the hat-trick with a 50 which saw us sneak home by a point. The final victory was marred by some "comedy" marking which could have cost us, but Charlie and Rob were quick to point out the error. We also completed another notable hat-trick in that we managed to select a different prize each time we won - a bottle of wine, a free meal for four people and eight pints of beer, if you must know.

And it's a big Congratulations to Microsoft whose "transformation" of Hotmail into Live Hotmail has rendered it unusable in my old version of Internet Explorer, forcing me to switch to Firefox 2.0. I've not gone the whole hog of importing everything and switching over completely, yet, but I suspect that I will do in the near future. I'm a bit annoyed as the only information I could find on systems requirements suggests it'll run fine in IE6 SP1. Clearly not my version of IE6... On the other hand it could rely on some fancy new Windows stuff that was introduced in XP, so I've got no chance. But then, if that's the case why does it work fine in Firefox? Anyway, the other "comedy" feature of Live Hotmail (or whatever the heck it's called) is that the upgrade appears to have resurrected hundreds of e-mails that I thought I had deleted. Nice.

There's a load of footy news and other stuff to update you with but that'll have to wait till the weekend as I'm off out to a footy match in a minute and then I'm out tomorrow and Thursday nights so won't get a chance to work on this till Friday. By way of compensation I leave you with the following splendid joke which will probably benefit from being read aloud.

Why do Anarchists drink herbal tea? Because all proper tea is theft.

Go on, stick your oar in:

Wednesday 29th August

blank holiday booze

Blimey, is it only just over a week since I last updated? Seems like a lifetime ago. I'd like to report that it seems that long because I've just been so busy, but the truth is, I haven't. I've even taken a rare week off work and all I've done so far is a bit of washing, a bit of washing up and have a Mighty Boosh marathon. (The good news is they're coming back for a third series. Yay!) I had so many plans - a day out, sort out my bank accounts, do the gardening, sort out all my web stuff, record a few tracks for posterity, that sort of thing - but I don't think I'll get any of them done. I'm a day late with this update as it is.

My gas bill saga rumbles on, of course. Having no confidence that Janet would apply the dunning block as promised, I rang to check last Thursday. And lo, the block was applied to my account. I should have left it there, but offered the chance to speak to the "Customer Escalation Team& quot; to try to sort my bill out I couldn't refuse. I had a brief chat with Tanya regarding the state of play and she assured me that she'd zero-ed the balance on my account, raised the action to correct the original erroneous meter reading and that a new bill should be with me within about two weeks. Wait a minute, isn't this precisely what Adam promised me two months ago? I'm even less confident about this being sorted out now. I'm not that bothered if they come round and cut my gas off, to be honest, but if the details of this "debt" get passed on to credit reference agencies, it's going to be a right pain in the proverbial to put right. Plus I'm not that keen on the thought of bailiffs paying me a visit over an amount that I don't actually owe. Of course, I suppose I'm paying the price for not taking my mate Rob's advice and insisting on speaking to a manager to sort this whole mess out. I beginning to realise that being reasonable just doesn't work. Ah well, let's see what happens next...

By way of light relief from my travails with British Gas I went to watch Nantwich Town in action against Alsager Town last Wednesday night. Truth be told, it was a fairly awful game, made worse by some weak refereeing and some comedy decisions from the linesmen, sorry, referee's assistants. It was a pretty even game till Nantwich introduced a bit of extra pace on the right through Ashley Carter. As the game went into the final quarter Nantwich were piling the pressure on and looked the likelier side to win the game. Sadly, in the third minute of injury time, Alsager scored. There was a large suspicion of offside about the goal, but as the referee's assistant had wrongly flagged for offside minutes earlier, I guess things evened themselves out. Not that that was any consolation to the disappointed Nantwich fans.

I then followed that up by going to watch Crewe at home to Leyton Orient on the Saturday. There's no getting away from the fact that it was a fairly dire game. Perhaps not as poor as the corresponding fixture last season, when Orient thunped us four nil, but there weren't that many chances and neither side really looked like scoring. Orient had the better chances, whilst our inexperienced strike force rarely got sight of goal, getting caught offside with alarming regularity. Even so, the game had nil-nil written all over it until Ben Williams fumbled a mis-hit cross-cum-shot into the back of the net. That was especially disheartening as the lad had been catching everything up till then. In the second half Crewe pushed on trying to find an equaliser but with one or two players tiring and others playing out of position, they lacked the cutting edge to really trouble the keeper. To compound the misery they conceded a late penalty and Orient went home with an undeserved two-nil win. It was a depressing result, especially as the strikers looked unlikely to score in a month of Sundays. To be fair, The Pope and Dickson are still learning their trade at this level, but it puzzled me as to why Miller (who does know where the net is) was only on the bench. Truth is though, that unless someone starts scoring regularly, we're going to have another season of struggle. Hurrah!

Oh well, at least Nantwich Town provided a tonic on Bank Holiday Monday with a fine win at home to Gresley Rovers. With ex-Crewe Alex "star" Pavel Suhaj giving yet another masterclass in how not to look good in front of goal, it was fortunate that new signing Glyn Blakhurst popped up with two first half goals to give them a comfortable lead. The first an excellent turn and volley inside the penalty area following a corner and the second a regulation header. Once the second went in Nantwich were coasting it, and although Gresley tried they never really showed much goal threat. Indeed the only trouble the keeper had was from an overhit back pass. Big Pav was finally subbed after he'd headed a cross away from goal instead of in it, and Andy Kinsey came on and gave us more effort in the last quarter than he probably did all last season. Nantwich got their rewards for some good passing when Ashley Carter got on the end of a flowing move to lash in his first goal for the club. Gresley did pull one back when the ball was poked in from close range, although it did look as if they'd kicked it out of the keeper's hands. It proved to be no more than a consolation and the game was well and truly over for them when their captain was sent off late on.

And that's about it on the footy front. The upside of the two games over the Bank Holiday weekend was that I had a perfectly good excuse for not attending the major muster or Big Battle commerating the Battle of Nantwich. I could have gone along on the Sunday, I suppose, but I was looking after my nephews, who had just got back from holiday and had no transport to get them there and back. Not that I really needed to see it - the major muster may have been a spectacular event but the battle re-enactment takes place every year on Mill Island in the town centre, usually on the third Saturday of January. I've stood freezing my nads off watching too many of those to feel any great desire to see any more. Especially as the Sealed Knot used to crowd into every pub in town afterwards and make it almost impossible to get served on that Saturday night, when I was a lad. This year, with them all being camped just outside town, there was not a single Civil War soldier to be seen in the pubs on a Saturday night. Of course, I could just have been lucky enough to have not been in the same pub, but I don't think so.

Whatever else I do this week, I'll have to be quizzing it on Thursday night, afte Amanda Huggenkiss scraped in a poor second last week. Despite having bought The Sun every day for the previous week I still didn't know that Emma Bunton had given birth or that Canada had announced plans to build military bases in the Arctic. I also failed to make the connection between Julie Goodyear, Ian Botham, Jackie Charlton and a black hole. Apparently, it was Shredded Wheat. anyway, we consoled ourselves with the thought that we don't want to win every week as otherwise that puts people off.

And it looks like being a blank weekend football-wise for me this coming Saturday as both Crewe and Nantwich are away from home. I was tempted to go and see Nantwich at Colne in the Preliminary round the FA Cup, but The Lockdown are apparently playing an afternoon gig at The Limelight in Crewe and there's also my mates Disarm [playing with Dear Superstar at the Dry Bar in Manchester, so I could be heading off up that way. There's bound to be music-related capers and comedy gas bill nonsense to relate for my next update. Toodle pip!

Go on, stick your oar in:

Tuesday 21st August

A yard off the pace

It's all kicked off. The football season, of course. Since my last posting both Crewe Alexandra and Nantwich Town have been in serious action. Crewe kicked off their season first with a home game against Brighton and Hove Albion. Following the management switch around in the summer, this was Steve Holland's first real game in charge. Despite a bright start it all went pear-shaped within twenty-five minutes. First up, Crewe's defence failed to clear the ball properly and Brighton knocked it back into the box where Dean Cox poked it home for a simple goal. Then, our joy at Gary Roberts scoring an equalising penalty was cut short when, virtually from the re-start, Nicky Maynard broke his leg. The sight of our most experienced striker (and this season's expected success story) being stretchered off put a big damper on my hopes for the forthcoming season. Turns out he broke his fibula and damaged ankle ligaments and the prognosis is that he'll be out until the New Year. Not good. That said, debutant Byron Moore stepped into the breach and showed that the Academy production line is still turning out the goods. He didn't score but given that he's two years behind Maynard, he showed enough to suggest he'll make the grade. Anyway, the second half of the game was pretty even and although Brighton had the most of the ball, Crewe snatched the lead when Gary Roberts got on to the end of a Billy Jones cross. It looked like Brighton had a legitimate clainm for a penalty late on but the referee gave it on the edge of the area. They blasted the free-kick high and wide and that was just about it. When the final whistle went I had mixed emotions - pleased with the win and the three points, depressed over the injury to Maynard. Buoyed by the performance I decided to go along to watch the boys at home to Hull City in the first round of the Carling Cup on the Wednesday night. The Alex put on a better performance than the 0-3 scoreline would suggest, although they were architects of their own downfall in conceding a soft penalty for the first goal and blundering in defence for the third. That said, Hull City had enough experience to deal with whatever we threw at them and our inexperienced strike duo of Miller and Pope didn't quite have the nous to make the most of their chances. Worse still was the sight of Byron Moore being stretchered off late in the second half. Luckily his injury is not as serious as feared and he'll be back soon. He wasn't back for Saturday's trip to Bristol Rovers but Tom "The Pope" Pope scored a well-taken equaliser as the team fought back to secure a hard-earned point. From the two games I've seen this season there are definite signs that the team are trying to play more football in the middle of the park and are not being forced backwards as much as they have been over the last couple of seasons.

I didn't actually go to Bristol to watch the Alex as I was at the new Weaver Stadium to witness Nantwich Town's first game in the Unibond First Division South. I'd already been to the stadium to watch a pre-season friendly against Port Vale so had some idea of what to expect. However, I was expecting a bit more of an atmosphere. Perhaps it was the new stadium and perhaps it was the disappointing performance by Nantwich Town but it seemed to be a lot quieter in the new stadium than it used to be at Jackson Avenue. I think it'll take a few games for people to get used to it. For the record Natwich lost 2-0 to Quorn. A goal in either half was enough for the former Unibond Premier outfit. Nantwich's performance was a bit flat and the strikers never really created any clear cut chances. Andy Kinsey looked a yard short of the required pace, but that's nothing new. More worryingly, Crewe reject Pavel Suhaj looked no more suited to this level of football than he looked comfortable playing for Crewe. And after creating one or two openings in the first half Danny Griggs hardly saw the ball in the second. If the Qourn striker (Sidhu, I think it was) had been able to shoot with his left foot Nantwich could have been on the wrong end of a shoe-ing. As it was the guy constantly cut inside to try to get the ball on his right foot and wasted a lot of opportunities. Admittedly, Nantwich were also missing three first-choice defenders and a couple of a midfielders, but even so they were strangely poor. Next game up is at local rivals Alsager, who have been a bogey team in the past. I shall be popping along after work, possibly sporting my new (red) Nantwich Town top, but I'm not too optimistic. It could be a long hard season....

It was with a depressing predictability that I recently received a Final Reminder for my gas bill. I rang British Gas and spoke to Diane, who explained that there was an outstanding action against my account which is why I keep receiving demands. She said she'd put a block on the account so that no further action was taken but a mere week later I received a Notice of Legal Action. I rang British Gas again yesterday and spoke to Janet who said she would put a "dunning block" on the account so that it would go no further and she'd investigate why my account hadn't been updated. I have absolutely no confidence that either of these things will have happened so will be ringing them back on Thursday to find out what the state of play is. Things have dragged on now over this one mistaken bill and quite frankly I'm getting fed up. Anyway, for your amusement I am in the process of compiling all my documents and knocking together a webpage detailing the whole sorry saga. Mind you, if this unfortunate Kent couple are anything to go by, I've got a long battle ahead of me...

On a lighter note, a week last Monday night I went to the newly-opened M Club in Crewe to see Hayseed Dixie. I tried to time my arrival to miss the support act, but as with my trip to the Shakespeare a week or so before, I got it all wrong. I was forced to endure the delights of Neck, a London-based Oirish band. Whilst I'm not averse to Pogues-style treatments of traditional Irish music and songs penned in the same vein, the main problem with Neck was that every song sounded like the Pogues' "Wild Irish Rover". Even their version of Anarchy In the UK, which was no mean achievement. There may be more subtlety in their recorded output but live I couldn't hear the banjo (the guy might as well have stayed at the bar) and the fiddle was virually inaudible too, so all we had were guitar, drums, tin whistle and shouty vox. Oh, and a painful blast of feedback at one point. Hayseed Dixie, on the other hand, have tightened up their act even since I saw them at the Acoustic Festival last year. The sound was spot on, the banter was excellent and these guys know how to put on a show. I did wonder if the novelty of their one-joke act - rock songs covered in uptempo hillbilly bluegrass style - would wear off after having seen them already, but they play it wonderfully straight and are obviously splendid musicians. Even if the mandolin player - Deacon Dale Reno - does look like an overgrown Oompah-Loompah... Anyway, a good time was had by all, even if the beer was slightly on the expensive side and looked in danger of running out at one point. They played a lot of their "hits", included some stuff from the new album, pulled off a very amusing mash-up of Hotel California and Careless Whisper and finished with a storming version of Duelling Banjos. The only down side of the night was not being able to get a taxi from the town centre afterwards and having to walk up to the railway station in order to get home. Oh, and feeling knackered at work the following day.

Er, and that's it really. Not much else to tell. I would boast of Amanda Huggenkiss's wins in the pub quiz, but to be honest, they're becoming a bit to frequent to be proud of. I think even the pub management are getting fed up of us - whenever we pick the "bottle of bubbly" prize now we get some cheap Italian fizz, whereas we when started it was proper champagne, albeit some chateau you'd never heard of. The one thing we have noticed about the pub quiz recently though is that there are a lot of people prepared to use their mobile phones in order to find out the answers. Last week, for example, a couple of girls sat near us spent virtually the whole quiz on their phones repeating the questions to whoever was on the other end of the line. It was a bit of a poor show but luckily the people they were ringing had no clue either. Plus both girls were rather attractive, so I was prepared to forgive them. However, they were by no means the only ones and it's now a matter of honour that we never use our phones during the quiz. That said, I have noticed that Charlie has recently taken to leaving his phone on the table during the quiz, but I think this is his way of showing off that he has lady friends (or indeed any friends) who want to speak to him at all hours whereas Rob and I don't...

And finally, for your delectation and delight a couple of gems from youtube. First up, an unlikely duet between Morrissey and Siouxsie Sioux, covering Interlude, a song from the film of the same name. Not sure how this one passed me by at the tme as it rather gorgeous. The video, by the way, is made up of scenes from the film 'Dance With a Stranger', which is all about Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in Britain. And moving swiftly on from the sublime to the ridiculous - the strangely much-lamented late Bernard Manning sings The Smiths. A comedy LP obviously, but part of me can't help wishing I'd got this. Anybody seen it on ebay? Enjoy.

Go on, stick your oar in:

Sunday 5th August

A pint and a punch-up

As the Acoustic Festival was cancelled, I took advantage of my free weekend to see The Simpsons Movie. Well, I have to say that it IS like watching a long episode of the TV Series, but at least it wasn't interrupted by crappy adverts halfway through (or, if you watch them on Sky One, every five minutes...) and it did have it's genuinely funny moments. And it does feature a lot of cocks. Of course that could just have been my interpretation, but look at Homer's silo and the lightshades in the church and see if you agree. Oh yeah and of course you get to see Bart's tackle. All in all, it's a decent movie and the only thing it does really lack is a cameo from Troy McClure. Not going to happen though.

Having seen Rig Up Explosive at the Civic Hall in Nantwich (see below), I took a punt on seeing them again in The Shakespeare pub, to see if they could live up to the promise of their CD. Having noted the advertised start time of 8pm, I ignored it and turned up at about 8.30, knowing that there was no chance in Hell that the band would be on before then. Indeed, the support act hidesincaves didn't actually take the stage till 9.40, by which time I'd had a few beers and got chatting to an old mate or two, who I'd just happened to have bumped into in the pub. hidesincaves are proponents of that fast riffage/screamo vocal combination that seems to be popular with the younglinggs. I spent pretty much all their set in the beer garden, from where they sounded OK. By the time Rig Up Explosive came on, about 10.40pm, I'd had a few more beers and was stuck mostly in the beer garden - it was too crowded and too loud inside for my aged companions! However, from what I did see, they'd got the sound sorted and they sounded pretty damn good. I'm definitely impressed and will be looking out to see whne they're playing live near me in the the future.

I know I don't mention work much, but I do have to mention that this week I had to upgrade to Office 2007. I'd been trying to put it off, on the grounds of incompatibility with RoboHelp, but I'm not going to be outputting anything from RoboHelp to Word in the near future, so it was pointless argument. As you may well know, the main feature of Office 2007 is the re-organistaion of the menus and toolbars in Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc into "The Ribbon". Of course, it's not really a ribbon, more an oversized toolbar that looks like it's shouting at you. The good news is that you can change your default settings so that you're not confronted with this monstrosity everytime you open Word or Excel or whatever. The bad news is that it appears to give you easy access to more ways of mucking up a document. Which is infuriating for those of us who spend their time setting up templates and styles. The last thing you want to see is a whole host of new ways in which users can break your templates. Anyway, to be honest, having had a play with Word for a week or so, I'm not that upset about it. True, the re-organisation of the menus and toolbars mean I've had to re-learn how to do things, and some of the changes make no more sense than they did originally, but if you hide the Ribbon and customize the Quick Access toolbar it's not that bad. I have ordered the Word 2007 Bible in order to understand evwen more about it, but I chose Super Saver Delivery from Amazon (which means free and slow) and I think I'll have sussed it all out by the time I actually get the book...

Anyway, thinking of cock, I see that that lovable football manager, Neil Warnock, has been responsible for talking a lot of it this week. That esteemed organ, The Sun newspaper has been serializing his autobiography this week. Obviously they've skipped the boring bits about his playing time at Crewe, Barnsley and York (amongst others) and gone straight to the bits where he blamed everyone but himself or his team for Sheffield United's relegation from the Premiership last season. And whilst you can have a bit of sympathy with him regarding West Ham and Carlos Tevez, he precedes to piss this away by blaming Fergie for playing a weakened United side against West Ham and Rafa Benitez for playing a much-changed side at Fulham, a mere three days after they'd got through to the Champions League final. Yes, of course, that was what got Sheffield relegated, not their own failure to get enough points during the season. In fact, had Sheffield United managed to avoid defeat at home to a poor Wigan team on the last day of the season they would have stayed up anyway. Yes, I know The Sun have a duty to make it sound more sensational than it might otherwise be (after all they have sell papers) but Warnock's blamestorming really does grate with me.

And don't get me started on Sir Elton John's recent claim that we should shut down the Internet because it's killing musical creativity... Twunt!

And relax. Anyway, if you're stuck for something to do during the August Bank Holiday weekend, then you really must move over here. Not only is there the annual Crewe Carnival and both Crewe and Nantwich having home games over that weekend, but also this year there's a mini music festival at The Boot and Shoe, Nantwich and the Sealed Knot's Major Muster has got the go-ahead. Sadly, the Big Battle Of Nantwich website appears to be down at the moment, but there appears to be a whole host of events on over the weekend. Of course what this means for us locals is a massive influence of hairy, smelly, scruffs in period costume, filling our pubs and rudely demanding "pints of foaming ale". And that'll just be the women! Thank you, I'll be here all week...

Go on, stick your oar in:

Wednesday 25th July

Irony, thy name is weather.

Of course, my healthy assertion that the Acoustic Festival was still going ahead despite the cancellation of the Nantwich Show, condemned the venture really. Either that or the organisers read my comment about my PVC catsuit and decided to spare the festival-go-ers the horror... Whatever the reason, the plug was pulled on the festival yesterday, and so my weekend has suddenly become very empty. In a neat twist the announcement of the festival's cancellation has been followed by the best two days weather of the last couple of months. It won't last. I was up at the site today to take in the International Cheese Show (well I had a day off and I wasn't going to waste it entirely) and I can't really see how they had any other choice. On the walkways that they'd laid it was OK but off-piste the mud was ankle deep and there was still standing water. Given that two of the proposed stages didn't have walkways and hard standing areas, we'd have soon have been in Glastonbury territory in terms of mud. And whilst the perils of the mud may be acceptable to the younglings that go to Glasto, this event is aimed at a more affluent, middle-class, middle-aged audience, the sort of people who have, in fact, left their Glastonbury mud experiences behind in the 70s and 80s and have no wish to repeat them, thank you very much. Evidence of the muddy conditions can be seen in the photos below - the first showing the Octagon tent (I think) in splendid mud-bound isolation and the second showing the condition of the flooring inside the Cheese show marquee.

Of course, it's not all bad news. At least this means that I won't have to put up with the earnest folk-rock wailings of Jethro Tull or the tedious Oirish-ness of the Saw Doctors for at least another year! The organisers have promised to try to re-book as many of the acts as possible for next year's event, so here's hoping those aformentioned already have important engagements pencilled in...

As mentioned above I went up to the International Cheese Show this afternoon, mainly to get a first-hand view of the site, to be honest, but also to get a look at the usual displays of lovely cheeses from round the globe. The turn out from the manufacturers was still good, despite the weather, and there were plenty of eager young men and women trying to tempt me with their cheesy comestibles. There were also plenty of visitors there. The fact that it was free may have helped, of course, but there was still a decent through-put. It was good to see the many splendid hand-crafted cheeses and the many free samples available. And, as usual, there was the incongruous interloper in the display. This year it was Brunchettas making an appearance in the Snack Cheeses classes. How queer. Anyway, here's a nice picture of the cheese display and another one of the site, taken just at the edge of the walkway outside.

After visiting the show I took a bit of a stroll along the nearby canal. Which surprised the bloke sailing his barge down it, I can tell you. Actually, I walked along the towpath, not the canal itself. I took a few more pictures with my cameraphone because there were plenty of barges moored along there and also the weather was nice, so it looked picturesque. Sadly, all the pictures did was show up the limitatins of my cameraphone, so they're not presented here. Which is a shame because I'm not sure when the weather will be nice enough again for me to stroll down the canal and get some proper pictures with a proper camera. Also it prevents me from telling you about the mini sculpture trail that runs along the canal. It's a mini sculpture trail in the sense that it's not very long and not that the sculptures are very small, by the way. Start at Nantwich Marina and head towards the town and you'll see them. All canal-related, of course. Very interesting.

Changing subjects somewhat, regular readers concerned over my gas safety, will be relieved to know that I had an engineer round this very day, who inspected all the fires and pronounced them all safe and sound. Perfectly use-able and not a danger to life at all. So, great, I could have turned them on last winter instead of freezing my arse off the whole time... Still better safe than sorry. In other gas-related capers it will come as a surprise to no one that I have received a reminder for my outstanding bill with British Gas. You know, the one that I thought I had cleared up and didn't have to pay. Ah well, back on the phone to Adam tomorrow, I guess. Hope he's got a plausible reason why this should still be ongoing.

And in yet another swift change; music. Last Saturday night my mate Ian dragged me down to Nantwich Civic Hall to watch his son's band in action. We missed the first band, who are, I'm afraid, condemned to anonymity by the fact that their name wasn't on the poster. Next on were Samara Morgan. Fast riffage, screamy/growly vocals, you'll either love them or hate them. Unfortunately for them the guitarist broke a string during the first number and there was a lengthy delay whilst a replacement guitar was cadged. Doubly unfortunately for them they were playing at the Civic Hall and despite all the money apparently spent on the acoustics, once the volume gets over a certain level, everything disntegrates into a sludgy mess. The sprung dancefloor and the speaker stacks upon it wouldn't have helped matters, but you really need to either hang some speakers from the ceiling or turn everything down to get the best out of the venue, I think. Anyway, whatever subtleties there were to be had in the riffage were lost and it just sounded like a racket. Sorry guys but it did. Next up were The Lockdown, the act I'd been dragged along to see. Unashamedly indie, with strong overtones of Snow Patrol and slight hints of Placebo, they were probably the odd ones out on the bill. They suffered the same acoustic problems as everyone else but the songs were strong enough to shine through, notably "The Last Goodbye". And they delivered a decent stab at Muse's "Plug-In Baby" to finish. Enjoyable. They need to work on their stage craft, but that's only natural - I don't recall my own teenage band springing forth fully-formed. I'd pop along and see them again. Lockdown were followed by Footprints In The Custard. I'll be honest, they're not my cup of tea. They'd go down a storm at Download or some such rock festival but that's not my arena. They suffered the same sound problems as everyone else and as a result some of the humour was lost on me. I'll admit too, that we nipped outside for a breather while they were on so missed much of the set. The penultimate band of the crowded bill were The Almost Super Heroes Nu-punk, from the same school as NOFX, Lagwagon, those types. Pretty good at what they do, with some decent tunes too. Not the future of rock'n'roll but entertaining. Last band of the night were Rig Up Explosive. I'll be honest, I was intrigued. With the sludgy sound it was hard to pin down whether they were Arctic Monkey-wannabes, ska-punks or genuinely different. They certainly had tunes but there was no way of picking out any subtleties in the melodies. I bought ther CD afterwards and listening to it days later, I'm still intrigued. They are a bit ska-punk, but there's less punk in it than yopu might imagine and there are other influences pulled in there instead - Red Hot Chili Peppers, Gang of Four, Oasis, Ordinary Boys (but in a good way!) and someone else I can't quite put my finger on. Anyway, they're playing at The Shakespeare pub on Tuesday night so I think I'll pop along and catch them again. Purely for research purposes, of course.

Football-wise, you'll be relieved to hear that there's not much to report. I went to watch Crewe in a pre-season friendly last week, but I missed much of the match as that dirty beer got in the way. Or was it the football that got in the way of the beer? There's not been any pre-season excitement at Nantwich Town either, other than the fact that the weather has delayed the completion of the new stadium. The ground, to be named The Weaver Stadium, will hopefully be handed over to the club by the end of the month but in the meantime a few planned friendlies have had to be postponed/cancelled. Still not long till the start of the new season now, so you can look forward to more tedious football-based reports.

Finally, but better late than never and all that, here's a picture of me and my siblings all gathered together at Christmas. Provided for my sister-in-law, Kate. (I've got a bigger, hi-res original if you want, my dear.) Anyway, you don't need to be a rocket scientist to spot why I grew my beard back. And there's no prize for spotting I've got my little instrument in my hand. And a ukulele.

Go on, stick your oar in: