Tuesday 17th July

Cocking Paints

Well, the bad weather has claimed yet another victim with the cancellation of the Nantwich Show. They haven't updated their website to reflect that sad news yet, though. Anyway, for only the second time in it's 111-year history, the show has been cancelled, and this is the first time the weather has been the cause. The last time the show was cancelled was, I believe, in 2001, due to the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. It's not entirely a disaster though as the International Cheese Festival is still going ahead. Not that sure if I'll be popping along to that, to be honest. It'll depend on the whethers. Whether or not it's raining and whether or not the gas bloke finishes inspecting my gas fires at a reasonable hour.

It did occur to me, on reading the headlines about the show, that the Acoustic Festival is held on the same site a few days later and that this might also be in danger, but apparently not. So, great, it looks like those of us who missed out on the Glastonbury mud experience will be getting our own little South Cheshire version! Of course, that does give me an excuse to slip on the PVC catsuit and matching thigh boots - "Not only sexy, love, but wipe clean too.". Alright, maybe not.

In other news, I was off up in Grimsby last weekend. I went over to meet up with my old mate Kev, who I haven't seen for a while. It was nice to catch up. I'd been meaning to catch up with him for a while but, as virtually anyone I know will tell you, I'm rubbish at keeping in touch. In fact, if I do know you and you're feeling a bit resentful of the fact I haven't been in touch for a while, sorry, but I am rubbish at that sort of thing. Rest assured my lack of contact is not a reflection on the value I place on our friendship but a measure of my under-developed social skills. Unless, of course, I hate you. But then how would you know?

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes, Grimsby. It was great. Friday night we stayed in and had a curry, some beers and a good old catch-up chat. Saturday we went out to re-visit some of our old haunts from our student days. To be fair, both Kev and I hung around Grimsby for a fair while after being students so there aren't that many places in the town we haven't actually been in. Admittedly some of them only once, and we'll not being going back in a hurry, but a new experience in terms of Grimsby pubs wasn't on the cards. Especially as Kev wouldn't let me go in the lapdancing club! Anyway, it was a swift round of some old favourites - Wetherspoons, Swigs, The Barge - before heading up to Cleethorpes for a few more beers, some games of pool, fish and chips and an ill-advised last pint before getting a train back to Kev's. I was slightly disappointed that Kev wasn't up for a nostalgic trip to Gullivers, where we spent many an (un)happy evening, but I guess there's always next time... Anyway, Sunday morning was spent shifting furniture for Kev's elderly neighbour (thanks, mate) and then after a hearty lunch it was off to The Signal Box Inn, a.k.a. The Smallest Pub on the Planet, for a couple of refreshing scoops before getting the train home.

Speaking of trains, regular readers will be surprised to learn that despite travelling on Friday 13th, my journey to Grimsby via Derby and Sheffield was largely uneventful and the train arrived mere minutes later than advertised. On the way back on Sunday evening the trains were similarly punctual but unfortunately my journey was spoiled by the noise of my fellow passengers. Now,I appreciate that it's hard to keep kids amused and get them to behave even at the best of times, but after three-quarters of an hour of listening to a young girl's randomly-spaced ear-piercing shrieks, even I was beginning to get annoyed. Worst thing was that her mother appeared to think that not only was this behaviour normal but also that it was acceptable. Anyway, I uttered a silent cheer when they left the train at Doncaster, but I was premature in giving thanks. The irritating kid was replaced by the bungling, argumentative foreign family who not only managed to leave a pushchair on the platform (fortunately sans baby) but then proceeded to argue about it and shout into their mobile phones for the next forty minutes. Once they'd calmed down though, their babies (presumably unused to the absence of a row) kicked in. It was with a glad heart that I escaped the noise when leaving the train at Stockport. There was still time for a brief panic when I noticed that my planned connection wasn't included on the timetables on display, but in the end I got all the way back to Nantwich and managed to nip round to the curry house on my way home from the station. Result.

Anyway, that's it for now. I've got some more stuff to write about and a couple of pictures that might be worth posting but you'll have to wait for them. I'm off to watch Crewe play Alsager in a friendly after work tomorrow and then it's quiz night Thursday so I might get round to doing an update on Friday night if I haven't had a better offer in the meantime...

Go on, stick your oar in:

Tuesday 10th July

All aboard the Skylark!

Ah, first up, in order to appease the Gods of Quiz, who obviously weren't smiling upon us last week, I just have to mention that Amanda Huggenkiss have been doing fairly well in the quiz at the Cronkinson's Farm pub in the past few weeks. In fact, winners on four weeks out of the last six. I also have to point out that sequence includes a win when Charlie wasn't present, meaning that Rob can now reasonably claim to be carrying both me and Charlie, as he's been there every time we've won, whereas myself and Charlie have both missed a winning performance. Of course, this is at least partly true as both Charlie and I are fairly poor on the picture round. But then we all have different strengths - I know the soap and trivia stuff and Charlie knows all about Harry Potter - which is what makes us a formidable team. We ought to compete individually one night, just for a bit of fun, to find out who really is the best all-rounder, but I suspect that's just asking for trouble as Rob and Charlie are somewhat competitive (as brothers often are).

T'other weekend I went over to my parents place in Conisbrough. It looked a good opportunity to kill three birds with one stone - I had some banking business to do, I could go and see a couple of bands at The Civic and also get a lift to/from the annual Lawrence clan gathering. Well, the weekend got off to a less than auspicious start when I went into Doncaster to find that my bank branch had closed the previous day in preparation for a merger with another branch. And whilst the other bank branch was open, my account hadn't been migrated to their system so I couldn't do the transfer anyway. So one bird escaped. Still, I did manage to get to The Civic to take in the Goth-slash-doom-slash rock stylings of NFD and their goth-ish support band Rhombus. To be fair, apart from their rubbish '80s electropop name, Rhombus were actually quite good. The only other fault I could pick with then would be that the frontman's choice of outfit - jacket with sleeves rolled up, purple shirt, black tie and black hat (a Homburg, I reckon) - made him look like a a Peter Davison-era Dr Who companion. Perhaps that was the look he was aiming for though? NFD on the other hand appeared to be aiming for a look that was a cross between pirate chic and crusty. The band was formed from the ashes of the Fields of the Nephilim, the late 80s goth-slash-rock band. To much general apathy they re-united briefly a couple of years ago and then split up again. Still the bass player and drummer are keeping the torch burning and also reinforcing the impression that being a goth involves the wearing of a stupid hat...

Anyway, Sunday morning and it was off down to Welford-on-Avon for the annual family gathering. In an unlikely turn of events not only did we set off almost on time but, we arrived more than an hour early. My Dad had decided upon an early start to avoid the build up of traffic round Donnington for the British Motorbike Grand Prix. Fortunately for us the British Summer weather was in full effect and all the bikers making their way to Donnington were either still at home in the dry or parked up under bridges waiting for the rain to ease off. As a result, there were no hold-ups and we ended up killing time in a pub car park by the Avon in order to save ourselves from arriving too early. We were stil early, just not ridiculously early, although we were early enough that we had to kill time in the car park and not in the pub. Anyway, the usual suspects were all present and correct, the rain stayed away for most of the day and when it did rain we were handily protected by the enormous gazebo-cum-tent that Mike had put up. Not much else to report really - everyone was fine, the food was good and everyone who was there had a good time.

Having sensibly booked the following day off so that I could drink an enormous amount and not have to worry about getting up at stupid o'clock, it was with some concern that I woke to find Conisbrough and it's surrounding environs in the grip of a torrential downpour. It's difficult to describe how bad it was but, basically, imagine the worst British rain you've ever seen and then imagine that carrying on for 36 hours. I had to put my coat on when going out to the bin to avoid getting drenched. I'd planned to head back west around 3pm on the Monday but by that time the roads at the bottom of the village were flooding and the local rail service had been suspended. And it was still hammering down. I abandoned plans for the day and resolved to try agian on Tuesday. Sadly the travel situation was even worse on Tuesday - I couldn't get anywhere near Sheffield due to flooding, the motorway and several major roads were closed and rail services in South Yorkshire were pretty much scuppered. I had to call work and let them know I was stranded. Fortunately, my parents live up towards the top fo Conisbrough, so their house was unaffected, apart from losing the cable TV for 24 hours. Anyway, I was finally able to get out fo the village on Wednesday morning but there was still such remaining chaos after the floods that the journey back was a bit of a nightmare. Of course, that's nothing unusual to me - I can have nightmare journeys even on days when the weather is perfect. However I was aiming to be back in work for lunchtime and ended up not making it by any stretch. I abandoned the attempt to get to work fairly early and finally got back to my house not much before 4pm. Still I did manage to get this nice picture of a rainbow from the train on the last leg of my journey home.

Following my misadvetures in one part of Yorkshire, it was with some trepidation that the following weekend I headed over to Leeds to meet up with my brother, Mark and his wife, Kate. Well, the weather wasn't that brilliant there either but the company more than made up for it. Friday night we went for a curry at Raja's. I have to confess I'd never heard of the place but Mark and Kate assured me it was excellent. And even if I didn't take their word for it, there were enough clippings from the national Press pasted all over the place to demonstrate that the place had acquired a decent reputation. And I have to say it lived up to the billing - the food was excellent, the service was good and friendly and although I didn't get a look at the final bill the menu prices seemed pretty reasonable to me. It gets a Fatfakir Thumbs Up!, whatever that's worth. On Saturday, Kate had to work but, after a leisurely brekkie, Mark and I took a trip to Saltaire. It's a model town built by Sir Titus Salt for the workers at his mill. Some of the architecture is fabulous and I wished I'd bought that digital camera I was on about getting. Then after a rather damp wander round, through the showers, we had a nosy round Salts Mill. No longer a mill, of course, but a gallery-cum-bookshop-cum-diner-cum-tourist trap. If you've got a few quid spare you can pick up a limited edition David Hockney print or two (I don't have that sort of money spare, sadly) or you can get posters and the like. We had a nosh in the diner, which was nice, but a bit over-priced, in my opinion. Not that I paid the bill, mind you. Sunday was a lazy day spent watching the rain sweep over the house periodically. It wasn't bad enough for me to get stuck there sadly, so I had to come home. The return journey had a slight edge to it following the car bomb at Glasgow Airport. There were armed Police in Leeds station and everyone on the train was eye-ing up their neighbour whilst trying to look inconspicuous. Well, that's how it seemed to me. By contrast I saw one policeman at Manchester and none at Crewe. Crewe's armed Police obviously don't work Sundays but they were all over the station by Monday morning...

I've not been out and actually bought any new albums recently, but my brother did very kindly "lend" me a Jake Thackray box set. If you've never heard of him, I'm going to have a bit of trouble describing him without making him sound like the sort of act you should be running away from. But I'll give it a go. Jake Thackray was (aye, he sadly died a few years back) a singer -songwriter, who specialised in comic, slightly risque songs, delivered deadpan in his distinctive Yorkshire voice. You see, I agonised over that sentence and still it doesn't do him justice. Anyway, you can check out a couple of his masterpieces on YouTube - The Bull and On Again. Go on, have a look.

I mentioned below my recent run-in with British Gas, who appear to be unable to resolve a simple meter reading cock-up. Since "sorting out" my erroneous bill, I've had two replacement bills for exactly the same incorrect amount. Can't say I'm overly confident I won't get another Notice of Disconnection... This may yet run and run. Stay tuned for more developments.

Go on, stick your oar in:

Wednesday 20th June

Rescuing Roddy Random

Just time for a quick update before I go off gallivanting over the next couple of weekends. Got the annual Lawrence family gathering to look forward to next weekend and then seeing my brother in Leeds the weekend after. And no, that doesn't mean I'll see my brother two weekends in a row as he's missing the family gathering due to holidaying in Iceland. Or maybe he's just planning to be shopping at Iceland that day. I'm not entirely sure, to be honest. Anyway, because modern life is either rubbish or just far too complicated, depending on which newspaper you read, this latest update will be based on some things I have learnt over the last few weeks that might help you. Or possibly not.

One. If you decide to buy a cup of coffee on the way to work, make sure when you're drinking it that all the coffee is going in your mouth and not dribbling down your shirt. Sounds easy, I know but it's happened to me twice. Also, the usual tactic of donning a tie to cover the resultant offending stain will only work if you've spilled the coffee down the middle of your shirt front. There's no point in spending the day with your tie askew, covering your right nipple as you'll just look more foolish than if you simply exposed the stain. Er, apparently, so I've been told...

Two. If a man comes running up to you in the street asking for help because he's just been attacked, don't bother dialling 999 for the Police - they won't be interested. Even though, according to their own guidelines (here) I was right to call 999. Anyway, they'll just give you a local number to call instead. And the cops at the end of that number won't be very interested either. Admittedly said man didn't have any visible injuries and there was no sign of his assailants but he was clearly shaken up and scared. There were a number of back and forth conversations with a policewoman at the other end of the phone but it was fairly clear that they weren't about to send anyone out to attend. In the end Rob (who had just been dropping me off after another successful quiz night) and I ended up taking the poor chap across town to his car, exchanging phone numbers and advising him to report the incident in person. I thought I'd hear no more about it, but the police did then ring me about twenty minutes after I'd gone to bed, so the young man had obviously reported it. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to tell them much - we hadn't witnessed an assault or any assailants - so there was not a lot the police could go on. To be fair, I have had a subsequent call but apart from letting them know where the victim had parked his car I couldn't add anything else they didn't already know. I suspect this won't go much further. Not that they necessarily would have got any further if the Police had come out in the first place, but at least then the victim would have had the reassurance he was being taken seriously. And he wouldn't have had to rely on two total strangers playing the Good Samaritans.

Three. If your music journalist brother advises you that whenever music journalists rave about a band's latest release, then you ought to skip it and buy the previous release because that is almost certainly a better album, try to remember that at all times. Don't ignore that advice just because you saw the band doing an interesting cover version on The Culture Show on BBC2. Otherwise you'll end up with the frankly disappointing Neon Bible by Arcade Fire when you should really have bought their cracking debut album, Funeral, first instead. Could have saved myself a bit of time and money there, to be honest, although I probably would have bought Neon Bible anyway.

Four. British Gas are rubbish. It's true and it's official. Now, I never use any gas in my house. I only have four gas fires - no central heating, no gas cooker, no gas-fired boiler, nothing else. I never use these gas fires because, despite repeated requests, the letting agents haven't provided a Gas Safety Inspection certificate and not had the fires inspected. I don't have any Carbon Monoxide detectors in the house, so have firmly stuck to my safety first policy and not put them on. Not even in the middle of winter when I was freezing my proverbials off every day. Since moving in then, my gas bills have been zero, zero and zero, as you would expect. So imagine my surprise when, shortly after my meter was replaced, I received a bill for almost £1200. Especially as the bill related entirely to the period before my meter was replaced. Shurely shome mistake, I thought. Indeed there was - a simple comedy transposition of the meter number and the actual reading, both barely legible on the label on the new meter. However it took me three phone calls, totalling just under two hours, to an 0845 number before I could get it sorted and then I had to make a further couple of calls to the Frontline Support team to get it finally sorted. In the meantime, I received a reminder, and a final reminder despite assurances from the Customer Services bods that I wouldn't... Anyway, having finally sorted it out this morning I was delighted to be told that I'd be receiving another incorrect bill as it had been re-issued, and then to get a call from the Debt Collection department this afternoon, who clearly dialled my number before bothering to call up my account details.

Five. Er, well there was a number five, but I've obviously forgotten it. Perhaps it was that you should always write your best ideas down so that you don't forget them... Ah well, four useful bits of information there, I fancy.

Anyway, that's it for this brief update - as I said before I'm off over the next couple of weekends. I've then got a weekend free before a trip to Grimsby and after that the pre-season friendlies start and before you know it the football season will be back in full swing and it'll be back to the usual round of potted sports reports and the occasional piece of randomness.

Oh and quick Congratulations! to my old friend Lisa who gave birth to a daughter very recently.

Oops nearly forgot - every other twonk has had their say on the new Olympic logo, so here's my offering which conveys the spirit of the Games and also neatly illustrates how London won it's bid...

Go on, stick your oar in:

Monday 28th May

A day-trip to The Crunch

Eeh, more than a month before I get round to doing an update. It's terrible, anybody would think I'm just too busy to update the site, or more likely, that I'm not doing anything worth writing about. Sadly, I think it is mostly the latter. Ah, 'tis true, over the last few weeks I've mostly been working or sleeping or sleeping at work.

In between the work/sleep cycles I managed to get along to Crewe Alexandra's last home game of the season. Which was a frustrating draw with Tranmere, in which Crewe paid the price for not scoring in the first half, after the Tranmere 'keeper had been sent off for deliberate handball outside the area. They had enough chances but failed to put one away. Tranmere came out blazing in the second half, scored early and then tried to sit back and defend their lead. Fortunately, Shaun Miller came on to score his third goal of the season and save the day. At the final whistle there was the usual pitch invasion which briefly threatened to turn ugly when a few Crewe idiots goaded some Tranmere idiots into running onto the pitch for a spot of 'handbags at five paces', but that was largely snuffed out by the stewards and police. Post-match I had a few beers and a curry with some of my fellow fans, which was nice. Crewe went on to finish their season with a decent nil-nil draw at Nottingham Forest, and that was it - a somewhat disppointing season over and done with.

Off the field, of course, the work hasn't stopped for the Alex and the biggest news of the close season so far has been the sale of leading striker Luke Varney to Charlton Athletic for an initial fee of £2M. Whilst it's disappointing to see the club lose such an asset, especially after some of the dismal performances of a the last couple of seasons, it is undoubtedly good business on Crewe's part. I certainly don't think they would have got any more for him in a six months time and the money gives the club a bit of leeway to bring in new faces as well as covering this season's projected loss of around £1.6M. The other thing that will give the club a bit more flexibility in bringing in new players is the offloading of a lot of the squad players. The cull has started and by my reckoning the club have let nine players leave already and four have turned down new contracts, and there are two players who'll have to prove their fitness before they get offered contracts. Throw into the mix the 13 players who left last summer, and the couple who were let go in January and that's a turnover of nearly thirty players in the space of a year. Admittedly a lot of those players were on the fringes of the first-team and the club has had an overly-large squad for the past couple of seasons, but even so. The side that started this season bore little resemblance to the side that finished the season before, and whilst next season there may be a little more continuity, I suspect the side will be one that is still in transition. 'Twas ever thus, of course, but lately the pace of change seems to have increased.

Mind you, if the playing side is in transition, then so too is the management. The long-awaited succession plan has finally been revealed and, in typical Crewe style, they've made a mess of it in PR terms. Dario is still in charge although he's no longer Manager, the Academy Director is now also the First Team Coach and the Assistant Manager retains his title although he's got no Manager to assist... I suspect the arrangement actually reflects what's been happening off the pitch over the last few years anyway - the first team has been run by a three-man committee with Dario having overall control. The changes probably mean Dario will relinquish some of that control to Steve Holland (the 1st Team Coach) giving him more time to concentrate on the Academy and scouting. Neil Baker will continue to do whatever it is the Assistant Manager does, presumably going out scouting for decent players with Dario more often as Steve Holland gets on with training the 1st Team. Interestingly, the first change Steve Holland has made is to introduce afternoon training sessions. Not sure how well that'll go down with some of the senior professionals at the club, but if it improves the standard of the team it's got to be welcomed. Whatever happens, I'll be there next season,. Supporting that is, not training twice a day. I barely trained twice a week when I was playing rugby - twice a day would probably kill me now.

In other football news (yes, I'm getting it out of the way early) Nantwich Town have found out who their opponents for next season will be. Having achieved promotion to the Unibond Northern Premier League, there has been a bit of a wait whilst the teams were finalised. The Northern Premier League Division 1 has been split into two leagues - Midlands and Northern. Nantwich have been placed in to the Midlands Division along with Alsager Town, Belper Town, Brigg Town, Cammell Laird, Carlton Town, Colwyn Bay, Goole, Grantham Town, Gresley Rovers, Kidsgrove Athletic, Quorn, Retford United, Sheffield, Shepshed Dynamo, Spalding United, Stocksbridge PS, and Warrington Town. So, sadly, no money-spinning visit from FC United next season and some long-distance trips to look forward to. On the other hand there is the local derby against Alsager to look forward to and if Colwyn Bay away is on a Saturday at either end of the season, that'll be a nice day out. Knowing my luck though, it'll be on a freezing Tuesday night in November...

In other big news, I've been to see Spiderman 3. In fact I've seen it twice. On the same day. Well, I had to watch it twice - the first time to enjoy it and the second time to work out whether or not it was actually any good. Well, in terms of the three Spiderman movies so far this one definitely has the most stunts and the best effects, but sadly it's about 30 minutes too long. The end drags on a bit, there's too much faffing about in the middle and there are too many plotlines, meaning that they all suffer from not having enough screen time. There's plenty in this film that works and hangs together with everything we know about Spiderman and yet somehow the film isn't as good as I was expecting. All the elements of the film are right but it doesn't quite hang together and ends up dragging on for about 30 minutes too long. I think they could have dropped the Sandman out of the film and coupled Venom with the Green Goblin to take on Spidey. That way they could have used the Venom storyline and still have had Harry redeem himself at the end. They'd have also saved a good half an hour of the film and a stack of money on the Sandman effects. Money they could have spent on a better story editor. That's not to say that the Sandman was a bad character - they gave him a decent back story and the genesis of the Sandman is one of the outstanding set pieces in the film, but if you were trying to edit the film to make it leaner and better paced, the Sandman would be the easiest character to lose. Having said all that, I certainly enjoyed it the first time round and was only really aware of the faults of the film the second time round, when I was viewing it with a much more dispassionate eye. Probably worth seeing once but unlike the previous two outings this might not bear repeated viewings.

As well as my outing to the cinema I have been preparing for the empty Saturdays of summer by stocking up on DVDs again. Sadly, I've already watched loads, so the forthcoming Saturdays promise to be as empty as they ever were unless I start planning some days out or something. I did start writing some overly-detailed reviews for the DVDs, but then decided it would be a better idea to sum them up in one sentence - more of a challenge for me but less of an ordeal for you. Anyways, these were mostly picked up cheap from the supermarkets, so don't expect anything jaw-droppingly exciting in following list:

• The Mighty Boosh Box Set - Comedy gold featuring a jazz maverick, the king of the Mods and a whole host of improbable characters and stories.
• Spaced Box Set - Well written, gently amusing Slacker generation comedy, probably best watched whilst slightly stoned.
• The Hulk - Pointless, over-long and features some terrible CGI.
• X Men III: The Last Stand - Enjoyable third outing for characters that have made the transition from comic book to movie surprisingly well.
• Monty Python's Meaning of Life - Third best film the Monty Python team ever made.
• Carry On Up The Khyber - Top-quality smut-laden buffoonery about the British in India.
• Sideways - Gentle mid-life crisis-cum-rom-com featuring an unlikely star turn.
• Jabberwocky - Enjoyable, lavish fairytale romp based loosely on the Lewis Carroll poem.
• The Smell of Reeves & Mortimer - Comic duo at their most accessible and arguably the height of their powers, deliver two series of almost flawless "light entertainment."
• Bang Bang It's Reeves & Mortimer - Comic duo return with darker, less accessible, but no less amusing, take on the sketch show format.

I had a rare day off on Friday. Rather than waste it by spending the day catching up on my sleep or something equally indulgent, I decided to take a day trip to Conwy to have a look at the castle, wander the town and look at the sea. Conwy Castle is one of the fortresses built by King Edward I during his second campaign in Wales. There's plenty of it still standing and for a mere four pounds and fifty of your English pence you can spend your time wandering round it. Which is what I did. And if you're a bit dubious with spiral staircases, like me, then my tip is to head up to the wall walks via the Prison Tower as this seems to have the best-kept steps and the shortest flight up to the wall. Here's lovely picture I took from by the Prison Tower, apologies for the quality, I had to use my phone camera and it was a grey day.

The views from the higher towers across Conwy are quite spectacular but I didn't take any pictures as I was too busy making sure I didn't fall off to let go of either the railings or the castle wall and get my phone out. Not a good place for a fat bloke with a fear of heights. I didn't stay up top for too long. Still, it was worth getting up there for the views, even if it did seem to take forever to get back down. I did take some other pictures round the castle, and later in the town too, but none of them came out too well.

Once safely back on terra firma, I had a bit of a wander round Conwy itself before going for lunch at The Galleon. Very nice it was - haddock, chips and mushy peas and a pot of tea - very tasty and not a bad price. After lunch I set out to walk round the town walls. Somewhat naively, I thought it'd be a gentle stroll a la the walls of Chester. Oh no. The bit of wall I'd strolled along by the castle earlier turned out to be about the only bit of it that was level. The rest of it seemed to have an incline that varied between steep and ridiculous. About halfway up one stretch I seriously contemplated turning round and making my way back to where I started. However, looking across the town I realised I wasn't that far from the apex and that once I got there it was pretty much downhill all the way. Again the views from parts of the wall are spectacular, but most of the time I was concentrating on keeping moving. Having made it round the walls and seen pretty much all the town by mid-afternoon, it was back on the train and home in time for tea. All in all a good day out, despite the comedy capers with heights, and I'd recommend it for anyone who doesn't have small children to have to look out for.

I'm already planning some more days out for the rest of the summer, to fill up my empty weekends mostly, but I think I'll have to get a proper digital camera first. If you've got any recommendations feel free to post them here but please bear in mind I'm restricted to places easily accessible by public transport.

The disadvantage of not doing regular updates is that you forget stuff that you've done, or it's not got the same relevance by the time you come to do the update. For example, I did some marshalling at the Macmillan Race for Life at Oulton Park a couple of weeks back, both my sisters and my niece took part in the Playtex Moonwalk, and Team Amanda Huggenkiss have got back to winning way in the pub quiz, but these things only seem worth mentioning in passing now. Ah well, I suppose I ought to invest (time, rather than money) in some proper publishing software so I can publish via a web interface rather than this laborious hand-coding and FTP-ing I have to do each time. Don't hold your breath though, eh?

Go on, stick your oar in:

Tuesday 24th April

Pimping ain't easy

Right, let's get all this shit down before I forget what I've actually been doing over the last month. Sadly it's been the usual round of stuff, to be honest - music, football and impulse purchases.

Let's cover off the music first. The end of March saw me persuade my sister and her boyfriend to take an evening out to Northwich to see some old mates, Disarm, supporting Zen Motel and Patchwork Grace on the second night of the Trashstock Tour. Apart from being made to feel very old by the throng of 15 year-olds gathered outside the venue, it was a good night. Disarm opened proceedings and went down a storm. They were backed by a new drummer, Liam, who replaced Tez who apparently "went nuts". Although he was tight and efficient I thought they missed a bit of Tez's flamboyance. But that's quibbling really on a night when they proved to be the most popular of the three bands on. Zen Motel's more blokey metal riffs didn't go down quite as well with the younglings. Patchwork Grace put me in mind of early Hole, but with a more metal attitude. Not bad, and their frontwoman is certainly easy on the eye. During the course of the night I also picked up a free CD of a band called Obsessive Compulsive. They sound pretty good. I might even have to pop along and check them out next time they're playing, although I note that won't be until August according to their website. Moment of the night though was seeing virtually the entire room hit the dancefloor for that Scatman song from a few years back. It's obviously still very popular with the Northwich yout'.

Having taken in the Trashstock Tour, I was encouraged to check out the Cheshire scene. Luckily for me there were a few bands playing at the Civic Hall in Nantwich as part of the Nantwich Jazz & Blues Festival over Easter. I got there a little late and Crash Course were already going through their paces. After some "comedy" confusion at the bar (they wouldn't serve me without a wristband despite the fact I'm clearly over 18, so I had to go back out the front and get one) I had a cold pint in my hand just in time to catch the end of their set. They sounded OK but to be honest I don't remember much about them. Punk, apparently, but clearly nu-punk. Anyway, they were followed by Innuendo, who appear to be the only band on the planet without a MySpace page. Despite their crap name, their indie-rock has gained quite a following. It was OK, pretty tuneful and stuff, but ruined by the acoustics in the Civic Hall, which didn't really do any of the bands any favours - you had to be stood in just the right spot to hear everything properly. These guys play locally quite regularly, so I ought to check them out in an alternative venue, I think. Next up were "the new face of rock'n'roll" Wild Youth. Oh dear, if only they'd spent as much time and care on their tunes as they had on their hair and clothes. Maybe then I wouldn't have spent most of their set wondering when Towers Of London would be having them arrested for stealing their look wholesale. As for the music, well, the best tune sounded like one-hit wonders, Golden Earring, whose Radar Love got to Number 7 in the charts in 1973, and the rest sounded like the follow-up singles which failed to chart at all... Apart from the dreadful cover of Bob Marley's 'Redemption Song', that is. Headlining the night were The Tommys - an all-girl trio who seem to be going places. They're very young, easy on the eye and ear and have an attitude like the early riot-grrrl bands, only with more tunes, obviously. Closest comparison musically is probably L7. But with a bit harder edge, All in all, a decent line up for five quid, and an obvious success as more than 400 people crowded in there.

Having delighted in the adrenalin rush of rock and roll, I took things down a notch or two on Sunday lunchtime, when I went to see The South Cheshire George Formby Society. A mass of about 20 ukulele players faithfully recreating the tunes of George Formby, surprisingly. They did throw in one or two other old ukulele tunes, to be fair. They were very entertaining and have obviously got their patter down to a T, honed over years of playing to audiences with an average age of 50-plus I should imagine. The only thing I didn't like about their performance was the use of a backing track to provide the additional instrumentation. I was expecting something more like the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain, I guess. Still, a jolly enjoyable couple of hours, even if it did feature probably the worst joke I've heard in ages. It's down the bottom of this entry if you want to skip the chat about football and other assorted crap.

And talking of football, the most exciting thing I've seen-slash-attended in the last few weeks has been Nantwich Town's last ever league game at their Jackson Avenue ground. After 123 years at Jackson Avenue, they are moving across town to a brand new stadium, Kingsley Fields. The new ground has arrived at about the right time as Nantwich have won promotion from the North West Counties League into a new Unibond Division next season. The last game at Jackson Avenue was against Squires Gate, who gave us a fright in getting back to 3-2 at half-time from being 3-0 down, but obligingly let in a couple more in the seccond half to let Nantwich run out 5-2 winners. Have to admit I missed much of the second half as I was in the bar watching the Grand National with my mate Lee and his next-door neighbour. We were back out for full-time and the obligatory pitch invasion and grabbing of souvenirs. At least Lee was a bit more successful with his pitch invasion than he had been at the FA Vase Final last season! Anyway, here's a couple of pictures, first a general one and then one of Lee. Sorry about the quality but I couldn't get my camera working so had to use my phone instead.

The old ground has been sold off for housing (because Nantwich apparently doesn't have enough new builds!) so I guess I can look forward to a summer of disruption and noise pollution over the back fence as my garden is adjacent to the ground. To be fair, I'll be at work most of the time the work is going on so it shouldn't be too bad. Anyway, I do have to say that Jackson Avenue has been the source of some good memories for me over the years, even if there was a slight gap of more than 15 years between my visits in the late '80s and my return last season. I shall miss it, but there's a new ground to build a new set of memories at from next season.

I must just note here, that after a full day on the beers and several more post-match I did go out to a party upstairs at The Red Cow in Nantwich, hosted by a couple of old mates of mine. I'm afraid I was very drunk, so apologies all round if you had your Saturday night at the Cow ruined by some drunken fat bloke. Unless it was some other fat bloke and not me, of course.

Crewe Alexandra have continued their slow meander to the end of the season. A scrappy 1-0 win over Rotherham virtually ensured another season of League One football whilst condemning Rotherham to certain relegation. We made the effort to go to Blackpool for that game, but mainly because it's a nice day out and the weather looked promising. We had a bit of a wander along the sea front and a bite to eat in the pub before the game and then spent the next couple of hours thoroughly frustrated with Crewe's lacklustre display. Admittedly, we did have a few players missing and nothing much to play for, but still it was poor. Not that I expected much - our two leading strikers were both missing, the midfield was missing a couple of regulars and Neil Cox plays so deep as a midfielder that he's practically in the back four, meaning they were always likely to lose the midfield battle. That said, they restricted Blackpool to a handful of chances and were always in with a shout with the game poised at 1-0. Then they gave away a soft free-kick and compounded that by having the wall jump over the ball as it was hit in and it crept in at the near post. There was still time for Shaun Miller to pull a goal back on his full debut for the club, but it was too little, too late. There was then a better performance at home to Brentford, with the Alex achieving a unique double - not only is that twice this season that we have beaten them but after both games they sacked their manager. I missed the meek capitulation at Port Vale, thankfully, as I was at the Nantwich game. By all accounts it was a poor performance and made all the worse by our formaer player, Luke Rodgers, netting the third. Still, there was a massive improvement yesterday in the 2-1 defeat of Oldham. It wasn't as close as the scoreline suggests - if Lowe and Maynard had had their shooting boots on it could have been five or six. A decent game, although Oldham got a bit niggly and dirty late on, and most of that Crewe team will be here next season. If we can keep Varney and Maynard fit and find a bit more consistency we could be challenging the top six next season. Last home game is next week against Tranmere and there's beers and curry arranged for post-match so hopefully we'll get another three points, otherwise it's going to be a gloomy evening...

I don't have a great interest in popularity contests (if I did I'd promote this site more heavily and have a more user-friendly colour scheme!) and I like to think that my mates aren't interested in that sort of thing either. So I was intrigued to hear Charlie saying to his brother that he was "the fourth most popular man in Britain". Surely, this can't be true. Vanity thy name is Charles, and all that. Anyway it turns out he's achieved a good rating on The Guardian's Internet dating site Soulmates. I note from the current Most Popular list that, having peaked at third, Charlie R has subsequently slipped down to fifth. Still, with the extra publicity I'm giving him, I'm sure you ladies will be rushing along to sign him up and get a date. Before you do though I should point out that whilst he may look moody and devil-may-care in that profile picture, he's also quite capable of looking like this:

Of course, the reality is somewhere in between. And here I am mocking him, but who's the one going out on dates or getting involved in complicated long-distance relationships with women they would otherwise never have met in a million years, eh? It's OK, I'm not bitter.

In the market for a safari trip? Need to get in touch with some Lodge operators in southern Africa? Well, I happen to know the right people. Well maybe not, but I do happen to have a couple of friends who have taken their love of safaris and combined it with their own professional experience and created themselves a company which is doing sterling business. You can check it out at Kamili Safaris. They are not tour operators, so sadly no "mates rates" for me on a safari, despite the plug. And whilst I'm giving away free plugs, check out the National Biodiversity Network, who are responsible for collating of data on the biodiversity of the nation. Most of the information comes from local conservation groups and the like, and the best thing about thesite is that you can access the NBN Gateway and have a look at the recorded species in a 10km square area anywhere in the country. So you could for example, have a look and see what's been recorded for the 10km that includes Nantwich and then report if you spot anything that isn't on the list. Useful I reckon, although you might need to have a Google on some of them Latin names to find out what they refer to. Definitely of interest to you naturalists, though.

I did mention something of impulse purchases a lot earlier in this post. You'll be pleased to note that actually I can only remember four things I've bought recently. That's not to say I haven't bought more than that (I might not have since MusicZone went out of business) but this is all I can remember:

• The Goodies - The Complete LWT Series DVD. All seven episodes from late in The Goodies career when they jumped ship to ITV, well one bit of it anyway. It's a bit hit-and-miss, some of the jokes are locked in to the time they were written and one or two bits just aren't funny, but I suspect it was ever thus with The Goodies. Whereas the BBC had ten series or so to cherry-pick the best episodes from for their DVD compilations, LWT have been stuck with these seven episodes. Still there are some decent extras for your money, so I think it's worth shelling out for. To be honest, the 'Football Hooligan' episode is probably worth the money on it's own.
• The Goodies - Best Of... (CD). Alongside their madcap capers on the telly The Goodies released a number of singles, most of which are gathered on this compilation. Sadly, no 'Man's Best Friend is his Duck', but the rest are present and correct from 'The Funky Gibbon' to 'Make A Daft Noise for Christmas' via 'Black Pudding Bertha, 'Inbetweenies' and 'Father Christmas Do Not Touch Me'. Definitely one for amusing the nephews with.
• The Fall - Reformation Post TLC. Yet another new Fall LP, with yet another new band. It sounds like a typical Fall LP so far, to be honest, although I haven't managed to listen to it all the way through yet. Not because it's heavy going or anything, simply because I usually get interrupted about halfway through...
• Dexys Midnight Runners - The Projected Passion Revue. A compilation of stuff featuring the little-recorded Dexys MkII, who were the bridge between the soul stomping era of 'Geno' and the Celtic fiddlery of 'Come On Eileen'. Many of the tunes that were to form the backbone of the Too-Rye-Aye album are here albeit in more soulful, horn-laden versions. And there's also a storming version of 'Respect' taken from a live show. The whole thing is made complete for me though by the inclusion of one of my favourite Dexys singles (and one of the few tracks not available on other LPs) 'Show Me'.

And finally, the world's worst joke. From the 1st July it will be illegal to smoke in public places, including pubs, clubs, restaurants and railway stations and the like. This is, of course, part of the Government's drive towards making the population healthier. What people don't realise is, that as part of this legislation, it will also become illegal to eat white bread. You'll only be allowed to eat brown bread and the government is assembling squads of inspectors who'll examine your larder to make sure it only contains brown bread. Yes, any day soon, you can expect a visit from the Hovis Witnesses...

Go on, stick your oar in: