Day 536: Film 2005

It's a question of sport
but not real sport - only in thought (sung to the theme tune for film 87)

So I haven't seen a huge number of films recently, but here are the in depth reviews of those I remember:

Secret window: I've been meaning to watch this for ages and finally saw this on tuesday night. It was pretty good to watch, but I wasn't too impressed with the ending.
Hide and Seek: I saw this before watching Secret Window. They have similar twists to them, but I got the twist in this one much earlier than I got the twist in Secret Window. Both films were pretty enjoyable though.
The Life Aquatic: I rented this last weekend and from the cover and the cast it looked like it would be really funny, however the humour is pretty subtle and seemed mainly to be take offs of the old Jacques Cousteau films. If you hadn't seen any of those you would be struggling to find the humour (and even if you had, you still have to work at finding the funny bits). I admit that I got bored around half way through and switched off. Maybe I would have enjoyed it better if I was in a different frame of mind.
Dodgeball: Waited ages to see this as I wasn't expecting it to be that good, but it was better than I expected. The story line was pretty obvious, but I think it was meant to be.
Gothika: I really enjoyed this - it is a tip top top of the range film.
Mannen som log: This is the third in the series of these films based on the Henning Mankel books. It was the first one I had seen without reading the book first - I haven't even noticed this book as being available. It was shorter and less dark and forboding than the previous two (or at least shorter than the second). It seemed, therefore, to be more commercial and user friendly that the others. I still enjoyed it though. I did cheat a bit by putting the english subtitles on, which wasn't an option with the previous 2 films in the series.
Meet the Fockers: I enjoyed this film alot, but I still prefer Meet the Parents (Släkten är värst) which is one of my all time favourate films of all time.

I have Mulholland Drive and Spirited Away waiting in the wings to be watched (both bought on my last trip to Stockholm), but the time hasn't seemed right for either of those just yet. Spirited Away is a Japanese film which is dubbed into english (if you bought it in the UK), but my copy is dubbed into swedish so I have to wait until my brain is in need of a good work out before watching it.

Dag 535 - music was my first love

and coming up with crap blog headings was my second.
OK, normally my titles are pretty reasonable, but as I thought I would ramble on about some of the key albums I have bought over the years, and I couldn't think of anything better, I thought I might go for something really cheesy instead. In fact you could almost say this is the story of my life through music.

So I began my life musically deprived as my parents didn't have a record player. This was eventually rectified when they sent off for one from an advert in a newspaper. I can't remember how much it cost, but I know it was cheap and I remember thinking it looked really cheap and nasty when it arrived. It was stereo, but it had very thin speakers and the record deck itself was very plasticy. Also all the wires were firmly attached, there were no connectors here.

The first lp records I remember having were a tuffty club lp and the soundtrack of chitty chitty bang bang. I also had some Thomas the tank engine singles with stories read by Johnny Morris (at least I think that was his name - he used to do the voices on animal magic). I used to listen to chitty chitty bang bang a lot (of course in those days there were no videos or dvds, so you only got to see films when they were shown on TV or at the cinema). Nowadays I hate musicals in all forms so would rather eat my own feet than listen to anything like that again.

So, up to now I had had limited exposure to any music, and what music I did have was pretty dire - so what happened to get me on the right path?

I remember one day my Dad came home from work saying he had been at Leeds University sorting out some scaffolding requirements for the stage there for a concert by David Bowie. It seems he had met with Mr Bowie to discuss what was needed and had been asked if he wanted any free tickets for the show. He asked me if I wanted him to take me to it and my reply was along the lines of "why would I want to go and see him, isn't he the pop star that wears make up?". So I didn't go and see it - I guess you can imagine how many times I have kicked my self since.
Anyway once the concert had passed David Bowie kept popping up, not in person, but I kept hearing him on the radio and remember seeing lost of posters of him in shops and started noticing his records in record shops.
I also began to start liking other pop records I heard on the radio and I started saving up my pocket money to buy singles. I can't remember the first one I bought, but I know I had Tiger Feet by Mud, Ballroom Blitz by Sweet and various singles by Wizard, David Bowie, Status Quo and others.
I then noticed the album Hunky Dory in my local record shop so I decided to save up for that. I finally bought it for the sum of 3 pounds and 60 pence which was a huge sum in those days. I thought it was fantastic and started listening to more and more of that type of music (my chitty chitty bang bang record was put to the back of the pile, never to be played again).
I used to play Hunky Dory a lot and I remember our neighbour telling my parents that their daughter you to listen to it when I played it by holding a glass up to the wall between our houses.
I remember buying seeing and album for not much more than the price of a single which contained loads of songs that I liked including Jean Jeannie by David Bowie so I bought it with my hard saved pocket money only to feel completely ripped off when I played it because the songs didn't sound right - they were played by different people! I could not believe that it was possible for some group to make an album of other peoples songs - I felt I had been ripped off and never played it again.
I came across this phenomenon on a number of other occasions because various relatives knew I liked pop music and bought me Top of the Pops albums for my birthday and Christmas presents. They never got played, and if I had them now they would probably be worth a bit.
So I couldn't really afford many albums so I spent most of my pocket money on singles and when I was alone I would get my trusty tennis racket and tie a bit of cotton to it and then tie the other end to an electric plug and hay presto I had an electric guitar which I could use to strum along to all my records.
When I bought the single of Dance with the Devil by cozy Powell my electric tennis racket just wouldn't do, so I got a pair of my Mums thickest knitting needles and used these on the sofa. In the end I could play the sofa just as well as cozy Powell could play the drums.

I started having piano lessons at school at some point and I liked Life on Mars so much that I was determined to learn how to play it on the piano. I even went as far as inviting someone who was really good at the piano from school around to my house so he could work out how to play it and teach it to me. He came round but once he knew what I wanted from him he became completely uninterested. He had never listened to any David Bowie before and had no interntion of starting at my request.

I'm unsure of the exact dates and even order of events, but this was all based around the early 1970s.
The only reference I can find to a gig at Leeds University was June 2nd 1973, so that would have made me 9 years old, so I must have been 9 or 10 when I bought Hunky Dory (for some reason I'd always thought I was 7 when I bought it). I suppose it is always possible that my memory is so hazy that I had already bought it before my Dad asked if I wanted to go to that gig. Also according to David Bowies website the Leeds University gig was cancelled, so I guess I wouldn't have got to see it even if I had wanted to.

My next stage in my musical apreciation was around 1976. I had spent a fair bit of time with my uncle who was into music in a big way and I remember him having albums by King Crimson, Genesis and John call, amused others. I heard a song by Genesis called A Trick of the Tale and this sounded, in some way, much more advanced than what I had been listening to so I remember shortly after getting a portable tape recorder for my birthday I bought the cassette of A Trick of the Tale. This was played constantly and I remember my Dad telling me to turn the music off many times. Because it was portable I would take it round with me from room to room.
I remember visiting a friends house whose Dad was playing an ABBA album. I thought that was great so I thought I would tape it on my new tape recorder. When he had left the room I put the record on, pressed record on the tape recorder and sat in silence while it taped. I remember he came back in the room after a few songs and I put my finger to my mouth in the hope he wouldn't say anything, but he asked why he needed to be quiet. I told him I was taping the record and he then showed me that with the use of a certain type of cable you could tape an lp over the cable and therefore you could talk while you taped it. It also had the added advantage that the recording would be much higher quality.
I never did learn how to play Life on Mars on the piano, but the Dad who taught me about recording also taught me how to play Sailing by Rod Stewart on the piano. I never really liked that song, but I feel like I am better at the piano that I really am when I play it, so it still gets blasted out from time to time.
By now I had also started buying NME and Melody maker every week and had also bought myself a cheap second hand electric guitar complete with buzzing frets and was spending my time listening to David Bowie, Abba and Genesis. I should stress that at no time had I bought the song that shares the title with this blog entry.

This is enough for now, so part 2 will follow in the near future.

Dag 533 - and that's traitorous

"Wallop!" said the yellow sad eyed wombat to the mother of plenty. Oh yes that's fine for at least 20 different strokes when the rain flows in freely from several apertures but suddenly I heard a flux bird digging the mushrooms from underneath our perforated veruccae with silver pots covering them and died.
The greenfinch that flew past my window yesterday burped as it flew away backwards down the upwards facing slope because never had it once eaten any blue opal fruits. "Well!" said Grobblegott "That's tasty" as bird-shit, which was not yellow anyway, slid through his carpet slippers while he was not wearing them on his tree house garden chair with flowers on the left chair arm.
Anyway, two or black fishes with spotty fins swept out their kitchens without heed of the rotten consequences to life in hospital teaching wards.
The often upset shrew who knew Grobblegott went sick 3 or 7 times but never coughed because he was hermaphroditic - "At least that's a true story" said Fluxbird.
Suddenly, without flybutton, police-tree Shrubbery burst forth or fifth branches in his attempt to fly backwards inconsequentially. Mother of plenty appeared massaging the greenfinch in its entirety. "Gosh! I would think that that's a thrilling non-entity" yelled Wombat through all mouseholes having purple doors which rattled. "Taht!" squealed police-tree Shrubbery. "Are Dungheep's armpits found available locally?". That is unusual to speak of in Gromboland because armpits are never found very near the mountainous lake steamer.
Flicknife Fryingpan called across the gangway to his brother's fiancee, whilst three hot happy buns stole butter from the tapeworm's auntie. "Oy fatso where's Fluxbird's armpit cleaner? I've dropped mine off the edge of Grobblegott's big bulbous midwife".
Finding no jam jars, I decided that it would explode the others wives if something or someone risked breaking them all.
"Wallop!" said the yellow sad nosed wombat. "Is that preferential to repeat such trivia? - Not really cricket what ho? is it?"
Flik flopped over garden zones at midnight screaming 'Blue curtains'. Why this phenomenon occurred wasn't exactly explicable, but he felt normal when he did it.
Amyway, back to the story which was happening simultaneously with this story as might well be expected.
While sniffing uncertainly, Dungheep washed Greenfinch twice in seven bath tubs at Waterloo Bridge Tunnel, Neptune. The clock ticked and the Mother of Plenty watched and waited for something to happen.
Suddenly in a blinding flash a creature strolled invisibly on. "Quack" wasn't said ever so it clipped itself away.
As foretold by the storytellers the jelly mold didn't work on butter because Bekorz wasn't helping the mind make sandwiches.
"Fazoom!" cautioned the, now, spirangulated Police-Tree Shrubbery, as copies of Crass News crassly crassed open baked bean plants stems. The news quickly traveled away from the scene of a crime, not anything to speak silently of, but neither Crass News nor itself were able to withstand the unhappy plight they found Police-Tree Shrubbery not in - slowly, quickly and inbetween.
Wellington boot hill is quite steep and slippery and awfully muddy in several bushes armpits but not herbitualy speaking. Incidentally, cosmic badges.
"Skies biscuits!" whispered Greenfinch. "I have already sold myself 15 hours worth of chewing tape under false eyelashes." psychedelic possums ran round Grobblegott backwards extremely stoned (quartz) concourse (digital) kaleidoscope (watched). Follow you and follow others.
This only philosophy shows Dungheep's intense oneness in life.
hepatitis epidemics had already got 16 of the cousin's sweets before they had been introduced to Grobblegott, who was against any participation, political or otherwise indirectly by noon.
"My God!" spoke Said, "I've just realised that I'm not really supposed to be in this story at all, so I'd better get myself lost."
The thigh high sky fell flying to the clouds (pink and fluffy, but not at all light). Police-Tree Shrubbery gasped at the sight as the pink high clouds rushed to bed with their buxom birds feather and sickle.
They left Corny Marks house in a cataclysmic cosmic pickup of a mess tin, It was soon, I think mostly yesterday, maybe sheltered sooner by squeezey tops of no liquid of no fixed aberration, but plenty later it backwards rained.
Oh, I will sniff for stories untold because I shan't care what happens to our story unless you know what the answer is.
Blue stew, barley and gruel upset, dribbled and dropped.
And of fairies, there was pixies of mice drowned under water through grey hollow slabs, come more slabs. Pavements.
I wouldn't - oh well that'll find some nicely rounded kneecaps of shrew often jellied. Right wing flapping shirtflaps open, Greenfinch crashed into Flicknife Fryingpan as soon as possible.
"Wallop!" said the sad mouthed wombat.
"Titter titter titter" tittered Dungheep, "that was humorous, titter titter titter".
Greenfinch didn't kill Flicknife Fryingpan, but he walloped Dungheep on his interior flybuttons twice.
Sadness filled Dungheep quickly, "boo hoo hoo" swallowed he.
After much consideration and merriment, heart searching and floorcleaning, Dungheep slept all morning, except between break waters and piers. Analysing his situation, he followed, basically, the principles already layed aside by others, especially Tart Taht who hated beauty so much she became beautiful every full moon.
The grey hollow slabs were not moving because they weren't alive or kicking, but they were often non-existent.
(c) PL, MG and DB.

Dag 516: worlds longest gmail conversation (abridged)

A couple of weeks ago my good friends and I had a gmail conversation (at least thats what us people with gmail accounts call them - if you just use email, you'd probably just say you sent some emails or something) which ended up reaching 94. As this makes it the worlds longest gmail discussion I thought I would summerise it here:

Pao: Lets go out on thursday night - dom can choose where
Al: Perfect
Air: I'm quorate
Me: Hope you feel better soon
Pao: Blue Blazer has Sailor Jerry
Al: So is it a date then?
Me: Who is that question aimed at?
Al: you - you fud
Me: yes its on then
Al: Is DJ coming or is he attending his basket weaving class?
Me: He is going to his Jenson Button adoration society meeting.
DDS: If you get fired you'll be playing guitar on the London Underground.
Me: No, It'll be the Stockholm underground.
Air: My quorates are now back down to size. And we could call DOminiC Doc because he knows a bit about Swedisk pr0n or something.
Al: WHAT!!!! I'm the only one with a doctorate in that subject!
Pao: Doc don't like shellfish unless they are queens.
Al: What are you rambling on about and why are you up so insanely early?
Pao: Who told you that? I thought that was between me and the webcam in the booth.
Al: http://paosbooth.com/ credit card required
Al: I want an electric guitar - anyone got any tips?
Me: Get a shergold.
DDS: Time to go electric man.
Al: Damn, I wish I had got to slate him first.
Me: It is an electric guitar actually.
Al: I've just been to Asda and bought ham and bread.
DDS: I just went to Tesco and bought a jerk chicken wrap.
Al: I had too much ham so am a pig. But you had jerk chicken.
Pao: I went to the livi inn.
Al: some joke about a frog and Mick Jagger. The punchline was "It's a knick-knack Patty Wack, now give the frog a loan. His old man's a rolling stone" - you had to be there.
DDS: I am an avian jerk.
Me: I had chile for lunch.
DDS: I want to be a moon - ommmmm.
Al: Incestuous Scatophilia - I win.
Me: Heavy wet and messy space feltching - no you don't.
Al: I feel queasy.
Me: So to sum it up: We meet at 19:30 in the blue blazer and then go on to the hard rock cafe.
Al: blank email (he still hasn't got the hang of these things - sigh)
Me: I just told Andrew to go and read his gmail to find out about tonight and he came back 5 minutes later asking what his gmail address was.
Al: That's hilarious, and believable.
Al: Anyone up for a beer in glasgow next week?
Air: Oh yes we can go to Waxy Baxy Chunky Clarty O'Connor O'Hartigan's
Al: Are we fuck.
Air: They have decent home-made pizza too. Duck pizza? You will.
DJ: Would you like me to go out with you and comment on your driving from an advanced drivers institute type perspective?
DDS: Fools.
Al: Fuds.
Air: Exemplary.
Guy: How are you keeping?
Pao: Plaid.
AB: Most adjacent.
Jonty: C*nts.
Andrew: gmail?
Me: Deck mockets rock.

If these words were people, I would embrace their genocide.

He means you.

Link Fest

Right, just a little experiment - links and only links for humour and knowledge.
Comments welcome, of course....

Dag 502: I want my Shergold back

In around 1978 I spotted a guitar in the window of my local music shop which looked like half of Mike Rutherfords famous dual neck guitar. It was a Shergold Meteor, and I would spend hours standing outside the window starring at it. My Dad must have felt sorry for me because some time later he took me into the shop and bought it for me. I couldn't believe taht I owned a guitar that was the same make as one used by Genesis (who were my fave rave at the time).

I used that guitar in my first band, a punk band called Cloud 9. We played a number of gigs at local youth clubs, church halls and even at the 'Folk and Blues' night at our school. I really liked the idea of throwing my guitar down on the floor at the end of our gigs, but didn't want to damage it, so I used to put a thick blanket down before each gig. Unfortunatley, it did end up getting quite a few dints in it, but it stil played fine.

Cloud 9 eventually went their separate ways and I had, meanwhile, bought a Korg MS 10 mono synth, and my Shergold ended up just beijng used for messing around as I concentrated on my synth playing. With my trusty MS 10 I played synth for Nova Grace, Neural Circus and then went solo. I ended up doing a solo 'Human League style' gig at another of my school's 'Folk and Blues' nights using my own MS 10 and one ownded by my, then, girlfriend (HJ - who stood at the edge of the stage playing tamberine). The backing track was on tape and I played and sang along to it. The show began with a drum beat and bass line while I waited off stage. At the double snare beat I walked on and began to sing. As soon as I started to play the synth I realised it wasn't tuned the same as when I had made the backing tape (in fact as each song went on I found that it had been tuned differently from the previous one). The whole concert was taped from the mixing desk and also from a pair of mics hanging from the roof. I still have a copy of the tape (now transformed into mp3 format) and you can hear me frantically trying to retune my synth during a few of the songs. In the end I ended up programming in a hand clap type sound and just playing along to the tape using that. For those recording enthusiasts amongst us, the recording from the mikes came out much better than the one from the mixing desk as it had more audience noise and atmosphere about it.

The shergold never got used on stage again and I ended up signing up to do A level computer science at Harrogate College and a pre requesit was to own a computer. I didn't have one so I put my beloved bettered Shergold up for sale in the local paper. The first person that came to look at it (who, I remeber had long hair) said he was interested, but couldn't afford it until he had sold his sinclair spectrum. The outcome was obvious - we did a straight swap. I went and did my course, carried on playing synth, and that was that.

Until yesterday. Al sent me an email saying he wanted to buy an electric guitar and did I have any suggestions. I replied saying he should buy a Shergold and promptly did a search on google to see if I could find out if they still made them.
I found this site and discovered that they are no longer made.
I suddenly began to miss my guitar and I want it back.....

So, if you have long hair and you swapped a sinclair spectrum for a shergold sometime in the 1980s in Harrogate please can I buy it back from you? I'll swap it for a spectrum if you like.

Altenatively, if you have a Shergold Meteor in natural finish, can I buy yours?

Freddie

We went out last night. It was really good catching up with the guys, and it's wierd typing this since they all read/write here. So, I'll skip the report, since we were all there. I'm sure Dom can do it more justice anyway.
Only conspicuous absence was Danny boy. (DJ, etc. aren't expected). So Dan has some explaining to do.
Here's to Fredrik Butler, may all his days be long and happy *chink*.

Footnote - I hope Dom doesn't feel cheap and used. Waking in the morning and remembering the things you've done is always hard, but you just put it down to too much drink and the party atmosphere.

Wish you were here

It's tedious, sitting around, trying to figure out which sites to visit which will kill time without being entirely unprofessional. Given the plethora of web tracking tools, keeping your head below the parapet is another constant consideration. I figure that finding a nice long page of information is the way to go, maybe a big wiki entry or something.
I don't have work to do. I'm either really good at this, or there really is nothing to do. It's difficult to deny the urge to pull out the laptop and play a round on my new golf game.
Anyway, I have a few pastimes that you may be able to help with, or at least kill some of your own time with, if you're in a similar position (i.e. work in I.T.)
1 - Electric Guitar - I need something to start out with, but will be decent enough to use for a while if I enjoy it
2 - Acoustic Strings - Too many out there to count, and want to try a few
3 - Missed TV - I've downloaded the first series of 24, the whole of CSI and series 1 of desperate houswives (for the girl). Anything else I should be focussing on?
4 - Holidays - Something unusual, or something worth doing at the weekend in Scotland
5 - Streaming movies over wireless. New laptop does it...almost but why does it still stall? I'd have thought 2MB/s would be the requirement, so wireless (56MB/s?) shouldn't have a problem

Traffic News

I've been playing around on GMaps since it was released a while back. It's nice, it's got some features I really like.
It was updated a couple of weeks ago to include satellite images, although the level of detail is a bit strange.
The latest thing though, is the publishing of APIs that allow geeks to use the maps to overlay all sorts of information.
Clicking on the title of this post will take you to what I think is the best example of a UK based one that I've found. It shows speed cameras, weather reports, local news and a bundle of other things I don't really understand.
I like it when technology and innovation amaze me, it breaks through my cynical tendencies and makes me smile.

Dag 498: Det kallt är av

It has been a little quiet round here as I have been back in my normal home for the last 2 weeks and I don't get much chance to get on the computer there.

I still haven't done a posting about my trip to see Kent in Stockholm, which is now many weekends ago, but I still intend to do it. One of my excuses is that I have been trying to load all my photos from that trip onto my newly purchased .mac web space which I will then link to within the posting. Getting the photos on there was easy, it was when I decided I wanted to rename them that the problems started. With .mac you get a thing called an iDisk. This appears as a volume on your desktop and when you copy files onto it they will be automatically synced up to the iDisk you have on the web. This means you can do things to your local iDisk when you are not hooked up and next time you hook up it will get resynced. So the first problem was that I renamed all of the photos on my local iDisk whcih then got copied onto the web iDisk, ok so far, but then the original photos on the web iDisk got synced back to my powerbook so I now had to copies of the photos on both the web and my laptop. After various bits of messing around I deced to delet my iDisk and start again.

So now I had my iDisk complete with 1 set pf photos with proper names, rather than the numbers my camera had automatically given them. My next step was to create my .mac photo album to which I would be able to link from my soon coming kent concert weekend blog entry. This was easy enough to do, apert from the fact that the photos were sorted alphabetically so they were no longer in cronological order (which they had been on my first trial as the generated number were sequential). This is fixable though as the .mac website allows you to drag the photos around into the order you want. The problem is it is very slow and after dragging a random number of photos into the correct order you suddenly find that the descriptions that go with the photos have suddenly moved out by one place.

So if i can't swap the order of the photos without this happening I need to get the photos in the correct order to start with. So it was back to my local iDisk to rename the files to have a number at the beginning. So once I had done this (and deleted the iDisk again because I had ended up with 2 copies of the photos again and then recreated one with numbers at the start of the filenames) I recreated the online photo album. Unfortunately the sorting of photos was not exactly as I had thought so it went 1 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 2 20 21 etc...

Now it was nearly right, there were 9 photos in the wrong place. I tried moving these really slowly but, again, ended up with the descriptions getting out of sync. So I renamed the ones with a single digit to have a zero in front of them, which would solve the sorting issue, but of course I ended up with duplicates again.

At this point I ended up taking 2 weeks of work and have just returned today. I currently have an empty iDisk and I will try doing the whole procedure again in the near future. I will then do my blog entry for my weekend in Stockholm (if I still remember what happened by then).

After reading Al's eloquant and moving post I had a look at the stats to see if it had caused our ratings to soar through the roof and found that the share of languages on the computers that connect to this site are as follows:
English: 86.75%
Swedish: 10.84%
Russian: 1.2%
German: 1.2%

This is pretty pleasing to me as it means that as well as gaining a good international reputation for delivery both interesting and hard hitting blog enries, we are also finding that 10.84% of end users have there language set to Swedish. I wonder how many of those percentage points are attributable to that fact that my powerbook has it's language set to Swedish?

To our Swedish fans I would like to say "Tack", to our German fans I would like to say "Danke" and to our Russian fans I would like to say "My tap doesn't work". (ok that bit doesn't work that well on paper, but it is funny because one of the few things I can say in Russian is "my tap doesn't work" - the problem is that I don't know how to write it down. It sounds a bit like "my er cram nerra bootiette". I can also say "where is the map" in Russian. In fact I don't know how to say thankyou in Russian, but thanks anyway for making up 1.2% of our viewing figures.

Until next time, as always, dos vidanya.

The Heat Is On

Well well, it's quiet in here.

"The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed."
Best.Opening.Line.Ever.
I was reading the latest one of this series of books (exercise for the reader) at the weekend. I was thinking about how the story has emerged and was trying to decide whether the plot had just disappeared up the writer's arse, or whether it was literary genius that I was just too intellectually immature to 'get'. As always, my mind decided it'd had enough of that pretentious nonsense and went off at a tangent. I tried to catch it, honest I did, but it was just too fast.
As always, the thoughts were linked, slowly but determinedly toward where the subconscious wanted the almost-conscious mind to be. I kind of like it when that happens, it feels like the mental equivalent of gravity, all the planets and stars being the thoughts, ideas and emotions swirling around in the immense darkness of our mental universes until the inevitable black hole appears to pull in the nearest ones.
Well, in this particular case, the black hole was pulling in the star that was 1982, with the planets that were my 11th birthday, the vast, alien world that was the move from the highlands of Scotland to the slumlands of Glasgow and the newly discovered world of adult books. Not those kind of adult books you filthy minded minx, the other ones.
My grandparent's (nana and gaga, would you believe) house was full of books. A strange collection of novels from god knows when, combined with large encyclopaedia-like tomes that contained all the wisdom of Victorian Britain about raising and entertaining children. Not in the self-help way that books are these days, more in a "books about children, for children" kind of a way. Obviously written by people with no idea of what children were. There were pages about origami, kite flying, counting raindrops and other such pure and innocent pursuits. I remember the melancholic way I used to read these, already allowing the little descriptions of innocent, happy pastimes supplant the memories of life up North. My recollections of playing in the street at midnight with my friends taking on a shade of brown and my cheap 70's clothing morphing into a Victorian schoolboy's uniform of shorts and blazer, with a little peaked cap. My idealistic memories were doubtlessly fed by the current environment of endless filth, the streets covered in empty crisp packets and cigarette ends, the kids with their dried in, snottery beaks running around and swearing before the inevitable fight broke out between a couple of the sorrowful latch-keys.
I started school after the summer. My parents must have felt sorry for us, or maybe just wanted us out of the way, because they'd shipped of the youngest (which included me) to nana's for most of the 7 week summer. I'd spent that time in the 5 house village of Kentallen, with loch linnhe across the road from the house and endless bracken-covered hills at the back. After a couple of months in Glasgow, it was a welcome release to come back 'home' and feel the sun, and run up the hills with the dogs and not have to worry about the big kids in the street picking on the new kid because of his weird accent and permanently startled look on his face. Reality, however, had to return.
The first day of school, and I was all dressed up with my brown satchel strapped in securely over both shoulders. The uniforms from my old school - which had been a little village one with two classrooms, one for primary 1-4 and one for primary 5-7 - weren't suitable attire for the new school, so I'd been dressed up in black trousers and white shirt in lieu of finding out the proper dress code. I should have sensed the difference immediately as I was being walked to school by mum. All the other kids were strolling down the road alone, some a lot younger than me, dressed in jeans and trainers, with their Nike and Adidas sports bags casually hanging from one shoulder. I was, however, still in startled rabbit mode, and took in none of this and all of this at the same time.
I was introduced to my classmates after registration, where we'd all stood in the sports hall and recited the Lord's Prayer. I stood at the front of the class as instructed by Miss Brown, or White or Turquoise or something, as she told the slack-jawed, uninterested throng of thirty other weans my name and that I was new here, which I'm sure they'd never have guessed if she hadn't mentioned it. I took my red, burning face to my new desk and sat down, hoping against hope that I was done, that I could just disappear into the quiet corners and be forgotten. The teacher was asking about something to do with something. I must have listened at the time, because when she asked me a question about it, I answered. I only did because that was what you did when teachers asked you questions. You did your best to answer in the hope that they didn't tell your mum you were misbehaving the next time she dropped in for a cup of tea on the way to the bus stop. I got the answer right. "Hey, we've got the Brain of Britain here!" exclaimed the helpful teacher, and moved on to a random selection of hard-nosed pupils. My face burned again, not sure whether I'd done well or badly, but sure that the attention was unwelcome and wanting to be left alone.
The fire alarm went. That meant it was 10.30am. That meant the washless throng moved out to the concrete playground for 15 minutes, when another alarm would go off and we'd troop back to the classroom. Just another little difference then, no more head teacher coming out with her church bell in hand, smiling and telling the kids is was 'time to come back in and learn children'.
I stood in the playground, trying to be invisible, as one of my classmates came over, trailed by 3 or 4 more of them. "So, where the fuck are you fucking from then?" he asked. "North Connell" I said meekly. "Where the fuck is that?" asked my new friend. "Up North." I replied. He turned to his friends - "Brain of fucking Britain is from fucking up North.", and turned back to me. "Do you want a square go?” I tried to translate this and failed. "What's that?" I asked politely. One of his friends interjected, "Just fucking deck him Jimmy!” The others joined in with a rhythmic "Fight. Fight. Fight. Fight" chant. The nearest other kids came over to the crowd and joined in. I stood, surrounded, with tears threatening to fall and a bladder desperate to unleash a torrent of hot piss into my new trousers. The boy swung at me, I saw the fist through blurry eyes and swayed a bit so it just glanced across my temple. The rage came upon me and I unleashed a torrent of blows, obviously using my brown leather satchel as my weapon of choice. He fell to the ground after the first couple of shots, as I continued to rain satchel laden terror upon him until a teacher ran over and dragged me away to the headmistress' office. "I hope you're not going to be trouble" she said "We already have enough of that". I answered that I wasn't and I was sorry and she guided me back to class. I sat back at my desk and continued learning, thankful that I had black trousers on, which didn't show the damp patch very well. And anyway, I'd only leaked a little bit, and my pants would have soaked most of that up.
So I started reading books, becoming the hero for a while as I immersed myself in these new worlds. And I read that opening line "The man in black fled across the desert, and the gunslinger followed.", and was hooked. I wanted to be both men. I wanted to run away, but 'flee' just sounded much faster and more honourable. And I wanted to be the gunslinger, standing firm with no emotion in my eyes as I watched the fear in the face of those that had forgotten their father. As always, some middle ground was eventually found. I gave James a few bloody noses and we became friends. I tumbled around with a few other kids and won and lost. I found there were acceptable limits when I picked up the hammer in woodwork to subdue a particularly annoying boy and was sent home for a couple of days on 'suspension'. I never hit him, just scared him a bit. And I peeked over the changing room curtains when Debbie was changing for the end of (primary 7) year school play at which I was receiving the school Dux medal, and saw her rapidly developing breasts. I don't know where the medal is these days, or where Debbie is for that matter, but I know which one is my favourite planet in the Universe of my mind.

Dag 474: Know who you are at every age

Does anybody really know who they are?

I certainly don't feel that I know who I am and I think I have known this since I was a teenager. If you like a certain type of music and (for example Goth or Punk) then you could say there is a lifestyle that goes with that (including a way to dress) and that should mean that you have a pretty good idea of what you are and what you believe in.

If you look at the list of concerts I went to in a previous post you will see that it is not limited to one style of music. I would certainly admit to being a punk in my youth; I had a fairly large punk record collection and my clothes included an orange mohair jumper and some black pvc trousers with studded belt (all purchased from X Clothes in Leeds along with various other similar items). I also had an orange corduroy jacket that I sprayed the names of various punk bands on (clash, x-ray spex, sex pistols etc) and I can even remember going for a haircut and saying I wanted a spiky punk hair cut and being told that pure punk haircuts were not in anymore and I should let them cut it in a way that would allow my hair to look normal most of the time, but I could spike it up when needed. I agreed but knew the hairdresser were only saying that because he was scared that if he gave me what I wanted he would be facing the wrath of my parents (I was about 13 or 14 at the time). The first band I was in (cloud 9) was also a punk band.

However, I also liked Genesis (who I think were one of the arch enemies of most punks) and also quite fancied myself as a bit of a hippy (again not usually considered the best of buddies with punks).

This feeling of not really knowing who I am has persisted ever since and rears its ugly head at regular times. I often find it hard to make decisions and need to seek opinions from other people. If I really knew who I was I wouldn't need to do this as I woudl just know what to choose. There are certain things that I know I like, so when a choice presents itself if one of the options is related to one of the things I like I will usually go with that one, even if there is evidence that another choice might be better. For example, I am pretty fond of Scotland so will always choose Scottish beef over any other kind. If I am shopping for clothes and have seen a few tops, but am not sure which to get I will see if any of them have a connection with something like. If one is made in Sweden, that is the one I choose (even if it does fit quite right or does really suite me). Or, if there is no better link, I may choose one that is yellow or blue.

Another side effect of not knowing who I am is the fact that I have become quite interested in personality tests in the hope that they might give me some additional insight into the mattter. A year or so ago I did a myers-briggs test and it came out as ISFP. I felt pretty good at the end of it because the blurb did seem to be a pretty good match. I then did a search for ISFP on the internet and saw that the ISFP type is often referred to as a Composer, which pleased me as I used to spend most of my free time writing and recording music.

This morning Daniel sent me a link to a personality test and filling it in was, with me, the work of a moment. I then noticed that the site contained a whole raft of other personality tests so I started clicking away and was in personality test heaven.

I still have a feeling that I don't really know who I really am though.

I'm not really mad am I?

Dag 472: Keep your silence to yourself

I am currently living in a downstairs flat that used to be a house. Therefore there is a bloke living in the upstairs flat above me. His favourate pastime is moving furniture around. I have lived there about 2 and a bit months and every evening that he is in he moves furniture around while I am watching TV. Each morning he must decide that he isn't happy with the places he moved the furniture too the night before because I hear him moving it all back again. There must be something wrong with me, because in all the time I have lived there I haven't moved a single piece of furniture around. I bet I would make a really good upstairs neighbour.

After listing all the concerts I have ever been to on my previous post (and I have thought of some more groups that ar missing, so I will be updating it agin soon) I decided to dig out some of my albums by those groups and go on a bit of a nostalgia trip. I had a copy of Real Life by Magazine that I picked up a couple of years back as I saw it cheap somewhere, but I never got round to playing it because I keep listening to Swedish music all the time. So I put this on and was amazed at how current it still sounded. Once it finished I put it straighth back on for a second airing and decided I needed more magazine stuff as a priority. As well as originally owning this album on LP I also had Secondhand Daylight, whcih I remember also liking very much at the time so I logged on to iTunes to see if I could purchase it there, but they only had Real Life and a couple of compilations, so I looked on amazon instead, but Secondhand Daylight had far too long a lead time so I ordered a 3 cd box set called (Maybe it's right to be nervous now) which is also basically a compilation, but the final cd contains some John Peel sessions that I remember I taped from the radio first time round. I used to be much less blinkered in those days and would listen to John Peel everynight and start recording every song he played. If I didn't like the song by half way through I would press stop and rewind to the end of the previous song and get ready to start recording the next one. I had loads of these tapes and I discovered loads of good bands that way. I wish I still had those tapes now.

I also gave some of my Cocteau Twins cds a replay - I had forgotten just how much I used to like them too. I remember being really impressed that Nicola managed to get the vicar to put on a cocteau twins cd in the church before here wedding. That was the wedding where everyone was seated and the vicar said "Let us pray". Everybody bowed their head apart from Andreas (Catherine's then boyfried - now husband) who stood up. I found that I couldn't stop myself laughing uncontrollably for the whole remainder of the service - but having said that I often get uncontrollable fits of the giggles in church, its probably a guilt thing or something.

I will forget myself......

Dag 465: I just can't get you out of my head

Following on from a great weekend in Stockholm which included a top of the range Kent concert (about which I will write more later) I managed to go and see Tori Amos last night thanks to DJ just happening to mention that his wife was going to the consert on Monday lunchtime. I had no idea that she was doing a tour, although I had bought The Beekeeper with the money I got for my old volvo 1800ES a month or so ago, but had only listened to the first few songs, so I got straight onto the interweb, and after establishing that there were tickets left I then tried to russle up a group of hangers on to accompany me there. After failing to do this I booked a single ticket for myself.

I bought my first Tory Amos album (Little Earthquakes) on cassette back in the early nineties when I used to spend all my time writing and recording songs and she was one of my inspirations (although my piano playing can't even be mentioned in the same sentence as hers - if it could I would probably be famous for my music rather than my blog). Anyway I liked her music more and more as her subsequent albums came out and once I had got my hands on From the Choirgirl hotel, I never played any other cd for about a year. This was around the late 90s and then I started getting into Swedish music in 2000, such as Eva Dahlgren, Marie fredriksson and Kent so Tori did get sidelined a little, but I did order a Tori Amos t-shirt off the web while I was working in Sweden. The t-shirt bore the legend "when pianos try to be guitars" which is a line from Northern Lad, one of my favourate Tori Amos tracks.

So I went to the concert on my own wearing my Kent tour t-shirt so I could look more cool than all the traditionalists who had turned up in their Tori Amos t-shirts. I have to confess to not knowing all the songs, but she did play Northern Lad, which was fantastic and a number of other of her bast songs. It was a shame she didn't do any songs from the studio part of To Venus and Back, but it was still a great concert and I had waited many many years to get to see here play live.

The complete set list was as follows:
Tuesday, June 7, 2005
Glasgow, U.K. - Clyde Auditorium (The Armadillo)

Original Sinsuality | Father Lucifer | Cars and Guitars | Northern Lad | Jamaica Inn | Cooling | Bells for Her

Tori's Piano Bar: Nothing Ever Happens (Del Amitri) | Turn (Travis)

Ruby Through the Looking-Glass | Marianne | Mother Revolution | Yes, Anastasia | The Beekeeper

E n c o r e 1 : Silent All These Years | Merman

E n c o r e 2 : Twinkle | Toast | Hey Jupiter

I have a list in my head of groups I want to see and this list has diminished considerably over the last few years as its not very oftern that somebody gets added to it. Tori Amos was one of the key members of this list, so I thought I had better round this off with a list off all the groups I can remember going to see (in approximate reverse order). This is quite a long list so you may want to make a cup of tea and this point.

Editor's note: I have just decided to update this and include locations and dates where known - I will return to this each time a get a bit more info for it. Please let me know if you have any of the missing information.

Editor's note 10/06/2005: I think I have got about as far as I can get with the dates/venues on this list. If you happen to come accross this and you can help me with any missing/incorrect info please add a comment - thanks.

Editor's note 12/12/2007: My master gig list has expanded again and is now being managed on last.fm and can be seen here.

Tori Amos - Glasgow, SECC - 07/06/2005
Kent - Stockholm - 28/05/2005
Kings of Convenience - Edinburgh, Queens Hall - 12/10/2004
Call and Response - Edinburgh, Queens Hall - 12/10/2004
Kings of Convenience - Glasgow, The Arches - 23/06/2004
Kraftwerk - London, Brixton Academy - 20/03/2003
Roxette - Brussels, Vorst National - 22/10/2001
Björk - Brussels, Cirque royal - 26/09/2001
Sting - Stockholm, Skansen - 09/06/2001
Capercaillie - Scotland, Huntley - 4th - 6th August 2000
Yes - Sheffield, City Hall - 10/02/2000
Karen Matheson - Glasgow, Celtic Connections Gaelic concert
Dougie MacLean - Darlington, The Arts Centre - 1999?
Robin Williamson - Halifax, Square chapel - 28/11/1998
Capercaillie - York, Barbican Centre - 21/09/1997
Clannad - Harrogate, Conference centre -
Everything but the girl - Harrogate, Conference centre -
Cocteau Twins - Leeds, Town and Country Club - 10/02/1994
Emerson lake and Palmer - Newcastle, City Hall - 26/11/1992
Genesis - Leeds, Roundhay Park - 31/07/1992
Cocteau Twins - Sheffield, City Hall - 28/10/1990
Notting Hillbillies - York, Opera House - 29/04/1990
Peter Hammill - Leeds, Irish Centre - 21/02/1990
Donovan - Manchester
Rick Wakeman - York, Opera House - 1989?
Yes (ABWH) - Houston, summit - 28/08/1989
Peter Hammill - Leeds, Irish Centre - 19/04/1989
Here and now - Leeds, polytechnic
Bruce Springsteen - Leeds, Roundhay Park - 07/07/1985
Associates - Manchester, Hacienda
The Psychadelic Furs - Manchester, Apollo - 24/05/1984
Blancmange - Leeds, University - 18/05/1984
Hawkwind - Bradford, University - 01/03/1984
Peter Gabriel - London, Crystal Palace - 09/07/1983
The Undertones - London, Crystal Palace - 09/07/1983
God Squad - Harrogate, Cairn Hotel
Simple Minds - Leeds, University - 27/11/1982
China Crisis - Leeds, University - 27/11/1982
Yazoo - Leeds, university - 06/11/1982
Hawkwind - Bradford, St Georges Hall - 24/10/1982
John Martyn - Leeds, university - 09/10/1982
Genesis (6 of the best) - Milton keynes, bowl - 02/10/1982
John Martyn - Milton keynes, bowl - 02/10/1982
Talk Talk - Milton keynes, bowl - 02/10/1982
Rolling Stones - Leeds, Roundhay Park - 25/07/1982
New Order - Leeds, Tiffany's - 09/03/1982
Caberet Valtaire - London, ICA - 30/12/1980
TG - Manchester, Rafters - 04/12/1980
Killing Joke - London, Trafalgar square - 26/10/1980
U2 - Leeds, Futurama - 13/09/1980
Soft Cell - Leeds, Futurama - 13/09/1980
Echo and the bunnymen - Leeds, Futurama - 13/09/1980
Siouxsie and the Banshees - Leeds, Futurama - 13/09/1980
The League of Gentlemen - Leeds, Futurama - 13/09/1980
I'm so hollow - Leeds, Futurama - 13/09/1980
Altered images - Leeds, Futurama - 13/09/1980
Bauhaus - Leeds, Fan Club - 21/08/1980
TG - Leeds, Fan Club - 24/02/1980
Steve Hackett - Bradford, St Georges Hall - 29/10/1979
Peter gabriel - Bath, Pavillion - 23/08/1979
Random Hold - Bath, Pavillion - 23/08/1979
Steve Hackett - Sheffield, City Hall - 22/06/1979
Magazine -Leeds, University - 05/05/1979
Human League - Leeds, University - 05/05/1979
Simple Minds - Leeds, University - 05/05/1979
Peter Gabriel - London, Hammersmith odeon - 22/12/1978
Penetration - Leeds, Polytechnic?
John Cooper Clark - Leeds, Polytechnic?
The Rezillos - Leeds, Fan Club?
Human League - Sheffield and Wakefield
Orange Juice - Leeds?
Joseph K - Leeds?
Vice Versa (before they changed their name to ABC) - Leeds, Warehouse?
The Buzzcocks - Sheffield, City Hall
999 - Leeds, Fan Club -
Wire - Harrogate, PGs - 29/04/1978
x-ray spex - Harrogate, PGs - 22/04/1978
The Boomtown rats - Leeds, University - 11/12/1977

I may have also seen: Roy Harper, Thompson twins and Rema Rema, but I can't quite remember...


Doesn't that bring back memories?

If you have been to any concerts with me that are not on this list, remind me and I'll add them on.

Dag 452: Gruppbokning

With less than 24 hours to go, here is the latest news from Scotland:

The current weather prospect is:
friday - 17° full sun
saturday - 15° light rain
sunday - 18° sunny intervals

First drink (or two) in Stockholm will be in the Ice Bar at 18:45 (it was the only free slot, but we will hopefully make it in time).

Things I have to remember:
bring passport (currently in my inside jacket pocket)
bring kent ticklets (they are currently in my laptop bag, but I won't be taking that so I must remember to take them out)
check with Adrian whether he thinks I should use the internet check in facility and check in this afternoon (you can do it 22 hours before the flight - do you want a window or an isle?)
bring my printouts of flight bookings and hotel booking ref numbers etc.
if there is anything else I need to remember I can't remember what it is to put it on this list, which means I may still not remember it tomorrow - so we are stuffed!

Also a lot of these Stockholm bars seem to like you to dress up a bit in order to get in and I haven't got any particularly decent clothes with me. I was going to buy some on Saturday, but that won't help me for Friday night.

Dag 451: this night wounds time

In just two short days time Adrian and I will be heading off to Stockholm to see Kent and do some other stuff that will result in a fun weekend for all concerned.

I have been monitoring the weather situation and as per usual the forecast changes several times a day. The current prognosis is:
Friday 27th - 19° and full sun (this morning it said 16° and full sun)
Saturday 28th - 19° and sunny intervals (this morning it said 16° and full sun)
Sunday 29th - 20° and light rain (this morning it said 23° and full sun)

So friday looks like having the best weather at the moment, but as we don't arrive until around 17:30 we won't be able to take full advantage of it. I am hoping that when I look again later this afternoon it may have improved again. But I guess it will all be different when I look again tomorrow.

I have been trying to cram up on my Swedish by listening to only Swedish music and watching Swedish DVDs over the last few days. I watched the original Norwegian version of Insomnia (which isn't as quite as strange as it sounds because it features 2 Swedish detectives so there is a fair amount of Swedish being spoken in it) and last night I watched the first 2 hours of Den 5:e Kvinnan so I've got the remaining 2 hours left for tonight. It doesn't have english subtitles so I've been watching it with Swedish subtitles to help me link up the sounds being heard to what is written down but they don't leave the subtitles up long enough to read them. So if the person responsible for those subtitles is reading this, please make them stay on the screen a bit longer for the next one you do.

On thursday night I shall probably watch Sprängaren again as its not only good, but resonably easy to follow what is being said and they keep the subtitles on the screen for long enough.

I am really looking forward to the plane touching down at Arlanda and my first steps on Swedish ground, it always gives me a goose pimply/hairs standing up on the back of the neck type feeling.

So Adrian, where do you fancy having our first drink on friday evening? Shall we go to the coolest bar on Stockholm (I will probably need to book a 45 minute slot) or maybe one of the highest bars in Stockholm or one of the apartment loftest type bars?

Adrian and Dom: going out in Stockholm whatever the weather.

Shelving, a beginner's guide

I'm home again. Not that I was away too far, but was skipping around catching up with West coast people, and praying quite a lot.
For some strange reason, I expected to have a flurry of free time due to finishing somewhat prematurely my last contract. This didn't happen. I also expected to feel an elevated sense of wellbeing due to escaping the clutches of corporate America, umm, UK. This somewhat happened.
It's very strange, no matter how long I do this contracting thing, I think I'll always feel a bit strange when one ends. I always go through the same doubts over whether I'll ever work again, should I just take the first job that comes along, even if it's bar work? This usually lasts for a week or two, then the blissful realization that I don't need to get dressed in the morning kicks in and I smile.
I've been putting up shelves. I bought some power tools, as I felt I was sufficiently mature enough to use a jigsaw without losing too many fingers. So far, so good with that one. I also got an angle grinder, as I felt it was my duty as a man to have a least one power tool which I had no idea what it was for.
I've also discovered the pleasure of Cash & Carry shopping. My mum goes to these places for a little shop business to pick up stuff to sell. Now, I always thought these places meant buying things by the hundred, which isn't true. She wanted to go to one, and I said I'd take her. This was obviously a ruse to get on her good side and a hint of self flagellation by suffering a shop. Once we got in though, I was like a kid in a candy store, and not even the good candy, the one I like. All the tat you see in markets starts it's (retail) life here. You pick up those toy guns that shoot little balls for a couple of quid, and they sell for a tenner at the market. This allows you to easily buy 20 and hand them out to all the kids in the street while starting a sweep with the neighbours over the number of permanent injuries that will occur within a set period of time.
Anyway, I now have a compass in my car and can tell you at any given time which direction I'm going (£2.50).
So, not much else happening - was at a first communion on Sunday, am off to Ireland this weekend, then another communion next weekend. One would imagine that I am being turned to the dark side of the force with all these goings on, but I can assure you that my reaction to certain religious events on Sunday afternoon would prove that all the bluebells are still blue.

Dag 443: Jag förstår inte!

Äntligen min post i svenska - till och med det är mycket felaktigt svenska.

Adrian och jag kommer att vara i Stockholm på fredag 27 maj för att se en kent konsert. Konserten är på lördag så på fredag kväll vill vi gå ut och slå runt.

För två år sedan reste Adrian och jag till Sverige för att se en Sting konsert på Skansen. Vi hade en bra tid och hade jag min första massage - det var på Sturbadet.

Den här är inte så enkelt. Jag behöver mer träning.

Förlåt för min svenska.
Jag är snart tillbaka i engelska.

Dag 439: The list's the thing

So, I've singularly failed to come up with a post in Swedish so I'll do my next one in Swedish and this one can be in English.

Lots of things have happened so here is a summary:
I am currently doing shifts, which I am not enjoying at all. Al has left us so we had a leaving do in the Candy Bar, Edinburgh. This was my last night out thanks to the fact that I have been on constant late or early shifts every day since then. Did I mention that I don't like doing shifts?

I managed to get one of my synths hooked up to my computer and recorded a couple of test tracks to get back into the swing of things, but I haven't been able to do any more recording since as I have been working on shifts - which I don't like doing. I wonder how many musicians have had their musical careers ruined by having to work on shifts? Probably 1.

The cough that I have had for the last 4 weeks finally seems to have gone away which hopefully means I will be 100% fit and well for my trip to Stockholm in 2 weeks time. I'm sure it was related to my having to work on shifts.

I bought a Talk now Swedish language cd to do a bit of brushing up and so far I have got 550 points and not a single question wrong. The program is really well put together, but it is also really easy. I need to try and find an intermediate type version, but there probably isn't much time to sort this out before I go. 550 points is actually pretty good when you take into account the fact that I've had to work on shifts everyday since Al left.

As far as my movie watching goes - I haven't had time to watch any because of all the shifts I've had to work.

When I go to Sweden on 27th may I need to buy the following items, which I hope I will be able to do without wasting too much of Adrian's valuable time:
1 copy of the white noise DVD - release date 27/05/2005
1 copy of any Kurt Wallander DVDs that have been released since my last visit
1 Beck DVD (to add to my collection, I get one more each trip)
1 Pippi Långstrump DVD (purely for Swedish practice)
1 pair of Nudie jeans
1 black Nudie long sleeved top + several t-shirts
some socks and pants
3 bottles of gla shampo (enough to last me until my next trip)
I may also by a new mobile phone while I am there

While we are on the subject of listing things on desks, here is the current contents of mine:
1 Apple PowerBook (which I am currently writing this on)
1 Compaq Evo desktop (which I can't write this on because the site is blocked by websense)
1 desk phone with a toy (space fox) from a kinder egg stuck to the ear-piece
1 p800 mobile phone
1 p800 spare keyboard flap with corner tag broken off (and 2 bits of white plastic from fibre optics cable stick into 2 holes in it)
1 penny coin in a red metal clip
1 paper clip stuck in a piece of blutack which has the red petals from a fake poppy stuck round it
3 floppy disks (2 containing midi files and the other labelled kintail)
1 pizza express napkin
2 starbucks napkins
3 plain white napkin
1 superman coffee mat (brought back from America by Al)
1 pair of cheap headphones
1 copy of Solaris operating Environment Boot Camp (hardly used)
1 notebook bought from NK in Stockholm
1 price tag for above book marked Bookbinders Design SEK 195
1 grey sweatshirt sporting the words "alpha chi omega" which I don't really like
1 plastic fork
2 plastic knives
1 pot of tipp-ex
1 pad of post-it notes (yellow)
1 sachet of malt viniger
1 sachet of tomato ketchup
1 Paul Smith wallet bought in Stockholm (I wanted to buy a Swedish wallet, but due to various pressures, which I won't go into now, I was forced into buying this instead)
a huge amount of printed out pages with such things as how to stop and start callidus on them
1 sun microsystems mouse mat which states "the network is the computer" - so I guess I don't actually need my computer any more, I can just do everything I need using the network
3 blank cds
1 pack of chewing gum from marks & expensive
3 little paper umbrellas
1 plastic spooky castle (complete with ghost and working doors - from a kinder egg)
1 fake moustach
1 brass hook type thing that you use to tie up the chord from some blinds or curtains - this is stuck to the side of my monitor with blu tack

I would also like a poster containing the words "Ye be warned! Pirates be operatin' in this area, yarr." to be taken into consideration.

Vi ses nästa gång!