Author Archives: Alan

Levelling the band..

Posted on November 22, 2012 by Alan

I like the opportunity to combined my interests, and last night was a chance to combine my under-stated obsession with the Levellers and the BBC Children in Need charity.  Cambridge 105 ran a charity auction for some Levs related swag which I won – and rather than post the stuff to me tour-manager Phil clocked I was in Nottingham, as were the band, in the next few days.

So through the lovely Claire at Cambridge 105 an aftershow pass had been arranged at Rock City for me to collect the goodies straight after the gig.  Still feeling a bit under the weather I had the interesting experience of watching the Levellers barnstorming set completely sober – it certainly didn’t spoil it.  They’re on as good form as I’ve ever seen them at the moment, blending a nice mix of old and new, well known and more obscure – it was a great selection of songs performed awesomely.

It was also great to see some familiar faces join them on stage to play über-catchy ‘The Recruiting Sergeant” at the end.  I had thought I was recording it for posterity but well, a technical glitch means I either deleted it or never recorded it in the first place – grr.  Post-gig I found tour manager Phil who led be back stage where he handed me a bag of stuff including a signed drum skin lovingly artified by Jeremy, a customised satchel, a Truth Is vinyl and some cufflinks.

Being a bit of a merchandise whore for Levs stuff there’s some duplication, but that’s okay!  It felt a bit strange accosting people who are frankly heroes of mine for photos when they’ve literally just finished an intensive set of performing – but they were lovely and very gracious.  Of course all I could think of to talk about was the kind of banal crap they must hear after every show, thankfully that probably consigns me to a non-specific memory bank of gormless fans for them!

Which means in one fell swoop I’ve completed my collection of ‘pictures of me with Levellers’ which had been standing at 3 over a few year period.  Big thanks to Claire and Phil for organising the opportunity and of course to Simon, Matt, Charlie, Jeremy, Jon and Mark for indulging me when they probably wanted to get down the pub (and to Chris for the lift home).  I think perhaps I might have been better off getting leathered beforehand!

Back on to a dog-tastic weekend of Ferocious Dog action this weekend – it was great to see lots of fellow doggers in the crowd (not least Dan who was on stage for the last song).  We’re off to see them play in Beeston on Saturday night and then in Derby on Sunday night.

For now, I can admire my bag of swag – and think what I can do with my awesome (used) drum skin!  I must be one of a select group of people who now owns two pairs of Levellers cufflinks too!!

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I have a bike, you can ride it if you like..

Posted on November 13, 2012 by Alan

Dah-na dah-na dah-na dah-na dah-na… BAT BIKE!

… actually, I don’t.  Yet.

A few months ago at work I put my name down for a locker – at Boots there’s a waiting list that folk wisdom suggested lasted a year or more.  The catalyst for this was being in a bit of a mood (!) about the impending Workplace Parking Levy about to be passed on to us in order to pay for Nottingham City Council’s ill-conceived desire to cover our city with electronic modes of transport.

The idea reminded me of when I went to Digger World with Rich and Em – because, ironically, the solution to this could be, wait for it, an electric mode of transport.  As bizarrely an offshoot of Digger World was a company who produced electric bikes.  Basically a normal bike that is assisted by a battery-powered motor.  Which might sound a bit lazy, well, I suppose it is.

So yeah, I thought a year of waiting to be granted a locker would give me some procrastination time – and then maybe I could get myself a Bat-Bike and take advantage of an easy ride in to work, a quick change, a day’s work and then work a bit harder on getting home – which would fit nicely into project fatty too, giving me more exercise.

It would enable me to unsubscribe from the Workplace Parking Levy if I cycled in 80% of the time or more, and of course could feasibly save me an awful lot of money on petrol too.  Food for thought, for sure – more pressing than I’d thought it would be.  Not that I can afford to splash out on a bike right now!

As for other stuff in the world of me.. we’ve had a restructure at work which has been somewhat frustrating, Ferocious Dog have been busy in the studio for their forthcoming EP which I can’t wait to hear – and at the weekend as well as Forest we’ve got the excitement of going to see Carl Froch in his latest bid to retain his world title.

After that there’s the Levellers in Rock City and then Ferocious Dog in Beeston, then Derby.  All in all, lots of music-based excitement with a good smattering of sport.

Before all that of course we have Children in Need and in the midst of it all Movember.  I’m really looking forward to Friday where our team have a day of fundraising planned with a human fruit machine (again) and help from the lovely folks at Alea Casino who’re bringing a roulette wheel in for us to use as a game, then on to the evening where I’ll be taking calls from the lovely folks of the UK until the early hours (and missing seeing the Levellers in Lincoln in so doing, I might add!)

Busy old time.  I’m glad I’ve done all my Christmas shopping! </smugface>

As a final aside – as a throwback to previous posts relating to randomly remembering old school hymns, for reasons best known to my subconscious mind I seem to have had ‘when a knight won his spurs’ stuck in my head – of course, back in the day we would sing it as ‘when Forest beat Spurs’ – which almost certainly are in the stories of old these days!

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I will fly a yellow paper sun in your sky..

Posted on November 2, 2012 by Alan

If I said ‘The Crazy World of Arthur Brown’ to people my age they’d probably shout I am the god of hell fire! at me in response – they probably only found that song through the Prodigy sampling that particular part of it.  Certainly I was in that camp.

I only really opted to go see his performance because the excellent Moulettes were supporting and Cat and I really enjoyed them when they played before the Levellers acoustic gig up in Buxton.  So missing the very start of their set, and it only being 30 minutes long, was a bit of a pity in many ways (but still very enjoyable, of course!).  Here’s their final song of the night, Requiem:

We both treated Arthur Brown with some degree of caution – I’ve since discovered he’s seventy years old and these days looking rather like a psychedelic Terry Nutkins, but still pretty spritely as he cavorts around the stage for a good hour or so.  Some of it went a bit too ‘far out’ but for the most part it was awesome… culminating obviously with Fire. Below he is performing my personal highlight of the night, ‘Kites’:

The song leapt out because I recognised it as a song from Sasha and Digweed’s Northern Exposure album.  I never knew it was a cover, to be honest, so it was a bit bemusing for a while.  It turns out the original song was by Simon Dupree and the Big Sound.  I also hadn’t realised quite how long Arthur Brown has been performing for – so I do feel oddly privileged to have been able to say I’ve seen him in action.

Whilst the Rescue Rooms was by no means full there was a healthy crowd of people mostly older than me (which makes a nice change!).  He mentioned he’s recording a new album early next year which he’ll be touring so if you happen to spot a date near you (or not near you) in 2013 then it’s well worth a gander.  A top night’s entertainment.

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Whacha gonna do? And other Hogan Slogans..

Posted on October 31, 2012 by Alan

I’ve long since stopped worrying too heartily about ‘project fatty’ too much – but I have maintained the routine of tracking what I eat using MyFitnessPal.  It’s quite good for generally ill-disciplined minds such as mine I’ve found.

Just on a whim I stepped on the scales for the first time in weeks to realise I’d hit the four stone lost landmark since I started.  I’m now hovering at around the weight I think I ought to be.  I’m wearing trousers I could’ve worn when I was seventeen, and they’re a bit on the loose side if anything.  Freaky when you think about it.

Now attentions turn to Movember.  In truth, I wasn’t too fussed about doing it this year but have caved in to peer pressure.  Having done two ‘conventional’ Movembers before last year I did the ‘grow a moustache that has curlable ends’ challenge, and succeeded.  This year I’ve also given myself a head start too.

To make it more interesting this year if I manage to get my sponsorship up to £200 then I’ll bleach what will be a handsome horse-shoe shaped moustache to give me the Hulk Hogan look.  I agreed to this before I realised said wrestler was subject of a sex-tape scandal at the moment.  Dear me.  So despite my ambivalence about hitting this particular target, I suppose I am duty bound to share the link to my Movember profile regardless.

There’s still a way to go yet, so I feel reasonably comfortable.  Should you wish to reduce my levels of comfort then my page is here: http://uk.movember.com/mospace/1202308

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And the devil sends the hell hounds for me..

Posted on October 21, 2012 by Alan

I know I mention Ferocious Dog quite a lot, but watch the video below, then go and check out their tour dates – and go and see them.  It’s awesome that Nottingham has an artist at the top of the album charts this week, but there’s more to local music than just Jake Bugg – we should embrace it, support it and propel our talented musicians into the prominence they deserve.

Also recommended is their debut album and forthcoming EP – because they’re as good recorded as they are live (but you can’t quite beat them live, in my opinion!).  Get yourself some awesome local music now from this link!

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Karma police..

Posted on October 18, 2012 by Alan

November tends to be the month of charitable overload – Movember, a charity I’m quite fond of as I’m not a fan of shaving, and Children in Need, something I’ve adopted since working for Boots.  It’s also typically when the Levellers do a UK tour.

I excitedly booked a ticket and hotel room in Lincoln for the 16th November months ago giving little thought to it, only to find it was the day that Children in Need will fall.  Whilst it might seem like a strange move I’ve managed to sell the ticket and hotel booking (for face value too) so that I can take part in both the charity shenanigans during the day in the office, and in the evening take phone calls.

Big thanks are owed to my friend Lynn who knew somebody who hadn’t firmed up their plans but planned on attending – indeed, through this move they saved a bit of cash too, so everyone really was a winner!  Perhaps there really are karma police watching over us!

This is not me setting myself up as being some sort of social martyr though – as well as obviously raising money for the charity through fundraising and taking people’s pledges via the telephone, it’s a great deal of fun as well – and this year will mark my tenth consecutive year of supporting the charity – something I really didn’t want to miss out on.

As well as the fun factor, it’s a really nice annual reminder of how wonderfully generous, kind and caring the people of the UK are as a whole.  The modern world, particularly in tough economic times, gives us too many reminders of people being shits to one another, so I take a great deal of healing from speaking to hundreds of people at their very best – donating money to a fantastic cause.  Nearly always apologising that they can’t pledge more, bless them.

So I am sad to not be having my trip to Lincoln to see the Levs and catch up with friends also going to that gig – but I can, of course, take solace in the fact that I’ve only lost out on a booking fee and postage to send the ticket on, and of course I will be seeing the Levellers the week after in my home town anyway, so it’s really not the end of the world…

Should you wish to support Children in Need then give the hotline a call on the night, you’ll have around a 1/3000 ish (I think) chance of getting through to me!  Should you want to help fund my magnificent Movember growth then you can do so here!

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In the land that calls my name, can’t you see we’re all to blame?

Posted on October 1, 2012 by Alan

It’s testament to what went before that watching Forest limp to a disappointing defeat to Derby on our own ground couldn’t really do anything other than put an unsavoury finish to an awesome weekend.

I plan on keeping this brief, this was my Friday night:

And this was my Saturday night:

So Sunday’s disappointment and a slightly underwhelming impulse trip to the Speedwell Cavern near Castleton can be merrily consigned to the memory dustbin leaving a weekend replete with musical splendidness courtesy of The Levellers and Ferocious Dog.

I’ve even managed to add Oscar and Rich to the ranks of fans of Ferocious Dog along with Chris – so we’re already availed ourselves of tickets for their next gig in Southwell in a few weeks!

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Excitement..

Posted on September 27, 2012 by Alan

So I’ve got my iPhone 5.

I’m very pleased with it indeed.  I wasn’t expecting a revolution, I was expecting significant evolution from my previous phone that was 2 generations older.  That’s what I’ve got, and it’s splendid.  Once the Three network resolves whatever gremlins prevent me sending MMS messages, I’ll be sorted – even then, I don’t send them that often.  Three doesn’t have a great signal at home though, so I might be lured into spending a bit more on Orange who do have decent coverage here – and of course offer the promise of 4G in the future.

In terms of the silly hype that comes with Apple devices, I won’t deny I was excited by the prospect of the phone – but it seemed to me that there was more fervour from people who laud other devices to disparage it.  Odd behaviour.  It reminds me of the kind of ‘banter’ we indulged in as children when some of us had Amigas and other kids had Atari STs.  Of course, back then it was excusable as after all we were children.  And Amigas were clearly vastly superior and if you had an ST you smelled of wee.

Anyway, I digress.. I was excited to get my nice shiny iPhone 5, and having had a week of using it I feel that excitement was justified – and if anyone wants to try to piss on that particular bonfire then that’s their prerogative.

To build upon this excitement I’ve got an awesome weekend lined up – tomorrow Cat and I are off to Buxton where I’ll hook up with lots of my Levellers friends to see, unsurprisingly – the Levellers – play an acoustic gig at the Opera House there.  We’ve booked lunch on the way, and got a hotel to stay in once we get to Buxton.  They’ve just played Exeter and Salisbury cathedrals – I kinda wish I’d made the effort to get down to one of those, what a great opportunity to see them in an unusual and dramatic setting!  Mustn’t be greedy, though!

Saturday is a return to Nottingham, and with Rich, Rich and Chris and assorted Ferocious Dog friends I’m off to see Ferocious Dog play the Bodega which will be awesome.  I’ve seen them rock that venue before when supporting 3 Daft Monkeys, now they’re headlining it and it’ll be brilliant.  Then of course there’s the small matter of Forest hosting our dear neighbours Derby County on Sunday.

Hopefully good things come in threes and the Reds can get a favourable result to make amends for last season!

Categories: Blog, Ferocious Dog, iPhone / iPad / Mac, Levellers | Leave a comment

Gimme Five..

Posted on September 17, 2012 by Alan

The countdown is on for the iPhone 5 arriving – according to my order from Apple it should be delivered on launch day when, helpfully, Cat will be at home so able to take delivery of it.  It seems to be most uncool to consider the launch exciting, but I am anyway – so there.  I’d planned to upgrade to this version for some time, and saved up the cash to do it direct from Apple rather than tying myself into a lengthy contract.

With that in mind, I’m going to move away from Giffgaff and use Three.  Giffgaff were okay, but the coverage where I live isn’t that good – and since they’ve started considering capping their data allowance, and they can’t get hold of nanosims for ‘a week weeks’ it would render me unable to use my new phone.  Annoyingness unbounded!  Three’s coverage looks like it should be okay (home might be sketchy, but we are in a dip), and they offer all-you-can-eat data for £13 a month.

I was cunning enough to sign up to a phone recycling place before Apple announced the iPhone 5 so got a decent price for my iPhone 4.  Whilst my phone is in good nick and working okay, the home button does get sticky so I’ll be glad to upgrade.  iOS 6 looks to have added some nifty features – not least I’ve enjoyed using Siri on my iPad.  That’s probably something that will have the novelty wear off, but I’m not so sure – I found a few genuine uses.

It does have an annoying voice though.  I think, much like with sat nav, I would prefer the ladies voice – the trouble is the only way to do that would be to switch to Australian or American – in which instance Siri would respond best to me speaking in an American or Australian accent.  Damn!  Ya flamin’ galaar… hmm, it could be tempting, after all!

The other idea I liked was the option for shared Photostreams – Photostream is something I’ve found quite useful for not having to worry about moving photos between my own iDevices, but if I were to – for example – set up shared Photostreams with friends with common interests it could be a really nifty way of us sharing photos of common events – e.g., football matches, gigs, nights out, etc.  iPhones are becoming quite ubiquitous amongst my assorted social groups so it could happen.

So even for those of you not partaking in iPhone 5 action later this week, wednesday’s iOS 6 update should give you a few interesting tidbits to play with too.  The 3D maps look ace (if limited on locations – New York looks nice though, which is sod all use to me!), the default map views look not dissimilar to Google Maps.  One thing, a small thing, but something that has delighted me – you can finally reorder your mailboxes if you are using several of them.. that was a serious vexation.

So yeah, lots of gadget ponderations.  I’m such a fascinating person, aren’t I? Sigh!

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Planning, plotting, geeking..

Posted on August 24, 2012 by Alan

I’m having a strangely geeky evening.  Along with the usual over-geekery with what I’m eating since project fatty has been underway (which now sees me tantalisingly close to weighing 13st rather than exceeding 16.5st as I was at the beginning), I’ve been geekifying other areas of life.  Not to mention being a professional geek as well.

Because of the foibles of the fixture computer, I’ve been busy with Forest lately.  I had said to myself with my resurgent interest in music that I’d need to cut down on away travel with the Reds a bit, so focus on grounds I hadn’t visited before.  Cue the first two league away games to be the only two grounds I’ve not ‘done’ in the league, and the cup draw to be away at Fleetwood.  So tomorrow I’ll have been to my third Forest away game, which is all of them so far.  I will be cutting back later!

But in updating the list of grounds on FootballGroundMap I started to lament the simple “count the distinct grounds” method they use – it includes Wembley, the Millennium Stadium, clubs who have either always been or subsequently become non-league, it counts the old and new grounds of a single club as two.  The ‘holy grail’ if you will of football fans is to complete ‘the 92’ – ie, visit all the league football clubs homes for a match.  I say holy grail, I’m not that bothered personally as I only really want to go and watch Forest.

Still, it’s interesting – thanks to some Excel geekery I worked out that I’ve visited 66 of the 92 distinct clubs currently in the league, because I’ve doubled-up on some clubs who’ve moved house that equates to 74 distinct grounds (with at least six who have moved since my last visit to add to this).  Six grounds I visited as league grounds have become non-league, two were always non-league and two are national stadia (one of which was of course completely rebuilt – I’ve been to both versions).

If you took it too far you’d go mad – the very nature of the football pyramid is that it changes – teams drop out, they come in – I could’ve been up to 72 had it not been for the misfortunes of Mansfield Town, Stockport County, Chester City, Luton Town, Rushden & Diamonds and Wrexham!  My biggest opportunities for new grounds like in League Two and League One – so sympathetic cup draws aside, I’m happy for them to remain unvisited!

The other thing I’ve been doing is realising that the aforementioned resurgent interest in music has run the risk of me double-booking myself more readily, so I’ve added them to my Google calendar which I suspect I’ll be using more now which makes my social life more like work – which is a bit depressing in a way.  However, it’s a cunning plan.  With Ferocious Dog, the Levellers (a few times 😉 ), Simon Friend and New Model Army gigs lined up I don’t want anything to end up inadvertently clashing with them.

Nothing else to report really.  Apparently Prince Harry – a single 20-something bloke – cavorted around naked with friends in Vegas.  Oh.  Yeah.  It’s not that interesting really is it?  Shame on anyone who pays money to a publication attempting to profiteer from something so banal.

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