Sunday, October 29, 2006

11th November 2001

Sorry about the lack of wise words for the last week or so but it
has been quite hectic as you will see from reading the following.
Right, here we go, in chronological order without the dates. I was
off to the British Museum with my son's primary school class as a
volunteer parent. I was given some worksheets and six kids and we
set off around the museum looking at relics from ancient Greece and
Rome. I had not been to the British Museum before and was looking
forward to seeing the huge glass roof that has recently been
installed there as part of a Millenium building project. When the
museum was built it had a big courtyard in the middle with a
circular reading room in the middle and it was decided to cover this
courtyard with a roof to celebrate the Millenium. It was designed by
Norman Foster, I think, and is very impressive and I will do my best
to try and describe it to you. The reading room in the middle was
not quite central so they have this huge glass dome that covers the
yard but is joined to the reading room in the middle and the glass
in the roof is hundreds of triangular double-glazed windows in this
huge matrix. I saw a tv program about the making of this roof and
they were saying that there are no two peices the same in this roof
and each window was individually numbered. How's that for a
king-size jigsaw. It was designed using computers to work out the
sizes of all the peices and could not have been built without the
aid of software. I have to say is has turned the courtyard into the
main feature of the museum and considering it is free to get then
you should pop along and check it out if you are in Central London.
Next day out was down to the New Den to see Millwall. I manged to
speak to their goalkeeper, Tony Warner, who was previously at
Liverpool, and is the nephew of a freind of mine, and managed to
secure a couple of tickets for the players lounge for Taylor, Big
Harry, Liam and myself. As we were going to meet all these players I
took the boys to the club shop at the ground and bought them a
couple of shirts to get signed. The Lions won, against former
Premiership veterans Coventry City. I really love going down to the
Den and enjoying the great atmosphere created by their mental
supporters, I mean that in a nice way, despite the bad reputation
that they have due to the minority of real head-cases who follow the
team. One more footy story for this week that has to get a mention
is the demolition of the Mancs at Anfield as they were run over by
the red machine in full effect. It was nice to hear the Kop baiting
Alex Ferguson with the chant "There's only one Jap Staam" and their
rendition of the DJ Otzi hit "John Arne Riise, I wanna know-ow-ow,
how you scored that goal".
That's it for the football, now we move onto another male thing..
Fireworks. The kids and I popped off to Homebase and ordered £50
quid's worth of Standard's finest with an extra packet of rockets
and a free 40 shot "thingy" for spending over £50 quid. They went
down well and the only dodgy part happened when the air bomb I had
just lit fell over after the first bomb shot out and sent us all
running for cover but not before the second one had shot out and hit
Lucy's freind, Sophie, in the leg which left her with a nice burn
mark. It just goes to show that even experienced pyro heads like me
can get caught out so make sure you follow the firework code.
Earlier this week I was offered the chance of a slot at this local
festival in Crouch End and thought I would use it as an opportunity
to get together with a different bunch of musicians than my first
team squad down in Wales. You may remember that I had a young covers
band in my studio a few months ago and I was very impressed with
their musicianship and all round togetherness and fancied having a
knock with them and seeing what happened. We rehearsed in this
nightclub in Muswell Hill and it was a vibe. Unfortunately the gig
was pulled because the guy organising it had too many bands and had
his time cut by the local council so he had no room for the King Of
Pop so it looks like we will have to postpone that vibe for now. I
had asked these guys (and gal) if I can pop down and rehearse with
them every once in a while because I don't have anyone to play with
in London so when I go to Wales to see the chaps I end up with
really sore fingers after ten minutes so this should keep me in
shape fingerwise.
Thursday night was spent down at O'Neils in North Finchley hosting a
quiz for my kids school. I had compiled the quiz and was getting
stress from the thicker individuals who complained that it was too
hard. One thing I did notice about this evening is that the pub quiz
is dead due to mobile phones. It is a sad reflection of society and
of people's sense of fair play that I caught at least six teams on
the phone to people who were no doubt sitting surfing at home and
supplying answers to their mates in the pub. The worst thing was
that one of these teams went on to win it so if I do this again I
will be asking questions instead of giving out question sheets. The
quiz was the reason I arrived in the chat room half an hour late. I
apologise and promise to be early next week (and sober)
Friday night was spent in Stevie B's studio recording 'Arris and Co
rehearsing for the aforementioned gig in Crouch End. The group
contained three of the original memebers of Ace and even though
these boys are approaching retirement age they still make a good row
(after I got them to tune up, I guess old age makes tuning
discrepencies harder to hear!!!). It was nice to see all the boys
and I may pop along to see then tonight if I get the chance.
Ooops, forgot about Saturday. Ireland 2 Iran 0. We are half way to
Japan and I halfway to sore fingers again!!! Phew......see ya next
week.

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