Guitar

11Aug08

I first learned to play guitar when I was about 12. For the following 5 or 6 years it became an appendage. Everywhere I went, it went with me. I initially had a classical one, then moved on to a steel string Gibson.

My early guitar career had the sole purpose of playing in the school church group. Like so many others I suppose, my catalogue of chords was simple, subtle and provided just enough range to make any sound possible.

Somewhere over the last 18 years the sounds from my guitar have quietened. Although I always had one with me, it no longer gave a voice to ease and soothe whatever ache or adventure I was going through. I’ve dabbled and banged things out but it’s always felt pretty soul less, until tonight.

I sit here now, the fingertips of my left hand blissfully aching having played for hours. It’s a painful tingle because the skin was no longer hardened to take the abuse steel strings throw up. Hasn’t been for years.

Felt good. In tune. In time

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“the heart..

04Aug08

…is a fist wrapped in blood”

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So Robbie got a new job

29Jul08

All day I’ve been following the news that the footballer Robbie Keane has transferred from Spurs to Liverpool. As a Spurs fan the initial speculation came out of nowhere so to see it move to reality a disappointment.

I noticed lots of negative comment appear from some Spurs fans spitting about their sense of betrayal and disgust at Keane for leaving hence this entry at all.

From my perspective Keane will be missed, he’s been a super player for Spurs over the last 6 years. He consistently ran his socks off, supplied, scored and led by example. To suggest that overnight because he’s wearing a different colour jersey those attributes are no longer valued and absolves us from admiring is bigoted.

If he chose to accept Liverpool’s offer that’s his business. He grew up supporting them – as a child of the 80’s who can deny the sleek skills Dalglish, Hansen, Keegan, Rush, Barnes & Co would have been intoxicating to any aspiring young footballer. For Spurs, there’s £20.3 million worth of new dreams for Juande Ramos to help ease the pain.

I wish Keane well. I am sorry his move will be thought of poorly in certain quarters. I’m more sorry I won’t get a chance to salute him while still in a white shirt for all his service.

In the immortal words of Jed Bartlett, what’s next?

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Holy Oscar Batman, you think anyone noticed the film is terrible?

26Jul08

Disappointed. Am so disappointed.

I was totally looking forward to Batman: The Dark Knight tonight. Batman Begins was (and remains the uncontested) best of the Batman bunch not to mention a stand out film on its own. It had a plot that flowed, made sense, engaged its audience, had cool gadgets, clearly knew how to build and maintain tension and crucially didn’t take itself too seriously.

I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this …

While I’d love to say its out of some high brow sense of fair play to not give the story away to anyone who hasn’t seen the film yet (only opened in the UK yesterday) but I’m not going to go into more detail at this point.

Truth is, I just can’t bring myself to write about it. My initial reaction is that the joke ultimately was on us and with so many moral absolutes drowning the film’s laughter I’m simply too tired to care.

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Solitaire

25Jul08

I cant explain or make excuses but I seem to have developed a rather unhealthy (new) habit of playing far more Solitaire than is good for me. I’d love to promote the notion that it’s going to help my memory or problem solving skills but I suspect that’s nothing more than wild reaching.

Who knows what it’ll lead to .. 2012?

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Randoms for Spanish Sunday evenings

06Jul08

Successful sporting Sunday evenings seem to be becoming the norm if you’re a Spaniard.  Incredible Wimbledon mens final tonight. Such a shame one of them had to lose. I’ve never been a massive Federer fan but the way he clawed his way back into the match was simply the mark of a great champion. The way Nadal held his nerve though was incredible and I think overall he deserved to win the match.

My back is entering into a world of pain competition. I’m sure of it, there’s no other possible reason for all this discomfort.

My car has started telling me it needs a service – there’s a light that comes on when it wants attention – it feels like only yesterday I got it serviced before going to France for the rugby world cup. Surely more than a Munster Heineken Cup victory and ten years have passed since that dreadful period of time?

I have a stack of ironing that resembles the leaning tower of colour looking at me – not necessarily the most restful thing to see before nodding off to dreamworld.

Finally, a nod to Madame Marie and her telling fortunes better than everyone else.

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Liverpool evening medley

24Jun08

Greetings from a posh hotel in Liverpool. I’m here for work for a few days. As I head to bed, thought I’d share a few of today’s odder events:

Gourmet food = nice food for very small people. The tiniest of the smalls. Gapping mouths around a table may cause waiters to run for extra side dishes that may arrive ten minutes after main dish quickly inhaled. I’m just saying things like this could happen.

Virgin trains are the singular cause of global warming judging by the full air con they’d going on this morning between London and Liverpool when there was absolutely no need for it.

Taking down the make and number details of random cars in a random car park will draw the attention of the security guards, especially on the docks in Liverpool.

I’ve stayed in this same hotel room before, in Dublin.

There is no way for me to be productive after 4pm on only four hours sleep and no biscuits or sweeties with afternoon tea.

Irish coffee doesn’t come with whiskey in this town, judging by the taste, what’s that all about?

What do you get when you put a bunch of people together who all work for the same company across different locations and functional areas but don’t know each other? A hefty food and wine bill that no sane individual wants to be responsible for.

So ends my first day in Liverpool (aka city #44) and I have to say it’s gone well. It was a lovely, if brief drive from the train station to our hotel with some stunning looking buildings and not a hint of Cilla Black anywhere.

Let’s see what tomorrow brings in this European City of Culture 2008 – at the very least I hope it involves me no longer having “so ferry, ‘cross the Mersey” going round my head like a car doing handbrake turns.

I can only hope.

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Funny old game, football

22Jun08

Just a thought, will Spain ever win an important football game in my lifetime?

In other football news. Perhaps it’s the way of things but like anyone who has been following soccer since the 70’s / 80s I’m realising that many of the players I watched growing up – and some more recently – have all moved into management.

During this Euro 2008 tournament, I remembered Donadoni has joined the managerial ranks. Along with Slaven Bilic managing Croatia and today Paul Ince being named as the new Blackburn manager I’m feeling old.

Not exhaustive by any stretch of the imagination but looking at the Premier League with the exception of Hodgson, Ferguson, Redknapp and Allardyce and any of French, Portuguese and Spanish origin (I realise already that looks like many an exception) the remaining managers were all old Division One / Premier League players as I was growing up I think.

Definitely the way of things.

Spain are still in the competition, extra time though, still all to play for.

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How do you do your jet lag?

20Jun08

This is a funny business jetlag. Touch wood its not something I suffer from too much, probably the result of many an unplanned late night foray building up a high tolerance for weird day / evening lengths.

What I tend to get instead though is a massive fit of physical tourettes that’s just crap on long flights. From the moment I get on the plane – especially when it’s my second long flight in less than a week – my whole body decides it needs to move every few minutes. I get so physically frustrated and feelings of crampedness and tetchiness I must be horrible to sit next to when I’m like that, I can’t help it though.

By the time I made it back to London today I was wound up so tightly I had to bypass Go and head straight to my little Chinese massage lady to see if any of that spring could be uncoiled.

I sit here now on my couch, winding down, typing this dreaming of my bed. I’ve had some food, am finishing a beer and have Croatia v Turkey on in the background. If I can last another hour or two then I’ll be happy. I’m still feeling tetchy but at least I can move about to my hearts content now.

Jet lag wise, for me, I find things work out best if I change my wrist watch the minute I get onto the plane. It helps me to get into the frame of thinking for wherever I’m heading to that little bit quicker. The second thing is to stay up late no matter what time of day I arrive in at. It’s hard and certainly there are low patches when I think closing my eyes for a minute or two surely can’t do that much harm. But it does. For me at least. So while it leads to ultra long days I get a good nights sleep and pretty much from that first day I get into the grove.

All that said of course, let’s see how I get on over the next few hours and whether tomorrow is a back to normal or back to bed kinda day.

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Night before travel, dementia setting in

13Jun08

The last few hours have been stressful. I did the usual trick of putting something important off until it was way too late for normal human brain activity to be relied upon so I chased my brain around the office until finally getting something reasonable I could put my name to.

On the way home I got a puncture on my bike.

I’ve booked my taxi to the airport for the morning. Another early start incoming.

I can’t find my US adaptor. There’s a black hole somewhere in this flat where they all decide to go on their holidays, I’m convinced of it.

I’ve got to do the wash up, sink is full of stuff.

Need to put the bins out.

Are we there yet?

The worst thing about all this of course is that I will miss tonight’s season finale BSG and not even be able to take it with me on the plane.

Boo.

Yeah, I’m beyond tired and my head is wired.

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