Posts from November 2006

Last night, I enjoyed a pleasant evening in this pub with a few friends. We watched a mediocre team in white draw with a mediocre team in orange and blue socks.

Beer arrived on a regular basis from the downstairs bar via the dumb waiter.

Inexplicably, towards the end of the evening, conversation turned to songs about the death of a father:-

• The Verve - Drugs Don't Work
• The Streets - Never Went To Church
• Mike And The Mechanics - The Living Years
• U2 - Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own
• Billy Bragg - Tank Park Salute

We finally left the pub and someone asked 'What are the chances of finding a curry house around here ?'. We looked across the street and our prayers were answered. Weird.

This beautiful photograph of a deserted station concourse captures an unusual sense of peaceful isolation and a rare moment of tranquillity at London Waterloo.

Yes. I missed the last train for the sake of a large bottle of Cobra but it was worth it.

I am working in Oxford and booked into this small hotel overnight. I arrived at 18.30 and rang the bell. No one is home.

I phoned the company who made the booking to get the phone number. They call the hotel on my behalf. Guess what. No one is home.

The helpful man from LateRooms asked if I could wait around in the cold for 30 minutes to 'see if someone turns up'.

I was convinced my ears had deceived me and asked him to repeat this suggestion. I politely decline his kind offer so he consults his supervisor and offers to find me another hotel.

I reply that I wouldn't trust him to tell me the time of day and hang up. I then drive aimlessly around Kidlington until I happen to locate the Holiday Inn. Thankfully, this hotel has a person manning reception and rooms available.

Later, the proprietor of the Happy Lodge calls me to explain the situation. Not to apologise but just to explain the situation.

When I made the booking, I indicated I would be arriving around 19.00 so that is when someone would have been around to greet me. So it was actually my fault all along. Of course, I see now. Everything is crystal clear. It was my mistake. How stupid of me.

The proprietor thinks I owe her an apology because she had to turn a couple away from booking the room allocated to me but now unexpectedly vacant at short notice.

I disagreed and politely suggested that maybe, just maybe, she might owe me an apology.

The lady disagreed but helpfully suggested that next time I stay at the Happy Lodge, I make an effort to arrive at the designated time and not half an hour earlier.

I count to two and half before exploding: 'Sorry but there will be no need for that because I will not be staying at the Happy Lodge. Not tonight. Not tomorrow. Not next week. Not ever'.

Bluehost have upgraded WordPress to 2.0.5 so I ignored this warning and clicked Upgrade

Click on Upgrade only if - no files, languages, themes have been modified - you haven't added mods to this installation of WordPress

After all, the whole point of hosting a blog is to add plugins and modify themes.

I find it slightly odd that Bluehost have no blog or other means of communicating the availability of these upgrades.

Let's see if posting still works.

I forgot to pack my WordPress hosted images when moving my blog. Thankfully, this isn't as important (or embarrassing) as carefully packing and then promptly forgetting your suitcase when attending a week long conference away from home.

However, thanks to the Google image archive, my photo blog has now been restored to its full glory.

Yesterday, I visited a customer in sunny Glasgow, near Scotland. This was very poor planning on my part. I really should have delayed this trip by 7 days which would have allowed me to gatecrash the Oracle blogger meet-up at UKOUG.

In addition, returning to Glasgow on Tuesday 21 November would have given me the opportunity to watch Celtic play United in a atmospheric Glasgow hostelry sharing a pint of 'heavy' with some friendly Scottish people.

Anyway, it's all about the customer so I flew up yesterday. As I landed, I saw a small charter plane on the runway, ferrying a group of Scottish Oracle bloggers to Birmingham. I knew it was a group of Oracle DBA's from the name of the airline.

When I arrived at the office, the client was having a theme week to coincide with 'I'm a (C-list) Celebrity. Get me out of here.' The lifts were out of action and you had to clamber up a large beanstalk to get to the meeting room on the fourth floor.

Scaling the beanstalk was quite a challenge and you had to acrobatically leap onto a slippery white pole before finally reaching the balcony. This task delayed the start of the architecture workshop by two hours but the view from the top was well worth it.

We then adjourned for a delightful lunch of widgety grubs, fish eyes and kangaroo testicles. Strange people, the Scots.

Next year, I will be attending an unusual fireworks display in Sunderland.

A long trip from London, admittedly but I am absolutely certain it will be worth it.

‘The body naturally produces methane gas, so combine that with the firework and the exploding effect with methane’s flammability...’

I never used to work from home much. When the kids were younger, my wife was at home and without an office, quiet room or even a shed, I found it difficult to concentrate. Accessing the work network over dial-up also was a significant constraint.

Now things are different. My children are both at secondary school and leave the house before I do. My wife also works and I have a broadband connection and VPN access to the office network. So, occasionally, I can save two hours commuting, sit down with a decent cup of tea, be productive and still be back home in time for tea.

Apart from today, that is. My wife isn't working today but worse than that, a pet hamster has effected a miraculous escape overnight. I had noticed that he was looking deeply upset after United's shock defeat at Southend and chewing frantically at the bars but I never thought he would do anything like this.

The rodent is now on the loose so all floor fittings have been detached and every dark nook and cranny has been examined with a high powered flashlight.

Of course, the hamster hasn't been found. He probably got too inquisitive and is starving to death somewhere under the floorboards. That is, if he managed to avoid the mouse poison.

So the search is called off (by me) and suspended by my wife who has gone to share the terrible news with friends over an overpriced Cappuccino.

Peace at last. Until my daughter sends me a text 'found him yet ?'. Plagued by guilt, I get a torch out and scan under the furniture and fireplace yet again. Then I put his cage on the floor with a tasty pumpkin seed placed outside to tempt him back to his metal prison.

Peace at last. Back to what I should be working on. Music on. Oh no, I forgot. No music is allowed as I am supposed to be listening for hamster-like rustling noises. Funny how the washing machine is exempt from this noise curfew.

Peace at last. Knock at the front door. Some delivery from Next. Sign. Thanks.

Peace at last. Another knock at the door. Two female religious nuts who, thankfully (for their sake) decide not to preach at me for ten minutes but instead just push a leaflet into my hand titled 'THE END OF FALSE RELIGION IS NEAR !' with the intriguing bullet points

• What is false religion ?
• How will it end ?
• How will you be affected ?

This is clearly a sign from God. I tell the ladies that my wife is out, I have the house all to myself and the kettle has just boiled. I invite them in and ask whether they are qualified to officiate over a funeral for a hamster. Curiously, they look aghast and leave. Maybe I shouldn't have flicked my dressing gown so wide open.

Finally, peace at last. Check my email. Curiously, I have a voicemail from my office extension. This is strange because hardly anyone has access to this number. I can never remember it without looking at my business card. My wife doesn't know it and hardly anyone I know has ever used it.

I play the WAV that is consuming 500KB of disk space. Inevitably, it is a recruitment consultant who 'has spoken to some people who know me very well, think very highly of me and just happen to think I might just be interested in some vacuous pre-sales role dealing with some of the biggest blue chip companies in, not just the UK, but Europe.' Thanks but no thanks. Delete the message and return to the document I should be writing.

Peace at last. Until the telephone rings. Some direct marketeer brings me tidings of great joy. My wife and I have won a Christmas Hamper. I am immediately suspicious and ask if this is surplus stock from Farepak. She assures me that it isn't and tells me that my wife and I just need to come to a local hotel on Saturday to collect this hamper.

I ask why they can't just send it. Because I have to collect it with my wife. Can't my wife just pop over and collect it ? No. My wife and I must both collect it. Why - is the hamper really that heavy ? No. I ask if there is any type of 'presentation' involved. No there isn't. It is just a free Christmas hamper. What's in the hamper ? I can't tell you. Finally, I say I am not interested and hang up.

Wife returns. She asks whether Julia has called to confirm the appointment about the Christmas Hamper. I tell her the bad news. She then asks whether I have heard any hamster-like noises and I tell her more bad news. No hamster-like rustlings but plenty of interruptions.

I finally give up. I put a collared shirt on, and drive to the office. Peace at last.

The observant reader will have noticed some minor changes to the sidebar. The thousands of one hit wonders from Google wont.

1. Popular posts (widget)
2. Related posts (widget)
3. 'Archives' gets a run in the first team, displacing the rarely used 'Calendar' and 'Categories'.

I prefer using widgets to having to actually edit (and risk breaking) the PHP code. Widgets always work with any theme. Also, I thought it was odd that Google Analytics hadn't tracked a single outgoing link since I installed this plugin. This turned out to be a bug fixed by the most recent version.

I flirted briefly with installing Google Adsense but, in the interests of purity and minimalism, decided against.

A few years ago, on a Saturday morning, I was crossing the road to the local shop with my daughter, Norma Jean. We held hands to cross halfway and paused. Suddenly, spontaneously, without warning, Norma Jean decided to burst across the road.

Unfortunately, a car simultaneously decided to sharply turn left without indicating. It all happened quickly - very quickly. The car ran over Norma's foot and she collapsed. The car stopped and the lady pleaded: 'Oh God. I didn't see her. I didn't see her. I'm sorry. She just ran out.'

I picked my daughter up in my arms and ran home. Her face was ashen white. Mine was red. I was in shock. I was nearly in tears. My wife, a nurse, calmly took stock of the situation and asked: 'Did you remember to get the cornflakes ?'. We skipped breakfast and immediately went to casualty. Thankfully, my daughter's ankle wasn't broken, just badly bruised. Well a very heavy car had ran over it so that diagnosis wasn't entirely unexpected.

A couple of years later, I returned home from work on a balmy summer evening and a neighbour informed me: 'Oh Norma's just taken Norma Jean to hospital. You might catch them if you're quick'. I arrived in casualty to discover that Norma Jean had jumped off the front wall wearing pink flip-flops and 'hurt her arm'. Well, the truth was she had broken her arm close to the elbow and, if you looked really close, you could see the bare bone.

We waited patiently to be seen. My daughter was ashen white. She was in shock. My wife asked for some painkillers for Norma Jean while we waited and waited. When the nurse came over and briefly glanced at the injury, she quickly said 'Err - I think you had better come through to see the consultant. Now.'

In the early hours, a clever, experienced surgeon repaired my daughter's arm. I was at home all night wide awake. I visited the hospital in the morning and the consultant reassured me thus: 'I have been an orthopaedic surgeon for 23 years and that was the second most difficult fracture, I have ever seen.' I nearly fainted so I neglected to ask him about the nature of the award winning injury.

Thankfully, Norman Jean made a full recovery and was able to resume her sporting activities although wall jumping in flip-flops was banned.

My third visit to the casualty unit came when my son was forced to take his turn in goal during a normal Sunday morning for U10's Little League. Norman Junior III dived to his right and turned a pile-driver around the post (traffic cone) for a corner. Not a bad effort for a midfield player.

I continued to follow the play upfield but another parent interrupted me: 'Is your lad OK ?'. I looked back towards to the goalmouth and Norman was gingerly holding his arm. I reluctantly walked over and he said 'Dad - my arm really hurts.' I told him to grit his teeth, think of Bert Trautmann and just get through 5 minutes to half-time when he would be an outfield player again.

At half-time, he was now squatting down, holding his arm, in tears. 'My arm still really hurts, Dad'. Ashamedly, I made my excuses and took my son home, leaving his team down to ten men in a crucial end of season game. Norma forced him to put his kit in the washing machine, have a shower, asked him to finish his History homework and finally dosed him up with Calpol.

At tea time, Norman Junior III didn't eat his tea and was obviously spoiling to miss school on Monday. Very inconvenient as both of us are working. 'But Mum - my arm still really hurts.' So we decided to call his bluff, even though it meant missing 'Antiques Roadshow' and prepared for yet another long wait in casualty.

We were mortified to be told he had a 'green stick' fracture of his right arm from saving a shot. We were even more mortified when trying to explain to the social worker why we didn't bring him to hospital for a full 8 hours after the original incident. We were even more mortified when she asked if we had ever had reason to bring either of our children to hospital in the past 5 years.

4 November 1986. League Cup 3rd round replay. Attendance 17,914.

Southampton 4 Manchester United 1 (Davenport).

Ron Atkinson's last game in charge and I was there. The United team that night was:

• Chris Turner
• Mike Duxbury
• Arthur Albiston
• Paul McGrath
• Graeme Hogg
• Remi Moses
• Jesper Olsen
• Norman Whiteside
• Frank Stapleton
• Peter Davenport
• Colin Gibson
• Subs: Kevin Moran, Nicky Wood

I was partly responsible for Ron Atkinson's departure. The seeds were sown the previous season when United won the opening 10 games of the 1985-1986 season, fuelling expectation that United might actually win the title. However, I was foolish enough to attend game number 11. Inevitably, that game was a 1-1 draw at Luton and ended the run. United finished 4th that season behind Liverpool and the writing was on the wall for Ron Atkinson.

Favourite Ferguson quote: 'My greatest challenge is not what's happening at the moment, my greatest challenge was knocking Liverpool right off their fucking perch. And you can print that.'

Here is a series of email exchanges I had with Mark Burgess in late 1998. I converted the original text to HTML and corrected a couple of minor typos.

I'm a great fan of The Chameleons and recently was sad enough to transcribe a few quotes from bootlegs and put them on the Web.

Interesting, I'll check it out next time I'm online.

Were you a big fan of The Fall ? I just love the bit where you sing 'Rowche Rumble' in 'Splitting in Two'.

Yes I've always been a big fan of The Fall, since 1976 through all their many incarnations, my favourite being Mark Smith, Marc Riley, Una Baines, Karl Burns and Martin Bramah.

Was the dig about 'Bleak and industrial we're not and never will be' aimed at anyone in particular ? A Certain Ratio, Joy Division ? Those stupid bands from Sheffield who used to bang oil drums ?

No not really, it was something that was being said about us in reviews.

What was 'Paradiso' about ? It's one of my favourites together with Soul in Isolation (heard about the Jack London book) and 'Splitting'.

At the time I did Paradiso I wasn't sure, I just thought, shit, that's a weird one, where did that come from But later I realised that it focused on my experiences of Amsterdam and it kind of paints a Sodom and Gomorrah picture of it.

God, it really was you.

Please don't call me God, plain Mark will do...

Yeah - since I mailed you I read an interview on 'Home is Where The Heart Is' where you list all your musical influences.

What's 'Home Is Where The Heart Is'?

I saw The Fall many times and have got tons of their bootlegs. Haven't seen them in years though.

No me neither, actually Karen Latham, who WAS to be our Bass player in 'Invincible' has decided to join The Fall instead, funny how things turn out isn't it?

Were you a fan of The Smiths ? Used to go and see them a lot too.

Yeah, I've been going through a phase recently of playing all those records again, they still sound great.

I going to *have* to get the tape with the cover of Buzzcocks' 'Breakdown' now.

Yeah you know someone asked me about that once and I was saying "nah, we never covered that" and then he pulled the cassette out and played it. I have no memory of it what so ever.

Also we used to have drunken rows about whether 'Paper Tigers' was written about 'Killing Joke' - I don't remember where it originated - any truth to that one ?

Yeah a little bit, we were down to support them once in Leicester, they turned up 4 hours late for their sound check so when it came to our turn their crew jerked us around, a two minute job, and the band were all standing at the side of the stage when we started shouting about it, so me and Dave ran at them with our guitars and they legged it back to their dressing room. We pulled out of the gig. They came and said sorry later and wanted us to do the rest of the tour but we told them to f**k off.

I think all this obsession with lyrics and what bands thought of each other was interlinked with the MUFC/Liverpool scouse football rivalry (violence) and the fact the Mark E. Smith kept slagging the Bunnymen and the Crucial Three off in interviews. Also The Passage wrote 'A Certain Way To Go' which was definitely about ACR.

Ah The Passage, another of my all time favourite bands.

I guess you probably find people still obsessed by The Chameleons as irritating as requests for 'In Shreds' but still...

No I'm not the slightest bit irritated, the only time it bugs me is when the media go on about Chameleons when you're trying to get something new across, in interviews or on the radio or something. But generally I'm very proud of all the stuff I've done.

Thanks a lot for taking the time to reply.

No problem, bye for now.

I once saw a gig in Camden once where your voice was f**ked and some lads from the audience got up for their 5 minutes of fame but the show was abandoned.

Yeah I remember that gig, it was really bad 'cause a Geffen Rep had flown in specially to check out the band and I was miffed 'cause Johnny Marr had come down to see us....

It happened again years later with The Sun And The Moon, a gig for Children In Need. Again I invited someone up from the audience and this lad got up and not only did he know all the words but he sounded so like me it was SPOOKY...

I've also got bootlegs where you refer to problems with 'my voice going again'.

Yeah and it was ages before I sussed out what the problem was, it turned out to be air conditioning, whenever I shared a room or a car with AC my throat would dry up and my voice would go.

Did Dave/Reg/anyone else ever do vocals ?

Dave used to do backing vocals, but it got so that he'd have moods, either too much whizz or not enough hash, and then between songs he'd start really laying into the audience, slagging them off. Then when I'd start the song they'd all be looking at me through red mists, in the end I took the mike away from him :-)

Did you explicitly change your vocal style ?

Well it did change, I know 'cause when I listen to the early stuff I think f**k But I didn't do it consciously.