Sunny Jim

"Hello, Ma!"

It's been a long while since I've felt anywhere near interested in my one-time favourite "continuing drama", Coronation Street, but the news that Kenneth "Hit 'im, Jeff" Cope is to reprise the role of Jed Stone - 42 years after his last appearance - has got me all excited.

On account of being born in 1971, I'm way too young to remember any of Cope's Street appearances, but the VHS and DVD collections I have go a long way to explain why this recurring character was so popular in the 1960s and why he is so fondly remembered to this day.

This is a wonderful - and completely surprising - bit of continuity from a show which I have found sadly lacking for quite some time now. This is the first time in a long time I have felt excited about Coronation Street. I can't wait.

42 years, eh? That knocks Ray Langton's 27 year absence straight into a cocked hat.

Pump it up until you can feel it...

Whoah....

The Stolen Earth - what a proper cliffhanger!

Was it just my imagination, but in amongst all the noise coming from Daleks, Davros, assembled companions and a potential regeneration, did I just hear the faint sound of drums coming from somewhere?

I might have been mistaken, but of course time will tell.

Rock could be so good, but we make it all so rubbishy...

I received an email from Lovers Unite, the Saint Etienne fan club, the other day.

It seems that my favourite band have been busy striking deals and hatching many plans over the last wee while and whilst I'm certain there's much more exciting stuff than this yet to be announced, have they not just got another compilation album in the pipeline? So what would make anyone wish to buy this new release over all the other numerous Etienne compilations, then? Well, (surprise, surprise) it contains two brand new, previously unreleased songs as well as a not-too-difficult-to-obtain track from 1999 which, to date, has only appeared on a 7" import single. I'm sure that'll gain them legions of new fans. Of course, I'm being facetious, but let's face it... it'll be mugs/fans/completists (delete where applicable) like me who'll shell out for this (admittedly sublime) old rope. Yet again.

Just to reiterate - I am a massive Saint Etienne fan and have been since 1990. But my patience is being sorely tested. Saint Etienne are seriously in danger of joining the not-so-illustrious ranks of bands who seem to have more compilation albums than proper albums (Blondie, T-Rex, Human League). And whilst I appreciate that a lot of this is down to sheer record company greed rather than the artistic integrity of said bands, enough is enough.

Pete, Bob and Sarah - I know you read this blog (heh heh) - this has got to stop. What's your next proper album going to be called and when the hell are you going to release the thing?

I. WANT. TO. KNOW!

Bombay by bus

After some extensive searching, I finally managed to get my hands on Chris Joss's elusive Teraphonic Overdubs album at the weekend.

For those unfamiliar with the name, Joss is a French DJ and producer who has been steadily releasing instrumental albums since the late 1990s, starting off with the brilliant Music From The Man With A Suitcase. It might sound like a lazy comparison, but Joss's work is heavily influenced by, and reminiscent of, film and TV scores of the 1960s and '70s, most notably the work of Lalo Schifrin (Bullitt, Enter The Dragon, Mission Impossible, Dirty Harry et al).

Whilst this is unashamedly retro, I must admit I love this sort of stuff. That said, it can become a bit tedious listening to endless wah-wah and bongo workouts one after the other after the other (close your eyes and imagine the horror of being trapped in amongst the guntuft rugs at Habitat for hours on end with nothing but Acid bloody Jazz to listen to), so I'd only recommend Joss in short daily doses.

For your listening pleasure, here's a lazy YouTube embed of a track called Discotheque Dancing from Joss's third album, You've Been Spiked...

For you, I bleed myself dry...

I have despised Coldplay ever since I first heard their "breakthrough" hit, Yellow, in 2000. They have gone on to become massively successful, but to me, their popularity is utterly mystifying and their appeal seems to have completely passed me by.

Here's a comprehensive (but by no means exhaustive) list of reasons why I hate Coldplay.

1. Chris Martin
Let's face it, he's an absolute, Grade A buffoon. From storming out of interviews to championing mung beans, absolutely everything this tiresome, unshaven nonentity does or says pains me in a way akin to having my scrotum sheared off by a cheese grater (appropriately enough!) and then having vinegar thrown over the resultant gash to sterilise the wound.

I hate his so-called falsetto. It's truly unbearable. I remember one episode of Top Cat where Officer Dibble somehow fell over the side of a ship, scraping his nails all the way down the metal as he tried to stop himself from falling in the water. That was like the sound of someone scraping their nails down a blackboard, turned up to 11. To my ears, Chris Martin's voice is even worse than that.

2. The other three
Unless you were actually "into" Coldplay, or you could be arsed looking them up on Wikipedia or something, you'd be hard pressed to name the other three band members. The are grey men made entirely out of wet cardboard, glued together with stale sperm and stodgy porridge whose collective crime against humanity is to provide the bland "soundtrack" to Martin's excruciating caterwaul.

3. The music
Okay, I must confess, I did sort of like The Scientist. But that's it. Everything else I have heard by Coldplay has simultaneously made my ears, eyes, nose and backside bleed uncontrollably. Yellow was so desperate to be some kind of indie-lite (that's "in the style of" indie as opposed to actually being released on an independent label) anthem with its hideous ching-ching-ching-ching guitar "signature" and Martin's oh-I'm-so-tortured-and-unshaven yodelling all over the top. With a few more effects pedals, Yellow would have been completely identical to any other shoegazing indie "classic" from a decade earlier. Eight years later and I am still bamboozled as to how this track became so popular. It beggars belief.

Their music makes me feel like I have the flu.

4. The name
Seriously, what exactly does Coldplay actually mean? It probably translates roughly into "Pretentious, unshaven angst toss".

I hate these stupid, made-up, nonsensical compound words which bands seem to like to adopt as their monikers. During the course of the 1990s, the law was changed to stop bands from giving themselves monosyllabic names (Lush, Ride, Curve, Loop, Top, Spin, Chunk, Gash, Flange, Bum, Knob, Hole), but the result was just a tiresomely hideous mess of made-up compound words (Radiohead, Sparklehorse, Silverchair, Smashmouth, Adjectivenoun, Verbnoun, Nounnoun, Chopcock, Hurtarse, Eyeburst, Razorlight and, of course, Coldplay). Out of the frying pan, into the fire.

5. Everything else
Let's make this an ongoing project. I want to hear from you...

Working on the (not unreasonable) assumption that you absolutely hate Coldplay too, why not list your reasons, starting from number 6, in the comments section?

This could be quite a cathartic exercise for us all.

My heart is beating, I'm alive, but I don't call this living

Been doing some serious graft out in the garden over the past few days.

Digging, raking, planting, you name it (within reason), I've been doing it to the garden. However, I've been more than a little sore since Wednesday - I moved the shed. On my own.

I won't bore you with the detail. It's only a shed move after all, but just trust me when I tell you, it took a serious amount of logistics, effort and sheer brute force to move that mother. Jeez... for the rest of the evening, I could barely even move a muscle. Things have started to ease up by today, but I'm still very... wait for it... stiff.

Anyway... what's the significance of the frog photie? Well, over the course of a couple of days I found no fewer than three frogs living under some garden-related fixtures that had been in situ for around two or three years. You can't really see these amphibious wee sods until they decide to jump out from under some earth and/or old, dead leaves and when they do, you momentarily think you're going to soil yourself - partly because they startle you by jumping out at you apparently from nowhere, but also because they are blissfully unaware of just how close you have unwittingly come to either slicing them in half with a spade or skewering them with a rake. What a horrifying thought. Of course, being a dad, I managed to grab hold of an adult frog and then later on, a baby one (awww... bless), to show them to the kids - much to their delight.

So, what with BaByliss male groomers and now frogs, life in our back garden is never dull. What's the strangest thing you've found in your garden?

Oh do tell!

Laughing all the way to your bank account

In all the years I have had an email address, I've never really had much in the way of junk mail, let alone a scam banking email.

But in the space of past seven days, I have received, not one, but two emails asking me to update my online banking details, both containing handy offsite links to phishing web pages. Hello? Was I born yesterday? The first one was supposedly from Natwest (a company I have never banked with) and the second apparently from Abbey. For all the hundreds of people who can spot this crap a mile off, there are surely one or two who sadly fall prey.

Who knows what kind of scummy bastards are really behind this, or what they'd get up to with normal, hardworking folks' money, but I wish they'd go and leave us all alone - as futile as that desire might seem.

Just in case there are any "scanbots" (I think that's the right word) looking for some email addresses to flood with nonsense, then I hope they pick these ones up...

The "Natwest" email came from... alerts@nwolb.com
...and the "Abbey" one from... alerts@Halifax.co.uk

Gits.

You wait.Time passes...

It's been a very, very, very knackering time lately.

There's lots on at work and there's lots of work on at home too. I'm completely flat out.

Anyway... I'm on holiday for about a week and a half from this Friday onwards. No foreign trips this time, but who needs it when the Fife weather has been this good?

Flaming June

Phew! Yesterday was a scorcher.

I understand that the temperature was well into the 20s yesterday. It was a perfect day for working in the garden - which is what I did until about 7.30pm.

I've been at it again this morning (ooer) and have been working in the garden (laying a path!) from around 6.30am. Although the sun seems to have disappeared behind a cloud for now, it was absolutely beating in our bedroom window this morning so I decided to get up and make the most of it.

I'm glad I did 'cos it's chucking it down now.

...and then I don't feel so bad

Hate is a very strong emotion, isn't it? When we say we "hate" something, do we really mean that we can dislike something with such all-consuming ferocity, or is it just that some things get on our nerves a bit (or a lot)?

There are a number of posts like this doing the rounds at the minute, but I thought I'd throw my hat(e) in the "ring" with (what is essentially a list of) a few of my least favourite things...



Things people do or say which gets on my nerves a bit (or a lot):

• People who call women "gurrrrrrllllllllzzzzzzz" and men, "boys". It's just ever so slightly patronising.


• Groups of blokes who get on the bus and then take a double seat each, lest other people think they're gay or something by actually sitting next to each other.


• People who draw up, and then sit on, a chair the wrong way round (legs apart, back of the chair between their legs). Not sure if I've ever really seen this in "real life", but it's very irritating when seen on the telly or something.


• Parents who engage in louder-than-is-strictly-necessary conversation with their children in public. Nowt at all wrong in talking with your kids, but there's really no need to do so at a volume where everyone else can hear you. My daughters and I chat all the time on the bus or train for example, but for us, the conversation's private. It's nobody else's business and we never assume anyone else would be in the least bit interested even if they could hear us.


• People who aimlessly wander around city streets clutching the obligatory cup of coffee.


• People who travel on buses, trains or cars who sip every couple of minutes from one of those ghastly flask-style, insulated coffee cups.
• Those who insist on using the phrase, "Going forward".

"Famous" people, acts and songs which get on my nerves a bit (or a lot):

• "Famous" people whose every move and utterance is reported upon as if we simply couldn't live our lives without knowing what is going on in their lives/minds. Those who fall into this (extensive) list include Lindsay Lohan, Pete Doherty, Sienna Miller, Eva Longoria (Parker), Sarah Jessica Parker, David Beckham, Lily Allen (even although I thought Alright, Still... was brilliant).


• Vernon Kay - but you already knew that.


• Anything by Coldplay. Except The Scientist, which was sort of alright.


• Tina Turner - The Best. Or Simply The Best as it's often erroneously referred to.


• Practically everything by Queen.


• Shania Twain - Man! I Feel Like A Woman. It's that extra-loud keyboard riff - it's twenty times louder than anything else on the song!


• Absolutely everything by Westlife.


• Starship - We Built This City.


• Kenny Loggins.


• Elton John.


• Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes - (I've Had) The Time Of My Life.

Things on television programmes or in films which inexplicably get on my nerves a bit (or a lot):

• A close-up of pen and paper when someone is writing. Worse when you get to hear the scratchy sound of a nibbed pen.


• Scenes where someone is scouring a newspaper for a job vacancy or a flat to let and they circle it with a great big red marker. Come on, people don't really do that.


• Scenes featuring an embracing couple where we get a close-up of one of them looking a bit insincere/unsure/unhappy.


• Scenes set around a dining table where the characters are discussing something whilst stuffing their faces.


• The way characters in American films or TV shows always bang on about breakfast items such as waffles, pancakes, bacon and eggs. What is this US obsession with eggs? I just don't get it.

I could go on...

The day the balloon went up

I note that Jonathan Ross, king of the multiple closed questioning technique, is to host a reunion show for surviving cast members of Dad's Army. The show is to intended to celebrate 40 years of this classic BBC comedy.

To my mind, excellent as Dad's Army may be/have been, there surely can't be much left to say about it. It's very similar to Only Fools And Horses in many respects in that people just keep banging on and on and on about it (if you haven't yet read Five Centres' excellent post on the never-ending OFAH hype, I would urge you to click here - after you've finished reading this). My beef with Dad's Army is not that it's overrated (it isn't - it really was great), but simply that people never, ever shut up about it.

When I was a nipper, there used to be a clip request show for children on BBC called Ask Aspel. Although I used to watch it every week, the only thing I can really remember of it was that "the kids" would frequently ask for Frank Spencer clips. I now have a serious hatred for Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em because if I've seen that bloody rollerskating scene once, I've seen it a ga-zillion times. It cannot be denied that the scene is technically brilliant, but for crying out loud, enough already.

Dear Ask Aspel,

Please, please, please can you show that clip of Frank Spencer on rollerskates again? I know you've shown it every week for the last year, but I can't get enough of it.

Thanks,
Annoying Child (Age 7)

Cue much guffawing. Blah, blah, blah... rollerskates... blah, blah, blah... angel/fairy dropping from hatch in the ceiling... blah, blah, blah... Jessica's just done a whoopsie... blah, blah, blah... Michael Crawford does his own bloody stunts....

We know!!! Don't you lot ever talk about anything else?

Dad's Army is being ruined by a similar (but much more heightened) desire to keep going back, showing the same clips over and over, ruining them by taking them out of the context of their full episodes and then dissecting them time after time. I get utterly fed up of this kind of endless repitition, but instead of slowing down, it just increases through time. Rabid is the word for it. Rabid.

How do you feel about it?

It's a shame about Raef...

Don't forget The Apprentice is on a day earlier - ie tonight - this week (yeah - because you come to this blog for telly listings, don't you?).

Whilst I never watched the first series, I have become seriously hooked on this ever since the days of The Badger in series two.

I cannot imagine series four without Raef, but it's just something I have to get over. Full of hot air he may be, but our Raef has been hugely entertaining. There have been many memorable moments in this series so far, but one of my favourites was a rather subtle exchange during last week's episode between Raef and Michael as they looked for suitable locations to shoot their highly artistic, but ultimately useless I Love My Tissues advert...

Raef: You know, I just want it to say... [with much hand-waving and over-emphasis] "school".
Michael: It is a school.

I love it.

But now that Raef's gone, gone, gone, who's going to provide the classic lines from now on? My money's on Lee That's What I'm Talkin' About McQueen. Naturally you come here before you check out more famous (and let's face it... better) blogs, but do make sure you check out the regular Apprentice reviews at Andrew Collins and Watch With Mothers. They are a joy to behold.

Come on!

Would you have liked a present too?

Avenues and Alleyways is two today.

Just where do those years go to, eh?

My soul's an oasis... higher than the sun

Ahhhh. Another Bank Holiday, another glorious day.

This time around, I thought I'd treat you all to a sunny picture I've just taken of my back garden (ooer missus!). I'm feeling extra pleased with myself as I'm actually typing this whilst sitting on the chair you see on the right hand side of this snap, having recently discovered the joys of wireless networking and laptop ownership.

Regular readers will note that the new whirligig clothesline purchased on 5 May is now in place. Surely it doesn't get any better. Life is sweet.

Much as I adore the glory of the Canarian spring sunshine, there's nothing quite like sitting in your own garden listening to the sound of silence. Beautiful.

PS. Happy 60th birthday, Dad!