Band Camp November

Tonight the Arctic Monkey song "I bet you look good on the dance floor" was rated the greatest song of the noughties, whilst I was hoping The Killers "Mr Brightside" would take the title I wasn't unhappy with it coming 2nd.

Anyway, putting that aside we were lucky enough to see The Arctic Monkeys perform live at Wembley Arena in November, one of the final bands we were to see for this year. Their lively sharp lyrics smacking us with words of a Northern reality, full indie rock gritty rawness, with the young Alex (you just want to pet him on the head, he is so young) having definitely found his performing feet, was all that we expected.

They gracefully banged out all the favourites, with much of the audience performance that comes to be expected at their shows with a few new tunes thrown in for good measure. Sadly I forgot to take my camera, such as an impossibility as that is these days with it practically an extension of my own hands, but alas it was to be so no photos that night.

Us at the Enemy

A couple of weeks later, one of my favourite rather new Indy bands The Enemy were playing down the street, at the Kentish Town forum, a mere 10 minute walk from home. They are hard punky rock with serious heavy handedness on behalf of the bassist and guitarist, which is made stronger by a rumbly deep heavy Brummy accent of the lead singer Tom. So much so I could barely sing along, as I simply could not make out the words.

Though the crowd was pumping and we managed to find our selves, Mark, Kerry, Michael and I, smack on the edge of a mental mosh pit. Its very much a band that boys love to through themselves around to, quite literally too. I have never been quite so beer drenched, I didn't smell of pee (trust me that is a good thing, better beer than piss) as I was that night, good thing I was due a hair wash. A fab night made better by the fact that I have the official set list of the night, which I will eventually frame for posterity.

And yes I did have my camera....hoorah!!

Tom at his best...
Kerry and Michael pre beer drowning...
The mental crowd
Tom again
And the set list...

We is fierce... Sasha Fierce, Beyonce at the O2

And she's on stage
Last Monday night Sophie and I went along to see Beyonce do her thing on her "I am Sasha Fierce" tour. We arrived a bit early, dodged past all the sheep queuing to get in (what do you need to queue for its a fully seated event!!) had a little bite to eat before we made our way into the dome to our seats.

Peter Andre

Well Miss Beyonce, or bouncy, was a little tardy, so after the support acts we were entertained by several rounds of the Mexican wave, celebrities causing crowd screaming fits, we had Peter Andre up in the box behind us to I managed to get a snap of him too. They all love him now he's ditched the t@rt with the bo@bs otherwise known as Katie Price. Finally at 9.30pm, with trumpets blaring and a blast of stage smoke, Beyonce was on stage.

She's a chatter

She did a great job wooing the crowd, serenading us with Broken Hearted, Halo and a most moving version of Ava Maria, for which she was demurely dressed in a detachable ball gown princess style. She performed a moving Ella Fitzgerald "At last" tribute to black America and Obama, there was also a bit of Alanis Morrisette and Michael Jackson in there. She also performed about 5 songs on the centre stage which was not too far back from where we were sitting and all joined in for Video phone and Left, which was just brilliant.

"At Last!"

Of course the song we had all been waiting for was her "fierce" song "Single Ladies (put a ring on it)", where a video of all the most funniest you tube attempts were shown before Miss Beyonce and her dancers strutted their stuff and showed them, you know, how its actually meant to be done. So with that song almost finished, midnight and an almost certain chaotic tube journey home looming, Sophie and I dashed Cinderella like from the O2 to make our journey home uneventful.

" Fierce "

Dad does London...first days...

Us at Tower Bridge

Paddington Station with Paddington Bear

Dad at St Pauls Cathedral

Dad and Lisa at Buckingham Palace

At Wellington Arch

Dad at very top of St Pauls Cathedral, with view to East London City and the Gerkin

Fish and Chips on Brighton Beach...mmm

Our first tube ride in from Heathrow
First ride in a London Cab
Me and Dad outside Dominion Theatre where we saw We Will Rock you - amazing

At Covent Garden before dinner at GBK (Gourmet Burger Kitchen)

Toast to Australia

On a lovely sunny, sort of, Sunday in June we had tickets to Toast Festival, the Australia day (there is a Saffa and NZ day too). It's as close as we get to the real Australia day, and as for the trimmings it did stack up.


We were there with a friend from work Jon and his wife Neoma, who is also an Adelaide gal and now also works with us too.

Us toasting to Australia.

Mark and I got there early to make sure we didn't miss out on the Polo match, a bit of England vs Australia going on there. So we started with champagne and strawberries, why not. Neoma and Jon, as I now have discovered, are notoriously late - yes even more so than me, I am either spot on time (most of the time...) or several hours late, so I can sympathise. By the time they had arrived the polo match was done and dusted, with each side scoring 3 goals (not sure if they call them goals) and we'd moved on to the food.

Yippee we scored..

We wandered round and eventually decided to eat from the Smiths of Smithfield stand, you may know the owner - Jon Torode - if you watch Masterchef, where we got yummy salt and pepper squid, roast lamb and chips. Jon Torode was there and cooking out front on the BBQ, as you can see in the picture. He commented on my fine choice of chips, not seeing that I had the salt and pepper squid in my other hand.

Jon Torode and the rather impressive BBQ

There was some wine tasting, but nothing particularily exciting so after Jon and Neoma joined us, we ate more, wandered a bit more, had some rather delicious and monstourous slabs of Pavlova, before positioning ourselves ready for a bit of Sneaky Sound Systems.

Super sized Pavlova, and it was two for the price of one!

By the time they were on, we were right up front. Miss Connie and Angus were brilliant, and I really enjoyed them, even better the second time around, as we saw them at the good ol' Sheperds Bush Empire a few months back.



Whew after a rather relaxing, but exhausting day, we had a couple of pints with Neoma and Jon before heading back home to Tufnell Park, it could have been a late one, but as Sunday is officially a school night it was not to be.

Europe in the clouds

I managed to capture this amazing picture, well I think so, at Rock Werchter in Belgium. It was a stinking hot day, 34 degrees which to us Australians is not so bad, but add 45% humidity and clammy body heat from 90,000 people and you can see why my sky scanning for clouds and any momentary reprieve from direct sunlight they might provide became a priority.

What you can see is a large dark grey low cloud that looks quite oddly like the continent with a shimmery rainbow, almost halo like glow radiating out from behind it; this is actually the direct sunlight reflecting off those lower clouds and back off ones up at a higher level. Amazing.


Its nothing like I have ever seen before and so I took a moment to capture it forever.

Dozing on the couch

That is what Mark is currently doing, its nearly 11pm and he plonked himself there at about 8pm tonight, so I thought to entertain myself by writing a few blogs. I have only got one done so far, as you can see and looking back on my last lot of blogs its clear that I am a bit behind again.

This weekend we headed over the the Natural History Museum for the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition, its one of my favourite ones and I missed it last year.

This little one was my favourite, though its hard to pick and the ones that won were certainly not the ones I would have picked as the best.

Thus we have started embarking on our ever lapsing cultural expeditions, but there will be no more of that now, winter is over, the sun is coming out and staying out longer, hibernation time is done with. That and the countdown is on - 11 months and counting.

Last week I armed myself with a Time Out London magazine, grabbed the Saturday papers and poured through them for inspiration on where to go and what to do. That also makes it a bit trickier as whilst on a daily basis my only clue as to London's hidden activities (they are as if you don't look for them you won't know they are on) are the posters in the tube escalators, having such in depth guidance only adds to the confusion, as my god there is just far to much on.

Alas, it must be done, as there are only so many times you can see the posters for Carmen, Chicago and We Will Rock You and after a while you start to think that maybe you did see them...(no doubt I haven't but all 3 now must be added to the never ending, and never to be completed - such is life - things "To do in London" list.

Starting us off will be next week seeing Sneaky Sound system in Shepard's Bush (good ol' Shepard's bush....used to be very Australian but now a very large Polish community), but I have complied a short list for my own amusement of things I really would like to see this year....and in no particular order;

The Australian Film Festival to see Cactus...(recommendations welcome)

We Will Rock You

Chicago

The 39 Steps

London Fashion Week (I just missed it this weekend)

La Clique

Hats - An Anthology (V&A)

Le Corbusier at Barbican

Babylon - British Museum

Museum of Docklands

Kew Gardens

Fabric (night club - though seriously getting too old for this...)

Burlesque....not sure who or where

Three Days of Rain (play)

Summer movies in Regents Park

Mamma Mia! (again)

Priscilla Queen of the Desert (the Musical with Jason Donovan...got to be hilarious)

The Paper Cinema - not sure myself but has good reviews

Billy Elliot

Taming of the Shrew

Les Miserable ....just because I cannot believe I have not seen it yet

Jack the Ripper walking tour (and several others actually)

I think that is all for now...but I will review the posters in the tube again tomorrow...quality reading :-)

Editors, Brixton Academy

Live Earth - London

Ok gals and boys you've seen the concerts now it's time to take action, to get out there and do your job to save the planet. Change your light bulds to energy efficient ones, it's the easiest thing anyone can do, but check out this link LIVE EARTH to find out other things you can do.

I personally was a recycling addict at age 13, so finally 17 years later the rest of the world catches up!!! Ha Just kidding am sure lots of people recycle and do the right thing, but NOW - we all have to do the right thing.

Anyway on a lighter note, Mark and I showed our support in regards to climate change, we both went to see the star studded Climate Change concert - Live Earth in London and here are some pictures for you!!

On the way to Wembley
Where we were standing
Crowd
Ricky Gervais...remember the office
Snow Patrol
Someones t-shirt
Us...
Corinne Bailey Rae
Keane (seen them 3 times so far)
Black Eyed Peas
Our possy later down
Red Hot Chilli Peppers
Madonna
Foo Fighters
The Crowd again
Pussy Cat Dolls
Chris Rock!!
Snow Patrol...another one seen 3 times!!
Spinal Tap, and all the Bass players from the day!