37th

"See the Shite lost again, 'ey?"

Happy 37th birthday, kidder!

nutter

A pic I took of our Jay in Hesketh Park, Southport today. He wore me out! So much energy. And a nutter at crazy golf too!

precious

Got some sad news on the chippy, that the driver I used to swap nights with, George, has died aged 65.

I was gobsmacked. I'd seen him a few weeks ago, and he looked right as rain. Apparently, he had a massive heart attack and never recovered.

I'm fascinated with retirement. I mean, I'm nowhere near that time myself, but I know people who are, or have. And the thing I've learnt is you've got to keep going, and keep yourself active and amused.

For instance, Ian is 65 very soon, and not long ago I was urging him to retire. This was in the middle of G.B going under, and none of us knew what was round the corner. My exact words to him were, "Why do you want to put up with all this shit????"

And part of his answer was he didn't want to "vegetate" and die of having nothing to do. The folk coming up to retirement now are the Baby Boomers of the post-war period. They're still fighting fit, and have more energy and go than we give them credit for. As the generation after them, I've learnt so much from their example and experience.

I feel that George died prematurely, but I don't think he let himself just stare at the walls. I suspect he kept living life to the full?

Maybe, regardless of your age, you just can't win? Me Dad was 47.

It's a pertinent reminder, as if one's ever truly needed, of how precious life really is.

woolyback

Today, on my day off, I decided to leave the relatively safe confines of Liverpool and take a trip out to a couple of satellite towns who think they're more hard and Scouse than anywhere, namely Huyton and Kirkby.

It's a real eye opener is Huyton. I've spent about as little time there as I can humanly want to, in the past, mainly confined to doing deliveries for work. However, one cannot judge an area without actually taking a walking study tour before coming to any concrete conclusion about an area. So when I boarded the train at Lime Street Station to take me to Huyton, I was as free of the misconceptions that taint the town as is possible. Then I made a huge mistake.

I got off the train at Huyton.

First impressions were rather heartening. The town centre, whilst not occupied by Harrods or Fortum and Mason, is a veritable mish-mash of the good, the bad and ugly. Huge-piss-off Asda. Not a Cash Convertors in sight. And the market you entered at your own peril.

A short walk away was the bus station where I could pick up a bus for Kirkby. Here, the bright shelters were occupied by foul-mouthed chain-smoking middle-aged women and their feral off-spring dressed in the regulation uniform of black hoodie, black trackies, black trainers - the whole image neatly rounded off with an endless supply of phlegm that constantly yockered out of their mouths.

Oh, and they keep their hands down the front of their trackies. Probably to keep their non-existant bollocks warm?

So, in conclusion, your average Huyton person, wannabe-Scouser, potential gangsta could very much look like this.........

I was witness to an altercation between a bum-fluff bearded, spotty "yoof" and an elderly couple, as each of them attempted to board the Kirkby bus at the same time. Old man tells yoof to have a little more respect for his elders, whilst yoof tells old man to stop "disrespectin'" him.

In the current climate of post-Aquarian Age environmental armageddon we face, I feel the word "respect" should be deleted from the English Language until the human race, whether it survives into the next millenium, gets a grip on itself and its' surroundings.

Anyway, all the way to Kirkby, the yoof was offering people on the bus small bottles of Lucozade.

Probably laced with crack cocaine?

Kirkby has had a hard time in recent years. Actually, scrub that - it's had a hard time ever since it was built. Facing much the same problems as its' near-neighbour Baghdad, Kirkby retains much of its' mid-1960s charm ("Are yew startin'? Are yew askin'? Well, cum 'ead den, SHHHIIIITTTTEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!").

Kirkby has also faced a recent inferiority complex of epic proportions. As a possible destination for Everton Football Club's new ground, although Kirkby was never part of the Liverpool City Region in the first place, the Red Shite have heartily sang, "The city's all ours, f**k off to Kirkby, the city's all ours!"

Of the two woolyback outposts, I much prefer Kirkby. The shopping centre is dilapidated, but homely, and at least there's a direct bus back to Waterloo, Liverpool 22.

.....I'm glad I'm back in Liverpool, Liverpool town where I was born..........

real

And yet, an album I paid a measly £1 for, I'm absolutely made-up with! The first album by the Electric Light Orchestra on Harvest Records - 1971 original, complete with inner sleeve.

I'm not becoming slightly obsessive about ELO, but their early work (and that of the parent band, The Move) is quite, quite splendid! Both Roy Wood and Jeff Lynne, ably assisted by Bev Bevan, are masters of post-Beatles melody and musical invention.

So I'm trying to get together all of the The Move's and ELO's releases on Harvest Records, because there was something very special going on between 1971 and 1973 with both Wood and Lynne, before commercial success completely took them over.

Aside from "Yellow Submarine" another lost album of mine is The Move's 1971 opus "Message From The Country", and I'm itching to get my dirty hands back on it.

Again, I had it on original vinyl (complete with their previous long-player "Looking On" from Fly Records, 1970, the first time they featured Jeff Lynne in the band), but both vinyls went missing as I moved stuff between here and over the water.

I have all this stuff on CD, but as time goes on I'm becoming more and more addicted to vinyl again. I think it's a trend a lot of people are going through, and I don't usually follow public opinion but on this I will. The digital era of music is fantastic, but there's something earthy and real about having old vinyl albums.

not

Close, but no cigar.........

Bought a mono copy off Ebay of the "Yellow Submarine" album I'm desperate for. I went all the way to New York for this, and the seller was an awfully nice bloke when I swapped a few emails with him.

Unfortunately, it's not the one I want. It's a 1981 mono reissue, which came out as part of a boxed set in the U.K, so was never on commercial sale. I kind of suspected this as I walked home from the post office with the packaged album under my arm, wondering how I'd gotten hold of something so rare, so bloody cheaply?

Still, it's an album I hadn't got, but the search goes on.............

£37.20?!?!?!

£37.20?!?!?!

simple

Rather simple job against Lille tonight. They weren't great at their own place, and were probably worse tonight?

Our European experience showed, and yet we still insist of giving possession away far too easily. There was a time mid-way through the second-half when Lille saw more of the ball and posed an attacking threat that they really shouldn't have been allowed to. Better sides would've punished us more.

I don't like the pundits naming us as favourites for the UEFA Cup now. There's some tricky fish left in the competition, not least Fulham. Their excellent aggregate win over Juventus tonight will be the talk of European football for a few days to come.

rock

I took my spare DAB radio into work to listen to whilst I sort the stores out. And I had the misfortune to tune into Planet Rock. But, initially, I gave the station a chance to enlighten me for once. True to its' output, Planet Rock disappointed me immensely.

There's a feature called "Quadrophenia" which, alas, has little to do with The Who apart from pinching the title from their seminal album of 1973. This "Quadrophenia" gives the listener the chance to get their four favourite rock tracks played back-to-back.

Great idea....providing you're into Paul Rodgers. Or Free. Or Bad Company. Or The Firm. Or Led Zeppelin. You get the idea.

I know I have the ultimate power with radio - I can switch it off. But the other day, Dave from Barking in Essex slipped off his Hush-Puppies to have me reaching for the sick-bucket as he meandered his lips verbally all the way up Paul Rodgers' anal passage. I thought, "you sad, sick bastard - was your brain reconnected to your dick when you were 42? Has the low-alcohol Spanish lager you sip when you pretend to rock out at gigs made you become all squishy? Have you ever had a single original thought in your entire life???????"

I submitted my choice of tracks to "Quadrophenia" but I tell you - they will never, ever play them.....

Cheap Trick - "Stiff Competition"

The Raspberries - "I Don't Know What I Want"

Nirvana - "Lithium"

The Move - "Do Ya"

There you go. Four three-minute pop anthems crammed full of crunching guitars, catchy melodies with the added-bonus of making one want to smash lot of things up and bring on the Revolution.

The problem with radio - both analogue and digital - in the U.K is it's becoming more marginalised and profit-driven, and less about what people really want! No, I'm sorry - it IS what they want. They want their empty heads to be filled with little more than elevator music in a vain attempt to get them through their day.

Planet Rock started off as a noble idea to offer the public a specialised listening experience. But it very, nearly failed because it was TOO specialised, and the venture lost money and listenership hand over foot. Only a last-minute rescue consortium, including Queen's Brian May, saved Planet Rock from extinction, but in order for the station to survive, it watered down a lot of cutting-edge Rock and Metal, and concentrated on "classic" rock.

"Classic Rock" as a branding is a fallacy. It is an all-encompassing name for tunes people remember that remind them of times in their lives. Which would be fine, but there's a lot of Rock from, say, the 1970s that is as relevant and fresh today as it was back then.

If only the advertisers for Planet Rock had a little nouce. "Rock N'Roll will save the Planet! So let's make the Planet ROCK!"

As long as they keep blues rock and interested parties out of the bloody way!

craic

And following on, a happy St. Patrick's Day to y'all! Diddly-dee-diddly-doo-begorrah-top o'd'morning-t'ya, etc.........

I experienced a couple of true Paddy's Day on the Emerald Isle. Basically, it went like this. The night before, one went out, got completely rat-arsed, sang a couple of pro-IRA songs at the end of the night, and found one's way home.

On St.Patrick's Day itself, one nursed their hangover, finally getting out of bed around tea-time, then one went out for some more craic, pretty much repeating the antics of the previous night.

The thing was it was just like any leisure-time in Ireland. Nobody gave a jot it was St.Patrick's Day. You don't need to give the Irish an excuse to drink themselves into oblivion.

The only people who give a monkey's about St.Patrick's Day are everybody but the Irish!

Maybe I should've properly celebrated Paddy's Day?

Because, thanks to some diligent genealogy work by Mum, we've discovered my great-great-great grandparents were from County Down. But they didn't take the usual route to Liverpool, like all the pissed-Paddies did when they got on the wrong boat in Dublin Port, rather than the one for Boston. No, my ancestors originally sailed across to south-west Scotland from Belfast and settled there for a generation before moving to here in the 1860s.

So there you have it. Me and Jayne are going over to Dublin at the end of May. She wants the Grand Tour! And she'll probably get it too!

Slán go fóill

impressed

For the second time in as many weeks, I went with Jayne to see Aaron perform with his school band at a church in Walton tonight.

I haven't sat in a church pew since I was in the cubs! And boy, did my bum feel numb in such a short space of time.

To liven things up I whispered to Jayne, "...this is the first time the word "fisting" has been mentioned in a Catholic Church, ever!"

Jayne replied, "no, not for a couple of years anyway!!!"

Aaron gave an introduction to a piece specially written to commemorate the Hillsborough tragedy. He got a big round of applause after his speech, the only kid to be appreciated in this way. He did really well with his oration, I was very impressed.

Because he did so well, after the concert I told Aaron a joke I was going to leave telling him for a couple of years because it was so rude. It goes like this -

"Man comes home with a bunch of flowers for his wife. She says, "oh, I suppose you want me to open my legs now?" "Why?" he replies, "haven't you got a vase?"

He didn't understand. No, I wouldn't have done when I was twelve either. But I only said it once, yet Jayne spent the journey home trying to explain the joke to him.

Near the end, the parish priest came on and warbled on about god for a while. Then most of the audience crossed themselves.

When I lived in Ireland, I once asked Lin if we could go to Mass one Sunday, just for me to see what happens? Never did, but tonight in a few short minutes of priest-talk I was bored shitless. So probably just as well.

glimpse

Regardless of the deserved score, this wasn't a vintage Liverpool performance, or one that'll warm the hearts of better things to come.

For just six minutes out of the ninety, a nucleus of Gerrard/Torres/Aquilani/Babel showed the world a glimpse of what they're capable of. And then normal service was resumed of possession football without actually doing anything with it.

Gerrard should've walked for a reckless punch on the Portsmouth player. Here is somebody who's looking at his best days behind him the way he's been playing recently.

My heart goes out to Fernando Torres. He is playing with the minimum of support, and his obvious frustration is growing.

Someone should tell Benitez that a football team has NEVER, EVER won an English league title playing just one striker up on his own. Especially at home. Okay, there are some tricky European ties where tactics dictate a change in style of play. But the FA should pass a law that says a Premiership club must play 4-4-2 in every bloody game!

vicious

I think it's the lowest of the low when an innocent man, wrongly accused of being the new identity of child killer Jon Venables, has been hounded out of his house on several occasions, and has been the subject of a vicious campaign on Facebook.

May whatever god you believe in help a Scouser in their mid-20s who's up in court for anything at the moment!

I don't use Facebook anymore - I'd rather rant and rave from the comfort of my blog thanx!

Neither is this sorry situation being helped by the misguided Denise Fergus. Mrs. Fergus has about much right to know what Venables has done/hasn't done than the rest of us. Sadly, she's had her day in court, she has had the full thrust of British justice for her baby. If Venables is to be prosecuted for any criminal offence, let the appropriate authorities deal with him in the fair manner apportioned to anyone else in a similar situation.

There must be bugger-all else happening in the world for this sorry excuse of a "news" story to come out.

shoddy

Easily the most inept performance by a Liverpool side in quite some time, and there's been some shockers this season.

Of course, the usual suspects will be blamed for our defeat to a pretty shoddy Wigan. But bigger fish failed to shine, not least Steven Gerrard. I thought he was woeful. His passing was awful. And his attitude was shocking. You know, when we need a cool head out there, what does our captain do? Yeh, that's right - he goes and loses it.

The belated introduction of Alberto Aquilani was a positive, and in the fleeting minutes he was on the park, he showed the class in midfield we're so sadly lacking at the moment. The sale of Xabi Alonso has wrecked my club. He was the heart, the guy we built the entire team around. But now.......

Just when you think you can trust Benitez again, he puts out a team that plays like that! Will the real Liverpool Football Club please stand up against Lille on Thursday?

ailments

I'm not feeling particularly well at the moment. I've got a water infection somewhere near my kidneys, and I'm trying to keep a cold at bay.

After I dropped Jayne and Aaron off from the concert the other night, I just felt like absolute crap - very run down.

It's not like me to feel so ill. I really don't think it's got that much to do with the inclement weather we're having either, I feel it's a lot about stress at work.

I don't really want to go off on one about work. Let's just say I put far too much of myself into moving all the gear around and it wasn't helped by there just being me, Ron and Ian doing it because we couldn't trust anyone else to help. Nearing the end, I was physically exhausted. I actually walked off the job in the last week during an internal bust-up, and Ian followed suit. Job or no job, I'd had enough, and needed some quality time to recover.

Signing-on was not fun. I hadn't done it in 16 years, and found the differences in the system between back then and now quite profound. Back in "the good old days", you basically went in, signed a piece of paper and walked out, no questions asked. Now, they're on your back like the plague - pushing people into job situations they're either not prepared to do, or more likely, unsuitable for. The pressure can't be fun for the dole either, because I'd hazard a guess they have targets to achieve.

But what's the point in bullying the unemployed - it just breeds contempt and some of us bite back.

I had a small row with the cheeky bitch behind the desk the last time I signed on. I was in a foul enough mood as it was. Neither did it help matters when the security guard strutting his stuff around the front entrance is none other than the younger brother of my best mate at school. Anyway, I'd blagged her I had a job interview somewhere, and she started asking all sorts of probing questions which, to be honest, had me at a loss to answer sufficiently. She said, "So, you don't know where you're going to for this job then?" I snapped back, "who do you think you are?" and stalked off.

So signing off was actually a huge relief, but I think my nerves were shot by then. I hadn't been feeling that great, either physically or mentally, and I've just wanted to close the curtains.

And it's beyond the remit of the blog, but there's a deeply-personal matter I have to attend to as soon as I get the guts to do it.

I think once I get past these, hopefully, minor ailments I'll be right as rain. Don't get me wrong, there are people out there really suffering from all sorts of things that far outweigh my mediocre concerns. I'm well aware of that, so I don't make a song and dance about it.....except on here!

improving

I think my camera skills are improving in a minor way? Taken just before, the IOM Steam Packet's "Manannan" en-route to Douglas passing Crosby.

nice

Me and Jayne decided to go to the pictures last night to see "Leap Year" starring Amy Adams. But according to BBC Radio Five's esteemed film critic, Mark Kermode, it's one of the worst films ever, and the Irish nation should sue because it shows every predictable Irish stereotype imaginable, e.g - "Top o'd'morning t'ya!"

And because of the suggested awfulness of the film, I was very looking forward to going and shouting at the screen, "Pog Mo Thon, Alfie, POG MO THON!!!!!!!!"

For the bewildered, that's Gaelic for "kiss my arse".

Alas, "Leapy Ear" wasn't on at the time we thought it was, so as an alternative we to see Liam Neeson and Julieanne Moore in "Chloe".

Despite the class both Neeson and Moore brought to their respective parts, I would describe "Chloe" as a plodding, lesbian....sort of thing! I was quite bored, and spent the entire film trying to get a grip of Jayne instead.

By the way, there was me, Jayne and two other people in the cinema watching this bore-athon. Still, my Maltesers were nice!

thoughts

I went with Jayne to see Aaron perform, with his school, at the Liverpool Performing Arts Festival. It was held at St.George's Hall - an absolutely magnificent piece of architecture. The Great Hall is Great with brilliant acoustics.

Did you know that St.George's Hall is built the wrong way round? Yes, so did I!

Anyway, the school band were very, very good and I was pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed myself. Apart from the obviously crap style of music played. The school played something from "Pirates Of The Caribbean", and they alternated with a group of kids playing bone-shudderingly awful jazz - which is even worse than blues rock.

The judge was a non-entity of a man who wouldn't have known good or bad music if it came up and gave him a blow-job. He expected perfection and dexterity beyond the years of these kids, completely missing the point of just being too emotionally involved with the music to care, which is a joyous experience for a child.

Anyway, the Liverpool Performing Arts Festival handed out questionnaires for those attending to fill in. Here's the questions and the answers I thoughtfully offered.......

1. How did you hear about the Festival?

I didn't, I was press-ganged into coming under pain of having my goolies strategically shaved by a sexually-repressed orangutan.

2. Is this the first time you have entered the Festival?

I entered through the front door, yes, but you wouldn't want to know about the Performing Arts I'm interested in.....fascists!

3. Did your family and friends come to watch you perform, if so how many?

No they didn't because they are trapped in modern form of concentration camp called Southport.

4. What area have you travelled from?

Blundellsands via Fazak.

5. What did you like about the Festival?

The main hall was very big, and the toilets were so spotless that just for once in my life I didn't shit on the floor.

6. What do you dislike about the Festival?

The lack of Power Pop. Do you really want kids to grow up emotionally-stunted beyond belief, then blame them??????

7. Have you any suggestions to help us improve the Festival?

Add both the Beatles and the Who to next year's bill. Failing that, I'll happily whack out power-chords with my trusty SG and Hiwatt amp. Get rid of the Simon Cowell-wannabe, and if you really want there to be a Festival in 2012, cut out the bloody jazz because St.George's Hall will be stone ruins otherwise.

Helpful thoughts and hints all round I'm sure you'll agree!!!!

camera

A got a decent camera recently - an AGFA 2030b 12 Megapixel model. It replaced the 10MP version that refused the work after one night's use not too long ago. Anyway, the new one seems to be doing its' job, and at the moment I'm experimenting with it, rather than trying to do anything clever - which I'm obviously not!

Ron advised me to read the instructions this time. Good advice. They're still in the box untouched!

Above pic I took today in Sefton Park Palm House. Whether it makes any sense to anyone....well, good luck there!

Wandering around Liverpool today, lost in my warped imagination, gave me some great ideas for TV shows I mean to present to the cash-strapped BBC. A particular favourite that makes me smile is, "I Want To....Build A Leper Colony".

majesty

Every now and again, in a sea of musical blandness, comes a release that reinforces my belief that Rock will save the world, and "Gessle Over Europe" fits this bill perfectly.

The Roxette frontman is a pop genius. No, that's too little a statement. PER GESSLE IS A POP GENIUS!!!! And, boy, can the man rock when he's in the humour for it.

Gessle's recent releases, in my opinion anyway, have failed to match the Power Pop majesty of his 1997 "The World According To..." masterpiece. But backed by punk-poppers' Brainpool, Per pulls out all the stops on his tour across the continent during 2009.

Away from the inane warbling of Marie Frederiksson, Per performs a selection of Roxette favourites hopefully as intended. "Dressed For Success" away from its' computerised-origins becomes a piece of noisy guitar Rock and thunders along at a deafening volume. "Listen To Your Heart" is stripped down, mainly acoustic, but performed with a gusto that belies Gessle's 51 years. "Do You Want To Be My Baby" and "Are You An Old Hippie, Sir?" owe so much to The Who, and are performed accordingly.

There's so many highlights here, that I could wax lyrical for a good couple of hours. Instead, I will go back and bury my head in the speakers until my ears bleed. Hopefully.

zonks

I got a wonderfully pointless phone call at work today from an employment agency in Bolton who I'd emailed for a job absolutely zonks ago. The only reason I remembered it was because the contact person at this agency was called Szymon (pronounced "Simon"). Anyway, he sounded very European, and his English was much better than mine.

Come to think of it, there are unknown tribes in the Amazon whose English is better than mine!

During the 4 minutes, 32 seconds of our phone conversation, he made great play of the fact I'd been in and out of G.B Fasteners three times. So I gave him a brief history of time, including the fact that a palindrome is a word that is spelt the same backwards as well as forwards, etc, etc......

So after a little more light banter, from me anyway, he asked me to attend Skelmersdale Job Centre tomorrow morning at 9am for an interview. I am to bring my passport, driving licence, toothbrush, workboots (??????) and, most importantly to Szymon, my bank details.

I asked Szymon was I getting offered a job? He said no, it was just an interview to see if I was a suitable applicant. So I said, "no job, no bank details."

He still wants me to attend.

Now here's the thing. Thankfully, I'm not now in a position to attend this "interview" - which has all the hallmarks for signing up to an employment agency. Not too long ago, I might've been coerced? But employment agencies are there as a cheap alternative to companies actually employing staff, saving a small wad of bosses/shareholders cash, thereby denying a potential employee the full range of employment rights and protection they would be entitled to. Because as a temporary worker, I would be treated like shit.

And I put up with enough of that as it is.

I'm off tomorrow, and I'm feeling obnoxious enough to attend this charade. I got a text message from the employment agency earlier on confirming my appointment. But, at the end of the day, that'll boil down to the whether I can be bothered getting out of bed, ho, ho, ho.......