Long weekend. . .

It's been a long sunny weekend. Saturday was a loss to me as I was working, but today has been a wonderful day spent with my family and a few friends.

Beyond that I've been rejoicing in my new desk! Yes, I AM that sad.

We've spent what seems like years getting our basement done. Actually, that's because it DID take years. Our first builder (note the use of the word "first") didn't do anything for a year, so we gave him the boot.

But in the end we went from this......







To this....









A great little nook where I can put my ever increasing collection of books n' stuff.







Oh.... AND use it as an office.

The books now need alphabetising. I'll get around to it one day. The desk went in last weekend as the one we had before was in danger of collapse. I'm pretty sure that only good will was keeping it together.

On the way home from our friends house today I took some pictures of the river that runs past the bottom of our garden. Hmmmmm.... What a great day.

Tunes I like right now....

I'm adding a new section to the right-hand side of the page called "Tunes I like right now....".
It'll have a few tunes in it for you to listen to.

They won't be there permenantly though. I'm going refresh it every now and then.

First up:

Zero by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

Like Emily by All About Eve.

Spirit On The Water by Bob Dylan.

The Willows By Belbury Poly.

And just for the hell of it:

The closing theme from "The Tripods" by Ken Freeman.

The Pool Of Fire. . .

A friend of mine said to me recently "You have a high tolerance for this stuff don't you!".

I was visiting his house and had stumbled upon some god awful Sci Fi show called "The Starlost"on the TV, it had been made sometime in the 1970's. By any reasonable standard it was total crap, however, it starred Kier Dullea and that was enough for me.
He was right though. I seem to be able to sit through the kind of TV that makes most people run for the hills.

So.... to "The Tripods"

It was a show made for the family teatime market in the mid 80's and, to be honest, it's rather shoddy. It's a great example of the BBC trying to film something for £2.50 that a Hollywood director would have trouble bringing to the screen for £80 million. So, 10/10 for effort.

I have a huge soft spot for it though. The acting may be atrocious and the script leaden, but it tries SO hard. The model work is some of the best the BBC ever produced, and the Tripods themselves look really cool. Fact.

It's a show that's developed a healthy cult status over the years. Not just the show but the music also. The soundtrack was written and performed by Ken Freeman and has been available on CD for some time. For many years though only season 1 of the TV show was available on VHS and DVD, but at last it's available as a DVD box set that contains both season's 1 and 2.

"But wasn't The Tripods based on a trilogy?" I hear you ask!

Yes. The third season was never made due to low audience figures, so the 3 of us that were watching it were left hanging.

"But wasn't it crap?"

Yes. But I love it. I have a high tolerance for this stuff remember.

Cosmos Episode 1

Finally found a replacement for the lost "Cosmos" vid. You can find episode 1 in full and my origional post here.

I wonder what will happen?

STEPHEN!!!

What REALLY happened....

I can't help but love this. Partly because i'm a fan of "Family Guy" but mostly because I think that Christian Bale is an overrated cock.

Mwahahaha! At LAST!

The tickets arrived today!!

WooHoo!

I will be there on June 30th at Wembley Arena to witness the triumphant return of England's loudest band "Spinal Tap".

This is part of the 1 date "World Tour".

"If we're going to do a World tour on only one night, at least it's this world"
Nigel Tufnel

"This show will be dedicated to all of our drummers who have passed on, either to their reward or to middle management at Sainbury's."
David St. Hubbins.

"One night is not enough, and it's way too much!"
Derek Smalls

National Theatre Of Brent UPDATE!

As you may know from an earlier post I am a HUGE fan of "The National Theatre Of Brent". It's been through many different forms over the years, the most well known being the combinations of Patrick Barlow & either Jim Broadbent or John Ramm.

Rather annoyingly none of their shows (TV or Radio) have ever been commercially released, so I've spent a long time searching the net for any material.

While on the hunt today I realised that "All The Worlds A Globe" has been repeating on BBC7 along with "Desmond Olivier Dingle's Compleat Life and Works of William Shakespeare". BUM! Missed them both! Thankfully I found most of "Globe" and will replace 7 of the episodes I have posted here because the quality is better. Some nice chap also put up a torrent for "Shakespeare" so I have added that to the NTOB section. The quality isn't great but it's better than nothing.

Also added to the playlist that already has "Mona Lisa", "Messiah" and "Greatest Story" is a new one on me "Joan Of Arc: How She Became A Saint".
It was written by Patrick Barlow and has Jim Broadbent and John Ramm in the cast. Dawn French plays the lead role.

They can all be found on the right hand side of the page under "The National Theatre Of Brent".

My origional NTOB post is here.

As if that wasn't enough it turns out that the NTOB are set to return to the radio this year with a NEW series. It's titled "The National Theatre Of Brent's Iconic Icons".

I managed to get 2 tickets to a recording of an episode... WooHoo!
The episode I will attend is about the iconic icon Bob Dylan.

It never rains but it pours.

If you want to download the files click on the DivShare logo.

Update!!!

Bloody hell! It's been a while. I guess having a new baby can do that. Time is something I don't seem to have much of at the moment, but I'm sure by the time my daughter is 18 I'll have got used to it.

I'm going to update a bit more often (cough!)and try to keep an eye on things more. I've repaired a few dead links so all is up and running again. Yay!