skip to main |
skip to sidebar
It's about damn time I did a proper entry on here about Da Boy's utterly fantastic band - The Jackdaws.
Some may accuse me of being biased and maybe I am, a little. I have no doubt I would still go along and watch him play even if his band was sh*t.
But I would not be such a vociferous advocate of their awesomeness if I didn't genuinely love these boys and their cracking tunes!
Da Boy is the drummer (and if I were to be openly biased, obviously the sexiest one - he's a babe) and they have Rich on vocals and guitar, Russ on lead guitar and Lee on bass.
They write what are, quite simply, the catchiest songs I have known of any band in the past decade.
While every one is very obviously "Jackdaws", they're also all very different, which I think is pretty unusual these days when so many bands play a set and you can't tell one song from another - so little of the crap out there at the moment is memorable in any way.
The Jackdaws stuff is all guitar, bass and drums based and it is simply impossible not to get up and do some dancing when you've had a couple of alcoholic beverages inside you.
Those who wish to investigate the evidence behind my claims can do so at www.myspace.com/thejackdawsuk, where there is a selection of their songs to delight your ears.
If anybody fancies checking them out live before considering coming to a gig, you can get a taster here, http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/2602716.
They gig mainly across the Midlands and Manchester but have played as far afield as Edinburgh before now and honestly rock the crap out of any place they take to the stage.
So, there you have it. I have officially put aside my impartiality and shamelessly plugged The Jackdaws.
But I do so in the hope that it will enrich the lives of others by showing that there is still such a thing as great music out there if you look elsewhere than the Top 40!
Enjoy!
I found myself thinking quite seriously about the above question this afternoon.
Now, let me make one thing clear right from the off.
I love what I do for a living. I get to earn money by doing the thing I love most - writing.
Putting words down on a page in a somewhat creative manner is something I have adored doing ever since I was a young child, when I used to churn out countless random, highly imaginative and utterly crap short stories with no plot whatsoever.
As I grew older, I realised with a fair bit of certainty that I probably wasn't good enough to make it as a famous novelist so switched my attentions to the less fiction-based career of journalism (no sarcastic comments please, I never, EVER lied or exaggerated anything I wrote for my newspaper).
Anyways, the love for writing never faded and after university and a couple of years as a journalist on a local daily paper, I ended up in my current job as a media and communications officer for an organisation that I had better not identify.
And I really do thoroughly enjoy what I do. Every day is different, there are challenges that I relish and I love the fact that being 'creative' in some way helps towards funding my mad shopping sprees at Primark.
But it can also be THE most frustrating job in the world, mainly thanks to some of the people I have to deal with as par for the course.
Now, I freely admit that I'm not the best person at taking advice. I don't like being told that there might be a better way of doing something than the way I am. Then again, who does?
But if I feel that person is right or, at the very least has a point, I will think things over and ultimately take the advice to heart.
However, what I simply cannot stand is when someone effectively disagrees with how you are going about something just for the sake of it and to interfere.
My job relies on me working both as part of a team and individually. There is a big emphasis when I have been put in charge of a project, that it is down to me to do it and nobody else.
If I ask for someone's opinion, even if I don't like or agree with their answer, I will accept it.
But when what you are doing is constantly interfered with - when you are asked what you are doing, why and wouldn't you be better doing it this way - when you have been entrusted with the job by people more senior than the person asking you, it is beyond galling. It's downright infuriating!
I believe I am good at my job and I believe others think so too. Therefore, I do not feel I should have to justify myself or do it the way someone else tells me to just because they think their way is best.
If someone I work with has been given a job to do, it would never even cross my mind to ask them what they are doing, why they are doing it that way and telling them how I think they should be doing it better.
And I would never down right suggest that I couldn't really see the point of the whole thing!
Time and time again I just feel as though certain people feel they have to stick their snecks into what I am doing and throw in their two-pence worth simply to make themselves feel better.
Well, I'm sorry folks, but that's just not cricket!
I realise that this whole post is a little bit cryptic but I really can't go into specifics due to the nature of what I do - spilling your guts on the internet is more than frowned upon by my employers (although it really isn't as cloak and dagger as I'm probably making out).
Essentially, I just found myself wondering this afternoon whether my sanity really was worth the job I love. How can I enjoy my career so much when I am rather frequently on the verge of a mini nervous breakdown or fighting an overwhelming urge to stab someone in the eye with a ballpoint pen?
Journalists I can cope with when they piss me off. I get irritated and sometimes a bit short with them and I can be quite forceful and opinionated when I feel they step out of line with me.
Yet it's a different kettle of fish when it's those you work with that make you wish you had a bottle of single malt under the desk to give an extra kick to your afternoon coffee.
It has been over a week now and I am still mildly shell shocked at the sheer impossible brilliance that was Green Day's two-hour, fifteen-minute set at the Manchester Evening News Arena.
Oh my God. I've been to a lot of gigs in my numerous years on this planet but that Friday's really did top them all. They were phenomenal, the most incredible live band I have ever seen.
The day started with me meeting up with Mr B and H in Manchester in the afternoon, where my chief bridesmaid and I polished off a bottle of white wine between us and conspired to get Mr B in guyliner before the night was through.
Just a few short hours later and having met up with Da Boy, our feminine charms paid off and we adorned Mr B with black kohl. Awesome! And I still refuse to let him forget!
He did, however, resist our other plot to get his hair messed up, a la Billie Joe. That's for another day though...
Da Boy, as expected, did manage to resist me attacking him with H's eyeliner pencil, the same way he has done for the past six years! I reckon I might have to give it up as a bad job with him, I'm never going to convince him. Good job he's so damn hot without it!
Anyway, I digress...
Then, of course, Green Day hit the stage and all four of us were just blown away. Even Da Boy, who likes the band but isn't that arsed about them, said he thought they were amazing. The sound was just immense and Billie Joe's voice was well on form. I know I adore that man with a fairly large portion of my heart, even with the newly bleached blonde hair, but he was just astounding.
Music aside, the whole thing was just high octane entertainment from start to finish.
Nobody was allowed to even consider sitting down (apart from the miserable gits behind Mr B and H but who had a shit time because of it!), the delectable Billie charging up and down the stage and yelling orders at the massive crowd like a mini dictator, demanding that we clap, yell, sing, scream and "hey-oh" like a man possessed.
Involved, I think is the best way to describe it, not least with the half a dozen or so people he dragged up on stage to do everything from sing Longview to be 'saved' at the end of East Jesus Nowhere.
I have never seen any band with as much energy, they were all just non-stop and Billie Joe was like the bloody Duracell bunny! It was over two hours of full throttle showmanship and musical awesomeness. (Serious value for money too, when you compare it to the just over one hour, including the encore, we got at Avenged Sevenfold last year.)
Despite the fact that I am mildly obsessed with them, I was a bit skeptical of all the things I kept reading in things such as Kerrang saying it was the greatest live show on earth right now.
But I was wrong. Quite simply, nothing can match Green Day on stage right now and I doubt any gig I go to in the future will ever be able to top that one.
I have no motivation whatsoever on this overcast, wet Saturday morning, which isn't a good thing considering the various things we have to do today while on a flying visit to the folks up north - visit the grandparents, meet with our wedding photographer, try and find a memory card for Da Boy's new phone, do some food shopping for my mother...
Oh well, another ten minutes lazing around in this unbelievably comfy bed won't hurt...
Dear God above!
Today I was given a stark and overdue reminder of why I stopped using public transport back in my early 20s.
In the past year or so, I've ventured on and off the odd bus and train when necessity has dictated it and found myself thinking each time that it really wasn't all that bad and wondering why I didn't do it more often.
Yet I was brought crashing back to reality with a thump today when I had to get the bus home from work. It was 45 minutes of pure Hell.
First, the driver was snotty with me as I didn't have any change and had to give him a £10 note. Well, excuse me Mr Happiness with your rather rude tutting, but it clearly states you only don't carry change for £20s and £50s, not £10s, so screw you. If I had the change or had been able to get it between visiting the cashpoint and racing for the bus stop, I would have given it you!
Then I turned to walk up the aisle to see the bus is absolutely rammed. There were about 20 loud, gobby and annoying students from the sixth form and further education colleges, various middle aged and old people shooting glares in the teenagers' direction for being so loud, gobby and annoying, two overweight women with a huge pink suitcase on the floor between them, a bloke fast asleep and snoring on his holdall and countless other people all piled onto this usually fairly quiet service.
I did manage to get a seat next to one of the overweight women (well, half a seat anyway as she was taking up one and a half all to herself and her ample behind) and am immediately hit with the overwhelming stench of body odour.
So I spent the next three quarters of an hour trying to keep my balance on my six inch wide seat as the driver hurtles up the twisting rural road home, while also keeping hold of all my bags on my knee as there was no room on the floor and trying to take only shallow breaths and not heave all over the place at what a close relative of mine refers to as "council house deodorant" (think about it, you can't deny it isn't a good description!).
I all but ran off the damn bus the second it came to a stop and made a point of not saying thank you to the misery guts of a driver.
I don't care what anybody says and I don't care how much this planet is slowly burning up from greenhouse gasses.
I am never going on a bus again unless my life depends on it at that second in time and am not giving up my lovely little car for anything!
Okay, maybe that's a bit extreme, but I honestly can't deal with hangovers with the same Blitz Spirit that I used to in my younger years!
Seriously, the moment I turned 23, that was it. Whereas before I could quite happily head out on a week-long bender and only be rough for a few hours, I'm now sick as a dog for at least 24 hours!
Saturday was no exception. Dear Lord, I have not felt that rough in a long time and it's all Mr B's fault. Well, that's what I'm claiming anyway, I have decided the blame for me being stupidly drunk on white wine and sambucca lies solely with him. I've yet to decide why but I do know it was definitely his fault and not mine. Having to get up at 6.30am to traipse back and forth across two counties didn't help either (long and rather dull story), given we didn't stop drinking until after 1am!
Still, I had a wicked time on Friday night, even so far as to say it was worth the pain of a deadly hangover.
The Jackdaws rocked the sh*t out of Crewe and, biased or no, I and all the others thought they were the best band on that night by far. The boys even slipped in a new song that even I had never heard and it was bloody fantastic!
It was such a random night too. My cousin Radio came down from up north to show her support and immediately hit it off with all my friends she had not met properly before thanks to her wonderful craziness. I am not exaggerating when I say she is actually, genuinely nuts but in a fantastic way. In fact, some of the blame for me being ill should pass to her and her sambucca-buying as the night wore on!
There were many drunken declarations of love (the friend sort), crazy dancing down in front of the stage when The Jackdaws played and lots of staggering down the streets of Crewe making complete prats of ourselves.
Mr B even did a cartwheel down the road, which I thought I had dreamt until he confirmed it had happened at work today, followed by a second cartwheel when I apparently yelled at him to do it again! No wonder his wrist is knackered this week, this is the man who broke both of them twice in a matter of weeks as a child so officially has the weakest wrists in Shropshire!
Anyways, after the taxi driver finally got us home (and said taxi was not obtained by some dodgy back street deal, despite what certain people might claim!), having had no sat nav and relying on a stupidly drunk me to direct him in the dark when I had only ever done the journey to Crewe by road twice before and then in the daylight, everyone pretty much collapsed into bed or couch with the sounds of the best thing to come out of Shropshire since the A41 ringing in their ears.
Top night!
And I'll be doing it all again this Saturday. The Sound Bar, Birmingham - The Jackdaws are headlining and will totally blow you away if you do pop down, I promise!
Check out www.myspace.com/thejackdawsuk for more information.
Oh my God, today has seriously got to go down in the record books as one of my worst days ever. Honestly, nobody has died, but how can so many shitty things happen in the space of 12 hours?!
It started with the most annoying drive into work I've had in ages, with every single slow-moving vehicle from carawankers (sorry, caravan drivers) to Culina lorries doing 40mph to tractors to old men incapable of getting out of third gear all along the nice, wide, national speed limit country road that takes up most of my traveling distance.
Then, when I finally get to work with minutes to spare before I became officially late, I'm told a poster I had Da Boy design for a project we're doing, which is exactly what we need and will do the job perfectly, STILL did not comply with, and I quote, "the Disability Discrimination Act or our Corporate Branding Guidelines".
This despite our publishing department having already returned it once with a list of things they wanted changing to make it compliant. All the changes were made and they still weren't happy, I am convinced simply because I didn't pay them to do the poster in the first place.
So, a week after it first got sent for printing, I'm still waiting and have basically told them I'd had it and THEY could do the work to make it "compliant". (Christ, how I've grown to hate that word!)
Then, after a really frustrating day with just about everything else I also dealt with, I get a phone call from 3 Mobile who inform me they will not be repairing my phone handset, despite it only being four months since I got it, because the fault was "damage". What a load of b*ll*cks! The 0 button stops working and they try and make out I had caused it?! Seriously, if a phone can't even take being bounced around in the average woman's handbag a little bit, then it's not fit for purpose!
Therefore, I am heading into the 3Store I bought it from first thing Saturday morning to argue for a replacement phone. However, my chances of winning will be slim to none if my current experiences of jobsworth bureaucracy are anything to go by.
And just to top off a perfect day, I get home to be told Da Boy's work will not let him have the two days off for my national awards ceremony in London simply because one other person is off on those same days. Never mind that there are however many more people still in the department who could do the same job. No, they will only allow one person from each department to have leave at any one time. Jesus, my department at work frequently runs on ONE member of staff and that's covering an entire sodding county!
Which means I'm stuck with heading down to London all on my own, again thanks to some jumped-up jobsworth who won't make an exception for anything.
So, all in all, it's been a Thursday I can't wait to forget.
I wonder if there's a bottle of wine in the fridge...
Ok, so maybe they are not quite bad enough to qualify for certain death at the hands of the two hottest demon hunters on television, but the Bridezilla is a mighty terrifying creation of nature!
Don't get me wrong, I totally understand every woman wanting their wedding day to be the most wonderful day of their life. I get that, I really do, because I want mine to be one of the best of my life too.
But seriously, some go too far! The importance they place on that one single day in their lives is frightening and I honestly believe it means they might not be getting married for the right reasons - that they are getting married for the wedding day itself and not to spend the rest of their life with the one they love.
Here are just some examples I've personally come across or heard about from friends which made me wonder weather the women involved really are more than a little bit crazy:- One of our wedding planner in Italy's former clients who insisted on a particular flower for her bouquet that bumped the price up from free and included in the package to £250 on top,
- A friend of a friend of mine who is about to spend £5,000 just on the champagne reception,
- Invitations which cost more than £5 each,
- A horse and carriage trotting through the busy main streets of Market Drayton on a sunny September morning, only to stop outside one of the town's roughest pubs where the reception was being held,
- More than 150 people at an afternoon, sit-down reception.
And these are just cases I've actually experienced myself! I've heard so many more stories about people who have to have this exact thing or who spend tens of thousands of pounds on their weddings, £2,000 or more just on the dress, hundreds of pounds getting their teeth whitened and God knows what else, for just one day to mark the start of a new chapter in their lives.
To me, actually marrying Da Boy is the most important thing to me, not what colour balloons I have or having our names professionally embossed onto a ring cushion.
So long as on the day I have the people I love there, in a beautiful setting, anything else is pretty much an added bonus. I don't care what flowers I have, exactly what food will be served or whether prosecco is served instead of champagne (which it will be, in actual fact).
I don't care if none of the bridesmaids' shoes match. I don't see the point of a receiving line. I'm not bothered whether I pull up to the ceremony in a Bentley or a Beetle. So what if one of the young children (or one of the adults!) there spills something on the tablecloths?
My dress cost a few hundred pounds and my shoes less than £30 from bhs. The veil and tiara were thrown in for free by the bridal shop. I'm having my hair put up on the day but only because it will be hot and sunny (fingers crossed!) and I'm no good at doing it myself. I'll be doing my own makeup and Da Boy will be in a smart, basic morning suit.
My bouquet and Da Boy's buttonhole will be whatever is included in the wedding planner's package. It's only going to get thrown to someone at the end anyway! We're having a guitar and mandolin duo play some of our favourite songs while we say our vows.
We are getting married at a public building on a clifftop, followed by a nice meal at a lovely hotel with views of Sorrento Bay. There will be no receiving line, no long speeches (although there will be a few short ones!) and the hotel is providing a gorgeous cake as part of the meal.
Afterwards, our 40 or so guests will be welcome to do whatever they like. It will be relaxed, informal and, most of all, fun.
Some women seem to instantly lose sight of what getting married is really about the second they get that glittery diamond ring on their finger. It is as though the second that precious metal comes into contact with their skin, the transformation takes place.
They become Bridezilla, where not having Moet champagne to welcome their guests becomes a tantrum-inducing, hysterical tear-shedding catastrophe. When not being able to have that exact shade of pale blue lily in their table centrepieces is enough to have them hurling their ring across the room and calling off the wedding.
I just don't get it!
So this is a plea to those women out there who are spending a small fortune on a single day of their lives making sure that they have every tiny thing their heart desires and driving their loved ones insane in the process.
Take a step back, chill out and focus on what REALLY matters most about your wedding day: Committing yourself totally, heart and soul, to spending the rest of your life with the one you love the most.
At the end of the day, the only thing that spoils the wedding for a Bridezilla is the Bridezilla herself.
The Holy Grail. The Golden Fleece. A way home to Kansas from Oz. The destruction of the One Ring.All of these great quests have one thing in common (I think, although I'm not 100% on whether anybody DID find the Holy Grail).Our hero or heroine was successful.However, there is one quest which I honestly believed has eluded every single person, young or old, male or female, who enjoys that greatest of British traditions - the cup of tea - for millennia and will continue to do so for eternity.A teapot which doesn't drip.Seriously, we have been glugging down the stuff on a daily basis for thousands of years. We have been to the moon (allegedly), found ways to treat and cure some of the most terrible diseases in the world and created rock music.Yet even the best scientists on earth are incapable of coming up with a teapot design which stops half the heavenly brew ending up all over your worktop or tablecloth the second you tip the thing up.I know this as my mother has been on such a quest for as long as I can remember and, when I moved out, passed the mantle on to me.Chrome, steel, clay, long-spouted, short-spouted, patterned, plain, large or small, at home or in a cafe, I've tried them all and not a single pot on this earth can decant its contents into a cup or mug without dripping dark amber spots in places you don't want them.Why is it so unachievable?! It must be possible! Somebody, somewhere must be able to make a teapot that doesn't drip?!Maybe its a lack of funding for the research which, if that is the case, I have an idea.Rather than all these countries spending billions of pounds making and storing weapons of mass destruction, Britain and the US included, they should stop their nuclear programmes and pump the money instead into creating the perfect receptacle in which to brew up the best drink in the world.Think about it. All the world leaders can then sit down and have a good old chat over a cuppa and make friends. Because everybody knows a nice brew makes everything alright.Just a thought...
I have a question.Is it wrong to like Taylor Swift 1) if you're not an American county music buff, 2) if you're not male and want to get in her pants and 3) if you're a female over the age of 15 and not in love with The Jonas Brothers?Seriously, I think she's awesome! So does Da Boy but for different reasons (Allowed List, say no more).Shame her slow songs are usually about heartbreak or being 15. Otherwise I reckon she could have been a contender for our first dance song! Still, she might have another album out before then. It would have to be something amazing to knock the current number one choice off though, the song a whole post was dedicated to a while ago.There has been progress on that front though! Da Boy picked up his guitar and played it straight through after about three listens and he has been practicing. Maybe I can convince him to record it for the wedding after all!
... and a ceremony venue and reception venue too!
Yep, that's right, Da Boy and me have just returned from a very successful wedding planning trip to the beautiful country that is Italy and finally have the date set!
We had an absolutely fantastic week and have found the most amazing places for the big day.
The hotel we're having the reception at is just stunning, a beautiful place set right on the cliff, overlooking the bay of Sorrento.
At the moment we've also booked our second choice of ceremony venue, which is a villa set on the clifftop but we might also get our first choice of a stunning 14th century cloisters, which has been offered to someone else but they haven't yet accepted and we'll get it if they haven't replied in a week.
Although a part of me is leaning more towards the villa at the moment as it is much more private, whereas the cloisters will have tourists wandering in and out and able to watch us get married, which will kind of negate the whole point of getting married abroad in the first place.
Let me explain.
About four months before Da Boy proposed on Christmas Day 2008, he and I were sitting in our favourite Indian restaurant in town waiting for the best curry in Shropshire to find its way to our table when he suddenly and with no prompting began the most unexpected conversation I could have imagined.
You see, neither I or Da Boy had seriously talked about getting married. For me, it was something that would have been nice but not something I was desperate to happen as I would have been just as happy simply being with Da Boy for the rest of my life. I'm from a Catholic family but am not particularly religious myself.
Da Boy himself had never seemed that keen on getting married as it wasn't something he considered important, a trend that tends to run in his family. And that was fine, as I said, I was perfectly happy and had no overwhelming desire to drag my lovely man kicking and screaming down an aisle he never seemed too thrilled with walking down.
So that is why, after six and a half years together, when he brought it up in the middle of a curry house when he wasn't even slightly drunk, I was surprised and a bit shocked, to say the least.
The conversation went something like this:
Da Boy: "You know, it isn't that I don't want to BE married..."
Me: "What?"
Da Boy: "Married. It isn't that I don't want to marry you, it's just the actual thing of GETTING married that I don't want."
Me: "Sorry, come again?"
Da Boy: "It's just, I know it's something you'd like and I do want to be married to you, if I could just bypass the actual act of having to GET married. You know how I hate being the centre of attention and on your wedding day, there's no getting away from it. All the attention is on you."
Me: "Where has this come from?"
Da Boy: "I've just been thinking, that's all. If it were me, I'd just want to disappear and do it with nobody else there but I know that you would hate that and would be devastated if your family wasn't there. I know it means a lot to them that we get married and I know it would mean a lot to you. I just don't want to have to go through all that. If I could just get up tomorrow and BE married, that would be great."
So by this point, as you can tell, I was having a rare moment where I was a bit lost for words. Da Boy isn't one to come out with such things, he's very affectionate and sweet and loving but he is not comfortable talking about emotions and how he feels etc, so this whole conversation was a shock in more ways than one!
After a second or two to collect my thoughts, the conversation continued:
Me: "Well, we could always go and do it abroad, maybe with JUST family and one or two close friends."
Da Boy: "Eh? What? Like, maybe in Italy or something?" (I had taken him to Italy to my grandmother's village a couple of years before and he loved the place.)
Me: "Yeah, maybe. There would be less attention and it is the perfect way to ensure you only have a few people and only those who matter most to you there. I'm not saying I want you to propose right now this second but it's something to think about."
Da Boy: "Like at that place above your grandma's village?"
Me: "The sanctuary place? Yeah, that would be nice."
Da Boy: "That would be awesome! I'd really like that..."
The conversation did go on a bit more but I can't really remember it. And we didn't really talk about it too much more until he dropped the bombshell of an engagement ring on me Christmas morning a few months later.
We moved away from the idea of my grandmother's village and chose Sorrento, simply due to the fact so many weddings were arranged there that there was much less chance of things going wrong.
This is why the cloisters option might ultimately not be the best one for us. Dozens of tourists wandering in and gawping as Da Boy says "I do" could send him running for the hills! But we'll see.
Either way, in June next year I'll finally become Mrs Da Boy.
And all thanks to a random chat in a Shropshire curry house!
I am officially a very happy bunny right now!Last night was the big annual awards ceremony for the organisation I work for and me and three others were nominated for an award connected with diversity.And we won!Well, we were the only entrants, but still, we won!Very excited and it means we're now going to the national awards ceremony down at a posh hotel in London on October 28th! Woop!The local gala dinner thing was pretty nice too, we got a five-course meal and the chance to get all dressed up in nice dresses and dinner suits (which Da Boy was really happy about, he just LOVES wearing his suit - not).As a nominee, we even got a goodie bag with a mug, fluffy bug sticker thingy and a really classy fake brushed chrome picture frame with an in-built clock and date facility in it! And as winners, we got an extra certificate and a mystery 'extra' prize to mark the occasion.So I can now put my nomination certificate AND winner's certificate alongside my other, local award on top of the entertainment shelving unit in the lounge.I'm not quite sure what to do with the 'extra winner's prize' of the commemorative cut glass paperweight though...
There are those who may accuse me of being slightly biased but I don't care. Last night, Da Boy's band played one of their biggest gigs to date when they supported The Holloways in West Bromwich. And they totally rocked!
Seriously, the sound system was amazing, which clearly helped, turning it into a proper rock gig where every time the bass drum gets a whack you feel it right in the middle of your chest as it forces your heart into a brand new rhythm.
But, awesome speakers aside, The Jackdaws really were amazing. They just played absolutely fantastically and the crowd loved it as much as the few official, professional groupies who follow them to every gig (i.e. me, the other three band member's girlfriends, my good friends Mr B and Sonic and a couple of slightly mad but great fun lads from Shifnal).
Oh, and The Holloways were great too. Their songs sound way better live than they do recorded. I really did enjoy them, just not as much as The Jackdaws, obviously.
Anybody who wishes to sample the delights of The Jackdaws who, I promise you, will not disappoint as not one person who has seen them hasn't gone away totally converted as a fan, check out www.myspace.com/thejackdawsuk or www.thejackdaws.co.uk.
I think everybody should have an Allowed List.
Seriously, they are perfectly healthy and a great distraction from the rubbishness that real life sometimes throws at you. It's the fantasy that makes them, the idea of being allowed something you can never and will never have.
We're all human beings and, while most of us are engineered to fall in love with one person at a time, we're also wired to appreciate many others on a sexual level.
I challenge anybody in this world to tell me that, no matter how much in love with their boyfriend/girlfriend/wife/husband or whatever, they have not enjoyed looking at others and felt that exciting flutter of lust in their stomach.
Anybody in a relationship who claims they never look and fancy another is, quite simply, lying.
It's absolutely fine to find other men (in my case, obviously) attractive because that's all it is. An attraction to the physical appearance. It's not love, never will be, it's just a natural, chemical reaction in your brain that can't be controlled.
Window shopping is fine, so long as you never actually try things on for size. Looking is allowed, experiencing is clearly not. Appreciation is NOT temptation, there is a big difference.
I love Da Boy with all my heart and, if there ever came a day when I felt anything close to actually wanting to be with another man, I would end things. So would he, should he ever find himself tempted by another woman.
I have never cheated and, as far as I know, neither has he. And this knowledge and trust hasn't come from us telling each other since we've been together, it came from discussions we had when we were just very close friends, when there was no reason at all for either of us to lie.
Any person who actually feels genuinely tempted to cheat on the one they supposedly love quite clearly doesn't love that person. Appreciation is fine, having a joke about it is great fun but if there is even the smallest part of you that actually could see yourself wanting to be with someone other than the one who supposedly has your heart, then I honestly believe you should leave.
Woah, right, that got a bit deep and meaningful there, not something I had planned for this post! So let's get back to the light-heartedness I originally planned.
There are a few simple rules Da Boy and me follow with our Allowed Lists.
1) Only famous people we have a million to one chance of ever meeting can feature.
2) There is a maximum of eight entries allowed at any one time (as I have mentioned before, this was a new rule Da Boy introduced when my list got too long).
3) Once the maximum number is reached, a one-in, one-out rule comes into play.
And 4) Obviously you can never actually have that fantasized one night with them!
Because that's the whole point, as I said before. They're a fantasy and an extremely fun one at that.
So, who's on my list then?
Here we go. The top three are in order of preference but the others are fairly changeable in where they appear.
Billie Joe Armstrong (Green Day)
Jensen Ackles (Supernatural)
Jared Padalecki (Supernatural)
Ryan Adams
David Tennant
Synyster Gates (Avenged Sevenfold)
Orlando Bloom
Daniel Radcliffe (but only now he's of legal age!)
My number one has remained in the top spot for the past five years or so, I just adore Billie Joe. We're going to see Green Day in October and I actually can't wait! Da Boy has already offered to take a bucket with us for the puddle of drool he is wholly expecting me to turn into on the night.
The two boys from Supernatural are fairly recent entries but I can see them sticking around for a good while. It took someone pretty special to push Ryan Adams and Synyster Gates down the list, I tell you!
So there it is. The boys I fancy the pants off.
But I tell you one thing. I wouldn't swap my incredible fiance for any of them, not in a million years.
Oh my God, today I heard the song that simply has to be the first dance at our wedding. It is just beautiful. Simple chords, beautiful but simplistic lyrics without any of the usual mushiness and the perfect tempo for a lovely, close, slow dance with my chap.
There's just one problem...
It hasn't actually been recorded anywhere and the only copy I have is a mobile phone recording from a live gig! And the quality is, quite simply, shocking.
Therefore, I feel I have just one option, given the man who wrote and performed this song (he's on the allowed list, needless to say) has only ever done it live this once and is highly unlikely ever to lay it down in a studio and certainly not before next June.
I am going to have to convince Da Boy to learn the chords and record it himself for us to dance to.
Now, there are two potential problems with this. One of them I'm fairly confident I can overcome but the other I'm not so sure about.
1) My fiance isn't that keen on the song himself, he thinks it's alright but nothing special.
2) He has informed me, in no uncertain terms, that there is no way in Hell he is going to dance to his own voice singing at our wedding.
The first one is the easy one. Da Boy really isn't that bothered what we do dance to as our first dance. We don't have "a song" for the two of us. The only one loved by us both is Jeff Buckley's version of Hallelujah but a song about love and life being a hollow sham probably isn't the most appropriate recording to start a new chapter of our lives together.
He won't take much convincing that my choice is the one because it's not a big deal to him. (No jokes about who wears the trousers please, it is Da Boy, whatever people might think!)
However, the second is a major obstacle. I have to point out here that Da Boy has a pretty damn good voice, is a fantastic guitar player and could, quite simply, record a beautiful version of this song standing on his head.
He wouldn't even need the guitar tab, he'd figure out all the chords after a couple of listens, set a copy of the words down in front of himself and be away on his digital mixer/recorder thingy. It is a standing joke in his band that the best guitarist and all round musician sits behind their drums!
No, the problem is that Da Boy absolutely hates being even close to the centre of attention. Anything which means people will be focusing on him in any way and he runs a mile. Hence why we're getting married abroad with just a few select guests of family and extremely close friends.
Not that he's lacking confidence or is particularly shy, he just likes to get on with things without any song and dance (no pun intended) or anybody paying attention. Even giving him a compliment or, if I'm feeling a bit sappy, telling him he's gorgeous makes him squirm in embarrassment.
I can see his point. Hearing your own voice, however lovely, filling your ears as you dance with your new wife for the first time would be a bit odd, especially for someone like Da Boy. So I suggested his band record the song for us to dance to.
And he very firmly shook his head and told me in no uncertain terms that Hell would freeze over before he danced to the sound of Buzzerd's voice either! Not that their singer is bad, on the contrary, he has a fantastic voice. The band boys just know each other far too well to have one of them sing a love song about another's relationship.
So, I'm a little bit stuck. I'm confident I can convince Da Boy to play the acoustic guitar bits, I just need to find a really good singer who doesn't know me or my fiance.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is looking about as possible as Gordon Brown being able to dig this country out of the hole he and his cronies have dropped us into and filled in with concrete.
...why a sheep's coat doesn't shrink after it rains?
Seriously, this bothered me on the drive up north when I bought said book. There are loads of sheep always wandering on the moors on the road from the motorway to my parents' town and it was chucking it down.
So if wool always shrinks when it gets wet, how come the sheep don't get all shrunken too as their coat constricts?!
It's one of life's great mysteries, I guess.
Right, I have a confession to make and I swear, it was a complete accident in the first instance!
A few weeks ago I was back up north in the home town and visited the book shop I spent many happy hours in as a child and teenager, only to find it was closing down. Gutted! Therefore, I felt I had to buy at least one more book from there as, chances are, it would be gone before I could get in another visit.
So I started perusing the shelves and found some books on offer, two for £5. I picked up one and found it was about some people called Carpathians.
Now, although the storyline didn't sound great, my family is half Ukrainian and some of them live in the Carpathian mountains so I figured it was as good a book as any. There was another one there from the same series so I got that one too.
What I wasn't prepared for and what was most definitely not made clear on the cover text was that the damn things are practically erotic fiction!
I realised this about a third of the way into the first book but by then it was too late.
Now, I'm not a prudish girl, not in the slightest (ask Da Boy, if you don't believe me!) but I'm really not a fan of reading about "the way he filled her so completely"! It's just not my thing!
But, worryingly, despite the crap storyline and incredibly detailed sex scenes, I had found myself inadvertently giving a sh*t about the characters and what happened to them.
So I finished the first book and read the other one, with lots of different characters all being mentioned in passing as you went along.
The problem now is that I am so desperate to find out if some of the other blokes referred to in the ones I have read ever found their 'lifemates', I am going to have to buy the rest of the series!
Well chaps and chapettes, I am no longer a festival virgin! V was absolutely awesome and I had one of the funnest (yes, I know it's not a real word) and funniest weekends ever.
Band-wise, there were a few highlights for me. The following were fantastic:
Red Light Company
MGMT
Pendulum
McFly (what I could see and hear of their last couple of songs after we finally got in to the sodding arena!).
The following were pretty good and worth a watch:
Biffy Clyro
Ocean Colour Scene
The Sunshine Underground
Pete Doherty (shockingly, though I still find his solo stuff boring).
And anything else I watched, I really wasn't that arsed about. My cousin and his missus went to take in Oasis on the first night when we were at MGMT and said, in all honestly, they were pretty crap and looked as though they were just going through the motions. All this talk today about them being great in the media is rubbish, it seems. I reckon talk of them pulling out of Sunday night with a throat infection is b*ll*cks to be honest, they had a fall out in my opinion. The cuz did say the one thing on form on Saturday night was Liam's vocals, for once, with no hint of laryngitis in any shape or form!
Rather disappointingly, and despite several attempts using phone networks which simply refused to work, I didn't manage to meet up with an old mate from uni who was there. We were in the same field together, closer than 200 miles to each other for the first time in over five years, and we still failed! Oh well, there's always next year.
Anyways, all in all, the weekend was fantastic and Da Boy and I are definitely up for going again next year. He and his bandmate Buddha are actually pretty keen on entering the Road to V contest themselves next year, which would be awesome if they did and won. I could be on the guestlist and everything and finally start living my dream Rock Star WAG lifestyle!
Well, I did my final food shop for V today, buying lots of artificial tinned and packaged crap to keep us fuelled up for three and a half days of camping and music-watching.
Only one more day to go till we head down to that field! The whole thing is also promising to be something of a reunion weekend, with not only my cousin and his missus coming down who I haven't seen since May, but an old friend from Uni who I literally haven't seen for more than five years! So it's gonna be awesome for that alone, if nothing else.
I've got to be honest, none of the headliners at the festival are really appealing to me. I've never been a big fan of Oasis and think The Killers have been crap since their first album. However, there are some other, slightly lesser known bands that I can't wait to see - Biffy Clyro, Red Light Company, Pendulum, The Enemy, Ocean Colour Scene (who bring back so many memories!), The Sunshine Underground, MGMT, Mystery Jets etc.
Just a few more bits and pieces to buy tomorrow before the big event starts on Friday.
I am so not going to be feeling my one day of work to go. I hope nobody expects me to do anything productive...
This is going to sound really obvious and boring but every so often I hear or read things which make me realise that I'm actually quite a simple person with a rather simple life.
Not that this is a bad thing, I rather love the fact that I don't have any major traumas or emotional issues to stress me out.
Maybe I'm just naive but it worries and sort of upsets me when I realise that friends have issues that I had no idea about but, however trivial they may seem to me, are tearing them apart inside.
I'm the sort of person that wants to do everything I can to help and to make things better but, as everybody knows, there's not usually anything you can do.
Take just some of my friends at the moment. One has just split with her boyfriend of four years after finding out he cheated on her and, while she is coping with it so much better than I would in the same situation, I know how much she loved him and that she's heartbroken inside.
Then there is another friend, who is technically a friend of a friend and is an absolute sweetheart who I like very much. She seems to be on the verge of an emotional implosion (her words, not mine) and I am actually quite worried about her, as she generally seems like a much more together person than she apparently actually is.
Another good friend is being completely screwed over by an ex girlfriend who has serious mental psycho issues and I know, despite what he says, he is still at least a little bit in love with her. I just hope he does have the strength to finally cut her out of his life when he decides to and not let her wheedle her way back in like she has in the past.
I guess I am incredibly lucky. Yes, I'm half Italian and therefore have a fiery temperament and have been known to cry at the most random things, although generally I'm pretty tough with most things life throws at me. I'm also pretty good at dealing with things and not over analysing or letting things get me down if there is nothing I can do about it.
I am also (and this is going to sound really icky so I apologise in advance) unbelievably lucky to have Da Boy in my life. I trust him completely and, as much as he can drive me insane, love him more than anything. He's very much a stabilising and calming influence in my life and is always there when I need him. I also like to think that I'm there for him. He makes me laugh the way nobody else can and always knows when I need a hug.
We're really good together and, after seven years, I like to think we'll stay perfect for each other for the rest of our lives.
I'm a realist, I know you can't predict the future and there is no way of saying I will be with Da Boy for the rest of my life but I do know that I can't imagine myself with anyone else.
So, all in all, I like my simple life and, in all honesty, would wish it on others too if I could!
We've been shopping today. Not usually an exciting thing in itself but this was a very specific kind of shopping - we went to get the necessaries and supplies for the V Festival next weekend.I am so ridiculously excited that I can guarantee, come about Wednesday, I won't be able to sleep until we're in the car on the way down to Weston Park (on the Shropshire/Staffordshire border, as the local news outlets keep pointing out, just in case we didn't know).You see, V will be two firsts for me - my first ever music festival and the first time I have ever been camping. Properly camping, that is, when I went with school aged 12 doesn't count as there were eight of us in a canvas and wood tent that was already up when we got there and we didn't have to cook for ourselves as we weren't allowed to.We hadn't originally planned to go but when Da Boy heard that a couple of his band members and associated folks were going, we thought "why the Hell not?". My cousin and his missus are also heading down, so it's promising to be an awesome weekend.So £162 each later, not including all the extra costs of buying the tent etc, we're almost ready for the off!Sadly, Da Boy's company is being rather knobhead-like and won't let him have the Friday or Monday off, so he's going to have to meet us down there Friday night and leave me to pack up the tent on Monday.Now, I do have to point out that I do have certain hygiene issues about camping. Festival toilet facilities are not exactly known for their cleanliness and I am the sort who runs a mile at the sight of a rogue pubic hair anywhere near a toilet or shower. So I have decided, instead, to stock up on deodorising wipes and dry shampoo and will just have to hope I don't smell too bad come Monday morning!Even so, I actually can't wait! Woop!
Yep, Da Boy is officially my hero. He tackled that fungus without complaint like a mould-destroying knight in shining armour, laughing in the face of potential death.
So now our window is mould free and, thankfully, Da Boy did survive to tell the tale.
I knew I was marrying him for reason.
Ok, so I am now officially freaked out! My house is almost totally clean and tidy and I am, I'll admit, feeling quite proud of myself. Just the living room shelving unit to put in order and a bit of washing up and it's done.
However, in order to get this wonderful aura of self satisfaction and house proud-ness, I encountered one of the most horrible things ever when I opened the bedroom window to shake the feather duster.
Oh my God, I swear there is some new species of killer mould growing in the gap between the inside and outside of our double glazing! Seriously, the seal must be going which keeps it water-tight from the outside and rain is getting in, which has allowed the most disgusting fungus to thrive in the cavity!
The uPVC windows are pretty old, the sort they're not allowed to sell any more as they open like a small door, meaning you can take a head-first dive two stories if you're not careful, so we don't open them properly very often, just tilt them back to let the air in. So Mr Vile Fungus could have been there for months as you can't see it from the inside unless the window is fully open.
I have, therefore, texted Da Boy with strict instructions not to return home without the most heavy duty, kill everything it comes into contact with mould killer he can find.
And when he does get home, he can tackle the stuff. I just hope he comes out of the encounter alive!
OK, I know at this exact moment in time I'm actually writing a blog entry, but I have today been gripped by a very rare, possibly even unheard of urge to clean the house!
Everything has just been so damn busy lately that I'm ashamed to admit our little three-bed terrace has become something Aggie and Kim would have a mildly excited fit over.
I'm not talking mouldy, rat infested kitchens and germ-ridden bathrooms, but there is a layer of dust over everything and piles of stuff pretty much everywhere, including clean washing which has been sitting in baskets waiting to be put away for about two weeks!
So, anyway, Da Boy and me got up this morning with a mission - get the house clean, tidy and looking like a show home by the time the sun sets tonight.
So far, I've tidied and dusted the bedroom (and believe me, the tidying was a mammoth task!), emptied bins, chucked away all sorts of pointless bits of paper, magazines and other rubbish that had accumulated on various surfaces, wiped the wardrobe doors down and am shortly about to start finally putting those clothes where they belong - in the newly clean wardrobe and drawers. Then I'm going to get to it with the Hoover.
Da Boy, bless him, has vacuumed the rest of the house and cleaned the bathroom, which just leaves the kitchen to be cleaned, some washing up to be done and the living room to be dusted and tidied.
I have to admit, and anybody who already knows me will nod their heads fervently in agreement, that I am not the most tidy person in the world. However, I can't stand to live in a dirty house and am quite obsessive about having a clean bathroom and kitchen.
Da Boy has now gone off the play band with his side project (yes, he's not even famous yet and he has a side project!) for the next few hours so my big plan is to get the upstairs finished, living room sorted and the kitchen back in working order with space on the worktops before he gets back this teatime.
So, with that in mind, I'd best drag myself away from the damned computer and get to it!
Aggie and Kim, you ain't got nothing on me today! Bring on the late-summer cleaning spree!
Oh my God, the TV trailer for the BBC's Walk on the Wild Side is hilarious! Just seen it and it totally cracked me up!
"Oh, that's not Alan!"
Brilliant! It looks well funny!
See, told you I was easily pleased by comedy?!
I've got to be honest, I'm pretty easily pleased when it comes to comedy. So long as it's not Little Britain, The League of Gentleman or anything similar to that, chances are, I'll laugh at it. (I detest Little Britain. A few years ago, there would have been a barrage of complaints if any comedian even gave a hint of mocking old people, disabled people, fat people etc and now, just because it comes from two irritating alleged 'out there, against the grain comedy genii', it's supposed to be funny. It's not, it's sh*t.)
Some of my favourite sketches have got to be the following:
Hale and Pace - Yorkshire Airlines
Goodness Gracious Me - Going for an English
Jasper Carrott - Lollipop the cat / They aint got no cowin' Bovril
Omid Djalili - Anything from his first live DVD
Peter Kay - Biscuits / Family weddings
Michael McIntyre - pretty much anything!
Well, so much for getting some sympathy from Da Boy when he got home from camping! I don't know who is the bigger idiot, me or him, but he's come back so badly sunburnt on his legs from a kayaking session that he can barely walk!
Therefore, instead of him taking care of me and fussing over me, bringing me cups of tea and chocolate etc, I've been the one limping around looking after him! I even hobbled my way into town on my lunch to get some aloe vera gel and some anaesthetic spray for his crispy limbs!
I have so made sure he knows I am officially the best girlfriend in the world.
Still, broken toe or not, there is no way I'm missing tomorrow's gig in Birmingham. I won't be up to my usual standards of 'dancing' but I'll still be there, loving it down the front like the dedicated groupie I am!
If anyone fancies it, its at The Flapper from about 8pm.
Seriously, the folks down at the medical practice are all very lovely and were really nice and sympathetic when I hobbled on down there with my poorly toe today but, in all honestly, there wasn't much point in me making the effort!
I was told by the very sweet minor injuries nurse that I quite possibly had broken it, given the swelling and bruising, but that there was nothing they could do to treat it so they never took x-rays to be sure unless it was your big toe. Which means I have little but ibuprofen and paracetamol to look forward to for at least the next few days until it starts to heal. She also advised me to keep it rested and elevated as much as possible. Ha! How exactly do you do that when you work at a desk all day and your leg is stuck well below your heart level for pretty much all of it?!
So, in essence, I can't drive at the moment because it bloody hurts and if I crash the insurance company won't pay out and have basically got to live with a throbbing digit on my right foot for days, if not weeks, because even if it's just badly bruised, the nurse said I would still feel it for the next week or so. So I'm stuck working out of the local office, given my usual one is a 40 minute drive away, which isn't too bad I guess as I love the guys and girls who work there, even if they spent the entire day today taking the mickey out of me for being so accident prone!
I just hope I can hobble around well enough come Friday afternoon that I can still take the balloon ride Da Boy's mum has booked for us both! I've been looking forward to that for ages! Although, given my current form, the damn thing would probably crash land and I'd end up breaking both arms or something!
Oh well, at least Da Boy is back from his camping trip tomorrow. I'm sure he'll look after me and give me lots of sympathy.
Who am I kidding? He almost wet himself laughing when I told him on the phone last night what I'd done, the little git. Sympathy is not what I'll be getting from the love of my life, that's for sure!
God-damned corner couch! I'm pretty certain I've broken my toe, thanks to the most comfortable sofa in the world. It's so amazing to sit and lie on but it has the most evil, metal feet which stick out of the bottom.
And today, I whacked my toe on one bloody foot in a major way. It hurts like hell, has swollen up, I can't bend it without complete agony and it's turning a lovely shade of black.
Great. I knew the past few days had been too good. Something crap had to happen to balance things out.
Yep, pretty much what it says on the tin here. I had an awesome weekend!
First off, Da Boy and the rest of his band appeared live on a show called the Friday Night Gerbil on BBC Radio Shropshire. And they totally and utterly rocked!
Seriously, I know I'm biased but they sounded fantastic. Da Boy had to do a 10 second drum solo for a feature and they did four songs live, each and every one of which was awesome. I was so proud!
Then they had a photo shoot on Saturday with a good friend of mine, the afore mentioned James Melia from a previous post on here. He is just fantastic and we're even going to see if he can do the pictures for our wedding. He's not a wedding photographer, more lifestyle and model / bands but he has just such a unique, fantastic style that I know he'll take photos for us to cherish forever.
Anyway, back to the band shoot. He took some while they were running through their set for a gig that night in their practice barn before heading outside to take some more on the rather industrial farmyard outside, which was full of metal storage containers, skips, iron shells of old buildings, piles of tyres etc. But the photos were just amazing. A few might appear on www.jamesmelia.net so keep an eye out!
The boys then had a gig that night and went down a storm with the crowd. Both Da Boy and me were driving so there was no alcohol involved, yet we both still had a great time.
Then (and this just capped the whole awesome weekend off), me and my housemate S spent yesterday at Chester Zoo with James and his girlfriend before they headed off back home up north. It was so much fun, I totally loved it.
Da Boy is away camping with some friends in Cornwall until Wednesday and, as much as I love, cherish, adore and will miss him loads, that means a whole two days of Supernatural-watching, chocolate-eating and girlie-chatting without him here to complain!
The only downside was the horrible migraine I had this morning when I woke up, having spent much of the night wide awake and being sick, but that's finally starting to ease off now.
So, all in all, things are pretty good right now.
Ok, so we've finally moved a tiny bit closer with our wedding plans.
I've bought my dress and all the associated bits and bobs, the bridesmaid dresses have been chosen and will be ordered at the end of September, we've got some flower girl dresses on the way early next year and matching fabric for the men's cravats has also been sorted.
We've also decided which wedding planner in Italy that we're going to use to sort everything out over there and have booked a week in September to head out to Sorrento and meet with the lady and see some venues etc.
So all in all, I don't think that's too bad with 10 months to go! There is a lot less we need to think about having the wedding abroad than here.
I even tried to suggest to my mum that we not bother with a wedding cake for over there but just have one at the party for wider friends and family back here afterwards. That went down about as well as a lead balloon and I have been told in no uncertain terms that I AM having a wedding cake on the day I actually get married.
I've been really lucky with my mum actually. She and my dad are helping us out so much with paying for the wedding, as are Da Boy's parents, but considering they're footing much of the bill, she's been pretty good about not taking over things. There are a couple of things we've clashed over but, all in all, she's been awesome.
Oh, we have also almost decided on our first dance song. Well, I'm 100% convinced, Da Boy only about 60% but I am working on him...
Ah, evening bliss. Supernatural on the television (via the miracles of DVD) and pear cider, knowing you don't have to get up for work in the morning evening though it's a Friday.
What an awesome Thursday night!
I'm also quite excited about Da Boy getting home from playing band tonight as I, by some random miracle, managed to remember how to play Good Riddance (Time of your Life) by Green Day on the guitar! I played guitar for about 18 months when I was about 14 and was never any good at it. But, for some reason, tonight I was able to remember the chords and everything!
So I'll have to show him when he gets in. I'm sure he'll be impressed. Hmmm, or not...
Seriously, Peter Kay is an absolute genius. He and Omid Djalili are two of the funniest people ever. I cry with laughter every time I watch them!On another random note, I also had a good laugh at an old school photo of good friend of mine this afternoon when we went for lunch. It was brilliant, his head looked like a kidney bean stood on end! And there was a cracking pair of curtains going on in his hair! I would never have believed it was Mr B. Fortunately, he doesn't get offended easily so didn't mind too much when I laughed. Laughed quite a lot, actually.
I am so going to have to get my arse to the gym for a proper session tomorrow. I haven't been since Monday and in the past 24 hours I have munched my way through a pizza and banoffee pie at Pizza Express, a bowl of Coco Pops, a packet of Thai Sweet Chili Sensations crisps, a mushroom and sweet potato stroganoff with rice and onion rings on the side, fajitas with soured cream AND a Cadbury's Buttons pudding! Which means, with my metabolism, that I will now weight about half a stone more than I did two days ago!Still, I've got tomorrow off work so I have no excuse not to get my ass down on that crosstrainer for a proper session!On a more exciting note, Da Boy's band is on BBC Radio Shropshire tomorrow night for an interview and live session. Anyone fancies listening in, it's 96FM if you're in Shropshire or, if you're out of the county, search for the Friday Night Gerbil on google and you'll be able to listen online. They are utterly awesome and I would thoroughly recommend folks tune in if they can! I'll be there doing my usual groupie thing. I can't even pretend to be their manager any more, all I do these days is feed them and try to act as something of a guidance councillor when they have personal troubles, whether they want me to or not.Then they're having a photo session with an old friend of mine, James Melia, who is a fantastic photographer who I can thoroughly recommend to anyone who is looking for one! Check out his website, http://www.jamesmelia.net/ - and see for yourselves how amazing he is!Will try and get some of the photos of Da Boy and the boys on here if I can.Right, off now to watch another of series two of Supernatural - my three-season box set arrived yesterday and I'm slowly working my way through it! Hmmm, with a day off tomorrow, this could be dangerous. As in something much more fun to do than go to the gym, watching two lovely men flex their muscles as they fight all evil things.No! I am getting my ass down to Bannatynes! The Buttons pudding alone will have added at least two pounds and there is no way I'm not fitting into that wedding dress - it's way too beautiful!
Before I start on the forthcoming whinge, I would like to make it very clear that I love, cherish and adore Da Boy with all my heart.
But, my God, he can be SUCH a pain in the arse sometimes!
Take tonight. He comes in from work, having had a pretty rubbish day (join the club, my job is a nightmare at the moment to the point where I'm looking for another) and asks what the plan is for tea.
I, quite reasonably I feel, say there is some leftover chilli from the other night in the fridge. It's been there a few days but is still fine, so long as its heated through properly. If he's very hungry, I'll get him some bread to have with it as we only have brown rice, which takes ages to cook.
But he doesn't want chilli and especially not chilli which is a few days old. He also doesn't want bread with it.
We also have some leftover curry from two nights ago, I helpfully added, only to be met with a full on moan about my lack of providing skills right down to, the cheeky bugger, the fact I would make a rubbish mother if this is the way I provided tea for the family!
This, as you can imagine, rubbed me up the wrong way rather a bit so I stropped into the kitchen to heat up the curry and asked if he would like his bread buttering.
I almost threw the curry over his head when he began to rant about not wanting bread and how I never listen to him! So after I had slammed some rice in a bowl and stuck it in the microwave, only to once again be given grief about brown rice taking hours to cook in such a way, I stormed out of the kitchen and am now sitting here, refusing to speak to him.
Seriously, men can be SUCH knobs sometimes!!!!
I think I'm in love.....
My God!
I really, REALLY love Da Boy and can't wait to marry him but, seriously, what I wouldn't give for just one night with either of these two...
I finally had the metaphorical kick up the backside I needed to get back to the gym and try and lose this last half a stone in plenty of time for the wedding.
Yes, I bought my wedding dress!
It's absolutely beautiful, fits like a dream, feels as comfy as a pair of pyjamas and is, quite simply, perfect. The lady at the shop even threw in a free veil and tiara for me!
So although I'm not looking to get a lot skinnier, as the dress is pretty much the perfect fit right now, I just want to be a bit less wobbly on the day I finally become Mrs Da Boy.
And as liposuction isn't an option, that means hitting the gym and actually trying to get my money's worth from the £58 a month I pay Mr Bannatyne! To be fair, he does operate some pretty amazing fitness centres, mine has a massive swimming pool, well nice sauna, steam room and spa and you never have to wait to get on any of the gym equipment as there is so much of it.
The only thing it does lack is an attractive fitness instructor in any shape or form!
I went a couple of times last week and the week before that and this morning, in a moment of madness which Da Boy thought at first meant I had wet the bed, I got up and went before work.
Even more shockingly, I actually enjoyed it! It woke me up a treat and meant I got the working out thing out of the way early on so the rest of the day was my own.
However, I am a realist and, as someone who adores sleeping and even just dozing in bed, I'm not too optimistic about a repeat performance anytime soon. Although I will try!
Seriously, HOW attractive are the two boys in Supernatural?! They are by no means close to overtaking the number one allowed man on my list, Billie Joe from Green Day, but seriously, they're pretty damn close! Can you imagine if there were really two brothers you knew who looked like that?! I wouldn't know which one to drool over more!
You see, Da Boy and me both have an Allowed List each. And no, we did not steal the idea from Friends, ever since I was a teenager I've felt that there should be certain celebrities (you're not allowed real people you actually know on it) that if you ever got the chance for one night with then it was ok. In fact, maybe I should sue the Friends' writers for nicking my idea, if I could somehow come up with a way they might have been able to steal it!
The only problem with my Allowed List is that recently, according to Da Boy, mine has got too long. Worryingly long apparently, as in there are that many attractive boys on my list that the chances of me meeting at least one are becoming possibly possible.
So the fiance has introduced a new bit of legislation governing Allowed Lists - once you get to eight, you have to use the one in one out rule. So for anybody new I suddenly fancy the pants off that I want to add to the list, I have to remove one of the current boys. I have to admit, I wasn't overly impressed with this rule but have reluctantly agreed. Maybe 35 was a little bit excessive...
Especially as he only has about three on his!
This weekend I'm heading to the wilds of the north with two of my closest friends, H and S, to spend an entire two days shopping for a wedding dress and, if possible, try and decide on some bridesmaid dresses too.
I did find the most beautiful dress last week at a shop in Manchester. It was nothing like the style I had in mind, but it fitted just beautifully and, although it sounds so cliche, I felt like a princess in it! And my sister is being a little smug about things, as she was the one who found it and suggested I try it on. Honestly, it was just stunning.
It was, however, more than a little bit expensive and way more than I wanted to spend, given the fact we're getting married abroad so I didn't see the point in spending too much on the dress.
Therefore, I've agreed with my lovely mother that we'd have a look at a few local shops around my hometown up north, just to see if there is anything else I fall in love with just as much - and that is cheaper! If not, mother has promised me that we can get the one from Manchester.
H is my chief bridesmaid and I have seven in total. It was originally going to be my sister, two cousins and Da Boy's cousin but then my mother informed me it was bad luck to have an even number of bridesmaids. So I was able to ask H, who I had wanted as one but was worried about having too many. Then, at our engagement party, my entire family fell in love with Da Boy's two littlest cousins, who are just the most wonderful kids. So I now have a total of seven! Whoops! So much for keeping things simple!
Oh well, I have the people I wanted most at my side when I get married, so that's all that matters really.
I have no doubt that dress-related updates will follow before long...
I've been a little bored of late so thought I'd set up a blog talking general rubbish which I doubt anybody will read, but hey, it's something to do.
I'm something of a groupie for my fiance's (I'll probably refer to him as Da Boy - it's a long and rather dull story but the nickname will do) band, so there will likely be a fair few posts about them and their quest for fame and fortune.
Da Boy and me are also due to get married in June next year, so doubtless there will be chat about all the usual stresses of a wedding. Having said that, we are getting married in Italy, so it hopefully won't be as stressful as for some of the brides-to-be I have known!
Who knows, I will also more than likely end up talking about total random stuff and ranting away about various things which have annoyed me too.
This is so much less effort than having to hand-write everything out in long hand too, like I used to do in my old diaries as a kid.
