Silly Season

A bit of warmth, but an autumn wind in the air. It is still the silly season for news though. Last night's 10 o'clock news had a feature on how there is still peace in Northern Ireland. Good news, but a bit of a sign that not a lot else is happening.

The Mighty Reds, having disposed of Toulouse in old Big Ears, have got Porto, Marseille and Beskitas. Could have been worse. But realistically you would expect the top seeds to get through. Given that that is the 4 English clubs, the 2 Milans and Real and Barca, I can see how UEFA are beginning to think the system needs a shake up.

Jim Shooter going back to LoSH? That would be news (for about a thousand of us worldwide).

Version

Stop me if you think that you've heard this one before. Can't get it out of my head. Like the Go! Team I am thinking of it as a form of brain cancer, when it is just a very sucessful meme.
Back to work, and soon the breadcrumbs will be back at school. Time for the Boo Radleys - "summers gone..."

The boy who cried at Happy Birthday

A refugee from About a boy was at the Breadcrumb's birthday party. He had a handmade jumper, hand made cards and present, and cried at loud noises. He was a vegetarian. Poor lamb - a world of pain awaits. The world of children, who are cruel and relentless.

Other than that a success. Though the divisions between the kids from the schemes and the kids from the middle classes grow bigger by the day. As do the number of single parents. We fit in and don't fit in with all of them.

Breadcrumb Day

Do you mean you don't celebrate Breadcrumb Day?

One more year and they can say "now we are 6".

You are old father time

The breadcrumbs reach 5 tomorrow, but we are holding back celebrations till Thursday. Luckily they are still too young to realise that they are being conned.

As was referee Rob Stiles on Sunday when he gave Chelsea a penalty at Anfield for Malouda throwing himself at Steve Finnan. At least he has apologised, but a probable win has been turned into a disappointing draw.

I was not there because I was learning valuable life lessons at Centre Parcs. The first of these is that the breadcrumbs are heavy, and the second is that I am not a golfer. My first ever driving practice left the shed peppered with dents, and the driving range miraculously untroubled by golf balls. It was a laugh though. And now I ache, ache, ache. All over.

Slow learner/Partition

Having discovered Portishead about a decade later, I would now like to go even further back and finally declare Loveless by My Bloody Valentine one of the great albums of all time. I've always loved Soon, but I think that I was resentful of them damaging my hearing on the Rollercoaster tour (Mary chain, MBV, Dinosaur Jnr and Blur. Yes, that Blur). 1 minute of pure noise is a cleanser for the palatte. 10 minutes is industrial noise damage. Anyway, thanks to the randomness of I-tunes I have been getting odd blasts of MBV which then carve permanent tracks into my brain. Listening to the whole thing at fuck off stupid noise it just works. Next I will be declaring my love for Wire, and going back to 1977 to start all over. (Can you spot the link pop pickers?

Changing tracks disconcertingly, watched a programme on the Partition of India. God, what a sad affair. The saddest thing was watching an old Sikh talking about his father and uncle beheading all the women in the family because of the risk of them being captured and raped by Muslims. How unspeakable. And apparently carried out in silence, with the women co-operating. The Father started with his own daughter. Makes you wonder about the human race. The one bright bit was a Hindi refugee from Lahore, who rather than blaming the Muslims, blamed Hindus for mistreating them in the first place leading to them wanting their own country. But Pakistan was forged in blood, and not got much happier since. Religion is a blight on the face of the planet. Human beings just can't get the "love one another" bit, and use it as an excuse for killing. And killing in revenge. And then killing because they killed us.

Thank God I am an atheist.

AHW RIP

Anthony H Wilson, late of Factory records, is now late. And Manchester is the lesser for it.


He changed my life by showing me the Sex Pistols, and then signing Joy Division. I never made it to the Hacienda - too shy. Which sounds oddly like Morrisey.


So now that generation is passing or gone - Wilson, Curtis, Hannett and Gretton. Odd firm of accountants. Never good with money. Or rather, never good at keeping it. Tony Wilson's obiturary should probably be that Factory record's HQ had the first Zinc roof in Manchester. But you could only see it from a helicopter. Sums it all up.
I can't explain but it is very Manchester.



Last night I heard an acoustic version of Love will Tear us Apart on Grey's anatomy, the No.1 show in the USA. I still can't understand why either Joy Division where not huge in 1980, or seem to have become so now. A Velvet Underground for a different generation.

Mindless

Group of asian youths went along the street and kicked in all the driver's side mirrors at 2:10am. Pointles, mindless and expensive for me, my asian neighbour, my 90 year old neighbour, my single mother neighbour and at least one other (don't know whose car it is).

Not a good start to the day.

Like a Motorway

One of my favourite tracks ever - a remix of Like a Motorway by St. Etienne. Not really my cup of tea at all. What it reminds me of is a drunken night in Belgium with a group of friends where we dramatically overestimated the number of limes needed for Margharitas, and emptied the local supermarket. Weended up drinking Tequilla until we had finished the limes. The rest of the weekend is a bit of a blur to be honest - apart from a vision of six of us lying on one double bed watching MTV ambient at 4am. Sounds just like this track. Honest.

Meanwhile, in real life - why do I get a cold when the weather finally turns nice?

Fair Exchange

Be Bop Deluxe. The joy of i-tunes. This still summons up 1973 for me, and a battered 45 that I made a sleeve for out of a couple of adverts in the NME.
Also, still on the retro kick, finally watched the last 3 episodes of Angel. I find David Boreanez difficult to like, because he so obviously thinks that this is beneath him. The rest is just fantastic, and the sparring between Angel and Spike wonderful. I hadn't seen the Ilyria episodes, and so had not realised what an excellent actress Amy Acker is. Honestly. The Fred thing is not the limit of her abilities. And delightful to see Alec Baldwin again, even if he is basically playing Jane in a suit. Browncoats will understand.

Meanwhile, another payday has rolled around. Damn you George W Bush. Will you stop driving the dollar down? Some of us have to take them home to countries with real currencies.

Going over old ground

Am back in the land of the future present, where the world's tallest building is still taking shape. Curiously though, I am revisiting old DVD favourites. Ok, I know these things are self-evident but Farscape, Serenity and Buffy are really good. Honest.

So far failed to source dodgy bootleg Dr Who DVDs, so the breadcrumbs are looking at disappointment. Still at least they can have fun building Arks again. Blighty is sinking, and me, I live by the river... ok, no I don't.

So, being retro - here is Chriss Foss. The way the future used to look.

Philanthropy/Yellow Ribbon

Well, I'm going home as soon as I eat my tea, have a shower, finish this blog and pack. Easy for 35 minutes...

So, I was thinking. Mainly because of an articlein Psychology Today of 10 politically incorrect truths, that there is probably no such thing as philanthropy. We are all the same gene machines, and anything any of us does to save the planet will help our genes along too. So, every do-gooder is really selfish. Just pointing it out...

Life's great imponderables

Why does every allegedly international hotel have to have a coctail bar with some national signing songs they have learnt phoentically in an endlessly booming karoake of the damned?
What is wrong with silence? Or piped music? Or god forbid, something that might actually reflect where you are?

Meanwhile in my so called glamourous life, why is it so hard of hotels to sort out the internet connections that they charge us an arm and leg for?

But these are rich person's complaints, which are shown up as rather hollow when I read about the construction workers in Dubai earning 500dh per month. That is £70, or $140. Per month. And they send money home from that.

Punch up at the 7-11

Unkansas. So there I am at the check out, slowly losing the will to live, when these two guys come pushing and shoving up the steps to the door. Suddenly one lamps the other, who falls down, and follows it up with a kick to the groin. No mean feat on slippery steps. Then both parties run off into the night, while the youths on the steps beat a rhythm on the steps with bottles, showing that they could easily be broken into weapons. So what is the protocol for this?

I've been trying to avoid there being forever a corner of a foreign field that is forever an English pedestrian by obeying the crossing signals. But that does not save you from motherfuckers on motorbikes going the wrong way up 4 lane one way streets, with no lights, against the signals. I mean, what does?

I'm not really abroad, but in Crowne Plaza world. The third world is just around the corner, but in here we are in the first world. And beer is reassuringly expensive. For the hotel that is. For me it is just prohibitive.

Hijabs and hookers. More than one culture clash. But me I am in a cocoon.

Wake up Boo

Genetics is an odd thing. Junior Miss Breadcrumb naturally shares a genetic mix with Kid A. Sadly for all concerned, Kid A, Mrs Breadwinner and me are all predisposed to lying in late. Jnr Miss takes after her grandmother, and Mrs Breadwinner's sisters, and believes that the best of the day is done by 7am. This is going to be a drag for a long, long time. For all of us.

Funnily enough, Jnr miss realises that she takes after Gran - and told me that she looks like Gran. Kid A took himself off to look in a mirror, and announced that he looked like Uncle Simon.
Me and Mrs Breadwinner will be having words...

All but an ark lark

Day four on the Big Brother Ark. Noah is washing his hair. Shem, Ham and Japeth are feeding the animals. The Unicorns have decided to go for a swim...

Will it ever stop bloody raining? Ok, I know that this week combines Glastonbury with Wimbledon, but there is no cricket so it doesn't have to be torrential. What do you bet there is a hosepipe ban?

And the bloody Intertoto cup has started. Isn't there supposed to be a bit of the year with no real football?

Hits of Glastonbury: Arctic Monkeys, Go! Team, the Coral, Kaiser Chiefs.

But the Who were rubbish.

Let it rain, let it rain, let it rain.

Summer's gone

Well that didn't last long. No more heatwave. Now we are building Arks. And there is a Sheffield flood.
Luckily the holiday was last week, and went fine. Though I am having acid flashbacks about 7 foot tall Woodpeckers. And then I see the photos and discover they were real.

So, in dedicated work avoidance am busy buying old CDs on E-bay. Downloading is not killing the music business, but e-bay must be doing some damage. Why buy a new Tracey Thorn CD when you can buy some music hacks unwanted review copy (in a really nice limited edition sleeve) for £4. Including postage. Delivered to my door. Sure beats going to HMV.

Summer's here

How do I know? Reggae sounds good again.

And no I don't want to talk about the European cup final.

And so it begins

Well, couple of hours to the Champions League final. Time for optimism. Time for realism comes later. It will be great if we can do it, but the odds are against us.
Last time I was in my local pub - this time in a bar in a far away country. Time moves on.
I never actually thought we would ever again reach the final, let alone win it - let alone reach a second final in three years. A pretty good achievement in itself. Come on you Reds.

THE GO BETWEENS - Right Here

Oh, God. Watching this again, can somebody please tell me why the Go-Betweens weren't big as U2, or at least Grant a major solo star?

A year since Grant died, and still the rockstar I miss the most. Purely because now there will be no more songs.