Looks Like Liverpool Have Got Themselves A new Manager

Brendan "Buck" Rodgers - Liverpool Manager

Today the BBC news website and Twitter lit up with the news that Brendan "Buck" Rodgers has agreed to manage Liverpool.  There is a lot of opinions being expressed either way about this development.  Some are saying that it's a huge risk and most likely a bad move for Fenway Sports Group.  Others like myself are ecstatic, and I will explain why right now.

When Kenny Daglish was sacked, I was gutted.  I thought it was incredibly harsh on the part of FSG.  As a matter of fact I still do.  King Kenny deserved better than that.  He only finished mid table at the end of the season which in my view is a sacking offence for any manager of Liverpool, even Daglish.  But he reached two cup finals and won one of them.  Mid table or not that's worth another year, at the very least until the January transfer window.

Daglish got a bad rap, but he can take solace in the fact
that he has a dam good replacement!

Anyhoo what's done is done, so there's no point in crying about it so I decided to look to the future.  And to the future I looked.  I attentively kept an eye on the BBC sports section on the internet to see what the possibilities were.  All of the names that were brought up were absolutely disappointing.  Martinez? Crap!  Andre Villas Boas? Oh God I hope not!  Fabio Cappello? He's okay but, nah!  Frank de Boer? Now that's more like it but I'd prefer the other name up for the job!  Brendan Rodgers?  My first choice all day long!  The style he brought to his Swansea team and his sheer knowledge of the job impressed me over the entire season.  He is capable of bringing out the very best of every player under him.  Not to mention that his nickname is "Buck" Rodgers.  Now that's a name I'd like to work for!

Only two weeks ago he turned down the position, and it seemed to me that he was never going to change his mind.  There was my first choice down the crapper.  Not only that, but it seemed Martinez was surely going to land the job.  FSG sacking Daglish in favour of Martinez?  Oh come on guys, what the hell are you guys thinking?  The future I was looking so hard at seemed more bleak than ever.

I was in the mindset of preparing myself for another disappointing season when today, when I turned on the internet, I saw a news item that Brendan Rodgers agreed to work for Liverpool as manager.  Too good to be true I thought to myself.  It's probably just another rumour I thought.  I kept an eye on every update I could find on Twitter and numerous news websites.  I spent hours pouring over every word written about this until I was satisfied that it must actually be happening.

I had to include this one I found on the internet.   It tickled
me just a little bit.

It's been confirmed everywhere except from Liverpool themselves it seems.  Swansea themselves have even confirmed that he's left.  You can be sure that I'll be keeping an attentive eye on everything that transpires tomorrow.  When Liverpool make their official announcement, I'll be watching.

Until then I'll say welcome to Anfield Buck!  I know you'll be amazing and I wish you the best of luck.

FS&R Charity Gig

This was not the gig.  Just a random photo
of me with a guitar at an open mic.

Well last night I participated in a charity evening to raise funds for the Foyle Search And Rescue at the Rocking Chair Bar.  From my perspective the evening couldn't have gone better.  I was the last guest up to play my short set, and the audience reaction was fantastic.  The crowd was large and I'm sure quite a lot of money was raised on pure numbers alone.  That's not even counting the auction that occurred.  Unfortunately I have no video or photographs of my performance as the low light conditions and the noise of the crowd made any photo or video that was taken unusable.  It was good to be back in a live situation though with an audience who seemed to really enjoy my set.  Next up (if all goes well) will be the festival of colours, and I intend to absolutely rock the square on that one.  Watch this space!

Setting off for the last part of the tour.  The boat ride around
the Foyle river.

I didn't sit at my computer to talk about how great I was last night however.  I just wanted to speak a little bit about the Foyle Search and Rescue.  Think RNIB for the Derry area and you have an idea of what they do.  I did a show to raise funds for them before with the choir I'm involved with.  About a month before the show they were kind enough to take us on a tour around what they did.  It was a fun evening that ended with our being invited on to one of their boats for a tour of the river Foyle.

Volunteers at the River Foyle,

The thing that struck me about these amazing people was that they give up so much to ensure the safety of everyone in the Foyle area.  They're not paid (except for about two people who run the place).  Yet they spend so much time volunteering for this outfit at all kinds of hours.  Fighting strong currents and a very dirty river, dealing with suicides and above all else, recovering bodies.  They actually commented on the fact that nothing can prepare you for the smell in their first few recoveries.

They need and deserve every and any penny they can get their hands on.  The recent bad winters have set them back tremendously, because when the river had frozen over a lot of equipment, including their pontoon was destroyed.  As if they're not up against it enough already.

I hope they catch up and get all of the tools necessary to do the job.

For more information on these amazing heroes, you can go to their website at the URL http://www.foylesearchandrescue.org/

Rupert Murdoch Is A Bad Man

Rupert and James Murdoch

Well today the government has deemed Rupert Murdoch unfit to run a major international company.  I mean, duh!  Everybody has known that for years now.  It may be hard to believe, but this whole affair has been going on for about 10 years.  In that time thousands of victims of phone hacking have been discovered, and settlements have been handed out like sweets to a number of them to try to keep quiet about it.  And that was before the news broke that Milly Dowler's phone was also hacked.  All of a sudden Murdoch, Brooks and number of other high profile emloyees suddenly feigned shock at this, even though everyone knew that was going on for years.  Of course they didn't know (sarcasm).

Rebekah Brooks

All of a sudden every celebrity who were afraid to take these people on, for fear of News Internationals powerful array of newspapers and television services would turn on them and completely destroy them, grew a pair of big hairy balls.  They jumped on News International like hyena's to get something out of it. I couldn't blame those celebrities however, if their phone was hacked, you may as well make a bit of money out of it, now there was no fear of backlash.  I have to admit, I'd have done the same.

They Actually Kept A Straight Face Saying All That Stuff

I couldn't contain my laughter however every time Rupert Murdoch and his minions looked at us straight in the eye, and said that they didn't have any knowledge of phone hacking at News International.  I don't need evidence to know that this the biggest pile of cow clap I have ever heard.  This has been an issue for the best part of a decade before the Milly Dowler part of the picture came in.  How could they not know about the millions of pounds of settlements they had already paid out to other victims to keep quiet about the very same crime inflicted upon other people?

There's another part of this News International story however that I'm shocked isn't getting as much coverage.  I had seen an episode of Panorama recently entitled 'Murdoch's TV Pirates', that pointed out that his company played a part in the downfall of 'itv digital', by cloning their viewing cards.  (The first part of the episode can be viewed below.  They paid a hacker to post details of itv digital's viewing cards online.  This allowed anyone with the know how to clone paying customers viewing cards and sell them to anyone who wanted free 'paid for' television.  The idea being to cancel out any competition for Sky.  I'm sure that would have resulted in a mass boycot only for the fact that we all love our Sky Sports and Sky Movies too dam much.

The above are only the crimes that we know about.  Who knows what other secrets they're hiding in that huge sprawling company.  If Murdoch doesn't do jail time in the near future then there's something seriously wrong.

To view the report published today click here.  report

A Well Deserved Standing Ovation

Well our run of Peter Pan has come to an end, and the last night ended with a standing ovation.  The first couple of performances were a bit hairy due to the cast and crew being unfamiliar with the set as we didn't know what we were going to be sent until we got it.  After that however, the performances were absolutely top notch.  The feedback and reviews were excellent.  One audience member posted on our theatre group's facebook page that it was much better than the West End musical he had seen the previous month.  That is high praise for a group that is largely amateur.

I have to say on a personal note that it's the best on stage set I've ever worked with, and I have been doing this over 20 years. It was the best main cast I've ever worked with as well.  Owen who played Hook was perfect, Peter Pan and Wendy Darling were sublime in their performances.  You look at the guy who played Smee, and you'd think 'why did they cast him?, but once he put that costume on and got into character I decided he's the best Smee you could possibly have.  Everything was so perfect you could be forgiven for thinking that we were on tour with this production. Maybe we should go on tour, but money will surely get in the way of that.

On an even more personal note, this was the first of hopefully many productions my 6 year son Jamie has been involved with.  It was merely a sequence where lots of young kids came down through the crowd dressed as pirates and fairies singing 'You Gotta Believe' to revive Tinkerbell.  I started off with something similar myself so it was quite a proud week for me. It pleased me to see that he really enjoyed it.  You can just tell he's hungry for more stage time.  In fact I'm just going to post some pictures I had taken of us backstage in the dressing rooms.  Enjoy.

Just before his matinee performance.

 In cast you're wondering why I'm wearing different war paint.  It's because I have worn different war paint for every single performance.
These two were from the two performances today.  Some of the designs were awesome.  I'll try to gather all of the photos and post them up.  Can't promise anything though.

Trying on my head dress after the show

Just before I was due to go onstage for the evening show

First Night Over And Done With

Well we did it.  We got through the first night without any hugely major hiccups.  We're still getting used to the set, and there is an issue with some of the cues.  But we got there.  We started off with a very small crowd tonight, but I think that crowd will go home and talk about how good it was.

That's all for tonight as there is an early matinee tomorrow.  I will keep you posted on the progress of the show

Will We Make It To The Second Star On The Right?

Well tonight was the last dress rehearsal for Peter Pan.  A musical I'm involved with this year where I play the Indian Chief (and backing singing in the first half).  We have been rehearsing for several months now, but tonight was like we were rehearsing for the first time as we were using the flying cables and the most complex set I've ever worked with for the first time tonight as the 'Get In' was only yesterday.

The result was cause for great alarm, as no one seemed to know what was going on, so it was hard to sit through a lot of it.  Not to worry though because now we know how it's all going to pan out (no pun intended).  Tomorrow night's show should be quite spectacular.  In fact, anyone who cares to read this blog, I would urge to come and see us tomorrow, you wont regret it.

On  a personal note however this production is a bit special to me.  I joined the Grove Theatre Group over 20 years ago when I was about 10 or 11.  I did my first production with them about that time which was Robin Hood, where I was involved in the children's chorus.  Now after all this time my son is doing his first production with this group at the age of 6.  As a father I'm quite proud of him.  He doesn't seem nervous, in fact, you can hear him above everyone else.  You'll never need to tell him to project his lines in the future.  Hopefully this will be the first of many shows in the theatre he will be involved with.

So if you're going to this show I hope you'll enjoy it, I'm sure we'll show you something spectacular.

3 Days Work for 2 Seconds of Screen Time on Game Of Thrones

Tonight was the night I've been waiting for the best part of a year.  To see myself in Game Of Thrones.  I was under no illusions.  Even though I spent three days working on the set I knew I'd be lucky if you even seen me on screen.   For two of the three scenes I was right.  I was always off camera as I suspected.  But there was just a little second or two I was on screen (even though if you blink you'd miss it). Here it is.

I know, I'm just a speck in the background, but dammit I'd sharing a screen with Charles Dance.  Earlier that day he sat in the same tent as me straight across from me.  Before I continue I must point out that we weren't allowed to talk to the stars of the show.  So Obviously I was in a predicament when he sat just several feet from me to have a smoke.

I was in the tent with a number of other extras who were having a smoke, or a lie down, or a snooze, or whatever.  We were having a good laugh, in fact the craic was amazing with us all.  Charles Dance peered in the tent, was a bit hesitant, but quickly decided to have a smoke in the tent where he sat directly across from me.

As soon as he entered the tent the entire company fell silent.  I acknowledged him with a nod while deciding what to do with this situation.  I knew I wasn't allowed to talk to him, but at the same time it would be rude not to.  So I looked around for some way to get him to begin the conversation.  The only thing I could see was a man in the far corner with his head bowed down between his legs.  So I broke the silence with 'Are you okay dude'. He said he was okay and that was that.

Charles Dance finished his cigarette and left the tent.  It doesn't sound like much, but that was more than worth the one or two seconds I was on screen for.

Well that's it until next time, I'll get around to the Voice yet.