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.

The Ford Jimbo May Be In Your Future

Well I finally got around to it.  I finally wrote the letter to Ford about naming one of their products the Ford Jimbo.  Below is the letter in full (minus my address and phone number in preparation for all you nut bags out there).  You'll find it's simple, to the point, and opens up a dialogue between us.  Enjoy.

Subject: The New Ford Jimbo

Dear Sir

I am writing as a result of a conversation I had with my housemates last week. Before I begin I ask you to be patient as it is easy to regard this letter as a joke. I have decided to contact your company to see If I could get you to consider a new name for your product.

As you may have guessed the suggestion is written on the subject of this letter. Now I'm sure that well before this point, this piece of literature has been met with a chuckle before being thrown in the bin. If you have kept reading however, I applaud you. Think about it. All your (and your competitor's) products have cool names. They're flashy and chosen to catch the eye, but once they own the car that's as far as the use for your names goes. The Ford Focus is a cool name. The Ford Jimbo is your best friend.  Have a long think about that.

Please consider my suggestion as I'd like to speak with you further about this matter.

Best regards

James McLaughlin

Well that's my letter.  If you have any way of changing how you'd write yours I invite you to write to them yourself.  Or better yet post them as a comment and I'll do it for you.

Murderous

Once again I'm dragging my feet regarding the two posts I have promised.  Instead I decided to spend my evening watching Murderous instead.  I promise tomorrow you'll get the letter to Ford.

Sorry for the delay

Murderous Has Arrived

I know I promised several things on this blog but it'll have to wait.  Between the letter to Ford to my experience with the Voice, but David Harkin paid me a visit this evening and gave me a copy of the last film we did.

So instead of a long winded post I'll just treat you to the trailer of this film, and know that I'm about to watch it again for the first time since the premiere.  Enjoy the trailer, the film is as good as it looks.  In fact it's better.  The best thing David has done in my opinion.

Enjoy

The Voices In My Head

Last November I decided to enter the competition known as 'The Voice'.  Tonight I watched for the first time on the BBC iPlayer that very show/competition (which was the 4th and last blind audition).  I promised to myself I would never take part in such a thing, but I thought I'd do this one because it was based purely on your voice and not your looks.

When I went for the first audition, we were separated into groups of 10 and one person out of that 10 got through.  The other 9 were amazing to say the least, so I had no hard feelings about being rejected.  However I felt that the acts on display on TV were bloody awful.  The other 9 people that I was in the room with were head and shoulders above the muppets on the the blind audition.  Well not all of them, there were two who were awesome.  One was rejected for sounding too 'operatic'. TOO OPERATIC?  He was the best singer of the whole night for God's sake!  The other performer was because Bill (I refuse to call him Will.I.Am) was holding out.  I don't know his name but he was the guy with the dreadlocks.  In fact there were 2 people at the mercy of Bill who were awesome, but eventually decided upon someone who was 'okay'.  It's my impression from seeing this episode that the people on this show were there because they had a back-story you could play 'You Raise Me Up' in the background to.

The more I think about it, everyone who had been rejected this whole episode were better than anyone who got through.  In fact, in my humble opinion, the other nine people in the room with me, add the couple of people who were rejected in the episode of this episode, and you'd be treated to one hell of a show for the rest of the series.  That's just me however.  I invite your opinion on this.  While your doing that I'll prepare my next post about my experience in this competition.  Just because I didn't get through the first room doesn't mean it was uneventful

Guns In Kids Bedrooms

This is just a couple of paragraphs to tell you about a very disturbing news story I seen on TV several hours ago.  A policeman left behind a gun in a child's bedroom.  I'll say that again.  A POLICEMAN LEFT BEHIND HIS GUN IN A CHILD'S BEDROOM!  

One of these were left behind in a kids bedroom!
Complete with gun!

What a god dam fail right there.  I can't understand how this happened.  Surely once a police officer leaves the station he or she under no circumstances would be allowed to take off his or her gun belt.  Okay I can understand someone having to go to the toilet or something, but why take off the belt outside of the throne room?  It wasn't just outside of the throne room but it was left in a child's bedroom!  And that police officer to forgot to pick up his GUN belt when he left the house!  Much like the gun belt shown on the photograph on the left.

It would be unacceptable in mainland UK, in fact it would be unacceptable anywhere in a civilised society.  But this is Northern Ireland where the troubles are showing signs of rearing it's arse ugly head again!  My God anything could have resulted from this.  Surely here of all places you're going to have to be extra careful about these things.  Especially since things are due to get worse again (from what I can see anyway).  Anyhoo I'll leave any further thoughts to the comments you might leave, along with a link to the news story

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-17752220

Swan Attack and the New Ford Jimbo

For all you dumbasses out there this isn't the attack I was
talking about.  But it's reminiscent of the attack that
happened to me.

I read today that in America somewhere a man was killed in a swan attack.  Wow, that's about as strange as strange gets.  No one in their right mind will ever suspect that a person can actually be killed by a swan of all things.  It's at this point that I'd usually make a few heartless jokes ridiculing 'stupid Americans' by getting themselves killed by things like swans.  I would normally get straight into that but I know first hand how violent swans can be.

One summer I went to Galway on a camping trip, and outside the camp site there was a swan in the area.  In fact you could see it from where my tent was.  For some reason it always stood beside this red bucket whenever it wasn't in the water.  The swan for most days was really friendly, but then it would be friendly to people who fed it wouldn't it?  One day I decided to see what was in the bucket when my curiosity got the better of me.  Not the most intelligent decision of my life I know.  Anyway, I approached the red bucket and the swan went from being the friendly tourist attraction (as it were) to a seething white bird of death.  It chased me all around the camp site, and I gotta tell you, I never ran so fast in my life.  As it happens the red bucket was just an empty bucket.

Your cuteness doesn't fool me for one second you
white killing machine you!

I came out of that unscathed apart from a lot of ridicule following that incident, but when I read that article on BBC news website today I didn't think 'dumbass American'.  I thought, 'Yip, that can happen, I know first hand, and it's no laughing matter'.  If you doubt me, then I defy you to antagonise a swan and you won't get that swan to attack you.  I defy you to tell me that if the swan catches up to you that you wont come out of it badly.

In other news, following a conversation with my house mates I have decided to write a letter to Ford to ask them to name their next new car the 'Ford Jimbo'.  It's gonna take some time to figure out what exactly to say in this letter so tomorrow's post will be my letter that I have emailed to Ford.  If I get a reply I'll post that up when I get it as well.  After all, a car with a cool name is just a car.  A car called the 'Ford Jimbo' is an old friend.

Here's hoping it'll look something like this.

Coming soon, the new Ford Jimbo

A Time to Sit Back and Calm Down

I haven't been the most pleasant person to be around today.  I don't know if it's the medication I've been taking or the reason I've been taking the medication but I have been a right and royal c*** this day.  I could go into the reasons in great detail as to the subject of my annoyances but I wont.  The things I said and did today were bang out of order.  And no amount of medication, sickness or genuine grievance can excuse this.

I'm afraid the person who got it the worst from me today though is my lovely girlfriend Amanda.  The poor girl got it tight I'm afraid.

So I thought I'd use today's post to apologise to her as I know she reads them all.  I'm sorry Amanda, I'm really really sorry.  I know you've already asked me not to apologise (that's the kind of patient woman you are) but again, I'm sorry.  Please forgive me.

Raspberry Pi

So in less than a week a computer will be available for about £30 that encourages you to 'code' with among other things.  What struck me about this computer is that it's basically got the same specs as a very expensive smartphone without the screen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raspberry_Pi#Specifications) except you plug it into a screen and keyboard like a standard desktop computer instead.  

I have to say I want one but I have no idea why.  I already have a desktop computer and it works fine, not to mention much more powerful, but I still want it.  It's strange because I don't normally feel the need to get the latest gadget unless I'm sure I'd use it, but here I go wanting it.  There's just little things about it that make me want it just because it's nice to have the option to dabble in a bit of code just because it's there for me to dabble with, but I know I'll never do it.  It doesn't have a flashy ad campaign to make it look better than it is, just a bunch of balding men doing demonstrations (refer to videos I've enlosed).  All of these things I'd be able to do with the computer I'm typing this post with right now.  It's more powerful, it can also connect to the internet and because, like the Raspberry pi it also uses a version of the Linux operating system (in my case Ubuntu) which means that if I wanted to I could download any software the Raspberry Pi uses for free and dabble with it in the same way I would use the Pi.  But I don't, once in a blue moon maybe out of curiosity I'd take it upon myself to gain a little knowledge but I never go into it in great detail before just going back to writing these blogs and playing poker on facebook and watching stuff on the iplayer etc.  The only thing the Pi can do better is that it only needs a few watts to run it on, which is fairly impressive.

But still I want it.  Is it because I could do stuff for much less than a 10th of the price I paid for this computer?  That can't be it, there's a reason I didn't pay £500 for an iphone when there are plenty of smartphones that can do the same job for less than £100.  Maybe I'll never know, and when I get one, and believe me I will get one, and when I do I'll prove myself right and it'll just gather dust in the drawer somewhere.

I was planning on ending it here but when I touched on the price point I had a thought.  Bloody hell the iphone is vastly over priced isn't it.  I'm looking at the specifications on both (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone_4S#Processor.2C_memory.2C_and_storage) here and I'm thinking, "where does iphone get off charging well over ten times more than this with only just over double the 'under the hood' specifications?"  I realise the touchscreen etc. will have bumped the price up but 'over ten times the price'?  I think everyone needs to think about how we're all wasting out money.

rant over.

The Red Side of Liverpool is Over The Moon

YEEEASSSSSS! We won!  To date this is the highlight of the entire season for me.  Surpassing even the victory of the League Cup, this was by far the most important game of the season so far.  I could go into it again but I explained it already yesterday (for all you dumbasses just check out yesterdays post).  I woke up extremely nervous barely able to think about anything else knowing that if it goes bad for Liverpool then it was my opinion that Liverpool had kissed goodbye to any hope of getting back to the glory days again for many years to come.

So there I was at rehearsals checking every update on the match I could get my hands on at every possible opportunity.  We went 1-0 down.  Disaster, I thought to myself, oh no, they're doing it again, they've only gone and flushed yet another match down the toilet even though the talent is clearly there to achieve great things.  During half time though I took another look at the scoreline and the players we have on the pitch. 'Hang on, we can still do this, it's only half time and they now have an opportunity to regroup and attack Everton'  Hey presto they equalised.  A Suarez goal that I only wish I could have seen, (I managed to later on though) and all of a sudden it was back on.  I was checking the score every few minutes at this point now and all I was greeted with on the text commentary was 'Carroll takes another shot but just goes wide'.    Every few updates had such a sentence and all I could think about was, 'come on Carroll just bang ONE on target PLEEASEE.

Then with a few minutes to go the scoreline changed on the screen of my little phone from a draw to 'Liverpool 2-1 Everton'. What's more, it was a Carroll goal, a Carroll header!  The last few minutes ran down and the referee blew his whistle at which point I felt incredibly relieved.  Liverpool can still be considered one of the top teams in the country now despite what they're Premier League form is.

So I'm happy to report that not only did we win, we won in a way that gave me the feeling that Liverpool have taken the kick up the arse they sorely needed and might actually start playing football and finish the season a force to reckon with.  Even though I haven't seen the whole match (only the goals) it just feels like they're playing with purpose now.  The best thing though is Andy Carroll.  In recent days his goals have ever so slightly increased in number (must stress this is ever so slightly) but that's two games in a row he has found the net.  That's two games in a row he has found the net with a header.  Finally his height advantage is paying off with goals.  So I look forward to the last few matches of the season.  If anyone bothers to read this it's bound to get a load of anti-Liverpool comments, but there's nothing you can do about that now is there?

I'm going to go out on a limb here but I reckon we're going to see a different Liverpool in the handful of games left this season.  At the very least a different attitude.  I know it's too little too late, but at least it's a start.

Goddammit no matter how positive my blogs are I just can't leave one without complaining about something.  As I said before I was caught up in other commitments during the match so my hopes of seeing something of the game was going to be through the highlights on TV.  I got home just before 8 and immediately checked for coverage and I was utterly disgusted at what I found.  Match of the Day didn't cover it.  Sky Sports didn't do any coverage either (even on the red button), RTE didn't do it, .  It was Premier League games only, even LFCTV didn't bloody do it.  There was absolutely NOTHING online by way of highlights except for some bad quality youtube videos of the GOALS ONLY!  This will not stand, I wanted a better understanding of how the game went.  I wanted to know how hard or easy it was for us.  I wanted to see any out of the ordinary moments (if any).

I later found out that ONE network covered it in highlight form after the match.  That was ITV.  Here's the rub though.  They showed it only several hours after the match finished.  This was outrageous.  Maybe it's just me but I would have thought that the point of a highlights program was to be able to broadcast to an audience who weren't able to see the match during the day.  For me the earliest a highlight show should broadcast is about 8pm to make sure those people are home.  But nooo this didn't occur to ITV, they thought it would be a good idea to show the highlights DURING THE FUCKING DAY! ITV, sort it out NOW!

That is all.

Have a nice day

The Sweat's on, Liverpool v Everton

King Kenny.  What a Guy!

 In just over twelve hours from writing this blog entry a game will take place that will make or break Kenny Daglish's or David Moyes season.  As a Liverpool fan I hope it's the former.  From 12.30 tomorrow I'll be a sweaty bag of nerves, not being able to think about anything else.  It's not just because it's the FA Cup semi final, it not just because it's against Everton making this a derby.

It's suddenly bigger than all that.  The disastrous season my beloved Liverpool has had (Carling Cup victory aside), coupled with an impressive burst of form this year by Everton has made this game tomorrow incredibly special.  Tomorrow is the tipping point from Liverpool being the dominant team in Merseyside to Everton being the dominant team if they beat us tomorrow.

Booooo, only joking David you're a good manager.
As long as you know you're not allowed to win tomorrow

So tomorrow will feature either a 'bad winners' style brag if we win and get into the final tomorrow, or it will be a 'bad losers' style rant complete with unfair insults.  I just wish it's possible for me to watch the match.

Of all the dumb luck in the world it's impossible for me to watch the match tomorrow as I have several other commitments at that time.  I have my son and I have a rehearsal for a show I'm in tomorrow.  Hopefully I'll at least be able to listen to it on the radio depending on how the day pans out for me.

Anyhoo watch this space for my completely biased one sided report on the match tomorrow

Come on the Reds!

And Yesterday I Was Having Such a Good Time

Sick, feeling like crap.  Seriously I've seen horses make the trip to the glue factory in better condition.  The effort it is taking just to  type this sentence is huge.  So you're not going to get the same low quality of writing that you usually get.  You're just going to read me whine about how close to death's door I am.

In fact I'n not even gonna do that.  That requires too much effort. I'd just like to ask anyone out there who'd be willing to nurse me.  Cos god knows there no sympathy coming from my girlfriend

Getting the Band Back Together

Over the Easter weekend I got a text from a man I know as Yorkie about getting together today for a bit of a jam as there's an opportunity to play a gig at the Roaring Meg bike show.  Yorkie was the drummer for a band I used to be in called Unforgiven.  I replied in the positive but I was unsure about it.  I haven't seen Yorkie or Jock (lead guitarist) in about a year and a half.  In fact the only member I have had contact with since then was Marty.

It's worth pointing out that all of these
photos were from before we broke up

Yorkie

I didn't know what to expect from today at all.  We haven't spoken in over a year and I was unsure of whether we would click like we did before.  Regardless of all this I took the bus to Muff (yes for those outside of my part of the world that is a real town) and walked into Yorkies house where we did a bit of catching up who was then followed by Marty.  The length of time we spent apart was apparent to us all when Yorkie and Jock found out that Marty got engaged about a month ago.  They didn't even know he had a relationship with this girl.  This was all met with genuine congratulations before we stepped into the garage and set up the equipment.

Now this wasn't a full reunion as we were one member light who doesn't seem to be rejoining at all (although I hope he changes his mind).  This meant I had to (and will have to) play rhythm guitar.  I didn't mind this as I always would have liked to play guitar for this band for a song or two when it was still a 5 piece band.  Still though it was sad for me that Fraz decided not to return, but each to his own I suppose.

Jock

Marty

So we began practising and I gotta say that after a year and a half we didn't sound too bad at all.  Some songs were like 'riding a bike' as Yorkie would say, others songs gathered some rust but nothing a bit of work wouldn't fix.  It felt good.  I kept thinking to myself 'yeah, we still got it' throughout the whole practise but that wasn't the best part.  The best part was that the 'craic' was better than ever.  We were talking and joking as if we were never away in the first place.  I can't wait till next weeks practice after we have individually ironed out some of the rust and work on some new songs.  Most of all I can't wait till the Roaring Meg Bike Show where I intend to tear it up on that stage.

Ahh those were the days, this was little old me.

Now as you probably have gathered from the pictures I have included in this blog this band in question is called Unforgiven, or rather it was called Unforgiven because we discussed a name change.  We are also discussing starting from scratch as if this were a completely new band and making some game plan on getting established again.  All of this was music to my ears except we haven't been able to think of a new name for the band.  I know personally I'm crap at naming bands.  I'm actually embarrassed to tell you any of my previous suggestions for names before I was first in Unforgiven.  In fact if anybody reads this I'd like suggestions for a new name for this band.  The prize will be a big hug from me.

Today, life was good.

Karaoke Results

Straight off the bat I'm just going to tell you that even though I'm the most amazing entity to ever grace this Earth (cough), I'm afraid I didn't get anywhere with the Karaoke final tonight.  Unfortunately though I can't deliver on my promise.  I promised that if I didn't win I'd be pissed off and you'd get the mother of all rants on this particular post.

Normally when I lose on these things there's an overwhelming feeling of a fix, or it was just a plain rip off.  In this case that's not true.  Despite what the company I had tonight told me, I felt that the competition was extremely talented and there was a 50/50 chance of my even getting placed.  So, in an unusual case for me I don't feel dejected at all.

A good friend of mine by the name of Leona Anderson won the top prize which I was extremely happy about.  I enter these competitions once in a while, but Leona enters them all the time.  I should point out that Leona is an incredibly strong singer but never gets anywhere with them.  So as soon as I heard her name called out for the top prize I stood up, cheered and afterwards I gave her a big hug.  Normally I put this behaviour on, but in this case my pride was 100% genuine.  Congratulations Leona, I'm really proud of you.  Well done girl, well done.

Any readers of my previous blog will know that there's no post without a degree of complaint.  A man called Stuart brought the house down tonight, but still didn't win anything.  Okay, he isn't the strongest singer in the world (even though I think there's potential), but both his songs and how he performed them was worthy of at least one of the runner up prizes.  My songs were performed brilliantly, but then again so was everyone else's.  Stuart on the other hand brought something else to the table.  There was comedy, charisma, playing the crowd and even how he looked and carried himself set himself apart from everyone else for me.  All the runners up in my memory are blurred together.  But I would defy you to recall with any clarity any of the performances other than the songs that Stuart did.

It was a huge rip off Stuart, it was a bloody huge rip off.

I normally include photographs in my posts but my phone's battery ran out.  Instead I'll provide you with the photograph my girlfriend posted on facebook.  It is with some pride I am able to show you her first ever pint of stout.  Eventually I'll get her to drink it regularly.  That will be quite an achievement.  watch this space for that one.

Karaoke Competition Tonight

Yes I have been through to the final of a Karaoke competition which is tonight.  Will let you know how I do. As usual I'll probably get ripped off.  Stay tuned in the wee early hours for some bragging or ranting.  I'm sure either way it'll be entertaining

The Successor to "Who Reads This Crap Anyway?"

There I go again changing my mind about what to call my blog again.  It was as mentioned I used to call it "Who Reads this Crap", but I've gone for something a little more sober this time.  I'm just gonna get straight into it and move along here and keep my first one short and sweet.

Apparently a game of Kings is not allowed in the park

I was walking through a park that is unfamiliar to me where I came across this sign post.  Hmm. "No unauthorised games are permitted on these playing fields". Playing fields, fields that you play in.  I haven't heard of a form of playing that wasn't a game.  Another bang up job from Derry City council if you ask me.  Okay Okay I know it included the word unauthorised but lets face it. It never specifies what the unauthorised games are.  Maybe the sign below it (sorry you can hardly see it) has something to do with it.  Maybe it's no drinking games allowed.  Somehow I don't think Derry City Council is clever enough to ban a good game of 'I Never' in this way though.

We can't play in the park and we can't play computer games.
Come on guys throw us a bone here.

Before I sign off I'd like to point out that I read recently that since recesAdd captionsion began, the only growth industry was video games.  So you can imagine my surprise when recently I was walking around the city centre and seen what is to the left of this paragraph.  This was absolutely shocking.  How did this happen?  Gaming was supposed to be the only safe industry in this whole recession.  It didn't stop there though.  Less than a month later I find out that GAME is going into administration.  Okay it looks like they're just going to close down the stores that aren't turning a profit and keeping the rest open.  Which makes sense but they're closing about 90% of the stores.  How did it come to this?  What's happening to the gaming industry is shocking to me.  As far as I'm concerned the western economy is finished.  It's just a matter of time when companies like this are crumbling around our ears.

Good luck all, I hope I'm wrong and there is a way out of this economy situation after all.  I realise I started this new feed of blogs off pretty poorly here but I promise this WILL get better unlike our economy.  When it comes to these posts, you'll just have to take the rough with the smooth.

Kind Regards readers