Fairport Invention and Coincidence

Last night saw Fairport Convention again , this time at The Sage in Gateshead coutesy of Properganda , supported by the excellent Keith Donnelly & Flossie Malavialle, collectively known as "Dark Horses".

The first coincidence is that Flossie originates from Nimes, but has spent the last seven years in Darlington (where I work) to purportedly learn English!! In her own words "That's knackered it". According to Jasper Carrot, Keith could make a sheep laugh , and he was funny as well as an excellent guitarist. They played seelction from their current album before beiing joined on stage for a "French Song" , namely "Si Tu Dois Partir" which had been played on the Brian Matthews show on Saturday , with Flossie in excellent voice.

The first set contained a lot of familiar material such as "Rising For The Moon" with all members of the band in fine form. At some point they all got out their ukuleles for "Ukulele Central" which was great fun, here's them performing it:



The second set contained more selections from Fairport's "Babbacombe" Lee concept album similar to last year's Tyne Theatre gig, with Ric Sanders going heavy of fiddle and effects during the "Dream Sequence". "Matty Groves" was brilliant , before the band were rejoined by Keith and Flossie for "Meet On The Ledge" before the lights came up.

Thus ended a day that had started at 4 am but well worth it .

Must get Cropredy sorted....

Blu Rayed and HD'd

Following the demise of our old CRT TV on our return from Dublin , we replaced with a new HD Samsung model , upgrading to a Virgin HD box and getting a Panasonic Blu Ray Media Centre, see here.

While HD is hardly a quantum leap in quality , the Blu Ray player has impressed me as it handles DVD upscaling, DIVX , Music and internet access in it's stride . Most Blu Ray players are in fact media centres which makes watching and sharing stuff extremely easy.

How Good Are British Rail?

How goodat planning are British Rail. They show a complete lack of faith in their customers by installing ticket barriers at Darlington and Newcastle. Each time I come to them usually half are out of service , and the others either have staff or clueless customers blocking them , and even when you get someone who can use them properly often the tickets don't work.

Added to that all the cash ,achines on Newcastle station are inside the barrier , tough if you want to buy a ticket and dont have a debit or credit card , or just needed some cash as you were passing by. Also the pastie and sandwich stalls are inside the barriers so they must be really pleased at their loss of trade!!


Then there's Darlington , where the cash machines are outside the barrieres , but the barriers are situated at the far end of the station giving you an unneccessary extract five hundred yards to walk to catch the train going north, capped off by the idiot placement of one of the barriers right in front of a canopy supporting pillar rendering the barrier unusable!!

Yuu'd be better off taking the bus!!

Wexford - Some Good Bits

Just back from a week in Dublin , and took a day trip out to Wexford. Didnt know what to expect but generally Wexford has some excellent places to go.

Trie a pub which may have been called The Undertakers , and Maggie Mays , both of which had good atmosphere, drink and service.

Sampled a couple of restaurants , the excellent italian "La Dolce Vita" which had brilliant food and atmosphere . Also the excellent "Jacques" at Green Acres (website here) which again had excellent food , and atmosphere.

The day was made by finding a branch of BPM Records (website here) from which I purchased a couple of "Tighten Up" compilations at a bargain €10!!!

Spirit of 1963

Nine days in to 2010 and we're still well and truly snowbound. I've not been into work this year , having the privelege of being able to work from home, but not everyone is so lucky. However it's only snow and public transport is still functioning fairly well , and Shalimar managed to deliver my pizza order last night without any problem!!

Preston managed to sack Alan Irvine (who walked straight into the Sheffield Wednesday job , really glad for him) and we now have young Darren Ferguson at the helm , which bodes for interesting times to say the least. Unfortunately most of this weekends fixtures have been wiped out by the now , so Ferguson's first home match will be at home to Chelsea on the 23rd of January!! Still at least Drogba and Kalou are in Africa!

New Year's Eve 2009

Another fun year with lot's done and more not done. Preparing to wind down for the last day of work , get some Fizz for the Party, and have a good time. Amazingly the bin men came this morning so they must have been putting in double shifts this week , good on them. Anyway here's a short vid of some of the snow, soundtracked by some of my white noise guitar:

Blair Dunlop - A Real Christmas Treat

We've just returned from watching the Albion Christmas Band finish up their 2009 tour at the Sage in Gateshead , and the concert was , as usual , a resounding success with Ashley Hutchings leading proceeding in between selling and signing CDs outside the hall and engaging with the audience ably supported by the rest of the band , Simon Nicol on guitar , Kellie While on gorgeous vocals somewhere between Sandy Denny and Joni Mitchell , and Simon Care on various squeezeboxes and Morris dancing. An excellent run up to Christmas while promoting their new CD "Snow on Snow".

As if this wasnt enough they had brought on support , the 17 year old Blair Dunlop , and prodigious guitar talent who played 4 pieces and held the audience spellbound throughout. There were two songs the ominously titled "Road Beneath My Wheels" (I was thinking "Wind Beneath My Wings" , mercifully Mr Dunlop was in a different universe) and "Why Georgia" a John Mayor composition.

These were complemented bu the percussive instrumental tour de force "Drifting" and finishing with the Trace Bundy arrangement of Pachelbel's Canon which can be seen here:




Blair Dunlop's website is here. As yet there are no official releases. Just like General Fiasco when I first saw them , and in his field just as impressive.