Saturday, September 23, 2006

Grape Expectations - Harvest Time! - Part 1

So after months of growing and waiting and watering and waiting and growing and pruning and waiting and watering and loving and waiting here they are! The finished product! The result of my loves and labours! A prime example of grapes from the Mashbury vineyard.

This photo was taken by the lovely Chell who has helped me and supported me throughout the past months - the joys and the sorrows of growing ones own fruit in a maritime climate as opposed to the Mediterranean climate of the vineyard regions of France and Italy. (I am the one holding the scissors)

I would like to say at this point that if you would like to claim a bunch of Mashbury grapes then please let me know and you can have some. Obviously if I'm seeing you in the next week or so they'll be a lot more tasty and fresh (They're already VERY ripe and quite soft)


Please see below for a couple more parts of the final chapter of the vine saga for 2006...

Grape Expectations - Harvest Time! - Part 2

Here I am post 'snip' - surprisingly still looking reasonably comfortable and happy!! This is my best 'Mr Gumby' pose modelling the fantastic bunch of grapes as featured in part 1. Don't say I never talk about anything of any depth on my blog eh!?

Grape Expectations - Harvest Time! - Part 3

And...here I am busily washing the grapes in the sink to get all the bugs and dead leaves off them (yeah there were some bugs - but not too many and they're washed off now :)


So all in all a fantastic grape experience all round - my expectations were most definitely met and exceded by far... I would value your comments on this exciting series on my blog!

Monday, September 18, 2006

The Leeder Birthday Calculator (Patent Pending)

Without wishing to spin this out some of you will know that I was 27 last week… All of a sudden I feel like I am becoming a man! And as the relentless toll of the years gently yet insistently draws me into my 30s I’m starting to realise I’m not a teenager anymore. And that sucks!

The purpose of this blog is to aid all of those who find themselves in a similar position to me and is particularly relevant to those who were born in 1979 (like me) or 1980. I hereby announce my invention of a valuable tool which will prove to be incredibly useful for people born in one of those two years and, although I have realised this now for many years, I think it is likely that I am the first person ever to blog about it. Ever.

As I said earlier, the years do have a habit of marching onwards and one problem this brings with it is an increased occurrence of the odd ‘Senior Moment’. Now, many of you will I’m sure be thinking “Why the heck is Matt, who is 27 yrs old, blogging about suffering from senior moments” many others will be thinking “What’s a senior moment” and still others will not actually be thinking at all… Well, in answer to the first group of people I promise you I do have the odd moment and even now at my tender age I have a habit of forgetting my age!

So this tool I promise will help those of us born in ’79 and ’80 to remember our age FOR THE REST OF OUR LIVES! Awesome eh? Even the inevitable onslaught of senility cannot defeat us with this bad boy under our belt!

Now I have spun this out quite far enough. Here, with no further a due, is my patent pending Birthday Calculator.

My ‘creation’ allows the ‘user’ I take the two digit number at the start of any given ‘year’ and the two digit number at the end of the ‘year’ and add them together. Then for the rest of my life I will know what my age will be on New Years Day of that year. i.e. This year is 2006. Thus 20 + 06 means I was 26 on 01/01/06 hence it is my 27th birthday during that year.

If you were born in 1980 then this works for any year also but the answer it gives you is the age you will be on your birthday that year – some would say this, what I like to call the “birthcalc v 1.2 formulas”, is even better!

So, for you thickies, here’s another example. In 2076 my ears won’t work, my eyes will have fallen out and my brain will be running on 3% power hence I will have a terrible memory and won’t even be able to see my diary. However, I will simply recall my Birthday Calculator formula and hey presto – I will know that on New Years day that year I am 96 (20 + 76)! I will be 97 that year!

So there you go - as you can see it is faultless (unless I live to 120 – I plan not to).

Thursday, September 14, 2006

A few short updates...

After the mega long last post here is some light relief in the form of a few short updates...

Got back from Italy yesterday (hence such a long break in posting) - we travelled home on my birthday and it was a long day of not doing very much - Chell has been really sad about it today... it's funny how she is more protective of me having a lovely birthday than I am. It's so nice to feel loved and cared for by her - especially in her protectiveness. She's just off out buying some stuff for our breakfast (Yeah, I know it's 10:30 - call it brunch!)

Today we're travelling up to see our friends Will and Debbie - we're also going to meet baby Katie for the first time ever. Something that we are both very happy about doing - but most especially Chell!

I am also very happy because I have just downloaded iTunes 7 and they have sorted out the issue with iPods leaving gaps between each song - now you can listen to an entire album with no gap between each track. This has been my biggest bugbear for using my iPod over the past 9 months so well done Apple!

Oh and the grapes are looking great!

Friday, September 01, 2006

A long trip to sow some seeds

It's taken me a while to get round to blogging about this but at last I have arrived at my keyboard with some time on my hands. I am in fact going to recount a story about an experience I was party to that occurred last Friday. Brace yourself - it's a long one! Long enough even to rival some of Glyn's lengthier efforts! (Ha!) Along with me were Jon and Paul - the other members of the band I'm in* - hereafter referred to as E=...

(*please note that event and person specifics have been changed to partially mask what actually occurred...and make this post less 'searchable' on Google...)

The story in fact begins late on Thursday night...

All along it had been our plan to make a trip over to Northern Ireland to gig at a festival there. The organiser of the festival, called 'Lara' Festival (sic), promised us a decent gig and decent pay so who were we to turn it down? Our flights were booked for 8:25 on Saturday morning to fly from Stansted to Belfast International but on Thursday night we (i.e. Paulo) discovered that due to the current security level of our airports we needed to arrive at check in a whole 3 HOURS before the flight! So we were already looking at 5:25! I ended up getting up at 4:30 (bleugh) and we arrived at the airport at 6 ish - which was fine. In fact, when you weigh this up against the rest of the day - it was perfect!

The flights went without a hitch (relatively - my bag had to have a full cavity search because apparently my guitar pedals and cables look like a 'device'...hmmm....!?) and when we arrived at Belfast we met our man. His name for the purposes of this illustration is Cliff. At this point he didn't seem too detached from reality.

So we chucked our stuff into the back of this big minibus and went to pick up the other band who we were meant to be playing the gig with that night. We met them without a hitch and off we drove in our bus. Us 3 + Cliff + the bus driver + 4 in the other band (hereafter called Freeslave - for that is in fact their name!)

Now, to be fair, until this point nothing out of the ordinary had happened (apart from Levski's hair which I swear I saw moving... it was almost as if his head had been abducted by a colony of long haired fallow rats from the planet Zipplewig). Aside from the long journey (it was by now 12 noon) and lack of food (it was by now 12 noon) things were fairly normal - until we turned into the carpark of a small-ish church in Portadown. This church was actually a Portacabin, which I thought was entertaining given it's address. It was at this point that 'Cliff' uttered those fateful words... "Guys, we'll just swing by here to see if they've got any equipment you might find useful for tonight". At this point small bells started ringing in all of our ears. Equipment? We didn't know what 'equipment' he meant - nor did we know what equipment was already at the venue... so we followed him in...

To be confronted by the smallest guitar amp you ever saw; I think it was a Stagg practise amp. Certainly not one for a stage as the main guitar amp for a rock band. Alongside this were various odds and ends – bits of PA system, a brand new budget drum kit (no cases, factory heads i.e. nasty) and for cymbals a Sabian Solar budget pack consisting of paperweight crash, featherweight ride, and flycatcher hi-hats (that’s all they were good for).

A bit of clarification is probably needed at this point – you see we’re certainly not musical snobs, nor are we arrogant good-for-nothing muppets… our maxim on gigs is that we are always on hand to serve the event, but we also knew how much this guy was paying to have us there hence we wondered why he would think gear like this was appropriate…?

So we picked up a few bits of PA, a keyboard for Freeslave and the ‘drum kit’ but left guitar amp less and bass amp less. Paul and I guessed they must be at the venue already?

On we drive – down the road to Armagh our home for the night and the town of our gig. We arrive and it’s at this point that we start to realise this day is going to get worse before it gets better. The venue is a posh, new-ish bistro situated within the towns art centre. No sign of any more PA, or amps, or anything. We load in the PA, keyboard and drums into the corner of the bistro which is currently hosting lots of smart looking people around well set tables sitting eating, chatting, quietly and smiling even…

“Uh, Cliff, are you sure?” … “Of course, of course, why it’s the best venue in the town…” etc

We’re dropped off at our hotel. It’s nice – 3 star. We find our rooms but not before double taking (and eventually comprehending correctly) the bell boy; speaking to us in thick Irish tones “Arr yoo tha two gays in the double room?”...

In a nutshell (I realise I’m spinning this out – don’t want to miss anything) during the afternoon Jon and I visited the local music shop – the same bell boy said it had a “lethal selection of guitars” which turned out in fact to be 7 guitars, none of them with a price tag exceeding £40. The shop was filled with cardboard and after the bored shopkeeper guessed and announced that we weren’t ‘local’ we turned heel and left ‘Twilight Zone Guitars Inc’. We also visited Armagh City Shopping Centre which consisted of a lingerie boutique, 12 empty shop spaces and a spar shop. Awesome.

The plan for the evening at ‘Lara’ Fest was a film premiere (made by some of the team – apparently with a budget of £250,000 ??? – tried for distribution at the Cannes Film Festival – failed) followed by a DJ set (really nice guy called DJ Barry (sic)) followed by, at 9pm a set from Freeslave and ourselves.

Upon returning back to the venue to tune drums we had half expected a full PA rig and guitar / bass amps to be there especially as it was by now 4:30, the film started in 30 mins (and thus the evening’s programme). Jon, Guinness in hand, is starting the lengthy and awkward process of tuning drums in a posh restaurant...this is bad...very bad...

Now, at this point it's important to mention that throughout the day we had been in contact with our friends from the band Dave (sic) who at this point called up and very kindly offered their PA and their gear! When we mentioned this to Cliff he said it was an “answer to prayer” – I’m sure most major Christian Festivals rely on prayer but in quite a different way to this… I ended up outside on the phone to this guy Paddy Quinn (real name – brilliant!) to chat about PA and stuff. He said he’d arrive at around 9pm (that is the same 9pm that we needed to start the gig) but as it was the best offer we had it would have to do...

When I walked back into the Bistro I found Jon and Paul, who I’d previously left sitting at the bar, sitting at a table looking slightly shell shocked. Apparently since I was outside they had been started on by a drunk Irish bloke at the bar with the immortal line “….Hey, yooow, stop farting in miy prwesence…no, seriously, F*** Off…” - hence their new location away from the unhinged bloke at the bar. (Paul wasn’t sure if he had indeed let one off or not – they though it was best to back down just incase)

Cliff offered to pay for our dinner at the Bistro, dunno where he’s getting all this money from, but first we decide to go outside to the Cathedral gates and pray; for the day, for the gig, and for the unsure sense of fear that was building up in us. So we stood and prayed for 20 mins, said our Amen’s but as we turned to walk back in this drunk guy appears (another one) and shouts after us “…Yeah, Yooou keep walkin’…” What is it with this gig? We decide to skedaddle inside ASAP.

Upon arriving back at the Bistro a bouncer has arrived who, just after we sit down to eat, promptly ejects the drunk bloke who had followed us down the hill from the Cathedral and into the bar. Awesome mini tussle ensues – don’t remember this happening at Spring Harvest, or even the Bull and Gate for that matter…

So to cut a long story slightly shorter the PA finally arrives at 9:45pm – Freeslave go ‘onstage’ at 10:45pm we go onstage at about 11:45 and play til 12:30. Cliff kindly allows us to walk through the high street carrying our guitars and bags – feeling slightly scared but much relieved that the worst of it is nearly over.

It’s funny looking back now that there weren’t any posters for Lara Festival anywhere inside or outside the venue – nor anything with the names of the bands until the venue asked us what our names were so they could put them up on a chalk board outside (nothing to do with Cliff). The punters were primarily normal people who had come in for a drink and just happened to end up watching the bands play – there were about 25 people there – none of them knew they were attending ‘Lara Festival’. No tickets sold. No one coming along. How is this thing still running?

It’s now 1:15am – we’ve been up since 4:30am – we are knackered. We walk into the hotel to discover a blues band in full swing downstairs (under mine and Levski’s room) – they don’t stop playing half-cut bad guitar and drum solos until 2:30am when they finally shut up and we…drift…off…to…sleep…

TO BE WOKEN UP AT 9AM BY A BLUMMIN’ MARCHING BAND GOING PAST OUR WINDOW – FOLLOWED BY ANOTHER – AND ANOTHER! Unbelievable!

It has to be said the rest of the day was fairly normal (breakfast, trip home, much story telling to ensue) apart from one thing… just before we left Cliff took us to one side to chat through payment for the weekend. He explained his side of it (having paid £450 for our flights, £130 for our hotel rooms, £100 for our backline (oh you mean the backline that we organised once we got here Cliff?) but we agreed on a figure quickly and he pulled out the cheque book – and promptly signed and counter signed (i.e. forged!) the cheque in front of us! This guy is unreal! He then went to the hotel desk and did the same again… we had to get away…

So we’re all packed into the bus and Cliff clambers on to give us some final words of wisdom. “Guys, you’ve sowed some seeds. See you later.” And off he goes… Cheers Cliff…