Are you hanging up a stocking on your wall
It’s the time that every santa has a ball
Does he ride a red-nose reindeer
Does he turns up on his sleigh
Do the fairies keep him sober for a day

So here it is merry christmas, everybody’s having fun
(it’s christmas!)
Look to the future now, it’s only just begun

Can I just wish everyone a very Merry Christmas, see you all on the other side.

I wish you a brave new year
All anguish pain and sadness
Leave your heart and let your road be clear
They said there’ll be snow at christmas
They said there’ll be peace on earth
Hallelujah noel be it heaven or hell
The christmas you get you deserve

Now is the solstice of the year,
winter is the glad song that you hear
Ring out these bells
Ring out, ring solstice bells
Ring solstice bells

Today is Yule or the Winter Solstice - after today the sun will climb a little higher in the sky each day and the days will get longer. Time to celebrate the rebirth of the Sun King, the Giver of Life that warms the frozen Earth, a time to look forward and make plans for the year ahead.

Wow nearly a week since my last blog - must have been busy!!

Friday night was the firms Christmas party which was held up in London at a restaurant called Papageno's - it's a themed Turkish restaurant with Opera singers as "entertainment".

Bob Dylan said in his biography that there is no such thing as good music and bad music just different types of good music - Opera is the exception that proves the rule! And anyway this Opera caberet thing has been done to death on the conference circuit which we spend our lives in so it was a bit of a busman's holiday. In the end though you could hardly hear it - should have got us to do the sound!!

Some of us started drinking early at the Coal Hole on the Strand and I'd drank a pint or 4 of "Santa's Little Helper" before we got to the restaurant. One of the lad's had made us all little badges with our South Park Character on it, which has replaced my picture on here. I left to get the train at about 11 and finally got home just after 1.

Sunday we went off to France on Eurotunnel to do some Christams shopping. It was worth the money to do something different. We went into Calais but most of the shops were shut so we had something to eat then went to Cite D'Europe. It was nice to escape the tradional Christmas music that gets piped into shops at this time of year and listen to the sounds of a French Christmas. At one point a band of people wearing Pere Noel costumes came past playing bagpipes and drums (I assume they were Breton pipes but I'm not an expert - nice sound though)

We stocked up with wine and beer for the forthcoming festivities and generally wandered round the shops. It made a nice change and I'm sure I would rather have been there than in Bluewater. We had a problem with Eurotunnel on the way back and we missed our train and had to wait an hour for the next one.

Monday was my eldest daughters 15th birthday - the third birthday this month, mine then my brothers then my daughters. I bought her an MP3 player for her birthday and she spent the evening loading tracks from Blink 182 and Green Day onto it. We didn't go out but got Pizza and Cake. The girls had to go back to their mums until Christmas eve this morning but at least they'll be with me on Christmas Day again this year.

Sprouts- the Devil's vegetable!

That's why people put little crosses on the bottom

Ok ever since I was challenged by Scoffle to produce a Dada-ist image I've been to busy to put my mind to it. I'm not sure if the following images are Dada or not but I like them

Life after death?

The vanity of high office

What do you think?

Ok I feel much better now - been for a pizza and read a book on Zen - Not sure which helped the most.

Oh and I got my Dad a Christmas prezzie - obviously can't say what it is but I did mention something about it in a previous blog. If he doesn't like it I'll buy it off him and if he does I'll borrow it!

Oh and apparently (and without her reading my previous blog) I'm told by Sarah that under no circumstances whatsoever am I to even think about buying a CD before Christmas (bugger HMV is next door)

Oh and still no e-mail from my brother - must be busy policing things.

I've got five hours to kill in central London and I'm bored already. I was working this morning doing camera at a conference for the signing of an agreement between Israel and Palestine where Gordon Brown was speaking. The camera wasn't needed after the opening session so I thought Woohoo early finish. However it turns out that they need me to come back for the de-rig at 5pm so now I've got five hours to kill. I've ended up with a Starbucks Gingerbread latte in an internet cafe on Oxford street.

I had a cool birthday yesterday and got some great prezzies

A rat - I've named him Garcia
Dumper truck racing
The Dead 60's CD
A cookery book
Toberlone
A christmas tie (not sure about that one)
A mug with sweeties in it

The point of coming into the internet cafe was I'd just been in HMV and remembered my brother said he'd e-mail suggestions of what to buy his kids for Christmas to me last night, so I thought I'd come in here , find out and buy them. Paid £2 for an hour - no e-mail.

I could have spent a fortune in HMV. It's amazing but with all of the CD's I already own (the rack in the picture next to the piano below is only a fraction of them) I can still find so many I would want to buy. Some of the artists I looked at were

Miles Davis
Manu Dibango
Jah Wobble
Jackie Leven
Fairport Convention
KT Tunstall

I put Jah Wobble's Mu on my Christams list so I better not go and buy it just in case Sarah has gone back on her pledge not to buy me anything round and silver. She did say that she wouldn't buy me any CD's by people who were dead or had grey beards and Wobble isn't either of those so there is hope.

Now what to buy my Dad for Christmas? Maybe I'll log off and go and do the last of the Christmas shopping and then come back later.

You know sometimes growing up I think I'm getting wiser
And then other times I think I'm getting old

It's my birthday today and it's nice to see that my profile has already been updated One of the good things about having a birthday in December is that you have had all year thinking you're 44 before you actually are so it comes as less of a shock. This is particularly useful for the big ones!

Lookin' back on where I was one year ago today
Laughing at the shape I'm in now.

And what a change from last year. This time last year life sure was complicated.

I was still facing 2 court battles with my ex-wife. I had the finance one looming after Christmas and the one for the kids had been put off until April. I had no solicitor and was representing myself.

Sarah and I were still living in different houses.

My ex-wife was living in the same house as me after the court had ordered that she should be allowed to move back in with me and the girls.

The house we were meant to be buying had just been sold to someone else and we were just about to lose the people who had made an offer on the Former Matrimonial home.

I was skint

Sarah was pregnant and not only did very few people know we didn't even know if we would be together by the time the baby was born.

What a difference a year makes

(lyrics by Todd Snider)

Busy weekend - during which the living room furniture was rearranged twice and I was made to strip off outside the back door!

Saturday morning Beth went off to her job at the local sandwich shop only to return 20 minutes later - turns out the woman who owns it has decided it's not worth opening on Saturdays until February. So that was the shortest lived Saturday job I've ever known - I hope she phones her up and offers her the job back in the new year.

At lunchtime we went off to get a Christmas tree, we chose a nice looking one which cost us £30. The man offered us a bigger one for the same price but we declined. We got the tree back to the house and passed it in through the window. It was only when we put it in the stand and cut off the netting that we realised that it was bigger than it had seemed in the yard where we bought it. It wasn't too bad but we did have to cut about two inches off the top to get the fairy on. We did however have to move the sofas forward to accommodate all the branches. Still it'll look nice when we get all the lights on it.

The rest of the day was spent shopping - for Christmas prezzies and food. I did have an awful moment when I went to pick up a quilt we had had drycleaned. I handed over my card and it was declined - aaaarrrgggggghhhhhh! I quickly handed over a credit card. How could I be overdrawn it was only the 10th - had someone taken money out of my account - worry worry worry. It was made worse by the fact that I had to go and pick one of the girls up so it was another 45 minutes before I could go to a cash point and check. Thankfully there was still money there - maybe I'd tapped my pin in wrong - phew!

Sunday morning I had the wonderful task of trying to unblock a drain. I'd bought some rubber gloves and I tied a scarf round my nose to block out the smell. Unfortunately for me the water was deeper than the length of my gloves and so it wasn't long before it has slopped over the top - ugh. I tried everything but it still wouldn't budge. I was cold, wet, smelly and I'd banged my head on the tap. Sarah made me undress outside the backdoor and put all my clothes into a bin bag.

Just time for a shower and a quick cuppa before I had to set off to go and pick up the piano I bought on ebay. I had to drive up to the office and pick up one of the vans and then go and collect it. Bloody hell they are heavy and to make things worse the bloke I bought it off wouldn't let us roll it across his polished wood floor. Luckily he let us slide it on his rug and once we got it out the front door and onto the trolly it was ok. Thank goodness for taillifts is all I'm saying.

Back at the house we had to rearrange the furniture again to get the piano into the living room via the conservatory. I was helped in this endevour by a friend called Graham and afterwards a cup of tea seemed to be inadequate as a reward - may have to buy him a bottle of something. Still the piano looks nice, needs tuning obviously but seems to work - not bad for £31.50.

In the evening we went out for a meal at a little pub in a village near Faversham. We had booked a table for 8:30 but arrived a little late. I've been going here for 7 or 8 years on and off and they've always been lovely so it was a little upsetting to be greeted with "You're late" and be told they weren't sure if we could still eat - if we had been half an hour late I could have understood but 10 minutes!?!

In the end we have a lovely meal and as we left the door was held open for us by Shaun Williamson (Barry from Eastenders) as it is his local - nice man! The reason we went out for a meal - see my next blog!

Had lunch today while working at the Jumeirah Carlton Tower which is apparently acknowledged as one of London's finest hotels, situated in Cadogan Place Knightsbridge. We were doing a conference for Tranport for London - the congestion charging people.

From room service we ordered

3 Burgers
1 Salmon with rice and vegtables
3 Becks
1 Orange Juice

I got a few pence change out of £102

Now it may just be me but I can't see how they can justify charging £19 for a burger and chips, especially when they add 12.5% service charge on top of that. The one that got me though was £4 for a OJ and only (I use the term losely) £3.50 for a bottle of Becks (on which duty is due.

Who was it who said about posh hotels "Just because I'm rich doesn't mean I enjoy getting ripped off"?

And on the subject of Transport for London I had to be in London at 9am. Normally it's either stupid o'clock in the morning which means I either have to drive or get an early train or I'm heading for a meeting at 11 o'clock. Either way I usually miss the rush hour. Today I was slap bang in the middle of it - how do people do that every day?

I can't believe that it's 25 years since John Lennon died. In true JFK fashion I can remember exactly where I was when I heard the news. It was my first year at University and I was woken with the news in hushed tones by one of my housemates. I couldn't believe it and dug out the only radio I had to listen to the news.

The hushed tones were out of respect for one of our housemates Richard, a final year accountancy student who was a huge Beatles fan. He had told us that one day when he was young his family had been in a restaurant when the Beatles came on the jukebox, his father took two pieces of cotton wool out of his pocket and put them in his ears - he'd loved the band ever since!

John Lennon on OGWT

My earliest memory of John Lennon was on his Old Grey Whistle Test special in 1975. There were two programs I loved as a kid, OGWT was one of them Monty Python's Flying Circus was the other. My parents hated me watching both of them. I remember watching the Lennon show in the Bedroom, I suspect I wasn't meant to be watching it. I'm not entirely sure I knew who Lennon was or how rare the interview was. He played Stand by me and Slippin' and a slidin'. I also remember taping the songs with my brothers little mono cassette recorder and cheapo microphone - probably the first time I remember taping music from TV or radio.

Many years later I was lucky enough to be in the Studio during a live broadcast of the OGWT. Sadly it was no longer presented by Whispering Bob Harris but it was still a great experience. On the show that night were the Pet Shop Boys (playing live for only the second time) And We've Got a Fuzzbox and we're gonna use it. Also that night the first showing of Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer video.

The reason I was there was that the Pet Shop Boys wanted a bank of monitors (this was still pre-video walls) behind them as they played. I was quite senior at that time within the company and pulled rank to do it. We set up the wall and some of the monitors had the output from the cameras and some from the Fairlight computer that the band were using. If you look on the video of the show you can just see my toolbox sticking out from behind the monitors.

Forgot to add picture credit which came form this site

My 10 CD boxset from the 1969 Fillmore run of concerts arrived today - number 7381 (not 9613 as posted somewhere else earlier!) of a limited run of 10,000. That'll keep me busy for a while!!

Also the aforementioned dispute regarding the downloading of live concerts from the Live music archive seems to be sorting itself out amid much finger pointing and backtracking.

So all in all a good day for an old hippy

A very important anniversary today – 30 years ago I went to my first concert at the grand age of 13 – actually I was two weeks short of my 14th Birthday. I didn’t know it at the time but it was the start of a new passion that would last me the rest of my life pushing football matches out as the main pastime.

The band in question were Tiger footed, Lonely this Christmas, Cat crept in, crept out again, Dynamite Glam rockers Mud who were my favourites at the time. My brother was into those Ballroom Blitzers Sweet who I kinda liked too but didn’t want him to think I was copying so found my own heroes. I’m not sure how I found out about the show but I suspect I was a member of their fan club. I probably badgered my mum and she sent off for tickets for me.

The concert was at the Theatre Royal in Newcastle and my brother and I had tickets in row J. There was a support band called Bilbo Baggins who were ok and we did later buy one of their singles but it was Mud we went to see. I seem to remember that they were wearing the blue suits that they have on the front of Mud rock but I could be mistaken but they ran through all of their hits and it was a buzz to see the people I had been watching on top of the pops for so long. I remember the girl next to me having a long scarf, which she got me to help wave at one point during the show.

The badges were designed to look like a road sign with Mud on Road written on them and we bought a program. My Dad must have taken us and brought us home because even in the mid seventies I couldn’t imagine my Mum and Dad letting us go to Newcastle on the train at that age – although they would the following year when we went to see Thin Lizzy.

For many years I was embarrassed about going to this show as it didn’t fit with the sort of music I eventually liked but looking back I’m glad I got to see Mud at that time and not caught them as a bunch of has-beens 10 years later. So driving to work this morning on the 30th anniversary was I listening to Mud? Was I bollocks – today it was a live Miles Davis set from November 1969. From Mud to Miles in thirty years – a musical odyssey. Now that sounds like the title of a book!

P.S. Tiger Feet was number 1 when my partner Sarah was born!!

It's been a week where my faith in music has been shaken to it's very foundations by three of the biggest names in rock - two of which are the people who I freely admit to be obcessed with.

First there was the Grateful Dead who for 40 years have allowed their fans to record and trade their concerts - this was a shrewd move on the part of the band because it kept the fans coming back show after show, year after year. The band had an area set aside for tapers at their shows and even gave out patches from the sound board.

These tapes were then traded amongst fans and as such very few bootlegs albums circulated - why buy a bootleg when you get get a tape for nothing. The rules were simple - no official releases were to be traded and no money should change hands. There is even an argument to suggest that the internet expanded because Deadheads wanted to trade tapes!! As technology advances and changed; tape trading gave way to CD trading and then to downloading. There was a site called the Live music archive which held over 2000 recordings of the Grateful Dead as well as other bands.

A few months ago the Dead (or what is left of the organisation) introduced it's download series and started selling some of it's recordings from it's huge vault via it's on line store. These were available in either lossy mp3 format or lossless Flac format. You paid your money and you downloaded the show. Also they released a 10 CD box set of the four shows in 1969 which were recorded for their Live/Dead album - it was limited to 10,000 copies and sold out in less than a few weeks (Luckily I got one).

Last week however the band announced that they were stopping the downloading of soundboard recordings from the Live music archive and henceforth audience recordings would only be available in mp3 streaming format. This has sent the usually loyal legion of deadheads into a petulant frenzy. There is much finger pointing at the surviving members of the band and even two of their wives. There is talk of boycotting future CD releases, T-shirt and merchandise sales and even concert ticket sales.

There seems to be the general opinion that the reason that the soundboards have been pulled is because the band intend to increase their download releases and hence start to charge for them instead of having them freely available - hence going back on an unspoken pact with their fans. No statement has yet been released by the band although one is expected soon.

The second shock came after I recieved a copy of Bob Dylan's show at the Brixton Academy on 21st November. He was dreadful and for the first time I couldn't listen to the show. I know he has been erratic of recent years but I thought this was dire. I'm glad I didn't waste my money going to the shows. It's been two years since I've seen him and boy has he slid downhill in that time.

In my opinion the Neverending tour he has been on for the last 18 or so years has finally reached rock bottom. Dylan mumbles the lyrics, sings tunes at odds with the backing and has this awful habbit of singing up at the end of a line. The band has lost most of the good memebers and now is only workaday at best. It's time he took a good long look at himself and changed direction like he used to on a regular basis.

I don't care what he does - sing backed by peruvian noseflutes, get a DJ and do the songs in a hip hop style, gargle the songs on a uni-cycle - anything that would lift him out of the rut he is so surely in backed by a god awful band, plodding through the songs with no feeling

Boots of Spanish leather and Visions of Johanna were so dire as to almost reduce me to tears. The only high points I heard (I didn't listen to the whole thing) were the fiddle break on It's alright Ma and the Clash cover London Calling which was only just over a minutes worth.

The final straw was the Rolling Stones announcing their UK dates for next year, they are playing the new Wembley Stadium on 20th August next year as well as dates in Glasgow(25), Sheffield(27)and Cardiff(29). Tickets for these shows are priced £150, £90 and £60!

They are on sale now but before you dash off to buy one you can only do so in the first instance if you hold an American Express card. The band have a tie up with Amex - very rock and roll!! No doubt corporate hospitality deals are also available. At those prices you can probably expect to be in an audience full of merchant bankers (pun intened).

I saw the Stones about 25 years ago and I thought they were past it then - if i could see them at Brixton like Mr Zimmerman then I might think about it but I ain't paying £150 to sit in a Stadium and watch a bunch of 60 year olds pretend they're still 18 - no way.

Anyway it would seem that the stars of yesteryear seem to see their fanbase, most of which are aged betwen 40 and 60, as a cash cow to be milked at every opportunity but the way I see it is summed up by a headline from the NME in about 1978...

Take this God and stuff it!!

The papers, and in particular my Guardian, were full of the death of footballing "legend" George Best at the weekend (although most of them had actually published the obituary the day he died). To be honest Best doesn't really get picked up in many childhood memories and I can't help but feel that he has made such of an arse of the rest of his life that he shouldn’t have been afforded the accolades he received - we seem to adore the self destuctive star don't we. I even read that his funeral could be as big as Princess Di's.

I think the only memory I do have of Mr Best was in the playground in about 1968 we were given balls to play with and I remember my teacher shouting come on dribble the ball like George Best and I thought "who?" I'm sure a few years later I owned a pair of George Best football boots but I can't be sure. He had given up playing football in the UK by the time I started going to football matches just after Sunderland's FA Cup victory in 1973.

The article that caught my eye was half a column inch on page 11, the last surviving witness of the famous Christmas truce in the trenches during World War 1 died this week aged 109. I couldn't help but feel that here was a story more worthy of coverage than that of the demise of Mr Best. After all Alfred Anderson had been there at one of the most amazing moments in history. An event who's tale is told almost every Christmas, I know it was part of last years Christmas play at the kids school. In the midst of a most horrible war both sides took the message of peace and goodwill towards men to heart - even if it was only for a short while.

Alfred Anderson was one of a number of the few remining survivors of World War 1 that were interviewed by the Guardian a few weeks ago. I remember reading the article in which they talked about their war experiences. I remembered his story because at one point he was batman to Captain Fergus Bowes-Lyon who was the brother of the late Queen Mother. The one thing I know of my Step-Grandfathers time during the war was that he had been a batman to an officer. I remember he showed my father a letter that he had recieved from the officer after the war. In it the officer mentioned that he still owed my Grandad 10/- and if he sent him an address he would forward it. He never did of course!

If you want to read the article in the Guardian it's here

Christmas shopping at Bluewater

So after my disappointment earlier in the week at not being able to be Santa at the school fayre my feelings were a mixture of relief and as you probably noticed annoyance.

So Saturday morning we are just getting ready to go off to Norbury and Sarah's mum's Church fayre when the phone rang, it was Sarah's brother and he was pissed off. They'd got to the church and there was no Santa's grotto as nothing had been organised (he's 18 by the way).

Ten minutes later the phone rang again, it was Sarah's mum. While she was on the phone Sarah turned round to look and me while saying "I'm sure it would be ok" and I just knew what was coming.

In the end I enjoyed it. It was worth it to see the look on the faces of the little kids and it took me back to my childhood when I used to go and see Santa in Joblings department store in Sunderland. I was thinking on the way to the church that I really did believe that the man sitting there was Santa and wondered if kids today would still be able to believe that. All I can say is that from my observations - they do!

One of my favourite answers was from a young girl who when i asked her if she had been good replied "Well I try my best". There were many who got all tounge-tied and couldn't manage to get anything other than their name out - bless. Another revelation was very few managed to answer the question "what do you want Santa to bring you for Christmas".

Oh and I must have been ok as they were already talking about me doing it again next year - doh!

You may have noticed I was Mr Stressy Pants yesterday but there was more to it than just the Santa thing.

Friday night is changeover night for my two girls, they live with me one week and with my ex wife the next. This friday my eldest was staying on here because she started a Saturday job this morning just down the road, more of that later.

So anyway i took the youngest one back to her mums, no one in. Now at 13 she's reasonably old enough to look after herself but her mum knew she was coming back on her own and either couldn't be bothered to get back there in time or had gone out before we arrived. This is the woman who dragged me through the courts for a year trying to get full custody of the girls.

If i thought it was a one off then I might be more forgiving but I'm sure there have been other times when I've taken them back to an empty house and they have covered for her. When they go off for the week at their mums a big hole is left in my life and it hurts me to think of them being left on their own.

Anyway as I said the eldest has started a Saturday job at a local shop, I took her down there this morning because I think she was quite nervous. It'll do her good earning a bit of money and hopefully give her a bit of responsibility. I had a Saturday job when I was her age - I worked in Woolworth's in the butchers department doing all the crap jobs like cleaning, wrapping joints of meat and making mince! I used to get a £5 and two joints of meat every week.

The old guy who ran it when I started became ill and had to leave, they promoted the other guy but he wasn't up to the job. He used to piss off down to the pub at lunchtime for several hours and when he came back he'd often piss in the bucket in the cold store (and then expect me to empty it - obviously I refused). Anyway takings went down and they ended up making me redundant at 16, eventually the whole deprtment shut down.

So after all that I'm not going to be Santa at the School fayre - the whole idea of me doing it was to give the guy who has done it for the last 5 years or so a well earned rest so he can enjoy the fayre with his wife and kids,

Apparently some reception parents have made it known that if he doesn't do it they won't allow their kids to see Santa. This has pissed me off somewhat - I'm all for parent power but this is a bit much.

Just suppose that I did do it what would these parents tell their children?

You can't see Santa because we don't know who he is...but he's Santa mummy!

or worse still you can't see Santa in case he's a pervert!!

Now before you chastise me for that comment I was actually asked if I could prove that I'd been Police checked recently (see earlier blog). The fact that I was a parent Governor at an infant school for 6 years and an LEA Governor for a year at a secondary school have made no difference. It would appear that I have to prove I'm innocent first!

Right I'm stopping now before I get really pissed off

The north wind doth blow,
And we shall have snow...

Or at least we better have snow!

The weather men have been predicting blizzards for the last few days, all the kids will go loopy if it doesn't!

I’m a great believer in synchronicity – the connectivity of things and the ability to affect things that would seem to be out of your reach. There have been many occasions where I have listened to a record that I haven’t heard for ages only to find it being played on the radio the following day. I’ve lost count of the times that either Sarah or I have picked up the phone to call the other one only to find it ringing already.

Over the past few days my mum, who died in 1990 has been in my thoughts a lot. I think this started with a comment on another blog but has grown and grown over the weekend. I don’t think I grieved for her and found it hard to believe that she had gone and it’s only now after 15 years that I feel I can put things into perspective.

In addition to this I was sitting thinking last night about how, 3 years after splitting from my wife, I finally feel that I’m moving on and how life is finally beginning to make some sense and become “normal” again – probably more so than at any time in my life.

So this morning I was listening to the recording of the Jackie Leven gig mentioned in my previous post and something he said struck me. Introducing a song called exit wound he said something like:

An exit wound is a technical term for when you are hit by a high velocity bullet, it makes only a small hole going in but by the time it comes out it’s a wide gaping hole. Emotions get you like that sometimes.

I thought – yeah ain’t that the truth. I realised what a huge hole the two situations mentioned above have made in me, holes which need to be healed so I can be whole again. My new life is healing my divorce, day by day, little by little but I need to close the hole made by my mother’s death, something my father tried to tell me years ago.

I’ve decided that I’m going to write about it, get my thoughts down on paper which will be easier than trying to verbalise it. I don’t know what I’ll do with it once I’ve done that – it will depend what it says I suppose. Hopefully this will help me move on.

Oh well so much for no more personal stuff.

On a lighter note – Bob Dylan covers the Clash. At Brixton tonight Zimmie did London Calling as his first encore – no I’m not making this up.

As a postscript to this today I was listening to a previously unheard Radio 3 session from Jah Wobble during which he talked about the same synchronicity I'd blogged about last night - see told you!!