bloke-interrupted

[bloke-interrupted]

Pottery is still a mystery to me, I have an idea about where a want a piece to go then I glaze it and I am always amazed with the results.

[bloke-interrupted]

Final day photo from Tenby. The UK has some of the most beautiful places I've visited.

[bloke-interrupted]

Tenby is a beautiful place, I've spent the last week here with my better half's family and its been lovely. Its one of the most photogenic places I've come across so here are a few pics I've taken over the week. Enjoy

[bloke-interrupted]

If I tolerate this then my children will be next

Music festivals, the wonderful British institution of thousands of people partying in a field in the temperamental weather that is the British summer time.

This weekend I attended the latest in what is a long list of music festivals, Splendor Festival. I'm a seasoned festival goer, since my mid 20s I've been part of the festival scene, apart from a 3 year period where I lived in the far north east of Scotland where a music festival consists of 200 bag pipers creating a wall of sound akin to a chorus of cats wanting feeding, if you have a cat you'll know what I mean.

Festivals in my 20s were very different to they are now, for starters in my 20s I'd get by with a toothbrush, tent and enough pot to keep me in a hazy state for 4 days. These days it's all about finding a craft beer, looking for unusual ethnic food and timing my morning ablutions so the festival toilets have just been cleaned. Festival toilets are something that are hard to describe but needless to say they are a nessicary evil of the music festival.

Festivals never fail to deliver for me musically, you get to revel in some of the greatest sets you have ever witnessed, The Chemical Brothers and Justice come to mind, but on the flip side some epic fails, the bigger the artist the greater the fall, and for me the biggest fall of all was Kane West in 2011, my god this guy has an ego, 30 minutes late then a 15 minute rant about how hard it is being famous then topped off with a throw away commet about him being compared to Hitler, I missed Calvin Harris for this shit! However you can always rely on the festival going public to check even the biggest of egos, from the mass exodus from a well below par Killers set,to a cup full of piss being thrown at some minor bands front man who's name escapes me, I'm not advocating that at all I should stress. So the biggest ego check is reserve for, yep you got it, Mr West. In a moment of silence, most likely caused by his Hitler reference, a young women pierced the silence with the comment "shut the fuck up and play a fucking song" the crowd erupted in cheers and that was it, he'd lost the crowd and the rest of his set was peppered with boos, jeers and abuse. Ego well and truly checked.

Splendor delivered the usual mix of good and bad, from an energy sapping Specials set through a wooden All Saints performance all the way up to a banging Ash nostalgia fest and an epic Manic Street Preachers performance as the sun went down. The Manics were spectacular, even banging out a fantastic cover of Sweet Child of Mine.

As I sit on the cusp of middle age I know one thing that will endure will be my love of the Brisish music festival. Yes, my festival experiences have moved from hedonistic wonder to a more middle class "Guardian set" experience, but I will always yearn for the perfect festival moment. Manics you deliverd that this year and I thank you for that.

[bloke-interrupted]

Walk a mile in another man's shoes... I wish!

Why do I never pack sensible shoes when I visit London!? I already knew my feet would hurt when I pulled on my shoes yesterday morning. 7.45am breakfast then walking down Portobello Rd dodging the stalls getting set up. It's always the best time to go, I never go there intending to buy something so going at daft-o-clock in the morning really gives you a feel for the place. Food is cooking, stall holders are dashing about and best of all only the most determined of tourists are out and about. I'm not against tourists, hell I'm a tourist in reality, but because I lived there for a number of years I always class myself as a local. Having Nat (the other half) with me always makes me feel like a tour guide, she relies on my knowledge for the places to go and I quite like that, some of the time my knowledge let's me down. One of the times was this weekend and the reason for my post starting about footwear. After Portobello Rd we headed off into Camden , after a lovely mooch looking at all the tat on sale we decided to go to the British Museum, forgetting that we went there on our last trip to but that's another story. So after a quick stop for a drink I suggested we walk there.... bad idea, Google maps isn't great for judging a walk, it was far, very far, and in 25 degree heat felt like a death march, but I'd committed us to this venture and was determined to see it through. Anyway to cut a long story short we walked 16 miles yesterday, mostly in uncomfortable shoes with no socks. Ah well you live and learn....

So after the death march to a museum we didn't want to go to we ended hurriedly dashing around the National Gallery to fill an hour then up to see if the Queen was in, she was.

!! SPOILER ALERT!!

So the main reason we came to London was for a culture fix, see a play and hopefully convince my better half of the benefits of "legitimate theatre". Clive Owen nearly scuppered that part of my plan, he was fairly wishy-washy in his portrail of a man having a nervous breakdown in Night of the Iguana, although the nervous breakdown might explain why his accent became British towards the end of the final act, on the flipside of that the 2 female leads were excellent and masked Owen's lackluster performance. My reaction to the play maybe, in some small part, due to the actual venue. If awards were given out to the most uncomfortable seats Grand Circle seat C14 would have cleaned up, although Nat would have probably disagreed and given it to C15. So uncomfortable were the seats I found myself internally screaming for one of the most poignant parts on the play, one of the females leads grandfather reciting his last ever poem, to end, just hurry up and finish the bloody thing and die!

After the play we went for our, now traditional, Chinese meal where we discussed the play... actually we mainly fawned over the food and complained about the seats with a few mixed comments about the show. I'm yet to be sold on Tennesse Williams based on that performance.

After being throughly stuffed with food we waddled from Chinatown only to find a black cab Bermuda Triangle, only one cab available and comptely ignored by it, thank god for Uber. Black cabs might want to take a look at what's happened to travel agents and happening to estate agents and take heed.

Well it was another great trip to London I can forgive the prices, the death march and even Clive Owen, probably because I hold a deep place in my heart for this polluted, expensive and crowded town. We even found time over breakfast this morning to get tickets for Ian McKellen in November, I'm sure he won't let us down!