The thrill of the 'day of release' trip to the record shop..

Lots of hype to this release. It's been flagged up as of one of the big albums of the year. And, when i was looking at the releases coming out this month, it was the only monday I marked down in my memory as a day to get along to aitchemvee. So off I trooped, only stopping on the way back to buy some stain remover and coffee. Onto the cd player it went. And first impressions? Hmmm. 6/10. Better than average but only by a 1950's throwback whisker. Nice beats, nice strings, not 100% on some of the rest of it.

A slow news day in Hereford. An apple. By a cathedral. Earlier. Today.

For Fopp's sake

Trip to Bristol.

2 double cds

5 single cds

1 linen bound book of arty photos of R.E.M.

Total cost in Fopp, Bristol?

£47

Total cost in Amazon, online?

£63

Good times in Bristol.

The set up..

The reveal- a bit of blockbustering in very comfortable leather seats. Good work Showcase Bristol. The cinema was certainly de lux. Shame about the whispering chaps in the seats behind. 

Ah the simple pleasure to be gained from sitting down to unwrap the cellophane from your cd purchases.

Night to Bishop's Meadow, checkmate.

A bit like that vase/2faces optical illusion, eh?

The colour of the sky and the sunlight was very jolie today.

A circular walk round Bodenham, Herefordshire. It did the trick after a tricky week.

A chilly start to the day in HR1

Wintry times in Merton Meadow

Beware of 3yr olds bearing stickers.

Random selections from the cd tower.

Close your eyes and pick a cd. Could be anything, there isn't any alphabetizing going on with our collection. And the selection is? Genius!

So Tough by St. Etienne (courtesy of Dr. P.), listened to this cd three times over back to back this afternoon. 

He met marmalade down in old new orleans, struttin her stuff on the streets...

She said 'hey joe, wanna give it a go?'

Making marmalade

Alright alright, don't take the pith. Here are the first stages in this year's efforts. Me and Mrs P worked our way through 15 seville oranges last night (they're good cos of the pips, apparently). To the tunes of Bjork (Post) and Beirut (the latest one) we were quartering, de-pipping, de-pithing, and peel cutting. I went for a fairly thick shred as you can see. They were then put away to soak. Stage two to follow. 

so the original three sugababes are reuniting then?

The view on the walk into town today.

A painful seperation..

So I've finally got around to going through the saints programmes I bought during my time of regularly going to see them. There may be a few missing but in these piles of paper are reflected some of the best and worst times of my life between 1988 and 1993.

I have sorted them into the different seasons and put the details into a programme/memorabilia website to see if they're worth much as a job lot. Here's the summary i put into their website form..

 All Southampton; 1988 Steve Mills Charity game. 1988-1989 12 home games (Saints v Notts F signed by John Burridge). 1989-90 Pre-season v Dnepr (signed Tim Flowers, Neil Ruddock), 24 home games (Saints v Crystal Palace signed Tim Flowers, Alan Shearer. Saints v Luton signed Russell Osman), 5 Saints away (QPR, Coventry, Tottenham, Man City, Everton). 1990-91 24 home, 2 away (Coventry, Luton). 1991-92 Pre-season v Real Sociedad, 29 home, 1 away (Norwich, FA Cup). 1992-93 19 home. 1993-1994 3 home.

A total of 122 games. A few vaguely interesting things to put on the blog..

This is the signature of one Alan Shearer. Of interest to saints fans would be that Matt Le Tissier is playing in the No. 11 shirt, which he appeared to be in quite a bit that season (1989-90). Of course he was  legendary in the no. 7 shirt for many years. Also, you can see Ian Wright was turning out for Palace that day. And no. 8 for Palace? Alan Pardew, who went on to manage Saints a couple of years ago and is now manager of Newcastle in the Premier league.

And this is Tim Flowers' signature, who was an excellent keeper and always had a laugh with the fans.

I'll stick a comment on this post with the amount they offer. Postage cost will be fairly mighty, I fear.

Good 'walk to work' music..

A few christmas classics..

[moving tail - 'independent', apparently]