Anniversary
Wednesday was our anniversary, which we spent in Manchester, as the previous night we saw the Pixies (we saw Pixies actually, as they are “Pixies” not “The Pixies”, but “we saw Pixies” just sounds like we had a weird shared delusion…) in the Apollo, a great gig in every sense of the word. They played a superb set (Head On, Wave Of Mutilation, Is She Weird, Mr. Grieves, Caribou, Bone Machine, Monkey Gone To, I Bleed, Planet of Sound, Gouge Away, UMass, Isla De Encanta, Broken Face, Dead, Debaser, Tame, La La Love You, Here Comes Your Man, Winterlong, In Heaven, Wave of Mutilation (UK Surf), Holiday Song, Nimrod's Son, Vamos, Where Is My Mind [encore] Gigantic [encore 2] Hey), and the songs from their first album were the best (especially where is my mind/nimrods son) but “In Heaven” and “Gigantic” were surprisingly outstanding. I have a live recording of a gig they played when they had just reformed, and wow, they’ve “warmed up” since then. You couldn’t fault the playing, or Frank’n’Kims vocals. Spot on. Managed to talk a t-shirt-tout down too, something I will ALWAYS be proud of, I’m so rubbish at that normally! You should have seen me walking off with the oh-so genuinely disinterested look on my face when he quoted me a tenner for the top Becky wanted (a gorgeous top, I’ll stick a photo of it up below)…Wonder how long the got-for-a-fiver-t-shirt will last though. One wash? Two?
Yes, it’s been three years, and Becky still hasn’t left me…something to celebrate indeed. I would have left me by now - gosh I’m annoying, uber annoying, and demanding, and petty, and selfish. I’m like Mr Spock with a (twisted) sense of humour - I don’t think that’s a good thing. Anyways. We swapped presents at midnight after the gig, and all the silly arguments seemed to slip from our memories. Bex wrote me a lovely card, about us both loving in deeds and not just words (in a nice way)...I think that’s the key, I’m good at words and not so at deeds. This year, John’s going to be ACTION MAN. Keep this blog and see that I keep my promises.
A highlight of Wednesday was a look around Manchester Art Gallery, where we were surprised and delighted to see “Hylas and the nymphs". Prints of this painting just don’t do it justice, I suppose that’s always the way. You just have to see the skin tones, the colours, the textures… wow. I would have climbed in to a watery death, for sure. Don’t hit me again Bex?! ;-) Even more wonderful was a work I hadn’t heard of, by Peter Graham, “A Spate in the Highlands”. I had to look closely to check this wasn’t a photo! The rushing brown river sliding across the rocks, the sun shining on the mountains whilst the clouds obscure the sun and the sky…It made me yearn to escape to Scotland again myself, with my wonderful wife, a place we had escaped to three years ago that very day, saying vows and stuff…
Bex had her second scan photo the other week, it’s below, and (strangely) probably not as detailed as the last one. You can see the lazy thing has (his/her) hand behind (his/her) head. Bex reckons it’s HIS hand, because boys are lazy. Can’t argue with that one really.
I’m typing away here at work knowing that a wonderful (fully working hopefully) new toy waits at home (Bex just sent the e-mail), something that’s maxed our credit card, but which we will be able to afford (read: pay off), as long as I keep coming here to do blogs and stuff. This camcorder has 3CCD (3 chips) to process the image, something normally reserved for high budget camcorders, which means the quality of film should be superb…can’t wait to get home! Got it for £350, a saving of £150 compared to the “high street” price. Anyways, we needed one, there’s a new baby coming, the old video camera’s broken, I’ve saved money (about £750 a years travel to work by getting this pass)…and a million other excuses. Watch this space, I think I’ll be taking over where Bergman left off…(STILL no sight of “Saraband” on the net????!!!)
NB: a sorry footnote - Bex just realized she lost her wedding ring somewhere in Manchester! Three years to the day I slipped it on her petite finger, she had to take it off her badly swollen finger - and that's that. The baby is to blame for Becky's swollen fingers, and - by extension, as someone used to say - for the loss of the ring! I'm sure there's something symbolic about all of this...we're going to go to Whitby to get another one from the same shop, am I a free agent until then? Have to go... ;-)
Yes, it’s been three years, and Becky still hasn’t left me…something to celebrate indeed. I would have left me by now - gosh I’m annoying, uber annoying, and demanding, and petty, and selfish. I’m like Mr Spock with a (twisted) sense of humour - I don’t think that’s a good thing. Anyways. We swapped presents at midnight after the gig, and all the silly arguments seemed to slip from our memories. Bex wrote me a lovely card, about us both loving in deeds and not just words (in a nice way)...I think that’s the key, I’m good at words and not so at deeds. This year, John’s going to be ACTION MAN. Keep this blog and see that I keep my promises.
A highlight of Wednesday was a look around Manchester Art Gallery, where we were surprised and delighted to see “Hylas and the nymphs". Prints of this painting just don’t do it justice, I suppose that’s always the way. You just have to see the skin tones, the colours, the textures… wow. I would have climbed in to a watery death, for sure. Don’t hit me again Bex?! ;-) Even more wonderful was a work I hadn’t heard of, by Peter Graham, “A Spate in the Highlands”. I had to look closely to check this wasn’t a photo! The rushing brown river sliding across the rocks, the sun shining on the mountains whilst the clouds obscure the sun and the sky…It made me yearn to escape to Scotland again myself, with my wonderful wife, a place we had escaped to three years ago that very day, saying vows and stuff…
Bex had her second scan photo the other week, it’s below, and (strangely) probably not as detailed as the last one. You can see the lazy thing has (his/her) hand behind (his/her) head. Bex reckons it’s HIS hand, because boys are lazy. Can’t argue with that one really.
I’m typing away here at work knowing that a wonderful (fully working hopefully) new toy waits at home (Bex just sent the e-mail), something that’s maxed our credit card, but which we will be able to afford (read: pay off), as long as I keep coming here to do blogs and stuff. This camcorder has 3CCD (3 chips) to process the image, something normally reserved for high budget camcorders, which means the quality of film should be superb…can’t wait to get home! Got it for £350, a saving of £150 compared to the “high street” price. Anyways, we needed one, there’s a new baby coming, the old video camera’s broken, I’ve saved money (about £750 a years travel to work by getting this pass)…and a million other excuses. Watch this space, I think I’ll be taking over where Bergman left off…(STILL no sight of “Saraband” on the net????!!!)
NB: a sorry footnote - Bex just realized she lost her wedding ring somewhere in Manchester! Three years to the day I slipped it on her petite finger, she had to take it off her badly swollen finger - and that's that. The baby is to blame for Becky's swollen fingers, and - by extension, as someone used to say - for the loss of the ring! I'm sure there's something symbolic about all of this...we're going to go to Whitby to get another one from the same shop, am I a free agent until then? Have to go... ;-)
posted by John Doran-Armstrong at 11:21 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home