Blue Is The Colour

What an incredible end of season we have had. Man City getting two goals late in the game to snatch the Premiership title out of Man Utd 's hands and last night Chelsea robbing Bayern Munich of the Champions League title in a penalty shoot out.  This was football and the reason why we love it.

Spurs have missed out on a Champions League place thanks to Chelsea but I can't begrudge them their win. They are an English team after all.

The Art Of Presenting

I had to attend a stupid and, at least on my part, unnecessary training course last week about Microsoft Powerpoint. This came about because my boss was impressed by a couple of young staff who did a powerpoint presentation at a recent staff briefing session complete with graphs, charts and one slide where the text came in from the side.He was very impressed.

He wanted to know why we weren't all doing the same when we did our presentations to staff

The fact that the young things also stumbled and mumbled their way through the whole thing obviously passed him by. The real art of presenting is building a rapport with your audience not dazzling them with fancy tricks and mind numbing stats.

Anyway there we all were sat in front of PC being given lessons on how to create a Powerpoint presentation by a girl almost young enough to be my grandaughter let alone my daughter..

Anyone who has applied for a job in the last ten years and has had to do presentation as part of the process can use Powerpoint. If you turned up at an interview brandishing your slides and asking for the Overhead Projector it is very likely the normally young admin assistant/pa who greets you would not have a clue what you were talking about.So I already know how to create a presentation and can even set up the projector etc. I'm not an expert but I can get by.

However,judging by the rest of my area management team's reaction to attending this session I am the only one of them who has applied for a job in the last ten years. Despite sitting through many hours of tedious powerpoint presentations in their working lives, none of them had ever created a presentation themselves.

My presentation was a quirky non work related topic, music. Doing it got me thinking about music and me and how I listen to music and what music I listen to. More of that later

Time Passes

It is sometimes surprising when you stop what you are doing, take stock and realise that time is flying by.

It’s now May and we are over a quarter of the year through.It seems only yesterday I was starting my new role over in another part of the city.But, in fact, it's three months ago. The feeling is a bit like life in general. Here I am 51 years old and two grown up kids. I have been living in Newcastle 21 years now. That’s a lifetime.

My wife starts her new job with a national Charity next week. I am pleased for her. She has got the job she deserves and could use this as a springboard to get an even better job.

I am pleased as well for the whole family as the last two years have been unsettling with my wife working on successive temporary contracts. Although we have done OK it doesn’t feel like it. The basic human need for security wasn’t there and we didn’t really feel able to plan ahead. Now we can at least start to plan and do the things we have been putting off. Like decorating, a new shower cubicle and possibly a decent roofer to overhaul my roof.

I have been scrambling around the loft two or three times over the last week following the torrential downpours we have had. I have spent several hours using emergency roofing repairs materials ( paint, spray and gaffa tape) to try and stop the leak. Last night was my final attempt. Previous attempts have been partially successful but I think I have sorted it now. We will see the next time it tips down.

My son seems to being enjoying Berlin as we haven’t heard from him for a week or so.My daughter is furiously applying for jobs as she has realised she only has £500 to see her through to September.

My bit of excitement has been to buy my ticket for The Wedding Present tour in the autumn.They are playing a Saturday night at the O2 in Newcastle. So it will be an early start and a 10pm finish. The fact that I am quite pleased about that means I am really getting old.

The Nips

My MP3 player is always set to Shuffle. If you read this nonsense on a regular basis you’ll know that I have posted about this a number of times before. It continues to fascinate me that at least once a week the player throws up a song I haven’t heard in years and can’t remember uploading to the machine. This time it was a song by Shane McGowan’s pre Pogues band The Nips. If you are looking for traces of any Irish accent or influences on this track you won’t find them.

I seem to remember at the time reading that Shane McGowan was a massive Jam devotee and followed them around. I saw them once supporting The Jam at The Music Machine in Camden. They were good but not outstanding.

This song and its B side “Vengeance” are outstanding though and have stood the passing of 30+ years very well.

Thanks to this song I always think fondly of the 73 bus “into the city” despite never having got on it.

Gabrielle- The Nips

Posh We Are Yet Again

Another Tuesday night and another trip to see The Posh. Firstly on a positive note we are staying up. That is good. It is something to be proud of for the team and Darren Ferguson and us the fans.


Unfortunately the game was poor we went two down very early on and although we had some good moments of possession and plays we were always second best to Southampton. We lost 3-1. I haven't seen Posh win at all this season.


I decided to pay a bit extra and sit on the second tier of the South/Family Stand. It was a good seat right on the half way line. Funnily though I didn't enjoy the game anymore than if I had stood on the London Road Terrace as normal. In fact, I think I enjoyed it less. Why? In a word, atmosphere. Simply put there was none.


I missed the random made up on the moment songs and chants against the opposing team's keeper. I missed the camaraderie of the terrace. I even missed the drummer. I won't be changing to seats until I have to, which as it happens according to Football League rules after three seasons in the Championship which for Posh will be the season after next. If we don't get relegated next season, that is.


There were a couple of thousand Southampton fans there. They were very excited and sang all the match, drowning out London Road for most of the game. One of their songs which they seem to sing after each time they scored was amusing. To the chorus of Road To Amarillo it went "LA LA LA LA LA LA LA LA (repeat x3)Who the fuck is laughing now?". Well it made me laugh.


On the way home,the long 3 and a half hour train trip, this song came up on my MP3 player. This band would have been called twee back in the day. The breathy slightly out of tune female vocal and occasionally bizarre lyrics appeal to me.Anyway this song made me feel good. It created images of sunshine, happiness, love and freedom.It made me feel young again. It took some of the pain away of another 400 mile round trip to watch your team get beaten.Good music can do that.


The band are touring the States in a couple of days and are playing some dates in UK prior to flying out. I missed them on their recent UK tour.

Use Google to find their web site. I can't do everything for you.




Allo Darlin'- Lets Go Swimmimg