On Friday 28 February 2014 my lady and I enjoyed our time at the Radio 6 Music Festival at Manchester’s Victoria Warehouse.  With two stages featuring a total of twelve acts between 4.15 pm and nearly eleven o’clock, the highlight was Damon Albarn’s set with his new band the Heavy Seas.  Yes, it’s a cliché, but as headline act for the first day of the two day festival, then surely that was only to be expected.  Again, well yes, but boy did he and the band deliver.

Starting with the title track from his new album, Everyday Robots, there really was no stopping our Damon.  I was a big fan of Blur (yes, and Oasis too), but I’m not so familiar with an awful lot of his work since (Gorillaz included).  I could therefore, have been a little disappointed that there wasn’t a great deal of Blur material.  However, I’m forty-four, not as self-indulgent as I used to be and this was a 6 music event, so I knew that this wasn’t going to be a Blur fest.  Furthermore, being stood within five metres of Albarn added to my enjoyment – I think perhaps that this was perhaps the greatest appeal of the whole event.

As for the gig itself, Damon Albarn conducted himself without any of the airs and graces which perhaps could be ascribed to a pop star.  He was up front about the fact that the gig was the first time that he and the Heavy Seas had played together.  It’s a strange paradox perhaps, but the overriding impression that I left the arena with was his humbleness.  These are some new songs, with my new band, I hope you like them… and us.

Set list:

Everyday Robots
Hostiles
Lonely Press Play
Tomorrow Comes Today (Gorillaz song)
The Selfish Giant (Live debut)
You and Me
On Melancholy Hill (Gorillaz song)
Hollow Ponds
Photographs (You Are Taking Now)
Kingdom of Doom (The Good, the Bad & the Queen song)
All Your Life (Blur song) (B-side from the Blur track, Beetlebum)

Encore (slightly delayed after drummer, Pauli The PSM, had put his foot through a drum skin):
Mr. Tembo (Live debut)
El Mañana (Gorillaz song)
Heavy Seas of Love (Live debut)

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So here am I, Saturday morning, attempting to get out before it starts bloody raining again.

So, why, you ask, I am sat typing this?  I have no logical or plausible answer to that question.  It’s as likely as not that I’m struck by the need to put something on my blog.  I am, as it were an inconsistent blogger.

My regular visitor(s) will have noticed that there are plenty of Daily Mash articles – all of them very funny – but not nearly enough from me.  No doubt Google Ads will notice soon, and my account with them will be suspended.

Not that that should be too much of a problem, as I’m just not making the bucks from that particular income stream. Or, in actual fact from any income stream whatever!

Anyway, enough of this nonsense.  It’s back to work on Monday after a week off with the teen / almost-teen fruit of my loins.  It’s been a curious sort of week.  They have been with me this week, and I have been cursing the fact that I can’t watch what I want to on the telly and I can’t “go on the computer” when ever I want to. But now they’re back at their mother’s for the week and it’s, like, kinda too quiet here…

Well, the sun is out and I’m… still wearing my Berghaus fleece out to work.

Now it’s not that I still need it to keep me warm, oh no.  It’s far too pleasant for that at the moment.  We have lovely sunshine and temperatures up to 22 or even 23 degrees C.

No, it’s a comfort thing.  I need to wear it because, like Linus in the Charlie Brown and Snoopy stories, I feel undressed without it.  It’s also handy for keeping keys in the pocket, not to mention my wallet and, oxymoron alert, my sunglasses.

Went to see this the other day.  Took the boys and my wife.  Loved it.

Confession: I am a big fan of Robert Downey Jr.  I love him as Sherlock Holmes and this role is just so well (under)played.  I don’t know if you remember but Downey had some serious issues a few years ago with drugs and associated misdemeanours, but he really seems to have gotten himself back on track.

Anyway, to get back to the film.  It’s probably a run of the mill Super Hero Action Adventure, but these films have such a willing suspension of disbelief dimension to them that, for my money, it’s hard to know what not to like!  Of course it’s also got Gwyneth Paltrow in it, so that beauty and glamour stakes can hardly be higher.

I’d say that Guy Pearce as the villain and Ben Kingsley in his cameo as the villain’s puppet make the film for me.  Pearce is understated yet deliciously unhinged, whilst Kingsley is especially good.

If I had one criticism, it would be the whole 3-D experience.  To be brutal, and especially for the price, I can’t really see the appeal.  It doesn’t really add much for me, and that’s even with my new clip on 3-D lenses.

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It’s strange but true, but we have a refugee from a local ‘gangster’ holed up at ours.

You may wonder where ‘ours’ is exactly. Now I’d love to tell you it’s in Chicago or San Francisco or Soho.

However, I’m an honest, but discrete Blogger, so I’ll just tell you it’s in rural England.

Poor chap is absolutely petrified so I’ll add no more than that. But it is kind of thrilling doncha think?

Well, we finally have a sunny day. The heating can go off again and we can get on with summer.

Or not, because the forecast isn’t brilliant going forward. Ah well, I guess we just need to bask in the glory that is 25.5.13