BlackLOG finds a voice, out and about London and hair problems

Thanks to OceanDreams the BlackLOG now has a soundtrack (I'm so chuffed that I will even excuse OD for accusing me of being a lady). This now gives you a number of choices:

• Read in silence;
• Listen to the music in the hope it will take away from the pain of having to read this garbage;
• Select different tracks enjoy the music and forget about the Blog.

Instructions for use
Use the buttons like a real Ipod Touch

=  Pause

>  Play

>>| Next Track

|<< Previous Track

If you click on the arrow at the top of the Touch,  under Mixpod.com you get to  select any of the tunes that I have currently loaded. (let me know what you think of the choice...)

Natioanal Portrait Gallery
Wednesday Mrs B got invited along to the National Portrait Gallery, by one of her customers. One of those sponsored open evenings, for Beatles to Bowie an exhibition of pop photo's in the 1960's. Since I have always been a fan of sixties music I jumped at the chance of joining her. It was fascinating stuff, especially listing to all the other guests attempting to chat in a knowledgeable way about stuff they clearly didn't have a clue about :-

None descript clueless guest :- "Oh The Kinks, weren't they the ones that were big in America but hardly known over here?"

Me in my head :- "No they were banned from touring America and thus stayed here and developed there unique English sound"

-----------------------------------------------------

None descript clueless guest :- "Look how rough the Stones looked compared to the Beatles. That's because the Beatles never did drugs..."

Me in my head :- "Other than the pot, LSD, heroin (Lennon certainly)"

We had so much fun that we left rather later than intended. The plan had been to go to 'Oliver's - Jamie Oliver's new restaurant over at Canary Wharf. It was gone 9 when we got there and we were told that the wait for a table was a minimum 45 Minutes. As it was late and we were both starving we decided to cut our losses and go to the Canteen instead. This promised good wholesome British cuisine using the best ingredients. What is failed to say was poorly cooked - very disappointing, we both kind of wished we had held out for the table at Oliver's.....Live and learn

All Pictures in this weeks BlackLOG were taken with my

Nikon D700 using a 70 - 200mm lens
No Pop Stars were hurt during the production of this weeks Blog

I could not take any photo's inside the

gallery so this is as close as I got

Friday and off to Brixton
It was Franz Ferdinand at the Brixton Academy and yet another covert operation to smuggle the beast through security. We had unreserved circle tickets and I planned to get there early enough to bag a couple  front row seats; leaving Mrs B to do her normal - swan in just before the main act hits the stage. Unfortunately, and very predictably, the London traffic had other ideas for me.

Eventually, I managed to park about 5 minutes walk from the venue and was there about 20 minutes after the doors were thrown open (I'm guessing here, they may just have unlocked them and stood back). I had stripped the beast down so it looked more like an average-sized camera. Security gave a brief ruffle through my rucksack and then I was in, racing up the stairs. The front row had already gone but I found a couple of seats in the second row towards the centre.

It was as I sat down that I had that "Wait a minute, this is a gig and this is the BlackLOG feeling" because it had all gone a bit too well. It then dawned on me; my mobile phone - the only hope of contacting Mrs B and letting her know where I was - was sitting in the car. I asked around if I could borrow someones phone, even offering hard cash to use it, but they all either claimed the battery was flat or that they did not have a phone on them.

In truth it would have been of little use as I don't retain Mrs B's mobile number in my head. I'm afraid I have a 3 phone number memory - my work number, my home number and the phone number of my childhood home. For some reason no other number has ever stuck in my head (not even my own mobile), they are all stored in my phone and on my PC. I have tried deleting my childhood number from my memory bank but I can't convince another number to take its place.

I didn't really want to lose my hard fought for seats or attempt to get the beast in for a second time.  It was leap of faith time. I put my coat on one seat and my rucksack (with the beast inside) on the other.

Gulp

I turned to the group behind me and instructed them to guard the seats, rucksack and coats with their lives. They were Chinese,  I have a feeling they didn't speak English as they just nodded at me enthusiastically. For all I know they probably thought I had just gifted everything to them. I was just about the leave the auditorium when I realised that I had left my ticket in my coat pocket. I glared at the Chinese people with my best

"If these go missing I'm going to stand in front of you at every concert you ever go to" stare.

They nodded even more enthusiastically. I retrieved my ticket and made my way towards the exit with the BIG signs that said

"Strictly no re-admittance under any circumstances".

My heart sank...but I decided to ask anyway.

I explained to the doorman my dilemma - Mrs B lost in the wilderness with no way of contacting me. I didn't hold anything back (other than the fact I had smuggled in the beast). I made Tiny Tim sound like a nasty piece of work, out robbing the poor and not even bothering to pass on any of his proceeds to the rich...

The doorman stared at me as if I was asking him to roast his first born and serve them on a silver platter with a sprig of mint rammed delicately up their bottom.

I may have whimpered slightly.

He caved and called for his boss.

I went through the whole humiliating routine again, as he looked on impassively. I put my heart into it, reaching to the very depth of my soul, trawling for emotions that not even Laurence Olivier or Sir John Gielgud had managed to master in their heyday.

I'm sure I saw a twitch of emotion spread across his face but on reflection it was probably just a bit of indigestion.

My life was now hanging in the balance with Mrs B left unattended on the streets of Brixton. ....

He left me to sweat for a bit then grabbed my ticket, scrawled something eligible on it and I was out and running for the car.

I grabbed the phone and read the message from Mrs B.

'Train running slow will be late home'

"Nnnnoooooooo!!!!" Mrs B had gone home.

No wait, that was yesterday's message. Mrs B would be arriving around 8pm.

I made my way back to the venue and was relieved to be re-admitted. I was even more relieved to find that my new found Chinese friends were still grinning away and had not tried to unwrap their gifts. There was a bit of a stand off when they were unhappy about losing them but I stood up and glared down at them. They stood up and glared determinedly at my midriff....The matter was settled when they failed to lift the rucksack - victory was mine.

The support "Music go Music" - was mostly notable for the lead singer being in a constant state of different swimming costumes - an interesting choice for a late October evening in Brixton but each to their own.

As for Franz Ferdinand - they were fantastic live. I had seen them earlier in the year, at one of the gigs that Mrs B had missed. I was right in assuming that Mrs B would love them and with the bonus of being able to see it all as well. I'm a bit undecided on this one, however: standing and being able to bop around but with a restricted view versus a good view from the circle but not being allowed to stand. Security were rather hot on this, jumping on anyone who attempted to even stand up for a stretch. Fortunately this kept them so busy that I had plenty of opportunity to rebuild the beast and get some pictures. Rather than just prattle on, I'll let the photos do the talking. I've given up trying to load the video footage.........after waiting 12 hours for the PC to fail to load only 35 seconds of footage is just getting ridiculous.

Alex Kapranos Lead Vocals and Guitar

Alex and Mick McCarthy (rhythm guitar and keyboards)

 I have some excellent video footage of Mick going

mental playing his guitar but unfortunately

Blogger won't load it at the moment

Just before the encore the roadies came on and set up

some drums at the front of the stage - The group then

treated us to some excellent percussion.

Alex giving it some emotion

No, not the shadows

Drummer Paul Thomson - giving us some stick

Getting everyone to sing along

I thought they were going to play musical chairs for a moment

When life tells us that it might be finally time to give up on Christmas
With Christmas around the corner all the miserable people who delight in wallowing around and having an awful time and want to bring the rest of us down have had their dreams answered. Yes - Bob Dylan has released a Christmas Album. Now don't get me wrong, I love Bob's lyrics but not even his mother could love his singing. Warning - these are covers and do not contain any of his own lyrics so it really is the worst of all worlds....

Swimming problems
My hair has been going through bad times recently (due to doing loads of swimming, around 2 mile a week at the moment) and has been changing just like cartoon magic, with the mere wave of a wand producing:

Ptzz

Art Garfunkel (circa early 1970's)

Ptzz

The Scarecrow's hairstyle from the Wizard of Oz

Ptzz

A bowling ball

OK that last one was not my hair but the silicone rubber cap that I am now using in an attempt to retain what little is left of it.

Inadvertently inappropriate comment of the week.

I had just dragged myself out of the pool after a mile long swim and got chatting to some bloke. Not sure how we got around to it but he mentioned a friend of his who had just given up his well paid job in the city and was cycling around the world.

I piped up "That must take real balls to make that choice." A statement which fell on stoney silence

I was frostily informed that it had cost exactly three balls to be precise as his friend had lost both and he himself had lost one to testicular cancer.... and his friend was now cycling around the world to raise funds for male cancer research.

Talk about a strike - just as well my head was in bowling ball mode....