The fourth & last programme in Dan Snow's series about the British Navy talked about how we got from the total domination of the seas in the aftermath of Trafalgar, to the on or below par situation in the First World War ( Read more... )

Last Tuesday we got a new PS3 game. On Saturday we got our bass guitar fixed. These two facts are related ( Read more... )

Niyaz are one of the more esoteric bands that J and I listen to - fairly different from our normal rock/pop/metal staples. The core of the group is a trio of musicians who come from the Middle East originally, and play music that is based on the folk music of that part of the world - modernised, but not westernised. Their singer, Azam Ali, has ( Read more... )

We travelled up north at the weekend to go to a Maxïmo Park gig in Newcastle. Jo and Chris were going with us (and had in fact organised the trip, so thanks to them for that :) ). We headed in to Newcastle itself on Saturday afternoon to get checked into our hotel, then off to Tilleys Bar for a beer or two before grabbing dinner in one of the ( Read more... )

Marillion did a (fairly short) UK tour just after the new album came out and we went to the show in London on 16th Sept. We did a bit of museuming beforehand (which I'll write up another time), then met Ady & Pete at Kentish Town to find dinner before the show. Paul was supposed to join us too, but his trains were all screwed up so he had to give ( Read more... )

No-Man are one of those bands that I like, but never really listen to much on record unless J plays it. For ages they didn't tour, but the last few years they've played about a gig a year in the UK and I think J & I have been to all of them. This one was at the Islington Assembly Hall which isn't a venue I've been to before, quite nice inside ( Read more... )

Random thought that's longer than 140 characters, but would otherwise probably go on identica/twitter/facebook ( Read more... )

We've just come back from the Marillion Weekend 2011 - basically 3,000 or so Marillion fans take over a Center Parcs in the Netherlands, and the band play 3 shows over the weekend and there's all sorts of other Marillion-related stuff.


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Garden tap now fixed \o/ Plumber came out last Friday and got it to go off enough to leave, then replaced it yesterday and put a proper lever handle thing on the pipe inside to turn it off over winter :) That was pretty painless, wasn't even that expensive ( Read more... )

(Video picture quality unfortunately not very good, sound is fine except for the rude words being censored out, but this was the best one I found - my youtube-fu is weak.)

I got earwormed by "Thou Shalt Always Kill" off this album over the weekend when matociquala used a line from it as an LJ entry title - when I say "hey", thou shalt not say "ho" - and ( Read more... )