News

Hello,

It's been impossibly busy in the last month or so, dividing my time between being on air, doing research for the programme, keying in singles, recording my old tapes onto the computer, doing gym work and, oh yeah, actual paid work. So free time (meaning bloggery time) has sort of run dry. I needed to do an update today, simply to explain my position on a few things:

Radio 2 vs. The World

Although it wasn't exactly Radio 2 versus the World, however it felt like that for a while. I don't want to add an unnecessary layer onto something that should now be forgotten about - yet I need to write that the only person to come out of this well is Andrew Sachs, who has been dignified, blameless and gracious throughout.

U.S. Presidential Election Result

A few years back, I was pointed by someone I knew towards Barack Obama to be the next President of the USA. I nodded, and listened patiently to the excited tones explaining how the junior Senator for Illinois was making waves. I was largely indifferent to his spectacular rise until my interest was rekindled after reading an interview in the September 1st issue of NewsWeek (the line is originally from The Audacity of Hope):

"A man's either trying to live up to his father's expectations or make up for his father's mistakes."

That is wisdom, and applies to it all. Which one are you doing?

So that's why I was awake at 4am this morning, watching history occur right in front if my eyes.

Anyhow, must dash, soup to cook, sleep to do, that kind of thing.

I Am 30

What else to do but to share one of the finest bits of graffiti  in the city:

Hello

Some points, connected in no discernable order:

• All the great TV comedy situations have been created or exploited
  
• Radio is a lot harder than is seems to listen to
  
• Genius on iTunes keeps crashing when it delivers my results
  
• Mini Discs rock!
  
• Safari for Windows doesn't understand English English
  
• Neil from The Young One's character surname is Pye
  
• I can now speak visual basic...
  
• I am tired yet addicted to writing
  
• I think I may have overstretched myself a bit with charity work and real life, meant to go to the gym today but overslept by two hours, so won't get another chance to go until Friday (if I'm lucky)
  
• The second series of The Mighty Boosh was either too dark or the funny bits had been edited out
  
• Ironing is theraputic
  
• Why to people who do shoes also do keys?
  
• Why do people who do keys also do shoes?
  
• Newcastle United have made Manchester City look stable and calm in comparison
  
• Clearing your work desk out "just because people at other banks have had to put all of their stuff in boxes at short notice, and I think that would be a good idea here" as a reason doesn't go down well
  
• FC Porto have a Brazilian player called Hulk
  
• Fiesta has increased in price significantly over the last sixteen years or so
  
• I have just over a week of being a TwentySomething to go, meaning I move up an age bracket in surveys...
  

All this and more, in my head and now in yours!

Progress

My internet empire has just expanded by 100%. Click here to step into the future!

Bumper Update

Evening,

I've been a little busy of late! I have been thinking about you lot, so here is a bumper update letting you know what I've been up to. Probably more tomorrow!

Radio News

After years of procrastination, I finally got off my arse and volunteered to help at the local Hospital Radio centre. I seem to have been accepted (I've been there about a week), and have been offered broadcast training!

Hurrah! All I can say is - in December - Get Ill.

Podcast?

Through the wonders of eBay, someone sold me a very cheap Mini Disc recorder. These things are fantastic for voice recording in the field (and not in fields, for that matter). I want to be able to develop my READING OUT LOUD FOR BROADCAST skills, and have been quietly muttering rubbish into it without doing anything vaguely constructive. So, I'm considering visiting exotic places and reading these witterings out and putting them up as a podcast for you to listen to at your leisure, anywhere in the world.

What do you think?

Advertising

Hello

I thought I'd lose some more sleep and attempt some moody atmospheric adverts for this place. Not that it needs to advertise, of course. So here they are, in glorious mostly grey, white, blue and beard-o-vision. I was trying to be over the top with the moodiness, to make a "Potentially Pretentious" theme to them, but I was overcome with a desire for mildly amusing captions instead for ads two and three.

Some lighter ones maybe later this week.

My Disease...

I've been taking some pictures of myself with the artistic looking / moody beard that has been steadily covering my lower face, and one picture in particular proves I suffer from the rare condition of John Barnes Disease.

Yes, like the former England forward and occasional rapper, the lower half of my face is at least a third bigger at the bottom than the top.

Observe:

I'm not the dancers, by the way. 

Did you know that John Barnes was Newcastle's leading goalscorer in 1997/1998 with SIX goals?

Secret Crush - Crushed

A few months ago, I mentioned a secret crush on this very page, of a newsreader.

A few weeks had passed without 'accidentally' catching her on any of the news programmes, and my mind wandered to what she could be doing. Me being me, at first I imagined she could be tidying hotel rooms, dressed as a French maid. However, this would be ridiculous - but the image lingered.

I checked in on one of this great land's numerous comments boards, entirely devoted to speculation and screengrabs of lovely news presenters. I have some sad news to report. According to the group, she has left the company and won't be coming back.

Naturally, the past few days have been spent with an electrical tape black armband in grateful memory of those happy summers days when she'd would sign off the programmes with a special goodbye, specifically to me (surely!), and to the seventeen wonderous gigs of screengrabs and video on my hard drive.

So thank you for your time. You know your name - just as long as no-one else finds out!

n.b. There aren't seventeen gigs. This was made up for comic effect.

"Jews are dicks"

On the way home on the train this evening, I saw some quite large anti-semetic scrawlings on a billboard, between Small Heath and Tyseley - "Jews are dicks". I have no doubt that this was written by children, yet I felt strangely compelled to write about it. I wonder how long an equally provocative remark about Muslims would last?

This is also the first bit of anti-Jew grafiti I have ever seen that wasn't on some half arsed UK History Nazi-fest. Yay! Three cheers for progress and understanding in the UK. Also, I did hear anti-Jew chanting from West Ham fans on a tram outside The Hawthorns in about 2003.

Welcome To New York

It's two years since visiting New York. My visit coincided with the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center. In the five years until visiting the site of the towers, every day those indelible images of the 'planes disappearing into history haunted me. If that did that to me who only heard the events live, I will never understand how it felt to be either in New York or in those fateful buildings on the day. 

By visiting, the terror aspect for me from that day was diminished. 

Here are some pictures, some sombre and some less so from a couple of great days in Manhattan and Brooklyn.

For this post, commentary is above the pictures.

We took the subway south to the pier, to visit the Staten Island Ferry on the 11th. After taking some nice views of Manhattan, we sailed back and walked north. When we seemingly ran into the entire world's news crews. I took the opportunity to stand by one of the remaining items that were beamed around the world from the lenses of Jules and Gedeon Naudet.

Here's a fat me looking away from Manhattan on Staten Island.

Atmospheric skyline shot. 

A view from the Staten Island Ferry of both Brooklyn (foreground) and George Washington bridges.

On Liberty Island, with helpful accidental picture of the hole in the skyline at the bottom right.

Times Square, at night.

The last remaining above ground bit of the WTC complex, known as the "Survivors Staircase". This was moved in March 2008.

Nice shot of a street.

Street signs for the easily confused...

And the view from the gallery...
Inside Grand Central Station
Looking South towards downtown, with Liberty Island and Ellis Island on the right.

And living a bit of a childish dream, outside the Ghostbusters firehouse!

Welcome to Birmingham, 5

Further in this recurring series, more shots that make Birmingham and its environs look attractive and occasionally sexy.

Firstly, the view looking towards Wolverhampton from Tipton’s Owen Street train station. Lovely clouds.

Here, have some Birmingham Council House action.

Late night after visiting Subside, the Council House in profile, but centre stage is ( I think) Joseph Priestly. And some rain for atmosphere. And some flowers.

Lastly, the views from Tyseley station bridge looking towards the city centre. Having visited New York, I can say that this looks similar to the approach to Manhattan Island from New Jersey. Just. If you squint a bit. It was dark when I got to New York, after all.

Theft from Flickr

I am confusingly pleased to mention that I have discovered a way to ‘archive for personal reasons’ photos uploaded to Flickr. I’m sure it’s not just me that knows how to do this, but still. I spent a surprisingly short time downloading for personal archiving reasons some (68!) approval shots for one of my obscure TV crushes. Just to prove that it could be done, of course.

Fishing For Cats 3

‘Meow’ from a temporary guest.

Tennis

I picked up a following the exertions from the athletics the other week, I picked up a tennis racquet for the first time since leaving the warehouse. Now my bro and I have played two truncated sets over two weekends, and have completely wrecked ourselves. We have a lot of respect for tennis players who make it look easy and have more fitness than it first appears. My groin didn’t recover for days.

So extra kudos to Andy Murray in New York after beating the world number one Rafael Nadal to get to the final against...the best male tennis player in recent times, Roger Federer.

British people need to learn that there's more to tennis than two weeks at Wimbledon!

Woktastic

A few words of thanks for Woktastic who offered me some free sushi outside of their new restaurant in Paradise Forum (Birmingham’s Central Library). I have been keen to try some sushi and was excited to try some for free. Unfortunately, it was soaking in vinegar. I am grateful for the opportunity to try something new, so I’m more than happy to drop a free plug for their restaurant and website. Harigato!

The Nothing Too Pretentious Cookbook

Yes, apologies to the flood of people who have mailed in - 200°C is also 400°F and Gas Mark 6.

Thanks.

The Nothing Too Pretentious Cookbook

Two pots or fewer, or your money back!

I’m not the most adventurous of cooks, but there are a few comfort food dishes I really enjoy cooking. They are easy to produce, tasty to eat and straightforward to wash up.

Of course I’d like to share a few recipes with you! Today we have:

Unpretentious Lasagne

Feeds between two students and six hardcore dieters.

You will need:

One non-stick pan

One thumb deep rectangular oven proof dish

One wooden spoon

A chopping/cutting knife

Ingredients, all available from your local supermarket:

500g Mince

Lasagne Sheets (ready made)

Tomato Puree (tube)

White Sauce (Béchamel, usually – but sold as “White Sauce”)

Cheese, grated

Some chopped Basil (fresh - good, dried - ok)

Suggested: sliced peppers, sliced mushrooms or tinned sweetcorn

Method:

Oven on to 200C in preparation for later.

Hob to full whack.

Throw mince into non-stick pan and sprinkle in basil. Stir until cooked (i.e. not pink, brown is also ok). Add other suggested ingredients here, if you want. Once this has been mixed in, dump in tomato puree, as much as coats the mixture you have made. Reduce heat to about ¾. Gently add in more tomato puree until it looks like a very thick sauce, covering most of your mixture.

Get your dish. Spoon in mixture to cover the base of the dish. Smooth until relatively flat. Cover this layer with another layer, of the lasagne sheets. Completely cover the mixture. Repeat this process until you have run out of mixture. Top your last layer with more sheets. Pour over the top your white sauce. Cover this with grated cheese.

Bung lot on the top shelf of the ready heated oven for 30 minutes. If you haven’t done it already, turn off your hob.

After 30 minutes, the Unpretentious Lasagne is ready to serve. Caution! Hot. Caution! Moreish.

Lasagne is good served on its own, but goes well with a small portion of fresh steamed veg.

Don’t worry if your meat/veg mixture isn’t cooked thoroughly in the pan, it gets a full half-hour of raging heat in the oven.

Enjoy!

Tune in another time for more unpretentious cookery.

Insane Bolt

(The start bit of this post really should have been published about three weeks ago.)

This afternoon, I saw a sporting feat that left me speechless. Usain Bolt from Jamaica became the first person to run the 100 metres in a time under 9.7 seconds *. And wasn’t even trying for the last 25. 

9.69.

That time is as long as it takes to read that first paragraph.

I thought that the TV had broken at first. That victory margin was so immense, it couldn’t be real.

Watching that started me thinking about my days as a champion sprinter, running the same distance in 11.07 seconds, ooh, more than a decade ago. After thirteen years away from the track, and numerous bacon sandwiches later, what would my time be now?

The other thing in my mind was Michael Johnson doing something similar at about 4am in Atlanta, in 1996 in the 200m. In some ways, the Michael Johnson race is more outstanding; Bolt shaved 0.03 seconds from the world record in his victory, in 1996 Johnson took 0.4 seconds off a record that had stood for twenty years, destroying a world class field. The pace even dragged the surprised Frankie Fredericks under the then world record mark.

(Fast forward a few days…)

Usain Bolt took Michael Johnson’s 200m world record away from him with another blistering performance to take gold in Beijing, reducing the mark from 19.32 to 19.30. 

(Further days pass…)

So, I stepped on the track, and after some practice and re-acquaintance with blocks and on track psychology, ambled to a decade’s best of…15.44s.

Can this be bettered? With I ever get close to 11 seconds again? Is there a better way to time these things than with an iPod and shouting?

All these questions and more will be answered over the coming month, in a quest to shave a second or so off this fastest time in thirteen years.

*With a ‘legal’ wind speed of less than +2.0m/s, accuracy fans.