Losers, one and all.

Henman, you were our last hope of the Summer, and you BLEW IT! At least there is still 5 more weeks of big brother for entertainment until the football season starts again in August. Match 1 for the Owls is at home against Colchester. England's teams - losers. Henman - loser. Big brother - losers. SWFC - losers. Sigh.

You know you're living in Scotland...

... when it is a sunny, ahhhhhh, lovely day. The flat is bathed in sunshine and everything is pleasant. Thinking about a quick jaunt around the botanics which is 5 mins from here. Eating a strawberry from the fridge. Wimbledon about to start on BBC1.

Then within 5 minutes the sky goes the colour of dark death, I have to put lights on and the heavens open. It is POURING like you can't imagine. It is cold.

This is Summer. What is it going to be like in Autumn, Winter and Spring? Oh well, if I'd wanted sunshine we should have stayed on in William's flat in Cape Town, which you'll see is on the market for 2.2 million rand for those of you looking to invest.

Boris Becker...

...sounds really camp when doing commentary on wimbledon. Fear not ladies: remember the incident in the broom cupboard of a London restaurant?

1.30 am. couldn't sleep. bored surfing.

Message board for BBC weather. Some people have too much time on their hands. I found it too. Ergo...

e-learning job centre. Nothing for me here. Ironically plenty in Sheffield!

Details for Edinburgh's doctor who society. See above comment. It's coming back to TV, with Christopher Eccleston and Mrs. Chris Evans (who my sister in law sees at Waitrose occasionally). Rach and I watched the sci-fi thing on BBC4's 60's season today - Adam Adamant and the Avengers sadly look poo next to The Prisoner.

Black ipods.

Happy tree friends.

OOOOOH, new housemate Bekki has entered the big brother house. She's bisexual, has false boobs, is an unsigned singer and trainee florist. I wonder which career will succeed? Listen to her distinctly average music here.

Charlie Higson from the fast show is writing a series of James Bond novels set in his teenage years.

I'll finish up by grumbling about England's crap week of football, rugby and cricket.

I can almost excuse the rugby boys after their 14-month season, world cup win and retired and injured players. Apparently they are now officially the worst performing world champions in rugby history.

Slightly less sympathy goes to the cricketers - having just won back to back test series they probably aren't too bothered about one day cricket, but they could have selected a more competitive team.

But those useless, lousy, rubbish, namby pamby, footballers have no excuse. One competetive international tournament every two years and they fold when their 18-year old talisman breaks his foot, and then bang on about referees, fatigue and rubbish penalty spots. Once again, that was a match thrown away by negative defensive tactics. Hey - the lovely BBC allow you to relive the horror in multi-angle-slow-mo-glorious 3D shockwave. bleeaauurrgghhh.

At least France also got knocked out by Greece, ha ha ha ha ha!

Going to try and sleep again now.

Tim visits Edinburgh

...and experiences the best food on offer.


mmm... the remnants of battered haggis... 

...battered mars bar... 

...the insides of a battered mars bar... 

...who could say that does not look delicious? Timothy, in the name of scientific research, I salute your bravery.

A really cool weekend - researching many pubs, having a good wander around (in the rain on Saturday), playing with computers and visiting the Edinburgh dungeons, which was quite fun. Tim's site should have some other photos soon.

GOOD TO SEE YOU MATE!

 

Facts about IKEA

They sold 12,606,368 meatballs last year. More IKEA stats here. And there's a mildly diverting article as well.

Rodeohead!

Genius can be found here.

The Prisoner

My favourite TV show of all time is being repeated on BBC4 this Summer. Read about it here. The first two episodes were last week, but you'll be able to catch up, the title sequence tells what is going on.

Duran Duran

...are recording a new album. Everything will be OK in the world again.

La Boheme

Rach and I took a trip to the opera last night, to celebrate my birthday in a more cultured way than last year. It was brilliant - a simple tragic love story, packed with tunes, emotions, laughs, tears (the opera staple of lead woman dying of TB present)... it would be a cold heart not to be moved by it.

La Boheme is my favourite opera. I do like Wagner, particularly Valkyrie which Chris saw recently, but my personal feeling is that many of his operas contain 5-10 minutes islands of genius surrounded by oceans of mediocrity. Puccini doesn't waste the audience's time too much - we were out by 9.30 and home in time for Big Brother - genius!

The sets were superb - modern but not minimal, some real money spent - Marcello's art consisted of multimedia installations projected onto huge screens (from apple macs of course - would you trust a PC for a live performance? I don't think so. Lots of sculptures and art, interacting with the singers and the music. Apparently this show is crippling scottish opera financially, and you could really see why - �20K to stage the show each night and the theatre was only 3/4 full.

itunes

Apple's itunes music download service has come to the UK. 79p per track, download it and it's in the playlist. Plug in the ipod and it's automatically on there too. Blooming marvellous it is. It will be even better when Apple stop shafting the indie labels and hammer out a deal.

Football

Sigh.

Flea from the Chili Peppers announced the result at the gig, which raised the biggest cheer of the night... that Celtic chip on the shoulder is such an endearing trait!

Anyway, I don't care. England played well, showed that on another night they could beat France and should have every confidence to do well in this tournament.

In the meantime, BBCi have excelled themselves again, with this fantastic 3D virtual replay. Check out all the Euro 2004 games so far from every angle, including the intriguing but slightly crap 'ballcam'. If in need of cheering up, analyse Gazza's wonder-goal from 1996. Who was that scored against, I WONDER????

It's a bit of a beast, antique PC and modem users beware. Latest version of shockwave needed.

Whisky

Friday night fun with Charlie and Mel - a few pints in the Guildford Arms, then into the civilised club environment of The Scotch Malt Whisky Society, Queen's street branch.

They sell whisky decanted directly from the cask, so for some reason you can't buy standard brands. Instead, you choose from a menu with a description. I had:

Greater Speyside, Lossie - 'Explosive': "The first nosing has a bitter orange, filling out into a bouquet of orange blossom, dahlias and chrysanthemums with spice and a smear of glue. "

Islay - 'Parma violets and white soap': "Pale gold in colour, the first note is quite closed, a hint of brine (mmmm, brine) and some light medicinal notes, with a trace of footbaths."

Despite how they sound, both were quite special.

Red Hot Chili Peppers at Murrayfield.

This was my first bona fide stadium gig, and although they were fantastic, the sound where we were sitting was pretty lousy - we were MILES away, out of the line of hearing of the delay speakers - sound and vision completely out of synch. We moved nearer at the end and it was much much better.

The main set was exclusively from the last 2 albums, just great song after great song, played with total musical brilliance and telepathy, veering off on and coming back from tangents. I was hoping they'd play all the songs I listened to when I was a 16-year-old angry middle class teenager in Surrey, but I accept is nothing more than classic old git gig behaviour.

To atone, they played 'under the bridge' (cig lighters everywhere) and 'suck my kiss' as encores - both total high points, with Flea the bassist at his legs akimbo 'rawk' bassism best, eliciting many hand-signs of the devil from all the sk8ter boys around us. (My god, I really am an old git!) John Frusciante was staggeringly good all night, which I find incredible seeing as 10 years ago he could barely play anymore.

We walked there and back - what a great city!

 

Hasselhoff update...

Every German's favourite singer and wannabe Bond villan has been arrested for drink driving. Tut.

He's got his own website with photos and news. Not only is Knight Rider due a comeback, but I've also discovered he has recently released a new album:

"David's new album, DAVID HASSELHOFF SINGS AMERICA was released in Germany, Austria and Switzerland on Feb. 2, 2004 and is already at #11 in the Austrian charts!"

Giddy heights, DH. Naturally it is highly rated on amazon, something of a tradition - his 'best of' has now been favourably reviewed by nearly 1000 people.

And who says the man is past his best? The Hasselhoff for Bond 21 campaign starts here, and I suggest you all join me.

SPORT

It's one of those crazy summer sport weekends I love so much. Today or tomorrow would have been the day of the Mulehouse summer barbeque if we were still there.... ahh, happy, heady days.

8.30: rugby - All Blacks v England. Dear oh dear...



10.30 onwards: cricket - England v New Zealand. England on the back foot...

2.00: rugby - Bokke v Ireland. Well done springboks!

4.30: Euro2004 kick-off, complete with absurd opening ceremony...



...referee Collina looking like an alien...



...and Portugal losing to Greece! I've already been through the score predictor, and if Spain also beat Portugal then England might meet Greece in the quarter finals, which seems a much better prospect, forgetting the fact these so called minnows nearly beat us in the world cup qualifier three years ago.

I'm now watching Spain v Russia, before an early night, as it all starts again tomorrow - 7am kick-off for Australia v my new homeland, more cricket, a Red Hot Chili Peppers gig (tickets arrived yesterday, phew!), and straight back home to watch the England v France highlights.

you know you are living in Scotland when...

...these guys are on every corner.



...battered haggis and mars bars are on sale at the chipper up the road.



... Euro 2004 is officially not happening. I understand in England there are St George flags everywhere. Here there are none.

Still. We're joining the Scotch Malt Whisky Society on Friday in preparation for Chris's visit, and going to see the Red Hot Chili Peppers at Murrayfield on Sunday, so life isn't too bad!

Rachel's new company...

Their website is here. NGRA.co.uk

Let's hope not too many clients use .com instead of .co.uk... NGRA.com

A note about pikeycam

It will return very soon, subjects are plentiful around here. I could have taken 100 pictures of graffiti cap toting chavs in Dundee on Friday, but I was in fear of my life and my mobile.

Read more about pikeys here.

Some Edinburgh photos

Just a few snaps of moving up, of our staircase and from a lovely walk up Arthur's Seat today. See them here.

I'll put some photos of the flat up a bit later.

Euro 2004 is coming.

And I have absolutely no hope whatsoever about England's chances - not because I now live in Scotland (where I have to keep my mouth shut a bit), but because I think we are rubbish. We should make it through the group in second place behind our allies over the Channel, but then we will probably play Portugal... and the stas don't lie: the host country always gets through to the semi final. Bah!

Play it all out on the excel spreadsheet available here.

Censored!

Google is just far too efficient.

David Hasslehoff for Bond Villain...?

As reported by Empire Online - as Le Chiffre in Quentin Tarantino's authentic adaption of Casino Royale?

Football news from Belo Horizante...

Brasil 3 - Argentina 1. Marvellous!

Conference at a hospitality suite at Murrayfield Stadium yesterday - managed to sneak into the completely empty stand to take this photo. The under-21 Rugby World Cup is being hosted in Scotland this June.  

Testing photoblogging... this is me and Stef and the 3rd biggest football stadium in the world - the Minerau in Belo Horizante, home to the mighty Gallo!  

Flash games

Protect your cheese

Flexball - this is a bit hard but very nicely done.

Bubble fun - Squizz colours.

(Thanks Chris)