Brass Knockers

Well, hello there. Had a nice Fathers Day yesterday in Bath, popped out for an Italian meal Artie Bucco would've been proud of. Ended up down in Pulteney Gardens, scene of the 1993 'Great Deckchair Robbery' (the deckchairs in question can be seen about 5 mins into this video), twas a typical English afternoon, there was even a brass band parping away on the band stand. Their target demographic shone through their music as the song's I heard were the theme from 'It Ain't Half Hot Mum', the theme from 'Dad's Army', the theme from 'Last of the Summer Wine' and finally, a ball-breaking rendition of our National Anthem. Disappointing really, but the old folks seem to enjoy it, it would've been nice if they'd done something a bit more upbeat; I'd even have been happy with the theme from 'Give Us A Clue' (Lionel Blair vintage) or even 'Going for Gold'.

What else has been happening? Well Kris and Ange are back safely from their travels. I say 'back safely' because according to Kristian, they pretty much cursed every destination they thought of visiting. For example, they thought of popping up to Burma, just before the Monky business kicked off; they then though about Pakistan, then Benazir Bhutto was killed. Not put off by these portents of doom, our plucky couple then thought about going to Burma, right before that terrible cyclone hit. They've been back a couple of weeks now, rumour has it they thought about popping to their local garage for some petrol on arrival. Eh? Oh.

As Neil has mentioned on his website, a load of us old BCHEers are off to play some footie and have a much needed catch up in Amsterdam on the August Bank Holiday. Really looking forward to it, we'll be looking to avenge our dodgy 3-2 defeat last year. We are aided (?) this year by having the rather intimidating figure of Neil in goal; however, I'd expect him to break his arse again (probably by slipping on some wee after a disastrous 'Eiffel Tower' impression) well before August so best not count one's chickens yet. Anyhoo, there'll be loads of build up on this site and Neil's over the next few months. Maybe we'll try to put together podcast of something.

Amsterdam nicely segueways into talk of footie in general. The new fixtures were out today, Arsenal's first few fixtures look very winnable, and we could do with a decent start again. Still, so much depends on what happens transfer-wise. I'll save that rant till after Euro 2008, which I've really enjoyed.

Glasto next week, can't believe how quickly it's come round. Really looking forward to seeing Kings of Leon, Massive Attack, Manu Chao, Lightspeed Champion and Kool Keith. Although other stuff usually gets in the way of the bands at Glasto, see ya soon...