Jeff Beck at the Royal Albert Hall

Had a phone call from the finest guitar player that I know personally on Thursday night asking if I would be interested in going to see Jeff Beck on Saturday night as he had a spare ticket. Are bears Catholic etc?

Transport in from West London was a nightmare as the tube line was shut for engineering works but we caught a cab and made it there with plenty of time to spare. It was his first time at the venue and he was impressed by the building and view from the bar, I had been there once before in '83 and had seen Jeff on that night as well along with a very interesting line up which will make another post.

It was very hot and humid inside but once the music started we forgot all about that, damn fine gig from a group of very fine musicians and the bass player deserves a special mention Tal Wilkenfeld who is only 23 but you would never guess that from her playing.

The show passed by very quickly and all too soon came to an end and when they came back for the encore they were joined by Dave Gilmour; some cove in the audience sitting much closer caught it on video.



We came out into the cool of the evening and after a restoring pint of Fullers London Pride set off on the long trek home, caught a bus to Hammersmith and found that the tube was still out. Missed a replacement bus service by 20 seconds and so ended up on the last bus to Ealing with a bunch of other people.

A big hello to the 3 “happy” and loquacious drunks who were sitting behind the 2 happy Scotsmen – you provided an amusing backdrop to the seemingly interminable bus journey around West London tube stations. Reached his place around 01:00 and then sat up for another 2 hours chatting and viewing part of his guitar collection.

BMW 325i

Last Sunday morning D arrived at my place not long after nine and we set off to drive round the M25 for the second time in 2 days and had a pretty uneventful trip to Orpington – no aircraft to see apart from the usual commercial stuff. With wallet in hand this time he completed the deal and prepared to head off in his second hand Mazda 6 (complete with climate control and an mp3 jack on the sound system).

Meanwhile I was preparing for a trip down memory lane as I had not driven a 325 for 15 years; I bought one of the first ones imported into the UK back in '85 kitted out to my specification with metallic dark green paint and the optional ABS system. This was one fine car to drive with it's gorgeous 6 cylinder 2.5 litre engine delivering the power to the rear wheels as the gods of motoring intended all good handling cars to do.

Over the next nine years we clocked up 145,000 miles and I had a lot of fun driving it, especially on the roads in the Highlands but not in the winter – it was a pig to drive in snow unless the boot was packed with heavy stuff.

One Sunday morning in July '94 I got up came down the stairs and opened the kitchen curtains at the back of my house and there was an empty space where my car should have been resting. Never saw it again and in December of that year I acquired a two year old “farmer's car” that has been my ride since then.

First thing that struck me leaving the garage was how weird the accelerator felt as it is a full size one hinged on the floor, after stalling it on the first attempt to leave I slowly readjusted. The trip back went well initially until we hit a jam one junction before we were due to leave the M25 and were stuck for 20 minutes; at least I had D's mp3 player hooked up to his sound system via a device inserted into the cassette player.

It was only when I hit the last 5 miles of B roads that I was able to open her up and have a play – creating a large gap to the car in front before flooring it in 3rd and listening to the engine sing as the revs passed the 4000 mark.

Still a pretty looking car even after 20 years but underneath the skin there is over £1,000 worth of welding to be done to get it through it's MOT next month so sadly she has to go – brought a huge grin to may face though.

News

Wallabies high on opium poppies make crop circles in Tasmania – you learn something every day, Australia makes half of the world's legal opium came as news to me.

This is bizarre, turns out that if you drink 4 to 10 litres of cola per day then you can paralyse your lungs – I would have thought that obesity would have done for your long before that; or maybe it was diet cola?

The aptly named French rugby union player Mathieu Bastareaud (pronounced Bastard?) claimed that his facial injuries had been caused by 4 or 5 men beating him up at the end of a night out in Wellington New Zealand. Now, there are some parts of the UK where this could be believed but New Zealand – WTF?

After being shown cctv footage of him returning safely to his hotel he came clean and admitted that he had drunk too much and fell over in his hotel room; Bastareaud added “that he had not wanted to upset his family, who are deeply religious”.

Three wolf T shirt sales soar at Amazon following a joke review.

Bunny Wailer 101 – Blackheart Man

Well summer has finally arrived and in this house that means that it is time for even more reggae music than is usual; back when they were known as just The Wailers the vocal harmonies of Bunny, Peter Tosh and Bob were pretty amazing and still make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and bring a smile to my face.

They split in 1974 to pursue solo careers and Bunny is the only one still living, a deeply spiritual man his lyrics often reflect that and he has written and produced some great songs. Have been lucky enough to see him play live on a few occasions and have never been let down; so for the next few weeks I will be posting a Bunny Wailer track once a week.

We start with the title track from the album of the same name, and here is a link to his MySpace page..

Lancaster Bomber & Friends

Yesterday lunch time I had to take a trip round the M25 with my friend D to collect his “new” car from a place 55 miles away, the journey passed without incident until we came off the motorway to head to the town where the garage was located. We were listening to Spirit on his MP3 player but had the sunroof open and suddenly heard a mighty roar of engines, looked up and saw what D claimed was the only Lancaster aircraft still flying passing low over us.

It was followed by a Spitfire and then a Hurricane both impressive aircraft to see up close and personal; Biggin Hill airfield was around 10 miles West of us so we guessed the the Battle of Britain Memorial Flight must have been putting on a display from there.

Got home and ran a search for some footage to share, unfortunately the best looking one comes with a sound track, all very inspiring but as a self confessed petrol head I would rather have had the noise of the engines as the sound track. This clip claims that there are 2 of these fine aircraft still flying, whatever.



Arrived at the garage not long after and D discovered that he had left his wallet behind when he had changed out of the shorts he had been wearing while gardening and had no means of paying the £6,000 balance on the car. The air in the car on the return journey was turning pretty blue until we spotted another large aircraft flying low above us, it was a Vulcan bomber but that is a tale for another day.

So later on today we have to make the journey again, this time with his wallet – doubt if we will be lucky enough to see so many find old aircraft on our travels.

Beer 121 – Black Sheep's Riggwelter

According to the label Riggwelter means a sheep that is on it's back and cannot get up without help, and I think that if you overdid it on this stuff it could have a similar effect on a human.

Another fine ale from one of my favourite breweries this one is a dark red in colour (though the pic does not really show it) and has a strong malt taste to it, an abv of 5.7% means that it should be consumed with care if you don't want to end up like a Riggwelter!

Leonard Cohen

The man is one fine poet and at the age of 74 is still one kick ass performer, saw a recording of this gig a couple of weeks ago and was blown away. Some great musicians and backing vocalists made for an hour of very interesting listening and viewing, but do not take my word for it see and hear for yourselves:



Check out this version of Democracy and if you are not in the UK try clicking on the link to the LeonardCohen posted video of Hallelujah that is on that YouTube page. It does not work here but is worth spending the time to catch it.

Times = Scum

Following a hearing in the High Court a serving police detective from Lancashire has had his identity revealed and has been disciplined by his force.

Nightjack's writing was always worth a read and while I never linked to him I was always a regular visitor via my blog pal Noddy's place (who has not posted for a month – should we be concerned about him?).

What “service” was served by revealing Nightjack's identity? Certainly not the public interest that the judge claimed; I have been reading police blogs for some time now and they have given me (an ordinary member of the public) an insight into the astonishing amount of bullshit landed on them from the government via their SMTs.

It amazes me that front line officers ever find the time to catch criminals what with all the form filling and box ticking that they are supposed to perform. Nightjack's only mistake was to put up a link on his site which allowed the Time's journalist to identify him – so my message for other police bloggers out there is to be extra careful about any external links you have on your blogs.

As for the Times, well the post title sums up my feelings on the matter – their actions have done nothing for the public interest, have almost certainly damaged the career of a police officer who genuinely cared about the kind of service the public were actually receiving and have confirmed my thoughts on the lazy and sensationalist nature of dead tree journalism.

Travelling Day

Making the long trip back down South today, the week has fair flashed by but I had a grand time catching up with friends and family and feel that my batteries have been well recharged.

Here are some more pics that I took the other day of my favourite river (Spey) and in the distance the Cairngorms – now if I could just find a job up here I would be moving back in a flash.



Here is the bridge that I took the photos from earlier in the week:



This one is what used to be a skating pond when I was a young loon, back then it would freeze over every winter and was pretty safe to skate on. It was also used for curling matches which somehow always involved the consumption of large amounts of whiskey by the players.

Bottled Water – WTF?

Thanks to Skippy who passed on the following to D who then passed it on to me; have never bought into this bottled water “scam” and although my reasoning was not green based but down to my natural Scottish tightness about how I spend my cash it would appear that I have been very green.

Have not checked the figures out but they are pretty scary, 17 million barrels of oil are used to produce the plastic required for the current demand for bottled water. Check it out for yourself:



The only ray of hope on the horizon was news earlier in the year that a firm in Oregon has worked out how to transform plastic into crude oil.