Summer of 2008 - illustrated

Well there you go, another click of the fingers and whooooosh!! - the summer's gone. It didn't turn out anything like I'd planned. Originally, I was to have visited around 15 "Quirky" festivals around England, - in the end I managed 3! - and one of those I turned up a week early by mistake.

Mind you, I'm taking part in the "Gorilla Fun Run" in London city centre on September 27th (I've got to, I've already paid £75 for the suit).

The main reason I got side tracked was that I ended up living in Blackpool for the summer, despite what the elements chucked at us, I had a great time witnessing live shows including such diversities as "Joseph and his technicoloured wotsit", Joe Longthorne, Jimmy Carr (a bit like Chubby Brown without the loud suit), Cannon and Ball, Norman Collier, Brotherhood of Man, Paul Daniels, Boyzone and The Krankies!!.

I arrived back in Benidorm yesterday and recoiled at the heat, I've not been out of the shower since I got here, and had to sleep with my fan at the side of the bed last night, (she was thrilled). Start back to work on Sunday afternoon at the "Cumberland Sports & Social Club" as the Concert Chairman, it's a bit warm to be wearing a suit, tie and flat cap, - but I must suffer for my art.

The photos are a resume of the summer, - not including the "Bottle Kicking" and "Cheese Rolling" which took place in the Spring (though it felt like mid winter).

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Five Bloody Two!!

I went home to West Yorkshire for the weekend so that I could watch my football team and catch up with a few friends and family.

Don't really think that I could have picked a better game all season to be honest, the sun shone, we run rings round the mighty Crewe Alexander, and scored five brilliant goals!, mind you it wouldn't be Leeds United if we didn't manage to get a man sent off and concede two goals in the last 60 seconds, but hey - who's counting!.

I went with my old pal Neil Ives and as we stood, (although the ground is all seater nobody behind the goal sits - until half time) in a half empty stadium we reminisced that 34 years previously we had been in this very same stand. Back then the atmosphere was Bear pit like, a capacity 44,000 crowd crow barred into the compact stadium, the noise was deafening and a sea of white scarves shimmered above the bobbing masses as we beat a then top Ipswich side 3:2 to clinch the title champions of all of England!

Oh how the mighty have fallen, we're now in the first division, which is actually the third division in real terms and the very fact we're a division behind the likes of Blackpool and Doncaster Rovers say it all really. Spending most of my time in Spain these days means I very seldom get to watch us play and this is the first time I've set eyes on a match since I attended a turgid 0-0 draw in a pre season friendly at Scunthorpe about 5 years ago!- happy days.

These days the turn over of players is phenomenal and if you ever listen to a game on the radio - which you can't unless you happen to have a digital radio - when a goal is scored you're never really sure if we've scored or they have, the names mean nothing.

Anyway we start really well, and a sprightly young black kid with a number 15 on his back (who looks shit hot) scores with a bobbling long range effort, then some bloke who appears to be playing on the left of midfield or possibly left back lets fly with a 35 yard thunderbolt which went in off the underside of the cross bar. Early in the second half two people scored that I knew, -Douglas and Beckford, because they were there last season. Number five was scored by a shaven headed barrel of a thing who I think we signed from Swansea at the back end of last year, and even Crewe's late surge couldn't take the shine off what was a blistering performance, I had to confess I'd actually enjoyed myself. This in its self is an outrageous statement!. - I mean, you don't go to a football match to enjoy yourself do you!?. To moan, and scream at the referee, prey that you per chance get to cheer a goal, criticise the selection policy, be exasperated that you can't get a pint at half time because your'e not a season ticket holder, tell yourself that they are going to score every time that they get over the halfway line and bemoan the fact that we always sit back when a goal up, thus inviting them on to us and end up hanging on for dear life and getting home by the skin of our teeth, - but enjoy ourselves - NEVER.

We got the train back to Guiseley and partook of a celebratory pint or two and more sport in the pub. It was the turn of England football team, who, in their first world cup qualifier managed to grind out a 2-0 win against a bunch of postmen and one legged bin men form Andorra. This Andorra team are great to watch, they spend the whole 90 minutes grabbing hold of shirts, wrestling aponents to the ground, treading on goolies and feigning death, so good and pre occupied are they with this brand of football that they forgot to try and actually score a goal, which came in handy in the end

In this day of sporting extravaganza next up was the boxing. Before the main bout we had to endure Audley Harrison latest tussle with a drunk that they'd found outside in the car park which lasted 12 painstaking rounds, - when the three judges were finally woken up they gave the decision to Harrison. Then another hour to wait before the main bout, which was a world title fight whereby an English bloke beat a Scottish bloke on points which was pretty good, and then finally the main bout of the night,... Amir Khan our big prospect.

I turned round to have a quick slurp of my pint and missed it!. He was knocked sparko by one of those rock hard South Americans before Khan had chance to tie his boots up. And so to bed.

Next day I had a good old fashioned session on the lash with various friends and family in various establishments including my club (although I haven't been a member for 20 years) Hawkhill Social Club - formerly Guiseley Working Mens Club and I am now back in Blackpool packing my stuff up ready to head back to Benidorm on Wednesday.

Whilst I was away my girlfriend had to cook for herself and did very well, - apart from setting fire to the microwave whilst putting a jacket potato into orbit.

The photos by the way are of me outside Elland Road football ground with the statue of our legendary captain from the seventies Billy Bremner (which looks a little bit too much like Charlie Drake in my opinion) and the hi-tec"facilities" at Hawkhill Social Club for the smoking fraternity.

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Let There Be Light!

The seasonably bad weather took a day off the last weekend.

Yes!, for the big switch on of the illuminations at 9:30pm, I kid you not, the wind dropped, the rain ceased and the temperature was so tropical that the twenty or so thousand people that turned out on this night, did so without umbrellas, kagools, pac-a-macs, raincoats, woolly hats and snow shoes.

I had taken my jacket with me of course, - there may be a couple of weeks a year over here whereby you don't need to take one out with you, but on a night time - never!. However after about five minutes I had to concede that I had no need for such a garment and many of my fellow revellers were stripped down to vests and shorts as they packed the streets and the arena behind the promenade. It was impossible to get anywhere near the arena, - I don't know if it was the balmy weather or the lure of having Jeremy Clarkson and Co, pulling the big lever, but the place was absolutely throbbing in a way that I'd only seen previously in those old photos from 1920. I got as near as was humanly possible and although I could hear the strains of "Boyzone" who were performing live on stage a couple of hundred yards away, all I could actually see was a toilet block directly in front of me and not a lot else. Then I heard the theme tune from "Top Gear" and a countdown from the crowd in the immediate vicinity, behind us Blackpool Tower lit up and there followed a somewhat muted firework display, - the 2008 illuminations are now officially up and running - but I saw bugger all.