fringe countdown

I'll be visiting the Edinburgh Fringe later in August and am being asked by various people to mention events taking place. The main dates are between 6 August and 28 August and the full info is available here. Some shows run for the full duration and others for just a few days; as usual, there will be a blend of well known people and new people starting out.

Today I'm mentioning "Storm" - we need good satire and analysis of our esteemed leaders Bush and Blair. I think Steve Hughes will provide this. Its on my list of shows to see. At the centrally located Pleasance.

Christina asked me to mention the bubbleandsqueek Warhol production which I think she will be describing in any case. When they get the video trailer loaded I'll post a link.

tax

Enlivened by the great skip clearing activities, this weekend will also see me complete my tax forms. In the UK, we have until September before the forms need to be ready - thats if we want the taxman to do the calculations.

The main challenge is finding all the little pieces of paper that have the numbers to be transferred to the return. I think I have found everything now so I don't have any more excuses.

back to save the universe

Reggae is good listening on a hot summer day and this one made me smile. Here's Radiohead's "Airbag" done reggae style by Horace Andy.

skippy

A slight accumulation of household debris led to the hire of a skip. Some difficult questions, 'What type?', 'What size?' and so forth. I was thinking 'Yellow'. Great ceremony as it arrives on a noisy truck and then 3 hours to fill it with, er, Stuff. Sad bad thing is I need another one to finish the job.

There goes Saturday morning.

Thursday Thirteen (V28)

My last thirteen purchases

1) A train ticket from London Waterloo
2) A rather agreeable meal for two at the WInter Gardens, Marylebone
3) A taxi ride across London
4) A magazine about music
5) A strawberry smoothie
6) A cup of coffee on an aeroplane
7) A round of Guinness and other drinks
8) A small chocolate gift
9) A hotel room in Dublin
10) Two thin bicycle tyres
11) Three carrier bags of groceries
12) 65 litres of fuel
13) A bubble pack of gel finewriter pens

Add a comment, trackback or a link if you are a Thursday Thirteener!


Tag: Thursday Thirteen, free link friday

WW: Today in Dublin

Tuesday's Guinness in Dublin

Overnight stop

Full Irish breakfast with Paolo

Add a comment, trackback or a link for Wordless Wednesday!


Tag: Wordless Wednesday, Ireland, Dublin

commercial road

Lunchtime in Commercial Road, in the East End of London. This is an area well known for Indian shops and many wholesalers. Its between the City of London (global banks) and Canary Wharf (skyscraper corporates).

The only logical choice lunch was to meet at an Indian restaurant - we'd been in the City, Docklands and I came in by train. The choice of food was delicious and refreshing in the current hot London summer.

Tonight I'm in Dublin.

Tag: london, Commercial Road, city

piper at the gates of dawn

Our Sunday musical interlude opened with the Pink Floyd set playing 'Shine on you crazy diamond' - referencing the recently departed founder member of Pink Floyd - Syd Barrett.

Its difficult now to contextualise the early psychedelia of Floyd with Interstellar Overdrive, Astronomy Domine and later 'Set the controls for the heart of the sun'. The Floyd's first album was named after Syd's favorite chapter from "Wind in the Willows". The much later "dark side of the moon" references the madness which dragged Syd away from the band.

Well you wore out your welcome
With random precision,
Rode on the steel breeze.
Come on you raver, you seer of visions,
Come on you painter, you piper, you prisoner, and shine!

as the song says.

Tag: Syd Barrett, music, Pink Floyd

shake it up, baby now

This evening we wandered along to Wellington Country Park to see the Beatles, Pink Floyd and T-Rex. Well replicas of them anyway. From around six o'clock in the afternoon we found a pleasant spot of grass and chilled to firstly Pink Floyd, then Marc Bolan and finally by late evening we twisted and shouted to the Beatles. This was a well organised concert with slick changeovers between the acts and some very strong performances. The Pink Floyd numbers were great sunny afternoon music as we lazed upon the grass. Then T-Rex's songs got us cosmically rocking. Finally, the Beatles songs were played with great energy and with some good Beatle-like repartee.

A fun evening. So here's my enlargeable snaps of Paul, George and John. Ringo was hiding in the background, but should come out when I upload the video from my phone.

Paul (playing right handed!)

George with a weeping guitar

John wanting some peace, shoo be doo wah

Tag: beatles, music, live music

twin post

I'm proud to say that for this weekend only, rashbre central is twinned with holyhoses. Twinned you say? Yes, we have decided to adopt the same process as a twin town and post and collect comments together on a single topic.

And the topic is...Donuts!


So, the burning question...Are donuts better with a hole in the middle, or with jam? and what type of coating?
Please play along...
a) add your blog below
b) make a comment
c) visit our twin!

Show you have visited below!


UPDATE:
Well between holyhoses and rashbre central we seem to have around 40 comments and a superbly high quality list of esteemed visitors. If you've missed out on this, its not too late to comment and join this select band - go on - you know you want to!

Tag: rashbre, holyhoses, blogging, twin blog, twlogging, experiment

topless

This afternoon we'd decided to get a large group together run a treasure hunt followed by a pub quiz. We headed off towards a nearby stately home and in teams of four we tried to solve many difficult questions.

Some were about the gardens and some were about the inside of the house. Our team found some very helpful ladies who were visiting to properly study the plants and knew rather a lot of the answers to our complicated questions.

Then, inside the house, a helpful guide took us to look at the areas where we would be most able to solve some more of the clues.

After this, we headed from the house to another nearby spot (an old long hall called the Refectory) and here we enjoyed refreshments and a supper along with the answers to our quiz. My team didn't win anything but it was still a lot of fun. And further fun was that I'd had to borrow the little convertible coupe you see in the picture.

Tag: sunshine, surrey, convertible

grad