10 Foot and Cooking !!!!!!

This video was taken of me on a surf trip with a load of mates recently. Waves were epic and the cottage we stayed in was right on the beach.

Will Ferrell

Aka 'Ron Burgundy' and 'Frank the Tank'

If you don't know who he is then you haven't lived yet!!!! I won't go into too much detail because I'm sure we all know him for the hero that he is. Instead I have just included one or two pictures which represent 2 of the best movies I have ever seen in my life, namely 'Old School' and 'Anchor Man'

Ferrell also makes a pretty good appearance in 'Wedding Crashers' with the 'meat-loaf' scene being one of my favourites.

Anyway, here he is in action, click on the link below to hear his views on global warming.

http://www.transbuddha.com/mediaHolder.php?id=1147

Who's the Boss?

Who is the Boss indeed? Not such a strange question if you happened to be at the Bruce Springsteen concert at Wembley Arena last night.....

Myself, Darroll and Bruce (not the actual one) headed north from London along the Jubilee line towards Wembley last night, travellers (beers) in hand, smiles on our faces, and the feeling of joy in our stomachs because we were about to go watch Bruce Springsteen unleash the fury in front of a sell-out crowd.

After arriving early we dove-tailed on the drinking-before-a-concert-rule and found ourselves a small pub / restaurant type establishment which had a distinct Texan theme about the place. In hindsight this was a fairly good clue as to how the events of the night were about to unfold. After a quick feed the bellies were lined, the doors were open.....it was time to get inside Wembley Arena. Once inside it was the usual run for the bar followed by locating a good spot in front of the stage. A few more beers, some weekend banter and then.....the lights dimmed and Bruce arrived on stage.

Come on stage he did, but after about 4 songs I still wasn't sure if this was really Bruce Springsteen. Everyone around me seemed to think it was, and they were singing along to all his songs like there was no tomorrow. The fact that they seemed to be singing Country and Western songs troubled me somewhat and I reckon from where Bruce (the actual one) was standing he must have been quite surprised to see me staring back at him with a blank expression on my face while I tried to put the pieces together amidst a mass of heaving fans.

The concert was actually, Bruce Sprinsgsteen with the Seeger Sessions Band. The Seeger Sessions band comprise of about a million people all on stage at once, all with different instruments. Instruments range from banjos to trumpets to flutes to 'squash-boxes' to violins and pretty much anything else you could possibly think of. Apparently Bruce has turned to Country and is now touring with these guys and putting out a totally different song compared to what I'm used to, and was indeed expecting. So much for 'Dancing in the Dark' or 'Born in the USA', he didn't play any of his well-known hits. Not one single from the Glory Days...nothing!! And yet to be brutally honest it was one of the best live gigs I've ever seen.

I guess it had something to do with not knowing any of the songs and then being pleasantly surprised each time a new one got going. I'm certainly not a Country and Western music supporter by nature but if you're going to do it then do it properly, and apparently it would seem that Bruce Springsteen can do it properly when it comes to this type of music. I suppose I shouldn't have expected anything less from the hero that he is, but I'll admit I was caught off guard initially, but once I was 6 pints down and had resigned to the fact that I was in for something different I really started cutting loose. I especially liked the one section during the encore where they all belted out a good Irish number. Superb stuff !!!

I probably won't ever go to another Country concert ever again but I can recommend this one highly. There's just something awesome about having 17 people on stage and watching them all give it horns with Bruce Springsteen on vocals.

http://www.brucespringsteen.net/site.html

Cheap CD's......Free Shipping !!!!

Not sure how many of you know about this website, but they're pretty decent.

You can request to be invoiced in your preferred currency and shipping to anywhere in the world is absolutely free. I'm not sure what Look and Listen charge these days but I'll bet these guys are cheaper. Shipping takes up to a week so it's not suited to the spontaneous purchase but at these prices the wait is worth it !!

http://www.cdwow.com

Music Festivals Cont/....

Isle of Wight 2006.

Witness Prodigy going full throttle............

Book Review Section

If you look up you'll see that I have the book 'Catch-22' shown on the blog. When I finish a book that I think is worth reading I'll post it in this section. First up is Catch-22 and I can't recommend it enough. It's a war story but not in the traditional sense. It's jam-packed with intellectual humour and Joseph Heller writes in a unique way that will leave you both impressed and laughing all at the same time.

Music Festivals

While I bide my time waiting for the end of the year I thought I'd make a special mention about Music Festivals. If you were to force me to tell you the one thing that I most enjoyed about living in Ireland and the UK I would unreservedly say that it was the music festivals. Having never sampled the delights of our most famous local offering, namely Splashy Fenn, I was overwhelmed when I went to my first festival over here. The enourmity and level of organisation that goes into these festivals is something you have to see with your own eyes.

My first festival was Reading 2002. I joined Mike Long (Tonto) and Kurt Lindley for the 4 day slog. I say slog because at times you really do feel like you've been 5 rounds in the Octagon with Chuck Lidell and often you have to dig deep to ensure your escape out the other side of these festivals. It's an all out assault on the human body from start to finish with warm beers making an appearance from as early as 8 in the morning....every morning.

You are a changed person when you come out the other side of a festival and nothing can really prepare you for what you are in for. Having said that, once the bug has bitten you'll find yourself wanting more and more and as soon as the weather starts changing and nature gives you the first signals of warmer weather on the way, all you can think about is that fact that Summer is coming ....and that means festivals are not too far around the corner. Time to get the credit card out and start booking furiously.

The festivals I've been to are as follows:

Reading 2002 (UK) http://www.readingfestival.com/displayPage_reading.asp?PageID=445
Witness 2003 (Ireland) - Now the Oxegen Festival
Reading 2003 (UK)
Oxegen 2004 Ireland) - Formerly Witness http://www.oxegen.ie/home/
Glastonbury 2005 (UK) http://www.glastonburyfestivals.co.uk/
Isle of Wight 2006 http://www.isleofwightfestival.com/home.asp
Oxegen 2006 (Ireland)

A Quick Synopsis

Reading for me is the hardest festival out of the above. The camping area is pretty standard, no lush grassy patches to set up your tent, miles and miles to walk to the main arena and the festival goers come from all walks of life. People are there to see the music and not neccessarily for a weekend away in comfort. I've witnessed Slipknot giving it horns at Reading and when you've got a band like them at a festival you're likely to encounter some crazy followers.

Witness / Oxegen is a much more chilled festival. There is a slightly younger crowd here but it doesn't seem to take any credibility away from the festival. The fact that I'm pushing 30 probably makes me think it's a younger crowd when in fact it really isn't. Recently Oxegen has put itself on the map by drawing all the big names and has broken through and lost it's reputation as a smaller Irish festival that couldn't contend with the likes of what is on offer in the UK.

Glastonbury I found to be the most enjoyabe festival of the lot. The sheer size of it makes you appreciate how great it is. The festival kicked off in 1970 the day after Jimi Hendrix died with a gathering of 1,500 people. I went to Glastonbury in 2005 and there were 153,000 of us. There is something for everyone at this festival and it's full name is 'Glastonbury Festival of Contemporary Performing Arts'.

Isle of Wight is also an awesome festival and it gives something that none of the others do. The festival comprises of only 1 stage whereas the others can have up to as many as 8. This means that you are always with the group of mates you have gone with and never split up, unless of course someone has either passed out or got lucky.