Raawwwwkkk and Roolllll…..Man!

A pretty uneventful week in the Williams household to be honest so I expect this to be a brief.

First, I should comment on the football.  After the glorious anti climax of the first game, the entire nation was built up to expect some sort of cricket score against the Algerians.  Well, I can safely say that the game was probably the worst performance by an England side in my memory.  I have no idea what was going on, but there were footballers there who looked like average Sunday league players, after a particularly heavy Saturday night.

Louise has taken to watching the England games with me.  This is not conducive to matrimonial harmony, as when my team is not doing well I become mono syllabic and grumpy.  Louise famously came into the front room during the 2005 Champions League penalty shoot out, with me on my knees, two feet from the TV, praying. She wanted to ask me to do something like feed the cat or something equally important before I came up to bed.

My less than pleasant response meant I enjoyed tongue and cold shoulder for the next few days.  The enormity of those occasions are understandably lost on those that do not “get” football.

On Friday, I was quite upset and angry about the whole thing.  The sheer audacity of the England players to perform so badly was shocking.  The enjoyment of these major tournaments is based upon having the odd win, or at this stage, I’d settle for a goal or two to celebrate.

I suspect though, as usual, having disappointed so well, they will pull it out of the bag in the last game and get through.  Although, after Friday’s game, I am struggling to see how that would be possible for the same players to be less crap!

Enough football (until we win a game anyway).

Saturday night saw us attending a 40th birthday party for a friend of mine.  I have known him from school, and we started our first band together at the age of sixteen, and continued to be local pop stars well into our twenties, until jobs, families and hair lines started to become bigger (or smaller for the latter) parts of our lives.

We’ve only seen each other a few times over the past ten years, and always finish these occasions with promises of more regular outings, so it was lovely to meet up again, along with other members of various bands from our history.  An evening was spent remembering all the toilets we played, some of the weirder band members we accumulated through the years, and if I’m honest more than a small urge to dust off the black leather trousers and rock some ear-splitting riffs.  For those not in the know that means play some music together.

I doubt it will happen to be honest, as we all have lives full of work, families and a lack of motivation to cart a load of gear to a cold rehearsal room on a Sunday morning, but you never know.

I took along some vouchers for Simon’s present, but I also stumbled across an old band photo in a drawer, so I framed it and took that along.  We all had our best moody pop star stares on, and more crucially full heads of hair.  None of that stopped us looking ridiculous of course, but we were enjoying ourselves.

Luckily for you I don’t have an electronic copy of this (or any other photo) as all this was well before digital cameras, but just use your imagination to conjure up the image of five young blokes all in black, with mood lighting and sexy scowls.

It was very easy to get back into the old routine with everyone.  Playing in a band does bring you together differently than other friendships, and had there been a collection of instruments strewn around the room, plugged in, tuned and sound-checked (just like there always is on Glee, Fame etc) we may well have performed a few of the old classics.  Sadly there were not so we had to sit and listen to some ex Red Rose Radio DJ pump out everything from Chain Reaction to the inevitable sixties medley.  Rest assured I did not endanger the dance floor, other than to wander over and say good-bye to Simon and his wife at the end of the night.

This time we really should get together before Simon’s 50th!!

Apologies for the brevity today.  I shall promise to blog again before the week is out, you have been warned.

Till the next time…..