Tag: Level 42

Tonight Matthew, I’m Going To Be a Whinger….

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon, Walt Disney World

It has been a music filled week, with a band rehearsal on Monday, a trip to a gig on Tuesday and a gig of our own on Friday. I have indeed had the music in me this week.

The gig we watched on Tuesday was Level 42 at the Lowry and it was superb. I know they won’t be everyone’s cup of tea but the level of musicianship is incredible. Louise came to see them for the first time ever and was impressed with the quality of the whole thing. Before the gig we also had an all you can eat Chinese buffet so it would take a pretty horrendous gig to bring me down from that high to be honest, but there was no danger of that.

If you fancy a watch of what we saw here’s a song from the night. Not my video by the way so thank you to whoever filmed it and put it up on You Tube.

The gig of our own on Friday was our first with our new singer and just to make that transition more interesting we have changed the majority of the set too. The venue wasn’t quite as grand as The Lowry in which we enjoyed Level 42, but any performance with a load of new stuff to think about reminds you what the colour of adrenaline is.

It went well. Very well in fact, considering it was a first time through that set so we were pleased.

The other thing which seems to have dominated my thoughts was of course Hurricane Matthew. Naturally, most of my social media feeds are dominated by Florida content so it was inevitable that I would see a lot about it. With the current state of the UK, living overseas has been even more appealing recently and of course my first destination of choice would be the sunshine state. Aside from the recent threat of Trump getting elected there aren’t many things which have ever put me off living in the US and specifically Florida, but the threat of these severe weather events is one.

We have been incredibly lucky over the years considering that we’ve nearly always holidayed in peak hurricane season. Sure, we’ve had some rain and the odd impressive storm but our timing has been impeccable in avoiding anything major. I do remember missing Charlie by one day and turning up at Cypress Pointe to see a chuck of it not where it should be. In fact during that trip we saw one of the most impressive and scary storms we’ve ever had in Florida. I think it might have been that same year that we were also the last flight out of the airport before it was closed due to an incoming hurricane/tropical storm.

You don’t mess with this stuff!

With this in mind I was dismayed at various points last week to see lots of questions and more worryingly moans going on in the lead up to Matthew arriving about what I would politely call first world problems. Nobody has to tell me how important these holidays are and how much time effort and money goes into them but when an entire coast is being evacuated the fact that you’re going to miss your Be Our Guest reservation doesn’t register on anyone’s give-a-shit-ometer. Complaining that it was going to be hard to entertain two small kids during the curfew or not getting a refund for your Not So Scary ticket immediately are other examples which make you a knob.

I have to be careful here as the last time I mentioned a mild opinion on these Facebook groups about Orlando and WDW, I was promptly banned from one of them for having thoughts on my own blog that *might* have been about that one group, despite me never having posted in it. The internet is an odd place sometimes. Typically when any internet forum or group gets to a critical mass the moderators can have a tough time keeping their fingers away from the ban button. After this post I may find myself losing my broadband provider and eligibility for an ESTA for offering my own opinion on my own blog about no Facebook group in particular.

As I say, I do understand how gutting it can be to spend all that time planning and saving, having almost each moment planned in fine detail only to have some world event or force of nature spoil things. When shit goes down on the scale we saw last week, I’m afraid you suck it up, count your blessings and move on.

It was good to see Matthew move off the coast a little and give most parts of Florida an easier time than predicted but there has still been some horrendous damage and even deaths in Florida which is just awful. I can’t even begin to comment on the horrors seen in Haiti. Those poor people…..

So if you pissed and moaned anywhere about anything other than serious damage to your property or injury to a loved on, then shame on you. If I haven’t been banned from all of the internet for daring to have an opinion and still have access to my own blog next week I hope for cheerier stuff to blog about.

It’s great to see Florida almost back to normal since and if you’re over there I hope you can pick up your lives. holidays and anything else that was put on hold for a while.

Till the next time…..

Gigs, Gore and Getting No Planning Done.

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

Now that all the initial excitement and euphoria about Emily getting her job at WDW has subsided, we’re now having to get our heads around her not being here for a year. That is the down side of this whole thing of course. It will be a huge change for all of us and of course for Emily. I say that as a Dad who still uses the Find my iPhone app to check she has arrived safely at work when she drives there. It’s about three miles away.

If she is to move away, I think we all feel better about it as she is off to Disney. She knows the place well, and working for the mouse, it is clear that there are rules, regulations and other stuff in place to make the sure the young folk on their programmes are looked after.

She is slowly working her way through all the admin and paperwork that will enable her to go, including a CRB check (which costs), an admin and accommodation fee (which costs), and of course her flight and visa (which costs). This programme is not something to casually consider on a whim. It tests the candidate’s commitment, determination and bank balance at every stage.

After my very busy week of planning, outlined in last week’s post, I have done absolutely nothing holiday related this week. I’ve been busy in other ways, mainly with work, with a couple of very busy days down in Marlow doing all sorts of worky things. On Tuesday night it was that time again for our regular pilgrimage to the Level 42 tour. It tends to come round every couple of years, and this time marked the 30th anniversary of my first ever gig, which was Level 42, in the same venue, the Manchester Apollo.

My brother and I met up after work for a large and lovely McDonalds before making our way to the second row for the gig. This was to be the closest we have ever been to the action at a Level 42 gig and it was super to be so.

A lack of planning and forethought on my part meant that I had to be up at a stupid hour on Wednesday morning following the very late (for me) night on Tuesday to make my way down south. The drive down was a blur of energy drinks and open windows in an attempt to avoid an abrupt meeting with the central reservation.

Having made it in one piece, the next couple of days were a whirlwind of meetings as they normally are when I’m down in Head Office until I escaped on Thursday evening for the race home. Whilst in Marlow, I realised that I have a strange wife. Louise is currently on a placement in the Operating Theatres at our local hospital, and I woke early on Wednesday morning to this text.

 

and then later, more detail, as I needed that!

(WARNING: SKIP THIS NEXT ONE IF YOU ARE SQUEAMISH ABOUT GORE AND STUFF!)

Having vomited all over my desk at work, it made it crystal clear that nurses are a special breed, and it’s a good job there are odd folks like them out there. It works both ways, as not everyone could endure my job. Sometimes the stapler in my top drawer can jam, and I have often drawn blood trying to fix it. We are all heroes in different ways. By the way, the “patient” was brain dead, hence the beating heart!

Hopefully you weren’t eating when you read those texts!

So I resolve over the coming week to find some time (not in working hours of course) to do some more planning. The next stage is to loosely plan on which days we’ll eat where. I have my list, to which it has been suggested I should add Senor Frogs, and I see no reason not to, and I will use said list to allocate an eatery to an appropriate day. If there are any new or little known good places to eat then please do let me know.

I am also looking for recommendations for the “next series” to watch. We’ve done all the obvious ones –

  • Breaking Bad
  • Homeland
  • Orange is the New Black
  • The Killing
  • A good many Dexters, but not finished them….

and loved them all in different ways. We have Netflix and Amazon Instant Video (and no social life clearly) so if you have found one of those gems that compels you to binge watch at the expense of living your day to day life, we need to know about it. I thank you!

Till the next time…..

It was 29 years ago today….

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

Well, not quite today, but close enough.  What is the anniversary to which I refer?  The last time I had to blow dry my hair?  The last time I wore a pair of pants with a waistline starting with a 2? The last time I had a positive bank balance?

No, none of the above.  It was in the autumn of 1983 that I attended my first ever gig.  I was fourteen at the time, and had to really convince my Mum to let me go with my brother, as it was at the Manchester Apollo, in Ardwick.  Trust me, she was right to be worried.

Now, a fourteen year old in 1983 had a smorgasbord of musical delights to choose from as my first gig choice.  A look at the charts of the time reads like a who’s who of big hair and pompous pop.

  • Paul Young
  • Mike Oldfield
  • Heaven 17
  • Elton John
  • The Police
  • David Bowie
  • Iron Maiden
  • and Bucks Fizz

I was not one of normal tastes to be honest, and even now I tend to not like the mainstream.  Adele, Coldplay, U2, and the likes do not and have never floated my raft.  I may have mentioned that a couple of times?

Back in 1983, influenced by my brother for sure, I liked a band not at this stage really troubling the charts.  They were cool, niche and under the radar, which is also known as skint and not famous.  Being vaguely musical, which means that I’d started playing bass about six months earlier, and my brother at the time being a drummer, we appreciated the muso-ness of bands, and none came more muso than…..Level 42.

At this time they still wrote jazz funk instrumentals, and had some distance to travel to get anywhere near the chart topping days of about four years later when they found a few hits and multi-million selling album or two.

So off I went to my first ever real gig, and was blown away.

1983 looks a long time ago!

Fast forward twenty-nine years, and on Friday, the same two of us sat in the same theatre, with a few more pounds and a lot less hair, to watch them all over again.  I’ve lost count of the amount of times we have seen them live in the intervening years, but it is a lot.  The line up has changed a bit, but in recent years with a settled line up, and a re-established following, they are back playing fairly large venues again, and despite their advancing years they still have it.

I know they will not be everyone’s cup of tea, and most folks will only be aware of a couple of singles, but that’s Ok.  I don’t need you to like them too!

In recent years the usually annual gig has become a chance for me to have a night out with my brother, which we don’t do often enough.  Now you will know that any night out involving me will involve food, and on Friday we met after work in Manchester and wandered up to the ever so trendy Northern Quarter.  A place full of grown men in cardigans and converse, meeting in pubs after a hard week creating mood boards at their inevitable agency.

We went to Trof.

Trof
It’s cool cos it’s spelt wrong

The music was too loud, it was jam-packed, and there was nowhere to sit, but we got a drink and persevered anyway, based on my brother’s previous dining experience here.

We took a table as one appeared, and despite a small hiccup where my brother tried to order from some girl who just happened to be wandering past our table, we were soon eating.

We had a Middle Eastern Sharing Platter to start.  It was your usual olives, feta, halloumi and falafel etc, and it was delicious.  By the time our mains came we were already filling up, but I somehow managed to neck all of my Pulled Pork Burger and Fries.  My God, I was stuffed, and we both had to leave fairly quickly to get some fresh air and try to walk off the impending cardiac arrest.

Thankfully we had a decent walk to the car, a short drive and then another walk to the theatre so we felt less like dying once we got there.

You may not believe me, but it was busy.  The queue for a drink was in need of a fast pass so we didn’t bother.  I couldn’t fit another ounce of liquid in my stomach anyway!

We took our seats, applauded politely for the support guy and waited for the main event.  So the lights dimmed and of course a dozen numpties came charging from the bar, as they had to have every last second in there didn’t they.  So this meant that they had to get to their seats in the dark, making the whole row stand up, and therefore blocking the view of half the theatre just as the show started.

These same folks then went for wees, more drinks, and inevitably more wees pretty much all the way through the show.  I almost wore my tut out.

I took a bit of video, all dodgy quality but here is the opening, until the row in front had to stand up for the aforementioned twonks came in from the bar.

The gig was great as ever.  We marveled at the musicianship, felt nostalgia for the video clips shown on the big screen behind them, and clapped a lot.

Mark King
Not the Levellers

They played a mix of some really old stuff, which had some of the less cool and hard-core fans than us a little bemused, along with all the hits….and there are quite a few.  Something About You, Hot Water, Lessons in Love, Running in The Family, are the most obvious ones, but they have shifted a load of records over the years.

They left us with ringing ears and a promise of a return in 2014 with a new album.  We wandered back to the car wondering what that would bring, and picking out examples of the fancy Dan musician-ship we’d just witnessed that separates them from mere mortals and Dire Straits.  Oh yes, I could never tolerate them either, despite that bloody Brothers in Arms CD being in every house in the 80s.

I hope you enjoyed the slightly different approach this week.  It still more or less took the form of a trip report, but I did forget to take photos of our food!  Mind you it was so bloody dark that us two old gits had to use the lights on our phones to read the menu!!  Once illuminated we then had to move it in and out of eye range until we got a fix on the microscopic text.

That wouldn’t have happened twenty-nine years ago!

Till the next time……

Level 42 – Channel 4 and other final scores.

by mkingdon, posted in Garage Conversion

Kevin McCloud is ignoring my calls it seems.

Not one person from Channel 4 has been on the phone following my last post about our intended Grand Design.  During the week I even tweeted my delight that he had joined Twitter (@Kevin_McCloud), and I thought this event was obviously driven by my last blog post where he was name checked.  Alas no.

So it seems our development will go un-televised.

Nearly all of the required ducks are now in a lovely row, enabling us to give the builder a go ahead, and brace ourselves for whatever disasters may befall us on our journey to four bedroom-ness.  I have ordered the alteration to our Gas Service (robbing bastards), and await a date when they may or may not turn up.  Unfortunately it seems that very soon we are going to have to begin the arduous and depressing task of emptying the garage of all our junk.

This means throwing away lots of stuff, but we need to find a new home for other stuff, and that means purchasing a shed for the back garden.  My journey to middle-aged conformity is complete.  I have two children, I drive a Mondeo, and will very shortly own a shed.  Tragic!

Anyway, I embrace my beige tinted middle of the roadity.  If time and memory permit I shall photograph the project at relevant stages so you can travel with us.  I’ll pop round to your house too, and throw some dust into your living room to increase the realism for you.

Better news this week is Louise’s continued return to something like health.  Crucially she feels up to doing some ironing now, and who am I to stop her?  The next major milestone will be her ability to drive, alas that is a few weeks away just yet.  She is becoming a little stir crazy at this point.

 

Level 42
Level 42 and a head

 

Onto events of the past week, I’ll start with last Sunday, when (as my belated birthday present) my brother took me to see Level 42 at the Manchester Apollo.  This was, I realised, a replica of my first ever gig, aged thirteen, at the same venue, with the same brother, seeing the same band.  This tour is their 30th anniversary, and having seen them countless times between 1983 and last Sunday, I’m fairly sure they do get better with age.  They are one of the tightest live bands I have ever seen.

From time to time they have a new member here and there, and this time saw a new drummer.  Well, I say drummer, but that intimates that he is human.  After watching him play for an hour and a half, I’m not sure.  I suspect he is actually some sort of multiple limbed alien being.

Have a look….

The audience was the usual mix of middle-aged chaps who were there back in 1980, who hate it when the ladies jump up to dance to the string of hits from the back end of their career, and dancing ladies who know about four songs who annoy all the grumpy blokes who just want to sit down and revel in the abject muso-ness of it all.

As you know, I was involved in playing music in bands and stuff, but frankly, every time I go to see the Lev, I struggle to equate what I used to do with what they do with such apparent ease.  As my Dad always says when he watches professional golf  “They play a different game to me!”, despite the fact that he has been a single handicapper for decades.

Well, in this case my handicap is an under abundance of talent.  Still, going to see a band that I have worshipped since puberty is lovely.  There is a real feeling of comfort, and you know that you are in safe hands as they rattle through the set.  Every now and again they throw in one of the old obscure tunes, if we are lucky an instrumental, and those “in the know” sit back and smugly watch the “glory hunters” who came along sometime around “Something About You”  look at each other quizzically.  Small pleasures!

The rest of the week has been relatively uneventful, other than the usual schedule of work, and the writing of trip reports.  I got two done this week, and hopefully one or two more to follow over the weekend.  We’re not far from the end now, which for those who bother to come here, I guess, will be sad to hear.  For others who do not enjoy the non stop deluge of knob gags interspersed with the odd photo, then The Dibb will soon be safe to return to.

Any plans for the early booking of next year’s trip have been shelved, as amazingly, the ample budget (we thought) that we had allocated to the garage conversion has been soaked up, almost to the penny.  It is as if every party involved knew upfront what our budget was, and have priced their elements in a conspiracy to get their hands on every penny.

 

Cobweb Cottage
Le Maison mon Frere.

 

So with things likely to go wrong/cost more, we need to just watch what we do until we are done and then take stock.  Knowing our luck with previous similar projects we shall be in a tent in the back garden next year.  As I’ve said already, I think all of us are ready for a change (although if someone is looking to fund us a trip just so I can do another trippie then don’t get me wrong, please contact me!!), and it may be time to do something very different.

The West Coast really appeals, and if funds allow this will be my first choice.  If funds don’t we may plump for a decent beach destination, and if we are really skint we’ll do a week at my brother’s house in France.  That may sound ungrateful, but I should explain that his house is WWWAAAYYYY out in the sticks, and is meant as a pure get away from it all and relax place, which with two teenage girls, has its drawbacks.  Mainly the complete lack of the internets!!

The only concern I have with a beach holiday (WARNING: SNOB ALERT) is the fear of getting to a hotel which is all kid’s clubs, Agadoo and knobbly knee contests.  I would literally rather eat my own earwax, and being honest often do.

As all self-respecting middle-aged, Mondeo owning, shed buying Dads say…..”We’ll have to wait and see”.

I shall see you soon for more riveting garage updates!

Till the next time….