Tag: McBusted

A Bulging Blog.

by mkingdon, posted in All This And More, mkingdon

Some weeks when I come to write my post, I stare at the blank page wondering what on earth I am going to ramble on about. Somehow, I always manage to find something to fill the void with, but no doubt you can spot those weeks as much as I can.

Then, other weeks, such as this one, my usually quiet and uneventful life takes a mad turn and I have oodles of stuff to talk about. Whether or not it is of interest to anyone other than me is questionable of course.

I’ll get the book stuff out of the way first for you. This week All This And More had its first ever book blog review. Thankfully it was positive, so I was able to share it with you all. In total there are seventeen reviews of the book now, and again, despite all of my worst fears when publishing it, it is very pleasing to see folks enjoying it. Following closely on the heels of that review, I did my first ever author interview for the same book blog this week, which was pretty surreal to be honest. Seeing that published online was nearly as scary as the photo which accompanied it.

On Wednesday, Rebecca turned 17. Many parents question how things like this happen. They say things like “How can I have a (enter age) year old son/daughter”. Well, without pointing out the biology behind such things, it is usually because certain things happened that number of years ago, leading to their offspring being that age now. I do sympathise with that view of course, as between blinks, I seem to be sharing a house with three grown women all of a sudden, which, if you’d told the 18-year-old me that, he simply would never have believed you!

Gone are the days of Bratz, Barbies and character cakes. Instead we bestowed upon her driving lessons, paying for her holiday to Turkey later this year and some Mac make-up. The latter was definitely in contention for being the most expensive item on that list!

The rest of the week has been a blur of nights out (two) and entertainment extravaganzas. On Thursday, Emily and I went to see Panic! At The Disco at the Apollo in Manchester. Not for the first time this week, I may have been the only forty something bloke in the audience, but I think I got away with it. The gig was superb. For those not familiar with the group I’ll post one of their better known songs here, as a form of education!

So we had a good night, and it is always nice to spend some time with one of the girls like that.

The very next night, all four of us had a night out at the McBusted gig at the Phones4U arena in Manchester. Busted hold a special place in the hearts of the girls as they were their first real band, and the first one they ever saw live back in 2003. Once news broke of this tour with McFly we had to get tickets, and again it would just be lovely to be out as a four again. We do it so infrequently these days.

You may question why a man of my style, taste and undoubted good judgement should wish to attend such a gig? Well, I’m not ashamed to say I like McFly. There are a couple of reasons beyond their songs being decent pop stuff too. Tom Fletcher is a huge Disney fan, regularly visiting WDW, so he’s worth a follow on Twitter, which is what I’ve been doing for a while. Danny Jones from McFly grew up literally around the corner from us, so we’ve always taken an interest in how he was doing with his band as his fame and success increased. I think they write decent songs, and suffer from being tagged with a boy band label, and as such largely don’t get the credit they deserve.

So we got ourselves to the arena, and after a small kerfuffle when our seats didn’t exist, we were reallocated, closer to the stage and we waited.

mcbusted girls

After three support acts, the average age of which were less than most of my underpants, the main event started and I have to say I loved it. The effort that had gone into the production was incredible, ranging from a DeLorean car on stage, to a full size space ship descending from the sky with the band on it. This was the highlight for us, as our newly allocated seats were literally next to it and we had a great view for that section of the show.

mcbusted space ship

The girls took loads of video too, but I’ll leave that to Emily to post on her blog as I think that is the subject of her next one. I’ll point you at it when it is up of course. I’ll just show you one video, which, is the best I managed, if you ignore the fact that for some reason I turned my phone sideways towards the end!

Overall it was just a really good night, a great show with an enormous amount of thought and detail going into it, and something that put a smile on all of our faces. It was lovely to see the girls jumping up and down, singing and remembering all the words to the Busted songs they lived and loved over ten years ago.

So we’ve had an entertaining and busy week. To finish it off, we’re off to the cinema tonight to watch Bad Neighbours, with Zak Effron. He’s in it, he isn’t coming with us! Emily seems keen to see it for some reason! This by the way, is the reason for the early posting today. I hope this break from routine does not blow your minds too much.

Lastly before I let you go, my latest guest blog for Floridatix, How to Enjoy Orlando Without the Queues, was published last week too. It would be very helpful if you could give it a click and a read and a Like etc. It covers things to do in Florida that you don’t need to queue for. You will notice it does not then include the bathroom in our villa/hotel room!

Till the next time….

Noddy Holder’s Letterbox

by mkingdon, posted in mkingdon

Somewhere in Birmingham, there is an elderly chap sat by his letterbox waiting for the Performing Rights Society cheques to arrive. His mutton-chop sideburns twitch in anticipation of the royalties from Now That’s What I Call The Same Christmas Songs Every Year 127 to land on his doormat. Noddy likes Christmas.

Yes, the supermarket ads are on, they are all shite, and will make absolutely no difference whatsoever to where I buy my matchmakers and celebratory Heroes this Christmas. Ant and Dec have sanctioned the murder of a Disney classic, John Lewis have gone all Watership Down and Asda haven’t really bothered at all.

It is mid November I may add, so anybody with their decorations up, should, much like those responsible for any minor car accident that causes me delay, be executed at the side of the road.

That seamless segue way into my traffic woes brings me to the over arching theme of last week. My soul-destroying, hope crushing commute to the office. It isn’t often the case that I have to do it five times a week, as I am often elsewhere for part of the week, so maybe that was part of the problem, but it was horrific.

Add to that woe the “fun” of Children In Need on Friday and I have had better weeks. Having to sit at my desk in my dressing gown, and how that helps some deprived child get help is beyond me, but that was the situation I found myself in. Not being able to (Pudsey) bear seven hours of Terry Wogan mis-reading an auto cue, we decided to go to the cinema instead.

We went and watched The Butler.

It was good. I know that sounds less than glowing, but we enjoyed it. It just wasn’t the life changing event it seems to have been built up to be. Oprah and Forrester were excellent in the leading roles, and it was easy to watch. I would describe it as a sort of black Forrest Gump, but not as light-hearted.

We returned home full of expensive snacks, and in my case the inevitable heart burn that Pick n Mix results in, just in time to see the only thing we were interested in on Children In Need. McBusted performed, and as we had secured tickets for their concert in May next year, we enjoyed it.

For those who have read Going Limp, (and thank you for all the five star reviews!) it may not surprise you to learn that when the intro to Year 3000 kicked in, Emily cried. As she explained, that was her childhood right there. Busted were the first band she liked, her first gig, and something which steered her musical taste to what it is today.

Rebecca is equally excited at the prospect of the gig, but managed not to cry at the first sight of them!

McBusted

I have little shame in being a forty-three year old man who will be fourteen rows from the front at their concert. It will be a family outing full of nostalgia, and probably some unhealthy food. Why should I feel shame when people go and watch Coldplay, U2 and Fleetwood Mac all the time.

By next May, hopefully well before, I also hope to have my new book finished too. See how I used all that pre-amble to simply navigate you to another stroke of my literary ego? This week I passed the 25,000 words mark.  That’s a lot, believe me, and I do kind of like it, whilst at times also hating it.

I’m probably about half way through the story as I understand it today, but the really fun part of writing, I have found in my extensive two-week writing career, is the way in which it develops a life of its own, and ideas just land out of the blue to get you out of a dead-end.  My over arching worry, beyond my competence, is that I will somehow encounter a blind alley in the story and not be able to write myself out of it. If all else fails I’ll just have an asteroid hit the earth, and introduce a Bruce Willis character as that seems to work in a lot of films.

Anyway, I’m off to celebrate the fact that Downtown Abbey isn’t on tonight. Small victories.

Till the next time…..