Tom Hanks 1 Simon Cowell 0

We are nearing the end folks. I committed to getting two days done this weekend and I did. Eleven and twelve are in the can (barring grammar corrections and tidying), and I only have one more full theme park day to do in Epcot. The last day of travelling is always a brief blur of angst, anger and airline food so it shouldn’t take long.

With a following wind, of which I have an endless supply we could be ready to roll in a week or two.  So I am hoping not to drag out this tedious teaser campaign much longer and that is something we shall all be grateful for.

Day Eleven was a long one, as it covered probably the most memorable day of the trip as we did the Keys to the Kingdom tour and Be Our Guest. Day Twelve gave some balance as it was a rest day and so was quite brief. It ended as most of our rest days do, arriving home from a theme park at almost midnight!

Writing up these last few days is bitter-sweet. Going back there, on paper at least, is glorious, but the last few days of any trip are always a series of goodbyes as we visit parks for the final time, never knowing when we might return.

Saying Goodbye to MK
Saying Goodbye to MK

Yes, I know I always say we are not going next year. It is a tradition. All I can say is that I always believe that when I say it, and this year more than most I cannot see a way in which we will be booking again.

Work just gets busier, which in one way is good, but in another bad, as it interrupts my trippie time.  The good element is that it shows that what I’m up to is going OK, and folks want more of it. Did I tell you I was a gigolo these days?

It must be how I am wired, but even when things are going well, the praise is flowing, and I’m being asked to do more, I still have this unshakable feeling that I am about to be found out at any moment. I shall retire with that feeling intact I am sure.

Louise is finishing her latest placement in A&E in style with a series of twelve-hour night shifts. This is undoubtedly hard work. Pretty much all she is doing is going to work of an evening, completing multiple hours of gruesome tasks and then coming home and snatching a few hours kip.

We will both be very glad when she finishes on Monday morning and returns to Uni until January. The student life of this being a nurse business is much easier than actually doing the nursing bit. By Monday evening, her hair will be in dreadlocks and she’ll be listening to The Smiths in a baggy jumper. Bloody students.

At least when Louise is working nights and sleeping during the day it puts an immediate end to any DIY that I may have to do. Anyone making any sound in our house at times such as these shall be subject to one of Louise’s nasty stares.

With Louise out at work last night and Rebecca at her boyfriend’s for a party, Emily got her way with the remote and we watched the X Factor. It is interesting, like rubber necking at a crash on the motorway, to see this thing wriggle and squirm as it dies a long painful death.

The contestants this year seem to be competing in a forgettability contest that makes me yearn for Jedward. The desperate tweaks to the format, and the final desperate attempts to make the final few million from it are so obvious it is an embarrassment.

Samsung devices everywhere, you know because all these singers just happened to be carrying the latest devices all from the same manufacturer, and the entire show now being constructed as a device to support the adverts that come up every six minutes. An 80’s night? Really. Based on what rationale?

Well I spotted a few, and that was all the 80s compilation albums being pushed in the breaks. The whole thing stinks of the tail wagging the dog, and I find it insulting.

As a form of antidote, straight after this shambles Jonathan Ross interviewed Tom Hanks. He is the absolute definition of class, talent, star quality and being a down right nice bloke.  Long may he continue, and if Emily gets any more excited about watching Saving Mr Banks, she might not make it until its release.

Of course Mr Hanks has a head start for us, having voiced Woody, and been a huge part of the girls childhoods, and now about to play Walt Disney, he would have to do something really bad to make us not like him. Like be Simon Cowell.

A ruddy nice bloke

Damn it, just one live X Factor show and it has drawn a rant from me already. Never mind, I feel better for it even if you don’t.

Till the next time….

 

 

 

Easy like a Sunday morning

I have wrestled with my conscience since waking this morning, and have come to the conclusion that not going to the gym today would be the better option.  I feel absolutely knackered, not helped by my lovely daughter and her friend talking and giggling until almost 2am this morning.  They were one giggle from me walking into their room, in naught but my underwear to tell them off.  However, giggling in the dark is no real reason to inflict that level of mental scarring onto two young girls.

Once they finally went to sleep, the rest of us could follow, only to be woken up by them at 8am, with more of the same giggling and talking in whispered tones that could be heard next door.  So I was up earlyish.

With a very busy last week at work looming, I know I will have little chance to visit the gym at lunch, as is my usual routine, so I really should go today.  But to be honest the “can’t be arsed” factor has been victorious for once.

With Liverpool on the telly later, and Louise out shopping with her Mum, (she must be insane to do this through choice….the shopping bit I mean, not going out with her Mum!!), I have decided to have a day full of nothing.

We watched the X Factor last night, and I always do so with mixed emotions.  Ever since I read Chart Idol by Ben Elton, my already cynical view of these shows, has moved to one of complete disdain.

Chart Throb
Only read this if you want to ruin X Factor forever

I have enjoyed every Ben Elton book I have ever read, and he has a great knack of taking a current media phenom…phenomme…funom…craze, analysing it, and showing it for what it really is.  A clever guy indeed.

So to last night’s show.  I always seem to be out of step with public opinion, and through the years very few of the ones I think deserve it have won, all the way back to the classic Young vs Gates Pop Idol show.  This year seems no different, as I am quite bewildered by the adulation of Olly.  He is a half decent singer, who would make a good living in pubs and clubs, but a pop star he ain’t.  I think the gulf in class showed last night, as he looked like an average karaoke version of Robbie.

As for the Buble, the man is incredible.  I have an affinity for him, as there are so many similarities between him and I.  Good looking, great singer, suave, charasmatic and from Bolton.  Ok, I made the last one up.

George Michael has, in my eyes, long held the legend status, and he oozes class (not Class B drugs, although…), every time I see him.

So my mixed emotions are based on the following

1.  I get frustrated that the wrong person usually wins (Leona and Alexander apart)

2.  Simon Cowell keeps getting richer from it

3.  I have some small sense of wishing I had made more of my brief daliance with pop stardom, which to be fair, peaked with an appearance on Key 103 in the early 90s, but still, it was my dream, and it was only a lack of drive, hair, dietary control and a big chunk of luck that thwarted my ambitions.

4.  I also feel like I should rebel against the force feeding of this dumbed down TV fodder that we are being brain washed into accepting as the highlight of our week.  There is a line in a Del Amitri song about people sleeping like doped white mice in a college lab, and I think we resemble this concept more and more.  Keep the masses obsessed with this tat and they won’t think about anything else.

Anyway, that’s a bit deep for a Sunday morning.

I have housework to do now it seems, before the arrival of Emily’s boyfriend.  He is a recent addition to our lives, and Emily’s first boyfriend.  I always thought I would be the typical grouchy over bearing Dad, but to be honest, I find myself really liking him.  Best laid plans and all that.

Till the next time…..