The Wisdom Of Alice part 4

Victoria: "Alice, would you like some Cherios for breakfast?"

Alice: "Miaow"

Philli The Chilli

Several months ago Phil gave everyone at work a chilli plant as he had loads. They were all little seedings at the time but after a few months they have (mostly) grown into nice little bushes.

Ian's plant was left in the office and really took off. It was the fastest growing plant of all and was at least twice the size of everyone elses for quite a while. It has however now slowed down and even though it flowered they seem to have fallen off without giving any chilli goodness.

Phil has many plants at home which he says are doing well but he also has one at work. I think he wanted to see if it grew as quickly as Ian's plant. Unfortunatly it has grown into the elephant man of chilli plants and it has had an aphid problem as well. This twisted mutant plant could only give twisted mustant chilli's that I would never eat. As Phil had sprayed the plant with aphid killing chemicals it can't exactly be considered organic either.

McStreet has always said his plant is doing very well and a month or so ago said it had sprouted chilli's. This is several weeks before any of the other plants had even flowered. We asked for proof and all he could provide were some blurry photo's that could have been anything. Honestly, I've seen clearer pictures of the Loch Ness Monster!!! Next he will be trying to sell us London Bridge!!

Dave also had a chilli plant which seemed to be doing well the last time Victoria and I visited but Luke knocked it over and I'm not sure if it ever recovered!!

So, now we come to mine and Victoria's plant. Victoria christened it Philli as it was given to us by Phil. Philli has been growing steadily all along. It has nice deep green leaves and not a sign of any insects making a home on him. It also flowered last week and this weekend we noticed that the first chilli's were appearing. As you can see from the picture above the first one is a fine example!!! It's only tiny at the moment but it is growing fast so I am sure we will have a nice harvest soon. Exciting this chilli plant growing isn't it!! You can see more pics here and here.

And Mark, if your plant really has grown chilli's please supply a better picture. The blurred Yeti style pics just won't do!! :-)

Muse - Wembley Stadium - 16th June 2007

Finally it was time to go to Wembley to see Muse. I love this band. They are so loud! :-)

Jane was already 'darn sarf visiting her mum so Phil and I met at Sheffield station at 11 ish to get the 11:27 train to St Pancras, first class of course. Once we were in London we got the tube to Embankment and went to the Ha Ha Bar for some lunch. We met Jane there and then headed off to Wembley.

The new stadium is amazing. You can see it from miles away thanks to the massive Wembley Arch and it is impressive as you walk towards it. Once you are in it is just as remarkable. The seating seems to just keep going up and up until it reaches the arch which, erm, arches majestically across the skyline. This is one impressive building!

Inside the stadium is equally impressive. The corridors beneath the stands are all very air conditioned, there is a toilet roughly every 3 feet and there are many many food stands offering lots of different food. There is a burger joint, fish and chips, calvery, sandwiches etc. There are also lots of bars. The food is VERY expensive. A burger cost £5. That is something sililar to a Macdonald’s quarter pounder. Fish and chips was £8 and I had a hot pork sandwich which was £7.50. Jane had a £4.50 baggette and Phil had sausage and mash for a stunning £8.30. As I said the food is expensive but we all agreed that it was also very good quality. The burgers looked a bit dodgy but what we ate was excellent. Beer is not priced too badly at about £3.50 per pint and the bar is very nice.

So, apart from being impressed with the stadium how was the gig? Most excellent is the short answer but I've never been happy with short answers. :-)

We missed the first band as we were quaffing pints but when we first arrived at Wembley Dirty Pretty Things were just coming on stage. To be fair the sound for them was terrible but we were not very impressed in spite of that. Of course I could not bring myself to like any band that has even the smallest connection to the soon to be dead from a drug overdose tallentless tosser Pete Doherty so they were never going to be good for me.

Next was The Streets. They were really good. Mike Skinner was obviously delighted to be playing Wembley and was not shy about telling everyone. He even said he had been watching Queen videos on Youtube and got everyone doing the Radio Ga Ga clap. Lots of fun.

At 20:45 Muse finally arrived. The arrived onstage from the middle of the pitch surrounded by a fountain of paper. Very dramatic it was. Once they reached the stage they started playing and that was it for 2 hours 15 minutes. Very loud extremely good rock music accompanied by a fantastic light show and acrobats on giant balloons! They were amazing. Everyone said they were good live but I never thought they could be THAT good. They played all the songs I wanted them to play, including Stockholm Syndrome, my personal favourite Muse song ever, and apart from me nipping to the loo and missing the piano intro to Newborn (DOH) everything was great!

So, a great day was had by all, apart from the journey to Jane's mum's in Woking. The only problem with the new Wembley Stadium is transport. Getting there was fine but after the gig 90,000 people were all tryng to get to one tube station and catch one train. It took us about an hour to get to Euston, after which we got another tube to Waterloo so we could get the train to Woking. The train was the 01:05 and was the last train of the day. We managed to get a seat but it was packed with stereotypes of drunk southern wankers. When I say stereotypes I mean I was surprised they were not eating jellied eels and singing Chas and Dave songs around the ol' joanna. Even Phil and Jane were shocked at their wankeyness. We finally got to our destination at 02:30. We were very tired.

So, apart from the journey at the end of the day we all had a great time. If you get the chance, see Muse live. They are brilliant! Pics are here.

Oh yes, thanks to Jane's mum for putting me up for the night. :-)

Prison Break

Now that all the TV shows Victoria and I watch (Lost, 24 etc) have finished and there is nothing until October at the earliest to watch we have had to find something new to occupy our evenings as the £37 per month I pay to Sky just gives us 500 channels of shit.

After many recommendations we decided that Prison Break would be the programme to fill the void.

Neither of us had watched any episodes of Prison Break but we knew the general premise. Guy gets put on death row for a crime he didn't commit and his brother decides to break him out of prison from the inside. He tattoo's the plans of the prison on his body and gets arrested and sent to the same prison as his bro. We then get 22 episodes of various bits of planning/setbacks etc.

We finished the first series the other night and I must say we very much enjoyed it. It manages a level of realism that makes 24 look like real life, hell, it makes Buffy the Vampire Slayer look real, but it does not matter. This is a great show. It has the right amount of tension and cliffhangers and the escape plan is good enough to keep you guessing, even though most of it is bollocks. :-) Oh yes, this must be the only high security prison where nobody swears!

I would recommend this show to anyone. Just don't question the plot too much.

Now on to series 2. :-)

Lewis Hamilton.....

is my new god.......

The Wisdom Of Alice part 3

Alice, pointing at my stomach: 'Big tummy'.

She's cute but you could go off her!!!

Another Reason To Keep The TV Licence!

I have sometimes been heard to complain about paying my TV Licence. Why should we pay for the BBC and have to pay Sky for all the other TV channels.

I have recently been changing this opinion for several good reasons. Firstly, the BBC website is second to none, providing the best news coverage ever as well as excellent sports, very handy when you are stuck at work and want to know the latest snooker or cricket scores.

Another reason is Radio 4. This radio station is incredible. The Today Programme is superb and PM, the evening drive home show (Eddie Mair is god) is amazing, with only the Archers spoiling the station. I also have to mention The Jonathon Ross show on a Saturday on Radio 2. Brilliant!

There was another, even greater reason to be happy while paying your TV licence that was broadcast last night and the previous Saturday, and that reason was the latest double episode of Doctor Who! This was without doubt the best episode of the new Doctor Who and one of the best dramas I've seen for ages. I won't go into detail about the plot but it had you on the edge of your seat all the way through, it had some great monsters (living scarecrows!!) and it will have childred scared to death whenever they look in a mirror for the rest of their lives!!

Pure genius!

I currently pay Sky £37 per month for most of their channels and lets face it, there is very little to watch. We download more TV than we watch on Sky. When you watch something as high quality as Doctor Who for £10 per month for all the BBC channels you realise that with the BBC you are getting a Rolex watch compared to the free with petrol digital watch that is Sky.

By the way, I would ditch Sky for Freeview if I could but Sky is the only digital service I can get in my area.