Footie, Gorgeous Birds and (errrm) an Inexpensive CD

Haven't got around to blogging since the weekend so here are a few things I have been up to so far this week

A top notch footie film

I did watch ‘The Damned United’ after my last blog entry on Sunday evening. Excellent film. Michael Sheen is as good an impressionist as he is an actor, having already managed to get Kenneth Williams, Tony Blair and David Frost down to a tee, his portrayal of Brian Clough is superb and totally believable. Timothy Spall and Colm Meaney are equally effective and convincing as Peter Taylor and Don Revie respectively. Despite the protestations of the Clough family as to factual accuracy, much of the subject matter is knowingly fiction based around fact, and whether 100% accurate or not, it’s a compelling and moving story of football in England in an era when the monolith money machine that is football in the 21st Century would have seemed like a ridiculous vision of things to come (memorable line from the film? – “You don’t pay a footballer three hundred quid a week!”)

I only vaguely remember the era concerned (the films flits between 1967 – 1974 and jumps from past to present regularly) in terms of football at least; a time of listening to the results coming in on local radio on a Saturday afternoon, Spurs nearly always losing and eating Sunday dinner with ‘The Big Match’ on in the background, trying to get the last roast potato down quickly so I could claim a good spot on the sofa for ‘Randall and Hopkirk Deceased’

The turbulent mix of Clough’s ego, arrogance and personal agendae, with the rough, aggressive and Revie loyal Leeds players is what led to Clough’s failure in his brief stint as Leeds manager – the central plot device here.

Thankfully there are very few scenes of actors trying to look like they are in a 1970s football match, as real contemporary game footage is used. Even Steven ‘Tommy from Snatch’ Graham - in a curly ginger wig and dodgy Scottish accent – as Billy Bremner can be forgiven in what is an absorbing human drama. Highly recommended. I also caught up with my brother Dave last night for a long overdue half hour on the phone. Dave is (as he predicted) turning slowly into Ronnie Wood, and may he be all the happier for it.

I can always share with Dave anything I get up to that I might lump under the tedious ‘mid life crisis’ banner, and be safe in the comforting knowledge that he will have been there, done that and bought the proverbial t-shirt already. Last night’s conversation led to my confession that my youngest daughter Hayley had nobbled me sorting out my ‘fittie folder’ of photos on the PC at home. Now I must make it clear that the ‘fittie folder’ is in very good taste – no swimwear and boob jobs from ‘Nuts’ magazine, it is merely a collection of (mostly just the face) photos of my own personal all time most fanciable famous women.

Hayley knows her harmless and deluded old Dad well enough (and she’s also old enough now to know that just because Dad has a photo or two of Laura Aikman, that doesn’t mean he is about to leave the family and set up a love nest with her – sorry Laura, but that’s the way it has to be) and, having rumbled me, gave her usual resigned sigh and a mock admonishing “Daaa-aa-aaaad”, before launching into a bit of constructive criticism and even going so far as to encourage me to go back onto google image for a better photo in some cases. I was grateful too for her occasional “ooooer, not her, she’s well rough” just to keep my feet on the ground – it’s all a matter of personal taste you know!

I am working on a blog in which I reveal the content of the ‘fittie folder’ with a bit about how each of the lucky entrants came to have a balding middle aged bloke from Milton Keynes carry a torch for them. I’m sure OK Magazine can barely contain their excitement……….

Splashed out on a bit of ‘The Disney’ on CD

I stopped buying CDs on a regular basis 4 maybe 5 years ago for financial reasons, the pain of which has been eased by the advent of downloading. Having said that it does make a very occasional purchase all the more exciting. Spurred on by recently writing a blog entry about the very excellent Microdisney, I decided to treat myself to ‘Daunt Square To Elsewhere’ a 28 track double CD career spanning anthology drawn from the four albums they released (and the ‘In The World’ EP) all for only £4.00 from Amazon.

As I mentioned last time, none of their albums are currently available on CD (although I did manage to track down two of them over the last ten years) so it has been great to be able to listen to at least some of their music again that has languished upstairs with the rest of the vinyl for years now, waiting for the day I could afford a decent record player again. Whether she liked it or not at the time, I courted my wife to the music of Microdisney (their ‘Are You Happy’ is definitely on of ‘our tunes’) and was surprised at how much of the stuff on ‘Daunt Square’ she recognised. I have been playing it in the mornings whilst all the early morning feminine chaos of my little family happens around me, and was more than chuffed last night when (the ever reliable) Hayley came up to me and said ‘whatever that was you were playing this morning, it’s brilliant’ so for all the right reasons, I may well have lost the CD already.

So that’s it for now except to say that the next time I feel like treating myself to a CD it is going to be by Francoise Hardy as I feel that my recent enjoyment of some Serge Gainsbourg music should lead me into a ‘1960s French Pop’ phase. Besides, Francoise is far better looking than sleazy old Serge, so good looking in fact that a quite remarkable picture of her (circa 1966) which I will put a link to if I can work out how - has pride of place in my ‘fittie folder’ – which kind of brings us full circle (although thankfully not via sweaty 70s football hard men in ginger wigs) and is a good place to wrap this up for today.

More to follow



Col