Alison Moyet - The Minutes Tour (8th October 2013)
From her early days as one half of Yazoo to her multi-million selling solo career, the last 30 years has seen Alison Moyet remain one of the most talented singers around. Her sultry voice has seen her take the guise of an electronica sensation, a husky jazz singer, a pop star and a huge voiced balladeer as she has ploughed her way through the years refusing to allow herself to be pigeon holed. The current tour is to support the release of her latest album, The Minutes, with both the critically acclaimed album and the tour bringing Moyet back to her electronic roots. Seamlessly blending together a rich collection of songs from her current album with a range of classics from both her solo albums and her time with Yazoo, she provided a flawless set which is strangely both very retro and incredibly contemporary simultaneously. From the opening number, “Horizon Flame”, Moyet was in absolutely incredible voice, as she stood, flanked by two very talented musicians, in the centre of a stage awash with stars, creating an memorable opening and setting a high standard for the remainder of the concert. Her vocal performance throughout the set was simply outstanding and note perfect, never once sounding anything other than natural and unforced. She looked absolutely stunning and between songs, Moyet chatted casually with the audience coming across as warm, personable and genuine. The set list contained a good balance of her new material and her classic hits. A stripped back version of “Ordinary Girl” was a particular highlight, as was her haunting rendition of “This House” which made the hairs on the back of your neck stand up. For long term fans, there were the inevitable (and welcome) renditions of “Love Resurrection”, “All Cried Out”, “Is this Love” and “Whispering Your Name”. Finally thrown into the mix were a number of songs from her partnership with Vince Clarke with the Yazoo classics “Nobody’s Diary”, “Don’t Go” and “Situation” amongst others. The tracks from her new album sounded incredible too, with excellent renditions of “Filigree” (which was simply beautiful), “Apple Kisses”, the dubstep infused “Changeling” and her latest single “When I Was Your Girl”. What was impressive was the reworkings of her older material which made the songs sound fresh, contemporary and up to date despite some of them being near enough 30 years old. This was a concert which was about quality music and vocals. But the lighting design brought the stripped back set to life in incredible ways, with some of the best, most immersive lighting I have seen at a concert for a number of years. The lighting designer and team deserve recognition and credit of their outstanding work, with the whole concert being enhanced by the brilliant designs. At time the whole stage (and audience) were awash with colour, had beams of coloured lights penetrating the smoky atmosphere and drew the audience almost onto the stage. Moyet’s vocals cannot be praised highly enough – she manages to sound even better live than she does on her albums, effortlessly demonstrating an incredible range and an ability to powerfully perform without the need for any infernal caterwauling and vocal gymnastics that so many of today’s singers seem to favour. Moyet could certainly teach the X-Factor generation a few things.
Egypt - April 2013
I had had enough. Enough of working. Working incredibly hard and working ridiculously long hours. Enough of cold weather. Weather which led to defrosting the car in the morning and waiting for the rain to come and wash the snow away. Enough of the short days. Short enough to mean that I got up in the dark, left for work in the dark and drove home in the dark. Tej and I had planned on going for a break somewhere, but for me, the time was right. I needed a break where I did very little and where the days were long and hot. We briefly discussed various places, such as Croatia, Cyprus or Tenneriffe. But a chance discussion with a colleague at work led to a different holiday search. She was saying to me that her and her family were heading out to Egypt and we started chatting about where she was going and my previous trips there. It set my mind racing. Why not look and just see what was available. So the search for a holiday in Egypt was commenced.
I say search. It was not much of a search. The first holiday which came up was absolutely perfect. It was cheap, flew from a local airport and the hotel complex had everything we had discussed. It was all inclusive, had 9 swimming pools, a private beach, a private jetty with exclusive use of a coral reef (see the picture above). The hotel was split into two sections, a beach section and a garden section.A quick check on trip advisor confirmed that the hotel lived up to it's pictures and write up, which was good enough for us. So Tej and I booked with just four short weeks before we went and both worked incredibly hard to get our work up to date prior to going.
From out room it was a four or five minute walk to the beach. Now, many people think that this is a bad thing, but for me, I always enjoy that little bit of a walk. Walking to a separate location made it feel like you were leaving your hotel complex. There is a possibility of feeling trapped in this type of complex, so a walk out and to the "neighbouring hotel" was a good thing in my view.
The beach was crowded with both tourists sunning themselves and an endless stream of hawkers selling everything from scuba diving to massage treatments. The sand flies made a hearty meal of my lower legs and these things combined meant that we avoided the beach. Now, this is not something that I anticipated, but actually, it worked out well. The best thing about the beach was the jetty and coral reef. I was saddened to see how decimated the coral reef was, and even more saddening to see the idiots standing on it, kicking it with the cheap fins and smashing this delicate eco-structure through their idiocy. A lot of the coral was dead, but it still supported a surprising amount of life. There were numerous species of fish, a blue spotted ray, some cornet fish and a moray eel or two. All in all, it was more impressive that I either anticipated or than the dying coral should really have had.
The holiday consisted of much sleeping, relaxing and doing very little. Just outside of our room was a quiet little pool, named "The Relaxing Pool", which had a handful of sunbeds (secured early in the morning) and only a few adult occupants. This meant that there were no screaming children, no noise, no mixture of Rhianna and Egyptian folk music blaring out and no people shouting or screaming at each other. The relaxing pool lived up to it's name. It is where the majority of the holiday was spent. With just a slight breeze, temperatures in or around the late late 30's (heading to the early 40's), it was perfect. The sand became so hot during the day that it would burn your feet as you (literally) hotfooted it to the pool, or hopped from one foot to the other whilst waiting at the bar. The gentle rustle of the palm trees provided a soothing background and could easily be observed from the comfort of the sun bed with the perfect blue, cloudless sky in the background. I re-read "Of Mice And Men" by Steinbeck. I listened to music. I just sat quietly with my thoughts. It was everything that I wanted in terms of doing nothing. There was two days spent diving, which I thoroughly enjoyed (see the diving page of the website) and I played with the camera (the pictures are now on the photography page of this site).
By night, there were four A La Carte restaurants to chose from, and we ate in three of them. Being vegetarian, it was not always easy to find suitable food, but I ate as well as I expected in foreign climes (my diet of bread and cheese continued!). The animation staff were terrible. But in a so bad they were good kind of way. The highlight for me was the worlds worst club singer, stood in the middle of the stage with all the presence and charisma of a sack of potatoes. His terrible selection included a samba jazz version of "I Will Survive" (yes, really, a samba jazz version!) and he held the most incredible ability to be able to clump his way to the edge of the stage to press the button for the next track whilst still singing the ending of the one he was doing. He was just plain awful. but hilarious with it. The rest of the team entered into a "comedy night", which was quite frankly as funny as a full blown case of the Egyptian stomach. The one sketch with stuck out in my memory was a "Baywatch" parody, whereby a bikini clad girl escaped from a shark by farting on it. My send of humour is clearly very different to theirs! So in avoiding the animation team, we took solace in the beach bar. Sitting in the night air, with the sound of the sea lapping the shore, the noise of the entertainment staff barely audible on the wind and a beautifully clear sky with a full moon and vividly bright stars was the staple of every evening. The delicious local beer was just what was needed and flowed freely.
The days seemed to last forever. The sun was hot. The water was cool. The food was plentiful. The beer was ice cold. It really was one of the best and most relaxing holidays I have had for a very long time. In terms of switching off, taking it easy and recharging the batteries, it was absolutely perfect.
I say search. It was not much of a search. The first holiday which came up was absolutely perfect. It was cheap, flew from a local airport and the hotel complex had everything we had discussed. It was all inclusive, had 9 swimming pools, a private beach, a private jetty with exclusive use of a coral reef (see the picture above). The hotel was split into two sections, a beach section and a garden section.A quick check on trip advisor confirmed that the hotel lived up to it's pictures and write up, which was good enough for us. So Tej and I booked with just four short weeks before we went and both worked incredibly hard to get our work up to date prior to going.
From out room it was a four or five minute walk to the beach. Now, many people think that this is a bad thing, but for me, I always enjoy that little bit of a walk. Walking to a separate location made it feel like you were leaving your hotel complex. There is a possibility of feeling trapped in this type of complex, so a walk out and to the "neighbouring hotel" was a good thing in my view.
The beach was crowded with both tourists sunning themselves and an endless stream of hawkers selling everything from scuba diving to massage treatments. The sand flies made a hearty meal of my lower legs and these things combined meant that we avoided the beach. Now, this is not something that I anticipated, but actually, it worked out well. The best thing about the beach was the jetty and coral reef. I was saddened to see how decimated the coral reef was, and even more saddening to see the idiots standing on it, kicking it with the cheap fins and smashing this delicate eco-structure through their idiocy. A lot of the coral was dead, but it still supported a surprising amount of life. There were numerous species of fish, a blue spotted ray, some cornet fish and a moray eel or two. All in all, it was more impressive that I either anticipated or than the dying coral should really have had.
The holiday consisted of much sleeping, relaxing and doing very little. Just outside of our room was a quiet little pool, named "The Relaxing Pool", which had a handful of sunbeds (secured early in the morning) and only a few adult occupants. This meant that there were no screaming children, no noise, no mixture of Rhianna and Egyptian folk music blaring out and no people shouting or screaming at each other. The relaxing pool lived up to it's name. It is where the majority of the holiday was spent. With just a slight breeze, temperatures in or around the late late 30's (heading to the early 40's), it was perfect. The sand became so hot during the day that it would burn your feet as you (literally) hotfooted it to the pool, or hopped from one foot to the other whilst waiting at the bar. The gentle rustle of the palm trees provided a soothing background and could easily be observed from the comfort of the sun bed with the perfect blue, cloudless sky in the background. I re-read "Of Mice And Men" by Steinbeck. I listened to music. I just sat quietly with my thoughts. It was everything that I wanted in terms of doing nothing. There was two days spent diving, which I thoroughly enjoyed (see the diving page of the website) and I played with the camera (the pictures are now on the photography page of this site).
By night, there were four A La Carte restaurants to chose from, and we ate in three of them. Being vegetarian, it was not always easy to find suitable food, but I ate as well as I expected in foreign climes (my diet of bread and cheese continued!). The animation staff were terrible. But in a so bad they were good kind of way. The highlight for me was the worlds worst club singer, stood in the middle of the stage with all the presence and charisma of a sack of potatoes. His terrible selection included a samba jazz version of "I Will Survive" (yes, really, a samba jazz version!) and he held the most incredible ability to be able to clump his way to the edge of the stage to press the button for the next track whilst still singing the ending of the one he was doing. He was just plain awful. but hilarious with it. The rest of the team entered into a "comedy night", which was quite frankly as funny as a full blown case of the Egyptian stomach. The one sketch with stuck out in my memory was a "Baywatch" parody, whereby a bikini clad girl escaped from a shark by farting on it. My send of humour is clearly very different to theirs! So in avoiding the animation team, we took solace in the beach bar. Sitting in the night air, with the sound of the sea lapping the shore, the noise of the entertainment staff barely audible on the wind and a beautifully clear sky with a full moon and vividly bright stars was the staple of every evening. The delicious local beer was just what was needed and flowed freely.
The days seemed to last forever. The sun was hot. The water was cool. The food was plentiful. The beer was ice cold. It really was one of the best and most relaxing holidays I have had for a very long time. In terms of switching off, taking it easy and recharging the batteries, it was absolutely perfect.
Wine Tasting at Bowsorth Hall
This beautiful and traditional stately home, nestled in the Leicestershire countryside, was my home for a weekend which held more than a number of surprises. The first surprise was the setting itself. The place was stunning to look at. The autumnal colours were just beautifully rich and, given that autumn is my favourite time of year, I relished in the opportunity to get out there and take some photos (which are on the photography page of this website). The beautiful, sunny and crisp autumnal morning was just perfect. The second surprise was the quality of the food. The breakfast was a full on buffet, with cereal, yoghurt and other such healthy options, but instead, the eat all you could cooked breakfast was demolished with glee. The A La Carte restaurant was amazing too. The nicest meal i have had for a long time was there, a caramelised red onion and Stilton parcel, wrapped in filo pastry and covered in sesame seeds, served with mine roast potatoes and mange tout. It was just delicious (I spent some time deconstructing the dish to see if I could recreate it at home). The Lemon Tart was zingy and sharp, the food overall was amazing, and as you probably know, I do enjoy my food.
By far the biggest surprise by far was the purpose of the weekend itself. It was a surprise 40th Birthday weekend, provided by Tej. The weekend was a wine tasting course, which, as you probably know, I do enjoy my wine. I have grown to enjoy a bottle of wine over the years, but I have always stuck with the same old "three for £10" Australian Chardonnay from Asda. The morning started with randomly being seated at tables with people who you didn't know and who would become your best friend by the end of the day.
Our table had a lovely old couple on called Jean and Bill. They were genuinely nice people, who couldn't do enough for you (although Bill bore more than a passing resemblance to the old man from the Disney film "Up" - I expected him to have a chubby Chinese boy in a scout uniform running after him (if this makes no sense to you, then watch the film!)). Jean, was very grandmotherly in her nurturing of us throughout the course of the day, passing us clean glasses, handing out the cheese and becoming increasingly giggly as the day progressed. Of course, it did end in the seminal "it's not the wine talking, but you must come and stay with us", but I do believe that this was a genuine invite from a genuinely warm couple. They were celebrating their 55th wedding anniversary which is no mean feat,
There was another couple on the table too, who were celebrating their 5th wedding anniversary. He was a decent bloke, quite laid back, mild mannered and easy to get on with. She was fairly full on. He reactions to the wine was one of two things, either a disgusted nose pulling, contorted face reaction, followed by on over-exaggerated chewing in disgust or an unbelievable ability to quaff a glass in one go and proceed to virtually lick the dregs out of the bottom of her and everyone else's glass. She was an odd one. She was rather talkative, but had the most amazing ability to turn every conversation round to be about her, and regardless of the topic of conversation, she had done it bigger and better than you. You know the type - if you had a headache, she had a brain tumour. The highlight of the weekend in some ways was her takeover of the conversation about Bill learning to swim. She took over, telling everyone how she learned so that she could swim with dolphins. "when we got into the water, they told us what to do"... she started..." You had to point your toes down, like flippers and spread your legs so that the dolphins know where to go....". I have no idea how I didn't burst out laughing, but knew that I couldn't look at Tej, for fear of us both cracking up. I could see him stifling his laughter out of the corner of my eye. It may not seem that funny reading it now, but trust me when I say that it was just hilarious after copious amounts of wine and an equal amount of "me, me, me stories".
As a general note, it was funny to see a group of demure and quiet people respectfully listening to the presenter at 10am when the course started and to compare and contrast that to the raucous and shouty gang of lushes who seemed to appear around mid afternoon. I have to confess that I did go to the toilet mid afternoon and found myself giggling uncontrollably over absolutely nothing as I made my way back up to the conference room.
The presenter of the wine tasting course was an odd looking man, almost like the actor Julian Beck, the creepy old guy in Poltergeist II. That said, he knew his stuff. When we arrived, he greeted us in a warm and friendly manner, and the tables were nicely laid out with glasses, water, tasting cards, score cards and other items suitable for securing when one was drunk. Over the course of the day, a total of 15 wines were "tasted". However, it is safe to say that the spittoon on our table remained empty, as the "rinse and spit" rule of wine tasting was ignored by us and everyone else on the course. The wines ranged from old to new, red to white, still to sparkling and tannic to acidic. I have to say that the day really opened up my eyes. We learnt all about the different types of grape, the difference between new world and old world wine, matching wines with food, the difference achieved in leaving the same wine for a number of years and tasting the difference in the same grape of different vintage, I learnt to use more of my senses in tasting wine, looking at the colour and smelling the wine instead of just quaffing it. I leant to identify a grape from taste using the notes on my wine chart (one of the items suitable to hiding amongst your person as you left) and I also learnt to eat cheese with red wine and why you should do so. But the main thing I leant was to be more open about the wine which I drink. So whilst the Adsa "three for £10" will still be bought for the every day drinking, I have recently been to the wine sections of various shops and bought a number of more expensive wines for consumption, assessment and rating. I have bought a number of red and rose wines, which is something I wouldn't have done normally and I have bought a mixture of new and old world wines.
I had an absolutely fantastic weekend and I loved every second of it. I would strongly recommend a wine tasting course to anyone with even a passing interest in that kind of thing. I think I was lucky to have such a good group of people on my table and they did help to make the day as enjoyable as it was, but my thanks do go to Tej for such a great birthday present.
So, now I have hit 40, the wine tasting odyssey commences. Now, where did I put that cheese....?
By far the biggest surprise by far was the purpose of the weekend itself. It was a surprise 40th Birthday weekend, provided by Tej. The weekend was a wine tasting course, which, as you probably know, I do enjoy my wine. I have grown to enjoy a bottle of wine over the years, but I have always stuck with the same old "three for £10" Australian Chardonnay from Asda. The morning started with randomly being seated at tables with people who you didn't know and who would become your best friend by the end of the day.
Our table had a lovely old couple on called Jean and Bill. They were genuinely nice people, who couldn't do enough for you (although Bill bore more than a passing resemblance to the old man from the Disney film "Up" - I expected him to have a chubby Chinese boy in a scout uniform running after him (if this makes no sense to you, then watch the film!)). Jean, was very grandmotherly in her nurturing of us throughout the course of the day, passing us clean glasses, handing out the cheese and becoming increasingly giggly as the day progressed. Of course, it did end in the seminal "it's not the wine talking, but you must come and stay with us", but I do believe that this was a genuine invite from a genuinely warm couple. They were celebrating their 55th wedding anniversary which is no mean feat,
There was another couple on the table too, who were celebrating their 5th wedding anniversary. He was a decent bloke, quite laid back, mild mannered and easy to get on with. She was fairly full on. He reactions to the wine was one of two things, either a disgusted nose pulling, contorted face reaction, followed by on over-exaggerated chewing in disgust or an unbelievable ability to quaff a glass in one go and proceed to virtually lick the dregs out of the bottom of her and everyone else's glass. She was an odd one. She was rather talkative, but had the most amazing ability to turn every conversation round to be about her, and regardless of the topic of conversation, she had done it bigger and better than you. You know the type - if you had a headache, she had a brain tumour. The highlight of the weekend in some ways was her takeover of the conversation about Bill learning to swim. She took over, telling everyone how she learned so that she could swim with dolphins. "when we got into the water, they told us what to do"... she started..." You had to point your toes down, like flippers and spread your legs so that the dolphins know where to go....". I have no idea how I didn't burst out laughing, but knew that I couldn't look at Tej, for fear of us both cracking up. I could see him stifling his laughter out of the corner of my eye. It may not seem that funny reading it now, but trust me when I say that it was just hilarious after copious amounts of wine and an equal amount of "me, me, me stories".
As a general note, it was funny to see a group of demure and quiet people respectfully listening to the presenter at 10am when the course started and to compare and contrast that to the raucous and shouty gang of lushes who seemed to appear around mid afternoon. I have to confess that I did go to the toilet mid afternoon and found myself giggling uncontrollably over absolutely nothing as I made my way back up to the conference room.
The presenter of the wine tasting course was an odd looking man, almost like the actor Julian Beck, the creepy old guy in Poltergeist II. That said, he knew his stuff. When we arrived, he greeted us in a warm and friendly manner, and the tables were nicely laid out with glasses, water, tasting cards, score cards and other items suitable for securing when one was drunk. Over the course of the day, a total of 15 wines were "tasted". However, it is safe to say that the spittoon on our table remained empty, as the "rinse and spit" rule of wine tasting was ignored by us and everyone else on the course. The wines ranged from old to new, red to white, still to sparkling and tannic to acidic. I have to say that the day really opened up my eyes. We learnt all about the different types of grape, the difference between new world and old world wine, matching wines with food, the difference achieved in leaving the same wine for a number of years and tasting the difference in the same grape of different vintage, I learnt to use more of my senses in tasting wine, looking at the colour and smelling the wine instead of just quaffing it. I leant to identify a grape from taste using the notes on my wine chart (one of the items suitable to hiding amongst your person as you left) and I also learnt to eat cheese with red wine and why you should do so. But the main thing I leant was to be more open about the wine which I drink. So whilst the Adsa "three for £10" will still be bought for the every day drinking, I have recently been to the wine sections of various shops and bought a number of more expensive wines for consumption, assessment and rating. I have bought a number of red and rose wines, which is something I wouldn't have done normally and I have bought a mixture of new and old world wines.
I had an absolutely fantastic weekend and I loved every second of it. I would strongly recommend a wine tasting course to anyone with even a passing interest in that kind of thing. I think I was lucky to have such a good group of people on my table and they did help to make the day as enjoyable as it was, but my thanks do go to Tej for such a great birthday present.
So, now I have hit 40, the wine tasting odyssey commences. Now, where did I put that cheese....?
MDNA - The Tour
Review and details coming soon
Halloween 2012.
I love Halloween - it is my second favourite annual event. Every Halloween, I lock the doors, turn the lights off (this is to avoid trick or treaters more than anything!) and take the phone off the hook. Then, I make sure that I have cooked myself a three course meal, which in itself is a menu full of sumptuous food with which I spoil myself. Finally, I sit down laden with chocolates, crisps and other such niceties and settle in, undisturbed, to watch three horror films that I have never seen before. I spend the 364 other days of the year scouring the internet for this years films and I have to say, I do get rather over excited about what is in essence a Pagan festival which holds no spiritual significance for me. The ideal Halloween has to have the golden autumnal leaves which have fallen from the trees get blown across the road on my way home from work so that they dance merrily in the headlights, followed by, once at home and settled, a heavy downpour (preferably with a thunderstorm just to set the tone) and the wind lashing the rain against the windows. The films have to be a spread over a number of different types, one to set the tone - usually something atmospheric such as "The Strangers" or "Halloween". The middle film is usually something shocking and disturbing (and usually foreign language) to kick me in the guts - along the lines of Martyrs, Switchblade Romance or something similar and finally I round off with something as bit more mainstream, simply because by that time the wine has kicked in and I struggle to follow anything with much of a plot. The remake of The Hills Have Eyes or The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is the type of late night, wine hazed fodder I enjoy. So roll on 31st October. The countdown starts below!