anything.but.down

1982 was the year that my life changed.  It was World Cup year and I turned 9 years old in April. I have very vague recollections of the 1978 World Cup in Argentina, but the Espana ’82 tournament was when this wonderful sport took over my world and determined that I would be a football junkie for life.

To take you back and make you realise just how old you are (or feel) 1982 was the year that E.T., Poltergeist, Gandhi and Tootsie came out at the cinema, the year that John Belushi died, the then-black Michael Jackson released Thriller, ABBA, Blondie and Adam & The Ants disbanded,  bands such as A-Ha, Faith No More, the ever evangelical Stryper and the ever blood & sex fuelled W.A.S.P. started up, the year Ozzy had rabies shots for biting the head off a live bat on stage and sadly the tragic passing of one of the greatest rock guitarists of all time, Randy Rhodes.

If that didn’t make you feel old, it was the birth year of actresses Jessica Biel and Kirsten Dunst, tennis player David Nalbandian and LA Ink’s Kat Von D.

For me 1982 was a time of getting into music, although ABBA, Dollar and Shakin’ Stevens do not really count in todays money.  Most notably I held the school record for the longest snog with my girlfriend Sally. I don’t remember the time, but I do recall it being in the art section of our class, out of sight of our teacher and it happened while we were filling in our class World Cup score chart.  (Remember that 9 year old’s in 1982 kissed like Cary Grant and Katherine Hepburn in a 1930′s movie).  Ironically, she turned out to prefer women. #FML.

The Falklands War that lasted for 10 weeks in the first half of 1982 resulted in the British media not showing the opening World Cup game in Spain between the 1978 winners Argentina and Belgium, although they took great delight in the result as the Belgians won the Group 3 game 1-0 thanks to a strike from Erwin Vandenbergh.

My first World Cup game was the 0-0 Group 1 draw between Italy and Poland.  There wasn’t much live football on TV back in those but even I could tell it was a drab game.  I didn’t give up.  The following day was another 0-0 draw in the same group between Peru and Cameroon.  This football thing was going to take some hard work!

The West German’s cheated (allegedly) their way into the second round after a defeat to Algeria and a “fixed” game with Austria that ensured both teams qualified.  Argentina recovered from their early loss to qualify alongside Belgium.

Group 4 was my first taste of following England in the World Cup finals.  In some ways you’d expect it to be a delight to follow your home nation through the trials and tribulations of a tournament, but it’s not.  Simple as that.  Following England is like poking yourself repeatedly in the eye with knitting needles.    However, after just 27 seconds in to the first game Bryan Robson scored against France as England went on to win 3-1. An excellent start to the campaign.  England went on to record a 100% group record, beating Czechoslovakia comfortably 2-0, but then struggled to win against Kuwait 1-0.  France qualified in second place.

Three of the “Home Nations” qualified for the World Cup. Something not seen since the turn of the millennium.  Northern Ireland (yes, Northern Ireland) were pitted in Group 5 against home nation Spain, Yugoslavia and Honduras.   One of the highlights of the tournament for any neutral was Gerry Armstrong’s  goal that handed the Irish a 1-0 win against the hosts and ensured they qualified for the second round.

The one thing that did suck about 1982 was that as a 9 year old I couldn’t stay up and watch the late games, particularly on a school night.  I missed Brazil beating the Soviet Union 2-1, but my love affair with Brazilian football was merely delayed a few days. Sócrates, Éder, Falcão, Serginho, Júnior and probably most of all Zico were the players that inspired me.  Every day at school lunch breaks and straight after school we’d be down the local park pretending to be these players.  Sure, the odd Littbarski or Rummenigge were impersonated as well but it was the tanned South Americans Zico and his pals that were played out by a bunch of pale English kids in the summer sun.

I don’t recall seeing much of the second round as most of the games were played after my bed time, but I’d check the scores on the radio the next morning and watch the highlights on TV after school.

I did see England capitulate badly.  Something I’d become used to over time.  They didn’t lose in the second round group games. They didn’t even concede a goal.  They did however fail to win and to this day I still remember the crappy permed head of Kevin Keegan missing an open goal against Spain which could have put England on their way to a semi-final place.

The lasting impression from the second round was the group involving Brazil, Argentina and Italy.   The Brazil versus Italy game still remains in my memory is possibly the greatest World Cup game ever played. Italy won the game 3-2 with a hat-trick from Paolo Rossi.

Impact in T minus 1 second

I got to watch the West Germany versus France semi-final which finished 3-3 but is still best remembered for the awful foul from the German goalkeeper Harold Schumacher on  Patrick Battiston. These days he would have been sent off and probably received a lengthy ban and a huge fine.  In those days it was hard to get sent off and the keeper wasn’t even booked!    It was the football equivalent of a king hit.  The Germans went on to win the game on penalties to book a place in the final against Italy.

I remember my first World Cup final well. The first hour was as boring as hell.  A typical final, but when Rossi broke the deadlock  for Italy the Germans seemed to collapse, eventually falling 0-3 behind.  A late consolation meant nothing.

OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG.

The greatest memory has to be Marco Tardelli’s famous celebration when he scored to make it 2-0.  Even now it’s still shown more than the goal itself . The emotion on the player’s face was almost indescribable.

At the end of the game the BBC showed a musical segment with the best goals.  On it’s completion they said their farewells and that they would see us again in 4 years time.   4 years?!  Are you frickin’ serious I had thought.  I’m 9, that’s a lifetime away … I’ll never make it.

Oh, look I can possibly see light at the end of the tunnel! A phone call today could be the start of something interesting.

View from The Bund, Shanghai

On Good Friday I returned from my 4th work trip to Shanghai and these days I quite look forward to the experience.  This is a far cry from the first visit in August 2007 where I was the victim of severe culture shock and suffered in 40 degrees with 95% humidity.   That trip was only 2 days on the way home from Germany, but it was long enough to be attacked by a swarm of giant moths that could have carried my car away.

The following month I returned for 5 day conference. I left Adelaide at lunchtime on a Sunday and only arrived at 6am the following Monday morning thanks largely to a 7 hour stopover in Singapore. I went straight to bed to catch up on missed sleep, waking up around noon, grabbed a shower and headed down to the local shopping mall for some fresh air and some lunch.   Ok, I know fresh air doesn’t exist in Shanghai but it was worth a try.  By the time I got back to the hotel some 2-3 hours later I had the beginnings of what eventually turned into a nasty throat and double ear infection.   I almost blacked out the next morning at breakfast and wasn’t sure how I’d make it through the day.    Looking back it was quite amusing to go running into the toilets to barf my guts up and only have long-drop toilets available.   Western, white guys don’t have the natural built-in knowledge on how to evacuate the contents of your stomach when the porcelain express isn’t there to lean over.

I flew home from that experience and suffered badly with the altitude, although the guy next to me probably had the worse end of the stick with me coughing and spluttering my way through the entire overnight trip from Singapore back to Adelaide.

The third trip in February 2009 for the annual-ish conference was less eventful and I actually enjoyed myself.  The food was great, the people were fantastic and I was much more comfortable.

So when they told me that I needed to fly again at the end of March this year for the next conference I wasn’t quite as reluctant as previous years.  Again everything went really well, despite having a constant headache for the first two days.

First night out, before the conference began and most of the participants had arrived, the management team took us out to a Bavarian restaurant. Pretty safe really I guess and no surprise when the majority of the management are German and we work for a global company with their HQ in Germany.  If  nothing, better beer than most of the local restaurants that seem to serve only Tsing Tao, probably the only beer weaker than Budweiser although it still tastes better.

Bock, bock, bock

Second night out we went to a traditional Chinese restaurant with a revolving table of culinary “delights” including my foul friend here to the right.   It’s quite strange for me to be served food with the head still on the plate.  The chicken itself tasted fine and although the feet remained on the plate by the end of the night, the head did mysteriously disappear. Noms for somebody perhaps.

Other plates included a fair amount of tofu, seaweed and mushrooms in various guises, fish with head and eyes intact and my personal favourite (because I’m a simple white, western boy) sweet & sour pork all washed down with Tsing Tao.

The third night I don’t recall much about.  About 40 of us went to a teppanyaki restaurant where much good food was had including possibly the best bacon I have ever tasted anywhere in the world, beer was drunk (Tsing Tao again) and a rather large amount of sake was consumed.  Make that a rather stupid amount.

Now the Japanese colleague at the conference told me the next day it was actually quite a poor sake, so that is the excuse I am using if anyone asks.

I do recall leaving. I don’t recall taking my jacket. I do recall getting on the bus. I don’t recall falling asleep. I do recall getting off the bus. I do recall getting friendly with the recycle bin outside the front of the hotel (it was rather accommodating to the Tsing Tao, sake and, unfortunately, the nice bacon).  I do recall going up to the 17th floor and I do recall entering my room. I don’t recall much of the next 20 minutes or so apart from a visit to the porcelain bowl.   I don’t recall getting into bed, but I do remember waking up at 4am with all of the hotel room lights still on.  I couldn’t get up to turn them off so went back to sleep.  Next thing I remember is waking up and wondering where my jacket was and then realising I didn’t know where my glasses were either.  I found both by the hotel room door as part of a path of various garments of clothing from door to bathroom to bed.

Not much was said about it the next day.  We were all in a pretty bad state, but anything you’ve heard about Chinese people not being able to hold their alcohol is a complete lie.  Only the white westerners at the conference seemed to be suffering the next day.

Myself and one German colleague were particularly rough the following day.  We have put it down to something we ate as it didn’t feel like a hangover, the symptoms were different and it lasted far too long.   He was probably worse than I, but I can tell you that I think I revisited and surpassed nights I had almost 20 years previously back home in England.

I remember now why I gave it all up.

Saturday morning saw me do something that I thought I’d never get around to doing again:  visit the dreaded dentist.

Not my teeth

As a kid growing up in the UK my mother made sure that by brother and I always visited our dentist every six months for a check-up despite her own fears, but after having four teeth removed at the age of 14 even the lure of the hot dental assistant wasn’t going to work it’s magic and by 16 I had made my last visit.

21 years later I finally gave in to what I knew was right and we made a family visit which lasted close to two hours.

I went last although I had been tempted to go first for some strange reason.  A visual check revealed I don’t have my wisdom teetth as I had thought.  They have either never come through or I just don’t have them.  Hopefully the latter as the former would suggest I may need to have them removed one day.    The dentist was also convinced that I had never had 4 teeth removed.   Buddy, I remember it well.  I rememeber the botched injections, swallowing half of the anaesthetic and I sure as hell recall the wrenching of the teeth with a pair of rusty old pliers from the dentist’s old tool box.

Ok, well I may have made that last part up but I vividly remember the pain.   And I remember falling asleep at home later on only to wake up in a small pool of dribble.   Something that would become a regular occurrence once I discovered pubs in my later teens and even more so the older I got.

So it does appear that I had 4 molars removed once the dentist recounted the lumps of calcium in my gob.

What did surprise me though is that I didn’t need any fillings.  He was mildly concerned about a couple of molars at the back of my mouth but after x-rays (another thing I hate about dental visits) he was suitably impressed and after a lot of discomfort as he did a routine clean he advised me to come back in either 12 months … or another 21 years.

Ha. Dentist with a sense of humour?  Next it will be chiropractors with doctorates.

I will try and be good and come back in 12.  If he’s lucky.

On Tuesday I finally crossed off AC/DC from my list of bands I wanted to see live.  Having missed them the last time they played Adelaide and also the gig at Donington that was recorded and released as the Live album, I had to make sure I made it this time.

I was a little aprehensive of the gig being at Adelaide Oval.   I don’t mind outdoor venues but just like the Big Day Out at the Showgrounds, any small amount of wind plays havoc with the sound when the concert is in such an open environment.

We managed to park right next to the Oval and couldn’t believe the size of the queue.   We’d become disconnected from two of the friends and while wandering towards the end of the queue we saw a few people sneaking into the front and nobody was really stopping them, so we blended in and were inside the venue within about ten minutes.  The friends had joined the end of the queue and it was about an hour before they were inside, just time enough to grab a beer or two and something to eat.   (It was 4X and watered down so not really beer as such … but it served a purpose).

By the time we moved into the actual Oval itself support band Wolfmother were just finishing up and there was still about 45 minutes until AC/DC were going to hit the stage, so we gradually moved closer to the stage, eventually settling about 20 mtrs from the front.

Say what you will about AC/DC but there’s nothing that can deny that they are one of the greatest rock bands that have graced the planet.   You may say they’ve recorded the same album every time they’ve released one, but this would be an uneducated and ignorant dismissal.  You may say they are for the bogan population among us but you would be so far from the truth and to be perfectly honest you would sound like a musical snob, a far worse stereotype than the average bogan.

When the Oval lights dimmed at 8.30pm, the screens we filled with the animation (by the Guitar Hero crew perhaps?) of a devilish Angus Young driving a train at full speed, with terrified passengers on board heading towards the end of the track.    When the train reached the end of the line the stage was filled with explosions, the screens parted and a giant train appeared on stage as the band broke into Runaway Train.

What followed was two hours of intense rock and roll, the way AC/DC have always played it: to perfection.   They played about four songs from the Black Ice album including my favoutite (the riff-heavy title track) and the rest was a jukebox of hits from almost 40 years of back catalogue.  Everything from Back in Black to You Shook Me All Night Long to The Jack to Shoot to Thrill to Let There Be Rock to Hell’s Bells to A Whole Lotta Rosie to Thunderstruck, complete with giant inflatable big-bossomed Rosie riding the train at the back of the stage.

Clichéd maybe, but who invented it?

There is no doubt that Angus Young is AC/DC. The other band members, perhaps with the exception of Brian Johnson who has to be out the front, tend to shy towards the back of the stage.    He’s 55 now and he still moves around like he’s 18.  As far as I could tell there were no guitar changes throughout the show unlike so many bands these days who have to have 23 different guitars for different songs at every gig.  Watching Angus for the first time in real-life I realise the genius he exudes is far greater than what I’ve seen on DVD’s and read about in books and magazines.

Angus Young .. or God if you'd prefer?

The night ended with a single encore of Highway To Hell and For Those About To Rock, complete with the usual canons.  I left feeling amazed at what I’d just seen.  Live music still exists and can still electrify you.  And sometimes, when you feel like you can’t find the new musical spark that will float your boat, just look back to old-school masters such as AC/DC to hit the spot.  It works every time.

The five band members combined age is approximately 292.  But you would never know it watching them on stage.   If I have half the energy Angus Young has when I’m his age I shall be extrememly pleased.

The vast array of fans at Adelaide Oval dispelled any myths about their fan base.   People of all ages, from all walks of life.  AC/DC are an immense powerhouse of blues-driven rock that will blow you away. Still.

I caught Laura Marling on Channel [V] last night for a just a few seconds and was quite taken with her voice and style. The song on TV was called Devil’s Spoke and had an interesting sound, but the clip I’ve added here is New Romantic as I can’t embed the official videos.  If you like this then check out the official YouTube channel here.

I haven’t blogged in a while but I have a lot to say.  Right now is not the time – it’s bloody hot and I’m tired - but I hope to start blogging regularly again from this point.

Tomorrow will see my first day back at work after almost three weeks off over the Christmas and New Year period. The break has been fantastic and definitely long overdue.  While I haven’t crossed off everything on my ‘list’ over the break, I have made the most of my time and achieved some goals that were not originally planned for the past few weeks.

2010 is going to be a year of positivity.  2009 was a poor experience but the one thing I have learned is that I cannot afford to dwell in my own negativity or those of others.

It’s hard for me to not slip back into this way of thinking, but this break has left me full of positive spirits and an  improved desire to make the most out of life.   There’s a long way to go but I think I have at least stepped up the first rung of the ladder.

It will be a struggle but as far as I am concerned it’s only onwards and upwards from this point forth.

Huzzah!

As 2009 comes to a close it’s near that time where I reset my listening count on iTunes. For prosperity and for the purposes of actually blogging something here are my top tracks and albums of 2009.

I’ve only picked the top track by each artist, otherwise my Top 40 would be all made up of just 3 or 4 artists!

Songs:

1. Purple Skivvy / Angus & Julia Stone
2. Big Jet Plane / Lady of the Sunshine
3. River / Angus Stone
4. Coin Laundry / Lisa Mitchell
5. Boracho Station / Ryan Bingham
6. I’m in Love (with Revenge) / The Almighty
7. Tornado of Souls / Megadeth
8. The Arms of Belfast Town / Ricky Warwick
9. Troublemaker / Weezer
10. Die Die My Darling / Metallica

Albums:

1. Wonder / Lisa Mitchell
2. A Book Like This / Angus & Julia Stone
3. Smoking Gun / Lady of the Sunshine
4. Mescalito / Ryan Bingham
5. The Almighty / The Almighty
6. The Best of the Wildhearts / The Wildhearts
7. King of the Slide Guitar / Elmore James
8. Tattoos & Alibis / Ricky Warwick
9. Garage Inc. / Metallica
10. 21st Century Breakdown / Green Day

I reckon I am mellowing out big time as there’s very little metal in there this year, although if we were counting what was played in the car this chart may look a little different.  The 15 minute drive to work if often fuelled by Metallica, Megadeth, Iron Maiden, etc, just to pump myself up for the day ahead!

Three weeks since the last post. I guess I did say my return to blogging wasn’t going to necessarily be frequent, but one would be forgiven for thinking I’d been struck down by lightning since my last post on religion.

So no major content in this post either, but just the monthly blog logs post based on search engine stats from September 2009. (I like to believe it just proves I am alive).

I although I mostly use Webalizer, Awstats does lead with these three top hits. I see  a pattern forming

• ladies spanked and punished stories
• slippers spanking
• mommies slipper spanking photos

Er … ok.

Meanwhile Webalizer does show a few more search hits:

• girly - what are you saying?!
• knowing nicolas cage – I’d rather not.
• bung fritz ingredients – an old favourite. I should really look up the ingredients one day to see why everyone is so interested to know.
• natalie gaucci – I’m not the only one wondering where she went.
• my wife slippers for spanking me – You can’t have them!
• stratco outback vernadah how much – er .. fuckin’ expensive I can tell you.

Sorry not to post something more exciting this time around.    If anyone out there is reading this, ask me a question and I’ll answer it.

I was challenged to write a post on religion by Elle over at Taciturnly, so here goes.:

I don’t believe in god.  I even write the name god without capitalising the ‘g’.  For some reason I feel it would be hypocritical of me to acknowledge something I don’t believe in.

My Mum is a believer, although I’ve never known her to attend church for anything other than weddings and funerals. I recall her having a bible and telling me that she did occasionally read it.  Although I guess I really never spoke with my Dad about it over the years (we didn’t talk about much while I grew up) I’ve come to understand that he is also a non-believer which is probably why religion had never been pushed on my brother and I.

I did talk with my parents in recent years about why I was never christened.  Although Mum didn’t say it, I believe she was quietly disappointed and I think Dad may well have been the reason why it never happened.  The message I got was that I should choose my own path.

Metal Up Yer Ass

By far the funniest run-in with religion I have had was when I left college one Friday night after a late lesson and was walking through the shopping district in Cambridge to catch a bus home.  I had my trusty Sony Walkman (this is about 1991!) on, blaring out Slayer at a ridiculously high volume.    A strange bald-headed man popped out from one of the shop fronts, scaring the crap out of me.  I turned off my Walkman and the guy, who turned out to be from the Jehovah’s Witness mob, started talking to me.   He made a comment about music and reached out to the cassette box that was sticking out of the top of my denim jacket pocket.  He took one look at the front cover of Slayer‘s Seasons in the Abyss album, paused for a couple of seconds, looked me in the eyes and said “you wouldn’t be interested in anything I have to say would you?”.  I smiled, he smiled and we both went off on our merry way.

My only other run-in with the church (which I have documented somewhere here before) was while on a primary school field trip to our village chapel. A friend and I stole a pound in loose change from a collection cup in the kitchen.   That’s a lot of money in the early 1980′s for two 9 year olds.  I don’t feel too bad about it though.  When we took some American friends to the same place in the late 90′s I slipped in a few quid to the collection box – not because “he upstairs” might have shot be down with a lightning bolt, but because I did genuinely feel guilty all those years!

When Jo and I got married back in 1997 (12 years ago today funnily enough!) we decided against a church wedding because it didn’t go with our beliefs.  As nice as churches are inside, particularly centuries-old churches in England where we got married, it just felt hypocritical to do so.

Things changed a little when our first daughter was christened in early 1999.  It’s something I didn’t want to do, but Jo did. I guess it was our first real “disagreement”.  I had the same thought that I later found my parents had about christening me, whereas Jo liked the idea of introducing our kids to the church and our daughter could then decide what she wanted to do when she was older.   For me, a christening introduced her to one church and one religion which may possibly be harder for her to change later in life.  My preference would have been for her to decide which church she joined, if any, when she was old enough to do so.

As with all relationships you have to find a compromise. I don’t feel like I gave in – I believed Jo wanted it so passionately that it was the right thing to go ahead.

The experience itself was pretty poor and even Jo admits to that now.  When we met the vicar he asked for a donation to the church which we’re sure he pocketed for himself.  The certificate of the event was also shoddily done in Word using Clipart, printed on marble paper, but not even centred on the page properly!

When it came to the twins we still thought it was important for them to have godparents/guardians, so we held a naming day ceremony on their first birthday near the beach at Semaphore, followed by a breakfast at The Palais for all those who attended.  We were far happier with the ceremony, which we mostly wrote ourselves.

Now all three kids are at school we want them to have the best education they can get.  Our eldest attended a reception year at the local primary school which seemed ok, but not quite right – we had nothing to compare the experience to.  We had her name down with a nearby private school and she was accepted for Year One.   The twins have since started Reception this year and it’s just a great school with excellent teachers and the older kids are always friendly and involved with the younger ones.

But … it is an Anglican school.  Why would I send my kids to a religious school?    It’s a very tough question and I do have some difficulty dealing with the religious side of things.  In the eldest daughter’s first year at school she’d often come home talking about god, but it has died down over time.   It’s a bit of  a novelty for the kids at the time.   They still do prayers and hymns, but I don’t feel that the religious aspect casts a negative shadow over my children.  The only positive I can take from religion as I know it, is the high moral standards that need to be adhered to.  This is something the school does exceptionally well, teaching the kids how to respect and love one another.

I hope in the later years that they do teach the kids about other religions – it would be narrowminded not to teach them that other people in other parts of the world have similar beliefs, but follow other gods.  I think it’s a key lesson in their understanding of how the world works … or doesn’t work in most cases.

For me, god does not exist. I do believe that Jesus probably did exist, but he was probably no different to the preachers you see in America in the modern day – back then people needed a leader, someone to teach them how they should live. The vast majority of people on the planet are followers, not leaders, to some degree.  We all need guidance.   These days though we, in the Western world at least, have far more information at our fingertips to enable us to make our own decisions.  The brainwashing of people through religion in some countries still happens, probably as it did 2000 years ago … and still happens in America today, as much as they would hate to admit it.

In conclusion (I’ve always wanted to say that – I never went to Uni!) I believe that the only faith you can have is in yourself.  I’m nowhere near that point and I can’t imagine ever attaining a strong belief in myself.   Over the last 20 years dealing with on-again, off-again depression, there have been a couple of moments in the darkest times where I’ve thought perhaps religion isn’t so bad, but my logical mind just can’t adjust to the thought that someone created the world we live in.

Each to their own, but just don’t try and preach to me