Ollington's Oracle

Liar Liar Liar

2009-05-29T02:01:00.000-07:00

Hello there,

Over a month on and I haven't done my last mega bog have I? I'm dead sorry. It's so lame not to give the American journey the end it deserves. At the moment it's as unsatisfying as a Lost season finale (even though I love the Lost). This weekend I will finally upload it. Like the second Stone Roses album it won't be worth the wait, but it won't be as terrible as the Reginald Perrin re-make.

I will also keep this blog going with a fortnightly entry about life here in London Town. I did think it was slightly narcissistic to blog without a reason but I did enjoy putting my thoughts down when I did a regular blog. And when has talking about myself bothered me in the past? So now I am up and running with my job and I'm settled back here I should be able to post a thing or two. It was also give my American chums an amazing insight into life into this amazing country called the Kingdom of The United or something.

So until the weekend,
marc x

A quick update

2009-04-17T05:43:00.001-07:00

Hello Blog fans,
Emma and I are safely back in the UK! I am working on a last mega blog that will tell the story of little Jon Ollington's visit and our trip to Chicago and New York. Look out for it in a week or so. I don't want to rush it as I want to give the 'Oracle a really good ending.
Have a lovely weekend,
marc x

Goodbye To Reality

2009-03-13T12:00:00.000-07:00

Hello there,

Another week has gone and as I write this I only have another three work days to go. From 6pm on Tuesday March 17 I will no longer be at Fox Reality Channel. I have had a fantastic time and to be honest I’m very sad to be leaving. The people that work here are flippin’ brilliant and the job is great too. People work a lot harder in the states (as I think I’ve said before) and everyone puts in really long hours and takes little holiday. The average American has no more than ten days vacation a year fact fans. And when you work in the media this is magnified as it’s such a competitive industry. Nobody wants to take time off for the fear that they will come back to someone else doing their job better than them!

I really haven’t minded this if truth be told. There have been a few times I’ve come in at weekends, and I’ve often gone home at 7pm and carried on working away. It’s what you do here though and the job has been good enough for this not to matter. What I’ve really loved is people’s passion. Everyone here seems to really care about television, so everyone watches the shows, has an opinion on them and does the best they can. You’ll be amazed how many people I met in the UK who work in TV that said “I don’t watch much telly”. I used to get really cross and wonder why they weren’t doing something more worthy of their time.

For those of you who don’t know I have a new job when I get back to the UK. I am heading up the marketing and pr for the quite fantastic FX channel. It really does have some totally corking shows, and it is of course the UK home to the best TV series ever (?), The Wire. This will soften the blow of leaving LA somewhat.

I probably won’t have time to do another posting for a bit. I will do a little quickie just before we go to Chicago and New York in just over a week. I can tell you all about little Jon Ollington’s visit to LA. I will then write all about our trip when we return, and I’ll perhaps do a video diary too. And after that the Oracle will be no more. I may take all the years entries, edit them slightly and release it as a book. It will be a sure fire best seller. For anyone relocating to another country it will not only be hugely entertaining but it will also be a valuable resource.

Anyway the other week Emma wrote about what she would miss about LA so here are my top 10 things to go along with hers. Please forgive any repetition.

The Top 10 Things Marc Will Miss Most About LA

1. Urban Outfitters on 3rd Street – The greatest clothes shop ever. I don’t know what I will do without it. I also love shopping in LA - period.

2. The Movie Theatres – Especially the ones that have stadium seating (which means you get bags of room and the seats recline). Emma and I have been to watch loads of films as it’s such a joy. And your bottom doesn’t get half as sore.

3. The fifteen minute drive to work - This is pure bliss compared to the smelly old London trains. LA traffic is bad but I only live four miles away from work so the drive is a dream.

4. The Weather - This should be number one really. I was never a fan of the sun as it made me feel uncomfortable and I would get all sweaty and bothered. LA is built for the sun though. Everywhere has great air-con and you can always cool off. Walking out the house every morning to see the sun shining in the sky really does lighten your heart.

5. The People - Actually this should be top of the list. English people like to put Americans down (as it makes them feel better about themselves I suppose). They come up with stuff like “they’re all fat”, “they don’t get irony” and “they are too loud”. I, dear reader, was as guilty as this as the rest. It’s a load of old rubbish though. I know I can only speak for LA (and I know the Midwest would be very different for example) but people are kind, warm, intelligent and friendly. I don’t find the sincereness of people fake as you are meant too. I think people here just have very good manners. It’s a joy to do your shopping and to not be faced with some moody cow on the till.

6. Charissa Chu - Actually Charissa should be at number one. Charissa works with me and from the first day I started at Fox Reality she made the transition to life here so very easy. She was so supportive and massively helpful it’s untrue. She also became a fantastic friend to both Emma and I and we enjoyed some lovely nights having dinner around her house, as well as nights out seeing bands, going out to eat and what not. Her husband Steve is also a fantastic bloke and it was great getting to know him.

I should interrupt this list now as it’s reading like a Gwyneth Paltrow acceptance speech and I may start crying. Actually that isn’t true as I don’t cry. But even so I am blithering on. Back to the list and I’ll try not to gush too much more.

7. Jamba Juice - I love the delicious smoothies with the wonderful vitamin supplement.

8. The Food - It’s a lot cheaper to eat out here. And the food is all skill. The only thing I have missed is curry as you don’t get much decent Indian food. Just before we left England we went for a curry with some friends. I think we should go there upon our return to make it nice and cyclical. Mark and Becky – if you are reading this please can you arrange. Thank you very much.

9. Sunday afternoons on the beach – We have probably done this less in real life than we have in my head. Even so it’s so great being less than a mile away from such a lovely beach. What can be better than eating a picnic made by Em while reading a good book? I don’t even mind when I get real sand in my sandwiches. I plan to take little Jon Ollington body boarding when he visits next week. I need to do it one last time!

10. Emma - Being in LA has meant that Emma and I have spent less time doing our own thing and instead have had a lot more time together. It’s been the perfect start to married life really. As I said before we have promised each other to keep the LA spirit alive when we get back home and to do lots more things together. This actually should be number one in my chart as the wife should always come first. But always save the best to last eh?

And that is my list. Having said all of this I will be happy to come home too. I do love London and if I’m not in LA then it’s not a bad place to be. And lets face it, I adore a good old moan. So the weather and bad public transport will probably give me secret joy. And Mum if you are reading this I can’t wait to pop around on Sunday for lunch again.

It’s been a brilliant adventure, but now it’s time for the next one.

Marc x

p.s. Emma has updated our flickr page with some more pics of our adventures this year. If you click on the slideshow to the right you can see the pics in full size.

Bananas In Pyjamas

2009-03-04T10:37:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone,

This has been a pretty spectacular week. In fact it has been one of my most favorite weeks ever! I have discovered something so wonderful and marvelous and I can’t wait to let you all in on the secret. I haven’t worked out a way to make millions of pounds. I have discovered something far more exciting. I have found pyjamas!

I should let you know that by this I don’t mean I went to bed naked before. I don’t want to get too graphic in this blog but nude sleeping is not for me. I like something between me and the sheets. If going to bed with everything flapping around is your bag, then I’m pleased for you. But it most certainly is not the case in Ollington Towers.

Anyway I digress. Back in my youth I would wear some shorts and a t-shirt to bed, and in recent years I have actually worn a form of pyjamas. But these weren’t real pyjamas though. These were the type that you get from Marks and Spencer that are basically shorts and a t-shirt (but matching). In a way they are pyjamas for beginners. They are something you wear when you don’t want to be all skanky by wearing your underwear, but by the same token you aren’t quite ready for full blown bedtime wear.

Just recently though I have looked upon Emma with some envy as such is the joy her pyjamas give her. After an evening shower the Emster will often relax on the sofa in her p.j.’s and she will look as snug as a bug in a rug. My shorts and t-shirt type nightware just wasn’t as good for this. Even in LA nights can be chilly, and I would look daft if I put socks on (socks and shorts – even pyjama shorts – is always a no. Unless you have those little hidden ankle socks with trainers). I therefore stuck with my jeans.

On a Saturday shopping trip I saw some real pjyama bottoms in the sale. I decided to purchase them to see if they were as good as I imagined. I also got myself a couple of nice cotton t-shirts to go with them (as I am not ready for the last stage of a pyjama top. That will happen when I am 38 I reckon). That evening I tried on my new purchase and guess what? I was in heaven dear reader. They are so comfy I could have cried with delight. I now know why fat people like to wear tracksuit bottoms around the house (even though they haven’t done a days exercise in their life).

I am going to get myself some more pairs this weekend. There is no stopping me now! All I think about at work is how long until I can get home and get myself out of trousers and into my P.J. bottoms. What could be better than putting your Pyjamas on, settling down with a nice cup of tea and watching an episode of ‘Lost’. That is as perfect as life gets I think. As Emma said, I have joined pyjama club, and it’s one membership I will not be cancelling for a while.

Marc x

Jacking in the blog?

2009-02-27T12:02:00.001-08:00

Hello everyone,

I hope you have all had a great week. Ours has been pretty normal with not that much to report. I would probably give it an 8/10 as I‘ve had some nice dinners, we’ve been out a bit and ‘Lost’ & ‘Flight Of The Conchords’ have been very good. I watched The Oscars the whole way through for the first time in my life too. It was brilliant! And even though I am as heterosexual as can be, I now love Hugh Jackman. He is the best presenter I have seen in my life. And his song and dance numbers were brilliant. Who knew Wolverine could sing? Everyone apart from me apparently…

Anyway I have posted a picture of Hugh above for you all ladies out there. I think every woman in the world loves Hugh Jackman. I have noticed that Emma goes all funny when he appears on the screen, but I forgive her for that. He is a very nice young man. And he was brilliant in ‘The Prestige’ which is one the greatest films ever made.

We also went to see A.C. Newman (from The New Pornographers) at The Troubadour this Thursday. He was very good though I got a bad tummy. I think it may have been from the pizza I had earlier at Robert DeNiro’s restaurant (which was a great place so I forgive him). The Troubadour was a fab venue. It holds around five hundred people and is like The Highbury Garage in London (but better).

I have also got some good sleeps in this week. I am sleeping very well at the moment; I must have a clear conscience. Sadly Emma isn’t and she has had some restless nights. I think some of this is down to the fact that I have got her to read Cormac McCarthy’s ‘The Road’. I think the bleakness of the post apocalyptic world is giving Em nightmares. Nobody ever said great literature was fun.

I would like to thank you all for sticking with this blog and that is the main topic of today. My little video of my Doctor Who talk is up to 250 views in under a week. I thus went to Google Analytics to check the web stats for this site (which I haven’t done for a while). 320 people a week read this blog fact fans! I know that kind of number will not change the internet world but it really makes it worth doing. I don’t even know that amount of people so it’s actually pretty touching. I know you are all here for Emma’s occasional musings really but I shall cover myself in her glory (!).

I thought I would do you a chart of where people had come from in the last few months. This will allow you to see how truly global ‘The Ollington’s Oracle’ has become:

1.United Kingdom 2,383 (00:01:38)
2.United States 951 (00:03:25)
3.Sweden 99 (00:00:44)
4.Mexico 76 (00:02:48)
5.Australia 39 (00:02:24)
6.France 24 (00:01:56)
7.Germany 20 (00:00:20)
8.Canada 10 (00:00:29)
9.Spain 8 (00:00:48)
10.Cyprus 7 (00:02:16)

The first figure is page views and the second is time spent on the site. As you can see while I may get more British dudes reading these entries, the Americans love me! They spend an average of three and a half minutes on here per visit. They either love it so much that they read every word or they are a bit slower mentally than the Brits. I go for the first option as I love the Americans nowadays. I think my Swedish numbers are mainly from my friend Steven Brown. He misses me so much that I think he must log on every day. I miss you too Steven Brown (even if your football team are more rubbish than a big heap of rubbish).

I don’t know anybody in Mexico. If you are a Mexican reader please leave a comment to tell me how you found this blog. In fifth place is Australia. I know a few Australian Carter fans tune in, and of course I imagine Hannah Lowes hangs on our every word. I’ve no idea about my French, German and Canadian readers, once again please get in touch.

In 10th place is Cyprus. My cousin Theresa and her fiancé Brian moved out there just after Emma and I came to LA so I reckon most of the visits come from them. They are getting married later on in the year and we are going out there for a week. When I see ‘we’ I mean The Ollington’s are all going to share a Villa. It will be my first family holiday in years. And this time not only will there be Mum, Dad, Sarah, Jonathon and me, but we will of course be joined by Emma (who is my wife in case you didn’t know) and my sister’s fiancé Neil. Cyprus watch out is all I can say.

I got to thinking if I would carry on this blog when we get back home to olde England. I don’t think that I will (though the Emster may want too?). It’s actually been quite a discipline to write a thousand word weekly entry (which I’ve more or less kept too) but there was always an end in sight to keep me going. I think I will do a final entry when we get back home (or perhaps Emma will) which will be all about our holiday to Chicago and New York. Then that feels like a good place to stop. I originally set this blog up when I lived in the UK and I wrote something about once every two months. Without a new country and life to explore then the focus is lost I think. It will also let me finish off my novel. I made a great start on it, and I have some bonkers ideas for the rest so that needs my full writing attention. So make the most of the last few entries, we are only in the US for another thirty seven days. Crazy!

Marc x

p.s. One of the greatest songwriters this world has ever produced (seriously) mentioned me is his blog today. It is an honor! I love my debates with Chris which he touches on here. http://blognostic.wordpress.com/ We had a debate over his column for the ‘Morning Star’ where he questioned some of Morrissey’s views. There is a link to the original article on the blog (or will be). See if you agree with it.

p.p.s Happy Birthday to one of the bestest friends you could have - Neil Witherow. Have a great day mister.

An unconventional weekend.

2009-02-19T14:04:00.000-08:00

WARNING: THIS BLOG ENTRY IS 1600 WORDS. IT'S BRILLIANT BUT DON'T MOAN THAT IT'S TOO LONG - JUST SIT BACK AND ENJOY IT. IF YOU ARE PART OF THE MTV GENERATION AND HAVE A TEN SECOND ATTENTION SPAN THEN READ IT IN TWO SITTINGS.

This is the blog entry you have all been waiting for! Namely my attendance at my first ever Doctor Who convention (‘Gallifrey 20’ at the LA Marriot 13-15 February). I may be a big fan of the ‘Who’ but I have never done this type of thing before (honest!). In the past I have been happy just talking about the show to those interested (or in some cases to those patently not interested). I don’t even go to interweb forums as these online types suck all the joy away from a program. My fandom has been limited to watching the show, buying DVDs & magazines - and that is it. Though thinking about it I do have some of the toys including a big old remote controlled Dalek. But that is it– Promise!

So what made me go to this convention? The first factor was the location. It was in LA (like me) and that meant American fans. They are a different breed to the cynical nerd in the UK. They like to dress up as Cybermen and to celebrate the show. I imagine people in blighty go to these things to moan that the program isn’t as good as it was in the old days. I heard conventions in the US were more of a joyous celebration and this convention was the daddy. It had been going twenty years and if you are going to lose your virginity this was the place to do it.

There was also some great guests including the sixth Doctor, my favourite assistant Perpugilliam ‘Peri’ Brown, Phil Collinson (producer from 05-08) and loads of the writers. Over the three days there was everything from panels debating aspects of the show to big Q&A sessions with the guests. One of my favorite things was watching the writers do live commentaries over the episodes they have written. The best bit for me was the dealer’s room that had every bit of Doctor Who merchandise ever made. I only spent a hundred dollars or so (or so I told Emma). I could have spent so much more…

I arrived on the Friday for the start of it and met up with my friend Jeremy. This was his third time in LA in eight months (I think he enjoys it here) and he likes his Doctor Who. In fact during the wilderness years when it wasn’t being made he watched it every weekend on UK Gold. He stuck with Who, whereas I left it behind as a relic from yesteryear. I was fourteen when Doctor Who got axed and I quickly forgot my favorite show.

Actually this will be a good point to quickly talk about why I became a Doctor Who fan. I would like to point out that I am no sci-fi dude. I find most of it pretty boring and a bit tedious if truth be told. The great thing about Doctor Who is that it isn’t sci-fi, it can be whatever it wants to be. What other show can do that? One week it is a historical drama and the next week it can be a murder mystery romp. The minute it becomes Battlestar Voyager III or whatever then I’m off.

As a child it was one of my favourite programs. I remember when I was six years old and watching Tom Baker turn into Peter Davison. I thought it was the greatest thing I had ever seen in my life. How bonkers was it that a man had turned into another man? At one point soon afterwards my mum almost stopped me watching it as it gave the seven year old Marc too many nightmares. I remember crying when I first saw Davros (the Dalek leader). I think I was quite a sensitive child.

Luckily my Grandparents ignored the potential ban and I remember settling down with them in 1983 to watch the 20th Anniversary special ‘The Five Doctors’. I think it was one of the best nights of my life dear reader. My granddad had bought me a history of Doctor Who book some months earlier and I read it nearly every day. It had stories of three other Doctors I had never seen before and I really wanted to ‘meet’ them. I saw a trailer and in this special all the Doctors were coming together for a big old adventure. I could have wet myself with excitement.

I remember that it went out on a Friday night during ‘Children In Need’. It was a ninety minute special and the TV event of the year! I sat in-between my Grandparents so I wouldn’t get scared with my book in hand to work out who was indeed who. I was so spellbound and enthralled that I didn’t even eat the sweets they had got me. I think from this moment not only did I properly fall in love with Doctor Who but it was then I decided that television was the greatest thing in the world. I knew I wanted to work in TV and I knew this was the greatest program ever made. And my mum let me carry on watching as the nightmares stopped.

Doctor Who gave me seven years of great enjoyment and I watched any new episode or repeat avidly. Then ‘Who’ was axed in 1989! If I’m honest this didn’t bother me that much. Some of the stories had become tired and I was now in my teenage years. I stopped buying comics and I found rock n’ roll. Football and music (not quite girls yet!) were my two main passions and poor old Doctor Who was cast aside.

When the series returned in 2005 I was a man in his late twenties and I was ready for Doctor Who again. I had grown up and what do men do once they have finished growing? They go back to being children! I remember being at a work conference in Birmingham and I saw a big billboard for the new series. It got my interest right away. I said to my colleague Rebecca “Look Doctor Who is coming back”. She couldn’t have looked less interested if I had told her I had a collection of apple cores to show her.

I, though, spent the rest of the day thinking back to those childhood memories and I got really excited about the new series. I thought it would probably be rubbish as comebacks normally are. I was so wrong though, it had Christopher Eccleston as the Doctor and it was written by Russell T. Davies! I watched the first episode and I was blown away all over again. It was amazing and for the first time in ages television seemed alive. It is now the top rated drama in the UK, the kids adore it and it is a huge success story. How brilliant is that? People said family viewing in the UK was dead. Doctor Who proved every TV expert wrong and ten million people each week in the UK tune-in for some proper entertainment.

I was so taken with the new season that I got back into the old episodes that I enjoyed as a kid. I have taken to buying every old story on dvd and they haven’t aged at all. Some fools say “Aren’t the special effects rubbish?”. I can’t say that I notice! If your soul is so empty and joyless that you need special effects to make a story watchable then I feel sorry for you. The stories are still brilliant, the acting still superb and the show is still a joy. It’s also a myth the show had wobbly sets. It has been proven that in twenty seven years there are only two examples of any set wobbles that total eleven seconds.

So that is why I am a fan again. And that is a good time to revert back to my conference story. Like I said I met up with Jeremy and we checked ourselves in to the proceedings. We then went to our first panel which was a discussion on the spin off show ‘The Sarah Jane Adventures’. And guess what? I was on this panel! I had kindly been offered the chance to be part of a panel discussing this ace show (due to me being a TV guru). It was my first convention and there I was up first. Luckily it was in one of the smaller rooms and you can even see some nuggets of it here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kLAfOZYhe7A&feature=channel_page

Now, it looks like nobody is in the room here as the front row was empty. I can assure you that there were hundreds hanging on to my every word. Actually that is a lie. I reckon there was a hundred max and the room was half full. It actually went really well and I got lots of nice comments and praise afterwards. I was delighted to do it. The clips here don’t do some of my ramblings justice.

From that point on the convention was just ace and throughout the three days the time just vanished. There were a few strange people but everyone was very friendly. That’s what matters I reckon. And I never knew Doctor Who had such a lot of lesbian fans. There were a few fair purveyors of lady love wondering around dressed as David Tennant or Captain Jack.

Speaking of Captain Jack there were loads of Torchwood fans there too. Torchwood is bigger than Who over here, and it’s actually the highest rated show ever on BBC America and beats series like Battlestar Gallatica in the ratings. Teenage girls seem to like it and there was a fair few of them here. During a Q&A with a couple of the stars, girls started screaming and whooping. It was most strange.

There was also a costume cabaret that was brilliant fun. This is a sketch I found on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s2qSdwijtd0

Here is a dalek:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9yXMMXly2Q

After three days of ‘Who’ action it all ended on the Sunday with Phil Collinson doing a live commentary to ‘Journey’s End’ (the last episode he produced). It was one of the best hours I had ever spent in my life. I was enthralled hearing all the behind the scenes gossip. I was really sad the whole thing had come to an end.

Marc x

P.S. I’m not sure I would do it ever again. As I said earlier it wouldn’t be the same back home. But I have just heard that Peter Davison (my favorite Doctor) is booked for next year. Perhaps a trip back to LA could be in order after all?

Bring on the wall!

2009-02-17T15:08:00.000-08:00

Marc asked me to write the next blog entry but it has taken me over 2 weeks to get around to writing it. It’s not that I’ve been lazy and been sitting around doing nothing, it’s just been a crazily busy few weeks with work and what not. I’ve also been pondering over what to write about. Previously all my entries have been recounting some visit, trip or tale but this time I thought I should perhaps veer away from storytelling and just write about what I’m currently thinking about.

We’re starting to get things organized for our move back home and although I’m really excited about coming home, it’s also got me thinking about what I’ll miss over here. Obviously all the lovely friends we have made goes without saying, but it’s lots of other little things I’ll miss too.

I’ll miss the politeness of people here. I’ve grown to like someone wishing me a great day, and sometimes I even think that the shop assistants actually mean it. People are very courteous and chivalrous in the workplace here. For example, a man would never step into a lift before a woman. Never! Even complete strangers. And they will always let the ladies exit a room first and hold a door open for you. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for women’s equality and all that malarkey but there is something just very gentile, and I guess respectful, to these small gestures.

I like greeting the old man who likes to sit on the wall outside our house, chatting with his friends of a morning. He will always move his truck to make it easier for me if he sees me struggling with a difficult bit of parallel parking. That’s kindness for you.

I know it’s a very English thing to mention, but I will of course miss the weather too. Waking up to beautiful blue skies the majority of the time is amazing and something we’ve definitely not taken for granted. I’ll miss riding my bike down to the beach, and cycling along the little bike path all the way up to Malibu. I’ll even miss getting cross with the people who walk on the bikes only path and have the cheek to get mad at us cyclists – erm you can walk on the sand you fools. Honestly.

I’ll really miss our little local diner. It’s a proper American diner, and they do the most delicious malts and cupcakes. Its open 22 hours a day, and it is always busy, no matter when you turn up. They have a great jukebox, the décor is brill, the food is fantastic and the staff are all really friendly. There is just nowhere else quite like it.

Obviously there are things that I won’t miss and things I’ll be happy to leave behind but you shouldn’t focus on the negative things, and so I’m not going to discuss these. Well ok, perhaps just one. But this is a strange thing to dislike. I have a very weird obsession with parking. I always worry about where I’ll be able to park whenever we go anywhere. This is especially weird as in LA everyone drives everywhere so compared to somewhere like London, parking is in abundance. So why do I worry about it all the time? It’s not that I can’t park (aside from a tricky parallel parking as mentioned above I’m not bad at parking), so I really can’t explain what it is that I worry about, but I just do. I feel sorry for Marc who has to constantly reassure me that we’ve parked correctly and we won’t be towed, and I don’t need to check on the car every 20 minutes.

In fact I’ve noticed that even though I’ve always been a worrier, this year I’ve taken my worrying to a whole new level. I’m hoping though that perhaps moving home will mean I will stop worrying quite so much. I worry that I’ll do something wrong and they’ll throw me out of the country. I’ve no idea what I could do that would result in this but it worries me all the same. Perhaps I think if I park in the wrong place they’ll extradite me? See I told you it was completely ridiculous.

But I really can’t wait to get back to all our family and friends though, and to our little flat. I can’t wait to read the Sunday papers, to have a drink at our lovely local, to eat Heinz baked beans on toast and have a drink of apple and blackcurrant squash. Mmm, delicious. I know many people wouldn’t necessary class the above as the best of British, but each to their own I say.

And on that note I’ll say ta ta for now and leave Marc to write the next blog this week all about his panel debut at the Doctor Who convention. I know, try not to get too excited about it.

Happy Pancake Day.
Em x

I can feel it in the hair tonight!

2009-02-12T15:26:00.000-08:00

Yo kids,

I hope you are all well, and those of you in the UK are still enjoying the snow. It is STILL raintastic here in LA. You don't really get much rain in these parts so it's a big novelty for most people even a week into events. For little old me though it just reminds me of home, and of those depressing journeys into work. The thing I am least looking forward to going back to England is the commute into work, and especially when it's chucking it down. In fact thinking about it makes me shudder like Ian Curtis during one of his turns.

As you would have guessed by now the Emster hasn't had time to do her blog entry. She would have not have made such a crass joke about a dude with epilepsy. Emma is the nice one, and I am the rock n' roll rebel pushing back the boundaries of blogging.

I digress though. Why hasn't Emma submitted her entry? It isn't because it's going to be some great piece of literature (she told me to not build it up like a buttercup). The truth is that Emma had to work all weekend (how rubbish is that?) and as such her creative juices have been well and truly drained. If Emma was a bath all of her water would have gone down the plughole in a very quick fashion.

While Emma was working I spent Saturday and Sunday tweaking and rehearsing a work presentation (which got postponed anyway but that is a different story) so it was very quiet indeed in the Ollington residence. I did take a walk into Venice to go to the hairdressers. It was a lovely afternoon and I made a compilation on my ipod for my special stroll. I got the time wrong though and I arrived a hour late for my appointment. Sadly Brooke Tittinger (as my hairdresser is called) couldn't fit me in and I had to go without a ruddy haircut (but I was able to do a little shopping). I get my haircut here fact fans:

http://www.venicetrim.com/

I will miss my haircuts at 'Trim'. I love it there, they offer you a drink of beer and wine. I never accept but it's nice to be asked. I have booked another appointment with Brooke for this time next week. I will endeavour to get the time right this time.

It was weird spending the weekend by myself. I am someone who has always very much enjoyed his own company. I never get bored of pottering around, in fact there is always too much to do, read, see, etc. I will say though that as Emma and I have been joined at the hip the last year I didn't enjoy the Sunday half as much. It didn't help that I had this presentation hanging over my head but it wasn't just that. In fact while I didn't get bored I did get a tad lonely.

Adjusting to life in England will be weird in so many ways, and not just because of the rubbish weather. The Emster and I practically lead the same lives now and I really enjoy it. Gone are the times when we are often out and about doing our own thing... Of course it is very healthy indeed not to do everything with your partner (and we don't) but it has been smashing hanging out with each other all the time.

We have had a ruddy nightmare this week surviving on about two dollars. Our bank has messed up our money transfer from pounds into dollars (again) and we have spent all week worrying that a few grand had disappeared into the interweb vacumn. Luckily the bank realised they never bothered pressing the 'send' button (after a week of telling us we had to wait about thirty working days before we could chase it) and we may have some money at some point this month. Banks eh? If I didn't know better I would say they could be in trouble soon.

Despite the rain, work and money shenanigans it's actually been a fine and dandy week. As David Bowie sang on Ashes to Ashes "I'm happy, hope you're happy too". But having said that he also said on the same song "I wanna axe to break the ace", and I have never wanted an axe, nor have I any ice to break. I like my ice to be in cubes in a freezer. I can them put them in my Sprite Zero to make a delicious refreshing soda even more tasty.

Catch you soon,
marc x

Snow on the road...

2009-02-06T14:46:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone,

I know I promised you Emma but I will have to do the blog entry this week. The Emster is indeed working on something for all you cats but it is still in development. It will be worth the wait though, you can be sure of that! The sad thing is that I haven’t got much to write about. It’s been one of those crazy times where our jobs have taken over our lives.

The same can’t be said for you slackers back in London Town. A bit of snow and you are all off work faster than you can say “Oh look, is that another facebook photo album of some pictures of the snow?”. I read that everyone bunking off work (which I know is also down to the great public transport we have) is going to cost the UK economy about two billion pounds or something. Crazy!

Emma and I had differing feelings on the snow. Emma loves it and she felt a bit homesick to be missing out on making a snowman. I was cock-a-hoop to avoid it and instead I just enjoyed the glorious sunshine on my face. I actually don’t mind snow itself but I hate it when it turns to ice. I always fall over and hurt my bottom.

It has been dead sunny here but we had rain today, and showers are forecast until Saturday. All the Los Angelinos are up in arms at this crazy turn of events.

On a cultural note I finished ‘The Road’ by Cormac McCarthy this week. He is the fellow that wrote “No Country For Old Men” fact fans. Anyways, I think “The Road” is one of the best books I have ever read. It’s one of those novels that I just can’t stop thinking about now I’ve finished it. I would recommend it to everyone. While it touches on some disturbing themes, it is a beautifully written story of a father’s relationship with his son. It is told very simply (and is very easy to read) though the descriptions McCarthy uses are just stunning. Not only is it a quite amazing story, but its use of language is a total joy. I read a lot of books (as I’m dead intellectual and things) but this is the first one in a while that has really effected me.

I also saw that film with Mickey Rourke called ‘The Wrestler’. It was brilliant too, and it was better than ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ and ‘The Reader’ (that were both dead good). I’m not sure if it has been nominated for an Oscar but I think it’s my film of the year. It’s basically about a washed up wrestler whose life is rubbish. That is it! It’s great all the same and I say go and see this if you can. Have some popcorn for me while you are at it.

I am now a bonafide lightweight when it comes to alcohol dear reader. Emma and I went out for a Mexican meal on Saturday night. It was very delicious indeed. I had a couple of Magheritas and an Irish coffee over three hours or so. The next morning I had a hangover! And the other night Emma and I went out for dinner and drinks with some chums in Santa Monica (we went to a lovely place called ‘Rustic Canyon’ that was dead near us. All our guests would have loved it but we never knew about it! Typical.) All I had to drink was a champagne cocktail and two glasses of red wine. I felt awful again the following day.

How am I going to cope with coming back to the UK? Everyone drinks by the bucketload in England and I am no longer up to it. I am going to Eric Von Doymi’s leaving drinks tonight. We are all indulging in a Saki session. I reckon two shots for me then I will be ready for home and bed.

We have a rather quiet weekend planned. Emma has to be in work on both Saturday snd Sunday. I have to give a presentation on Monday so I’ll be working from home finishing that off, and there is an article to write for top Arsenal fanzine ‘The Gooner’ too. It’s madness I tell you. Working weekends is quite commonplace over here though and you just have to go with the vibe. People in the states also work a lot longer hours and have less than half the holiday time of all British types. It’s a crazy state of affairs and no mistaking readers. I may though try and buck the work trend for a hour and sneak in a cheeky haircut.

It’s only a week to go now until I join the panel at the Gallifrey Doctor Who convention. I am dead excited if a little nervous. There will be a thousand Whovians (as the media call them) in attendance. I hope I will be proclaimed as the new King of the Geeks. I could be rubbish though and people may throw things. If so I may just sing a song as I have been told I have a delightful voice.

I will leave it there for this week. Hopefully the Emster will be here to entertain you very soon.

Marc x

p.s. Happy Birthday Pa. I hope you have a fantastic day – and enjoy your X-Box.

Solitary Man

2009-01-29T15:16:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone,

I have got into Mint Tea recently. I find it rather delicious and it makes my stomach feel all warm inside. I like the smell very much too. I have always regarded herbal teas and the like for women (I’m not being sexist sisters, it’s just that you don’t often see men drink them). Being a macho man myself I liked to stick with caffeine based hot drinks. It has always been strictly coffee or ‘normal’ tea for me.

On Christmas Day though I got a sore tummy and I was in a bit of pain. The Emster suggested a Mint Tea and who was I to refuse (such was my discomfort)? Not only did the Mint Tea soothe me right away but it tasted delicious. I was a changed man! I now have a mint tea every day after lunch and it’s something I look forward too very much. I can only recommend it to my fellow comrades out there in blog land.

It’s funny to think of the lifestyle changes that I’ve made over the last year or so. They are a combination of being in LA and age I think, but I wonder if the Marc in his early twenties would have looked at me now with disgust? Rather than a rock n’ roll rebel from the planet Cool he would have seen a man who likes Mint Tea, who doesn’t drink very much and whose idea of fun is to decide what podcast to listen to in the gym. I don’t even eat meat anymore. How the mighty have fallen eh?

Anyway I have been trying to get my head around this Twitter thing. I heard that David Bowie had an account so I wanted one. It transpired that he didn’t have an account at all and it was some dude pretending to be him. I am now a member anyway. I still don’t really get it because as far as I can gather it’s just like sending out a lot of facebook updates. I think the idea of it is that you ‘micro blog’. Obviously I love to blither on so micro blogging isn’t quite my piano forte. I shall Percy Veer with it nonetheless as if I am to remain one of the great marketing gurus of our time I have to keep up with the kids.

The Emster and I had an ace weekend. I was working on the Saturday, but it was fun work. Our brilliant show Solitary (www.solitary3.com) has been getting absolutely great ratings. I don’t normally mention work here but not only do I love the show but it’s fantastic that I have been involved in a big success! It’s been superb to work on it for lots of reasons. Anyway a Mall Tour had been organized where the public could have a go at being in our show. The launch was at The Glendale Galleria. We had never been here before as it was in the Valley (a bit too far away from Santa Monica), but it was another Mall to tick off the list. The plan was that Emma would go off and shop while I would check out the Solitary shebang.

On the way we picked up our Australian intern James Brown. He is not THE James Brown obviously. I have managed to avoid making the obvious jokes thus far (I am getting old). Anyway James is a top lad and we had a chat about Glasvegas (who I like) and the hot new music website ‘spotify’ among other things. I shall not bore you with stories of our Mall Tour for much longer, other than to say it was a big success.

Emma did let me go to Panda Express which I was most grateful for. I simply adore Panda Express. It’s basically fast Chinese food, and it’s delicious. Emma doesn’t like big foodcourts and I can see why (as they are often full of idiots). I think the Essex Boy in me likes to come out every now and then though, and he needs to forget the mint tea. Instead he wants to sit in a food court with all the other sad dudes. I will say though that the foodcourts over here are a lot better than what you get back at home in Lakeside or something. Anyways Emma went shopping mental and spent about a million dollars on some new outfits. She looked great in them all of course so it was money well spent. And Emma did buy me a new watch so I can’t complain.

It’s been a great week for TV here in America Land. Lost returned with a double bill, and apart from Doctor Who it’s my most favorite show of all time. Some cats think that it has dragged on and doesn’t give you any answers. I am one that disagrees and I love it. I am just sad that next season is the last one as I never want it to end. I miss Charlie though as he was my fave. Emma noticed that Sawyer has now got a little bit of a tummy. This will upset the ladies! We once saw him having a cigarette outside a bar in Venice. So not only is he putting on weight but he is probably going to die of cancer soon too. Things must be troubled in his world.

We have now also watched the first two episodes of this seasons ‘Flight Of The Conchords’. It is just as funny as the first series and Murray is the best comic creation since Alan Partridge.

I should go now as in today’s Twitter times you have to keep it real, and to keep it short. I think Emma will write the next entry. She hasn’t done one for a while and her fans have been very demanding. While she is doing that I may work on another videoblog for you all. It’s all give, give, give with us.

Keep it real,
Marc x

King For A Day

2009-01-22T15:57:00.000-08:00

Just as we got used to being back at work after the festive period (and were in the mindset of being worker type dudes) another holiday was upon us. As mentioned in the last entry we had Monday off work as it was Martin Luther King day. This meant a three day weekend which is always a good thing eh readers? And of course it’s jolly good that Mr. King helped everyone all be equal and that type of jazz. I was thus very happy that he has his own day as I think he probably deserved it. It was actually Ronald Reagan who signed the bill in 1982 which bought this day into existence fact fans.

On the Saturday Emma and I went to our first ever baby shower. These events aren’t that big back in blighty but they are all the rage here in America Land. Basically what happens is that everyone buys the forthcoming baby a present and then you all have some food and drink to celebrate. This wasn’t a Stepford Wives type event though (which you see in the films). Instead it was more like an afternoon party with some fizz and cakes. It was a lovely day with weather in the late twenties and it was brilliant to enjoy the sun whilst mingling with various people in the garden.

We purchased some organic baby kit thing that Emma picked. I’m not sure what it was exactly but the packaging looked nice. I should point out that it was our friends Cerise and Mark’s shower as I haven’t mentioned that yet! I can’t say too much about the various crazy showbiz types that were there as they may get cross with me. What I will say though is that I was very shocked to see an A-list bonafide star with the most dreadful fake tan on. They had obviously done it themselves which proves even stars are human sometimes. Anyway fake tan aside it was a brilliant event and we are looking forward to the birth of the baby very much.

Sunday was a quite brilliant day. The weather was lovely again so Emma and I went shopping. As we were walking down to the shops we saw a man with a big sandwich board saying that Macy’s was having a big gone bust sale or something. As a result a lot of things were half price or less. I got a brilliant pair of skinny jeans for about 12 pounds in UK money as well as lots of pants and not forgetting some ace new ties. You have to love the credit crunch really eh? As long as you can keep your job then there are bargains to be had in lots of shops. When our local Borders closed down just after Christmas Emma and I went book mental as everything was so cheap. Obviously Emma will be out of a job when we come back home but lets not worry about that now. Instead we will carry on partying like it's 1999 when every store has to have closing down sales. At least we will look good when we are living on the streets of London in six months time when nobody has a job.

Emma then got herself some lovely new clothes in Third Street before we retired to ‘Pinkberry’ for a delicious low fat, low calorie, frozen yoghurt. This was followed by a delightful evening stroll back home.

On Monday I had an ichat with my mum. I hadn’t spoken to her for a couple of weeks so it was great to catch up. We spoke for 46 minutes which is a long time for me to talk via any kind of phone method. Emma and I then went to the gym. Luckily it was pretty quiet today. I am really fed up with all the people that have joined the gym as a new years resolution. My gym is now full of amateurs who will no doubt stop going in a couple of weeks. I really don’t know why they bother as they just take up valuable machine space in their pathetic attempt to get fit (that will fail by the next month). They then won’t be seen again until the following January when they are another half a stone heavier.

I just read that last paragraph back. It’s very mean spirited isn’t it? I’m sorry about that readers. I just get cross having to wait for a machine at the gym. I wanted to go on the sit up machine the other day but two fat dudes (about the size of Hurley from Lost) were using them as chairs while they had a chat. Surely they could do this at a diner with a burger? Anyway, there is nothing wrong with people wanting to get fit. I just wish it wasn’t in my gym in January.

In the evening we went to a brilliant movie theatre called ‘The Landmark’. Not only did it have really fresh and delicious popcorn but the chairs were so comfy, and they even reclined. They gave you loads of space too. It was the bee’s knees of cinemas (as I believe they are called back in the UK). We went to watch ‘Who Wants To Be A Millionaire: India’. It wasn’t called that but for the life of me I can’t remember the title. I know I could go and Google it now but I’m on a roll writing this so I shall not stop. Anyway, you know what film I mean and it will come to me in a bit.

I was expecting great things because not only had every critic said it was the best film ever made but everyone I spoke to had said the same thing too. I was therefore very disappointed when it finished. I thought to myself (and this shouldn’t spoil the end for those who haven’t seen it) “There is no way those questions would have come up, that is taking coincidence too far.” Emma though said she loved it, whereas I thought it was unbelievable tosh. Then a very weird thing happened! As we were traveling home I realized that if I hadn’t of gone in expecting to see the best film ever made I would have enjoyed it for what it was. And that is a really well made, life affirming film, with a really witty and touching script. By the morning I had done a total about turn and I decided that it was in fact brilliant after all.

I emailed Jim (Bob) the next day and told him that he had to go and see it as it was the greatest film ever made. I had become as bad as the critics. I should have said “Slumdog (Yes! It’s come to me) Millionaire is pretty good. See what you think.”

Anyways, that was how we celebrated the life of Martin Luther King. If you reading this Mr. King then I will raise one of my low calories sports drinks to you as we had a lovely weekend.

Since the weekend we are back at work and Obama is finally the President. I told all the dudes at work that there is none of this waiting around for months back in the UK. You basically win the election and then you are leader. This is how it should be. I know his inauguration was all very historic but I had been excited two months ago when he won. I found Tuesday’s events quite dull as it was the same thing all over again. In football terms it was like the games you get after you have won the league with a few matches to spare. You just want to get them out of the way and get onto playing in the Champions League. I thought that rather than having all this palaver and hullabaloo he should just get on with the job of running America and being hopefully the best President ever.

That’s it for now.

Marc x

p.s. I am pleased to announce that a VERY special guest has been added to The Gallifrey 20 Convention (the biggest Doctor Who convention in the world). On the panel discussing The Sarah Jane Adventures 'season two' a certain Marc Ollington has been added to the bill. This will be THE best session of the convention I'm sure with Ollington entertaining all with his cheeky charm and Matt Smith good looks. www.gallifreyone.com/gallifrey-schedule.php

Smith and Bones

2009-01-15T13:52:00.000-08:00

Hello readers,

It’s been a while eh? Hopefully the video blog of our Vegas antics kept you entertained. 250 of you watched both parts. I think that makes Emma and I bonafide youtube sensations.

Not much has happened since Vegas if the truth be told. We have gone back to work and the last couple of weeks have whizzed by like a very whizzy thing. We do have a long weekend coming up though (which is jolly nice). It’s Martin Luther King Day on Monday so we all get a day off. I pretended to my American colleagues that I had no idea who this dude was. This was obviously hilarious and lots of fun and japes ensued. Imagine their faces when I said “Only joking. I know who is really.” It was priceless.

Emma and I went to see that film ‘The Reader’ last Saturday. It was pretty good actually though Kate Winslet got naked again. That lady can’t keep her clothes on. It’s a disgrace I think. There were a lot of old people in the cinema and I wondered if all the sex was a bit too much for them. It was too much for me if the truth be told. I think I am getting more prudish as I get older.

We also cleaned the car last Saturday and we did a food shop. Interesting eh? We hadn’t done a shop for a while so it came to $240 dollars. This did include moisturizer for us both though which upped the cost. Yes, it’s true, I have started using moisturizer. I did this in my mid-twenties but I wasn’t as bad as my flatmate Toby who actually cleansed, toned and moisturized. I got bored of putting it on my face every day though (it’s bad enough shaving) and I decided it was too gay. So for the last few years I have been moisturizer free. Emma noticed that my skin was a bit dry in this LA climate and said I should go back on the moisturizer. I am not getting any younger readers and I do have lines around my eyes now. I don’t mind this actually as it looks quite cool in a man I think. I don’t want peeling skin though so I have been applying this stuff twice a day. I just touched my face as I write this and it’s almost as soft as a babies bottom. I think the Esmter was right therefore. I’m not doing any of that toning stuff though.

I really am afraid these topics today are as good as it gets. What do you expect? It’s January and even in LA you can’t be out living the showbiz life the whole time. Even people like me need to be normal every now and then. You’ll be pleased to know though that the Emster and I are well. And the sun is shining. It’s in the high twenties at the moment so whilst you UK dudes are freezing we will be on the beach. Sorry for the gloating readers but I am glad that winter over here lasted for about a week.

With January comes resolutions. Mine is to be even healthier. I got my blood test results back (I still have the bruise from it, and it was all the way back on Christmas Eve they did that) and the results were rubbish. I have very high cholesterol. I reckon this is dead unfair as I am really healthy these days. I haven’t eaten red meat for about nine months and my diet is very good. I get lots of exercise too. I bet there are loads of fat people who smoke and drink loads who are fine. This world has no justice. Luckily I am as fit as a fiddle in every other area. I don’t think I have ever had such a thorough health check as what I had over here. At my Doctors back in London you get about two minutes maximum time before you walk out with a prescription (of which you have no idea of what it is you have been given, or indeed what’s wrong with you). I’ve never had a proper health check before.

The Doctor thinks its genetic so he wanted to prescribe this medicine called Lipatol. I did some research on the interweb and it can cause a lot of bad side effects in some people. This scared me a bit so I told my doctor about my worries. And I hate taking tablets if I don’t need too. He got all narky about me doing interweb research (as Doctors do. I think it’s their pet hate when patients look things up on the interweb) and said that all drugs have side effects in some people. He is right of course but I don’t think you should jump into these things.

Perhaps stupidly I have decided to try and get better naturally. It may not be genetic (you never know) and if I get even healthier I will be ok. We have now bought whole grain pasta and that kind of jazz. In fact our food shop on Saturday was the most dull we have ever done. The only nice thing we got was ice-cream and even that was low fat. I have changed my breakfast cereal from Golden Grahams to Cheerios. They taste like cardboard but what can you do? They are as far removed from giving me cheer as physically possible. They claim to remove cholesterol by 5% though. I also have this butter that tastes so bad I am tempted to have manky old dry bread. I now sit at the table every morning and look enviously at Emma and her cornflakes. And I don’t even like cornflakes that much.

When I get back to England in April I will get tested again and if I’m still bad I guess I’ll go on the drugs. I have been to the gym loads this year already too as exercise helps. I shall beat this if I can dear reader. I don’t want to get diabetes or any of that type of jazz, so it’s a life of moderation and boredom for me foodwise. It could be worse though eh? I could have been diabetic now and that would have been awful. I almost cried before my blood test (and I haven’t cried since 2001 I reckon) so at least I don’t have to inject myself.

I shall now move away from my diet and my face and I will go onto the last topic for today. That topic dear readers is the new Doctor Who. How could I not mention the appointment of Matt Smith? Most Doctor Who fans are up in arms saying that he is too young, and that new head honcho Stephen Moffat doesn’t know what he was doing. Or even that Matt Smith was forced on him by BBC execs wanting the Hollyoaks audience. Well, I have it on very good authority that they were quite happy to go older. Both David Morrissey and Paterson Joseph (the top two choices) could not agree terms so third choice Matt Smith got the role.

Mr. Smith may be twenty six now but he won’t be the Doctor on our screens until 2010. He’ll be twenty eight almost by then, only a year younger than when Peter Davison started. Peter Davison was the last great Doctor before Eccles Cakes (Baker 2, McCoy and McGann were ok, they weren’t up to the first five and subsequently Doctor’s nine or ten). If Peter can do it so can Matt Smith. So I will enjoy David Tennant doing four fabulous specials in 2009 and in Spring of 2010 (a very long time away) I will start having a think about how Matt may get on in the role.

Some people have said that Matt Smith looks like me. I wished I had his hairline that’s for sure! I can’t really see it myself other than the fact our faces aren’t conventionally good looking yet we are both hugely attractive to women.

Anyway, that’s it for now.

Marc x

Viva Las Vegas

2009-01-05T22:04:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year dear blog readers.

Here is something a little different this time around. My boss, Lorey, got me this ace mini video recorder for Christmas. It's the size of a credit card practically! I therefore decided to make a video of Emma and I's trip to Las vegas to see the new year in. We spent three nights there and it was ruddy toptastic.

I'll be back with a written blog next time. Having said that making these videos is very addictive... I feel like the new Stephen Spielberg. Having said that I have only just learned how to 'edit'. Spot all the 'on-purpose' title mistakes at the very start of part two. I was being artistic honest!

Enjoy!
Marc x

If you don't want to watch the little clips just below the title of this blog, and want to see the videos in their full youtube glory they are here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Be-IiP0oWMo (Part One)

and here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YLh3j5CQsRE (Part Two)

It's Christmas

2008-12-24T10:14:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone,

Just a quick note to wish you all a very happy Christmas. I love this time of year so much. What could be better than time off work, eating lots, having a nice drink, getting and giving presents and watching ace TV? And celebrating the birth of the little baby Jesus of course. It really is the best time of the year. People that moan about it obviously don't have to go to work everyday...

One thing I did miss off my list there is family. Sadly Emma and I won't be with ours this year. It will be lovely to spend Christmas with just each other as we have never done this before, and I doubt we will ever again. We have a lovely Christmas Day together planned and I am very excited. We will miss being with everyone though. I love seeing one family on Christmas Day and then travelling to the other set on Boxing Day. We do have the magic ichat though so we will be with them via the computer. It isn't quite the same but normal service will be resumed in 2009.

I hope you have a wonderful time with whatever you have planned. As a 'present' I have posted a picture of our little tree above. Enjoy!

Happy Christmas,

Marc and The Emster xxx

p.s. I am so excited about the Doctor Who Christmas special it's untrue...

The Next Doctor

2008-12-19T12:33:00.001-08:00

I woke up on Wednesday morning and my ear really hurt dear reader. I couldn’t hear out of it and it was dead painful. At first I thought that I had a build up of wax and it would need a good syringe. I have small ear canals so this is something I have to deal with a lot (amazing fact for you there). This would mean though that I would have to see a Doctor. Before you can get your ears syringed you need to be checked by a GP first, he then prescribes some drops to prepare the ear, and then a week later you can see a nurse for the procedure.

My problem here was that I didn’t have a Doctor in LA. My work have paid for top medical insurance for Emma and I but in nine months we have never used it. I now had to put this insurance to the test, and in the process find a doctor.

This was easier said than done. I had to email my insurers who are based in Germany. They then put me in touch with a medical company in the US who eventually emailed me some Doctors I could use. I then had to research these crazy cats to find a good one. I eventually found one that was nearby that seemed to have good reviews, and made an appointment for that lunch time.

When I got to the surgery I was relieved to find a nice, clean and modern building. I know LA isn’t the third world but you can never be sure what you are going to get. I wasn’t prepared for the amount of forms I would have to fill in on my arrival though. I had to sign about twenty zillion of them and then we had to do things like speak to my insurance company on the phone to get full authorization. It took what seemed like hours. I realized that for all the NHS failings it is an amazing thing when you think about it. There is very little form filling-in involved back home. Admittedly it takes you ten days to get an appointment rather than ten minutes, but that isn’t the point.

As I was filling in my last form I noticed on the wall some photographs of my new Doctor. One was of him stood with Ronald Reagan, in another he was with George Bush Senior, but the big photo on display was of the younger George Bush with his arm firmly around the doctor. George had signed it “Thanks for your continued support of the Republican Party, George”. Could I let this man examine my ear if he loved George Bush? I decided to forget his political affiliations as he had lots of impressive looking certificates on the wall, including some for plastic surgery.

Before he looked at my ear the Doctor wanted to give me a health check. This made me cross as I hate having that blood pressure machine put on your arm. When they start to pump it I feel all weird. If I’m honest I get a bit squeamish at anything medical, including the blood pressure machine. This is why I visit the doctor about once a year maximum (and this is mainly just to get my ears syringed as I have mentioned). Anyway, my blood pressure was spot on, as was my heart, weight and lung capacity. A Ronnie Result I thought to myself. Surely that would be it?

He then hit the bombshell that it was about time I had a blood test to check for high cholesterol and diabetes. Getting diabetes is my worst fear in the world. As some of you know I am terrified of needles to the point of silliness. I think it all stems from having an operation as a boy. I remember lying in the hospital bed, all weak and pathetic, while being in so much pain from constant injections. The nurse was really horrible and did them very badly, missing the vein most times. Now if I look at a needle on the TV I will faint if I don’t turn away quick enough. Even writing this has made me feel weird. And my fear gets worse the older I get.

So, not only would I have to have a blood test to check for this (which terrifies me beyond belief) but in the back of my head I am always convinced that I will end up with diabetes. How would I inject myself? I’d pass out before I did it. Anyway I told him I didn’t like needles and he said he would be very careful with me when it came to the blood test. I have to have this done on ruddy Christmas Eve. I should do it though as I haven’t had my blood tested for years. I bet I worry all Christmas that I have diabetes. It will be a long wait for the results…

He also looked up my nose and asked me if I sneezed a lot. I sneeze all the time over here but it has never bothered me as I like sneezing. It’s not a bad sensation; in fact it’s quite nice. I told him that I do indeed sneeze all the time, and how Kelly Jackson (who sits near my office) shouts out “Bless you” whenever I do it. I then shout out “Thank you”. We do this about ten times a day. He didn’t seem that bothered with this great story. Instead he told me that I was allergic to LA! Apparently by body hasn’t yet got used to the air and my nose and sinuses have been constantly inflamed for a while. I’m sure London is worse pollution wise, but he gave me a prescription for it anyway. I hope my sneezes don’t stop totally.

That is the problem with going to the doctors. You walk in with a bad ear, and come out with an allergy and potential diabetes!

Anyway he eventually checked my ears after looking at the rest of my body (and making more money for himself by arranging blood tests). It turned out that my ear didn’t have too much wax after all! Instead I had an ear infection and a cold in the ear. And not only that he told me that the cold would soon spread. And it ruddy well has and I feel rubbish. Typical! And it’s just before I break up for Christmas too.

I hope you have enjoyed hearing about my first ever trip to a Doctor’s in LA. It’s this kind of thing that makes this blog so special!

Marc x

The Emsters Cultural Review Of The Year

2008-12-17T11:11:00.000-08:00

Marc asked me to compile my review of the year and I must admit that I found it really difficult. Mostly because I found it impossible to recall what I had actually done, listened to, read and seen this year. It’s a very tricky task. Also a fair bit of it does probably resemble Marc’s list seeing as we tend to spend a large proportion of our time together, doing the same things, so I apologise if you find it at all dull and repetitive.

Albums of the Year

1. Take That – The Circus
2. Britney Spears – Circus (admittedly I’ve not got this yet however I’ve heard lots of tracks already).
3. Girls Aloud – Out of Control
4. Flight of the Conchords - Flight of the Conchords
5. The Indelicates – American Demo
6. Keane – Perfect Symmetry (again don’t actually have this yet but saw them perform most of the tracks live at a recent gig so I feel I can include it here. In fact I am hoping that it’s currently sitting under our Christmas tree waiting to be opened on Christmas Day. )
7. Snow Patrol - A Hundred Million Suns
8. Glen Campbell – Meet Glen Campbell
9. Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
10. Conor Oberst – Conor Oberst

Song of the Year
Spiralling by Keane. Great 80’s pop revival. I love it.

Man of the Year
Rob Brydon. For no particular reason other than I think he’s brill and he’s doing a comedy tour next year.

Gigs of the Year

1. Keane at the Roxy
2. Russell Brand at the Roxy
3. Spice Girls at the O2
4. Conor Oberst at the Henry Fonda Theatre
5. Carter USM at both Birmingham and Brixton academies.

Podcasts of the Year

Before moving to LA I must admit to not really listening to podcasts all that much. However Marc thought I’d enjoy them so began putting them on during our many road trips and I must confess to becoming an avid follower of a select few. I know some of these below are not ‘true’ podcasts but I’m going to include them as I download them from the itunes and they are stored on my ipod under podcasts. To me that means they count here.

1. Collins and Herrin
2. Radio 4 News Quiz
3. Radio 4 Now Show – Although I can’t stand Mitch Benns stupid songs at the beginning of the show.

TV Shows of the Year

I love tele so couldn’t keep it to just 10 so upped this one to a top 20.
1. Gavin and Stacey
2. Strictly Come Dancing
3. Holby Cities
4. CSI: New York
5. Doctor Who
6. 8 Out of 10 Cats
7. Would I Lie To You?
8. X Factor
9. Torchwood
10. Without a Trace
11. Brothers and Sisters
12. Desperate Housewives
13. Private Practice
14. Grey’s Anatomy
15. The Office (American one)
16. CSI: Miami
17. CSI
18. The Bachelorette (despite strongly disagreeing with her final choice – although her rejected man is back in ‘The Bachelor’ in January so he will now get to choose a nicer lady than her in the end anyway)
19. Sarah Jane Adventures
20. Harry Hill’s TV Burp

Films of the Year

1. Sex and the City (clichéd but true)
2. Mamma Mia
3. The Other Boleyn Girl
4. Tropic Thunder
5. Iron Man
6. The Incredible Hulk
7. Stepbrothers
8. What happens in Vegas
9. Juno
10. Definitely, Maybe

Books of the Year

1. The Shadow of the Wind – Carlos Ruin Zafon
2. Looking Good Dead – Peter James
3. No Time For Goodbye – Linwood Barclay
4. The Traveller – John Twelve Hawks
5. Black Swan Green – David Mitchell
6. My Favourite Wife – Tony Parsons (Not sure whether I loved or hated this book)
7. Deadline – Simon Kernick
8. Want to Play? – PJ Tracy
9. We Need to Talk About Kevin – Lionel Shriver (I’m halfway through this book and so far its put me off ever having children. It is very good though and so I thought I could include despite having not finished it yet).
10. Jodi Piccoult – I read a good few books a year by this lady and enjoy them very much at the time. However they have all merged in to one in my head now so I can’t distinguish between any of them. I wanted to include her here nonetheless.

Hero of the Year
ichat – for allowing me to see and speak to my family from LA.

Event of the Year
1. On a personal note, my first wedding anniversary was pretty darn special.
2. And on a more global note, Obama getting elected as President of the US of A.

Most Missed
Home. Despite loving Santa Monica, England will always be home.

My Top Choices Of The Year

2008-12-12T12:24:00.000-08:00

Every year Team Jim Bob (Jim Bob, Mr Spoons and I) post our 'cultural review' on http://www.jim-bob.co.uk/. It's a list that I enjoy making every year. To see the choices of all three of us go to the aforementioned link. But for those of you who are my fans alone (and who don't care about Jim Bob or Mr Spoons) here is what I posted (with some revisions actually).

Before you read on it's worth noting how far down my list 'Strictly Come Dancing ' has moved. The BBC powers that be have seriously damaged this show for me. It's obvious that John Sargeant was made to leave. The BBC didn't want to risk a 'Pop Idol' where everyone voted for that fat woman for a laugh (and then never bought any of her records once the show was finished).

Regardless of whether you watch for the dancing, or whether you watch for the whole spectacle this annoyed me. It's easy to manipulate a viewer (all reality shows do this to some extent) but the minute you become that obvious doing it then you are in trouble. It's subsequent ratings dive is no surprise. I didn't want Sargeant to win - but I wanted him to go out fairly. And last weeks daft decision to put all three semi-finalists through (meaning we have the same show two weeks on a trot) is just silly. I worked out weeks ago that a tie could create that scenario. How the 'boffins' at the Beeb failed to see this coming is beyond me.

In future I shall stick to Doctor Who, as I really shouldn't get that wound up about a show about dancing. I only really watch for Brucie (who I love), Dave Arch and his Orchestra and to see what the ladies are going to be wearing.

Anyway I digress. Here is what I enjoyed this year.

Albums Of The Year (This was the best year for albums in the past 20 years)
1. Indelicates - American Demo
2. Conor Oberst - Conor Oberst
3. Neil Diamond - Home Before Dark
4. Scarlett Johansson - Anywhere I Lay My Head
5. Keane - Perfect Symmetry
6. British Sea Power - Do You Like Rock Music?
7. TV On The Radio - Dear Science
8. The Killers - Day & Age
9. Flight Of The Conchords - Flight Of The Conchords
10. Vampire Weekend - Vampire Weekend
11. MGMT - MGMT
12. Chris T-T - Capital
13. The Sparks - Exotic Creatures Of The Deep
14. Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
15. Glen Campbell – Meet Glen Campbell
16. Nick Cave - Dig!!! Lazarus Dig!!!
17. The Last Shadow Puppets - The Age Of understatement
18. The Ting Tings - We Started Nothing
19. Laura Marling - Alas I Can Not Swim
20. Girls Aloud - Out Of Control

Song Of The Year
The Killers - Human (The best pop song written in the last 10 years)

Man Of The Year
Russell Brand (for the picture of Stalin placed cheekily behind him when announcing his resignation)

Radio Shows Of The Year
1. Jonathon Ross - Radio 2
2. Russell Brand - Radio 2
3. The News Quiz - Radio 4
4. The Now Show - Radio 4
5. Steve Lamacq - 6 Music

Gigs Of The Year
1. Carter USM - Birmingham Academy
2. Keane @ LA Roxy
3. Nick Cave @ Hollywood Bowl
4. Conor Oberst @ Henry Fonda Theatre
5. Russell Brand @ LA Roxy
6. British Sea Power @ Shepherds Bush Empire
7. Carter USM - Brixton Academy
8. Indelicates/SMASH/Abdou - Cambridge Portland Arms
9. Sultans Of Ping - Mean Fiddler
10. Jim Bob - Portsmouth The Cellars

Podcasts Of The Year (can't be a cut down radio show)
1. Collins and Herrin
2. The Online Gooner
3. Doctor Who Podshock
4. Stephen Fry Podgrams
5. Adam and Joe

TV Shows Of The Year (The best year for TV ever I reckon)
1. Doctor Who/Sarah Jane/Torchwood
2. Gavin and Stacey
3. Lost
4. Peep Show
5. The Apprentice
6. Harry Hill's TV Burp
7. Dragon's Den
8. Ramsey's US Kitchen Nightmares
9. Curb Your Enthusiasm
10. The Office (American Version)
11. Would I Lie To You
12. Survivors
13. The Wire
14. Without A Trace
15. 8 Out Of 10 Cats
16. Tonight With Jonathan Ross
17. Solitary 2.0
18. Strictly Come Dancing
19. The IT Crowd
20. The X-Factor

Films Of The Year
1. Juno
2. Tropic Thunder
3. Iron Man
4. Son Of Rambow
5. Superbad
6. Zac and Miri Make A Porno
7. The Visitor
8. No Country For Old Men
9. The Other Boleyn Girl
10. The Dark Knight (Heath Ledger wasn't that great though!)
11. Atonement
12. Indiania Jones and The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull
13. Stepbrothers
14. Hancock
15. Definitely, Maybe
16. The Incredible Hulk
17. Forgetting Sarah Marshall
18. Cloverfield
19. Sommers Town
20. Ghost Town

Books Of The Year (What I read, not when it came out)
1. A Writers Tale - Russell T. Davies
2. Motel Life - Willy Vaughan
3. Submarine - Joe Dunthorne
4. Making History - Stephen Fry
5. Meetings With Morrissey - Len Brown
6. Bowie In Berlin - Thomas Jerome Seabrook
7. Gotcha! The Story Of The Sun - Chris Horrie
8. Microserfs - Douglas Coupland
9. Timoleon Vieta Come Home - Dan Rhodes
10. Bright Lights, Big City - Jay McInnery

Hero Of The Year
Fox Soccer Channel (for giving me Prem action while in the US)

Event Of The Year
1. Carter at Birmingham Academy
2. Barrack Obama winning that election thingy

Most Missed
1. David Bowie - again. Please come out of retirement.
2. I missed Sarah Palin in December for comedy value.
3. London (until I actually went back there and faced delayed trains and rain, then couldn't wait to leave again).

Stay Another Day

2008-12-10T16:53:00.001-08:00

One of the best things about life in LA is how many people have come to visit us. Emma and I had around a hundred people come to our wedding and it is bonkers to think that out of all of those, twenty or so have been to visit us in LA. For all you non maths fans that’s a fifth of our wedding attendance that have flown out.

So in a nutshell who has been to visit thus far? Here is the roll of honor for your perusal and delight:

April: Vicki and Gary. They are special in that not only were they our first visitors, but they were our only guests to stay in the corporate apartment we were in for the first two months. This had a lot more room than our current place, and had a pool and hot tub. We did, though, make them sleep on the blow up bed in the living room due to there being more room (whereas couples now get to sleep in our bed). So perhaps they missed out after all? Many of our initial explorations of LA were undertaken with them. And many of the activities we did during their stay would be passed on to all our future visitors.

Emma and I were very sad when Vicki and Gary left and we got homesick for the first time while over here. When visitors leave is the only time when I miss home actually. That feeling normally goes after a nice dinner and some good TV.

April/May: Mr and Mrs Furness. Their stay (which Em and I loved) included one of the best weekends I have ever had which was my first trip to Disneyland. Once you have been to Disney then the magic lives with you forever! We did lots of ace things and had a great couple of weeks. It was better for Emma though as she got to sightsee with them during the day while I was at ruddy work.

May: Jim, Jakki and Holly. The Morrison family were the first visitors to our Santa Monica Shed. Again it was an adventure packed trip, including going to Universal Studios and doing a tour of Hollywood in a bus. I love going on a tour me… It did rain though during the first couple of days of their stay. This wasn’t in the plan and we spent their first afternoon in our ‘shed’ playing Scrabble and watching films. I don’t think this was the LA they had pictured. Luckily the weather got better for them as the week went on.

June: Jeremy. This visit not only included going to the WWE wrestling but also the famous ‘Robbie Williams Incident’ at the Russell Brand gig took place. For new readers I would advise looking at the June archives! That blog entry made this site famous, and to be frank it hasn’t reached the same heights since.

July: Les, Richie and Damo. Abdou (Les’ band) were playing some West Coast gigs and the band stayed with us for a couple of nights (apart from Jonny and Alison who were in a nearby hotel). Damo (the drummer) is our only visitor not to be at our wedding fact fans. It’s not that we don’t like him, we just didn’t really know him (that is my story, which I am sticking too). While Richie wasn’t technically a wedding guest he would have been had I not booked his band to play! He was thus there at the wedding and he even let me sing a song or two.

August: Toby and Kirsty. My fave memory is Toby and I watching a West Ham game at seven in the morning while Emma was trying to sleep on the living room floor (on the blow up bed). Toby had to stifle his joy as West Ham got a win for once. Kirsty had sensibly stayed in bed! We then watched Arsenal beat Newcastle before having a day of culture at the Getty Centre and then Griffith Observatory. By this stage Emma was an old hand at being a tour guide and as such her Getty Centre presentation even had me enthralled (so great were her facts and knowledge). I think Tobes was one of our most enthusiastic visitors and I love that in a guest.

September: Felicity, Mr and Mrs Furness. We had our first repeat visitors with the in-laws not being able to get enough of my company (it has nothing to do with Emma obviously), but this time the youngest Furness sister, Felicity, was also in tow. Once again ace times were had, including a top weekend in San Francisco. And this was also when I discovered my love for body boarding during a day out at the beach.

October: Mr and Mrs Spoons. This was another fantastic week which included a trip to LA Galaxy and a visit to Ramsey’s restaurant (that still has me salivating). We also had a great night in with a Chinese and the X-Factor one night. We also made their hotel bar our own. I miss the Double Tree bar a lot these days. I couldn’t go back though as Mr and Mrs Spoons wouldn’t be there, and it wouldn’t be the same.

November: James and Sarah. These were the first guests I introduced to any of my work friends. We went out for a meal on the Saturday night with Charissa and her husband Steve. Luckily Sarah compensated for James and his northern ways.

We also had a great night in with a Thai and watching ‘Strictly Come Dancing’ (are you noticing a theme?). We had done cultural stuff and a guided tour during the day though so this was allowed. This was before John Sergeant was pushed out, and before the show became a farce. I hope that smug Tom Chambers doesn’t win. But then I can’t stand dull Rachel Stevens or Lisa ‘Can’t Shut Up’ Snowdon. I don’t care who wins this year (which is sad) as I dislike them all.

November/December: Laura and Robbie. We had a great week with these two cats. Out of all our guests they liked shopping the most, so we did a lot of that with them. Robbie liked Urban Outfitters as much as me. The day after thanksgiving was called ‘Black Friday’ and it is the biggest sale day of the year. I bought lots, but once again not as much as the Robster. He even went to the sale at Urban Outfitters which started at 7am in the morning. That was too hardcore for me, but I was impressed that Robbie made the effort.

We tried new restaurants with them, as well as our old favorites, and we also had a Thanksgiving dinner! We went to ‘The Penthouse’ for this, which is very swish. We had cocktails, then a real American Thanksgiving meal. It was ruddy pricey – but worth it. Apart from the yams, which were pretty disgusting.

Oh yes, I forgot to mention that it was my first thanksgiving. The Americans go as mental for Thanksgiving as they do for Christmas. The only difference is that you don’t get any presents. You still have lots to eat and drink though, as well as getting some time off work. And then a month later you have Christmas. I think we should do a similar thing back in Blighty. I am glad we had Laura and Robbie with us for it though, so us four citizens of the UK (Robbie is from Northern Ireland which is counted as the United Kingdom fact fans) could enjoy it together.

One night we went back to Laura and Robbie’s hotel and we spent the evening sitting in their hot tub (while relaxing with a drink or two). This was very nice indeed as I love a hot tub. After a while it got too hot for the ladies but Robbie and I were hardcore so we stayed in it. We got talking to this college student from Texas (who was ok, but a bit of a fool) and his girlfriend (who was from Beverly Hills). I think she liked Robbie and his Irish lilt (as she kept looking at his swimming trunk area), but the chap from Texas was oblivious as he carried on with his dull stories.

On their last night we went for a meal in a new trendy place that has opened up on Abbot Kinney Boulevard (where all the cool kids hang out in Venice). I forget the name of the restaurant but it was very nice. We then went to the bar ‘The Other Room’ and Robbie and I had some weird beers. We wanted to stay to have some more but the ladies were tired and wanted to leave at around 11pm. Robbie and I had to follow suit though we would have been more rock n’ roll if we were allowed.

I felt a little sad when we dropped our visitors off. Out of all our guests they’d probably seen the most celebs during their trip. The saw Pink on Santa Monica Pier on their last day. They had also seen Christopher Eccles Cakes In ‘Urban Outfitters’ (how jealous was I) as well as Oasis and Tim Burgess from The Charlatans (though to be honest the last one isn’t that good as I ran into him back home at my gym in Shepherds Bush!). On the way back Miquita Oliver from T4 was on their flight. I find that lady quite funny as it goes. (though she does miss Simon Amstell as a sparring partner. Steve Jones is a bit too good looking to be properly funny.)

And then Jeremy visits again today… and our last visitor in March will be little Jon Ollington. After that Em and I see will see more of the states before we have to return home. The current plan is to visit at least Chicago and New York.

At the moment we have January and February visitor free. If you do plan to visit us then this is your last chance (though it is winter now and the weather is a rather rubbish 24 degrees Celsius today!). After that we will sadly no longer be in these parts to take guests. It’s all going a bit too quickly. I can’t think like that though. I still have three months of work to go.

Cheerio for now.
Marc x

P.S. A Happy belated Birthday shout out to Rob Mellor, Emma’s cousin. Rob is an avid reader of this blog, and as such is rewarded with a ‘shout out’ (which don’t get awarded easily).

What I Did On My Holidays (Part Two)

2008-12-02T18:11:00.000-08:00

Tuesday 18th November

As I wouldn’t be in the UK for Christmas this year my mum decided to throw us an early Christmas Day. The plan was that we make it a real Christmas. The family would swap presents, have a proper festive Dinner then we would play games in the evening. Both my brother, sister and her boyfriend Neil took time off work to make this happen for Emma and me. We were very grateful and very excited.

We met little Jon Ollington at Fenchurch Street station (after being delayed on the first train we got. I really haven’t missed our public transport) and we boarded the train back to Leigh-On-Sea. Em and I were exhausted due to running to catch this train with a very heavy suitcase full of presents. I wish we had hired a car in retrospect!

Dad was waiting for us at the station and before we knew it we were back home. It really felt like Christmas as my mum had even put up decorations. It was ace to see my mum as well as Sarah and Neil all there waiting for us. As regular readers will know my sister has just got engaged so I was pleased to congratulate the happy couple.

I got some really ace presents and like Roy Wood I wished it could be Christmas every day. Our dinner was delicious and we had lots of arguments when playing DVD games of ‘Pub Quiz’, ‘Catchphrase’ and ‘Family Fortunes’. It was brill! In the evening we were joined by Auntie Angela and Uncle Colin, as well as friend of the family Roger. My Auntie was convinced ‘Catchphrase’ was called ‘Mr Pips’ and no telling her that the little computer person was in fact Mr Chips (and that wasn’t even the title anyway) sunk in.

It really was a lovely day, and Emma and I were quite touched with the effort everyone went too.

Wednesday 19th November

Emma and I slept for ten hours solid and woke up at 11am. We had been out and about so much since we got back it was good to be able to lie in. We had some tea and toast before saying goodbye. My Dad dropped us in Leigh where we were meeting our friends Mark and Becky for lunch. It was fantastic to see them and we had a nice pizza. I had a full fat coke too. I think you should always treat yourself on occasions such as this. They also had their lovely children in tow, Mollie and Thomas. We had only seen Thomas once before. He was now nine months old and cute as a button. It made Emma and I want children right away, until we realized not all of them are as well behaved as The Rice’s. Our lunch went far too quickly and before we knew it we were back on the train to London.

In the evening we went to our local pub with Sinead and Iain. Emma and I know Sinead from Nat Geo, and she lives near us in Anerley too. We are now all top mates and that kind of thing. Sinead’s man is called Iain. He is a top bloke who I have got to know over the last couple of years. We bonded over having the same racist driving instructor. Anyway, we had many drinks and great chats and before long it was closing time. It had been another smashing day. I was now enjoying being back at home.

Thursday 20th November

I had a lot of running around to do during the day for last minute Carter gig preparations. This meant that I couldn’t join the Furness family for lunch which was annoying. I had to make do with a sandwich from Tescos.

Mr. Spoons picked us up in the evening and soon him and I, along with the talent (Jim and Les) were heading up to Birmingham.

This year they had decided not to go in the tour bus with the crew (that would be leaving later) in order that they get a good nights sleep and that they were properly prepared. The crew themselves were also up and loading in the venue at 8am (so they would have us believe!) so we didn’t want to be disturbed.

Out hotel was very nice and the rooms had imacs in them, which also doubled up as TVs. I thought this was very cool. We all went out for a pizza before having a cheeky drink in the hotel bar. It was soon time for bed though, and once again I had lovely sleeps.

Friday 21st November

The day of reckoning was here. It was the first proper gig! We got to the venue at around mid-day as I had to sort out the merch, guestlists etc. Our Tour Manager Sam had everything in hand and I was able to relax a bit. It was still very manic before doors though, and we were soundchecking right up to the wire. In fact, the first band on ‘Vile Evils’ carried on even though doors had opened. There is nothing more I hate than late opening doors (we had a curfew of 10:30 tonight so the pressure was on to be spot on) but we just about made it. I reckon I lost a good few years in worry though.

I soon saw Emma, who had traveled up with Mrs Spoons, Mrs Jim Bob and Mrs Fruitbat. Emma had been to Selfridges and a German Christmas market with Mrs Spoons during the day and had spent ten billion pounds in the process. The credit crunch doesn’t exist in the Ollington household. Em did buy me some marzipan (which I adore though) so I didn’t mind really.

The gig itself was truly fantastic. I never thought it possible but Carter were better than last year. All the hard work had paid off. The lights were amazing, the sound was great and the atmosphere was superb. Vile Evils and EMF were both fantastic too and really made Carter raise their game. And they did that with a superb set that lasted just over two hours. I was running around like a maniac at the end getting a curfew extension as the boys seemed like they were never going to stop playing.

We found out later that not only did Carter break the bar record, but it was also the best attended gig ever at the venue. Even though a lot of shows sell out you normally get a 10% drop off. Well, we sold 3000 tickets, and 2984 went through the door. How great is that?

I was able to watch a lot of the set, and I really took it in, it was the only time during the day my mind wasn’t racing with a barrage of things. After the gig I got the regular hassle and abuse from people who weren’t on the aftershow list and who thought they should be (even though Jim and Les themselves didn’t attend the aftershow, and it was more fun in the main venue, as people were allowed to stay for the club night). And I then had to go and sort out the merchandise money and do a stock take. I finished just past midnight. By this time everyone was as drunk as lords. We got back to the hotel at around 2am (I think!), I had an orange juice (there wasn’t any point in drinking with such a big day tomorrow) and Emma and I went to bed leaving the rest in the hotel bar.

Saturday 22nd November

We got up early doors and were traveling to Brixton by 9:30am. It was also Jim’s birthday today so I did my best to be extra nice to him. Once again we arrived at the venue just past mid-day and I got down to work. The setting up of things went a lot more smoothly today and Carter even sound checked early. We were ready with half an hour to go.

I was really pleased about this and I was ready for a great night. My mood was soon bought down by someone I know pretty well abusing me because they weren’t on the aftershow party guestlist! I could have left them off by mistake (or it could have been the person who was meant to put them on), but even so I sorted it out for them quite happily. I didn’t need the abuse and was a bit annoyed by it. I then got a call saying Tim Connery (top scriptwriter and chum) was also not on the guestlist (which was my fault!). Luckily Tim was a lot more understanding than the other nameless person and it was lovely to see him, once I had got him in from the cold. I only saw Mr. Connery briefly but it reminded me how much I missed Monday Club (our regular drinks in the Palace, with the hardcore members being Me, Neil, Les, Jim and Tim)

Once again the gig was amazing and Carter played a storming 2hr plus set again. The atmosphere in the Academy was fantastic and everyone from the staff, to the promoters said how different it was to a ‘normal’ gig. These shows were real celebrations, and I felt proud to be part of them. Over six months worth of work went into this, but it was ruddy worth it!

After the show I was able to say a few quick hellos (including my Mum and Dad who had come along after loving it last year) but while the aftershow was in full force I had to do the merch stocktake and count. This takes at least an hour but luckily little Jon Ollington was there to help me. We then spent ages taking the leftover merch to the stage doors. Just when we thought our work was done we realized that the van had left without the merchandise. Everyone else was too tiddly to deal with it. Luckily Mr. Spoons was still sober and we were able to load up all the merch in his car (after I was roped in to help load up the PA!) and drive it round to Les’ who lived nearby in Brixton. What would we do without Mr. Spoons is a question I often ask myself.

Emma didn’t want to come to the next Aftershow party at the venue Jamm (I know – another aftershow) but I fancied a drink or two (I can’t drink at the gigs, not when I know I’m dealing with lots of cash later) and finally at 2am my work was done. I got to Jamm and while I was happy to see people there I didn’t really get into it. It was great to see so many people I know, and to see my mate Jez DJ but after a beer or two it was time for me to leave.

I got a cab back with my mate James who lives dead near me. I got to bed at 4am and just fell straight to sleep. The gigs couldn’t have gone better. But I must admit to being relieved they were all over.

Sunday 23rd November

We said goodbye to Felicity Furness and we got into our cab for Heathrow. We had the loveliest cab driver in the world. He told us lots of great stories of his life and it cheered Emma up (as she was sad to be leaving her family and friends again).

I treated the Emster to Guitar Hero for her Nintendo DS lite to cheer her up further. This did the trick. I got a Smiths CD! Our flight was bang on time and the journey back was pure eleven hours of bliss. The flight was half full so we could stretch out and relax. I read my Morrissey book and watched some films. Time went so quick. Before I knew it we had landed and we were back in our Santa Monica bungalow. Had it all been a dream?

Em and I went to bed and I had the best nights sleep ever, just in time for work the next day.

Coming Next: Thanksgiving in LA

What I Did On My Holidays (Part One)

2008-11-25T15:49:00.000-08:00

The Emster and I went to England for a 9 day 'holiday' last week. I was mainly back for some Carter gigs I had been working on for months. How did the gigs go? What else did I get up to? What was the Emster doing? All the answers are here... Stay tuned for part two later on in the week.

Friday November 14

The Emster and I went to the gym in the morning (we are still into the fitness). We then pottered around the house before driving to the airport for our flight home. Upon check-in we found out they had changed our plane to an older model and we were now sitting in a row of four. We always book a row of two so I was most disgruntled with this! I hate sitting next to strangers so I asked for two seats together as I had originally picked on the online check in. There weren’t any left though. I got cross and told them that they were rude to just change our seats without telling us. I decided to pay $110 for the extra legroom seats after much debate with the staff. It was worth every penny and it meant you don’t have to deal with those people that love to put their seat back as soon as you are up in the air. I watched ‘Step Brothers’ which was ace. I think I got a good solid five hours sleep too which was nice.

Also on our flight were Crystal Palace chairman and his actor friend/slave Nick Moran.

Saturday November 15

Even though our flight left on time we spent hours circling at Heathrow due to ‘air congestion’. This makes my ears pop and I don’t like it. When we eventually landed it was nearly one in the afternoon. I had to be in North London for 3pm so I could see my first Arsenal game in ages. I left Emma with the bags (luckily Mr. Furness was picking her up) and I bolted it to the Heathrow Express. It was 2pm and I could still make it on time. London hasn’t changed though and the Circle Line wasn’t running due to engineering works. I had to get on another line and run as fast as my legs would carry me. I eventually got to the ground in the nick of time and met up with George who had my ticket.

Typically it was the worst game I have seen in fifteen years (seriously). We lost 2-0! Even when we lose we normally have more chances than the other team, and we play some decent stuff. Today we were moribund though. Oh well, it was good to be back and watching the Arse. At half time I popped down to see the people who I used to sit with. It was nice to see them but as mentioned before they were more than happy to have my brother Jon there instead.

After the match Jon and I went out on the beers both in Arsenal and Balham. I must have had about ten pints overall. I don’t really drink a lot these days but I was on fine form and it was great to see Jon. We were joined later on by my mate Jez (who owns a flat with Jon) and the night carried on. I treated myself to chips in a pitta bread on the way home. I got back past midnight as Emma and her sister Felicity were returning from their nights out too. I passed out on the sofa watching X-Factor with them. I had been up for 24 hours or something so this was allowed.

Sunday November 16

I had a good eight hours sleep and I had no hangover. Or indeed jet lag. What a Ronnie Result! As mentioned before I have never got this jetlag thing. I have felt a bit tired before but that is it. The trick is that whatever time you land, and how ever much sleep you have had on the plane you must stay up until your bedtime and not fall asleep. If you do this you will get a good eight hours sleeps, and by the time you awake the next morning your body will be back to normal.

Today we were visiting the in-laws to celebrate Felicity Furness’ birthday. We hadn’t hired a car for this trip so we had to get the train to the village in Kent where Emma’s parents live. The journey should have taken forty five minutes or so. It of course didn’t as this is England we are talking about. Even though the train website thingy said otherwise there were engineering works galore which meant a barrage of replacement buses, misinformation from rail staff and lots of hanging around in the cold and rain. The last bus we were on took an hour to go about five miles.

Eventually we were saved by Mr. Furness who drove to get us from some random station, the name of which I forget. I have never seen Emma get so cross. She is now used to good LA service. And the thing about LA is that even though the public transport is minimal what they do have works very well (not that I have ever used it, but that’s what people tell me). Emma ended up shouting at a ticket seller when we realized we would have to get about six trains and ten buses. This is very unlike the Emster but all she wanted to do was see her family. Luckily we still had a very nice afternoon once we finally arrived.

We were also joined by Grandma Furness, as well as Vicki & award winning photographer Gary. Gary is getting a little too big for his boots now he is famous though. He not only had two main courses but I am sure he had the biggest bit of dessert. That it was what fame does to you. It will be heroin and three bottles of brandy a day next.

Before we knew it the afternoon had passed too quickly and it was time to go home. The journey back was a lot better as we went a different route. We spent the evening watching Strictly Come Dancing, I’m a Celebrity and Britannia High. I had beans on toast for tea. I miss baked beans, they don’t have them here in America Land. Emma and I started to watch ‘Fight Club’ after Felicity went to bed but by midnight we were tired and needed sleeps.

Monday November 17

I woke up at 9am and had some toast for breakfast. Mr. Spoons was picking me up at around 11am as Carter were playing a secret warm up gig in Southampton today to only 150 people. It was also a tribute to a promoter they knew called Mint who sadly died recently. He was one of the only nice guys in the industry and he put on Carter early on in their career. It was lovely to see Neil when he picked me up, we then got Mr. Bob from his house before going to Brixton to get Les. Due to a late t-shirt delivery we had to wait a while around Les’ but we still made good time down to Southampton. We arrived just after 3pm, and the boys soundchecked and all that gubbins.

It was good to meet our new lighting man Nic, and Helen who was doing the sound (as she did back in Carter’s day). Both of these crazy cats were doing the big shows later in the week so this was all a really good run through for the main events. It was also lovely to catch up with all those people I hadn’t seen for ages (Richy, Sam, Ben and the great Chris T-T of course).

Sadly I didn’t get to see any of the gig! I may have help arranged and sort out these gigs, but this often means you don’t actually get to watch them. I had arranged well in advance to do the merch with Mr. Spoons, I pictured us doing some sort of t-shirt selling tag team. Neither of the Carter lads told me though that they wanted him for security instead. This meant I was left to do it by myself as it was too late to get someone else to help me. And unfortunately the merch stand was in a totally different room to the gig so all I heard was a muffled noise.

I wondered to myself if other great music managers like that Brian Epstein missed the Beatles at Shea Stadium as he was on the t-shirt stall too. What made it all worse was that even though I wasn’t drinking alcohol I still really needed a wee during the gig. I couldn’t leave the stall though because there were some people milling around, and I’ve learnt not to trust anyone. Eventually a member of bar staff helped me out (by manning the stall) before I had an accident.

It was great to see my ace friends Pat and Pippa (who I have missed a lot in the states) as well as all the dudes off the Carter forum. They all seemed really excited about the gig, and I think they were chuffed to be at something so special.

After the gig Mr. Spoons then told me there had been new plans and I wasn’t traveling back with him. Perhaps I smelt that day? Instead I traveled back with Jakki (Jim’s missus) which was fine. At least I wasn’t walking back. I was happy to get home, even though it was now around 3am in the morning. The gig had gone well, and it had meant a lot to a lot of Mint’s friends. But for one reason and another I didn’t really enjoy the day as much as I thought I would. Oh well… it was Christmas the next day. Yes, that is right – Christmas.

In Part Two – An early Christmas, Pizza for lunch and more Carter.

Having the runs...

2008-11-11T17:43:00.000-08:00

As you all know I have been training dead hard for the LA marathon. It’s been going really well and it’s fair to say I have never had this level of physical fitness before. I am fitter than lots of fiddles. I went for a thirteen mile run along the beach the weekend before last and I found it jolly easy. I’m not showing off, well perhaps I am a little bit. I think I deserve to be a bit boastful though. I really have spent over half a year on working really hard. I have always loved running but I have never given it this dedication or effort. I have lost well over a stone in weight, I have cut down the alcohol I drink and I eat a lot better food. A few years ago running the Windsor Half Marathon was a real challenge. It was great to know that I could run the same distance as that on a training run now.

Yesterday I felt this was all for nothing. It wasn't a broken ankle or something, but a mere electronic message that caused this pain. An email popped into my inbox to tell me that the powers that be had decided to move the marathon date from early March to late May. My heart well and truly sank. I could have had a little cry (I didn’t though as I am a strong man). The point is though that I will be back in England by this date and I am going to miss it. Unless I pay a load to fly back there is no way little old me can run in the marathon.

I was a bit shocked and stunned and I wasn’t sure how to deal with this news. I handled it by doing the only thing I can do these days to relieve the stress – I went for a run! Oh, the irony. I was a bad boy though. I was down to do 8 miles on my training schedule but I only did 7. That will teach those bastards who run the LA marathon I thought to myself. I will also get my hundred dollars entry fee refunded which I may spend on sweets.

So what do I do now? I guess I’ll have to enter some marathon back home. Nothing will be as good as doing the LA one though. It would have finished my year here quite nicely. Oh well, it could be worse. I guess I could be a little Ethiopian child having to cope with both famine and a visit from Lenny Henry.

It was the election last week. Obama (and Bin Laden I think it is) got in and the whole world seemed quite pleased. I enjoyed watching the coverage and being part of things. I couldn’t vote of course but that didn’t really matter. I just put on my brilliant American accent and went around saying “Obama and Bin Laden has my vote”. I got some funny looks, I’m not sure why. Perhaps my accent wasn’t up to scratch?

The result was a bit spoilt here in LA though as in another vote the people of California decided to ban gay marriage. I actually felt very sorry for the gays and felt it was quite a regression of attitudes. The shouty people on the news that opposed it were going on about the great tradition and sanctity of marriage. Well if that’s the case put your money where your mouth is and ban divorce. If marriage is that precious and sacrosanct then treat it as such. That is what I say to them! I think it was 53% of people voted against gay marriage fact fans. It is bonkers to think that over half the people here don’t think a big section of society should have equal rights.

There has been lots of protests since this result was announced, and sadly here is where the gays have let themselves down. They decided to have a protest march last Wednesday late afternoon and evening. This created traffic chaos and a lot of people took ages to get home from work. Some jams didn't move for hours. I was luckily going the other way but I was still delayed a bit.

If you want the support and sympathy of people I would advise that creating traffic jams is not the right way to go about it. People are selfish by nature, and making them late for their tea is

bad news city. I am a fan of the gays (after all The Pet Shop Boys are my third favourite band/act of all time). The gays will test my patience though if they keep on blocking Santa Monica Boulevard. They should stick with weekend protests instead I reckon. It isn't great to be held up on a weekend either but it is the lesser of two evils. Their mantra should be “We are gay and proud but we should not make the heterosexual man late for his dinner.” If they stick to that they will be able to get married again in no time at all I reckon.

Emma and I go back to London on Friday for ten days. Carter USM are playing some gigs which I have helped organize. It will also be a great chance to catch up with family and friends. My mum is throwing an early Christmas Day and this year the Ollington’s will celebrate Christmas on 18th November. Don’t expect a blog entry next week therefore. I’ll be too busy not only gigging it but remembering the birth of the little baby Jesus. I can not wait for my early Christmas dinner. I am so excited I did a little dance to myself there. You wouldn’t have seen it but it was a kind of robotic move that would have gone done well in the eighties.

I am also going to see Arsenal too. I have been away from The Arsenal for too long. In my years absence my brother, little Jon Ollington, has loaned my season ticket. From reports I have got all the people I sit with have grown to like Jon a lot, and they now prefer him to me. It’s ruddy typical isn’t it? People always prefer the younger and prettier model. I bet the ipod is dead jealous of the iphone for example. People now want to listen to mp3s, do an email and make a call all at the same time. How quickly you fall out of favour for the new version…

My only problem with iphones is that the internet on them seems to be dead slow. There is nothing worse than being out and about and some dude will say “look at this great clip from youtube, it’s a cat walking on two legs while blowing fire from his bottom”. You then pretend to be interested in seeing this clip (manners cost nothing) until you realize it takes seven hours for the clip to buffer. You then sit there craning your neck for ages waiting to see this ‘hilarious’ clip on a screen the size of a credit card.

I digress, It’s bonkers to think that when we get back to LA after our home visit I will only have just over three months of work left before we leave for good. We won’t be back in London Town until April though as the plan is to tour some more of the states after we have finished here. I wonder if our flat will be worth more than ten pounds by then?

Before I go I would like to do some of those congratulation type things. My sister got engaged to her boyfriend Neil the other week. They are having a winter wedding next year which will be something to look forward too. I have told her to make sure that whatever building they get married in is warm though. I am not used to British weather anymore so a wedding in December will be a shock to the system. Anyways, regardless of potential venues and their heating concerns a big congrats to the both of them.

And lastly my brother-in-law Gary has just won The Sunday Times Landscape Photographer of the Year. How cool is that? Not only is it a dead prestigious prize but he has won lots of money too. I have a feeling he will treat me to something nice as I have always supported him over the years. You can see the photo here: http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/visual_arts/article1489138.ece
You will note that in the award winning photo is a dog. What makes this even better is that I actually not only know Gary but I know the dog too. He is called Barney and we have hung out on quite a few occasions. He has even stayed over at Emma and I’s London pad. On one occasion it was such a crazy night that Barney did a piddle on our floor. He was a lot younger then though and not used to the crazy rock n’ roll type vibe that we have in London Town. I am delighted for both Gary, and Barney.

I reckon that is it for today. I’ll tell you all about the fun and adventures we had with our latest visitors soon. It’s a non stop social merry-go-round for Emma and I, and sometimes we are too dizzy to step off.

Marc x

Emma, Sue and Neil & Marc Too.

2008-11-05T13:48:00.000-08:00

I think I’m starting to take over Marc’s mantle as writer for the Ollington Oracle. He claims he is working too hard to write the blog at the moment! I can’t believe it’s already November and almost Christmas time. I can’t wait for Christmas. In fact this year I can’t wait for Thanksgiving, Christmas and even New Year’s Eve for once! Marc and I are heading to Vegas to see in 2009, it’s going to be brilliant.

Anyways enough of wishing time away, I thought I should fill you in on Mr. & Mrs. Spoons LA trip. For those of you who don’t know Mr. Spoons is in fact Neil Witherow, and Mrs. Spoons is his wife Sue. Neil has worn (and indeed wears) many hats in life, not only was he Crystal Palace’s official mascot (where he had to dress up as an eagle!) but he is known to many fans as Jim Bob’s right hand man. On tours he does everything from driving, to tuning guitars, to doing the lights and being the security! The list goes on! All Marc does on tour is eat crisps and drink full fat coke. Neil also designs websites, has edited a top football fanzine, does database management and best of all he is also a top wedding DJ.

Sue is also a lady of many talents. She has the best mortgage brokers business in town. In fact Marc and I, and many of our friends, have all relied on her to sort out our mortgages and to handle all the insurance malarkey that it entails. She is a demon at the mortgages and got us the best deal around. You tell Mrs. Spoons you want a mortgage and the next thing you know you have your own home. She is the best. I think I’ve bigged them up enough so on to their trip. We were extremely excited about them coming out to visit. The excitement reached ‘fever pitch’ when collecting them at the airport we bumped in to Nick Hornby and Matt Lucas as Neil and Sue had been hobnobbing with them on their flight. Their trip was off to a flying start! (How many puns can Emma get in? – Marc)

As we had such a jam packed week I thought I’d give you my top ten highlights of their trip (in no particular order).

1. Doubletree Bar - Neil and Sue were staying in a hotel just down the road from our place. This was to become our home from home as every night we ended up at the Doubletree Hotel bar enjoying a nightcap. It would normally be just us in there. The bartender would pretend not to mind us rolling in every night just as it was closing, thereby forcing her to keep it open and stay later. We weren’t happy one night mind to get back and discover a whole host of people in there, in our favourite seats. Luckily these new found patrons didn’t last long and it was back to us being the sole occupants of the Doubletree Jazz Lounge. Come to think of it though, I never saw one bit of Jazz in there.

2. Presents – Now obviously we’re not just bigging up their trip as they bought us presents but they did come supplied with some ace stuff. Lots of lovely English chocolate bars. I hate American chocolate and have discovered that this is because it’s made with sour milk, not proper milk like back home. Hence why it tastes horrible. Sue came supplied with lots of magazines for me and they had kindly got Marc the new Russell T Davies book. This was met with near on hysteria from Marc. Neil told him he wasn’t allowed to start reading it until after they’d left as otherwise he wouldn’t be able to put it down and we’d not see Marc for the rest of the week. Marc managed to restrain from reading it for all of 2 hours. I had to force it out of his hands most nights in order for him to go to sleep. He’d already finished it before they left.

3. Neil’s beach cruiser experience – We decided to hire bikes one day and cycle up the coast to a restaurant on the edge of Malibu for lunch. Neil decided to hire a proper beach cruiser (the ones where you cycle backwards to brake). It looked the bomb and all seemed good as we set off. The bike path along the beach is pretty much flat all the way, bar a couple of tiny minor inclines. It was here that Neil discovered an issue with his bike. Any sort of uphill motion would for some reason make the brakes come on and bring Neil to a complete standstill. Neil therefore had to take any hills extremely slowly whilst we all waited patiently for him, trying not to laugh too much.

4. Lunch with George Clooney – Well sort of. This took place at the aforementioned restaurant in Malibu. We were relaxing with cocktails when Sue overheard a nearby table saying George Clooney was here. Obviously we acted cool and unbothered and tried to nonchalantly gaze around the restaurant to spot him. Unfortunately we couldn’t see him anywhere so after a delicious meal we decided to head back. Typically as we were hopping on to our bikes we heard them call out “George, your table is now ready”. So close, but yet so far….

5. The Number plate game – Neil always seems to have some sort of number plate game for whatever country he is in. It was therefore no surprise to learn he had a US version. For this game you had to see a number plate from every state. A very hard feat to accomplish I tell you. Somehow I got completely hooked on this game and started avidly looking at every number plate. During our bike ride, we spotted a plate that Neil didn’t have but we couldn’t be sure as the car sped off. Due to Neil’s bike not being the fastest of machines he uttered the cry of “Em – follow that car!” so off I sped after it on my bike. I have never cycled so fast in my life. I felt like James Bond. But a girl version and on a bike, not in a super douper Aston Martin. After several minutes I started to gain on him (as he began to slow down to be honest, not due to my speed) he then did a U turn and went straight back past me and parked up. I needn’t have bothered! But it was a State we didn’t have so it was high fives all round. Neil didn’t manage to see all 50 states during his stay, so has passed on the list to me to see if I can get the remaining few. I’ve only found one since he left – I think I need to up my game.

6. Cocktails at the Penthouse – There’s a lovely bar opened up in Santa Monica called the Penthouse which resides at the top (as you probably guessed) of a very plush hotel, overlooking the Santa Monica and Malibu coastline. It’s a lovely place to have a few cocktails, take in the sunset and people watch. It’s also where you find a lot of the stereotypical LA people i.e. Plastic Fantastic. We estimated that at least 50% of the people in there had had some work done, and while in the restrooms you would hear ladies discussing their ‘friends’ bodged facelifts. Brilliant.

7. LA Galaxy game sans Beckham – Anyone who knows the Witherows will know they like a bit of football, so Marc had sorted us out tickets to see LA Galaxy. It was going to be an interesting game as Beckham wasn’t playing, and Donovan wouldn’t be playing for much of the game due to International call ups so we were keen to see how the team coped without their Chief. They didn’t disappoint. It was an exciting game, made even more so with copious amounts of beer throughout the game, free hot dogs, free footballs and the final contestants for the Miss LA Galaxy title vying for our votes. That last one was obviously more interesting for the boys than Sue and I.

8. Converting Neil in to an X Factor Fan – Marc and I have to confess that we do still watch X Factor even though we’re over here. We can’t help it. We love it. Sue is also a fan. So after getting back from the LA Galaxy game we decided to head back to our place and order a takeaway and watch the latest X Factor installment. Neil ‘claimed’ he hated the show but was happy for us to watch it as Marc had given him Doctor Who books to read instead. For someone who disliked the show he seemed to enjoy commenting on the performances as much as the rest of us and I have a feeling that Doctor Who book was a front. I think his favourite act was Daniel. We all know the truth Neil, stand up and be proud of your love for the X Factor!

9. Dinner at Gordon Ramsey’s new LA restaurant – Neil and Sue very kindly took us out to Gordon Ramsey’s restaurant “The London” on their last night. We couldn’t wait to go and it was definitely the highlight of the week for me. It’s part of this swanky hotel over in West Hollywood and had received rave reviews since it opened. Well some reviews had complained the portion sizes were too small, but this is Americans who are used to an average portion being able to serve a family of 5 for a week we’re talking about. Sue just emailed me to tell me it’s just received a Michelin star. Well deserved I say. The setting was gorgeous; with views out over Hollywood and a few Hollywood actors thrown in to boot (we all recognized a couple but none of us knew their names – impressive stuff hey?) We decided to opt for the 7 course tasting menu. They let Marc change the first course of Sweetcorn soup for an almond soup - as I’m sure you have all heard Marc’s thoughts on sweetcorn being the work of the devil, so we knew we were on to a winner. The food was fantastic and truly delicious. The only course I didn’t like was one of the two dessert courses – an orange pudding thing. But that is only because I’m not a great fan of oranges so I can’t hold this against them. The service was superb and we’ve even promised to bring one of the waiters a box of Oatabix over from the UK for him.

10. Neil and Sue – ‘Nuff said.

I did aim to keep this blog short but as you can see I failed miserably. Will leave it to Marc next time.

Emma x

Who wants to see my penis?

2008-10-30T18:17:00.001-07:00

Sorry for the rather rude headline. I don't want to be too saucy as family members read this blog and I am not one for smut. There is too much rudeness in today's modern society. Anyway, the headline will make sense and is, in fact, quite apt...

I am still working on a 'proper entry' (!) which I hope to post up over the weekend. Until then I thought I'd let you know the top ten searches on how people find this blog. The majority of people come in because they know Emma and I, and this they want to know our toptastic news. Some, though, come in via search engines and that jazz. Here are the top 10 search terms put into google over the last few months that have lead people to this blog...

1. marc ollington penis
2. marc ollington blog
3. Robbie Williams
4. diddydelicious
5. conor oberst
6. marc ollington
7. marc ollington blogspot
8. jon ollington
9. jon ollington nude
10. Carter USM

As you will see someone has been looking to see my penis! Who? Is it the same person? Is it multiple people? Do they want to see it, or do they think I'm a penis? People also want to see my brother naked but that is understandable as he is a good looking lad. I am starting to worry about the internet though. It's a little bit weird and strange.

What gets me readers is that 'marc ollington penis' is number one in the charts. I could cope with this being in the lower reaches of the top 10 but this is just disturbing.

I thought that it could be someone who doesn't like me and who is after revenge. Perhaps they want to find rude pics of me to use as bribes or to destroy my career. That is what happens to dudes like me who are in showbiz.

Anyways, I'll be back soon with my penis certainly not on display. And if it was you who 'searched' for this term please feel free to leave a comment to explain what in fact you were looking for.

marc x

The Barry Conor Chronicles

2008-10-22T18:08:00.001-07:00

I have been working on a blog that is all about my dear friends, Mr and Mrs Spoons and their visit here to LA. We had a top week with them and I would love to tell you cats all about it. I haven’t had a chance to finish it though. It’s the same old story and excuses from me but you need to spend time on these things. It will be worth waiting for I’m sure.

Anyroad (as northerners still say I’m sure) I thought I’d tell you about my day yesterday. I got up to find that I had a cold. I don’t get ill readers. Well, I do every now and then but not as much as most people. I think I have seen the Doctor about once in ten years, and I have probably had about two sick days off work in my life (it may be a bit more than this, but you get the vibe). I have no allergies to speak of, the migraines I suffered from in my twenties seem to have gone (touch wood) and I see myself as a healthy boy. I was not pleased to wake up with a cold therefore. When I do get ill though it’s always the rubbish kind of illness where you feel rough but you are still able to go to work.

The day was therefore off to a bad start because I had this cold. I then had a rubbish, rubbish day at work. Without going into details it was a ruddy stressful day. I very rarely get stressed but yesterday was an exception. My cold made it all the worse and I was not a happy boy.

I was therefore looking forward to seeing one of my favourite pop artistes play that evening namely ‘Barry’ Bright Eyes. In reality ‘Barry’ Bright Eyes is some dude called Coner Oberst (for those of you cats who don’t know). He is an American singer songwriter who has released lots of albums and I reckon they are all ace. He is one of the best lyric writers of all time too. He has also had the sex with Winona Ryder but I think they have split up now.

To make things a bit confusing Conor Oberst has stopped calling himself ‘Barry’ Bright Eyes for his new album .He now calls himself by his actual name ‘Conor Oberst’. Which to be honest would have made a lot of sense for him to do in the first place. He only performs songs though by Conor Oberst on this tour (along with his new backing band) and doesn’t do any Bright Eyes songs. I read this in the music mags and was still keen to go anyway as I like the new album very much.

The gig was at the Henry Fonda Theatre which is ace, and it’s a little bit like the Shepherds Bush Empire in London, apart from the fact that it’s smaller and has better sight lines. I am getting ahead of myself though. I got cross when we actually got to the venue as it was twenty dollars to park. I am turning into a proper grumpy old man as I was disgusted with this price. We said no to the charge and turned the car around. We found on street parking nearby that was free. This was one in the eye to the rip off car park merchants.

All I wanted to do was get into the venue to see Barry Bright Eyes. So after a quick bite to eat Emma and I arrived at the venue at 8:30. I hoped that with a bit of luck we had avoided the first support band and that Barry would be on soon. How wrong was I? The first ‘band’ (and I use that word loosely) were on at ruddy nine pm. And they were Barry’s bassists other band. You can tell that they got the tour as a favour as it was a terrible racket. The singer was flatter than Flat Stanley. It was thirty five minutes of the most terrible indie dirge I have ever heard in my life.

Emma and I were sat in the balcony. We could have stood downstairs with the kids, but I am a man in my thirties now. I like to sit at gigs these days and listen to the music properly. I don’t feel the need to dance. In fact once you reach thirty you should never dance again if you are a man. It’s ok for women, as they can dance and move in time. In fact women never get bad at dancing. Men should deffo stop at thirty though. I should point out that they had lovely comfy chairs at the Henry Fonda Theater.

Anyways I digress. It was a good job we were sat down as after this rubbish band came another act just as terrible. Actually they weren’t, but they still were not great. They were this female three piece who had a couple of ok songs but nothing more. None of them were that good looking either. Without being a sexist you can sometimes enjoy a band with girls in it even if they are rubbish, if they are good looking. This was no Girls Aloud. Unless you are a fan of the albino one (Nicola?).

I am off the point again! Damn. I should quickly point out though that two small beers came to fourteen dollars. That is worse than London. Going by the current exchange rate that is over four pounds for a beer. This is a shocking state of affairs. It’s a good job I was ill and didn’t want to drink anymore.

By the time all the awful supports had finished Barry didn’t wander on stage until 11pm. Doesn’t he realize some of us have jobs to go to? I know he is a pop star but I have TV programs to promote! He should have a bit more thought for people like me, Doctors and firemen who have valuable jobs in society. I let him off though as he played a brilliant set of all the songs from the album. The hour passed by very quickly and apart from some idiots talking behind me it was wonderful in every way. There is nothing worse than people who get in free to a gig, then talk through it and ruin it for people that pay. That is the way of the guestlist though.

We then went downstairs to watch the encore. I thought he would play a top song from the album called ‘I Don’t Want To Die In The Hospital’. It’s a bit crazy and a great set closer. Barry had other ideas though. He let his band (who had already done some pretty mediocre songs of their own) do a few numbers. These were pretty rubbish. A whole forty minutes later they were still going on with their muso twiddlings. Emma wanted to leave but I was desperate to hear my favourite song. Eventually they did it and at almost 1am, and after two hours of hearing Barry and co., I could leave happy. The venue was half empty at this point as while everyone loved Barry people weren’t so keen on members of his band farting around.

It was certainly a gig of two parts. The first half was excellent, but the second half was a bit rubbish. And Emma was tired and Barry should have realized this. It ended on a high note though so I went home happy. Barry was great in the main and the venue was too. It may be one in the morning, I may have a cold, I may have had a rubbish day at work, I may have almost been ripped of for parking, I may have sat through two bands that were crap and I may have paid fourteen dollars for two beers. This didn’t matter though as you need geniuses like Barry Bright Eyes to bring a bit of maverick sparkle into your life. I think he did that.

Emma and I drove home and sang along to some tunes on my ipod compilation to keep awake and fresh. It was fun. It was a nice end to a funny old day.

Marc x

A Segway Into Politics...

2008-10-15T15:03:00.000-07:00

It feels like ages since I sat down to write an entry for you all. Emma has been keeping this blog burning and to be honest she has done a better job than me. The hits are up which just goes to show that she was the best writer all along. It’s my blog though and I’m in charge. I have therefore decided to make a comeback whether you cats like it or not. I am not here to pander to you people. Or indeed to be a Panda, as I am not a fan of bamboo.

Since I wrote to you last a few ‘amusing’ incidents have occurred to little old me. The first happened when young Felicity Furness was staying with Emma and I. We had gone out for a bite to eat one evening (at our favourite diner called ‘Swingers’). We had a jolly nice time and I ordered my normal turkey roast dinner. During the meal I felt that I was getting something of a stomach ache though. I don’t think it was the food, but perhaps a virus picked up from Emma (as she had recently had a stomach thing). By the time we left I was in agony. This meant that on the walk home I was meandering behind the Furness sisters. I was also looking a bit weird I guess as I was kind of hunched over, holding my stomach as I was walking along.

Before I knew what was going on a cop car pulled up next to us. The policeman asked Emma and Felicity if they were ok while he gave me the Barry Evils. It was then I realized that he thought I was some weirdo or rapist that was following them. If I hadn’t of been in so much pain I would have given that doughnut eating cop a piece of my mind. It’s probably a good job that I didn’t as the policeman have guns over here. He could have shot me in the head if I had given him too much lip. I think they are just allowed to do that as they are always killing people in ‘Without A Trace’. They are FBI though which is different than your normal cop. Anyways Emma and Felicity found this dead funny, even though I was in mucho pain. As a positive aside I was ok the next day.

I also went on a tour with Mr. Furness. This wasn’t any old tour readers. The father in law and I went traveling on some segways for a couple of hours. For those of you who don’t know what these are please look above at the photo. Mrs. Furness has a picture of me on one that I will try and obtain. I will then put this on the right hand side of this site with the other random pics that are already there.

I am getting off the point! I bet you want to know how Mr. Furness and I ended up on these babies? Don’t worry, I shall tell you. The ladies wanted to go shopping, as they normally tend to do, and it was then that Mr. Furness put the idea to me we could try hiring some of these segway things. We had seen quite a few dudes both here and in San Fran driving them around and they looked like great fun. We went to the Segway place to enquire if it was possible. We were told that we could join a group outing with some other dudes and that he would take us on a beach tour of Santa Monica.

This sounded like too good an opportunity to turn down and before we knew it we were in training! We had to watch a safety video and everything. It is actually harder than you think as you don’t move them by pushing or steering, it’s all to do with how you lean. If you lean to the left then you will turn to the left for example. In our training Mr. Furness did the best, and he was better than me and the rest of the group. I did get the hang of it though and before I knew it we were out and about, and touring the beach.

Even though we were only doing this for fun we got some abuse from the public. They were shouting things at us like “Geeks”, and “Get some exercise”. This was a bit rich as the man who shouted this was in a car. We cared not one jot though as it was great fun. My best moment came when our instructor made us go down a steep hill. I think I did it the best and it was dead exciting. I wasn’t so good getting up the hill as apparently I stuck my bum out too much. Anyway, we enjoyed the Segways very much. It was a top afternoon and a much better way to spend it than shopping.

It’s also gone a bit election bonkers here too as we get closer to November 4th. Most people in LA are wooly liberals, so they are still wetting themselves over this Obama dude. I get the impression they think he is better than Jesus. I’m not so sure he is as I have not seen Obama or his running mate Bin Laden (I think he is called) make bread and fishes for the masses.

Don’t get me wrong, I would vote for Obama (and Bin Laden) too but all I would say is that he is still a politician type. He will no doubt be as disappointing as the rest. He might be all smiles and niceness now but the power will go to his head, and before you know it he’ll be bombing some country for a laugh while getting sexual favors from an intern. Back in 1997 I thought Tony Blair was the business. When he first got into power the young, innocent and politically naïve Marc was dancing in the streets. I could have been David Bowie or Mick Jagger circa 1985. A few years later though dear Tony was bombing Iraq like some power crazed bufoon. If only I knew that as I sang along with gusto to ‘D:Ream’s’ ‘Things Can Only Get Better’ on that glorious summer morning in the late nineties.

These days the love and passion I had for politics as a student has all but died. I still like to know what’s going on in the world, and all that jazz. And I will still read tomes like ‘The Alistair Campbell Diaries’ with interest. I have no real affiliation with anyone anymore though. I do, of course, have an opinion, and I will always take the time and effort to vote (you should always vote kids. I’m not sure why these days, but that’s what I keep telling myself). Anyways back to the point… Do I believe Obama is better than John McCain? Of course I ruddy well do, and to have a black president would be a huge step forward. Is he as great as everyone is making out? I doubt it very much sadly. Hopefully time will prove me wrong. I am not always right, as hard as it is to believe. I thought Keane were rubbish at first until I realized they write quite magnificent pop songs.

I can’t wait to watch the results and everything come in though. I think it will be an amazing couple of days and I am very grateful to be living in the States during this time. It will almost be as good as last weeks ‘Strictly Come Dancing’. I am glad Jessie Wallace and Kathy Beale have been voted out, as I hate all the common scrubber women from Eastenders. I am still able to tune into this show via downloads off the interweb, and it’s good as ever this year. If I was Rachel Steven’s fiancé I would punch out Vincent Simone. He is all over her, and he kisses her whenever he can. I know he was publicly dumped last season when his girlfriend went off with that dude from Eastenders but that is no excuse. I did like it though when asked to talk about her nerves he said “She was shaking like a leaflet”. Genius! I think my favorite this year is Cherie Lunghi. She is very nice for an ‘older’ lady and I enjoy her dancing too.

I would like either Diane Vickers or the Spanish Lady to win X-Factor this year. I am liking Cheryl Cole as a judge. She is actually very good and makes Danni Minogue seem the most pointless person that has ever walked this earth. Her husband Ashley Cole is still a greedy twerp though.

I shall sign off now. I had started to write about the visit of our friends Mr. and Mrs. Spoons but I should save that for next time, and I should give them their own entry. That is something else to look forward too I hope.

Marc x

Wham Bam, Thank You San Fran. Part 4 in a series of 4. Thankfully.

2008-10-10T16:11:00.000-07:00

I’m back! Yes I thought I’d finish off our San Fran tales before passing the ‘blog’ baton back to Marc. It’s taken a long time to get to this stage so thanks for sticking with us!

Sunday morning came and I awoke tummy ache free – well it seemed to have gone and I could actually walk around so it was a step in the right direction. The question then is what were our plans today to be? We decided to kickstart the action with a trip down memory lane, for us Furnesses anyway. I have thus far neglected to tell you that I have been to San Francisco once before, back on a family holiday about 15 years or so ago. It was during this vacation that we experienced the best breakfast buffet ever. As a family we have often reminisced about this breakfast and we’ve spoken about it so much that even Marc knew of it and the esteem it was held in within the Furness clan. Could it live up to its memory? Whilst the rest of us were reticent to risk tarnishing our memories, Mum wanted to put it to the test so off we went to the famed “The Palace Sunday Jazz Brunch”. The buffet is served in this huge glass atrium garden room which actually featured in the movie “the Game” where Michael Douglas crashes through it at the end – I don’t think he did actually fall through this as it would have cost millions to replace so I think there was some camera trickery involved there.

We were shown to our table and Marc’s eyes widened with wonder. As we sipped on our champagne (limitless I hasten to add) we took in the array of food on offer. It was incredible and I’d go so far as to say it was even better than we’d remembered. We’d only ever experienced their breakfast buffet before but as this was Brunch it was so much more. My favourite thing was the tiny, melt in the mouth pancakes with maple syrup. This was closely followed by the perfectly cooked poached eggs with hollandaise sauce and smoked salmon, or perhaps it was the miniature pastries? Oh and this was only the breakfast offerings. There was still a carvery, a cheese table, a seafood bar, a crepe station, sushi, dim sum and to finish off an amazing dessert table to sample. We all tried to pace ourselves and sample as much as we could humanly manage. At least we knew we wouldn’t need to eat again for a week.

We managed to roll ourselves out of there after a few hours and decided to take a ride on one of the famous trams down to Pier 33. Or is it Pier 31. I can’t remember. Anyways, we hopped aboard a tram and whilst my Mum and I took the seat option, Dad, Felicity and Marc decided to live dangerously and hang off the side. It was a lovely way to travel across the city and I much prefer that to London’s smelly tube. Bring back the trams to London. I might start a campaign. We decided to take a stroll through the park and head towards the Golden Gate Bridge. Marc was very keen to walk across the bridge, whereas the rest of us were happy to admire it from afar. Luckily after walking for a couple of hours (we all needed it to burn off our massive brunch) we soon realized the bridge hadn’t got much closer and it’d take us a good 5 hours to actually reach it so that plan was thwarted. We persuaded Marc that we’d go to the Science museum instead, and that seemed to appease him. The museum was ace. We were able to create our own tornado, make giant bubbles and look in to a mirror that showed you what you actually looked like, not a mirror reflection. That one was really freaky. You go through your whole life thinking you know what you look like and then you’re suddenly shown what other people see. It was really disturbing as you look really different. Sounds odd but it’s true.

After this we were all quite exhausted from all the walking and the museum so we decided we’d catch the tram back up to Union Square and freshen up before heading out for dinner. We reached the tram stop to discover an almighty queue and no trams. It seemed the tram network had broken down. We were all a little bit grumpy and grouchy by now and didn’t face walking all the way back to the hotel and so we tried to find a couple of taxi’s. A guy saw us trying to hail a cab and said he could take us all back to our hotel and quoted us a price. It seemed fair to us so we agreed and the next thing we knew he was opening up the door to a stretch limo for us to get inside! Obviously he could see we were used to the finer things in life, so off we went through the streets of San Fran in our limousine. However it wasn’t quite the relaxing drive we imagined it would be as he drove like a maniac and obviously thought he was driving a bumper car. By luck more than skill, we arrived back at our hotel safely without causing any traffic accidents.
Sadly this was our last night in San Francisco. Marc, myself and Felicity were due to fly back to LA on the 6am flight the next morning. Mum and Dad were going to head further up the coast for a few days and would join us back in LA at the end of the week. Felicity was going to hang out with Marc and me in Santa Monica before returning to the UK at the weekend.

After enjoying a lovely meal in Union Square we had to have an early night as our cab was picking us up at 4.45am the next morning to take us to the airport. I kid you not. I felt like I’d only just fallen asleep when our wakeup call awoke me from my slumber. We hurriedly got ready and with Felicity Furness in tow we hopped in the cab. This driver had obviously been taught how to driver by our limo driver as despite being told by the hotel it’d take half an hour to get to the airport at this time of the morning, he did it in about 10 minutes. We were therefore pretty much the first people to check in and then had to wait half an hour for security to even open. Marc has the ability to be extremely chirpy at this hour of the morning, so he was irritatingly chatty at this ungodly hour. Luckily the flight was right on time so after boarding the plane (which still had the neon lights and club music blaring at 6am) we settled in to our seats and before we knew it we were back at LAX.

Marc and I had to head straight in to work, so after picking up the car and making a quick detour to our little house to drop off Felicity and our bags, we were back in the office and at our desks by 9.03am. Not bad for a mornings work.

This has turned in to a mightily long entry again so I hope some of you are still reading this. You will be happy to hear that normal service will resume for the next entry with Marc back in the helm. Make sure you tune in to read about Marc almost being arrested by the LA cops and Mr and Mrs Spoons visit.

Em x

P.S. Vic & Gary - obviously the Brunch in San Fran wasn’t as good as last time as you weren’t there with us!

Wham Bam, Thank You San Fran. Part 3 in a series of 4. By Emma Ollington

2008-10-04T13:14:00.000-07:00

I thought I’d pick up where Marc left off for part three. Seeing as he has now taken two blogs to just introduce our trip to San Francisco we’d be here till Christmas otherwise. Did you know that it’s only 81 days till Christmas? We’ve decided to have Christmas lunch at our favourite restaurant, ‘Shutters on the Beach’ this year. I’m excited already. Not sure I can wait 81 days. Then we’re off to Vegas for New Years Eve – where we’re going to party like its 2009. Yippee!

Anyways, this is turning in to a Marc Ollington blog special and I’ve gone off on a tangent already. Back to our San Fran adventures. Firstly I couldn’t believe how freezing cold it was there. Stepping off the BART tube thing on Friday night I thought I’d arrived in the North Pole. But being in the know we had come prepared for this, you have to layer it up in this city as one minute it’s boiling hot sunshine, the next its freezing cold.

We departed our hotel Campton Place bright and early Saturday morning (after enjoying the lovely bathrobes and slippers - you know you’re staying somewhere nice when you get a decent pair of hotel slippers) and headed down to the docks where we enjoyed a delicious breakfast of pastries from the farmers market. Marc also got a fruit salad as he is healthy these days.

Our first port of call was a trip to the famous Prison on an Island, namely Alcatraz. It’s a bit odd really that visiting a derelict prison is one of the top sightseeing trips in San Fran but there you go. In the queue we had the obligatory group shot in front of a fake Alcatraz picture. When collecting the photo after the trip my Mum decided to rate us all on our appearance in this photo and put Marc in last place. She didn’t think he’d tried hard enough with his smile. I won’t rub it in that she put me at the number one spot.

After a short boat ride we were on the island and were soon heavily absorbed in our audio tour as we were directed round the prison and all its nooks and crannies. I’ve undertaken numerous audio tours since moving to LA and I’m becoming a connoisseur of them I think. I’d rate this one a strong four out of five because they actually had several convicts telling you what it was like being a prisoner there. This was a brilliant touch. As prisons go, I think it seemed quite nice. I’m not an expert and I’m sure it was horrible to live there but the surroundings were nice. All the families of the guards who lived on the island said they had an idyllic childhood and loved living there. I’d pick it as my prison of choice I think.

After a few hours on the island we headed back to the main land and on to our next sightseeing spot, the Coit Tower. This was after a spot of lunch in an Italian restaurant. One of the waiters was a kind of transsexual. We weren’t sure which way they had decided to go but Marc was sure that whatever way it was they had taken a shine to Dad.

I love the architecture and streets of San Fran. A lot of people say it’s very European in its appearance. The hills are crazy, some are so steep that you practically had to crawl up them. Luckily I had Felicity Furness on hand to pull me up them. Being a young thing she is much fitter than me.

The Tower finally appeared at the end of a little residential street and discussions broke out as to whether we’d opt to use the stairs or lift to get to the top of the tower. It’s quite a tall tower so stairs would be no mean feat. Luckily it turned out that the stairs were currently broken so it was in to the tiny little lift we went, helped by a slightly mad lift attendant. Several photos later we’d all had our fill of views so we headed back down and off for sightseeing spot number three, “the crookedest street”. At this point Marc decided to start telling us all some boring story about a tea towel he’d seen in a shop that listed all the sightseeing spots in San Fran. This street wasn’t on it so he said we shouldn’t bother as it obviously wasn’t worth seeing if it didn’t make the tea towel. Half an hour later he was still going on about this tea towel but luckily we’d reached the wonky street at this point so his argument had been lost. This street has featured in lots of films and it’s very pretty indeed. It’s on such a steep hill that they’ve had to make it bendy so that cars can travel down it safely. But really it’s now only ever used by tourists or for car chases in films.

Reading this back to myself, it sounds like our day was only just beginning but by this time the sun was setting and we were all exhausted from walking for miles and miles all over San Fran. So we went back to Union Square for a bit of shopping. We had time for a wash and brush up before going out for a lovely dinner and then we all collapsed happily in to our extremely comfy beds. Well actually I didn’t as I was suddenly struck down by a tummy ache so severe I couldn’t stand up. Not one to make a fuss I bravely took some painkillers and tried to sleep and hoped it would have gone by the morning.

Would Sunday bring an end to my stomach ache and yet more fun adventures in San Fran? Stay tuned in this exciting blog adventure, which is fun for all the family.

Emma xx

Wham Bam, thank you San Fran. Part Two in a series of about Four I reckon.

2008-10-01T14:29:00.000-07:00

Emma and I decided to travel to San Francisco by the crazy invention that is the aeroplane. I know all you eco do-gooders will be tutting in disgust due to the carbon footprint created, but those are the facts. You can therefore carry on tutting until your organic teeth fall out. If it was possible we would have got a bus, a train or something (especially as you can get nice views via this mode of transportation). The plane meant though that we could get from San Fran to LA in an hour, rather than six hours or so, and it also meant we could return home first thing Monday morning. This would give us three whole nights, which is much better than having that rubbish feeling on Sunday morning that you know you should think about leaving in a few hours.

When you work during the week you don’t always have the luxury of saving the world when you travel, you have to squeeze things in. If it makes you feel better Emma makes us recycle everything, and most of the gubbins we buy seems to be organic or free range. We even get organic cleaning products. These are rubbish and don’t actually clean half as well as proper products with chemicals but that isn’t the point. It’s worth having a stinky house just so long as you are buying organic. That is the rules these days. I’ve got no idea how we survived in the nineties when things weren’t organic, and we weren’t paying twice the price for every item to have that word sprawled across the packaging - but there you go. Emma and I are doing our bit to save the world so I shall not feel guilty about my carbon footprint. I even planted some trees a few years ago for some charity thing. It was rubbish as I got rained on and covered in mud. That is my dedication to this planet of ours though.

Anyway I digress. We were flying with Virgin America. Virgin is my airline of choice when flying back and forth to the UK. I like their hostesses. They are a bit more common than their BA counterparts but they have a cheeky charm and they are much friendlier. They also seem to be a little bustier and saucier too. I, of course, don’t care about these type of things now I’m a married man but its worth noting for all you single men. I really don’t think they are virgins themselves! I also like the fact they do seats in rows of two. If you have to travel in smelly economy (not even a man of my standing is in upper class all the time) it means at least Emma and I get our own space. Their air miles scheme is also brilliant. Emma and I already have enough miles to travel to Australia (not that I have ever thought about going there as it’s full of Australians* - but you get my vibe).

We are also close to being silver members. Without boring you with too much detail you have to get a certain amount of points within a year before you lose some of them. We have worked out by the time we return home we will be one measly point short of silver. Being a silver member gives you untold luxuries. It isn’t as good as gold but it’s on the way. I thought flying with Virgin America would at least give us the one little point that we need. Little did I know that they class Virgin America and Virgin Atlantic as totally separate companies. I was quite cross as I still need to get this extra elusive point. Damn these crazy flying schemes. The Virgin America plane was a bit weird as it had funny blue and pink neon lighting when you entered (see pic above which is exactly how it looked). It was also playing some weird ambient type music. It’s like being in a bad dance club. I stopped clubbing years ago so I don’t expect a trip in an aeroplane to remind me that I am now a man in my thirties who is too old for that kind of caper.

The flight was only forty minutes or so in proper length. I slept the whole way whilst Emma watched an episode of ‘Entourage’ (a drama on HBO). I think she enjoyed it. I couldn’t tell as I was sleeping but that’s the vibe Emma gave me. Before we knew it the plane had landed and we were soon traveling to our hotel on this tube type thing. It was very cheap, very clean and very efficient. London Underground take note is what I say to that! We did have to go through about a million stops until we got to Union Square though. This was a bit boring as we couldn’t see any scenery as we were underground most of the time.

It was about 9pm when we got to our hotel. We were staying in a hotel called Campton Place. It was the bomb! Emma’s parents had chosen it and had treated the wife and I. It was the best treat ever. The bathroom was the size of our Santa Monica bungalow, the bed was so lovely and soft and it had a great mini bar to boot. Emma was very excited about the Molton Brown beauty products. We were also right in the heart of town. The location really could not have been better and a bit of luxury never hurt anyone.

We had a nice meal in the hotel brasserie and we caught up with the Furness Family adventures of the previous week. Mr and Mrs Furness, along with young Felicity had been travelling up the west coast. They had liked Carmel but weren’t so keen on the Big Sur. They thought it was over rated and that Cornwall was in fact nicer. For any of our future guests that plan to visit that area you should take note and perhaps go to Cornwall instead. It was soon time for sleeps. Emma and I started to watch a film but before we knew it we were having lovely dreams in the comfy bed and thinking of what adventures the weekend will bring.

I shall go now. We are finally in San Fran so you can almost smell the action and adventures.

Marc x

In the next installment: Alcatraz, some big tower and stomach cramps.

*This a joke. I love the Aussies and their bar tending skills.

Wham Bam, thank you San Fran (though technically I haven’t got to the San Fran bit yet) Part One

2008-09-25T15:43:00.000-07:00

As Emma and I only have six months left in the US (it’s bonkers to think that the first half of the year has gone so quickly) we now want to spend a fair few weekends exploring some other parts of California. As I mentioned in a previous installment we were meeting up with Emma’s parents in San Francisco on Friday night. We then had three nights to enjoy ‘ciscos wonders. I had been looking forward to this jaunt for a while so expectations were at a high! Not as high as a skyscraper as that would be silly, but high all the same.

It had been a bit of a funny old week beforehand dear reader. My mum had been taken into hospital and she had to have a couple of operations on her leg. I was a worried boy most of the week and I actually thought about going home to the UK to see her. Flights were around two thousand dollars though, and my mum told me to stop being so silly and that she was being looked after. I heard from her just before we left. I couldn’t actually speak to her on the phone but she was allowed to text me, which put me more at ease. And it stopped me feeling a little less guilty for planning a weekend of fun and adventure (post script. My mum is now out of hospital and I spoke to her via webcam on Wednesday).

I should also give a big shout out to George Jeffrey before I talk about our trip. I don’t speak too much about work on these blogs (as you know). People ask why and my answer to them is that it is unprofessional. I don’t want some other TV channel seeing what I am up to and thus stealing my brilliant ideas. You have to be careful in today’s crazy times. Marketing gurus such as myself have to keep methods and things secret. All manner of information is on the interweb and you have to think about what to put out there into the ether. And as a professional that is always upmost in my mind. I can tell you therefore about what I had for dinner for example, but not what amazing show I am working on. That must be the law in this blog. Sorry to all of you fans that want to know all aspects of my life. If you need to know the finer details I would suggest you become a stalker. Please only do this if you promise not to hurt me and things.

Anyway, I digress again. If I was a teacher I would be the kind of person who would get distracted by little Jimmy in class. He would ask me a question during his English lesson (as that is what I would teach I think) about Arsenal football club. I would answer it in great detail and before you knew where you were the lesson would be over. Little Jimmy would have had one over on me as it would have meant no work for the class and I doubt I would have had time to set any homework. The fact that I go off on tangents myself proves this fact.

But anyways, back to George Jeffrey. George is my big boss at Fox, a bon viveur and an Arsenal fan. What a great combination. I could write many things about George but I will save them for when he commissions me to pen his life story. That will be a good book and I would be happy to write it (if the money is right).

I should get back to the matter at hand. We are five hundred words into the blog and I haven’t even started talking about my trip to San Francisco yet. This wouldn’t be so bad but I actually went almost three weeks ago now. That is correct readers. The text you have just read above I wrote a week and a half ago. I have left the blog until then and I have only just come back to it. It’s shocking really eh? I meant to get back on it Sunday night but after taking Emma’s parents back to the airport Emma and I went to the gym (I ran almost ten miles for those of you interested in my marathon training). We then came home and watched ‘Strictly Come Dancing’. I couldn’t believe they eliminated Phil Daniels over Don Warrington. It was a ruddy disgrace. I like ‘Rising Damp’ as much as the next man but Phil was a better dancer for sure.

I feel like Doctor Who in that I am caught in the time and space continuum. Here I am trying to write about what happened three weeks ago, but to tell this story of why this hasn’t happened I am writing about last week instead. When I therefore come to talk about last week I would have already done it an older blog - which didn’t focus on the time period it should of. Wibbly, wobbly. timey, wimey as Stephen Moffat would say. (For those who don’t know Stephen Moffat is the new head writer of Doctor Who. He is good, and does all the scary episodes, but he always tries to get the Doctor to do kissing and the sex. I don’t think the Doctor should be sexual so this gets on my nerves a bit. Stephen Moffat is obsessed by sex as he wrote ‘Coupling’. This was quite funny but not as good when the welsh chap left.)

Anyways George took Emma and I out to dinner at Shutters. I hadn’t seen him for six months and it was a delight that he was in town. We had a great time. Shutters is the best hotel in Santa Monica and it was nice to go to the main restaurant having been in the brasserie before. Emma and I had also been to the bar a few times for cocktails too but that is a different story. We had a delightful evening talking about our LA adventures. I hope we didn’t bore George too much with our stories. I don’t think he reads this blog though which helps. The problem is that when you see people I sometimes start what I think is a great anecdote but then you realize they already know from this here blog. That is modern technology for you and no mistaking.

I should finish there really as lunchtime is over and I have work to do. I know I didn’t manage to get started on San Fran but I will. Emma’s mum has sent some great pics to us so I can make the entry very visual and not bore you too much with my ramblings. I will try and fit in the next weekends adventures. I think you will all be intrigued to hear what adventures Mr. Furness and I got up to on a hot Saturday afternoon while the ladies were out shopping.

Until then may you follow your dreams, not your nose if you smell something bad (like a drain).

Marc x

One year on...

2008-09-22T17:52:00.000-07:00

It is one year today since I got married readers. It's safe to say that it has been the most fantastic year ever. My wife is the best.

Rock n' Bowl

2008-09-18T17:32:00.000-07:00

Hello there everyone,

I've been working on a blog about my trip to San Francisco but to be honest I haven't got that far with it. In fact I have done a piffling three hundred words. It isn't lack of creative zest, it is simply that I have wanted to give it more time. Time has not been on my hands this week readers. It has been so far away from my hands I imagine it has been residing on my toes. And I wouldn't recommend this as my toes have blisters from my marathon training (though having said that I have well slacked off with my running this week). I also wanted to put up lots of great photos but I need to get them from Emma's mum as she took some really good ones. All the gods have been deciding not to give you a proper blog entry this week.

I thought therefore that I will work on it properly on Sunday evening. Emma will be watching 'Holby City' and I can put fingers to laptop while secretly watching Holby myself. I will then have my amazing San Fran trip all ready and waiting for you in time for the new working week. Going back to work will not be as bad because at least you will have the blog to look forward too. Hopefully this is a win-win thing all round and we are all dancing for joy. Perhaps some of us are even singing a little song? I like to think that this is possible in a world full of so much sadness and pain.

I am having an afternoon coffee now though (it's a nice one. It's black with one sugar as I need the energy rush) so I thought I'd tell you about my trip to the Hollywood Bowl last night. I had always wanted to go this seminal venue. For those of you who don't know it's a 18,000 capacity open air amphitheatre in Hollywood. And it is ruddy superb. You can bring your own drink and food too. How cool is that? No spending ten billion pounds on some chips and a luke warm lager. And you can choose to sit at either a seat with a table, in some normal seats or at the back on the 'bleachers'. It has a seat for all types of dudes! I was with eleven others and we had three terrace boxes next to each other. They were the bomb! I had a whole bottle of wine and got a bit tipsy.

I realised that I didn't tell you that I was seeing Nick Cave and his Bad Seeds with support from Spiritualised and Cat Power. All the acts were ace actually but Nick Cave was flippin' marvelous. The sound was amazing, the light show was superb and the crowd were ace too. I hate it when people say that live music in big venues is rubbish. That's just a lazy opinion as it really works with some acts. Of course it's great to see a band in an intimate setting but there is something to be said for a proper spectacle and show. Mr Cave put one of these on, and he can really play to a big crowd. The setting suited him great and there was no better place to see him.

Afterwards I got a coach home and avoided the famous bad bowl traffic. This coach was part of the 'park and ride' scheme. The great thing was that is bypassed all the congestion and I was back home in Santa Monica in thirty minutes. What was even better was that it dropped me right by my house so I didn't even have to park, I just rode! And for a bargain $5 return (that's about two pounds and eighty pence back in the UK). The powers that be probably didn't think cool cats like me would just ride when they invented this scheme. I think they would have liked my ingenuity though. Why park if you don't need to park. 'Just ride baby' is what I say.

The Hollywood Bowl is now my most favourite venue in the world ever. My friends Jim and Les saw Morrissey there once. I am a bit jealous but I reckon Nick Cave may have been just as good.

More on San Fran soon. And I hope this little blogette has kept you going a bit to the next installment.

Marc x

p.s. Thanks to Charissa for sorting out, and arranging our Nick Cave @ The Bowl trip. It was skill.

Blame it on the boogie!

2008-09-10T11:29:00.001-07:00

Emma’s parents were visiting this weekend, along with a new guest in tow, namely Felicity Furness. Felicity is Emma’s younger sister and she is renting out our flat in London Town whilst we are here. She is keeping it very nice and it passed our inspection when we went back to the UK in August. It was looked after very well apart from the oven. The hobs were sparkling but a sly look inside the oven itself revealed some crusty old food. Felicity has been reprimanded and she promises not to do it again. Anyway apologies have been made so we didn’t mind her coming to visit, along with the aforementioned in-laws.

They are all here for a couple of weeks but they are traveling all around this part of the states and not spending all their time in LA. They are at the Big Sur at the moment (I am guessing. I could check their itinerary to see but that wouldn’t be worth it. This blog could take ten minutes to write, or I may write some then have to come back to it tomorrow. This would mean their location will be out of date. It’s best to guess these things therefore).

We are all going to meet up in San Francisco on Friday though. I am very excited about visiting this place as I lost my heart there and I want to find it. That last bit was a joke as I have never actually been to San Francisco before. I was just quoting a song in an amusing fashion. I hope you comedy fans out there enjoyed what I did. We are going to go to Alcatraz, which is good though eh? As long as they don’t lock me up then all will be fine. In all seriousness I don’t think it’s a prison anymore. If it is then that’s just wrong as you should not encourage crime. I am not that bothered by the Golden Gate bridge as I don’t think it will be as good as the bridge that goes over the Dartford Tunnel. I’m sure I’ll see it though as its something you have to do. You wouldn’t visit Glasgow without jacking yourself up on heroin, would you? That is a joke to all my Scottish readers. You have to point these things out to avoid getting your head kicked in.

Anyways, I best not get ahead of myself. I haven’t told you about this weekend and that is what you are interested in. I am not going to disappoint you readers so that is my aim now. I like to think I am the man that gives, and today I am going to give until I can’t stop. I am like that Ian Curtis chap who organizes ‘Comic Relief’.

When Ian Curtis isn’t making ace films like ‘Notting Hill’ he is busy giving to the poor starving children around the world. And not to forget that Comic Relief also gives to causes in the UK too, in order to appease the racists. Anyways, I am like this dude. I am not giving money, it’s just details of my weekend - that is true. I like to think though that if any of the children of Africa can stop walking to the water well for one minute, then they should log onto this. It would give them a good laugh I am sure. It would take away the pain of famine, as laughter is the best medicine. I don’t know why they bother sending medicine to places like Africa. If it was down to me I would just send Bradley Walsh to entertain them. Anyway, I digress. I want to tell you about this weekend don’t I?

I shall not bore you with all the details. People say the devil is in the detail, I disagree as the devil would be bored. He doesn’t strike me as the type of dude to ever bother with details. He is too busy being crazy and doing bad things. I think God is more into the detail as he is all knowing and all seeing. My point is though that I will not tell you everything we did. A weekend is around sixty hours so I have to make some edits somewhere.

In a nutshell (we weren’t actually in a nutshell, this is just a word for a concise summing up) we had some very nice dinners and and the ladies also did some shopping on Saturday morning. Whilst they were in such great places as ‘Banana Republic’ myself and Mr. Furness sat outside and had a chat about various things in life. This is what men do I have decided.

We had planned to go to the beach in the afternoon but it was a bit cloudy! We therefore decided to chill out by the pool in the nice hotel where the in-laws were staying. I had a good time, and I had some chips too. I like eating snacks by the pool. I wasn’t as decadent as Emma who had some wine, I went for sparkling water instead. And we could have gone to the beach as the sun came out just as we sat down! Not to worry though, the pool was great and it felt like we were on holiday.

On Sunday we did all go to the beach as planned. We drove just past Santa Monica beach to Will Rogers beach. This beach is a bit quieter and away from the crazy tourists. Will Rogers was an actor who owned the beach itself. When he died he gave it back to the people and as such it now belongs to the public. What a nice chap eh? And the good thing is that this is the beach where they shot ‘Baywatch’. Anyways we had a great time reading, sunbathing and whatnot.

The day was to get all the more exciting though. I purchased some ‘boogie boards’ off some beach seller for Emma and I. They look like half surfboards combined with big floats that you swim with when you are a baby. Anyway, mine looked cool as it had a picture of a shark on it. All the kids were boogie boarding and before you could say “wipeout” Emma and I were in the sea giving it a go. It was brilliant readers. It’s easier than surfing and as long as you hold on for dear life it isn’t that hard to ride some waves. The waves were dead strong though and at times you get thrown off and I cut myself up quite badly on the sea bed due to the force. This is great though, and part of the fun. You don’t really mind the injuries.

Towards the end I caught a dead big wave. I rode it until it sucked me under the sea. I still held on and I come back up again and got taken at 100mph to shore. It looked dead impressive and all the kids thought I was a boogie boarding legend. I can’t wait to go again. I will have to buy some new trunks though as mine aren’t tight enough and the power of the waves kept on pulling them down. I don’t want to be arrested for indecent exposure. Emma’s bikini bottoms had the same fate but she was able to just keep decorum.

Anyway, we had a jolly nice weekend, the fun will no doubt continue in San Fran next week. Stay tuned for that.

Marc x

p.s. Get well soon Mum. xxx

Bananas In Pyjamas

2008-09-04T14:14:00.000-07:00

I had a bad nights sleep last night. This is rare for me as I can pretty much sleep when and where I want. All I do is close my eyes, think of myself as the new Doctor Who and I’m asleep in seconds. I think I was too hot though dear reader. Even though we are now in September the sun doesn’t rest in the City of Angels. Before I came to L.A. I was a man who had to be both under the covers and in his pyjamas. Now I am happy to sleep on top of the duvet in just my pyjama bottoms. That is right, I am topless in bed! I know it’s a bit controversial but it’s something I had to do. You need to make adjustments when you move to a new country. In fact when I'm pottering around the house I now wander around in just my shorts. I think the Californian lifestyle has made me a bit free and easy with my morals. I promise never to go naked though, that is just wrong. Anyways, regardless of myself being topless and on top of the covers I was still too hot. I got a bit cross and I don’t think I got to sleep until past one.

Apart from that incident life has been chugging along rather nicely. Our friends Toby and Kirsty have been to stay for a week. They have now left us and are in San Francisco before they head off to Vegas to gamble away their lifes savings. Toby has been a friend of mine for about fifteen years (which is a ruddy long time to be friends with me). I think though that you get a bit complacent with mates and you don’t see them as often as you should. Back in the UK Tobester worked where I did and as such we never made the effort to meet up specially. It was ace therefore to have a proper old catch up with him and his missus. Even though Emma and I were working we went out for meals and things during the week, and we then did lots of fun stuff during the weekend. That is the great thing about being over here. When people come and visit you actually get to spend proper time with them. We saw ‘Tropic Thunder’ one night at the ace ‘Dome’ Cinema. It was a very funny film and I laughed a lot. I give it 8/10.

Toby and Kirsty also did well on the arriving with presents. Emma likes to get chocolate (as American chocolate is not very nice and tastes like it went off five years ago). Not only did they get Emma four bars, but they also got Emma a barrage of ‘Grazia’ magazines (which she misses). And I got the new Doctor Who magazine and the Season Four special review. I was over the moon as they also chucked in the new 4-4-2 football magazine AND Doctor Who Adventures with a free blow up Sontaran. They have raised the bar somewhat for our next visitors.

Election fever is starting to hot up here. Come November America will vote for a new president and I will be here to see it. This is all very exciting and no mistaking, I have to say that I’m with John McCain every step of the way. I like the fact that he is seventy one years of age. It would be good to have a pensioner running the states I think. I like old people as they are good to have a chat with. And I also like the fact that he has the same surname as my favourite UK oven chip. He is also a visionary as he has picked a lady as his second in command. It’s also worth noting that the lady in question has a lot of energy and a positive outlook. Emma told me some people were upset she was pro-life. Can you believe it? The gumpy dudes of society can’t cope with the fact that someone thinks life is brilliant. I suppose they would rather a manic depressive in charge? I think it was ‘Wham’ who had the slogan ‘Choose Life’ on their t-shirts back in the eighties. I think this is pretty much the same thing and nobody had a go at George Michael. In fact he went on to have a very good solo career that has only been marred slightly when he was caught playing with another mans winkle in a toilet.

Anyway I digress. Old man McCain is the one to lead America forward. I also like the fact that he has voted for 95% of the same policies as George Bush. Every country needs consistency, and the war aside old Georgy has done a good job. If you ignore the recession and things then the US has never been in better shape. I can’t vote over here, but if I could Grandad Oven Chip would have me on the campaign trail for him. I don’t even know who the Democrat candidate is as there has been very little news coverage of the opposition. I think Monica Lewinsky was in the running but she was beaten by some other chap. I’ll have to do some research on him, and to see if he offers anything new. Whoever he is I can’t see him grabbing the attention of the public like John McCain has though. It stands to reason that if you are named after a food then you do well. Just look at Paul McCartney for an example. He named himself after the popular range of vegetarian foods and his career went mental. And the funny thing is that he also had a wife called Linda, just like the foods.

Emma and I have discovered vegetarian meatballs over here. They are delicious… and a further step to me becoming a vegetarian. I still haven’t eaten any red meat. I will give up poulty in the next couple of weeks I have just decided.

I think that is it from me.
Cheerio,
Marc x

It's A Kind Of Magic

2008-08-27T16:09:00.001-07:00

Sometimes even I struggle for inspiration to write a blog. To be honest I've had writers block since I got back from London. Emma therefore did the last real entry and I have just chipped in with an old blog and a list of things I like. I don't know what it is but I can't get motivated or any inspiration. I think it could be because I am being creative and all that jazz in my job and I'm having to work dead hard too. There is only so much thinking your bonce can do before it explodes! My novel 'Manhole' has also slowed down from the previous flurry of activity. Don't get me wrong, it's still brilliant and I'm still tweaking it to comedy perfection. The nights of writing thousands of words in a mad frenzy has stopped for the time being though. Most evenings I am a bit too tired and all I want to do is to lie on the sofa cuddled up to the wife, whilst watching another hilarious episode of 'Everyone Loves Raymond'. I am sure though both the blog and 'Manhole' will bounce back to former glories soon. Having got this far with my book there is no way I am giving up on it. I prefer to read rather than write at the moment. I am currently reading 'Andrew Marr's History of Britain'. I know most of the stuff he covers. I remember it all from my History A-level, but I enjoy his take on it. If you are interested in modern british history you could do a lot worse than read this. It's a dead good effort so far.

So anyway, back to this blog. I am really making myself write this so it's like pulling teeth. It won't be that funny but even Tony Hancock had his off days. Actually that is over-egging the pudding somewhat as Tony Hancock killed himself. That must of been a very off day for him eh? There is no chance of me doing that, at least not on purpose. I have no doubt I could absent mindedly walk out in front of a truck, but I hope I don't as life is pretty good all told. I hate this not being able to write thing though. Normally I can just write loads of gubbins in minutes, and I find it hard to stop. Just like having a pringles crisp in fact.

I like being back in L.A. It's a bit bonkers to think that we are almost half way through our time here. We really need to see more of the West Coast before time goes completely. We do have a long weekend trip planned to San Francisco in a couple of weeks, and I hope we get to go to Alcatraz as I reckon that will be dead interesting. And we are also thinking of spending Christmas in Vegas. How cool would that be? It would be something different for sure. I also want us to go on a few crazy road trips while we remain here too.

We went for lunch in Venice on Saturday with Mark and Cerise. That was very nice indeed. We went to a place with a poncey name that I forget. It was very good though and I had a delicious bowl of brown rice (it was nicer than it sounds. It had lots of gubbins in it). I also had a cheeky couple of glasses of wine in the afternoon. It went right to my head. I don't drink much these days really, especially now I'm in training for the LA marathon next year. You have to enjoy a cheeky glass of wine every now and then though.

I have become a bit obssesed with working out readers. Not in a giving myself a six pack sense, but just with getting fit. If I don't go the gym for a couple of days I get quite itchy. I have a strict training program for the marathon in March so I have to take it seriously. I am now eleven stone and twelve pounds. I haven't been under twelve stone since Emma and I went to Sicily four years or so ago. This was the holiday where I went too crazy on pasta, pizza and ice cream (it was the best food I have ever had. Ever. I didn't have one bad meal, the whole place was a dream. I also had lots to drink too. I loved that holiday). I came back half a stone heavier and I thought I would never see below twelve stone again. I was at my heaviest ever weight at the start of the year. I was thirteen stone, and I was a bit cross with myself. I did a lot of running back then too, and went to the gym a fair bit but my diet wasn't the best when Emma wasn't cooking. And I drank too much beer I think. Now though, I am fighting fit and able again. I'm back to a 32" waist jean and my little beer belly has almost gone. I really, really hope I don't get back to old habits when I come home in six months. It's so difficult though not to sit in and do nothing when it’s always such rubbish weather outside. That is Engerland for you, which I love really.

Sorry for boring you all with my fitness stories. Someone boasting that they go to the gym a lot is almost as bad as someone telling you that they have had sex. Unless it’s with someone interesting or there is some scandal involved then you don't really want to know. I really don't have much else to entertain you with though. Emma and I are very happy, and there isn't much else to say really. Luckily this will change soon as after a short break our barrage of visitors has started again. We can tell you stories about that and what we got up to with them. And not only that we are off to San Fran (as the kids call it) very soon. We will be sure to entertain you all with our stories, and I'll get Emma to take lots of pictures too. She has a nice camera and as such she snaps away like the paparazzi would if Princess Di, The Queen Of Hearts, rose from the grave.

Oooh... I just forgot. The Saturday before last Emma and I went to a magic show and it was brilliant. There is a place called 'Magicopolis' in Santa Monica which Emma found on the interweb. On their list of good reviews it had David Bowie saying it was great. That was enough for me so I booked up tickets for us. We got there and enjoyed a wine or two in the bar. The barman was also a magician and he did some tricks for Emma and I. He loved our accents and our crazy English ways and he thought we were great. He told us that he was having an aftershow magic and comedy show and that we were invited. So we went to that too.

Before that though we watched the magic show proper. Not only was it really cool old skool magic, with card tricks, levitation and escapology but it also had David Bowies autograph on the wall. It was brilliant. Afterwards we went to the aftershow which went on until late. We watched our new friend Eric putting on a bar cabaret type show. He was good but one of the acts he booked was terrible. This fellas act was to dress as a lady and to dance to some music while saying "feel the rhythm". After that he told some jokes from a book, said 'feel the rhythm' again a few times and that was that. He was ruddy rubbish. It was a skill night though and Emma and I walked back home a little tipsy but full of the joys of magic.

That's it until next week. Until you come here again may the joys of life be yours,
Marc x

I Feel Like Chicken Tonight

2008-08-21T09:26:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

Today is my last re-visited blog. I have run out of them so this is the last 'blast from the past' for all my new fans. I know it's sad for you all but you must not let it get you too down. If it does I would phone Childline or the Samiritans. When you get through ask for Esther Rantzen and say that I sent you.

The blog below goes back to last Summer in the UK. It was a time of revolution and change. Not only had Facebook taken the UK by storm but Crystal Palace had the grand opening if 'Shecky's Chicken Shack'. Would life ever be the same again?

As an aside I will write a new blog over the weekend about how life is been since we returned to LA. That is something to look forward too I’m sure you will agree.

Marc

p.s. Once again the 'revisited' comments are in Brenden Brackets and Barry Bold.

Friday, June 08, 2007

I feel like chicken tonight...

Here I am with another blog on the myspace. I wonder if it will be last? Don't worry kids I'm not dying and I don't have AIDS or anything like that. It's just that everyone keeps telling me that myspace is dead as its now run and used by corporate dudes. Apparently I should be on the facebook where you have friend groups or that kind of jazz. Apparently there is no music on the facebook but that could a good thing. There is nothing worse then getting all excited when you see that you have a friend request from someone, just to find out that its some band trying to get their friend numbers up with some random request. I always decline these fools. (I did indeed leave the myspace. I got a 'facebook' account which I still enjoy today. And I set up a blog here. The rest, as they say, is history).

I have been pondering today about what is better out of ‘Nandos’ or ‘Shecky's Chicken Shack. As most of you will know I am a fan of fine eating. I like nice restaurants and all the bits and bobs that go with it (such as stimulating conversation, fine wines and even dressing up). I must admit though that every now and then I like to join in with the working man and go to Nandos. Even though I want to be vegetarian I can't resist their chicken with hot peri peri sauce. The best thing is though that you can have bottomless coke. You are allowed to get as many drinks as you like from the machine. I normally have about four litres worth then I am high as a kite for the rest of the day on caffeine and e-numbers. It is the best fun ever. But in Crystal Palace (where I live) there was rumours of Nando's opening on what we new residents call 'the triangle'. Dudes like Jim Bob who have lived there for years say that its just us newbies that call it that but I digress (besides 'The Traingle' is a great name). I was so happy as I am growing to love the Palace, and having a Nandos would make my life complete.

Some residents were up in arms though as 'The Triangle' whilst full of loads of ace pubs and places to eat doesn't have many chains (though having said that there is a Pizza Express and a Cafe Neros now - but you get what I mean. There is a lot of independent places). It turned out though that it wasn't Nandos, but a new chicken pretender to the throne, Shecky's Chicken Shack. What would it be like? Could it live up to Nandos? I could not sleep for the worry. Would my dreams be ruined? Well, last night Emma took me to Shecky's as a treat. She is a vegetarian so that is love for you isn't it? They did have this veggie wrap thing, that she had with rice and corn on the cob. I couldn't look at Emma's plate as I hate sweetcorn. It is my worst food ever and I actually vomit if I eat it. I despise it in all formats. I couldn't moan at the Emster for having it though as she was in Shecky's after all. Anyway my chicken came (I also got lots of sides and chips) and it was delicious. And the good thing is that they have copied Nando's bottomless coke idea so I had three glasses. I had to go the toilet in the night about five times but it was worth it. I think Nando's still wins as it was first, but I liked Shecky's and there was no chavs there. And Nandos does encourage the chavs. So hooray for Shecky's Chicken Shack.

(I would seriously live to regret these comments dear readers. The next time I went back to the Chicken Shack it was rubbish. They ran out of chicken – at a chicken shack! And they were dead rude when I moaned about the aforementioned lack of chicken. From memory I got cross and James Brierley had to calm me down. This occured after a new pub we had visited forgot our food order and left us starving like a poor little famine victim. It was a bad night foodwise you could say. I think Sinead Taylor posted some bad reviews on virtualnorwood.com such was her fury with the pub. Anyway it was no surprise when Shecky’s shut down soon after. This is a shame as they could have been friends with the chicken lovers like me. It is business rule no. 1 though that if you don’t have chicken in your chicken shack then what chance do you have. It’s replacement was ‘Prezzo’s’. This closed down in two weeks. The place is cursed, or either that and both places were rubbish. I should point out that in America Land you always get coke refills. It is the norm here and I for one salute the Americans on this policy. Lets hope that if this Obama dude gets voted in then he doesn't revoke free coke refills . I like this Obama fella a lot, but I wouldn't be so keen if he stops the free coke.)

On an advertising front I am on a podcast. How exciting is that? I bet you have just done a burp or something you are in such a frenzy at this news. If you have an interest in Arsenal, football or you would just like to hear me chat you should check this mutha out. It is the first in what will be a long line of Gooner podcasts. I have been writing for the magazine for 10 years now, so it's good to do the first podcast of what is a fine publication. http://www.onlinegooner.com/exclusive/index.php?id=326 (I did a few fair of these podcasts and I was great in every one. They aren’t as great now as I’ve gone to the US and I’m not in them any more. I still listen to them though as that’s the kinda guy I am).

It is my brother, Jon's (or Jonathan as I call him, though he hates being called that so I shall never stop) birthday tomorrow. He will be 25 for all of you interested in ages and that kind of jazz. We are going bowling. I am rubbish at bowling. My top score is about 70. I wish I was good at things that involved co-ordination but I am just not. It has taken me a couple of years to learn how to drive. I do get there in the end but it doesn't come easy. I blame it on being left handed. Either that or I'm poo at everything. I'll stick with the left handed option. If you were left handed one hundred years ago they used to cut your hand off and bugger you and everything. We live in enlightened times when you think about it. ( I have since got a bowling score of 96. I am getting better every year readers. I pretty much hit the pins every time, I just need some spares and strikes)

I reckon I should finish now. I'm never quite sure where to stop these things. Tomorrow Emma and I are shopping for wedding rings and looking for stuff for our wedding list. I'm actually dead excited about that. And when we've finished we shall head off to little Jonathan Ollington's bowling bonanza. I may get a little tipsy as no doubt he and those crazy Cable Street Spy Club boys will be. And then on Sunday Emma and I are going to Brighton. I'm not turning into a gay* but we are off to have lunch with Vicki and Gary (Emma's sister and husband). They live in The Brighton. it has a beach and everything. Why don't you let me know on the comments what you plan to do this weekend? Or if it's Monday don't bother. Instead just tell me about if you like The Nandos.

Until next time, cheerio.

Marc

* For all you homosexuals, and friends of homosexuals that is obviously a joke. I am a fan of the Pet Shop Boys, I like Abba and I am very house proud. I am practically a gay myself. Apart from the fact that I don't want to kiss a man or to touch one in a rude way.

Things I Like

2008-08-17T14:49:00.000-07:00

Hello there,

Before I do a proper entry later in the week I thought I'd mention a ten things that I like at the moment.

The picture above (of Emma at a wedding) refers to the entry below this one - which is written by the Emster herself. Read that if you haven't already as it's dead good.

Anyway, here are things that I like.

1. The Film 'Juno'. This is one of the bestest films I have seen ever. I saw it on the plane on the way back from England and I was amazed by how ace it was. It's all about a girl who gets up the duff, and her subsequent pregnancy before she gives the baby up for adoption. It's one of the best films I have ever seen in my life and it has the bestest soundtrack ever (which I have since bought off itunes). With 'Belle and Sebastian' and 'Mott The Hoople' you can't go far wrong.

2. Jamba Juice. In the US they have this fruit smoothie store called 'Jamba Juice', which they pump with extra vitamins of your choice. I have mentioned this before but I love it more than ever. It's a delicious meal in a very big cup.

3. Running. I am in training for the LA Marathon next March. When I run with my ipod on dead loud I enter another world. I'm not sure what the world is, or what's it called - but I like it there.

4. The American version of 'Gladiators' (not the rubbish Sky remake). Hulk Hogan is the best presenter ever, and I get very excited when he calls the audience "Gladiator Maniacs". I like to whoop with delight at this point. The series has now ended. This makes me sad.

5. Cinamon and Raisin bagels from 'Trader Joes'. They are so yum yum I could eat ten in a row. But I won't do that as that would be greedy.

6. The new Keane single. I don't mind saying that I think it's flippin' brilliant. I am 32 so I'm allowed to like Keane anyway. That is the joy of being in your thirties. You can just like what you want to like without trying to be cool.

7. Fox Soccer Channel. It has every Premiership game live it seems. Emma hates it but I think it is a gift from god. I watched four matches this weekend, and all before mid-day which means I didn't waste the day! Not that watching football is wasting the day but you know what I mean.

8. Sushi. I am having more and more sushi as it's the cool thing in LA. I could eat it until it comes out of my ears.

9. David Bowie. I have always loved David Bowie but I can't stop playing him at the moment. I don't know why but I'm on a huge Bowie tip, it's like I'm 13 all over again. And I don't care what anyone says, Tin Machine really did have some flipping brilliant songs. And people forget the first album got loads of dead good reviews when it came out and got to no.2 in the charts.

10. The BBC Program 'Would I Lie To You'. Yes, it's a cheap panel show - but it makes me laugh out loud every week. I like David Mitchell. He is a very funny man.

Bye,

Marc x

Intruders at the Palace?

2008-08-14T21:56:00.001-07:00

Marc has asked me to write this weeks blog entry for him as after our weeks holiday back in the UK. He's very busy at work (so he says) and seeing as I'm still a lady of leisure I have all the time in the world on my hands. So I figured I'd fill you all in our trip back to the homeland and then normal service will resume next week.

The whole flying process is so much easier these days. We were able to check in online allowing us to choose our seats by the window. We decided to fit in a last gym session to try and help us sleep on the flight . We then jumped in a taxi and said goodbye to our little Californian bungalow and headed to the airport for our flight at 6pm. Check-in was a breeze as we only had to drop our bags. We were soon settled in to our seats and in the air on our way back to Blighty. The people in front of us kindly reclined their seats all the way back as soon as we'd taken off which meant I couldn't feel my knees from this point on. It still gets me how incredibly selfish some people are, I do think you should at least wait until people have eaten before reclining your seats to sleep. After arguing with them to at least put their seat backs up whilst we ate our dinner we tucked in to our delicious airplane food.

After watching a film or two we decided we should try and get some sleep. Marc has the ability to sleep anywhere so he was already dozing away whilst I struggled to get comfy. It was at this point that I was suddenly hit by sheer panic that I had forgotten to pack my driving license. I should point out at this stage that as we had very limited time at home but had to travel a fair amount around the place we had booked a hire car so that we didn't have to waste valuable time on long and convoluted train journeys. I frantically emptied out the contents of my handbag but couldn't find it anywhere. This obviously woke Marc up. I then spent the rest of the whole journey worrying about what we were going to do. I thought I'd just thrown away all that money and I had messed up royally. Marc told me not to worry and it'd all be ok. This was very nice of him but I think he just wanted to get back to sleep. I wished I'd listened to him though as they let us hire the car anyway and I'd not slept a wink the whole flight.

Trying to remember how to drive a manual car was interesting and after giving Marc whiplash from our bunny hopping through the gears we made it back to our lovely flat in Crystal Palace.

I didn't realise just how much I'd missed the place until we walked through the front door. It was so great to be back home and my little sister had done such a lovely job looking after the place for us. I headed straight out and had a great night catching up with Challie and G in Brixton whilst Marc went to meet the boys for a Carter meeting to discuss the upcoming gigs. We managed to keep our jet lag at bay and had a great nights sleep back in our old bed. Waking up there, it felt like we'd never left.

Thursday was a jam packed day with Marc having yet more Carter meetings and suchlike during the day whilst I went and had a lovely lunch with Emma and Sinead. I then popped back to Battersea to visit all my old work friends. It was great to see them and it made me realise how much I was missing the place, especially my gorgeous office dogs. It was then back to the Palace for the evening where we caught up with a few friends. Unfortunately we really didn't get to see everyone that we wanted to as we only had two nights in London and I hope we didn't offend anyone that we didn't get to see.

Friday saw us head down to Southend to see Marc's mum and dad for the day. I had finally managed to get to grips with driving a manual again and enjoyed our little jaunt down south. It was lovely to see Marc's family again and catching up with them was brilliant. We even managed to pop over to see Mark and Becky and meet their new son Thomas for a little bit. Thomas is an absolutely gorgeous baby and we couldn't believe how much his big sister Mollie had grown in 6 months. Playing shop with Mollie I discovered that children's toys have come on somewhat as her shop till now came along with a chip and pin device. I was so impressed.

We were then up bright and early on Saturday morning to head up to St Albans for Natasha and Gary's wedding. This was the main reason we came back to the UK and I couldn't wait for the wedding. It didn't disappoint and we had an ace day. I love weddings and all they entail. Natasha looked beautiful and the church she got married in was really stunning. I think my favourite bit was the canapes and champagne after the ceremony. I think I could live on canapes alone, they are delicious. And I love meeting all the new people at your table and going through the obligatory 'how do you know the bride or groom?'. You always find out something you never knew about your friends. Having a boogie to cheesy wedding hits is always good fun and tucking in to wedding cake finished off the day a treat.

After enjoying a delicious room service breakfast we headed down to Kent to see my family to celebrate my mum's birthday. We had a delicious bbq in the garden and it was brilliant to see everyone and just hang out back home. This was lovely but there was lots of annoying wasps in the garden. I haven't seen any of them in LA! I miss seeing my sisters all the time so it was lovely to spend the day with them. I'm a real homebody and I miss seeing my family all the time. I'm very fortunate though in that I get to speak and see them via the brilliant ichat every week and they've all been or have plans to come visit us which makes things so much easier. I think without the powers of technology living over here would have been a lot harder. Once my sisters (and Gary!) had left we played the wii fit in the evening. Watching my Dad do a 'ski jump' was the highlight of our trip.

Neither of us could believe it when Monday came around and it was time to make our way back to LA. Once at the airport we decided to get some lunch at TGI Fridays. What a mistake. I have never had such appalling service. Our drinks were served in chipped half full glasses and the service was abysmal with no one willing to assist you in anyway shape or form. That definitely helped to make it easier to return to the land of good customer service. However insincere it might seem sometimes, at least you get people falling over to help you. Soon we were back on the plane after being selected for every random search possible. I think Marc looked dodgy myself.

We were then thrilled to discover we had people who reclined their seats again immediately as we took off. And what made it worse was the woman in front of me sat upright doing a crossword on her tray the whole way so she never even needed to recline her seat! We had a family behind us who had young kids on their laps so there was no way we could recline our seats as it would have squashed them flat. But oh well. I managed to fit in 5 films and the time just flew by and I couldn't believe it when we were landing and we were back in LA.

Despite feeling really homesick to be leaving the UK it felt nice to be back in our little shed again and with just 7 months left of our Californian adventure we are definitely going to make the most of our time here. I start my job next week, not sure how I'm going to adjust to working full time again. I'll miss my morning walks along the beach, hanging out at the farmers market and being full time hostess to our many visitors. I've really enjoyed it but can't wait to meet more people and start earning again.

Think i've rambled on long enough so will stop boring you all now and leave you to ponder on what Marc will thrill us all with in next weeks blog.

Emma x

Get ready for the Emster

2008-08-14T10:51:00.000-07:00

Hello there,
Emma and I are now back from England after our week back home. We had an ace time which Emma is going to tell you all about. That is correct, the Trouble and Strife is going to do this weeks entry! Everyone secretly (or not so secretly) prefers her blogging to mine so this is a treat for you all. I reckon this will be up Friday so have a look out for that.
I shall then be back next week with stories of life back here in LA Land.
Keep it real,
marc x

I Don't Wanna See It On My Windowsill....

2008-08-04T13:36:00.000-07:00

How goes it?
I am flying back to the UK tomorrow for a week or so. Before I go I will leave you with another re-visited. In this entry we go back 17 months or so to April '07. This one is about my favourite topic - food. I have put new comments in bold and in brackets. I should also note that Emma posed for the pics above as those of her in the Earthquake reconstructions have proved such a hit.
I will try and post a 'review' of my time back in Blighty this time next week. I may write it at the airport or something.
Have a lovely week,
marc x

I don't wanna see it on my windowsill.

Hello blog fans. It's me checking in again with some more great thoughts on this crazy thing called life. I know I've left it another few weeks but I think doing the odd blog is much better than doing one all the time (I think I used to start off all my old blogs saying that I hadn't done one for a while. This is very different to now where not only do I do an entry at least once a week, but I also have repeats too!). I imagine it becomes more of a treat for you all when this happens. It's like if you had a roast dinner every day would you like it so much? That is dependent on if you like a roast dinner in the first place, but just imagine that you do. Having said that though if you had 'the business's every day would you get bored of it? I would wager not. I am digressing aren't I? So anyway - here is a blog. Welcome and enjoy.

My first topic today is illness. I got food poisoning a couple of weeks ago. It was more rubbish than the biggest bin in the world full up to the brim of all manner of horrid things. Without going into too much detail after I had been sick about ten million times I then spent hours on the toilet. My bottom is still a bit sore (For someone who says that he isn't going into too much detail...). I'm glad I'm not gay as I have sensitive bottom. I wondered then what else would be thrown at me after this double whammy. Would my sides split open and my intestines fall out? It wouldn't have surprised me dear readers.

The problem with food poisoning is that it isn't an illness you can enjoy. It's not like when you get a bad cold or a sore throat. Even though that's rubbish its still quite good to be off work. You get to lie on the sofa tucked up with a nice and warm duvet or blanket, watching films and TV, whilst your loved one essentially becomes your personal slave. And you also get to eat soup. I love soup. In fact I would go as far as to say that the more bad colds you have the better. Food poisoning, though, is a different barrage of bananas. There is no fun involved in it, it's just horrid. I lost lots of weight though which is an upside. Everyone said how it was just water and the weight wouldn't stay off. It has though so boo shucks to you know it alls. I am now a Slim Jim from Planet No Fat. (I havn't been ill for around a year I think. I could do with a bad cold in October I think. But not too bad that I have a sore throat and can't eat).

I think a tuna sandwich from Starbucks caused it. I have written them a stern letter. I hope I get lots of free vouchers (I did). I may not get any of their sandwiches again but I do love their Caramel Macchiato. They are a taste sensation and no mistaking. I couldn't give those up even though the company that makes them almost killed me. I did though read an article about how unethical Starbucks are the other day. Apparently all the coffee bean farmer dudes get paid about a penny for their coffee. I hope they do the right thing and treat these people well and perhaps pay them 2p as I really don't want to stop having those Macchiatos. I know big chains are evil and all that jazz, but nobody makes coffee like the Starbucks. People always go on about how terrible it is that local shops close to be replaced by the big corporate dudes. I agree, it's rubbish that every high street looks the same and big business rules. But (and this is important) if Joe's Caff had coffee as nice as Starbucks rather than Kenco Instant then Joe may still be in Barry Business. Think about that one Eco do-gooders. (Starbucks over here is cheap too, though I prefer Jambo Juice Smoothies these days).

Having said that I do avoid all Tesco Metros. If things carry on as they are the whole world will turn into a Tesco Metro. We will all be born with blue stripes on our faces and clubcards up our bottoms. I go to my local Costcutters instead. I think this is still a chain but I think it's a franchise so the fellas that run it still have their own business. I like the chaps that run our Costcutters. Last night Emma wanted some chocolate so I went to the shops to get some (how brilliant as a boyfriend am I? I even scrubbed the bathroom. You sisters didn't burn your bras for nothing). I also got a Mars milk for myself and some pick n' mix (I love Pick n' Mix). I also got The Observer as even though it was night time I wanted the music monthly supplement. This came to £4.20 but I had only taken £4 out with me. The friendly staff let me off the 20p and said to pay it when I was next there. They like me and the misses as we are locals (and unlike some of the locals we don't just come in for Special Brew). You would not be let off 20p at evil old Tesco Metro.

I was speaking to my friend James about Manchester. I was saying to him that its quite good these days as they have proper shops and nice restaurants too. James rightly said that this is rubbish as it makes Manchester just like everywhere else. Would The Smiths or The Stone Roses come out of a Manchester with a Selfridges? He was right. They existed because Manchester was a scummy dive full of poverty, evil and menace.

I had lunch from Pret today. I got a red apple. I always tell everyone that I only like Granny Smith green ones. I was telling porky pies. This wasn't on purpose as I honestly believed this but my red apple was bloody lovely. I think your tastes must change all the time. It's like olives, I love them these days. I could just eat them until they popped out of my nostrils. And I even like some vegetables these days. Emma does cook them in a nice way though. I don't like them done in a old fashioned style with them being boiled and plonked on your plate. Though I like carrots cooked in any style. And I love carrots raw dipped in humus. Yum. I asked Emma how she makes veg that I like and this is how she does it "Soften the onion and garlic in a pan (with a glug of olive oil) for a couple of mins, then add the other veg and cook for 5 mins. Once cooked (don't want it too go all soggy, you want them still be to crunchy) but in about a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar and stir it up. that's the magic ingredient." Do it. Your veg will never be the same again.

Marc's Top 5 Veg

1. Carrots - lovely cooked or raw. And orange. Orange is one cool colour.
2. Spring Onions - Flippin' lovely.
3. Mange Tout - great shape and better than green beans that are too rubbery.
4. Broccoli - It looks like a miniature tree which I still find fascinating. I could look at Broccoli for hours.
5. Peppers - I like all colours but I think I like the yellow one the best.

Veg I reckon is rubbish top 2
1. Cabbage
2. Sprouts.

I would ban both of them. Though someone told me that Coleslaw is made out of cabbage! I never knew this but now I do I can't eat coleslaw anymore.

Why don't you put up your top five veg on the comments bit below. Say why you like that veg. Go on - it will be great for shits and giggles (On my old myspace blog I had at least four people leave comments about their favourite veg. I was happy with that at the time. If only I knew then that 17 months on I would have ten million comments on my blog from angry Robbie Williams fans. By the way I have changed my mind about Robbie Williams. He is actually very talented as an actor. I saw 'Dead Poets Society' the other day and he was brilliant).

I think I should stop my blog now as if its too long people skim read. And my bogs are too good for that. I'll finish by saying that the new Arcade Fire album was so worth the wait, and they are the best live band I have ever seen. They make me happy, and in a world full of food poisoning and brussel sprouts that is a good thing.

See ya - wouldn't wanna be ya.
marc x

I Feel The Earth Move

2008-07-31T14:32:00.000-07:00

When you move to California people say that you should be prepared for an earthquake. I am one of those people that say politely “Yes! You are right, I shall be prepared should one occur. I will get myself a survival kit and read up what to do”. In reality though I am not really planning to do any of this and instead I am mulling over what I would like for my tea that night. It’s not that I’m being rude (well, I am a little, but not intentionally) it’s just that I can never really visualize a real earthquake happening when I am present. I always miss big things, whether natural disasters or big horrible events. This is a good thing, don’t get me wrong but surely there was as much chance of little old me being in an earthquake as there is Spurs finishing in the top four?

It was thus very begrudgingly that I took out earthquake insurance when we got our little bungalow out here. Once again I pondered to myself that it was a waste of money. The sensible part of me won though in the end and we got the insurance. Actually this is a bit of a lie. Emma told me that we had to get the insurance and that I was being a tight arse. She was right and we now pay something like sixty dollars a quarter in case of earthquake damage.

I am getting off the point though dear reader by talking about insurance. I now need to paint you a scene. This is where the exciting part of the blog occurs. So, it was mid morning and I was busy as a lot of bees making a really big order of honey. I was working on a marketing plan for one of our top new shows and I was thinking dead hard, so much so that my brain was actually throbbing a bit. Then all of a sudden I thought I had ruptured the aforementioned brain as the room started to shake a bit. I then had the idea that somebody was jumping up and down on the ceiling of my office. I was just about to bang the ceiling and shout “What the blazes are you doing? I have a marketing report to work on” when I noticed that actually the whole office was shaking from side to side. My mind then went blank. This is not the first time this has happened, but when I regained my composure I thought “What in the blazes is going on? Is it the end of the world?”

It then dawned on me that I was living in California and this was a ruddy earthquake. At this point I got quite scared because surely they didn’t last this long? This earthquake had been going on for a minute at least (it was a rolling one I later found out). The building I was in was very visably swaying from side to side and it showed no sign of stopping. Eventually though it came to an end (of course it did, otherwise I wouldn’t be writing this). I looked at my hands and they were covered in sweat and I had gone white. I walked out my office to see my colleagues hid under their desks. I think that is what I was meant to do rather than just sit there being all confused.

They all came out from their hiding places and everyone asked me if I was ok. They realized I was an earthquake virgin and could see I was concerned. I was quite touched by the American's being concerned for their engish cousins. Someone tried to hug me but I explained I was sweating a bit with fear and that I wouldn't if I was them. Our intern Colin is from the East Coast, and he too had never had an Earthquake moment before. We talked about it like excited schoolboys now we were less scared, but more excited. I was told that the quake measured 5.8. This means that it’s a big old one, but luckily not big enough to kill people and stuff.

I rung Emma as she was at home by herself. Luckily she wasn’t too shaken by it, and like me she hadn’t realized that it was an earthquake for a while. When she did she stood in a doorway as someone told us that this was a safe place. We have since found out that in fact you shouldn’t do this but instead you should go under a table or something. For purposes of the reconstruction photos that you can see above and to the side Emma is indeed under a table. This though is poetic license but it made for a better picture than her being stood under a doorway.

I asked if there had been any damage. Emma said that some things had fallen over but luckily nothing had broken. I was a bit annoyed about this as I had earthquake insurance (as you all well know from the opening couple of paragraphs) and I would like to have claimed on it. This wasn’t to be.

Hopefully in the rest of our time here we won’t get a bigger one. It made the news and everything (and even got reported back home) but we all lived. This quake was certainly powerful enough to show nature’s force and all that jazz so it was enough. I really don’t want to experience what the locals call the ‘big one’. This would see the whole city destroyed and LA would come to a standstill. David Crabtree at work says this will deffo happen by 2012 and LA will be a bit like a post apocolyptic world. If I am here when this happens I will loot a machine gun I think and become a bit like The Terminator in order to get back home.

Until next time….

Marc x

Guns Of Brixton

2008-07-29T11:32:00.000-07:00

Hello there,

It's Tuesday and I'm four days late with a 're-visited' blog, let alone a new one. I am coming back to England for a few days next Tuesday. I shall do a new entry before then, don't you all worry. But until then have a peep into what was going on in my life in February 2007... I have put my new comments in bold as brackets weren't working that well, as I had sometimes used brackets for other things in the original blog. It's crazy I tell you.

Marc x

Guns of Brixton

My blogs are very rare. More rare than a steak that not only has not been cooked but is actually still a cow. But anyway I digress and I am here firstly to talk about London. (Crazy eh? A mere few days before I come back home after 5 months away I am writing about my home town. It was like my trip home was meant to be, or something). I have been here over ten years and I am starting to think its time to move on (And I did, over a year later. Some would say changing countries is a bit crazy but there you go. I not one to do things by the half, or even three quarters) When I was in my twenties I loved London and I didn't want to be anywhere else. I loved the hustle and bustle, it was great that it was busy all the time too. Where else in this country do you have a choice of 100 gigs a night, or a 100 plays or as many restaurants, clubs, museums - or anything you can think of? Even when I was a bit poorer than I am now I always found something to entertain me. This may have been getting free tickets and going on 'London Tonight' to debate with Nicky Campbell about sex aids (true story) or it may have just been going for long walks and exploring this massive, crazy City. But sadly now London Town gets me down.

There are various reasons why. The fact that the public transport system is so rubbish doesn't help but its more to do with the fact that even though I am out a lot I now like being in more. I could get a house rather than a flat if I moved out in London - and I would like that. And at times I don't feel safe. London is bonkers in that you are in a 'good' area one second but then a street later you are in a bad area and before you know it you are being beaten to a pulp. I was getting the bus from outside Brixton station on Sunday night. I wouldn't normally get a bus from Brixton station as I always get hassled by dealers or smack addicts but I had too. I was getting back from North to South London but loads of tube and train lines I would normally get where all having sodding engineering works (!) So a bus from Brixton was my only option.

Whilst waiting for the bus some drug type dudes basically demanded some money from me. It was a joy to see everyone else in the queue move away so I could deal with it by myself. There is nothing like that London community spirit. I had a choice to either argue or give them the money. I started to protest but then the other dudes moved closer towards me, so I gave them the cash I had on me. I guess I should feel lucky. They didn't take my phone or ipod, they probably just wanted the cash for a quick smack fix. I'm not sure if this counts as a mugging but if it does its the sixth time I have been mugged in ten years. And that is too much. North London is beating South London 4-2 at the moment. I wonder if it will go to penalties. (I wasn't very happy when I wrote this entry was I? Perhaps it was because I had been 'asked' for money in such a fashion? It's quite weird for me reading this though, as normally I make myself laugh when I read my stuff - which is a good job as very few others do - so I am missing the jokes today).

I also used to love the rudeness. I liked the fact people ignored each other so you could go about your business without some nosey neighbour saying 'Hello' and trying to have a conversation. I liked that you could be whoever you wanted to be as people were so disinterested in you it didn't matter if you walked down the street naked (Which I have never done fact fans, I think I just said this as an example). I've changed though. I want to see people smile on the train. I want to say 'Hello' to someone I pass on the street without being called a weirdo. So where would I go? I don't much care for the seaside, and I may get bored in the country. I'll have to have a think and watch more 'Relocation, Relocation' which I love anyway (This blog is scaring me a bit. At the time I had never, ever thought about leaving the country. I 'choose' somewhere inadvertently with no public transport and where everyone says hello to you. Perhaps LA found me? Obviously it didn't but its still bonkers all the same).

This blog has been a bit on the sad side so far. So lets talk about nice things. I would just like to say how much I like Diet Coke with Cherry. It's so delicious. I have a can every day and I love it so much. It is just brilliant. (I still get Cherry Diet Coke but I now prefer Sprite Zero)

And I've got myself a tailored suit. It's just like Doctor Who's - though I've gone for different colour pinstripes as I didn't want it to be exactly the same. It looks the bomb.

I went to a party last week which was at the top of the Gherkin. It's so high up that when you go up in the lift your ears pop like they do when you are in a plane. The view from the ceiling is skill.

Has anyone tried 'GeoBars'? They are healthy but so delicious I am addicted to them. (I get Kellog's Cereal Bars over here, they aren't as good).

I need your help. I have tickets to see Arcade Fire and Bright Eyes on the same night. Who would you go and see? I love Arcade Fire so much. They are one of my favourite live bands but I also like Bright Eyes who I have never seen live. Let me know your views. (I choose The Arcade Fire. They were skill. I saw Bright Eyes twice later in the year and they were brill both times)

I have just got tickets to see the Pet Shop Boys at the Hammersmith Apollo. Wicked! (And they were ace too).

I went to see Billie Piper in that play 'Treats' but she was ill and cancelled. I was quite cross but those crosser than me got up and left and demanded refunds. At half time even more people left. Em and I stayed as we had half time wine waiting. I love half time wine when you have ordered it before the play has started. It's like the wine is then a present. For the start of the second half I got some ice-cream. I love ice cream but it always makes me cough. Does anyone know why that is? Anyway the play was quite good. I was still a bit cross though as in one scene Billie Piper's understudy is just in her bra. I would have liked to see Billie Piper in her bra. Not for rude reasons but simply because you could say to someone when the conversation got dull "I saw Billie Piper in her bra.". This could then lead on to a great chat. (Billie Piper has developed a lisp these days. I wonder where that came from? She had in the new Doctor Who and it was dead off-putting)

I think I'll end it there for today.

marc x

Les(s) of that art or I’ll shoot (Part Two)

2008-07-23T16:32:00.001-07:00

Welcome back everyone. I hope you are nice and settled for part two. It’s been a bit longer coming than what I promised you eh? I was going to carry on writing on Wednesday night but I was tempted by a double bill of 'Everybody Loves Raymond'. It’s so good to see what crazy things Raymond is getting up to after a hard day at work. Emma then made me a lovely Thai curry and after consuming that we settled down in front of the sofa with some ice cream. Doing a blog didn't carry much appeal from this point on. And on Thursday I went to the gym, and after that we watched ‘The Simpson’s’ film. This was funny and better than the series is these days.

Anyway we are now onto talking about last Friday I believe, which was our work ‘away day’. We had a big picnic and a game of softball was organized. The food was lovely (everyone had to bring something in which I thought was a good idea. I bought in some ‘chips’ and a big old fruitplate). Sadly the softball wasn’t as good. I still hit the ball as I did before (and I even made it past first base once) but that isn’t the whole story readers. On one occasion I whacked the ball and as I ran for first base I fell over. I am a pretty fast runner so I went tumbling down with a big old thud. It hurt but I realized if I got up I could still make the base. Sadly I did this too quickly, I didn’t get my balance and I fell over again! I then just missed first base and I was out. I had to go off and clean away the blood and the gravel. As I write this I have two big bruises on my knee and a cut hand. The things I do for television. I think my colleagues now think all English people are rubbish at sport. This is actually true when you think about it so no harm done I guess.

Saturday was a good old day though. After a lot of late nights and early mornings it was superb to have a lie-in. I had the brilliant experience where you wake up at around 7:30am and think “I better get up for work” but then you realise it's Saturday. This happened to me whilst I was going for a wee. I thought "do you know what Ollington? If I was you I'd get back into bed and have dreams of nice things and have some more sleeps." And go back to sleep I did and I arose from my slumber at just past 10am. Some would say this is lazy, I would say to these dudes to bugger off. I had six hours shut eye most of the week and I needed to catch up.

Emma and I had breakfast (boiled egg and soldiers which were sublime), did some chores, and then logged onto the computer. It was my mum’s birthday party and I we had been invited to attend via webcam. It’s all bonkers the technology these days isn’t it? We left on the laptop for a few hours as we were giving our bungalow a spring clean. Every now and then we would pop in front of the camera and talk to someone at the party. It was just like being there but we didn’t have any of the food or drink or anything. We were able to join in singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to my mum though (which was ace) and I had a good chat with my brother who I hadn’t spoke to since I got here! Obviously we talk on email all the time but boys don’t ring each other up. That is way too gay. It was very amusing hearing all the conversations that were taking place at the party. It certainly passed the time whilst I was scrubbing the kitchen floor.

After that Emma and I had a relaxing afternoon. We had some lunch, read our books and enjoyed the peace and quiet. It was ruddy brilliant. Then at around 5pm we went out for a spot of early dinner. We decided to treat ourselves to a meal at our favourite diner called ‘Swingers’. This is a real American diner with a fab jukebox and acetastic food. It also caters really well for vegetarians like myself too (I know I eat chicken but I am a vegetarian in spirit). I like this place a lot as you really feel like you are in America Land. After munching away it was time to head down to the beach for ‘Glow’. What the gubbins is ‘Glow’ you may be thinking? I shall put you out of your misery and say that ‘Glow’ is a twelve hour art exhibition held at night. The theme of ‘light’ is it’s concept. It kicked off at 7pm and was due to run for twelve whole hours. I told Emma we could stay for fifteen minutes as it sounded rubbish. We actually ended up there for quite a while, and I got quite into it.

It was still a bit on the rubbish side in a lot of ways, but I enjoyed seeing the exhibitions and installations so I could make an informed opinion. One of the exhibits was some lights placed on some steps of the pier that flashed in time with the waves. These weren’t brilliant special lights though. These were just like Christmas tree fairy lights. I reckon this exhibit cost ten dollars maximum. One of the big installations was a big cut out crater in some sand. It then shot up lots of water and had a barrage of weirdy images lit onto it. This was pretty impressive but it was no different to what they do at Disneyland for their big light show. In fact it’s better at Disney as Mickey Mouse appears in the lights. There were some good robots made out of plastic bottles and things though. Emma took some pictures of these and you can see them on the slideshow to your right.

We left before the rave type events took place though as I had to get to bed at around midnight. Why you may cry? Surely Sunday is a time for relaxing and frivolity. I had to be up at 7am for a photo shoot. People that say showbiz is all glamour are mistaken. And besides I never went to raves when I was young so I am not going to start now. I can’t say really what we were shooting or filming as the series doesn’t air until later in the year and you have to be all confidential and things. What I will say though is that shoots of any kind are great as you get free food throughout the day. I had some lovely pastries for breakfast. So it’s worth giving up some of your weekend for I reckon.

Afterwards I was able to spend some time with the Emster. We went to the gym to keep our training going but I was too tired to really go for it. We then spent a lovely evening relaxing and having some good philosophical chats about the world. Actually, that may not be true and we may have watched the TV. It was great all the same though. Phew, what a week it had been! That is life in Los Angeles though, and that’s why I am flippin’ loving it.

Marc xx

p.s. Happy Birthday Super Rupa. May your special celebrations keep going on for months - at least!

Les(s) of that art or I’ll shoot (Part One)

2008-07-21T16:36:00.001-07:00

It has been a manic week dear readers. I hadn’t been listening to the Welsh power-pop-rock trio the ‘Manic Street Preachers’. Actually I had but that isn’t why it was a manic week. Instead Emma and I had Les, Richey and Damo to stay from the mighty band ‘Abdoujaparov’. They arrived in LA on Monday night after playing a couple of gigs in the Sacramento area. Guitarist Johnny and his wife Allie (who was also driving them) were staying in a nearby hotel. This was quite lucky as Emma and I’s bungalow isn’t the biggest, but the others made use of our living room and they seemed to fit ok.

They all got into Santa Monica at around eleven in the evening. We thus had to have a few beers back at ours to welcome the merry band of travellers. It was jolly nice to catch up and by the time I got bed it was almost two in the morning. And I had to be in work for nine. How rock n’ roll is that? I may be thirty two but I can still push the barriers with what time I go to sleep. Lucky for me that I can get there in fifteen minutes, meaning that I was able to get six hours of the old shut eye. Margaret Thatcher survived on a lot less, though she was a bit mental (state funeral! I hope I’m still in the US when that happens). Funnily enough I wasn’t that tired at work. I think being sunny all the time means that tiredness evaporates and your heart remains aglow. Or something along those lines.

The next evening Emma and I took the band out and about to Santa Monica. We went to the Library Alehouse where we sat outside and enjoyed dinner under the stars (albeit with some canvas roof over us too). I got properly cooked fish and chips that was yummy in my tummy. Johnny then regaled us all with his wine knowledge. I asked him how he had become such an expert in all things vino. He told me that it was the staff training when he worked at ‘Oddbins’ (for the US readers ‘Oddbins’ is a chain of Liquor Stores back in Blighty). I think it’s jolly good and impressive that Oddbins train their staff so well. I think Johnny knows more than wine expert Oz Clarke (who used to be on ‘Food and Drink’ and who does the audio tour at ‘Vinopolis’). After dinner we went to a couple of bars. One of which was an Irish bar, the other was a ‘Trendy Wendy’ place. Both of them had rubbish singer songwriters playing. This made it hard for a decent conversation and natter. I had a whisky and coke though so it didn’t matter. Once again it turned into another late night and I didn’t get to Barry Bed until roughly the same time as the night before.

I was a little more sleepy eyed on Wednesday perhaps disproving my theory that being sunny evaporates tiredness. I recovered for the gig on Thursday though. It took about ten billion years to drive to Hollywood from work due to bad traffic. We listened to some classic Manic Street Preachers to help us along (as those of you who have been with me from the opening lines know). Even hearing such ace tunes as ‘A Design For Life’ and ‘Motorcycle Emptiness’ couldn’t take away the frustration of blocked up traffic and drivers not being able to wait their turn and thus shamefully trying to cut in here, there and everywhere. We got to the ‘Universal Bar and Grill’ eventually though. In a way it was good to get there late as the venue had booked about seventy five bands to play. Most of them were ruddy rubbish. Abdou (as the fans call them) were due on at around ten ish but it wasn’t until almost midnight that they took to the stage.

The venue was like something you see in the crazy American films when it all gets a bit seedy. It was a kind of sports bar (and it even had a TV showing sports above the bands as they played) but it also had a feeling of a rock n’ roll dive. I liked it in a funny kind of way but the nights entertainment wasn’t organized very well. Each band had to set up their own equipment and also do their own sound. It was literally plug in and play. The Abdou boys were very good though despite these obstacles and performed to an enthusiastic crowd, with some people wearing Carter t-shirts there too. And they did forty two minutes which was twelve minutes more than their allotted time. This meant we got a few more songs which made up for the lateness. We didn’t leave until past one and once again I got to bed at around two in the morning. This was for the third time that week! I am now practically on a par with Keith Richards at his height of hedonism. This is especially true as I had two whole pints of lager that night, and one of them was a real pint, and not the ‘light’ beers I have been drinking recently.

It was a top night and brilliant to have Les play in LA, and it was great to see Mark and Cerise (who the boys were now staying with). I also met Jacob who is Carter fan from Boston (I think?) residing in LA who I have emailed a few times (he has just had his debut novel published which I think is ace). It did make you realize though that it isn’t just England that has badly run music venues, in fact places like ‘The Bull and Gate’ are much better in comparison.

Speaking of novels as I did in the brackets above I should mention my debut novel ‘Manhole’. This is coming on a treat and the words flow out of me like nobody’s business when I sit down to write. Once my creative juices get spluttering I just can’t stop typing away. I read back what I had written the other day and I really made myself laugh. Is that a bad thing and a bit too egotistical? I guess that if at the end only I find it funny then at least I have pleased myself. And pleasuring yourself is recommended by some I’m sure.

I did discover this week that when listening to the podcast of Radio Four’s ‘Now Show’ that the word ‘Manhole’ is considered sexist by some UK councils. And it has already been banned in places like the aforementioned Sacramento in the US and they are now called “'maintenance holes''. How rubbish will my book be if I have to call it “Maintenance Hole”? Sometimes the tree hugging non sexist brigade get right on my Barry nerves. I have given up meat (read meat anyway) and I recycle now and everything (I am happy to wash up tins and tomato sauce bottles if that’s what we need to do to save the world). I would even burn my bra (if I had one) for the sake of all the lovely ladies getting treated as well as all the men dudes. It all goes a bit too far when the namby pambys start changing words that interfere with my art though. I could write a long diatribe about masculine and feminine words and their usage, but what’s the point? The world is run by fools. This is like my song ‘Eskimo Invasion’ all over again which got banned as the word ‘Eskimo’ was deemed racist by the vegetarian do-gooders of the world. Do I change the title or risk getting called a sexist by fool ‘Newsnight Review’? Let me know what you think readers.

Anyways (I have added an extra ‘s’ as that what people tend to do here in LA Land. Rather than say ‘anyway’ they say ‘anyways’. I’m not sure why and I guess it’s grammatically totally wrong, but I like it. It sounds nice so I am going to do it too) there is too much to write today for one entry. I want to tell you about my weekend so I shall do that on Wednesday. That means you get three blog entries this week as I shall do the classic blog re-visited on Friday. Sometimes you must wander how life can get any better.

I will entice you by telling you that on Friday I bruised both knees and my elbow in a horrific injury, On Saturday I attended a party in Leigh-On-Sea, Essex, England and I then went to an art festival in Santa Monica a few hours later (!) and I spent Sunday in the company of ex Baywatch babe Tracy Bingham. To find out how the gubbins this happened don’t forget to check back in a couple of days. Unless of course you are reading this past the 23rd July and I’ve already done part two of the blog. In which case I would say to you that you should read this more often. Or perhaps not, just read it when you like. I shouldn’t be a fascist and dictate when you log on here. I should be happy that you take the time at all to hear about our adventures. I think now that I am essentially an author (as ‘Manhole’ is so skill) that I am getting a little cocky. I shall beat my cockiness out, you can be rest assured of that.

See you for part two soon blog fans...

Marc xx

p.s. This weeks shout out goes to my ace mum whose birthday it is on 22nd July. Happy birthday mum and see you in two weeks. xxx

New Year, Same Old Gubbins

2008-07-17T11:46:00.000-07:00

Hello Readers,
I have posted my 'Blog Re-Visited' up a day early this week. I'm out and about all day with work tomorrow so here it is. Once again new comments are in brackets. In this classic entry from eighteen months ago I talk about my Christmas and New Year break. I don't really get homesick out here, as it's pretty ace, but I love a British Christmas. This blog entry made me quite nostalgic for the ace Christmas and New Years Emma and I have had. It will be very different this year spending it in America with just the two of us and only a couple of days off work.
See you Monday for a new entry!
Marc x

New Year, Same Old Gubbins
January 2007

It's been a while hasn't it? I haven't written a Barry Blog in a good few months. I'm not quite sure why. The muse wasn't there, and I'm not talking about those godawful whining rock twerps. I have also been dead busy doing lots of stuff. But it's a new year and all that gubbins so I should put fingers to keys once again. I feel you lot have been deprived of my ramblings so I have returned like Lazarus.

Since I last wrote a blog I got engaged (My word, and to think I have been married almost a year now). I know this will upset a lot of ladies out there in internet land but that is life I'm afraid. I am now thirty so the time is right for the face of London Town to hand in his badge. I think this is a very good age to get married. My teens and twenties were a social whirl but you can't be rock n' roll 24-7 when you get to my age. And to be honest give me some hob nobs, a cup of tea and the love of a good woman rather than going out clubbing any day of the week. I always had the hob nobs and the tea but its a lot better with the three.

I shan't write too much about my engagement here as my blogs are more about things like how often I go to the toilet. I am not one for talking about feelings and things on the interweb. A lot of bloggers could learn from me. Even though I am a loud mouthed buffoon some things in life should be private - even in this crazy internet age where people write all and sundry about themselves. But I can tell you that the big day will be on September 22nd. If you don't know me well enough to be invited to what is turning out to be the society event of 2007 you can still send a present. I need to book a band actually. I haven't been given many jobs yet but that is down to me. I best get thinking. If you have any ideas let me know. I thought a swing band would be good but then last night I thought it would be ace to have a band that does covers, as this would mean I get up and do a number. Which I'm sure everyone would love. (The wedding was brilliant and the best day ever. I ended up booking my mates band 'Allergy' who did indeed do some ace covers. I sung a few songs including 'Daydream Believer' and 'Modern Love'. It was skill.)

I also did the first batch of exams of my post graduate thing back in December. It was harsher than getting hung (a bit of topicality there for all you current affairs fans). Sitting in a big cold room on a rickety desk is still as terrifying ten years on. I did loads of revision and everything but I really didn't enjoy two exams which were three hours in length. I wrote so much I thought my hands would fall off. Imagine if I fail these exams. It would mean I would have four exams to do in June. Sod that for a barrage of bananas. (I passed the exams you will be pleased to know. And I went on to take another which I also passed. So I have a post grad diploma in marketing. To go on further I need to do a big case study which I plan to do when I return to the UK.)

I am growing my first beard at the moment. Can you believe that I am thirty and that I have never grown a beard? I think its something that all men have to do at least once in their life. I don't plan to keep it but I shall see grow it to a proper beard length. I haven't shaved since Christmas Day and I would say that you would now class what I have as beard rather than stubble. Lots of people at work today are telling me it's good. I believe them. It doesn't age me. Instead I look a bit less camp and it gives me a rock n' roll edge. I think though once it turns into a beard proper I will look like a farmer. (After a week I had to shave it off. It looked ace but it was so itchy I almost scratched my face off).

Before Christmas Jim Bob, Neil and I did a DJ set supporting Little Man Tate at the Boardwalk in Sheffield. It was great and everything but we had to DJ on the stage. I don't know how Fatboy Slim does it. What do you do when you are on a stage rather than on a DJ booth on the side? I just pretended to look at what to play next, and every now and then I jumped up and down. Money for old rope but having said that I was terrified. Next time I will buy some sweets and stuff to chuck out to the crowd.

I am sad Christmas is over. I ruddy well love Christmas. I had a brilliant time watching TV and eating. I flippin' well love watching the the TV. And I love eating too. I have had so much chocolate that if you cut me I would bleed it. Luckily I did go for a couple of sneaky 12k runs that kept most of the weight off. But in the main I didn't move from the sofa. The misses and I needed to do it. It's important to relax. I started off the Christmas break feeling rundown with a rubbish cold. Now I feel content and happy. Well I would be if I wasn't back at smelly old work.

I thought Christmas TV was superb this year. People always moan about it but I had lots to watch. My favourite things were Doctor Who, Dracula, The Ruby Of The Smoke, Big Fat Quiz Of The Year (how funny was Russell Brand and that chap from The Mighty Brush - or whatever its called?), Vicar Of Dibley (admit it, it was dead funny), Sarah Jane Smith Adventures, Wind In The Willows, the list goes on! And there is still This Life to look forward to tonight. I am at the football so I shall watch it when I get home. I remember when This Life was first on. It was towards the end of our uni days and we would sit and watch it (on a Tuesday I think) with the thought that we too would be moving to London very soon. And like them we would be in a shared house having lots of crazy adventures. Its bonkers to think that was ten years ago. (Sadly the 'This Life' re-union show was a bit rubbish).

I read the Billie Piper autobiography over the xmas break (!). Do you know that she calls David Tennant by the name of David Ten-Inch. Because apparently he has a huge penis. I wonder how she knows. I bet they have done the business. Actors and actresses love doing the sex. They never stop according to all the gossip rags.

I went out this New Years Eve. I don't normally but I went to one of Neil's yearly parties. I pretty much invited myself and he luckily let me come. I had a great chat with his future father-in-law (he is getting married next year too). He used to be David Bowie's driver back in the 70s. He has lots of good anecdotes but my best one involves him telling Angie Bowie to stop showing her ladies bits off. She never used to wear knickers and she used to sit with her legs wide apart, up on the dashboard (when they were parked up waiting for David who was going about his business). She got a lot of attention from people walking by but she liked it. If you asked me its no surprise her and David got divorced. You wouldn't find Iman doing that kind of thing would you?

Anyway that will do for today.

Bye. And Happy New Year. xxx

Mega, McGregor and more nice weather.

2008-07-14T15:39:00.000-07:00

Hello everyone,

I hope all my loyal readers are doing fantastically well. I am quite sprightly on this Monday lunchtime. I am having a swiss cheese sandwich with tomato. Yum (I don’t have any mayonnaise on it though as I have given it up). I had a lovely weekend and Emma and I have visitors today too. Les and Richie are coming to stay for a couple of days. For those of you readers who don’t know, not only are they top mates but they are also in the mighty band Abdoujaparov (and they have a gig on Thursday at the Universal Bar and Grill, come along if you are local). They are doing a mini tour over here in USA land. So far the boys have done a couple of gigs in Sacramento, and then they are playing L.A. before they go on to Vegas for another show. They are visiting us from Monday to Wednesday before they go and stay with Cerise and Mark for the rest of the week. Emma is out now buying beer and nibbles for the boys. I hope they don’t mind sleeping on the blow up beds!

I am going to talk about my softball team debut now. That is correct, I played Softball! I know I said I wouldn’t talk too much about my work life due to confidentiality and all that jazz, but I think I can mention extra curricular stuff though eh? The channel that I work for has a softball team called ‘The Reality Ratbags’. They have had a great start to the season and have won all four of their opening games. I thought I should show some willing myself and play. They also gave me the number ten shirt (like Dennis Bergkamp) with the name ‘Brit’ on the back. How could I not make the effort? My worry though was that as I am a bit rubbish at sport I would bring the team down. The only thing I am good at is running, and that isn’t really a sport. That just takes a lot of training. If co-ordination is required I am not really your man. Having said that I did like canoeing and I took to that easily. So much so that I got a qualification in it and everything! I think that is one of those crazy one offs though.

Where was I? Oh yes, Softball. I was concerned that I wouldn’t even hit the ball. I don’t think I had ever played Softball before but I remember never hitting the ball in Rounders when I was about eight. I think they are pretty much the same game. My worry was so great that I went to hit some balls at lunchtime with Mike (another top colleague) who was happy to train me. Luckily I found I could actually hit the ball. Not all the time, but more often than not. And sometimes I even hit it right so I wouldn’t be caught out. Could I do it in that nights game though? Are you feeling the tension here? I am as I just did a piddle in my pants.*

The match was a tough one with both teams quite even. The game was delicately poised as it was my turn to bat. Nerves at first got the better of me and rather than waiting for a ball I liked the look of I swung and missed. I then just missed my second swing. With one strike to go though I made decent contact and I whacked the ball damn hard. I heard cheers go up from my team mates. ” This is where my running comes in” I said to myself and I hurtled towards first base as fast as my little white legs would carry me. I was dead pleased until I realized that as I was running the opposition had caught my shot. I was upset and shell-shocked. Luckily though I was given a heroes welcome. My team mates were happy that I was able to at least hit the thing. And to be honest I can only get better. And good news, we won the game and we have now won all five of the opening matches. So more softball news soon!

On another work note (he says breaking all his rules) I had the honor of ‘working’ with Ewan McGregor last Friday. He was promoting the show ‘Long Way Down’ for us. He was charm personified and a lovely man. Why can’t all stars be like that? And he was very handsome too. If I was a lady I would like to kiss him, but I’m not a lady so I shook his hand instead. The best bit of the day for me was walking around with the microphone during the press conference. If a journalist had a question I would go to them with the aforementioned microphone. I would then hand it to them when it was their turn. This was brill. Simple things for simple minds eh? Our conference took place at the Beverly Hills Hilton. I saw Tony Curtis and Dennis Hopper there too!

I went crazy at the gym on Saturday morning. I ran about seven miles and did three miles on the cross trainer. I then did some toning exercises too. I burnt off one thousand and one hundred calories which is mental. I gave myself a big blood blister though. I think if you are not careful the gym can take over your life so Emma and I got pizza for tea, and we drunk some wine to give the day some balance. We also went shopping in the afternoon. Emma got herself a lovely dress for the wedding we are going to in August, she looked acetastic in it. And I got myself a retro Spiderman t-shirt from ‘Urban Outfitters’. We also had a Jamba Juice that was as delicious as last time. It makes for tasty liquid lunch that doesn’t pile on the pounds. We then went to the cinema to watch ‘Hancock’. It wasn’t the best film ever made but it was funny in a lot of places and I can’t help but like Will Smith. I know he may be one of those bonkers Scientologist dudes but at least he doesn’t blither on about it like Tom Cruise. The evening was spent with the aforementioned pizza and some top TV.

On the Sunday morning I got up early (8:55am) to speak to my mum via the webcam. I had to speak to her in my pyjamas as I didn’t have time to get dressed and ready. It was lovely to speak to her even though I didn’t look my best. After that we went to the beach to try out our new chairs and umbrella that Emma had bought for our beach trip. They worked a treat and I had much fun relaxing and reading my book. I even had a little afternoon sleep which is always good fun. I went into the sea properly for the first time here. The waves were dead big and brilliant fun to swim against. I am going to buy one of those body boards as all the cool kids were using those.

We did have to leave the beach mid-afternoon as I was starting to go red and we had to get ourselves ready. We were going out to watch ‘The Megas’. They are a band which Eric from my work is in. All their songs are based on the eighties computer game ‘Mega Man’. Not one of their songs, but every single one! This I had to see loyal reader. On the way we picked up David ‘Crabtree’ Crabtree (also from work) before we went to Charissa’s for dinner. She made us a lovely vegetarian pasta and we had some fine wine. Before we knew it was time to head to the venue which was called ‘The CIA’. It was an amazing little place that seems to be a burlesque club or even a circus at other times. As such it was decorated in the most crazy way. I had a great time though and The Megas were skill, even though all their songs were about a computer game.

We got home at almost one in the morning, which is crazy for a school night! I didn’t have much time to read my book. Instead I imagined what it would be like to have been a pirate. Before I knew it I was asleep. I don’t remember dreaming about being a pirate. This was a shame as I imagine that if I did I would have enjoyed that dream.

See you Friday for another Classic Blog Re-visited.
Marc x

*Not really. Just another one of my great jokes.

Man O' Man

2008-07-10T15:12:00.000-07:00

Hello there,

For this weeks 'classic' entry I go back eighteen months where I tell the tale of my first ever trip to the 'Isle Of Man'.

This is a bit like watching 'Location, Location, Location', 'Ramsey's Kitchen Nightmares' or 'Property Ladder' where they do the re-visited programs. I have added some new comments and updated the blog. These bits are in brackets. But like the updated versions of the shows mentioned above the new bits are only small, and are still a repeat really however much we media types say it is jazzed up.

I'll be back early next week with more tales from America Land.

Marc x

Man O Man

I went to the Isle Of Man. I travelled by Ferry. And I was sick. I've never got sea sick before. In fact I love boats. So much so that I would like to go on a cruise when I'm a bit richer. But not a tacky one, and I would like to spend some time in the actual places you visit which I don't think you do on cruises. But I digress. As I said, I like boats. When I went to Turkey last year we went out on a boat and sailed around all the nice beaches. It was the bomb. And I loved the ferry when I went to France with school. So even though I had to get up dead early for a long drive to Liverpool I was excited about the boat trip. More about the boat in a little bit (this is an enticing introduction to the blog) but I should give you some background about why I was on the boat eh?

The reason, curiosity fans, is that I was going to the Isle Of Man. Jim Bob (a singer-songwriter that I 'manage') was playing two gigs there along with the acetastic Chris T-T (who is another man that sings and writes songs). It was the last two gigs of Jim Bob's 'Best Of' tour which has gone very well indeed. Chris had been there twice before and had sorted out this weekender for us. I didn't know much about the Isle Of Man but I was about to find out dear readers. We picked up Chris on the way, he had played a gig in London the night before. And it was jolly lovely to see the old chap again.

It's a tour tradition to make a compilation cd for the car. The last time we were with Chris he said mine was too 'Britpop'. So I put lots of things like motown, Public Enemy and even Moatloaf on it. It was brill and the best compilation I have ever made. I also heard Mr. Spoons (driver, roadie, all round good egg) new compilation which was better than his normal ones which normally feature lots of rubbish Australian bands. He told me he was up until 2:30am in the morning making it meaning he only got three hours sleep. That is taking the art of the compilation too far. Though I was impressed with dedication. Roy Castle said you need it to be a record breaker, but its also true if you are a compilation maker. (Hello it's Marc here in 2008 adding a post script tyoe thing. Avid readers of this blog will note that I used this Roy Castle joke in my last posting on Monday. It's a crazy coincidence that I used the same funny almost two years later in the previous blog entry. It does show what little material I actually have).

Anyway we were soon in Liverpool ready for our crossing into the Irish Sea. By this point I was Hank Marvin so as soon as I was on the boat I got myself a jacket potatoe with cheese and beans. It was delicious and I scoffed it down. This was a mistake and no mistaking. 'Why?' you ask. Because the sea was at a factor eight or something (which means its very rough for any of you dudes who don't know these things). Half an hour into the journey all the stuff in the gift shop came crashing to the floor and all the cutlery in the kitchen was smashing all over the place. All around me people were throwing up into sick bags. And I started to feel a bit woozey. Then Mr. Spoons, who was next to me, started being sick and it made me feel a hundred times worse. I didn't like the idea of using a sick bag so I walked to the toilet. Which was the hardest thing I have ever done as the boat was rocking around so much. When I went in there the whole place was covered in sick. So this made me throw up (I've just realised how disgusting this blog is, what with me talking about sick all the time. Sorry to all my more sensitive readers).

After that I lay in the amusement arcade next to the toilets. I couldn't sit up or on a chair and I just prayed for the journey to finish. Eventually it did but I still felt awful. Jim and Chris were quite unscathed. Mr. Spoons was in a shocking state though and wouldn't properly recover until the next day.

We had stuff to do so we couldn't lick our wounds forever. We met our host Gypo (a lovely man - though everyone has bonkers names in the Isle Of Man, It's the law. Though we can talk. We had a Mr. Spoons and a Jim Bob in our party), went to the venue for a soundcheck, went to the radio station where Jim did an interview and played three songs, then went to a pub and then a restaurant. I had chicken enchiladas. They were nice. It was soon time to get back to the venue. The gig had sold out which pleased Jim and I. I got quite drunk and chatted to lots of new people whilst manning my merchandise stand. Everyone was very friendly. Jim did a brilliant set and it was an ace gig.

Afterwards we went around Smeg's house for a party. Smeg runs Ballagroove records with Gypo (and others). I got a lift with him and his girlfriend, Pippa. Both are lovely people but Pippa's driving scared the living daylights out of me. There is no speed limit in the Isle Of Man. We were doing 100mph on dark country roads and I almost started to cry. I didn't show this though I don't think. We had a good time around Smegs for a couple of hours and met lots more people. It was soon time to retire to Gypo's house where we were all staying. Gypo and his girlfriend's Jo house was lovely. It was done out in a very cool and retro way, my mate Jeremy would have loved it. Mr. Spoons and I were sharing a room. Mr. Spoons snores, but luckily he wasn't too bad tonight. I think I got to bed about threeish. I slept like a baby who is very tired and is being no hassle for its parents.

I awoke at around eleven am and everyone was up. Gypo made us cheese on toast. It was the best cheese on toast I have ever had. It was quite spicy and tangy. I think he had a secret recipe. It was diddy delicious. When we walked out the front door for our tour of the coast I realised we were in the middle of the countryside as there were cows outside. I love cows, I think they are my best animal (I did like Giraffes best but they are too fashionable these days). I felt very guilty about the fact I eat meat at this point. I must admit some vegetarians get right on my nerves when they rant about the evils of meat eating. They remind me of most religious people, but I digress. I do like animals, and if you do then I think its not on to eat meat. So I think I will cut out red meat from this point. I eat very little of it anyway. At home I don't eat meat at all as Emma is vegetarian. But I think I will stick to eating just chicken and turkey. Chickens are ugly things so I feel a bit less guilty. But I will be a good boy and only eat the ones that have been raised in a nice farm. The trouble about me becoming a vegetarian is that I think vegetables are revolting. Apart from carrots. I love carrots. And I love fruit. I eat lots of fruit. Fruit is excellent.

(Another note from me in 2008. Avid readers will know that 18 months on I have finally starting sticking to this promise and I have been clean of red meat for almost two months. I feel a lot better for it too. It's funny how relevant this Isle Of Man blog is, it really was the start of me thinking about animals being killed for meat. This is the joy of visiting old blogs, it's good to see what ideas you follow through on).

How have I ended up talking about this? Probably because I spent the weekend with Chris T-T. He has some very strong views about most things. He is very much anti meat. But what I like about Chris is you can have a reasonable mass debate with him. He is passionate in his beliefs and I respect what he has to say. Being in his company gets you thinking after the conversation. Rather than putting your back put up, which a lot of people can do if they are ranting. Instead you go away having a think. Which is always good after a mass debate (I will never tire of that joke).

Back to the Isle of Man. We got taken to the seaside town of Peel. It was dead nice. We had a pub lunch. I did have sausages but that was when I was thinking about the whole meat thing. So I didn't enjoy it as much as I should of. Though we did see Norman Wisdom walking by outside. He lives in the Island. I wanted to shout "oooh, Mr. Grimsdale at him" but I didn't. We did have a lovely ice cream afterwards. I got a rum n' raisin one. It was here I made one of my best jokes. "I have gone for raisin as we had a strong current yesterday". People thought this was hilarious and laughed for hours. I then had a walk along the beach, which was nice.

Later on we walked to the next gig in Port Erin along the railway tracks as the steam train had made its last journey for the day. This was brill. Chris T-T and I jumped over a stream. Though I got scared on the jump back. Jim was a special surprise guest to Chris tonight. This was good as I am a bit bored watching Jim play his mammoth seventeen hour sets (only joking James) and it was good to see Chris T-T play for a longer time. He did a lot of old songs, like English Earth, that I have missed hearing him do. Afterwards I got quite drunk. I even had a Baileys. I do like a nice Baileys. On the way back Jo made Mr. Spoons stop the car and we walked to where the waves were going dead high. This was good. We got covered in water and could have been swept onto the rocks and died but it was great anyway.

We then went back to Gypos. I think I had a cup of tea. How rock n' roll is that? Though I did partake in a few nuts. Not a mans nuts, but ones you eat. I am no gaylord. I think I went to bed at three am again which meant another three hours sleep. We said goodbye to Gypo and Jo at the Ferry place. I was sad to say goodbye. Not only had they been amazing hosts, showed us their ace island and put on two great gigs - but they were lovely people to boot.

I was dead nervous about the crossing going home as it was a longer trip. Luckily it was a bigger Ferry and the seas were better. The journey was smoother than a baby's bottom. I was able to sleep most of the journey back in the quiet zone. I loved it in the quiet zone as it was chav free. We then had a long drive back to London, which was alright but I was a bit tired and irritable. This was made worse by an argument with Jim over whether The Kooks are any good. He seems to think they are good. I reckon they are poo and the new Toploader. I think we both agreed to differ and went to sleep in a huff. At least I went to sleep in a huff.

We eventually got back in the evening. I had a bath straight away and it was lovely. I love a nice bath.

More next time.
marc x

Running for presents down a manhole.

2008-07-07T16:21:00.000-07:00

I would like to apologize dear reader for not posting a ‘classic’ blog on Friday. To be honest I forgot amongst a barrage of other stuff but I shall attempt to upload some old jazz later this week. Anyway, onto this weeks musings and pontification. Time waits for no man. Not even little old me.

I was thirty two last Wednesday. This is quite a dull birthday as it’s not much different to thirty one. It’s still early thirties but not old enough to say that you are half way through your life (which you essentially are when you get to thirty five). I know the average age to live now is seventy eight but I think for men it’s a bit lower than that. And in a lot of cases the years where you are seventy and over are a bit rubbish. That’s when things stop working and you wet yourself. So the way I see it is that I’m now only three years off being half way through my ‘active’ life. This is totally bonkers as I still feel as if I’m twelve. I started to think about things like life after death, baby Jesus and all that jazz the day before my birthday. It made my head hurt so I had a Diet Sprite and watched another episode of top sitcom ‘Everybody Loves Raymond’.

On my birthday itself I had to be up with the larks at six in the morning. I was filming some acetastic viral videos at work and needed to be in early. There was enough time to open my cards and presents though, and to have some breakfast with my ace wife. I got taken out for sushi at lunchtime with Charissa. Promo Eric and David ‘Crabtree’ Crabtree also came along. They are part of the cool gang at the channel so it’s good to go to lunch with these cats. In the evening I was too tired to do much but Emma made me a lovely dinner and I had a cheeky couple of glasses of wine. Emma also got us some delicious cakes from Sprinkles, which is a top cake shop that all the celebs go to. Once again the wife of dreams treated me like a birthday king. I fell asleep quite early though such was the hardship of the day and having to do some work. Some would say that work isn’t watching some people filming the chucking of a dummy down the stairs but I disagree.

Luckily it was Independence Day weekend which meant we got to leave work early at 1pm on Thursday. The Emster and I enjoyed celebrating that the American’s got rid of us from their shores. We saw some acetastic fireworks at the LA Galaxy game (which we lost but Mr. Beckham scored), watched the Santa Monica parade, did some shopping and I spent my birthday money. I got three new t-shirts, two pairs of jeans, three pairs of new pants, three pairs of socks, three plain t-shirts that I wear under v-necks or shirts, one new short sleeved shirt, two new running tops, two new pairs of running shorts, three new pairs of running socks and a new pair of running shoes. I did really well and I am a very lucky boy.

I will say though that buying shirts has proved a problem. In every store I go too they are too long. I like them to come just below my belt, not all the way past my private area. Why can’t the Americans make shirts the right length?

It may sound silly but I am dead happy with my new gym gear. As I go to the gym about four times a week its good to make an effort. Gone are the days when I wore a manky t-shirt and some rubbish shorts. I now have stuff that makes me look the bomb and is designed to keep me cool too. I sweat quite a bit when I’m going bonkers on the running machine so a cotton t-shirt doesn’t cut the mustard. I have lost almost a stone since I have come to the states and I have never felt healthier. This is a jolly good thing! And I have also found the best chain ever. Forget ‘Starbucks’, over here we have ‘Jamba Juice’. Essentially it’s a fruit smoothie version of Starbucks. They taste ace and they also fire whatever vitamins you want in them too. I got some added ‘Vitamin B’ in my drink yesterday whilst the Emster went for ‘Calcium’ I think.

Anyway, I digress. We also went for a lovely dinner with Mark and Cerise. We want to a cool bar first called Hidden (as it was tucked away. Clever eh?), then a dead good restaurant, ‘Via Veneto’. The food was amazing and my crab salad as a starter was chuffin’ sublime. We all got quite tispy, apart from Cerise who was driving. But not too tipsy that I didn’t appreciate the food which was Italian cooking at its best. I think it’s co-owned by that Warren dude who was in Duran Duran back in the nineties (before the Taylor brothers came back) for all you fact fans.

On a final note I am indulging my creative bent of an evening! I wasn’t going to mention to anyone (in case it doesn’t happen) but I am writing a novel. I then decided today that I shouldn't hide it. Surely I should be writing about its gestation and formulation in this blog? If it’s rubbish or I don’t finish it (which is a massive possibility) then so what? There is nothing wrong in giving things a try. And if to does come to fruition then this blog can take you through the process. So far I have done a good few thousand words of ‘Manhole’. It’s ace fun writing a book. And the good thing is that I’ve spent three years or so working out the plot in my head. I know exactly what happens and what the characters do and all that gubbins. It’s all about a man who falls down a manhole and ends up in another world. Or at least that’s what you think it’s about. The main premise of the book isn’t really the main premise at all. And therein lies the genius of it.

I think writing this blog has prepared me quite well for my novel. Hopefully it will be put up for some kind of blog award soon. If not I will be most cross. It has photos and everything these days. And I did the new logo myself in microsoft paint. I know some of you thought I had paid an agency to do it, but it took me ten minutes one lunch time. It shows that Roy Castle was right when he said dedication was what you need.

Marc x

p.s. thank you to everyone who got me a birthday card, sent me a birthday email, wrote a birthday facebook message etc etc. I am not really a fan of my birthday but I certainly appreciated all of this. Thank you very much.

p.p.s. What a great finale to Doctor Who. And what a series, the best ever? It is certainly the highest ever rated series and the most popular with the public with regard to audience appreciation figures. I will miss Catherine Tate heaps, the greatest ever Doctor Who companion? I think so…

Who's on the interweb?

2008-06-30T17:53:00.000-07:00

I remember going on the interweb for the first time when I was twenty or so. It was in the University computer room where me and some chums ‘discovered’ it when we should have been doing our dissertations. We looked up our favourite bands whilst some chap next to us perused naked ladies until he got caught and banned from the computer room. We got allocated email addresses and everything. Mine was something like:
‘Olli533on_marc1976.00573d@ed.gov.bedford.shire.uk.com’.
It mattered not one jot that it took a year just to type this email address in, it was the start of a whole new world! It was 1996 and the world was just starting to go interweb crazy. Twelve years on and everyone now has the interweb. And it’s now quicker than a whippet on wheels, not like yesteryear...

Just five years ago or so things were still dead different. This was when we first got the internet at home. I would annoy my flat mates by unplugging the phone cable to use ‘dial up’. Half an hour later you would be underway on the world wide web. What fun it was to wait for five minutes for pages to load, or to spend twenty minutes downloading a song. This was only spoiled by Toby Bluck shouting “Are you finished yet, I want to speak to my mum”. Once again time didn’t wait for no man and before you knew where you were dear old Barry Broadband was entering the scene.

Why am I giving you the history of the interweb you may be musing to yourself? It is because without it our life here in the US of A would be so different. I mentioned on my entry on the 30th April how much we are relying on technology. This hasn't changed dear reader. In fact now we can plug our laptop into the TV the macbook has become indispensible.

It is because of the computer, and mainly the interweb we can talk to people at home via webchats, you can see the English news, talk to your friends on the email, play people at scrabble on the facebook and do ace blogs like this that take the world wide web by storm. And of course you get to download all your favourite programs right after they happen. And if you break the law in a crazy rock n’ roll fashion like me and use torrents then you don’t even get any ads. And you get programs in HD too. It’s better than being at home as you don’t have Channel Five. That is the brilliance of today’s fast and crazy broadband world. And I should say to any legal type dudes reading this that I do have a TV license in the UK still so I’m not really breaking the law really.

I know I mentioned this gubbins on the 30th April. Don't worry blog fans I'm not running out of ideas by covering the same ground. It's always good to have recuring themes and a story arc. It's what Russell T. Davies does in Doctor Who and he is the best TV writer ever.

What I am getting to is that because of the interweb I have been able to keep up with Doctor Who. I was a bit worried that I would miss my favourite program by moving here, or I would have to watch it on the sci-fi channel. This would be rubbish as they have it three weeks later and it has adverts. And they make edits and cuts. Instead I get up on Sunday morning (by which time the torrent is ready to download) and within ten minutes it’s ready to watch on the trusty old macbook. Emma and I have our breakfast (normally toasted cinnamon and raisin bagels, with freshly made coffee), we do some ichats and then it’s Doctor Who time.

This week I was more excited than ever. It was the first part of the series finale and I knew lots of returning characters were back, including the creator of the Daleks, my mate Dave Ross. I watched liked an enthralled school boy. I was whopping with joy throughout the entire thing. It was so great and amazing I was on cloud nine afterwards. I’m not sure how good cloud nine is, but if it has Doctor Who finales like this then I want to visit it every day of my life. It was honestly the best fifty minutes television I have ever witnessed. I watched it again before I went to bed it was so good.

After Doctor Who I had to calm down. Luckily I had the European Championship final to watch. I am not a fan of international football for the simple reason that it isn’t as good technically as the Premiership. How can it be? A top club team that plays together fifty times a year will always be better than a top international team that plays ten times a year (with different players most of the time). If Man Utd played Spain tomorrow I think the mancs would win four times out of five. And as time has gone on the players take internationals less seriously and the Champions League has taken precedent

Having said this I love a tournament. I adore the excitement and sense of occasion an international shindig like the Euros can bring. And if it has no England in it with their boorish, idiotic, flag waving fans then all the better. It is for this reason that Euro 2008 has been skill. A lot of teams have actually played football rather than being all negative and boring and it’s been a joy. The final was on at 11:45am here which is perfect as when the game is over I still had the rest of the day to enjoy. I was pleased to see Spain win because even though he was a sub most of time Cesc Fabregas (who plays for Arsenal) was the best player in the tournament by a mile. This meant that as far as I was concerned Arsenal won the thing.

After the Doctor Who and Football fest Emma and I took a walk into town. We went to the ‘Dixons’ of Santa Monica called ‘Circuit City’. We bought some blank DVDs and some paper for the printer. Exciting stuff eh? You can’t say that we aren’t ripping this town up. We did have a delicious frappacino though. And we sat and enjoyed it in the mid day sun. We also discovered a nice deli very near our bungalow that we hadn’t noticed before. We got a few food bits and bobs from there though we stopped ourselves buying sweets.

Speaking of food Emma and I also were invited around a friend of mine from work for dinner. Charissa (who is also a marketing guru like myself) has been brilliant to me since I started at Fox over here. She is also the only person I have shown my blog to here in L.A. land so I have to say nice things. But in all seriousness she has made working here a relatively easy process. It would have been dead chuffin' difficult otherwise.

It was thus ace to be invited around to her home for dinner and drinks. We had been around before though fact fans. Charissa’s husband is a comic book artist (and very good he is too, I even bought one of his books). One of his friends had an exhibition in a comic book store and we were invited along, and we had drinks and nibbles at Charissa’s beforehand. This time though we had dinner proper and met lots of other great people. It was a jolly nice evening, and I even had a cheeky whisky. The food was lovely too with some delicious salmon being consumed. Yum yum.

I am looking forward to Independence Weekend as we have lots planned. We are going to see L.A. Galaxy again and their Independence Day firework spectacular. We plan to watch a parade in the morning and go the beach too. I shall also spend my birthday money by going on a shopping spree. And finally we are taking our friends Mark and Cerise out to dinner. Due to work last week we couldn’t see them when we had planned to but luckily all should be on for a fun night out this weekend.

On a final note it’s my birthday on Wednesday. I have told nobody here which will make things easier as I find birthdays a bit funny and weird. I love other peoples but not my own. I like being center of attention (though perhaps less and less as the years trundle on) but only on my terms. I don’t like it when I’m told to be. I actually have a shoot first thing so I have to be up at about six am and I won’t get to check my emails until three pm at least. By that time everyone in the UK will be going to bed and my birthday will be over for another year. Thirty Two I shall be? That is flippin’ bonkers.

Tune in again on Friday for another ‘classic’ blog which I shall upload.

Marc xx

P.s. If you are into podcasts I really recommend the new Stephen Fry podgram. He delivers a quite brilliant lecture on the BBC and how it fits into the modern media world. It’s a lot more interesting than I make it sound.

Blast From The Past

2008-06-27T15:17:00.001-07:00

Hello there everyone,

Over the last couple of weeks I have noticed a lot more traffic on this site. I have therefore been using Google analytics to see where people are reading this from. I like to think of us as all of Earth's citizens so this is important to me. Last week I had 71 visitors from the U.S.of A, 6 from Portugal, 5 from Malaysia and Sweden, 3 from Mexico, 2 from Australia, Germany and Poland & 1 from the Nertherlands and Italy. I also got a few hundred from the UK but that isn't as exciting.

Anyway for my new fans who have been asking for more entries, and for those who wanted to know more about my life before LA I have decided to use Friday's to post up my 'retro' blog. Back in the day when myspace was cool I used to post my musings there. I only ever updated it every once in a while but the kids loved it. So for the next eight weeks I am going to post some old blog entries. For those of you who read them back in the old days you can enjoy them again.

Today's entry comes from 20 months ago or so. It's all about a weekend away. And everyone loves a weekend away.

See you early next week for a new 'L.A.' posting.

Marc x

12 Sep 2006
Lark In The Parc

I spent the weekend at Center Parcs. People diss the Center Parcs. I think it stems from the TV ad of yesteryear where everyone imagines that you are under a big dome. I think the big dome burnt down years ago. Essentially the truth is that you spend your time in little Villas (though Em and I were in a hotel, but I digress.) and all around you is Woodland. So when you sit in your garden type thingy squirrels, pheasants and ducks all pop along and say hello.

The concept is that you ride a bike around the parc. You therefore cycle to the main section where you have the brill swimming pool, restaurants, sports centre and stuff. When I first went with Jim Bob and family two years ago I wasn't sure I would like it. But we did!

So two years on Emma and I joined Jim Bob, Jakki, Holly and friend Elinor for more Center Parcs fun. In the Villa next to Jim was more of the Morrison clan (cousins and aunties) and Jim's nephew was down the road too. Making their Center Parcs debut, and staying in Mr Bob's villa was Mr. Spoons and soon to be wife, Mrs Spoons. What a crazy combination.

Em and I set off on the Friday morning quite early at 8am. This was because Jim was leaving early so I didn't want him to get there first and have more Center Parcs fun than me. We did though stop off for a Little Chef breakfast. Yum. We arrived late morning and hired our aforementioned bikes. As we were a couple this particular Center Parcs doesn't have a villa for two people. We were thus in the Lakeview hotel. It was very nice indeed and as we were on the ground floor we could walk out onto the lake from our room. I spent ages feeding the ducks crisps and jaffa cakes. Though I ate the orange bit off the top of the Jaffa Cakes as I didn't want them to choke. I like ducks.

We soon went swimming. It was at this point I realised I am losing the battle of the bulge. A year ago I was running half marathons. This year I am eating pies. I have always been skinny so I SHALL get back there. I am eating a banana as I type this. (Addition from me 27/07/08 - I have now lost this weight). Apart from me showing off my pot belly swimming was ace. I loved the rapids and the slides. And the wave machine of course. It was in the pool I bumped into the Morrison family. We went on the rapids together for a crazy time of fun and jolity. This would be the first of many times we did that.

After that Em and I went exploring. We ended up at the Country Club where we got some wine and cake. Yum. That evening we all went to the Italian restaurant. It was a very nice evening though the service was shocking. After that we went to the bar and had drink or two. We then cycled back drunk. Everyone has to drink and cycle at Center Parcs. It's the law.

On the Saturday we met up for more swimming. Mr Spoons made quite a splash coming down the steep slide. Jim was wearing his baywatch swimming trunks. He looked a bit like David Hasselhoff. I noticed during swimming that the 'parcs attracts all types. There is quite a lot middle class dudes but also some chav types with England tattoos. I try to avoid these lads on the rapids as they are a bit crazy.

We all then went for pancakes. Everyone had a normal one but I had to be greedy and go for a large size. And I wonder why I am turning into Barry Bethal - before he lost all the weight on the slimfast. The ladies then went line dancing (!) whilst Jim and I had a beer and laughed at them through the window. Though to be honest it looked quite good fun. We then played Crazy Golf. I was winning up until the 8th hole when I had a disaster. I couldn't get to grips with the hill and I took 10 shots to do a hole that should have taken six. My main rival Elinor went into the lead, and this bad hole meant I ended up last. I had a little secret cry to myself.

Em and I then went on a bike ride, but sadly Em fell of her bike going down a steep hill I didn't attempt and she cut herself in a few places. She was rock n'roll though and carried on with the ride. I was dead impressed.

That night we went for a curry which was diddy delicious. And the service was better too. We then went 10 pin bowling. I started off with a 'spare' (a strike with your two goes) but I was a bit sporadic from this point. On some goes I got nothing, but I also got two more 'spares'. I did though do some dancing if I hit a good shot, and I even fell over once. I did it again for comic effect too. Luckily Emma was a bit more consistent and we came 2nd. Mr and Mrs Spoons easily won. Jim and Jakki got 3rd, and Holly and Elinor came 4th. They won't mind me saying (and it is rich coming from me) but they were the worst bowlers I have ever seen. Being good at Crazy Golf doesn't make you good at bowling I though to myself!

The next day we all met up for three hours pampering at the Spa. Before that Em and I went for breakfast at 'Chez Pierre'. Though they were so rude and slow I stormed off in a huff. This was a blessing in disguise as we went to the hotel in the restaurant. Which was amazing. The sausages were the best I have ever tasted. And the restaurant span around as you were eating so you got an amazing panoramic view of the lakes.

Back to the spa. It is amazing. It does cost £30 but its worth it. You basically walk into all manner of steam rooms and saunas, it also has this massage swimming pool thing, a Japanese Zen garden and even beds to lie down and to think about things. The only problem with it was that it opened up my pores to such an extent I now have lots of spots on my forehead. And I have a big forehead. I do like swanning around in my big robe though looking like I am Eddie Big Bananas.

We then had a mid afternoon BBQ back at the Morrison's gaff, with Mr. Spoons cooking all the meat. It was very nice. After a few drinks we went late night swimming. The rapids were ace in the dark. It was then back to the bar for Cocktails. Though I was short changed. I ordered the same one as Elinor and she got twice as much as me. Emma got a strawberry dakari that was lovely, and Holly got a lot of cream and baileys. I really wanted that one but told myself that I couldn't. I shouldn't moan though as Mr. Bob treated me and Emma to these cocktails. He also paid for our bowling. He is a good boss, when he isn't beating me.

We then had more drinks around the Morrison's where we had a game of charades. How rock n' roll is that? I told some more of my great anecdotes about working for a top TV channel and before I knew it, it was bed time. Em and I did plan to go swimming again and on the boats but we overslept and I realised I had some stuff to do for my college course. So we went home.

The end.

Pawns, Prawns and Porn (though technically there is no porn but you have to think of search engine optimisation for the web hits)

2008-06-24T09:22:00.000-07:00

Emma and I don’t have much to report this week dearest blog reader. Don’t get me wrong we are still having a superb time. But do you really want to hear about us going to the beach again? Have we not bored you enough with our tales of mooching around the finest shops, eating nice lunches and enjoying the sunset? We will be having some adventures and exploring new parts of L.A. soon, but not this week. You will have to wait until then for those great anecdotes.

I actually would like to mention that we did play chess on the beach this weekend. This was brilliant. On Santa Monica beach they have benches and tables with chess boards on. The idea is that you bring your own pieces and you have a nice relaxing game in the sunshine. On Sunday after I had spoke to my Mum via webcam (!) Emma and I thus had a short walk to the beach where we set up our game. Emma is new to the world of chess so it was more about learning for her. She is picking it up quickly and it won’t be long before I am properly challenged.

It does annoy me that I am not as good as I used to be. I was probably at my chess peak at around ten years of age. I was a member of Chess Club back then (yep, I’ve always been dead cool). My Grandad taught me how to play and we would spend hours on a Sunday afternoon trying to outwit each other. I don’t think I ever won or gave him much of a proper match as he was brilliant. But I was taught well enough to easily beat my friends. I do want to get good at it again though, especially since Emma got me a lovely chess set. Anyway, our game on the beach was superb and a great way to spend Sunday. We even got properly made lemonade each from the kiosk type thing. This was delicious and most refreshing.

One thing I have been doing this week is some research. Now this bit of the blog isn’t really about L.A. but it is about life dear reader, so hopefully it will be of interest to you. I have been attempting to investigate how many vegetarians there are in the world. There is a lot of conflicting information, and differing poll results. It’s a minefield trying to find out the truth. Not literally otherwise you would end up with no legs, and then fellow missing legger Heather Mills would visit for some charity work. In a nutshell though it seems the UK has around six percent of people being veggies (not eating meat or fish is the barometer) and the U.S. has a measly three percent.

When you look at the world’s most populated countries (China, India, United States, Indonesia and Brazil) only one of them has a large vegetarian population, which is India. Almost a third of the Indian population is completely vegetarian. However, the percentage of vegetarians in China and Brazil is practically Barry Zero. In a survey conducted in Hong Kong, of these dudes only 1.5% consider themselves vegetarians. Apart from us Brits (and the Dutch who reckon 4.4% of them are veggie) there are hardly any vegetarians in Europe. France has 0.9% and the Germans have 1.2%. And best not be a veggie in Poland as only 0.2% of those crazy ex commies commit to not eating meat.

Summing up the stats then, even if you include India, you can assume that ten percent of the world’s population or less is vegetarian. There are more gays and left handed people (of which I am one. A left hander that is, not a gay). I reckon if you count dudes who eat fish it may go up to twenty percent but to me fish are just as much meat as a chicken is. In fact fish are fantastic. Fish are some the most beautiful animals in the world and are certainly more attractive and better than ugly old chickens. When I went snorkeling in the Maldives I saw some of the best fish in the world. Snorkelling is brilliant, how rubbish would it be without fish? Anyway, I digress.

Why am I going on about this you may ask yourself? It’s because I am wrestling with myself dear reader. Not in a physical way. I am not practicing to join the WWE, unlike my brother when he was thinking about turning into ‘Shawn Jonson’ (see previous post for more info). Some days I feel guilt ridden about eating animals. And on other days I think that we humans are the big daddies and we can eat what we like. And then I watch a program about how most animals are farmed and I feel sick and I go back to feeling bad again. But then I have a chicken sandwich and it’s so delicious in my tum tum that I forget about the horrid farming. So, as veggies are small in number in reality, do I join this minority, or just carry on (even with a niggling feeling at the back of my bonce).

I haven’t eaten red meat for about a month. And as it stands I don’t plan to again. I tried this before but I forgot and had a burger. I’m even more serious now though. If I was a popstar I would call my album on the subject “But, Seriously” had Phil Collins not got there first a few years back. Even though I haven’t made my mind up whether eating meat is indeed evil I do know that I couldn’t kill a cow, sheep or pig myself. I love cows and think they are skill. I could quite happily kill a chicken though. Not for fun you understand, but if I was a farmer or something I could do it I think. So my current view is if you can’t kill it, then don’t eat it. That phrase reminds me of the mantra my old boss Tony Jones used to say “If it’s not measurable, It’s not manageable”. Interesting eh?

Part of me doesn’t want to be vegetarian though. I have decided I can live (just about) without bacon and sausages. They taste amazing but I can cope with the veggie versions. It isn’t the same but it will do. I love the taste of meat, especially the lovely little fishes, and I like going to nice restaurants. Most top chefs or ace restaurants don’t cater really for veggies, so if you don’t eat fish or chicken at least then you are scuppered. If I become a proper veggie I will miss out on so many great dishes. Food is one of my most favourite things in the world. Am I being silly depriving myself of things I really like?

So the question is, do I join the ten percent of the world that don’t eat meat? I don’t think I will for now. In very simplistic terms though I am not going to eat what I couldn’t kill. I have decided that. Emma doesn’t eat meat but she eats fish. I will join her in that and just add poultry into the mix, as turkeys are ugly little shits as well. If you have a view about all this post it below. I don't want to encourage an argument as I think we should all love each other. But a gentle mass debate is always nice.

As well as having a think about what I put in my body I have been getting stuck into my job. It’s getting really interesting now and I am working on some TV shows that I really like, and could do very well. The only bad thing about work is that they have a softball team. I am always a fan of getting involved in work activities. I think you should show willing by mixing with your work colleagues whether it be for a drink or for a planned activity. The only trouble with this is that I know I would be so terrible at softball. My co-ordination at sport isn’t the best. I am fit and can run and fun, just don't ask me to do anything other than that! I doubt I could hit the ball and as for catching it… I’m going to have to play soon though. Any advice dear readers? I think I should just do it and not worry about being a laughing stock. That is easier said than done eh? The written word, whilst vibrant and wonderful does not suffer the slings and arrows of the softball. or something...

Have a lovely week,

Marc x

p.s. Happy Birthday Becky Rice. I hope you have fabtastic day.

It's life gym, but not as we know it.

2008-06-18T17:25:00.000-07:00

Jeremy was the last of our quartet of visitors dear readers. After having the ace company of Vicki and Gary, Mr. and Mrs. Furness, The Family Morrison and the aforementioned Jeremy we have now been left to our own devices (just like The Pet Shop Boys in fact). This is until Les and the mighty Abdoujaparov come and play a gig in L.A. in the middle of July. To be honest our lack of visitors now has happened at a good time as we don’t have the means to entertain. Unfortunately whilst Emma has a job ready to go to she doesn’t have a work permit. We were told it would take two or three months for the permit to come through. Sadly it looks closer to four months due to backlogs and shenanigans at the immigration place. Typical eh? This means we have to be a bit careful with the old Barry Cash and we can’t go to restaurants every day for our tea. Which I think is a disgrace quite frankly.

This isn’t a terrible thing though. Emma has made me some lovely dinners, the sun has been shining and Euro 2008 has been skill. And we have enough money to join our local gym. During our first two months, when we were in the apartment complex there was a free gym for us residents. We went all the time and it was fab. Now, though, it’s time to keep up with the fitness freaks and to carry on the training. Emma found a good one half way between my work and home. And apparently Britney Spears visits this brand of gyms too. The cruel amongst you might say she needs to work out and go to the gym more often, but I think there is something quite lovely about a little out of shape Ms. Spears. People said she looked fat at the MTV awards the other month, I think she looked fine. It was just her performance that was rubbish.

Anyway we have signed up and have been three times so far in a week. I hope we keep it up because you do feel much better about yourself after exercise. I imagine the endorphins you get when you finish a workout is quite similar to the high you get from something like heroin. Heroin doesn’t make you fit and healthy though and it can give you the AIDS amongst other bad things. Having said this heroin does make you lose the weight without the effort of working out. Have you seen that many fat heroin addicts? Exactly! I think it might put you off your food as you are too busy chasing dragons. If this is the case it’s a rubbish drug as food is brilliant. And shouldn’t someone tell the heroin users that dragons don’t exist, and that they are mythological creatures? Anyway, if I combine this with my runs on the beach I will be superfit. I worked out I ran over thirty miles last week. Crazy eh? I love running so much. I don’t care if it’s outside or on a treadmill. Once you push past the pain there is nothing like it. You get in this zone type thing and just go for it like a crazy mutha. I shall shut up about running now, as it’s a bit boring for you to read about maybe. It is skill though.

On our first visit to the gym Emma was changed already. I was in my work clothes so I needed to go into the locker rooms. Emma asked me to put her handbag (which was the colour red) in my locker. I walked in carrying this handbag and I couldn’t have looked any more gay. At least three men glared at me in a very strange way. They thought I was a young Quentin Crisp no doubt. I should have pretended to be Oscar Wilde and said “A Handbag” in a posh English accent. That would have both of scared and confused them. I told Emma she had to get her own locker in the future to preserve my masculinity.

I do so hate changing rooms. They remind me of P.E. lessons when I was about eleven at school. Mr. Arnott was a typical sadistic PE teacher who used to make us have naked cold showers after our P.E. lessons. If we didn’t stay in the water long enough he would flick our bottoms with a towel. I don’t think it was anything sexual, he was just a sadistic maniac. I hated the coldness of the shower, I didn’t much care for Mr. Anott flicking my bottom, and the fact that boys like Richard Elias has started puberty, and would laugh at us boys that hadn’t was annoying too. My changing room views aren’t helped that when in my gym back in London a work colleague (who has since been sacked as he was a freak) used to insist on talking to me naked. He would sit there, on the bench thing near the lockers, with his legs akimbo as he causally toweled himself. As he was doing this he would regale me with dull work chat quite matter of factly which I found dead weird. One day though I couldn’t help but notice his member. Yes, I know I’ve mentioned looking at penis’ again. But trust me, even the biggest homophobe in the world would have to have seen it, it was the size of a snake on steroids. It’s no wonder he liked to show it off. I used to make sure though after this our gym times didn’t correspond.

Emma and I also went to our weekly trip to the cinema. We saw ‘The Happening’ which was by that Shalyman dude. Let me tell you now that it is rubbish. It says a lot when Marky Mark is the best thing in a film. I love M. Night’s (as his friends call him) films. Even ‘The Village’ I liked a lot (which the dullsville critics hated). The twist with this film though was that it there wasn't really one. I like his crazy twists at the end so I was most upset. We are seeing the new Hulk film this week. I adored the Ang Lee one, even though people hated it as it actually had a plot, so I‘m hoping for good things.

We also saw ‘No Country For Old Men’ on our Time Warner Video On Demand (which is like Sky Box Office but you can watch films any time you like rather than when the Sky people tell you). I was put off the Coen Bros when I saw a film about two fat men bowling a lot and saying ‘dude’ for no reason throughout. The critics and film lovers thought it was ace though sadly I didn’t get it (‘The Big Lebowski’ it was called. ‘The Big Pile of Poo’ more like). I have since told everyone how rubbish these Coen Cats are and thus I have not seen their films. This was brilliant though, so if you haven’t seen it then do. And it proves I jump to conclusions too quickly.

In other exciting news my favourite pair of shoes got a hole in the sole. They cost me a fair bit as I bought them for my wedding. I was upset for this reason, but also because they looked so ace and I hadn’t seen any other shoes I liked as much. Could I afford another pair the same? My acetastic wife got on the case and found this brilliant shoe repairer man in Santa Monica. Apparently he took a look at my shoes and said how nice they were (what a man of taste) but that I was a naughty man for letting the soles get in that state. Anyway he has repaired them and has basically given me a new pair of shoes for hardly anything. I think he is one of the greatest men in L.A. And I have the bestest wife for finding him.

I think I have gone on long enough. Hopefully soon I can tell you all about our trips to other places on the West Coast. That is the plan readers. I feel L.A. has been explored somewhat and we can now give you guides to other fab places nearby.

Over and out!
Marc x

p.s. For all the Robbie William's fans still reading this I have a bit of trivia for you. The picture above of me 'boxing' was taken in a ring in East London. It was where the video for Take That's 'It Only Takes A Minute' was shot. Amazing eh?

I'm loving angels instead.

2008-06-16T17:55:00.000-07:00

Hello there,

I will do a 'proper' posting later in the week. I should mention though that my weekly hits went up last week into the thousands (I reckon). My story of Robbie Williams at the Russell Brand gig went around the interweb like wildfire, and before you could say "Let Me Entertain You" I was having to defend myself to lots of Robbie Williams' fans. Having said that it does make for acetastic reading and the comments are still raging. If you haven't already check out the postings under my last entry. If you have a few hours to spare that is.

And to all the Robbie Williams' fans that are still here can I apologise for the picture above? I thought it would be a little bit of fun and hopefully you like the new look I have given to the 5th best member of Take That (joke!).

See you later on when normal service is resumed and nobody is reading this apart from me and my mum (and even she says she doesn't read it all).

marc x

Fancy a wrestle?

2008-06-11T15:41:00.000-07:00

Emma and I like our visitors and for the last week we have had another one in the form of Jeremy Hammett. The Jezmeister (as all the cool kids call him) arrived last Monday evening and since then it’s was a non-stop social whirl. Listed today are three great things that we did before Jeremy sadly left on Monday.

Jeremy is a fan of the American Wrestling. It used to be called the WWF until the World Wildlife Fund got cross and sued them. It’s now called WWE fact fans, with the ‘E’ not meaning a drug. Oh no, it means ‘Entertainment’. Anyway as a youth I quite liked the WWF. I used to watch it on Sky and even I knew it wasn’t ‘real’ I liked all the crazy storylines, the showbiz and even the fact that some of the wrestlers got injured. Some even died! Yep – it may be fake but it’s ruddy dangerous. This dude called Owen Hart did a move that went wrong a few years back and broke his neck live on the TV. Horrid eh? Back in 1992 they held ‘Summerslam’ in the UK (one of their big events). It was at Wembley Stadium and 82,000 tickets sold out in minutes. Luckily my brother and I managed to get some. His favourite wrestler was Bret ‘The Hitman’ Hart (who is now recovering from a stroke). My favourite was Davey Boy Smith – The British Bulldog (who is now dead from a heart attack). They were fighting each other in the main event for The Intercontinental Belt (which is a bit like the F.A. Cup was when it meant something. E.g. an ace cup to win but not as good as the league). The British Bulldog won! (funny that with the fight being in Britain eh?) I was happy and poor Jon was distraught.

Over the last sixteen years I haven’t really watched much wrestling though. I discovered girls and to be honest I would much rather see them wrestle than some steroid pumped maniac of a man. Jeremy has stayed a fan of wrestling though (whilst maintaining an interest in the opposite sex too it should be said). He therefore suggested that it might be good to see its weekly show ‘Smackdown’. This was being filmed at the 20,000 capacity Staples Centre in Downtown LA. I agreed! Live events are always great fun and it was something different to do. And do you know what? It was ruddy brilliant. It was great looking at the kids home made banners, hearing all the crazy Americans go mental and watching these bonkers characters have pretend fights. The three hours went dead quick and I was sad when it ended. There was one bad bit though when I chucked my beer over me and Jeremy. Some fireworks went off and it was so loud that I jumped ten feet out of my chair. My beer went everywhere. Some annoying seven year old brat next to me said “You didn’t want to do that man”. Some small tiny part of me would have loved to have biffed the annoying, precocious brat on the nose.

Friday night saw us heading into Hollywood to check out some of the nightlife. Jeremy had found a place for us to visit called ‘The Echo’. On Friday nights it had live bands mixed in with DJ’s playing a barrage of indie tunes. The venue was just like one back home and I liked being there. Both of the bands were total rubbish but it didn’t really matter. I was happy to be out and about, drinking a beer and watching some live music. I also had a dance to Morrissey at the end of the evening which is always is good thing. I had five drinks over five hours. The barman thought I was a crazy alcoholic. I thought I was pacing myself and being rather sensible. That is LA for you. I will say though that it’s a myth that all LA women are obsessed with image and looks. There were a lot of women in that place who I don’t think looked in a mirror that often. I’m not being rude or anything, but they didn’t seem bothered that they looked a bit like a tramp. All power to the tramp ladies I say!

On the Sunday evening we went to see Russell Brand do a stand up gig. It was at a place called ‘The Roxy’ which is an indie gig venue/theatre. It’s quite small (holds about 300 when people are seated) but a really ace place all the same. It’s on Sunset Strip near ‘The Viper Rooms’ and ‘Whiskey A Go Go fact fans’. Anyway the show was packed and was about 80% full of women all of whom wanted to do it with Russell Brand (including Emma who seemed to take a shine to him in the flesh!).

He was dead funny though and it was a brilliant show. I really like Russell Brand, his radio show is brilliant and his autobiography is a joy. His life has been packed full of incident and he writes about it in such a witty and verbose way. He has an amazing grasp of what you can do with the English language and his prose zips off the page. His stand-up is similar in that he can go from sounding like an Essex yob one minute to Oscar Wilde at his most ostentatious the next.

The thing was though that when going for a pee just before Russell came on I realized Robbie Williams was going for a widdle next to me. He was looking a bit worse for wear and had greasy hair and was a bit chubby. I didn’t say anything to him as I was being cool and things (in my new Abercrombie and Fitch gear that all us LA dudes wear). I was going to have a quick look whilst he was weeing, but not in a gay way but just to see what size it was for curiosity value. I bottled out though which in retrospect was the right thing to do. Imagine forever having the image of Robbie William’s penis imprinted in your mind! I would rather see Gary Barlows’ (who is more famous over here anyway).

Robbie was sat behind me during the show and was obviously a bit cross that nobody knew who he was (apart from a few English dudes there). He kept on standing up and being really loud in order to be recognized (when everyone else was sat down). When this didn’t happen I don’t think he knew what to do. For some reason I briefly felt a bit sorry for Robbie Williams. Without fame I don’t think he could cope. He is a man who craves attention, so he can subsequently moan about the attention, but take away the attention and he wants the attention. A vicious circle methinks. I might change my name to Joseph Heller and write a book about it called ‘Catch 22’.

After the show a queue of girls all waited to have sex with Russell Brand and not Robbie Williams. Russell Brand, before going over to his harem, had a chat with Robbie Williams and the conversation looked awkward. I think Robbie wanted to be his friend but Russell didn’t want to know, and just wanted to do it with some ladies. Crazy eh?

Until next time,
Marc x

P.S. We also went to watch LA Galaxy again. We won 3-2 and it was just as good as last time. I think Jeremy loved it. David Beckham is ten billion times better than anyone else though.

P.P.S Shout outs to birthday boys Jon Ollington and Gary Eastwood. And not forgetting birthday ladies Sinead Taylor, and reaching middle age, Laura Miller.

P.P.P.S Speaking of wrestling (as I was earlier) my brother once thought of going to wrestling school in the US. At the time he was about 16 and needed to bulk up a bit. He thus bought some of that muscle powder and everything. He was going to call himself Shawn Johnson. Sadly Jon never did become a wrestler or, indeed, Shawn Johnson.

Great Danes Of Fire

2008-06-02T11:46:00.000-07:00

As I spent the last entry writing about my yet unrecorded songs I haven’t really been focusing on life here. This is perhaps a mistake as I think people visit this blog as they miss Emma and I so much. I think a lot of you cry every day that Emma and I are not there with you in Blighty and as such you need to hear our news. I do apologise therefore for my digression into the working of my music mind last week. Actually I shouldn’t really apologise because it can’t be the same old jazz every time. And it was good for me to find out that 77% of you want me to release my songs. For the 23% of you who don’t then all I can say is carry on buying albums by ‘Scouting For Girls’ (who are probably not in fashion back home. I’m not sure anymore as here in L.A. Duran Duran are still cool). But anyway I digress. What I’m trying to say is that this entry is all about Los Angeles again.

Since the last update existence has once again been a stream train who has not stopped chugging. I visited some more places with the in-laws including a Danish town in California called ‘Solvang’. That is right readers – A Danish town! It was the weirdest place I have ever been too. It was like a little toy town type place with funny buildings and an abundance of quaint cafes. It was meant to be famous for its gingerbread so we went to a café and I got a gingerbread fire engine. It wasn’t freshly made on the premises which made me a bit cross. It was good to visit Solvang but I would rather live in Milton Keynes than live there. It was too weird and it felt like I was in a TV show where I had been banished to a strange land. We also went to Santa Barbara, and a nearby vineyard to do some wine tasting. This was ace as I like wine a lot. I don’t know much about it to be truthful but in years to come I would like to know how to taste wine properly and things. Emma’s Dad knows all about wine tasting, he can swirl it around a glass and look like he knows what he is looking for. It was a bit of a shame that he was driving for this trip so everyone could taste apart from him. Another one of lifes rich ironies I thought to myself. Emma bought Mr. Furness some chocolates to make up for it but it didn’t really cut the mustard.

When the in-laws left (that left Emma and I rather sad as we had lots of fun adventures with them) it was time to prepare ourselves for our move. We were departing the Oakwood Apartments for our little bungalow that Emma had found in Santa Monica. I was lucky boy as Emma moved us in when I was in work. So one day I went to work from one house and then I arrived back at another with everything unpacked and looking nice. I was able to relax on the sofa right away and watch ‘Everybody Loves Raymond’ on our HD flatscreen that was part of the flat. I have the best wife in the world ever it has to be said. Emma has also set up our mac airport express thing which means we are wireless and our computer is connected to our ace speakers. We can also watch our UK programs we download on the interweb on our proper telly. That is the bomb. I am not looking forward to Emma working again which should happen soon. When only one person in a couple works it means the other can do lifes other tasks. It therefore leaves the rest of the time as just ace fun times together. I wish we could afford for just one of us to have a job all the time.

After a week of enjoying life in our new bungalow we prepared ourselves for the Swiss Family Morrison’s visit. Jim (Bob), Jakki and Holly all came to stay. They were to spend five days with us before visiting Mark and Cerise (mentioned in a previous LA blog entry fact fans). We planned lots of things for them to do including a trip to the cinema to watch Indiana Jones 4 (which I thought was ace), bowling (I got my top score ever of 94. This may sound rubbish but it included a strike. I get a few pins down every time these days and it never goes down the gutter. This is a huge improvement for me). Emma won two games but Jim won the first game and got the days highest score which was about 130 and included strikes aplenty. I think I came 3rd out of the five of us in every game.

American cinemas are ace by the way. As I said there are no adverts, just a crazy warm up man who whips the audience into a frenzy before the film starts.

One of the acetastic things we did do was go to Universal Studios. Since I have written this some of it has burnt down fact fans. This is typical as Emma and I bought annual passes for a bargain fiver each! It is good there though, and the new ‘Simpsons’ ride is excellent. Jim also won us an almost lifesize Spiderman by chucking some balls into the holes. You aren’t meant to win these games and the park lady looked shocked when Jim pulled this off. I love theme parks, I really do. We did do things of culture as well as life can’t just be fun. We went to ‘The Griffith Observatory’ which is perhaps the best thing I have ever been too in my life. It’s hard to describe the show but basically for this part you sit in this big dome and watch the most amazing history of the universe on this big ceiling. It was wonderful and I learnt more in this thirty minutes than I did of five years of boring science at school. I want to go again to see the show (which has a live host) but also to look at the exhibits more. I saw a bit of the moon that I was thrilled about. Jakki said that it was just a bit of rock but I loved the fact that it was a piece of the moon. This place really is skill. It was closed for years and has only just re-opened so lots of dudes at work haven’t been. It has been dead good talking about something in their town that they haven’t done.

We also went around Mark and Cerise’s for dinner on Tuesday and Thursday. Both dinners were lovely, and I had some delicious wine too.

The Morrison’s went on Friday. Emma was using our car to take them back to the airport so I decided to walk the four miles home from work. People don’t walk much here but I wanted to listen to my podcasts, enjoy the evening sun and take a stroll. So walk I did and it was ruddy lovely.

We decided to have a quiet weekend as we have another visitor, young Jeremy, arriving Monday night. On Saturday we went into Santa Monica for a bit of lunch and Emma persuaded me to watch ‘Sex In The City’ with her. They had a massive line outside the cinema with only about ten hen pecked husbands in it but I agreed to go providing Emma got the popcorn. The film was actually ok as there was quite a lot of sex scenes, and it was fun to see a packed cinema wee themselves over a program I know little about. Sarah Jessica Parker’s mole/spot thing on her face does make me feel a bit sick though and I have to squint whenever it comes into focus. On Sunday we went to the beach. We read our books in the lovely sunshine and I managed to fall asleep and burn the back of my legs even though I had factor forty on. I am tanned a bit though, I have a lot more colour than I did back in England. I then went for a run along the beach that was great. I felt dead alive afterwards. Emma then made a lovely lemon prawn risotto for dinner. I watched Doctor Who and An Audience With Neil Diamond, both of which were excellent.

See you next time blog fans.
Marc x

Going for a song

2008-05-20T17:25:00.000-07:00

Time is waiting in the wings, he speaks of senseless things. That’s what David Bowie sang on his ace song ‘Time’ from his Aladdin Sane album back in 1973. My comment on time isn’t quite as wordy as David’s. I just wanted to say that time goes ruddy quickly. It now seems like years since I went to Disneyland whereas it’s only been a just over a couple of weeks. Perhaps I should write a song about it too? In my life I have written about six songs. That is enough for an album I reckon. Some albums go on for too long these days. ‘Station To Station’ by David Bowie has six tracks and that is seen as a classic.

Here are all the songs I have written and roughly what year I composed them (I can’t be exact here as artists like myself are too busy being creative to bother with details). I have decided to tell you all about them so you can understand the workings of a creative genius such as myself over many years.

Frightful Night (1986) – This one is all about ghosts and vampires. Around this time, aged ten, I read ‘Dracula’ by Bram Stoker. It terrified me and I would never properly get over it. I used to hang garlic from my window before bedtime (fact) to ward off the vampires. I shared a bedroom with my brother Jon (aged only four at this time) and he thought I was mental. He also didn’t like it when I refused to open the windows in summer, even when it was really hot. I didn’t want any bats flying in. This song is therefore all about being scared of the dark. It’s still a classic. I used to play it to my sister Sarah on my battered acoustic guitar and I bet she can still sing it now. The story had a happy ending as aged twenty I went to watch ‘Interview With A Vampire’ at the cinema and I didn’t have nightmares.

The Clown Of London Town (1986) – I wrote ‘Frightful Night’ in the morning and this in the afternoon. It was a very creative day for me during a half term I think. I must have had two bowls of cereal that morning (which I sometimes liked to do). I had learned two chords on the guitar (the only chords I would ever learn as I got bored of carrying my guitar to practice) so I was inspired. This is a ballad about a clown that gets chucked out the circus and he ends up begging on the streets. He is dead sad as nobody finds him funny and he misses the circus life. I was inspired by a report about the homeless on the 6 o’clock news (I used to hate watching the news but my Dad probably had it on) I think it was the first time I realized some people didn’t have anywhere to live. I was shocked and thought I better document my thoughts on the matter. I’ve no idea where the clown came into it. Perhaps I’d recently been to the circus? I reckon this would go to number one if released now and sung by Bono. It’s a lot better than ‘Another Day In Paradise’ by Phil Collins, which ripped this song off a lot!

We Are Sea Men (1989) – This one was written in music class in either the 2nd or 3rd year seniors. We were set a task of creating a short piece of music on the keyboard that evoked the ocean during a storm. It was one keyboard between two and I was sharing with Richard Watson. He agreed with me that we should do something different than the norm. I thought rather than press a few random chords to sound all ominous (as all the squares were doing) we should create a jaunty sea shanty and just sing the ace words “We are sea men, we are sea men, and we sail all day long, we are sea men, we are men, and we like to sing this song”. Simple but brilliant we thought! (as an aside I had no idea at the time that semen was also the fluid of man, I was still an innocent).

Unluckily for us Mr. Lovell was a cultural philistine and he failed to see our genius. He said it was a rubbish song and gave us an E-. This was the lowest mark in the class, even Smelly Faye who was tone deaf got a C. I always hated that fat shit Mr. Lovell (sorry to swear but he was a fat shit). Richard Watson and I weren’t deterred though as we recorded a version around my house the next weekend. He bought his keyboard round to mine and combined with the sounds of my Yamaha pss-130 (which I had got for Christmas) it was almost Pet Shop Boys esque. It would have sounded dead good as a duet with Neil Tennant. And I would have no problem with Chris Lowe replacing Richard Watson. I liked Richard but he had a Commodore 64, which was no way as good as the Spectrum 128 (with built in tape recorder).

Eskimo Invasion (1997) – This was written for my failed university band ‘Mohair’. We never played a gig or indeed rehearsed. Instead we talked about being in a band a lot and acted like a band (which is probably the most important thing). I was going through my urban social poetry phase at the time, and this shows in the gritty lyrics. It was all about an Eskimo called Billy who left home to come and live in the UK. He thought people would love his crazy Eskimo ways and the fact he had a hooded coat with fur trim. Instead he was a victim of racial abuse and people on the streets told him to go home as he smelt of fish. In a crazy turn of events saying the word ‘eskimo’ actually become racist and instead the word to use was ‘Inuit’. I was inadvertently attacking the people I was trying to celebrate. That was one of lifes’ cruel ironies. Should I ever record the song I will change the name of it to ‘Inuit Invasion’. It doesn’t scan as well but the fight against racists is not an easy one comrades. I should note that bands like ‘The Prodigy’ and ‘Chemical Brothers’ were hip with the kids when I wrote this. I took inspiration and the chorus has lots of sampled ‘Woo wooos’ in a dance like fashion.

Three years later I recorded a demo version with my friend Stephen Roberts. It was a rock version and it was flippin’ brilliant. I even played it down the phone to my mum I was so excited. More news about this project below!

Nicotine Lothario, Alcohol Scenario (1997/2000) - Stephen Roberts and I, along with Ian Clark had decided to combine our yet unformed bands. The idea was that we all had bands in our head and to combine them to create a supergroup. The names of all of them had to be in the title. We were therefore called " ‘Teflon Mohair' featuring 'The Alex McKeller Project' with 'Love Journey Medley’ "; I had kept the ‘Mohair’ bit to keep my old fans happy but had to add ‘Teflon’ as some other band called ‘Mohair’ appeared on the scene. They never made it which I was happy about. I did phone up their manager to say it was my band name but he told me to sod off.

We had two rehearsals around my house on Friday nights. One of the other demos to emerge was this poptastic number. This song was all about me as an twenty year old man about town. It told the story of how I liked to look at girls and try and look cool. The song wasn’t that deep but amidst all the dark I had written I needed some light. I had started working on this for the failed ‘Mohair’ project but Stephen helped with a tune, and put some chords to it and everything. This was definite second single material. Sadly the band soon split as were too before our time.

Do Re Me, So Far So Good (2004) Funnily enough this was the only song I ever released (under the name ‘Teflon Mohair’) and it was a cover version. I can still include it here though as I have made the song my own (as Simon Cowell likes people to do). ‘Station To Station’ also had a cover version too (‘Wild Is The Wind’ fact fans).

This was for a Carter USM tribute album put together by some chap in America. He had heard about the legend of ‘Teflon Mohair’ and begged for me to contribute to the album. Jim Bob, from Carter USM themselves, produced my version and everyone agreed that it was better than the original that got in the UK top twenty. Copies of this album are now sold out but if you ask me I will email an MP3. Jim Bob got a bit cross that I was so good on this cover that he asked me to sing backing vocals on his album ‘Angelstrike’ for the song Tongue Tied. I was brilliant but when the final version was released you could barely hear me as he had buried me so far down in the mix it was untrue. It was him saying “don’t get too cocky” probably. I had the last laugh though because on the day of recording I had pizza and chips around his house which meant that I got a free dinner.

That concludes a description of all my songs. Perhaps one day all of them (apart from the last one) will be realized and fulfill their true potential. Are they still too far ahead of their time? I can’t answer that dear reader. An artist can only paint, it is not up to him to take off the lid from the paint, or indeed to clean the brushes.

I just realized that I haven’t talked about our L.A. adventures. Tomorrow or the next day my musings will include Emma’s parents last week here, moving into our new flat and the Emster’s birthday.

Only twelve of you voted in the poll last time. That is rubbish. This poll has more relevance as it could change the face of music. Please therefore cast your vote. I will abide by your decision.

Until life in Los Angeles resumes,

Marc x

Taking the mickey... (that title is genius if I do say so myself)

2008-05-09T15:38:00.001-07:00

As I write this in my lunch break with my Quizno’s sandwich I feel exhausted dear reader. It’s been a busy old week and a half. I’ve been working relentlessly on some rather exciting things in my job (involving motorbikes, porn stars, award shows and the LA Sheriffs dept), and socially Emma and I have been out and about all the time. Emma’s parents, Steve and Sandra are visiting us at the moment. They arrived last Tuesday and are staying in a hotel near our apartment. During the day Emma has been sightseeing and enjoying L.A. with them, whilst I have been joining the party in the evening for dinners and last night the cinema (Iron Man – which was ace). Rather excitingly we went to Disneyland at the weekend, which I shall talk more about later. It’s been very nice having the in-laws here, and the Emster adores spending time with her folks. All is therefore good in the land of sunshine.

Having said that it has been dead cloudy and not that hot over the last couple of days. After seven weeks of blistering sun I am not happy with this turn of events. I think we even had a shower last night which is bonkers. And apparently it’s been sunny in London. To be honest though that it scant consolation for Londoners as I doubt there will be any capital city left soon. I wonder what place I will return to after Boris has finished with it? A bit of politics for you there… Don’t say that I don’t cover everything.

I had my haircut last Thursday which I thought would be a traumatic experience. I hate having my hair cut, especially since my hair started to get a bit thin. I always feel embarrassed and that I shouldn’t be in the hairdressers. I get a bit scared that they will start talking about my hairline or comment that I will be totally bald by the time I’m forty. It’s for this reason that in recent years I have stopped paying thirty pound or so for a haircut at some swanky salon. Instead I have gone to a male barbers where I can dictate a simple style and only pay a tenner. Also you get less chat and interaction at a barbers which I prefer.

I don’t think they do barbers over here though so I booked myself into a salon type thing. All the hairdressers looked cool and stylish which worried me. Some of them even had tattoos they were so far on the edge. I was concerned about my haircut all day dear reader. I didn’t need to be though as the hairdresser was very nice. I think she had an L.A. name like ‘Summer’( but I forget what it was exactly). She was a fan of British TV and she thought my accent was brilliant and that I sounded like Ricky Gervais.

The conversation then took a funny turn when she asked what music I liked. I mentioned that I am manager of Jim Bob and Carter USM. She then shrieked and said that her husband adored Carter and had flown to England last year for the gigs we had put on. She was dead impressed with me from this point. I was just shocked as I think they have about ten fans in the States and out of three hundred million people I bump into the wife of one who is cutting my hair! I promised to bring Jim Bob in to see her husband when he visits at the end of the month. I haven’t told him yet but these rock star types are used to meet and greets. As such she gave me a great haircut which Emma’s mum said was the best one I had ever had. I gave Summer a good tip, especially as haircuts are quite cheap over here, even in salon type places.

During the weekends we went to Disneyland. I have always wanted to go and at the age of thirty one I was getting my chance. I was like an excited school boy all week. We left at 8am on Saturday morning for the forty mile or so drive to Anaheim. Emma’s dad was driving so Emma and I were like excited school children in the back of the car. Well, I was anyway. On the Saturday we went to ‘Disneyland Californian Adventure’ park. This opened a few years ago and is bang opposite the main Disneyland. We had bought this ace book that told you what order to do rides and things in order to avoid the queues. It was skilltastic as we hardly had to wait for any ride. All of the rides and shows were superb, apart from this tower one where you go up and down dead fast in the dark. This made me feel sick and I nearly passed out. Everyone else thought it was brilliant and I was left looking like Mr. Wimp from Wimpland. I had a photo taken with Pluto that I shall put up on the Facebook soon. Pluto looked very pleased to see me. I think he was fed up with kids bothering him and was happy to meet an adult fan such as myself.

Disneyland is more than the rides, it also has brilliant parades and shows. My favourite show was this ‘Bug 3D’. Not only was the show 3D but it also had great things like you being stung in real life as something popped out the back of your chair. Technology never ceases to baffle and amaze. ‘Muppets in 3D’ was just as good but Emma didn’t like it as much. Anything with Kermit is a winner with me. The ‘Pixar Parade’ was ace and I liked seeing all the floats that were brilliantly designed. I wished that I worked in Disneyland at this point. I would like to dress up as Mr. Incredible and just wave at the kids all day.

During the evening though disaster struck and Emma’s mum’s enjoyment of the famous ‘Electrical Parade’ was to be ripped into shreds. This parade is famous for its amazing floats with lots of crazy lights everywhere. Emma’s mum had seen this particular parade back in Florida in 1993. She had loved it then and had adored the accompanying parade music, so much so that she had tried to buy it but he search had been fruitless. She was therefore devastated that the music had changed and had been replaced by the most annoying tune ever recorded. Her dreams and memories of the Electrical Parade were almost destroyed. Subsequent research had shown that the music we heard was in fact the ‘normal’ music that had been going since the sixties.

The question remained though that what had Sandra Furness heard in 1993 that evoked her musical passion? And why did Disney have this different music on that day in Florida? I have since found out via extensive research and detective work that they changed the parade in 1991. It was in-fact renamed ‘Spectro Magic’ and was a slightly different beast and with new music. The Furness family hadn’t seen the Electrical Parade at all! For seventeen years that had been mistaken. Crazy eh? I am going to tell them over dinner tonight.

We then had a hotel booked a mile from Disneyland. As we checked in late we ended up in twin smoking rooms. I got a bit cross as I had specifically asked for a non smoking room. I am no square but I hate the smell of stale cigarette smoke. I got upset with the receptionist but there was nothing he could do. I felt a bit of a fool afterwards as I got a bit shirty, but I was annoyed. I felt ripped off and lied to by those faceless internet dudes at Expedia.com. It wasn’t too bad and we were only there for eight hours. And it was dead cheap. Perhaps there is no such thing as a bargain though eh?

The next day we went to Disneyland proper. The guidebook said we had to be in the line forty minutes before they opened to get started on the schedule. We stuck to the rules and were outside at 7:20am precisely. I got quite cross as those staying at the official Disneyland hotel were getting early entry but luckily there wasn’t too many of them. Once again the book worked a treat and we hardly had to queue for anything (apart from getting in)
.
Some of the rides were magnificent. The Indiana Jones one was dead good, I actually thought I was Indiana Jones himself hurtling around a cave it was so realistic. So much so that when Mr. Furness told me there were Indiana Jones hats on sale I thought this could be a whole new look for me. Now Harrison Ford is about eighty seven I envisaged me stepping into his shoes and being the star of film number five. This illusion was shattered when Emma and Mrs. Furness almost convulsed with laughter when I tried the hat on. Women can be cruel.

On a negative note ‘The Pirates Of The Caribbean’ was slightly ruined for me by the woman behind who kept on coughing. She was, in fact, coughing so hard I thought her head may explode. And I was looking forward to some wine with my dinner but all booze is banned in Disneyland (That is Walt Disney for you though eh? An apparent racist but not a fan of the booze). I got an ice tea for myself instead. Everyone at work seems to drink Ice Tea so I thought I would try it. It was disgusting and it was just like tea gone cold and manky. I had to pretend to like it though but everyone saw through my crazy pretence. I was a further laughing stock when the waitress re-filled my glass as I had nearly finished the damn drink.

The rest of it was great though. It climaxed in this big show at the end called ‘Fantasmic’ (or something like that). This is a crazy light, music and stage show on the river. It is bonkers but brilliant. The story, as far as I could make out, that Mickey Mouse has a dream but it goes a bit weird and bad. Some baddies from Disney films appear and give him a hard time. Just when you think Mickey could be dead as the baddies take control he realizes that it’s his dream and he is in charge of things. At that point the baddies are defeated. A big boat then appears with all the Disney characters on it.

The big firework display was cancelled afterwards as it was too windy. I couldn’t feel much wind but I didn’t really mind. ‘Fantasmic’ was enough excitement for me, and it was about 10pm and I was ready to go home. The journey back took less than an hour which was good. I got into bed exhausted, but I was content and looking forward to defeating some baddies in my sleep, just like Mickey Mouse.

Keep it real,
Marc x

p.s. I am not going to do a blog next week, as this has been a long one and I don’t want to put too many eggs on the pudding, or however the expression goes.

p.p.s The ‘Flight Of The Conchords’ album is skilltastic. Buy it.

p.p.p.s Having mentioned dreams I had this ace one last night that they did a stage play of Doctor Who. Some nameless actress was playing Rose Tyler. Billie Piper was sat next to me in the audience and she was telling me how rubbish this actress was and how she was cross she wasn’t given her TV part in the play. I had to agree with Ms. Piper on this matter.

p.p.p.p.s A big old shout out to Pat Higgins for leaving a message on my ‘coming soon’ bit. I love messages. And happy belated birthday to Pippa Hggins too, I hope you had a fantastic one. Be sure to book your tickets here soon Higgins family.

A massive shout out to Vicki and Gary for sending Emma and I ‘The Observer’ in the post. I am going to read it on Sunday and pretend that it’s two weeks ago when Boris is not the mayor

p.p.p.p.ps Please vote in my ‘all new’ poll.

Coming Soon...

2008-05-08T14:42:00.001-07:00

Hi ya blog fans,
Apologies for no update this week. I have started my entry but I've had work to do (seriously) and I have been out and about most evenings. It's all go here. It will be up by the weekend, and that is a promise.
Tune in then.
marc x

Galaxy of stars...

2008-04-30T11:21:00.001-07:00

I shall make this a short entry this week as I am rather short of time. I am not getting bored of ‘Blog World’ though. I do enjoy writing this as I like the discipline of doing it every week. Emma may have penned an entry a couple of weeks ago but I wasn’t being lazy, I just thought people would want to hear from ‘the trouble and strife’. Back to my point though, I can’t blither on too much due to life’s crazy demands. This will please those of you who moan about my blogs being too long. I actually get a bit irked when people say that (which some of you lesser Marc Blog fans do). If you get bored after a paragraph then come back and read some more later. You could make the blog last a week this way. You don’t have to read it all in one go, treat it like an episode of ‘Neighbours’ (or ‘The Archers’ for those middle class readers) and have some blog action every day. I am a master of comedy who shouldn’t have to cut myself down in order to appease the vapid minds of the MTV generation.

Now I have that out of my system onto this week’s adventure. I say ‘adventure’ in the singular as I am just going to focus on my trip to the football. I am missing the Arsenal so I decided to go and watch LA Galaxy. This is the team that David Beckham plays for, if you are one of the dudes not in the know. Going to watch the Galaxy was superb. They have a great little stadium that fits about 29,000 people. It was designed especially for ‘soccer’ and as such there is no bad seat in the house. They also have better facilities than even ‘The Emirates’. There are more food stands than you can imagine and the toilets are very plush.

One of the best things is that you can get a beer and drink it in you seat. I had a few of these and got a bit tipsy. I felt like Homer Simpson as you get a massive cup of beer that looks like it holds ten litres. I also got the biggest bag of peanuts in the world. They were delicious.

We had a good seat near the executive boxes on the half way line. Emma turned around and spotted David Beckham’s mum. How she recognized Beckham’s mum is beyond me - but she did. It wasn’t long before she was joined by Tom Cruise. I was a bit more excited by that. He really was a very small man. I will say though that I was impressed with him. Most people in the corporate seats just chat and don’t really watch the game. If I turned around his eyes were always glued to the game and he watched the whole thing. I think Katie Homes and Posh stayed in the box having a chat. They didn’t join Tom or Mrs Beckham to see the match action.

The game itself was against Chivas USA. They are the other LA team and they share the ground ‘The Home Depot Centre’ with LA Galaxy. It was therefore a bit of a grudge match. So much so that whenever a Chivas player went down one crazy supporter next to me kept on shouting “Put him in a bodybag” that I thought was a bit harsh.

I should also point out that they had the singer from The Gap Band singing the American anthem at the start of the match. Everyone takes this very seriously and belts it out with pride. It isn’t like when they have ‘God Save The Queen’ at an English sporting event when everyone mumbles and pretends to sing it (or in my case plots how to rid the world of idiots like Prince Phillip). They also had fireworks at the end of the anthem (which were ace) along with ten billion soccer playing kids in their respective team strips.

The game was actually pretty skillful. I would say that it was probably Championship standard. Having said that most Championship sides would beat Galaxy or Chivas as football over here is slow. They try and be skillful and actually play. I don’t think they would cope with the 100mph long ball, fast paced, hard tackling championship action. It’s more entertaining than watching Crystal Palace and the like though (with regards to the style of play. Sorry Neil). In the end Galaxy won 5-2! It would have been 5-0 but Galaxy had recently sold their goalie and his rookie replacement was shocking beyond belief. Beckham had a superb game and is easily playing at a level he is too good for. The same could be said for American striker Landon Donovan who scored a hat-trick. It was also mental seeing Ruud Gullit managing the Galaxy.

I should also mention that once people worked out I was English they were desperate to speak to me. They adore the English game and those near me were very knowledgeable about it. They saw me as a football guru and I held court for a while as I regaled them with great stories of premiership action. Emma just rolled her eyes. One chap, who drives three hours just to attend Galaxy game, was a big Man Utd fan (I didn’t hold it against him). He has been saving for years to go to England to see a live match (and with the current exchange rate they really do need to save) and he is finally going in August. I told him first hand what Old Trafford was like and he got all excited. I was nice and missed out the bits how it’s badly designed, how the fans all leave ten minutes before the end and how there is more atmosphere actually at LA Galaxy. I am not one to destroy dreams or illusions.

The game finished at 10pm. And do you know what? Hardly anyone left early and everyone clapped the team off. You can do that in the states though as everything is so organized. Even though they had 20,000 cars parked, there was no queue to get out. Stewards know what they are doing and we were home in half an hour. In England you’ll be lucky to leave a stadium that day. Overall it was an ace experience and whilst LA Galaxy will never be an Arsenal they will join Southend as a team I have a fond affection for. I’ll certainly go and see them again a few times for sure.

Before I go I also want to say how brilliant technology is. If I had done this work transfer to the US ten years ago I would have liked it still but I would have felt more cut off than I do now. Thanks to the trusty old ‘Mac Book Pro’ Emma and I watch Doctor Who, Holby City, The Apprentice and Gavin & Stacey every week The internet is fantastic! It also means I can read the English news, keep up to date with the football and see what everyone is up to via the Facebook.

The best thing though is webcams. The Mac Book Pro (the laptop of gods. PC’s are so boring and smelly in comparison) has a built in one of these babies. This means that via the ichat (as they call it) you can talk and see people all for free. I have been having important band meetings with Les and Jim from Carter USMs and everything! My mum obviously misses seeing me as I am her favourite eldest son. She has now got a webcam and even though it didn’t work with ichat we got it working with Skype (which is another crazy internet programme). So on Saturday morning I had a chat with my mum, pa, auntie Angela, uncle Colin and cousin Theresa. Not forgetting Theresa’s boyfriend Brian who kept on pulling up his shirt to show Emma and I his rotund stomach. That is webcams for you. It encourages crazy behaviour such as this. Anyway it was dead good to speak to my family and thanks to technology you really don’t feel so far away. It won’t be long before we have teleports. That will be brilliant.

I’ve just realized this short one has become rather long. Oo-er missus! Why do I make these statements? Once I get started I can’t stop and now this blog is the same length as normal. I suppose I could now go and delete the opening paragraph but I want to keep it real….

Until next week blog fans.

Marc

p.s. A shout this week to Jeremy ‘Jez’ Hammett. Not only was it his birthday the other week but he is also coming to visit me in June. Woooo.

Second shout out to the other birthday boy Mr Toby Bluck. Come to visit and I'll buy you a birthday drink.

p.p.s. Next weeks blog will be about our trip to Disneyland with my wife and visiting in-laws. This is not one to be missed.

London Calling?

2008-04-21T17:58:00.000-07:00

I got homesick for the first time yesterday. We’ve been here now for five weeks and it’s all been such a whirlwind that we haven’t really had the chance to miss anything. Instead I’ve been learning to love the sun whilst baffling at the snow back home in Blighty. LA has seemed like the place to be, there is so much to do and explore its quite overwhelming. Yesterday though I wanted to go home and I have no idea why. I just woke up on Sunday morning and I wanted to be in my bed in Crystal Palace. I wanted 'The Observer' and some boiled eggs and soldiers. I put on a brave face in the morning but I wasn’t happy dear reader.

We had Emma’s sister and husband (Vic and Gary) staying with us and this was the day they were flying back. I told Emma I couldn’t go the airport to see them off as I had tax forms to fill in. This was true (and they were ruddy boring beyond belief – and took chuffin’ ages. And my meeting about them today was Dullsville Arizona). If I had of gone I would have jumped on a plane back home. So sorry not seeing you off sister and brother in law (though I did help carry their bags to the car which were dead heavy)! When Emma got back from the Airport thirty minutes later she was dead sad too. She had loved having Vic and Gary to stay and as such she was in no mood for fun and jollity. After my tax forms were complete we decided to go to the pool to enjoy the sun. That would cheer us up we thought. I even went into the hot tub which I adore. That didn’t work though and we were still a bit miserable. If the hot tub can’t make you happy then you know you are in trouble.

We watched the latest episode of the UK Apprentice (via the internet and its crazy ways). I knew things were bad when I started yearning for Bluewater Shopping Centre that was heavily featured in this weeks show. The shopping centres here are a million times better than dear old Bluewater. I wanted to be in WH Smiths though reading the magazines whilst Emma was elsewhere trying on a dress or something. I then went to the gym to try and run off my blues and as good as my workout was I still left a bit sad and fed up. Then later on, as we were having our tea, the film Pretty Woman came on. I have never seen this movie classic before (as regular readers will know) but Emma loves it. We decided to watch it as we didn’t fancy anything else (and I wanted to avoid anything British), and guess what? It was ruddy brilliant. Not only was I happy that Julia Roberts got out the prostitution game (as she was too nice for that kind of caper) and that Richard Gere became a nice businessman rather than a mean one, but it was also set in LA. And it made it look so good I was happy to be here again. Emma and I went to bed a lot chirpier after seeing Pretty Woman. You will be happy to know that we are back to normal today and life seems fine and dandy once again.

Since Emma’s last blog entry we have been busier than busy bees going buzz buzz buzz. As mentioned above we have had our first visitors and it’s been dead good. We’ve been bike riding along the coast (twice!), visited ace shopping places, gone to some nice restaurants; drunk in some bars and attended an exhibition in a comic shop. And whilst I’ve been at work they’ve been to Getty Centre (which is apparently ace) and on a star homes spotting trail. It’s been brill having Vic and Gary to stay and the time they spent with us went dead quickly.

We have also found somewhere to live which is jolly good news. When we move out of The Oakwood Apartments in three weeks Emma has found us a lovely bungalow in Santa Monica. It’s small but it’s brilliant. It’s dead near the beach and all the best shops as well as only being four miles away from work. I can’t wait until we move in there. It’s good in The Oakwood, and I will miss the hot tub, but I think we will more at home in our Santa Monica bungalow.

I bought the following albums over the last couple of weeks. Here is my mini review for each. Vampire Weekend – Great but like The Police, MGMT – One great song and an album full of boring fillers, Emma Pollock – lovely songs from a great songwriter and Chris T-T – wonderful lyrics and fantastic tunes. I also re-bought Meatloaf’s ‘Bat Out Of Hell; as I didn’t have it over here. People say you should listen to The Eagles on the freeways in LA. In my mind nothing can beat Meatloaf for this.

I think I’ll finish here – and you are right up to date with our adventures now. Thanks to you all for reading the blog, my hit rates are so high I made 6p in advertising last week.

Marc x

Shout Outs this week go to Chris T-T for not only writing one of the best songs you will ever hear ‘Ankles’ on his ‘Capital’ album, but also for sending me a top email with some great places and things to do in LA. A record shop he said I should go to has an in-store from ‘Flight Of The Conchords’ on Thursday. I am very excited. And shout out no.2 to Sinead for sending Emma and I some ace pics of Crystal Palace in the snow. It had people from my office here calling Crystal Palace ‘Beautiful’ – and apparently it looks like Paris because of the Crystal Palace tower! What next? The residents of New York think Luton is new home of cool?

n.b I also spotted Charlie from ‘Lost’ at a Sushi restaurant. Emma stopped me asking for a photo.

Furnace-ing the blog...

2008-04-14T19:39:00.000-07:00

Is it an honour or rather a curse to have to write for Marc's blog? He's probably only asked me because his last entry was so long that he can't be bothered to write another one this week in order to bring you up to date on our adventures. Anyway I am going to take you back to almost two weeks ago to start this, beginning where Marc left off.

We had a fairly quiet week whilst Marc settled in to his new job and I did my housewife chores. In fact Monday is laundry day for me. I should be there now but there's been queues all morning for the machines as two are broken (they're never fixed). And some lady has used three dryers at the same time which is so unnecessary. You don't really have your own washing machine in the states. They love launderettes and laundry rooms. Marc was saying that it's just like Albert Square where nobody has a washing machine.

I had to pick up our new car this week. I was sad to trade in our lovely little VW Golf. It had done us proud for our first couple of weeks here but it was time to upgrade to our full time mean machine. I went to pick it up from what I thought would be a big car dealership which turned out to be some back alley tiny little shack. I was bit concerned that the car I would be given wouldn't even make it out the forecourt. However I was pleasantly surprised when out came a new big white family saloon. All I needed were a couple of kids and I'd be a fully fledged soccer mom. I love driving automatics. I don't know why on earth we bother with manuals in the UK. It's so nice cruising along, not having to bother changing gears all the time.

After our quiet week (where we didn't really have time to go out in the evening due to Marc's long work hours) it was time to embrace the weekend. A new day dawned on Saturday and we decided to jump in to the car for a road trip along Sunset Boulevard (after an early trip to the gym. How good are we?). Our drive was brilliant. Marc made a great compilation, the sunroof went back, the windows went down and off we drove along the sea front through Santa Monica and then up in to the Hollywood hills. We drove through Bel Air and Beverly Hills and tried to spot some celebs homes but failed.

I then decided that I needed the toilet (I've been drinking way too much coffee since moving here) and so we wanted to stop in Beverly Hills for a restroom trip (i've found out that it's really rude to ask where the toilet is, you have to say restroom). We drove along looking for somewhere to park up when a lady opened up her car door right in front of us and I had to swerve suddenly to avoid her. This however proved to be the most exciting part of our trip by far as the lady in question only happened to be Ms Britney Spears. I was beside myself with excitement. I'd almost crashed in to my favourite pop star of all time. I had to stop so we could go back to find her, but by the time we'd parked up and headed back she'd gone. I was gutted, but also thrilled that I'd seen her. It was her for sure, Marc and I turned to each other at the same time when we both realised. We had a nice sandwich to make up for it in a rather nice cafe. We spent the evening back at the apartment and hung out by the pool until the sun came down. Marc spent hours sitting in the hot tub reading his book. He's developing some weird obsession with the hot tub.

On Sunday we headed in to Venice to go and see a flat as we have to move in a month's time. We were a little early so decided to have brunch on Abbot Kinney. I had an Elderflower Proseco to go with mine, it was delicious. Marc had a Bellini. I got us a little lost on the way to view the apartment and Marc got a bit cross as apparently I should have drawn a map rather than just write directions. I personally liked finding our way and we burnt off our brunch amidst all our strolling. The flat we saw was lovely and showed that we can get something really nice for our budget. I shall carry on the search though as it was only the first one we have seen.

We went past a Pinkberry store on the way home and I persuaded Marc to give it a go. It's frozen yoghurt that looks like Mr Whippy ice cream. It's a big craze over here and has no fat and zero calories. Well that is until you add all the toppings like cookies 'n' cream, choc chips and captain crunch. It was absolutely brilliant. I think I could eat it all day long. You're not quite sure what its going to taste like, and expect it to be ice cream but then it's ice cold yoghurt. It's dead weird but delicious. I'd highly recommend it and I'm thinking about going out to get one now in fact as talking about it has given me the taste for one. We meandered back to the apartment as Marc wanted to go in the hot tub again. I'm going to start rationing the time he's allowed in there. He did buy me an orchid on the way back though, which was lovely.

We spent the evening watching Doctor Who so some things never change. Marc and I both thought Catherine Tate was an excellent new companion.

I think I've gone on for far too long so will call it quits now. Hope you enjoyed my blog this week, apologies if it's not up to Marc's efforts but I'm new at this game.

Emma x

Marc says: Thanks for that Emma. That was ace and it's good to get the view of the lady. You are right that I do love the hot tub. I will miss it when we move. Anyway this weeks shout outs go to Rupa Chikhal for amongst other things sending me stuff in the post including an ace picture of Team Marketing UK (and with some other top work people on it too) - all in a lovely frame. Second shout out goes out to Neil (Mr Spoons) for helping me to enjoy a bit of England every Sunday night (!). And last shout out goes to my brother Jon for his brilliant promotion. You da man.

Have a break, have a frappucino

2008-04-06T20:15:00.000-07:00

I've been getting quite a lot of feedback about this old blog of mine. A lot of you cats have been saying you have been enjoying it. Thanks for that! Obviously a writer of my great calibre does this blog for the art so I don't need praise, but it's nice all the same. Some others have asked how I find the time as my entries are so long (!). Believe it or not a typical entry takes no longer than thirty minutes. This is stream of conciousness stuff and I type dead fast. Good eh? And lastly some dude called 'anonymous' (which is a pretty weird name) posted that my blog was rubbish. I deleted the comment as it would upset my hardcore fans but I didn't mind. The critics dissed David Bowie's seminal album 'Low' when it came out in 1977. It's now regarded as a classic. Far be it from me to say this blog will come to be regarded as great literature but lets just say I wouldn't be surprised if it ever gets printed. If so I would go as far as to say it could get the recommended read in the Britannia Book Of The Month club (if it still exists. Do you remember it? There always used to be a flyer for joining in every magazine. It's introductory offer was always six books for about 3p). The success of the blog meant that I ticked a box to have advertising as I get paid for it (see just above this entry for evidence). I know this is 'selling out' to some of you more leftie types but I am not a charity. Last week I got 104 hits which meant I earnt 6p. Not bad eh?

On another blog note I will be posting a weekly entry I have just decided. Every Tuesday night my time (early Wednesday morning to you British chaps) will see a new entry. I need a deadline to keep this up.

Anyway onto LA type stuff. I guess that's what you're here for eh? All 104 of you. The weekend before last was another good 'un. Upon finishing work I was cream crackered. Emma and I decided to stay in with some wine and a film. We watched this Ben Stiller film. I forget the name but he meets this woman who he marries. She turns out to be a bit mental on the honeymoon during which he meets another lady who he prefers. A whole comedy cavalcade of disasters than befall him. To be honest it was a bit rubbish and like most films these days it was too long at about two hours. All films should just stop after ninety minutes whether they have finished or not. I get fidegty after a while and there is nothing worse than dragging something out. Any filmakers reading this please take note.

On Saturday Em and I were a bit more adventurous. We took a drive to Rodeo Drive. This was the first time that we saw the Los Angeles that you picture in your mind. There were lots of done up women looking posh, but a bit weird. Emma got excited about a shop called 'Crate and Barrel' that sells plates and kettles. After doing my penance here we went to the museum of TV and Radio. This was ace, and I ended up watching a David Bowie special that I had never seen. Afterwards we went to Starbucks for a Frappucino. I love Frappucinos. I then asked Emma about 'Pretty Woman'. I don't think I have ever seen the film properly. I asked why Julia Roberts character was a prostitute and why Richard Gere picked her up. She explained all, and why she then went shopping in Rodeo Drive where we were. She told the story so well I never need watch the film, and it made my Starbucks Frappucino all the more delicious. We then had a lovely drive back home in the sun.

In the evening I took the Emster out for dinner. We went to a lovely French restaurant in Abbot Kinney called 'Lillys' that had been recommended to us. Well the food and place had, we were warned though that the service was rubbish. And all the interweb reviews said the same. They were wrong though, it was ace, as was our waiter Pierre (I've no idea if his name was Pierre or if he was even French. It's good to give him a name as it makes you warm to the person). I had the best onion soup I have ever had for starters. And we had a lovely bottle of plonk to boot. We were outside on the patio in a lovely spot. It was one of the best restaurants I have ever been too and we had a lovely time. Even my coffee was spot on. Emma was loving my brilliant conversation and I think she thought to herself that life doesn't get much better than this. And three courses for both of us plus wine and coffee came to $100. That is just fifty english pounds. What a bargain. On the way home we bumped into Sawyer from Lost stood outside a trendy bar. I wanted to say hello but that wife of mine wouldn't let me. To make up for it I got home, stood under the shower and pretended it was a waterfall. That's what that Sawyer does in the adverts and he would have been proud of me. Speaking of Lost I'm looking forward to it coming back. I love the Lost.

On Sunday Emma gave me bagels for breakfast. They were cinnamon and raisin, which are my favourite. James Brierley says all I talk about is food in this blog. That is true James Brierley, but food is brilliant and an essential part of life. Without it we would all be dead and if that was the case then you wouldn't be reading this blog.

After pottering around Emma made me get ready for Sunday lunch. Mark and Cerise had invited us to their home in Los Feliz (the other side of LA to us) for a british roast. We stopped off at a liquor store (as off licences are called here) and got a nice bottle of Pinot Noir. I'm not a big fan of red but I like this baby. After a lovely drive we arrived at their house. They have a splendid place and the view from their garden looking out over the Hollywood hills was ace. We met one of their friends from London called Nathan who was in the States for business. He was a nice chap. Also at lunch was another Mark and his girlfriend whose name escapes me. That won't concern you reader as you'll never meet them. They were both nice too, but Mark who was the tour manager for the band "Death Cab For Cutie" talked more than me. But in a good way. All talking is good. Last but not least was Abina. Emma and I are debating what she did for a living as I type this. I say she is an actress, Em is saying she is a teacher who acts in her spare time. Whatever, you will never meet her so this is all superfluous information. We had dinner on a big table in the garden. I had roast lamb which was delicious and Emma had salmon food fans.

After a lovely leisurely lunch, some of Abina's friends were appearing in the critically acclaimed (seriously) play "Point Break Live". This was a play based on the film starring Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swizzle (who apparently is very ill - get well soon Patrick). You had to get a rain mac on entry to avoid water and blood landing on you. This was theatre with a difference. I should point out that we were in Downtown LA, which years ago was bad and dangerous. Nowadays though its got all arty and trendy with the kids. We were in a bar that also doubles up as a comedy club and theatre. We felt quite cool there, apart from when we had to put our macs on. I enjoyed the play, probably a bit more than Emma who didn't remember much of Point Break. That didn't really matter though. We both had a lovely day and it was great to do something so different. Had we been back in England, as you know from the last entry, we would have been watching some ITV drama. That's Hollywood for you. It takes you out of your comfort zone.

It's now 21.45 and I fancy a cup of tea. I'm also a bit tired. I'm going to stop writing this blog, but I'm still a week behind my crazy antics. I'm going to try and persuade that wife of mine to do a guest blog at some point during the week to write about this weekend. If she's any good I might let her do some more in the future. We can then become the Richard and Judy of blogs. Just so long as Emma doesn't show her bra at awards show we will be fine. I don't even mind if she becomes an alcoholic. I wonder if she'll let me steal some wine from Tescos, sorry Ralphs as we have over here. Having said that, Emma now prefers Trader Joes as her supermarket of choice, which is a bit more organic and trendy wendy. Although they do have nice chocolate covered cherries there, which are the bomb. I'll let Emma tell you about their wine, 2 buck chuck!

Until next time blog fans, may you be happy, wealthy and wise. Don't believe the hype.

Lots of love - the blogmeister.

Marc x

PS. Here's some shout outs as they say in radio land. Firstly to Mark and Becky on the birth of their son Thomas. Emma and I are quite literally cock a hoop for you. Secondly well done to James and Sarah for buying and moving in to their new house. Keep the area cool for me, I'll be back in 11 months so keep my manor happening. Last but not least Happy Retirement to my Pa. Have a ruddy brilliant one.

PPS. If you want a shout out don't ask for one, they are like Oscars. They are very prestigious and only get awarded when merited. They are a brand new feature though so stay tuned for some more shout outs soon.

PPPS. The only way you can get a shout out is by telling me your news and I'll then work out if you qualify. This means you have to email me and send me facebook messages (not myspace as that is so old school).

Working the popcorn

2008-04-02T17:29:00.000-07:00

My first week of work in my new job has been accomplished. Wooo! I won’t write too much about my job on this blog because it will probably be dead boring for you. And not only that what happens in television is top secret. I can say though that everyone has been dead nice to me and I am starting to get my head around everything. I haven’t spoke that much yet and people think I’m quiet! Obviously I’ve been very polite and asked questions where they need to be asked in meetings (and things like that). I am not the ‘real’ Marc yet, but that will come with time.

Actually I can’t stand anything more than people who start a job in a too confident maner (apart from racism, war, cancer etc You get the point though). You know the types, they stride in like they own the place on their first day and they interrupt conversations and interject with their views. I think you need to earn your stripes to do this. Fitting in somewhere should be a gradual process and you shouldn’t try and force yourself into things like you’re Tommy Try-hard. You need to suss out the lay of the land, work out the personalities and then where you fit in to the scheme of things. Having said all of that I did make a couple of gags when it came to introducing myself to the channel. That got a round of applause which shows that they appreciate good comedy here.

I also think (and I’m on my soapbox now) people shouldn’t have any holiday time for at least two months after they first join a company. You should earn the right for some time off. And people shouldn’t be off sick for at least a good few months to boot. If you do get really ill then you have to do the right thing and speak to your boss to ask if its ok to miss work. A colleague of mine had a new starter recently that took her second day at work off for some half baked reason, and she let him know via text message! Kids today – there is no discipline. It makes me so cross.

I’ve digressed haven’t I? The good news is that Emma and I have worked out that we don’t need to get onto the freeway at all on our journey to and from my work, and it only takes twenty minutes. How great is that? I now get up at 7:30ish readers. I have time for a good shower followed by a quick gander on the web for the UK news and what not. I then eat my breakfast with the wife (and we have a nice proper coffee made in a real coffee machine) before we leave just past eight thirty. I’m then in just before 9am, ready and raring to go at work. This makes such a massive difference than being in Blighty where I paid over a hundred pounds a month to get two trains to work that were the bane of my life. I had to get up just before 7am and I never had time for breakfast before an hour of cancellations and being squashed with stinky people occurred. Having said all that, I do (in a perverse way) miss ranting on the train to Sinead and James about that rail journey in question. I‘m sure they don’t miss me doing it but there you go.

During the week whilst I’m at work Emma has been ‘enjoying’ being a housewife. I think she thought that it would mean countless hours by the pool or on the beach (before she starts working in a couple of months). Whilst she has done a bit of this (I got some emails last week from the poolside as Em got an internet connection there) in reality the work of a housewife is never done. Emma has been busy doing shopping, cleaning and all of that type of thing. It’s been ace for me just having work to concentrate on and then being looked after at home, this will soon end though sadly. The lawyer types are working on Emma’s work permit so soon she will be joining me in gainful employment.

We didn’t go out much in the evening that week apart from multiple trips to the gym and a jaunt to the cinema. American cinemas are ace in that you get better and bigger screens, nicer seats and it’s a lot cheaper than back home. And believe it or not there are less adverts. All you get is more trailers which are often better than the film anyway. The only problem was that they don’t do sweet popcorn just the horrible salty stuff. I got a bit upset about this as I had been looking forward to some sweet popcorn all day. I complained to the woman to ask why they didn’t do it. She said “We just don’t sir”. I was about to start a rant about how Americans always go on about what great choice they have and how it can’t be that great if they can’t even do sweet popcorn. I stopped myself though for the sake of the wife. Instead, once over my strop, I made do with some salty stuff though which wasn’t as nice. We saw ‘Definitely, Maybe’ which was a Rom Com. Emma loved it, I pretended not too but it was dead good really.

All in all it was a good week blog fans. Now what fun and adventures would our second week bring? Stay tuned for that…

Marc x

p.s. I am going to talk about some myths at some point about Americans too. They certainly aren’t all stupid, they do get irony and they aren’t all bonkers patriots. More on my guide to Americans later.

The Eagle has landed.

2008-03-31T12:44:00.000-07:00

Now onto the blog that some of you have been waiting for, namely the one that incorporates Bill Eagles' Pool Party. This event has already gone done in infamy. Sadly not much really happened but read on as I may make some stuff up.

During the day Emma and I decided to do a dry run to my new place of work so see how long it would take. It's only ten miles away but due to traffic would it take hours? That's what all the scaremonger types were saying. The LA roads are infamous for being packed and slow moving. Our pretend journey was fine though and it only took twenty minutes. Only three miles of it is on the freeway (which is the really bad hotspot) so it went swimmingly. Would I be so lucky on Monday morning? Only time would tell eh road fans?

After the journey to my new place of work we went to a nearby diner and I got a turkey and stuffing sandwich. It was alright but the mad woman serving (and she was bonkers) put raisins and some weird sauce in it that I didn't like. Emma got a Caesar salad. The mad woman forgot the bread that went with it but Emma didn't mind as she didn't want it. That isn't the point though eh?

I purchased the Los Angeles Times to read over our lunch. It was ok and a bargain 50c (25p) but it was no Guardian. Now I know The Guardian can be a bit to worthy and woolly, and a lot of its writers try too hard but overall it's a good read. I read the LA Times in twenty minutes and this was the Saturday special with all the supplements. I don't think papers are the same here, and there is nothing like The Observer apparently. One of the great joys in my life is that I got up on Sunday morning as soon as I woke up to get the papers. I unashamedly get the News of The World (Em likes it, and I like the sport and the rest of its gibberish) and The Observer. I will then have a half hour squiz over breakfast but then I will come back to The Observer later on in the evening whilst Emma is watching some tripe like 'Where The Heart Is', 'Wild At Heart' or 'Heartbeart' (basically any ITV drama that transmits on Sunday at 8pm). I will miss the Sunday newspapers and their crazy supplements. I will read more books instead.

Anyway I digress, after that we went back to the apartment and did emails, watched TV, reading and that kind of jazz. It was then soon time to get ready for our night out with Cerise and Mark. They are friends of Les and Jim (the Carter boys) who moved to LA a couple of years back. Both are involved in big old movies, Cerise produces films and Mark does directing, set design, graphics and lots of other cool stuff. Anyway they took us to dinner on Abbot Kinney, to a lovely Italian restaurant that was ace. They were both brilliant fun and Mark told lots of funny anecdotes.

After a smashing dinner we went to Bill Eagle's Pool Party. Bill Eagles is a Hollywood director who has done things like C.S.I. Emma loves C.S.I. So she was dead impressed with that. We were going to get a cab to the party as we hadn't driven. Instead Mark and I got in the back of their sports car and squashed ourselves in whilst the ladies went in the front. Luckily Mr. Eagles didn't live to far away (only three miles or so) and we were soon at his house. His home was dead impressive and his pool looked steamy and hot. A bit later on a few bikini clad ladies went for a swim. Crazy!

Whilst there we met Oscar winning actresses and everything. I can't reveal too much as when you are in with the celebs like I am now anonymity is key. I have been asked if there was wife swapping and debauched behaviour. You lot have bad minds - that's all I can say. I should mention that there was a lovely selection of cheeses there. If I hadn't of eaten so much at dinner I would have got stuck in. There was also bowls of minstrels everywhere. I had a few of them. At one point Modern Love by David Bowie came on the soundsystem. I enjoyed that as it reminded me of my great rendition at my wedding.

Anyway there was a bar there with a barman and everything - so I had a few drinks and got talking to some film types. Before I knew it though it was the early hours and time to go home. We got a lift back from Mark and Cerise and I went to bed a bit on the tipsy side.

We had a very nice Sunday visiting the beach at Santa Monica and exploring around there, and we then came home for late lunch at an eatery on the Marina. It had been a lovely week but the next day was my first day at work. I went to bed feeling a bit sick and scared, but I was able to sleep as I imagined I was Doctor Who. This always puts my mind at ease. The minute I imagined I was traveling through space having crazy adventures I was at one with the world.