Straight Up!

In all my time on this planet I've never been up in a helicopter. Until today, that is.

We met up with a friend of ours and his young lady for a sumptuous three course lunch at Hintlesham Hall in Suffolk, and Peter being Peter decided to eschew public transport and instead helicopter down from the wilds of Yorkshire where he is sometimes based to his work premises in London. Handily this meant he could drop out of the sky a few miles from us, giving me an excuse to take a day off and for us all to meet him for lunch.

It's always great catching up - the last time we saw each other was at a villa in Portugal in February, but his suggestion that the pilot, Steve, take us up for a quick buzz of our house was an unexpected bonus, and so we found ourselves crossing the Suffolk/Essex border at 900 feet to look down on where we live.

The ride itself was fantastic. We hardly knew that we had taken off, such was the smooth ascent (though the ground rapidly moving away was something of a giveaway), and hurtling through the air, watching the cars crawl like ants along the ribbon thin roads, trying to spot familiar sights from a whole new angle was exhilarating.

I must admit I had a slight trepidation about asecnding in a metal dragonfly, but once strapped in and filled with confidence by the fact that Steve was ex-RAF and had flown a few of these things in his time, the experience was one of the better ones I've had in recent years.

The pseudo freedom of hurtling through the air with only a glass screen to protect us from the elements was unlike anything I've ever been party to. Sat in the body of an airliner you barely know you're airborne, but here, strapped into the front seat I could see everything.

All too soon the ride was over, and we engaged in our delightful lunch, but it's definitely an experience that I want to repeat.

The K-erching! of Pop

I suppose it was inevitable, but even so, it causes the bile to rise at the back of my throat.

Michael Jackson, as you might have heard, is dead. The King of Pop has moonwalked his way to the great gig in the sky and now the real business has begun of selling his death to the masses.

It’s nothing new, of course. Ever since The King (no assignation needed) checked out of Heartbreak Hotel the money makers have been quick to cash in and milk the grieving fans for all they are worth. The same thing happened with Cobain, Mercury, Lennon and lest we forget the Queen of our Hearts, Diana Spencer.

Somehow, though, and perhaps because no entertainer since Elvis has permeated society and culture in the way the Jackson did, the frenzy surrounding his death seems particularly distasteful.

Here in the UK a popular ‘chat’ magazine called OK! Has produced its version of a Jackson tribute issue and to show their love and admiration for one of the greatest entertainers of recent times they’ve not gone with the obvious picture from his finest years, nor one of him as a doting father, nor even one of his recent visit to London to announce his record breaking run of shows at the O2.

No, instead they’ve gone with a close up shot of him on a stretcher, oxygen mask strapped to his gaunt face, being wheeled into an ambulance, and if reports are to be believed that he had stopped breathing some time before that, technically dead. Yep, OK magazine really love and respect him.

The other notable cynical ply to tap into the grief of the hardcore Jackson fans comes from the promoter, AEG Live, who have come up with a ruse to attempt to minimise their losses from refunding upwards of £50 million in ticket sales that would be laughable if it weren’t so sickening.

Knowing that the ‘true’ Jackson fans will want some final memento to remember their hero by, they are making the kind offer of allowing the fans to be sent the original tickets for the gig, a hologram encased in plastic designed by Jackson himself, in return for waiving their right to a refund.

Now, given that the average ticket price was somewhere between £50 and £75, and that the tickets themselves must have cost all of a pound at most to produce (and probably considerably less given that there will have been approximately one million of them produced), this is nothing but a shameless ploy to play on the emotions of the diehard fans who will want to have something to remember the night they never saw their hero.

These examples are but two of many that I’m sure we’ll see over the next few weeks, the most obvious being the currently in production DVD of the tour rehearsals that will no doubt be released ‘because the fans demanded it’, but the one saving grace is that Jackson himself, whatever you thought of him, is not around to suffer anymore at the hands of those who seek nothing more than to exploit him.

Red Rumps and Red Planets

It was a weekend of sadness and joy, of loss and of sharing.

Friday brought the terrible news that our beloved red rump parakeet Ruby had reached the point where her chest infection, which had seen her spend three days in an oxygen tent at the beginning of the week, had reached the end of the line, and so with very heavy hearts we agreed to the vet's advice that the kindest thing would be to have her put down.

Those of you who have or have ever owned pets will no doubt feel the same pang of loss, of sorrow that descended on us, and those who never have will wonder what all the fuss is about, but the fact remains that we will miss Ruby's unique character, her personality, her look of absolute hatred at me whenever it was time to capture her and clip her nails, and her melodious tones that used to serenade us from dawn until dusk.

Spark, her partner, is doing a grand job of filling in the missing notes, and has set about adopting us as his flock now that he's on his own in the cage. We're only too happy to oblige.

Saturday brought smiles as we ventured up to the O2 arena to see Jeff Wayne's The War of the Worlds in all its live glory. It was my third time, and the best yet, not only because of the enhanced special effects, but because I got to share it with the people who mean the most to me, Deborah, Kez and Tav.

Such is life, though, the ups and the downs, the peaks and the troughs, the deaths and the martian invasions, all of which make it a wonderful experience, best shared with loved ones.

Good Times

Time, once again, flies by at an unfeasible rate of knots.

The last four weeks have seen a myriad of great things happen. We spent the weekend in London with friends from LA, Fangoria turned 30, Tav has had his final day of compulsory schooling, I've finished the second revision of the book, and we are all off to see Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds live at the O2 Arena this Saturday.

Good times.

Since the last entry I've found myself writing entries in my head, but I must discipline myself to actually translate these thoughts to the screen rather than keep them to myself.

I have flashes of memories that seem relevant. Like discovering issue 49 of Fango in a dark and dingy newagents in Nottingham in 1984, or standing staring at the sea in the darkness listening to yearzero for the first time, or the first time I fell asleep with Deborah in my arms.

All things that are forever resident in my mind, and that make me what and who I am.

Good times. And may there be many more to make many more memories.

Thank You....

.... for believing in me
.... for accepting that my faults and flaws are part of what make me me
.... for understanding that behind this man mask there is a playful, shy, loving little boy
.... for helping me to change the things I can and live with the things I can't
.... for making me happy, content and secure
.... for being patient when I am infuriating
.... for forgiving me when I am thoughtless and selfish
.... for making this life a wonderful thing to live through
.... for filling the .dark. shaped hole that I never realised was in my heart

.... but most of all ....

Thank you for being you, with me.

That Was April That Was

Amazing, isn't it, how time flies when you're under the weather!

In the middle of April I travelled over to Holland to board a container ship for a voyage from Rotterdam to Tilbury. For two nights and two days myself and a colleague were given free reign of the huge ship, but even though the Captain and crew were very friendly and willingly showed us the workings of the vessel, after about twelve hours it felt like being in prison, with Julien and I confined to the passenger recreation quarters watching endless DVDs and smoking too many cigars.

All in all a great experience, but not one I'm in a hurry to repeat.

Much better was my birthday. I was totally surprised to receive a Nintendo DSi and so for the last week or so have been playing Brain Training and GTA Chinatown Wars. Great fun.

I also got taken out for a meal, which just happened to be one of my favourites - a huge rack of smoky BBQ ribs! Absolute heaven!

So, as April draws to a close and I enter the final year of my thirties, I'm also entering the final stretch of editing for the book, and to top it all we're off to see the awesome Dan Reed again next week in London.

So, until May......

H to the B

Happy Birthday my .girl.

Love ya!
x x x x x