my hubbie's running the London marathon!!

My lovely husband Ulen is going to be running the 2008 London Marathon to raise funds for Volunteer Reading Help. This charity trains and supports volunteers to go into schools to support disadvantaged children who are having reading difficulties. If you can, please sponsor him, however little - it all helps!

Ulen's never done anything like this before so preparing and training for the marathon is going to be a huge challenge for him - you can follow his progress and leave him a supportive note in his blog at madasaboxoffrogs

You can also sponsor him at JustGiving.com/madasaboxoffrogs

Gig review - The Winchell Riots, Zodiac, Oxford

The Winchell Riots are fast becoming my new favourite band. Rising from the ashes of the magnificent Oxford band Fell City Girl, The Winchell Riots have a harder rockier edge but vocalist Phil's voice still has its softer sweeter moments that make this a band full of passion and variety.

Their second gig was at truck Festival and was marred by some dodgy acoustics in The Barn, but their third gig - at the newly refurbished Zodiac, supporting iLiKETRAiNS, was far better and really demonstrated the talent this band has. One to watch out for!

Incidentally, I didn't take to iLiKETRAiNS at all - too little variety in what they did, which was, on the whole, deeply depressing and dull, if professionally performed. Not one for me, I'm afraid, and neither was the other support band, A Girl Called Calla, who were too experimental in that some of what they did worked but most didn't. What's with the screaming because you've dropped your harmonica, FFS?!

And while we're talking music, check out The Race's new stuff ..... I'm really looking forward to their second album!

Keep on Trucking!

The weekend was fab, we went to the rescheduled Truck Festival and it was ace! Saw lots of really good bands, some I already knew (like Goldrush and Electric Soft Parade, who were both amazing) and some new ones (including Low Fi Culture Scene, a group of 13 and 14 year olds who ROCKED!). The weather was good, sunny all Saturday and a bit drizzly Sunday evening but not enough to get us wet. The kids were well behaved, Katie loved the bands, Dan spent all his time in the playbus or learning Diablo and Loz made crafty things in the kids tent. A bit weird being at a festival so late in the year but well done to the Truck boys for getting it on!!

Truck Festival, woohoo!!

This should have been a free weekend, but because of the video above, we're off to the Truck Festival, for what looks like being a really good weekend - so long as it doesn't rain!!!

BBC NEWS | Programmes | Real Story | Recyclers' rubbish dumped abroad

BBC NEWS | Programmes | Real Story | Recyclers' rubbish dumped abroad

I found this story, about recycled waste from the UK heading to a false address in Indonesia, very shocking. We meticulously sort through our rubbish each week to make sure that everything that can be recycled, is. What's the point, if unscrupulous councils are just shipping it off to be dumped across the sea somewhere?

Aargh what a cock up

Aaaargh I am so angry with myself.

It just occurred to me this afternoon that the company that prints my magazine hadn't let me know when the proofs were online for me to check - I only thought about it now because I had an email from them on a vaguely related matter. So I decided to have a quick look anyway, even though the magazine has already been printed, waited ages for the file to download (I send individual page PDFs which are put together into one big file) and then discovered that for some reason the logo on one of the ads (full page, new client) has disappeared.

My fault entirely - it's happened somehow when I re-did all the pages to add my new phone number and I've not looked at the top of the page, only the bottom - where the number was - so it means Blakes Wine Bar now have this lovely ad that doesn't actually mention their name.

Oddly no one at the printers picked it up and I've just asked them why I didn't get asked to check the proofs as usual and apparently because I sent the pages through a bit later because of changing the number there wasn't time for the proofing process - although they said it was fine me sending things a day late.

AAAAARGH!!!!!

So now I'm going to have to go in to see the client and grovel and offer them a full refund (well, not to pay as they haven't yet) and promise faithfully to get it right next issue.

Gutted ....... can't believe I've screwed up so badly. :(

NobodyHere

I did post about the amazing site NobodyHere ages ago, but it deserves another mention. I don't really know what the point is - maybe there isn't a point, that's the point - but it's a great place to have a play around in if you don't want to actually do anything meaningful!

The Wispa is coming back!

BBC NEWS | Business | Web campaign prompts Wispa return

Saturday nights are never going to be the same again!!

I LOVE Wispas! When I was a teenager Mum and I often treated ourselves on a Saturday night to a good film and a Cadbury's Wispa. Since it disappeared nothing has quite come close to it in terms of delicious fluffy chocolateness but it's coming back!!!

Apparently its return, in October, is due to an internet campaign (power to the people!) but it's only back for a limited period (23 million bars) - unless sales are high enough to justify its permanent return. So guess what I'll be buying by the boxful next month .......

Rail deaths, very sad

BBC NEWS | England | Essex | Probe over second railway death

This is such a sad story. I heard about the disappearance of Natasha Coombs when I was on holiday in Cromer - it was one of the few news stories of the summer that stod out for me because we used to go through Manningtree on the train on the way to Cromer every year on our family holiday - my dad always used to joke about us looking out for "Man in tree" as we went through.

I actually cried when I watched the press conference with Natasha's parents - being the mother of a beautiful teenage daughter I could really empathise with them - and followed the story through to the finding of Natasha's body.

For her mother to die at the same spot is tragic. Presumably she killed herself - what mother could carry on living without their child? - but I feel so, so sorry for the father.

Gutted :( Mourinho leaves Chelsea

BBC SPORT | Football | My Club | Chelsea | Mourinho makes shock Chelsea exit

I am absolutely gutted. Not since Vialli was sacked have I felt so sad about what's happened at my club. Okay, so Jose is arrogant, but he brought something to Chelsea that Abramovich's millions could never bring - team spirit, camaraderie and fun. So we haven't played the most entertaining football but we've been winners and that's something that every Chelsea fan has been crying out for for years. And I know that the last few games haven't reaped great reward, but you can't win every game, can you?

I'm very very sad today :(

Restarting my blog

I'm starting to find my private diary site a bit tedious (nothing exciting happens in my life any more!) and am confused by the complexities of Facebook so I'm going to try and use this blog more to comment on news, sport and websites. There's been so much going on lately that I've got an opinion on but I haven't recorded my thoughts. I know no one actually reads this stuff anyway so what the hell, I can say what I like!

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Alison

My favourite places:
www.uk.freecycle.org  
www.bookcrossing.com/friend/chelseagirl
http://chelseagirl1.multiply.com/
or find me on facebook.com
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We can't all be heroes: someone needs to sit on the kerb and clap as they go by.
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