England 39 - 52 Barbarians, Twickenham

May 30th, 2005

An enthralling start to what turned out to be a very entertaining and thoroughly enjoyable day. We were, of course, down in Richmond to attend the celebrations of Tim and Zoes wedding, but due to a very nice coincidence, England just happened to be playing in the Tribco challenge match against the Barbarians the same afternoon. What to do… well, combine them of course! Off to the rugger, a quick pint on the river, then off to the reception… what a combo. continued…

Posted in Rants | No Comments

Jack Johnson, Shepherds Bush Empire

May 8th, 2005

One of the finest singer songwriters around at the moment, Jack played to a packed Shepherd’s Bush Empire on 5 May, and was received with… well, I was almost deafened when he appeared on stage.

Tickets for the gig were, apparently pretty difficult to get hold of, but thanks to some judicious use of the refresh button by a certain Mr. Richard Sellers (a thankyou, a thankyou, a thankyou), four of us managed to turn up, on time, with little ticket stubs in hand. The queues outside of couse had a heavily Australian contigent - not surprising as Jack is huge in the antipodes, and Shepherd’s Bush is… well, known for being a kangaroo state. However, it seems many didn’t have much luck - it became apparent a quite large proportion of people had fake tickets, supplied by touts (who were, according to a phone call from associates locked outside, found and… *cough*… dealt with). Jack seems to garner a certain breed of follower - perhaps because he’s relatively unknown still, people follow him with a little more zeal, as he’s almost “their” discovery. Hardly surprising that so many were pissed off when they found they’d been conned. continued…

Posted in Rants | No Comments