First Blog

20 May 2006
First Blog! Current mood: calm
First ever blog entry. Weird things these blogs. So much has been made of this "influential new medium of communication" and how it's a great way for the common man to express his views.
Don't be expecting anything too enlightening here!

I'm 28 for about another 3 months and I work in London doing PR for a videogames company. I live at home with my girlfriend in Surrey and that's really about it.

I used to be in a hard rock band, based in Brighton, when I lived in Crawley but gave it up after it clashed with my grim commuting and I wasn't able to make soundchecks for gigs. If you want to check out the old band's songs, visit the website at www.thedeadcelebs.com.

Visited the E3 games conference last week in LA. Still jetlagged. What an evil thing that is. Waking up after 8 hours of sleep and feeling like it was a cruel joke and you need 8 hours more before you can function normally.

Got back from LA on Monday and went to Barcelona on Tuesday to celebrate my girlfriend's birthday. Not been there before but it seemed nice. We were staying on a strip called "La Ramblas" in the centre of town. It was a bit touristy there, with street performers and the kind of costumed statuesque performers like the kind you get in Covent Garden. Had been warned about pickpockets and muggings, so we were unfortunately quite self conscious as we strolled around. The next day we took a open top bus tour around the city, which is really large. It's a cheesy thing to do but necessary if you've only got a short amount of time. The highlights of the tour were the Sagrada Familia (the unfinished cathedral by Gaudi) - it was massive and really quite spectacular. The other highlight was the view from Montjuic, with panoramic views of the city.

That evening we went for a nice meal - I had Ox Hamburger, which, although rather pink in the middle, was quality. We left the restaurant to go back to the hotel and were caught up in the celebrations for the Champions League. Car horns blaring, flags trailing from car windows and drunken fans flailing their limbs about in euphoria. As we got nearer to the hotel, it became clear that the scale of the celebration was more akin to a riot. The streets were FULL of drunken nutcases chanting and moving in a procession.

In the distance, beyond the hotel, we could see flares and fireworks at ground level. It seemed friendly enough, but with the amount of drunken people around, there was always the chance of bottles being thrown, so we hurried back to the hotel. When we got back, we heard loud bangs and sounds that seemed like gunshots. We got engaged shortly after.

Fast forward to now, it's Saturday evening and the pizza is in the oven with the beers are in the fridge. The Eurovision Song Contest is on soon and it's a toss-up between that and Broken Back Mountain.

Will let you know what won.