r the end of the world as some would have it.

After a week of that, and having some pictures in the local newspapers ‘Snow watch’ its back to busy busy busy. Got a few things on and working on some paintings, hope to update the gallery on here soon. Its been far too long. Then theres the shop page. Should really sort that out. What I really need is some kind of 168 hour weekend. Anyway, heres the snow watch pictures in a size where you can see them properly. May have overdone it with the filter on the first two.

The following quote did make me laugh

THESE beautiful pictures of Bromsgrove were taken by Chris Hathway and clearly show how beautiful the town looked during the wintry weather.

Its taken me three trips to the local park so far to find places that aren’t either over ridden with signage, full of street furniture that isn’t really suited to a park, it being ’street’ furniture, or thats a nice view ruined by one of the varied coloured dog poo bins which are placed in the most random manner posible, in fact, maybe a second post to follow.

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eally, its not a joke…

Does that even make sense? Okay, so this one does…

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umber ten in the series of near regular roadside photos.

This was taken with a TTV contraption, inspired to have a go by Pete Ashton’s pictures, and taken on a snowy winters morn outside the Bear’s Head in Brereton, Sandbach. I was checking the pubs name online, and it seems a lot of the pubs in the area are named after parts of a bears anatomy, The Bear’s Paw, The Black Bear Inn, The Beartown Tap, wonder why?

More updates soon. I’m just finishing off my second flu bug of the winter and I think two is quite enough for this year.

umber eight in the series of very occasional roadside photos. I suppose strictly this is an under the roadside photo as it was taken on floor one of the Arcadian Centre car park on Bromsgrove Street in Birmingham.

ell, I dare say I’ve built up enough quite enough suspense around my trip to the Royal Albion Hotel and the Colour out of Space festival weekend in Brighton.

The verdict? Well, I was happy enough with what we got for the money on the hotel front. I would have been less than happy if we’d paid the listed price for the rooms, some £200 over what we did pay. However for £30 a night you could put up with the stained carpet, damaged furniture and the hole in the wall ‘repaired’ by someone stuffing toilet paper in it – not that successful a substitute for Polyfilla it transpires. To be fair the breakfast there was good, the bar much as I remembered, I think it was even the same mostly absentee mute barman there and it was well placed for the Sallis Benney Theatre / University of Brighton where the fourth Colour out of Space was being held…

This was my first Colour out of Space, described as ‘three days of unstructured, experimental sound and art drawn from an international subculture of musicians, artists and filmmakers’ I suppose I should have noticed that there was no ‘music’ as such included in the description and adjusted my expectations appropriately.

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‘m not sure if they did get the name from the lovecraft short story but I’m off to Brighton’s fourth annual COLOUR OUT OF SPACE weekend/festival/unstructured event period.

Booked a room in The Royal Albion Hotel in Brighton. I had a very pleasant time in the bar there with several late afternoon drinks a few years ago and remember it being a nice bar in a swish looking hotel right by the pier. Some of the reviews and room photos I’ve seen since I booked have me a little worried. Fingers crossed and all that…

hugely enjoyable show from Billy Childish and the Musicians of the British Empire at the Boston last month. It seems to be going through a quiet period there at the moment so well worth a trip along. He’s playing on Friday 18th and again next month on the 16th[That ones off apparently], In fact pretty much every month, the newsletter from www.dirtywaterclub.com is probably the best way to follow the dates.

Also I see The Wildebeests have there much anticipated, by me, album launch party there on the 25th September. Might try to make it along to that.

I’ve been seeing shows there on and off for, well, quite a few years now. Ever since a good friend of mine used to phone me drunkenly from the phone box up the road, pre mobile phone era, to say what a great show he’d just seen. Actually I was only thinking this morning how nobody phones me drunkenly from gigs anymore. Is this a sign of fast approaching middle age?

umber seven in the series of roadside photos. Here is should be the view of the Aran Mountains on a sunny foggy August afternoon.

I was checking up on the upcoming UK dates from Wreckless Eric and Amy Rigby and came across Erics new radio show.

Its passes the two requirements of ‘good’ music radio in my book; One, The presenter isn’t annoying, in fact Eric has a great line in amusing assides as anyone whos seen his live shows or read his book will know, and Two, I ended up buying a CD from a band I’d not heard of before after listening to it. Result.

You can ‘tune in’ here for as long as it continues.