Entertainment

A regular reader of these jottings complained to me yesterday that of late there has been nothing to regularily read. Apologies. I shall try to make amends, starting now...

On Saturday evening I went to a gig. A fairly rare event these days, made even rarer by the fact that I went on the bus and therefore could get pissed. I'm having trouble remembering the last time I saw a band with the benefit of a decent intake of alcohol. Anyway, it was only a pub gig, but they were very good. Not only were they very good, but there were two support bands and they were very good too. As a formerly hairy rocker, it warmed the cockles of my heart to see young bands playing loud music, and playing it well.

I was particularily chuffed by the "headliners" (if you can use that term for a pub gig) - "The Wild Roses". An old acquaintance of mine from my former hairy days was on the train on Friday morning, and during the course of our conversation mentioned this band, and how they played good old fashioned late 80's style hair metal, in the style of Guns'n'Roses, Poison, Motley Crüe et al, and how they were very good and playing on Saturday night. And they did. It was as if Nirvana had never happened. What really gobsmacked me was their age, though. I was expecting a bunch of blokes my kind of age reliving their youth, but instead it was a bunch of early 20's blokes who would probably only just have been out of their pushchairs in the late 80's.

Yes, their entire act is one huge cliche from their name to their image, and their songs quite derivative (though the very same criticisms could be levelled most of the original hairmetal stuff too), but they are young and good at what they do. If you like that kind of stuff, they seem to play a bit around Birmingham, and you should go and see them. I'll be going again, I'm sure.

Also entertaining me this weekend was the TV, in particular, the return of my old favourite, Ray Mears. Yesterday evening, in the name of entertainment (or infotainment?) amongst other things he butchered a deer with flint, cooked shellfish in hot embers, and most impressive of all, chewed up poisonous bluebell bulbs ("don't try this yourself - they're poisonous") to make glue. Makes me glad for Sainsburys, the microwave and Araldite. Oh and matches as well. Although I suppose I'd never have started smoking if we still had to make do with flint, bits of metallic rock and tinder to get a light.

And tonight, more televisual entertainment - the marvellous "Look Around You" - the funniest thing on TV at 10 o'clock on a Monday evening all week!