A lot of people think I live my life by Oasis, which is fair enough. I didn’t miss a single gig of theirs in Scotland between 2002 and their sad demise. But at the same time, I’ve never bought into the whole “dress like them, act like them” lifestyle so many Oasis fans seem to embody.

I like to be myself (I can’t be no-one else), a non-descript almost student type, and abhor the drunken-druggie style a number of my fellow Oasis fans seem to prefer.

For the record, I don’t by any means think the Oasis story is over. Despite all the press and whatever, I remain convinced they’ll get back together sometime. We’ll see though.

Of course, the whole split thing meant Liam and Noel would be doing seperate things. And so it’s proved.

I actually loved the Beady Eye album, but that might have a lot to do with the fact I love Andy and Gem’s songwriting, rather than the fact it’s Liam’s band. Both Andy Bell and Gem Archer are exceptional songwriters, and during the past ten years, their songs tend to be among my preferred of the Oasis canon.

Indeed, the best song on “Different Gear, Still Speeding” in my humble opinion, of course, is Kill For A Dream. It’s an Andy composition, surprise. And here was me thinking I was bound to prefer a Gem (who I’ve met) effort.

Surprisingly, the best efforts seem to come from B-sides. Sons of the Stage (cover) is a proper rocker, while I challenge anyone not to think “In The Bubble With A Bullet” is a choon.

Best of the lot, though, is “World Outside My Room”. It sounds like The Kinks, but without being as overbearing and cheesy as “The Importance Of Being Idle”. Yeah, I like it.

And now, we hear the first of Noel’s material. Well, I say we hear it now, we’ve all heard “I Wanna Live In a Dream (In My Record Machine)” and the fabled “Stop The Clocks”.

So, what do I think of Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds’ “The Death Of You And Me?” Well. There seem to be a lot of comparisons to “The Importance Of Being Idle”, but I much prefer thinking of it as a chilled out relative of “Round Are Way”.

It just seems… similarly fun. Which is a good thing. I’ll be intrigued to hear more. Yet it’s still… well, Noel. Looking forward already to the tour in October.

Here’s a brief synopsis of my life of late. Drinking, City winning cups, working, drinking, working more, drinking more, gigs (encapsulating drinking), coming second at quizzes, making plans, ruining plans by buying a second car…

Which is why I’m blogging. The Mini now has a companion! Being the sensible adult I am, Red Dwarf developed an(other) issue, so I bought a (hopefully) more reliable companion for it. Despite having nowhere to store the Mini. I’ve not fixed the issue, and have an MOT (and tax, insurance) due in August. Whoops.

If you remember when I bought Red Dwarf, almost two years ago, I couldn’t even drive, so this is hardly a surprise. Whims I am accustomed to.

So, the plan is that Red Dwarf will go into some form of hibernation, and I will drive the new thing (an 05-plate VW Golf) while carrying out essential maintenance. And looking for a flat in Aberdeen, rather than being in Kemnay. Yes, I’m made of money, apparently.

Motor II

It’s all a bit exciting, innit?

I’ve already been on the AmD Milltek website, sadly they have nothing for the 1.6 FSI. Kents.

Now, this thing where I have two cars which need tax/MOT/insurance in August… Whoops.

All this amid the background of my work being taken over, and a (hopefully) increased workload. Woo!

I’ve worked at Pittodrie before so know the script. There’s a wireless network there, so I’m able to work off the laptop to fulfil the copy requirements of:

120-150 words before the kickoff
Another 120-150 midway through the first half
up to 200 at half-time, to include a brief summary as an intro
Another 120-150 midway through the second half
Up to 200 again at the full-time whistle
A 600 word consolidated report ASAP after full-time

It sounds a lot of work, but it’s managable, and the requirement to send updates through piecemeal makes it easier to concentrate on the writing.

I arrived in plenty of time, before the team-sheets were even out, so was well ahead of schedule, whipped out the laptop and wrote the first piece of copy. I hadn’t been able to connect to the internet through the wi-fi connection but figured that as I was ahead of the game I’d have time to resolve any issues.

I’d had problems with the internet flaking out the last time I’d been at the Dungheap, but refreshing the browser had seen the connection come back, so I thought this may be the case. Unfortunately not.

By now, I was under pressure and decided to retype what I already had into the iphone, and email it through that. time-consuming, but eventually I got it through. The alternative would be to phone through the copy, which takes forever and isn’t really feasible in the noisy environment of a football stadium, even though it was less than a third full.

Still unable to connect to the wifi, and having also tried a BT Openzone hotspot I was detecting from somewhere, I realised I was going to have to repeat the process for all my copy throughout the game.

I don’t have a word processing app, so continued to type everything up on the laptop in order to use that functionality, but as I was going along I was also typing everything into emails on the phone and, once sent, copied the text into Notes so it’d be there for the full-time copy.

As it turned out, this worked well and allowed me to put through all the copy, bar the first piece which was slightly delayed, in a timely manner and meet all the deadlines.

The phone also acted as my stopwatch as it normally does when I’m working at games, and also the voice recorder for post-match quotes, so essentially an all-in-one productivity device for football reporting.

It’s not perfect, but as a backup solution it certainly did what was required, and with a bit of research and fine tuning, I’m sure it would be possible to find a suitable word processing app with word count feature.

The only failing as far as I could find, was that the voice recorder and notes apps, even with multitasking, are unable to run side by side, so it would be unsuitable for typing up a quotes piece without a second device of some form.

That said, I’m off to buy a mobile broadband dongle as a backup…

Still just a teenager, she played at the Homecoming Scotland Burns Supper last year, and followed a tour with Stornoway earlier in 2010 with a number of festival appearances. She is booked to play next year’s Celtic Connections festival.

It was on the Stornoway tour that I first saw Rachel, and was instantly taken by the contrast between her strong delivery of her songs and the slightly nervous chat in between.

In the intervening months, she has clearly become more comfortable with that aspect of her shows, and through the night we learn that she’s a bit of a dreamer and, with a little assistance from the crowd, that being asleep is “the only time you really know yourself”.

But that’s a wee bit deep for the back of eleven on a Thursday night, and Snafu was happy just to allow Rachel to captivate us all with her soaring voice.

A lolloping rendition of Pirate Song sets the tone but I’m most impressed with The Burger Van Song, a frustrated riposte at a difficult customer Rachel experienced while spending a week working in a Burger Van.

What connects these songs is that they’re the ones that seem a bit more experimental and allow Rachel to stretch her voice a little more.That feeling of experimentation is also evident in The Circus Song, which seems to reference the likes of KT Tunstall.

Throughout her set there’s a sense Rachel is genuinely appreciative, not just of the small but attentive crowd who have turned out, but also of the talent she has. She tackles this in Ever Since The Chocolate, a song written at a time when she had lost her voice and was unable to sing.

A 40-ish minute set comes to an end with a touching rendition of Song To A Fox, written after seeing one of said animals for the very first time last year.

Rachel performed Bones for BalconyTV back in May:

She’s on Myspace at: http://www.myspace.com/RachelSermanni

Clearly, though, they have picked up on the perfect term for the dirty reds from the wrong side of Manchester, as evidenced by their headline about Rooney’s seemingly imminent departure from the crusty claws of Sir Awex:

Somehow I don’t think this Formula Ford car was meant to come round that corner at that speed and at that height, let alone BACKWARDS!

And so, my next load of gigs is coming up. In the next wee while I have…

This Month:
Hold Your Horse Is + Shoes and Socks Off + Shakedown Project + Transmata + Del Noble. Note, Del is a top bloke.
Sky Larkin + Deportees + Min Diesel. Two of the best bands in Aberdeen, and Sky Larkin? YAS!
Oceansize + This Town Needs Guns. Seen both before, maybe I’ll remember them this time…
Mark Morriss from the Bluetones. I’ve somehow never seen the Bluetones, but looking forward to seeing Mark. How have I not seen the Bluetones?!?!
Manic Street Preachers + British Sea Power. MSP + BSP = entertianing, I’m sure. Strangely looking forward to BSP more…

Next Month:
A wee trip to Fife to see blog favourites the Deportees with A Genuine Freakshow, followed by the same bands in Abz the following day. Hopefully with a cup semi-final in between!

Further ahead, I’ve got Motorhead, Godspeed You! Black Emperor, and two, yes two, Mogwai gigs (Edinburgh and Manchester, baby!). Hoping to add BRMC to the list shortly. Busy times!

Oh… Yes, you’re right.

It’s a mark of how far the safety systems deployed in motorsport have come, that fatalities are thankfully so much less common nowadays, and today has shown just that with a number of incidents.

Lets start with a near miss. Michael Schumacher comes close to forcing his former team-mate and all-round good egg Rubens “Faster than The Stig” Barrichello into a solid concrete wall. I know Schumacher was “outed” as The Stig a couple of series ago, but to take revenge like this is a wee bit too far:

Now, take a look at this from the Superleague Formula. The guy apparently got away with nothing more than a broken leg:

Over in America, a guy called Elliot Sadler was able to climb out of his car after hitting a wall so hard, the engine detatched from the front of his car:

Finally, it seems that even motorbikes have become safer, either that or it was just VERY fortunate that of the two guys involved in this, one suffered a concussion and the other a broken collarbone:

Crazy.

Now, I know the Star is to journalism what McDonalds is to nouvelle cuisine, but… really? They really printed that? They honestly printed that in a bid to sell some papers? I didn’t think even the despicable Richard Desmond would stoop so low as that.

For years the games industry has been saddled with this “killing people on a screen makes you kill people in the world” nonsense (how many people have you killed after playing an FPS?), and it just doesn’t ring true. Yes, people who’ve played games have killed people, but only because they were mad as tits beforehand, not because they blasted a few asteroids or zapped those space invaders. How many Pac-Man fans have actually eaten people (after a pair of cherries, of course)?

For the Star to now turn that round and suggest Rockstar will cash in on Moat’s atrocities is completely ridiculous. It’s a real low for tabloid journalism, not that their moral standing was all that high to begin with.

I hope the PCC really go to town on this one, and that Rockstar’s lawyers are baying for blood.