The Blonde Kid will have his revenge. from James D Clarke on Vimeo. Check out the teaser trailer - full movie COMING SOON!

I've upgraded my blog to Wordpress version 2.5, so I thought I'd test the built in gallery function with a few photos from a recent stag do my brothers and I went on... [gallery]

My 'little' brother turns 18 at the end of the month and we've decided to put on a big party to celebrate. The plan is to hire a venue for late February (so Al is over 18 and can drink legally!) and put on a mixture of live music and food, along with some drinks and some DJ spun tunes. As part of the live music four fifths of my band 'Scrat' will be performing. Myself, both my brothers (Stat & Al), Dicko and Steve will be making up the numbers, however there's a slight line up change (and a name change) whilst Dave sits it out and prepares for his wedding and we're going to be joined by a very special guest.....my Dad! Now, Fishman (as we affectionately call him) has a history steeped in rock 'n' roll. He played in several bands when he was in his 20's back in 1970 something, including the infamous 'Mantis' who were once paid by a promoter not to perform the second half of their set during a gig at a bingo hall! In fact, Dad confessed last night that Status Quo were 'in his psyche' - so he's definitely the right man for the job! Last night was our first rehearsal and I haven't had so much fun for a long time. Not only was I playing music with both of my younger brothers, but my Dad was playing too! It was awesome! We decided to start off with a few covers and threw in some golden oldies that Fishman would know in the form of 'Teenage Kicks' (Undertones) , 'Rockin' All Over The World' (Status Quo), and 'Summer Of '69' (Bryan Adams) - which we were informed (somewhat ironically) by Dad was the year that he left school - perfect! To our collective surprise Dad picked things up really quickly considering he'd not played guitar for 20 + years (did I mention he was playing his custom built 70's Fender Tele copy, fresh from the loft?!) and before long we were rocking! He even began to let rip with some Clapton-esque riffage over the end of 'Summer Of '69' and at one point had us all in tears after attempting a Pete Townshend style jump mid-song, which ended up with Dicko burst into laughter! So that was our first rehearsal, it couldn't have gone any better. I really can't wait for Dad to get back from his week long holiday so that we can get back to rehearsing for the gig...this is going to be brilliant!

I've just posted some photos of Christmas so far - our second Christmas starts tonight as Jordan is back and expecting a visit from Santa, then tomorrow we have 16 people coming round for food...should be fun! Have a great New Year's Eve everyone! Check out my photos on my moblog here.

And so another Christmas Eve is upon us! Steph is (as usual) working a stupidly long shift at work, you have to feel sorry for her...she left before 7am this morning and probably won't be back until 7pm. Jordan is off to his Dad's later today and coming back just before New Year's Eve so we are without him for Christmas, something Steph really hates. We're planning on having two Christmases, one tomorrow and another on New Year's Day when Jordan returns. In a way he's lucky because he gets two Christmases, which when you're 8 years old means twice the presents, twice the fuss and attention, and generally being spoiled twice! Last night he got a bit upset that he wouldn't be with his Mom over Christmas, so having to alternate between two separated parents does have it's downsides, although he's pretty well adjusted and doesn't really know any different, so it doesn't really bother him very much from what I can see. Tonight Steph and I plan on staying at home together, we may have a few family members visit but it's going to be a pretty low key affair, which will be nice. I'm going to make a concerted effort to turn all the technology off and just sit and chat whilst sipping mulled wine, and maybe watch some crap TV while we're at it. Tomorrow morning we're seeing Steph's family; her folks, grandparents, sister, brother to exchange presents, then later in the day we'lll head over to my folk's house for Christmas Dinner and more present exchanging etc. My brother is staying with my folks at the moment as he's recovering from a recent operation (not the best Christmas present) and I've not see him since he had the op on the 17th, so we'll have chance to check out his scar! And check he's ok! On Boxing Day we'll no doubt have a quiet and lazy day until the evening when we go around to Mike & Nicky's to see the rest of the family; cousins, aunts, and uncles etc. Then it's back to the daily grind for Steph unfortunately. She'll be back to work and I'll have no work and no child to look after...I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to do with myself, but hopefully I'll be out and about visiting people instead of being stuck in front of the computer! Steph has 3 days off over New Year so she'll get a bit of a break then. We still haven't got any definite plans for New Year's Eve, we'll have Jordan back so it will no doubt be something local and it's going to have to be pretty low key as we're expecting 15 family members at ours for food on New Year's Day (Jordan's Christmas Day) so that's going to be rather hectic! I can't wait!

(This image was originally posted to moblog.co.uk by Steph) A couple of weeks ago we spent an afternoon at Silverstone, the home of British Motor Racing. By pure chance we 'won' a pair of tickets, so we headed down there (Steph, Jordan and I) along with my folks to see what was going on. Someone we knew loosely through Jordan's old school had made the tickets available in a competition and when the original winners were unable to attend, we were offered them. We spent the day sitting on the grass in the sunshine around various parts of the circuit. The place was pretty deserted (I get the feeling it's only ever packed out for the Formula One Grand Prix), so there was plenty of space for Jord to run about and enjoy himself, and plenty of angles for Steph to take photos. We visited the circuit cafe next to the paddock, ate ice cream and generally had a very pleasant day. After watching numerous types of cars racing, from mini coopers, to classic 60's cars to jedis (which resembled mini F1 cars) the final race of the day was upon us. Tony (the chap who had donated the tickets) was lined up on the grid in his distinctive blue and white striped car - we should have seen the writing on the wall when we noticed he was 13th on the starting grid. Before long the warm up lap began, and a couple of minutes later the cars filed past us one by one (we were in one of the grandstands at this point) with Jordan going nuts shouting 'come on Tony!' perched upon my shoulders. As the lights on the grid turned to green, the roar of engines intensified and they were off! We saw them disappear out of sight and awaited our next glimpse of the pack - before long we spotted the first car appearing around a corner, then the second, the third and so on. Jordan was on tenderhooks looking for Tony, Steph's camera was aimed and ready, I was looking for the distinctive blue and white stripes...but something was not quite right. Within a few seconds the entire pack had come past us, but there was no sign of Tony! Seconds later red flags were being waved by the track marshals and the commentator announced "Red flag! We have a car in a dangerous position on the track!". Tony! The race was stopped and everyone lined up on the grid again. Everyone that was, except for Tony. Poor, poor, Tony. He had waited all day for his chance to race - we'd waited half the day (although we enjoyed ourselves while waiting) and what happened? Someone rammed him from behind on the first lap of the race! The remaining cars finished the race, but it was stopped again before the end, so it wasn't much of a race in the end - just a few laps around half of the circuit. We bumped into Tony on our way back to the car and commiserated with him. He seemed a little put out, but philosophical - the important point being that he was ok and his car was ok, which is what we were concerned about! All in all we had a great day and I think we'll be going back to Silverstone at some point! [tags]Silverstone, Racing, Motor Sport[/tags]

I'm blogging from the garden once again - today we bought a rather splendid set of garden furniture! After touring numerous home/DIY stores for a number of hours, we finally settled on a set which includes a large glass top table, 6 chairs (enough for guests) and a very cool parasol which winds up and down. All we need now is some real summer weather so we can spend some more time outside! I love being able to work outside during the week so I'm sure the furniture with get plenty of use! Here's hoping for some sun! [tags]Garden,Outdoors,Furniture[/tags]