JasonBlog

Promising news headline leads into ultimately disappointing story...

Imagine my sadness...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7390109.stm

Tim - the trilogy is complete.

Tornado video

This is amazing footage of a tornado - no sound on it though http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/7393030.stm

Gratuitous clip of money to make you go aaaaaaaaaaaaaahh!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/7379372.stm

It's too cute for words, and an ever-so-easy blog post to make it look as though I have time to do this sort of thing at the minute.

Blog post expected soon

How hard can it be? Won't be long...I'm working on lots of different things at the moment.

Murder most fowl

I was proceeding in a northerly direction at a speed of approximately 70mph when a young pheasant attempted to take off over the road just in front of me. I crossed its flight path and the results were catastrophic for the pheasant and not wonderfully fun for me either. I had to pull this startled and recently expired bird out of the front of my car. Eughh. Traumatic for all involved.

Newbiggin by the Steam

This afternoon, Toni forced us all to go for a walk - and you know, we're quite glad she did because it was good to get out and have a walk along the shore with the kids and Kieran. When we got down to the beach the combination of recent rain and sudden warm sunshine made the whole beach into a steamy misty expanse that looked very strange and eerie.

The tide was out so we went and had a look in the rock pools. Not much to see in the way of wildlife, but nice to have an explore anyway. On our way back we bumped in to Derek and Margaret, Toni's mum and dad, and they walked back along with us. We're lucky to live somewhere like this - and I can't wait for this summer because more people will find out how nice Newbiggin is. There's a good season of activities ahead this year - and we should soon have our own range of branded merchandise and a village guide too.

A prickly visitor

Last night we had a visit from a fast hedgehog. When we first saw it it was in the middle of the road outside our house. It was so fast that we could only take a picture of it. I tried to get it into our pet carrier so that the kids could see it in the morning, but by the time I'd gone in to get it it was too late! So they'll have to make do with this picture. Rebecca has called it Prickly. I bet Sparky would have liked it - and he really liked the pet carrier at tea time - and jumped inside and went to sleep. And we were having Kebab for tea and there was some leftovers so we gave one to him. I think the hedgehog spent the night in the thorny hedge at Argyle Terrace.

This blog was written by Rebecca and Jason!

I played at St James' Park professionally at the weekend

It wasn't football though it was music. Soul Doubt was playing a charity gig (I don't usually talk about my charity work, but this time I was paid in full at the expense of poorly orphans so I'm prepared to give them a name check) for Children North East.

If you're a musician or performer and are engaged to play at The Magpie Suite in Newcastle's St James' Park, I advise yo to take transport so that you can get your gear from the nearest lift to the room. It's a very long way and we were absolutely shattered before we even started setting up. Badly planned building, yet strangely impressive. Chris Gray our lovely trombone player entertained us all by playing the Close Encounters alien tune to a totally empty stadium, and the echo was amazing. Not sure what the locals thought though.

Also entertaining the posh rich selflessly giving punters was magician, contortionist and escapologist Chris Cross, an 18 year old Newcastle lad who is making a name for himself in the world of entertainment. He showed us a few tricks in the green room, and generally kept us entertained. See a short documentary about him below:

It was a good gig, but we didn't start until 11pm when a totally inebriated Mike Elliott introduced us - just about. We played our fast one hour set, with Chris Cross doing a few shoulder dislocations and straight jacket escapes in the middle. Typical evening really.

Positive daubings

I saw this on a wall in Ashington. I thought it was nice that a vandal should care so much about how we feel.

Itching for a Barbie

Er...not the girls doll. I mean a barbecue. We're currently searching for the ultimate portable barbecue so that we can use it at home, or take it to other lovely places and enjoy the unique taste of food that burned on the outside and still raw or even frozen on the inside - as is The British Way.

I think this started a couple of days ago when we were searching on line and noticed a thing that looked like a steamer, but they were selling as a Fire Bowl - well we had a steamer just like this except with holes in it, so as a test we took it into the back yard (which resembles a building site since that's what it is at the moment) and lit a small fire in it. It worked well, and since the fire was there, the kids toasted marshmallows on it.

Last night to up the ante, we did it again at the other end of the yard, and put 4 breeze blocks around the fire and a grate over the top and tried it out as a barbecue, sacrificing a few sausages and burgers to it in a semi-experimental way. At first we were using wood, but this created a huge amount of smoke, so we found an old disposable bbq and put the charcoal from it onto our fire. That was better but not as hot. But it worked, and in only a few hours we had perfectly charred sausages and burgers, sitting amongst the bricks and building debris. It was more fun than it sounds. There was so much smoke the kids were wearing their swimming goggles, and there was something strangely post-apocalyptic about it in ambiance.

We hereby announce the the barbecue season officially open.