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hanging out with josh radin, originally uploaded by benaston.

As any self respecting tourist would, on the day after Canada Day, today we took a trip on the wild side and made it all the way into Vancouver. It was indeed a wild time; for starters, my flip flop broke so I had to go all hippy and go bare foot; like a bear with no bearskin..

The hippyness didn’t end there though. After crepes, bellinis, honey lagers (not as good as Fullers) and more food, we stood in a line for a long time outside the Commodore Ballroom waiting for tickets for Joshua Radin and the uber hip Xavier Rudd.

It was good to see Josh again. In fact, as you can see, these days we’re practically best buds. It was all a bit rushed though, and with a half hour supporting slot, he didn’t have time to work his magic; the Commodore crowd was a bit of a let down – there wasn’t a whole lotta love and the old acoustic unplugged thing, along with a few of his new songs fell on its face a bit. Thankfully, a few classics, Closer, and Winter made it worth the trip to see him.

Then came Rudd. It has to be said that I don’t think I’ve ever listened to a whole Xavier Rudd song all the way through; they’re not exactly known for their brevity though, are they? It soon became apparent that the reason Josh wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea was because they were a bit too stoned and hippy for him.

Cue Rudd, the spliffs are unveiled across the room and an awesome world music come reggae rock cacaphony begins. He does some amazing things, combining didgeridoo, slide guitar, and drums to make what can really only be described as reggae music for white people. Of course with reggae comes dancing, and there was more than a healthy sprinkling of that. Not just any kind of white reggae dancing, but odly enough it seemed that it was all very much influenced by Kate Bush a la Wuthering Heights. Weird.

Let’s save the planet.

A delicious combo of pineapple, cranberries and a fruit and nut combo arrived at my desk this morning. The concept is great; you go to their pretty website, http://www.graze.com, choose the healthy things you like, and as if by magic, the snacks arrive on your desk the next morning for you to graze on throughout the day.

You get to choose how many deliveries you want during the week, but at £2.99 a box, they’re not exactly priced for a recession. The good thing is, if you go to the site and use this code, L3GLPMRE, you’ll get your first graze box for free.

Bargain grazing.

NFU issues sound advice to Blunkett after cow attack incident, originally uploaded by benaston.

In a career spanning more than 20 years, Blunkett has enjoyed more than his fair share of cabinet resignations. So one can only imagine he was more than a little disappointed not to be joining the throngs of cabinet ministers handing in their resignations and the ensuing media spotlight.

Cue a cow (artists impression only), Blunkett, Sadie, his trusty dog, and a field. The scene is set for some much deserved media coverage.

I can’t imagine it’s a particularly frequent occurrence that people, especially blind people walking their dogs, get attacked by cows as they’re rambling through the countryside. But that’s what happened in a series of events which one can only assume was masterminded by Blunkett himself.

Allegedly, whilst innocently ambling along with Sadie, in the wilds of Sheffield, Blunkett was attacked by a stampeding pantomime cow. The article leaves a little to the imagination, but you’d be forgiven for thinking he bravely tried to defend the cow from his dog and in the process, broke a few ribs and earned those highly sought column inches.

So it’s probably not very often either that the NFU is given the opportunity by the BBC to issue a statement on blind politicians walking their dogs who get attacked by cows. The advice seems a little more anecdotal than considered; “…let the dog off the lead so it can run away because obviously a dog can run faster than you. The next thing to do is to get quite quickly to the edge of the field, collect the dog and leave.”

I do wonder if the pratt (that’s Alison Pratt) in giving her advice to ‘others who might find themselves in a similar position (yes, that’s blind politicians walking their guide dogs in fields with cows) gave any thought to the fact that without Sadie, (who in accordance with her advice, would have been dispatched to run away) Blunkett might have found it a bit difficult to get ‘quite quickly’ to the edge of the field by himself without incurring the cow’s wrath again.

Insightful.

I think it’s probably time I learnt some skills. I think I’m lacking in them.

Ok, so I’ve got computer skills, haircutting skills (debateable) and have recently been able to add ‘can make mince pies’ to my list of skills, but this is the kind of video that makes me wonder why it is that I never learnt to jump into moving cars.

These really are basic skills that every man should know.

Must learn skills.

The ten pound Classic Menu from PizzaExpress – A moral dilemma, originally uploaded by benaston.

It’s nice to see Pizza Express wading into the fray over ministerial expenses with their proposition that their £10 meal deal is such good value that no one would notice if you slipped it in under expenses.

If we’re going to complain about Hogg’s moat, we need to be mindful of the application of our integrity to our pizzas too.

How serious.

the mongol centre, originally uploaded by benaston.

Ok, so the title might be a little misleading, but let’s look past that. This is truly brilliant – how many times have you seen a Mongol Centre? This is definitely the first I’ve seen; I’ve no idea what even happens in a Mongol centre, but it must be good, it has to be, because there are two, right next to each other, doing their Mongoling thing. Wonderful.

I’m struggling slightly to work out how this happened – were there two Mongols, each building a centre but keeping under wraps what they doing until the launch day, and it was only then that they realised that they’d both built themselves a Mongol Centre right next to each other?

Or was it an enterprising Mongol, not content with there being just one Mongol centre, who thought to himself, ‘what we could really do with, is a Mongol centre’. So he went to work, and created himself a Mongol centre. Seeing as the other centre was doing so well, he concluded the best place to have his new Mongol centre would be right down next to the other one.

I don’t get it. Maybe that’s because I’m not Mongolian. I do like Mongolian BBQ’s though.

Mmmeat.

one peppercorn, originally uploaded by benaston.

I was amused today to find out that the annual rent of our flat-to-be is the princely sum of ‘one peppercorn’.

Yowza. This must be good news – at the moment we pay £10 rent a year for our lease, I began to wonder – how expensive can peppercorns be these days? Do they have to be wrapped in gold foil to count as payment?

My search led me to Wikipedia, the home of all half-truths. It was then I discovered that a peppercorn is just a token payment called a peppercorn to be a bit more discreet. I’m not entirely convinced of this discretion. Why not just fix the rent as ‘One Red Herring’?

Education. Education. Education.

You might be surprised to find out this isn’t me. But squint a bit, and it is. Voila.

Fiction Family - When She's Near from ATO Records on Vimeo.

Jon Foreman’s been busy of late. Just caught this from my friend Steep-fun-John, who conveniently doubles up as a brother. Who’d have thought, in the age of Spotify, some people in Nigeria would still be using MySpace to find new music. Crazy.

It sounds nice, like a blend of Nickel Creek and Jon Foreman. Mainly Foreman though.

They’ve even got a free download. Lush.