Ginger DJ Rob

I'll be so glad when the Burnt Flesh Fest party is over to be honest. Next year might be different with everything in place but the hard slog to prepare the house and garden along with the stress of the plumber and added work pressures I would be just happy to have a week in bed. The weekend before last I made the impulse hire of a vibrator, ground compactor that is to flatten the mudded area into a patio and path. Without any warming up I did my back in again (Christ, I'm sounding like a moaning old git) just lifting it into the car. If it hadn't been for James and Emma, the weekend would have been written off and more. Thanks to them we created the foundations and lifted the hulk of 58kgs of pure awkwardness in through the house. The patio and path took another two sessions to finish it off. We laid the patio stones and slabs straight after work mid-week and finished under torch-light running out of materials. The second session was Saturday with the path created with de...

My current workload both professional and personal has meant very little blogging. The entry below has also caused time away from anything fun. A few weeks ago the plumber, who caused one of the most stressful moments of my life tried to bill me with work for three times as much as quoted. I was slightly surprised he had the nerve to be honest. This over-the-top bill and the fact he could have killed my tenants, according to Transco was naturally refused with a deftly written letter. The reply came back with an irate response. With the prospect of getting a solicitor involved I was actually glad to hear the opinion from the other, saintly plumber who came in to save the situation. Apparently, he's got such a bad reputation that the majority of Norfolk tradesman and Transco are driven round the U-bend and wish his stop-cock cut off. Since then I've done a few things. Reported the plumber to the Trading Standards, though they haven't done much, contacted CORGI, who pointed me...

Friday evenings and the M25 can only mean one thing and that's exactly what happened. After a depressing average speed of 5mph for about 20 miles we got to Kerry's brother's place near Bicester about 8:45pm. Lucky the pizzas were ordered in time so we were blown away by Neil's enormous new HD-TV and Netgear media centre. Whether it was the hardwork of the week or the quadruple shots of vodka, I was wiped out by 11:30pm and stumbled into bed. Although the weekend was about seeing Neil and Nikki before their Australian new life, I'd organised a Spy Games experience (through Lastminute.com) for Kerry which was an hour's drive near Hemel Hempstead. I'd booked this back in August before I knew Kerry was organising her work's Xmas bash to the same experience so I knew she'd be up for it. After cocking up the directions we arrived at the Scout's camp and was slightly shocked at how many people were taking part. Instead of the estimated handful of peopl...

I don't think I've ever been affected by any national or international news directly but after getting home last night from work every news programme and station was watched in disbelief. This BBC news story will tell you all my and Kerry's worries as the Credit Crunch finally gets us. Under the advice of the Money Saving Expert, I deposited £40k of my mum's inheritance into the Icesave account. Kerry had been saving monthly with them and had been left this morning hanging on the bank's helpline. Checking today's news has at least eased some of the stress away but experts say it will be months until I see that money and without any interest. Fu*kers!

After the stress of the shed it was good to be rewarded with a decent night out thanks to Kerry's success at work. She'd been awarded £100 to spend on a meal out and that's nearly what we spent. Oki-nami in Brighton is relatively new Japanese restaurant but had previously been in Hove. Its also part owned by Mr. Cook of Fatboy fame. Started off with some Shochu cocktails, of which I'd say Kerry's plum flavoured one beat my passion fruit and melon one, and to eat some Maki and Nigiri sushi filled with shiitake mushrooms, sesame seeds and king prawn. Quite adventurous for me but I avoided the prawn. A nice touch in case the conversation runs dry was that the chopsticks were wrapped in origami paper with folding instructions. I made a jumping frog. Second course was some Japanese tapas or otsumame taking in some Nikku gyoza (dumplings filled with pork & vegetable), Hotate yaki (Pan-fried fresh scallops in garlic butter) and Yasai ten. (vegetable tempura) which we...

I did my husband duty of watching the Sex and the City film on Friday night. I can handle the normal 30 minutes format of the TV programme which can be quite funny but 148 minutes of fluffed up nothingness made me reach for the laptop. Even Kerry commented that it made women look like brand junkies with too many product placements. Our Burnt Flesh Festival party preparations are going well overspending on the Halloween decoration. The house will get a proper haunted make-over ready for the big night. Even Sasha, our cat has got into the spirit of the party with his own costume (I can't believe how well he posed for the camera). The home improvement plan also took its toll over the weekend as we had two major jobs to do: 1) erect the new shed and 2) remove the plaster from the fireplace. The weather was a complete contrast to last week starting with patchy rain but with the shed parts taking up most of the dining room we took the risk. We painted two sides with a wood stain then put...

I read about this in today's Guardian. Cringe factor 8.

Friday was a bit of a wipe-out after the Midnight Juggernauts. My ears were still ringing and alertness down to minimum. We had a tasty BBQ in the evening and I thrashed everyone at poker. Saturday was the Big Beach Boutique 4 down on Madeira Drive and the weather was perfect with warm sunshine and blue skies. Before our planned 4pm entrance I prepared a load of mp3 tunes for the after party at Paul and Sarah's. We all met up including new friend Nick who'd flown in from Ibiza then headed for the beach party. I say beach party but it was actually a road and car park party. No drinks were allowed and a police sniffer dog to welcome us in. As we got in we still had about half a mile to walk to the stage going past various food stalls, bars, toilets etc. under the promenade arches with expensive looking branded signs. We found a cosy spot to dance about 20 metres away from the stage whilst Danny Tenaglia DJed. He wasn't too bad although he did drop a couple of desperate old sc...

A special school night treat for Thursday night at Digital with Paul, Sarah, Emma and James. It was a bit of a hassle getting the tickets as the club website didn't mention it; Resident, the record shop in town hadn't heard of it ; and even emailing the club they were a bit sketchy saying it was next door and tickets could be bought from a shop in Newcastle?! There wasn't really any local promotion for them either and it was only down to a joining a Facebook group had I found out about it. With all that said the club was practically empty with an estimated 40 fans turning up. The support act was ear-ringingly loud and just made everyone edge further away from the stage. The Juggernauts came on quite late and kept the set quite short but concentrated on their best work ignoring the small crowd. There were a couple songs where the keyboardist and guitarist swapped roles like 'Tombstone' which got the crowd rocking. Later the guitarist stood off the stage and rocked al...

I've noticed lately that my blog has turned into a weekend write-up and this entry will be no exception. As soon as I returned from work on Friday we were back into the garden laying the turf. It was a bit like laying carpet but muddier and using a kitchen knife and spade to cut the edges. Saturday was supposed to be another hard grind but ended for me at 10:30am doing my back in. Whilst lifting the boxes of old hardcore for the dump I did my lower back in. Ignoring it we drove to the local dump with four boxes of brick and concrete to chuck. After the 2nd or 3rd box I somehow twisted the wrong way whilst picking up the box bringing in more pain across my chest. The rest of the day I was doing very light lifting of tree cut-offs though I did manage to create an equivalent of a Stannah lift for our old-aged cat. Poor puss can't jump too far and is in danger of breaking his legs so I built him a platform/shelf to get over the fence. Skydiving with her indoors Back in April, ...

I've been a bit crap lately including updating the blog. Work's been quite monotonous which just gives way to researching my Bonfire Night of the Living Dead costume, party props and the strange desire to get on with the garden renovation. I surprised myself how addictive it was to keep working, digging, forking to get the railway sleepers in for the new landscaped backyard. I got quite excited Saturday to buying my first wheel-barrow and sledge-hammer and nearly every evening we've been doing something or other to the garden until it gets dark. Saturday evening was to celebrate James and Trudy's belated 40th at a very cramped Little Buddha restaurant, a Thai place in Fiveways, Brighton. Amazingly they served up about 40-50 people in good time but decided to split the bill by table but forgot to tell us who was on which table. This meant half an hour of chaos as someone complained they wanted to pay just their meal instead of paying a share all for the sake of a few qu...

Thanks to my Modwolves fan club connections I managed to win exclusive tickets to see the brand new live show from the Mighty Boosh on Saturday. After our (unsuccessful) Thames boat ride we made our way over to 3 Mills TV studios in Bromley on Bow. If you don't want to know what's in the new live show then you'd best not read this as it will spoil the surprise. However if you want to know a summary of how it went then I'll say now, the performance was slightly worrying with only a week to go. There's a lot more mini-sketches and no real story compared to the previous tour. There's some great gags, some surprises but if it wasn't for their natural talent and personality the show would be slightly disappointing. Hopefully they'll put in some practice, improve the sketches that didn't quite work and maybe even come up with some new ideas. So, if you really don't want to know what happens in the show stop reading now, you have been warned. Mighty Boo...

The masses have spoken. Saturday 8th November 2008 will see the dead rise again in Brighton.

Last Sunday I had a shopping splurge buying this T-shirt. Completely mad design and just thought it was from the mind of some weird designer trying to combine a Star Wars reference and other random things. As I described it to a work colleague I decided to type in the above heading as keywords into Google to see what would come up. Amazingly, the image is actually a Tim Burton film that was only once transmitted on the Disney Channel and has never been seen again. According to Slash Film blog , he made this short film in 1982 and can not be bought, downloaded or seen again. Hänsel und Gretel vs Godzilla By Keptn EMPYSTRING

After a great BBQ on Saturday with Emma & James and Paul & Sarah, we're now cooking up a party for Halloween/Bonfire night. The problem is that Underworld play on Saturday 1st November so are people willing to come down to Brighton for a tame Halloween on the Friday night or would rather save themselves for a Saturday night. Either way we only have one proper room for guests, though Paul & Sarah may put up a few, or you'll have to make your back by train or car. Email, text, call us to say which you'd prefer: Friday 31st October or Saturday 8th November (If you can't make either then please say as well) Whichever date we go for we want to make it a memorable one with Kerry's Pumpkin Lantern Competition which there will be prizes. Have a look at these websites for some ideas and guidance. Our back garden bank will be a gallery of spooky lanterns amongst the bamboo, trees, plants and tree-stump. Pumpkin Carving 101 Zombie Pumpkins More details to come soon...

To say I've had a hard week would be a serious understatement. After the fun of last weekend filling the diesel car with unleaded, my bank balance has taken a small beating and looks to get cut to shreds after the getting the new tenants to my mum's house in Norfolk. At the start of the week a CORGI registered plumber who'd been asked to check and issue a gas certificate discovered a gas leak. Instead of the simple £60 plus VAT he quoted around £300 to get it right (copper piping and man hours). I was told that the new tenants would start their contract on Wednesday but would be physically moving in on Friday with the a meeting arranged at 3pm to hand over keys and sign-off the inventory with Mark, a mate who did the renovation. The plumber told me he would leave the certificate in the house well before they moved in. At this point I haven't been invoiced for the work. Tuesday I had arranged to pick up my Ebay winnings from Peacehaven. One of the best bargains yet of th...

Preparation With Pav's 40th birthday party themed as anything starting with the letter 'P' Kerry had the idea to go as Pav himself in face-mask form. Either everyone thought it was such a great idea or they were too lazy to get an outfit themselves so we made 7 masks on Friday night. Unfortunately I only had a couple of photos of Pav in high resolution so had to lift them from Facebook. We ended up with 6 identical DJ pose Pavs and one 'teethy goon' Pav. Kerry's printer served well with the output glued to cardboard then some chopsticks sawn in half taped to the back. Party Pav's party itself, hosted at the Clapham's Artesian Well was a great laugh. The birthday boy had punked himself up whereas there were a fair share of police, pirates, more punks, a Playboy bunny , a couple of priests (special mention to Jake for his Father Ted outfit), oh and a pimp. The winner of the competition was a Primadonna but slightly confused by Pav's speech to say ...