Highbury Auction - Highbury, London - Saturday 29th July 2006

Finally, finally, finally - the last chance to get inside Highbury before it is handed over to the bulldozers and flat developers. This event was a chance for Arsenal to auction off some of the "crown jewels" from inside the stadium - so a chance to make money whilst also cutting down on the number of skips they need to hire when they throw stuff away.

There were close to 600 lots in total, all of which went for crazily disproportionate prices. £200 for a random pair of dressing room boot-hooks, £600 if they had been used by Bergkamp or Henry. Random photos (Christopher Wreh celebrating a goal against Bolton, anybody) were being knocked out for a solid £300 a time (and that one actually went for £900 would you believe). George Graham's desk went for £19,000, chairs for £4,000 a pop and tiles at £1,000 for five - all horrendously expensive.

But this wasn't about buying overpriced heirlooms for me, it was a chance to get one last peek inside the stadium. The clock had been removed from the Clock End, but most of the rest of it, including the pitch, was still there (just about).

A very sad goodbye at the end of this event, and as at the Wigan game, several grown men in tears. This really was the last time in the stadium, and as the sun set behind the North Bank, we all left for the last time.

Trip to Nimes and Avignon, France - 20th to 27th July 2006

Summer holiday, and a week in the South of France. Deciding to avoid the beach completely, we flew to Marseille, and decided to spend time in 2 towns inland - Nimes and Avignon. Of course, it is slightly hotter away from the sea, and coupled with a heatwave anyway, saw us sweltering in temperatures over 40 degrees at some points.

Nimes is an extremely old town, founded by the Romans in fact. So, it has a small city centre, with lots of very close-knit, narrow streets. Within an hour or arriving in town, I had availed myself of a most fantastic steak frites, for the bargain sum of 6 Euros - it was then I remembered why I chose France to visit. Many towns in the south of France become like different places in summer, Nimes being no exception. A music festival in the Roman amphitheatre (featuring Depeche Mode and Toto amongst others during my stay), brings many more people to the town. "Nimes Thursdays" were also very enjoyable, the squares in town basically become one huge market, full of interesting stuff.

Nimes has perhaps the best preserved Roman amphitheatre anywhere in the world, built in about 100AD. The outside looks amazing, huge stacks of arches one on top of another form the main structure. The theatre is still used, for gigs, bullfighting and performances, and a 6-7000 seat arena has been built inside the old Roman structure. Am incredible historial monument to look around inside - certainly one of the more memorable stadium tours I have been on. Because of the heat, much time was spent ducking into air-conditioned buildings, but we managed to see all of the main sights in town (which you can do in a day if you try hard enough). The rest of the time was spent eating and drinking - a particularly enjoyable night in a random French bar in particular, talking about the World Cup with the punters.

After a few days in Nimes, it was off to Avignon, where the Popes used to live for a time in the Middle Ages. Another Roman city, this time with big city walls enclosing another close-knit centre. The Avignon festival was on at the time, I was previously unaware of this, but apparently it is the biggest arts festival in all of France! So, the town was like Edinburgh in August - full of people, with lots of productions going on, and arty-types wandering the streets drumming up business. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the productions (no, actually ALL of them) were in French (part of the "save the French language and culture" Nazism), so they weren't terribly interesting to (even a French-speaking) English tourist.

The main attactions in Avignon include the old pope's palace, which is something of a pilgrimage site for Catholics - to see what the church built with their ancestors' money. The other sight is the Avignon bridge, subject of a French nursery rhyme, part of which was washed away - so only half remains. There is a beautiful park and viewpoint at the top of the city, which is the best place to see it from - and with stunning views to mountains in the very far distance. A very nice town, although if you want to see the best of it, probably best not to go in July when the festival is on!

On the way home, I experienced something close to a vision of hell on earth in Marseille airport. Marseille is not the nicest of towns, and the airport was full of people that had seemingly never been on a plane before - with 20 of their families there to see them off. There was no gate information, there were kids playing football (and booting the ball EVERYWHERE) in the departure lounge, and more than a fair share of screaming babies. Nightmare. Still, a very good week away in all - and both Nimes and Avignon are lovely places to go for a few days away.

The Belgrave Scandal - The Enterprise, London - Tuesday 18th July 2006

The Belgrave Scandal are a new band from Kent, playing gigs roughly equally down there and in London. They have a song called The Collection, available on their MySpace site, which absolutely would not sound out of place if a big hitting band recorded and released it - a great track. I had heard good things about their live set, so toddled off to the Enterprise in Camden, basically a room above a pub, to see them.

They came on stage at around 8:45pm, the first band on the bill of three. A three piece band to begin with, they were later joined by a keyboard player, who definitely added something good to their sound. Starting off with a frantic instrumental, they then proceeded to run through 7 or 8 songs which all sounded very promising indeed. Beedy Little Eyes, The Collection, and Brighton Away are obvious highlights of their set, but they are not the only ones - there seem to be a strong collection of new songs to add to them.

All in all, a very good 35 minute set. Not a signed band yet, but they have the songs and the musical talent to not look at all out of place in the big time. I will definitely be heading for their next London gig.

The Lemonheads, The Sleepy Jackson - Somerset House, London - Sunday 16th July 2006

The now annual trip to Somerset House, and this year we had the undoubted pleasure of seeing the Lemonheads play there. The day after a surprising appearance at a small festival in Suffolk, here they were to close the series of gigs. Somerset House itself was as beautiful as ever, the weather always seems to play along for the series of gigs here, making them extra specially hot summer nights. Fantastic food available inside as well, they really seem to be concentrating on doing all this properly.

The Sleepy Jackson were the support band, an Australian band with unfeasibly large and Elvis-like hair, especially on the lead singer. Their album from a couple of years ago was well-liked critically if not popularly, and hearing their set, I did indeed remember a couple of the songs from it. All very pleasant, and when combined with supporting the Lemonheads, ingredients for a very happy crowd! By the end of their set, they really had the crowd on their side, which should help sell a few more copies of their new record.

Evan Dando plus a couple of other blokes The Lemonheads arrived on stage at around 9:30, and ploughed straight into The Great Big No, followed immediately by Confetti. So, a whole 3 minutes to completely delight everybody in the crowd then! The setlist was a familiar Lemonheads show, mostly old stuff, but obviously more varied than the Shepherds Bush shows last year.

After Evan's solo spot in the middle of the set, the band returned to play 2 songs from the forthcoming Lemonheads album, due for release this autumn. The first sounded like a classic return to songwriting form, a cross between familiar Lemonheads stuff, but with some definite influence from what has happened in the 10 years since they last released an album. Closing the set with Rudderless is never a bad way to go, and so the audience went home happy.

The reviews seemed to approve of the Lemonheads, both old and new. I most certainly approved, and can't wait for the extensive touring that Evan Dando promised, to support their new album. Their new material is very long awaited indeed!

England vs Pakistan (Day 3, 1st Test) - Lords, London - Saturday 15th July 2006

Another scorcher at Lords, for the third day of the first test against Pakistan - the only team apart from Australia that are higher than England in the world test rankings. Feeling like a sitting duck in 30 degree plus heat, I was also annoyed to have missed any sign of England batting whatsoever. Cook, Collingwood and Bell all hit centuries, with a huge 186 for Paul Collingwood. So, at the start of the day, Pakistan were 66-3, in reply to England's score of 528.

The suspicious may have claimed that if Bell could get a century, then so could Inzamam and Yousef. They would have been partly correct - a good batting wicket suited the Pakistani batsmen, and they stayed out all day. England's bowling has not exactly been penetrative enough this summer, so on a good batting wicket, against top class batsmen, it was always going to be difficult for the bowlers.

So, all in all a day that wasn't too interesting - England couldn't take wickets, and Pakistan just sat there building a total, reasonably slowly. The day finished 409-7 - so a whole day's cricket with less than 350 runs, and only 4 wickets. The first wicket was in the second over, and the last in the second last over - with not a lot else in between.

Still, a good chance to get a tan - a day sat in 30 degree heat makes you more tired than you realise. A very hard day at the cricket!

Work trip to Bologna, Italy - 11th to 12th July 2006

After a long day trip to a rather hot Frankfurt, it was straight back to the airport for a journey to an exceedingly hot Bologna, for a couple of days. Bologna is not the centre of the universe, nor even of Italy - landing at the airport made that clear. There are no airbridges in sight, so everybody has to get off theie plane using the steps, then get a bus. But the airport is small enough so that the bus ride to the terminal lasted for 20 seconds, if that. Once inside at passpost control, there were barriers around, but no officials in sight either - we had to wait 5 minutes from them to show up.

I was staying at the AC Hotel, part of a chain that is across Spain and now Italy too. The place is one of the best designed hotels I have seen, everything is a fantastic case study of impeccable interior design - all very modern and functional. The website is a good example, both the site design, and the photos it promises. The room itself was amazing - a flatscreen TV, wi-fi, free minibar, arty photos, all in all a fantastically designed and furnished room. The bathroom sink is a case in point, like a piece of glass with a dip made into it. They seem to give you the essentials like water and wi-fi for free, and make everything else you need available too. I will definitely be looking for them again.

Bologna was a steady 36 degrees for both days I was there, very hot indeed, and humid too. Of course, whilst at work, I enjoyed the lunchbreaks - doing what all Italians do and going for pizza. A huge and delicious pizza available for 5 Euros at most - some people don't know how lucky they are to be able to do that every day!

Finally, a shocking and surprising quietness about the World Cup victory was very noticeable in Italy - despite being 2 days ago, most Italians seem to be going around with quiet smiles on their faces, rather than the loudness that might be expected of them.

Work trip to Frankfurt, Germany - 10th July 2006

Less than 12 hours after the World Cup Final, I was on my way to the host country, Frankfurt to be precise, to see some colleagues. Arriving at Frankfurt airport, all of the "World Cup Welcome" was still very much in evidence, including a very large cutout of Michael Ballack in the arrivals hall.

Talking to colleagues in the city (which had hosted an England game in the World Cup), they all seemed to have really enjoyed having the England fans in town. I had read these rave reviews in the UK press about how well received our fans were by the Germans, but was never sure if it was just UK press fanfare. But, it does seem that Frankfurters in particular enjoyed having English fans around - especially the local bar owners, I suspect. Perhaps their compatriots in Stuttgart weren't so happy, though.

A hot and humid city had me glad to get back into the airport at the end of the day, at least for the air conditioning! Security at the airport seemed to be very stringent, even more than at Heathrow, which I never thought possible. Two separate x-rays for my bag, emptying the pockets three times, and a special laptop check - all very attentive. Almost like flying from an American airport!

The Who, Primal Scream, Mobile - Hyde Park Calling, Hyde Park, London - Sunday 2nd July 2006

On the scorchingest of scorching hot days, the Hyde Park Calling festival happened, on the same patch of the park as the Wireless festival had taken place on the previous week. Heavily sponsored by Hard Rock Cafe (instead of O2), the venue had all of the markets and extra stages removed, to become just a huge outdoor arena, all facing the same stage. There was also a small second stage in a tent, hidden around the back, along with some shade - which I made a beeline for.

Lounging under a tree to avoid dying of heat exhaustion, I caught the band Mobile, playing in the tent as a support band. They sounded like Radiohead in parts, with slow, meandering, guitar-led songs, accompanied by a wailing singer. Not bad, but it did seem slightly out of place to be hearing such moody music on an unbelieveably hot and sunny day! Towards the end of their set, they livened up, and left me wishing that the whole of their set had been as interesting as the last couple of songs.

Avoiding the main stage and sunburn became a full-time job at this festival, so after some more lounging, I emerged at around 7pm to catch Primal Scream in the tent. The support bill included 2 decent bands (Primal Scream and Razorlight), so it was a shame that they both played at the same time - forcing the choice of one over the other.

Primal Scream won for me, and they drew an impressive crowd. Starting with Moving On Up, they showcased much of their new album, before wrapping up with a riotous version of Country Girl, followed immediately by Rocks. A clearly fantastic live band (that I had not seen for a while), they were well worthy of the crowd they drew. Bobby Gillespie was in great form, jumping around like a madman! I also saw a Gallagher brother in the audience, shame it was the non-famous one though, rather than Liam or Noel.

Whilst watching Primal Scream, then whilst waiting for The Who to come on stage, I was finding it hard to take in the number of middle aged, middle class people in the arena. Not terribly surprising given The Who's longevity, but the vast majority of the crowd were very irregular watchers of live music, certainly in this setting.

Queueing for the toilets with people old enough to be my father, and hearing surprised complaints about the queues and food and drink prices, confirmed that lots of the audience do not do this very often. Annual gig-goers, at best. The more shocking thing was the number of people in the audience that really should have been wearing more clothing, given how out of shape they were. It was a very hot day, but seeing fat women in their 50s in bikinis is not at all attractive!!

The Who came on stage at around 8:20, and started straight away with I Can't Explain. The oldies started phoning their mates from the pub, saying "listen to this, listen to this!" The set was a showcase for their greatest hits, as well as some of the new songs from their forthcoming album. The former were loved, the latter merely tolerated as interludes between the hits. They are quite obviously a great live act, but I did get the feeling that they seemed a bit pedestrian - to be expected I suppose for a bunch of men in their 60s.

Like seeing the Rolling Stones a few years ago, I was glad to see The Who, legendary band that they are. However, hearing the greatest hits was not that much better than listening to them on CD (although Pete Townshend's windmill guitar action was good to watch). A great experience, but I wouldn't go back in a hurry - and further convincing for me that I don't like big "stadium" gigs, and the once-a-year attendees they bring out.