13.04.82

I’ve Got A Love & Everything’s Alright!

I thought with it being Valentines Day, it would be fitting for me to write about my love for my lady. The girl of my dreams, my wife, Sarah.

Sarah & I have been together 9 years this year, and are fast approaching our first wedding anniversary next month. It has seemed like a lifetime already, but I wouldn’t change it for the world. She has always been central to everything for me since I first met her in London in 2003. She was a Xmas temp at HMV and it would be fair to say I swooped in early doors.

We were pretty heavy into each other from the get-go, and the pace has never really slowed down. I suppose that’s a sign of real love.

She makes me feel great every day, whether it be with just a smile, a small giggle or just in the comfort in that she is all mine.

Finally making her my wife last year was the icing on the cake, and it was made all the better for having our special friends & family around us to witness it.

I continue to win at life every day with my Sarah, and i’ll love her madly for the rest of my life.

Happy Valentines Pooks!

He Is England.

I love everything about Shane Meadows. Ever since I first saw ‘A Room For Romeo Brass’ in 2000, I’ve always drooled at the prospect of seeing new Meadows material. Shane always captures the real essence and passion of working class Britain perfectly, and at times his films can almost come off as a documentary, the grit, passion and rawness are so real. Shane has gone on tape numerous times, and claimed most of his material is autobiographical, or based on characters growing up in Staffordshire, and then when he moved to Nottingham in his 20’s.

He has presented to us many fantastic actors in which we have go onto caring about, which in my opinion is a goal most directors would love to achieve. Ever since Twenty-Four/Seven he has maintained keeping a stranglehold onto his best talent, and most notably in ‘….Romeo Brass’ actor Andrew Shim, who has now become an important part of Meadows’ legacy. Paddy Considine is probably the best talent found by Meadows, and now co-writes with him. Dead Mans Shoes in my opinion is the best revenge movie since ‘Get Carter’,  in particular the “You!! you cunt!” line is possibly the most hardcore, spine tingling shit your pants anger, since Scorsese brought the best out of De Niro in ‘Taxi Driver’. I believe Considine is Shane’s De Niro, and the two together is the best partnership in British cinema, I’m sure ‘Le Donk….’ isn’t the last we’ll see of the two collaborating together.

Obviously ‘This Is England’ is Shane’s most commercial hit, and rightly so, it’s an absolute corker of a movie, and rewards on repeat viewings. I never want the movie to end, and feel such a part of that group, the pain of Thatcher’s Britain seeps through each and every character. Shane’s attention to detail is unbelievable, starting with the fashion, chucking in the right tunes, all the way down to making sure classics 80’s TV is playing in the back of shots.  Young Thomas Turgoose came out of the movie a star, and was tipped for stardom, he followed it up with Meadows again in ‘Somers Town’ in which he stapled his right to be called Britains hottest prospect. I was over the moon to hear Meadows had decided to do a 4-part TV series of ‘This is England’. Set four years letter, and being throughout the summer of ‘86 amidst the madness of World Cup Mexico, Thatchers reign, and pain of unemployment. The star this series emerges in Vicky McClure, who again is a Meadows talent of old, first working with him as ‘Ladene’ in ‘….Romeo Brass’. Not only is ‘This Is England ‘86’ absolutely hilarious in places, it’s also down right heartbreaking, mostly down to the brilliant brutality radiated from actor Johnny Harris. Harris playing ‘Lol’s’ father ‘Mick’ is possibly the creepiest character that’s been allowed on British television, and his rape scene was stomach turning. With a scene as powerful as Harris’ rape scene, it only goes to show the belief Channel 4 had in the material Meadows’ was giving them, and more power to Channel 4 for that.  The 4th and final episode is sure to be a cliffhanger, and something tells me it won’t be the last we see or hear from the gang. Meadows has been quoted as saying that he feels he still has more to show of some of the characters, and as long as this series is a success, he will keep producing the shows.

Shane Meadows is the best talent British cinema has seen in years, who not only has his finger of the pulse of working class Britain, but also has the gift in portraying personal, beautiful stories, full of hope, longing, and bravely, controversy.

Long live the King of England.

Growing Up With The Dark Destroyer.

Ever since I was very young I was interested in Boxing, which was weird because I was, and am still currently not, much of a fighter. But, there was something about the ‘sweet silence’ that had me hooked from the moment I began watching. I’ve always loved the fact it was a solo journey sport, how you didn’t have anyone to back you up or to shoulder the blame. It’s a tough sport, and takes real heart and raw emotion to pull up big. These are the qualities I admire, and believe is what attracted me to the sport as a youngster.

I distinctly remember my Dad, coming to wake me up after my mum had gone to bed so that I could get up and watch late night fights with him, and these were school nights too! I remember watching numerous Prince Naseem Hamed fights and always admired his quickness, and the ability he had to knock his opponent out considering the small frame he upheld, but his flash, cocky attitude never stuck with me.

Never did I feel a loyalty to a boxer, until I first watched Nigel ‘The Dark Destroyer’ Benn. To be honest, I don’t really remember the first fight of Nigel’s that I saw, but remember his big bouts like they were yesterday.

Nigel had everything I was looking for in a fighter, skill, good jab, massive right hand, toe-to-toe game-ness, raw emotion, and the heart of a Lion. There would be times you would see Nigel boxing composed and in control, and then the next, unleash all kinds of fury. Some bout’s weren’t far short of street brawls simply because of Nigel’s heart and game to go toe to toe with the best of them.

I remember in 1993, Nigel had his second bout with Chris Eubank, which ended up a draw, a lot of people still to date put Nigel down as the winner of that contest. Nigel had already been setting the boxing world alight for sometime, and the clash with Eubank helped cement that. In ‘95 Nigel fought his toughest bout to date, and it was a bout that changed his career and life. Nigel fought Gerald McClellan, who had been knocking opponents out quickly in the years leading up to this fight. It had heated promo for the fight, with McClellan promising to come over to England and hurt Nigel, these were words that set the pace of the fight. Nigel was sent sprawling through the ropes in the first round reminiscent of most of the fighters McClellan had already fought, but Nigel showed his typical street brawler character and hung on for the rest of the round. The rest of the fight was almost too hard to watch as it was just toe-to-toe slugfest, that ended with Gerald retiring on one knee in the 10th. While Nigel was celebrating around the ring, Gerald McClellan lay in his corner fighting for his life. It was so brutal a bout both boxers were very seriously hurt, Gerald Mclellan is still affected to this day.

I remember being deeply saddened by this, as it was quite disturbing and was obviously something Nigel hadn’t intended to do to Gerald, the boxing world was treated to one of the greatest fights to watch, but at the same time also the saddest. Nigel only had 5 more bouts after that one, and 3 of those were losses, he lost and left a part of him in the ring that night, and it’s still something he is still coming to terms up to today.

I had the pleasure of serving Nigel and his family at HMV years ago, and spent a good ten minutes or so helping them to choose CD’s to take away on holiday. Nigel was an absolute gentlemen, and I told him how he had always been a hero of mine, and how Dad used to wake me up to watch his fights. He was very humbled. I know he lives Mallorca now, and chooses to stay out of the limelight, he wrote in his autobiography that he battles with depression deeply to this day over the bout with Mclellan. 

Over the years, boxing has always sparked controversy and has always had people claiming it to be barbaric. Nigel had a huge backlash of that, and still does to this day from people that don’t understand the sport.

I’ve read that he still goes to visit Gerald Mclellan and his family that care for him, and that he helps to support the Mclellan family with any problems they have, financial or otherwise. Nigel is also hugely into childrens charities and has helped raised countless money for numerous charities over the years.

The Dark Destroyer has always been one of my heroes, and I’ve always admired him throughout everything. I just wanted to share my tribute to one of the greats, and would love to hear people thoughts too, were you a Nigel fan?

In The future………When All’s Well!

Do you ever find yourself sitting around thinking about your future?

I do, and have always done. Even from a young age they were more dreams but I use to think of my future often. From me wanting to play football for Millwall, to wanting desperately to be a comic book artist, to wanting to be a Rockstar.

Obviously we all grow up and those futures we imagined up for ourselves just turn out to be childish dreams, mine other than playing for Millwall are still to some extent achievable. It’s the distant future I have don’t really have a problem with, in that I kinda know whats happening, have done for some time and am massively happy with it. Moving to Sydney from London for Sarah, kinda took care of that aspect, and with us getting married next year I can kinda say where we’ll be. Settled down, Kids, the works. Grand.

Near future is the future I have never seemed to have had a good grasp of, I’m always making plans for myself and never see ‘em through. It’s entirely my own fault, and this blog is me ranting at myself, to give myself that much needed kick up my arse.

It’s the creative side of me that i’m still so disappointed at, I know I have something to offer still. I just need to get on with it and stop whinging.

I’m currently in a band in the Blue Mountains called Wounds, I love what we have created and still think there is a lot more in us. I think we could actually be a really good band, and have the potential to be a rather hot live band. Problem is, the drive and passion doesn’t seem to be there, we have practised maybe twice in 6 months and are still to complete a demo we started over a half a year ago. Disappointing I hear you say, yeah I feel the same. It’s no ones fault but it’s just one of those things, you can make others feel as passionate about something as you do. I haven’t given up on the band, and continue to put huge efforts in, just only so much you can do until the staleness kicks in. I may be over-reacting, but’s it’s only because if it’s something I want to do and am passionate about I need others around me on the same page, otherwise I crumble. Shame.

In recent months I have struck up a great friendship with a great bloke called Adam Byrne, and I can see in him that he shares the same passion and drive and has a creative outlet that he still needs to fulfil. This excites me as two minds alike is a great recipe, and we like and worship the same bands it’s seems to be good to be true. We’ve spoken numerous times about getting something off the ground, and again like this blog is ranting about, I haven’t really seized the moments in my recent future.

We’ve decided that we will be giving a guitar driven pop band a semi-serious go, and this is probably the thing I need. It has to be all or nothing, I’m not up for disappointment anymore. Sounds silly but I can’t half complete something or not really make a start on it at all.

My other creative outlet I need to fulfil is my comic book. This is something I’ve wanted to do since I was maybe 7 years old. I’ve always been a good standard artist, and spent countless hours drawing and creating mini comics for myself. Then I hit 16, discovered cigarettes and girls and it all went out of the window. Shame, it really does annoy me to think of the time I wasted and threw away and what for…….nothing! So, I decided this is another part of my near future I have to make work, this is different to the band idea, as I need other people to be on the same page. The comic is probably the most important things, as it’s entirely me, it’s my fault if it doesn’t work out, or even get started.

I’ve spent too much time in the past sitting around wanting things for my near future, but have never really gone that extra yard to make sure that it’s actually a possibility.

I believe it’s time I stopped putting wishes out there for my future without any substance, and actually get moving and make my future real. I have to MAKE my own future.

German World Cup Heartaches.

   So tonight England face Germany in our usual World Cup showdown, whats your predictions?

   I remember my ‘first’ World Cup (Mexico ‘86 is technically first) that I watched was Italia ‘90, I was mesmerised by the occasion. I completed my Panini sticker album, dad collected me the Texaco coins, everything about it was cool.

The group games were the usual England scrap, with the first game a scrappy 1-1 draw with the Republic of Ireland (Captain Millwall’s Mick McCarthy), 2nd game a good draw with Netherlands, and the last game a much needed win against Egypt (Mark Wright’s awesome flicked header!).

Second round came with a tight game against Belgium which saw the brilliance of super-sub David Platt, and then a end to end Quarter Final with the ever dangerous Cameroon (thank god for the 2 Lineker pens).

So on comes the semi-final against favourites West Germany, at this point I didn’t fully understand the importance and history of the rivalry, but I was just very nervous being it against a great opposition and it being semi-final. I knew it was a win the country needed.

To my knowledge, apart from numerous brilliant Millwall moments, I still hold this game very dearly. To any football fan from anywhere in the world, this was one of the most entertaining games EVER. It had everything, goals, near misses, yellow cards which determined players potentially missing the Final, and of course ‘those’ tears.

Losing on penalties to anyone is agonising enough, but in the fashion we did, it was heartbreaking. I was only just 8 years old at this point, and my football world came crashing down, but my love for the game strengthened.

I remember the slow-mo videos of Waddle being consoled by Germans, and Gazza balling his eyes out, to the World Cup anthem which was Pavarotti’s ‘Nessun Dorma’. I still remember going to bed that night with those pictures and that song playing through my young mind while I cried myself to sleep. I still get pretty emotional when hearing that same song to this day.

Of course the same heartache came against the Gerry’s at home too, at Euro ‘96, and then we and Michael Owen had our moment in Germany in the World Cup qualifier (5-1), and another with a Shearer goal in Euro 2000 (but not to same effect as we were crap that tournament).

So tonight comes with many emotions, of past tournaments, history of wars, and the sheer respect the countries secretly hold for each other. Every England player regardless of current form will pull on that England shirt tonight (hopefully Red) and be re-living the past battles and find strength and passion in that.

The nerves will be there in both squads, and will probably show throughout the game itself, but i’m certain it’ll be an amazing game, and hopefully we get the result this time around.  It could quite easily go either way, but i’m pretty certain our past near-misses will have just that tad bit more hungrier for it.

This is what World Cups are about, let’s see the passion boys, and only tears of joy!

Lebron Who?

What a reply after such a shoddy display in game 3!

29pts, 18reb, 13ast, 2stl

Boy am I glad Boston had him tie up the 55mil contract extension six months ago.