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Gene

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 My relationship with Gene ended up complicated - I first saw them in 1995 at the Roadmender and I loved them instantly. Over the years, I saw them many more times, dragging a variety of pals with me to those gigs - at those gigs, I first encountered amazing bands supporting them like Muse, The Divine Comedy and (British) Sea Power. I saw them in London, Oxford, in Brighton and in Southsea, and I even managed to drag everybody to see them in San Francisco when we were there on holiday in 2002. I occasionally made poor quality recordings of some of those gigs, and put some of tracks up for download on my website devoted to the band. It's fair to say that they were my favourite band.  Despite this, it was pretty clear that they were up against it. Every step forward seemed to be associated with a step back, and their struggles to get their final LP heard meant that nobody was really surprised when they called it a day and played an emotional final gig at the Astoria in 2004. Peo...
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Coops

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 Back when I was about 20, Twin Peaks hit. For some reason, we didn't get the series at first over in the UK - we had a version released to video and available at rental stores and then to sell through - it had the pilot episode and then the "25 Years Later" dream sequence from Episode 3 on the end, but I was sucked in instantly and already a fan before it came to BBC2 later that year.  I bought everything I could to do with the magazine - I had Cooper's tapes in book form and on actual cassette, I had the "Welcome to Twin Peaks' guidebook, and even in the depths of S2, I was writing crazy long summaries of the episode using my work email account to anybody who would listen (not many people I suspect) I bought 'Wrapped In Plastic" whenever I could find it, I've owned the episodes on VHS, DVD and Blu-Ray, and when I first met Mrs M, our shared love of the show was an early common reference point.  This year, to mark the passing of David Lynch, our...
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Shoes

 A couple of years back, I started trying to run again. This was mainly to support my youngest son - he’d been running with his mum but she had picked up a back injury and I wanted to find a way to keep him running without having to rely on other people.  Since then, I’ve been enjoying getting fitter, occasionally getting faster. I’ve done a couple of longer runs but as a family we’ve been focussing around the weekly parkrun ritual, ticking off targets and challenges in the 5k app. I’m ten runs away from 100 and I want to get there by the end of the year. One of the other useful things is that the various apps all keep track of the distance you’ve covered over a period of time, and in which shoes as well. I can see For instance that this year I have so far run 572 km, and that in my current pair of shoes I’ve done about the same. This leads me to start looking for a new pair of running shoes - I want a pair that will be comfortable, and that supports my feet, but I don’t want ...
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Brookie

 Everybody is doing flashbacks now - I think I’ve probably watched something like a dozen episodes of Hollyoaks in my life but word appeared that they were gonna do some sort of Brookside tribute to mark their 30th so of course I watched it. Deep down I know it’s cobblers - they’ve written a few scenes with a few old characters to get a bit of publicity and remind people that Hollyoaks is still going - but goodness me it hits the buttons. Here’s Sheila still with Billy, there’s Bobby collecting for the food bank. Here’s Sinbad, and Mick, and Barry Grant. And oh look, Phil Redmond pops up to say his life is one drama after another. So yeah - it’s cobblers, but it’s nice as well. It allows us to imagine that things will work out alright for these people - which in soapland is something to be proud of.
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Memories

 As we get older, our memories seem to become more and more important, more precious. Rilo Kiley tickets went on sale today - they’ve not played London since 2007 - I only saw them once a couple of years earlier. Even though I was un fussed about seeing them again in 2007, 19 years later it seems the most important thing ever and so I’ve dutifully queued up (virtually) for tickets.  I once had a blog called “Cluttered Like My Head” - it was one of my better ones until I deleted it in a fit of pique. I’m even nostalgic for that now - which is probably why I’m writing this. 
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