Gigfest!

24 May 2006: Three gigs on consecutive weekdays – something of a record, methinks. Friday, and to the Cambridge Corn Exchange for a token dose of modern pop’n'roll, with The Zutons. Their selling point is more than just the originality of a female sax player at the forefront: they’ve cracked the formula of the singalong quite comfortably, although after two albums’ worth, they may have to find a different approach to repeating the chorus several times with full backing, then stopping the music to chant the chorus (along with the audience) before crashing back in with the music again. Terrible sound (in a venue where I’ve heard good sound before) which meant that only the familiar songs were worth the admission fee. And [...]

Eurovision, so much to answer for

22 May 2006: Just when you think the Eurovision Song Contest is past its sell-by date, like every year, it comes back and provides you with some unmissable entertainment once more. Now, the idea of getting the public to vote, which has been running these past few years, is obviously stupid; if there was a slight regional bias in the voting before, now it’s set in stone. There’s simply no chance of anyone outside Scandinavia or the Balkans winning now, thanks to all the “and the 12 points goes to our lovely neighbours” stuff. But – and here’s a big but – the public are prepared to do something which the old “juries” never were: and that’s to vote for the nonsensical entries. [...]

Joe Royle leaves Ipswich.

12 May 2006: I’m delighted that Royle has gone. I didn’t want him in the first place, along with all those in the North Stand who were chanting “Royle out” before he’d even been appointed nearly four long seasons ago. In all that time, I think we’d agree he really didn’t win over many of the sceptics either. A few, maybe, and I’ll admit at times in the second and third seasons here, his gung-ho tactics were so entertaining that I wasn’t complaining. But Royle should not be blamed for being himself. He came along as Joe Royle, and he managed as Joe Royle. Good for him. The board got what they asked for. And there’s the problem, of course. It was the [...]

Restaurant 22, Cambridge has a website!

5 May 2006: Last night we ate at Restaurant 22 at 22 Chesterton Lane, Cambridge. I wouldn’t normally think this worthy of a blog entry, but there seemed to be no record of the restaurant having a website when I scoured the search engines the day before. However, when we got there, its website was mentioned on its cards and menus, and indeed it most certainly has one. So I thought a quick link might get the Googlebot visiting it ASAP! Otherwise, if this entry is still the top one on Google, here’s the Restaurant 22 website. (Oh yes, and the food is very good indeed, but I’m sure you know that. Bill for two with a pretty decent bottle of wine: £80).