Month: January 2026

Phone Box Thursday: Cruella’s Phone Box

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Continuing the occasional theme of ‘red phone boxes in videogames’, one finally showed up in Disney Dreamlight Valley:

It appeared in the Cruella de Vil area of the newest expansion, Wishblossom Ranch. I have yoinked it to put next to my virtual house!

I’ve been posting a phone box post every Thursday since 1st February 2018 – that’s 418 Thursdays in a row including today! I will continue to do a phone-box-related post every week, but the main log of boxes will be on hiatus for a little while as I consolidate some things.

Gig Review: Duran Duran at Leeds Arena, 4th May 2023

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It was getting to the stage at this point where I realised I was starting to ‘collect’ Duran gigs in different cities. Birmingham, Dublin, London and now Leeds. There’ll be at least one more city added to the collection in the upcoming weeks of this gig blog catchup! Leeds was probably the easiest for travelling so far.

A couple of support acts on this tour, the first of which was Lia Lia. I mostly remember this as ‘experimental but quite pleasant to listen to’.

Next up was Jake Shears of Scissor Sisters fame. He mainly performed his band’s classics, which was fine by me – I vaguely remember seeing the Scissor Sisters at some T in the Park or other back in the day, but like the majority of my twenties, it’s a very blurry memory, so it was fab to be able to see these songs played live again.

Onto the main event! As usual, setlist.fm has the details here.

As mentioned above, this was my fourth time seeing Duran in less than two years so I was quite familiar with the Future Past era setlist by this point. A couple of songs I was delighted to hear live for the first time were ‘Night Boat’ (in hindsight a hint towards the upcoming Danse Macabre album, at that point not yet officially announced) and ‘Is There Something I Should Know?’

I was also intrigued by the mashup of ‘Lonely in Your Nightmare’ and a cover of ‘Super Freak’ – another track that would later become very familiar in the Danse Macabre era! At the time I was a little concerned that this mashup had replaced my old favourite ‘Girls on Film’/’Acceptable in the ’80s’… but I needn’t have worried, as the latter made its appearance later in the evening 😊

I didn’t realise at the time that it would be a while before I saw the band again. 2024 ended up being Duranless because their only UK dates were a couple of festivals down south and the logistics didn’t work out for me. But there were quite a few other gigs, which I’ll be continuing to blog about over the next few weeks!

parkrunday: Jesmond Dene #246

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I’ve felt a bit ‘deep in the winter slump’ this week. The winter running slump was what used to happen before I started my daily run streak (and, indeed, was one of the main reasons why I started my daily run streak). Every winter without fail, I just wouldn’t run at all for a couple of months. The streak put an end to that, thankfully, but there are other ways in which it shows up:

  • The ‘strength and conditioning’ winter slump (I am making an effort to mitigate it and am back doing my prehab and gentle S&C again)
  • General fatigue and stiffness (my hamstring has been tight and uncomfortable this week so I’ve been protecting it via less running and more cycling)
  • Taking a break from race training plans (HIGHLY NECESSARY after the last couple of years but not great for motivation)
  • Not making any more effort to get to a parkrun than I have to (I do make sure to attend parkrun every week, but in the winter it’s preferable to take the easy option, which most weeks is just walking to and from Jesmond Dene)

There’s something a bit ‘hygge’ and cosy about just going to your home parkrun all the time in January. Even if the infamous puddle is back and so you walk home with wet feet.

Photo from Jesmond Dene parkrun Facebook page.

No plans for next week other than ‘attend parkrun’. Taking it a day at a time!

Gig Review: Jim Bob at The Cluny, 9th November 2022

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Still catching up with the gigs from what is now four years ago. What this process is teaching me is that I really need to be more prompt with these reviews. It’s amazing how much you forget.

This was an early anniversary celebration for me and Geth (those who (a) attended our wedding in November 2012 and (b) have a particular niche music awareness may remember that we did our first dance to Carter USM’s ‘And God Created Brixton’).

Berries were the support act. I don’t really remember anything about them, sorry!

There’s no setlist on setlist.fm for this particular show, but the one listed for the Sheffield date is near-identical from my memory.

As is typical for Jim Bob gigs these days, it was a great mix of Carter classics and solo stuff. Geth and I had really been enjoying the recent solo stuff (‘Battling The Bottle’ and ‘The Summer of No Touching’ are big favourites of mine) so it was a constant vibe. We stood on the balcony platform to the side of the pit (I can’t do pits these days!) so the view was slightly blocked, but that didn’t spoil a thing. (Geth afterwards: ‘that was the best gig I’ve been to all year, and I could only see his feet’.)

I had to crouch down to get this one!

Other than the abovementioned, my highlights were ‘Bloodsport for All’ (though, this being late 2022, my mind did wander to the question of whether the ‘God Save the Queen’ reference should be changed to ‘God Save the King’) and ‘Prince in a Pauper’s Grave’ (my all-time favourite Carter song).

It was a great night and definitely up there with the best of 2022. Jim Bob is playing Newcastle again this spring and I’m sort of tempted!

Gig Review: Duran Duran at BST Hyde Park, 10th July 2022

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Shortly after the Dublin gig, I was off to see Duran Duran again!

I was in London on my own for this one so arrived fairly early for the day-long BST event (Duran were headlining) as I didn’t really have anything else to do. None of the music acts during the afternoon caught my interest, and it was a very hot day (one of those days I feel a bit wistful for currently, writing this from the middle of winter!), so I took the opportunity to chill with my picnic blanket under a tree, enjoy food from the festival stalls, read a book and people-watch. (All the girls were in Veja trainers that summer. That is a very strong memory.)

This was my view for most of the day:

I did venture out to catch a bit of Chic and Nile Rodgers, but the sun was still pretty strong so I retreated back to my tree. I knew Nile would be back on stage with Duran later on!

Thankfully it was a lot cooler by the time the main set started. We were very much in the Future Past era at this point, so the setlist was similar to Dublin (London setlist available on setlist.fm here), but the vibe was very different – equally lovely, but somehow more energetic. I was a long way back in the crowd (BST had a large VIP section so unless you were paying through the nose you couldn’t get anywhere near to the stage) but everyone around me was there to dance. It was a great atmosphere. (And Nile came out as expected to join the band for ‘Notorious’ and ‘Pressure Off’!)

It was dark by the time the band finished and a big crush to get out of Hyde Park… but such a buzz and so worth the trip down to London!

parkrunday: Newbiggin-by-the-Sea #356

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One of those winter Saturdays where you don’t know where you’re going until 8am!

By that point, Newbiggin was one of three realistic options locally who had announced they were still on following the course check. We went with it because it sounded the safest bet in terms of staying upright. Quite a few friends had the same idea so it was a nice morning out!

Photo from Newbiggin parkrun Facebook page.

No idea where we’re going next week either (January parkrunning is generally more relaxing if you DON’T plan it), but at least it should be better weather! (I hope.)