The US TV season is back in full swing and I now have a long list of television shows to watch, which take up most of the evenings in the week. GREEK obviously started first at the end of August but that has been joined by Heroes and The Big Bang Theory. We also have the second series of Fringe and Dollhouse (which starts later this month). You may have seen the trails on Five but I am also going to catch the new show FlashForward. It looks interesting, particularly as I believe it is going to focus on premonitions. The trailers were enough for me to give the first episode a spin and take it from there. I have to mention the episode of GREEK from Monday 7th September (I watched the day after). It was very funny, particularly one scene with a fight on stage during Father’s Weekend at the ZBZ House. However, the songs in the series are always perfectly placed and there was a new song I heard towards the end of the episode which I had to track down. The official web site is excellent with the song clips included in a video, but more importantly full details of band, artist and if you are so inclined, an iTunes download link. The most important part though is after this, the description of when the song played in the episode. For the episode Our Fathers, the song was Underwater Breathing by Marie Digby. She is no stranger to the college drama, as she has even starred in an episode herself. She appears playing, “Better Off Alone” (her own composition not Alice Deejay dance track) in Dobler’s way back in season one, episode twenty-one, “Barely Legal”. I then headed to YouTube to watch a clip of Marie taking delivery of her album (of the same name) and had to take a listen to the song in full. Beware, it is rather mushy and totally destroys my macho man like status.

I know in the attempts to catch up with the blog I am going to miss out certain minor events but I really need to include the spin class. Have you seen Run Fat Boy, Run? Well on Friday 11th September, I survived my first ever spin class. James has been trying for months to get me to come to LA Fitness (the site of the former cinema in Newbury many years ago). Conveniently, every time he has asked I have been busy, most recently on 31st July when I was going over to Thame to meet with friends. I gave in and eventually bit the bullet last week. However, I did not know the elaborate plot that James and Lee had concotted. They had told the spin class instructor, a very nice Amanda, that I was a spin class instructor from another gym and coming to check out the competition. Now, there are white lies, slightly bending the truth but this was ridiculous. It became obviously a few minutes in that this was my first time, so I did get some one to one attention from Amanda. Plus she had a go at James for being such a bad boy! It took a good fifteen minutes to get into my stride but I have to say I did enjoy the work out and the music did actually help. I suppose if you start on spin class as a regular activity (James goes twice a week) the benefit will come rather quickly and you can push yourself harder and harder each session. It was hard work but I did enjoy it, although the points when you are off the seats and pedalling against the highest resistence setting were tough. I should have gone home and collapsed but instead, I quickly showered and jumped in the car to meet up with a friend in Maidenhead before heading back to Wycombe for the weekend. What a weekend! I had planned to stay in on Friday night, it was to be my first Friday night in since middle of July (17th) so a good two months and if I am honest I needed the down time. I needed to sort things out and get things done and spend some time updating this blog. What did I do instead? Well I went to Wembley Stadium to watch Coldplay. Yes I know, I know I am not a fan of the band. It was an offer I could not refuse and considering my last and only other concert at Wembley was way back in July 2007. It felt strange to be back at Wembley just nine days after watching England qualify for South Africa. By the time I got to Paddington, met up with my friend, got some food and then headed to the stadium it was getting well into the supporting acts. We had missed White Lies and Girls Aloud and as we took our seats, I recalled it was 19:47 and Jay-Z was on the stage. He started singing Run This Town. My weekend had truly started and in some style!

I am sure I have given my opinion on Coldplay and bands of the ilk before but will set the record straight. I listen to music to feel better. If I am in a bad mood, I want the music to lift me up and feel better. I never really want the music to reflect how I feel, unless of course I am happy and joyful in which case there are plenty of artists, albums and songs to pick from. Having said that, I did really enjoy their most recent song and the title for this tour, Viva La Vida. I thought it would be used for the grand finale but instead it was used middle of the set. This is a song which made me sit up and pay attention to Coldplay and I do have a few of their other songs on my hard drive but overall they do not appeal to me as a band. I did enjoy the concert, although it did have the feel of a homecoming (it was the penultimate date of their tour). Chris Martin is a showman and I do enjoy his prancing around to get the crowd going. The crowd itself was diverse to say the least, behind college kids, perhaps around seventeen to nineteen, but then older ladies and couples. There were a few highlights for me, the band made their way to the back of the stage (onto a podium) where they were joined by Simon Pegg and performed Trouble with Pegg on the harmonica! I heard the introduction to Billie Jean or rather my friend noticed it slightly before I did. The arrangement was very similar to Chris Cornell (although you might be more familiar with the Austin Drage version from The X Factor last year.) It was good to hear some MJ and I was not complaining. Overall, much like after Radiohead at Reading Festival, less than a month before I appreciate Coldplay having seen them perform live in an arena setting. I recall it was midnight as we got onto the M4, heading past towards the GSK building, with the temperature hitting 14 degrees outside. It was great to be driven home for a change (although of course my sisters had done the exact same thing just two weeks earlier). Not having to rush for a train or find the car or get a taxi at a stupid hour for a stupid fare. While going out late on a Friday can tire you out, it is good feeling to know you still have Saturday and Sunday to look forward to. It was gone 2:30am by the time I got to Newbury and if I had been in a better mood, the evening would have ended on a brighter note, instead I was left wondering what fate had instore for me in the next few weeks. Saturday was rather a dull day, I did not really get that much done if I am honest. I watched the first episode of season two of Fringe, which was very good. I watched Football Focus, feel asleep on the sofa while watching Final Score. An average Saturday afternoon, with Arsenal getting back to winning ways against Wigan Athletic. I watched the usual mix of reality television which has become a stable diet for Saturday evenings closely followed by MOTD before going to sleep early well around midnight, which is early for me. Today I went to the gym, did the food shopping and then headed to the to Hungerford for some lunch with a friend. A relaxing way to spend Sunday afternoon. On our return to the flat, we watched some television before they headed off home around 8pm and I sat down to watch the rest of The X Factor auditions. The rest of the evening is a bit of a blur, there was not much on television, so I am sure I just caught highlights of the Manchester Derby on MOTD2 and went to sleep, it is going to be a busy week ahead in the office and although I was not looking forward to going back in, it was a good to have pleasant warm feelings of a wonderful weekend with some wonderful company as I finally fall asleep.