gigpusher

A friend who lives nearby in Prestwich sent me this which shows where the parking restrictions are. She suggested anywhere in the blue circle as being a good bet as it's near the motorway so should make for a quicker getaway. My experience of Heaton Park gigs (limited as it is) is expect it to be a bit of a bind. If we didn't have the dogs I'd probably have opted for the public transport options myself.

I think you get Lonelady as one of the supports and she's great so that will be good. Yes it was Hot Chip and Working Men's Club being on the bill that made me go for it. My experience of Hot Chip and New Order live has been kind of the opposite. I feel like Hot Chip always manage to bring their songs more to life than they are on the album, make everything much dancier whereas New Order almost did the opposite. Seemed more downbeat live than on record. Hoping home crowd etc will mean they are better but if the supports are as good as expected it will still be great.

Look forward to your report on it as I'm at Heaton Park on Friday. I'm actually looking forward more to the support than them as when I saw them at Glastonbury I wasn't that impressed but hoping their own fans and post-lockdown joy will mean it's a good one.

Desperately sad news. He was incredibly talented.

She should and she will but I just want her a guaranteed headline slot and I've not seen anyone advocating her headlining the Pyramid so far.

Sadly nothing can protect us from the pain of loss. We can develop some resilience but grief is the price we pay for love as they say.

😄

Yay!!! I really hope it happens. I hope even more that I manage to get a ticket in the re-sale to see it happen.

Yep that was my first Glastonbury and Faithless and Stevie Wonder were a great end to it.

Glad to see more people joining me in my West Holts headliner campaign!

Not at all. It's really important. Helps that some of them are ace! I'd love to have gone. I heard lots of great things but with the dogs especially the poorly one days out like this are off the cards at the minute.

Great to hear that @WestCountryGirl

Last night The Showhawk Duo in Manchester were immense. Probably my best post-lockdown gig so far. There was a lot of joy in that room. The support act Mellowmatic were also really great (Cut Capers vibes) Anyone going to see them is in for a treat and yes it did make me miss Glastonbury so much!!

That's lovely. As I say always nice to break the cycle Yep my mother is more akin to a suburban female Donald Trump. A very destructive force but you know that which doesn't kill you only makes you stronger and all that. I have had no contact with her (apart from 2 family events where I kept my distance) for nearly 17 years now. I have minimal contact with my siblings in the hope that once she's gone we still have something to build on but even speaking to me is something that is done in secret. Whenever my niece who is now early 20's calls me she'll still say you won't tell anyone that I called you because she's scared of the consequences. My mother tends to manipulate them with money. She thinks nothing of withdrawing her money (and supposed love) the moment people don't tow the line. I'm not especially materialistic and learned pretty early on to just rely on me and so opted out of her power games decades ago. When I was a kid she used my younger sister as a weapon. If I didn't do exactly what she wanted she would leave and take my sister with her. She had already done this when I was 9 years old for about 2 and a half years so it wasn't an empty threat but once I left home she no longer had that and money never worked as well with me. I have friends with families they just don't have much in common with. It's sadly more common than people realise. We're led to believe that happy functioning families are the norm but really they are not. One of my friends used to work overtime whenever his sister came to stay with him in London. He didn't even especially dislike her. He just found they had nothing to talk about and whatever they did talk about was boring so it was easier to claim he was busy and just keep out of her way. Luckily nowadays we kind of make our own families and you can have great friends etc who fill the gap where family are expected to be.

Yep I was just gone 17 when I left and never moved back home again. I go home very infrequently. It's been 4.5 years since I last went over for a weekend for a cousin's wedding probably another 5 years before that so yes about twice a decade for very short breaks.

Hopefully you might find this useful then.

That sounds like me with my husband's family. He's so used to doing it I don't think he even realises how weird it is. Irish families tend to be the opposite. My brother and I can have a good old row and once it's done it done but my husbands family total opposite. I've become very good at biting my tongue but I really hate it. I'm always quite convinced that one day they'll have a blazing row that they won't be able to recover from because the decades of under the surface passive aggressive behaviours.

I think everyone is a textbook case. The 'honesty' that family members have with each other is code for the ability to give every person the insecurities and vulnerabilities that they take with them into adulthood. Even in the nicest of families there is always something. Hope it goes well and hope the sister issues resolve themselves peacefully.

Yep families can be very complicated things and money tends to bring out the worst in people. I remember my mother saying that if my father had left everything to a cat's home that I would be doing the same as her. I said I'd be surprised because he preferred dogs but if they were his wishes I wouldn't challenge them. I would only ever challenge a will if I thought someone had been forced into doing something against their will and I had some evidence to back that up. My mother tried to do that with my grandmother and a solicitor refused to change her will because he didn't feel convinced it was her real wish to change her will. I don't have kids and think I will leave everything to charity rather than any family. When my husband's Grandad died there was a spat over the will because the one Aunt who lived near him felt she should get more than everyone else because she looked after him. She literally gave people a bill for looking after her own father. He was a difficult man I believe but I'm firmly of the opinion you either care for someone because you love them or leave them to their own devices but to expect payment for looking after a parent (and it was minimal care!) was fucking grim to me. Sorry to hear that there is any family drama going on at an already difficult time. If they live nearby I suspect she will already know.

Nope I voted for it in my albums of the month for August. I think it's really great.

I have some experience of the contentious nature of wills. My mother sued us over my Dad's will and 12 years later when it got to court the judge laughed her out of court and told her to accept what we had all offered her the day we found out about the will. The only winners tend to be solicitors. From what you have said before your father was a not very nice person and unfortunately that type of person tends to try and control things from even beyond the grave. I am personally of the opinion that these things should be talked about when people are alive so they don't cause shocks and arguments when people are not but then a lot of people don't like to talk about these things. I'd say if you have any plans that would impact on your siblings tell them, explain why and hopefully they would actually want to help you. These things can end up having a detrimental effect on familial relationships and in my opinion it's just not worth it. We could end up in a similar contentious situation in the future as with my Dad's will he left everything to his children. Obviously my brother died this year so the question is should my niece now get his share. My niece lives with her mother and has had no contact with any of us for many years. Her mother wouldn't even let her say goodbye to my brother which frankly I thought was inhuman to both my brother and my niece who was only 14 years old at the time. Personally I would have no issue with my niece getting the money if everyone was in agreement and to be honest I'd give up my money if it kept family peace but when you have a group of people who have to make a decision these things can turn nasty. Money matters tend to bring out he worst in people.

Your post prompted me to do an e-mail search and turns out I have an e-ticket from Ticketbastard!! Not sure how that happened as I usually avoid them at all costs 😄

As @BlueDazesaid I'm sure she already knew in fact I'd bet she has been hiding it from all of you for longer than you can imagine. It will probably be a relief in the long run to have it out there although from friends experience of this it may be a conversation that is lost as well. It's a really tough disease but if it's any consolation to you it will be tougher on you most of the time than on her.

Little Simz album is the greatness I was expecting. Also, another one that I've quite enjoyed today that is a couple of weeks old but don't think I have seen it mentioned anywhere is The Helicopter of the Holy Ghost - Afters. It has Mark Morriss (of Bluetones fame) on vocals and I am a sucker for his voice. The album is the remnants of songs written years earlier by Billy Reeves before an accident put him in a coma. He has no memory of originally writing them.

We were just having the conversation today about whether they were e-tickets or not arrived yet. We've not had ours yet but hopefully they are on their way!