GIG: Combichrist (Birmingham)

My third (Rose's second) time seeing Combichrist and thankfully the venue wasn't packed to the rafters, it wasn't hotter than hell (like it had been the previous day) and the journey wasn't a nightmare. We got there in very good time and so we had to watch the support band Alacrity. They were okay, we couldn't understand what the singer said when he announced the band's name and we'd utterly failed to find out who it was beforehand. In the end we looked at the merch stand and then asked the lighting guy...

There was a T-shirt for a 'band' called Eric 13, so we were confused... turns out Combichrist's guitarist is called Eric 13. Quite why he gets his own T-shirt I don't know. But when Rose asked the lighting guy 'is this Eric 13' he looked around as if she'd said is that Axl Rose...  which kinda makes more sense now that we know who he is. Anyway...

So, Combichrist were good, and Rose enjoyed them a lot. I thought (again) they were okay, but a) they are now the least electronic electronic band, and b) I wish they'd let me choose their setlist. Of the set, about an hour at most, I think there were maybe four songs that I would have picked. But then most of what I would have picked would have come from the era when they were still essentially 'electronic'

Having lost their drummer to Aesthetic Perfection, Andy has recruited a new drummer and alongside him is the second drummer, who doesn't so much drum as prance about looking a tool. Encoring with Maggots at the Party FOLLOWED by the title track of the new album was an odd thing to do as well... I actually like the new album, I think I just like Combichrist better on album than live.

No 'Get Your Body Beat' this time, in fact nothing remotely electronic except 'This Shit Will Fuck You Up', which was their intro tape. So yeah, it was okay but I'm struggling to be genuinely excited.

DAY OUT: Woburn Abbey

We were surprised and somewhat disheartened to realise that we had chosen to visit Woburn Abbey on the day of a 'garden show'. In theory this meant more to see I suppose, but in practice what it actually meant was that our £17 ticket now cost £26. When they said 'garden show' I think I was envisaging a 'flower show' of sorts and yes there were some flowers (a few) but mostly it was a cavalcade of wank. A festival of tut (copyright Alan Sugar) if you will, you know the kind of thing: tents inhabited by people who spin yarn for fun, Gin sellers, overpriced cake bakers, the sort of people who cut wooden animals out of wood and stick buttons to them. C***s, basically. Admittedly we did succumb to the woman selling caramel shortbread, and it was quite nice... though at £2.50 per (smallish) slice it really out to have been the best thing I've ever eaten.

So we pottered around the place chuckling at the crap these people were peddling and then headed off to the arboretum where we encountered a not overly friendly squirrel and the world's simplest maze. I kid you not, fifteen seconds and we were in the middle of the thing!

After that we wandered through a greenhouse and off to the 'Private Gardens' which were okay, but largely gravel paths and somewhat lacking in flowers (just like most stately homes really). We headed back to the car for lunch and then made for the house. The house wasn't bad, although a few of the paintings were a bit dodgy, one poor woman was distinctly boss-eyed and one of the recent owners was portrayed as a drunken cougar, which was amusing...

The tour of the house was punctuated by amusing interludes, not least an overheard conversation between two people who seemingly used to know each other and didn't seem overly keen to reacquaint themselves ('You used to look after my kids, before you buggered off and left...). Then there were the overly enthusiastic room guides and then ones who barked at you if you tried to do things in the wrong order.

The house tour ended in a 'grotto' completely decorated in shells, that was actually quite cool and pleasingly cool (in the literal sense as it was quite a warm day 20-26 degrees). After we left the house we had a final look around and headed for the 'Sculpture Gallery' which sounded like a promising way to end the visit. In reality the sculpture gallery was not a gallery of sculptures as one might expect, but yet another tea room (bringing the total opportunities for beverage consumption to ludicrous heights!), this really was taking the biscuit(s).

By now it was half past one and we decided that as it would literally be impossible to 'get our money's worth' since there simply weren't enough hours of daylight left to recoup fifty two English pounds of investment, we called it a day and headed home. But not before one more militant parking Nazi tried to intercept and redirect us as we tried desperately to leave via the exit!

New Carpet!

Due to arrive at midday, we were startled to hear a knock at the door just after 10AM. Startled since we had barely started moving anything out of the downstairs, so... thirty very busy and sweaty minutes later we finally let the guys in to do the work. They finished around 2PM and we had our whole downstairs and the hall, stairs and landing re-carpeted at last! For once we chose really well, it looks great. How long before the cats destroy it though?

SHOPPING: Bicester Village

A very brief visit to Bicester today, really just calling at TAG to pick up a rubber strap for my Aquaracer. Got to talk to Tom and Sophie for a little while, but really wanted to get back home before the rush hour kicked in.

MEAL OUT: The Falcon (Warmington)

After our morning at Aston Martin we needed somewhere relatively close by and preferably 'on the way' to Bicester to stop for lunch. We made an excellent choice with The Falcon which was a lovely pub/restaurant and we had a superb lunch. I had chicken/leek/ham pie with tarragon sauce and chunky chips, while Rose had sausage and mash. For pudding we shared a warm Bakewell Tart with honeycomb ice cream which was also pretty fantastic, it's not exactly local to us, but we could certainly come home from Bicester via Warmington sometime...

FACTORY VISIT: Aston Martin

Thanks to Lee we were lucky enough to get a visit to the Aston Martin factory at Gaydon. We were due there at 9:30 but in typical fashion arrived about 15 minutes too early. We met our guide Sally and she explained that they had only just started doing tours for the public and that they generally cost £350 and there was a waiting list, so were clearly in a privileged position!

We started off in a 'spec room' where people come to choose the finishes for their Aston Martin, not just the paint colour, but also the leather, brake calipers and endless other details that need deciding when you spend £200-300,000 on a car.

We were then taken on to the factory floor and shown workers building seats, dashboards, and various other internal trimmings. Then on to the machines which detail the leather, including punching and cutting (and also embroidering Aston Martin logos onto the headrests) before seeing the ladies (mostly ladies) who sew the leather together.

From there we moved on past the shell store and saw an automated robot pick up a bodyshell and trundle off with it. Then we got to see the paint shop (through a window) and then back to the production line proper. We saw the 'Vantage' production line from start to finish which was pretty interesting, and it was pretty cool to see so many hyper expensive Astons all together in endless bespoke colour variations. 

I really quite looked the matt dark grey paint finish, but you just know that it would be a nightmare to keep looking good. There was also an extremely bright 'lime' green Vantage that looked really cool and looking at some of the detailing on the side panels I could see where TAG Heuer had got the circles/hexagon design for the AM Carrera.

The visit lasted a couple of hours and at the end Sally have us each an Aston Martin lapel badge and a copy of the Aston Martin magazine, which I noticed had an advert for Patek Phillipe on the back rather than TAG Heuer.

GARDEN: 16th June 2019

SHOPPING: Cheshire Oaks

Forecast for 12 degrees and no rain until 5pm... drove through rain on the way up and torrential rain on the way home, but thankfully no precipitation of any consequence while we were there! And it was surprisingly warm, hitting 20 degrees at one point. Despite that we had a great time there, spanning the usual five hours or so... and we returned with four pairs of trainers, a hoodie a handbag, a bag of Lindors, some Hotel Chocolat easter eggs and a few other bits as well - all in all an impressive haul! We also met Carly in TAG Heuer at last, although the shop itself had a slightly disappointing quality of stock, which was a shame.