January

Man alive this month has been bleak, it has constantly been snowing and that has made the briefest of journeys difficult. The newspapers have been speculating that this is the onset of the apocalypse! I was even snowed in at some point for three days and that resulted in having to work from home – which is not easy when you have lectures scheduled. I tried to set off for a 9.00am lecture - an hour later having trundled less than a mile, I turned and headed for home. So the best plan for this month was stay indoors and enjoy the warmth of a glowing fire and some cultural treats.

Of the highlights of the month, the main highlight was something that began in the last days of 2009 and went through until 2nd January. It was a different start to a new year for me. Normally I like to spend that unnamed period between Boxing Day doing as little as possible. This year that changed as I spent the period in Slovakia. I stayed in a place called Kosice in the east of the country with my gf and her sister and was made to feel thoroughly welcome.

Having flown in on Monday evening the week was something of a whirlwind but I have to say enjoyable. I only arrived in Kosice after – two flights from Manchester to Bratislava, then Bratislava to Kosice. The next two days were spent exploring the city and even included my first ever game of squash…which I managed to survive. New Year’s Eve was spent in a club called Wig Wam – which was interesting to see how a different culture celebrated New Year - no different as it turned out.

The final day was spent in Bratislava (where we were due to fly home from), this required an early start to catch the 5.30am train. Bratislava is very nice and is obviously geared towards the tourist trade with the number of quirky and different statues it has littered around the streets - which I took the opportunity to snap and pose in front of. The flight home was my first encounter with Ryanair and everything that I had heard about them is true - cheap without ever troubling the cheerful side of that cliché.

Added to the fun of the flight was the rapid decent due to turbulence…twice. This was conveniently ignored by the pilot, given it happened more than once was a little disconcerting to say the least. When we eventually landed the relief turned to hilarity when the announcement congratulated everyone for being of ‘90% of the flights that landed’…thankfully this was not an admittance of their poor flying abilities mainly the announcement had cut out before it could add the ‘on time’ which was of importance to that mention. A day of rest was called for after all that, alas that was not the case as it was my parents 40th Wedding Anniversary celebrations the next day. This was good and it was good to catch up with family so soon after Christmas.

So the cultural highlights of the month, given that I was a little skint after Christmas it was mainly catching up with the stuff that had been piling up. The pick of the albums that I have been listening to was the Eels, who are now in the veteran stage of their career and now have enough tunes to release a greatest hits collection (not that not having enough hits usually deters other bands). The collection is not the cheeriest but seemed to be fitting giving the weather so far this year.

The other albums listened to this month was the Leisure Society’s, The Sleeper an album I had been meaning to listen to for a few years after hearing their excellent single Last of the Melting Snow on the Mark Radcliffe show. The album was quite cheap on Amazon and contained a bonus disc of equally interesting material. Apart from the afore mentioned song A Matter of Time was my favourite other track.

Another album that I had on constantly this month was the Swell Season’s new album – another bargain considering the package contained an a disc of new tracks, a live cd and DVD. The Swell Season is Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová, stars of the 2007 film Once, a favourite of mine, who their song Falling Slowly won an Oscar in 2008 for the Best Original Song…something of a left field success. The album is a follow on from the soundtrack and continues the line of upbeat melancholia.

My only venture to the cinema this month was when I was in Slovakia at the start of the year, thankfully I dodged a Jennifer Anniston movie (my gf and her sister decided to watch that) instead I watched Sherlock Holmes. I liked the look of the trailers but on the whole I think the movie came across as smug and feeling too wrapped up in itself - the film also ends quite abruptly with a sequel obviously in the offing.

The pile of dvds is finally dwindling, I finally got around to watching the Inbetweeners DVD that my brother bought me for Christmas, I had already seen both series but it was well worth watching again. I also watched American Splendor and Finding Eric which I had purchased before Christmas.

Not much new on the old gogglebox apart from the new series of Curb your Enthusiasm which is showing on More4, and was especially entertaining as it reunited the cast of Seinfeld and thankfully did not trash the memory of the series. I also made a start on wading through the earlier series, which are still good after all these years.

That’s it for now; hopefully I can keep this going next month. Here’s to spring which can’t come soon enough.