Summer concerts

It's that time of the year again where I have bought my tickets to see the concerts that are happening this summer.

So far the list is like this:
May 30th: Kylie Minogue
May 31st: Blue Man Group
June 5th: Stereophonics and Manic Street Preachers (at Caribana)
June 6th: Kate Nash and Keziah Jones (at Caribana)
July 23rd: Mika, Justice (at Paleo)

I'm still deliberating on whether to go to this one
July 7th: The Raconteurs, Vampire Weekend (at Montreux)
July 12th: Adele, Mark Ronson, Jill Scott (at Montreux)
July 22nd: Ben Harper, The Hives, The Wombats (at Paleo)

And names that I might miss:
June 4th: Alanis Morissette (already seen her ages ago and she's over the hill anyway)
June 7th: Maroon 5, Boy George (no reason)
July 10th: Gnarls Barkley, Travis (at Montreux, too lazy to go during a weekday)
July 14th: Quincy Jones with a lot of guests
July 15th: Babyshambles (what are the odds of Pete Doherty actually making it on stage?)
July 16th: Lenny Kravitz
July 17th: Alicia Keys (already seen her)
July 25th: Massive Attack (already seen them twice)
July 27th: R.E.M. (already seen them), Yael Naim

Though choice, isn't it?

Brighton

Last weekend, me and my girlfriend went to Brighton to celebrate her birthday. We left Friday morning (er, more like Friday mid-day because of Easyjet delay), got to Gatwick, grabbed a car and drove down. Surprisingly, it's quite near to Gatwick (only half an hour drive).

Anyway, Brighton (officially Brighton & Hove) is a nice place by the sea. Unfortunately Friday and Saturday's weather wasn't that great but on Sunday it was lovely. And like any other tourist coming to Brighton, we hit the pier almost as soon as we got there.

I really like the pier. The silly slot machines, the little machines where you put in coins to move more coins and lots of video games. The coin machine in particular is highly addictive. Then the silly games you can play: tin can throwing, rubber ring throwing, dolphin derby, etc etc. On Sunday I managed to get on the little roller coaster and it was fab. It has actually been quite a long time since I have been on a roller coaster.

But there are more things to do in Brighton than just the pier. Shopping in and around Churchill Square. Wander around the Lanes. Have Fish and Chips (there's a chippie around almost every corner). Enjoying the scenery (which we did on Sunday by driving around the Downs).

On top, all the people there are very nice. It's definitely a must when you're in England.

Oh, and while we were in Brighton, we had drinks and were sitting on the same couch as Kelly Jones (he from Stereophonics). Shamefully, the only interaction we had with him was "can we sit on this free bit here?".

Fine

Yesterday I received a fine from the police in the post. I had been stopped by the police about 2 months ago and was wondering when the fine will come. The fine was for CHF 130 and the cause of the fine was this: "Excessive noise due to squealing/screeching of tyres" (ok, it was in French, but the translation is that). Bet you have never been fined for that, have you??

Simpsons not suitable for children?

I laughed out loud when I read this article on bbc.

The Simpsons is not suitable for children but Baywatch is???

Liverpool vs Arsenal

On Sunday I caught a bug (even though I had a flu jab earlier this year) and was rendered useless pretty much until now. So last night was a good opportunity for me to just sit back, relax and watch some football on telly.

The game was Liverpool vs Arsenal, the competition was the second leg quarter-final of the UEFA Champions League. They had played each other 3 times before and the score was always 1-1. If it was to be 1-1 again it would have gone to penalties and nobody was ruling out that possibility.

But when the game started it was clear that Arsenal was looking for goals. They attacked in waves and with so much speed and precision it was amazing to watch. I wasn't surprised when they got their first goal, by Abou Diaby, after some collective passing around.

Then slowly Liverpool started to come back, and from a corner, Samy Hyypia got away from Philippe Senderos and headed the ball in the goal, with Lucky Luke-esque precision. 1-1. Was it going to end like this?

After half-time Arsenal was clearly a bit more tired than Liverpool and Liverpool kept going at it, until Fernando Torres did what he does best. Receiving the ball with the back to the goal, he took a step forward, turned around and lashed a beautiful shot in the corner. Amazing goal.

Arsenal had no choice but to attack. Walcott and van Persie went on, and Walcott then did an amazing run from deep in his on half, passed 4 guys and passed the ball to Adebayor who just slipped it under Reina. 2-2 and Arsenal were going through. But as they were celebrating, Babel then ran into the penalty box and Kolo Toure got on the wrong side of him. Babel fell down and the ref pointed to the spot.

Gerrard taking the penalty on the Kop side of Anfield. No guesses how that ended.

And then Babel added a fourth goal when all Arsenal players were desperately looking for a goal.

It was one of those really good games, one of those games that will be talked about for the next couple of years. Lucky I could watch it on telly.