nicpillinger.com

they're off the o2 and ready to go home

2008-11-10T09:48:00.001Z

no this one is!
Originally uploaded by nicpillinger

jack and alfie are on their way home this week - fingers crossed. good luck abby and andy with the transition!

long time no blog

2008-10-06T13:20:00.002+01:00

Still reading other peoples blogs (keep it up guys!) - but don't seem to have found time recently to post anything of note on mine. Very poor.

news of note:

We have moved house (again). finally moved into St Vincent a couple of weeks ago. really pleased we're, at last, in our own place again and feel like we can start to settle.

Abby has had her twins. Alfie and Jack are doing great - hoping to get up to London to see them this weekend.

The surf has been great down here for the last few weeks - have got some great sessions in. Missed some epic windsurfing this weekend by the looks of things :(

finally: this is ace!

love me do, with cowbells

2008-09-12T14:58:00.000+01:00


	Make your own at MoreCowbell.dj

surfing after work

2008-07-25T10:54:00.002+01:00

Polzeath clean evening swell
Originally uploaded by nicpillinger

Its all worth it when you pull up to the beach at 6.30pm and see waves like these coming in. I still cant get over the fact that I can do this after work. What an evening! Have uploaded a few other recent photos to Flickr including our new back garden (Meldon) and Tzar in a Parka. You need to be my friend on Flickr to see them.

hibbett's new single

2008-07-14T13:25:00.002+01:00

and rather good it is too.
info from the man himself...

THE NEW SINGLE

Our brand new single, "It Only Works Because You're Here" is
officially released next Monday. It'll be available on Amazon and
(theoretically) in SHOPS, but you can get it direct from our webpage
right NOW by going here:

http://www.mjhibbett.net/releases/itonlyworksbecauseyourehere.htm

As well as the title track it's got two brand new b-sides,
"Professional Competent Rocking And Tight" and "Sod It Let's Get
Pissed", and a veritable GREATEST HITS of bonus tracks taken from the
Edinburgh Show. It's a bargain!

THE NEW VIDEO

The rather smashing video for "It Only Works Because You're Here" is
now on YouTube, HERE:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=naiJZWc_iDk

testing scribe fire firefox addin

2008-07-08T11:36:00.001+01:00

nice add-in to firefox for blogging - not sure why I would use this rather than typing blogger.com into the browser mind.

jill cocker/moving house sucks ass

2008-06-24T12:03:00.007+01:00

I always thought moving house wasn't as bad as everyone makes out. I've moved house lots of times and bought and sold a flat and a house. Its always been a pain but hardly "one of the most stressful things you'll ever do in your life". That is until now.

Nothing quite prepared me for the extreme stress of the last 2 months trying to sell our house in London and buy one in Devon. The way the housing market/conveyancing system works, seems to me, to be completely knuts. it just creates it's own problems with a lack of communication generally occuring at all levels.

yesterday after 3 months of back and forth, at 4:55pm on the day of exchange (for completion in two days time) our seller decided to to ask for more money. with the market in it's current situation I'm not sure what they were thinking. they were already getting over the odds as we agreed a price before the market started to tumble (down here). anyway we duely told them where they could stick that request and their house (this was the last straw in three months of them dicking us around) and are now left with the uncomfortable situation of having to move out of our house in London on Friday with no where to move to in Devon. added to this we've lost about £10k. thanks Jill Cocker, I look forward to seeing your house back on the market for £70k less than it was when you accepted our offer and led us down the garden path of thinking we might have a house to move into on Friday. just leave it right till the last minute before fcuking it all up - don't worry about the whole chain of peoples lives you have dicked with.

update:
I got carried away with the story, we've now got somewhere to live! it's all karma, fate, whathaveyou. a cottage has come up for rent this week, about 100 yards from where we are staying. we can move in on Friday :D crash housing market, crash!

west is best

2008-05-19T19:40:00.002+01:00

let me start by saying, I am not complaining. new job started just over a week ago after a traumatic and slightly crazy long weekend of travel and moving stuff to our temporary home at little bidlake farm. the commute is a "hellish" 30 minutes of traffic free A roads which I would probably describe as "the most relaxing commute i've ever had the pleasure of doing". the work so far is interesting and challenging although to be fair I've yet to really get stuck into it. best of all the team are great, has to be said I'm missing the banter of the uSwitchers but I think I've moved to a very similar environment in terms of humour vs work vs did you see that thing on tv last night? so all good. the biggest problem I have right now is leaving work on time. I seem to be stuck in the london leave at 6/6.30 unless you're busy mentality. I regularly find myself as one of the last to leave and thats at 5:20pm?

like I said I am not complaining. I think this is something companies in London have completely wrong. if you work your 9-5 and work it well there is no reason to work any longer. the added relaxation time helps balance out your life leaving you more motivated and ready to work again the next day.

house purchase/sale is still all going through but man does it take a long time. next weekend is bank holiday surf, then hoping to be back in London weekend of the 30th. also barrett if you're reading this - my accent is back already and within weeks will be rivalling yours!

ididntvoteforboris

2008-05-07T10:08:00.001+01:00

neither of us did in fact
http://www.ididntvoteforboris.co.uk/

ipodclassic

2008-04-10T10:19:00.004+01:00

I had one of the 2nd or 3rd edition ipods which I used for quite a few years, monochrome lcd and about 10gb if i remember right. when I got my first walkman phone I flogged the old ipod on ebay and never looked back. it seemed like having a gb of music in my phone was enough to get by and it meant I didn't have to carry another device around. bonus. last year Em bought me a shuffle which I still use on the rare occasions I do any non water based exercise. the shuffle does my head in though. it's got enough room on it to put 10 albums on it but if I want to listen to album 9 and I'm currently at album 1 I have to click through all the songs. grrrr. that may not be the point of the shuffle but thats how I listen to music - I dont listen to one song, I listen to an album.

anyway, recent experience with my new nokia music phone drove me bonkers (5310, nice phone but reboots randomly when playing mp3 - but it's a music phone?) and I decided it was time to get myself a new fangled mp3 playing portable music device. so I checked out the market and looked for something big enough to get all my music on - shockingly it turns out that there isn't much choice of mp3 player with a big hard disc. you can buy an ipod or .. well nothing really (you could buy an expensive archos media player but who wants one of them?). so I plumped for the whopping 160GB ipod classic. a good choice I think, it rocks. more space than I could ever use, better sound than any music phone or indeed my old ipod. and as for coverflow! as I said before I listen to music an album at a time and being able to flick through and pick an album by cover is reminiscent of flicking through lps - it really is a nice way to interact with your music collection. I've listened to it pretty much everyday since I bought it and this morning I realised how nice it is to have all my music with me everyday again. who knows when I'll feel the urge to listen an early 1970s Genesis gig?

do the indie kid

2008-04-07T14:06:00.002+01:00

the new single from mj hibbett is ace. check out the video...

the times they are a changing

2008-04-04T11:42:00.002+01:00

out for some refreshing/expensive pints of san miguel last night with ralph. back to the nell gwynne, an old fav which despite being under constant threat of closure still seems to be doing a roaring trade. the thing I will miss most about living in London has to be those summer pints after work - the freedom to just go and get sloshed and get a tube home at whatever time is a really great thing. Mind you, I think I've made the most of my time in London in this resepect - I've done my fair share of summer outside the pub drinking. I guess I've been lucky that all the places I've worked have had such an ace social bunch of people who like to do this sort of thing.

so the next couple of months will probably be a bit crazy, the house is on the market and we've made the decision to move (back) to the West Country. I'm still waiting for it to sink in but it seems to just all be happening. I have three weeks left at uSwitch and not long after that I'll be starting my new position at Landmark. blimey. looking forward to living in Exeter again it's now nearly 13 years since I left. time flies and all that. I think I'm the last of my group of friends to move out of the capital - not sure what that says about me really, I guess I'm a sucker for expensive lager and crowded stinking tube trains :D

happy easter

2008-03-19T11:59:00.001Z

happy easter
Originally uploaded by nicpillinger

all I said was "that piece of halibut was good enough for Jehova!"

keeping chickens

2008-01-16T14:02:00.001Z

a chicken housing solution (the eglu!) for the less rural location

shoegazing making a return?

2008-01-11T17:26:00.000Z

my bloody valentine and jesus and mary chain both playing gigs at the roundhouse in the coming months.

there'll be Ride reunion and all the other hangers on like slowdive and chaperhouse will be coming out of the wordwork before you know it, I HOPE.

HURRAH! for dreary 90s indie.

the white city

2008-01-11T14:55:00.000Z

via pauly

minus tirith and the battle of pelennor fields made out of sweets

ace christmas and new year. snowboarding in saalbach was excellent - photos on the way. also i am totally addicted to guitar hero III on the wii - it's chuffing ace.

Hugh's chicken run thing starts tonight

2008-01-07T17:24:00.000Z

Support the campaign - sign up on the chickenout site!

dexter

2007-11-28T09:47:00.000Z

been watching the first series of dexter and its really quite good. whats the book that it was based on like? Pauly I'm guessing you have read this?

stewart lee's comedy vehicle

2007-11-28T09:17:00.000Z

last night we went to see Stewart Lee filming a pilot for his, probably never to be commissioned, show on BBC2; "Stewart Lee's comedy vehicle". The filming took place at the The Mildmay Club which is on the corner of Newington Green in north london. Really great little venue for stand up, I dont know if they put anything else on there normally (it appears to basically be a proper olde working mans club upstairs) but the bit they filmed in was a cool little retro theatre style room.

there was an initial 15 minute support slot for Stephen Carlin who was excellent, would definitely go and see him again. Stewart Lee's material was mostly recent stuff from his 41st Best Stand Up Ever tour although a lot of it was tweaked for the tv audience. All in all very funny stuff, lets hope once it's cut together with whatever else is going in the show the BBC like it (can they get away with showing his rant about Channel 4 on BBC2?).

tiroler hut

2007-11-09T17:25:00.000Z

for some reason I'm number 1 in googles natural search if you search for the phrase "Tirola Hut". I guess because I misspelled it, anyway I'm adding this post with the correct spelling in a bid for google dominance of Austrian themed restaurants in london.

no posts for months and then three come along at once

ah and the thing I forgot to post before, how ace are Flight of the Conchords? Bluddy ace is the answer. check some of their stuff on youtube. I particularly love the "bowie's in space" number.

MOO!

2007-11-09T17:19:00.001Z

how ace if not slightly disturbing. from b3ta last week.

not very timely update

2007-11-09T17:00:00.001Z

sfa@roundhouse
Originally uploaded by nicpillinger

neil pestered me to update my blog so here (for neil) and anyone who might notice the site has been updated is some news!

i am now married to a DOKTOR! hurrah! Em is offically Dr Pillinger which is quite an achievement I think you'll agree.

In other news the sfa were rocking when we saw them t'other week in t'roundhouse. A brilliant venue, well recommended. Great support acts starting with The Adam Hussain show (of GLC), he played Delivery Driver - who could ask for more? Then Jim Noir who was really good and not as twee as I thought he would be at all. SFA played two sets (sandwhiching a brief slot of Adam Hussain singing something about Beer). They played something from every one of their studio albums and managed to chuck in a few b-sides as well - highlights for me were Down a different river and If you dont want me to destroy you but the new stuff was also really good. ... In fact here's a list of songs they played not quite in order

Gateway Song
Runaway
Show Your Hand
Ymaelodi A'r Ymylon
Atomik Lust
The Gift That Keeps Giving
If you don't want me to destroy you
Baby Ate My Eight Ball
Juxtaposed With U
Rings Around The World
Receptacle For the respectable
Battersea Odyssey
God Show Me Magic?
Northern Lights
The Man don't give a fuck
Do or die
Northern Lites
Shes got spies
Down a different river
Slow life
hello sunshine
golden retriever
Keep the cosmic trigger happy

blimey thats a lot. anyway it were good.

went down to cornwall last week for mini surf trip. excellent stuff, unlucky jim managed to snap his board dropping in to a monster 6 footer off Polzeath.

not much else going on, boarding trip is now booked - HO! for Saalbach and the Bauer Bar! The shed7 gig in decemeber clashes with my christmas party grrrrr.

photos

2007-10-06T14:21:00.001+01:00

last published 17th august? get out of here. finally going to put some photos back on here. jalbum looks to have come a long way since I last used it. edit: photos for the past year now uploaded - check the link to the right or click here.

and friday rolls around again

2007-08-17T09:23:00.000+01:00

how can the week go so quickly? em is up in the north and I'll be joining her tonight via the luxury that is virgin trains. not much to report. the beer fest last week was great (twice), facebook is still happening, not seen a good film in ages, but have been watching some good tv (the riches particularly seems like it'll be good although we've only watched two episodes so far).

have added a shared items thingy to the right, this is dead handy as I can simply flag anything I read from an rss feed using google reader and it will appear automagically on there. check out Simon Munnery's latest post kelp which I just added. top notch stuff.

ace weekend of not much at all

2007-08-13T10:22:00.000+01:00

friday was more CAMRA beer fest action. highlight of this was the wild board(wild boar!) pie which went very well with the tasty cider. managed not to have any dodgy pints this time although several times I had to try 2 or 3 ciders before settling on one. saturday was spent feeling mostly hungover. guy and ginette came round on saturday evening and we met up with the bommers in ealing for (yet) more cider (westons vintage on draft in the north star, hurrah!) and later a rather ace Meze at Wine and Moussaka. the evening closed with an amusing session of wii sports where guy proceeded to pummel me in the boxing. he couldn't beat me at tennis though - topspin returns rock! sunday, more hangovers, a huge fry up in the cafe and few episodes of Waking the Dead. Lovely. Ready for another week of work...