Bluegrass music - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia:

OK, so after buying the "O Brother Where Art Thou?" soundtrack, I'm getting into bluegrass music. My boss has now allowed me to borrow a bluegrass CD (he's heavily into music from the US south, up to and including Elvis). You'd think it was US folk, but according to wikipedia it isn't. Next stop, an Alison Krauss CD!

Guardian Unlimited Business | | Forget polls, our decadence may be Brown's downfall:

Read this article in today's Guardian (the paper version, which I don't often buy, but did today to read on the bus). Struck me as a very insightful view of the current political map in the UK at the moment. It outlines very clearly the challenge facing Brown - from Tories, voters, and Blairite ultras - if he is to make a success of his pitch at Labour leader. It strikes me that the comparisons with Gaitskell and Roy Jenkins are valid - and worrying for Brown. More interesting though is Larry Elliot's comparison of David Camerson not with Blair, but with Neil Kinnock. Very thought provoking. It's a shame the Guardian hid this article away on the Business pages.

Amazon.co.uk: o brother where art thou:

Went to Liverpool on Saturday and bought this cheap in HMV. Deb and I have always liked this film, and my boss has slowly been getting me into country music - especially old-time country music. The soundtrack to this is excellent (it also includes "You Are My Sunshine", always a special song for me). I particularly like "I'll Fly Away" and "Man of Constant Sorrow".

For those of you who don't know, the film is based loosely on the Odyssey, but is set in the US deep south. It's made by the Coen brothers. I watch it and can't help thinking that I'm missing half the clever bits. I get the Sirens, and the Lotus Eaters, and the Suitors. I'm probably missing loads more.

Musically, there's a take on Robert Johnson - delta blues at the crossroads, and quite a bit of old time country. An acquired taste I suppose. Still, I do quite like it.

Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast:

I've been playing this game on Jessica's Nintendo GameCube. A must for Star Wars fans. The lightsabre stuff is just excellent - although I don't think I'd have got anywhere without the walkthroughs on the internet. Jessica is enjoying the 2 player games which is fun.

OK, I'm getting ready to go to bed now, so I'll blog more from my Palm during the week. Leave me a comment if you visit!

Well the prophecy about coming back to Birkenhead didn't come off. I'll be in Accrington Wednesday to Friday this week. I'm taking Tueday off because I'm not feeling too good (bit of a cold I think) and I can't take any other day this week off. I've plenty of time owed, so I figured I'd take my chances where they presented themselves.

Bit of a grotty weekend. Jessica's been in a foul grump for a few days now. We don't really know what the problem is but we keep getting our heads bitten off or she'll refuse to do what she's asked. She doesn't sleep very well (she's often still awake when we go to bed) so it might be that she's just dog-tired. Or it might be that she's got the beginnings of a cold like me. I hope she gets over it soon because she's driving Deb and me bonkers.

Alex is his usual self. He gave Deb trouble getting out of the house this morning for school, which is never a good thing. When that happens, he usually has a bad day - which would be a shame, because he's had a good first 2 weeks of term so far. I'll have to check how he got on when I get home.

I think the strain of my longer hours (because of the travelling time to Accrington) is starting to show with Deb. She gets all the rotten jobs with the children, all the chores. For that reason alone I need to get myself out of Accrington sooner rather than later.

I'm writing this on my Palm in work at the moment - time to go home soon and find out how big a row Jessica has had before I got home. Will update again later.

It was "sibling" group for Jessica yesterday. This is a group she got involved in through Social Services. It's designed for the siblings of children with special needs. I suppose it's intended to give them an outlet for their feelings outside the family environment.

Jessica seems to quite enjoy it. That said, she does let out some feelings which show she can quite churned up. She brought home a drawing showing how unhappy she feels about herself sometimes in her relationship with Alex. I suppose a lot of this is just normal brother-sister stuff (any of my sisters care to back me up on that one?). It does make us feel a little uncomfortable though.

That's it for the moment. I'm busy in Accrington, but probably back in Birkenhead from Thursday. I've got a load of job applications to look at for when this job finishes in 5 weeks, and I've got to get them sorted sharpish before they shunt me back onto an operational team.

First week of school over and done with. Alex is now in Year 2 - his final year at Infants. Jessica has moved to Year 4 - her second year at Juniors.

All seemed to go well. Both children seemingly a bit relieved to have something to do. Alex in particular seems glad to have all his routines back. Unfortunately, like last year, this almost certainly won't last very long. At least it's going well for the time being.

We're still pretty worried that he's behind his peers. Jessica was much further along with her reading, writing, and possibly maths too at his age. I suppose you'd just say that's a 'boy' thing. Maybe it is. But it doesn't stop us worrying about what will happen at the end of the year when he has to move schools.

As for Jessica, Year 4 has immediately brought harder homework. She was given homework on Day 1 would you believe it, that had to be completed by Friday on the first week! Still, she gets to go swimming once a week this year, and she seems settled at school. (Shame she's like a 13 year old with a sore head at home!) We've started her on Judo, which she seems to enjoy. Currently working towards her Yellow belt.

Well, that's the latest update on life in the Harrison household. More to follow later...

Accrington again today, and it's all going horribly wrong. Half the computers which should have been installed on Friday to be up and running today aren't functioning! Desperately trying to get this sorted out with the appropriate engineers at the moment, but I'm going to get ripped to shreds on a teleconference this afternoon about it.

Oh well, we're doing what we can.

A colleague of mine has pointed out a place down in Hampshire called Hollycombe. Looks just like Alex's sort of thing - the only problem being it's so far away. That said, my colleague has a contact there who says he'd be able to show Alex how to drive one of the miniature steam engines! I wonder if we could get down there for a weekend at some point?

Time for another entry to the blog. This time, I'm tinkering with my latest gadget. It's a folding keyboard for using with my Palm. It doesn't half make entering a lot of text easier. Graffiti handwriting recognition is OK for a little while, but is tiring and time consuming if you're trying to write much. Picked one up on Ebay for �20. I'm calling it a birthday present.

Apart from that, we're winding up for the return to school for Alex and Jessica. For Alex this means counting the days down on his calendar so that he's prepared. For Jessica it's just dragging ourselves through the last few days.

I'll post again to let you know how Alex gets on in Year 2.

I'm travelling to Accrington every day in work at the moment. We've been doing a moderately large IT and Telephony installation and have had all lsorts of problems. Hoping for it all to be completed over this weekend so that I can go in on Monday and find all is well. It's about an hour and a half's journey each way, so I'm spending 3 hours a day in the car. The M6 is now my friend!

I've opened the blog up now so that anyone can leave a comment, so let me know what you think. I'll post again soon.