When last I troubled the blogoshpere, it was at the end of a horrible weekend which saw Little Proclaims briefly hospitalised and the entire Proclaims family housebound while she recovered from her ailments and I grappled with a deadline for a course that it was in my professional interests to complete but in which I…
A Weekend To Not Remember
As I write this it is Sunday evening and I’m watching highlights of last week’s Reading Festival on the television. Specifically I am watching Liam Gallagher’s set. As I discussed in last week’s post, even though it takes place a mere ten minute walk from my house, I didn’t make it to the festival itself…
A Poem About How Bad This Poem Is
If I didn’t write this poem Then probably no-one would And that would be a shame Because it might have been quite good If someone else had written it It couldn’t be any worse They might have even said something Before the second verse Or stanza as it should be known If we’re going to…
Of Portaloos and Potties
As I write this, it is Friday morning. I am at home, as has been the case for the last five weeks, because school is officially ‘out for summer’ and I work in a school. Not that I haven’t had a fair amount of paperwork to do in the ‘off season’ because I have. I…
Rhyme Crime
Sometimes I write bad poetry In itself that’s not a crime But perhaps it is a little sin That I often rhyme ‘crime’ with ‘rhyme’ Writing poems does amuse me And they rarely take much time And it’s not all that unusual For me to rhyme ‘time’ with ‘rhyme’ Sometimes my bad poems Find an…
Daddy, I Dropped A Wee On The Carpet
It’s Saturday morning as I write this and Chez Proclaims we are embarking on what is arguably the toughest challenge we have ever faced as a family. Little Proclaims is learning to use the potty. Given that she turned 3 a few weeks ago, we are actually rather late to this particular party. We did…
A Rapid Rhyme About Breakfast
Tis said that breakfast is important I don’t know if that’s true But I know before I’ve had it My faculties are few I can’t function til I’ve had it In one of it’s many guises My heart says eggs and bacon But muesli’s what my head advises. And though my head’s advice Is for…
Of Bubbles And Bubbly
As I write this I am a little inebriated. I’m currently sitting in my garden on a Saturday afternoon drinking a bottle of pink sparkling wine, which does not appear to subscribe to such platitudinous labels as Champagne, Cava or Prosecco but is rather its own thing. Not that I could tell the difference between…
No Tifications
I have no Tifications And that makes me sad Because life with no Tifications Is quite clearly bad There are no emojions That could ever quite convey The true depth of my FOMO At the lack of tificating on display I do not like the appsence Of likes upon my page And I really cannot…
The Perils Of Success
It has, at the time of writing, been but two days since Tokyo 2020 ended but I’m already feeling somewhat bereft. This is often the case when a major sporting event concludes but is perhaps more acute at the end of these Olympic Games because it marks the denouement of what has been a fairly…
A Blog Post About Watching Sport On The Telly
As I write this, Team GB has just won a bronze medal in the noble sport of dressage. I don’t know much about dressage, it looks like dancing horses and doesn’t really seem like a sport, but, as has been the case for most Olympic games during my lifetime and certainly since, like many of…
The Anticlimactic Nature Of The Thousandth Post
It’s time to crack open the bubbly. No, not champagne. I can’t really justify the cost of champagne for an occasion such as this. To be honest even cava or prosecco would be overdoing it. I think I could stretch to a glass of sparkling Lambrini. And a cake. There must always be cake. For…
A Post About Bubbles
As I write this I am sitting in my garden enjoying what can only be described as a glorious Saturday morning. The sun is shining, the birds are singing and the general tranquillity is punctuated only by the delighted sounds of Little Proclaims who is running around the garden making bubbles with a cheap plastic…
A Post About Not Blogging With A Brief Interlude About Vaccines
As I write this, it has been just under a month since I last posted anything on this blog. By the time this actually hits the blogosphere, it will have been just over a month. I’m writing this on Friday but I intend for my ‘comeback’ to be on Monday. According to the Gods of…
On The Fifth Day Of The Fifth Month, Here Are Five Things I’m Not Afraid Of
I’m not afraid of a little hard work – I am terrified of a lot of hard work. I’m not afraid that I won’t live up to my potential – I’m worried that I already have. I’m not afraid to stand up for what I believe in – I’m just not entirely sure what it…
May The Fourth Be With You – Always
Happy Star Wars Day everyone! I’m not sure when people started celebrating ‘Star Wars Day’ on May the Fourth. I’m not even sure if people do celebrate it. And although I could just look up the answers to both of those things on the internet, I’m not going to. Because I don’t really care. I…
May The May Be With You
Long time readers will know that last May I spent the entire month blogging about nothing but Star Wars on the flimsy premise that people often regard the fourth of May as ‘Star Wars Day’ (because you can say ‘May the Fourth be with you’ on that day and only a few people will think…
James’ Shamelessly Nostalgic A-Z Of Albums That He Liked To Listen To When He Was Younger – Part 26: Who Killed…… The Zutons
And so another A-Z comes to an end. From tomorrow I will no longer be writing about music from the noughties. I may not be writing about anything at all. Or I may be writing about something. Only time will tell. In another 11 months I may well decide to complete my trilogy of A-Zs…
James’ Shamelessly Nostalgic A-Z Of Albums That He Liked To Listen To When He Was Younger – Part 25: Yours Truly Angry Mob
As ever, when we get to the penultimate day of an A-Z challenge, we must ask ourselves ‘Y’. It can be hard to come up with an answer, but today I have managed to do just that. Y is for Yours Truly Angry Mob In their early days, Kaiser Chiefs always struck me as a…
James’ Shamelessly Nostalgic A-Z Of Albums That He Liked To Listen To When He Was Younger – Part 24: X&Y
On last year’s A-Z I had to cheat a little bit for X by including XTRMNTR by Primal Scream. The main reason this was cheating was because last year’s retrospective was meant to be 90s music and that particular album was released in the year 2000. It was very much at the beginning of the…
James’ Shamelessly Nostalgic A-Z Of Albums That He Liked To Listen To When He Was Younger – Part 23: Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not
And so to ‘W’ in this A-Z musical retrospective of the noughties. There were a few decent albums from the 2000s that began with ‘W’ but one from 2006 still managed to stand out from the crowd. W is for Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not In January 2006, I was entering…
James’ Shamelessly Nostalgic A-Z Of Albums That He Liked To Listen To When He Was Younger – Part 22: Vampire Weekend
Day 22 of this self-indulgent wander down a memory-lane of music from a decade that is inherently less nostalgic for me than the decade that preceded it, but which, nonetheless, does retain elements of nostalgia – nostalgia which is often evoked by listening to the albums of the day. V is for Version 2.0 Vampire…
James’ Shamelessly Nostalgic A-Z Of Albums That He Liked To Listen To When He Was Younger – Part 21: Up The Bracket
It’s always a shame that I have to write twenty other posts before I can finally make time for ‘U’. But that is the way of an A-Z challenge. As much as I would like to put ‘U’ first, it just wouldn’t be proper. U is for Up The Bracket By the time I got…
James’ Shamelessly Nostalgic A-Z Of Albums That He Liked To Listen To When He Was Younger – Part 20: Twelve Stops and Home
It’s finally time for ‘T’. But not necessarily time for tea as I’m more of a coffee drinker by trade. But do feel free to have a warm beverage of your choice. T is for Twelve Stops and Home I don’t know if I could describe myself as a fan of Horsham alumni The Feeling.…
James’ Shamelessly Nostalgic A-Z Of Albums That He Liked To Listen To When He Was Younger – Part 19: The Seldom Seen Kid
When I get to ‘S’ in an A-Z challenge, I always feel like I’m on the home straight. Although there are still seven letters to go, psychologically I feel like I’ve done most of the hard work. Of course ‘psychologically’ does not begin with ‘S’, even though it sounds like it should. So I’m probably…
James’ Shamelessly Nostalgic A-Z Of Albums That He Liked To Listen To When He Was Younger – Part 18: Red
Day 18 of the 2021 A-Z challenge and time to reflect on where we are. And where we are is ‘R’. R is for Red For one reason or another I felt I was getting a little out of touch with popular music circa 2008. I suspect the fact that I was in the midst…
James’ Shamelessly Nostalgic A-Z Of Albums That He Liked To Listen To When He Was Younger – Part 17: The Good, the Bad and the Queen
‘Q’ is always one of the most challenging letters in an A-Z challenge. Most years I’ve had to expand the parameters a little in order to crowbar something in and this year I’ve had to outright cheat. But it was all in a good cause, because the album in question is definitely worth revisiting. Q…
James’ Shamelessly Nostalgic A-Z Of Albums That He Liked To Listen To When He Was Younger – Part 16: Permission to Land
Long time and particularly dedicated readers who definitely do exist outside of my unrealistic aspirations will be familiar with me persistently referencing 1980s quiz show Blockbusters whenever I get to the letter ‘P’ in an A-Z challenge. Because it is impossible to do the letter ‘P’ without channelling the immortal joke associated with that show.…
James’ Shamelessly Nostalgic A-Z Of Albums That He Liked To Listen To When He Was Younger – Part 15: Origins of Symmetry
And so we get around to ‘O’. Which is OK. Well part of OK. Did I make that joke for ‘K’? Yes. Yes I did. Do I apologise for making it a second time. No. No I don’t. O is for Origins of Symmetry I went to the Glastonbury festival in the year 2000. I…
James’ Shamelessly Nostalgic A-Z Of Albums That He Liked To Listen To When He Was Younger – Part 14: Neon Bible
Welcome to the beginning of the second half of the 2021 A-Z Blogging Challenge, in which I attempt to catalogue an alphabetised list of albums I liked in the noughties for no particular reason. N is for Neon Bible Arcade Fire’s debut album Funeral is a regular participant in futile lists attempting to identify the…
James’ Shamelessly Nostalgic A-Z Of Albums That He Liked To Listen To When He Was Younger – Part 13: Make Believe
It’s always a grim realisation when I get to ‘M’ in any A-Z challenge that I’m actually only half way there. But after today we are closer to the end than the beginning, which may be of some consolation as I complete this arbitrary and entirely unnecessary retrospective of albums that I listened to in…
