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05.06.09
mostly listening to: Dave Matthews BandBig Whiskey & The Groo Grux King


What does your favoruite footballer say about you


It's 'Boys week' on Kickette, which means some of the interweb's finest male football writers have been in control of a domain usually reserved for ladyfolk. Representing my football news website The Spoiler, I've made a few contributions over the past five days.     





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28.04.09

mostly listening to: U2Rattle and Hum


What's On UAE


A feature on the Red Bull Air Race, published in the April edition of What's On Abu Dhabi.





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15.02.09

mostly listening to: PowderfingerDream Days at the Hotel Existence


 Writing section updated to include my interview with popstar Alesha Dixon, owner of the dirtiest laugh I have ever heard.   





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19.12.08
mostly listening to: Phantom Planet, Raise The Dead


FHM's 100 Greatest Football Moments


My latest contribution to the new FHM.com




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28.10.08

mostly listening to: AC/DCBlack Ice





My debut on Sky News, discussing disgraced footballer Joey Barton.  





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05.10.08

mostly listening to: Ben Folds, Way To Normal


I have just returned from Bilbao, a city that loves asymmetric architecture as much as it loves selling week-old tapas to unsuspecting foreigners in bars. The cultural highlight of the trip was undoubtedly the Frank Gehry's Guggenheim - probably the one museum in the world that's more interesting on the outside:

The Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao


The Spanish trip was by no means a sightseeing holiday, as I was presenting a travel show about Bilbao, which focused on the parallels between the city and it's football team. Athletic Club have managed to survive in Spain's top division for eighty years, despite the fact that they operate a strict 'cantera' policy: while other teams may select their players from all over the world, Athletic Bilbao may only pool resources from the Basque region (population 3m).

This policy may effect their performance (indeed they lost to an outrageous last minute lob at the game I witnessed at the San Mames stadium), but most supporters would rather see their team relegated than resort to signing non-Basque players. Admirable? Perhaps. Overtly xenophobic? Almost certainly.

The insular mentality of the football team is reflected in the city and its inhabitants, who aren't that keen on the rest of Spain. In fact, during our trip we didn't see a soul sporting the national side's strip, but several proudly wearing the colours of England and Scotland. Bizarre.

The travel show is currently being knocked into shape in the editing room, and should be on Sky early next year.






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16.08.08

mostly listening to: O.A.R.All Sides



I spent this morning recording a cover of Guster's 'I Hope Tomorrow Is Like Today'
. Check it out at Myspace.




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06.08.08

mostly listening to: Counting CrowsSaturday Nights and Sunday Mornings


I am now a Contributing Editor for Redknapp Publishing's recently relaunched Icon Magazine. It's a fantastic publication aimed at footballers and 'high net worth' individuals (read: 'folks who probably own a sea-faring vessel and who don't live on the numbered streets'), and I have added a recent feature detailing the incredible exploits of ultramarathon runner Mark Cockbain to the writing section.  





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30.06.08

mostly listening to: John MayerWhere The Light Is


When I heard that John Mayer was coming to the UK to play Hyde Park’s thoroughly middle class Hard Rock Calling festival, I snapped up a pair of tickets immediately; after all, his show at the Royal Albert Hall last year was one of the best musical performances I have ever witnessed.

Shortly after my hasty purchase, the gurning young bluesman announced his own show at Brixton Academy, which I really couldn’t afford to miss. So, this weekend I saw Mr Mayer twice, and for once, the extortionate ticket were fully justified.

John Mayer at Glastonbury 2008

Mayer, who won over Sunday afternoon’s Glastonbury crowd with his unparalleled lead guitar abilities and a well-chosen George Harrison cover, put in an incredible performance at Brixton on Friday. The normally-succinct guitarist may have interspersed his tunes with ramblings about his media persecution in the US (including a poignant speech before his ‘anti-pap’ anthem ‘Vultures’), butt this did little to detract from the kind of chops that have put him in the same rock ‘n’ roll echelons as Buddy Guy, BB King and Eric Clapton.

I’m guessing that very few of the Hyde Park calling crowd owned a John Mayer record, but after seeing him ‘earn the right’ to play on the same bill as Clapton (his words, not mine), I’m sure many will get hold of a copy of his 2006 disc Continuum. When he anounced a 'very,very popular Blues number,' and began singing the first few lines of Duffy’s ‘Mercy’, the masses responded with tutting, head scratching and a few boos. However, when a few otustanding solos and a unique bluesy arrangement blasted out around the park, even the elder couples who were busying themselves in their M&S picnic hampers stood up to give him a round of applause.

Well played, John. It was well worth the sunburn.




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19.06.08

mostly listening to: The BeatlesRevolver


Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story was met with a universal 'meh' by the critics, who dismissed it as a sub-par effort from the Apatow camp; I was easily producing the loudest laughter in the press screening I attended.





However, as I discovered by re-watching it on DVD this week, the scene where Dewey meets the Beatles (played by Jack Black, Paul Rudd, Jason Schwartzman and Justin Long) is utterly fantastic. Great record.





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16.06.08

mostly listening to: Modest MouseWe Were Dead Before The Ship Even Sank


3G iPhone


Due to a penchant for all shiny pieces of kit with a half-eaten apple embossed on them, I was eager to run out and buy an iPhone upon its over-hyped release last year. After saving up more than a few pennies, I finally got my hands on one a few months ago, and it has been love ever since. In my opinion, it only suffers from a small hard drive and a recessed head phone jack (so a third party adapter is needed if you don’t want to use Apple’s laughably bad cans). Most people complain about its sluggish EDGE internet, but for someone who works all day and night online, having ‘2G’ web speeds in my pocket is a useful deterrent and a blessing in disguise.

Like many other Applephiles, I closely followed the release of the new 3G iPhone last week, and was absolutely delighted when I received a text from O2 telling me I qualified for a 'free' upgrade.

Except it’s not quite free. To get my new handset, I need to buy another 18 month contract, which costs ten pounds more per month.

iPhone 3G looks like a worthy upgrade, but not radical enough to warrant another 180 notes.  So for now, I think I’ll stick with my soon-to-be-hideously-out-of-date talkbox.





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29.05.08

mostly listening to: Powderfinger, Fingerprints


ryan-bailey.com


After facing complete devastation in the Tsunami of 2004, the Thai island of Phi Phi has gradually rebuilt its tourism-based infrastructure: now, it has once again become a place where large Australians with incongruous tattoos can slowly destroy their livers to a backdrop of tropical wildlife, turquoise waters and a sun that will turn pasty antipodean skin to an unhealthy rouge in seconds. The beaches, which were used to bring the excellent Alex Garland novel The Beach to the big screen, were the closest thing to paradise I am ever likely to see, and the experience of hand-feeding a family of monkeys with their favourite fruit was worth the trip alone.

Fresh from a break in the 'land of smiles', I have started to prepare some new material for recording. Just as soon as I get my home studio set up, I’ll have the new stuff laid down and compressed into a wonderfully tinny mp3 for your listening pleasure.

Elsewhere, I have just about recovered from the London Marathon (my time of 4:11:57 was approximately 12 minutes outside my desired time, but hey, there’s always next year) and The Spoiler is going from strength to strength. When we’re not riling up the über-sensitive inhabitants of Newcastle, we’re winning hard-earned kudos from the web community across the globe. In fact, this month, we’ve even had three visits from the Vatican City. Obviously His Holiness has a soft spots for WAGs…




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