June came and went very quickly. Too quickly, as it turned out – as I discovered that the car tax on the RX8 was running out at the end of the month. Equipped with the fancy form from the DVLA and the interweb, I endeavoured to renew it…. and, about this point is when I discovered I’d totally forgotten about the car needing an MOT… Whoops!

So, I quickly booked the car in for the service it was due, and its MOT – on the 4th of July, a few days after I noticed the car now required an MOT (being over 3 years old), four days into the month the car’s no longer taxed for. Erk. To make matters worse, this weekend was Katy & Mark’s wedding weekend, and I was due to be in Shropshire over the weekend. Time, as the saying goes, was of the essence!

It was also around this time that I became aware of a dull pain in my right ear, and the gradual hearing loss I began experiencing. Over the course of a few days between the MOT expiry and the wedding, my hearing levels in my right ear dropped to barely audible.

I was re-assured by the garage that it _wasn’t_ an offence to drive an untaxed, un-MOT’d vehicle providing the only journey you were making in it was to the MOT testing centre. Which is a good job really, as I was crapping it – convinced I’d be pulled over by the rozzers any minute. The fact that I’d been driving the car since January without an MOT and ‘got away with it’ (as a figure of speech!) was not lost on me at all!

The garage, the ever reliable, trustworthy and competant GK Mazda on Penistone Road, accepted my note from their dealer principal saying I was entitled to a free service due to all the fuckups they’d made, which was very pleasing. They booked the car in and handed me the keys to a fucking Fiat Panda.

I have very few words to say about the Panda. I do recall being impressed by the brakes – they were very, very sharp. The seat was very uncomfortable, and the ‘City’ power steering was frankly scary – why a car the size of a thimble needs an ultra-light power-assisted steering mode, I’m not sure – but the ability to turn the wheel full circle with the barest of force from my pinkie struck me as rather…. unsafe?

So, car booked in. I had a few jobs to do, then I had to dash to Sheffield station and get the train to Whitchurch, to meet up with Emma and the family, in readiness for the Saturday wedding. I did ponder with the idea of going to my GP to see about the ear ‘thing’, but I figured they’d only give me antibiotics, which I’d probably have to avoid alcohol with, so I never went. In hindsight, I wish I had.

I got to the station, and picked up my ticket from the automated machine only to see my train departing just as I ran down the steps to the plaform. Damn. This miss cost me an hour’s wait for the next train, and another 40 minutes at the connecting station, Stockport – and as my ear was giving me gyp the idea of plugging my Shures in and listening to my iPod didn’t really appeal. So, a very long time spent waiting on the platforms of Sheffield and Stockport for me.

I arrived into Whitchurch at about 10.30pm and walked to Emma’s mam’s – Emma being unable to pick me up in her car as she’d had a few drinks. The walk was actually quite pleasant, and I managed to avoid the townie chavs and settled down with a beer or two before the big day.

For the wedding, I’d been tasked with taking some photos of the bride and her entourage getting ready and getting to the venue, taking videos of the horse drawn carriage leaving and arriving and, rather crucially, attempting to look after Aimee whilst all the chaos went on around us. I attempted to do my best, whilst I had monoaural hearing and the dull pain of the eachache. Needless to say, I didn’t do as well as I could have, and for this I’m sorry.

There are photos on Facebook, which are ‘ok’, and the video seems to be fine. Aimee, for the most part, was very well behaved but as the day wore on, she became more and more difficult and less inclined to go to bed – which was a little traumatic for both myself and Emma. Parenting skills aside, the wedding was lovely, and Mark and Katy looked fantastic. I proceeded to get roaringly drunk at the evening do, and generally made a bit of a tit of myself, as seems to be the Sheridan-family way at weddings. Right, Marvin?

The morning after, we woke early, and with wobbly heads, took advantage of the on-site swimming pool and took aimee for a dip and a splash. She loved it, and I have to say that 5 minutes in the steam room kick started the shedding of my hangover. Pity we don’t have one at home!

On the Sunday evening, we drove back across the Pennines to home, ready for my birthday the next day! My 30th birthday, to be precise. Yeeech. 30. Three. Oh. The big 3-0. 30. Can’t believe it.

So, yes, the birthday came and went, and everyone bought me lovely presents and cards, but nothing really disguised the fact that my age now begins with a 3, and not a 2. On forms and surveys, I now get to tick the ’30-39′ demographic box, instead of the ’20-29′ one. I’m in my last year of Club 18-30 holiday entitlement! Actually, that’s probably a positive!

I think I’ll save the ‘Big 3-0′ post for another day, but, anyhow, yes, it was my birthday the other day, and I celebrated it at home, with Emma, Aimee and Fro. A lovely day. I managed too, to get to the GP, who ascertained that I had a middle-ear infection which had (somehow) perforated my eardrum. He prescribed me some Amoxicillin (antibiotics) for a week, with the instruction to drop back in if things didn’t clear up.

I’d also booked off the following Tuesday, knowing that Emma had the day off too, and that Aimee was booked into nursery – so we’d get the whole weekday, just the two of us – which is something that’s not really happened for a long time. So we went out for lunch and did some shopping and watched a film. It was really nice, just like the old days – pre mad ASBO-child.

The flick we watched was Hancock, Will Smith’s latest. It started off really well, but tailed off as it progressed into very familiar, well trodden movie cliche terroritory. Still, it wasn’t at all bad – plus, we chose some ‘premier’ (or somesuch) seats at the Vue at Meadowhall, so had really comfy reclining leather seats in the cinema – I’ve not been in this cinema since we visited Meadowhall back in student days on a day trip from Grimsby. It’s changed, just a smidge! Not sure if it’s better than the Cineworld at Centertainment, but one thing’s for sure – parking’s a whole lot easier at Meadowhall.

Last weekend, Emma arranged for some food and drinks with some friends to celebrate my birthday. We had envisaged trying out Platillos in Leopold Square, but when we came to book the table we decided otherwise – what kind of a ridiculous policy is it to levy a charge of £5 per head on a reservation, along with a 10% surcharge for parties 8 or more! There was no way we’d be handing over £60 just to make a fucking reservation, and they could stick their 10% up their arse. Won’t be going there again. So, we went with the fall-back plan of All Bar One, just over the road on Leopold Street – I didn’t really fancy going for ‘a curry’, or ‘a chinese’ or ‘a thai’, so the tapas-style approach of Platillos, and All Bar One, appealed.

We had everything on the tapas menu All Bar One could muster, and doubled (and tripled) up on a few of the more popular dishes. It was bloody gorgeous, and I’d definiately eat there again. I didn’t really pay much attention to what we’d ordered, but the duck in the toasted flatbread, and the chilli prawns stood out for me.

We had a few in there, then moved onto Bungalows and Bears (which was playing some exceptionally shit music for a Saturday night) and then to The Old House (which… wasn’t), where I had a few cheeky mojitos and bloody marys. There are photos on Emma’s Facebook profile – if seeing pictures of me drunk are your thang, anyhow.

The ear infection continued throughout this time – only less painful, but now coupled with a combination of thick pus-like deposits coming out of my ear, and a very thin watery liquid running (literally) out of my ear all day long. The pills did nothing.

So yesterday, I went back to the quack, who said that the infection had now spread to my outer ear, though the lesions in my drum appeared to have closed up, and gave me some more, more powerful antibiotics and some ‘Otomize’ ear spray, and another instruction to come back in a week if it’s not all sorted.

Last night, and this morning, I experienced excruciating pain in my ears – it feels like my ear is all swollen up and read to just _burst_ with pus and ming and bleeerrgh everywhere. My hearing is no better than it was 2 weeks ago – this concerns me greatly….

Well, that about brings us up to speed. I promise to write more often, again. Really, no, I will. Honestly!

As it turns out, it was quite lucky we bought our tickets when we did, because the gig sold out only a day or two later – pretty impressive for an act that’s only troubled the top 20 twice.

We arranged for my mum to pop over and babysit Aimee, and we toddled off to the bus stop for the bus to town – a little later than we’d planned, but we weren’t really bothered too much as we figured the first support act, ‘Toddla T’ (no, really) would be toss anyhow. If we’d could catch some ‘Smokers Die Younger’, the other support act, that’d be great. However, due to First South Yorkshire’s dire bus service (our ‘every 15 minutes’ service arrived after standing at the bus stop for nearly 50 minutes) and our mixed up assumption of the running order, we arrived at the Academy mid-way through ‘Toddla T’s set. Joy.

AMG claim to have spent £3 million in refurbing the ‘Roxy’ – and we were quite apprehensive as to what was awaiting us – having been past the building a few times in the week and seeing it look very much like a building site. However, once inside we were greeted with a fairly open auditorium, with balcony above. The stage is suitably impressive – I can’t help thinking that it is a little too big for the room, though.

I’m not sure what ‘Toddla T’ are up to. Is it a comedy act or serious musical venture? There’s a rapper/MC guy ostensibly rapping away whilst a DJ fuses some bleep/synth with dancehall drum and bass. Pretty ordinary pop-jungly-bollocks, really – apart from the guy robot-dancing with a cardboard box on his head, oh, and the two white girls done-up like a pair of Ali G’s ‘biatches’ (replete with bling and ridiculous sunglasses) just… being there. Very, very odd.

It being a ‘Carling’ venue, there is some focus on selling as much lager as possible – and, indeed, the four-person deep queues at all three of the bars I found inside indicated that there were plenty of thirsty people – just a pity that there were nowhere near enough bar staff, and their ‘time saving’ barcode scanning tills seemed to be having some teething problems. All in all, it took us a good 30 minutes to get a drink whilst putting up with the mighty ‘T’s jibber-jabber drum and bass. Not a great start.

However, it isn’t long before the Reverend & co are on-stage – curiously launching into it with a new song followed by their biggest hit, Heavyweight Champion of the World. They blitz through the setlist with a mixture of album tracks, and quite a few ‘new’ numbers – one in particular was introduced by Jon (the ‘Reverend’) McClure lighting up a ciggie on-stage and proclaiming that “Gordon Brown can’t tell me when I can have a fag!” before giving us a taste of a cynical, political track – telling us to “think for yourselves” and that the government can’t tell you what to do. All very hackneyed ‘indie’ concepts, but delivered in such a frantic, euphoric way, you’d almost start believing him.

If there’s one band the Makers are the polar opposites of, it’s Manc giants, Oasis. When going to an Oasis gig, you may as well just put some cardboard cutouts on the stage and stick a copy of “Definitely Maybe” on the PA – not so for these guys. They fling themselves round the stage with such haphazard abandon that their careless demeanor becomes infectious, and the happy vibes pass through the crowd. It’s not just the tracks, either – Jon unleashes spontaneous bursts of poetry between his interplay with the audience (“That fag’s just cost me 2 grand”) – sure, some of it is indie-rock-band-101, but the wheat outweighs the chaff. If there’s a dictionary definition of “Party Band”, this is it.

By the time the final number is on – “He Said He Loved Me”, the crowd are so hyped that after the track finishes, McClure takes the mic and explains that “we’re all going outside” and grabs a parka and is seen rushing off the stage. Cue; 2500 people all heading for the exit at once. It’s one way of avoiding an encore, anyhow! There’s quite a crush getting out, and we’re literally carried along by the weight of the sheer number of bodies and are deposited on the street along with everyone else – hanging around waiting for an impromptu appearance of the band. However, it doesn’t happen, and eventually everyone decamps and disappears into the city.

An excellent gig, and – once they get their staffing and logistics act together – a great venue.

I am a very busy bee, you see.

Off to a Reverend and the Makers gig tonight, will report tomorrow.

The farm is certainly what it says on the tin – a city farm. It’s literally right in the middle of some rows of pre-war workers terraces. It almost looks like the land the farm is sited on previously contained housing, which has been demolished to make way for the farm. Certainly, it’s quite odd to see 3 residential streets bisect the farm itself.

Once you step off the streets, and into the farm, it’s like being on a real farm – complete with the sights and smells(!). I think it’s great – some city kids won’t get to see a farm, and having this on their doorstep is excellent.

All of the staff are volunteers, and I must make a special mention to the young girl who showed us round the ‘small animals’ section, who described the animals in intimate detail and even encouraged Aimee to stroke and touch the animals themselves. Really, really encouraging to see this lass, who must’ve been about 12-13 really taking an interest in the welfare of the animals and not hanging around outside the local shops.

It is, unfortunately, a little run-down. The feeling is that the farm survives and ‘makes do’ as best it can – but some of the structures are looking pretty old and weathered. Probably nothing that a lick of paint wouldn’t fix, I guess. Presently there is no admission charge at all, and visitors are free to wander around the farm as they wish – which is exceptionally trusting in this day and age.

Of course – none of this matters a jot to Aimee, who is solely interested in the animals, who keep her entertained and awed. She’s so very curious – always wanting to see the next ‘thing’ and learn from it. Anyhow, if you’ve a young child, I recommend it.

Unaccustomed as I am to BBC3′s programming, I happened upon the aforementioned programme quite by accident tonight. Why haven’t I watched this before? It’s ‘lush’, it is.

Some of the acting is as wooden as the props, but the writing is, at times, hilarious. The little scene last night involving the overweight couple falling into a lusty romp over Kentucky Fried Chicken had me in stitches! Never before has a KFC corn-cob been used as a sexual metaphor on television!

It’s excellent romantic comedy with a witty twist – give it a go. I’ll have to track down the first series now and give up some more of my Sunday night to a TV show!

As automotive technology has moved on, cars have gotten safer and more reliable, but all the extra fluffy bits have made cars heavier and larger. This weight gain has meant that modern superminis are quite a bit larger than their 20 year old counterparts. As the cars get bigger, manufacturers struggle to make the cars ‘fit’ the Supermini label. Indeed, BMW’s relaunched modern Mini now falls into this Supermini label, despite the name actually referring to a small car ‘larger than a Mini’.

These days, the ‘Supermini’ moniker is applied to an exceptionally wide band of vehicles – some of which are neither super, nor mini – no doubt due to the fact that Supermini sales make up the largest chunk of new cars sold every year in Europe. Because of this, car makers are forever dreaming up new market segments of vehicle types, and this brings us to the curious beast that is the Fiat ‘Grande’ Punto.

The regular, semi-skimmed, Fiat Punto is a three or five door small hatchback in the traditional ‘supermini’ mode – available with a range of tiny tin-pot engines ideally suited for pootling around town. With the full-fat Grande model, Fiat have taken the original car, and stretched the back out a bit. It’s a regular Punto, but with a bit more room in the back. There’s some styling changes, but essentially, they’re the same car, just one’s a bit longer.

The ‘Grande’ Punto is in a curious niche – too big to be a supermini, but too small to line up with a Golf, Focus or Civic. I’m struggling to think of what market it tries to fill.

As for the car itself, it’s fairly well appointed internally – the fit and feel of the plastics and materials used is of a good quality – certainly better than I was expecting. I’ve no idea how far up the model range the car I had was (all I knew was that it was a 1.2), but it was fitted with alloy wheels, CD player and electric windows and mirrors, and steering-wheel controls. The electronic windows lack the ‘one touch’ operation of most modern cars – allowing you to roll up or down the windows without having to hold your finger on the switch until fully open/closed. I found this quite annoying.

The car also featured variable speed power steering, which was activated by pressing a button on the centre console. This puts the steering into ‘CITY’ mode, which I guess is to help people with absolutely no lower arm movement to park the vehicle – the regular power steering was more than competent, and enabling this ‘CITY’ mode just seemed pointless to me.

Speaking of parking – the Grande isn’t going to be much use to you if you’re not a confident reverse-parker. Visibility is, for a car with such large windows and a slightly elevated driving position, frankly – crap. You can’t see where the bonnet even starts, nor is it easy to make out what’s going on behind. Other niggles were found in the general controls of the vehicle – all the buttons and switches (radio, electric windows, heating controls) all seemed to be just that tiny bit just out of your reach.

I’m quite worried, nay! – petrified – by the inexplicable button on the steering wheel which looks frighteningly akin to the Microsoft Windows logo. I pressed this and the stereo went off and its display said ‘VOICE’. I have no idea what this button does. Frankly, I’m scared that I pressed it.

Another annoyance is that there’s no boot handle – this is something that slightly bothers me on the RX8, but significantly less-so, as the RX8 key has a button on the remote that will pop the boot for you whenever you like. In the Punto, you’ve got to climb back into the car and press a bloody button in the middle of the centre console to open the boot. I can see that getting annoying real quick.

On the other hand – it’s an exceptionally cheap new car – about eight grand on the road, if you do some haggling. Shortcomings aside, similar offerings from the likes of VW, Ford and Vauxhall are well over a grand more.

So, there you have it. If you’re feeling frisky, spank 8000 quid on a Fiat – however, whatever you do don’t ever, ever, ever, EVER buy one from the GK Group (Mazda, Ford, Fiat, Seat, Peugeot, Citroen) in the North Midlands and Yorkshire. In fact, don’t buy anything from them, or have your car worked on there. Mark my words.

Now, this shower of steaming piss have caused me nothing but consternation and grief ever since the day I signed the papers on my RX8 in July (I won’t go into specifics here, but one problem as an example – I bought the car in July but didn’t actually get it on my driveway until August). As I’ve said before, they dented my car when it was last in for its starting problem – today was supposed to be when they’d sort the dent, and fix the starting problem.

Not so. Today would be the day that they’d shrug their collective shoulders and deliver two pieces of bad news to me.

One. Yes – I was right, as was the first Mazda Assist engineer, and the second Mazda Assist engineer, the battery is fucked. I had told them this two weeks ago when the car first went in, and when I picked the car up (dent day) they’d assured me that they’d replaced it, and everything would be hunky dory.

However, it works out that, no, there was a mistake – they didn’t replace it at all – in fact they wouldn’t replace it as it’s a consumable item – like tyres or brake pads – and isn’t covered by any warranty. No amount of explaining that I’d only bought the car 6 months ago would cut it. No dice. If wanted a new battery, I’d have to pay the princely sum of £124 (£60-odd for the battery, £40-odd for fitting, plus Alistair Darling’s 17.5% cut) for one. As I rely on the car and need (and indeed, expect) it to work when I turn the key, I agree to this – I’m fully intending to bring this up with the Chesterfield branch who sold me the car.

Two. The dent. No, no, no sir – that dent can’t possibly have happened whilst the car was in our care. O RLY? I must’ve done it myself on the way up to the garage then, or I might just be making the whole thing up for shits and giggles. They refuse to claim any kind of liability for the dent, and won’t cover the cost of any repairs. They claim that their technician noted the dent when he first started working on the car.

Cue much, much loud heating argumentation between myself and the service manager. I certainly hope I put off any potential buyers in the showroom. I ask for the branch manager, who agrees somewhat hesitantly to speak to me.

The manager is equally unsympathetic, and actually offers me his opinion on what’s happened – he claims that they’d had the car up on the ramps in the workshop to inspect this dent, and claim that the marks are typical of the impact of a shopping trolley! My protestations that no such mark was present at 8.30am on the day I took the car to the garage, but was there at 6pm when I picked it up again, were met with the same repeated spiel. It all boils down to my word against theirs, and neither side will back down.

The ‘best’ he can do, he claims, is to get his detailing specialist to have a look at it when he’s next on site – and he’d very generously charge me the ‘trade rate’ for any detailing done. Gee – how thoughtful of him!

A complete, and utter shower of bastards, these lot. My only advice is to avoid the entire chain like the plague.

We agreed that I’d give Emma a lie-in in the morning, and deal with Aimee when she woke, which I did, but because I’m working on-call today I got dragged to my laptop at about 9am when Nagios told me that something was broken at work, so I had to disturb Emma for her to look after Aimee.

Aimee is such a handful now. She’s walking, and by God does she want to use those legs. She runs round the house like crazy, and being on her feet – it brings a _lot_ more into her reach than ever before. She got an absolute shedload of toys for Christmas, but does she want to play with them? No. No, She wants to paddle in the dog’s water bowl, or swing on the tv unit door, or repeatedly switch the damn tv off!

As it turned out, the work issue was a non-issue, so I resumed parenting duties and let Emma have a relax until 11-ish, when I got called out once more. A real issue this time, at least!

Emma prepared a gorgeous lamb dinner, and we had cheesecake for pud. The Jersey gold double cream dolloped onto the cheesecake was nothing short of amazing.

When we returned from my mam’s yesterday, the boot of the RX8 was chock-full of presents, clothes and all of Aimee’s paraphernalia. _Too_ chock-full, as it happens, as I discovered when I unloaded yesterday to find that a virtually full tin of SMA Progress powdered milk had popped open all over the contents of the boot. Cue twenty minutes today spent hoovering it all out. Bah.

Also fitted Emma’s new stereo to her car. She’s been missing a CD player in her car for ages, so I picked up on her (unsubtle!) hints and bought her a Sony MEX-BT2500 CD player for Christmas. It’s quite a nifty toy – having Bluetooth as well, making it an excellent hands-free phone system in the car, as well as a CD player!

I’m a bit annoyed about the Halfords fascia that I had to buy for the CD player – Skoda, like nearly every other car manufacturer, like their head-units to be uniquely shaped. So when one buys an after-market unit, one has to buy the associated piece of plastic to fill the gap left by the old stereo. This piece of plastic Halfrauds manage to get away with selling for FIFTEEN QUID. Madness.

Had the last of my Christmas beers – an ESB and an ever-dependable Old Peculiar whilst watching the depressing mess that was Spurs’ 2-1 away defeat at Villa. Berbatov looked totally disinterested, as he has done virtually all season, and I feel resigned to the fact that the stories about him being off to the Chavs or to United might bear some truth. I’ll be fucking pissed off if we sell him to another English team. It’s one thing to sell off your star players, but selling them to another team in your league is something that only ‘selling clubs’ do. Being a ‘selling club’ is something Spurs have tried desperately hard to escape from – refusing to sell Berbatov in the summer, and holding United to ransom over Carrick until they coughed up an extortionate fee. I’d rather we sold him to Real for £25m, than to the fucking chavs for £35m. Well, we’ll see. All I ask in the mid-season transfer window is; Juande, Daniel, Damien, whoever is in charge of buying players these days – for Christ’s sake buy us an EXPERIENCED centre-back and someone, anyone, anywhere, with a left foot. A creative midfielder wouldn’t half be good too. Thanks.

I bought myself an Xbox 360 over the Christmas period – it wasn’t a Christmas present, well, other than to myself, but I found myself quite taken with some of the games found on this platform. The PS3 is just too damned expensive, and I already have a Wii – which Emma enjoys, but I find the games a little _too_ cartoony and lacking in depth. Sure, flinging the Wiimote around is fun, for a while, but playing something like Medal of Honor with a Wiimote and Nunchuck is more than a little frustrating. Plus, we’ve got this nice HD plasma TV, and it’d be nice to have something that took advantage of the HD part of the TV. So, I plumped for an Xbox 360 ‘Arcade’, which was _way_ cheaper than a PS3, and does omit a hard drive, but these are readily and cheaply available on eBay. The money ‘saved’ on buying the cheap version was quickly spanked on games – the bundle I bought had Forza Motorsport 2, Viva Pinata and an extra wireless controller – and to that I added FIFA 2008, and pre-owned versions of Halo 3, Elder Scrolls: Oblivion and Dead or Alive 4. Emma thinks I’m mad, and it’s a waste – which is possibly true, but, hey, you’re only young once. Eh?

TTFN.