Snow

Got back in England on Friday and spend Christmas day at my sister's house in Beccles together with Mum and Dad and her boyfriend Ian. Ate rather too much and together with a cold/allergy thing that I'd picked up, spent most of the afternoon/evening in bed resting/watching the TV. Saw yet another documentary on the making of the TV series 'Little Britain' which was interesting. Also saw the film 'The Importance of Being Ernest'. Then on Boxing day spent the day with Ian's Parents eating, drinking and playing family games, all of which is great fun.

Now I'm back in Long Melford and am connected to the internet via a friendly neighbours wireless internet connection which is great! Looking forward to spening New Years with a load of old school friends at Jane Brett's house in Bury St. Edmunds.

Happy New Year to all and sundry,

Sam

Media Darling...returns

I am writing this post because today I was on the front page of the newspaper Sydsvenskan for the second time after summer this time during a rehearsal for my choir, Förenadenations manskören (The Combined Nations of Lund Male Voice Choir). The choir is soley for men and I sing second tenor (which is really too high for me).

more Jazz

Yesterday evening, I attended a "Jam Session" at mejeriet in Lund, Sweden. Nothing strange with that you may ask. The idea of the night was that anyone, could get up and play some jazz during the evening. The first four songs were played by the house band, The Christoffer Andersson Trio, who were very tight and played just the kind of jazz I like with piano, double bass and drums. Then after the fourth song up jumped two Swedish 15/16 year olds and started playing with the band. I was so impressed with the level of their guitar/double bass playing that I congratulated them in the break. It shows that Jazz is alive and well, in Sweden and Lund at least.

I also got up and sung the first verse of "Summertime" with the band's accompaniment. Fluffed up the words once or twice, but it was a good feeling and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. Next time I'll go prepared with more stuff.

Jazz...nice

Went to see "Daniel Karlsson's" sextet yesterday at a venue called Mejeriet (literally translated means "the dairy") who played a mix of self-written jazz ballads and more lively numbers. Karlsson had own the title of "Swedish Jazz musician of the year 2005" and was on tour with his band, two drummers, double-bass, trumpet and sax. The concept of two drummers was a bit too much and one was much more eratic than the other, jumping off his seat to pling a triangle or shake a rattler. The brass section was well-toned and play in harmony at the beginning of a song before either the sax, double-bass or piano went into a melodic solo section before going back to the beginning phrase again. The trumpet solo was very technically fascinating but at times was drowned out bny the two drummers behind him having a bash.

After the traditional long hand clap after the musicians had left the stage we got to hear a mellower number with just the piano, bass and drums as an encore number. Not the best ever jazz band I've ever seen and the two drummer concept meant that the music was lost sometime between the snare and the cymbol.

Sick this Weekend

How is it that a cold can immobilise you in a matter of hours? Thursday evening I was 100% healthy, woke up on Friday morining with a sore throat and by Saturday morning the cold had developped into something a lot nastier which meant I spent virtually all of yesterday in bed and had to call off a party which I'd been planning for the evening. I got three calls later that evening from worried rugby players that hadn't got the email explaining about the cancellation.

One of the Indian guys who lives near here came knocking as well as I was just in a dressing gown. He asked me if I wanted to play cricket which I would have loved to do if not for my state of health. There seem to be a lot of Indians here which is great. Most have PhD positions or jobs. The one who knocked at my door is working on making an intelligent text messaging algoritm for his small region language in India. I say small, but 70 million people speak this language, but that's small for india I guess.

On Friday night I was at the PhD defence party for one of the other girls at the department. The evening was a success and my script (with some changes) for her tribute play was well received. I enjoyed playing an Irish girl and went rather over the top with the Irish accent. I left for home immediately afterwards because I was feeling quite ill.

Going to see the new Charlie and the Chocolate factory film (it was only released on Friday here in Sweden) and am looking forward to it. Only hope that I won't be coughing my guts out.

A Win at last

Last, Saturday I went up to Gothenburg and played against Spartacus
Rugby, a team who'd got beaten 61 - 0 the previous week by Nässjö. Not
wanting to be too confident about the whole thing, we arrived at the
ground 2 hours before the match started. The weather was gorgeous and
the scene was set for an epic match. To cut a long story short, we won
by 54 points to 7 which is really good. Not only that but we had
supporters from Canada and China come see us play! Pictures are up on
the website www.lugirugby.com/cpg133 somewhere. I sent in a thing to
the local newspaper sydsvenskan which got put in
today's edition which made me even happier!

Sam

Google Earth

I think I'm a little slow, but recently discovered Google Earth and it's
power recently when I succesfully found a high-res image of my parents
house in Long Melford, Suffolk. I thought it was a cool thing, but a
colleague pointed out that it's also a scary thing.

Ali Blackmore's top tips on Google Earth were to visit the Grand Canyon,
New York and Google Campus. I agree!

Media Darling

Yesterday I was in the Swedish Newspaper Sydsvenskan after helping out at Arrival Day in Lund when many of the 1400 exchange students from all over the world arrive in Lund. A link to the on-line version of the article in swedish can be found here.

Also yesterday I was at the Technical students Union Building, kårhuset, signing up willing students to the rugby club. We mananged to get about 20 names down which is a record!

Ricky and Me

Just a pic from July 2005 of Ricky (Riquier Thevenin) and myself after climbing "le mont des Cats" near his home in Flanders, North France.

sam80.com RIP

Went to edit my homepage, www.sam80.com, but got an error page. Then went to the company's homepage who've been hosting it, www.99kronor.com, and just got a message saying the domain name had expired. Ah. well. Guess I'll have to find another web provider, or just use my blog....

Prague Conference

Best Man Speech

If anyone has ever had to write a best man's speech then you'll know how I'm feeling as I will be speaking to by best friend and his new wife's family this Monday. I think I'm going to have to start some serious planning soon otherwise it could end up being a flop. I'm really looking forward to it, let's hope it goes well.

My Blog

Well, nothing really to comment here apart from snow is still on the ground and I now have my own blog!