So much for the art of conversation, it seems people are only part following Elvis’ advice when he advised a little less conversation and a little more action please.  Actually, the guy who was supposed to deliver me a mountain of compost listened to half of that advice and ignored the other half.

The plan seemed simple enough, he arrives at my house with 120 litres of compost which I use to grow this years crop of potatoes in the scrap of land I call a garden.  Now, although I live a mere 7 minute walk from a B & Q store with garden centre, the thought of making 6 trips back and forth to lug 20 litres sacks of compost was too much to bear and I figured for a mere £10 more to have someone deliver it to my door I was not so much being lazy but assisting a local business in these times of recession. Yes, OK, perhaps I am just lazy but it was a win-win solution, or so I thought!

I am, it has to be said, looking forward to June.  Not only have I got tickets to see the Kings of Leon at the O2,  I managed to be awake early one morning to buy tickets to a dream ticket gig at Hyde Park.  Finally, after almost 25 years as a fan I’m going to see Springsteen live and what makes it all the more exciting is because Dave Matthews and his Band are the support act… really, does it get any better??

Well, actually it does, DMB, as they are known by those too lazy to type out their full title have a new studio album coming out on 2 June.  It’s a strange old title and I’m curious to know what it all means, obviously not curious enough to have googled it but curious nevertheless.  I happened to note that hmv.com have the album available on pre-sale for £8.99 tho for some reason they don’t know what it’s called?! For the avoidance of doubt it’s going to be called Big Whiskey & the Groogux King

If you are quick you can get an MP3 of the first single from the album, Funny The Way It Is, from RCA Records in return for your email address, it’s a good track and whet’s the appetite for the album and of course the gig!  Dave is also doing 2 gigs at Brixton prior to Hyde Park and I think you can still get tickets for one of the at Ticketmaster UK.

I was given a pair of tickets by The Independent to go and see the Rodchenko & Popova exhibition that’s currently on at Tate Modern.  They sent them by post, Special Delivery and for the past few days I’ve had the notion of either getting up an hour earlier or finishing work an hour earlier in order to get to the post office to collect them.

Getting up earlier is never an easy option, much less when I have a persistent cold and insomnia and that window of opportunity at work, when I can leave in time is frightfully narrow but I thought I had cracked it on Friday.  I left work, caught the tube to Leyton and jumped on a bus at the station that was destined for Walthamstow Central, I should have paid more attention as the bus was probably the only one that doesn’t go anywhere near the post office!  It did however drop me off quite near home so I walked there and planned my attack of the post office for this morning.  Saturday opening hours are 7am to noon… this would indeed be a test of determination.

If you’re in UK or have ever visited the UK you’ll know that one thing we Brits like is to spend time in the pub.  It’s the national pastime, when we’re not complaining about the weather (it’s either too hot or too cold) although most of us manage to combine both – who says we can’t multi-task?

Anyway, there has been a lot of press lately relating to the high levels of alcohol related diseases and deaths and Scotland is about to set a minimum price level for a unit of alcohol to try and make it more expensive for teenagers to get drunk as well as curtail the huge profits that supermarkets make by selling cheap rot-gut alcohol products at below cost price as they wage wars between themselves to lure in customers, after all with those party packs of 12% lager you’re going to need a few packs of overpriced tortilla chips and salsa dips…right?

Now, those of you have been keeping up with my intermittent blogging will also know that this year I decided to make a few New Year Resolutions, one of which was to go without alcohol for all of 2009, 92 days so far and it’s going well. Before anyone shakes their head in pity, I just had to add up the days with the aid of a calendar, I haven’t been counting the days in my head!

If you’ve been keeping up with things you’ll recall I mentioned the This Is Now project being coordinated by Violette from We Are Social and the problem I was having in trying to select a track that defined Now to me.  Well, after many sleepless nights I eventually settled on something,  although I do have to admit that if it weren’t for Violette’s gentle prodding I’d still be rummaging through the playlist in my head of every song I can remember, which seems to have increased ten-fold since I discovered blip.fm.

Anyway, I settled on just one track although I have now decided to create a playlist on last.fm which I will continually add tracks to, I started tagging them too until I discovered that someone had tagged about 20 songs by the Monkees as This is Now…I’ll own up to Patrick Bruel but the Monkees?! No thank you sir!

My blurb is over there on the This Is Now website but I’ve posted it here for all you people who are just too lazy to click on links and I’ve even gone so far as it include the song for you to have a listen to. I know… I spoil you all