Heart Fanatic

I discovered the band Heart in 1986. Sure, they had been around for a decade by this point, but they had been pretty much ignored or overlooked by UK radio stations until 'These Dreams' came along and broke into radio playlists, if not actually the UK top 40 singles chart. I quite liked the song. Soon after this I discovered their 1985 self-titled album in my local audio library. I borrowed it. Nobody had recommended it to me, nobody had mentioned it, I had never heard a review, I had only heard one track on it.

From the first listen, I loved it. 

For a teenage boy in 1986 it was the ultimate rock album. It was perfectly of its time and virtually every song was great. By the time I had to return the album to the library I had probably listened to it about 50 times. I had become a Heart fanatic.

The next few months became a frantic search for other albums by Heart. Rumour had it that their earlier material was quite unlike this album and I might not like it. So I couldn't just rush out and buy the early stuff. And besides, funds were limited. But nobody in my circle of friends had heard anything before 1985. Eventually, it turned out that the big brother of one of my classmates (hello Andy Ketchin) had two tapes by Heart, so I finally got to hear the albums 'Magazine' and 'Dog and Butterfly' (both from 1978). I loved them too. Whew. I could take the risk and buy some of the earlier albums.

By this time I also had a bootleg concert of Heart live at the NHK Hall in Tokyo from 25th June 1986 so I knew a few songs from the early albums. Thus 'Little Queen' (1977) featuring the classic Barracuda was first on my purchase list. What an amazing album - it quickly became my 2nd favourite Heart album, a position it has probably retained from that day to this, despite the number 1 place having changed since then!

Over the space of the next six months I bought 'Dreamboat Annie' (1976), 'Dog and Butterfly' and 'Magazine' (got it really cheap at a record fair). Despite them being considerably more expensive than most LPs in my local record shops, I eventually gave in to temptation and bought 'Bebe le Strange' and 'Greatest Hits / Live' ( both 1980). Bebe le Strange was a disappointment. While its not a bad album, its not a great one either. Sure, it has some great tracks on it, but quite a few lower quality ones too.

I had heard tale, by this point, of an album called 'Private Audition' that came after Bebe le Strange, but all I had heard about it was that it was weird and not very good. You have to remember that this is all way before the internet, Spotify, Wikipedia, etc. The only way you could hear rock music back then was if someone you knew had it, or if Tommy Vance played it on his Friday night rock show (sigh, nostalgia). I also knew there was a song I really liked on the NHK bootleg called 'Allies' but it wasn't on any of the albums I'd heard of.

1987 brought the release of a new Heart album, 'Bad Animals'. I think I did buy it on the day of release. At the time it seemed great, but time has not been too kind to this album. However, the commercial success of Bad Animals in the UK meant that record stores started stocking all the Heart back catalogue. 'Private Audition' (1982) and a previously unheard of (by me, at least) album 'Passionworks' (1983) appeared in stores and were quickly bought by me. Private Audition wasn't as weird or bad as I'd been led to believe, but Passionworks was brilliant - here's where that song 'Allies' came from. Its basically the precursor to the 1985 Heart album, and pretty much in the same vein. For a while it became my number 1 favourite Heart album. When Heart toured the UK in 1988, I managed to get the sleeve of Passionworks signed by all three male members of the band, but sadly not by Ann or Nancy.

So by the time I left school in 1988, I had all the Heart albums on vinyl, most of the 12" singles, a few 7" singles, a wall covered in Heart posters and a well worn and much loved Heart tour t-shirt.

I have to admit things began to cool off between me and Heart from then on in. 'Brigade' (1990) came on the back of a couple of Mutt Lange written power ballads that I didn't much like, and which spoiled the whole album for me. The 1991 live album 'Rock the house: Live' was nothing special, so when 'Desire walks on' came along in 1993, I didn't even buy it. Besides, by then grunge had come along and killed big hair, big shoulders, power ballad rock. The obligatory post-grunge acoustic live album 'The Road Home' didn't interest me at the time. It looked like it was all over for Heart. And so it was...

... until 2004 when Heart returned with their best album so far. 'Jupiter's Darling' came with no expectations at all. I went to see them on the 2004 UK tour for a bit of nostalgia and came out from a fantastic gig absolutely desperate to buy the new album. 8 years on and it is probably still one of my favourite albums by anyone, certainly my favourite Heart album, and definitely my favourite album from the whole decade of the 2000s!

Their next release, 'Red Velvet Car' (2010) came with expectations and didn't quite live up to them. It is not a bad album. I'd go as far as to say its quite good. But the problem is, its only that, quite good.

So I was unsure what to expect from the brand new release 'Fanatic', which came out this week. I kind of expected a disappointment. I knew it couldn't be as good as Jupiter's Darling. I hoped it would be quite good. The cover art suggests an album that has been knocked out quickly, which is not a good start. The running time is short (39 minutes), which sent alarm bells ringing. And the guitarist who seemed to inject new life into Heart to help bring about the greatness that is Jupiter's Darling, Craig Bartock, was not involved with the album at all. But I bought it anyway.

I'm glad I did. It rocks. It rawks! Whereas Red Velvet Car kind of washes over you, Fanatic grabs you by various body parts and drags you into the midst of raw distorted guitars, heavy riffs, classic rock hooks and plain, simple and pure-distilled-essence-of-rock drums. This album wears its heart on its sleeve. Ann and Nancy have always admitted to being huge Led Zep fans, but here they do the classic imitation-is-the-sincerest-form-of-flattery thing and just put all their Zep fandom into song. They admit as much on the title track, which not only states that they are Fanatics, but it riffs on the Misty Mountain Hop riff, just in case you didn't get the point. Page and Plant should be proud of their illegitimate offspring.

But its not just classic rock, loud guitars, and Plantesque screaming. There's so much more. There's something for everyone here. How this album manages that in only 39 minutes is a mystery to me, but it does it. Ballads, acoustic bits, funky bits, loud bits, quiet bits, moving bits and soothing bits. On the first couple of listens 'Million Miles' stood out as the best thing in here, but on subsequent listens everything else seems to have risen up to the same level. Its all great.

So there you have it. Heart's best album since 2004, probably one of the top 5 of their career, and the most enjoyable album I've bought this year so far.

Listen. You'll probably like it.

Reggie Perrin

I laughed only once in the first episode of Reggie Perrin last night. Probably won't bother with episode 2. Then again, I probably wouldn't find the original that entertaining if I was to revisit it today.

But what is it with BBC1 sitcoms? They're all unfunny!

Freddie and me

I'm not really one for reading biographies.

I don't think I've ever read an autobiography before.

I've certainly never ready a biography of someone I'd never heard of and who didn't actually live that interesting a life.

I'd never even seen a graphic-autobiography before.

But the story of a Queen-obsessed boy from the UK, moving to the USA and remembering important events in his life and how they relate to Queen concerts and album releases sounded like fun...

So is it any good?

Well, its alright. Obviously if you don't like comics / graphic novels, then this one is not for you. Also, if you don't really care much for the music of Queen then you'd probably best avoid it too. But if you shed a tear on the day when Freddie died and have ever sung along to a Queen song holding a (real or imagined) half microphone stand, then you'll probably relate to this guy and enjoy the book.

The artwork is good and the story is touching. But when the two most significant events in the life of the central character are the death of his grandmother and the death of Freddie Mercury, its not exactly the greatest or funniest story ever told.

Possibly the most interesting sub-plot in the book is the relationship between the central character (a Queen fan) and his younger sister (a Wham! fan), how they are divided by musical differences, then united watching the Freddie tribute concert. Given this sub-plot, the book actually ends on a really heartwarming note... which you'll have to read the book to find out.

Perhaps not as good as I'd hoped it would be, but well worth a read if you're a geeky Queen fan.

Be kind rewind

Strange film.

I'm not sure this knows what kind of film it wants to be. It starts out with the set-up for a dumb comedy, but with not enough laughs. Then, about 25 minutes in, we get to the video remakes bit which is probably all that the audience knew about before watching the film. This starts off a bit dull (the Ghostbusters & Rush Hour 2 bit) but gets fairly entertaining for ten minutes or so of remakes which come thick and fast. But its clear that the remakes can't sustain interest for the rest of the film and so the movie switches genre and morphs into one of those light-hearted films full of quirky characters that you're supposed to care about. And the funny thing is that you do care. Finally, at the end, it turns into Cinema Paradiso and goes all arty on us.

So, in no way is this a coherent film. But it is entertaining and even a little moving. And probably about 20 minutes too long.

Jack Black is, of course, just playing Jack Black. If you can't tolerate him, then steer clear. If you can, this is fine.

About 20 minutes into it is a near perfect sight-gag that is just brilliant. Almost worth the rental price just for that moment of art. (Yes, I mean the bit with the 'camouflaged' boiler suit when the police turn up. Masterful.)

However, I'm unlikely to watch this again. Next...

Doctor Who: The Next Doctor

Was it just me, or wasn't it very good?

I mean, it had its moments, but it just failed to live up to expectations.

Nothing was genuinely scary, the Cybercats were just silly and the ending was just, well, a bit of a let down.

But lets face it, none of the Christmas specials have been better than an average episode. Given that they seem to put more effort into the specials, you'd expect more.

I hope the other 'specials' we're getting in 2009 will be a bit more, erm, special than that.

C- Must try harder.

Cosmos Rocking...

I saw Queen + Paul Rodgers live at the SECC last night. Fabulous.

No support act, no hanging about, no delays. Queen + Paul Rodgers came on at 8pm, exactly as planned and played for two and a bit hours. Great set.

I saw Q+PR at Newcastle on the 'Return of the Champions' tour a couple of years ago, they were good then, but they were better this time.

The audience ranged in age from about 8 to about 70. There were lots of Queen fans from the 70s who had brought their kids - now also Queen fans - along with them. There was a 16 year old boy near me air-guitarring the whole time. And there was a great atmosphere, everyone was just there for some fun.

I've often found the atmosphere in concerts in Glasgow to be more aggressive than concerts elsewhere, with the possibility of violence lying closer to the surface than normal, but there was none of that last night. It was a very good-natured gig.

There were no major surprises in the set-list, they played more or less the same range of 'greatest hits' as last time with a few tracks from the new album thrown in for good measure. But the sequence of songs was good and worked really well.

Let's face it, they won me over by starting with 'Hammer to fall' ;o)

Highlights:
Hammer to fall, Radio Ga-ga, I want to break free, I want it all, '39, All right now and the drum solo...

Low points:

Guitar solo, C-lebrity, Seagull.

Up until last night, the best drum solo I had ever seen in concert was Mick Fleetwood's solo in the Fleetwood Mac concert in the Edinburgh Playhouse in 1988. That solo was innovative and entertaining in that, halfway through it, Mick Fleetwood left the drum kit and carried on 'drumming' on his electronic waistcoat and, erm, dangling balls... but that solo has now been surpassed.

Roger Taylor started the solo with a single drum and cymbal - this was out on the satellite stage - after a minute or two, bass player Danny Miranda pushed the electric double bass that he had played the last song on closer and Roger started drumming on the strings of the double bass. A few fingerings from Danny and they played a few classic basslines between them - the theme from Jaws, Another one bites the dust and Under pressure. After a few minutes of this, Roger returned to the single drum and cymbal combo and Danny left the stage. Every minute or so, a stage hand would appear with another drum or cymbal and add it to the kit, so the drumkit ended up being a full kit - after about 10 minutes of this. The culmination of the solo turned into 'I'm in love with my car' which was good.

Brian May's guitar solo had its moments too. Those moments were the bits when it turned into 'Bijou' (complete with a tape of Freddie singing the single verse, which was really good) and 'Last Horizon' - in other words, the best bits were when he played actual tunes. But the rest of the 10+ minutes solo was the usual heard-it-all-before 'Now I'm here' and 'Brighton Rock'-esque guitar grunting with heavy delays. This was probably cool in 1974 but he's been doing more or less the same solo for over three decades now and its getting boring! Brian, please stop it!

Another thing Brian should stop is doing 'Tie your mother down' as the second song in every concert. Clearly he must think that this is his greatest song, but you know what? It isn't. Its dull and predictable these days.

But those two Brian gripes aside, he does well for a man of his age - running all over the stage, not seeming to get a note wrong, singing the occasional song and backing vocal and apprently having a good time. Of course, he is surpassed by Paul Rodgers when it comes to overall fitness and looking good for his age - I'd go as far as to say that PR looks better and fitter now than he did in his 70s heyday. On the last tour, Roger looked half dead at the end of the night, this time round he looked fine, so I guess all that touring and drumming over the past few years has been good for him.

I had hoped that the experience of the 'Return of the Champions' tour would have got the necessity of playing a 'greatest hits' set out of their systems, and the band could let songs like 'Bohemian Rhapsody' and 'Fat bottomed girls' go and play some more obscure (or rarely played) songs from their back catalogue. Sadly, no 'White Queen' or 'Sail away sweet sister' sneaked into the setlist. And it was faintly disappointing to realise that we'll probably never hear the great Brian or Roger solo tracks live in concert again. Pity, 'Foreign sand' or 'Resurrection' would have been good thrown into the mix.

But these are minor gripes. The band played a good selection of great songs and did them well. The atmosphere was fab and everybody on stage and off was having a good time.

Yes, it cost me £62 all told (once you take booking fees, postage and car parking into account) but it was worth every penny.

The way it should be is not the way it is...

Why isn't life simple?

• When I was a young teenager, my local radio station played the music I wanted to hear and a local department store sold the kind of clothes I wanted (my Mum) to buy (for me).
• When I was an older teenager, BBC Radio 1 played the music I wanted to hear and Top Man sold the clothes I wanted to buy.
• As an undergrad student, there wasn't really a radio station that played what I wanted to hear and clothes came from Burtons.
• As a postgrad student, Virgin radio played the music I wanted to hear and River Island was the shop of choice.
• As a late 20 something, Virgin continued to play the music I wanted to hear, but I found myself shopping in Next for clothes.
• In my early 30s I found myself listening to BBC Radio 2 (during the day, never in the evenings) and clothes seemed to come from Gap or Next.
• Now in my late 30s, I find myself listening to Planet Rock or 96.3 Rock Radio (thanks to a DAB radio) and clothes seem to come mostly from Gap or Fat Face.

Why couldn't things like radio stations and clothes shops just make life easy for us? Why don't they just age with us? Every 5 years or so, the BBC should invent a new radio station which should age along with its listeners. And a new clothes chain should appear, targeting one age group and then aging with that age group. It would be a much better system.

You see, as I approach the transition from thirtysomething into fortysomething (not for another couple of years, mind) I find myself wondering where I'll be buying clothes from and what I'll be listening to in a few years time...

Extreme: Saudades de Rock

Its a bad title. Apparently 'saudades' (pronounced 'sow-dodge') means something like 'vague nostalgic yearning' - a nostalgic yearning for rock. Unfortunately, this is a feeling you are left with after having listened to the album.

In their time together (the first time around) Extreme managed to produce two excellent albums bookended by two which were OK, with occasional flashes of greatness. After they split in 1996, Gary Cherone went on to various stage musical roles, was briefly a member of Van Halen, recorded a depressing album called 'Exit Elvis' by 'Tribe of Judah' and then released a really quite bad (and very middle of the road) EP under the name of 'Cherone'. Nuno Bettencourt on the other hand has had a quite interesting 'solo' career. One album released under his own name, two under the name of 'Mourning Widows', one CD and an EP under the name of 'Population 1' and a CD under the name of 'Dramagods' - all of these (IMO) either very good (Nuno CD, 2nd Mourning Widows, Dramagods) or excellent (1st Mourning Widows CD, Population 1). I think its fair to say that Gary needs Nuno more than Nuno needs Gary. But neither had great post-Extreme financial success. So the reunion was inevitable.


And so, 13 years since the last Extreme album we have "Saudades de Rock". As you'd expect, this album has many bits which are basically the band trying to prove that they're still the band they once were. Also it has many bits that sound like the sort of stuff Nuno has been doing on his own for the past decade. But sadly it doesn't have anything new and fresh, its all nostalgia and stuff we've already heard before.

Track by track:

1. Star: This song is here to proclaim that this is the same band you used to like. Guitar riffs and verses are basically the distilled essence of 'Pornograffitti' while the harmonies on the chorus are more like 'III sides'. I think in time the chorus will get really annoying, but on the first few listens its quite a good song.
   
2. Comfortably dumb: Another song in the funk-rock style of 'Pornograffitti'. But not that interesting.
   
3. Learn to love: Oh. Another song in the style of 'Pornograffitti'. Yawn. It also instills a bit of the Zep-influenced 'Punchline' album. By this point I'm getting bored of hearing Gary Cherone scream rather than singing.
   
4. Take us alive: Thankfully this track is more interesting and fun than the three that have preceded it. This is flavoured with 'tex-mex' seasoning. I could have said 'country' there, but thankfully it doesn't go that far. I like this one a lot.
   
5. Run: Not very interesting, but at least this is in the style of 'III sides' a bit more. Variety is good.
   
6. Last hour: One of those quiet-shouty-quiet-shouty type songs. I quite like it, but fear that I might tire of it.
   
7. Flower man: If you've heard Nuno's solo album you'll recognise this song as basically 'Two Weeks in Dizkneelande' with different lyrics. If you've not heard the Nuno track, this will probably be one of the best tracks on the album for you.
   
8. King of the ladies: Oh dear, this is embarrassing. More nostalgia. With bad lyrics.
   
9. Ghost: Starts like a ballad, this album should have had one before now, but builds in beat as the song goes on. Nice piano and vocal performance. You can see the Queen influence quite clearly.
   
10. Slide: Nice and funky album filler track. But quite good for that.
    
11. Interface: This song is on Nuno's last album, 'Love' by Dramagods. Its a nice song, but the new version doesn't really add anything to the existing version.
    
12. Sunrise: Slow funk-rock with a touch of Zep. Degenerates into stereotypical Extreme for the solo. But one of the better tracks on the album for all that.
    
13. Peace (Saudade): Saving the best for last. Quiet, slow and beautiful. This is the stand-out track on the album. Shame it comes so late in the day.
    
14. Americocaine (Demo 1985): A funny way to end the 'comeback' album, with an old song that wasn't good enough to put on any of the earlier albums. Just sounds like late 80s album filler material.

So, all in all, a disappointing album with a couple of highlights. I think I'll still go and see them in concert when they get to Scotland (Glasgow Carling Academy, Sat 15th November) but I'll be hoping for a greatest hits set, not a set full of the new stuff.

But maybe the album will grow on me...

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of blah, blah, blah...

Once there was a time when the combination of George Lucas and Steven Speilberg could do no wrong. And during that period they made 'Raiders of the Lost Ark' - one of my favourite movies ever. This was the first film I ever saw multiple times at the cinema. I think I saw it on three consecutive weekends when I was 11.

Then they followed it up with 'Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom' a few years later. It was darker and not quite as good, but still great fun.

Then Lucas lost it. He went on to make 'Howard the Duck', the Ewoks movie and ultimately create Jar-Jar Binks; not a great career progression. Speilberg went all serious on us and lost the knack of doing a great blockbuster. The third Indiana Jones movie 'The Last Crusade' was quite good, but not as great as the first two.

And now, after a couple of decades of waiting, comes the fourth, and presumably final, Indiana Jones movie. Was it worth the wait? No. Was it an entertaining film? Yes. Was it another Indiana Jones movie? Not really...

Spoilers below. So watch out if you haven't seen the film...

The basic plot of Indiana Jones movies is that Indy has to get to some ancient religious (and generally magical) artifact before the bad guys (generally Nazis) get to it to use the power for their own evil ends. Along the way we get some whip-cracking, swash-buckling, fist-fighting, gun-toting, truck-chasing action.

But Indy is now 20 years older and we're now in the 1950s. So the bad guys can't be Nazis anymore (actually, I think they could have been, especially since the action mostly takes place in South America - I'm sure there were some Nazis hanging on there in the 50s...) and our hero can't swash his buckle in the same way he used to (actually, as we will see, he can, but the producers obviously thought we wouldn't believe that) so we have a younger sidekick who turns out to be Indy's son. OK, I have no problems with either of those changes.

But let's consider the ancient artifact... Its not a well-known, but lost, Judeo-Christian artifact like the Ark or the Grail in films one or three, its not a fictional Hindu artifact like in film two, its a completely fictional - and clearly alien - artifact from a completely made up religion. You see, from the very outset the rules of this film have changed - we're not in the realm of religious-fantasy, we're firmly in the realm of sci-fi. And that's not Indiana Jones territory.

I'm a big fan of Stargate (the original movie as well as the TV series it spawned), and the premise of this film is very much in Stargate territory. Then there are elements of the Mummy movies thrown into the mix (most notably the swarming ants scene). Then finally there are some elements of Indiana Jones movies thrown in for good measure: hating snakes, truck chases, clifftop fights, a bit of tomb raiding, melting faces, etc., etc. But they are not the starting point, they feel like they've been thrown in there to keep the punters happy. And some of the classic Indy elements are spoiled as they are brought in incorrectly, like the scene with all the natives swarming out of the temple - very much like the opening scene of Raiders, but there Indy only escaped because he had a hapless accomplice with a plane, here we had to resort to sci-fi crystal skulls to scare off the natives. Silly, and not very Indiana Jones.

So this fails as an Indiana Jones movie, and if I'd gone in armed with high expectations I'd have been quite disappointed. Thankfully I'd heard about the silly alien thing (although it pervades the entire movie, its not just the last half hour like some reviewers suggest) and had gone in with as few expectations as I could. And hence enjoyed it quite a bit.

You see, the character of Indy is still intact (even if he's in the wrong film) and Harrison Ford does a great job of making the ridiculous Lucas plot and dialogue seem real, or at least believable. I have no issues with the James Dean-esque son of Indy and thought he brought a new angle to the story. The baddies were a bit two-dimensional with Cate Blanchett behaving like the sort of psycho nutter who is usually second in command to some cat-stroking evil genius. But the cat stroker never appeared, so we were left with a slightly incomplete set of baddies. And Ray Winstone was rubbish.

So what we're left with is a load of quite enjoyable action scenes, a charismatic couple of central characters, a nice re-appearance of Marion from Raiders and some hints of social comment from Speilberg, all tied together with a ridiculous plot and premise.

I liked it. I will certainly watch it again someday. But it was not a worthy successor to Raiders.

Hogmanay

Make an old style mix tape...

These are cool. They look like old fashioned tapes, like the ones we used to know and love in the 80s, but there's a little USB flash memory stick inside it instead. So you can still compile your 'mix tape' but do it in MP3 instead... and you still get to hand write the track listing, just like you used to.

I had planned on getting a couple of these for a laugh for Christmas gifts. But at £20 for a 64Mb memory stick, I think I'll give it a miss! Tapes used to cost less than a pound each, you know...

Fast Times at Ridgemont High

I have finally seen the 1982 movie "Fast Times at Ridgemont High".

You're probably wondering about the 'finally' part of that statement. I've wanted to see that movie for a long time. Probably about 21 years...

You see, in 1986 I had a minor obsession with guitar playing rock goddess Nancy Wilson of the band Heart. Perhaps it was more than minor. Well, I was 15 and Heart were briefly one of the greatest rock bands of the moment. The self-titled Heart album from 1985 is the pure essence of 1985 - if you want to know what rock music in 1985 was, that's the album to listen to. All power ballads, power chords, big hair and emotive vocals. Actually, I still think its a great album. But anyway. In 1986 I discovered that Nancy Wilson had a 'starring' part in this movie, Fast Times at Ridgemont High. I desperately wanted to see that movie.

But in 1986 things were a bit different to how they are today. No Amazon.com, no downloads, and (most importantly) in my house, no VCR! Add to this the fact that no video store in Edinburgh had the movie (Virgin could order it in for £25 - which was a lot of money in those days) and you see why I never saw it. By the time I actually owned a VCR my Nancy obsession had diminished and so I never tried to get it then.

But it was on Film 4 last week. So I watched it.

No, it wasn't worth 21 years of waiting. To add insult to injury it turns out that Nancy's 'starring' role lasts less than a minute and she doesn't even speak! Khah!

The film ticks all the boxes of the early 80s 'bawdy teen sex comedy' genre, without actually being particularly bawdy, sexy or comedic. And as usual in American movies, the high school 'teens' are mostly twenty-somethings.

But while it wasn't particularly funny, it was still quite watchable. The cliched characters all seemed actually to be reasonably real people and you were interested in what happened to them. There were some genuinely touching moments in there too, which I wasn't really expecting. But there wasn't actually too much of a plot. About 75 minutes in I found myself wondering when the real story was going to begin.

So it was OK, but not worth the wait.

So here's a clip of Nancy Wilson in her 1985 prime...

Don't believe the video, Nancy does all the singing here not Ann, her darker haired sister.

And here's the other single from the 80s with Nancy on lead vocals. Erm, I have no idea what they thought they were doing in this video...

Kids today...

Kids today, eh?

You know, there's many, many cool things that kids have today that hadn't been invented when I was a kid, or were so overpriced that they couldn't be bought by anyone with a reasonable pocket money allowance. And in almost every instance, I don't wish they had been around or affordable when I was a kid.

It was fine growing up with only 3 channels on the telly (OK, so there were 4 by the time I was 12, but...), no video or DVD (I never had a VCR until I was a student), no iPods, no mobile phones, no handheld games consoles (apart from the occasional space invaders or pacman), no internet (i.e. no hotmail, msn, skype, bebo.com, etc.), and so on. I was even in that unfortunate generation that was slightly too young for skateboards when they were first popular and slightly too old for them when their popularity returned a decade or so later. But I had a great childhood. There's nothing kids have today that I would have wanted back then... except Heelys.

Why, oh why, were these not invented when I was eight? I would have loved a pair of them! I could have coasted around the streets pretending I was one of 'Bailey's Comets' (sorry if that reference was lost on anyone under the age of 35, it was a cartoon in the early 70s). How cool would that have been? Sigh.