The Dream

It is visible from the M62 as I drive there to my mum's house. We have zoomed past it many times in the last seven months spending alternate weekends with her as she battled with cancer.
The mystery of the huge stutue is heightened because it is hidden, for the most part, by trees - perhaps the authorities thought it might cause regular motorway pile-ups if we could behold its splendour hurtling past at 70 mph. At first I would find this intensely irritating but, after a while, it only added to the allure and mystique of it all.

The Dream weighs 370 tonnes and was designed by Spanish artist Jaume Plensa. The site is on Sutton Manor colliery in St Helens, although it's been a long time since any coal was taken from the ground.

Three weekes ago mum went into a nursing home in Parr, not far from the site. I went to visit her alone as my wife Louise, who always usually accompanies me, was trapped working on the aftermath of the election. The Saturday visit had been difficult but I promised I would return that night with Chicken Chow mein - her favourite dish for several months.
On the way back I took a detour and went to look at the statue.

I walked up the long tree-lined path and eventually entered the clearing which revealed The Dream to full effect. Sitting looking up at the glowing 20 meter high head had the effect of making me feel like a character in a '60's psychadelic album track - trippy.

But, staring at the carefully sculptured blocks of Spanish stone felt good.

My mum passed away on Wednesday 12th May 2010. I may visit The Dream again to be with her.

Well Spurs, one of the premiership teams much beloved by the media , has achieved greatness tonight - they have made it into the Champions League. Westminster Abbey bells will peel and joy will be unconfined in the streets of Tottenham - does anyone really know where Tottenham actually is?



When SKY first arrived their match coverage and use of graphics made MOTD look like a a throw-back to the Black & White 50's era complete with dear Kenneth Wolstenhome; there was no similar progress on the cliche front. The tired old myths, well developed over the years by the newspapers, BBC & ITV where absorbed effortlessly into the new satellite era.

Man Utd have Duncan Edwards, the Munich air disaster and George Best, Liverpool have Shankley, the Boot Room and You'll Never Walk Alone and Spurs have Danny Blanchflower, winning the double first and that play some bloke wrote that was on TV.

So tonight, once again the cliches fell like enthusiastic rain as Manchester City - fast aquiring a new myth as the team who always shoot themselves in the foot - failed at the last gasp to beat those gallant boys in white. TV commentators weeped for joy.

Luther - BBC1 9pm

I do hope this picks up as the first episode was so leaden, so BBC drama-ish. Scenes ran for too long and scenes where needlessly repeated - I go to my house, I get mad at my wife and I kick a kitchen door in. I go to where my wife works, I get very mad at my wife and throw some of her work colleagues out of her office. I go back to my house, I get madder still at my wife and start a fight with her new boyfriend and four police officers. OK Luther, we get it - your not happy with your wife.

Luther wanders about a strangely uninhabited London behaving in a most un-police officer type way. He's just back off suspension and yet he conducts an illegal search of a suspects' flat and steals potential evidence - an urn containing the ashes of a dog!

BBC budget cuts are in evidence everywhere, the policestation is deliberately small in order to make it look crowded and yet he seems to be conducting the investigation into the cold blooded double homicide on his own.

Still, it can only get better

My mum and dad back in the days of Black and White pictures.
Clearly the tartan look was in for mum and my dad is surely a proto Ian McCulloch
from the Bunnymen.

This is my original design and combines a photo of the genius and a line from great pop single Einstein A GoGo by Landscape...remember them?

Well it's Saturday afternoon and once again Radio 5 Live revel in an orgy of Manchester City/Spurs for fourth place. The rest of us are just also-rans. Everton are playing Stoke but you would never know.