I spent the holiday weekend in Blackpool, for the annual family get together. We always stay in The Cliffs Hotel. It’s all a bit Phoenix Nights sometimes, but it’s fun and as my mum says, “the food’s good”. One of the things we always laugh at there is that they go absolutely mad on signs. Every flat surface seems to have a sign indicating a rule or something that you should do. You could easily spend the whole weekend reading the signs.

On arriving, I checked in, got my key went in the lift and saw this.

There’s so many things wrong with this. What atmospheric conditions are blocking ITV? It was raining, but then it normally is in the North West. Anyway, East Enders isn’t even on that channel, it’s on BBC 1. Still, nice for them to show it on a big screen for all the people who can’t manage a night without their favourite soap.

I’m sat waiting at Southampton airport for my flight to Manchester (back home for the bank holiday weekend). There was a bit of commotion at the check in desk as a whole film crew were checking in all their cameras and equipment and lots of silver boxes, which must be important to film making.

One of the film crew has a clapper board thing attached to his belt. I think he’s trying his best to make sure everyone knows he’s in a film crew.
I guess it’s the same as people with their flashy black MacBooks on their laps, or geeky bloggers on their Blackberry 7290s. We’re all just industry specific nerds.

Davina McCall does a fantastic job presenting Big Brother, which just started it’s Summer run again. I like the way she doesn’t build it up any more than it needs to be and doesn’t mind making fun of the show or the people who enter it. She knows people will talk about it at work while it’s on, even if they say they don’t watch. I think a lot of the success is down to the way she says what the audience at home are thinking.

The opening programme kicked off with something like, “you know you’re going to spend you summer here, so lets meet your new best friends” before the contestants entered the house. It seems to get more extreme each year. Highlights include, Pete who suffers from Tourette’s, Lea who in her own words, “has the largest breast implants in the UK” (how do you even know that) and George who is connected to Royalty, apparently. I’m voting for Imogen, because, “she has brains as well as looks but hates jokes because she doesn’t really get them”. Genius!

I’m home now after flying back from New York on Friday/Saturday.

When I arrived at the gate to board the flight, there were all these people with guitar cases who looked like they were in a band. It turned out they were Brian Jonestown Massacre*. Oh great, I just want to try and sleep on the plane, I thought, and they’re going to be drunk, smashing up the plane, punching each other and trying to get the stewardesses in the bathroom. We’re probably going to end up making an emergency landing in Greenland when the riot starts.

It turned out they were perfectly behaved, they seemed to be sleeping, drinking orange juice and watching the films. The young Chris Martin lookalike one didn’t even get anywhere with the hot blonde girl in 38I. I thought if you were in a band you get any girl you want? The rockstar lifestyle doesn’t seem to be all it’s cracked up to be. It’s not just corporate computer nerds who fly economy.

* I wasn’t actually cool enough to recognise who they were. One of them looked quite familiar, but I couldn’t remember where I’d seen him. He sat next to me in the departure lounge so I had a sneaky glance at his ticket which said, “Anton Newcombe” (I could be James Bond). So a quick Google search later I knew who they were and realised I actually have one of their songs. They’re currently on the European part of their tour after playing in New York. So go see them, they’re nice, your mum would like them.

I’m still out in the New York area until tomorrow when I fly home. I’m here for a whole set of meetings about a project that’s just starting up that I’m going to involved with. I haven’t had much free time as I’ve had to squeeze lots of stuff in, but I did manage to spend an hour or so on 5th Avenue and went up to the Top Of The Rock, I did the Empire State building last time. It’s a pretty good view, though I think it would have been even better at night.

It can be quite easy to forget where you are when you’re in meeting rooms all day, meeting rooms in the US look pretty similar to those in the UK after all. I do really like it and have some really cool friends over here. I’d be happy to stay for a long time, but it’s always the little things that remind you that you’re far from home:

• Adverts, sorry, commercials on every radio station. I was listening to Z-100. Now I’m sure the Beav will tell me this is totally not a cool choice, but I couldn’t find anything else.
• Everyone being really nice, asking how you are, where you got that t-shirt from etc. even when you just order a tea. I know they’re probably told to, but still.
• Not all places have tea. Or sometimes they do but it’s cold and lacking milk and sugar
• Some places have the choice of Pepsi OR Coke.
• TV News, it’s just different, I can’t explain how. Today’s feature was, “should your daughter wear a sassy t-shirt?”
• Flashing your car lights. I don’t know what it means here, but it clearly doesn’t mean, “go on after you please” or “thankyou very much sir”, I need to stop doing that.

Look who came down to White Plains for dinner at PF Chang’s. As you’d expect, very intelligent chat about corporate business, straws, bloggers and such like took place.