By Scottish Keith Stodart

Now I was actually going to call this diary “Pornography or not pornography” as there was a bit of a debate taking place on the message board due to the fact that Mike had posted a picture of some naked ladies with water pistols. The bottom line here is Mike viewed it as harmless fun and if it offended anyone then I’m sure that was not his intention. His diaries can’t always please everyone all the time and sometimes when he gets into the American politics things I cringe. I know everyone is entitled to an opinion but let’s just let sleeping dogs lie and move on.

OK preaching over.

I had decided a couple of weeks ago that I needed a new TV so I cashed in some shares I had. (Now isn’t it ironic that after you cash in shares at £2.50, 4 days later they go up to £3.50). I had researched over the web various TV’s from different companies and eventually decided in a Sharp 32″ wide screen. I ordered over the Internet and yesterday it was delivered.

Now I don’t know about everyone else but my old TV was connected up to a satellite, a video player and a DVD system and the back of it was just a mass of electrical and scart cables as well as lines to some external speakers. In order to help me out my wife had decided to unplug all these cables so we could move the existing TV and put the new one in it’s place. That sounds really helpful but when you’re as useless as me at any sort of DIY, and hooking up cables comes into that category, then it’s a disaster. OK so what does the manual say, Scart one to DVD, Scart two to video, RF cable to…. etc.etc. Well after 30 minutes everything is hooked up . I switch on the TV and yes you’ve guessed it, nothing. Bloody hell!! As I order everyone out the room so I can vent off a little anger and re-arrange the cables again.

A further 30 minutes later I’m getting the TV to work but the video or DVD’s not working and that’s the point when my youngest son comes in and starts mucking around with the controls, he’s trying to find the Simpsons. What follows is a Homer v Bart thing and he leaves the room rather rapidly. Eventually I get everything working by which time it’s nearly 8.00pm. What we having for our tea dad? Is the question, my wife knows that when I’m attempting to do anything that remotely resembles DIY then she steers clear, I’m totally useless and grumpy with it. She didn’t want to ask me what I wanted to eat just in case she got an earful. Inspired by The Simpsons I order Domino Pizzas, which keeps everybody happy.

There’s some football on the TV but I don’t fancy watching that so I’m thinking about what to watch when I remember that Gill had sent me up a video of some of the Love’s Canterbury set plus it’s got Mike’s solo gig on.

I start to think back about that Canterbury after gig sing song when Mike played guitar for a while before we dueted and totally murdered Sloop John B. (I’ll take the blame for that) I don’t suppose Ringo will sign me up as Mike’s backing vocalist next time he has a gig.

I don’t know if it’s Gill’s camera or my TV or a combination of both but the quality of the Canterbury footage is impressive. I skim through it as I plan to watch it later but I start to watch Mike’s solo gig in London. He actually looks a bit nervous (maybe the beer’s not kicked in) but it’s pretty good especially as I know most of these songs off line by line due to my involvement with his demo CD. I open a beer and watch all of his set and at one point Mike takes a swig out a bottle of beer and I simply shout out Cheers!! Mike, how fitting that my new TV should be christened by this. I couldn’t have thought of a better way.

Mike Randle