A bank holiday weekend stretches before us

It’s 8.30pm on (Good) Friday evening and the chocolate remains untouched.

I know! Are we mad or just bonkers? But pizza has been eaten so we’re not completely off our game.

This weekend’s entertainment show that is known as This Reality Podcast has been flung outwards and is nestling on a branch of the tree of iTunes, waiting for you to pluck and devour and enjoy. Or you could go to the website and stream it online. Or download it from there if you choose.

The content this week includes free chocolate*, five free tracks of musical excellence, a free CD give-away, a free T-Shirt give-away, a free review of the film ‘Kick-Ass’ (don’t tell The Daily Mail) and more.

In other news.

I had a day off horses today; yesterday we took Tom show-jumping at a private yard which had a course of the very scariest fillers and fences ever. He jumped like a star.

Next weekend Tom and I are competing at a one-day event at Larkhill down on Salisbury Plain; hope the weather dries up!

We might go cross-country schooling tomorrow but this too is dependent on the weather. We’ll be flat-work schooling indoors if the rain continues to come down sideways.

The plan for the rest of the weekend (outside of horsey-time) is to have lots of bed, lots of films, lots of reading and lots of Easter Eggs.

What about you, what will you be up to?

* Sorry, the free chocolate has gone already!

Saturday night’s all right for…

dicking around

Nine o’clock Saturday evening and welcome to the House of Fun. As you will have noticed we are both in our bathrobes.

Sorry about the sleepy state we’re in; we haven’t been out of bed very long.

By the time Tom and I got back to the stables from the one-day event, I’d taken care of him, cleared out the lorry and put it away and – got home with about five loads of washing, it was 2.30pm.

A long hot shower was quickly followed by bed and almost instant unconsciousness.

Tea was the remains of last night’s pizza and half a tin of baked beans – I really know top quality cooking, don’t I?

This evening I released this weekend’s podcast: a four-band gig review, a look at the new Matt Damon/Jason Isaacs film ‘Green Zone’ and a smattering of random conversation (plus a live telephone call to New Zealand almost took place).

I’ll write about the one-day event soon, but for now I’m completely tapped out, have barely got the ability to string coherent thoughts together.

We are currently watching Heroes.

It is utter shit.

That is all.

It might have been me…

Allegedly I swore at Soph at 4.15am. This doesn’t sound like me at all, does it?

DOES IT??

Good, I knew we’d get the right answer eventually.

I spent all day standing on top of a very high hill on a common in Hampshire, eyeing up clever horses.

It is Tweseldown Horse Trials this weekend (it runs from Thursday to Sunday), and Sammi was competing today.

The girl did good. Actually, she did very good. The show-jumping was a bit of a mire after persistent rain and the cross-country was a little ‘deep’ in places, but she rode very tactfully and kept the lid on a supercharged horse with great skill.

A week tomorrow it’s our turn at OX15 5EX.

We’re going cross-country schooling tomorrow afternoon; Owen’s taking two, Sam is taking hers and there’ll be me and Tom.

The next day I have a show-jumping session with Owen. And another show-jumping session with him on Tuesday.

Monday we’ll school flatwork.

I could do with another cross-country session towards the end of the week but I have to be in Leeds on Wednesday and in Oxford on Thursday, and that wipes those two days out for travelling to another track.

Maybe go cross-country schooling at home on Thursday, if I can squeeze in the time?

Friday I’ll pop Tom around the gallops for a couple of laps.

And that brings us to Saturday, when we do it for real.

I’ve seen the section lists and thankfully none of the five horses from my yard are in the same sections, but it does seem as if most of us will have early start times.

Bummer.

This means that we could all, in theory, be doing our dressage, show-jumping and cross-country at more-or-less the same time.

Oh well.

In other news…

We bumbled our way through another podcast this evening.

Soph makes an unfounded malicious accusation that I swore at her at 4.15 this morning.

And we sing.

It is very bad, this singing.

I’d like to apologise for it right now.

I’m sorry.

There, that’s alright now.

Isn’t it?

Time to try out this ’sleep’ thing

OK, so last night we watched ‘Glee’, then tidied up and went to bed. I read for maybe 10 minutes before sleep hit and that was that.

For about half an hour.

WTF?

For 30 minutes I was out of it and then suddenly I was wide awake and nothing was going to get me back off again.

So I got up, grabbed my book and bathrobe and came downstairs where I read, internetted and generally annoyed the hell out of fellow insomniac and all-round nice person, Ali Booker.

But while all this was going on I was also working on a cunning plan.

And I was smirking a great big smirk as I worked.

At 3am the fruits of my labouring (and smirking) were harvested, right up until the point where Sophie came, blinking, downstairs and asked ‘Are you singing?’

I may have looked sheepish.

I had indeed been singing.

Now you may sit there and ask yourself why I had been singing at 3am. Because that’s a good question. And a fair one to ask.

I am sitting here smirking some more because I have the answer.

And so shall you, if you listen to future episodes of This Reality Podcast. Because that’s where my cunning plan, the source of my smirkage and the reason for my 3am singing will be…

Revealed!

Oh yes.

It is good.

And funny.

Well, he hedged slightly, it is funny to me. And I have just unveiled my cunning plan to Soph and she’s gone upstairs to bed laughing loudly as she went.

So I’m going to say, in an authoritative tone that yes, this is a good *and* a funny idea!

Umm…

Can you make sure that the podcast has your skype address/phone number? Because if we call you up you can:

a) take part

b) win free prizes (T-Shirts, mostly!)

c) join in with the new feature that is the source of such 3am mirth and singing.

Just email your skype address or phone number to ‘thisrealitypodcast@gmail.com’ or, if you’ve got skype, just add ‘thisrealitypodcast’ to your address book.

Thank you.

You won’t regret it.

Umm…

Actually you may regret it, but just a little, and at least you’ll be smirking as you regret it! 

p.s. You really should listen to the most recent podcast (#105), the musical content is possibly the richest we’ve ever produced – and that’s not an idle boast!

To stream just that one episode of the podcast to your desktop just click here or you can right-click on that link and save it to your computer and listen to it later. Or why not add it to your iTunes and listen to it on your iPhone or iPod or mp3 player wherever you go? Better than radio!

Do you like sweet music (yeah, yeah)

We have pulled out the stops to bring you four cross-genre works of musical art wrapped up in this week’s This Reality Podcast:

• The power-chord driven Paramore-esque goodness of The Hype Theory
• The indie/retro flavours of Little Room
• The smokey, seductive, after-dinner qualities of Hollie Sheard and Friends
• The Edinburgh-based collective of excellence known as Night Noise Team

As well as the musical brilliance we also bring you just a flavour of life-inspired ranting, brought to  you courtesy of the kind of week that the two presenters of the show have had.

You can subscribe and listen for free via iTunes http://bit.ly/25zMa8, or pick this episode up from the podcast website at http://bit.ly/cGFKOU

Awww, gwon

Our humble little entertainment show (Arf!) is floating around the ether, just waiting to be plugged in to your ears.

The music comes from the UK, USA and Ukraine. And after watching his performance at the Chilcott Enquiry, there’s a very special musical dedication to Tony Blair – that song is delivered by Lily Allen.

Yes, really! This Reality Podcast plays Lily Allen!

Ah, but it’s worth it, for the laughs alone, it’s worth it.

There are many talkie bits that include topics from far and wide, such as two Daily Fail news stories, found by Sophie, a tale of geeky disaster and a description of a really not good day at the show-jumping office from Bren.

You can listen to it online or download it here, or pick it up in iTunes here.

Stream of unconscious

1. I ache still, every joint. I might resort to painkillers today.

2. We did the studio thing again last night and recorded the 100th show of This Reality Podcast. Old age might be creeping up on it because there’s no swearing, neither of us killed anyone this week and the ranting is kept to a minimum. But we do bring you some top work from very talented musicians. You can sample the listening experience on the website here http://thisrealitypodcast.com/?p=669 or pick it up in iTunes here: http://bit.ly/25zMa8

3. I took Tom to Allenshill yesterday and we came joint 4th in our class. We got 40.5 for the dressage which I’m unhappy with (I thought we should have been in the low-to-mid 30s), we were clear in the show-jumping but had issues in the simulated cross-country section. Tom stopped at fence 1 and 4a and if I’m honest I had relaxed after the show-jumping and eased back to riding him 60% instead of 100%. Ironically, I was so bloody furious at the stops that I really got on the case and fired him round the rest of the track; the three problem fences that I thought we’d have real issues with (the water tray, the corner and the skinny) we flew over. So it was good but also not good because it should have been so much better. Also, the weather was complete and utter piss. By the end of the day I couldn’t have got any wetter if I’d stood, fully clothed, in the shower at home for two hours. I had puddles inside my riding boots, no shit.

4. It’s 1pm and neither of us are up yet, in the accepted definition of being up (showered, shaved – me, obv, dressed). We were up really early but we went back to bed with mugs of tea and fell asleep.

5. As soon as we’re up we’re going out, otherwise we won’t get any fresh air today. I’m taking Soph to a place as a surprise. And later we’ll have a bite to eat somewhere. And maybe a visit to the cinema? Up in the Air is on in Witney and there’s an 18.30 showing. We’re so rock-n-roll.

6. I see that Microsoft have released yet another security patch for Internet Explorer v6 because that’s how various cyber attacks against Google, Adobe and other organisations were carried out. Microsoft advises its users to download the patch to close the security vulnerability. I can think of another way of closing the vulnerability – use Firefox or Safari.

Shameless podcast plug (well, it is the end of year episode)

I don’t normally do the ‘big linkage thing’ in this way, but the end of year retrospective is more than a little bit special – so please consider this a huge one-off!

This Reality Podcast: No 97

Episode 97: 62 minutes running time

This week it’s time for This Reality Podcast’s ‘look back in anger’ as the two presenters, Soph and Bren, review many facets of 2009, and make a prediction or two for 2010.

Talkie bits:
* The Cheese Game celebrates New Year’s Day with the Victorian Variant (and brings a quick-death victory for Soph because Bren gets brain-dead)

List Of The Year (2009):
The segments between the music comprise our retrospective of 2009. Some of these categories and their contents are very hotly discussed whilst others have a universal agreement. Let us know your views on this lot:

• Best Films Of The Decade: Monsters Inc, Taken, Hot Fuzz, The Bourne franchise
• Best Film Of The Year: Up!, District 9, The Boat That Rocked
• Worst Film Of The Decade: Anchorman, The Legend Of Ron Burgundy
• Worst Film Of The Year: New Moon
• Best New Band: inLight (even though, technically speaking, we discovered them last year)
• Best Book: Small Wars by Sadie Jones, The Other Hand by Chris Cleave
• Best Album: Reservoir by Fanfarlo (Bren), A World Next Door To Yours, The Parlotones (Soph)
• Best EP: Old Maps/New Roads, The Good China
• Best Live Set: The Damned (Bren), Warning! Heat Ray! (Soph)
• Worst Live Set: Scouting For Girls/Sugababes
• Best Discovery: The showers at Cornbury Festival, The Family Machine, Axis of Awesome, It’s Not Me, It’s You Lily Allen
• Worst Discovery: It’s Not Me, It’s You, Lily Allen
• Biggest Disappointment: the film New Moon (Soph)
• Best Trip Abroad: Tuscany, Munich, Eire (Soph & Bren)
• Best Gig: Muse, Munich

Keep Your Eyes On These Names for 2010:

• The Boxer Rebellion (Bren says will be huge)
• As Tall As Lions (Bren says will, from the media perspective, be the Red Hot Chilli Peppers of 2010 – whatever happened to the Red Hot Chilli Peppers anyway?)

We also discussed the musical brilliance of:

• Miriam Clancy and her freshly-discovered, outstanding album ‘Magnetic’
• Missy Higgins and her heartbreakingly-excellent artistry on ‘On A Clear Night’

You want more?

Really?

How about the musical goodness that we offer you that this week includes:

• The Parlotones, Giant Mistake (http://www.myspace.com/theparlotones)
• The Witches, Lost Without (http://www.myspace.com/witchesband)
• The Good China, All/Nothing (http://www.myspace.com/thegoodchinaband)
• Axis of Awesome, How To (3) (http://www.myspace.com/axisofawesomemusic)
• Fanfarlo, I’m A Pilot (http://www.myspace.com/fanfarlo)

As ever, this show was recorded *live* in Studio L in rural Oxfordshire and recorded in one take with no after-show editing or post-production mucking about.

While we were sitting in the studio recording the show we were also Twittering live. Why don’t you come on over and follow the podcast on This Reality Podcast twitter feed.

To stream this one episode of the podcast to your desktop just click here or you can right-click on that link and save it to your computer and listen to it later. Or why not add it to your iTunes and listen to it on your iPhone or iPod or mp3 player wherever you go? Better than radio!

Did you know that you can send in your email or audio contributions to thisrealitypodcast@gmail.com or leave comments on the website?

If you are a band or a recording artist and you would like to send your music in to the podcast, just email us or do the MySpace thing at http://www.myspace.com/thisrealitypodcast or email us.

Podcast admin:
All of the tracks in this podcast are featured and played with the generous permission of the artists and/or their management.

Now go and visit their websites, tell them where you heard them and let them know how much you love their work! And treat yourself, buy a little piece of their work – recording artists have to eat, you know!

If you would like to contribute your thoughts to This Reality Podcast or air your views on any of the topics we’ve discussed (or anything else that you want to), just drop us a line. Email us at: thisrealitypodcast@googlemail.com. Or if you prefer you can leave your comments (or words of abuse or encouragement) in our drop zone at http://drop.io/thisrealitypodcast.

Or you can just leave your thoughts on the website at http://www.thisrealitypodcast.com.

And if you are interested in what we have played in the past, just hop on over and take a look at our playlist.

Honey and murder for your ears

The Christmas Eve show brings our listeners five totally excellent tracks, much wide-ranging and very varied conversation that includes:

• The Cheese Game taking an unusual tack as we play one of the little-known Italian variants
• Soph picking holes in Bren’s syntax and Bren taking umbrage about it
• Bren having his work Christmas lunch with the horses today. They had carrots and Bren had carrot cake
• Tom’s new paddock has been built – 10′ fenced!
• Soph having an ASBO and working unpaid at the local coffee bar
• Bren’s thought that ‘Asbo’ would be a great name for a chav
• Falling asleep whilst watching Shrek 2 and dribbling (and a short discussion about how brilliant that film is)
• A random discussion about camel-toe spotting on Buffy
• Bren hatching a plot to get Jeremy Clarkson on to the podcast
• Soph’s car breaking down earlier in the week but it’s better now after throwing hundreds of pounds at it
• Bren’s car being serviced today and getting the thumbs up
• Bren has planned his 2010 Eventing competition schedule. Be afraid, be very afraid
• A discussion about Simon Mayo leaving the BBC Books podcast and Adam and Joe leaving BBC 6 Music – and Bren knowing about all of this several months ago
• Bren wrapping one Christmas present too many!
• Bono being a short, Irish hypocrite
• Band Aid being a comedy record, whereas Band Aid 2 was just a really shit record

To stream this one episode of the podcast to your desktop just click here or you can right-click on that link and save it to your computer and listen to it later. Or why not add it to your iTunes and listen to it on your iPhone or iPod or mp3 player wherever you go? Better than radio!

Indie goodness, straight to your ears!

This week’s podcast treads new ground, and it’s worth listening to for that alone!

Four guests join the show; talented indie-foursome inLight come in to our studio, eat our pizza, drink our wine, steal our best jokes and are generally cleverer than the two regular presenters of This Reality Podcast.

You can find this packed entertainment show at the website: http://thisrealitypodcast.com/?p=607 or subscribe to it via iTunes: http://bit.ly/25zMa8