Woo Hoo Summer's Here!

It's weird to see the trees full of rich autumn colours, leaves on the ground, the nights closing in - and 25C temperatures!  Well weird, it's hotter now than it was in the "real" summer.  I've had to dig out the short sleeved tee shirts, table top fan and summer duvet again!  I'm not complaining though, it's lovely, long may it last.

I was coming home from work the other day, and because of the lovely weather decided to go by the scenic route via narrow country lanes.  I came round a bend in the road and was greeted by hundreds of pheasants everywhere, and I'm not exaggerating! I honked the horn and some ran off but many just stood in the road staring at me (pheasants must be a bit thick).  Being an animal lover I didn't want to run any of them over so I got out of the car, jumped up and down shouting which eventually made them scamper off.  Glad no one was around to see my antics! LOL!

I continued on towards home only to go around the other bend and what was there?  A herd of sheep - the joys of living in a rural county  .  I followed at a snail's pace, there was no way I could pass them, but I didn't really mind as I was watching the two sheep dogs that were herding the sheep.  They were amazing, keeping about a 100 animals on track, soon getting the odd sheep that decided not to follow the herd back in line.  After about 15 minutes the farmer got the two collies to herd the sheep off the road onto a small hill so the line of cars following could pass.  The dogs ran back and fore by the roadside making sure no sheep wandered down, as the cars passed by.  

So, a journey that should have taken me about 20 minutes took 40, but those kind of delays beat being stuck in car traffic any day!

35 Years and Still Going Strong

35 years ago today a few young lads from Dublin met up in Larry Mullen's parents' kitchen to form a band.  Amongst them, the four people who would soon become U2.  Not many bands (are there any others?) can say that they have been together 35 years in an unchanged lineup, real friends who went to school, work and socialise together.  I think the closeness between the band members is one of the things that make them special, it's a precious thing to have friends you've grown up with and who've been there for you through life's ups and downs.

How much longer will they continue as a band?  With REM's break up last week it made me think about that, because there are a lot of parallels between them and U2.  No one knows of course, but the sadness I felt at the disbanding of REM made me realise that I would miss U2 soooo much, even though I have a love/hate  relationship with them at times.  They have been in the background of my life for almost 30 years, their music has given me strength when I needed it, it's also given me much joy and the live shows are simply stunning.  I've met wonderful people who've become best friends, travelled to amazing places and had amazing experiences.  Let's hope they keep going for a while yet.

Below is a great video covering the musical and visual history of U2.  It certainly brought back some memories for me.  Like them or loathe them, it can't be denied that they are one of the most important rock bands around.

From the Sky Down, Gigwise Review

I read this review of the documentary and thought I'd share it on my blog.  I think all U2 fans knew Achtung Baby was a make or break moment for the band and it'll be so interesting to see what happened at that time and how this seminal album was created.  I have a feeling U2 is at a similar point in their career now, though for different reasons. But twenty years on, I honestly doubt they can come up with an album the likes of Achtung Baby.  We'll see.


Why Every Music Fan Should Watch U2's From The Sky Down
Jason Gregory, Gigwise, September 23

There's a fantastic moment in From The Sky Down, the new Davis Guggenheim-directed documentary about the making of U2's 1991 album 'Achtung Baby', when you get to see the Irish band in the process of creating the song 'One'.

It is, in my mind, the single most interesting example of the songwriting process caught on film.

With the benefit of hindsight, it's very easy to take a song like 'One' for granted, even though, as the band's manager Paul McGuinness noted at a Q&A about the movie I attended in London last night, it long ago earned the status of being a "classic". It's one of those songs that's ingrained on the musical memory of every music fan, whether they like U2 or not.

But during footage in the film showing U2 at the Hansa Studios in Berlin at the end of 1990, we see it in its rawest, most unadulterated form, with a different second bridge to the one on the album and before Bono had even formulated the lyrics. Indeed, it's not even called 'One'.

The reasons it's so interesting are two-fold.

Firstly, it's genuinely thrilling and absorbing to be so closely exposed to the craft of songwriting. The process, in all honestly, looks painfully destructive and frustrating. But as a music journalist who has never held an ambition to be in a band (and believe me, that's quite a rare thing), to watch a song like 'One' being crafted as meticulously as an artist working on a painting, it's capitvating; as parts get taken out and then put back in, until the finished song we are all familiar with begins to emerge, as Bono says in the movie, "from the sky down".

Secondly, 'One', it transpires in From The Sky Down, was integral in the creation of 'Achtung Baby'. Still tired from touring 1987's 'The Joshua Tree', which took U2 from arenas to stadiums, and rocked by the critical backlash thrown at their road movie, Rattle And Hum, the Irish band looked like a shadow of their former selves as they arrived in Berlin to start work on the album with BrianEno and Daniel Lanois.

In the film, Guggenheim captures this turmoil – and McGuinness stressed last night that it was actual turmoil – beautifully. We see Bono unable to write lyrics, TheEdge struggling to write his guitar parts through the break-up of his marriage, and Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen, Jr wondering whether they're even in the band any more.

And then they make 'One', and it's like a lighter fuel of creativity is sparked within all four members.

I don't want to reveal any more, because you can watch From The Sky Down when it airs on BBC on October 9 as part of the Imagine series. But If you take one thing away from From The Sky Down, it should be this: if it wasn't for 'Achtung Baby', you wouldn't have U2, and whatever you think of the band and their personal ideologies, that would be a tragedy.




Here's the official trailer from the documentary

From the Sky Down on the BBC

I've heard that U2's new documentary From the Sky Down will be featured on BBC One's Imagine series on 9th October.  Must make sure I'm not going out that night!  Hopefully it will not be cut and we'll get the full version, I've been really looking forward to seeing this.

From the Sky Down Press Conference with Bono and Edge

Bono and Edge at the TIFF interview (Photo: David Abel QMI)

Just got round to listening to this interview from 9th September at the Toronto International Film Festival.  Some interesting stuff there, especially at the end, where Bono is talking about "The edge of irrelevance" appearing quite upset and vulnerable. It's clearly something he's really struggling with at the moment. At this point in their career the band is at another of their crossroads, we know it and they know it, and it seems a bit of a scary place for them.  But as Edge mentioned, they do their best work in when their backs are against the wall. Time for reinvention again guys. hope you can do it!  Watch the interview here

Premiere of From the Sky Down in Toronto

Bono and the Edge attended the premiere of the documentary about U2, From the Sky Down, which opened the Toronto International Film Festival on September 8th.  Below is an article about this from the Toronto Sun website.  Looking forward to seeing this film!

Bono and Edge with Davis Guggenheim at the Toronto International Film Festival, 8th September.
Photo: Michael Peake, QMI agency

Bo

TORONTO - Rock icons U2 descended onto the Toronto International Film Festival’s red carpet Thursday for the premiere of new documentary “From the Sky Down,” admitting to nervousness over letting fans into their private world of making music.

The movie, which is the first documentary to open the Toronto film festival in its 36-year history, looks at the creative process of making their 1991 album “Achtung Baby,” tensions back then in the band.

Singer Bono and guitarist The Edge took to the festival’s opening night stage and confessed that even superstars get nervous when entering a new arena — from music to film.

“We are very protective of our privacy, particularly the creative process, not just because we are precious, which we are,” Bono told a laughing audience, before confiding that the fear was in letting audiences see them struggle to make music.

“If you knew what went into the sausage, you wouldn’t eat it,” Bono said.

The Edge added that it was “shocking” to see a lot of the old film footage from 20 years ago and “to realize how close our band came to disintegrating at that particular moment.”

The appearance of Bono and The Edge made the opening night screening one of the hottest tickets in town at the 11-day festival where other rock documentaries about Pearl Jam and Neil Young are getting top billing.

The festival, a widely-watched event often seen as a starting point in the movie industry’s annual Oscar race, features a long list of Hollywood royalty, from Brad Pitt and George Clooney to Keira Knightley and Glenn Close.

U2 MAKES TIFF HISTORY

But the opening belonged to a nonfiction film for the first time in festival’s history, and organizers noted both the event and U2 originated in 1976.

The band soared to rock stardom in the 1980s, and “Achtung Baby” was seen as a daring reinvention following the huge success of 1987’s “Joshua Tree” and 1988’s somewhat less-well received “Rattle and Hum.”

“This film isn’t just about the biggest band in the world,” director Davis Guggenheim told the audience. “It’s really just about four musicians trying to make music.”

“From the Sky Down” opens as U2 is about to play the Glastonbury Festival for the first time this year and is looking to rework older songs. As Bono says: “there comes a time when it is dysfunctional not to look into the past.”

It then looks back at the rise of U2 through early film footage and leads up to the making of “Achtung Baby,” which was influenced by industrial and electronic music and featured the hits “One” and “Mysterious Ways.”

“I had goose pimples witnessing how they did it,” said Guggenheim, whose 2006 global warming film ‘An Inconvenient Truth’ won the Academy Award for best feature documentary.

“I don’t think really it’s a film about our band in as much as it’s a film about the creative process. If you’re interested in that, you’re going to be interested in this film I think, but I find it excruciating,” Bono said on the red carpet.

Dapper Rock Stars and the Dog Takes Bono for a Walk

The rock stars scrubbed up well for the GQ Men of the Year Awards in London last night.  U2 won the Band of the Year Award and the photo below (taken from the GQ website) is of them with the award - drummer man AWOL as usual.

There was a funny interview with Bono at the Awards where he talked about walking the dog in Dublin - or vice versa as it seems!  Spend more time in Dublin Bono, it keeps you grounded.  The follwing extract is taken from the http://www.thesun.co.uk (ignore the usual sarky bits )

YOU might imagine a summer holiday for Bono involves sleeping in an oxygen tent at Cannes or counting his collection of hats.

But at the GQ Awards last night the U2 frontman confessed to a far less glamorous activity — walking his new pet dog around Dublin.

I say walking. It was more a case of the chart-topping rock star being dragged around by his pet pooch.

He told me: "I've been in Dublin for the last week or so. I was in France but came home for a while.

"I rang some pals and asked what they thought I should do to keep busy. One said, 'Just walk the dog.' So I took the dog out with my wife. It's a mongrel and a really strong animal.

"It dragged us through the streets and some little kid shouted, 'Is that dog walking you, or are you walking the dog, Bono?'

"I knew I was home. You can't beat it."

The U2 star and bandmates Edge and Adam Clayton were at the GQ bash to receive the Band Of The Year gong at the Royal Opera House in London.

It certainly has been a stellar few years for U2. They earned the most money ever from a rock tour with their epic 360° series of concerts.

Perhaps Bono should stick some of the tour wedge into dog obedience classes.

Gone to Ground......

Dachshunds are known for their burrowing and liking to cover themselves completely.  It comes from what they were originally bred for, badger hunting, (dachs - badger, hund - hound in German) when the plucky and deceptively strong dogs went into the setts after their prey.  Their unique shape, short legs and loose skin helped them tunnel down into the ground.  And now, even when dachshunds are mostly kept as pets, you frequently hear stories about them having to be dug out of holes they've decided to explore whilst on a walk.

I went into my bedroom last night and saw a small lump wriggling up under the bedspread from the bottom to the top of the bed and out popped Pepsi's head!  I had to grab my phone and take a photo as he looked so cute.  Whether he went there for comfort or natural instincts I'm unsure, somehow I think it was the former!

Pepsi - pleeeease can I stay?

Autumn in the Air

Pepsi (what camoflage!) and Max

I've had a good weekend. Yesterday I went brambling again and got loads, but boy you have to suffer for collecting them!  In the first place I had to battle through knee high grass and weeds to get to the bushes resulting in trousers soaked up to the knee.  At the next picking spot I has to wrestle through nettles and thorny branches resulting in scratched hands that stung for the rest of the day!  And finally, the lovely weather quickly changed, with a few thunderclaps and I got rained on, so pretty much all of me, not just my lower legs, was wet by time I got back to my car.  Once home I got busy right away and got ten jars of bramble jam out of my travails so it was worth it.

Pretty, but deadly

There is definitely a touch of autumn around now, there's an occasional nip in the air and the leaves are turning slowly but surely. The fireweed's pink is fading and  it's growing the feathery seed pod tufts ready to drift off to find a place to settle to hibernate for the winter before sprouting again in the spring. There were also lots of fungi and toadstools, some so pretty (but deadly) you almost expected a pixie to be sitting on them!  I always used to hate this time of year because it heralded the winter, which is my least favourite season, but now I appreciate the beauty of it.







Today was cool and I went into town with Pepsi to meet up with a friend and go to the Continental Market.  I parked in Portland Square and walked through the Victorian garden in the middle of the square.  The flower beds there were beautiful.  We may moan at Carlisle City Council at times but they really have fabulous parks and the baskets/troughs around Hardwicke Circus are especially beautiful and always are every year.

At the market I always like to have a proper German charcoal grilled bratwurst, it definitely is the real thing, yum yum!  There were some very interesting stalls but I resisted buying anything as I'm on another "austerity drive."  I lost count of the people that stopped me to ask about/touch Pepsi, "What kind of dog is that?", "Is it a Dandy Dinmont?", "I've got a long haired at home, they are lovely dogs but very stubborn" (so true!!)  "He's very sweet natured,",  "Ooooh doggie doggie",  "He's so gorgeous".......  I must admit he does have a lot of the cute factor and just can't resist a tickle LOL.

Summer Days

Had lovely day today.  Firstly I went out with the boys to High Stand, a small forest just outside of the city.  We had a relaxing walk there, Pepsi seemingly aiming for the middle of the few muddy puddles there were whilst Max, like a male diva, tip-pawing around the edge of them.  We met a few other dog walkers, one spaniel was soaked from head to paw - obviously it had been having fun in one of the ponds!  It was one of those perfect late summer days, 21c (my ideal temperature), the birds singing, the gentle rustling of leaves, nature full and fertile with summer goodness and that kind of lazy stillness that hangs in the air on such days.

After that we went to a couple of places to pick brambles which I will be making jam with. But the brambles were late ripening and I didn't get very many, I'll have to go back in a week or two.  I remember that loads of people went brambling when I was young, if you found a place with an abundance of them you kept quiet about it.  Now I rarely see anyone else picking the fruit.  Shame really, the berries are delicious, very good for you and free.

Back in the city I popped in at a friends house and had a cuppa and chat.  On my way home it started to rain and the temperature fell to 17c, English weather!  It's never boring, that's for sure.  But it had been a good day, sometimes the simplest things are the best aren't they?

London Riots

I stayed up until 4am watching TV this morning, unable to tear myself away from the unbelievable scenes unfolding in London.  Complete anarchy on the streets of our capital city, plus other smaller disturbances in Birmingham, Liverpool, Bristol and Nottingham.  Blazing buildings, criminal opportunism, robbing the injured, destroying peoples' livelihoods, endangering life, terrorising communities, seemingly coordinated via social networking.  Total idiots. All negative, inexcusable and depressing.

Photo: lawcol888

Then, this morning I hear about how the London communities have also used social networking to organise riot clean ups.  Ordinary, decent people arriving with brushes, bags and their time to work together to clean their streets and start healing the wounds on their city. Firms are donating equipment for the clean up and people are even using their lunch breaks to help out. Positive, heartening and hopeful.  Two sides of a city in 24 hours.

Photo: Joel Goodman/LNP

Who knows what will happen tonight, fingers crossed the worst is over.  Right is a photo of some residents making tea for the police on a riot shield taken last night in a street in north London that was being protected by the police.  Both photos sum  up the best of Britain really and that's the side that will prevail.

Achtung Baby Remaster

The Achtung Baby remaster has been confirmed for release on 31st October 2011.  There is some info on the formats, tracklisting  and extras here.  Sounds good, but I'm going to wait until the price comes down a bit!

Canada Part 7 - Finale, Touring the Handsome City

13 July (The final instalment) 


I treated myself to room service breakfast this morning and what a wonderful feast it was, two eggs, 5 slices of bacon, a huge pile of hash browns, two slices of toast, various conserves, orange juice and, best of all, a pot of tasty tea with the tea bag in it!  My first proper tea of the trip and it was like nectar!  So I was well set up for the day.


I met up with Debbi and Julie in the foyer, and, sadly it was time for another goodbye, Debbi was leaving soon for the US.  We said our sad goodbyes when our tour bus arrived, now it was down to two of us for my last full day in Canada.


We were going on the Shop - Dine - Tour Toronto a hop on hop off trip.  It was another hot day though maybe marginally cooler than the previous few days.  We passed by the St Lawrence Market and on to the historic Distillery District which was founded in 1832 - and was the largest whisky distillery in the British Empire.  It also has the distinction of being the biggest collection of Victorian industrial buildings in North America and it certainly had a feel of the past - something you don't often get this side of the Atlantic.  The building have been renovated and now houses shops and entertainment centres.


We headed back to the centre of downtown Toronto through the financial district to the Eaton Centre where there was a break for ten minutes.  I noticed on the trip that many of the buildings had beautiful carved stonework and there were lovely vistas along many of the long straight roads.  I remember the Eaton Centre from when I lived in Canada many years ago.  Coming from a then small city with poor shopping (it's much better now) in the north of England this shopping mall was heaven for me!  Apparently the original Eaton's shop is now no more but this huge centre lives on.  Normally we would have got off the tour bus here and explored the shops but as this was our last full day our finances were somewhat depleted so we stayed on and avoided the temptation! 


We next drove through Yorkville which I remembered walking through with Catherine last year as we made our way to the lovely rooftop bar of the Park Hyatt Hotel nearby.  It was full of pretty, expensive, upscale shops and eateries.  We knew it was out of our league so didn't get off here LOL!

Casa Loma

We turned onto the interestingly named Avenue Road and on to leafy Forest Hill, one of the wealthiest areas of Toronto.  Our guide told us that everyone was obliged to have one tree in their front garden - to help it live up to its name I suppose.


Nearby is Casa Loma, a Gothic revival style house, complete with turrets, set on a small hill.  It was built between 1911 -14 and is set in five acres of garden and has 98 rooms.  Originally it was a private residence, then a luxury hotel and more recently was restored and now open to the public.  We got off here and went inside, the cost of looking around the house and gardens was quite a lot so we gave it a miss.  We sat by the fountains in the garden at the front of the house.  It's real fantasy house built for Sir Henry Pellatt who was only able to enjoy the house for ten years before he went bankrupt and had to give it all up.  He ended up living with his chauffeur in altogether more modest surroundings on Spandina Avenue.


We got back on the bus and the next stop was the Bata Shoe Museum.  It has over 13,000  shoes and related items celebrating 4,500 years of footwear housed in a cubistic, modern building that is supposed to represent a partially open shoe box, though I didn't see the latter when I looked at it.  I was very tempted to get out here as I have a shoe "thing" as far back as I can remember - my mum told me when I was very little and got new shoes I'd insist in going to bed wearing them!  However, time was passing so we gave it a miss.

We drove through the entertainment district and passed the Much Music HQ complete with a car exploding out of the wall.  We passed the Rogers Centre and CN Tower, we'd seen enough of them recently so stayed put.  Our guide told us that the land south of Front Street was all reclaimed.


The next stop was the Harbourfront Centre on the shores of Lake Ontario.  It was lovely there and our guide told us that the scenic beauty there was all down to our Queen Elizabeth.  She visited Toronto in the late 60's when there were lots of factories and dereliction there and remarked that it was a shame that more hadn't been made of what could be a potentially beautiful shoreline.  This spurred the city's leaders to tidy up and renovate the shoreline and now there is only one fasctory, making sugar, on the waterfront of Lake Ontario in the Toronto area and it is indeed gorgeous now.  I wonder if the Queen has ever been back to see the change her words started?

We got off the bus as this was where we would get our boat trip.  We had an hour to spare before the next boat went out so we went into the shopping mall nearby and bought some sandwiches and drinks and sat outside to eat them whilst watching life go by.

We got onto our boat the Mariposa Belle and stood on the upper deck to watch the scenery.  We chugged out into the calm waters of the lake, the breeze keeping us pleasantly cool.  We sailed past and round some of the Toronto Islands. 


These islands were originally a peninsula of sand extending out from the mainland.  However two violent storms in the mid 1800's caused pits in the sand to flood and completely breached the peninsula and along with the land reclamation on the Toronto shore caused the formation of the islands. 


There are 17 islands, most forested, and six have been left exclusively for wildlife and no humans are allowed on them. 

Toronto Waterfront

There are 250 permanent residents on the islands, also an amusement park and the exclusive Royal Canadian Yacht club.  There is also a lighthouse that is said to be haunted by a keeper who was murdered there. The views of the shoreline of Toronto from the lake were stunning, it really is a handsome city! 


Back on shore we got onto the next bus to our hotel which wasn't far away.  We'd been out for six hours!  If I'm ever in Toronto again I would take this tour once more as there are many places on its route that I would like to see.  Excellent value for money.


That evening we tried our hotel's "Summerlicious" dinner for $25.  I had a yummy cranberry, pecan and  goats cheese salad to start, chicken Kiev with garlic mash and endive for the main, and for dessert I had summer berries and cream. All washed down with the Novotel's delicious tea!


And that was it, our last full day in Toronto.  All in all it has been a fantastic holiday in so many ways, I love Canada.  I don't think I'll return to Montreal, but I have a feeling I'll see Toronto again.

The Songs Have Been Sung, Goodbye 360

So U2's 360 Tour is over.  For me it's been a memorable three summers in the UK, Ireland, France, Germany and Canada.  Great times with friends, amazing sights seen, fab food eaten, copious amounts of wine and champagne drunk, lots of laughs had.  Shows that were all good, but a few that had that special U2 magic that touched me deep inside and  created an intimacy that made a stadium like a small club.

28 years of being a fan has seen all kinds of changes in my life, but the band's music has always been there, often in the background, but there.  My views on U2 have varied too, and sometimes I've been close to divorcing them!  They may or may not be past their glory days of musical creativity, but they are still a damn side better than most and have been for 34 years.  Bono has said, "Live is where we live."  And there is no doubt in my mind that is true.  Live, they are simply brilliant.  And I'm not talking about the massive Claw this time round, as lovely as the effects were, the set doesn't really matter to me. I'm talking about them as musicians, performers and friends.  There is something about them playing live that is totally captivating - and very hard to put into words because it's something you feel, a spirituality.  I'm not being very articulate here, but other fans will know what I mean, right?

Here's a video of the last song, 40, from the last show of this tour in Moncton, Canada.   I'm not ashamed to say it made me cry, and it was the perfect ending to the tour.  God willing (well both the band and long time fans like me are getting on a bit now!)  in a little while we'll be on the road again.

Our Genealogy Group in the Cumberland News

The article about our genealogy group, Cumberland Document Transcriptions, is in this weeks Cumberland News. We buy (with money donated by Cumbrian-connected genealogy enthusiasts all over the world) documents pertaining to our county, transcribe them, put them up on our free website and then donate the original documents to the Cumbria Archives Office in Carlisle.  We've been doing this for two years now and it's a lot of work, but worthwhile.

If anyone who reads this is interested in their family history and has Cumbrian connections come and have a look at our website Cumberland Document Transcriptions.  If you have any queries or want to help in some way, get in touch with us on cumberland.document@googlemail.com, we'd love to hear form you.

Canada Part 6 - Another 360 in the Sky

July 12


As we had our usual early hours post U2 gig celebrations we had a lie in next morning.  After a breakfast of chocolate biscuits I met up with Deb and Julie in the foyer and we went to the St Lawrence Market.  There has been a market on this site since the early 1800s.  It's a lively place full of atmosphere, sights and smells, including a stall that sold every kind of burger under the sun, camel, buffalo, kangaroo, you name it they had a burger made out of it!  I loved it there and if I lived in Toronto I'd be a regular customer.


Afterwards we chilled at the hotel before getting ready for our meal at the 360 restaurant at the CN Tower.  We treated ourselves to a taxi and met up with Dan And Dianne at the base of the Tower.  It takes 58 seconds in the lift to get to the restaurant, our ears popped as we watched a whole new view of Toronto appear below.  The CN Tower opened in 1976, and for over three decades was the world's tallest free-standing structure at 1,815 feet, only recently losing that distinction.  I've always thought that it's a very elegant building and it helps you keep orientated in the city too!

Me, Debbi and Julie in the 360 Restaurant

We were given a table beside one of the windows, and when we first sat down we had a gorgeous view over the Toronto Islands and Lake Ontario.  The restaurant does one full rotation every 72 minutes so everyone gets a chance to see both the fabulous lake and downtown views.  We were there for over two hours so we saw it all both in daylight and when the city was lit up like a Christmas tree.  Mother Nature even treated  us to a gorgeous red sunset!  The rotation of the restaurant was very gradual but it was both funny and disorientating to suss out where the toilet was only to find it was in another place when you wanted to go again!


We ordered from the fixed price menu ($55) as there was no way we could afford a la carte!  Dianne has snails as a starter, Debbi and I were curious about them and tried a morsel each.  My verdict?  A bit like mushrooms in consistency and taste (the snails were cut into small pieces) but with a slightly spicier taste.  I had a delicious caesar salad for starters, followed by pan seared fillet of applewood smoked Atlantic salmon, Saskatchewan wild rice, wilted arugula and water cress, sour apple beurre blanc.  The salmon just melted in my mouth, I had no idea what argula was (I later looked it up, it's rocket) but it went perfectly with the watercress and wild rice.  We washed it down with a delicious Valpolicella which should be good at $51 a bottle, (Dan kindly put the first bottle on his bill, thank you!) 

My heavenly dessert in the 360 Restaurant!

Then the big decision, what do I have for dessert?  Dark chocolate tower with summer fruits and raspberry vanilla creme Anglaise or maple walnut roulade with candied walnut meringue and vanilla bean creme Anglaise?  The chocolate won (it usually does).  It looked almost too good to eat, it was truly a work of art.  The mousse inside the tower was perfection and I loved every morsel!


The service was very good and the atmosphere relaxed.  Yes, it wasn't cheap but the quality of the food was excellent and I don't mind lashing out money on good food occasionally.  It was also the last night Dianne, Debbi, Julie and I would be together and what better place to be than the 360 Restaurant after all the good times we've had on U2's 360 Tour over the last three years?  It was the perfect way to .  end it.

Dianne, me, Debbi and Julie getting the cobwebs blown off
in the Red Zone!

After the meal we decided to go out onto the viewing platform It was a tad blowy to say the least, we didn't spend very long out there.  We then went to the area that had the glass floor.  It's strange but even though you know the floor is safe (there was a sign saying it could withstand the weight of 14 large hippos!)  there is an inbuilt primeval fear of stepping into the "void". I eventually did step onto it, well I actually also lay on it for a photo, must have been all the Valpolicella LOL!

Then it was time to say goodbye to Dan and Dianne, they were going home the next morning.  It's always sad when friends who live a long way away leave as I don't know when I'll see them again.  But we have shared great times and I'm sure there will be more.

Oh My, What a Way to End 360 in the US!

A slice of U2 heaven in Pittsburg, their last show of the 360 tour in the US, what a way to end.  Wish I'd been there.....

Canada Part 5 - Hot, Hot, Hot and "Canada Shining Out Of My Backside"

11 July


We felt refreshed and ready for anything when we got up the next day.  We decided to go to the nearby St Lawrence Market and have some breakfast there.  However, it was closed on Mondays so we found a Starbucks around the corner and had coffee and cake.  While we were sitting outside a man tied his gorgeous little dog beside us while he went in to buy something.  The dog was so sweet, chilled and loved a tickle.  When the man came out I asked him what type of dog it was and he said it was a Maltese cross and that she was a lovely dog, she was called Poops (hopefully a nickname!)  It was so sweet to see how much he loved his little dog and vice versa.  


At lunch time Debbi, Julie and I walked to the Radisson Harbourfront Hotel where we were meeting Dianne and her husband Dan for lunch.  It was nice to see Dan again, he's such a lovely man.  I had a delicious salad with goats cheese and strawberries, a perfect combination, just the thing in the hot weather.


We walked the short distance to the Rogers Centre which was beside the still elegant (after 35 years) CN Tower that dominates the city. We waited for the band's arrival, we only saw Bono smiling and waving from his car.  It was an extremely hot day, and Toronto was the hottest place in Canada  - at one point the mercury hit 33 degrees centigrade!  Add to that the humidity created by the Great Lakes and it was unbelievably hot, for me, an English rose from northern England that was very, very hot, but somehow I survived it!


We didn't want to go into the stadium until the as late as possible so we ended up back at the Radisson and had something to eat outside on the patio overlooking Lake Ontario, there was a nice breeze coming off the lake so it was pleasant there. Even with the heat I was loving Toronto, it's such a handsome city, fabulous location, lovely vistas, great new and old architecture, for me it beats Montreal any day.


Then it was off back to the Rogers Centre.  It was all well organised, no Fan Jams, easy to find seats, toilets, food etc, in other words, how it should be!  We had cheaper seated tickets this time so were quite high up, but each row of seats had a metal bar in front of them so it felt safe and helped my vertigo!  The stadium was round rather than rectangular and very high,earlier in the day the retractable roof (it was the first in the world) was closed as a storm had been forecast, but it was now open as the storm hit further south.  This was one of the few stadiums the Claw didn't peek out of.  Opposite us stood the CN Tower soaring into the sky.  It was still very hot and humid and sweat stood on my brow the entire evening.


U2 started at the usual time and as usual we were up out of our seats and bopping away only to realise most of the people around us had their arses firmly planted on their seats!  Though a U2 audience is always very mixed age-wise around us it was mainly young people and I just could not believe they were so boring!  As the seats were so steep we didn't block people's view so we just stayed stood up.  Even in the pit around the Claw people seemed not that into it.  Bono worked really hard to get the crowd going and they did improve but were not a patch on the two Montreal crowds.

For the Toronto band intros Bono apologised for the year's delay caused by his back injury last year referred to the changes in the members during the tour. Adam "became a father for the first time." Larry was in a movie with Donald Sutherland; and Edge wanted to write a musical about a "superhero? scientist?  - being bitten by a spider and becoming a nerd." He rambled on, "Who can fathom the workings of this man's mind? A genius on guitars and everything else... very good at train sets."  To which Edge mumbled something about modesty LOL! 


During City of Blinding Lights Bono got a boy up on stage and walked an entire circuit of the walkway with him, the lad imitating Bono's stance etc. prompting him to say, "you're not a shy boy are you?"


All through the show the Claw had a rival unique to Toronto for special effects - the lights of the CN Tower.  Lights of varying colours pulsed and rippled around and up and down the tower, often in time to the music, it looked great!   


At one point Bono said he had "breaking news" and the stadium became amazingly quiet and he continued to say that over the last two years two million more Africans had been saved from AIDs-related illness in the last two years.


A one point Bono was on one of the bridges and someone threw a Canadian flag at him.  He picked it up and put it in a back pocket of his trousers, "Canada shining out of my backside" he laughed.  He briefly mentioned the moon, saying we couldn't see it, but that it was, "smiling down on us."  Strangely Bono didn't mention the tower, maybe he couldn't see it from the stage.


The set was the same as the first night in Montreal, I was hoping for Bad but it wasn't to be.  It was a good show, but not a great show.  I think part of that for me was due to the lacklustre crowd around us, don't know why they pay good money to sit in their seats for a rock concert! 


It was also my last 360 Tour show and I felt a bit sad as I watched the band leave the stage.  360 had been a part of my summer for the last three years and it was now finally over for me.  Lots of travel, fun, highs and lows, sun, rain, wind, magic U2 moments, good friends - what wonderful times we have on these escapades.  Now I'll have to start saving for the next tour!
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