We witnessed the most fantastic, incredible, awesome Green Day concert at Wembley Stadium. We’ve never seen them live until tonight, but wow! was it worth the wait? Singing along to all their songs with the crowd singing in unison was an amazing feeling. Wembley Stadium as a venue for bands such as Green Day is just brilliant!

They kicked off their show at 8pm with four songs from their latest album “21st Century Breakdown”.

The crowd went ballastic. Then a few recent awesome songs from the American Idiot album and then Billie Joe got into gear singing some of the older songs from Dookie (Basket Case, When I come around, Burnout etc).

The three main band members – lead vocalist and guitarist Billie Joe Armstrong, bassist and backing vocalist Mike Dirnt, and drummer Tré Cool were brilliant and played their part well and looked like they were really enjoying themselves on stage.

Billie Joe is certainly a wonderful showman and could easily get the crowd to sing and clap at his command. Even Tré Cool is a showman in his own right and quite a funny guy.

Tré sang a song or two while Billie Joe played the drums and there was a moment where the two of them went for some record by singing and dancing to the song “shout” made famous by the Isley Brothers. It was quite funny though.

The band even dressed up in drag and sang one or two songs while lying down on the stage.

Some people in the crowd went mental especially where we were standing. That can be a good or bad thing depending on what you are expecting from the concert. I personally don’t mind people jumping around if they think of others, but when they push and kick and punch just for the fun of it, then it can become a bit unpleasant. There were definitely a few English idiots in the audience.

There was a good mix of stage videos behind the band and on the side screens.

With the various lights going on the atmosphere was electrifying.

The concert went on for well over 2 and a half  hours with two encores. The last 6 songs were just incredible, with spectacular fireworks, fireballs, ticker tape even toilet paper being thrown up into the air.

Below is the playlist for the concert.

1. Song of the Century
2. 21st Century Breakdown
3. Know Your Enemy
4. East Jesus Nowhere
5. Holiday
   
6. The Static Age
7. Give Me Novacaine
   
8. Are We The Waiting
9. St. Jimmy
10. Blvd. of Broken Dreams
11. Nice Guys Finish Last
12. Burnout
    
13. Waiting
14. Geek Stink Breath
15. Dominated Love (Slave Tre on Guitar and Vocals, Bille Joe on Drums)
16. Hitchin’ A Ride
17. Welcome To Paradise
18. When I Come Around
19. Metal-Jam Iron Man/ Sweet Child of Mine/ Highway to Hell
    
20. Brain Stew
21. Jaded
22. Longview
23. Basket Case
24. She
25. King For A Day
26. Shout/Hey Jude/I cant get no satisfaction/Teenage Kicks/Always look on the bright side of life
    
27. 21 Guns
28. Minority
    

Encore:

1. American Idiot
2. Jesus of Suburbia

Encore 2:

1. When It’s Time (Acoustic)
2. Wake Me Up When September Ends (Acoustic)
   
3. Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)
   

33 songs in total made it one helleva good evening. If they were playing another night in London I would definitely go again.

All photos taken with Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ7 and belong to lookatbowen.com

The BBC were clearly lost for words when they created this story of Gordon Brown’s legacy.

Check it out if you don’t believe me: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8674662.stm (actually it appears they realized their error and have produced a 404 – Page).

Wasn’t it lucky then that I captured the original screen

Hey David, Gordon and Nick!

I hope you guys are reading this? If you want my vote, here is what you need to do?

You need to stop families  like the Daveys from claiming benefits and having loads of kids, when they can clearly can’t afford them.  They are taking over £40,000 in benefits or hand outs each year and neither work for a living. That is wrong in every sense of the word. To make matters worse Mrs Davey is pregnant with her 8th baby and doesn’t want to stop until she reaches 14.

Here is what Mrs Daveys had to say for herself…

‘It doesn’t bother me that taxpayers are paying for me to have a large family’

We couldn’t afford to care for our children without benefits, but as long as they have everything they need, I don’t think I’m selfish.

Most of the parents at our kids’ school are on benefits.

I don’t feel bad about being subsidised by people who are working. I’m just working with the system that’s there.

If the government wants to give me money, I’m happy to take it. We get what we’re entitled to. I don’t put in anything because I don’t pay taxes, but if I could work I would.’

It’s so unreal, words fail me! No wonder this country is in the state that it’s in. No wonder kids have no respect (most likely they come from a family like the Harveys) and hard working people get screwed over in every sense of the word!

There should be some system in place that stops parasites like this from breeding further. A simple check such as:

1. Do you have a job Y/N?
2. Can you afford a family Y/N?
3. Do you have a house paid for by youself or family Y/N?
4. Have you already got kids Y/N?
5. If so how many – 1, 2, 3?
6. If greater than two and you have answered “N” to all of the above, then sorry you will be sterilized and your benefits will be closely monitored, and even removed if you are proven to be capable of working.

So there you have it Gordon, David and Nick. If you want our vote this year, then please let me know which one of you will stop this kind of abuse taking place. I don’t really care who started this ridiculous benefits system, I just want it changed and if neither of you  can stop this, then I think it’s time for Mrs B and myself to quit out jobs and go for the baby record of United Kingdom while racking up credit card debt and demanding better council housing. I fancy a 4 bedroom house in Kensington!

Read about these people over at the Daily Mail. The article is titled “Why work when I can get £42,000 in benefits a year AND drive a Mercedes?”

Please Note: It is in my opinion that people who are able to work and choose not to because the benefit system is more lucrative for themselves are “parasites” to society. It is also my opinion that people who are on the benefits, living in a council house and having kids for the fun of it are also “parasites”, because hard working people are paying a lot of tax only to support these lazy, inconsiderate leeches.

I also realize the fault lies at the hands of the government, since they were the ones that put a silly system in place without much thought of the consequences, as weak individual / people would inevitably abuse it if given the chance.

There is a wonderful story in the news today (many sources BBC, Metro, IOL etc) about a company in South Africa who used a pigeon to  carry a small memory card of data from one location to another while at the same time they tried sending the data over ADSL to the same location.

They wanted to show Telkom how slow their broadband connection was.

In total, it took two hours, six minutes and 57 seconds for Winston the pigeon to fly to Hillcrest and to upload the data from the card onto the call centre system.

By that time, the ADSL transmission of the same data size was around four percent complete.

What a clever pigeon – Not only did Winston fly there in record breaking time, he also uploaded the data onto the system.

Winston sets off to work for UPigeonS!

This story got me thinking why the mad scientists of the world are trying to clone sheep or grow ears on hands or silly stuff like that?

Instead why don’t they genetically enhance a racing pigeon and make it like a hawk or an eagle with excellent eye sight, a powerful body strong enough to fend off predators, bad weather and equally strong enough to carry a few carefully constructed waterproof boxes or satchels on it’s back or legs, which can hold memory cards, mini hard drives or small documents. It’s incredible to think that the pea size brain of a pigeon is intelligent enough to remember great distances and locations of departure and destionation, so the scientists would not have to make major changes in the brain department.

Once the super pigeon has been developed, train them up, and give them good strong names such as Winston, George, Sarkozy, Berlusconi, and Barack-Obama and then sell them to some small choice companies who are willing to compete with the likes of Royal Mail, TNT, Fedex, UPS and all the ISP’s of the world.

I am sure there are many people, companies, small developing countries around the world who have poor mail services and equally poor broadband services. Take the UK for example (since I live here), the Royal Mail are striking at the moment (yet again). Our ISP’s sell us broadband packages and promise us speeds of 8MB or more, yet one is very lucky to get more than 2MB. There are plenty of surveys to prove this statement.

Look out for the following global brand names in the future (Royal Pigeon, UPigeonS, FedPigeon, FastPigeon, Pipigeon, T-Pigeon, PigeonBolt). I can definitely see them taking off. (excuse the pun).

What an idea hey?

My day was today. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time tonight at 19h45. As I made my illegal right turn up Mount Road, we spotted a police car about to turn into the the same road. They had probably just finished eating a few MacDonald’s donuts and were probably on a sugar high. So Jo and I were both cursing as we passed by them knowing we were about to be pulled over. We only managed to get around the corner before the blue lights were reflecting off our back windows.

If I was in my Turbo Diesel Skoda VRS I could have definitely out driven them, but I didn’t feel like being on Kent’s Police Inteceptors on Channel 4 next weekend. (ha ha ha).

Luckily the fine was only £30 and no points off my licence.

I fully support the law and if you break it, you should suffer the consequences. Theses guys are only doing their jobs, so fair dues to them. They were friendly enough and I was happy to answer their questions (all one of them – Do you know you broke the law?).

But (there is always a but),

One of the officers explained to me that that the lane where I turned from was meant for busses only and that the traffic light sensor on the road automatically activates when the bus drives over it and allows them right of way without delay. Well that is nonsense, because almost every single time I have “turned right” at this junction I would drive up to the line, and wait for about 10 seconds for the light to change. While you sit there you can see the oncoming traffic slowing for the orange / red light. They stop, the light for me turns Orange / Green and we turn right cross the traffic.

The officer tells me it should not work for a car. Well it has always worked for a car and not just mine and it is no more dangerous turning there than turning at a 4 way intersection.  One would have to be pretty stupid to just turn regardless of the colour of the traffic light into oncoming traffic. We have also NEVER seen a bus turning up this road.

So typically it is one of those grey areas. I am tempted to waste the courts time and choose option ii) on the above ticket (Request that the matter be dealt with by a Court), because these silly traffic laws should be challenged, but I couldn’t be bothered. I am quite happy to pay £30 and forget about and hope the next time I turn right there that the Police are not sitting nearby.

Arriva runs this bus service called Fastrack in Kent. Since we dont live near the station, the only choice is walking down a disgusting road full of air pollution or risking life or limb around all the works that litter the pavements.

The service Its is not exactly FAST either, as their name suggests. We often wait an extra 10 to 15 minutes because the bus either missed its slot or didnt bother to turn up.

They recently put up the price of their tickets and for a local bus service outside of London, their prices are ridiculously expensive. £1.60 for a single and £2.60 for a return. It is daylight robbery.

The most obvious thing that Arriva or Fastrack have failed to notice, is that their fancy large bus is not full. If they reduced the prices perhaps more local folk would use the service.

Posted by Wordmobi

What a test match? At half time the Lions were 18 – 6 up, and if they could have kept the momentum they “might” have beaten our boys, but there were too many injuries for the Lions. There were two dodgy incidents in the game, the first being by Schalk Burger who by the looks of it delibrately fingered in the eye the Irish winger Luke Fitzgerald. Burger was lucky to get a yellow card. Personally I think he should have been sent off.

The second incident was in the 2nd half when Brian O’Driscoll took out Danie Rossouw with a dangerous tackle. O’Driscoll was lucky not to be sent for off. The silly Ref didn’t even give a penalty, which was equally dumb.

There were tries by JP Pietersen, Bryan Habana and Jaque Fourie flew over in the last ten minutes. With the score on 25 -25 and less than two minutes of playing time it all came down to a tackle in the air, which gave South Africa a penalty and Morne Steyn kicked the ball perfectly straight and over the poles for a brilliant finish and win. It was an excellent match.

EDIT [29/06/2009]: It is good to see Schalk Burger being banned for 8 weeks for the eye-gouging incident with Luke Fitzgerald. That was extremely dirty play and there is no place for that sort of behaviour in rugby. He got what he deserved and I am not ashamed to say that. Read about in on Sky News.

It’s been a while since the last post, and that is because there has been a lot going on in the Bowen household for the past couple of weeks. My brother Peter was here for a week from South Africa, and last week was extremely busy with work and various client upgrades including one in Paris on Thursday and Friday.

Of course we also had all that snow which brought London and the rest of the country to it’s knees (so much for a 1st world country we live in and they can’t even cope with a little snow). The snow was so bad (chuckle chuckle) that it stopped the entire rail and bus network in London. In fact all the roads around our area were totally snowed up because the council didn’t think that it was necessary to grit the roads. Anyway it was a good week of snow. We built two big snowmen in our garden, which was good fun. Apparently the most snow in 18 years, so it was good to see it.

That is not to say I have not being updating this web site. I recently replaced my Nokia N95 for a Nokia 5800 XpressMusic touch phone. Yes, I finally took the leap and ditched my Nokia N95 for a touch screen phone and as I have promised to my many fans, it would NOT be a crappy iPhone. So that bet of £1000 to whoever saw me with an iPhone is quite safe.

The phone is pretty awesome and I am slowly coming to terms with it’s functions. I have devoted an entire page to this phone and you can find it at the top under the heading 5800.

We have also been very busy planning our next holiday (a snowboarding week in Samoens, France). We have decided to drive there, a 630 mile trip, so we can see France, rather than fly over it and see just clouds. It’s quite a mammoth road trip, which we are going to do in two parts. We have arranged almost everything online (snowboards, accomadation, ski passes, ferry etc). Driving there means we will have to adhere to the French rules of the road and in France they insist that if the roads are covered in snow then one must snow chains for the wheels, so we have had to purchase some. I never driven with snow chains so this is going to be quite exciting.

Sky news obviously do not proof read their main headlines on their website or the editor of the below line clearly doesn’t know their grammar.

One should only use an in place of a when it precedes a vowel. There are obvious exceptions to the rule namely; Use an in place of a when it precedes a vowel sound, not just a vowel. That means it’s “an honor” (the h is silent), but “a UFO” (because it’s pronounced yoo eff oh).

The actual mistake with the above sentence is a missing word (injured). It should have read: “A British yachtswoman says the “spirit of ocean racing” led to her briefly scrapping a round-the-world race to help rescue an injured rival”.

At last something the British are good at.

FIGHTING FOR A FAIR DEAL FOR NORTH KENT COMMUTERS
Sign the petition at: campaigns.libdems.org.uk/northkentcommuters

That is what the Liberal Democrats are doing for our community and for once I support their cause. At least someone is standing up to Southeastern Railways (our crappy train company) who are putting up the rail fares by 10.7% in 2009, which is totally ridiculous considering their service is SHIT!

Our station, which was replaced with a brand new building is incomplete. It doesn’t have any facilities such as toilets, chairs along the platform. It has been poorly designed with little or no protection from the wind, cold or rain. There are meant to be lifts, but they are blocked up. They keep making promises that things will be sorted out, but they are way past their deadline. The station has been a disaster area for over six months and there is no sign of a completion date.  The trains are always late or cancelled for no apparent reasons. Most times there is little or no communication. The service is just dire and South Eastern Railways have a massive cheek to put up the fares, especially when everything is rocketing in price around us.

KentNews.co.uk – Train passengers to face massive price increases.