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Wow! Il Divo just blew my mind!
Just got home from Sheffield where I went to see Il Divo with my Dad. It was officially my Dad’s Christmas present, but I only really said that to justify spending £65 a ticket and I really really wanted to go! We went to see them live 3 years ago in Manchester, and I’m very glad I spent the extra money for the better seats, it was totally worth it – 13 rows from the front!
The show was fantastic, just what you would expect from Il Divo. My only complaint was that the speaker system didn’t seem to be able to cope with David and Carlos singing at the same time and turned a bit crackly, but they are so good it didn’t matter – they could probably have done without the microphones with the power they’ve got.
Carlos was his usual cheesy flirty self, advertising his bachelorhood and making the ladies swoon. It seems like a lot of women seem to have a thing for him, but I don’t get it (Ithink it may be a generation thing). Although the last thing I wanted was to see a load of 70 year old women wiggling their hips right in front of me because Carlos told them to Salsa throughout La Vida Sin Amor.
I was so glad that they sang my favourite songs, Mama, Adagio and Te Amare, although I love all of them really. There were a few funny moments, like when Sebastien got about 3 words into the start of Unchained Melody and forgot the words, so Urs stepped in to help him. Sebastien charmed his way out of it though, blaming it on the ‘beautiful ladies in the audience‘, guess he picked that line up from Carlos. And then the comedy moment when David almost slipped down the last couple of stairs during My Way. He recovered it though, and turned it into a joke when his next line was ‘each careful step along the highway’.
Completely blew my socks off, great show, and I can’t wait to see them again. Even better because I got a rare day out with my Dad which was lovely 🙂
I’ll leave you with a video of my favourite song from the show tonight (although the video isn’t from tonight sadly):
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Now Reading: Vanessa Diffenbaugh – The Language of Flowers
This was an impulse buy at Waterstones last time I went to Meadowhall with Vicky. She hates being in book shops with me because I tend to spend quite a long time looking through books deciding which one to buy. I’d already picked one and they were buy one get one free, but she was fed up of waiting for me so I just picked the one off the table that had the nicest cover, and it ended up being this one. It actually looks pretty interesting, so we’ll have to see how it goes… -
Review: Chad Harbach – The Art of Fielding
This book ended up being nothing like I thought it would, but it had me hooked from the first page. I had expected a book that was heavily baseball oriented, but baseball was (in the main) just an undercurrent throughout the book to support the other issues. The book is centred around a few characters whose lives become completely intertwined. The main character is Henry, a naturally talented shortstop who is spotted by Schwartz and persuaded to attend Westish College. As he’s a late addition to the school, he ends up sharing a room with Owen. Owen starts an affair with the school’s president Guert Affenlight, whose daughter Pella turns up at the school having run away from her husband. Pella ends up in a relationship with Schwartz, and you can see how everyone’s lives wind up hopelessly tangled.The book is a fantastic book about growing up and dealing with the transition from college to the real world. After being trained by Schwartz, Henry is so gifted that baseball scouts start turning up to his games, and there is talk of him being drafted in the early rounds. All this until an errant throw from Henry accidentally hits Owen in the head and puts him in hospital. Henry suddenly quits playing baseball and begins a downward spiral into depression and anorexia, shutting out his friends and almost throwing away every opportunity that had been given to him.
The book deals with some hard issues very gracefully, and the conclusion of each character’s storyline at the end was brilliant. I actually don’t have anything bad to say about the book, apart from the fact that I was glad to finish it so that I don’t have to carry it in my bag any more, the hardback weighs a ton!
This was a great debut novel from Harbach, and I can’t wait to see what he comes up with next.
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Good Friday
I can’t quite believe that it’s Easter already, this year has gone by so quickly. I have managed to stick to giving up chocolate for Lent though, even if it did mean that I couldn’t eat the gorgeous smelling dinner that my sister cooked earlier this week (who puts chocolate with Turkey?!). I’ve also mostly managed to stick to the two books that I started reading for Lent. I’m not at the end of them yet, but I’m just going to carry on reading until I’ve finished.
As it’s Good Friday, I wanted to share my favourite Good Friday Bible verses with you:
My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will. —Matthew 26:39
My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done. —Matthew 26:42
This verse comes from just before Jesus is arrested, when he goes to Gethsemane to pray. He knows what is going to happen and why, and he is willing to do it to save the rest of us. It’s something that I need to learn, sometimes God wants you to do something and you just need to realise that if it’s God’s will, there’s a reason for it and you just need to get on with it and stop fighting against it.
As it’s Good Friday, I’ll probably watch The Passion of the Christ tonight. I first watched it a few years ago with my parents and we had to stop half way through as we were all so upset by it. I’ve watched it every year since, and it’s always a struggle to get to the end. Seeing everything so brutally on screen just hits home how big the sacrifice was. But it’s not something that should be avoided, in fact, I should make more of an effort to remember it all year round.
One last thing, seeing as though it’s Good Friday, I’ll share a bit of my good news. My Dad and I have been on a new plan to eat healthily and go to the gym more often, and since Christmas I’ve lost 39 pounds and my Dad has lost 30 pounds. There’s still a long way to go, but I’m very pleased with myself for keeping up with it. Let’s just hope we can avoid too much chocolate after Sunday!!
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Back to Baseball: Off-Season recap
It’s that time of year again, and although I’ve been a bit quiet about baseball during Spring Training, there’s less than a week left until the first game of the season so there’ll be more baseball blogs coming. The regular season actually kicked off earlier this week with the series in Japan between the A’s and the Mariners. This actually gave me the opposite problem to usual as the games were on too early for me to watch, starting at 11am British time, about 13 hours earlier than usual!At the end of last season, I wrote a blog post about my hopes for the off season, so I’m going to use this post to catch up on those and see if I managed to predict anything right! Here goes…
1. Re-sign Mark Buehrle
This was my biggest hope for the off-season, but unfortunately it didn’t happen. We traded Buehrle to the Marlins quite early on, and while I was disappointed to start with, I actually think that it’s a good move now. We have a strong rotation with Chris Sale’s transition to a starter, along with Danks, Floyd, Peavy and Humber. Of course Buehrle is a great pitcher, but I don’t think we are that much weaker without him. And at least he’s switched leagues so we don’t have to face him too often!2. Bring Back Omar Vizquel
0 for 2 now as this didn’t happen either. He’s now playing for the Blue Jays, and at 45, I wish him all the best. He’s a great player, and he deserves to end his career on a high note. But even at 45, he’s not the oldest player in the MLB, as today we’ve just got the news that Jamie Moyer has made a place in the starting rotation for the Rockies. At 49, he’s coming to the end of a long career (in fact, he’s been playing baseball longer than the Rockies have even been a team)! He’s coming back from Tommy John surgery which is not easy at any age, but at 49 I look forward to seeing how his season goes.3. Farewell to Juan Pierre
Finally, one that I got right. Pierre is now playing for the Phillies, and we have ample replacements for him in the outfield department. We’ve had a good look at DeAza and Viciedo in spring training, and we also signed Kosuke Fukudome this off season too. Apart from his speed (which will be hard to replace), I think we’ll be better off without him this season.4. Welcome Robin Ventura
Robin really seems to have settled in well during Spring Training, and although our record has not been brilliant, he seems to be making good decisions and the players all seem to love him. It’s very nice not to have all the controversy like there used to be with Ozzie, and it’s definitely nice to be able to read the comments on the MLB site without scrolling through pages of ‘Fire Ozzie’ comments.5. Get Jake Peavy Healthy
This seems to be going well, although we’ll only really know when the season gets underway. We really need him to be able to pitch late into games to save the bullpen, and he needs to last to the end of the year, especially as Chris Sale is likely to be on an innings limit in his first year as a starter.
I have to say, my predictions were really not that good, but I’m feeling very confident about the team this year. We’ve set our 25 man roster today, including a couple of surprises in Jones and Escobar, the only real mystery now is how the bullpen is going to shape up. Reed and Santiago have been pitching very well, but I think Thornton should get the closing nod, at least to start with. He didn’t do very well at it last year, but I think he’s more ready for it now. And if not, we’ve always got a couple of other candidates ready to take his place!There’ll be more baseball related posts coming up this week with the season so close, but if you made any predictions for the offseason, let me know if you were more successful than me!
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Now Reading: Chad Harbach – The Art of Fielding
I’ve had this book on my Amazon wish list for ages, but it said it wasn’t due to be released until the end of April. But I was shopping in Waterstones and I saw it on one of their table displays and I had to buy it. I didn’t really expect it to be out in the UK as it’s a baseball related book, but I’m glad I found it. I started reading it last night and it’s fab so far.I’m a sucker for a nice looking book and this one is fantastic, it caught my eye before I even realised what it was called. It is a big book though, especially as it’s hardback. It hardly fits in my bag, but I guess that just means I’ll have to read it this weekend before I have any need to take it out with me. That could be a problem though as I’ve got a lot of tidying up to do before my parents get back from holiday – my brother is really messy, and now he’s out at work until they get back so its down to me to clear up his mess! It has been nice having the house to myself though, I’m looking forward to hopefully moving out sometime this year!
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Review: Suzanne Collins – Mockingjay
At first when I was reading this book I thought it wasn’t going to be as actioned packed as the first two, and for the first part of the book, it was definitely more political than action packed. But it all picked up again about a third of the way through the book and it was back to non-stop action.As with most action books you expect people to die, but the choice of who died in this book really shocked me. I can see how it was used to develop the story and how each death pushed Katniss to do something that she had to do, but there were definitely some people that I wished hadn’t died!
Katniss finds herself the leader of a team in this book, and there’s a lot more guilt about her actions than there was before – you can definitely feel it through the writing. I think the writing itself was more of a factor in this book than the other two. With it not having as much action in it and much more drama, the strength of Collins’ writing really comes through.
As with the other two books, I don’t want to spoil the storyline too much, but I will say that I was slightly disappointed with the ending. Throughout the series, there’s a fight going on within Katniss’ mind between Gale and Peeta, and at the end you find out who she ends up with. I would have preferred her to stay with the other, but it does round the story off nicely this way. I did feel that the end was a bit rushed – it was a bit like the last Harry Potter book where there’s just a chapter tagged on at the end about the future. But I do think that it was a nice way to end the book without leaving lots of loose ends.
I’m definitely looking forward to seeing the films now, I just need to wait for my Dad to finish reading the books first so we can go together.
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Now Reading: Suzanne Collins – Mockingjay
On to book 3 of this series, and unfortunately it’s the last one. I love reading a series of books (especially one as good as this), but the worst part of it is always coming to the end. With a series, you always get more involved with the characters and the story, so it’s hard to let go. But with the last two books being so good, I’m looking forward to getting stuck in with this one.It’s only a couple of days until the film comes out, so hopefully I’ll be able to finish the book, and then we’ll be able to see the film at the weekend.
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Review: Suzanne Collins – Catching Fire
All I can say about this book is that it was better than the first, which is saying something because I loved the first one. There are plenty of reviews of this book on many WordPress blogs that will tell you what happens in this book, so I don’t really want to go into that too much here. Besides, I know my dad is starting reading the first one, so I don’t want to spoil this one too much for him (if he even reads this!).When the first book ended, I thought it had been ended in a bit of a weird place and I was curious to find out what happened next. Suzanne Collins sure knows how to shock her readers though. Whatever I expected to happen, it was definitely not this!
This series is definitely more about the plot than the actual writing, but the plot is just non-stop. Every time you think it might slow down a bit, it’s back up again with another twist.
And just like the first book, this book is left at a cliff hanger, with big question marks about what is going to happen next. I was happy that Gale was brought back into the story at the end, but I’m sure that that after what I’ve read so far, nothing is going to run smoothly in book number three.
Another 5/5 review for this book – brilliant!
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John 14:27
I’ve had this in my head the last couple of days, I’m finding it quite comforting. It’s also reminded me that I’m a bit behind on my two Lent reading books, I’m really enjoying those, particularly The Purpose Driven Life, so I need to get back into them again.Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.
Louise Douglas
(I've got no) Shelf Control…
Louise Douglas 