Made a comeback, got the T shirt, kept it real ..

I'm not really a concert girl. Or should I say "gig". I think that's the term. In any event, gigs r not me.

The first time I went to a concert (1983 so it was definitely a concert), I was seventeen. Bruce Springsteen was playing in Leeds' Roundhay Park and I went with my then boyfriend and his mates, all of whom were twenty ish. Within two minutes of getting into the park I lost them all. Or perhaps they lost me. Now, bearing in mind the year, Find My iPhone was not a thing. So I did what my dad always told me to do and found a policeman and stood close by him waiting to be found.

Sort of put me off large crowds.

I shrugged off my fears when the Stone Roses did a series of gigs (2012, concerts have transitioned) in Heaton Park. So I went with my husband (not the boyfriend who lost me, he was long gone), our mate Giles and little friend Alex. It was hilarious. The crowd was full of men in the exact same outfits they'd have been wearing in 1989, complete with bucket hats, but with very different body shapes. And hair styles, in the case of those who still had any hair.

The whole thing was a bit pointless because you couldn't hear the band for all the forty-something blokes belting out the songs. And this time, little friend Alex got herself lost on the way back from the loos and iPhones were no help at all.

Find Your Tribe

Despite this experience, I've done a fair few gigs this year, including a festival in Victoria Park, Oasis at Wembley (remember, I told you I wasn't giving those tickets away!) and Wimbledon, which I'm including as a gig for creative purposes.

It's been a fascinating experience and an opportunity to study the cultural preferences of different tribes.

Oasis

It was like the Stone Roses but with much better acoustics, so this time you could actually hear the band. Plus they had rehearsed A LOT.

Pretty much everyone there was sporting some kind of Oasis merch (including yours truly, once I'd had chance to buy it). Luckily, Oasis had more commercial savvy than The Stone Roses so they'd done a tie up with Adidas to produce merchandise for people to buy ahead of the event. So this time, everyone's T shirt fitted them.

The audience was primarily, though not entirely, made up of the same forty or fifty-something men who would have been at The Stone Roses gig and, well, what can I tell you. They haven't jumped on the Ozempic bandwagon that's for sure. I'd guess most of the T shirts were either L, XL or XXL. Probably because of the amount of lager being consumed.

I joined in, obviously, but I now know why I don't drink lager very often. Don't have the bladder for it. Almost missed the start of the set because of the enormous queue for the ladies.

Wimbledon

For the record, this is about the hospitality area rather than the general crowd, of which I saw very little. My friend Michelle, who used to take me to Wimbledon on a regular basis, back when I had a proper job, hit the nail on the head when she called the All England Club a "style free zone."

I can confirm that this holds true for the corporate hospitality spaces at the tennis. Lots of effort has gone into the outfits, but you won't be leaving with any inspiration for your own wardrobe. It's, as you can imagine, very middle England and pretty mixed 50/50 when it comes to the split of men and women. And whilst a fair number of the men have developed modest little pouches, they don't come anywhere near the Oasis chaps.

That being said, they do take the imbibing of alcohol just as seriously, it's just that there is more Pims and G&T and fewer pints of lager.

LIDO festival, Victoria Park

On reflection, I think this one was the highlight. The crowd was much much younger and I'm sure they'd paid a lot of attention to their outfits, which inevitably would have been very cool. However, their choice of attire became pretty irrelevant since it was tipping down with rain right up until the moment Jamie XX came on stage.

There really aren't many words for anyone to learn and recite - unless you count "Da da da da I waited all night" - it's just about the banging music. This is a clip of him doing the same set last year at Glastonbury. Unlike Glastonbury, Victoria Park is easy to get into, pretty cheap and a hop skip and a jump from the tube so you can go home and sleep in your own bed.

The alcohol choice was also more varied. I seem to remember drinking several cans of vodka tonic. Thought it could have been gin. Definitely not pints of lager because the toilet situation is as bad as Glastonbury.

Comebacks are not just for Rock Bands

Don't know if you've read the reviews but Oasis are scoring five stars all round. They were brilliant. And guess what? It's because they were brilliant first time round, they have rehearsed like hell and they have an amazing production team around them.

At Reignite Academy we do lots of work with women who are making a comeback after years away from the workplace and the same is true. They are often lacking in confidence but we have seen time and time again that if they were brilliant the first time round they will shine again. All they need is to be given the opportunity, the right support team and they thrive.

While We're Living

You know how it goes

While we're living, the dreams we had as children fade away ..."

It really made me think, hearing Fade Away again, thirty-one years after it was first released (31 years!!!). What have you all been doing for the last thirty-one years? What have I been doing, for that matter?

Raising children, building a career, flouncing out of said career, taking a break, five years as a magistrate, extremely brief career as a blogger (less said the better), writing a book, starting a new business, riding my bike, building friendships along the way.

Looking back, most of the time the choices I made were intentional, though not always. Not getting all philosophical on you but I feel like this summer might be time to step back and be intentional about what comes next. I'll let you know where I get to on that one.

Running a Team

I'm recently back from a holiday with ten adults and a baby. Let me tell you, making sure ten adults and a baby get to where they need to be on time, are fed and watered, exercised, entertained and generally made to have a very good time indeed is quite a task.

My daughter's contribution was to design tour T shirts with our assigned nicknames on the front and our tour logo on the back (surnames being Helliwell, Unwin and Tarr.) Against all the odds even my husband wore his once we were on the plane. I think the hotel was rather alarmed that a stag do was arriving, though I'm guessing once they saw the baby their fears may have been allayed.

The only way to make it work was to organise everything in advance and make sure everyone stuck to the routine. Including frozen Aperols at 4pm. Except the baby. The baby did not have the Aperol.

The News

• Of course Donald's name is in the Epstein files. This is a man who loved to hang out with other men whom he perceived as rich and powerful. What the files say beyond that is anyone's guess.
• We (the UK) are in debt
• Doctors are on strike again but seem to be losing the public
• Children are starving in Gaza. I'm not getting into any more detail than that. (Hadley Freeman writes a powerful column in the Sunday Times today entitled "Our children are asking about Gaza, this is what we say").
• Oasis were extremely good
• ENGLAND WOMEN'S TEAM WON!!! AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Culture Slot

I read: On holiday I read the Paper Palace by Miranda Cowley Heller. The story interweaves two narratives — one, a single day unfolding in the present on Cape Cod; the other, selected scenes from the past, presented chronologically: “1974. May, New York,” “1979. July, Vermont.” The house in Cape Cod is a family's summer home and there's a really strong sense of place as you read about them returning there over time as the family grows older. I loved it.

I think it was surpassed, though, by North Woods by Daniel Mason which takes as it's main character a yellow house in the woods in Massachusetts. The story is told in fragments that capture the lives of people who live there, beginning in the 1760s and continuing through to the present day and beyond. Occasionally he swaps prose for a song, or the story is told through someone's journal or news headlines. There are tenuous connections between several of the characters and many regularly re-appear. It reminded me a little of Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, which I think is one of my favorite books ever.

I'm now reading: The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese, who also wrote Cutting for Stone which I'd recommend.

I'm listening to: Not Oasis. A podcast called Rosebud where Gyles Brandreth is talking to Sir Gary Oldman.

I'm watching: Back episodes of Mad Men. Never get bored of it. I'd forgotten how skilfully Matthew Weiner wrote the female characters.

What's Cooking

Charred Sea Bass with Fregula Salad.