We Do Adventure

You're watching our opening song from the concert at Klub Novi Most on Thursday night. The video of the rest of our set will leak online during the course of this week. If you want to sing along then here are the words - enjoy! this is better than i thought it could be your love’s amazing you’ve forgiven me this is something that i’ve never known life just gets better i know that i’ve come home the bar is higher than i thought it could be but then you’ve promised trust and you’ll succeed there may be struggles but the victory’s won you know the ending i know that i’ve come home how could i ever thank you what could i give back to you nothing i have comes close to everything you’ve done what can i say of all you’ve given to me a life that’s priceless yet you give it for free once just dream but now i call it my own i’m in the family i know that i’ve come home how could i ever thank you what could i give back to you nothing i have comes close to everything you’ve done what could i gi...

Living in another country does make you aware of how easy it is to fall into culturally imperialistic attitudes. By that I mean the assumption that your norm is better that the new norm you’re encountering. With this can unwittingly come the urge to convert all around to your way of thinking. I could quite easily become a crusader for the supremacy of the three-pin plug! I’ve long held that the UK as the best system of delivering electricity to devices I’ve ever encountered. Or I could campaign against the common practice here of attempting to overtake four cars at once into a blind corner. Such behaviour is not normal in the UK as we generally relieve such drivers of the undue pressure of holding a driving licence. However, these and similar desires have to be curbed because different is so often just different; not better or worse. The danger is every new experience is greeted with a value judgement rather than being embraced for what it is. While I don’t underestimate the power of l...

We’ve rocked too hard tonight for me to write. The concert at Klub Novi Most was a success. There are details I should give, but they’re not going to get given now. But the evening achieved everything we set out to. Fortunately the weather was having a cool day as the better part of sixty people squeezed into Klub to see everyone perform. For people who know the music I’ve been involved in before you might be able to piece together something of what it sounded like from the set list – although several have been reinvented in a hard-rock style! - Everything You’ve Done - Nothing Without You - Here Alone - This Is Your Song - So Here I Am - Top Of The World

I was heading back to Klub after an afternoon of saying goodbye to a friend who’s heading home for the summer when I saw this. You might recognise the Gimanzija building from my earlier video but I knew the (digitally enhanced) dramatic cloudscape would make for an exotic image. So here it is...enjoy!

Doctor Dolittle – and I’m speaking about he of the Hugh Lofting books, not the unwatchable Eddie Murphy – spoke to the animals. He understood their language. Today I gained a greater understanding of how Bosnian animal differ from their English-speaking counterparts when it comes to their most famous phrases. English cats ‘meow’. Cats in Mostar, of which there are many, can be heard to ‘mijau’. Like several Bosnian words we’ve found this is basically a phonetic transliteration. ‘Džem’ is a favourite example. ‘Šorc’ is another. Yes, ‘jam’ and ‘shorts’ respectively. Back to the animals, it seems that baring the transliteration cats and horses, and ducks and cows speak the same language – and rabbits don’t speak at all! But the surprising difference is dogs. My English-speaking audience will know that when a dog barks they say ‘woof woof’. Perhaps it’s the lack of a ‘w’ in the Bosnian alphabet; perhaps it’s their Balkan temperament, but when a dog here bares his teeth to make some noise t...

The English Premier League wrapped up its season this afternoon. With Manchester United already crowned champions the fixture list left fans fixating over who would or wouldn’t avoid the drop. If Newcastle United have proved one thing this season it is that ‘Messiah’ is a title perhaps best not given to a mere mortal, even one (or two or three!) in possession of seemingly supernatural footballing skills. But my purpose is not to dwell on misplaced faith, or even to focus on English football. The news from last night in Mostar is that HŠK Zrinjski are now champions of the Premijer Liga BiH. Believe it or not but that means we could be watching Champion’s League football in Mostar for approximately the price of a pie at Old Trafford! FK Velež, Mostar’s older team, were not relegated as had looked likely. And the riot police we saw sitting at the end of our street did not appear busy, although they must have been sweltering in their Robocop style body armour. All in, I think that makes fo...

Our important news today is our washing machine is fixed. I hadn't told you it was broken, so you're forgiven for not expressing your concern before! What might, under other circumstances, have been viewed as a minor inconvcenience becomes a more pressing issue when temperature as I type, at ten thirty this evening, is still higher than it'll reach at the height of the sunny Bank Holiday about to be enjoyed in Southern England. A clean underwear crisis has been averted!