How to install a new printer in a few easy stages

1. Pluck up courage
2. Clear away old printer and defunct computer (which has only gathered dust for months)
3. Take new printer out of the box and read the instructions
4. Look for the USB cable they claim to have sent
5. Try the cable that they sent instead
6. When this doesn't work, search through the drawer of cables and wires at home
7. Tidy them and throw some out
8. Go into office to find a USB cable in cupboard or in box by sound desk
9. When this fails, try the music shop opposite - a long shot
10. Then the shop on the corner which is bound to have one
11. Then the shop round the corner - a very long shot but recommended by #10.
12. On being told best place is in the next town, go home to collect machines to be taken to dump on way.
13. Discover why they call it a hard drive - break hammer.
14. Go to the dump and dispose of machines
15. Go to Asda on way to comuter shop and buy a USB lead!
16. Get home and discover they didn't mean a USB lead at all but a lead I had all along.
17. Follow very complicated instructions for setting up a wireless network
18. On failure realise that I have been talking to myself for quite a while.
19. Finally get contact, without ever really knowing how.
20. Print a page
21. Calculate that this simple process took just under three hours

Tom Jones

Something different today - Tom Jones has covered Bob Dylan's "What Good Am I?" on his latest release and done a terrific job of it. Recently celebrating his 70th birthday and still has a great voice. There's something of his age and experience of life that really lends itself to a haunting song like this. Click on the song under "Our Friends Eclectic", you won't regret it.

Clevedon v Exeter City

Went to a wet and windy Clevedon during the week to see Exeter's first pre-season friendly of the year. Not many of us there, (a couple of hundred?). I guess in church terms this was like going to the mid-week missions meeting - only for the very keen. I went on my tod, drawn by the chance to see some of the new faces I had read about. David Noble looked a long way from fitness after a long lay-off but clearly has class. Joe Heath got up and down and looked useful. So did Jake Thomson, very nippy, and Daniel Nardiello scored a good goal. Lots to be positive about and worth getting wet for. Good to get some air as well after a day off spent doing my tax return at home. Simple pleasures for a boy.

You are kidding right?!

It hit me square in the stomach when I read this morning that today is the 25th anniversary of Live Aid. My first reaction was that 'It can't be' and the second was, 'How did that happen?' Today has become another day when I feel quite old.

You see, I was there. That thing that they will wheel out as a history piece on the news this evening which will look visually odd compared to the HD images of today, I was one of the many in the crowd. I endured both the heat and Spandau Ballet and I once had the tee-shirt to prove it.

I remember it as being a day of celebration and hope, despite Spandau's best efforts. So many snippets come flooding back:

• Quo opening, Rocking all over the world being the perfect start.



• Geldof stopping mid song after the line, "The lesson today is how to die"



• Missing U2 because you had to go to the toilet sometime.



• Bowie using a song slot to play the incredibly emotional Cars video instead.



• Queen



• Booing Paul McCartney because his microphone didn't work. Completely unfair but everyone was so hyped up.

My friend Martin went and queued for tickets - an heroic effort. I haven't seen anyone else in the car load of people that went up to Wembley for 20 years I guess. Long time ago.

Tom Robinson wrote a good song about this on his Love Over Rage album (I think) called Days That Changed the World, concluding "Humanity's still waiting for the day that changed the world." You can get the link at the top of the right hand side of this page.

Me? I'm looking for my slippers and going to have a quiet sit down to listen to Howard Jones.