Wild Beasts in North Wales

Going back to work on a Monday morning after a week off is always pretty hard. The tube journey from Balham to Bank has already made the holiday seem like it never happened. All of the fresh air, feedom and calmness I felt in the North Wales countryside was replaced in an instant with heat, armpits and delays. The only plus point being that FWD Digital and FWD Marketing are now nearly settled in our new offices at 145 Leadenhall Street now and this is my first day here which is quite exciting.

Brave or stupid?
If you remember the weather over the Easter weekend was not the best. Scotland and Northern areas were even seeing snow storms! Therefore we were aprehensive of a holiday in Wales, let alone the camping holiday we had gone for! Telling people about the holiday we had decided on either had them wishing us luck or asking if we were crazy! (Please note this was not our desired holiday destination, we were somewhat restricted by budget.) After the 6 hour drive we arrived at our campsite in the pouring rain. We were staying at a campsite in Beddgellert which is in Snowdonia national park. Unfortunately due to the rain you couldn't seen Snowdon on the drive up.

The tent was great though, fully equipped kitchen, comfy bed and lots of blankets which it turned out we really needed as the evening got colder and colder as night set in. Eventually after putting on our beer, wine and whisky layers along with 4 jumpers and 3 pairs of socks we went to sleep. As we woke up the sound of rain drops had stopped and as we unzipped the tent and stepped out we found a spot of sunshine had appeared. This miraculously stayed for the whole week allowing us to get great views of Snowdon, go on long walks, have picnics and even sit on a beach at the beautiful Porthdinllaen on the north coast. (This picture was taken on my iPhone and edited using the Adobe Photoshop iPhone app while sat on the beach)

It ended up being a great holiday and one that I would recommend to anyone especially if you like driving. Some of the roads up there are fantastic with mountain views, slate stone walls, fast flowing rivers and waterfalls. Including the journey there and back we drove over 700 miles which provided the opportunity to listen to a lot of music. This is where the Wild Beasts come in. You may have been thinking we had found the Welsh dragon or a ferocious sheep, but what I was referring to in the title are the 4 piece band from Kendal in the Lake District. Their 2nd album 'Two Dancers' was my favourite album to drive to. It set the mood perfectly. The long drives gave me time to think about the best and worst driving albums I have on the iPod and I though I would share them for anyone with a long drive or driving holiday coming up.

My top 5 albums for a driving holiday

1. Wild Beasts - Two Dancers
2. The XX - xx
3. Lightspeed Champion - Life is Sweet!...
4. Fat Freddys Drop - Based on a True Story
5. Joshua James - Build Me This

Albums that don't work for a driving holiday

1. St. Vincent - Actor (A great album but too eratic for driving)
2. Bear in Heaven - Beast Rest Forth Mouth (I really enjoyed this when I first heard it but there are some really grating tracks that are off key and tempo...not suited to driving)
3. Diane Cluck - Oh Vanille (Another good album but too all over the place for driving)

I am always looking for new music so would be keen to hear any other recommendations. Oh and go to Wales! It's up there with Scotland, the Lake District and the South Island of New Zealand for hiking and driving holidays.

Boring boring Barcelona!

The most entertaining match of the season 

If only that had been true last night in the Arsenal v Barcelona Champions League game maybe we would have come away with a strong advantage and a fully fit squad. As it was they gave Arsenal a footballing lesson for three quarters of the game. Their speed, creativity and vision must surely make them the best team in the world.

Had it not been for Almunia the tie could have all been over after 10 minutes but as it stands the second leg is set up perfectly. Barcelona will be missing their two first choice centre back and Arsenal will be missing Fabregas, Arshavin and Gallas, all who may yet not play for Arsenal again this season. That will leave the game open and chances are likely to be created at both ends all match which is great for football fans but it's going to be stressful for us Gooners!

Marvellous Music of the week

I have come across some great music this week. Some brand new and some that I can't believe I didn't already know. My music tastes vary greatly and always have done but I am going through a Folk and Indie phase at the moment. My site of choice for news, videos and new music for this is Pitchfork.com and I really suggest you have a look. They have a Twitter account too if you use it.

My tips from this latest binge are:

• Broken Bells - James Mercer (from the Shins) & Danger Mouse's collaboration
• The XX - I have been meaning to get their album for months and finally got round to it
• Dead Man's Bones - Ryan Gosling's weird and wonderful ghostly musical-esq band
• Slow Club - Sheffield based duo
• Temper Trap - They've been around for ages but I had to mention them because I got tickets to see them at Somerset house in the summer so have been listening to them a lot this week

There have been many more highlights including St.Vincent, Beach House and Scott Matthews but I will have to talk about them more another time.

Thanks for reading,
Craig

Change of direction

I have been using this blog to simply repost what I write on http://fwddigital.com. However I have decided that now that blog has grown to have a decent amount of followers, and regularly gets reposted on Twitter, FriendFeed and Linkedin, that I can afford to be more individual on here.

So....what to expect? I'm going to be posting more regularly and about a wider range of topics, including the latest Arsenal results (grr Birmingham!), film reviews and music I find through my random searches.

I'm sure some digital aspects will creep in but this is going to be more about me and less about work. I need to be able to shut off at the end of the day and let my other interests come through.

So for my digital marketing thoughts and finding check out http://fwddigital.com but for everything else, keep an eye out here.

P.S Sorry for the horrid picture...I typed in keep an eye out in Google  image search and this came up...I couldn't resist!