Crazy Mixed Emotions

Well, after THE worst couple of weeks of my life so far, I’ve now got a couple of weeks that I have been looking forward to for what seems like ages!

It all starts this Friday night when my best mate, Peter, and I go to the SECC in Glasgow to see a nice quiet beat-combo from America – Guns N’ Roses! That’s right, Axl and his band will be in town to blow us all away with some classics, as well as (maybe) a few from the forever-upcoming album “The Chinese Democracy”. Should be a blast! I’m sure Peter saw them live during the early ‘90s, so it will be interesting to see how they compare to the original line-up. I have another concert at the same venue the following Monday night. A little bit of a contrast compared to the GNR gig – Billy Joel. Told you it was a little contrast! I saw him live in 1998 at Ibrox where he and Elton John appeared in their “Face To Face” tour. He wasn’t well that day but still managed to give a great performance of a whole bunch of classic hits. Now, it’s just him on his own doing what looks like being a great gig! To be honest, I don't know which concert I am more excited about as I can't wait for either of them!

I’ve also been invited to a couple of birthday parties – one at Peter and Janice’s to celebrate the first birthday of their son, Andrew (a year? already??) and one for a workmate’s 30th which is being set up as a fancy dress party.

And at last, we come to the one thing that I’ve been looking forward to more than anything over the last wee while – the 2006 FISM World Championships of Magic. FISM – a French acronym for the International Federation of Magical Societies – is a convention that is held every 3 years in a different city around the world. The main part of it is a huge competition in which different performers compete to decide the World Champion magicians in both Close Up and Stage Magic for the next 3 years. I could go on about this for hours, but instead I’ll point you in the direction of both the FISM Organisation website as well as the website for this year’s FISM Convention itself.

I fully intend watching the whole Close Up Competition and will post up what I thought of the different acts once I get a chance to do so, as well as general thoughts of the Convention itself.

Have a good few days.

The Cardman :-)