Weekend Before Last

OK, so I'm behind - tell me something new :D

So weekend before last we went back to my home town (or should that be city?) of Plymouth. Partly because it seems like ages since we went to stay at mums but, I have to admit, mostly so that we could see my cousin perform in the live final of the FX Factor on the Saturday night.

I am so proud of him, of what a great guy he is and of how he's turned his life around.

The evening was great, not necessarily because of the acts in the final (more on this later) but because it was so nice to get together with family. Something that I don't get to do a lot of having moved away when I got married.

To be honest there were some terrible, truly awful, 'how on earth did they make it to the final?' acts but Sam was worth the wait. He came third. Not a bad result but I do think he should have won - and that from a completely unbiased point of view (OK, I admit maybe slightly the biased - but only slightly!). The winner did have a good voice but she only did a cover version, likewise the girl who came second, Sam on the other hand was true to himself and who he is as an artist and performed one of his own songs - that makes him the winner in my mind.

You can check his stuff out on his MySpace site (linked above) but I just want to post this video recently uploaded onto YouTube. It's a video directed by a Jeremy Ngatho Cole and is the final part of a Music Video Trilogy, starring Andy Douglas (don't ask, I have no idea...). The most important thing is that music used for the video is Sam's. His vocals, his song, him singing it on the video!

And my favourite line from the song?

"I know what kinda of man I want to be, the man who when my children look and see, they are proud of all I am"

He came around to mum's on the Sunday, brought his guitar and gave an inpromptu performance of some of his songs. He sang this then, the first time I've heard it and this line brought tears to my eyes.

Enjoy: