Thursday, December 08, 2005

I'm NOT gay!...

...although I always seem to set myself up for it!

This post is about RUMOURS!! Rumours are great ... unless they are about you!!

I was chatting to one of the girls in Sales about Lisa while we were leaving work at 5pm yesterday and I accidently ALMOST said boyfriend instead of girlfriend. We joked about it for a bit, said goodbye (as she was walking the other direction) and carried on towards home.

This morning when I went into the coffee room to get a cuppa she was coming out as I was going in. We passed eachother just outside the doorway. She said "Morning, Steve. How's your boyfriend." for a joke.
I laughed and said "Yeah, he's fine" and walked into the coffee room.
Just as I was doing it I noticed in the corner of my eye somebody overhear this little exchange of in-joke and lift their head to see who was talking. THIS is how rumours start! I'm now anticipating people talking about me and thinking I'm gay. Not that I'm bothered cos I have regular sex with my gorgeous girlfriend and I get turned on at the slightest hint of a breast.
I KNOW I'm as straight as a judge (...actually, that's probably not a good analogy!!)

Space Cadets

I watched Space Cadets on Channel 4 last night. It was good. Watch it!!....


That is all.

Click HERE to read more about it on the BBC News website.

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

The Hat



Well, I've finally finished The Hat website. I'm sure some of you have already seen it. I fyou haven't click HERE to check it out. You'll find lots of pics and mp3's to download so you can soak in the bands atmosphere. There's also a message forum so you can leave a message if you like. Enjoy

Monday, November 28, 2005

Pay Day

....and yes it HAS been a month since my last post. That's mainly because I've been really REALLY busy at work (I don't have internet access at home yet so all my posts have been from work!) I've also been skint for the last 3 weeks so I've not been out in town or anything, so what have I been up to instead?

Well, I went to watch True Swamp Neglect support Chesney Hawkes at the Operah House on the 10th November. It was a Rubber Soul arranged night to mark the first Rubber Soul at their new venue. It was a very surreal night - I mean, we were actually going to watch 'the one and only' Chesney as well as see one of our local bands (and friends) playing on a big stage. And pretty much everyone involved in the local music scene was there. Here's some pics...



True Swamp Neglect



Chesney Hawkes!!

It was weird though, I remember the Opera House being bigger when I used to go! It just felt soooo small. And that's pretty much what everyone else said as well. The upstairs bar, Benedicts, wasn't open that night. That's where they're gonna have the future Rubber Soul nights. I wonder how much that's changed?!?!

Most of my time has been spent working on The Hat's new website. James Burton (one of the band members) came round to have a sneak preview when he came to collect Scott for a band practice and he was well impressed! Wicked. I'm hoping it will be online very soon.

My other spare minutes have been spent with the delightful Lisa (that's my girlfriend, in case you didn't know - sorry girls, I'm taken. haha!!) We went for a really romantic walk down to the sea-front last Sunday (20th Nov) and it was a good opportunity to take some photos - haven't taken any for a while. Here's some of the results...






...nice.

So, being paid is a good thing. I now feel like I'm part of the human race again. But I must learn to stop spending so much! I mean, I spend my money on drink, drugs, women, video games, DVD's, nights out .... the rest of it I squander! *wink*

currently listening to: Lali Puna - Faking The Books

Friday, October 28, 2005

Busy busy busy!!

This is BASICally my life right now....

10 wake up
20 work
30 home
40 if girlfriend = free see girlfriend
50 else design The Hat website
60 endif
70 sleep
80 goto 10

I hate being skint *sigh* Will update with some new stuff soon. Promise. (I just got paid and so I'll be doing stuff soon!)

Thursday, October 27, 2005

Site For Sore Eyes!!

I'd like to start this post by saying sorry for being lame and not updating for a while ... AGAIN!!! I've been a little bit on the busy side. Y'see, I'm met this girl and she's kinda taken over my life - she's absolutely amazing!! Simone introduced me to her by leaving a voicemail message on my mobile saying "Send me a picture of yourself - it's for a potential lady friend!" which I thought was a bit odd but slightly exciting. I had a new phone so and it wasn't fully set up yet so I told her to send me a picture of her - which she did. I was well impressed. Anyway, I sent her a picture of me pulling a face and then a normal one and she was impressed too so we exchanged numbers and got texting. Eventually met the following Tuesday. I was worried that I'd been set up with a minger cos you never can tell from mobile phone picture messages but when she walked in I was gobsmacked! And now we're boyfriend and girlfriend and very happy indeed!! Ahhhh!!!



Last night me and Scott were working on the new website for The Hat. The old one's getting a bit cranky and was in need of sorting out. Last night I got the first couple of pages working and linked together with rough bits of text - nothing final. Also we went through lots of studio photos, live photos and video clips to find some good images for the gallery. I told Scott to take his digital camera into the studio tonight when he has band practice to take some more pics and clips. The site is really starting to take shape and looks. It makes helps make them look like a band you really want to get to know about and makes their music more exciting. Although, the new shakedown of the band means the demise of The Sarge we decided to maintain the World War feel of the site with stark colours and striking imagery. A test site will be up for you to check soon.

Monday, October 10, 2005

"We're Off To Nether-Netherlands!"



So me and Scott had this holiday to Amsterdam booked for like about a month. Since then we'd moved into our new flat so after all the stress of moving home this holiday was like a Godsend. We moved into the flat on Friday 23rd September - and Amsterdam was from Sunday 2nd October to Tuesday 4th October, just over a week later. We couldn't have planned the timing better!! The flight was at 8am from Bournemouth International Airport. We actually got up at 5am after little sleep and got to the airport at about 6:30am. We wanted to make sure we didn't miss our flight, unlike the time we went to London and missed the Megabus by about 30 seconds and had to pay for a coach to get there!

Checking in was pretty quick - but when I went through the metal detector both me AND Scott sent the machine off and had to get searched! I reckon the metal detector is a scam. I reckon the person sitting at the X-ray machine is watching all the people go through and presses a foot-switch whenever he sees someone dodgy! But I mean, come on!! Like we're actually trying to smuggle something INTO Amsterdam!!

Another thing that pissed me off is in the canteen. We went there to grab a morning coffee and watch the sun come up over the runway and just chill out before being thrown into the sky in a massive metal tin. I went to grab the drinks and behind the bit where you pay there was this massive wooden sign with 10 of Murphy's Laws on it. Now some of them were quite witty but most of them you really don't want to see when you're about to go on a plane. Y'know, the one's like "If everything is going smoothly, you've overlooked something" and "If something is likely to go wrond it will". I wasn't nervous until I saw this!! Bastards!!

Anyway, the flight was cool... weird but cool. It's strange when you get all dizzy cos of the change in air pressure. I can see why some people puke on flights. I was both nervous and exhilerated on the flight. It was a pretty short flight - about 55 minutes, just enough time for a JD & Coke.




We get off the plane and took an age trying to find our way out but we eventually found a door leaving arrivals and going out into the main airport. From here we boarded the train to Amsterdam Centraal station. We left the station and walked across the first bridge where we were approached by somebody trying to sell me something! A sign of things to come me thinks!! Our first mission was to check in at the Hostel but thanks to some shoddy map-reading on my part we got lost. We eventually found the place after about an hour of walking around and checked in, had a look around the dorm room (shit hole!) dropped our bags off in the locker and set off for a trek around the 'Dam.





One of the first things we noticed was the amount of people on bikes!! There's fuckin' loads of them! And they were all on these cool retro 50's looking bikes - hardly anyone on mountain bikes and I didn't even see one bmx the whole time! You literally couldn't go 3 seconds without seeing someone on a bike. Another surprise was the shopping - we thought the clothes shops in Amsterdam would be shite cos on TV Europeans wear really shockingly bad 80's clothes. It's not true, the Dutch have amazing clothes shops and everyone looks cool. You heard it here first folks. Time for a couple of pics from sight-seeing, complete with obligatory canal shots!...






As it was starting to get dark we went to look for a coffee shop. We were walking arounf the Red Light District for hours and couldn't find a single one!! We were like "What??" so we went into a little corner pub for a drink of JD & Coke to work out what we're gonna do. We sat down with our drinks and after about 10 minutes we felt a bit uncomfortable. It felt like we were being watched all the time. We worked out that the pub was actually a gay pub!! We shoulda guessed. The clues were all there. Stocky bold dutch men with handlebar mostaches wearing leather waistcoats and lumberjack shirts listening to The Eagles on the jukebox!! Don't know why we didn't spot it when we came in! So we finished our drinks and left.

We walked about 4 shops down and saw a coffee shop called Route 66. We were like "How do we know it's a hash cafe??" We stood there looking in for a bit, sniffing for any clues and then we spotted a sign in the window saying "No Alcohol Sold Here". It HAD to be a hash cafe. So in we went to grab a cup of tea and a slice of space cake! It was really cool. The people seemed really chilled out and the staff were really kind and smiley. I think they could sense it was our first time to a hash cafe but that's ok. They had a pool table and juke box, a bank of PC's near the entrance so you can surf the web, they sold memento merchandice such as T-shirts, watches and badges to remind you of your visit... yeah, it was really cool.

So we ate our space cake and drank our tea and starting feeling a little woosy after about 15 minutes. I noticed myself getting really talkative and gabbering like a loon! After a while we thought we'd go for a walk. We walked to Amsterdam Square where we tried to take a sneaky photo of the bloke sat on the bench next to us but I think he clocked us.... and then I felt like he was watching us so we went for another walk. We found another area of public seating about 5 mins later so we sat there for a bit cos we were really starting to feel very odd! After about 20 seconds a homeless guy was talking to us in broken English and was trying to get us to give him money - not what you need when you're starting to lose the plot and be all giggle and paranoid at the same time so we walked off somewhere else (haven't got a clue where) Around about now everything I said was starting to do Scott's head in cos everything I was saying was making him crack up laughing!! "I think the best thing we should do right now is to not talk for a while!" said Scott. ... but not talking was starting to do MY head in so I had to say something!! And basically it went downhill from there. Most of it has been erased from my memory. There was a bit where we had to get some water off our tits - that was difficult, cos everything's in half Dutch, half English and the picture on the bottle was reminded me of The Scream which wasn't making me feel any better! .... I've even gone through trouble of making a little animation of what I was halucinating, I got the picture of the water bottle from the Dutch mineral water company's website.



Things started getting very VERY scary after this. Both me and Scott thought we were either going to pass out or going to die! I couldn't work out if it was cold or not but I knew I was shivering, whether it was from 'the fear' or if it's from the temperature I'll never know! We were walking around in a paranoid daze for what seemed like hours. Going over little tiny bridges with a car coming towards you right near the water when there's a low barrier whilst off your face is NO FUN! Eventually we had to stop! We were getting further and further away from the hostel and we had no idea where we were, every corner we turned was only because it seemed less hectic down there than what it did on the road we were on. We stopped to sit on some steps like this...



...to try and calm down. We were exhausted from our accelerated pace of walking. But I couldn't sit down, it felt really uncomfortable... like I was gonna be sick or shit myself or something. After, about 30 seconds, Scott was saying things like "This is it Steve. I think this is where I'm going to die. A million miles from home, lost... and I didn't even get to say goodbye to anyone."
"No, ya not, mate. We're just tripping out. You'll be fine" I said, trying to convince myself at the same time that what I was saying was right.
"No, this is too much, Steve. I think we've been spiked!" said Scott.
"It does feel fucked up, mate, but I'm sure It's not... I HOPE it's not. I know that some skunk can have similar effects to LSD but ...."
"I think I'm dying, Steve."
"No you're not, mate. Just chill..."
Scott starts sliding down the steps and puts his head on the top step and closes his eyes. "No, mate. I've got to do this.... I've .... *mumble*" and is still! I started shaking him, thinking he's just mucking about (Scott's a bit of a joker, y'see) but he's not moving. While I'm doing this a couple who are walking past stop and ask "'ere, mate. Is your friend ok?"
"I dunno. He says he feels like he's dying. I know he's not but I can't get him to wake up" Then they start talking to him - he wakes up.

We get them to stay for a while, whilst we try and clear our heads. Scott asks them to please stay with us and talk to us. After a while we try to head back to the hostel, but we have no idea where we are. I say to Scott "We just need to find our way back to Madame Tussauds [in Amsterdam Square] and I can find our way back from there." but we had no hope of even knowing where we are.

Eventually, and don't ask me how, we stumble upon Amsterdam Square. I take over from here cos Scott's now got short-term memory worse than a goldfish. I keep having to convince him that we're walking in the right direction cos he kept turning down corners. We got back to the hostel and climbed all 3 flights of steep stairs and flump on our bunk beds and try to sleep. But the paranioa was still strong. Although we didn't know that we were thinking the same things at the time, we were both convinced that other people in the dorm were talking about us. We also though that people were braking into our lockers and knicking our stuff. We also though we heard people setting fire to people, rats scurrying around....
I ended up staying awake quite late in this silly sense of fear. And then, at some stahe in the night, I heard some singing outside the window. Me bed was next to the window so I craned my neck to have a peek outside. It was a bunch of 5 English girls staggering drunkedly back to their dorm singing songs from large stage productions in perfect harmony. I guess that they were from some sorta art college. I didn't recognise the song they were singing when they first faded into my conciousness but they stopped that and then started singing another song. I didn't regnise this at first but it seemed really cool. Then it got to the chorus. It was John Denver's "Take Me Home, Country Roads". It was truly beautiful and was sung in perfect harmony. It was these girls that managed to sort my head out and go to sleep.

Day 2: We woke up at about 10am ish and went downstairs for some breakfast.... we were still a bit spaced out so after finishing breakky and tea we went back to our bunks for an hour or so. I couldn't really go back to sleep so I read a book and watched all the addicts, dealers, pimps and and hoes outside the window.



Then went for a little trek around The 'Dam...







We decided not to get stoned tonight so we found this nice bar by the riverside and had a couple of beers and watched people go by. After about 4 or 5 drinks we went to have a look around the Red Light District to see what all the smut is about. The place is mental! We thought the prozzies in the windows would be absolute howlers but most of them are like FHM models!! And they all give you full-on eye contact and open they're legs at you!! You really don't know where to look!!! No seriously, you don't!!!!! Obviously I couldn't take any pictures of this cos I don't think they'd take to kindly to me taking pictures of them. So here's a lovely picture of the canals at night...






......... Oh alright. Here's the pics you REALLY wanted to see...





Friday, September 30, 2005

Sorted

Everything in the flat is in place. I'm absolutely in love with the flat. We've got a year tenancy on it so I hope this year goes niiiiiice and slowwwwwly! We've already had a couple of friends drive past and honk their horns - one of them went round the corner, turned around and parked at the bus stop opposite and shouted at the window just so they can wave!! Nutters!

Most of this week has been pretty uneventful cos we've been mostly sorting out everything in the flat. It really does feel homely (but modern) now. I've been introducing Scott to Spaced (something that I HAVE to do to all my mates cos I absolutely love Spaced) and I think he's starting to love it too. I caught him when I came home at lunchtime watching the first couple of episodes again. Next you'll be quoting it like an obsessed Trekky, Scott!

We've also been playing Silent Hill 3. Yes, I know it's quite an old game but we were discussing Resident Evil whilst watching Episode 3 of the first series of Spaced. I don't own a copy of Resident Evil any more (another series of games I want to re-buy) so that's why we stuck on Silent Hill 3. It's not as scary though - just a bit fucked up and sick. But there's some good moments.... it's just not as good as zombies!

On wednesday I was planning on having a chilled night in as Scott was off to band practice with Lounge. I watched a couple of episodes of Brass Eye, played a bit of Chronicles Of Riddick on the Xbox and then got a text from Helen saying come to The Bell for a few pints. (I live opposite The Bell in case you didn't know!) I wasn't too sure at first but then thought 'fuck it', it's only accross the road and I'm running out of beer! Had a pretty cool time, just played some pool and mucked about on the Top Of The Pops quiz machine. The Chelsea match was on the tele in there too (which I didn't even know about) so that was a bonus - even though the score was 0-0!!

Last night I bought some Jack Daniels cos we've been drinking a shit load of Scott's nice Spanish expensive liqour and we wanna save it. I didn't buy any coke so I was drinking it neat!! Hardcore!!! hehe! I found out last night that The Hat are NOT dead but mearly re-inventing itself. No longer will the band be fronted by 'The Seargent'. Scott said "...he will be standing down from centre stage and will be more in the background with keyboards etc." With that Scott played me 2 demo MP3's from his iPod and then went to band practice with The Hat. After a couple of drinks I re-played the tracks and visualised some ideas for the design of the EP's front cover and started re-thinking the website design as I'd already started designing a Jello Of The Sea website. (for those that don't know, that was what they were gonna call The Hat after they re-invented themselves. It's now the name of one of their songs!) Then I got all nostalgic for my old music that I used to write so I dug some out and played that. After a couple of hours of that Scott came back and I played some to him, he thought some of it was wicked and others were dire (which I totally agree with, but I was explaining I was just experimenting with ideas and sounds to see if I can find some stuff I can use.... which I did!) Ended up getting quite lashed and we stuck on Silent Hill 3 for an hour then went to bed.

listening to: LCD Soundsystem - Daft Punk Are Playing At My House

Friday, September 23, 2005

Move in

Hurrah!! We got the keys for the new flat this morning .... well, maybe that should be 'key' as there's only one of them! So looks liek we'll be moving in tonight!! And about blooming time too!!!!

I had a quick look around at lunch time to see what needs to be done! Not an awful lot. Just the usual stuff when you move in... wash kitchen cupboards, check light bulbs etc. We've got laminate flooring so we need to get a dustpan and brush cos the floor needs a good sweep!

On the way out I looked in the downstairs toilet - looks like the last tennants had a pee and then left it there cos it fookin stank really REAAAAALLYYY bad - I flushed it straight away, closed the door and headed back to work.

Although I hate moving (it's stressy work innit!) I can't wait to get myself in there and sorted!

Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Landlords...

...who'd have 'em? I wouldn't thats for sure. And I used to be a landlord!!

As some of you may or may no know, I'm moving out of Chale House and into a nice modern flat with my chum Scott and things are in the process of being sorted. So I gets this phonecall from Baker & Baker asking why they haven't received the reference from my current landlord, Roger! I'm like "I don't know! You have faxed him, right?" to which they say "Oh yeah, of course we have. He's been sitting on it for the last 6 days!" Now I know that Roger can be known for being rather slack in matters urgent but this is important. He knows that I've gotta move out pronto. He knows that I've got someone moving in seamlessly. He know's he's not gonna lose out on money (the typical landlord's only concern) So what's he hanging around for? I decide to ring him!

Me: "Roger, have you sent that reference to Baker & Baker yet?" (already knowing what his reply is gonna be!)
Roger: "What reference is that, Steve? I didn't get one from them" (told ya!)
M: "Well, they told me that they'd sent you a fax of a reference form for you to fill in and they're waiting for you to fax it back to them."
R: "Oooh no, I didn't get any faxes"

Typical!

Now, I can't be sure who's at fault here! Either Bake & Baker were lying about sending him a fax or Roger forgot to fill it in and return it. Not good, cos it's that reference we're waiting on. So, I decide to get the fax number from Roger and give it to Baker & Baker myself and told them to fax him straight away. I also told Roger to fill it in and send it back as soon as he gets it. Both promised they will. Now, hopefully we should be able to get the keys by Wednesday at the latest and we can finally move in.

Sometimes it's better to sort these things out yourself!

listening to: Kings Of Leon - Kings of the Rodeo

Friday, September 09, 2005

Absolute Practice

The Absolute Darlings had a get together and rehearsal at my place last night in the lounge. They'd broken up about a year ago but are doing a special one-off gig for Peter's (stage name Pierre La Blag) 40th Birthday (I'm sure he'll love me bringing that up!) I stuck around for a bit but got bored so went into my room for a bit. Had a chat with Chantal about The Da Vinci Code - facinating. I think I wanna read that eventually. Whilst reading it she was refering to an art book so she could see what art parts of the book was referring to. As she was explaining stuff to me and showing me the pieces of art I started to feel inspired so spent the rest of the night making pictures.

Also, Reign Of Fire was on the tele last night. I forgot how good that film is! Here's a few pics!





Thursday, September 08, 2005

Art

You might've noticed the new side bar over there on the right --->
Y'know the bit with 5 pretty pictures? Well, these are the latest pics from my deviantart gallery and will automatically update itself whenever I submit new art. Go ahead and take a look - you may like what you see.

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

The Others



I watched The Others with Nicole Kidman and Chistopher Eccleston last night round Scotts .... well, I don't mean I was sat in the same room as Nicole and Christopher watching the film with them!! I meant that they were in the film! Anyway, I was bloomin' good. Gave me the heeby-jeebies.

Listening to: Franz Ferdinand - Tell Her Tonight

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

July Summary!!

OK ok, I've been extremely busy over the last couple of weeks, which is why I've not done much to my blog. In this post I'm going to attempt to cover what I've been up to over the last three weeks in a kind of summary - I may post some pics too but I haven't decided yet. So, lets start off with ....
  • Saturday 16th July.
This was the first night in this lengthy run of partying. Now I look back it was kind of an indication of what the next 3 weeks were gonna be like as I had arranged 2 events in one night: Emo Octopus's last ever gig at The Portman and Lottie's Birthday at The Central. I was informed that ex-girlfriend, Collette, was going to be there not long before I set off to see Emo. Was not best pleased about that. When I got there I went straight to the bar with Emma Moloney (my mate from work) then went to go find Kris D'Arny (who's the guitarist in the band). It turns out that they're already on stage. On the way there I spotted Collette's twat of a boyfriend, Dan (I think he clocked me too) and then I noticed the back of Collette's head. I was like "right, so that's where they're sat - that's the area of the room I'm going to ignore" - and so I did, I didn't look back in that direction for the rest of the night.

Emo played a good set. I remembered a lot of the tunes from the last time I saw their "last ever gig" in Bartonka about a year and a half ago. I bought their CD back then (and I think I've played it once or twice since - that doesn't mean their shite, it just means I've not played it that's all!)


Emo Octopus's last gig

Then it was time to go to Lottie's Birthday bash at Bar 2 of the Central. It was a joint birthday bash with Griff and Rizlo - but I didn't find this out til a couple of days after!! Gave the Birthday girl a present (some smellies from Boots), had a dance, several drinks and then played pool before going to an after-party which went on til about 5am. I don't remember much except doing poppers and showing my arse to everyone in the kitchen!
  • Sunday 17th July
Went to the beach to try and sort out my hangover with Mooro, Lottie and Scott. Met Kirsty on the way to the guys which was a nice surprise. She was with Sara. Finally met them near the Branksome part of the beach. I felt like SHIT!!! It was really hot and when the breeze stopped blowing it was unbearable - felt like I was gonna puke! Stayed there for a couple of hours and then went back to mine to get changed before going to Scotts to watch a DVD and drink JD. I forget which film it was!
  • Monday 18th July
Got home from work, still feeling a little shakey from the weekend, Chantal had bought Rez for the PS2. We set up the lounge for a bit of a game sesh - pulled the sofa away from the wall and towards the TV. Found a bottle of Jack Daniels behind the sofa!! Bargain. Chantal skinned up, I had a couple of shots and we both proceeded to play Rez. Later on in the evening Laura (Absolute Darlings) turned up en route to a gig and told us all about her getting a First in her degree (congrats to Laura). Rob bought a crate of beers and we continued to drink until we were sick of swallowing!
  • Tuesday 19th July
Lounge played a gig in a big tent in the gardens of Shelly Park (for those of you who didn't know, Shelly Park is where Mary Shelly lived... she wrote Frankenstein!) This had an amazing summer vibe about it with people just chilling out insided listening to acoustic sets and people sitting around the gardens getting stoned or whatever as the sun was setting. It was a Solid Air event. Mark from Lounge said he was really nervous playing and it felt a little intimidating being up on the stage but it all sounded good from where I was sat. Other people who played were Piere Le Blag, Farther and ... um.... other people!! (sorry guys!)


Click for bigger picture
  • Wednesday 20th July
We had a house meeting to discuss the bills. I thought it was gonna be a boring day one but it actually got quite heated between Rob and Chantal. I had nothing to say on the matter as I'd only just moved in and the discussion was about bills that were in arrears before I'd even moved in! Got a phonecall from Scott and so I went round there to, once again, get blotto on Lager and JD & Coke whilst watching a DVD.
  • Thursday 21st July
This was the day of the EC awards at the Grosvenor House Hotel in Park Street. The day began like any other: getting up and got ready for work - put my suit in a bag and went to work. We did a half day and then it was time to get ready for the Emap Communications Awards Ceremony - an annual event held in London as an opportunity to slap the backs of hard working individuals within the Emap umbrella.... or for the rest of us, an excuse to get absolutely bollocksed on free booze and get off with that bird from sales! As I was getting ready at Emma's with Beverly and Stephanie I got a phone call from Suzy, who was getting her hair done in a salon somewhere, telling me to put on the news as there was another bomb scare. This freaked us out no end cos none of us wanted to go to London to get blown up - even if there were free booze! But after a few phone calls we decided to go anyway cos if something major did happen whilst en route, the coach driver would just turn around and come back.
We arrived at our destination surprisingly early, so we all went to a nearby wine bar to...er...drink wine in one of the back streets near the hotel.




We stayed there for about half an hour before heading back to the hotel for the main event. The weird thing was, we couldn't go back the way we came because the roads that we'd walked along just minutes before were sectioned off by the police cos of another bomb scare!! Geez!
We eventually found our way and went inside for a champagne reception and a general chit-chat in the foyer before being ushered to our designated tables for the food.
The food was good, as was the booze!! Next up was the stand-up comedian and the awards presentation (presented by Clare Sweeny - that bird off Brookside!) As usual we won nothing, got a few nominations though. Oh well. Then it was time for some music and a bit of dancing - this is usually the part were scandles start hatching when, for example, the old married woman from customer support throws herself around the new fresh-faced (but still wet behind the ears) researcher. ....actually saying that, I was dancing on the dancefloor and all of a sudden I felt some hands stroke my chest from somebody behind me. Thinking my luck was in I turned round only to discover it was, in fact, the old married woman from customer support!!!! I smiled politely and ran for the hills!!!! I ended up disappearing outside of the main hall and into the pirvate bar with a girl from sales that I wasn't in the slightest bit interested in. She kept trying it on but I didn't want to know cos I knew she had a boyfriend. Had a good time though!!





....

OK, I'm just gonna summarise now cos it's taking far to long to type all this!!!!
  • Friday 22nd July
Went for a drink with Lottie at the Bermuda Triangle!
  • Saturday 23rd July
Went to a beach party with Scott, Fran and Pri. Stayed there til about 2am. We left cos it started raining although we were so drunk we didn't notice. Besides somebody had a mini marquay (spelling?) there and we spent most of the time under that. The guys that live downstairs from Scott & Fran took their camper van down and set up a cocktail bar in the back of it!! Free cocktails!! Woo!!!! There was also a really tastey girl juggling fire there!
  • Sunday 24th July
Went to the Joiners Arms in Southampton to see Editors again! Fucking superb!! The support band were shite but then what can you expect. I found out the next morning that Edith Bowman was there but I didn't see her. Apparently she was by the T-Shirt stall!?




  • Monday 25th July
Heard that Scott and Fran have split up (!) so went round there to see if Scott was OK. I got him drunk then suggested going out to see SK8 at The Portman to take his mind off things! Met loads of people we knew and it was pretty cool. Scott was unusually quiet though!!

Sunday, July 17, 2005

Camping

This is long overdue but it has to be done. During the weekend from Thursday 30th June to Sunday 3rd July I went camping with Kim, Paul, Gary, Simone, Lottie, Mooro, Scott and Fran in Stratford Upon Avon.


You'll notice I'm not in the pic cos I took it!!!

I got my up there from Lottie and Mooro. We made it up there in good time and pretty much went straight there without getting lost thanks to the routeplanner from Multipmap.com (I think ... it could've been from the AA website but I'm not too sure!!) In fact the only wrong turn we made was when we got into the camp site - instead of going straight on towards the tent pitching area Lottie saw a sign that told people to go right. She didn't notice that it also said "Residents only" so we had a very surreal tour of the trailer park. It looked like a cross between something from Twin Peaks and Toytown!!

Kim and Paul got there first and were just putting the finishing touches to their tent when we eventually pulled up. We built our tents and then the final car arrived with Gary, Simone, Scott and Fran and we helped them build there's then settled down for a beer.




Mooro, Lottie and me wanted to have a curry so we suggested we all go to the local curry house (Cafe Chuney's) for our first nights meal. Everyone was keen to go but they said we should go ahead and then ring us when we're there to let them know what it was like but when we did nobody was up for it. I had a Lamb Pathia and, I have to admit, it was one of the best currys I've EVER had!! By the time we got back to the ranch a lot of alcahol was consumed ... especially by Kim who woke up, about 10 mins after going to bed, to puke!


Kim and Paul a little drunk!

The next day we went into town to see what it was all about. One of the first sights we saw was an old clock tower just in Rother Market built in a victorian style.It was given to the town by an American gentleman, George W. Childs of Philadelphia and this is why, half way up, on two corners there are American eagles and on the other two corners there are English lions. And if you look at the point above each of the clock faces there is a fairy from Midsummer Night's Dream. This clock tower is always known as the American Fountain and it used to have a drinking fountain on: the horse troughs were at one time full of water but now full of flowers. How's that for history!



Getting ready for the day ahead

Clock tower

Paul's grown again!!
to be continued....