The last few days have been a cavalcade of fun and frolics, and no, that’s not rhyming slang. As I mentied in the previous post, Gary S has now left Employment Palace, and will now be taking most of his time moving cameras about in Middlesbrough City Town Centre. Sounds like… er, fun.

Anyway, on Monday, we had a little farewell get-together for him, involving beer and, of course an indian. We decided to meet up at 7PM in King John’s. Of course, this meant a mind-numbing wait for the bus… needless to say, I took my camera

The bus eventually turns up, and it whisks me down towards our proposed meeting point. I get there, and I think I’m the only one there. After a quick scan of the location, nobody could be seen. However, while I was being served , Gary emerged out of the inky darkness behind the two fruit machines, clutching half a pint.

He pointed towards where he was sitting, in the inky dark void, where clearly not many people ever sat.

Chris S was the next to turn up. He did the same as me, and completely walked past the location where we were sat. I thought I’d have a bit of fun, and call him on his phone, asking where he was, despite the fact I could see him, stood at the bar, looking frantically around, until I eventually guided him towards the fruit machines.

JT was next to show up, however, I was unable to have the same fun with him, due to the fact that he currently doesn’t have a phone, and saw us in the dark corner anyway.

We waited around for a bit to see if anyone else would show up. Glen W (not he of Obscureinternet fame) didn’t, so that left us - the fabulous foursome, for want of a better expression. We drank up, and made our way down to Church Street, and walked into the indian, for what was going to be the start of one hell of a feast. Gary could hardly contain his excitement.

I started off with the Onion Bhaji, something which I’d only had once before, and thought they were truly gorgeous. These didn’t disappoint.

For the main meal, I went with the vindaloo. I normally go for the madras, but I thought I’d try my luck with something a little hotter. My word, it was nice. I didn’t find it that hot, although there was definitely a kick to it. In fact, this is how much I enjoyed it…

Awesome. The rest of them went for a sweet, but I decided against such extravgance.

After that, we left and went our separate ways, luckily, the bus was just pulling in, so I wished all the best to Gary, and I disappeared off into the night. All of the images can be viewed here. Some of them are a bit… well, shall we say… odd?

Tuesday, however, was a complete and utter write-off. I spent all day on the sofa. The curry left its calling card at around 4AM, and from then on, I was awake. I did do a bit of behind-the-scenes work on the site, including partially updating Wordpress to the latest sub-build, and doing a a bit of work on the database, and the gallery too. I then spent the rest of the day drifting off on the sofa, eventually livening myself up around 7PM. Thankfully the Flag-of-Japan symptoms of the curry were no more, but I still thought it was best that didn’t go out that night.

Wednesday was a good day, for more than one reason. Firstly, I got my hair cut. Now, this is a challenge in itself. It’s hard to find enough hair on my head to cut, and secondly, I hate going to the barbers with a passion. I was devastated to find, however that there is a new version of “Something Good” by Utah Saints about to be released. Radio 1 played it, and I could have cried. I have made my feelings very clear on the subject of remakes and remixes. OK, the original track, despite heavily using a sample from a Kate Bush song, did it well. This version, in my humble opinion, doesn’t.

Digging back into the vast, cavernous reaches of my memory, I remember Chad, who you may have noticed has been very vocal in the comments section recently, had “Something Good” on the very first incarnation of “The Best Dance Album In The World Ever!”. In fact, I remeber purchasing a cassette tape from him for 50p with this song on.

Home taping is killing music? No. Crap remixes and remakes are.

Moving on swiftly, after getting my hair cut, I went down the marina to take some photographs. I’d not been down there for a long time (well, except to Coatesy’s, and that was at night), so I thought I’d grab some while I didn’t have anything else to do, and while the weather was OK.

You can view the whole set here

I am planning to go back at some point in the coming months when the weather gets that little bit milder, and I’ll spend a bit more time here.

Yesterday, however, had one crowning moment. Marko, from #speccy announced he had something to show me. Tentatively, I clicked the link, and was happy to find these…

Yes! Asda had started getting cherry coke in again! Or at least they had where he lived. AND, as an added bonus they were 3 for £3. Cherry Coke is the drink of champions. Within the hour, I was down said supermarket, with three bottles of the stuff in my trolley, and a big grin on my face.

Amusingly, it was only a couple of weeks ago that we were discussing its demise, the fact that it became rarer to find than rocking horse shite. So much so, I actually contacted Coca Cola directly to ask if they had indeed discontinued it. A few days before these bottles were purchased, I received an automated response back saying that it was still in production. I can’t help but feel that my email alone made them speed up production, and force Asda to stock it again.

That image is of course, copyright Marko, and used with his permission, though I’m not sure who’d want to steal an image of three bottles of coke, however. Except me.

So, that’s us almost up to date. Today, I’ve spent half the day in bed. I caught many images of a truly awesome sunset, which will soon be making their way onto flickr. They’re still on the camera at the minute, but I’ve not seen a sunset like it for many, many years.

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