Well, it starts off with the trip home from Newcastle. Carrying a bag full of singles around the place wasn’t really that entertaining.

After taking more photos of broken lamp posts, we headed off to Fenwicks. There was a reason for this. Chris wanted to check out the price of new tellies, and I desperately needed the toilet. I had spent most of the previous post so desperate for the loo that my back teeth were floating. I’d cinsidered taking a leak behind one of the abandoned buildings I’d photographed, but with the onslaught of CCTV and the like, I thought it was probably for the best that I’d hold it.

We arrived in Fenwicks, and as we rode the escalators through the random flooras until we reached the televeision section. As we passed the third floor, I cried out “Oooh! Toilets!”

Now, I’m not a big public toilet user. In fact, I’d normally rather use a drain than a public toilet, but considering these were on the third floor of a large department store, I assumed they’d be clean. Thankfully, they were. They even had motion sensors to detect when you moved away from the urinal so it would flush. The only other place I’ve seen those was Germany. Actually, it didn’t really matter, as I was so desperate, I caused the sensor to “time out”, and it flushed while I was still in mid flow.

Not that you needed to know anything of the previous paragraph, but I thought I’d share anyway.

After pricing up new TVs, and being amazed how much they’d came down in price, we moved to the peripherals section. I laughed like a drain at the sight of one single HD DVD player placed on top of a pile of Blu-Ray players. I wish I’d got a photo of it, as it was so ironically placed. I laughed at the prices of said equipment, and we left the store.

It was getting towards the time that the “big match”, between Newcastle (at home, naturally) and Manchester United was taking place, therefore, most of the city was filled with black and white shirts. And goths.

Actually, this reminds me of something that happened earlier in the day, which I should have documented.

I had a good laugh at the cashpoint. There were two cashpoints, near where we were at the time. Chris joined the queue to use one, and I sort of loitered in the middle. Half way through the loitering, I decided that I also needed money, mainly thanks to my vinyl buying exploits… but which queue to join?

Answer… I didn’t. I sort of slid my way to the right, and “joined the queue”. Technically, I was in both queues. That was my opinion anyway. This was to the dissatisfaction of the (really quite attractive) boilers who happened to have their cashpoint raided by myself. To be honest, I knew I was in the wrong, but they’d let their mouths go before I had chance to have any compassion for them… “Eeee, Yeeeza shudda been in the queue, like?”, the ‘blonde’ one said, as I shuffled towards the hole-in-the-wall. I think there was more to it. Either way, they said stuff between themselves which made me remember I needed to do unnecessary things such as check my balance, and get a receipt.

Right, anyway, after Fenwicks, we looked in a few shops such as HMV. It was truly a pointless excersise. Something has happened to me in the last year or so. I no longer need the new record shops. Yes, I shall still trawl the old ones, like the one I mentioned before, but the likes of HMV just don’t do it for me any more.

After that, we headed back to the station. I continued my 28-year tradition of not-getting-anything-from-a-fast-food-place-except-fries by ordering fries, while Chris knocked back three cheeseburgers.

It was then time to head towards the platform and the train home. I was gobsmacked by the addition of another photo to my “broken things” collection, namely the destination board…

What’s even worse is that I can understand most of what it’s displaying, apart from the random mess in the bottom corner.

Either way, we got the train home, despite the destination board being broken (not that it would have made a difference anyway).

As we boarded, someone at random, asked me if I liked coke. He appeared to have a bottle of Diet Coke going spare. I refused, and so did everyone else on the train. He, and his bottle of coke, left a station or two later.

This is one of the things that gets me about society nowadays, one of my bug-bears, and I must admit to being as guilty as everyone else… nobody can be generous without suspicion. This guy could have bought a bottle of coke, and decided he didn’t want it. Instead of it going to waste, he decides to ask if anyone nearby wants it. Instead of his generiousity, he’s left with me leaving this paragraph, and a bottle of coke he didn’t really want. Take it home, put it in the fridge, etc. That’s what he should have done.

Er.

That was Newcastle over with. Chris came back to mine, and we worked our way through a box of Carlsberg cans.

That was the end of the excitement until… THE EARTHQUAKE!!!

I cannot believe that it’s still getting talked about, and still a small percentage of press coverage.

Let me, once and for all, document my earthquake experience.

I was at work. It was 00:57. Not a lot was going on. There were three of us talking together. Suddenly, the building shook. It’s hard to describe, as it was nothing special. It felt a bit like someone jumping up and down on the floor. I was the first to notice, or at least comment…

“Right, I might be going mad, but did anyone else just feel that?”

We looked at each other. Apparently, I turned white when the other two people agreed with me.

Within seconds, we were all googling “earthquake”. As we all know, it did turn out to be an earthquake. It was weak, no-one died. Chimneys fell down. Some glasses of water may have resembled *that* scene from Jurassic Park. It will be forgotten eventually, but I can claim I felt an earthquake.

OK, so that was pretty amazing. My morning was about to get a whole lot more interesting. Now, I was lying in bed, and I’m sure that I felt the bed shake. A similar side-to-side motion like I felt during TEH MAJ0R QUAKE! There is no report of an aftershock,so I reckon I was just imagining it.

Unfortunately, by going to bed as soon as I got in, this denied me the chance of being a media whore again, as I’d missed works attempts to contact me and appear on the ITV news. Instead, this chance was given to other employees. Never mind.

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