So, I awoke on the 2nd day at about 8AM, after a perfectly acceptable nights’ sleep. This was surprising, as I’m not a fan of hotel beds. I seen to recall my sleep was disturbed by a passing police car. Despite being on the 7th floor, and quite a distance from the road, the building next to ours reflected the sound into the room, and by the time the car had headed along Maid Marian Way (no, seriously, that’s that the road was called), I was awake, bright as buttons. Gah.

Chris slept through it, so I amused myself by abusing my phone and uploading all sorts of garbage to Facebook. I gave it until 9PM before I decided to surface and risk waking Chris up. 19 minutes later, while in the middle of a shave, my phone started going nuts, it was Chris’s dad. Amusingly, Chris slept through approximately 20 seconds of my annoying shopping centre yet there were two charity shops in there, a particularly bad YMCA shop that had literally 10 CDs in there, and a much better shop, where I spent under £7 on CDs. I could have spent more, but I didn’t realise the singles were “Buy one Get one Free”…

By this time, Chris’s boredom threshold was being tested to its limits, so we went in search of the now removed railway, and found it entirely by chance…

The closed tunnel entrance in the centre of the picture, the unmistakable blue brick to the right forming the entrance to what was once a railway tunnel, now a car park.

By this point, the effects of the Greggs Pasty were wearing off. I was hungry, and so was Chris. I had a bag of CDs to drop off at the hotel. It suddenly dawned on us. Where the fuck was the hotel? I knew one thing, we were near this building…

In hindsight, this building was visible from the hotel window, but we were lost enough for me to break out “the technology” – bring up Google Maps on my phone and make sure we were heading in the right direction. We were! Eventually we returned at the hotel, I dropped my CDs off, and headed in the general direction for something to eat.

Three days consisting of nothing but curry would probably be a bit too much, so we gave the curry houses a miss and headed off back into the town, eventually resorting to going to the Wetherspoons we’d went to the previous night. I settled for the “simple” steak ‘n’ chips, while Chris had some type of Panini thing. I always thought they just made sticker annuals…

Food was consumed, and the day was still young. The only tourist attraction either of us could think of was the castle, as Nottingham, at one point, had a large fortification overlooking the city. It was £5.50 in. Unfortunately, there’s very little remaining of the castle itself, except the walls. Inside, is a large museum and art gallery. There’s also a fair amount of gardens to walk around and admire that thing where they make shapes out of plants… erm… can’t remember its name…

The highlight, for me was the fact that the museum actually contains the very football shirt Maradonna wore during his infamous “Hand Of God” incident. Now that’s not something you see every day.

We left the grounds just as a horde of foreign students invaded the place. Perfect timing! They all seemed like proper twunts. We made or way to “Ye Olde Pube”. I can’t remember its proper name, but it’s set inside the cliffs that Nottingham Castle stood on. While me and Chris were enjoying a quiet pint in the “beer garden”, the hordes of students had apparently left the castle and headed to our quiet little inn. None of them were over the age to drink, so they just stood outside and took photos of the place. In pure “Jamie is a complete dick” style, I tried to photobomb as many as possible. There’ll be some kid, thousands of miles away, wondering why there’s a bearded guy with a pint glass on his head.

At this point, it started to get cold, and the time for food was fast approaching. We headed off back to the hotel. After remembering how bad the beer was in the free bar the previous night, we stopped off at the Tescos and picked up essential supplies…

Amusingly, there were signs on the hotel entrance that “No food or drink to be consumed in the room”. I’m sure they’d try and stop me.

After a quick change, we headed out of the hotel and, after a quick walk round, decided that our next meal would once again be consumed at “Chutney”. After all, their service and food was superb last time. It was even better. the staff were friendly, and even gave us another discount because we’d been there the day before. Ten, no, eleven points for service.

Once again, we headed back to the hotel and got ready for the night’s festivities. I say festivities, I really mean drinking some of the world’s most watered down lager known to man. It’s not even worthy of the “Making Love in a Canoe” joke…

We returned to the room early, pouched the cans, and I attempted to take some long exposure shots out of the hotel window. I’d show you them, except it would appear that Flickr has eaten them. Grrrr.

You may have been wondering why I’ve taken the name of a Beatles EP for the title of this blog, considering it’s about Blackpool. The reason is, that there was a trip arranged to Liverpool, or how I like to pronounce it, LiverPEWL.

The day started off early. I awoke at about 6AM, bursting for a piss. Unfortunately, thanks to the sound the toilet makes, this wasn’t something that could be done quietly, so Chris was also awake by this point. Attempts to get back to sleep were rudely interrupted by the sound of the old guy in the next room being sick. We weren’t sure if it was the food that caused it, or an excessive amount of alcohol, but my word, he could have chonked for England. It must have lasted around half an hour and by then we were fully awake. Brekkers wasn’t being served until about 7:30, so after getting ready, we spent a good hour or so wandering around the hotel. We could have went outside, but the good old english weather had taken hold by this point.

Some time later, off we jolly well popped to the breakfast room. This was also the same room where the entertainment was, and we had nothing to worry about when it came to getting a seat. It was absolutely massive. It was more like a warehouse. In fact, it was even lit by mercury vapour lights. I wasn’t that hungry anyway, so I grabbed a few pieces of toast and about 8 glasses of orange juice.

The coach to Liverpool wasn’t until 9:30, so after having breakfast, we headed back to the room. there wasn’t much to do in the room. I certainly didn’t want to touch the bible…

I made a short video showing some of the room’s “features”, which I’ll probably need to edit down. Unfortunately, the “Windows Movie Maker” facility in Windows 7 is complete garbage, so I’ll have to wait until I get on the laptop to edit it properley. As a bit of an experiment, I’ve created a video of the epic hairdryer…

(I really, really hate the new Windows Movie Maker. If anyone has any free alternatives, let me know.)

Anyway, we boarded the coach for Liverpool, and that’s where the fun and games started. Apparently, there was one coach that had the city tour, for £6. The other two coaches would just drop you in the Albert Dock (not literally, of course), so you could go and walk around at your own leisure. By a twist of fate, we’d got on the correct one, as someone on the other non-tour coach had a suspected heart attack. Delays were also caused by some of the people actually wanting to go on the city tour, but now couldn’t.

One whinging old scrote even had the cheek to say “Eeee, well that’ll be another complaint letter going in”. I’m sorry, what? You’re going to complain because you’re getting a free trip to Liverpool, which you didn’t even know about 24 hours before? No, you silly cow, you put a letter of complaint in when they leave you there, and you have to walk back.

The journey was uneventful. I had my headphones in for most of the journey. Nowt like being a bit anti-social once in a while. I attempted to get some sleep, something I rarely do on a coach. I managed about a half-hour of dozing, before waking up as we crossed the River Ribble. Rain followed us the whole way down until we actually got to Liverpool, where it just seemed to mysteriously stop. The coach dropped us at the Albert Dock. You may remember this as being the location of the old “This Morning” studio. Now, maybe I’m just used to seeing it on telly, in the sunshine, but one thing that struck me, is how small it actually was. Normally, you see sights on telly, and they turn out to be bigger in real life, but the Albert Dock really didn’t seem that big at all..

A lot of it was dedicated to the Beatles museum. I’m possibly the only person to have ever visited Liverpool, and rated the thought of going around a Beatles museum as a “meh”. I could only see it being overpriced. I’m not a great fan of their work. Like all bands, there’s some good stuff and a lot of mediocre stuff. I only like ‘Hey Jude’ because of the clearly audible “Fucking Hell” at 2:58. Listen to it with headphones, you’ll hear what I mean. Actually, that’s not quite true, I think it’s a brilliant song, but it’s not worth walking around a museum for!

I’ll tell you something though, I’m actually *glad* I went to Liverpool. About 3 weeks ago, I woke up with a small piece of music in my head, from the middle of a song. I obviously can’t explain in txt what it went like, but it was from the version of the “Liver Birds” theme music I’d ripped from LP at the back end of last year. Unfortunately, this revelation had me unintentionally whistling the afore-mentioned theme music whilst pointing my camera in the general direction of the Liver Buildings…

After wandering without aim, we headed towards Liverpool One. Apparently, it’s a shopping centre, or something. Going shopping with me is incredibly boring. Unless I am actually going specifically to purchase something, I’ll visit two shops. HMV and Greggs. This, however, was a bit of a special occasion, as I went into another shop, in order to stock up on cheap t-shirts, and replacement socks (something which I’d also forgotten to pack). Chris spent £2.99 on an umbrella. Remember that for later.

HMV, despite being huge, didn’t have any spectacular offers, and Greggs appear to have ditched their corned beef pasties for “Potato and Meat”.

We walked around the streets for about half an hour, before we witnessed this sad sight…

Yep, there’s another classic Thorn Alpha 3, about to be taken down and scrapped. In fact, there were a few in that road about to suffer the same fate. Shame.

After I mopped up the tears, we realised we’d walked round in a big circle, and walked down Water Street, back to the Liver Buildings. By this point, my feet were killing me. I’m not getting old, I blame the uneven beach I was walking on the day before. We walked back to the Albert Dock, and got some refreshments in the “Costa” that just happened to be in the entranceway.

The penultimate stop on our journey just had to be the wheel. You may remember my trip to York with Coatesy, where they had the large ferris wheel outside of the railway museum. Well, the wheel had repositioned itself to outside of the large arena on the docklands. I love these things, and even at the £7.50-each price tag, it was worth a go.

I took a few photos, but not that many, as most of the time I was recording video. While I enjoyed every second of the ride, Chris didn’t exactly enjoy it. He really doesn’t like heights! This had the undesired effect of getting some quality footage of him absolutely bricking it. OK, I didn’t help, with phrases such as “It’s draughty up here, isn’t it?” and “It’s got a bit of a wobble when the winds hit it”… I’m quite sure if the wheel had went round one more time, he’d have had a panic attack.

It would be wrong of me to post a video. Expect one coming soon when I get the lappy sorted out. In the meatime…

We had a walk around the dock one more time, and raided a sweet shop as our final location. I bought several packets of large Parma Violets. I absolutely love these. Oh, and some cola Wham bars. I must admit, it was an awesome shop. It smelt just like Bretts in the town centre, but without their epic toffee apples.

So, that was the day. It was 3PM, and as Kauto Star failed to make it a fifth King George VI Chase victory, we boarded the coach, and headed back to Blackpool. Again, the headphones were in, and I dozed for most of the journey using my coat as a pillow. I awoke just as we were to cross the Wiver Wibble. I’d have thought it was pretty coincidental, but I think the reason I woke up was because I’d drooled all over the coat, and it was now stuck to the side of my face. Pleasant.

We arrived back to the hotel, and began to pack. It seems strange how light and easy to pack the bag was before I left, but how heavy and full it was…

We set off at about 6PM, for our second and final journey to the indian mentioned on Part 1. Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t as kind to us, with light rain falling, and a bit of a breeze. Chris took his newly purchased umbrella out with us. He stood in the entrance to the hotel for about a minute, trying to get the umbrella to stay up. Literally three steps away from the hotel building, the entire thing blew inside out, and was completely ruined. I was absolutely no sympathy, as I howled with laughter in the car park, barely able to walk in a straght line for about 10 minutes. It was, quite literally, the funniest moment of 2011 so far, and it’d take a hell of a lot to top it. Irony ensued, as the rain started to die off, and we arrived at the indian totally bone dry.

I was tempted to get the vindaloo, but instead, I just settled for the madras again. After all, I had the bus home to contend with the next day. If anything, the meal was better than it was the previous day. Curry excellent, rice perfect, naan bread was indescribably brilliant. It seems odd that the least complicated part of the meal would be the one that I remember. But, it was.

We walked back to the hotel, and I just had enough time for a shower before hitting a change of clothes, and of course, the free bar. I’d have been bang on time if I actually knew how to work the bloody shower. I am, and always will be a bath person, but when you don’t have enough time for one, a shower will have to do. I think I scalded my back and the top of my head about three times.

I arrived at the free bar at about 20:03, feeling gutted at myself that I’ve wasted 3 minutes of precious drinking time. Chris was already with Colin and Lynne. We made our way to the “Performance Area”, and sat through countless musical acts of very little value. I didn’t care. I had my armband. Someone else noticed I had the armband on, two Lancashire equivalents of “chavs”. It was really quite amusing. Now, as I’ve mentioned, I had the “white armband”, which granted me unlimited drinks, two at a time. These chavs wanted me to get two pints, one for them and one for me. That’s what I assume anyway, as I didn’t understand a word they said. Needless to say, I ignored their request, but found it amusing nonetheless.

According to the videos I’d taken, the night finished with a roaring rendition of “Hey Jude”. By this point, I was goosed, and as soon as the free bar ended, I called it a night, and headed back to the fourth floor, and my comfy, comfy bed…

I won’t bother writing a “journey home” entry. It was uneventful. More sleep, heavy rain, and a lorry in a ditch. I’m also happy to report that after a night in hospital, the lady who took ill on the other coach was released from hospital, and was able to travel back home with the rest of her party.

A little bit of a musical self indulgence shall follow. Chad’s not around to criticise my posts, so I feel like I can write about anything I want. Not that it ever stopped me before. This time I’m going to blog about a song I could have possibly missed out on.

I was out for a walk last Monday, before I went and got my hair butchered, to the Headland. It’s a walk I take with startling regularity.

On Monday, I was listening to music on my phone, as I always do, and, happened to be walking up Thorpe Street, as the junction of Marine Drive approached. The name suggests that it would give you a lovely view to the sea, and indeed it does. I stopped paying attention to the music I was listening to, and instead grabbed the camera out of my pocket in order to take some shots, escpecially as the weather was as gloroius as this…

The song which I had previously paid no attention faded out, yet I still continued to walk along the sea front. My mind, still wandering, partially ignored the slow violin introduction of the song that was playing, until I saw a bench, looking out to sea, with a decaying bunch of flowers tied to it. This sad sight caused me to pay attention to my surroundings, and the music I was listening to, which happened to be the slow, solo violin intro to “Vagabonds” by New Model Army. (Youtube link, will probably die). It’s a song I’ve probably skipped over many times, and never noticed its full spendour.

Talking about violinny-type music, I’m not sure if I’ve blogged about this recently, but seeing as I’m here, and talking about musical shit, I might as well post this…

I now have the original, 1982 version of Darryl Way’s “Little Plum”.

“Little Plum” was a little instrumental tune released by Curved Air member Darryl Way. It has had two releases that I know of, and neither of them charted. It was made famous in the North East of England, however, by Metro FM Talk Show host Alan Robson, who for many years has used the second release of the record as the theme to the “North East Night Owls”.

Neither version of Little Plum have ever been released on CD or LP, meaning that the only way to get hold of the tune is to track down a copy of the 7″ single, which really isn’t easy!

Well, this’ll be my last posting on the subject of as I now have all three versions that I know about. The last one to enter the collection was the 1982 version…

It’s a much simpler arrangement than the later version, and after hearing it, I can see why this earlier recording was “abandoned” in favour of the later release. It’s… different, let’s just put it that way.

Some of the violin stuff from the 1982 version was used in the 1984 version. A certain section near the end of the 1982 recording matches up exactly with the 1984 intro. There’s a lot of processing on the later version, but it’s definitely the same bit.

Mere weeks after I got the first version, I did a search on ebay and found the 1982 French pressing…

Not only did it sound cleaner (less scratched) than my 1982 version, it had an infinitely more interesting sleeve.

I’m a bit upset that Darryl Way has completely disowned this song… as I mentioned before, none of the recordings have ever been released on CD, and Wikipedia doesn’t have an entry for it, though it is mentioned in his discography. Maybe it’s time I changed all that…

*UPDATE (the following afternoon)* Jesus, this was a terrible post. Don’t drink and blog.

Well, I have been summonsed by Glen Adrian of Obscureinternet (change your avatar, ffs!) to write a detailed review of my 30th birthday. I’ll start from the day, because it was a much better and more exciting day, for you see, I went bowling!

The first part of the day was spent watching stuff that had been collected on the Sky+. this involved several episodes of Countdown. Unfortunately, there wasn’t going to be a lot happening in the early part of this particular day, as the car was in the garage after it snapped a spring or something, thanks to the state of one of the local roads.

Onto the night, then. Plans had been made with most of the people from work to attend the bowling alley on Brenda Road. It was the first time I’d been bowling since November 2005

I arrived at approximately 7:30, to find that the place was absolutely packed, but I was the only one there out of the proposed group. Oh, great. Things start going through my mind, like “Am I on my own? Is anyone else turning up?” I decided to wait outside, just in case anyone was going to ring my mobile. It was noisy inside.

Thankfully, the cars did indeed start pulling up, and before long, we had a group of about 16 of us. Unfortunately, Tuesday is apparently semi-pro night, so we had to wait until about 9 before we got a game. The price was £3 for the hour. It closed at 10, so we’d just got in. It was at this point, I began to fling my camera around in the hope to catch some epic shots. Unfortunately, this failed miserably, though I did think Matt got a good strike here:-

Unfortunately after I got home and checked the video, he hit the rail first. So technically, it didn’t count.

I finished last, as you can probably gather, though I did manage a strike. I might have to start going there, if I can find someone to go along with. there’s no point playing on your own.

After the bowling, we made our way to Lloyds, in Church Square. And yes, I really did wear this shirt…

Some random barfly stated that I looked like Timmy Mallet. Out of all the times I’ve worn that shirt, it’s the closest I’ve ever gotten to a compliment. Unfortunatelty, there’s a button fallen off it, so that’ll give me an excuse to never, ever wear it in public again. Awww.

After sharing a jug of some odd drink bought by Matt (possibly to celebrate his non-strike), it was time for everyone to begin departing. Some people had work in the morning, and some people wanted to attend the Indian. Guess which category I fell into.

So, the initial group of 16 had dwindled down to 4, and we headed off to the Dilshad for a load of grub.

As usual, the meal was delicious, and just as we were finishing, the clock struck midnight. Yup, I was now 30 years old. Daddykins sent me a text.

The second person to wish me happy birthday was Wayne, at an impressive 2 minutes past midnight, though obviously I didn’t get it until I got home. His email made me quickly realise how much of my life had disappeared…

“You are now twice as old as you were when we had our first talk on CB”.

He was right. The CB days were now half my life ago!

The 4 of us finished our meals, and headed off home in our respective taxis, and a good night was had by all. Well, certainly by me, at least, and I made my way up the long, winding gravel driveway of Mercuryvapour Towers at 1:13.

And now, onto the day itself. It started off early, around 5AM. This was mainly because I could feel the vindaloo on the move, and it was only a matter of time before it was indaloo (actually, alloverdaloo would be a better description). So, I was wide awake after only 4 hours sleep, and with an arse like the flag of Japan. I logged onto Facebook, and watched the happy birthday messages scroll past. Thanks to all of you who left a message, and for those who tried to talk to me, Facebook Chat is being a tart at the moment, and although I can see who sent me a message, I can’t actually see it. I’ve gone back to an earlier release of Firefox. That might help it.

Anyway, the morning consisted of my usual “Woo! I’m off work!” ritual – lie on the sofa and watch “Homes Under The Hammer”, followed by “to Buy or Not To Buy”, then “Cash In The Attic” (as long as Jenny Sodding Bond isn’t presenting it), followed by “Bargain Hunt”. Andy The Iridium Fan popped round during the preceedings, and dropped off my birthday card. He stayed for a few hours, and was amazed to find that he also liked amplifying the ends of songs just to get every last note out of them. An “interest” of mine which I thought nobody else shared. A bit like streetlights. He also helped me dispose of the large boxes that Beastbits2 had came in.

ATIF stayed for 3 hours, 22 minutes and 45 seconds, and after that I began watching some more stuff that had accumulated on the Sky+. I was absolutely knackered, as I’d only managed a couple of hours sleep, and decided to go to bed “for an hour”. This was at 4PM. Next thing I know, it’s 10PM. I must have been more knackered than I thought. The day was finished off with the obligatory “few cans”, and I headed off to bed some time around 4ish.

So, that was the story of my first full day of being into my 4th decade. Not bad going considering I wasn’t actually going to blog about it. And now, I’m off to take photos of a pothole, or I might wait until the chippy is open, and kill two birds with one stone. Pothole photography and chips. Being 30 is AWESOME.

This time of year seems to come around too quickly. It is mere hours until this blog enters its ninth year, and as you’ve probably realised over these years, it’s also the time of year when I post the least. This is a combination of being insanely busy at Employment Palace, and the fact that nothing ever seems to happen in October. Ever.

But, it’s November now, and exactly a month before the conclusion of the “Before I’m 30″ section of the site. Ugh. Something did happen a couple of weeks ago, which I personally couldn’t believe, and it happened in Asda… I started blogging about it, but didn’t finish it, because I was so filled with rage, that if I’d have gone any further with it, I’d have smashed something…

I’ve truly had it with Asda. Today was the last straw, and I shall never step foot through the doors of their sorry organisation as long as I draw breath.

“Well, I’m not going to serve him either because I know he’s going to give them to you”…

That’s where I stopped typing! Needless to say, I walked out without the beer, and . Quite unbelievably, for anyone who knows me, I have stayed out of Asda since that incident, and now, I can’t see any reason to ever go back.

There WAS one reason. It was the only place I knew which stocked “Tymbark”. Now, I’ll not be surprised if you’ve never heard of it, as it’s Polish. That’s Polish, as in, it originates from Poland, and not the cleaning product. My dietary habits, no matter how bad they are, have yet to see me consuming Mr. Sheen. It is a fantastic blend of cherry and apple juice, which was stocked in Asda’s “Ethnic” aisle.

Whilst in Tesco the other day, I was delighted to find that they also stocked the very same product! Therefore, I officially have no reason to ever stagger through the doors of Asda again!

Right. Erm, that’s the first thing. I’ve actually forgotten the reason why I was going to write this post.