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.

Technorati Tags: asda, beer, bub, cherry coke, curry, Food, gary, haircut, hartlepool, indian, marina, sleep, sunset, utah saints, work

Well, it’s almost 11AM when I started typing this. I really should be sat at work, obeying the new rules of not allowing drinks of water at our desk, but thanks to a hasty shift swap, I don’t have to visit that place for another number of hours. And, that number is 3.

Soooo. By the title, you can guess I’ve spent the last few days taking photos. You’d be right.

On Wednesday, I went to the flea market. IT was a lovely day, yet desperately cold. I wrapped up warm, and headed into the land where CDs are cheap, and second hand underwear are aplenty. I didn’t bother getting any photos, as I already have one. Still I came back with a pile of CDs. One particualr stall were selling albums for 50p each. I had some of that, and I walked away with a handful. Total cost: £4.50. Beauty.

I bought another couple of CDs from another stall, for £2, meaning that I had £6.50 worth of music. Wooo.

It was then, and only then, that I realised, I didn’t actually have my bank card with me, therefore I’d spent what I really couldn’t afford. This cut the day short, naturally, and I headed home, clutching my Netto bag full of music.

Later on in the afternoon, Chris turned up. The day was still bright, if just a little bit chilly. I looked at my camera, looked at the sky outside, and thought “Bugger it, I’m off to take some photos” I donned my coat, and off we went, without any idea of where we were going to go.

Before long, we were heading towards Steetley.

We didn’t go there, however, and instead walked along Old Cemetary Road, and then the beach

Somthing which I wasn’t aware of, is that last year, in July, there was a new gun put in place on the seafront. Now, by “gun” I mean an ornamental gun, not a real one Amazingly, it’s been up for 6 months, and there’s not one sign on vandalism or damage.

Despite the biting wind and freezing cold temperature, I thought it would be a good idea to walk along the Heugh. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the layout and landmarks of this wonderful town, the Heugh is a breakwater, built over 200 years ago to stop the tidal surges from flooding the bay. Without it, the town would be a very different place.

IT was at this point, however, that the sun was beginning to go down, and the temperature to dip even lower, and the wind, coming directly off the sea didn’t help much. It did, however, make for a very nice photo opportunity.

Hartlepool’s very own working class hero “Andy Capp” also had a statue dedicated to him last year. I took photos back in June showing exactly where the statue was going to be, but he wasn’t there. Instead, there was simply just the paving around it, and some orange netting. Thankfully, this time he was there.

Apparently, you have to rub his head for good luck. I didn’t bother. So, we were at the furthest point away from Mercuryvapour Towers. The photo opportunities kept coming, and I kept taking them. After taking some photos of the fish sands, we were both starving. This meant two words. Verrill’s Chippy. I scraped together £2, and bought myself and Chris a bag of chips each, and we sat, in sub-zero temperatures, watching the sun go down. I was OK, but Chris was freezing. Therefore, we headed back to his house. Of course,a photo trip done by me cannot be complete without…

… a photo of a streetlight, or two.

Chris picked up his big jacket, and off we headed, back to Mercuryvapour Towers. in order to sort through and upload the photos. During that process Andrew D appeared, with another disk full of 400 photos, which have now been added to the gallery This takes the total to over 1,900…!

While he was here, I’d learned that Jeremy Beadle had died. I must have been one of the first sites to report this, seconds after posting, I had an influx of visitors, all searching for “Jeremy Beadle dead”…

Anyway, I added the pics, Andrew left, and me and Chris sat there for the rest of the night, deciding that many songs sound a lot better when you play them on a turntable at the wrong speed. If you want to view all of the photos, you can do so here

Chris left, and I fell asleep on the couch in front of what was on TV at the time.

Thursday was a staff night out. After the company “made a slight miscalculation” on the day we were meant to be getting paid, we thought that when we eventually did get paid, that it would be a good idea to go for a few drinks and an indian. Wild horses couldn’t keep me away.

8 of us turned up, which is a pretty good turnout. Of course, I had my camera with me, though there’s no point posting the pics from that, as flickr’s been blocked from work. Oops!

EIther way, that brings me up to date. It’s now just after 12PM, the snow is falling outside, though it doesn’t appear to be laying. Just in case it does, I have my camera recharged, and ready for some “soft white stuff action”. Ahem.

Technorati Tags: cds, flea market, flickr, gun, hartlepool, headland, indian, jeremy beadle, Music, photo, steetley, web stats

As I type this, it’s just coming up to 6:38AM in the morning I am up so early due to the fact that the second time in a few weeks, the neighbour to my right has had some type of party going on until at least 5 AM in the morning.

I woke up on the couch at about 4AM, with the sound of Madonna blasting out through my laptop speakers. Of course, I can’t blame my neighbour for that. It was at that point I decided to go to bed, as it was freezing cold. Off I crawled, up the dancers, and into my nice, warm bed. Aaaaaaaand then listened to the sodding noise coming from next door. Gah. I hoped it would quieten down, but in my own mind, knew it wouldn’t. And it didn’t. I laid there listening to someone cackling, and the voices of many people scattered around the house.

Sadly, of course, by the time I’d made my decision to return to the couch cluching my duvet and pillow, my mind was already swirling, too full of sadistic and violent thoughts to even contemplate getting to sleep. I currently have the fire on full blast in the vain hope that the intense heat and/or fumes will allow me to have at least another couple of hours. What this means is that I’ve got to do ALL of my Christmas shopping on three hours’ sleep. Oh, the thrill of it all.

On the subject of Christmas, I attended the lodge Christmas dinner last night. The first one I’ve been to for a couple of years, mainly due to the way my shift patterns worked out. This year, however, I managed to at least get to one. Needless to say, I took my camera.

It was located at the Hardwicke Hall, on the Blackhall to Heselden road. A place I’d seen, but never actually visited. It had received high recommendations from Chris’s dad, who used to receive bacon sandwiches from the owner.

We got picked up at around 6:30 PM on the coast road. Chris was going to meet us there, as his dad was giving him a lift up.

We entered a very cosy and welcoming reception area, complete with huge Christmas tree and roaring fire…

You’ll have to believe me when I say there was a roaring fire, as it was behind me when I took that photo. We were shown to the carvery, and our tables. Chris wasn’t “here” at this point, so we all chose seats, and there were a lot to choose from Provisionally, the lodge had booked 35 seats, but this number came down as the weeks passed by, and people dropped out for whatever reason, so the final total was probably closer to 15. However, it was still set out for 35 of us. Oh dear.

We sat, and examined the stuff on the tables. Of course, there was the obligatory Xmas cracker, bread roll, etc. along with “Rocket Balloons”. Bit of a strange thing to give, considering that the average age of the group was probably 50. The idea of them is that you inflate them (easier said than done), stick a plastic tube in the end and then let them go. Hilarity ensues, allegedly. Of course, it was much more fun to tie the ends up, and use them as weapons and/or phallic references.

Daddykins rang Chris to see if he was on his way. It turned out he was actually sat in the other room, and didn’t know we had turned up.

It was then to the bar, which served a fine selection of lagers, though at an expensive £2.80.

Clearly, I’m not waiting at the bar. In fact, I’m sat down taking what would be the first of many photographs of the evening.

Onto the meal, which started off with the starter, oddly enough. You could have a choice of what you wanted. I chose what was supposed to be vegetable soup, but instead was “Cream Of” something. I’m assuming this was mushroom, but I can’t be too sure, as I’d never had it before. It was piping hot, however, and enjoyable. The bread roll topped it off, however.

Up next was the main meal, which for me was the absolute highlight of the night. You could go and serve yourself, so I piled my plate, and dolloped on enough gravy to submerge a small town. Everything was cooked to perfection, even down to the roast beef, which was the best I’d had in years. Decades, maybe.

I skipped the sweet, as I was too full from the main meal. Now, it’s not very often I’ll type that in my life, I can tell you. The rest of the night was then handed over to the disco DJ for a few hours of christmas songs and more Tina Turner than it is safe to listen to in such a small space of time. Well, OK, he only played one Tina Turner song, which got one of the other parties into a frenzy of Tina Turner impressions, using salt pots as microphones. Why didn’t they just use one of the microphones hanging from the ceiling? Take a look at that picture above, with everyone waiting at the bar. Notice the microphone? There were two of them, the other one isn’t pictured.

I simply can’t think of any logical reason why they would be there, it’s still puzzling me now.

Unfortunately, the end of the night came all to soon, and we all headed home after what was a great night.

Technorati Tags: blackhall, christmas, Food, hardwicke hall, neighbours, night out, noise, roast beef, sleep (lack of), Socialising, xmas party

Well, thanks to everyone who turned up to my get together last night.

Both of you.

Despite my mass amount of texting and mass amount of spamming forums, I managed to get TWO people out. So, a personal thanks to Phil and Ian, to everyone else, well, thanks a lot.

It’s probably typical that I would take this lack of interest personally. Maybe I was just unlucky, and chose a weekend when everyone was busy, but maybe I didn’t. Maybe everyone read my text and thought that I wasn’t worthy of a night out.

Admittedly, even though there were only three of us, I must admit to having a good time, though I really would have liked to have seen more people out

Technorati Tags: Birthday, king johns, night out

Oh, okay, I’ve not had chance to write part 2 yet. Sorry. So, while I listen to the dulcet tones of Chrissie Hynde, I shall continue where I left off.

Now, where was I. Ah yes, predictably, I finished off with streetlights, and that’s where I shall continue.

This shitty, blurry image was an attempt to get a view of our hotel room from the outside. It’s the one with the light on, next to the “H” in “Royal British Hotel”. I know I failed miserably, but at that point I was too drunk to hold the camera straight.

We can’t have been out of the hotel more than 10 minutes. We returned, only to find that some dirty, horrible bastard had pissed in the lift within that time. What the hell? What’s worse is that you walk past toilets on your way to the lift. Ugh. How disgusting do you have to be? Well, I was disgusting enough to take a photo of it, as I couldn’t quite believe my eyes. The rest of the night is a blur, though I do remember spilling some lucosade all over the floor, and Chris’s monkey-shockingly expensive bottle of scotch being opened. I only had a small amount, and that was me for the night.

The next morning, I awoke, at precisely 4AM. It was foggy outside, yet the hotel room was far too hot for human inhabitation. I know we were only on the third floor, but it was clear that we were much closer to the sun. My mouth tasted like the bathroom, and the only thing I had to drink was luke-warm lucosade. Definitely not the ideal thing to have as a night-time drink. I knocked it back anyway, and instantly failed to get back to sleep for about 2 hours.

I played “Count the ceiling tiles”, as the room started to get lighter. This didn’t last long, as there weren’t any. As my body slowly started to dehydrate, it became apparent that I would need another drink. I floated to the bathroom, which thankfully didn’t smell like farts anymore, and got a drink of water. Unfortunately, I forgot that when you switched the light on in this particular hotel room, the hovercraft-like air conditioning came on too, so for the next 20 minutes, I was deafened by that. Eventually, I got back to sleep, and woke up to the sound of the alarm on my phone going off. For whatever reason, I’d set it to play “Little Plum” by Darryl Way - a song I have mentioned many times on here before. It’s not exactly the ideal music to play when you’re hung over.

Chris was apparently worse than me, as he didn’t get up for another half an hour, despite the fact I was already up and packing my things away, and taking more photos from the hotel room.

Eventually, we’d gained enough consciousness to go and get some supplies for the journey home. We avoided the lift, and took the stairs, which in parts, felt more like I was walking down a rollercoaster. There were more sodding market researchers outside of the hotel. This time, instead of striking up a pointless conversation, I simply glared and walked away.

Off I went, with a trumpety-trump, (I blame the Kroenenbourg) to the Sainsbury’s around the corner, to stock up on fluids. Amusingly, the bottles of Coke were cheaper than the bottles of water, so me and Chris got a coke each. Not a good idea though, as each drink I took fizzed up inside of me, and I felt like I was going to throw up. I should have thought with my brain and not with my wallet.

One the way back to the hotel for the final time, I got the camera out, and took a picture of “Ivanhoe”, the bar we’d spent most of the night in:

If you look carefully, you can see me in the window reflection.

We got to the hotel, and I threw my belongings in a bright orange carrier bag. It must have looked so attractive. Just as we were about to leave, Chris noticed one startling thing, we’d been sharing a chair which wouldn’t look out of place in Hitler’s bunker….

Creepy.

So, as we left Chairbbles behind (Oh, okay, that was supposed to be a pun on Goebbels, but it didn’t really work unless you say it out loud), and handed the room key in, we had the rest of the day to do whatever we wanted. We walked the full length of Princes Street, just to see what was at the other end. Nothing much. A few bars, and a Greggs….

Chris: “You know, Greggs haven’t done so bad for a company which started on peanuts…”
Me: “Oh, really? I thought they did pasties first…”

Edinburgh fell silent. A tumbleweed blew quietly down the street, a lone bell tolled in the distance…

We turned back, and decided to make our way towards Edinburgh castle. It shortly became apparent that we were going completely the wrong way. At this point, Daddykins texted me, asking if I was still in Edinburgh. It was then I remembered about the webcam.

It had always been my ambition to appear on a webcam somewhere far away, and have someone capture it for me. This ambition was about to be realised. I phoned my dad up, and he described a statue to me where the camera was pointing. It was odd. The camera kept changing angles about every minute or so, so we stood at the statue… eventually… “I can see you!” came out. I then gave him a brief description on how “Print Screen” works, and I hoped to god he’d get it right…

The result? Why, it’s this very picture I showed before…

Well done to those who spotted me, though it wasn’t difficult. I’m on the very bottom right of the picture. Chris is next to me, apparently waving. I love the internet.

It was still early, so we had a walk up to the castle, the correct way. It wasn’t as far away as it looked. We got there, and looked at the price board… Adult - £11

After a load of umming and erring (on my part), we went in. After all, £11 was the cost of 2 rounds in Ivanhoe’s.

I’m glad we went in, however, as we stayed for a couple of hours, it was actually really good. As expected, you get some stunning views from there, which I took photos of.

I won’t post them here though, as I’m sure you’re sick of looking at them. If not, you can take a look at the entire list of photos here. 142 of them, to be precise.

At that point, it was starting to get a bit late, so we headed off to the station, to catch the train back to Durham. The final dent in my wallet involved a sausage roll, which cost me… wait for it… £1.90. Admittedly, it was huge, and I struggled to finish it, but still. I laughed at the sign which read “If you don’t get a receipt, your order is free”. Clearly, what I should have done there, is give the woman behind the counter the exact money, run off before she has the chance to print the receipt, then return 5 minutes later and ask for my money back. Tsk, hindsight is a wonderful thing.

As we waited for the train, I spent most of the time staring at a large video wall showing Sky News. Well, a cut-down, computer-generated version of Sky News. It would show a headline, followed by an advert or two, then show another headline, and so on. Occasionally, an advert wouldn’t “load” and you’d be left with a blank screen for a minute or so.

The train pulled up, and we got on board. Every bloody seat was reserved. What the hell?

We ended up standing at the end of the carriage, next to the toilet. After the 16th person asked us if we were in the queue for the bog, we gave up and just sat in some reserved seats until we were kicked out of them. Luckily, we weren’t. The next two hours were spent looking out of the window, hoping that the ticket inspector didn’t notice.

Amusingly, the journey started exactly as it began. The woman in front of us had picked up the “wrong” tickets, though unlike Grizelda, the inspector still allowed her to travel without penalty. Awww.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, concludes my two days in Edinburgh. There’s probably loads more I’ve missed out. In all, it’s probably taken 6 hours to type all of this.

To answer the comments…

DTL: alas, no, I didn’t meet Lister, our old #speccy chum. Though it did cross my mind that I may have walked past him at some point.

Dave Hara: Here it is, hope you enjoyed it.

Jim: You’re welcome to him, he’s great, isn’t he?

Technorati Tags: chris, comments, drank, drink, drunk, edinburgh, flcikr, holiday, Photos, scotland