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

And, just to prove it, here’s me and Chris on the Princes Street webcam

More on this later.

Technorati Tags: chris, edinburgh, holiday, scotland, Webcam

Due to popular demand (ha!), I’ve resurrected the webcam, and is currently hosted on this site here. It’s pointing at the crane out of the window currently, as I’m working nights, and really don’t feel awake enough to be in front of it today.

I’ve also updated the missing two weeks of webstats, as they’re pretty amusing.

Technorati Tags: crane, Webcam, webstats

Well, it’s became clear that I’ve neglected this for a few weeks. Sorry about that, I’ve been busy with other “projects” on and off the web. the first thing you will notice is that the webcam no longer works. This means that yes, sadly, and at the age of 5, I’ve had to “put down” Bungle, the Linux webserver which hosted scribcam.co.uk. There’s a temporary page on the machine which now goes to another machine on the network. I doubt this time the webcam will ever come back in its current form.

This is partly due to the fact I no longer really need a secondary server. And even if I did, there’s no saying how secure it is, and even if it IS secure, how long it’s going to stay like that. The main reason I killed it off is that I’ve invested money in a router, which means there was no need to have the linux box running 24/7 anyway. It was never going to last much longer anyway, as it crashed about every week or so, and it would wake me up occasionally in the middle of the night with the sound of hard drive failure… (clunk… clack). My room is silent now. In fact it’s so quiet, the sound of next door’s immersion heater filling up actually woke me up earlier today.

Anyway, I’m all boring you now, let’s move on.

One of the biggest (literally) changes around here is the addition of a crane out of the back of Mercuryvapour Towers. And I’m talking cranes of the steel variety, and not the feathered kind… although seeing one of those would probably justify a thirteen page blog in itself. For those who have been keeping up with the photos I post on Flickr, you’ll notice I’ve posted more than a few photos featuring said crane. This one has to be my favourite, despite its blurryness…

Although it’s not switched on in that photo, there’s a big white lamp which shines directly in my room from it. Alas, it’s only Metal Halide, and not mercuryvapour, otherwise I’d have posted about it a hell of a lot sooner, as you can imagine. Remember how nuts I went when I found The ex-Queens site was lit by mercury vapour lights? You don’t? Oh, well, you can refresh your memory here. But make sure you read the rest of this post first, as I’m not typing it for the good of my health… or maybe I am, it’s hard to tell…

(Edit, I fixed the broken image in 2008. Apparently nobody noticed)

Technorati Tags: bungle, computer, crane, dusk, fixed image, Linux

Finally, after over 2 years of threatening it, I’ve actually got round to applying for a passport. It wasn’t fun.

Getting the forms was the easiest part…. I walk into the post office…. “Can I have two passport applications, please?” I said two, because I was bound to fuck one up. I was presented with two envelopes, chock full of text and legal mumbo-jumbo. There was also the obligatory “This is what your passport photo should look like” Do’s and dont’s. If only I’d have read them fully.

Either way, Woolworths had undergone a 24-hour change, and despite the fact they had numerous copies of the Pretenders - Singles (as well as other cheapo CD’s, they had all been replaced by cheap box-set collections.

After spending another £5.98 on a CD (well, 4 CD’s) and more than enough on assorted frozen foods, we headed to Asda. They had a photo booth. The price of said “high tech” contraption was £3.50 (referred from now on as “Tree Fiddy”).

So that’s Tree Fiddy for 4 passport sized photos and a larger one. I entered the booth and inserted my Tree Fiddy into the machine. A calming voice talked me through the procedure, but didn’t inform me of the passport rules.

After 90 seconds I was presented with 4 teeny photos, and another larger photo.

I endured the horror of having to look at my photo as we drove home. The journey home was slightly more amusing…. according to one of the posts advertising a new retail park, someone called “Tiff” alledgedly “shits herself”.

So now we know. Unfortuately, seconds after returning home, I dig through my numerous passport forms, and read them. Instantly, I notice that my photos, worth Tree Fiddy, were completely useless. My glasses had covered up my eyes. That wasn’t acceptable. FOR FUCK’S SAKE.

We returned to Asda, I got another, more legible set of photos for Tree Fiddy, and we returned home. So, that was Tree Fiddy times two spent on photos. Seven Pounds, in English money. Seven fucking pounds. Either way, the whole lot is in the post, and is undergoing scrutiny by taxpayers, such as myself. I think. So, for now, the matter is closed until I receive a parcel including a passport, or a letter saying that they don’t think I’m who I say I am….

Moving on swiftly, Coatesy sent me an image with some ghostly goings on while my webcam was pointing out of the window….

Indeed, it is strange. At first I thought it was just the washing. Secondly, I thought it was my dad letting the dogs out. But it doesn’t look like either….

Anyway, onto a comment reply from Ricky, aka Chad, who left a comment on the previous post (which was totally unrelated to it)… for the first time ever, I shall switch to… er, 2nd person mode; the following is directed at Chad, as I’m not sure if the email address he provided is genuine. I replied to it a few days ago, with no response. Git.

What has changed in the street in the last 6/7 years?

Pretty much everything. Eddie Harrison died in 2001, or something like that. Peter, who you will remember had the crap fake double exhaust (another one of the things I still laugh about now was the time you stuck an empty toilet roll tube onto the top of it) now lives there. Both his and his mothers garden were dug up 2 years ago, and now are one long driveway to store their multiple cars. He now has multiple children.

The streetlight was replaced in 2002, and a totally new one was put up in 2004, so there are now 2.

Of course, not that it makes any difference to anything at all, but I just had to make sure I got the streetlight change in there somewhere.

The wheelchair ramp outside of your house has now gone - it was only demolished a couple of months ago.

“Briggsy” died about 2 years ago too. I remember the time I kicked him in the kneecap as hard as I could because he got water on my shirt, and my nanna was watching.

Mrs Ringwood died about 18 months ago.

Reading your comments jogged my memory of some things………

Soccer Boss,

Amusingly, and coincidentally, I happened to be playing this a couple of days ago. I still go back to it every now and then, thanks to the amazing wonderment of ZX Spectrum Emulation. For the first time, just the other day, I managed to win the FA Cup in it. And you know what you get for that? Sod all. That’s what.

We used to spend absolute hours playing that, despite it being blaringly simple. Why was it though, that “JAMIE” was the player who always accidentally got transferred, top goalscorer or not??

the day that Alsation jumped against the fence while you were sniffing the fence, resulting in aforementioned fence hitting you in the face,(not fun for you, but how many times am I ever going to see such a bizarre event,I guess 15 years have passed and nothing remotely similar as happened)

I wasn’t sniffing the fence, I think I was trying to peer over it to see if they’d finished building their pond. Or seeing if a tennis ball was still in their pond. Or something. I seem to remember it was pond related, and nothing to do with boundary inhalation.

playing hide and seek, or cricket constantly,

Yes, that was good fun. The “stumps” which were a pile of bricks sprayed around with silver paint, are still visible, but the people who live there now have stuff in the way.

Don’t forget “grasscutters” and my ability to get out first ball almost every time.

The pantry window, which I remember you breaking, has now been bricked up.

As for Hide ‘n’ Seek, many fond memories. Far too many back gardens to hide in. There was the old “Block” rule, which meant you could run to the “base” to “block” yourself. There was the time you stopped me from blocking myself by stopping me running through Barry’s alley. The scream I let out was so loud, 4 people came out of their house because they thought I’d hurt myself.

Don’t forget “Leo”, which was a cross between tiggy and hide ‘n’ seek, which took up pretty much the whole estate. Seeing I wasn’t allowed out of the square, I never got to play it much. The first time I was allowed past the front gate was the time we played Marbles on your grate.

chess club,

Chess Club was one of those great Saturday Morning social events which will always go down in memory as being pretty enjoyable, despite the fact at the time I was especially crap at Chess. I especially liked the little cartons of Five Alive juice you got, and some mysterious brand of crisps which I can’t for the life of me remember.

your house’s never ending supply of pop and sweets,

Ah yes. These were kindly provided by the green “Everest” van which used to visit the square every Saturday afternoon. I loved their Raspberryade, limeade and pineappleade. There was another pop delivery service which I think only Mary out of number 8 used to get. I think it was Alpine?

“Willy” breeding pigeons (one of the weirder things for certain,)

Yeah, that seemed to come from nowhere. It mainly started the instant he started seniors. You may, or may not recall that the day me and “Willy” started at Henry’s was 3rd September 1991, Scott’s 13th Birthday.

After School, Scott gave me a battered old golf ball he used to practise with. I still have it somewhere. I remember running up and down the square bouncing it.

On that very evening, we were to attend the very first footy match I’d been to in my entire life. In order to allow me to go, you (or someone) had to go and convince my mother that Darren’s dad was going. He did, but he wasn’t going to walk us back. But, of course, my mother never knew that. And she never found out.

On the way there, you went into the bakers, and bought a toilet roll to throw onto the pitch if and when we scored. As we entered the ground, The Shadows were playing over the PA system. Something else to note is that this was the first match after Cyril Knowles died of a brain tumour, and so there was a minute’s silence.

Either way, we did score, and we beat Brentford 1-0. As the goal went in, there was a surge forward, and I remember getting crushed and found it difficult to breathe for a bit. At the end of the match, I jumped over the wall, and got my foot caught in the goal netting. It was the diamond shaped netting too, which you don’t see anymore. How strange that I remember all this.

So, that was September 3rd, 1991. Of course, I’m sure you’re shouting at your monitor, “But Jamie, what about September 3rd 2004? Surely you remember that!” Indeed I do, for it was the say that Saif Saaeed Shaheen of Qatar (formerly Stephen Cherono of Kenya) broke the world record for the 3000 metres steeplechase, at the Memorial Van Damme meeting in Brussels, with a time of 7:53.63.

Of course, mentioning that also opens up the floodgates for hundreds more embarrasing stories, but I’ll save those for another day.

There was, of course the “olympics”, where the prizes ranged from Gold, Silver, Bronze, to a Jim’ll Fix It Badge. The Olympics seemed to run every week, and included challenges such as running up and down the square many times, with me inevitably finishing last. Occasionally, we would use the front garden as a hurdles race, as the hedges in our front garden were almost short enough to jump over.

Eventually, the hedges ended up totally destroyed, with at least two huge holes through them.

the day you were sniffing grass, only to be told that it had weedkiller on it and the look of sheer terror on your face when informed,

I think I was sniffing the clovers growing in Liz’s garden, as clovers have a nice, summery smell. Well, to me, anyway. I also remember my utter trauma, and the fact I thought I was about to die, instantly, on the spot.

And the fact that you remember this makes me die a little inside……

And then we all grew up, feel free to share my embarassing moments, would be nice to be reminded.

I used to pester you to copy games onto my Yashima cassettes that smelt of cheese, but you wouldn’t because you said they were too cheap.

You also defaced my copy of “Now 20″ by recording about 30 seconds of “Grease” over the first track (”Dizzy”, by Vic Reeves). You said it was an accident. It clearly wasn’t. But I had that (and still have) on single anyway, so I didn’t mind! Despite the fact this was the last album I recieved before my mother died.

Your music taste at the time is something I still follow to this day. No, seriously. You had Tubular Bells II on tape until your aincient tape deck ate it. I’m listening to it now. It’s by far one of my favourite albums.

I was there when your “Grease” tape also got eaten. I couldn’t help but feel that justice was done considering you defaced my Now 20 album….!

And what was with that huge blue/grey “joystick” you used to have? The Quickshot Joyball or something.

I’m sure there are a load more.

Dude, what was with the whole sniffing thing??

Dunno. I was a kid. And “Dude????” Which part of the 1990’s are they living in over there?

Technorati Tags: chad phillips, graffiti, memories, passport, photo, Reminiscing, tiff