Author: MercuryVapour

I'm a man of few words. Any questions?

Simply The Best… SOUTH CLEVELAND GARAGES!

There are some things about living in Britain that are written into unofficial law. Firstly, if someone drops a glass in a pub, you have to all go “waaaaay”. Secondly, if the weather is anything slightly different than overcast drizzle, you either have to post on Facebook about it, or make generic small-talk to everyone around you.

Thirdly, if you’re from the north east, specifically Teesside, and of a certain age group… Let’s say 35+ at the time of typing, there is one specific unwritten rule that stands to this day.

Whenever “The Best” by Tina Turner comes on the radio, you have to add lyrics. And it goes something like this.

“You’re simply the best…. SOUTH CLEVELAND GARAGES!”

There are clips of nightclubs erupting into song whenever this came on. When the Premier League Darts came to Newcastle, and Mensur Sulevik walked on, a large portion of the crowd also erupted into song.

Anyway, apparently, this particular jingle has been hard to find. And because I’ve typed all of this, you’e already worked out that I’ve found a copy within my own tapes. Therefore, I shall not detay you any longer. Here’s a copy of the advert from around 1999/2000.

It’s funny how just one jingle is probably more fondly remembered than what is on the rest of the tape. For instance, the next song on the tape is “Radio” by The Corrs. I wonder how many people wake up at 4AM in the morning with that going through their head on infinite loop? Nobody. Yet, I’m sure, at some point today, that “The Best” will get played somewhere in Middlesbrough, and 90% of the listenership will add “South Cleveland Garages”.

Also, did you know that “The Best” wss originally sung by Bonnie Tyler?

A new version – PiMiga 5!

You may remember that in my A1200 post, I mentioned that I’d been testing out PiMiga. I say testing, as I knew that a new version was due before Xmas. True to the author’s word, version 5 ‘landed’ on December 23rd 2025. Now, because there are unscrupulous sites out there that try to sell you it, if you try to search for it, the link is buried within pages of crap, and reddit posts asking where the latest version is.

In the vain hope my little website pushes the original page up the rankings a bit, here’s the link to the Youtube announcement post and the place where you can download the appropriate torrent for your hardware. As before, you need to provide your own Amiga Kickstart ROM, but if you’ve read this far, I’m sure you’ve got the technical ability to do this. I don’t own the copyright, so please don’t ask me.

Earlier today I rished out and picked up a 256Gb MicroSD card, and at the time of typing, I’m flashing the image to this, so can’t comment on anything I find, but I might post my findings, or even do a capture or something.

I’m sure though, the first thing I’ll be doing is dropping to a console and doing “sudo passwd” or whatever it is. Ooo, the card has finished flashing (tee hee), so here goes nothing…

the test, for me at least, to see if these things go successfully is to load up ‘Arcade Pool’. Of course, this has it in its list of supported games, and yep, it works perfectly.

I did, of course, win the test game against the computer, but I didn’t take a screenshot of that. One thing I did take a screetshot is the desktop, and its stunning backdrops…

My not-far-off-50 year old eyes don’t think much of that resolution, but I’m sure after I’ve had a bit of a play, I can adjust it to something more readable.

Unlike the previous installation, this new one appears to be running Raspbian as its OS, so it was a breeze to actually update / upgrade the base OS to the latest version. The default setting, however, is for English (US), so the timezone and keyboard are all wrong. 10 seconds and a reboot later, it was all set up. In fact, it probably took me long enough to type this than it did to actually get that sorted.

Anyhoo, I shall continue to have a play.

King’s Lynn Day 3 – Ely and Cambridge (I finally published it!)

Yes, yes, I’m fully aware that it’s been over 8 months since the few days away. As I mentioned, things have not been great, and I just haven’t had the motivation to put the final touches of this together. As it seems a bit of a waste to type it, take photos and not actually publish anything, I’m doing it now. You’ll just have to imagine this was back in April. Or something. It’s probably not up to my usual quality of writing (so even more crap than usual then? – Ed). Shut up. anyhoo, “enjoy”

The second of our two full days began in pretty much the same way Day 1 started, with me wandering around King’s Lynn for a bit. I had intentions of going back and visiting that record shop I mentioned, but I discovered that King’s Lynn actually had a port, and a few fishing boats too. Turns out it’s a nice little walk along the riverside. At some point, someone in a car went past blasting “21st Century” by Weekend Players. I haven’t heard that song for years, and now it’s going to be my lasting memory of this song. Probably.

Sadly, the afore-mentioned record shop totally slipped my mind, and I never went back. A shame, as I’m sure I’d have got some good stuff in there. I did, of course, have a look around the charity shops again. I truly can’t believe I took a photo of this and didn’t buy it… a board game based on the 1980s quiz show, ‘Connections’ hosted by Sue Robbie.

I headed back to the hotel, and met up with Chris again. After nipping out and getting some breakfast, I popped today’s location into the “satnav”, a.k.a. Google Maps on my phone. We jumped into the car, drove off and watched in horror as the damn “Satnav” took us through pretty much every council estate that King’s Lynn would have to offer. Eventually, we found our way back onto the main roads, and off we went to our first destination

Ely would be our first stop of the day. An interesting fact about Ely is that it’s England’s smallest city, and yep, it feels much more like a small market town than a city.


Of course, there’s a cathedral so we went in. Very pretty it is too.

Charity shop-wise, they’re pretty much all on the one long street down the side of the cathedral. It goes without saying that I picked a few CDs up.

Considering this was early April, the weather was glorious. I was the only person walking around in a t-shirt. I think all of the locals could tell I was from “up north”.

We left Ely and headed off to the 2nd stop of the day… Cambridge. This was probably going to be the biggest city on our stop and oh boy, did we have fun with the one-way system. Sadly, by the time I published this, the Google Maps app has purged the history from this day so I can’t provide a screenshot as I originally intended!

Our first stop was to a shopping complex. At the time of typing, I can’t remember the name of it, but it appeared to be the “low end” shopping precinct. An abandoned shopping centre lay at the heart of this development, and a long L-shaped road housed the rest of the low-end shops. Normally, I’d be excited at the thought of two entire rows on charity shops in a day, but these were, to say the least, terrible. No other way to put it. We were both left with a slight sense of shock. That can’t be all there was to Cambridge surely?

We jumped back in the car, and after getting lost around the one-way system, we found a car park disguised as an office block. I think the signposts might need to be improved for that one. Mind you, it had just been built, and we saw a bit of Cambridge we wouldn’t have seen otherwise, so that was nice. I don’t think Chris saw it like that.

It reminded me very much of York, but much bigger. There were even parts of it I’d only seen in photos, and I never thought I’d get to see in the flesh.


Yup, Richardson Candles! Back in the day these would have ran several fluorescent tubes, but I assume these will have been retrofitted to run LED by now.

I did like Cambridge. It’s a pretty place, plenty to see.



It’s definitely one of those places where you need more than a couple of hours there. Chris bought some weird sweets while we were there. The name escapes me, seeing as it’s been a few months now, but I think they were called ‘School Chalks’ or something? A chalky substance on the outside, and a bit of liquorice in the middle. Interesting. Apparently, there are only certain places you can get them. They were like those torpedo sweets you can get everywhere, but the outer was nicer, and it didn’t appear to be that awful synthetic licorice that’s everywhere.

Oh yes. One other thing about Cambridge, every railing has a poster tied to it. Whether it’s a work of art, or whether it’s advertising something, they’are absolutely everywhere. Maybe it’s a student thing, but not a single one was of any relevance to me. I didn’t see a single record fair mentioned

One thing that was of absolute relevance to me, was the sight of a Popeyes.

My absolute favourite fast food place. As we had already planned to have our final Indian on the night, we hgave it a miss, but it was nice to see another one in the wild, they’re extremely rare here in the UK.

Our all-too-short itme in Cambridge ws over, and we headed back along the 50-mile journey back to King’s Lynn. A quick nip into the hotel for a change of clothes, ard we were back out. One last beer-me-do in the Nip + Growler ALe House… well, actually, it was two, because our exit was blocked by a duck.

It was time for one last curry. Off we went back to Rajasthan, this time I got a Jalfrezi, and just like the previous night, it ws excellent.

I was really going to miss this place.

There was a day four, the journey home, but it never got written. It was the journey hope, which involved a trip to Boston (that was great, except for the traffic), S;eaford (it was shut), and the Lidl in Norton)

So this is Christmas…

And what have you done? I’ve recycled an intro for a blog I probably wrote 25 years ago.Firstly, I’d like to wish both of my readers a happy Christmas, and I hope that the year just gone has been better for you than it has me.

Here’s to a better and prosperous 2026!

Oh, I do have several posts from 2025 that never made it to your screens, such as Day 3 of the Kings Lynn trip, and the 2nd trip to London in October… 54 days, in fact. I know this because I put a pokemon in a gym on the way down, and it’s STILL there.. Um. Anyway. May the fat man come down your chimney and bring you everything you wanted.

So, 25 years then.

Yup, as you read this (probably not, as nobody reads this anymore!) but right now, is 25 years since I first published my blog. November 4th 200, at 6PM was the vwery first time I pressed “publish”.

Nowadays, everything is run a lot differently who what it was back then. Back then, I used a service called “Blogger”. Back then, very few blogging platforms even existed. When I started, I was probably one of the first, and everything was hosted off static web pages. Blogger took all of the effort out of creating pages. As long as you had a website with FTP access, you gave it the details, chose a template, typed your post, pressed submit, and it did all the boring stuff for you. Generated the page, all of the backwards and forwards links, even the archives too.

Eventually, Blogger went, because I purchased this domain name. Not sure how long ago now, but it was certainly after the first few months of the blog. WordPress got installed, and I’ve used every version since.

I was going to go through the highlights. I’m sure there are some.The write of the “You Bet!” theme commenting on here. That’s one. Those few months where I was inadvertantly #1 result for a certain runner relieving herself during a marathon. Low sides which I’ll not get into, but these last 25 years have been a rollercoaster. A flat, steady rollercoaster, which only goes downhill the more you read it.

Back then, I posted everything on here. Nowaways, I’m a lot more security conscious, and have moved the emphasis from stuff about my everyday life and instead focus on other things such as my interests. Adulting takes up a lot of my time now, as well as collecting music, which is why the blog has taken a back seat in recent years, but rest assured, it’s not going anywhere, and you never know, it might even be here in 25 years time! Here’s to 25 more!

(Edit: Proof reading clearly doesn’t take up much of my time, clearly!)

The NEW A1200!

UPDATE: December 2025 Well, I’ve decided I’m pretty much lukewarm to this below. Assuming you’re happy with a bit of Linuxy stuff and you’re happy to provide your own ROM image, you can do something much better, cheaper and infinitely more useable with a Raspberry Pi and a copy of PiMiga). Caveat: Do your own research.

I’m typing this, and I can hardly contain my excitement except knowing about it for months. Yes, the world is about to be introduced to ‘The A1200’. the follow-up to “The A500” Retro gaming… thing.

Many of you know that I;m a fan of the Commodore Amiga. The whole existence of this post should tell you that. I’m even typing this on an Amiga branded keyboard. Instead of going into great detail, I’ll just link back to my old posts, of which there are several. If you want to read them again, then knock yourself out.

My love affair with the Amiga started in Xmas 1993 when Santa somehow managed to get one down our tiny little chimney. It survived my teenage years, and even got upgraded with a hard drive and memory expansion. It became the most important Xmas present I ever received. I even did some programming, with some of my stuff even surviving on Aminet to this day.

While the PC clearly became my machine of choice growing up through the years, and even providing technical support for some really rather major game companies, the Amiga really never left my mind. even managing to get it hooked up and talking to my PC way back in 2001..

Unfortunately, as can be seen in the Xmas post above, my Amiga is faulty. It’ll either crash on boot up with a ROM error (red screen) and/or a corrupted screen. It’s probably beyond saving.

Fast forward to 2021. I rescued my Amiga hard drive (Part 1) (Part 2) and I even went on to buy a Greaseweazle to rescue hundreds of floppy disks.

In 2022, I bought The A500. My main thought was, back in the day, that while it had everything else spot-on, the keyboard being just a single block of plastic and merely there for show, seemed a bit of an annoyance. Sure, you could stick a PC keyboard up it, and , but it was always just another thing that needed to be plugged in.. And, while it’s actually here on my desk, I don’t use it that often.

Over the recent years, there’s been a resurgence in full-size devices. I have a “The Spectrum” with a fully working keyboard, which I love, and a “The C64”. I’ve yet to even unbox that, despite having it for about 5 months. Bloody real-life getting in the way.

Next in the line, and the whole point of this post is… The A1200! yes, a full sized A1200, with working keyboard. Preorders for it start on November 10th, and although the price tag is going to be nearer £200 than I’d actually like, to be able to just use an Amiga straight out of the box without having to fiddle around with external keyboards will probably bring a tear to my nostalgic eye.

Now, with this not even reaching preorder stage, I can’t tell you a lot about it, certainly nothing that has already been said, but here’s what I think is going to happen.

The innards. It’s going to be the same, or as near as matters, to the ‘The A500’. An ARM based emulation board, everything spun onto one chip. The previous machine did emulate the Amiga A1200, so I can’t see the hardware needing to be too different.

ROMs. No, not talking about games, but the actual system ROM. I can’t remember if ‘The A500’ had stock Amiga ROMs or if they were modified in any way, due to copyright/licensing. I know ‘The Spectrum’ has a custom ROM, and while 99% perfect, some games misbehave unless you have the original Sinclair ROMs available.

It’s going to be built as a retro gaming accessory, so some of the things I’d like to see are probably out of the question. Personally, a real-time clock and the ability to access hard drive images would be a dream, but probably beyond the scope of something that’s going to be eventually sold in toy shops.

As I mentioned, I’ll be preordering, then following the progress closely. I’m sure every retro gaming site on the planet comes out with the news before I will, but I’m sure it’ll give me something to type about.

For those interested, or wondering, yes, I have typed the King’s Lynn trip, but due to real life getting in the way over the last few months, I’ve never really finished it to the standard that I liked. I may return to it some day, but i also want to start typing about other stuff again. I’ve got a while stack of unsigned music I’d like to also reply to the ones I’ve featured who got back to me, and I never replied…

Life. Tsk.