MercuryVapour

A weekend in York (Day 1)

You know, it seems sometimes all I post about on here is Amiga stuff and charity shops. It’s pretty much what my life has became recently. Sometimes I do leave the house, and this time it was for a mooch around York. Well, yes, there were charity shops involved, but there was other stuff too.

In early July, Martlepool hosted a leg of the Tall Ships race. It’s something that has happened before, way back in 2010. Sadly, I wasn’t able to attend much of those festivities thanks to work commitments. this time, 13 years later, I avoided it through coice. This time, it promised absolute carnage for the lovely little fishing village of Hartlepool. Chris, who you may remember from many blogs previously, lives in an area of the ‘village’ affected by the traffic measures, so he decided to get out of the way for a few days, and head to Leeds and York, instead of having to fight the council for a parking permit. Plans were made for me to join him half way through this trip. I said I’d get the train down on the Saturday, meet up with him and stay overnight, and come back with him on the Sunday. Of course, there was possible “industrial action” on the train to worry about. Would I actually make it down?

I booked the ticket the week previously. I was surprised just how easy it was. I’ve never actually ordered tickets on my phone before. Despite my technical knowledge, I can’t help but think that paper tickets, or having some physical representation of a ticket is the best way to go. Anyway, no sooner had I paid, it got put into my “online wallet”, and I was all set. I was genuinely amazed at how simple it went.

Anyway, as mentioned. There were train strikes, and that was my worry. This particular train company didn’t have the greatest reputation when it comes to reliability. I’d have thought that any excuse to cancel a train, they’d be all over it. Anyway, I awoke early on the Saturday, still expecting to read my phone and find that the train had been cancelled. Amazingly, this never happened. I arrived at the station to find the board was still showing it was turning up. While in the waiting room, the guy next to me ran out without his phone charger. Amusingly, I’ve known the person who I spoke to for about 30 years, I’d totally forgotten he’s worked there, and to complete the circle of life, he still has some Amiga disks with my handwriting on. If only Elton John and Tim Rice were in the vacinity. I do wonder if this guy ever collected his phone charger.

This particular train company was even a guy walking up and down the platform showing people where to stand to get onto the right carriage. Never had that service before, so this was my position while I waited…

The eagle-eyed amongst you may have noticed that the other platorm (which was supposed to be ready in time for the Tall Ships) is still out of bounds. There’s now a bridge connecting both platforms, but it’s not ready yet, and there’s no canopies or lighting installed on that side.

Anyway, I successfully boarded the train, and took in the sights of Teesside and Yorkshire, as the bone rattler wound its way through many little villages and towns.

An hour or so later, I was in York., and I was taking in the sights and sounds… of a place I’d been to about 60 times before, but I still can’t help busting the camera out.

That last one is of “Grape Lane”. A street that has had a slightly different name in times of yore. I’ll leave you, the viewer to find out what that is.

As menitoned previously, I hit the charity shops. And by golly, did I find some classic tat in there…

At some point during the “Wayne King” record, and the Metrocentre postcard, Chris met up with me. Of course, we had a mooch around a few more shops (many of them may, or may not have been of the charity variety), before the weather started to turn. It was raining. Not much, but enough to think “Oh, there’s a microbrewery. Let’s have a sneaky pint”. And so, that’s exactly what we did.

I love that little ornament of the eagle, and his little hat made out of beermats. Sadly, I doubt he was for sale, so that photo will have to do.

Sadly, the rain kept up, so I didn’t get many more photos. Instead we headed off to Drake’s for some chips. Seems everyone had that same idea, because it seemed like the world’s longest wait for two portions of curry and chips. They weren’t bad, I guess, but could have done without the wait!

With the charity shops plundered and time getting on, we headed off to the B+B. And what a nice little place it was, about half a mile away from the city centre.

Sadly, I didn’t really get a decent photo of the size of the room, but Chris had that big bed, and I had my own bed, right next to the open window. This would become beneficial later on.

Shortly after, we went out to the first of the pubs we’d passed on the way.

A nice little place. I think I had a pint of something called “White Rat”. It was nice whatever it was. We stopped at another place. The “Royal Oak”. I think we had one or two in there, and then decided to go for the most predictable part of the night… an Indian! I’m guessing it must have only been about 6PM at that point. Turns out this was the best decision of the day. We entered, asked for a table, the guy shuffled his papers for what seemed like an age, and then ushered us to a table. It was right near the door. this meant that we could hear everyone that came in. “Sorry, we’re fully booked until 9:30”. Ha! We’d just got the last table, and it was lovely. Not quite as nice as the one in Macclesfield, but it was certainly enjoyable, and the fact we were the last ones to get an unbooked table just added that little extra spice to it all.

No trip to York is complete without a stop in the “Three Legged Mare”. One of my favourite haunts in York Something interesting always happens.

We’d grabbed a seat right at the front. Little did we know that there was going to be a band/duo on, until they turned up with all of their equipment.

I must admit, I wish I could remember their names, because they were bloody good.

I’m bound to find out, and I’ll update when I do.

We began to head back relatively early. Chris wasn’t sure what time the B+B closed its doors, so we were back by 10.

About 10 minutes after getting back, we opened the window and found out that our timing was, once again, impeccable. We looked out, and there was a thunderstorm going on outside. I think we spent the next two hours or so discussing which presenter was at the centre of the latest BBC shenannegans. Turns out my guess was completely wrong.

Eventually, I drifted off to sleep, with the sound of the rain and thunder being a perfect white noise generator. Day 2, the journey home, should be fun.

Eurosong Fever 2023!

UPDATE: A server move has corrupted this post somewhat – the encoding has changed the foreign characters to a bunch of symbols…. grrr. One day I might fix it. Probably not.)

Oh yes. It’s that time of year again. It’s Eurovision 2023! Join me, as I go through the runners and riders, criticise their songs, and generally make fun of the entire thing. It’s going to be great! Now, this is going to be in realtime, so please refresh this page (F5) to get the latest version.

Right, so it’s started now. And it all starts off with a “special” version of last years’ Ukraine entry. Some video inserts, and now they’re ‘performing’ it live at the venue. I wonder how long it’s going to go on for, because so far it’s felt like 2 hours, and we’ve not even started yet. Oh, there’s a flag parade. I think this might be the best time for me to go and get some beer.

Austria: Teya & Salena – Who The Hell Is Edgar?

Oh god, yeah, this one is going to do well. It was in the semi-finals and everyone loved it. Po po po po pooooo. I remember quite liking it. I think it’ll do well because it’s pretty damn catchy. Will it win? Never more. Not sure what that whole 0.003 bit was about.

Portugal: Mimicat – Ai CoraÃ§Ã£o.

No song has won from position number two. this one starts off like “I Will Survive”. I remember this one sort-of having a Tetris vibe to it. I didn’t think it’d get through to the final, but it did, despite some of the much better numbers such as Ireland going home. That was a surprise. Below is the running order, which I’m gojng to fill in as it goes, naturally. It’s just making things easier for me. Doing this now, because this song is entirely forgettable, and I don’t think it’s going to get anywhere….

Switzerland: Remo Forrer – Watergun

I really dislike this one. Something about not wanting to be a soldier, and instead, playing with water guns. Slooooooow. Not a fan. It’s going to do well, because it’s about war.

Poland: Blanka – Solo

Apparently, it’s catchy. Let’s hope so. It’s like Ace of Base. In a way. It’s OK. Infinitely better than the last trash. It’s going to bug me though, because there’s a bit that sounds like another song and I can’t think what. It’ll come to me at some point tonight. Yeah, that one’s alright. It’s grown on me since I heard it in the semi-final Hope it does well. My fave of the night so far.

Serbia: Luke Black – Samo Mi Se Spava

I didn’t like this one, but the crowd seemed to love it. Not catchy at all. It’s one of those songs that wants to be something that it isn’t. Absolutely no memorable quality, except maybe that “Hello” but. and that’s literally it.

France: La Zarra – Ã‰videmment

Ahh, now, one of the first that I haven’t heard before properly. Oh, god, can it get any slower? Ah, there we go. It’s licked in quite a lot. That first 30 seonds was dire. It’s not bad. No idea what she’s singing about, because it’s entirely in French. It’s probably about double glazing or something. Yeah, there’s definitely been worse. Not catchy, but the crowd are loving it.

Now there’s a recap of some of the interval acts from the sem-finals. Most of which I fast forwareded at the time, so I have absolutely no idea. Thankfully, I haven’t missed much. Apart from Dustin The turkey. Who remembers him?

Cyprus: Andrew Lambrou – Break A Broken Heart

Best intro so far. Downhill after three seconds though. Ohhh, it’s one of those that’s going to go either way. It’s either going to be great and actually kick off, or it’s just going to sit around and do nothing for three minutes. Yeah, this one’s OK. Not going to queue and get the CD for it, but it’s not going to make me run somewhere and kick the radio off the wall. Have a feeling it’ll do well.

Spain: Blanca Paloma – Eaea

Another one of the “Big Five” that didn’t have to go through the semi-final stage, so I have no idea what this one sounds like. I’ve heard rumours that it’s supposed to be good, though.

Well, this one wasn’t worth waiting for. Sounds like they’re playing the backing track to the wrong songs. Sounds like she’s in pain, poor lass. this isn’t going to do amazing.

Sweden: Loreen – Tattoo

I remember her microphone sounded weird in the semi-finals. She was wearing one of those jaw mics, and it didn’t sound good at all. Well, it still sounded the name, so maybe it’s meant to be like that? The song itself isn’t bad. Apparently, it’s been streamed 55,000,000 times. It’s written by one of the members of Amaranthe, so that might have had something to do with the reason why it’s so popular. It’s going to do well.

Albania: Albina & Familja Kelmendi – Duje

You’re only allowed 6 memembers on stage, and they’re all the same family. It’s… Well, I’d nortmally say it’s different, but there;’s no such thing as that in Eurovision. In fact, Spain also started with that screaming stuff. Dance moves with hankies. Yup. That’s Eurovision for you. Forgettable. When the song finishes, it will never sweep through my brain again. Definitely a bottom halfer.

Italy: Marco Mengoni – Due Vite

He’s a big star in Italy, apparently. Again, the first time I’ve heard this one, and, yeah. It’s alright, if a little slow. It’s in Italian, so I have no idea what he’s on about. Prima la musica? I love music? Does that mean I can speak Italian now? Scorchio! It’ll probably do well.

Estonia: Alika – Bridges

Oh yes. I think Tom showed me this one. It’s a piano that played itself. I tried to look for the floppy drive on it, but couldn’t see it. I remember seeing one of those automatic pianos with a floppy drive on it. No sign of it though. Where the maker’s mark shiould be, it says “Estonia”. Nice touch. I quite like this one, in a “It’s better than the majority” vibe. Yes, I do actually like this one. Hope it does well.

Finland: KÃ¤Ã¤rijÃ¤ – Cha Cha Cha

Apparently, the dancers to a ‘human caterpillar’ dance move. Interesting I’m sure. Well, this is all about the stage performance. Oh, wait. Not quite the human caterpillar I thought he was referring to. The crowd absolutely love this one, and I have to admit, it’s catchy. It’s be very surprised if this wasn’t top 3. it’s 100% Eurovision

Czechia: Vesna – My Sister’s Crown

‘We’re not Your Dolls’, apparently. Oh, go away. I like the little flute sample in the background. I’m not sure what the song is about. Porbabbly something about GURL POWER. I think I’d like an instrumental version of this. Impressive ponytails though, if they’re real. I like the music, not the song.

Australia: Voyager – Promise

Yeah, this one’s actually quite good. Rocky, synthy vibe. this one’s great. I think Jamie S would actually like this one. I’d probably say this one’s my favourite of the nights. It’s the one I’ve not had to think about liking. If you’ve ever heard ‘Beast In Black’, it reminds me of them in a way. Synthy rock. this is right up my flagpole. I’d love to see this do very well.

Belgium: Gustaph – Because Of You

Well, the crowd like it, and it’s pretty upbeat. this is your typical Eurovision fodder. If you typed “Write me a Eurovision Entry” into ChatGPT, this is the type of stuff it’d come up with. I can’t help but think it’s completely, and utterly forgettable in every way, shape and form., but no, I do remember this one from the semi-finals, so that’s got to mean something.

Armenia: Brunette – Future Lover

I didn’t like this one at all in the semi-finals. It just seems tuneless, especially compared to the previous song. Admittedly, I like it a little more than I did in the semi-finals, but I doin’t think it’s going to do well. That’ll probably mean it’ll win, then.

Moldova: Pasha Parfeni – Soarele ÅŸi Luna

This is just weird. There’s a dwarf, named Sergio, playing a Moldovan flute or something (a Caval, apparently). 15/10 for the stange perfornace…. 8 out of 10 for the song. I’d like this to do well because it’s had the best staging of the night so far.

Ukraine: TVORCHI – Heart of Steel

Apparently, their name means “Creative” in Ukranian. Every day’s a school day. again, another one I haven’t heard. this year’s slightly different, because I watched the semi-final for the first time. I’ve never done that before, so some of the songs I’ve heard, but there are six that I haven’t. Well, I can quite honestly say, they’re not winning any votes this year.

Norway: Alessandra – Queen of Kings

This was the first one I heard in the semi-finals and I really, really liked it. Really catchy tune, and again, another Eurovision staple. Reminds me very much of “Wolves of the Sea” from a few years ago. It sounds like a ‘GURL POWERZ’ type song, but it’s catchy enough for me to still like it.

For the record… Wolves of the Sea was the Latvian entry at the Eurovision Song Contest 2008 in Belgrade performed by the group Pirates of the Sea. It qualified from the second semifinal in 6th place. In the final, it was performed 10th following Belarus and preceding Croatia. At the close of voting, it finished in 12th place with 83 points.

Germany: Lord of the Lost – Blood & Glitter

Ohhhh, this one’s supposed to be the winner. I haven’t heard it, but just by the looks of them, it looks like it should be right up my strasse. Hahaha. Yes, this is amazing. Over-the-top costumes, metal with a buried piano. It’s like Lordi are back. There’s a screamy bit too. If I needed a reason to run out and buy the soundstrack, it’s this, Norway, and Australia. Graham Norton hated it. Brilliant!

Lithuania: Monika LinkytÄ— – Stay

Oh yes. I’m sure Tom at work kicked off about this one because she appeared back in 2015 with essentially the same song. I just nodded and agreed. I was just excited that I had someone to talk about Eurovision with, even if it was for a brielf 10 minutes. Yes, I like this one, even if it does allegedly sound like a previous entry. Anthemic? Is that the right word? Don’t know. It does start off a bit slow, but that chorus sticks with you.

Israel: Noa Kirel – Unicorn

I heard something about this one being popular. Apparently she’s really big in Isreal. The song is not amazing. I think this one is all about the dancing Phew. Not sure that’d come across well on the CD though. Not quite sure what the power of a unicorn is… Fart rainbows? Admittedly, I don’t think I blinked during the entire time of that dance.

Slovenia: Joker Out – Carpe Diem

very generic. the crowd were clapping away to it, which is usually a good sign that it’ll do well. It’s on the acceptable side of generic though. Yeah, go on then, I quite like it. there, I said it. The beer must be taking effect. Singer looks like him out of China Crisis.

Croatia: Let 3 – Mama Å ÄŒ!

Oh, they’re doing a video of Whitby in the build-up. Apparently, these are going to be Croatia’s version of Monty Python. And if they win, they’re going to perform their reprise completely naked. There’s not going to be any chance of that happens. If they win, I’ll run over to Liverpool in the break, get up and join them completely naked. This is dire. I can hear the word ‘syncophant’. Or something like that, and that’s all I can understand. the crowd loved it? No accountinfg for taste.

United Kingdom: Mae Muller – I Wrote A Song

the last song of the night. Another one I haven’t heard. Well, not fully. As tradition, I try to avoid our songs until this very moment. Well, it’s catchy, I’ll give it that. Whether it’s enough to save it from the middle / bottom half of the table, I don’t think so. I wonder what they do with all of these custom LED panels when the show’s finished. It’s a shame that it’s all over for another year. It’s a shame that my original plans for the night fell through, but at least I’ve got to spend it with both of my readers. I’ll be back on when the otes start. I’m not going anywhere.

After the jury votes, we’re…. not doing well, but Germany are doing worse. I’m very surprised. I liked that song.

And the next update will be the final score…. apart from this one… It’s cormed we’ve finished 2nd last underneath Germany. Oh well.

And here’s your final score.

I enjoyed every second of that. Already looking forward to next year. And that concludes this blog post. Same time next year?

Day 3… Ta-Ta Treacletown

So, as mentioned in the last ramble, I managed to get a decent night’s sleep in the hotel, and finally surfaced about 9. We had already had a recommendation for food. I didn’t mention in the previous days’ blog, that Chris had stopped off at a chothes shop to pick up a cap, as he didn’t want to get any of his dozen hairs wet. We got chatting to the shop owners who had instantly picked up on our accents. I explained about our pin-on-a-map charity shop excursions, and he gave us a recommendation of an old cinema that had been converted into a large eatery place with lots of individual stalls to buy food from.

We went on the search for it, and also stumbled on an untapped vein of 5 or 6 independent charity shops. That was an unexpected bonus.

Thankfully, I did pick up a few CDs this time. I don’t think there was anything amazing in them, but I’ve yet to listen to them at the time of typing.

We found the eatery which called itself “Picturedrome”, and it was indeed large, and plenty of places to eat… It did seem a bit “hipsterish”, with plenty of laptops and beards flying about. It wasn’t exactly cheap either. Ihad a chuckle at a noodle bar called “Send Noods”.

So, it was time for the final hurrah. Naturally, one last trek around any charity shops I might have missed. My first concern was… had they restocked the Age UK I’d visited previously?

Yes. Yes, they had. the shelves were full. Of course, my next question was, could I still get the CDs for 50p? I was feeling confident. I was definitely going to get away with it two days in a row. I took my 11 CDs to the counter.

“That’ll be £11 please”. Gosh darn it. Never mind. It’s all for charidee, innit? As the weather was still nice, and we still had a little bit of time before we could set off, we had a walk around the surrounding area. I found a mural dedicated to those 108 steps, stuck to the side of a bridge.

It’s also the first time I can recall where I’ve walked over a bridge, but also been under a bridge at the same time…

Fascinating stuff. I also don’t know what it is with me seeing faces in things… first there was “Coke Bloke”, secondly, there was this one…

I’m not quite sure which one amuses me more. I feel that second one might be a little more intentional though.

And, doing things slightly out of order, because I can, and there was no other place for it, I also photographed these classy old fluorescent streetlights in the grounds of Macclesfield sorting office…

So, that was it for good old Macc. It’s a nice place. Plenty going for it. The next stop was Stockport. Again, this was more of a pin-in-the-map type thing. It was on the way home, and I have no recollection of where the idea came from. We probably passed it on the way down. I’d like to call this place ‘varied’. It’s bigger than I imagined it to be. There were a few charity shops we’d passed on the way down. I expected that to be it, but it turned out we were a good few miles from the town centre. Leaving Macclesfield and getting to Stockport town centre seemed an age, but in reality it only took 30 minutes, and that included an aborted stop in an Asda to get to the afore-mentioned charity shops.

First impressions were… not amazing. There was confusion on how to pay for parking – it looks like the shopping centre we were in was in the process of going “app only” for parking. A genuinely disgusting turn of events. If that’s the future, no wonder town centres are dying.

Anyway, rant over, thankfully, we found possibly the only pay machine tucked away in the corner. I deposited the cound, and we had two hours to explore the delights of Stockport.

Peering over the wall didn’t look promising.

Oh, would you look at that! It’s taken my collection of shopping centres during demolition up to three. Two in three days. Aren’t I lucky?

It took a while for things to get good when it came to shops. It seemed like you have that rank old precinct, but walk a couple of streets away, and it’a much nicer affair. Modern shops, a decent number of charity shops, and of course, a market hall.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get a photo of the market hall, but it was much nicer than the one in Huddersfield. There was even a guy selling local bottles of beer. Reasonably priced too. I think I picked 4 up. I have, of course, drank them in the intervening time between me getting home and typing this, so I can’t remember what they were called, but they were very nice.

We even stumbled across a record shop. I knew we were limited on time, so I couldn’t spend much time as I wanted in there, but I almost jizzed my pantaloons at the sight of a “Loading Bay Records” copy of Ankie Bagger’s “Where Were You Last Night”, until it was pointed out that I already have it. A quick check of the databse, and it is, indeed in there. I certainly didn’t pay £2 for it though. Bugger. Or should that be Bagger? A-hahahaaaaa. Sorry, it’s getting late.

That pretty much would be the final stop. I nipped into the “Pound Bakery” for a sausage roll. It was not amazing. I also nipped into Holland and Barrett for some cough sweets that I liked, but it seems they don’t stock them anymore. Another thing discontinued is “Green Cola”, something released a few years back. It was not amazing. Either way, I picked a can of that up for 59p. I’ve yet to have it, it’s chilling in the fridge.

And that, as they say, is that.

The rainbow, pointing towards the pot of gold that is Teesside, assuming you don’t check the GPS location embeeded in the photo. Overall, an enjoyable few days away. The food was superb. the charity shops could have been better, but I was still happy with the little haul. the weather certainly could have been improved on. Unfortunately, the week after we went, the sun was cracking the pavements. At least it was back in sunny ol’ Hartlepool. Still, a little rain never hurt anybody.

Hopefully, I won’t leave it six months until I have something worth blogging about!

Day 2: The full day out

Well, it’s day 2, and if you’ve not seen this for a couple of days, it means I’ve struggled to think of a catchy title. Anyway, today was the fun day. The one where we had free rein to do anything, go anywhere. So, of course, that means.. Go to some places related to where I work, because everyone’s sad enough to do that… right?

Seeing as we’re already here, the first stop was, of course, Macclesfield. Luckily, the hotel is a very small distance from the town centre. It’s situated next to something referred to as “The 108 Steps”, because, I assume there’s that many steps.

We didn’t take these, deciding it was too early in the morning for anything resembling excersise, so we just took the long way round.

And there we were. In the shops. What had started off as a lovely day weather-wise, was soon turning overcast and cold. Joy. Never mind, it was warm in the charity shops. The first step, however, was the indoor market. It took me seconds to stumble on a decent little stall called “Rockalittle Records”. Despite having a large amount of stock, I did feel a little guilty about only picking two out of the £1 box.

It didn’t take long for me to turn my attention to the charity shops. I found a large one down one of the side streets, namely an Age UK. We got in, and there were very few CDs on display, despite there being a large bookshelf for them to reside. I needn’t have worried, as the one of the ladies kept bringing out armfuls of CDs. I quickly amassed a small collection, but at £1 a pop, I had to keep it fairly modest. I took my haul to the counter. “That’ll be 4.50 please”. I couldn’t have got out of there quick enough. I was definitely going to come back here later when the stock had been replenished.

B+M was next door. That gave the opportunity to stock up on the essentials. Namely, some of these.

We stopped off at the market again to get some brekkers. I got a cup of tea and a sausage sarnie. We had a walk around the shops, but there wasn’t anything else that particularly stood out, apart from this particularly tacky display. Hope you enjoy your sponge cubes and cup of paper, kids!

Unfortunately, by now it was now absolutely heaving it down. We went down the 108 steps, somehow managing to avoid breaking our necks on the cobbles, and headed to the car. Next step was Buxton. It was probably about half an hour in the car, it became clear why this area of the country is called the Staffordshire Moorlands.

Now, as I mentioned, I occasionally talk to people from the Staffordshire area, as part of work. It was pretty interesting to see some of the places I’ve only talked to people from.

Of course, the shops were the next step. We had two hours. There was plenty of charity shops, in fact more than I was expecting. I picked up a few CDs. There was also a shop that sold American cans of pop, for roughly the price of normal ones, so I picked up two cans of cherry coke. The US stuff is much nicer than the British stuff. You could also tell you weren’t in Kansas anymore, as there was also a shop that sold pigeons ready for roasting. Never seen that before.

We left Buxton behind and headed off to Matlock. A place I hadn’t even really heard of, until this particular day.

The road between Buxton and Matlock is an especially picturesque one, with the road running through a valley, with a nice litte river running alongside the road. Unfortunately, neither my photographic skills nor the lighting did it justice…

If, like me, however, you like charity shops, you’ll love Matlock. There’s essentially a whole parade of shops dedicated to them. Beautiful. I wish I’d have got a photo of them. Just stick “Firs Parade” into Google Maps. You’ll see what I mean.

In fact, here’s a video of me in 40 years time reminiscing about the place.

On the way back, we stopped off in Bakewell. I didn’t even know we were so close to it until we actually drove through it. There was literally just enough time to stop off and grab some stuff from the original Bakewell tart shop. Sort of wish I’d got a photo… but I did get one that summed up the weather…

Yep, nice weather for ducks. As we headed back to the car, it started raining. Hoying it down. I got into the car, as I thought Chris was going to drive over to the pay point. Nope, he walked over, and came back completely sodden.

We accidentally went a different way back which took us through the town of Leek. In fact, according to Google Maps, it was quite the detour…

By this time, there wasn’t much to do in Leek, except to nip into Lidl and get some suff for the following morning.

And so, back to ol’ Treacletown. After Chris dried himself off a little, we headed back out on the way to discovering that other Indian, namely a place called Paprika, and of course, a few more of the nearby bars. Of course, it was back to the George and Dragon for a couple. A nice little place.

It was then onto the Jolly Sailor. A nice little pub that has a huge wall of random books. I’m not sure if any of them have ever been read since they were put up there, so we chose to pick out to film review books and have a flick through them. It took a while to get served though, even though I was the only one at the bar. Twice. Still, I liked it in there and I’d definitely go again…

Next was to the Indian. Paprika. Unfortunately, it took us longer to get there than originally intended because the GPS had broken on my phone, and we were completely heading in the wrong direction. Instead of walking what should have been about 100 yards, we walked half a mile. the walk, however, was well and truly worth it.

It takes a lot for me to absolutely, 100% recommend a place. I’ve reached the age now where I’m cynical about everything, but I will quite honestly say that this is, without doubt, one of the best curries I’ve ever had. Once again, there was the poppadom, with their own variation on the newly discovered “brown dip”.

I even asked them what it was, they just said it’s “their own chilli sauce”. I’m still none the wiser, and I’m gutted about it.

Vindaloo for the main again, with onion pilau, and of course, naan bread. It was faultless, absolutely faultless. It even had that little drizzle of melted butter over the top… Ghee whizz, it was superb. I’d say, in the dozens, if not hundreds of indian restaurants I’ve eaten in other the decades, I’d probably put this in the top 3. It also worked out at about £10 less than the first place. I was gutted, as I bought the first one the previous night, and Chris paid for this one. Typical. Even “Coke Bloke” had a long face over it…

One last stop in a place called “The Fountain”. I think the beers were taking hold at that point. We’d headed back to the Travelodge after this, and watched whichever episode of Family Guy was airing that night. I remember this, because I commented on the episode at about 2AM in the morning, two hours after the telly had gone off and we’d both been asleep.

Needless to say, I’d managed to get an infinitely better nights’ sleep than I had previously. even the trains didn’t wake me up. Almost time for day three and the journey home…

Day one in Treacletown

A couple of years ago, during the lockdown, I came up with the idea that when we were through it, I’d visit a few places that I’ve never been to, with the whole premise of raiding thr charity chops and trying a few nearby eateries and… drinkeries. Last year, I travelled to Skegness with Chris, and this time we headed off to Macclesfield.

As I type this, it’s 7:39AM. I’m laid in bed in a Travelodge listening to the traffic go by. Unfortunately, the traffic seems to consist of large trains, seeing as we’re probably less than 50 yards away from the main train line, the one that runs from here to Manchester. I’d ask Chris which one it is, but he’s snoring merrily away, and by the time I get this online, I’ll probably forget.

Anyhoo, on to yesterday. It started off with a trip to Huddersfield. It’s a place I’d been to several times. One place I remember with a great amount of fondness, was a little record shop known as “Vinyl Tap”. The top part of the shop was unassuming, and not really that interesting. It was all new stock. All stuff that was out of my price range, and also stuff that just didn’t appeal. There was one saving grace, however. A massive basement, that probably ran underneath three other stores, full of 7″s and 12’s, of all different genres. I remember my previous visit in 2016, I spent hours down there and came back with a fairly decent haul.

Sadly, on this visit, the record basement was no more. Instead of a welcoming staircase to heaven, there was instead, the velvet rope, draped across the stairs. I could have cried.

So, after about 2 minutes, aimlessly looking at CDs I was never going to buy, we left. Probably never to return, ever. Sad times

Of course, Huddersfield has more to offer than just one record shop. There were, of course the charity shops. And what a disappointment they all were.

Approximately 2 hours of walking around yielded 4 CDs, and most of those were from a branch of Barnados that had only just opened.

There was also the outdoor market. I don’t know whether Tuesday is “Flea Market” day, but it seemed like it. Not one shred of anything decent. Unless you like horse ornaments.

We then stumbled on what could only be described as a fire waiting to happen. It’s hard to put into words just how cramped this place was, stacked high with tables, chairs, cabinets. If it’s made of wood, it’s in there.

Of course, I had to stumble over a mercury vapour light. Should I have bought it? I certainly didn’t fancy lobbing at around, with no guarantee that it actually worked, so I passed on it.

One of the last few stops we made was to one of those local community / tourist places. Ended up picking a bottile of Carolina Reaper hot sauce. At the time of typing, I’ve yet to try it.

So, that was Huddersfield. It was getting a bit late in the afternoon, but there was still time to head somewhere else, and that place was Oldham.

Getting there was a piece of cake. Getting parked, not so. Eventually we settled on a car park that we’d passed twice. Luckily by that point, I’d discovered two charity shops, so we headed there. It was 15:32, and one of them, the RSPCA, closed at 15:30. Sure enough, the doors were already locked.

That’s definitely one of the worst thing about being a charity shop fan, having to put up with whatever opening hours the old dears beihind the counter can put up with.

The other one is an Oxfam. These are always hit and miss. Sometimes, they’re great and have reasonable prices, sometimes they just slap any old price on stuff.

It was raining at this point. Missing a charity shop by 2 mintes had also not lightened the mood. I was ready to put on par with Grimsby as the most depressing place I’d been to, but thankfully there was no smell of fish in the air.

We found another untapped vein of charity shops, adn I ended up with my biggest haul of the day. Only 9, however, but it was still more than before.

We did find a diamond in the rough, however. Tucked away in the top left corner of the “Tommyfield Market” was a lovely little micropub called the Cob & Coal. I didn’t get a photo of the place itself, but here’s a photo of the doorstop, as we both found it particularly amusing.

And that was Oldham. The rain had not relented the entire time we were there. Thankfully, this meant that there was no dust from the shopping centre they’re knocking down… and it also allowed me toadd to my ever growing collection of shopping centre demolition photos with…. two.

And the onto the final destination. Good old Macclesfield. Sally satnav showed us the way, and after making only one wrong turning, we’d reached our destination. I was quire surprised how small the town seemed. Seemed one minute we were in the country, the next second was the sight of the Travelodge, and our base for the next couple of days.

Even though it was raining, there was a decent view out of the window, both daytime and at night.

We dropped our stuff off. Chris has a cup of tea and I watched The Chase. We then went in search of food. Naturally, we went for an Indian. Of course, before that, we made a stop into a nearby pub, the George and Dragon. What a lovely little place. Not sure if it had just been done out,, but it was absolutely spotless. The drinks were nice… I went for a Dizzy Blonde, and Chris had a pint of something called Unicorn. It was decent. And the bogs were spotless. Not often you can say that about many pubs. they even had genuine brand-name hand soap.

After a couple of these were necked, we went onto the Indian. Now, we ended up going to a different one than we originally planned, a place called Lazeez. It was over the road from the George and Dragon, and seeing as the weather was still ‘inclement’, we ended up here because it was closer. The food itself was absolutely lovely. There was some sauce that came with the poppadoms. Now, anyone who knows me will know that I could quite happily bathe in the red sauce that you usually get. This time, it was like a brown sauce. No idea what it was, but it was beautiful.

I went for a vindaloo, naturally. Ended up getting loads. Only downside was that the beer wasnt great., it tasted like it had been in the pump for a while. If you go here, It’s probably an idea to get a bottle, but that was genuinely the only downside to what was otherwise a decent place. 7.5 out of 10.

So, the night was getting on. We went to a place for one more drink, namely Alfred’s. They had Beavertown Neck Oil on. Its lovely stuff. Expensive, but worth it. I ended up trying to teach some of the intricacies of PokÃ©mon Go, but I don’t think he could have been any less interested!

So, back to the Travelodge. Thankfully the rain had stopped at that point. A couple of episodes of Family Guy later, and time for sleep. Turns out that the bed seemed slightly smaller than a normal single bed, and it felt like I was going to keep falling out. The trains going past didn’t help. Chris later explained that the rail appeared to have a loose fishplate, which was causing the “Th’dunk” sound every time anything ran over it. So, I’d say it was a below average sleep. Not terrible, but not great either.

And so, onto the main event… day two!

Back To the Greaseweazle

A title that makes this sounds like either the greatest movie of all time, or quite possibly the worst. Anyway, as the title suggests, I have returned to imaging some more Amiga disks that turned up on ebay. I think I’m up to my 7th batch, and they seem to get better with each iteration. The last ones I purchased appeared on ebay a few weeks ago, and some of the disks themselves sertainly piqued my interest. They were slightly different to the normal batches of copied disks and coverdisks. I have plenty of those now, but these looked like they actually had some “productive” stuff on them, at least some interesting utilities that I could install.

There was one disk, however, that certainly piqued my interest…

3,000 database records… the previous owner had even taken the time to say how full the disk was, and how long it took to load. Sadly, no mention of what software was going to be used to open it.

The box arrived. I feverishly opened the box, and looked for this particular disk. There is was, in all its shiny blue glory. The Greaseweazle let out a little cry of pain, as I stuck the USB cable into its back passage. I fired the software up, and within minutes, I had an image of the disk. I loaded it up, aaaaand….

Yep, the previous owner had thoughtfully formatted the disk! I could have cried. Ofcourse, anyone who knows anything about computers knows that formatting a disk doesn’t actually delete anything, it simply clears the areas of the disk such as the file allocatuion table, or whatever the Amiga equivalent was. The data is usually still there.

Aware of this, I opened “DiskSalv”. As the name suggests, it salvages data from disks… no other way of making that interesting, really. I let it work its magic, and within a minute or so, it had recovered the files!

This is where the trail went slightly cold. I had the files, but didn’t know how to open them. the file names didn’t ring any bells, it certainly wasn’t anything I’d used before. Helpfully, the next disk in the box was labelled as the following!

Now, I won’t waste much time on this, because… the disk was once again formatted so I went through the same procedure of salvaging, but sadly, the only file on the disk was unusable. I might dig into it a bit later, but I have a feeling the file is corrupt.

About 5 seconds of forensic investigation led me to find that the database would open in a package called “Mini Office 2″…10 seocnds of downloading, and 10 minutes of trying to get the bastard thing to boot. Eventually, there it was! Mini Office in all its glory, and the database turned out to be someone’s music collection!

Oddly, the majority of the records appear to be duplicated over and over again.
Maybe the previous owner was using it to “benchmark” his Amiga, hence the writing on the lebel?

Of course, this is very likely something I’ll never find out. There’s plenty more disks in this box for me to go through, but I doubt they’ll be as interesting (for want of a better word) than this one. Meh, it kept me entertained for a few hours at least.

I bought a new Amiga!

In the year 2022, you’d think it’d be impossible to walk into a shop, and pick up a brand new Amiga 500 off the shelf…. Well, that’s what you’d think if you don’t follow the world of the retro reproductions, but yes, last year, a company called “Retro Games” brought out a mini Amiga, much in the line of similar devices, such as the mini archade machines, and mini consoles that have came out over the last few years.

Now, I’ve known about this for quite a few months, and watched quite a few videos on it, but have never seen one in the shops until this weekend. Besides, a certain chain of betting shops have been very good to me recently, and due to the sad news of our dear old Queen Liz passing, and my place of employment wanting some poor saps to cover the bank holiday (this wasn’t through choice, might I add), I have a little more disposible income this month., so I’m considering this a gift to myself…

So, as the box says, it comes with 25 games, a mouse, a joypad, and the dinky little Amiga itself. It does come with a USB-C power cable, but no adapter. To be honest, if you’re interested in this product, you’re going to be swimming in the bloody things anyway, so I don’t consider this an issue, and neither should you.

So, let’s take a first look at the games themselvles.

Soem classics, some in there that I’ve never played. The one obscured by the light reflecting of my fantastic photography is “Alien Breed 3D”.

Out of these, I’d say I’ve played about a third of them. There’s lots of Team 17 ones in there, and this, to me, isn’t a bad thing…. Arcade Pool is in there, and if you follow this blog, you’ll know this is where this whole love for Amiga emulation was rekindled a couple of years ago.

“Worms: The Directors Cut” was also another one I bought back in the day. I had great fun with that, and some of my level designs even still exist on Aminet.

There were a few more that came to me with… ahem… “handwritten labels”, shall we say. Qwak was one of those, a cutesy little platformer.

Anyway, I don’t want to get bogged down too much on the games for now. I’ll do that in a follow-up post. For now, I’m just going to blather about me opening the box and exploring its contents

I broke the seal to display a rather charming piece of kit…

It’s almost 30 years since I caught eyes on something so beautiful… that fateful day on 25th December 1993, when I opened my Christmas presents to see an A1200 staring back at me…. Despite this being an A500, I still got a lump in my throat. It was a beautiful moment.

Despite my permanent Amiga being an A1200, I did own an original A500 for a very short amount of time. I think we got it given, possibly for spare parts I remember my dad powering it on, getting the picture, then a plume of smoke coming out of one of the chips. Ooops. It did live on, however. I assume the drive went on to replace either mine of my dad’s floppy drive… I swapped one of the keys out on my A1200 to keep its memory alive, and to this day, one of my keys is slightly yellower than the rest. Finally, the ROM went into my mate Wayne’s A500+. He’d inserted the ROM incorrectly in his, frying it, so he ended up with the only A500+ I’m aware of that ran the 1.3 workbench,

Anyway, I’m rambling a bit now. Back onto the star of the show. It comes as no surprise that the keyboard is just for show.

There is, however, an official keyboard, limited to a run of 500 units, which I have, of course already ordered too…. That was about 6 months ago, and I’ve heard very little from them, so I’ll be interested to see if and when that arrives. Sigh.

Also in the box are the mouse, controllers and associated cables, all neatly packaged.

I can’t decide if the mouse is slightly smaller than the original. It’s certainly lighter, as it’s obviously optical now.

On the back of the unit are the ports. There’s a full-size HDMI port, three USB ports, and the USB-C power port. Got to admit, three USB ports is a bit of a quiz, and maybe the first oversight. Maybe there’s a reason that I’ve overlooked that they couldn’t add more, but to use the system to its fullest extent, you’ll need the mouse, joypad, external keyvoard, and a memory stick, taking up 4 ports. I’m reliably informed that you CAN use a USB hub to support all of these, but it just seems a little bit odd…

Onto the pickiest gripe of the lot, and to be honest, I wouldn’t have been any the wiser if I hadn’t stuck my macro lens in places where it shouldn’t have been, but in some places, the printing/etching looks a little “unfinished” between the keys.

I do, however have to applaud the Caps Lock key (words I thought I’d never type), but despite the fact the LED is just printed on and will never illuminate, the printing texture they’ve used has made it appear to have the “Rowntrees Fruit Gum” texture of the original… an accidental bonus there!

Wow, I have no idea how / why any of the last two paragraphs ended up in the final edit.. Well, I do, I have the photos there and didn’t want to waste them, but let’s just go to part 2 where I stick a power supply up this puppy, and see what she can really do….