Weekends in the fens and spinneys

Well hello my friends and welcome once again to the blog of my life, apologies for the lack of updates of late but anyone who’s seen my angry status will have realised I’ve been having a few broadband issues, thankfully solved via Calcutta it seems *crosses fingers*, the other major reason for my lack of an update was due to my weekend away this weekend and rather than tell everyone how it went individually I thought I’d use my blog to present a (hopefully) humerous take on the events of the weekend.

However before we got to the actual events it’s important to fill in a little of the background regarding what went before. The night before I had a “Gig” to attend, I use the word gig in its loosest sense given that I was going to see Beautiful South but I think we all know that my taste in music is eclectic to say the least. The problem I encountered was that I was attending this gig alone, but rather than appear alone I devised a cunning plan whereby I would buy two drinks at a time and have my phone in hand as much as possible so it looked like I was simply waiting for someone who was indisposed in the lavatory – though one girl kept looking over at me and I’m fairly certain she thought my companion for the evening must have some kind of bowel disorder given the inordinate amount of time holding the glassware but that’s by the by. Anyway long story short the gig was brilliant but alas drinking two drinks at once (and you can’t drink them one at a time lest you be left holding just one drink and looking like a loner) left me a few miles south of sober, something that wasn’t helped by going to the pub for a drink after the gig as well!

As a result I woke up the next morning not feeling at my brightest and leaving a 10am for a six hour train journey to Norwich wasn’t exactly top of my list of things to do. I did somehow manage to drag my corpse-like body to the station expecting to pay a mild £50ish fare, until the station man told me it would be £68 with a railcard! I nearly had a heart attack, but that was nothing compared to how my travelling companions reacted when they found out that without railcards they would be forking out £101 for their returns. So hungover and with our wallets considerably lightened we boarded the train for the long trek to Norfolk myself half asleep and sustaining on little more than tea and my companions little better we thankfully found ourselves a table at least (being sure to keep a covert bag on the empty to seat at all times to deter those who would attempt to ingratiate themselves with us. A mere five and a half hours later we found ourselves standing bedraggled on Norwich station and searching for a black cab. Our driver was a lovely chap, seeing we were obviously tourists he decided to take us to our hotel via several of Norwich’s lovely roundabouts and getting us stuck in a traffic jam at each one just so we got a real sense of what gridlock in Norfolk is like, oh and he only charged us £12 for the privelige! Well eventually we located our hotel and after a brief chat with the slowest concierge in Norfolk who couldn’t quite fathom the idea that there were three of us in a four person room we were allowed up to our room. Now I had stayed in a Ramada before and it had a stunning view across Manchester, well our room at the Norwich ramada had an equally amazing view….. of the opposite room.
Well following our disappointing view it was decided that we should head out for a spot of dinner in a local restaurant, we decided to ask if our cabbie (one who had obviously realised we’d already seen the roundabouts so was considerably faster and half the price!) could suggest somewhere, he suggested a place called “Tombland”. Now to be honest if you want to know terror get into a cab in an unknown city and have your cabbie offer to take you to Tombland! Anyway as it turned out Tombland was not as terrifying as it sounded and actually we had a lovely dinner – well except when a vagrant staggered into the restaurant and used the disabled lavatory and did something in there that so horrified the waitress that she had to run and get the maitre’d at once! Our meal was followed by a drink in a pub the size of the average living room that seemed to be filled exclusively with men of a certain persuasion, then another lovely pub with an open log fire (you wouldn’t get that back home!) with some very friendly locals who took a shine to our Tim and even produced us a map of good bars – we’ll ignore the fact the “Good bar” turned out to be a cinema. Our final destination of the evening was another bar this time was two old gay men in vests dancing in a pulpit, “weird” didn’t even begin to describe it!

Our Saturday started with a minor hangover but surely that’s always the mark of a good first night in a strange city (And Norwich is a VERY strange city!). We had to make it into Norwich in time for Graham to get to the football stadium so we decided to walk into town past a bewildering array of peculiarly named shops including “Bob Basted’s” used car showroom and the “George Bush” funeral home, what are Norfolk shopkeepers thinking? Having finally got into Norwich and found the scarily concealed 25,000 seater stadium we decided maybe a nice film would be the order of the day in the evening (although a peculiar man was standing behind us muttering to himself making us generally concerned that he may invite himself to join us hence we had to quickly make our escape). After Graham had left us to go to his game Tim and I decided to go and explore the castle and the cathedral, the castle was a bitter disappointment (general entry doesn’t get you into the battlements or the dungeons, they’re the best bits!) Although they did have a very angry looking stuffed otter that was rather entertaining as well as the worst ever Egyptian exhibit – literally a corridor with a mummy in it! The cathedral was a lot better – except when we first arrived Tim asked if there was someone in the doorway and I assured him it was just some bags….. in fact it was the same vagrant who had committed unspeakable acts in the disabled toilet of the restaurant the previous night! Needless to say we fled into the cathedral as swiftly as possible.
Following our Cathedral tour and Graham’s game we met up for some quite frankly lurid cocktails, having to ask an unknown barmaid for “perfect sex” and a “screaming orgasm” is really not advisable! Following a film and dinner we decided to return back to the hotel so we would be fresh for our 6 hour journey back the next day, though not before another frankly terrifying cabbie who was threatening to murder other road users!

All in all though it was a wonderful trip filled with enough random people to entertain me for the rest of my days!



This week Matt:

• Had a row with a lady in Calcutta who had no idea what I was yelling at her.
• Enjoying "Listening day" on Classic FM, what else would you do with a radio exactly?
• Watched several hours of darts a day, oh how working class!
  

the watering-hole

Well good day to all you and welcome to another weekly installment of the history of my life told via the medium of ranting. I'm actually in a strangely good mood today, though sadly that's not exactly condusive to ranting but I will try my hardest for you.



I thought I would make todays b log all about what you pub or bar of choice says about you and the psychological effects of this. This whole thought came about when a good friend suggested that I like dark pubs which at first I thought was nonsense but actually all the pubs I frequent most often do tend to be of the dark and dingy variety so perhaps there is something in this!



Now the first type of pub to be discussed will inevitably the type I spend most of my time in the self styled "Dark pubs", these are typically conversions of old buildings or houses, usually with oak beams, rustic wooden tables and all variety of crap adorning the walls. These pubs also tend to have a high volume of "regulars" who bizarrely all seem to sit on the same stool each day with their flat cap and the same drink and drink away their day - or perhaps I'm generalising unfairly. Usually this sort of establishment has tinted or stained glass windows to restrict the light coming in as most of the "dark pub" drinkers tend to enjoy the dark. The psychological profile of people who frequent this kind of establishment are generally those trying to escape the world, by having tinted windows you lose all sense of time as it could be any time during the day and so the escapism can continue. For example those who dislike their jobs or their lives will tend to head towards these kinds of establishment, at least in the darkness one can pretend that the life outside of the pub walls does not exist. Also I have found many a single person tends towards these pubs as well, after all if you're unlucky in love the last thing you want to be is under bright lighting, no myself and my fellow forest trolls are far happier lurking in the shadows midly delusionally convinced that the hotn girl from the train will one day just happen to stop in and start a conversation, even though she probably has a boyfriend..... oh and doesn't live in the same town.

The second kind of pub is the "Semi-bar" and these are places I loathe. They usually have some of the accoutrements of the "dark pub" such as mahogany counter-tops and barstools but are completely devoid of atmosphere. These places are generally dominated by a television screen the approximate proportions of the state of Liechtenstein and usually have muzac on by the latest bands that I get to feel embarassed about as I have not got a clue who's singing! The psychological profile of the users of these pubs is slightly different, no tweed or flat caps to be seen in these establishments and anyone with a pipe would be positively vilified (well they would if this bloody smoking ban wasn't in force anyway). No usually in this place you find manual labourers and students who haven't worked out what a pub is for yet, also these places tend to be a hive for underage drinkers which is why violence is so common within them and why I tend to avoid them like the plague unless there's a very good reason to enter such as a quiz or a sporting event that I desire to see - after all my usual "dark pub" would tend to have one small dusty portable TV in the corner with a lot of old men setting aside their copies of the Telegraph to try and crane their necks to see it.

The third section is the actual bar, while the semi-bar has pretensions towards the pub but lacks the ambience the actual bar has shed all desire for an atmosphere as it is there for those people who are "cool". These establishments tend to have fittings that are all chrome and brushed steel and solid tiled floors with subtle lighting and plenty of natural light flooding in. These are not places that could ever become a "Local" and neither should they be, the point of the actual bar is to act as a meeting place for people who have important meetings and want to show off. As a result the clientele of the bar are more of the blue and white collar proffessions who will usually turn up in suits for a drink after work to show how successful they are to the rest of the world, and as you may have gathered I'm not a particular fan of these places either.

The final variety of watering-hole is the carbuncle on the face of this planet that is the club. Now my hatred of clubs is well known and I know that I am seen as very much old fashioned in my hatred of clubs but I just don't see the point in them. I recall the last dreadful time I actually went to a full club it was vile, several floors of people all crushed together buying overpriced drinks and listening to music that was so loud it was practically making the floors bleed. Even more suprisingly the staff have to wear ear-plugs because of the noise, does no-one else get a little worried by this? If you went to a pub and the landlord was standing in the doorway in a hard-hat would you not think twice about entering his establishment? And yet not only do we enter clubs but we actually pay for the privelige! Personally I would be happy never to go to such a place again, everyone is there to be drunk and to try and sleep with something, call me old fashioned but I'd far rather have a drink somewhere quiet and have a good debate, hmmmm that may well be why I'm still single.

Anyway each of these four main classes of drinking establishment has their own fans and we can all flit between them but I'm convinced I will always prefer the warming darkness of my local dark-pub where I can just go, have a pint and melt into the darkness and lurk there until the girl of my dreams just happens to stop by...........

This week Matt:

• Cooked duck for the first time in his life, it was great.
• Was miffed by the poor quality of this years fireworks display.
• Got into the festive mood by buying a mulled wine scented air-freshener.