roadtrippin'

So Scotland then. road trips are wonderfull magical experiences. But trying to descibe them in mere words is like tapdancing about architecture. It just doesn't work.

Em and I set off at 8 of the clock this morning and arrived in Aviemore at about 5-ish. The intervening time was taken up with Kirsty Maccall, hamburgers, Jimmy eat World and terrifying yet exilreating travel.

We found the nicest B n B in Aviemore and went to the three good pubs in town. In order they are;

The Winking Owl
The Old bridge
The Caingorms Hotel

All served good real ale (plus other 'false' beers) but the atmosphere has to count for a lot when you are away from home, and the Hotel had such a welcoming warm vibe and a fantasic pint of 'Stag' that it was far and away the winner!

Got a long week of hard-core relaxation and mountain walking to come. Can't bloody wait!!

Laters.

The casino

There are many weird things that seem to be unique to casinos. people with very expensive accents and really cheap shoes. people that are sitting at a particular machine when you walk in and still sitting there when you walk out 6 hours later and people that express no emotion whether they win or lose pounds or hundreds.

it was the second part of Wes's stag do and we went to the largest casino in London which was actually really nicely decored and turned out. We had a table in the resturant and ate delicious food before hitting the casino floor.

BTW, if you're a rural lad in the country asking 13 lads to throw up gang signs for a photo is hilarious. In a central london casino at 10PM surrounded by people it could be considered rather stupid.

I got 12 warning glares and the off duty policeman on the stag do pointed out the folly of my idea.

Whoops.

Anyways we got a tour of the Casino and the hostess explained the varity of strange and weird ways we could hand over our cash to them. The poker tournment had been our major factor in coming to play. Wez is rather good at poker and so e flet he might want to take a shot at competing on a bigger stage than jujst against a couple of his friends.

However as the minimum buy in for the poker games on offer were forty pounds and thats per hand not per total game we dicided digression was the bettr part of valour and played other games instead.
roulette for a bit and came out about even. then after a few drinks I went back and won in the geekiest way possible.

I was playing the odd/even red/black part of the system and thought I'd have a quick punt on red 5 for a quid, sure enough 'Red five, Standing by'
won me a considerable amount of money.

And thats when I cashed out.

I am under no illusions about who wins overall in those places. Put it like this, how could they aford to stay open if more people won than lost?

So they're relying on my reptilian hindbrain to overwhelm good sense and reason and think 'Im on a role! I can win massivly!' and plough all my hard earned cash into winning more. Soon I'd be 90 quid down not up and feeling like a right gimp.

So I cashed out quicker than you can say coward! and I played the much cheaper roulette spending a fiver and winnibg back about 15 pounds.

So in conclusion a great great night, but I would never suggest a trip to a casino as a thing to do with a group of friends or, god forbid, on my own. but if people were going I may well tag along.

Thinking about it the number of people that were there on their own was rather depressing. here we were on a saturday night and the only thing these people could think to do was to come here in the deluded belief they were better than the system.

please note: I do understand that poker is slightly different in that you can win money consistently if you are good enough.

Also this was typed using the new keyboard which works better than I could have dreamed. it makes things so much easier to get long strings of thoughts down. without the thumb rsi that I used to suffer from.

I think its gooing to be a real boon to any future traveling as it folds down to about the size of a small paperback and is fairly sturdy, so far anyway!!

arch of marble.(pretty small)

London? Is that you?

central london? At 12.05pm on a monday?

Regents park and the roads surrounding it are a revalation. Peaceful and quiet. Heaven.

Addendum

The bench where i wrote that last post was right in front of the house where both George Bernard Shaw and Virgina Woolfe lived. No wonder I was so inspired!

London town return.

Current enjoying the sunshine in Fitzroy square which is just by the BT tower but is comfortably tranquil and quiet.

Had a great mornings urban ramble, got off the gravesend train at charing cross and sat on the wall of the national gallery munching a sausage butty and looking over Leister square. I had planned to go in and look at the paintings but thats wet weather work and today feels like a warm spring day!

People who come to Britain are often surprised by how much we disscuss it. But when its this variable is it any wonder?

So I decided to just have a stroll and see where my feet took me. Down shaftsbury avenue, and across the theatre district I wandered lonely as a... Well not lonely at all actually. Just enjoying my own company. I ended up on totnam court road, a place i was planning on coming this afternoon but no need to now!

I was after a foldable bluetooth keyboard to purchase with my casino winnings (more on that later). Its to use with this phone because after 200 words or so the thumb gets a bit tired. Espically as i consider pre-emptive text to be the work of the devil. The Devil, I say!

Anyways, the first 8 or 9 shops i went into looked at me like i asked for a litre of gibbon vomit with a side of panda adenoids. However the last shop had EXACTLY the keyboard i wanted and ... Well i'd love to tell you that im typing on it right now but im afraid drivers need to be installed, protocols established and all the other arcane voodoo rituals completed before that happens. So my thumb is taking a battering instead!

Right the suns moved so im in the shade my stomach is complaining that a single sausage butty is not a complete days food and ive got about another four hours in our nations capital.

Time to put them to good use!

Tower of glass.

Notes from the city

The greatest super-hero team up of all time!

Wez, the Master.

The Northfleet Massive.

Suit up!

ITS ON!

Quote of the day

IRRITATING CHAV"I didnt know Batman smoked!"

SUPERMAN : "That's Robin you twat."

Rorsachs dont dance.

Rorsach

theme parks

Are not fun places to be when you're a misanthrope with a hang over. Their saving grace is their rides which in thorpe parks case are excellent.
Unfortunatly my stomache is killing me. So thats out then. Couldnt be happier to be here for Wez's stag do. I just wish there were fewer people. 90% of people have fun with the fact we're dressed as superheros. The other 10% can quite frankly fornicate themselves in a northeasterly direction.

it begins.

the 'before' picture.

WTF

pub?

pub

Same pub, later.

Pub 4!

Damn my no-hair!

Pub 3! Jack the Rippers old haunt!

pub?

Maybe here?

Is there a pub here?

pub 1

pub 2

is it a pub?

Most of my early fiction (and by early i mean too embrassing to show you) begins with the lead character arriving in an unfamilar city. Often in my mind this place was euston. It's the first place you see if u take the train down to london and the impression it made on my 7 year old mind was monumental and lasting.

Its a bustling hub of a place a mini-Grand Central or micro Gare de Nore. It always fascinated seven year old me.

Who were all these people? Where were they going? Why were they going? What were their stories?

It coloured my viewpoint of beginnings for years. I mention this as I am fast approaching London for what promises to be a truly memorable weekend. The beginning of my adventure as it were. Today i am meeting a couple of old friends i havent seen since my wedding for a sight seeing pub crawl of London town. See a sight, have a pint, is how the theory goes, how it works in practice remains to be seen!

Then tomorrow its my future brother in-laws stag do. A visit to a theme park whilst dressed as super heros followed by... Well, its a secret at the moment but i will update once the feline is well and truly de-bagged.

Drinking on a friday daytime with an old friend or two, these are days to treasure!

Follow the yellow brick road!

dawn + coffee = totally worth it.

Events and happenstance.

Morning!

Yes, it is that damn early.

I believe I've told you of my inability to lie in. well its got worse. 5AM on a sunday is not the time to be getting up unless you're a baker or a priest. Payroll Officers don't need to be rising from their warm bed because they'd rather do anything rather than lie there.

I had this conversation with a friend of mine on Friday night. We were all hitting the bright lights of Llandudno for his leaving do from work and someone decided it would be an excellent idea if we all enjoyed a mojito together. One mojito turned to four and the conversation turned to our slumber habits in one of those weird conversational hairpin bends. Anyway I digress. The main reason, he said, for staying in bed was exactly the opposite of mine, He couldn't think of anything to do if he where to get up.

This attitude, whilst understandable, is totally alien to my nature. Whilst lying in bed this morning I could think of precisely nine very tempting things to do with my time rather than lie in bed and feel the world spin beneath me.

1) Bake some more bread
2) watch any number of DVDs I've got stored up.
3) start the new Iain M Banks book I bought for the scotland trip (I nixed that one as there seems a certain accuracy of thought reading a new Iain M Banks book in Scotland beside a roaring fire with a glass of something single and malty)
4) Replay Tomb Raider Anniversary, A remake of an excellent game done with deft touches and nods to one of my favorite games of all time, Tomb Raider - Legend.
5) Dig out the flute and have a quiet blow along to the old Jurrasic 5 LP - Power in Numbers they use a lot of live flutes as the backing track to their raps and I love playing along. Quitley mind you I do know its 6 in the morning.
6) Watch the Season 5 Red Dwarf marathon I taped last night. However I should really save that for when my sister comes to stay. She can quote most episods word for word and once had a Red Dwarf off with one of my best mates. For hours they tested each other (quite Scary) knowledge of the episodes and seasons leaving the rest of us stunned and not a little bemused.
7) read the next Sherlock Holmes story in the complete collection I was bought by my Dad when I was younger. Its amazing how much stuff still stays with you. I didn't appreciate the brilliant work of Arthur Conan Doyle when I was 12 though, just the stories. But it is truly wonderful work. I'm wary of the new Sherlock Holmes Movie starring Mr Robert Downey Junior as the titular detective though. It could be great or a total disaster. With Guy Ritchie directing and Jude Law as Watson. Jude Fff-ing Law? Not that I dislike Law its just my favorite Watson was always Nigel Bruce, the bumbling good natured fellow alway following Basil Rathbone about!
8) Go for a walk down to the beach and watch the Sun come up over the ocean with a cup of coffee. Which I still might do. Its very life affirming. Actually as it'll be 7:39 sunrise today. I might just give that a go.
9) Write the next switch, which is what I eventually decided upon once I've finished this blog post.

So with all this fascinating, involving stuff to do with my time off why people would choose to spend time in bed doing nothing is beyond me. I've always been like this though, easily excitable and enthusiastic.

So Friday night was a resounding success although I would recommend staying away from sambuca in future. especially when you've got a bellyfull of mojitos. I've always believed in the bonding power of getting drunk with workmates. It forges bonds that are very hard to break and builds trust and confidence in each other. Screw that wilderness falling back into each others arms crap. Give me a night out in a bustling city with good night life and lots of drinks. Job done.

Yesterday was spent moping on the couch watching Mo better Blues, City of God and rugby highlights, going outside purely for a burger for lunch and a chinese for dinner. Awesome.

Today is Jasmines Christening and I'm really pleased to be going. She's an absolutely lovely baby and its been great to see how much her mum and dad have blossomed after becoming parents. And here she is as a tiny tiny baby. Awwwww.

sale away

So, Sale away them. The Sale fans have always been up for the rugby chat in general and whilst they may support their team it doesnt blind their viewpoint.

Today proved no exception with articulate, passionate fans on both sides enjoying the banter and celebrating the game.

We sneaked it by a single point in a game that could have gone either way.

Andy and i grabbed a train at 11 from rhyl and got to stockport in time for lunch 1 and pint 1 at the Nelson. We headed for 'The Armoury' for pint 2 scene of previous carnage away. Then the game, well tempered, close matched and ultimatly Cardiffs. A re-return to the Armoury and then back on the hottest train of all time! Seriously. It was the black hole of calcutta, on wheels!

And now im back in Rhyl in my favourite metal/rock pub to find the major barman off and the Westlife loving barmaid programing the jukebox!

I'm choking on Bland!

Send riffs!

If you loved me you'd send metal guitars and octave shredding Valkryes!