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.