Festival checklist and hungry touts

There really wasn’t much to prepare, the only last minute thing i brought were my spotty wellies that I used for Reading Festival 2006, my bag consisted of a poncho I got from the filmfour somerset house show (mmm scarface), a hoodie in case i got cold, tickets, maps to my hotel, a notebook (containing writing instruments, post it notes and other bits and bobs), and my lovely dslr camera, dont think I bought a book for this trip, in festivals you simply assume that you’ll lose everything you own. plus i loved the idea of packing and ensuring that things were at it’s bare essentials. Once the packing it was time to put on a lovely pair of green converse chucks and hit the road. The train journey was boring as ever, but nothing internet on the phone or music on the ipod won’t kill (i actually find them to be the ultimate time killing combo, you can either read the interweb or write blogs and random entries with the lovely qwerty keypad). I eventually reached Wolverhampton to meet up with kev. He had arrived pretty early and found time to kill by asking touts how much they’d pay him for his additional V Festival VIP ticket, the story was pretty hilarious as the tout originally offered £20 which kev immediately thought “forget it” and left him, but obviously that’s how touts roll, insist that the first offer is their lowest and simply walk away, they know how to bargain (they probably try haggling at McDonalds when they order their happy meals (assuming they eat happy meals, there’s very little happiness in the life of a tout)). Kev had ignored the touts but found them to be slightly aggressive nearer the end when they kept pestering him and asking him for an offer, but obviously kev wasn’t intending on selling it. Once we met up we immediately waited outside at the shuttle bus stop place where the shuttle buses roam. There again the touters were there ready to offer kev money he cannot refuse (but did). From £20 they simply asked him how much did he want, kev asked for £100 and the tout reluctantly started to unload a few twenties from his pocket ready to hand to kev, but kev immediately changed his mind and said “nah”. Man did kev know how to piss the touts off. Kev eventually offered the ticket to a fellow muser once we were at the box office area.

Why wellies were your best friend at v festival

On the shuttle bus we talked a bit about Marley park and other bits and bobs, once we were close to the arena we donned our wellies (kev was ultra proud that he could make use of the wellies once again since he only bought them for the purpose of Marley which really wasn’t used much). Upon walking up to the box office we met a few folks, including dip. Conversation then began and slowly but surely we got our passes, and was in the arena where we met up with Stu. I think this is the point where we finally realised how important it was to wear wellies, it was just as important as our festival tickets (well not really but saying that makes it important). The fields outside the arena weren’t too bad but as soon as we saw the entrance, man how glad were we to have wellies. The v in v festival really stood for mud; rain, fields and loads of festival goers never mix. Of course having wellies on instantly had that sense of feeling as if you touched a gold star in super mario and was invincible to it’s thick and miserable aura the thick brown mud gave out (and if you listened hard enough you probably could hear the invincibility theme tune in your head as you started stamping onto the mud, killing mushrooms and turtles).

Oh did I mention about dip? he was all kinds of awesome and it was fun meeting him, it turns out that everybody including myself love dip, got to love a bit of emo. He’s in quite a few of my photos since he was “hanging out” with the folks and kev gave his VIP pass to him so he was able to chillax with us in there too.

A burger and chips stall called “burger and chips”
Not long we met up with everybody, I think from then on there was a lot of chillaxing involved, we were told that the VIP area had a Nando’s in it which got both me and kev pumped, however our dreams were immediately raped silly when all they served were nando’s burgers. You couldn’t even go “fitter with a chicken on the pitta”, nonetheless, it had to be done, me and Stu bought a nando’s burger (no idea what burger number stu was on hehe) and whipped on the extra extra extra hot sauce and feasted on the hot piece of chicken wrapped around this cold floury bun. I never liked eating food that had two temperatures at the same time, usually buns are heated up to compliment the burger but hey, we’re in a field i suppose, it reminded me of eating salmon nigiri’s where the fish was nice and warm (in the melting kind of way) however the rice was cold, these things require delicacy. Anyway, that was me on the food, I eventually spent the rest of the evening food wise having lovely “gourmet” bbq jumbo sausages, and they were bad at all, definitely had that lovely bbq feel to it and not that mass produced festival food feel. The stalls in the festivals were pretty hilarious, I was constantly pointing out the names of the stalls, going “HEY LOOK, THEY HAVE A PLACE CALLED BURGERS AND CHIPS, AND THEY SOLD BURGER AND CHIPS”, evidently stall owners assume all people are retarded and have to be pretty clear of what a stall is saying before venturing out to buy some beef tacos, noodles or whatever they fancied, though I suppose calling it “Johns Stall” really didn’t help one bit (we later on discover that this wasn’t just inside the festival, there was a kebab place called Doner Kebab in town). That’s the food commentary sorted, lets think of some more things that happened.

The special place

The VIP area was pretty nice, but somewhat lame at the same time, the bar tent had a DJ playing thumping dance music but with nobody dancing to it, it’s probably a DJ’s worse nightmare playing music to nobody, you could definitely feel the energy once you’re in there but the lack of involvement with other people was an immediate turn off, I did manage to dance for a bit when another person started dancing, but that didn’t last too long, the area was simply empty if you exclude the 3 girls who were actually using the dark dance floor as an area to get changed (weirdos). There were lots of lovely tents and seats in the guest area too, the toilets were of a better variety than the ones in the arena (obviously) and I believe kev was able to swot out a hollyoaks cast member (bless). Another good thing about the VIP area was the fact that the grass wasn’t muddy as it was out there, you could actually lie down and chillax the entire day, but that really wasn’t the point of the festival, we had like… 2 bands to see (haha). At one point we were playing buckeroo with some guy who was actually sleeping in the arena, it was pretty fun until someone poured beer on him, bad form and sleep man!

“Nobody plays you because you always win”

After heading off to go see Sugababes we went to the guitar hero tent since inn wanted me and kev to battle it out, the tent was a bit lame since they were playing thumping rock music meaning people couldn’t hear the songs they were playing, it was all about eye coordination and guesswork. We were given cute little guitar hero badges and waited around the booths for people to finish playing, the booth we were waiting for had two kids playing, one of them was obviously whooping the other kid, for his last he picked “Through Fire and Flames” by Dragonforce, if people have played Guitar hero 3 you should all know about this song and how painful it is to play. My heart however started racing because that was the most exciting song to play and I didn’t mind giving that kid a run for his money, the losing opponent left knowing he was most likely going to lose and so I stepped in and challenged him to a battle of guitar hero, dragonforce style. Of course we picked expert mode and then we were off. The needle indicating who was winning stayed on my side and eventually I defeated the kid, he shook my hand and then left whilst kev stepped up to battle it out on guitar hero. We picked the most obvious song on the list (Muse - Knights of Cydonia) and began rocking out (silently mind, still couldn’t hear the song and all). Now kev has actually played guitar hero a lot longer than me so I was pretty scared that he would win, but fortunately the guitar controller was shite, and kev wasn’t a fan of tremolo picking, that’s where I got all my brownie points from and defeated kev hehe. People were obviously cheering kev on more because as inn says i “always win” hence noone really wants to play me, oh cruel video gaming skills how you curse me with the lack of opponents.

After some guitar hero’ing i believe we did more lounging about, meeting up with random people, chillaxing back at the tent, and then meeting people some more, it was quite a tiring day and there really wasn’t much to watch due to the lack of good bands, it really was more about the social part of the festival where we were all together and chatting away though, and good company is usually hard to gather around since they only respond to muse gigs haha. Near the end we went off to check out Stereophonics and then found a decent spot to see Muse. That was pretty much it (the gigs will be explained on part 2 obviously).

Birthday stories and post it notes

We met up with a few musers and then went back to the campsite, halfway through we decided to take a toilet break so he headed back to the VIP area and used the nicer toilets (by this time most people were using the golden wall to relieve themselves, it’s quite a horrific event so I’ll simply skip that chapter altogether). Once settled me and kev paid the camping people a visit to celebrate Gem’s birthday. The last bus supposedly was leaving at 11:30am so we had very little time to hang around, once there we began counting down the time to Gem’s birthday, I had already given Gem my presents to her which consisted of a pink bag (because she likes pink), a fairly big cow model (because she likes cows), and a Joseph CD (because she likes theatre). I also gave everyone post it notes from that post it note project and everyone was happy to read what it said. Gem and Ste remembered to bring their post it notes to me and it was amazing seeing them, I’ll most likely update the post it note section and show you what they wrote. After pulling some party poppers and singing happy birthday to Gem (not to mention attracting some drug dealers at the same time) it was time for me and kev to depart the camping world and return to the world were beds had mattresses and showers were a mere facility and not a luxury hehe (man we did rub it in quite a bit with the hotel dwelling). I wasn’t keen on camping on the last days anyway, the last time that happened I had to sleep through toilet banging, fires, and people screaming, not to mention the ubiquitous drunk man who opens up your tent to pee inside it whilst you’re there (is it ubiquitous or is it just a mere myth that i devilishly inserted to make things interesting? alas, most likely the latter (but i’m very sure it does happen for the unfortunate ones))

Back to civilisation

It was now me and kev heading back to Wolverhampton, as kev said earlier on (Wolverhampton is shit) haha, we were misguided twice by incompetent festival staff for where the shuttle buses were and I was at a point of running to the bus stop in fear that we might miss it, strangely I still had a lot of energy left whilst kev wasn’t having any of it, he said he’d rather get a taxi than run to the bus stop hehe. Nonetheless we arrived at the bus stop and was able to board the freedom shutter bus back to civilisation. It was pretty tiring at this point, we eventually changed back to our normal shoes and sat there talking about the show and the entire day, it was a pretty nice day, nothing hectic and intense as most meetups generally are, just having one commitment (ie seeing muse at the end) was enough to make the entire day nice and relaxing. It was around 1am and we were finally at the Wolverhampton bus stop, we went to a Doner Kebab place called Doner Kebab and ordered a can of coke each, man it’s refreshing to drink some sugary water after an intense day of mud trotting and jumping up and down during Muse, all drinks are amazing when you’re thirsty enough. Once the moment was over we eventually spoke to the cab driver who was suspiciously parked right next to us in his “nonchalant” way (granted we were standing near the taxi rink) and asked him how much it was to drive us back to our separate hotels, it came out to a mere £10 so we entered the vehicle and was transported to our hotels, kevs first (grr). We agreed that if one of us wasn’t able to check in because of the time we’d taxi it to the other’s hotel and stay there. Fortunately both of us were able to check into our hotels and begin the arduous task of cleaning our wellies.

Hotel antics

I was greet by a kind lady and man at the door, they seemed very friendly and helpful, they were well aware of the festival goers so it wasn’t out of the ordinary to have people coming into their hotel all muddy and bloody, it turns out I was the last person to check in (damn toilet break for stalling time) he gave me my card key and directions to my room, I was able to catch the other staff members chillaxing in the living room, it did have that homey feel, and boy did the place smelt of “quality” teehee. Once inside my room I unpacked my bag and threw myself into the soft cuddly mattress, you suddenly realise how aching you are when you meet comfort once again, anyway, lots to do before I head to bed. I only cared about the wellies (and poncho to some extent) and used kev’s method of cleaning them which was to run them in the shower and have some scrubbing fun. The process was pretty quick but I did make a proper mess of the room. Grass and mud were all over the place which I immediately rinsed out to avoid any hotel faux pas. Once that was done I took a shower, wrote in my notebook for a bit, and began taking photos in the room, I had an urge to write a post it note to the cleaners since I was in a post it note mood so I sat at the desk and scribbled a quick message to them. Whilst all of this was happening I was texting kev back and fourth in regards to his status of cleaning his wellies and stuff, that was sorted for him but his task now was to clean up his jeans, he didn’t want to go into town (and subsequently) and Birmingham with mud all over him so he tried washing off with a the shower head. The next task was making it dry, he used the hair dryer to dry up the thing (i had a trouser press but I couldn’t be bothered with cleaning my jeans since I was going home immediately). He texted me back saying the blow dryer broke hehe, so he was stuck in wearing the jeans wet whilst sleeping *shudders*. That was pretty much it, it was a tiring day so eventually I turned off the lights and went to bed.

You can never have enough bacon.

The next morning was the best bit, I tend to wake up dead early when I’m not sleeping in my own bed or sleeping somewhere where I’m most comfortable, today I did just that, enough time to exit the room and head down for Breakfast of the buffet variety. I usually get my money’s worth at breakfast buffets. A lovely full english breakfast was exactly what I needed after an exhausting day of the yester variety. The food was pretty good for a 3 star hotel and the buffet obviously enticed me to order more than I can handle (no caps this time at least, once I was capped for ordering too much bacon :(). There were a few customers who were obviously at the festival too, intently listening to the news about the what happened at the festival last night, there was the ubiquitous review of a festival goer who sounded more like a chav being interviewed in the street than a music lover. Once breakfast was over (mmm lovely croissant) it was time to check out and head off to Wolverhampton station. With the post it note ready i left it at the most obviously place, packed my bags and vacated the quality hotel. I asked the receptionist to order me a taxi and spent three lovely british pounds for my transport to the station, the driver didn’t appreciate my constant headphone mode but I didn’t care. Once at the station I was able to say hi to kev for a wee moment and then I was off, back to the city of London. The rest of the day was spent chillaxing and making stuff.

Part two, the gigs

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• The ultimate Muse Wembley Stadium Weekend (Sunday)
• The ultimate Muse Wembley Stadium Weekend (Saturday)
• Muse Meetup 23rd November 2006
• The ultimate Muse Wembley Stadium Weekend (Friday)
• New Years Eve at Stu’s

We started our morning with some breakfast, Alice brought her Jam along and used it to spread on her croissant whilst I enjoyed it with a touch of butter. The breakfast was the same as yesterday so we were pretty certain that the breakfast is going to be the same throughout. Today we were going to do some shopping at the Galeries Lafayete. This store was the equivalent to London’s Harrods or Selfridge’s, a big shopping centre with top quality brands selling top quality stuff at high high prices. We obviously didn’t buy much here but it was definitely fun to look at. Alice bought some nice jewellery and some postcards. Not much happened in the store expect for the story about this random French lady with two chicken fillets (which I’ll tell another day).

After that we tried finding the Opera house where good old Eric lives. It was quite close to the shopping centre and was a sight to see. The gold statues were pretty epic. One day I think I’ll have to book some tickets to check the Opera out, it’s just super fancy. The weather was nice and hot, you can start to taste another person’s sweat in the air. Anyway, afterwards we went for some Lunch. We went to a nice little sandwich shop which sold toasted baguettes. I had bacon whilst Alice had the ham, now the funny thing that struck me was whether or not there were much difference in a hot bacon and a hot ham sandwhich, we switched our sandwiches during the halfway mark (so we got a taste of both) and to be honest, you couldn’t really taste the difference (meat wise, the cheese was definitely distinguishable). I was starting to love baguettes and croissants in Paris, they take more time and effort to make these bad boys (what with the whole freshly baking them and all).

Afterwards we had a walk around the town, we saw a Zavvi and went in to check out Shrek. We noticed that there was a hard rock cafe close by I was keen on going there another evening to dine. Anyway, our next stop was the Arc de Triomph, and to get to there we took the Metro to Avenue Des Champs-élysées (see, I did the accents and all). It was a nice walk, some fancy shops to check out (including an Orange shop that sold iphones :P) and some fancy water fountain close by. At one point we noticed a very chavy east end Londoner next to us whilst we were crossing the road, it was hilarious hearing them speak. We did some impressions of it but none of us were able to re-enact the sheer stupidity of a east end accent.

When we arrived at the Arc we took some nice photos of it and went right under it for some tourist action. There was a giant flag hanging under the Arc which everyone had to get a photo of (otherwise you wouldn’t believe we were in France and all) and not to forget the swarm of tourists taking photos left right and centre. Alice wanted to wait a bit since it looked like they were holding an event for the veterans. Sadly the process dragged on for a bit and we decided to go home instead since we were tired from all the walking.

After getting a wee bit lost again (we were slowly getting used to the metro system (well alice anyway, I was just following her :$)) we arrive back in the hotel, hungry for some place to eat. Originally I had a leaflet for a place called Fukushimirmairmair (some Japanese place). With me, when I’m too lazy to finish off a word I tend to just make up some words. I would find the actual leaflet of it (have it somewhere) but I’m too lazy to spell it out correctly, I know however that the first 6-7 letters are correct. But yeah, the entire evening I keep calling it “f**k y*u mummas”. I really should read things properly, but meh, sometimes it’s fun making the end bit up. We looked at the place and they didn’t sell anything special, I was tempted to get some yakisoba and tempura action going on so we decided to go out and find a decent sushi place.

It was funny how there were so many sushi restaurants in Paris, it reminded me of New York and it’s crazy amounts of Sushi places too. Perhaps other countries are picking up the increased interest in sushi, that or we just kept walking into Sushi places. We ended up at this nice little sushi place we picked after a long walk around our neighbourhood. We were pretty amazed that they served stuff in proper boards and boats (kev went to one with boats too). The place was run by a cute chinese family (no way were they speaking in Japanese) where the son serves sushi AND does deliveries. He’s however only a japanese waiter when he puts on that apron. We found it funny how the apron became his identity for what role he was doing. Anyway, the food was amazing, we had some yakisoba, prawn tempura (YUM!) and a nice selection of sushi / yakitori. Alice really enjoyed the sushi there and understood what it meant when we had fish that melted in your mouth. The rice was nice and warm and the fish was cold which made it perfect for some fish melting action (unlike places where the rice is cold because it’s left in the refrigerator). We paid the bill and went back to the hotel for the rest of the evening.

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• 5 Nights in Paris, Finale
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Anyhow, here’s a list of things I need to bring/pack/buy:

• Tickets
• Passport
• Wallet
• Phone (emergancies and pre/post paris)
• Euro adaptors (got 2 woo)
• Euros
• Tripod and remote/ext (want to take some scenary shots with me and Alice in them)
• dslr with all memory cards (raw baby)
• Clothes
• Toothbrush etc
• ipod
• ipod charger adaptor (phone and ipod uses usb!)

Here are places to go and things to do, feel free to suggest anything, Alice won’t read this hehe:

• Eiffel fucking tower
• Take stereotypical photo of it and perhaps lash kev’s photo of it
• Go cafe’ing inside Eiffel
• Buy a small eiffel tower for Alice
• The lourve
• That arc thingy
• Buy a beret! Need to look like a native french person :p
• Make fists with feet on carpet, die hard style (not plane trip but meh, it’s a tradition)
• Try a snail nigiri
• Some candlelit action, either small restaurant or picnic
• french bread, nom nom
• check out opera house del phantom

Update

Well, I actually did everything I put on the list so that’s pretty epic

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Anyway, before and after the event me and Alice had our time off together, Alice wasn’t too happy about leaving her job but had to so she could go travel. Hopefully that all pans out right. We were able to prepare loads of stuff since Alice was leaving very soon. On the duck day me, Alice and Inn met up a wee bit for some random browsing and whatnot. Alice wanted to do a makeover with Mac but that backfired when booking was required, same with Body Shop, shame because it would have been fun watching! Inn also got some food before the duck event. We then chilled out at a starbucks where we met up with Gem and Paul.

After getting a wee bit impatient we decided to just go red chilli and chill out there. We managed to get ourselves a big table that had a lazy susan in the middle. Was a good thing since there was quite a lot of people eating and spinning food around was a good idea. (it’s ALWAYS a good idea). After some bantering kev and her sister finally arrive. We began the ever so painful process of choosing food and eventually we picked a few starters and that duck (whole variety)

The duck was epic, granted Inn wasn’t as chuffed but man it was epic haha. We had a lovely soup too and the others had spring rolls and, some cake and a hot and sour soup (all for kev, though he shared). The main course was a lot nicer than I thought it would be, I ordered the hot pot, kev ordered the sizzling beef, paul ordered some chicken and spring onion dish, alice ordered some chicken dish too and inn had to be alternative by ordering some braised pork trotter (which was some slowly cooked pork so the meat is soft (but salty).

The chicken dishes were highly accepted as well as the sizzling beef. Food was slowly but surely consumed and we even cracked a bottle of champagne (well I did, hardly anyone could drink because they were all driving or didn’t want to drink too much! Rats). I got it from work and had to find a way of using it, not going to just sit on my own and guzzle it haha.

So yeah, we got some nice orange wedges to finish off (everyone ruined their oranges by not eating it the right way (bit like eating sweetcorn too)) and boom, the bill. It was a lot less than we expected which was good and I paid almost half of it since it was meant to be a treat as well as me helping to pay Alice’s portion.

So the moral of the story is, eating is cool. Me and alice took alice’s family to go eat at Red Chilli again so we were able to enjoy a double heaping of duck! They were chuffed about the food too since we ordered some epic dishes (including soft shell crab mm).

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I also got an awesome KATAMARI BIRTHDAY cake!

It was nice watching everyone give and receive presents on Xmas day, I managed to get Alice a lovely ipod since she was thinking of getting one in the first place, granted she did pay for the warranty and chipped in £30 for it, so I suppose it wasn’t a full present :$. I was also able to check out Ikea for the first time up north, they do awesome £1 breakfast though I got myself a double breakfast since it was so cheap, the furniture was pretty awesome and I can see why people love it so much. I got Alice to get some finger puppets since they looked flippin’ awesome.

We were also able to do a quick Gourmet Burger Kitchen visit with kev and have some bingo action in Leeds, I picked a lovely BUFFALO burger which was new on the menu. It was pricey as fuck but was pretty amazing, nice and juicey. Besides it’s BUFFALO, who can resist (yup, I see you salivating you veggies haha kidding). Kev and Alice were pretty impressed by GBK too, Alice had a Oreo milkshake too which was new on the menu. Bingo night wasn’t too much of a success since we missed the early thingy and wasn’t able to win much. It’s getting slightly frustrating because it’s almost that we’re playing to win and not for the fun anymore, though it’s been a while since we’ve won and I’m dying to say “GWAR” to everyone. Maybe Inn stole all the win from everyone

The last day up north was spent at Nando’s before my train arrived, it was a lovely meal, we hadn’t had Nando’s for some time so it was pretty cool. The train journeys were spent surfing on my new E61i phone, was able to use fring as well as surf on sites via Opera Mini.

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• That damn duck weekend!
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• Week in Halifax with Alice
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After a hard and gruelling interview day I felt pretty happy with the results and went to see Inn, Stuart and Karis at Brent Cross since they were heading off to Stockholm the day after. I went to a KFC prior to meeting them outside hendon central station. Karis and Inn were picking me up whilst Stu was slightly late and all. We had some food (at Burger King and Yo sushi) and eventually met up with Stu and basically did a bit of shopping, checked out the new ipod touch and went to Luton airport to exchange some money.

Now the last line was a bit hectic since I’ve never been to an airport before, the worse bit was that I wasn’t travelling the day after so I was just going for company and all and BOY was it a horrible journey! I suppose it was horrible since we went there and found out that they dont exchange Swedish monday there since there’s not departures to Sweden in the airport! Grr! I kept telling them about how I’ll eventually start looking for cufflinks if I get my job so I had a quick gander at the cufflinks store haha. Once all of that was done we eventually went back to Kazzie’s place and headed off to pick up kev. It was a quick swop of people but meh! I wanted to go home, I was far too tired from all the interviews, I had my phone interview inside Karis’ car when we were driving to Brent Cross which was funny (especially when moments before the interview I told them two that at any minute I was going to get a phone interview haha). So yeah, a tiring day with interviews (and random trips to airports) but hopefully I get a job offer and all (which I do haha, damn me writing this AFTER getting the job)

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The visit was slightly crippled though, mainly due to the fact that Alice’s job requires her to be at the office about 7-4 odd. Which meant that I would be spending most of that time on my own (that’s a lie, her family will be in the house most of the time). This is where productivity will see a massive boom as I ensure that the time spent when Alice is away isn’t gone to waste. I made sure that I finished blogging everything as well as start finding jobs around the end of the second week. We also had a day where we were going to spend with kev, inn, gem and paul for sushi and bingo (sushi being just with kev and inn). So yeah, quite a lovely one visit hits all plan. How could one refuse to go? (especially when Alice is living up there haha)

The journey up north

The journey this time was quite alright since I once again woke up nice and early for the day. Packing up was once again with the bare essentials (I wanted to bring my wii back down so I needed room and all). Tickets were about £23 this time since it was on a Saturday but it was the best way to maximise our time together (right after job centre haha). Anyway, once I was there we strangely popped by to Yo Sushi! and got some takeaway fish, the place was packed but nonetheless we still got some sushi action and all.

Sunday Roast

I really enjoy sunday roasts at Alice’s place, you get all sorts of yummy meats and just pig out on it. I can’t actually remember what I had this time but nonetheless it was amazing. Out of all the roasts, I believe the duck was the best however hehe, though I did enjoy the pork roast! The scratchings in particular, it was funny listening to everyone crunch through the scratchings while they eat (I did the same too). During one of the meals I started mentioning about what I was doing staying up there for two weeks and how I was going to call this one of my last visits up here before I started finding a job (Alice already had a job as an admin assistant so it was definitely time).

Honey I’m home

The rest of the weeks were mainly me sitting around at Alice’s place whilst she was at work, it was pretty funny! The first day when she was off I started to clean up her room just so a) she didn’t need to worry about having a messy room and b) I didn’t need to worry about working in a messy room haha. Anyway, cleaning up was fine since her room was pretty much tidy anyway but I wanted to make it so her desk was cleared up completely so I can set up my laptop on her desk and work from there (it’s nice lying down with the laptop but it’s always better when it’s on a desk and all). Once the cleaning was done, I was pretty much doing all sorts of customisations on the PC, namely updating Ubuntu on my laptop. I managed to install all sorts of fancy things such as AWN so I was able to have a dock like thing on the bottom. I also went a bit nuts on customising my foobar settings. It strangely took up the time until Alice arrived. I felt like a proper housewife hehe. So yeah, this was pretty much what I did for the weekdays, I also managed to get my delicious account sorted as well as try out a lot of things, blog like crazy and also pop into town with Alan to give Alice back her ID pass.

Bingo, and how much I wanted duck the entire evening

On saturday we managed to meet up with inn in Leeds since it was where we were going to celebrate her birthday with a super sushi platter at SiSushi. It took a while to decide on what to get platter wise but disturbingly we ended up with two platters! Zero Fish and Sushi Party 2! It was quite an ungodly amount but nonetheless we were going to do it (twas inn’s birthday afterall (well the day coming to her birthday anyway(sorry I like using brackets (kinda reminds me when I code and have to ensure that there were enough closing brackets( that was fun haha))))

The waitress was a bit reluctant to take the order since they were going to be busy and it was quite a lot of sushi to purchase, she told us that it will take around 1.5 hours but we were fine about that, we eventually popped out to do a bit of window shopping as well as buying some firefly drinks for the sushi (they were a perfect combo (since yo sushi sold them and all) (and they tasted nice (very nice (so nice that we almost buy it everytime (since we discovered it anyway (hehe more closing brackets (I get the feeling I might have missed a close bracket) (that’s not a good thing since it would mean those who are computer minded would throw an unexpected error!))))))

During our random wonder around the city (of Leeds) we went into a Currys Digital (RIP Dixons) and found some lovely Canon EOS 400d caps! Now I’m not a cap person but DAMNIT I wanted one! We tried to talk the sales assistant in giving one to us but they said that I needed to buy a camera in order to get one. Eventually someone actually purchased one and gave me the cap so woo! haha. Alice tried on the cap and strangely she looked awesome in it, she would do a good job as a Canon model.

After some more street wondering and some guitar hero at PC World we eventually went back to Sisushi and picked up our food, man there was a lot! Going back was a scary journey since we were scared about dropping £75 worth of sushi! We headed back to kev’s place with sushi and some japanese tea that we bought (thought we’d make it as authentic as possible).

Once there, we pigged out! End of haha. Kev was nice enough to stick a candle on a sushi so we could sing happy birthday to her. I managed to try out all the sushi available and loved the spicy chicken iso in particular. After that meal we played a bit of tetris and eventually headed out to Mecca Bingo to play some bingo! Alice had her bingo vouchers which meant free panininininin and drink!

Bingo was alright, kev’s friend joined us at bingo (as well as Paul and Gem) and he, Paul and Lindsay won at Bingo. One of the highlights of that bingo session was when we bought a ham and cheese toastie! It smelt lovely (nicer than the micorwaved panini) and tasted awesome too! Afterwards we went to the pub where I kept going on and on about how nice Red Chilli was and how amazing the duck was! I tried tempting inn to go red chilli instead of sushi but they werent having any of it At the pub we were very close to popping out and getting a peking duck but since me and Alice had to head off in a bit we said no Alice cheered me up however by telling me that we will go red chilli one evening during the two weeker so woo!

The rest of the stay

After a lovely susushi and bingo fest it was Sunday again, which meant roast! I think we had chicken at some point but my memory is too poor ;( I didn’t really look for a job whilst I was at alice’s place, that plan definitely was a failure since I only got round to signing up on a few sites. Evenings with Alice was lovely, most of them involved playing Harry Potter trumps, watching V for Vendetta and playing lovely games of chess. At one point Alice did straighten my hair hehe, everyone kind of noticed that during dinner haha. It was pretty nice though, my hair was getting a bit too long and messy that a straightening was needed.

Red Chilli!

Thursday was by far the best evening for this visit. It was like our proper fancy date and all, it was to mainly celebrate Alice’s job and all as well as to satisfy my peking duck urges. Before we went to the restaurant Alice advised me to get her mum some flowers and chocolate since she was nice enough to let me stay over for so long. Originally I was going to buy some thorntons chocolates but they were closed by the time we were there and all. We eventually went back into Harvey Nicholls and bought her a nice box of dark belgium chocolate. We were lost with the flowers since most places were closed and all. Anyway, on to the meal

Man that was a good meal! Alice really enjoyed the atmosphere that was red chilli and we had the most amazing meal ever. We ordered a seafood soup, half a duck and a yellow croacker with sweet and sour sauce. It was pretty much alice’s call since she was paying hehe :$ (I said that when I got my job I’ll be paying that for meal so that was fair, plus I was super poor at that time). The soup was once again amazing, it was only £3 a bowl and you got 2 bowls worth of that soup (served from a bigger bowl and all) and to compare that with soups in other resturants that was definitely worth it (in London it was £3 for a basic bowl of chicken and sweetcorn soup, this one had prawns, scallops and other bits of seafood goodness)).

Alice was well pumped about the duck, I kept telling her how the duck was going to be cut by some fat chef in front of you so that was definitely going to the be the moment of the evening hehe. After some waiting our duck came strolling through and boy was it amazing! The cleaver work was amazing! That guy knows how to cut duck haha. Boy do you build an appetite when you watch someone cut up your duck you’re about to eat. There was a lot of pancake action! I think I had about 10 pancakes worth of duck! We were getting pretty full by then and was glad that we didn’t order two dishes for the main course

Everyone around us were proper n00bs at it. They all got the set menu which included a crispy aromatic duck. Boy that’s some shit duck haha, I’d feel sorry for the duck knowing that they were deep fried instead of hanging around some meat hook for an evening after having boiled water, vinegar and honey poured onto it for a 30 minutes and being slowly roasted the day after. Strangely two of the tables around us were gay couples o_O. After some bitching we got our final dish. It was a nice one but we were starting to struggle with it after that duck episode haha. Alice was a true eating soldier as she ate a fair amount of the fish and I finished off the rest of it hehe. So yeah, amazing meal! We thought a bottle of wine was in order so…

Crossgates and how you should check where a train is going before boarding it

After the meal we went to the Marks and Spencers in Leeds station to buy ourselves a bottle of wine, I also managed to find some lilies for Alice’s mum so the evening was definitely going well, well until we got on the wrong train and ended up at Crossgates haha. I think around then I managed to get into Twitter and that’s when I was telling people how lost we were from our date and all. Alice felt really bad in getting us lost but it was fine as long as we were together. We managed to pass time doing random stuff (tetris was involved).

Finally we managed to get a train back to leeds as well as the right train to Halifax where Alan was kind enough to drive us back home. We drank some wine and had the most amazing evening in my life. It was perfect, including the little episode of getting lost in crossgates, everything was perfect

Treasure hunt

I knew Alice was going to be sad that I was leaving the next day. The other times were fine since she knew I would be back but this time it seemed like it was going to be quite a while till I came back up north to see her. So in order to cheer her up when I left I started to go crazy on post it notes. Beforehand we would leave messages on her big pad every morning when Alice went to work (she woke up 6.30 every morning bless her and I just stayed in bed hehe). I managed to construct a long 17 post it note treasure hunt in her room, each one marking something I’ve noticed during our time together. It was quite a fun game, I kept things pretty cryptic and all and worked through the treasure hunt backwards haha. Once alice was back it was pretty much time for us to get ready to pack and go (me going anyway :(). I managed to give alice’s mum the chocolates and flowers and apologised for being so quiet all this time i was in the house (I hardly left her room :$ when alice was off to work). We got a a lift from ted and took the bus to town. It was really upsetting to leave but it had to be done… I needed to find a job.

stuff you might also like

• That damn duck weekend!
• Week in Halifax with Alice
• Leeds Festival 2007
• The ultimate Muse Wembley Stadium Weekend (Sunday)
• The ultimate Muse Wembley Stadium Weekend (Saturday)

Yo Sushi and a very late stu

Upon arriving fashionable late I met up with Kazzie and got a seat at Yo Sushi! We were still waiting for Stu to arrive so we just sat around and drank some green tea, I ordered some cold dishes so that they were immediately ready when Stu was about and Kazzie ordered a chicken yakisoba to eat. The wait was pretty long as I believe Stu was almost an hour late. We eventually got nice and cosy and ate our food, Kazzie promised Stu that if he came today she would eat a Salmon Nigiri so we ordered just that (I persuaded her to do it so I could have her nigiri if she couldn’t finish the other one off hehe). The dish arrived and kazzie actually kept her promise and ate the thing. Though it’s nothing for us (me, alice, inn, kev and loads others), it was quite remarkable that Kazzie did eat raw salmon when she didn’t like fish in general!

I ordered a salmon skin hand roll, a tamago nigiri and a beef ramen which kept the bill nice and small (should of got a rainbow combo to be honest). I mentioned the gig I was going and Kazzie and Stu were pretty much up for it, we were then contemplating what to do between the gig and after Yo Sushi! After paying the bill and leaving victoria we headed off to the Apple store in Regent Street to have a look at the new ipods as well as perv at the iMacs. Stu did some research and found out that imax were showing Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix in a hour and a bit so we decided to spend the rest of the afternoon watching Harry Potter! The difference was that it was at the imax (one of the biggest screens in the UK) and the last battle scene was in 3D! I think the idea of watching it all in 3D was too much to miss so we went to waterloo to pay imax a visit.

mmm Dumbledore in 3d

We were given large specs at imax and were able to buy decent tickets to the show and all. We were also able to catch a few 3d trailers to really enjoy the 3d experience, it was amazing! Things were popping out right in front of you and stuff, it just made us desperate to see what 3d harry potter had to offer!

The film was amazing, if you exclude hermione’s moving eyebrows, kazzie’s constant giggling about them, the large number of discrepancies from the film and the book and the fact that our seats were slightly to the left. The 3d bit however was flawless, it was amazing watching it all in 3d. The best bit was when Dumbledore was fighting Voldermort. Stu laughed at Dumbledore’s whipping wand technique and I was just gormless when the the glass at the ministry of magic shattered. It was all pretty jaw dropping when it was in 3d.

We are Physics! Did they goto the imax too?

After the film we decided to head off to the buffalo bar at Highbury Islington station. Stu decided that he was tired after watching Dumbledore in 3d so we left us at Euston. Kazzie brought her dslr camera so we were ready to take some lovely photos of the band at it. We met up with Michelle (who was with Caff) and headed to the venue to go check out the band. They were pretty amazing, really reminded me of Polysics as they were really jumpy and fun to watch. Photo taking was slightly tedious since the lighting was inconsistent and all. However with the help of flash I was able to take a few decent shots. The guitarist was wearing 3d specs which led me to believe that they might have went to see Harry Potter too haha.

After the gig there was also another band playing but due to time we had to leave at 11pm, was a shame since I wouldn’t mind watching them myself (they’re headling and all). But yeah, the venue was pretty far away from where I lived so it was best to call it a night instead of risking taking a painful night bus back home!

stuff you might also like

• Muse Meetup 23rd November 2006
• Leeds Festival 2007
• Stephie and Silverchair
• Muser Meetup (Part 2: Funland and Nando’s)
• The v stands for mud: V festival 08 1/2

Visiting Burley Park

As well as spending time with Alice, I had also booked time to go visit my brother since I was only going to Leeds Festival for the day whilst Alice was going for the entire weekend with her friends. So once Alice was all packed up and ready to head to Leeds festival with her friends, I had to bid her farewell for the day and head off to my brothers place to stay. I was to set off from Huddersfield to Burley Park to meet up with my brother (who was currently doing a bit of shopping).

Once meeting up with him I went to his den to check out the state of it (they’ve recently moved houses and now live in a cosy house with a spare guest room which I was going to be staying in). His house was definitely a lot nicer than the previous one. I’ve noticed that he’s got a few new toys to play with, including a Silverburst Les Paul guitar, his POD XT Live and his bloody Mac Book Pro. There wasn’t much to do at his place though, I luckily brought my Wii over to play around with (otherwise it would have been boring) and he got to have a go at it and test out on whether he’d want to buy one afterwards. I also had a go on his Mac Book Pro, it was pretty awesome, however the problem was that all he did on it was browse the internet. Any £300 laptop PC could do that! I thought it was quite a waste to just buy it for the purpose of browsing the internet. I was expecting him to use photoshop or making music via Garageband or Logic, but noo. Just browsing.

Food wasn’t too exciting, lots of oven baked food haha, I wasn’t use to it to be fair, I talked about restaurants he liked going to and he mentioned a place called Red Chilli which was a proper fancy Chinese Restaurant. At some point he was going to show why Red Chilli was an awesome place and all. I told him about Lucky Dragon but he didn’t seem to like the idea about it and thought it was too much of a Takeaway kind of restaurant. Later on my brother had guests and all so I slowly but surely went back to my room to play with my laptop. I did socialise a bit with them but I’m getting the feeling that they’d prefer their own company and all. Anyway, I had Leeds festival to look forward to and all.

Arriving at Leeds Festival

Arriving there was nice, managed to pop by at kev’s place for a bit before heading off to Leeds, originally I was going to have a quick trip to Wokmania and stock up on food but turns out Wokmania wasn’t opened yet so I changed the plan and bought some meal deal lunch at Boots. I knew the importance of food during festivals so I made sure I was nice and full during the day so a decent lunch was required, wasn’t too bothered about dinner since we were all (kev, inn and me) planning on getting a curry after the festival. Inn was going to drive us to the site so once I met up with kev it was a matter of waiting for inn to arrive. After a quick banter at kev’s place we headed off to the festival. Inn was familiar with the route so it wasn’t a painful journey and all.

The trek back to the car

Once there we parked ourselves at the Brown parking overflow place, Inn managed to take down some landmarks to remember where we were and all. The trek to the site was a pretty long one, there was a lot of moaning involved of a trek that seemed like forever, we eventually got there and got our wristbands. I phoned alice and told her to come and meet us. We got into the venue ok (smuggled my DSLR camera as well as a daddio telezoom lens!) and met up with Alice. As I was trying to take photos of the ferris wheel I discover that I had forgot to put my battery in my camera! ARGH! Luckily inn had her DSLR in her car so me and Alice (alice was being ultra nice) had a lovely trek back to the car to retrieve her battery and all. Kev also wanted his Ribena back too and I also wanted to leave my top in the car too. It wasn’t too painful of a trek since I was with Alice and all, finding the car was a pain though. Had to rely on Inn texting us about landmarks and stuff. Eventually we found it and were able to head back to meet up with inn and kev who didn’t really see much since we were gone.

He who must not be named

I wasn’t bothered about who we saw before Nine Inch Nails and Smashing Pumpkins so I pretty much saw whatever everyone in the group saw (think that was the same case with Alice and Inn) so kev pretty much led us around places to see random bands. We saw the Cancer Bats purely because their name had the word “Cancer” in it. We also saw a bit of the Maccabees which was fun, another band which vividly stands out in my experience that day was the band “The Dwarves”. We had no idea what they were like but we had a look anyway. Lets say theres a lot of nakedness. A lot of nakedness. The guitarist, “He who must not be named” was all kinds of naked. Well thats a lie, he did wear a mask haha. It was quite a sight haha, especially when he got up on the amps and started to pleasure himself in front of the crowd (thank god his…thing.. was shy). There was also the bassist who was dressed up as a priest who spent most of the gig with a bass amp fault. It was funny watching them try and fix it and then half way through the singer went “I don’t need bass!” haha. So yeah, pretty random.

Revenge of the Refried Beans

After that we decided to go to the main stage to check out Fall Out Boy and the other bands after them (Kev wanted to see Fall Out Boy). We weren’t really paying attention to Fall Out Boy and spent the time eating our lunch and all. I was surprised that I managed to smuggle my bottle of Innocent Smoothie into the venue and all, it went down well with my all day breakfast sandwich. After fall out boy kev wanted to go and buy a taco (grande) since he was feeling hungry. I advised him that tacos weren’t exactly the best food you’d eat in a festival, he was asking for some proper bowl movements and all, and this is what he got.

After Fall Out Boy came Lostprophets, we began to make our way to the front of the main stage since the rest of the bands we wanted to see were on the Main Stage. We manage to catch a quick glimpse of Kate Nash playing in some random tent as well as the all important trip to the toilet for kev after his taco grande. Lostprophets were fun, they mentioned about how little UK bands were playing tonight as well as getting a proper mosh pit going. I managed to take one decent photo of the lead singer which was good.

Nine inch nails and Smashing Pumpkins

I’ll keep this short (photos will occupy the rest of the post), after Lostprophets we began making our way to the front, the crowd were pretty tame so around the time Nine Inch Nails started we were pretty near the front, and when Smashing Pumpkins started, we were practically in front for it.

Nine Inch Nails were amazing tonight, they did play quite a lot of Year Zero songs as well as do an all synth stage to play a few synth exclusive songs (Me, I’m Not for example) I was really happy that they played Sin tonight as well, they ended with Head Like a Hole and Hurt. The Smashing Pumpkins were just as amazing, though only Billy and Jimmy were left in the band, they still did a pretty good job with their old stuff. Tonight Tonight was probably the best song from their set. I wasn’t too keen on how they went a bit too riff wanky at every song, just picture all their songs extended with big 5 minute instrumentals. Heavy Metal Machine was disturbingly long :/. Anyway, here’s some photos of the gig, I was really happy of the outcome since I was really far away from the stage.

Alice’s birthday and the trip back home

After the festival we exited the festival and went to Alice’s campsite for a bit, we were hoping to celebrate her birthday for a bit as well as have some cookies haha. The time spent there also meant that we wouldn’t have too much of a problem exiting the place since it was pretty packed with people leaving the place and all. After a nice chat and all, me kev and inn left the festival site and headed straight back to kev’s place, we were initially going to find a curry house to eat in but we were too late, everything was closed and all so our only hope was to order a takeaway at kev’s place. Once at kev’s place we decided to download the new episode of The IT crowd and watch it whilst we ate. I ordered a chicken madras, inn ordered a korma whilst kev ordered a lamb balti. Twas a yummy meal, though it was pretty hot stuff the madras (glad I didn’t get vindaloo). After consuming our dinner and watching the IT crowd we pretty much called it a night and went to sleep.

Back to Burley Park and Lucky Dragon action

Kev had already informed us that he had relatives visiting so we had to pretty much leave the place at around 11 odd. We cleared up the living room and stayed at kev’s room for a bit surfing around the muse board and all, once things got boring we decided to head off. I needed to head back to my brother’s place first to unload my stuff and have a nice shower before going back to Leeds for a meal with inn (she wanted Yo Sushi!). After a quick trip to Burley Park and a quick shower we headed to Leeds uni to park the car and head for Yo Sushi! However, along the way I managed to persuade inn that Yo Sushi! wasn’t really a good idea and that Lucky Dragon was the place to be. I finally managed to persuade inn to go and so we headed to Lucky Dragon and had a lovely dim sum meal. I knew what I was going to order since I already had that dim sum lunch with kev and alice. Inn on the other hand was a bit indecisive. The best bit was when we were issued Chinese menu’s and inn couldn’t read it at all. I helped order the with little help of the menu and managed to get a pretty decent dim sum set. The bill came out pretty nice, we only paid about £6 each and was pretty full from it all so it was pretty amazing. Afterwards we went to hunt for a present for Alice, I managed to get her a nice pair of earrings that were the invisibility stars in Mario. The next task was getting a nice box, card and stuff to stuff the box in, we managed to get some cotton balls in Boots for 39p so score! Once all that was done I said my goodbyes to inn as she headed back to kev’s place because she forgot her sleeping bag. The rest of the day was spent at my brother’s place, it was pretty boring, only got interesting the next day.

Red Chilli

The next day my brother proposed that we all went to Red Chilli to have a lovely meal. I immediately agreed since I was getting pretty bored in the house. We booked a table and headed off around 8pm odd. Once there I immediately saw why my brother liked Red Chilli, the place was pretty classy! Not only that, the food was more unique and old fashioned compared to your bog standard chinese restaurants. My brother was initially going to order the “True Love” dinner set which was £26 per head. I however persuaded everyone to get some duck instead since duck is always nice as well as the fact that most set menu’s aren’t exactly cheaper than when you order a la carte. We ordered some seafood soup, scallops (I didn’t get any though :() , half a duck and 3 dishes for main course (chicken with some spicy dip, some seafood dish and softshell crab). I was amazed at how cheap the soft shell crab was! The duck was amazing and everything else was lush! I was really impressed with the place and preferred it over Lucky Dragon (for meals anyway, they dont do Dim Sum here). The bill came to about £75 odd which wasn’t bad for a party of 5. Will definitely pay Red Chilli a visit when I’m out about in Leeds (and when I have money haha).

Reunited with Alice

After a lovely meal at Red Chilli the night before I went back to Huddersfield where I met up with Alice, apparently the people around her campsite went a bit crazy so Alice and her friends decided to get a lift from one of their parent’s and sleep in the comfort of a house rather then raving festival go’ers armed with lighters and other flammable objects. I met up with a very tired Alice at Huddersfield where we got a lift back to her place from her mum, Alice was absolutely tired from the festival but nonetheless glad to see me again :). Afterwards the remaining days were spent with Alice at her place watching films and recelebrating her birthday with the rest of her family. It was a pretty hectic and fun week. I left on the 30th and had another Yo Sushi! Meal.

stuff you might also like

• That damn duck weekend!
• Week in Halifax with Alice
• Honey I’m home, 2 weeker in halifax
• Sushi, 3D Dumbledore and We are Physics!
• The ultimate Muse Wembley Stadium Weekend (Sunday)

Meeting Up and getting some grub

People were arriving at weird times and all. Kev was only joining us later on so we were going to meet up with him at some point. I spent most of the morning lounging about at home since Stephie was staying in a hotel near Fulham Broadway, this meant that travelling was awfully easy to her place (since Fulham Broadway and Southfields are pretty close to each other). I eventually leave the house with all my stuff (including several Yo Sushi! Rainbow vouchers and my dslr camera for taking photos of the gig) and went to fulham broadway to meet up with Stephie. I did leave pretty late since I managed to meet up with inn at the station instead of meeting Stephie first. We took the bus to Stephie hotel since Stephie was too lazy to come out and meet us (tut tut). Upon arriving the hotel room we soon discover that Stephie actually had a double bed and single for the room she booked. It was pretty nice since me, Inn and kev were hoping to sleep there (though I’m more there for show since I could easily pop back to my place hehe). We had a quick friendly banter and soon afterwards we were heading off to meet up with kev. Around the time of meeting up with kev I soon discover that I have left my Yo Sushi! vouchers in Stephie’s room so our plan on having Yo Sushi! today was slightly foiled. Trying to be sneaky I persuaded everyone to goto Nando’s in Brixton instead since it’s so close to the venue which makes it a more relaxing experience. Inn complained for a bit since she had her heart set on Yo Sushi that day but we all agreed that Nando’s was more convenient as well as me telling her I’d get her a chicken using my loyalty card.

Once in Nando’s (we’re now in Brixton) we ordered our food (wings for me I believe). Twas quite a lovely meal and Inn didn’t seem to mind having the free chicken (well she hardly paid a penny for her meal haha). Me and Stephie quickly popped round to the venue to pick up her tickets she booked and after having some Tetris battles and bantering we went straight into the venue (slightly late since we weren’t too keen on the support). We found out that Michelle and Caff were actually coming to Silverchair too so I contacted them to see if we could meet up with them inside the venue and all.

The dangerous Wheat Free Soya Sauce

We eventually left Nando’s and headed into the venue to catch Silverchair. I was once again able to smuggle my DSLR camera into the venue, this was however a close one since the guy was able to actually feel the camera in my bag. He was quite determined to find the source of what I was hiding however I told him that it was just padding. He did give the bag a proper search but failed to find the camera. After getting passed the guards we discover that kev was having problems getting in. The guy who was searching for my bag was now pretty pissed and was getting more arsey than ever. He found kev’s Wheat-Free soya sauce he had in his bag and was going to confiscate it since it could be used as a weapon, he demonstrated how it could be used as a weapon by holding it from the neck and pretending to hit kev on the head with it hehe. Eventually they let kev through on the condition that he put the bag in the cloakroom. Was quite an embarrassing moment for kev as he joined us shamefully to watch the gig hehe.

The gig was fun, Silverchair weren’t that bad though I didn’t know many songs from them so it wasn’t as fun as it could have been. We met up with Michelle and Caff during the gig and eventually I also departed the crowd and went to take photos of the band. A lot of squeezing in was involved and eventually I had a lovely spot for photo taking. Quite a nice evening, ended with some glorious Tropicana drinking. We went back to Stephie’s place and enjoyed some Tetris’ing and TV. Stephie got quite addicted to Phoenix Wright as she borrowed kev’s DS Lite to play with it.

Yo Sushi and Somerset House

Though there was a Yo Sushi in Fulham Broadway, we were hoping to have the rainbow combo in Victoria so we could meet up with Wincy as well as Lindsy. I took a quick detour back home before meeting everyone back at Fulham Broadway station! and heading to Victoria. Once there we lounged around at Wetherspoons for a bit to wait for other people arrive, once everyone was there we went straight to Yo Sushi! and got tuck into the Rainbow combo action. Food was lovely once again though I pretty much ordered the same food since I’ve got my combo down to a science. Afterwards we did some lounging about in Leicester Square since Stephie and co needed to do something else whilst I was going to the somerset house to watch 2001 Space Odessy. I eventually left everyone and they went and saw a comedy event which sounded pretty awesome.

Somerset House was pretty amazing. I’ve been there last year to see a double bill and this year I was watching 2001: Space Odessy in the daddio screen! Jason and Rachel were slightly late and I came to the venue slightly unprepared. All I had was some food bought from the newsagent, a towel brought from the venue and a very thin shirt (it got really cold near the end :(). When Jason and Rachel arrived we had a fun time playing a bit of Tetris and Mario Kart. I let them double team me at Tetris DS which was fun but I won most of the time.

The film was pretty amazing, last time I saw it I fell asleep near the beginning since it was far too long and dragged on for a bit. This time I finally got to watch the intense parts of the film involving the computer rebelling against the people. I took the train back to Wimbledon with Jason and Rachel and went back to Fulham to see the rest of the gang. I told inn to buy me some food since I was pretty hungry after that film, she kindly got me a sandwich and some rice cakes, twas pretty yummy. More Tetris action for the rest of the evening and Stephie also completes the second case in Phoenix Wright. Bless her.

Random park strolling and GBK

The final day left and we decided to go to stroll in Hyde Park whilst Stephie went to meet her Uncle for a bit. We went passed some Jewish Festival and lounged around the Princess Dianna Memorial place (was a fancy fountain place) and got our feet wet. More tetris DS’ing involved and eventually we met up with Stephie again and went to GBK in Soho for some burger action. This was the first time kev and inn had tried the burgers at GBK so they were quite excited for it. Kev ordered a bunless burger since he couldn’t eat wheat, I ordered milkshake too and had a classic burger. It was all yummy and nice. Kev eventually left us all to go back to Leeds and we soon left GBK to do some random internet browsing and eventually heading back to the hotel room. That was pretty much it. I packed up and went back home (which was disturbingly quick hehe).

A lovely weekend filled with loads of nice things to eat and all.

stuff you might also like

• Muse Meetup 23rd November 2006
• Sushi, 3D Dumbledore and We are Physics!
• The ultimate Muse Wembley Stadium Weekend (Sunday)
• The ultimate Muse Wembley Stadium Weekend (Saturday)
• The ultimate Muse Wembley Stadium Weekend (Friday)