Particularly when I can blame someone else!  As part of his teacher training, Rich wanted to take advantage of the pirate themed work his school are doing, as well as link it in with his pet parrot Doris – which involved constructing a story around Doris having a past-life as a pirate’s pet, who was fortuitously rescued by our heroic teacher!  (Bear in mind his intended audience are 5-6 years old!).

As well as dressing up in a daft costume and cavorting merrily with Doris and a sword, I also got to turn my hand to my technical skills – one of the pictures in the series involved Doris ‘playing dead’ in order to fool the pirate.  One of the cool things about Senegal Parrots is they are one of the few birds around who are happy to lie on their back (fnar fnar), although in Doris’ case she wasn’t keen on doing so and being photographed on a tabletop.  So we were able to get a picture of her in Rich’s hand in a suitable pose – which meant that obviously his hand was in shot.

Thanks to a bit of fiddling with Photoshop I was able to remove the background, put a picture of our table surface in the background as well as a bit of a drop-shadow to make it look like she is actually on the tabletop.  Finally, the only thing the ‘green curmudgeon’ wouldn’t do (and why should she?) was close her eyes on the shot – so I also made an attempt to shut her eye digitally by over-painting her open eye with grey and then applying some texture from her plumage to make it look a bit more realistic.  I was pretty chuffed with the results if I do say so myself!

Should you want to see the full photo-story Rich is planning on unleashing upon his unsuspecting classmates, then do feel free to click here.

In other news, last week Rich and I went down to The Approach in Nottingham and had the pleasure of meeting former-Forest legend Steve Stone, and the legendary mullet-bearer Chris Waddle – which was a giggle, for sure – although my question to Stoney about what he may have got upto in a Biffa bin behind Ritzy’s was disappointingly not answered other than by an awkward pause!

He’s got no hair, but we don’t care, Stevie Stevie Stone!

This weekend heralded the notional last night of freedom for a certain Andrew “The Lothario” Best, but I’m going to start with a bit of a moan first.

As part of our plans, Rich had pre-booked (and paid) for tickets for ‘Guilty Pleasures’ being hosted at a club called Koko in Camden Town.  The tickets stated that if we could arrive before 12:30am – we duly did so at 12:25am and were refused entry by a bouncer.  The bouncer (as t’wasn’t his fault) summoned the promoter, who was a class A twat who made up a load of bollocks when basically they’d just let more people in and not allowed for tickets they’d pre-sold.  We did get a refund, but it left a sour taste – so if you’re thinking of going to a Guilty Pleasures night, don’t bother – it’s run by a bunch of twunts.

Andy with some new friends!

Anyway.  Aside from that, the weekend was brilliant!  It started with a slight concern as a migraine suffering Rich texted me to say he was stuck in Lincoln ’til he was fit to drive the night before – fortunately he recovered sufficiently to get back down to Nottingham as planned, from where we drove down to Henley and caught the Tube to Camden to meet up with the rest of the boys.

After checking into a grotty hovel of a youth hostel, we hotfooted it back to the Tube to get across to Leyton where the mighty Reds were playing Orient.  The game wasn’t the best, but a fortunate goal from Junior Agogo was enough to get us a much needed away three points – so the weekend was certainly getting off to a good start!

We headed back to Camden with a few cans – which caused a few problems for Tim on the tube as one of them decided to empty itself into his bag – and then headed out in Camden to the quietest curry house in the world, which was very amusing for all manner of reasons, although the most important factor being the food quality – and this didn’t disappoint at all!

After this we went around a few pubs in Camden – Camden’s a great people-watching place, full of people desperate to be ‘different’ by basically dressing in strange clothes, which are available in abundance from the market stalls and shops on the high street.  A few of our party were interested in catching the end of the egg-chasing, so we found a pub showing that… I saw Jonny Wilkinson miss a couple of kicks and score a drop-goal, as well as a try – I still don’t get it.

Then was the fateful walk to the Guilty Pleasures night.  After a pointless argument with the charismaless bastard running the night, we headed back into Camden Town and ended up in a place called ‘Underworld’ – which played some great tunes, but didn’t have the friendliest clientelle in the world – not sure that Andy mooning them from the stage repeatedly helped in the ‘making friends’ stakes, mind!

A strangely accidentally arty pic of Andy in action in Underworld!

It was here I succumbed to a banging headache – I spent an hour or so alternately trying to drink my way through it (initially with alcohol, then with some water), dance through it or just sit down near an aircon unit and hope it went – but it didn’t so I escaped back to the hostel to get some much needed sleep – probably a good job I did as Rich was in no fit state to drive back, so I ended up doing that this morning with him kipping on the back seat!

A top weekend, though – really enjoyable, given my usual dislike of all things London!  Rich and I are heading back down to the capital next month so I can have my didgeridoo lesson, which should be a laugh!  There’s a few photos here, I’m sure more will appear on Rich‘s site too…

I forewent my usual Sunday morning lie-in to take a trip up to Warrington of all places, with Ma, Granny and Cat along with the houndfolk of Milly and Sam in order to visit new-dog-to-be, Heidi.

Me with Heidi, Milly and Sammy

Heidi’s a collie whose owners decided, upon acquiring her by whatever means, that they couldn’t be arsed with her – so despite being perfectly healthy and with a lovely nature, they decided to try to get her put to sleep… or, that makes it sound too nice, they wanted to kill her.

Fortunately she was rescued – and will shortly be travelling down to Nottingham to take up residence with Ma, Dad and Milly. Today’s trip was a chance to test her out with Sam (who would get on with any dog on the planet) and Milly, who is a little more highly strung.

However, upon getting ’em all in a park it transpired that there wouldn’t be any problems – the only snapping and barking that went on was very good natured indeed, and Heidi provided a nice reminder at how a younger Collie can zoom all over the place for ever if given the chance! At 14, Sammy’s a bit too old for those kinds of shenanigans these days!

So we’re heading back up there on 3rd March to bring her home, Ma and Dad have an unfortunate holiday timed between now and then otherwise we could’ve brought her back sooner – but she’s being well cared for where she is.

Just makes you realise what bastards some people are to consider having an animal that could bring so much pleasure to people put to death.

By the end of the walk, it was all too much for poor Milly – she tried desperately to keep up the pace with her little legs but was absolutely shattered by the end of it!

A quick pub-lunch delivered needed sustenance and it was back down to Nottingham and home – a different but very interesting way to spend a Sunday, and we’re all now looking forward to bringing Heidi into ‘the pack’ and seeing if Milly will let her have any toys/chews/a bed!

Today being Cat’s birthday, we took advantage of a day off work to head into Nottingham, principally to grab a spot of lunch – as well as take the opportunity of getting an elevated view of the city from the ‘Nottingham Eye’ – a temporary Ferris Wheel that’s currently operating in the Market Square.  Definitely well worth a fiver of anyone’s money if you want to see the underrated Nottingham from a different perspective.  I took a few photos which are available here.

I’ve fiddled around with the photo above, using the principles of ‘tilt shifting‘ which is basically a photographic techique that works well on elevated photos like these, and through a process of tinkering with blurring at the boundaries as well as adjusting the contrast and saturation, basically leaves you with a picture that looks like a toy!  I quite like the affect, although the pigeon crap above Schuh an the proliferation of people wandering about the Square perhaps make that less than convincing!

After the ride, which basically saw you go over the wheel four times – once while they were ‘loading everyone on’ and then three times uninterrupted, we opted to head over to the Pitcher & Piano for a spot of lunch, which was rather nice – decent food, decent service and great surroundings.  Rather than head off immediately we decided that we could take advantage of a free afternoon to do some of the cheesy tourist things that folk tend to ignore in their home town.

So, like the true romantic that I am, I suggested we pop to the Galleries of Justice, which is basically a museum of crime and punishment opposite the Lace Market Hotel – and is the site of Nottingham’s old county court, and scene of many executions and imprisonments.  It’s quite a morbid place really.  I thought £9 was a bit steep to get in, but the tour was really good, and lead to a revelation I will come on to later – as it bears in depth discussion.

You are initially cleverly handed between tour guides – starting in a Victorian courtroom that was in use until the late 80’s, before descending into the cells below and discovering the joys of being emprisoned at this particular time.  After a brief walk out into the exercise yard, where some gallows stood menacingly, you’re back inside and on your own to learn about the transportation of prisoners to Australia before regaining your freedom outside again!

Definitely worth a visit, I can see why it gets such good reviews – probably better in a large group rather than as part of a collective of couples/families as the guides do like to interact with people, and being amongst strangers naturally makes most people clam up a little.  But should you fancy something a little different of an afternoon, then it’s definitely an hour that you should find interesting.  But anyway, I made mention of the revelation that I would return to – and I most certainly shall.

The first tour guide described Nottingham as traditionally a ‘Rebel City’ – indeed, it’s not hard to imagine given our associations with the likes of Robin Hood.  However, he made mention of something even more amusing – us Nottinghamians, it seems, are not to be messed with.  Back in the 18th Century, during Goose Fair (which at this time was pretty much a big market, and hosted in – funnily enough – the Market Square), the visiting traders had put the price up of cheese by around 3p.

This caused outrage amongst the good folk of Nottingham, who – rather than boycotting the rip-off dairy produce – proceeded to overturn tables and riot, hurling the large round cheese all over the place.  The Mayor of the time was quickly on the scene to try to restore the peace, and was promptly flattened by a rolling cheese heading down Wheeler Gate just off the market square!  The great cheese riot of Nottingham, I feel, is a hidden gem of an event which should be commemorated by some kind of eccentric event in Nottingham.  Maybe a big cheese-fight in the Market Square?

So there you have it, Nottingham from above, some nice food, rioting over cheese and reflections on crime and punishment!  Not a typical Valentine’s day list of activities, perhaps, but quite entertaining nonetheless!

.. whilst I’m planning on taking part in an insane multi-team, multi-ball football match to raise cash for the Royal British Legion, I’ve not done anything completely mad since I glasswalked last year.  And whilst trudging around a muddy pitch on Hackney Marshes for two hours is quite mad – it’s not quite as extreme as some of my other activities.

So I’ve been doing a bit of research to see what other things are out there that I could consider trying, preferably to raise some cash for charity while I’m at it.  Here’s what I’ve come up with so far…

• SCAD jumping – definitely going to look into this, indeed, it’s readily available in the UK!
• Power kiting – this looks cool, and I know a couple of people who are into it, so I’m sure I’ll be able to wangle something!
• Wing walking – bit of a misnomer, looks ace fun – prohibitively expensive, though!  Bah.

That’ll do for starters – in fact, if you have a browse around Gary King’s site he’s done loads of crazy stuff.  I really like the idea of doing another Bungee jump from – the one he did in Switzerland looks totally quality!  Not to mention the swing thing too.  Hmm.  I shall have to start planning! 🙂

Hello to all, ooh, five people who probably read my blog! 😆

I guess announcements like this become less of a surprise, and more of a faff everytime I post them!  My sincerest apologies for being such a leech!

Once again I am embarking on silliness in the name of charity – this time round it is football.  But not just any old football.  Oh no.

The match I will be playing in will last for two hours, and it will take place on the famous pitches at Hackney in London – the each match taking place on FIVE pitches.  Yes.  Five.  Each team will consist of 30 people, playing in different “zones” in which you won’t be able to leave.

If that doesn’t sound crazy enough, there will be FIVE footballs per match!

All this craziness is to raise money for the very noble cause of the Royal British Legion.  I would be hugely appreciative if you would sponsor me for my small part in this large event, and if you’re similarly crazy, then you might want to sign up to do it too!

If 2 hours of gruelling insane-football wasn’t enough, I will then be further torturing myself by going to watch Forest take on Leyton Orient in the afternoon.  But you don’t have to sponsor me for that.

You can find out more about what I’m babbling about here: http://www.thepoppymatch.org.uk/page.php?id=3

And a page to sponsor me via the magic of a secure interweb connection is here: http://my.artezglobal.com/personalPage.aspx?registrationID=237141

.. a decidedly contentious title, and not strictly accurate from this weekend’s shenanigans, so read on.

We start with Nottingham City Transport, and the joys of the ‘city rider’ ticket. For a mere £2.70, Rich and I boarded a bus into town from Mapperley, and then onto a tram to Phoenix Park. Quite bargainous we thought. From there we hooked up with The Fakers and numerous other friends of theirs, and got onto a coach to Liverpool, where they were playing a gig in The Cavern.

Now it’s true that upon driving into Liverpool itself, you do pass streets of boarded up houses and, shall we say, less than desirable areas – but my natural Nottinghamian disdain for Liverpool couldn’t cover up the fact that, even in the rain, Liverpool is actually blessed with a pretty impressive city centre – for all the problems the surrounding areas may have.

Arriving in ‘pool at around 5pmish gave us time, after lugging the band’s equipment down into The Cavern, to have a wander – a Subway and then a few beers with Rich‘s Liverpool-based mates Fi and Joe, before heading back to the venue in time to catch a couple of bands before our boys were on. To say they weren’t really very good was an understatement, one was just a bit dull, the next band had the temerity to cover a Beatles song and forget half the words! (As well as a song which was basically Coldplay’s “Yellow” with different words).

The Fakers, however, were tremendous. They were also the epitome of balls-out nerve… you see, whilst it is in the dim and distant past, there is a lot of mutual bad blood between Nottingham and Liverpool, largely borne out of the 70’s and 80’s rivalry between Forest and Liverpool. Of course, that rivalry is just a memory, but the feelings remain. Liverpool fans even still sing “we hate Nottingham Forest…” despite the gulf in status the two clubs now have…

So to set up the stage of the Cavern – the epitome of Liverpoolness when it comes to music – with a Forest flag draped over the speaker, and introduce yourselves by announcing “Liverpool! Nottingham is in the area!” is, on the face of it, a pretty stupid thing to do – but well, if you were there then it was also fooking genius as well – Dave the singer was cunning enough to implicate us on the invasion too, which I suppose at least illustrated there were quite a lot of us if anyone fancied any trouble. Fortunately they didn’t.

The gig was excellent from the Nottingham boys – they are, for those of you who’ve not seen them (and if not, why not? Get down Juncktion 7 on 31st January in Nottingham), a four-piece band a comprise of Dan Bennett, a suitably bonkers chap who transforms into some kind of drumming octopus when he takes the stage, Howard White – a guy who could probably run through a brick wall – on bass, Phil Swift is the calm presence on guitar and backing vocals, and finally Dave Marmion, an energy-filled and non-too-uncharismatic front man.

They make up a tight unit, and to say they showed up the other bands on offer is an understatement – I was watching one of the other band look progressively more and more green about the gills as the set went on. The climax of the show was a mass stage-invasion from the Nottingham contingent for the last song, which certainly means that for those stoic and surly looking kids who were in The Cavern that night, The Fakers will live long in their memories if only as “that band that had the mass stage invasion at the end”.

So definitely a case of Nottingham 1, Liverpool 0 – which is not the kind of boast we can often have over the reigning European City of Culture (one wag remarked this meant that now you’re likely to find your car propped up on books instead of bricks).

After the boys had finished, despite being slightly intrigued by a three-piece band that comprised of two blokes who looked like Egon Spengler, we decided not to stick around and have a mooch around Liverpool for an hour before the bus picked us up. So a kebab and a portion of chips later, that’s what we did – wandering around the area of The Cavern to the Albert Dock area, and back again – taking in such sights as the hotel Formula One, where John Barnes allegedly took prostitutes (it’s pretty much an unstaffed hotel, you book online and get a ‘code’ to get into your room, you see), to the fantastic dock-side area.

As when I visited Manchester in October, it did make me a bit jealous, and realise what a forward-thinking council can achieve if it puts its mind to it. Walking the streets wasn’t in any way threatening, it was full of people having a good laugh – which is often not the case in my dear home town. Their new dockside arena looks absolutely ace from the outside, now compare that to our fairly drab ice arena – which architecturally lacks any kind of appeal whatsoever, despite being a decent venue.

We got back to the bus, and awaited some of our more wasted travellers to find us – thus enjoyed a spot of people watching, there were transvestites, a terrifying array of Liverpudlian womenfolk who were apparently impervious to the cold, and a brick-shithouse bloke rather amusingly wearing dungarees… to name but a few. Eventually we were finally underway, there was a brief singalong with an acoustic guitar, and lots of banter, before Rich and I were finally back on the streets of Nottingham, and faced with the police calming down a bunch of youths, and further sirens heard in the distance.

Which brings me back to our ‘city rider’ tickets – we got back just in time for the last nightbus vaguely homeward, and the tickets were only valid for that too, so whilst it took longer than a cab, and I ended up with a 15 minute walk home from the nearest bus stop, it was a pretty bargainous way to get home which was a rather nice end to an entertaining afternoon and evening. I’m definitely up for further Liverpool shenanigans in future, and whilst I will always have issues about the place, it’s best to remember that a fair proportion of the locals are Everton fans – which ain’t so bad…

I discovered my car’s trip computer automatically logs your current journey – ie, when the ignition started until you stop.  And I’ve become transfixed with the mpg rating which updates as you drive, and have been cunningly attempting to maximise fuel efficiency when commuting (which isn’t really the most efficient way to use fuel anyway) – but assuming the onboard computer is accurately calculating it, it’s amazing how quickly you can make a fairly significant impact on how long your fuel will last.

For example, I was driving home from work today – which is around 7 miles.  After 3 miles I was waiting at traffic lights and discovered the screen which would tell me this information.  By the time I had reached home, I had managed to increase the mpg rating by around 2-3 miles per gallon (if we were to extrapolate the journey to that far).  The remaining four miles had comparable speed roads and traffic lights etc – obviously you get hit quite hard if you have to stop entirely and use the throttle heavily in order to get moving again…

… so there you go, a new game when you’re bored on the way to work to play if your car yields similar information, see if you can get to work with the highest mpg rating yet – and you’re not only saving yourself a bit of cash over time, it’s good for the environment too.  Of course, make sure you actually watch the road too, otherwise you might find yourself embedded in a large stationary object, which I wouldn’t recommend!