Wednesday 29 October 2008

Guns 'N' Anti Gravity Stuff

Angel of the North West - a bit rusty

I think it was my mate Copey who knew someone with a leather jacket that had 'Guns and Roses' lovingly hand painted on. In case you don't know, there is a mega high risk that they may release a new album this year which according to Andy means we are all going to drown in free Dr Pepper. He mentioned this whilst walking and as is usual with anything odd my pals say, I had my doubts...however odd people always know best

Dr Pepper 

Guns N Roses when we liked them

Yeah yeah Andy, I'm sorry, but not as sorry as you were feeling for yourself last Sunday morning.

The bright and breezy up at 7am and off to Snowdonia had been canned at about 10pm the previous evening exactly 5 hours into a pub session, TBF Andy was already 4 up at this stage due to afternoon drinks. Plan B was quickly abandoned by drinking more back at ours and getting to bed at about 1am, well you can't risk drinking and driving. Having got the perfect excuse for a lie in, that’s exactly what we did and it then took an hour to pull round. 

 Plan C was a quick 4 hour jaunt around Kinder Scout near Glossop, appropriately starting and finishing at The Grouse Inn.  So at the crack of 11am we pulled up ready to run up a mountain, well Andy looked like he was seasick and jetlagged but hell he's an athlete. 


Quick Andy intro...edited highlights only. He has a severe case of Blogitus i.e. don't say anything anywhere near me just in case it ends up on the blog, well he did before he got smashed and then this came out. ‘Right, Man City, three predictions'

There will be no more superstars

Mark Hughes will have the final say and

It'll be about the long term.

Mind you it was better than the 'all women should aspire to larger breasts' pronouncement made approximately 3 seconds before Judith slugged him. Well she would have done had he not been 5th dan black belt yoshimoto or something, with a reputation for punching innocent people in the kidneys at festivals!

Top mate though.

Getting out of the car it was a Batman moment 'Blam Blam' 'Kerpow' 'Blast' as gunshots were blasting off everywhere. It’s a bit disconcerting to see a couple of blokes approaching you on an A Road brandishing guns....even if they did have tweed jackets on. Not a worrying as David Batty being part of the crew(read the truck)...maybe the ex Leeds thugs were planning another Big Mac Attack but tooled up this time. I'm guessing it was clay pigeons as far too much blamming for any birds to be around these parts.


Satmap on and off across and up the moors we go, thankfully Satmap now fully understood there is no chance of getting lost...until it went off. Unbelievable a great bit of kit, promoted on this very website and it had the temerity to crash not once but 3 times in 5 minutes...bloody useless. Well it would have been bloody useless, if I hadn't discovered on returning home that I'd actually left it on all night and flattened the battery.....tosser.

 Satmap 2 vs Real Maps 2

 Big playoff game at Tryfan in 2 weeks.

Fortunately we were mapped to the teeth and Andy didn’t seem to care much which direction we walked in as long as nothing that happened could be Blog worthy or his fault. As you do when walking we returned to one of our favourite topics what’s good and bad in music, films, books and other stuff. The conclusion of all this is that we trust our mates call on this stuff more than we trust the various magazine lists at the end of the year. (Craig’s impaired hearing excepted).

So the proposal is we have our own year end lists and then I'll post them on here so we can all see what good stuff we may have missed out on. Oh Yeah and rather than it being all new this year stuff I thought it would be a reasonable call to include things you came across this year for the first time. Kind of all inclusive for old people too...no names no pack drill.

We'll finalise categories over the next few weeks and then we'll go for a pre Christmas posting i.e. at the end of the year.

Over the top of the hills via streams and bogs and then onto a perfect yellow brick road patio affair, this one was definitely a good plan. Now Kinder Scout and the moorland around it are the bit of hills you go over on the approach to landing at Manchester Airport (yes I know ..if the prevailing wind is from the West...). Anyone not overly happy about flying and specifically over jutty up hills like these may want to look away NOW. Too late

 

Rest of these pics are good too! 

Blinkin aeroplane wreckage, bloody brilliant. Well not for the people in it at the time, but for us looking for skeletons of captains in uniforms (or Andy looking for breast implants in the cabin crew), bloody brilliant. Having had our fill of death and eating stories from the sky, we actually started a real hill climb and thoughts turned to Kilimanjaro and how it might turn out. Possibly inspired by the guns earlier and the plane crash it was concluded...

'Craig will never get fit enough to get up the hill but he is daft enough to try'. 'You'd better take a rifle for the good of the group'. Suffice to say mate any lagging behind and you are going to be toast and it’s going to be Pizza flavoured rump all round that evening.

Kinder Scout was voted one of the favourite walks in the UK and at this point I was struggling to understand this, too many bogs and too much gorse really. Until we got to the top of the first hill and the landscape changed, rocks all over the place a cracking ridge walk and views right across the North West of England oh and a reservoir to look down at. Then it came into view, 'The Waterfall' more specifically The *******g UPHILL waterfall, well neither of us had ever seen anything like this before. 

Excuse for Billy Bragg Tune**


Local newspaper? - a classic of its genre

Virtually all the water going over the edge was getting blown back to the top by the strong winds up the ridge, astonishing. We took  some pictures from the side and then from the edge at the top. At this juncture I pointed out to Andy that if the wind changed direction we were going to get utterly soaked through.

 Not 3 seconds later this happened

 

Oh how we laughed!! Well Andy did as he was in full waterproofs. The walk back was a bit moist, around the ridge, following the Pennine Way and then down by the side of Red Beck. Well it should have been, due to an incy wincey misjudgement (and no batteries) we ended up slightly higher on the hill than expected. Excellent! 'off map' its always the best bit, although a bit steep and a bit slidy to try this one too often, still no harm and a few extra training yards done.

At this point Andy enquired as to how much further of this 4 hour walk we had to go, it turned out that it was quite a bit further as I'd misread 360 minutes as 4 hours, I think I'd divided by football matches maybe oh and it was 10.5 miles not km...woops. Yup that would get us back to the pub in darkness. Except me and my ultra fit pal had marched round the whole thing and despite there being two more hills to climb 800m up in total, we made it through to the end of the walk in a smidge over 4 hours. 

Still time to get our dinner and a well earned cider in the pub.

Happily take suggestions for categories at this stage, we can also add to them whilst walking to the pizza shop.

** Billy Bragg discovery.. , we discovered in the car that Andy and I have very differing views on Billy Bragg and more specifically on the Mermaid Avenue albums made by him and Wilco. I only like the Billy Bragg tracks as the Wilco ones are a bit Americana boring. Andy has actually made a single album by cutting out all the BB tracks to have a Wilco only version. Strange behavior yes, but oddly quaint.

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Another walk? Dont you know that a heavy drinking session the night before means that you get the next day off? Worth it though to see the aftermath of a plane crash. Next time visit the butchers first for a couple of dog bones* to leave nearby. It should cause a certain amount of panic amongst following walkers. Unless they happen to be vets. Or doctors. Or even maybe butchers.

*Note to non-UK readers. Dog bones are cow bones that you get from the butchers* to fed your dog, not the actual bones of dogs.

*Note to pedantic UK readers. Yes. I know you cant get them anymore,post BSE, but it spoils the whole idea of leaving them next to the plane if I say that. Pretend its 1995 or something. The boro are still at Ayresome Park, I'm still 13 stone, Londons* are selling cow bones alongside pork pies and all is right with the world.

*They were the butchers in Norton not London. Just called London, thats all. I'm beginning to wish I hadn't found the asterisk key.

And finally, on a Guns N Roses theme, I was at a basketball match last night and Slash (and his black top hat)played the national anthem beforehand. Luckily I wasnt sat directly behind him.

Anonymous said...

1. I was quoting what the new owners of Manchester City have publicly stated.
2. You didn't quote me correctly:
a) The new owners have said that there WILL be me more star players, but they will also continue to invest (and indeed expand) in the City Academy, b) for those star players identified, Mark Hughes will have final say and c) they are realistic and don't expect success immediately and they are in it for the long haul...these statements are a matter of public record and any journalist, or writer, worth his salt could easily check these facts - just like Dr Pepper
3) I never said anything about looking for silicon breasts in the wreckage of the plane. This is made up...I may have said the comment that women should aspire to having large breasts, but I can't remember it - so that's probably made up too. I did think it would have been cool if snakes had been slithering through the eye sockets of the pilot's skeleton though
4) It really was a plane wreck...though my daughter thinks it looks like a robots head (she's got a point...I'm surprised Paul didn't go with that)
5) Yes, I did make up a CD of all the Wilco tracks from the Mermaid Avenue albums...it just seemed pragmatic. If anybody else wants to do it, I can supply cover art that I made up
6) Though you probably doubt it by now (let's face it, our braces wearing, Gordon Gekko styled friend has made a rock for his own back)...the waterfall was indeed going uphill

Anonymous said...

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/sport/football/manchester_city/s/1067931_city_statement

PaulB said...

Just when you had me on your side, you lost it completely by suggesting me and style could ever fit comfortably into same sentence.

After that response was imperative.
1. You never said you were paraphrasing, just passing your words off as your own thoughts.
2. Of course not
3. I had taken your comments from the previous evening as a fair and true reflection of your likely behaviour
4. I was too tired to notice the head shape after we'd moved all the dog bones from the area.
5. Could you send me the other half with a Billy Bragg pic please.
6 It really was. And we all have fashion crimes....just off to use the scanner.

PaulB said...

Ric B has suggested we get some odd list practice in before year end. so as a started for 10.....Obscure Snooker players from the 70's and Early 80's. Only one rule ..no looking up stuff on the internet

Eddie Charlton

Anonymous said...

"rock for his own back"...I'm mixing metaphors maybe?

How on earth can you take comments from a previous evening as a fair and true reflection of my likely behaviour??? You were there, you didn't have to guess my behaviour.

That's like spotting an early Genesis album in somebodies record collection and condemning them to a life of Prog rock

...isn't it, katan wearing beardie

Anonymous said...

I reckon he just makes the whole thing up, probably before the walk has even taken place. Thats if there are any actual walks.

I think he writes all these comments himself too.

By the way, I could have gone to see Gaslight Anthem last night, they were supporting Alkaline Trio and a couple of other kiddie bands. The advert made a special point of mentioning that it was for all ages. All ages below 15 I think it meant so I didnt bother.

On the breasts topic. I'd prefer to have smaller ones.

Anonymous said...

which reminds me: How on earth could he put Busted soundalikes Gaslight Anthem in the "dodgy bands that Andy likes" section? I'd never even heard of them at the time

PaulB said...

Right that's it, I'm an artist and I'm chucking a hissy and I won't be back without an apology.

So there

Anonymous said...

So I now like Genesis, ELP and Yes?

Not at all ashamed to say that I love UFO (Michael Schenker era 1973-1979) and Fleetwood Mac (the version with Buckingam and Nicks).

But we both know that it's not me with the Genesis albums, don't we...

Anonymous said...

I quite like that Fleetwood Mac song 'Go Your Own Way'. In fact I bought Rumours on eBay recently, although thinking about it, I dont remember it arriving.

I suspect that I would quite like Genesis too. Maybe, if I can get around to listening to them then they can be my new band for 2008.

Oh, and Bill Werbenuik.

PaulB said...

even obscurer David Taylor. he looks like David Gowers dad.

and the chain was ok

Anonymous said...

Silvino Francisco and Fred Davis

PaulB said...

if they were legit out of your head that's good form.
John Spencer and Kirk Stevens

Anonymous said...

Of course they were. So are their brothers, Peter Francisco and Steve Davis.

Rich B said...

Right, here goes;

Mike Hallett
Dean Reynolds
Mark Roe
Mark Wildman

At least 2 of these were from Grimsby (Hallett and Reynolds), and 2 have surnames that are also fish (Hallett and Roe), that continues the Grimsby connection.

So, if anyone can continue my newly launched thread of 80's snooker players from Grimsby that have surnames that are also fish, I will be tremendously impressed.

Leeds United once had a centre-half called Peter Haddock, but I am not sure where he was from, and I have no idea how good he was at snooker. So, apart from having a surname that is also a fish, he's a bit of a non-starter in the whole 80s Snooker-Grimsby-Fish Surname conundrum..

Over to you...

Anonymous said...

Perry Mans