Welshier than you

As far back as I can recall, I've had an inherent revulsion of racism. This was probably due to the judgement and preaching of Joe Strummer and Jake Burns and also because it always seemed a bit daft to judge someone without knowing them. I've also hated tribalism mainly because I was terrified of the thought of getting caught in the middle of tribal argy bargee. Its so obviously shite when you consider the following 

Our street hates your street - fight (get all kids from street on same team now)

Our estate hates your estate - fight etc

Our school hates your school - fight etc

Our footy team is better than yours etc

Town

Area

North v South

Country v Country

Colour v Colour

Real and total utter B****cks....as for the BNP lot I really just don't get it.

Just looking forward to seeing their reaction when the inhabitants of Planet Zarg turn out for punch up.

Doesnt Make it Alright

I'm not claiming all prejudice is unfair I think religion preaches it and should have some back and I came across this on a blogsite I read, it made me laugh, if you are easily offended by swearing don't read the next bit

Without wishing to offend anyone’s religious sensibilities, fuck you, fuck your infantile fairytales, and fuck right off and snivel yourself to sleep in the dark of your bedroom, coddled in your childish fantasies that we have some sort of privileged places in the universe, that anyone gives a fuck about your fucking feelings and that you won’t die and rot like every other living thing on Earth. You fucking baby.

Its a music blogsite !!

The relevance of this lays in the conversation with Shad (he's Welsh and lived there so he's allowed an opinion on Wales) during our trip up a few Welsh mountains. Today's race has been moved from the rather pretty but no challenge whatsoever Chrome Hill over to Snowdonia where they have real mountains. I never realised just how close we live to the Welsh Mountains, so this is likely to be the first of many. I managed to find a reasonable 5 hour walk which included some scrambling and ridge walking but more importantly an immediate and sustained treck to the top of a huge hill.

Tiny people all over the path

You just know its going to be a great day when your mate gets into the car and opens the conversation with ' I was ferreting last weekend and I know all the techniques now'.

The trip to Snowdonia was a complete education in Shads past and the history of North Wales 1975 to 2008 which basically seems a round of tribalism and racism towards the English or even the Welsh if they spoke English. I loved the story where Shad moves town and goes into the newsagent to reserve The Times and Sheep Lovers United or something and asks in English. One of the folk serving is instructed in Welsh by another chap to say yes but to not bother getting them for the English person. Top marks for Shad for speaking to them in English for the next 6 months and not letting on.

The Welsh prejudice seems to be against everyone that isn't them, but more particularly English people, I'm sure not everyone in North West Wales is prjudiced despite what Shad tells me.

Famous Singer Shows True Colours

Two other points of note came to light on the car journey, one of Shads old schools was MOD run and breaks were taken in the bunkers. It now has a dual carriageway running through the middle of it which I guess is a change from most other schools or school fields which are now housing estates. Slight aside but when did an air gap of 3.2" qualify houses as being 'detached', I was in one of these 'detached' houses a few weeks ago when one of my pals pointed out we could here next doors music, blame marketing again I guess...tossers.

And the second thing is that Shad actually moved into an old people's home for about 6 months. There are so many questions I wanted to ask about this but sometimes things are better left in the past....I would love to know why he had to move out though. Perhaps he won all the prizes on sports day? Anyway back to the walk

Y Garn is pretty imposing from the railway station at Rhyd Ddu where we'd parked and you can clearly see the way to the top, which for once is basically straight up. Now as this was being build as I race you can be sure I had my tactics planned, I think Shad had turned up for a nice day out....bless. A pleasant 15 minute stroll to the point where the slope stats to climb severely and ....we're off. Well I was, I'd adopted British Olympic Rowing tactics which is basically go as fast as you can for as far as you can and leave everyone one else in bits behind you.....200 metres later Shads chucking in the nearest bush and its all over. I did wait a few times for him on the way up just to make sure he was ok and fair play it is about 1500ft straight up from the gate with no respite. Having huffed and puffed our way to the top it was as spectacular as anything I've climbed, with high risk droppy off bits all over the place. I'm claiming a 20 minute victory margin which doesn't really need a photo finish but here's one anyway.

At this point Shad out onlychilded me, he had brought a flask of tea for one and with only one cup.....git...shellfish flavour tea was it?. When he ran out of water later I even gave him half of mine just as a 'lets freak him' tactic.

The walk was going to get a whole lot more fun from here on in. 

The ridge we were going to climb has actually been responsible for a fair few injuries and a least one fatality and heck it looked so impressive. Its even impressive in the picture above once you notice the people in the bottom left.

It was the most fun I've had all year I think this was probably an adrenaline thing, but I was high as a kite once we'd got to the top. As it turned out we were actually higher than the clouds, this was great fun on the next ridge as we were enveloped by them as various times as they moved between valleys. 

A few of you will appreciate that descending can be even trickier than the ascent, and I really tried to switch my camera to video mode to capture this, but alas convulsions of laughter and real tears hindered me. Shad thought it would be much easier to sit on his sled width ass and slide down the mountain, the bouncing over the rocky outcrops and the screeches were hysterical. Now my pal Craig gets bored with blogs (actually anything including photo's) if he isn't in them and probably does 'CTR F search Craig' at the top of the page, so a short Craig story.And yes its like feeding chocolate to dogs again. 

Shads sliding reminded me of Craig's one and only and particularly rubbish attempt at snowboarding. 

Having been taken to some gentle slopes at the top of a hill in Austria and after about 10 minutes of falling down, Craig decided it would be much smarter to use the snowboard as a sledge. This would've been perfectly acceptable as the entertainment value to everyone else as he wrapped himself Sonny Bono style round a tree would have been huge. Unfortunately Craig neglected to strap the board to his leg and as he fell off, the board sped off at 100mph downhill in the fashion of a mobile guillotine. 

The sliding continued infrequently to the bottom of the 1.5km slope mainly due to a (claimed) twisted ankle. Having sorted out my training schedule I was still full of energy and ready for a sprint back until Murphy's law intervened. I texted Pam to say not to worry as we had done the dangerous part and were headed back, within 5 minutes I was mid air triple salko with pike and landing on my front on some really sharp slippy rocks. Ouch. The remainder of the walk was a steady downhill to the cars via a small waterfall, drinking sheep flavoured mountain water and past stones with directions for stupid people. Although as signposts they are a darn site cheaper than the road signs Cheshire CC are still putting up.

I really loved this walk and the future is now going to involve more Wales and a lot more scrambling

Militant Agnostic: I’m not sure and neither are you 

More Pics

No Caves and No Swimming

Ingleton seems to be one of these places in the middle of nowhere that I've visited at various times of my life with different people. The very first time I recall travelling over the moors in a rickety old mini with my folks on our way to the famous White Scar Caves

Just outside Hawes my dad thought it would be a great weeze to pretend the brakes had failed on the way down the steep hill into Hawes....oh how we laughed. Well we did until he screamed and dumped the car into the ditch 3/4 of the way down the hill, good work dad. Good job it wasn't an F1 car you would have been deducted 3 points for that.  I've just remembered that this incident was about a week before the same car set on fire on the A19. Even this would have been ok had my parents not both leapt out onto the hard shoulder and then turned around to see me locked in the back of this two door mini IN FLAMES. Perhaps they were trying to tell me something.

I think the next time I visited Ingleton was on the BeeLine Bus Tour, it was a 1970's thing, where you pretended to go on holiday by catching a coach 6 days a week and then sleeping at your nanas house. I'm sure if I'd have taken an A level in 'dull villages in the Yorkshire Dales that can fit a bus in' I would have gone to Oxbridge (thats a shocking name). Its a shame Half Man Half Biscuit havent got onto that one.

Half Man Half Biscuit Tune

trust me that one is so good try this one too

Another HMHB tune

Another time I was with someone evil who made me swim in the outdoor pool that was filled with water direct from the river...........big brrrr. So even though I really like Ingleton I appoached with some trepidation, particularly as when I hit the one way system I was directed in the opposite direction to the Tom Toms instructions.

Amazingly I arrived at the meeting point bang on time with 10 seconds to spare despite the bloody cyclists holding up the traffic. I pointed this out to Andy and his lovely wife Liz as I jumped out of the car in pretend grumpiness.

Andy ' oh thats my cycling club' woops! He also mentioned that half of them were over 60 which damn well explains why they can't keep up with modern car. Bet old Lance the drug machine still overtakes Mercs.

Andy's taken to doing a bit more walking now ever since he was hit pretty hard by a car whilst cycling around a roundabout in the Lake District. Slight admission here, when he told me this my thought process went along these lines, bloody hell are you alright, no are you really ok? then I thought, I hope there are no after effects and then that I hoped it wasnt his fault and then I hoped there would be no mental problems caused by it. All of this went through my head in about 2 seconds whilst what I actually said was

'did you cry'

still he was here and fighting fit...fitter than anyone else I know as he cycles up the Alps for holidays.

Ingleborough is one of Yorkshires three peaks walk and having done Pen Y Ghent this was number 2.  I'm off to collect my badge and tie once I've been up Whernside in October. It also turns out to be one of Wainwrights favourite walks so that'll do me, as long as I can stay away from the Ingleton curse.

The weather was absolutely gorgeous, full on sunny but with a light breeze and not too warm. Starting to like global warming again. We pretty much marched up to the top without the usual 6 breaks demanded by my less fit friends (Shad). It was on the summit that I discovered why Andy is indeed in sales, up until this point I'd had him down as trustworthy , accurate and honest. Turns out he does exactly the same bullshitting as the rest of us, as Bob Geldof once said paraphrased ' don't be fooled they are all just busking'.

Andy has brought this on himself by telling me months ago that he used to lead walking expeditions around the dales and the Lake District. Well I had my normal WW guidelines, meanwhile Andy has his detailed map. So when I concluded a certain direction was West, Andy decided to check on the map and then declared ' but I knew that just by looking at my shadow'

His face even says 'I've been rumbled'

It was also the direction I had pointed in not 2 seconds before and the direction his map said ' a hindsite shadow' if ever there was one. Within the next 10 minutes he had declared the Ribblehead Viaduct to be not Ribblehead but a different viaduct and then Mr Mappy took us offtrack and down the wrong route and then we had to detour off map more to get back 'on track'. Once on track we lasted about 10 minutes before we were off down the wrong track again! only a 2 mile extra detour. 

Note to Shad...be careful if you go walking with Andy and take some taxi money.

It was such a great day that non of the three of us cared too much and the views were fantastic across to the dales on one side and the Lakes on the other.

This part of the dales is also broken leg lottery country, you wouldnt want to be up here in the fog or the dark as huge pot holes appear out of nowhere, fortunately 'Andys track' had detoured so far there was more chance of getting cut off by the tide. I think Liz was ready for a sit down by the time we got back, since Andy had promised a 5 mile stroll which was infact an 11 mile up down and round hike but all good excercise and great banter. A swift refreshing cider 10/10 and back home to prepare for the Shad Challenge.

And the rest of the pics

SupersiZing Everything

Yes its a z, well actually its a bigger Z than your Z. This noticing of size and marketing nonsense started with a walk around Stonehenge and the surrounding areas on route to The End of Road Festival.

To the best of my knowledge I've never seen Stonehenge, I think I attended 'The Stonehenge Festival' back in the early 80's, but this was Thatchers Britain and the start of 'not quite the truth marketing' so it could well have been The Stone - hedge Festival or something similar. Whatever the detail, there is no picture etched in my memory of the stones , although I do recall the Hawkwind dancers....strange that.

Talking of supersizing, even the signposts have got in on the act, not your normal beware and watch out signs around Salisbury, but BEWARE TANKS...now thats a good signpost. A tank also turned up at the side of the road  about half a mile later, I put on my best I'm being Ware face pretty sharpishly.

I then passed a signpost for Woodhenge which was just too ridiculous to stop at, I've since looked it up and its almost as daft as its hard as nails cousin up the road.

Stuff about Woodhenge

I parked up in Amesbury town carpark and amazingly it was free of charge for the first five hours............how rich are the councils down here? 

I had another 'can't go wrong' step by step walk from The Walking World website which are normally fantastic (up North),written by random walkers and normally to the point. I'll drop in some quotes off this route guide which were most definitely OTT sized. 

Even without a compass this one wasnt going to be too tricky, as I turned right onto Stonehenge Road. 

I reached the burial mounds and this is what the lovely Ron and Jenny from WW had to say 

'These are Bronze Age graves of important individuals and a ridge of barrows extends for over half a mile, making a dramatic feature in the landscape viewed from Stonehenge in the distance. Continue on this delightful way in this magical, historical area, the flat, beautiful landscape stretching away for miles in a stunning panorama.'

No directions whatsoever and more than a touch of hyperbole but worse I suddenly realised that  Stonehenge was in the distance and I'd missed it...doh!!! So I stopped and scanned the hillsides for this wonder of world dominating the mountainside for all to see (except clots like me). Double take and try again, reread the wording and look for a third time. Then my eyes found the small round circle at the bottom of the valley, (RELOOK ABOVE) I actually started laughing out loud which I'm not proud of but FGS....that is not a monument. If you are going to move something all the way from Wales then at least stick it on a bloody great hill.......or Supersize it a bit.

Its actually worse than that because the next signpost....(see below) then actually compensates for the fact that you may be a bit disappointed, by just making up stuff you can't see.

So the biggest structure in the area is a mile and a half big and can't be seen........*******s.

Just for reference its £6.50 to walk within 20 yards of the 15ft rocks or free from 25yards on the roadside. Tricky decision that one.

More fun with Roy and his Mrs on the way back

Turn left and cross a busy main road with care, to walk along the verge for a short distance - TRUCK NIGHTMARE

Turn left on a permissive path, glorious landscape all around - FARMERS FIELDS

Turn right to continue above deep swathes of landscape - MORE FARMERS FIELDS

This is a wonderfully atmospheric walk that treads in the footsteps of our ancient forefathers - STUFF COWS PUT ON FARMERS FIELDS

Some crazy birds scared the Farmers Fields out of me too on the the way back, as they ran about hidden in the cornfield jumping out on me avery 4 or five minutes. 

Next it was off to meet Craig and then the End of the Road. 

As Craig had made reservations in the hotel he stays in every week near his new job, I knew it would be ok......as I was packed off to the B&B over the road I realised I should have known better and it wouldnt be. Still a few beers and a curry and a festival in the morning so a great nights sleep was had.

We were only really at the festival to see BSP and The Young Republic, although it did feel as though we were taking our 'special' friend Andy on his Americana weekend out. You can read all about how fantastic the place is on this website but I think you'd rather look at pictures

Pictures

Abbreviated version

No Queues

Not far to walk

Loads of camping space

Nice people

Gorgeous setting

Small - 4 stages

Showers

Fast bars

Superheroes

Friday morning was just lovely, sunshine, beers and nothing to do except help our new neighbours put up a tent and chat. Andy and Chris arrived and the car park  was so close we even helped them carry their gear and set up camp. (Strategically close to the perimeter fence).

More drinks and an explore and then it was time for YR first set, it was inside thank goodness as a steady rainfall had set in. It was immense,  the violin solo three quarters of the way through this vid is just perfect in the middle of an indie tune. 

The Alchemist with violin solo

I do agree with Andy that the cover version of Isis is also spectacular, perhaps this is because the lead singer can express himself better without guitar and just be a frontman. (I made a note to ask 'Jules' about this later). It was a great set and I did indeed ask Jules about it later when he informed us that they were playing 4 sets over the weekend. As he'd promised to play Wagon Wheel at one of them I was going to be at allof them, its a cover version of OCMS who built it around a Dylan lost chorus. Remind me when I'm drunk and I'll fill in the gaps for you.

Set 2 in 'The Local' tent at about 1am, my pals had all ran out of steam by this point, excellent time for some loud out of tune singing from me then and at least YR played a few songs of the first album. 

Sue arrived Saturday morning and again had plenty of helpers, although after the Glastonbury palava they were going to be needed. There really is no need for 6 magazines, four books and a coffee table at a festival Sue. Although, I will say that Yoda was a good call for this festival.

Main stage day...Young republic followed closely by BSP and then later Mercury Rev. We attended with Yoda kitted out in splendid (if a bit limp by now) BSP folliage.

Same link as before but Yoda is on it halfway down

YR played an almost totally different set to the first day and as a biased punter I thought it was great all over again. BSP did a B sides and a guitar driven set with much less singing than normal, which as a biased punter I again enjoyed. I then went for a bit of a snooze at this point and came back to see Mercury Rev playing an absolute blinder, I think Andy was close to it when he described them as almost Primal Scream. A few more beers then it was off to the Bimble Inn tent to see YR one last time followed by BSP and mates doing Jonathan Richman covers (He's really good)

Dancing in a Lesbian Bar

Within minutes of getting in there and being at the front (secret side entrance -result) we spotted Andy and Chris and although well behind us we werent about to miss Andy.

The Young Republic got into the spirit of a very late Saturday night party and played a rolling stones, beatles, van morrison, bob dylan guilty pleasures cover set. We had dissention in the ranks though, as a grumpy and possibly still tired Craig declared that 'if I wanted to see this shite I would go down the local working mens club'. I loved every minute of it particularly the cover of Paint it Black.....I chose not point out the irony that YR had indeed played the Westgarth Social club in Middlesbrough only two nights prior to this. 

Supporting evidence from the lead singer, I've removed the Yo Paul bit...

'The Bimble Inn was one of my favorite shows we've ever done. I'm sure we didn't SOUND our best but I really appreciate when we can just play rock n' roll and let it do what it's suppose to do: make people dance and sing and feel alive and carefree and happy. I like the "artsy" stuff too obviously, but as far as a rock show goes, I really thought the Bimble was fun and hit the spot. So best wishes to you and your cohorts, we'll see ya again soon'

As  people danced and sang and friends fell by the wayside we partied through to the end of a very rowdy roadrunner roadrunner at close to 3am. 

For a small festival I had it down as well supersized.

A final note on the most ridiculous of all supersizing as seen in manchester this week. Not a job centre anymore but Job Centre Plus.....thats just silly

More pics check the boot washing last pic

This is a hot one

'hey Pam why don't we have a lovely 3 day break in Palma'

Famous last words, well almost rammed back down my throat words.

Honestly, that was the plan, there were no plans at all to build this into my training schedule. I know I've been to Majorca a few times now, but really who the heck would know they have mountains?

So back to boot camp....erm Palma. Well yes I had been before on one of those tough management conference things that all people in business' have to put up with once in a while. As a consequence I pretty much new the ropes and a couple of tequilla bars and a fantastic cocktail bar. Actually that was all the ropes I knew, but as they say its pretty much enough to hang yourself with. Evening meal in a known place, a rather nice bottle of wine and a few tequillas later....holiday by anyones standard.

Next morning

me ' do you fancy a short walk Pam'

Pam (in best Craig voice) 'aye go on then'

You think she would have got a bit suspicious as I dug out my fell running shoes, (sorry did I mention the fell 'running' shoes Shad?). But no, camera in hand and very little other preparation we headed for the local castle, via the backstreets which did contain some fantastic graffiti and smelt like piss. 

We should have been happy with the piss smell because as we entered the hillside on which said castle sat, the place was littered with dog shite. Honestly it was like being back in the 70's where every child could be seen pulling faces or faeces whilst 'cleaning' shoes with a long stick.

I'm sure if lady di had used this place as a dodge the landmines training course then 1000's of kids would be saved, saying that every school would have at least ones smelly kid. Just for balance I was the scabby kid due to psoriasis...still am really. It beats being man head, or wonky glasses or crooked teeth......b****cks maybe I was all of them! but not nit head.

Back to the hillside, after a short while the dogs obviously ran out dead food and things cleared up and we arrived at a rather splendid castle on the top of the hill. Pams tolerance of sightseeing is actually worse than mine......'yeah right old bricks where's the good stuff'..good stuff indeed. Its a bit like saying to the kids 'just look at that great view' and they inevitably say 'where'? when it's all around them.  As we turned away from the splendid view over the harbour and the town, in the distance behind us loomed up some real mountains capped by a huge statue. 

Me ' why don't we go up there?'

Pam 'aye go on then'

Thankfully there was a bottled water machine, so armed with a bottle each we set off (in the 34C heat and it was now about 11am). Even the guidebook said 'there are no paths or signposts in the forest so be careful'. Off map into the forest we went, we did have a hansel and grettle moment where we thought just maybe we were heading too deep into the woods. But we had JC or maybe Virgin Mary on the hillside to guide us. 

Then the path headed away from the mountain, 140 degrees away, I was all for heading back for a beer at this point when my personal trainer said ' lets scale this huge wall and go back uphill'. We did and then back into more forest with the fallen tree's and barbed wire. Even this was going ok until we realised that there was now full scale motorway between us and the mountain, inspired by the wall climbing I came up with

'lets go under it through the waste tunnel' thankfully Pam raised an eyebrow and enuf sed really. (Sorry I'm testing text speak to outdo Rosie, she would write it as 'nuf sd' so more practice required.) Pams walking in very flat and new sandshoes and I'm all geared in walking shoes, so the point where I mentioned 'snakes in this long grass' kinda freaked her. Anyway it resulted in a rapid march over a field and then clambering over a rather tall wire fence with no complaints just glad to be back on solid ground. 

For the next couple of hours we wound our way round and round and round a couple of hillsides in the heat, pausing only once to call Shad and tell him how unfit he was. By the time the mountain steepened we knew we were only 20 minutes from the top (its now about 36C and the water is running out, oh and Pams starting to get blisters) and the statue loomed over us. The good news is that it looked as if there was a cafe/shack at the top, the promise of which helped us up the last bit.  

RESULT its a full scale boutique restaurant with the greatest views over the whole of Palma, I wasn't quite brave enough (or maybe stupid enough) to claim this had been the plan all along. 'Huge long drinks please with loads of ice, a seat by the door in the breeze (necessary to save the other punters) and your pudding menu my good fellow'. And it was just as good when the food arrived.

Fully refreshed 50 minutes later we decided a swift march back down the hill a sit by the pool was in order. We did spot the shortcut that would have saved us at least an hour on the way up. But hey that wouldnt have helped the training schedule would it. I also spotted yet another splendid signpost..

Back at the hotel we were far too shattered to go partying that night so we headed for the offi and smuggled loads of cheap booze into the room ...'you can't take the Teesside out of the kid' and sat on the balcony watching a wedding take place below. 

Its amazing how you can spot the wide boys and the slappers at any wedding in any country even at 50 yards through a drunken haze. 

And for whats its worth she was definitely offside but at least she scored.

Upping the Ante

Definitely not to be mixed up with a Sunday afternoon parlour game in Cleveland, this is a much used poker phrase used to scare the heck out of opponents. Anyone keeping up with this nonsense may have noticed my only child tendancies to look after myself on walks and kind of leave my pals to struggle up to the top at their own pace. This may be looked on as thoughtful in some circles, but not the circles taking place at a recent party where I was suddenly Dick Dastardly and a cad toboot. Well if it isn't ok to walk at your own pace only one thing to do...

RACE

And so, having had a 15 minutes conversation over the merits of sticking together we descended into light hearted mickey taking and Shads pretty good at this, to the point where the challenge happened.

Paraphrasing the conversation between Shad and me

Shad 'you are a selfish git who never waits for anyone'

Me 'and you are fat and slow'

Shad and Me 'RACE'

The Chrome Hill rematch was laid down, for weekend of 27th September, first to the top wins and loser buys lunch for anyone that turns up. I had this down as an absolute certainty until Shad appeared in lycra the next morning to profess

'I've joined the gym, got a personal trainer and a dietician' oh and ' I've bought a bike and all the girls in the office are my cheerleaders'. By any standards this was a work of genius in 24hours. Bugger. Updates to follow.

As ever the my life and that of my family and friends were on shifting sands this weekend, more like eel filled sands actually. The original plan was; quiet Friday, then Saturday I go to Teesside and walk near Osmotherley followed by a free festival by the river in Stockton featuring BSP and The Happy Mondays.

Rosie goes to The Big Chill Festival with her pal

Pam and Jess have an easy Saturday and go to Girls Aloud on Sunday.

Andy and family arrive Friday night, we get trashed. Saturday Pam and Rosie eventually call off going to the Big Chill and plan to join up with me in Teesside. Saturday traffic is a nightmare and now Craig has a three car shuffle to perform via airports and garages in various bits of the county....the Saturday afternoon walk is already looking a bit at risk.

I'm very happy to give anyone a lift anywhere as I can recall not having a car and relying on my mum , pals and hitching, it was also a great excuse to find a new shortcut to the airport....Vasco da Gama style. The facts about this 'explorer' are below, but the summary is that he only found a shortcut, which in anyones book should be a bit rubbish as exploring goes. He's got loads of statues for it in Portugal though.

Vasco Stuff

It turned out I was more rubbish than even him as my shortcut turned into a longcut

The Longcut for Richard

and thus the Saturday walk was in real jeopardy. As Pam joined us in Craigs house and thoughts started turning to the pub, I recalled Shad sending an email to Craig which basically said ' make him eat curry and drink guiness all weekend'. Off to the pub it was then at 3pm. Joined my Tom and Beechy later, we'd started as we meant to go on.

All this would have been ok, 3 pints and back to Craigs ready for going down town, if it wasnt for the chilli vodka, which was a smooth as anything and not a bit chillified. So much so that quite a lot of it slid down Craigs neck quite quickly. So with Craig already slightly worse for wear we left the house in a cab 'bang on time for a cab - half an hour late at 8.15pm. Off to the bar for a few beers and down to the front just as BSP come on stage, perfect timing. BSP did a great set finishing with a frantic St Louise lasting 12 minutes, Pam declared them to be ok but a young blokes band- which I took as a compliment.

Great songs to finish a set with

St Louis - BSP

Killer Parties - The Hold Steady

Hey Jude - McCartney

I am the Resurrection -Stone Roses

Feel free to add to the list

and next we get the Happy Mondays. Or rather we don't! as Pam and myself head back to the chaps, there is a rather large empty circle around the pair of them and mud all up Craigs back....he did look very very happy though in 'the safety zone'

Suffice to say the next hour was quite fun, no names no pack drill, no Happy Mondays (Shaun sits down all the way through anyway), but plenty of memories, fish and chips and some extra cider for good measure.

DAMN ---Mondays looking fantastic and Shaun stood up

Next morning 'up and at em' and ready for a walk, well I was, Craig declined ( I think lunch at his mums beckoned) and Pam needed to head back with the kids to make the Pop in the Park gig. This meant I could nip round and visit my nana. I guess all families have their Godfather figure, well nana Ivy is ours and you really wouldnt want to stay on the wrong side of her for too long. At 85 she's as sharp as a tack and really is the epitomy of the Eddie Izzard marching old ladies in their big coats.

Eddie Izzard ish

I don't think anyone in the family is too big to get a clip off her if they were out of order. Brilliantly her only request is that I call more often and can I get her some shower caps. It is great to see her so enthusiastic at 85.

Well the print out says 'a four hour walk' around Osmotherly, I don't really have four hours and as the gauntlet is now thrown down I decide the only answer is to march it a double pace. Osmotherly is at the foot of the Cleveland Hills and less than a mile off the A19, so very bloomin handy indeed. Except it needs a multistory car park, ok it would be a tiny bit of an eyesore, but there are loads of hills around here they could build it in. Twelve minutes to find a parking space!!

Yomp yomp up the first hill passing people and causing them to stagger in my wake (hope you are paying attention Shad), I was somewhat distracted by a series of wooden crosses by the side of the path, with little wooden notices next to them with references to things Jesus 'did'. Now at least 3 of these just said Jesus trips, I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt that it wasnt a Happy Mondays reference, but even so, Jesus slays a dragon or slugs a giant would be better. Tripping up is the sort of thing I can do.

This is a slight aside but talking of rubbish things, there was a bloke on TV earlierat Craigs who was from ' the anti salt society' that really isnt a good thing to make your lifes work. Mind you you could do T Shirts

Saxa's gonna get ya. or even plain 'SAXA'D with a picture of the pot on it, bet Che is quaking in his boots.

The walk thankfully went past a small chuch (explained the crosses then) and downhill to Mount Grace Priory (I'd just walked up the hill!). Just for reference MGP is only good for school trips from Teesside when they can't afford to take you anywhere good...we went three times and its a ruin. Go to a good one like Fountains Abbey.

Then my slight mistake came to light as I turned to page 2 of the instructions, and I kid you not

'retrace your steps to the ridge of the hill' it took 20 minutes to get down.....aarrgh.

Slightly frustrated at myself I really marched 20 minutes up hill (passing more people - Shad) and then I marched a bit more uphill for 20 more minutes and the only people to catch me were a couple of fell runners. The views from the top were more impressive than last time and I could see right across Roseberry Topping and to the sea beyond. I managed to forget the detour of 30 yards to the SheepWash but I'll save that for the Swainby walk next time. Passed the Cod Beck Reservoir and downhill into Osmotherly all in 2hours 5 minutes and feeling fantastic.

I really like mad signposts and this one is winning so far.

So for the big race all I need to do is drink very heavily on the previous two nights and I'll be sorted

Hold Steady Welshboy

If you are going to have a rock album then start it like this

Me and my friends are like, the drums on Lust for Life'
Me and my friends are like treble whisky, coke no ice'


Ok so I’ve already written about a Hold Steady gig, but everything has changed now. They’ve written a quite outstanding new album and this could be one of the last opportunities to see them in a small venue for some time. Its one of the good things about being able to manage your own time at work, (well at least when customers aren’t doing it for you), you can have meetings in the right parts of the country.

The gig was at The Irish Centre in Leeds which held lots of promise for drinking and partying. Afternoon meeting at the Leeds depot then out for an early tea with Doc. The picture is from another work venture when we had to go to Barcelona to man an exhibition stand.






Even at the time we knew it shouldn't be like this, firstly;

We fell for the Ryan Air trick, where your Barca flight lands very close to France, then its good luck chaps find your own way to the city 60 miles away.

( WARNING – however tempted you are if you ever find yourself in this situation, do not get on the Barca Bus with the scousers who have been drinking since arrival at Liverpool Airport. They don't make mp3 players that loud or with batteries that long. Oh and does anyone really think John Lennon wanted an airport naming after him?)

and

It was snowing…'first time in 15 years’ they said…how much better I felt knowing that!

Still the mood improved as we watched our ‘local friend’ (Craig was living in Spain at the time) order his tapas in Spanish and get himself a huge plate of almonds to eat. The steak and chips were a real struggle mate.

Sales meeting finished we headed into Leeds, four pints before a gig is always going to lead to some small catastrophe or another. This one turned out to be the waitress performing her ‘the real hustle’ trick on me. I’m not sure they should show that programme so early on TV, Rosie is planning on being the new Raffles. Anyway through 1000’s of hours of practice and a million mph hand motion the waitress managed to relieve me of my credit card. Or maybe we were drinking, talking and both handed our cards over to pay…………. I wasnt worried at all the next day.

The Irish centre is excellent, it’s a working mens club for Irish people, which means lots of locals, 4 bars, and loud music and about 800 here to see the band.

Favourite T-Shirt seen ‘only users lose drugs’ although the ‘choose milf’ was a close second.

Now I know Doc likes a few beers but the whole music scene thing doesn’t really do it for him. Sinatra is about as far as he goes. I learned later that he had described the album as ‘oh it’s a bit bloody noisy like all the stuff Paul likes’. Well at least we know where the generation gap is!

So why stand 4 yards from the speaker?

The band were really fantastic, they know they’ve written a great set of banging new tunes and are really enjoying playing them live for the first time. I don't think I've seen a band having such a good time on stage for ages.I lost my pal after he went for a smoke and an escape to slow the blood pouring from his right ear. Eight rows back, centre stage is always a good slot and so it proved, great sound and just out of spittle range. One hour forty minutes later all the best songs played (thanks to Doc for bringing me a drink) a fantastic killer parties and we’re all the hold steady. Awesome

Bring on the festival gigs.

Great live video of 'Last Night' from the gig



Its only a hill Shad

The plan this weekend (family away) was to stay at Shad’s on Saturday night and then walk in the White Peak district. We also had a dawn duel to sort out for Sunday morning.

Its always an experience staying at Shads, in fact I'd go further than this, its always an experience doing anything with Shad. The most unpredictable person I’ve ever met and as a consequence its never dull.

We spent a dull evening in the pub and went to bed early!

ok not really.

Warning rant bit…..

What is it with the latest obsession of the press, to yet again regurgitate the 'breakdown in society and family' theory to explain knife carrying. It really is utter b***ox. There are so many things to belong to these days, you would really have to try very hard to be an outsider. Whether its an online community, a band community (Hold Steady Unified Scene), work, school,gang, the local pub or maybe a family!

or even The Jericho Community Manchester

there are bloomin loads of opportunities to get positive influences.

What reminded me of this was two of Shads local pubs which are both fantastic. The first is ran by the mighty Titanic Brewery and to quote, ‘local pubs for local people’. It was bouncing and so noisy, all generated by peoples voices, smiles and energy. I think the trick was, clean, friendly, reasonable prices, great choices of drinks…(I missed the strawberry wine…made locally damn) and set up so everyone is close enough to talk to anyone but all with seats…brilliant.


The Pub

The second was even more traditional i.e. hadn’t changed since 1958 and the atmosphere again was ace. And they had a turn ‘ Silken’, how do you review a duo that play songs from 1957 to 1962 and then do requests. Lets be honest they won’t make it to the entrance hall on X Factor but for a bit of a foot tapping excellent value.

Chrome Hill

Or 'big bottom lip I’m knackered and really don’t want to be doing this hill’ as Shad called it.





We headed off, both on sat nav to Longnor which is approximately 8 miles Southeast of Buxton ie the middle of nowhere. I couldn’t believe it when my gismo said 55minutes…..its only 33 minutes to Warrington. But it turns out these machines are actually quite good.

Unlike the road from Stoke to Leek!!…..no kidding 30 or 40mph speed limits all the way and a minimum of 23 speed cameras. I may have missed one as I fell asleep through boredom and wrapped the car round the nearest infants school playground. Just to freak you out even more they had the Death Bikers Beware signposts every 500 yards, I drive a grey Volvo, imagine the signs for that! Grey Volvo’s BEWARE grrrrr.







Eventually we arrived ready for the walk and the duel.

The Kite Duel

Shad’s bought one of these 6 story high posh kid kites…Lord Snooty, he’s even invested in 25 metre long sharpened steel lines to cut down the poor kids kites. I wasn’t having this, so I dug out my old Peter Powell stunt kite, once upon a time I could land this on a running dogs head…so he was going to be in real trouble. (Its no wonder that blonde woman dumped Peter Powell if all he did was fly kites).

Oh yeah the duel, we got to Longnor all excited, sun shining and promptly forgot we had the kites in the boot and set off without them. Still there’s always next weekend after the party.

I also managed to forget to pick up my bottle of water, but luckily Shad was carrying a spare 2 ltr bottle…result. Longnor is a gorgeous old worldy type village and off the beaten track, although it does have four pubs so perhaps this is where the alcoholics get put out to pasture. I only wanted to do this walk because the main hill we were going to climb, Parkhouse Hill looks exactly like the back of a Stegasaurus in the pictures.

It was a lively enough walk, Shads normal obsession with animals, dogs, sheep and pulling the ears off a donkey. The hill turned out to be a bit tough for the young Welshman….maybe it was the extra water he was carrying although I’ve put it down to my superior fitness. He eventually made it to the top 10 minutes late and flopped down next to the stone I was sat on. I didn’t point out the 300ft cliff edge next to him until he yelped……what do my pals expect at the top of mountains? maybe a slide?







A couple of excellent things happened on the way back, firstly Shad said ‘we used to eat nettles when I was a kid’ , I’m sorry but there only is one response to this ‘FOUD’, I actually couldn’t stop laughing for about 10 minutes at the various images of baby Shad in my head munching on stinging nettles. Anyway in the next 10 minutes we must have walked passed a good 3 course meal. Perhaps that donkeys ear was going to make up the Julienne of raw nettle and donkey ear salad.

Next we found a pub, yay. called ‘The Quiet Lady’ and brilliantly the barwoman hardly said a word and the ones she did were whispered. Hopefully we'll come across 'The Free Beer and Party Girls pub' next time. 'Pint of orange and a pork pie each please'.

I know……its not ‘Big Picture’ but it was 1pm lunchtime and it was the only thing they had. We then went on to do what you do when you come across discovered food. This is brilliant we said, it must be local farm stuff………no its from Crewe said the friendly local drunk. Not a word.

The other top thing about the pub is they still had ashtrays on all the tables, this place is so the middle of nowhere that they just ignore the law……pirate villages rule.

Just for a bit of clarification on ‘Big Picture’ one of my pals reckons that cider being apple, counts as one of your five a day. Now this is a great theory as offset pints can now be other drinks…..bloody mary with celery = 2 of your five a day…. this is genius and deserves building on soon.

And finally the whole ‘Beware Death Biker’ thing came back to haunt us as out of nowhere in the middle of nowhere about 30 bikes nearly mowed us down. Luckily I’d parked the grey Volvo in the village or it could have got messy.

And the rest of the pictures

Roseberry Topping Anyone?

In the old days they may have rolled eggs down the one hill in Albert Park (just behind the train track) or down Eston Bank, but everyone knows that there is only one real hill in the area and its got a daft name. Roseberry Topping is part of the Cleveland Hills and is famous for school trips and being pointy.

School trips these days tend to be to good places like Alton Towers or New York…really don’t ask it still hurts too much.

We got a soggy 15 mile sponsored walk round the Cleveland Hills. Sponsored is even stretching it, as that normally meant my mam, dad, auntie Joyce and nana with other made up names to take it over £3. Oh and while I’m on this exploitation of schools and children to raise money for other schools and children. What the hell were smiley faces about…go on kids sell pictures of smiley children to random adults by knocking on random doors in your street. Could you imagine the fuss now?

So the grand plan today is; a nostalgic walk from Hutton Rugby up the clearly marked path (another patio walk) to RT and then an easy loop back, nothing too strenuous as we’re off to see Ash later at a free festival 10 miles away in Middlesbrough. Last time I was here 'r Carl' my cousin was about 12, he’s about 35 now and he got caught up in a huge thunderstorm with Pam and me. Its so long ago its in the days before marriage.

I heard a story the other day about a couple that got married to the tune, ‘another one bites the dust’ again top insignificant rebellion.

We actually turned up in shorts,T Shirts and sandals and almost jogged to the top, mind you we really did sprint down as the lightening stuck the hillside about us. Nothing so flippant with clothing for us these days!! more of this later.

I opted for the 'drive straight to the carpark on the moors from Warrington' option rather than meet Craig first. My first site of him was as passed me in the opposite direction on the road. He must have misread the box and bought Tw*t Nav , as he’s the only person who can be so consistently lost with a Sat Nav. Even when he’s going to places he’s been before like my house.

Its raining, and as hinted I’m very very well prepared, sadly I’ve even sprayed my boots and have the overtrousers. Mr Mary Poppins on the other hand, is wearing a dodgy coat and jeans, but does have a lovely brolly.

The truth is we’ve both thought of this as the sort of walk you do with your mates on the way home from school so no need for real maps or anything. Why would you need a map and a compass when you can nip home for tea? Unfortunately the sky had different ideas and we had dense cloud which took visibility down to about 20 yards and less at the top. So this ‘OMG isn’t the view great’ business when you reach the top didn’t really apply today. Unless of course you’ve always wanted to see the inside of a cloud close up.

Lets see what you could've won

There was one great moment as Craig almost double wet himself though, deciding to relieve himself off the edge of the hillside he neglected to look down until in position and then had to make a hasty retreat from the 200ft drop with a yelp. I put that down to the zip.

Thankfully my head hasnt reached the point where I think graffiti is a bad thing, infact I've got it down as a really good thing if done well. Mulicultural grafitti surely is to be encouraged particularly in rap format with local interest....I'll let you make your own mind up about these two, oh the distracting bottle was my fault.

Then we tried to follow the route back….

This route was from Walking World magazine and wasn’t exactly big on detail, anyway we were on home turf ‘what could possibly go wrong’.

An hour later... very lost, we just know we have to turn right to get back to Hutton Rugby. Unfortunately the only paths to the right were very small paths that seemed to lead into a deserted moor full of cloud. Neither of us were that brave. Craig spotted on the map that our route met The Cleveland Way at Captain Cooks monument right by the carpark. As a slight aside I do blame this chap for all the rubbish movies and sitcoms where explorers get boiled in pots. He really did get eaten by some southerners. I’d be a bit wary if I’d moved to Southampton mate.

The esteem in which he was nevertheless held by the Hawaiians resulted in his body being retained by their chiefs and elders and the flesh cut and roasted from his bones

So we set off along The Cleveland Way just hoping it didn’t loop around too far. It certainly didn’t….well not the way we were walking on it - that’s 180 degrees in the wrong direction. Roughly 3 hours of looping and looping in the wrong direction we ended up on the wrong side of Guisborough. Now this is also a good thing as Guisborough is one of these places that claims to have more pubs per square inch than every other village with lots of pubs. Fortunately we found one still serving Sunday lunch…result...... and with traditional Teesside veg. For those not local, this is stewed in salt and boiled to within a nanosecond of disintegration and then mashed just to make sure theres no structure left.

Still if you avoid the Yorkshire pudding and take the mash and mince option you can just about eat your dinner through a J2O straw.

As intrepid explorers there was only one thing left to do….and yes one £15 taxi fare later there we were back at our cars bang on time. Perfect

The incessant rain had now put me off the free outdoor festival, that and the worry that the clouds might follow us and I may just hear a fluffy version of Ash though the inside of a cloud. I’ve also seen Ash about 10 times already and they weren’t going to be that much better than at Glastonbury a few years ago

What a great jump around it was

While in Scotland a few weeks ago I found John Peel staring down at me whilst a was peeing . It was so disconcerting I took a photo…of John Peel you’ll be relieved to know. I was just pleased no-one came into the loo at that time they would have thought I was bonkers

Just to the right of the white box

Just to make things neat

It was going to be a big few weeks coming up so I headed home for a cocoa and a roaring warm fire…kinda

And a few extra pics