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Our actual first day in Key West

I realise that my previous post about our first day in Key West a) didn't contain any info, b) had things from our second day on the map, and c) has slipped down the page and no-one will read it. So here at last is the first part of our journey. Clare did I miss anything?

So, back from Key West then and trying to write up all my thoughts from the position of a desk, an office, England, very far in space and mind from where we were. We travelled to Key West (Florida, USA) for Clare's bro Kevin's wedding to Guiselle, the wedding was on a Sunday, and we had a few days either side for a holiday. We settled on six nights instead of seven or more to save money, as we couldn't find a package (where two weeks can be the same sort of price as one), you never can find a bargain when you want one can you? I'm not much of a traveller these days, and generally like to come home after a week anyway, but we had a really great trip and I could have done with it lasting a bit longer.

The holiday started extra early for me, while Clare was off on the Wednesday, I had to be all packed Tuesday night, to take my bags into work, and head to Gatwick right after. A busy day at work and a hastily called 4pm meeting meant I just scraped out at half past, meeting Clare at Westenhanger where she even had a beer waiting for me, lovely! We were staying overnight at the Moat House, Gatwick, booked through work, and of course I HEARTILY RECOMMEND IT! We were intending to go for the on-airport Hilton but the savings were enormous on the one we picked, so that's that. Tea and a few pints of real ale in the nearby Ye Olde Six Bells were great, that's something we could not have walked to if we'd stayed on airport. I don't think I ever go near an airport unless I'm actually at an airport, so it's good to find there are real villages and things nearby, it's not just acres of car parks. Nice hotel, nice room, the bar was open, what else do you want from an airport stop? Our transfer the next morning was free, and while it could have been quicker (by not going via other hotels in the area) nothing to complain about at all there. We got to the airport, checked in, and went for a civilsed cooked breakfast, with no booze, lordy!

The flight there was uneventful. It wasn't comfortable or fun, I would not fly Delta again if there was another choice at about the same price, but we went for the cheapest deal we could find this time so we paid our money and we I took our choice. The plane didn't have seatback TV's, just little screens suspended every so often from the ceiling. We were too far away from these, and Clare could not hear anything through the supplied headphones, man was she furious! She didn't miss much though, daytime flight, shared TV, of course they're going to show only childrens films, pretty poor. I didn't bother with The Water Horse or some half cartoon fairy princess movie, but I did quite enjoy National Treasure: Book Of Secrets. I'd not seen the first one, but will now, it's The Goonies meets The Davinci Code, and I quite liked both of them. I don't think I slept on the flight over, I read a Lovejoy Paid and Loving Eyes (nice and light for packing purposes, and I've got two copies of it for some reason, so intended to leave it there) and ate my airline snacks; they remembered my vegan-ness. Almost no free booze though. Free soft drinks, with $5 upgrade to a cocktail if you wanted. A free glass of wine with our meal, and because I probably looked like a desperate wino, the stewardess gave me two, lovely. I prefer free drinks all the way though!

To increase the cheapness, we had to change planes in Atlanta, though you have to change somewhere to get to Key West. The rest of the family were flying to Miami and driving down from there, but we opted for the more awkward flight but more time in Key West. We had to reclaim our bags here, basically just moving them from one conveyor belt to another though, no security or anything. Then came the security... we shuffled round queues for a couple of hours I'm sure, this was the big immigration moment that you get every time you go to the US though. Atlanta airport is huge, we had a bit of a sprint round looking for food and beer, I heard there was a brew pub on site, but it was just a Sam Adams bar, not much cop. We settled on Sweet Georgia Brown instead, also not any good but we only had about an hour to kill, then on to our tiny little plane to take us the last eighty minutes or so to Key West. This plane was small, and a bit bumpy, but I think I'm getting better at flying, I hardly cried at all. There was a hen party in front of us, and some chap being mysterious about his bar, I think it was this one, trying to get the hen party along. No food on this flight, nor TV, nor any free booze, but before you know it we've landed in Key West.

Clare had joked that Key West airport would be one small shack with a man who'd have to stop selling his mangoes outside to come and do immigration and passports and things; not far off at all. As there are no external flights from Key West there's none of the delay and paperwork, the plane parks up next to the terminal building, you step inside, your bags come in, and you step out the other door to a waiting taxi. I didn't even have time to check out the mango stall. There's a special rate for taxis from the airport, and as we were heading from one end of the island to the other that's the maximum fare of $7.50 each. We ended up sharing a cab with two other people and dropping them off on the way, I think this fixed fare is quite common in the USA from airports. A quick peek at the hotel, drop the bags off, and out on the razzle dazzle!

First impressions of (my second visit to) Key West - it's pretty hot, and it's night time (about 9pm local time when we got there I think). It was the week of the Conch Republic independence celebrations when we arrived, so perhaps there were more people out and about, but to be honest there's always something going on. This was the 26th anniversary of Key West seceding from the rest of the union (for about one minute, after which they surrendered to the navy and then demanded one billion in aid). There were events planned for all over the weekend, starting with a big parade this day that we'd just missed, doh. The streets were still full of people though, which was to remain the case all week. We had a bit of a scoot around town, getting our bearings again, and went in Captain Tony's for a drink. Sloppy Joes' is probably the most famous bar in Key West, it was one of Hemingway's favourite hangouts; the name moved to a bigger premises on Duval Street at some point but Captain Tony's is the original spot. There was live music (there was live music in every bar now, not sure this was the case on our last visit, good place to go live if you play guitar I think), a big old tree in the middle of the bar, and hundreds of bras hanging from the ceiling. It's not that this was too much to take in, just that we'd been travelling a long time, were tired, and headed back to the hotel after this.

Map loading here, where I went with my GPS on 25/04/2008, the last 1000 locations anyway...

Hmm, no map action for the 24th actually. Onward and upward, more to write, coming soon!

Mighty Easter weekender, with The Cure

Hope you've all had as good an extended weekend as I have. As is usual when I've been off for a few days and not written up just went on immediately, I'm starting to forget it all. We're up now, on the last day of our five day break and I have a few minutes computer time, so I'm making a few notes while I'm processing some video from The Cure and trying to get hold of The Colour Of Magic.

Thursday

We started off for London about midday, nice quick easy train journey with Dom and Jen, nice to be getting the train for pleasure, not like having to commute on it. We had vouchers for free main courses for Wagamama, so into Soho in the rain. Food was better than it has been recently in Canterbury I think. Then to a pub, can't remember the name of it though it's a Nicholson's so I can track it down, that'll be The Crown, Brewer Street. Didn't realise they were part of such a monstrous chain of other brands, though it certainly feels like a pub themed venue inside, but they do have proper beer so I'm not complaining. We contemplated the best time and way to get to Wembley, in the end it was just head down in the rain to Picadilly and we're on our way. Wembley seems a long way out but if you catch the right Metropolitan line tube you're there in no time.

Our hotel was fine, despite the ropey reviews on tripadvisor. I'd not recommend it unless you were going to Wembley, and the decor is maybe a bit dated, but the bed was comfortable and big, the lifts worked, the bar was open, it was fine. Cheeky drink in said bar before the gig (as there are just no pubs around there) and into the gig.

Didn't see any of the support band, just got in in time for the start of the gig. Pretty amazing show all told, I have got a few songs on video and some pics to upload, the sound and the atmosphere were great. You'll see from the media (I have yet to upload) that we were about ten or fifteen rows back from the front, apart from the bit were Dom disappeared to the front, dropping our five pints on the way... At this point Clare objects

That's not what happened and you shouldn't say that as he will read it. He went into the crowd, then came out again, then went to the bar and thought he'd get us all drinks, then couldn't get back to us all with two pints in one hand and three in the other, so he ended up giving them away.

I was adding colour to the story, that's how I'd rather remember it, it's simpler. Don't you really want to picture someone struggling to the front of the moshpit with five pints?
Setlist was approximately as we thought from previous gigs:

plainsong, prayers for rain, a strange day, alt.end, a night like this, the end of the world, lovesong, to wish impossible things, pictures of you, lullaby, from the edge of the deep green sea, hot hot hot!!!, please project, the walk, push, friday i'm in love, inbetween days, just like heaven, primary, a boy i never knew, shake dog shake, never enough, wrong number, one hundred years, disintegration,
E1: at night, m, play for today, a forest,
E2: the lovecats, let's go to bed, freak show, close to me, why can't i be you?
E3: three imaginary boys, fire in cairo, boys don't cry, jumping someone else's train, grinding halt, 10:15 saturday night, killing an arab

We met someone with a setlist during the gig, but "Killing an Arab" was written as "Killing Another", I wonder why? In case the list fell into the wrong hands and looked like a racist murder plot? You could work the last encore into one story certainly, not so sure about "The Lovecats" though.

Here's three songs in a row from the set, the only complete songs I videod on my little camera. First Walking On Sunshine Why Can't I Be You from my spot in the crowd. It looks like the opening credits to "Never Mind The Buzzcocks" but the sound is OK, and gives you a feel for where we were and how they were sounding:

And Three Imaginary Boys:

Also Fire In Cairo:

They played for about 3 and a half hours, it didn't feel like it though. We had one more drink back at the bar (I was on lager all evening, unheard of, this is why I don't go to gigs any more). I have about a gigabyte of video, hope it won't take me too long to edit it into watchable youtube chunks. Don't stay in waiting especially though, the visuals are not impressive, but you can experience where I was in the crowd and hear the tunes.

Friday

Nice lazy start to the Friday, didn't have to check out until midday. We'd already had more action than most weekends and this one hadn't officially started yet. We shopped first, well we went to Selfridges and Clare got pissed off with me not being helpful, so she left me in Starbucks to sit and read while she tried to shop, then we walked round Carnaby Street (which is really nice now), had lunch with Emma in a Thai place near there, did some retro shopping, afternoon coffee in the brilliant Pain Quotidien and then trained back home.

The rain and snow wasn't quite so bad, and we'd arranged to meet pa-in-law for a drink, so we headed to Chambers for their traditional Easter Ales Festival. Not that busy when we got there, and not the traditional festival crowd, but a great range of ales and ciders anyway. Can't remember what I started off with, something nice anyway, but second beer was a "Haba-beer-o" special edition chilli beer. Was sceptical, but it was brilliant, a strong savoury chilli taste to it, and a little bit of heat too. Instead of flitting from ale to ale rating them as I went, I stuck to this one for the rest of the evening. Well, it's a limited edition, you don't know when it's going to run out, or if I'll see it again.
Spoke to the landlord, he recognised me as having the quiz team name Folkestone Gerald and asked if it was me that wrote it. He didn't look like he wanted a fight, and I don't think there's been anything objectionable for ages, so I 'fessed up, and he said he loved it. Probably just for all the favourable mentions of Chambers, well here's another. Chambers is brilliant, you should go there, best pub in Folkestone by a mile.

Saturday

Up early for house hunting. Saw a lovely place in a different area of Canterbury, 3 bedrooms, garage, conservatory, shed, everything. Top of our budget and I don't think we can compete with other buyers really, I'm sure it'll go soon. If it doesn't, we'll think again. Then saw another place over by Canterbury West, not the nicest street and a bit unloved. Nice and cheap for a three bedroom place, but unfortunately no room to put even a single bed down flat in the third bedroom, so a no-no for now. Third property, the agent was late, it was snowing, really really cold, I spoke to the office and told them not to bother. I'm sure the owner was in the property while I was waiting outside, but not responding to my knocking. Didn't have double glazing, and I could really only think about temperature that day, so it's a right off.

Had lunch somewhere between these viewings at Pizza Express, and got our favourite table looking onto the river. Even in the freezing rain and sleet people were still doing the boat tour, and pausing by our window.

After lunch, Clare had a hair appointment so I amused myself with more shopping and a brief stop in The Brewery Tavern where they also had a beer festival on. No festival punters in site, no-one even manning the temporary bar with the dozen guest ales lined up on, not really a festival vibe at all. Probably not advertised well, it's a nice place, not one you'd associate with real ale so I don't suppose they'd have had much walk up trade apart from me.
Bus home, too cold and wet to consider going back to Chambers really, so we got a Chinese takeaway and stayed in.

Sunday

Free lunch! Round to the in-laws for dinner, very nice. Still not sure what's going on with the sale of their house, everyone seems to be lying to them at every turn. They've officially handed their notice in on the business, and so resigned themselves to not selling it, but still other people in the chain seem to think that it ought to go through as normal. I hope it does, we'll find out now within the month.

Another night in. Clare was meant to be going out with her brother, but it was freezing at wet again and a night in mostly watching TV Lost: meh. Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency: meh. Both a bit weak I thought. Not sure what to think of Lost at the moment, they do seem to be drifting more into the realms of the supernatural, though I guess the writers won't decide until the very end whether they want to go this route or not, and they can easily change things that happened in the past, and "back explain" things. Getting fed up with it, wish they'd not string it out so much. It's sure to fizzle out before we get to a conclusion at this rate, maybe that's the plan.

Today

A bit sad that it's over. We still have most of the day ahead of us, no great plans except for regular Sunday chores like shopping and cleaning, making and eating chilli, and watching some TV, hopefully the aforementioned The Colour Of Magic (that was exclusively on Sky One yesterday).

Back to work tomorrow, still, a short week.

Another break for Lost and a very short season?

This from Dark UFO (LOOK OUT though, there be spoilers there!):

Episode 4.09 24th April
Episode 4.10 1st May
Episode 4.11 8th May
Episode 4.12 15th May - Finale Part 1
Episode 4.13 22nd May - Finale Part 2

So no more episodes for six weeks, and then a very very short season, not even the promised 16 episodes? Do you think this means they'll go on to make yet more series, instead of the "six and that's it all wrapped up" that we were also promised?
Good episode this week, I won't spoil it for you if you've not seen it yet, but it ducks and dives and tricks us with its flash back / flash forwards again, like they did briefly with "The Other Woman" last week. Very sad episode too.

Terry Pratchett's Colour Of Magic coming to Sky One

Only just seen a trailer for it, guessing it has not been on yet. Their Hogfather was OK despite not liking the story so I'm sure this will be goood. Interesting to see the same actors playing different characters (though in the same universe), David Jason is playing Rincewind. And they have seemingly made Twoflower (the tourist) American instead of Japanese, less danger of appearing a bit racist I suppose.

It's also got my friend Tim Curry in it. Wish we'd had a real camera with us that day...

Some links:
The Colour Of Magic on IMDB
Sky One's preview site see the trailer.
Official Terry Pratchett Books site
Terry Pratchett on Wikipedia

The rain's started up again here.

Should everything be a black box though? And WHY can't you fix my IPAQ?

It's just the battery I think, it won't keep a charge now...

OK not everyone is building a clock out of voltmeters but the people who are trying to do this sort of thing have got to feel happy about it, I know I would if I could get more stuff for free. Modern cars are almost impossible to do anything to, but if you had a VW Beetle or a Landrover or something you could learn to fix it yourself.

There are a lot more bits of kit out there now that you can open up and do things to, and even if they're not officially "open" then on sites like makezine.com and hackaday.com you can find out how to hack stuff that you already have, or can get for free. It doesn't have to be just electronic / electrical stuff either, did you see IKEA hacks that I posted recently?

Not sure my reply tags work at all anyway, but in that case it was because I put [replay] instead of reply...

My lego skills are a bit behind, but I'm going to build on them, then do some diy electronics and things. Definitely. Not just daydream about it, oh no.

Ever feel lacking in skills?

I do, all my skills are in software, if the power went off tomorrow I'd be SUNK! I wish I had more hardware skills, not just computer hardware, but general mechanics and making and fixing things. Here's an interesting article along those lines from www.wired.com:

If you can't get under the hood of the gadgets you buy, you're far more liable to believe the marketing hype of the corporations that sell them. When things break, you toss them and buy new ones; you accept your role as a mere consumer

I resolve to start improving my makingness, think I might start by buying some lego...

Hey, something I like about this funky text box, I can tab inside it, you can't tab inside a normal textarea, you tab out of it instead. Just a bit of javascript that I didn't even notice was there at first.

IPAQ battery

9. How frequently can you recharge the battery?

Due to the nature of the batteries used in all iPAQ models you can recharge as often and for as long as you like. Your battery will not be damaged by this practice nor can it be overcharged, constant charging of the iPAQ's battery will actually improve the battery's life span.

Hmm, that advice is from... a site that sells IPAQ batteries! I'm sure its kosher though. Got to get the little computer working again so Clare can catch up on some TV shows that I've already seen.

UPDATE: that site will pay me �110 for my IPAQ, even in it's current non working condition, how bizarre, it must be worth plenty as spares. Going to get a friend at work to check it out though instead, he's fixed these before.

Pasta and sauce confusion

Got some pasta and sauce to microwave for lunch, really had nothing else left. Instructions say:

1 Place 400ml of cold water and the contents of the packet into a non metallic bowl and stir
2 Cover and microwave on full power for 5 1/2 minutes
3 Halfway through heating stir, re-cover and microwave on full power for a further 5 1/2 minutes
4 Leave to stand for 2 minutes before serving.

Is it just me or is that nonsense? Take it out half way through the first 5 1/2 minutes and then put it on for another 5/12 minutes? Is that 2 3/4 minutes plus 5 1/2 minutes, discarding the second half of the first heating period, or what? Maybe instruction 3 should be split in two:

[em]3 Stir halfway through heating
3a Stir, re-cover and microwave on full power for a further 5 1/2 minutes[/em]

Not sure I can measure out 400ml of water here at work without doing it in teaspoons, AND I have use of a company car today, so I might nip out to Waitrose instead. Had the car for one day, and I'm finding excuse after excuse to use it. If I got a car full time, I'd probably never walk anywhere again, man alive.

RE: Farewell then HDDVD

It's a shame, I'd rather have a smaller, independant company running the show than the likes of Sony. I haven't bought either, but it looks like I'll be getting a PS3 instead of a Wii...

Weekend! Curry! Spazzy twitches! Everything!

Great weekend, bailed out of work slightly early and got the train to Mum and Dad's, for a nice long relaxing weekend. As previously mentioned, Clare was in London drinking and dancing with her friends, and definitely not lighting fires, and I was heading for a boy's night out in Fareham. Made good times on the trains, but it's still a four hour journey, and I had to sit on the floor for most of it from London down to Hampshire. So tea nd chat and TV and then an early night really on the Friday.

Saturday went into Fareham in the day for a bit of a look and a shop. Not really much to see there, but I'd certainly not loiter in Folkestone town centre on a Saturday either. One advantage of everything being a bit pikey is that there's a super cheap greetings card shop there. I don't normally buy cards, but got a bit pressured into it, being in a crowd of other people who made out it was cool and that everyone else was doing it. At least that's only 29p I'll never see again, I'm pretty pleased with that, yes 29p greetings cards. If you think about it, they shouldn't cost much more than that. I hope this catches on, amazed Folkestone doesn't have one already.

Saturday night, CURRY! At Cafe Tusk. Met up in The Fareham for a cheeky couple, that's a nice pub, for Fareham. Cafe Tusk was good, twenty pounds a head with drinks, eyes completely bigger than my belly as it turns out, I was sure I'd manage more platefuls than I did. Very good to see so many people in one go, we don't get together nearly enough. Probably they do, but I don't. Took a few pictures, not as many as I thought I did, and not sure the GPS was working properly, so this map:

Map loading here, where I went with my GPS on 09/02/2008, the last 1000 locations anyway...

probably isn't displaying properly. Are those pink route lines appearing in the middle of the channel for anyone else? Maybe all the satellites were off for maintenance at the weekend Sorted, I was importing Western longitudes incorrectly....

After the ruby we tried The Vanguard, but they didn't like the look of us, something about wearing trainers. I suspect they didn't want eight old giffers doubling the average age, their loss. Normally it would have been my default first choice for a place to meet up in Fareham, but it won't any more. We went to the Lord Arthur Lee instead, starting to head the opposite way out of town for me, but good beer on (it's a Wetherspoons) and open until 1am.

Sunday, boot fair in Bishops Waltham in the morning, then a nice big lunch with the family and a relaxing evening. Bit too relaxing at one point, I dozed off an ddid a bit of a spazzy twitch with a glass of red wine in my hand, which went all over the carpet and sofa, oops.

Monday, smooth journey back, achieved very little for a whole day off work. Grocery shopped a bit and cooked some tea, then was glad to see Clare at the end of the day, too long without her, ah bless.

Got some NEWS regarding the impending wedding of Clare's bro, it's now been moved forward, and will be on a yacht, in Key West, in April. WOO!

Alan Moore

Not the barber shop in Portchester, but the comic bloke, Hibbett wrote a song about the time he saw him in a comic shop. Just posting this here to remind me to check it out later really, as I just saw it posted elsewhere.

Mark wrote this for FAWM, and it's possibly the first time he's tried to make more of the video medium, instead of just playing it straight.

Lost: bit annoying

Watched the new episode, hope you enjoy it if you watch it tonight. I'm convinced the story's still being made up as it goes along, and that there won't be any actual answers by the end of the show. Some new ideas introduced, I'll probably stick with it. But I'm not happy.

Went to the Dover beer festival yesterday, it was good, almost nothing for Clare to drink though, 74 barrels of ale and only thing close to what she might have ordered was one barrel of cider. She did have a porter at one point and quite enjoy it, she'll be converted to ale in no time... We stayed for a couple of hours then headed to the Eight Bells to watch the rugby, good game, rubbish result. Next stop Folkestone, and a look into Chambers with a view to eating, but all the tables were reserved for some kind of private party so we went to the New Delhi for a lovely curry instead. The food there is great, but it's too bright, the atmosphere / ambience is poor, why all the ultra violet lights? Then home to watch Lost and some "top 100 best comedy films" rundown clips show.

Trying to install things on my Linux PC here, slow going though it just keeps hanging part way through. I want a Flickr downloader, with a view to getting all my pictures and their associated meta data down from Flickr now that Microsoft look like buying them, but for that I need to install Java runtime and for that I need to upgrade, and it's a slow old process on this slow old machine...

Today, bit of shopping, bit of visiting, bit of making and eating chilli, mmm...

Not sure where that came from...

... but I just got my old PC internetting wirelessly at last, without needing to buy any new bits, and by following a forum post from 2005. How many times have I tried this and failed? This time I tried something new, and it worked. I think I was inspired because Clare was trying to get me to throw out the old tube monitor, which is the only visible bit of this computer.

Still got one problem like this where I'm getting an IP address automatically, but will fix that tonight. Then what do I use the computer for? Just backups? Some kind of media server? I do have a TV tuner card I should try and force into it. I should definitely try and make the most of the kit I already have for free instead of spending my christmas bonus on this Apple TV PVR...

Where we walked yesterday

Not very far, but if you click through you can track me yesterday. We got the bus to Canterbury and the GPS was turned off on the bus so the whole route isn't plotted, still playing about with my mapping. Just posted some photos of our walk to Capel the other day, they're all geotagged so I'll get them onto my own maps asap.

Map loading here, where I went with my GPS on 05/01/2008, the last 1000 locations anyway...

Was great to go back again, we even made our first steps towards looking at a house there today, so might do that next Saturday. Had lunch in Wagamama, though for the first time ever I wasn't that impressed. Noodles were a bit firm, but HEY, we had a VOUCHER, so one meal came free.
Waggas was very busy, everyone must have had a voucher.

The Dolphin was also busy, all the tables were taken except the one by the toilet, and (as nice a place as it is) that toilet does hum a bit, so we headed to Simple Simon's instead. This meant no game of Triv for Clare, but luckily in her weakened state she was in no position to argue, so I had a smashing pint of Old Peculiar in the old man-ish surroundings, with the fire roaring and everything.

Didn't buy much, didn't see anything exciting in the sales, and Clare was too ill to shop, she shouldn't have been out really.

Also went to the big new B & Q in Folkestone today too, which is huge and ace. I bought some cable ties, but in my mind I was buying stuff to operate the whole place by remote control.

Fareham plays its part in the war on tourism

A local story that was doing the rounds yesterday about a couple being banned from Fareham shopping centre for life (for taking photos of their grandchildren) was picked up by Boing Boing. Apparently the guard who threw them out said they posed a terror threat, I suspect he thought they were nonces but was afeared of starting another angry mob so thought the terror card was a safer one to play. Anyway, as someone on Boing Boing points out, terrorists would be better off downloading the building plans instead of relying on someone's holiday snaps.

Our snow had all gone by the time I got home yesterday.

Thanks to Ro for the Boing Boing link.

That's work done then

There's a very slim chance that I won't be sat in front of the computer again before christmas (though I know the wife will laugh when she sees this), so merry christmas everyone, hope you have a good one.

I wrote that yesterday, but didn't hit send, doh, and hey look, here I am back again, how ironic. I also originally added:

Off to Canterbury today for a change, just to get some lunch really, might top up a couple of people's giftage with small treats too, you never know.

We bought loads of food and drink and schlepped round some bars. We did Zizzi for lunch for the first time, very nice, especially the building it's in. Felt a bit pricey to me, but we did have starters and wine (and main courses) so I suppose 35 quid is OK. If we go back in January we have a voucher now for a free bottle of wine. I sat in The Brewery Tavern for an hour while Clare finished her shopping, then we tried to go to The Cuban for a happy hour cocktail, but it was closed for a private party. We stopped in the Wetherspoons for one to figure out where to go where we might find a cocktail instead, and remembered the Boudoir Bar, where we had an average but expensive champagne cocktail, and then headed home. We had an evening in in anticipation of a few big nights out to come this week, but it wasn't all that quiet as we had a go at making some champagne cocktails of our own.

Today the holiday really starts, Clare's bro Kevin is arriving from the Americas, with his girlfriend Guiselle. They've landed already and we're off to see them within the hour.

Sounds like new people have moved in upstairs, I can hear them stomping about. There have been workmen coming and going, not sure what they've been doing I hope they've not taken the carpets up.

Fake GAP voucher

Hmm, I smell bullshit, there's a supposedly fake GAP voucher doing the rounds offering a 60% discount at GAP today, I heard about this on www.bbc.co.uk/breakfast - don't worry though, GAP will still be offering a genuine 30% discount to anyone turning up with the fake 60% voucher. Nice PR work whoever started distributing that fake voucher, it got GAP on the news... if it can be traced back to anyone connected with the company, they really ought to be made to honour it.

This is completely different to my obviously fake Wagamama vouchers the other day, that was just a joke.

Think we're going into GAP today anyway, annoyingly we did some christmas shopping their last week and could have saved ourselves a bundle, but we're still after more baby clothes for Poppy today. I think it's safe to spoil that surprise here, she doesn't read the blog.

We did have long term plans to go to London again today, but no-one really felt like it when it came down to it so we're going to try and see the Terracotta Army in the new year instead. As there are no real vouchers on www.wagamama.com today we're going to try somewhere else for lunch, maybe Cafe Mauresque or an Italian...

Done more javascript; more classification of venues, see (for example) Cafes in Canterbury.

Time to run for the bus...

Fullsome weekender

Well I say full, full of pubs really. Friday night we stayed in, so as to have more energy for going out on Saturday. We had a trip to Canterbury in the day (and you'll never guess where we had lunch), no actual christmas shopping, but we went in a couple of different pubs for a change, the Cherry Tree and the Buttermarket. Both are nice enough, the Cherry Tree feels a bit dated and rough really for Canterbury, there are plenty of better places to go but it was worth checking out for a change. The Buttermarket is much nicer, no decent beers on unfortunately but we sat and had coffee and read their newspapers until it was time to head off for the bus.

Saturday night we went to Hythe for the first time in a long time, and it turned into a bit of a crawl. We decided to make the most of our Canterbury bus tickets (an "Explorer" ticket is the same price as a return and takes you all over Kent and Sussex, as if you would have time to go very far in one day) and get the bus out to Hythe, the timing of which meant time for one in Folkestone. We tried Keppels, but it was shut for a private do so we tried out The Bay Tree (the bar underThe Burlington) for the first time ever. Deathly quiet, but very nice, and really no quieter than any of the hotel bars nearby (like The Clifton or Keppels in The Grand), I'd go back again.

The bus to Hythe was full of kids, being kids, actually being quite awful kids. They were skaters and of some indeterminate alternative youth cult, and Clare and I would both love to believe that this makes you OK and a better person than if they were more mainstream in appearance, but it's just not true. I suspect that alternative is the new mainstream now, or something. They weren't just annoying and loud and spread over several seats making other people stand (though they were annoying and loud and spread over several seats), I forgave their youthful high spirits until they made racist remarks about another passenger, very poor.

Hythe was quite good, we looked in The Globe which was dated and working-mans-club-like like The Cherry Tree was earlier, but it gave it a feel of traditional pub. Then on to Earl Brownes to meet people, nice to sit around and chat, but that bar closed early, not because of us I'm sure, t seems to have declined in popularity since it first opened. A couple of other pubs along the street also stopped serving when they saw us coming, only The Kings Head was brave enough to stay open, and I think that's where all the pictures are from.

Sunday didn't do much, but did spend a stack of money. Booked a hotel for Brussels where we're off to in December for a christmas market weekender. Thought at first that we could easily get a five star hotel there at a knock down price, but on a second look it seems all these cheap places are in the EU district, half an hour's walk from the town centre, so we've gone for a Novotel right in the centre of town instead. Also booked tickets to see the Magic Numbers at Festival Hall in a couple of weeks. It's a midweeker, but I think I can do it easily leaving right after work, as it's so handy for Waterloo. Will be bleary eyed the next day, but what's new.

Got lots lined up before christmas now, we are busy bees...

I don't even know why I said it, a bit of Friday afternoon frivolity is all

Some of my best family are vegetarians, and I've been vegan for about fifteen years now, that's why I posted that original thing. You're right though, most people are scum.

Got plans for the weekend? I'm out in Trashford tonight with people from work, then got a family bonfire type thing tomorrow. I tried to tell people at work it was at my wife's aunt's place, but instead said my aunt's wife's place. Can you imagine the hilarity that ensued!

Got a bit of a headache now, I think it's because I've not had a drink yet today.

Jaiku's joining Google

I forget the point of Jaiku, it was one of those Web2.0 startups that did the social networking thing, a bit Facebook, a lot Twitter (but better), for updating people who don't care with exactly what you're up to minute by minute... they were the first one I saw that let you do it all automatically, wihtout ever having to return to the site, so while I've not been back to jaiku.com since I first signed up (oh yeah, I signed up anyway) my page there is fully up to date with every blog post, every track I've listened to, and every gig in Folkestone that I've listed on FG without actually going to or knowing much about. Here's Jaiku's announcement:

While its too soon to comment on specific plans, we look forward to working with our new friends at Google over the coming months to expand in ways we hope you'll find interesting and useful. Our engineers are excited to be working together and enthusiastic developers lead to great innovation. We look forward to accomplishing great things together.

In order to focus on innovation instead of scaling, we have decided to close new user sign-ups for now. But fear not! All our Jaiku services will stay running the way you are used to and you will continue to be able to invite your friends to Jaiku.

We have put together a quick Q&A about the acquisition at jaiku.com/help/google

Jyri Engestrom and Petteri Koponen, Jaiku Founders

Not sure who else that I know is signed up, I only know of Kosso, Ro and Rob who all signed up at the same time as me. I guess now this will start to be incorporated into gmail or something that'll encourage me to use it. Maybe.

Didn't go to Canterbury all weekend!

Imagine that... Overslept Sunday morning, so we went to Escondido for lunch instead. The chef got my food wrong again, so for the second time in a row mine came free, that's nice. Apparently Escondido weren't quite recovered from a disaster the previous evening when their stove broke down during peak service time, not sure how they managed to continue, but they soldiered on. It's a smashing place, especially with a discount like that...

Watched Ireland be dismissed by the Argentinians in the afternoon, then home for chilli and the all new Miss Marple, which has been very good. An unusual mix of actors, including at least one culty comedian in each one. This week we had a couple of Green Wings, last week another Green Wing and Nathan Barley and previously David Walliams has appeared.

Cold and raining now, not really keen on the idea of going to work, I'd rather sit in front of the telly with a book today.

Cure tickets

Cure tickets are on their way, though of course I didn't buy them from ebay at a vastly inflated markup, I got them from Ticketbastard at a vastly inflated markup instead. Thirty five pounds each for the ticket, then another fiver each in ticketbastard profit fees, then another fiver postage.

At least we're not following the american system, yet. I followed a link for Ozzy Osborne tickets (again, not actually to ebay, just trying to encourage casual visitors there so I can cream off a little commission from these humungous internet profits, that's what all the new ebay links over in the side bar are about too) and though they weren't on sale yet, I was offered the chance to join ticket club for another forty five dollars so I could buy the tickets that weren't on sale yet, or I could make a minimum bid of $180 to buy premium tickets.

KISS are probably the very worst exponents of this system, I am kind of fearing them ever coming to the UK again. Hopefully with them never having been as popular here as in the USA there'll be no probs getting them.

The one time I did see KISS, at Finsbury Park, I left about half way through to meet some friends in the pub, tsk, where were my priorities?

UPDATE: Cure tickets are going like hot cakes, even the seated ones, glad I got up early and we've got ours. If the chums don't come up with the cash quickly enough, I'll be flogging theirs too, hurrah!

Programming is a poetry for our time

A fairly new song up on MJ Hibbett's youtube channel, not actually a new song, nor actually even new to youtube as it's been up there for a few days already, but hey I've not seen it and you probably haven't either, so let's pretend it's all new and shiny and just enjoy it:

In case you're reading this from www.clarkeology.com/rss.xml (as I KNOW some of you are. Well one of you) or you've hit upon the new phpalised version of this page, where my youtube links might not be working, go straight there and see it in situ, or maybe it's embedded in Hibbett's official site somewhere.

What a dreary day it is here today. It generally does look a bit dull when I'm here at work as our office has tinted windows like some pimp daddy low-rider, and the sky always looks grey from my desk. However today I have taken the time to look out of a plain glass window, and it's crappy there too.

Writing this on my lunch break, and watching the new series of Heroes out of the corner of my eye, as a mate is watching it on his computer, we saw it last night and I liked it. It was like the first series all over again, started off a bit cheesy but I was soon gripped by it, hope it keeps up the standard. What was that faux English mistaken for a Japanese all about? Did he really say "black guard" instead of "blackguard"? PAH!

Also watching and listening to and reading Rebus and Midsomer Murders at the moment, we've just upped our dvd rental plan to unlimited disks per month, though just the one disk at home at a time, so we're likely to be limited to about 8 disks a month at most because of the postal turnaround... this is new for Amazon:

Did you know?
New from DVD Rental: Unlimited Rental Plans. Rent as many discs as you want each month. Plans cost �8.49 (1 disc at home at a time), �11.49 (2 discs at home at a time) and �14.49 (3 discs at home at a time). You can change your rental plan by going to "Your Account", then selecting "Manage DVD Rental Account Information".

We're on the 8.49 option, and the scheme is well recommended. Whenever they've made a mistake or a disk has got lost they've fixed it up really quickly. All the postage is prepaid, it's a nice easy scheme.

Just got an alert that a Folkestone flat is to be featured on homes under the hammer, probably that was today, and we've missed it bah. Would be interesting to see what they say about the area...

Frank Skinner tonight.

Didn't go up the tower or on the ride

I'm guessing they are the only bits of Blackpool normally to bother with, but based on the rest of the town I didn't think it was going to be worth any money at all, so we just headed out of town to Liverpool instead.
Must have been WEIRD when the White Stripes played there, lots of frightened indie kids wondering how they ended up in such a place...

Blackpool (being the third part of my two week holiday write up)

Have you been to Blackpool? DON'T EVER EVER GO THERE, man alive, it was the worst place I've ever been to. A few people gave me odd looks when I said I was going to Blackpool for a couple of days as part of our grand tour, but only one person got close to putting into words just how bad it was. I'd imagined a cheap and cheerful low rent imitation of Las Vegas but good grief, the very best parts of it were like the worst bits of Folkestone, the bits that have now been demolished. We met Clare's parents there - not for the first time, we already knew each other, we'd just arranged to meet there. I thought Clare's mum was messing about when they met us at the station and she was nearly in tears. I can't stress enough how little I'm overreacting here, it's not a nice place. If you've booked a trip there, just forget your deposit and cancel, stay home instead.

The weather didn't help, if it'd been bright and sunny when we got there maybe we'd have just got on with it, walked on the beach and the like, but all we could think of doing was leaving. We gave the pubs of the town a bit of a go in the evening, but couldn't find one that was worth staying in, and really struggled to find a restaurant - any restaurant - for our evening meal. Next day we headed off to Liverpool. That's about forty miles away I suppose, and that just about felt far enough. Liverpool was alright, though it's undergoing a monstrous amount of regeneration at the moment, be nice to see it when it's all done. Lots of good looking pubs, but we drove there and I thought I might do my share and drive back so I didn't go in any. I did check out Matthew Street, home to The Cavern and birthplace of The Beatles. The original Cavern is long gone, but it's been recreated somehow close to the original spot... bit of a cheesy touristy idea, might be nicer to admit they made a big bad mistake allowing this to happen, but hey, I stopped there and took a photo anyway.

We returned to Blackpool that night, it had not improved, though we found a pub with an Irish singer who was alright, Paddy Goes To Hollyhead.

Quiz action

Didn't go see the band in [venue]Hythe[/venue] last night, did the quiz at The Grand instead. It's an easy one, so though we did quite well, we didn't do well enough. We dropped six questions out of 36, two on our vital joker round, so no meal for four prize for us.
I think that's the first local pub I've been in since the smoking ban came in, I was wondering how much business migh suffer, but it seems to have had no effect there. They might be making a bit more of an effort to push the bar food, or it might be just coincidence that more people were eating, looked quite good anyway.

Off to Canterbury in a bit, and was planning to write up more of my holiday and go through the photos and video... however am being distracted a bit by new music, new to me anyway, just got the new Travis album The Boy With No Name, last year's Standing At The Edge Of Control by The Gossip, and also Eric Cartman's Sailing Away. I thought I used this song when I made my compilation CD for driving around the country on tour, but I messed up and picked something else, which we then had to listen to lots of times as I only brought one CD. Here's the tracklist anyway;

Holidays In The Sun - The Sex Pistols
One Hand - David Devant & His Spirit Wife
Lazy Line Painter Jane - Belle and Sebastian
In the Navy - Village People
Da Doo Ron Ron (When He Walked Me Home) - The Crystals
A Rainy Night In Soho - The Pogues
You've Got A Friend - James Taylor
Sail Away - Randy Newman
All These Things That I've Done - The Killers
Radio Ga Ga - Queen
Enter Sandman - Metallica
Gambler - Kenny Rogers
American Pie - Don McLean
You're Nobody till Somebody loves you - Dean Martin

Aren't I just the best DJ?

Possibly some spare time to go through some holiday snaps before heading to Canterbury for lunch, mmm Wagamama...

Scrap the licence fee

The BBC are a bit annoying at the moment aren't they? If they're not punking the the queen with crazy video pranks, they're ripping off the public with phoney competitions. Why not get rid of the licence fee, and replace it with a subscription for BBC services? "Oh no", I hear, "then the BBC would be forced to lower standards and chase ratings in order to compete". Seems to me it's already chasing ratings at every opportunity and there's a bit too much of the BBC trying to be the news instead of just reporting the news (OK, I read this somewhere and am just repeating it, but I do like it). Every day on BBC Breakfast one of the lead stories is about something the Beeb itself has done, this doesn't seem quite right. Also there are a few too many Fame Academy / Strictly Come Bull Fighting type shows on all the time.

I didn't think I liked ITV, but we do seem to spend a lot of our time watching old crime dramas on ITV3, plus we watch a lot of TV productions on DVD.

I'm not saying I wouldn't subscribe to BBC services (I like lots of Radio 2 and we've been watching a good documentary about Bombay the last couple of days on BBC4), but people should have the choice.

A petition. Um, not many sign ups yet.

Yeah, more holiday writeup coming soon. Where was it I went again? Seems like ages ago, I'm struggling to remember what I liked and what I didn't.

Nice weather where you are? Looking a bit stormy here in Folkestone, but we've not had the threatened ten inches of rain yet...

Possibly going out in Hythe tonight with some people from work. Just to keep you up to date on my movements.