Another sick note from me

Not forgotten about blogging just been absolutely stowed off at work.

We were hit by the Zotob.b computer virus last week and the place is still chaos!

Google Earth

If you've got Broadband and a half hour to spare you have to give this a try. (Have to download it and install, but it doesn't take too long).
Basically you can zoom in anywhere in the world. Try typing your postcode in as a starting point and you'll get the idea. The maps of the UK aren't that good when you zoom right in, but try clicking on some of the major landmarks down the left handside to be REALLY impressed, - the Eiffel Tower for instance.
At first I thought this just to be another of them things that impresses I.T. geeks, but it seems I was wrong......

"Can you tell what it is yet?"

Saw this spayed on a wall, and just thought it was genius. Took a while to figure it out I have to admit, but as Roy Walker would say, "Say what you see, say what you see".....

CanUTellWhatItIs.jpg

You'll have to forgive the drawings in my re-creation, - I was never the best at Art!

My longest blog entry plus a rant!

It's been a week and still no entry about my stag weekend. (Knew it would be a long one so kept putting it off!). Here we go....
FRIDAY 29th JULY
Started off badly when the mini-bus picking the group up from Blyth (16 people), was late. It went to Beal Close, Teal Close and everything else before arriving at Deal Close!! Dowp. This lead to a very stressful trip though to the train station 'cos we obviously couldn't delay the train. Got there with about 4 minutes to spare, but it was like a scene from the end of the Benny Hill show as we all ran through the train station!
The worst thing about the train journey to Livepool is that there is no longer a direct service. i.e. GNER to York, then you change to the Transpennine Express. This meant that the journey had to be booked in 4 legs including the return. Got on the train to find that our seats weren't reserved, - as it happened that turned out to be the least of our troubles when it came to trains (see Sunday's entry).
Anyway, after 3 1/2 hours of trying to limit how much alcohol we drank, we eventually arrived at Liverpool's Lime Street Station. Jumped in a fleet of Taxis and eventually arrived at the Travel Inn. This was spot on, apart from the fact that they class a twin room as 1 double bed and 1 sofa bed. Obviously this lead to a few arguements in some of the rooms (cheers Peter!).
Got changed, then had a few drinks in the hotel bar before heading to the Golf Bar.
This is basically a sports bar round the corner from the hotel which has a couple of golf simulators; There's a full set of golf clubs, and you have to lash the ball at the screen which then interprits the shot. Difficult to show this in the photos as the flash blanks out the screen, so here's a one from my phone (shows Butler in full swing); Golf_Sim.jpg. We spent 3 hours in the Golf Bar and had a really good laugh plus some quality bait! There were three competitions in all, results as follows;

Closest to the Pin, driving off the Tee - 1ST PLACE - Rev Cornell (Dad)

Longest Drive off the Tee - 1st PLACE - Paul Richardson (Buff)

Longest Drive with left handed clubs!! - 1st PLACE - Neil Irving (Irvy)

We then all headed across to Mathew Street to start on the serious drinking. We had one drink here before deciding Mathew Street was too quiet then headed across to Concert Square.

The pubs here were much better, - good party atmosphere etc. Only actually went to 2 pubs but there's was plenty alcohol downed. Everyone turned in around 12 ish ready for the early start next morning....

SATURDAY 30th JULY

8.30am start to get across to the karting for 9.30am (groan!). The venue was far from lavish and the karts were far from consistent, but it was a good laugh. Well everyone else found it a laugh apart from Maff and Mark who have a "I must win, I must win" attitude and can't take these things as a laugh! In one race they managed to get Jon & Wilky black flagged even though the pair of them weren't at fault! Anyway this went on for about 2 hours with the results as follows;

1st PLACE - Matthew "Natural Speed" Lessells (Maff)

2nd PLACE - Mark "Must Try Harder" Eadington (Eadie)

3rd PLACE - Simon "You're Not Passing Me" Hillerby (Sy)

4th PLACE - Lee "Not Quite On The Podium" Butler (Butler)

Yep, as with the Honda Pilot racing on Sy's stag weekend, Maff won again and we'll never hear the end of it. He won a bottle of cheap plonk which we all drank and a model car which we all wrecked when drunk later! (Sorry Maff).

Headed back to hotel, then everyone did their own thing for a few hours. We all then met up at Albert Dock in the afternoon for a few drinks. Prior to this, John the avid Liverpool fan had found the LFC club shop and managed to blow a fortune making himself look like a proper tourist. Seeing him walk into the pub has got to be one of the biggest laughs of the weekend;

The two cd's he's holding are by a group called the 'Glory Boys' and the song is titled 'Do the Dudek'. John even stood in line to get them autographed!! - There's only one John!
I then headed back to the hotel for a kip. As I was getting ready for the night oot, my 'mates' arrived with my t-shirt; Reves_PINK_TShirt.jpg Yes, yes, go on lap it up, I couldn't have looked any worse if I'd tried, - the towel really finishes it off! The t-shirt was tighter than tight but after repeatedly trying to call Sy's bluff, he caved and admitted there was a reserve yellow t-shirt which was also the right size, PHEW! Ian agreed to wear the pink one (it fit him!), so we both went out with my list of nicknames on our back. Cheers lads...!

We headed staight to 'Ask' for a meal. They're superb restaurants and it was good that they didn't mind letting us all in, in one group, - but please no-one mention the standard 10% service charge which didn't go down well at all!!
After a few beers in nearby pubs, 'Rat & Parrot' etc, we headed across to Concert Square again. As with the Friday night we didn't go to many pubs but we had a cracking night. This also meant that the group stayed together rather than getting left in some of the pubs. By about 11ish most of us were completely sick of lager so special thanks has to go to Joppa's for discovering the 'Green Sh*t' cocktail. It was superb, and from I can remember it consisted of Vodka, Blue Curacoa, Archers and Fresh Orange Juice. Not sure how many jugs of the stuff were drank but there were a few!
Night ended about 2am ish and the only dissapointing part was the fact that the hotel bar had shut! Finished with an hour of drunken pointless convesation (and model car destroying!), in Maff & Butler's room.
SUNDAY 31st JULY
As with all weekends away, when you've had a skinfull, everyone basically just wanted to get home. Here's where the 'rant' part of the post comes into play;
What a flippin' joke our trains are!! As we stood on the platform at Lime Street waiting for our first train to York, an announcement came out to say there was a delay and to wait for further information. This was repeated 3 times and after 15mins another announcement said the train was cancelled!! NOTE: There was no mention of alternative arrangements!
We eventually established that we could wait 10mins and get a train to Manchester Picadilly, before getting another train to York - this would then leave us a 15min window at York to get the Newcastle train, in theory.
Then what do you know, - the train to Manchester was delayed 10mins which left our window at York now at 5mins!! We eventually got to Manchester and after trecking about half a mile through the station found the platform for York. Stood there for 5 mins wondering whay the train hadn't started up, before an announcement came out saying that the train had broken down and we had to get the replacement train from the next platform, ARGH!!
At last we were on our way to York, wondering if we'd make the transfer to Newcastle. As it happens we did and the final leg of the journey actually went as planned.
It was a complete farce and probably the craziest train journey I'll ever have, but I have to say I couldn't believe how everyone managed to keep in such good spirits and laugh about the whole thing even though they were still hung0ver from the night before.

All in all I had an absolutley cracking weekend. Couldn't have gone with a better group of lads, and I'll remember it for a long time to come. To any of them that are reading this, thanks for coming and see you at the wedding. Reve