The good morning, good night thread

[Caz]

Cheers for the advice, Delph. For some reason I imagined that 35mm film would be hard to find.

[Geoff_N]

A pic of the hike I did yesterday.


Llangollen, which has a cafe in an old cinema, the upstairs of which houses the largest second-hand bookshop in Wales, is the other side of that middle distance hill. Top of that hill is the ruins of Dinas Bran castle. Originally pre-Roman then medieval it has mysterious deep ditch features.

Geoff

[delph_ambi]

I want to be there! (Instead of trudging round ASDA, which is the only place I expect to go today. Oh, and standing in a queue at the post office. I won't bother to take my camera.)

[LeeThompson]

Man, that's awesome, Geoff!

[Rev. Austin]

I'm off to Clumber Park today - not been there for yyeeaarrrs!  If we have time we're going to visit Rufford Abbey too, so plenty of fresh air for me today! My body won't know what hit it haha

[Ed]

Beautiful spot there, Geoff. We have an old hill fort near us, but I've never actually wandered up there. I suppose we ought to pack the kids into the car and show ourselves around sometime.

It's funny, isn't it - if this was America there'd be a theme park built around the old remains and people wandering around in period costumes, you'd have to re-mortgage your house to pay for your family to get in, etc., but being Britain you're lucky if there's so much as a placard telling you what you're looking at, a toilet of some kind and a burger bar

Still, TBH, I like it like it is. You can clamber all over it and you don't have to pay anybody anything if you don't want to.

[Rev. Austin]

Well, my friend's given me first dibs on a room in her house, so that's something good that happened this week, but then last night I saw a violent knife/pool cue fight in my local pub which was far from lovely.  Scunthorpe's population did themselves proud yet again 

I did manage to finish a story for the crit group though which I didn't think I'd have time to do, so it's not all crap 

[Ed]

That sort of fighting always struck me as utterly pointless. I used to know people who enjoyed fighting, to the extent that they would go out looking for trouble. Sometimes they would pick on a weedy guy, unprovoked, and just beat the crap out of him, then go on to the pub, have a few drinks and laugh about it. Meanwhile, some harmless guy has had his life changed because of them, possibly lost a few teeth, broke his nose, or a rib, whatever, and is reluctant to go into town of an evening thereafter. It's just mindless

On a happier level - looks like being a good session in the crit group this time around. Last I counted there were six stories, so far, and it's only half way through the first day

[PaulH]

I don't go to pubs in Ashford anymore. When I was 18, the pub was a good night out, a few beers, a game of pool and a laugh with your mates. Now there are bouncers on all the doors, fights every weekend. The atmosphere has changed. It feels like everyone goes out to get laid, drunk or in a fight or often a combination of all three. Can't stand it.

We had a murder in Ashford two days ago. What's shocked me is I knew both the victim and perpetrator, not well, but well enough. Domestic violence between alcoholics that's flared over into more. Only a five minute walk from where I live now and about fift yards from my last house. Very strange feeling to be so close to it.

[Rev. Austin]

That's the thing about small or smallish towns isn't it?  Everyone knows everyone even if it's marginally.  Can be quite nice when you bump into somebody, or like I was talking to my friend in the pub on Fri night, and find out you know a lot of the same people, but not so nice when those friends of friends, or passing accquaintances are involved in something horrible.  Scunthorpe's very much like you described Ashford Paul; It feels like everyone goes out to get laid, drunk or in a fight or often a combination of all three.  My friends and I typically steer well clear of the town centre, but after Friday night (which was defintely the scariest and worst thing I have ever seen in my life) I'm worried the shit that happens there is starting to spill into the burbs...

Quick, someone post some happy weekend news! 

[Pharosian]

Quick, someone post some happy weekend news! 

Ha! My happy weekend consists of all manner of housecleaning in preparation for a six-week visit from my mother-in-law... 

[delph_ambi]

I've had an odd sort of a weekend. Arranged to meet up with the gang from Earlyworks Press / Circaidy Gregory Press on the South Bank, as we always do. Got there, found the Festival Hall complex was closed for the Barclays AGM. Grrr... We adjourned to the National Theatre. Arranged to meet with another writer friend and his publisher in the evening at Pizza Express in Coptic Street for a meal before his book launch at the Poetry Café. Pizza Express was closed for refurbishment. Then today, I went to the Serpentine Gallery to do some research for my latest novel. The Gallery was closed as they were setting up a new exhibition.

I think London saw me coming. It certainly arranged for a deluge. My brolly has only just survived. Still managed to have fun. I love this town! 

[Ed]

Quick, someone post some happy weekend news! 

Ha! My happy weekend consists of all manner of housecleaning in preparation for a six-week visit from my mother-in-law... 

OMG - I complain about the old bat coming around every Tuesday night for her nosebag, but six weeks in a row would result in a few home truths blurting from my lips, I fear. A mere hour or two of her company is torture, so six weeks would be unendurable.

I pity you

My weekend, so far, has consisted of ferrying children from place to place and minor disaster management. Took my eldest to his guitar lesson yesterday morning and, unbeknown to me, my wife had put his BMX in the back of the car, ready for later, so when I peeled out of the crossroads just up the road, a bit smartish to avoid the traffic, there was a smashing sound from the back as the handlebar punched through the rear quarter glass.

A few phonecalls later, and I'm on the blower to autoglass. I say I don't want to go through the insurance, because by the time I'd paid the excess and lost my no claims bonus it'd cost me more than if I simply bought the glass myself. "Yes Sir," says the bolshy bitch on the other end of the phone, "that'll be seven hundred and sixty-five pounds ($1,225), then." WTF? How can a square of toughened glass be worth over seven hundred quid? "Or," she says, "you can put it through your insurance, in which case it'll cost you £75 ($120). But we can't do it until Friday."

Damn, I say - I'll leave it for now, and I'll shop around to see if I can get it done quicker through somebody else. "What, on a bank holiday weekend?" she says, "Tell you what, I'll put it through as if you're having it, so that when you come back after finding you can't get it quicker elsewhere you'll still be on the system." Then she hung up on me before I could reply. Meanwhile, my wife has simultaneously rung the insurance company, who've got autowindscreens (note the similar name) to do it on Wednesday. Huge clusterfuck of phonecalls later, and autoglass are going to do the job. They're sending somebody around to put temporary perspex in the opening, which makes all the difference to my choice of company.

I can't leave the car outside with a big hole in it over the weekend, so I cut a sheet of aluminium to fit the opening, and secure it with gaffer tape. Dipshit turns up this morning to fit perspex, decides my temporary repair is better than what he's got (sticky backed plastic) and leaves it as it is So now we've got to wait most of the week for a proper repair with a car that we're unable to properly secure.

[fnord33]

It feels like everyone goes out to get laid, drunk or in a fight or often a combination of all three.

I just got a great idea. I'd need a private club to do it, but it would make me a fortune. Friday and Saturday night I could host an event where guys get naked, strap on a small woman with some sort of harness, and suck whiskey out of beer hats while they pummel each other for the amusement of the other bar guests. I could charge a steep cover. There would be no need for bouncers since the violence in sanctioned. Guys would flock in because there would be girls to strap on. Girls would flock in because they are attracted to violent jerks. The bar would sell tons of booze and everybody would get laid. Soon, it would spread throughout the world like cancer aiding the devolution of man until we forget how to develop and use weapons of mass destruction. We could go back to killing each other with rocks and sticks in about five generations. This may be the best invention since the internet.  Now where can I get a bar?

[Rev. Austin]

hahaha I'm SOLD!  The one in Scuthorpe would put all the other bars out of business within a week