dom.blog

I’m back!

For once, I am Monopoly King

Now, I’m pretty unapologetic about enjoying holidays, so I won’t bother to go through that tiresome ‘moan unconvincingly about your holiday’ ritual designed to make other people feel good about their non-holiday. Also, it was only Dartmoor, so you’re unlikely to feel uber jealous that you haven’t marvelled over such sights as England’s tallest waterfall. (I have. Fact.) Nevertheless, it was lots of fun There was even an outdoor pool which – in Britain! – somehow managed to stay warm…

Fun in the pool

With non-existent mobile reception where we were staying I was able to devote ample chunks of time to reading Brideshead Revisited and Book Club’s The Bird Room. As a family we also watched plenty of films: Fight Club (excellent), Cars (sorely needs a public transport sequel), Black Hawk Down (like watching someone else play a computer game), The Black Dahlia (eh?) and Downfall (also excellent). (I have to admit to walking out of the first volume of Kill Bill after about half an hour, bored and feeling like I’d been watching a PowerPoint made for a film studies class.)

You travel to the other side of the country and arrive at… South Brent?!

There isn’t really much else to say, other than the full album will be on Facebook… soon

Look – countryside! (Scary cows not pictured)

Policing moral rectitude

Watch out for my new wildlife show, starting soon

Auditioning for the role of Steen

Fishin’ and chipin’ it on the last night

The rains cometh! Yes, as a most-welcome shower finally relieves us of a prolonged bout of horrid humidity, I feel a happy boost which prompts me to get on with blogging about our trip to Liverpool. Some photos:

See, I told you the train works out as more expensive than the flying carpet

Don’t shout about it, but is photo-autism on the retreat?

A room with a view

If I only wait a little longer I’ll soon be back in fashion!

Put your hands up for De… erm… Liverpool

Going through the album and choosing which photos to display actually brought up the curious thing about Liverpool: try as I might, I couldn’t find anything which really screamed where it was taken. I actually asked someone there what they would put on a postcard to identify the city – akin to Parliament or the London Eye, or the Bullring for Birmingham – and he couldn’t really think of anything aside from the docks. Don’t get me wrong, there were plenty of impressive buildings, so maybe it’s just my fault for not recognising them as quintessentially Liverpudlian. The giant outdoorsy and slightly creepy shopping centre Liverpool One certainly didn’t qualify. Anyway, we did have a great time and packed in art galleries, museums, a bus tour and the cinema alongside (of course) plenty of eating and drinking – thanks to mum for organising it all!

Last night I ended up staring at the beautiful night sky above Queen’s Park (no lighting – hooray!) with Joshua, Niamh and Matthew. Matthew seems to bring out the theatrics in me – we’d already ended up encircling each other in the pub shouting things like “but what is a fact?” far louder than the management of The Corrib would have ideally wished for. A lovely evening!

I hope no-one is now disappointed that there was no further mention of the promised dhododendrons…

Hmm… how to add value when Abbi has already faithfully blogged the holiday and my photos are adorning Facebook? Why, turn to technology of course

Newquay!

Yes, I had a totally fantastic time and can only hope to blog a few memorable moments. Like the train which failed to get up the hill, the cold-induced delirium of night-time swimming, drinking games with the gorgeously feminine voices which followed, giant scary sea creatures at the aquarium, the wonders of Wordplay, the views of the sea and everyone’s amazing company. Onward to next year!

Particularly in light of the numerous ‘Leeds?!’ reactions I had to my holiday plans, let me start off by saying how impressed I was by the city. Admittedly, yeah, we stayed confined to the centre, but that was still enough to really rate what they’ve done with the streets. I’ve said for ages that cities can be made so much nicer by aggressively stripping out the cars, but it only takes two minutes strolling down wide, clean, beautifully pedestrianised streets of Leeds to know how true this really is. True, it is a little shopping focused, but not entirely, and it nevertheless very clearly illustrates the pressing need for change elsewhere. There’s no chance of such progress in London under Boris, of course, but once he’s been dispensed with we should start looking very seriously at which parts of central London can be rid entirely of private vehicles whilst maintaining decent public transport networks.

Not the greatest photo ever, but note the big wide streets?

Anyway! On Thursday night Lucy and I were delighted to meet up with a certain Andrew Kings and eat out to Pizza Express, who very thoughtfully gave us plenty of time to chat before bringing us any food. (Some kind of conspiracy?) We did end up with free dough balls, though, which is almost as good as free cheese. And it was so lovely to see Andy again after about 0.69 x 10^2 years! (HH – you are so on the list for next time.) Feast your eyes:

Me and Andy!

Friday was our turbo-tourist day, during which we ended up at the most fascinating exhibition on social order, ‘Rank’, at the Leeds Art Gallery. Aside from being genuinely interesting, it also felt pleasingly like a very pleasant form of exam revision; in any case, I’m sure I’ll be able to drop it in to my next DoS meeting. In the evening we culminated this rather cultural day with a performance of The Tempest at The Grand. I haven’t read the play, and Shakespeare can sometimes be rather difficult to follow in these cases, but as it turned out it was both easily accessible and very entertaining. The RSC were giving it all a rather clever African and colonialist theme, which I thought worked very well, raising questions about your sympathies without being too heavy-handed about it all.

(Not both for Lucy, no)

(There is a story about the above photo, by the way. Although we laugh about accent stuff most of the time, when buying these ice-creams I have to admit that I couldn’t quite follow every single word the guy said. That’s how we ended up with ice-creams with everything on: when in doubt, just say ‘yes’ and hope it turns out well.)

And then on Saturday we headed back home, after seeing The Young Victoria in the morning, a film which I will spare much comment aside from the fact that I was perhaps the only person in the world disappointed that we never reached the repeal of the Corn Laws. And thus concludes our Easter holiday in Yorkshire… aside from one, very important thing. Books! Obviously, us geeks try and fill gaps with reading, so I finished off Book Club’s 100 Years of Solitude before moving on to Valis and Animal Farm. The last one, I feel, has probably lost most of its power given that I felt I knew exactly what was about to happen at most points… the effects of history, I suppose. But it was Valis with which I really struggled – for most of the week – and I’m certain that this was not quite the best Philip K. Dick novel for me. (William Blake gave me enough trouble: I just don’t do mystic.) So, suggestions please: what’s his best work?

Up next: return of the dinner party…

In order to serve you better, the next couple of posts will emerge in an exciting multi-part serial format, with all the narrative runarounds and painful padding of a children’s television drama. And it would please me greatly if you could all try not to do anything notable during this period, so that I don’t fall further behind. All agreed? Good. So if you’re sitting comfortably, then I’ll begin…

For the first half of my Easter holiday with Lucy – the countrysidey bit – we were based in the Crakehall Watermill. This was an awesome B&B and exuded friendliness to the extent that our hosts were printing and annotating bus timetables with suggested visits, offering to give us lifts to the nearby village and bringing fresh milk in a little flask every evening. Reccomended! Plus, check out the surroundings…

Crakehall Watermill: the view from our window

Parish walks: the “I can read maps” look

Free! Cheese!

On Tuesday we visited the village of Hawes (pronounced the way you wish it would be) to fulfil my primary life aim: to visit a cheese factory! And the most exciting part of a cheese factory, as you might imagine, is the free cheese. A very wide selection of free cheese samples, in fact. I think the countryside is onto a winner here, personally. As did the friendly old man sitting on a bench outside this dairy paradise, who started talking to us through the age-old method of opening with a joke (it wasn’t the best, but then it was better than most of mine) before moving on to extolling the benefits of the North. (Which was a bit of a running theme that day, actually, as a woman on the bus had already told her friend about the pressures of living at a ‘frenetic pace’ in, erm, Oxford.) The conversation swiftly moved on to why there “has to be a creator” because “a Big Bang would only be messy” and reached a bit of a low when he introduced us to a companion as “this man and his girlfriend or wife”. Beating a retreat, this man and his girlfriend or wife walked back through Hawes where the BNP had taken to handing out leaflets at the market. I really am annoyed at myself for refusing one with a smiling ‘no, thank you’ – damn British instinct – and would like to amend the record to a ‘fuck off, thank you’ if possible. But it did really highlight the peculiarities of a place that can be so warm and friendly to some and so viciously exclusionary to others.

Relaxing!

We set aside the time on Wednesday to attempt a real and proper walk through the Dales. Armed with water, a few sweets, a map and a healthy sense of optimism, we made our way through the beautiful countryside to seek out the village of Redmire. There were ups and downs, of course. At one might we may have darted across a railway, jumped past a troublesome gate and had to scramble over a wall in order to regain some semblance of a footpath. And the mighty Redmire was perhaps a little too village-like, offering no possibility of lunch after all, but help was at hand in the form of a well-timed train, and we ended up somewhere slightly more populated tucking into the best burgers and milkshakes ever. Success!

The Yorkshire Dales during our walk

Stay tuned for Leeds…