What No Barry Norman?

Okay, cinemas. Here we go.

My earliest memory of going to the cinema would have been to see Star Wars in 1977. It's quite possible that I went before this (Disney probably), but I don't remember it.
After that was Grease, Chariots of Fire, Moonraker, Ghandi - not necessarily in that order.
There was then a major lull. I think that cinemas very much went out of fashion for quite a while. Then the multiplexes arrived and all was good again.

I was never a huge fan of going to the cinema though. Uncomfortable seats, crowded up close and personal to the great unwashed. Why bother? Just wait a few months, rent it on DVD, then watch it in the comfort of your own home. Sprawl out on the sofa with the all important pause button at the ready for when you need to refill your glass.

A few years ago, I succumbed to temptation though - possibly to see Phantom Menace, quite ironic in its own way! That got me back into the swing of it. Large(r) seats. Better viewing i.e. not having to lean round people's coiffured barnets, much better quality and the sound to go with it. So, I've been going every so often.

Last night was one of these occasions. The eagerly awaited Deathly Hallows. Don't worry, I'm not into reviews of any kind (as you will be well aware from reading my gig posts), so that's not what I'm rambling on about here.
Let's get the moans out of the way first though...

What is it with cinemas and popcorn? Why are the two inextricably linked? I'm sure there is a rational explanation. I can't be bothered to Google it (other search engines are available). Historical probably. Strange though, don't you think? One particular snack is so tied in with viewing a film.
That nicely lead me on to the next gripe - people eating so bloody noisily! Popcorn is hardly the most subtle of foodstuffs to munch down on is it? And then there are the sweets with their multiple wrappers. I know, let's wait until a nice quiet, important section of the film, then we will stuff a sherbet lemon in our gob whilst at the same time pissing off anyone within a 50m radius.
Finally, is it so much to ask that you relieve yourself prior to sitting down? I appreciate that last night's film was over two hours, but that was a steady stream (no pun intended) of weak-bladdered folk traipsing up and down the aisles. Lucky for me (and them maybe) that none came from my row - expecting me to disturb the comfort that I took a while to achieve, standing up to let them by.

These are but small moans though (yeah, right). So onto the positives...

Online booking. Makes life very easy. Pop on the website, order your tickets, turn up at the cinema, stick your card in the machine, out pops the tickets. Job jobbed.
Reasonable priced bar with no queuing. £5.80 for a cider and a white wine.
Good seats. We guessed it would be busy, so got there a good 20 minutes prior to the showing. This got us in to the centre section, about two thirds back. Ideal! I have little for those that turned up with a few minutes to go though, and complained that they couldn't sit together.
Comfortable seats. As I mentioned, the film was quite long, but these were spot on. Mrs B had to keep shuffling, but more of that in a bit.
Great sound and great view.
Straight out without having to get crushed in the rush. Back in the car within 5 mins and away.
All together a good experience.

Personally, I think some of the other HP films are better. This was okay. I'm hoping for more from part 2. I've read this morning that it's being done in full 3D too.

Mrs B did not get on quite so well. She'd had a long day. Grab some quick scampi and chips, then follow that with a large glass of wine and she was really, really struggling to stay awake throughout the film!

Fowls

Thursday 10th November - Gig Number 3 - Foals @ UEA

Originally planned to be going with my usual gig buddy, Hannah. Unfortunately, she was not going to get back from Leicester in time, so it was just me plus the lovely Natasha & James.
I'm sure they won't mind me saying, but they're not the biggest followers of music, but wind back the clock a while and Natasha came to see Vampire Weekend with Hannah. She thoroughly enjoyed it and we all sort of agreed to do it again.
I'm normally the one who books the tickets, so the four of us were booked in.
My turn to drive, so I eventually found their place in a village on the way and we got sorted. Naturally, a bit of Foals on the iPod. Suffice it to say that this was the first listen that N&J had of the band.
"How do you spell this band's name" - Natasha. She'd been going round telling people that she was going to see The Fowls, and then wondered why no-one wanted to buy the spare ticket.

Soooooo, we get to the UEA and head for the bar. Always a good thing with a band like the Foals is that they are quite popular with the students at the Uni, a lot of which are not yet 18. This means that the bar is not as busy as usual.
After grabbing a drink, Natasha decides that she wants a cigarette, but doesn’t have any on here. I agree to join her and we pop outside on the lookout for anyone who may have a spare one going. We round a corner and spy three likely looking guys leaning against the wall near the tour buses. Natasha quickly marches up to them and asks for a fag. They politely say that they’ve just run out, even proffering the empty packet for proof. Natasha sighs and heads for one of the coach drivers who comes good.
It’s only then, as I pull Natasha to one side that I point out what she’s done.
“You do know who you just asked for a fag”, says I. Of course, she’s no idea. It just happens to be the lead singer of Foals, Yannis Phlippakis (plus two other band members).
Natasha doesn’t immediately believe me, but then we both crack up in fits, especially as she then says that, as they were hanging around outside she was going to ask them if they wanted to buy our spare ticket.

Back in the warmth of the hall, we catch the last track by the first support and the whole set of the second. Both quite good.
Foals don’t disappoint. A really, really good set. Lots of new stuff, but some old favourites too. The audience are bang up for it, making loads of noise plus lots of obligatory crowd surfing.
The band are on proper form. Even when the lead guitar stops playing ball and takes a while to get sorted. Yannis does his usual stuff of crawling all over the speaker stacks. At one point, he puts his guitar down and lines up as if to jump off the stage. A couple of run-ups and then he launches himself into the awaiting crowd. After a few minutes of being passed all over the place, he jumps back on stage.... missing his shoes of course!
The end of the set comes round soon enough, one of the roadies comes on and says something to Yannis. He then announces that if they don’t stop soon they will get fined. However, he says that they’re having such a good time, they’re going to carry on anyway.

All great stuff, and Natasha & James thoroughly enjoyed it and want to go to more gigs. Unfortunately, I had a bit of a scour at the weekend and couldn’t find anything of particular interest, either at Norwich or Cambridge. Something WILL turn up.

Ch-Ch-Chk it

Well, the amazing thing to share is going to have to wait, sort of....
Just wanted to tell you about gig number 2 - !!!
For those that aren’t familiar, !!! is the “name” of the band. To pronounce it, you say it as something like Chk Chk Chk.

Last time I saw these was over two years ago and it was when they were last in the UK (they’re American). At that time, I introduced Tim G to his first gig – muchos funnos.

Soooooo, wind forward to last Thursday. I’d been at Newark all day and so was on a bit of a charge. I got back home about 4.45. Quickly nip Jack up the road, get changed and away.
Down to Newmarket, dive on the A14, then A11, then M11. All flowing well. Hit the North Circular (A406), and the sat nav is telling me about 25 mins to go 8 or so miles. The first few miles went really well, then I hit the queues. I hate that road, with a passion! Took me over half an hour to go the last 3 miles.
Never mind, this was all in the plan. I pulled up outside Tim’s. We waited a few minutes for Bobbie to get home and then shot off to Finchley, then got the tube through to Camden.
Now going to skip forward a bit, as it involves the bit that I’m going to post soon enough...

8.30-sh and we shot off to the venue, KoKo. Second time of being there, and I think it’s a really nice venue. If you haven’t been, it’s like an old fashioned theatre, but with all the seats removed. Really well lit, quite intimate and the sound is good.
We caught the last 10mins of the second support who were pretty good. As we were a bit late getting in, I thought that we’d be towards the back, but it was still quiet-ish, so I took advantage of people getting more drinks and go us just off the rail, dead centre.

WHAT a gig! The lead singer (Nic Offer) has amazing enthusiasm and obviously loves gigging. Practically every track, he came down to the crowd, climbed over the barrier and joined in with the crowd – much to everyone’s enjoyment.
A really tight band. Great musicians and some damn fine tunes.
Much moshing ensued, and the time flew by. An indication of how much the band enjoyed it was that they played an extra track at the end of the encore, not on the setlist.






Whole-heartedly recommend them.

Tonight – Foals, back at the UEA with Natasha & James. No Hannah unfortunately.

By the way, the journey back was much easier. Not much traffic on the M11 after midnight. We got out the gig about 11 tube and drive back to Tim’s, and I was still back home by 1.15!

Bread Products Galore

I've got something pretty amazing to share, but first will dive in with a post about food - just for a change, eh?

Right. One new product that is pretty good compared to the old and two brand new, innovative products.
All three, I've fallen in love with at the moment. First up is the new toaster...



Apologies for the library image, but it's much quicker for me today - a man without much time on his hands!

Good, innit? Simple, as toasters go, but it is a four slot job and makes purrrrrrrrfect toast.

So, related to the toaster are THESE mo-fos..



Heard of them?
Everyone loves a toasted sandwich, right? The main problem with sandwich toasters is the bloomin' mess that gets left behind. Well, that and the fact that the toaster takes up a lot of room in the cupboard, only to be brought out about once a month.
Toast Bags solve that problem. Make your sandwich (croque monsieur is my fave at the moment), slip the old sandwich in the bag. Bang it in the (four slot) toaster. Job done. Perfect toasted sandwiches. Any filling that escapes stays in the bag and can be cleaned easily (am I sounding like a tele-sales presenter?). Bonus point is that they're dishwasherableableable. Take up the room of a paper bag. Job jobbed.

Enfin, we have a POACH POD.



Just tried this morning. Got to love a poached egg, but again, tricky to get right. Take one of these pods, give it a light oiling (aherm), chuck in an egg, stick it in simmering water for five minutes. Perfect.

Lovely on a good muffin.

Good news post coming very soon. Watch this space....

An Englishman Abroad

Last Thursday brought a fair old jaunt.
Wednesday, left work and drove down to Bury St Edmunds. Met up with a colleague and then carried on driving down to Folkestone.
Here we shall have the first tale of (potential) woe. Trundling along the M25 and we hit the queue for the Dartford crossing with about two miles to go. The topic of conversation was cars and said colleague was commenting on his current one (the one we were sat in), a 318 Touring. He mentioned that in the past three weeks he’d had four punctures, and that it didn’t carry a spare, but instead had the spray stuff that inflates and seals the tyre. Now, and this is no exaggeration (well maybe a little), within seconds of him sharing this fact, there was a “bong” from the dashboard and a light lit up indicating a potential puncture. Note that I said “potential” woe, as this turned out to be a false alarm. (way too many potentials there)
Onwards we go, eventually arriving at a delightful Premier Inn near the Eurotunnel. I say delightful with a certain degree of misplaced sarcasm actually because as a place to sleep, it wasn’t that bad. The adjoining gastro-pub was a bit dire though. The speed at which they deliver your order is a fair measure at how much care and attention they have put into your food.

Up at 5am and head for the tunnel. I like this way of crossing to Europe very much. It’s quick, easy, cheap and involves very little queuing.

Colin (I’ll stop calling him colleague, as that sounds a bit rude) suggested grabbing something to eat early on, but I convinced him to wait until we were on the péage. Wise words indeed from Mr Brown, but not without a small amount of previous experience.
I give you the XL...

Colin had the XXL. Much like mine but with added sausage, beans and other things now forgotten.

On we go, eventually arriving at Bethune.

We got within about 2 Km (we are in France after all) of our destination and then all of a sudden the traffic ground to a halt. There's us thinking that the political protests had finished yesterday. No such luck. Why are they protesting? All to do with raising the pensionable age from 60 to 62. Wha? I mean WHA??? I can't fault them for there efforts but come on.... 62 isn't all that bad.

This bit in the middle of the day really isn't very interesting. Well... it is, but I'm not going to go into it on here. Suffice it to say that it involved driving round the French countryside looking at stuff.
Have a picture of some protesters instead...


Roll forward to about 2pm. Our host takes us for some lunch.
The French, as I'm sure you know, are fantastic eaters. As in quality, not quantity. They are also quite particular. Trying to find somewhere that served food after 2pm is quite difficult. But there was one place that our host (I know that I keep referring to him a such, but I'm not sure of the spelling of his name. I think it's something like Benoir) knew. I give you FLUNCH.
Right, let's make a comparison. I'm comparing an English "Gastro-Pub" from the night before, to an everyday "French Diner". In fact no, we can't make a comparison. It would be disrespectful to even compare the two. But yet.... at both places myself and Colin had sirloin steak. As discussed, the evening's came rather quickly and was flavourless and chewy. When we ordered in France, they took fresh steak from the fridge and cooked it on a griddle right in front of us. It. Was. Delicious.

Going on a bit too much now for one blog post, so going to wrap it up. After our 3pm lunch(!) we headed for home. Leave Bethune at about 3.30. Back in The Ham by about 9pm. Not too shabby.