Podication

I downloaded lastest Geoff Show podcast today, as is my wont, only to discover to my absolute delight that the show recorded on my birthday was in fact podicated (the podcast equivalent of dedicated) to ME!

Okay, I can't say this was a total surprise, as I had written in to request a birthday podication a week or so ago. Still, as this is my favourite show on the radio I couldn't have been more chuffed with my endorsement. Please feel free to follow the link above to download it and hear for yourself. The podication is right at the beginning.

Thorpe Park

Today was the first time I've been to Thorpe Park for donkies*. About 12 years? And boy, has it grown up (as, evidently, have I). As I lived only 10 mins from its door, I used to go most weekends as a kid with my friend Fiona. Back in those days, the highlights were Cinema 180 (predecessor to the IMAX), the tame-by-today's-standards-but-we-thought-it-was-great Space Station Zero (roller coaster in the semi-dark), the Magic Mill (a sedantry jaunt in a boat which went past a load of dodgy fibreglass animals and pixies), Phantom Phantasia (you sat in a shell and slowly went round some 'scary' exhibits, including a skeleton ball and Henry VIII sat having dinner as his wives slowly appeared and disappeared around him - I was once chucked off this because my date, Lee Ayers, was spitting at the waxworks). But I suppose in this day and age, these things just wouldn't cut it.

Despite my nostalgia for such shoddy nonsense, the new rides are fabulous. And so they ruddy well should be for the £32 entrance fee, which left me breathless before we'd even seen a ride. Thank God I had a BOGOF voucher but even so: is it just me who is endlessly fascinated by the extent to which we're being fleeced at these things? In addition, inside the park you could buy 'Fastrack vouchers', which allowed you to jump the queue at the big rides. I have to admit, I balked at first at the thought of paying £9 more than I strictly needed to but as we were limited in the time we had there, bypassing the queues at 4 of the biggest rides was well worth the money! Oh the leisure of it all, wandering past all of the waiting crowds and waltzing pretty much straight on.

Colossus, the world's first 10 loop rollercoaster, was good. Nemesis Inferno was amazing. Tidal Wave was, as you might expect, very wet. X:/No Way Out (though, given that I'm here to blog another day, I think you can guess that there was one) was a bit weird, what with being the world's only backwards rollercoaster which takes place in the pitch black. I believe there's a reason why no one else has made one, and why we had to delay our entrance until they'd cleared up some vomit.

But Stealth. Oh but Stealth.

0-80 mph in under 2 seconds. A vertical climb to (and, naturally, descent from) 205 feet. Breathtaking isn't the word - it's so fast you don't have time to breathe. The acceleration takes place using a series of electromagnets - same as those superfast trains we're hearing all about but will probably never see in Britain - which makes it so smooth you might as well be be sat on a giant knife and wearing trousers made from butter. We paid yet another £6 each to Fastrack (about £1 for every 1.5 second of the ride) to Pole Position (i.e. the front seat) but it really was worth every penny.

Given the huge expense we'd already incurred, we didn't buy any of the pictures that we were so kindly offered by Thorpe Park for an additional extortionate fee. We decided it was cheaper to recreate them for your viewing pleasure instead.

So here is David & I on Nemesis Inferno:



Here we are coping with the massive acceleration on Stealth:


And here was us trying to avoid getting too wet on Tidal Wave:


*but this time they made me

Birthday message

Thirty bloomin' three.

Technically not yet mid-thirties. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

What's in a name?

A couple in New Zealand are fighting to be able to name their baby son 4Real. I'm not surprised, given that most of the girls I work with give their babies made up names - or conventional names spelt with random Ps, Zs and, for some reason, hyphens and apostrophes thrown in for good measure - and it was only a matter of time before numbers came into the equation. I'm slightly surprised that the NZ authorities have already had to put the kybosh on 'Satan' and 'Adolf Hitler' in the past, but what do I know? Tudor & I insisted - quite seriously - that if we had a son we would give him the middle name 'Danger', so he had a good cheesy chat-up line to use later in life. It is possibly a good thing that our relationship was never fruitful.

He is really Stanley's Dragon, isn't he?

I received in the post today a copy of Stanley's Dragon, a TV series/film I made back in, oh I don't know, 1993 or thereabouts. I hadn't realised it was out on DVD until I stumbled upon it on Amazon a few weeks back (Region 1 disc only, of course) and thought I'd order it for nostalgia purposes. I haven't seen it for about 10 years and thought I'd just check the DVD worked but, inevitably, ended up watching the whole thing. A few things struck me:

• It was ever so slightly rubbish, but in a very sweet, kids' drama kind of way
• If it had been made today, the dragon would have been CGI. I'm so glad we had a big hydraulic rubber thing to act with, it was so much nicer and - in my humble and old-fashioned opinion - looks nicer too
• I can't believe how ruddy young I look. I mean, I know I was only 19 but bloody hellfire I look like a tiny tiny child; a fetus almost*
• I'd forgotten how much fun it was to make, even if the director was a bit of a knob and the assistant director was a total total arsehole. God I hope he's not still in the business
• I found Judd Trichter on imdb.com and boy has he grown up!
• I got to drive a lorry. It was fun
• My hair looked really rubbish all the way through, but I supppose you expected this kind of thing in the 90s
• I notice that on most of the reviews on t'interweb I'm described as a 'cute junior reporter'. Hey! I'm cute!
• Nevertheless, my STARmeter on the imdb has taken me down 4% in the past week. Aw shucks

*this might be a slight exaggeration

On the move again

This afternoon I'm off to my friend & colleague Sophie's to flat sit while she's on holiday (a cruise round Turkey & Greek islands incidentally). So it's time for another bed rating.

I've been staying at my friends Cindy & Fred's house, in their daughter Jessica's room, as she's away at Cambridge. Their other daughter, Davara, is doing her A-levels at the moment (also likely to be going to Cambridge) and her to-ing & fro-ing to exams and constant revision has reminded me what it was like to be at college. Okay, that's a bit of a lie. When I did my A-levels I think the full extent of my revision was flicking through a couple of my text books while lying in the sun. I got Bs regardless, but it's probably indicative of why I didn't go to Cambridge. Mind you, I did choose dossy subjects - Theatre Studies & Communication Studies (I dropped Sociology). Anyway, here goes:

I rate it as follows:
Aesthetics - 10/10
Comfort - 9/10
Quality of sleep - 10/10
Hospitality of hosts - 10/10
Total - 39/40

Comments - Cindy, Fred & Davara couldn't have been more friendly and hospitable - I have begun to feel like one of the family and am very sorry to be leaving! Fortunately, I'll be back here next month to house sit when they go on holiday...

My Free Implants

This is total genius. I'm not sure what I love about it most; that you can 'earn' breast implants in this way, or the fact that the British Association of Aesthetic Plastic Surgeons (BAAPS) must have put in the word 'Aesthetic' very deliberately indeed.

Gagtastic

So Bernard Manning has died age 76. A tribute from his biographer, Jonathan Margolis:

He was a man of his age - and as people of his age went, he was relatively un-racist.

Gigtastic

Marillion really excelled themselves last night at The Forum. Barney is now a total convert (haha in your face). A few things I really love about my favourite band, in no particular order, are as follows:

• H (the lead singer) is always effortlessly note perfect
• Steve Rothery (guitarist) doesn't use his guitar solos to be flashy and show off, they are always simple, pure and played exactly the same every single time
• I also love the way he bows majestically at the crowd when we go wild afterwards
• Ian Moseley (drummer) always looks calm to the point of slightly distracted, despite drumming like a demon
• They often throw up little surprises at their gigs - last night Between You and Me was accompanied by a whole host of giant balloons filled with confetti which we bounced around for ages till they all burst and, in a shock move, they also played Sugar Mice. SUGAR MICE I ask you*
• Last night Mark Kelly's keyboard buggered up just before he did a big solo, so he just pointed at it, shrugged and laughed before running down to complete the solo on H's keyboard at the front
• They have enormous stamina - last night they played for 1 1/2 hours and then came back on for nearly another HOUR of encores. What modern popular beat combo would do that?
• When I see them live - and I've probably seen them around 20-odd times now - I feel such a profound and pure joy that I can't imagine being found in any other walk of life. I love them - not in a stalkery 'I think that they're my best friends' kind of a way, just in a 'they are so good at what they do, they clearly love doing it and we love them for it' kind of way
• We shall find out today if their new single Thank You Whoever You Are has made it into the top ten - fingers crossed please...
  

Boys: I salute you. Long may you continue. And can you come to Canada next year?

*I realise this will mean nothing to non-Marillion fans. But Sugar Mice was a single back in 1987, during the previous incarnation of the band when Fish was the lead singer. If you say 'isn't Fish still in the band?' I'll scream.

Review of bed #2

The second of my sojourns was spent at my friend Suzie's while she was away in Ireland.

I rate it as follows:
Aesthetics - 7/10
Comfort - 7/10
Quality of sleep - 8/10
Hospitality of hosts - 10/10
Total - 32/40

Comments - it was very light in the room so I kept waking up early, but I quite like being woken gently by natural light rather than being torn from a darkened womb-like state by a harsh alarm so that suited me just fine. Nermal the cat was delightful company. She's a special needs cat, with one too many toes (are they still toes in cats?) on each paw, who is ridiculously soppy. I discovered a great Indian takeaway round the corner who did a mean saag chicken.

My boys

Off to see Marillion again this evening, with my nephew Barney in tow despite years of him taking the piss out of me for liking such old people's music. But even The Times agrees with me that:

Contrary to received wisdom, Marillion World is not some lost kingdom of extreme naffness, just a pleasantly eccentric diversion off the mainstream musical map

He'll love it. Or I'll make him pay for his ticket.

Going straight to hell (again)

There was a great great great grandmother on This Morning this morning having a makeover who looked exactly like this:

I might have imagined the cigar.

The best things in life are free

Derren Brown & the internet. Two of my favourite things. In a happy collision, I finally managed to find somewhere to watch Messiah, Derren's exploration of whether he could fool five so-called 'experts' in subjects such as Evangelism, Spiritualism and alien abduction, into thinking he possessed genuine supernatural powers. Needless to say, they were utterly convinced when faced with Derren's awesome abilities, even though he was not necessarily demonstrating quite the abilities they thought he was.

How anyone can still believe in such nonsense after watching something like this is beyond me. Man, he is goooooood.

Marry me DB?

Sofa hopping

Well, it can happen to the best of us. For various reasons too complex to go into here, my time at my dad & step-mum's did not work out and I have moved out again which, given that my tenants are now living at my flat, leaves me without fixed abode at present. Have had various offers from nice people of comfy sofas/spare beds so I'm probably going to be doing this for the next few weeks until I head off to Canadia. At Silas' suggestion, I shall be rating the beds/sofas on which I'm sleeping and including photos so you can chart my progress*. The first bed I have borrowed, where I have been for the past 4 nights and belongs to my friend David (who gallantly took to the sofa for the duration), can be seen here:

I rate it as follows:
Aesthetics - 5/10
Comfort - 4/10
Quality of sleep - 8/10
Hospitality of hosts - 10/10
Total - 27/40

Comments - this bed had a sunken middle, which gave the slightly odd impression you were sleeping in a ship's bunk. Nevertheless, I slept remarkably well in it, mainly, I'd hazard a guess, because I knew I wasn't sleeping in my car.

As you can see, surprisingly comfort and quality of sleep do not always go hand in hand...

For the next week I will be staying at my friend Suzie's while she is on holiday in Ireland and looking after her cat, Nermal. I shall be sleeping in her cousin Sammy's bed (though I have my own sheets, duvet & pillows). I shall let you know the ratings it achieves in due course.

*Please not, this is just 'a bit of fun', in the words of Keith Barret and is not intended to cause any offence to anyone - I'm extremely grateful to all the offers of beds that I've had!

Carry On Neighbours

Could Neighbours get any funnier? Karl & Susan are over in London on holiday - where Karl has planned both a proposal (on the London Eye) and a wedding (their third together, naturally). So far during their trip, not content with bumping into Izzy (who Karl left Susan for last time they were married and is now heavily pregnant with Karl's baby, though he doesn't know he's the father!) who is having a high profile affair with a married footballer, they've also come across Emma Bunton, who found the engagement ring when it went awry, Julian Clary, who lent Izzy his mobile phone to make a call, Michael Parkinson, who happened to be wandering down the South Bank, Neil Morrissey who was the vicar who married them and Jono Coleman and Sinitta, of all people, who were roped in to be the witnesses to the wedding, which took place on a boat on the Thames (so, given that it's not legal to get married outside in England it won't be valid anyway. You'd have thought the Rev. Neil Morrissey would know that. But then, he is just an actor). Then, obviously, Izzy showed up, at which point her waters broke and she had a precipitate labour (i.e. very fast) and gave birth in the middle of the service on the boat, caught by Karl who was still unaware he was the father. Shortly afterwards of course, Susan overheard Izzy telling the footballer so she now knows but didn't tell Karl. Yet.

Laugh? I thought my waters had broken too for a moment.

Alan Johnston - alive and kicking?

Let's hope that this is proof that Alan Johnston is alive and well. It is unclear exactly when the video was recorded but assuming it's recent, let's hope negotiation for his release are swift and successful.