Hull, 29th Septepmber

8.30
Tremendous Premier Inn breakfast. I go for one of everything to make sure I make the most out of it.

9.30
Go to Starbucks to take advantage of free wifi advertised. On application I learn you need a card to access internet. It costs £5. Maybe I got mixed up when I was at school, but as far as I know, THAT’S NOT FREE.

10.30
Spend the day searching fruitlessly around Sheffield. Literally nothing for sale or let.

13.30
Disastrous meal in Cafe Rouge. Have glass of champagne though, so salvageable. We are in Ecclstal road, which is supposed to be the vibrant student barry area. It is somewhere between Unthank Road and Ilford High Street. Not a bar in sight.

14.15
Head to Hull

14.40
Drive past Humber Bridge. It’s fucking enormous!

14.55
Check into second Premier Inn. It’s in the middle of an industrial estate.

15.30
Head into Hull. It seems to be populated entirely by cheap old-man boozers. We walk past a pub selling £1.30 pints. There really is no-where decent in the centre of the city. I ask a girl in the place we eventually eat, and apparently it gets busy every Wednesday when the Casablanca Boys play at the Mint. They have been playing there every week for the last forty years. “They write their own material and all”.

Since there is absolutely nowhere inviting to drink in the city we decide to walk to the student area – normally pointless because they aren’t vibrant enough to support a late night club, but we can’t stand the thought of drinking in town.

Surprisingly we discover that this is the main drinking area in Hull. There are some very nice bars, and a couple of late night places round the corner. This is evidently where the students spend their time and money. Having asked a few people, the middle of town is solely inhabited by scummers and cunts. Very strange. I suppose it probably has something to do with the fact that hull is semi-circular, and only has residential areas on one side of the ‘centre’, the other being cut off by the Humber.

There is nowhere to let or for sale. Lovely place, but an absolute no go.

Sheffield, 28th Sept

In Which: Our Hero Sets Off On The Second Cross Country Expedition To Find Potential Bar Venues...

9.57
Catch train. Surprisingly no changes needed. Am on one of the two existing train lines out of Norwich.

13.05
Arrive at station. Am propositioned by young man with haggard face in a tracksuit. I cannot understand a word he says, but I know he means me harm. Place is teeming with students. Not real ones though, it is only Sheffield Hallum next to the station.

13.10
Have found directions to Premier Inn. Start walking to hotel. It is of course very grey here, but somehow still incredibly warm.

13.20
Wrong Premier inn.

14.00
Found correct Premier Inn. Definitely the worse of the two. Despite having to check in myself on digital machine, there are at least twenty members of staff hanging around. They all make the assumption that I am gay. I don’t feel I need to correct them, considering how outnumbered I am.

14.20
Finally get into room, and sit down for a celebratory poo.

14.25
There is no sink.

14.26
Found sink next to cupboard in main room. There is no soap.

14.30
There is no electricity.

14.35
Fuck this, am going out.

17.50
Have walked round Sheffield all afternoon rather unsuccessfully. Have not found any appropriate buildings, nor have I found anywhere that sells laptop bags (bought one just before coming away only to discover it is two inches too small for bloody laptop). Finally find a starbucks where there is internet.

17.55
You have to have a card to use the internet. Starbucks closes at 18.00

18.00
Down coffee and get thrown out on arse.

19.00
Walking around unable to decide whether to go for a pint and find some internet or go back to the hotel for coat. Meeting Hana at half seven so decide on pint option.

19.30
Dinner with Hana and friends. Decamp to Bear and Bungalows, good bar in an old fire station who put on free gigs, I inadvertently watch Sky Larkin. Alright.

22.00
Meet Mark (fellow explorer) and go to the Bowry – club set up by ex-member of Arctic Monkeys. From what I can see this man has made two terrible decisions in his life, and one excellent one. The terrible decisions are obviously 1) joining the Arctic Monkeys, and 2) opening a bar. The excellent choice was leaving the Arctic Monkeys. Presumably another excellent choice will follow in a few months time when people get bored of the free potato smileys provided at the bar and bored of throwing them up seconds after eating, purely because of the disorientating and lurid multicoloured walls.

23.00
Go looking for other clubs, but can’t find anything - are they all in the back streets?

REAL FAMOUS PEOPLE DESCEND UPON NORWICH

In Which: Our Hero Drinks Too Much On An Empty Stomach And Wobbly Legs, Makes A Prick Of Himself In Front Of An Assembly Of Filmmakers, Then Complains A Bit.

A strange thing happened to me the other night. I ended up presenting an award at the Norwich Film Festival award ceremony. Having spent the whole day running around furiously trying to sort everything out, literally sweating constantly from about nine in the morning to ten o’clock in the evening, I didn’t even care to think about checking up on all our special guest presenters, one of whom didn’t turn up. Kel pointed this out to me just before we were due to start, when I’d already poured the best part of a bottle of the crappest Prosecco I’ve ever tasted down my throat. I gave the presenter a call, only to find that she’d completely forgotten about the whole thing. So for some reason, the buck was left with me.

Most people that presented awards [including the world-reputed Loui Bately orf the telly, and highly regarded film method actress Georgia Groome - neither of whom I've ever heard of before in my life] duly read out their brief script, listed the nominations, and then after seeing clips announced the winner. The whole thing took about five minutes.

I started okay, reading the brief script, but then got bored and went a bit off-piste, for about fifteen minutes, talking about myself, how amazing it had all been, myself, poo, how great I am and how much work I’ve done, how crap everyone else is, how I hadn’t been bothered to watch any of the films, and then systematically went down the list of nominees taking the piss out of their names. Prick.

Bizarrely I went up at the end for round two. Proclaiming myself to have unanimously won the Norwich Film Festival Best Speech 2009 Award. Oh dear.

Apparently there is, in existence a recording of said speech, and there are definitely many photographs; I will post these if I can find them.

I have to say, it’s a fucking relief to have the whole thing over with for a while. Seriously, organising a black tie event for an unspecified amount of people most of whom don’t own a dinner suit, which can’t be advertised because despite how much you spend getting posters designed and printed, there is no work force to pin them up, and no supporting organisations to publish them, and has no budget behind it whatsoever due to all the funding falling through due to a hilarious mix up with an orphanage and vodka, is surprisingly stressful.

My legs still hurt from running so much, and it is now three days later. Which, if you are interested is exactly the kind of damning result that exercise gets for you. ‘What, you still hurt, god Ben you’re so unfit, maybe you should exercise more.’ Bollocks. This is exactly what happens when you exercise. Pain, suffering. I am happy without all that, thanks very much.

Oh, and, briefly, I killed something the other day. Not sure how I feel about that. Driving along wildly in the car, not really unterrified enough to be in control, a bird did not move, when my instructor said it would. Seemingly not such an infallible teacher! Should I take heed from his mistake and extrapolate it to ignoring his advice about changing gear before sharp corners? Yes I should. Chevrons or no, I cannot be arsed to change gear.

That is all.

Trumpet III

In Which: Our Hero Finally Gets His Hands On a Half Decent Horn To Blow, Swerves And Stalls A Bit, Runs Around Aimlessly All Day, And Swears Shamelessly At Children Whilst Introducing A Family Event In The Park

I totally got a new trumpet yesterday. It's amazing. I managed to get it in almost mint condition for about a third of the price of a new model. It has a mellifluously rich tone and is a delicious change from my old Boosey student pile of crap which was permanently out of tune with itself. Alas I can't be at home playing it because I'm out organising the disasterfest that is the Norwich Film Festival. We planned to show Top Gun for free in the Castle Gardens last week, however the licence for it was overturned due to short notice. The people at the council told me it'd be fine when I spoke to them on the 1st because you only need ten days to send the licence application off, and the screening was on the 12th. That is until after I'd submitted said application, at which point they told me that it was ten working days before, not including the day of the event or the day of submission. So we moved it back a week to today. And then yesterday I was told by the people who were supplying the screen and projector that actually they'd booked it out to someone else. Great. So after hours of frantic calling yesterday, I managed to find a company who had a screen available. I then learn, today, that our agreement with the castle mall was literally just that we were allowed to do it, not that they'd help us. As it transpires, the maintenance team do not work on a Saturday, nor any of the managers, nor indeed anyone that has screened a film in a park before. So here I am with a couple of blokes and a mobile cinema that together cost two grand for the day, and nowhere to put it or plug it in, and no-one to help except for a couple of fucking useless security guards. Obviously my day has flawlessly glided past like a dream.

I also had my first ever in the world ever driving lesson ever this morning. Although the less said about that the better. I'm pretty sure I was still quite pissed from drinking whiskey at Rhys's leaving do last night at three I'm the morning.

Start as you mean to go on.

If anybody else out there has £2000 and incredibly bad taste in films, this is definitely what you should be aiming for.

Kinema rides again

In Which: Our Hero Raises From Deep Slumber And Hibernation That Mythical Beast Of Yore In A Twisting Fit Of Stupid Time Signatures And Unnecessary Shouting

Kinema played a gig with the wonderful Hreda last night. It has been a long time coming, we were supposed to play with them last November, but Tiny Eyes in his infinite wisdom booked a Reggae night on the same date. Which obviously took precedence. Having just got my camera fixed (thanks Gary), I was going to take loads of photos, but I forgot to give it to anybody, so unfortunately our show is lost to the recesses of the collective mind of those present. Which is a shame, because we spent weeks organising the firework display, and I don't think we'll ever do that naked dance finale again.

Lots of people were super-nice afterwards, and Jamie from Hreda said he liked our chords, which is about as nice a compliment as you can get, in my eyes. And Alex was genuinely surprised at how tech we are because we look like a strummy indie band. I'm not sure how to take that. I guess it is a compliment really.

So yeah, no photos of us, but here's a photo of Hreda instead:


And a photo of some people in the pub afterwards:


Happy times.

Leicester: home of Premier Inn, Nottingham: home of shooting, Edinburgh: home of the burger. No, honestly.

In Which: Our Hero Makes The First Of His Quests Into The Unknown To Find Transformable Bar Space, Spends More Time 'Acquainting Himself With The Competition' Than Property Hunting, Walks Around So Much That He Falls Asleep On His Legs/Gets Confused About What Time Is/Loses The Ability To Eat, And Drinks So Much That He Accidentally Watches An Entire Documentary About Personalised Number Plates. Big Shout Out To N2GEL!


Right, so in the last week I was in four different cities in the space of two days, looking for places to build a bar. Leicester is a complete dump, with rows of empty Subways Sandwich shops punctuated occasionally by a dead fat lady or a road. We stayed in the Premier Inn, which is not only the highest building in Leicester, but also the most blue, red and yellow. Except when you are inside, in which case it is the most emetically purple building you could possibly imagine. Yes, even worse than those horrible dreams about Prince's boudoir you've been having lately.

We left Leicester on Thursday morning to drive to Nottingham, wandered round for an hour or so, and then immediately found the building we wanted, which has stunning views of the city centre. Job being done, we left within three hours of arriving, stopping only to have a Wagamama chili ginger chicken rope salad soup on the way.

This, I'm afraid, is where I am going to have to digress slightly. You see, we flew to Edinburgh from West Midlands Airport. We flew with BMI Baby. Both of these were a lapse of judgement. Given that I woke up at five o'clock on Wednesday morning to drive to Leicester, it didn't really cross my mind not to pick up a fresh bottle of shampoo and conditioner to shove in my bag along side the can of deodorant and pair of nail scissors. What annoys me is that even when one doesn't cross international borders, when one doesn't even need a passport, one still is strictly not allowed to carry over 100ml of fluid.

As a trained chemist, I would hereby like to kindly assure all concerned potentially-foiled-terrorists or fearing-for-national-security-morons that any explosive making kit that consists of fluids of 101ml or more, can just as easily be made with 99ml. Especially if you are allowed up to 10 separate 99ml containers. Anyway, having had to endure the embarrassment of transferring as many toiletries as possible into pointless clear bottles, and then throwing the other perfectly good 90% away, I was faced with this sight at the Boots on the other side of security:

Apologies for the terrible blurred photo; I was literally quaking with rage.

They must do that just to annoy you. Highlight the absurdity of the whole scheme by offering you full bottles of shampoo to buy (that you will have to dispose of on your return). And right next to the plastic bottles too, which you no longer need at all because you're on the side of security where fluids are allowed. Wait, no, but they're not allowed. But you can still buy them.

I must say I was sorely tempted to high-jack the plane by squirting shampoo in the pilot's eyes.

"It smarts! IT SMARTS!!" he'd cry.

Anyway the whole object of confiscating liquids has three delicious consequences:

1) Stupid people think the government are taking action against the threat of terrorism.
2) Airports can make thousands of pounds a week by charging for little plastic bottles and clear plastic bags.
3) I am even now extremely fucked off.

Which leads on to the next bit of mindless profiteering - I was charged £35 because the name I was booked under (Ben) was different to that on my passport (Benjamin). They knew this since they had seen my passport details (before I even entered the airport), and yet chose to raise the issue only at the departure gate, when I had no choice but to miss my flight or pay the fine. I know they already knew about it because they told me they were looking out for me. And then subsequently denied it. And when I asked the chap's name who was taking the money from me, he wouldn't give me his surname for security reasons. Which would have been a convincing idea had I not been able to read it from his name badge which was hanging literally inches below his stupid piggy face. What was the £35 for? There was no administration, they just took the dollar and let me on the plane. If it was a security risk that my name didn't match my passport, how does £35 remove the risk?! I suppose really we could just charge everybody thirty five quid to enter a plane, and then no-one would be a security risk at all and then there wouldn't be any terrorism, EVER. PROBLEM SOLVED. WHERE'S MY NOBEL KNOBBING PEACE PRIZE?

That money went straight into some airport fuck's bulging pocket.

And this was after a forty hour delay, I kid you not.

Anyway, rant over. We flew to Edinburgh, stayed in the nicest hotel I've ever been in (a suite of three rooms replete with iPod docking stations next to every TV, mirrors that magically de-steam, a leather sofa the size of a bus, a doorbell with a built in camera, and a dedicated butler to fetch anything we needed). There was a TV built into the wall above my bath. I sat in it, in my top hat, with a cigar and a glass of champagne. I watched the Chuckle Brothers. I was pimp.

Edinburgh [property] is expensive, and confusing, but ultimately beautiful. On the first night we ate in Oloroso, I had steak, some Chateau Palmer 1998, and Cain Vineyards 'Five' 2000, it was very grand.

The watch word for the trip was 'FUN'.

On the second day we found a property overlooking the entirety of the city, I had the best burger I have ever eaten in my life (in the Oxford Tavern - check it), drank ten pints of beer in as many bars, visited a brothel, immediately left said brothel feeling quite sick, went home and drank one of the Coronas we had ordered the previous night but not had the inclination to delve into. THIS WAS A MISTAKE.

I felt like this.

We missed our flights and had to get the train home. This took eight hours, and four changes. I cried three times. My legs ached and my feet were blistered.

I am currently eating one of the home-made French blueberry yoghurts I stole from the fridge in our hotel room. I don't think it was designed to survive an entire day stuffed in a warm bag on a train. It tastes rather rancid.

If you'll excuse me, I am going to go and vomit.