Summer Series: Southenders

Rising in a late fashion, we decided to take the beautifully scenic walk to West Ham station, where dreams are made and stars are forged in the kiln's of yester year. While we stepped over drug fuelled stab victims. Hopped on the wondrously air-conditioned C2C train towards Southend, that due to Rex's unfortunate body heat system, nearly put him into cyro-status, but prevented my over-working internal heater from boiling my soul.

On arrival in the sea side resort of SouthEnd, we discovered our intrepid companions had succeeded in making in approximately 10 metres from the train station before falling into the nearest wetherspoons. Obviously with no objections from me. Had a cheeky little half pint before making our way down the front, where we dillied and we dallied for a bit, before busting out some series fish and chip action. Though no one actually got any fish, it was a bit scorchio, but I got cheesy chips, which had around 1kg of cheese on it, absolute perfection. Finished them off while chillaxing on the beach and play "spot the topless guy without a tattoo", where everyone's a loser.

Next it was time for some Adventure Golf, which is like mini/crazy golf, but a bit more extreme, and better production values. For instance, there were crashed planes, abandoned jeeps (not stratford style), and caves etc, all in either an Aztec or Incan theme. We split into small groups and I performed pretty shoddily, with Sean kinda destroying me, luckily Snazzy being also has confused as me. By this time, I think everyone was starting to develop a mild heat stroke from the unrepentant ball of flames and awesome in the sky. To solve this we stocked up on ice creams, and I ate a Mr Wippy style 99 which was nearly the size of my head. We nearly made it down the pier before realising we had to pay to just walk down it, AND it was a mile long, without much on it.

Onward to Adventure Island, the sprawling theme park, with Pirate Ship, on the sea front. Pretty expensive, but we just wandered around, avoiding the AdventureLand style scam games. Kin and Pete did some extreme rock climbing which we filmed and was timed, though spent a decent portion of it falling gracefully. Especially Pete. Needless to say, we needed some form of drink, so we walked back towards the station and fell into the Varsity. Shing and I shared a FishBowl, which avid readers would instantly identify as a bad idea if one wanted to avoid any heavy gravitational events occurring to Shing. Soon people were talking of heading back, and as Rex and I had to wake up bright and breezie in the morrow, we decided to head back home, where I probably did something of amazing laziness. Good day!

Last night a DJ saved my life

Classically following the same mistake as many a school night, we decided it would be clever to go out drinking on a Thursday, though for a good cause, DJ and Matt's 5 month Anniversary. Sliding out of work on time, Rex and I made an executive decision to go the Sussex arms for a nice cold beer, or at least I did. Soon Anthony, DJ and Phil turned up, and we all ended up nicely tipsy in the sun watching all the crazy kids walk by. Definitely one of the nicest junctions to watch the world go by on in London.

We then bombed along to Freedom, where we met up with Matt's and his friends, and got Shing to find us by solely using Latitude, which is pretty dope. Nothing too crazy happened, we merrily drank, managed to get a Tuna Baguette from a tiny corner food dispensary, and continue. Rex departed around 11, with Shing and I leaving about 30 minutes later but skilling across to China Town. Nothing beats mixed meat noodles at midnight. Except not doing that on school night because I felt like a blimp the next morning.

It's all business right now.

Battling through Bracknall

Waking up at some ludicrous time in the morning, especially for a Sunday, Rex and I bumbled to the station to fight our way to Waterloo, which took far less time than anticipated, even with the jubilee b0rked once more. So we picked up some sneaky lunch from the food merchants at the station, specifically a cheese and ham panini for the Tommeister. We then lept on our chosen train and were whisked off to sunny Guildford where Adam picked us up in my sexy sexy car, which isn't my car any more :( but doesn't cost me money any more :D, and we were transported to the wonders of Bracknall.

There we found Colin playing with is Bike and soon Dan, Tracey and Laura materialised, so us lads got our bike hire on. Then followed 2 hours of extremely, hilarious and wikked off-roading around the Bracknall forest. Most of the time was spent with either Dan or I (who ever was behind the other) cracking up until we couldn't move anymore from sheer laughter paralysis. Dan fell off twice, once hilariously while we were basically just cycling through vegetation, and holly bushes, then suddenly realise there was a swamp about 5 metres in front. Took us all about 10 minutes to refind the path, and Dan unfortunately managed to puncture his tire, though we found this out close to the bike hire. Great times, then we all headed off to a mystery pub that Ad told us about, but didn't exist in our plain of existence, or at least where google maps said. Instead we went to a really nice Beefeater grill, where after umming and arring I got a huge mix grill which was both excellent and awesome in equal amounts. Colin had to scooch off to Swindon so he could drive to Milton Keynes and snow board, the crazy fucker.

Our next port of call was a random piece of grass that Google Maps correctly found, where we kicked around a ball for a while while the sky clouded up a bit and the wind picked up. Once more leaving Rex in some form of cyro-status. After everyone had taken turns in wearing me out, we split company with D&T and I drank about 3 litres of various liquids to stem severe dehydration, we headed back to Guildford. Where we participated in a mini pub crawl to the train station with Ad, including a stop at Frankie and Bennies where I mysteriously chose to have a Bloody Mary, which I didn't totally regret, but still feel a bit confused as to whether I like them or not. We may never find out.

We also stopped off at my favourite pub in Bristol, Doggens or something, where it's cool, they have a great range of beer, people seem nice, furniture is topsy turvy and there's great decor. Plus food is nice. It's got an Angel feel to it ;)

Evening ended with a rather late return to Stratford but we had a great day, and felt good to do some exercise for once. Cos that's how we roll.

Wilton's Music Hall

Finished off Live Support at work, and we got to go to the Coal Hole for lunch, where I had an appalling excuse of a "pie platter", basically 3 mince pie size excuses for meat pies and a tiny cornish pasty, all on a wooden board, with a small jug of gravy that seemed uncouth to pour all over this board. I did anyway, and narrowly avoided drowning in a tsunami of bisto, which on the scale of things is probably at the "least bad" tsunamis to be obliterated by.

Following all of this, a various attempts at work, which often led me down a path of breaking things more than they already were, I met Shing and Rex after work in the Minieries to grab some food and watch a bit of tennis before the night's conclusionary event. A pitcher of long island ice tea for me and one of sangria for Shing later, and we were ready to hit the road to Wilton's Music Hall, the oldest music hall in the world. Apparently. After years of being a warehouse and then falling derelict there has been a campaign for quite a while to try and save it/restore it. Currently there is a small bar which I think is open most nights, and sometimes there are events in the actual hall. Today we'd come to the Cinema Club which promised to films, and many a laugh, which did in actual fact, come from many an unlikely occurance.

Bust out some staropramen action, and we sat down on the balcony overlooking the grand old hall, with prime seats to see the film. The first film was an old school BBC documentry about the construction of Crystal Palace's TV Tower (not Alexandria Palace as some knobber tried to correct the lovely announcer), doesn't sound exciting, but it was actually really interesting and the narrators over the top BBC received accent, as well as some dubious dubbing, was hilarious. During the watching of this little dodiddy, shing began radiating more heat than a nuclear reactor in the Sahara, and going a bit dolally as well. Realising she may need to throw up, she made her way down stairs and began walking across the hall to the bar area. Unfortunately, out of sight, we did not see the following dizzy swaying and eventual collapse onto the hall floor, in a flurry of hilarity. Unsurprisingly, Shing now wears her grazes with pride, and the staff at Wilton's now know Shing.

After I refuelled my beer stock, the second film was an old black and white movie set in the ruins of the actual Crystal Palace, with some crazy comical plot, slightly carry on in humour, but all a bit mad and drug induced. Was funny though. Afterwards I tinkled on the ivories of one of the many pianos they had there, I managed perhaps 7 notes of a song I once played for Grade 1. Diabolical. Then we staggered back, where I may or may not have eaten something. Probably not. Good times and a great hall.

Eye Twitch Water: Twitching muscle has become stronger.