The Secret Life of Andrew

Leeds: My City

magic_treehouse — Sat, 08 Mar 2014 11:26:51 GMT

This month marks five years since I moved to Leeds although it’s seven since I started working here, and in many ways it’s taken me to a while to really find a place that’s really for me. I knew I didn’t want to stay in Crewe, where I grew up; my university city of Sheffield didn’t feel right to stay in either, and Skipton, although pretty is much too small for someone of my interests. I was reluctant to move to the big city but it was the best thing I ever did. It’s just the right size for me. Manchester, although I spent a lot of my teenage years there, is far too big for me, whereas Leeds is just the right size, and has everything I love doing close together.

Leeds is a much maligned city. Manchester is larger and more famous, York is a super tourist-y haven and Sheffield for a long time had big things that Leeds didn’t – a massive shopping centre, arena etc. Whereas there are also coastal Yorkshire tourist towns that Leeds can’t compete with because it’s not by the sea – Scarborough, Whitby. However, Leeds is perfect as a tourist base simply because it’s bang in the centre of all of these places, plus others like The Yorkshire Dales or Bronte Country. Still, this makes it a little hard to say – “Come to Leeds for the day, there’s tonnes to do”. It’s definitely a place that you get the most out of if you either live here or stay here for a while, so this is my guide to my city.

2013 was a big year for Leeds. It finally got an arena for one, which I’ve been to three times now (Jesus Christ Superstar, Cirque De Soleil and Danny Elfman) and is a great addition to the city. It also opened a big and lovely shopping centre in the very centre of town. By far the greatest part of this, and the bit I visit it the most is Trinity Kitchen. It’s a food court with several permanent places, plus five different street food vans which change about every 6 weeks. The range is excellent and although it can be a little pricey, the joy is that you can spend as much or as little as you like. It’s become our go-to social meeting places. I’ve been to a birthday party there too and it’s where we’re going to have our 30^th birthday celebration at the end of April. I love it!

There are a few art galleries and museums in Leeds. The Leeds Museum is rather good and has a temporary exhibit upstairs housing all kinds of things. They had a Spice Girls memorabilia exhibit a few years ago! Around the corner from there is the Henry Moore Institute and more art galleries which tend to have more modern stuff in them. Attached to the latter is the beautiful Tiled Hall Café which I tend to take my Mum to when she comes to visit. The Royal Armouries is also a great place. On bank holidays they have jousting competitions and falconry which is great fun to watch.

One of the best things about Leeds is the wonderful amount of theatres we have here. There are four in the city centre alone and I don’t have enough time or money to see everything at all of them! The two I’m most familiar with, and I probably see most things at both, are The Grand and the West Yorkshire Playhouse. They both have very different purposes. The Grand only puts on visiting productions, it’s where you go to see musicals and the odd play. Whereas the Playhouse houses tours and puts on its own performances. They have a wonderful range too. Within a week I once saw Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging AND Waiting For Godot, and you probably don’t get more extreme then that. I go there more because it’s cheaper (and James volunteers so gets free or discounted tickets). My favourite productions? I’ve seen sooo many it’s very hard to say. The Grand tend to put more farces on than the Playhouse for some reason and Noises Off, One Man Two Guvnors were both brilliant. Some amazing musicals too with Hairspray, Avenue Q and Top Hat being my favourites probably. Funnily enough, my favourite things at the Playhouse have probably been musicals too! Loserville was like The Big Bang Theory – The Musical, whereas their production of Annie was incredible and a huge hit. Away from the musicals, there was a production of As You Like It which has always stayed with me, same with The Canterbury Tales. It’s also a coincidence that my favourite play – Bedroom Farce has been to both venues in the past few years.

There’s some great architecture in Leeds, and unless you look up I think that you tend to miss it. The ones that you can’t miss are mostly the Victorian structures of which I had tours of most of them. The Grand itself is Victorian, and the Town Hall and Corn Exchange are both wonderful to look at. I guess like a lot of cities, there is now a mix of old and now and I think that Leeds has nice examples of both.

Going out from the city centre there are plenty more tourist attractions. Kirkstall Abbey is out to the west and is very nice to walk around. It would be much better if it was ruins of course bet you can't have it all! There's a museum there that I've still never been to for some reason.

To the north is Harewood House which I’ve not been to for a little while. It’s a lovely place to go on a summer’s day, with a great bird garden and walk around the lake. I took my Mum and sister there a few years ago and we go to go to a bee-keeping demonstration which was rather good.

To the Northeast is Lotherton Hall. The house itself is full of curious things as the last owners were great travellers. It also has a bird garden! Again, nice in summer.

Moving round clockwise again you come to Temple Newsam, which is a wonderful old house given to the city. They also have a great rare breeds farm there full of animals.

I guess all cities have one-off yearly events and Leeds is no different. Party in the Park was always great, held at Temple Newsam. It was a one day pop festival and the line-up was always very good for a free festival. They’ve done it for years but due to the council cuts they’re no longer doing it :( No more chances for me to see One Direction then!

Other one-off yearly events that I’ve been to and enjoyed – the Waterfront Festival which includes Granary Wharf, Brewery Wharf (where I live), Clarence Dock and Thwaites Mill; the wonderful Leeds International Film Festival which takes over my life for two weeks in November and the Food Festival they hold on Millennium Square around June time. Light Night can be quite nice for a walk around too. That’s in October and is a little bit disorganised and arty for my liking. It’s not bad if you’re walking around town though. There’s always something going on.

So that’s my city. There’s tonnes of other little things that I could write about, a lot of them other cities have too. Like the shopping etc but above is the stuff that I like to do and the reason why I love living in the city centre.

Here’s a quite list of other things I like doing in Leeds:

The Owl Trail – which is what it sounds like. A city centre walk built around the various (fake) owls you can see around the city centre.

The centre of Leeds has all kinds of community groups in it. The only one I’m really involved with is my fortnightly board game group, Meeples, which is on the right side of geeky. I’ve met some lovely people through it.

As well as the arena there are some quite good places for gigs. Although considering we have venues of all sizes you’d be surprised how few ‘UK tours’ from artists completely miss us out for Manchester. Still I’ve seen a fair few bands at either The O2 Academy or The Cockpit (which I always think should be a gay club really!).

Just call me Mary Berry

magic_treehouse — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 20:19:59 GMT

I've been on a bit of a baking run this week. On Monday I made a chocolate and orange souffle which I was really pleased with. It wasn't exactly perfect but it was ok considering how I've been scared off making one for years. And then on Tuesday I made banana bread which was a total success. I took some into work and Sarah and Belinda can't get enough of it. Amazing.

I've not been up to much this week. James has had a cold so that's stopped our plans really. However, he did go to an interview at the National Media Museum yesterday and it'd be awesome if he got it. He's also been ploughing on with his law course studies. It's quite nice hearing about what he's learning about because some of it I know form work but he's filling in little bits of stuff that I don't know too. He's finding it really interesting and wonders why it's not taught in schools. I'm wondering the same thing as, since I started my job I've learnt so much about the legal system and it's allowed me apply it to real life. The creation of law affects us all and it gets a fair amount of press really so it's nice to actually be able to understand what the news is talking about! It's a very interesting topic and I'm loving being involved in it.

Last Sunday was my second Meeples meeting in a week. Yeah, even I've out-geeked myself there. It was good though. A bit quieter than the one before it and in the bigger room. I played the normal version of Flux, King of Tokyo, Smallworld and 7 Wonders. I didn't win anything! But I did come second in Smallworld. I'd never played King of Tokyo or 7 Wonders before and I was really thrown in at the deep end of the latter. Both expansions and I was the only one who'd not played it before. This meant that I lost miserably! Not sure if it's the game for me though, and not just because I lost!

What else have I been doing? Playing Bioshock 2 I suppose. It's ok. There are so many well done FPS's out there. It's really not enough any more! Oh, I've seen some films too - Twins (less comedic, more drama-y than I remember) and Youth In Revolt (very good. Actually funny too which isn't always the case with 'indie' type films).

Going For Gold

magic_treehouse — Sun, 05 Aug 2012 20:02:52 GMT

Well I never thought I'd say this but I have loved the sport this weekend! I'll be so sad when the Olympics are over. Why can't sport be this exciting all of the time? Maybe it's something to do with this country's obsession with football, the world's most dull sport. Why not pick a national sport, and show more coverage of, a sport we're actually good at?! Tennis, cycling, rowing, sailing, gymnastics, athletics, almost anything but sport! Last night was a definite highlight and I didn't even think I liked athletics. Greg Rutherford winning gold in the long jump, Mo Farrah winning gold in the 10,000m and Jessica Ennis winning gold in the heptathon was all amazing to watch. Jessica Ennis' medal ceremony was the last thing I watched before bed and it was emotional, and I was fine until it cut to Denise Lewis weeping in the commentator's box.

There is a kind of collective positive vibe running through the UK at the moment. All the news is Olympic-based, which is positive of course and especially on the social networking sites, everybody just seems so happy! Which makes a nice change from all of the moaning that you usually get on there! It just feeling like the Olympics has had a unifying impact on a national scale which can only be a good thing.

Today was Leeds Pride which we slacked off for the second time in a row. I just feel that Pride has no relation to my actual life. I read books and go to theatre, my life isn't drinking, dancing and sex. Pride has its good side of course. It's good that the police etc march in the parade, and there are some countries that want to have a Pride and can't, and visability is important but overall gays like me aren't made visible by it at all. I think it's more important to just get on and live my life in the 'normal' world as an out gay man in a monogomous relationship. Here endeth the moan.

Instead we went food shopping, I watched Andy Murray win gold at the tennis finals (an amazing match where he just obliterated Federer), read and played on the PS2. It's a good job we stayed in actually as there was a storm this afternoon. Crazy hail and rain!

Yes, I have fired the PS2 back up. It's been a good few years since I last played on it but I've been hankering for retro games. I finished Discworld Noir and I've been playing Theme Hospital but as that's got quite repetative I've given it a break for a bit. I'm going to play some PS2 games I haven't fully played yet but I've started with one I've just bought, Psychonauts which i pretty good so far. Might play Ico again after that.

We've been watching some films in the week. Two of which are a lesson in how to and how not to do an 'adult' film. Hot Tub Time Machine was just awful. Every second work was 'fuck' which is just lazy, and the whole film just seemed to be pandering to immature, youth humour. The only funny bits were the ones which didn't rely on gross out humour or swearing which is telling. It was homophobic and insultingly sexist. We almost turned the film off.

The flip side to that was our cinema trip with Helina and Vikki on Wednesday. We went to see Magic Mike which was much better than it had any right to be. The plot was pretty by numbers but it was well directed and well acted too, not something you'd expect from Channing Tatum at all. It was also funny without totally camping it up, it had a generally serious(ish) tone and the whole thing just worked! The cinema was full of women and the occassional gay man but I don't think that any of them got the film they were expecting! The other film we watched was Away We Go which I really enjoyed. I guess 'expecting a baby' films have been done before but this was done really sweetly and there were some really good comic turns in it, Alison Janney especially who is hilarious!

We're trying to catch up on old TV stuff we have recorded too. We started Line Of Duty today, have finished Great Expectations and we're working our way through season 2 of The Walking Dead. All good stuff.

I think that that's about it for now! 4 weeks until the wedding. Crazy stuff! Just got to pick vows and pick up the rest of our tablecloths!

My Zookeeper For A Day Experience at London Zoo - 3rd May 2012

magic_treehouse — Mon, 07 May 2012 21:01:11 GMT

Ok, so I'll write about my day at London Zoo but as I learnt so much I'll try and keep it to what I actually did and not bore you with facts! Needless to say it was an amazing day and one that will stay with me for a long time. I've been to London Zoo a few times but my last time was a few years ago now and even in that short about of time a lot has changed.

I got there at 8.30am and as I was a bit early I was sat in reception and after about five minutes Mick, my escort for the day came over and told me I was the only one signed up for the day when usually there would be five. Amazing! And man it was the best thing that could have happened to me. I got to do everything rather than share it all out and Mick got to answer all of my questions! Actually, Mick was a great guy to be with as he been with the zoo a long time, has worked with nearly all of the animals and so I learned a lot from him, and it was all very interesting.

So after putting some overalls on we got to work. First stop was the zebra enclosure which we were going to muck out. Now when I told people that I was going to be a zookeeper for the day nearly everyone said 'oh you'll be mucking out all day then' which would be fine if it was remotely funny the first time. So yeah, the ninth time you hear it I just started to think 'this is exactly like all of those people that say to me 'you need a Masters to be a librarian? Don't you just shelve books' which is both insulting and ignorant of what the profession entails.

There are three Chapman zebras at the zoo. They run a little retirement home for them as one especially is very old. Their enclosure wasn't actually too bad but all there wod chippings got loaded into a wheelbarrow and fresh stuff was put down, along with sand to wear their hooves down slightly. It looked pretty good when we'd finished although I came back later and the zebras clearly hadn't appeciated the hard work :s Still, I was pleased, especially as it was all heated making it surprisingly hard work.

Next stop was the giraffes who we were going to give a treat to. Well, two of them were being a bit off (a worrying theme of the day and one which I didn't take too personally!) but Millie came over who is the youngest of the three. They're incredible creatures and getting up close to one was pretty amazing. Her black tongue had no problem finding the bread I was handing out.

There are nine bearded pigs at London Zoo and I had the plasure of making their lunch! The kitchen is pretty packed, surrounded with menus for all of the animals in that section. Their menus are pretty varied too, apart from the poor pygmy hippos who are on a diet. There are three deliveries a day and along with the greengrocery around me there were also other larder foods like chocolate spread and jelly! The pigs ate a lot of apples plus potatoes, bananas, beetroot and carrots.

I didn't actually get to feed the food them too though. Instead we went outside and gave them coconuts as part of their enrichment activities. they got one each and I had to throw them into their enclosure. Easy for the first one but after that they spread out so it becomes a quest to not hit any of them! Some of them like to play with the coconuts by rolling them down the moat while others are happy to crunch straight through them! Yeah, you don't want to be on the sharp end of a bearded pig.

Next stop was the penguins who have a new beach! Well, it's been there for a year and it's much bigger than their old pool. All my friends were very excited about me meeting the penguins and so was I...until I actually met them! They have several types at the zoo and some are definitely nicer than others. As soon as you enter the den two Humboldt's are on you and start pecking everything, your scrubing brush, your legs, your shoelaces...nasty little critters. We scrubbed the pool. Penguin pool is really oily and so sticks like gloss paint if you don't scrub it fairly quickly. And it's not a bad job bar the grumpy penguins running around your feet! I did get to meet some of the nicer ones though. One of the African penguins was lvely and let me stroke her. It's funny, as they're birds you expect them to feel feathery but their feathers are so dense that feel quite thick and solid to touch.

Spider monkeys are odd creatures. They have an amazing prehensile tail but no thumb as it gets in the way of their swinging. They also have a liking for popcorn. Who knew! Actually, what we were feeding them wasn't part of their diet per se, but part of their enrichment. There are four spider monkeys but only three were outside. Sonny and Cher are usually quite boisterous but one of them was unusually quiet (told you, it was all odd animal behaviour around me!) and when they went Paulette, one of the oldest Spider Monkeys at 41, came down and took some popcorn which apparently is very unusually. She was lovely and even let us stroke her. I think she gets picked on by the others because ofher age. You could see it in her body language as she appeared very closed up and kept looking over her shoulder every time she took a piece of popcorn :(

The next part of the day was very special. I got to play with the anteaters! They don't usually do that with Zookeeper for a Day as you could never fit five people in the off-show area but as it was just me they let me in with them. They're really dangerous animals though. A vet (not at London Zoo) was killed by one recently. Because of the way they walk you don't see the size of their claws which are huge! There are two anteaters at the zoo. One was asleep and wouldn't wake up but the other was awake. She'd been very ill recently and they thought they were going to lose her. She's recovered though and we put a bowl of food out for her. Obviously you can't replicate an anteater's diet in a zoo so they have to give them this weird slop consisting of all kinds of stuff like fruit puree, porridge, meaty things. Ugh. But because it's so sticky they get it stuck around their amazing noses! So my job was to scrub the anteater's nose! The key? Distract her with meal worms and then get her with a sponge!

It's tiger o'clock! There are two tigers at London Zoo and I got to feed them off-show and then hide some meat in their den. Getting up close to tigers was stunning. They're beautiful. And even though there's a cage between you and them you can get pretty close to them. And really stupidly, I still had the urge to stroke them! Haha. Yeah, and it'd be the last thing I ever did! You can sense the power in them though and Sumatran tigers are the smallest kind so God knows what the others are like.

The last two stops then. First was the meerkats. Now we had to feed them crickets and mealworms but as I'm a wimp I wouldn't put my hand in the bag, ended up shaking the food all of the place and accidentally caused a meerkat feeding frenzy! Oh dear. I was a bit more successful with the lemurs who were lovely. Some will sit on your lap while others meekyl tug at your arm from the side. They looove fruit but there's a real problems with diabetes with zoo kept primates so they only have a limited amount. Instead they get lots of veg which they tend to turn their nose up at. They're beautiful animals. Inquisative and surprisingly light too.

An amazing day then? Most certainly!

Book meme

magic_treehouse — Wed, 09 Feb 2011 12:31:14 GMT

1. Favourite childhood book?
My Great Auntie said that I always had my head in a book but thinking back, I can't think of favourite books I had as a kid. I remember reading the Secret Seven books. However, the book that got me into reading was Michael Crichton's 'Jurassic Park' which I'd bought in the summer to read on holiday but ended up being so engrossed in it that I'd finished it by the time of the holiday.

2. What are you reading right now?
I'm reading Robert Rodi's 'Fag Hag'. Haha. It's surprisingly well written and I'm really enjoying it. I'm also reading Kate Fox's 'Watching the English'.

3. What books do you have on request at the library?
Call me a hypocrite but I don't lend books from the library. I quite like buying books which I then give away. I offset my guilt by saying that I'm a qualified librarian and so dedicate my life to providing books for others.

4. Bad book habit?
Not being ruthless enough about getting rid of books.

5. What do you currently have checked out at the library?
Nothing

6. Do you have an e-reader?
I don't. We've been reading books to get rid of them lately so that we might get a Kindle but as time's going on neither of us are that enthusiastic about it. It's big benefit is being able to download classics for free but I still think that there ar emore positive aspects to physical books than digital ones.

7. Do you prefer to read one book at a time, or several at once?
I very rarely read two books on the go. The only time I will ever do it is if I'm reading one non-fiction book and one fiction book, like at the moment, but that doesn't happen often.

8. Have your reading habits changed since starting a blog?
No.

9. Least favourite book you read this year (so far?)
As it's only February I'll use 'this year' as 'in the past year'. I've had a look back and there has only been one book I didn't really enjoy in the past year and I read it exactly a year ago. Me Cheeta: The Autobiography wasn't as funny as I thought it was going to be.

10. Favourite book you've read this year?
It's so easy to write Jasper Fforde here! However, I really loved Julia Stuart's Balthazar Jones and The Tower Of London Zoo.

11. How often do you read out of your comfort zone?
I try and read bits of everything. It's the one reason I miss being part of a book group though, I used to read a lot of stuff I'd never touch otherwise.

12. What is your reading comfort zone?
It's slowly becoming crime fiction but it's usually, not surprising, quirky fiction - librarian mysteries, Jasper Fforde, Alexander McCall-Smith, you get the idea.

13. Can you read on the bus?
No. I hate not being able to do this as I get travel sick. Coach travel is especially boring.

14. Favourite place to read?
I usually read in bed.

15. What is your policy on book lending?
My policy on book lending is similar to my general policy of lending. I don't do it often because I like my things to be kept in good condition and other people don't always share this view!

16. Do you ever dog-ear books?
Never ever.

17. Do you ever write in the margins of your books?
Not since education.

18. Not even with text books?
See above.

19. What is your favorite language to read in?
Master of Science i may be but I ain't no Superman!

20. What makes you love a book?
It depends. I guess the main one is really likeable characters. Actually, they don't really have to be likeable as long as you can really get inside their heads and/or empathise with them. I also really love it when a topic has clearly been well researched. Sarah Waters and Michael Crichton are/were great at doing this.

21. What will inspire you to recommend a book?
You know, I don't tend to talk about books I've read to many people. The friends I see often never talk about books and me and James don't tend to read the same books very often (this has changed recently which has been nice). Reading is a strangely private thing, not through choice though. Again, it's a reason I miss my book group. However, I would match a book to the person if I did make a recommendation.

22. Favourite genre?
I dunno if I have one! I tend to have favourite authors and a lot of them don't stick to a genre. Michael Crichton's books for example change subjects with each book. Crime fiction is easy to read but them again I love Sarah Waters who writes historical fiction, While Kate Atkinson's vary between very human stories and mysteries. Left to my own devices though, I'll tend to go with off-beat fiction.

23. Genre you rarely read (but wish you did?)
I rarely read horror. Oh, and I don't really read many graphic novels as there are so many and I never know where to start!

24. Favourite biography?
I don't read biographies often, there aren't many people that I find interesting enough to care about. And I don't really like to read about a celebrities life before they were famous! For this reason, David Attenborough's 'Life On Air' is a fantastic read. I also really loved Alan Carr's autobiography because it had me in stitches.

25. Have you ever read a self-help book?
No.

26. Favourite cookbook?
I've stopped buying cookbooks. I have a few stock ones that I use often and anything else I try to get online. I have two main ones. An old one with classic recipes in which I bought from a car-boot sale in about 1995 and another one called 1001 recipes which is really great from browsing through and getting ideas.

27. Most inspirational book you've read this year (fiction or non-fiction)?
I can't think of any! Andrew Marr's 'A History of Modern Britain' made me proud to be British although it was a right old slog. I suppose any book with a librarian in helps inspire me! So, Ian Sansom's 'Bad Book Affair' and Charlaine Harris' Aurora Teagarden Mysteries.

28. Favourite reading snack?
As I tend to read most in bed I could never get away with snacking there!

29. Name a case in which hype ruined your reading experience.
I don't think it ever had. I guess it makes me want to dislike a book if it's really hyped. It's the reason I've stayed away from Harry Potter I guess. However, I did read The Da Vinci Code and liked it so it doesn't always deter me.

30. How often do you agree with critics about a book?
I don't really read reviews of books. However, award winning books are totally hit and miss for me. I've read a few Booker prize winners for example, and my thoughts have varied widely. I loved Yann Martel's 'Life Of Pi', thought that Hilary Mantel's 'Wolf Hall' and JM Coetzee's 'Disgrace' were good and thought that Anne Enright's 'The Gathering' was rubbish!

31. How do you feel about giving bad/negative reviews?
I feel fine about it.

32. If you could read in a foreign language, which language would you choose?
Japanese so I could read more graphic novels.

33. Most intimidating book you've ever read?
Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel (it has a bloody cast list at the front!) although I was surprised by how easy it was to read. there's probably more although if I buy a book I'll want to read it. I have no desire to read Ulysses for example!

34. Most intimidating book you're too nervous to begin?
I can't think of one at the moment.

35. Favourite Poet?
I'm not a fan of poetry so couldn't even pick one.

36. How many books do you usually have checked out of the library at any given time?
Well, none!

37. How often have you returned books to the library unread?
Not applicable.

38. Favourite fictional character?
Rob Fleming - High Fidelity
Thursday Next - The Eyre Affair and others
Bertie - 44 Scotland Street Series
Mouse - Tales of the City series
Jackson Brodie - Case Histories and beyond

39. Favourite fictional villain?
I really can't think of any!

40. Books I'm most likely to bring on holiday?
My reading doesn't on holiday.

41. The longest I've gone without reading.
When I used to deliver books to housebound people I had a woman that said that if she runs out of stuff to read she ends up reading anything she can find, cornflake boxes, anything! And I'm a bit like that. There are gaps in my book runs because I read magazines in between so I guess they serve my non-fiction needs a lot of the time - Empire (which takes ages to read!) and Attitude mostly, but also The Week for my news. So I rarely go a day without reading. However, I rarely read when I was at Uni because my English course had beaten my love of literature out of me.

42. Name a book that you could/would not finish.
I very rarely don't finish a book once I've started. The exceptions I can count on one hand - Monica Ali's ' Brick lane' (boring!) and Doris Lessing's 'Golden Notebook (what is the point?!).

43. What distracts you easily when you're reading?
Not a lot really. As I said I read in bed.

44. Favourite film adaptation of a novel?
Some good graphic novel ones - Watchmen, V for Vendetta and Persepolis. Also, Jurassic park (probably my favourite), High Fidelity, and Chocolat.

45. Most disappointing film adaptation?
Enduring Love

46. The most money I’ve ever spent in the book shop at one time?
£20 maybe? I shop cheaply and in bits.

47. How often do you skim a book before reading it?
Never.

48. What would cause you to stop reading a book half-way through?
Utter boredom, especially if the book is long.

49. Do you like to keep your books organised?
Yeah, like I said, me and James don't read the same book often so our un-read bookshelf (overflowing :s) is roughly arranged by collection or author. In the kitchen I have a bookshelf with collection by my favourite authors on.

50. Do you prefer to keep books or give them away once you've read them?
I need to start getting rid of more. Now that I have an online list I'm less likely to forget what I read so next sort out I shall get rid! I keep my favourites though.

51. Are there any books you've been avoiding?
Not really. I only read 'classics' when the mood suits. I don't like being told what to read!

52. Name a book that made you angry.
Madame Bovary - that woman needs a slap. Also, not a book but when I joined a gay book group I was made to read some right old shit.

53. A book you didn't expect to like but did?
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's 'Half Of A Yellow Sun' I found surprisingly good. Marcus Zusak's 'The Book Thief' really took me by surprise too, it's a fantastic book. Jane Eyre, Dracula.

54. A book that you expected to like but didn't?
I thought I'd like Annie Proulx more but I've read two of her books and the style of her writing made my mind wander.

55. Favourite guilt-free, pleasure reading?
Agatha Christie.

For the record, my favourite books are Jurassic Park and David Mitchell's 'Cloud Atlas.

2010 retrospective (this is the last one!)

magic_treehouse — Sat, 15 Jan 2011 15:15:19 GMT

In retrospect, 2010 was a great year for me. I accomplished a lot in my own little way. I think this has a lot to do with it being my first full year in Leeds and realising that living in a city totally works for me simply because everything I like doing is a city. So I got to see a lot films at the cinema and otherwise, saw tonnes at the theatre which I love and went to more gigs than I usually do, even if that meant travelling to Manchester too often (although with Leeds arena on it’s way I won’t have to do that much more hopefully).

I got to travel more this year than I ever have which is exactly what I’ve always wanted to do, and seen some amazing and diverse places. I never thought that I was a warm holiday person but going to Cyprus made me realise how much I miss having a proper summer in the UK. And it was the most brilliant mix of culture, history, sunbathing and food. And it was so good going to an island small enough to explore all of it (and we did do it all, even going to the occupied North which was interesting but scary).

Bruges on the other hand was a different kind of visit. Going by over-night ferry was a bit of an experience and although the holiday was short we made the most of a beautiful city. Going to a chip museum was a highlight obviously. Going to Denmark in December was a dream. I’d been to Iceland before this felt like ‘proper’ Scandinavia (even setting foot on Sweden for a day was a joy!). Although next time I definitely want to visit the northern Europe in summer for a change! It was a great holiday though.

I graduated (again) which was a nice day although I didn’t at that point feel it had done me much good. I feel better about it now though, having secured paid library to start in January. Finally! There was also the James-and-his-hernia debacle and although it was a minor operation, the lead up had been a bit traumatic. But I’m quite proud of myself for looking after him (seeing him after the op was heartbreaking and I had to put his provided tea together for him which was weird), not falling apart and helping him to recover, especially when he couldn’t bend in the middle or do anything for himself really.

Music-wise it’s been a weird one with my favourite albums seemingly coming out of nowhere. Artists I’d written off came back with brilliant stuff (Scissor Sisters, Kylie and Kelis. The latter having a good-album-bad-album policy) while others I wouldn’t usually go near blow me away (The Hoosiers! And Ke$ha, who made an excellent mainstream pop album). Kim Wilde made an excellent pop-rock album even though she’s the same age as my Mum while Gabriella Cilmi who’d I’d always liked but never loved released what may be the best single of the year with On A Mission. It wasn’t bad for newer acts. Hurts, Marina and Delphic produced good albums and I’ve only just got Janelle Monae’s and Tinie Tempah’s which are proving to be quite good. There was the Gaga and Beyonce Telephone video of course (amazing) but really the year belonged to Robyn, whose Body Talk three-parter and lack of singles probably crippled her chances of making her final release a top seller (criminally) but what an album. Also – amazing live. Possibly my favourite gig this year and I’ve been to some good ones.

My Top 15 albums of 2010:

1. Robyn – Body Talk
2. Scissor Sisters – Night Work
3. Kelis – Flesh Tone
4. Goldfrapp – Head First
5. Ke$ha – Animal
6. Hurts – Happiness
7. Yeasayer – Odd Blood
8. The Hoosiers – The Illusion Of Safety
9. Kim Wilde – Come Out And Play
10. Marina and the Diamonds – The Family Jewels
11. Gabriella Cilmi – Ten
12. Kylie Minogue – Aphrodite
13. Delphic – Acolyte
14. Example – Won’t Go Quietly
15. Pipettes – Earth vs The Pipettes

Songs that floated my boat in 2010

Robyn – Dancing On My Own
Kylie – All The Lovers
Tinie Tempah – Pass Out
Kim Wilde – Lights Down Low
Lady Gaga and Beyonce – Telephone
Rihanna – Rude Boy
Katie Melua – The Flood
Marina and the Diamonds – Oh No
Ke$ha – Your Love Is My Drug
Goldfrapp – Alive
Dragonette – My Things
Alphabeat – Hole In My Heart
The Hoosiers – Choices
Hurts – Wonderful Life
The Pipettes – Stop The Music
Scissor Sisters – Sex And Violence
Yeasayer – Ambling Alp
Kelis – Acapella
Gabriella Cilmi – On A Mission
Example – Kickstarts
Dragonette – My Things

Films I saw in 2010 (c) = saw at the cinema.

Moonraker
Letters To Santa
For Your Eyes Only
Octopussy
Nine (c)
Avatar (c)
Baby Mama
Call Me Clause
Face/Off
Up In The Air (c)
A View To A Kill
Sunshine Cleaning
Broken Flowers
Never Say Never Again
Ponyo (c)
The Princess and the Frog (c)
Micmacs (c)
The Taking Of Pelham 123
License To Kill
Broken Arrow
Sherlock Holmes
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (c)
Goldeneye
An American Werewolf In London
Tomorrow Never Dies
Right At Your Door
The World Is Not Enough
Right At Your Door
Alice In Wonderland (c)
I Love You Philip Morris (c)
A Fish Called Wanda
The Broken Hearts Club
Iron Man
Iron Man 2 (c)
Die Another Day
Tomb Raider
Tomb Raider: The Cradle Of Life
Prince of Persia (c)
Four Lions
Michael Clayton
Sense and Sensibility
Bird On A Wire
Dreamgirls
Chocolat
Lethal Weapon
Lethal Weapon 2
Lethal Weapon 3
Mad Max
Lethal Weapon 4
Loaded Weapon 1
The Graduate
It Happened One Night
Inception (c)
Toy Story 3 (c)
Educating Rita
Silence of the Lambs
Bubble Boy
Camp
Salt (c)
The Girl Who Played With Fire (c)
Scott Pilgrim Vs The World (c)
Lorna’s Silence
Wallace and Gromit: Curse Of The Were-rabbit
Let The Right One In
Three Colours: Blue
Red
The Kids Are Alright (c)
Snow White And The Seven Dwarfs
A Town Called Panic
The Secret Of Kells
Black Sheep
Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale
Persepolis
Unstoppable (c)
Die Hard
Die Hard 2
Total - 76

Books I read:

Charlie Brooker – Dawn Of The Dumb
Jen Yates – Cake Wrecks
Sarah Waters – The Little Stranger
Louise Gikow – Sesame Street: A Celebration of 40 Years of Life On The Street
Brian Lynch – Angel: Smile Time
Michael Palin – Around the World In 80 Days
James Lever – Me Cheeta: The Autobiography
Tim Moore – Do Not Pass Go
Andrew Marr – A History Of Modern Britain
Michael Crichton – Sphere
Dean Koontz – The Key To Midnight
Michael Crichton – Pirate Latitudes
Julian Clary – Murder Most Fab
Joanne Harris – Chocolat
Nick Lake – The Secret Ministry Of Frost
Kathy Reichs – Death Du Jour
Jules Verne – Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea
Gyles Brandryth – Oscar Wilde and the Ring of Death
Virginia Woolf – Orlando
Arthur Conan Doyle – A Study In Scarlet
Robert Louise Stevenson – Treasure Island
Steven D Levitt – Superfreakonomics
Ian Sansom – The Bad Book Affair
Tanith Carey – Never Kiss A Man In A Canoe
Julia Stuart – Balthazar Jones and the Tower of London Zoo
JM Coetzee – Disgrace
Charles Schultz – The Complete Peanuts 1950-1952
Hilary Mantel – Wolf Hall
Charlaine Harris – Real Murders
Charlaine Harris – A Bone To Pick
Charlaine Harris – Three Bedrooms, One Corpse
Charlaine Harris – The Julius House
Jasper Fforde – Lost In A Good Book
Sandi Toksvig – The Chain Of Curiosity
Jasper Fforde – The Well Of Lost Plots

Total – 35 It would have been more if it hadn’t taken me two months to read that Andrew Marr book! And Wolf Hall took me a month too.

Theatre stuff I saw:

Oscar Wilde’s Lord Arthur Saville’s Crime
The Canterbury Tales
Oklahoma!
The Count Of Monte Christo
Me, As A Penguin
Billy Elliot
Hairspray
Hay Fever
Spamalot
Britain’s Got Bhangra
Bedroom Farce
Agatha Christie’s Witness For The Prosecution
Legally Blonde
Avenue Q
As You Like It
Billy Liar
Spend Spend Spend
Rocky Horror Show
The Habit Of Art

Total - 19

Gigs

Alphabeat
Party In The Park
Robyn
Jay Brannan
Goldfrapp
Scissor Sisters (with Hurts)
Tim Minchin and his Orchestra

Total – 7

Comedy

Arthur Smith
Andy Hamilton
Reginald D Hunter
Ross Noble
Julian Clary
Jeremy Hardy
Dara O’Briain

Total - 7

Copenhagen

magic_treehouse — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 13:22:42 GMT

Well we are back from Copenhagen! We got back yesterday afternoon after a two hour delay. But as people down south have been really suffering when it comes to flights I feel we got off lightly. We had an excellent time. I'm going to write up my hand-written journal and back date it but I shall sum up the gist of it here. The weather was ok surprisingly. It had already snowed on arrival but it didn't really snow again until the day we left so the weather was ok for walking around. The -6 temperatures, not so much. It much have gone lower than that as well. But we survived! And saw a lot:

Radhaus - The town hall has a tower which you climb to the top off and get great views of the city. It was pretty clear and you could see right out to the Oresunds Bridge, the bridge that goes to Sweden and which we crossed on our day trip too...

Malmo - Having always wanted to go to Sweden it made for a nice day out. That said, there's not actually as much to do in Malmo (Sweden's third largest city) compared to Copenhagen. We had a wander around some lovely squares and the shops but spent a lot of the day in the Malmohaus, the city museum based in a castle which was excellent. It was part Natural History Museum, part aquarium, part antique museum, part art gallery, along with a history of the building itself. Very interesting. Oh, and we got to see the Turning Torso, the largest building in Scandinavia.

The Little Mermaid - For such a famous landmark I was quite surprised to find out that a) she's really small, b) she's not in the prettiest area and c) she's quite far out of the city. It was nice to see her though, especially as she'd been in Shanghai for most of the year.

Tivoli Gardens - James was a bit disappointed with Tivoli but I liked it. It was beautifully lit up for Xmas although it was very expensive. It was 95kr to get in (£11) and then you had to pay for everything inside the park too. We didn't go on any rides as it was far too cold but we did see the largest saltwater aquarium in Europe, drank some glogg and had a nice wander around the shops. It may well be better in summer though, when you could sit outside by the lake and eat.

Christiania - We made it over to the self-contained hippie village but were a bit scared to actually go in! It's an interesting little place though.

Architecture - There are some excellent buildings in Copenhagen including a lot of large churches. We also made it to the royal palaces, notable as you can almost go right up to the queen's door. You wouldn't even know they were palaces if you didn't see the guards stood outside. We also saw and briefly went in The Black Diamond, the public library, an impressive building. Also, Christianborg Slot is great for buildings.

Nyhavn - This lovely picture postcard place is by one of the many canals and we ate round here too. A buffet with ten different types of herring!

Stroget - Copenhagen is excellent for shopping and we had a good wander around the main shopping area. We went in the Lego shop and bought some Xmas scenes and went in another great Xmas shop. We bought quite a lot of bits and pieces, things for the tree, trinkets, James bought some clothes too. We had a great time.

The cost of things was ok actually. We had a great guide book and didn't really eat out at a restaurant in the evening which helped. We tended to go out for lunch instead and went to the supermarket to pick up things in the evening. We had polsar twice, their speciality hot dog and also ate a lot of pastries! We'd definitely go back there as it's an excellent city. We didn't do it all and the trains are so cheap and easy that it would be great to go further afield again (Lund maybe, Ystad, Roskilde or even Stockholm!). We'd have to go back in summer though, to take advantage of the parks and see the canals when they're not frozen over!

I was in work today but finishsed at 12.30pm. We did our food shopping yesterday and got some lovely things and I shall make mince pies later on. I'm quite excited about Xmas! To everyone on my friends list - have a great day!

Curse of the Granny

magic_treehouse — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 21:54:47 GMT

I had the week form hell last week. I suffered from curse of the Granny which was the overarching shadow over the whole thing. Nanna Connie is in a home at the moment which I've been fine about but it's becoming a drawn out issue as she wants to come home. She's not really fit to come home mainly due to the awful cold weather. She gets more visitors in the home than she ever did while she was at home but it's taking its toll on Mum either way. It wouldn't be so bad if my Uncle was a 'can do' man but as Mum referred to him as 'useless' the other day it's like she's dragging him along with it all when actually, the whole thing is just one of those that needs sorting ASAP. They met with the social worker the other day and looked around some homes but my Grandma wants to go home and there's not a lot that the social workers can do if she does want to leave. We shall see. When my Great Auntie went into a home she just accepted it but my Grandma isn't that kind of person which makes everything rather difficult. Still she seems ok. My Dad and brother visited her the other day and there was a police car outside. "Maybe Nanna's tried to escape!' said my Dad. No, it turns out that someone had died and they were trying to get the body out without any of the residents seeing. Ha. Things would be much easier if Nanna was consistant in herself but she's ok one minute and then forgetful the next. She'll mention My Auntie Gladys (dead five years now) and then my Uncle George (dead since the early 80s!) and then when my Dad reminded her that they're no longer with us she'll ask who running the pub (not been an issue since God knows when! Actually I should find out when they gave the pub up. I'm guessing the 1960s when my Great Grandma died.

On to Granny problem 2. Last week Nanna Oakes had a fall at her home. There's 20 years between my Grandmas so she's 74ish. My Auntie found her in the morning on her bedroom floor talking gibberish. So she's in hospital and they think she's damaged her neck. They can't move her so she's stuck on her back. She was due to be transferred to Manchester but the hospital there has a sickness bug, which Leighton then got! So they can't do anything with her. She can move her arms and legs though which is good obviously. And by the time they can move her she'll probably be better anyway. Madness.

And then the snow hit. I got sent home from work early on Wednesday which was good and then College was shut on Thursday - my day off anyway. I've managed to stay on my feet which is always good! It meant I could keep an eye on James though, whose holes have nearly heeled up. Ha. Friday was a bit of a fail whale though. I managed toblow £55 in the space of one hour without trying. Firstly, we set off to go and see Ross Noble in York but the trains were delayed, James wasn't at full strength and we didn't want to get stranded in York so we took the painful decision not to go. It's the first time we've not gone to something we've had tickets for ever and I hate wasting money. So to take away the pain we went to Piccolinos instead which was lovely. I had calamari, chicken and pasta and then panna cotta with mulled plums - lovely! However, during the meal I got a text from Emma, who I was due to go and visit at the weekend saying that she was ill and would have to cancel, which fucking pissed me off if I'm honest because that was a £30 train ticket down the drain. Not her fault sure but I'm so fucking annoyed with me making the effort for friends who live away and them not making any effort for me. I've stopped doing it for the most part, leaving it to the other party to make the effort (when I've previously made the effort with them of course) so I'm definitely not doing it from now on. After the meal we went and watched Ross Noble on DVD instead, which cheered us up.

This week has been better so far thankfully. I went for my second of three interviews for relief library work, this time for the Harrogate area. Strangely, although the questions were the same, I didn't think I'd done as well but I got it anyway, even after I had to answer the 'what are you reading now' question with 'Sandi Toksvig's collected works...but I've just finished Jasper Fforde'! Now I'm actually getting this library work I can't decide whether three relief positions will amount to too much work or whether it'll tick along nicely. I don't want to be working seven days a week! I'll take it as it comes though.

What else have I been up to. Films as usual! i watched The Secret of Kells, possibly the most beautiful animated film I'm ever seen. And it was excellent to book. It's an Irish animation and dripping with folklore and it's just lovely. I also watched Persepolis. I've read the book so I knew what to expect. It's a great film and from a very interesting period in Iranian history. Great stuff. And then last night as I'd had half a day off we went to see Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale, a Finnish film about creepy Santas. It's a great little film, creepy as hell and with humour as black as night. A nice alternative to the usual Xmas schmaltz. And the kid in it ultra cute and excellent.

I've started to prepare for Xmas. I'd done most of my shopping now and made mulled wine at the weekend. three bottles of the stuff. Yum. Then we put the tree up which I love as we tend to buy Xmas ornaments from wherever we go on holiday. My next task is mince pies!

I'm sure there's other stuff to update about but I shall do that another time.

Include Me Out

magic_treehouse — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 15:49:35 GMT

I'm having the week from hell here. It's the start of term and I seem to be asked for everything. Why have I done this to myself for nearly four years? I need to get out desperately.

Anyway, I had a good weekend. It was Heritage Open Day weekend and on Saturday we went for a tour of the Central Library. It's a beautiful building and we got to go to places that aren't open to the public. I refrained from breaking down and shouting 'GIVE ME A JOB!' So I think it went ok. On Sunday we went on a waterfront walk. It was a little disappointing if I'm honest as we went around the part of the river we've been round a lot and the woman who guided us (blatant Daily Mail reader) didn't tell us anything we didn't already know. I get the impression that we weren't alone in that respect. The group was big though. 60 people turned up so they had to split us into 2 groups.

I don't really have that much to talk about to be honest. I'm just holding on until London at the weekend which will be good. We've booked tickets to go and see the Queen! Might tackle the V+A on Thursday afternoon as well, not sure yet though.

I've started a new book - 'Balthazar Jones and the Tower Of London Zoo' which I'm reading for obvious reasons and we finished watching Brothers and Sisters which was really good this season. Music-wise, the Hurts album is excellent and the Robyn album has arrived. Very exciting. Looking forward to The Pipettes album landing in my letterbox soon too. Oh, and there's the new Skunk Anansie album too. Goodness ahoy!

I'd better get an interview for that job I've applied for. I can't take much more of this :s

If your life had a face, I'd punch it.

magic_treehouse — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 15:50:50 GMT

I've been having a jolly week off. So much so that today is especially hard, being back at work. I hate my job, so I'm kicking into action Plan B. I'm going to start applying for part-time library work and see where I end up. It's quite nice earning an ok wage (especially on 4 days a week) but with library jobs being few and far between I can't just wait for a perfect job to come up. It's nearly a year since I got my MSc and I'm still here. So There's a good, 20-hour a week job at University of Leeds which I'll go for. I guess I'm too comfortable here but if I want to get out then I really need to take a risk.

On Bank Holiday Monday we did the new, extended Leeds Owl Trail. I recently emailed the people who do it with some extra owls we found and I got a reply today to say that they're not actually Heritage owls, they're 'scare' owls. Fake owls! Who knew?! We finished up near Millennium Square so we went to Spice Quarter for lunch and had their all you can eat buffet. It was so good! I'd never used a chocolate fountain before, fun stuff!

On Wednesday we went to see Scott Pilgrim Vs The World which I really enjoyed. It's fun stuff. I have a love/hate relationship with 'geeky' (I can't think of another way to describe them!) films. For me they either try too hard (Lost In Translation) or have really unlikeable characters (Ghost World, Juno), but then I'm aware that the ones I hate, other people really love, and the ones that I love (Eternal Sunshine for example) also divide people and can have the same arguments that I've just mentioned fired back at it. I've never know any other type of movie to divide people in such a way. Anyway, I'm glad to say that it was on the right side. It was really funny and there were a surprising amount of characters in it. My only problem was that I didn't care if George Michael (no, not that one) got the girl or not, Knives was much cooler and he totally should have run away with her at the end instead of being blinded by Ramona's colourful hair.

On Saturday we went to Lotherton Hall. Typically the summer bus that goes straight there had stop running last week so we had to get the bus to Aberford and walk a mile to reach the place. It really is in the middle on nowhere. Still, it was worth it. It has a free bird garden which was really nice, especially as the weather was great. And the house itself is stunning. There are no ropes holding you back from wandering around, the windows are large and let loads of light in and so the house doesn't have that cold, hollow feeling that a lot of similar big houses can have. There were a lot of worldwide knickknacks around along with bird artifacts, and an exhibit upstairs which had fashion items influenced by birds. All really interesting. We had dinner in the café where James declared that 'there are a lot of lumpy people around aren't there?' and we walked around the grounds and had a really nice chat about family and other things. A great day.

We got back and walked through the market where I saw a teenage mum pushing a pram wearing an 'I *heart* Justin Beiber T-shirt. I cried inside. In the evening we went to see Witness For The Prosecution at Leeds Grand. I love Agatha Christie and it's surprising how much work she did on the stage. The play is wonderful, although it's very wordy so you do have to concentrate. All the twists at the end totally pay off.

Must mention the book I'm reading. I've just read Superfreakonomics which was great, and now I'm on to the Bad Book Affair. I should read more novels with a librarian as the main character. I'm loving it. I'm really into reading at the moment.

Music-wise I haven't really bought anything new apart from the new Kim Wilde album. The Hurts album is on the way though. I've mostly just been listening to Dragonette - 'Get your titties off my things'!

Might be booking a Xmas trip to Denmark/Sweden soon. More details to follow.

Hanging Around

magic_treehouse — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 20:26:08 GMT

I've been having a jolly old time with my days off. I'm so glad that I have another week off. During my last days of work I had an unbearable time and I'm still quite tempted to jack it all in and run away. James has suggested we run away and go travelling since his contract runs out on 1st October. I wish I could! I do just want to be doing fun stuff instead and (although I got my new inflated pay check yesterday), this job is killing me and my brain cells. And there's sod all to apply for. But hey, I'm not worrying about it for a week.

On Thursday we headed to Knaresborough. I have been going on about it for a while, just because I really wanted to go. So we did, and it was lovely! The view of the bridge is really amazing and we had a really nice wander around. Louise at work had given me tips on where to go, including telling me where the butcher was that my old line manager once bought a rabbit from, got pissed and then left the dead rabbit on a train. Yeah, not nice for the poor sap who opened that bag! We walked around the ruined castle, the gardens, had lunch by the river, went to the museum and then over to Mother Shipton's Cave. The oldest tourist attraction in the country apparently! It has a petrifying well, quite big, which overflows and anything you han over it gets wet and then petrifies. Weird but very interesting. There's a tiny museum there which has random stone things in including Agatha Christie's handbag! Knaresborough is very hilly so we hiked back into the town where we ate dinner and then went for tasty ice cream afterwards. Mandarin and black cherry - yum! A lovely day.

On Friday we went to Skipton and had dinner in Bean Loved with James' Mum. There are painted sheep sculptures about, like the ones in Manchester from a few years back (one of which I got told off by a policeman for sitting on) so we did the sheep trail and got our hair cut. We took a photo of all 25! It's a great idea for a tourist place though. Talking to our hairdresser, Alison, different people have to pay for different sheep. So the one on Coach Street, she had to chip in for! £120! And she didn't get a say in it either. Not sure what would happen if she refused to pay. We went to the Green book shop too obviously. The best shop in Skipton and I do miss it. I got three Miss Marple books, a novel about a moving zoo and another about a librarian, the latter of which I am very excited about! James found it and thought of me clearly.

On Friday evening we had another leaving do to go to! Honestly, there's hardly anyone left at the LSC now and I do wonder how we'll meet up when it shuts down. Anyway, it was Vikki and Bev D's leaving do at Gourmet Burger Kitchen. We ended up at the end with Charlotte and Rich which was fine. I had a chicken burger with camembert and cranberry sauce. So good! Being stuck at the end though, we hardly got to chat to some people. Briefly spoke to Harvs and Amy and also Helina, who's just come back from three and a half months in south east Asia so I wanted to talk to her more! Still the whole night was really fun. After the meal we went to Revolution, Millenium Square and Bourbon. Much to everyone's amusement, Charlotte and Sarah paid £15 for a pitcher of strawberry Pimms in Revolution and then, when we got to Wetherspoons. the same pitcher was £6. Haha, mugs! Seriously though, there's nowhere to dance in Leeds. I was really up for dancing too but there was no pop to be found. Bourbon were playing The Postal Service though, but alas it was dead, probably because all the students aren't here.

Saturday was a quiet one and today we briefly met up with Lucy. My plans always fall apart with Lucy, I have no idea why, it's really not because I'm unorganised! Things usually work out! Anyway, we went to Light and got treated to a bridal fashion show! Honestly, I treat people to THE best places in Leeds. Anyway, it was lovely to see her again, and I still can't believe that she didn't know that Lord Mandelson was gay!

We've been trying to catch up on taped stuff as well. Watched an episode of Swedish Wallander today which was brilliant, proof that everything is better when it's Swedish. Also watching Brothers and Sisters (shouldn't be good but somehow it is), and The Golden Girls whic is so damn good. We watched a little of Betty White on Saturday Night live the other night. So funny. I can't believe that she's the only one left :(

Misadventures in Crewe and beyond

magic_treehouse — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 15:59:57 GMT

I have been to Crewe. No wait! Come back! I tend lots of nice things and it was good to see my family again. I do miss having such a busy house, although after a bit I do get fed up with the constant laptop/TV/computer games/I-Phone usage. My flat seems quiet in comparison! The main reason I went was because my old workplace, Alsager library is closing down and they were having a party for all the old staff. It's sad that it's going (it's being combined with Crewe campus) as the building is much nicer than Crewe's. There were a surprising amount of people there and I got to speak to lots of people, people I knew and people I didn't, while I sampled the home made food. I was even sent home with some. It was strange being back really but in a good way. I got to speak to staff I worked with who I hadn't seen since I left three and a half years ago and even if it was a little depressing telling people how I'm still not working in a library, it was fun. There were lots of photos up including one of me and a little one of Stella which made me sad. A whole section was dedicated to Brandy the library cat who, fittingly, died last week. He was 19. So a good turnout and fun was had by all.

On Thursday me, my brother, sister and Mum went to The Palms at Stapely Water Garden. It's closing soon though which is sad as they have a great selection of animals. Lots of tropical stuff like fish, frogs, spiders but also meerkats, tortoises and loads of flowers, a really nice day out. We made Jonathan drive us to Snugbury's afterwards obviously. I had two scoops of ice cream - one cherry blizzard and the other damson and sloe gin. You don't need me to tell you how tasty it was. They had the cutest spotty piglets too! And the giant hay sculpture is a meerkat this year which was very impressive.

On Friday morning I sat out in the garden. My Dad's been working on it, including building a new, bigger pond which is really impressive. He's so good with his hands. I don't think I could ever build a pond, let alone a little waterfall to go with it. That talent's skipped a generation I think. In the afternoon me went to see my Grandma. She's not great really. Her memory is terrible and she can't hear anything you say which is sad really (though it does make for amusing incidents at our house when my Mum is shouting down the phone - "IT'S JANE! IS DAVID THERE?") but she is 96. She did mention Gladys a few times (who's been dead for four years) which is also worrying. Apparently my Mum and sister went to visit a few weeks back and when Nanna said about Gladys visiting my sister said to my Mum afterwards, really seriously, "well maybe she has"! Haha. Someone at Mum's work heard about this and said that Bethany was very astute but I refuse to believe that the ghost of my Great Aunt is hovering around.

On Saturday me, my Mum and sister went to see Fiona's art display at The Cubbyhole. I have never heard of this place and it's in the weirdest location! It's also surprisingly big inside and there were lots of people making things inside. I bought a fridge magnet and some cards. It goes without saying that the art was good! Happily we bumped into Fiona on the way who I've not seen for about two years. Madness.

On Saturday night we had a board game night. Cluedo, which Jonathan won, and Monopoly, which Jonathan also won. He was most upset that after two hours of Monopoly everyone declared him the winner without his getting to bankrupt everyone apart from Bethany!

And then on Sunday I came back to Leeds. It felt like a proper holiday and it was good to see James again. We went to Tampopo in the evening to catch up and as we had our £50 voucher and had the full works, so good! Mixed platter to start, home made lemonade, chicken salad with peanut dressing for main, sticky black rice pudding for dessert and Vietnamese coffee for after that. the coffee is with condensed milk. So good! So yeah, I've had a great time. And now I'm only in until Wednesday and then I'm off for another week! Amazing.

A decent way to spend a dinner hour...

magic_treehouse — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 15:49:24 GMT

In my dinner house I have been to a tour of Leeds Grand Theatre! Heritage Open Days are next month but they've put some paid tours on in the run up to that. It was fascinating, especially as it's a Victorian theatre and the whole thing's a proper rabbit warren. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert came to visit the opening of the Town Hall in the 1850s and Prince Albert apparently asked where the nearest theatre was. Leeds didn't have a 'proper' one so they built it after that in order to raise the standards of Leeds. The stairs are really wide as the ladies wore massive dresses and people could show off the way up and down - the same reason that there are boxes, to show off. The proles used to sit in the stalls and the corridors up to the seating area are sloped. The corridor used to be tiled too so that they could easily be washed down after all the dirty people had left, the water running done the sloped hall and out on to the streets. The theatre itself is meant to look like a Faberge egg. I was disappointed to learn the chandelier at the very top of the roof comes down. Apparently, when the guy does tours with kids he gets so wonderful suggestions on how to clean it. Via jet pack and tight rope walker are especially good.

After that we went backstage to see the dressing rooms (not inside them though). There's a seat in the corridor for dressers and the less important actors have to sit upstairs. There's also a Victorian fire door which has a wire that melts when there's a fire, shutting the door. This goes with the sprinkler system which runs through the theatre, one of the first in Europe. Then we went on-stage! The whole of the stalls and the stage is raked and you don't realise how high up the whole thing goes until you go out to the back and find out that you're a whole floor up. Until a lift was built in 2007 men had to pull up the props boxes by hand! Mad. Then we went upstairs to the stage control place (fly?) which was nicely decoarted, including Claire Sweeny's knickers! At one time the theatre used to employ 20 sailors to raise the stage backdrops. The reason it's meant to be unlucky to whistle in the theatre is that that's how the sailors used to communicate so if you whistle you might get somebody to do something that you didn't want. Now it's done by two men. One to operate the computer and one as a 'spotter' who makes sure everything's ok. Problems have arisen with ballet dancers getting attached to the set as it's being lifted up...

The other bit we saw was where the old sets used to be painted. They don't do it any more as it's a receiving theatre only (it doesn't create its own performances). I'll put pictures on Facebook tonight. The one other thing of interest is the building exterior itself. The creators travelled all over and so got influences from Spain, France and Italy while also putting (much later on) a Pan head above the actor's entrance as Pan was the Greek God of theatre critics! All good stuff.

Yesterday I was trained on cataloguing at Bradford Uni Peace Library. It was a headache during my MSc and it's still a headache now. It's so difficult but I think that I got there in the end. I'm only doing journals at the moment. I assume I'll be able to do books at some point too. Hopefully soon! I'm hungry for more experience!

The only other things of note to mention is that we watched Educating Rita last night. It's a brilliant film and I found some of it quite moving for some reason. It was very interesting from a Literature graduate point of view and I thought that studying literature in such depth was useless as well. Ha. 'Go outside, make love...' - very true. Julie Walters and Michael Caine are so good in it and I'm glad that their resolutions were so not obvious. They weren't cut and dry.

Oh, I must mention finishing my book. It was Giles Brandryth's 'Oscar Wilde and The Ring Of Death'. Yes, I'm aware that that sentence makes no sense! But it was very well written and really interesting, especially if you know about Oscar himself. I've read up on his family afterwards His poor wife died after falling down the stairs at home. One of his children died in the First World War and the other became a translator for the BBC. Oscar Wilde has one descendant left living though, who writes biographies of him. Something which I find quite nice considering that after Oscar was jailed Constance attempted to completely cut him off from his children, even changing their surnames.

One last thing. Must mention the horrendous time we've been having at work. Yes, it's Debbie fun again. She'd had a meeting set to find out the verdict of her sacking/not sacking. I was on my own here on Tuesday so she was loitering enough as it was, telling me about her 'imminent' move to Orkney rather than just doing her work. Then yesterday when the meeting was due she was hanging around our side of the office saying how 'no-one likes to be made to feel useless at work', generally looking for sympathy. I can't give sympathy to her because the sickness record isn't because of her mental illness, it's stems from laziness so I don't bend at all. So later in the afternoon she sat at our block and started crying, saying how she was worried about losing her job. I couldn't take it any more so I'm ashamed to say that I ran off (but so did Eleanor!) and Louise was left to deal with it. I bought Louise a KitKat after because I felt guilty. I'm not paid for this! Anyway, she's back to normal today. She's even diagnosed herself with a new medical condition so she must be alright. When will it end?!

'Some of these multi-coloured lesbains don't half look miserable'

magic_treehouse — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 11:10:45 GMT

A busy weekend - again! On Friday night I made James a nice meal. It felt like I was in the kitchen for an age but it well worth it. I made a Turkish lamb and apricot casserole thing followed by cherry clafoutis. I de-stoned two whole punnets of cherries and parts of my figures are still stained now. Seriously, I suffer for my art. But it was a big success, especially the casserole. We've been cutting down our meat in-take lately so buying and eating lamb felt like a proper treat!

On Saturday it was fairly quiet which made a nice change! In the evening we ventured out to spend our voucher at Thai Edge. I had sweet and sour pork and we shared a vegetarian starter. It was all very nice but Leeds is quite good for Thai restaurants so I thin I prefer its competition. However, I've won a £15 voucher on twitter so we will be going back (if anyone wants to add me on there who hasn't already then my username is the same as here)! The restaurant did redeem itself on desserts though. I had banana ice cream and mango sorbet which was lovely. We were quite full afterwards so we podged out and watched (and I stress that this wasn't my choice) First Knight. First time that James has chosen a dud in a while! It was just very bland, and while some of it was quite good (some good fights, chases) it was all quite flat and unengaging.

Sunday was busier. We went on the Leeds tour bus! It was resident's weekend so it was free. I learned lots of little interesting snippets too. There used to be Monopoly factory here, the first moving picture was filmed here and the first permanent traffic lights were erected here! Also, the guy who created the sculptures in city square created the Queen Victoria statue outside Buckingham Palace. Also, Dame Judy Dench opened the West Yorkshire Playhouse! Fascinating! Of course, some of the commentary did get mocked by us. 'Clarance Dock is now an urban village...' - "Ghost Town more like". 'Leeds has more park space than any city in the UK' - "None in the city centre though!". Leeds College of Music got a hefty mention surprisingly. I didn't know that we were the country's biggest music College so I even learned something about my workplace! Haha.

In the afternoon we went to Leeds Pride. It's a funny thing. We go but we still feel like outsiders when we're there. As James said, it makes us feel excluded from a group that can already often feel excluded. We're not really 'scene' people, but the acts are fun and it's free. We had dinner at the Museum Cafe (obviously) first and got treated to Bears Aloud, the Dame Shirley Bassey Experience and, errr, Adam Rickitt. Mr Rickitt (Tory hearthrob that he is *ugh*) did his new David Guetta produced single (?!), I Breathe Again 2010 (?!!), Everything My Heart Desires and a topless Encore of the original I Breathe Again (??!!!). very bizarre. there were some right sights there as well. As James rightfully said, "Some of these multi-coloured lesbians don't half look miserable". Haha. We didn't march this year. James had done it every time he'd been so he wanted to watch the whole thing for a change. Although half way round he did say "We should join in really to show that not all gay people are weirdos". See, it's a love/hate thing. We slacked off the Lower Briggate party side in favour of going shopping in Tescos. Oh, we did see Ellen and Jonathan who we knew through James' old Skipton LGBT group although they were working so we couldn't chat for long.

So after all that fun we went home and watched Sherlock! It's very good. It's just so nice to have something on the BBC that's 90 and can breathe a bit. So if that's the price that I have to pay for only three episodes then so be it!

I forgot to mention last time about Toy Story 3 and their portrayal of Ken. There's been quite the wittering about how homophobic it was. Even Attitude mentioned it this month (Did I mention that I'm in Gay Times this month? Haha. A tweet about Lisa Scott-Lee is in there! Haha!). But surely it's more homophobic to assume that he's gay? He just likes clothes and is quite effeminate. I dunno.

'Are you classically trained?'

magic_treehouse — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 15:33:47 GMT

I don't feel like I've stopped this week. On Monday and Tuesday I headed over to Bradford (which I'd never thought was that bad but this week I have concluded that it is indeed very rough), to do some volunteering. The back room has been moved around to open it up for public use so I spent the evening tattling the journals. The room looks great though and it was nice to be surrounded by journals again. I miss libraries so much!

Not much other newsworthy stuff apart from us going to see Toy Story 3 3D last night. It's by no means my favourite Pixar film but it's still brilliant and very funny. It's funny because I was 11 when the first film came out so I've sort of grown up with the films and so 3 was such a fitting end and it was done so well. Mr Pricklepants was an obvious favourite. And seeing this done in 2010, it just makes me realise what an ambitious film the first one was and also how the voices just are the characters. Much like The Muppets before them, there are so many individually famous characters and the whole thing was a joy to watch. Day and Night blew my mind as well, so clever.

"You sheep stealing bitch!"

magic_treehouse — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 15:44:54 GMT

I'm a bit fed up today so I've put Alphabeat on as a remedy. It's working a little. It's a shame really as I've had a really nice weekend. Work is being a bit up or down though which is the problem really. On Friday I found out that I'm the only person to apply for my own post so I should be ok. Now they just need to ascertain whether I need an informal interview as it's a grade higher. Good news I guess even if I really do want to do the job. Still, they're interviewing for the new manager position tomorrow and if Eleanor doesn't get it then I'm going to be managed by someone I don't like. I don't even want to think about it.

Anyway, on Friday we went to see Britain's Got Bangra at the Playhouse. It was brilliant and there was an excellent mix of audience members. I don't even just mean 'ethnics', there was a great mix of young and old too which made a refreshing change from our point of view. The plot was slightly pointless and predictable but the music and dancing was so captivating that it didn't matter. And it was really funny. Occasionally I felt that I missed out on the odd Punjabi in-joke but it wasn't very often. The time line was 1970s until the present day and the way that they transformed the music from traditional Indian music and moved it through the ages was really very good. So yes, it was really enjoyable. The only thing missing was the more cultural struggle aspect which I find really interesting.

Saturday was a lazy day, much needed. We watched It Happened One Night, one of only three films to win the 'big five' Oscars. I've vowed to watch more old films as there really are some good ones - like this one. It's quite simple in its premise but it's very funny and the on-screen chemistry between Clark Gable and Claudette Colbert is brilliant. Although the stories around Claudette Colbert make her seem like a diva. Apparently she was quite the star then (funnily I'd never heard of her, although I've since learned that she's in Cleopatra, but still) and demanded double her usual fee to star in film and after filming she declared it the worst film she'd ever been in. bet she didn't distance herself from those Oscars afterwards though. Film stars are so interesting aren't they. They're such big celebrities and it's a kind of celebrity that is quite old. there's nothing quite like it. TV and modern music is too young for it and arts, like theater, don't create the same kind of celebrities such as Oscar Wilde and Noel Coward.

Anyway, I digress. I finished off Monkey Island 2 at the weekend too. The new spoken version is as brilliant as ever. I've perhaps unwisely started to play Dead Space. I'm not sure my nerves can take it. I'm having to ration myself to playing it in spurts because it's doing me in. I don't think I've played a horror game since Resident Evil 4 and even that was less scary, more action. This is killing me though!

On Sunday it was the Waterfront Festival. It's much nicer than the dragon boats as it's much more family orientated. They were doing falconry and jousting at the Armouries so we went to see both. they were very impressive. I'll try and put the films up on Facebook when I get a chance. Afterward we went and met Charlotte and went round to Bev's for actual socialness. Crazy. Bev's looking after Vikki's rabbit while she's on holiday so we played with him for a bit. Bev's flat it rather nice. Big windows which let the light in. Then we went back to ours for tea and chats. I didn't realise but Bev's totally made with her new law job. She's going to be a barrister and had to get through a huge application process but now she's in she's made for life unless she fucks it up (which she won't). It sounds amazing. I'd made apricot and yogurt cookies which went down a treat too and we played Wallace and Gromit's Fleeced board game which was hilarious - "You sheep stealing bitch" may have been shouted at one point. Not by me I might add.

Oh, must add that I've finished reading 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea which I really enjoyed. It gets a bit episodic near the end but I was surprised how easy to read it was and it's generally very engaging. A very good read.

Graduation

magic_treehouse — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 15:46:30 GMT

Yesterday I graduated. I know, get me! I wasn't that fussed to be honest but it was a nice day. It should be, the price it cost me! We had a bit of trouble getting up there as the man was coming round to fix our balcony doors so while James waited for him I picked my parents up from the station. It all worked out ok in the end though. I didn't think I'd know anybody but it turns out that I did, although there weren't that many of my course mates there really. I'm not the only one struggling to get a library job though which is reassuring, and now that the course has stopped for good there will be less competition hopefully! There's not really a lot else to say as you all know what a graduation ceremony is like! It was all well-organised and very nice though. There was food in a massive marquee afterward although the plates were really small so it was difficult to get your money's worth! After that we went home and I showed my Dad the flat. All in all, a good day. Here is a photo of me:

My Mum has taken the pictures in to work today and there are some of me and James and her and James. Her workmates are quite taken with James. Apparently, he's a 'waste'. Not from where I'm sitting bitches! Serves me right for living with someone so attractive.

More About Me 2

magic_treehouse — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 15:59:06 GMT

Ok, so in this instalment I thought I'd talk more about my family. Not counting James, my immediate family are my Mum and Dad (who are both 49), my sister (16) and my brother (22). I'm very lucky to have a close family. Well, close in that I'm quite far away. But we all get on and that's the main thing. I see them quite a bit, unlike my extended family. It's funny. I've always been much closer to my Mum's family for some reason but as most of them were either dead or slightly old was always a small selection of people! My Great Aunt (Gladys, amazing) and my Grandma (Connie - also amazing) were always quite close and so we used to see them a lot on days out (usually to North Wales) and as they live(d) up the road we saw a fair bit of them so I' never missed out of extended family stuff really. My great Auntie died a few years back and my Grandma is now 96 and a shadow of her former self which is a shame as she's ace. So on my Mum's side there's only her and my Uncle who's not got a family of his own.

My Dad's side is much more complicated. He has a brother and sister. He fell out with my Uncle years ago and so I have nothing to do with that side of the family. Whereas my Aunts kids are a bit of a mix. My cousin got pregnant at 14 although things turned out ok in the end, while my other cousin is a drug dealer who's been in and out of prison. So there's a reason I don't really talk to them much. My Gradparents are divorced and funnily, because the rest of my Dad's family are, errr, more problematic, I've never been as close to my Gradma as I could have been. She's always been more consumed with helping out with the numerous kids and problems elsewhere. plus she looked after my Great-Grandma for many years as she had Alzhimer's. So because my family could look after themselves we've never really needed to get involved with the rest of them! Ha. My Grandad re-married many years back and started a second family (with the woman he had an affair with) but my Dad couldn't forgive him for many years. Things are fine though. I've got half-uncles and an aunt. I went to my half-uncle's wedding a few years back but when it came to my other half-uncle's wedding (who's younger than me weirdly) my brother and sister were invited but I wasn't! Weird but hey, I'll deal.

Because of James, who's family are much more of a unit than mine ever have been (they send cards to each other for every occassion. I'm lucky if I get a birthday card off mine - we're not card senders, ha) I've kind of got an adopted family, which suits me fine, although I hate having to go to all of these christanings. this makes things different for if and when we get married. As James' has a large family to invite whereas I have four people. It'd feel weird.

The moral of this story is that you don't need to have a big family to get by in this world and that family aren't necessarily who you are related to by blood. In many respects, blood is the only common factor I share with a fair few of my relatives!

In other news - I graduate tomorrow. I'm not enthused but hey, it's something different to do.

Errr, no.

magic_treehouse — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 15:52:21 GMT

I fucking well hope not!

Spam, spam, spam, spam, spam - I fart in your general direction

magic_treehouse — Tue, 13 Jul 2010 15:50:23 GMT

So Spamalot turned out to be amazing! We always forget where our seats are as we book things so far in advance sometimes. Turns out we were on the front row. Now that's an experience. It was hilarously funny and although large parts of it were taken from the Holy Grail, there was enough new stuff and it was fresh enough for the stage, to keep it really entertaining. Some bits were just hilarious, like the killer rabbit. The cast varies from place to place but the Leeds one had Marcus Brigstock and Todd Carthy, plus some woman from Emmerdale who I recognised. Lancelot was totally flirting with James as well. He kept eyeing him up and then, at the wedding scene mouthed 'I'm sorry' at him. Slut. In full Hairspray mode we hung around the actor entrance to get autographs and pictures. Unlike Hairsray however there was only us hanging around. No matter! We got to meet Lancelot in person which was funny. James introduced himself as 'I don't know if you remember me...'. to which he laughed and said 'yes,. I remember you.'. haha. And then James introduced me as 'my Lancelot' and he shook my hand. All is forgiven though because he had a lovely arse. We then got to meet Todd Carthy, Marcus Brigstock and Emmerdale woman. Amazing. Photos were taken too. Todd Carthy is quite small in real life and Marcus is just like he is on the TV. He was with his family and we did feel a little stalkerish as we were walking the same way home as he was. A good night was had by all!

I've spent the day applying for a job at Leeds Uni. It was similar to what I do now but for more pay. But then I stopped because I realised that even though it might be a little more secure (until July anyway) I didn't really want to jump in at the deep end in a job I don't really like anyway. Plus I'd have to try and be enthusiastic at the interview. So instead I've been chipping away at the library avenue. I've found out that I can actually get to the British Library by bus, I didn't think I could so that's a main job market I've been missing. Stupid really. And I've been finding out more about the Leeds relief register. I signed up in November and heard nothing. This is because they haven't done any induction since October which makes sense. The guy I spoke to is meeting with the library in a few weeks so that might be quite good. I need to drum up some enthusiasm as I graduate on Thursday and I'm not looking forward to it at all :(

Entry Du Jour

magic_treehouse — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 16:08:25 GMT

Right, a quick update from me. I've had a quiet weekend really. Didn't do much on Saturday apart from potter about really. We've booked all of our stuff for Chantal's 30th birthday in London in September. It's very exciting as we haven't been to London for a good while. We're going down on the Thursday which gives us Thursday and Friday to do what we like really. It was touch and go for a while as to whether we could go as it took time to find cheap trains and a hotel. But we've found an utter bargain for both train tickets and accomodation. It's suspiciously cheap! But we're in Kensington which is where all of my favourite museums are so it should make for a great long weekend. We were looking for a show to go and see on Friday and so we looked at Sister Act. And dear God it's expensive. The stalls are £90-£75! Not that we go for stalls seats, haha. So instead we've gone for Legally Blonde which will be great I'm sure. Plus Sister Act is touring in autumn 2010 so we'll just see that when it comes North and therefore cheaper.

We've watched a lot of films lately. We watched Lethal Weapons 3 and 4. Surprisingly they're all pretty solid, which I didn't expect in a way. We rounded off the experience with Loaded Weapon 1 which had its moments but wasn't a patch on Hot Shots really. Also watched The Graduate which was a good film, funnily than I thought it would be actually.

What else did I do? Oh yes, went out and bought the Daily Mirror to get the new Prince album. I chucked the paper without reading it of course so a Prince album for 65p is a bargain. I've only listened to it once but it's good stuff. I'm an easy Prince fan to please really. His old stuff is stunning obviously but I really like some of the newer stuff. 3121 was brilliant for example. I've ended up buying so much of his stuff though that I don't know it all particularly well. Must sort that out.

I also bought the Speical Edition of Monkey Island 2 which is on Xbox Live Arcade. It look stunning and there's commentary from the creators which is really good. I'm loving playing it again. I've also recently finished The Longest Journey which was notable for not only the amazing story but it's the only game that I know of that has convincing gay characters in it. Probably becuase it was written by a Norwegian, ha. The problem with adventure games with great stories is that they end up being very wordy without very many puzzles. I've been spoiled by Lucasarts I guess and it was a brilliant game, don't get me wrong.

Forgot to mention that I finished my Kathy Reichs book 'Death De Jour' which was a good thriller I have to say, sometimes very grizzly though! I'm now going to read some classics at the same time as James so we can discuss them. I've just started Twenty Thousand Leagues Under The Sea. A good start so far.

On Sunday we were going to go to Kirkstall Abbey but it was a bit chilly so instead we wandered round Leeds (including the Victoria Quarter which James had never been through!). We ended up at the Museum Cafe which is one of my favourite places in Leeds. So we sat there for a little while and then came home and played Super Scrabble. I lost but I was always going to when James played blinders like COCCYX and HYMEN.

Music-wise I've just bought the new Liz Phair album which has been sneaked out on her website and is that sound of a woman having a breakdown after being shafted by record company after record company. Still, it's listenable so far even if Liz does rap on it, haha. Also, the Scissor Sisters new album is brilliant and I wasn't fussed by it's release to begin with. I always thought that they were missing something when actually they were getting bogged down by something - their characatuer. So by taking themselves seriously (ish) they've produced something very catchy and very good.

Right, off to see Spamalot tonight. Fun times!

In Bruges

magic_treehouse — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 22:09:22 GMT

Right, well I haven’t updated for ages as I wanted to give my Bruges trip the attention it deserves as we had a really lovely time. Tried not to let the immense tiredness over shadow the whole thing but I’ll get to that in a bit...

Wednesday

We set off from work early in order to get the ferry from Hull. We ended up being really early but I wiled away the time playing DS. Never a bad thing. We were allowed on board at about 5 so had a little wander about. We spent most of the evening in the cabin really, reading and the like. As we were losing an hour and didn’t want to carry shopping around with us we saved most of the attractions for the way back. We did take advantage of the all you can eat buffet though! Unfortunately our air conditioning was dodgy and so our room was stupidly hot. We didn’t get a wink of sleep, even after transferring rooms at 3 in the morning. We weren’t the only one though. James said that a guy was in front of him the queue asking to swap rooms as his friend was snoring. Ha.

Thursday

So Thursday morning was not fun in the slightest, although once I showered and ate I didn’t feel so bad. Drank some tea outside on the deck just as we coming in to Zeebrugge which perked me up. Greeted by windmills too which was nice. Eco ones though, not the nice kind, they came later.

Once we’d arrived we got a coach to Bruges. This only took around 15 minutes which isn’t bad. We were dropped off at the train station and let loose! I didn’t quite realise how popular cycling was around the town so the sea of bikes at the station was a nice surprise. Not that I got on one *city shouts hurrah*. We couldn’t check into the hotel until 12 so with two hours to kill we had a wander round. We thought we’d walk up to find it first and then go from there. So we walked near Minnewater, a lovely lake, becoming acquainted with Bruges’ love of towers. They’re everywhere! Even little ones on houses.

After that we headed up Katelijnestraat and found our hotel. We quickly realised that every other shop was either a chocolate shop or a lace shop! No bad thing. Carrying on up the street we came to Onze Lieve Vrouwkerk (Church of Our Lady) and had a look inside. There are plenty of churches in Bruges and this is one of the main ones. It contains the only piece of Michelangelo’s work to have left Italy during his life time so our visit was cultural, it wasn’t just about chocolate! Sadly it’s covered in scaffolding as they’re doing it up, but I’ve been to York loads and I‘m used to the Minster been covered in it too so I don’t mind.

Another thing that Bruges seems to have is loads of groups of visitors. It makes walking down the streets perilous, especially if the roads are full of horse and carts, of which there are many. Next stop was Sint-Salvatorskathedraal which has the most beautiful stained glass windows I’ve ever seen. Mind you, York Mister may have beautiful ones too but I’ve never been inside due to my excessive tightness (honorary Yorkshireman strikes again!).

From there we went up Steenstraat, had a sit down and laughed at a poor woman whose large Andrex-type puppy dog had sat down and refused to move anywhere. In the end the guy she was with had to pick it up! I might try that one next time I’m in the supermarket.

With still more time to kill we walked to the Markt which is pretty much the centre of the city. All roads seem to head there anyway. No bad thing though as it’s the sight of the Belfort. We thought it might be a good idea to climb all 366 steps with rucksacks on. Fools. It was half price to do so though as we’re under 26. I’m going to hate my birthday. 26 seems to call time on all the great discounts (free theatre tickets, railcard etc.). Boo to that. It’s a trek to the top but worth it. They’re doing it at the minute so the bells don’t chime and you can only see two sides when you do reach the top. But that’s what you get for having a discount! Great view fro the top though.

We walked to the Burg after that. The Heilige Bloed Basiliek (Basilica of the Holy Blood) is also there. The latter was closed for lunch though so we didn’t go in. I’ve since found out that there’s a holy relic in there, a vial of ‘Jesus’ blood’. Missing a relic, what would Lara Croft say? The Berg, like a lot of the architecture in Bruges, is beautiful. It also has the added bonus of having an archway leading to Blind Donkey Street. Best street name I’ve seen since Dame Judy Dench Way.

It was time to go back to the hotel by this point so we picked up a sandwich onthe way (Chicken, mango chutney and rocket) and pastry (lemon tart). And after that I fell asleep watching a Disney film about a blind teenager. Hardcore! I’m not sure how long I slept for but I certainly felt better for it. We went back out after a little break. Up to the Markt again and then along Hoogstraat, Langstraat and then up towards windmills! There are four along the river. Nice as they are we only saw two as the wind was so bitterly cold that we couldn’t take anymore and headed back into the city. We were lucky with the weather. Thursday was glorious but both days were so damn cold. Mostly because of the wind. And we were outside a lot.

We walked past a nunnery on the way back. We were quite disappointed that we didn’t see any nuns but on closer inspection it seems that the front door was open so we figured they’d all escaped. We bought some chocolate goodies and then went and sat in Koningin Astridpark. I know I said earlier that was full of tourist groups but on the whole it was really quite. And sat next to the fountain it hit home how quite the city was.

He headed right down to the side of Minnewater we hadn’t seen and then decided for tea to get some chips (with mayonnaise, the Belgian way). And go back to the hotel. We didn’t head out in the evening as we were totally knackered by that point. So we watched Belgian TV, mostly Jim which was surprisingly sweary. Humping rabbits, UK TV shows with swearing in per-9 o’clock and the climax – Hit or Shit. Amazing stuff. The Belgians seem quite a relaxed bunch I have to say and they’re lovely in general. I certainly didn’t feel like such a failure for speaking English there! Unlike Paris where I felt like I was going to spat on for being a dirty Brit (I exaggerate of course but the French do seem the most uptight of all the European countries I’ve been to.)

Bed – at 9.50pm Tragic but it had to be done.

Friday

On Friday we felt tonnes better having actually slept. We left the hotel fairly early (which was really nice despite only being an Ibis). Bruges doesn’t seem to wake up until 10 o’clock though so there wasn’t much to do. We walked to ‘t Zand (I’ve no idea how to pronounce that ‘t. I figure it’s like ‘t’internet’, haha.) After that we walked right up Noordzandstraat to the Markt again. Bought some fizzy iced tea and sat down for a bit. Then headed up Vlamingstraat to the Friet Museum.

A museum about chips! Best museum ever! Although once inside we were informed that although chips were invented in Belgium there was no evidence to support this. That brings the whole museum into disrepute if you ask me. Either way, it was quite an interesting little place believe it or not! The only let down was there not being a cuddly Fiona the chip to buy in the shop. After we left we looked back and saw that the museum was in an old church! God would be proud.

After that we went back to Katelijnestraat for Belgian waffles and hot chocolate. Good stuff although I think I’d have a bit too much sugar by that point. It was on to Dijiver then, which might be my favourite street in Bruges. Just because it runs along the canal and is really picturesque, road works or not! We did a boat tour there which was really interesting. The driver was an amazing moustachioed man who told us all kinds of things. It’s certainly a great way to see the city.

Another museum was next - Choco-Story. You will not be surprised to hear that this is a chocolate museum. Although we’re still none the wiser as to why Belgium is so associated with chocolate, apart from the praline being invented there. We just caught a demonstration at the end of the visit and got to taste some chocolate. Always a good thing. They also had a chocolate Obama! Amazing!

Chocolate and potatoes – all great things come from South America.

We walked to the Stadsschouwburg then and found the tiny frog statue outside there. I’d had a tip off it was there so I was glad to find it! Opposite was Van Mullem which does the nicest pastries ever! I bought a rÿsstartt (I have tried to find out the proper spelling for this but failed) which is a rice/custard filled pastry. Om and indeed nom.

The final place to visit was back at the ‘t Zand, well, the concert hall to be precise which you can go to the top of. And indeed we did. Some great views from the top. There was an exhibit a few floors down too. I thought it might be about the concert hall but it was, well, I don’t know what it was but it was far too arty and modern for our tastes! Lasers, music and just, weirdness.

After that we sat down near Minnewater and headed back via coach to the ferry, which I’m glad to say was much better on the way back. I bought a watch in the shop which has a little furry ghost attached to it. Brilliant. We took advantage of the ‘cinema’ too. We watched Sherlock Holmes which was really good. Thankfully not as unnecessarily macho as I feared it might be. But it was fun and I was quite sucked into the mystery of it all, ever if some of the explanation was muttered so quickly that it was hard to follow!

Is that it? I think it is. We tagged a trip to see James’ Grandma on to the end of the trip but I’ll write about that later. We got a bit sick of seeing Hull at the end of Saturday! We did wonder if any Belgians come over to the UK from Zeebrugge and there were certainly a few on our bus back. I hope for their sake that they went to York or even Leeds rather than stay in Hull!

Frogs, bodies, ostrich, mini cakes...the post that has it all.

magic_treehouse — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 15:11:19 GMT

On Wednesday night we went to see The Princess and the Frog. I feared it would be full up as it was half term. Thankfully I was wrong. I hadn't seen a Disney 2D animation at the cinema for many years but I was so glad that it didn't disappoint. It's absolutely stunning on the big screen. Beautiful in a totally different way to Ponyo. There's so much about the animation that I don't understand, like how do lights work? You can paint brightness! Oh, it was all so beautiful and it was funny too. I think Empire got their review spot when they said that it was thoroughly traditional but threw enough curve balls along the way to make it interesting. So true. I didn't think that having a black princess would make any difference but I'm glad that it added a whole new edge to the film. Loved it.

Yesterday, we headed to The Living Room to spend my comedy cheque of a voucher on tasty tasty food. I probably mentioned the scheme before but the Yorkshire Post are doing £25 for a £50 voucher at certain Leeds restaurants. Anyway, it was lovely. I had crab, guacamole and tomato to start (that does sound quite odd) followed by ostrich fillet with parsnips and mash. Sooo good. I love ostrich. The first time I had it was at Disneyland Paris in the Pirate restaurant which oddly may have been the best meal I've ever had. The waiter's ostrich knowledge was second to none too. I was going to plump for well-done but he suggested that it be left slightly pink and he was right! So the question remains - what do you do when you can't decide on one dessert to have?.......

HAVE THEM ALL! That's eton mess in the middle with cheesecake, a tiny lemon meringue pie, creme brulee and chocolate orange sponge. One each. Yes, we're fat arses! No I don't care! It was soooo good.

On a less tasty note, they've gone and found a body in Clarence Dock. Amazing. For anyone that doesn't know Leeds, that's round the corner from my flat. A year or two back they did it all up and put loads of boutiques in...only for no-one to visit them. It's always dead and we often make jokes about it. When I told Eleanor at work about it the first thing she said was 'was it one of the shop keepers?'. It's bad down there but I don't think that people are killing themselves quite yet. Let's hope it brings the flat prices in the area down!

The other depressing news is that I'm getting a new line manager at work. Depending on who gets this internal vacancy it could be a good thing or a bad thing. We shall see. Unfortunately this puts more mega pressure on me getting this job next week :( I don't know what I'll do if I don't get it.

My Mum, brother and sister are coming up today. We're taking them to York tomorrow which will hopefully be good. It depends on the weather. None of them have ever been before so I'm looking forward to showing them round, not that I know where I'm going. York is the only city that I'm familiar with and yet still can't find my way around! I blame the vikings.

Did anyone watch The Brits? God they were ropey. The only good things were Lily Allen, Lady Gaga's acceptance speeches, and the Florance/Dizzee cover which I quite liked. It even made me want to re-visit her dodgy album (but not that much clearly, I'm still listening to Prince and The B-52s).

Anyone want to make me some chicken soup?

magic_treehouse — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 12:05:07 GMT

My head isn't really in the shape to think about what I've done as I'm coming down with the evil cold thing that's going round. It hasn't quite come out though so it's all in my head. I'm glad I'm off tomorrow :( Get the violins out people!

Things have been fairly slow though. We started Friday night off with a pizza from Yum Yums. A good start I feel. And we watched Broken Flowers which was not half as terrible as I feared it might be. Not a lot happened but when it got going and Bill Murrey got out and met people the interactions were quite compelling. The evening then met a crap end when the neighbours decided to have a party. We've put a complaint in about them as we're no longer living in student digs. The music stopped at around 1am. I think someone had gone round there. What a way to intigrate yourself with the neighbours eh? Thankfully that kind of thing never happens where we live.

What else did we do? Watched The Muppet Show a lot (the Swedish Chef is a current fave), played Kerplunk, and watched Never Say Never Again. We're a bit out of order as our original copy had warped so we've had to buy it again and go back to it. It's not really up to much though. It's just very very long and really dragged. It wasn't bad but even the action scenes didn't feel especially exciting.

Speaking of dragging, this week is going far too slowly. I've been keeping myself occupied by buying more Xbox Live Arcade games. I've bought Alien Breed, Shadow Complex (excellent, reminds me of the old 2D platform shooters like Flashback), OD Beat Drop (the thought of playing a tetris clone to the sound of Dragonette is far too appealing) and Chime. Should keep me busy!

I've finished reading Me Cheeta, the autobiography which wasn't as interesting or funny as I thought it might be. I guess it might be more interesting if you know a lot about Hollywood in the 40s. I may have made a bit of a mistake by starting two non-fiction books at the same time. I'm reading Tim Moore's 'Do Not Pass Go', and Andrew Marr's 'History Of Modern Britain'. I'm thinking that one might take a while!

TFI Friday.

magic_treehouse — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 16:53:36 GMT

In a desperate attempt to cheer ourselves up we've been watching The Muppets a lot lately. It's doing the trick certainly. We also watched 'Sunshine Cleaning' the other day as well. I expected it to be a bit more funny than it was somehow but I think that's to do with how it's sold. However I really enjoyed it. I think it helped that it wasn't overly long and the acting from the leading ladies is especially good. It's only downside was the slightly uneven plotlines, some are tied up, but some are left completely hanging. The DVD also comes with a fascinating short documentary though about the real life people who clean up after crime scenes. What a job!

In other news, we've booked a mini-cruise to Bruges. I know, all I do is book trips and holidays but this was too good to miss. It's costing me £70 for two nights on a ferry and an extra night's stay in Bruges itself. Fun times. We've bought a Belgian guide book and it looks lovely. Very exciting.

Not a lot else to report. The beginning of the end has started at work as the Director responsible for my area is leaving. Due to cost cutting he's not being replaced but (get this) three people are getting a promotion of sorts to cover the work. It begins!

Oh my God, news flash! Just got a phone call from the Department of Health job that I'd given up hope for and they've asked me to go for an interview! Amazing start to the weekend! Better fish out that job description, I've completely forgotten what I applied for. I only remember that the application took an age to do.I