Monthly archives: October 2003


Beery pictures

Another year, another Beer Fest. There are a few traditions for Fests-

Stupid Girl by Garbage must be played at least once. If I don’t have to pay for it that’s just a bonus.

There are a few people I only meet at these annual events. I really should be more sociable.

The outgoing Beer Monster must strip at the staff party.

I always say I’m going to give up the booze for a month afterwards. Not because of the pain of hangover, just to detox before Christmas.

I’ve promised to test ride the revised Bogle Roll route, so I’ll have to find out what it is before the days get too short and wet. Someone’s looking into sorting out a Rag PayPal account so I can have a “Sponsor Me” button on the website and the money will go straight to them (but recorded as coming from me so I can get the kudos.)

Oh yes, anyone who’s in the pictures whose name I have forgotten, please introduce yourselves in the Comments under the image. And accept my apologies for being so crap with names.


Lipstick

Entertainment last night was provided by a faux lesbian floorshow, of which I’m sure there are loads of pictures. It was certainly fun to watch, and I don’t know why I felt guilty to be looking when it was so obviously put on to get attention. I did get the feeling there was going to be a pop up telling me to enter my credit card number if I wanted to see more, and I bet the punchline to this cartoon applied to the pretty young things.


Prince Chas woz 'ere

I’d hate for anyone to think I’m secretly a Royalist, given that this is the second monarchy related story in just over a week. But hey, you don’t get Royal visits that often, and they’re even more rarely to some building you have an interest in.

I wandered over at noon, to find two Police officers at the gate, checking the bags of all the Friends of Victoria Baths who had turned up early and were allowed into the building. I announced my intentions to take pictures and put them up on my website so as to reassure them that I wasn’t loitering with any criminal intent. Then I got into a conversation with one of the Friends, and got part way to blagging my way into the Baths. If I’d thought about it, or had anywhere near the required level of cheek, I could have got some far closer pictures.

The Prince wasn’t due until half past one, so I went away for a while and did some shopping. When I returned I found a wall to use as a vantage point, so I could take pictures over the heads of all the school children. He was only 45 minutes late. The kids from two of the local schools came out to line the road and sang ‘Singing In The Rain’ to keep the spirits up, though I was a bit worried about them tempting fate so. I got into an occasionally coherent conversation with a worn looking alcoholic, who seemed to think every third car was the Royal limo and was trying to spot the body guards.

When HRH finally arrived (something about problems with his helicopter) it was all over terribly quickly. He chatted to some of the crowd by the gate and met a bundle of local digitaries. Sadly the batteries died before I could get a picture of him waving from the top of the steps. He was meant to be looking around the baths for an hour and a half, but that may have been changed because of the delays. If not, he’s still in there as I type.


How many days left?

Time to start writing the wishlist again for Christmas. Actually, we should temporarily ban the first person to mention Christmas on this site. Oh well. First on the list for me, completely based on the name, of course is the Butt Kicker. With a name like that, it could have been a far more interesting product. However I think I’ll have enough fun with that.