I currently have no internet, so this is going to be the first blog I have ever written before I’ve actually been able to put it up. The plus side to this that if I make any silly spelling errors the lovely word checker will tell me, the bad sides are obviously that I can not put it up immediately and the horrible little spell checker that doesn’t accept words like blog.

Anyway I am currently in Durham as the title would suggest well not quite Durham but a nearby town called Stockton where my girlfriend’s university is situated. I’m not sure how glad she will be that I am telling the whole world this but I went up with her this week to keep her company while she is doing her re-sits. Yes, it may seem a bit of a bad idea as she is meant to be heavily revising but I can imagine if I was up here by myself I would get very lonely and thus most likely fall into some kind of depression. It is not that Stockton is a bad town; on the contrary, some parts of it are quite exciting. Just there is not all that much in close proximity of the room we are in.

So onto the actual activities that I shall be talking about. The lady needing to revise meant that I needed to make myself scarce and being the helpful lad I am I thought I would do some shopping for us for the week. Obviously this did not go entirely to plan or it wouldn’t be worth writing about. Kali told me the directions to the local Morrisons supermarket but I hazily forgot them and so went for a bit of a wonder. I looked around me for inspiration and saw a Morrisons sign and naturally made my way towards it. Apart from getting stuck briefly in a David Lloyd fitness centre I made good progress towards the sign. I did get a little confused at the location, it seemed a little secluded and that’s when I saw it, the Morrisons sign that I had been making my way towards, unfortunately not the supermarket but the regional head-quarters. A good hour and a half after I had initially left I got back to the room with as little food as I had started with. We then had a nice Chinese take away to celebrate.

That was the Thursday, on the Friday we went to the cinema to catch the latest Mummy film, for anyone who hasn’t seen it I am just about to ruin it by saying it is exactly the same as the other ones but in China . Saturday I went into town which apparently, as I read on the signpost, has the widest high street in the UK . Stockton has everything you would expect in a town, a variety of shops and a good selection of pubs. It also has a market on a Wednesday and a Saturday which is ridiculously cheap and has the coolest named building ever ‘The Shambles Shopping Centre’. But it was Sunday that boasted the next really exciting events.

We woke up late on Sunday, too late for our planned visit into town and so we spent another day of me mindlessly playing computer games and her doing her best to do anything except revision and this is the way it stayed until approximately 8 o’clock-ish when we decided to take a little stroll as we were tired of being cooped up in the room all day. We made our way over the bridge into Stockton , taking a few pictures as we went, for memories and then made our way onto the deserted high street. Well not quite deserted, there was only one man that we could see and of course he came up to us. A slight fear came upon me as it always does when a beggar comes to you but soon enough he turned out to be the greatest beggar of all time. He introduced himself to us as Paul and he made up a lovely little story of how once a few years back I had seen him in a café and leant him some money for a cup of tea, he then told us how he was still homeless but getting out of a bad patch. As if this wasn’t enough he kept telling me that I was gorgeous and that my hair was beautiful, anyone who knows me in the slightest will know that this kind of compliment will get you just about anywhere with me, and it would have got into my wallet had I been carrying more than 17 pence on me at the time. He did on several occasions feel the need to point out that he wasn’t ‘a queer’ whilst telling me I was gorgeous which was nice to know as we hugged and said farewell.  I did feel bad that I had no money to give him after such a magnificent effort from him. A tip for you if you ever find yourself begging on the street, don’t just sit there and ask for money, be like Paul and do a whole speech, it really worked on me.

I bet you are thinking wow! That is a pretty exciting story but no it does not end there on that very same night after we had said goodbye to Paul we walked a little further up the street and decided to have a photo next to these weird dog statues when an elderly lady asked if she was in the way. At first I had thought she was angry but she wasn’t and soon enough we found ourselves in our second conversation with a stranger of the night. Her name was Joyce and she was a little old fashioned which some may construe as racist especially in the company of my Asian girlfriend but it was clear that she meant nothing by it, she had just clearly grown up in a lot less politically correct time. Her racism was not the only thing about her though; she had an amazing grasp of language. She asked Kali where she was from and when she heard Sri Lanka she immediately said ‘nundri’ which means thank you. She then listed how many languages she could say thank you in. From Urdu, to Polish, to French, to German, it was truly inspiring her stories of how a man called her a pig in Urdu and she replied who are you calling a pig in his own native language. Language though was not her only talent she then got out her little pack of cards and wrote our names in an old English font which I shall now keep as a souvenir for ever. The conversation with Joyce went of for what seemed like half an hour but we soon said goodbye and then started on our way back to the room and I found myself in an extremely jubilant mood following the evening’s proceedings (well that the absurd amount of sugar I had consumed that day). We got back to the room by about 11 and went to bed.

And here we are on Monday we are going to go into town today again because Kali wants to get some stress relief in the form of shopping which I am a bit apprehensive about. I have never been shopping with her properly yet and I am sure I will end up spending hours waiting around clothes shops waiting for her to try on clothes but you never know it may just be fun. Tomorrow is her next exam and then we shall be headed back home soon after on another six and a half hour coach ride…

This is the end of my Durham blog, and just because I am writing it in word I will give you a word count so here it is… One Thousand, Three Hundred and Twenty Nine words, wow!

See you soon, END

It was today that I went to the Field Day festival. Field day is a festival that I probably wouldn't have looked twice at thisyear due to a fairly average line up and my complete and total lack of money but when my friend Nicole phoned up a month or so back, telling me that she had won a pair of tickets and wondered if I wanted to go, I was as good as there.

The timing of the festival was not great considering it was the day after my mum and dad were going on holiday, so I said goodbye to them at 4 o'clock in the morning, then fell asleep and woke up again at about 9 in preperation for the day ahead - As I said 'It was today that I went to the Field Day festival' in my opening line it is now safe to guess that I am in fact very tired writing this blog but nevertheless I shall carry on. Anyway I woke up at 9 and got myself ready to leave at 10 to meet Nicole at Mile End station at 11 and that all just went swimmingly, we then walked down to Victoria park, picked up her free tickets and we were inside the festival gates no later than 11:30.

Unfortunately as with all festivals, the time between opening and any decent acts coming on is at least an hour, so we walked around, getting a bit of a feel for the festival. Largely it was what you expect of a festival field, a large main stage, a few smaller tents and a whole load of merchandise and food stands. This was not all though, for some reason there was a large 'sports day' field in the centre where people were partaking in various events such as the egg and spoon race and the tug of war. It provided a strangely high amount of amusement watching these people playing games. We then sat down in one of the tents and had a little relax before heading back down to the main stage to watch the first act of the day.

The first act we saw was Noah and the Whale, who were deffinitely on my list of must see bands of the day. I don't know all that many of their songs, just three in fact, but I do like them all, especially '5 years time' which has been getting a lot of air play as of late on radio 1. They played all the 3 songs that I knew plus a selection of others from their forth-coming debut album in their opening half hour slot and it was a most enjoyable start to the day.

By now the weather was already beginning to deteriorate and bringing it back to a point I made earlier about the not outstanding line up. We had very little to do between the end of Noah and the Whale at 1 and Laura Marling at 4. Our main aim was to find shelter and thus we found ourselves in the 'bugged out' tent for a lot of that time. In the afformentioned tent they mainly play hardcore electo type stuff which I don't mind in small doses but a whole set of it was a bit much. Nevertheless it was better than getting wet and so we stayed there with the druggies and the ravers, showing off our pristine dance moves.

During this lull of good music we also managed to have lunch at possibly the best value of the over priced food stands. I first looked at the pasta stand, trying to be healthy and all but when looking at the price of £5 for a small plate of pasta in pesto I decided to go for the much better value 'chunky chips in Wicked Dips' £3.50 for a large container of chips with a rather tasty chili salsa

Eventually 4 o'clock came about and Laura Marling took to the stage sporting a very boyish haircut. I wasn't too bothered by that because she is a bit of a genius. She was clearly a bit nervous at singing in front of quite a large crowd but she didn't let it bother her getting through several of the tracks from her album. Unfortunately she only had a half hour long set and so I didn't get to hear all the songs that I was hoping for but still it was very good.

The next band we saw on the main stage was the surprise highlight of the day, Of Montreal. A very camp five piece from across the pacific. Their performance was so much more than just the music which did sound enjoyable  but I doubt would have been so inspiring without the rest. They all came out in bright, garish costume, especially the lead singer who was wearing tights and what I can only describe as a fish net cardigan along with the customary bright blue eyeliner. NOT only this during the performance there were a number of people coming onto the stage in various guises doing odd little dances and also giant balloons filled with glitter were burst over the crowd - a large amount falling onto my head, really livening up my outfit. It was truly a mesmerising set due to its sheer oddness and thus easily my favourite part of the day.

As soon as that had finished we rushed straight off to the Adventure tent to see a band called Mae Shi who Nicole had seen before and had raved about but on seeing them I was less than impressed apart from when they sent a parachute into the crowd which was passed on around the tent but the songs were pretty average and of course the visual display had no chance of beeting what I had just seen, so all in all the Mae Shi were not that influential on my day.

We then rushed back over to the main stage to catch Lightspeed Champion who were another band that I really wanted to see and too they didn't dissapoint. Dev Hynes maybe a real emo but there is no doubting he has real character and stage presence which made the performance that much more enjoyable. Another added bonus of their set was the random playing of the entire star wars theme tune before their final song which was unexpected and exciting.

At this point we were beginning to get a bit tired and because of the atrocious weather we decided to call it a day and so we didn't catch the headliners Foals but having seen them last year I was not especially dissapointed. We left the arena and made our way back to Mile end station where we went our seperate ways along the central line and I was home by around 9ish. All in all field day was enjoyable but I deffinitely would have been a bit dissapointed had I actually paid to go to it. And that is the end for another blog. Au Revoir

END 

So here we are again, the legendary bi-annual birthday party of the one and only Lord Wahid Ali. The more loyal followers of my blog may remember that I have done a blog on said party before, hence it being entitled 'How to party like a millionaire mk.2' and the original is here should you desire a refresher. Anyway two years on and I had been invited back, same lord, same house but a whole new set of people going. Last time it was really just me and my family who I talked with but this year I brought my lovely girlfriend, Caroline brought Steve, Ross and Lois were there as well as Cormac, Nathan and a whole host of other lovely people.

The bus was set to leave Colliers Wood at 3 in the afternoon but due to Ross picking up his friend from the airport he was late and by public demand we waited for him and thus we didn't actually leave until about 4. So already an hour had been spent on a fairly uncomfortable old styley double decker bus. Me and Kalistra were sitting right at the front of the bus which turned out to be a bit of an error as all the other youngsters sat themselves at the back. It was my fault really as I wanted to pretend I was driving. To make matters worse, whilst on the bus I kept getting attacked by millions of little flies which although did little to bother me physically, I didn't like them climbing all over me.

But eventually after about two and a half hours we got down to the house at around 6.30 which was probably just about the right time as the food was just starting to be served and the violinists were playing in the background.

The first thing we did when we got there was go and find the chocolate fountain because that is just what you do. It was so worth it, especially after a week or so of dieting. Dipping various things in chocolate and then munching away, the profiteroles were especially nice but I also did dip a strawberry, a piece of pineapple and a marshmallow.

Then we headed back to get some real food. I started with a barbequed hot dog and then moved onto the slightly more extravagent foods such as cous cous and salad which was all unsurprisingly very nice but as you can imagine after all this I was pretty full and so of course the next thing we did was go straight to the fun fair rides.

This never fails to excite however many times you go, free fun fair rides with minimal queues. We started on the ferris wheel, moved onto the big jumbo bouncy slide, then the helter skelter and the dodgems. It was oh so much fun as you can see by my face. Not only that but we also had a go on the shooting range where I won Kalistra a cuddly giraffe and she won me a teddy. aptly named Tony Bear.

Those activities were all very similar to last party but there were a couple of areas that I dont remember having seen in previous years such as the activity tents or should I say wig-wams. There was face painting, balloon modelling and of course card making. Kalistra made me a beautiful card but unfortunately it did fall apart a bit. The third wig-wam was for the circus type stuff, filled with juggling balls, diabolos and all sorts and due to the party I think I have found that my talents do lie within circus activities. I have known i could juggle for a good few years now but I thought that was as far as my talents extended in that field but since saturday I have seen a whole new light. I can do plate spinning with little difficulty and dont get me started on the diabolo, I was amazing!

This though was not all as far as the new attractions, there was also the weird and wonderful ice cream van that 'sold' some of the weirdest flavoured ice creams and sorbets that you had ever heard of, Gin and Tonic sorbet, Pineapple and Chillie, Pea and Wasabi, and my personal favourite, hokey pokey ice-cream which was basically toffee and honeycombe which was literally heavenly. 

As always I did spot a few celebrities in amongst the party guests, the likes of Paul O'Grady, Ross Kemp, a man from GM:TV who I can't remember the name of, Eddie Izzard, an ABBA tribute band and my personal favourite, despite him being the celebrity of least credentials, the guitarist from Ox.Eagle.Lion.Man. I didn't attempt to get any photos as I thought it would be a bit mean as they were all there to have a bit of a relax, so I just stood back and admired their clebrity glow. The glow faded around Ross Kemp at the end, who showed a bit of the anger that he showed so often in the role which made him famous (Grant Mitchell, Eastenders) as he tried to help push a car that had become banked on a curb, telling the car behind to 'F*cking reverse', on a lighter note I very nearly got run over when the car eventually got itself free.

And so the night was coming to a close, there was a little bit of dancing at the end of the night but soon enough it was 1 o'clock in the morning and we all borded the bus before leaving for home at about half past the hour, another two and a half hour journey followed with small amounts of singing, not quite the choral outbirsts of two years ago but nevertheless fun a bit of dozing and then we were home at around 4 o'clock. We then swiftly went to bed, leaving the party in hope that we will be invited back for some more fun and frollicking in 2 years time.

END