Farnborough Airshow

It's on!

Update 20:22

I went through the small handful of photos I shot during my short lunchbreak and the best shot is of the Airbus A380 which, despite being the world's biggest airliner, was a graceful plane.

I love Farnborough sometimes.

Guilfest 2008

In the spirit of Guilfest we only went for one of the three days...

I'd have loved to have seen Carbon/Silicon again after shaking Mick Jones hand last year (I now realise guitar prowess cannot be passed on my mere touch alone) and we're going to see The Levellers in August anyway so that was Friday out of the reckoning.

And Saturday was Blondie headlining; my mate was in the second row for that but who else played that night I don't know.

But Sunday, oh Sunday... that was a different matter...

After we got to Farnborough North rail station we then realised the trains were not running. So they laid on a complementary/supplementary bus service which, after waiting an hour in the pissing rain, never came. I therefore had to drive to Guildford which meant no booze for me. So the half bottle of captain Morgan's rum stayed in the car.

As soon as we got into the festival site we grabbed a cider and headed for the ents24 stage - Dreadzone were on and absolutely rocking it.

The Damned were next on the main stage and were rather good.

We caught a couple of tracks from the youngsters Enjoy/Destroy in the rock tent just before Senser came on and played an absolute blinder!

Back to the main stage and From The Jam (basically The Jam minus Paul Weller) were excellent.

And finally Australian Pink Floyd finished off the night with a perfect set.

I can't say much more other than what a brilliant afternoon. If the girls had been home it would have been even better, but you can't have everything can you?

32 pence

I'm not normally a betting man but seeing as there was £5.27 in my Ladbrokes account I made a couple of quid bet on Holland, my adopted team for the Euro 2008 tournament, beating Russia. They lost.

Then I picked Russia to beat Spain for a few quid. They lost.

Tonight I decided to back Spain vs Germany with the remaining 27 pence left in my betting account and... I won. I fucking won. WOOHOO.

Yes, I won 32 pence!

Now, with my 59 pence pot, I'm going to have to celebrate.

Anyone got any ideas of what drink/drugs I can purchase and enjoy for a whopping 59 pence?!!

Some Solstice

June 21st. The longest day of the year. Summer Solstice. I had planned to drive or hitch to either Stonehenge or Avebury and watch the sunrise. But keeping an eye on the weather forecast was right - it's a grey cloudy morning and it's friggin' raining. Bummer Solstice more like. Maybe next year...

Photo © Andrew Dunn 2005

Na Zdrowie!

Incase you didn't know, we're in Krakow, Polska. Cheers!

Everyone's asleep as it's silly o'clock in the morning but I'm awake, just.

Yeah, we got here on Thursday AM. A quick flight from LGW to Krakow's closest airport and then a 40 min minibus ride through the Eastern European countryside to this old city. It's nice. I like Poland. Growing up with all those films of the eastern borders of Europe it fits exactly with the vision.

As soon as we got to Krakow we hit our hotel and booked a taxi, via a perogi restaurant, to Wieliczka. There's a huge salt mine there, a trip recommended by a good friend who missed the opportunity last time he was here but made sure we stayed on track :) The salt mines are pretty impressive... down 60+ flights of stairs and into 100+ miles of caves... some of them hand-carved and beyond belief... there are chapels down here and a vast underground church...

On Friday we visited Auschwitz; Not your usual holiday destination but really interesting nonetheless. I'm not a big fan of human suffering and abject misery, especially on such a grand scale, but I'm sure the blazing sunshine made the experience a whole lot more palatable. I'd recommend a visit if you're passing this way. The sheer scale of the Birkenau camp is food for thought...

So tomorrow (later this morning, rather) we tour the city itself... Krakow, the Wawel Dragon, the castle... Dobranoc!

The TumbleDown Dick

Sign the petition!

Oh woe is me! They shut down the Tumbledown Dick. In fact, this is old news, they shut down the Tumbly back in February.

For those of you who don't know The Tumbledown, it is (was) the best local pub in the area for live music of the alternative/rock/punk kind. OK, there's The Agincourt in Camberley and the West End Centre in Aldershot (each 5 miles away) but the Tumbledown was ours. The Tumbledown was Farnborough's own unique pub.

Farnborough is a very average British small town, population c. 45,000. Apart from Farnborough Abbey, where Napoleon III is buried, and the Farnborough Airshow, there's not much to write home about other than our once-great music venue The Tumbledown Dick with live bands and the Quarantine Club rock/alt night.

After an environmental health inspection the owners of the Tumbledown Dick, Spirit Group, decided to shut the pub. Now, after literally decades of chronic underinvestment the rumours are that the pub could become a "family friendly" pub... that sends shivers down my spine. All the other "family friendly" pubs in the area are either totally dull and all look the same or the youngest members of the family have to be gone and in bed by 8pm, leaving only the older members of the family to prop up the bar and drink crap lager.

I digress...

The Tumbledown Dick was getting better and better as a live music venue, we even had our eyes on a Smiths tribute band in July and bands booked all the way up until November... until some silly person decided to shut our favourite live music boozer!

If you're from Farnborough or nearby, if you like your live music, if you ever enjoyed a band at the Tumbledown or ever played there, or like me, you wanted to get your first gig at The Tumbledown... then please please please help out and save this pub before it goes down the pan...

Sign the petition to Spirit Group to Save the Tumbledown Dick as a live music venue!

Snow? In April?

Well, as you can see, the blossoms that have been around since February (!) are still here and now we've had snow (Sunday).

For us Brits, and especially us southerners, it was weird to get snow in April. Even more surprising was the rapid change in weather from driving rain ("I can't sleep because the rain's banging against my window" at 7:00am) to a thick blanket of snow ("Look, mummy, it's SNOWING!" at 7:30am)

So rather than curl up and stay snug we all went out in it :)