from Simons Birthday to V-festival

31 Aug 2007 V Wet It’s the night of the blackpool lights switch on and its pissing down, so I’m listening to the festivities on the radio from the comfort of the living room, ive had enough of listening to bands in the rain recently….whih brings me on to this years V festival which had its highs and lows. Lows: Rain, ebay thieves, police dogs, rain, people in a bad mood cos of the rain, Greta having a bad eye, carrying tons of tents and stuff through miles of mud.   Highs: Lilly allen pissed on stage, Taking the piss out of greta having a bad eye (she was the Spanish widow, talking rubbish with friends in the tent (ask golden Virginia and I still say Man City would be a great name for a gay bar) and dancing the night away on the Sunday night.   Despite the hastles of camping in the rain, we went camping again the following week in a beer garden in Inglewhite, during the day we walked the 6 miles up and around beacon fell. As usual tyler was bounced around it with no problem while we struggled on behind. During the evening we bought as much booze as we could from the pub then back to the tent for a final bottle of wine.   Although it’s the light swith on tonight Simon and I had a preview when we cycled down the prom and back along with 100’s of others. It was a great evening and fairly healthy (apart from the sausage roll, donuts and southern comfort we had on the way)   Right I’d best head off Tra’ 21:03 – 0 Comments – 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

re-Toon-ing part 2 So after the art we popped back to pick up oscar and his new housemate Lee. We headedover to tyne mouth where we discovered there was a festival on although. We didn’t really see much part the crowds other than the odd brass horn and some smoke. The tyne mouth market was interesting as ever selling everything from dolls that look babys suffering from a lack of oxygen, to plaques of the old tourist posters telling the world ‘Life is gay,in whitly bay’. While browsing simon and I could hear oscar the other side of the market ‘enthusiasticly’ explain to Lee why a gollywog was not just an innocent childs toy. I felt sorry for ian on the journey home as he was trapped in a car with 3 gay men and a shirley bassey cd. Simon and me them started our evening about 4.30 by meeting martin in the beautifully converted train station building, the centurion. Simon listened to martin and of reminise about our wild drinking nights, involving strip clubs,chillie vodka, and the scar martin still has after my 30th birthday. We left martin and headed back down the scene to surprise diane, my favorite karaoke hostess .lots of screams, hugs and kisses plus a couple of karaoke numbers. The night continued onto several bars. I was driving so i stuck with soft drinks. Si however was feeling the affects of drinking for several hours so he moved onto the still orange drink reef. How was he supposed to know it was 5%. So other than stopping off at haidrians wall and carlisle on the way home, that was our trip to newcastle. 9:46 – 2 Comments – 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

re_Toon_ing part 1

I dragged Si up to Newcastle this weekend to see all my old mates as I haven’t been back since I moved to blackpool a year ago.

 

A missed shortcut meant we got their late but manage to drive past the angel of the north ond over the Tyne bridge to Oscars. A quick chill later we were off into the toon and first stop was the Trent House which is a great student pub which has been loved by generations, It has a cabinet of novelty condoms and claims to have the best juke box in the world. From there we moved over to a similar pub called the Forth which was far too noisy so after a toilet break it was off to Coco.v which was full of hen parties, stag parties and a waiter with a fantastic butt, as Oscar pointed out.

 

Then on to the Gay scene we started at a new bar called gossip which is part of the club. Bland bar, high prices. Then down to The Eagle (or the Vulture as oscar called it) this was always my HQ where the nights out would begin and end. When Simon saw the place he pointed out it looked like the hillbilly shooting range at the amusement arcade on the North Pier. By this point I had consumed several vodkas so recollections may get haizy. Over the course of the night we met up with many old friends including Mitch, Jeff, Bobby, Jason and many whos name I couldn’t remember not to mention a few I have no recollection of ever seeing before in my life, but they all asked how I was doing in Blackpool. At some point we ended up over at the yard and heavens above although I cant remember much from there other than a fight broke out on the stairs. When we drunkenly made it back to the eagle se met up with paddy, a good friend who is far to intelligent and thinks too much or his own good.

 

By then it was time to go home, particularly as the drinks rounds were astronomical, as was the taxi fair home.

 

Day 2 started with the full tourist thing, breakfast in blakes (according to the observer the 50^th best place in the country for breakfast) Then down the beautiful dean street, through the Sunday market and over the winking eye bridge to the Baltic art gallery where we popped up to the viewing platform to see the bridge raise . We then looked at all of the exhibitions, includeing a collection of paintings by Beryl Cook. This collection included a painting of sailors getting tattooed, which was slightly different to the drawing, on the same subject, by Tom of Finlad that we say earlier in the day in Oscars

collection.

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Boo

Every so often, especially on a busy and bright weekend, It still find it odd to step outside my frount door and find Blackpool there.

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Social Net hard Work

Is it just me or is everyone getting loads of emails at the moment from friends asking to join one social network or another? On the whole myspace seems to work for me as i can blog, customize my profile and keep in touch with people. It would be better if you could manage it on a mobile or text in a blog entry.

But after a recent flurry of invites i have got myself a Facebook account, although its early days so i can’t really see what the advantages are over myspace. I have also set myself up on twitter ,which allows me to say what i’m doing via sms which then appears as if by magic on my other profiles.

And for those in the know i still keep in touch with friends via G’dar.

Not to mention MSN Messenger and Skype.

There are others that i’ve not managed to get set up on or not kept upto date with such as second life, elgg and tag. Its no wonder i haven’t found time to try my favorite social network, The New Road Inn on karaoke night.

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OH MY GOD

Kylie in DR Who? I may explode

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i’m back in the blogosphere

Its coming up to a month since my last post so here’s an update of whats been going on. Simon and I took Tyler camping again. It was good but next time we go we will have to get something to repell the midges. Any suggestions? It was my birthday earlier in the month so we went down to delamere forest in cheshire and spend a day there at go ape which is an asault course of zip wires, rope bridges and cargo nets in the trees. That evening we returned to the forest to see The Feeling at a great open air concert. It was like a very posh festival, well it was Cheshire. After that Simons been working nights and ive been skint so the rest of the month was fairly quiet. As a birthday treat I got myself a PS2 from ebay and have been keeping myself busy with lego starwars and prince of persia games.

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Mixed Emotions

Evil selfish posh bird is out the apprentice, but only cos she quit. I wanted her to be fired.

 

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Camp

After a working week of arguments and tension and a Saturday morning of chores and housework, which somehow made the house look worse than when i’d started, I picked up Simon from work early Saturday afternoon and randomly suggested we go camping. So an hour or 2 later we were on the road with a tent and a dog in the back. We got into a nice little campsite near lake Windermere. With tyler tied to a fence we got the tent up and the kettle on in no time at all. We enjoyed a wander in widemer where tyler received a hissing off some swans, a conversation with a farting horse, an evening of a few cans with fellow campers james and jade (we recon they were swingers), a night of trying to sleep on the hard ground ( we forgot the airbed) and Tyler taking over half the sleeping bag. In the morning we had time for campfire bacon butties before we packed up and headed home.

 

Big Brother started this week and I have no shame in saying I am watching it. I know most us BB fans are looked down upon by the rest of society, most of whom are proud of the fact they have never watched it, although I don’t see how anyone can be proud of never doing something. It’s a building of opinionated, volatile personalities who cant make a simple decision, such as who uses the hair straighteners, without going through a full committee, that cant agree, and never stick to the decisions they make. It’s very familiar.

 

Today I was loaned a copy of “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins. I have only got through chapter one so far but I love it already. Its not just that the subject matter is interesting, but I really enjoy Richards cantankerous style of pointing out the arrogance and stupidity of other people, particularly religious fundamentalists like the protester with the placard “Behead those who say Islam is a violent religion”.

Currently reading : The God Delusion By Richard Dawkins Release date: 18 September, 2006

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Home and dry

It was Simons 38th Birthday yesterday so its been a busy weekend.

On Saturday Mark, Simons ex was up with Mandy from Manchesterford. Before doing the now obligatory bars and club till 6 in the morning, we went to the new show at Funny Girls. It was by far the best show I have ever seen there with feathers, fireworks and fancy footwork. Their version of riverdance had me in stitches.

Sunday we should have been recovering, but instead we drove down to Winsford to introduce ..:namespace prefix = st1 ns = “urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags” />Tyler to Simons parents and the nephews. At one point everyone was sat on the floor apart from Simons mom and Tyler who wasted no time in making herself comfortable on the sofa.

Sunday night, just past midnight was prezzie time. I think Simon liked everything with the possible exception of the daniel o’donnel singing birthday card.

On Monday we got the train down to Manchester where we shopped before seeing the pet shop boys at the Apollo. Great venue and the gig was ok, although It didn’t blow me away as much as the funny girls show. Simon enjoyed it although he spent so much time filming it on his mobile, he missed some of what was going on and is only catching up on it now as he rewatches the clips. Of course the evening was finished off with canal street bars and a club before returning to our hotel.

And today we have done little more than recover.

One more thing, Saturdays Doctor Who was one of the best have ever seen. Not because of over the top effects or CGI aliens, but great story telling well written, acted and directed.

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From Italy Nov06 to the Lakes Jan07

07 Jan 2007 Resolution Like half the world I have decided that New Year is time for me to start getting healthy again. So I’ve joined a gym. Not the best gym in the world but its cheap and cheerful and Simon is already a member so we now get cheaper joint membership.  So I’ve been a few times, and have tried to improve my eating habits.  The hardest part will be trying to not give in when Simon has had a bad day at work and demands a pizza/curry/Chinese. I’ve also signed up to a website to keep track of my progress. so if you want to know how im doing go to http://kevhickeyuk.traineo.com Also I am looking for some motivators.  I think it just means you get an email with updates from the website.  Please let me know if you will be my motivator. Other than that, nothing to report. Tra’ 15:28 – 0 Comments – 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Christmas and new year Current mood: full Its been a while since my last blog so here’s how our xmas and new year went -         A couple of days at Simons parents which included giving prezzies to his nephews, and playing with them. When we left the kids were getting used to the tongue twister “Kevin Mickey jimmy Hickey” -         A party at Simons friends, Dawn and Carl involving clothes pegs and candle wax (don’t ask) -         Christmas eve at the NRI -         Christmas eve opening of prezzies, I got loads of stuff including a fred perry t-shirt and camping books. -         Christmas day at Lynzi and Kates house, including a late night vistit from a stray kitten we christened Boney (as in Boney M) -         3 days over new year in a cottage in the lake district. Short walks and long nights. Would have been great if it wasn’t for sleeping in 2 single beds pushed together. That’s basicly been it.  It has all led to several pounds being transferred from my bank account to my waisteline.  So now is the time to get back to work (I start in 50 mins) and get fit.  Watch this space 8:12 – 0 Comments – 0 Kudos - Add Comment - Edit - Remove

Pizzamania

Last week we went out on Simons works do.  Before we went we got in the mood by listening to a load of old tunes, everything from the best of Mel and Kim to Pizzaman (which is what Norman cook called himself before he became fatboy slim).  The night out went as works Christmas nights out should, food, drink, tears, illicit snogs.  Just for a change I was the only one who was sober enough to remember.

 

Last night we went out to the famous New Road Inn as it was the 30^th birthday of the landlady’s daughter, Zoë.  They had the most entertaining stripper I have ever seen.  He came on with comedy goofy teeth, NHS glasses kept together with a bandage, and a dirty Mac.  After several mins of gyrating as a nerd in front of the highly embarrassed birthday girl.  All nerdy outerwear was removed, to reveal a decent looking guy.  He got down to his pants, Dee, the landlady, told us later that he would have gone all the way but she was worried some of the older clientele might have been offended.  I got the impression most of the clientele would have been far from offended.

Currently listening : Pizzamania By Pizzaman Release date: 22 June, 2000

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night out

I feel rough as a rough things rough bits. damn hangovers. Simon had a bad time recovering from having his tonsils out. but is on the mend now so we went out last night and made the most of it.

Its been a while since i had a big night out,  and last night I rememberd how good a night out in bp can be, compared to “rip off” newcastle.  In newcastle going to the club means spending £10 to get in and listening to music to please the masses in a clostofobic room.

Last night it was £6 to get in, and for that we got a dance CD, live entertainment in the form of Peter Andre and Jordan dueting, followed by fire breathers, stilt walkers and dancers with good quality dance music.

Right not really got much more to say so ill shut up now.

tra

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Tonsills, Dusty,Lakes and another leap
Current mood: chipper

Well its been a few weeks since i last blogged properly so heres an  update.

Simon has had his tonsells out which so i’m busy nursing him back to health,  well i was, now i’m board with that so i have reverted to the ‘tough love’ approch. I’ll make him suffer.

I am in the process of moving in with him officially, not that it makes a great deal of diference as i haven’t stayed at my place in months.

I have discovered that the most emotionaly draining experiance anyone can go though is listening to Dusty Springfield greatest hits.  She could have sung the birdy song and it would have brought tears to my eyes.

I’m looking forward to New Year in a cottage in the Lake district.  No clubs, no pub crawl, no naff DJ.  sounds great.

another thing im looking forward to is a new album/dvd fro the guys who made 1 giant leap.  If you havent heard the frst cd or watched the dvd, you really must, they are amazing.  apparenty the second will feature “Noam Chomsky, Tim Robbins, KD Lang, Zap Mama, Susan Sarandon, Courtney Love, Daniel Lanois, Alanis Morrisette, Oumou Sangare, Rokia Traore, Lila Downs, Deepak Chopra, Stephen Fry, Douglas Coupland, John Cusack, and brain surgeons, drug smugglers, belly-dancers and preachers filmed and recorded in 50 new global locations”
Heres the trailer

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Currently listening : Ultimate Collection By Dusty Springfield Release date: 04 December, 2001

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holiday pics

The photos from Italy are here:

http://kevhickey.fotoblog.co.uk/c1132378.html

and before anyone says it, yes i know ive put weight on

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Return to Rome, Liverpool and Blackpool

On The train ride back to Rome we had a cabin to ourselves so we reclined the seats, took our boots off and let some air get to our blisters. For our last evening in Rome we went back to the hippie hour bar for the gay choir chanting. They were really pleased to see us back and we were introduced to each member of the choir one by one. The woman behind the bar spoke pigeon English, but we got by ordering several beers, blonde, like Madonna, sometimes. After paying our bill she offered us a free couple of shots, she poured a couple of yellow drinks which we knocked back. It was advocat, but far stronger that the stuff my mom used to have at Christmas. “I made these with my own eggs” she proudly told us, to which we had no reply. 

 

Back at the hostel we might have called it a night if it wasn’t for the accordion and trumpet players outside our window who have us many chorus’s of  “those were the days, my friend”. So we found another bar for a nightcap before catching a few hours kip.  Another early start as we headed to the airport where we passed the time by playing spot the nun and watching the freaks at the airport, who included an MC hammer look alike who was covered from head to toe in studded leather. No idea how he got through the metal detector. Ryan air managed to get us back to winter in Liverpool, this time with out the fanfair and more surprisingly i managed to get us back to blackpool, despite my lack of sleep, for a nice hot bath an early night and relief in the knowledge that i didn’t have to do any more walking.

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Pompaii

It was another early start today with great coffee and a Neapolitan Panini (sausage egg and other things) at the train station then another train ride this time to Pompeii. Pompeii was more impressive than I’d imagined. I was expecting a few walls and holes in the ground but what we found was a genuine town full of homes, shops , theatres, a forum, public baths, and lots more besides.  The blisters wouldn’t allow us to walk round the lot so we focused on a few special areas. Brothel ally for example. There was one brothel really well preserved that we went in. Above the doors were paintings showing what each woman’s speciality was. It was a bit like looking up at the photos to choose what you wanted at MacDonald’s. Having the woman on top, below, or up the bum seemed to be the main items on the menu.  We then walked through the towns bumpy streets till we got to the two Theatres, one large one small.  As we walked through the town it was the small personal everyday touches that made me think about life in the those days and the tragedy that struck.  Then there were the bodies in the glass cases, encased in ash but you could still see the pain and fear on their faces and the bits of skull and skeleton  where the ash has fallen away

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Naples

We were half asleep and hungover in the train carriage, but we noticed the further south we headed use warmer it got. It was hard work trying to get from the station to the hostel in the heat with all our bags, trying to avoid street sellers and speeding vespers. The roads seem permanently gridlocked and most cars have a few dents in the side. The city feels like a cross between rio and cannes, not that i’ve been to either.  Although we were knacked we decided food was more important than sleep. I had a beautiful pizza, swimming in olive oil. The waiter tried chatting about his time working on cruise ships, this should have been a nice change after the rude customer service we had experienced in Rome, but we were too knackered for small talk. The food perked us up a bit so we went for a wander along the sea front. I decided that a tour bus might be better than walking as we both had developed blisters by now. The plan was to find something touristy and a bus would turn up. So we continued until we got to a fort on the sea front, and sure enough there was stop for a guide bus. So we had a sit and watched the world in by, including various joggers. We concluded Naples has better looking men than Rome apart from the ones in uniform. As we waited for a bus to turn up 5 random wild dogs strolled over one by one and collapsed next to me. I found this quite disturbing especially as they had arranged themselves in the formation of a pentangle. The hounds of hell on holiday? An hour passed with no bus so we hobbled down the bay of Naples before heading back. We were still recovering  from the night before so we had a power nap, then spent an hour trying to find a restaurant. Walking  the streets we noticed that everything was grouped into areas, we walked through the shopping area, metalwork area, bookselling area desperate to find the restaurant area. We eventually found a square with a rather naff restaurant but it was good enough for us. Naples seemed to be a vibrant city full of life and energy, unlike us who were back in the hostel asleep by 9.

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Vatican City

Sunday was Vatican day, we got to go into st peters but unfortunately the sisteen chapel was closed. We saw all the tombs of the dead popes, including jp2, unfortunately i wasn’t aloud to dance on it. On the way out of Vatican city we popped into one of the many tacky gift shops which was full of overpriced religious tat, popes on a plate and the like. Simon spotted a 2007 calendar of sexy priests, a concept so wrong he just had to get it. While crossing the Tiber I was lucky enough to buy a ‘genuine’ Rolex for €3O from some guy who disappeared when a policeman started to cross the bridge. We walked across the city, past a street that used to be used for chariot racing. Then up a hill to a relaxing orange garden with amazing views across the city, then past a doorway with a Maltese plaque. The staff at the hippy bar had told up about the keyhole of this door,  which we looked through to see St Peters perfectly framed by a row hedges. So down the other side of the hill and we discovered a green market which we zoomed round getting through as many free samples of wine as we could. By evening we were still waking, this time around the exclusive shops. I was tired and fed up until we got to a bar and downed half a litre of lager.  This helped no end and I even enjoyed another hour of shopping.

 

Sunday night we headed towards the Coliseum  where we eventually found a couple of gay bars that served very strong cocktails, which is why i can’t recall much and why i felt crap when we were up at the crack of dawn to get the train to Naples.

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