Gone to Florida to test this monster out. Back in two weeks.

On Wednesday afternoon I finally got round to looking at a few blogs for the first time in a week. I noted that Troubled Diva was having a mini-meet in a pub in London and as Edward is in Northumberland with his Gran and Grandad, saving me the schlep home after work to walk him, I, ahem, cleared my diary to attend. Darren was meeting with his football chums to watch the Arsenal match in another pub so he was unable to escort me. So I then called Diamond Geezer on his mobile phone and he told me he’d love to join us but the ten hour flight from San Francisco might make him a bit late (memo to self: open all daily blog reads before making social plans). Friendless and alone I trudged across Green Park towards Soho where the Algonquin-Round-Table-esque event was taking place. Good job I had my PSP as everyone was fashionably late. How sad must I have looked standing in a Soho bar nursing a pint, playing a PSP and listening to the new Morrissey album on headphones? Very. Anyway, everyone eventually arrived and we pretended to be witty for a few hours and then I was ordered home by ‘im indoors and when I left everyone talked about me in a “who the fuck was that boring bastard?” type of way. Not that I’m paranoid or anything. I met Anna and Johnny and Robin and a man with a beard whose name and blog I missed as I'd had three pints by then but am currently awaiting clarification email from TD, ex-blogger Nigel was there and then (shock horror) someone who doesn't have a blog arrived (he only reads them! Weirdo!).

Update: Mike tells me that the bearded blogger was none other than Jack The Ripper expert and author Alan Sharp from Random Burblings.

Easter weekend in sunny Blackpool. I received 8 Easter eggs. 6 from Darren (£3.50 for 3 at Sainsbury’s), 1 from Mum and Dad (it came with 7 creme eggs) and 1 from friends (Maltesers) in payment for looking after their evil rabbit. All eggs were melted down and spread over the thighs of Wigan rugby squad before they clamped their legs around my neck. Then I woke up.
We took Mum and Dad to The Cottage for lunch on Saturday and they had the OAP special (cod, chips, cup of tea and a hanky up the sleeve) and then forced them to play crazy golf in a gale (I won despite having chocolate smeared all around my mouth). At Saint Annes Pier (my Mums fave pier cos it’s her name – Anne, not Pier) I spent £7 in 2p pieces on a machine that pushes 2p pieces over the edge of a shelf where they drop into a tray where you can collect them and put them back into the machine until you have none left. Huge fun. We then visited the Lifeboat museum and marvelled at how shiny the volunteers keep the lifeboat (but not the tractor that tows it into the waves). In the giftshop I resisted the urge to buy a plastic shark head on a stick (it ‘talks’ when you pull the ‘trigger’) and I felt guilty that I hadn’t kept a few 2p pieces for the lifeboat charity money-box near the exit. On the way home Darren discovered that if he cranked up the heating in the car my Mum and Dad would fall asleep within 5 minutes. We tried this back at the house and it worked there too!
Doctor Who was great and I have started a campaign for the nurses at my local hospital to wear cat masks while they go about their nursing duties. These cat-nurses featured in an erotic nightmare I enjoyed later that night. They were administering melted chocolate easter eggs via a drip plugged directly into my expanding tummy. Yummy.
While my Mum and Dad slept next to the gas fire Darren and I drove to Preston to see Embrace play at the Guildhall. What a strange venue, like a mini stadium or a huge modern church. The support act were Morning Runner and they sounded like Coldplay getting into bed with Keane (this can be a good or a bad thing depending on your preferred level of blandness).
The ‘singer’ from Embrace is one of the worst singers I have heard. After the first few songs I looked around at my neighbours to see if it was just me who thought he was murdering his own songs. Everyone else was waving their arms and singing along and not one person met my questioning eyes to confirm that “yes, he is a fucking awful singer”. I thought he might be doing it deliberately in an ‘ironic’ sense similar to Les Dawson when he used to hit bum notes while playing the piano but it seems he wasn’t. No wonder he started every song shouting “come on, sing along everyone!”.
On Easter Sunday we dressed up as nurse-cats smart and went driving in the Lancashire countryside. We found a nice restaurant beside some water and had a huge lunch. The beef in my pie was cooked in Murphy’s stout and was stupendous. I made sure they seated us next to a draughty door as I wanted to keep Mum and Dad awake (remember, cold = wide awake) and it worked, Dad paid for lunch.

The rabbit has gone and harmony has returned to Spellcnut towers. I caught a cold and stayed off work sick yesterday. 2 Ministers cases and a briefing pack dragged me back to my desk today. 2 hours of tattoo agony tonight followed by a dark drive to Blackpool for Easter weekend with Darren and my parents. Seeing Embrace on Saturday in Preston and Bananarama in Blackpool on monday. Classic Easter cuisine will be chocolate and chips with a dash of lager. I finished reading Modern Ranch Living and it was fantastic, I didn't want it to end. Manchester Passion tomorrow night on telly looks dead good. Who can resist Jesus singing Smiths and Joy Division songs? Not me.

Apparently the western world is completely controlled by money to the extent that if just 30% of UK households take control of their energy and water resources and reduce their costs then prices will rise for everyone else to counteract this. Environmental issues will never EVER take priority over profits. The swelling ecological movement may be good news for the planet but if it continues to grow we’ll all be out of pocket. Is the only solution to be 100% self sufficient?

In other news, The Guillemots album is ace, easter eggs are made of chocolate (not painted and hard-boiled chicken spawn), peanut butter on melba toast is gay, and my sweet-potato curry takes two hours from pantry to pot to plate. Less than a week to go before Dr Who. Woo hoo!

Isn't google brilliant!

Rollercoasters are expensive to design and build. There is a healthy market in 2nd hand rollercoasters. HUGE rides are carefully dismantled to make way for new thrills and most rides are relocated and enjoyed by a new audience. It's very admirable that very little is wasted in the theme park industry.
There was a short lived theme park in Florida in the 1970's and 80's named Circus World. The theme was, surprisingly, the circus. Their centrepiece was a huge wooden rollercoaster named The Roaring Tiger (for a very short period it was outrageously named The Michael Jackson Thrill Coaster!) and it had a classic out-and-back layout with steep hills and lots of out-of-your-seat thrills. I got to ride this coaster in 1982 and took this picture half way down the first drop:



As the ride reached it's furthest point I turned around in my seat and took this picture (which reamins to this day my favourite rollercoaster pic beacause of the sheer joy it captures):



This shot was taken from the top of the ferris wheel:



When the park went bust and closed in the late 80's The Roaring Tiger was bought by a Park in Arkansas for $10,000 and they spent another $900,000 transporting it and rebuilding it for the good people of Hot Springs (less than a million for a classy ride like this is an ENORMOUS bargain). Look how stunning it looks in it's new home:





That's my kind of landscaping.
The Arkansas Twister is it's new name and doesn't it look at home on those lush Ozark hills amid the still-living lumber.

I was good at falling in love with straight boys.
I was 18 when I first went to America (we called it America in 1982 unlike ‘the States’ now). I had been due to go to Morocco for a month with Kevin Dunn but he crashed his Vespa the day before we were due to fly. Dumb ass. I had one month booked off from work and nowhere to go. The kind lady in the travel agents talked me into a 21 day camping trip from New York to Miami and back again (the tour company still do this trip 25 years later). This turned out to be a life changing decision and was the kick-start to the life I'm living now. The next day I was on my way to New York City. My Mum cried at the airport because she thought she wouldn’t see me alive again. Kojak was still on TV and Starsky and Hutch were still fresh in our minds.
New York was UNBELIEVABLE and will be another blog entry one day. There were 10 of us travelling in a comfy van with tents and stuff on the roof. Every day we camped somewhere different and in major locations we stayed for several days. I learned to ride a horse in the Blue Mountains of Kentucky, I learned to ride a jet ski in Tampa Bay, I saw my first pussy up-close in a stripper bar in Buffalo, I learned to walk a high-wire, I went to Disney World and began a love affair with Mickey and his evil corporation, I ate food I hadn’t seen before ("what’s a red pepper?") and I met people who inspired me.
We slept in two-man tents and I teamed up with a guy from New Zealand who was travelling around the world before his father handed the family farm over to him. Colin was big, handsome, hairy and brusque. We got along like a house on fire and within a few days he had me drinking beer at breakfast and skinny-dipping in freezing lakes in Carolina. We stayed in a hotel for two nights when we got to New Orleans and our driver got us a great deal on a place with a swimming pool in the French Quarter. We drank hurricanes by the pool and had a group meal at a haunted restaurant then drank more hurricanes at Pat O’Brien’s bar. Needless to say Colin and I ended up back at the hotel skinny-dipping in the dark and deserted swimming pool. Our play-wrestling turned a little violent and while we were throwing each other around in the water it became obvious to both of us that we were, er, aroused. We kissed like greedy amatuers in the deep end, which was uncomfortable as I’m only five foot six so we stumbled to bed in suspense at what might happen. Nothing happened. We climbed into bed and fell asleep. Not in each other’s arms, not spooning but not exactly at the far ends of the mattress either. We didn’t mention it the next day and we carried on as if nothing had happened (and technically it hadn’t). I was totally in love with him by the time we got back to New York and we had three days alone to explore the city. Colin obviously enjoyed my company as he changed his travel plans and flew back to the UK with me and spent some time in Northumberland before going off to travel around Europe. Apart from maybe a few ‘crushes’ at school this was my first ‘full on’ straight-boy love affair. I was a mess when he left to go travelling. I sort of knew at the time that this wouldn’t be the last occasion when a man would make my heart hurt but I still hoped it wouldn’t be too long before the next one came along (it wasn't and they came thick and fast after that).

4 years later in New Zealand I got to introduce Colin to my boyfriend Tom and he introduced me to his wife, Karen. We didn’t get drunk and we didn't mention that night.

1978, industrial Northumberland, Thursday evening, YMCA disco for 14 –18 year olds. Tracey Moor has a fabulous new gold polyester jumpsuit, her hair has Farah Fawcett flicks and her face is slathered in make up. She looks great. In just one week she will arrive at the disco completely transformed into a watered down version of Siouxsie circa Hong Kong Garden. Her fat friend, Karen Donaldson doesn’t look so good but smiles a lot. In just 12 months Karen will be pregnant after getting fucked by a greasy gypsy behind the waltzer at the coal-miners picnic and annual funfair. I grab a fanta from the pop shop near the gym and wander into the disco. The room is dark but the mobile disco at the far end is doing it’s best to recreate a little slice of Studio 54 just for us. Despite the charts being full of generic disco shit our discotheque plays stuff that actually fills the floor at 54. 'American Generation' by The Ritchie Family starts up and gangs of girls gather in circles to dance and stare at seated boys. 'Got A Feeling' by Patrick Juvet is next. These two records are always played together and I love them. The strings and key changes in both songs made me feel ‘weird’ and it was years before I would learn, and therefore understand the ‘weird’ feeling, that they were created by and for gay men. Boys never danced to disco at the YMCA but at 9.30 the music policy changed for 30 minutes. The punk-half-hour usually cleared the room and left a small core of us to jump up and down to 7” singles that we had to take to the disco ourselves (write your name on the record sleeve or lose it). By the end of 1978 our small core had grown considerably due to girls like Tracy Moor and boys from the football team (i.e. role models) getting ‘punked-up’. The punk-half-hour was joined by the heavy-metal-half-hour and the new outsiders became the long haired pot smokers who stood still in the middle of the dance floor and agitated their heads to 'Smoke On The Water'. The disco tunes continued to fill most of the evening for the next few years and this cross-pollination of provincial pop culture reached it’s lowest point when Tracey Moor was seen twirling round the dancefloor in bondage pants and a 999 t-shirt while Patrick Juvet trilled ‘I Love America’.

Cracking weekend. On Friday evening a rabbit arrived (see what I did there?) and Edward went into murder mode. We’re babysitting a black bunny for friends but can’t wait to get rid of it because our Jack Russell is now demented with jealousy and rage. He’s whining and is locked out of rooms he normally has access to and has killed two mice and a rat this weekend in our garden as practice.

Toddled off to Alton Towers on Saturday morning and arrived in a hail storm! Checked into the hotel then caught the monorail over to the theme park. Guest relations were very VERY good to us and gave us priority passes to ALL the rides (instead of just Rita - Queen Of Speed as promised on the phone) which meant that we walked straight onto every ride that day. The park was packed as the Easter school holidays started this weekend. The hail storm lasted 15 minutes and cleared the air and then the sun crept out and stayed with us for most of the day. Rita was stunning. She has a real rib cage busting launch followed by tight banked corners and three out-of-seat air-time pops. The whole thing lasts about 30 seconds and is pretty relentless until the brakes at the station. The ride looks great sitting next to the old corkscrew and is another winner for Alton Towers. The rest of the day was spent riding our old favourites and giving marks out of ten to all the family guys.



In the evening we ate at Flambo's restaurant (authentic Carribbean cuisine! Not). Twas top tucker though, and all-you-can-eat too, so we were like pigs in mud. Washed it down with an expensive wine which made us feel a bit less trailer-trash. In the bar afterwards we were entertained by a comedy/singing duo who very wittily changed the words of classic soul songs to feature remarks about various Alton Towers rides breaking down (I wondered if the management were aware of this). My bf buys great gifts and this weekend was one of the best. Ta love!



On Sunday evening we went to see Depeche Mode re-open the new Wembley Arena (Englands Madison Square Garden! (copyright ITV news)). There are now dancing musical fountains outside the arena but not much has changed inside. The building does seem warmer and there are more alcohol sellers but the same old two-mile queue to take a piss remains. Our ‘industry’ tickets were great, next to the guitar tech desk and very close to the stage. DM did a great mixture of the new album and the old hits and the stage set was very futuristic and shiny (unlike Dave Gahans on-stage rock-god act). At times it was like the Mick and Keef show with Dave and Martin leaning against each back-to-back and then Dave dropping to his knees to ‘worship’ Martins guitar. He also had this annoying habit of shouting “OH YEAH” and “THAT’S RIGHT” and “COME ON” in the middle of songs like what Def Leppard might do. Apart from that though it was all thoroughly enjoyable and bloody loud.
£15 to park the fucking car and you can’t add a few more toilets!!!