Smoke 'em if you got 'em

Hey Squirts, Nic here!

Since we last spoke there has been some big goings on in the town I currently call home.

Now to go and see the photo gallery you will have to click on the pitures. so click away and you will be taken to the photo gallery.

6 months ago I was given a date by Helen to make sure I had off from work. Well I had no idea what it was and last Thursday I was told I had to be up at 6am and ready to leave at 7am. Well up I was and on the tube with no idea of where we were going. I had thought maybe we were off for a day in an English town somewhere. Well I was very surprised that we ended up in Kings Cross – which links up with St Pancras Station. I was then given an envelope which had a picture of soup and said that we were off to a Soup Festival. St Pancras gave me an idea of where we may be headed as the Eurostar had just recently moved to depart from this station.

We were booked on the 8.50 train to Lille, France. Before we got on we celebrated with a bottle of champagne and then traveled for 1 ½ hours through to France. We got out at Lille and went and explored the city. Unfortunately it was May 1, which is a stop-work day for most of Europe. That meant that the tube service wasn’t working and that we had to take a taxi. When we got to the village there was a market going on which sold things we weren’t interested in – no soup – yet…

Festival of Soup - Lille, France

So, as any good travelers do, we headed to the pub for a few drinks to ponder where the festival was. With our limited French we were able to ascertain that the festival didn’t begin until 3pm on the dot so we made ourselves comfy and settled in for an afternoon session. After a few pints we went and explored the town which was gearing itself up for festivities. We found a tent and found out we had to buy a small bowl for around £2 and when the fest started we could fill our bowls up everywhere for free.

3 o’clock came around and it was everyman for themselves. This was for a competition for the Golden Ladle and we started with the 1st prize winner from last year which was a group from Brazil. And they had the goods – but we were bale to find as good as we toured the streets. Everyone who participated were amateurs and had rustled together the best soup they could make or had been made during their childhood. And the best thing was there were no other tourists around – this was a very local event which we were lucky enough to be involved in.

There were probably about 50 different soups that were able to be tested – all to varying degrees of success mind you… on the 9.30 train back to London we were ready for another weekend of busy-ness.

Friday at 3pm we got a ring on the doorbell and who is there but Ed and his girlfriend Katrina here for the long weekend. They came bearing gifts and we had a great catch up as it has been almost 3 years since seeing Ed. After a few drinks we headed down to the local pub – The 10 Bells which has been open since the 1600’s and is where Jack The Ripper used as his drinking hole and has been used in the movie ‘To Hell’ with Johnny Depp. Ed is not a drinker but I wouldn’t let him pass through London without trying the famous ‘room temperature’ beers that they are famous for. He only had a small one but it was more than enough for him.

We then headed down to Shoreditch where I had booked a table at a Vietnamese restaurant which Helen and I had been to before. It was busy and we ordered but when our meals came Ed had ordered a dish we had last time and it looked very different but apparently it was the right dish. I ordered flame grilled pork belly which sounded good. When it arrived it was in a soup and the ‘crackling’ was non existent. The fat was just that and there were 3 boiled eggs in there with it. Not choosing that again. We also found out that Katrina would hammer a nail into her hand for £20 000. That’s a bit expensive.

Mr Ed in London

The next day Katrina was going to meet up with her friends so I took Ed on Nic’s Grand Tour of London™. We first went to see a photographic exhibition which gave Ed some inspiration for photos he was going to take. From Piccadilly we went through Green Park to Buckingham Palace to The Horse Guards to 10 Downing Street to Big Ben and Westminster to Westminster Abbey to The Eye to Trafalgar Square (where Ed needed a sit down as he wasn’t used to tramping around London. He even shouted me a Starbucks as a bribe to sit down so we sat on Nelson’s Column – get your minds out of the gutter – in Trafalgar square. Then we went to the National Gallery to The South Bank to Oxo Tower to St Paul’s Cathedral – where we got in free because of evensong – to Tower of London to Tower Bridge and then back home. We were pretty buggered but Helen was putting on her Lasagna which was just what everyone needed. After dinner we relaxed and then headed to Brick lane for a drink. It was god weather so it was pretty packed but we got a table and brought Jenga out for a game. We got a pretty high tower but I was the one who lost that game. Luckily the bar closed and I didn’t have to buy the round.

On Sunday we headed to Regent’s park for a walk then through Primrose Hill into Camden. After the girls left to visit their friends we caught the bus to Oxford Circus and visited Niketown and the Apple Shop. Ed was very impressed and we even didn’t believe it when we went to the table to play around with the new Apple Phone and found that you were allowed to call anyone on it to test it. You can’t even do that in a phone shop. We then headed back to brick lane where I bought a bootleg copy of Iron Man only to find that once at home it was not that movie at all. For dinner we had Turkey and then watched another dud copy of There Will Be Blood which was good but the DVD was not. Monday morning they headed off and we wished them well on their way.

Then a week of work.

Then the weekend again. They need to come around more often than they do. On Saturday Helen and I headed up to see her parents for the day. Helen’s mum met us at the station and we headed back to theirs where we all loaded up a picnic and headed to Cliveden http://www.clivedenhouse.co.uk/default.asp?Page=gardens Lesley booked both Helen and I tickets on the boat cruise that goes down the Thames. Unfortunately there was a mix up with the boat drivers so we had the picnic first. The spread was superb with 3 – yes Three – types of pate along with everything else that was laid out. We had our fill then headed onto the boat ride for a meander down the river. When we got back we had strawberries for dessert and then played a bit of Frisbee which I had brought from home. Phil has a good arm on him and Helen is ever improving. We then headed back to the car and headed to their home where Phil and I did an inspection of the house that is being built next door. Seems like it’s too small for a 4 bedroom house.

Clifton Picnic + Longwave

We settled into the garden and read the newspapers and I decided it had all been a bit much so I closed my eyes and fell asleep. According to a photo so did Phil. When we came to we decided on going for a bite of dinner to the best Italian in town then head back to the station where we headed to Camden to see a band.

Those of you who are fans of Something for Kate will remember this band we saw. I remember Sharpy, Patto, Chiari and maybe Hoppy were there. We were at the Great Northern in Byron Bay – doing our usual following of either S4K for Jebediah as they played the East Coast. There was a support band this one time from New York called Longwave. We liked them but other than that support slot we never got to hear of them. This was in about 2001. I found out hey were playing 1 gig in London and went to see them. They have gotten heavier/louder but are as good as they were back then.



Pete has been let out of jail and has rescheduled the solo show he was supposed to play. Here is a good clip of what he is really like:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/video/2008/may/06/pete.doherty.jail

Also DSHAR2 aka Dane Sharp – Harbourtown Nike Store Manager has released another single off his new album. Check it out:



And as it is my job to introduce you to new things, here is something that wasn’t on my radar until just recently and I think that you will enjoy it. It’s a show called Peep Show and this is the very 1st episode. You can track the rest down on You Tube…









And my new section:

Trailer Park Tuesday:

Hang in with this one…





And my prediction of the sleeper hit of the year….


Until next time…. Back up the tree I go.