Anyone fancy a p(a)int?

As per the previous post it becomes harder to get your mates out for a pint once you reach your 30's, they're either changing nappies, complaining of being skint or being plain miserable, lazy and boring.  So I came up with a solution of sorts, and it's much easier now.  I've added a new painting to the portrait project and there's enough of us now to go for a beer together!  It actually works better than getting down the pub with your your real live friends, there's no arguing about who's round it is, and best of all, having done a self portrait last year I don't even have to turn up myself, just leave 'em to it!  Cheers lads!

'Yoc' - acrylic on canvas, 2014

beer badgering

A night down the pub with the the lads was suggested a couple of weeks ago but come Saturday there was a measly turnout of just two, so myself and Matt The Mule Newell decided that this was simply not good enough and set about badgering a few of the others into submission.  We wore Jay down with a simple but steady stream of text messages but had to take tougher action with Scott, with no response from a barrage of texts and phone calls we had to start getting abusive, we knew he was in hiding from us when we checked xbox live and oh look! there he was "skrotter- online".  Knowing he was at home but ignoring us a bit more abuse was sent before we had no option but to pay him a visit and drag his lazy arse to the pub.  You can run but you can't hide forever.  That's what friends are for right?  making you do things that you don't want to!
Beer, crisps, peanuts, beer and banter.  You enjoyed yourselves in the end, don't say you didn't you bunch of ****s.

24 hour party people

Having not long fully recovered from last Saturday's night in Nantwich with Jay and Yoc, tomorrow is all day party time for Happy Mondays in Betley of all places.  Yes ok Nantwich was a week ago and no being in your 30's does not make hangovers last longer, recovery time is exactly the same!  Right so let me explain, the difference you see is when you get a bit older you become more experienced and adept at partying, your staying power is better and you can party harder, faster and longer and THAT is why it takes a few days to settle back into the real world.  Walking home at 5am last week I knew I would feel slightly jaded for a couple of days but it was worth it.
Sunday is more of an all day than an all night thing.  Happy Mondays, 808 State and The Farm amongst other stuff, a blast back to the early 90's!  Although some of my mates claim they will be taking it easy what with it being Sunday and having work the next day, it's worth noting that there will be 6 lads in their mid 30's (=very experienced animalistic ravers) spending all day and night in a field surrounded by loud music and beer......  

made of stone

the stone roses weekender got going friday midday with gaz and ryan.  ian brown himself found time in the morning to phone me but unfortunately i missed his call


a couple of beers on the train, tram to hotel, back out to city centre for food and beer and off to heaton park in good time to catch the vaccines.  a few beers later saw an end to our drinking due to horrendous crowds at the bars, decided queuing for an hour for beer was idiot and went to enjoy the wailers.  primal scream completed a decent support line up.

enter the fab four, resurrected live on stage with no less than an epic 2 hour set, sounding tight and unexpectedly in tune.  well worth the hype!
another epic performance followed after when we walked all the way back to salford quays, not once did we moan about aching legs and feet and the lack of beer. not once.  overall a good weekend of music, beer and banter.
saturday got back to crewe and went for a few snifters in the white lion to meet a load of mates who were off to see the stone roses second night, unfortunately their night went less well with tales of passing out and missing the show, a chipped tooth, a lost ticket, losing each other in the crowd, lost cameras, being manhandled by security and so on and so on.  nevermind, at least friday went well.

TYSKIE

Had a few cans of this stuff whilst watchin the footy the other night, just to get into the euro 2012 spirit, wow! This is proper fuel, a real man's beer, they should feed this to the polish football team at half time, it surely wouldn't make them any worse!  I had 4 cans and feel no shame in admitting I had a face like a coy carp on crack, I was rockin in a lucid pickle faced Polska land.  Well done Poland, I am impressed.

mashed in manchester

on the train straight out from work to meet lewis, wildor and parky in manchester.
couple of pints while watching the alex win their play off 1st leg.
met up with parker, lino and a few others.
on to the academy to see the cribs, good set, prefer seeing them in a smaller venue but still the cribs never disappoint. got my tshirt ripped in half from crowd surfing.
went off out on the town and on the way to the next bar somehow managed an epic 10 metre falling over just while casually walking, now covered in scrapes and bruises.
went in a bar called 'the deaf institute', cool little place, liked it in there.
went off to 42nd street where they wouldn't let me in without ID, when I exclaimed "I'm 34 mate, I don't carry ID" the bouncer guy says "in that case your too old then, this bar's for students". convincing bouncers I'm over 30 doesn't work anymore then! maybe I should start taking ID out but fake ID showing I'm 24!
As it happens it turned out well as we enjoyed a heavy night on the dubstep scene in factory 251, great fun, throwing some shit hot shapes.
crashed over at lewis's mates flat then got up at an unhealthy hour for a sprint across manchester to try and catch a 9.30am train so that Wil could get back to Crewe for a gym class he was supposed to be in charge of.  4 lads running across manchester carrying holdalls must have looked proper shifty.
got to the platform just in time...... to see the train pulling away.

(almost) everything a bloke needs

Monday night was city v utd for the big title crunch match so seemed a great chance to get the boys round for beer, curry, crisps and xbox. Shouting at the tele, chugging beer, watching in wonderment at scott's warrior like goal celebration, mikes stubborn defence of gary neville's punditry, the genius of ali's over excited crisp lucky dip, yoc's obsession with stealing peoples shoes, scott's bare footed walk home, the lucky lucky luckiness of gaz's xbox triumph. Good banter all round. Love these nights! Beer, mates, footy, banter, curry, xbox, (almost) everything a man needs. Oh and city won 1-0 btw

old skool

after bumping into ali bongo at the jazz fest last week we arranged to get down the pub for beer and footy last night.  ali came round mine in the afternoon for a few hours on the xbox, nowt like a good gaming session! couple of games on fifa then some proper old skool gaming on sensible soccer, track n field and worms, that's what is all about, new games don't compare.  have to admit that after losing a couple of games nothing has changed since all them years ago... there's nothing worse than losing to ali! nothing!! he may have won one or two games but it doesn't change the fact that i am the best.
collins came round and then we were off out to the farmers for beers and the chelsea v barca game.  the mule turned up for a while aswell and the banter picked up where it left off 15 years ago.  best mates are best mates full stop.  with good mates it doesn't matter if you've not seen each other for weeks, months or years, you can pick up where you left off and everything is fine.  some good banter, plenty of beer, crisps, peanuts, football talk and piss taking and thats all any man wants in life.  a good night that no woman would approve of and if ali or colz ask i have nothing to do with the extinction of chickens!

jazzed

rather predictably have spent today nursing a foul hangover. predictable even though all week i claimed i wasnt bothering with the jazz festival this year which by midday sunday had developed to going to nantwich just for a few hours and ended with me stumbling home at 2.30am. same routine every time.
it was good fun though, went down there with lewis, wildor and parky and met up with a load of other people down there. lots of banter, lots of beer and somehow ended up at ali hemptons parents house eating sarnies in the kitchen at 2am.

its like crewe but with more chippys

got a week off work this week so decided to do something other than waste it sitting on my arse. got in touch with mike from college and arranged to go down to fleetwood and crash over for the night. was good to see mike and jess and obviously the essential purpose of the night had to be a few beers in town. its the national pass time, the only way to socialise. "fancy meeting up? not seen you for ages" "yeh lets go and get pissed!" so after a tour of fleetwood pubs i couldnt help thinking its almost exactly like crewe, the same nothing ever happens feel but with added seagulls and extra chip shops. everyone eats fish and chips here, absolutely everyone, they must do because there's 2 chippys on every single street. so a good belly full of beer in town ended up with the inevitable falling asleep on mike's sofa with can of lager in hand. the next day mike showed his reliable college form of being useless with a hangover. so a good midweek trip and now its back home to continue the very slowly progressing decorating of the front room before disappearing to Leeds for the weekend.....

the black keys

went to nottingham friday to see the black keys. drove down with ryan and colin, got to lino's and off out to the pub for a few pints (or snifters as ryan says), taxi to city centre met up with a few others for more drinks. met lewis, mary, wildor, sadie and pete at the gig and had a few more beers.....staring to feel quite pissed by now. black keys were brilliant although the sound in there is awful, capital fm arena i think it was called but then arenas always have shit sound for gigs. off out after for more drinks and to throw a few shapes. woke up sunday at linos feeling like death but after a three hour drive back due to the ice covered road choas i woke up enough to go for a snifter and a bit of banter favourite black keys song on the night - gold on the ceiling

"I don't think it makes sense to give more importance to a mountain than to an ant" - Joan Miró

got the train to london yesterday with the main purpose being to see the Joan Miró exhibition at the tate modern.  navigating the tube seems easier than i remember and got to the tate only with a slight detour.  worth the effort.  thought £15 was a bit expensive at first but came away feeling i'd got moneys worth from a well thought out exhibition.  there were some good pieces, some fascinatingly brilliant pieces and as always with these exhibitions a few nonsense scribblings which have only been deemed worthy to exhibit because...well....its a Miró.    so with Miró installed as my new favourite artist i took my geeky face for a bit of a mooch around some of the rest of the tate galleries and then set out to explore london town...

Blue II - part of a triptych with all 3 painted on a 4 metre wide canvas!

didnt really know where i was going but wandered about fairly aimlessly around london bridge until i got  thirsty for a pint.  walked away from the river and the touristy areas to try and find a proper pub, surprised but not too surprised to pay £4.15 for a pint, probably normal.  to test if beer always costs this much in london i obviously had to investigate further.  got the tube to camden and found a pub called 'the worlds end', sounds like constant happy hour time in there i thought so in i went.  £3.80 in this one.  supped my pint and got tube to kings cross, for no reason really, just wandered about before getting back to euston for train home.

i like london, i'll be back sometime soon, like the feel of the place.

need a hook

went round j's last night to fiddle around tryin to create some music which means this week has pretty much been a repeat of everything i did last week.  gaz came round also.  its just an excuse to have a few beers and a bit of banter really as we're never gonna create any decent music messing around on our laptops (dont listen, we're gonna be famous).  got work tomorrow but stayed round until 2am drinking, eating crisps and creating a rather shoddy dance track which to be fair sounded like a dancefloor banger after several beers.  felt knackered at work today but who cares? i'm off until a week on thursday now, lovely.

beer and curry monster?

curry and beer for a fiver again at the pub last night with ryan.  its hard not to really and then obviously the curry needs washing down with another 5 or 6 pints.  seem to be getting in the pub quite a bit recently, am i becoming a beer monster?  i dunno about that but had a good night with ryan, talking shit and swigging lager.

superstar dj's

went round jay's last night.  the idea was we were gonna create some amazing dance tracks on our laptops, drum loops, dirty basslines, crazy samples and then be off to dj at pacha in ibiza in the summer on the back of our addictive new sounds setting the world on fire.  what actually happened was we couldnt work out how these mental dj sample programs worked and created a new sub genre which we best described as "experimental ambient death jazz"

we did manage to sink a few beers though and our failures were actually extremely funny, no honestly it was extremely funny.

its a project in development, this time next year my tunes will be pumping through your speakers.  get on it!