It's a Park, in the centre of things

I've never been bothered about a trip to Centre Parcs. It's got an expensive label, but when we were offered the chance to go on a family break there we said yes and went along to see if it is actually a park (with a c of course) in the centre. I can confirm that there is a park and it's more or less in the centre of Whinfelll Forest.


Once you have navigated through the complex road system and you haven't managed to end up lost, facing backwards inside your own car or on top of a cyclist you can be pleasantly surprised by the plush log cabins and the beauty of the forest.


In the place you will find a plethora of activities. The big ones like Go Ape, obstacle courses, scary rope things, zip wire craziness you need to book at least 25 years in advance. However the indoor and outdoor sports arena has all sorts of sporty things to get into such as badminton, tennis, table tennis, footy, golf, water sports and everything else you can think of. Great for kids. Great for fat families too, as they convince themselves they are on a healthy holiday.


The resident animals there must have a great time. There was a duck in the human swimming pool; clearly they're not arsed about their own lake, but who could blame them when there's such a great water slide. The red squirrels also show their little cute faces from time to time, I snapped this one going up a tree. Now when I say snapped. please don't be phoning the RSPCA, I didn't actually snap its neck or anything, I just took an innocent photo and it went on its way to crack some nuts or whatever they do. It got me thinking about those films made some time ago where the squirrels complete obstacle courses to get their nuts. Now I can't get the Mission Impossible music out my head...

Local stars of Tynemouth

I'm not a fan of famous people and would rather ridicule them unless they are fairly normal. Our young culture is now about looking and acting like a celebrity which doesn't put us in a good position for the future. I've posted about local famous people before and at least it's interesting to see who has 'made it' from around your streets. Some you might want to keep quiet about, like 'H' from Steps, or Jimmy Carr's accountant for instance. Imagine my surprise while sitting having a beer in our local village seeing these celebrities pottering around:-

Phil Mitchell returns to chef duties
 at The Vic

Chris Evans arrives in the village
 hoping to find another Virgin

Prince Philip asks what is wrong with
 lap dancing, then blames The Poles

This beautiful girl does a Predator
impression very well.
Predator then beats up wife.

Amstell was a beer when I was a lad

I've seen a lot of live comedians and a lot of them often do their act around the single life, how lonely it is and the things they get up to as a singleton. Sarah Millican, John Richardson and now Simon Amstell (best known for presenting Buzzcocks and making Preston walk out) . The difference is that Simon is gay so the stories of relationships were slightly different and a bit more cringe worthy. His performance was sometimes more clever than funny (we think we are all like that, but even that's funny in itself). On TV he comes across as cheeky but there was little of that although he still managed to get the laughs in.


He looks a bit like a school kid I reckon. He has one of those faces that will probably never look old. I was going to say a bit like Cliff Richard but would rather refrain from giving the old pop-star a compliment. There is still a comparison as they both have faces we'd secretly like to punch. Add a comment to this post if it's true...

Nothing is real anymore

 Even Bono was there

Kings of Lyon

Now us men are all used to having things being faked around us. It was no different when we went along to the Tynemouth Fake Festival. The acts included:


Kings of Lyon
Really Hot Chilli Peppers
Coldplace


Basically, they rip off the real bands and call themselves tribute acts. Some clever bloke thought he could make a business out of this and so provides food, beer, music and a nice big marquee. We got to see Kings of Lyon but decided to miss out on the others as it got a bit cold even though the sun was out. Guess that's a sign of old age, even for Andrea.

Bono ditches glasses and raises one

The other festival a week later wasn't a fake. It was the second year for the Tynemouth Food Festival. We started it off attending David Kennedy's pop-up restaurant in the canteen in the local private school. I'm sure the kids are used to top food here too.

Also, not so fake was the massive orange I picked up from one of stalls owned by a french man. What a large orange I said to him in french. I think it was lost in translation.

A small apple or a huge orange?

Going out on a limo

It was my cousin's stag 'do' the other week. Now we all know they can be eventful, but this one was particularly lively. The agenda was simple; a race day and a night out. It's been done before without too much drama and humiliation.


The morning involved bacon sandwiches, champagne and some other weird drink while travelling to the Lingfield races in Surrey in a limo recently seen in Big Fat Gypsy Wedding. Now you might think that is impressive but not when we stopped at the services on the way down and were inspected by the Vehicle police. After an hour or so of checking the vehicle it was decided that they would allow us to travel but the limo would be impounded once we got into London later that night as the company did not have an operators licence for that vehicle. The sun was shining and we had beer so it was part of the day out. Oh how we all laughed, especially when my Uncle split his ring. Now I didn't know how else to put that, but he did legitimately split his wedding ring somehow so that it started to pinch his skin and blow his finger up. The strange noises attracted a lot of attention as did the 12 men wearing suits standing outside a limo with a bottle of beer laughing at the man shouting "Meee ring...I've split meee ring".


We did manage to get to the races just in time only to be greeted by Judy Dench (nicknamed The Dench for the rest of the day). She smiled and waved at us, she had no choice really. My cousin, the stag, looked great in his Paul Shane style jacket and 80's wig. Infact there were some people at the races who dressed like that anyway so he wasn't out of place. After winning nothing, being the centre of attraction for the day, swallowing several pints and hog roasts it was time to leave and travel into London in our questionable limo. This was to become an interesting journey...


So, we were on the way to London, beer in the limo, a foreign driver who had no idea his boss didn't have an operators licence and someone needed a wee. The traffic was building as we approached London, the wee sack was building too. It was someones idea to jump out the back of the limo and empty themselves into some nearby bushes on the roadside while onlookers tried to establish if the men in suits were stars or The Unusual Suspects. It must've looked funny to see the suits running desperately behind the limo to the chants of "Run Forest Run" to catch up to it as the traffic started to move.

The earlier events of the day meant that the limo was being watched as we got closer into London and were escorted to Tiger Tiger by police motorbikes. Now this wasn't a problem for us as we were then treated like real stars. Forget The Dench, we were famous. We were papped, and I don't mean we needed the toilet again. The London public got excited. There was talk of One Direction being in the limo. But there was massive confusion when we all got out the limo wearing James Corden masks. After laughing along with the policeman we went into Tiger Tiger, ate our VIP food, drank various cocktails and invented James Corden dance moves.


The limo drama continued when it turned up an hour late at 3am in the morning and then couldn't find its way to our destinations via the sat-nav. So the driver got frustrated, so much so he rather unprofessionally slammed the brakes on so we all tumbled forward in true crash drama style. We weren't happy by this attitude as most of us were asleep and my gymnastics meant that my feet ending up in someones face. The good thing, no-one was hurt and the stag had a fun packed story to remember for the future. The limo company is currently being chased for all of its failings...so maybe we'll hear of it again in the news or a Channel 4 documentary or the death of its gypsy passengers.

Where's my £100?

Many years ago when men wore long shorts and calling someone gay meant they were simply happy, 3 men made a bet. One of them was me. One of them was Mark and the other, a man with not just fire in his belly; Colin. Those two are pictured here on the left. Colin is demonstrating a small problem Mark has. The bet? It was one hundred pounds to the other 2 lucky two who didn't get married first. For some time we all held on, having our own opinions on who might be first. Nights out would always end with the same conversation relating to this bet.

The other month, one of us finally did it. Not me, or Mark, but congratulations to Colin and Jackie. No it's not a civil partnership, but a real grown-up marriage complete with talks of caravans, days out at castles and the tiny patter of....take-away delivery men. We all had such a good day from the ceremony to the reception at the New Exchange Brasserie. The hog roast went down very well, you just need to ask Mark to confirm that.


So, which one is next? No doubt one day it will be blogged right here...

Run 101

That traditional North Tyneside 10K run came about again on Easter Sunday. It's only a tradition for me, hard to say no every year I do it. Perhaps when I'm 80 years old I'll stop doing it. There were people close to that age doing it this year, I felt good when I passed them. My number was 101. I should've took note of that when I accidentally smashed my knee-cap against the door frame the day before and had that 'grown-man-wanting-to-cry-but-your girlfriend-is-watching-feeling'.

It makes me laugh every year, hearing all the exciting chatter during the first mile. Then; the heavy panting; the grimaces; the silence. The runners who insist on saying, another 5 mile to go after the first mile. The runners who say they're not looking forward to that hill. And the runners who go through their times for all their running achievements and their hopes to finish the Great North Run under 20 minutes.

That said, I'll probably still be there next year. My time was an improvement on last year at 56 mins 30 secs.