Scarey Sky

I just had to take this photo, really spooky, very eerie, the birds stopped singing, the air was thin. Everything was really really quiet. Until I pumped.

Forget pub crawling

You're supposed to start the new year off watching what you eat but circumstances led us to visit 3 restaurants in 2 days. The first being Danielle's in Hexham. Ran by an over-enthusiastic Italian fella, he loved touching my shoulders as he put down my lamb shank which was a treat in its red onion gravy! The next day we went to Uno's for lunch on Newcastle Quayside, it used to be the place to go. In contrast to Danielle's, they were a bit unfriendly when we asked for a table for 5 as if we were putting them out. The food is bog standard, bog being the operative word. For dinner, we went off to Zeera's in South Shields, a contemporary Indian restaurant. A great menu (away from the norm along that street), especially the fish. The lamb should be so tender in my Pasanda but wasn't, I would still go back though to try the fish. They did try and keep the change from the bill at first, a misunderstanding...mmmm.

Wheely silly

It's not every day you go for a nice walk along the beautiful coastline and see someone riding a unicycle, but I managed to snap this fella just before he fell off. It was really funny, I felt like I'd got to see a clown in practice. I wonder how he rings his bell?

Chef for a day

Well I got the best Xmas present ever this year from the beautiful lady in my life. Masterchef finalist David Hall is going to come round my house and give me some professional cooking advice, let me decide on a 4 course meal to make and be shown all the techniques and how to cook it to perfection. Very exciting, can't wait. Just got to think of four ways to make beans on toast now ;) Of course I will blog it when it all happens.

Shields lasses win awards

Great to see that local South Shields comedian Sarah Millican is starting to make an impact into the national comedy circuit. We went to see her some time ago, you can read about it here. She's just won best newcomer at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, that's a big achievement. Look out for her, starting with an appearance on Have I Got News For You in December. Hopefully it won't be too long before she does a gig near her home town and I can go along.

He's a count...ry boy...

Last night ended up being such a good one, seeing Rich Hall the American comedian, writer and musician. He's often seen on QI, Have I got News For You and performed alongside Jack Dee. He did stand-up in his own ironic style for the first half then stormed the place in the second half with his character based (Otis Lee Crenshaw) pi$$-take out of country songs, playing the keyboard along with his deliberately sombre band. He won an award for this and it's easy to see why. His songs and part improvised songs about women, whisky and members of the audience were pure genius and hilarious. We had such a good night, would see him all over again as long as we can sit somewhere where there wasn't a constant smell of sulphurhuric logs from some fat blokes ass.

Black Sack, Sack Pink!

Look at the size of this Santa I couldn’t help noticing in Manchester above the busy Christmas Markets at the weekend. What a huge sack. Apparently in a previous year Santa could be seen moving up and down. I’m a bit disappointed that I didn’t see him do that, like a perverted pole dancer. By the way, all I want for Xmas is to stop hearing that annoying crap Pink song that sounds like a female version of Keith Allan’s football anthem Vindaloo.