I'm such a good son, we took my mother along to see a production at The Live Theatre at the weekend. I must say I really enjoyed it. It was called Jump! and was set in the North East at New Years Eve. It had 3 separate stories, gangsters, suicide and girls drinking. Typical of the North East I reckon, but there was not one mention of Greggs pasties. The acting was great, the story brilliant, the dialog funny and dark and the wine I had was very nice too. Like a Tarantino film, the stories came together right at the end although you could see it coming. It was a really different night out, it touched parts of me I thought only Carlsberg or the girlfriend could. I got someone to take a photo of us at the show - that's me in the middle ;)
I was feeling a bit heavier while watching the play after a top notch meal again from Cafe Vivo. I decided to have real buffalo mozzarella for starters - proper creamy stuff, I could've jumped in it naked. I followed that with beautiful melting Veal, the once controversial meat. I was then forced into eating a chocolate and hazelnut tart. The waiter kindly added a free try of the home-made choc chip ice-cream. Wooo, when I write that down, why I am I not a fat get? No comments please.
I was expecting to have a nice drive along the coast in a Volkswagen when we were invited to a Beetle Drive at Tynemouth Rowing Club but was shocked to find a totally different experience that was pretty funny. My Gran and girlfriend knew what a Beetle Drive was but not me. For those of you who don't know; it's about throwing a dice to build up a picture of a beetle where numbers on the dice represent parts of its body. Once someone completes the beetle, you shout 'Beetle'. Winners and highest scorers move onto the next table and start again. It's probably where the origins of Swinging came from. As you can imagine, lots of 
alcohol just adds to the occasion. Even more so with the 80% Stroh Austrian punch (a bit like mulled wine). It involves a special pot over a heat filled with red wine, cinnamon, orange, other spices and this crazy rum called Stroh. A big roll of sugar is melted over the top and it caramelises in the punch. It's got a good kick, keeps you warm and has probably been used to rub graffiti from walls.
It was cold, a mud bath, regular cow pats, massive puddles and lots of wobbling bums. No it wasn't a night out in Sunderland or a Latvian lap dancing club, I was doing the 10K Town Moor run in Newcastle. It was enjoyable although you had to watch your footing. A fella with his kid in a pushchair passed me early on, apparently he didn't have a babysitter - classic, only in the North East! I ran past him later. So there's events for walks, runs, cycle races, dog walks etc. It's only a matter of time before there's a pushchair race and the prize is a Greggs sausage roll (the Greggs dummy) for the kid. Even a blind person passed me along with his guide, though he didn't see me giving him the V's. Amazing. Anyway, I managed to do it in 53m 06s which is good for me and my old legs. This rather rigid looking photo was taken before the race of course, hence the lack of mud and the beautiful smile.
Can you remember that impressionist from the telly? Us older but good looking generation will remember Mike Yarwood but I'm talking about Alistair McGowan. He's now known more for his green campaigning at Heathrow rather than his old TV series, The Big Impression. The girlfriend and I went along to see him perform at his show and although some of his impressions were good and local (Brendan Foster, Steve Cram, Gazza, Shearer), the gags were pretty poor. I think he's obsessed about football as most of his act was based around it. He revived the impression industry some time ago but it's gone stale again, maybe we need someone else who's more of an all rounder - like Rob Brydon. He ended with his best known impersonation of Dot Cotton who transforms into Harold Steptoe. Overall though it was pretty poor, my girlfriend was even more disappointed, especially later when I did my elephant impression.
A little holiday in South West Scotland was a great idea last week. We stayed in a superb homely cottage not far from the 'food town' of Castle Douglas. Although it's called a food town, apart from their excellent selection of butchers and bakers it's hard to see why. I did of course visit the butchers and was pretty impressed. The girlfriend was even more impressed when I cooked with the meat later that night; a chunky cottage pie. After resting our massive belly's that night, we walked it off the next day in the woods. We did the same the next day but this time climbed 330m metres up to Screel Hill where you can see right across the Solway to the Lake District. It was hard not to laugh when a lady in front fell flat on her face in the mud. I picked her up only to find she had a hilarious mud beard. Unfortunately she cut her cheek quite badly and had to go back down the hill even though she was only 10 metres from the peak. Overall a great break and will be booking that cottage again, great for meeting up with your friends if you have any!
It can't always be up to the man to make his lady laugh so I took my lady to see the comedian John Gordillo at the weekend with his show called Fu*konomics. He might've just been a bit too posh for Newcastle but he had moments that were very funny, especially his story about his Spanish father who insisted on telling his 7 year old Grandson that Willy Wonker's Chocolate factory would not survive with Charlie running it, what with the union problems, umpa lumpas and the capitalist system. Even funnier moments were at crucial points in his stories where someones phone went off on two different occasions. By then we were on to our second bottle of wine so even my own jokes were funny, ask my girlfriend.
Can you remember Changing Rooms, the TV programme that had everyone hooked just because you wanted to see someone cry on seeing their transformed room? Either that or you wanted to see Lawrence Llewellyn Bowen punched in the face or strangled by one of his silky sequin scarves. He should've stuck to Bullseye in my opinion (or auditioned for the part of the next Dr. Who).
Anyway, I decided that I was going to do my version of Changing Rooms while the girlfriend was away in London at the weekend and surprise her. So as I'm now 40, I have a batch of sticks that I've saved over the years, ready for stirring paint. The Saturday morning was a morning of horrendous wind outside so I first had to deal with the greenhouse blowing over and general havoc the wind was causing which was a nice start, After that, the furniture was moved out, walls painted (3 coats), wallpapered one wall, stood on roller tray-smashed it, got paint on my shoe, got paint in my hair, opened the window about an inch, wind came in, blew the loft hatch off in on the stairs landing. Apart from that, it all went well even though the girlfriend rang me to say that her train was due in at 3:30PM instead of 5PM. From then I ran around like my ass was on fire to get things ready. It was all worth it to see her face when she walked in to the new room, not a tear in sight, or a Carol Cheesy Smiley.
I'm such a good son, we took my mother along to see a production at The Live Theatre at the weekend. I must say I really enjoyed it. It was called Jump! and was set in the North East at New Years Eve. It had 3 separate stories, gangsters, suicide and girls drinking. Typical of the North East I reckon, but there was not one mention of Greggs pasties. The acting was great, the story brilliant, the dialog funny and dark and the wine I had was very nice too. Like a Tarantino film, the stories came together right at the end although you could see it coming. It was a really different night out, it touched parts of me I thought only Carlsberg or the girlfriend could. I got someone to take a photo of us at the show - that's me in the middle ;)
