Chris's Stag Do and Andy Weatherall

Chris was worrying a little bit too much about his stag do and lack of recent drinking experience. He had practiced every night for the week leading up to the event by drinking a pint more than the total of the previous night to the point where he was feeling ill.

The stag do was separated into three different activities, first clay pidgeon shooting. I was feeling slightly worse for wear from the previous night's bout of ale and having never touched a gun, let alone a loaded one with catridge capable of taking a man's leg off, naturally I was feeling very nervous. Once I had experienced the recoil and shot a few targets, started to loosen up and actually started to enjoy it. A lot more than I was expecting too.

Next up was paintballing, I'm not the biggest fan but it was fine. It was probably the first time that the stewards knew what they were talking about. Our opposition were cheating little fuckers!

All stag dos involve beer, this one was no different. Grant had arranged for us to go to a comedy night at jongleurs which was very good. Unfortunately once the comedy has finished Jongleurs becomes Bar Risa which is shit. Everybody around me seemed to be completely plastered and I wasn't having much fun. I had to drag dopey Paul away from a group of fighting asian lads that he was trying to bound over to like a hyperactive labrador. A photographer asked me to take Stephen away because he was harassing her, shortly afterwards he started arguing with a couple of girls.

Bar Risa has the nastiest atmosphere I have experienced in any of the dumps that make up Broad Street. I decided to leave, I felt bad with it being a stag do but there was no way that I could have wasted another couple of hours in such a horrible place. (Subsequently I have found out that I was the catalyst for others to make there excuses too, so I don't feel too much like an arsehole now).

Justice and Andy Weatherall were playing at the Medicine Bar and instead of doing the sensible thing and going home I caught a taxi to Digbeth. Strange inside, lots of people in fancy dress. I saw Nick's ex-flatmate dressed as a car crash Princess Diana and loads of Malcom McDowells. It was another night where time stood completely still (not helped by the clock's going back). Justice weren't the best they played too many tunes that I've heard too many times before. I decided to leave I think it was half five (half four). On the way home I needed to stop at a cash machine, a very attractive woman came up to me and started chatting to me and kept me there for quite some time talking about random stuff, after two weeks I still haven't worked out whether or not I missed an open goal.

A good long day.

Tooosday

I've been reading computer manuals today....all day. Why are they so badly written and uninteresting??

I visited a small exhibition in the old Science Museum, rather depressing, photographs of lost industries and soon to be lost industries in a building that itself used to be an electroplating works and is soon to be knocked down to make way for a complex of retail opportunities and 'luxury' flats. Just what Birmingham City Centre needs more empty overpriced apartments, the town planners are stupid.

The Museum of Lost Heritage

But that's it another uneventful Tuesday. I wonder what tomorrow will bring?

Let's Move to the Country

I picked up a book called Reason to NOT Move to the Country. I read a quarter of it sitting on a bus in traffic this afternoon and it has already got me wanting to head off to a new life in rural Suffolk (that's where the author moved to, if anyone was wondering).

Bam Bam Bam

I met Emma and her mates in the Bull's Head in Moseley. The Bull's Head was stupidly busy, somebody was trying to push past me every ten seconds which meant it was impossible to relax and chat or even drink properly.

Once everybody arrived we moved onto the Rainbow. It was busier inside than it has been for long long time, it was really hot and sweaty. Emma was attempting to egg me on to chat up various ladies but all of them were attached. The music ranged from dodgy to OK to ace, the Bam Bam DJ's were a little bit dodgy and fluffed it quite a few times but it was fun and most of the pub was dancing.

I drank two pints, one Corona and half a glass of wine.

'Twas a good night.

Coventry

Continuing with the 'interesting' museum theme I decided to visit Coventry Cathedral. I had never seen it and had heard good things about it. Essentially it is two cathedrals, the first was destroyed by the Luftwaffe in 1940 which now stands as a garden of rememberance. The second cathedral was designed Sir Basil Spence and is a modernist, almost brutalist, structure which unlike some of his other designs actually has some beauty.

I recommend that people visit the Cathedral if for no other reason than to see the sun shine through angels that are etched onto the fifty foot high windows.

Next I visited the Herbert Art Gallery and Museum. Unfortunately it is undergoing some major renovation work and only had two very small galleries open, one containing works by local artists and the other some obscure sculptures. Neither were particularly interesting.

After the disappointment of the Herbert, there was more, the Coventry Toy Museum was shut! And I *REALLY* wanted to go there to see toys from the 1970's just so I say I always wanted one of those. Boo.

Cars, cars and lots more cars, that's what the Coventry Transport Museum contains. Hundreds and hundreds of different types, makes and eras of cars. Mostly I think the museum is aimed at kids and has quite a few 'interactive' sections. One of the exhibits promised loud booms and strobe light effects, I wouldn't get your hopes up.

The museum also houses the Thrust 2 which broke the land speed record and has a thrust 2 simulator so that you can feel what it feels like to drive at ridiculous speeds over desert. The queue was too long and I don't like fast things so I didn't bother.

It's a free museum and probably worth a visit if you are into the history of cars, I'm not but it does have some novely value and does have the open top bus that Coventry City FC used after their FA Cup victory and played the Specials 'Ghost Town' on loop.

Coventry has the ugliest shopping centre in the world but also has a suprising amount of old buildings dotted around the place and some nice modern structures and spaces. I had an interesting day out and I would recommend Coventry for the Cathedral alone.

Whiskey and Walsall

-- from Big Richard C - (?)

Went to the pub with Phil and Paul last night, it pissed down so hard on the way that my umbrella broke with the force of the rain. Stupidly agreed to go back to Phil's house and he plied me with whiskey until it was four in the morning.....

....this meant that I slept through my alarm clock, doh!

I could have called in sick but I decided to ask for a day off which my boss was OK about.

I decided to go to the New Art Gallery in Walsall which is my favourite museum in the Midlands, it is so out of place in Walsall and the building both inside and outside is fantastic and yet it is surrounded by a crappy shopping centre and pound shops It has a two floors that house a permanent collections which includes sculptures by Jacob Epstein and works by Picasso and Edward Burne-Jones, it also contains one of those splatter spin paintings that Damien Hirst did with a local school. There are also two floors for temporary exhibitions. The exhibition today seemed to be a bit of a mish mash of different things.

I have been reading a book called Bollocks to Alton Towers which is about strange museums and days out in Britain. This inspired me to visit the Jerome K Jerome museum (oddly, next to a strip club). Unfortunately this is only open between midday and 2pm on Saturdays. So I didn't get to go.

I visited Walsall's Tourist Information Centre inside the space age bus terminal only to find leaflets for places everywhere in the country except Walsall. I wandered around the crappy shopping centre, looked in a few junk shops and discovered that everybody who lives in Walsall likes dodgy R&B.

Post For History Matters

I wrote this post for the History Matters Mass Blog which will be stored as part of the collection at the British Library. History Matters

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Typical boring tuesday for me I'm afraid. I don't want to get out of bed, don't want to go to work, was enjoying my dreams too much and it's cold outside of the covers. Eventually dragging myself out to the sounds of Terry Wogan about half an hour too late I run the bath, forget to make sandwiches, eat some cereal and goto to the train station about half nine just missing the train.

Ten minutes later and one brisk walk across town. I arrive at work, ten minutes late. I'd like to say that the next eight hours were a blur but it'd be a lie. Sometimes I don't think I have the necessary mindset to be a computer programmer. I don't really like my job. I'm glad when it's lunchtime so that I can pop out and visit the library and flick through the books.

The afternoon drags. Eventually it is time to go home, as usual I am the last to leave, I lock up and catch the train home.

The only food in the house is last night's pizza, everything else in the fridge is starting to smell off. I get a bin bag and clear it out. I reheat the pizza and eat that, not nice.

I don't have a washing machine and I've ran out of clothes so I fill a huge washing bag and catch a taxi to my parent's house. I don't stay long. I walk home popping into the supermarket on the way home, buying only the bare minimum food.

I decide to shave off my silly handlebar moustache, trying along the way a more conventional style which looks completely ridiculous on my face. I consider going to work sporting a 'Hitler', five minutes entertainment at least but actually forget halfway through shaving. Maybe that's something for the next time I go to a festival.

I listen to a James Holden mix CD whilst shaving.

Channel hop for a few minutes, nothing is on so I decide to go to bed and read.

Stir-Crazyness

Last Thursday I went nuts. I had done a weeks worth of hours in four days and had spent the previous seven evenings on my own and was just completely pissed off with long hours followed by long hours of doing absolutely nothing. The thought of having the choice of spending my weekend in some terrible pub or spending another weekend alone just got to me.

Friday night was ok but essentially it was because I did a little of the two things that I wanted to avoid doing. I met people in the Bell, had a few beers, some conversation and then left them to go clubbing alone. I went to dance to Claude VonStroke at the Cocoon Club. It might have been good but I really dont remember much other than going into a very dark nightclub, being written on by a girl with a marker, lots of strobe lights and another girl giving me a lump of concrete.

It finished about four but obviously that was far too early to go home. I got chatting to some random lads one of whom used to work behind the bar at the Country Girl who had also decided that it wasn't bed time and we tried to get into Hidden. Wearing trainers to dance around to funky house is obviously a big no no and a few of us weren't let in. Instead we piled into g2, where they were playing some strange tech-funky house hybrid that just sounded dirty and wrong. Next thing it was light outside and probably time to go home - if I had had a partner in crime I wouldn't have come home till...well who knows.

Saturday was a bit of disaster...

I felt shit all day, I had only four hours sleep. Joshua had me traipse around Kings Heath charity shops looking for Goosebumps books, he wanted to spend the night with my parents, which is where I left him and went home.

Started feeling better after half bottle of wine, Matt had invited me to his Big Trouble in Little China party but I was still without somebody to go with. I arranged to meet Paul and Kerrie and My Brother and his girlfriend at the horrible horrible horrible Wellington Pub, both couples were an hour an a half late. I had the misfortune bump into David and Martin - not the most stimulating pair.

Two taxi drivers couldn't find the warehouse I was looking for. Firstly I got dropped off in the middle of Ladywood, then flagged down another cab who dropped me back in the town centre, I gave up. My brother, Laura and I called in at the Actress and Bishop for a pint.

I really wasn't up for silly amounts of beer drinking so made my excuses and left for home

Hot Chip

I went to see Hot Chip on Tuesday. They were really good. Nobody else had the slightest interest in coming with me. Watching a band on your own isn't much fun.

Why is Everything So Crap!

Fucking fed up. Everyone in Birmingham is fucking useless. Fed up of having to go to places on my own or not go at all. Fed up with crap excuses. Fed up with boring conversations. Fed up with sitting looking at four walls with no fucking conversation. Fed up with shitty job. Fucked off with stupid office politics. Fed up with this shithole city. Fed up with wankers. Fed up sitting in the same fucking seat for eight hours a day. Fucked off with being bored. Fucked off feeling tired. Fed up with not being able to see Joshua as much as I like. Fucked off feeling about as attractive as a worm. Just completely fucked off with everything.