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Tag Archives: Travel
PHOTO SET: Paddington Station – September 11th 2011
I was dropping Max off on Sunday and, whilst he was off having a cig, I took the opportunity to snap a few pictures of Paddington Station, as it’s GORGEOUS at night!
The vintage effect on my camera was used to try and date the photos a little and soften the light – not sure that it’s worked as successfully at high resolution as my phone had first indicated (they look amazing on my HTC Sensation, so please don’t judge the quality too harshly, hehe!). Some of the blurring was also intentional.
Gari does Birmingham
… hmm… the title of this blog sounds a little too much like Debbie Does Dallas for my liking… but I’m gonna roll with it! 
Anyone who follows me on twitter will know of the recent pinings that I had for my boyfriend, Karl, over the Christmas period, as he went home for two weeks for his graduation and then the holidays. Fortunately he’s back now (YAY!!), but I will admit to missing him an awful lot, and so ended up heading to Birmingham for the day on Saturday 18th December to have a bit of a random ‘catch up’ day.
Having not been to Brum in the past (I’d only skirted through it back when the West Coast mainline used to default that way), I was totally unsure of what to expect… though, well, I knew that it couldn’t be as awesome as my hometown of Manchester, naturally!! heh. To be fair though, it runs a very very close parallel! 
That Saturday turned out to be one of the snowiest days that we had in the recent spell of cold weather, and whilst it made the journey home a little chaotic, it really helped us to have an awesome day in Birmingham, making everything just that extra bit more magical – Karl and I both loved it!!
Alas, the weather may have scuppered some of Karl’s sightseeing tour, however I get the sense that I managed to see all the main points and I do have to admit, Birmingham city centre is actually rather nice – I’d certainly have no problem upping sticks and moving there (how I tend to judge a place); from a first feeling, I definitely like it more than I like London
Karl took some pictures from the day, which can be viewed by clicking here.
We also went over to the Cineworld to see Megamind (I’d been to see it the night before with my housemate, but liked it enough to insist that Karl saw it too heh). If you’re stuck for a film to watch, we’d both heartily recommend it!
So yeah, there you have it – I confess to being something of a fan of Birmingham! (though perhaps not so much when it steals my boyfriend away heh!!).
Manchester (10th & 11th August 2010)
I’m just back from a trip back home to Manchester and, once again, I’m struck by just how much I love my home city! This feeling was made even more apparent to me as the main purpose of the trip was to show Joseph just how fantastic good ol’ Manchester is.
Joe told me whilst he was on his round-the-world vacation (which I’m not still jealous over, honest! ) that he’d never been any further North than Coventry – which came as a bit of a shock to me! Thus it was very quickly decided that we had to introduce him to the land of pies, ale and Corrie once he’d got back.
I had been looking forward to the trip for ages, so it really couldn’t come quickly enough for me, I couldn’t wait to be back home. The mechanics of the whole trip only cost £24 each – and that was for a hotel room and return trains, bargain!
I’d love to say we got up to loads of touristy things that would make you sit on the edge of your seat, but time really did fly by, and to be honest, we were both enjoying each other’s company, so we both felt that it was good to just relax, get away from the stresses and bustle of London without external distractions and stuff. T’was perfect!
Within 30 minutes of us getting in to Manchester, we decided to lunch – and of course I’m a total sucker for Holland’s Cheese and Onion Pies, Chips and Gravy. I ended up dragging Joe around half of Manchester City Centre trying to find a chippy that hadn’t yet gone out of business, and clearly my northern tastes were far too exotic for the poor chap, as he clung onto his highly priced Pret sandwich for dear life! (he’s clearly a bit of a soft Southerner at times heh!). When I did manage to get him to at least try a chip with a little bit of gravy on it, he screwed his face up much in the same way as he did when I took him for a gin once at Yard Bar and he sat there forcing himself to drink it and kept trying to pretend he liked it heh! Bless him!
We had tea at Strada Spinningfields on the Tuesday night – which was delicious. I should confess at this point, I had the same meal as I had on my birthday…. which was also the same meal that I had seven days earlier when I went to lunch with my friend Andrew on a trip into Kingston, ha! I think we all would agree that the exact same meal three times in ten days is a little extreme, right?
After Strada, we headed off to Cloud 23 – which is based in Beetham Tower / the Hilton Hotel – and has some truly spectacular views over the Manchester skyline. I managed to conquer my fear of heights temporarily (ok, so I reckon that the absolutely gorgeous but thoroughly lethal threesome of ‘Northern Lights’ cocktails that Joe and I shared may have been what actually conquered this fear heh!), and we had a seat on the window, overlooking all of South Manchester – which is where I was born/brought up. Perfect!
The only surreal thing about Cloud 23 were the gents toilets – I have never urinated to such a fantastic view before! The entire side wall of the bathroom was a huge glass panel and I really had to make sure I kept my concentration until I’d finished heh! Hopefully there was nobody on the ground or looking out of their window and using binoculars or anything 
Once we’d finished our cocktails, we headed into the Village and I introduced Joe to the wonders that are the £1 shooters at Baa Bar!
Managed to talk him into trying my favourite of them all, a Traffic Light, without realising that they taste heavily of banana, which isn’t a taste that he particularly likes heh. I felt guilty for a good 5 minutes, which is quite a long time for me to feel that way heh!
Via Fosse was, of course, a must – every visiting gay surely gets taken here, usually whilst still moderately sober, so that we can show off a little, right? A round of two Strongbow Extra Cold for £5.80? YES PLEASE! We also headed up to Queer for a very quick one as they were closing by the time we got there (midnight), and we’d missed the ‘Trannyoke’ – much to Joseph’s dismay, I’m sure heh!
Poptastic was the plan for ending the night, and my first time doing it in several years – I used to work there about 6/7 years ago, and it’s so reassuring to see that so little has changed! I had pegged Joe as being one for wanting to be spending the whole night in the Indie room (which, to be fair, I do quite like as well), however I was chuft to find that he wanted to stay in the Pop room and seemed to know the words to so many songs that I didn’t think he’d ever know (ha!). I’d not been dancing in so so long, it was such a euphoric feeling at times, I loved it! I had wanted to stay for the obligatory Christmas song that always gets played, accompanied by fake snow, however we were both rather tired and happily left around 2am. (Of course, I sang Christmas songs all the way back to the hotel to compensate, heh!)
On Wednesday morning we had a lie in, which was marvellous, as I’d not had a proper lie in for weeks! For a late breakfast / lunch we went over to Greggs, and Joe promptly spent the rest of the day exclaiming at just how many branches of Greggs we have in Manchester heh! (we counted around 9 in a square mile heh). I always love watching people exclaim at how cheap things are in Manchester, but this time the joke was on me – I made the Greggs woman add it up again as I was so sure she’d undercharged me for my order, ha!
Thanks to common interests, I finally got to go see the John Ryland’s Library over on Deansgate – I’d been once as a schoolie, but had not been as an adult, and so not since the huge refurb they did a few years ago. So glad we went, the architecture of the building was amazing!
Joe and I also went over to peruse the Museum of Science and Industry for a bit – I was slightly dismayed to find much of it to be closed whilst they were renovating some of the spaces, however we managed to see the Air and Space Hall, the Gasworks/Sewers and the Power Hall – so the better bits anyway! That must have been my 4th visit this year!
The afternoon was rounded off by tea at Via Fosse – I was greedy and over-faced myself with a huge mixed grill – and was very thankful when Joseph followed suit, which made me feel a little better heh. I do like eating there, even though it’s all corporate chain food.
All in all, a really fantastic and memorable trip, I had such good fun and it was great to spend so much time with Joseph! We didn’t argue even once, despite our best efforts to try to simulate a ‘play’ one between us heh – he’s genuinely just too lovely to argue!
As always with me, there’s a song that I will probably associate with this trip, and this time it’s Carla Bruni – Quelqu’un m’a dit:
Of course, this is in no way due to the slightly depressing subject matter of the song, but just because it’s such a beautiful and lazy melody and if you were to watch elements of the trip on a movie, this is probably the sort of lovely arty melody that they’d play over it! Came on whilst I was having a shower on Wednesday morning and it clicked with how I was feeling and whatnot 
I’m going back up to Manchester in two weeks, this time for a longer period (5 days, Bank Holiday weekend), and so if anyone’s going to be around the City Centre, do please look me up / ask for the dates I’m around!
Protected: Fancy a ‘free’ trip to Manchester over August Bank Holiday?
A personal update – April 2010
Figured that I’d go with a bit of a personal update to my blog, as it’s been a while since I’ve done one.
Recently, life has been hurtling by at an absolutely manic place, and at the moment I feel thoroughly exhausted and a little depressed. Not the best of ways to be.
Work wise, we’re in the process of implementing a brand new financial system called SAP into the company, which basically involves gutting a lot and putting it all back together with the new system integrated into it. Unfortunately, this has meant that I’ve been doing 60+ hour weeks, and I’m not getting a bank holiday at the start of May, as that’s our ‘go live’ date.
I’ve been being terribly social recently too; meeting several new people in the last week alone (mainly thanks to twitter and the lovely folk that I chat to on there).
In the past week, I’ve been to see the musical ‘HAIR’ twice (click here for my review), and have also had some very early mornings getting up in time to get to Wimbledon (as I am going to be working there on behalf of my department during the Championships this summer, and we had some inventory work to get done).
On top of all this activity, I also found time to squeeze in a quick trip (April 21 – 22) back home to Manchester with my Aussie pal Ryan, something I’d been looking forward to for months.
To give you a bit of background (though I am sure I’ve discussed this before), Ryan and I have been chatting online for eons (around 10 years) and were probably pioneers for global friend making via the internet back in the day. Anyway, skip forward 10 years, and after 18 months in England, Ryan announces that he needs to go back home as his work visa is about to run out – boo!! Thus, I decided that I definitely wanted to drag him around my hometown before he went back!
Hotel wasn’t too bad (we Travelodge’d it, meaning the entire trip, including train, was only £36.50 each – bargain!), and the weather was gorgeous, if not deceptively chilly! (I think we spent more time complaining about the chill than anything else heh).
Actually, I lie… Ryan saw a stunning (but expensive) coat in a shop called Intro on Deansgate, which he bought, and didn’t stop chatting about ALL THE FREAKIN TIME heh. Pleased he was so excited about it; was a really nice coat and a fab momento of the trip. I’ve tried to search for a picture of the coat online so that you can all see how awesome it was, but alas no joy.
Of course, in the evening, we made the obligatory forage into the Village for drinks, and started off with several nice shooters in a deserted Baa Bar (at £1 each, it’d be cheeky not to, right?!).
As pictured above, we had a couple of Bakewell Tarts, a Brain Damage thing for me (complete with icky lumps!) and we got something that looked rather potent for Ryan (lots of bright colours went in, but it still came out clear – erk!), called an Assassin. I also had a cheeky Traffic Lights too (they’ve always been my fave).
Afterwards, I took him across to Via, as all Mancunians know that this is the best way to get those non-Mancunians to gasp in amazement heh. Lovely venue and it had the desired effect! After a few cheap rounds (£6.30 for Strongbow and a pint of beer) we decided to head back early to try to catch up on some sleep as we were both shattered (and thus avoiding the need to humiliate myself with my lack of dance skills at Cruz heh!!).
Thursday was a nice chilled out day, we wandered around the shops after a much appreciated late lie in, and also went to see Alice In Wonderland as we’d both missed seeing it back when it was released – a good film, but not worth the wait. As always, AMC Cinemas were deserted, hurrah.
Ate so well whilst I was away that I felt like a right piggy! I’m not used to eating so well – so many restaurants and the eating of ‘proper’ cooked food!
Alas, as I was feeling so tired, I fear that I may not have been the best of company, however I hope that Ryan enjoyed himself and seeing the City. I know that I had a marvellous time, and it was awesome to get to spend some time with him before he has to go back (*mumbles about stupid immigration policy and Commonwealth citizens etc etc*)
(and yes eagle-eyed viewers, this picture was taken in the exact same spot as the photo that I use for my blog header was taken! These glass blue circles have become infamous, with everyone I go to Manchester with insisting they get pictures by them too heh.)
One of the funniest moments of the trip came right at the end, as we were leaving the train at London Euston (on which, incidentally, I discovered that I’m pants at playing Checkers). Literally, as I was stepping off, a lady whizzed past with a baby in a push-chair. The baby had this really weird grin on its face, and it’s hair had been done up in what I can only describe as ‘twiglets’ (or something out of In The Night Garden!!) I know it was rather rude, but it was late, and I couldn’t help myself – I pointed and guffawed very loudly!!
Laughed could be a bit of an understatement…. shall we agree on I had uncontrolled hysterics? I’d best come clean about this now, as I know that Ryan has part of my hysterics on camera, so I can’t fib! It must have taken me about ten-to-fifteen minutes to regain my composure and to be able to walk properly!!
I’ve come away from the trip feeling very confused, which is how I always tend to feel. I miss Manchester immensely now that I live in London, and a large part of me is already ready to move back there. Of course, life is never that simple.
Looking ahead to the next week or so, all I have in my diary is work, work, work, so I’m struggling to remain positive if I am honest. Tired, depressed and glum (booo), but I’ve also had some really fab moments mixed in along the way too, which have really helped.
Feel free to leave me nice comments below / nice emails via ‘Contact Me’ to help cheer me up
Gx
PS – this post was written whilst listening to La Ritournelle by Sebastien Tellier- a fabulous song that was also featured in Ugly Betty Series 3 (Ep11) . It’s a song that I am really liking at the moment, I love the instrumental bit, especially with the prominent piano sound… it’s become my ‘thinking’ music.
Figured that I’d go with a bit of a personal update to my blog, as it’s been a while since I’ve done one.
Life recently has been hurtling by at an absolutely manic place, and at the moment I feel thoroughly exhausted and a little depressed. Not the best of ways to be.
Work wise, we’re in the process of implementing a brand new financial system called SAP into the company, which basically involves gutting a lot and putting it all back together with the new system integrated into it. Unfortunately, this has meant that I’ve been doing 60+ hour weeks, and I’m not getting a bank holiday at the start of May, as that’s our ‘go live’ date.
I’ve been being terribly social recently too; meeting several new people in the last week alone (mainly thanks to twitter and the lovely folk who I chat to on there).
In the past week, I’ve been to see the musical ‘HAIR’ twice (click here for my review), and have also had some very early mornings getting up in time to get to Wimbledon (as I am going to be working there on behalf of my department during the Championships this summer, and we had some inventory work to get done).
On top of all this activity, I also found time to squeeze in a quick trip to Manchester with my Auzzie pal Ryan.
To give you a bit of background (though I am sure I’ve discussed this before), Ryan and I have been chatting online for eons (around 10 years) and were probably pioneers for global friend making back in the day. Anyway, skip forward 10 years, and after 18 months in England, Ryan announces that he needs to go back home as his work visa is about to run out – boo!! Thus, I definitely wanted to drag him around my hometown before he went back!
Hotel wasn’t too bad (we Travelodge’d it, meaning the entire trip, including train, was only £36.50 each – bargain!), and the weather was gorgeous, if not deceptively chilly! (I think we spent more time complaining about the chill than anything else heh).
Actually, I lie… Ryan saw a stunning (but expensive) coat in a shop called Intro on Deansgate, which he bought, and didn’t stop chatting about ALL THE FREAKIN TIME heh. Pleased he was so excited about it; was a really nice coat and a fab momento of the trip. I’ve tried to search for a picture of the coat online, but no joy.
Of course, in the evening, we made the obligatory forage into the Village for drinks on the night that we stayed over – had several nice shooters in a deserted Baa Baa (at £1 each, it’d be cheeky not to, right?!).
[pic]
Afterwards, I took him across to Via, as all Mancunians know that this is the best way to get those non-Mancunians to gasp in amazement heh. Lovely venue and it had the desired effect! After a few cheap rounds (£6.30 for Strongbow and a pint of beer) we decided to head back early to try and catch up on some sleep as we were both shattered (and thus avoiding the need to humiliate myself with my lack of dance skills at Cruz heh!!).
Thursday was a nice chilled out day, we wandered around the shops after a late lie in, and also went to see Alice In Wonderland as we’d both missed seeing it back when it was released – a good film, but not worth the wait. As always, AMC Cinemas were deserted, hurrah.
Ate so well whilst I was away that I felt like a pig! I’m not used to eating so well – so many restaurants and the eating of ‘proper’ cooked food!
Alas, as I was feeling so tired, I fear that I may not have been the best of company, however I hope that he enjoyed himself and seeing the City! I know that I had a marvellous time, and it was awesome to get to spend some time with him before he has to go back (*mumbles about stupid immigration policy and Commonwealth citizens etc etc*)
I’ve come away from the trip feeling very confused, which is how I always tend to feel. I miss Manchester immensely now that I live in London, and a large part of me is already ready to move back there. Of course, life is never that simple.
Looking forward to the next week or so, all I have in my diary is work, work, work, so I’m struggling to remain positive if I am honest. Tired, depressed and glum. Boo.
Feel free to leave me nice comments below / nice emails via ‘Contact Me’ [link] to help cheer me up
Gx
Manchester – July 2009
I have just returned from spending two days (one night) back home in Manchester – and am feeling much better for it!
I decided to go up on a whim as a hotel room in a Travelodge was £19 for the night, and train fare was only £5.30 each way, so for those kind of prices, I thought I’d be silly not to!
A larger photoset of my journey exists on Facebook for those who have access to it.
Although Manchester was forecast heavy rain for the duration of my stay, I am VERY relieved to report that not once did a single drop of rain hit my pretty little head heh. Most of the rain came whilst I was sleeping I think.
The only thing that I didn’t like was the amount of roadworks that are going on at the moment(!). I know a lot of it is due to the Metrolink upgrade, however Deansgate was also very messy, and I can only imagine how hard it is to get around Manchester by bike/public transport at the moment. Didn’t see too many roads in the city centre that were wholly open for business heh.
As an aside, I really liked the DVD machines at Piccadilly Station – very clever idea, especially if they can get them into smaller stations with decent footfall such as Stoke-On-Trent, where they don’t (to my knowledge) have a HMV already there etc.
When I got to Manchester, I met up with the chap who now does my old job at work and had lunch at the Soup Kitchen – they were doing a lovely lemon/lime chicken, rice and salad (all for a reasonable £4.50-ish). The hotel that I was staying at is next to our Manchester office, but even still, I wasn’t expecting to be able to see my old desk from the chuffin’ window of my room!!! heh.
I’m going to a wedding on Sunday, so went out to Next to purchase a shirt and tie, which took me ages. I can’t shop, simple as. If I go out looking for something specific, then I fail miserably to get anything. After about an hour and a half, I decided on one, and then promptly, and unexpectedly, nipped into HMV and bought 4 DVDs without question LOL!
In the evening, I met up with a fellow whom I know through twitter, Joseph, and we went for a few drinks in the Village. Fun to meet Joseph as he was one of the people who I find that I have quite a few twitter (and ‘real-life’) friends in common with, so he was like adding-in a missing link in a way. It’s a bit like Pokemon – gotta collect ‘em all heh! We stayed in Via for around 2 hours, popped into Spirit which was absolutely deserted and then finished up in Tribeca with a pitcher of Cosmopolitans – yum! Ended up with the traditional kebab on the way home, in bed for 2am and no hangover – bish-bash-bosh, job’s a good’un.
Incidentally, and speaking of twitter, I did use the service an awful lot whilst away… looking back, I think it shows just how much I was missing Greg as I was reaching out and connecting with people constantly. Didn’t know I was that high-maintenance heh!!!
Next morning I was up early to go see my family in Stretford. The Metrolink was especially efficient for once, taking only 8 minutes to cover the distance. Had to catch from St. Peter’s Square due to the engineering works. Very well managed I thought, and I liked the wit of the ‘sorry for the inconvenience’ posters – made me giggle.
Unfortunately Stretford seems to have gone down hill quite a lot these days, and it has also garnered some bad national press in recent months due to a failing grammar school and a stabbing. I must say, when I lived there, it was a lovely place and is somewhere that I still hold dear, though walking through the re-branded Stretford Mall and seeing that around 80% of shops were unoccupied and had closed down when previously they’d had 100% occupancy, it did really hit something home.
Great to see my family, especially my niece and nephew who seem to shoot up tremendously between visits! I asked if we still had some of the old home videos of my sisters and I as kids and we managed to find some grainy old VHS copies (from 1992 and 1994) which I’ve taken back with me and will get onto DVD shortly for everyone! Some were slightly embarrassing, not least the one where our Mum forces my sister and I to perform ‘The Wizard Of Oz’ in our backyard heh. And they sometimes wonder why …?
After my visit, I dashed back into Manchester to meet Marc for lunch in Strada at Spinningfields. Back when I lived in Manchester (i.e. any time before I was 22 heh), Spinningfields was just being built, and, as Marc worked at the main office building that exists in Spinningfields, I really did get to see it grow around me. I must say, I am very impressed with the development now, it’s even bigger than I thought it would be! I think it needs (an unknown) something else too add to the attraction of the nightlife it wants, but not a cinema as there are already too many screens in Manchester I think.
I had a few hours to kill, so headed off to perhaps my favourite place in Manchester; the Museum of Science and Industry! A very pleasant 90 minutes was spent poking around the trains and planes and whatnot that they have there.
So all in all, I had a rather hectic, but marvellous time back home. Can’t wait until Manchester Pride in a few weeks as I’ll be in the city for five days with plenty of my London friends too (and Mister Greg!) – hurrah!!
(I love the contrast of old/new - Manchester does this very well imo).
Mister Greg’s 30th Birthday in Brighton
So, dear old Greg turned 30 the other day, and to celebrate I organised a secret day out in Brighton with all of our fabulous friends!
I had a right old time trying to get him out of bed so early in the morning; he was having none of it! I’d promised him a ‘Birthday Breakfast’ as a cover for me still being home that morning, so he looked quite disheartened when I chucked a croissant at him and started pecking at him to get ready heh.
The most fun part of the surprise came when I managed to confuse him with all of the connections that we made via rail to try and get to London Bridge. Needless to say, when we got to London Bridge and he saw everyone, he was very surprised, and also thrilled! Yay!
There were 10 of us in total, so we were able to make use of the GroupSave discount that is offered on groups of 3/4 travelling together (essentially you pay for 2 and then get either 1 or 2 respective tickets free!).
The train ride down was a little busy (apparently half the World was descending on Brighton that weekend!) but I love travelling by train, and I love doing it with large groups of friends, so it was lots of fun!
When we got there we headed straight down to the pier to indulge in fish, chips, mushy peas, bread and butter and a glass of champagne! All for a very reasonable price of £12.95! Marvellous! Anyone who is heading to Brighton would be recommended to stop in here for lunch/tea!
After that we decided to crash on the beach for a bit and, with a few friends, Greg and I decided that we wanted to go for a swim in the sea! Cue much kerfuffle whilst we went to source some swimming shorts, flipflops (ugh!) and the obligatory beach ball heh. Footwear is definitely needed to cope with the pebbles on Brighton beach!
The sea was lovely and warm, though I discovered that I may need to grow a little before the next time I go into the sea… I took an absolute battering from all of the high waves heh!! We also managed to do our very own rendition of the YMCA whilst in the sea (thinking back, I’m horrified to think of how many people may have been staring heh)… and at one point, our swimming shorts simply *cough* fell off!
Once we’d had enough of the beach, we headed to The Amsterdam (I’m not a fan I’m afraid) and had a few relaxing drinks whilst some of us watched the end of the Wimbledon men’s final, before heading back onto the pier so that the gang could have a go on the dodgems.
We decided to grab some tea on the way back at a lovely little restaurant, which was in a square serenaded by an opera singer! I say an opera singer… more of an opera busker… but to call it that cheapens it I reckon heh! It was lovely to sit there with friends, eating, drinking, relaxing, reviewing the fabulous day and listening to her music! She tried to do a rendition of ‘Barcelona’, but strangely always cut out the word ‘Barcelona’ from her performance for some reason heh!!
All in all, we had a tiring but absolutely magnificent day, and our sincere thanks go out to all of our friends who came along, and to those who wanted to come along but could not make it. I have a lovely golden brown colour to me (as does Greg) – amazing what just one unintentional day in the sun can do for you! Personally, I think that it was one of the best days that I have ever had down here, I enjoyed myself THAT much, and I am very very pleased that Greg really enjoyed his birthday!
A selection of pictures from the day follows below:
We held a pow-wow to assess the notion of going into sea heh!
Confidence levels, perhaps foolishly, certainly have increased this summer (see previous blog posts!) - whoop!
Just like I said... they just *FELL OFF!*
Mister Greg (r) and I
I think that we ALL liked the totty behind us on the beach heh!
More beach totty!
James May On The Moon
The BBC have just started with their ‘Moon’ series and they kicked it off last night on BBC Two with the utterly amazing ‘James May on the Moon’.
James May On The Moon
As part of a season of programming on BBC Two and BBC Four to celebrate 40 years since the first moon landing, James May takes a “giant leap” into space history to discover the stories of the heroes behind this auspicious historical event.
In James May On The Moon, the BBC’s Top Gear presenter learns to use an astronaut’s space suit as he trains for three days with the United States Air Force before travelling to the edge of space in a U2 spy plane. At 70,000 feet, James looks up into the blackness of space and down at the thin blue atmosphere beneath him, an experience that he says “changed his life”.
It may only be a small leap into space for James, but it helps him to understand the achievements of the Apollo astronauts. Along the way he meets some of the men who went to the moon, experiences zero gravity and endures the force of a Saturn V rocket launch in a centrifuge.
I don’t know about anyone else, but I instantly felt like a 5 year old as soon as I saw the rocket and the shots of NASA HQ. I found myself staring at the screen in utter amazement and all of the childhood dreams of blasting off into space instantly came flooding back to me.
The programme was geared with a geeky tech-y edge too, though there were also the ‘So, what was it like to walk on the moon?’ bits with some of the astronauts from other Apollo missions too… despite their efforts to try and avoid the question (of course they couldn’t!!). I found it so hard to believe that I was actually looking at someone who had walked on the moon! Mind-boggling.
The shots from the U2 spy plane at 70,000 feet were staggering and somewhat emotive.
A very well put-together docu I thought, James May was fantastic too, and if you missed it I would heartily recommend you look it up on BBC iPlayer!
This documentary was followed up with ‘James May At The Edge Of Space’ on BBC Four, which serves to provide more information on the ‘On the Moon’ programme – I recorded this one and plan to watch it tonight.
There was an exciting moment at work earlier, when I was going through our old Purchase Ledger and noticed that we’d bought something from ‘Astronaut Boulevard, Cape Canaveral’ – I actually squealed! Alas, looking at the the value of the order, it doesn’t seem to have been anything space-related (and is infact non-alien telephony equipment that has had no contact with an astronaut or a rocket), which was a HUGE disappointment heh! Freaky timing though!
I am very excited for what’s in store from the rest of the ‘Moon’ series now – though the Beeb seem to be pushing most of the content online and over radio instead of on the TV – which is disappointing.
One main gripe on the BBC’s Moon series, I really wish that they would broadcast the original moon landing in full on 21st July! Now that would be truly amazing!
Manchester Pride 2009 : Tickets now onsale!
WHOOP!
I’m already rather planned for this; I sorted my hotel and whatnot way back on Boxing Day 2008, and am sorting myself out with Big Weekend Tickets over this holiday weekend. Excitement took over I think heh!
Hopefully this year, whilst they’re giving out all of the stickers, cards and fun stuff at the parade, I won’t only get targetted by the STD people…! Oh, the shame!!!
The Early Bird tickets for this year’s event went onsale on 1st May.
Big Weekend Tickets are currently priced at £12.50. Daily tickets are also available in advance at £10 per day.
(NB - prices will go up to £17.50 for Big Weekend after 1 July 2009, and prices for all Adult ticket types at the Box Office on the day will be significantly higher)
Although tickets do not ‘sell out’ per sé (there’s usually unlimited quantity), the hike in price is a good enough reason to buy them early if you already know that you’ll be going is it not?!
In my opinion, you’re best off buying the tickets in person at the usual outlets in Manchester so as to avoid the booking/delivery fee, though if that’s not possible, or if you want to book online, you can do so via See Tickets.
Can’t wait to be back home and partying like anything once again! Manchester Pride is definitely one of the highlights of the year.
Hurrah!
