It’s a Blog ! Not a Log !

kennys party 071, originally uploaded by BagRat.

Kenny reached the grand old age of 50 last week along with Andy reaching the 40 mark, so they had a joint party to celebrate and used the oppurtunity to get everyone back togeather again.

It was good to see all the faces from the partys togeather again having a laugh and just generally getting on, party kicked off at of all places Stretford Cricket Club, then moved onto Lisa’s flat, where drinks flowed and people talked bollox (mainly due to what they’d had).

We left fairly early on in the morning 5:00am so maybe not so early, but the party carried on after we left, ending only when John, Ben and a few others decided to place most of Lisa food stuffs in the freezer . . . oh and after Ben had emptied a full bag of flour over the sleeping Lisa’s head (not nice Ben).

Gotta say Kenny was looking good for an old man and no doubt has many years left in him, all the best Kenny and Andy

IMG_3269, originally uploaded by BagRat.

While I was back in Yorkshire at the weekend went to Ashley Godbers 40th birthday at Beverley Race Course along with Jase and Nev.

The evening was a pretty good one, saw a few people from my years knocking around Nellies such as Nicky, Fiona to name a few, had a few drinks round some of our old Beverley haunts like Nellies, Corner House, Green Dragon and tried a few new pplaces that have sprung up. but the highlight of the evening had to be after we’d dropped Nev off at home and were making our way towards Jase’s parents house in Sutton.

What was the highlight ?
Well we decided to pop by Spiders NiteClub and say hello to any of the original doorstaff who might still be working there (in this case all of them), after saying hello and catching up we were allowed in for free to have a wonder about the place and boy has it changed, they’ve opened up lots of new spaces for people to get pissed and congregate in, but the real highlight was seeing Roger in his usaul spot in the main corridor of Spiders all done up for Halloween . .

Roger if your reading this don’t ever change

Evening thus far :

Walk Blue round Longford Park

Beers in Electriks

Kebab from Chorlton

Home to watch Grow Your Own

Bed

Enough said . .  nite all

Time to put away the bunting, yes the curtain has fallen on this years Giant Bradley Day…..

I arrived home early Saturday afternoon with Mel, Liam and Gemma, after we’d got Liam and Gemma settled in there little log cabin decided to take them for a quick scoot around York to do the touristy thing, though to be honest we did’nt have long there as it was at least 3pm when we got there, had a quick beer in the Roman Baths pub and then took them around the Shambles and such like.

Liam looking all Redneck

Arrived back in Weighton about 6:00pm and then met up with them both for a few drinks round Weighton, actually expected it to be a fairly busy day, but seems that most people were saving themselves for Sunday nights as the pubs were real empty, Bradley day itself was the usual stalls and street performers, was especially impressed by the guy doing the Falconary display, really entertaining and very enjoyable, did’nt see much of the Giant though.

Entered Blue in the Dog Show again this year though she was pipped at the post by a rescue Akita, in all she won 3 Rossetes:

1st Place for Most Looks Like Owner

2nd Place for Best Legs

2nd Place for Best in Show

But hey she cant be expected to win every year, got to give all the other dogs a chance, anyway after that we hung around for a few hours and then decided to head back to Manchester with Liam and Gemma and another Bradley Day was been and gone

I now know how Oppenheimer felt after creating the bomb and Shelly after finishing the final lines of Frankenstein, for I too have created a monster . . .  an Unatwittermonster, well I say a monster, but that’s a bit harsh, (he’s not a monster, he’s very nice gent), what I’ve actually done is introduced an already talkative person to the wonders of twitter, so not only can he speak for England he can now twitter for England.

Seems he was stuck for his fix last night and needed a Mac Charger and used the power of twitter to reach out and find one and I upon my trusty steed (BMW Tourer 318i) came to his rescue, think it was the offer of free beer that persuaded me to get off my ass and drop it off for him, anyway dropped it off stayed for 2 drinks (Lattes I was driving) and then left him to his twitterings.

Check him out if you get the chance you can find him here , oh don’t forget my own little twitterings

IMG_0340, originally uploaded by BagRat.

The festival was quite a success from what we’ve heard and from teh amount of people milling about I’d definatly have to agree, we stayed around for about an hour then headed to Electriks bar for a few drinks and to sample there Sausage and Mash, which we’d alos heard good things about and we were not disappointed, they food was excellent, also got have a chat with Luke “Una” Cowdry one of the co-owners of the bar.

On the way there dropped into Orlando’s and picked up a bright orange t-shirt for Blue to wear next time she’s there.

turned out well, met Zoe and her partner who are the proud owners of this new live music venue in Stretford and have to say myself and John had a very good time indeed, got to see 2 of the bands who played that night before we headed to Chorlton for a few, though it would seem we obviously enjoyed the Green Windmill a lot more then we thought, because after just 2 drinks in Chorlton we were soon making our way back there.

The Green Windmill is’nt just a place to see live bands it’s also a good place to meet up with friends as it has 2 bars, one situated on the ground floor where the you can arrange to meet your mates and have a chat and a few beer’s and then you can head up to the 1st floor bar where the stage is situated and then just kickback and watch the bands play while enjoying the numerous beers, lagers and spirits the venue has to offer, I’ve also heard they may even be starting to serve food in the not to distant future, but this is just a rumour so don’t hold me to it.

I must say that the joint owners of The Green Windmill and the staff who work there are indeed an enthusiastic group of people who through there love of live music taken on the ghost that was the Moulin Rouge bar and turned it into the place it is now . . . a very good live music venue and a very friendly bar, I can only see things getting better for this place and will definitely be visiting again and be telling my friends and anyone who’ll listen to check this place out.

Below you’ll find the link to some of the photo’s I took of the night, quite a few are blurry so bear with me ( I was a little bit pissed I’m afraid).

The GreenWindmill
Originally uploaded by BagRat

had a report in the paper yesterday about one of our local haunts in Chorlton, The Lounge.

News of the World report here

It appears about a year ago one of the staff there, the Bar Manager was choosing and possibly spiking woman’s drinks in order to sexually assault them, so far he’s been charged with 2 cases of rape relating to his time as Bar Manager there and Police suspect he may have raped up to 40 woman, though not necessarily while he worked there, they believe that he may have been spiking woman’s drinks for years as he has moved around as a barman all over Manchester and there now asking anyone to come forward who may have en counted him or had reason to suspect him of spiking their drinks etc.

Came as quite a shock reading it in the paper yesterday I must admit, but that was then and this is now and as far as we’re concerned The Lounge is as safe a bar as any in Chorlton, so you we won’t be stopping going there.

Just got back from a pleasant afternoon with Nicola in Ramsbottom, never been up that way before so was a bit of an adventure, took Blue the dog with us hoping that we’d find dog friendly pubs to visit and thankfully all the pubs we did end up in were cool about monstrous sized dogs on the premises.

So after arriving at Nicola’s and having a quick brew we headed to the Rose and Crown for a couple just to wet the appetite, while we were there we got mobbed by the landlord and a few of the regulars who wanted to know what breed Blue was, so I had to go into Dogspeal setting and explain the history of the Cane Corso, something I’ve become quite adept at now.

After the drinks and the chatter there we headed up the Shoulder of Mutton another dog friendly pub, this time to eat and boy did we eat well, I had a rather large Mixed grill, which even had me worried I couldn’t finish is, Mel went for the Fish type mixed grill thingy except it wasn’t grilled and she was well impressed to, Nicola went for the Salmon Pasta another good dish apparently (‘m not keen on salmon so I had to believe her) and Pete who’d come to join us on our afternoon wonder round Ramsbottom went for the carrot shop as he need to see better in the dark or so he says.

All in all it was a well spent afternoon and Nicola has kindly invited us up there again, so I think we’ll definitely take her up on that offer, especially if we eat there again.

In other news still no news on Mel’s camera which she lost/mislaid at the Common bar last night, just hoping if I ring there they might have found it, here’s hoping

Well its Christmas time . . when people start acting like mad moronic fools . . too much booze and too much food for everyone.
We had our works do last night at a nice restaurant in Manchester�s old Stock Exchange, you can see the pictures of the night here all in all it was a fairly good night, though some did get more merry than others, but hell its Christmas so its to be expected, me I did well only suffered a bit of a hangover this morning, which soon cleared up after having a stodgy pizza for lunch.
Just got to wait till Work on Monday now to see what everyone else thought of the night. Anyway think I’m gonna go there with Mel one night as it was a fairly decent restaurant if I say so myself. Got to see Karen my recently departed Commercial Manager, it was nice to see her again, if your reading this Karen Merry X-mas.

Other things that have been happening recently :

Me and Mel and Susannah from work and her bloke John went to a quiz night at the Polar Bar twas a good night we scored 77 out of 100 which isn�t bad, but just wasn�t enough for us to win though, instead a full on Scally Chave all of maybe 20yrs with his TerrorHawks looking g/f, he scored 98 out of a possible 100, he arrived 5 mins before the Quiz started and left as soon as he’d got his winnings and only bought 2 drinks throughout the whole affair, afterwards we decided he must be like Rainman or something and have decided if he comes in next week were going to keep dropping family sized packs of toothpicks in front of him and hopefully we might win. (sic apparently he won last week as well).
Were going again this coming Tuesday, hopefully Emma from work and her bloke Paul are going to join our team so maybe we might win this time, either way I’ll let you know in Tuesdays blog update . . . off now as got to load some tunes on me ipod