Space, The Final Frontier... Just off Junction 18 of the M6

Today I donned my protective suit of jeans, trainers and T-Shirt, diving mask and snorkel and boldly went where no mirthmobile had gone before. Jodrell Bank Observatory in deepest Cheshire. Jodrell Bank, or Le Banque Jodrell for any native French speaking readers, is part of the School of Physics and Astronomy at The University of Manchester. The Observatory is home to a number of telescopes which include the Mark II radio telescope and the enormous, 76 metre Lovell Radio Telescope. If you're wondering what happened to the Mark 1 telescope I can reveal that it was renamed the Lovell Telescope in 1987 in honour of it's creator, Sir Bernard Lovell. The Lovell and Mark II telescopes (both shown in the photo above) form part of the MERLIN Array. Put simply, MERLIN consists of six observing stations across England, which, by combining their collective data, form a single, hugely powerful telescope with an effective aperture of over 217 kilometres. MERLIN, if you're interested stands for the "Multi-Element Radio-Linked Interferometer Network" and first came into operation in 1980.

After a very pleasant drive through some magnificent Cheshire villages, I duly arrived at Jodrell Bank. Despite it being called a bank, I was most disappointed to discover their reluctance at changing my £20 note. You see, I've never had that problem at the Natwest; although in fairness I was equally disappointed with Natwest's attempts at discovering alien life forms and also their SKY TV reception isn't half as good ! So I suppose on balance it evens itself out.

The entrance fee was a mere £1.50, car parking was free and the 3D Theatre was an extra £1. If nothing else this day out was going to be inexpensive. The visitor centre was smaller than I had imagined and was largely taken up with a souvenir shop and a cafe. There were however a number of exhibits explaining the solar system. This included a very interesting model which, by way of rubber balls and a funnel, graphically illustrated gravity and why everything spins happily around the sun, and at different speeds, depending on how far away from the sun it is. The focal point of the visitor centre was the 3D theatre. I made my entrance at the appointed time and was handed my 3D glasses - my second pair in 3 weeks bizarrely, as I had also been issued with a pair at the Top Gear MPH show. Thereafter followed an engaging 20 minute film in 3D, about the solar system and the sun in particular. This ended with the rather sombre announcement that the sun would eventually increase dramatically in heat, expand considerably and in so doing, would destroy the Earth before imploding on itself. Fortunately this isn't going to happen for around 5,000 million years so it looks like I'll still have to do my Christmas shopping this year after all.





Outside of the Visitor Centre were a couple of small audio dishes. The dishes were positioned some 50 metres or so apart and directly opposite each other. This exhibit showed how sound can be collected in the dishes and amplified. The exhibit required a person to stand in each dish and speak at their normal level. The sound would bounce off the speakers dish and be collected by the opposite dish where the other person would hear their speech at an amplified volume. It really was amazing to hear someone talking 50 metres away as if they were standing alongside.

The centre piece of the Observatory is the Lovell telescope itself. They've created a walkway that takes you up close to this enormous telescope. The size is truly staggering. It's the 3rd largest steerable radio telescope in the World and a grade 1 listed building. Lovell's is a radio telescope as opposed to the more familiar optical telescope which accounts for why its positioned in dreary Britain where the near constant cloud cover doesn't matter, as the radio signals it monitors, aren't affected by the weather. Optical telescopes on the other hand, which use lenses to view the universe, are always positioned in areas of good climate, usually on top of Mountains where they're often above the clouds in crystal clear skies. The highest optical telescope of course is the Hubble. As it's actually in orbit around the Earth it's totally unaffected by weather and delivers perfectly clear photographic images 24/7.
Lovell's telescope however monitors radio waves emitted from deepest space, which is why it looks like a giant SKY TV dish. Every so often the whole device would start moving on the rails that surround the scope, as the Astronomers would reposition the dish to listen for something else in the heavens or maybe just to account for the spinning of the Earth. It really is an awesome sight and certainly worth taking a diversion to see, if at all possible. As you can imagine, you can see the scope from miles around so you don't even have to visit the Visitor Centre if you don't have the time or the inclination.

Also at the Observatory is the Granada Arboretum. This is a 35 acre landscaped garden featuring over 2000 trees and shrubs and is a haven for nature and wildlife in amongst the Observatory buildings and equipment. It was very tranquil & attractive, despite the increasingly inclement weather and I soon found myself knee deep in squirrels and rabbits whilst overhead, various birds flew by including a couple of large birds of prey. Underfoot it was rather muddy in places but that was due to my leaving the gravel paths in search of good photographic locations. After an hour of solitude - nobody else seemed to have bothered with the Arboretum today which was a bonus for me but a loss for them - I slowly made my way back to the car and latterly towards home as the sun started setting.

So In summary, I had a good walk around Space today. It might have been a small step for Neil Armstrong but it was a long walk for a little guy like me. Next weekend ? I'm ghost hunting in Nottingham. Should be fun and I'll tell all on my return.

So until the next time.

Ta Ta

Location...Location...Location.

Hold your mouse clicks ! My post today is hopefully not as boring as the title at first suggests. Today's missive isn't some rant about the myriad of TV Property shows showing you houses better than the one you own. Let me explain. I was sitting in work the other lunch hour, dreaming of the weekend and rather disappointed that I hadn't anything planned; when I recalled a web page I'd spotted on the BBC News Website, a month or so earlier. In short it was saying that Doncaster Council was considering demolishing many of it's Pre 1919 properties to make way for newer developments. This plan would mean the possible demolition of Lister Avenue in the Balby district. Ordinarily, I wouldn't have given the news any further consideration but Lister Avenue has a particular legacy to the World of TV. You see at No 115, on the corner of Lister Avenue and Scarth Avenue is Arkwright's Grocers Shop from Open All Hours. Opposite the shop at No32 was the house occupied by the object of Arkwright's affections, Nurse Gladys Emmanuel. I therefore had thought that if I ever found myself in South Yorkshire, or had a spare weekend it would be nice to go and see the shop (then as now, a hairdressers) before the bulldozers inevitably move in sometime in the future. Now Doncaster is around an hour and a half from where I live so a 3 hour round trip to look at a shop window didn't seem like such a good idea... so I promptly put my thinking trousers on; Not easy when sitting in the office over lunch. I quickly realised that Doncaster isn't too far from Holmfirth, the location for Last of the Summer Wine and Holmfirth isn't too far from Esholt, the long time location for Emmerdale, or Emmerdale Farm as it was before they blew up the Farm and moved to a purpose built set near Harrogate. As luck would have it, I had also bought a ticket for the Top Gear MPH Show at the NEC the coming Saturday which featured all 3 Top Gear Presenters, Clarkson, Hammond and May. I therefore put my plan together, Top Gear on the Saturday and Open All Hours, Emmerdale and Last of the Summer Wine on the Sunday. A TV weekend you may say ? So after a break of a couple of weeks for domestic needs at home - even I have to do my washing sometime - "weird weekends" was back on the road!

On Saturday lunchtime I boarded the Mirthmobile and pointed it in the general direction of Birmingham's NEC. The Top Gear MPH Show grew out of the now defunct British Motor Show, an annual event hosted alternately at Earls Court and The NEC. The first TopGear MPH event was held in 2003 and has done so every year since, even venturing as far as South Africa.
It runs for 4 days over one weekend at Earls Court and then for another 4 days the following weekend at The NEC. It features predominately performance cars and isn't as Corporate as the Motor Show was. The stands aren't entirely populated by the main manufacturers such as Ford, Vauxhall & Skoda, although many were represented. The stands were largely taken by local dealerships, modification & accessory companies. In addition, the ticket also gave entrance to the Classic Car show which featured a huge collection of vehicles from yesteryear. When I arrived, mid afternoon the show was very busy. My ticket gave me access to the Top Gear Theatre for their 6:30pm performance which enabled me to have a very unhurried wander about the exhibits, which according to the show guide were worth in excess of £27,500,000 and required Insurance cover of over £1 billion to cover all eventualities ! Best not touch the cars then. Writing that sentence reminded me of the moment during the show when I was leaning into the truly startling Rolls Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe to take some photo's of the dashboard & to admire the hand stitched hides of a whole herd of dead cattle, only to spot the cars price tag... £304,000. Eeek.

The Top Gear show in the Theatre was excellent, lasted around 90 minutes and featured some fantastic synchronised stunt driving including parking between parked cars by way of high speed J turns.
Other notable moments included, some motorbike "ramp jumping" and The Sphere of Death - an insane stunt where upto 4 clearly mad French motorcyclists, ride around inside an impossibly small metal spherical cage. I've done a YouTube search for "The Sphere of Death" for you so that you can see what I mean. James, Richard & a team of stunt drivers played Car Football in Suzuki Swifts with Jeremy as Referee & Clarkson drove a Land Rover up a 38 degree "mountain" which even exceeded the official incline limitation angle of the vehicle as specified by Land Rover themselves.

They also demonstrated many of the performance cars seen on the show such as the Aston Martin DBS, Bentley Continental, Koenigsegg - with the Top Gear Wing, Lotus Exige, Rolls Royce Phantom Drophead Coupe and the Lamborghini Gallardo to name but a few. Regrettably the Bugatti Veyron wasn't on display although it had been I believe, at Earls Court the previous weekend. The lads were on fine form, as lively as they always appear on the telly and a thoroughly good afternoon was had.



I was very drawn to the brand new Range Rover. It looked fantastic from both the front and the rear as I think my photo's illustrate. Those bumpers had certainly been lovingly buffed !

On Sunday I clambered once again into the Mirthmobile to head this time for Esholt in West Yorkshire. Esholt was the location for the external scenes on Emmerdale Farm between 1976 and 1998. The Village was an immediate surprise as it's not as rural as it appeared on screen.

It's a mere 3 miles from Bradford and no more than a 5 minute drive ! In addition, as it was a cold and wet November morning I was expecting to be the only tourist there, so I was more than a little amazed to see a fully occupied 'pay & display' tourists car park and a (thankfully) empty coach park. This village is clearly no stranger to the day tripper. I did initially park in the £1 a day car park but, having discovered that I only had a £10 note and a mere 53p in varying coins, I had to leave but found an empty space on the road immediately outside the car park and for free. Result !!!







Esholt was beautiful. I mean really beautiful, a picture postcard English Village featuring attractive stone cottages with wood fuelled smoke billowing out of chimneys, from what I would imagine were cosy, roaring open fires below. No doubt the occupants were warm inside, drinking piping hot tea whilst the Sunday Roast was cooking slowly on the arger. Each cottage was lovingly tended, the hedgerows tightly clipped. Even the golden leaves wafting gently from the numerous sturdy trees seemed to tidy themselves away as they hit the floor. I walked past a couple of gorgeous farm houses with sheep and goats grazing on the front lawn alongside chickens and other livestock when I suddenly came upon "Main Street". This was like being on a film set, which I suppose in essence, it was. There, on my right was the Emmerdale Village Post Office, to my left The Woolpack Inn. Along both sides of the street were the cottages that are all too familiar to those who have ever seen, even a single episode of the soap. The Woolpack looked particularly inviting and as lunchtime was approaching, I witnessed a steady stream of locals, and no doubt a few tourists, go up the steps for Sunday lunch and a pint in front of the fire. I dropped in myself for a sneaky look around. The inside was dominated by dark wooden beams against a white stone walling with traditional wooden chairs and tables giving a very homely atmosphere. The Woolpack is quite narrow, the bar small but the pub does extend to the rear quite a bit. So like the TARDIS, it's actually bigger than it first appears from the outside. The place was heaving and I didn't stay long as I was taking up room they really couldn't spare.

I proceeded down Main Street and the church soon came into view, at the end of a short drive. The church was a very small, unassuming stone building with a pretty little graveyard alongside. Dominating the landscape all around were the hills of the Yorkshire Dales, open countryside with pockets of sheep grazing in the distance. Despite the heaving carpark, the silence in the village was audible and was only broken by the odd bird song and the sound of a distant tractor. I can only assume that the day trippers were all in the local farm attraction where, for a small consideration, you could tour the farm, ride the tractors, visit the petting zoo, play on the swings etc, as very few of the car park inhabitants appear to have made it into the village proper. Or maybe that was them all crammed into the pub ? I declined the urge to tour the farm as I had other TV locations to discover and the days are so short at this time of year.

I travelled the 20 miles or so from Esholt to Holmfirth and unexpectedly drove past The White Horse Pub which features as the local hostelry in Last of the Summer Wine. The pub isn't in Holmfirth at all but is in the next village, Jackson Bridge. Apparently the Inn has a few rooms for accommodation which were subsequently used by the crew during their early stays, due to it's close location to the set. When they needed a pub for the programme, the White Horse became the obvious choice and has been featured ever since. I also understand that the Landlord has joined Equity and is now a regular cast member ! In the above photo, the row of cottages you can see above the pub are used as the houses for Cleggy, Howard & Pearl. After taking a number of photo's I headed over to Holmfirth. It was whilst looking for a parking spot (I still didn't have £1 for a paid space) I literally drove past Nora Batty's house. I was slightly disappointed that she wasn't there, wrinkled stockings and all that, on her steps with a broom in her hand, scowling at the passers by. I parked up on the road (free parking again!)and went back for a closer look. Last of the Summer Wine is the World's longest running comedy show, having first aired in 1973. It's still in production today. The show as I'm sure you don't need telling (but I will anyway) features several male pensioners who spend their retirement getting into all sorts of mischief much to the annoyance of their fiesty wives and all the action is set against the backdrop of the glorious Yorkshire Dales.


Nora Batty lives in a cottage block off Hallowgate in the centre of town. Her original nemesis, Compo Simmonite (played by Bill Owen until his real life death in 2000) lived in the flat downstairs. Both properties (shown in the photo below - Nora's has the blue door) overlook the little stream that meanders through Holmfirth. I noted that Nora Batty's house is actually a holiday let, so if you ever fancy staying at Nora's you can. I wandered through the myriad of little alleyways that give Holmfirth it's distinctive character, eventually finding myself at the church.

Adjacent to the church is a small courtyard which I recognised as being the location of Sids Cafe, run by the formidable Ivy since the death of her screen husband Sid, after whom the Cafe is named. The Cafe looked identical to that featured in the show - which is unusual in TV land - apart from some outside table furniture which I don't recall as being on screen.



It was time to bid farewell to Holmfirth and head through the breathtaking Holme Valley towards Balby in Doncaster. The drive was stunning until I neared Sheffield and the rolling hillsides gave way to a more residential and industrial landscape. Thanks to the wonders of SatNav, I was quickly conveyed by the Mirthmobile to Lister Avenue and there in front of me was Arkwrights shop. Open All Hours ran for 4
series from 1976 to 1985 and featured the stammering, miserly shopkeeper Albert Arkwright who employed his half Hungarian nephew, G-G-G-G-Granville, played by David Jason, as a put upon errand boy. Throw in a rather enthusiastic cash register, some fiesty Yorkshire female characters and a District Nurse as the forever unobtainable love interest, Gladys Emmanuel and you have, what was recently voted the 8th most popular comedy in TV history. NB Open All Hours and Last of the Summer Wine are both
written by Roy Clarke, hence the similar characters depicted - big, buxom, domineering women and weak, downtrodden men. Compare Arkwright with Aunty Wainwright. Similar ? Many of the actors appear in both series, most notably Kathy Staff who plays both Nora Batty in LOTSW and Mrs Blewitt in OAH. It was fantastic to see the shop but also quite disapponting in a way. The shop front was immediately recognisable but the real life facade is that of a hairdressers and not of a grocers shop with special offers written in white paint on the window and fresh fruit and veg in trays outside. The road was smaller than I had anticipated but everything in telly is smaller in reality than it appears on screen. I spent a few minutes in Lister Avenue remembering lines from Open All Hours and lamenting the genius that was Ronnie Barker, then decided to head home as the sun started to set. And what a sunset it became !

So that was my weekend. Fast cars, Grocers Shops, TV pubs and Nora Batty's steps. Not your average weekend but then again they seldom are. Having had a delightful weekend and visted 3 places I've never been to previously, I'm now thinking of other obscure reasons to visit other towns and villages. I have realised however that I don't live that far away from the Brookside and Hollyoaks sets.. Hmmmmm Now where's the mirthmobile ?

Things I've learned this week.
1. Never say to a Policeman "were you in the Village People?"
2. That it is possible to go an entire day without saying the word "Capacious"

Things that have made me smile this week.
1. A colleague remarking "I'm very quiet when I have sex, I'm just happy to be there !"
2. The weather is Manchester is like Muslims in Iraq. It’s either sunni or shi’ite

Mark Ronson, Steam Trains & Pooh Sticks

Admittedly Mark Ronson, Steam Trains and a game of Pooh Sticks are three subjects seldomn found in the same sentence but then again, that is precisley why this blog is called "weird weekends" and not "mundane weekends" or "same as last week?". Anyway, Shorty very kindly invited me along to see Mark Ronson play in Liverpool. Now I have to state that I thought Mark was a hot music producer. I didn't realise that he was a live performer. I did wonder whether I was going to spend a couple of hours watching a guy sitting behind a mixing desk doing producer type things and drinkng endless latte's but no, he came onstage, slung a guitar around his neck and started playing. It transpired that Liverpool was the first night of a 12 night tour around the UK promoting his album "Version", a collection of cover versions featuring a host of big name artists, all produced with Ronson's signature funky bass lines, heaving drum beats and strong horn rifts. Clearly the big name vocalists featured on the album weren't going to show up but Ronson had put together several able deputies.

Daniel Merriweather sang various tracks including Britney's Toxic and the Supreme's "You keep me hanging on". The lead singer of Phantom Planet, Alex Greenwald sang Radiohead's Just, his own bands composition "California" and several other tracks by artists such as The Smiths. The highlight of the night though was saved until last and this was Valerie, the Amy Winehouse / Mark Ronson collaboration of The Zuton's biggest hit. The vocalist, whose name escapes me now, did a brilliant job and the whole venue was on it's feet. A suprisingly good performance from someone I didn't know could perform and a fantastic night out. Finally, from my vantage point, the trumpet player in the middle looked just like Jimmy "The lips" Fagan from The Commitments. He probably looks nothing like him up close but he certainly did from the back of the hall ! Fab night out. Thanks Shorty !

The following day, I rose early and caught the BA Shuttle from Manchester to Gatwick as I was staying with younger Bro and his family for the weekend in Sussex. I caught the train from Gatwick to Horsham where I was eagerly met by the family for a weekend of fun and frovility. According to the little leaflet we later picked up at the Bluebell Steam Railway at Sheffield Park Station, south of East Grinstead "The volunteer run Bluebell Line was the UK's first preserved standard gauge passenger railway, re-opening part of the Lewes to East Grinstead line of the old London Brighton & South Coast Railway in 1960. Since then it has developed into one of the largest tourist attractions in Sussex, yet it still remains true to its objectives of the preservation for posterity of a country branch line, its steam locomotives, coaches and goods stock, signalling systems, stations and operating practices." I couldn't have put it better myself. The weather was glorious, warm autumn sunshine certainly not typical of mid October in the UK. This did seem like the perfect day to take an old fashioned train ride. The volunteers were respendant in their uniforms and clearly loved playing Station announcer, Guard, Ticket Inspector, Fat Controller or whatever names they have for the varying roles they performed. Everybody was very polite, cheery and attentive. So attentive in fact we had 3 ticket inspectors, inspect our tickets....at the same time . However, the most cheery official was also the one with the shiniest shoes, the sparkliest buttons and the widest smile. Why was he so cheery ??? He had the all important station whistle, which he gripped tightly like a winning lottery ticket and then repeatedly checked he hadn't lost it at 2 minute intervals, rather like you do when you're leaving for the airport and you keep checking you've got your passport and tickets. I swear that he gave the whistle one last shine on his sleeve before puffing out his chest and lustily blowing his whistle to announce the departure of the 12:00pm service from Sheffield Park to Kingscote. Now as someone who loves travelling and transportation - I am officially licenced to drive, fly and sail and as a proud owner of a cycling proficiency certificate circa 1977 I can claim cycling as well - I'm rather embarressed to say that I've never been on a steam train before now. I was rather looking forward to it. Especially as Sister in Law had prepared one of her finest picnics, which is always a winner. The 6 of us (me, little Bro, Sis in Law, the rinkies and Wally the dog) managed to spread ourselves out to such an extent that nobody fancied joining us in our compartment, meaning we had it to ourselves... Result ! The trip was a very agreeable affair as we chuffed past rolling open countryside, farm animals, hedgerow flanked lanes, small stone bridges and finally through a long tunnel. Even putting my head out of the window to smell the smoke filled air and savour the wind in my ever decreasing hair, only to receive a face full of water vapour and soot, was enjoyable. If you should find yourself in Sussex and have a handful of hours to spare then I heartily recommend a visit to the Bluebell Railway. I've posted some of these pictures in B&W and "digitally aged" to give them a more authentic feel. But rest assured all the photo's were taken on the day ! From the Bluebell railway, we headed out through glorious sunbathed scenery to the picture perfect village of Hartfield. This village is famous as being the home of AA Milne, author of the Winnie the Pooh Stories. Winnie the Pooh was set in '100 Acre Wood' which in reality is '500 Acre Wood', a part of the 6000 acre Ashdown Forest. The point of our trip was not only to walk through the forest and burn off some of Mrs T's picnic but also to find Pooh Bridge. It was at this rickety wooden bridge deep in Ashdown Forest where Milne would visit, with his son Christopher Robin, and where they invented a game that became known throughout the World as Poohsticks. We therefore went in search of the bridge in order to play our own game. The bridge was fairly easy to find although we did miss a crucial direction sign and ended up in a very affluent country lane with Million Pound houses on either side. We could easily have blended in to the surroundings, giving the impression of a normal family out for a Sunday walk, albeit a slightly bizarre family with one too many "husbands", If it weren't for the fact that we each had handfulls of poohsticks, which we had carefully gathered along the route. This clearly blew our cover to all passers by and after a 20 minute period, having realised our error we turned around. The bridge, once found was small and unassuming and featured an almost unnoticeably tiny sign announcing that this was Pooh Bridge and was the real life location for the creation, and first ever game of pooh sticks. Now, I'm sure you don't need telling that Pooh sticks is a game where you drop a small stick on the upstream side of the bridge and then you rush across to the downstream side to see whose stick appears from under the bridge first. Now as all sticks look the same to those of us who aren't stick experts, this can provoke some hearty discussion over whose stick has won. Everybody naturally shouts "that's mine" with every passing stick, even if it was thrown from somebody else in a different party.

In the interests of a quiet trip home, and also because she's the youngest and smallest in our group, we awarded the winner of "most winning sticks" to little Bro's daughter. Her prize was to give us all a kiss, including Wally the dog - who I'm sure would have much preferred a tummy rub or an enthusiastic pat but rules is rules so a kiss he got nonetheless. I'm just pleased that I wasn't next in the kissing line ! A fantastic weekend. Thanks very much to the T family in Sussex.

Things I've learnt this week:-
1. Yogi & BooBoo are worse at getting up in the morning than me.
2. That all sticks look the same really.
3. That no matter where I sit on a plane, I'm next to the wing !
4. That I have the Worlds largest collection of aeroplane wing photo's.

Things that have made me smile this week:-

1. Painted on the back of a McVities HGV proceeding Northbound on the M6 "No Jaffa Cakes are left in this trailer overnight"
2. Scrawled on a truly filthy white van, travelling Westbound on the M56 "Professionally cleaned by Stevie Wonder"

And on that bombshell....Until the next time.

Big Yin and Disneyland Paris - A week of contrasts.

This week I went to see the Big Yin, Billy Connolly in Manchester. As usual he was hysterical. The hair was as wild as always but is now silver in colour. The beard is now nicely trimmed and he prowls the stage with ease in drainpipe trousers and pointy shoes. He came onstage wearing dark rimmed glasses but took them off within a couple of minutes and proceeded to rant and rage about all manner of annoyances in his life. He was onstage for well over 2 hours - without a break, no mean feat for a guy whose now 64 - but as usual with a Billy concert, ( I've seen him 3 times now) I can barely remember anything he said, a point he acknowledges himself during the show. What I do remember however was laughing manically throughout. The guy is a genius and it was, without a doubt a thoroughly good evening.

The lovebirds have truly settled in and have this week been using their play gym. This is a wooden adventure playground that goes on top of their cage and contains several perches, a spiral staircase,a swing, a couple of hanging toys with bells on and four little plastic balls with bells inside. In summary, it's wooden, chewable and noisy. Yogi and BooBoo are besides themselves with joy. The intention with the play gym is to provide somewhere for the birds to play when they're outside of the cage. This is more preferable than the birds swinging off my curtains and chewing through the electrical cables, both activities they appear to thoroughly enjoy.I try to let the birds out for an hour or so each day. Letting them out is easy, the difficult bit is getting them back in again. I've decided that the best way is to use their favourite food, millet seed. If I place the millet in their cage, near one of the many openings, but - and here's the cunning part - just out of reach, then they will come to the opening and once they've realised that they can't reach it from outside, they go straight in. I then rush around closing all of the openings like some demented fool. It's similar to coaxing your little angels in for tea by waving burger and chips at them through the window. They love millet seed although it's the bird equivalent of junk food. It is high in fat and polyunsaturates and has minimal nutrition. I do find it very interesting how their favourite food is their least healthy food and their least favourite food - fresh fruit and veg - is the most healthy. They're just like us humans really in that respect.

I had booked my annual day out in Paris some months ago, when it was a cheap bargain on Easyjet. Thanks as always must go to the mighty http://www.skyscanner.net/ for enabling me to find this, and all of my other cheap flights. I woke at 5:30am and quickly washed, dressed & gathered together the least amount of possessions that I could justify for the trip. I refuse to take a bag on these sort of trips as carrying a bag for 12 hours gets rather weary. I left for the airport at 6am, still dark and as you'd expect for that hour on a Sunday morning, I felt like I was the only person awake in the World. As I watched a glorious sunrise over the motorway, the fingers of light reflecting on the chimneys of the oil refinery (not very romantic I grant you, but I tell it how it is!) my mind turned to what I was actually going to do with my day in Paris. I've been to Paris on numerous occasions and I've been to the majority of Paris' feature tourist attractions. I never tire of these sights but I wanted to do something different on this occasion. It was at that point that I remembered a conversation with my next door neighbour who had commented previously about going to Disneyland. As I drove along the near deserted motorway, I was trying to work out if I could actually do Disney in a day. How long would it take to get to the park from Charles De Gaulle ? - my least favourite airport in the whole wide World and I say that with some experience of the World's airports. What time would I need to be back for check in ? How long would I need to get from the Park to ensure I made check in ? In the end I realised it was going to be tight, that I'd miss more than I would see but it did seem like a really good, fun way to spend the day and I didn't have a plan B. I didn't have a Plan A to be honest but at that precise moment I decided, a day at Disney, it was going to be.

The flight from Liverpool to Charles De Gaulle takes an hour and I shared my flight with a planeload of Irish who were all en route to cheer on their team in the Rugby World Cup. The Irish were playing the Argies at the Parc de Prance for a place in the last 8. The Irish were in good spirits and the craic was good - as Van Morrison once said. At Charles De Gaulle, I deftly negotiated my way past all of my fellow passengers who had the untold delights of a Parisian baggage collection system to contend with and headed for the RER train station. Things were going too well and I was sure I was in for a fall. I didn't have to wait too long. I had a quick look at the map and subsequently misread the closest station for Disney. I bought a ticket for Chateau de Vincennes station. This looked a straightforward trip, Charles De Gaulle to Chatelet Les Halles on RER B then change onto RER A to Disney. As we're approaching Chateau de Vincennes I did notice the lack of children on the train and especially the lack of Micky Mouse Ears adorning the little cherub's heads. Mickey Mouse ears, of course being the accepted International sign that Disney is close by. I dismissed these doubts as it being still quite early in the day, that it was a Sunday and that it was getting towards the end of the season. I left the train at Chateau de Vincennes and emerged bleary eyed into brilliant sunlight and a piercing blue sky.... and into the middle of a Sunday market. This certainly didn't look like Euro Disney had done when I was last there, some 10 years or so ago. The Disney themed shops I remembered had been staffed by young, smily, nubile assistants selling Disney logo'd merchandise but had now apparently been replaced with beetroot faced women of advancing years and pendulous, sagging breasts using paint splattered decorating tables to sell their fruit and veg ! Alarm bells should have been ringing like it was a World Record attempt at amassing the largest and loudest collection of campanologists but I just figured that the park is pretty large so it wouldn't be hard to spot if I just 'walked around for a bit'. I found a map in the Bus Station and realised my mistake, I needed "Vicennes" not "Chateau de Vincennes"! Actually, I didn't need Vicennes either - nothing like it in fact - but hindsight is a marvellous thing. According to the map, Vicennes RER station looked to be just up the road, it was a nice day and seeing a city on foot is so much nicer than being underground. I therefore headed off in the general direction of the suburb of Vicennes. I passed the Chateau that bore the name of this particular area and it was tall, imposing and very impressive but I didn't dwell as I had a station to find, whereupon the Park would be just metres away. As I came to a major road junction, I was surprised to find that there wasn't any signpost for Disney, nor any billboards featuring Mickey wearing his Fantasia wizards hat at the customary jaunty angle. I was beginning to get the feeling that I was in the wrong place. I decided to press on and find the station, so that I could gather my thoughts and find exactly where I needed to be. I did consider asking a local for directions to one of the Worlds largest, but apparently hidden, theme parks but whereas I felt confident in my "excusez-moi monsieur, ou est le Parc de Disney sil vous plait?" I didn't much fancy my chances of understanding the Frenchman's answer, most likely the French equivalent of "You Sir are a total doofus and are hopelessly lost in my great and noble country... You need to go back to whichever station you arrived at and learn how to read a map. Whereupon you will realise that you need to take the RER B3 line to Marne la Vallee, you pathetic English tourist with your terrible weather, bad food, warm beer and hapless sense of fashion"..... Or words to that effect.

As such I pressed on regardless and despite following the signs to the RER Station - which took me so far then the signs seemed to lose interest and stopped abruptly, I couldn't find Vicennes station. I wandered down every road and side street in the town. I passed lots of pretty french houses with shuttered windows and heavy stone facades. With each road, my hopes that it would lead me to a station, or better still, Disney,were cruelly dashed. Now in London, cab drivers have to pass "The Knowledge". This is a very tough exam that requires an encyclopedic knowledge of the streets of London. A knowledge of London, so remarkable it would make Dustin Hoffman in Rainman look positively forgetful. After exhausting every street for seemingly miles around, I have no doubts that if Vicennes had their own local version of "The Knowledge" then I would have passed with flying colours. I was almost hoping that someone would ask me for directions as I was confident that I could direct anybody to any street in the town without a moments hesitation. At one point I did consider staying here for ever and opening a Vicennes Tourist Information Office. It seemed a sensible idea as I clearly wasn't going to find my way out of town. I could run tours to visit the drunks on Rue de Montreuil and to take hordes of camera happy Japanese tourists for a walk around the large building site on Rue Monmoray. However, it was whilst I was thinking of my new life working in French tourism that I almost fell down a subway. This miraculously turned out to be Croix de Chevaux Metro station (No I've never heard of it either)but every station has a map and is a good way out of a sticky situation such as this. I soon discovered my error and had the indignity of having to buy yet another ticket to get me back to a station I had passed earlier in the morning in order to catch the correct train to Disney.

Disney, once I arrived there was fantastic as all Disney Parks are. I jointly hold the family record for Disney Parks having visited 3 of the 5 parks Worldwide. I'm rather disappointed that I've been to Hong Kong twice but never had the opportunity to visit the Disney Park on Hong Kong's Lantau Island and thereby put me clearly ahead in the family Disney Park stakes, with four. The park was as full as I've ever seen at any location and as it was now lunctime everything was in full swing. I quickly found a park map and decided that my plan of attack was going to be Pirates of the Caribbean, Indiana Jones, Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blaster and Space Mountain.
If time permitted, the Phantom Mansion, Small World and Star Tours. I did Pirates first as that is one of my favourite rides, the attention to detail, the smells, the make believe flames, the "yo ho ho, it's a pirates life for me" song, Just fab. I then went to the Indiana Jones ride. In hindsight this was a mistake as the ride lasted a little over a minute but the queue was around an hour. On a schedule as tight as mine this was way too long. As I'm no doubt you're aware, at theme parks they take the queue in a little tour around the ride, snaking up and down and then past the entrance to lead you to believe you're nearly at the front of the line before cruelly snaking up and down again for another half an hour. This means that you pass the same people coming in the opposite direction, every 10 minutes or so for an hour or more. The people you queue with, total strangers of course, become like friends, in fact I've spent more time with people in theme park queues than I have with some girlfriends ! I could almost imagine us having reunions. Anyway, as I'm waiting in line I accidentally caught the eye of a girl aged about 15 coming in the opposite direction with her school mates and then of course every 10 minutes we passed each other and I seemed to catch her eye every time. I felt like some weird perverted stalker. The more desperately I tried to look anywhere but at her, I always seemed to catch her eye. I was dying with embarrassment as I assume, was she. I was so pleased when I eventually got to the head of the queue and didn't have to cross her path anymore. The Indiana Jones ride was excellent but not worth the queue time for such a short trip. I grabbed a bite to eat and headed off to Buzz Lightyear as soon as I could. Now Buzz is one of the best rides at Disney. It's genius. It's a ride where you sit in a moving space craft shaped vehicle, known as a Star Cruiser, that proceeds along a space themed track and all riders, referred to as Space Rangers have their own laser gun to fire. Buzz explains that he needs your help to beat his evil nemesis, a Darth Vader type character called Emperor Zurg. What all of this means is that whenever you see Zurg, his henchman or their various spacecraft during the ride you zap them by manically firing your laser guns. They crop up continually, sometimes to your right, sometimes to your left, sometimes above you, sometimes below, sometimes behind you.
The whole car flicks right and left and even spins through 360 degrees as you proceed through the ride, allowing you to shoot Zurg & his heavies as you go. With each "kill" your personal score increases and at the end of the ride your score is displayed for everybody to see on the big screen along with that of your fellow Space Rangers. In essence, you're playing a sort of real life video game against your fellow passengers whilst physically riding inside of the game with Buzz, Woody and all of the other Toy Story characters cheering you on. Buzz is constantly shouting instructions so that you shoot the right targets to gain the highest scores. It's terrific fun and an idea of true genius as everybody, from young children to senior citizens, are all playing along with smiles so wide we all look like we've eaten coat hangars for lunch. All the while firing hysterically at everything. Fabulous ! I finished with a total score of 5430, which I thought was pretty good until I saw some of the other scores which in some cases totalled well over 300,000 ! How they managed this I have no idea. Another great feature about this game is that you can play Astro Blasters online at home (and get this) against people actually on the ride at Disneyland California! Wowsers !! The link if you want to do this is as follows http://disneyland.disney.go.com/disneyland/en_US/buzzOnline/index?name=BuzzOnlineDownloadPage . Just copy and paste the link into your browser and follow the instructions to download the necessary software. The Buzz ride was followed by the wonderful Space Mountain. This, as I'm sure you'll know, is a roller coaster ride in near total darkness. Space Mountain, as always was great but again the time spent in the queue was really too long given my schedule. The Phantom Mansion was my final ride of the day as I was conscious that I needed to get back to the airport in time for check in at 8pm. Given my error earlier that morning, I was a bit worried of making a similar mistake on the return journey and missing the flight.









My train ride back to the airport was uneventful, as was my flight home,apart from the worlds most annoying child in the seat behind mine. He spent the entire flight kicking my seat, shouting at his dad because he didn't like his seat, refusing to put his seat belt on and then immediately taking it off when his ineffectual Dad put the belt on for him. Despite the obvious health and safety hazard and personal risk to myself, I could happily have opened the door of the aircraft and hauled him out of the plane from 34,000 feet. If being a cheeky Brat was a University course, he would have a Masters degree. Both the airport and the flight were once again filled with Irish rugby supporters, although following a rather dire performance (the fans appraisal, not mine) and a 30-15 defeat to the Argies which put them out of the tournament; they were much less buoyant than they had been on the outbound flight. They were all in good spirits nonetheless due mainly to the fact that they had spent the day drinking good spirits and no doubt the odd pint of the black stuff as well.

I arrived back home a shade after 11pm. Tired but happy and very much looking forward to my bed and to taking off my shoes. - although not necessarily in that order.

My summary of the day? Trying to do Disney in a day was a tall order to say the least and it really isn't possible to do it justice unless you're able to get there very early and leave very late. It is not really possible in a single day with flight & train times and especially with stupid navigational errors such as mine. However, the day was brilliant, I loved every minute of it and will definately do it again...maybe next year, maybe next weekend, who knows ??

So that was my week really, the start of which featured the very un-Disneylike Billy Connolly and ended with the erm, very Disneylike, Disney ! A week of contrasts you may say ?

Things I've learnt this week

1. To check which station I need to get off at beforehand. Quite important this bit.
2. That 7 year old children can be the most irritating people imaginable.
3. That it's possible to feel both a stalker & a pervert at the same time when standing innocently in a theme park queue.

Things that have annoyed me this week:

1. Parking machines that don't give change... Why not ?
2. Human generated Global warming (this may become a common theme in the future)
3. Politicians that don't answer the questions.
4. Queuing.
5. Previously mentioned 7 year old brat.

Things that have made me smile this week:

1. Billy Connolly
2. A colleague stating " I see the f*** up fairy has paid us another visit"
3. Reading a piece in the paper that stated "I dream of a world, when a chicken can cross the road without having it's motives questioned"

Til the next time. ta ta