Mahinda’s Little World

My birthday’s on Thursday (i.e. tomorrow!), when I’ll reach the grand old age of twenty-eight.

So, adopting the EFAP* mindframe, I went out for a few beers last night. Nothing too strenuous; just a handful of us in Solomon Grundy in the end.

* Excuse For A Piss-up.

Attendees were Housemate Andrew, ex-Housemate Patricia (who gave me my best card so far), Dr.Kate, Cathy V, Alison, Si and Laura. Which was nice. There’ll be more people turning up on Thursday, no doubt, which’ll be the main birthday event for Ross and me. We share a birthday, you see.

It was all rather pleasant - I had four or five glasses of Leffe, and then closing time was reached and we all dispersed.

Before this, I’d dashed home from work and straight to a very hard hour of hockey practice, then straight home to a long hot shower and straight out. My dinner consisted of a hastily torn off piece of olive bread spread with some butter and left over houmous. Not much of a stomach lining, especially considering the exercise, so I managed to get quite tipsy. Leffe and Hoegaarden, in particular, tend to go straight to my head.

Anyway, I walked Laura back to her place, and we had a nice chat over cups of tea.

I’m really chuffed that Laura turned up, as I’d not seen her in ages. And I’m not just saying that because I know she’s bookmarked this blog (I told her last night)! She’s a recently qualified teacher, so can’t usually come out and play on a weeknight, but it’s half term.

Walked back home - 15 minutes of COLD! - and feasted on more olive bread, this time with houmous, HP Sauce, and copious amounts of bacon. Not all at once, mind.

Men Tickling Men

Within the space of a few hours, people found my blog by (a) asking Jeeves "how can i be a member for 42nd st nightclub manchester"…and then (b) Yahoo searching for "tickling men tickling men tickling men tickling men video".

WHY?

The 42nd Street one I can understand, but "tickling men tickling men tickling men tickling men video"? Why repeat the search query?

Most odd.

Blog referrals from the last month…

Google Search
how to make chicken breasts stuffed with ricotta and spinach
spartohori — x2
HOLIDAYS SUN FUN
mugss
hattrick boozer
kathryn hadler
“sofa of wrongness”
amandhi
pinching your nose
johncoxon.com
meganisi
lefkas OR lefkada OR leucada OR lefkav “topless”
The Pondside Bunkhouse Hathersage — x2
sailing sunbathing girls
holidays water topless

Google Images
“sophie ellis-bextor” — alien!

Yahoo Search
mahinda sister’s name
amandhi — on a very different day to the one above
dried seaweed highbury & islington
examples of world collapsed jetties american

Other
MSN Search:   sprained diaphragm — ouch
NTLworld search:   funfair wythenshawe park 2006
Blogger search:   cum girls

Clearly, most people really are using the internet for FILTH.

I feel dirty and used.

It’s 12.30am, and I’ve just got home. The usual shooting malarkey, except that Adrian, Clare and I headed to the pub afterwards.

So, I ended up in Tesco’s a bit later than usual. I’m usually there sometime between 9pm and 11pm, with the actual shopping taking about an hour. I like to browse!

This time, I got there at about 11.30pm. It was very different - many of the usual staff finish at 11pm, so they weren’t there. It was also a very different crowd of shoppers, although that might just be because it was February 13th.

There were A LOT of blokes wandering around, clearly on the way home from t’pub, clutching bunches of flowers. Others were perusing the Valentine’s Day cards, and still others were taking advantage of the "20% off all boxed chocolate" offer…going by the vast stacks of confectionery still on the shelves, there’ll be rich pickings tomorrow for the sweet of tooth.

Of course, I have no-one to be all Valentiney with. In fact, it’s been a VERY long time since I’ve had a date on Feb 14th…the last time was seven years ago, back in 1999. I was 20, and still at university. In fact, even back then, Josephine and I were in different cities, and we never took the whole Valentine thing very seriously, so the chances are that we didn’t do anything then, either.

Right. I’m off to bed. Will finish this one off during my lunch break. I _might_ even search through my email archive and find out what I’ve been up to on Feb 14th over the years!

*saves to pen drive*

Valentines Past and Present

I’ve just looked through my email archives…

• Feb 14th 1999
  Probably did something with Josephine.
• Feb 14th 2000
  I knackered my knee playing badminton, and spent the evening in casualty. And agony. Nice.
• Feb 14th 2001
  I seem to have been ill. Wednesday was my free evening back then, and emails allude to a long phone call with Josephine, in which I sounded quite sad. We were probably comparing singleness.
• Feb 14th 2002
  Would have been a MUGSS rehearsal. That was just before the MUGSS Tarts’ Party where I had the Kates (Dr. and Scottish) staying over.
• Feb 14th 2003
  I’d been cruelly dumped by Catherine the week before so, thankfully, I didn’t have to come up with anything special. Every cloud has a silver lining! I’ve just read a HUGE email thread between Jo and me, all about singledom and sex and stuff. I don’t think Jo’s featured at all on this blog, but she’s an old friend from my university days, who I really don’t see very often
• Feb 14th 2004
  Over to Leeds for Kate’s birthday. I think. Possibly. I started going out with Sarah a mere five days later!
• Feb 14th 2005
  I donated some blood! ‘Twas a Monday, so I probably just went shooting in the evening.
• Feb 14th 2006
  Nothing planned. Depends on what Dr.Kate’s doing for her birthday. Failing that, it’ll be hockey training. If my sore legs feel up to it.
  EDIT: Kate’s celebrating on Saturday, and my legs still hadn’t recovered, so I ended up sitting in on my lonesome, watching Liverpool beat Arsenal. Yay! I also made myself a LOVELY bit of rump steak, smothered in rosemary and black pepper, with a mushroom, onion and peppercorn cream sauce, sugar snap peas and sautéed potatoes. Mmmmmmm.

…that was really quite something, turning up lots of old emails from people I haven’t seen in years. And should probably contact! Plenty of blasts from the past, too.

I think this is something I should do more often - maybe pick a day and transcribe the best email from that day on each year, 2000 onwards.

Of course, I’ve got my university emails all saved to some floppies in a box at home somewhere…but that really would be going too far!

History Lesson

St. Valentine seems to have been a martyr who got his head chopped off by the Romans. Nice. And highly romantic, of course. As usual, Wikipedia has an interesting history of St. Valentine’s Day…but, in this day and age, you’d probably be better just going here.

Played hockey on Saturday, as is often the case. We headed west to play Deeside Ramblers on their turf. Except that it was quite some way from the (astro)turf we usually play on - the pitch was absolutely rock solid…possibly a bit frozen. It was very strange - you’d expect the ball to bounce, except that it didn’t. And it was VERY fast. Definitely not forgiving of my rubbish first touch.

Still, we played very well, and managed to win 3-0. There were chances for both sides, and it was more even than the scoreline suggests, but a win is quite definitely a win! I had a decent game at right back - perhaps not brilliant defensively, but I got forward okay.

The highlight of my day was something that both Martin and Steve told me in the clubhouse afterwards. While I was making a bit of a run upfield, one of the opposition turned to them and said “Bloody hell, he’s a bit quick, isn’t he?!”

The reply was, quite simply, “Yep”.

I’m not actually that all that quick - certainly, my top speed is nothing to be proud of, especially when I’ve got the ball. However, I do have decent acceleration…and the thing that fools people is that I don’t look quick. At all. Opposing forwards think I’m just a big lumbering defender*, and are then completely unprepared when I get the ball and rush past them.

* This is probably because (a) I’m quite big, (b) I lumber, and (c) I’m a defender.

Had a drink at their club, accompanied by a nice bit of hotpot-cum-chilli, and headed back home, via our clubhouse of course. I signed up to go on tour to Barbados next summer, which is nice - it’s NOT going to be cheap, but it’d be so much fun!

Heroes and Villains

Once home, I did what any amazingly sociable party animal would do on a Saturday evening - I went to sleep for two hours! Unfortunately, I had to drag myself out of bed so that I could nip over to Solomon’s and have a drink with Dr.Kate and Jenn, who’d just returned from Mark J’s annual skiing trip. They’d had fun, predictably enough.

And then home, early, just after 10pm. I quickly knocked together a costume for the MUGSS ‘Heroes and Villains’ party, and off I went.

Never again!

I dressed as Sol Campbell, for probably the first and last time. Who is he? Well, as captain of my beloved Spurs for several years, he was a hero of mine. He then defected to Arsenal in somewhat unpleasant circumstances, making him a definite villain. It being a MUGSS party, there were many there who didn’t get the reference, despite him being all over the papers during the last week.

It was a nice party, and I had the pleasure of meeting Amy, who’s FAR too young! Tim and I worked out (in the kitchen, which is where discussions like that usually happen at such parties) that she was actually born just ONE YEAR before we met. How scary is that?!

Sunday

Woke up far too early, and headed straight down to Wilmslow (well, Styal really) for a mixed hockey match.

I started off well, but things went wrong about ten minutes later. My legs just stopped working - the bits below my knees were just stiff and painful. It really wasn’t good. I soldiered on for much of the game, spending a bit of time on the bench (we had a couple of substitutes), but I’ve been hobbling ever since.

It’s the Saturday pitch getting its revenge - I’m pretty heavy, and have weak joints at the best of times. It’s Monday evening as I write this, and it hurts.

I got back home, limping heavily, after the customary drink at the opposition clubhouse, and sat down to watch the end of the Spurs match. All was going well, until the 89th minute, when Sunderland managed a late equaliser. I was NOT happy.

Cue five minutes of extra time, much of which was spent with me screaming at the television. Grrr.

I then watched some rugby, before discovering that there were 3 hours of highlights from the second VB Series final match between Australia and Sri Lanka. I knew we were in trouble when the Australian innings was still being shown 2 hours into the programme. Their HUGE score (368/5) was also something of a giveaway, and I ended up in a foul mood as I watched Sri Lanka fail to come anywhere near that total, albeit with a valiant effort by the mighty Murali.

Suitably grumpy, I headed over to Pete and Rosy’s place, where Rosy cooked us a GREAT roast beef dinner. A huge portion, which hit the spot perfectly!

We then watched the first two episodes of the new series of 24. I’d managed to miss this completely - I was aware that lots of people were raving about it, but I hadn’t seen any of the show at all. In short, I was very impressed.

Home. Bed. Sleeeeep

Part II took us up to Saturday afternoon. Not far to go now!

Crawl

Towards the end of the afternoon shift, I got stuck with cleaning out lots of barrel jackets – these are for the cooling system, and it’s a particularly boring task – before we headed out on a pub crawl with Young CAMRA. “We” being Dave, Andrew and me. In addition to the usual Manchester U30 bunch, we were joined by Verity, Rob, Gus and many many others.

First off, the Beer House with its plethora of pumps…then the Marble Arch with its terrific tiling…followed by the Smithfield with its own min-festival…and the recently restored Crown and Kettle with its fire-damaged frescoes. Well, maybe not exactly frescoes. Last up was Bar Fringe, which was a pretty tight squeeze, and there we were joined by Lynda’s lot, who decided on the dodgy café next door for a curry. I had my doubts, but it wasn’t all that bad in the end. Took bloody ages though.

Suddenly, we realised that we’d lost Andrew! He’d ordered, and was nowhere to be found. Now, he does have a habit of disappearing when drunk…and he was deep in the Northern Quarter, i.e. a slightly dodgy area that he really doesn’t know. I managed to reach him on the phone, and stepped outside to try to find him. It turns out that he’d walked across the road towards the Smithfield and its selection of fine ales. I coerced him back to the curry joint.

It was then back to the beer fest for me, leaving the rest of them in Bar Fringe.

I’d asked Dave to keep an eye on Andrew…sure enough, he disappeared again. In the direction of the Smithfield, again. Fortunately Dave found him, and they hopped in a taxi back home.

Staff Drinking Sesh

Back at the festival, I served until last orders, then helped with the evening clean-up job, including yet more cooling jackets. Grrrr. But it was all worth it!

Unfortunately, we had loads and loads of ale left. Which we tried to drink. We tried, honest!

It was nice to drink with the other staffers, and I got introduced to a few festival traditions. Like the garlic curry that one of the guys brought in. Quite simply, a spicy curry with whole cloves of garlic as the main ingredient. Something like 7lb of garlic went into the pot. It was………probably the most garlicky thing I’ve ever tasted. I’m not so sure I’d try it again, to be honest.

The other tradition was Ruth’s foot massages. Now, I’ve got firm views on my feet, i.e. people shouldn’t go anywhere near them, but Ruth and Emma convinced me, so out came the bucket of warm water. Ruth on one foot, and Emma on the other…I was pleasantly surprised, really – it was quite enjoyable…until they started to tickle me!

Other memories of that evening are somewhat hazy, but I think we got in at something like 4am. Maybe later. Maybe Emma left before I did, as she had to get to Sale at silly o’clock for her lift back down to the south coast.

Actually, no…I think I remember us getting a cab back, having first walked to Piccadilly in search of a bus. It must have been closer to 5am.

Sunday

The day started scandalously early, with Emma having to leave and catch an early 41 (8am? 9am?) towards Sale. After the previous night, I was nowhere near safe enough to drive her over. I saw her off at the bus stop, blearily-eyed and shambling, then crashed straight back to bed.

Emma had been an absolutely fabulous houseguest over the last week. I think my place is a bit too far out of town to be ideal, though.

I awoke a bit later, and eventually find Dave in the living room, quite awake. We found Lynda and Hans in the living room, and I drove the four of us into town, where we went to my favourite curry café of them all, the inestimable This ‘n’ That. After the feed, Lynda and Hans headed into town for some shopping (I think), Dave pootled off to Piccadilly to catch his train back to Lincolnshire, and I meandered towards New Century Hall to help clear up the beer festival.

It was the first time I’d helped out in a take down session, and it was hard physical work. It made a nice change though, and was probably worth about five gym sessions! It was absolutely heartbreaking seeing so much fine ale being thrown away – it took quite some time to drain all the unspent casks, with several-gallon buckets constantly on the move between cask rack and the sink.

Heartbreaking, I tell you. Some was supped, but not much.

Once the bulk of the work was done, i.e. all the barrels taken down and the scaffolding, trestles, etc. all loaded on to a great big lorry, it was close to 7pm, possibly even later, so those of us still standing headed to the Marble Arch for a well-deserved pint.

And then home.

And then a whole week of work…which was nice.

All in all, it was an absolutely fantastic week, if a little intense. If only I had more days off work, I’d happily do the same for Stockport and, of course, the daddy of them all - the GBBF. Ho hum. I shall have to make do with sampling as a mere punter.

So, where was I? Oh yes. Friday…

Friday

Guess what? I was off to the beer festival again, having taken the afternoon off. Again.

This time, Wee Dave was coming over from Grimsby way for the weekend - he was due to get to Piccadilly around 4pm, upon which time I’d collect him and we’d head off for beer festival fun.

Unfortunately, he’d had a bit of a nightmare getting his car fixed, and ended up running pretty late. By the time I collected him and got back to the fest, it must have been close to 8pm. We collected Katy and Rick on the way too – they’d booked themselves into a hotel for the night.

The MADwalkers were there, so I had the pleasure of saying hello to Steph, Mary, Mark and the rest. I was kept fairly busy on “Fletch’s Mighty Erection” though, so couldn’t chat much.

As with most of the days, I bumped into quite a few people I knew. I think it was on the Friday that I happened to spot Kirsty, who’s the ex-girlfriend of one of my ex-housemates. Lovely girl, so it was nice to see her again. It really is a great ego-boost, being able to go into an event like that and it being unusual to <em>not</em> bump into anyone you know.

I’m having a lot of trouble remembering what we did on Friday night…it must have involved Dave, Katy and Rick, and perhaps Emma too. Actually, I remember Emma getting into the house just after (or was it just before) Dave and I.

GOT IT!

Adam worked the fest that night, too, and he headed off with Dave, Katy and Rick to go drinking with some mates. They all ended up in ScuBar, which is where I joined them. It wasn’t very good, really - a bit of an anticlimax to what had been an enjoyable evening. Some of the others contemplated the idea of curry, which I wasn’t really up for…and Rick was clearly close to passing out! In the end, Katy and Rick went back to their hotel via a kebab shop, while Dave, Ads, Raman and I shared a taxi home.

Saturday

Probably stirred in my sleep and mumbled something uncomplimentary, as Emma rose from her mattress and headed to the beer festival. I got up sometime later to find Dave downstairs with a cup of tea. This is Dave’s natural state, of course.

I wandered around the house like an extra from Shaun of the Dead, getting ready at a rate of very few knots, until a bit after midday. I think. Dave, Housemate Lynda, Hans (one of Lynda’s friends) and I headed into town, meeting Katy and Rick at Piccadilly. I then led them to the Marhaba, one of Manchester’s many curry cafés. That particular gem is one of the many that offers rice ‘n’ three*, and is within a stone’s throw of the Arndale Centre – it’s surprising that more people haven’t discovered it. The others were pretty impressed.

* Rice and three ladles of various curries – whatever’s there on the day – served from a school cafeteria style counter. Varies in cost between £3.50 and £4.50 or so, depending on venue and the curries concerned.

Nicely fed, we went our separate ways – Lynda and Hans to do some shopping, and the rest of us back to the fest. I joined the (national) CAMRA Young Members Group for their social, i.e. working one of the bars at the festival. This turned out to be a total takeover of Fletch’s bar, as there were LOADS of us!

Rick and Katy disappeared off shortly, and we were joined by Housemate Andrew. I took the odd break to go and speak to Dave, who was standing on his own – Andrew had disappeared, and was nowhere to be found. Eventually I did find him – he was in the downstairs bar area, sitting on a chair, right in the middle of it all, alone but for his glass, with a big grin on his face. And they say that the Irish are unfairly stereotyped!

Housemate Lynda and her PhD mates came along, and definitely enjoyed the drinking experience – something new for the likes of Hans (Danish, I think) and Amadeo (Italian).

I’ll write more in Part III…when I get round to it!

Okay, I should really bite the bullet and write about the week of the Winter Ales Festival. Mmmm, beer… Unfortunately, some of the memories are rather hazy. I wonder why that could be?!

Saturday and Emma

The day started with me waking rather groggily, and heading over to William Hulme School for a hockey match. Yet again, I started as right back for the seconds and, yet again, we lost. Bugger. I didn’t have the best of games, but I don’t think I did too badly, either - I was involved in our only goal, and we did have spells of good pressure down the right. I managed to get hit out of the game by one of my teammates, too - Matt came in hard for a clearance, and succeeded in hammering the ball just below my knee, from point-blank range. I’m sorry to say that my inability to run for the next few minutes was probably to blame for the goal they scored during that time. Bugger.

Went home after the game to find Emma, my houseguest for the week, sitting on our upturned recycling box reading a newspaper.

Now, Emma’s one of those people I’ve met along the way. The first Winter Ales Fest I worked at was 2001 or thereabouts, and I happened to meet a blonde lass, Emma, who was also working there. After much discussion, it turns out that we had met before - we’d sat next to each other at a careers presentation back in our final year at university. She was Civil Engineering, I was Chemical. The next time I saw Emma was when I worked at the Winter Ales Fest last year, and we got on pretty well.

So she ended up booking my floor (and mattress - I’m not that bad a host!) for the week of the festival this year. She now lives down in Dorset, y’see. She’d scabbed a lift up from Rachel and Steve (I think), who’d driven up from Southampton, and bore some fine gifts indeed - lamb chops, a nice bit of venison, some beans, and a veritable plethora of sprouts. Dinner that evening was the lamb chops, and very nice they were too!

We ended up in The Victoria for a low-key evening with Dr.Kate, Pete, Rosy and Emma, before going back for an early night.

Sunday

Had quite a broken night’s sleep - I’m just not used to sharing a room with someone, I suppose, even though it’s not exactly something I don’t do often, and got up good and late.

Emma, being a scandalously early riser, had already headed over to the fest to help with the setup. I meandered over, found them all out to lunch, and tried to find a squash game…Rimko was organising one, but I didn’t have confirmed times, and couldn’t get through to him.

Went and lazed at home instead, and cooked a nice roast venison dinner. It really was a fantastic bit of meat. Which I then proceeded to overcook slightly. After dinner, Emma and I went for a walk, into Rusholme for milkshakey treats at Moonlight. Unlike Rusholme’s plethora of curry houses, Moonlight is a small ice-cream/milkshake joint that opened back when we were students…and Emma never made it there.

So, we treated ourselves to HUGE sundaes, before continuing down through the university and over to Sand Bar for a pint. And then across town to the Knott Bar for another pint, and then home on the bus.

Monday

Back to work for me, followed by the usual night at the rifle club, where I proceeded to hit a couple of decent scores. Unusual, really, as I’m having a terrible run at the moment.

Tuesday

I took the day off to help set up the beer fest. Emma and I headed in early (well, early for me) and spent the day doing stuff. I learnt a lot about how these things are done, and had a generally fun day of shifting stuff around, etc. I missed my chance at sabotaging the cider and perry stand, when setting it up, but my conscience would never have let me live it down!

Heaven!

I also had my first run-in with Bandanaman, who was to prove one of the, ahem, characters of the week. One of the stereotypical CAMRA stalwarts, with heavy beard but no beergut to speak of, he had the utmost conviction that His Way Was The Right Way. Sometimes it was, no doubt, but sometimes it wasn’t

Predictably, we ran well over our 4pm finish time, and were starting to get thirsty. I spent about an hour on top of the main bar table, with Emma screwing away underneath me. Mind you, she did have her turn on top…but we reckoned it was better with her underneath. I don’t think that needs any further explanation.

We eventually packed up shortly before 7pm, and headed towards the Hydes brewery, where Emma had arranged a "tour" with Tony Phillips…not sure what his exact title is, suffice to say that he’s a rather important figure at Hydes, and is often found suitably inebriated at beer festivals. Quality control, I suppose!

Anyway, we were rather generously given a free bar, with the Welsh Dark Mild and XXXX (NOT Castlemaine!) on tap specially. Mmmmmm. Most of us elected to skip the brief tour, and just drink more instead! In my defence, I had been on said tour three or four times before.

Still can’t decide between this pic and the last

Suitably watered (but still not fed), people left in their minicabs. Emma and I walked over to Rusholme with Mike, and stopped off in the Whitworth for one last pint of an evening! We saw Mike off on his bus home, and headed to the inestimable King Cobra for a curry. Perfect! By the time we got out, the heavens had decided to open, so we grabbed a bus and headed home, to sleep the sleep of the dead.

Now, I’m quite talkative in my sleep, especially when I’ve been drinking. That night, Emma experienced it for the first time. As per usual, it wasn’t quite clear what I was saying. Hmm…

Wednesday

Got up and headed to work, feeling more than a bit groggy. Thank you, Hydes! Admittedly, it was only something like a 6-pint evening, so not too bad. Had a busy day in the office, and headed off with my plan being to do an hour or so behind one of the festival bars, then disappear off to play an hour of squash, and return for more work.

As it happened, I got held up at work a bit…and then got caught up in the horrendous matchday traffic between Alty and Withington - Man Utd were playing at home. By the time I got home, heading to the fest wasn’t an option, so I just did the squash thing instead. Three courts, six players. I didn’t lose a game…which was nice…but I did end up pretty knackered! Got changed and headed to the beer fest.

Did a (partial) shift behind the “Near and Far” bar, which seemed like a cunning excuse to get more local beers in! It turned out that Bazen’s Knoll St. Porter was there, but down at the Competition Bar. More about that later. Anyway, my memory’s a little hazy, but I think that, once the punters had been cleared out, we just sat in the beer fest drinking for a while. It’s all very sociable.

Thursday

More beer fest action, really. Took a half day off work so I could get there early, too. This time, I headed downstairs to work on the, well, Downstairs Bar. This was opposite the Competition Bar, and only opened to the public once the (behind closed doors) competition judging was over. The full results of the judging, with some notes, can be found here, but here’s a short list:

SUPREME CHAMPION
i.e. CHAMPION WINTER BEER OF BRITAIN 2006
1st – A over T: Hogs Back (Surrey)
2nd – Festival Mild: Gale’s (Horndean, Hampshire)
3rd – Black Knight: Goff’s (Cheltenham, Glos)

OLD ALES & STRONG MILDS
Gold – Festival Mild: Gales (Horndean, Hampshire)
Silver – Black Knight: Goff’s (Cheltenham, Glos)
Bronze – Dark Island: Orkney (Stromness Orkney)

STOUTS & PORTERS
Gold – Knoll Street Porter: Bazens’ (Salford)
Silver – London Porter: Fullers (Chiswick, London)
Bronze – Festivity: Bath (Warmley, Bristol)

BARLEY WINES
Gold – A over T: Hog’s Back (Tongham, Surrey)
Silver – Cuillen Beast: Isle of Skye (Uig, IoS)
Bronze – Old Tom: Robinson’s (Stockport)

I was very chuffed to hear Orkney Dark Island getting a gong…and absolutely over the moon when I heard it anounced that Bazens’ Knoll St. Porter won its category. Both of these rank in my list of top five beers, with the Knoll St. Porter being my favourite beer in the world!

Took this on the way to the fest that afternoon.
Nothing to do with beer, but I just love the shot!

Richard and Jude Bazen, who run the brewery, are both absolutely lovely, too - one of the first Manc CAMRA U30 socials I went on (they might even have been the U26 group, back then!) was a trip out to their brewery, which was basically a great big shed in Salford, shared with Facer’s Brewery.

They put on a nice buffet, and a couple of barrels of ale, and then we headed to their local for a pint or three. Richard and I ended up chatting about cricket for ages. Since then, I’ve bumped into them randomly once or twice, which was nice. Congratulations!

These are people who donated a cask to the fledgling Salford Uni Real Ale Society, so that anyone signing up at their freshers’ stall got a free pint!

As we were downstairs, away from the main hall, custom was a bit slow, especially at first. This was the day that some MUGSS types came along, as did the Goonies and several other mates. All good fun. I think that one was another "sit around in the main hall, drinking" evening.

And the Rest…

Well, you’ll just have to wait! This has been sitting on my pen drive long enough, so I’d better post it. The Friday, Saturday and Sunday shenanigans* will be written about later.

* Mostly drinking, it has to be said.

Wednesday 1st Feb, and it was time for the year’s first Manchester Ceilidh at Jabez.

Housemate Helen (the smaller), my regular partner in crime, couldn’t make it, so I headed off on my own, with the plan being to meet Alsion, Melissa and Pete downstairs, plus possibly Howell, Rick and Antony.

Found Alsion and Melissa, which was nice, and got a round in. I was served be a cute brunette barmaid…cute, but possibly a bit shy of competent! The poor thing failed miserably at pulling a pint of Robinson’s Old Stockport, leaving it on the counter with a gathering mountain of head while she pours the other drinks (Carling for Alsion, a mudslide for Melissa). At this point, the other cute barmaid, this one blonde, comes over to pull a pint of the same for another customer…and berates Brunette for pulling a rubbish pint!

“It’s okay,” says I, “I’ll get her to top it up.”

Blondey and I get chatting, and she mutters about Brunette never having worked in a village pub, with each regular expecting a different (but exact) amount of head on their pint. To be fair to Brunette, it was pretty lively from the pump…and Blondey herself was having a bit of trouble. Still, she managed to rescue it impressively.

Brunette returns with the rest of the drinks, and tops up my pint. I try to give her a bit of moral support.

Now, I said that Blondey was cute. Well, that’s not strictly true. She would be very cute…if only she smiled every so often. In the whole exchange, and afterwards, I never saw her break into a grin once. Okay, so she may have been having a hard time of things, but the grumpy demeanour really didn’t do the rest of her any justice at all.

But anyway, that’s quite enough about the bar staff.

Pete and John turn up, closely followed by Jennifer and Kathryn (”Little Alison” and “Big Alison”). The girls head upstairs quickly due to the three of us talking too much about football - well, Arsenal had just gone 0-2 down against West Ham, so my little world was a happy place!

A few minutes later, we headed upstairs ourselves…where we found Howell and Rick (plus the usual MUGSS crowd and ceilidh regulars), who’d gone straight upstairs. They’d not danced as they couldn’t find partners. Things got a bit easier once they got assimilated into the group.

So, with whom did I dance? Think I managed to grab Alsion, both her sisters, Sarah, Becky, Melissa, Housemate Lynda (who turned up a little later) and, of course, Zenobia. No randoms at all, for a change, except of course for the progressive dances, etc. This was partly due to Pif calling for the whole of the second half - he doesn’t usually give you any time to change between dances, so I just ended up dancing with Zenobia for ages…which, of course, is no bad thing!

Took Zen around the dancefloor at the end for the usual mad spin…we were pretty knackered when it all ended.

“So, see you next month?” says she.

Now, as you might have gathered, I quite like the girl, so I plucked up the necessary courage…

“What would you say if I asked you out for a drink?”

She paused, looked a bit uncertain.

“Erm, a friendly drink?”

“Sure.”

Bugger.

I didn’t know whether or not she was single. I still didn’t know, but had a better idea! Swapped numbers anyway, and I went back to my little group.

Howell, Rick and Lynda had really enjoyed their first ceilidh, and it wasn’t what any of them were expecting. To be honest, they didn’t really know what to expect!

Shuffle out of Jabez, and we all get into our various buses. The MUGSS types go for a curry - it was Jordan’s birthday, after all. Pete, Lynda and I catch a Magic Bus, and I get a txt from Zenobia.

“Hey, it’d be v cool to meet up 4 a drink, but just to let u know I have a boyfriend. Zen “

Or words to that effect. Well, that’s confirmed then

Get home, put Sky Sports on, and settle down on the sofa to watch some goals. Also get the laptop out and start typing all this up. A few txts between me and Pete*, and a couple with Zenobia. Think I will meet up with her, but I don’t know when - I’m pretty booked up this next week or so.

* He was also watching the footy. “Rio, Alonso and Campbell…what were they thinking?! Ledley for England!”

We shall see. Here’s where I find out that her boyfriend is some behemoth of a prop forward (in the truest “big bloke, tiny girlfriend” tradition)…and the highly jealous type to boot.