Notting Hill Carnival

Notting Hill Carnival - a celebration of mainly Caribbean culture in the heart of an uber-trendy area of London. The atmosphere there was great and the whole carnival - it is much more than a precession - was equally as colourful. The music was ultra-loud and ultra-dancehall, but was generally speaking good. The characters dancing were what made it for me though and, perhaps if I had been drunk and slightly less white-feeling, I would have joined in!

Well worth a visit. I will be going again next year, but will be sure to involve the likes of Jones, Bendz, Dave and Phil as their attendance would round off the atmosphere for me.

It should be noted that the guy in the photo is not me, obviously, but was a man that couldn't quite believe his luck when the scantily-clad dancer agreed to pose with him. The photo was of course taken by me though.

Day at The Oval

On my first Saturday in London I decided to do the only think that made any sense; I went to watch the cricket. Living where I do now, in Thornton Heath, I headed down to my local ground, the magnificent BritOval in Kennington. 

This weekend Surrey were playing Sussex in the County Championship and the match was set at one point to perhaps be Surrey's first win of the season. Alas, it wasn't to be as Sussex stayed in bat and got a draw.

The main reason for going, other than seeing Mark Ramprakash batting, was simply just to say that I'd been. The weather was beautiful, but Ramps was out before I even got to the ground. Damn it! The heat and the Scrumpy made the afternoon something special and the atmosphere was exceptionally lively for that of a four-day game.

If I'm lucky I'll catch another match before the end of the season.

An Old Wheel

Mum has taken to selling her homemade produce to farm shops. So far it has turned out to be a modestly profitable enterprise. On one of her latest sales runs to the ramshackle Mickleton Nurseries Farm Shop, near the village of Mickleton, Glos, I took my camera along and found an old wheel I liked the look of. 

Clicking on the picture will enlarge it.

A Forgotten Gem

Whilst on the way down to Dorset for a camping holiday (Taffstock 2008: On Tour) a song came on the radio that neither myself or my driver, Chris Jones, had heard for a long time. The song in question had a fantastically positive effect on the pair of us as the dawn sunshine began to get hotter and hotter.

This song was Sunchyme by Dario G. It is well worth another listen if you haven't heard it for a while. Needless to say I got straight onto iTunes upon my return to civilisation to download it.

Camping in a Wood

Early on Friday morning, whilst camping with friends at our annual Taffstock event, I grabbed my camera and made the most of the sunshine breaking through the trees. Although the weather was good for all of the holiday, on this particular day the weather was very hot. A few hours after this photo was taken we would all be sunning ourselves on the beach at Studland and, believe it or not, swimming in the sea.

Macho Dave's Megabowl Challenge League

He is perhaps the most macho and hairy person that I know—he is Dave "The Macho Chimp" Tennant. On Saturday night a great new competition was founded by myself, Bendz and Furry and this was Macho Dave's Megabowl Challenge League, a not so elite ten-pin bowling competition hosted at Megabowl in Coventry.

Dave, undoubtedly, is the best bowler, but the league provided a way in which we could all dare to challenge his superiority. Individuals scored league points based on their position at the end of each game of bowling—5 for first, 3 for second, 2 for third and 1 for fourth.

Dave won four games with Bendz and myself winning one each. To be honest, there was little surprise when the final standings were tallied:

1. Macho Dave - 26
2. Bendz - 17
3. T.S.Ó.C. - 15
4. Furry - 8

Alas, there was also a doubles competition with the couple (Dave and Furry) together and the singletons (Bendz and myself) in teams with our individual totals tallied together. Unsurprisingly, Macho Dave's dominance in the individual league rolled over into the doubles competition:

1. The Couple - 34
2. The Singletons - 32

Macho Dave was crowned champion and most of the evening passed without incident, except for a row that erupted over how the scoring system works after a spare. The following footage was captured as Furry expressed her anger to Bendz.

The picture shows Macho Dave celebrating his championship win with the [not so] Golden Ball.

Monsoon Season Hits Warwick

There is this weird thing that bugs me—I can be a very particular, even peculiar person at times. This thing comes about when you speak to a fellow Warwickian who no longer lives in Warwick—a Warwickian expat if you will. Upon meeting a said expat, one often finds themself being greeted with the line "... and how is sunny Warwick?"

Sunny Warwick?

I've never heard people refer to anywhere else I have come into contact with as sunny wherever, it seems it is a purely Warwick phenomenon. I have never heard the names Sunny Cambridge, Sunny Oxford, Sunny Farnham, nor Sunny Croydon uttered by a single soul. Of course, I may be wrong.

Anyway, it finally dawned on me today why Warwickians say this. It would appear that it is just a very clichéd use of irony as when it rains in Warwick—which it does regularly—it really rains. So after all of those years of thinking no-one from Warwick understood irony it would appear that I was wrong.

Needless to say, the summer monsoon in Warwick is in full flow. Warwick is definitely the Amazon to Farnham's Sahara and I now remember why I prefer the weather in Surrey. I bet that in Farnham it's probably been blazing sunshine all day!

The picture shows the view from my bedroom window. You can't see the rain but you can just about make out how drenched everything is. Note the dilapidated state of my neighbour's shed.