Goodwood Revival 2008
Sep 22, 2008 Uncategorized
The above photo says everything that can possibly be said. But I’ll say some more anyway. Last weekend was the 10th anniversary of the Goodwood Revival. A long weekend of period (which seems to be anything from 1940′s up to the 1960′s) motor racing, air displays and fun.
As per normal, something is bound to go wrong… and it did. Big Time.
There were eight of us going to the Revival. And my responsibility was buying the several hundred pounds worth of tickets. Which I did, with my Dad, some months ago. Woohoo all done and sorted.
No?
So, Thursday night, before my parents arrive in the morning, I woke at about 3am thinking “I haven’t seen those tickets for a while”. And then failed to get back to sleep, just imagining the worst. At 7am I got up and started hunting for the tickets. I couldn’t find them. Oh.Good.God.
Then I found them woohooooo phewwww I can relax. There are the eight tickets now in my hand.
Eight tickets for the Goodwood Festival of Speed in July 2008. Not eight tickets for the Goodwood Revival in September 2008.
whimper
So, panicccccccccccc. I got on my bike, rode like the wind to Goodwood and ran slightly moist into the ticket office and pleaded total stupidity and being male. It didn’t work. The lady correctly pointed out that just because the tickets hadn’t had the stubs torn off didn’t mean they hadn’t been used and that I could just buy eight more. I whimpered more and waffled and begged and pleaded poverty (and then said that I went to the swanky restaurant at least once a week and had the night before spent £160 attending a champagne party oops). It eventually worked and she said “the best I can do is take these tickets off you and tell you that if you come in on Saturday morning tickets will be waiting for you”. I woohooooo’d and rode home, all sorted.
Of course, I didn’t sleep the next night as “what if she was ill and wasn’t there to give you tickets” as Ali kindly suggested might happen… but I was at the office at 7am and got the tickets phewwww.
So, we had a great day, the number of people dressing up was amazing but what really made it special was the number of actors mingling with the crowds. Everything was authentic, not a single vehicle newer than 1966 was allowed in with the 150,000 people. Luckily both my sisters were born before 1966 so they were allowed in hehe)
As we arrived some 1940′s police tried to arrest my Mum for not having a licence for the fur animal she was wearing, then some guys would try to sell you silk stockings from a suitcase only to be chased off by the police.
I saw russian spies, Laurel and Hardy, Marilyn Monroe, kids from Just William, Dad’s Army, Bikers and Mods having a big fight and so many more, was so cool. My sister even scored with a dishy road-work guy…
Didn’t get to see much car racing but will make up for that next year. Am glad everyone in my family had such a good time (I’ll work my Mum into this photo somehow) and it’s such a shame they can’t make it next year.
No, really, you can’t make it. Trust me, stop asking, I’m busy that weekend and the event is cancelled and and and. (-:
Tags: goodwood, goodwood revival 2008, revival, west sussex
Not Zombies, but still the end of the universe…
Sep 5, 2008 Uncategorized
In 5 days time, the 10th of September, the universe might be sucked up its own bottom.
It’s not really, but I wanted an excuse to mention this quote in relation to the firing up of the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. Some critics are worried that there is a chance it’s going to destroy the universe…
“Look, it’s a 10^-19 chance, and you’ve got a 10^-11 chance of suddenly evaporating while shaving.”
Is shaving that dangerous then? eep I might have to go beardy. The reason is apparently that such devices as the large hadron collider produce approximately one black hole a second. Yes an actual black hole. But only a very very very short lived one. We hope.
p.s. have you visited the homepage? You’d think with a several billion euro budget they could have designed a webpage that wasn’t from 1992 wouldn’t you?
Never leave home without your machete
Sep 5, 2008 Uncategorized
Listen carefully, this is going to be important one day, hopefully soon.
When, not if, when… mankind is attacked by zombies (oi, stop scoffing, you won’t be laughing when some undead bugger is munching on your leg!) you’ll need to be prepared. I’ve just finished reading Zombie Survival Guide
- You basically have two choices, do you stay at home or do you flee.
- If you decide to stay, think about the safest part of your house. No, it isn’t hiding under the stairs or in your fridge. At the first sign of an attack, you need to get all your supplies, some of your loved ones (yeh, the cats) and your butt upstairs in your house as soon as possible.
- Then fill your bath and sinks. You never know when the water supply is going to run out and trust me, toilet water, even with a loo-bloo in it, doesn’t taste nice.
- Now this is going to take some trust, because I now need you to destroy your staircase. So I hope you have an axe/chainsaw. Yes yes I know it’s your staircase and you only have one and how are you going to get down and you only just replaced the carpet, but you have bigger problems right now, hungry undead ghouls. So get destroying and you’re going to be safe. Well, safe until you accidently burn house down, run out of supplies or forget you destroyed the staircase and fall down it when you pop down for a glass of water at 2am.
- You can now survive upstairs for as long as you have food. I hope you brought lots of canned food as that has water in it as well. I do hope you haven’t brought your laptop/iPod/coffee machine/dishwasher or anything else unless you have some sort of bicycle powered generator?
- Stay active! Practice chopping zombies heads off with your machete, clean your primary weapon (urrr, gun) regularly, keep a positive frame of mind, hopefully you have books to keep your mind from the thought of being tasty nom.
- Whatever you do, keep quiet, don’t show yourself at a window, don’t turn on any lights. Don’t just fear the undead, you need to worry about looters and panicking members of the great unwashed who want to come to your sanctuary… keep them out! More people = more noise = more zombies = more biting = more zombies.
- Eventually though, we both know it… you’re going to run out of CurlyWurlys. The day of the apocalypse is now truly nigh. So, you’re going to have to flee…
- Don’t just flee somewhere screaming, you need to flee screaming to a particular destination that you’ve already planned, hopefully placed supplies at and know how to find.
- Make sure your backpack with your supplies isn’t too heavy as don’t forget… you’re going to be fleeing. No, you may not bring Mr SnugglesWorth or your cuddly blanker. It’s a tough decision but you need to let your pets fend for themselves. We both know they’re going to do better than you.
- Never, ever travel at night. *smack* for even thinking it!
- Keep well away from urban areas. If you see other people, avoid them. It’s just you and Mr Snugglesworth, wait, did you bring the damned cat!?!?!?!, anyway, it’s just you against the world. Other people are just tasty nom for the zombies.
- Head somewhere bloody remote. Make sure it’s not your first choice… because there is a good chance that other people will have come to the same conclusion and you don’t want to be near anyone else. Cold is good, as zombies freeze easier than us as they don’t have any warm blood supply (apart from what they eat hehe)
- A boat might be a good idea, you can fish from it, you can purify water… but the salt air is going to destroy everything over time and so it’s not a permanent option. And also you’re going to go bloody mad on a boat even with Mr Snugglesworth for company. And also he’ll eat most of the fish.
- Never make any noise, try to scream quietly. Zombies moan when they see people, a bit like me when I see Jade Goody. When they moan, they attract other zombies, who in turn attract more zombies. You know where I’m going here, just keep it quiet
- Once arrived at your destination, never, ever relax. Individual zombies may only survive a few years until they rot, but with constant new infections there is a chance that the undead will roam the earth moaning for many decades. Never “go outside your safe area just to see what’s happening”. Just make do with what you have. Looters and bandits are going to be as much of a problem as zombies. As for Zombie Jehovahs Witnesses… well… I won’t go there, just be very afraid.
- Good luck rebuilding mankind! I’m glad Mr Snugglesworth made it
It’s a really good book! Buy it!
UPDATE: Sigh, I thought at last the day was upon us! The BBC today announced a massive swarm of zombies!!!! It turned out to just be computers infected with a virus. Sigh, I wanna destroy the undead’s brains!