Archive for the ‘Life’ Category

With Viki pretending to be ill to avoid paying for breakfast, like the cheap Mackem she is, and keeping George firmly under her thumb while at it, it fell to Norm to fire up the grill for this month’s post-Wendy fry up. He didn’t disappoint.

We decided to celebrate the rapture not happening in the traditional way – by having a Wendylicious party before heading out for everyone’s favorite night. Good times.

Last week I headed down to York Brights for their monthly meeting. It was the second time I had been to the city in a month, having visited North Yorkshire Humanists two weeks prior.

The topic of much of this week’s discussion was Derren Brown. Derren has done amazing things for reviving the art of magic, but it always a divided opinion in the skeptics community because although he says it is all magic, he then goes on to pretend a lot of what he is doing is real.

Take the example, when he correctly predicted the lottery numbers. Of course, he didn’t, it was a simple camera trick. But be started the show by saying “this is all magic” and then took you on an hour long journey about the wisdom of crowds, which is of course nonsense. I spoke about this at Skeptics in the Pub in 2009.

One of the group members, Michael, went on to explain just how much of Derren’s material relies on this. Take for example his TV show Trick of Treat, although he claims to use no actors, they almost certainly did, partly because some have been identified as actors but also because you just can’t morally do a lot of that stuff to unsuspecting members of the public.

You could argue of course that that is part of the show though. When we watch fiction or magic, we suspend our disbelief for the purposes of entertainment (deep down, we all know there probably isn’t a man traveling around space and time in a vehicle disguised as a blue police box but it’s fun to pretend for those 45 minutes), and maybe it’s just part of that.

Last week we headed over to Elbow Room to shoot some pool.

It’s a great place to play as they have plenty of room (as Norm pointed out – the name is probably derived from the fact you have enough elbow room to play) though they are American pool tables which means the pockets are massive and so the chance of you potting the white quickly becomes more of a when than an if, even if you put some thought into it.

In the end myself, Norm and George all came out three wins to two defeats, most of which were won or lost on the white following the black into the pocket lol. Fonze played well also, beating George in the last game, though he did have the advantage that he wasn’t drinking.

Earlier this year, when Oli and Jess got together, Norm made a start on the usual paperwork for a possible new application to The Circle. This resulted in us having to schedule a house party for some induction training – it’s a hard life, but you just have to get on and do it I guess.

While unfortunately neither Oli nor Jess actually made it to the party, it was a great night none the less with the party raging until around 4am and a strange hour in which everyone decided to try and pick everyone else up.

Indeed, the night ended up so heavy that Norm was unable to eat his recovery steak at the next day and I just collapsed out in front of the TV for most of the afternoon.

Last Sunday, we headed down to Distrikt for some Sunday lunch.

Rich always gets great service in there as it turns out he has been unknowingly masquerading as an Observer food critic. You have to wonder whether an Observer food critic would actually walk in with a copy of the Observer, but there you go.

Never the less he played up to the roll and recommended the lamb to us, which he said was excellent when he had had it last week 😉 . The dessert was good too though they clearly haven’t taken on our heartfelt suggestions from last time that they needed more chocolate based options.

Having another four day weekend in hand, we decided to throw a last minute soirée on Saturday. Norm did a fantastic job throwing a dinner together and once you throw in some Doctor Who and a few cocktails, you have yourself a winning evening.

Last Tuesday, we headed over to the Brown Cow & Dragon to celebrate my dad’s birthday.

The Brown Cow & Dragon is a traditional English pub. And Thai restaurant. It’s an interesting combination with a selection of traditional Thai dishes and then bangers and mash on the menu.

Despite being determined to get some Thai food, I gave in when I saw they had BBQ ribs on the menu. They couldn’t complete with the amazing ribs I had while in Edinburgh but were never the less very enjoyable and the portion size was good – not too much, not too little.

We decided to take advantage of the long weekend by heading over to the beach. Flamborough seemed like a suitable choice because, given we’re in the UK, it seems a bit silly to go to a sandy beach to do some sunbathing when all you will get is wind and cold.

The drive over wasn’t too bad – most people seemed to be heading home from the weekend, so most of the traffic was going the other way. We got some sun in the morning but unfortunately, the tide times had changed quite a lot since I checked them a few days before, which I didn’t account for, so we arrived at exactly high tide.

Never the less, after a walk round the headland and some lunch we got down to the beach where we found a seal in one of the corners. Afterward we walked back round the headline, which was a good chance to get some photos.

Enjoying the long weekend, we headed over to Stick or Twist to enjoy Sunday Club – a traditional roast dinner in true Wetherspoon’s style (ie, with a beer). After leaving we went in search of an ice cream, only to find that none of the ice cream vans were to be found. What kind of lazy ice cream people can’t be bothered to work on Easter Sunday?