Archive for the ‘Life’ Category

Last month we went to a Finn Guild event at Roundhay Park to take part in a mölkky championship. Mölkky is a game that combines darts and skittles. You have a wooden block and have to use it to knok over other wooden blocks to reach a certain score. Our team, Thar She Blows, was named after the £1 team t-shirts one of our members kindly provided. We ended up winning bronze.

Happy Higgs Day!

Last month I invited everyone to Wendy House, saying it was probably the last one ever. With a three month summer break and declining attendance it seemed like it would struggle to keep going. Those who did not take up the opportunity might be disappointed to know they have missed their chance. They have just posted this statement…

WENDY HOUSE HAS ENDED

We’re very sad to announce that June 2014 was our final Wendy House. It’s been a tough decision and I know a lot of people will be disappointed, but I’ve decided to retire as a promoter to spend more time with my young family, and Nik and I want to concentrate on other projects. Due to some financial loses and the venue making changes to which rooms we could run Wendy House in, we’ve decided to cancel future events.

We’ve been doing Wendy House for over 16 years now and we never thought we’d get this far. We’d like to take the opportunity to say a massive thanks to everyone involved and to those that have helped us over the years, there’s just too many to list. We’d also like to wish other clubs and promoters all the best of luck, especially in Leeds, which is a brilliant town for partying in.

And most of all, thank you to all our amazing punters that have dressed up, looked fantastic and been incredible fun at all our events, here’s to you guys!

Glenn (Promoter/DJ) and Nik (DJ)

The Wendy House

While not being unexpected, indeed I blogged about it here, it is very disappointing. For eight years it has proved a mainstay in our social circle. Others have been going twice that long. It was my one club night per month to go out and feel young. Now what I am supposed to do? Accept being an adult?!?

It is also a shame that they did not announce it in advance. I think that if they had, a lot of people might have made the effort to come over to Leeds and dress up. Perhaps they will end up doing a special event at some point.

Tuesday was not a good day. For a start, I have a mouth ulcer at the moment which means eating anything is painful.

Then, when I got home from work, I found that something had tripped all the electric plugs in my flat. Because of the way that the flat is wired up, this meant I lost my fridge and freezer too. As a result they had both risen in temperature and the food inside was ruined. It all had to be thrown away; cost of replacement, just over £100.

Worse, I then had to make a manic attempt to eat all the Ben & Jerry’s. This was both unsuccessful due to the quantity of Ben & Jerry’s that had been in my freezer and painful due to a combination of my ulcer and stomach pains, probably from eating too much Ben & Jerry’s.

For my dad’s birthday we went to Cattle Grid in Leeds. We had ribs.

I have been running more recently with the anticipation of completing the Abbey Dash in November. I had drawn up a training programme, in my head, in which I would add half a kilometre each month so that by October I was running the full 10km.

Then, a few weeks ago, I felt pretty good on my run, so I just kept going and suddenly I had done 10km. This has entirely ruined my schedule. Not really sure what to do now.

Parkrun is a network of UK (and now international) 5km weekly runs open to the general public. There are now three in Leeds – Woodhouse Moor, Temple Newsam and Roundhay Park.

Each one takes place at 9am each Saturday. You register (for free) and print out a barcode. You then turn up and run 5km with everyone else and get your barcode scanned when you are finished. They then upload all the data and email everyone to let them know their times. They are popular events. Woodhouse Moor had around 400 people there this week.

Overall, I am not sure I prefer it to running on my own. For a number of reasons:

• I like running because it is accessible. I live next to the canal, so I can leave my front door and start running. No overheads. With Parkrun I have to make my way up to Woodhouse Moor, wait around for it to start, do my run, then come home. The whole experience takes around 75 minutes for less than 30 minutes of running.
• I am not very fast, so it is not that motivating to be at the back of the field.
• It is hard to pace yourself when running in a large crowd.

However, cleverly they give you a t-shirt when you have completed 50, 100 and 250 runs. And I want my t-shirt!

Last week we ventured into The Packhorse for a few beverages. I have traditionally given it a birth as it seems unlikely that you would get a seat given it is a lovely traditional pub right in the centre of town. However, it turns out we were able to accommodate our large party (eventually) even on a Friday night.

The food is alright too, as I describe in the Leeds Restaurant Guide.

Happy Darwin Day!

Today I am Toastmaster at White Rose Speakers and will be discussing Darwin in my introduction. Not just because he was an awesome guy that did a huge amount of advancing our understanding of science. But also because he was a cautious man, possibly a man who needed confidence – alas, Toastmasters was not around to give it to him.

Luckily, the same is not true today however.

In a recent article in The Guardian, it could be easily to interpret that councillor David Silvester was suspended for his anti-gay comments that suggested gay marriage caused the recent flooding.

He wasn’t.

As BBC News reports, Nigel Farage said he was suspended for refusing to shut up…

UKIP leader Nigel Farage said he was entitled to his “strong Baptist view of the world”, but had defied a request not to do further media interviews.

Mr Farage said: “So we suspended him, quite rightly.”

I think there is a critical difference. He was suspended because he refused to stop talking about it. UKIP have not spoken out against the statement. They have just said he should not be talking about. This fits with the original statement that UKIP gave to The Telegraph.

If the media are expecting Ukip to either condemn or condone someone’s personal religious views they will get absolutely no response.

So UKIP are fine with people being a bigot, as long as it is religious bigotry.

It is worth noting however that UKIP does not share Silvester’s views on gay marriage. Their, very different hatred of gay marriage, is outlined explicitly on their website.