Posted by sean on April 5, 2015 at 6:30 pm in Ventures Outside Of Bath with No Comments


On Good Friday, we traveled to Surrey. Prior to leaving, Claire and I had searched the internet for things to do in the county. Stupidly not realising that Legoland was in that part of the country, we decided to visit The Brooklands Museum. Despite being a little dubious of what to expect, it wasn’t bad – a museum of cars, buses and planes. I have never been on a plane before, so was excited about the prospect of stepping foot on one, despite the fact it would be firmly rooted to the ground.

I was star-struck to meet Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

This was either a very realistic sculpture of a man; or a very, very dead man.

The Bath City trophy cabinet

Luckily we didn’t break down, so didn’t need to call The RAC

Yes, that really is Concorde

A plane cockpit. Sadly , I am yet to get my pilots licence, so couldn’t fly it.

Some horses. Like the man in the earlier photo, these are very good models or very dead corpses.

The plane I was brave enough to enter

From the bus museum. Not an X39 in sight.

Some WWII weapons.

An F1 car – driven by Ayrton Senna.

Posted by sean on December 20, 2014 at 10:07 pm in Bath City, Christmas, Ventures Outside Of Bath with No Comments


The last Saturday before Christmas is supposed to be the busiest shopping day of the year. As a rule, I would normally avoid the shops on such days. However, this morning, we went to Keynsham. We still had to buy a few more things before Christmas and Keynsham would be a lot less mental than Bath. Plus they have a massive Iceland.

I spent £6 in Poundland. As everything costs a pound, unsurprisingly, I walked away with six items. These included a new bin to go near my desk in the new office and a selection of DVDs, one of which was “England’s Road to Rio”, which ironically could be placed right into the recently purchased bin. I don’t really know why I bought it.

A DVD of England’s success in Brazil is also available. It’s 2 minutes long.

I was a little disappointed with Iceland. Despite their television adverts, which seem to be on all the time, promising that Peter Andre shops at their supermarkets, I didn’t spot him anywhere.

In the afternoon, we went to Twerton Park for Bath City’s last game before Christmas. City’s opponents – Wealdstone. ‘The Stones’ have been in the news a lot recently, thanks to their number one fan, Gordon Hill, AKA ‘The Wealdstone Raider’. I have mentioned him on my blog before, after discovering him on YouTube. He is now an internet sensation and has a Christmas single out, which is doing unexpectedly well…

There was a large crowd. Wealdstone brought a lot of supporters, which makes a change – most of the teams Bath City face have such a low away fan base, they could have come together in a taxi, or in some instances, a Smart Car. The home faithful turned out in numbers too – presumably down to a combination of the club riding the crest of a wave, following last week’s fantastic win at Bristol Rovers, the fact it’s almost Christmas, and people keen to catch a glimpse of The Wealdstone Raider.

Pav, from work, and his colleague joined me for the game. Pav and I have been watching and quoting The Wealdstone Raider for months, and while we’re delighted about his success, we were hoping to meet him, without being part of a group of hundreds of others, who have only recently found him, thanks to all the appearances on television, Facebook and Twitter. Basically, we liked him before the bandwagon started.

Shortly before kick-off, word got round that The Raider had made the trip. Pav confirmed he had spotted him in the clubhouse, where he was serenaded by Wealdstone fans with songs of “He’s coming for you, he’s coming for you, The Wealdstone Raider, he’s coming for you”

The game was a good one. Bath City started where they left off last week. Unfortunately, they were playing a decent Wealdstone side and not a poor Bristol Rovers team. Half time, the score was 0-0. The second half wasn’t quite as good. Just when it looked like it was going to be a stalemate draw, with both sides taking a share of the points, the City goalkeeper cocked up, allowing Wealdstone to score in the 94th pissing minute. Wealdstone fans celebrated and rightly so. I felt gutted. A small child stood near to us burst into tears. He’ll learn. The number of times I could have cried about Bath City, you just get used to it.

At full time, The Raider was mobbed as he left the ground – a group of local teenagers, who hadn’t been at the game, came riding into the ground on their scooters to have photographs taken with him.

Claire and I stayed behind for a while. Just before leaving, I thought we would pop into the clubhouse to say goodbye to a new legend…

The Raider was really friendly and told us both about his Christmas single, where all the money goes to charity. Whether you like the Raider’s hype or not, I would encourage anyone to buy the MP3, as it’ll help a number of good causes – plus it may even stop Simon Cowell’s X Factor winner from getting to Christmas Number One. As I promised Gordon, I bought the single as soon as I got home.

 

Posted by sean on September 26, 2014 at 4:26 pm in Ventures Outside Of Bath with No Comments


The last five days, I have been on holiday in Butlins, Minehead. It was a cheap, budget holiday. But with a wedding to pay for, including a cruise as a honeymoon, we have to save and plan ahead. Instead of updating my blog while I was away (and letting potential burglars know the house was empty), I wrote a few lines every day and emailed them to myself (with huge difficulty – the mobile phone symbol was awful). I’ve now stuck them all together, in a bumper edition. Below is my blog/’teenager’s diary’ of my week…

MONDAY

We have arrived at Butlins. After parking in the biggest car park in the world, we found our way to reception. The lady behind the desk informed us that she was delighted to say that we had been “specially selected” to receive an upgrade to the silver package. We were offered this upgrade by email a few weeks ago, but had to pay £25 for the privilege. Looking at the difference between the standard and silver package, it appeared the only difference is you get a microwave. You can buy a brand new microwave in the Morrisons down the road for twenty five quid. I also don’t think we were “specially” selected. They just had unsold silver apartments. OK, you don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, but don’t act like we’ve won the lottery.

Getting to the apartment was one of the most stressful experiences of my life. We parked so far away from where we staying. It felt like over 500 miles – even The Proclaimers wouldn’t want to walk that far. It probably wasn’t that far at all, but the fact we had to move all our luggage made it a mammoth ordeal. Most of our fellow holidayers appear to be nice people, happy to keep themselves to themselves and just enjoy a budget holiday. I have, however, seen some ruffians, who I am pretty sure have appeared on The Jeremy Kyle Show in the past. There are lots of small children here. Unintentionally we booked ourselves on ‘Tots Week’, which is great if you enjoy watching Bob The Builder and Dora the Explorer ever night, while walking past mountains of shit filled nappies which have been chucked into every bin on site. I suppose it could be worse. It could be an ’18 to 30 Week’, with all night raves, party-goers popping E tablet, making noise all night. ‘The 80 to 90 Week’ would be a bit of a downer too, considering there would be lots of deaths. Yes, I am rather happy here. We’ve been to Morrisons, where groceries have been purchased. I will sample the delights of Minehead’s local cuisine tomorrow.

TUESDAY

Today has been non-stop and I am knackered. We went into Minehead town for the day. While walking along the sea front, we spotted a man dressed as a pirate. We made a purpose effort to avoid him, but, along with his accomplice, he stopped us, where we had our photo taken together. I have never had my photo taken with a pirate before, so that was a first. This particular pirate was Scottish. I thought they were supposed to be all Cornish. We were then asked of we wanted to pay for the photos. Given the fact that The Scots are still ‘one of us’, I agreed, and handed over a crisp ten pound note. The pirate promised to post 3 photos to us. On hindsight, I’m wondering if I made the right decision in trusting him – HE WAS A PIRATE! WHAT WAS I THINKING?

Minehead was OK. I had to make a few phone calls, but found this almost impossible as there was hardly any signal anywhere! Cheers, Vodafone, for your crappy coverage. I would be forgiven for forgetting I was still in Somerset and not in the middle of the Amazon Rain Forest, such was the lack of signal.

The Weatherspoons, whe was also disappointing. We went there for lunch. We often eat at this restaurant chain at football away games, so know what to expect. However, both my toasted cheese sandwich and Claire’s vegetarian breakfast were as dry as the driest bits of sand on the driest areas of Minehead beach.

As we had time to kill, we also looked round all the other shops, most of which are on Bath’s own town centre. We did visit the souvenir outlets, including an impressive cider shop, which Bath doesn’t have. Pathetic, Bath. Pathetic.

On the walk home, we stopped at the amusement arcade. I mean, it would be rude not to, wouldn’t it. I did the traditional deed of loading a number of one pound coins into a change machine, in exchange for two pence pieces, to be used in the 2p machines. We won a couple of tokens, and found a third, which we’ll exchange for some cheap tact later in the week. After using up all our coppers, we found more loose change in other machines – clearly winnings which had been missed or just left behind. If I ever become homeless, I won’t beg or sell The Big Issue, I’ll live in an amusement arcade and help myself to all the abandoned change. I’ll probably earn more money than I do now.

Sadly, besides the tokens, we didn’t win anything..There was a small Garfield toy, painfully resting on the edge of the row of coins, but he just wouldn’t fall out, and after putting in over £5 worth of 2ps, I abandoned my attempt to win something which was probably worth 20p. We had the last laugh though. Claire won a soft toy Meerkat on the claw machine, after just a few attempts. The Meerkat is on the TV adverts and bears many similarities to Baby Oleg. Of course, this would be a major copyright infringement, so let’s just call him Baba Olog.

Tonight we have picked up a Pizza Hut takeaway and are enjoying a night in front of the TV, while looking after Baba Olog.

 

WEDNESDAY

We stayed on the Butlins site today. It was somewhat of a lazy day. The Butlins site is like a town in itself. We spent lots of time and lots and lots of money in the amusement arcade. What do we have to show for our time and collection of pennies? Two toy ducks, a little dog and a model Meerkat (I think it is another Baby Oleg rip off).

Maybe I should be aware of this! (spotted on the 2p machines)

The Amusement Arcade is in a big arena. At the other end is a stage. Some strangely dressed children’s entertainers were jumping up and down, like they had overdosed on Smarties, encouraging everyone else to join in. The problem was, nobody was even watching them. After escaping the wannabe CBBC Presenters, we went for some lunch. I chose a cheese jacket potato. The cheese and the potato wasn’t bad at all. The jacket it all came in was a bit ‘eugh’. I got the bad taste out of myself with some coffee ice cream. There is only so much you can do at Butlins, so returned to our apartment for the afternoon to recharge our metaphorical batteries. The plan is to visit a chicken grill for our evening meal. The place looks good. A lot like Nandos, but it isn’t. Like Baba Olog, this is another rip off in good old Minehead.

 

THURSDAY

The last day of our holiday, before we return to Bath. The morning began with a visit to an on site coffee shop for breakfast. While enjoying a nice, fresh coffee, we watched a live action performance of Thomas The Tank Engine. While watching a life size, talking train (with moving eyes) on stage was impressive, it was overshadowed by a The Fat Controller who sung a unforgettable song about his birthday. I would write some of the lyrics here, but I forgot what they were. I heard a disturbing rumour recently that the new episodes of Thomas have now dropped the word “Fat” from The Controller’s title, in a typical case of ‘Political Correctness Gone Mad’.

We then ventured back into the town of Minehead to buy some gifts and souvenirs from a cider and fudge shop. It was a shame the shop was a fair walk from Butlins, as more money would have been spent on barrels of ‘apple juice’. Claire got lucky in the amusements again. The same arcade where she won Baby Oleg was kind enough to allow her to win a soft pig, with “I LOVE MINEHEAD ” stitched into its body. On our return to the resort, taking inspiration from Claire’s success on the machine, I tried my hand at winning a soft toy, picking Stewie and Brian Griffin. The Family Guy characters didn’t want to be released from their cage and evaded the claw’s grip. I guess I’m not as lucky as Claire at winning things. I walked away with no cuddly toy and about £3 out of pocket.

We drank more hot drinks in the afternoon. Thomas The Tank Engine had finished on stage. Instead it was Nursery Rhymes. “Ba Ba Black Sheep” was being performed by some Butlins redcoat. This song is apparently racist (serously!?). It’s nice to see the PC Brigade hasn’t reached the gates of Butlins yet.

We’ve spent the last couple of hours packing away all our possessions, as we’re being kicked out our apartment by 10am. I don’t know what happen if we don’t leave – the Butlins Red Coats will probably turn nasty. Hopefully all these blogs have been emailed to me properly, so I can stick them all in a bumper blog on Friday. If you’re reading this, it’s worked! If you’re not reading it, it hasn’t, and I’ll be very pissed off.

 

On the whole, I had a really nice break. I must admit, I was a little sceptical, even worried, about what to expect. I had heard some real horror stories of Butlins. Reading Tripadvisor, our resort had received some awful reviews too. To be honest, I couldn’t fault the place for the price we paid. Those people leaving bad feedback could well have arrived expecting The Hilton, and were disappointed when they got basic self-catering. Would I go again? Claire and I both decided definitely yes – although not for a couple of years. Next summer, we’re on a two week Mediterranean cruise – something a little more luxurious and slightly more expensive than Butlins… I don’t think P&O offer spaces on their ships as art of ‘Sun Holidays’.

Posted by sean on September 8, 2014 at 9:38 pm in Bath City, Fun At Home, Life In Bath, Ventures Outside Of Bath with No Comments


I’ve had a 3 day weekend. It was a rather productive one, too. Friday night, we went out with Claire’s parents to Bath Brew House. Claire had been before with her Mum and the place came highly recommended. I ordered a giant hot dog, which was dumped in a bun, surrounded by pulled pork. The way people go on about pulled pork, you would have thought it was food from heaven. Meh, it was alright. I’ll be honest, I left some of it. The sausage, however, was amazing. It was so smoky, it tasted like I was biting into and eating a live pig that had been caught on fire.

Saturday, was a trip to Bath City. The Romans haven’t had the greatest of starts to the season, having only won one game to date – away at Boreham Wood. I didn’t attend, which means I have seen 5 games, 4 defeats, 1 draw, 13 goals conceded, including one from an opposition goalkeeper, and just 2 goals scored. Whitehawk were the visitors. They are the latest tinpot club to have been discovered by a rich owner, who is happy to plough loads of money into them, to buy success, regardless of the fact they averaged fewer than 200 fans at home last season. What a nasty club they are! They spent more of the game on their arses, crying to the referee for free kicks, bookings for Bath City and anything else they felt they could claim for. This poor behaviour was at the same time as their manager, the vile Steve King, patrolled the pitch side (outside of his technical area), shouting and swearing at anybody and everybody. Whitehawk won the game 4-1. In nearly all instances, I would congratulate the winning side on their victory. Yes, it was deserved – they were the better side. But the manner of the defeat, which, in my opinion, demonstrated a huge lack of sportsmanship from their players, left a very bitter taste in my mouth. I never like to see football clubs struggle financially, and Whitehawk appear to be in a very wealthy position, but if their current owner(s) ever gets bored and the club is left in a perilous position, I won’t be crying any tears for them. So what about my club? Despite being bottom of the league, I am not too worried. I don’t think we’ll get relegated again. There are teams worse than us – unlike a few years ago, when we went down from The Conference Premier, when it was clear from the start that we were the weakest. Will we do well this season and compete for promotion? Sadly, I don’t think we will. The reason for this is we simply don’t have enough money. Bath City doesn’t have a wealthy backer. We can’t compete with the likes of Whitehawk financially. If City lose a player to injury or suspension, we just have to put up with it and struggle with fewer players. Affluent clubs just go and buy a replacement. Money is killing the game.

The calm before the storm

On Sunday we went for a drive to Minehead. We avoided the motorways, so enjoyed a scenic journey through the county of Somerset. We passed Wells, famous for its Cathedral and being the set for Hot Fuzz; Street, renowned for the huge shopping centre; and Bridgwater, which is able to boast being the most misspelt town in the world. It’s BRIDGWATER, not BRIDGEWATER. There is no E. The journey to Minehead is a lot longer than you would imagine – a five hour round trip. I told Claire this is more than a one way trip to Yorkshire and we could drive to watch Leeds United this season. Somehow, I don’t think we’ll be driving to watch Leeds…

We ate out for a second time at the weekend, going to Jimmy’s World Grill, formerly known as Jimmy’s Spices. We don’t normally dine out this often; it’s just that we qualified for some free meals through our Tesco Clubcard. We’ve previously enjoyed our visits, but sadly, not so much last night. The choice of food wasn’t as great, although I did find a chicken curry which was lovely. On hindsight, I should have just loaded my plate with this, along with some rice, and not bothered with everything else. Dessert was also a disappointment. In the past, little pots of jelly used to be available. These were all missing. I had to settle for fruit and ice cream, as I certainly wasn’t going to use the chocolate fountain, as some disgusting fellow diner had been stood next to it for ages, dipping marshmallows into the flowing chocolate, shoving them into his mouth, before repeating the process with the same serving stick. I didn’t really want to catch Ebola, or whatever virus he may or may not have been carrying. Jimmy needs to deal with these uncouth yobs!

Plate #1 – very nice

Plate #2 – not so good. Much was left for the dogs.

Today was a day of rest, besides a bit of tidying I did in the house. There was a moment, which left me most annoyed. A month or so ago, we bought some solar-powered lights for our front garden. The lights have been working well at night, following a sunny day – less good when it’s been cloudy. However, one of our eight lights won’t be working at all now. It has been damaged – and I know who by… one of Her Majesty’s servants… the postman! How did I know the postie smashed our light? I saw him do it. At the time, I just thought he had kicked the light over, while taking a shortcut across our lawn. Upon investigation, later in the day, the damage became more apparent…

This is how they should look

This is how the broken one looks

I was not pleased with Postman Pat. Not pleased AT ALL…

Posted by sean on August 10, 2014 at 9:00 pm in Bath City, Ventures Outside Of Bath with No Comments


Yesterday was first day of the 2014/15 football season. While each club’s fixtures are supposed to be random, apart from pairing local sides together over the Christmas and New Year period, Bath City’s opening game has been an away tie for the last six years. This season was no different, with a trip to Concord Rangers being dished out as the opening match of the campaign. Oh well, these games have to be played at some point across the year and August is one of the best months on the calendar to make long trips across the country.

A few years ago, I would have never missed an away game. I would be the first name on the supporters’ coach. Nowadays, for a number of reasons, my trips are a little more limited. One of these is financial. As with everything in life, the cost of travelling away has increased considerably, despite the coach company offering very generous rates. Then there is the excitement element. Don’t get me wrong, I love Bath City, but after experiencing trips to the likes of Luton Town, Wrexham and York City in the Conference Premier years, journeys to Chelmsford and Boreham Wood are hardly awe-inspiring.

With the weather being nice, the fact I had never visited Thames Road, the home of Concord Rangers, and it had been four months since I had watched a live game of football, I decided to make the very long trip to Canvey Island, deep into the county of Essex.

The season’s drama started before a ball had even been kicked. During the long, familiar trip along the M4, from Bath to Essex, water appeared on the roof of the coach. ‘Fair enough’, you may think; ‘it’s been wet lately, what’s the problem?’ You would be correct to ask that, except for the fact the water was INSIDE the coach. After watching many people getting wet and hear them repeatedly joke about having a free shower, it was established that the air conditioning was buggered. On hindsight, the coach should have performed a U-turn on the motorway and driven home. This would have saved us all a lot of money, time and heartache. Sadly, it didn’t. We continued to South Mimms motorway service station, where Phil Weaver, a club director and a man who seems to fix everything that breaks at Twerton Park, climbed on top of the coach to move what looked like gallons of water from inside the coach, onto the floor of the car park.

While waiting at the service station for the coach to be repaired, I browsed the literature on offer. Let’s just say, you would have to hunt very hard to find the works of Shakespeare. Why do all services sell shit books?

With the dripping stopped, the sodden coach continued towards Essex. Canvey Island is a strange place. We seemed to drive for miles through a countryside which, along with green planes, was dotted with factories and industrial estates.

We arrived at the ground with lots of time to spare before kick-off. I was hoping that the club house would have BT Sport, which was broadcasting Bristol Rovers’ first non-league game, against Grimsby. Alas, they only had Sky, and as the fixture against Sheffield United and Bristol City didn’t interest me in the slightest, I waited outside, soaking up the sun and the atmosphere with the hordes of fans… all 12 of them.

What did I do while waiting for kick off? I ate my way through a very reasonably priced portion of chips, which, as far as non-league chips go, were amazing. As a rule, I don’t buy food from football grounds, as it’s generally shit. In this case, I was impressed. If anyone from Concord Rangers Football Club is reading my blog, send my compliments to the chef.

I then admired the ground. While it wasn’t pretty, with a caravan park at one end, a gasworks at another and a sewage refinery behind one of the goals, Thames Road was a proper non-league ground – none of this flat-packed, all-seater stadium, sterile-atmosphere shite. It was also a real non-league football club, with many volunteers hard at work, whether it be building a roof for a terrace (literally 30 minutes before kick-off), frying burgers or selling match-day programmes.

3pm came and the game kicked off (OK, if you’re being fussy, four minutes late at 15:04). That is when things went bad. The only positive I can remember is Chris Allen shooting just over the crossbar. The rest wasn’t good and wasn’t pretty. Things weren’t great off the pitch, either. With just 10 minutes gone, one supporter muttered something along the lines of sacking the management. Jesus wept. I know the management team of Adie Britton and Lee Howells aren’t popular with some fans, but give them a bloody chance, especially after the Meet the Manager evening less than a week ago, where those who attended left feeling positive and united.

I’m certainly not saying don’t moan after a poor performance. Yesterday was bad and I wasn’t happy, but don’t boo or abuse the players. They know more than anyone that they’ve under-performed. They’re a great set of players. Probably Bath City’s strongest squad since 2010. You won’t see many more performances like yesterday this season.

I just wish that all this negative energy could be channelled into something positive. Despite our different views, every single Bath City fan wants the same thing – for the football club to succeed on and off the pitch. I don’t think berating the players helps. It has never helped in the past, so why do fans feel the need to do it?

As I watched the game, I was distracted by what was going on off the pitch. Along with the US style trailer park (do people seriously holiday there?) was a dockyard. A huge cargo ship kept moving up and down, very slowly. It got me thinking, what other vehicles have I seen while watching football? There is Stansted Airport right next to Bishops Stortford, a railway line ajecent to Maidenhead United and a motorway by Walsall (a busy road by Histon too). I’m yet to watch football by a Speedway track or see an Army tank behind a terrace, but I can live in hope.

Back to the match, 1-0 became 3-0, after two penalties were awarded in the second half – one rather dubious, one cast iron. At full time, I made an immediate return to the coach. I don’t like hanging around after a heavy defeat, for a number of reasons.

The journey home was long and hot. To make matters worse, a group of fans , who have supported the club since its formation 125 years ago, dissected the match – remember also that the air conditioning was broken. Sigh. I wished I was dead.

The only comfort I found on the return journey was at Reading services. They now have a Greggs bakery. Given the fact it was late in the day, only a few remnants were left from the days pastry selection. Still, when you’ve been out the house for over 12 hours, haven’t eaten properly and are starving, a dried-out bacon and cheese wrap tastes as good as anything even the world’s top chefs can produce.

I arrived home some two hours later. Exhausted, I went to bed. I was hardly going to stay up for The Football League Show, given the Leeds result…

  • About Me

    So you stumbled across my blog. No doubt after searching for something bizarre on Google. Before you hit that 'Back Button', why not stay and have a read for a few minutes?

    If you are after a website which gives advice on how to hack an iPhone X, download the latest Steven Seagal movie, or view nudy ladies, you've come to the wrong place and may now press 'Back'.

    However, if you would like a lifestyle blog, written by a 30-something chap, living in Bath (England), feast your eyes on this.

    You won't discover how to copy PlayStation 4 games. What you will find is a blog, covering life in the West Country, the highs and lows of supporting two unsuccessful football teams, while sharing a house with a wife and rabbit.

    All written by a man, somewhere on the sanity-scale between normal and eccentric.
  • Archives