'Boro Away

Well, it’s Monday again, and it’s raining again. Looks like London’s summer is basically Australia’s winter, except with more rain! I’ve now not had a summer for well over a year - talk about depressing!! No wonder the poms are all doom n gloom at times...

Anyway, last Tuesday night I headed back to the IndigO2, and this time it was to see Henry Rollins’ Spoken Word. Rather an interesting fellow with a unique take on the world and while he was on for nearly three hours, he never really slowed up. His experiences in places like Vietnam, Cambodia and Burma to Northern Ireland were quite interesting to say the least. His take on the usual guff on George W was also what you wouldn’t expect from an American either. Tales of life in airports and guest DJ’ing on radio shows were also very amusing. Not sure about his take on Aussies being weird creatures with massive mullets and driving utes while wearing super short stubbies and elastic-siders though... still, the predominantly English audience thought it was funny.
All up he was both interesting, very funny and quite poignant - very entertaining as it was all delivered in his own unique style as he literally just talked to you. Sometimes getting quite animated or wound up as he went through his topics, which really just had a direction of their own. A unique individual and one that I’d gladly go see again. If I ever did one of those “5 people to invite to dinner” lists, then he’d definitely be on it. Great Stuff!
I also had a good chat with the girl in the seat next to me before the show, which helped to fill in the time before Henry came on. Always little surprises there are.

The rest of the week was pretty quiet as the weather was pretty dismal, and so the urge to head out into it to go anywhere died pretty quickly. I did, however, accept Marty’s invite to fill in on his 5-a-side football team for a lunch time game on Wednesday. Not having played for a few years showed that there was a fair amount of rust to get through, but I still managed to score one goal in a rather entertaining game!
Just a few pints after work on Thursday night is hardly worth noting though...
Twas nice to get an email from Conway Crescent too, and the compliment that my blog is ‘better than any travel show’ brought a “smile to me dial”. Good to hear that you’re both well too!!

Friday night came and it was with a great relief to make the train by the 2 minutes that I did. Up north again, but not as far as Edinburgh this time. Despite having wanted to do the Edinburgh Festival since I first heard about it on the Big Gig while in the last years of school, it’s unfortunately not somewhere I can go right now.
So Newcastle it was. My ‘Rough Guide to England’ guidebook has a list of 35 ‘must do’ things for England. One of them being the Newcastle night-life. I can now mark off the 6th thing out of the 35.
I met Jool’s husband, Andy, at the train station where he drove me round to Shearer’s Bar where everyone else was. For those of you who have a footballing mind, you’d be correct. The bar is none other than Alan Shearer’s and is at the base of St James Park - Newcastle Football Club’s home stadium. After Husky and Kelly introduced me to the rest of the group it wasn’t long before we moved on to the next pub. That's Lucy, John, Kelly n Husky in the pic.
Over the course of the night we visited several bars, pubs n clubs and had a great night out. The area we were in had an absolute plethora of places to go and each one had good numbers of folks in them. A top way to finish off a bit of a dismal week, which included ignoring a text message from a certain someone, which I’ve now remedied not to happen again... But back to Jools n Andy’s place we ventured in the wee hours to round out the remainder of the night.

Saturday had a bit of a slow start, but one that had to be made as the real reason we’d travelled up from London meant that we needed to be on the 10am train to Middlesbrough. A quick changeover at Darlington, a phone call from Mum, and it didn’t take long for us to pass the Teeside Airport and be in Middlesbrough.
Now for a Saturday morning, you’d expect the main mall to be bustling, but for some reason as Husky, Kelly, Jools, Michael and I walked down it towards the Barracuda hotel at around 11ish it was more like Rundle Mall at 7am on a Sunday morning... It did seem strangely quiet.
Anyway, we eventually made it to the Barracuda, where many other Spurs fans were congregating. As the numbers grew, so did the buzz in the place. Expectations are high for this season considering last season’s cup win and the addition of some impressive new players, although for me, I feel it might take some time for the team to gel with all the changes. Time will tell, but I digress...
Meeting up with others that knew all added to the atmosphere of the day. It turned out that there were nearly 5,000 Spurs fans in Middlesbrough for the first game of the season - obviously not all in this one bar, despite it being nearly full.
Lunch, pints, meeting folks, talking football and watching the early game on the screens before it was time to head on down to the Riverside Stadium for the game. Along the way the ‘Smoggies’, as the Middlesbroughians are known, were happy to give us some stick. All good natured and a part of it all. Thankfully it was nothing like we’d heard that had kicked off near the train station earlier in the day...
The game itself was rather ordinary, but the usual entertainment in the stands prevailed as we taunted them and they taunted back. I did have to laugh when the song of “We pay your benefits” kicked off only to be greeted by the usual round of two finger salutes and other gestures from the Middlesbrough fans. Unfortunately, the red buggars had the last laugh winning the game 2-1, so they got to laud it over ‘us cockneys’. Funnily enough, only one member of our group was - Husky. Jools and Kelly are ‘Geordies’, Michael is a ‘Mackem’ and yours truly being an Aussie.
I learnt all about the differences between Geordies, Mackems and Smoggies. They’re all Northerners, but the Geordies are from Newcastle, the Mackems from Sunderland and the Smoggies are from Middlesbrough. And all dislike each other. We did have some fun with the smoggies, as it confused several of them when they discovered that whoever answered back had either a northern accent or a foreign one.
Back to Barracuda to ‘lick our wounds’ so to speak, with many of the others and several pints while the late game was on the tv’s. The usual armchair team management also prevailed.
And this is what the away games are all about. A bit of a fun trip away with those that travel who are up for a good time of it.
The evening was a rather subdued one as the desire to kick up our heals after a rather disappointing loss just wasn’t there. That, and we were pretty knackered from the night before, so chinese takeaway back in Durham at Jools n Andys’ place it was.

Sunday was a rather cruisey day, and the rain made it rather uninteresting for exploring, although I did get shown the Willmott Skeleton. Perhaps next time I’ll get a chance to explore Durham and Newcastle a bit more. There’s still Newcastle and Sunderland yet to play up there so they’re already on the list to do.
The train ride home was quite pleasant in what became a bit of a sunny day - same gig with the countryside though. It is very nice, but just too many man made interruptions. It does conjure up the desire to explore it on horseback though - well, some regions do...

Okay, so I realise that it’s no longer Monday that I’ve posted this, and it is in fact Thursday, but I’ll leave the last few days for the next post. Stay tuned...