It's Grin Up North

Someone asked me the other day if I had a bed at the City Hall - not surprising given the amount of times we've been recently. It's the Grin Up North comedy festival at the moment,  and as I love a good laugh, we always try to get tickets to some of the events. First  was Dara O'Briain a couple of weeks ago, which I've already posted about, but in the last 4 days we've been to see three very different but very funny acts.

Sunday was Sarah Millican - seen her a lot in programmes such as Live at the Apollo, Mock the Week etc, and always wanted to see her live. She was as just as good as I expected her to be - and a lot ruder than on TV.

 

Then on Monday we went to see Ross Noble - one of my favourite comedians, and have seen him a couple of times live already. We were sitting very near the front, which is a bit unnerving given his tendency to engage with the audience - in fact most of his act looks as though its randomly generated by his interactions with the audience, but I'm sure there's a structure he follows. The stage was covered by a giant curtain when we arrived

which after a countdown, fell to reveal a stage of inflatables. Ross was as surreal and funny as ever, and at the interval, the audience left him an assortment of gifts, which he managed to work into his act. The best was a cucumber which someone had run to the Spar across the road and bought  (lots of references to cucumbers and beauty therapists in first half, but you had to be there....).

 Didn't get any good photos of him, camera had an off night (nothing to do with the person operating it), but I did get this of him demonstrating how you might operate a googlephone. A googlephone of course being some sort of Germanic instrument, which you had to play by making various waving movements with your arms, and stamping your foot, and....well, you had to be there.

Then last night we saw Mark Watson. Last time I saw him was at the Green Gown awards, but he didn't remember me.... :-) Another good night, very different to the others. When we got in he was sitting on the stage typing on a laptop, which was projected behind him - lots of comments about the audience. For some reason (suspect a confusion between doors open and act starting times), loads of people came in late, for the first half an hour, and very few got missed by him. Led to a bit of a disjointed, but funny first half, and the second was very good.

Only one more comedy show to go, and that's Lee Mack in a couple of weeks. Oh, nearly forgot, Peter Kay at the arena as well Don't normally like seeing comedians in such big venues, but seeing as that's all he's doing now, it's the only chance we get to see him.

Gone google!

On the Wednesday night at EDUCAUSE, it's usual for suppliers to take you out for a meal, or organise an event. This year the Sheffield contingent went to the Google night. Not sure what was going to happen, we went on a fleet of big yellow school buses:

and ended up in a field, set up like an American outdoor party I suppose. Lots of tables covered with megaphones, huge sponge hands, and pom poms, with games round the edge.
The food was typically American - chilli dogs, BBQd ribs, chips, cookies, and lots of ice cold beer.

And then, a marching band, complete with cheerleaders turned up! This set one of our party off into fits of giggles, as she tried to imagine the three of us picking up the pompoms, putting on the short skirts and being next. I don't think we could have wiggled our bums like they did!

After giggling at the cheerleaders, stuffing our faces with food and drinking several beers, it was time to have a go at the games. as an incentive, each one was giving away prizes, mainly cuddly toys, so it became a challenge to see how many we could get. We played mini golf:

basketball...

and one of us, but only one, had a go at Baseball. Or Rounders, as I'm afraid we kept referring to it:

By the end of the night we'd collected armfuls of small furry animals, pompoms, megaphones, and an assortment of other prizes. Heaven knows how we were going to get them home.

The Grand Tour of LA

Yesterday we on the "Grand Tour" of LA and surrounding area courtesy of a black minibus and an excellent driver/commentator. Started with a drive from Anaheim to downtown LA, going over a highway intersection that was 8 stories high and was the one they used to film "Speed". The most spectacular building we saw was the auditorium, nearly everything else was just skyscrapers.




Then we stopped at the LA historical site where we saw the birthplace of the city, the first street, and the first house. Interesting that the oldest house in LA, built in 1847, is still not as old as my house which was built in 1806.




Then out of LA and off to Hollywood. Of course you have to see the famous sign, and we got a good view of downtown LA, despite it being surrounded by smog, and as a bonus the Hollywood bowl which you can see at the bottom of this picture.




The Hollywood sign is way up on a hill, and was originally there to advertise real estate for sale.




Then we had a quick drive down into Hollywood, passing the church where Sister Act was filmed, and several famous people's houses.
In Hollywood we saw the famous Chinese theatre with the hand and feet imprints outside, and I got as close to George Clooney as I suspect I ever will.




We went in the Kodak theatre where the Oscars are filmed, and had an amazing strawberry dipped in chocolate. The walk of fame is popular with tourists who take pictures of their favourite stars, who apparently pay $40,000 dollars to have their star in the pavement.




Then off for a trip round Beverley Hills, where the cheapest house is $1.5m, and the dearest currently on the market is $57m. Rodeo Drive is the only commercial area in Beverley Hills, and it's just every designer shop you've ever heard of.

Stopped for lunch in the Farmers Market, where prices were luckily affordable, and then a bit of shopping. The shopping area had a bakery for dogs! Then we went to the sea. First to Santa Monica which has a fantastic beach and a pier with a funfair on, and then to Venice Beach which is very different. A good beach, but the boardwalk is hippy heaven.





Lots of very strange shops, including "doctors" offering legal majuana. Couldn't quite work that one out!




And my favourite was "Botox on the Beach". had a pleasant hour walking up and down the boardwalk, and managed to find ice cream, but no beer! Venice Beach is so called because of the canals which were built in the 30s, but only 4 of them survive today, a very different side of the town to the one we saw by the sea.




Then finally we went to the largest man made harbour in the state, and finally found a beer!

Then back to the hotel where I had a quick relax in the hot tub before going out again for dinner, this time to the Anaheim Garden Walk. Everyone a bit tired, so an earlyish night.

Disney Day

Seems a shame to come all the way here and not go to Disney, so a few of us decided to spend the day in Disneyland. I'm a fairly seasoned visitor, and have been to the various parks (Florida, California, Paris) 8 times, but some of the gang had never been at all. It was only 15 minutes walk from the hotel so we were soon there. Everything is decorated for Halloween, there's even a Mickey pumpkin






After the walk down main street we had a go at shooting things





And then went on the Paddle steamer round the lake




One of my favourite rides is Pirates of the Carribean, so that was the next stop, and it was as good as I remember it. They've even got Captain Jack in it now with a pretty good animatronic Johnny Depp. The wasn't too bad for Disney, only about 20 minutes, so we decided to try another big ride, this time the Haunted Mansion. This had been redecorated inside and out for the season in a Nightmare before Christmas theme. Christmas Jack resplendent on the main gate.

The ride was good, and then we split into two groups, those who wanted to go down splash mountain and get wet, and those who didn't. I was one of the latter. Made a good choice as the queue for this was over an hour. By the time we met up again me and Kath had been on 5 different things. A tropical river cruise was the first.




The second was much cheesier and had us giggling in disbelief though out it. We went in something called the Enchanted Kon Tiki house, mainly because it looked cool ( it was very, very hot). We were treated to 15 minutes of singing animatronic parrots and flowers, so bad it was funny.






Then we went on two storybook dark rides, Snow White and Pinnochio. Very enjoyable for two big kids at heart. And to round off the return to our childhood we went on the big carousel.

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After meeting up with then rest of the group, the queues at the big rides had got very long, it was hot and we were tired, so we decided to go on one last thing. I chose Buzz Lightyear, with a bit of trepidation because I didn't know how the others would react to another kids ride. But it was a great success - you sit inn little space cars in pairs which you can spin round, and you both have a gun and the aim is to shoot as many aliens as you can and score points. I won! Not that I'm competitive or anything. And the best thing was, at the end they'd taken a photo of each car which you could email to yourself for free!



In the evening after the traditional few beers in the bar we got cabs to Downtown Disney and ate in the Jazz kitchen, where there's live music all the time



And the food and company were pretty good as well. After a walk back, I was in bed before midnight for the second night running. Must be getting old!

Anaheim, Saturday

Just travelled to Anaheim for a conference. Posts about the conference on my other blog. Set off early, about 6am, and got to Heathrow about 9am. Pretty uneventful pass through all the security checks, some dry free shopping, and we were in the lounge. Whilst waiting for a beauty treatment, I bumped into someone I knew, a colleague from Google on her way to their conference in San Francisco.

Boarded the plane one time, but then we had to wait for some paperwork, about 45 mins, then we lost our take off slot, so we were over an hour late taking off. Watched Alice in Wonderland while we ate, then sat at the bar for quite a while talking to fellow travelers. Started watching Sex and the City 2, but dozed through some of it. I'm not a good flyer at the best of times, and this flight was very bumpy. Much too much turbulence for my liking.

After landing, got the shuttle to the hotel, and soon heard some knocking outside door. Discovered it was someone trying to get into their room, and it was someone I work with in Sheffield. Bit of a coincidence. Kath phoned me to say she was having second thoughts about going out to eat, and while I was telling her about the coincidence of who was in the next room, got a text from colleague, Peter, saying that he was in the room on the other side of me. Apparently he could hear me on the phone. Not very thick walls in these rooms.

Having persuaded Kath to stay up, (you have to stay awake past 10pm when you've got a time difference as long as 8 hours), we ate at a steak house round the corner, where they didn't give you a menu, but showed you a tray of steaks, most of them big enough to roast for a family of four for a Sunday lunch.

Then, back to the hotel for bed, most of us having stayed up for 26 hours.

Dara O'Briain, sugar pills and water memory.

Sunday night went to see Dara O'Briain at the City Hall as part of the Grin Up North Comedy Festival. Seeing quite a few acts over the next few weeks - hope they're all as good as Dara was. Very fast speaker, took a bit of getting used to especially with the Irish accent, but so funny. And a lot of improvisation from talking to the audience. Last time he was in Sheffield he found it difficult to get the audience to interact (according to his book Tickling the English), but that didn't happen this time. Lots of good responses, and some random heckling. He's a great supporter of the "skeptic" movement, and I was glad to see stuff like homeopathy and chiropractic getting a good going over.

I love the non science behind homeopathy - been written about too many times for me to go over it again. Suffice to say that its medicines are merely sugar pills or sugar water. Active ingredients diluted down so much that there are no molecules of them left in the solution at all. But, so homeopaths would have us believe, water has memory, so can remember traces of the active ingredient. Well, given what most water that we drink has been in contact with, I hope that's not true!

Beyond Limits in the rain

Sunday was the only rainy day of the weekend, and we decided to go to Chatsworth with some friends. Two reasons -it was a day when season ticket holders could bring a friend in for free, and we wanted to see the Beyond Limits sculpture exhibition in the gardens. Despite the rain we had a great time, and bought season tickets while we were there, so can go back anytime during the year. We got fairly wet walking round the gardens, but it was worth it. The sculptures ranged from pots and pans in the Orangery:

to some hares by one of my favourite sculptors, Barry Flanagan:

Despite the rain, the colours in the gardens are lovely at this time of year.

and we took the chance to look at some of the artworks that are there all year, and not part of the exhibition, such as the willow woven inside a yew tree.

If you've been to Chatsworth before you'll know that there's a fantastic cascade in the grounds, and for the exhibition, it has some contemporary chinese warriors on it. They were great, and made me smile a lot. Looked really cheeky.

The other water features, including the Emperor Fountain also had sculptures near them, but it was getting rather wet by then! All of the water features are gravity fed - no engines - from reservoirs at the top of the hills. A great place to walk if you get the chance.

My favourite sculpture was called Visitor by David Breur-Weil. It was great, you were almost on it before you noticed it, and so atmospheric in the rain.

Came home very muddy and damp, but worth it.

Santana at the MEN

Last night went to see Carlos Santana at the MEN Arena in Manchester. Never seen him before so didn't know what to expect, but it was a great show. Lots of Latin rhythms, and some great covers of rock classics. "Sunshine of Your Love took me back to being a teenager - we'd taken the 13 year old son of a friend of mine with us, and I realised that when I was his age, that's what I was listening to. Still a classic. It was his first rock concert - and what an experience. 



 Stuart had his camera confiscated because it was "a huge one" according to the woman who searched his bag, but I sneaked my small one in and got some great pictures, and some video. Not sure what they've got against big cameras, when everyone has a phone - you could see lights on all over the Arena from people taking pictures and video - and small cameras these days can take very high quality pictures and video.Wouldn't even let you take bottles of water in with you  - presumably to make you pay their exhorbitant prices.

Love the way Santana can go from playing very melodic tunes like "many a tear has to fall", to heavy rock. Great night. Ears still ringing this morning.