Tag / Birthdays

by Gareth

The Lion King and Arcade Club

Last night I was in Manchester to see The Lion King at the Palace Theatre – it’s in the middle of a run that finishes at the start of March, and I’ve got stuff coming up next month so thought it’d be good to get a ticket to see it now. I’m a big fan of the soundtrack to original film – I’ve listened to it many, many times, so it’s definitely a musical I’ve always wanted see.

The Lion King at the Palace Theatre.

Anyway, I only bought the ticket last week – there were hardly any seats still available apart from a few really expensive ones, but there was a single seat available on the second row of the circle for a pretty decent price. It had a note on the booking site saying it had limited legroom, but the difference in price meant I thought I’d go for cost over comfort! And they really weren’t lying about the legroom – there wasn’t much room at all between the rows!

The show itself is absolutely amazing! I actually felt emotional at the start as it opened with Circle of Life, from the iconic music to all the performers swarming onto the stage from the sides and the stalls.

The Lion King cast.

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by Gareth

Unwanted birthday

So it was my birthday last week, and I hit a milestone which wasn’t particularly wanted! For my 40th, I travelled to America and spent my actual birthday in New York which was pretty cool, but for my 50th I didn’t really want to do anything to celebrate! Anyway, back to that in a minute!

Mum came up to stay for a few days on Tuesday, with the main idea to clear out the planter in my back garden and put some new plants in there. We hit a slight issue quite early on due to the fact that the plant that was already in there didn’t want to come out! I was given a couple of pot plants as a birthday present about 9 or 10 years ago, and I stuck them outside in the planter because I didn’t have anywhere in the house to put them at the time, but since then, they’d exploded from their pots and grown to a ridiculous size!

So it actually took quite a few days to hack away at it, and once we’d removed most of the leaves, found that it had become a massive stump that had roots that had spread throughout all of the soil! It was really difficult to get out because it was so big and heavy, and also because of the space it was in made it really difficult to manoeuvre.

Mum tackling the overgrown plant!

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by Gareth

Nights out and a weekend in Wales

Bit of an update of things I’ve been up to recently… last month I got to see Martin Smith perform at Night & Day in Manchester which was really cool. I’ve seen him play there a few times now, and it’s a really intimate venue, and I was pretty much at the front for the whole show, so had a great view!

Martin Smith at Night and Day.

I was wondering if I might bump into people I know, and I managed to go the whole gig without spotting anyone, but at the end of the night I saw Craig (who I used to work with back at MUTV) and his wife Ima. I’m not sure when I last saw them – it’s been quite a while, but it was really nice to catch up with what they’ve been up to.

Martin Smith at Night and Day.

Then, the weekend after that gig, I went to see a heat of the West Didsbury Comedy Festival, because Edi Johnston had travelled from Nottingham to take part in one of the heats of the ‘New Comedian of the Year’ competition.

Edi Johnston.

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by Gareth

Birthday U2!

So, it was my birthday on Saturday, and at the start of this year I’d tried to buy a ticket to see U2 in Manchester on their eXPERIENCE + INNOCENCE tour, which fell on the same date, but within seconds of the tickets going on sale, they were already sold out which was really annoying since the only ones then available we being sold at massively inflated prices on secondary ticket sites – and I’d pretty much forgotten about it.

Then, first thing in the morning, I was looking on Twitter and saw a post from the Manchester Evening News linking to an article about the U2 gig later that day. I then remembered that someone had recently told me that with gigs like this, production ticket returns are often released for sale on the day of the gig, so I thought I’d quickly check on the Manchester Arena website, and I was able to buy a ticket at the price they originally went on sale!

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by Gareth

Holiday in Ireland

A couple of weeks ago I was on holiday in Ireland again, meeting up with mum and my niece and nephew. They’d already been there for a few days, and I set off really early on a Sunday morning to make a 9am sailing from Holyhead to Dublin, followed by a 3½ hour drive across the country to Mai & PJ’s house just outside Listowel.

The following morning – we took my mum’s hire car back to Shannon airport, with me following behind, so we could then carry on in just the one car.

We carried on northwards for a bit, before making a brief stop in County Clare’s main town, Ennis, and then carried on to the north west of the county, finally arriving at the Cliffs of Moher.

Cliffs of Moher.

They’re really stunning, and you can really sense the power of the sea crashing onto the rock a couple of hundred metres below. It was really windy, and it had been quite drizzly all morning, but it did dry up for us whilst there. It was a pretty strenuous walk up a load of steps to an old round tower overlooking the sea, and we carried on walking along the cliff top until we got to a little hut selling ice lollies (which of course we partook in!).

It was crazy seeing the amount of people who’d left the path to position themselves really precariously on the cliff edge to take a selfie – I’m not sure any photo, no matter how stunning, is worth potential death!

Afterwards we went into the visitor centre, which seems to be a giant cave inside the hill, and there were quite a few interactive things which Brandon & Chloe could have a go at. Even mum decided to try out the greenscreen selfie area, although the camera they use is really low quality and the keying wasn’t that great!

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by Gareth

Jess’ music video

I spent last Saturday with Jess Torry and loads of her friends making a music video! It was her birthday last month, but rather than have a regular birthday party, she had a music video party, which involved them all dancing and singing along to Justin Timberlake’s ‘September’ track from Trolls.

James directed and operated the main FS5 camera, and I had the Sony A7s on a gimble rig to get some smooth moving shots (although I’m not that practiced in using the gimble, so it was a bit of a steep learning curve!).

We filmed them in a nearby park, then in a cul-de-sac of an industrial estate, and finally back in their back garden where they performed in various bits of fancy dress.

It was quite chaotic at times, but the kids had a blast, and James even edited it overnight so that they could all watch it the next day!

by Gareth

Family holiday in Florida

Last month I had an awesome time in Florida with family, so I thought I’d do a bit of a catch-up of what we got up to!

I drove down to Tamworth on the 2nd November and stayed at the Travelodge there to get a few hours sleep before a really early start the next morning. So at 4am, we all got in a taxi minibus from mum’s at 4am to take us down to Gatwick, and it has to be said, it wasn’t the most comfortable journey! There was me, mum, my sister Vikky and the twins, my brother Steve with his partner Ameena, and her daughter Amelia.

One particular lowlight of the taxi journey was when Chloe threw up whilst we were in traffic on the M25! She was sat next to me, so basically I had to catch it in my hands which was gross! I managed to transfer most of it into a plastic bag, but some of it ended up on my hoodie and smelled pretty bad! We had to pull over on the hard shoulder for her to get rid of the last of it before carrying on to the airport!

After a bit of a clean-up at the airport, we got on our flight about 1 o’clock. We flew with Virgin Atlantic, and it’s the biggest plane I’ve been on – it was a 747 and had an upstairs, which is where our seats were! It’s quite a long flight, and then when we got to Orlando, there was a massive wait to get through immigration, which isn’t ideal when you’ve got a couple of tired kids with you! We finally got through at about 7.30pm local time (which of course felt like it was after midnight because we’d started the day on UK time). It took a bit more time to collect our two hire cars – me and Steve were both driving Chrysler Town & Country 7 seaters, which is a bit bigger than I’m used to! We has had to take a bit of a trip to get an envelope containing a code for the keys for the villa in nearby Kissimmee where we were going to be staying. Eventually we got everything sorted, and finally were able to crash out!

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by Gareth

USA Adventure

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I’m just recovering from an amazing (but exhausting!) 2 weeks travelling around America!

I decided earlier this year that with a major (and unwelcome) birthday coming up, I’d arrange to be out of the country for it, and so the planning for a trip to the States was begun! I spent ages working out the trip – flights, trains, coaches, hotels – and surprisingly, it all went really smoothly!

DAY ONE: Chicago

Manchester Airport.

The journey started on the 6th October, when I flew out from Manchester to Chicago. We left the UK on the Saturday morning, and after an 8½ hour flight, got into Chicago O’Hare Airport early afternoon (the magic of time travel! 😉 )

Actually, the descent into Chicago was quite memorable because when you first come through the clouds, you see a cluster of skyscrapers by what looks like the sea, but of course is Lake Michigan, and then from that the city sprawls for miles upon miles. Also, I won’t forget it in a hurry because as we were dropping towards the runway, the plane suddenly started pulling up again, and we went into a massive circle pattern over the city – the pilot told us that air traffic control had accidentally put us on the shorter of the two runways, which wouldn’t have been long enough for our landing, so they aborted right at the last minute! For someone who’s not the greatest flier, that’s not really what you want to hear!

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by Gareth

Crazy few weeks!

It’s been a busy few weeks, but first off, me and James have been on TV these last few weeks!

I wrote a while back that we were doing all the graphics for Jo Brand’s new documentary series on Dave – ‘Jo Brand’s Big Splash‘, so back in May, we went down to London to be in the audience for the recording of the stand-up section of the series.

Well, the series started on Dave a few weeks ago, an we both make an appearance in audience cutaways at various points! And I’m pretty sure they used our laughs over the punchlines of different jokes!

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by Gareth

Some non-work-related stuff!

We’ve been working incredibly hard recently, pulling in some all-nighters for a couple of our jobs, but instead of going on about that, I’m going to blog about some non-work stuff I’ve done over the last few weeks!

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Most recently, this weekend I’ve been down in Bristol visiting Ali, and Helen also came down so we could have a bit of a mini uni-get-together!

I was originally planning to drive down there on Saturday morning, but I’ve been doing such long hours at work, and on Friday afternoon I was totally knackered after having had just 3 hours sleep in 3 days(!), so at the last minute I booked a train ticket down there instead!

I got into Bristol around lunchtime, and walked the short distance from Temple Meads to Ali’s house.  It’s interesting to see how much the area has changed over the years. When I first visited Ali there back in the 90s, it was a pretty run-down area, but now a lot of it’s been replaced by riverside bars and restaurants, and hotels and posh apartments – and Ali’s estate is right next to it!

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by Gareth

The year so far…

It’s been a while, so here’s a bit of a catch up!
Yesterday I went to Liverpool Cathedral to hear Rob Bell talk about his new book – ‘Love Wins‘. I’d seen him do a Q&A at Greenbelt last year, so was quite interested to hear him in person talk about his new book which has already caused a bit of controversy within the church.

It was quite bizarre because quite a few influential people were highly critical of it via Twitter, even before the book had actually been released, so I decided I’d rather make my own mind up, rather than listen to emotional ramblings from people who can come across a bit arrogant at times!

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I went with Tom Green from Vinelife, and met up with Dave Bateman (who’s now living in Liverpool), and I also bumped into Tim Follin and his wife who were both there too. The place was pretty packed, and it was really interesting to hear his thoughts, but even though I think some of the stuff he said was quite though-provoking, I’m not totally sure I agree with all the points he put across.

After he did his main talk bit, he was ‘interviewed’ by the host of the evening, but he wasn’t really very good at it and asked pretty rubbish questions.  And then they invited people from the audience to ask questions, but again I thought there were a lot of missed opportunities, and Tom went forward to ask a question, but they wrapped up just before he got a chance to which was a bit annoying!

I bought the book afterwards, and I want to read it myself to see what I reckon – I certainly think it’s good that he’s causing people to ask questions about it.

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by Gareth

A bit about April

The heading kind of gives away the content of this post!  It’s been a busy couple of weeks, with a weekend in Tamworth, a day at the beach, catching up with old friends, and a fancy dress party!

For Easter, I went down to Tamworth for the weekend, and it was nice to spend time with Brandon and Chloe again.  I was obviously down there a few weeks earlier for their birthday party, so I think they remembered me this time round!!

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I went with mum, Vikky and the twins to the Easter Service at ECC in Lichfield – it was weird going back there since the last time I was there was when I was 18 or 19 – nearly 20 years ago!  We got there pretty early because they were having a buffet breakfast before the service, and Brandon and Chloe managed to get quite a bit of the food down their smart clothes!  I guess that’s quite normal!  I said hello to a few people there who I remembered from when I was there years ago, and also chatted with Dave Bateman’s sister Helen who goes there, and actually works for them as a student worker!

Then on Easter Monday, I was back up north, and a group of us went over to Formby to spend the day at the beach!

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by Gareth

I’m a geek!

Last night I was at a Geek Party at Rob & Jenny Kay’s, where you had to go dressed as something inspired by geek chic! Now it may come as real surprise (since I am a bit of a self-confessed geek) that I was really struggling with a costume for the night, but with a couple of days to go, I suddenly hit on gold!

I decided to go as the ultimate geek – Mr Dave Bateman!

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To make this dream a reality, I wondered about the best way to go about it, even Googling to find out how to make an actual 3d head(!), but finally settled on printing his face onto some card to make an oversized mask, with a couple of eyeholes punched through his actual eyes!

It wasn’t the most comfortable thing to wear for the whole evening if I’m honest, but I really enjoyed how it slightly freaked people out as they talked to me!

When Dave himself finally arrived around 10 o’clock, I think he found it pretty strange to have a bobbing-head version of him staring right back!

And the mask proved so popular that everyone wanted to wear it!

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Check out the full set of photos from the party in my Facebook photo album.

So what else? Well, going back a couple of weekends, I was down in Tamworth for Brandon and Chloe’s 2nd birthday party!

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by Gareth

Birthday football!

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Yesterday was my birthday – something I’m generally not to keen to celebrate, but James insisted that he and Helen take me for a birthday lunch at Kro, so I couldn’t really make up an excuse to get out of it!

It was nice actually – I got to see Jess, who’d changed so much since the last time I’d seen her back in July at Soul Survivor. She looks so much more grown up, and she’s now trying to walk, although it’s more a case of manoeuvring herself around things that she can hold onto!

The food was good – I had a steak ciabatta and chips, and it was much better than my usual Morrisons sandwich – so thanks to the Torrys for a really nice birthday lunch!

Then in the evening, I went to Hillsborough with James to see Sheffield Wednesday take on Preston! He mentioned in the afternoon that there was a ‘friends for a fiver’ night, and wondered if I’d be up for it, so I said yes!

We left straight from work (which unfortunately meant I couldn’t get changed into warmer clothes, and it was quite a cold night!) but it took us a while to get over to Sheffield, so by the time we got to our seats, the game had already been going for about 5 minutes.

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Preston scored first after about 15 minutes, but Wednesday hit back with a goal not too long before the end of the first half. Then, not long into the second half, Preston scored again, and the score unfortunately didn’t change for the rest of the game. Wednesday had loads of chances, and it was really disappointing that they lost, but I could see that Preston were really lucky to get a win.

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by Gareth

Whodunnit?

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Dave, Dan, Jimmy, Ralph, Jason and Chris.

Well, another bank holiday yesterday – it only seems a few weeks since the last one!!

I went for a walk in the afternoon with some guys from Reach – we drove over to the Peak District and parked up by Derwent Reservoir, just off the Snake Pass. It’s actually where I went with Jamie a couple of years ago for my first bike ride in 16 years(!), and I’ve realised it’s certainly a lot quicker to go round on 2 wheels rather than walking!

We only did about 4 miles – we got quite a bit round one side of the reservoir, but soon realised that it would take us ages to get round the next one and back down to the car! So after examining if there was anywhere else where we could cross, we turned around and walked back pretty much the way we came.

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