Tag / Friends

by Gareth

More nights out and a weekend away

Last month saw some more rescheduled shows take place, so I’ve been able to enjoy a few more nights out which is cool.

During the first week of October, I spent 2 consecutive evenings at the Lowry Studio Theatre, and first up was comedy magician John Archer. I’ve seen him as support a couple of times for Tim Vine, as well as on BGT, and also got to see him do a set at NSN back in July 2019 – but this was my first time seeing him do a full-length show, so I got to see some more of his act that I hadn’t seen before.

John Archer.

I think he’s really good, and very funny too, although having seen him before, I did know some of the things that were coming ! Also, I ended up sitting just in front of Ian Rowbottom and his family, and I hadn’t seen him in ages, so it was nice to catch up beforehand and during the interval.

Then the night night I was back there to see ‘Jonny Awsum Is Comes To Town’. Again, I’ve seen him do some support stuff before, as well as seeing him perform a show at the Edinburgh Fringe a few years ago, so was looking forward to eventually seeing his new show!

Jonny Awsum.

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by Gareth

Live music returns

With various restrictions being relaxed, various gigs that were postponed due to Covid have been taking place, so last month I got see three great bands – Blossoms, Snow Patrol and Elbow.

Blossoms gig at Manchester Arena, with ticket showing the original date.

A couple of weekends ago saw my first music gig since March 2020 (when I saw Stereophonics at the Manchester Arena a few days before everything started shutting down). This gig was also at the Arena, where Blossoms were finally getting to play their Manchester gig, postponed from that first weekend of lockdown!

I arrived wearing my mask, and I was a bit wary of the whole thing because it was the first time I’d been around so many people for about 18 months, and most people there weren’t actually wearing any face coverings! But it didn’t feel totally packed in which I’m glad of, and I was able to move around a bit, keeping pretty close to the front, but more to the side of the stage.

Blossoms.

Blossoms.

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by Gareth

Meeting up with Steve

This week I caught up with an old uni mate here in Manchester! Steve Black was making a brief trip down from Glasgow for a change of scenery, before meeting up with his parents for a meal in the Lake District. So on Tuesday he make a visit to the Trafford Centre to do some shopping, and I headed over there to meet him, and we grabbed a burger at ‘Five Guys’ (expensive but nice!) where we chatted for a bit, and then I left him so he could look round the shops properly!

Steve (and my dinner).

He was staying at a Premier Inn in Sale, so in the evening we went out to a pub just a couple of miles away – The March Hare – and it was actually really nice! I’d not been there before, but it’s definitely on my list of good places to eat at! It was good to catch up with Steve – we hadn’t spoken so in depth for a pretty long time, and I don’t think I’ve actually seen him since 2017. The next morning we went for a short walk around Sale Water Park (which I don’t think I’ve ever done before), and it’s quite nice around there. We walked around the main lake, and also along a bit of the Mersey, before heading back towards our starting point, stopping off at the cafe for a coffee and a bacon sandwich!

Steve and Me at Sale Water Park.

Also, a couple of weekends ago, I went down to Leek with Lee to shoot some footage of one of Gag Reflex’s outdoor comedy events they’ve been doing since Covid. There was quite a decent crowd in the end – it wasn’t the warmest of evenings, but it did stay dry which was good!

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by Gareth

35 years ago!

One of the things I’ve been doing over the last couple of years is scanning loads of old photos and other bits from years gone by! And one of the those things has been old issues of the school magazine I used to produce with Tom, back when we were at secondary school.

One time we ran a competition to take one of the readers to visit BBC Pebble Mill in Birmingham (in all honesty, the main reason was because we wanted to go there ourselves!) One of our team’s dad worked there, so we managed to get her to ask him to take us all, which we did on the May bank holiday in 1986 when there were a lot less people there. Sadly, the studios were demolished in 2005, but back in the 80s they were producing quite a lot of TV – so to someone like me who has always been obsessed with TV and production stuff, it was a dream come true!

The article in the July 1986 issue of Mercian Madness.

What is quite scary though is that we visited the studios exactly 35 years ago today!

I do have some memories of going there, but after all this time it is a bit hazy. I remember thinking how small the ‘Pebble Mill at One’ studio was, and learning that bits of it were pre-recorded to make it seem like they had more space, and allow them to move stuff around during a show, and also we did try and visit the radio area, but because it was a Bank Holiday Monday, there was no-one working there so it was all locked up. Interestingly, ‘Pebble Mill at One’ was cancelled between us visiting and the article being published, hence the RIP reference!

Also, for some bizarre reason, we wanted to brand Jo’s dad’s car with the ‘Mercian Madness’ logo – but using poster paint! Unsurprisingly, this never actually happened! And I’m quite sad that we didn’t take many photos at all – we did have a camera with us because there’s the photo that’s in the magazine, but for some reason, we didn’t really take any others (or none that came out anyway!)

Here’s the article that appeared in the July 1986 issue of the magazine (remember we were all only 13 when we wrote this!):

In the last issue, we ran a competition, and the winner was to go with us to the B.B.C. Read on to find out what happened when we visited…

PEBBLE MILL

AN EXCLUSIVE REPORT BY: BEN COOKE, JO CRAWLEY, TOM GREEN & GARETH HARRISON

MONDAY 5th MAY 1986
Josephine Crawley Reporting:

4.00pm
The motley crew, sorry, the Mercian Madness reporting team arrived. With them was the winner of the competition, Kevin Lee. First year Kevin was very excited about the trip. “It’s the first time I’ve won anything!” he said.

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by Gareth

Linda O’Brien

Roger and Linda.

I posted this on social media, but I thought I’d put it on here as well because it has really saddened me.

My first job in tv and production was way back at the end of 1997 when I was taken on at the cable channel Birmingham Live TV, and it really was a great learning experience and I got to work alongside a really good team. Well, last night I got a message from Phil who I used to work with to tell me the really sad news that one of the reporters from there, Linda O’Brien, had just passed away after an on-going illness. She was genuinely one of the nicest people in the business, and I got to spend a lot of time with her back then both on shoots and also crammed into our tiny edit suite editing on NewsCutter. One of the things I remember about Linda is that she could actually edit a bit herself (unusual for a reporter back then), so had this habit of leaning over and grabbing the mouse if she suddenly had an idea to make an edit better! It was a bit frustrating at first, but I soon got used to it, and she always acknowledged that it could be annoying… although she was often right with the changes she made.

Linda, Ashley and Karen.

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by Gareth

Emma’s Zoom Wedding

Emma and Matt’s wedding.

Well, yesterday was supposed to be Emma’s wedding to Matt, but because of Coronavirus, everything was up in the air. I was originally supposed to be helping with some of the photography, but a couple of weeks ago had to make a decision not to go because of probably needing to self shield (luckily I was able to cancel the hotel I’d booked in Llandudno. When I let Emma know, she told me they’d have to postpone the main wedding, but just have the marriage bit with only 10 people attending.

But since then, full lockdown was introduced, so even that wasn’t possible, so that was the last I’d heard until I happened to notice on the Facebook event page that they were going to be having the wedding on Zoom instead!

The wedding was scheduled for 10am, and I didn’t see it until about 40 minutes beforehand, so didn’t get a chance to dress up… so I attended wearing a hoodie, complete with a mug of coffee and some toast!

It was my first time using Zoom, and it can be quite overwhelming with so many voices, but when the actual ‘service’ started, they muted everyone’s microphones other than those doing stuff. Emma and Matt were in one house, and the minister in another – they’d got permission from the Baptist Union of Great Britain for him to marry them from a different location, so this was basically the ‘church’ part of the service, and they’ll be doing the ‘civil’ bit as soon as they’re able to!

Obviously, it was a shame not to experience it properly (although easier to get there and more comfortable than wearing a suit!), but hopefully they’ll be able to have a proper celebration later on in the year!

by Gareth

Holidays 2019

I thought I’d post about my holidays this year – I’ve not done it sooner because I’ve been a bit pre-occupied with health stuff!

First off, over Easter I went camping with my sister’s family in Wales. We stayed at Abererch Sands, which is on the Llyn Peninsula, just between Pwllheli and Criccieth.

We all arrived at the campsite at lunchtime on the Thursday, and went on a part of the site where both caravans and tents could be pitched. It took me quite a while to get my tent up – I’d recently been getting tired really quickly (which I later discovered to be because of heart failure!), so I paced myself with it, and Brandon and Chloe occasionally broke away from playing frisbee to help a little bit when an extra pair of hands were needed. Vikky and Andy set up their caravan on one side of the field so they could plug into a heavy-duty electrical hook-up, whereas I pitched up on the opposite side, and made use of the electrical hook-up for tents. It was the first time I’d had electricity whilst camping, and it really does make a difference! I’d bought a small powered fridge to use for the week, plus a camping kettle which mean I could boil water much quicker than usual!

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by Gareth

Edgeley Park gigs

So this week, I’ve been to 2 different gigs at Edgeley Park stadium – handily just up the road from where I live!

The first one was Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott, and it was very last minute that I got a ticket for it. I saw Lee post on Facebook that he had a spare ticket available for the gig that night, so, having been a big Beautiful South fan back in the day, bought the ticket off his friend who couldn’t make it.

Paul Heaton & Jacqui Abbott.

I thought about walking up to the stadium, but with my health situation, took the bus instead! I met Lee outside the ground, and we went in to grab a drink, before his wife Katie and her friend turned up. It was nice to catch up with Lee having not seen him since the beginning of February, and hopefully I didn’t bore him too much talking about my heart stuff!

So back to the music, and they were really good – there are so many songs you just know all the words to! I was worried it might rain, but even though it was quite cloudy, it stayed dry. I had to have a sit down for about 10 minutes half way through because I was starting to tire a bit, but then I was fine for the rest of the gig. I only had one beer – I don’t normally drink that much alcohol anyway, but at the moment I can’t have more that 1½ – 2 litres of liquid a day, which is a lot harder than you’d think!

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by Gareth

Anthony

I found out yesterday through Facebook that one of my best mates from school died last weekend of a cardiac arrest whilst he was just walking near to his home. He was only 44 and it really is a total shock. Sadly, I hadn’t been in touch with Anthony for about 20 years, but I spent pretty much the whole of my early life with him, doing loads of crazy stuff with our partner in crime Tom.

Here’s the article from the Birmingham Mail.

RIP mate.

by Gareth

Orlando, New York and Aruba!

It was my sister’s wedding last month, and she’d decided to have a beach wedding in Aruba, so I decided that since I’d be travelling across the Atlantic, I’d also add a short USA holiday to it as well!

So I flew out to Orlando on the 6th October, leaving Manchester at lunchtime, arriving at 4.30pm local time. The queue through passport control was crazy – it took 2¼ hours to get through it, and then once my passport had been checked, I was then picked to have my suitcase examined! I eventually checked into my hotel – the ‘Holiday Inn & Suites Across From Universal Orlando’ – and it really was ‘across’, being just a 15 minute walk to the main entrance to the Universal theme parks!

After a long day of travelling, I went to bed pretty much straight away, and then woke up ridiculously early because of jet-lag! So annoying!

Anyway, I got myself breakfast from a nearby McDonalds, and then arrived at the theme park around 10.30am.

I entered the Islands of Adventure park and hit the rides straight away! I stayed there until about 2 o’clock, and after a bit of lunch, took the Hogwart’s Express from Hogsmeade to King’s Cross over in the the Universal Studios park. Generally, it was busier than when I visited in 2014, and the queues were longer, but I imagine no-where near as busy as it is in peak season!

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by Gareth

Scotland weekend

Last weekend I was up in Scotland with Ali for Steve & Tatiana’s wedding! The wedding was on the Friday, so I drove up on Thursday afternoon and then picked up Ali from the airport, who’d taken a flight from Bristol. However, as I was driving to the airport, I got a major warning light and message on my car saying ‘system fault’ which wasn’t ideal!

I get RAC membership with my car servicing, so called them up early evening, and an RAC man finally arrived quite late, and determined it was probably an issue with my battery not fully holding its charge and causing the error message. He reckoned it would be safe to drive over the weekend but that I’d need to arrange to get it checked soon at a Nissan garage.

Anyway, next day was the day of the wedding – I’d offered to live stream it for them, since a lot of Tatiana’s family weren’t able to make it over to the UK. We had breakfast and left first thing so that I’d have time to set up kit. I was only using a single camera with a BlackMagic Web Presenter plugged into my laptop. In hindsight, I wish I’d packed a 2nd camera to plug into it, but I think they were happy that there was any kind of broadcast!

You can still watch the live stream of the service on YouTube.

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by Gareth

The Joshua Tree

On Sunday I was down in Twickenham for an amazing gig – U2 celebrating 30 years since The Joshua Tree was released! I’d bought a few extra tickets, so Tom Musgrove travelled down with me (we drove down to Feltham and then got a train from Feltham to Twickenham), and then met my Bristol friends Ali and Chelly nearby, before all heading to the stadium.

As we arrived around 7pm, the support act was already playing – Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds! They were really good, but it was kind of weird seeing Noel Gallagher playing as an opening act, because the stadium was still filling up and not everyone was paying attention!

U2 came on stage around 8.15pm, and opened with a few songs from earlier albums (including ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ and ‘Pride’), then launched into all the songs in order from The Joshua Tree.

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by Gareth

A catch-up

I thought I’d do a bit of a catch-up of what’s been going on the last few weeks.

At the start of last month, we had a bit of a crazy weekend shooting a TV commercial for Transform, which involved a mix of interior and exterior locations. We were really banking on the weather being good, and we were so lucky that the rain didn’t materialise until Sunday afternoon, because by then we’d filmed all of the outside stuff. We shot it all on the FS5 mounted on a Ronin stabiliser, and the shots looked great.

The week the shoot saw us having to get it edited and through Clearcast clearance to allow it to be shown on TV, and it was pretty tight, but we managed to get it on air without too much trouble!

Then, a couple of weeks ago, I went to the Lowry to see ‘The Elis James and John Robins Experience’ – I started listening to their Radio X show and podcast back in September, and I heard them mention that they were doing a tour, so checked online and saw that there were just a few tickets left for the show! It was really funny – there were some references that I didn’t get that obviously would be known to a long time listener, but it just made me want to check out more of their back catalogue!

Elis James & John Robins.

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by Gareth

#batemantakethiswoman

This weekend I’ve been up in North Yorkshire – specifically Selby and Thorne near Doncaster – for Dave Bateman’s wedding to Abbie – hence the hashtag #batemantakethiswoman!

Me and Jimmy drove up first thing yesterday morning, grabbing a quick McDonalds breakfast nearby because we were a bit early, and then arrived at the church in Selby where we sat with Rob & Jenny, Chris & Debbie, Tom, Ralph & Laura, and Penny. Of course, John Roberts was there too, but since he was best man, he got to sit down the front with Mr Bateman!

Abbie and Dave.

It was a really nice service, and afterwards the rain stopped just long enough to take some photos in the churchyard, and by the yellow VW camper that was taking Dave and Abbie to their reception!

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by Gareth

Wedfest

I spent last weekend camping up in north Yorkshire at the Camp Hill Estate for the event of the year – Wedfest!

Rather than opt for a regular wedding, Darren and Claire opted to make a whole weekend of it, and include camping, and get married in the open air! Luckily the weather was perfect for the whole weekend, so no wellies were needed!

We all arrived on the Friday afternoon to pitch our tents… I was camping near to Rob, Clare and Tabitha, along with some of their friends who were really nice. The first night we had a barbecue in the woods, followed by late night consumption of alcohol back at our tents!

Then on the day of the wedding, after a breakfast of bacon rolls, we all chilled a bit before getting changed into our smart clothes (something that isn’t a particularly easy thing to do in a tent!). Then it was time to head over to the wedding area.

Darren and Claire.

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