An early start, aided by my new Spotify playlist that collects all my favourite running-reminiscent songs! After getting our stuff together, Geth and I headed out for a good walk to the Great North Run start line. We put our rucksack on the baggage bus and got ourselves settled in the start pen.
Start line selfie! I am still no good at taking these.
It was a good hour-long wait until we finally started moving, and probably another twenty minutes after that walking down to the actual start line (being the world’s biggest half marathon, it takes a good long while to get nearly 60,000 runners over the line), but before too long we were off, and I was able to settle into my comfortable pace for the first few miles.
Unfortunately pretty much all of my recurring aches and pains showed up during the course of the race, and so I didn’t get anywhere near the sub-2:30 I would have liked. I did get 2:43:19, which is a 10 min 36 sec improvement on last year’s PB – ergo I can’t really complain! Looking forward to the winter, though, as I will be able to train a lot better for the various races I will be doing in the run-up to the London Marathon in April.
South Shields and its pubs were as wonderful and necessary as ever. We hung about for a while to avoid the Metro queues, but are now finally home with pizza and prosecco. A very quiet day planned tomorrow.
OOTD: the only piece of clothing that matters today! Glasses Moschino (2006), t-shirt Great North Run (2018).
Today’s earworm playlist:
Ashford & Simpson – Solid
(Another short playlist due to a whole day of having music played at me!)
As we hadn’t been too late back after day 3, Geth and I managed to be awake mid-morning, and after a couple of hours getting ourselves together, we headed to Frankie & Benny’s for our annual ‘final day of Infest’ carb-loading session. For the last few years, Infest Sunday has started like this…
I think I’m looking better and better as I age. Must be all that pizza.
…followed by changing into a nice comfy Sunday outfit that comfortably accommodates any festival bloat and allows for lots of dancing without getting achy feet.
Sunday OOTD: tired, but determined to dance. Necklace unknown brand (vintage 1980s, bought at vintage fair 2016), t-shirt Gildan for Deviant (originally early 2000s, thrifted from Geth and modified 2015), trousers Bat Attack (2009), boots Carefree (2017).
We made it through the rain to the venue, where we attended the charity tea party for the eating of delicious cake, and then went through to the sports bar to grab a drink before the first band.
Band 16: Promenade Cinema
Promenade Cinema are amazing on record – gorgeous cool ’80s-style synthpop – and they played beautifully, helped along by the lovely pink and blue of the stage lights (props to whoever was doing lighting). Unfortunately they fell victim to the poor sound treatment that, as often happens at Infest, plagued the whole festival. There was a lot of weird stuff going on with the vocals, including a lot of reverb that meant you could still hear the lead singer’s vocals loud and clear even when she passed the mic to the audience, which gave the impression she wasn’t singing live, even though she was (it didn’t help that she was sometimes miming to the keyboardist/backing singer’s vocals as well). At one point, the sound cut out and the lights came on, so there was clearly some mismanaged sound setup going on somewhere. It was a shame, and it kind of spoilt the performance for me. I’d like to see them again sometime with less problematic sound.
When we came out of the stage area, there was a guy hanging around in an Alt-Fest t-shirt, which is brave at Infest. I actually very nearly ordered an Alt-Fest t-shirt before the festival was cancelled, but I don’t think I’d ever have had the balls to wear it if I had got round to it in time!
I should point out at this juncture that the atmosphere on Sunday – both in the sports bar talking to people and in the stage area watching the bands – was very, very sleepy and low-energy. Four days turns out to be very long for a festival, and people really seemed to be flagging.
Band 17: Massenhysterie
The immediate striking thing on stage was the singer, who looks a bit like a ’60s girl updated with blue hair and PVC. The other guy on stage was playing a keytar, which I always appreciate. Music-wise it was nice danceable electro, but pretty generic, and the visuals were a bit disparate and random – sometimes medical-themed, sometimes military, and it seemed like they didn’t really know what their theme was. At the end, there were more flags, which has definitely been a running thing at this year’s Infest.
Band 18: Valhall
Very pretty synth soundscapes, but the music was far too slow for my liking. The two musicians sang pretty much equally, and while the female singer’s vocals were beautiful, I found the male singer’s vocals a bit too semi-harsh for my taste. The stage show was again very slow and sleepy, which I don’t think helped with the general lethargic feeling of the day.
Band 19: Elegant Machinery
More synthpop – should be right up my street, yes? Well, it was perfectly serviceable and danceable, but the tunes were very forgettable – I can’t remember how any of them go at all – and so I found myself zoning out quite a lot. There was a good bit of energy from the band on stage, but nothing really interesting happening. At one point, there were a bunch of people (presumably Swedes) waving a Swedish flag in the audience, and I found myself more interested in that than in what was going on with the performance, which is not really a good sign.
Band 20: Strvngers
I only stayed for one song by this lot, as the music really wasn’t my thing at all. The first song involved a lot of doom bells, clanging guitars, and orgasm noises (the last of which you’ll know is a real pet peeve of mine if you’ve been reading my Now! reviews), and there was yet another flag on stage – a Canadian one this time, as this was the second Canadian band of the weekend. There were also some masks going on, which was at least interesting. While I wasn’t impressed, Matt absolutely loved them and stayed for the whole set, and he said the music did get poppier at some points, so maybe I’ll give them another listen sometime.
Band 21: This Morn’ Omina
Lots of drumming, lots of dancing, lots of flashing lights. Good set, and it actually woke me up a bit. Surprisingly, they played One Eyed Man, which is one of their most popular songs, in the middle of the set. As such, Geth and I felt able to leave the stage area early and enjoy the rest of the performance from the merch area.
One of our Infest traditions is to enjoy a spirit and mixer (or three) at the end of the Sunday night, usually while listening to the last band if it’s someone neither of us are too bothered about seeing. As such, Geth got the drinks in, because the Sunday headliner…
Band 22: Aesthetic Perfection
…was Aesthetic Perfection, and while I like their music, I’ve seen them at enough festivals that I didn’t feel the need to go and stand in the audience this time round. I did nip in for half a song, just to see what was happening on stage, and it was claustrophobically packed in there. Unfortunately, despite the fact that Aesthetic Perfection are shouty, high-energy, and great to dance to, after four days most of the audience were no longer capable of dancing, and the huge crowd looked very subdued. Great kitschy outfits on the part of the band though.
I went back to join Geth for a couple more vodka ‘n’ apple juices, and we headed to the Escape Bar after the bands had finished. While there was some good music being played, it was clear I wasn’t going to get the Soft Cell track that was the only thing that would have got me up dancing, and so after a quick selfie:
I’m sort of getting better at taking these. Maybe.
…we got our stuff together and left Infest for another year (or several, depending on how we feel in future) to go back to the Jurys Inn and bed.
Slightly long ramble about ideal festival length:
It’s funny, because three-day festivals have always left me wanting more, so I really did think that a four-day festival would be the perfect length. That was not the case. I did feel pretty tired on Sunday evening, and even if I hadn’t done, I think the fact that everyone else was clearly tired would have brought me down anyway. Bod mentioned on the Thursday night that he thought what they should have done instead was have a full day on the Friday (the Thursday and Friday were both half days with four bands, the Saturday and Sunday full days with seven bands, and the usual pattern is Friday half day, Saturday and Sunday full day), and I have to say, with hindsight, that I agree with him. Probably the only time I’ve ever felt a festival was the perfect length was after Beautiful Days introduced Thursday camping – so you arrive on the Thursday, have three full days of music on the Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and then leave on the Monday. It’s a four-night holiday, but only three days of bouncing around. Maybe in the future, if I’m feeling flush enough to spring for an extra night at the hotel, I’ll consider travelling to Infest on the Thursday evening.
Anyway, that is not something I need to worry about right now. I had a great time this weekend, and I know I’ll be back again.
Yesterday morning, as we usually do on the Saturday of a weekend away, Geth and I got up early and went parkrun touristing. As I mentioned yesterday, we’d saved up plenty of sleep and got a relatively early night so it wasn’t too painful!
After we got back, Geth went to meet Matt and John for curry, and I had a nice relaxed couple of hours with music in the hotel room. A can of cider and some room service pizza later, I was able to get ready for day 3, which was the first full-length day of the festival, with bands starting at 4pm.
Saturday OOTD: why, hello there, 1983. Necklace unknown brand (1980s, have owned since early childhood), t-shirt Gildan for Preverse (2015, modified 2018), skirt Asos (2018), boots Primark (2017).
When we arrived at the venue, I went straight to the stage to catch the end of the first band of the day.
Band 9: Flesh Eating Foundation
I wasn’t expecting much, but this was quite a show. There were four dudes on stage, but only one of them was actually playing an instrument. The band’s look involved lots of neckties, plus one guy rocking the eldergoth grey ponytail look, and of the three who weren’t playing instruments, one guy’s job seemed to be to hold up lots of signs that were vaguely related to the lyrics of the songs. Music-wise, when I walked in they were doing a song with the repeated refrain ‘are you having fun, boys and girls?’ sung in the most ominous way ever. They followed that with So Yeah, which I recognised from the first Beat:Cancer compilation, and finished with another song that involved a lot of sign-holding.
I had a brief sit down in the bar and a quick chat with friends before we all headed to see the next band.
Band 10: Adam Is A Girl
Adam Is A Girl do a lot of slow chillout synthpop, which is more Geth’s thing than mine, but the tunes were really nice – it was a great set to zone out to. It did get more upbeat as it went on, so I was able to have a good dance towards the end. Definitely a band to add to the playlist.
We headed back to the sports bar to catch up with people again, but unfortunately at that point some inconsiderate person persuaded the bar staff to turn off the nice background chillout music and put the football on (seriously, pal, just watch it on your phone – don’t spoil everyone else’s festival atmosphere). It was fairly unbearable, so Geth and I wandered through to check out the shopping area. I’m a bit done with clothes shopping at the moment as I’ve bought a LOT of clothes in 2018 due to my weight loss, so I wasn’t really interested in any of the clothes racks – they’re the same every year, and I got an Infest 2018 t-shirt on Thursday that will do me fine as a souvenir – ditto jewellery. The one thing that did catch my eye was a vinyl copy of And One’s Bodypop that they were selling on the Beat:Cancer stall, but I should probably wait until we actually have a record player before starting that particular collection!
In order to avoid the football, we settled down in the seats opposite the merch stall. I nipped in to see the next band…
Band 11: Yura Yura
…but it was just a solitary boring-looking guy standing behind a laptop, nothing interesting to see on stage at all, and the track he was playing at the time sounded exactly like a cement mixer. I went back to sit with Geth in the merch area, from where we could hear the rest of the set anyway. The cement mixer track seemed to go on forever, but at least it was better than listening to the football.
We joined friends again before going to see the next band.
Band 12: Actors
It was great to hear some post-punk at Infest! Actors are a Canadian three-piece with some nice stage energy. The tunes were very nice, but I could have done with some more memorable hooks. Still, I’ll definitely be adding them to my playlist, so I expect I’ll grow to like the songs more as I become more familiar with them.
Another in-between band bit that followed the ‘sports bar, drink, chat to friends’ pattern!
Band 13: Liebknecht
I popped in briefly to see this project. Repetitive beats, lots of wub, lots of dull slowed-down vocal samples. Visually, it was a cross between Iszoloscope’s purple haze and Yura Yura’s boring, but there was at least some head-nodding happening on the stage.
We had a good catchup with old friend Teresa in the bar, before the highlight of the evening.
Band 14: Mesh
We all trooped in to see Mesh, along with most of Infest – it was a pretty packed show again. Luckily, this time we headed in a good while before they started, so we were able to get quite a good spot. They did a great festival set with lots of classics, and as we were quite close to the front, I broke my rule about gig pictures:
Still not a great picture, but at least you can tell it’s a person this time!
For the traditional fan picture montage for Friends Like These, Infest had asked for submissions of pictures from past festivals through the years. I’d submitted a few pictures and was thrilled to see them all featured. I took a very blurry video of the montage, but you can’t really make anything out (how I love my crappy phone camera), so instead here are the actual photos that I managed to get into the montage:
It was awesome to see these up on the screen!
Other high points of the performance were Little Missile, which they’d apparently played when they were last at Infest in 2002(!), and Taken For Granted, which if you know the drill for a modern-day Mesh gig requires a lot of singing of the refrain on the part of the audience to get them to come back on for an encore. The encore featured Born To Lie, which is a great daft dance-along song that has grown to become a favourite of mine.
Not quite as good as Peter Hook & The Light, but definitely the second-best band of the weekend so far!
Band 15: Sarin
A strange pattern for Infest this year, on both the Thursday and Saturday, has been to have an extra band playing AFTER the headliner. Apparently this is due to both Peter Hook & The Light and Mesh having tight timescales and needing to leave earlier in the evening. As such, the final band of the night was Sarin, and again I only nipped in to see them for a short time as it wasn’t really my thing. More repetitive wub, with lots of tweety bird noises for good measure. The sole interesting thing on stage was that the dude was wearing a balaclava, but at least there was an attempt at visuals, even if they were a bad rip-off of the famous 1960s Doctor Who howlaround title sequence.
As such, I was quickly back in the sports bar, where I took this nice picture to celebrate Geth and Matt’s long friendship of mutual manly grumpiness.
Such love.
Geth and I did check out the DJing in the main stage area after Sarin had finished, but it was a bit uninspiring and my runner’s knee was playing up, so we decided to head back to the hotel. I will note, though, that as we left, the food/smoking area was playing the Vengaboys’ We Like To Party! (The Vengabus), and there was a lot more dancing going on out there than in the main stage area. That’s clearly where the party is!
After Thursday’s opening night, Geth and I slept for a surprisingly long time yesterday morning. We hadn’t been super late on Thursday night, but I guess we needed the sleep. It was well-timed, though, because it meant we had plenty of sleep in the bank before parkrun today.
Because it was another day where the bands weren’t starting till 7.30pm, we were able to be really relaxed for most of the day – just chilling out in the hotel room. At 5pm, we went for pizza in the Jurys Inn bar, where we were joined by Matt and John, and then got ready before heading over to the venue for the first band.
Friday OOTD: we’ve worked out that my phone camera refuses to focus when I’m smiling, so I went with this goth pout instead. T-shirt Stella Stanley for Beauty Of Gemina (2014), skirt unknown brand (vintage 1980s, bought at vintage fair 2018), boots Asos (2018).
Band 5: Def Neon
I’ve seen Def Neon quite a few times now, and their performance keeps getting better and better. The energy on stage is great, and their electro rock sound is right up my street. They finished with their usual fabulous cover of Killing In The Name, which I never get bored of hearing.
After that it was back to the sports bar for a catchup with old friends Tori and Mike. I did briefly nip in to see…
Band 6: Siva Six
…this duo, who had matching hair. I explained yesterday why I’m not doing gig photos, so instead, here’s Geth and our friend Dave modelling matching hair in 2005.
Not Siva Six.
Siva Six’s matching hair was more of a mohawk ponytail thing, and the general look was kind of skeletal goblin. It was quite cool! Unfortunately the music was not at all my thing – it was very generic-sounding EBM with what I’d call ‘semi-harsh’ vocals – so I only lasted about half a song before returning to the bar.
Geth wasn’t interested in most of the bands last night, so was doing a good job of keeping a table. We had another chat with Matt and John, and I headed in with them to see the next band.
Band 7: Iszoloscope
I wasn’t quite sure what the point of this performance was, because 99% of the time you couldn’t see anything because of all the smoke on stage – it was just an opaque purple haze! Very occasionally, I caught glimpses of a personable-looking bearded guy dancing behind a laptop, but those were few and far between. Music-wise it was repetitive dark dance, which again is not really my thing, so I only gave it one track and then went back to sit with Geth in the sports bar again.
We then had a catchup with Kirsten and Jacquelyn before everyone (and I mean pretty much everyone at the festival) headed back to the stage for the last band of the night.
Band 8: Cubanate
It took a while to find a spot to stand, because the place was so packed – it really did feel like everyone at Infest had crowded into the room. Similarly to Zeitgeist Zero the day before, I found the music very danceable but a bit forgettable. It was a very high energy show, but unfortunately at the back we couldn’t really see what was going on, and I was getting fed up with people bumping into my rucksack as they went past. We had planned to watch the whole set, but about two tracks in, Geth suggested going home early in order to get a good night’s sleep before parkrun. I was tempted to stick around for Oxyacetylene, but as that was almost certainly going to be their final song, we would probably have been waiting over an hour, and I don’t love it quite that much, so we decided to call it a night. We did seemingly manage to convince the student union staff member who was in charge of chivvying people through from the sports bar to watch the bands that ‘Cubanate’ is actually pronounced ‘Queue-ba-NAH-tay’, Spanish style, so frankly I think our work here is done.
On the way out, we had a quick chat with Dave and Yuliya, who had also found the venue too crowded, and then we headed back to the hotel. We both made it to bed by midnight! Post-parkrun, we’ll be ready to party properly for the rest of the weekend though.
I love music festivals. There’s something very exciting about an entire intense weekend spent in the one place, seeing lots and lots of bands playing, catching up with tens of people you’ve not seen in ages, and eating lots of delicious food that you usually can’t have in order to provide a carb base for all the cider you’ll be drinking build energy for all the dancing you have to do. Utter bliss.
Unfortunately, Geth and I find nowadays that we can’t do as many camping festivals as we used to. The discomfort of sleeping in a tent is less manageable than it used to be – now that we’re old gits in our thirties we both find we need a good night’s sleep – and when it rains it’s absolutely miserable. I’ve been to a few festivals where it’s been a total washout all weekend (or worse, ones where the heavens open all day long on arrival day so that you’re slogging through mud for the rest of the festival). Last year’s M’era Luna was one such example, and so I think I need at least another two or three years to forget all the bad stuff about camping. It’s a shame though, ’cause both M’era Luna and Beautiful Days are coming up with some cracking lineups at the moment. I’ve also always really wanted to go to one of the two Rewind festivals that are on during the summer in the UK. Maybe in a few years’ time I’ll consider hiring a camper van or staying in a nearby hotel. Maybe.
In the meantime, indoor festivals are where it’s at as far as I’m concerned, and we booked to go to two this year. The first of these is Infest, and I’m having as good a time as always!
This is my sixth Infest, making it my most-attended festival (I’ve been five times to Beautiful Days, four to Resistanz and four to M’era Luna). It’s also my fifth in a row, as since Resistanz stopped running, it’s my one annual chance to catch up with friends from the goth and industrial scene. Geth and I are currently planning to take a break for a few years after this one (of course, I have said that before, and I may find myself tempted once they start announcing next year’s lineup – we’ll see!) and so I’m determined to enjoy this one as much as possible.
Because it’s the 20th anniversary special this year, the organisers put on an extra night on the Thursday. I’ve arrived at festivals on a Thursday before (Beautiful Days started putting on Thursday camping a few years before we stopped going) but I don’t think I’ve ever done one with four days of music. I was really happy about this when they announced it, as I’m the kind of person who always feels that festivals end too quickly. Maybe four days will feel just right. I’ll tell you after the weekend!
Anyway, Infest day 1: Thursday.
Because we usually travel to Infest on the Friday of August Bank Holiday Weekend, we’ve not previously had the pleasure of sharing the train journey with people travelling to Reading and Leeds Festival (that experience has formerly been reserved for the Monday when coming back!). The train we were on was travelling to BOTH Leeds and Reading. It was pretty full. Thankfully, this was mainly due to festival-goers’ luggage rather than festival-goers themselves, so we didn’t have too much trouble squeezing into our booked seats, where we were able to commence our train picnic (complete with a couple of ciders, which I don’t usually allow myself on trains since being on Slimming World, but Infest is a special weekend).
Arriving in Bradford, we spotted old Edinburgh University Goth & Rock Society (EDG&R) friends Kirsten and Jacquelyn as we joined the check-in queue at the Jurys Inn. The Jurys Inn also provided us with the sight of our first Christmas tree of 2018:
‘Oh, Christmas tree, oh, Christmas tree/You’re badly out of season.’
It’s appalling, because it’s still August, but this is not the earliest I’ve seen a hotel do this (the QHotel in which we stayed in Leeds in July 2016 for a Beat:Cancer gig already had one up a month earlier). A discreet poster advertising that you can now book for Christmas? Fine. A fully-decorated Christmas tree up in the summer? Go home, hotel, you’re drunk.
I’ll forgive the Jurys Inn, though, ’cause the pizza I had in the bar before heading off was absolutely perfect for a pre-Infest meal. I’ll be having a couple more of those this weekend.
(A quick note about my Infest day 1 outfit: for years, I longed to be able to lose enough weight in time for Infest that I would feel comfortable wearing a clingy Cyberdog shift dress. Because I reached my Slimming World target in May, I was finally able to go for it this year. I wore it on the Thursday night in order to minimise festival bloat, but it was still fairly unforgiving!)
Thursday OOTD: bringing the neon for Infest day 1! Necklaces Claire’s Accessories (2003), dress Cyberdog (2018), boots Primark (2017).
We arrived in the familiar environs of Bradford Student Union, exchanged our tickets for wristbands, said hi to our friend Cat from the Southampton days, and ventured into the sports bar – the heart of Infest as far as I’m concerned! – where we were able to catch up with Bod and his beautiful wig. Geth got comfortable on the sofa, as he wasn’t interested in the first band, and Bod and I headed through to check out Grave Diggers’ Union.
Band 1: Grave Diggers’ Union
Grave Diggers’ Union were twenty minutes late starting, so there was a lot of hanging about. When they finally did get going, I managed about a song and a half, Bod even less. It’s sort of monotonous goth rock, and I found it a bit dull (it wasn’t helped by some problems that were going on with the sound setup, which didn’t seem to be sorted until later in the evening). I did like the sort of goth Hawaiian shirt worn by the drummer, though!
As a bonus: here is a terrible blurry picture that I took of the vocalist/keyboardist. My current phone camera can barely cope with taking outfit pictures indoors, let alone gig pictures, and so I will not be attempting any more during the course of the weekend. You’ll just have to use your imagination instead, or alternatively go on Facebook and find some pictures taken by proper photographers.
That UV sign on the keyboard really bothered me while we were waiting for them to come on, because although it’s meant to be a gravestone-style cross, it looks more like an arrow pointing to something.
After a quick drink in the bar and a catchup with friends Matt and John, we headed through for the second band.
Band 2: Zeitgeist Zero
Zeitgeist Zero were again suffering from sound problems, but it was quite a good show. They have a lot of energy onstage, and their current music is very danceable, although I don’t find it quite as memorable as their mid-’00s output – maybe I just need to listen to the new stuff more. I had a good bop around, and I found myself quite surprised when the set finished so soon, which is always a good thing.
A very quick trip back to the bar, as everyone was very excited about band three!
Band 3: Peter Hook & The Light
Three has always been my lucky number, and band three will undoubtedly remain the highlight of the weekend. Peter Hook & The Light do renditions of classic Joy Division and New Order songs, and Hook’s treatment of his old bands’ songs is absolutely lovely.
I was lucky enough to see the full classic lineup of New Order back in 2005, when Peter Hook was still with the band, and it’s still among my favourite music performances I’ve ever seen. As such, I didn’t think this would match it, but in actual fact I can’t compare the two – the experiences were so different. The band did play a few New Order songs – Temptation, Blue Monday and True Faith (and this time the sound on True Faith didn’t cut out in the middle, like it did in 2005!) – but it was mostly Joy Division, and it honestly felt like the closest thing you could get to seeing Joy Division live post-1980. In 2005, New Order were playing a couple of Joy Division tracks to mark the 25th anniversary of Ian Curtis’ death, but it didn’t feel quite like Joy Division. There’s something about Hook’s take on the vocals in comparison to Bernard Sumner’s that just feels more fitting, somehow.
I’m now really looking forward to seeing Peter Hook & The Light again in December at the Electric Dreams festival!
Because everyone was absolutely buzzing after that performance, there was a lot more drinking and chatting in the sports bar (including comparing exercise experiences with Blanka, hearing all about Pat’s special V2A darts flights – I have no idea about darts equipment but apparently they’ve been a big hit with various celebrities – and finding out from chatting with Andy from Spucktute that he doesn’t actually dislike the Human League. All very valuable information!). I really did mean to go and see…
Band 4: Empirion
…but let’s face it, no-one was going to come close to Peter Hook & The Light, so I didn’t get round to it. Bod said they were quite good though!
Geth and I moved through to the Escape Bar for half an hour of post-band DJ sets (and I had a good shimmy to Soft Cell) before heading back to the hotel to get a good night’s sleep in preparation for day 2.
On the Monday, which was my last full day in Toronto, Geth and I decided to go and visit the Royal Ontario Museum. Before that, however, we headed to Carlton Street for a quick look round the Maple Leaf Gardens, which is next door to the Holiday Inn where Mum and Dad were staying.
The exterior of the building, including the front signage, has stayed the same since it was built in the 1930s. It was originally the tallest structure in the vicinity, but is now dwarfed by its neighbours!
The Maple Leaf Gardens is currently used for sports by Ryerson University (the same uni that was hosting the conference Geth was attending while we were in Toronto). They took it over and massively refurbished the interior in the early ’10s. In the ’00s, it lay empty and deserted, but up until 1999, it was a thriving venue for political events and music concerts and was the home of the Toronto Maple Leafs ice hockey team (hence the name of the venue).
(Incidentally, it’s always really annoyed me that the team are called the Maple Leafs rather than the grammatically-correct Maple Leaves. This is why I will never get into watching ice hockey. #proofreaderproblems)
As a concert venue, the Maple Leaf Gardens hosted Elvis Presley, the Beatles, and pretty much everyone else who was big in the 20th century. In 1984, Duran Duran filmed the video for The Reflex there, which was one of my main reasons for wanting to go and have a nosey around.
Inside the building, there are lots of boards on the walls telling you about the history of the venue. The number of famous sayings that were apparently coined there is difficult to believe!
‘Elvis has left the building’.
‘Elvis has left the building’ – apparently said for the first time at the Maple Leaf Gardens! Wikipedia claims differently.
‘He shoots, he scores’.
‘He shoots, he scores’ – apparently said for the first time at the Maple Leaf Gardens! Wiktionary and Urban Dictionary do back this one up.
‘Hat-trick’.
‘Hat-trick’ – apparently originated at the Maple Leaf Gardens! Geth didn’t believe this one for a second, and again Wikipedia claims differently – cricket players were using the term almost a century earlier.
Still, I guess one out of three turning out to be true is not bad going.
After a pleasant wander around the venue, we headed over to the Royal Ontario Museum. Geth just wanted to have a look around the main museum, but I was more interested in one of the exhibitions they had on – a collection of work by fashion designer Iris van Herpen and her interesting collaborations with architect Philip Beesley. The creative and design process behind making the pieces was fascinating – there was a short film all about it that was being shown in the exhibition hall – but it was the beautiful dresses being shown in the hall that were the best thing:
Perhaps a little impractical for the supermarket, but it’s very pretty.
The shiny installations dangling from the ceiling were nice as well!
I wouldn’t mind some of these for the house, though sadly I don’t think our ceilings are high enough.
After I’d finished looking around the exhibition, I met back up with Geth and we took a quick trip to the dinosaur floor. They had some good skeletons, both real and replica, but it was a bit too full of kids having pictures taken with the T-Rex, so we eventually decamped to the Museum Tavern nearby, which is one of our favourite pubs in Toronto, for a couple of pints and a good chat with the barman.
In the evening, we met up with Mum, Dad, Malcolm and Steff for our last meal in Toronto, at Scaddabush. This involved more pizza (which was served on a board with SPECIAL PIZZA SCISSORS for cutting it up! They were amazing and I want a pair!), more cheesecake, and more crayons for scribbling on the table:
Message from Steff on our last family dinner table!
After the meal, we said goodbye to Steff – she was working and wouldn’t be able to see us off the next day – and Geth and I headed back to our suite at the Grand for one last sleep in the city (for me, anyway).
On the Sunday in Toronto, Geth and I had a lie-in (or as much of a lie-in as you can have when you’ve never quite adjusted to Toronto time) after getting up early the day before – and then after breakfast, we headed to the Holiday Inn to meet Dad, and the three of us walked through Toronto in the pouring rain towards the Rogers Centre, where we were going to see the Blue Jays play.
I’d never been to a baseball game before, but after we met up with Malcolm and Steff and went into the stadium, Malcolm explained that the Blue Jays are only the second worst team in the league at the moment and their opponents for the weekend series, the Baltimore Orioles, are the worst, which was why the Blue Jays had already won two out of three games.
The Rogers Centre is huge, and is full of stalls where you can buy souvenir merchandise, booze, and pizza – my three favourite things. I got a Blue Jays t-shirt from the sale rack, and had to go with a Bacardi Breezer to drink as I didn’t fancy any of the beers – I don’t think I’ve had one of those since I was a teenager. Luckily, for subsequent rounds, Geth managed to find me some Brickworks 1904 to drink. The pizza was good too!
I really enjoyed the game – baseball turns out to be a nice relaxed thing where you can dash in and out for drinks and food all the time, and the atmosphere reminded me of going to see a weekend of Sevens rugby at Murrayfield back in 2007.
The Blue Jays fielding.
It looked for a while like the Blue Jays might lose, and a lot of the fans left the stadium early, but they pulled it back in the last couple of innings for a nice exciting win at the end!
After the game, I took a picture of Geth with his namesake street sign:
Want street sign?
We had another nice meal in the Holiday Inn bar in the evening – no cheesecake for me this time, however, as I’d already tried all the ones at the Holiday Inn!
Geth had left on the Saturday – he had a conference in Toronto that we had used to schedule a family trip – but I headed off for my holiday the Sunday before last, carrying two very heavy bags that turned out to be a bad idea when I had to lug them up and down a railway bridge near where I live in order to get to the Metro station. After a cumbersome Metro ride, train ride and taxi ride, I arrived at Mum and Dad’s in Edinburgh and managed to get a few hours’ sleep before a 4am wakeup call.
The flight from Edinburgh to Toronto was nice and straightforward – I read my Kindle the whole time – and after collecting our bags and meeting up with Malcolm at the airport, we got a taxi to the Holiday Inn, where Mum and Dad were staying, and I dropped my bag in their room before going to the St. Louis Diner, where Geth was meeting us after his morning conference session.
A couple of ciders later – logged here – I went with Geth to our hotel, the Grand Hotel, where I was really glad to get out of my comfy plane leggings and put on something lighter (Toronto was a bit muggier than Edinburgh had been that morning). The Grand is lovely, and they’d upgraded Geth to a suite, which had an awesome view:
Downtown Toronto, as seen from the Grand Hotel. You can see the very tippity top of the CN Tower, just behind the tallest buildings!
The suite was great – it had a separate bedroom and loads of space for sitting around. After I’d got unpacked, we headed back to the Holiday Inn for a meal to celebrate Mum and Dad’s wedding anniversary:
You’ve already seen this picture in the Now! #100 review, but it’s worth posting again!
The cider they serve at the Holiday Inn is Strongbow, but the bottle looks different in Canada, so I took a picture of it anyway.
Canadian Strongbow bottle.
After some amazing pizza (the pizza at the Holiday Inn is of the perfect texture, and the sauce is insanely yummy), a couple more Strongbows, some cheesecake (see my cheesecake roundup) and a bit of a wait while a heavy thunderstorm was in progress, Geth and I headed back to our hotel, where it turned out the view by night was pretty awesome too:
I love skyscrapers.
Then I got some much-needed sleep. Part two tomorrow!
Like the rest of the UK, we’ve been enjoying glorious weather here in Newcastle for the past fortnight. Last weekend, we were able to make the most of it; as I mentioned previously, we were celebrating Geth’s birthday a couple of weeks late, and so on Saturday we went into town for some shopping and food, interspersed with a visit to our favourite beer garden seeing as how it was so nice.
View of the bridges of the Tyne from the Free Trade Inn beer garden.
We were fairly lucky to get a space in the Free Trade Inn beer garden – it was a hot Saturday afternoon, which is a rarity, and so the people of Newcastle were out in force in the centre of town – but we did manage it, and Geth immediately made a start on the bar snacks.
Geth with beer and some kind of pasty/samosa/thing? I wasn’t really paying attention.
I’m not quite sure what’s going on with the light in these pictures – I blame the sun. Clearly my smartphone camera has become accustomed to British weather and can’t cope with bright light!
Enjoying the heat! Also very pleased with the way my new Punk Masters T-shirt matches my tattoo.
We’d got all our shopping done fairly efficiently, so we were able to enjoy a good few hours in the sun before our restaurant booking.
I actually like plastic glasses, even if they’re not very solid to hold – they feel like summer to me!
We then headed to Uno’s Trattoria, one of our favourite Italian restaurants in Newcastle, which Geth had selected for his birthday meal.
Geth had been looking forward to that pork belly for weeks.
The reason Geth chose Uno’s Trattoria is that, for the last year or so, they’ve had pork belly on the menu, which is one of his favourite foods. Apparently most Italian restaurants don’t cook meat dishes properly (being a vegetarian I’m generally unaware of these things), but this restaurant must be an exception, as the pork belly went down very well.
Just looks like meat to me, but I’m informed it was very special meat!
I, meanwhile, went for my favourite Italian restaurant treat of pizza:
That rocket and parmesan topping was immense.
We also had dessert – we both went for the white chocolate cheesecake – but we were so keen to get stuck into it that I forgot to take a picture.
A lovely day out overall. Happily the weather has continued, and it looks like it’ll be similar this weekend – so we’ll need to take it carefully when running the Great North 10k on Sunday!
Well, it feels like I’ve been talking about it forever, but the Sunderland City 10k finally rolled around today.
The Run Sunderland event always gives out nice, weighty medals – I much prefer them to the Great Run offerings, which are always a bit generic and uninspired.
We got up at stupid o’clock, set out at still stupid o’clock, met our friends Sean and Ed on the Metro, and arrived at Keel Square in Sunderland in plenty of time to drop off our bag in the baggage area and make our way to the starting pen. After the usual ridiculous mass warm-up shenanigans (I’ve given up trying to follow those – there’s never any space in the crowd and it’s not something I’d do for a normal run anyway), we were off, a lot more promptly than last year.
I went off far too fast – an opening kilometre of 6:01 mins, when I should have been aiming more for a steady 6:55 or so – but although I ended up paying for my too-speedy start a bit in the second half, I did settle down over the course of the race, and I came in at 1:09:56, just snatching the sub-1:10:00 I’d been aiming for. That’s a 7:29 min 10k PB, and I was thrilled, obviously! It did require a pretty epic sprint finish at the end, when I spotted the gun time on the board and realised I was in with a chance.
After meeting back up with Geth and Sean, we went for breakfast at Caffé Nero while waiting for Ed to finish the half marathon, then met back up with Ed, got back on the Metro, and went for a few pints once back in Newcastle. Then Geth and I went home and ordered pizza. Perfect race day, really.
Looking forward to the next one! Only two weeks to go.
