Gallivanting...in Portsmouth with Fhionna and Owen

After hearing about Pie and Vinyl in Portsmouth a little while ago, I've been itching to take a trip- and today we finally got around to it! Despite having lived in Southampton for near enough six months now, we haven't done a whole lot of exploring, so today was an ace opportunity for me and two of my flatmates (Owen and Fhionna) to be a little bit touristy and venture further afield than Southampton town centre. Apologies again for the slightly rubbishy photos- I made use of my film camera rather than using a digital one, so will of course have to wait to get them developed! The best way to go about this post is probably a simple picture-and-caption affair, so here we go...

Thanks to Fhionna's (ahem, Fhionna's phone's) navigation, we made it safely and swiftly to Southsea's Pie & Vinyl after a nice little train journey from Southampton. I didn't realise how nice it would be to escape Southampton for a bit, it was ace to be in a new place and be able to look around and new things- and Portsmouth is so damn pretty! 

I absolutely loved the little dividers between the records that were used, and that the vinyl was all kept in old suitcases. The vinyl room was a little smaller than we expected but it was so full up that it made up for it in content! I don't have any pictures of the room as a whole, but it was so, so cool and I'd quite like to set up camp there and live there for forever. I somehow managed not to buy any vinyl (well done me and my self-control) but instead treated myself to a baseball-style top with the shop's logo on, which I am very happy with!

After spending quite a while browsing the vinyl, we decided to sit down for some pie- and it was possibly the best decision we've ever made! As you can see from the pictures, the whole place is really ace and the atmosphere was so lovely. We had a chat with one of the staff members and he made us feel very welcome, and we have promised to return at some point.

I had a chicken/bacon/garlic/all things wonderful pie. It was the best pie I have ever eaten.

Owen and Fhi looking lovely post-pie

After leaving Pie & Vinyl we headed towards the sea and walked along the wall. It was lovely to be by the sea but at the same time it made us a little bit jealous- I really wish we had a beach in Southampton!

Lots of stone-skimming happened. Owen was crowned King of Stone-Skimming.

Wall-walking shenanigans

We had a great day, even though we managed to miss the stop at Southampton and ended up in Romsey for half an hour. We found out in that half an hour that there isn't a lot to do in Romsey. I think we will definitely be visiting Portsmouth again, it'll be lovely in the Summer!

Gallivanting...in Southampton with Nick

Earlier this week Nick took a little trip to Southampton to see me, and we had an ace few days. Despite having been here for near enough 6 months now, I haven't really done much of the touristy stuff like trawling around the docks and walking around exploring, so it was really nice to have an excuse to do that. Highlight of the days was definitely Ed's Diner though- although Mettricks Coffee (a little coffee house in Old Southampton that I started visiting a few weeks ago) still reigns on as my favourite place in Southampton so far! Sorry for the pretty rubbishy phone photos, took the opportunity to take the film camera out so a lot of nicer ones are on there! 

1 & 2. Evidence that Ed's Diner is a place of wonderful food and milkshakes. Nick had a peanut butter milkshake and it was b-e-a-utiful!

3. We paid a visit to the docks...and um, the docks are quite boring...we saw some boats...and that was about it

4. I thought it was cool that nice old houses like this are about when I'm so used to the boring old city ones around town!

5. I just liked the old lamppost and old pub so took a picture of them together.

6. We stumbled across a pretty cool-looking restaurant that serves Greek, Italian and something else...will hopefully be paying them a visit!

7 & 8. Mettricks is the loveliest little coffee house I've been to in ages, it was the last stop on mine and Nick's Southampton adventure before he hopped on the train home! Nick treated me to a pot of 'Char Winter Fairytale' and it was the nicest tea I have ever had- will definitely need to stock up on it at some point! 

Overall Nick and I had an ace few days, and I'm really excited for him to come and stay again! 

Foals at Alexandra Palace (15.02.14)

On Saturday Chloe and I ventured to the lovely Alexandra Palace to see Foals- which after trying countless times to get tickets, was absolutely amazing. The first ace thing about the night was the venue- I've never been there before and it was absolutely beautiful, I'm a bit of a sucker for stain glass windows and nice buildings! As always, I was a little too short to be taking photographs in a big crowd, so this post is going to be a little lacking in pictures but I will see what I can pinch from the ones that Chlo took.

Doors opened at 6:30 which was a little earlier than I find most places do, but it meant we had time to have a nice little wander around all of the yummy food and drink stalls inside (as well as spend about twenty minutes umm-ing and arr-ing over which t-shirts to buy!). I treated myself to a Chicken Katsu Curry and a really cool baseball style Foals shirt, which I have pretty much been wearing since the gig and you will have seen if you follow me on Instagram or Tumblr. They also had a little live band in the middle of the hall and it set a lovely atmosphere.

The first of the two bands before Foals (I feel really awful for not knowing their name!) was a little, um, different- they was no singing but a lot of pretty awesome guitar solos. It was nice to have something out of the ordinary to kick start the night but I think it just made everyone all the more anxious for Cage the Elephant and Foals to come on stage! Cage the Elephant aren't a band I know very well, other than the obvious 'Shake Me Down' that I really love, but their energy on stage was amazing, and the songs I did know were ace to sing along to which helped to get us into the 'spirit' of the night. Then it was time for Foals, who of course everyone was waiting for. Their set was a little disappointingly short, I think they were only on for a total of about ninety minutes, but it may have been a blessing in disguise because the crowd was a little bit nuts on Saturday!

Photo Credit to: vicstaa.tumblr.com

They entered the stage in darkness and began playing the Prelude from their latest album, Holy Fire and then kicked off the gig with 'Total Life Forever' which has always been a song I've liked so it was a nice way to start. They played all the greats, focusing a lot on their newer stuff like 'Inhaler' (which was absolutely insane, even more so than when they played at Reading '13) and 'My Number' which really suited the crowd and everyone was singing along and being all crazy. A highlight for me was 'Spanish Sahara' and I think that could be said for literally any time I see them, because it is, and probably always will be, my favourite song of theirs. As they did at Reading, they made everyone get down onto the floor (which was ace for me, because it meant I could actually see the stage!) and then rise up at the chorus- everyone was belting it out and there was a really great atmosphere. One of the only disappointments of the night was them not playing 'Cassius' which was the first Foals song I ever heard, but hey ho.

All in all it was an amazing night and would very much like to go back and relive it! Next up, Wild Beasts on 31st March at Cambridge Corn Exchange.

Theatre Review: A Number (2002)

As part of one of my English modules this semester, we were required to go to see Caryl Churchill's A Number at the Nuffield Theatre, Southampton. I'm already annoyed at myself for never having been to the theatre here before- it's literally a 15 minute bus ride away so I have no excuse! A Number was definitely the most interesting and well-put-together piece of theatre I've ever seen (admittedly my theatre viewing isn't overly eclectic but the sentiment is still there!) and I got so excited about it that I decided to write a little review on here in preparation for the piece I will be writing on it for my course next week.

I always love the feeling of apprehension before the beginning of a show, and this was especially present before the performance today as in exchange for our tickets we were all given a number on a sticker- clever, eh?- then told to wait in the bar area until we were called. The numbers either began with a 1, 2, 3 or 4, and these corresponded to the groups that we would be sitting in in the auditorium. Having not been inside the Nuffield before, I couldn't really appreciate the change in staging that had taken place- but I'm imagining a fairly 'normal' theatre space was in existence before the A Number staging came in. Each of the audiences were placed on a side of a sort of cube in the middle of the auditorium- this is what I imagine was the case, at least, because you couldn't actually see anyone else! Just before the lights went up and you could see the two actors, a screen came away from the window in front of the audience to reveal our reflection- that's one way to make an audience feel uncomfortable and apprehensive! It seemed like everyone was trying their utmost not to look at their own reflection but glance sheepishly around the room and everyone else's.

Once the play itself began, I found myself completely captivated by what was happening. I'd read most of the play pretty much just before going in to see it, having bought it a few hours before, and I think this really helped with my understanding of the narrative because a few others seemed a little confused. I do sort of wish I'd gone in without any prior knowledge though, I feel as though I might have ruined it for myself a little bit by already knowing that there were only two actors for the whole play, and that one of them served as more than one 'version' of the same person! (To give you a little bit of background, A Number is a play centred around the act of cloning- a father gives up a troublesome 4 year old son following the death of his mother, and instead of starting anew, chooses to pay for a clone of his previously 'perfect' son to be created. The issue, however, came when the 'mad scientist' who developed the clone didn't just stop at one- instead, a number of copies of the little boy were created and allowed to grow up.)

I had so many points in my head that I wanted to think/speak about but I think that's enough to sum up my reaction without actually revealing the entirety of the plot and experience! I would definitely advise anyone who can to go and see A Number! Or, if you can't, then give it a read- although I found it completely transformed from my quick reading of the play in my head to its performance. But one thing I can definitely take from today is that I need to get myself to the Nuffield Theatre (as well as any other places I can get myself to) more often!

List VI: Things to look forward to in 2014

I thought I'd do a follow up of sorts to my previous 'things to look forward to' post, which can be found here. I guess it kind of links to my brief list of things I want to do this year, as I haven't really got anything much planned yet!

• Having a house!

As I will be going into my second year at university in September, my flatmates and myself will be moving out of halls! It's going to be so nice to have a proper house, and actually live by ourselves as opposed to being somewhat still looked after by security and what not here! It will also be great to be able to have a shower without setting the damn fire alarm off. The best part is that I get the attic room and I'm so looking forward to making it all homely and nice!

• Music

I already have plans to see Foals with Chlo in February, Wild Beasts in March, and hopefully Reading Festival (round 3!) with Dan at the end of the Summer. I'm really enjoying being able to see lots of live music with lovely people, like LC! just before Christmas and Frightened Rabbit just before, and I definitely want to see as much as I can this year. I'm also really excited for a few upcoming albums, such as new stuff from Foo Fighters (squeal), Wild Beasts- Wanderlust, and various others!

• Nick coming to stay

My brother hasn't visited me at university yet so I am so so excited for him to come and stay! We are going to go to cool places like Mettricks (an ace coffee house in Old Southampton), Beatnik Emporium and Ed's Diner which will be ace.

• Easter 

I'm looking forward to the Easter holidays because my birthday is slap bang in the middle and I get to be at home for a WHOLE MONTH which will be ever so lovely. And that's pretty much it really.

• Summer

I don't really have any plans as yet for Summer, but I'm just really looking forward to having a long period of time where I can regularly see my family, Dan and the girls- and actually appreciate it! It will be made even better if me and the girls manage to pull off some sort of holiday, visiting somewhere like Amsterdam or Berlin with them would be ace. As we will have moved into the house by July I'm also hoping that my flatmates and myself will have a little holiday here, which would be pretty cool! Pipe dreams like Isle of Wight and Reading Festivals are also looking very appealing- and the are the reason why I've promised myself that I am going to save money from work for once.

• Second Year

Although it seems like quite a way off right now- especially as I haven't even started Semester 2 yet! -but I'm so excited for the amount of choice I will have next year. Although I've enjoyed the work so far at university, it's all core stuff really and so hasn't necessarily all been what I would like to study- but the amount of modules on offer for next year is amazing!

I guess that's about all that I can think of right now, but it seems like this is going to be a pretty cool year.

Book Review: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close off the back of The Remains of the Day was pretty odd, because I changed from the voice of an old man to that of a nine year old boy (amongst letters of various others), but after I'd got into the swing of this novel I absolutely loved it. What I liked most about it was possibly that it wasn't just prose, Foer had various other ways of telling the story such as photographs and letters- my favourite were the excerpts detailing what was written by the man in the novel who couldn't speak, to show how he communicated with other people. I think I probably enjoyed this so much because it reminded be of Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events in which he did similar things.

I don't really have much of note to say about this read, it was hard to concentrate on specific details of it because I read so much whilst on the train from here to home and visa versa, and I always seem to get distracted easily when reading on trains. Despite this, I did find it ridiculously compelling, and wanted to read it all of the time which is always nice! I also found it strange, but nice, that I was able to identify with a nine year old boy, his grandmother, and a non-speaking 'renter' simultaneously- making the novel even more enjoyable. I'm still not quite sure where (or who from) I found out about Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, but I'm so glad I did- and I'm really looking forward to reading another of his novels: Everything is Illuminated. But next on the menu is Stoner by John Williams.

(apologies, this seems to be turning into a bit of a book review blog as opposed to anything else- but I've been doing very little other than reading recently! But I am planning a few trips such as one to Pie and Vinyl in Portsmouth so I will be writing about them as soon as they happen.)

Book Review: The Remains of the Day

I have literally finished Kazuo Ishiguro's The Remains of the Day not two minutes ago, but I thought I'd turn out a review of sorts before I forget my initial feelings towards it. I was first drawn towards this novel on the basis of having enjoyed Never Let Me Go so much, and I wasn't disappointed at all. A totally different novel, albeit spent mostly reminiscing over the past as does Kathy in Never Let Me Go, I loved the tone of retrospective-ness intertwined with the journey of Mr Stevens throughout.

Admittedly, I've finished this novel very quickly and spent less time over it than I usually would have- but at the moment I'm between semesters and trying to get as much 'pleasure reading' in as humanely possible (my next book is already sitting on my bed ready to be started!). But that aside, I don't feel like the haste of my reading has impeded on my enjoyment of the book at all. It seems that Ishiguro has a way of just forming amazing characters that one can relate to on different levels, despite the fact that I was reading about an (I assume) sixty-or-so year old man. My favourite part of the novel was the way it wove seamlessly in and out of the present and past, in such a way that is reflective of one's own reflections throughout the day. I also quite liked that the protagonist said "that is to say" quite a lot. Despite the short time spine of six days in which the novel is set, it covers a broadness of times that doesn't allow that to limit the impact of the novel- and I now see why people have recommended it to me in the past!

Next up is Jonathan Safran Foer's Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, something else that I am also very excited to read.