Friar Hanlon and Ordinary Men in Tights Part 2
Trip Start
Apr 29, 2010
1
2
Trip End
May 23, 2010
Nottingham, England, United Kingdom
Sunday, May 16, 2010
Packo and I tubbed up briefly all the while Wifey was giving negative encouragement to our grooming time. I needed to joosh up, pls. D managed to suss out our option for heading to town and the bus idea was destroyed after two locals lads took us for a fiver each car and like Colin McRae tore through the back streets and spat us out very promptly at the gates of Nottingham Castle. Our dinner plans were to check out the Ye Old Trip to Jerusalem, the oldest pub in England built into the side on the Castle hill in a cave. It was bloody cool, and seemed to climb further into the hill with rooms windy, spiralling upwards and inwards. It took a while to get a drink but the meals flooded, thankfully too because I day of drinking and sightseeing made us stupidly hungry. My steak lasted longer on hot plate getting from raw to medium than it did on my plate. Red meat, how good is it?..... Some yellow Kangaroos also turned up. Beer flowed, pimms flowed and we were off.
My skills at navigating by night were under the pump as I attempted to follow my memories and nose to watering holes familiar from last time I was here. Another wrong turn corrected by a nice fella had us back on track and insight was a hive of activity down yonder and mayhem had begun. Instantly in view at every which way was women wearing almost nothing, short skirts, high heels, but at least they were mostly athletic here, and not blind drunk. Perhaps the cold and waiting in line was too sobering. The first bar we checked out was Yates. It was full of hanging English flags, men in cowboy shirts, women in old seductory western lingerie outfits. I asked one women was this a themed bar but she replied that she was with only 8 others on a hens do from London, Everyone else must be doing the same. PHEWWW, I was worries I didn’t get the memo. The music was really loud but we seemed to adjust, and after a story from Wifey that a feral old man pretty much felt her right up we left instantly, and fully realised the severity of the bass in there. I did properly feel deaf!!! The Walkabout was a suggestion from Walshy and Hunzy, I took it but the others were reluctant. But never the less, cheap drinks were looking good to get really amped, the line was off-putting so I tried to bullshit our way in. I met Jason or Simon or something like that. Told him how I knew walshy and he was a mate from back home and mentioned the AFL team, the Scorpions...."Oh you mean James Walsh, how many are with you?", I said 4 and he said go through, no lining up for us at a Aussie bar, not on my watch not tonight HAHA. Cover charge waved also. This ploy didn’t work at the bar, damn, but at least somebody could have known about or at least heard of the Scorpions. Not one, even the bouncers who were apparently in the know.
It was here that I met some more bucks parties and were given some very helpful tips on harmless fun and embarrassment. Lookout Spike, I'm your best man, HAHA!!! Feb 2010 is going to be funny as brother!!!! These will be documented when they come to fruition later.
Snake bites is it, didn’t really go down very well, Kangaroo makes me feel sick in waves over here. Its weird but it works!!! I left Wifey alone for ten minutes and she had had another bad 'Man' experience. Only this time she managed to catch his hands and pretty snap his finger in half. It was time to makes another bar. We were told by some very dolled up girls that Oceana is the place to go, after a cheap warm up here. Done, sold to the tourists here for the night.....to Oceana we go. We passed some other Clubs along the way which looked okay and patience growing thin nearly pulled into a few of them as well. My persistence was worth it as we approached when we saw a mega long line, probably 50m long. Shit!!! Okay, its all good we can get past this. Packo, D and I put our thinking caps on and came up an elaborate plan to blag our way in, if not we would line up or go back to Gatecrasher Nightclub. My story I came up with for D, I decided I Should try selling. So we headed for the biggest and most senior bouncer, spun some shit, was palmed off to Karen. Karen happened to be the Door Manager, and 2IC of the whole club. I told her the same story, that I was working for the Lonely Planet, and up in Nottingham tasked with updating the Midlands for the Europe on a Shoe String 2011 version, and my friends had to come (luckily behind me was what would appear 2 couples) so I can get a broad spectrum feel for the place for al types of traveller...HAHA. I added we had already been to Gatecrasher on our way here and don’t have a lot of time....she said come straight through, NO COVER AGAIN, it was meant to be £10 this time. Funny shit!!! Memories of Human Traffic were flooding back when Carl Cox makes a cameo appearance as Pablo Asaan.
This place was pumping!!! Fish Bowl Cocktails were flying everywhere, awesome way to drink, Stag Parties everywhere, Men Dressed as Smurfs, one of them was a proper Dwarf, dressed as Papa Smurf. I found out he was hired by the best man to add to the comical effect of the evening. Needless to say this little fellow was quite popular!
There was an Australian Lounge called 'Sydney' that stunk of hotdogs. Got over that pretty quickly so Packo and I cut some shapes on the dance floor under the huge chandelier. The were tight shapes too don't worry. we slid up to a group of lass's, one of them thought I was Canadian. It turns out also that these girls actually pulled a similar stunt to us and got past the cue because one of them used to work there a year ago. I think mine was better. She never heard the end of that, but the worst thing they did was laugh at our stupid dancing which only encouraged us more. Yellow Kangaroo turned real kangaroo, Packo was starting motorbikes, it was getting really weird. I have only got that into once before at Benicassum with Den Doon Smeddo Delaney and Dregger Drew Howell. Good times!
Almost from nowhere D appeared and had a really scared look on his face, apparently he was scoping out all of the other rooms with Amy and Wifey. They found them selves in a dark room with lots of sequence and all the guys...only guys had pink cowboy hats. Not what he expected I think. He was getting some really crazy looks too, nice one bruva.
There was a few blokes in separate groups all with skin tight like red nurse outfits on. There men in tights, not green ones and I was instantly glad not to go for the skinny greens this FREEZING night! If I was to stay in England for my bucks and if in fact I was English, I would definitely consider Nottingham as a place to get loose.
Packo and I pretty much didn’t leave the floor for the last 1 hour or so while D, Amy and Wifey got a taxi home. They were played a Tiesto set that seemed to go for ever, I was pointing for the stars, loving it.
The fun had to end, our new friends Kim, Clare and Susan bid us farewell.
I will also make another recommendation, Number 2 Meal at the Fried Chicken Shop next to the taxi rank just up from Oceana, it has a hash brown in it was well, Wowee!!! Yes that is a word.
Our taxi man brought us back and while Wifey was asleep we weren’t so we didn’t try to be noisy but try to hard to be quiet also. At least our chat was harmless, engaging sleeping people in drunk banter is really hard for them to keep up as it turns out. I always forget that when I'm full.
16th May - SUNDAY
Three words: Breakfast is Included!!!! Full English breakfast, coffee, juice, cereal all at our finger tips, pretty good way to start I rection. The Nottingham Castle was meant to be our main objective today, I wasn’t sure if I'd have time to check it out since I have to write my report on Nottingham nightlife, haha!
The £10 cover for the castle off putting enough and we had seen lots of Robin Hood stuff already. The main square was calling and the markets had lots of time filling options, all sorts of people dressed in characters of the day, stalls on how they used to do stuff, build stuff, they were good because they weren't trying to sell garbage to us, merely impart knowledge.
That pretty much brought us up to 2 o'clock and my train was going at 2.19pm. Parting ways was hard but I managed and was stoked to find that I booked a first class ticket for my return journey, well that was after I had 2 connecting little midlands train to Sheffield and Doncaster first. Still 2 hours on that was pretty nice.
I made it home and in the sack by 9pm. What a weekend!!!!!!
