Norman Ralph

This is likely to be my last major blog post before I head off on my road trip of Europe as I have loads of prep to do before we leave and I want to cover that prep in my first blog post from Europe (hopefully Amsterdam).

I am writing this post whilst on the train from Carlisle to Leeds on the famous Carlisle to Settle railway route, it is beautifully sunny outside and the scenery is really something to behold. I really do love the English countryside and I am lucky enough to have experiences some stunning scenery in my time.

The reason for me being on this particular train is the fact I have spent the last few days staying with Sarann and her family whilst enjoying Solfest, a music festival based on the Solway coast. For my long memoried readers, here is a post I made about the festival last time I went.

Solfest always manages to deliver when it comes to acts. For a small festival, I always manage to see a dozen or so really good acts, with maybe four of five that are really outstanding. This year was no different – acts like Alabama 3, James, Eat Static, Utah Saints, Magic Numbers, The Jam and The Damned all being pretty big names.

I particularly enjoyed the old school combination of The Jam and The Damned on the Sunday night, followed a really nice chilled set from The Magic Numbers.

The weekend was great as a little mini break from the pressures of clearing my desk ready for the Europe trip, as well as from the stress of planning and paying for the trip itself. Sarann’s dad makes a great host, and Sarann makes a better chef – even if most of the fare was vegan! I did manage to sneak in a couple of pasties and a sausage and hash brown butty.

All in all a great weekend and well worth the £89 ticket price.

Just thought I would upload a picture from my train journey from Carlisle to Leeds on the famous Carlisle-Settle line.

For all those that didn’t know Kieran, Chris, George and I are heading to Europe for a three week road trip in September. In fact three weeks today, we will be doing stuff in Amsterdam that is probably unwise to post about on a public website!

We are planning to take in ten countries in ten days before spending a week chilling out in a villa in the Bordeaux region of France. I intend to use the week recovering from some serious European madness.

The plan is to visit the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, Monaco and France and to basically relive our student days living out of suitcases, eating rubbish and drinking unsafe quantities of alcohol.

As part of the trip, I am hoping to trial some new post types which will hopefully include some video and audio posts as well as the more traditional text and picture ones you are used to. Of course, any trip would not be a trip without constant updates of Twitter. if you want real time updates then either follow me or just search for the trips official hashtag (#ertrip2010).

Also, as Kieran is the sensible one amongst us, we are employing a “Kieran Doesn’t Know” theme (based on the Scotty Doesn’t Know song in the Eurotrip movie) to avoid his veto on some of our more extreme ideas. I would appreciate any mention of Kieran to be accompanied by some mental (or actual, if you prefer) singing of the Scotty Doesn’t Know song but replace “Scotty” with “Kieran”.

Any recommendations on places to see in or around the following cities (or the countries mentioned above) then feel free to contact me, or leave a comment. Cities we are hoping to visit: Amsterdam, Antwerp, Brugges, Nuremburg, Munich, Luxembourg City, Salzburg, Venice, Verona, Saint Gallen, Zurich, Lausanne and Monte Carlo.

So, yeah, last night was our New Year’s Eve party in Leeds. A well attended event considering that most people are home with their family and “real” friends that was dominated by a couple of events. Firstly, our living room flooded, a direct result of the second event – our first ever communal shower! Eight of us decided that alcohol and partying had progressed as far as it could and the next logical step was a semi-naked (and mostly naked in Michelle’s case) communal shower. Keep your eyes peeled for the exclusive pay-per-view site containing the pictures and videos!

It was definitely a good night all round and I now definitely feel closer to my house mates than ever before! It was also the first A-Soc event of 2009, seeing as the majority of the guests sit or have sat on the committee. We atheists really do have it larger.

Although, having said all that we all know that parties are just an excuse for recovery steak the morning after and as such we all headed to the Deer Park for our steak. Even the 45 minute wait on food didn’t dampen the excitement and meaty goodness of a well cooked bit of steak. Mmmm, steak, drool.

It has been over three months since my last post, which is too long. You have my fullest and sincerest apologies. I could rattle out the age old excuses like time constraints and not having anything to write about, but neither are entirely true. Having said that, I have been a very busy boy and I have done an awful lot that I should have written about and even more I could have written about

I am not going to write an essay catching you up on the latest news, in fact I will probably never manage it. I hope to mention some of the important stuff over the coming weeks, but no promises.

This post’s title is really the issue I want to write about today. I hate the phrase “new beginnings”, especially at this time of year. I tend not to get too fussed about Christmas really – I don’t like the idea of having a specific religious festival nationalised then rammed down my throat until I eventually choke and give in, but I realise other people like it. New Year, on the other hand, is somethign very different! I despise this arbitrary “celebration” and everything it stands for. I hate New Year’s resolutions – why can’t people identify and rectify the problems int heir lives all year round?

New beginnings, however, are sometimes necessary in life and I think that the time has come look at how I can refresh and reinvigorate this site. I am hoping to launch some new content and features in the coming weeks and hopefully this will reinvigorate my own interest in what’s going on here at NormanRalph.com.

If anyone has any ideas about what i can do to spice up our lives a bit then let me know via comment.

It’s that time of year again, that period of time when Leeds fills with fresh faced eighteen years and every commercial body is out in force trying to get everyone to part with their hard earned cash. It is also the time when we societies get out there to try and get members.

A-soc is no different and we have been out in force this week recruiting. We have been pretty successful too, with over 40 new members signing up in the first three days! Check out the pictures below and the blogs over on the A-Soc website.

It is not often that St Patrick’s Day and Easter are in the same week! What’s going on here??!!

The end of the term is approaching, Easter break starts today and I have to say it can’t come quick enough. The last week has been a chore and I have developed an apathy for life that just isn’t healthy. The chance to recharge and catch up on reading, essays etc is well overdue!

The week started with Rocky Horror on Monday which went atrociously, A-Soc on Tuesday wasn’t much better – although it was a chance to see all four of the atheist characters (Dawkins, Dennet, Hitchins and Harris) sat round a table, Wednesday was School Disco (post to follow) and yesterday was a recovery day with One Life virtually being a non-event. Today has also been a write off, although I have managed to tidy quite a bit.

I hate this limbo period where my drive has gone, but it is not yet officially holiday!

I have just bought a day ticket to this year’s V Festival. Liz and I are going for the Sunday as Muse are headlining. We ummed and arred about getting weekend tickets but couldn’t justify the £150. There are some great bands playing on the Sunday though, including the likes of Muse, Stereophonics, Maximo Park, The Prodigy and The Kooks (see the full line-up here).

I can’t believe it is festival season already!

It occurred to me not so long ago that i hadn’t been on an actual real-life holiday since June 2005 when I went to Spain for a week. This is simply bad form.

This revelation led me to organise a short break to the Lake District with Liz last week. We were away for a week and it was a week well spent. I realise that I should have been at lectures and doing coursework but it is a sacrifice I would not hesitate to make again!

We had planned to be in the Lakes all week, but due to an issue with the kennels Liz and I had to stay in Kirkham for a couple of days to dog sit for my mother. At first I thought it would be a bit of a waste of time but it was actually quite relaxing to just chill out at home for a bit, especially since my mum had redecorated my room with new bed, new carpets etc etc.

We headed up to the Lakes on the Wendesday and spent a glorious few days basking in the miserable northern weather I should point out here that I love the Lake District, especially in Winter. I like the rain and wind and snow. We did some walking, some shopping and some general mooching – not to mention Liz’s FOUR jacuzzi baths!!

We were staying at the Langdale Estate ina lovely little chalet. I really love that part of the Lakes with its accessible walking and lively (relatively…) atmosphere.

More importantly I got new walking boots!

Friday
After the mania of Atheist Week finishing the night before, Friday started with me rising early to make sure that Liz and I were all ready to leave for the A-Soc trip to London. We met up with Jack at the university before heading down to Park Row Wetherspoons for a society breakfast. We met Chris there, who following a bit of a rough morning was a littl frought, and planned to meet Moz at the Bus Station. After a quite good breakfast we wandered down to catch our bus. Half the group was getting the 12:30 bus and the others, namely Sarann, Michelle and Charlie, were catching the 15:45 bus die to lectures.

The bus got us into London for about 5pm and we grabbed a quick bite in McDonald’s before getting the tube up to King’s Cross – where we trudged the five minute walk down Gray’s Inn Road to Ashlee House, the hostel we were staying at. The hostel was not a five star resort, the facilities were basic but the atmosphere was friendly. The room was adequate to our needs – bed, linen and a lockable door. In the end, most of us didn’t actually spend that much time in the hostel.

Friday night saw us head into Camden to visit Sin City at the Electric Ballroom. It was a shame to see that even after 11pm when we arrived the club was barely half full and didn’t get much fuller. Most of us then proceeded to get a little drunk, especially Liz and Michelle who subsequently needed carrying home. Who would have thought that the mile or so walk from Camden Town to King’s Cross would have taken well over an hour?!

Saturday
Saturday morning was quite difficult for many of us. I had a stinking hangover and I was not the only one. Jack, Chris and I managed to force ourselves up and at them to go and visit the Ethical Society’s Library. I had spent quite a lot of time plannign and organising this visit, but unfortunately Jennifer, the head librarian, failed to turn up and give us our tour. AFter an hour or so we decided to move on in search of something more exciting. We ended up lunching in Holburn. The restaurant of choice turned out to be ‘The Ultimate Burger’. We were all a little intrigued to see if the burgers on offer were inf act The Ultimate. Jack went for a satay based burger, Chris a minted lamb burger and I went for the Sunday roast burger – basically a burger with Yorkshire pudding! Now, although the burgers were good they were not the ultimate! I expect a certain je ne sais pas to my ulitmate food and these burgers were tasty, filling and not ridiculously priced they did not leave me gasping, or vowint to return.

We had planned a trip the natural history museum is Kensington but due to the fact that there were engineering works on the Picadilly line, and Arsenal home game and a million people seeimingly wanting to use the tube station at once we gave up on that idea. The mysterious forces of nature then seemed to deposit the three of us on the steps of the British Museum. I have never actually visited this famous museum, but have often been intrigued by the exhibits it contains – such as the massive collection from Egypt and the current visiting exhibition of China’s Terracotta Army. The building itself was incredible, the massive front, the breathtaking interior simply left me speechless. The materials and colelctions inside are equally impressive,d espite a crippling hangover I still managed over two hours looking round. I had to leave to get some air, but Jack and Chris spent a further few hours in there.

Due to the crowds, both in the museum and in the tube station, it was getting past 3pm by the time returned to the hostel. This gave me a few minutes to get ready for the theatre. Sarann, Michelle, Charlie, Liz and I had tickets for the 39 Steps in the West End. The play was based on the novel and film of the same name, but was remade into a rather slapstick comic version. I wan to sure I was going to like it from the programme notes but by the end the incredible acting and wonderful direction had my crying with laughter and applauding on instinct.

Saturday’s dinner wa sa disaster. We ended up at a 50s themed american diner come nightclub. Not the sort of place I would normally frequent, but it was passable int erms of atmosphere and setting. However, the meal stank! We had to send two drinks back, one main course and then I had to complain about the service. All in all it was one of the ost disappointing and stressful meals of my life!

The excesses of Friday night were starting to take their toll, so an evening of Father Ted and an early night were the order of the day.

Sunday
In my opinion Sunday was the most successful day of the trip in terms of an A-Soc agenda. We had to check out the hostel by 10am, which meant that we were late (in our minds) to Speaker’s Corner in Hyde Park. When we arrived there was an Imman plugging a socialist agenda without much reference to Islam. There was some speculation that we had missed the speakers but right on queue a lady started claiming we were being judged by god – although what god she was talking about remains unclear to me even now – and how we must all return to our racial homelands. There was a preacher who called Chris and I qualified unbelievers and then started spouting homophobia. What really made the morning were the satirists – the people that took the mickey out of the main speakers! Due to growling stomachs, Chris, Jack, Liz and I headed to McDonald’s on Oxford Street for some lunch. We then spent the afternoon wandering down Oxford Street.

The weekend finished with us collecting our luggage and cathcing the bus home at 20:30.

A good weekend that I am going to be recovering from for a few days yet!