Way back in the mists of time (well, slightly way back in the mists of time) when McEwans Best Scotch was one of the more popular beers in the North-East of England, Scottish and Newcastle Breweries, who brewed that particular beverage, ran a series of TV adverts extolling the virtues of their dark and flavoursome beery product. Some of you out there may remember them, particularly this one, in which our hapless Geordie heroes find a trip to the United States sadly lacking in their drink of choice. Now, rather than this being just a trip down memory lane for those of you who are fond of the history of TV advertising, I would specifically like to draw your attention to the first line of the advertising script: “Florida’s horrider than Whitley Bay…”
Although the advert itself was a bit crass and rather silly, I will admit that I did find it funny at the time (well, a little bit) and I didn’t give a second thought to any fundamental truth that it may have contained. However, having just returned from a week in Orlando where Glenda and I were attending the CHA Summer Convention, I now know that the advertising agency behind that particular little gem were unwittingly preparing me for events in my future. ‘Cos Florida is, indeed, horrider than Whitley Bay. Or, at least, those parts of it in and around Orlando are. The whole area has become one gigantic tourist trap, blighted by the all-consuming, rapacious greed of the Disney corporation, Anheuser/Busch and Universal Studios.
Of course, if you’re planning on hitting all the theme parks and have children the right age to enjoy their entertainment with extra spoonfuls of Disney sugar, then it will probably be just the ticket and give you a holiday to remember. But if you’re a sad, old curmudgeon like me who likes the quieter life and generally prefers the real world to the artificial (Las Vegas excepted), then I can’t recommend it.
The really weird thing is that, thanks to the CHA Winter Convention, I have also spent some time in close proximity to the other major Disney theme park at Anaheim in California. I have also, many years ago, visited the SeaWorld theme park in San Diego. And, somehow, these two just seem to be, well, nicer than the ones in Florida. I don’t know whether it’s because the Orlando area seems to be so focussed and built around tourism, while both Anaheim and San Diego have far more to them than just the holiday market. Or perhaps it’s something else altogether, but, whatever it is, I really do prefer the US West Coast venues to the East Coast ones.
The other weird thing is that Orlando has the second largest convention centre in the US, which is presumably why CHA decided to hold their Summer Convention there, but as a business traveller I have to ask them (and anyone else who organises a convention there) what on Earth they thought they were doing? As a business travel destination, I’m afraid that Orlando really does suck! Since most of the hotels are geared up for the tourist market, it can be a challenge finding one with the right facilities for a business trip and with the chance of getting enough rest, peace and quiet when you’re not working. Unless you want to pay a fairly obscene price and, even then, it doesn’t guarantee that you’re going to get a restful stay.
Car hire can also be problematic. For previous visits to the US, we have either booked a hire car online before travelling, or we have booked one at the airport or at the hotel once we got to our destination. On this occasion, we decided to get the car once we arrived in the US. Every other time in every other city we have visited, this hasn’t caused any problems and things have gone swimmingly – often getting us cheap upgrades to ludicrous SUVs or allowing us to find dependable local hire companies that offered excellent rates. This time around, however, the whole thing proved to be a nightmare. Arriving at the airport on the Saturday afternoon, there were long queues at the airport car hire desks, except for Enterprise. When we approached the nice man at the Enterprise desk, he explained that there was no queue because he had no cars left – all his vehicles were already reserved. OK, we thought, no problem, we can’t be bothered to join any of the other queues, so we’ll just take a taxi to the hotel and sort out a car tomorrow.
As plans go, we didn’t see any problems with this until the following morning when we tried to get a car. Alamo? All booked out, no cars all week. National? All booked out, no cars all week. Avis? All booked out, no cars all week. Hertz? All booked out, no cars all week. Thrifty? All booked out, no cars all week. Dollar? You guessed it – no cars all week. Finally, and with some assistance from the hotel desk staff and concierge, we managed to book a car with an outfit called EZ rent-a-car. It cost us 85 bucks a day, plus 20-odd bucks a day collision damage waiver, to get a rather tired Hyundai Sonata with cigarette burns in the upholstery, no driver’s sun visor, a passenger sun visor that wouldn’t stay either up or down and a small collection of dents and scratches here and there. But at least it worked and drove properly, had working air-con and – as we discovered when we got to the desk to sign the paperwork and pick it up – we had managed to get in under the wire just before EZ hiked their rates up to $250 a day because they were the only people who had cars left in Orlando, so they were going to make the most of it. Yes, really – the lady on the desk told us that herself and congratulated us on having booked the car online earlier that morning before the rate went up.
So, if you’re going to Orlando at this time of year – make sure you book your hire car in advance before you go! Unless you fancy paying lots of taxi fares or are staying in one of the Disney hotels and don’t plan on leaving the resort much.
Meanwhile, the Florida weather is a creature of extremes. It’s very hot and usually very humid. The humidity doesn’t only make it seem even hotter, it also contributes to some spectacular thunderstorms – presumably caused by convection as the sun beats down on the various rivers, lakes, streams and swamps that can be found dotted around the state, not to mention the Atlantic to the east and the Gulf of Mexico to the west. I think we actually had one of these humongous, rumbling tropical downpours every day during our stay – sometimes around midday or early afternoon, sometimes later in the afternoon or the early evening. But always amazing to watch and always absolutely torrential. So don’t forget your umbrella, or remember to stay indoors if the sky starts looking a bit ominous. If you like thunder and lightning (as Glenda and I both do), the storms are a great sight. But they’ll soak you to the skin in no time flat if you’re caught out in them and they’re slightly unpleasant to drive through if the roads are at all busy.
OK, by this point, you’re probably all thinking “Why doesn’t this whinging old fool just shut up if he’s got nothing positive to say?” Which is fair enough, so I do have some positive points to mention.
First of all, the Floridian accent is wonderful – a little bit of a Southern drawl, but not as laid-back on itself as, say, Texan. Also, most of the Floridians that we had any contact with (which, to be fair, largely meant waiters and waitresses, hotel and shop staff on this trip) seemed to be pleasant and warm-hearted people – I don’t think we encountered anything that we could describe as really bad or poor service anywhere.
Florida also has one of the most wonderful little museums in St Petersburg (near Tampa) – the Salvador Dali Museum. We took a drive down to Tampa on Thursday, planning to have lunch somewhere on the coast near Clearwater and then visit the Dali in the afternoon. As it turned out, the trip to the coast was a little disappointing – most of the coastal area around Tampa has been built up with rather tacky looking resort hotels and retirement condominiums so we failed to find any likely looking cafes or bars for our lunch. We also had a bit of a fun time actually finding the Dali museum itself, although that was largely a lack of adequate planning on our part. However, once we had put paid to a late lunch at a nice eatery called BJ’s on a shopping mall at Pinellas Park just north of St Petersburg and also acquired a map of the local area from a Target supermarket, we made our way to the museum. Thursday is a good day to visit as it is open late (until 8 p.m.) and, if you arrive after 5:00 p.m. (as we did) it only costs $5 each to get in.
So we had a wonderful couple of hours looking at some of the amazing works of one of my favourite artists. Although his most famous pieces aren’t there (e.g. The Persistence of Memory is in the Museum of Modern Art in New York, while The Metamorphosis of Narcissus is in the Tate Collection), there are still some fantastic paintings and sketches at The Dali, including works such as The Discovery of America by Christopher Columbus (The Dream of Christopher Columbus), which is huge; Hallucinogenic Toreador, which is also huge; The Ghost of Vermeer Van Delft Which Can Be Used As A Table, which is really tiny; The Disappearing Bust of Voltaire, which is just a wonderful bit of visual trickery; Apparatus and Hand, which is just plain weird; and several others, all of them highlighting not only Dali’s extraordinary imagination, but also his incredible level of technical ability.
After all that, even driving back through the regular Florida thunderstorm didn’t feel all that bad and we finished off the night with a meal at The House of Blues (our only serious expedition into the realm of Downtown Disney). Which reminds me – another positive thing about Florida was the food. As with most American cities, there is always good food to be had – although on this occasion, we mainly stuck to the major chains (TGI Fridays, Cheesecake Factory, etc.) So that was nice.
Other than that, there’s not a lot to report. Well, aside from the poor chap who passed away on the flight home just across the aisle from Glenda and myself. And the world’s worst and slowest moving queue to get through UK Passport Control when we got back into Manchester. But I think I’ll save those stories for another day.
As for Florida, and to return to our long-lost TV ad, I suppose I’ll have to finish with: “The States? Nice place, shame about Orlando…”
To commemorate the first new thing to appear on this blog in about three months (yes, I know, I’m maintaining my usual high standards here when it comes to frequency of posting), I’ve changed the theme slightly. Not that there was anything wrong with the old one, I just felt like having a bit of a re-arrange.
(OK, so the truth is, I was trying to find one that looked like it was all covered in dust and cobwebs, but I couldn’t…)
Anyway, there have been so many things happening in the world since I last scribbled my ramblings around here that it’s difficult to know where to begin. On the home front there have been fun adventures with a JCB mini-digger and barbecue parties (see here). On the work front there have been lots of new stamps and other interesting goodies (see here, here and here). And out there in the world at large, we have all continued to deal with the ups and downs of a rather shaky economy; we in the UK have discovered that our elected political representatives are a bunch of money-grubbing, corrupt, expense-fiddling liars (anyone really surprised there?) and umpteen other things have started up, broken down or otherwise just continued going on as they were.
As for today, I am currently taking it easy at home before popping over to my Mum and Dad’s place this evening to check up on them and make sure that they’re OK. My Dad hasn’t been too well over the past week and Tracy (who normally keeps an eye on the folks) is away this weekend, so I’m on duty again at the moment. Thankfully, it looks like Dad is pulling round and feeling a bit better now than he did a couple of days ago. But, unfortunately for me, I was over there this morning and, while helping Mum out of a chair, I got a little careless with the way in which I was taking her weight and I have managed to slip the dodgy L5 disc in my back yet again! (This is the third or fourth time in the last three years – and as anyone who has suffered from a slipped disc will know, each time that you do it again, it’s a bit worse than the time before.) So at the moment, I am suffering from a some minor agony in my lower back and tending to walk rather like the Mrs Overall character that Julie Walters used to play in Acorn Antiques. (Those of you who remember the character will undoubtedly also recall the time that Julie Walters played a similar role as a waitress in a restaurant sketch and will understand why I get the urge to say “So that’s one…soup. And…another…soup…” while I’m slowly hobbling around the place in a slightly hunch-backed fashion.)
Still, apart from that, everything’s not so bad. Now all I have to do is remember to keep popping in here more often than once a quarter…
I hope that everyone out there has had a day like ours today. The weather has been absolutely glorious. So much so that Glenda took a short break from preparing her artsy-craftsy demos for the next TV show and we sauntered out into the garden for a while.
Having popped out to Eggleston Hall Gardens for lunch last Sunday and relieved their Garden Centre of some tulips, pinks, fritillaries, a Spiraea of some sort and a few other things the name of which escapes me, we spent a couple of hours today digging holes in one of the borders in our front garden and introducing the new flora to its new home. Along the way, various bits of weeding, pruning and clearing up were done – although we’ve only just touched the tip of the iceberg when it comes to that job! There must be about a dozen different clumps of weeds, grass and assorted self-seeded beasties for every single plant that is supposed to be in there. Still, that’s gardening for you I suppose.
Now, having said all of that and (possibly?) coming across like some kind of ersatz Alan Titchmarsh who spends many a spare hour in his potting shed or up to his elbows in a bag of John Innis, I must be absolutely honest about this whole gardening lark and let you all know the rather unfortunate truth.
You see, the usual routine when Glenda and I fill up with the joys of Spring and get the urge to buy some new plants for the garden is that we go out and spend our hard-earned pennies on various pretty floral wotnots. The poor plants then come home with us and sit around somewhere out the back of the house until they either expire from being totally potbound and strangled by weeds, or they just succumb to drought and general neglect before we ever get around to planting them out. All of which is a terrible confession to make (particularly to any real gardeners who might be reading this), but it does reflect the somewhat chaotic nature of our lifestyle at times. It also highlights the fact that the best laid floral plans of mice and men can gang aft agley if you don’t make the time to act on them properly and promptly.
So, today, for once, we made the time and enjoyed a couple of hours of determined pottering of the gardening sort. And it was absolutely lovely – even for me (and I’m speaking as a hayfever sufferer here). We had only been out there for a short while when we were joined by the feline master of the house, the noble Sir Basil. He strolled by, checking what we were doing and making sure that we weren’t disturbing any of his favourite sunbathing spots. He then wandered nonchalantly down onto the lower level of the front lawn and sprawled on the grass for a while – half in and half out of the sunshine. Where the sunlight caught his fur, he was transformed from his usual pitch-black self into a rich, dark chocolatey brown – sort of the colour of Green and Black’s organic dark chocolate – but with one or two darker or black patches where his fur was turned against the light. Of course, he knew full well that he was being particularly elegant and beautiful, which just made him laze around and enjoy the sunshine even more.
As for the staff (i.e. Glenda and I), we had a slightly bittersweet moment when we thought how much Sesame would have loved it too. Both he and Basil always seemed to enjoy it if we went out into the garden with them. Something about joining them in their territory and all enjoying the fresh air and sunshine together perhaps. In any case, Ses would have absolutely loved our little spell of gardening today and would have been lying around on the grass and chasing the occasional twig (so long as he was sure that no other neighbourhood cats were around to see him being kittenish – got to keep up appearances you know!)
Fortunately for us, Basil was prepared to stand in – at least as far as the lazing around was concerned – so the bittersweet smiles were soon transformed into purely sweet ones as we continued getting our hands all muddy (well, in my case anyway – Glenda grabbed the gardening gloves before I could get to ‘em).
Now, judging by the amount of weeding, pruning and general tidying that is still to be done, I reckon that if the weather holds and we manage to put in a couple of hours every Sunday, we’ll have the whole place looking absolutely amazing in no more than, oh, eight or nine years perhaps? Oh well…
(And yes, at various points during the above there really should have been some photos, but in my usual well-organised manner, I very efficiently left the camera in the house and forgot all about the possible photo opportunities while I was working. Some photos of the fritillaries – a flower that Glenda and I both adore – have since been taken and I wouldn’t be surprised to see them cropping up on Glenda’s blog at some point in the near future. And I promise to remember the camera next time, honest.)
Look at all the dust and cobwebs around here. Looks like no-one’s been around for weeks. Jeez, there’s even a little spider living under some of the unused vowels…
Yes, I’m still alive and – as you can no doubt tell – maintaining my usual high standards when it comes to blogging on a regular and frequent basis. (Even the cat has been blogging more recently than I have – see?)
I do, however, have a good excuse. We’ve been particularly busy at work and, as well as the accounty, computery stuff that I usually do, I have been helping out in the production department, keeping the presses running and shipping new rubber stamps out to eager crafters here, there and everywhere. As mentioned in my previous posting, we’ve also had a major re-arrange in the warehouse, with umpteen bays of brand new hi-rise shelving being built and installed, all the existing shelving being moved around to make space and all the stock stripped out and then replaced in a more consistent order. That all involved a few days of very hard work on the part of everyone involved, but it was well worth it.
Anyway, the practical upshot of all this manic activity is that the old blog has been left to look after itself for a few weeks. And you know what? The useless flaming thing didn’t write a single word itself! Harrumph! Just can’t rely on these computers to do anything useful, can you?
Oh well, at least I’ve finally managed to grab a few minutes to pop by and clean the place up a bit. And as soon as I’ve thought of something useful or interesting to write about, I’ll pop back again and say it. But, in the meantime, there’s a Dr Who special to catch on The Beeb. (OK, OK, we’re all allowed to be a little bit of a saddo now and again, aren’t we?)
Where did the last week-and-a-half go? I could have sworn I only got back from the show yesterday??!
But it is indeed now 11 or 12 days since we got back from the NEC, having had yet another fantastic trade show. There were lots of existing customers calling at the stand to say “Hi!” and place orders for their shops, plus a whole bunch of new customers too. Quite a few of the trade orders have already been processed and sent out, so all you happy crafters out there should be able to find new Elusive Images goodies in your local craft shops any day now (if they’re not already there…)
Anyway, while the rest of the amazing Graphicus and Elusive Images crew have been processing orders, packing boxes and making sure that everyone gets their latest bits of crafting stash as soon as possible, I’ve been concentrating on “back-office” stuff. Or, as it is otherwise known, having extended flashbacks to my earlier career as a Systems Architect, Software Designer/Developer and all-round geek. Yes folks, it’s big computer upgrade time at the office! We’re going to be switching over to a new computer system sometime in the next month or so and, in order to allow it to work, there are new servers and desktop PCs to be installed, plus all manner of software updates, upgrades and configuration tweaks to be performed.
The actual hardware has been sitting around in boxes for a while (in one case it was nearly a year), but the job has been put off and put off time and time again while we concentrated on other things. (And, for that matter, while we decided what the new system was going to be like when we finally got it.) But the whole thing is well under way now and it’s getting to the point where having all the hardware up and running is becoming rather critical. So I’ve been wearing my “IT Admin and Support” hat quite a lot since we got back and I’m likely to continue wearing it for some time to come.
Have you ever had to sit down and trawl through a list of over 22,000 assorted Windows updates to see which ones your network needs and which ones it doesn’t? I can’t honestly say that it was the best way I’ve ever spent a Saturday afternoon, but at least it was sort of satisfying when I finally got through them all in the end.
More to the point, once the overall job is done, it should be better for everyone since not only will there be newer and faster PCs on the desks, the new system should also be faster, better and more efficient at tracking and processing orders. Leastways, that’s the theory…
Of course, the assorted bits of techno-wizardry are only one part of the picture. You then need to make sure that your warehouse is well-organised and capable of keeping everything flowing nicely. That’s why there’s over one and a half tonnes of new shelving, racking and other fittings arriving next week and why we’re shutting down for four days over next weekend to build, install and restock it all.
Oh, and in between all of that, I’ve been spending some of my time in the local Law Courts – but that’s a story for another day…
(Well, I wouldn’t want you to think I was just sitting around getting bored, would I?)
Last day of the show and it’s a fairly quiet morning so far. However, we’re expecting things to get a bit more lively later in the day as various people come back to the stand to place their last-minute orders and catch the show specials.
Meanwhile, the lull in the chaos has allowed most of the folks on the stand to take a short break and have a wander around the show themselves to look out for any funky new bits and pieces of crafting stash.
So far, it’s been a great show – shaping up to be our best yet – and we’ve even found the time to take some more photos and get some video footage of the stand, highlighting some new products and the amazing Venetian carnival mask that Lynn made. If I get the chance, I might scrunch a few more photos and get them up on here during the course of today – otherwise it’ll be sometime tomorrow or the day after (once we’re back home).
Unfortunately, the video will need to wait until we get back home so that we can do any editing that’s needed before it can be released into the wild. It’s all been done with a hand-held camcorder, so some of the camera handling won’t be quite as stable as usual, but there’s lots of artistic eye-candy to keep all you dedicated craftaholics happy. Just keep an eye on Glenda’s blog for updates (and probably even more photos at some point)!
And on that note, I’d better stop scribbling and get back on with my job…
Bye for now!
As promised, some quick snapshots taken on the stand today.
First of all, artwork on the walls…
Even more artwork on a display stand…
The Lady Venetia (or Imelda Maskus if you prefer)!
More stuff on that display stand…
Some amazing Stampbord decoration on a mirror…
And finally a couple of general overviews of the entire stand…
Had to do this in a bit of a rush, so I don’t have thumbnails for these at the mo.
I’ll tidy it all up a bit (and maybe add more photos) when I get a chance!
Glenda and I and a fair selection of the trusty Graphicus crew are currently running around on our stand at the ICHF Craft, Hobby and Stitch Trade Show at the NEC. It’s manic!
We arrived on Friday night and got the bones of the stand set up (furniture, etc.). Saturday saw Glenda delivering three sell-out masterclass workshops for retailers, designers and freelance demonstrators, ably assisted by Helen. Meanwhile, everyone else (Lynn, Judith, Carrie, Emma, Annette and I) were setting out the products and artwork on the stand and making it all pretty.
Well, actually, that’s not quite true. I was in the van driving around various bits of the West Midlands trying to buy various odds and ends that we had forgotten to bring with us or decided that we needed at the last minute once we were already here. But I was thinking about making the stand pretty.
Yesterday was the first day of the show proper and it was hectic! Lots of nice people visiting the stand, many of them placing orders and all of them (including numerous passers-by) complimenting us on having such a beautiful display and looking so good. Quite a few people even went so far as to say we had the most striking and beautiful stand in the entire show, so we’re feeling pretty good about that.
It’s busy again today, but I’ve managed to grab a few minutes just to scribble this little bloglet and let you all know that, in the midst of my running around on Saturday, I received a call from the director of The Tempest. As I suspected, I won’t be playing Caliban – the part went to the experienced actor/director I mentioned in my last post. Oh well, c’est la vie. Means I don’t need to worry about finding time for rehearsals or the production itself. That will give me more time to play music and to tinker around with cameras.
Speaking of which, we’ll try to get some photos of the stand up on here or on Glenda’s blog sometime soon. If we get a minute to take them in between being besieged by friendly customers!
Phew!
Well, the auditions for The Tempest took place this evening. Apart from me, there were two other people reading for the part of Caliban. Unfortunately, one of them was a regular who has taken speaking roles in most of the recent productions and the other one was a founding member of the company who not only works in a small professional theatre company but is also an accomplished set designer, director and comedy actor (particularly physical comedy). He has also directed all but a handful of the Castle Players’ summer productions and the ones he hasn’t directed he has taken major roles in – usually playing them very well indeed.
So the practical upshot is that I really don’t know what my chances are like, but I suspect they’re not very good this time around. I won’t actually find out until sometime over the next couple of weeks. I also suspect that the backup roles that I chose are likely to go to the people who put them down as their first choices, since I know the guys who auditioned for the parts of Trinculo and Stephano and I’d be surprised if they didn’t land them.
Oh well, just have to wait and see I guess. At least the evening has been fun and I’ve had a chance to catch up with a few of the old hands that I know from previous years and we’ve had a laugh. If nothing else comes of it, it’s been a good night out!
I was photographing some rather fine spikes of ice hanging from the edge of our back porch (I’ll try to post a couple of the photos sometime) when I thought to myself:
If Apple were to start making bikes, would they be iCycles?
Thank you, thank you, I’ll be appearing here all week…
(And in a late news update, one of my icicle pictures has already been spotted hanging around on Glenda’s blog.)
