Ei Means No
Jul. 28th, 2008 09:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lupestripeHULL MEET - 26th AND 27th JULY
I'll be honest, sometimes I feel a little uncomfortable regarding the hugging and scritching elements of the Fandom. I was never a tactile person as a kid and although a large element of being a fur is reliving a childhood that I never really had, sometimes fears and paranoia overcome me to the point where it starts to get me down. Although I know the perameters are completely shifted when it comes to what is and what is not acceptable here, sometimes irrationality gets the better of me, particularly with respect to my own relationship. In 18 months of being a fur I have got better but I am not quite there yet. I need to relax, I know that. But that is the hardest thing in the world for me to do.
With a plethora of furry choices this weekend, I awoke on the Saturday to the sound of crosseyeddragon ringing me. Apparently I had woken him when I rang him in a drunken stupor the previous night and he was now returning the favour. So thanks for that. He had threatened to send a couple of snakes around if I failed to show up in Hull and although I was undecided, this clinched it.
I was also aware of the hangover from hell that was performing an exotic drum solo on the inside of my temple. A vestage of too much wine the night before (that had seen me go to Middlesbrough's only gay bar, sit there like a lemon for 20 minutes before realising that the catwauling singing of Rick Astley tunes was doing nothing for me and then bugger off), even at 1pm it was starting to mess with my head. Still, a promise is a promise and I made the ridiculously long journey (considering the distance) to Hull.
In fairness, all the silly doubts of mine throughout the week were quickly eradiacted although at times I did wonder about my place in the Fandom. But talking tostarpaw, iffriel and Shari in particular confirmed to me just how many fantastic people and indeed friends that I have in our little community.
We had gathered in the pub thatstarpaw works in and, as he was working that night, I promised to give him hell. What this, in reality, consisted of was me first asking for "the pinkest cocktail on the menu" before then requesting "the second pinkiest" and so on. In the end, he just gave me a cocktail menu and said "choose whatever and I'll see if I can make it". There were plenty of pink cocktails in there and I remember enjoying the taste of a Pink Hound the best. I also got a Daquiri (which I was blasted by iffriel for mispronouncing) which tasted like cucumber. Me no like cucumber. Also a Mojito (yes, a Mojito - said in Brian style voice *mrrr*) made with tequila instead of rum tastes bloody awful and looks like you have scooped the glass in the local pond and given the consumer the contents.
In the pub we also snarfled a copy of Wetherspoon News (a fantastic read) and we were delighted to see a picture of London mayor andlsfiox lookalike Boris Johnson on the cover (and on page 37). Fioxy decided to mimick the pose and golly, the resemblence is uncanny. Cripes!!
I had walked in to the spectre of Guitar Hero being played on a plasma screen and had felt fears of not fitting in. A common theme of mine as I share very little common interests with the vast majority of the Fandom. Still, the night past amazing quickly as we all talked the talk of drunken bollocks and a good time was had. Sadly we didn't get the opportunity to chain Shari to the shackles on the wall, nor did I get the chance to climb on to the felt roof of the gents toilets to sit on the table that was weirdly positioned there.
Drunk and happy, we ambled our way over tostarpaw and iffriel's to catch a late night film - Monty Python's Meaning Of Life. We had been meaning to go and see The Black Night earlier in the day and indeed the group had split into two - the poppettes and the pubbettes as I like to call them. After hearing that the film was near on three hours long and aware that I have the attention span of the average five year old after seventeen tube of Smarties, I decided that beer was better than bats (even rubber clad ones) and went to the pub. lsfiox and wolfie_uk had a race to see who get there first - the winner, no one. So what a waste of time that turned out to be (still I managed to sing "you take the high road, whilst I take the low road" at everybody to add to the plethora of Iron Maiden hits I was soberly belting out in the middle of the high street).
crosseyeddragon and Shari also took part in the world's most pointless maze in Hull City Centre. With only one route and no dead ends it was a bit of a waste of time - I just wished that once you reached the centre plate, the walls would shoot up 10 ft high, leaving you stranded. Now that would be funny. Otherwise, you could just disregard the pavement maze and walk up to the plate.
I had never seen this Monty Python film in its entirety before and this completed my Python collection. It was ironic that crosseyeddragon had threatened snakes and in the end I was watching Python. I was also hungry by this stage sowolfie_uk and I went to get some pizza and chips. The chips were gorgeous as they had some peri peri reggae reggae we've got to make this sound more exotic than just dried cayenne pepper sauce on them and the pizza was far better than the muck that had given us severe vomiting when we had visited actively_lazy's that time. We also bumped into Emily, a fur who I had never met but who was a fantastic laugh and will hopefully become a good friend. A talented artist, she didn't even hit me when I droned on about the economic effects of the oncoming recession. Fantastic.
I stayed over atactively_lazy's the night and got to meet vrekkar too. The fact that I hadn't seen him for so long merely highlighted the fact that I don't travel to Hull often enough and I made a mental note to be more socialable. It was great that they put me up for the night and it was fantastic spending some time with them. It really had been too long.
The floor was hard but the ironing board was harder as I crashed my head into it as I woke up. I have always thought that it's a great day if you can start it with a Dairylea Dunker and I did just that. Shari also kindly bought me a strawberry Mini Milk, which was pink, and it was very tasty indeed.
We were headed out to the pub again on what was another glorious day. We had planned to have a BBQ but health and safety legislation put paid to that and we decided to grab a takeaway meal (I got a foot long veggie melt and a mortgage to pay for it - the banks were begging with me to increase my endowment but I simply wasn't that excited) before we headed to the park for fun and furriness. Meals eaten and Ribena lollies sucked (mine fell off the stick and ended in a splat on the floor *sobs*) and Shari climbed for a tree and pretended to piss into my mouth (and he got loads of grass stains that not even Persil could shift - even at 40 degrees). He was wrestled a few times, I stripped three twigs naked (an obsession of mine for some reason) and we all retired to the pub - the one where lsfiox had waxed lyrical the day before about the benefits of Guitar Hero.
Realising the rugby was on (Wakefield v Hull) and that the pub around the corner had a beer garden, we headed over to there next before I went home, more relaxed about hugging, more relaxed about scritching and in general, more relaxed about the Fandom.
On my way home I read the excellent Ten Foot City magazine, a music and culture magazine thatstarpaw writes for. The patriotic nature of the prose in relation to Hull reminded me of a particular spirit that is evident in Middlesbrough. Both towns have a lot in common and I guess this is why I like Hull. Both were former ports, both have their own social problems and both are much maligned by an ignorant southern based media. The magazine itself is full of interesting music features, many of them written by starpaw and I think it's great that towns have their own little projects like these to promote their own areas.
crosseyeddragon ringing me. Apparently I had woken him when I rang him in a drunken stupor the previous night and he was now returning the favour. So thanks for that. He had threatened to send a couple of snakes around if I failed to show up in Hull and although I was undecided, this clinched it.I was also aware of the hangover from hell that was performing an exotic drum solo on the inside of my temple. A vestage of too much wine the night before (that had seen me go to Middlesbrough's only gay bar, sit there like a lemon for 20 minutes before realising that the catwauling singing of Rick Astley tunes was doing nothing for me and then bugger off), even at 1pm it was starting to mess with my head. Still, a promise is a promise and I made the ridiculously long journey (considering the distance) to Hull.
In fairness, all the silly doubts of mine throughout the week were quickly eradiacted although at times I did wonder about my place in the Fandom. But talking to
starpaw, iffriel and Shari in particular confirmed to me just how many fantastic people and indeed friends that I have in our little community. We had gathered in the pub that
starpaw works in and, as he was working that night, I promised to give him hell. What this, in reality, consisted of was me first asking for "the pinkest cocktail on the menu" before then requesting "the second pinkiest" and so on. In the end, he just gave me a cocktail menu and said "choose whatever and I'll see if I can make it". There were plenty of pink cocktails in there and I remember enjoying the taste of a Pink Hound the best. I also got a Daquiri (which I was blasted by iffriel for mispronouncing) which tasted like cucumber. Me no like cucumber. Also a Mojito (yes, a Mojito - said in Brian style voice *mrrr*) made with tequila instead of rum tastes bloody awful and looks like you have scooped the glass in the local pond and given the consumer the contents.In the pub we also snarfled a copy of Wetherspoon News (a fantastic read) and we were delighted to see a picture of London mayor and
lsfiox lookalike Boris Johnson on the cover (and on page 37). Fioxy decided to mimick the pose and golly, the resemblence is uncanny. Cripes!!I had walked in to the spectre of Guitar Hero being played on a plasma screen and had felt fears of not fitting in. A common theme of mine as I share very little common interests with the vast majority of the Fandom. Still, the night past amazing quickly as we all talked the talk of drunken bollocks and a good time was had. Sadly we didn't get the opportunity to chain Shari to the shackles on the wall, nor did I get the chance to climb on to the felt roof of the gents toilets to sit on the table that was weirdly positioned there.
Drunk and happy, we ambled our way over to
starpaw and iffriel's to catch a late night film - Monty Python's Meaning Of Life. We had been meaning to go and see The Black Night earlier in the day and indeed the group had split into two - the poppettes and the pubbettes as I like to call them. After hearing that the film was near on three hours long and aware that I have the attention span of the average five year old after seventeen tube of Smarties, I decided that beer was better than bats (even rubber clad ones) and went to the pub. lsfiox and wolfie_uk had a race to see who get there first - the winner, no one. So what a waste of time that turned out to be (still I managed to sing "you take the high road, whilst I take the low road" at everybody to add to the plethora of Iron Maiden hits I was soberly belting out in the middle of the high street).crosseyeddragon and Shari also took part in the world's most pointless maze in Hull City Centre. With only one route and no dead ends it was a bit of a waste of time - I just wished that once you reached the centre plate, the walls would shoot up 10 ft high, leaving you stranded. Now that would be funny. Otherwise, you could just disregard the pavement maze and walk up to the plate.I had never seen this Monty Python film in its entirety before and this completed my Python collection. It was ironic that crosseyeddragon had threatened snakes and in the end I was watching Python. I was also hungry by this stage so
wolfie_uk and I went to get some pizza and chips. The chips were gorgeous as they had some peri peri reggae reggae we've got to make this sound more exotic than just dried cayenne pepper sauce on them and the pizza was far better than the muck that had given us severe vomiting when we had visited actively_lazy's that time. We also bumped into Emily, a fur who I had never met but who was a fantastic laugh and will hopefully become a good friend. A talented artist, she didn't even hit me when I droned on about the economic effects of the oncoming recession. Fantastic.I stayed over at
actively_lazy's the night and got to meet vrekkar too. The fact that I hadn't seen him for so long merely highlighted the fact that I don't travel to Hull often enough and I made a mental note to be more socialable. It was great that they put me up for the night and it was fantastic spending some time with them. It really had been too long.The floor was hard but the ironing board was harder as I crashed my head into it as I woke up. I have always thought that it's a great day if you can start it with a Dairylea Dunker and I did just that. Shari also kindly bought me a strawberry Mini Milk, which was pink, and it was very tasty indeed.
We were headed out to the pub again on what was another glorious day. We had planned to have a BBQ but health and safety legislation put paid to that and we decided to grab a takeaway meal (I got a foot long veggie melt and a mortgage to pay for it - the banks were begging with me to increase my endowment but I simply wasn't that excited) before we headed to the park for fun and furriness. Meals eaten and Ribena lollies sucked (mine fell off the stick and ended in a splat on the floor *sobs*) and Shari climbed for a tree and pretended to piss into my mouth (and he got loads of grass stains that not even Persil could shift - even at 40 degrees). He was wrestled a few times, I stripped three twigs naked (an obsession of mine for some reason) and we all retired to the pub - the one where lsfiox had waxed lyrical the day before about the benefits of Guitar Hero.
Realising the rugby was on (Wakefield v Hull) and that the pub around the corner had a beer garden, we headed over to there next before I went home, more relaxed about hugging, more relaxed about scritching and in general, more relaxed about the Fandom.
On my way home I read the excellent Ten Foot City magazine, a music and culture magazine that
starpaw writes for. The patriotic nature of the prose in relation to Hull reminded me of a particular spirit that is evident in Middlesbrough. Both towns have a lot in common and I guess this is why I like Hull. Both were former ports, both have their own social problems and both are much maligned by an ignorant southern based media. The magazine itself is full of interesting music features, many of them written by starpaw and I think it's great that towns have their own little projects like these to promote their own areas.Feeling warmer about not only Hull but my own home town, I had a guy flick the bird at me whilst his mate was driving a souped up Audi convertable around the County Court in Middlesbrough. Kinda put a little downer on my day...
