Ned's Birthday Weekend in Brighton

As usual, there was lots of laugher like this.

Andrew Gold made many appearances.

Here's what he sang:

I talked to my baby on the telephone
long distance
I never would have guessed
I could miss some one so bad
I really only met her about a week ago
But it doesn't really to matter to my heart
I know

That I love her
I'm hoping that I never recover
'Cause she's good for me
And it would really make me happy
To never let her slip away

I feel like a kid
with a teenage crush on a school day
I feel like the lead in Romeo and Juliet
I'm a little bit dizzy, I'm a little bit scared
I guess I never felt this much aware

That I love her
I'm hoping that I never recover
'Cause she's good for me
And it would really make me happy
To never let her slip away

I really only met her about a week ago
But it doesn't seem to matter to my heart
I know

That I love her
I'm hoping that I never recover
'Cause she's good to me
And it would really make me happy
To never let her slip away

knackered

woke up with itchy feet yesterday, so decided to hire a funky mountian bike and go for a blast - the others where meant to be getting a boat to these caves but it ended up being too expensive so i cycled there, all 28km of it - and back !!

didn`t even have time to see the cave but the ride was gorgeous and even followed the mekong for a bit of it - was a thouraghly nice day

then we found a a cinema called , "le cinema", cool heh - basically they have loads of small living rooms with DVD players and a couple of hundread DVD,s and you just take your own beers, grab a seat and watch what you want to watch

so we watched Phoenix Nights and father Ted - Brilliant

and would you believe that in deepest Laos i even managed to find a bar showing Everton against Chelsea - how stuffy is that!!

and on to Louang Prabang

bit of a rush at the mo, but just to say we made it here after the hariest bus journey i think ive been on - 6 hours through high mountain roads at full pelt - very scary indeed

bit it was worth it, this town is lovely, very old and colonial in a french super styley - its quite well to do though, lots of expensive wine and bistros etc,

off on a scooter tomorrow to find some waterfalls - didn't even bother with the temples here, seen enough of them to last a life time

we've got a 6 hour boat trip from here in a few days which is meant to be the nicest boat trip in Laos - cant wait

see yer

hark at dougie mixing it with the stars!!!

very impressed mate!!!

did i mention we where on a boat with Prince Harry on halong bay?? very down to earth he was too, i'll dig out a piccie and stick it on here - im sure it was him, he disguised himself with and ozzie accent

tubing

so we finally managed to go tubing - Twice!

we kind of screwed up the first day - its a 3k journey on the river and we got 200 meters before we stopped at the first bar, we ended up doing the last hour in pitch black, and it was freezing cold, and of the couple of hundread people who do each day, we where the last ones back - typical

so me and juz decided to do it again the next day, and try and pace ourselves a little better - it worked a treat, we where still trashed when we got back, but at least it was daylight - i totally loved it, one of the highlights of the trip so far

the rest of the night we just sat by the river and met some giggly swede whod obviously had a few 'happy' shakes i think :-)

ghosts

so where was the ghost walk then claire??? sounds nearly as aunthentic as our hastily pasted together Jack the Ripper walk, which started in Burger king i think, and ended up in the Big Chill bar

where you scared then??

hello karen,

lovely to hear from you ma dear - keep forgetting its cold back home, so was a bit confused re the ice skating business at first - no chance of that here

and have already been through a few of the those nasal things - will get to work and send some back - the Mark 2 versions obviously :-)

hello mum

to my mum and her work mates (i sound like Simon Bates here) who apparently have a quick browse of this blog every now and then (only during breaktime though i believe)

hello there :-)

i'll do 'Our tune' tomorrow- anyone remember that??

"Julie, was, i guess, quite distraught, that her husband, children, family, dog and milkman had left her ........................... "

doo dee doo dee doooooooooo

etc etc ...

aww, quite sad actually isn't it

claire

youre elephant post ended up on justines blog i think

it is very confusing, but just to show you up, im gonna show you how to do it .....................

caves, glorious caves

pretty mellow night last night, so woke up early but the sun had gone!!! so we decided to cycle to the caves instead - was very nice and ended renting a tube to float through the river filled caves for a couple of hundread meters - was quite scary as it goes

on the way back we stopped at the organic farm and ended up having deep fried mulberry leaves - how on earth do they manage to sell that to us??? !!! we'll be paying for tree bark cheese cake next

hoping to tube tomorrow for real - we've just found a litre of rice wine selling for 40 pence so that should see us all ok for the trip tomorrow

sunday roast and steve lawler

claire, u still hungry ?? prob bit late but we've all just had a gorge sunday roast - with mustard!!! amazing

none of us spoke as we waited for it, and none of us spoke as we ate it - we where all so hungry

this place is nuts here, loads of the places selling happy pizza's and happy shakes - theres a few casualties around :-)

by the way, were staying in a lovely butrerfly garden here, with a view
of the mountians - all for 4 dollars a night - thats a pound each!!!

PS - steve lawler has a new album out for anyone whos inerested

more waffle ....

claire yer dirty stop out, ho can you not have a kilo of tescos econo cheese in your fridge, thats pure rediculous!!!

not sure on dubai mels, hope someone else can help - mud wrap sounds cool - as does the lovely new smoking perm, very nice :-)

so here we are in vang viang - id read a few things about it, but its totally amazing, if you can ignore all the bars showing friends and rubbish films, its totally stunning - were staying by the river and are surrounded by massive rock faces

tomorroq where away tubing on a tractor inner tube for 3km down the river, theres loads of bars to stop at on the way too, shuld be fun

so far id defo recomend to Laos to anyone, wevce only been to 2 places so far but they are great and the scenery is gorgeous

Everton beat Arsenal too, what a week!!!

Dubai

Can anyone recommend a decent but not hideously expensive hotel in Dubai?
Ps. let you into a confession. Friend told me the king had died and that Dubai was in mourning. I flicked around the internet to see when mourning ends etc to cut story short i ended up calling the Saudi Arabian embassy to ask what the period of mourning is. For those with Geography as good as mine, Dubai is in the United Arab Emirates not Saudi. Alas the Saudi king has also died, but a little while ago. The news reports are still on internet though. It was the Prime Minister of Dubai that dies and the mourning period is 40 days! finishes a week before we are due to go luckily. bit of a blooper there....Saudi embassy were quick polite though!!

what your missing

i keep getting texts about who's at Neighbourhood, but i'm being good. Not been well enough has helped, but desperately trying to be a little healthier and on a diet too. Not had a cigarette since leaving Doug and Emm on new years morning either. Back to running next week as germs are finally dispersing. Off to the Sanctuary on Sunday for a spot of pampering, i'm having a mud wrap! (not the type you eat) so will report back on that. Will be having a glass or two of Champers in Kettners afterwards if anyones around Soho about 6pm give me a ring and come join us. Good weekend to you all, my Friday night excitment is installing new washing machine, not a five minute job as i'd hoped! Saturday will be a spot of plastering and swapping electric sockets, could have a curly perm by Sat night if all goes wrong. Lord isn't home ownership fun! (worth every single bit of hassle though) xxxx

the Ban Na elephants

so (quickly then, cos gotta rush for the sunset)

basically in the valley of Ban Na (about 80k away) the farmers wherent earning enough so they switched there crops to sugar cane - unfortunatley, it attracted about 50 or so elephants who ransacked the crops and part of the village causing a bit of local friction, amd the death of some elephants. So the locals switched back to vegetables, but the elephants just decided to stay!

so then youve got a animal rights against villagers rights prediciment so they have set up this project (all ran by the village) which was funded by the canadian and german embassies to allow tourists in, to safely trek the park and stay in a hide tower to allow people access to view the elephanrts, allow them there natural habitat, and to provbide moent for the village, which replaces what they lose from lost crops each year - so far its working ok (do i sound like and eco warrior here??), and it was nice to do something, which appears to have the right motives and aims

so, after numerous diff buses we ended up on a truck bound for ban na, we where dropped off 2k away and walked in the mad heat to the villange to find Mr Bounthanon, which actuall wasn;t that hard - all formallites done (it cost 25 dollars each incl 1 night in the tower and all food) we headed off with our two guides into the forest

after about 2k, we all stopped and could here some serious bamboo crunching going on nearby - obviously the big grey fellows are on the move -

now im not saying i wasn't scared, or was acting cool in any way, but ive not seen Justine looking that worried since we hired bicylces in delat!

it was quite unnerving though, a local villager had been killed by one of the elephants the previous year, and its not normal to be wandering around them - even in nature reserves you have to stay in your car

but we made it too the hide ok, about 10m up in the air (waffle waffle, sorry) and then headed for another trek - and more close shaves with elephants but we still hadn;t seen them

so back in the hide we ate, and where despatched to bed at 7pm cos it was dark, and there was not much to do anyway.......

...when an hour later the guides woke us cos the elephants where all around us, one was taking a shower in the nearby saltlike (cos they get nutrients from various minerals in the ground, which they cant get from plants)

then on came under the hide, right below us so we crept down the stops to within a few meteres of it to get a closer look - although the moon wasn't up at this point so was quite hazy, and that kind of added to the occasion

so we had abpout 30 mins of elephant watching, and listening and its safe to say we all totally loved it,

(i should add that there elephanst are totally wild, although part of the programme is to slightly desensitive them to humans, so they are not afraid to minimise the chance of another attack on the villagers)

so thats that then, we are back in Veinitane now, and me and juz are heading for Beerlau and some spicy chicken on the riverfront

speak later, sos for the waffle - byeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

and we are now in Vientaine

which is the capitol of Laos, and very nice indeed it is!!!

after a lovely journey through the mountains of the Laos-Vietnam border and some very scary roads we got to Vientiane all desperate to try the beer we have loads about, but cant get anywhere else - BeerLao! (good name heh!!)

id like to say after a few of those, we felt quite merry, but im afraid to say after only one we all felt a bit wobbley on the legs :-) still managed a few more though, and a good beer it is too - espesh as we had just arrived and the sun was setting over thailand on the other side of the Mekong river - mmmmmm, starting to take this for granted maybe???

still (rushing this now) the town is lovely, if a little sleepy which is a nice change and we had a magnifcient Indian meal the other day, my mouth waters just thinking of it

so a few days of cruising around on the bkies again, and a 12k bike trip to the beer Lao factory (which was closed- gutted) and we set off the track donw the story of the Ban Na elephants (whihc youve prob already read cos its gonna appear above here)

cheers ears, see yer

quick note on Laos, from memory, so prob very wrong!!

Laos was part of the French Indochine empire, but was independant from France during the 50's - however the worry of a communist asia prompted the USA to start what was called the 'secret war' and apprently dhad 1.5 times more bombs dropped on it than Vietnam did during the whole period of the conflicts , not many people know that, hence the secret war

ceasefire in 73, and then independance a few years later

i think

sooo, back to Hanoi

not sure where i left off last, but i think i was in Hue and was heading for Hanoi again,

this was an overnight trip on the couch which i dont remember as being that bad so cant have been really,

we only had 3 hours in Hanoi before getting the Laos coach so we put the time to good use by securing some good cheddar, a nice baguette and then found a beer doing 8 pence glasses beer - a fitting end to our Veitnam trip i think

oooh, got loads to ell you

but lets just start with all the things im missing, ans you guys have the prviledge of seeing

Derrick Carter Playing Neighbourhood soon, and Norman Jay playing the lodge on sunday (may have missed that one)

just keepin yer posted

Tooto

Hi there, other friend Mark is travelling at the mo and just done three weeks in NZ. He's met lots of people from Tooto and is amazed. You met any Tootonions in Nam?

How bizarre

I was thinking of wether it was "do it now" or not when i was in the shower this morning. Sadly no great conclusions other than there were sooo many lovely Marc style tunes it could well have been. What CD would it have been on? I was also thinking (long shower this morning) wether "do it now" outdone "strings" and was playing both in my head,,,i think i decided "strings" would win for dancing, though i'd have to dance to them both in the same night to be sure. Now there's a challenge for you Doug. (if he logs back on before this message reaches the archives!).....

On three....

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU....thanks for the party/drinks invite, it was obviously lost in the post. Hope you had a good day/night..xxx

ha long bay

just spent an amazing few days on ha long bay , we only booked it last minute and we thought we;d pay a few extra dollars to get a night on the boat

and it totally blew us away, the boat was lovely and we all had lovely cabins with great big windows, the food they served was superb and there was about 10 of us on the boat, so we pretty much got to no everyone

predictable the highlight was sitting on deck and drinking all evening with our new found friends, which was great fun - there was some funny people with us

the bar bill ended up being more than the price of the tour, oh well, bit of a once in a lifetime that one

and then waking up and seeing all the islands out the window was just soo nice, cant believe its happening really

so off to Laos now, ive lost my Vietnam arrival card, so i'll prob end up banged up of sommit

see yer

PS, Mel, are you sure it wasn;t do it now????

happy birthday Claire

just to wish my baby sister a lovely happy birthday, and hope you have a lovely sensible one, and are home by 11, dont wanna get in trouble now do you !!!

so sorry cant be there, but thinking of yer, and will have a drink for you in a few mins when we go for some scoff

HAPPY BIRTHDAY XXXXXXXXXX

Lost message

This ended up on Justines site........

I wish i could remember which tune it was, i wouldn't call Doug a fiber or anything, but just dont remember it being Do it now! There were sooo many Marc tunes being played it's hard to say. My Nick Warren CD has arrived and even through one ear it sounds good. (ear infection has blocked the other ear!). I smiled at the high pitched lady....(dougs impression of her was spot on) and was very delighted to hear the waves again....(added to a track mid CD just incase you weren't quite floating by then).....

That's no ladyboy.......that's Marc

well if you run out of cash get back to Bangkok and that wig and dress will earn you a fortune! checked some of the other photos, the sand sliding looks ace, would love to have a go but bet it gets everywhere! as for the rude house! that was very rude, i love the way the male statue is looking behind him! i should think so too....shameful. Lovely to see some pics of you all. I have a video clip of me crossing the road on a crossing in Ho Chi Min with all the mopeds coming for me, it's insane isn't it! i didn't see one person hit though, so long as you move slowly somehow they all go round you. I saw more accidents with bikes of all types in China just riding around normally. Still sick, borrowed Star Wars 1-6 from Sid but 3 was missing, finally hunted it down in Blockbusters today so that's my Friday night entertainment. xx

me and juz in Mue ne

this is the town where we spent xmas and we took a day trip out cycling to the fishing village - very nice indeed

nice shot on this link too - very happy indeed

http://www.chrisandbecky.shutterfly.com/action/slideshow?a=67b0de21b33607de2532&auto=0&idx=41&m=1&d=1137122154691

just for a laugh

thers actually a worse one than this, with my thai boxing shorts over the top of the dress - scary!

all in the name of fun though,

not sure what happened to my heels though :-)

xmas day

there is worse photos than this one too apparently, on http://www.chrisandbecky.shutterfly.com i aint seen em yet!!!

look left, look right, look left again

and panic!
the streets in hanoi are pretty much like this all day, and even busier at most junctions- like a game of frogger, but with bigger consequesnces if you dont make it

good fun though

lets off road

and here is them monster jeep we drove around phuket for a day - no brakes, dodge steering, and about 10 foot wide - was in interesting day for sure!!

when there is no xmas TV ......

you create your own entertainment ......... this is me and chris on xmas day!!!

off your high horse matey

yes, ive changed, im a fully fledged canibal now! eating my way through the group as we speak

oh yeah, a fair chunk of the population here are amimists, which means that every living thing is sacred - so think of the potaotes screams next time you have some McChips

anyways, it was a crab - well, actually it was two of em -

did you work out what we had the next night?? think i left a note re that one,

hello doug, mel, and all

alright there - i knew the tune was 'do it now' when mel mentioned 'best house tune ever' - has to be really doesn't it

dunno why Mr and Mrs W dont blog - come on mum and dad, give it a go!!!!!

just been cyling around Hue today, its lovely just cruising along - although the junctions are nuts, but most drivers manage to avoid you, well all of them actually i guess, so far anyway :-)

totally gettin into the food these days, we've taken to ordering about 6 dishes each meal these days to try all the local stuff - fave speciallity here is a cripsy pancake with egg, shrimp, pork and peanut sauce - lovely!! (place called lac thien)

back to hanoi tomorrow night on an overnight coach, then we are gonna try and get straight on a trip to ha long bay which should be astounding

see yer

Family site

I've been meaning to say if it's a family site why Mr and Mrs Wilkinson have yet to post a greeting? Mind you, could ask why all the people on the right hand side green bit have yet to post a greeting. Freinds eh...

Marc Wilkinson

WOO HOOO! thank god for that, wool has never been my favourite food.

take three!!

I'm determined to crack this two blog thing, right if this isn't Marc's blog then i'll eat my hat. !!

suits and cycles

have spent the last few days here in hoi an, and its absolutely gorgeous - its on the river with loads of lovely little streets with nice bars and is quite french lookng (france controlled vietnam in the run up to the first indochina war)

so the hotel we are in (8 dollars a night) has free bicicle hire and its so flat here that weve just spent the last two days cruising around, and went out to the beach as well -

theres a massive tailoring trade and they will follow you down the street to try and sell you some stuff, and they can knock it up in hours too - apparently the going rate for a silk suit is about 50-60 dollars, and the quality is superb - ive been so tempted to get one and send it back - but ive resisted the urge so far

tonight we are off the cafe des amis which has (apparently) some of the nicest food in vietnam - we are splashing out a whole 3 quid on a 5 course dinner - so that should be lovely

we are off the hue tomorrow on the early bus, another early start - only gettin one lie in a week here , its criminal!

ok then , see yer later

hello jimmy jo

cheers for the message mate, and yes you can say bastard (sometimes) but thats prob the limit - what do you reckon mum?? :-) or is that too much??

so was NYE the usual Brierly exodus?? who where the strange people

cant believe Beacall was in town - such a shame u missed him - if u speak to him can you pass my email to him - (marcqa@hotmail.com) , cos i'll be in the phillpines for a while from march which i dont think is too far from japan - well, its prob a 12 hour flight but its closer than bebington

off on a bike ride tomorrow, as we are in the mountains now in a place called Delat, its even quite cold and had to put jeans on - criminal!

see yer
should be fun

grrrrrrrrrribit!

sorry about the crab incident mels, i wont do it again,

better not tell u what we had last night then :-)

ooowww arrrr

if you scroll down quickly and read the right hand side you get: Murderers, crabs, very very cheap and rent boys! Great headlines, bit like the news (well in the Wirral, not Surbiton of course)....xx

mustaffa???

is that mustaffa i see mels?? was that his name?? mustaffa hamster - if i remember correctly

i didn't shoot the gun today cos they ran out of AK47 and Kalshnikov bullets, and just had normal rifle ones - so i left it

tons of other commando/dirty harry style nutters had a go though - it was deafening

NYE sounds great, was it Rob and Mat Djing???

only a quick one this cos gotta rush at the mo, so will have to finish this off tomorrow

see yer

Hey Marc, can you guess who this is? Bob, you should know him too. Ghost from Christmas past!!

Marc Wilkinson

PS, hope you enjoyed the shooting it's really rather addictive isnt' it. Have a go with an Oozie if you have enough money left. If feeling really rich, get a fully loaded Oozie, put on automatic and spin on floor! Obviously correct conditions required for this and as your family are reading I must advise you NOT to try this. (stand back and get someone else to do it instead!).

mark wilkinson

Well i'd best keep talking to you as not many others joining in this blog, i have reprimanded a few over the holidays. New years eve was fantastic, all a bit muddled and many changes along the way but ended up with Doug, Emma and two very cool aussie chicks in Putney, good fun but urm rather a late one i manged to get home at 10.30am! took two days on the sofa to feel remotely human and glad it's only once a year as body couldn't cope with more often. Highlight was the three house tracks the DJ's played at midnight and can you guess the best one????? oh yes, Shine on Me!! if i had to ask for a track that would have been it. Of course no one understood my excitement so i had to tell them all of course, wish you were there to have understood it. Back at Dougs he played what he thought you would think is the best track ever, sadly i can't remember it. There were many Marc e tracks and the two aussie girls are sick of hearing about you already, strangely though dying to meet you. My lasting memory of the whole event was lying in the lounge with Dougie, drifting/floating to Nick Warren back to mine! As soon as i'd recovered enough to remain upstanding for more than an hour (yesterday) i went on line and ordered it. Floating at its best.

Murderers!

Well i was a little worried when you started a dialog about crabs on the way to the loo! Though by the end i was mortified, how could you, why would they scream if they can't feel anything? and i dont believe the crap story that they're not screaming it's the air coming out from under the shell. If you'd have watched Finding Nemo you would know how much feeling these sea creatures have.

crabs

both mel and claire will hate this (feel like i may have mentioned this already) but had a few beers the other night, and then popped the loo - on the way went past a little pool with loads of lobsters and crabs in it!

not a big fan of this, but we went ahead and ordered two - so they just pick em out, and well, basically boil them alive! shocking really,

becky assured us all that they are Invertebrates and therefore done feel anything, but nuts all the same - so then next we just get a plate presented to us with two streaming crabs on it, eyes and all!

not much meat, but was very nice all the same

few things i forgot

been doing a bit of a quiet american (by graham greene) tour - dunno if anyone has read it, but we thought we'd pay hommage and take cocktails on the roof of the Majestic hotel!! it was lovely, so we also went for a gin sling in the continental today - we splashed out and paid 2 quid each for a drink

we where ment to be on a cu chi tunnel trip today, but we totally overslept and missed it (after the 37 beers last night) - and amazingly the guy is letting us go tomorrow and did not charge us again, so nice of him!

and (boys and toys) we should get the chance to shoot an AK47 tomorrow! nuts, apparently its a dollar a bullet, so im hoping its not set to automatic cos that'll be money gone, and i'll be home next week

then we off to delat the day after that, and aying goodbye to saigon which is a damn shame cos i very much like this place :-(

very very cheap

it is possible to live on bugger all here, but u sometimes get end up spending more in the western places and tourist traps - its hard to avoid

but we stumbled on a gem last night called Bach dang in an area called cholon, (address 14 15 hai thuong lan ong) - the beers where 6 pence and ni9ce draft ones too

we had 6 dishes of food and 37 beers (between 4 of us) and the bill was 7 quid - amazing or what!!!

rent boys

well, not sure they are - but there is this wierd thing here were these young guys ride around on push bikes shaking little marakas and not saying anything - someone suggested they where gay massages so with my well lubriacted toungue i decided to go and ask one - a quick rub on my shoulder and a wink confirmed the truth!!

its nuts though, there loads of em, in fact one has just ridden by now

how, over the years, does riding a bike and shaking marakas mean u are giving massages??? its brilliant!

and no, i didn;t in case u are thinking that :-)

happy new year

hello there, pretty wrecked on 1st jan, didn't get to bed till 8 am this morn, then watched 'born on 4th july' and both me and juz cried the whole way through - think we may have been a bit hungover -

just met becky and chris for a few beers and am well lubricted at the mo -

hope you all had a great NYE - makes it all worthwhile if a single person reads this

see yer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!