Recently it was National Nostalgia Week, and to keep the nostalgia going here’s a photo review of an event that marked the end of an era in North Wales, the closing of the Tiv as a rock venue and leaving north east Wales with no rock clubs at all.

The Last Ever Rock Night at The Tiv!!!!
[Saturday 29th May 1999]

Saturday Night at the Tiv, was the ONLY Rock event in the North East of Wales. But thanks to a new manager who believes Rock is dead, and that STEPS is the be-all and end-all of music, The Saturday Rock Night was replaced with the “Trendy-We-Love-Steps” Night. To mark the end of an era, that had spanned decades, The Tiv had a goodbye to rock party, where all the Rock-Regulars said goodbye with the style only Rockers and Goths can achieve……

I “Pendragon” and Andrew “Ax” decide to go say goodbye to the Tiv’s Rock Night with style. And since this was also the first time we had been out drinking together (and we had known each other for over 4 years) A lot of Alcohol was drunk.. A lot of Moshing was done.. And A lot of Flirting with rock-chicks was done..

I don’t know why the photo shows our hands covered with a strange blood red liquid, and it is a coincidence that the following night we were 100’s of miles away in another part of Wales..

PS: The Doctors say the new manager will be able to walk again soon….

After asking a few discrete questions, Well as discrete as only a drunk bloke can be. Ax discovers Gill is single. And in a drunken moment of inspiration decides to kidnap her, and give her to Me as a present!!

Damn nice of him, don’t you think… And I didn’t get him anything…….

I am totally unaware of Ax’s kidnapping of Gill, or Koopers paralysing shock… Like a kitten with a piece of string I am distracted, but in my case its by Vodka….

I did consider claiming I was drinking coke.. But after a quick survey of my friends opinions, I was shocked to discover that no one would believe me if I said I was Tea-Total…

Listening to my Friends you would swear I was an Alcoholic!!!!

Kooper recovers from his shock, and starts to plan my death..

Just after this look to kill!! over a dozen unlucky people that were in his line of sight fell down dead…..

He still hasn’t forgiven me…

I’m safe… Kooper gets distracted as he is pulled by Dave.

Don’t they make a lovely looking couple??

PS: Is it just me, or does Dave look like a character from the Muppets or some such program, I just cant place which character……

I was talking to a friend recently, and for some reason I can not recall the conversation drifted to pulling, Helping friends pull, and things you can do. It was one of them weird conversations that just seem to jump from tangent to tangent with not visible pattern.

During this part of the conversation I pointed out that I’d never been any good at being a WingMan. In my mind, I see great ways to help the guy get the person he wants, there’s just some cosmic force that always takes my great plans and twists them slightly so they are doomed to fail. To prove my point I gave the following story as an example, and I’ve decided to share it with you dear reader.

I leaned against the wall enjoying the loud music that was blasting out from the several walls of speakers set about the room. I had a cold beer in my hand, and there was nothing I needed to be doing for a while, so I could take a minute to just enjoy the moment and the beer. An elbow banging into my side interrupted my contemplation of the girl dancing in front of me.  “WOW!” a voice said in time with the elbow. I looked at the guy standing next to me as he pointed across the dance floor to a rather cute goth girl dancing on her own on the opposite side to us. “WOW!” he said again, “Have you ever seen someone so awesome?”

I should really set the scene. It helps with the general idea of what happened, and how it all came about if I explain a few things first. I also think that the possibly high alcohol content in my blood may help my defence. “Well it can’t hurt right?”

University exam season had just finished, and some friends of mine from Aberystwyth Uni were throwing a “end of exams, plus Triple Birthday Party!” Party. My last exam had been early that morning, and I’d shot straight from the exam down to Aberystwyth to help set up the room ready for the party.  We had got the use of a pub’s basement area for the night, It was a large room, with a dance floor, seating area, and chill out area. It was perfect for a student party.

I’d had a couple of cold beers with the DJ, as we set up his equipment, the speakers, and tested it all out. Its thirsty work you know, lugging about all that equipment, running out cables, getting it all set up just right. My main role of the evening was to be door man checking tickets at the start of the evening, then a bit of DJing to give the main DJ a break. (Beer Count: 2 pints during setup)

One of my friends, who was also one of the three people celebrating their birthday at the party had her sixteen year old brother up visiting for the party. It was his first time at such a party, since they came from a small welsh village, and as he’d met me a few times while I’d been visiting his sister, he was spending the evening hanging out with me. This was handy since he was too young to get served, I was getting him a drink in my round, then going to bar with his money for his round. (Beer Count: 5 or 6 pints). A couple of hours into the party, one of the other “Birthday People” and myself decided the ration of “hot girls” to everyone else was a bit on the low side and something needed doing about it. That something was a quick pub crawl around Aberystwyth handing out tickets to every cute, or interesting person we met on the way. (Beer Count: Well and truly unknown) . I’d not long got back to the party, got a round in and was enjoying my drink when my friends brother spotted the to quote “girl of his dreams“.

“She does look interesting. You want to meet her?” I grabbed his shoulder and dragged him with me across the dance floor, ignoring his mumbled objections and the rising tone of panic in his voice. She stopped dancing as I came to a stop in front of her, I introduced myself, my tongue tied companion, and asked her name. Introductions been done, I mentally took a step back and let him make his move. I waited, and waited, and slowly realised I may have to do more work in my self appointed role of WingMan!

‘ok, this is not going well’ I thought, and asked “Drinks?”. “err yes, err its my round I think, errr do you want a drink?” he nervously asked her, ‘YES!’ I shouted in my mind, ‘its a start, he’s offering her a drink’. I quickly asked what everyone wanted, and wandered off to the bar slowly to give them a chance to talk… When I returned with the drinks, they were just standing there not speaking ‘Rats! I need to do something’.

The something I decided to do was to relocate the three of us to some comfortable seats to the side of the dance floor where it was quieter and easier to talk. ‘WOW, that’s a brilliant idea’ I thought to myself in response to the suggestion my mind had just given me to help break the ice. “Hold my drink for a minute will you?” I asked her, “I’ll be right back”. I looked about for the guy I’d done the pub craw with, and wandered over to him. “Hi Dave, You got that purity test on you?”

While we had been on our pub crawl handing out tickets, we had made a side stop at a computer lab and printed out a couple of copies of the 500Q purity test for fun and games at the party. Now my mind’s suggestion had been to grab a copy of the test, and convince the girl to sit it. This should give information of how easy she was, what she had done, what she was willing to do, and create many openings for flirting. “What could go wrong?” What indeed.

A short while later, and she’s sat in between us sitting the test. She is not hiding her answers so its easy to see what she has done, not done, and willing to do. ‘USE IT AS AN OPENING’ I’m shouting in my mind to the lad on the other side of her, ‘YOU ARE MISSING A GOLDEN OPPORTUNITY!!! DO SOMETHING’. I sigh, this is not working, so I try coughing and pointing to her results, I try miming what he should say to her.”So you never done that?” I ask, “Really? never”. I wiggle my eyebrows at him, and point at her with my eyes for him to offer to rectify the situation. ‘SIGH’.

A short time later as she was nearing the final few questions, I grew desperate. His window of opportunity was closing, and getting smaller and smaller. I had to act, and act fast. I leaned across the girl sliding under her arms so I could still see the paper she was using to mark her scores. With my head resting in her lap, I looked up at my friends brother, “You idiot. She’s almost finished and you’re missing your chance” He just growled at me, ‘Humm maybe he didn’t understand me, I’ll try again’ “Look, she’s just marked she’s never done that, its a perfect time to ask her about it, you could even offer to help her rectify the situation” He growled more. “Come one, the point of the purity test is to laugh at those with the highest score, and see how easy people are for the end of the night.” He looked at me with hate in his eyes. “Shit, you really never done that but want to?” I asked her in shock at her latest answer. She just patted me on the head. He muttered and looked away.

It was at that point I decided the situation was not going to get better with any amount of help, so I stopped helping. We laughed and joked about the test, and the questions for a bit. All the while with my friends brother just sulking, then I was called away to cover the music for a while, leaving them alone.  As I was playing some music, I spotted they were just sitting there not talking, then after a while she got up and walked off to dance. And that was the end of that.

Personally I think I created an unbelievable amount of once in a lifetime openings for the lad. But maybe I was wrong, and its truly just another example of my inability to play the role of the WingMan.

This weekend I had a meeting with a representative of a local troupe of Belly Dancers (OI! get your mind out the gutter, I was not booking them for a private showing!) I was there in the guise of a possible “consultant“.

Now I can imagine lots of good consultant roles in relationship to belly dancing, for example :- Checking things shimmy as they are supposed to, Making sure the costumes do not cover too much up, and a load of other sexist stuff I could come up with but will resist, (Which considering the consultant request is a wise choice).

The consultant role they wanted from me was that of “Escrima Instructor.” Yes teaching them Filipino Martial Art Stick Fighting. This was not due to my first thought of keeping the viewers back, or dealing with any amorous fans.  NO! they are considering incorporating it into their dance routine.  Apparently there is a school of belly dance that uses sticks as part of the show, and these girls decided if they were going to do that then they should do it somewhat special.

So as a conscientious kind of instructor, If I agree to teach these girls escrima then i really need to know roughly what kind of styles they need to learn. So I believe some research is needed. For this reason I may be slow replying to people for the next week or so as I force myself to watch hours of videos of scantily clad women shimmy and dance. Its a hard life but someone has to do it!

I visited the Bristol Bierkeller at the weekend.

It is an Interesting club, it reminds me of a cross between Edwards No 8 (Birmingham) and the kings (Wrexham).

It was a good night, well they served a passable snakebite & black, and you got a free shot with every pint. The music was acceptable, the crowd varied, and lacking in the chav element (always a bonus).

Ok, there was one downside to the night, a two mile hike back at 3:30am in the frost and ice, after leaving the warmth of the club.

But there is a theory of the “pleasure/pain syndrome”.