Meanderings of a Monkey Juggler

Just spent a lovely evening with Ruth and John.  These are the people who came to Bulgaria with us.  I nicked loads of the photos they took on their trip and a selection are now on my Care2 page  Click on the "My Photos" link to the left somewhere if you'd like a look.

Have fun.

...with a Chinese Gun!"

Welcome back to all and sundry. 

I've been on another jaunt to Bg with K and there's stuff to be told.

In the first day or so we were supposed to meet up with Paula and Pete (visiting her house).  After numerous calls and SMSs we didn't hear anything so assumed they were ignoring us.

So instead of meeting them we went out with some friends for a slap up meal.  As we entered the restaurant I saw a couple of familar looking people and thought; "Hmm they remind me of Pete and Paula".  I mentioned this to K and she went to have a look.  Turns out 'twas indeed P&P.  They'd had a delayed flight and no sleep.  Thus when setting out to Turnovo they'd been all a twitter and left their phones in their hotel by the sea.  Hence no contact.

So a nice meal was had and the following day I went with them to have a look at P and ma's place. Very nice - need pics tho'.

The following week was me and K's first ever go at running our Bg business idea.  A colleague and her husband and 4 year old were due to spend a week at our house and being escorted around the region.

Problem 1: Our house isn't ready.  The electrics are not done and there are no working showers or kitchen wotsits.  Oh and no furniture.  Thankfully they were happy to spend their nights either at the flat or K's mum's place.

Problem 2: No car.  Actually there is a car but it's a 27 year old, gas-powered Lada which has problems of reliability.  So we got them to agree to paying for a hire-car and we'd pay the petrol.  Fair deal I reckon.  Sadly everywhere in VT that laid claim to being a "Car Rental" company had no cars to rent - at all.  One place - and this tells you so much of the Bg service ethic - sort of shrugged and told us that they had no cars.  Well actually they might have one 15 year old car but they couldn't say whether it would be available or not.  Handy.  The problem was eventually sorted by one of K's pals who knows everybody in town and he pulled some strings to get us a 10 year old Astra.

So we managed the basics and headed off to pick them up.  They were arriving early one morning so we were to stay at one of K's friends places in Sofia overnight.  This avoided me having to drive across country over-night.  (not a pleasant prospect in Bg).  The flat was pretty poo as well (that was supposed to say "poor" but I think I prefer the typo). Before showering I was told "Don't worry about the cockroaches; they won't kill you."!!!!??!  A hurried stab at a shower wouldn't have worked properly anyway as the flow was so poor as to render it nonsensical to call it a shower.  More a dribble.

The guests arrived on time and we started their week's holiday.

Spent the week looking at local sites and eating in cool restaurants. 

The title of this post is a direct quote from their son when he was waiting in the police station.  Katya gave him one of Yosko's old toy guns which turned out to be made in China.

The guests apparently had a wonderful time; least ways they said so and I doubt they were lying to spare our feelings.

What did we learn?  If we can get advertised well enough then we know that there is enough to do and see for potential guests.  Our plan will work!

I drove them back to Sofia over-night despite my reservations.  It turned out that there was one hell of a storm to the west and we were driving straight to it.  Eeek.  That wasn't a fun ride.  Impressive though.

House stuff done afterwards and now I'm home again.  Back to work tomorrow.  Sigh.

And I checked my mail today.  "Genius" starts in Sept and my show will be on Radio 4 on October 5th at 6.30pm.  Turns out that's a Thursday.  They are cutting only 1 idea from each show so my chances of being on are better than I thought but I still don't know which idea will be cut. Fingers crossed.

Have fun.

PS  Many thanks for the extremely excellent search terms that are leading here.

Back from another juggling event; this time the Crawley Car Park Convention (As Clur would of it).

I got myself a lift down to the site with Phil and Camille (who pretty much slept the whole way).  And what a journey!  It took hours and we averaged 66kph (about 40mph) and it's a long way. 

And into the car park.  Yes a car park.  I have a tent.  I want to put my tent up.  It's a car park.

All available grassy knolls had been taken already.  There were some spots near the tents but these would be too noisy.  I ended up on an "island" with a lamp-post in the middle of it.  There wasn't enough room for my tent but it stayed up well enough to keep me dry overnight.

D phoned me up to ask "Where are you?" at the exact moment Phil switched his engine off in the car park as we arrived.  Now that's what I call timing.

Had a wander to chat to the regulars and then went to sit on the stairs and natter with whomever.  A longish chat with Carla ensued where she kept showing off her "talents" which she really shouldn't do.  But when you saw her face lit up on other folks' discomfort you can see why she still keeps doing it.  Stop it!  It's really not good.

Later on a few of us (inc Barnsey) went off for a meal down the Harvester.  Excellent food and waitress (who sadly wouldn't join us).

And back for the show:  What a show.

Normally I'd list the artistes and what I thought.  There wasn't a list that I found of everyone who was on in order and the comperes didn't introduce anyone so it's a bit difficult.  More about the comperes later.

• Chinese pole woman - Good act and some "gnarly skillz" but perhaps a little too long.
• Zack - winner of the "Perform at Crawley" prize at BYJOTY.  He was excellent and, apart from some visible lack of performing experience, was right at home on the stage.
• Trapeze girl with big hair - nice idea but very long and usually over-played any of the gags worth doing; always over-played the gags that weren't worth doing.
• Woman juggling - Nice 3 club stuff but a few too many drops.  I liked her movement though.
• Acrobatic troupe - very good skills and beautifully choreographed - probably my fave act of the night.  Anyone know who they were?  A shame they didn't do more in the second half.
• 2 person static trapeze type thing - very good routine although too much characterising going on and getting in the way.  This was a case of less is more.  For instance - there was a gert 'uge feather boa hanging off the thing wot they dangled off.  They were doing some nice links between moves up on the thing and this bloody boa just got in the way (visually).  Chuck it off and show us some decent contrast!  You were good enough to not need the amateur dramatics of the comperes as an adjunct to your act.  Oh and the best finish to an act I've seen in quite a while.
• Maksim Komaro - Finnish juggling legend. Excellent routine.  I heard a few people not being impressed but it was the best ball routine I've seen for a while.  I liked it and not only because he reminds me of Bernard Black.
• 2 dancers/strippers/clothes poi people - seen before t BJC (and apparently at EJC).  Nice music and characters but nothing too special.
• Luke Wilson - very nice clubs job.  Excellent choreography again and timed to perfection with the music.

And onto the comperes.  I don't think I'd go quite so far as calling for their heads or banning them from any shows ever again, BUT.... 

Here's the compere's rule book:

1. Tell us who's on next and "give it up for....[insert previous act here]" - NOT don't tell us.
2. Let us know when the next act is starting at least (so we know when to clap) - NOT just wandering on and off aimlessly and leaving chasms of silence.
3. Keep the energy of the show by being good and cracking on with it - NOT kill the atmos stone dead every time you come on stage to waste everyone's time.
4. In a family show do things that are family friendly - NOT get your knob out.
5. A joke is good enough to do once, possibly twice if you're Steve Rawlings. A non-joke is not good enough to do at all - NOT do a non-joke 3 times, for 5 minutes a time.

I know I like it when people break rules but some rules are there for a reason.  In much the same way as a "make your own" pizza is rarely as nice as a tried and tested recipe; you shouldn't monkey around with the compere's job too much.

The reason I've got a bee in my bonnet about this is that I don't like not liking people on stage.  I want to see people do well and have a good time - it means I get a good time too.  But this was embarrassing and I'm British, I do embarrassment but don't like it in public.

Anyway after the show it was a long chat in the bar until we got kicked out.  Wandered around a bit 'til bed time.  Oh and I did a good deed by giving some random strangers a pound for the coffee machine.

Sunday morning dawned miserable and rainy.  Got up to find breakfast and realised that I now had no money for food after giving that pound away.  Bugger.

People slowly got up and came to chat.  Did some juggling and left early.  Didn't get to say "bye" to many I wanted to but couldn't find everyone as we disappeared.  Anyway "Bye" to everyone I didn't get to say it to.  Better late than never.

Home to bed.  Oh no.  K tells me Paula's coming round.  Long chat about Bg and photos of her mum's place in Bg - very nice.  And eventually to bed.

I'm away from tomorrow - In Bg of course so I'll be quiet (or silent) 'til I'm back (31st).

Have fun.

A weekend is a long time in Me and K's current life together.  We actually had a whole weekend together this weekend. So we went to London. 

We could of gone a day earlier if her bloody co-worker had told her he wasn't going to a meeting on Friday night.  But K went and he failed to show so no meeting and one night less in London for us 2.  Git.

We went on Saturday on the bus as it was £50 cheaper for the 2 of us than the train would of been.  It took a long time though, not helped by the closure of the M1 for some reason.  Thankfully the driver let us off at Marble Arch instead of making us go all the way to Victoria.

After we got to our hotel (Americana - nice but nothing special but cheap, at least on-line booking was) we went on our first walk of the weekend.  We were about a mile north of Oxford Street to start with and we walked through Hyde Park, Kensington Gardens down to the Albert Hall.  Then into town and down to Westminster tube and then all the way back.  It was one hell of a long way in sandals that don't quite fit right.  Lovely evening and lots to see and eat.

Sunday we went to the Zoo hence the title of this entry.  That was an American woman trying to engender some enthusiasm from her deepy cynical teen son.  K wanted to take home a Lion faced Golden Tamarin but I said they'd probably not let her really and she cried (well nearly).  From there we walked along Regents Canal to Camden and ate lovely food and sat and watched the world (always interesting at Camden).  I popped into Oddballs and bought myself a juggling DVD too.  This is one for us all to watch together.  It's the "Best of" the BJCs 1996-1998.  So far I've watched a bit of the first one and seen young Jamie Fletcher, young Rob Firey and a younger Devilstick Peat among others.  My first 2 BJCs were 97 and 98 so I'm hoping to see some familiar faces on them.

Home to Leicester late yesterday so knackered now at work.  Sigh.  Must keep working.

Have fun.

I had Friday off last week so went away with K for a bit.  Hired a car from somewhere I'd decided not to use again but the other one has closed and this one is nearby.  We got a shitty Fiesta that needed scrapping rather than using.  "We're trying to sell it." they said.  "How much?" I said.  "2000" was the response.  Pffrpp!  I exclaimed.  No chance of that.  The bumper was broken, the internal light was bust, the rear door didn't close properly so rattled disturbingly going over any bumps, the engine sounded like it was about to wind down any time soon and the list goes on.

Anyway it got us to Buxton on Thursday night.  If you've never been then I'd recommend it to all.  It's a lovely place although the hotels are a tad expensive.  We spent a long time walking around the centre and the parks.  Saw a large family of geese complete with proud dad strutting his stuff  "See these: I did that!"

On Friday we drove around the peaks for a bit and then across to North Lincs to eventually visit my folks.  We stopped in a place called Brigg "A Historic Market Town".  It's dead though.  Hardly anything more than charity shops and boarded up places.  It is the site of the only combine harvester shop I've ever seen though.

So to the parents'.  My bro and his family were due but we were there earlier than them so we had food and chatted until time for bed.  Just at that point Bro and folks turn up.  So some quick putting kids to bed ensued and then we sat and chatted with them for a bit. 

On Saturday K slept while the rest of us had breakfast.  Parents and kids went to play in the park and Bro and his missus went into town on their own.  Me and K had a lovely walk and then met kids in the park.  Back home to sleep a bit and missed them all heading out to see a display at the local arts centre.  Apparently it was all about automata and was very good.  Annoyed I missed that.  So it's now late Saturday and K has not seen Bro and Kirsten yet (really).  So we had a nice dinner then we left to come back to Leics. 

Sunday was gardening day.  We cleaned up the back and had a nice afternoon crashed out in the yard.  Then K went to work and I headed to cause Pee some pain for a bit then home to bed.

Bryan has offered us his car (once it's been mended) so we might soon be carred again. 

Sad to say that this weekend was the longest I've spent with K since our holiday (although as you read that was busy to the extent that not much "us" time was available).  And she's buggering off again this week.  Back to Bg for 2 weeks.  My mates are all buggering off to Ireland too.  So I'm either going to be very depressed for a fortnight or the house will be cleaned to within an inch of its life.  Probably the former though.

Have fun.

Just finished editing the photos my mum took when they came to visit me and K in Bg.  They're in the "My Photos" bit now.

Have fun.

An awfully long time away from the site.  Why?  Stuck in Bulgaria away from net access; that's why.

A generally stressful trip about sorting out our house and then looking after my folks on their first trip there.

People

• Nikolai and Zoya : lovely people who picked us up at the airport despite it being 1.30am.  Best news of the trip too; she's well up the duff.
• Police : Mental levels of road blocks stopping all and sundry from driving between towns.
• Tzetzko and Katya : Still lovely and he's looking more hippy like than ever.
• Maiko : I knew she occasionally got a bit stressed but the way she nearly burst a corpuscle just because my folks were coming was not nice to see.
• K : Nearly went as mental as her mum.  Worryingly poor at communicating at all through most of the trip.  Really don't know why. 
• Denchu and Ivanka : The previous owners of our house.  We really did manage to give her 2 days of extreme hypertension and him a mini-stroke.  The dark side is strong in this one!
• My parents : Seemed to enjoy their holiday.  I think they were surprised by some of it; non-plussed by others and fed-up with all the waiting around we had to do.  Turns out my dad doesn't eat cucumber - a mild inconvenience it's true as the staple diet of the bulgs is cucumber.
• Totevi : useless tosspots the lot of 'em.

Weather

• The weather was astonishing.  Mainly extremely hot (well into the 30's), 2 days of ridiculous rain; one session of huge hailstones and lightning above the Tsaravets light show.  K got burned!

House

• What a mess!  Needs an awful lot of work.  Needs furniture.  Needs the previous lot to actually shift their crap.
• Previous lot were nice and "whitewashed the walls for you" and managed to get it on everything else that really didn't need whitewashing.  Messy!
• K spent the trip trying to get someone to help out or do the whole thing for us.  Managed to get one person's number but he then managed to avoid answering his phone; then didn't respond to messages and then switched his phone off.  So how exactly are we going to get this house ready for guests in August?

Animals

• Dogs are happy and I like them a lot.  Aaahh.
• Cats are cats.  Still trying to sneak in the house and one went mental when trapped in the house with me and realised he was in awful trouble.
• Snake, snake ooohhhhh a snake!  I saw my first real life wild snake. And not just a dinky one neither.  This fellow was about a metre long.  It was also not out in the wilds but in K's mum's garden.

Places

• Dryanovo is still lovely.
• Tsaravets is still impressive.
• Tarnovo is still a nice place to visit.
• Hotel Yantra had a Jeckyll and Hyde persona.  We went in the first week and had a lovely time with ace food and a stunning view.  The next week we went with my parents and we had a good view of the citadel but as the night wore on (and it was hot) they opened the bloody windows.  Cue vast swarms of flies, midges and mozzies around us and in the food and our hair.  My mother has never been so emphatic in her life when she said "Never bring me here again!"

Food

• Lots of restaurants. An oddity noticed before but really obvious on this trip is that all the restaurants are exactly the same.  Well not exactly but their menus are.  Imagine every restaurant and caff in the UK doing the same menu.  How would you choose which is the one for you?  I don't know.
• We did try a different place that was officially a chinese restaurant but they didn't really want to serve us.
• Still no Indian places.  Boo.
• Still no western crap fast food - yay!

Travel

• Chavs on the plane.  Travel is clearly too cheap at the moment.
• K driving, yes driving.  An experience to be sure but not one I'll impose on possible future guests quite yet.  Did manage to hit the gates of the drive when trying to reverse out.
• Lots of driving done in ancient Lada and hired car (a well knackered Vectra - but still plenty better than the Lada).
• Lada died on main road.  Cue lots of K blaming me for "not knowing how the car works". I blamed a knackered 27 year old Lada that hadn't been driven for 2 years.  After rescuing the car the mechanic said that the fuel pump had died.  After replacement it worked fine.  I thank you!  Perhaps a dead fuel pump is a symptom of not "knowing how the car works".  But probably not.

Oddments

• One day I was woken up by an all mighty rumpus outside.  Opened the window to see a startled cow running up and down the drive.  K's mum eventually got a chain round its neck but this only led to the spectacle of Maiko "water skiing" behind a cow.
• Had an eye test and turns out that my eyesight is exactly the same as it was 10 years ago.  New pair of glasses ordered that will be quite nice for driving with.  (How middle aged do I sound?)
• Party for 6 that ended up with 11 guests.  Cue more frantic doings by Maiko and K going mental over preps.  My folks did get to hear Tzetzko and Sashu doing their music thang though.  That was fun.

Oh there was probably more but that'll do.

Have fun.

Food was ate last night.  Stacks of it.  Terracotta is the place - a lovely all you can eat Chinese place.  Colleagues were all invited but they couldn't make it.  So that meant the only properly sensible person there (besides K) was Steve (sadly minus Albena this time).

Me and K walked down there via the PB's place where I was gifted 2 lovely presents (many many thanks for Animal Crossing you 2 - I need a good town name to use before the end of today!).  Incidentally the love of my life and my betrothed singularly failed on 2 counts yesterday.  First no prezzy and then even no card!  Honestly!  Disgraceful.

So to the restaurant.  Phil and Camille wound up late (odd for a german) but the banter was good throughout and I think everyone had some measure of a good time.  I certainly did.

Many thanks to all for the lovely time and to K for paying for my dinner (doesn't negate the lack of prezzy tho').

Off to Bg tomorrow for 2 weeks so I'll be quiet for a bit.  I may get some time in the hol to come and post something but I woudln't expect it if I were you.

Have fun.

BJC - Day 4

Up early again and off to be around the site to see wassarp.

Some juggling with Bear; nicely managed a few 7 club things between us and had a sound go at 8.  No prizes for neatness though.

More nattering with people and that was about it.  A couple of people asked me for further info re some pains they'd mentioned earlier in the weekend but nothing new was forthcoming.

While I'm on the subject there have been 1 or 2 mentions of aches and pains (on rec.juggling) during the event by the odd person but none of those complaining bothered to come and contact me. Fools!  I'm free if you're skint and yours for a pasty if you're not.  Ask me questions, that's half of why I'm there; and my details were in the book you got given when you arrived!  Honestly.

Anyway we packed up and headed off.  Met up with The PB's and John and Lizzah just past Bristol for a few mo's then we're back here in Leicester in nary a blink of a lamb's tail.

K's broken the computer again (every time I go away!).  I'm ill again (tonsillitis) to the extent that they sent me home on Monday morning.  Back at work tomorrow.

So overall then how did it go?  Swimmingly.  The organisers did an excellent job despite putting the event in as near an inaccessible part of Britain as they could (for the 2nd year in a row).  My biggest gripe was that the event wasn't long enough; so it can't have been bad.  Really looking forward to next year now.  Sadly there'll be no more camping con's for me this year as I'm now completely out of holiday from work.

People:  I met and "experienced" loads of people this weekend.  Some of them stood out for just being nice people, others were talented and a few had both sides to them.  Here's a few that stood out to me-

• Matt Hall - Talented performer and seemed a genuinely lovely bloke.  Didn't introduce myself to him as I'm not a glory chaser (unlike a few people I could mention) but I'd guess that he'd be the sort of guy who's extraordinarily generous (possibly to a fault).
• Aaron Gregg - Similarly an extremely likeable guy.  Funny on stage and (apparently) off in equal measure.
• Luke Burrage - Ego on legs?  Or selfless organiser?  You can decide but he impressed me spectacularly with his organising and handling of BYJOTY - cheers for that.
• Hayley - Organiser of the event and winner of many sleepless nights.  Obviously knackered but still cheery enough to get stuff sorted as it came up.
• Jevan - Mr "20p" - loads of comments have been made by people getting grumpy with him for his dogged persistence in getting that next "20p".  I don't see it like that at all.  He was demonstrating the spirit of sheer determination and youthful hope.  Sadly this doesn't seem to have vanquished the spirit of curmudgeonliness and experienced cynicysm.  A shame and I liked him so there.
• Claudia and her partner - a couple of very nice Italians experiencing their first BJC.  Lovely to meet and to natter with.
• Carla - for being such a sport despite your problems.
• Anwen, Lucy and Ewan - for feeding me well; you lovely people.

As you can probably tell I had a great time and am sad to be here rather than still having fun there.

Cheers to all.

Have fun.

BJC Day 3

How to follow yesterday?

Well with better sleep certainly.  I actually got some at last.  Throat still painful.

Started the day with another 3 hours of physio work.  More interesting folk and strange and common problems.  After yesterday's pasty my rewards today included cake and ice-cream.

After 1 I saw the Circomedia show.  Some was good but suffers from too much over-acting.  The juggling bloke was very very good as were one or two of the aerial performers and the acro person.  D put it best when he commented that it was too early to sit through the full-on circus atmos.  Some of the kiddy heckles were good.  "It takes a lot of practice" and "Are you scared?" stand out as good examples.

Then to bed for a touch more sleep.

I was woken up by D nattering to someone.  I expected it to be a unicyclist he'd met on his ride out that afternoon.  Not quite.  Turns out P, C and L had come down to congratulate John.  So more people to play with.  Yay!

The main show was on later so after some very nice fish 'n' chips we got on an extremely old bus for the long trip to Redruth for the public show.  The bus struggled really quite badly and we got to Redruth just as the bus broke.  Then we found that the show was delayed by various rumoured times ranging from 60 to 90 minutes.  So for food.  Nasty place with poor service.  Clare ordered potato skins with bacon and cheese.  "Ok that's one skins with cheese and bacon."  Oh you should have seen her grumble at this "It says bacon and cheese in the menu!".  Cue autistic behaviour.

The show started pretty much as we arrived despite plenty of folks being still in various pubs and caffs in the town as they'd been told the delay was longer than it really was.

The show:

• Matt Hall - Compere.  Lots of Japanese anecdotes, the most memorable being the "Scissor, paper, stone" variant which added "Look over there".  Ewan came up to compete and won. 
• Freehand Jugglers - Aerotech display.  Nice juggling and I liked the screen thing they had going.
• Jon Udry - Much better act than the last time I saw him.  Liked this one a lot.
• Apex Acro - as seen at Chocfest.  Good to see a skillful act doing well.  I like that this is so different from the other stuff on.
• Moon Balloon - Odd thing involving juggling in a balloon.  Not impressed by the act but impressed by the inventiveness of it.
• Luke and Pola - as NAJC2.  Very droppy though.  A shame 'cos I like this routine.
• Aaron Gregg - funny but very droppy. Beautifully parodied later in Renegade.
• Marco Pauletti - 5 ball stuff with globalls.  Good stuff but I wasn't as impressed as others clearly were.
• German bloke doing devilstick - not fussed with devilstick but the mime stuff at the beginning was excellent.
• Beyond the Bounce - very nice and inventive ball bouncing routine - loved it.
• Niels Dunker - Technical juggly stuff - nice.
• Ryo Yabe - star turn.  Extremely proficient diabolo stuff.  Amazing!

An excellent show with variety, humour and skill.  Just a shame it was 40 miles from the convention and that the theatre (cinema) wasn't big enough to hold all the convention goers in one sitting.

The bus trip back was storming.  My friends had all sodded off so I spent the trip with 2 lovely Italians I'd met in workshops and with the bloke that was always asking for "20p" if he showed you a trick.  Well anyway the bus was another double decker and there were balloon fights between the decks.  Someone would blow up a balloon and then "set it off" after climbing up or down the stairs.  After a while of this someone came up with the wheeze of putting a trip-wire across the stairs.  So a balloon was tied across the bottom and then more and more were added.  What was left resembled a mad spider's web.  Eventually those upstairs noticed this thing blocking their egress.  It all went quiet for a bit and then someone came down the stairs with a perfect balloon model spider to add the cherry on top.  All this was helped by the driver not really complaining despite being hit by a stray flying balloon.

Spent the next part of the evening watching the renegade show.  Some was appalling, some was good. Stands out were Matt Hall sings Tenacious D, The Reduced Public Show Co., Mini dribbling chilli vodka into Matt Hall's mouth from his own, shouting loudly at the person who complained that we were too loud.

After this I stayed up very late finally chatting with some old pals.  And so to bed.

Have fun.