Fore!

I forgot to mention in my last post about Stainforth that we took luncheon at the local cafe. Well, we actually took morning break in the cafe; McCoy and Jackson were too scared by the old battle-axe serving us to go back for Tiffin. They said she was speaking in a foreign language that they didn't understand, I told them it was normal South Yorkshire dialect and I had to stand in as translator. During this outreach program for the local community a gentleman approached us. He and his 'wife' had been sitting in the cafe drinking tea and as he was waiting for her to finish her ablutions our eyes met. He seized the chance to approach me with a stout business deal. The fellow had about his person a bag of golf clubs and asked if any of us would like to buy them. He offered no price but told us in great detail that he had just bought a new set and was wishing to rid himself of these old clubs. Curiously he told us they were not branded, although I pointed out both a Wilson and a Dunlop club to him. He quickly passed this by and proceeded to inform us that he'd recently had them re-shafted. On our refusal at such an attractive offer he told us that he and his 'wife' were heading 'down town' to offload them. He was hoping to get 'about fifteen quid' for them. I advised him to place them on EBay, an idea which was poo-pooed as too much faffing about. After he left, several aspects of the encounter played on my mind; Why would you be selling some golf clubs you have recently fixed up? Why didn't he identify at least two named brand clubs within the set? And more importantly he didn't look like a golfer, he looked more like a smack head. Just what was going on here? Were we being duped into buying stolen goods in order to give him a 'fix'? Would we have been propping up the seedy underside of Stainforth's heroin trade? In the end we wished him God Speed in his endeavour and said our farewells, he left us to our sausage sandwiches and cups of tea and I was left thinking I should have bought them and sold them on EBay...

'How much mate?'
'£15 or whatever you've got in your wallet...'

Herr Docktor Clay steered me towards this article on the BBC News website. As Clay rightly pointed out U2 made $109m last year, which is over three time MORE than the British Government gave in aid to Haiti. What has happened to that money? Has any gone to help the people suffering half way around the world, or has it just gone straight into U2's offshore accounts so the only people they are helping are themselves? Now, before you all start bleating about 'it's their money they can do what they want with it!' Yes that's true, it is their money and they can eat it, burn it or shove up their fucking collective arses for all I care. But it stinks of FUCKING HYPOCRISY when Boner is telling the rest of the world to give up our hard earned cash for charity. This money is going towards flying hats on first class seats to Italy, it goes towards impressing teenagers with a $12m yacht. What is worse is that the U2 fans stand by and support this bunch of wankers by buying more of their albums and paying to watch them prance about on stage like a bunch of Moldovan Bears on hot plates. Are you so fucking dumb? It boils down to this, if you like U2 then you are dumb and you're the kind of person that liked Avatar as well and that means you are a CUNT! A DUMB CUNT!

Ha ha, yeah I'm laughing at YOU, you DUMB FUCKING TOSSERS!!

Don't fence me in...

I had a day's work yesterday, it was through His Royal Highness Viscount McCoy. Together with his lordship I was working alongside Rear Admiral 'Action' Jackson. We were working in Stainforth, the arsehole of Doncaster which in itself is the arsehole of South Yorkshire. It's like the shit has no where else to drop except Stainforth. As an archaeologist I generally get to work in places that the rest of the world don't want to see and this site was no different. We arrived after battling the traffic to be greeted with a view not dissimilar to the latter stages of the Battle of Stalingrad:

Stainforth, a stain on the good name of South Yorkshire

At that point we had no site facilities, the boys had only been on site for the previous day and after inquiring about the welfare cabin I was directed to the site hut:

'Break time!'

Before getting down to work, Mike gave me a brief site tour or rather, a tour of what overlooked the site. It included the travelling circus storage lot, the dog track, the gypsy camp (whom we were warned about repeatedly through the day) and the two burned out houses in the distance. The site entrance was flanked by a betting shop and Bargain Booze. Who ever thought that perfect juxtaposition up has to be border line genius.

BYOB

I was on trench laying and fence erecting duty for the day but while we waited for the fence panels to arrive Richard began working the machine on the first trench. He was very mindful of missing the active sewer marked on the service map but it quickly became apparent that this would be no easy task of machining out a trench, cleaning it and recording it:

I need someone to get in to draw these sections...

As Rich contemplated the contaminated water pissing into the bottom of the trench, Mike and I set about laying out the rest of the trenches. We used the time honoured method of marking the trench ends with a house brick. This would lead to great confusion later for Rich as we were working on a site covered in house bricks. The fencing duly arrived and the guy driving the truck introduced himself to us as 'Mad Mick'. It quickly became apparent how he got his name when he demonstrated to us his patented way of getting the fence panels off the back of the truck:

'Mind your heads'

A proper site hut arrived and it was like nothing like I've ever seen on an archaeological site before. It has an electricity generator, a toilet and even heating! It was scoped at various times throughout the day by the passing gypsies, and far be it for me to cast dispersions on the Romany folk's impeccable nature, but I bet it won't be there when we return to the site... I then spent the rest of the day erecting fence panels and tightening bolts until we were finally finished an hour and a half late. Mind you, I still got to enjoy the local Flora and Fauna of Stainforth:

Rat au Van (a rat that's been run over by a van)

All in all a Cake and Arse Party of the highest degree...

I received my new Burzum Album today. Eleven years was far too long...

The Man Who Came In From The Cold

Now I'm back on track, I can tell you what I've been up to this week. The second biggest thing occurred on Wednesday, when I took Sheffield University Archaeology Society up onto a bleak moorland. I arrived ahead of the students and watched as Colin disgorged them from the minibus. He then did a quick about face and sped off into the distance wittering on about some lecture he was supposed to be giving. On a Wednesday? The only day that Sheffield University students don't have lectures? A likely story! He was most likely found staring at Plum Jam in a farm shop for the afternoon. I was on Broomhead Moor under the guise of teaching the students archaeological drawing, it turned into an exercise in separating the wheat from the chaff. Despite being told repeatedly that it would be FUCKING COLD, most of them turned up with only t-shirts and shorts on, along with plimsolls and no socks. I, however, was wrapped thermally in a Heater Body Suit. We filed up onto the moor and I gave brief instruction on how to draw Tumuli in an archaeologically suitable manner and set them about drawing their own burial mounds.

That's a pile of shit! Rub it out and start again!

After about two hours most of them were turning blue, so I took them on a walk about to warm up. We gazed at the prehistoric features of the moorland that Tim had pointed out to me the week previously and I bullshitted them about Bronze Age cemetery siting and intervisibility with the landscape. Thank God none of them knew anything about it, otherwise they would have caught me out... Then it began to snow.

Snowblind!

Up in the moors the snow settles pretty quickly and the poor lambs were having to wipe two inches of snow off their drawing boards every few minutes. An end was called to their suffering and we packed up. Using my expert tracking skills I led the party back to my car where we waited for Colin to return. And we waited. And we waited. Until eventually I had to leave as I was giving a lecture on the Great War in an hour and needed to prepare and feed myself. At that stage we'd already been waiting two hours for Colin, an hour longer than his agreed time of arrival. I hotfooted it to the pub and scampi and chips, this time with salad and no peas. This banquet fit for a King was followed by me delivering what can only be described as a powerhouse performance in front of a packed house. I gave a lecture on the Archaeology of the Great War and the adoration was such, I was carried from the room on the shoulders of the audience amid a standing ovation. Men and women alike were moved to tears from the emotionality of the circumstances. I got twenty quid as well.


But.... The best thing to have happened this week was the arrival of Midnight At The Pylon Cafe by Daniel Lee Salter. It is a compilation of Danny's Pylon Cafe website forum that several of us contributed to for six years (I'd link it, but it was closed down long ago). It's a trip down memory lane for those of us involved and a fascinating insight into the minds of dysfunctional Rotherhamites, scarred by years of unemployment and addled by hallucinogenic drug usage. A must for every bookshelf! I received my copy on Wednesday but couldn't pick it up until Thursday (when I was hoping to God Darren hadn't received his copy and would be harping on Facebook about how he was the first person to read it...). But, Heaven be Praised! Even this delay meant that I was the FIRST PERSON IN THE WORLD TO TOUCH AND READ THE BOOK, including Danny himself!

What you gon' do with all that junk?
All that junk inside that book?
I'ma get, get, get, get you drunk,
Get you love drunk off my book.

The other things that happened this week were I worked for Big Andy where he made me wait for him in a poly tunnel for TWO HOURS, while he fucked off to Skipton on a beano. And Lauren had her 'finishing the Barbican report' drinks. Yadda yadda yadda.

Planes, Tanks, Ships and Automobiles pt2

This is the second part of my weekend adventures 'darn sarf', get up to speed here in Part One.

After sleeping for half of the night on one arm to keep it warm, then waking to discover that the cold had temporarily frozen solid the other arm and having to turn over to reverse the process, I awoke to toast and tea provided by Frida. Not being British, she had no idea how a good British breakfast works and kept plying Justin and I with more rounds of toast than any human being could physically eat.

No wonder the heating doesn't work... The landlord had applied his own brand of wiring to the the place, If you tried to turn a light on downstairs the bathroom fan upstairs came on...

I declined the offer of a shower after Frida had told us no-one in the house had yet used the newly installed downstairs shower room in case they were electrocuted. Over breakfast we discussed what to do with the day in Southampton. I had a vague idea that the Mary Rose was located in the town, Justin expanded on this with the information that there was a historic dockyard which not only housed the Mary Rose, but also HMS Victory! Ideal, I thought, I can get some pictures of the cannons forged in Rotherham that I talked about in this previous POST. Whipping out his phone, Justin dialed up the Internet and found to our horror that HMS Victory was not visitable until April. Not only that but the Mary Rose exhibition was closed until 2012!

Closed until the Mayan Prophecies come true!

Justin calmed us by telling us about the Spinnaker Tower that he had been up when he was younger. This was our goal, we decided. We waddled out of the house (not forgetting to wipe our feet as we left...Ttch, Students!) and headed to the university to find out more information on one of the computer points. It turns out everyone of the above mentioned visitor attractions were not even in Southampton, but in Portsmouth instead. Boy, did we all feel like total douchebags? A quick scan of what was on offer in Southampton revealed a maritime museum, an Archaeology museum and an aviation museum. We took in the former and latter of these choices. Being archaeologists as our day jobs (when I'm working) Justin and I didn't want to spend our spare time looking at archaeology. The museums were good, but the best feature of the Aviation museum was the amount of signs telling you not to do this, or not to do that: No running, no stepping over the kerb, no sitting on the glass, no touching, no spitting, no dogging, no looking, no exit, no burning churches, no false God worship, no bananas, no fun, no large group gatherings, etc etc. I provide a few photos of these signs below:

Good God, is there anything we CAN do in this museum?

Mind you it wasn't that surprising as when we arrived the young attendant told us he couldn't change our twenty pound note rather brusquely. Justin then overheard the head curator berate the poor lad for about ten minutes on the etiquette of informing visitors about the lack of change in the till. I bet it was that bastard that insisted on the signage. The museum was good apart from that, literally packed to the gills with aeroplanes, including the R J Mitchell designed Supermarine S.6A which won the Sneider Trophy in 1929, but I'm sure you knew that already. After having a seat in the Sandringham Sea Plane and seeing a couple more signs we headed for chips and home.

This sign was behind a piece of glass, it said NO ENTRY. How the fuck would you even be able to enter anyway? What the fuck is going on here? This is Madness!!

Home James, and don't spare the horses!

Justin and I drove back to Steyning where Lucy had made a great dinner for us weary travellers. We were all absolutely shattered and I think Justin wanted to spend at least an hour alone with Lucy on Valentine's Day, so I hit the hay. I awoke the next morning said farewell to J and L and headed off to the M25 again, this time, East bound and towards Waltham Abbey, where Dr David Kenyon works as Curator of the Royal Gunpowder Mills. Danny Boy met up with us as well and David allowed us to indulge ourselves in his playroom; the exhibit he has been working on for the past months. Basically a room packed full of weapons. Danny and I were like kids in a sweetshop. We messed around for an hour with the Luger, Walther PPK, MP44, MP40, AK47, M1911, MG42, MG34, Webley, Mauser K98 amongst others. All the while taking photos to send to Justin as he sat at his desk slaving away at work.

Hande Hoch Mutterfucker!

I finally arrived home to be taken out for a curry buffet as my brother was home for the weekend. My third and final curry of a great weekend!

Planes, Tanks, Ships and Automobiles pt1

As it was Valentine's weekend I thought I would ruin someone else's, so I chose Justin and Lucy*. The lucky pair got me for the weekend as I wanted to go to Bovington Tank museum and their house was kind of on the way, near Brighton. Frida was also selected as an unwilling partner in the task of staring at tanks. She lives in Southampton, on a direct route to the Garden of Eden. I set off clutching my printed copy of Google Maps, it had informed me that the journey to Steyning (Justin and Lucy's town) would take exactly 3 hours and 48 minutes. That was not accounting for the fact that I hit the world's biggest car park, AKA the M25, at Friday night rush hour. It took me two hours to go the fifty miles around London for the M23 from the M1. Oh God, I've turned into one of those blokes that talks about roads and distances. It seems to come with driving. It's the next step from talking about the weather with people you don't know at a party. It's an indication you've reached adulthood when you begin planning routes over a glass of wine during a social event: 'Yes we came down the M21, got off at the B679 at Bermondsly and carried on along the M90865 all the way through Twatshire. It only took 9.67834.82 parsecs. But then there are those road works outside Cunton, which increased the journey by 0.875 Julian Years. But I tell you what, the weather's funny for this time of year, I heard they were having firestorms in Flangeby.'

I digress. Six hours after having set off I finally pulled up outside Jervis Cottages in Steyning. Justin was already half cut and had gnawed his arm off waiting for me to arrive so he could eat. The three of us (Justin, Lucy and I) piled down to the local Indian as quick as our little feet could carry us. Justin and I proceeded to drink our own body weights in BOOZE and we all hit the hay ready for the off the following morning.

Steyning never knew what hit it!

At the crack of sparrows the next morning Lucy stayed behind, the incredibly tempting offer of gawping at armoured killing machines couldn't pull her away from writing a lecture she is giving this week. Her loss. Undeterred and with the siren's call of TANKS in our ears Justin and I drove our hungover selves to Southampton. Having located Frida's digs we drove up and down her incredibly small laned road about eight times before we found a way to access her house. After a well needed cup of tea and a quick catch up the three intrepid Panzerjägers set off further West. We arrived at our Mecca, Bovington Tank Museum. I had been a few years ago, but since then there has been a massive multi million pound overhaul of the place. A lot of the exhibits had been moved into the new place and we spent about two hours walking around the other tanks wondering where the likes of the Panther, Little Willy, the DD Sherman and the FUCKING TIGER were.

WHERE'S THE FUCKING TIGER!!!

After leaning on and denting the Italian tanks, we realised there was a whole new hall to explore, the Story of the Tank. After brainwashing Frida into Tiger worship it was soon time to leave. We'd been dribbling over the Panzers for too long and the place was closing.

'Top five tanks, Frida?'

'Errr, Tiger, Tiger, Tiger, Tiger and erm.. Tiger!'

'Good girl.'

Frida had told us about a Mexican restaurant in Southampton that we were keen to try out. So we set off for the fifteen minute walk (according to Frida) to the place. About half an hour later we arrived only to be told it was a set menu for Valentine's. The vegetarian choice being buried under a mountain of cheese was no good for Justin's vegan ways. The Thai place over the road told us 'Couples only!' so the only choice was to trudge the ten minutes back up the road to another Thai place, again enforcing the couples only rule. Back down the road we walked until we came upon an Indian place that made us wait for half an hour for a table. As it was our only option at this stage we took it. Back in the house, Frida gave Justin and I the front room to sleep in. She said it gets cold, and by Christ, she wasn't wrong. I think Scott and his Antarctic explorers didn't have to put up with such freezing temperatures that Justin and I endured. At one point in the night Justin got up to go to the toilet, I didn't expect him coming back; sacrificing himself as Oates did. I was fully dressed in my sleeping bag but the sub-zero temperatures kept me awake most of the night.

Frida attempts to revive us with tea and toast...

OK, that's it for this part, there's more to come later when we go on a failed hunt for the Mary Rose and HMS Victory!

*I forgot it was Valentine's weekend and when I realised my mistake, I asked Justin a few days before setting off if they had any plans and he said they don't celebrate it. Lucy confirmed this when I arrived, but I bet there was a dozen red roses waiting for her when she got home on Monday night with a note from J saying 'sorry...'

The Aquariums of Pyongyang

I will return to Rotherham at another point, the previous five posts began, in my mind at least, as a illustrated trip to the job centre. It quickly spiralled out of control as theses things do and ended up being five post long. There is more to cover in Rotherham, but I'm going to go back and talk about what I've been up to in the intervening weeks before I get ahead of myself.

First of all I had a 'Back To Work' session at the Job Centre. Now, having worked almost continually for the better part of ten years in several different countries and for scores of different companies, I thought I knew how to land myself employment. Not true, according to the Job Centre. No, I needed to be told that there was employment advice on THE INTERNET! The Interwhat? What the fucking Hell is that? I've never heard of that before! Not only this, BUT you can find jobs in the FUCKING LOCAL PAPER! It even has a JOB SECTION! Holy fucking shit! I was overcome with this wealth of information. My brain couldn't compute the amount of knowledge that was being thrown at it. For an hour I was pounded with enlightenment on gateways to help me get back to work. I was beaten into submission by Job-Seekers wisdom. Dazed and confused I stumbled out of the upstairs office of the Job Centre clutching a printed list of today's latest jobs. It was only the timely intervention of Danny, Bennett and the pub that helped me to come down from such an unparalleled high.

Covert photograph of Rotherham Job Centre. You don't know pain until you step inside one of these places...

In reality these courses are designed by the Job Centre to stop people doing fiddle jobs, ie, signing on and working for cash in hand. It breaks up the working week for them and they lose money. I know how to get back to work. I just ring around the various archaeological companies for work. I know what a CV is and I keep mine updated every time I finish a job. I have been using the Internet as a gateway resource for work since 2001, back when it was all in black and white. I have a network of colleagues who keep me informed of potential work. I don't need to be patronised by Phil and Phil, both of whom were in our situations two years ago, until they got work at the Job Centre where they now condescend the great unwashed about how to get a job. I should have been teaching the fucking class.



Which brings me rather neatly to another adventure with Timmy Teacake which I had on Monday. I have been asked by Sheffield University Archaeology Society to give them an archaeological drawing class (seamless, fucking seamless segue there). I racked my brains for ages for a place this could take place, then I remembered Tim was bumbling his way through a PhD covering Prehistoric South Yorkshire. He'd been doing some work up on Broomhead Moor and knew of some Tumuli that could be drawn with ease. Early (well, early for me, anything before 11.30 is early for me these days.) on Monday I picked the lad up and we preceded with great haste into the wild. Tim actually wanted to finish off a walk over survey he'd done a few weeks before Christ's Mass so we tied to two things in. Previously he'd sent me a picture of a small bridge he'd recorded (he thought we could use it in the drawing class) and we paused at it and observed it. The conversation went like this, I shit you not.

Me: What age is this? Maybe 18/19th century?

Him: Yeah, I think so.

Me: Well, that gatepost reused a as lintel gives it away...

Him: Oh shit! I didn't notice that!

Me: What? You took a photo of it! There's two massive Iron brackets sticking out of it!

Him: I never noticed them either!

Hello! Operator, I think I'm lost! Can you tell me where I am?

After this sojourn into Tim's mind and some willful archaeological damage to ancient structures we travelled down the ICY ROAD OF DEATH to Redmires Reservoir and had a look at the Great War Training Trenches there. This is where Tim came into his own as a scale for my photo:

Stop leaping about, stand still!

Right, that's it for a bit, I'm off darn sarf tomorrow for a trip to Brighton, Southampton and Bovington for the TANK MUSEUM, so you'll get to hear all about that in due course.

And who would live in a place like this? Pt5

Gosh, here we are at Part Five of this tour around Rotherham, you can catch up with everyone else here: Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four. What began, in my mind, as a description of a journey to the Job Centre has spiralled out of control into an epic not unlike Egil's Saga. Sit tight and keep your mouths shut...

By now we have been shopping in Rotherham, seen some of the sights around town and we have even braved a night out and survived relatively unscathed. Now lets take a look at how Rotherham celebrates the people that make this town great, our Heroes, our champions. Those brave souls that dared to swim against the tide of popular opinion and create a wave of influence across the world. To begin with, let us take a step back in History. 'History? History? That's boring!' I hear you say, 'that's just dates and olden days stuff, why would I care about that? It means nowt to me!' Well little one, lets just see how wrong you can be as we look at the Walker Family.

'The fucking Who?' I hear the denizens of Rotherham cry as one. The Walker Family, you ill-educated shitbags, the men whose iron works at Masborough helped finish the Old Vaxhall Bridge and Old Southwark Bridge in London. And if that wasn't exciting enough for you, these lads forged the cannons that sat on the flagship HMS Victory at the Battle of Trafaglar, bitches!

Check this, bitches! How can anyone say history is boring with all this shit going off everywhere!

'Oh yes' I hear you say 'I think I've heard of that. Isn't it the name of a pub or something?' Yes, it's the name of a fucking pub 'cos it's where Britain smashed the combined fleets of France and Spain and secured us as a Naval Power par excellence. All the while Admiral Nelson was shouting out orders he was fighting a FUCKING BEAR and we still won. In the middle of it all the Walker's cannons helped carry the day. With this incredible heritage behind us, how do we at Rotherham celebrate the great memory of the Walkers? We do it by allowing this to happen to their Mausoleum:

Who fucking cares about history?

Yes, again, ignorance of our proud town history has allowed the Walker Mausoleum to fall into dereliction. Boarded up and chained off from public view (I had to climb through a padlocked gate and chain-link fence to get this shot) the denizens of Rotherham ignore our past glories. There is a group dedicated to the celebration of this edifice, called the Friends of The Walker Mausoleum, but I fear they are swimming against the tide in this town. I would be willing to bet that most people from Rotherham don't even know where this building is. Here's another picture of the sad state of disrepair the mausoleum is in:

Let it fall down, it's cheaper than repairing it...

Heartbreaking treatment of our town's past forces us to again turn away from these sad sites. I will attempt to lift your spirits, here is another monument, this time dedicated to my Great-Uncle Tommy James:

No, that's not a spelling mistake, it's Russian for Peace, you tool

'Tommy who?' Gah, and you call yourself a student of Communist history? Old TJ was a member of the Sheffield Communist Party, he went on to fight in the Spanish Civil War as a Political Commissar and he later met Picasso at the World Peace Council held in Sheffield in 1950. The Council was aborted by the government as an act of political sabotage! Civil unrest, bitches! Bring it on!

That's TJ on the right and on the left is Picasso. Lap it up motherfuckers!

OK we might be getting back on track with our celebration of our town's heroes, so let's have a look at some more. Famous names from Rotherham include comedian Sandy Powell, actress Lynne Perrie, actor Paul Shane, musician Christopher Wolstenholme from limp wristed indie pop act Muse, footballer David Seaman, Politician William Hague, musical group par excellence Jive Bunny and the Master Mixers and that simpering twat of a man-child presenter James May. All were born or lived within the borough, but not one of them comes even close (Jive Bunny, maybe) to the celebrity powerhouse of Britain's best loved barrier-breaking comedy duo act:

To me, to you!

Yes the FUCKING CHUCKLE BROTHERS! Appearing in a panto somewhere near you ALL THE FUCKING TIME! This poster is up on permanent display in Rotherham market, Paul and Barry's cheeky faces peering out over punters pouring over second hand jewellery and bananas. They grin inanely into the distance as Walker Mausoleum collapses in on itself. This is how Rotherham celebrates it's heroes, if they ain't on telly, they ain't WORTH SHIT! Fuck history when you've got two grown men dressed as dogs passing window panes to each other!

There is still a couple of things to have a look at around this town, we will have a look at some of the things that Rotherham DOES have. It may not be the next piece as I have some more Tim baiting to do before that, but stay tuned, it's coming soon!

And who would live in a place like this? Pt4

We have explored thoroughly the shopping opportunities with this great town of Rotherham, see Part One HERE, Part Two HERE and Part Three HERE for more details. But we are still left wanting, waiting for the locale to offer up her diamonds. Therefore we must turn elsewhere for our pleasure. If we cannot purchase goods and services to sate our appetites, let us ask our baser instincts for what they seek: Let's go CLUBBING! We return to the shop barren High Street for a our first port of call, the SNAFU


Located in the heart of the drinking area of Rotherham a night is not a night without a visit to the SNAFU (Military parlance for Situation Normal, All Fucked Up, which pretty much sums the place up). You too can soak up the atmosphere as you mingle with aggressively drunken shaved headed forty/fifty year old men, trying to pull equally aggressively drunk forty/fifty year old women in clothes three times too small for them. All done to the tune of a badly mangled Jimi Hendrix/Kings Of Leon/Foo Fighters cover version by a band of forty/fifty year old plumbers. We soon tire of SNAFU and move onto pastures new:

So popular even the bins are falling over themselves to get in!

This place changes it's name each week, by the time you have read this it will have had three name changes. It is the ideal place for a nice knife scar or a skull splitting, the choice is yours depending on who's bird you happen to talk to. Rotherham is a proud town, appearances are important when out and about and most places require some kind of dress code. Now we're not talking here about a DJ or a tux, but just something to keep the countenance up:

Rotherham nights out: Fashion advice and bad grammar

I'm hungry, are you hungry? Rotherham has its lion's share of fine eateries. We are catered for by a variety of outlets serving piping hot food for you to cram into your mouth. What Rotherham lacks in shops it more than makes up for in fast food 'restaurants'. Well, someone has to keep those morbidly obese figures in tip-top condition. With this in mind then let us call over the road for a chicken burger and chips at my favourite place for a heart attack, Chilliz:

Note the delicious (pun intended) spelling of Chilliz!

Fully appeased by deep fried meat substances it is better not ask too much about the origin of, we set off in search of another place to wet our whistles. The usually warm and inviting Club Envy is closed for the night:

The roof, the roof is on fire, we don't need no water, let the motherfucker burn, burn motherfucker, burn!

In our need to slake our thirsts, brought on by the salty meal at Chilliz, we are straying away from the heart of the town now, we are entering the badlands on the way to Masbrough. At this time of night there is only one option left open to us. Having tried and failed miserably to pull a Rotherham girl for somewhere to sleep for the night, our carnal desires lead us to one place and one place only; The Blue Minx:


A Gentleman's Club like no other, the Minx offers a relaxing atmosphere surrounded by exotic beauties performing ritual mating dances to rhythmic voodoo oscillations. The mind boggles at the mysterious maidens who come from such far-away places as Kimberworth, Clifton and even Swallownest. We trip the light fantastic whiling away the hours until we are thrown out by security for breaking the 'no touching' rule. Then it's home to bed, eventually to emerge blinking into the grey dawn and another Rotherham day.

Coming in Part Five: How Rotherham celebrates its heroes and balances the fine line of old and new culture.

And who would live in a place like this? Pt3

Welcome traveller! Welcome to the third part of the virtual tour around Rotherham and its environs. You can still hop aboard the open top omnibus for the tour that has gone on before in Part One HERE and Part Two HERE. On our trip around town we have already seen the sad state of the lacklustre shopping opportunities that Rotherham provides. We need to press on further in the deep dark heart of the burg to find tantalising reminders of Rotherham's flourishing past. So it in this chapter that we explore this theme further as we wind our jolly ways to the Market:

This video gives a brief glimpse Rotherham Market in 1971, a bustling place, alive with the cries of 'Strawberries! Two shilling a punnet!'; 'Yes we have no Bananas!'. Yes, gentle reader, this was Rotherham at the time the first Microprocessor was invented, Led Zeppelin first performed Stairway to Heaven live, Swiss women were allowed to vote, Jim Morrison's disgraceful drug bloated corpse is found in a Paris bath tub and Britain completes it's coinage decimalisation on the imaginatively named Decimal Day. This is a Rotherham 17 years before the construction began of the Isengard like structure at Meadowhell, casting its long and black shadow over the crumbling remains of our town. Today however, not everything is as bleak as it seems and this is the view of the present day market in complete contrast to the rest of town:

'Second hand Playstation Games! Two pound a punnet!' 'Yes we have no XBox 360s!'

The market still survives as a centre piece for Rotherham commerce. Please bear in mind this is the second hand market where one can buy LPs for the princely sums of £1 or 50p depending on which boutique you peruse. A thrifty man can make a killing here. But for your own safety, please keep moving, stay close together and don't make eye contact as we move on through the crowds. We have a tight schedule here and I want to show you that not everything in the market is peaches and cream. We will be ascending the to the balcony level, so mind the steps. In greater times the balcony of Rotherham market was the proud stamping ground of those with enough pocket money to buy computer games like the sublime Jet Set Willy at Microfun, pause to point at the rabbits in the pet shop next door, buy a radio controlled model car at the model shop or even some fishing tackle at G&S Hampstead. How times have changed:

'This town, is coming like a ghost town'

'Do you remember the good old days, before the ghost town?'

Displaying the sad alienation found in a Edward Hopper painting, these shops have long closed down. Gone are the Spectrum Games, gone are the Parrots, gone are 1/35th scale tanks, gone are the Crystal Wagglers. I had a request from a Mr Paul Ruddick esq as to the state of these places. He further wished to know how Coopers Toys had fared in these testing times. I felt that the balcony scene was too heartbreaking already, so to give pictorial evidence of the state of the shop which Darth Vader once visited would bring the man to the brink of suicide. We leave this sorry row of empty shops peering out into bleak desolation and give up on ever finding an open boutique. We must turn to the baser pleasures for our delectation if we are to remain in the townstead any longer. We are about to embark on a night out in Rotherham, but that is all to come in Part Four. So get your dancing shoes ready!

A popular phrase has it that a picture paints a thousand words, so I shall wrap up this part with a piece of tragic irony, located on one of Rotherham's main thoroughfares: