Oh My Goth!

It was a lovely sunny day on Saturday and as I was in York, I thought better of merging with the madding crowds in the city centre and decided to go over to Whitby instead. I had heard rumours that it was Goth weekend. The fangs were out in force. It was like Twiglet set on the North Yorkshire Coast. The bats had flown in for the weekend. Scores of vampires had descended to bite the exposed neck of the West Cliff. Ever since Bram Stoker set a large portion of Dracula in Whitby, vampire wannabes have made the pilgrimage to the fishing town. This has grown out of all sense of proportion to become the now-famous Goth festival. It allows people with unfulfilled lives and synapses that are not properly connected to parade the streets dressed as Victorian ladies and gentlemen of the night, in a alternative universe where latex and New Rocks had been invented a century previously. It's like the ultimate in Retro. Most of these people believe themselves to be vampires and probably sleep in coffins lined with sand from Whitby beach.

I just can't get comfortable in this Scarborough sand...

But why Victoriana? What is the appeal of the most repressive period of British history? If you're going to resurrect a period of history why not the 18th Century? All those powdered wigs, pantaloons and syphilis would be perfect for 'dressing up time'. Not to mention all the shagging, Marquis De Sade style. Anyway, all these folks seem to be stuck in the alternative timeline of pretend 19th Century Vampire bullshit. They all lead an alternative lifestyle by looking exactly the same as each other. A trusted uniform that allows you to express your individuality as part of the crowd. I remember the Goths of old, the ones in the frilly shirts and lacy gloves dancing like cunts to Sisters Of Mercy in Heavy Metal nightclubs, it was always early in the evening before the other punters came in and kicked the shit out of them. But things have moved on from then and have changed so much. To be fair, I wouldn't have such a problem with Goths, if they didn't take themselves SO FUCKING SERIOUSLY! The po-faced set of twats.

'I'm so romantic and wistful, I'm a poet of the undead, a dreamer of unknown places...'

'No you're not, you're a cunt.'

Anyway, I drove over to Whitby with Anna in tow as my official photographer (she was paid in chips) and by Christ, we were not disappointed! We immediately spotted a Goth family upon arrival (actually we spotted one on the outskirts of York as well but I think they were lost...) and the rest of the streets were awash with black. It was a boiling hot day and these pricks were parading around in full dress suits and massive black capes...

Wrap up warm, it's gonna be cold today...

The Goths had come from far and wide and in a variety of vehicles (not being real vampires, none of them had the ability to turn into bats and fly to the event). But, like the Model T Ford cars they only in came in one colour: Black:

I wondered how high this guy's garage was to be able to fit those plumes in...

Goths die in hot cars...

When the horn was pressed it played the theme to 'The Munsters'...

This big black truck shipped in the poorer Goths who couldn't afford a car...

OK, let's have a look at some of the more shameful aspects of humanity that we saw. Now, we couldn't work out what the Hell this first couple were supposed to be. She was dressed in period costume alright but he was in a quasi-18th Century Grenadier outfit. You're a century too early, mate...


Pop Quiz time, is this a really ugly woman, or an averagely ugly man in a dress? Answers on a postcard, please:

'Sometimes it's hard to be a woman...'

Just like Excalibur coming out of a lake, King Arthur got out of a taxi...

The once and future King, needed a bit of help getting around these days...

The graveyard was the obvious place to find some of the best dressed Goths in town, so we climbed the 199 steps to the Church, bumping into other freaks on the way:

This is a Goth Weekend, not the AGM of the Pirates of the Caribbean Appreciation Society

Ahhh, so you just like DRESSING UP as an evil Nazi, but you're not ACTUALLY an evil Nazi? Right...


'Why so sad?'
'The chippy has run out of cod...'



Steampunks? Steamtwats, more like...

What is missing in your lives?

It looks to me like the best part of you ran down the crack of your mamas ass and ended up as a brown stain on the mattress.

Oh, just Fuck Off!

Scattered amongst the gravestones we found plenty of wistful looking waifs waiting for night to fall. I shit you not, when I took this photo of this girl I said to her 'Don't smile!'

Cheer up Love, it might never happen...

Vain doesn't even begin to describe it...

To add insult to injury, even Dr David Kenyon was in town. I'd heard he was in Whitby for the weekend, dressed up in military re-enactment clobber. I texted him to meet up and he said he was 'wandering around town dressed like a twat' I answered 'It's Goth weekend so you're not alone...' I assumed he was there for some museum show. Nope, he was there for the fucking Goth weekend, the stupid shit:

I used to have respect for you Kenyon...

He and his Goth mates dragged us round the Goth shops in the Spa which were selling cauldron's, bat's wings, paintings of cats sitting under crescent moons, neon dreadlock extensions and goggles for all your Traditional Goth/Cyber Goth/Steam Punk needs. Speaking of Steam Punks, amongst the best we saw were these two. Definitely the fittest specimens of Goths we saw all day:

The fantasies just don't stop...

They were with some ugly bloke in a trenchcoat but I pushed him out of the way to get this photo. But, by a country mile the best costumes we saw all day were these two:

Literally: OH MY GOTH!!

There is not enough words in the English language to even begin describing this outfit. Where do you begin? What is it? Why the fuck does he have a cod-piece made out of an elephant's head? Why has he got a golden breastplate covered in pictures of Napoleon? Why has he got mirrors on his hat? What is the deal with the blunderbuss? Is he a hunter? What does he hunt? What basis in any kind of reality does this even have? Looking at this makes me feel like I've been taking crazy pills. Anna came up with the perfect name to describe it, she called him Hannibal. She wasn't sure what it meant but it seems to work...

The best stuff is in the Volvo

True story. I don't watch much TV, in fact I hardly watch any at all. I have been taking the opportunity of being proactively unemployed to watch the Jeremy Kyle Show, but beyond this guilty pleasure I mainly listen to music for my entertainment. Not so this past week however. I noticed on Thursday there was a brand new episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm on More 4. I planned my night around it. I waited patiently for it to begin. Within two minute of it starting I got the first text off Kate which resulted in a back and forth text conversation that lasted the entire episode and finished exactly as the credits rolled. Roll on Friday, I decided to have 'TV night', mainly to ensure myself that I wasn't actually missing anything by not watching TV, also cos I was at a low ebb and was a little bit down and couldn't be bothered to do owt else except stare at the idiot lantern. I watched TWO SOLID HOURS of the X Factor repeats. I felt dirty and shameful by the end, but not once did I hear a peep from my phone. I noticed a Peter Kay show was on later, something that I'd not seen. I like Peter Kay and his spoofs, so I set the reminder on the TV to turn over when it started. It duly did and within two minutes of it beginning Archer called me for the first time in a year to ask if I wanted to go and see Alice Cooper with him. I had to spend ten minutes explaining why I hate Alice Cooper and why I would rather pull my own eyes out and stamp on the stalks than watch him prance about pretending to be Satan when he is a fucking Born Again Christian. He slags of Black Metal bands, by saying they are 'only out to shock', talk about bare faced hypocrisy, as 'shock rock' is what his entire career is based on. Fucking Douche Bag.

Alice Cooper; hypocritical Born Again Christian, Golfer and complete cunt

I politely declined Archer's kind offer and tried to get him off the phone as quick and as pleasantly as possible to watch the rest of one of the few programs I was looking forward to. Peter Kay finished and there was a double episode of Family Guy about an hour later. I duly set the reminder and began watching an hour of laughter filled fun. Not for long as the phone went again, this time it was a half cut Bob. She was wanting to escape Brighton, fleeing from an unfortunate snogging episode that had gone terribly, terribly wrong she was heading north and was coming past Rotherham on Saturday. She half mentioned seeing her Grandparents in Whitby, so I jumped on that and suggested we carry on from Rotherham and head to the coast and stay over. By this stage I was also worst for wear as well having a sunk a few bottles over the course of the evening. In our inebriated states it seemed like a perfectly logical thing to do. Drive for miles, arrive after dark, find an expensive place to stay and drive home the next morning. The Road trip was on!

Whitby: Bracing

So this is how I found myself at Charlotte's house in Northallerton surrounded by several drunks, several empty bottles of wine and cheap Tesco Cava, listening to Fleetwood Mac and Dire Straits whilst being told 'the best stuff was in the Volvo'. We had decided on the journey up that it would be better to stay at Bob's parents place at Northallerton rather than pressing on to Whitby. This was mainly due to Bob's lack of Navigational skills, my lack of noticing motorway exits and the round about way we were slowly heading north. I awoke this morning in Bob's parents spare room feeling like a cat had shat in my mouth and not relishing the drive back home.

Clear your heads with another extract from Singapore...

Sunday, June 03, 2007

We dug all the anomalies that the array had brought up on area 2 and not one turned out to be ordnance. Not a sniff. Nada. Zip. Which is a good thing, as I don't really fancy having my arms blown off. This means that we have now finished the second area that we have to scan and dig. This is also the biggest, so as scanning goes we are nearly half way to finishing. Area three may pose a problem, as we have already found a load of bombs. We dug them up yesterday whilst waiting (again) for Mr's Wong and Sing to finish bashing the jungle. One of the anomalies turned out to be a massive shit pit packed full of what appeared to be aircraft parts. There was Japanese stuff in there as well. Or that's what Ang told us. His word is his bond, I guess. We pulled about 2,500 British Bullets out of the ground along with about one hundred small aeroplane bombs. None of the bombs went off, even when Ang was shaking them out of his machine bucket about ten foot off the concrete floor. Whilst he was doing it, I started running off, he panicked and was shouting 'No running!! No!!' Oh, how I laughed.

I met up with Ariff (From Ironfist) and his mate on Friday evening. We had a few drinks and chatted shit. Ariff works just round the corner from where I live, he's a car-park attendant by day. The lads were telling me that in order to buy a house in Singapore you have to be either married or over 35 years old and even then you will not be at the top of the list. So I guess I am lucky I have this apartment to myself. The lads left, Ariff had a date with the guitarist out of Tormentress, he has done the rounds with the whole band, it seems. I headed back home after some dinner. I went down to St James' Power Station again last night, I didn't stay long. I'd had enough by about 1am. But before I left I went to the toilet and found myself in the Malaysian part of the Night Club. The place is divided into three separate clubs. One bit is mainly Chinese, another Malay and the last big one is a mix of people. The Malaysian one was an eye opener. There was a band on, but not the same band that played the Flamenco shit and was fronted by a Spanish Brian Ferry looky-likey. This was a Malaysian band, fronted by this guy who was a complete throwback to 1987. He had aviator glasses on for Christ's sake. The Malaysians are like the Singaporeans little brothers, desperately trying to fit in and look cool, but failing miserably. Mind you give em their due, they got the crowd going well enough. I wonder if Chumbawamba were aware that their song 'Tubthumping' would become such a hit that it was covered by a crappy Malaysian Night Club band? The mind boggles.

Donuts of Shit

I've been pretty quiet of late as I've been busy what with one thing and another, last Wednesday I spent a lovely day in the company of Kate, which nothing could spoil. Not even the biggest shit storm of madness that has occurred in the last two years. I have to tell myself I don't miss her.


Work has been anything a shitstorm. It is literally one of the best jobs I have done for a while, since, erm... last September anyway. I was playing the nice supervisor last week, I bought a load of donuts for my team and put them under a bucket for them to find after first break. They were ecstatic. Then later I had to send, let's call them, Student A and Student B off to another area to help clean an area for Andy. When they came back Student A and B asked me to buy them a pint in the pub after work, to which I initially agreed. I then thought about it and said no, I'd already bought them donuts, to which Student A said 'Yeah, but they tasted like shit!' There's gratitude for you.

I did a Google Search for 'Shit Donut' and this was the first picture that came up. So it is used to illustrate my point...

On Saturday John, Cleo and I hosted a Barbecue, to which all of York's Medieval PhD students were invited. I needed a break from Nerdom so I invited my Sheffield buddies along to bring up the cool quota. Lauren, Steve and Kate tipped up, along with Bob, Craig, Marcus, Alix and Sarah. The rest were John's (and Cleo's) friends so I had nothing to do with them. In the event, my mates proved how cool we were by NOT leaving the party at eleven o'clock on the dot to stress about how much work they could have done had they not been out enjoying themselves. I spent most of the time in charge of the grill and topping up my sunburn from the flames. The evening progressed into a drunken orgy of violence that spilled out onto the street and ended with three houses being burned down on Scarcroft Hill, including ours.

Scarcroft Hill 3am; 31/05/09 The Police move in with Tear Gas

A Sunday afternoon Craig, John and I headed out to Whitby for the remainder of the afternoon as it was so nice. Craig and I had to literally drag John away from his laptop to come and enjoy the sunshine. After we had secured him in the car we arrived in Whitby to be promptly captured by Algerian Pirates and placed aboard their ship where we were transported to the Barbary coast for three years living as white slaves.

Craig laments agreeing to come to Whitby with us. Mainly due to the incessant sea shanties than the slavery

We managed to revolt against our master (taking our tips from the screening of Spartacus last week, without the bummery...) and took control of a schooner and made it back to Whitby, where we continued our tour of the town. We climbed the hill to the Abbey where John and I had an icecream covered in 'Dracula Blood'. Whether it really was Dracula's blood or the blood of one of his victims we never found out. After gorging ourselves on blood John miscounted the 199 steps as 198 on the way back down from the Abbey. I assumed that one of the steps had been removed for repair. Finally pausing to play in the arcades I managed to win myself two tins of peppermint sweets and a key fob tin with a smaller key fob in it for the princely sum of £2 on the two penny pushing machines. I remember one time years ago, when Carl tried to win a Spice Girls key fob which he had become fixated with in the same machines. He ended up spending ten pounds to get the thing out. Who's smashing society now, Carl?

Trophies of the hunt!