CMBuckley.co.uk :: Blog :: Nights Out

Last night was Jess’ 21st night out. She’s not 21 until Monday, but that doesn’t matter!

We met in The Angel, of course, even though the night out was in Leeds. It made sense to me! I haven’t been to The Angel for a while so I needed my fix! We were only there for a quick drink before we got the bus into Leeds and went to The Hogshead, which was showing the Leeds–Preston game. It didn’t look too good as we arrived just before half time to see that Preston were a goal up!

When the rest arrived into Leeds (Olly drove the girls in — and I’m including Holmes in that), we went to a rather packed Mook before heading over to The Sports Cafe to try and get the same drink from my birthday! It was all to no avail, as we soon had to leave so we could still get in for free at Oceana. After a little hassle regarding dress code, and Laura becoming legend of the evening for arguing our case, we were in — or so we thought! Olly didn’t have any ID… bah! He and Charlotte went down the road, leaving a little later — with all of Laura’s stuff!

We stayed for a brilliant evening in Oceana, there was a lot of cheesy music but I guess we’re used to that… We ended up staying almost until the end and headed for some sustenance — Jess finding it in two burgers! It was her party, she’s allowed…

After previous luck with catching taxis outside Oceana, we went all the way down to the station to get a proper black-and-white. It took us the best part of an hour to get there!

All in all an amazing night, finished by us spending ages laughing our way through Jess’ poses in the pictures!

The Clubs & Socs formal at Hild Bede is always a great event, with much celebration of attending the best college at Durham (true fact — ask Andy), and this year’s was no exception! Our table had by far the best balloon, a fact proven by a jealous girl with a knife in the bar afterwards…

After the inevitable debate about which coin merits consumption of one’s drink, the wine pretty much disappeared before the food arrived. The awards after the food were predictably average and the Vernon beckoned, but Matt, who was standing outside, was prevented from going to the bar!

Finally, the speeches were over, and we made it for a drink… And even after such a great meal, it’s still mandatory to get a burger (Hild Bede special with bacon, of course) from Alan and Pauline!

View pictures of the evening.

And off to Summerhill the next morning! Everyone seemed fine from last night, and up for our first outdoor climb of the year (damn this unpredictable weather). We went over to Summerhill near Hartlepool — we could see the sea!

Note to self — next time, take the bouldering mat… and some more sustenance!

View the full trip information, or the photos from the trip.

Last night (well, Wednesday night, it’s 2am) was Reg’s birthday night out. We started up at Butler — without Reg, I might add — before moving along the hill and then down to Varsity for a bit of drinking and table dancing (Ste, Jon) and finally Love Shack. A select few had gone to the effort of making tank tops (beaters, if you will) with some excellent pictures of Reg and themselves… see the pictures for examples!

I must say I was impressed with Ste and Jon’s acoustic stuff in Mary’s, as we’d been drinking for a couple of hours then, and I know that when I have even the odd drink my guitar-playing skills end up at sausage-finger level!

View pictures of the evening

Andy got a Wii the other day. A complete impulse buy — but a good one, I might add! It came with Wii Sports, a game that demonstrates the revolutionary controller known as the Wii remote:

Unfortunately the console only came with one controller, so Andy went and bought another, complete with counterpart Wii Play. Both games actually feature several mini-games, each of which are low in graphics but high in playability. Wii Play has a few good games, but some can get a bit repetitive. The games on Wii Sports, however, are so addictive that for the last few nights they’ve had me up until the early hours trying to gain training medals or improve my high scores! It does tire your arm out, though…

JC was here earlier this week. I was supposed to meet up with him on Monday, but on his way down to the pub (the Swan and 3, where else would we meet) he and Dave managed to get started on. He went to casualty that evening but seemed OK the next day, with the exception of a slightly inflamed cheek and a lisp! He’s been travelling around the world, and comes back to this within a week… Oh well, welcome home JC.

Andy and Jay finished their Engineering project yesterday. And Lara got her Physics project in. And I did half her Physics project. So we were all out to celebrate!

A few Bailey bars, we didn’t even make it to Cuth’s though — finished at 24’s with one of the most annoying train-station games… Thanks to Andy and Jay!

And then… six quid to get to get into Planet of Sound! Six quid!

Good night though! Must say there was a bit of cheating around the pool table, with a few too many distractions from Aimee…

View pictures of the evening

Heavy night…

The idea was to hit every college bar, including Stockton, and despite a few closures we made it! We headed over to Stockton in the afternoon and after wandering around for a while we found the bar — closed! It made it all the funnier that Mark had needed the toilet since Durham, and we doubled back on ourselves whilst finding the place… We went to a pub called the Dubliner instead, which was showing the match on what seemed to be Arabian Sky.

We got the bus back and decided never to return to Stockton again — anyone who’s thinking of doing a full college bar crawl, just have an extra drink in Durham! It’s not worth the time and effort!

Before we got going around the college bars, there was time for food (and, of course, drink) in the DSU. Good food, but not so great at getting the orders right? Oh well, on to Hild Bede for a quick shot, then Castle and tripling up in 24’s (since both Hatfield and Chad’s were shut).

Then it was time for John’s, Cuth’s, and then on to the hill, not without the obligatory fence jumping! Glad to see I can still make it!

My recollection of the order of the hill bars is as hazy as usual, but it started with Mary’s and ended with Trev’s, and had some bars in the middle. It was rather strange to see Alan and Pauline up at the burger van outside Butler!

A return to the DSU, then, to finish off an awesome night! A couple of facts from Nick: we had 30 units comprising 2500 calories, and were 150% over the binge drinking limit!

View pictures of the bar crawl

A very different Bond…

The film was good, don’t get me wrong. It features many “in” things like parkour (indeed, it features Sebastien Foucan himself) and Texas hold ’em, and is full of product placements for Sony — predictable, as they bought MGM — but it still sees a return to old Bond, before all the gadgetry. It’s usually the gadgetry that I enjoy so much, so I was glad that it wasn’t too antiquated… In fact, I was very much impressed with the silenced UMP9 at the end of the film! Don’t think I’ll put it on my Christmas list, though…

After the film we went to Planet of Sound at the DSU, something we haven’t done for a while! We had a couple of games of pool, featuring me losing by going in-off when potting black, and then Aimee and I dominated for a short while on table-football table!

I have to say that PoS was better than I remember it!

Awesome!

I was originally planning not to go, but when Reg popped round and said he had a spare ticket for £17.50, I thought: “why not?” At this time I had no idea who were supporting, so you can imagine how good it felt to find out that The Living End and Dropkick Murphys were two of the warm-up acts!

Both were amazing, except TLE unfortunately didn’t play their cover of “Tainted Love” — ah well!

And then for Less Than Jake…

When they played at Leeds Festival, they played a lot of stuff from their then-forthcoming album In With The Out Crowd, which I didn’t own. This time, however, they played mostly songs of a Losing Streak / Hello Rockview era, which was brilliant!

Aside from the music, it was great to catch up with Cait, who had been avoiding me, and Joe, who travelled all the way up from Manchester. His long journey back meant that he got back around 6am and had a 9 o’clock lecture. Oh dear!

This evening was spent at the artificial ski slope at Silkworth Sports Complex in Sunderland. It was supposed to be tryouts for the DUSSC, but didn’t seem that organised: Upon arrival I purchased a membership card (for £5) that meant I got a discount — except that it only applied to skiers. Thankfully the staff also thought I was a skier and charged me the cheaper skiers’ price for entry! Reg managed to pay for both the membership card, only to then be told that he didn’t need it, but was going to have to pay full boarding price…

After getting my hired gear (all mine is at home and I’m lazy), We eventually ventured out onto the slope and had a couple of runs. My first runs were rather pathetic — the honeycomb surface actually seemed to give the board grip, rather than sliding smoothly! Once I finally got into it and had adjusted to a very strange posture that meant I stayed off the deck, I was told that I needed gloves to ride on the slope. No matter, they told me when I said I didn’t have any (another thing we weren’t told about), we have some spare in the hire centre. In fact it was a bin of about seven odd gloves, each a different size, and none matching. I ended up with a one-size-fits-most Magic Glove on one hand, and a kid’s goalie glove on the other. Great…

After only a few more runs, when to be fair I was feeling more comfortable on the surface, it was time to get back. I did very little, showed hardly anything to anyone, and yet still they ask everyone to turn up for the race there on Saturday…

What a night!

I just got back from Helen’s birthday night out — I was totally prepared to make a fool of myself due to the Disney-themed evening — but I had an absolutely amazing night!

When she suggested a Disney bar crawl, I thought: “Easy: Why not?” It soon dawned on me that a Disney outfit is in fact rather difficult! While the ladies have it much easier, with their plethora of princesses (I’m not sure of the exact collective noun), guys have to wade through the predictables to choose something interesting. Those who tried less hard turned up as extras from Cool Runnings; I, on the other hand, made a distinct effort and came as Bernard! It took a bit of time and effort, but due to the response I received this evening, I could probably wear the exact same outfit (sans whiskers) to be Mario…

A number of college bars were followed by the DSU, Jimmy Allens and Love Shack… Tonight was brilliant as far as I’m concerned, I just hope that Helen agrees tomorrow morning!