Off Topic

[Stan]

@RandoEFC I'd be careful talking to @Toinho. Before you know it you'll be in Japan.

[Carnivore Chris]

This trip down south has been class so far. We are currently having a few beers while watching bats catching midges and mosquitos literally inches from our faces. All 3 of us have caught fish so far too. 

Even though I joke with @Danny, @SirBalon, @The Palace Fan, @Bluewolf, etc, southerners are among the most friendly people in general. I've got to say though, that whenever down south, I feel as though my Northern accent stands out like fuck and sounds cringey haha. 

@nudge I also have 4 ducklings that are pretty much living in my tent during the day and the mother doesn't care. They are tame as fuck too. Pictures to come... 

 

Edited August 28, 2018 by The Rebel CRS

[Danny]

5 minutes ago, The Rebel CRS said:

This trip down south has been class so far. We are currently having a few beers while watching bats catching midges and mosquitos literally inches from our faces. All 3 of us have caught fish so far too. 

Even though I joke with @Danny, @SirBalon, @The Palace Fan, @Bluewolf, etc, southerners are among the most friendly people in general. I've got to say though, that whenever down south, I feel as though my Northern accent stands out like fuck and sounds cringey haha. 

@nudge I also have 4 ducklings that are pretty much living in my tent during the day and the mother doesn't care. They are tame as fuck too. Pictures to come... 

 

That's because no one likes a northern accent 

In fairness it's a different world down south, mostly around London tbh.

Where abouts are you?

Edited August 28, 2018 by Danny

[Carnivore Chris]

1 minute ago, Danny said:

That's because no one likes a northern accent 

In fairness it's a different world down south, mostly around London tbh.

Where abouts are you?

Down in Kent mate, but spent Sunday night in Hastings, west Sussex. 

[Danny]

1 minute ago, The Rebel CRS said:

Down in Kent mate, but spent Sunday night in Hastings, west Sussex. 

Before I'd come travelling I'd only ever been as far north as Birmingham in England. I could give you a list of countries with various people that I've met, and each list would probably at least be double the amount of northerners I'd ever met

[Spike]

The bad: I did dishes for 30 minutes. Most of them weren't mine.

The good: I went to my first game at Wrigley Field last night!

[carefreeluke]

58 minutes ago, The Rebel CRS said:

This trip down south has been class so far. We are currently having a few beers while watching bats catching midges and mosquitos literally inches from our faces. All 3 of us have caught fish so far too. 

Even though I joke with @Danny, @SirBalon, @The Palace Fan, @Bluewolf, etc, southerners are among the most friendly people in general. I've got to say though, that whenever down south, I feel as though my Northern accent stands out like fuck and sounds cringey haha. 

@nudge I also have 4 ducklings that are pretty much living in my tent during the day and the mother doesn't care. They are tame as fuck too. Pictures to come... 

 

I've just recently finished teaching a Spanish family in London who were in London for three weeks on holiday but wanted to learn English while they were there. The parents spent three hours with me every morning while their kids were at a camp. I say it was teaching but it was basically them talking to me for three hours while I explained some things here and there, very easy and pleasant work. Anyway to get to the point I was going to make, they also said a positive about their holiday had been how friendly Londoners had been to them (for the most part) and this was a family that did a lot of mixing with locals as well. The Dad of this family had also lived in Ireland as well. I would say southerners are perhaps more closed or reserved than northerners and perhaps this reservation can be misinterpreted at times. The same divide exists in Spain as well but I would just say the people in southern Spain are again just a bit more open and less reserved. Having lived in both The North and The South.

I also at times have a set of negative beliefs about French people, having studied French and lived there but one of the nicest people I have ever met was a French person. There's cunts everywhere at the end of the day.

[Danny]

This may be of entertainment you @carefreeluke @The Rebel CRS but when I was in Paris with the missus for a long weekend we'd decided not to use English and see how far we got on my very bad French and what she remembered of A-Level French. We'd managed to work out how to ask for some food and a drink and so I went up to a food van along the River Seinne giving it my best French, I asked for some food, a Coke and some water. I got to the word water though and completely forgot how the French said it, so instead of reverting to English I went for a potluck shot and reverted the years of Portuguese I heard my auntie speaking to my little cousin and asked for "Aqua" instead  Needless to say it wasn't the correct terminology but she understood anyway and cracked a laugh at my poor attempt to speak French and no English.

I generally find as long as you give it a go respecting local culture people respond well, like Luke said there are cunts everywhere.

[Stan]

@The Palace Fan what do you prefer mate? Sainsburys or Tesco? 

 

[Dave]

11 hours ago, Stan said:

@The Palace Fan what do you prefer mate? Sainsburys or Tesco? 

 

The worse bit was afterwards the taxi company in Crawley took 20 minutes to dispatch someone and it's a 20 minute walk home.

[Bluewolf]

1 minute ago, The Palace Fan said:

The worse bit was afterwards the taxi company in Crawley took 20 minutes to dispatch someone and it's a 20 minute walk home.

That reminds me of when I used to bring the other half home and had to bus back each night, You would stand waiting and waiting and thinking " If I had started walking I could of been home in the time it's taken the bus to get here" and on the night you decide to do that the bloody bus comes along when you are halfway between stops... 

[Dave]

37 minutes ago, Bluewolf said:

That reminds me of when I used to bring the other half home and had to bus back each night, You would stand waiting and waiting and thinking " If I had started walking I could of been home in the time it's taken the bus to get here" and on the night you decide to do that the bloody bus comes along when you are halfway between stops... 

The N65 in Kingston was like that every weekend.

[Bluewolf]

1 hour ago, The Palace Fan said:

The N65 in Kingston was like that every weekend.

It was just called the 65 back then when I used to catch it... Just outside the old White Hart pub in Chessy, the missus used to live in the road opposite and I lived in Surbiton at the time..  you had both the 65 and 71 and the 65 used to go from the zoo all the way through to Richmond.. back then though I think the last bus back used to be about 12:10 and if you missed it then tough luck you would be walking home... 

I used to see my missus about 4 times a week back then and if I missed the bus I might get back about 1:15am and had to be up each day at 4:30am.. I used to be cream crackered come the weekend.. Love is a test and no mistake.. 

[Dave]

On 01/09/2018 at 20:26, Bluewolf said:

It was just called the 65 back then when I used to catch it... Just outside the old White Hart pub in Chessy, the missus used to live in the road opposite and I lived in Surbiton at the time..  you had both the 65 and 71 and the 65 used to go from the zoo all the way through to Richmond.. back then though I think the last bus back used to be about 12:10 and if you missed it then tough luck you would be walking home... 

I used to see my missus about 4 times a week back then and if I missed the bus I might get back about 1:15am and had to be up each day at 4:30am.. I used to be cream crackered come the weekend.. Love is a test and no mistake.. 

The White Hart. That's a time warp moment  when that placed closed there locals moved on to two other places who also ended up closing. So The North Star conveniently closed for 3 weeks refurbishment when they closed. They're still the last pub standing 

Christmas Eve this year at the north star will be a sight now the Weathersoons on the A3 roundabout is gone and Surbiton will not accommodate anyone from Chessington.

[Danny]

Has anyone ever been to a White Hart pub that hasn't been a proper spit and sawdust type of establishment? 

[Carnivore Chris]

On 28/08/2018 at 22:10, Danny said:

Before I'd come travelling I'd only ever been as far north as Birmingham in England. I could give you a list of countries with various people that I've met, and each list would probably at least be double the amount of northerners I'd ever met

You meet tons of Southerners up north but I didn't come across a single Northerner down there. It's not the first time I've been south of course, but it's the first time I've been to that part of the South and it was beautiful. The countryside and woodlands up there are incredible. 

As for the fish(which was the reason for going there), I caught a 60lb Catfish, it was fucking huge and about 5 feet long, I will upload a picture later. I only caught 2 carp and lost 6 big ones, which pissed off as most would have broken my personal best but that 60lb Catfish is the biggest fish I've ever caught by a mile. My mate had a blinder. His old personal best carp was 22lb and on that trip he had a 31,27,25 and 24, along with a 37lb catfish. Good on him. 

As a lover of wildlife I also got to see a Red Kite for the first time, in fact I saw 4, there was a Tawny owl making noises at night in the tree behind my tent, which I also saw flying one evening, saw a dead badger and another badger running across the road, I saw a Grass snake swimming for the first time and also ended up making some new mates:- 4 little ducklings. There were also a lot of bats at night that were eating all the mosquitos from in front of our faces, they were brilliant. And it's the first lake I've fished on where there are no rats at night. Plenty of mice, but no rats. 

9 quid for burger, chips and a can of coke in a takeaway is an absolute joke though. Everything is overpriced down there . The fish and chips were also shit, especially the batter and no gravy is just silly. You get better chippies in  touristy parts of Spain! 

I'm surprised at how quickly we got back last night, it only took 5 hours as opposed to the 7 it took to get there. 

The only downside was not visiting more places down there, as it was a fishing holiday and we spent 5 days camped out on a lake, which was a great experience though. 

We are going again next year, probably in May. 

As for speaking French in France, we were all supposed to do that when on a school trip there back in the day. It never worked out that way though. I think I only used Bonjour...different in Spain though now as my knowledge of Spanish is  very good, albeit not as good as a few years back when I'd been doing some hard-core studying for years. 

@carefreeluke you are right mate, Andalucians have always seemed friendly to me. 

Edited September 2, 2018 by The Rebel CRS

[Danny]

2 minutes ago, The Rebel CRS said:

You meet tons of Southerners up north but I didn't come across a single Northerner down there. It's not the first time I've been south of course, but it's the first time I've been to that part of the South and it was beautiful. The countryside and woodlands up there are incredible. 

As for the fish(which was the reason for going there), I caught a 60lb Catfish, it was fucking huge and about 5 feet long, I will upload a picture later. I only caught 2 carp and lost 6 big ones, which pissed off as most would have broken my personal best but that 60lb Catfish is the biggest fish I've ever caught by a mile. My mate had a blinder. His old personal best carp was 22lb and on that trip he had a 31,27,25 and 24, along with a 37lb catfish. Good on him. 

As a lover of wildlife I also got to see a Red Kite for the first time, in fact I saw 4, there was a Tawny owl making noises at night in the tree behind my tent, which I also saw flying one evening, saw a dead badger and another badger running across the road, I saw a Grass snake swimming for the first time and also ended up making some new mates:- 4 little ducklings. There were also a lot of bats at night that were eating all the mosquitos from in front of our faces, they were brilliant. And it's the first lake I've fished on where there are no rats at night. Plenty of mice, but no rats. 

9 quid for burger, chips and a can of coke in a takeaway is an absolute joke though. Everything is overpriced down there . The fish and chips were also shit, especially the batter and no gravy is just silly. You get better chippies in  touristy parts of Spain! 

I'm surprised at how quickly we got back last night, it only took 5 hours as opposed to the 7 it took to get there. 

The only downside was not visiting more places down there, as it was a fishing holiday and we spent 5 days camped out on a lake, which was a great experience though. 

We are going again next year, probably in May. 

As for speaking French in France, we were all supposed to do that when on a school trip there. It never worked out that way though. I think I only used Bonjour...different in Spain though now as my knowledge of Spanish is still very good, albeit not as good as a few years back when I'd been doing some hard-core studying for years. 

@carefreeluke you are right mate, Andalucians have always seemed friendly to me. 

Tbh I've never been big on fish and chips, a fairly bland meal as it is. More of an event if anything.

I've met tonnes of northerns out travelling, don't really seem to have a proper north/South rivalry out here as there would be back home, it's amazing what getting out of the bubble does to people! Though you seem fairly well traveled within the UK which is something I'd like to do a bit more of when I'm at home.

[Bluewolf]

1 hour ago, The Rebel CRS said:

You meet tons of Southerners up north but I didn't come across a single Northerner down there. It's not the first time I've been south of course, but it's the first time I've been to that part of the South and it was beautiful. The countryside and woodlands up there are incredible. 

As for the fish(which was the reason for going there), I caught a 60lb Catfish, it was fucking huge and about 5 feet long, I will upload a picture later. I only caught 2 carp and lost 6 big ones, which pissed off as most would have broken my personal best but that 60lb Catfish is the biggest fish I've ever caught by a mile. My mate had a blinder. His old personal best carp was 22lb and on that trip he had a 31,27,25 and 24, along with a 37lb catfish. Good on him. 

It's all that juicy Northern meat we feed them mate.... 

[Carnivore Chris]

It's too expensive for us. Even 6 days down there rapes your pockets dry.. 

[Bluewolf]

1 hour ago, The Rebel CRS said:

It's too expensive for us. Even 6 days down there rapes your pockets dry.. 

When I was younger I never got the attraction of fishing.. sounded very boring but now I am older and wiser I greatly see the merits and attraction of getting the hell out for some time by yourself or with a mate outside camping for a few nights and a few beers and all that heavenly peace and quiet.. 

We have a bloke working in one of our departments next to us and he loves it, always showing me photos of what he has caught and always rubbing his hands together with anticipation at the end of our shift because he is off somewhere for a few days.. 

[Carnivore Chris]

34 minutes ago, Danny said:

Tbh I've never been big on fish and chips, a fairly bland meal as it is. More of an event if anything.

I've met tonnes of northerns out travelling, don't really seem to have a proper north/South rivalry out here as there would be back home, it's amazing what getting out of the bubble does to people! Though you seem fairly well traveled within the UK which is something I'd like to do a bit more of when I'm at home.

Since we were fishing mate, takeaways and cooking greasy shit on a stove is what we pretty much lived off. But it's probably for the best that we didn't go in any restaurants anyway when you consider the prices of the "cheap food" down there .

The prices in tescos and places like that weren't any different though.

 

23 minutes ago, Bluewolf said:

When I was younger I never got the attraction of fishing.. sounded very boring but now I am older and wiser I greatly see the merits and attraction of getting the hell out for some time by yourself or with a mate outside camping for a few nights and a few beers and all that heavenly peace and quiet.. 

We have a bloke working in one of our departments next to us and he loves it, always showing me photos of what he has caught and always rubbing his hands together with anticipation at the end of our shift because he is off somewhere for a few days.. 

We go specimen hunting, which is why we go for days on end as you have to due to the fact that these fish are tricky to catch and become wise. It can be frustrating to sit not catching for long periods, but when that bite alarm starts screaming off and your reel starts smoking, there is a massive buzz and thrill.

I also don't mind doing a bit of lure fishing on canals as it means you end up walking about 3 miles while covering areas and you get to see things which you wouldn't normally see. Sitting there float fishing for smaller fish(but ones which give you a fight) such as carp from 5-10lb or something is also great fun and for some, sea fishing or fly fishing is the one. So there are many different aspects to fishing and thre may be a style out there that would interest you. But it's definitely not just about sitting on a box all day drowning a worm. If I was @Danny for example, I would be doing some deep sea fishing in Australia, or atleast hitting some lakes as the fishing out there will be unreal.

The only downside to fishing is the amount of money you spend. It's not a cheap hobby by any means .

As I've said up there also, the amount of wildlife you see, that you wouldn't normally do so is amazing. How many times do you see a grass snake randomly swimming in the margins? It was brilliant. I actually have a small video of that, but it was hard to get as it started swimming away quickly when it saw me.

Edited September 2, 2018 by The Rebel CRS

[Danny]

@The Rebel CRS give me chips and chicken nuggets and I'm happy as pig in shit mate, just not a big fan of fish.

Chips need to be good though, big, soft and fluffy. Covered in ketchup 

[Carnivore Chris]

1 minute ago, Danny said:

@The Rebel CRS give me chips and chicken nuggets and I'm happy as pig in shit mate, just not a big fan of fish.

Chips need to be good though, big, soft and fluffy. Covered in ketchup 

I'm not big on fish myself apart from white fish like Haddock and Cod. I will eat tuna as well, but other than that I'd prefer just to catch(and release) fish than eat them.

[SirBalon]

9 minutes ago, The Rebel CRS said:

I'm not big on fish myself apart from white fish like Haddock and Cod. I will eat tuna as well, but other than that I'd prefer just to catch(and release) fish than eat them.

You haven't lived if that's the only fish you eat mate.  Turbot, Monkfish, John Dory and Halibut are all amazing fish.  I also love Sardines only when in season.

[Bluewolf]

1 hour ago, Danny said:

@The Rebel CRS give me chips and chicken nuggets and I'm happy as pig in shit mate, just not a big fan of fish.

Chips need to be good though, big, soft and fluffy. Covered in ketchup 

 

1 hour ago, The Rebel CRS said:

I'm not big on fish myself apart from white fish like Haddock and Cod. I will eat tuna as well, but other than that I'd prefer just to catch(and release) fish than eat them.

Nothing beats knocking together your own concoction over a camp fire or stove... bread on the end of a stick for toast etc... All kinds in one pot, bits of bacon, peas, beans etc.. stir till hot then eat...