Fun in Leicester

Well, I've been in Leicester for about 10 months now, and while it is just a regular town and not too special, there is one thing it seems to do well...festivals.

Dancing! Its not a festival without dancing

Every second week there seems to be another festival: Caribbean, Gay Pride, music, comedy, beer, bonfires and fireworks, Diwali...the list goes on.

My idea of a festival may be a bit different to yours...

Admittedly Gemma and I have not got to many, BUT, we have made an effort to get to some of the more kooky ones.

 Picrtured: Kooky.

 The first cab of the rank is the Leicetser Sasuage and Cider festival. It was an awesome day in early summer, with a variety of sausages available to try and heaps of different types of cider. We pretty much just lazed in the sun all day. There was live music and it was held on a sporting field, so there was heaps of space for kiddies to run around and be annoying.

Sometimes, just sometimes, you realise you've stumbled across a winner!

Not soon after we found ourselves at the Leicester Riverside Festival. Pretty much a weekend of weird and wonderful activities in the castle gardens and Bede Park. After been thoroughly disappointed with the maypole dancing while sipping coconut juice from coconut husks we listened to a brass band that was floating up and down the canal on a boat.

Floating musicians.

The afternoon was made complete by watching a chainsaw sculptor ply his trade, a small rock garden put together by a local rock balancer, and small non-petting zoo. It was non-petting zoo as it had snakes, spiders, and other assorted reptiles.

Chainsaw sculptor at work.

The final, and by far the coolest, festival was a day trip Gemma and I spent on the local steam train during their 1940s wartime weekend.

The steam powered 40s.

The 40s were well and truly alive; people dressed up, there were mock battles from WWII, fly pasts of spitfires, live music, and lots and lots of war machines and weapons.

Sadly, this is one of the most romantic photos we have.

We bought a ticket on the steam train that went up and down the Grand Central Railway visiting the different stops.

All aboard! Next stop, WWII Germany.

Each stop was themed differently; notably there was one themed as Britain, one as Nazi Germany, and one as the US.

He does not look intimidated.

All in all it has been a fun year and I am looking forward to seeing what other festivals I can get to in the upcoming year.

The Kegerator that Phill Built

Now, I can't lay claim to coming up with this idea all by myself; in fact, it's a blatant rip off of my good mate Pinko's system. However, that said, my latest little project (along side my computer and bicycle) may be the best yet!

How is this a bad idea!

While expensive, its not too difficult to convert a fridge into a dream dispensing machine. First I consulted a How-To guide by micromatic, a US based home brew company (for US readers they also sell full fridge conversion kits).

 It turns out taking a lid of a keg is not intuitive. I had to look that up too.

Then I sourced a CO² cylinder. This was much harder than expected in the UK. After visiting multiple forums I finally found out that you can get them aquarium/fish stores and so I hit up Ocean Commotion, a Leicester local aquarium store, for their largest cylinder - 3.0 L (or 5 pounds).

Still don't know what all those dials means

After that it was just a matter of buying the parts outlined in MicroMatics How-To Guide from BrewUK, an online brew store. From them I could get an AEB keg (just like a corn keg, except Italian), a tap and shank, disconnects, the regulator pictured above, hoses, and, of course, actual beer making equipment.

I know exactly where I want to put this.

Next, I drilled a hole in the cheapest fridge I could find (£ 20!!!!).

This is as much fun as it looks.

And, then it was ready for a my first batch of beer.

Weissbeer - verdict: awesome

It was all pretty simple; two biggest issues I faced were drilling the hole in the fridge (those suckers are tough) and figuring out how the regulator actually works. It turns out that finger tight is not air tight...

These babies, disconnects, lock onto the keg - the grey lets gas in and the black lets beer out.

All up it cost waaaaaaay more than I expected - mostly because the cylinder (£ 135) and keg (£ 90) are quite pricey. But hey, have a gander at the picture below and try to convince yourself it is not worth it.

 'Tis a thing of beauty!

Easter Break

Much to my amazement, work gives me six days for the Easter holiday. Gemma and I decided to use this opportunity to visit the cultural centre that is Liverpool work a brief visit to Chester. 

If you can pick who this is, you know where this is going...

Now, my knowledge of Liverpool is entirely based on British comedians providing entertaining commentary on the social activities of inhabitants of said city, which you can imagine is not to flattering.

  Hilarious narrowboats - Liverpool does have sense of humour - also, another hint...

So I was somewhat surprised when Gemma suggested we spend the better part of a week there. Those of you more musically savvy than myself (i.e. everyone) will recognise the cultural significance of the area, particularly the unearthing of a somewhat popular rock n roll band in the sixties; the Beatles.  And thus my learning experience began.

Learning!

Well, actually - the learning experience began with science, because, well...I like science. OUr trip to Liverpool took us past Jordell Bank Observatory so we stopped off for a quick gander at the 76 m Lovell radio telescope. The discovery centre was a little out of date but the telescope was HUGE! There was also a walking garden there that was severely lacking in anything even remotely floral.

My science appetite sated onwards to Liverpool we went. It is a really cool place. As expected lots of Beatles focus - and we pretty much bee-lined to the Cavern Club; the nightclub that is considered the their birthplace.

 A replica of the Beatles stage from the Cavern Club in the Beatles museum. My photos inside the club were not spectacular.

 Not surprisingly we were greeted by a the overtures of a Beatles cover band. We found our way to a few other attractions including the Beatles Museum, which was really good and followed the trail of the band's development and unearthing through each of the band members careers after splitting. We wandered around Albert dock, and took in the sites from the Radio City Tower. 

 View of Liverpool from the Radiotower. The big building is a cathedral.

I managed to find a comedy show which was not particularly funny; I decided this is because the comedians were not able to make fun of Liverpool and its inhabitants...I also insisted on visiting the museum because it had dinosaurs AND mummies. We also spent our entire time stalking Super Lambananas. These look exactly as the name suggests and I will leave the rest to your imagination.

Gemma caught one and put it in a cage because she hates lambs and bananas. Also animals, she just hates animals.

After a couple of days flaking around Liverpool we made our way to Crosby Beach, currently home to the Another Place Sculptures. Another Place is a fascinating beach installation in which there were heaps of cast-iron, life-size statues scattered across the beach and in the ocean. Apparently they were amde from molds of the artist, Antony Gormley. 

That ain't a poor man drowning (penis not shown).

The installation has been moved all over Europe before becoming permanently based at Crosby Beach. Interestingly, there has been some outrage as the statues to have a crude penis; a bit like the Simpsons with Michelangelo's David.

I had to subtly remind Gemma to reach for only his hand.

From the beach drowning men we headed towards Chester. Due to its location we crossed into Wales once or twice on our journeys. We visited the Easter food and drink festival where I ate a zebra burger. Other than that we wandered around the town. 

The river Dee and me on the City Walls

We only really dropped by as it has some old roman gardens and a cool city wall that the Romans built some of and the Normans expanded into a proper medieval city. The main city area was mostly filled with he medieval-style black and white two story buildings that I seem to come across every now and then (I believe York had it too).

Eastgate street in Chester