Enlightenment From Hull

I wouldn’t normally consider a trip to Hull a week before Christmas but there was no way that I was going to miss my Grandma’s 80th birthday disco, sharing with Maria Sharapova, Pete Tong’s wife and the local bakery (according to the table line-up).  Oh and some nurses.

There is lots of enlightenment, as usual, to provide to my dear readers.

Firstly I would like to prepare you for the step back in time that I took, with the train from Doncaster.  Sadly too dark by this time to take photos from the train journey, but I do have one of inside the train.

Comfort and style.  Art deco I think?

I also discovered that apparently there are lots of Japanese visitors to the tourist attraction that is Hull, so many that they have warnings on the trains in Japanese.

Shops in Hull close at 530pm on the evening as people do not like working however it gave me enough time to buy some green trousers in H&M that I thought would be very suitable – though my mother deemed them totally unacceptable, apparently folk in Hull wear their very smartest clothes for a Christmas do in a chain pub.  I had forgotten how much the standards of dress have dropped down south.  She was actually expecting me to wear trousers and shirt – for a night out!  Seriously!

Anyway the next day and onto Hull City vs Huddersfield, a local derby and one that the police had moved back to a 12:30 kick-off when they realised I was coming back to Hull that weekend so ensuring I didn’t have enough time to get drunk and start fights before the game with my legendary hooligan status.

I’m not sure who cares about how well Hull City played, but then again do you care about the modern look of the trains?  I am going to tell you anyway, not that you would expect anything else.

We scored early, played good football, had 27 amazing crosses from the right wing by an immigrant (yes someone who shall remain un-named advised me that because of all the immigrants the schoolchildren are now getting taught to speak “muslim”) – conversation always turns to those dasterdly immigrants at some point.

I do not understand why people leave the game early.  The traffic in Hull is crap, leaving early makes no difference.  Plus they missed a fine second goal and a post-match fight.  Between the players, not the fans.

One thing that did amuse me was the amount of local shops which are adorning the Tiger’s badge.

Those crazy immigrants again – now stealing the football club.  Oh wait a minute, they own it.

And then the highlight of my trip – the pole-dancing Wallaby.  The video is on my Facebook wall, I uploaded it on Saturday.

Only in Hull.

And then onto the party for my Grandma’s 80th birthday – doesn’t she look good?

I’ll probably get a text to order me to take her photo off the internet!  Assuming someone tells her she is on there.

Anyway, the party I can only really describe as Club 18-80 Christmas Dinner.

The food, well, for a start – look at the gravy:

I do not need to comment further.

When I bit into the vegetables, a whole glass of water ran out.  The beef was well done, despite the DJ informing us it was medium-rare (he also advised that the music wasn’t too loud, not that anybody could talk to anybody).  The yorkshire pudding was ok.  I heard someone say it was edible.  I grant it that status.

However this was not all – first we had, ok actually it was that shit that I cannot remember, then we had a contest where representatives of the tables would have to guess whether the track coming up would be Wonderwoman or Superman and make the appropriate body shape, until one person won a bottle of beer.  Woo fucking hoo.  Actually I remember the first one now, we had a noise making competition.  Loving the originality.

Oh what else was there, oh yeah people had to grab his bag of balls (balloons, ho ho) and sit on the balloons to burst them and then do the dare/drink/whatever it was – I do feel some slight sympathy for the member of staff who was snogged by a woman 4 times his size.

Do I need to go on?

I retired to the side bar to talk to my Uncle Peter about the price of beer.  And probably immigrants but I may have had too much to drink by then.

It was actually quite amusing in how dreadful it was and thankfully for my grandma’s husbands 80th I hear it will not be repeated.

However I feel proud to have been there at my grandma’s 80th birthday, I had a really good time and it was great to see all the family (that we still talk to) even if I did get compared to an upside-down carrot.

Oh and my grandma advised me that “I need to get at it a bit more”.  She wants more than 2 great-grandchildren apparently.