The terms "Tetley's" and "Best" are an oxymoron!!

Joe

Ian left his laptop Stateside so don't think he'll be posting while over here. He was in and out in a matter of 6 hours "If it's Sunday afternoon it must be Bradford" syndrome

Leo

Ian and his girlfriend left me just as we were getting ready for the 70mm screening of " Where Eagles Dare" but was last seen heading to Omar Khan's , the restaurant of choice for discerning Film Techers !!

I hope he got a good curry , 4 1/2 hours on the Sunday crawler from Bradford to Kings Cross can seem like a lifetime if you had a dodgy vindaloo
 

I gather Darren put in an appearance at the Widescreen Weekend too. Sadly (and mainly because of a colleague being on long-term sick leave) I was stuck at home catching up on work...
 

During Desert Storm I was deployed to Upperheyford and was billited at the Peartree Roundabout in Oxford. Anyhow, I too am a railroad enthusiast . On one of my days off I went to Didcot RR Museum and was lucky to be able to get my hands dirty. After restoration work on a particualr locomotive was completed for the day the Brits took me across the way to a pub where I enjoyed some of the best bitter! Somehow, I managed to find my way back home, which included rail, bus and walking
 

PS If you end up sending him back do NOT send him COLLECT or he won't be accepted.
 

thanks for the kind words about the weekend. Sorry we didn't get to meet up.

All told I think things went pretty well with only a few hiccups.
 

Pete - the whisky, agreed (most of my summer holidays are spent less than a mile from Scotland's newest distillery, on Arran) but the beer... ! Is there supposed to be any difference in taste between 70 and 80 shillings?

Will - don't mention trains in Wales. I went to a meeting in Aberystwyth (sp?) last December; the heating didn't work and the thing was 3 hours late, including a stop in some dank hole for 20 minutes while a woman got off and walked her dog! If I ever go back it'll be the politically incorrect way - by car. If you're ever in the UK again there's a massive railway museum in York, which BTW is only a short train ride from Bradford and the film museum... Another good reason to visit York is that there are 367 pubs within the city ring road, meaning that you can go to a different one on each day of the year - but at Christmas and Easter you have to do two!

YES!

Although you have to find a pub that actually knows how to handle the stuff properly. If you've had the gas pulled variety then you probably won't taste any difference. If it's 'beer done right' then ther most certainly is a difference. Also depends on which brewery. I don't really like the product of the big boys, as I find that is all kinda samey. The best places to find are those pubs which brew the stuff themselves, in the cellar, or in one I can think of, actually in the pub itself!

 

right now i'm continuing my annual Paddy's Day Guinness-a-thon. You're all welcome to join me.
Owen
 

A friend of mine who was stationed at Upper Heyford and who lived in the barraks had relations in Greece. Anyhow, he got his hands on some of the best home made wine. After having our fill (one of us was a designated driver-not me)it was decided that we should go to Oxford to get up some grub. Somehow, we managed to land in a American Southwest/Mexican restraunt called the Blue Coyote. After having some more spirits with dinner we somehow managed to do some sightseeing around Oxford and ended up in one of these punk-rock underground clubs So what happened to yours truly, thats right, had a nice nap in the corner while my compatriots partied

There used to be an excellent Middle Eastern restraunt in Oxford right across the street from the Synagouge.

As far as railroading. I have had the opportunity to ride SP4449 in Special Excursion Service in conjuction w/the 1984 Louisana Worlds Fair. I was laso involved w/the CA State RR Museum in Sacremento whil stationed at Travis AFB, CA
 

The heat of a Vindaloo can be surpassed by a Tindaloo or a Phaal the latter being the preferred dish of one Marty Galbreath of Sonics Associates , Birmingham ,Alabama. His ability to consume one of these dishes accompanied by several pints of draught Guinness is best witnessed from a different room,preferably hermetically sealed!!
 

Pete: You're right, most of the beer I've had in Scotland is of pressurised container/gas pumped variety. I guess the thinking in the islands is that if you put conditioned cask ale on a Calmac ferry it probably won't be in very good nick after being thrown around in the Kilbrannan Sound/Minch/North Atlantic...

Although I've never been there, reports I've gotten from some friends in the past seem to confirm this. FWIW, a restaurant in Burlington VT opened in the 1970s, serving "authentic midaeval English cuisine." They went out of business within a year, and most of the stuff I tried out there was err... not to my liking.

One friend did put me on to fish-n-chips on the Times though.

I wonder how the vindaloos stack up against some of the cajun and tex-mex heats.

 

And this from a native of a country that gave us grits,country gravy and chitlins to name but a few.

Give me a break

That's real food, none of the imported hot stuff they call a curry.
 

Tha' shud noa we don't hold wi none of them namby pamby southern lunches up ere in Gods given country !!

Up ere it's breakfast ,dinner an tea not fergettin thee suppa affer a few pints a decent ale not that Tetley's piss watter we send off to t'colonies to poison Film Gods like
 

Imperial War Museum
Cabinet War Rooms
Tower Bridge
HMS Belfast
Duxford
Stratford on Avon
Blenheim Palace
Warwick Castle
Didcot

I have some interesting photos that I took at Duxford. If you are interested, I can try and post. Got some of their Spitfire almost wiping-out on landing and almost took out the PBY Catalina with it!

On one of my trips to London, I experience the soccer (football) madness. I was visiting on a day off-weekend morning and the streets were still empty. But there was this echo of AY-OH reverbreating for quite a distance. What it was- at a major intersection there were pubs on opposite street corners, obviously each pub supported a different team. Huge mob w/the police seperating them! I got the hell out of there fast!

As far as British food. The hotel were we were billited was excellent. I ate at the famous Blooms Kosher Restraunt of White Chappel. $30.00 American for a corned beef sandwich, bowl of mazo ball soup, some tea and a piece of strudel! And the food was not that good! Places like Pizza Hut served a much smaller portion than in the US and was more expensive and not as good. Sandwiches in most pubs were so-so. Excellent Middle Eastern restraunts in the U.K.
 

When I was a kid, I thought tripe was some sort of stinky fish. When I learned what it was and how bad it tasted, I swore off it for life. I've eaten kidney many times without a problem, and I like good liver, but keep me away from blood and fat puddings, and oatmeal and suet dishes best fed to birds.

I'm sure it is possible to have decent midaeval food, I just think this restaurant found the recipie book of a midaeval stable hand on a pig farm. I refuse to be politically correct about what I consider bad food.

 

We had thought to go up on Saturday but were too worn out from our adventures in Scotland to get a move-on. We went on the earliest train from Kings Cross on the GNER to Leeds. The trip only took 2 ½ hours and was quite pleasant. We then hopped on the connecting train to Bradford, which took 20 minutes. We had no idea where the theatre was so we just wandered downtown to see if we could ask someone. We had an idea that if we headed towards the Museum of Movies and Television that we might run across someone who could tell us. We passed a closed Odeon cinema and a great live theater. We went in to the museum and were about to ask where this Pictureville Cinema was, when we spotted it across the lobby of the museum.

We had made it no further than the lobby when Dick Vaughan looked up and exclaimed, “You must be Ian Price.” I think it freaked my girlfriend out because this happened no fewer than three times.

We got to watch the last half of the Cinerama film called Seven Wonders of the World. Although the print was faded pink and scratched, it was dead obvious why Cinerama worked so well.

Dick then introduced us to Ben Wales and Thomas Hauersleve. I was given a tour of the various booths. There seemed to be many technicians and projectionists on duty. They were running Cinerama, 70mm 35mm and video for the various shows. I took pictures, which are being developed, and I will post them to Brad tomorrow.

The next show was a video documentary about Cinerama that was very well done. The presentation started with an explanation on how the Pictureville Cinema came to acquire Cinerama and the people responsible were honored. The Documentary was very informative. They used a technique called “Smile Vision” to show what Cinerama looked like on video. Although you should see Cinerama live “Smile Vision” was adequate to demonstrate the image. The documentary is called Cinerama Adventure and was done by Dave Strohmaier. It isn’t complete quite yet but should be done soon. He also talked about the efforts to make new Cinerama prints from the elements that exist. There’s hope that it will happen.

After the documentary they showed several clips from Cinerama films including the roller coaster from This is Cinerama. The clips from How The West Was Won were so compelling that we would have sat there for the whole film.

After the clips was a Q&A session where people got to ask all sorts of questions. Things I learned was that Cinerama use a 6-perf pull down. Questions I forgot to ask was what is the frame rate of Cinerama, someone said it wasn’t the same as for regular film at 24 frames per second. It soon became clear that the attendees to the festival were ardent Film Enthusiasts who know all sorts of arcane trivia. I was afraid to ask stupid questions in their presence. These are the same sort of overboard English enthusiasts who are train spotters and write down the registration number of every train they see. Well if it weren’t for these kinds of enthusiasts, Cinerama would be dead and forgotten now as opposed to something to be kept and admired. Because of these folks Cinerama will live on as a museum piece and future generations can draw inspiration from it.

After the clips Dick Vaughan graciously gave us a tour of the museum and the Imax booth. They have the mini Imax projectors that I had never seen before. They are mighty cute and run very well. I got to peek at my first 3-D Imax film. He showed us the old Imax projector, which is now a museum exhibit and looks very old. The museum is very good and has some “priceless” articles from early British television.

The museum has three theatres. The Pictureville Cinema has about 250 seats and is capable of 70mm, 35mm, and video. The Cubby Broccoli (James Bond Producer) Cinema is 35mm and has about 130 seats and a very small screen. Then there is an Imax. It seems as though all the cinemas have all the sound formats currently available. The Pictureville even has to have two different DTS units for 70mm and 35mm.

They were setting up a new 007 exhibit and we were given a sneak preview. I don’t think Dick will get in trouble for this as we ran in to his boss in the middle of the exhibit. I asked where the Aston Martin DB5 was and Dick said that it was going to be delivered tomorrow.

We then left Dick and the Wide Screen Weekend and headed to Omar Khan's where I did indeed have a vindaloo although I asked for it medium. The food was very good and the price was reasonable. We then asked for a cab and got a no-meter cab, probably from the waiter’s cousin, and got taken for a ride to the Leeds train station. Should it really take 30 minutes and 15 pounds to go from the museum to the Leeds train station?

We then hopped back on the GNER train to Kings Cross station in London where we were staying in a B&B.

Although our time in Bradford was short, it was extremely educational and informative. It sticks in our mind as a highlight to our trip to Great Britain. If we had stayed any more all it would have done is prove to my girlfriend that I am truly a geek and she would dump me. As it is, I have furthered the illusion that I am a normal healthy man, and we are still friends.

We took the GNER train up to Edinburgh and thought that the run between York and Edinburgh was beautiful.

It was very cold and late in the evening when we arrived. We took a cab to our B&B called the Averon Guest House, and unpacked. We just went up the street to dinner and ended up having the best meal in a small French cafe called Jacques Bistro.

The next morning dawned bright and sunny. We took the Guide Friday open double decker bus tour of Edinburgh. We hopped off at the Camera Obscura near the Castle and thought that it was a wonderful little museum. The Camera Obscura is 150 years old. I imagine it was Magic when it first opened.

We toured the castle and the Scottish Crown Jewels. It's good to see the Stone of Destiny back where it belongs. I must say that the English Coronation Chair looks lighter and less imposing without it. But the Scots are good sports and will loan it to the Brits for the next Coronation.

We walked the Royal Mile and toured the Hollyrood Castle. We had dinner at the Rialto Coffee Bar, which I though appropriate. We took in The Shipping News at the Cameo Cinema in Edinburgh.

The next day we took the train to Glasgow and changed trains to go to Oban. Oban is a small seaside village on the west coast of Scotland. I discovered that the Stewarts were big around there. My maternal grandmother was a Stewart and it's my middle name. Oban was wonderful and I thought I would like to buy a house there. I can afford a house there as well. For dinner I had Haggis and a wee dram of Oban Whisky.

The next morning I awoke early and went for a walk. We then both went for a walk and then took a cab on a scenic tour. We caught the train back to Glasgow.

The rail journey to Oban is supposed to be one of the most beautiful in all the British Isles. It was all that and more.

We wandered down the mall in Glasgow and marveled at the shopping possibilities. We caught the underground to a nice restaurant for dinner. We then went back to the train station to catch the overnight train to London.

For fans of Silverstreak, (It's the motion.)

The overnight train to London takes 7 hours to travel the distance the day train takes 4 hours to travel. It leaves Glasgow at 23:59 (11:59 PM to us Yanks) and arrives at 07:00 at Kings Cross in London. They let you board 30 minutes early and stay on board 30 minutes late in London.

That was our very nice 3-day trip to Scotland.

 

If you're ever back in Scotland, try going to Oban and getting on a boat to some of the islands - IMHO they're the best bits of Scotland. Islay (seven distilleries on one island - yum! ), Barra (where Whisky Galore, US title Tight Little Island, was shot) and South Uist are brilliant. I'd stay clear of North Uist, Harris and Lewis though - they're run by religious (protestant) fundamentalists and there's hardly any booze to be had.

The train ride north of York is great - when it works. I use it to go (from York) to meetings in Newcastle and Berwick Upon Tweed once or twice a week on average. Once you're north of Alnwick it's sometimes possible to see Lindisfarne (Holy Island) in good weather. I usually try to get some work done on the way up (if there's a 'no mobile 'phones' carriage) and relax on the way back. But I was once stranded on a very cold Berwick station for three hours when a tree fell on the track, and during the winters delays of 30-60 minutes are not uncommon - basically because the system is old and worn out. That's when cars have their uses...
 

Good to see the pics of your visit. Especially taken by the shot of my feet next to a Vic 8.

Just hope there are no foot fetishists registered on here
 

David
 

Their family size variety is about 6 feet by 2 feet!