[floppybootstomp]

I've 'known' fellow forum member James since around 1999 or 2000, first bumped into him on Icrontic Forums and then at my other site, Bitbender Forums.

Over the weekend, James visited London. On route to Germany on a business trip. He'd managed to persuade the company he works for to let him have a short stay here before getting on wiv da serious shiznit in Germany.

So, I picked him up at Heathrow Airport around 9pm Friday evening, got him booked into digs at central Greenwich and then we managed to get a pint in at the Cutty Sark pub on the riverfront from 10.30 - 11pm.

Dropped him off at digs, went home.

I was wondering how the hell to entertain him when it occured to me the Hope Festival was on over the weekend, to be precise, Friday and Saturday. This festival is a very low scale event, held on a camp site in E. Sussex, near Bodiam Castle, on the first weekend of every June. It's basically a few bands playing in a Marquee and friends gathering, camping out, drinking beer, and sitting round wood fires talking a load of old toss

So, I thought - baptism by fire - let's take him there. I have two tents, two sleeping bags, so off we went. Nothing like immersing him in a field of strange music and drug crazed hippies to see how he reacts

He told me he enjoyed it, but as he lives in Staten Island, he may have just been humouring this whacko Brit oddball and just saying that to keep me happy. (But seriously, he assured me it wuz good )

I enjoyed it, I did suffer a hangover, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that James kept up with me and matched me pint for pint. Excellent

Coming up are some pix. James took some pix of me, I just hope the redness, scarring and swelling don't show up too much if he posts pix of me, cos all that stuff is certainly there following my, er, illness.

But, whatever, we'll have to wait til James gets back to New York from Germany for him to post any pix, if, indeed, he posts any pix at all.

So, to the pictures.

James standing by the burnt out Cutty Sark boat:




At Greenwich University buildings:




In central Greenwich:





We arrive at the festival, putting up tents, the well mannered US citizen:




Jason does roll an exceedingly good herbal cigarette:




Left to right: Unknown; Kate; Di; John; Jason:






Flakey Jake. Those of you who may recall the pix I posted of a celebration in the park may recognise him from there. He plays mostly Cajun music, has played in The States a lot, particularly in Memphis, he's a Brit:





Shakey Jake's violin player and slide guitar player. They played a lot of covers, Little Feat, JJ Cale, Bob Dylan, Eagles, Creedence, twas good And the slide geetar player was a genuwine yank




General view 01:




General view 02:





James took a shine to this dog:





The band Gnashville:





John & Jason:





Glenn Tilbrook performing. He was about the only 'name' performer there, he once fronted the band Squeeze. If you no heard of them, Google it, you probably will know at least two of his songs.






I do believe at this stage he was getting quite sozzled





And so, back to the tents, the camp fire:








Poser:






It gets cold at night:






Smokey:





Still smokey:

[floppybootstomp]

And so to the morning, Lela trying to wake Roy up, for some reason he slept in his car, odd:






James takes down the tent and looks confused:







And before I took him to the airport, we visited Greenwich Park:

Overlooking the Thames:








One foot in the East, one foot in the West, the Meridian line:





In one of the park's gardens, with one of the observatory telescope domes in the background:






And after that I drove our visitor back to Heathrow airport.

I've 'known' James since either 1999 or 2000, but he's only the second forum member I've ever met, the first one being Muckshifter.

Forum members I've spoke to include Bits, Kiwi and Tim (all from BBF).

James was exactly as I'd imagined him, which was kinda reassuring.

Hope you enjoyed the pix - flops signing out

[muckshifter]

Thanks Flops ...


Shame I missed the shindig, but I would not have kept up with the drinking.

[crazylegs]

Fantastic pics as always Flopp's...

Really enjoy looking at the pics and the banter that accompanies each one...James is a lucky man to have you as his guide...The shindig looks great and unspoilt...I wonder how long it will be before tens of thousands start turning up and spoil the personal feel of such a do...

The Herbal spliffs look erm good... even though I don't smoke...

I'm off to Hastings for a holiday in july and Bodiam Castle is one of the places I intend on visiting whilst there...

[Taffycat]

Sounds like you had a really good time Flops, but awwww rats!... Bitbender won't let the pics through again so can't see the fun

[Ian]

Originally Posted by Taffycat

Sounds like you had a really good time Flops, but awwww rats!... Bitbender won't let the pics through again so can't see the fun

Give this link a go Taffycat, I've googled for a free proxy and put the url in there:

http://w2.hidemyass.com/index.php?q=...DcucGhw&hl=3ed

[Taffycat]

Thanks Ian, that was kind of you, but Flops ran a check recently, and found that my ISP was not blocked or anything like that. But for some reason his pics always show as blank spaces here. Someone else (PotGuy? was it?) had the same problem, so it will be interesting to see whether he can see them this time too

[Alf]

Hey Flops, didnt you go to the Cutty Sark?
what happened to it?

[floppybootstomp]

Originally Posted by Alf

Hey Flops, didnt you go to the Cutty Sark?
what happened to it?

See first pic. It got a bit burnt. During renovation, so we couldn't have visited it anyway.

And if you read text, you'll note that we did manage a swift pint at The Cutty Sark pub on Friday evening.

There is talk, albeit unfounded, that the burning of the Cutty Sark boat was an insurance job.

Hmm. Spectacular fire, looks terrible; project is behind budget; the most imnportant parts of the boat, more than 60%, are in storage anyway, and undamaged. Biggest damage is to deck flooring, get that planer/sander out, plane down about 5mm,- hey presto - all charring disappeared.

There is to be a music concert to raise funds for the restoration.

Since the fire, donations have flooded in.

Before the fire, hardly anybody realised the boat's importance or, indeed, that it was being restored.

One fire = worldwide publicity and lottsa dosh flowing in.

Whatever it takes, I say

[muckshifter]

So, this week rather than be a cynic, i decided to participate and interpret the theme ... 'what Christmas means to me'.