As you might have noticed – I liveblogged a lot of it on Twitter and my blog’s sidebar.

I met up with him in Trafalgar Square, where, as it transpired, were some sort of St George’s Day celebrations – whilst this display of patriotism obviously sickened me, I was delighted to spot Giles Dilnot from the Daily Politics doing a live OB.

Anyway, after a wander around London we eventually ended up the Sir John Soane museum – he was the architect who designed the Bank of England and loads of other stuff. What was unusual about it, was that aside from it being a small museum (it was Soane’s old house), you had to wait outside for someone to let you in, and then had to sign in, which made it feel all the more exclusive.

You could tell it was an old house – the walls were caked in tat, like all of the paintings and old Roman stuff he’d collected. There was a bit towards the back where there were loads of old Roman head statues overhanging a drop down to where there was some sort of old sarcophagus – it was unbelievably tempting to push them off, but somehow I managed to resist the urge.

After this, and a brief jaunt to the British Museum, we headed to the spiritual home of PKMN.NET meet-ups (this is how I know Barney), The Rocket, where we met up with Mushroom (or “William” as he’s also known). He was somewhat startled when I phoned him and asked if he wanted to go to the pub, considering that both Barney and I both live over 100 miles away from London, in different directions.

After this we headed to another pub, which was something of a personal triumph for us. Only a couple of people reading this will appreciate the significance that we found “The Shakespeare Pub”! On previous trips to London, we’ve (well, I’ve) consisted failed to find The George Inn, which is thought to have been Shakespeare’s and Charles Dicken’s local pub. Considering we were there on April 23rd, it seemed particularly relevant, as it was not only St George’s Day, but Shakespeare’s birthday and death day. It was literally the most relevant place in the world to be at that time.

(Wearing someone else’s hat doesn’t mean that I endorse St George’s Day or the volkisch concept of ‘patriotism’.)

After leaving this pub, we ended up encountering some Morris Dancers just before heading to the pub next to The Golden Hind – the, er, fourth pub of the day, which was the other spiritual home of PKMN.NET meet-ups. Barney bought four pints of a specific drink just to get a free St George’s Day hat. Just goes to show that marketing works.

The Morris Dancers were appalling, have a watch of this:

• Easter Meet
• Blacking-up whilst Morris Dancing… that’s a bit dodgy, right?
• Eggheads and Morris Dancers
• Strictly Stop Dancing, Please
• Christmas Drinks

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Post tags: barney, british museum, gap year, itbox, london, meetup, morris dancing, mushroom, pub, the george inn

Chris, Lottie, Barney, Kyron, Ant, Me, Sam, William, Shark, Kat and Dan. Not pictured: Katy.

Dan bothering a mime.

It being Easter, we thought we should respect the religious aspects, and celebrate Jesus’ death by recreating Leonardo’s Last Supper.

As luck would have it, Barney looks a bit like Jesus. And Sam looks a bit like Mary Magdeline. And I played the part of Judas. The other apostles were perhaps a little less enthusiastic.

Spending about eight hours with me is difficult enough for anyone, really. Unfortunately, William’s Jamesomalley tolerance was slightly less than eight hours, so he ended up punching me.

But it was fun. I may have another tale to tell about this in a few days.

• A “Barney” in London
• The Da Vinci Code
• Former Hitler Youth member stays on the far right
• Threats of physical violence
• Changing Church Rules

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Post tags: barney, dandan, easter, Friends, katy, kyron, london, meeting, meetup, mushroom, photos, pizza express, PKMN.NET, pokemon, pubs, shark, the rocket, xagor

It was also excellent because I got to meet my friend Matt for the first time – after knowing him online for very nearly seven years:

Despite being in London, we didn’t do anything particularly touristy – we just went to three pubs and a Pizza Express like locals may do, largely ignoring the spectacular views of central London around us.

As the day went on, things got progressively louder, culminating in a drinking game in the last pub (which didn’t really work on me, as I wasn’t drinking alcohol), and Barney, Dan, and Sam getting approximately very, very, drunk. They’d been drinking since 11am, having gone to a pub at Liverpool Street Station before meeting the rest of us, so by 9pm, weren’t walking in a straight line. This meant that me, being sober (I’m straight-edge), and Katy (who I’d dragged along for the day), who was only tipsy, had to try and guide them back to their train stations so they could get home.

It was a most excellent day, really. 10/10.

• Easter Meet
• Matt & Dundas Return (Briefly)
• Matt’s Birthday
• Out of my depth!
• A close shave?

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Post tags: barney, katy, london, mattward, meetup, pizza express, PKMN.NET, pokemon, pubs, steffan, the rocket

People came almost literally from all over the country – we had people who’d come from Scotland, Wales, East Anglia, Kent, the south coast – almost everywhere really. My friend Jeroen, who’s from the Netherlands, had even given up a day of his holiday in London to meet us all.

Being the webmaster and technically the owner of a major website has its perks. In the afternoon, when we were all in Hyde Park, my fellow administrators and I managed to persuade a couple of the lesser proletariat to go and buy us drinks. The other interesting thing was that because I’m the webmaster, the bloke at the top, I sort of assumed the leadership position. I was making executive decisions about where we should go and where we should go and so on.

It was when I was speaking to the group as a whole and leading people to a spot in the park that I realised that I had created an army. I’d re-iterate that it was amazing, but I fear that it could be (correctly) interpreted that I was enjoying the power trip and megalomania more than I was the meeting people.

After the “official” meet in Hyde Park, about fourteen of us took a trip to Leicester Square to acquisition some food, before (at my command) heading to Westminster via Trafalgar Square. It’s not a trip to London if you don’t see Big Ben. It wasn’t until we were sitting in an underground bar in the former Greater London Council meeting (just across the Thames from Parliament) that we realised we were missing someone. Whoops.

We found him eventually though. As the evening went on it ended up with seven of us, the most hardcore of the gang going to another pub near Euston station – which coincidentally, was a Scream pub. In other words, the same brand of pubs I go to all of the time – and it was just like the ones in Leicester, with its stacker, video jukebox and pool table. The only difference was that it was charging London Prices.

As you might imagine, there are a lot more pictures and videos from the day – I’d put them on here, but I guess the impact would be lost on you lot. If you really want to see though, click here for the pictures. I made several videos, but the one below I edited especially with the blog audience in mind (ie: there’s no Pokémon in it):

It was excellent. Click here for PKMN.NET’s coverage.

• Celebrity
• A “Barney” in London
• Introduction
• International Relations Society
• Cashback!

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Post tags: barney, Friends, hyde park, jeroen, kyron, leicester square, london, meetup, mickey, mushroom, pkmn.net. meet up, pokemon, pub, rex, steffan, xagor

As some of you may know, as well as being a lovely, caring person, and pioneer of the CocaCola lifestyle, I’m also the webmaster of the world’s largest Pokémon website (aka: ‘PUK’). Yeah, as in the computer games. Occasionally, Nintendo hold promotional events where fans can take along their Pokémon games and download a super-rare Pokémon to their cartridge or whatever- and that’s what they were doing yesterday.

I got up yesterday at 7am- a mere five hours after I went to bed. Its the first 7am I’ve seen in months. Probably since I went horse riding. I had a train to catch. Or more specifically: two trains. My first train took me to Nottingham, and there I changed to go to Stockport, where I met up with my mate Mike (a different one to this one), who’s an admin on my Pokémon website.

The train journies wern’t entirely straightforward. There was some dodgy looking types who boarded the train at Leicester, who insisted on standing near to where I was sitting. At the time I was playing on my Nintendo DS, listening to my iPod, and lighting a cigarette with a £50 note, so I was under the impression that they would have liked to mug me. They didn’t, thankfully.

The train between Nottingham and Stockport was operated by Central Trains, who, unlike the futuristic Midland Mainline use older carriages, and cruise at a speed of approximately two miles per hour. This wasn’t the only problem… the train was packed. Its hard to explain just how busy it was. Not only were all of the seats taken, but in the aisle down the middle of the carriage, hundreds of standing people were crammed in struggling to breath. In fact, according to this document on the EU website, is recommended that pigs to slaughter get 55cm^2 of space when being transported in under three hours- I don’t think that the people standing one the train got even that. And they weren’t even being slaughtered.

It wasn’t all doom and gloom though. I ended up playing multiplayer New Super Mario Bros against a woman who I believe was named ‘Jeni’, and another guy for about an hour and a half whilst the train slowly made its way towards the birthplace of the industrial revolution. As soon as we’d figured out what we actually have to do on multiplayer mode, I think its fair to say that I won slightly more often. I’m quite worried that Jeni was actually quite an important person- she is the manager of a band. So I hope I havn’t missed my chance to negotiate a multi-million-pound recording contract by playing computer games instead.

It wasn’t until I was leaving the train that I explained to them that I’m the webmaster of a Pokémon website. I think I could literally see the street cred falling off of me. Or it might have been sweat created by the immense heat and pressure of being on a packed commuter train. The creation of igneous rock would be a good analogy.

As the train grinded to a halt in Stockport station, and after being essentially sexually harassed on trying to leave the train passing through a suffocating mass of people, I met Mike, who was waiting on the platform, ready to start the next leg of the journey.

We had to catch a bus from Stockport, from just ouside the famous massive viaduct. The journey was entertaining because it seemed to perpetuate every northern stereotype imaginable. I overheard a conversation where a man was talking about avoiding the ‘old bill’, I saw grim post-Industrial chimneys and buildings, quaint non-franchise shops, cobbled streets, and the sky was grey. It was on the bus that I remembered that northern service industry staff are rude, ugly people. At least when talking to southerners like myself, wearing my suit made of gold, speaking the Queen’s English, flaunting my material wealth and knowledge of science and the arts. The bus driver did little more than grunt at me when I asked for a ticket.

We arrived at the Trafford Centre at about 13:30. It was massive. The Pokémon thing was on the bandstand in the food court area. Rather than talk about a load of tedious Pokémon crap, I’ll refer you to the news post on PUK. There’s pictures and video in that and all sorts.

I felt a bit like a celebrity. It was weird being recognised by people you don’t know. Its even more weird when they react slightly stunned and then ask you for your autograph. Seriously. I met three people who frequent on the website I first put together six years ago. I got to discuss tedious moderation issues in real life, and things, which was a bizarre experience. When we mentioned my friend and fellow-PUK-admin Jeroen, it was somewhat unusual to have to say “Yeroon”, as that’s how its pronounced, when it reads a bit like “Jer-owen” to my ignorant English eyes. Like how I don’t know how to pronounce ‘non-sequitur’, as I’ve only ever seen it written down.

It was also a bit embarassing as I felt a bit ‘out of it’. Sure, I still know about Pokémon, but not as much as most of the people there! Since the latest generation of games, I havn’t been able to keep up with the news and so on as actively as before, what with having other things to do and so on. It was fantastic to see people talking about Pokémon battles like some people would talk about football matches, with the same passion and enthusiasm.

My main concern was that I’d bump into one of the many people over the years who have been banned from PUK for various reasons, and would end up getting punched. Or worse still, potentially having to engage them in polite conversation whilst carefully overlooking the fact that I’ve banned them and insulted them in the past. A bit like if I were to talk to David Cameron, after everything I’ve said about him on this blog.

Thankfully I was safe- the only violence incident was when Mike kicked me after I called him ginger, and implied that being ginger makes him an inferior person.

Here’s a video I made at the event. It was designed for PUK readers, so I apologise if you don’t understand a word of the complex Pokétalk, but I think it turned out pretty well…

I went back to the desk in something of a panic a few minutes before my train was due, because the monitors were telling me that the train was only going to stop at “Norwich”. Once again, she said “next please”, despite a still deserted foyer, and when I asked her if the train was going to stop at Nottingham, she yes “yes” disdainfully, before once again before looking away in what I assume was disgust. Way to service your customers!

It was a good day overall though. Watch the video.

• The non-event
• In praise of: Transport for London
• People who remind me of me
• I think I hate East Midlands Trains
• The Train Ticket Game: An Update

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Post tags: manchester, meetup, mickey, pokemon, trafford centre

He didn’t rape me, in the end.

See the write up (ie: picture-up with inane comments) of the Pokémon side of the event over on PUK. The best bit was getting recognised as a celebrity- in fact, people recognised me but didn’t dare talk to me, because I’m a celebrity. And I have a threatening beard, apparently.

Yesterday evening, to celebrate still being alive, I did what is fast moving from the “unusual” to “occasional” column, and went out with my friends again. The usual suspects were present: Heather, JD, Heggs, Charlie, and we also had a newbie joining us: Gina.

Or at least, we thought that was her name- we’d also heard JD refer to her as “George”. It was only this afternoon, a whole 15 hours later when Heather revealed that her name is in fact “Georgina”, which creates at least two possible nicknames. (I asked if I could call her ’shorty’).

As “”usual”" we started at The Greyhound, where I easily won at Pool- mainly because my opponent, Gina, had apparently never played before. Needless to say, I made a series of boastful and condescending remarks to try and definately secure my win.

They didn’t seem very impressed when I told them how I had proof that I was a celebrity. I repeated the anecdote a number of times to try and provoke a reaction.

The interesting thing here was that Charlie had come straight from “oop north” somewhere- Liverpool or Birmingham (oop-west?), or something like that. So she had a suitcase with her. As we walked along the road a bit later, it was vaguely embarassing as she looked like she was homeless. “Looked like”, being the key word- I don’t think we actually saw her enter her house at any point.

After Charlie had gone home early, we had to make our way to the train station- it turns out that Gina lives in “Kett’rin”, which is a town about ten miles away, and she needed to catch the last train home, or be doomed to spend life (ie: the night) on the streets of Market Harborough. Hilariously, just as she was sitting on the train, and the doors shut and locked in preparation for take off, a man in a suit ran upto the door and tried hammering the buttons to try and get it open, and kicked the door and so on- he was clearly on the wrong train and wanted to get off. Hilariously, he didn’t.

We didn’t follow a vey logical path in terms of where we went – despite at least two us not touching alcohol. Or more specifically: drinking it. We went back to the greyhound, for another drink (I wanted to get the Coke average up), and then we decided to go to Heggs’ house, via Pizza Man. The unfortunate thing was that Heggs lives a stones throw away from Charlie (if you have a trebuchet), so we in fact ended up zigzagging our way up and down the town. Not that it mattered- I think we all had a splendid time.

The most bizarre moment was probably when Heather, who was visibly very, very tired, slipped into talking rubbish. Unlike any normal person just making nonsense noises (see: northerners), her erm… “bollocks” seemed well constructed and reasonably consistant- and quite like some sort of Eastern European language, like Russian or something slavic. She managed to keep this up for around half an hour, which I suppose is impressive in its own little “wtf?” way.

Also, I’m not sure whether to be pleased that I’m infiltrating urban legend, or horrified that I’m being used in case studies. It turns out that JD had told Gina my story about smashing up my mum’s car on Christmas day (scroll down a bit), and she’d gone on to tell her family.

It was an excellent day, all in all, though- and brilliantly, word on the street is that I’ll be going to a fireworks party on November 5th, so you lucky readers can expect an account with either pretty pictures of colours flying about, or graphic photos of a victim in the burns unit. I can’t wait.

• Triumph and Failure
• Night on the town
• Nutter of the week
• Geocaching and Accordians
• Mexican Coke

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Post tags: leicester, mickey, pub

Not that expense is an immediate problem- the other day I received in the post a cheque for a cool ONE THOUSAND FIVE HUNDRED AND FORTY ONE POUNDS, TWENTY EIGHT PENCE. It was a refund on the accommodation, as I’m not living in “Crime ‘n’ Student land” anymore.

But anyway, receiving a big cheque isn’t as exciting as winning something- but I’ve done this too! Heggs, who’s trying to raise money for a gap year has been holding a raffle, and fleecing money out of his friends under the guise of charity.

I was delighted to find that I had in fact won some beer! Now, yes, there’s the small technicality of my being pseudo-”straightedge”, and not drinking, but look at it another way – I’ve won a wonderful prize!

Other than that, this weeks been more of the same James O’Malley action.

Tomorrow looks set to be tremendously exciting Рnot only am I going to the Pok̩mon thing I trailed last week, but I will be meeting an internet weirdo who happens to be a good friend of mine.

Michael, who like his “James’ University Friend” namesake, is also known as “Mickey”, who’s an admin on PKMN.NET, is taking the trip all the way from Stockport to meet me, James O’Malley! Oh, and like, participate in the Pokémon event.

But either way, it should be excellent- and fingers crossed he won’t try and rape or murder me!

I’ve met a couple of other people from “the internet” before, also, but never someone I’ve known for so long or as well… maybe it’ll turn out that I’m the internet weirdo and will try and murder him? Either way I’m going to keep him on his toes by suggesting that we take a shortcut down dark alleyways and by the canal. If he suggests that first I’ll worry.

Looks like tomorrow’s blog entry might end up being a “simultcast” with BBC World PKMN.NET- it’ll be just like the Pope’s funeral!

• Evacuation
• Other James O’Malleys
• The O’Malley Effect?
• Introduction
• Birthday III and another party

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In exactly one weeks time its a very exciting time for Pok̩mon fans everywhere* РNintendo are sending a machine around to various locations in the country to let people download a (piece of data that will eventually allow you to obtain a) Deoxys to your Pok̩mon game cartridge. For the former Pok̩mon fans reading, think of it as the equivilent of Mew a few years ago. For the non-Pok̩mon fans reading, think of it as a public relations exercise.

* in Leicestershire

Anyway, as you probably are aware, I’m the webmaster of arguably the world’s largest Pokémon website- PKMN.NET, and this is obviously a big story for us. This time next week I’ll be going to the Leicester event and sending mobile phone photographs back to the website LIVE- people will be able to log on during various times in the day and see the latest pictures from the Leicester leg of the Deoxys tour.

Frontstory (This is the important bit, I hope you’re making notes- they’ll be a test at the end)

How is this relevant to what I did today? It’s all going to be happening at the Leicester “Vue” cinema (formerly Warner). The trouble is, I can’t drive, meaning that accessing the out of town “leisure park” (ie: restaurants, cinema, bowling) is somewhat more difficult. I’m going to need to catch an extra bus to the one I’m used to taking, and navigate my way through the complex world of bus timetables- to this end, Heather insisted on doing a dress rehearsal today, to make sure I know what to do.

It was also a decent excuse to go to Pizza Hut and see the new Wallace and Gromit film, which she was dying to see. Honest. It was her.

We needed to catch the “59″ from “H5″ and take the “Bus” to the “correct bus stop”. This went surprisingly well- all of the buses were on time. One thing that struck me as odd was that the driver was quite friendly. Rather than grunt or complain when presented with a £20 note, he was surprisingly engaging. When I asked him if they take NUS cards, aside from the obvious dismissively toned “No” and look of obvious disgust on his face, he took the time to explain the tedious backstory as to why not. They havn’t taken them “for years” since they started doing routes to Universities, or something.

He was clearly a popular bloke- when he was driving through Heather’s village, he extended his arm fully and did a big wave, through a full 90 degrees, to a woman walking down the pavement, and at a stop in Oadby, bantered with a boarding passenger – “Not you again?”, the passenger joked.

He wasn’t a bad driver overall, 8 on 10.

Another bus trip and a grumpier driver later, and we’d reached the Meridian Leisure Park.

Its changed a bit since I was last there- the cinema has rebranded (obviously), the educational children’s play area, Discovery Zone has gone- presumably along with its excellent jingle (sing “DZ for Discovery Zone” to get the gist of it). Most strangely of all, the McDonalds also appears to have closed down. A McDonalds! Closing down!

Thankfully, a Pizza Hut has been built to compensate for this. Incidentally, this is where we went for lunch.

We got there early- just before midday, and it was nice and quiet- and most importantly, the average age of everyone in the building was probably somewhere north of 18. This didn’t last- as we sat there waiting for our food, more and more people entered. More specifically, horrible, horrible families with their awful children. If you’ve read any of my previous entries, chances are you’ve come across me moaning previously about how rubbish children are.

There were hundreds of them- every table seemed to be occupied by two under-fives and their idiot parents. They walk on the seats, make noise, stare at you- for fucks sake, if you’re going to take your awful spawn outside of your house, where your possesions have no doubt already been ruined, pump your children full of somatrophin and wait for them to reach an acceptable age. I don’t want them wrecking up my eating experience, just because you’re too inadequate of providing food for them yourselves.

I think my main complaint is that their wanting food means that the quality and speed of my service is diminished.

Why do food places even allow children in? It’s not like they eat anything, and they’re just taking up the seat of a fully grown adult who will consume more and earn you more money.

Other than this, the food was upto its usual good standards, and Heather seemed to enjoy the lunchtime buffet, returning to it no less than three times. The highlight was perhaps the free refill on the Pepsi, as I’d get to drink as much as I’d like in front of the one person who’s so militant in regulating my cola intake. Of course, this would have been better if those bastard children hadn’t distracted the staff to the extent that I only managed two and a half glasses.

It was only during the eating process that I realised that there is potential for a mass exodus towards the Vue cinema at around the time Wallace and Gromit was due to start.

The Wallace and Gromit film was fantastic.

It wasn’t laugh-out-loud hilarious, although it did have a few moments like that, but it was tremendously entertaining if a little predictable.

The most surprising was how potentially “controversial” (for lack of a better word) it was, for a “U” film, I mean. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a “U”, and longer since something in a film has shocked me, so maybe I just wasn’t expecting some of it. I mean, “U” to me, says “really young kids”, like, people who were born in the nineties- the Wallace and Gromit film featured guns and Nazis! No, really.

The gun (and there is only one) is quite vital to the plot- not that it even managed to kill or injure anything. In the film, Wallace and Gromit run a humane pest control business- quite how Americans going to see this are going to understand not using guns, I don’t know.

The Nazis came in the form of an aeroplane battle between Gromit and the “baddy dog”- the dog’s plane has the old German “evil Nazi cross” symbol on the wings.

The other nice thing about the film was the humour- for a plot based reason, Wallace is only wearing a cardboard box. There’s a note printed on it “may contain nuts”.

You probably had to be there.

But anyway, the film was excellent, and I’d probably give it a 9/10- not that a number offers any greater insight into my opinions. Again, the only thing that spoilt it slightly was the presence of crying children in the cinema. Surely there’s a gap in the market for cinemas upgrading the rating on kids films to say, a 15, so that horrible children and their idiot parents can’t get in, and it’s less embarassing for cool people like myself to go and see what was a very enjoyable film.

My recommendation: go and see it. But then again, does anyone dislike Wallace and Gromit?

• Christmas Film Reviews
• “I want that one”
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
• A sterling day!
• Hut in Pizza Shocker

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Something amazing has happend. Twice.

I’ve been recognised!

As you probably know, I’m the webmaster of the world’s biggest Pokémon website, PKMN.NET (PUK). It’s quite popular, and it’s now reached the stage where two people from completely unrelated websites have recognised me- these websites do not link to my website, nor do I link to them. People just know me because they happen to go to the two.

Noit from B3ta/Talk was the first to “recognise” me a few months ago- claiming he visits PUK every other day, and just yesterday, Xavious on UKNova recognised me, just by my username!

He had this to say:
” yea, your blog ive read a few times, its pretty funny.”

Oh, and, this…

“ps, loving the terrorist shirt with george bush on it“.

Even strangers think my fashion sense is second to none!

• Milking the celebrity cow
• Introduction
• Bizarre Coincidence
• Mickey!
• Citizen Fish

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