Monthly Archives: September 2014

18.09.14 — Journal

Autumn Arrives in Burnley

The other day at work I wandered out for lunch and to return a library book, and noticed that the leaves had begun to fall and the sun had begun to reflect off the bright orange trees. I took the opportunity to take a few photos as I headed back to my workplace, Burnley Youth Theatre, which is in a lovely spot in the middle of a park. Busy with web coding and packing at the moment, so I’ll just leave you with the photos…

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16.09.14 — Journal

Luisa Visits Burnley

Here’s another post I should have written a while back – almost three weeks ago, when Luisa arrived back from Germany!

I met Luisa in Leeds, where we waited for the storage company to deliver her stuff back, and then we headed back to Burnley for an evening of chills (when I was introduced to the Anaconda video…)

I thought I’d show her some of the nicer surrounding areas, and so first we hopped on the bus to Manchester, where we met Emily for some shopping and general gallivanting around the city. As graphic designers, we naturally gravitated to the Apple Store, where this happened…

Luisa and Em looking mighty fine

We spent the rest of the day checking out the coolest places we could think of, such as Affleck’s Palace and the Royal Exchange Theatre, but then Em had to head off home so me and Luisa headed back to Burnley for an evening of snacking and watching Bridesmaids.

The next day we hopped on another bus, this time to the lovely Hebden Bridge! We visited Yorkshire Soap Company, Wood & Wire and of course the sweet shop, where I introduced Luisa to a northern classic – sarsaparilla sweets!

Not sure what to make of this sweet

We also wandered along the canal and took time to feed the ducks, where we encountered the most evil-looking pigeon I have ever seen – photo taken by Luisa!

Scary pigeon
Me and Luisa in Hebden Bridge

Luisa brought her camera along, so as per usual I stole it and began taking photos. I seriously need to buy myself a decent camera at some point! Here’s one of my favourites, Luisa sat looking lovely on a bench in the park!

Mischievous grin on a bench

Eventually though, I had to go back to work and Luisa had to head off to Leeds to head down south to visit Witney and London, so I’ve been back on the daily grind since! I’ll soon be back in Leeds though and with the graphics gang again – bring on £1 pizza at Belgrave!

PS: Check out Luisa’s blog here. I’ll nag her to update it.

14.09.14 — Journal

Ride The Lights

A few weeks ago now (post delayed due to work commitments) me and Danni grabbed our bikes and headed off on the train to Blackpool for their annual Ride The Lights event!

Our first obstacle came as we tried to work out how to secure our bikes on the train. Being lazy as we are, neither of us had ever had to take a bicycle on a train – and so we stood at the bike rack for a good few minutes trying to work out how prevent our bikes from rolling away and seriously maiming an unsuspecting train passenger.

But we eventually managed it, and so took the opportunity to take some terrible selfies…

Me and Danni on the train, out bikes make a cameo in the background

Me and Danni on the train, with our make a cameo in the background.

Anyway, we eventually arrived in Blackpool and found our way down to the front. During the event, they close the whole eight mile straight of the front off to cars and other traffic, leaving the main road and the front for us cyclists to power on down.

Me and Danni pepare to cycle down the front

We wasted no time in getting going – the train times back to Burnley late on were super sporadic so we had to be sure not to miss our planned 10pm train!

Action shot of me and Danni cycling

Danni snapped the above photo, which is one of my favourites! Unfortunately I am notoriously terrible at cycling, a point proven during the evening as I began to veer perilously to one side with even the smallest distraction, narrowly avoiding collisions on multiple occasions…

Needless to say I had to take the following photo whilst we had to stop for a red light.

Another shot of us actually exercising

My panicked expression is due to the fact that the light was turning green and people had begun to move, and so I was stuck in the centre holding everyone up! If I’m bad whilst in motion on a bike, I’m a thousand times worse at trying to get going from stationary. It takes me forever – throughout the evening I lost Danni multiple times as I was preoccupied trying not to face plant the floor whilst mounting my bike…

Anyway, we soon arrived at the infamous Blackpool Tower, an excuse for another Ollie & Danni selfie. I’m not sure if you can tell, but we decided to wear in our new Thing 1 and Thing 2 t-shirts that I brought back from Florida! True OD style.

Ollie & Danni at Blackpool Tower

There were other things going on during the evening, such as a bunch of artists performing on the promenade, such as a band on the Comedy Carpet.

On we continued, through the iconic Blackpool Illuminations which had been switched on just for the one evening before the official switch-on sometime soon. It began to get dark and Danni managed to break down twice, but we soldiered onwards (and at one point upwards, which really did our legs in…)

Danni after fixing her bike

We eventually came to the end of the lights, where we had the opportunity to take a break before turning back and cycling back down the entire of the front to the train station where we had begun. But wait – we couldn’t take the time to relax, we were running short on time!

A lovely sunset over Blackpool

We stopped briefly for a can of Fanta and a bit of a boogie to some classic Dirty Dancing tracks outside one of the promenade hotels, and then again to pick up some food at a (very busy) McDonalds, but we pushed on to get to the train on time!

Two Big Macs, two apple pies, two breakdowns, two Fantas and sixteen miles later, we rolled back up at the train station – in good time for our train, too!

Even though I paid the price for all that exercise, during which I probably did a year’s worth in less than four hours, I would certainly recommend that everyone goes and gives it a go in the future. The weather held out, the flat promenade was easy to navigate, and it was lovely to cycle down below all the lights as the sun went down. It almost reminded me of Florida – I was even humming the tune to Disney’s Electrical Parade at one point!

13.09.14 — Journal

Citizen Khan

This Thursday me, my mum and sister hopped over to Salford Quays to meet up with my Auntie & Uncle for a quick meal at the Lowry Centre, and then headed off to Media City UK to form part of the audience for a live recording of Citizen Khan!

In order to gain access we had to queue for a wristband, but to our dismay when we made it to security we were informed that due to the high volume of the cast’s family and friends who had been able to book priority tickets, they had run out of wristbands for the evening’s show. We were, however, handed bingo-style numbered tickets instead and told to hang around in the hope that some priority ticket holders wouldn’t show and we would be able to sneak in.

We milled around outside the studio and I, being my usual inquisitive self, wandered off and found a map of the studio building and found my way to another of the sound stages. It was the largest there, and I had a nosey in – but it was dark and so I wandered back to the news that we could go in!

We eventually got our seats right at the back left of the studio, but they were seats nonetheless and so we settled down and the show began!

Adil Ray and the rest of the cast were brilliant (he stopped by to tweet me and Ellie after the show!) and we laughed pretty much non-stop for the three or so hours of filming.

I was enthralled by watching how the setup worked and functioned, and also spent a lot of my time staring up at the jungle of trussing and lighting which was suspended from the studio roof.

In case you didn’t know, from a young age I have been obsessed and intrigued by lighting and it’s use in films, live productions and general interior designs. I have been amassing a personal collection of stage lighting for years, and my job at Burnley Youth Theatre has also allowed me to dabble in technical theatre work over the years – so as you can imagine, being on a studio set was like heaven for me!

I am once again inundated with work this weekend, and so will probably not get the chance to leave you guys with another post. I shall do my best to get one out early next week – I have a list as long as my arm of things to report back on, including an awesome cycling trip to Blackpool with Danni – argh!

Update: You can view me and Danni’s cycling action here. Promise not to laugh.

08.09.14 — Journal

Alton Towers With Mum

Afyer a busy three days of Blaze Festival, today me and my mum took off down to Alton Towers for a day of thrills and chills! It turned out to be a beautiful day to go – both because of the weather and the total lack of queue lines!

Me and my mum at Alton Towers

The day started off with the planned rush to The Smiler – as I queued up for ages with the graphics crew a while back (remember this?) only to have the ride break down on us. This time I was adamant that I’d get on it – and I did! Thrice!

Time to get corrected

I accomplished this by first rushing straight there and catching the ride when it’s queue time stood at a relatively short 30 minutes, and then skipped the whole queue by jumping in the single riders line! I practically walked on to the ride twice, then came back later to do the same one last time.

Inside The Smiler station

After my mum had opted not to ride The Smiler, I somehow talked her on to Oblivion. For those who don’t know, Oblivion consists of a 90º vertical 180ft drop into a dark smoking hole in the ground. My mum yelled at me for taking her on for the duration of the ride, but then was the one to suggest that we hop back on again!

Me and my mum by The Smiler

We then managed to score a ride on Rita, Thirteen and then headed over via Skyride to Forbidden Valley for some time on Air and Nemesis!

Soaring over Rita

We did really well with Nemesis and Air, managing to get two rides on each with only about ten minutes queue for each ride! My mum became bolshie and announced that she thought Nemesis was ‘tame’. Okay.

Although I was thankful for the lack of queues for rides such as Nemesis, I did feel a pang of pain when I saw the abandoned sections of queue pen which used to be full to brimming with people excited to get just one ride. It made me speculate as to how long The Smiler is going to need such endless twists and turns of queue line…

An abandoned queue from Nemesis' glory days

I also took the opportunity to score my first rides on Ripsaw and Nemesis: Sub Terra. Ripsaw was as stomach-churning and wild as it looks, although not as wet as it first appeared (quite fortunately I’d say).

But Nemesis: Sub Terra was a totally different beast.

A Google search before I rode made me assume it was a tame 20ft tall drop tower, but kudos to the Alton Towers staff for making it something else completely! After being yelled at and bossed around by the staff posed as top-secret dig site workers, we ended up in a room with a forbidden ‘egg’. Predictably, the egg hatched and all hell broke loose – and then the ride and the guests really got wild. The restraints lifted automatically, alarms began to sound, strobes flashed and we were yelled at to leave as quickly as possible!

In a moment of blind panic, unsure as to weather it was part of the act or we were genuinely been made to evacuate the ride, the whole group of riders began to scream and run out of the room towards an ‘elevator’ back to ground level. After a bumpy ride back to the surface, we were ushered screaming into a decontamination chamber. I ran through it, arms flailing, being scared to death as a gas-mask-clad staff member jumped from a wall.

After this I finally found daylight and left the ride. Definitely something to experience!

Anyway, back on with the rest of our day. My mum, still bitter about the wetness of the water rides in Florida, decided she didn’t want anything to do with The Flume or River Rapids, so we gave those a miss. We did, however, get a ride on Duel and The Runaway Mine Train before heading over to Sonic Spinball.

Sonic Spinball from the queue
Us two on Sonic Spinball

I remember this ride from it’s days as Spinball Whizzer, but I forgot how wild it could really be! Me and my mum loved it, managing to walk on twice!

The highlight of the day, though, was none of the above. My mum convinced me that we should go on the ‘swings’ ride, which turned out to be a toadstool-themed attraction in the kid’s section behind the Towers themselves.

My mum's favourite ride

Although seemingly empty and tame, it was actually quite enjoyable! I do think my mum was a little more excited by it than me though. I’ll let this picture do all the talking…

Fiona loving life on the swingy things

But after another day of travelling and outings, I am back in my beautiful bed again. I am particularly proud of some purchases I made in ‘Buy The Smiler’, The Smiler’s gift shop…

The Smiler glasses, rock, pin and trolley coin

I’m going to go and have another early(ish) night again, as I am in the office tomorrow to work some more on the new Burnley Youth Theatre/Burnley Arts Centre website. Such fun!

07.09.14 — Journal

Blaze Festival 2014

So I’ve finally made it into my own bed after a super-busy extended weekend of Blaze Festival 2014 events!

The programme of events took place was centred around the Harris Museum & Art Gallery in Preston, but with many other satellite events taking place in Burnley, Accrington and Skelmersdale. Check out the events programme online here to get an idea of what we had going on!

As far as my design work for the festival went, I created five of the six “festival strand” icons; Portable Projection, Masquerade, Blaze Lounge, Level Up and Culture On A Shoestring — as well as the poster for the festival. Check those out in a blog post from a while back here!

After spending the weekend pretty much live tweeting the whole event (check out my Twitter here or search #BlazeFestival2014), here’s some highlights and photos from the festival!

The three musketeers

Here’s Ant, Jakub and Sarah chilling out in the library after a hard night of eating pizza and dumping balloons on people! Speaking of dumping the balloons on people (Ant’s idea to add an extra dimension to a Portable Projection screening of Indiana Jones!), here’s a photo…

Balloons everywhere in 'Club Obi Wan'

My greatest contribution to the actual running of the festival was to man the front desk, where could be found many, many copies of Culture On A Shoestring Issue 5! They arrived by the box from Newspaper Club

Hello, welcome to Blaze Festival 2014
I don't think we have enough...

It was strange to be sat in the Harris Library at night – quite eerie in fact! After a long day of festivities, me and Sarah thought it best that we nip down into Preston City Centre and treat ourself to frozen yoghurt and crêpes…

Spooky Harris Library at night
Nutella, banana and nut crêpe

Continuing on our culinary quest, Sarah also introduced the Blaze team to the wonders of Sue’s Ice Cream in Market Square! I opted for a sherbet-covered cone, whereas Laura went all out with “the works”, and ended up with this marshmallow-clad monstrosity! (Which caused marshmallowgate, but that’s an inside joke.)

Marshmallows on ice cream
And then sherbet on ice cream

By today (Sunday), the third day of the festival, we’d all gotten pretty tired – Jakub especially so after making porridge at 3:30am!

Shona and a rather tired looking Jakub

But no fear, for me and Shona still had the energy to treat the Harris Museum Staff to a rousing rendition of Cher’s “Believe” at 9am!

Me and Shona take over Blaze Lounge

In the afternoon I also took an hour to see Shona’s contribution to the festival – Masquerade’s Murder Mystery. Skeptical of the format of the interactive theatre production, I headed into the room where it all began and was blown away by the whirlwind hourlong performance, during which I struggled to differentiate reality from what was being acted out — even after I had dropped by on several rehearsals previously!

The performance really was a credit to Shona and the whole cast. I was so immersed in the experience that I didn’t have chance to take any photos, except this one that I snapped just after the Murder Mystery began…

Shona and the team kick off Masquerade's Murder Mystery

After the festival came the AGM, which consisted mostly of chilli con carne, nachos, cheese and milkshakes served in huge jugs and washed out Nutella pots!

With that delicious thought, I think I’ll end here. It’s been a long, tiring weekend, but it’s been so much fun and an absolute delight to see and work with everyone again. I’m also sad to see Laura leaving Blaze, but she’ll soon have an MA in tow and be on her way to bigger and greater things, so I wish her all the best!

Signing off now – Alton Towers tomorrow! I had better sleep!

Update: You can have a giggle at photos of me and my mum at Alton Towers here.

05.09.14 — Travel

Florida

So this was the sight that first greeted us as we set off on our Florida adventure – SeaWorld’s beautiful entrance! In case you hadn’t gathered, this summer saw the Briggs family jet off to Orlando for a fortnight in the (what I’m told is enjoyable but I find to be oppressive) sun!

SeaWorld's lagoon

We arrived and set straight out to find a WalMart (which is a bit like Tesco, B&Q, Primark & PC World Combined) to fill up our trolley with suspiciously neon food, all of which was saturated in high fructose corn syrup. Yum.

Anyway – after that, we found our way to our first theme park, SeaWorld, and I had some fun taking photos around the park…

The parents don't look too interested
Journey To Atlantis

My sister demanded that we try some “Dippin’ Dots”, which take the form of either sorbet or ice-cream formed into small balls – a bit like those Calippo Shots but without the faff of trying to remove the solid ice block of balls from their stupid container…

Neither of those facial expressions are necessary

We also managed to sneak in three rides on one of my favourite coasters out there in Florida, Manta! After two rides though, my mum fell victim to the high-G pretzel loop and decided she’d had her fill.

Flying over the water

Towards the end of the afternoon, however, the American weather did a decidedly English thing – and it began to rain. But I’m talking monsoon-style rain here, so much so that we decided to make tracks and head back to our condo. Ellie decided to go for a paddle in the road…

Put your shoes on

After that, we made our way to The Magic Kingdom, a family favourite of course! Ellie seemed to really enjoy carrying the backpack…

Cheer up, it's The Magic Kingdom

The day started out beautiful as ever, but sure as hell descended into a downpour by mid afternoon! We made a second visit, highlighted by Ellie’s change of clothes…

Ellie magically changes outfit
Wandering selfies

We managed to get on all the rides thanks to Disney’s FastPass+ system which worked a dream – including, of course, Big Thunder Mountain. Here’s my parents enjoying one of it’s many lift hills!

Give us a wave!

We did, of course, stay around for the nighttime parade – but before that, there was a marching band from a local school/high school/college/university! (My grasp on the American Educational System is poor, even after a lifetime of exposure to American Films..)

I want a fluffy hat

Then as the day turned to night, it was time for SpectroMagic! But wait – it was not to be. Turns out Disney have decided to eschew SpectroMagic in favour of the parade which preceded it – Disney’s Electrical Parade. Although the music was catchy (click here and play it for the rest of this blog post) and it was breathtaking, I did prefer SpectroMagic.

Main Street at dusk

As for the rest of Disney, I made sure we hung around at Hollywood Studios to catch the Frozen Fireworks display – which was totally worth it, as it was more of a sing-along accompanied by fireworks! But then came the finale – and it snowed!

Snow in the height of summer

It was truly beautiful, especially after cast members had been dropping subtle hints all day, such as “I hear it’s forecast to snow for tonight!”. Which beats their excuse for the rain: “I hear Elsa was practicing her snow powers but it’s so hot that the snow melted!” I just thought that one was pushing the cheesiness a bit too far.

At Animal Kingdom, I made a new friend.

Goat!

We also made reservations to see the Lion King show, which from our front row seats (courtesy of FastPass+) was particularly breathtaking.

Nants ingonyama bagithi baba!

Now away from Disney and towards Universal – we made a true weekend of the Universal resort by staying for a night at the Hard Rock Hotel! This meant we had two days worth of free Express Passes for all the rides at Universal Studios and Island Of Adventure. We also had a free boat ride in to the heart of the action! Needless to say we made good and proper use of these perks!

Sailing in to Universal

We headed straight to the Harry Potter areas of both theme parks, and I had my first ButterBeer – then a second, then a third… But the best thing was the ButterBeer flavoured ice cream we managed to get in Diagon Alley! I’d post photos of all the Harry Potter stuff, but it’d take up so much room, so here’s just a teaser of Hogwarts…

I spy through the trees...

I leave you with two anecdotes from the trip.

Firstly, after leaving the Hard Rock Hotel, we rolled back up at our condo and we were soon called into the living room by my mother, livid that in our rush to leave someone (no names mentioned) (my dad) had accidentally put the Hard Rock Hotel’s hairdryer in the suitcase. Twenty minutes later I was walking up the Hard Rock Hotel’s lavish driveway in my Crocs with a hairdryer in my hand, left to explain to the hotel receptionist why I had it in my possession. Mortifying.

Then, at Islands Of Adventure, we went on the Jurassic Park ride, during which I thought it would be a good idea to store my sunglasses up the leg of my shorts. This was effective throughout the duration of the ride, even keeping them secure during the 84ft drop, that was until I stood up to exit the boat at the end. My sunglasses then suddenly managed to skimp across the entire boat only to fall down the only hole in it and become trapped in the restraint mechanism somewhere. I pointed this out to a ride operator and then moaned and groaned about having sensitive eyes, until the guy said “I may have some spare sunglasses that have been found on the ride hanging around”… He rolled up with these beauties, saying “I don’t think they are what you’d go for, but I think you can rock them!”

I hope I sure as hell did.

My beautiful new sunglasses
Journal

I’m Back

After a summer-long hiatus during which I’ve been awfully busy with other all-consuming commitments, I plan on updating my blog with all the shenanigans from this summer over the coming days!

Coming up we’ve got pictures from my holiday to Florida, news on Culture On A Shoestring, Burnley Arts Centre and much, much more!

My blog will also very shortly be blessed with a much needed redesign, shortly followed by the launch of my portfolio and the rest of my site! Watch this space…