Quiz Tarrent at Lucky Voice

The more observant amongst you may have noticed I enjoy a good night out drinking with the girls, and its far from uncommon for me to over indulge. Last night at Lucky Voice on Upper Street, Angel, was no different.

The bar is lovely and stylish, but the prices were great! A bottle of beer was just £3.95! As a Northerner that figure looks painful for a bottle of beer, but as a resident of the capital for over 3 years it is music to my ears!

Get there for 7.45 on a Thursday night for a music quiz, £2 per player, and take advantage of the free karaoke booth after the quiz. Its also worth booking a table in advance as it can get a little cosy. 

Obviously with any pub quiz the most important question is "what shall we call our team?". We went with Quiz Tarrent. Get it? Like Chris Tarrent? Never mind, I thought it was hilarious.
The quiz is totally music related, think name the artist style questions and current music news. Some of the questions are a little tricky so brush up on your music knowledge before heading down. They also have some "get involved" rounds, like who can hoola hoop for the longest - winners get points for their team!

The quiz is a lot of good fun, but the real magic comes after the quiz has finished. With any luck you are all nice and merry by now, and you'll need to be, as you are taken around to one of the private karaoke rooms for you and your friends. Playing the quiz gets you 2 hours of karaoke free! It was a hard hitting moment for me when I realised I wouldn't be a winner on The X Factor any time soon, but we had a lot of fun choosing songs, playing with different sound effects for the mic and using the inflatable guitar.

Unfortunately, when I got up for work the following morning I stumbled late into the office I was feeling less than fresh, and a little embarrassed to say the least. But good fun was had all round!

Introducing Captain Meow at the Portside Parlour

Last week a group of us gals got together to head down to the PortSide Parlour at Broadway Market. This lovely little basement bar was delightful; being a rum lover my only disappointed was not finding the place sooner!

It’s worth pointing out that as you stroll down Broadway Market hunting for a doorway to a basement bar you will be wandering for a while. There is a lovely looking bar located on the corner of Dericote Street called Off Broadway, go in through there and follow the signs for the toilets, that's where you will find the pirate ship themed bar.

Unfortunately we planned this little trip to the rum bar well in advance, so much so we hadn’t accounted for the tube strikes. Eventually our party arrived and we began our endless assault on the cocktail menu. A Grace Jones followed by a Fishwife Punch, chased with a Prime Minister, each more delicious than the last. My personal favorite was the 1749, served with a little surprise.

The Rum Cocktail Menu

The bar itself is decked out like a pirate ship, with candelabras on the tables and jugs of water, tables so sturdy they would look proud in the captains quarter. Having spent many a party in my later teen years dressed as a pirate this place provoked loads of old memories, most ending rather embarrassingly with me falling over of puking into a bucket! Luckily I have grown to be a much more responsible adult so there was no pirate themed repeat from my past...or rather my last train home was at 9.45.
Due to the tube strikes we had the place to ourselves, which was great for what we wanted, but the lovely bar staff assured us it gets pretty packed out at the weekend!

All in all, I'm pretty disappointed I am unlikely to be heading back there any time soon. Their rum selection was fantastic, the bar staff were warm and friendly and the decor was very, erm, piratey! And, we even got to meet Captain Meow, the ships resident rat catcher!

I doubt he would make a good rat catcher really!

Ps. apologies for the blurriness of the pictures, the cocktails were just too good!

A tractor is not a car...

They have four wheels, like a car. Two wing mirrors, like a car. A steering wheel and a gear stick, like a car. Six hydraulic levers, like a...hold on a second! 

Whilst in Australia I plan to work on a farm, like so many others entering the country on a working holiday visa. Doing this is important for two reasons: To save more travel money and to enable a second year down under. Both are pretty good reasons in my opinion.

After a little research into harvest times and wages I learnt I could earn much more by getting a tractor driving job. Brilliant I thought to myself I grew up on a farm, of course I can drive a tractor, hell, I've been driving tractors since I was 5!

Over Christmas I went up to The Farm to visit the family. One not so exciting day my dad and uncle got one of the tractors out to fix a couple of fences.  Here's my chance for a little brush up course before I go.

With not too much persuasion I convinced my dad to take me out for a quick lesson before lunch. I heaved myself up the three huge steps and into the cockpit, the first difference between a tractor and a car, and sat myself in the driving seat, my feet swinging freely as I couldn't touch the floor. 

As I looked around I could see an abundance of levers, switches, pedals and dials. No, this certainly would not be like driving a car, and no, I certainly had not been able to drive a tractor since I was 5. I had sat on my dad’s knee and steered. Much to my surprise, I was about to find out driving and steering are very different.

"So I suppose we best start you in a field. Pop it in't gear and let’s be off down lane". I looked at the levers in front of me, pushed my foot as hard as I could into the clutch and tried to move what I had determined must be the gear stick. Dad looked at the clutch which, despite my best efforts, hadn't really moved, pulled his phone out and made a call back to the house "hold off on lunch, I think we might be a while".

It didn't really get all that much better from here. We drove very slowly up the lane to an empty field where my dad instructed me to stop so he could open the gate. "Stop here. Just here is fine. Now, Charlie! THE BREAK!" This is when I realised I could just do an emergency stop and hit the neutral button, unlike a car in which the break is applied slowly. Hindsight would say this was a bad moment to let dad know I hadn’t driven any motorised vehicle since 2010, asides from a gokart which I crashed and broke my ankle.

Slowly but surely my dad, who is slow to anger and rarely raises his voice, got more and more frustrated as I drove the tractor through the field, mildly avoiding ditches and hedge ways coming within inches of their lives.  

Just 10 minutes after entering the field I went over a sizeable mole hill at a speed and my dad was bumped out of his seat! I quickly stopped and helped him off the floor of the cabin apologising profusely. After a few minutes of awkward silence I went to set off again before my dad quickly interrupted “think it might be best if I take it from ‘ere”.  We were then left with the awkward act of trying to swap seats in the tiny cabin. I quickly decided it might be best for me to just walk home, and climbed down the steps, stumbling on the last one, jumping to the floor and slipping in the mud – “I’m fine!” I shouted up to my dad as the tractor door shut and he set off home.

When I eventually got back to the house – I took my time on the short walk in an attempt to avoid some embarrassment that was inevitable – I found the family sat around the kitchen table eating a ploughman’s lunch. I shuck my muddy boots to the corner and avoided eye contact with anyone until my aunt tried to point out some mud on my forehead and they exploded into floods of laughter, including my dad.

The conclusion of this nightmare? No, I don’t know how to drive a tractor. No, I won’t be getting a tractor driving job in Australia. And no, I do not make a very good farm girl.