Well would you believe, ITS SUNNY! Well one day anyway LOL To mark this rare occasion myself and Helen went along the Welsh South coast to all the exclusive resorts, Costa Del Neath, Paradiso Aberavon and Playe de las Port Talbot. If you love the smell of rotten egg sandwiches you'll love Port Talbot. That's the smell you get from the steel works, lovely, Bluurgh!
And why oh why when the sun comes out at winter time in the UK do people wear shorts, ITS STILL BLOODY FREEZING YOU IDIOTS!
Come to Wales, the air is lovely.
"Selfies" seem to be all the rage these days with every man and his dog and celebrities taking any chance they can to expose themselves to the wide world through the selfie. Now for the younger generation this is a great new craze but to lonely sad singles like i used to be these were your holiday snaps years ago. My first solo jaunt was to Corfu in 1985. During that holiday all my snaps were of views, my feet in various locations and pics of me pulling different faces with all being taken at arms length. That was 29 years ago. Move along people, nothing new here. Maybe i was a pioneer of my generation or maybe not as I'm sure other sad lonely people like myself have also done the same long before the "selfie" become a word in the English dictionary.
I have a very large collection of vinyl, tapes and CD's and have started again to look for valuable music on any format to add to my collection. Just cause someone lists a vinyl as "Rare" doesn't actually mean it is.
I have a Vinyl of Sex Pistols - "Never mind the B*ll**ks" which only 10,000 were printed so its not exactly rare but it is sort after. I've seen albums that have maybe over 500,00 copies been printed being listed on Ebay as rare, this definitely isn't rare and they are asking £50 for it when the proper book value is maybe £20. Are these people for real? I mean, I've got some Val Doonican and Max Bygraves vinyl and they are really rare. They're rare cause everyone threw them in the bin years ago and no one wants them now, I'm the only person on the planet with them and still can't sell them for 99p LOL.
Just out of curiosity on Ebay i checked to see if anyone was stupid enough to list any Jimmy Saville items and guess what, there is, are they mad? Not just that but there was a Jimmy Saville autobiography that was signed by him on Ebay for auction and there must be two even more stupid people on there than the seller as they were bidding on it, what idiots!
I take myself off to charity shops and record shops and can look through them for hours. The one shop i visited in Cardiff i used to visit years ago and it was a well spaced out record store with all its records in alphabetical order and band order in nice neat racks, now it would take me maybe 2 days to look through all the vinyl, its mad. I couldn't even see the guy who owns it over the counter as the counter was stacked with vinyl. In the one hour i spent in there i didn't even scratch the surface of the vinyl he had in there but i did find some first print original copies of Led Zeppelin II and Ramones - Ramones and got them at a snip price of £12 for both and can easily sell on for £30, "back of the net".
D-Vinyl record shop in Cardiff, its a mountain of vinyl and that's a 1/4 of the shop.
Whilst browsing through the vinyl in second hand shops in Carmarthen and Swansea i noticed that at some point Wales must have had a really heavy link to Greek music, loads of Nana Mouskouri and Demis Roussos but also along with those two giants of Greek music i found one album called "Music from the Greek Islands" in three different charity shops in Swansea along with one in Carmarthen and the icing on the cake in the YMCA charity shop i found an album by 4 Greek guys who were the Greek version of The Beatles with such hits as, "All you need is Ouzo", "The long and winding pot holed gravel track", "Can't buy me Pita" and "Olive groves forever".
Keep your eye out for these vinyls and get a copy. LOL
Bags for life from supermarkets. I'm all for helping the enviroment but when you purchase a bag for life they are so big you can't just fold them up and keep them in your jacket pocket, oh no, you got to walk to the shop with a large empty bag and the image i get of walking down the street with the empty large carrier bag is Roy Cropper from Coronation Street, oh the shame of it all. Thats it, stuff the enviroment, its throw away bags from now on.
The only music awards that count are Q awards and NME. The Grammys give out gongs for "Best fart on a backing track" and the Brits make up awards as they go along. For instance, The Global Success award was introduced in 2013 to make sure One direction got a gong and guess what....they got it again this year also to make sure they received a gong, i wonder if it was funded by Simon Cowell. What about when Coldplay went global? What about Adele? What about Mumford and Sons? There wasn't a list or even a vote it was just handed to One Direction. In all honesty the Brit awards are a joke and didn't even bother watching it this year and where was Val Doonican and Max Bygraves for best British male? oh and well done David Bowie. They used to give out lifetime achievement to music award and where's that gone? They offered it to Depeche Mode last year but told them that they couldn't play after collecting it so they declined the award, good on them.
Also Pharell played the Brits out and the headlines the next day were of his style and the hat he wore and was auctioning off, HELLO? Again its nothing new, that hat is 32 years old, Malcolm Mclaren was wearing it all those years ago with Buffalo Gals. Not new I'm afraid folks.
2014 - Pharell
1982 - Malcolm Mclaren and the Buffalo Gals
Its Crap TV time and guess whats back? Yep, you guessed it, they've wheeled out all the wannabe's and brainless out of the dark from under the stairs for another series of "TOWIE". I only caught the last 3 Min's as it was finishing and it was a couple with speech problems arguing. The orange coloured guy asked an orange coloured girl "Can i have a word in private" 5 seconds later there is 3 different camera angles and shouting at each other about who F**ked who behind each others backs (their words not mine) and showing each other up to be vile people. Who in their right mind would want to show themselves in that light on TV in front of 56 viewers LOL. Desperate to become famous comes to mind.
Also on the topic of TV as i was walking through Cardiff city centre on Tuesday and guess who walked past and next to me, Fungi from channel 4's "Benefit Street". He is now in Cardiff and was walking down the street with young dark haired lady. I was just about to ask for a pic when i saw my bus pulling in to head back to Carmathen, bugger. I googled him when i got home and he is in Cardiff and the lady he was with is his daughter as she lives in Cardiff, old habits die hard he still had a can of Blackthorn Cider in his hand.
Talking of homeless, on BBC Wales there is a programme that airs every year called "Swansea - Back on the streets". Every year a documentary team film for 6 months and air a 3 part series about the down and outs in Swansea. Well, when i was on that same bus that i got on in Cardiff as i was going through Swansea i saw a few of the drunks that are on that programme. I suppose you could say that my Tuesday day out was a bit like one of those Beverly Hills coach tours where they take you round famous celebrities homes only this was the Welsh version where i saw the cardboard boxes of the famous homeless LOL. Its not a funny subject really and i always give change if i have it or buy dog food for the ones with dogs. I always give the same homeless gent in Swansea £5 every Christmas and a tin of food for his dog, "I do allot for charity mate".
St. Christopher helped travellers, St. Patrick helped the Irish, St. David helped the growing of leeks and now just call me St. Kevlar the helper of fallen ladies over 70.
Last winter in the close where i live a lady of 75 slipped on the ice, damaged her hip and couldn't move. I made her as comfortable as i could with a cushion under her head and put my jacket over her, it happened as i was on my way out. I called the ambulance. She was getting very cold and was in agony so i tried to keep her warm but couldn't move her off the ice and kept talking to her to keep her mind off the pain (first time ever I've had to keep a woman talking, usually they don't shut up, that's a joke ladies LOL). An hour later the ambulance arrived and she recovered fine in hospital. Today while i was waiting for my bus another lady fell over her 3 carrier bags of shopping, she was 78. She thought she had broken her arm. Again i put one of her bags that had clothes in under her head and called the ambulance, this time it was there within 5 Min's, good job really as my bus had arrived and if i didn't get on that one it would have been a 2 hour wait for me. The timing of this fall wasn't great if I'm being honest, i mean, what a dilemma, get on bus and leave her there after i had helped her when she fell or miss my bus and wait another 2 hours, tricky LOL. In the end the ambulance crew got there very quick and said it was OK for me to go, PHEW!
6 nations rugby, what can i say. Well done to Ireland they outclassed us in every aspect of the game, passing, field position, mauls, rucks, scrums and tactics, we were so bad and Ireland were amazing and i still say Ireland for the championship but also a well done Wales against France, the frogs don't like it up 'em LOL. Bring on England, not really liking the look of that game, think England could edge it if Wales don't play to full potential but fingers crossed.
Well the season is slowly creeping up on us and i now have everything for the new decor and the plans are all sorted, just the new sofas and flooring when i arrive and its all systems go. I'm not really as excited as normal about the forth coming season. As I've said before its not really a challenge anymore as I've taken the bar as far as i can and couldn't of wished for a better 7 years and have done everything i could with Oceanic. So this is why its having a full face lift (not me, the bar). I've seen businesses around me in the past in Argassi and Kalamaki just keep with the same old same old, year in year out and not really trying to improve just sticking with the same decor and design watching it get more and more run down until its to late to claw back. In seeing this that's why every year i try to improve the surroundings in some way to make them even more comfortable for my lovely customers and to give me a new boost and pride in my work and the bar. I will never let the standards slip and will always do my best for whoever enters the bar. I hope everyone will enjoy the new decor, its taken me ages to find everything and decide how to set it all up but still NO TVS AND NO ENTERTAINMENT with only BRANDED SPIRITS USED IN ALL DRINKS with the best prices in town, its still the same chill out bar with a slightly different look.
Well my dear friends its time to say goodbye once again, so untill the next update in two weeks times
Serve All, Love All, Peace All, Kevlar Out!
