Ginger DJ Rob

Yesterday was an interesting one. It was my work's Christmas meal and night out with luke-warm meat and veg (I blame it on the half-cut catering staff who could double as Victorian cockney ladies of the night from the language they use) followed by a charity raffle. Prizes ranged from a night's stay at a Lewes hotel (half the staff live in Lewes!), some dodgy wines, pulp fiction books to the strange contribution of an AC/DC in concert blu-ray video. The evening was held at the upstairs of the Open-House near London Road station starting with a well put-together quiz then into a disco. I made my excuses quickly and didn't stick around for the music as the last Pond pub quiz of the year, nay decade was also on. Bit of a crap turn-out really with only three teams entering. My out of the blue team name won us the fake, stick-on moustaches with "I ain't getting on no B.A. plane fool". Unfortunately, this was the only thing we won as our arch-enemies who always s...

This is going to be a schizophrenic blog entry as there hasn't been any major events going on at the moment. Last week started with another win of the Pond pub quiz but a shallow victory with only three teams entering then one too drunk to care. Friday's TV experiment by Derren Brown was a mixed result though I don't think I was really concentrating. I was more insterested in the Twitterfall of people talking about him. I nearly got caught with a nasty PC virus thanks to some evil Tweet and short URL. Lesson learnt: never click on a short URL unless you know its reliable. Saturday night was at a very local pub on Lewes Road, Brighton called the Gladstone. Go-Bang and a few other local DJs put on an all-dayer. It was a refreshing change not to need a taxi but the drink prices were still steep. Good to meet a few new people and the neo-disco sounds were quite cool. Alot of remixed old classics catching my attention. We stayed until the end dodging the Gladstone regulars....

Christmas present paranoia set in the next day as I panicked I wouldn't be able to find a decent gift for Kerry before it got too late so braved the rain and went into London. As I came out of Bond Street tube station I was confronted with around 30 Father Christmas's drinking at a local pub. Before I attacked Carnaby Street's new shops with my plastic swipe sword, I found a cafe for a quick bite and coffee. It had to be the best ever cappuccino and toasted panini I've ever had. The shopping wasn't as successful as I liked but I did eventually found something. After a tasty carbonara (no restaurant can out do Kerry) a birthday cake was presented or was it a giant Nintendo DS . The evening surprise was unfortunately given away in the working week seeing Kerry's Facebook history joining an event called the Parisian Police - Daft Punk Christmas Party at the New Hero . Before we got there we headed over to Kemp Town for a cocktail treat at the Om bar . The doorman ...

After the stress of the shed it was good to be rewarded with a decent night out thanks to Kerry's success at work. She'd been awarded £100 to spend on a meal out and that's nearly what we spent. Oki-nami in Brighton is relatively new Japanese restaurant but had previously been in Hove. Its also part owned by Mr. Cook of Fatboy fame. Started off with some Shochu cocktails, of which I'd say Kerry's plum flavoured one beat my passion fruit and melon one, and to eat some Maki and Nigiri sushi filled with shiitake mushrooms, sesame seeds and king prawn. Quite adventurous for me but I avoided the prawn. A nice touch in case the conversation runs dry was that the chopsticks were wrapped in origami paper with folding instructions. I made a jumping frog. Second course was some Japanese tapas or otsumame taking in some Nikku gyoza (dumplings filled with pork & vegetable), Hotate yaki (Pan-fried fresh scallops in garlic butter) and Yasai ten. (vegetable tempura) which we...

Preparation With Pav's 40th birthday party themed as anything starting with the letter 'P' Kerry had the idea to go as Pav himself in face-mask form. Either everyone thought it was such a great idea or they were too lazy to get an outfit themselves so we made 7 masks on Friday night. Unfortunately I only had a couple of photos of Pav in high resolution so had to lift them from Facebook. We ended up with 6 identical DJ pose Pavs and one 'teethy goon' Pav. Kerry's printer served well with the output glued to cardboard then some chopsticks sawn in half taped to the back. Party Pav's party itself, hosted at the Clapham's Artesian Well was a great laugh. The birthday boy had punked himself up whereas there were a fair share of police, pirates, more punks, a Playboy bunny , a couple of priests (special mention to Jake for his Father Ted outfit), oh and a pimp. The winner of the competition was a Primadonna but slightly confused by Pav's speech to say ...

No, this isn't a new SPAM subject line that I've being constantly deleting from my junk mail but an insight to my birthday surprise on Saturday. All I knew was we were going up to London for an event. The mystery tour started with a drive to Croydon and picked up another ginger legend that is Trev. Were we just giving him a lift or was he part of the surprise? Next we headed further in London and ended in West Norwood, home of Kev and Karol. It was all starting to add up. Viv left me a smelly Lush present, K & K contributed to my wardrobe funds and Steve and Sam finding the grooviest dancing wind-up robot toy (oh, and very handy ninja plasters). After the taxi firm cocked up with the address we arrive late at the old Oblivion bar, Gigalum. Shame the staff couldn't get their act together but at least special guest Sarah arrived (without Paul), all the way from Ibiza with a remote control helicopter as birthday present. As the champers flowed, Kerry gave me her main prese...

This weekend will go down for two memorable events. Tony, Kerry's hairdresser brought his friend down to Brighton to celebrate his birthday. We met them at Legends, an infamous hotel for a certain segment of population (I only realised after I got there) on the seafront. We had high expectations of an expensive night being Tony, hairdresser to many fashion shows and friends of famous people. However, arriving at the hotel bar at 10:30pm brought home the flavour of the evening with a tinge of cheap cheesiness. After Tony and Chris faffed about for a good hour showing off their 6 outfit wardrobe for two evenings we avoided the hotel bar and headed for Dr. Brighton's. Based on a memory 7 years ago, it turned out to be an old duffers pub so turned straight back. Audio was busy and many people taking advantage of the outdoor seating for smoking and braving the gale-force winds. The downstairs club had Andy Weatherall playing that night. Instead we headed around the corner to Revenge...

Last week was just a blur of coming back from work, having tea, DIY, sleep then repeat so it was a welcome break to see Kev and Karol. We collected them after we dutifully attended our neighbour’s fireworks party. One of the neighbours attending was Mr.Super-fit (not his actual name) who was training for the Iron-man challenge , a triathlon which includes 180km bike ride, 3.8km swim and running a marathon after all that. Good luck mate! Christmas came early as we realised that we’d accumulated over £110 of Nectar points so we bought our joint present early from Argos, a PS3 60GB model with Heavenly Sword and Resistance: Fall of Man . No point wrapping it and waiting for 8 weeks but we managed to get through the rest of the weekend without opening box by Sunday evening when K & K left. Saturday night was an organised firework display at Hove then got wasted with conversation on Blofeld, chairs and whether you could get arrested after searching for terrorist related words – how l...

Yesterday’s snow on the high ground was still evident as we drove back to Queenstown. Loads of drivers including us were stopping to take photos of the white fields. Around halfway back we spotted a beautiful lakeside, snowy mountain view too perfect to pass up. As we set up the camera for a cheesy group shot along rolls up a Welsh version of Phoenix Nights’ Brian Potter with mobility scooter trying to sell us his marmalade and jams. It was almost scenic photo taxation. We checked into our super luxury hotel, the Dairy for the holiday remainder which meant dropping off our mobile home for the last few weeks. We had mixed feelings of seeing it go but looked forward to not having to prepare our bed for 30 minutes and not having to suffer drafty cold showers. As we drove back from the airport we spotted a couple of metal statues for mailboxes. We’d obviously stumbled across the local nutjob artist who’d welded a boozed up tin-man as a mailbox and tin-woman with kitchen sink. As I snapped...

Our solicitor rang us last night at midnight to confirm the completion of our house which was welcome news. We’re now the proud owners of an empty house on the other side of the world. Wanaka is a poor man’s Queenstown but has its own quirky attractions. One of them I wished we had time for was the local cinema having settees and a car inside. The first we visited was Puzzling World which was a bit rubbish but was cheap to get in. The optical illusions were fun but very busy with kids hogging the activities. The sky dive was still canceled and we realised we bought mutton sausage rolls instead – where’s the pork, dudes?! So bought possibly the best burgers ever from Red Star and had the best picnic view of the lake in the campervan. James and Emma, our other reason in NZ were around the corner in Queenstown and drove over to see us. We headed out of town to try the clay pigeon shooting at Have a Shot which was a good laugh. I couldn’t quite get the hang of the .22 calibre rifles so ...

We’d booked our boat trip to the volcanic island off Whakantane (pronounced Thakatanae) weeks ago but according to the captain, gale forces were on they way. Strange really as it was a beautiful, still day so totally gutted we’d wasted our time. We then looked into an alternative to getting there calling the Vulcan Helicopter tours instead. It was quite expensive at $400 each plus another $400 to pay for the extra empty seat unless another party came forward. We took the chance and were treated to another exclusive trip and have the island to ourselves. It was a short drive outside the town to a toy-town airport and Mark, our pilot dismissed the weather forecast. It was a wasp-like chopper (similar to Magnum PI) taking 20 minutes passing Whale Island. It was certainly windy but the pilot did well to land it on the crater like island. We were given a safety helmet and gas mask in case the volcanic activity misbehaved. The landscape was incredible and felt like walking on the Moon or...

Another DVD catch-up, this time A Scanner Darkly - which was okay. Using Waking Life ’s graphical technique, it had some good, quirky, hallucinogenic moments but couldn’t quite sell the story for the full duration. After a little in-decision to go for Big Chill next weekend due to the rain and lack of holiday from work, we committed ourselves by buying a pop-up tent. The weather forecast seems to be more settled and a friendly chat with my new boss has allowed me a half day of Friday. Bring on the Chill! Saturday evening was a visit to Brighton’s comedy night, Komedia – Super Dynamite Boogaloo – hoping for cabaret but got school disco with Mackenzie Crook from The Office DJing (rubbishly - couldn’t mix and his selection went from rockin’ to shockin’). The highlights were a huge black guy with impressive ‘fro in a pink leotard and another guy (Boogaloo Stu) dressed as pictured. The crowd were a mix of hen night gaggles and a few desperate single blokes. Later a wanna-be tranny wh...

No time was spared to get home and go straight out again for Viv's Friday night birthday celebration. Kerry was already at the Market bar with everyone else whilst I battled against the South London rush hour. Parked at K & K's to grab the 8pm train and some complete stranger decided to tell me all about an old friend's funeral he would be attending. Nice guy but completely random. When I did arrive at the bar, the bouncer refused to let me downstairs due to overcrowding and pointed me to the bar. Luckily it only took another 5 minutes to join the rest. It always feels a bit awkward arriving late when everyone's four rounds in front. Had to put up with George's son teenage-drink ranting cockiness until he fell asleep. By which time everyone was in a mood to head back home for a impromptu party. I struggled for awhile DJing, using Kev's records but finally started finding the good stuff. If it wasn't for the mortgage appointment the next day a serious be...

Our weekend began with a work's leaving do at Banana Wharf in Southampton. You can smell the money next to the motor boats and the bars are full of middle-aged boaty types or WAG wannabe's sniffing out Saint players. Another bar, another location on Saturday night. Inigo in Clapham hosted Sam's birthday mash-up. Decided not to drink but drive. Got a bit messy. Sam, bless her, was in a happy, huggy, birthday trance, Kev got quite out of it and Trev leading the way to dance on the tables. Got some good photos on FlickR but by 1am I was getting bored with the general rammedness of the place with beer-heads at the back of the place getting upset after me stepping on their feet to get to the toilet.

Benirras beach Originally uploaded by Ginger DJ . Another attempt at getting up before noon, this time to hire car and head for our favourite beach called Benirras. Went for a small car as parking near Paul and Sarah's was tricky and ended up with a Kia in bright green. We thought this would be a one-off until we spotted about half a dozen as we drove up the island. Benirras was busy therefore lost the charm we'd discovered last time. I'm guessing it was non-peak season for us 3 years ago. On the route back home I spotted the sign to Bambuddha Grove, a restaurant/bar place we'd all agreed to go before the holiday ended. It should have been so easy finding it again - you'd think. We failed getting over to San An for a proper Mambo sunset, just minutes late then headed back over to Bambuddha Grove. About 2 hours later we arrive after missing it 3 times doing loops round it etc. The Grove is an amazing place and one you know you could be rubbing shoulders with those in...

Sunny beer Originally uploaded by Ginger DJ . The majority of the day we stayed either on the roof terrace or inside as the weather wasn't up to scratch. Watched one of Paul's favourite films called Razor Blade Smile . Not surprising it was a vampire story and with the low budget I was expecting too much. Was pleasantly surprised by its main star who over acted his bit and the story was quite original. Later we returned to KM5, the exclusive bar we'd found last time only to be disappointed that everyone knew about the place. Also, we intended to have a meal there without reserving but that was a mistake. Settled down expecting just the one drink then got offered a table. All was going well with glamorous stiltwalkers and nice deep house tunes until I realised my food hadn't been cooked properly. Sent it back at 1:10am and the waitress said it would take ages to do again. I opted for pasta for quickness and got cappacho instead. Complained again and the chef scared the...

We love Space - Sunday at Space, Ibiza Originally uploaded by Ginger DJ . Another long lie-in to recooperate the energy needed for We Love Space. To be honest I wasn't really up for it that day. Dancing in the daytime just feels wrong so spent most of the time wondering around the club. But things got a bit better, as they do ;), though Kerry had a rough patch spending more time in the chill out area. The terrace area was packed with more anthem tunes bashed out. Some of the DJs mind were slightly hopeless at basic mixing supporting my lack of interest for the place. Discovered the Electric Lady Lounge which was completely empty. Later we received a flyer promoting that very room so you could tell they were desparate for punters that night. Smoking Jo was in the main room occompanied by her famous girlfriend, Skin from Skunk Anansie. The music, similar to Tom Stephan, was a minimal techno , driving sound, not like the dull bleepy stuff. It worked well in the club but wouldn't...

Made in Italy at Amnesia Originally uploaded by Ginger DJ . First night's sleep was non-existant so opted for the easy option of a drive around the island. Lack of sleep forced us to have a 3 hour siesta before our assult on Amnesia for Made in Italy. Getting the tickets was a slightly dodgy cash in hand at a bar affair then waiting for the dealer to collect them from his flat. The promised 5 minutes turned into 30 minutes but he kept his word. After all the getting ready and high-speed taxi drive we arrived at the club around 2:30am! The line-up was quite good with Tom Stephan and Layo/Bushwacka headlining though our last memory in Pacha had secured the ticket purchase. Gladiator was the theme this year though didn't quite have the glamour as the Pirate night I remember. The crowd were mainly Italian but were of a chav equivalent - harmless but lacked the style and energy I'd associate with Italian clubbers. The main show was a singer in toga outfit supported by gladia...

My mid-week mood check is bland and skint. There's a few things on the wallet-thinning radar coming up. Shame my payday isn't sooner or bigger. If there's anyone who fancies a themed London trip here's the perfect setup:- Below Zero bar is your Absolut vodka bar made out of ice! For a couple of months there's the Icespace experience . You can buy tickets here . Though just found out its £21 entry fee. Other than that we're still holding off buying tickets for Global Gathering since they've announced Daft Punk to be doing the Friday. As well as Weekend camping tickets, GG are only selling Saturday day tickets. I'm sure they're doing this on purpose to sell more tickets but after last year's queuing marathon. Whilst getting excitement at seeing Daft Punk live and considering a costume to celebrate their UK return, I came across this link of someone beating me to it - When Geeks do Halloween . I also found out that after their 5555 Interste...