Ceridwenscauldron

Who Should Paint You: Tamara de Lempicka
You're universally attractive with a modern appeal
A portrait of you would be both bewitching and approachable

Blimey

I'm a bit late with this observation but I was extremely disappointed to learn that Waterstones Bookshop in Cardiff had canceled an appearance by Patrick Jones to promote his book of poems Darkness is Where the Stars Are after threats to disrupt the reading from the Christian crackpot pressure group group Christian Voice.

Apparently Christian Voice took issue with the contents of the book having decreed the material blasphemous for questioning religion. With regard to Waterstone's craven decision to cancel the event the Christian fundamentalist extremist group's mouthpiece and notorious homophobe Stephen Green said the decision was a triumph 'for the Lord'

Waterstone's say they had a duty to protect customers from potential disruption, I say they have a duty to the freedom of expression and if any loony religious group threatens to cause disruption the proper course of action is to have them removed and the issue refered to the police.

Look if you find Patrick Jones' poetry offensive, the answer is not to read it not to threaten the bookstore.I find it increasingly worrying the way that groups like Christian Voice will use threats of violence to stifle anything they find unpalatable, they should be treated - as with any extremist who threatens our liberty to view whatever kind of culture we choose - with the utter contempt they deserve.

It was the sort of morning where Mother Nature tool a look out of the window and decided to roll over and go back to sleep

Cook was in the kitchen, the remains of the night before staring at him from the sink when suddenly

"Quick quick Mab get the camera he's back!"

And lo Count Zenith

the albino blackbird had returned to our garden. Well done Queene Mab for capturing this photo before he flew away.

Albinism in blackbirds is only rarely total and Zenith only has these white markings on his head.

For anyone wondering about the name its from one of Sexton Blake's (the poor man's Sherlock Holmes) many villains - Count Zenith the Albino.

and just wake up from a Cheddar fueled nightmare?

Sadly the answer is no I have just been to work.

The story so far the management at Weird Inc decide to move us around a bit, so I have to move one desk to the right. Can I just move my stuff? Er no, obvious really as I'm not trained in the art of shifting a mug, a few books and a couple of bits of paper it all has to go in a crate to be marked up with the new desk location on Wednesday night, to be moved by a professional.

Thursday morning I get in and discover the crate is exactly where I left it as is my locked desk pedestle. So not being blessed with patience I unpack the crate and move all the stuff myself. Two hours later moving lady boss plus minion turn up to ask me if I'm ready to move.

Then I answer what I think is my phone, only to discover its the line belonging to the person who used to sit next to me, who has moved to another part of the office, far far away. Turns out BT have not moved the lines and they don't bother their arses to do it till lunchtime the following day.

This morning I turn up and we have lights but no power for the blocks mounted on our desks or powering the design Macs. Great I think I hang about till my lappy's battery dies then I can fuck off home. No such luck, with the lappy down to 57% battery life (despite running every application I can think of) an engineer turns up and the power comes back.

"What's causing the problem is it the building works" I ask?

"Nah its people running unauthorised equipment off the blocks overloading the system and causing the circuit breakers to trip."

"Er like what"

"Well like this fan" (as if anyone is running a fan in this weather) then after a pause for breath

"Or a phone charger"

Fucking hell just as well he didn't see my Black and Decker Mower, George Forman Grill or the Anthony Worrall Thompson Blender.

You could not make this up.

I didn't see the opening episode of the BBC's remake of Terry Nation's 1970s bio-apocalypse show about people in chunky knit sweaters laerning to restart their lives after most of the population die from some superbug.

From what I hear all the survivors are good looking and offer a balanced cross section of the UK's ethnicity and sexuality.

what intrigued me though were the publicity posters on the tube which asked

"How are you going to get home when there is no-one left to drive the trains?"

Well how about asking anyone who has tried to use the Jubillee Line or the DLR at the weekend or the Victorai Line late at night?

Ship'scat One here again.

You know yesterday was a very trying day, bloody Cook shut me and sis in the kitchen the night before and it was ages before the lazy git got up and did our breakfast. I had that bloody awful veterinary cat food again and the monkey had bacon and wouldn't share it even when I got up on the arm of his chair and tried to climb onto his plate.

From there things got worse, Nick and his kitten and the female monkey went out so I thought "great whole day sleeping on Cook", but no he's on the computer trying fix something and when I climb onto the keyboard to help he gets annoyed and slings me in the garden. Well over to my other house then, but the neighbours are out so I goes and sits on Cook's window sill to make him feel guilty about putting a poor old cat out and he's the other room listening to Muse just so he can't hear me yelling.

Anyway about midday he goes out hunting and comes back with a Ginsters chicken slice and it smells really good and does he share it? No he slings me back out in the garden. Then he comes out and starts putting the leaves in a bag, must mean that huge monster from the council is coming and he needs to prepare his sacrifice to it.

So once he's done that he calls me to come in well I'm not going to come to him when he does that, that's beneath a cat's dignity so I stay outside the door for an hour when it starts getting really cold before he lets me in.

By then its teatime I reckon but the fat git is lying on the sofa with a book, so I try meow, that doesn't work so I chase sis around, corner her behind the coffee table and all he does is tell us to knock it off, so sis tries sitting on his head, that don't work, neither does climbing on the bookcase to knock over the picture frames so I climbs on to the top of the sofa and try to pull a picture off the wall

"Alright enough's enough" he says "you win even if it is an hour before your tea time"

Job done

Opened a letter this morning expecting it to be another bill or an invitation for some financial crap I don't want and read

Dear Shipscook

You are a winner in our Gordon Ramsey competition

"Oh have we got the meal for six at his restaurant?" asked Saucy Wench Tartarre.

"Yeah I could do a good feed" added Rude Bert

"Spudsey better have a bath then" said Marylebone "keep off the Hunny and stay out of the house at Poo Corner."

"Why don't you stuff some Marmite up your arse and fuck off back to South America" was Spudsey's considered response as he adjusted his multi-coloured eye patch. "Come on cook when can we go?"

"Yeah when can we go cook?" Bosun Gravy added to the clamour

"Hang on shipmates" I rejoined "Don't get too excited its only the second prize of two bottle of Gordon's Gin"

"Oh well Martinis all round"

Right splash of Angostura Bitters rolled around a Martini glass, three parts gin top up with Noilly Pratt vermouth garnish with an olive or if you fancy a Gibson add a small silverskin pickled onion.

Or three parts gin top up with either Apple or Cherry Sourze

Or three parts gin top up with Dissarano

"Huzzah"

We all know Wossy and Russell Brand were a bit daft about Andrew Sachs, but this whole issue is getting even more out of hand. So the BBC are not going to sack Wossy. So what, Ross has apologised to Andrew Sachs and Sachs has accepted the apology. That's how gentlemen deal with things so that's the end of it.

But no its front page news and dominating the the TV news again as rent a quote politicians demonize a highly talented performer in the hope that it distracts attention from their mismanagement of the economy (Labour) or their paucity of ideas about how to solve the current economic meltdown (Hello David Davies). OK 42,000 complaints were received by the BBC, but most of them were stoked up by the righteous indignation of the Daily Mail and the like guardians of our moral wellbeing who never even listened to the original broadcast.

I am not condoning the prank, but that's all it was, nobody died get over it.

Jonathan if you are reading this you are an idiot but there are thousands of people out here who see through this shallow nonsense for what it is. Good luck to you mate.

Found this quiz about the US Army

http://www.helloquizzy.com/the-how-army-literate-are-you-test

I scored

Your result for The 'How Army Literate Are You?' Test ...
The Army Brat / Veteran

You scored 90 % Knowledge out of 120! Very Good!

You were nearly there. You got most of the answers correct, there were only a few you didn't know. This makes me think you either grew up around the army (and followed your family from one duty station to another) or that you used to be in the military and you're just a little out of touch with the newer military vocabulary. You've proved that you're very familiar with most of the army lingo though. Well done.

Scary huh? he closest I have been to any Army is having one grandad in the cavalry in the 1920s and the other in the Home Guard during the Second World War, my old man did his National Service in the RAF!

Way back in the past I bought some privatisation shares, thinking its all very well having socialist principles, but if the bastards are going to flog off the family silver I might as well make a few bob too.

Like may people through my hypocrisy I made a few quid, but some of the shares stiffed particularly when the government started to flog things like nuclear power stations. Recently the French firm EDF made a bid for these shares and sent me a package offering a few quid for the shares and the warrants that came when the business was recapitalised a few years back.

I duly filled in the overly complex forms, obviously designed by lawyers and accountants, and sent them off, only to get the forms sent back today. So I rang the number on the latter from Mr Task Controller (I wonder if he's related to that bloke from Thomas the Tank Engine)

"Hello Helpline"

"No its not Helpline, its Shipscook, er I got a letter from you today saying I hadn't filled the forms in properly for my warrants and you need a cheque from me?"

" Yeah that's right"

"I thought the idea was that you payed me for them."

"Yes we do, but you have to pay us to exercise the warrants first then we send you a cheque back to pay you what they are worth from EDF"

"Do they have a personal trainer then?" I wondered "if they needed to be exercised I'd have happily put them on a lead and taken them down to the shops"

It seems completely mad that to get the money for these items from EDF I have to first cough up a cheque for them to pay into their bank, before changing the wording on a piece of paper so they can then issue me with another cheque to pay into mine, Why not subtract the conversion cost from the settlement saving a whole lot of transaction charges and seemingly pointless work for various minions. Little wonder the banking system is so fucked up.

Oh no I forgot there will be some some fat cat creaming off the profit on that somewhere, silly me.

Another letter I got this morning said

Dear Shipscook

Thanks for applying for our credit card can you phone us with some additional information

"Hello Monster bank"

"Hello its Shipscook I need to talk to you about my credit card application here's the reference"

"Thanks whats your postcode"

"its the thing the postman uses to find my house"

"Thank you"

"And can you name a penguin that frightened your mother?"

"Alan"

"thank you yes we need you to confirm your postcode before we can issue the card"

And that was it, quite why they needed that when they had just written to me I don't know

So how stupid is George Osbourne?

Given the fragility of the money markets caused by the greedy bastards who run the banking system what we don't need is some idiot from the opposition (who does not really need to worry too much about his holiday pound, after all he can always stay on his matesky's yacht) saying Boredom Groans policies will cause a run on the pound. Lets face it if a BBC journo speaks and sends the markets into meltdown how helpful is such a comment from Her Majesty's opposition.

Engage brain before trying to score political points you idiot this is our cash you are playing with.

I love this show.

Yesterday Joyce joined an art class run by John Sessions

"Oh dear someone is going to die" I said.

"I bet its Maureen Lipman" threw in Spudsey

"yep she's the only name in the art group" added Bosun Gravy "By the way you still don't smell so good"

"Yeah and its over a week since we went down to the woods to visit Poo corner" said Marylebone "Unless she's gonna be the murderer"

"No that's too obvious even for this show. I don't know why though nobody has worked out that whenever Joyce joins a club someone dies. If I lived in Midsummer and she joined anything I belonged to I'd be off."

Well before too long Maureen Lipman was indeed brown bread in the bushes, clutching a paintbrush in her hand and in the great tradition of teatime TV later she turns up on the mortuary slab.

Better than that X Factor rubbish by a mile.

I was having a mooch in Sainsburys the other day looking for something to do with some left over red cabbage, when a pack of marked down to clear Tandoori chicken caught my eye.

"Ouch!" I said as I removed the pack from my eye socket and placed it in the basket but at 80p its a lot cheaper than the lamb (£5) I was going to use, so that went right back on the shelf.

Back in the galley I heated some oil in the pan and chucked in some cumin seed, onion seed, funugreek, star anise and a couple of cardomen pods to sizzle before adding a couple of cloves of garlic and some chopped chili peppers and a red onion to soften on a lighter heat.

Now quantities of the main ingredients can vary according to how many people you are making this for, I made this for two.

Peel and cube some beetroot, bung it in the pan together with a whole load of shredded red cabbage add a good slug of vinegar and two teaspoons of Garum Marsala, bring to the boil then turn the heat down to let it cook down a bit then bung in a pint of chicken stock and let it cook away for ages until the beetroot softens. You might need to top it up a bit from time to time to stop it from boiling dry and give it a stir so it doesn't stick to to the pan.

When the beetroot has softened up chuck in the packet of Tandoori chicken and some freshly chopped coriander then serve on a bed of rice.

Warning eating this can do odd things to the colour of your wee!

For some reason this memory came back to me today.

Way back in time a company I worked for was conned into buying a belief system called Total Quality Management. The evangelical fervour with which they were parted with their money was really quite shocking and those of us who dared question the new orthodoxy were treated as heretics.

Needless to say this did not come cheap and we were all soon sent on courses were the greasy con man told us how to delay making decisions and avoid doing any real work by wasting lots of time by doing things like brainstorms (everybody thinks of things and no matter how rubbish the ideas are you make a list of them) force field analysis (making lists of good and bad things) critical paths (making a list of bad things) Ishikawa diagrams (making a list in the shape of a fish) and Pareto anaylisis (sticking one bit of a graph on top of another). It was really quite enlightening to see how many ways you could waste company money with an endless supply of flip chart paper and marker pens.

Trying to be really clever the con man handed out some items and asked us to find two ways to improve them. I got a pound coin.

So after another half an hour of wasting the companies time he comes over to me

"Well how have you improved on the pound coin Shipscook?"

"I spent it on half a pint of lager" (I did say it was a while ago)

general round of sniggering breaks out

"Hows that an improvement?"

"I enjoyed it more than when it was a coin"

More sniggering

"OK what was the second way?"

"I put it in my savings account where it gradually grew with the interest into more money"

"Ah what I meant was how could you make it better as an object"

"Yes that's what I did cos its now worth more and can buy even more stuff with it than I could before!"

Open laughter

Exit one management consultant. From that day he could never look me in the face

I see the pound has taken another hit as interest rates fall in an attempt to stimulate thge economy.

Of course dropping interest rates and a falling pound are good for business as UK goods get cheaper for exporters, however its a bit rubbish if you are planning a trip overseas.

And its sad that the people who are going to suffer most are precisely those individuals who have made sacrifices to save a few quid for the proverbial rainy day. They are getting rubbish return on their cash after taking responsibility for their own finances, when reckless spending and bad investment by those cowboys in the city is rewarded by handing them a cheap loan or a bail out from the tax payer.

All the way from Canada to have a deep fried Mars Bar!"

You should have been there to see the look on face of the guy in the chip shop as Mab entered uttering those words. Said battered confectionery was duly produced and enjoyed, even if it did glue RDW's teeth together, forming the highlight of our Saturday night in Edinburgh.

Of course the weekend started for us on Friday when we boarded our train at Kings Cross fortified with a large bag of goodies from M & S, much cheaper than the rip off prices charged by the on-board buffet.

Before too long we were in Edinburgh and it being a Friday afternoon I visited the Conan Doyle exhibition at the Royal college of Surgeon's Museum. What a strange place, you go into the College only to be sent out the back door out into the street round the corner, into a house, up the stairs past what looks like a private flat to the the Museum. It costs £5 to get in which is unusual in Edinburgh, but it was worth it for me to see the items belonging to Conan Doyle and his tutor Dr William Bell - the man upon whom he based the character of Sherlock Holmes thanks to his remarkable deductive powers. There is also a startling display of military field medicine from the Napoleonic Wars and loads of gruesome stuff like preserved specimens and surgical instruments. For some bizarre reason the museum does not open at weekends so getting in to see it on the Friday was a real treat.

That evening we treated my lovely daughter to dinner at the Witchery where the generally good meal was let down by the Mackerel which was just tasteless. Still the birthday girl had fun and that's the main thing. Not long after that she took off to have fun with people her own age leaving the old folk to the the Ensign Ewart, the Auld Hoose and the Palmyra kebab house (delicious doner kebabs in Arab bread)

The following day we had a light lunch in the Scotch Whisky Centre before meeting up with Trintrin, Notbob, Gilrean and the globe trotting RDW in the Beehive, Mab has already detailed the despicable treatment of Trintrin and her daughter by the pub hoiking them out at 8pm, so we won't be spending anymore cash in there, but it was good to meet Trin and her sister and daughter, lets hope we get to see more of you next time.

Anyhow from the Beehive we hit the Last Drop and then pausing for a lok at the Castle the ensign Ewart. A brief walk and it was time for RDW to sample some chups and haggis at the Central fish bar before another drink at the Pear Tree and then her encounter with the great Scottish delicacy. Last drinks were taken at the Auld Hoose before pointing RDW, Gilrean and Notbob in the direction of their hotels.

Good to see you all again chaps!

Woke up on our final morning to discover it was bloody raining once more, but at least the wind had died down a bit. I on the other hand felt awful - joint pain, ear-ache, face-ache, fever and gallons of snot.

Still put a brave face on it and after after breakfast attempted to clear the face-ache by chugging the last of the El Diablo and trusting to its over-proof fumes. Worked for a bit too. The weather still being rubbish we passed on the beach and headed for the theme park so the Powder Monkey could have a few hours fun before we departed for the airport. Being a Saturday it was monster busy and by lunchtime I was fading fast.

Still made it through to catch the taxi to the airport at six. At the airport the nice boy at check in gave us priority boarding as we had a nipper with us even though she was over five. That's handy I thought unless we just get on the bus to the plane first like the speedy boarders did last time I went through Barcelona! So off we trotted to security where we sailed through in record time without having to show the holes in my socks and soon we were drinking Rosado and munching on local bread, cheese chorizo and ham in one of the Fresh and Wild (I think) outlets.

Next stop was the Duty Free shop that is really a tax paid shop for a couple of bottles of brandy, Absinthe and Liquor 43 before discovering there was another shop just the same through passport control, which as rubbish Europeans we Brits still have to go through to leave Spain along with the Swiss and the nationals of a few countries in Eastern Europe.

Thankfully when boarding there was an airbridge so the priority boarding the lad gave us paid off and we got seats at the front of the plane. Flight was uneventful except for my ears getting more and more uncomfortable as we came down into Stansted at 11.30pm. By the time we landed I was in agony and almost completely deaf. Naturally BAA could not be arsed to have an airbridge crew on hand so we were dumped on the runway in a gale and had to make our way back into the terminal where they only had two transits running - one with only one carriage so the queues were completely backed up. Then we had to face Sky TV stars the UK Border cops who naturally made everyone stand in line for ages while they made sure we were not illegals coming into the UK to eat our swans, donkeys and hamsters. C'mon Boredom Grown lets be proper grown up Europeans and cut this crap out. Thankfully we only had hand baggage and it looked like most of the customs officers had gone home so no trouble there and we were out back in Blighty.

Even though I'd enjoyed our little adventure I can't think of anywhere more welcoming that my bed when we got home and that's where I have been, on and off, for the last four days getting over the chest infection I developed.

Now sort out those greedy bastards at the big corporations and banks and the war mongering idiots at the Pentagon. Oh yeah and relax your paranoid border controls so people from Europe can just get off the plane, collect their bags and go.

So give her the best present and vote those Republican nutters out, don't get complacent and let the old man about to die and the polar bear killing, baby seal clubbin, gun tottin bible bashing nutter in.

Woke up on day three and it was chucking it down not only that but the wind was up too.

So after another hearty breakfast Mab and I decided to go down to the beach. Fortunately the rain had stopped by the time we got to the sea front, but Pepe had obviously thought that staying in bed was a better option than opening up his beach bar. Still we went down to the shore to watch the breakers crashing in and both got our feet wet as the surf beat us back up the beach. We then went for a drink in the Rigoletto coffee bar on the front and watched the traffic sending up huge bow waves on the road.

Once again the Powder Monkey had a great time careering around the roller coasters and I even took her on the Ocean Odyssey simulator to give her dad a short break from having his bones rattled around Carmen Miranda on methedrine with a pair of Maracas.

Later while everyone else was busy, I decided to do the House Of Horror in Penitence, the Wild West Town. Blimey the first thing that happens is that a corpse (who looks a bit like Bill Nighy) leaps out of a coffin at you, you then follow a path through a crypt with coffins, a butchers store room with bodies in bloody bags, a lunatic asylum with crazed inmates, a lab with something alive twitching on the slab and finally one of those revolving tunnels that are so disorientating. What with costumed characters leaping out of dark corners and loads of dry ice I'm not surprised that some of the kids in there were reduced to hysteria and came out sobbing. Mind you some of the tableaux were to my mind more torture porn than horror to my mind.

So as the park closed and a quick tune from the zombie band, we headed once more for the El Toro, the wind alternately aiding or hindering our progress as it caught our coats. We rounded off the evening with Spicy Pizza, a Pork Skewer, Cajun Chicken and Chicken Nuggets with wine all for 71 Euros, top value and very delicious.

Woke up on day two of our Port Adventura adventure to discover the sky still overcast.

After a hearty breakfast that included spicy little chorizos and churros (though not on the same plate - unlike some of the other guests) we decided to walk into Salou to stock up on some cheap drink and stuff. As we wandered the Sun came out and the sky brightened so we hit the beach. The golden sanded beach is about nine miles long and dotted with little Pre-fab bars. We stopped at Pepe's ordered some drinks and watched the waves come in for a bit. We were the only people on the beach and with the waves crashing on the shoreline, a cold beer and the Sun shining down it was little short of perfect.

Still we didn't come to Spain just to laze about so it was on the supermercado where wine was 89 cents for a litre carton of Don Garcia, a perfectly acceptable Vino Rosado or Tinto. We also bought a bottle of El Diablo black Absinthe - oh dear.

Having dropped off our purchases in the room we hit the park again where the Powder Monkey took her dad on even more rides, Mab and I having kindly donated our express passes to them. Now there are some odd things in the park which you would of course expect given that Catalonia has spawned such luminaries as Picasso, Dali, Gaudi and Miro. Perhaps the strangest is a huge animatronic vulture that sings "Let me Entertain You", "Sexbomb" and something by Bon Jovi that sounds exactly like everything else by Bon Jovi, while threatening Woody Woodpecker over a bad debt. Lets hope he gets him then.

So once the Powder Monkey was theme parked out we headed back into Salou where we enjoyed dinner at the El Toro Steak House on the sea front. Mab and I had Spicy pizza which has chili hidden in the cheese beneath the pepperoni, Old Nick a very tasty looking steak and the Powder Monkey chicken nuggets. all washed down with a bottle of house rosado, coffee and brandy for 71 Euro, miles better value than that rotten buffet at the hotel. Then back to the hotel for vino, absinthe, cards and bed.

I see Call me Dave has had another punt at the BBC, this time about it's executive salaries. Excuse me Dave, but aren't you the leader of the party that used to defend the obscene amounts of money paid to those useless robbing bastards who ran British industry and the banks into the ground while lining their own pockets, on the basis that you had to pay top dollar to get the top tallent.

The problem with Call me Dave's lot is that they could never get their heads around the BBC's impartial reporting of news when they were in power - being of the mindset that said "Well its paid for by the government through the licence fee (which they conveniently forget is paid by people of all political opinion) so it should only say nice things about us" and not expose them as the bunch of crooks and hypocrites that they were.

Now sadly this business with Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross is providing a convenient smokescreen from the real issues which face the political parties, like how come the tax payer has to cough up loads of cash to bail out companies that are paying millions of quid in golden fuck offs to a bunch of greedy bankers as compensation for losing their jobs when anyone else would be lucky to get a week's pay if they were sacked for such irresponsible behaviour.

I went into Spudsey's room this morning and nearly gagged on the pong.

"Blimey you smelly old bear what have you been up to?" I asked

"Well me and the lads, you know Marylebone and Rude Bert, did a bit of Hunny and things got a bit out of hand from there, if you know what I mean."

"Even so mate the niff in here is worse than an anchovies bottom"

"Yeah well we did end up going to the House on Poo Corner and you know how he got that name!"

What utter rubbish that was, when we arrived from snowy England it was pissing down on the plane, the airport, the bus stop and the motorway.

As things went getting there was a bit mixed, thanks to booking through PortAdventura's website we couldn't check in on-line, so even with our tiny ditty bags we had to queue up and check in at Stansted. Once done though I worked the ask a dumb question before they get a chance to think about asking you to take your shoes off trick with the security monkey and sailed through still shod. The flight was fine and I even got a row of three seats to myself behind Old Nick, the Powder Monkey and Mab, despite the trolley dolly wanting to move me next to a total stranger in the row behind, sorry love you practice free seating on EasyJet so I will sit where I bloody well like.

Arriving at Barcelona, more than chance by design we discovered an exit that allowed you to bypass the baggage carousel, that had been such a scene of anarchy last time we passed through - result, so we were soon past customs and out looking for the bus stop. Now thanks to poor scheduling between the bus and airline companies we had a wait of an hour and a half before we could get the bus, which we had to book and pay for ourselves, so we had a baggette at Pans. A chain of Spanish fast food joints a bit like Upper Crust only with Spanish ingredients like chorizo and local ham and cheese, in my opinion much more tasty and not bad value

So onto the bus and an opportunity to catch up on some sleep before arriving at the Hotel Caribe, where we were given our welcome pack and directions to our rooms. The rooms were very nice, except for the safes that didn't work and the refuse that had been swept under the bed, but a few calls to reception sorted that out.

On to the theme park and by then it had a least stopped raining. PortAdventura was at one time part of the Universal Studios Group, but oddly they don't make that much of the movie heritage which probably means that the rides are a bit more original. You do still get the chance to meet bloody Woody Woodpecker though, along with Popeye, Olive Oyl and Betty Boop. I hate that bloody woodpecker, not only did he have an annoying laugh but unlike say Tom, Foghorn Leghorn or Wile Coyote he always got away with doing the most beastly things to people without having his evil deeds revisited upon him, but then Warner's, MGM and Disney got the pick of the best animation talent leaving Universal with Walter Lantz. Lantz's second best know character was a penguin called Chilly Willy presumably because he lived in the Antarctic had such short legs!

Anyway the park is divided into a series of worlds, Europe, Polynesia, Wild West, China and Mexico and each of them was dressed for Halloween with loads of Skeletons in costumes, Jack o' Lanterns and plastic ravens and black cats and there were also people dressed as ghouls, vampires and the Frankenstein monster wandering about.

The Powder Monkey had a fabulous time taking her dad on all kinds of thrilling rides and I even went on one myself, although I have to admit it was by mistake that I reached the point of no return when investigating the Sea Odyssey ride, a simulator that takes you on an undersea mission to rescue a sub from a volcano and a sea monster.

So after watching the sun set over one of the western themed roller coasters it was back to the Hotel, for dinner which was an over priced buffet, much like any other hotel buffet, lots of food drying under heat lamps, a rip for 22 Euros, but we were well knackered by then having been up since three in the morning and so after a drink in the bar on to bed.