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Uncon 2015/2016

Ooh @fortean666And expensive Uncons...why so? Costs of top-billing 'turns'?

Is the greater interest in listening to some waffling bore talking through a powerpoint about subjects we've all read about in the magazine/forum a hundred times before or is that bit just an excuse and a precursor to getting bladdered and having a laugh and a good time with people you've never met before but feel like you know? I'd suggest the latter, in which case a pub crawl would be the better option. And think of the crawling that would be done at the end if FT donated even half of the speakers fees to our bar kitty :D

I'd invite you all to Paris for a Euro Edition and a group visit to the Catacombs, might even be able to lose a few of you down there :p However, my apartment is very tiny and the French don't really do spooks and mysteries.
 
Is the greater interest in listening to some waffling bore talking through a powerpoint about subjects we've all read about in the magazine/forum a hundred times before or is that bit just an excuse and a precursor to getting bladdered and having a laugh and a good time with people you've never met before but feel like you know? I'd suggest the latter, in which case a pub crawl would be the better option. And think of the crawling that would be done at the end if FT donated even half of the speakers fees to our bar kitty :D

I'd invite you all to Paris for a Euro Edition and a group visit to the Catacombs, might even be able to lose a few of you down there :p However, my apartment is very tiny and the French don't really do spooks and mysteries.

Um, France is a long walk for me and I doubt they do bacon butties. There are some caves about 7 miles away from me though, thats kind of similar to your catacombs. Sorry mate.
 
Is there any way of putting a poll at the top of this thread? Everyone can nominate a town and then it's put to the vote. Whether or not that will actually make anything happen is another matter, but a bit of fun nonetheless.

My nomination - York.
It's been mentioned before, is quite centrally placed in the UK and has tons of ghosts.
 
Another vote for York, if prior to September 4 or post April 23. Otherwise Kuala Lumpur, although I think we'd then have to cancel the skyclad mountaineering workshop...
 
But if that's too far from were you live there is going to be Weird Weekend North in 2016 as well!

Everything is relative (especially your relations...and directions) but.....Cheshire isn't particularly north, in the island of GB....surely?

I thought, at least from an English perspective, north meant at least Lancashire, Yorkshire....this really does reinforce the impression that 'north' vaguely means anything one millimetre uphill from the M25.

Didn't Cheshire used to be in the Midlands? Of course, it may have drifted a bit, due to global warming and VAT.
 
I'm a proud Yorkshireman, and therefore Northerner, but am perfectly happy to admit to being rather impressed by a sign which calmly announced I had reached the midway point between South and North coasts of Great Britain. In Windermere...
 
I'd go for a for a crawl in York. I've done one before, visiting the pubs that sell York brewery ales and named it the hangmans trail, as the pubs involved are all named after machines designed to enable the shuffling of a mortal coil, or allude to that endevour. eg...

The Last Drop http://www.york-brewery.co.uk/Pubs

Or how about... The house of Trembling Madness http://www.tremblingmadness.co.uk/

Or even... The Three Legged Mare http://www.york-brewery.co.uk/Pubs/The-Three-Legged-Mare

Ok, so when I googled for the pub names I've previously visited, I couldn't remember/find them, but you get the drift
 
standing in Glasgow, I do agree madam!

;)
Standing significantly further north than Gleska (though not in water) I do think that to be north, you've got to be properly north.

(And I'm no madam.....as they used to say, back in Palindrome class:
MADAM I'M ADAM...my 'av at yer' is a sacred cow (or a secret coup) but my gender is never on the agenda. Remember, half the lies I tell you all are untrue)

ooooh! this one has an allegedly haunted self catering holiday flat!
Now that is a marketing possibility that stands a ghost of a chance....a holiday flat that poltergeists the guest's breakfast, ready for them!

Ok, so when I googled for the pub names I've previously visited, I couldn't remember/find them, but you get the drift

Spooky! So, after a night out in York, the places you've been to cannot be found via an online search? That must be strong Horlicks they serve-up in there....or, maybe you were in New York instead (a common mistake....if you turn left at Whip-ma-whop-ma-gate, you can end-up in the Bronx....I blame it on the Shambles)
 
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A lot of pubs in York have closed including Brubakers, one of the very best I've ever been in...
Not a York hostelry that I know/knew. Shame if it's gone.

As long as they never close Betty's...either the York or Harrogate branches....
800_300_branch-harrogate-header.jpg
 
Not a York hostelry that I know/knew. Shame if it's gone.

As long as they never close Betty's...either the York or Harrogate branches....
800_300_branch-harrogate-header.jpg
Have they photo-shopped the massive queue of people waiting to get in from that pic? Because every time I pass a Betty's there are about fifty or so cake fans waiting to be seated.
 
have they photo-shopped the massive queue of people waiting to get in from that pic? .
Very early-morning shot, I'd say. Easiest way.

Or, maybe they got their excellent tablestaff to come outside, and caked the queue until they dispersed.

Mmmm....cake...Or death. An excellent opportunity for a slice of Eddie (he's been a bit quiet, lately)

Oh crumbs, must go and look up his blog. Now there's a gratuitous swearword one rarely hears, this side of the 21st century. Perhaps it wasn't Millennium bug compliant.
 
Brubakers was a snazzy bar with "the biggest video wall in Europe" and used to be a car showroom. It was there when I left York in 1997 but has closed when I returned in 2001. They had an internet cafe upstairs and tried to tout for business at the University, not realising we had free internet access!
It was midway between Reel Cinema York (and on the same side of the road) and the Mickelgate Bar Museum
 
The York Brewery down Toft Green way sold a London Underground-style map of York pubs. I have mine somewhere, though even when I got my copy about 2002, many of the places had closed.
 
Pubs closing in York are the sociographic equivalent of biodiversity markers disappearing.

Vanishing bats, butterflies, bars....bad.

Buy a pint or two of John Smiths, and the lichen levels will grow and grow.
 
Pubs closing in York are the sociographic equivalent of biodiversity markers disappearing.

Vanishing bats, butterflies, bars....bad.

Buy a pint or two of John Smiths, and the lichen levels will grow and grow.

:drink:
Due, no doubt, from people relieving themselves in the 'Snickelways'?
 
WHO,.... WAS..... SHAKESPEARE?
I'm not sure, if this would count as Fortean in nature? Yet there is an undoubted air of mystery/conspiracy over this question. Just to get you in the mood; here is a link to a wonderful British short.

http://www.britannica.com/art/Engli...the-life-of-Shakespeare-from-his-early/141917

They don't make them like this, anymore!

There's a flourishing sub-culture intent on showing that the man himself didn't write the plays. He was, himself a bit part player, as afar as anyone can tell form actual remaining evidence, not even capable of signing his name spelt the same way every time. His children didn't grow up literate...you can go on. There isn't a shred of evidence he actually wrote a jot. There isn't a shred of tangible evidence anyone else did either.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespeare_authorship_question

Myself I think it unlikely the man himself wrote them, but as the argument for him not being the author relies on 'absence of evidence' and the argument for other authors also relies heavily on the same, I think we'll never know!
 
But if that's too far from were you live there is going to be Weird Weekend North in 2016 as well!
http://glenvaudrey.wix.com/weird-weekend-north

Didst any child upon this page..
Perchance, attend, or tred the stage?
At Week's End, Weird, this April, past....
(I missed it, safe to say, damn, blast!)
'Twas Cheshire in (they say 'tis north)
Methinks that's south, for what it's worth...
So: was it fine, a joy, a blessing?
Or, weirdly, something better missing?

1404a4_094fd322518e4e7b8436b35afdc370d5.jpg
 
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