Day 161 - Friday, June 10th, 2011

An early exit from work was negotiated with ease in order to grab the 4pm Aircoach from Suffolk Street, where travelling companion Enda awaited to embark on a magical weekend journey to Leeds and Barnsley. At the airport, the information on the screens and at the gate was that our flight was delayed for 30 minutes, which matters little when there is a bar in the vicinity and heads-up poker to be played. Luckily, however, the bar was beside the gate, for it turned out that there was no delay at all, despite the “Delayed” notice staying firmly on the screen even as we went through the gate. Yet another hilarious Ryanair ruse as part of their continuing successful anti-human rights campaign, no doubt, although some empty seats suggested that some passengers did not make it aboard and would be unlikely to see the funny side.


Over further heads-up poker, we partook of a can of Bulmers each aboard, which at EUR4.50 per can, works out at EUR7.75 or £6.85 per pint – an extraordinarily fine bargain, I know you’ll agree. Outside Leeds terminal, we were waved onto the bus into town, without any requirement to pay – what a friendly nation! Handily, our hotel (the Discovery Inn) was a minute’s walk from Leeds train station where we disembarked, so after Enda having one of his showers that he seems to require every 57 minutes, we headed to the nearly Prince of Wales pub for pints of Grolsch, which at £3.30 (EUR 3.80) each weren’t as cheap as expected.

An epic crawl then commenced – next port of call was a Yates disco-bar which was decent but had yet to attract crowds, as had the town centre in general. Hunger pangs were answered in style by Nando’s, where an extra-hot Butterfly chicken breast with added lashings of Nando’s extra-hot sauce was wolfed down, accompanied by mashed potatoes and macho peas, which were indeed exceedingly manly. This was washed down with a large glass of Merlot. ‘cos I’m dead posh and sophisticated like.

The crawling was then accelerated, with visits to many now-crowded establishments, including some achingly cool joint where the DJ plays obscure nonsense that the clueless in-crowd mistakes for awesomeness, and Revolution, where the choons were much more geared to the common populus and were therefore greatly to my liking.

A glance at the watch reveals it to be 4.30am, so it’s probably time to mosey back to the Discovery Inn for some fleeting kippage, but not before enjoying some excessively-vile curried deep-fried potato lengths in an ultra-chic chippery.

She looks just a little sexier than I do with my glasses

Contentment : 16.5 / 25
Excitement : 4 / 10
Memorability : 5 / 15

Overall Score : 51% (17th out of 161)