Monkee

I’m going to Disneyland Paris 3 weeks today. So excited. First time on Eurostar (always driven before) and first time in a Disney Hotel.

Also finalised the (EIGHT) hotels for the US road trip last night so will be staying in LA - Redondo Beach - for 7 nights and doing both Disney parks. Decided to skip Universal though as we’ve done it before. Any tips on FastPasses for Disney? I know they work differently to Orlando and don’t want to miss out on stuff because we’re not rope drop people.

I was working from home on Friday. Went to the toilet, came back to this. He then stood on the power button and shut down the laptop. He’s almost 16 now.

Forgot to mention, going to Disneyland Paris in a few weeks too. Staying at the Cheyenne for 3 nights and I can’t bloody wait! 

9 hours ago, SuperBacon said:

I’ve decided this is the year I’m going to Sarajevo (although I’ve just seen dirt cheap return flights to Japan on Jacks Flight Club) Any hints or tips would be greatly appreciated. 

Careful with a lot of the flight prices as 90% don’t include check-in luggage, even a lot of the long haul ones. I was getting great prices for LA until I realised it didn’t include luggage and it bumped up the prices by £150-200 in some cases. Not so much of an issue if your doing short breaks though probably. 

10 hours ago, HarmonicGenerator said:

Plan is to fly into LA and head to Anaheim (which doesn’t have an airport? I think? I don’t even know that) for Star Wars Celebration, then a couple of days to see Galaxy’s Edge at Disneyland.

We’d then fly LA to San Francisco and have a few days there before flying back from SF.

People who’ve been to California... does this sound feasible?

I don’t know what internal flight prices are like but seriously consider a fly drive. LAX isn’t that far from Anaheim and we’re driving up to San Francisco. It’s not a short journey by all means but it probably works out the same as flying.

3 hours ago, Frankie Crisp said:

@Monkee - I think if you have a week set aside for LA, I’d recommend taking an overnight trip to San Diego during that time.

LA itself wasn’t all that when I went and whilst there’s lots to see/do, you could easily slot the best of if into 3-4 days. I’d swerve Hollywood itself, though, as it was a rough-arse dump with pimps and women on the batter on every street corner when I went. From what I’ve read since then, it’s got worse.

Already done San Diego. It was a while back but I don’t think there’s much more I’d do to be honest. I’ve also done LA but the seedy side exactly like you’ve described. That’s why we’re doing a beach this time plus a few theme parks thrown in. I think we’re heading for Redondo Beach based on some tips from other people.

Admins, can we rename this The Holiday Thread rather than starting a new one please?

- - 

My friend and I are doing a West Coast US trip in May. We’re going for 18 nights and booked a fly-drive with BA last night for £547 each direct from Heathrow to LA.

Tip: Check our Jack’s Flight Club for some great deals on flights!

Anyway, the first half of the holiday is a road trip up to Seattle and back. We’re spending 7 nights in LA at the end but have no idea where to stay for a reasonable price but isn’t too far away (thinking about LA traffic) from some main attractions, i.e. Disneyland, Universal Studios, WB studios, Hollywood sign, etc. We want something relaxing, maybe near a beach.

Anyone been to LA to recommend something? I’ve been before and stayed on Hollywood Blvd but only because I didn’t have a car at the time and thought that’d be the best place to stay.

I love The Rutles. I was at the Royal Albert Hall at the end of October to see The Bootleg Beatles with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra playing Abbey Road and Neil Innes was the compère. He was fantastic and I’m so glad I got to see him.

Stephen Graham

He was a legend! We chatted to him about Liverpool, he asked to see my tattoo (I’d mentioned earlier I had a Beatles tattoo), and my mate congratulated him on the Olympic Opening Ceremony and said, “Yeah, it wasn’t bad was it?” Such a nice bloke. But so we’re the others. Himesh is rather dishy too!

Today I met Danny Boyle, Richard Curtis, Himesh Patel and Sanjeev Bhaskar at a screening of Yesterday and they were all just utterly lovely people ❤️

 

22 hours ago, Loki said:

Everyone knows there are no girls on the internet.  100% of people claiming to be female on message boards are men.

🧐

34 minutes ago, Frankie Crisp said:

Whatever happened to @Jaffa?

That’s a biscuit.

I don’t have much of a sweet tooth but I do love carrot cake with cream cheese frosting but it has to be well made otherwise it’s just shit. Other vegetable-based cakes can fuck off. Someone in work the other week made a vegan beetroot cake. It had the flavour and consistency of dirt. No thank you!

Coffee and walnut is something I can’t pass on though. I love anything coffee flavoured so this is a winner for me.

And I do like a bit of Jamaican ginger cake too. Gotta be a bit spicy but have that sweetness thrown in too.

If anyone here is a fan of Danny Boyle, there’s a charity screening of Yesterday on Saturday 14 December plus a Q&A with Danny and Sanjeev Bhaskar. 

Go to http://noah.do/yesterday for tickets.

This isn’t a photo of me but I wanted to show off my artistic side and I don’t know where else to put it. So here’s my pumpkin for you to enjoy (not a euphemism).

EDIT - actually, here’s a collage of my Halloween make-up from the last few years.

Went to MCM today - my mate and I dressed up as characters from Ghosts (check it out on iPlayer if you’ve not seen it!) and got lots of compliments. It was so much fun.

I once caught a guy staring at me in Waterloo Station. He apologised and said he thought I was “that actress from The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo”... I was extremely flattered as Rooney Mara is very attractive but I genuinely look NOTHING like her apart from having (at the time) black hair and a lip ring.

Edit: mis-read the title - I wasn’t pissed off about this, quite the opposite really.

I saw these black and red/orange Converse on the front page of their website but can’t actually find them anywhere. They have all black ones but not these ones. I’ve tried Googling but just can’t find them. Any help?

1 minute ago, Bellenda Carlisle said:

The second one looks like he has hair.

Haha that’s Ming. He is one of the most expressive cats I’ve ever known. He does look like he has hair though.

I adopted this guy 6 years ago and he’s never been a lap cat. Last week he jumped on and just went to sleep! Made me so happy. He’s done it a few times since then too.

The other one, however, was not very happy about it.

I binge watched the whole series of Unbelievable on Netflix on Sunday. Absolutely outstanding acting in that especially from the girl who plays Marie. A harrowing watch especially considering it’s a true story.

Anyone seen it?

I’ve not been to either so I don’t know what rides are there. This is the one in Spain:

And this is the one in Abu Dhabi:

Googling images and the one in Abu Dhabi has the kids cars that look like Ferrari racing cars so it might be this one:

There’s also a smaller version near Salou in Spain.

3 hours ago, SuperBacon said:

Go on @Monkee!!!! Congrats and keep it COYS

Met Hugo yesterday. He’s so lovely! Wanted to get a photo but he was being pulled from pillar to post doing interviews and stuff. Jenna was very cool though, chatted to her about the hospice for ages and got a photo. We might get the full women’s team up for a tour sometime too. COYS indeed!

Not something I’ve tried actually. All of the stuff I’ve made has been by hand. Would love to give 3D printing a go sometime though.

13 minutes ago, King Pitcos said:

Congrats, Monkee! But I want to hear more about this: 

What was this job??

I was working for a retail analysis company - still doing marketing/editorial/graphic design/social media but it was a big corporate. I went from it just being me to managing 3 people for no more money. Then 2 left and never got replaced so I was doing their work too. I kept asking either for help or for more money and they wouldn’t give me either. I was doing 14/16-hour days, had no social life, came home on a Friday, didn’t go out again until Monday.

The crunch came when an old friend from home took his life and I just crumbled. I was signed off for 3 months but I had to go back to work at 3 months otherwise my pay halved. Their way of then ‘easing me back into work’ was to take away everything I’d worked for over 8 years of being there. My assistant was now going into all the strategy meetings and making decisions. I was left with formatting PPTs and uploading blog posts to the website.

So eventually I got another job and I left my manager, me ex-manager and the head of the department with a farewell email telling them it was no thanks to them that I wasn’t sectioned (or worse) and I hoped they got management and mental health training before something worse happened in the future.