I've never been to a 'proper' festival.

I've been to the Godiva Festival which is 3 days/nights of lots of music, lots of food, lots of alcohol, lots of market stalls and either too much sun or too much rain but with no camping or other on site accommodation so it is back to your own bed every night.

You can, if you so wish, find out more information about The Godiva Festival here.  We have Sir Bob and The Boomtown Rats headlining for us this year.  It's a free festival so no entry fees.

I have also been attending the Queen Fan Club Convention every year since 1993.  This is pretty much a festival but indoors and with proper plumbing.  Three days and nights of music, albeit Queen and Queen related, games, market stalls, cough* lots of alcohol *cough but overnight accommodation, depending on the site, is either caravans or chalets, both of which contain proper bathrooms.

I will admit it, I am a snob.  I have camped in the past and will happily do so again once all tents have a fitted private toilet.  I have no need of a proper bed, I don't need a shower, but I do need my own toilet.

But festivals are so expensive to buy tickets for, and that is without accommodation, travel and spending money.  Attending a festival is very much on my bucket list, but I think I need to win the lottery first!

There needs to be more to do in Coventry

Having recently had to take my remaining annual leave in a block (I was off for 14 days in a row, I don't even take that much time off when I DO have plans) I have struggled to find places to visit locally.

We have the Herbert Art Gallery & Museum, which is a fantastic space and a beautiful building, but I have never found the exhibits there as fascinating as I do the building they are housed in.

We have the Coventry Transport Museum, which has recently undergone building works and now has a larger floor area to house the exhibits.  As the museum has had free entry for many years now, I used to spend my lunch breaks in there, especially if it was raining, so I will have seen all the exhibits as they were rotated in and out of storage.

We have the Cathedrals, all three of them, but I worked in the new Cathedral for a time, so why pay to visit a place where I have already seen for free a lot of areas that the public don't?

On the outskirts of the city we have Coombe Country Park, great for young children as it has large areas where they can run about, there is pond dipping, holiday activities and play areas.  Not so good for single adults who are a bit too old for climbing frames.

We used to have a zoo and dolphinarium in Coventry, the entrance was guarded by a huge statue of a Zulu, it wasn't the best location for a zoo being pretty much in the city centre, but it was another place to visit.

There are currently works going on in the centre to open up the hidden Sherbourne River, There will be waterfront bars and restaurants so at least the students whom the City Council seem so desperate to hand the city centre over to will be happy.  Frankly I have no interest in getting all the way into and out of the centre to be Billy-No-Mates in the midst of all the beautiful people.

I like aquariums, but that means heading into Birmingham or out to the coast.

I like zoos but that means Dudley or Twycross.

I like big museums but that means London, Manchester or Liverpool.

I like outside spaces with more to do than just walk about, but that means going to places like High Lodge in Norfolk.

I like Ghost Hunts but they are rarely held locally.

I struggle to leave the house when I am not at work, and frankly, there is little around here that is worth leaving the house for.

Do you have interesting things to do where you live?

Yet MORE student accommodation in the city centre.

I have blogged before about the amount of student accommodation taking over the city centre and now permission has been given for even more.

This week it has been announced that a popular city centre car park is being replaced with student accommodation for 1000.  Clearly renting accommodation to students is a better money spinner than a car park, but then again, with everything in the centre being replaced by student accommodation, then people will soon have no need to go into the centre.

Near to the Belgrade Theatre, planning permission had been given for a block containing a 4* hotel (not sure why we need one in Coventry, but it would have been nice) and luxury apartments.  This has been in the pipeline for many years now, today it was announced that we would no longer be getting the luxury hotel and apartments, but more student accommodation.

I have a suggestion - why not make the whole of the city centre the campus of Coventry University?  Move all the students in the outlying flats and rented houses inside the ring road releasing the suburbs back to non-students.  The general public could still use the facilities in the centre, such as the theatre and the ice rink, much like they do on the University of Warwick campus on the outskirts of the city, the Arts Centre there is well known across the country and shows are open to all.

Does anyone else feel like their city is being slowly absorbed into the local university?

Is the Honours List still relevant?

The New Year's Honours List for 2016 has been published and as I was scrolling through it this morning, I was wondering, are the Honours still relevant today?

Do people really deserve awards for doing a job that they chose to do?  I am not including privately funded industry awards here, if you are going to be using your own company's money, award away, I am just talking about publicly funded awards.

Picking out some specific examples, the third name on the list, for a Knighthood, is a choreographer, receiving his award for 'services to dance'.  What?  Someone gets a knighthood for prancing about a bit in a leotard and leg-warmers?  It may just be me, but when I hear the word 'choreographer' I automatically think of Fame and Debbie Allen shouting at her dancers whilst pounding the floor with a big stick.  Is that really worthy of a Knighthood?

Staying with Knighthoods, a jockey has been knighted.  Yes, he has been Champion Jockey many, many times - fair enough, that is an industry funded award - but a Knighthood?  Did he carry the horses around all those courses?  No, surely the horse did the work, he just didn't fall off, well not every time anyway.

Awards are given for services to Transport.  Have the people who decided the recipients ever used Public Transport?  The people in charge should not be receiving awards, they should be forced to use their system every day during rush hour.

Services to the fashion industry.  Short of making enough clothes that people don't need to walk around naked (sometimes I feel they are failing at this), what other services are needed?

Services to football and drama.  Two well paid professions with enough awards already.

Services to entertainment and charity.  Again, entertainers who reach the Honours Lists are already very well paid, and should you be awarded for charitable works?  Does that not take away some of the charity?

Services to art.  A sculptor has received an award, would we notice if there were no new sculptures?

I stopped reading at this point, I felt there was no need to go on.

How do you feel about the Honours System.

Another angry post about comping.

I've posted before about how I get disillusioned about comping.  How it always seems to be the same people that win time and time again, and if your name is not on the approved list you will not win.  Now we have 'unboxing prizes' videos on YouTube alongside 'what I got through my letterbox' videos.  I could make a 'through my letterbox' video, but takeaway leaflets and bills are not that exciting.

The trigger for today's rant has been a twitter comp run by The National Lottery.

The lottery has now been running for 21 years - Happy Birthday!  And to celebrate this, as well as making 10 millionaires in the draw tonight, they are running a twitter competition to give away £1000 per hour for 10 hours.  There is a new tweet every hour which must be retweeted.  A winner is randomly selected from all retweets.  Or so they say.

A follower tweeted that they had entered every draw, as had I, and they had been made redundant a week ago and were worried about Christmas.  Really?  With five weeks to go to Christmas I would have assumed at least some provision would have been made by now, redundancy or no redundancy.  It's not like this is the first year we have had Christmas and it just kind of snuck up on you.

Well, lo and behold, they won that hour's draw and with a pretty much brand new twitter account too!

And yes, I know I have a separate comping twitter account but that was set up some time ago to avoid annoying my non-comping blog followers, and believe me, it has not been lucky!

And so I think it is time for another break, probably until the New Year.  I will still enter comps if I happen across them, but I will not be actively seeking them out.

So, to my fellow compers, good luck all and don't let the cheats get you down!

OIQFC 30th Convention - Southport.

I have just returned from a very soggy Southport where the 30th Official International Queen Fan Club Convention was being held.

The 30th anniversary convention saw a return to Pontins at Southport - after a gap of 19 years - and also saw the return of the goody bag.

Included in the goody bag is a pen, keyfob, car sticker and stick of rock.  There was also a raffle ticket to win a free trip to Montruex!  I didn't win.

As always there was a convention t-shirt available to buy, this year it listed all 30 convention locations on the back, much as a tour t-shirt does.

(Apologies for the weird photo colour, not sure what happened!)

We had three fab bands on over the weekend - The Deputies, Robby Valentine & the Queen Kings - as well as various special guests taking part in Q&A sessions.

This years also saw the long awaited return of Tug Of War, an event that has not been held for many years due to that awful pairing - Health & Safety.  Unfortunately, whilst many of us Queenies are able to stay up well into the early hours enjoying a convention water or two, a lot of us are getting a bit too fragile for something as physical as Tug Of War so there were only 4 teams taking part.

The only criticism from me was that the floor cameras were not used enough.  We couldn't see the children's fancy dress, nor the fantastic floor routine from a talented young lady called Cerys.  These could have been projected onto the screens so we could all enjoy them, instead of just the people lucky enough to get seats at the front (I started queueing well before 7pm but still ended up at the back each night) but the bands, who were up on the stage and therefore visible to all, were projected onto the side screens.

There was a charity auction - raising over £4000 for the Mercury Phoenix Trust (MPT), there were raffles for the fan club and the MPT, and collections for McMillan and the Poppy Appeal.  A two minute silence was held at 11am.

This year you could also purchase the hard to get hold of, beer, vodka and wine.

Much as I am ashamed to admit it, what ruined it for me was the people I was with, if they weren't moaning about each other, they were complaining about the lack of facilities in the chalet.  If they weren't complaining about that, then they were moaning about not being able to see what was going on on the floor, or that they couldn't hear what was being said.

I feel obliged to them as they have looked after me over the course of the last 15 years or so whilst I have been travelling up alone, but now I feel like I want to spend more time not being moaned at!  Hopefully they didn't enjoy this year's event enough to go again next year.  Selfish I know, but I need a break!

Plans are already being made for next year, who knows where we will be.....

Most Haunted Live! is back.

After an absence which has been far too long, Most Haunted Live! is back for Halloween 2015.

The crew has changed with many familiar faces missing, but Yvette, Karl, Stuart and Fred Batt will all be there.

Tonight's show is from 30 East Drive, Pontefract, the house which inspired the film 'When the Lights Went Out', this is a location they have investigated before.

The questions we need answering are:

How long will it be before Stuart falls down the stairs?

Who's nostrils will we see up first?

How much will be thrown from off camera?

Now that Cath has left the team, who will get their hair touched?

Who will be wearing the sceptical scarf?

And the big question....

Will there be a horse on the stairs?

So grab a drink, get your Morse code app ready and settle down for two hours of fun.



Sleep tight.