Tag: stockton

Car boots and Castlegate

Now, it would be remiss of me to not start off this post by mentioning the passing of our dear old Queen Elizabeth II at the ripe old age of 96.

Anyway, I mention this, as it meant that plans for this weekend were a bit sketchy if they went ahead or not.

Let’s rewind a new days. I got sent a flyer on facebook… there was a car boot sale in an area of Stockton I’d never visited. Now, Stockton is a couple of towns over, and this wasn’t a journey that could have been made by bus. I asked Chris if he fancied it, and the answer was to the affirmative.

Evenrything was planned… until the sad death of our former monarch. Pretty much the country stopped. Horse races were cancelled. Football was stopped. Even the BBC dropped their coverage of the final Diamond League athletics meeting of the year halfway through their coverage of the women’s 3,000 metre steeplechase. The country had ground to a halt.

Understandably, there’s a period of mourning, and I was wondering if this car boot sale had been cancelled. I asked on facebook. Nobody got back to me.

Saturday morning rolled around, and I took a chance. Yeah, we’re going. The entire journey for me had a nagging, painful memory of a car boot sale that didn’t happen,back in… oooh, let’ws say 1996. Back then, I’d arranged with Chris to go to a similar car boot sale in Billingham on an early Sunday morning. Now, this was long before Facebook was a thing, and real-time information on events was non-exisent. Either way, Chris’s dad drove us up and down this road where it was meant to be… aaand no sign of it. Absolute waste of a journey, and I felt awful for it.

As I mentioned, I ‘took the plunge’ Google’s sat nav guided us to the destination. The church was there, and there were some stalls set up. Phew.

Overall, there were meant to be 33 stalls. There might have been than many, I didn’t count. I’d been though a few stalls, and picked up 6 from one at 50p each.

Now, the next stall I visited was… shall we say, awkward.. I’m going through some more CDs, at 50p each. While flicking through, and picking one or two from a particular artist, I heard the words “He liked those”. My heart sank. I knew what was coming next.

The sellers were two women, probably late 60s, early 70s. I’m clearly looking through some of the CDs that a late son had once owned. Oh my.

I was in too deep at this point. I’d picked some out, but I clearly wasn’t going without a few more, was I? Admittedly, I had a couple of them which I left behind, but the rest of those came home with me. “Think Of [Dave] While you’re listening to them!” were her parting words….

Shortly after that, the heavens opened. Thankfully, we’d managed to go through the entire car boot sale before the rain started. It was time to go, and head into Stockton’s town centre itself.

Now, 2022 is a bit of a time of change for Stockton. The “Castlegate Centre” that has been “at the heart of Stockton” for at least 40 years, is getting flattened. I have very good memories of this centre. And I hope you’ll excuse me if I go on a bit of a ramble. I’m archiving memories of a (now defunct) shopping centre….

Let’s go back to the 80s. I remember being there, must have been something like October or November, as the Christmas decorations were being put up. the fluorescent lanterns that were used to illuminate the external walkways were 4ft Thorns. At this time I don’t have an exact model number, but they were the same that were used in Hartlepool, and that’s what made them stand out to me.

Let’s fast forward to the 90s. In 1991, before I even owned a proper record player, I picked up my first “proper bought” single, “Carribean Blue” by Enya. It was either this, or “World In Union” by Kiri Te Kanawa. The Rugby world Cup had been happening at the time. There was something like 20p difference, which made me choose Enya. Plus, it had “Orinoco Flow” on the B side. A song I vaguely remember liking at the time. I remember going back to my cousin Julie’s house, and listening to both sides on her record player, as she lived near the Stockton railway station at the time.

So, as I mentioned, it’s getting flattened. Like a lot of shopping centres, it’s suffered a massive decline, and Stockton council think it’s going to be better off replacing it with a park.

Here’s a “few” photos I took at the weekend.

A brightly lit, modern shopping centre, with three people in it.

This was Kitsons butcher’s last day.

This left one shop still open… Herons. Quite surprisingly, this was the last shop before you hit the barricade of where they were demolishing the place. I asked the ‘lady’ behind the counter how long it had left. “A few more weeks”, she grunted, as the new shop in “Welly Square” was still being prepared. I genuinely don’t think she was much into conversation, or communication in general.

Even the parking meters had been “evicted”…

Did this mean the car park was free? I’ll never know. There was, however, a “graffiti wall”, where memories could be posted of the place… I was very disappointed with the complete lack of actual vandalism, and people posting actual memories of the place.

So, yeah. this will almost certainly be my final trip into Castlegate. I’ve just had a couple of memories come into my mind while typing these. There used to be a “Cash Generator” in there. I remember picking up some great vinyl from there which they were getting rid of, for 20p a pop. At some point, it moved across the road, became “Tyne Bargains”, and became of little interest to me, as they stopped selling music.

This was also one of the sites of my final “That’s Entertainment” pilgrimage when I found out they were closing. I picked up a box of empty CD cases from there for 50p. To this day, the cardboard box full of empty CD cases is still cluttering up the kitchen. Whoops. This very same store wa also the one I picked up “Now That’s What I Call Music! 4” on CD, for 49p. I’ve seen it go for hundreds of pounds with the case… sadly, mine was just the CD and therefore probably worth nowt.

Oh yeah, I also bought “Faithful” by Go West from there. It was exactly a week after my mother’s funeral, and it was also the first time Id ever been over the Transporter Bridge…

Right. We’re getting a bit too deep into the memory banks there, so let’s just draw this bit to a close. I hope that somewhere down the line, these photos remind someone of The Castlegate shopping centre…

UPDATE OCTOBER 2022: I can confirm the shopping centre has now closwd down, though B+M, Barclays and maybe another one will remain. Can’t remember. These are all accessible from the high street. No doubt these will go in the future too.

UPDATE FEBRUARY 2023: the demolition continued. They’ve taken a fair chunk out of the old Swallow Hotel now too.

There’s a chance I’ll be going back at the weekend for a proper look at the weekend, so I’ll post a proper update if I manage to get any decent shots. I’m not sure how much of it is fenced off.

Is there anything better than a surprise record fair?

Saturdays. It’s hard to say that you can genuinely enjoy just a seventh of your life, but yes, seeing as Saturdays only come round once a month, it’s hard to put it any other way. Fridays still involve work, and Sundays are spent dreading work, so yeah. One day of enjoyment a week.

This particularly depressive attitude means that I have to make the most of my Saturdays. I went to bed particularly early the night before, as “Totally 70s” was off-ait this week. It’s an online radio station that… Yep, you guessed it, plays 70s music, and has live videos, usually with a video stream. Unfortunately, the Friday night DJ couldn’tt make it, due to real-life commitments, so it was left to their automated system to dish out the tunes. And without the interactive element, it’s just not the same, so I went to bed.

It did mean, however, that I could wake up early enough to actually do something with my one enjoyable day, so thought I’d jump on the bus and go to Stockton and then Middlesbrough. It’s a good while since I’d done a full day of “charity Shop shit”.

I disembarked at Stockton, and quite literally the greatest sight that could ever be projected into my shiny little eyeballs, the sight of a marquee, and those magical words…

It was like some type of beautiful waking dream. It was free too, which was just the icing on the cake.

One complaint I’ve had about recent record fairs is that there’s been very few boxes to rummage through, namely random boxes of singles. This time, I was not disappointed. In fact the very first box I went through, I pulled out this….

It’s a song I don’t expect anyone reading this to know (much like the entirety of my collection), but I first heard it probably back in 2014, from this particular episode of Ron Gerber’s “Crap From The Past”. It was also used in the film “Playing For Keeps”, which I’m sure you’ll be unsurprised to learn I haven’t seen.

I picked up a few other bits from this particular stall, and ended up paying £8 overall. I think this marks a significant moment, as I’m sure it was the first time I’d paid for anything at a record fair using my card.

I went through a couple of other stalls and picked up a few bits and bobs, (including Now 1 on CD, the 2018 re-release though), and came out highly satisfied with my haul, considering I didn’t even know it was going to be there.

Of course, this record fair ate into the time that would have otherwise been allocated to the charity shops. This wasn’t much of an issue, as these days, the quality of the musical merchandise you can pick up from Stockton’s shops has gone slowly downhill recently, so I didn’t come out with that much.

Despite the fact that time was getting on, there was still enough time to grab the bus to Middlesbrough (there’d have been even more time if I hadn’t have forgotten which pocket I’d put my bus ticket in, meaning I had to wait for the next one).

I think Middlesbrough has to be my favourite place for charity shops. They’re plentiful, and a couple of them had even came back from the dead. The “Age UK” had reopened (despite it having a big “To Let” sign on the door, and also the “Cats’ Protection” which had closed at some point before the lockdown, I believe. I didn’t buy anything from either, but good to see they’ve been resurrected, at least for now.

There’s also a new “Amazing Grace” shop, in the place of Scope/Sense (Can’t remember which) in the shopping centre. Again, nothing of any interest.

YMCA always have some goodies on offer, and today was no exception, along with Farplace. They had some “100 Hits” boxsets, at a quid each, snapped up three of those. I probably already have, like 95% of the songs, but I’ve always found a couple of obscure gems on the other ones that I’ve not seen anywhere else.

That concluded my journey pretty much. The last stop was HMV. I considered getting a James Blunt “Greatest Hits” CD for his song “Bartender”, which I like, but don’t own, but it was too close to payday to consider paying £5.99 for such an item. Good lord, inagine going overdrawn because of James Blunt? It stayed on the shelf.

Last stop was the bakery near the bus station, where I picked up some lovely sausage rolls.

The bus ride was particularly uneventful, until the bus got to Asda, when a load of kids got on, who decided they want to make a nuisance of themselves, with water pistols and the like.

A teeny, tiny bit of water hit my hand, like maybe three drops.

“If you even think of aiming that at me again, I’ll jump over there and shove that down your throat”. Of course, I said that about 30 seconds before I got off, otherwise I’d have no doubt got completely soaked off them.

Just as I was getting off, the driver came out of his cab and bellowed at them to behave, or they were getting kicked off. I do wither what happened after that!

I then stocked up at lidl, and returned home, just in time to see the build-up of some insignificant football match, which The Liverpools lost, I believe.

It was an early night for me, as there was something exciting happening that following morning… A radio rally!

That WAS Emtertainment part 4… no, really, it IS the end this time.

It is, with a heavy heart, that this time really was the last time I’d ever step foot in a That’s Entertainment. I know, I sort-of jumped to conclusions a few weeks ago when I wrote that initial post after I knew they were closing, and unfortunately, I sort-of pre-empted everything I wanted to write here.

Anyway, a week ago, after visiting the store on Bank Holiday Monday, I reported that I finally knew the closing day, and that would be this coming Sunday. Luckily, this also coincided with a week off work. No, nothing to do with my feet this time, no, just an actual week off. Legally booked and everything.

This would give me the opportunity to visit the store twice more. Saturday was one of the days.

As mentioned previously, the prices went down to 50% off earlier in the week. This would be an occasion for me to fill my boots with yet more cheap sleeveless CDs.

But first, the bus ride. One of those odd moments where I actually LIKED talking to a complete strange. It was weird. As before, I took the 36 bus, as it drops me off in Stockton town centre, pretty much outside the afore-mentioned shop. A guy got on at Billingham, and sat next to me. Nothing unusual about that. I’m on a bus. It happens. Normally, my earphones clearly wedged in my ears is enough to deter most people from talking to me. Or rather, they’re wedged so far in there that I can’t hear anything they say. This time, however, they either weren’t in right, or it was at a quiet part of the song, when I heard him speak..

“Going shopping then?”, he asked, in a jolly, Saturday morning manner.

“Sort of, I’m off to get some CDs.”. I explained that TE was closing, and he seemed genuinely surprised. Not in that “I don’t know what you’re talking about” way either. He seemed genuine. We got talking, and he explained he collected too, and used to come down to Hartlepool, to the Other Record Shop, but hadn’t been for years. I broke the sad news that the owner had died, and that it was pretty much a ticket store anyway. He asked if I go to many gigs. I replied in the negative, but the last one that I saw was Chris Rea.

“Oh yes, didn’t he do Stainsby Girls?” I could have hugged him at that point. It wasn’t one of his bigger hits, but it’s by far my favourite song of his. Certainly not the first song you’d expect to come up in a random bus journey conversation.

Before I knew it, my new friend got off the bus, and I felt slightly empty, knowing that there really was someone out there with similar interests to me, and that our paths will never, ever cross again. It was the first time, and probably the last in my entire life where my record collecting was genuinely interesting to someone, and not “The bald bloke with the glasses is talking at me, I must look at the wall”. Sigh.

Anyhoooo, back to record collecting, and before I knew it, I was alighting the 36, and making my way to the shops. Of course, my first stop was the “sleeveless” table.

This time, they had split the boxes. You could still buy some full boxes for £5, but they were also doing bags of them, rather like what they did at Hull that time, for £1.50. I picked three bags up, along with many other bits and pieces.

The reason why I picked the bags up, is that I decided that these would be more fun to “unbag” in a live Facebook video, and it would go on for less time than doing an entire box. After all, I could surely come back down on Monday and pick up a box or two, especially, as I was off this week.

Well. Monday didn’t happen, and neither did Tuesday. Memory escapes me why, but I’m going to hazard a guess at the weather. Out of all of the weeks I could have picked off, I picked the one with Arctic temperatures, more fog than a vaping convention, and an overall assumption that Winter would never end. Just like the weather, my heart was grey at the possibility of never stepping foot in another one of those stores again.

Judging by the elimination of the previous two days, I hope you’ve all reached the conclusion that something happened on Wednesday. I had to get up early, as Wednesday was the day of my weekly foot scraping (yes, that’s still going on), which had concluded by about 9:30. I returned home, and caught some of the athletics. After all, it’s the Commonwealth games.

After 9 minutes of heady excitement, watching Jamaica win their first medal in the women’s steeplechase, I decided that athletics was too exciting for a Wednesday morning, and I needed something to lower my adrenaline levels, and what could be better than a mind-numbing ride to Stockton, on the 36. And, mind numbing it was, as my headphones kept playing up.

I arrived in Stockton to find a depressing sight. All of the sleeveless CDs were gone. Not a single one in the shop. A third of the shop was now empty, with the exception of children, running around in the vast open space, as if they’d never seen an empty shop before. Ugh. It was horrible.

I scoured the shelves, prowling, like the last weak buzzard, pecking at the final bits of decaying flesh left on the carcass of a once mighty buffalo. The last remnant of something tasteful through the shelf upon shelf chick flicks and Owen Wilson DVDs….

Did I do badly?

Assuming the time on the receipt was correct, I exited the store at 2PM. There was still time to get one of the many buses to Middlesbrough, and hope for miracles that they found an entire sack of sleeveless discs underneath the floorboards….

No. My word. I thought there were slim pickings at the Stockton one. Middlesbrough was even worse. The music had almost entirely dried up. There were multiples of almost every DVD. Blu-rays were pretty much sold out, and naturally, sleeveless stock was gone entirely here too. There were three things I purchased…

SENNA – Already have it on DVD, two-disc edition, but I really like it. Worth upgrading to blu-ray.

ALAN PARTRIDGE – ALPHA PAPA – I’ve already seen it. Wasn’t amazing, possibly worth a second watch though.

ROCK OF AGES – Never seen it. Might be something I’d like. Plus, the DVD case is all purple and glitttery. Ahem.

So, there we have it. At 14:52, on 11th April 2018, a chapter of my life really did end. As I said, in my earlier posts, I sort-of jumped the gun when I said there would be no more (I didn’t know when they were closing when I wrote that), but this time I mean it. It closes for good in less than two days.

I don’t know what I’m going to do for music now. HMV are soulless, as John mentioned in the comments. Charity shops don’t have the same appeal they once did. I’m genuinely sick of looking through 250 granny CDs to find one CD I’d consider, only to find I already have it in triplicate.

So, as a homage to That’s Entertainment, here is a spreadsheet including all of the CDs I’ve bought from both of the stores since they announced their closure. There’s no way to tell which ones I’ve bought outright, and which ones came as part of the sleeveless stock bundles. This chapter of my life will close with nobody, except me, knowing if I actually wanted those S Club 7 CDs…

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1AFtpPiafbPpOM7btZmlKAT9vcxmJ4kxCAAgR85O8kRM

Please note, that whilst wholesome, the above spreadsheet does not live up to my usual level of care and attention, with many missing years and catalogue numbers, and possibly incorrect titles too. I won’t be updating the above spreadsheet any further, but my catalogur will eventually get the complete information entered into it.

The end. That’s Entertainment… August 2011 – April 2018.

That’s Entertainment – the end is nigh(er)

Yes, I understand that previous blog post was possibly the worst one I’ve ever written. I sort-of cobbled it together from bits of a blog post I wrote at the beginning of the month, and it didn’t really work, so I’ll keep you up to date with the real-time goings on as a customer of dying high street shop “that’s entertainment”.

Following on from my previous post, I can confirm that the last day will be 15th April, a mere week ‘n’ a half from now. That’s when the last barcode will scan, and my heart will sink lower than… than… oh, I can’t even think of a dirty euphanism for that. I’m losing my touch. Feel free to add your own in the comments.

I’m sure you’re all sick of me whitterng on about this store now. After all, to most [people, it’s just a bloody record / DVD store, but to me, it was more than that. It was a place where music got a second chance. All of those compilations that never got sold, ended up there. All of those CDs and DVDs that lost their cases ended up there, and a good couple of them ended up in my collection.

Anyway, as the bell tolls ever nearer, I’ve taken the opportunity to visit the store again, not one, but twice this week.

Saturday loomed, and after publishing that diabolically bad post on Friday, I thought I’d give the store one more look. At this time, I didn’t know what the closing date was going to be, so I was all about trying to find out when this was.

Instead of boring you all with the details of getting there like I did in the last post, I’ll just say that nothing much had changed. Everything in the Stockton store was still 25% off. and all of the shelves had been “compressed” so only half of the shelves were filled. This also means that they’d emptied their shelves of the “padding” CD cases. These were the empty boxes they used to make the shelves look a bit more full than what they actually were. It turns out they were selling these for £1 a box, containing approximately 160. I’d have picked one up there and then, except getting them back home would have been impossible, so I gave them a miss. I did get a couple of more sleeveless CDs, but nothig to write home about. I was going to go along to the Middlesbrough store too, but Accomplice texted me, and offered the suggestion of a Maccy D’s.

No contest. He picked me up, food was acquired, and that was it for Saturday, except for diagnosing a fault with Accomplice’s PC, and, oc course, a curry.

Sunday was Easter, so nothing was done on this day, except for cataloguing the CDs I’d bought on Saturday, and a run out with Accomplice to a computer shop in Newcastle. It was closed. Back home, more cataloguing!

Bank Holiday Monday came. I’d been thinking of some ways to get one of these boxes of cases home. Eventually, I asked Accomplice if he’d run through me to Stockton. He agreed, and I’m still shocked about this. I suppose there’s very little to do on Bank Holiday Mondays, so I suppose it wasn’t that much of a surprise.

Petrol was purchased from a service station, along with a sausage sarnie that had been sat under a heat lamp for an indeterminate amount of time. This was to become important later on.
Of course, Accomplice driving me to Stockton wasn’t without compromise. Instead of parking in the multi storey car park attached to the shopping centre, he insisted on parking in the outdoor car park, even though I’d already said I’d pay for parking, and it was hoying down with rain. Apparently “walking in the rain is what I got for wanting to come here”. Accomplice occasionally pulls illogical “dick moves”, and I don’t think I’ll ever know why.

I headed to the store, and picked up a box of cases. They also had some of their sleevelss stock, wrapped up and in boxes, for £10 each. Expecting to pay £11, imagine my surprise when it rang in at £5.50 – I didn’t realise that the discount had changed from 25% to 50%. Wahey! I did an unboxing video on facebook. It didn’t go well, as my connection kept dropping, for some unknown reason. Needless today, by part 3, I just recorded it and stuck it on Facebook afterwords. From now on, I think I’ll just stick to recording them and putting them on Youtube. Far less hassle.
Accomplice also went on the hunt for a computer store that might have been open on Easter Monday, eventually settling on Falcon Computers, in Sunderland. another Maccy D’s was suggested. It then became clear that something in my belly didn’t quite feel right. My guts were hurting just a little bit. Enough to knock back a portion of large fries from Maccy D’s, but not enough to attempt a Chicken :eg End.

I got back, went to bed. Got up at about 7, and went out to the Mill House, and despite it being a free bar, I could only knock back a couple. I just wasn’t myself at all. I got back in the house, and felt shivery, despite the heating being set to Volcano. Ugh.

Bed, and thankfully, after 10 hours sleep, I woke up, right as rain, which is quite apt, as all it has done for the past three days is rain constantly. Lovely. But, at least there were no lasting effects from my date with sausage related gut-rot. I feared…. the wurst.

Anyhoo. My clear obsession with a certain shop will come to a grinding and shuddering halt in less than two weeks. This will no doubt run into “Part Four”, so watch this space…. Or come back in two weeks when you’ll be greeted with eerie silence as I think of something to talk about.

That Was Entertainment pt.2… And “Now 4”

Ok, so maybe that last update wasn’t the last time Id visit a “That’s Entertainment” store. If you’ve not been following the blog, you won’t have known that this chain of cheap-arse record stores is “contemplating its future” on the high street. Well, that’s how their blurb stuck ot the front of the counter puts it anyway. The stores have already stopped selling “tech” products, such as mobile phones, tablets, etc. and are no longer accepting new stock.

Anyway, enough about the inevitable. A few weeks ago, I thought I’d take one last tour of the Stockton store. This was one of the better ones in the area for cheap CDs. They always had a large selection of the 49p CDs that I would crave.

After all of my years searching through these boxes, I found plenty, but nothingm I would consider “gold standard”. A diamond in the rough, as it were. Something told me, days before, that I must go to this store. I’m not really a believer in fate, or anything like that, but something bugged me for the entire week, telling me to go, even to the point where I would lie awake, waiting for Saturay to tick by.

Anyway, Friday night came, and I did a few “humorous” live broadcasts on Facebook. It was more of a test for something I have planned. I basically drank beer and played shit songs for about an hour. After the videos completed, I purposely stayed sober. I only had a couple of cans, and that was during the live things I did. Something was tugging at my mind that I just had to go to this store.

I awoke early on Saturday. Thinkfully, despite there being an accumulation of snow on the paths, the roads were clear, meaning that the buses were running from Hartlepool to Stockton. This is a two-leg journey, and the firt leg saw me get off at the town centre. A person, who seemed to have a habit of spitting, told me all about the wellies he qwas wearing, as they stop him from slipping over. It was a riveting conversation, and the 36 bus couldn’t come soon enough.

A normally dull bus ride was brightened by the sight of the local areas covered in snow. It was a surprisingly pretty sight, considering how desparate Teesside looks on your average day. Huge snow drifts stood at the side of the Greatham road – the likes of which we’ve never seen since Boxing Day 1995, and certainly not at the start of March, when the daffodils are meant to be poking though.

I arrive in Stockton, and I get off the bus. There was only one shop I was interested in. Normally, I’d head off to the charity shops, but my radar was firmly fixed on That’s Entertainment. My first glance was at the 30+ boxes of “sleeveless” CDs placed in the centre of the shop. My eyes lit up. It was like Christmas. My heart sank, however, when I realised they were still 49p each. Bugger.

I wouldn’t lie if I said I was a tad disappointed. The Middlesbrough store was going through the exact same turmoil, and they’d reduced their sleeveless stock to 10p.

I started going through them. Some average ones, some unknown ones that could be classics. Mostly filler and classical CDs that I wouldn’t touch with a bargepole. I was on to about the 3rd of 4th box, when I pulled out a CD. My heart stopped.

This wasn’t just any CD. This was one of the rarest CDs going. Namely “Now That’s What I call Music! 4”

For the uninitiated (I got the right word this time), “Now, That’s What I Call Music” is a thrice-yearly collection of chart hits and occasionally, exclusive remixes, that continue to be released to this day. At the time of typing, we’re up to “Now 99”. If you want a time capsule of 80s / 90s / 00s / 10s music, you can’t go wrong than picking up a few of these.

Way back in 1984, Now 4 came out on what was, at the time, the obscure CD format. Tapes and vinyl were, of course, the go-to choice, and CDs were some type of weird luxury that only rich people can afford. This pretty much lasted until the 90s, so a CD, back in 1984 was a clear rarity.

The “Now 4” CD does appear on ebay, but you’re looking at hundreds of pounds. Even Discogs, which is usually a little more sensible with the price, had the latest one selling for around £250, and here I was, holding it for 49p. Cor!

Of course, every story has a downside, and this one is that it’s “sleeveless” – there’s no case for it, so I have the bare CD in a plastic wallet. That probably knocks something like 90% off the value, but it proves it’s out there, and for those lucky bastards that do have a boxed copy, that’s one more out of the equation – yours probably just got that little more valuable! Saying that, for a CD to survive that long, especially without its case, is nothing short of miraculous.

Fast forward to the present day (You’ll probably be reading this on Good Friday), and I think that’s me done with “That’s Entertainment” for ever. Maybe I’ll have a trip down there tomorrow, depending on what services the buses are running, but seeing as I’ve bought approximately 250, that might take some time…