unartfuldodger

The whole "Remaking Barnsley" thing seems to have been going on forever.  At the moment all we seem to have is a bus station that looks like the early learning centre, and some shiny new office blocks. 
 

You may or may not have heard of some of the original ideas mooted about the direction of the redevelopment of Barnsley, or Tarn as i'm going to refer to it from now on as a native, but the one that sticks out is the plan to turn Tarn into a Tuscan Hill Village, complete with medieval style walls and everything.  Now you may be laughing but I can see the logic behind this, in a recent survey done by some think tank based down south I assume, it appears that people in Tarn are quite fat and unhealthy as all we apparently eat are steak bakes and whippets.  Just think then if Tarn was to become a Tuscan Village we would all start to eat like Tuscans, meaning we would start eating that Olivio spread olive oil stuff.  Thus in order to save money the advertisers of said healthy spread would film in Tarn creating acting jobs for the locals and make us healthier in the process, simple.

Also it was suggested that Tarn should have a halo of light beamed above it.  Again a quite brilliant idea, what better way to reduce crime in Tarn then to signal for Batman to come along and clean up our mean streets, people would think twice before having a pee in front of the Town Hall if they knew the Dark Knight was watching them.

But unfortunately these things will never see the light of day, due to the recession Tarn has no money at all to spend on things these days.  So it looks like instead of Tagliolini alla frantoian for tea I'll have the usual kestrel and chips.

Apparently I look like him, make up your own mind :)

Wednesday nights in Barnsley have been student night, since as long I can remember.  Long nights of drinking, cheesey chips and girls in tiny dresses vomiting up a rainbow of WKD.  In many senses it was a real circus.  Which brings me nicely onto the actual reason for writing this last night me and the girlfriend went to a real life circus.

Uncle Sam's Great American Circus to be accurate.  It was their opening day special and cost a pretty fair £6 which considering on a regular wednesday night you could spend that on a bottle of funny coloured fruit paintstripper fobbing itself off as an alcoholic drink. 

After buying our tickets for the American circus from the Russian girl behind the counter we took up our seats and sat eagerly waitng for the start of the show, as the aroma of popcorn, candyfloss and fried foods wafted around the big top.

My favourite part of the circus has always been the clowns, seen as this was an American circus I sat in anticipation that our favourite clown from across the pond George "Dubya" Bush would be performing and entertaining us by looking for WMD's under our seats, or at the very least throw a few pies at his glamourous assistant Tony Blair.

The first memorable act of the night was two men, who I assume used to be in the Russian mafia performing on the wheel of death.  At one point this almost went wrong when one of them fell off which prompted my girlfriend to cover her eyes.  Strangley enough she also covered my eyes when the lesbian-esque bendy women were on.

The circus was roughly three quarters full if that, I suspect that circus' across the UK are suffering from similar attendance problems, which is a real shame because the kids their seemed to be enjoying themselves immensely, as did I.  The next time a circus is in town go see it, because they may not be round much longer.....and if your a dad make the effort and go you never know the bendy women may be on again.
 

I have no idea why people find horses appealing. My girlfriend on the other hand has been part of the horsey set since she was four years old, and now she has decided that I should join the equine world and take an interest in her pastime.

Being one for the quiet life, and the fact that inevitably I’d be forced to do it anyway I agreed to give it a go.

 So this past weekend, with all the enthusiasm of a 14 year old going on a caravanning holiday with their Nan, It was off to the local equestrian centre to watch her show me she is the next Zara Phillips.  

The equestrian centre is situated in the middle of nowhere surrounded by hedgerows and tractors and can only be accessed by driving along a road that makes the Himalayas look flat. 

After conquering Everest and arriving at the equestrian centre, it was decided that my girlfriend needed to buy a new pair of riding boots from the centre’s shop before she had her riding lesson. 

Knowing that I moan when confronted by any form of footwear shopping my girlfriend told me to have a look around and left me to my own devices.

The only thing I found of interest in the shop was a book, “Katie Prices’ guide to horse riding.” I had heard that Katie Price aka Jordan was into horses and assumed she was pretty good at horse riding and quite a daring rider, possibly due to that if she ever fell off a horse she must be one of the few riders who comes equipped with twin airbags.

After what seemed like an age of trying to work out why people would want to wear jodhpurs, my girlfriend informed me she was now ready to have her jumping lesson and off we cantered to the stables.

In the stables the riders were all given a horse, whilst I stood next to a bag of carrots and wondered why I was missing the football for this.

 As the horses and riders set off to the ménage, the area where the horses jump over fences for those of you like me who have no idea about such things, I was sent to sit on a bench out of the way. This bench was basically the equivalent of those tiny stools you find outside the changing rooms in Top shop where depressed men are told to sit and wait with bags in total silence.

At least this gave me the chance to observe what goes on during a riding lesson. As far as I can tell it goes like this. A rather scary woman in wellies barks at you and the horse to stay round the outside of the ménage until it’s your turn to jump a fence. When it finally gets to your turn the horse decides just as you approach the fence that it doesn’t want to jump, performs an emergency stop and you end up flying over the horses head and in to the fence ending  up in a pile of broken bones a pink jodhpurs. As happened to my girlfriend.

So now I do know why horses are appealing, you get an excuse to be given morphine and if you film your lesson you stand to win £200 from you’ve been framed.