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[paw broon]

I thought a section like this might interest some of us to share details of holidays or awaydays or just doing something a bit different. 

Linda and I have spent a few days away in the north of England in a lovely market town in Northumberland called Alnwick.  We stayed in an excellent B&B in a lovely room, overlooking the big garden.  Breakfasts were huge with all local produce so we had the famous local kippers form Craster and the honey was from Chain Bridge Honey Farm, as good as it gets. Alnwick Gardens are a revelation with the Cascade, Poison Garden, water sculptures, thousands of cherry tress and so on and Alnwick Castle, adjacent to the Gardens is famous as Hogwarts in the Harry Potter films and is a great visit. Local buses took us to Alnmouth, a lovely wee village on the coast with a long, long beach.  Perfect weather for walking a few miles of it before having fresh local crab for lunch.
The Tree House in Alnwick Gardens is one of the biggest in the world and has an excellent restaurant.  Don't know if any of you would fancy this but what about Pigeon breast with crispy bacon and local black pudding?  Well, I enjoyed it.
Also in the town is Barter Books, one of the biggest 2nd. hand bookshops in the Britain and I found and bought, The Green Archer by Edgar Wallace, with dust jacket; Blackshirt by Bruce Graeme; Tiger Standish Steps on It by Sydney Horler with dust jacket and The Return of Nighthawk by Horler with dust jacket (masked man in evening clothes holding up nasty, rich bloke).
NO COMICS ANYWHERE!

[narfstar]

Good Forum to start Paw. We are a community here and become friends who have never met physically. I have my annual visit to my family in PA this summer. My wife and I are planning a trip to some Civil War sites and Washington DC this summer. We have been to DC before but you can spend a lifetime in the Smithsonian. My wife is a Civil War buff and has not been to these areas before.

[josemas]

My work situation is such that I haven't gotten away for a vacation in over a decade.  I used to like going up into the high mountains of Arizona for a few days especially when the heat of the desert around Phoenix gets baking in the summer.
I also used to enjoy attending the Cinecon, which is a convention in Hollywood over the Labor Day weekend each year where they show old films and have actors and actresses of the GA cinema as guests.  I attended every year between 1990-2000 but again, alas, have just not been able to get away during this past decade.
We have managed to get the Lil Missus off to visit her Mom and sisters in Tennessee every now and then even if I haven't been able to go with her.
I do love to browse through used book stores which I still manage to do a couple times a month.

Best

Joe

[narfstar]

what part of TN I am near Chattanooga

[josemas]

what part of TN I am near Chattanooga

Well they are a little scattered.  Some of her family are in the Greenville area.  Others over around Knoxville and Oak Ridge and I believe her one sister is actually currently living a bit across the border in North Carolina now.

The Lil Missus and I actually got married in Tennessee shortly after I graduated from the Kubert School.  Sheesh that's almost thirty years now.  Wow, time flies!

Best

Joe

[narfstar]

Let me know if you are going to be around the Knoxville area a summer or weekend that we might be able to meet

[paw broon]

Yesterday, we went to Edinburgh to see an exhibition of paintings and other media work by, Kurt Jackson.  This is the second of his exhibitions we have attended and they were both excellent.  Have a look at his site:-http://www.kurtjackson.co.uk/
A bus to Ocean Terminal, on the Forth for dinner finished off a great afternoon.

[paw broon]

Linda and I were in the Netherlands for a long week.  We stayed in Delft, famous for pottery and Vermeer.  What is also great about Delft and Holland is the food, trams, comics shops, canals and cakes.  We were on the beach at Scheveningen and in one of the main art galleries in Den Haag to see work by Vermeer, Mondrian and more.
Went to Leiden and found a great comic shop, Stripwinkel Dumpie, great name, great guys.  Between Dumpie and shops in Den Haag, I bought some piccolinos, Eric de Noorman, drawn by the excellent Hans G Kresse (please look him up) , some old issues of De Rode Ridder (The Red Knight), some Dick Bos and an issue of Spot Morton drawn by Alfred Mazure's brother, Georges Mazure.  Also, Dutch reprints of The Spider, (The British one) and Robot Archie.

[paw broon]

We went to Edinburgh today to see an exhibition of the art of George Leslie Hunter, one of the Scottish Colourists.  This is the third in a series of 4.  There's been Cadell; Ferguson and the last will be Peploe.  Really excellent, both the paintings and the curating.  Head's buzzing.
Here's a link to the exhibition with a short film about the man;-
http://www.edinburghmuseums.org.uk/Venues/City-Art-Centre/Exhibitions/Leslie-Hunter

[paw broon]

We've been away for a visit to the south coast of England - Hastings, plus trips to Rye and Brighton.  As we don't have I-thingies or similar, we're sort of out of touch when we go away and no bad thing at times.  Found a good comic shop in Brighton - Dave's Comics - and managed to spend some cash. In Rye I also found a Slick Fun Annual with the origin of Super Stooge, in which the great Stoogie is gifted with the power to turn into - Super Stooge.  Art by the excellent Harry Banger.  All great fun, daft and that lovely cartoony style.  Although the book is in bad shape, I'll gird my loins for an attempt to scan it but it'll take a while.
We got caught up in the chaos of the storms and when we got back to London for our train North, we discovered the services out of Kings Cross were all cancelled north of York because of flooding.  So had to go to Euston for a train to Birmingham and change to a West Coast Edinburgh service.  Chaos all over the shop.
Nice new art gallery in Hastings.  Info here:-
http://www.jerwoodgallery.org/about/the-gallery

[MarkWarner]

Damn! We could have caught up. I am in Eastbourne and am ex-Brighton it was my "manor" for quite a few years

[unclerobin@att.net]

Hey, paw, which Stooge was Super Stooge, Moe, Larry, or Curly? Or Shemp? Or Joe? Or Curly-Joe? Ha, ha, just kidding, I don't know if Super Stooge was a U.S. comic or U.K. or from Timbuktu - WOOWOOWOOWOO!

[paw broon]

Unca Robin, this is Stoogie:-
https://comicbookplus.com/?cid=1993
before he gained his "super powers".  I know I bang on (see what I did there?) about Harry Banger (rhymes with danger) but his cartoon work is just so good.  Signs himself "Bang" so check through the issues on site and you'll find plenty of his strips.  I love the 3 Stooges but Linda can't stand them.  Again, Abbott and Costello make me fall off my chair laughing while Linda just doesn't get it. 
Mark, didn't know where you were but that's a chance missed.  There's some nice beer down there that we never see up here.  And jellied eels.

[unclerobin@att.net]

paw, thanks for steering me to the work of Harry Banger, I haven't read it thoroughly yet, but it looks VERY ENTERTAINING! He kind of reminds me of the "Billy Bunter" artist(s), is that a coincidence? Also, his caricatures of black people remind me very much of Robert Crumb's version, I wonder if Crumb saw this and was influenced? Also, it's good to see you over at Captain Comics!

[paw broon]

I've stuck my toe in the water on CC  but finding the time for all these sites is hard.  Linda likes to go out occasionally, preferably with me.  In the UK, there were plenty of non-pc treatments of black people - stuff that just wouldn't be acceptable today e.g. Spadgers Isle:-
http://kayaozkaracalar.blogspot.co.uk/2010/06/spadgers-isle.html
Crumb is supposed to be well read in comics so, you never know.  But I think he was getting at something else, don't you?

[unclerobin@att.net]

Yeah, I think Crumb was on a whole different wavelength, but the ART did have its similarities. I'm sure it was coincidental, if anything, Crumb could be even MORE racist than those '50s guys -

[paw broon]

Yes I  know I've gone quiet but Linda and I are away on holiday. Not far, just straying into foreign territory, over the border in Northumbria.  We hada few nights in a tiny wee place, Gilsland, and now we're nr. Alnmouth.  I went to NEWCASTLE for Travelling Man comkc shop but their back ish. swcton was closed.   Managed to get on a keyboard for half an hour. I'll tell yo how good the Craster kippers are in a few days.
The Laing gallery in Newcastle has some work by a Leeds artist, Atkinson Grimshaw and theyare well worth seeing. Evocative city scapesfrom the end of the 1800's. 

[paw broon]

Oh, those Craster kippers.  Tastiest breakfasts I've had in a while. Here's Robson's site, for those who don't know what delicacy I'm talking about:-
http://www.kipper.co.uk/
BUT, and it's a big but, do I prefer an Arbroath Smokie?:-
http://www.arbroathsmokies.net/what-is-a-smokie.html
You see the problems retired folk have to resolve.

For anyone interested in art, the Grimshaws I found in the Laing in Newcastle were by this guy.  I love his paintings:-
http://www.johnatkinsongrimshaw.org/

I'd be curious to read any reactions to the paintings.  Or re. the kippers, for that matter.

[paw broon]

We went to Seefeld, Austria for a holiday.  Stunning scenery, excellent food, acceptable wine and those cakes!  What can I say?  Using local buses and trains, we travelled around a fair bit and also walked our tootsies off.  The train trip to Innsbruck was amazing and the engineering on the line has to be experienced to be believed.  As usual, I was on the lookout for comics but that was the really disappointing bit of the day.  I eventually found a second hand shop with books, comics and records and, in a box, I dug out 3 German Phantom comics (Bastei), a pocket book Vanessa which is my first example of the comic, and a Circus Boy reprint.  This is a partial Dell reprint with a Micky Dollenz cover.  None of them in very good nick but a Phantom comic is a Phantom comic, eh?
I bought some newsstand Donald Duck/Uncle Scrooge pocket books, mainly because they had stories of Donald as the superhero, Phantomias.

[paw broon]

We had a long weekend, by train to London, the main reason being the Patrick Caulfield exhibition at Tate Britain:-
http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/exhibition/patrick-caulfield
A bit of an eye-opener - so much to take in.
I had an ulterior motive of visiting some comic shops, so, when Linda fancied shopping, I made my excuses and jumped on a bus to Putney.
We also took the water bus from Tate Britain to Tate Modern, strolled about in beautiful weather in St. James Park; took the train to Richmond and walked along the riverbank; walked for miles round the sights.  Buckingham Palace; Downing St.; Changing of the Guard; Tower Bridge; The Tower; Borough Market........ - being tourists in our own country.  Found a couple of really good, small, Italian restaurants, excellent pubs and good food.
The comic shops were good fun as well.

[narfstar]

Sounds great if I ever make it to the UK you will have to show me around

[MarkWarner]

"Being tourists in our own country"

I didn't realize that London has been moved to Scotland?

[paw broon]

How could you have missed that???
I seem to think they swapped it for Moscow!   Moscow, Ayrshire, that is.

[MarkWarner]

O Ok ... I am a bit confused with all the geographical moving around, does that mean that Andy Murray is the first English male singles player to win Wimbledon since Fred Perry in 1936?

Or is he the first ever Scottish player to do so? I guess if so then Fred Perry is the last Englishman to win Wimbledon 76 years ago, and with no one on the horizon that is a record that will last for great many years

[paw broon]

Been neglecting this section recently and I'm sure it's not happy.
After a week in Spain a while ago, well really, Palma de Mallorca, which I bored about elsewhere, we had a few days in N. England at Alnwick in a lovely B & B.  Travelled around on the buses, going to Alnmouth on a perfect day to walk on a perfect beach, saw where they made a recent episode of Vera, eat excellent, local roast beef.  To Amble and, arguably, the best ice cream shop in the country, Spurelli:-
http://www.spurreli.com/
where you can watch them making it and more importantly, stuff yourself with it.

We're just back from Italy. Desenzano, at the south end of Lake Garda.  Apart from sails on the local ferry services, sitting in cafes drinking the local collapso and eating superb local cuisine, we went on the train to Verona.  My ulterior motive was to visit Verona Fumetti, a really friendly, packed full of goodies, comic shop.
Managed to fill some gaps in my Kriminal collection and found some other comics which are now in my scanning pile.  Unfortunately, we were forced back to the lakeside as the temperature was around 35 degrees and incredibly humid.  Nightmare on the train back as it didn't have air conditioning and I thought I was melting.