Update.

If you live in the centre of Chester and scanned a wireless network with the same name as this website, welcome to johnsunter.com – the adventures of an ordinary person.

Some of our regular visitors may have noticed some changes recently. The banner above has been changed from the Ganges at sunset to Uluru at sunrise, to symbolise a new beginning. Technical changes include  a tag cloud on the right and I have finally fixed the scrolling quotes.

It was my intention to re-launch the website yesterday, but various things caught up with me. We will now be re-launching on Friday the 5th of November. The tag cloud on the right will be fixed on all versions of explorer. Most importantly, the pages about Capetown, which complete my bluelist (and have taken nearly a year to update !) will be up on the website.

I’ll also be writing to catch up with some of you, who I’ve lost touch with.

Near and far, the search for adventure continues…

Meet up with an old friend.

Nick joining us for a drink at my brothers house.

There aren’t many positive things about attending a funeral, but it was made a little better by the appearance of my old friend Nick Barker.

Afterwards, he came back to me brothers house and the 3 of us were reminiscing for several hours about old times.

I took nick up on his invite and had a night out in Newton Heath. It was just the way I remember it (although Jon Leech now has the pub, and there was no Lionel there to call me joystick john (alluding to my work in computers). We had some good humored laughs at the bar of the White Lion, and another old friend, Gary Hilton popped in.

A rather annoying drunken woman kept wanting to interrupt our conversation. But of course, this is Newton Heath, and there is no poncing about, re etiquette. Some words were exchanged and she was encouraged go away.

Went to the Church street Chippy on the way home, that was a trip down memory lane. I spent the rest of the evening chatting to Nick’s wife Maggie and got to meet their son Sam ( he was 3 when I moved to Chester and 13 now, he really is an amazing lad).

Ill go back as soon as I get the chance, thanks to everyone for making me so welcome.

On the subject of old friends, Julie Coffee (previously Julie Dermody) got in touch with me through me website, so I’ll be meeting her for lunch, next time I’m in Manchester.

A quick thanks for the kind words from a bloke called Phil, who I worked with at (the awful) Corning.

Finally, completely out of the blue, after rumors of him disappearing and re-emerging all over Europe and the UK (which is contained inside Europe, I got an email from Craig Sutton, an old friend from my early days in Chester.

To all of you, thanks for getting in touch.

Halloween.

Halloween at the Griffin house.

Around at Tony and Lorraine’s house the other evening for Halloween. Well, actually, I don’t normally go for all that crap, and I went around for Sunday roast, nice wine and good company.

However, forces were at work to get me on board with the whole trick or treat thing.

Back in my younger days, when trick or treat first contaminated the UK from America, children used to knock on your door and ask for money. If they didn’t get it, you would have dog excrement put through your letterbox !.

Things have moved on, and Lorraine (who spent a number of years in Canada, and something of an enthusiast of this stuff), had a chocolate box for “the kids” and even had a sculpted pumpkin, in the window, which you can see above.

In Fairness, many of the child visitors had made a real effort, and one particular child was dressed as a mummy, with bandages and everything.

Anyway, as I grow a little older, and become more miserable and cantankerous, its nice to know that I can still enjoy pointless indulgences like this, once in a while.

Atari.

Retro 30 year old gaming with Atari.

One of my colleagues at work was asking me about the lyrics from a song, presently annoying people listening to the radio on their way to work. “Maybe he’s an XBox and I’m more an Atari” go the lyrics. Whats an Atari asks Gareth ?

After my mum passed, some of my old possession have come back into the fold. What do you know, the 1980’s Atari that David and I saved so hard to buy was setup in my house the other evening.

Atari revolutionized home gaming. Before that, was Binatone with dozens of different games, all based on a kind of ping-pong theme. The Atari allowed you to play as many games of Space Invaders as you liked without having to part with 10p, for every 3 lives !.

In perfect working order, it even had the Kempston pro joystick, which we bought, when the bobbins one sourced with the Atari fell apart. My living room was alight with Pacman and Defender, but I simply couldn’t find space invaders anywhere (I found a copy on ebay for 99p, so that should be pretty good).

Adventure

The Sandstone Trail Sign.

I’ll  be re-walking the Sandstone trail this weekend with Tony. We have found a camping barn to sleep over in mid trail and a pub nearby for our evening meal.

Next week I’ll be in Budapest from Tuesday until Friday. Its my first and only overseas trip of the year, I’ve just about been able to scrape the money together, so I’m going to make the very most of the trip, and get everything I possibly can from it.

I was reading about the UK Government putting up the Tax on long haul flights.  The thinking by our betters, is that International travel, is obviously a luxury and should therefore be taxed even more.

My thoughts on this are clear. I’m not going to go with the “other people choose to have children as their hobby, so leave mine alone” nonsense. However by the time I’ve paid taxes for everything and everybody else, there’s usually a bit of money left just for me. Why cant they just leave that alone.

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