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Chesterfield '97
A lighthearted review
by Alistair Thomson
The Bill McLean group arrived at AT's
house at 0858, a full 12 mins early.
Thomson was still in his pyjamas. Left
his door at 0900 prompt, leaving the pyjamas in the drive.
Occupants were Bill the Driver, Tom the Quiet One, Al the Organiser, and
Al the Ex-chairman. The other car (car 54) allegedly comprised Gordon Stewart
(driver, leaving Dreghorn at 0845), George McCall (0900), Bill Goldie (0920) and
John Campbell
Our route took us North into Glasgow.
Don't ask. Al the Org has
photographic proof of this bizarre route (the Clyde from the Kingston Bridge at
0909).
 On our way to Edinburgh, we
got caught in a traffic jam, despite the belief that this was a Saturday
morning.
Halfway to Edinburgh, Al the Ex
observed that the church on the horizon was of the oldest steeple in Glasgow,
which confused everyone as we had just passed Kirkcaldy on our way, er, south -
or were we actually going to Aberdeen?
While considering this peculiar
arrangement, our driver began muttering about airbags shaped like a lady's
netherparts, so that if you have an accident, you have something to look
forward to. Al the Org noted that
his new car (a SEAT, but why he didn't buy the whole car, I don't know) has
three airbags, two in the front and the mother-in-law in the back.
Arrived at Inverness some sixteen
hours later.
Apparently, Roger's amps are a snip
at £22.50 inc VAT.
Left John O'Groats at 2355.
We began to become concerned at the navigation.
The sun was in view, so remembering our Boy Scout training, we pointed
the hour hand of Al the Org's watch (one of them analogue jobbies)
at the sun,
and found South by bisecting the angle between the hour hand and 12 on the dial
(or, should I say, XII on the dial - it's an old watch).
We agreed that we were travelling north-east.
Bizarre. Al the Ex began to
worry that he was getting outside his mobile phone coverage area (Orange, you
see).
Car 54 was running late, but at least
they were running south.
We passed a dry ski slope on the
right, and Al the Org told us it was closed once, because of snow.
It's a funny old world.
Bill opined that the road we wanted
was the Dalkeith Road ("quite a direct route", Bill said), since the
Berwick upon Tweed road took us out of our way. As if finding ourselves in Stavanger wasn't bad enough.
The subject of lager was first
mentioned at 0957, coincidentally just as John Campbell was being picked up by
Car 54. Our driver muttered
something about picking up a ferry at Hull.
Breakfast was mentioned, but I believed that Christmas Lunch was more
likely.
At last we reluctantly turned south
and found ourselves sliding down the eastern coastline. Makes a change from the west route which we had previously
followed. This will be
interesting: will we get there before Car 54? Will we get there before next
year's outing?
"Anyone know where we are?"
asked Al the Org. Access to a GPS
would have been useful, until Bill the Driver/Navigator/Route Planner noticed
that we were a mere 85 miles north of Newcastle.
The first mention of curry was at
1024. Apparently, you can now dial
up an 0800 number and order a curry from the Ashoka International (curries
direct) and your meal will be delivered within the hour. Bill the Directionally Challenged said that it was dropped
from a satellite and re-heated on entry.
At 1044, we noticed that the cost of
living (i.e. petrol) was rising: 68.9p per litre in the Jedburgh Forest.
An Orange phone was examined to see how much signal was available (nil).
Last petrol in Scotland was at 69.9p (of course, ten minutes into
England, and the price was found to be 67.9, even in the middle of the
countryside).
We were promised we would get on to a
real road at Newcastle. On the
other hand, we noticed that we hadn't been held up by traffic, mainly because
there was no other bugger on the road, for very good reasons.
Car 54 was logged at an indeterminate point on the M74 north of Beattock
at 1058 while we were at Carter's Bar, marking the border.
Sarcastic English B*****ds had a sign saying "Drive on the
Left" as we entered Turdland. Question
was, would we nick across to the M1 from the A1, or link to it via the M18? Time
will tell.
At 1145 we were half a mile from
Prestwick. Doesn't time fly when
you're enjoying yourself. Two
minutes later we were three miles from Newcastle,
 and on one of them new fangled
dual carriageways which allows one to overtake horse-drawn vehicles.
And we were overtaken several times.
Achieved the A1(M) at 11:51 and
simultaneously turned the page on the map.
The sprawling metropolis was spread before us and Terence Biggar readied
himself for taking shots of the bridge, which turned out to be too far away even
for his 35-105 lens. No doubt his
big brother, Terence Donovan, would have had a bigger lens, rather than a Biggar
one.
Breakfast had been discussed some
time ago, but no opportunity had presented itself until we reached the motorway:
a service station appeared within one mile of the motorway start, and we are now
screeching on two wheels to get ourselves in to the place for lunch (brunch).
The French Onion Soup with baguettes
were scoffed by three of us, and the Driver sustained himself with a bijou
Cumberland Sausage Brunchette with all the trimmings. While chowing down on our truly orgasmically good food, we
compared signals from our respective cell phones: scores were equal at four bars
each. Al the Org suggested that
Orange must have erected an aerial overhead for the purpose of showing up well
against the opposition. I had to
believe that that was right. We
once again set off in what at least one of us believed to be the right
direction.
As I type this, Car 54 has reported
in at Scotch Corner, ahead of us (of course).
Mind you, they are eating at this time, and we are back on the road, so
we will probably catch them (unless of course they grab their nosh and run).
But then, they don't know about the race!
A.T.A. at Scotch Corner was 12:59
local time, and we kept our eyes peeled for Gordon's vehicle (we didn't know
what he was driving, but we kept our eyes peeled anyway). We gave them a call, only to discover that they were in fact
not yet at Scotch Corner, but that they were having lunch (bacon rolls).
They were variously reported as being 28 miles before Scotch Corner, and
three miles before Scotch Corner. Doesn't
matter, cos we're ahead of them anyway. Hee
Hee.
We made the decision to remain on the
A1(M) as far as M18 rather than take the diversion to the M1, and arrived at the
M1 jct 30 (cutting off to our destination) at 1414, Car 54 having just 5 mins
previously reported at jct 38.
A
request from its occupants to set up the pints was made, and totally ignored.
We arrived finally at our destination
at 1426, keen to see Roger's amp in situ. They
are apparently named as an anagram of his name, though why anyone would want to
buy an amp called Regro beats me.
There were some really silly things on display (like a
transformerless output valve amp - I ask you!) and the silliest item for me was
a pair of valve caps
which you glue onto your valves to stop microphony.
At £120 the pair. Mind you,
there was also a pair of sp eakers running in one of the rooms, where the
tweeters were affixed to the cabinet with blue tack.
I kid you not. And the most
ludicrous sight was a pair of horn speakers that looked like a bunch of
genetically altered
orchids connected to the biggest power amp (valves of course ) you have ever
seen, which looked more like a centrally heated coffin than a piece of domestic
audio technology.
Having spent ten minutes at the
exhibition, we agreed that that was enough, and repaired to the bar.
Didn't last, cos they shut on us at about 1600 (English licensing laws,
no doubt), telling us that the Hotel bar was now open (one of these standard
lies, like "Your cheque's in the post" or "We'll come to fix it
on Tuesday") so we were stuffed until we left the show at about 1700.
After checking in at the Gables, we
had another glass of lemonade there before meandering across the road to the pub
for a glass of lemonade or two and a cigar before making our way at 1940 towards
Renato's
where we had a glass of lemonade and four bottles of mineral water (two
red and two white) with the meal. Al
the Org took responsibility for calculating the bill for each individual (a
simple matter of dividing the total by eight) and got it wrong, a fact which
went unnoticed until the waiter embarrassed us by informing the party that there
wasn't enough money to cover the bill (wasn't it ever thus).
Some of us followed the meal with a
visit to the Pink Panther (and a glass of lemonade) finishing off back at the
Gables for a final glass or two of lemonade before staggering blindly in the
direction of bed.
There was a flurry of buying at the
show on the Sunday, with Al the Ex acquiring a second-hand CD player (ticket
price £100, opening gambit, an offer of £50 which was laughed at, finally
agreeing on £90 after a further unsuccessful attempt at £80), and Gordon
acquiring two mains and two output transformers for the Williamson amplifier.
He had bought the amp book at the show last year, and this was step two
in the project. Clearly a long-term
project.
There was also a smattering of CDs
and vinyl items purchased, along with some mags.
No one bought a Regro amp, though.
Honest statement of the show came
from a chap who was offering a pair of phono interconnects at a mere £995,
boxed: '"They don't make any difference to the sound, but they look good,
don't they!"
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