Strange Hobbies

[chrisbonnie]

5 hours ago, Elite said:

It really does help to break things down and get proportions right but it's just a case of practice, practice and more practice.

Is it though? 

 

I can barely draw a fucking stickman, never mind a giraffe. 

 

I've always been of the thinking that art is a pure talent, you either have it, or not. 

 

I used to pal around with a lad in my teenage years and he was amazing at art, he tried helping me before, but I was still mightly shite. 

 

I take it you where half decent as a kid at art though, right? 

 

 

[Harry Squatter]

There's some fella who is always in the Echo who travels round the North West on trains looking for young men to touch up and measure their biceps. 

 

Despite the police arresting him for it several times he won't let this stop him enjoying his hobby. 

[Elite]

11 hours ago, chrisbonnie said:

Is it though? 

 

I can barely draw a fucking stickman, never mind a giraffe. 

 

I've always been of the thinking that art is a pure talent, you either have it, or not. 

 

I used to pal around with a lad in my teenage years and he was amazing at art, he tried helping me before, but I was still mightly shite. 

 

I take it you where half decent as a kid at art though, right? 

 

 

I was okay, nothing special.

 

I'm still not that good but improving, I know it'll take years to get to a good standard to do realistic portraits but that's my goal.

[Elite]

Been drawing a bit more this week. Two different types of drawing but good fun, the shadow was for my son, he's bang into sonic.

 

 

[VladimirIlyich]

19 minutes ago, Elite said:

Been drawing a bit more this week. Two different types of drawing but good fun, the shadow was for my son, he's bang into sonic.

 

 

Superb stuff. Here is my latest feeble effort.

[Elite]

1 hour ago, VladimirIlyich said:

Superb stuff. Here is my latest feeble effort.

The Peter is really good. Just need to sort out Lois' cheeks!

[VladimirIlyich]

13 minutes ago, Elite said:

The Peter is really good. Just need to sort out Lois' cheeks!

Yeah. Struggled with the dimensions there.

[Section_31]

[Elite]

A few cartoons for my son. Takes fucking ages like but like meditation to me.

 

The sonic one isn't finished yet.

 

[dockers_strike]

18 minutes ago, Elite said:

A few cartoons for my son. Takes fucking ages like but like meditation to me.

 

The sonic one isn't finished yet.

 

Absolutely awesome! I cant draw for toffee, yet another skill Im no good at but can appreciate what others can do.

[Elite]

2 minutes ago, dockers_strike said:

Absolutely awesome! I cant draw for toffee, yet another skill Im no good at but can appreciate what others can do.

Cheers. I'm not even arsed if my drawings end up in the bin I just love doing it. Still a beginner, so hopefully can get to a good standard of portraits eventually.

 

[ZonkoVille77]

On 20/12/2020 at 12:58, Paulie Dangerously said:

Get onto the MOC creations available from a few websites I can dm you. It saves hundreds on the big sets if you're going to get into it. I got loads of then over lockdown. All of these are not official Lego brand. 

 

 

DM me mate, please. Thanks

[Kevin D]

Skipping stones:

 

https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/water-activities/stone-skipping-kurt-steiner/?utm_campaign=&utm_content=&utm_medium=organic-social&utm_source=outsidemagazine-twitter

[VladimirIlyich]

12 hours ago, Kevin D said:

Skipping stones:

 

https://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/water-activities/stone-skipping-kurt-steiner/?utm_campaign=&utm_content=&utm_medium=organic-social&utm_source=outsidemagazine-twitter

Ace read that.

[Kevin D]

On 17/06/2022 at 13:10, Kevin D said:

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/jun/17/experience-i-am-the-dullest-man-in-britain
 

 

 

I grew up in Small Heath, Birmingham, known to most as Peaky Blinders territory. I was interested in football and history at school, and studied art and design at Aston University. Birmingham has 35 miles of canals, which intrigued me because my dad was born on a canal boat. 

My claim to dull fame came in 2018, when I was named Anorak of the Year by the Dull Men’s Club. It’s an international collective of people – we welcome everyone, not just men – who find joy in the mundane. Our motto is “celebrating the ordinary”. Other members include a drain spotter and a guy who has collected 20,000 milk bottles. After that, newspapers began to dub me “Britain’s dullest man”.

I had other brushes with the media before then, too. I run a small print shop in Redditch, and in 2003 I wanted to create a calendar for our customers. Redditch had three prisons, no cinema, but copious roundabouts and so, for the laugh, my employees and I decided on Roundabouts of Redditch.

 

I was in a pub one Friday night when a friend called to say it was on the Graham Norton Show. Graham was flicking through a calendar of gorgeous Greek islands with his guest and brought Roundabouts of Redditch out as a comparison. I absolutely loved it

It changed my life. Demand rocketed for the calendar. We had initially printed 100 copies – soon we were selling to people around the world. In 2004, I was approached by a publisher and wrote Roundabouts of Great Britain, which sold 20,000 copies on its first run, then Roundabouts from the Air Ish in 2005, called that because I took the photos from bridges and the tops of trees. The AA asked me to do the same for car parks – we put out another book, Parking Mad: Car Parks from Heaven (or Hell), and a calendar, Car Parks of Britain. 

The Redditch calendar spawned a series of Best of British Roundabouts. I travelled the country with my camera, following enthusiasts’ tipoffs. I photographed a Kent roundabout with a duck pond and a Yorkshire one with a working windmill. I’ve made calendars of benches, bus routes, telephone boxes and other seemingly unexciting features of British life. I’ve produced calendars of prisons and old asylums. I love grisly subjects, steeped in history, although I’m also thinking of doing one on recycling centres.

 

TV crews from China and the US visited. I was on daytime TV, including on Sharon Osbourne’s show. I downed a bottle of wine in the green room before my appearance to offset my nerves. It went swimmingly, though.
 

I also established myself as president of the UK Roundabout Appreciation Society (my unofficial title is The Lord of the Rings) and the founder – and only member – of the Car Park Appreciation Society. People say I’m obsessed, but that feels derogatory. I prefer “passionate”.

My four sons are fairly embarrassed by it, and my three ex-wives all found me dull; not in the bedroom, but in every other part of the house. But I think women like dull men; when their husbands say they’re going to the shed to make a matchstick model of Winchester Cathedral, they don’t have to wonder if they’re actually up to something else.

In truth, I don’t think I’m dull. It’s my hobbies that are dull. I’m actually full of surprises: I’m a fan of trance music and went clubbing last weekend. In February, I spent my 70th birthday in Malaga with two buddies.

 

I try to do 10 calendars a year. I get inspiration from everyday life. Martin Parr, the celebrated British photographer, sent me a text saying he admired my work. That felt wonderful.

My Benches of Redditch calendar became my second biggest seller last year, at 2,000 copies. The most popular calendar that year was The Wonderful World of Jack Grealish’s Calves 2022. As an Aston Villa fan, I made it as an act of revenge when he was sold to Manchester City, but a lot of people bought it for their girlfriends.
 

I’m semi-retired, and these hobbies have kept me alive. I consider myself a writer – I’m writing a novel about a Brummie abducted by aliens – and I enjoy the knowledge that my photography is on walls across Britain and beyond.

I meet up with the Dull Men’s Club once a year; it’s amazing how charismatic we are when we all get together. And I wear my Britain’s dullest man title as a badge of honour

Companion piece:

 

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/may/26/experience-im-britains-dullest-woman
 

I took up knitting when I was five, crafting little figures and learning to make clothes with yarn. In fact, my best friend still has a pixie, called Greeny, I made for her when we were six. When I had my three sons, I picked it up again, knitting booties, gloves and cardigans for them as babies, and during my 18 years as an officer with the North Wales police I knitted things for nearly everyone in the force.

 

After I retired in 2018, I feared life might become a bit boring, but I busied myself with knitting, going to airshows with my twin sister, Ruth, holidaying with friends and playing the piano.

 

Then, when lockdown started in March 2020, Mum and Ruth came to live with me in Rhyl. One day in April, we went to the chemist to get Mum’s prescription. Ruth joined the queue outside, all socially distanced, looking miserable, and I waited in the car.

 

I clocked the postbox nearby and said to Ruth: “I’m going to see if I can make a sparkly rainbow topper for that postbox, to cheer people up.” I don’t know where the idea sprang from, but I had the yarn in my stash and was thrilled to find a use for it.

 

Crocheting seemed the best approach, but I hadn’t done it before, so I watched a couple of tutorials online and I was off. Three hours later, I’d made my first postbox topper. We were allowed out only for exercise, so the next day Ruth and I cycled out at 6.30am and popped it on.

 

 

I wasn’t sure how it would be received, or if I’d get into trouble with the Post Office, but it became the talk of the town. The local paper made a Facebook post, asking who was behind it. I called to say it was me. It went crazy after that. I was in the papers and people messaged me, asking for more toppers across Rhyl. I made dozens.
 

As interest grew over the next 18 months, the mayor visited and TV crews, too. When the chairman of the Dull Men’s Club – an international group celebrating the ordinary – called me, it was a surprise.

 

They welcome women, too, and had seen my yarn-bombing. He said they wanted to name me Anorak of the Year 2021, making me Britain’s dullest woman. Me, an anorak?

 

I’m anything but. I didn’t know what to think, but proudly accepted. It was funny to me.

 

I was invited to a members’ meeting in a pub 50 miles away in Trevor. There was a guy from the Telegraph Pole Appreciation Society and a young man fascinated by crazy golf. The fantastic thing was, these people weren’t dull at all. I admired their passion.

 

I received a certificate from the club, presented “for the colourful and creative postbox toppers she crocheted and put on postboxes throughout Rhyl that uplift people’s feelings while they are locked down”.

 

I thought it was lovely. I sent them a picture of me standing beside a postbox with a topper I’d made of Tom Jones, which was used in the club’s 2022 annual calendar. I was Miss November.
 

There are seven postboxes on Rhyl prom. I’ve covered them all, and have done more than 200 toppers now. I call my house Topper Headquarters. When I’m a Celebrity filmed at Gwrych Castle, 20 minutes away, I crocheted a topper of Ant and Dec on horseback. I’ve done a topper with a pair of crocheted boobs for a breast cancer charity, one for Rhyl FC featuring players on artificial turf, and made Christmas gatepost toppers for my entire close. One of my early ones, a seagull called Dave, was stolen but later recovered by the police.

 

Then someone later ripped his head off, so I crocheted a new one. He’s in the Denbigh Museum now, alongside that first rainbow one.

 

I’ve sent toppers to Scotland, the Midlands and Liverpool. I’ve been to a Buckingham Palace garden party as a thank you for cheering people up.

 

I’m a grandmother and almost 60. I served in the police for nearly two decades and don’t think I made anybody as happy then as I have in these past three years.

 

I’m crocheting every minute I get, and when I go to bed I think of the next one. I still follow the Dull Men’s Club on Facebook. It’s the people without hobbies who are boring.

 

As for being Britain’s dullest woman? Nobody else has that accolade. I wear it with pride.

[Bobby Hundreds]

"I took up knitting when I was 5" such a gangster way to start an article!

[Kevin D]

Champion beard-grower proves he has the chops - BBC News

 

A man who took up competitive facial hair growing following a life-changing accident has been named world mutton chops champion for the third time.

 

 

Mick "The Chops" Wallage, from Ripley in Derbyshire, won his latest title at the World Beard and Moustache Championships in Germany on Sunday.

 

Mr Wallage, cultivated his mutton chops following a road crash in 2004 that left him in a wheelchair for months.

He said: "I describe the championships as Crufts for men with beards."

 

Mr Wallage, 62, a former lorry driver, said he had been inspired to grow his mutton chops after watching a TV programme called Whisker Wars while he was recovering from the crash that forced him to quit his job.

 

"It was a reality show about the competitive bearding circuit in America," he said.

 

"There were nine major operations involved so I watched daytime television.

 

"At one point they were talking about amputating the left leg, so it was a long road to recovery.

 

"I thought 'If I'm stuck in this wheelchair forever, I can do that - I can grow a beard.'"

 

• The term "mutton chops" to describe facial hair entered the vocabulary in the 19th Century
• It describes whiskers that were thin at the top and bulged at the bottom
• They were then shaved to resemble a chop of meat - hence the name

Mr Wallage said he began by growing an "immense moustache" but then discovered it did not fit into the standard bearding competition categories.

 

"I've always been competitive and I wanted to compete," he said.

 

"So I spoke to the president of the British Beard Club and he suggested I try the mutton chops."

 

Mr Wallage is now the proud owner of the best mutton chops in the world, having triumphed at the championships in 2017, in Texas and 2019 in Antwerp, as well as the 2023 event in Burghausen.

 

"The atmosphere was absolutely amazing," he said.

 

"There were people from 28 countries."

 

He achieved full marks in every category, he added, including marks for naturalness, condition and showmanship.

 

Mr Wallage's partner Kay supports him to get to the various competitions, due to ongoing mobility issues from the accident.

 

"I can't walk long distances, so she pushes me in a chair," he said. "And I'm quite shy of talking about it but she tells everyone I'm a world champion."

 

David Dade, president and co-founder of The British Beard Club, said Mr Wallage had been a member on and off since 2013.

 

"I and the club are delighted that his tenacity and strength of character has turned what was a serious punctuation of his working life into a wonderful carousel of worldwide beard championship successes, smiles, new friendships, fun and fundraising," he said.

 

[Karl_b]

I went to my sixth UK Games Expo two weeks ago, a whole day of nerding out on board games and related geek culture. The only disappointment was not being able to go for the whole weekend this time.

[Captain Turdseye]

6 hours ago, Kevin D said:

Mick "The Chops" Wallage

Free rep and eternal respect for anyone that changes their username to that. 

[AngryOfTuebrook]

On 18/04/2008 at 15:47, Section_31 said:

I used to temp for Eddie Stobart in the offices, and every day you'd spot someone creeping around the parking area taking pictures of wagons.

 

They were called "eddie spotters" apparently.

 

Now bare in mind that unlike, say, trains, all of these lorries are the same, the same paint job, the same make, just completely the same, except the fact that each one had a girl's name on the front. (the cab's were all called "Emma" or "Sally" etc)

 

But people had actually traveled miles, sometimes hundreds of miles, to take pictures of a CAB!

 

Can anyone beat that?

Rich Hall did a song about an Eddie Stobart driver naming his lorry after the woman he loves.  The chorus was

But I guess I pushed my luck

When I wrote "Mrs Stobart" on my truck 

[Kevin D]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-67172726
 

Ed Currie eats, sleeps and breathes peppers. He calls it his "obsession". 

He starts "every morning with what is essentially pepper oil" in his coffee. 

 

After taste-testing peppers and hot sauces all day for his South Carolina company, PuckerButt Pepper Company, he will add peppers or hot sauce to his dinner. His favourite pepper to cook with, though not his own creation, is a chocolate scotch bonnet. 

"I eat peppers all day long," he says. "If there's the right kind of dessert around, I tend to put something hot on my dessert." 

 

Even as a pepper connoisseur, tasting his own creation, Pepper X, which was crowned the world's hottest pepper earlier this week by Guinness World Records, had him "literally bent over groaning in pain" for three or four hours. 

 

"When I ate a whole one, you get the flavour right away. But immediately that heat hits - and the heat, for me, was unbearable."

He says it was like an out-of-body experience. 

 

"It was kind of euphoric," he says. "Because I was getting an endorphin rush." 

 

Someone handed him a milkshake to ease the pain but "that only made the heat increase". And the heat kept rising for nearly an hour.

 

"I started getting cramps and, you know, your body perceives capsaicin as a poison."

Capsaicin is the chemical that gives humans the burning sensation of peppers. 

 

"Those cramps become unbearable - okay, for a man at least. A doctor explained it to me that it was akin to a menstrual cramp."

 

Remarkably, after a few hours recovering, he

went out to eat and had more peppers "because as my wife can tell you, I'm just an idiot." 

 

But he can thank his wife, Linda, for the company's creation. 

 

After overcoming "a long history of addiction with drugs and alcohol," he met a woman - Linda - who didn't want anything to do with him at the time. 

 

"But I heard she liked salsa," he says. "So I whipped up some salsa for a dinner I was going to that I knew she'd be at and she asked who made the salsa."

 

Nine months later they got married.

 

What started as 1,100 pepper and tomato plants in their backyard, increased to 30,000 plants before his company was founded. 

"That's not a hobby - that's an obsession," he says. 

 

His wife was the one who saw the commercial viability after they started giving hot sauces he made to friends. Twenty years on, the company is one of the largest manufacturers of hot sauces in the US. 

 

At one point during the interview with the BBC, a PuckerButt Pepper Company employee, Tom, chimes in on the phone to talk about what it is like to work with his boss. 

 

"This is something that most of the world doesn't know about Ed - but I believe his true goal in life is to help people."

 

"(Ed) mentioned that he was an addict. He hires 90% of us, myself included, who are in recovery. He's given us second chances where we wouldn't have gotten elsewhere," he said.

 

Tom says Mr Currie let him live with him, his wife and children for six months until he could get on his feet. 

"

And now I'm paying a mortgage," he says. "I think his passion is in hot peppers - he loves to hurt people, but I think his true passion is helping people."

[Kevin D]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crgd1vn1v89o
 

A barely used railway station remains open, despite a service stopping there just once a week.

 

Bordesley in Birmingham is one of a handful of stations around the country known as ghost stations, which are kept open in this way.

 

Two others, Barlaston and Wedgwood in Staffordshire, have been served by rail-replacement buses since 23 May 2004.

 

Polesworth station in Warwickshire was only used by 188 people between April 2022 and March 2023.

…..

West Midlands Trains welcomes visits from rail enthusiasts who like to go to ghost stations.

 

"We do get a lot of people visiting the stations just to take a trip on the train," he said.

 

One of them, Youtuber JenOnTheMove, said: "They're like special quirks of the network and there's quite a few of them dotted around the country."

 

Polesworth station is used by the 12th lowest number of people in the UK, in a network of more than 2,500 stations.

 

It also has no bridge linking the two platforms. 

 

That was removed in 2004 when the West Coast mainline was upgraded, and it was never replaced.

 

Jen said there was talk of the station one day being reopened properly, but added: "It's one of those things they keep saying is going to happen, but doesn't seem to actually ever happen."

 

 

[Kevin D]

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/article/2024/aug/09/experience-ive-been-on-25-tv-gameshows
 

Igrew up in a family that loved trivia. Every Sunday when I was a kid, we would eat breakfast together and complete the trivia questions in the newspaper. It felt great when I got an answer right.

 

At high school in the 90s, there was a competition in Québec called Génies en herbe, where school teams competed in trivia tournaments. It was like the Olympics for trivia nerds. I loved everything about it. I joined the team in my first year and instantly thought: these are my people. I loved learning new things, as well as the fast-paced competitions.
 

In 1996, during my last year of high school, we qualified for the televised tournament in Québec City. It felt like a really big deal. I was nervous – there was pressure because I was the best scorer on my team. We were knocked out in the first round. I was really disappointed and frustrated at first – I thought the other team had easier questions. Then I remembered I was doing something I loved with my friends.

 

Four years later, I was living in the suburbs of Montreal and watching a TV gameshow, and I saw that they were looking for contestants. The show was focused on French language and grammar, which I was studying at the time. Contestants got a trip to Ottawa with all expenses paid, so a friend and I applied. One phone audition later and we were picked.

 

It was so exciting to be on set, answering quickfire questions about tricky French grammar. I didn’t care about being on TV or the four dictionaries that I took home when I won. It was just such an adrenaline rush to hit that buzzer and get the answers right.

 

There was a gameshow craze sweeping the country, and it seemed as if every channel was trying to find the next big hit. I applied for as many as I could, and as a young woman in a world where most contestants were older men, I stood out. I suspect that some of them underestimated me. But I proved myself every time.

Most were general knowledge trivia shows. I never studied in advance, but I loved strategising. I’d watch as many episodes as I could, learning the kind of questions that might come up and analysing the format of each show. I’ve won nine shows, and scored highly on seven more. I usually manage to leave with some sort of prize – I’ve gone home empty-handed only six times.

 

The largest amount I’ve won is C$10,000 (£5,730) and in total I’ve won C$52,000. But money is never my motivation. Once I won C$2 and kept the cheque as a souvenir.

 

My family got involved too – I’ve competed with both my sisters. Once we got into hysterics while answering questions on a show. My grandmawatches me every time. As soon as the credits roll, my phone will ring. If I’ve won, she’ll tell me I was good. If I lose, she will say that I was pretty.

 

Most contestants are great, but once my sister and I overheard the other team arguing with the crew that the match was unfair, and that they didn’t want to play against us. We had to share lunch with them. It was one of the most awkward meals of my life. They did win the next game, but that didn’t change their sour faces.

Very occasionally, a show will get things wrong. I was returning champion on a current events quizshow, and doing great until a question about a train derailment. I was confident that I knew it, but when the host read the possible answers, mine wasn’t there. My opponent won by small margin. A few days later there happened to be a newspaper article about the incident and I realised I was right. I decided to call the contestant coordinator. They allowed me back on and I won a few more games.

I’ve been on 25 gameshows. I’d love to be on more, but the industry has changed, moving away from general knowledge to entertainment and celebrities. Being a serial quizzer has also made it harder to get chosen.

 

To other wannabe contestants, I’d say you need a good memory and curiosity. Be interested in everything. And show your personality at auditions. It will help you stand out. If you make it on air, just enjoy it. Given the chance, I’d be back at the buzzer like a shot.

 

 

 

[Sut]

@Elite Get yourself some copic markers. They're expensive but worth the outlay for the basic primary colours, a couple skin tones and a blender. Lots of tutorials online will tell you how to use them.

 

 

 

[Pidge]

Nice, now do Oshima.