| I know, I know… Last time I really gave the impression I was done after three successive bland events, but this one was a rare chance to go Red and the real short notice made sure there wasn’t the time to think about how not doing it at all would be a much better idea.
Admittedly there may have been some confusion on my part, I had it in my head that this was a sort of a food bank charity and this was some sort of open day with street food samples to demonstrate nutritious meals that could be made on a budget that they were holding to raise funds, instead we arrived to find a sort of outdoor food court at a golf driving range.
This made the venue an odd fit… At 11:00 o’clock on a rainy Saturday morning the people at a golf course are there to golf, not play with plastic spacemen, so they largely walked straight past us (or more precisely *they* walked past while their bags full of golf sticks collided with any costumer within three feet) and spent their time knocking balls from their basket of 150, off of a balcony ledge with their backs to us.
So, the morning passed, somewhat quiet and boring but not offensively and it got to lunchtime. Declining to de-kit I was going to forgo eating any lunch, but the organisers had issued us vouchers to use at the vendor carts. “Street food from a cart”, being literally my idea of personal Hell, owing to the single worst hotdog I’ve ever had in my life falling into that category.
(I’m not even talking about the Rollover one that resulted in this situation incidentally, but a hotdog from a cart outside the National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C. which I purchased, bit into, spat out and binned in less time than it took to type those verbs describing it. That’s right, the single worst American-style hotdog in my life was in America and traumatised me so much with its filling of boiled pink slime that it was literally more than a decade before I could even eat another hotdog.)
Obviously then, I ordered a hot dog.
To satisfy your curiosity… It was… okay. It wasn’t the best (this would be the New York Dog at Bread Meats Bread) and it wasn’t the worst as previously discussed. It was somewhere below most cinema hotdogs and above that Rollover one. Mostly, I think it was down to the thick Bratwurst-style sausage which was too big for the bun. This made it messy to eat and the bun soggy even with only basic ketchup and mustard on top, bacon and onion being “extra toppings” in a underhanded move that, with hindsight, anyone charging £2.50 for a 330ml can of Pepsi Max is obviously going to pull. Quite how you’re meant to eat one topped with salsa and siracha sauce without a change of clothes for afterwards I’ve no idea…
Anyway, sorry, this Field Report appears to have detoured into the chart rundown from the Top of The Pops, Hotdogs Edition; Perhaps the weather had changed, perhaps Sci-Fi fans are inherently lazy, but whatever the reason the afternoon session brought an influx of actual Star Wars fans, both old and young. On that note I had been aware of the presence of a photographer all day, who seemed to be there in some sort of official capacity, but presumably from the charity and not Golf-It as I never once saw ask anyone to sign a release after taking pictures of their children. Either at his behest or the Golf people we were asked to move down to the… (crazy golf..? mini golf..? I’m not sure what you’ve call it..) ‘non-grass-based ball hitting obstacle area’… for further photos, which again didn’t seem to be overly charity related and more with the purpose of promoting the Golf centre, so I made sure to stay out of sight in them.
Having apparently lost weight since the Scouts last outing in 2019, the commute there and back caused the belt to slip down requiring a quick pit stop to adjust the buckle position and back out. As it drew towards 15:30 they elected to take a more general break before venturing out and finishing for the day with our presence at the drawing of the raffle at 16:00.
Ironically, I missed this sole concession to our presence being for the benefit of a charity, as having experienced such a thing before I had, to coin a phrase, made my excuses and left! | |
Mark’s ReMarks 