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Jul. 20th, 2008 10:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eiffel_71
Up at silly o'clock on Thursday to catch the 8.30 flight from Southampton to Jersey. While buying sun lotion in the duty free shop in the departure lounge I was approached by a fellow Hawk and joined him and his two fellow travellers for a cup of coffee. They'd had their sun lotion taken from them when entering Departures; so buying it in the lounge shop is the only way you can take it in your hand luggage, though the checkout lady warned me it would have to go into my hold baggage on the way home.
With it only being 9.30 when I arrived, it was too early to check into my hotel so I took the bus to St Helier and had a mosey round the city centre. First port of call was Clinton Cards to get a postcard for Ann; handily, they sold single Jersey stamps. I remember a TV news item in the 1980s about the Channel Islands having blue pillar boxes, so it was a disappointment to find all the pillar boxes were red.
As I needed a Jersey entry for the Global Alternative Song Contest, I went into HMV and asked an assistant if they had any music by local singers or bands. She said no, "nobody here releases any".
After walking around for an hour and a half, browsing in shops and stopping more than once by stalls selling genuine Jersey ice cream - very tasty - I took the bus out to the Queens Hotel, hoping they'd let me check in even if it wasn't quite noon. Fortunately, my room was ready.
The room was nice, spacious, with a telly featuring Sky News, ITV2 and ITV3, an alarm radio, a DVD of episodes of The Darling Buds of May, and two compilation CDs - one of tracks by female pop singers and one of Southern US 70s rock. In the hotel bar there was an internet PC, available for free use by residents.
Springfield Stadium was a 15-minute walk away. I arrived with an hour and a half to go till kick-off, had excellent chicken and chips from the stadium cafe, then met other Hawks as they arrived and hung around waiting for the bar to open. We saw the club party arrive - many of the players acknowledged our greetings with hellos or waves. The stadium bar had Portuguese TV on a big screen and sold Portuguese beers, Super Bock and Sagres. I went for a Sagres, not bad.
Jersey still has £1 notes, although it also has its own £1 coins. I also encountered Jersey £5 and £10 notes and the odd Jersey coin, although most of the money I received in change was standard UK issue.
The opposition were supposedly the Jersey national team, although a local I spoke to on Saturday said many of the national team's regulars were missing and a few who played were Under-21s. I watched by the perimeter fence with Adam and Skif, and got a football in the chops again during the second half. Hawks fielded their full first team, except trialist Danny Edwards played on the right wing, and convincingly won 4-0. Adrian Aymes, ex-County cricketer and the club's commercial manager, came on as a sub with 10 minutes to go, drawing criticism from Adam and Skif - "Take it seriously, can't we?" Back to the bar after the game for another Sagres and to watch the European and pre-season friendly results come in on Sky Sports News.
Adam and Skif announced then that they'd be spending Friday playing Crazy Golf. I spent the day at the Jersey War Tunnels, and met a couple of other more culturally-minded Hawks in the souvenir shop before going in. The Tunnels are located in the Ho8 underground hospital built for the German Army, but never used, during the Nazi occupation of the Channel Islands. A couple of rooms, like the operating theatre, are kept now as they were then, while most of the Tunnels are home to a fascinating exhibition about life in occupied Jersey. Video-recorded faces of actors atop dummies in uniform illustrated how the German soldiers tried to interact with the islanders. Other videos featured elderly Jersey folk who lived through the experience telling how they decided to stay or evacuate to Britain; how everyday life went on; how British residents not born on the island were deported to prison camps in Germany. On display are copies of official notices detailing orders issued by the German military command, such as prohibitions on fishing and confiscation of all civilians' radios. It was sobering to see one poster state, matter-of-factly, that people not complying with the order it detailed would be shot. There were also 'news bulletins' listing two or three names of people who'd been shot for disobeying orders, or spying, during the past week. A 'Whispers And Lies' exhibit included a display on local girls who went out with German soldiers being called 'jerry bags' and shunned. The last exhibit was devoted to Violette Szabo, an incredibly courageous French girl who spied for the British during WW2 and was captured and executed at Ravensbrück concentration camp, still only aged 23. She had no direct connection with Jersey, but her daughter lives there.
Back in the souvenir shop there were copies of a book about Violette by her daughter. Jersey War Tunnels is the only place that sells the book, so I snapped one up, together with a Ho8 pen and note pad.
Friday evening I took the bus out to Grouville for dinner at the Seymour Inn, recommended in a flyer left in my hotel room attached to a complimentary packet of peanuts. Had first class duck in orange sauce there, then got the bus back to St Helier to see a singer named Stan James in the bar at the Washington Hotel, the sister hotel to the Queens. Stan was a pretty good performer and his set very Capital Gold. In the audience were a couple of mentally challenged women, one of whom loved to dance, resulting in Stan including a series of dancey numbers in his set. Towards the end, a random lady got up, grabbed me and whisked me onto the dancefloor for I Can't Get No Satisfaction; soon after, Stan granted the request I'd made earlier to play Living Next Door To Alice. One group of party people did the 'Alice? Who the fuck is Alice?' shout-outs, shocking the old couple sharing my table.
Saturday morning, I walked up to the Powerhouse shopping mall armed with a list, painstakingly compiled from Myspace, of Jersey musicians, to enquire at Seedee Jon's record shop. The only one that I knew had released a CD sold somewhere other than their gigs was Velofax. The guy at Seedee Jon's said they didn't have anything by anyone local. When I mentioned Velofax he said the husband of a girl who used to work there was the drummer in Velofax, but that when they'd got copies of their CD in they hadn't sold as all their fans in Jersey had already bought the CD at their gigs! Fortunately it's on sale online at sisterray.co.uk. So, back at the hotel, I ordered the CD online - something I could have done without having to go anywhere near Jersey...
Saturday afternoon was the second game, in which Hawks faced the Jersey League Representative side. In the cafe before kick-off I met a couple, he in Hawks Anfield souvenir shirt, she in Portsmouth away shirt - they watch both Hawks and Pompey, but only in midweek as they're "too busy" at weekends. We talked to two guys, Jersey residents, one of whom was a Charlton fan but followed the Hawks' fortunes as he'd spent some of his youth in Emsworth.
We'd been warned this team was stronger than the one we'd played on Thursday, and so they were. The Hawks spent much of the game strolling around the pitch as if their minds were already on the evening's piss-up, and the Jersey side took the lead late in the first half. Guy Butters, soon after coming on as sub on the hour, fired in a brilliant equaliser. Adi Aymes made another cameo appearance - the couple I was with had the same opinion of that as Adam and Skif had on Thursday - and 1-1 was how it ended.
Met a bunch of Scousers in the Eastern Celtic Bar in town. Seeing my shirt, they were delighted that I was a Hawks fan - our exploits in the FA Cup really made an impression - and that I'd travelled all that way to support the team. Back to the hotel for an excellent four-course dinner and an early night, since my taxi was coming at 5.30 am to go to the airport for the 7.10 flight this morning - "the Red Eye", as Richard called it.
My three fellow travellers from Thursday were all on this morning's plane too. We took off late but landed early, thanks to the timetable allowing 45 minutes for the flight but the actual flight only lasting half an hour. Back in the airport I switched on my phone (a crappy model that doesn't work off the UK network, not even in Jersey) to find a message sent yesterday morning by Hardcore Sue inviting me to a barbecue last night. Texted back with an apology and explanation about my being away and my phone not working there. Bit of a wait at the baggage carousel - as one of my fellow Hawks said "We're back with English baggage handlers now" - but at least my bag was first off.
With it only being 9.30 when I arrived, it was too early to check into my hotel so I took the bus to St Helier and had a mosey round the city centre. First port of call was Clinton Cards to get a postcard for Ann; handily, they sold single Jersey stamps. I remember a TV news item in the 1980s about the Channel Islands having blue pillar boxes, so it was a disappointment to find all the pillar boxes were red.
As I needed a Jersey entry for the Global Alternative Song Contest, I went into HMV and asked an assistant if they had any music by local singers or bands. She said no, "nobody here releases any".
After walking around for an hour and a half, browsing in shops and stopping more than once by stalls selling genuine Jersey ice cream - very tasty - I took the bus out to the Queens Hotel, hoping they'd let me check in even if it wasn't quite noon. Fortunately, my room was ready.
The room was nice, spacious, with a telly featuring Sky News, ITV2 and ITV3, an alarm radio, a DVD of episodes of The Darling Buds of May, and two compilation CDs - one of tracks by female pop singers and one of Southern US 70s rock. In the hotel bar there was an internet PC, available for free use by residents.
Springfield Stadium was a 15-minute walk away. I arrived with an hour and a half to go till kick-off, had excellent chicken and chips from the stadium cafe, then met other Hawks as they arrived and hung around waiting for the bar to open. We saw the club party arrive - many of the players acknowledged our greetings with hellos or waves. The stadium bar had Portuguese TV on a big screen and sold Portuguese beers, Super Bock and Sagres. I went for a Sagres, not bad.
Jersey still has £1 notes, although it also has its own £1 coins. I also encountered Jersey £5 and £10 notes and the odd Jersey coin, although most of the money I received in change was standard UK issue.
The opposition were supposedly the Jersey national team, although a local I spoke to on Saturday said many of the national team's regulars were missing and a few who played were Under-21s. I watched by the perimeter fence with Adam and Skif, and got a football in the chops again during the second half. Hawks fielded their full first team, except trialist Danny Edwards played on the right wing, and convincingly won 4-0. Adrian Aymes, ex-County cricketer and the club's commercial manager, came on as a sub with 10 minutes to go, drawing criticism from Adam and Skif - "Take it seriously, can't we?" Back to the bar after the game for another Sagres and to watch the European and pre-season friendly results come in on Sky Sports News.
Adam and Skif announced then that they'd be spending Friday playing Crazy Golf. I spent the day at the Jersey War Tunnels, and met a couple of other more culturally-minded Hawks in the souvenir shop before going in. The Tunnels are located in the Ho8 underground hospital built for the German Army, but never used, during the Nazi occupation of the Channel Islands. A couple of rooms, like the operating theatre, are kept now as they were then, while most of the Tunnels are home to a fascinating exhibition about life in occupied Jersey. Video-recorded faces of actors atop dummies in uniform illustrated how the German soldiers tried to interact with the islanders. Other videos featured elderly Jersey folk who lived through the experience telling how they decided to stay or evacuate to Britain; how everyday life went on; how British residents not born on the island were deported to prison camps in Germany. On display are copies of official notices detailing orders issued by the German military command, such as prohibitions on fishing and confiscation of all civilians' radios. It was sobering to see one poster state, matter-of-factly, that people not complying with the order it detailed would be shot. There were also 'news bulletins' listing two or three names of people who'd been shot for disobeying orders, or spying, during the past week. A 'Whispers And Lies' exhibit included a display on local girls who went out with German soldiers being called 'jerry bags' and shunned. The last exhibit was devoted to Violette Szabo, an incredibly courageous French girl who spied for the British during WW2 and was captured and executed at Ravensbrück concentration camp, still only aged 23. She had no direct connection with Jersey, but her daughter lives there.
Back in the souvenir shop there were copies of a book about Violette by her daughter. Jersey War Tunnels is the only place that sells the book, so I snapped one up, together with a Ho8 pen and note pad.
Friday evening I took the bus out to Grouville for dinner at the Seymour Inn, recommended in a flyer left in my hotel room attached to a complimentary packet of peanuts. Had first class duck in orange sauce there, then got the bus back to St Helier to see a singer named Stan James in the bar at the Washington Hotel, the sister hotel to the Queens. Stan was a pretty good performer and his set very Capital Gold. In the audience were a couple of mentally challenged women, one of whom loved to dance, resulting in Stan including a series of dancey numbers in his set. Towards the end, a random lady got up, grabbed me and whisked me onto the dancefloor for I Can't Get No Satisfaction; soon after, Stan granted the request I'd made earlier to play Living Next Door To Alice. One group of party people did the 'Alice? Who the fuck is Alice?' shout-outs, shocking the old couple sharing my table.
Saturday morning, I walked up to the Powerhouse shopping mall armed with a list, painstakingly compiled from Myspace, of Jersey musicians, to enquire at Seedee Jon's record shop. The only one that I knew had released a CD sold somewhere other than their gigs was Velofax. The guy at Seedee Jon's said they didn't have anything by anyone local. When I mentioned Velofax he said the husband of a girl who used to work there was the drummer in Velofax, but that when they'd got copies of their CD in they hadn't sold as all their fans in Jersey had already bought the CD at their gigs! Fortunately it's on sale online at sisterray.co.uk. So, back at the hotel, I ordered the CD online - something I could have done without having to go anywhere near Jersey...
Saturday afternoon was the second game, in which Hawks faced the Jersey League Representative side. In the cafe before kick-off I met a couple, he in Hawks Anfield souvenir shirt, she in Portsmouth away shirt - they watch both Hawks and Pompey, but only in midweek as they're "too busy" at weekends. We talked to two guys, Jersey residents, one of whom was a Charlton fan but followed the Hawks' fortunes as he'd spent some of his youth in Emsworth.
We'd been warned this team was stronger than the one we'd played on Thursday, and so they were. The Hawks spent much of the game strolling around the pitch as if their minds were already on the evening's piss-up, and the Jersey side took the lead late in the first half. Guy Butters, soon after coming on as sub on the hour, fired in a brilliant equaliser. Adi Aymes made another cameo appearance - the couple I was with had the same opinion of that as Adam and Skif had on Thursday - and 1-1 was how it ended.
Met a bunch of Scousers in the Eastern Celtic Bar in town. Seeing my shirt, they were delighted that I was a Hawks fan - our exploits in the FA Cup really made an impression - and that I'd travelled all that way to support the team. Back to the hotel for an excellent four-course dinner and an early night, since my taxi was coming at 5.30 am to go to the airport for the 7.10 flight this morning - "the Red Eye", as Richard called it.
My three fellow travellers from Thursday were all on this morning's plane too. We took off late but landed early, thanks to the timetable allowing 45 minutes for the flight but the actual flight only lasting half an hour. Back in the airport I switched on my phone (a crappy model that doesn't work off the UK network, not even in Jersey) to find a message sent yesterday morning by Hardcore Sue inviting me to a barbecue last night. Texted back with an apology and explanation about my being away and my phone not working there. Bit of a wait at the baggage carousel - as one of my fellow Hawks said "We're back with English baggage handlers now" - but at least my bag was first off.
