Paul Nicholls

…At Tap ‘n’ Tin earlier tonight?

We were up on the top floor, merrily dancing away, when I look down and notice what looks like dry ice moving across the floor at our feet. I point it out to Hayley and Liz and we assume they’ve had new dry ice/smoke machines fitted.

The next thing we know, there’s an alarm going off, people screaming and shouting “tear gas”, couldn’t see my hand in front of my face for smoke, no-one can breathe, and there’s the most foul smell choking everyone. We all make for the doors, people are streaming down the stairs into the middle floor in coughing fits, smoke billowing down the stairs with them…

Bouncers and security staff close off the top floor and usher anyone who’s still coughing outside, where they’d stopped letting people in. Initially they said it was due to a tear gas release, but then (presumably to stop the spread of just this sort of gossip) they just called it an unknown gas release. We made our way outside, Hayley and Liz decided to go back for Liz’s brother then get a taxi, I had to go home as I was feeling really sick and still coughing pretty badly.

One suggestion made is that someone either let off or damaged a powder fire extinguisher, which when combined with the ventilation system could create the clouds of gas. However, a quick Google tells me all powder fire extinguishers are odourless, and that place definitely stank. It also wouldn’t make sense how it spread over the whole floor, looking like dry ice, then rose up causing the choking (surely the powder would sink to the floor, after all fire extinguishers are pretty directional if released properly, and if it exploded surely there would have been a cloud in one corner which then spread outwards?

Other ideas? Maybe it was a riot gas/smoke grenade of some sort? No-one was crying (directly due to the gas anyway), which rules out tear gas.

It does concern me a little that the place appeared to be staying open, and there was no sign of Police, Fire & Rescue or Paramedic response. Again, googling the “best case” scenario of a powder fire extinguisher release, H&S guidelines still say anyone who inhaled or got the powder in their eyes should seek medical advice immediately.

Can someone more “in the know” fill me in?

So much for a blaze-of-glory-last-night-at-tap-and-tin-before-uni!

Having now got it working at work (thanks Shish!) I’m now fully embracing the world of Skype. I’ve even gone so far as to get myself a Skype-In number (so you can call me from landlines or mobiles). If I’m not near a computer, calls are forwarded to my mobile anyway.

My skype ID is “r9paul”, and my phone number is 01614 082 879.

I’ve started a second blog, focused on me documenting “things I know about computers and stuff”. I’m writing it for a friend, but hopefully doing it in such a way that anyone can learn from it. It’s also me playing with WordPress, as up until now my blog has been with Blogger (now new blogger by the way!). So far, very impressed, except that I lost half my post when trying to save it

It’s been over a week since I’ve been back now, and I think I’ve just about caught up on sleep again. I was just wanted to say thanks to people putting up with me and lending me their floors to sleep on.

But. I hear you ask (or, at least Chris asked) Where did you actually go, and who did you actually see? Well; I saw Andy, Kim, Chris H, Chris A, Alex, Pete, Teilo and Rob (Apologies to Matt, Amanda and Nick A – who were on the plan, but got missed for various reasons) and I visited Southampton, Worcester, Birmingham and Manchester over the space of 5 days.

It was an absolutely fantastic week, I enjoyed every minute of it. Its good to know that I’m managing to maintain friendships beyond the end of school, and hopefully many of these will last through uni and into later life.

Note, there are lots of people I would have liked to have visited, but they inconveniently decided to go to Uni in far-away places, very inconsiderate of them I think. **hides his deferred application to Durham**

Another Note, can you bring my t-shirts back with you next time you come home please Kim

Rob says:
You forgot something though…. [Original Post]

But he is mistaken, I was still pondering the morality of mentioning what happened between Rob and Mavis in the car on the way back from Manchester. Given that Rob attends a College of Theology I thought it might be best people did not stumble accross information regarding the relationship between the couple.

At first, it looked like they were hitting it off, Rob seemed impress by Mavis’s.. um.. “features”, and whilst Mavis has never been the talkative type she too seemed to have a liking for Rob. Alas, things were not to be though and after some rather intimate relations their partnership took a turn for the worse. By the end they were ignoring one another, and that once magical spark had clearly gone out.