I had great fun today helping out part of a really great project –    Nottinghamshire Loves Learning   . I was Robin Hood at Stapleford Town Hall, meeting, chatting and being photographed with some of the great adults and children who came to take part in the excellent photography and art project run there today.

Adults and children were lent digital cameras by the great helpers there from the WEA – the Worker's Education Association – including the wonderful Nikki, who I used to work with a couple of years ago, and they were free to photograph anything they wanted, then when they brought the photos back they were printed out and put on display in a shop window on the High Street (and they're stilll there, just next to the TSB if you're in the area)!

From the NLL website: February 13th – 15th 2010 will bring together the talents of Nottinghamshire as we inspire a whole county to try something new. Whoever you are, whatever you do we want you to take part and do something different this weekend. More than 100 venues across Nottinghamshire will host the fun and imaginative learning experiences – have a go! We already know how great learning can be!

For more details check out the rest of the website here.

Experience Nottingham city centre's hidden gems with Light Night 2010. Friday 12 February take to the streets with friends and family and discover a evening of spectacular events and illuminations for everyone to enjoy.

This will be Nottingham's third Light Night event and the city is getting ready to reveal some of the City's hidden gems with its theme of 'Hidden Spaces'.

Most of the events are FREE and look out for special offers in city centre restaurants, cafes and bars – and of course Nottingham Castle is involved too, so I hope to see you there! 

UPDATE: It was indeed a very fun night, all across Nottingham there were light displays, entertainments and music, and up at Nottingham Castle we had lasers, fabulous 'burning trees' and great fireworks dispays every hour – but it was incredibly cold and after a few hours I began to think the Sheriff may be right – living in the Castle is a lot more sensible than living in a forest sometimes!

A few years ago, before the Nottingham’s Sheriff’s Lodge medieval banqueting centre was sold for redevelopment,     December used to be my busiest time as Robin Hood, performing at banquets every night of the week pretty much for the whole month (and at it’s height, from halfway through November too).

These days I still do banquets at Center Parcs in Sherwood Forest but now a lot of my December work comes from the Digital Paparazzi, which luckily involves just as much dressing up and just as much fun too, so it was a great and rare pleasure to be able to combine ‘Hood-ing’ with ‘Pap-ing’ last Saturday at a very posh hotel in Nottingham to celebrate a client’s 50th birthday. He’d decided to have a fancy dress party themed around ‘heroes’ and had the Paparazzi boys doing their thing but he also wanted an MC to announce and help the guests, so I got to be Robin at what turned out to be the most excellent costume party I’ve ever been to – even if the next morning I’d lost my voice due to all the shouting! 

Robin’s Twitter update

I’ve already mentioned the Robin Hood Twitter feed set up by the World Wide Robin Hood Society, it’s now up and running and you can read more about it at the Nottingham Evening Post article  HERE.

(This Nottingham Evening Post photo from their article shows me with Mike Douglas and Bob White from the Society).

Hmm… so, I’ve just got back from Nottingham Castle where I was doing a photoshoot for the excellent chaps from the World Wide Robin Hood Society and the Nottingham Evening Post to promote their new and very exciting ‘Robin Hood Twitter’ project (more about that HERE)!

I was very surprised to find that the world-famous Robin Hood statue has been rehoused though, temporarily entombed in a wooden protective housing because of a right wing rally being held near the Castle tomorrow (as well as a left wing counter-protest in the Old Market Square, an army march-past through the city centre from the Mercian regiment who are returning from Afghanistan, an anti-war protest at that and to top it all, a Nottingham Forest vs. Leicester City football match).

The Castle will be shut to visitors tomorrow but I’m beginning to wonder if it’ll be the safest place in town to be…  Read more about it at the Evening Post online HERE, HERE and HERE.

Earlier this year I helped the Lord Mayor of Nottingham (the splendid Councillor Jeannie Packer, who used to be the Sheriff of Nottingham as well) to open the Nottingham Riviera, a ‘Nottingham by the Sea’-type attraction which turned the city’s Old Market Square into a reasonable approximation of the seaside with tonnes of sand, a pool, a beachfront bar and a host of rides too. (You can see a few more photos here).

Nottingham’s not quite the furthest spot in England from a coast (but not too far off) so it created quite a stir, both from residents either for or against the idea and of course the press, who swarmed down to cover the opening – I was interviewed live by SKY TV, BBC TV and ITV’s Central News as well as Heart FM radio… and most of them wanted to know not only what I thought of the beach ("It’s a great idea, look at everyone having fun") but also about that day’s big Nottinghamshire news, the appointment of ex-England football manager Sven-Goran Eriksson as manager of Notts County Football Club…

And of course there I floundered – I  know nothing about football personally (though Robin Hood is obviously 100% behind Nottingham’s bid to host the 2018 World Cup – I know, ‘cos I did a photoshoot to prove it), so I pretended I knew what (and who) I was talking about and think I got away with it, though some’ll tell you otherwise! 

The best bit was the utterly surreal experience of myself, the Lord Mayor and a host of council officials all getting on the roundabout twice (Jeannie and myself in full kit, me with bow and arrows included) and looking very odd but strangely happy before it rose, spinning into the air so we could wave at everyone below and have more pictures taken! It was top fun but very silly – and it does have to be said that waving her arms around, sleeves flapping about behind her Jeannie looked just like Batman in full flight) 

On the same night as the Nottingham Castle NRSB charity firewalk (see previous entry) we also walked to the Canalhouse pub to attend the opening day of the Nottingham Victoria Cross Memorial Appeal Beer Festival (and try saying that when you’ve had one of the twenty-five excellent real ales that were on sale, let alone several)!

The festival ran from Thursday to Sunday and I went a couple of times, Saturday night was particularly fun as there was live music from the truly marvellous Nimming Ned, if you get a chance to check them out you certainly should,  not only are they top blokes but they do a fabulous song about Robin Hood (and one about The Dogs of War too)! 

In the photo, from left to right are: Dave Green (Nottingham Castle manager); me; Sal Chappell; Dave Chappell and Colin Wilde (Commercial Director of the Castle Rock Brewery). Photo courtesy of Julie from Designcat - thanks yet again!

Yet again, that was an amazing experience - the firewalk for the Nottinghamshire Royal Society for the Blind was held at Nottingham Castle on November 5th and this time over forty very brave folks joined Maid Marian (Sal Chappell) and myself in walking across hot coals to raise money for this excellent charity.

This year everything was held at the top of the castle mound, next to the castle itself (last year it was lower down, in the grounds) and everyone had a good view as supporters, family and friends all had the luxury of the stadium seating left in place after last month’s Robin Hood Pageant. There was food, live music, a beer tent and after the firewalk a fabuloust fireworks display too.

Many thanks – and congratulations – to everyone who took part too. The coach/trainer told us just beforehand that the coals were burning at around 500 degrees and apparently human flesh melts at just 300 (nice…) so walking quickly and carefully was very important  – and I can genuinely say the coals were much hotter this year than last!

But absolutely the best bit was seeing the unrestrained joy and exhuberance coming from each and every walker as they walked off the coals (to be presented with a medal by the Sheriff of Nottingham and his Lady) as it truly is an empowering and uplifting experience… if you didn’t try it this year then please do next time, I promise you won’t regret it!    

Last weekend saw two more days of brilliant medieval fun at Nottingham Castle as it was this year’s Robin Hood Pageant (or the ‘Me Pageant’ as I referred to it from time to time )!.

As always there were a great many fabulous and entertaining groups, performers and traders there including always excellent Dogs of War, this year presenting a ‘medieval sports day’ intended to recruit children into Robin’s Merry Men (for instance in the photo I’m teaching a young outlaw archery), the Knights of Nottingham jousting show, good King Richard himself and a great new addition, the Nuns and Abbess of Kirklees Priory.

Sadly the weather on Saturday left a lot to be desired as it rained quite heavily and everyone got more than a little wet (except the King, of course) but even so the visitors – and there were still a lot - had a great time. Luckily the sunny (but blustery) weather on Sunday meant that even more people came and stayed for the shows, music, food and of course the marvellous beer tent!

I met some very interesting people and had my photograph taken so many times I lost count – including making the front page of the Nottingham Evening Post (and the inside too) and many thanks are due to Julie from Designcat for letting me use her always awesome photos!

You can read the Nottingham Evening Post review here!

Great news – the excellent and very dedicated folks at the Nottingham Royal Society for the Blind are holding another Bonfire Night Charity Firewalk at Nottingham Castle on November 5th!

Myself and Maid Marian are going to be helping out and leading the walk as we did last year so if you wanted to come and join in now’s the time – it’s fantastic fun, very empowering and best of all it’s for a great cause!

Last year everyone who took part or watched helped to raise the magnificent sum of over £20,000 for the NRSB and this year we’re hoping to beat that - you can check out the details and sign up to take part here or just buy spectator tickets to come and add to the fun!

There’s also music, a great fireworks display and good food to be had too and honestly, if you’ve never tried it before please do; it’s not painful at all, I promise – see the expression on my face taken at last year’s event? That’s exhilaration, not pain!

And if you fancy making a night of it you can join us afterwards in supporting the opening night of the Victoria Cross Memorial Beer Festival that evening at the Canalhouse pub on Canal Street, Nottingham where they’re hosting a beer festival 5th-8th Nov 2009 to help raise money for the VC memorial fund which aims to have a memorial erected in Nottingham Castle grounds to remember the 20 Nottinghamshire men who have been awarded this medal for bravery. This memorial will ensure permanent recognition and ensure these heroes are never forgotten.

There’ll be 20+ real ales all with a military theme and they’ve teamed up with the comedy festival to have comedians performing Thurs & Fri and live music by the superb Nimming Ned on Sat. There’ll also be selling raffle tickets as a way of raising money with the chance to win some superb prizes (list will be available at a later date, check out the Victoria Cross Memorial Beer Festival Facebook Group for more information).

One great night out, two fabulous causes – see you there!