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zotzWell, the game's up. Long after I'd abandoned any expectation of it happening, Paul mailed me to say I should really get an LJ account . . . so I had to 'fess up. I thought he would be the most likely to raise the subject again, but I thought it would be a bit quicker. I don't know why. Interestingly, I seemed to gain friends at an impressive rate for a few minutes. Paul obviously knew at that point, but Dave popped up so fast I suspect Paul of having updated it for him. Morph arrived pretty bloody quickly too, and Alison's also an early adopter. That's it so far. I suppose I should really start claiming that some people are friends of mine - at least it'll give them a chance to deny it.
"So", I hear you ask, "what have you been up to for the last month?"
Not a great deal"", I reply. It's been fairly quiet overall, but work's been trolling onwards in the usual manner and the Calling's crashed and burned. Or crashed and smouldered. Or at least broken down temporarily. The venue (the very excellent Q club on Station Road) has got some (hopefully temporary) noise-related licence issues, and so we're out on our ear. Currently (meaning as of tonight's discussions) it looks like we'll be back at the beginning of February in a different venue much nearer the town centre, but that isn't absolute dead certain confirmed yet, so don't say I said it was. Still Tuesday, still alternating with Rocksoc's club Wake Up Screaming. I guess that this means the spiniffs (Poodlebox and . . . I don't remember) are on indefinite hold, but they may return at some point.
This weekend just gone I went to a party, a friendly drink with some old friends and tidied the house. The party was Donnla's leaving do, which was at her house mostway to Histon. It was very relaxed and friendly, and when I left the next morning after crashing on a beanbag I got to say"See you on Saturday, then", because she's moving to Edinburgh. After which, I hopped the iron rooster into the Big Shitty to meet with the Exiles for a drink and a chat. The Exiles, in this case, is a bunch of ex-Edinburgh types, mostly (erm . . . actually make that entirely) associated with SFsoc (or SFUsoc to its friends) and now living in the Deep Deep South. We haven't met up in about a year and a half, so it was good to see people. I was there, obviously, with Simons Tett (climatology guru) and Hartshorne (still in technical aspects of road construction, I think, but now liasing with the Dept of Transport), Phil Barber (working with the aforementioned DoT now), Stuart, Tony Keen, Iain Edwards, Anne Currie, Usedtobespikybutnowalmostaskinhead James, Tricia, Lucy, and my old flatmate Thesping Tom. We spent all day in the pub apart from the time we spent in a restaurant. 'Twas good.
Sunday I did the usual read of the papers and then got onto hoovering the living room, for which deviant behaviour I unreservedly apologise. I did a bit of washing up too, and then went to help a friend (Elise) shift her stuff over to her bloke's place for the Festive Season (given as how she's kicked out of Halls for the period). This turned out to be almost entirely painless, as unlike us ancient types she doesn't have roomfulls of pointless junk. I took my little trolleybarrowthing along, but didn't need it.
This only leaves Monday morning pre-work, which was the really interesting bit of the weekend. Unfortunately I can't really talk about it, except to say that it involved a couple of new experiences, including finding a friend apparently asleep in the middle of the road before dawn in sub-zero temperatures wearing only a dressing gown, and being questioned by the Police in connection with a suspected domestic violence incident. Unsurprisingly given how uneventful my life is, it was quite a novelty (and given that I was protected by actual and manifest innocence and lack of motivated enemies, an interesting rather than traumatic one) to start the week as a suspect for a violent crime. After
which, actually going to work was a bit of an anticlimax. Still, it was a productive day. Shedloads of the samples I'd been sequencing over the last couple of weeks came back, and I think I've got three finished projects to do the checks on already, with several more projects to reassess in the light of the returned traces. Much fun. An hour or so's sleep after work (I was knackered) was followed by a trip to the pub to see Rocksoc people at their committee meeting to chat and decide about the new venue for WUS & the Calling. This was good, but I came back early regardless. I managed to miss I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue, which is a shame because it's one of the ones I went to the recording of in Bristol a couple of weeks ago, with Dave from work (who really deserves an explanation at some point) and his brother Rick (likewise). It was hideously funny live, so I expect it'll also be so broadcast. I'll be interested to see how it sounds without the leading and following chat, and various (but not long or frequent) bits that I guess they'll snip as being too obscure if you're not there. They din't record a great deal over half an hour, as I remember - maybe five minutes or so, so they'll only have to tighten it up a little rather than do edited highlights. If you get a chance to see it live, I'd recommend it.
Tomorrow, of course, is work again, followed by a meeting with John S and a local councillor he knows to ask about the licencing committee and what sort of situation the Q's in. Friday's the Christmas meal with the team at work (I have to get soeone a small gift, and I don't know what it's going to be yet). This should be fun. It has been every previous year. I seem to be cursed with interesting and worthwhile workmates - woe is me!
After that - unless my plans for the midwinter wastezone change greatly, it'll be up to the Athens of the North for a week or so, starting with some doubtless dreadfully gothy thing on Saturday night. Hopefully I'll manage to catch up with a friend or two while I'm in town. I hear a rumour that one friend in particular was at Whitby - having her hen night, no less - and I didn't lay eyes on her all weekend. Maybe we were both too drunk to recognise each other. Maybe we did meet and the memory fell into the Friday Night Blackout - I already know that happened with someone, and there are two more people I have only hazy memories of.
It's late, I should just mention one more thing (in two parts) before I get myself some more toast and hot chocolate and curl up with them like the meths-quaffing speedball-chuggin' rock'n'roll animal what I am, and it concerns SFsoc, and goths, and Edinburgh, and, (crucially) CJ. And, of course, much alcohol.
[Interjection: I've got another friend. How sweet. Lovingboth. Ian. Hello! and . . . errr . . . I'm really sorry, but I've not heard that handle before. Which Ian are you? Hi. (puts hand out)]
A couple of weeks ago, CJ was in the country again (I'm sure you all know this, and yes I'll go back and convert all of these to proper LJ-links at some point) and as it's always great to see him - although sometimes more fun than is entirely healthy - we arranged to meet in the Dev in Camden between 2 and 2:30. No problem. I can do this. And I did do this, turning up at ten past with the carnation in the lapel of the long mackntosh, the copy of the New York Times and my half of the two-dollar bill. No sign of CJ, but that's OK. First pint. Read the paper (to be brutally frank it was the Guardian, and the carnation, mackintosh and $2 bill are figments of my febrile imagination, but I guess you knew that already). By about a quarter to three he was officially late, but then that was OK - he was almost certainly up to no good somewhere. Darren the London goth that James Greenie tried to kill a coulpe of years ago turned up, and we chatted for a while. Jane who is known as Felis Humanus walked in, which caused a moment's stunned silence - she lives in Aberdeen these days. She reminded me that she'd told me she'd be down that weekend for a concert, so the only coincidence was the pub. Actually, there wasn't even that, because she'd arrived with Fuzzy Dave and Turbo . . . who were there to meet CJ. While we discussed this, it turned out that several other people, including the barman, were also waiting for CJ. That's right, he'd arranged to meet half of London in the Dev and not made it (another note here : that's OK. I had a great time talking to all his other mates. It would have been nice to see him, but I wasn't suffering). I called a couple of times, but didn't get through. Finally he turned up with Karen The Aforementioned Flatmate sometime back of five. By this time I'd been talking to (among many others) an Ozzy woman called Fiona and one of her friends. I recall CJ and Kitty asking for her name as the three of us went towards the World's End, but that's a different story. The relevance of this will become clear. At this point, I should add that I'd arranged to meet somebody as well - another old Edinburgh friend called Katie, who teaches at a primary school in London. She was having a fridge delivered at some indeterminate time that day, so I said I'd call her and we'd try to meet up. Needless to say, I forgot her number. I had remembered halfway to the station, but I thought I'd easily be able to get it from Paul via CJ. How wrong I was. By the time this became an option, I'd been drinking for over three hours, and did I remember? Did I buggery. SO as it turned out I was guilty of the same crime as CJ, except that of course he (as usual) performed on a far grander scale.
We had a drink at the World's End. I think we were supposed to be meeting someone, but it never became obvious who. Various people scarpered when my flatmate's ex-girlfriend arrived, and then I went off to the Garage to see cut.rate.box (who I missed), Assemblage 23 (who were OK) and Diary of Dreams (who were quite good, but not as good as when I saw them before. The ticket was courtesy of Morph (Hi!) . . . and afterwards I hightailed it back to the Fens, as it was Bristol for ISIHAC the next day and I was driving. Thus Ends Part One.
The next weekend, I was in London again. I didn't go in during the day because it was my flatmate's birthday and I had a small drink with him and a few other friends during the late afternoon. On reaching Lodnod, I phoned Kitty and ended up having dinner in Soho with him and a couple of his friends. This was very nice, and so was the restaurant. A couple of drinks later, we popped back to Islington for Kitty to change and then went Slimewards to catch the Chaos Engine (well, the end of their set, anyway - very good from what I saw) and Leechwoman (Oh yes). I should definitely try to see both of these bands more often. Anyway, to get to Part 2 proper, Ozzie Fiona was there, so we chatted for a few minutes. Edinburgh came up in conversation a couple of times, so she reached over and dragged her bloke into view. His name's James, and two or three years ago he was the President of SFsoc - an office I had the gall to hold myself some time before. We'd met a few times then, as I occasionally do my crap alternoDJ thing for them (looks like this will be happening again sometime in the new year, BTW). It isn't a small world. It's a very big one. But it is frighteningly well-connected. Thus Ends Part Two.
The remainder of that weekend involved sleeping on the couch back in Islington (without Madge Manson for anaesthetic this time) and then rambling in Camden with Kitty and Erik and Alix. This was good, and involved a copy of The Third Reich'N'Roll, an old Wax Trax compilation of In The Nursery songs and CDs by Mesh (the really old stuff) and Leechwoman (Three 3Zero - the new one, which sounds just like them and is very good). SO Sunday, I suppose, was brought to you by weirdness, artiness, synthpop and serious aggression. And a couple of Martin Millar books I found in a second-hand shop in the market.
Right. That's definitely it. My brain's empty. Thank you, and goodnight.
Bollocks
Date: 2001-12-10 04:16 pm (UTC)Re: Bollocks
Date: 2001-12-10 04:22 pm (UTC)Re: Bollocks
Date: 2001-12-10 04:28 pm (UTC)I've never, in many years now, gotten shafted by following your software recommendations. I'll give that a go.