Quite a busy and long weekend...
I can’t really remember anything that happened last week worth noting down in here.
Let me think...
*hour passes*
Well, last Thursday I had my big mid-year appraisal. Hee hee, I don’t know what Maureen was expecting but I’m sure it wasn’t what actually happened. There’s no way I’m going into what was said on something I’m going to stick on the internet, so it’s a case of “watch this space”!
It’s certainly jazzed up coming to work a bit.
Also last Thursday, we travelled to somewhere near Samlesbury for David J. Wright’s birthday meal. This was in an Indian, which he claimed was his favourite in the whole world. How he can claim this when he seemed to eat about eight grains of rice, I’ll never know. It was nice, eating cheesy spinach and talking shite. I was knackered after the earlier events of the day however and my brain had given in about 7pm. I hate it when I think I’m not working at full functionality.
I think that’s the end of birthday celebrations for a while. Mine is approaching soon and hopefully that may be cheaper.
I seem to remember Friday being quieter. Only thing I can recall happening that day was when an attempt was made to drug me so I’d go to sleep.
We spent all Saturday cleaning the house. This isn’t rock n’ roll but it needed doing. I polished the floor downstairs and have made it a death trap. Standing up is an act which can only be performed with great difficulty. The house stayed clean for about three hours, then the table became full of plates, cups and crisp packets again. Also, Dave somehow seems to have made the bit of floor he sat on all sticky.
We all went out to the warehouse, which was okay. There was a good turn out with regulars Dave, Paul and Johnny H joined by semi-regular Liam and special guest stars Julia, her friend Martin and Karl Karpofolofolski. Everything was in place for a great night; lots of people, lots of booze, stupid conversations –computing is the new mining, Dave is really middle class etc... Sadly it wasn’t Neil the DJ, it was some other guy who seemed to have about 10 CDs and played four or five stone roses, libertines and happy Mondays songs. I felt like I’d gone back in time by about seven years. It seemed to restrict the dancing to a few brief trips.
I stopped drinking at about 1am as I didn’t want to wake up at 7am the next morning, still a bit pissed and with further sleep rendered impossible by the buckets of stimulants coursing through my veins. Didn’t work though, I still got up too early and wandered around the house a bit lost.
On Sunday we (Marie, Julia, Martin and I) travelled to Leeds to catch the last day of the festival. Even though my bank, back and sanity may thank me for only going to 1 days worth of festivals this year, it seemed a bit of a shame that the indie at the Reading-Leeds festival seemed to be a bit less this year. Bar some of the minor stages, there was really only one day that seemed indie enough to be worth blessing with our presence.
Getting there was okay, it was fairly well sign-posted and we got parked okay. Festivals have many bad points – camping hell, over-priced food and drink, the big yellow bastard, bizarre stewarding, being forced to spend time in the presence of other people who really need a fucking wash....and a kicking. The list is a long one and I often forget why I go to them. It’s only when I get there and my mood lightens and I have a really good time that I actually want to go to more.
We had a meander around and caught the end of The Libertines set, a band who really look like they’re missing a key band member. Which they are. Bless ‘em though as they are still better than The Streets. He seems a nice boy though, whenever I’ve seen him on TV he seems to have a nice line in taking the piss out of himself. So I’ll let him off.
Next was The Doves. Hmm, it was what I was expecting –fucking ace. To a level that deserves that profanity as well. They really do have the loveliest songs, I’d have loved to have seen them further up the bill when it was dark and their light show could have been at full effect. They were really loud, not to the brain crippling level of when we saw them last year but certainly loud enough so I didn’t have to strain my ears. I like them anyway, they be good.
There was a brief gap till the other band that we both wanted to really see, The Cooper Temple Clause. Again, I wasn’t surprised, they were as good as I expected. It’s nice to see a band that love strobe lights as much as myself – there are several bits of their songs that make me fizz. I can’t wait for their new album, I’m going to hold my breath until it’s released.
...
*wheeze*
We both then decided to go and see Brendan Benson, who was in one of the small tents and there was only about fifty people there. It was a shame as he was really good, but then again his material his great so it was bound to be. The big moment happened at the end, in the middle of his last song – the great Jetlag. Meg White wandered onto the stage, giving me a little wink, as she plonked herself behind the drums. Everybody recognised her and cheered, and then about thirty people piled on stage for a big sing-along. It was bit surreal as one of the invadees was the big-faced singer from The Datsuns who started to carry Brendan Benson around the stage on his shoulders. It was great, and the small gathering of us who had decided to come to this tent all left with big silly “what the fuck?” grins on our faces. It’s hard to be the cynical and grumpy twat you usually are, when something happens that leaves you with a big spazzy grin on your face.
We then wandered over to watch Blur. It seemed impossible to get anywhere near them as we’d missed the first twenty minutes watching Brendan Benson and buying cups of tea and hot chocolate (WE ARE ROCK!). So we watched them from a hundred feet up in the air on a big wheel. It was a great view up there, seeing the masses of people watching Blur and the whole of the site. It was a great place as well to hear such ace songs like “End Of A Century” and “The Universal”, going round and round on a big wheel, seeing it all from above. I hope the pictures come out.
I fully envisioned not getting home till about 5am, that the delay out of the site may be horrendous. It wasn’t that bad actually, a sense of direction kicked in that I’d never previously noticed that I possessed and we found the car quite easily. There was a small queue out but we got home at 2:30am.
I got to drive Marie’s car as well and because she fell asleep she didn’t notice I was driving it at light speed.
There was no fucking way I was going into work yesterday, so we had an easy day, getting me ma n’ da to feed us and wandering around town buying birdseed for the garden.
Its ace in the garden, the little birdhouse we’ve put up seems to be the place to eat for birds in the Preston area. We’ve had all-sorts of guests and thankfully no cats.
I have the potential for a £150+ order from cdwow. I’ve tried to resist it so far, I know it’s going to happen but the longer I can put it off – the happier my credit card will be. Oooh, I love new CDs and DVDs though. Yom!
Only other news is that somebody has objected to our milk in the work fridge. Our software-hardware integration team (s.h.i.t) started the milk club so we have SHIT written on the carton. Some people don’t like swearing though so have asked for it to be removed. I’m going to write FUCKING CUNTRAG MONKEYSHITTERS on it. I know who has complained, it’s the saggy titted witches who spend all day making cups of coffee and standing outside smoking fags. They think they run the company because they deal with travel and admin requests. Hags!