I’ve forgotten what I did on Friday.
Hmm….
Ahhh, on Friday we went to visit Xian and Sian, who had a special guest star in Liam. They fed us crisps and gave Marie booze, alas I was driving so none of the lovely brown stuff for me. I seemed to spend most of the night playing this really annoying car puzzle Xian had. It certainly is a time waster but I’m not sure I’d call it enjoyable. I think I was rocking back and forth at one stage in frustration at the thing.
Xian also did an erotic dance for me, it was mildly alarming as his trousers were falling down at the time.
Saturday was embrace day! We set off to Leeds quite early so we could have some fancy tea before finding where the hell the gig was. We eventually found it under a bridge, in a place called The Cockpit. They had tickets on the wall of all the bands who had played there and it seemed quite an indie place. Part of me wishes there was somewhere like that in Preston, yet there’s another part of me that knows that if they did, the place would be full of fucking twats.
We went in quite early, and made our way to the front of what looked like an aircraft hangar. Well it would, if it was for miniature aircraft. It filled up quite soon, and held about 150-200. Embrace came on at 8:30, not looking that much different. Danny has had his hair thinned a bit, and brother Richard has some sort of bike helmet hair. Bar the drummers mullet, they all seemed quite healthy. They split the set into two, with twelve brand new songs followed by five old favourites.
The new songs seemed good – anthemic, with big choruses and rockier than material off If You’ve Never Been. I was within touching distance of Danny, if I’d have pushed away the small people in front of me, I could have been on that stage in seconds. When he came down to us for the old songs (so he could hang the mic over us), I could have licked him if I’d tried. I enjoyed the new songs and managed to maintain my aloof cool, yet when they played Fireworks, All You Good Good People, Retread and The Good Will Out during the “oldies” set, I started shouting along and beaming the biggest smile ever.
They were gone by 10, I think there was a club night on later. The band seemed quite cheery, Danny was telling us it was like a fresh start and to expect a new album next year.
Yay!
On Sunday we mopped up the last of the required presents and we met up with Marie’s friends Donna and Paul. Paul was bullying me as usual – such a bad man.
Then we visited my parents so they could feed us. Which they did as usual.
Back at work today, I’ve delivered my report, which they still tell me is deadly vital to saving the project 3 million quid but I’m not so sure. If it was so important, I don’t see why they’d give it to me to do. Yeah, I’m one of the most experienced and respected Software Engineers in here, but I’ve never written a vital report before. Hee hee, it’s full of all my trademarks – bad grammar, appalling punctuation and an inability to be succinct. There were several sentences that stretched over several lines and contained few words shorter than ten characters in length.
I’ve sent it to the boss lady but all the managers have gone on a Christmas lunch. Nice! They spend all year moaning about budgets, and remove our Christmas do, but go off eating peasants whenever they feel like it. Nobbers!
…
I read a report yesterday in The Observer about Ian Huntley and the Soham trial. It was arguing that he seemed to genuinely believe that he wasn’t the evil and wicked person he obviously is. It showed how he seemed to think it was a terrible accident and how he was also a victim of the whole affair. The point that interested me was that the writer of the piece made out that the mind rarely believed itself to be wicked.
It struck me as being very true – people who’ve done bad things, often seem incapable of facing up to it. It’s hard to know yourself as a bad person, easier to blame others, look for excuses or reasons why something has happened. Ian Huntley is obviously an ultra-extreme case of this, yet you see it everywhere. I could easily ten personal instances now of times when I’ve been unable to fathom how people can justify what they’re doing or have done. Yet they do, I don’t know how but they usually look to others for fault, or cling to a little crumb of comfort to allow the mind to be at ease with what it has done.