Heart of Gold. Nerves of Steel. Knob of Butter.
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Saturday 31st August01:45Spent most of this evening at work, for some bizarre reason. And then the rest of it trying to sort out some punting and giant squid pix, for reasons which will become clearer over the weekend. As a result the planned updates to the site haven't happened. I bet you're all crying your hearts out over that.Anyhoo, I'm off out tomorrow day, but unless anything extraordinary happens, I'll be back at the keyboard on Sunday to implement at least 2 major updates for this site. Don't hold your breath though..
Wednesday 28th August22:30Just a quick update to say, dinner at the boss's house was great, I've got some more stuff to put on here soon, and I'm feeling really tired at the moment so am not updating this site in any major way tonight. There'll be more stuff, just as long as they don't keep insisting on me doing stuff when I'm at work. I tell you, I hardly even have enough time to download Crack Whore mp3's during my lunch hour any more....
Monday 26th August16:00What have I let myself in for?I happened to mention to my older brother, Mark, that the ultimate aim in buying the new bike had been not just to get fit by cycling to work, but to get fit enough to do the London to Cambridge bike ride next year. My workmate Jack, and his wife Heather, did it this year, on what turned out to be the hottest day of the summer. And said it was good fun, but hard work. And it's all for charity. Anyhow, Mark has said that if I can get fit enough to give it a go, he'll come with me. Which gives us both something to aim for, although we're coming at it from different angles. I just hope it doesn't turn out like the last time we cycled anywhere together (more than twenty years ago) when I got numerous punctures in both front and rear tyres and ended up having to walk about three miles home. I don't fancy that happening just three miles out of London, it's a long walk home from there.... Of course, I've got a long way to go yet as I haven't even managed to pluck up the nerve to cycle to work. Still, the trips around the airport must be doing me some good - the regular trudge home from Tesco with the weekly shopping didn't seem half as arduous as usual.My mate Kev was bemoaning the lack of extra stuff on the website and the fact that it takes about two minutes to visit all of it. Well, he's right, of course. So in the near future I'll be adding stuff for your general delectation and delight. I'll update the "About Me" page, there'll be a fantastic look back at Truckfest, including pictures, the report on Army2002 that I'm still working on, and some other shit. Heck, I might even finally get round to sorting out the merchandise. Well, I won't be going out much for the next couple of months as I'm saving up for my mate's wedding in November, so I'm going to have to do something with my time. Apart from surf for porn, that is. The more astute reader may have noticed that I made a few changes to the wording under the banner and one of the links on the right. Well, after due consideration I put things back the way they were. Sometimes, instead of trying to fight back, you just have to walk away. And that's all I'm going to say about that. I'm off out for dinner round at the boss's new house tonight. I must remember not to get totally drunk, throw up on her carpet or make a complete ass of myself. If I can manage that, I shall count the evening as a success.
Friday 23th August23:45My old mucker Kev came to see me yesterday. He's one of the longest standing friends I've got. He's certainly the longest-suffering, having been through thick and thin with me since we met at University (Well, it was only a College of Higher Education when we started, to be honest). Our friendship has survived a few traumas - me setting our shared house on fire, him making me go to Truckfest (twice), that sort of thing - but we don't get together that often anymore as he lives in Grimsby with his wife and daughter and I don't. Anyway, we went out to The Regal which used to be a cinema, but is now a Wetherspoons pub. Anyway, the beer is cheap and decent and the food is OK - you certainly can't knock it for 5 English pounds, including a drink. Plus there's usually some decent eye candy if the conversation lulls. Cheers mate, I had a good time - it's always good to see you, but try to come down the day AFTER payday next time, not the day before....What else? Oh yes, I mentioned listening to CDs at work on Tuesday and my friend John sent me a list of some of the stuff he's been listening to recently. Normally when John talks about the stuff he likes to listen to all I hear is "Fuh, fuh, fuh, fuh, fuh, fuh", but it's fair to say that this time I knew some of the bands he mentioned. So here, for no better reason than to fill in some space, is John's current workspace playlist, with his own comments:
Tuesday 20th August22:15I have been suffering for the last few days from the effects of getting a decent night's sleep and getting to work on time. This is probably the result of a lack of alcohol intake, which will be corrected as soon as I get paid. Anyway, my body is having trouble adjusting to having to eat my evening meal an hour earlier, as I'm getting to work on time and getting home a lot earlier than usual. If only I could summon up the courage to start cycling to work, I reckon I could save up to an hour on the commuting times. Plus, I wouldn't get hassled by mad people at the bus stop, as has happened to me a couple of times in the last week. Mind you, it does puzzle me - I'm a little over 6 feet tall, 280 pounds and shaven-headed, so why do they seek me out? Can they sense my kind-hearted nature or something? On second thoughts, don't answer that.I don't know about you, but I'm finding that although I have loads of CDs, I only listen to a certain few of them. I think that's partly because my stereo is still in the box I packed it in to move to Cambridge and partly because I only really listen to stuff when I'm at work. (Obviously when you're working you need something that gets you in the right mood. Lately, I've been listening to The Smiths...) Anyway, the upshot is that occasionally you pull out something, think "I haven't listened to that in ages" and either, you realise why, or it's like buying a new album. Admittedly, The Shirehorses album fell into the former category, but recently I rediscovered the joys of Air's 'Premiers Symptomes', Moby's 'Play' and The Beastie Boys 'Paul's Boutique', amongst others. So go on, have a look at the back of the rack and drag out some of that stuff you never listen to. You never know, you might remember why you bought it in the first place. Unless, of course, you happen to be my little brother, who hasn't had to buy a new record in years thanks to being a music journalist. Jammy git.
Sunday 18th August23:00Anger is an energyIt's OK, I feel fine. Had a cathartic experience yesterday. No problems with grips on reality or life getting me down, or any of that shit. This is me breathing. I am centred in the me....etc.Anyway, I tested out the cycle ride to work today. I was taking it very easy and still managed to get there in under twenty-five minutes. So reckon it'll take about half an hour, depending on the traffic, during the week. The only drawback to the route is that I have to cross the railway and the River Cam, which means bridges, and these are the closest things there are to hills in Cambridge. To be fair, the one over the Cam is fairly gentle, but is near the end of the route to work. However, the one over the railway is fairly brutal. Especially if you haven't been on a bike for five years, you're totally unfit and you weigh twenty stone (or 280 pounds if you're American, or 127 kilos if you're European). Of course, the fact that it takes a lot of work to get that much weight up a slope is balanced by the fact that once going downhill you pick up momentum much more quickly. Which is a bit of a shock to the smarmy git who overtakes you on the way up, only to have you whizz past him on the way down, leaving him trailing in your wake for a mile or so as he struggles to catch up and you curse yourself for not tightening up the brakes before you set off. Whatta mistake-a to make-a! Actually, the other drawback to cycling to work on a Sunday was that I had to turn round and cycle home again virtually straight away. Work on a weekend? That'd be mad, Ted. Actually, I think if I had gone into work and sat down for eight hours or so, I wouldn't have ever got on the bike again. Still, the temperature will have to drop a few degrees and I'll have to put in a few more laps of the airport before I can start cycling to work on a regular basis. I spent the rest of the day gardening and working on various projects. I 've got a few things on the go, that may or may not see the light of day on this site. There's a report of my Army2002 weekend, which still needs to be completed, (sorry it's taken so long boys, but I haven't forgotten), a couple of crime short stories and a twisted comic love story-cum-monolgue about computer geeks in love. And if I get any of those finished by next weekend, I'll show my arse in Boots window.
Friday 16th August22:4525 years on and he's still The KingKnock Knock"Who's there?" "Wurlitzer" "Wurlitzer who?" "Wurlitzer one for the money, two for the show, three to get ready, now go cat go...." Anyway, do you ever get the feeling that life is slowly prying your fingers loose from whatever tenuous grip you have on reality? I do. Or maybe it's just that I never had much of a grip anyway, I've just been fooling people all these years, and I've finally realised that fact. Or perhaps I just need more sleep. Ah, kill me now, I'm in Hell.
Wednesday 14th August22:45Not much to say today - things not too exciting in the Fat Fakir household for the last couple of days. At least the weather was nice today. So much so that when I got home I went out on the bike again. Just one more trip around the airport, but if I do that regularly enough, I might feel up to the challenge of cycling to work before too long. Not that I'll be able to put that off too much longer with the way my bank balance is looking - I won't be able to afford the bus at this rate.I'm off out tomorrow night to meet Lisa's new boyfriend. Meeting in the pub first and then going to The Hotpot, which is one of Lisa's favourite restaurants. I'll put a quid on her ordering the hot and sour soup to start. Whatever else happens I'll be drunk, as usual. And I'm going to have to get my boss drunk too, as he's giving me a six-monthly review at 10 a.m. Friday morning. That'll be fun. Wonder if he'll take the afternoon off, again. Ah, beer - the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems.
Monday 12th August22:30The Glorious Twelfth!Ah, the weekend - a time to relax and take things easy. Or sit around bored out of your head when the weather and lack of funds scupper your plans. Arse. Did absolutely nothing memorable over the weekend. A couple of days that were further spoilt by Crewe failing to win at Northampton and Liverpool being resolutely second-best in the Community Shield.Here's a bit of news I neglected to mention last week. The company I work for, Convergys, announced that they were making about 70 people redundant here in the UK. Whilst these cuts don't directly affect the department that I work for, we are part of the same division. These cuts have made everyone a bit jumpy, of course, and the global downturn in the economy hasn't helped any. If the telecoms market continues to bear the brunt of it, I wouldn't be surprised if there are some more redundancies in six months time. And, shocker, this also means the much-vaunted bonus scheme is likely to be worth feck-all come December. Ah, well, 'tis only money. The Grouse season opened today. Must remember to nip out and blast the living daylights out of some defenceless birds in the name of sport tomorrow. Jeeves, fetch my blunderbuss.
Friday 9th August22:15It's not big. And it's not clever. Actually, I am.Had another night out at the Comedy Marquee last night. Kicked off the evening with some top Thai food in The Hopbine and a few beers before heading off to the tent. Despite my best warnings, Chris got us a table right at front, with the result that I was sat about 3 inches from the stage. Still, I'd had a few beers, I was out with my friends, so I was in a good mood. The compere, Dave forgotten-his-last-name, came on and got off to a poor start, but Marty Wilson pulled it round and gave us probably the best set of the night. Unfortunately, we were then "treated" to the comedy stylings of Saul Bernstein. Pretending to be an ancient Jewish comedian is probably not the wisest move anyway, but things went downhill straight from the start. He had no jokes. There was tumbleweed blowing across where we were sat. But then, he picked on me for having the audacity to talk while he was on. Well, few men have crossed wits with me and won, and he's not one of them. His biggest laugh was when he asked me something, I ignored it for a minute and then said "Sorry mate, I was asleep." Equally amusingly, (although not for the audience) when he asked if I had a girlfriend, all the people on my table were going "Ooh, don't go there. No, leave it." I didn't get chance to respond myself. Anyway, you know you've done alright when people come up to you afterwards and say "You were funnier than he was." After that the compere knew he couldn't die on his arse as comprehensively as Saul, so he lightened up a bit. Rick Wright finished the evening off with some jokes and C&W guitar reworkings of popular songs, which were amusing, but not that spectacular. He then took some requests from the audience, and Chris managed to stump him by asking him to play something by Aphex Twin. And finally, in a moment of pure sadism, we managed to get the compere to bring Saul out for a bow at the close of the show. Marvellous. Mind you, I don't think we'll be welcomed back next year...... Wednesday 7th August
22:15Devoted some of my spare energy from earlier (see below) to tidying up this site and sorting out Rad's Renderings. The cartoons have finally landed. Sort of. The second instalment of a two-part series is available for your perusal. And yes, it does depict a lab monkey having a Vietnam flashback. The first part explains the plaster on the monkey's stomach, apparently, but you'll have to wait a little longer for that. Still, the two parts also stand alone, so go and have a look. Now. Had a good time last night. Well, in so far as a single man can have a good time without getting arrested, I had a good night. I went to the Comedy Marquee and was thoroughly entertained by Jack Russell, Mitch Benn and Tom Rhodes. Jack Russell is a Welsh hippy, and did bang on about cannabis a bit too much, but was vastly entertaining when he wasn't doing that. Mitch Benn and his comic songs went down a storm. So much so that he came back out to do an encore. Unfortunately, I missed the chance to get him to sign a copy of his new album for John, so I'll just have to fake it. He'll never know... And Tom Rhodes took a while to build up a head of steam, but once he got going he was hilarious. The compere, who's name escapes me, was good too although, being Scottish and ginger, he had to be. Anyway, I'm going again tomorrow night, with friends this time (yes, I do have some, honest), and if the acts are half as good it should be an excellent night out.
14:20Woah, whatta rrrrush!!!Went for another spin round the airport on my bike a couple of hours ago. Decided to try to get round a lot faster than I did on Sunday. The result, I did it in about half the time. And I'd forgotten about the great side effect of vigorous exercise - the endorphin rush you get afterwards. I was dancing round the kitchen whilst I was making my lunch, which is a great comedy image - 280 pounds of sweaty fat bloke, dancing and making sandwiches at the same time. Wow, I'm still buzzing even now. I daresay that as soon as the effects wear off, I'll fall asleep, but for now I'm off to devote this new-found energy to something more useful than this.
Monday 5th August22:40Ooh, me arse!Finally got round to taking my bike out yesterday afternoon. The gentle 3 miles that I was expecting turned out to be nearer to 5. Fortunately I managed to get back before the rains came again. I still got soaked, but this time through perspiration. It wasn't too bad while I was riding, but once I stopped I turned into some sort of human fountain. Not nice. Today my arse feels like I've been sat on a razor blade and my knees are a bit stiff (ooh-er!) but otherwise I'm fine. Don't think I'll be attempting the cycle to work just yet though...I'm off to the Cambridge Comedy Marquee tomorrow night to see the marvellous Mitch Benn, amongst others. My mate John got me a signed copy of his CD as a leaving present when I moved to Cambridge, so I'll be looking to get a signed copy of Mitch's latest CD as John's wedding present. I know - I'm so classy. I was going to go to Northampton on Saturday to see South Cheshire's finest - Crewe Alexandra - open their campaign in Division 2, but it turns out my chances of getting a ticket in the away end are pretty minimal. Besides, knowing my luck, I'd only bump into Lisa and she'd think I was stalking her. Again. Next update is due, Wednesday - I'll finally have the missing cartoons from Rad and I've got the day off, so I might take the opportunity to tidy things up a bit. Cheers.
Sunday 4th August10:40Well, yesterday's rain scuppered my plans to take my bike out for a test run, so I'm hoping it stays dry today. I'll be going for a spin round the perimeter of the airport, which will be about 3 miles or so, so that should plenty given that I haven't been on a bike for a good five years or so. I was going to have a test run out to work today, but I think that can wait till next weekend now.And now the moment you've all been waiting for - my review of Men In Black II. Well, sadly, like a lot of sequels, it isn't as good as the first movie. It struck me as being a bit lazy. It doesn't really add anything to the whole MIB mythos (ooh, get him!) and the apart from one or two refinements the plot is the same as the first one - alien seeking something hidden in plain sight, Earth destroyed if it doesn't get it, blah, blah. Plus, the special effects didn't seem that special to me.Giant worm? Seen it done better in Tremors. Flying car chase? Star Wars: Attack of the Clones. And the finale, the climactic "saving-the-Earth" scene just kind of happens while you're waiting for a massive shoot-em-up. Of course, I was sat on my own and being detached and analytical, so if you take some friends, switch off your brain and just enjoy the ride, this is probably an enjoyable waste of 90 minutes or so. My brother-in-law is, for his own entertainment, recording an album of Leonard Cohen songs done in various musical styles. Now I was thinking about this yesterday, and after a little experimentation, I've come up with a version of "First We Take Manhattan" (admittedly the only Cohen song I know how to play) in a Cramps/psychobilly-stylee. Now you'd just better pray that it never makes it out of my bedroom and onto CD. Be afraid. Be very afraid. But if you're excited about the prospect of that, why not vist this discussion board (via a redirect at makeashorterlink.com) and download some of the mp3s on offer there? I can especially recommend "The Crusher" by The Novas - pure class.
Saturday 3rd August09:30Blimey, where does the time go, eh? Well, Wednesday night I was pissed off with work so decided to try to sort out the cartoons that Rad sent me. Without success, sadly, so you'll have to wait a bit longer for them.Thursday night I went to the Cambridge Folk Festival with Lisa and Chris. I got there ahead of the other two, having taken the afternoon off, and had plenty of time to wander round the site, which took all of 5 minutes, and get drunk, which took longer. The festival was much like any other with it's tat merchants, dodgy-looking food stalls and overflowing toilets. I reccied the Radio 2 stage where all the acts were playing that night, and it was in a rather small tent, which was full of people sitting down. I could smell trouble. When Chris and Lisa turned up, they grabbed a bite to eat and then went to stake a claim in the Radio 2 tent. Sure enough the tent was now rammed full of people standing where there was room and all the seated people couldn't see too well. Strangely, despite having sold an extra 500 tickets to Cambridge residents, no one seemed to have anticipated this situation, and there was no move to open up more of the sides of the tent so that more people could see. Anyway, Lisa could see nothing of Eliza Carthy and Martin Green, which was probably lucky. Sadly, I could hear them reinforcing all my prejudices against folk music. (Every cliche in the folk music book, apart from the finger-in-the-ear tuneless drone about a mining disaster.) Fortunately, in the break between them and Billy Bragg, (who we came to see) we were able to move further towards the front of the stage and get a decent view. Billy was excellent, although my irritation at his decision to sit down for his performance displayed itself in a shout of "Have a seat, Grandpa!" I don't think he appreciated that. But then, performers who sit down always irritate me for some reason. It's like they're not that bothered about the performance, I feel. Friday night I was meant to go on a tour of the Milton brewery but a combination of the beer on Thursday night, cake overdose at work (two people leaving and a birthday, all in my department), and some dodgy scampi at lunchtime, left me feeling somewhat nauseous so I decided not to risk it. Just as well, as I threw up copiuosly when I got home. Nice. Today, I will be mostly fixing up my "new" bike, which I bought off a colleague. He only wanted £10 quid for it, but I managed to argue him up to 20. Hold no, that's not right is it? D'Oh! Later, I'm going to see Men In Black II, so expect a Barry Norman-style review at some point tonight. In the meantime, if you're going out driving today - don't forget to take the car.
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