Something for the weekend, at the end of June 2011

Well, all I can say is that it started with a drunken discussion on "experiences" with Brad and Angelina, and ended up with me buying 4 tickets for Glastonbury.  This is our story.

We had planned this a long while back, and then a little while back we had to pre-register, which meant uploading a picture of ourselves, which was then validated by the validators, and that then entitled us to go and try and order tickets. 

The lines opened at 9am on Sunday, and we had 2 laptops and 1 phone on the go for several hours.  Brad and Angelina had visitors that weekend, so we did not ring until about 9.45am, to find they had just got up and had not even logged on (not quite true, but why let the truth get in the way of a good story).  Needless to say that a few words of encouragement and they were avidly chasing down a spare slot on the website.

We spent the first 2 hours being told on the phone, but that nasal woman who does the BT messages, that "your call could not be completed", and on the internet that we could not connect to the website. 

After 2 hours on the laptop, we finally refreshed to a message saying we were in a queue.  Every 20 seconds it refreshed.  After just over 1 hour, it finally showed an order screen.  A quick input of our respective registration numbers and 4 tickets were ours.  A quick call to Brad and Angelina and our day could start.

Wow.  We still have slight reservations about childcare, and also about my back sleeping on the floor, but now we have the tickets, we are genuinely excited.  I am already planning my micro-wardrobe which will be based around a pair of para boots and a German army sleeping bag, or a little cotton number with matching gaiters.  Probably.

What do you call the absence of anything?

The Scobi Wan Kenobi blog?  The janitor?  Could be.

I realise by my dwindling readership that I ain't blogging like I used to.  In fact I ain't blogging much at all.  So I thought I would write a blog and in the press of a key and the firing if a synapse, I can put right a wrong.  Now all I need to do is think of something to write about.

I am watching "My Family's Crazy Gap Year" where a family spends a year on a catamaran sailing round the world.  They are currently on a South Pacific Island, the precise name of which I have forgotten, but it is a pretty damn long way from anywhere.  Dad is currently snorkeling for lobster, and now the kids are playing with it like a toy.  And finally they have now caught what I thought was a Red Snapper, and are cooking it.  Having seen the trailer, I am pretty sure that the Brown's will be speeding to the coast real soon now.  Dad has tingling in most of his body, his throat is numb, he is getting hot and cold.  They have eaten a Paddle Tail, which can cause convulsions, vomiting and death.  Boy they is ill.  Cut to the adverts, so that we can return to hopefully a bit better news.  

You may have heard on the news, or read in the paper, that the optimum salary to earn is £50k.  Any less and you are allowed to be unhappy, any more and you will be unhappy, but feel deep down that you really should not be so unhappy coz you is loaded.  Hmm.  I was discussing with Brad and Angelina at the weekend about this principle and we concluded that Channel 4 should do a documentary experiment with us, giving us too much money to measure how truly unhappy we can become.  Now to really make this experiment work, I think we need to be given an obscene amount of money.  And it should be in Russian Rubles, provided via a bag switch manoeuvre at Euston Station.  I am going to ask Golfy tomorrow what he thinks.  

Which reminds me, I hope to go to the ITD Technical Conference tomorrow, maybe only for the afternoon depending on my work commitments, where I hope to see a number of people who I have not seen for a mighty long time.  Including Golfy.  And Stretch.  And maybe even someone else.  And if the day is going well, we may even go for a Ruby in the evening.  Result.

I shall bid you farewell for now, and hope to meet again very soon.

The Park at the Centre

Me and my family and my family's family spent a rather splendid time at a place that I shall not mention due to advertising limitations, but if you can read, and you can think, then the clue is in the title.

I have to say that we have a great time.  The service was absolutely fabulous, the accommodation was splendiforous and the experiences were vertiginous.  The latter is a reference to "The Treetop Challenge".  All I can say is that I was shamed by a four year old girl, several boys under ten and, to cap it all, my very own maggot spawn aged eight. 

The Treetop Challenge is pretty well named, although I have written on my feedback form the suggestion that it be re-named the "Why the #### am I in the Treetop Challenge" since I was absolutely petrified.  The single rope bit was just the most frightening thing I have done except for when I stupidly jumped out of a plane, but that is another story.  The final bit of "fun" was to be attached to a decending machine and told to jump off the platform from about 25 metres up, with the mechanism of the machine slowing you down as you neared the bottom, but not doing so much for you at the top, with the heavier you are meaning the faster you fall.  I did make a personal pledge to shed a few pounds, and I was also unable to stand up when I hit the ground, and "hit" is not too strong a word for it.  Nevertheless, I shall never be doing it again.

We are hoping to see Brad and Angelina next weekend, when I intend to share in very great detail the pleasures of the treetop, and also to get their view on the said holiday destination, since they are themselves fans of it.

Until next time.

Gherkins and quarters

This evening found me at the account quarterly meeting until nearly a quarter to eight, before adjourning to the Gherkin for drinks and nibbles.  I am obviously moving in different circles at the moment to experience such things, but needless to say I need not say less.

It was raining from my office to the meeting, from the meeting to the Gherkin and from the Gherkin to Bank tube station.  Whilst in France I did read about this rain thing, but there is nothing like experiencing it first hand to really understand that, once you have peeled back the glamour, it is basically just cold and wet.  If this is as much as a surprise to you as it was to me, then something or other.  Sorry, lost my train of thought there.  Where was I?  Squirrel.

I think I may go to sleep now.  Will get a few pages of the old novel in before I bid farewell to the day, and will hopefully not wake up until after 6am.

P.S.  Hello to Brad, hope you and Angelina are OK.