OK Rainbows
5:29 pm Monday, 22 October, 2007
It may well be bollocks but I’m quite enjoying Puddlegum’s suggestion of putting OK Computer and In Rainbows together.
Archive for October, 2007
There is no turning back, there is no turn
7:51 pm Sunday, 21 October, 2007
It’s Sunday evening and I feel like shit.
On Tuesday night KG, a friend of hers, my sister and I went to Water Rats in Kings Cross to see King Rat. It was always going to be an odd evening, we were there to play wingman/accompany KG’s friend as she took a look at a fella. The band were okay, the music was ok but the lead singer I didn’t think fit very well. Anyway it didn’t work out and we left fairly early on. KG and I went for a quick drink and I decided that I was in the mood for a bit of a walk and that I really wanted to buy the next book in the series I’m reading. So I walked down to Borders on Charing Cross Road (open till 11 6 nights!) and picked it up. It had been a odd day and indeed evening and so I was enjoying the walk but it was a little damp and I think that was when I picked up this cold. It’s been growing since then and really hit me on Saturday. The walk itself was good though, I enjoyed it. The soundtrack for it was Fur and Gold by Bat for Lashes which I’ve very much gotten into recently. Oh and I got my books so that’s good. Scroll down for more on that.
Anyway right so Wednesday was work drinks which was quite good. Lots going on and good to finally have a chance to catch up with some people I hadn’t seen in a while. I had some holidays to use up so I was off Thursday and Friday. This meant a nice lie in the morning after and then a little while assembling some furniture. All good. Then off into town for McKitten’s Suburban Glamour signing and of course drinks afterwards. Lots of people out for the evening but wasn’t really in the right mood and I didn’t stay too late, I suspect I left around 9.30 or so.
More sleeping in on Friday before assembling some more furniture and stocking most of what had been put together before going into town for the night out with KG. We had a nice dinner in Kettners before heading around to the Gielgud theatre where KG had gotten us third row tickets for Macbeth as it was my birthday. The play was amazing. I know that I’ve not seen a massive amount of shows but it was miles above anything I’d ever seen before in every single way. The cast were truly astounding, it’s sometimes easy to forget that Patrick Stewart is such a great actor or to dismiss him for the genre work he’s so famous for but he’s a long time stage and in particular Shakespearean actor. I have seen him on stage before in Mamet’s A Life In The Theatre in which he was excellent but in this he’s truly phenomenal. The rest of the cast by the way are almost without exception fantastic, in particular Kate Fleetwood as Lady Macbeth and Michael Feast as Macduff. Wonderful stuff all around. Of particular note is the scene at the banquet when Macbeth see’s the ghost of Banquo. This is acted out twice for us, once going into the interval and then again straight after. Once the scene is shown from Macbeth’s viewpoint and the second from the others present. It’s a powerful piece of work. Anyway I cannot recommend it highly enough. It’s had five star reviews all over the place and I strongly urge you to see it if you have the chance.
I must, must, must get into the habit of seeing more theatre. I have several plays booked over the next few weeks and I need to keep that going. Though I doubt that I will see anything as good as that performance was again.
We’ll skip the part about then getting home and waiting for my sister to get home from her slightly drunken adventures at Disney on Ice and move straight ahead to Saturday morning. It was fairly lazy, I was starting to feel a lot worse by then but It wasn’t so bad because I was pleased to have made it through Friday night without coughing or wheezing the entire time. So after a quick run out for some fresh croissants, I cooked breakfast and then we went out for a walk on Hampstead Heath which was lovely. It was quite a nice day and I was pleased with some of the photos.
Saturday evening, well I was feeling a little better and knowing that Neil, Doug, Alasdair and Jamie were all heading to Derek’s party and that it was pretty much just down the road I figured I’d stop by for a little while. A little while turning out to be from eight thirty until two am. Oops. I was mainly sober for the evening, I wasn’t in the mood for massive amounts of drinking with my cold and stuck to vodka and cokes. Though thinking back, there may have been quite a few of them. I successfully avoided tequila which was good. Odd evening really. Lots of drama going on all over the place it seems, at times I thought it might even end with blows. Luckily it did not though everytime I though the evening was going to be sensibly called a night, someone would always change their mind and go to the bar. So not a bad evening, just odd, exceptionally odd really.
Today I have mainly stacked shelves and vegged. I have emptied all of my book boxes onto shelves and all of my dvd boxes. I look forward to getting time to sort them properly soon. I have also watched a huge amount of stuff! House season 4 is entertaining, it’s nice to see some changes to the status quo and I really like the group of applicants house is fucking with. Heroes is hugely disappointing. I do keep reminding myself that I turned off the second episode of the first season in disgust and only went back because so many people talked of the noticeable increase in quality from the end of episode four. As I recall the first two were terrible, the third was okay and the fourth was pretty bad until the first “holy shit” moment when future Hiro arrives. Then with only a couple of missteps the rest of the season was awesome. I’m really hoping for something like that soon in season two. It’s really odd how season one was at it’s best when Hiro or Peter was on screen and without spoiling at, when neither appear in episode 4 of season 2, it’s quite a relief. I’ll give it a another few and see how it does.
I’m almost up to date with Weeds now too. I have one more left to watch. It’s kinda all over the place. It’s a shadow of it’s season 1 self but it’s still a bit funny and Mary-Louise Parker is always always watchable. So I’ll watch that next with some toast and some hot chocolate. I really should go out to Tesco for some nice hot chocolate but I just don’t feel up to it.
Oh yes I had no idea that volume II of Absolute Sandman is out already. I wasn’t expecting it for another few weeks. I have huge objections to paying £65 for the Titan edition that FP want for it when it’s an entire $62 for the proper edition on Amazon.com. To be fair Amazon.co.uk do have it for £46 but again, the Titan edition. I’m trying to figure out if it’ll get through customs or how much I’d be charged if it doesn’t. Not sure how that works for books. I really want it though, and I want it now, the first one is absolutely beautiful. It’s kinda moot point though, I’m pretty much skint till payday. The deposit for the last flat still hasn’t come back and so I’m down a large chunk of change for longer than I expected. I really really don’t want to go into my overdraft but seen as I’m in need of a quiet enough week till then it should be all okay.
Oh, don’t know if I have mentioned it but I’m going to Dublin at the end of the month. I’ll be around for 4 days seeing family and friends. Not entirely sure which friends, been having an odd relationship with one of them for a while now, something seemed to go odd just before I went to the US and now I’m not getting replies to texts or emails. It could just be busyness, in fact it probably is but I shall make a call this week to see what I can find out and hopefully meet up. That would be good, I’d like to clear that up if needs be.
So I mentioned books above. Last week I was in need of a book for a journey home and I was totally in the mood for sci-fi and *only* for sci-fi. I spent the guts of an hour in Borders on Oxford Street looking for something and nothing caught my fancy. I eventually decided that because of the recent updates to trade covers for Gollancz novels that I’d given Dan Simmon’s Hyperion a try. It had never really caught me before but I was desperate at this stage. And well it was excellent, it was one of the most enjoyable reads I’ve had in quite a while. So finding out that there were now 4 books that make up the Hyperion Cantos, I have been acquiring them and I’m coming to the end of the third book. Surprisingly there has been no drop off in quality yet and I’m enjoying the hell out of the series. So that’s pretty good.
I guess that’s where I am at the moment. I have no idea now if I’ll go to work tomorrow. Sitting here no, I don’t think I’ll be in but I’m hoping that a long sleep and lots of calpol will help…though it didn’t last night and I feel so much worse now.
Right, some food and some tv. Thanks to all for birthday wishes.
Sleeping is giving in…
2:46 am Sunday, 21 October, 2007
Christ all-fucking mighty.
All right, it’s just gone 2.30 and I’ve just got home. I am amazingly sober given this evening. I am however all over the place. I’m so tired and I’ve been almost getting a cold for the past few days and it’s taking it out of me.
I’m so behind, I’ve not managed to do most of the things I wanted to get done and I need to spend some time tomorrow sorting out my flat. I suspect, and indeed hope, that I’ll get to sleep very late before I get to all of that.
This coming week I am out for three nights. I’d quite like to keep it to that and to actually have some time to catchup with myself. It’s all been go recently and it’s wearing me down a little. Tomorrow I should type some more, I don’t want to know because to be blunt I’m again way more aware of my audience and I want to make sure I’m coming across the way that I intend.
Now some calpol and with any luck 12-16 hours straight sleeping.
They don’t know where and they don’t know when
2:03 pm Tuesday, 16 October, 2007
I had a shit Monday, possibly for no reason other than it was Monday. I went to the pub after work with Nick as it was a) a shit
Monday and b) we hadn’t caught up in some time.
Aside from reminiscing about times past, we went to the Baconsfield for the first time since my going to America drinks and we of course bitched talked about work for a while
He pointed out to me that if I wanted to, I could go back and live in America for a little while. Maybe 6 months or so totally legally on my visa.
I must admit that I find the idea quite appealing. If I were to get an apartment for even 60 days in somewhere like San Francisco and just chill and enjoy myself, I could probably afford it on my stock options alone. Read some books, take some photos and just take it easy.
I have all the paperwork I need to get setup there. I couldn’t work of course but I could use it as a base for some travel. Get to LA, get to Mexico, hell get up to Seattle and all the places I never made it. I’d be totally free to travel at any time and go for cheap flights or trains and stuff like that.
The thought hadn’t even crossed my mind, hell I could even head back to DC for a week or so and catch up with friends there (though given the news of today, there might not be so many of them left now).
I mean fuck it, I could live in three cities for a month for only a few thousand dollars and lets face it, with the dollar the way it is at the moment that’s barely going to dent my bank account.
Man oh man.
Of course packing up and leaving London isn’t so easy these days, there is a lot more to consider across every area of my life but damn if I’m not sat here daydreaming.
11:26 am Monday, 15 October, 2007
The difference between the almost right word & the right word is really a large matter–it’s the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.
Mark Twain
I must confess, I’d like to be caught stealing
12:38 am Sunday, 14 October, 2007
You know that I would love to see ya next year, I hope that I’m still alive next year.
*yawn* I need sleep.
Remind me about the lightning bug tomorrow.