I know, I know, three bloody weeks. Hardly Samuel Pepys, am I? I wanted to do an entry at the end of Week 8, but I went to see Natalie on Thursday night, then Friday morning was off to Bournemouth with no internet access (so little point in taking the laptop). Anyway, I'm here now.
As you can see from the small-but-beautiful image above, the previous three weeks have included one of my gratis-days, where I get a brief escape from my self-imposed alco-exile.
There was a distinct possibility of slapping two into the previous weekend, as Mr Reed was accompanying me to Natalie Imbruglia's warm-up gig at the Zodiac in Oxford. As one of the three escape-days happens to be his imminent birthday, and as I won't be in Broadstairs for his birthday, he'd suggested using the Nat gig as an alcoholic celebration.
As it turns out, he drove there and back, so there was no alcohol to be had. He'd said "well, we could have one pint?", but I pointed out that if I was to use up one of my precious gratis-days, it wasn't going to be for one fucking pint of lager. The bar at the Zodiac isn't even that good. It would also have meant having two days in very close proximity, as one was scheduled for Bournemouth. Not so much a problem in itself, but I'd then have to go booze-free from the 10th August to the 27th September; and that might be too much for my fragile soul to bear.
So yeah, Natalie did a fine show. The set was a little on the short side, but it was a warm-up for the V Festival, and those sets always are. It took her voice three or four songs to warm up, and unfortunately Torn was within that bracket, but once she'd played that, most of the dickheads surrounding us no longer had a need to be at the front, which made the rest of the set more relaxed for others like me. By "like me", I am of course referring to the fact that I can't fucking stand people. Individuals can be okay, but crowds of baying morons, pissed, sweating and brushing against me just pisses me off. Especially when I'm on the diet coke.
Anyway, can't complain. Had a great night, and was reminded how obnoxious drunk people can be, which made me feel superior for not being one of them. (It didn't, it made be want to be one of them.)
+++++
Next up was Bournemouth. Had a really nice short-weekend there last year, so we went down for a long-one this year. The weather held up again, so I was out in the sea on Saturday and Sunday, proving to myself that my swimming skills are practically non-existent. And as much as I may look in the mirror and grumble about my beer-belly (which is inexplicably still there), I was able to look around the beach and realise that I'm actually quite a skinny bastard. Compared to some of those sights anyway. Christ. After witnessing various things which should not be squeezed into lycra and paraded in public, I needed that well deserved drink...
Beautiful. No, not my sunburned face (although certainly the wisely-kept-in-the-shade, face of my fianceé), more the several bottles of Newcastle Brown which I imbibed on Saturday night. I say several because I can't remember if it was five or six. To be fair, I was worryingly un-pissed after those. I could certainly feel I'd been drinking, but I wasn't falling over and being sick. This proves to me that I hadn't built up the alcoholic's resistance to drink that people go on about, but that I'm just hard as nails when it comes to The Brown.
We also got a free bottle of Magners from their promo people doing the rounds of the pubs. The young lady came over to our table and asked "Would you like a free taste of Magners this evening?". Being the suspicious cynic that I am, I replied "No, I'm fine thanks", thinking it would be a thimble-sized glass from the bottle she had with her.
Our lass, on the other hand, was more quick thinking and responded "Oh, I will, thanks", upon which the lady with the tray left us with the full bottle and a pint glass. Fucking result! Our lass doesn't even drink cider, so guess who had to polish that one off?
While I wouldn't class myself as "pissed" that night (although I almost certainly was drunk in dictionary-terms), what I did experience was that immense wave of relaxation that I've been missing for so many weeks. I didn't care about all of the pissed dickheads in the pub that night, and any trace of a hangover that may have been around on Sunday morning was very quickly relegated after the fried breakfast at the hotel we were staying in. We had a great weekend, and it was good to be away from everything (even without any internet to distract me), with gorgeous weather for a few days.
Drink is good for you. The next six weeks aren't going to be easy.
Still, other amusing things I saw in Bournemouth:
The brass band was playing in the park, with people sitting in deckchairs and listening happily or snoozing away. This old lady, however, was going to spoil everything by stumbling to her feet, groaning, then biting the closest people to her; thus precipitating the zombie-plague of Bournemouth '09. Just think of all that un-guarded flesh on the beach, they'd have a fucking field-day!
Seriously though, who sleeps like that? My fianceé actually went and checked she was breathing. I wasn't going to do it; that's when their eyes snap open and they bite you...
Taken at horribly lo-res because I wanted to send it from my phone without sapping my bandwidth. Here we have the cheekiest tramp in Bournemouth. He looks trampy enough, with old, weathered clothes, sun-baked skin and yellow (which should be white) hair. So the fact that he's pushing a brand-new mountain bike, complete with pristine messenger-bag on the back, clearly makes him a thieving bastard. He was walking quite leisurely with the bike, perhaps so's not to draw too much attention to himself as he left the promenade and headed for the town centre. Although in doing this, he was leaving himself more prone to the legitimate owner of the vehicle finding him and battering him to death with the record-bag.
Bournemouth didn't seem to have a high tramp-population, but the ones that were there, were proper old-school tramps!
+++++
And that's about it really. The week since we got back from Bournemouth has been relatively event-free, although I've just moved over from the agency I've been working for, directly to the company themselves. I'm still a temp, but I'm in a better position than I was. Nothing more to report.
I'll be back in a few days with another crazy idea or theory which makes you wonder if I actually am still drinking...
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organizations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
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