Chip's Place

Had rather an event-packed weekend. Nothing particularly exciting, just full.

Meal at the Olive Tree, which included discussions on practical and theoretical actuaries, whether I would prefer to receive a pay rise or the firstborn son of my boss (and if the latter, whether he'd taste of garlic, apricots or something else entirely), and how to maximise your bonus cashback when paying with American Express, prior to discovering that the "American Express - Open" sign in the window meant exactly what it said and nothing more, and that true to form, American Express was not accepted there.

Not quite understanding the new licensing laws yet - we went into the Terrier at 10.55, just for the novelty value, and it had stopped serving already!

Wandering round the St Nicholas fair in town, partaking of a venison burger and some roast chestnuts for lunch.

Offending a lady stood outside Borders' front door when I cracked up laughing to her face at my first sight of her. To be fair to me, she was handing out leaflets advertising Waterstones at the time.

Spending 2 hours trying to fix my dad's PC. I've not given up just yet, but I must be out of practice fixing broken things from using Linux too long and having it all "just work" - I'm still no nearer to knowing exactly what's wrong.

Puressence at Fibbers - not a lot needs saying, except they were as good as ever, with quite a lot of new(ish) material - there was also a rather novel re-working of one of their classics, a no-vocals version of India, after Jimmy's mike broke. Also a bonkers woman, who danced at me, then when I didn't go completely mad and dance back at her, walked on to dance at someone else - might have done so if I hadn't had a thick woolly coat on, given it was Sharpen Up The Knives, the 'Essence equivalent of "Smells Like Teen Spirit" for a mosh-friendly tune.

Suddenly reacquiring the use of my second bedroom, as we took all the cardboard boxes that've been piling up in there over the last 3 months to the tip.

Back to the fair, where I purchased some venison steak, and some chilli jam to tide me over till I receive the jar I'm owed for fixing Tom's wireless network (at least this one won't have been half-eaten by Helen before I get it).

Back home, to discover a very strong smell of gas. One of my neighbours (not, as you're probably aware, my favourite people as it is) had left the gas cooker on unlit (the man from British Gas thought it must have been on all day to build up so much gas), and was somewhat dismissive of me and one of my other neighbours thinking this was a bad idea - "You need to open up your windows" "But they're all locked for the winter" and "You could have caused an explosion" "Then I'd have been blown up, wouldn't I?" This is the second time in a month it's happened, and my ever-socially-minded neighbours are now openly discussing ringing his daughter with a view to getting him put in a home - I expect having their flats blown up might adversely affect the value of their properties.

Evening meal at 4, High Petergate, which was superb - definitely no let-down after wanting to go and eat there for best part of a year. Partridge and mango roll for starters, juniper-marinated venison with red cabbage and parsnips for main, and a mango cheesecake for dessert. One of the 3 best meals I've had in York (FWIW, the other two would be at Cafe Concerto and the Tasting Rooms), and the ambience is amazing too.

And finally back home once more, to spend half an hour fixing my printer that's been offline for a month (turned out just to be out of black ink!), so I can now decorate the flat with some of the much-better-than-mine photos I've seen of the Guy Fawkes Minster.

I definitely need to start my marathon training soon - I've eaten far too much this weekend!

posted by Chip : 23:26

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Pub Treasure Hunt XI took place this evening (although I'm not wholly certain about the numbering any more - I'm reasonably certain we're up to 12 or 13 by now).

It's been my second-favourite of all of them - the best being (oddly!) the one we were organising. Nothing to do with the pubs, the questions, or anything other than the company - it's just been a very very fun evening. A change is sometimes a whole lot better than a rest.

Beth with her ice hockey shoulder pads

Mick and his flashing groin

Jenny and Jen drawing eyes from all quarters

Cat taking 10 minutes out from talking to count Underground stations

Tom asking why we weren't colouring in any of the sudoku puzzle brown

Dean's arms being only as hairy as mine

Gareth. Just Gareth

Gavin, having initially intellectual discussions about the invention of zero, Roman numerals on watches and Mel Gibson's nationality, swiftly followed by him apologising for the disastrous failure of a project that's been running for 2 years despite his involvement having only begun in October, finishing it all off with an entirely warranted vitriolic attack on one of our colleagues

Martin taking a photo of "Christina Aguileira" and "Dot Cotton" "snogging"

Last night we went to the Swan for "Last Last Orders." As a non-drinker, I guess this whole change has really passed me by - it seems to be a big deal for most people, but I suspect the main impact it'll have on me is that there'll be a less clear-cut time for me to leave the pub and go home, I'll have to judge it based on how drunk everyone else is and how bored I am of them.

Afterwards I dropped in at Tom & Helen's place to fix their wireless network. I'd earlier in the evening (somewhat arrogantly) suggested that I could talk Tom through the changes over the phone and it'd take half an hour, or I could come round and do it myself in about 30 seconds. Turns out I'd overestimated by about 28 seconds! Plug in one wire, click the mouse ... done. He and Trevor B will now be competing for who can provide the most free internet access to his street, at least until he can sort the encryption out.

posted by Chip : 23:20

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All right, I shall...

The indescribably wonderful Kid Carpet was in town again this evening, and (given the quiz turned out to be off anyway, and the team ended up playing Countdown instead) I was extremely glad I decided to go and see if it was possible to cross the same river twice.

It was!

Highlights included "Hot Corners," where the Kid actually played Simon (the children's "follow the lights" game) on stage, the sun and rain song which included bonus weather symbols, "Green and Pleasant Land"'s cow sound, the two girls in front of us finding his performance (if possible) even funnier than Helen did, and of course his cover of Van Halen's Jump.

I still can't think of words to describe him, or his music. It's a shame that so few people (perhaps 40) came to see the show. It was quite clear that several of these had seen him before - we were all pissing ourselves laughing by about the fourth note he played - and there was a clear dividing line between us and the Carpet virgins who were still staring in abject disbelief by the end of the first song. He'd won them over by the third or so, though, and got everyone joining in providing cold wind sounds for "It's a Bit Windy, Love." How can anyone not love an artist whose songs include lyrics like "I got your love down the front of my shirt, I got your love - and there's a stain on your skirt," "White socks and 'taches make me slightly suspicious," and not forgetting the title of this very post?!

Little can (or should) be said about his support act, Napoleon III, except that he was rubbish, and really ought to have been called Rory McGrath II instead.
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Friday night was fun. It was Nick's birthday on Thursday, so we went out for a meal at Wetherspoons, who do a surprisingly good steak (rare in several senses), and then on for a brief pub crawl, comprising 5 different pubs, and a man who drinks faster than D-Something.

On to Saturday. After a less-than-enjoyable few hours in work wrestling with reassurance, I met up with Nick and Tara again near the Minster in time for the fireworks display to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Guy Fawkes' attempt to blow up the government. The Minster always looks good, but the past week it has been spectacular. It's been illuminated as part of the celebrations, and someone has gone to a great deal of trouble to match the lighting to the stonework. Sadly ,y photos are a little blurry, as I didn't have a tripod (and Nick's head is attached, ultimately, to only 2 legs), and 2-second exposures never work well otherwise!




One thing not quite so spectacular was the firework display itself. The council have been building it up for several weeks - it was to be at a secret location, but one where everyone within the city centre could see it. So, entirely expectedly, several thousand people descended on the Minster, it being one of the larger open spaces within the walls. Realising that it blocked out half of the sky, we decided to make our way down to the river as the fireworks were about to start. However, there were so many people there that we couldn't actually move.

As the fireworks started, everyone began to move down towards the Museum Gardens. It was pretty obvious the display was somewhere out to the west of the city, and that's the obvious place to go. The council, however, had other ideas. They appeared to have held them somewhere out by St Peter's School, which makes sense as Guy Fawkes attended it. It makes less sense as a place to let fireworks off if you want anyone in the city centre to see them though! While we did get to see some of the display, it wasn't easy, we missed about the first half of it and had to fight our way through crowds of people to get anywhere with a line of sight on it.
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