Month: April 2005

Off the grid (as those wacky kids like to say) until Tuesday.

Dublin 🙂

I’m shattered this morning. I didn’t sleep very well last night and I’ve been awake since shortly after 6. I ended up reading before I got out of bed and coming into work early. Only a few minutes mind you but early.

It was a hectic weekend. Friday night was the long service party. It was a long long evening and is already the stuff of legend. Everyone was at the hotel, changed and in the bar by around 5.30. Then we were met with a champagne reception and bloody tequila cocktails before dinner and much drinking the night away. We carried on in the hotel bar until sometime close to 6. There were so many tender people wandering around for breakfast the next morning. Home around 12.30 whereby I promptly went to bed until about 6.30.

Then it was a shower and out to Doug’s birthday which got very silly later in the evening and I got home around 2am. Yay.

Sunday was quiet. Lots of CoH and some comic reading.

So so tired this morning. I could just sleep for hours.

…some things and some people never ever change.

Got home around 1pm today. Went to bed. I have a birthday party to head out to later tonight.

So tired.

Such a good night last night.

The past is a ghost, the future a phantom, now is the only reality.
Change is never a loss, it is change only.

Hmmm

5 Year Long Service party at The Brewery in London last night.

A whole lot of tender people this evening. The night is already the stuff of legend. Gotta clean up my photos and get the up here later tonight.

This has been sitting in draft for a day and I’m not sure I can or want to revist it so “Publish Post” it is.

Change.

It’s a recurring theme these days, it seems to crop up in particular when I’m talking to people from back in the day in Dublin. Perhaps it’s natural, it’s maybe a good point of view on how things are now and how things were then. It’s all through tainted glasses I think. Everything that I can look back on then can’t be seen without the past few years adding onto that view too. It’s strange.

It’s sometimes annoying too. Nothing to do with the conversation that lead to this but in another case, it can’t always be about looking back and it perhaps has been too much. Sometimes we need to look at the here and the now and the going forward. The past, the past that we tend to talk about is in many cases so irrelevant to the present, to who we are now, to what we do now and to what we can do now. Sure some of it shaped us either in a good way or as an obstacle to overcome and perhaps where we stand now is an indictment of where we stood then.

At the same time, it’s a common experience and a common thread that can bind us together and give us something to always fall back on during those moments before the late night where the cards go down onto the table. It’s a safety net, and a stepladder at the same time. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but surely it would be better to strive beyond the both of these?

I feel this will be an issue within the next week and as the last time I’m going to try and not let it be but the best intentions and all that.

So there is a new pope, and he’s anti-everything except perhaps Nazis. Hurrah, well done that Catholic church. Ok so the Nazi thing is just a sensational reaction to what does sound to have been a minor and very compulsory role but nevertheless having someone elected to the highest position in such an organisation who lists Hitler Youth on their CV….man oh man. The only thing I see coming from this is a push to the more liberal catholics to move out. It’s a bit like the US elections where the core right wing conservatives dominate at the expense of the rest of the country and indeed world.

Last night I went to see the Manic Street Preachers in Hammersmith Apollo. I picked up tickets for cheap on ebay and figured it should be a good night. And it was, it was an excellent gig. A really good set with something from everything over the years. A loud loud opening with Found That Soul and
A Design For Life. The sound was excellent, one of the best I’ve heard. I was somewhat worried as the sound for the support was piss poor but it was all fine. Speaking of the support, The Delays were allright. I saw them sometime last year at a work party and they weren’t very good. I really like one of their songs; Long Time Coming and they did that so it was all good.

Last week, I saw British Sea Power out at the Forum and they were excellent. Really really excellent. An absolute little gem of a band. The new album; Open Season is good solid fun. A little more poppy and certainly more assessable than the debut album, it should do them well. More than worth seeing at a festival near you this year. Nice to be able to walk home from a gig too. Missed the support on that one. Due to a rather shit day in the office, lots of people were in the pub and so I joined them for a little while.

Lots coming up at the end of the week. Friday night is a work party and from the sounds of it quite a decent one. It’s to celebrate those of us who have worked here for more than 5 years. We are being taken out for a dinner and drinks evening and in a nice turn around instead of getting a tacky gift of some sort, we got a catalogue and an allowance and were allowed to pick what we wanted. A decent enough choice too but of course nothing major jumped out at me. So very domestic, I picked a microwave and a semi-decent coffee maker for the kitchen. So not too exciting but things that I would have someday bought anyway. The party is smart dress but there is quite a buzz around it and a whole lot of people making an effort so I *have* to remember to drop my suit off for dry-cleaning tomorrow. It should be fun. It’s also an all-nighter with a nice hotel and late night bar thrown in. I fear for the state of me when I make it to Doug’s birthday drinks on Saturday. It could be an interesting evening…

I’m looking forward to next week a whole lot. On Wednesday evening I’m off to Dublin for a long weekend. I have to see some family of course and the Thursday is my mothers graduation so I’m off to that. Then as it’s a bank holiday weekend, I suspect there will be a lot of out and abouting. Nothing actually planned out yet, I’m looking forward to taking it easy for a few.

This past weekend didn’t start off so easy. Friday night down the pub turned into a little bit of a nightmare with arguments going all night. There was already a lot of tension in place and some effort was made to calm this fairly successfully. Then a draw of sambuca arrived and it was like petrol thrown onto a fire. There was even storming out of the pub by around 10pm. Not so fun.

Saturday morning was hungover of course. The afternoon was then spent out at Kew Gardens wandering around and taking some photos. A good afternoon with some of the photos even coming out quite well.

Sunday, well on Sunday I got sunburnt. I was reading out on Primrose Hill for about 90 minutes and both my arms are burnt. Not badly, but enough that they itch.

Work is varying between quiet and hectic depending on the time of day it seems. I was working late and coming in early last week to get stuff done and now I’m sitting around without much to do. I really wish there was some sort of balance to it.

I’m doing some product management work at the moment. It’s a big change from what I usually do and it’s pretty interesting. It’s dealing with more process and more people than I’m familiar with and it’s opening up a lot of things there. It’s also come with a huge amount of pressure. So far it’s all going fine, in fact it’s even going well, I’m just waiting for someone to realise that I’m tottering on the edge and push me over. Now that I have to actually get some costs and time frames around things that I either don’t have a clue or at best have a poor estimate, it gets really interesting. I seem to have become the de facto lead on the whole thing which is bringing in both good and bad things.

In the early 90’s there was a woman murdered fairly close to where I lived in Dublin. By fairly close, I walked past the house twice a day to get to and from school. There was a big thing at the time of course. Murders were a whole lot rarer in Dublin back then, especially out that far on the Northside. As I recall from the time, it was her husband who was generally thought to have done it. However he was released and no-one was ever charged. I’ve been reading Bandit Country: The IRA and South Armagh and I was astounded to discover this murder is mentioned in it and says that her husband was conclusively cleared by the cops and the he claims it was the IRA and names some very high up members (claimed members of course). I emailed my parents to ask them if they had heard anything along those lines and apparently there was a whole lot more talked about at the time but not reported anywhere. Interesting.

Kew Gardens this afternoon. Arrived at the Lily pond just in time to catch a good 5 minute display by this peacock. Spectacular to see him in action and the sound the feathers make and the movements when shaken were amazing. A fun day. Lots more photos in the Flickr set for it.

So I went out tonight with the intent to put out some fires on bridges.

I think it may have ended with an inferno 🙁