Birthday Party

Last night I was watching an episode from the latest season of Peep Show. I've got every episode of Peep Show so far on DVD, and I've watched them all many times. It's a British sitcom that debuted in 2003 and deals with two flatmates Mark Corrigan (played by David Mitchell) an uptight loan manager whose main interests in life are women, work and history, and Jeremy Usborne (Robert Webb) an unemployed, would-be musician, whose main interests are drugs and women. The show revolves around them and their friends and relations, but pretty much everything in the show is filmed from the point of view of the characters in the scene, and the secret, innermost thoughts of the two main characters are revealed in voice-over. It's a really clever show and very funny.

Today was another quiet day at work. I don't know where I'll be working next week, whether I'll stay in the old section or be back in the regular section. No-one has said yet.

I got home and then I went out to the 50th birthday party for Maggi (who works at my table in my regular office) at the Limelite bar. I had about three pints of beer. It's been months since I last went out for a drink. It was that weird thing where there was no-one there that I really knew, but a lot of people who I vaguely knew by sight around the office. It wasn't really a good party, because there weren't many people there I could talk to, everyone was totally drunk, and I was feeling really tense, still it was good to get out for a bit. I got a taxi home.

I'm really getting back into using Twitter again. Of course, when I'm in Amsterdam, that will be pretty much how I'll be doing my blogging.

A Birthday Party

Last night I went along to my friend Alice's birthday party. It was originally planned to be a barbecue but, due to the heavy rainfall, the barbecue was cancelled and the party was held in her flat. The party was fairly busy, because apparently there were at least six people staying there. Alice is backpacking from Australia and so she lives with a number of other backpackers in the flat. The barbecue ended up being cooked inside and so we had some burgers and sausages. It was quite nice. I left after about three hours. The only person that I knew there was Alice, so I was quite uncomfortable. I always am when I am with groups of people that I don't know. I tend to get extremely nervous and kind of clam up.

I was back at work today. It was really quiet in the office today. There was no word about how the strike went, but then it is a bit too early for that. I had just arrived home after work when I had a phone call from my Mum saying that we were going out for dinner at a new fish restaurant at the other end of my street. I had about an hour before we were scheduled to meet and so I watched yesterday's episode of Mock the Week, which was very funny.

When I arrived at the resturant, Mum said that there weren't any tables available an so we went to an Italian resturant called La Favorita. I had garlic bread with mozarella to start and then a seafood pizza along with a hot chocolate sauce mashmallow sundae. It was a really nice meal.

Yesterday's strike was about a pay dispute. Basically, every year we are supposed to get a cost of living raise, but it has now been set way below the rate of inflation meaning that we are, to all intents and purposes, getting a pay cut. Basically, the Union just want a raise that is in line with the rate of inflation, so that we can maintain our standards of living.

Quiet Friday

Last night was pretty quiet. I didn't really watch anything on TV at all, except for a couple of repeats of Blackadder episodes, which I had seen many times before, but were still quite funny.

Work was it's usual Friday afternoon dead zone. Almost everyone leaves early on Friday. Next Friday there will probably be hardly anyone in after around lunchtime (because it's the last Friday before Christmas and a lot of people will be starting their holidays). I'm planning to leave early next Friday, though. A lot of people were going on their Christmas night out to the bowling club in Musselburgh again tonight. I don't know why it's so popular this year. Apparently it's because the owner is the cousin of someone who works in our building and so they managed to get a deal. I remember they first started talking about it in March, and the first e-mails about it were sent round in September, so at least they don't leave it till the last minute.

Drinks After Work

I went out with my friend Joe after work for a couple of drinks, that was nice. Although his brother came up to us to talk to Joe about his X-Box for about half an hour. On my way home I bought a fish supper for my dinner, which was very nice.

It seems to be that Joe's birthday party is on Saturday night, which is good because I should be able to go to the book group drink thing on Friday night and meet them before I buy the book and read it.

Start of the Week

Last night was pretty quiet. I had planned to watch the film Factotum on TV. It's an adaptation of a novel by Charles Bukowski, and I'd wanted to see it for a while, but when I tuned in there was something wrong with the picture, which rendered it unwatchable. However, it's on every day this week, so I'll try again tonight, and hopefully, it'll be better.

It was a quiet day at work, and very dull as usual. Apparently after I had left on Saturday night, the rest of the group had gone to a really bad house party. From what I heard, I'm actually quite glad I left when I did.

Party!

It was certainly a late night last night! I watched Doctor Who which was a good episode involving the Daleks in 1930s New York.

After that I headed out for Jackie's 21st birthday party. We met at Frankenstein's, which is basically a Frankenstein-theme bar. I think it used to be an old church or something and inside it's decorated like a haunted castle covered with posters of old Frankenstein films and at around nine o'clock they turn down the lights, play this loud clap of thunder and start some scary music and a model of Frankenstein's monster is lowered down on a kind of metal bed, where it sits up, looks around and is winched up to the ceiling again. It's quite fun. Jackie came with Joe, her boyfriend. My friend Alan, from work, was there with his girlfriend, Rosie. I think there were about ten or twelve other people there, who I didn't know at all, except for a couple who I'd met briefly once or twice before. I had a couple of pints of beer, and Joe bought a bottle of champagne, and so I had a glass of that. After Frankenstein's we went to a place called Bar Kohl, which I had never been to before, and seemed nice enough, but very crowded (which was only to be expected on a Saturday night) and I had a pint of beer there and a shot of some green liquid called an Apple Sour, and true to it's name, tasted like sour apple juice. Jackie and most of the rest of the party vanished, and Joe, Alan, Rosie and myself were left to make our own way, because Joe wanted to find a friend of his in another bar, but in the end couldn't find him. We ended up in a bar called Siglos were we met up with the others and I had a couple more pints of beer. I went home before a lot of the others did, because I thought I had really drunk enough, and got home at around half past two in the morning.

I woke up at around eleven, with quite a hangover. I went round to my parent's house for my lunch, as usual for a Sunday. Lunch today was roast chicken, peas with small onions in them, baked potato, and chopped strawberries in cream, with some cherry brandy over them. It was a nice time, actually, and the latest issue of Sight and Sound had arrived during the week. with a free poster of El Topo, a very surreal and violent Western from the 1960s, which is being released on DVD.