5.45 start

I woke up at 5.45 this morning, in order to get to work for 7.00. It was too early, and it felt it. Karma Police was the first tune that came up on my shuffled playlist. As I listened, I fell in love again with the drumming in the song. In the verses it's so simple, so devoid of frills or fills, so "boom-tish, boom-boom-tish," then virtually absent in the choruses, until one moment of brilliant thunking before the coda / refrain...

Karma police, arrest this man
He talks in maths
He buzzes like a fridge
He's like a detuned radio

Karma police, arrest this girl
Her Hitler hairdo is
Making me feel ill
And we have crashed her party

This is what you'll get
This is what you'll get
This is what you'll get when you mess with us

Karma Police
I've given all I can
It's not enough
I've given all I can
But we're still on the payroll

This is what you'll get
This is what you'll get
This is what you'll get when you mess with us

here's the energetic drum fill

And for a minute there, I lost myself, I lost myself
Phew, for a minute there, I lost myself, I lost myself

For for a minute there, I lost myself, I lost myself
Phew, for a minute there, I lost myself, I lost myself

...and then really simple again until the end. It's as if the last few words, about losing oneself, refer to the drumming breaking out of the rhythm that had been established all through the song. It's beautiful. As the song drew to a close, the bus pulled into Fallowfield and disturbed a flock of gulls. I was upstairs, at the very front, and saw the dirty white birds scatter up in every direction before me, like sheets of paper thrown out of an upstairs window.

I got to Old Trafford cricket club for the DVD launch, and was pleased to find out that our conference room looked out onto the pitch. Well, until I saw it...





The last time I was there it looked really different. It was like looking at the surface of the moon.

The sexy bit that wasn't there

I went to the Manchester Museum to check out the dinosaurs, and to pick up the tickets for the up-close and personal Mark Morris gig there. It was cool. I saw...











Afterwards, I went to see Liz. I chatted to Pervy a bit whilst Liz got herself a drink. He was banging on about famous filmette Scarlett Johannson, and how hot he thinks she is. Blah blah Pervy blah! The film we hired from Blockbuster didn't work, so I found a old Lovefilm disc that I hadn't watched, and we put that on instead. The Man Who Wasn't There. Brilliant. What an excellent film. I love Billy Bob especially, who does nothing at all and everything he needs to. Perfect.

Well, almost perfect. The DVD skipped from near the end of one chapter to the start of the next. It wasn't for very long, it seemed, as the narrative flow wasn't much affected, if at all. Later on, I read a plot summary of the film to see what happened. We'd missed a sexy bit. With guess who...? Only Scarlett Jo-fucking-hannson. Gutted.

Cool is...

...an xkcd t-shirt.

Blasphemy is...

...I think I'm going to buy it.

Temptation is...

NTF

'Tis the season...

As I said....

Lost garland

Work's opposite a massive student nightclub. It's that first week of Uni, where wide eyed kids roam the streets in fearful awe of their new surroundings. They're very easy to spot - when they cross the road, they seem to look for longer in both directions before stepping out because they're drinking in the view for the first time.

This garland was on the floor as I arrived around 8 this morning. I wonder who'd worn it. What was their name? How did their mother was feel about them being at university? Why had they tossed it aside?

Or was it just dropped?

Long day

I'm ill

Yuck! So I made chicken soup. About a gallon of it. Yum!

UPDATE: By 23:33, I'd eaten FOUR bowls of the stuff. That should shift the sniffly bastard!

The last day of summer

This tree is outside my bedroom window. It will turn a glorious crimson as the autumn progresses, as it did last year. Poor Liz is very ill. Sickness and a minging headache. Bless her, she still drove me to Chorlton to see Kate and Dunk. What a trooper! We went to the brilliant Pi and had an excellent evening. I enjoyed my first ever Pieminister pie, and a few pints of the most wonderful, light, summer ale, a Blueberry Bitter. We sat outside in the fading sunshine, and chatted. Kate had also taken a photo of the tree outside her bedroom window as its leaves began to turn. What a funny coincidence.

Run #1

2.2 miles. I kept the pace steady and slow, and it felt good all the way round. I was glad to come to the end of Oak Road, but at the same time I thought that I could have probably pushed myself a bit harder. My next free day for training is Monday, then it's Thursday. I think I'll do the same route again next time - I can always turn left at the Golden Lion and head up Ballbrook Road if I want to add on a little bit. I wish I'd timed myself!

Chorlton water park is 30 years old, I'm 28*

I stumbled across this today.

The Friends of Chorlton Water Park have been working alongside Mersey Valley Warden Service to organise an event to clebrate 30 years of Chorlton Water Park, on the 21st September starting at 10am till 3pm.

Chorlton Water Park stands on what was the site of Barlow Hall Farm. Up until the 1950s the farmer flooded the field to increase the fertility of the land. He recalled that ‘the sluice gates were never opened for the first flood as this brought down the rubbish: the second flood brought down rich mud’.

Gravel was excavated from the site and used in the construction of the M60 motorway in the 1970s. The gravel pit was subsequently flooded; creating the lake that is central to the Water Park today.

Chorlton Water Park is a Local Nature Reserve. It is also a holder of the Civic Trust’s Green Flag Award - recognising the high standard of environmental value
and community involvement- and the UK Man and the Biosphere Urban Wildlife Award for Excellence. It has also been awarded the Green Flag award for the past 4 years!

To mark this day we have organised the event to include: A display to show the history of the Water park, alongside people's memories. Also caneoing, face painting, Arts & crafts, tombola, hair braiding, games, Samba performance by Cavendish Rd Primary School children (12pm), Hot food and beverages and various stalls from jewelrey to recycling.

I really liked the look of canoeing, but it seemed like the rest of the world did too - the queue was vast. Some other time maybe.

*I'm 28-and-a-half, actually.

Healthy, not healthy

How to celebrate Liz completing her 10k run in 1hr 2min? With lots of booze in the Metropolitan garden, with Pervy and Lu, with Steve, Chubb and Paul, with a bolognese. Lovely!

Assault course, bowling green

It has been a strange week with Liz and I. Her work's been very busy, both her day-to-day tasks and the course she's doing as part of her job, and she's been training for a 10K run too. We'd hardly seen each other all week, so I was really glad when she suggested we walk home from work together. Liz had met up with her ex Alex last weekend, whilst I was was in Wellingborough, but we hadn't had a chance to talk about it. When I asked how seeing him had gone, we ended up having quite a difficult conversation about us. I felt pretty rough at some points whilst we were talking, but everything Liz said about how she felt made perfect sense. Her heart has enormous complications to negotiate, an assault course of emotions. Mine has a bowling green.

Liz called later on, and we laughed and joked on the phone. I felt massively relieved, and glad that we'd spoken in the way that we had.

This is what a selection of chocolate looks like

Look on my works, ye Pervy, and DESPAIR!

Work window

My office is ugly, but the light through this window makes some afternoons beautiful.

Cranes in action

I could watch them for hours.

Why? (pt4)

Why don't they make this t-shirt in my size? Grrr! Kids with cooler clothes than me... *snarls*

Why? (pt3)

Why didn't I read the sign when I ate this not-got-any-cheese-in-it-really cheesecake? It was tasty nonetheless, but not as creamy as I'd hoped for. Hmmm.

Why? (pt2)

Why would anybody throw out a double recliner sofa like this beauty? Saddens the heart, eh?

Why? (pt1)

Why would anybody want a gold chain on their trainers? Imagine how much playing football would hurt! Bling stinks.

Caroline isn't pregnant anymore

Izzy-Ella was born at 12.45, lunchtime, today. She weighed 7lb 8oz, and was 53cm long. I'm an uncle again! Finally! Hooray!

Siemens S45

I found this old phone when I was re-arranging my room and sorting through some junk. It was my first good phone, and it brought back some great memories. I got it from my friend Nick after I lost my phone in the interval bar garden. We'd been to Bed to see some house DJ. I remember the remix of 'Clocks' by Coldplay that they played three times.



I remember texting Rigby with it for the whole of the time we went out. I remember some of her delicious texts I'd saved to it so that I could read them again and again and again. I remember the day that it finally stopped working, about two weeks after Rigby and I broke up. I really loved her. And she loved me. It was a good time. It was a good phone.

Caroline is still pregnant

Caroline is still waiting for the baby to arrive, and getting more than a little bored doing so. We met in the morning, and spent an hour or so pootling around Wellingborough. Nothing's really changed, but everywhere is a little different. Different benches outside HMV, but in the same place as the other benches were. The same brown and white hexagonal tiles that have been there since the 1970s, and with probabbly still be there in 2070. It was lovely. We had lunch in the Wetherspoons, and then strolled down past the old church. "Do you remember going up the tower when we were kids?" asked Caroline. We were ten and seven, I think. Yes.



I missed the train, and there was an hour until the next, so we went to the Embankment and quietly fed the ducks. My sister is amazing.

NTS Lenny 3

NTS 10

What's Mr T's favourite yoghurt?

A petit filous

Dog and Partridge

Paul and I met our old flatmate Alison in Didsbury for a couple of pints. She's moving to Bramhall, which means she must be doing something right.



Some dude had drawn this on the window with his finger in the steam.



Whilst we were outside smoking, Danny Bronco, Sean, Steve and Kumbi came up the road. What an unexpected surprise. Bernie and Orla were there too. Sean and I rekindled our "You're Tom Hanks!" "No, YOU'RE Tom Hanks." "No, no, no, YOU'RE Tom Hanks." game. When my beard was longer, he said that I looked like Tom Hanks in Castaway. With his head shaved, I think he looks a bit like Tom Hanks in Philadelphia.


DTRMCR?


Sean?