More Padmore

Ed’s birthday party was excellent. Ozzie picked up a curry for the fifteen guests before the game. We all crammed into the lounge and watched the Liverpool Arsenal match, which was an excellent game. Ed opened some celebratory champagne afterwards, and we sat around drinking and talking into the early hours. The very early hours, I got home at 2am. (This post is backdated. Most of them are.) Ed and Thom’s friends are such pleasant people, Lee in particular is a gem.

Thom and his flatmate Owen support different football teams. To ensure that cordial relations between them persist after their teams have played each another, they’ve informally agreed a non-aggression pact. Only the supporter of the losing team can initiate a conversation about the match. It’s a mature and diplomatic arrangement, by which I’m very impressed. Owen didn’t come to the birthday party, a mature and diplomatic decision on his part.

Pip and Clare

I met Pip for lunch today. We went underground at the Pop Boutique, and the food was great. Pip said that she isn’t going to be able to see me as much as she has before. This is because her boyfriend doesn’t like Pip and I spending time together because of our history – we went out for six weeks a year ago. She doesn’t want to hurt his feelings. She thought she should explain why we wouldn’t be hanging out.

I felt upset.

I met Clare for six pints straight after work this evening. We went to the Briton’s Protection and Solomon Grundy’s, and the beer was soothing. Clare said that she thought Pip valued my friendship more than that, and that Pip was handling it in the wrong way. This is because Clare always supports me because of our history – we lived together for eighteen months two years ago. She’s doesn’t toil to read my feelings. She thought she should explain that we could always hang out.

I felt better.

Weekend free association

gay bar let down friday night no burlesque home truths home lies mum missed party disliked naked in the rain blue pearl alan moustache no stalling second clutch control ten pounds first time charity pip moan nothing bought liverpool arsenal 1-1 padmore rum cherry coke sleep woody moan old friends changing interesting revelation about the past snow fizzing on my tongue home walk brass eye paedogeddon ashley no glasto fry up peveril snow photos shit sunday lunch cake exploded in oven wine eileen orienteering wine overall w/e quality friday 2/10 saturday 4/10 sunday 7/10

Peveril of the Peak

In the Mood For Love

In a moment eerily reminiscent of the Wong Kar-Wai film, I spent five minutes last night talking to a young lady who I developed a crush on when she worked behind the bar at my local. We were talking about the way that, in her new bar job, she has gotten quite good at giving overly amorous customers scathing put-downs. She asked me to 'test her' - to give her a chat-up line for her to demonstrate her proficiency at batting them away. Does she know that I like her? I think I've made it pretty obvious. So was she playing with me? Was it a twisted sort of flirting?

I want a hole in the wall that I can fill up with secrets.

------

UPDATE 06-04-08:

1. I found my hole in the wall, up by the Peveril of the Peak.



2. It's stupid and unfair for me to be angry about the incident above. I've known for three months that the person I've got a crush on isn't available - in fact, she's got a boyfriend, and she's really happy with him. I'm far too cowardly to seek out a new target for my affection - it's so much easier to put energy into something that's never going to come off than to invest in something that might fail, because at least I know the outcome of running down the dead end. I wasn't being toyed with, I was being given an gentle reminder by my crush that she isn't really that into me and I should be grateful for the delicacy of the message, rather than angry at its content. Why have an unreachable dream? Because at least I know how it'll turn out.

A moment of realisation

To realise that something that you want is unreachable is an awful feeling.

Tonight I went out to a bar with a group of people that I've wanted to befriend for an age. Collectively, they are or were bar staff from my local. One of them is someone I've had a big old crush on for quite a long time. Maybe it was because I was the only bloke in the group (poor me, surrounded by twelve glamorous young women), maybe it was because I was the only sober one amongst drunks (I have a driving lesson in the morning), maybe it was because they were dressed to the nines heading for a burlesque night and I looked like some mid nineties dogshit indie band bass player in my tracksuit top, check shirt, jeans and trainers - but as I left I knew that I would never be part of that world. I never could. As I said goodnight, it hit me.

Our dreams are worth nothing unless we dare to chase them.

But what is the value of chasing something that can't be caught? When should I dare to let go of an impossible dream?

Blossom

Out of my window today, lovely

Rolls and Royce

Rolls and Royce met at the Midland Hotel in Manchester. There's a terrible sculpture inside the porch of this grand building. Considering that Rolls Royce is the epitome of slick engineering, the sculpture seems oddly shoddy. Beardy's eyes don't point in the same direction. They're not even looking at each other.





Is the sculptor:

a) trying to suggest Rolls and Royce didn't always see eye to eye

b) making an artistic point by subverting the concept of the looker and the look, a la Lacan

c) rubbish

Answers on a postcard please.

Coachloads of ideas

I spent an hour talking to a careers coach from Learn Direct this evening, and it was enormously helpful. I knew that I wanted to move into a career that was centred on the outdoors, but I wasn’t sure how to finds out more about it. My coach was very good at asking the right questions, and then pointing me in the right direction to help me to find my own answers to them. I’d loosely put together a plan in my head, and my coach helped me to put some flesh on its bones.


1 Research

- find out what types of employment opportunities exist in my sector, and of those which appeal to me, and discovering the specific requirements and person specifications of those jobs
- look into relevant local volunteering opportunities in the sector
- look into appropriate courses and other training that are relevant to those jobs

2 Resources

- save money to pay for the cost of courses and other associated expenditure
- devote time to volunteering, researching and studying around the subject
- specifically, save enough to learn to drive, and to get a car, and to cover other associated costs

3 Skills

- driving, which is vital
- GIS, (through work, if possible)
- environmental science level 1 or 2 OU course or courses
- through volunteering / short courses, job specific skills (eg dry stone walling)

4 Job Search

- this remains the loosest area of the plan, which makes sense because it should be fluid and open-ended until I’ve got a specific idea of what I want to do


I’d recommend Learn Direct to anybody. The number is 0800 100 900. I feel invigorated, enthused and excited about changing jobs. Feeling like I’m going somewhere makes every drab day at my desk more bearable.

Antarctic Animals

I was directed towards an awesome slideshow of animals found in the Antarctic by the wonderful Boing Boing site. I especially like the starfish, whose crenulated edges remind me of some of the dumplings at the New Hong Kong, my favourite Friday dim sum diner.

This isn’t an April Fool’s gag either.