A sneaky hour

I arrived an hour early for my conference at Birkbeck, so I popped around the corner to The British Museum. I didn’t wander far from the North Entrance, up that amazing staircase, into east Asia, and specifically Japan. I saw an embossed box that was five-hundred years old, and shone blue like a beetle’s back. Its simple beauty stunned me.

Downstairs, in room 91, an exhibition of pacific shields took my breath away. They’re bright, dazzling, designed to scare the enemy.




I was most touched by the modern shields. Made using car bodywork, and decorated with the logos of contemporary rugby league teams, they are designed to withstand shotgun fire. Shield and shotgun battles are going on today in the pacific.

Let’s go for a green, star performer… again.

We had a little party for Dunk’s birthday. Kate and I made a cake, and iced it red. Gethin and Cara came round, and Al and Ander followed. We lit the barbecue, hooked up Spotify and sat around in the garden chatting. Ander was really impressed with the hairdryer on the barbecue trick. I wish I had the video he took of its fiery glory, sadly I don’t. Matt and Chaw arrived later with booze and meat reinforcements.

- insert cake picture here -

I blame myself, but I wasn’t alone. I started it all, but it was the others who made it get out of hand. I’d cued up some Wu-Tang, remembering how much I’d enjoyed it last night. An eyebrow rose here, a foot tapped there; it was going down quite well. Then Dunk disappeared into the kitchen, and here our troubles began. We had an urban interlude.

Regulate – Warren G
Summertime – DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince
Millionaire – Andre 3000 (feat. Kelis)
Concrete Schoolyard – Jurassic 5
No Digitty – Blackstreet

There was a much better collective mood than the last time we played Cranium. I was with Dunk, Al was with Gethin, leaving Kate, Cara and Ander to make up the third team. Dunk, as birthday boy and king of the day, took responsibility for choosing what colour card should be drawn when a team rolled a purple. And the answer was, invariably, Green.

Green – humdinger
Green – cameo
Green – copycat

It’s the most entertaining card to watch, Dunk reasoned, and he was right. The Al and Geth show was the pick of them. What a brilliant night.

Kudos to Blackwell’s at Manchester University, who ordered and took delivery of Dunk’s birthday gift – Maus – in less than 24 hours. I got a copy for me too, and read it into the night.

I’ll miss Ryan, I won’t miss Ben

Ryan came by on Monday. We listened to Wu-Tang, to Last Shadow Puppets, and to Nine More Lies. Ben has solved the damp in my old room, said Ryan. He’s solved it by painting over it. Right then.

To be the subject of match-making

Is it a good thing, or a bad thing? Does it put artificial pressure on two people, or is it a good way to meet someone that your friend would recommend for you?

Chaw's friend Kate is lovely. Pretty, intelligent, funny. She likes cycling and growing vegetables. Let's see what happens next!

The worst ever name for a festival…

…is Mad Ferret. It’s not even a good pun. Kate and I were on a guestlist, so we avoided paying £34 (seriously!) each, and breezed in at around nine. Johnny Walsh is a good guy, very chilled out, very polite and friendly. I can see why he’s a successful promoter. The band that he was hyping, Fraser King, were pretty good. I never thought I’d say it, but they kind of reminded me of Misty’s Big Adventure: not so much in terms of their sound, but in the way that their songs had quite big changes within them – of tempo, of volume, of depth of instrumentation. They reminded me of the things that I liked about The Coral, and Gogol Bordello. I’d go to see them again, but maybe not to Mad Ferret again.

We took a mannequin home with us.

Afterwards, we went to Trof. I was chatting to a tall blonde girl – Leonora? Lenore? Lionella? – who I’d seen around Chorlton a bit. She works in Dulcimer, that was where I recognised her from. I felt really old talking to her – she started at Sheffield uni the year September after I left that fair city, just in 2005. I did some maths, and worked out that she was probably 22. Wow! I felt like a dinosaur. She was born after the Smiths broke up. It turns out she’s Johnny’s ex, although I thought that they were a couple. Was she flirting with me to get at him, I wondered. I went to bed wracked with doubt.

The all-new Horse and Jockey...

...is a bit of a country pub in town. Kate and Dunk both said, independently of each other, that it reminds them of a place back home. It reminded me of a place that I'd visited with Jim in Chester. I didn't mind it at all, but it isn't really my kind of joint. Then again, the Red Lion in Withington isn't really my kind of place, and I love that pub. Go figure.

Free things I got from work today

A cycling helmet
A water bottle
A puncture repair kit
A hi-vis vest
A bell
A multi-tool

I still don't like Alton Towers, five years on

I met Lucinda for part two of Operation Toothfix. She’d offered me a lift into Bolton last time, gem that she is, so we got the chance to have a bit of a chat on the way. Conversation meandered from the car seat being very reclined, through to Alton Towers and the story of my disastrous visit there with Rigby all that time ago, and naturally on into the realm of relationships with exes. I was very conscious of not wanting to put Lucinda into an awkward position vis-à-vis Liz and I. Luckily we kept our discussion quite general. We talked about how people drift into and out of our lives. Sometimes you can control how that goes and sometimes you can’t.

“Are you seeing anybody at the minute David?”
“No.”

We had a moment of silence, and then we started to talk about holidays.

My treatment was really fucking painful. A deep clean isn’t pleasant for the patient, and I doubt it’s much fun for the dentist or the nurse. But my teeth felt amazing afterwards. The root canal stuff went pretty well too, Lu said that the lack of discomfort and swelling was a pretty good sign.

No Thornton’s this time round, but I’ve got big plans for next time…

"I don't like the green ones."

I bombed down to Tall Trees on my bike to catch the Lions game with Woody and Paul. It was a really fast journey, taking about 18 minutes. I braved the Four Banks junction and crossed the Princess Parkway in lane with the cars. Hairy stuff, but quite straightforward once you get over the nerves. Woody had been off work. The argument with Clare had totally blown over. It makes sense – I didn’t think it was very serious at the time. The Lions spluttered a little, but ended up winning pretty well. BOD was amazing, especially for the Fitzgerald try. What a hero.

Kate found the yellow bag of vegetables, and stepped up to the plate when it came to making something pasta-ish out of them: a rich, dark mushroom sauce, almost meaty in its thickness of flavour, delicious! Dunk pretty much proved that tricolour pasta all tastes the same. We drank Dr Jim’s Scottish ale selection. The winner was gooseberry ale, and the loser pine and spruce.

Free food! Twice!

The cute Spanish girl behind the counter in Starbucks gave me a banana when I ordered my latte this morning. If we were cavemen, that would be a kind of flirting.

Dr Jim called. “Hello buddy! I’m in Leeds, and I’m heading to the Trafford Centre on the way home to Chester. Fancy a cup of tea?” Hell yes, of course I do. I explained about the new house, and how to find it, then nipped off early from work to make sure I was home in time.

“I’ve got you some housewarming gifts,” he said, brandishing a pair of bags. Glorious Welsh cheddar! A pork pie! Gourmet olives! Red onion marmalade! Ginger biscuits! Thanks a million Jim, how very generous of you! We popped up to the Quadrant to get some bread, and then had an al-fresco cold tea. We talked through the Lions, their performances so far, our dream teams so far. It was wonderful to see him. He’s been studying like a bastard as well recently, though towards a much more noble end.

I collected my bike from Whalley, and cycled home in the sunshine. I was hoping to run into Ryan, but he was out.