Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Long weekend

I had a great weekend, so I thought I would tell you all about it. Friday night was the first night of the M.A.P.S. festival Paul's band Ciné were playing. Unfortunately for me I had to go into work at 6am on the Saturday so I decided to drive.
Ciné were playing at the dry bar so we all convened there, it was a good crowd, Ian, Nick, Danny, Jo Holly myself Phil several of Hulme hall crowd including Sara and Catherine. Notable absentees included Bruce who went shopping with Nina instead and Simo and Sarah. Missing Sarah was a real shame given thanks to work commitments we we have not been able to catch up in ages.

Cine
Paul was stressing there was some problem with the sound set up meaning that they had to go on without a proper sound check and once on stage apparently they couldn't hear themselves perform. It annoyed Paul so much I he delivered a stinging criticism during the middle of one of his songs. As much as the lack of sound annoyed Paul it was only negligible to the people listening. I thought they sounded really good. I like what the addition of the keyboard did to the sound. James and Paul were both on form, we all seemed to enjoy it.

After the gig (and much messing around, should never let Danny organize anything ;) we walked to Deansgate and headed to a bar called label. It was a very nice club, Sara's boyfriend was playing saxophone. The place had a kind of roaring twenties feel to it, there weren't any trouble makers. We were however accosted by a very drunken women; Paul and I were standing outside while he had a smoke, and she came upto us and started telling us about how she had "Just had her make up done", she was rocking on the spot, the conversation went downhill from there really.
When we came inside she followed us in and started looking for her bag around the table we were sat at, although she hadn't sat with us.
She was not the only drunk one, I left around midnight so as to be able to get up in the morning, I offered Phil a lift he dithered for about 5 minutes started following me out then stop told me he was getting a lift with Nick and wondered back. As a walked back to the car I passed all sorts of nightlife including one guy who was having his head put back together by the police, must have been some sort of altercation. It made me a little sad that this is England violent and drunk, I managed to get back the car and home though intact though.

It was very hard getting up Saturday morning my ears were still ringing as I sat in the early morning light. It was an absolute disaster too, I finished my part by 8.15am then had to wait until 2 in the afternoon for the SQL server to replicated the changes. The DBA blamed a lack of a proper test environment and I cannot say that I disagree.

Saturday evening was Sandboxes turn to play, this time on the rear stage. I thought they did a respectable gig though the event organizers seemed to cut them a little short. They all seemed happy enough afterwards though we drank a few beers and listened to the other bands.
Sandbox @ Dry Bar
Afterwards we went for Chinese food in China town, it was very tasty though by this point tiredness and alcohol took over. I had been awake for far too long and pretty much passed out on the car ride home. It had been nice to go out with the Sandbox crew though sans LD who played his last gig and took off immediately at the end.

Sunday I spent the day reading and generally chilling out, in the evening I went out with Nick and some of his builder friend in Knutsford. They seemed like quiet a nice bunch of guys, though I a not sure how they took me. I ended up getting quiet drunk hopefully I didn't disgrace myself.

Monday I had a long chat with Martina, she had been kicked out of her house after Suzanne the owner let living together tensions get the better of her. She is staying with a couple of retired folk she met at Japanese class who kind of adopted her. I think Suzanna her housemate bottled things rather than talk to Martina about them until the point she simply exploded. I think its pretty unbelievable of her to kick her out without any proper notice. The law states that excluded occupiers only have to have "reasonable notice" but this does not have to be in writing. I would say 12 hours is unreasonable but my opinion is that of a friend not a lawyer.

After chatting I went for a swim, managed 40 lengths then went to relax out in the sauna. There were a group of lads in there talking about the drinking binges they had been on. One of them threatened to take out another lad and "get him fucked up", the other one replied "yeah go get fucked smash some windows and get chased by the police". I felt both afraid to be in the same room and sad for humanity to hear this conversation.

In the afternoon I went to York to visit Kasia. We made a salad and sat and chatted for hours, it was a really pleasant and relaxed evening. I really enjoyed our time together and I was sad to leave, I wish she did not live so far away.

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