Nice weekend...
A close personal friend had given me the whisper that more tickets to Glastonbury had gone on sale. I got one! Hurrah! God smiles on Scattergun (makes a change, Chief, y'know what I'm saying?)Top of the list to see would be M.I.A. and Tom Vek. Been hearing many good things about M83 from anglepoised, too. We'll see who else in the line-up looks good closer to the time... Mailed Lady C the details - and she managed to get one too. Nice.Friday:The fourth date with Lady C. Went to Cafe Med on St John Street for munch, chit-chat about the history of our lives and three bottles of rosé. I confessed that as a teenager I sported Doc Marten boots with fluorescent orange shoelaces and spent inordinate amounts of time Tippex-ing band names on to my school satchel. She didn't seem to mind. She has very beautiful eyes, y'know.
After four and half hours of getting roséd up to the eyeballs, the staff politely enquired if we had homes to go to as they had closed half an hour ago, so we staggered out...
See that previous post on the first three dates. Ahem.
Saturday:
Raging rosé hangover. I'm never drinking that bastard stuff again. A pox on that vine.
A bit of light housework and some DIY later, I watched the late Kinji Fukasaku's Battle Royale. A moving (if chilling) film, as I'm sure you know. Think it might have suffered some editing of explanatory bits (why did none of the pupils seem to have heard of it, if it was so famous? Will have to pick up the original novel) but nonetheless, a good film. It spawned a Manga series and is being remade as a mini-series in Argentina. Wonder if Battle Royale 2 is any good?Sunday:Watched the European Grand Prix, then out to Clapham for drinks and munch. Clapham's one of those places that could be nice but for the fact it appears to have been recently populated by people who have moved there for a 'gap-year in London' between leaving university, and getting married and moving to Surrey.Went first to Bierodrome which started well (I usually can't stand them), then got rapidly rammed, so we headed to The Sun which was rammed too but much nicer than the reviews suggest.Monday:Laundry.
Formula 1 - European Grand Prix
Hoo-ha! What a race. About time the sport returned to action like this. Suspense to the end owing to Kimi Raikkonen having flat-spotted his front right tyre into something like a fifty pence piece causing huge vibration and loss of car control; Martin Brundle and James Allen arguing in the commentary box about whether he should risk the car to the finish for a win or pit for a new tyre and settle for third and Ted Kravitz in the pitlane making sound-effects to let us know how bad the tyre sounded. "Duh-duh-duh!" "Thanks, Ted..."What happened?Read all about it, here and here.The entire issue of tyres in F1, in the wake of Raikkonen's problem, has been neatly and informatively summarised by grandprix.com, here.
Busy, busy...
Work exploding, deadlines and projects everywhere, training new, and dunderheaded, recruits (and other things) have kept me away from you.Are you still checking things magazine and The Cartoonist every day for updates, like I told you? Good.News for you - I have officially joined the 'dating' scene. Gone are the days of just getting drunk and snogging. I am now cool, sophisticated, urbane Scattergun with a penchant for double-cuffed shirts and polite conversation. (No giggling at the back, please....)Being a lefty-liberal ponce, I dipped my toe in via the Guardian Soulmates site. Very worthy. The profile took a while to fine-tune and I'm personally quite pleased with it. And, no, you can't see it. Suffice to say - it rocks.
First date was with a lady we will call Lady C (names have been changed to protect women with the bad taste to respond to my profile).Venue selected for the arena of the first date was Al's Cafe Bar in Exmouth Market on the twelfth, where we met face-to-face for the first time. She's lovely. We hit it off straight away, nattering, arguing, laughing and boozing for six and a half hours and ended up snogging like a couple of schoolkids by the side of the road.Gone are the days of just getting.... oh, drat it.Second date with Lady C was at Nakhon Thai near Moorgate, here, on the seventeenth. I was aiming for something more sedate and mature where I could impress her with being a centred, ambitious level-headed young professional Scattergun. (I said, no giggling). We got there in cocktail happy hour. Oh, boy...Five and half hours later (we were getting better at this), the management finally impressed upon us that the restaurant was closed and we left. We had to use a map to find Moorgate tube station, all of twenty seconds walk away, where we ended up snogging by the side of the road again. Cries of "get a room!" from interested bystanders.Gone are the days of.... why do I bother?Third date with Lady C was on the twenty-first - we went to Koko (formerly the Camden Palace) on Camden High Street for The Fuse; a night of bands and DJ's. Lady C had a spare ticket and is a big fan of the main act - Menlo Park.After a few drinks with anglepoised in the Queen's Head & Artichoke, for a pep talk and to combat any nerves, me and Cursor rolled up there, met with Lady C and her flatmate - and had a brilliant time (Cursor hooking up with a bunch of Hungarian mates but that's another story...)Menlo Park are a great live act (vocally and otherwise, they're a mix of Tindersticks and Nick Cave but with a faster pace and touching electro from time to time. Paul Simon's son is in it. Really.) Support from Colder from Output Recordings (very good, see here) and CagedBaby.Unfortunately, one got the impression that most of the audience were there to see Mylo, who was djing later on along with Oscar Fullone and Trevor Jackson (who runs Output, famed for his remixes as Underdog, one hears.)Lady C had an aftershow party to go to and invited me along. Of course I was so drunk and fatigued by this point, I was afraid of making an arse of myself in front of her mates, abusing all and sundry and passing out in someone's lap (yes, it has been known) and therefore declined. I think we may have had a minor altercation about that. Well, noone's perfect. Least of all me. We did kiss and make up though. A lot.Gone are.... oh, leave off, will you?Fourth date with Lady C is this Friday in Angel for drinks and munch. I'll keep you posted. She's lovely.Have removed my profile from the dating site. Seems the honest thing to do. Although I paid for 3 months. There's money I'll never see again. Might see if I can get a refund...
Formula 1 - Monaco Grand Prix
