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...