Lockdown – Non-events
Posted: Thu 18 June, 2020 Filed under: 2019/20, Do More, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Getting Out More, Gigs, Lockdown, London, Single Life, Theatre, Thoughts Leave a comment »I’ve known it’s coming for a while, but this coming fortnight is probably the one that’ll grump me the most about the Lockdown so far.
It’s the time when I had a lot of events lined up, all of which have now been moved to next year. Among other things, that list includes
- Tonight, when I was supposed to be seeing Skunk Anansie at the Royal Festival Hall
- Tomorrow, when I was likely to have been at the Taste festival in London
- Saturday, when I was supposed to be seeing Jessica Chastain in “A Doll’s House” at the Playhouse Theatre
- Next week, I was supposed to be at the Lead Developer conference in London for two days
- Next weekend, I was supposed to be seeing Much Ado About Nothing at the Globe
So yeah, bit of a slump of “I should’ve been doing [x]” for the next couple of days.
I had a similar slump a while back when I got a load of “this won’t be happening” emails over a couple of days, and this is much the same. I’ll get over it, and it all could be much, much worse.
But still, blah.
Withdrawn
Posted: Fri 27 September, 2019 Filed under: Domestic, Gigs, People, Thoughts Leave a comment »Over the last week, I was supposed to go to two different concerts. In the end I didn’t go to either of them.
The first one turned into a farce, with tickets not delivered, a venue with a remarkably disinterested customer services team, and all just became a lot more hassle than it was worth. I’ve been in touch with them since, and there’s been some progress, but still, not a good experience at all.
The second one, well, I just wasn’t in the mood at all. I’d purchased the ticket when the gig was initially announced, but as it came closer to the day I was totally unfussed about it, not at all excited or even looking forward to it. And then on the day itself, I’d been for lunch at one of my favourite places (newly re-fitted and re-opened) and was feeling epically fat as a result, which isn’t really conducive to a good concert.
In both cases though, I also just wasn’t really in the mood for dealing with people – and particulary the type of vacuous bastards that seem to be the gig-going majority at present.
I was going to write a bit more about how I was dealing with it, and some of the other stuff around sociability (or lack thereof) but at the moment I can’t really be chuffed to do so.
More during the week, I’m sure.
Chaotic and Packed
Posted: Fri 21 June, 2019 Filed under: Cynicism, D4D™, Domestic, Getting Organised, Gigs, London, Single Life Leave a comment »The last couple of weeks have been quiet on D4D™ because life got in the way – and life was just stupidly busy.
Over the last two weeks, I have
- Attended the 2019 Lead Developer conference at the Barbican in London (involving driving to London late on Monday, two days of conference and hotel, coming home mid-evening on Wednesday)
- Late-night ferrying of friends after their wedding anniversary meal (and padded out that time by going to the cinema)
- Done a day on a sponsored walk thing with friends at a fitness group I attend – my own contribution was 32 laps of the 600m track set out for the event, adding up to 19.2km (just under 12 miles) which pleased me
- Seeing the parents
- Attending the “Chefs Reunited” one-off meal at Monica Galetti’s “Mere” restaurant – all courses cooked/created by either Monica Galetti or Rachel Humphrey, who worked together at La Gavroche
- Attending “Conversations with Nick Cave” at the Barbican
- Been on-site on two separate days in Chesham
- Done all the usual work schedule stuff as well
and - Before the end of this week, I’ll have also attended two food events this weekend.
I must be utterly, utterly barmy.
Getting Out More
Posted: Sat 4 May, 2019 Filed under: 2018/19, Do More, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), Gigs, London, Single Life, Travel Leave a comment »I really need to remind myself that long weekends are meant to be about relaxing and doing less.
Over the next four days, I’ll be…
- Socialising with friends at a barbecue thing (and probably doing a fair amount of the cooking)
- Going to three concerts
- Seeing the parents
It’s all a bit busy – and the following weekend isn’t much quieter. Thankfully there’s some time off in the meantime, but yeah, all a bit chaotic. Again.
Poorly Sick (part two)
Posted: Mon 4 February, 2019 Filed under: Day Trips, Domestic, Driving, Getting Out More, Gigs, Health, Single Life, Stupidity, Travel Leave a comment »Last week’s “Poorly Sick” has continued on for the last week – although also not helped by my own general idiocy.
On the Tuesday, while coughing my lungs out (mmm, tasty) I drove up to Manchester to see friends, and then go with them to see Massive Attack at the Manchester Arena. And then drove home afterwards, like a friggin’ lunatic. By the time I got back – Wednesday morning, 2:30am – I’d twatted my ribs with the coughing I’d done, and felt fairly rough.
Wednesday was spent at home feeling ropy (while also getting enough work done to keep people happy) and Thursday I was on-site down in Chesham. I was feeling shitty enough there (and cold enough, the office being ridiculously cold) that I left at lunchtime and came home to thaw out.
Friday was also quiet, spent mainly at home.
Saturday was a trip to London to meet another friend and see “When we have sufficiently tortured each other” at the National Theatre (Spoiler : Don’t bother, it’s cobblers)
And then Sunday was another daft day-trip, this time down to the edge of Somerset to see other friends. And back home the same day, getting back at midnight on the dot.
So yeah, a week of being comprensively unwell while still being daft.
Hopefully things are back to a more even keel this week, but time will tell.
Ticket Admin
Posted: Mon 21 January, 2019 Filed under: Domestic, Getting Organised, Gigs, Single Life Leave a comment »Over the weekend, I spent a bit of time organising myself. Primarily this involved taking all the tickets I currently have on my noticeboard for forthcoming events, and making sure all the dates for them were entered in my phone, so I don’t double-book myself.
The trigger for this was that there was one particular day where I very nearly ended up not just double-booked, but triple-booked. It’s already double-booked, depending on what I decide to do and how some things progress between now and September, but triple-booking would’ve been really silly. Fortunately that latest event is occurring on two consecutive evenings, so I was able to make it into a busy weekend rather than a “for fuck’s sake” weekend.
But it made me realise that there were other things that I hadn’t yet listed in the diary, which was always going to end up biting me at some point.
Now though it’s all good, I’ve got everything diarised – and yes, as it turned out I’d forgotten a couple of booked things (thankfully with no clashes, although there’s one that’s going to make life a little bit interesting along the way) But all sorted for now, and I feel pretty good about that fact.