Endless Entertainment and Crap Trains

Sometimes these posts are just random rants and others they are very much a diary update (this is what it started out as way back in November 2009!). This one falls very much into the latter category as for once some stuff has happened this week! Rejoice!

The week just gone has been a veritable smorgasboard of cultural enlightenment and social interaction. Not all of it was welcome but you live and learn.

On Thursday evening I went to the Comedy Store in Manchester with some work colleagues for one of those team night out things. It is a sad sign of my advancing years that I was finding the prospect less than thrilling as Thursday rolled along, and the appeal of going home, getting warm and “seckled” seemed like the preferable option.

As is usually the case, after making the effort it was an enjoyable night. None of the comedians on the bill were household names of course, but that didn’t stop them being entertaining (on the whole) and I laughed a lot. I doff my imaginary cap to their bottle and bravery to do such a thing.

It would appear that some of the audience are regulars and attend to indulge in the sport known as heckling. It is a bit of a one-sided sport with the comedians having the microphone and all the wit but it was funny at times nonetheless.

As soon as the last act finished I and other “aged” colleague were off home leaving those with an age lower than my waist measurement to go off and do silly things like get drunk on a work night.

On Friday evening Louise, Emily and I went to the cinema to watch the Catching Fire (Hunger Games 2) film. My Pick N Mix intake of late has reached health threatening proportions. With Saving Mr Banks and a whole host of decent films coming out over Christmas I may be diabetic by January.

Despite a delayed start due to some broken heating in one of the theatres, we enjoyed the film a lot. It was Emily’s second viewing of it as she had gone to a midnight showing in the early hours of Thursday too. Being the second in a series of three (or is it four? I heard the last book will be two films) it ended in a weird place but a good sign was that the almost three hours flew by so it must have been entertaining.

As if two outings were not enough, on Saturday we decided to go to the German Christmas Markets in Manchester. In all the years it has been on we have never done so, and felt it was high time we did. In a very rare event, all four of us ventured out together on a family outing, Rebecca is nowadays more often than not doing boyfriend things, so that was a nice change.

We had decided to use public transport, namely a train, from our local station at Bromley Cross to Manchester. The service operated by Northern Rail was bordering on a risk to public safety. The number of people crammed into the train was incredible. You know that I am not one to complain about the cost of things, but at £32 return for the four of us, we could have flown to a European city off-peak for not much more.

Safe to say, especially after the journey from hell back home again we shall not be doing anything as silly again. We shall drive.

Upon arriving we of course ate. This was a Williams outing regardless of the venue.

Anyway, the markets themselves were busy too, and so it was difficult at times to even look at the stalls. We did the best we could, and combined the visit with my trip to the Apple Store for my Genius appointment. My iPhone had stopped liking Wi-Fi recently and I wanted to get to the bottom of it. I had read on the internets that the latest version of the operating system was more than likely to blame, frying the Wi-Fi chip, and as much as the long-haired youth with a red T Shirt on didn’t want to confirm this, he did everything but.

Of course with my phone out of warranty, he offered me an option of a new handset for £150 at which I laughed. He suggested I go back to the retailer I bought it from, who under “Consumer Law” should replace or repair for free within two years.This was clearly an Apple script for dealing with that seems to be a massive fail on their part as the internet is full of the same problem, all after the upgrade to OS7. Of course the retailer did not wish to do any such thing, so I was brewing for a huge argument when I realised that my very posh bank account provides us with mobile phone insurance, so I called them today and a new handset will be with me tomorrow.

That, my friends, is a right result. So that went some way to make up for the horrific journey to and from Manchester at an extortionate price.

So how on earth in that whirlwind of a week have I found time to get “the book” up to 40,000 words? Well, each lunchtime I manage to crack off about 2,000 words, and then with some evening tweaking and a good solid session today, that is where I am. I’m rather pleased with that.

I don’t want to rush the thing, but I’m finding the discipline of doing so much each day really helping. Some of it will be crap of course as sometimes I just don’t feel like it, but that is all for correction and improvement later.

In other good news, last week I confirmed my holidays over the Christmas season, and I am more than delighted to say that I finish at lunch time on the 18th of December and do not darken work’s door again until the 6th of January. That dwarfs the previous right result, and is off the scale in terms of awesomeness. That will give me a really nice break from work, a chance to write, and to double my waist measurement in two and a bit weeks. Hooray.

Enough.

Till the next time….