Aquarionics

Grr, Argh

I don't know if it's a function of my generic love of musicals, or the fact I like Buffy so much, but I've now had the OMWF soundtrack almost on constant repeat for nearly three days. This cannot be healthy.

In other news, my Gentoo system is booting cleanly, sound works (see above), net works, and now I'm compiling Rox & XFree, and have been for the last hour....

Oh, and I'll be at the UKBlogs thing on Friday.

Today's Quote

Ahh well, seems like I'm back now.

From Dave Taylor's (ex-ID, ex-Transmeta, ported Quake to Linux, founded (with American McGee (also ex-ID, and also creator of AM's Alice, one of my favourite FPS's ever)) & worked for C₆, then left it in December) Blog^[1]:

[T]here will be no laws in Davetopia unless they can be programmed in a standardlized legal programming language and implemented literally into code.

This way, lawyers will be replaced by a sophisticated web interface available to everyone, for nothing. So it's basically gauranteed that every member has free access to the actual code governing his life. Instead of having to pay $300/hr to interpret a tiny piece of it.

Anything that doesn't suit the programming language basically becomes a kind of useless case law, completely unenforcable, nothing more than a code of ethics that some people choose to follow. Most likely, several different codes of ethics will emerge. The system will be corrupted by coders that start incorporating the citizen's membership within a particular code of ethics into the coded law, which will break the legal system by letting the inputs become subjective, leading to complete failure: lawyers. But that's OK, because by then, as soon as we spot the first lawyer and realize we've hit a losing condition, we'll know how to start over and make society even better.

On the down side, programmers will now be the most powerful, corruptable politicians in society. But on the bright side, programmers will now be the most powerful, corruptable politicians in society.

XMLaw, anyone?

[1] One day, I will follow though on my idea to create the worlds greatest Games site, so I have somewhere to store all this useless information I have without burdening future generations with it. However, before that I should really finish Epistula. And Nomical. And Project Alice and Toffia and Ceavern and Albertross and Forever and Afphrid[2b|!2b] and... and... and... gamabase will have to wait.

Galleria

New galleries of photographs for both the little.red.meet and the Marco Meet

Mind The Gap

Burningbird spoke today on the subject of the gap between virtual and real life. I may be alone in this, but I don’t draw that line.

It’s partly due to my history. I started going to Internet meets at 17 (A Usenet group – the same one who I met Stuart, Paul, Nick, gilmae, Jason, and seemingly half my blogroll though) and went to many meets, then joined the other group (Alt.fan.pratchett) achieved the state of local god of chocolate and Bailey’s (always useful) and went to AFP meets, conventions, and marriages. I met my wonderful girlfriend (who’s diary is back online) though the group too.

So when the UKBlogs meet happened, I tagged along, met some new people, had fun, and drank beer.

My parents read this weblog. My brothers both read it occasionally, and comment slightly less occasionally (The unexplained “Ben” who appears in the comments section every so often is my brother), and when I discovered this I was a little freaked out for a second. Yes, I do write differently knowing that my mum’s probably going to read this at some stage, but I’m reasonably sure that’s a Good Thing. Recently especially, Aquarionics has been my main reference when looking for employment, and I’ve been extremely glad that for the last year or so (Or in fact since I left Uni) there is less stuff that will pop up “This person is insane” flags in the head of the reader. I’m no less opinionated (I’m not really opinionated at all, except on a few subjects, which is probably why I’ll never be A-List), but I’m also less likely to post things that’ll be able to be used as weapons against me later, with the notable and exceptional exception of the poetry.

There is also the great spectre of the horrible “Online Friends” distinction. Yes, you are likely to know a different version of me though my weblog than in real life (It’s not too far, however. My writing style is close enough to my speaking style that I’ve been complained at by people who know me for them to be able to hear me saying every sentence). Me in real life is slightly more theatrical, less geeky, and more vocally deft than my online style dictates. There is a distinction between online and virtual friends, mostly the same as a pen-pal. You may know each other’s thought processes better than a ‘Normal’ friend (People tend to think differently in text, and explain more) but without the shared experiences. Not better, just different.

The idea, however, that a friend you met online is somehow less of a real friend than anyone you meet at a nightclub (“There aren’t any real people here at all” – DNA) is somewhat ludicrous.

Personally, I find actually meeting people to be a Good Thing. The only danger I’ve ever found is the temptation for Those Who Meet Up to become something of a clique within the larger group, but with the multi-million cliques that divide the weblog community already, who’d notice?

Hey, you. Godless Barbarian

So, according to the Office of National Statistics:

About sixteen per cent of the UK population stated that they had no religion. This category included agnostics, atheists, heathens and those who wrote Jedi Knight.
Office of National Statistics 2001 Religon Statistics

Note: “agnostics, atheists, heathens and those who wrote Jedi Knight” heathens don’t exist. This irritates me, esspecially since I’m at a pagen wedding next week, it annoys me that the ONS are quite so dismissive.

A long expected party

When Mr Amery of Cambridge announced that he would shortly be celebrating his score and sixth birthday with a party of special magificence, there was much talk and excitement in Hobbiton. When this was to be coupled with the birthdays of Matthew & Sally, as well as them – plus Sarah, it proved the cue. Not for a song, but for a party.

I was invited to this party, obviously. I mean, I could be writing what will probably be a long and over-referenced report of an event I wasn’t invited to and its surrounding events, but there are few things duller than a long description of a party you didn’t go to.

Ahem

It was a dark and stormy night.

Well. It was a bright and crystal clear afternoon, and the wind whiped around Reading, for it is Reading where our tale begins. (There are few places where you will encounter both Tolkien and Bulwer Lytton references within a few paragraphs of each other. Welcome to Aquarionics, home of the badly matched crossover. See? I’m six paragraphs into the report, and I haven’t left the house yet).

I left the house. I was late. This was something of a shock, considering I’d been very carefully planning to leave myself time. I failed to do so. Within five minutes of leaving, I discovered that my MP3 player (Which is a USB Pen Drive that happens to play MP3s, which means all you have to do to install it is to have an OS that does USB Mass Storage. Which is, in fact, Windows 95 R2 upwards. You don’t have to bugger around with DRM software, or things that try to replace your MP3 playing and encoding software, or stuff that doesn’t work on Linux. It’s Great) didn’t like the MP3s that were on it, so I couldn’t listen to the CD I’d just bought and encoded (Which had the newest Anti-Music-fan idea of installing new drivers for your CD player automatically when you put the CD in the drive. Luckily, I held down shift, which disables autorun.)

An hour later I was in London, discovering that the Underground was well and truely screwed today. So I went into central London and back out again in order to go from North-West of Central London to North-East. So, two hours later, I was in Cambridge.

It may not have escaped your notice, long term readers, but I like Cambridge quite a bit. I still want to move back there, and this weekend hasn’t helped in dealing with the fact it’s fairly unlikely to happen for a while.

So, Train station to Bus station. Discovered that the bus that would take me to Rivendell (The name of the new house) was a Citi 6. The Cambridge Citi buses are great, every twenty minutes between 8:00 and 5:30, and after that when they feel like it. I took a taxi.

“This is Cambridge Road” said my taxi driver, as he stopped. “Just let me out here, then” I said, foolishly.
He did.

He drove off.

This was not Cambridge Road.

This was Girton Road.

Girton Road would, at some point a few hundred feet away, turn into Cambridge Road, but from my viewpoint I couldn’t see this, so I asked at a shop. When we navigated though enough english that we both understood, I discovered that not only was I not on Cambridge Road, but when I got there, I was at the wrong end. So I went hiking.

Found Party. Good Party. Good Beer, Good people, New Games, Fridge Poetry, People I don’t see often enough, people I’d like to see again & other party stuff. Oh, and biscuits. Rivendell is absolutely gorgous, as is – when I left the next morning – Girton. Wanna move back…

Next morning was given tea and breakfast, and then hiked for an hour into Cambridge, where I had lunch and met Rosemary to lend books and chat, then buggered off home.

Where I discovered, something to my suprise, that there was a problem, and that the 100 gig hard-drive in the server had died.

Bother.

Short Notice Meet

The Time: 18:30pm GMT.
The Date: Monday, January 26^th
The Place: The Green Man, Euston Road, London, England. (More info here)
The Reason: Guess
The Invite: If you can read this, you’re invited.

leave a comment here if you wish to warn me of your probable presence.

Eurovision Again

If I was to organise a “Lets laugh at Eurovision” evening for this coming Saturday at Casarufus (Um, Here.) would anyone be interested in attending?

Cancelled. I’ve been reminded I’m supposed to be in Cambridge that evening

Weddings and Stuff

And so the wedding has happened. Charles and Ruthi are now living in Married Bliss, Walthamstow. Yay them.

I was, as I aluded to in the previous missive, taking upon the role of Best Man for this event, which translated into getting ccooke to the church registry office on time. In the absense of the Best Woman, who was sadly too ill to make it, LC took on the challange of getting the Bride ready for the wedding day.

We did it.

The groom was early, the bride was on time, the guests were there (Aside from a statistically interesting number sudden illnesses ranging from pol’s flu though to Hunter’s pleurisy. I even remembered the rings, which was pretty likely given that I was checking my pockets every ten minutes from nine though to half eleven when the ceremony started…

I witnessed, LC witnessed, and photos were taken. Then we ordered taxies to take us to the reception, and eventually they turned up (The first taxi came and took most people who didn’t already have a car, leaving me and ruthi’s family at the registry office for an hour. Traffic, they said) The buffet was good, though possibly not large enough for the number of people it was ordered for, though less than that were there, so it sort of worked out. LC’s chocolate cake went down well, as did the Proper wedding cake (cooked by CC’s late mother, Iced by his father. It was nice). My speech went tolerably, given the circumstances. People seemed to like it, but it did need tuning…

(All right, I loved every second. I haven’t had a proper crowd to play with in ages)

...and music and dancing happened. Eventually we checked into a hotel and slept, then came home. Weekend over.

So, for ccooke and ruthi, may you have a long and happy life together. It was good wedding, we should do it again sometime…

Suffer the little fools

So, first we have a post that LoneCat sent me from the LJ Community “Mock The Stupid”, The Fool, the Cigarette and the O² Canisters . This is so incredibly bad I can’t believe it. For example:

I see “the King of the Idiots” calming smoking a cigarette while sitting next to a sleeping old woman in a wheel chair, who coincidentally happens to have two tanks of oxygen strapped to the back which she is breathing out of. TWITCH
Somehow I manage to fight my natural survival instinct to flee long enough to say (perhaps a tad loudly)
“Sir, you CAN NOT smoke in here. Put that out NOW.”
He looks at me, blinks, and says, “Why should I?”
I respond with, “Put the cigarette OUT and I will tell you.” (At this time two of my coworkers have been drawn by the smell, and the alarm in my voice and so now there are three of us standing in the doorway and another running down the hall to call security)
So “Belligerent Boy” begrudgingly stabs out the offending smoke on the floor, right next to Granny’s oxygen tank, and leaves the still smoldering butt there. My co-worker Tim rushes over scoops up the potential fuse and dumps it in the sink.
I proceed to explain that since this is a Hospital (i.e. a Sterile Environment) and due to the fact the he is sitting next to two tanks of highly flammable material that could make a good sized crater outta the waiting area, and that there are sprinkler heads/smoke alarms and posted no smoking signs Basically smoking is not allowed.
His response: “Not good enough, honey.” as he takes out another smoke and lights it

It gets worse from there. Now Read On

Less life threateningly stupid, but more traditionally funny, I play NationStates occasionally (Currently as “The Most Serene Republic of Avenue X” in the West Pacific) and got a telegram from someone inviting me to their Really And Most Sincerely Gothic Clan, which was all very well, but it signed off with the following:

[B]ut beware of our evil mistress. Lady Kitty runs the place, and she is pure bread vampire.

Pure bread vampire. That could be fun, I mean, you’d have to kill them with Garlic Bread, I suppose.

Of course, the most Gothic of Sincerly Gothic Bread Vampire clans would have to be the terrible and most truely evil clan of all: The Risen.

Gathering

Saturday, Panton Arms, Cambridge, England, Threeish.

Anyone who reads this is invited. Anyone who doesn’t can come along too.

See you Lotr

I’d have written this earlier, except I broke Aquarionics’ admin section with a badly formed class. ‘tis fixed now.

This weekend I did something that could be seen as slightly foolish. Me, and 10 other people, watched the entirety of Lord Of The Rings, Extended Editions, from Shire to Doom, A to Z, Beginning to all three false endings.

It took 13 hours, including pizza, dead limb and disc changing breaks. It included a count of Legolas’ facial expressions and various other fun things. It lasted from mid-afternoon on Saturday to 05:30 on Sunday morning. Then we slept. We were very tired.

As three theatrical releases they were quite good movies. As extended editions they are very good movies and in some ways tell a better story than the original books (Not as deep, certainly, but a more engaging story in places), but it’s as a single movie in three parts that they really do shine, and the running threads make far more sense. I’m still not entirely sure about some of the changes (Though the two major scenes removed – Tom & Scouring – were reasonably obvious ‘whole chunks’ to keep the thing under, say, a day) but I’m positive this is the best version of the classic series that we were ever going to get.

The weekend was fun though – although the trip back was something of a disaster – and I got to meet New and Interesting people, and exchange puns.

Which is always fun.

Dungeons, Dragons, Bananaguards and other random things

So, recently then.

Last week I passed my driving theory test. This was cool, but not unexpected (I passed it first time around, though that was before Hazard Perception.). Hazard Perception is a video based test of your reactions to events, you have to click the mouse when you see a hazard, again every time it gets worse.

It’s much like Grand Theft Auto, really, except with clicking on the pedestrians rather than running them down in cold blood. Close enough.

I have also accidentally bought a copy of “Regina’s Song”, the latest non-fantasy books by the Eddings’. I haven’t read it but I nevertheless own it, as the library fines are about to exceed the worth of the book. Taking it back now would mean paying them to take it away.

Isn’t Dr Who good? Yes. It is good. The tardis is apparently powered by a bicycle pump, which was something of a suprise.

This weekend was LC’s birthday, so we wandered down to Wagamama’s (which is a Tradition) and then to see Mitch Benn (which isn’t, but will be). She has written more on this day. And yes, I bought her a BananaGuard for her birthday.

Yesterday we finished the weekend on a low note with the Dungeons and Dragons Movie, which is an incredibly, amazingly terrible movie. It’s got The Bloke Who Played Jimmy In The New Adventures Of Superman (Jimmy mk 2, anyway) staring as a chaotic neutral thief who eventually duel-classes as a mage, his friend Snails who doesn’t really level up ever, and a Miss-Jones-You’re-Beautiful type female mage. Jeremy Irons (The thinking economist’s Alan Rickman) is the Lawful Evil Bad Guy, someone else is the Slightly More Evil, But Possibly Less Evil Chaotic Neutral minion, and a whole host of people you’ve not heard of. Oh, and Richard O’Brian as a crazy person who has a maze. Again.

We spent the entire movie eating chineefoo and discussing how each character had rolled in char-gen. Irons got a fairly high Charisma, for example, and Jimmy2 apparently took an extra level in swordplay when he leveled up near the end…

It’s terrible, but fun in a ‘My god, it’s full of cliches!’ type way. Perfect D&D, really. And there’s going to be a sequel, which I await with…

...fear.

The Javascript Future Event

So, I’m sitting in the basement of a bar somewhere slightly south of the River Thames at the Javascript Conference Thing. Arriving late, I was consigned to the edges somewhat, as the mass of people has taken over a RAID (That’s Redundant Array of Inexpensive Desktops) in a corner of the bar. We’ve broken up to get more beer, so I’m taking the oppertunity to compose stuff. The Wonder of WIFI not having made it to this basement, I’ll have to post it when I get back. Should have downloaded SubetherEdit before I left, really.

The major subject, as you might expect, is the migration from Document.write and friends over to the Brave New World of DOM-based scripting, and how to get the world to migrate to this from the other in much the same way as the Web Standards Project convinced the world that Tables-based design was no longer acceptable. The fact they managed this is going to help us more than a little, as CSS designs are far easier to Hijax (That’s the new term for Hijacking a page using AJAX, as invented… about 15 seconds ago), but we have something of a public relations mountian to climb to convince the world at large that Javascript isn’t just for mouseovers anymore.

To follow the same path as the CSS people, we need better discussion (along the lines of css-d), better examples (Blue robot, for example) and a figurehead (Dunstan has been nominated God Of Javascript. nobody is yet worshiping. As a matter of fact, he’s sitting in front of me eating a burger, which is ungodlike. It should at least be glowing, or something. Maybe some pineapple as a halo. Anyway. The God of Javascript is attempting to protect his chips from Aquarius.)

Not really sure what I can contribute here, really. Still working on ways we could converse better. Someone mentioned “A List Apart”, and my mind’s gone into invention mode, bringing back from the gumbo of half-formed ideas “B-List Apart”, a sort of Kuro5hin (Probably using Scoop) specifically for web development and AJAX-style articles.

Anyway, the discussion moves on.

(Later, from the train)

We need a mind-shift in the Intranet world. Jeremy Keith suggests a series of back-to-basics articles, to introduce people who want to learn about the Brave New World into it. Someone who’s identity I didn’t catch is going to organise a mailing list.

At this point we kind of split up, those who remained went upstairs and geeked possible ways of solving the OnLoad problem, on which Dean was authoritative. Shortly afterwards, I left.

It was good to meet/see people, and it was good to discuss this. The pub was nice, the food was good too, and there wasn’t a single non-mac laptop on the table.

People Who Were There:

• Me (Aquarion, Checked shirt, black glasses)
• Simon Willison
• Stuart who is Aquarius
• Dean Edwards of the IE7 that isn’t IE7
• Jeremy Keith who does indeed have cooler hair than you.
• Nick Fitz
• Many, Many other people whose names I didn’t catch, which is going to prove very embarrassing when I find out they are people whose weblogs I’ve read for years.

Beer, Games, Booms

Last night, drank beer with co-workers and partners of co-workers and co-workers of partners of co-workers and ex-coworkers of partners of co-workers. Which sounds like more then five of us, and is in fact not. Crashed at their place overnight, snuck out early this morning to catch an early bus home, made a critical failure on my Bus-Catching throw and caught the bus to Bigglesware again. Bought newspaper, computer game, random crap while waiting for next bus. Read.

Read reviews of books. Read news. Got on bus. Read more reviews of books. Wrote a bit of mine. Got to Hitchin. Taxi home.

I’m in the City of Villains Beta (I can now say, since the NDA’s been lifted). I have a Mastermind Necromancer by the name of The Hat. The Hat doesn’t have a detailed backstory or world, but he does have a Hat. It is a very fine Hat, and helps him summon Zombies. He summons three Zombies, called Foozle, Woozle and Bumpkin. They are very cute zombies (Those are not my zombies).

I bought Battlefield 2 as well, but so far Single Player has crashed, and I have to get 200Mb of patches before I can play it multiplayer. Grr. So, now off to do great evil.

Pastas Wager

Ian Darling, despite his blogging software’s awful permalinks, has successfully proven that the Flying Spagetti Monster exists and therefore should be worshiped himself in some form.

For fun, and obviously, prophet.

Weekending

Er, yeah. I did have an entry here, and it was carefully constructed and humourous and contained references to Eddie Izzard and Shakespeare and stuff and was to lead up to an important insight into the human condition and how it relates to my new bed.

But I closed the browser window while before I hit save, so it’s Etherized. Sorry.

So, Friday went out with company, drank beer, ate curry, more beer, debated interface design and moving house, listened to coworker singing, home, discovered that missing LARP was a bad decision, collapse for a bit, awake, then bus to Cambridge, LARP linear, back to pub, drank cider, kidnapped, taken to nice party, talked, geeked, drank wine, back to Cambridge, bus to Bedford, stagger to Fortress One, collapse.

As a result I’ve spent Sunday catching up on sleep, watching movies and playing Neverwinter nights.

This has been a good weekend. Thanks to all people who have helped make it so, and happy birthday Stephen :-)

Recently Seen

Donnie Darko

Er, the rabbit, and the weird stuff, and the decent soundtrack but the movie didn’t actually convince me to give a damn about anything. There was no real threat, I didn’t care about what happened, and didn’t even finish watching the movie.

Curb Your Enthusiasm Season One, episode One.

As above, minus the rabbit.

Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind

Go? See! This: Movie.

It’s beautiful, it’s haunting, It’s Jim Carrey acting – which is good – and its artistic direction is so absolutely wonderful that there are no words to describe it. it shows, not tells, what is happening. See this movie.

Hustle: Season One.

I like heist films, I like banter, I like this.

The Italian Job

As a heist movie, it’s pretty good and contains some well crafted – if not stellar – performances.

As a remake of the original, it stinks to high heaven. Pretend the title’s different.

Blackpool

Hated the main character, didn’t get beyond the first episode.

Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead

Yes.

Frida

I rented this one purely on the basis of seeing the trailer somewhere else, and I’m glad I did. it’s got some wonderfully done artistic sequences, and some good bits. It’s a little jumpy in places, but that’s a side effect of telling 25 years of story in two hours.

Supermouse

Okay, not a movie, but since Mouse is the first person apart from family and Tom from work to see the inside of FT1 I thought it warranted a mention.

Yay people.

Weekend

Work – Work – Work – Weekend – Yay – Lift – Station – Cash Machine – Out Of Order – Ticket Machine – Peek Rate – Wah – Single – (Single – Single – Single – Magic – Flaming – Double – Though) – Train – Train – Train – Flitwick – Harlington – Leagrave – Luton – Luton Airport Parkway – Harpenden – St Albans – King’s Cross Thameslink – Platform – Underground – Ticket – Ticket? – Ticket! – Outside – Kings Cross – Ticket Machine – Stairs – Victoria Line – King’s Cross St. Pancras – Highbury & Islington – Finsbury Park – Seven Sisters – Tottenham Hale – Blackhorse Road – Walthamstow Central – Platform – Walk – Walk – Walk – Walk – Walk – Cookie Jar – Yay.

Random – Sian – Cookie – Ruthi – Wave – iPods – Geekery – Gin? – Beer. – Beer – Kwak – Traditional glass – Easter Eggs – Chocolate – Strawberry Chocolate – MMMMMMMMM - Chocolate in Powerbook – Good Food – Beer – Zzzzzzzz

Tea – Breakfast – Maluple? – Maluple – Samurai Jack – Samurai Jack – Dangermouse – Pol – Random -> Ulla – Geekery – Food? – Food. – Dr Who – Wolves! – Torchwood House – Food – Geekery – Babylon 5 – Babylon 5 – Babylon 5 – Babylon 5 – Babylon 5 – Babylon 5 – Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Tea! – Suit – Bye – Walk – Walk – Walk – Walk – Walk – Blackhorse Road – Oyster Card – Tottenham Hale – Seven Sisters – Finsbury Park – Highbury & Islington – King’s Cross St. Pancras – Kings Cross Thameslink – Ticket – Kentish Town – St Albans – Harpenden – Luton Airport Parkway – Luton – Leagrave – Harlington – Flitwick – Bedford – Walk – Walk – Walk – Fortress One – Samuarai Jack – Email – Phone Home – Transmet – Transmet – Transmet – Food – Transmet – Transmet – Transmet – Transmet – Transmet – Transmet – Transmet – Transmet – Transmet – Transmet – Transmet – Transmet – Transmet – Transmet – Transmet – Transmet – Transmet – Transmet – Transmet – Transmet – Transmet – Transmet – Transmet – Transmet – Transmet – Transmet – Transmet – Transmet – Transmet – Transmet – Transmet – Transmezzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Weekending

This weekend I inhaled more weed than I intended to, had my arse grabbed, drank lots of beer, watched an entire football match, bought a hat, nearly had my mobile ran over by a taxi, saw every Radio 4 Comedy Panel Game Evar live, and went to a Blockheads concert featuring Phil Jupitus and Geoffrey Perkins.

It’s 10 past 1 on Monday Morning, and I intend to see how far into this I get before I fall over.

So, lets start with the Strawberry Fair. The Strawberry Fair is, basically, what happens when you take your average village fete, blow it up until it is a City Fete and host it in Cambridge. It appears to be the hippy summer migration point of the universe, and there was not one but two massive stalls advertising “Herbal Highs” and “Legal Speed”, both with massive inflatable blue pills above them. I left home without my hat or my personal mobile (I also have a work mobile. The personal one was uncharged, so I plugged it in and diverted all calls to it it to the work one. You will be quizzed on it later), got to Cambridge, wandered around to see if I could find anybody, failed, and wandered around the Fair instead. At three, I went to meet larpers under the big blue pills (having sorted out which set of pills it was) and we hung around in the hot sun for a while, before half of us went home, and the half involving me wandered around the fair a bit more. By this point the streaming hot sun was giving me a headache, so I bought a hat. My Larp character is called Panama, so I bought a Panama style hat. It is a good hat.

It is slightly complicated to contact people when you answer your work phone with your real name which the people you contact don’t generally know you as, especially when they phone a number that diverts to the current number and are therefore phoned back on a number they don’t recognise. We met people, then we promptly lost them again. Then I went home.

On the way home I had my arse grabbed by a strange woman who proceeded to attempt to look innocent of such an act. This is a rare event in my life, so I am documenting it here. In fact, it hasn’t happened since university.

This is an observation. Not a complaint, really, but… it was odd.

Went home, remembered I was going to London Sunday and attempted to organise an instameet.

Sleep.

Wake, headache, laundry, shower, clothes, station, fight with ticket machine, buy tickets, wish Oyster would get this far, Train, London, Rearranged Kings Cross again, Tube, Tube, Chinatown, De Hems.

De Hems is a dutch themed bar. It sells very nice beer in the traditional glasses, and me and Random drank lots of it. Nobody else turned up.

Now, De Hems is a dutch bar. The World Cup not having started yet, it did not even occur to me to check to see if there was going to be a match on in there today. There was, it was against Australia. The entire bar was bright orange, the staff had orange dungarees on. It was very odd. Anyway, being sat next to the TV, and having had beer (which, I found, helps) I ended up watching the entire thing.

One team or the other won, I forget which. Doesn’t really matter.

Got fairly drunk, owe Random much beer, then rapidly sobered up by mainlining Coca Cola (Careful not to use the common abbreviation there, fact fans) when I realised I was going to have to go to the theatre very soon.

Got to Victoria Palace Theatre in time, thanks to Random knowing the secret secrets of London Above, and I met my mum for a trip to the theatre.

The thing we were seeing was a tribute to Linda Smith, one of Radio 4’s panel pool of comedians who tend to appear on the various panel games. She died earlier this year, and this was a charity concert in her honour.

It started by being hosted by Jo Brand, not one of my favourite people of all time, and with Sandi Russell a jazz/scat singer and her group. The Jazz trio were excellent, I was less a fan of the singer.

Despite a few sound problems involving a dodgy mike, the rest of the evening was excellent, with the whole crews of “The News Quiz”, “Just A Minute” and “I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue” on hand to do a few rounds of their shows. It was like a “Best of Radio 4” theatre show, which is either your idea of hell or a wonderful evening, depending on who you are.

(Phil Jupitus made a joke which won’t make the broadcast, so I shall record it here for eternity: On Paul Macartney’s relationship problems: “You shouldn’t fuck a pirate”)

Also around doing standup bits were Hattie Hayridge, Barry Cryer, Mark Steel and Mark Thomas (Who talked about wandering around an arms fair as an anti-war campaigner. It was really complicated, he asked for a ticket and they sent him one, which apparently was the last thing they were expecting him to do. He is far funnier than the few TV bits of his I’ve seen would lead me to believe).

There was an interval, in which I had a gin and tonic. I blame Sian, who