This weekend the last couple of weeks caught up with me - Friday commuting through London I ran in to some goths, and was too tired to come along whereever they were going - just needed to get home.

Saturday's plans turned in to sleeping most of the day, then being on a raid in the evening.

Sunday afternoon started with chatting to MMORPG GMs about my new quests, then down to see Razor Blade Kisses in London. I ran in to half of Tanz, hogging the front of the stage, as they do :). RBK were enjoyable but didn't shine (as I understand they were down a band member).

I didn't know Faith And The Muse before - all their lineups delivered the goods, for a fantastic set. Earplugs out one song for the beautiful vocals, and quickly back in as the next piece had four drummers.

Now, just before FATM came on, one of my friends had been given bad news. It took some effort to get them home, as we didn't want to take a dodgy taxi, and the licensed ones were too busy to get where we needed to be before the last train. Thankfully one of the street-roaming drivers pointed out a taxi office building, and we got a cab (not him, but one that had a physical base attached to it).

Work has the usual RFID lanyard badges / doors that bleep when they unlock. While we were in alone, my only female collegue pointed out that I'm the only one who occasionally holds up the badge to the reader with my chest. I get on well with her, and my response got a puzzled/knowing/surprised you've-just-done-a-bellydance-move expression.


Two weekends ago: went down to London assuming a gig was running on normal timing; found that the tube wasn't running in my direction, got there to be told "VNV has already started".

Last weekend Saturday: met up with my cousin, spent the day running round London getting pushchairs round the Tube. Tiring but well worth it.

Last weekend Sunday: family reunion for a birthday party. Restful and good.

Next weekend: London again, won't do either Whitby this year.

Pictures to follow.

On Friday I was to have a job interview in Lund, Sweden; I got a job on Tuesday, so the interview got cancelled. But I still had the flights booked (EasyJet, cheap but no refunds) and travel money bought.

I moved the outbound flight, and on Saturday did a day-trip, leaving home around 04:00 and getting back at midnight. It's one of those things that was loony, but I'd regret if I didn't do it.

I spoke no Swedish going out, not even please and thank you (yes, this is a screw-up, the stupidity of it hit me on the bridge between Copenhagen and Sweden). I bought a dictionary over there over there, good job I didn't have one earlier or I'd have completely messed up how to pronounce thank-you (it's spelt "tack", and pronounced like a Brit who didn't speak German would pronounce "danke").

Lund itself I think I could easily live in (once I'd sorted out the language) - the alternative music scene was clearly around and lively. The guy who sold me the dictionary was clearly into rock - had I been staying for the night I would have asked which nightclubs to go to.

For sightseeing I spent a while in Lund and then Malmo, before running back for the plane. Utterly exhausted by the day - I think I was running on two hours sleep. The weather was frequent rain combined with occasional umbrella-breaking gusts of wind.

Next Friday I have a job interview (yay); which will mean that I'm in Cambridge on Friday evening (yay).

This weekend I want to be out clubbing; but don't want to risk getting picking up a cold in London and having it hit me about the same time as the interview.

Next weekend (12th and 13th), the old Spirella corset factory is having an open day - they're the pioneers of spring-like flexible corset stays.
There will be guided tours and former workers to talk to.
http://lgchf.com/hods/spirella-building
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirella

Spirella stopped production in the 1980s, and much of the building is now used for start-up businesses.

(Letchworth is on the Kings Cross to Cambridge train line, and the factory is a couple of minutes walk from the station.)

Sunday started with Mina Harker. Lyrics seemed to be pulled from the bag of random stereotypical goth words, but the vocals and playing seemed good.

I got myself near the front for Ashbury Heights; very mixed views about them. They spent a long time in soundcheck, which included the keyboardist setting his instrument to play one of their songs (the complete non-vocal part), then turning it off just before the vocals would start (suspicious). The female singer had to walk over to the sounddesk regularly to get her microphone adjusted; but I don't think there was miming involved. She's replacing another singer, and her demeanour seems different between the old and new material (she looks distant when performing the old stuff). Aside the sound hitches, it was a fun performance.

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On Friday evening , after the coach and setting up tents, it was time to settle in and then head out to the nightclub. But surely you don't want to hear about anything involving ladies chained together acting as limbo dance poles, so I'll get quickly on to Saturday's bands.

Discussion at the campsite was that the band order had changed, but we weren't sure what was going on. I was first there, and phoned back with the news - Die Form had dropped out, most of the hanger bands had moved up the bill one slot.

Krypteria were good, as expected (I saw them from the back of the crowd).

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I'm only lagging one week with my M'Era Luna writeup; maybe I'll get the WGT one posted before the end of the year.

( Trip, language )
Band highlights
Best performance: Welle: Erdball. They started by saying they were 50 minutes late (the headliner had cancelled, and lots of acts moved up the bill one slot). If I was understanding the German correctly, they opened by asking if anyone wanted an intermission to use the toilet and get some food (it got a small show of hands from people laughing). I was stuck near the back, having left Blutengel too late; so didn't get to play with the balloons, but the performance was great.

Most silly audience dancing: Prodigy, with a load of nutters seeing how much sand/dirt we could kick in to the air. The band were performing well, but we were concentrating on the silly dancing.

( Trip back )

The morning has been spent orienteering round Epping Forest, and getting scratched by the holly leaves while trying to take the direct route between flags.

(No photos, was concentrating on the forest and map.)

Volunteers at litigation-watching website Groklaw are preparing for a huge transcription task. On Monday, newcomer unXis will file an exhibit including every page from Groklaw, printed out and photographed on a wooden table.

Groklaw readers expect to see handwritten comments on some of the stories, with abject despair setting in once Kimball's ruling is reached. User transcripts_for_all commented "I'm looking forward to seeing their comments on my comments on their comments on their SEC filing".

Lawyers for IBM were said to be "in good spirits" while writing the discovery subpoena; although a last-minute edit removed "Request No. 2". Speculation continues as to the omitted request.

Last weekend I visited relatives in Lancashire; and on the way back stopped for a couple of days in the Peak District. Far too hot and sunny, but the views were beautiful, walking along the rivers in Dovedale.






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Currently I'm Up North visiting family.

Tomorrow is for walking in the Peak District on the way home.

Well there we are. Gordon's run out of competent ministers and has had to put a peerage on expenses to buy a new one.

me: for some reason I've turned in to an early-morning walker/jogger; have been out and wandering about every morning this week
F: are you ill?
T: do you need a kick in the nadz?
F: is this before you go to sleep and a result of too much alcohol and getting lost?
me: no, this is early morning
me: I wake at 07:30 and can't get back to sleep
me: And then a recruiter often calls at 08:30, which is still too early
me: T - thanks for the offer, but no :)
T: just wanted to help :(

Two nights on the trot, I've been "I could go out, but let's stay in and watch the Llama".

Yesterday's was WGW.

Tonight's is Debian. Several months ago an annual(-ish) vote/flamewar spawned a sub-flamewar about what various parts of the Debian constitution meant; and it will all come round again in about a year.

Now that things have calmed, Matthew Johnson posted a mail with this intro:The first reply signed off like this:

So, tonight has been spent Llama watching.

Tanz is always fun in the company of respectable tea drinkers.



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This is the first Whitby that I've missed since I started going in 2003. Somehow I feel wrong about not going.

Will see many of you again in October.

Went to the Trauma Pet / DAF gig last night, and Slimes after.

Trauma Pet only had half an hour, but gave a good show while they could.

Just before DAF come on, I'm trying (and failing) to follow the conversation in French behind me. With a "guten Abend" DAF proceed to give an entire set without English. At least two songs slipped in "Verstehen es?" ("can you understand this?") as the final line.

Having not expected a mosh-pit, I had to shift a bit during the first song, and then enjoy the rest from a safer location.

Low-points: Sound-wise, DAF seemed good from the start, while the other sets started with at least one microphone too low. System FX opened, not my thing. Client do nothing for me, somehow they seem mechanical. Despite their good set, Trauma Pet's CD sellers disappeared before the end of the night.

On to getting a bite to eat, and begin to meet folks from Reading on the way to Slimes (didn't see them in the gig itself).

Catching-up-with-old-games-that-launched-memes: the new year was introduced at my cousins' place with three of us playing a mix of Portal and Mana, followed by the obligatory discussions about how portals could enhance real life.

My flist is full of flyers for two different clubs called Ascension. If there were a portal between the two clubs then all the 18-21s could flood though to the UK one (where they can buy beer), and then everyone colud go to the US for their later opening hours.