Musical Monday (#15)

I don't remember how I first heard this song -- if I read the lyrics first or read some reference to it. I don't recall what I was feeling when I first played it or even and where it was. It feels like one of those songs I've just always known.

I think growing up my parents were Springsteen fans, but all I ever remember hearing them play was "Born in the USA". Maybe that's why I was never particularly taken with his work, but I've developed a latter appreciation for some of his work. It's funny how sometimes as we get older we grow to like the songs we heard when we were kids, I've also a great fondness for Paul Simon's Graceland album. But I can't imagine my parents ever listening to Nebraska -- either the album, or this song.

The song tells a nasty, brutal and short story -- about a killing spree. If it's a true story, I've never looked into, but from the details I don't think it would qualify for a "serial killer sunday" post.

It's a sad song, with an almost Dylan-esque sound to it -- including mournful harmonica and off-key vocals. The remarkable thing, to me, about the song is it seems more sad from the perspective of the killer than of the victims.

The narrator and killer seems unrepentant ("I cant say that Im sorry for the things that we done") and offers no explanations ("They wanted to know why I did what I did/ Well sir I guess there's just a meanness in this world"), but there's a certain resignation that seems so sad.

The song ends with the narrator declared "unfit to live" and "into that great void my soul'd/Be hurled" the waste of his own life seems as regrettable as the "ten innocent people" that he and his girl kill, for no reason.

It's interesting the song offers no perspective from the girl, why does she go with him, across the badlands of Wyoming? Does she find it fun, like he does? We're never told, just that his final wish is to have his "pretty baby" on his lap.

The song is haunting -- and maybe not exactly going to be anyone's most played or favourite song -- but it would be a shame if the songs we liked were never troublesome, uncomfortable or confronting.

Nebraska-Nebraska.mp3

28/02 Update: I realise the flash player isn't working. Please stay tuned for more posts about songs you can't hear, or until I fix this one.
04/03 Update: After about a week with no success, it suddenly occurs to me I can just link to where the file is uploaded and play it from there instead.

I still believe that I can be happy

I didn't get the job. again. This continues my unbroken track-record of never having got any job I have been interviewed for. I don't know with this one how many interviews there would have been, if there were two and I failed to make it to the second round, or if it would have been just the one but I fell at the first fence.

They told me -- via the recruitment consultant I don't expect to ever hear from ever again -- they were very impressed with all the research I had done into their company, and that most people don't normally do that much. I had a bad experience once with a newspaper when I didn't realise I was required to know anything, didn't even realise the "informal chat" they'd invited me to was an interview. Ever since then, I always make sure when they ask me what I know I can say "Founded in 1837...". But anyway, they liked that I did my research. There was no comment on my suitability for online entertainment PR, whether they liked that I can talk about the pros and cons of legal music downloads, renting DVDs online, nor what they thought about my question on if they had considered setting up a "virtual" agency in second life, to support their clients in the virtual world.

What they did say was they felt I didn't have enough experience with entertainment PR, and that they felt I might be too nervous with some of their bigger entertainment clients. I wonder if the whole "meet the director" thing after my interview was a test to see how I react to someone "important", having been so amazingly cool in the interview. If I was noticeably nervous, maybe I couldn't hack meeting a client -- but it's not the same thing. If I'd known they would come out with that, I'd have brought up how I once interviewed the rock band Terrorvision for my student magazine.

It frustrates me, being told I don't have enough of the right experience. I wasn't entirely clear what level the position was going to be I was being put forward for -- whether it was Account Executive or Junior Account Exec, or if they even really bothered that much with job titles. I didn't want to make out my previous work to be more important than it was, but I thought I did a good job of showing I had paid my dues as an intern/assistant, and was capable and confident in a real position. But maybe not. When it comes to the "right" experience, what can you do?

After over six months unpaid work in PR for the experience, I ended up being over-qualified for a job I prompted them to create, and a job I had already been doing. But now if I apply for a sector I'm more interested in, and I don't have enough of the right experience. It's enough to make me quit the call centre and go back to being an intern, but there's only so much work experience you can do.

I have sitting on my desk a letter from the writer's bureau college of journalism, offering me reduced course fees, but hurry the offer must end soon. I'm tempted since they offer a full money-back guarantee if you don't earn back your course fees through selling your own work. I'm rarely as content as when I'm left alone to write -- being a newshound didn't work for me, I never got the shorthand, didn't pass the important exams in public affairs, and really just hated walking the streets in the cold and the rain, looking for a story. I can think of few times in my life I have been as unhappy as when I was "training" to be a journalist in Leicester. Except maybe that whole period when my grandmother died and Fiona didn't want me back and my flatmates were arguing and I had a dissertation to write and I was self harming.

So where do we go from here? I'm not sure. I've learned by now that when it seems like all doors have closed to you that often you can find yourself somewhere you never dreamed of being.

I passed a manager at work today, as I was crossing the office carrying armfuls of folders, and we said a polite "alright?". She then commented that she didn't really know me, that I'm so quiet and all we ever say is hello or goodbye and she doesn't know who I really am, behind it all. I think I just shrugged in reply. What's to say, really?

...summer will come again, I can be happy.

Which Super Villain are you?

Your results:
You are Venom

Venom 48% Apocalypse 46% Dr. Doom 46% Dark Phoenix 42% Lex Luthor 41% Magneto 38% The Joker 35% Two-Face 32% Juggernaut 32% Kingpin 32% Mr. Freeze 30% Poison Ivy 28% Riddler 26% Catwoman 23% Green Goblin 20% Mystique 20%

Strength, disguise and adrenaline are your greatest weapons.

Click here to take the Supervillain Personality Quiz

A strange 48 hours

Tuesday starts off the same as pretty much every other day -- get up, go to work, do the usual pointless slog they call my job -- but then I finished at 2pm. I finished work half a day early, drove home, changed my clothes and then drove to Portsmouth with my Dad.

By the time I would normally have been getting home from work I was instead in Portsmouth, and making my Dad sit through the new surfing DVD I'd bought while we waited for a call from my brother to say if he could join us for dinner. After waiting an hour and not hearing anything, we headed out -- not directly for food, but first to the bar where I had left my coat a couple of weeks back.

The bar was deserted -- as you'd probably expect before 8pm on a Tuesday night -- but I explained to the bar tender my position. He said he'd go look for it. He had a strong Northern Irish accent and I felt sure he was the same person I'd spoken to on the phone about it originally, when I'd called on the Monday morning, and who had told me they had it.

After an inordinate stretch of time, the guy returned and told me, sorry, they didn't have any coats matching my description. I was quite firm, and explained someone had told me it was there, and it had my name on a label attached to it. He offered to let me take a look with him.

It was so strange, being led upstairs to the deserted club. Through heavy, locked security doors and through a comedy club that looked more like a ghost town, he took me to the room with the lost property. Probably expecting me to concede it wasn't there, I almost immediately went to my coat where it was hanging -- and mentioned there would be my grey gloves in the pockets. And so they were. Along with my name on a label. The bar tender apologised for not seeing it earlier, he said he didn't check that one because there'd been a handbag on the same coathanger (the bag, I'd like stated for the record was not mine).

Some people might have been annoyed -- that having lost the coat once they might have ended up losing it again, all because someone didn't look for it properly, but I was just glad to have it back. I was sure to be appropriately thankful, since I had what counted. And yes, I have learned my lesson -- if you're going to leave your coat unattended, use the damn cloakroom.

Dinner was uneventful, unremarkable, usual pub far from the place almost next door to the apartment buildings, then we went back to the flat so I could spend the rest of the evening studying.

Because the whole reason we were in Portsmouth, was for my job interview with an online PR agency. I've recently put a second copy of my CV online, with the alternate Portsmouth address instead of my "home" address, to widen my possibilities for work.

I was I was neat, clean, shaved and sober -- and I didn't care who knew it. And the interview itself seemed to go well -- It's never easy to tell with these things -- but I'd done my homework about the company, which showed, I asked questions about their training and recently won clients, and I think I answered their questions reasonably confidently. On the way out, the lady who had been interviewing me got me to wait in reception while she saw if the agency director was free to say hi to me. He was, but our meeting was brief -- I was just polite, thanked him for seeing me, though was perhaps slightly nervous. He asked me if I had any other interviews today, but I told him, no it was just the one. In hindsight, maybe I should have lied, and made myself seem in-demand.

Now it all depends now if I am the right fit for the role, I know there will be a lot of competition for the position, so I have to wait and see.

Strangely enough, the recruitment consultant who got me the interview worked almost right next door (I think she said they were renting from the agency), so we met for a quick discussion about how it had gone. Because she said she worked in a basement, we ended up going back inside the agency -- I asked the receptionist if she wanted me to sign back in. I hoped we wouldn't run into anyone I'd just met -- although I expect they wouldn't be altogether surprised, I felt like we were sneaking in. The consultant seemed nice -- not nice in that fair weather friend way most of them are, but genuine -- and we chatted about my impressions and how I thought it went.

Then it was time to leave again, to hit the road and get back to Essex.

And that's more or less where it ends -- I come home, go to the gym, and go back to work again tomorrow morning.

Twisting my mellon, man

I tell you something that's really twisting my melon today -- I thought I'd be all clever and switch to the Haloscan comments, just like his eminence the Baron Hashbrown suggested. Granted it looks cool, but the comments have a life on their own outside of the blog itself. Diary-x went boom last year and my diary disappeared -- but I still have all the comments that were left, saved on Haloscan. Except they are now disembodied comments. And Haloscan has booted all the existing comments off my blog, so it looks like nobody loves me. Don't fret though -- any comment that has ever been left here automatically gets emailed to me, so I have them all tucked away.

So -- Sunday Night Hockey. Chieftains lose! Again! I'm starting to understand why the Chieftains are middle of the league, they're just not very good! Sunday night's game was against the Swindon Wildcats. Do you suppose you get many wild cats in Wiltshire? Apparently, yes -- one of the things I do love about England is there are supposedly any number of panther-like big cats, just randomly roaming the country side.

Anyway, I was pleased to see the Chieftains playing better last night -- the passes were connecting, the team seemed to working together as they should. But they weren't getting the goals. First blood as usual went to the visitors, but I wasn't shaken -- this is all familiar now, and I was sure the Chieftains could come back.

And they really tried, mounting a sustained attack on the goals and eventually equalising the score in the second period. Everything rode on the third period -- and we gleefully swore at the Swindon supporters after a lucky goal was disqualified because they had too many men on the ice. It was short-lived when they made up for it with another goal.

And that pretty much sealed it for the Chieftains. They tried, they struggled, they raged (although not like last week's rage) and they still lost.

Update: after some guidance from the genius Baron Hashbrown and trawling of t'internet, I have found a way for Haloscan and Blogger to coexist. Granted, at this point it's currently showing both links, but I'm not sure there's a way around that for old posts.



Happy Mondays - Step On.mp3

Valentines referrals

As is often the case, I've been analysing by visitor stats -- and I'm faintly amused at what I see as 'seasonal' posts. It's Valentine's -- for better or worse -- and I've seen an exponential increase in the number of people finding my blog after they googled a certain heartbreaking turn of phrase from Damien Rice: It's the wrong kind of place to be thinking of you". I can empathise with the lonely, the dumped, the heartbroken -- those trying not to think of that one person.

Hot on its heels is the popularity of self-loathing, in the form of a line from a Vines song: "She never loved me, why should anyone" is always good for a few hits (heartbreak never goes out of fashion), but it has seen a recent surge of interest.

Hits for people searching for Greg Lake songs about snow, Christmas, peace and earth have unsurprisingly dwindled -- that they are there at all might have something to do with the recent snow across Britain.

The search term I like most, that I think should be more common, is the succinctly put "like cock hate men". I'm sure there are many girls out there who can identify with the feeling expressed by this searcher from Tampa, Florida -- at least occasionally.

I think the most romantic search phrase of all time to lead to my diary is this one from Connecticut, USA: "lose virginity with someone you have no affinity". Because it rhymes, I'm inclined to think it might be a song lyric -- or maybe it's from an amateur love poem, for this special day.

It's good to know that googling the phrase "destined to die alone in a room heavy with the tang of cat wee" leads to my blog. It could be a glimpse of my future, but it is actually from a half-forgotten post a year ago.

But perhaps the key to my own heart lies somewhere in the phrase "snowboard sonnets". Yes, any ladies out there whose interests include board sports and poetry -- or even better, sonnets about board sports -- please form an orderly queue.

Saturday Night Hockey

The truth is, we were probably out-ranked from the start. The Sheffield Scimitars were a formidable opponent, and even my attempts at optimism or blind faith in the Chieftains seemed to fall flat with friends before the game. I kept saying I had faith the Chieftains could win it, we'd give our predictions for the final score -- and I did think the Chieftains could pull it off.

The first period was close, and toughly fought -- until first blood when to the Scimitars with minutes left on the clock. As I've said before, though -- put the Chieftains in a corner, and often they come out fighting. Often literally. The second period saw the goal lead for the Yorkshire men increase further, but not without some great effort and defence from the Chieftains -- but the truth was, they just weren't good enough.

Last week was some of the best Premier League hockey I have seen -- they were on form, and their victory was hard-won and well deserved. Saturday's game was frustrating, the passes weren't caught, the puck frequently lost. They just were not up to form, despite starting their comeback with a powerful goal instead of rising to the challenge from the team second in the league, the Chieftains seemed to struggle.

The third period really turned the heat up on the rink -- the Chieftains weren't going down without a fight, and in the space of mere minutes, Sheffield's lead had been closed to a draw. Even a draw against Sheffield would have been a result to be proud of -- if not necessarily earned -- and the tension was getting unbearable. As the final period started dwindling, we thought Chelmsford had done it -- a shot at goal and for a second it looked like it went it. Instead it was as close as it might have been possible to get, and that was all the Scimitars needed.

We barely had time to curse them for being Northern bastards before the score went from 3 - 3, to 4 - 3 and finally 5 - 3. The Chieftains took the final buzzer as a good time to pick a fight, eventually the players were dragged off each other. Not ones to let it end there, although Sheffield took their win, the teams took the fight off the ice -- expressing the frustration of the home fans to have come so close to beating a team with an 8-game winning streak.

It's a small consolation, however, to see that the Milton Keynes Lightning lost 6 - 0 to the Peterborough Phantoms this weekend. You're not singing any more...

All about my pets

I met her 9 years ago, this summer. I've written about it so many times. She was the cute girl, sitting on her own. I didn't think she'd want to talk to me, but started a conversation anyway. We got on instantly, spent the rest of the day together, and I was already falling for her by the end of the night. We dated, then I broke her heart when I went to university in Utah and didn't really give much thought to what we should do about our relationship. She started seeing someone else and that was the end of us.

I came back and we met up and I felt everything that I had felt before. I told her in a grand sweeping romantic gesture, and she got mad. Eventually she told me much later that she felt the same. She was angry at me for leaving and screwing everything up and never making clear what I wanted -- for buggering off on an adventure and leaving her to fill for herself the hole in her life I'd left. Eventually we got over it, even though she still loved me. but she started seeing someone else.

Periodically over the years we've met again. Sometimes a couple of years pass with only phone calls or emails in between our meetings. We met one day in Leicester, had a few drinks, and I knew I loved her. But I kept my mouth shut. Later she got in trouble when someone told her boyfriend they'd seen us together.

We met before this time around Halowe'en in 2006, a random pub in Holborn. And yes, the same old feelings. And yes, I stayed quiet.

This time we'd been texting a lot and talking about meeting up, and yeah I knew her and her boyfriend were "complicated" at the moment and that he'd moved out, although it was temporary. I suggested cooking dinner, she invited me over to her flat to cook for her. Later she invited me instead to a beer festival with her and her friends, but said I could still cook for her. I suggested Chinese takeway instead to celebrate the New Year. The beer festival fell through, but I was still to meet her. Meeting her one evening and drinking meant I had several options; being on the last train home at 10-something, paying out for a taxi, or staying the night. I asked her if it would be weird if I stayed the night. She said she didn't know if it would be, but I was welcome to.

So on Friday I finished work, drove home, got changed...then drove to South London, where she now lives. I packed an overnight bag and stuck it in the boot, but decided to play by ear if I would stay the night. I hadn't decided. I hadn't even decided when I arrived there, and we sat on the couch together with a couple of beers.

And guess what? Yes the feelings were still there. There was still that click, that spark, that light in her eyes. But this was also the flat she shares with her boyfriend, and his life was all around -- the guitar, the records, the pictures. It turns out he's moved back in, although he was out of town for the weekend. I don't know if she told him I was coming over and maybe staying the night. Doesn't seem a very sensible thing to say if they are having issues, but it never works trying to keep it secret -- makes it seem worse.

So the feelings were still there, but obviously I would never act on them, nor admit them to her. I shrug and tell myself it's not a true test, it's nothing like actually being with her, to spend a few hours with her socially. She clearly loves her boyfriend -- and even more clearly the more she drank. I kept my head and drove home, getting in just after 2am.

I like driving at night when it's cold and quiet out. When the roads are almost empty, and you can just listen to the CD in your car and pretend you're in a film.

Where do we go from here? She and I stay friends. We'll be friends if/when this relationship doesn't work out, and maybe the one after that too. Maybe I will introduce her to the next girl I'm in a relationship with, obviously not mentioning any of the above. But I doubt very much I'll ever tell her I love her again, even if sometimes I feel it.

Tickling the ivories

#"Well, you tried it just the once, found it alright for kicks
But now you found out that it's a habit that sticks
And you're an orgasm addict"#
Orgasm Addict, The Buzzcocks

A while back, I did a Musical Monday post about the song Teenage Kicks by the Undertones -- and commented how it was originally about masturbating, with the lyrics reportedly running "I wanna hold, wanna hold it tight, get teenage kicks right through the night" before they toned it down with "wanna hold her tight". Since then, I've noticed recurring visitors from google, searching to see if it's true, and instead finding my own corner of t'internet.

I was curious to see what other pages on "Google zoeken" a search for teenage kicks about masturbating brings up, and where I am on this list. What I am most interested in today is link #1, the Wikipedia "List of songs about masturbation".

Plenty of songs on the list are self-explanatory, and don't require much thought -- like the above "Orgasm Addict". Others are a little more obscure, like the Vapors "Turning Japanese". But there are many songs on this list that surprise me.

Maybe I'm naïve and have led a sheltered life, and possibly I'm not very good at picking up on the thinly-veiled subtexts of a song. I'm also known for sometimes missing blindingly obvious references in a song, take for example Aerosmith's "Dude Looks Like A Lady". I used to think it was a fantastic song, a work of rock genius, but never really quite grasped the song seems to be about a transsexual -- lines like "never judge a book by its cover" and "she whipped out her gun, tried to blow me away" that completely eluded me in my teens, now would seem cringe-worthy, if it wasn't the mighty 'Smit. Consider also, if you will, Meat Loaf's epic-length "Paradise by Dashboard Light". For years, the significance of the baseball game on the radio in the middle of the song eluded me. In my defence, the sport isn't widely played in England, and adolescents here aren't (or, at least, weren't) readily familiar with the "bases" -- and I'm still not really sure (or particularly bothered) what they are.

"Love is Better Than a Warm Trombone" by Gomez appears, and confuses me. I've loved Gomez for years, and have a particular affection for this song, but it still escapes me how the song could be about conducting one's self in a solo symphony.

"With his hands in his pocket he lowered his eyes
he said 'miss, I guess I ought to apologise, I've been fallin', I'm falling down"

It hardly sounds like the most decadent expression of self-love to me.

Also appearing on the list is "Dare" by Gorillaz. Never having given it much thought before, after reading the lyrics I can concede that perhaps this one might be. Interesting trivia surrounding the song; it was reportedly entitled "It's There" originally, but the wonderful Shaun Ryder just didn't seem quite able to get it right -- so they just changed the name of the song. With this in mind, the repeated "it's coming up" and "it's dare [there]" does seem suggestive, but is it about grooming the wookie? I'm not convinced.

6 weird things about you

I promised a "six weird things" post, after all -- The Wee Italian Chick tagged me, so I had no choice. Blogger ate my first draft, where I got to about three or four, so here we go again...

THE RULES: Each player of this game starts with the ‘6 weird things about you.’ People who get tagged need to write a blog of their own 6 weird things as well as state this rule clearly. In the end, you need to choose 6 people to be tagged and list their names. Don’t forget to leave a comment that says ‘you are tagged’ in their comments and tell them to read your blog.

I have no sense of direction. If I'm out shopping, there's a 90% chance I will turn the wrong way when I leave whatever shop I am in. I then have to pretend I meant to go that way, and have an elaborate pantomime of stopping in front of a shop window and looking really interested in something, nodding to myself as if to say "I am satisfied that is what I needed to look at, now I may be on my way", turn the way I was meant to go all along and carry on... This is all for the benefit of anyone who might be watching and thinking "He just turned left instead of right, what a fool". That could almost count as two things.

I've actually had to see specialist doctors for a variety of reasons in my life, that don't really count as separate numbers -- but to summarise:
I have very bad "spatial awareness", this means I am clumsy. I walk into doorframes a lot, since I misjudge where I am in relation to the gap, I also am known to hit my head on the wall if I bend down to pick up the post. As a kid, my parents were concerned I might be showing early-warning signs of multiple sclerosis and had me checked out. Turns out, no, I really am just clumsy.
I also have had to see a Harley Street heart specialist, when I was discovered that no, it's not normal to be able to see one's heart visibly beating through several layers of clothes. The specialist was less interested in that as he was a heart murmur they found while checking it all out. Turns out the murmur wasn't significant and they still don't know why it is you can see my heart, but it has been written off as unimportant.

This is weird enough to warrant a whole number; I have only one (known) allergy: sunlight. Okay maybe not "-light" but the sun. My skin is so sensitive to the sun it is considered to be an allergy, this means lots of sun block in the summer -- and if that doesn't sound strange, consider the famously wet "Great British Summer"

I used obsessively wear a pair of Elvis-style yellow-tinted sunglasses, like all of the time. I bought a pair in Vegas, but they broke. So I bought another pair in Santa Monica, and wore them obsessively for ages. I was wearing them the first time I met San, and the first time I saw Fiona after something like 10 months, after returning from Utah. It's a wonder to me now that either of them was willing to see me again. I don't really know what I was thinking at the time anymore.

I wash my feet in vodka. This is a relatively new quirk, but essentially vodka appears to be much the same thing as "surgical spirit" or what I believe is also commonly known as "rubbing alcohol". Using Smirnoff red for this sole purpose is probably not very sensible.

And yes, I can count and know it's technically only five -- although some are complex enough to have sub-sections. The trouble is I just can't think of a sixth without getting into personal issues, too much information or just not weird. That doesn't mean I can't tag my six, though: Treespotter, Madame Boffin, China Blue, Mez, Saru-San and Sharp and Pointy. Though technically anyone (lurking) reading the post can also consider themselves tagged...

and you never know, I might remember something else weird.

Sunday Night Hockey

Last week's home defeat was the Chieftain's first since November 5, and there was more than the usual level of anticipation this week as the Chieftains faced the Peterborough Phantoms.

In recent weeks, it had felt like the Chieftains didn't find their game until the second period -- but not so tonight, when goal followed after goal, until the buzzer ended the first period with the Chieftains enjoying a 4-0 lead. Chieftain's number 50, Randall, lead the way scoring himself a hatrick and assisting in the fourth goal -- but the game wasn't entirely one-sided; the Phantoms fought for all they were worth, making for some of the best premier league hockey I have seen in weeks.

Perhaps the Chieftains were too busy patting themselves on the back for their four goal advantage at the start of the second period, when the Phantoms scored right off the buzzer -- and the Chieftains 55, Howard, was sent off for various dubious penalties -- but mainly fighting with an opposing player. The penalties weren't the sole arena of the Chieftains, with more tripping and hooking coming from the Phantoms than you could shake your stick at.

By the end of the second period, the Chieftains four-goal lead was long gone and the Phantoms had managed to overtake and grasp a goal lead of their own. The Phantoms fans seemed sparse -- and less annoying than last week's MKL fans -- but they surely thought the Chieftains spell had been broken.

How wrong they were, Chieftains not only equalised but won in the final period. 3 points for the Chieftains, and the Sheffield Scimitars this Saturday.

A town called malice

I can't believe it's been nearly a week since my last update -- and then I only blogged about the weekend's hockey, the truth is the week's pass almost without event or remark, not necessarily in a bad way but there's frequently little to comment on, other than what customers have yelled at me in work that day.

There was meant to be an update earlier, since I've been tagged by The Wee Italian Chick to post six weird things about myself -- but I only got to three or four before running out of things. Don't let's get back onto how I'm normal, please, I'll force myself to think of a full list for a future post.

The week has ended with far more interest than most, Monday through Thursday were very ordinary and unremarkable days. Get up, go to work, come home. Friday I took the day off work because it was my birthday and I was going to Portsmouth with a couple of my friends for the weekend -- so I got up late and spent most of the morning smiling at various text messages of happy birthday wishes. We set off for Portsmouth about 5pm, and probably arrived a good three-and-a-half hours later when you take into account traffic jams and misdirections from the GPS.
GPS speaking with the voice of John Cleese: "You have arrived at your destination".
Me: Uhh, no, this isn't it.
Nick: But this is the postcode you gave me.
Me: I know, but this is not the flat.
(considering where we had arrived was some backstreet and the apartment building looked more like a multi-storey car park).

When faced with choices of food, we decided to opt for takeaway pizza. I looked up "Pizza Hut" in the phone book and found the nearest one under "takeaway/delivery units". But they didn't deliver. So plan B was Domino's, and although Nick took some convincing (apparently their pizza uses too much tomato for his tastes), this one did deliver. After about an hour. We discussed what to do that night, but since Nick had been in work that day on an early shift and then driven to Portsmouth straight from work and Jon didn't seem overly fussed what we did, we opted to stay in.

Having come away without a printed record of my comedy club booking for Saturday night, it was helpful when Nick was able to connect his palm pilot to the wireless internet of someone else in the terrace of flats. And in true Jay-style, I found my confirmation email said I'd accidentally booked the wrong night for the comedy -- in fact, the Friday night. We were still able to book for the Saturday the following morning, but I'd wasted the money for that night.

Saturday was a weekend not unlike any other -- we bought some music and DVDs and had dinner out to celebrate my 26 years on the planet, then went home and changed for the club. During the day, there was a knock on the door of the flat which worried us at first, since we thought it might the owner of the wireless internet network we were using without permission. Instead, it was our neighbours from upstairs who had been told by my parents I would be staying. They told me they understood I was very handy, with making things and the like, but I corrected them -- that's my brother, the one who has done all the work on the flat. They laughed and asked if that made me "the intelligent one". No, I said, I'm an artist. Again they laughed at something that wasn't a joke and said they would have to get me to come upstairs and paint them a mural. I didn't bother to correct them. I never established what they wanted help with. Later, in a text message my Mum asked if I'd helped or given them my brother's number. "No," I said, "I just lent them a hammer".

The comedy that night was good, and we decided to stay for the nightclub after the show -- Jon was very drunk at this point, and insisted we should dance. In a remarkable display of foresight on my part, before leaving my jacket on the chair with my friends' coats, I remembered to take out my key to the flat.

Fast forward to the end of the night, Jon is even more drunk and ranting about blonde chavvy girls, in particular one chav girl who had been giving him the eye -- because in his words, he was throwing shapes better than anyone else out there -- but she'd lost interest when he didn't respond to her. I'd been interested in a brunette whom I thought maybe looked a little bit like a curvy Rachel Bilson, and she seemed to be catching my eye. Maybe she'd been catching me looking at her, or maybe it was the other way round. But I wasn't worried when we figured it was time to go. What did bother me was that my coat was stolen. The others were still there, but mine was obviously missing -- not on the floor, not on another chair, and I even asked the girl in the cloakroom if it had been handed in. But between the music and what seemed like a limited grasp of English for her, I got the impression it hadn't.

My brother gave me that coat only a couple of weeks ago. It probably wasn't expensive, but it had been his for several years and he'd then given it to me, and that meant more to me than anything I could just replace. I'm glad I was smart enough to take my valuables out of it -- in my job, I get so many phone calls describing how someone left their mobile phone, unattended, in their jacket, then found it missing at the end of the night. We went back today, but there was nothing given in lost -- whomever took it either mistook it for one of theirs among a pile, or else thought it might have something worth stealing.

And so today we got Subway for a late brunch (after Jon was over the worst of his headache, he also says Nick kept him awake snoring every night), we took a walk along the seafront and then made our weary ways back home. And I've just time now to hit save, grab a shower, change into my Phoenix Coyotes jersey and head out to the Sunday night hockey.