Category: Journal

On Friday just gone I accompanied Fliss and her colleagues on a works night out to Rawhide comedy club in Liverpool. We’d been to Rawhide before, although this time the venue had moved from the Albert Docks area to a less lavish location at the top end of the city center. The new location was well received by myself – it’s less intimate than the old one, but by the same token it’s not as pokey and you can actually make your way to both the toilets and the bar easily. Not that you really had to fight your way to the bar, though, due to the attentive table service – just give them some plastic to stick behind the bar and it’s full steam ahead from then on.

The comedians were of a better standard than last time, too – the host, Mick Ferry, interacted well with the audience and helped to liven things up with some good one-liner’s. The three main acts, I thought, increased in quality as the night went on – with the wickedly vulgar aussie Jim Jeffries rounding off the night.

Somehow we ended up in the Walkabout until it got very late after finishing up at Rawhide – when an evening out starts off as well as it did there, it’s hard not to keep on trucking after the event.

Although, yeah, I did pay for it all day Saturday. The worst part was having to get up and drag myself into town to get the car back from the car park I’d left it in. After that was done and dusted the rest of the day was spent wishing the world was a much quieter place. ;o)

Well, to tell you the truth, in all this excitement, I’ve kinda lost track myself.

In June cousins Iain and Jamie visited one weekend, which was excellent, as I got to drink and watch the Euro’ football with Iain, and I got to meet Jamie’s little girl Hannah. I spent quite a few evenings in the gym that month, too, ‘cos Fliss was training for her 5k run, which she completed successfully.

At the end of June and early July I was hella busy doing some freelance work – I still am, in fact, but I’m on the home straight now, and it does keep the wolf from the door.

We went back to Scotland for the wedding reception of a friend, the weekend before my birthday, and that was good fun, although a little low key on my part. This was mostly due to me getting carried away the night before on a night out with my old friends Ade, Geo and Eoan – that was a touch of class, actually – nobody fell out, although sadly George left before he could spread any love. ;o)

Earlier this month I also found the time to do my usual extensive research, followed by careful product purchase thing as we got a new digital camera. Although the Minolta G600 wasn’t my first choice, Cedrick has been very happy with its little brother, and it works with a 128Mb Sony Memory Stick that we had going unused, so it quickly rose to the top of the pile. After picking it up at a very good price and taking a few snaps with it during Fliss‘ 5k run I have to say I’m very pleased with the quality of the camera. Hopefully one day soon some of the images it captures will end up on this site.

On Saturday evening a group of us went out in celebration of Fliss‘ birthday.

First up was an excellent meal in the Japenese teppanyaki restaurant, Sapporo, a rare treat if ever I’ve had one. The food was superb, and the spectacular preparation by the quirky chefs with their combustable liquids provided a brand of entertainment you don’t usually find while dining out.

Such is the demand for a place around the flaming grills of Sapporo that we’d had to settle for a table at 5pm – anything later was booked solid. However, since it was a lovely evening that made the walk to a bar nearby quite pleasant. We even stopped off beside this “balls on bendy straws” sculpture thing on the way. Much like the assorted sushi from the meal – I don’t know what it is, but I like it!

Once we arrived at the bar of choice we were holed up there until well after eleven, spending an obscene amount of cash in the somewhat pricey establishment in an evening that seemed to race along. In fact, a portion of the group went off to the cinema to catch The Day After Tomorrow and managed to meet us back in the same place before we all headed off to The Krazy House. This was mostly at the request of Andy, who was down from York for the evening along with Rachel, but as usual the three-floored-freak-fest delivered the goods in a “you know you’re not the weirdest person in here” kind of way.

Even though it ended up being a very late night, when we stumbled in the door Fliss insisted on showing off her EyeToy Groove skills – albeit in a depleted state due to drunkenness and tiredness.