I’ve been watching some of the Comic Relief stuff on TV this evening. It is quite a remarkable thing, really. In 2005, Red Nose Day raised £65m. That sounds quite a lot, and it’s great. But what gets me is this:

Olympics budget rises to £9.3bn and the government is forking out £6bn. That’s £6,000,000,000 which I find simply staggering. This, for some sports. Yes, yes, redevelopment of the East London area, benefit to the country blah blah economy and all that bullshit. Whatever. SIX BILLION POUNDS.

£20bn for renewing Trident. Twenty thousand million pounds. And this for devices for causing death and destruction on a grand scale. Devices which should never be used, which is apparently why we need them. That’s one hell of an expensive insurance policy.

It makes me so fucking angry.

Another totally inadequate post.

I saw Avenue Q this evening. I find myself unable to come up with words to express just how amazing it was. Just… wow. The actress/puppeteer for Kate Monster was just fabulous. In fact, all of them were. And the “Sesame Street” video moments were hilarious. Also, I only realised when I got home and looked up the cast on the website, that Christmas Eve was the actress who plays Toshiko in Torchwood. Cool! :)

Right, time for bed now.

I haven’t written for ages. I will get around to it properly at some point.

Meanwhile, two things.

1. I passed my piano performance diploma, so I have DipABRSM. :)
2. xkcd: “Bored with the Internet” and xkcd: “Grownups”

Last Thursday I went to see Little Shop of Horrors at the Menier Chocolate Factory theatre near London Bridge. It was very good indeed, and the new Audrey II looks like this (end of show):

The show is due to transfer to the West End in March, but I’m glad I saw it in such a lovely little theatre. I may well go again when it’s moved, though. :)

Last week I was drumming for a pantomime version of Treasure Island. It went as well as could be expected, but I wasn’t impressed with the choice of songs. It also took up the whole week: tech on Sunday, Act 1 Monday, Act 2 Tuesday, full dress Wednesday, then performances Thursday, Friday & Saturday (x2).

Today was quite strange, though not in a bad way. Last week the Chairman of JLP, Sir Stuart Hampson, turned 60, so someone decided to hold a little surprise celebration for him today, and then someone asked if members of the Cavendish Singers (our chamber choir) could sing “Happy Birthday” at this event. However, our conductor was away today, so he asked me to lead it. He couldn’t find an SATB arrangement of the music, so guess what I did on Sunday?

So, this morning I remembered to wear my suit and tie, and at 1.30 we assembled in Sir Stuart’s office along with most of the board of directors, ready to surprise him when he arrived. It was all a bit surreal; though why should I feel out of place just because most people in the room were at the level of my boss’s boss’s boss’s boss?

Then, after work, I met up with my mum and sister near Oxford Circus, then dad joined us for a meal at Efes (on Great Titchfield Street). Good food, and plenty of it. I split the bill with dad, which felt very grown-up!

Well, the concert on Thursday was fantastic. The playing was superb; I cannot express it any better than that, I’m afraid. The venue was pretty good, but it was hard to overcome the instinct to become irritated at the noise of the fan, or the occasional sounds floating down the staircase from the door to the restaurant upstairs. The single complaint I had was about the price of the drinks. Now, I don’t often—no, make that “very rarely”—go to clubs; I prefer a pub. But £7.50 for a gin & tonic?! Appalling! Anyway, I learnt my lesson. It was brilliant to catch up with Amy, and we plan to try and go to more concerts and gigs.

I had a marvellously relaxing day today. I played Tikal with my parents, who always get impatient while I’m explaining rules, but once the game got underway it became clear to them (as it had to me when I read the rules) that the gameplay mechanism is actually very simple, with very few exceptions or special cases to consider. It took quite a while—must’ve been 2 hours—but dad pointed out that it was our first time playing it so we were bound to be slow. I take this as a positive sign: normally he’s not all that keen on games, especially if they’re long, but I think he must have liked this one! It does look great as well. Next time I play, I might even take a photo of the endgame state. I know that would be really sad, but don’t care. Board games are great.

Tomorrow I am going to a “Virtuoso Violin” concert at The Gardening Club, Covent Garden. Unusual venue for a classical gig, I know! Violinists Simon Hewitt Jones and David Worswick and cellist Tommy Hewitt Jones are headlining, and I’m going because it sounds too cool to miss. Also I know Simon and Tommy from my days at RCM Junior Dept. I’ve arranged to go with Amy, a friend from 6th form, so it will be a great chance to catch up with her as well.

Also, played Torres with mum and dad this evening. Dad won, I think to his surprise as he was learning the rules as he went along! Tikal looks amazing; can’t wait for a chance to play it.

First day back at work today (since 2006-12-21) and it was ok, but last night I had a headache (which is rare) in the evening, had difficulty getting to sleep (rarer still) and at 4am I awoke with headache much worse (unprecedented). I suppose it could have been due to eating half a box of Guylian chocolate shells while watching the last episodes of Torchwood season 1.

A few days ago, I gave in to temptation and ordered both Gipf (BGG) and Tikal. They arrived today and I’m hoping I’ll able to try Gipf tomorrow evening with mum. Although, we played Torres on Monday and she liked it this time round, so might play that instead. Still pondering Pirate’s Cove.

I had a lovely New Year’s Eve with friends in Enfield, which involved an excellent meal, various wines (including excitingly-flavoured fizz) and several games (Carcassonne, Stratego, Balderdash and Zèrtz). The night before that I visited the House of Light Entertainment in Cambridge, which also involved an excellent meal, wine and a game (Carcassonne). So, a very successful trip, and I even got some more of a database frontend coded whilst on the London-Cambridge train.

Must sleep now. More soon (perhaps tomorrow).

Apparently this means the second day of Christmas, in Greek. Thanks to Wikipedia and Unicode (or at least UTF-8) for making this possible. (yes, I realise it’s the third day by now, you pedant)

Good day. Woke, decided that getting out of bed was a bad idea, stayed in bed, woke again at about 11am and decided that it was probably ok to get up at that time. Did so. Sorted out Granddad’s computer (rather more than 20 minutes, mainly because he’d mucked about with things since it went wrong). Had lunch. Taught dad to play Zèrtz and played 3 games. Watched “Q Who?” from the Borg collection. Went to uncle’s house, where wine was drunk. All in all, nice and relaxing. Tomorrow will be an even-lazier day: the rest of my family is going to Kew Gardens, and I’m not.

Oh dear, here I am again. Anyone would think I was bored. Actually, I’m enjoying the Labyrinth soundtrack. :-)

Tomorrow I get to sort out granddad’s computer. He moved some folders around in attempting to “tidy up” (specifically, he moved ~/Library/ into ~/Documents/ ) which meant he returned most applications to their default state, including “losing” all his mail, and mail account settings. Dad spent a few difficult hours on the phone to him last week, but Granddad’s grasp of the concepts and terms is a bit shaky so it was a lot of fun, apparently. He seems pretty astonished that I say I’ll easily have it all sorted in 20 minutes or so, which I’m sure will be true: he’s not actually deleted anything, just moved it to the wrong place.

Am thinking of buying Pirate’s Cove. It is supposed to be a lot of fun. Not overly keen on the apparent level of randomness of combat, but the theme will surely serve to smother all such minor concerns.

I’m tired. Sleep time now. And I shall try not to have evil dreams that, when I awake, confuse me into thinking that I have just got a girlfriend, until I reach full wakefulness and—as I was never allowed to write in stories at primary school—realise it was all a dream. It’s just disappointing, frankly. Bad dream, playing tricks on me like that. Bad dream!

Right, yes, sleep would be a good idea, before I start rambling on about all sorts of stuff.

“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a goodnight!”