Archive for the ‘Life’ Category

I just wanted to make that clear for the record because I don’t really feel enough has been said about it.

Last week myself, Oli, George and Lil headed out for a night out which ended when Lil got really drunk, decided to attack a group of guys and earned Oli a rather beat up eye for his trouble when he tried to calm things down.

Still, spoils of war and all that, at least I got myself a nice new hat.

Last weekend Robin Ince was kind enough to stop by to give us a talk before doing a gig at The Library later that night. While I sometimes find his material a little hit and miss, live he is an excellent performer and I really enjoyed both the talk and the show.

Despite still being in the recovery stage of flu I headed down to Oxford this weekend for the AHS national convention. We set off on the Friday afternoon as to be in time for Camp Quest UK director Sam Stein’s talk and stayed as late as the Sunday night to hear Dr Evan Harris’s talk on trying to introduce some common sense into Parliament – something which is not popular in there.

All this resulted in us not getting back into Leeds until 2am this morning, something which my body did not appreciate when I had to get up for work this morning. Never the less it was a great weekend. On top of the talks and conventions we also managed to fit in the Ashmolean Museum, the History of Science Museum and of course plenty of watering holes on the way.

Oxford is a beautiful city, if occasionally puncuated by some hideous buildings that really stick out and the colleges are all like mini-cities in themselves. Would be a really nice place to be invited to do postgraduate study (hint hint) 😉 .

For those who don’t know I was stuck down ill on Tuesday night. I managed to claw my way back into work today but that was probably a mistake given how I am feeling now.

In any case last night didn’t help. Having not really slept properly since Monday night I finally managed to drift off in the early-ish hours of this morning having gone to bed about 11pm. And by gone to bed I mean tried to sleep, I didn’t actually get out of bed at any point yesterday save to make myself some food.

Anyway, I had finally dozed off when I was awoken at the sound of my UPS beeping like crazy at 3:30am. The power had gone out.

Needing to sort out my computers I reached for my torch, carefully positioned on my bed side table for such occasions. Of course being ill and knowing I needed plenty of fluids I had carefully positioned a glass of orange juice next to my bed.

Of course, it went flying spilling it’s contents over the top of my bedside table as well as the wires and printer sitting below it. And of course I couldn’t see to mop it up because we didn’t have any power so none of the lights were working.

So here I am, cleaning up the mistakes of last night despite the fact I’m physically exhausted and despite the fact I still have loads more to do tonight before I can sleep.

But at least through it all, I know I have you. All of you. Everyone of you, each of you different and each of you amazing in your own special way. I honestly don’t know what I would do without you. Never leave me, Dairy Milk.

No, I’m not talking about the classic song by Poe which was featured on the Book of Shadows soundtrack.

Last night I headed over to York for a good old fashioned ghost tour. York Brights coordinator Ewan is one of the tour guides to invited us over and it sounded like a good laugh so I thought I would attend.

I had been forewarned to keep an eye out for sly skeptical comments in the talk and that there certainly was :D. Lines like “one of York’s genuine mediums – if that isn’t a contradiction in terms” and “she swore them all to secrecy about the elaborate array of hidden wires and sound effects she used that night” provided a good night of amusement and entertainment.

Afterwards we headed to Caesar’s Restaurant for a very nice meal indeed – although we didn’t get any free garlic bread as Ewan had assured us we were almost certain to receive. The food was never the less excellent though.

On Friday, the new season of Perspective kicked off in Leeds with representatives from the Mormon faith coming down to talk to us. I was actually surprised how interesting and informative it is, there is actually quite a lot of deviation from traditional Christianity that is not immediately apparent.

We weren’t best prepared for the course not having things like plates but the food was never the less good and with Essentials now open until 10pm we even managed to source some coffee (Extras stocked it but they only had decaff so I just walked out).

The inevitable march of aging means we rarely venture out of our houses to hit the down these days. I’m often at the pub as little as three or four times a week these days and clubbing is a whole different sorry state all together.

However given I’m playing plenty to live in a very nice city centre apartment which allows me to go out, get drunk and walk home all with relative ease the very least it seemed appropriate to do was to re-start a regular schedule of Wendylicious, particuarly as I always try to be around that Saturday for Skeptics in the Pub.

I have to say I’m glad I did because it was a pretty epic night. I think I’ve discovered the best formula for Wendy, drink at home, go to The Old Bar, drink some more there, then wander into Wendy around 11:30-midnight as it’s brilliant for the first few hours but then gets a little repetitive.

As such awesome times ensued including several short appearances from Amerijohn (even if he wasn’t actually hanging out with us for the most part, traitor) and some kind of end of night drunken cooking which is always a victory when it doesn’t burn the place down. Good times.

On Monday evening I headed over to York to speak at a meeting of the North Yorkshire Humanists a rather nice invite sat in between Ariane Sherine in December and Andrew Copson in February.

The talk went fairly well, I could really tell that it had been a while since I had done much public speaking and was somewhat out of practice but everyone I spoke to said they found it quite interesting and there were plenty of questions so the feedback was positive. Having run through it the night before I was a little taken aback at how much stuff I had so it’s probably for the best I kept things moving at a good speed.

Interestingly the street we were on, Priority Street, apparently has seven churches on it – five separate church buildings and two other church groups which meet in the same community centre as the Humanist group hold their meetings – most exciting of all was the Rock Church next door :D.

On Saturday I indulged my final act of hedonism before ending the Christmas amnesty on Campaign for a Debt Free Chris by heading to Browns for a meal with Kieran, Si and Sarann.

The food was good, myself and Si both opting for the Browns Bacon Cheese Burger which rose to the class the of the restaurant very well. The company was equally good too as we whiled away the hours reminiscing about back in day. Good times.

The decade is over and a new one has begun. So once you’re done clearing up from the wreckage of NYE parties and making arbitrary promises about how you are going to change your life, it might be nice to take a quiet moment to reflect on the fun and games we’ve enjoyed during the past year.

As usual the year began with January which was the month I got into Twitter just before it become cool. I also attended York Brights for the first time and launched Leeds Skeptics in the Pub. Meanwhile on the atheist front the bus campaign was in storming through and we officially won the Christmas vote.

The temperature dropped in February but there was plenty of emotional warmth as Perspective launched. We celebrated Darwin’s 200th birthday and Galileo Day with a traditional feast. Meanwhile down in London the AHS held it’s press launch.

It was a quiet month in March though with plenty of drinking of course including a RDF meetup. As part of my AHS work we began planning a society in Huddersfield and saw Durham through their first Reason Week. I also spoke for Humanism at the interfaith panel and launched the Humanist Action Group.

Most of our time in April was taken up by Rationalist Week 2009 whether it be planning, writing talks, gathering equipment or the week itself – and of course, being interviewed by the local press. This was shortly followed by the LAS AGM at which we elected Sophie as president.

Lighter nights resulted in be finally spending some quality time at the park in May as well as having a 4am post-close BBQ. It wasn’t all fun and games though as I set a new personal record with a 44 hour shift.

Summer was finally drawing near by June as Atheist Society celebrated with our End of Year Ball. The AHS held it’s AGM in Warwick and I worked my last day at Open Door Design. Meanwhile in the real world the BNP won two seats in Europe and Michael Jackson died.

Stress levels were running high in July as I battled with letting agents and finally made it in to my new apartment, not to mention swine flu running rampant. I celebrated 5 years of blogging and re-launched this website in preparation for the CWF website integration. Meanwhile Leeds Atheist Society went camping and HAG expanded our activities.

I kicked off the fun in August with a visit down to Swindon to visit Kieran and followed it up with a good warming of my house. We also said goodbye to Michelle and Rich went back in the closet meanwhile I got myself an iPhone and the Chris Worfolk Foundation was incorporated.

The arrivial of September saw the start of a new academic year but also resulted in us having to say goodbye to Felix. Elsewhere Si took another step towards becoming an alcoholic and Derren Brown correctly predicted the lottery numbers.

Change was afoot in the month of October as LAS got into it’s full swing for the 2009/2010 academic year. I celebrated by birthday, myself and Daryl planned the re-launch of Leeds Skeptics in the Pub and the Chris Worfolk Foundation held it’s first official trustee meeting.

Leeds was feeling the aftermath of the EDL protest in November as I filmed a debate for Ummah Channel and in a suprising twist attended a live sporting event in the way of the Four Nations Final. Leeds Skeptics rebooted at it’s new venue while the Chris Worfolk Foundation launched it’s new website, the Perspective leader’s guide and announced humanist communities.

Finally in December we won a huge victory in the form of Killing in the Name beating X-Factor to Christmas number one. I left The D after three years and tried to carry on my life under very testing conditions. Finally the year ended with a good old fashioned Circle party for New Year’s Eve amidst a very drunken weekend for myself and Kieran.

That concludes fun times ’09. Things will be no doubt be just as exciting in 2010 – officially the year of the Chris Worfolk Foundation, which I will be writing about later. And as if that wasn’t enough we even have a new Doctor Who as well! It’s all going on in the next twelve months.