Archive for the ‘Life’ Category

Sunday afternoon we headed down to Shaky Jakes in Headingley for some sundaes to celebrate Viv’s birthday. They literally have every chocolate bar you can think of available to make into a milkshake or sundae and if there is something they don’t have you can even take your own chocolate down and have them use that!

Despite feeling rough on Sunday I endeavoured to make it down to Cuthbert Brodrick for the usual Sunday lunch. This week saw Kate extend her usual diet of chocolate cake to include a bowl of chips too – to which ended up being combined into some radical new version of the chocolate chip.

Friday saw us kick things off with One Life, this week’s session being about ethics. As John was running late I started the session as chair for the first half an hour or so raising a few topic discussions before the real content matter was entered when John arrived. Unfortunately we didn’t have enough plates and cutlery for the committee ended up eating out of a cup with a spoon!

Afterwards we headed up to City Church on Headingley road who were running re:fresh, a free BBQ and hot drinks session to catch drunk people Otley running it. We would have had a few drinks in the old bar first but as they were Christians they had to go to bed at 11 so we had to go there first 😀 .

Having come direct from One Life we were of course in our Atheist Society hoodies which made for a fun time – of course they were very welcoming though the hoodies did get described as inappropriate by a girl on a fancy dress Otley run dressas as a Roman which we didn’t find at all ironic. After all, what have the Romans ever done to Christians? 😉

As Paul in our office had a rather big birthday coming up (I won’t mention which one), we decided to head over to the pub on Thursday for a bit of lunch and a drink to celebrate. As such I really couldn’t say no so took a day off from cutting back on my spending.

In the end though Rob put the company card behind the bar so it didn’t actually cost me anything – therefore when it came to Friday and everyone was still up for the usual Friday lunch at the pub, I had effectively saved a pub lunch’s worth of money so technically I wasn’t spending any more than I would have 😀 . Good times.

As usual we headed down to Cuthbert Brodrick on Sunday for lunch. It saw a much overdue return of Sarann and Moz and a lengthly session of gossiping about a number of individuals. It also somewhat disturbed myself and George that we only left the pub a meer 36 hours before returning – does anyone know what the frequency of visiting a Wetherspoon’s is before you’re officially an alcoholic? Not that I was even drinking today but I’m not sure that cancels it out.

As I found out while recently clearing out my old bedroom I wrote quite a bit back in the day.

Some of my writings included outlines for loads of different TV shows. What I found interesting though is how many of them have manifested themselves as actual TV shows in the ten years since I wrote them. For example Just One Way was an outline which followed the fast-paced action of one man’s life over a 24 hour period, a plot similar to what we would now recognise as 24.

Other shows included The President’s Office which has striking similarities to The West Wing and 100 Deeds Before I Die which could easily be compared to My Name is Earl.

What this shows us it that the makers of today’s television programs have the same imagination, ideas and thought processes as a child. Where this is a good thing or a bad thing I will leave up to you.

On Thursday, The Gijs delivered his talk “Intelligence and Scepticism” to the Humanist Society of West Yorkshire.

The thrust of the talk was that there was an inherent contradiction in Humanism and a rational approach to life because Humanism is something that is very positive and the world on the whole isn’t positive with all the crime, senseless violence, falling out with the people you care about, etc. Although admittedly a lot of this revolves around the Humanist manifesto.

It was never the less a very interesting talk and even though it turned into a bit of a socialist preaching ground at the end (from the audience, not The Gijs) it was a good evening. We finished off at The Well, the rebranded Joseph’s Well which had actually locked their doors because nobody was in there until we came hanging on the door.

Went over to my parents for dinner on Monday and somehow got ambushed into sorting through a lot of my old stuff.

So, so many trees worth of paper thrown away. Including my prize collection of empty refill pads which I built up over the years. Not to mention and endless series of course notes from a-levels, books, magazines, comics and a whole heap of other junk.

I also found a few of my early writings including the self explanatorily titled A Stern Letter from Richard Nixon. I vaguely remember writing it though I didn’t dare read it – doing so could only reduce the treasured place such a work has in history.

Wetherspoon’s have now introduced their new menu, which while almost identical to their old menu, provided us with a good excuse to expand our options for Sunday lunch. I’m glad to say that after nearly five years of campaigning, we have finally got profiteroles on the menu. Win.

I finally made it over to the A-Soc picnic on Woodhouse Moor to find a rather nice turnout and, amusingly, A-Soc members trying to participate in sporting activities 😉 . We spent a while longer in the park chatting before heading over to The Old Bar for what we expected would be a few drinks – 10:30 in the evening, several drinks and a jazz band later and I finally left. Crazy times.