Archive for the ‘Life’ Category

On Thursday Oli paid me a visit with a number of suprises including a Lil and a late birthday present in the form of a box of wine 😀 . As my blog readerable is mainly sophisticated well educated individuals similar to myself it would almost seem patronising to remind you that such a produce is the finest type of wine as it can breathe when in a box rather than being stuffed up in a bottle.

This was followed by pizza which included extra for myself and Oli and Lil is trying to lose some weight plus the fun of watching a woman take out a bike just outside our house. The guy seemed alright which makes it ok to laugh about. Oli had to rush off in a hurry to catch a train shortly after which resulted in me not getting chance to grab a photo so I present instead one of the classic Chris and Oli pictures. Enjoy.

When I went to bed on Sunday night I wondered if I would feel any different turning 23.

Turns out I would feel much worse as I woke up the next morning with my cold having returned with avengence. Still I eventually dragged myself out of bed and got as far as sitting on top of my bed for another few hours until I felt good enough to move.

Luckily Michelle was here to cheer me up so we headed into down to grab some lunch ending up at Brio in The Light which did a rather nice Italian roast chicken dish.

This left me with an afternoon of taking it easy on my birthday and as such I headed home for a business meeting. Well, sort of anyway, myself and Norm had a teleconference with the BHA so we could consult on Humanist Week 2010 – exciting times and all that.

Finally in the evening we headed down to River Plate on The Calls which served some absolutely amazing steaks including my delicious fillet and George’s huge 700g cow. I would highly recommend it if you are looking for a great restaurant though obviously it’s Calls prices. We managed to balance the night out by ending at ‘Spoons though so all was good.

Oh how the tables have turned. Today was a somewhat strange Sunday lunch in which George ate and I didn’t. Due to a combination of not feeling too great and wanting to keep my spending under control I didn’t bother actually ordering any, though I did manage to stretch to a beverage of course. Turns out, that’s all you really need. Although I kind of new I didn’t need an entire mixed grill every other day anyway ;).

On Friday the long awaited launch at work occurred as we took our first live bet from Belgium, albeit a test one. From here on in we’re trading so if you happen to find yourself in Belgium, near a newsagents and get a sudden craving to place a sports bet, you’re in luck. You can also see our website.

In celebration, we opened the first (presumably annual) Buzz keepie uppie tournament which Jason was victorious over with 17 and after some champagne and generous gifts from Rob we headed over to The Original Oak to celebrate.

On Thursday evening I headed round to Rich’s along with George and Jonni for a Question Time pizza party. Between us we got through about five pizzas, as well as several bottles of win and half of Rich’s carton 😀 . This was of course to watch British National Party leader Nick Griffin appear on the programme.

It was at least an entertaining show if nothing else though was mostly just BNP bashing. Not that we should have expected any less of course but I’m not sure it was the most productive thing to do. As Bill points out, it was half way though the show before someone managed to fit an intelligent comment in – that perhaps the failure of the major parties had led to a rise in BNP support.

In the end though it was essentially a witch hunt which didn’t produce the desired result. If a better course of action as Rich pointed out would have been to ask the panel what their policies on health, education and the economy were so they could be compared side by side.

This would have likely done far more damage than the constant barrage of insults that were thrown at Nick and his party which no doubt made us Guardian readers feel good but actually won him a lot of sympathy and support in other social groups. Will the appearance be a good or bad thing for the BNP? I guess we’ll find out soon.

On Sunday evening I got a phone call from Daryl informing me he had accidentally booked Atheist Bus Campaign creator Ariane Sherine to speak at the next Skeptics in the Pub meeting.

So on Monday I headed over to Batley (where Daryl resides into what is essentially a small castle) to discuss ideas of how we could re-launch the group with more exciting speakers and a better format. We began hunting for venues and next thing we knew we were driving back to Leeds to check out The Living Room on Greek Street.

By the end of the evening we had a new venue lined up, a new format in development and a plan to make Leeds Skeptics bigger and better than ever. Win.

I also have to say that Daryl has a very impressive collection of comics. I can’t say I know that much about them but he has box after box of them and all of them looking fancy and collectable. Top marks to anyone who has a replica Lightsaber in their lounge too.

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.