Archive for the ‘Life’ Category

I met up with Chris Mitton on Monday night as it’s been ages since we’ve seen each other. We met up at the Chemic Tavern so it was somewhat a novelty of being back in our old haunts, even if I never actually spent a huge amount of time there.

It is weird to think how fast everyone is moving on and changing and I suspect it has affected most other people more than it has affected myself.

It seems like a lifetime ago since I started university. But given the speed life moves these days, it probably was. Still if it wasn’t this way we wouldn’t have old friends to meetup with over a few drinks.

Our plans having been thwarted last week we finally made it to Bella Italia this week. And interestingly enough had the restaurant to ourselves with the only other people in there leaving just as we were arriving. Made for very speedy service which was very nice.

I started with the Calamari which was interesting and then moved on to the Pollo Arrosto which is chicken cooked in some kind of herbs or sause that involves garlic and something else. I can’t actually remember what it was but it made for good eatign none the less.

As usual we finished the night with a good bit of KFC for dessert. It’s a winning combination.

Wednesday saw us head down to London for the launch of the National Federation of Atheist, Humanist and Secular Student Societies, better known as the AHS. We managed to get ten of us down there from Leeds – a number unmatched by any other society with the closest competitors only achieving five (not that I’m bragging of course 😀 ).

The day itself went quite well, we eventually managed to get the technical sorted and all of the speeches were very good. We got some good pictures too which will do very nicely for publicity not to mention the endless angles we got video from.

I met Richard Dawkins, I said “what kind of microphone would you like?” and he said “a lecturn will be fine.” That is my Richard Dawkins story 😀 .

The hotel was alright, we had quite a big room for the amount we paid. I think I managed to spend as much money on taxis getting to and from the train station I did as my train tickets which I found quite amusing but the important thing is, I actually made my train (unlike certain other people who had to go via Manchester at 4am to get down there).

All in all if the AHS can continue like this, we’re going to do very well. Congratulations all on a victory well deserved.

A lot of stuff went wrong Tuesday. By 1pm there had been so many things go wrong I was ready to give up for the day but in the end a few things pulled themselves round and didn’t end too badly.

The evening saw us take up a debate on Scientology looking at whether it was a cult or not. Attendance was fairly good though we had been moved into the resource lounge (which was better than the original plan of just not having a room).

After this we headed down to The Old Bar to join the Christian Union’s barn dance. Not that we did that much dancing, we had drinking to do, but it was fun never the less.

Sunday being Galileo Day we decided to celebrate in the traditional way with a Galileo Day Feast. Sunday would have provided far too much time to prepare so we held it on Monday night on which I didn’t get home until 6:30 so eating at 8pm wasn’t bad at all.

Sunday evening saw us head down for a nice meal at Bella Italia.

Which was closed. Balls. It being rather late and the other Bella Italias being a bit of a mission away we decided to head to the Flaming Dragon which was also at Xscape and offered a taste of the orient in some kind of mega buffet.

To be fair it delivered quite well, the range of starters was quite impressive, indeed I spent most of my time there as it was probably better than the choice of mains (which was also good) and the dessert selection included crunchy nut corn flakes and an ice cream machine so the hybrid mix was obviously.

I got through quite a random mix of stuff including sushi, squid, seaweed, some kind of pork belly thing and a large selection of other dishes that I at least vaguely recognised. The quality of the food itself was buffet quality shall we say but that is to be expected, given it was a buffet and all.

Afterwards we still ended up at KFC because it’s like, the law. Plus it provided as a nice place to sleep the food off as my missing Twitter update indicated last night. Good times.

I headed out to the Deer Park with Si this lunch time for Sunday lunch, perhaps somewhat in celebration of beating Charlotte by a good two hours on our closing race last night and because there is never a bad day to go for a pub lunch.

The real shock of the day is that having sat down and pretended to look at the menu before going for the same thing I always have, I actually choose something different this time! Sure I went for a burger rather than a steak but still, I think it’s big leap to actually alter my usual selection.

I really enjoyed today to be honest, it was nice that it was just the two of us, it’s an excellent chance to be cynical without someone dragging the mood up. Sunday lunch is about relaxed chat, a nice meal and then heading home for a nap, none of this hyper talkative nonsense. Just a relaxing lunch so I can drift off and pretend for an hour or two that I don’t have a pile of work to get through.

Well that’s it, I’m now a card carrying Humanist.

On the plus side, it would seem people are fairly receptive to moving the HSoWY meetings to a different night so we can finally end the clashing between HSoWY and A-Soc.

Last night’s talk was by Rich on Neodarwinism which was interesting. Meanwhile Norm lead a group discussion on Darwin at A-Soc, both events seemed to go down fairly well. Afterwards we converged in The Terrace so it was all good.

While I’m on the topic, congratulations to John and Zoltan who have been elected onto the committee at the EGM.

Did someone say recovery steak? My my yes.

Sunday saw the day start with a trip to the Deer Park for lunch with Si. Norm and Kate also joined us as well as Liz who I would describe as being hyper and never stopping talking, but she wasn’t hyper, that’s just Liz at baserate.

This was followed by an evening trip to Louisiana Bar & Grill at which my earlier mixed grill prevented me from making the obvious choice. They also had a 20oz steak which was very tempted but being resigned to trying something new and exciting I went for the swordfish steak. It was fairly disappointing to be honest but never the less an experience.

The best part of the restaurant was the table cloths you could draw on though. Clearly there was only one thing on our minds 😉 .

Be warned, ice may reduce stopping distances. Which is a bad thing when my car is parked up a little beyond your usual stopping distance.