Chris Worfolk's Blog

Just a quick post to say congratulations to my sister Katie who graduated with her bachelor’s degree in theatre costume design on Monday.

The degree is accredited by Teesside University which I’m told is currently University of the Year being the first new university to win the award. This to me seems somewhat analogous to Stewart Lee’s “world’s tallest dwarf” (very impressive in relation, but still never the less a dwarf, and therefore restricted by law from holding positions with a minimum height requirement such as a firefighter, or owner slash operator of an enchanted beanstalk).

Never the less, I’m sure most of us are all too aware of just how much work there is to earn a degree in any subject that doesn’t contain the word “media” in the title, so congratulations are certainly in order.

With Norm having a spare ticket to the Gorillaz gig at MEN last night, I decided to take him up on the offer and head over. The train journey over there was a nightmare – pretty much every train in or out of Leeds was running late and so we started off fifteen minutes late only to find we could only crawl to Pudsey.

So an hour into this journey we hadn’t even made it out of Leeds yet with the official reason for the problems being a combination of a gearbox problem and “the track being wet.” So we spent another twenty minutes or so waiting for the Blackpool train which was only a few minutes behind us apparently so turn up so it could push us into Bradford at which point they gave up on our train and cancelled it.

Once we had found another train the journey finally got going and I ended up reaching Manchester about quarter past nine – over three hours after having set off but just in time for the set – Gorillaz had just taken to the stage and were onto their third song by the time I got to my seat.

Some, who regularly go to bland and unpopular bands who can’t fill a large audience, would wonder whether they were looking at musicians or ants at stadium gigs but luckily we had no such problems – the seats themselves were really good – it was as far forward as you can get (I was in seat 3) on the left side, about half way up the lower tier.

There were a huge number of people involved in the performance. The regular act consisted of Damon Albarn, three guitarists, two drummers, four vocalists, a five piece string orchestra and two or three other people meaning just as standard there were nearly 20 people on stage, plus on top of that they had a brass band and another orchestra that did some sets and maybe 8-10 guest vocalists as well resulting in there being probably 40 people on stage at various points throughout the gig!

Despite not being that familiar with a lot of Gorillaz’ music I really enjoyed the gig, well worth the wait.

On Thursday, we headed down to Sheffield to see Paramore. The wind and the rain made for an interesting journey, but never the less we made it down in good time and after grabbing some food we headed in just to see the final few songs of B.o.B.

Paramore themselves hit the stage at around 9:15 and played an almost identical set list to the one they had played in Nottingham a few days earlier, which was great, because those were the songs I had been listening to non-stop since 😀 .

I really enjoyed the gig, probably more than Linkin Park, mainly due to us having standing tickets which was well worth the premium cost as you get so much more atmosphere on the floor – not to mention more room to get into the rhythm.

On Tuesday, Leeds Atheist Society held an interfaith panel featuring speakers from Baha’i, Quakers, Humanism, Christianity, Paganism, Scientology and Judaism.

The new Humanist Action Group website is now live!

HAG was founded in 2009 with the idea that we should stop talking about how Humanism is about living a good and ethical life which makes the most of it for ourselves and those around us and get out there and start making a difference – not because scripture told us we should but because it is the right thing to do.

The new website makes it easier for people to get involved in volunteering – simply fill in your details and enter your nearest town or city. We will then match your details to local volunteering opportunities that HAG is coordinating and let you know when they are available.

From December, the Humanist Community of Leeds is moving it’s meetings to the evening, with doors opening at 5:30pm. We were really impressed with how many people turned out this morning but we believe we can probably double attendance by moving to a later time, based on the feedback we have, so this should make for even better events.

On Thursday myself and Norm headed over to Manchester to see Linkin Park at the MEN.

Turns out that the upper tier is somewhat higher than I remembered from last time I was there so booking seats up there wasn’t exactly the smartest idea. Still once you get settled in you eventually reach a point where you don’t feel like you could fall to your death at any moment which is nice.

Until recently I had forgotten how awesome Linkin Park where so having rediscovered them safely in time for the gig it was awesome to see them live. I’m not sure how well their new stuff really works in a gig setting as it’s a bit experimental a lot of the time, which works really well in the context of an album but maybe not so much in a gig.

Never the less they are still great songs though and when you add in the classics it made for a really enjoyable performance – especially when badly screaming along to every song is not only permitted but actually a good replication of the band 😉 .

On Wednesday I headed over to Bradford to present a talk to the newly formed Bradford Atheist and Humanist Society.

It only actually took me 30 minutes to get into Bradford, which results in a very embarrassing situation for Imran who lives there and told me that it takes him over an hour to get home – even though I managed it in half the time with me just guessing at which lanes and turn offs I needed to be using.

The talk was well received and the society seemed a positive and friendly bunch of people and I wish them all the best in the future! It’s fantastic to see such a society get going at Bradford University.

On Monday I was thinking about the talk I was giving to Leeds Atheist Society the next day was probably a little too similar to talks I have given to them previously.

Therefore I decided to try and re-write the entire talk in one evening. The result was what I’m calling “The Atheist Responses.” It’s basically the same as my Debating the Theists talk but as well as giving some general answers it also gives quotations from what famous atheists have said previously. The result seems to have been positive.

Last Sunday we held our first poker night.

It went very well over all, despite the fact I had only started playing poker a week before I managed to win the first game, though in reality, it was almost certainly because I am simply too new to the game rather than because of any skill on my part – once I actually learn what hands beat what and therefore actually understand what I’m doing myself, people will actually get a read on me.

Until then, let the good times roll!