Clubbing

I cannot think about clubbing without thinking about the episode of "Spaced" where they went out.

However, I rarely go out. For two reasons: one, I generally prefer to have a sit and chat and drink; two, I don't really drink much so often object to being surrounded by inebriated morons who have little sense of respect (for the record, I have been one of those inebriated morons in the past, so I feel thoroughly entitled to express such a holier-than-thou attitude).

However, at the weekend, two things happened. I got paid, and Nicola noticed that Roger Sanchez was doing a DJ set at Media in Nottingham. She had been to one of his DJ sets a few years ago and really enjoyed it. I also quite like the more eclectic dance music (i.e. stuff with a tune and a bit of groove, rather than than the thud-thud of most house music), so we forked out and went.

Yes, I enjoyed the music, and yes, it is fun to have a dance once in a while. But for me, by far the most entertaining part of the night was watching how the other half live. Seeing girls in ill-fitting clothing, and watching blokes try to pull them. It is highly amusing to watch. Obviously, there is the occasional problem that a minority of men will try and pull my girlfriend, even though she is obviously with me (if she wasn't with a man, then I could understand it, but for Gawd's sake, show some respect!).

Highlight was young-ish bloke, talking to blonde girl whose shirt probably had one button too many undone. He chanced his arm by putting an arm around her. She inched away, but didn't completely resist. He tried to turn towards her in an embrace, she turned towards him but kept a safe distance by putting her hands between their chests. Not long after, another bloke arrived and she snogged him. Young-ish bloke looked suitably put out, and skulked off to join his mates. "Boyfriend" has snog and disappears. Girl is left on her own so goes to talk to young-ish bloke and his mates, trying to encourage them to dance with her. One of his mates then starts the whole charade again. In the meantime, young-ish bloke does what can only be described as "going into a mard", turning away even when girl wants an innocent dance with him. I know this is a classic case of schadenfreude, but it is hard to be sympathetic towards some people...

Good deed for the day

I gave blood yesterday. It was not my first attempt, but it was my first time that I actually made a successful donation (no I didn't faint the first time, it was just that my vein in my left arm is not very suitable, so it was just painful, caused bruising and not much came out).

I was chatting to a lovely old man afterwards who had donated 95 times. We were talking about our motivation for donating, and this brought us onto a conversation about whether altruism really exists (or do we just do good things because it makes us feel good?). Discuss...

Complete this sentence

Someone at work had obviously bought a new cafetiere and left the box in the kitchen. It is worth reading what wonderful things the manufacturer had to say about it...

Murphy's Law

Murphy's Law basically states that if it can happen, it will happen. It tends to refer to irritating things, such as "if you drop a piece of toast, it will always land butter side down".

There have been scientific studies done into Murphy's Law. I remember once seeing a scientist claiming to have cracked the conundrum of the falling toast.

As far as I am aware, there is no explanation as to why birds poo on clean cars. The day after cleaning my car last week, a bird made the biggest mess I have ever seen- must have been an eagle or something. Sometimes, all you can do is sigh and get on with life...

Forest 1 Bristol City 0

My match report is now online on the Official Forest site.

Baz's report is also available on his blog.

Karma Police

[This is a quick post as I am in the office and want to go home before there is a queue to get out the car park!!]

Yesterday was definitely Monday. Nothing life- or livelihood-threatening, but not a good day.

Amongst other things, someone scratched my bumper in the car park. It's not a big scratch, and won't need repairing, but it's still annoying. Either the driver who did it did not notice, in which case they need to be more careful, or they did notice in which case they ignored it and drove off. Bummer.

Still, it is my fault - on my way into work, I was obviously still half-asleep because I cut someone up on the motorway. I didn't mean to, I was changing lanes and she was in my blind spot. Luckily there was no contact, nor did she have to take evasive action. I tried to wave my apology, but this was met with a rather terse V-sign. I didn't mean it and I am sorry. I suppose the scratch on my car is payback for my carelessness earlier...

Forest 0 Scunthorpe 4

Match report now on NFFC official site. I also have a review of Colin Calderwood's efforts so far on the BBC Nottingham site.

To quote CC: "We had our bottoms spanked".

New things to look at

You may have noticed a few new links in the right hand pane. I don't want to put too many up because I think that the more there are, the less likely you, the reader, are to trawl through and click on them.

Especially recommended are:

* "NFFC - Baz's blog" - administered by my brother, with occasional contributions by me. So if you know that I am football-mad, but were wondering why I do not post anything about football on here, it is because it all goes on there!

* "BaRabica - MySpace page" - as written by Gary. You can listen to some songs by my most recent band on here (I played guitars and things, and did the lead vocals).

* "The Happy Commuter" - you may have seen comments on this blog from JD - well this is his blog, with tales of trains and automobiles (he has not written about 'planes yet).

* "Random Acts of Reality" - the blog by Tom Reynolds that spawned the book "Blood, Sweat and Tea". Tom is an emergency medical technician working for the London Ambulance Service, and this is his account of the good, bad and ugly things that he comes across.

* "Tales from Tragedy Towers" - in a similar vein, this is the blog of a health adviser working for NHS Direct.

* "Foundation" - the MySpace page for the band I was in whilst at university. Again, you can listen to some songs here - I played bass and did most of the backing vocals. This site was set up by Mohan.

Waiter waiter there's a fly in my soup (well, my tea)!

I love a good cup of tea. One of the advantages of having relatives in Assam is the occasional packet of tea sent over from my Uncle's tea garden. So at the moment, I have actually taken my Bodum teapot into work, and after getting up at 6am, and a long drive into work, a refreshing cup of tea is the only way to get myself into gear for work.

This morning, I made my tea, went back to the office and got on with some other stuff until it reached drinking temperature. As so often happens, by the time I got back to my desk to drink the life-giving fluid, it was no longer hot, rather more tepid. And there was a fly in it. Not even a small one. It hadn't drowned, in fact it was doing what I can only describe as swimming. I am no expert, but I would suggest that the weight of the liquid on its wings was affecting its chances of vertical propulsion.

Obviously, I wasn't going to drink it (there are other ways of getting protein into my diet), so I had to go back to the staff kitchen and start again. By this time it appeared as though the fly had "ceased to be", so I washed out the cup and started again with a fresh pot.

And I thought, "That's unusual. For a Tuesday".