Portering Along

A wreath Kolsch Beer - LA Times of Kölsch.Beer, beer, beer, beer. Beer, beer, beer, beer. Yes, I spent last night at the Cambridge Beer festival over on Jesus Green. An enormous tent filled with a bizarre mixture of students, professionals, Iron Maiden wannabes, normal folks, and strange facial haired CAMRA members. There must have been a hundred or so types of beer for sale and the weather so so good we say in the sun drinking away.

One hint though, if you ask for Stout, don’t expect to be handed a Guinness or Murphy’s. It tastes more like porter that’s been left sitting in the slops tray for a couple of years, heated up, and then served in a filthy glass which was last use for storing sewage.

Is it safe?

Two words to strike fear into the heart of adult and child alike: Root Canal.

I’ve had an abcess for a while ever since I had to get eight fillings in one go and decided to find an NHS dentist to take care of it. Little did I know that it’d involve five injections of anaestethic, much drilling, and a good looking dentist poking around in the soft tissue of my gum for fourty minutes all made worse by having my appointment at eight in the morning.

The only thing that kept me sane was munching on Ibuprofen for the rest of the day. I’m probably over my limit, but I’ve a low tolerence for pain and a high tolerence for drugs.

Six days rest not before I go back for more drilling. Good time to watch Marathon Man again.

Sleeping Beauty

The Science Museum, where Frank Greenaway was ...That was a busy weekend. First I went down to London to meet Iain and then he came back up to Cambridge to potter about the town.

I arrived in London in the afternoon and of course we went down Tottenham Court Road where I went and got a digital camera for next to nothing. Then on to another part of London – South Kensington – and the Science Museum. We hadn’t much time there but we got to see the introductory exhibit, the Space stuff, and some odd, old, household appliances. A cheap Chinese buffet for dinner and then on to O’Neill’s Irish pub to meet Elizabeth, Iain’s girlfriend. I was the only one drinking, but then again, you have to when playing a gooseberry.

Got the last, cancelled, train home and fell asleep. It’s not good for the heart to be woken up by someone banging on the window at the station at 2am, no matter how good looking she is. My chat-up line of, “Oh fuck, sweet Jaysis” didn’t go down well, so I muttered a quiet thanks and wombled off to the taxi rank.

Expansion

Getting back into the work thing now. We moved out the a shiny new office in the Science Park over the weekend, and surprisingly everything more or less worked when I get in. I’ve gone from a very cramped, open-plan office to a lovely view of the UUnet building out a window, half-sized partitions, and more then a foot’s distance from my boss. The only thing is, it’s supposed to be closer, but it seems like it takes me longer to cycle in the morning.

Incipit Liber Primus

Liber Primus, Page 1Image by Henrik Eneroth via Flickr
Well here it is – a diary I’ve been planning to keep for the past god-knows how long. Hopefully Blogger will make it a little simpler than writing a lot of bloody HTML.

Just back to Cambridge from a weekend home in Dublin where much alcohol was imbibed and many brain cells destroyed. The only problem was Ryanair – The Low Service Airline. I got into Stansted Airport in plenty of time for my 7:10pm flight when it was delayed, not for fifty minutes, not even for an hour, but for four long hours. Airports are depressing places at the best of times, but having to wait until 11:30pm while three flights to Dublin leave ahead of you, without even a cup of tea from the airline is enough to make you go looking for the nearest clock tower.

Bah!