29/7/2006
A few months ago, after seeing their fantastic video to "Hoppipolla"* (which centers around a two groups of grandparent-aged figures playing pirates :-D), I decided I should go and investigate Sigur Rós. They really do have a beautiful sound, and listening again to one of the tracks from their album "Takk" (unfortunately the only one of their works I've yet aquired) I realised I hadn't plugged them here, which is rather remiss of me: I hadn't passed on my discovery.
*This link is to the video on YouTube and may or may not work - there seem to be some gremlins at the mo, but it may improve...
23/7/2006
It's been a wonderful week :-D. Possibly the best music residential I've had, for two big reasons: firstly, being in sixth form now, we're given a lot more freedom - as long as I was at rehearsals and didn't make to much of a fuss about it I could do more or less as I chose, which was a refreshing change. Notably, of course, this allowed for visits to the Bishop Blaize Inn, where we got happily sozzled on two of the nights.
The other wonderful thing about the week was seeing Ben & Sabs again - you may remember that last year, when I mentioned their departure, I noted that you'd have no idea who I was talking about as I don't seem to talk about other people on here. This time at least you've heard the names before ;-) Essentially they left to go to different sixth forms, but we managed to entice them back for the residential, so I've had a week to catch up on a year of being too crap to keep properly up to date with their lives. Which only makes it slightly more depressing now that it's over, and I realise that I'll probably be as bad again this year. Just because I've resolved to be less crap doesn't mean I'll manage it...
However, it seems most silly to be getting depressive at the beginning of the summer holidays, when I've got 6 weeks of freedom ahead of me. Of course, interspersing those weeks will be the dreaded family holiday to A Hot Island, where I will either spend a week hiding, gollum-esque, indoors, or end up a fetching shade of lobster, and the day of reckoning (17th August). Those of you without AS or A levels in your life will be unaware that results are released to a hoarde of nervous, panicky teenagers on the 17th (now less than 4 weeks away). And the best possible feeling I can get is relief :-(
Again, I must drag myself away from depression, and remember that one of my chaps (probably not wise to mentiona a name here...) will have a house to himself for 10 days, so we're all invited to come and cause a resonable degree of havoc on various days. Other highlights include the cricket festival (which is only 3 days away :-D) and, of course, my chance to don the dayglo armour of a greenbelt steward! I don't normally like using exclamation marks (not entirely sure why, but they just seem a little tacky to me), but I feel this situation justifies one :-)
And it looks like I'll make it through to the second round of the international Thud tournament, too. So all in all there's no reason for me to be getting so depressing, is there. Unless of course I tuned into an emo while I wasn't looking...
14/7/2006
Again, I haven't been away for long enough to justify the length of time since I posted anything, and again, it's only going to be a single odd post before I'm off elsewhere...
DofE was somewhat easier than I'd feared - that still meant it was really hard, but I never found it so physically demmanding that I wanted to die (as I had at certain times on the Black Mountains at silver level). In a way this was something of a disappointment - the feeling of elation at the end of a more-or-less impossible expedition is rather greater than that at the end of one that's merely very hard... I guess there are a number of factors that made it easier: I'm, of course, 2 years older now, so in theory stronger; I'm getting steadily better at packing my bag, so it now ways a little over half what it weighed at Bronze (which, given that it's contents have to last me for twice as long, is quite impressive); my new group were more relaxed, and the extra rests they took may have helped; and finally, perhaps most significantly, in this group I wasn't clearly the weakest member. The psychological effect of being the one always at the back is enormous, and leads to you pushing yourself too hard and therefore there are knock-on physical effects as well...
The worst thing to come out of DofE, though, didn't happen until the journey home. Having being trapped in a hot and sticky minibus for hours, when Corbett left me with his Coke while he went to utilise the plumbing, I was faced with a quandry: I don't like coke, but I was really thirsty. In the end I took a sip, and discovered that I actually do like coke now :-( I was quite happy being coke-free, back when I thought I hated the stuff. Now I have to come to terms with a new way in which my life might be supporting american corporations...
Back home, the first international thud tournament has begun. Yours truly (in my guise as Mr Scrub) is in heat 2, along with Dwarves are small, Dearmer and Ponder. So far I've been thrashed by DaS, beaten Dearmer (tho not by anything like as great a margin), and am half way through my game with Ponder. The top two players from each heat go through, the order being calculated simply by totting up the scores from each game, so in order to go through I need to beat Ponder by more than twice as many points as he beats Dearmer by... We shall see.
The other effect of DofE, despite it being less mentally draining than in the past, is that my feet are now filled with rage at me. I have some very colourful blisters on my feet, so went in to town today to obtain some flip-flops (prescription flip-flops... good concept ;-)). However, I am a cheap person, so bought the least expensive ones I could find, which happened to have "England" written on them in enormous, enormously tacky letters. I didn't particularly want that, on my feet or any body part, so I've spent the afternoon with a sheet of sandpaper, sanding flip-flops. Just when I think my life couldn't get any less coherent, I find myself applying abrasive paper to light summer footwear :-)