On Saturday night my irregular wine-drinking partners Andrew, Matt and Caroline – who I struggle to come up with a collective name for other than the dispiriting ‘Themes & Sources crowd’ – braved the apparently highly dangerous route to my house for an evening of, well, wine drinking? Well OK, wine drinking and CUCA bashing – for Caroline is that way inclined – which is always a perfect recipe for a great night. As the night wore on the political discussion intriguingly managed to buck the expected descent into incoherence – well, if you take my word for it – and Caroline pulled off a rather neat trick by being the first conservative to sell a conception of ‘family values’ I didn’t react against with horror. It was clever, actually, and bizarrely smacked a little bit of Old Labour.
Matt, me and Caroline (carefully framed by wine)
(Oh, and Andrew discovered that the Peterhouse May Ball is a white tie event. Oops 
)
Blurry gig photo!
Joshua arrived on Sunday on a multi-pronged visit to see me and his friend Daniel at Selwyn. That night, a million miles away from the world of wine and white ties, we went to see The King Blues perform at The Portland Arms. And it was awesome. As this was technically my 2nd gig in a not highly illustrious career (sssh, Abbi) I’ll happy nick the phrase ‘protest punk ska reggae frenzy’ to describe it perfectly. We were right up in front of the stage, head-banging and moshing (!) in a wonderful and very friendly atmosphere. Although I don’t believe in their exact protest politics – in many ways it’s like going to an SWP meeting except with a great soundtrack and alcohol – having everyone shout ‘fuck off’ to the BNP in unison is a perfect moment in and of itself. Plus, afterwards a very cool guy was performing an anti-Boris poem (along with others) on the pavement outside. Yay!
The glorious sign
Oh, and I now have their on-stage sign in my room after Joshua took advantage of his height to grab it! (I just love the grammatically correct apostrophe for a Cambridge audience 
)
The next day Joshua and I went into overdrive at the glorious Waffle House and had two each – an entirely justified excess. In the evening, Abi came over for a famed Peggle tournament – ooh, worlds colliding again 
– which rounded off a very enjoyable couple of days. I must apologise to Joshua, though, for the rain. Sorry! That’s what happens when everyone suddenly decides to visit at this time of year…
If I’m Obelix, you are my boulder.
Abi and Joshua face off at Peggle Nights
you mean menhir right?
I am in no way surprised that Josh nabbed that banner. I’ve seen him do it before. That and a drumstick when he had Itch on his shoulders in the Barfly.
I am not disparaging your lack of gigs. I think there are many things that you have done more of than me. I’ve never actually protested against anything… which is a bit lame of me. How about I take you to a gig next time you’re in Londres and you take me to the next anti-Boris rally?
That wouldn’t rhyme with:
"You can lean on me, cry on my shoulder"
But nevertheless I think you just won the much coveted Comment of the Year
(And Abbi! F’sure
)
I love everything in your blog
Including wine. Mostly wine atm.
But gigs too! And Peggle. And grammar! And biscuits and friends and lots of things.
But mostly wine.
Woop.
xxxxxxxxxx
Aha and I bought 5 kiwis today.
xxxxxxxx
I didn’t know we were competing! Consarn it, I would have made more effort.
(And Abbi, your first protest should not be Anti-Boris. It should be anti-war! Way more fun, trust me.)
Is the bad back a result of all the moshing?
And if you’re going to headbang, I’d recommend longer locks – for a really authentic experience, y’understand.
Sounds fun.
JOOC, what was said conception of family values?