On parties, people and pubs

In the old days, things were simple. You worked at school from Monday to Friday, and then come Friday afternoon there was a magic moment where ‘the weekend’ would finally start. Since school ended it’s never been quite the same, so it was actually a little nostalgic this week to find myself hurriedly typing away on Friday afternoon, determined to have everything done in time to make Amber’s 18th birthday party with a clean conscience. This I did, and had a thoroughly good time in return. An interesting crowd: filled with people I know a little but not a lot, and testament to Amber’s ability to draw together just about anyone. (She has high eigenvector centrality, you might say. (Or maybe you mightn’t. Up to you.)) And it is neat to unknowingly re-meet people which Facebook later claims you actually knew over a decade ago.

Anyway, I also got a new brand out of Friday night: Geek Corner (TM), after Saoirse, Alex, Grace and I clustered together to talk about Twitter and suchlike. (Mostly Twitter, though.) Geek Corner was awesome – so awesome, in fact, that we’re proudly re-creating it tonight over mango beer. Although it does worry me slightly that at one point someone saw fit to ask cheerfully “how’s it going, intellectual people?” whilst passing between the hall and the Darkened Den of Cool. Intellectual? No no no… intellectuals smoke pipes and scribble on parchment. Intellectuals write clever stuff. Us? Twitter. Mostly Twitter.

And then last night I discovered something that I kick myself for not knowing about earlier: News Revue. Many thanks to Joshua for introducing me, because it’s a gem of a show, and this will certainly not be the last you hear about it on here. It’s basically just a satirical sketch show, updated weekly and with much singing and dancing, but done to a very high standard, running since 1979 and now housed in a cosy little theatre on top of a lovely pub. Win win win.

(As Josh and I fervently agreed over drinks afterwards: the world would be a poorer place without the great social institution of the pub. Not that we drink in anything like ‘traditional pubs’ of days gone by, of course – smoky, male-only, a little dingy and eerily quiet. But whatever you want to call it now – hurrah for the pub.)

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