Because I feel I've been horribly neglecting LJ recently in favour of The Other Place:

• 13 January at 19:16 - Pleasing co-incidence: Tom Baker filmed 42 stories as the 4th Doctor. Douglas Adams was Doctor Who's script editor for part of that time. ;o)


• 26 January at 20:44 - New office jargon: "Doing an Abrams" - to recycle what someone else already did because it's easier than coming up with something new and, what the hell, it worked last time... ;o)


• 31 January at 23:25 - OMG! How come no one has ever suggested I should try eating Jaffa Cakes with custard before today? Nom! :oD


• 2 February at 19:23 - Cameron's strategy: "Look at how badly I've ballsed this one up. Do you REALLY want me in charge of negotiating the settlement if we vote to leave? Vote to stay!"

So, 2015: For me it was a year dotted with quite a lot of amazing times, for which I'm very grateful. I took a personal record-breaking ten flights, which took me 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle for Clare's birthday, to Bavaria for a great 2 weeks with the Chivers, and to Geneva again with work.

Speaking of work, it was an excessively busy year, but one in which I gained a quite sudden and unexpected promotion, which was very welcome. I saw Queen (+ Adam Lambert) in concert in February and a 90% solar eclipse in March (which, when added to the Northern Lights in March and a lunar eclipse in September, made it a great year for celestial phenomena!). I probably spent too much money on Lego and not enough on boring stuff, like the house.

Family-wise, my mum ends the year with two new hips and half an inch taller, while my sister and her family well and truly settled into their new home and came up to visit for a very successful week in the summer.

In the news, 2015 wasn't such a great year for the wider world. The chaos in the Middle East seems to go from worse to even worse, with no end in sight. Politics at home and abroad has taken several nasty turns. Several terrorism attacks and widespread flooding added to the misery. And the world lost too many amazing individuals this year, chief among them Sir Terry Pratchett and Sir Christopher Lee. Let's hope for a much brighter 2016...

Film of the year for me was (no, not the obvious!) Pixar's Inside Out, while book of the year was Andy Weir's The Martian.

Happy New Year, everyone, whatever you're up to this evening. I wish you all a very healthy and enjoyable 2016!

I've been in four different countries today, two of them twice! (And I'll be picking up a fifth on Wednesday...)

I'm back in sunny Geneva for a couple of days for a conference again. I have missed not seeing the lake for a while! :o)

Another busy weekend in the epic month that is July 2014! (And I realised I completely failed to post last weekend, with its beer festival and two birthday meals/parties. I blame the alcohol...)

Friday was a packed 20-hour day. I was up early to catch a train to that London (and thanks to the rubbishness of tram replacement buses, ended up sprinting down the High Street to catch a blue tram in order to get to the station on time). In London, I trekked back and forth across Westminster Bridge (Far too hot!) from meeting to meeting to meeting, before catching an early train to make it back to Sheffield in time for the theatre.

The goblin was surprise-ambushed in Tudor Square by Uncle Rich and Mummy sporting tickets for Horrible Histories. The show was a different cast to the TV series, but in very much the same vein and with added audience participation. As always, the songs were the best bit, ranging from Boob-icca Boudicca's "She Will Smash You" to Queen Victoria's rap ("V&A" as opposed to "NWA"), with plenty in-between. "Burke and Hare" sung to the Postman Pat theme is just so wrong!:

"Burke and Hare, Burke and Here,
Killing people everywhere.
Early in the morning,
Just as day is dawning,
They'll pick up all the bodies that they can."
Rather than sets, the cast interacted with a big screen behind them, which featured 3D effects in the second act. A street-level view of the Dale Dyke Dam bursting was pretty impressive, and it was nice to see an often-overlooked bit of local history featured.

After the show, I put in a late appearance at the 3FS where it was nice enough to sit outside and we had the added bonus of a surprise guest appearance from Jenny! This was before getting sucked back to Chez Nightingale for girl-sized mugs of tea ;o)

Unsurprisingly, I slept in yesterday morning. Then it was the looooong trek to Andy & Jacquie's for their charity BBQ. Kate, Michael and the girls, Ju & Jamie, Kate, and the Chiverses were also all there. Sadly the weather gods were not feeling kind, as it was far too hot and sticky, but the sacrificial offerings of burnt meat must've worked as they bestowed upon us a forked-lightning, rain-setting-off-car-alarms thunderstorm of epic proportions. We retreated inside to play with all the Lego, and when the storm cleared the air was fresh and pleasant. I would've left sooner, but was unfortunately forced to stay and drink whisky...

When I got home, I fired up the projector and watched How To Train Your Dragon in preparation for this morning's group trip to see the sequel. It's a more straightforward story this time round, with a clear-cut bad guy and everyone in Berk already used to the idea of living with dragons. The dragons themselves are still adorably cat/dog-like, and although the themes are rather similar to the first film, it feels like a development rather than a complete re-hash. It's a worthy sequel. I still love the flying sequences, and get caught up as the film revels in the sheer joy and awesomeness of vikings flying with dragons. The 3D wasn't too distracting and I'm definitely glad we went for the IMAX impact (although it might have been a bit much for poor Jamie!).

The goblin didn't like the kissing parts ;o)



Next - off to roleplaying shortly!

I was away at a conference in Geneva last week. I flew out on Wednesday morning (thankfully from Manchester, not sodding Gatwick like last time!), landed at lunchtime and had the rest of the day to sightsee :o)

I did the standard get-a-bit-lost-looking-for-my-hotel and wandered around three sides of a square looking for it (Unfortunately the two unnecessary sides were both hills...). The hotel was basic and my room was tiny (That's austerity measures for you!), but it was on the seventh floor and had a balcony, so the view more than made up for it.

Having checked in, I decided to make the most of a lovely day and took a boat trip around Lake Geneva. I got to see the Jet d'Eau up close, which I failed to do when I was last there since it wasn't running a lot of the time. I also explored a bit and found several museums that I didn't have time to go in. Maybe next time.

The conference was two full days, Thursday and Friday. It was a 45-minute walk from my hotel, but worth walking rather than bussing, since the route was around the lake and up through two parks.

I'd been to two conferences with this group before. Essentially it was an ideas-sharing event where - to quote the Canadian chairman - "We all nick each other's best ideas and try to implement them before you do." It's all fairly relaxed, although you do get to feel really important since everyone is sat behind a plate with the name of your country (complete with a little flag!). The representatives from the other countries are a great bunch of people, although I drew the line at the Aussie guy deriding English beer. (Cricket - fair enough). Turns out he'd never had any real ale.

One of my colleagues was meant to be giving a presentation on the Thursday. His flight was cancelled, but we managed through a combination of him dialling in and me filling in.

The organisers hosted a meal out on Thursday evening, with good food and free-flowing wine. By pure coincidence, the restaurant they had chosen was just one road over from my hotel, which was convenient for staggering back at the end of the evening.

Friday was a long day. Second full day at the conference, which went quickly enough (although we all rather ran out of steam after lunch). My flight then wasn't until 9:30pm, I caught the very last (and slow) train back from Manchester and didn't get home until around 2am.

Then on Saturday I had two parties to go to. So if my appearances at Toby's birthday party and the Flat of Geek farewell party were somewhat brief, you know why!


Photos here

Firstly, a reminder that I will be doing a Back to the Future marathon this Saturday, starting at 5pm.

I haven't posted all that much on here lately. My first thought was that it's because the fun and games of days off, going away and summer hols are over, and now it's just back to the trudge of work, with nothing to report.

Then I look back at last week. Yes, it was a normal five-day working week, but outside work I went to the cinema (Monday), a board games evening (Tuesday), Lard Club at Swanky Franks (Wednesday), the Steel City Beer Festival with folks from work (Thursday), Bez's head shave / First Friday Social (Friday), and then I was away for the weekend seeing family (and J.K. Rowling!), getting back just in time for roleplaying.

Looking back over the previous couple of weeks, I've been to Paul & Lottie's housewarming, Ed & Krissy's 10th anniversary party, and Isabelle's 1st birthday meal. I don't want to forget these events, so it's important that I record them here.

I've come to the conclusion that actually the main reason I haven't posted much is that I lead far too hectic a life and I don't have the time! ;o)

This week is a bit of a breather (just a normal week of work). Next week looks really busy though, mainly for work reasons. I'll be down in London on Monday, and then they're sending me to Geneva (W00t! Exciting!) for a conference Wednesday to Friday. I'll be back for the weekend, in time for Jamie's birthday party and the Sheffield Cathedral beer festival.

Phew!

The view from my window this morning:

I seem to be extremely busy of late. Partly this is because the run up to April is always busy at work (I put in an extra five hours last week, which is normal at the moment). Partly it's because I keep filling my evenings with fun stuff, like yummy Thai buffet with Lard Club at ChaoBaby, an experimental (and well-attended) FFS at The Ball, and seeing The Company's version of Maskerade. But it was also quite nice yesterday to just sit in my living room watching the snow fall.

So, who's up for going out to play in it today? :o)

EDIT: Met up with the Chiverses in the park. The Goblin and I christened the circular sledges. The Bug was unimpressed.

......how exactly does taking away all profitability from it encourage lending to increase?

Or have I got this wrong, and the real plan is to persuade all those of us with savings to decide it's simply not worth having them any more and blow the whole lot on the high street?

---

In other news, I think *fingers crossed* that I might be over the worst of the lurg now. I still feel crappy; just nowhere near as crappy as I have done since Sunday. I've made it into work every day this week, but today was the first day when I actually knew as soon as I woke up that I was going to manage it.

Thank you to everyone who posted get well comments to my last entry!

We are having major IT problems at work this afternoon.

We've lost all our network drives, applications and e-mail.

In fact, the only thing that is working properly is the internets :o)

I was going to post something about bloody northerners knowing nothing about proper floods, and about this city being generally rubbish and falling to pieces whenever there's the slightest hint of real weather. But having finally got back to an interweb connection (no power at home) and seen the photos on the News, I'll grudgingly admit that the floods are quite impressive. I suppose.

I had a meeting in London yesterday. There was a small river that I think was meant to be a train track on the way down. We caught the 2pm train back from London. And very nearly spent the night in Derby. Oh, with no hotel rooms left in the city BTW.

There were no trains running north of Derby. Apparently the lines were all flooded.

There were no buses or taxis running north of Derby. Apparently the roads were all blocked or gridlocked.

So R#, J#, J# and I set up camp in a nearby pub for a bit. Then checked again at the station. Nothing running.

We couldn't help but notice there was barely a drizzle and Derby's roads and rail lines were all clear......

So we went back to the pub for another pint. Then checked again at the station. Nothing running.

So we went for food (Mmmm, Nandos......). Then checked again at the station. And eventually found a taxi willing to take us all home.

Once we did that, it was pretty smooth sailing. No blocked roads, no flooding that we could see. No gridlock until after I got out the taxi in Sheffield city centre. Hence my scepticism about this supposedly biblical event that had brought South Yorkshire to a standstill.

Anyway, the traffic being gridlocked for no discernable reason from Brook Hill roundabout up to Hillsborough Corner (where, okay, the weir was a bit high), I eventually got home to a darkened house at about quarter to eleven.

But hey, my flexi credit is now amazing! ;o)