I've realised we don't really chat much... so grab a cuppa, take the weight off your feet. How are we all?

I'm good - back into classes and whatnot. You'd think I'd be finished with this uni lark by now, but... yeah. Going out for my friend's birthday tonight, which is about the last time I'll be able to go out for the foreseeable future. Or at least until another friend's birthday thing in three weeks time.

What's new with you guys?

Yeah, a general chat is a good idea. I haven't got a lot to say about music at the moment.

I've just started a PhD, so I'm back at university too. I'm not really settled in yet... feeling quite unsettled and can't wait to get into a routine.

Found out the other day that they want me to master formal semantics in my spare time, which is entirely nothing to do with what I'm actually studying - and really quite frightening. It's like expecting an art historian to study advanced chemistry.

Are you in your last year yet?

Still Head of a primary school. Struggling, if I'm honest. Too much paperwork, too many emails, too much general crap which keeps me away from the core purpose of my job. Too many kids with crap parents (got called a "stupid arse" by a four year old the other day) too many solipsistic staff and too much sh*t hitting a very small fan!

And I took my footy team to play at halftime in the Lincoln v Aldershot game and have never been so bored in my life, AND I love football, but this certainly wasn't!

The ice is certainly getting thinner (which is a song by......)

BUT..................

I'm off to see Brendan Benson next Wednesday, so everything will be alright again!
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(Well you did ask!) :ph43r:

I'm deliberately not talking about how things are for another month or so, then I may be tempted to write the longest essay I've ever written. Anyone who's a friend of mine on Facebook can probably see it all anyway, although I'm careful on there (and even here I guess), because you never know who's reading. Let's just say: work, sleep, displacement from home, nothing else.

OK, now I've read all your status updates in the right order, Damian, I'm beginning to understand. Up till now, I just had it in the back of my head that you'd gone to live in a haunted house, which I'd assumed was something I'd misread at some point. Well, tell us more next month when you've given the spies the slip.

Nope - although I'm just starting my fourth year in total at this place, I've done first year Business, first and second year Psychology, now I'm retaking the second year Psychology because last year was less than brilliant. By which I mean I let life get on top of me and never went to class, favouring the old 'stay in bed and play video games to avoid real life' method.

Of course, the whole retaking thing means that I have to pay my own tuition fees... which means I have to find £2760 for that and about £3500 in accommodation for the year. I'm only getting £4500 in loans. I probably need to get a job, or at least set up a new student bank account with a massive overdraft. Or both, I suppose.

As for today - I may be a little hungover. Nowhere near as bad as it should be, luckily, but still enough to make me want to ignore the work I really need to do tonight.

Chapter 2 - The Good Stuff!

Still buying too many cd's(!) just had my Akai 4000DS reel to reel tape deck renovated, had a guitar made for me (Fender Thinline-alike) and now having guitar lessons, though I still can't play the bloody thing! Alex & Beth both celebrated birthdays recently, and have been home, which cheers me up no end. My golf is disappointingly consistently six over par and today I bought a leaf hoover.

It doesn't get much more exciting than that! (and I bet you can't wait for Chapter 3!!!)

I'm sorry to hear about the tuition fees (I was one of the last years that didn't have to pay them - I can't imagine what it must be like having that much debt by the age of 21...) but very impressed to hear about Nick's leaf hoover. Does it only suck, or can you blow the leaves around as well?

It does a bit of both, depending on the way the switch is pointed! (ooooeer missus etc etc) One of the byproducts of this particular hoover (£33 from all good B&Q outlets!!) is that it munches the leaves and wafts out huge clouds of dust!. After 5 minutes I appeared to be wearing a suit composing entirely of brown leaf dust!

I couldn't really see the point of putting it on blow, as you only move the stuff around the garden, to little purpose. A bit like herding cats really!

Are you planning to add a garden shredder to your collection at some point? They're awesome. Insert tree branches an inch or two wide, receive coarse sawdust.

I probably ought to have grown out of such amusements by now. :unsure:

Got One! Had it a couple of years. Use it to give grief to the several buddleia each autumn, after trashing them with my electric hedge trimmer.

I hate gardening. A low level strafing run with napalm is my gardening tool of choice! :lol:

I'm just back from a week camping (including some wild) on the Isle of Arran in Scotland. It rained every day. On the second day I fell over, twisted my knee and landed on my face with a 2 1/2 stone rucksack on my back (it had everything in it, including my tent). Before this my water filter had leaked in my bag and ruined an OS map, which meant I tried to use my memory and took a wrong turning up a mountain, still with the backpack on and climbing with nothing to see but cloud, it was one of the hardest things I've ever done. My twisted knee wrecked with every step and I had to come all the way back the same way. One night in a storm my tent leaked and ripped. Another day I got stranded by the Sunday bus service. When I saw the car hire place was open I decided to hire one - this took about 2 hours! When I was due to take the car back it had a flat battery. Anyway, I won't bore anyone who is still reading with more bad things that happened, the point is it was all like an adventure and I still enjoyed myself. :D When a guy rope snapped in that storm I made a new one out of a shoe lace and a new knot I learnt. I was well proud and it lasted the rest of the week. :D Arran has some beautiful glens and waterfalls, and loads of wildlife. I'd like to go back some day...

If i didn't know better, I'd say you were in the Scouts as a lad.......

If you can handle all that, you ought to come to Glastonbury next year. :D

That sounds awesome!! Congratulations on the new knot.

Good work on surviving, bro. I probably would've died. I certainly would've lost my temper several times a day and possibly my sanity. I was in the Scouts and Army Cadets, yet I absolutely cannot deal with camping... even (or perhaps especially?) at festivals, hence why the only one I go to now is within easy reach of my flat.

Hehe, I doubt anyone would have died. And I wish I had been in the Scouts or similar as I might know much more useful stuff than I do now. I just remember thinking it wasn't all that bad and things could be a lot worse, and don't you appreciate the good times more when the bad times are over?

I've never actually camped at a festival for one reason or another, I tend to just go for a day, though I do have a festival fear of someone accidentally setting my tent on fire when I'm inside it. I know that happened to your tent once Damian, but luckily you weren't inside.

I just found out one of my mates from uni had a minor stroke a couple of weeks ago. He's only about 35, which is frightening. He's ocake now but needs to have more tests to find out why it happened.

I loved being in the scouts, I learned loads of skills which have stood me in good stead. I used to love camping as a lad, but lost that love in Cornwall in '79. Roughing it now is having to take our own hairdrier to a hotel! :lol:

I've had a cold/cough type thing fpr over a week now, including Saturday-Tuesday mostly in bed trying to recovedr, and still not quite right :( It's very frustrating.

I have a cold and headache now. Boo! It's probably been induced by a lack of sleep.

Just about recovering from a spout of good knows what

I'm looking forward to a break. Working an average of 55 hours a week, and am suffering from knack!

I am enjoying my break, especially the antibiotics which have been prescribed to accompany it! :angry:

I've been skiving around with a cold and cough and whatnot since Sunday. Starting to get on my nerves now, y'know when you've coughed so much that it's just BORING.

Ugh.

I'm supposed to be going out to a great rocker pub (pretty much the same as that one we went to in Bristol, for anyone that was there) tomorrow, my friend is DJing, but I might end up not going if I still feel grotty.

BAHHH.

I think you'll find that's spelt

BLEEUUUAAAARGHHHHH!

;)

I are a bit better now, thangyew! :P

I keep on sneezing and coughing, but only at work. We laughed at him a month ago, but I'm beginning to wonder if my boss was onto something when he said I might have a mould allergy (there is lots of damp on the ceiling). Perhaps I am allergic to something. Perhaps that something is work. :blink:

Resurrecting this, because why the hell not. Hopefully we've all got over our various sniffles and stuff from last year by now :P

So, what's new with folks?

My life is currently stupid. Technically still at uni, but living at home (best part of a hundred miles away) and crashing on my aunt's living room floor on the rare occasions I can be arsed to go down there for classes. This is not conducive to passing my degree. I'm at the point now where I'd quite like to just get it over and done with but it's not easy when I'm so far away and with so many distractions.

Otherwise, life is... well, life.

Y'all?

Life is 2.5 years away from retirement! My Governors have recognised that I'm an okay bloke and given me a pay rise, which I feel very guilty about given that there's a public pay freeze. I'm off to see Ben Folds in February. I may be old from the outside looking in, but from the inside I'm still enjoying looking out!

And I buy far too much new music for my age

And I don't give a toss!

:D

And thank you for asking!

I'm OK thanks - I'm cross and irritable at the moment because moving flats is an ongoing series of pains in the arse, and I'm not dealing with it very maturely. Lots of unnecessary tantrums. But in the grand scheme of things, all is well, and I'm looking forward to Damian coming round for tea on Saturday!

Can't believe you're thinking about retiring, Nick.

There's only so much crap that can be thrown at an ever expanding number of fans before some of it hits and affects!

I'm actually reaching the point where it's a good time to go. I want to go out while I can still enjoy life, I want to try and branch out with some part time teacher training stuff, and i don't want to go out hating being in work, as so many teachers do.

Plus, the mortality rate of teachers who retire after 60 is shocking. Go before then and you have a good chance to live to a ripe old age, and lets face it, I'm going to need all the years I can if I want to see Silver Sun play live again!!!

Go me, posting here and then not logging in to reply for a week.

Congrats on the pay rise Nick. Nice that you've got the choice to retire when you want to, nothing worse than being forced to stay to the point where it stops being enjoyable.

Ms. Philonski - I certainly can't cast stones when it comes to not dealing with stuff maturely! Admittedly my style is less unnecessary tantrums and more the sort of ostrich-esque "I'm going to ignore everyone and everything la la la can't hear you" deal. But I hope it all sorts itself out.

Assuming I won't remember to check in for another week, I hope y'all have a good Christmas!

Thank you.

I don't want to appear churlish, but I've turned it (the pay rise) down for the last two years in favour of employing someone to deal with speech problems in younger children in my school. I've received stick from fellow heads for doing this, but I'm not like the rest (he says). Living in Lincolnshire I get enough money to put my kids through Uni and have a good lifestyle. An extra grand a year (that's what we're talking) isn't going to buy me the 911 I'd like, and I'd sooner put it to better use.

This year the Governors wouldn't let me. Insisted, and wouldn't take no for an answer.

Is all!

And I still can't afford a 911.

I still have ailments! I've had a bad throat/cold for nearly 3 weeks now. And I had concussion before that after I cracked my head (three times) while I was getting my bicycle out of the shed... I'm looking forward to Christmas at home though and although the snow has been causing problems I've enjoyed being out in it when I haven't particularly needed to get somewhere. Combined with the hoar frost the woods around here look beautiful in the mornings. :o

And Saint Nick, who cares about stick, that was a great thing to do. :) And congrats on the pay rise you now have. I've had a slight promotion at work, starting in January, which is cool.

How long do you have left at uni Jayem? I'd say make the most of it while you can as it's such a short part of your life. As I found out a 2:1 and 2:2 can make quite a difference when applying (or wanting to apply) for jobs. Though eventually I ended up somewhere who didn't care whether I had a degree or not, and even have the opinion that people without degrees might be better employees...

And as I've mentioned everyone else who has replied, I hope you and Damian had a good tea Philippa and that the flat moving is improving.

Merry Christmas all! :D

Hi Alex

Thanks for the compliment. My staff don't know about this yet, and especially the lady I employ to do the work. However, the chances of her reading this post are pretty infinitessimal, so I'm trusting you to keep schtum!

Glad life is treating you well, and that there is life in the young dog yet!

Are The Cakes still a going concern? Any new cd's in the pipeline?

Merry Christmas to you! B)

I guess that means you won't be able to employ her any more? :unsure: Still, it's really good you've been able to do that up till now. And congratulations on the pay rise! (What's a 911?)

Haven't had that cup of tea with Damian yet - he made it all the way from Bristol, across London, until about 10 mins from our flat, and then got stuck in sudden snowstorm. We'll try again in January. Meanwhile, the flat's improving, thanks. The electrician came round yesterday so now we have lights! And a telephone!

Just noticed this! Well done on the payrise Nick, and nice to hear what you did in lieu of it previously.

Yes... I was supposed to be visiting Philonski's flat for a cup of tea and it all went a bit crazy. I've got video evidence on my phone which I may upload somewhere if people want a laugh. I was in London for Ginger's birthday gig at the Garage (with Eureka Machines added as support at the last minute), and then the next day got on the tube to see her new flat. Two stops away from the intended destination, at Leytonstone, there was a signal failure and we were booted off. Found the appropriate bus to take instead and apparently the trip would take 15 minutes. The first stop was one minute away. The blizzard was in full effect by then. Ten minutes later and we hadn't even reached that stop. They let people off the bus and we were back at the tube station (by foot) in 30 seconds. So, erm, I believe the Internet parlance is epic fail. :D

I'll be back next month (anyone else up for The Futureheads/ Young Knives at the Forum?) and this time NOTHING WILL STOP ME GETTING MY CUP OF TEA. (And this time I hopefully won't be coming down with a 'flu bug that knocks me out for the following week...)

Happy Christmas, everyone!

Morning, and Merry Christmas! Sat up in bed, the family have disappeared to see Granny in the Midlands, leaving me on Christmas Dinner preparation duty, the mad fools!!

Fortunately, I think I will be able to continue to employ said lady, a) because she does an invaluable job, B) because I've sort of accounted for the fact that I was getting a rise in next year's budget, and c) because I set the budget, so if I have to trim other areas to retain her, then I can. Sometimes power can be a very altruistic tool. (but not often if I'm honest!)

A 911 is a Porsche. (Car, fast, German, v.expensive, out of my league!)

Hope the flat is coming on nice and homely. If you pm or email me your address, I'll send you one of my hand made cards!

Again, Seasons Greetings to one and all!

Oh, and a mince pie for anyone who can tell me why there's no "b".

Happy Christmas everyone!

I know why there's no 'b'! I shall a) declare myself the winner and B) help myself to a mince pie.