I read an interesting piece on the BBC News site today. It discusses something I’d never even thought about – the fact that today, being the 29th of February – is a day that all salaried workers effectively give for ‘free’ to their employers. The thought hadn’t even ever struck my mind – that I give an extra day’s work every 4th year! I suppose that it works both ways though – those who’re paid by the hour get an extra day’s wages, too.
Speaking of Leap Years – were you aware that we also have Leap seconds too? These extra seconds are inserted periodically to keep the Coordinated Universal Time clock (UTC) in sync with the solar clock – in much the same respect as a leap year does.
There’s not been a need to insert a leap second since the 31st December 2005, when UTC-aware computers, servers and devices all over the world ticked over to 31/12/2005 23:59:60. The strange thing that’s stopped the requirement for leap seconds (for the time being, at least) is that the earth’s ever-slowing rotation has, apparently significantly lessened since the year 2000.
Well, that’s a bit annoying. Got home, put Aimee to bed, had some tea, watched some tv and promptly fell asleep. Ergo, no blog. Bollocks. It didn’t even enter my mind to write it.
Despite the timestamp, this was actually authored at 09:56 on the 29th. Bugger.
So, like everyone else in the country, I felt the ‘quake’ at 1am this morning. Was just about to take the dog upstairs (our stairs are too steep for him, since his various operations, anyhow). I was standing at the bottom of the stairs, with the dog under my arm when all of a sudden it came.
I heard it first – a loud rumble apparently emanating from the roof and I automatically thought that the bad winds and weather had finally taken their toll on our battered roof, and then felt the strangest sensation of the floor seemingly moving underneath me! Stood completely still throughout the 5-10 seconds, involuntarily frozen. I guess it’s akin to the actions of a rabbit when it sees the headlights… Very curious for a sleepy geek at 1am!
Emma’s already in bed, but awake and as I get up the stairs, she’s already poking the internet to find out what the hell just happened. At this point, I still thought I was going to go up into the office and see the open skies. I checked out upstairs, which was thankfully fine, whilst Emma hit the tome of all Sheffield’s internet knowledge (the signal to noise ratio on there is utterly incredible, it must be something like 1:5000!) to see if anyone else had ‘felt’ this.
Aimee slept in this morning and wasn’t awake when I left for work. This is depressing for me. When Emma took her off to her folks last Friday, it meant that I’d now not seen her for four days (I got home late last night). I resolve to get home from work on time so I can at least spend some time with her when I get in.
Thankfully, my working day presented me with a long afternoon meeting, which once I’d finished with, I tied up my loose ends for the day and headed back down the M18. They appear to be nearing the completion of the J6-J7 roadworks, which is good, because the 50mph restriction there gets right on my tits – the M18 is bad enough as it is with lorries overtaking one another – one in the inside lane doing 56mph, the overtaker doing 57mph. Grrrrr.
When I got home, I was greeted with a “DADA!” exclamation from Aimee, and she attempted to rush over and greet me. This was a little inopportune as Emma was in the middle of changing her nappy – ooops!
She’s only been away a few days, but she changes so quickly. She’s also very quickly turning into her mother – yatter-yatter-yatter-yatter. She never shuts up! Burbling away to us, and herself, in mad babyspeak punctuated with the odd English word here and there. Mebo-waba boo ba Mama, mebo-maba ro-ro Hiya – etc.
As I’m sure you’ve all noticed, we’re knee-deep in the annual awards season – what with the Oscars last night, the Brits last week and the BAFTAs not long before that. These bastions of pomp and ceremony recognize, usually, the most commercially savant of musicians and moviemakers, sometimes at the expense of real talent, overlooked due to their non-conformist anti-commercial leanings. This is where the concept of ‘Indie’ has always slotted in. And, with it, Indie Awards ceremonies – like the upcoming NME Awards.
The NME, once the premier musical periodical for charting tomorrow’s ‘next big things’, holds their gong-fest this coming Thursday. NME, young childlings, actually stands for ‘New Musical Express’ – this fact may well have escaped most readers – and it was created a lifetime ago, in 1952 by a London record promoter, Maurice Kinn.
A lovely lie in until 11:15, when I was rudely awoken by the lovely lady wife ringing! Took the dog for a walk and then set about knocking something up for lunch. Dived through the freezer, and set aside some crumbly-topped trout that’s been in there for ages for dinner, and decided on the lunch of champions – a fish finger sandwich with tartare sauce. A thoroughly fishy day! Great idea, until I noticed that the bread was green. I really am hopeless when Emma’s not here.
Nipped up to the Co-op and picked up some bread and milk and other bits and bobs. Got it all home, got me fish fingers under the grill and reached into the fridge for the whatever-fake-butter-product-we’ve-bought-this-week only to find that the carton is virtually empty. Gah! I scrape round the lid and carton, trying to avoid the bits where teeny bits of toast have crept in and manage to save just enough for my sandwich of champions. Winner!
Now, the real business of the day is the football. The Carling Cup final between Spurs and Chelsea. Our first final in 6 years, and against a team which we have nothing but terrible luck against. However, my hopes are high, but my nerves are shot to pieces. I have a few emergency Hobgoblin’s handy, and my tension slowly lifts as the beer flows and the game starts.
I’d planned to have a relaxing lie-in this morning, following last night’s drinking. Instead I was greeted with a stinging headache at 9.30 and didn’t really manage to get back off to the slumber which I’d hoped for. Bah!
Shrugged off the hangover and decided that putting some food in my belly might be an idea. Headed to ‘La Tasca’ in Meadowhall for some quick and easy chain-restaurant entirely authentic Spanish tapas. It wasn’t bad – the place was rammed, so service wasn’t great, but by the time I’d finished my Alitas de Pollo and Fritura Mixta de Pescado, with garlic bread and the ever-present Patatas Bravas I felt very satisfied.
Back home, I settled on the sofa and watched the DVD of Control, the Anton Corbijn-directed biopic of Ian Curtis. I’m a massive Joy Division fan, and have read countless books on Ian, Joy Division, New Order and Factory Records.
Apologies for the lateness of this entry. Went for a few beers to meet up with some old colleagues and to celebrate a current colleague’s birthday. Started in the Dev Cat – somewhere I’ve not been for absolutely ages. It hasn’t changed, still rammed on a Friday night!
It’s so busy that I decide to double up when at the bar, and order two pints for myself – a Redundant Array of Inexpensive Beers, or RAIB. At least, well, that’d work if the concept of ‘inexpensive beer’ was valid in the Cat – it’s >£3 a pint. Everything goes downhill from there, following an initial few pints up with cocktails in The Old House and Muse, and then everything’s all wobbly from midnight on.
Adam gets us into some student party night at the former National Centre for Popular Music building. It was meant to be students only, but Adam’s contacts get us all in as +1′s for free.
Inside, I felt old. Very, very, very old. There are three different rooms, all purporting to be different musical experiences – I can’t remember too much of it, but I’m sure that the music was pretty samey in each one – 80′s and 90′s party music. Bad lager and 100′s of kids, I have no idea why we ended up there! We didn’t stop long and got a taxi home with Lee and Add a comment
I’m struggling to think of something constructive and useful to write for today’s entry. I’ve still not gotten into the habit of jotting down things that grab me during the daytime and expanding upon them in the blog. I must get this down, or I’ll be forever putting two paragraphs in here saying “I did nothing at all interesting today”.
“I did nothing at all interesting today”… Sorry.
I watched the utterly predictable Brit Awards show tonight. Much had been made in the press hype about it being broadcast live, and there being free and abundant alcohol for everyone’s favourite celebrity popsters to imbibe. The show was as dull and formulaic as it has been every year since Jarvis waved his bottom at Michael Jackson.
Speaking of that incident – that’s now twelve years ago! 12 years! Since then, the most controversy the Brits has mustered was Danbert Nobacon (of tree-hugging anarcho-pop band, Chumbawamba) chucking some mineral water over John “Two Jags” Prescott in 1998. Oh my! Such controversy.
The best we got this year was the loathsome Sharon Osborne preventing Vic Reeves from having his say about the frankly diabolical standard of this year’s performances by repeatedly spewing vulgarities at him and, rather perplexingly, standing in front of him whilst he attempted to announce the award he was presenting.
The only laugh of the night went to Arctic Monkeys’ Alex Turner mocking the ceremony’s constant gushing about how the wonderful ‘BRIT School’ was turning out all these award winners, by claiming with tongue wedged firmly in cheek, that the Monkeys were in fact past alumni themselves.