Friday foibles

So where's it gone? The weekend that is?

Oh so busy.... up early, scuttled off out of the door, down the road to Coningsby again to attempt to get the Spanish Airforce's departure, and hopefully bag some nice Spanish Airforce Hercules transport planes to boot. Well, wasn't quite early enough. I missed the fighters leaving, but that's no biggy, as I'd seen them all earlier in the week; decided to hang around and bag the transports, but that made the timing of the rest of the day tighter than a tight thing that's been left in a boil wash; watched the local lads play with the shiney new Typhoons; I know it's a great plane, but quite frankly I am bored shitless with Typhoon's. Yes, they're wonderful, they're powerful, they're manouverable, the pilot's really know what they're doing and they're all 'round shiney and great. I'm just bored with them. I see them all the damned time. I want to see something else. Think I'll go up to Leeming and watch Tonka's instead. Anyhoo.... transport planes duly arrive. Shite! They're British! Turn up in their own transports, borrow ours for the trip home! Damn! What a waste of a morning! Quickly rumbled back into town; got the digital camera hoovered out and my hair cut in short order, then scuttled back to work as I'd had to scrub my planned lunch appointment. Damn!

The evening kicked off in controversial fashion as usual at the fun factory; another stupid shift extension alert at the start of the watch... a bit of an issue for me as I had NB and friends over in the evening and an ale was in the offing, but for once sense prevailed; the shift finished at ten, the action couldn't possibly start til half one and the reasoning was at best mediocre, so InsanoBoss for once err'd on the side of "let 'em go home". Which is good, because he's only just returned from convalescant leave, I'd hate to send him off on it again. I've had shifts where I've paid more attention to be honest; couldn't really say my heart and soul was on stepping on the oppressed, my phone was constantly receiving text's from old friends and good friends and frankly I've got my life a little better prioritised these days, which will please my boss not one bit, but then since when did I give a damn? Not lately anyway.

The evening grumps struck though; rushed home at the appointed hour, got turned around quickly and into a taxi; all the time messages coming in from Kev along the lines of "hmmmm, beer..."; "they've just called last orders"... to which a message was sent saying "get me beer, then!!" which he noticably failed to notice.

Hmmm, is that a language gag there? Could be. BUT ANYWAY.... turned up at the pub, time's been called and there's no good ale'y beer for me to drink coz my text wasn't noticed in time. Bah. Grump one. Off we trot to another that's got music, a later pub. No decent beer, only Newcastle Brown. Bah, only time for two of them before this pub too, closes.

Double bah. Double grump, I might as well have bloody driven. What a waste of a taxi fare. My face will curdle milk at fifty paces at this stage of the night as I'm surrounded by drunken cod people, only a small amount of horrid brown ale on my liver to comfort me; "no I don't want to go to that club where I had a run in with a w*nker last time; no, NONE of us want to go to the noisy crappy club bars on the Gaza Strip, do we". Sod it, I REALLY might as well have bloody well driven, a taxi, head for home, dvd's, remainder of my whiskey, "what do you mean, Mr Taxi Driver, that Willies bar is open til two am???"

The fog lifts, a late bar selling decent real ale is reached and within one pint of the good stuff, my smile is back. The evening is salvaged. Yay!! From hell to heaven in one move. One pint is not where I stop, several more are sent down to check on the progress of the first and jollification ensues. A fine gig poster is spotted that makes me chuckle.... for a non smoker I'm getting really quite loud in opposition to the smoking ban....

Many fine opportunities for people watching; the young guy who makes it to the bottom of the stairs and slumps into a pile - I was merely concerned and if I'm honest, fixated with trying to browbeat him to the bogs before he hurled on my shoes, but it seems he was slightly more badly broken than that, beyond the point where such options were open to him; in the end an ambulance was called for him. They've got special wheelchairs for drunk people, never seen taht before. And that rarest of things, a fight breaking out in an ale pub; or in this case, on the pavement outside it. Some fracas with a bunch of drunken youngsters bumping into people drinking on the patio and those people not liking it... when the whole pub (except us lazy ones) went out to watch, the youngsters did the discrection/valour calculation quite quickly, as it was uncertain if this sudden crowd were rubberneckers or reinforcements. A good job really 'as one of those transgressed against was attempting to remove one of the big steel posts that hold the pavement fence up from it's ropes, so add it to the argument. What is it with the British these days? Why do we adhere to the "instant arsehole, just add alcohol" stereotype? Am I a freak, being just a placid happy boozer? So it would seem. Excuse me while I have my forehead surgicaly lowered and foream extensions grafted on so I may fit in better with my race.