Yesterday (19th September) was International Talk like a Pirate day.
However, I’ll be betting that more of ‘ee know about this pretty little flibbert o’ fun than the fact that tomorrrow (21st September) be International World Peace Day. Gharr.
So, you scurvy landlubbers, I thought I’d do me bit, and tell ‘ee about both.
One day, I’m hoping that my little bit of just banging on about it will have everyone actually caring more about the latter.
There is an old guy called Ken that is a Perennial customer. He’s always at the bar, in exactly the same place every week, doing the crossword as we knit. He’s a little down at heal, and smells slightly, but is a good man at heart.
It appears this week that the landlord (Matt) offered him a DVD player and speakers. The Duty manager was very insistant on trying to help Ken get it home as well…
It might not be the cheapest pub ever, but The New Rose is one of the friendliest. 🙂
… where you want to write, but have no clue what to say?
I’m feeling decidedly restless today (Which when I started writing this post, was Friday 29th August 2008). We were out last night for Ray’s leaving do. An Australian, he’s been in the UK 4 years, and is finally heading back home. So, as is right and proper, we gave him a hootenany send-off… Which means that I have a rather large hangover.
At work, I’m waiting for information, and can’t get on with work until this is sorted, so, I thought I’d use the time, and the verbosity that I gain when ME=TIRED to write some stuff down.
As you all know, I’ve mentioned before that Twitter’s pretty much “stolen” my ‘blog. It’s like a pressure cooker valve, it lets the steam out in little bitty bits to stop an explosion… but really, the pressure is still there…
So, thought I’d use this restless energy to write the KinkFest 4 blog. You may well all remember the KF3 blog, which was an event in my life which huge emotional connotations, given that as a group we were trying to pull off something with extreme ambition, at a time when I was personally going through Granddad dying, and the emotional fall out for both myself and family that goes with that…
So, it was with mixed emotions and a littel bit of wistful memories in my head that I headed into the final approach for KF4, which was on August 2nd 2008.
The 8 weeks before however, were a blizzard of work. You see, as a group, Unfettered are run by comittee, and as a group, even though we booked Conway Hall, a lovely but “not very large” venue for KF4 on 17th December 2007, we then titted about until the end of May 2008 to actually say “Yes, we’ve looked and can’t find anywhere else that is bigger/better/available, let’s just go for it!”
So, pretty much, having had a classic case of “hurry-up-and-wait” for 5 months, I then spent most of my work days doing the day-job and answering the plethora of e-mails that organising a KF by committee always generates, so that in the evenings, I’d them have the time to write the shed-load of e-mails needed to co-ordinate people&events for both Stage and also this time for Stalls, as well as the asking/talking, pulling favours, getting lucky with finding “Needed things for No Money” and so generally doing a “day’s work” on KF stuff when I got home of an evening…
Trying to do 4-5 months work in 8 weeks lead to a lot of stress, both for the team, and for our lives. I managed to gain a massive distance to T that we are only really now resolving (and it’s also thrown some flaws in our relationship that we were previously “ignoring” into sharp relief, and I’m not quite sure how to recover from that…)
Needless to say, I was pretty much running on 5 hours sleep a night, if I was lucky, with some, but not much, catch -up at weekends… Now, given that I cope well with a certain level of sleep deprivation, I thought it would be “OK”, but I actually discovered my limits, and pretty much ended up clinicly exhausted, just like after KF3…
The day itself went off smooth enough, but it wasn’t without large amounts of background trauma, mostly created by the inescapable fact that running anything via committee means that it takes ages to get stuff done, as “everyone” has a voice in every area. Now, I made the choice a long while ago that my sections are a dictatorship. This means that I run politics for my team with the committee, I take the choices made from the options my team present to me to the committee, which gives a “good management” structure… which means that the job gets done, and buck stops with me if it doesn’t.
However, the “ratification” of choices always generates many pointless “back&forth” e-mails.
For instance, the person that decided they would not help organise KF4 as they did not like the venue we had booked, after catagorically stating that they wanted nothing to do with it at all, chose to snipe, bitch and “offer suggestions” from the sidelines. We also have a person that feels the need to comment and ask for further explanation on pretty much every e-mail on every subject, even when it is nothing to do with them. This gives you some clue as to why this KF generated 2557 e-mails in 8 weeks.
The other hazzard of doing “business via e-mail” is that not everyone can write… I made a doozy of a bad choice, accepting a massive amount of very required help from someone who is blinding at what they do, but is the most plain speaking person I know. I didn’t know however that their very blunt and plain speaking manner carries over from their “personal communication style” e-mails into their “business communication style” e-mails. This caused me and others on the KF team a great deal of fall-out, giving us a great deal of out-of-joint noses to deal with. More generally, there was a fair share of soft-toy and perambulator disassociation exercises from all concerned in all areas along the way as well.
Still, the challenges were overcome, and a good day was put on. I won’t/can’t say “great”… There wasn’t enough time for “great”, and the venue had limitations preventing us from having the same amount of things going on as KF3…
Mind you, we are all mad enough to sign up for KF5, which this time will get far more productive planning and not suffer as much from committee death… as the three people mentioned above are not going to be invovled, funnily enough.
As life is just a whirlwind of hectic, I’m really not getting any time to ‘blog thoughts ATM.
I need to ‘blog abut KF4, Love, life and decorating…
I’ve got Pictures to take of Knitting, I even neglected to tell you all about the Shawl I decided to knit for Mum and her birthday!
However, to be going on with, this one is a quickie set of pictures about work and how my boss chooses to inspire his workers…
Ever since Max Mosely was harshly exposed as both being unfaithful to his wife via having a liking for paying for a little BDSM, members of the FIA and the wider motorsport and automobile manufacturing worlds have been calling for his resignation.
http://www.grandprix.com/ns/ns20418.html shows just how silly the situation is becoming in my eyes.
As always, The News of the World, in yet another cheap shot to sell news papers via “exposing sex scandals in the public interest”, should be ashamed of itself… as should anyone that reads this utter turd of a tabloid.
That aside, I see this as a very simple issue. If one Mr Bill Clinton, then President of the United States of America, who’s office should indeed be a “Paragon of Virtue and Morality” can get an extra-marital Blowjob from an intern, and when exposed not lose his job, his marriage or his dignity, then why on earth should Max Moseley, who isn’t really important in world politics, and is really only a “known name” because of his father’s very nazi views, resign or be removed from his position as Head of the FIA?
You do not have to have fidelity in your marriage to drive a car after all… and road safety campaigning and all other issues do to with motoring have nothing whatso ever to do with either morality or sexuality.
As I said, WTF?