Firstly, I can’t believe that this summer has pretty much been and gone already; only last year it was the days and weeks that flew past, now it seems to be the months. Every time I pick up something like the Belmont cinema listings, by the time I get round to reading it, they’re out of date…The past few nights have literally been the first chance I’ve had to put my feet up, veg out, and gather my thoughts in months.
At the start of the summer I decided to head out for a run and see if it’d be worth taking up as a serious method of keeping fit. Despite half the jog being headfirst into freezing rain and wind I decided to take it up and train for a 10k. A pair of trainers, Nike+I-pod and 20-odd runs later I was down at the Baker Hughes start line with a few thousand other fair-weather joggers. In the end I ran it in just over 50 minutes and raised over £200 for the Leukaemia ward at the Aberdeen Royal Infirmary - which I was pleased with on both parts. My birthday fell just before the run so I didn’t do anything this year and it was a nice change, although I made up for it by doing a 2pm-2am session that included getting sunburnt on the Revolution balcony while gorging on some well-earned steak and beer!
The very next day my hay fever returned with a vengeance and pretty much ruled out any fun for the whole of June. I must also point out that when your nose is completely blocked it’s impossible to bag-off with girls! It was most definitely worse than previous years and has ensured that I’ll be making a springtime trip to the doctor in order to get a big fix next year. Now that the pollen has chilled out I’m slowly heading back to that 10k level.
With any physical activity ruled out over the summer I actually managed to get a load of golf played and was able to concentrate on improving my game this year. Playing a different course each week, it didn’t take long to break the previously impossible 100 barrier. 92 (at Alford) is the current high-score, although this year I’ll hopefully keep playing through the winter and break the 90 at some point.
Another thing worth noting would be that I’m currently half way through what was initially a year off of booze. After a weekend of my liver’s worst beat-down, which concluded with me being in fisticuffs with some skank outside a busy club, I decided to put down the pint glass for a while with several reasons; namely health, money, reputation proving myself a point. Having served three months of this self-imposed sentence I can easily say I don’t miss it, although plan to be back on the sauce by New Year again as I’m more than happy with the way it’s worked out so far, and a liver only needs 3 months to totally heal!
So far, it’s been a truly bizarre experience - with 70% of people treating me like a freak-show and the other 30% appearing to respect me because they somehow think that abstaining is beyond them. I did set up another blog to document this wee journey but haven’t had any time to update it so here are some of the headlines.
- In Scotland, not having an alcoholic drink seriously offends +75% of the population in - and behind - a bar.
- Draught soft drinks are the most profitable thing or landlords - a pint of coke is on average about 20p cheaper than a pint of beer, although coke is never on offer.
- It’s at least three times harder keeping rhythm on a dancefloor when you’re sober, although drunken people only think they can dance.
- It’s scary seeing how getting shit-faced is so deeply engrained in our culture, I’d slate it but after five years of drinking almost every weekend it’d be pretty hypocritical.
My favourite moment so far was realising that ordering lemonade at a bar is considered so suspicious that you can be ejected from a club (on the grounds that you’re underage!!!)
Flatwise, Christina decided to leave the mansion a few months earlier than planned, which didn’t come as much of a surprise but made for some interesting flatmate hunting. Going for a female flatmate, but only having homeless male friends sucked for a bit but after several internet adverts and a few promising showings I met a slightly-older accountant chick that was looking to move in. A brief 20-minute interview in the Globe turned into a 2 ½ hour rocking conversation and a deal was made; the new girl would be moving in at the start of June.
After a couple of weeks we were getting on really well. After a couple of nights out together we were getting on even better, and had even inadvertently set a new benchmark for future dates (Pirate Golf, Cinema, Cocktails, Scrabble and not a silent moment)… but that night out wasn’t a date, it couldn’t have been a date, we were flatmates! After several rounds of golf, dozens of inter-office e-mails, and a few trips to the cinema the undertones - culminating in a few beamers and some mutual popcorn feedage - were no longer, well, undertones. These acts confirmed - at least for me - that we crossed the flatmate line, so the next night I gambled everything and gingerly crept upstairs to spill my guts… it was the most nervous I’ve ever been.
It turns out that these feelings were mutual and since then we’ve made a totally rocking couple. Keeping it a secret until we figured out if it would work was quite fun, but couldn’t go on forever. Since then we’ve been out for some really nice meals, a load of cool dates, a couple of wee drives and spent heaps of time together. Remember the description at the end of my last post? Bingo! Having met 3 of the 4 parents it’s looking pretty, pretty serious… at the moment I couldn’t be a happier bunny!
Onion Terror has also been quite interesting lately. We’ve played a slew of amazing gigs and I’ve written some of our finest tunes to date (More Than This, Can’t Do It, Ideal World et. al) but we haven’t had enough practices to properly nail them. We’ve been on the radio a couple of times and had to turn down some high profile gigs over the summer. I’ve also done a couple of amazing acoustic gigs at Cellar 35 lately, and have several more to look forward to in September. I figure that I’ve only got a couple more years of gigs in a full band before I’ll have to pack it in and I refuse to do that before I can actually say I’ve toured and tried!!! If it has to be with another band, or even acoustic, I’ll be looking to head out on tour next summer.
Some other headlines from this summer: being in bed while my mum was texting me from a gig; dancing on the 3rd floor of espionage with Tinketbell, a tree, Alice, the queen of hearts and some lesbians; (strip) scrabble; two weekends at Holly’s for her birthday and weekend out of town; finally starting to save for Cuba; The Wire; looking forward to Mighty Boosh, Russel Howard & Steve Coogan.
