General miscellany

For photos which don't belong anywhere else...

One ♣ Zwei ∞ Trois € Cuatro ¥ Cinque α Seis π Zeven © Osam

Right then, we're getting towards the end of 2006 with this crazily dull random chronological photo thing that I have going on.  And Eddie has decided to pose moodily in his (then but now ex) girlfriend's hat.  It kinda suits him.  I'm not sure where we are, though.

You can tell it's near Christmas when Santa clambers up Manchester's town hall and waves hello.

Our fairly meagre excuse for a Christmas tree, but it's ours.  This is our second Christmas in City South - not sure if we got one the previous year.  Who cares, though.

Well now, it's time for our 2006 Christmas party (or one of them, etc).  This time the one with the smaller team, and one of my favourite Christmas dos in fact.  We went to Henry's (as it was named then - it subsequently became Bar Est and is currently the anodyne Table Table).  Gareth certainly seemed to enjoy it.

And Charlotte (where is she now?  Answers on a postcard, please) either had very bad hair issues, or had found a large Tom Selleck moustache (perhaps a tautology there) in a cracker.  Damn, my phone took blurry photos.

Dave was already hammered.  Tsk.

Now here we go.  This is why it ranks up there with the best Christmas dos (because, really, they all blur into one for me these days -  part alcohol, I'm sure, but also part similarity of said Christmas dos).  No idea what Dave and Gareth were singing.  There may be some archived discussion at work which I might try and find some day.  EDIT: I did find an email with some song information.  This was A Million Love Songs by Take That it turns out.  "You could sense the sexual chemistry" as Euan put it.

Next up, Marcus Rogerio.  Again, not sure of his choice of tune.  EDIT:  Research suggests that it was The Whole Of The Moon by The Waterboys.  "Pretty good considering the time of night" gushes Euan.

Charlotte and Craig come together for a duet.  I remember personally doing 4 songs, mostly duets (one with Craig, one with Ruth Henshaw, one with, er, someone else), but I started with my first ever solo.  In fact, I'd only done two karaoke songs in my life before then, both at the Nag's Head on Lloyd Street (Dreadlock Holiday by 10CC with Dave, and Ghostbusters with Dave & Euan, or perhaps the other way round).  Anyway, I'm rambling, but I chose the Kaiser Chiefs' This Is The Modern Way, which I thankfully didn't massacre but for which my not-brilliant voice was a little flat.  But I got the bug, hence doing more songs.  One of the other groups of people put in a complaint that my hogging of the microphone (only four songs!  Via request!) denied Dave Raistrick the opportunity to do his best Barry White impression.  I suspect he could have tried harder to get on the roster.

Euan's recollection from the morning after is as follows:

"As I recall it went:

Paul 'Shane' Brunger - Fairytale of New York
Jonathan 'Van' Noble - Brown Eyed Girl
Helen 'Agnetha' Brooks - Mamma Mia
Euan 'Elvis' Miller - Oliver's Army

It goes a bit hazy from here onwards, some I remember are:

Ruth and Lynne - SOS
Dave and Gareth - A Million Love Songs - you could sense the sexual chemistry
Mark and Andrew - Stop the Cavalry - I didn't know notes that low existed.
Mark Rogers - The Whole of the Moon - pretty good considering the time of night

Paul and Craig sang something. J No sang again, can't remember what."

Lynne's high point was Brett and Helen's Like A Virgin.  I in fact did two songs with Craig - Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life and Spirit In The Sky, and it was I Got You Babe (alas the UB40 version) that I did with Ruth.  As Euan put it, I went from "never singing at karaoke" to "can't get him away from the microphone".  (Alcohol helped.)  Peter, Keith and John H all avoided singing (mostly by legging it).  The DJ did an Elvis number (An American Trilogy) and a complete random did Morrissey (I guess it was theoretically open to the public, but it was in our bit and we were hogging it.)

It had been a fun, but long night.  I seem to remember there being fun and games with Brett that night, who seemed to be particularly fond of Paul Brunger.  Dave was certainly exhausted by proceedings.  Bless.

Christmas in 2007 was at Waterdale Close, evidently (er, not - see later...).  Katie could have made more of an effort, though.

This is probably a fair summary.

I'm not entirely sure what she's wearing on her head here.  Looks like a pure excuse for a party hat.  Who knows.  But look!  It's not Waterdale Close - it's The Parchments!  (Aka the Barlows'.)

Ooh, the excitement of Christmas.  They could have given us longer handles, though.

Well it looks like Mark, the clever sausage, has constructed a bridge with party poppers and Grolsch bottles.  Brunel would be proud.

There is a little indecision over whether to watch the TV or look at the (phone) cameraman.  Graham simply holds up his large glass and Matt makes his hands go blurry.

Ah, I remember it now.  I think I got my mum the Coronation Street DVD game.  So we played it as part of the evening's entertainment.  It was quite hard.  And it went on forever.  The leadership ebbed and flowed, and I *think* that Graham and his quiz partner pipped my mum to the post and, as a result, I think I have a sound clip somewhere of a ridiculously over-exuberant celebration from UG himself.

This level of alcohol consumption may have contributed to the over-exuberance, although much of it will have been his famed competitive spirit.  (I remember in the olden days, when I was maybe 12 or 13, Uncle Graham not only beating me at snooker, but snookering me when I was the one needing snookers.  He was ruthless.)

I am not even going to begin to try to describe what's going on this shot, but for some reason I decided it was worthwhile to my life to take a picture of this scenario, and then, er, post it on this website.  It's funny, though.

Moving on to New Year's Eve, and a party at Dan & Fran's.  We had been out in Manchester for a bit, and netted a Jonathan Noble on our path, in his skinny years (I should talk).  In the background you can see big bowls of rice and chilli con carne.  I remember helping out Dan with his wet rice problem by using the Delia Smith tip of covering the pan with a tea towel and leaving the rice to absorb the moisture whilst off the heat.  It worked!

Lynne just could not resist the chilli.

Parties are fun!

Lynne decided to censor the photography as the Christmas tree lights went crazy.  Peace dude, says JNo.

It was obviously getting a bit late on in the night as it was time to bust some moves.  At least Suze and Lynne thought so.

Dave is seemingly deep in concentration manoeuvring something.  Rachel is a little coy about it.  I think I had better be somewhere else.

Dan shows off his guitar moves to the girls.

Past midnight and it turned into a horror movie.  You had all better leave or I'm going to killllll you....

JNo and Claire seem to have had their fill.  This is the night where I grabbed the immortal sound sample: "Oh fuck off!" from Claire.

As we're thinking of leaving, we are entertained by some lightsaber action.  This is how all parties should end.

An early trip down to London in the new year saw me have time to see the Bamfords.  First, stalwart actuary Uncle Colin, full over old school actuary stories.

And not-so-young-any-more Christopher, now founding his way in the City but astutely avoiding becoming an actuary.  Three's enough.  Could really do with some more lighting but I can't be bothered.  Maybe he hadn't washed.

On the way home, I noticed this with mild hilarity.  Because this is the name of someone at work!  Do you see?!  Well, only if you know the person in question, of course.  If not, please move along.  It's not a very exotic name for a train, though, given it's call the Pendolino.  [EDIT: Kudos to Mr Brunger for spotting this online - the train below is currently called A Decade Of Progress - and Chris Green is actually "the best chairman British Rail never had".]

A mere day later and filmcorner got themselves organised and took a trip to the Great Northern cinema to see Flags Of Our Fathers, a review of which can be seen here.  Dave, er d2h3, and Craig, er, crespie, decide whether to which snacks to take into the cinema (in order to annoy the hell out of me with the rustling and never-ending hand movements during key scenes takedeepbreath).

After the film, we carry out the usual dissection and rating, during which Craig tries to  pretend that he knows what he's talking about.  Which in this case was that Flags Of Our Fathers was Saving Private Ryan-lite and that he found it a bit boring.

I disagreed.  (Incidentally, this is the way you are supposed to look when giving film reviews.  Barry Norman, Jonathan Ross, et al - take note.)

We were in Dimitri's for our post-film analysis and in a fit of pride I felt compelled to take a photo of this, because it is damn well true.  So that must be the hallowed tarmac of Deansgate in the background, where traffics moves slower than sticky mud.

Swing round to the Saturday and it's Dave's birthday bash.  Here's the birthday boy himself, a little puzzled at the intention he is getting.  Ruth Dodgshun is doing some sort of dance manoeuvre in the back it seems like.

More soon.... but you'll have to go here to find it.

Well, except that I forgot Mr Brunger drinking wine on the above night.

Ok, now it's time to go.