All the essentials for a good time in the pub - a pint of "Seven Deadly Sins", a Bill Bryson book, and a plugin keyboard.
So, the other evening I repaired to the local public house for an evening of jazz which initially appeared to consist of three people watching a man fiddle with a double bass, but eventually the other three got their act together and the group launched into some rather pleasant music. Geeky note: When the band launched into a decent rendition of "The Way You Look Tonight", I immediately thought of the finale of Deep Space 9, when Vic Fontaine sings it to the crew the night before they separate.
Periodically a man (the singer was female, or at the very least a very convincing facsimile) said something in what was possibly french over the microphone, and every time he did this he was met with applause, I'm not sure if. it was the content of.his speech or if it was just so impressive having someone speaking a different language in Hull, but nevertheless he was consistently met with a great deal of enthusiasm.
An interesting point of jazz is that, unlike other forms of music, within a jazz song a goodly amount of time can be spent with only some of the instruments in action, and it was fun to watch the rest of the band try to entertain themselves during these parts. The singer was quite good at this, whenever it. came time for a double bass solo she would gamely bounce along, the keyboarder, however, he looked bored to tears whenever he had to take a time out.
The evening was only marred by my phone running out of power, despite it assuring me that 8% of battery was plenty for a whole extra day of usage, in practice it took less than half an hour for the phone to tell me "You have 30 seconds before I shut down", resulting in a frantic bit of typing and pounding the Save option.
Lies.
Before I left a total stranger came over for a fistbump - which had to be provided! In other news, I've had an idea - you may, now and again, get a piece of junk mail offering you a new credit card, or loan, or some such thing. Well, I've written a letter.
A letter with a liqueur coffee decision tree, no less.
And this letter can go in the freepost envelope provided by the company. The letter thanks them for the offer, and in return tells them what wonders they can find on my blog (yes really). I look forward to entertaining thousands of financial support workers, who must be desperate for any kind of entertainment that they find even this enjoyable.
