Pleasing Symmetry, or, Coincidence

A couple of weeks back I got a new CD from Chrissi, Teenage Dirtbags 2 (which I feel is the sort of title which should have a tagline, perhaps along the lines of More Teenage, More Dirt, More Bags) - the imaginatively titled successor to the Teenage Dirtbags compilation from last year. This made it into my car this week and eventually the CD actually made it into the CD player. The result of which is that I've been humming several songs that have gotten slightly into my head throughout the day.

This evening at work we were watching a couple of films - apparantly my cinematic knowledge is fairly sparse and there are many films I have simply not seen. This week it was the turn of Back to the Future, followed by Back to the Future II (but not III as it was getting late). Having watched these, I got back to my car and was amused that on starting the car the aforementioned CD picked up where I had left it on track 4, which is Bowling For Soup's 1985. There's a pleasing symmetry about this.

Musical Interlude

As this weekend was the August bank holiday - marking the Reading and Leeds festivals - I've been enjoying the various sets available on the BBC iPlayer as a magnificently lazy way of sampling live music without needing to actually summon the motivation to leave your house.

There were lots of great sets - Blink 182 were typically energetic, although it's worrying to think that some of their songs featured (a couple from Cheshire Cat, for example) were released nearly 20 years ago - meaning that probably many of those watching weren't even alive at the time. A worrying thought for a band you've grown up with! The 1975 looked particularly energetic, although didn't seem to play as long as some others, while another favourite of mine was the excellent set from Imagine Dragons. For both of these I'm looking forward to see what their second album is going to turn out like, having enjoyed their first offerings and heard some teasers in this.

Six Months of Slacking

It may have escaped people's notice, but I've not been around here much recently. Clearly three posts this year has been a lethargic effort even by my own highly lackadaisical standards.

So what's happened this year? Well, I can cover it off quite quickly. We bought a house, we moved into the house, we've done the standard 'new house' stuff such as organising furniture, constructing IKEA puzzles, putting off decorating and taking advantage of the eternal DFS sale. On a work note I've been made redundant twice - admittedly the first time I was sent a lifeboat from a neighbouring sinking ship, but it's still twice - and have since found another job with longer term prospects of staying above the waterline.

There's been time for some travel and social activities too - we've spent a weekend in Frankfurt, an enjoyable week in Sweden split between Stockholm and our friends in northern Sweden, and to round things off we have a trip planned to Athens in September. Closer to home, we did the annual visit to Wimbledon (sunburn report: not excessive), hosted a July 4th barbeque (albeit not on July 4th), and watched the Farnborough Air Show from the comfort of our own garden.

So all these goings-on, and not a thing written about them. Clearly I have some catching up to do!