Holiday-ay

I mean holiday-ay in the manner of a Madonna singalong. Thinking about it, though, personal gusto reserves are pretty depleted after an eight-week half-term and I have a bit of a sore throat so if I were to sing it I'd probably sound more like Robbie in The Wedding Singer than Lady Madge. 

Everybody spread the word
I live in my sister's baaaaaasement....

We've had two training days (two!) Thursday and Friday this week, which was a blessed moment of inspiration on somebody's part. Nothing puts a body of staff in a collective sunny mood like wearing jeans, eating free pain au chocolat and having some time to climb down from the top of one's tree and have a bit of a tidy up. My office is spotless and the world is MINE for the taking!

We also had the obligatory pre-half-term training session, except this one was really rather good. The speaker (this guy, formerly of The Bill and Casualty, ooo) won me over pretty quickly when he began with a Hamlet quote on self-doubt - "I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams" - and continued by using Henry V as an example of inspirational leadership. 

Henry V. Worrrr. The good stuff. 

Lots was learned, including the Important Soundbite that sometimes people need to unburden themselves - also known as whinging - and THAT'S OK. I mean, if they're genuinely trying to derail fundamental ways of working then it probably needs dealing with, but everyone needs a good old moan now and again. If instead you vow to hate them forever and record their spiteful words in your Little Book of Personal Grudges, you're actually being more of a Macbeth than a Henry V AND WE ALL KNOW HOW THAT TURNED OUT, DON'T WE?

So I've had two days of sort-out time and inspo and I'm currently busying myself by making a sign for my office door which reads 'DARK NIGHT OF THE SOUL - GO AWAY' for when I'm having a night-before-Agincourt moment. 

We're up at 3:30am tomorrow to get a flight to Spainland. A week in the company of leathery 11am brandy-loving Brits awaits.  I cannot wait to be one of their number.  

Baby, baby, baby you should see me now

So when you build your house

then call me

home

***

So no great shakes here. 

Work and that. Busy busy.

Oh, apart from I went to see Fleetwood Mac. You know, Fleetwood Mac. No big deal. The greatest band of all time (ssh, no one tell Jarvis).

Let me list the trials involved in seeing Fleetwood Mac midweek in Antwerp:

1) Getting the tram back INTO Brussels from work and getting train back OUT of Brussels to Antwerp (trial admittedly eased by a cheeky Kriek and a weirdo cassis dessert)
2) Staying in a shabby budget Ibis which smelt of fags and the lobby of which was full of men wearing knock-off sportswear carting about hundreds - hundreds - of black binliners. 
3) An ill-advised burger at midnight. Stevie does whet the appetite somewhat. 
4) Getting the 5:44 train back to Brussels the following morning after four beers and ill-advised burger to go and teach and think and work all day. 

The final verdict is, however, that all trials were completely Worth It. 

Here follows my thank you letter to the Mac:

Dear John McVie, 

You didn't say a right lot (um, that would be nothing), but you did wear a very nice white flat cap. 

*

Dear Mick Fleetwood,

You look more and more like Santa Claus as the years go by. 

Your drum solo was brilliant. 'Are you with me?' YEEEEEEEAH!

*

Dear Lindsey Buckingham, 

I thought you were rather dashing, if a bit skeletal-faced. Then you started to sweat quite a lot (I appreciated the sweat.)  

PS Tusk was wicked. 

*

Dear Miss Nicks,

I'm so in awe I can't bring myself to write 'Dear Stevie'. 

You blew me away with your tambourine and your ribbons and your dress like a medieval bat. 

You owned that stage like a luxe version of Goldie Hawn. 

And the hair; the impossible mermaid hair. Just wow. 

I think that bit where they take the mick out of your voice on South Park is a bit cruel, to be honest. You are a cathedral of quivering awesomeness and I bow before your greatness. 

*

Dear Stage Designers, 

All of the stuff in the background was brilliant. 

Spinning worlds and exploding stars and rising smoke and snarling bears and blinking eyes and swirling psychedelica. A+ for everything.

Geometric waves and the like

What's that? You want a poor quality video of the last 36 seconds of Landslide? Well, you've come to to the right place! Enjoy.  

                                                 

Harvest

October! *doubleblink* October is here, and it's a palace.

This is as good a place to start as any.