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Posts Tagged ‘Party’

Birthday Wendy

September 11th, 2011 No comments

I am rapidly approaching my 27th birthday and as such I decided to do something to celebrate. With my actual birthday being on a weekday the consensus was we should do our partying at the weekend and as if by some twist of fate, our usual monthly gathering for The Wendy House happened to fall on a suitable Saturday for me to hijack it for my own purposes.

An almost record breaking 21 people rocked up for pre drinks at our flat and a pretty impressive 100% of those came to Wendy to party the night away.

It was a pretty alcohol fueled evening for me, so I will let these awful pictures tell the story.

Three of my favourite women - Sarann, Chris and Rosie!

It's guy love, between two guys

It's girl love, between two girls

Sexy Momma

Beginning 2011

January 6th, 2011 2 comments

I hate “New Year”.

For as long as I can remember I have hated new year celebrations. Not so much the actual celebrating – I like a drink and a party as much as the next guy – but the fact that celebration takes place at all. Wht do we celebrate the transition from 31st December to 1st January? Maybe a more improtant question, is what are we actually celebrating with this quasi-festival?

Many will answer that we are celebrating the end of one year and the start of the next – a traditional rebirth metaphor On the surface, this seems a fairly good answer, if a little pagan, as this cyclical nature of death and rebirth is so ingrained in the human psyche that it would be stranger to miss a chance to celebrate the metaphor given half a chance.

My question to those that support this view would be why this particular point in the Earth’s orbit of the sun? There is at least some demarcation in other rebirth metaphors – night into day, phases of the moon, literal life and death – but this is just one of many opportunities to celebrate the fact that the planet is still orbiting its star.

Some argue that we are celebrating the fact we are moving from one calendar year to the next. This is perhaps a little more forgivable than the first argument as there is at least some demarcation. We are ripping up the calendar for 2010 and crakcing out the calendar for 2011 (I went from a Trinity Hospice in the Fylde calendar to a Marvel one).

It is far harder for me to find fault with this argument, although it still feels an arbitrary reason. I mean the calendar we use today was invented by Pope Gregory XIII to prevent Easter having to move all the time as the previous calendar had slightly miscalculated the vernal equinox, meaning the year was 11 minutes too short.

As an atheist and veritable anti-papist, I find it a little odd that I am supposed to celebrate the continued use of a tool invented to control congregations and ensure the continued influence of the Catholic Church on modern life. Don’t get me wrong here, I am fully aware that the calendar as a popular tool today has little to do with the Catholic Church and its continuing influence. However, I find it just as difficult to celebrate Christmas with its historical ties to Christianity and that tradition is well over 1000 years old. New Year as we know it less than 300 years of tradition (Britain didn’t adopt the Gregorian calendar until 1752).

The third argument (although I have only ever heard it once from a Catholic friend of mine) is the celebration of the circumcision of Jesus. This one I have absolutely no problems with. If people want to celebrate this then go ahead. Obviously, this defence only works for those sects of Christianity and Messianic Judaism that believe and therefore celebrate this. I don’t believe in Jesus as a god (and barely believe in him as a figure from history) and certainly would never celebrate the barbaric act of none-medical circumcision under any circumstances.

The final argument (and the one that my skeptical and atheist friends tend to fall back on) is one of opportunity. Why should we pass up on a chance to party just because the historical or traditional rationale for the party doesn’t hold up. Why can’t we celebrate an arbitrary festival for arbitrary (or no) reason?

Whilst there are idealistic flaws with this argument, these tend to come from contrarianism rather than any real evidentiary basis. This argument is clearly the hardest to refute as it basically says “who cares?” and in my experience, the answer is “very few”.

So, I continue to party at new year. I also continue to have this argument with anyone that will listen in the hope that one day someone will offer a better option than “if you can’t beat them, join them”.

Any ideas then feel free to add a comment!

2008: A Year in Review

January 4th, 2009 No comments

There is a saying that goes “another day, another dollar” and it seems only fitting that I begin my review of 2008 with a quote regarding time and money. 2008 has been a mixed bag of a year, like most years it cam with its ups and downs. The news stories of the year reflect this, with Team GB performing heroics in Beijing and then the economic issues of the last quarter. I hope the rest of this post reflects this theme.

January
Exams were the order of the day at the opening of 2008. never a good start. Although this particular bunch of exams went pretty well and helped set up a relatively successful second semester on my new course. A-Soc kicked off its second full year with its first event of 2008, the low turnout not indicating the successes to follow. January aslo saw Chris finally lose his virginity at Wendy House.

February
Darwin Day 2008 was supposed to be the highlight of February, but it got somewhat overshadowed by Sarann’s secret affair! The planning of Rationalist Week seems to get earlier and earlier and we officially kicked off the organisation of A-Soc’s flagship event on the 13th February. Somehow, I also managed to fit in a well deserved few days away with Liz in the lake District – you cannot beat walking, relaxing and real ale by the fire to wash away exam and coursework stress! The Union’s political machinations also culminated with me being dubbed “Norman the No! Man” due to my inability to sit back and watch debates go undebated, regardless of my actual view points.

March
One of the coups of 2008 came when Si finally succumbed to peer pressure and started blogging! In another blow for democracy, my decision to stand for Faith and Culture rep for the Union was rebuked as I was effectively blocked from standing (or voting). My main memory of March, however, was the setting up of Secular Portal, which would ultimately turn into my current project, the AHS.

April
Rationalist Week 2008. Need I say much more about how awesome April was? Except for everything that went wrong it was a great success! The icing on the cake was being elected president of A-Soc at the AGM. We managed to recruit a decent sized committee and really was the icing on the cake as far as the success of A-Soc in the first half of 2008.

May
it seems I didn’t blog about very much in May. Probably down to the exams etc that I was taking, along with recovering from April!

June
I started work with O2 at the beginning of June and spent most of the month training for my new role. I did manage to squeeze in a few social activities too, brewing my own ale for the SoC graduation reception was a particular highlight. I also went to see Avril Lavigne perform in Manchester, which was also pretty awesome. I also moved out of the house I had lived in for three of my four years at university.

July
Work and parties seemed to be the order of the day this month in 2008.

I’m going to stop splitting up the months for the second half of 2008 as I didn’t actually spend much time bloggine. Really, I worked near enough all summer – managing a day off for V Festival – either at O2 or putting together Intro Week for A-Soc.

Part of me thinks I should write here what happened in the couple of months I wasn’t blogging, but I feel that it wouldn’t do it justice. It wasn’t until December that I began blogging again, inspired by the relaunch of the site and our end of year festivities.

Hopefully, I will continue this new found blogging activity into 2009.

My marks out of ten for 2008 as a year, a good 7.

She got treated like the whore she is!

January 1st, 2009 No comments

So, yeah, last night was our New Year’s Eve party in Leeds. A well attended event considering that most people are home with their family and “real” friends that was dominated by a couple of events. Firstly, our living room flooded, a direct result of the second event – our first ever communal shower! Eight of us decided that alcohol and partying had progressed as far as it could and the next logical step was a semi-naked (and mostly naked in Michelle’s case) communal shower. Keep your eyes peeled for the exclusive pay-per-view site containing the pictures and videos!

It was definitely a good night all round and I now definitely feel closer to my house mates than ever before! It was also the first A-Soc event of 2009, seeing as the majority of the guests sit or have sat on the committee. We atheists really do have it larger.

Although, having said all that we all know that parties are just an excuse for recovery steak the morning after and as such we all headed to the Deer Park for our steak. Even the 45 minute wait on food didn’t dampen the excitement and meaty goodness of a well cooked bit of steak. Mmmm, steak, drool.

Party Time!

July 27th, 2008 No comments

Friday night saw two landmarks.

1) I finshed my O2 training, so I am allowed to talk to real people about real problems from Monday!

2) We had our housewarming party.

The party was pretty good, it started really slowly – 5 people when I got home from work at 10pm – but it picked up nicely by the end. I was a little worried that it wouldn’t as we do live some whay away from the rest of the gang and the majority of students cannot be bothered to make the two buses to get to our house. The only disappointing thing was that a couple of mates from work flaked on me and didn’t turn up. Kudos to Dan for turning up and staying even though he didn’t know anyone! James and Mike suck!!

I was suitably drunk by the end of the evening as were most people, which is always a good sign. We also had a full house as most people stayed over.

Spent a lot of the night arguing about politics which was very grown up fo us, except the topic was socialism which is very studenty. Most people grow out of socialism when they get a job!

All in all though, a good night!

Rocky Horror Night

March 11th, 2008 No comments

Dammit, Janet. I hate Rocky Horror.

Until recently I have always categorised Rocky Horror Picture Show as a kitsch film for kitsch people. I have never really had strong feelings for it either way – I could take it or leave it.

Last night we ran a Rocky Horror Night complete with props and audience participation in order to try and raise funds for Rationalist Week. However, we only sold 1/4 of the tickets we had, so ended up losing over £200 on the night! There were some small successes, a) we actually managed to pull the night off logistically and b) the people that turned up had a good time, especially at the after party at Fab Cafe (a chain of bars owned by Rocky creator Richard O’Brien).

The night post Rocky Horror was generally amusing, Chris got drunk, Sarann got chatted up by some weird stranger and Liz flashed everyone! The hardcore Rocky fans who came down to Fab were nice enough and we ended up having a decent night. The only real downside is that a large part of me wishes the night hadn’t happened in the first place.

The original plan was for us to hold two fundraisers this week, Rocky Horror was supposed to pay for the two events and School Disco was to earn the profits for Rationalist Week. Now, School Disco needs to sell out to make just enough money for us pay off the events costs and run a bare bones Rationalist Week!

Wendy ’08

January 20th, 2008 2 comments

It has been so long since I last went out clubbing in Leeds and so I jumped at the chance to go to this month’s Wendy House. My housemate, Chris, had thrown together a pre-Wendy party at ours – mainly so he had an excuse to play the new Cascade album, but also to ensure a decent Wendy turnout from the circle. In the end we had about six or seven attendees which is a pretty good effort to be honest.

The evening was quite a success really, we left pretty much at the end – missing only 30-40 minutes or so of the night – as most people drank sensibly and didn’t get into too much trouble! Takeaway was grabbed on the way home and apart from a minor incident involving Michelle, prawn crackers and some waterworks we made it through the night virtually unscathed.

Chris also managed to lose his virginity!

No keys and coding

December 4th, 2007 No comments

I lent Liz my house keys on Friday as I was travelling back to Kirkham that evening to attend a Christening on the Saturday and Liz wanted to stay and play at George’s birthday Otley Run. I forgot to ask for them back on Sunday when I took her home and, Liz being Liz, she forgot she had them. So, I am pretty much stuck in the house because I can’t lock up or get back in!

This is very much a double edged sword. It is boring being stuck in, especially as we have a joiner in replacing our doors which means I can’t do too much wandering or watch tv as it is too loud. I also miss a lecture or two, though that isn’t too important as it is last week of term so there isn’t much exciting happeneing in them. The upside is that I have achieved an awful lot of coding in the time I have been in. I am now totally up-to-date in all my coding and even managed to forge ahead slighlty with next term’s coursework. At this rate I will have nothing top do over the holidays!

Domesticated Weekend!

November 3rd, 2007 No comments

Due to the fact that I can’t walk more than five steps without suffering intolerable pain or falling over due to my massive lack of skill in using crutches I haven’t been out much the last few days. Instead I have stayed in and generally done bugger all. Apart from a really productive day on Wednesday where I managed to nail lots of coursework and sort out my life pretty well I just have not acheived very much. However, I have just finished two really lovely days with Liz and have two days left before she heads back to Lincoln to start her new, full time job.

She arrived Wednesday night after work in the middle of our banging Hallowe’en party consisting of Michelle, George, Chris W, Chris O and Cara. We didn’t hang around for too long but grabbed some pizza and went to watch a film we had been intrigued by – a 1970s film called Island of Death. I am not sure what to make of it really, it is bizarre. I recommend that people watch it.

Thursday was a werid old day. We were in bed til the afternoon (something I haven’t done for a long long time) and then went shopping! This involved many firsts – namely it was the first time I have been able to get ina car and drive since injuring my ankle, the first time I have stepped into a Primark store since I discovered its record and policy on chiild labour and labour rights, the first time Liz has gone shopping and only bought what she needed and the first time I have enjoyed something as mundane as shopping in a very long while. It was really quite something to spend some normal, quality time with Liz for a change.

Except for a slight interruption in proceedings due to a minor emergency with a friend, Friday went swimmingly too. Everybody was out all day so Liz and I enjoyed a really domesticated, quiet Friday night in. Food, tea and Jonathan Ross – nothing is better! Friday night television is actually getting pretty decent again. From 9pm you have “Have I Got News For You” followed by “The Armstrong and Miller Show” – a sketch show that is surprisingly original and funny, one to look out for – and then “QI”. I have to grudgingly agree with Chris Worfolk’s observations that it is starting to lose some of its originality to be replaced by gimmicks etc.

After watching the horrendous Jimmy Carr present a quiz show celebrating the 25 year history of Channel 4 we headed to bed.

Domestic Bliss!

Just a quick note…

September 11th, 2007 1 comment

This is just an interim post to keep those of you who are interested in this kind of thing up to date on my general comings and goings.

We had our first CompSoc committee meeting yesterday and things went pretty smoothly. With a bit of luck and a lot of effort I seriosuly think we can pull this off. A-Soc prep is not going so well, we are having pen issues and general lack of time issues. I am sure, however, that we will nail it!

Today was Michelle’s belated birthday party and it was fun. Just the ticket to take everybodies mind off the new academic year starting in less than a week. Lots of cake and chocolate and mayhem are the ingredients to a party of this nature – our theme was kiddies’ party so jelly and ice cream, pass the parcel and such things. A real treat and a fitting way to welcome Michelle back to England.

The rest of the week is going to be taken up by tidying up from today and preparing for the weekend. My housemates and I are throwing a massive party for my twenty-third birthday and to make sure our house is fully warmed up ready for the year ahead.

In support of Chris’ recent post, I am going to try and increase the pinging to other blog sites and try to make sure that we can maximise cross-circle blogging!