Sorry posting has been a bit thin lately. With my ex-flatmate here, it was difficult to sit down and write something. Anyway, a few days ago we went to a concert for a musician from her area, Dar Williams. It was held at Cabaret Voltaire in the Old Town. This particular club is located in the vaults quite literally in the "under" city. This makes for an interesting atmosphere if you treat it correctly. However, the decor of the place is very much modern steel and brown leather, which is never a good combination. Add to that the fact that there was no seating whatsoever, made the situation worse. The stage was placed in a constrained area that opened out into a larger area (much like a bottle, where the stage was in the neck of the bottle). This placement was just wrong and it made for places were you could not see the stage. They had a smoke machine, which just made the place unbearable. Fortunetly, the artist had them turn the damn thing off once they started. Also, they ran out of Guinness before they opened. That was just unforgivable.

The warm-up act was a local girl from Duddingston, who had a good voice but it was the same voice as a thousand other good female voices. I am sure that experience will temper it. Dar is someone that I only heard about through my ex-flatmate (in fact, she saw the poster and she suggested the concert). I had not really taken to her music from listening but the concert was great all around. I am more interested in hearing her music now that when I was just hearing it from the CD.

The last couple of days, I have been helping out at a small conference at my department. I was there to make sure that the computer would run powerpoint. I tried to help with the tea and coffee but I was shooed away by a young woman in my department who was also helping. I felt a bit spurious since there were not that many with powerpoint and the computer never crashed. Overall, some of the talks were interesting and some not so much.

On Monday, I and my ex-flatmate make our way to Loch Tay where I will while away the hours not thinking about work. On the 5th, we will turn around and go down to Richmond in North Yorkshire to see my friend. He will have a house so we are going to stay with him. Then we will return and I can begin working again.

posted by Chris  #12:03 AM | 0 comments |