Recap
How did I let three whole weeks slip by? I'm terrible at this.
Well, I'll try to recap the 'highlights'.
Sat 5th Feb, the day before my birthday. I was whisked off to my mystery minibreak location. Finding out where exactly via the unwrapping of a Berlin tourist guide on the train to Gatwick was a genuinely lovely moment (this may seem a bit sad and corny but it was lovely. Maybe I'm just easily impressed... not exactly a bad personality trait though, I would wager) and made me feel very special. Put simply and a tad boringly, the trip just went very well and fun was had. Which doesn't make for very interesting reading, least of all to myself.
It's all a bit of a haze now. Brandenburg gate... Bauhaus museum... the Französischer Dom.... eating currywurst with pomme fritz... getting severely lost on the complicated and convoluted (at least to us ignorant Brits) train and tube infrastructure... Finding the Ritter Sport palace and nearly dying of chocolate poisoning...
Came back at 9pm on the Tuesday aged 29 full years, completely travel whacked and having to work the next day. In hindsight, at least one of those three lamentable things were easily avoidable and come the following morning, I had never felt quite so murderously resentful of having to plop my work head back on. Post-trip recovery days are an absolute must, even after a minibreak in a fellow European country located virtually next door. Big lesson learnt.
The following couple of weeks were almost laughably non eventful, which at least from a financial point of view is perhaps for the best. We did nothing for Valentine's, since we are both firmly stood on the cynical side of the fence when it comes to commercially driven exercises in fleecing as much money as possible from impressionable simpletons up and down the land (see also: 'Easter'), oh so conveniently just as the post Xmas sales revenue starts to dry up. So we just a bought a massive steak, cooked it, ate it and shared a warm comfy bed for another night, just like all the others. On a dreary, slightly zombiefied Monday night in February, nothing in the world could improve on that.
Last Friday we saw Richard Herring perfrom Christ On A Bike! The Second Coming at the Komedia. In an age where stand up is largely seen as a stepping stone to perceived 'greater' things such as appearing on numerous panel shows, presenting Saturday night light entertainment programmes or becoming a 'celebrity judge' on some woeful, brain rotting but highly lucrative Cowell atrocity (yes, I'm looking at you McIntyre) it's heartening to see a master of the form stay true to the cause and do so many inspired and anarchic (albeit not always fully baked) things with it. Yes, he's been around ages and is perhaps something of a has been to some - but there's a sense of never having sold out on his anti-showbiz principles and for a 20 plus year career, that is to be much admired. The other half even met him post show and got our program signed (which I was a tad jealous about). COAB!TSC was so good I'm not even going to attempt to write a fawning review. I just grinned solidly all the way through. It was so much more than "Christianity, eh. Bit silly ain't it!". Okay, it was essentially pretty much that. But you get the picture.
Well, I'll try to recap the 'highlights'.
Sat 5th Feb, the day before my birthday. I was whisked off to my mystery minibreak location. Finding out where exactly via the unwrapping of a Berlin tourist guide on the train to Gatwick was a genuinely lovely moment (this may seem a bit sad and corny but it was lovely. Maybe I'm just easily impressed... not exactly a bad personality trait though, I would wager) and made me feel very special. Put simply and a tad boringly, the trip just went very well and fun was had. Which doesn't make for very interesting reading, least of all to myself.
It's all a bit of a haze now. Brandenburg gate... Bauhaus museum... the Französischer Dom.... eating currywurst with pomme fritz... getting severely lost on the complicated and convoluted (at least to us ignorant Brits) train and tube infrastructure... Finding the Ritter Sport palace and nearly dying of chocolate poisoning...
Came back at 9pm on the Tuesday aged 29 full years, completely travel whacked and having to work the next day. In hindsight, at least one of those three lamentable things were easily avoidable and come the following morning, I had never felt quite so murderously resentful of having to plop my work head back on. Post-trip recovery days are an absolute must, even after a minibreak in a fellow European country located virtually next door. Big lesson learnt.
The following couple of weeks were almost laughably non eventful, which at least from a financial point of view is perhaps for the best. We did nothing for Valentine's, since we are both firmly stood on the cynical side of the fence when it comes to commercially driven exercises in fleecing as much money as possible from impressionable simpletons up and down the land (see also: 'Easter'), oh so conveniently just as the post Xmas sales revenue starts to dry up. So we just a bought a massive steak, cooked it, ate it and shared a warm comfy bed for another night, just like all the others. On a dreary, slightly zombiefied Monday night in February, nothing in the world could improve on that.
Last Friday we saw Richard Herring perfrom Christ On A Bike! The Second Coming at the Komedia. In an age where stand up is largely seen as a stepping stone to perceived 'greater' things such as appearing on numerous panel shows, presenting Saturday night light entertainment programmes or becoming a 'celebrity judge' on some woeful, brain rotting but highly lucrative Cowell atrocity (yes, I'm looking at you McIntyre) it's heartening to see a master of the form stay true to the cause and do so many inspired and anarchic (albeit not always fully baked) things with it. Yes, he's been around ages and is perhaps something of a has been to some - but there's a sense of never having sold out on his anti-showbiz principles and for a 20 plus year career, that is to be much admired. The other half even met him post show and got our program signed (which I was a tad jealous about). COAB!TSC was so good I'm not even going to attempt to write a fawning review. I just grinned solidly all the way through. It was so much more than "Christianity, eh. Bit silly ain't it!". Okay, it was essentially pretty much that. But you get the picture.