So my uni friend Michael and I went to see Jonathan Coulton tonight at the Union Chapel in London. First impressions of the venue were of surprise -- I had assumed it was an ex-chapel converted into a venue, but it appeared to be a genuine, honest-to-God church, and that impression only got stronger as we walked in and took our seats on the pews.

After we'd bagged our spot, I purchased a copy of JoCo's first album, Smoking Monkey, and one of the 2009 Tour T-shirts (which has the honour of being one of extremely few white T-shirts in my collection!) before settling down to wait for the evening's entertainment to kick off. Eventually, to much applause, Paul and Storm came on-stage.

They kicked off by greeting us all and telling us they were "the thing you have to sit through to see the thing you came to see tonight!" They launched into a rendition of Opening Band which was really fun, and they had two matching pairs of boxer shorts, a thong and a packet of Jaffa Cakes. Then they did their Mothers' Day song, and asked us whether any of us had mothers (apparently Manchester shouted back that they were clones).

During a song that apparently needed us to wave lighters in the air, someone was caught with an open laptop and a competition was started to see who could design the best lighter app before the end of the show (AFAIK nobody completed the challenge). They played Frogger: The Musical, a song about boxing nuns and a pirate's wife's lament.

At some point during the set, Paul used the phrase "Wispa Melée!" and Storm said that that was their Clash tribute band. This triggered a number of jokes around names for tribute/covers bands throughout the evening:

• Manufactured Sorrow: The Smiths
• Zombie Leprechauns: The Pogues
• Oblong Circles: They Might Be Giants
• Jaffa Cake Thieves: The Madness
• Star Wars Can of Worms: Weezer
• Ritalin Cannon: TMBG again
• Space Bones: David Bowie (this one was actually during JoCo's set)

The set continued with some really great songs, including most of the old favourites. He didn't do Chiron Beta Prime, You Ruined Everything or I'm Your Moon, but he did a version of Always the Moon without mics or amps, relying on the natural acoustics of the room, that was absolutely stunning. Both he and Paul and Storm performed a couple of songs from Masters of Song Fu each, which was cool (although sadly there was no Boolean Love Song).

At the end, he plugged some merch (including cake-scented stickers) before coming out to take photos with and sign autographs for the people who had stuck around. All in all, a good night! xD

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In the queue for the JoCo gig in London tonight!!

Sometimes the lack of a flash on the iPhone does get in the way... Anyone else got any awesome plans tonight?

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[	Tags	|	events, food, iphone	]
[	I'm in	|	Derbyshire	]
[	I'm feeling	|	content	]

I have spent a happy evening at archaro's house eating a very good dinner. We started with a gin and tonic each, and then we started, at 8pm, a dinner that consisted of several courses:

• Traditional French onion soup (caramellized onion soup with a slice of French bread in it and grated gruyére on top).
• Welsh lamb with a leek fool and new potatoes, served with a glass of Auvergnat pinot noir (red wine).
• Gin and tonic sorbet (which was love).
• Field mushroom pâté with a slice of bruschetta and a balsamic vinaigrette, along with a glass of gavi (white wine).
• An Aberdeen Angus fillet steak with fine beans, new potatoes and an English mustard and clotted cream sauce, and a glass of Balgownie cabernet sauvignon (red wine).
• Cheese and biscuits (unpasteurized Stilton and Cheddar, and a pasteurized Shropshire Blue) with a single quinta vintage port.
• Half a melon, balled and then marinated in port and cherry brandy.
• Rosewater panna cotta and saffron & cardamom panna cotta with a glass of orange muscat.
• Coffee and delicious chocolate truffles, with cherry brandy!

After the cherry brandy, the amount of alcohol hit me like a train (I was not the only one!) and so we retired to bed after finishing supper at about 1am. A damn fine evening!

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This weekend my family and I are visiting my Great Auntie Margaret in Southampton, and so last night I spent the night in Peterborough and this afternoon has been spent wandering around Southampton city centre.

Some of the people reading this will live in cities that have a proper milkshake shop, like Shakeaway -- indeed, some of you may even have a branch of that particular business! My parents and I were introduced to milkshake shops by Shakeaway in Bournemouth, and my mother is rather partial to the chocolate & cherry flavour. In fact, she's made it her mission to visit all of their branches (not entirely seriously...).

When we got to Southampton, our first port of call was the bigger of the two Shakeaway outlets (one is a shop, the other is more a counter in a shopping centre), in which I had the milkshake photographed below:

It was lovely, but they did it with Milkybar instead of Milky Way, which made it a bit sweet for my taste. Afterwards we explored more of the city, discovering that the new Magic Mouse is alright but not as good as I hoped; that Hotel Chocolat do chocolate nibbles for dinner parties; and that Italian hog roast apparently means "no stuffing or crackling". I also didn't buy a Beach Boys album.

Then, Dad suggested getting another milkshake, and since I have no self-control, I plumped for a chocolate and peanut butter one this time around:

(The thumbs in the background are my Aubtie Jennifer's, and the milkshakes are chocolate with cherry, peanut butter and ginger respectively.)

Then we went to actually visit Auntie Margaret, and now we're preparing to go our. All in all, a good day!

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Something about which I am curious: I synced my LJ entries with Dreamwidth and promptly never really switched over. If one day I decided to start using it instead of LJ, would I be able to resynchronise or would I have to delete the current entries and then sync?

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Right then, an LJ article on Twitter. Sometimes, Twitter users annoy me and this article covers some usage points on which I have Views and on which I'd appreciate yours.

( Cut for Twitter Users )

That's all the rant I wanted to put forward today, I hope to encourage some debate on the subject!

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[	Tags	|	internet, news, poll	]
[	I'm in	|	Evington, Leicester	]
[	I'm feeling	|	happy	]
[	I'm hearing	|	Whatever my housemate's listening to	]

Capitalised?

Uncapitalised?

Are there any acronyms you think I should poll in a sequel poll?

Do you like silly questions?

#40 Douglas Adams, Mostly Harmless, 1992

This is Douglas' last Hitchhiker novel, and it's definitely the least funny of the trilogy. However, it's also the one that has the most science-fiction -- parallel universes, suspended animation and advanced technological concepts abound.

Some of Douglas style is apparent in this book, most notably the one-liners that never really stop being funny, and the interplay between Ford and Arthur is hilarious as ever. Trillian's character is slightly oddly written compared to the previous novels, but given her non-appearances in SLATFATF and the Secondary Phase, the fact she's even present at all is, I guess, something to be pleased with!

This book is also easily one of the bleakest i've ever read, with virtually no hope or joy present throughout the tome and the depressing ending, but I still enjoy reading the novel. I'm nervous about reading Eoin's novel, but that is the next book!

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Something has just struck me: if I had read one more book before I started rereading Douglas Adams' Trilogy of Five, And Another Thing would have been my 42nd book this year. As it is, it shall be my 41st, which is deeply unsatisfactory!

#39 Douglas Adams, So Long and Thanks for All the Fish, 1984

Some people -- in fact, quite a few people -- don't like this book. There was an epic flame war on alt.fan.douglas-adams back in the day between Simo and Kaare over whether chapter 25 was a good passage of Douglas' writing. This novel is the first novel that Douglas wrote from scratch instead of adapting a radio show or a Doctor Who script or whatever, and it shows!

( Cut for spoilers! )

All in all, this book is a good book, but it's very different to the others. My next read will be arguably the bleakest thing Douglas ever wrote!

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#38 Douglas Adams, Life, the Universe and Everything, 1982

The third book in the trilogy was based on a script for a Doctor Who film by Douglas that never got made, and that does shine through in some ways, but it's far less obvious than I remember it being. Unfortunately, this book marks the beginning of the end of Zaphod as a character -- at least, until tomorrow (hint, hint) -- which is a shame, since Zaphod is great.

This book, no matter how disjointed and derivative it may turn out to be, is funny as hell. I was told off by my parents for laughing too much last night! Marvin's lullaby is brilliant, as is the reaction of Ford to the news that there is a party. I really need to reread this one more often!

Now, onto the misguided romance novel...

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#37 Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, 1980

So I continue bravely on with my rereadings of the Trilogy of Five, this time reading the second in the series. Whilst the previous book is a fairly direct and literal retelling of the first part of the Primary Phase, its sequel is a little less faithful to its source material, retelling the end of the Primary Phase and the Secondary Phase with many bits swopped around, some new bits included and some parts entirely removed.

This, as it transpires, is entirely a good thing. I have listened to the radio series so many times that the first book is somewhat ruined by my familiarity with its source material. Because the second book is not as similar, I found myself giggling and chortling the whole way through, which was a bit odd on the train.

I'm looking forward to reading the next one!

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I need you guys to give me some advice, so I'm asking for it in poll format! (This is also a test to see if LiveJournal.app can handle polls.)

Poll #1468494 The Trilogy of Five
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 28

Should John finish the Trilogy of Five before continuing onto reading Eoin Colfer's novel?

Will Eoin Colfer's book turn out to be a good read?

Wowbagger?

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Today I had the beer Gaffer's Gold. It's a beer created by committee, apparently. It's a pleasant session bitter, with a nutty taste.

( A photograph of the beer clip... )

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