5:30am - I wake up, I try my damnedest NOT to fall back asleep and I slowly drag myself out of bed.
6:15am - On the bus towards Manchester town centre, looking forward to a caffeine laced hot beverage from Starbucks. When I arrive in the centre of town, I get my legal addictive stimulant swiftly and walk across the deserted city streets to Manchester Victoria train station.
7:10am - Catch my train heading towards Hindley (where the choir is based and where the coach journey begins)
7:45am - Get picked up from Hindley station by Deb the choir director, David and Jen (an old friend from Uni).
8:15am (approx) - We depart from from Hindley heading south to Brighton.
During the journey we stopped a couple of times, once for a short toilet break the other for just short of an hour to get some lunch. I paid 6 quid for a large coke and beans on toast, which I thought was ridiculous seeing as though the coke was barely fizzing and when the lady behind the food counter asked "Is brown toast ok? I haven't got any white done" I replied "No, how long to wait for white?", to my surprise instead of a civilized answer like "A few seconds" she let out a loud grunt like a fat little boar snuffling for food in the filth it stood in. She gave me a nasty glance and told me to wait further along the line, literally a few seconds later my beans on toast was on my tray in front of me. I said "Thank you" with a healthy side order of sarcasm and went to pay. Before I left I purchased the second installment in the Twilight Saga, called New Moon. Yes I'm still reading it and Yes its really very good.
3:30pm - Arrive at the University Of Sussex and make our way to the chapel to stow our belongings. After a little break and some tea and biscuits we went in to watch Deb (our choir director) do her lecture. Despite being used as a guinea pig for the purposes of a demonstration, the talk on the whole was awesome and the audience I imagined to be very critical seemed to be very approving and warm hearted (A lot of them past middle age).
The talk lasted an hour, after which we went for a rehearsal inside the chapel. Once our voices were polished up and ready to go we went for "Food". I don't know what the cooks at this university had in their minds but it wasn't bloody food to me. Not one person said that the food was nice and I had to settle for some bread rolls with butter and ketchup. We were on at 8:30pm and the moment of strewth drew ever closer. Before the performance my nerves were not the worst they've ever been by a long shot, but they were somehow different, I just couldn't put my finger on why that was to help me relax. Eventually we got going and I gradually managed to settle into the performance. It had been a long while since I last sang publicly so it felt great to be out in front of an audience again. After the performance we were greeted with lots of really nice comments from the seemingly delighted audience, so we must of done something right. Immediately after getting changed it was back on the bus and back up north we headed.
10:30pm (ish) - Set off from Sussex University Campus. Driver told loads of shit jokes on the way home, I was tempted to put in a complaint as he said "Ladies and Genitals" over the microphone to announce we were stopping for a toilet break, bearing in mind, it's a youth choir so we had people as young as 12 on the bus. I and a few others had shouted to him that we needed the toilet and he proceeded to drive past two service stations (45 minutes in between) before stopping at a third. He shouted "10 minute break" in the dopey Wigan twang that he had, conjuring images of his rotund frame bounding towards the nearest pie shop. So I thought "He made we wait for a pee, I'll make him wait to get home" I went and ordered some fries at burger king, then while they were being cooked went to W.H.Smith to buy some crisps and chocolate. He'd already been to complain but we just replied "Were starving" and he stormed off back to his little bus. We eventually arrived back where we started at 4:00am, much later than expected because of diversions on the M25 & M6 Toll road. I climbed into Debs small Nissan Micra looking forward to some sleep and soon enough I was on a comfy couch in my pajamas looking forward to the most eagerly awaited shuteye ever recorded in my life.
I've Just realized I described the whole day in great detail, whoops. Hope that wasn't too boring for you. I won't bother with the day after... Oh go on then, quickly. We went for breakfast, I stroked a dog in a car park, I went home, I saw my girlfriend, I slept more. Done. Oh and here are some pictures of the chapel, it was perfectly round with coloured glass windows dotted all over like honeycomb, a really strange building but the acoustics were lovely for a choir. (Pics off the web, I didn't take them)
Anyways in other alarming news, I was on the bus today reading the free paper that they shove on all public transport to keep you're mind of how crap it is and I read a truly horrific story. Basically, in Finland they invented the sauna, and stupid people like to have a competition who can withstand the hottest sauna. Yesterday that game ended up in tears (real tears, definitely not sweat) when a competitor at the "World Sauna Championships" died, not only that but the other guy inside with him suffered major burns all over his body. Now call me cynical, but what kind of idiot does that as a sport? Apparently it's not unusual for people in these contests to withstand temperatures of 110 degrees CELSIUS, not Fahrenheit... CELSIUS. And a few of the people "train" in temperatures of up to 140 degrees C. That's just lunacy in my mind, absolute crackpot, "you should be in a loony bin" mental. Looking at a picture of one of the competitors in the paper (presumably the one who snuffed it) he looks in absolute agony, hunched forward clutching his torso as if he was on the verge of spontaneous combustion.
It makes me feel uncomfortable thinking about how that sort of temperature affects the body. Please excuse the weird music but seeing visually what 100+ degrees C looks like makes me think even less of these absolute dumb arses. If you're gonna do that to you're body then you're going to get hurt, simple as that, and don't expect anyone to feel sorry for you when it goes tits up like that blond freakazoid.
Well, its time for me to leave you with a musical treat for you're listening pleasure. Once again I haven't got a single song in mind, so I present you with another choice. Some authentic 90's pop or some 90's inspired pop. The first reminds me of when I was younger, this particular song was never off the radio. The latter is a very guilty pleasure by one of todays pop "phenomenons". In my eyes, maybe not a phenomenon, but they certainly are doing a lot to shake up pop culture which is refreshing to see instead of the same old manufactured drivel all the time. Anyways... Enjoy.
90's - Authentic or 90's - Inspired
Thanks as always for reading,
Take it EZ
LW
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