be a bright young thing

...so much.

Does what you do define who you are?

Or is it what you think?

I spent a very nice evening with my friends in a bar in fashionable Marylebone high street, London town. I thought everything was cool – I met a semi-ex without problems and chatted away and enjoyed myself.

I worry that I have invetentedly offended some of my friends and I don’t know what I have done – this makes me worried :-(

Now they have gone home and I am left shouting into the empty void – argh – hello world – does it matter? The left or right, the wrong and right, leave the people dancing in the street and let me quietly sleep.

Ciao!

I ran a 10K cross country run around Richmond Park for the Bank that I work for yesterday – 40 minutes is a pretty reasonable time I think. After this I had a few pints with my colleagues and then schlepped back into London to attend a charity drinks reception with my lovely flatmate. And wowee zowee it was crammed with celebs, Gabi Roslin, Jim Broadbent, Claire Raynor, Neil Pearson, Toby Anstel, Charlotte Beer and some dudes from a DIY show. I was quite starstruck and rather excited by this. It also turned out that I was massively underdressed. I will now have to try and do something really nice for the charity.

After this instead of going home like good people on a school night – we met up with another friend and decided to go on to a different pub and through no fault of our own managed to crash some crazy party downstairs in a coolio bar just off Oxford Circus. The first we knew it was a private party was when I tried to pay for our drinks and failed because it was a free bar. This was a lovely suprise and exactly what we needed to push us over the precipice of bright young things. Anyhow – they also had a really cool couple of DJs spinning some classic 70/80/90s and modern indie tunes – The Cure, The Rakes, The Stones, Wham, Small Faces. I was dancing with some rather young girls and their lovely mother – who really seemed to be enjoying herself and strangely enough my dancing.

My chums didn’t dance and instead drank more tequilla – fortunately I had enough self-restraint to say no and dance instead…

Good times. Crazy bright young thing times.

I think that will probably be a classic night out to be remember ed for a long time :-)

I also feel like I need to do something to pay the cosmos back for its kindness – any ideas?

It is really rather soon. I have bought a load of booze and invited a variety of people. No theme – just people show up and wish me a happy birthday. Celebrate/Commiserate/Inebriate – I am not entirely sure which. It should be a good night though – I feel like I should do more planning and stuff but I really don’t know what to do!

Not sure if it counts but going back to college for a retirement dinner. Both of my tutors were retiring after teaching Chemistry at the same college for about 35 years each.

Hung out with current undergraduates (about 9 years younger – therefore definitely bright young things) and people couple of years below me without feeling like a complete old dude. Stayed up till 4:30 and made it to breakfast – unlike the young ‘uns – hehe – they don’t have any stamina!

Made me miss the old days – I realize I can’t really go back – but isn’t it nice to visit them every once in a while.

Aha – a photo of my peers.

One slight disappointment was that not more from my year or the years immediate close to me managed to make it – but maybe that would have meant less opportunity to talk to new people…

And wasn’t too dazzled – party was full of artists, TV producers and musicians – for a scientist IT guy this is pretty cool. Still held my own – although I am not sure that the dancing was a really good idea…