Next stop Alan Ayckbourn’s trio of plays “Living Together”, “Table Manners” and “Round and Round the Garden” (seen in that order) as part of “The Norman Conquests” in the round at the Old Vic — a theatre transformed for a 360 degree viewing experience. Being under 25 offers us the nice little perk of much discounted tickets, £20 for each play instead of £40–60, or thereabouts, a bargain. The six strong cast consisted of Amelia Bullmore, Jessica Hynes, Stephen Mangan, Ben Miles, Paul Ritter and Amanda Root.

Going into “Living Together”, Sam, Jo and I weren’t sure what to expect, our seats were at the rear of the auditorium, where the stage would normally sit, but instead a circular tier of seats stood, carved into the back. We were incredibly close to the circular stage with its ‘model village come wooden curtain’ and light furniture set. The three plays intermingle in time, each can standalone but together they form a bigger picture, portraying different nuances and natures of the characters whilst each incredibly reveals a significant plot point subtly but realistically referenced in the other two. (Reg wandering into the front room, “Ah there it is”, picks up the bin and walks out again).

The stories are deeply tragic; three siblings, two unhappily married and the other single yet equally unhappy. The other three cast members make up their spouses/possible future partners whilst a sick and elderly mother and her promiscuous past resides out of sight, upstairs and bedridden. Norman is all set to run away for a romantic weekend with his wife’s sister Annie, Annie’s potential love interest — Tom, the dim witted Vet, believes she is going on holiday alone and that this is partly his fault; Annie’s brother Reg and interfering wife Sarah arrive to look after mother for the weekend, in Annie’s absence. Norman’s wife Ruth remains unawares, but isn’t without suspicion. Cue the start of all three plays and without wishing to reveal too much; the home made parsnip wine, Reg’s cleverly devised board game he wants everyone to play, Norman’s desire to make everyone happy, Tom’s complete befuddlement, the rug, the silence at Breakfast, soup and salad, seating arrangements, Ruth’s misinterpreted advice in the garden, the cat stuck in the tree, the tomfoolery and East Grinsted — and as the family tears itself apart you’ll laugh with every turn, every revelation, every remark and your jaw will ache from the smile plastered across your face.

For Table Manners and Round and Round the Garden we were seated at the top in the middle, a little further from the action but still a great view. Originally we’d decided to only go to one of the three, but on the strength of Living Together — which we now believe was the best starting place — we booked the next two. If I had to put them in order of favourites I’d put the Garden episode first, closely followed by Living Together and then Table Manners.

Our taste for plays, comedies, Ayckbourn and the Old Vic have been stimulated and we’re ready for more.

Here’s the best shot I could get of the circular stage from where we were:

Before the shows we ate at the Bangalore Express (with its double decker seating arrangement) and Yo Sushi (where we used our buy 5 plates get 5 free vouchers), both of which are in walking distance from the Old Vic.

Following the Garden, which we saw on a Saturday afternoon in December, we grabbed the tube to Hyde Park to visit the Winter Wonderland with all of its Christmastime goodies and German-like markets. Warming up with a tasty steak burger we aimlessly perused the stalls, trying out the mulled wine, the candied nuts, mini dutch pancakes in chocolate, fun hats and German sausages. Without realising it had reached 9pm we meandered towards Covent Garden before resting at “Fire and Stone”, a fantastic stone-oven pizzeria where every pizza is based on a world city, I had a:

Marrakech // £8.95
Cumin spiced ground lamb, mozzarella, mint yoghurt sauce, green olives, raisins & sliced red onion drizzled with chilli oil.

Worth every penny.

The Ballet

The next big venture into London for Sam and I was to the Coliseum to see the English National Ballet performing Sleeping Beauty; my first foray into the world of ballet and dance. Approaching the night sleepified and docile, I wasn’t looking forward to the three hour performance despite pepping up with a home-made burger from a nearby Moroccan place off Leicester Square.

However, when the curtain lifted, the surrealism of a 3 hour show without a single spoken word, not even for the interval, slowly dawned on me, and with it I became quietly engrossed in the beautiful dance and skill before me, the miming techniques used for the plot mostly going over my head but for a few obvious examples. My slumber had me all buttered up and I left amongst the extraordinarily posh and the disproportionate number of rich attractive girls into the cold winter air, with scarf and gloves, ready for Christmas.

Importing 5 years worth of posts from Blogger and then categorizing them was not a pretty task. Though I did notice a gradual descent into immaturity as I worked backwards. In celebration of this achievement, and bringing this blog inline with my other projects, the site has changed hosts and lives on its own domain as a separate outlet for unprofessional blurbs, rants and whatnot; www.mrfofr.com. The Mr. bit is new, I’d be pretty lucky to bag a four letter domain name.

After 5 years, my AMD Athlon 2700 XP with 1.5gb of RAM and LG 17″ screen was growing weary. Time for an upgrade, and the new 24″ iMac model took my fancy — I grabbed one from John Lewis in July and its now sitting pretty as the focus of my front room, coinciding with a big rearrangement of furniture.

Good timing really, considering that I had multiple and simultaneous hard drive failures on my PC shortly thereafter as I tried to transfer 40gb or so to the mac.

Having been through the old posts, I noted that, in hindsight, screenshots of my projects are very helpful for when the original source material has since vaporized into the mists of some internet purgatory. And on that note:

Now, in taking a break from my still unready ad service, I feel that I need to rant about a couple of things. Come New Year and my splendid get-together come shindig in my flat – (with Tex-Mexican niceties (tacos, enchiladas, dips, chilli con carne) spread among 8), whilst purchasing the tasty treats I decided to embark on a Freeview adventure. Back in November I bought myself a Philips Freeview box (a DTR220, digital terrestrial receiver) for £35. Plugging it into the aerial atop of my flat lead to the discovery of 40 channels, with an almighty 3 of these being viewable (bid up TV, sky three and a radio station), the rest degrading into some sort of glitch-ridden madness. This didn’t bother me too much; I took the box back and grabbed my refund from Curry’s, one hour after purchase. In late December I picked up my signal booster from Bristol, bought the same box again and hey presto – 40 viewable channels.

It’s been a month or so since I got the box, and a number of things have started to annoy me. The main niggle is the constant crashing of the firmware – I’ll be merrily flicking through channels and all of a sudden it will turn itself off and on again, experience a control freeze up (the TV signal shall continue but all control is removed – forcing me to switch the unit off and on at the switch) or suddenly cease rendering the background image elements for the EPG and info bar – which again do not return until a reset. Temporary in-viewing problems also include a periodical five to ten seconds of black and white, cross channel interference (particularly annoying if the invading channel has scrolling text) and all on top of the ugly low signal digital pausing and image distortion that occurs during bad weather. The remote control interface is also entirely unintuitive, although it is slick – if I had to give a positive point to this pseudo review.

In conclusion, do not buy the Philips DTR220, it is a hunk of junk with a brand name.

To continue in the same vein, my television comes equipped with a solitary SCART connector. I regularly switch between my Xbox 360, Wii, PC output and Freeview box. This wouldn’t be a problem if an affordable yet decent switch-able multi SCART adapter existed. Finding a manual switching device that doesn’t use automatic signals to change the display is difficult enough – given that my PC is on all the time this isn’t an option. Robert and Dyas do stock one, a 4 connector with push button switch – fantastic. Up until the point you plug it in and get hideous interference between all the SCART channels and incessant screen flickering. Product returned and I’m still looking.

Ideally I would upgrade my 20 inch CRT to a flat screen LCD, but the TV isn’t that old and it does its job well enough – except when it comes to Xbox 360 gaming, but that isn’t its fault. Of the 4 games I have, only one has legible on-screen text – the others all result in tiny blurred text that is impossible to read – rendering it useless. This is entirely a design flaw – expecting all users to own an LCD is an outrageous assumption that continues to thwart me. Gah!

Ok, electronics rant over, time to get back to fixing some session stuff.

Boston Legal:

Californication:

Battlestar Galactica Razor

Then there were the films…

Superbad (awesome)

Shooter (meh)

The Bourne Ultimatum (awesome)

1408 (good)

Disturbia (much better than expected) — Shia is someone to watch.

Shoot Em Up (a good laugh but nothing fabulous)

Come Sunday evening and we’ve got nothing.

England dramatically lost 2–1 to Russia away from home due to a poor penalty call and some shoddy goal-keeping and defending. Putting qualification out of England’s control, and relying on a Russian falter against Israel. Scotland meanwhile left themselves the task of needing to beat Italy at home to qualify, after their torrid display in Georgia, losing 2–0. This all happened on Wednesday. Next up is Saturday, and with thousands of English fans, the rugby team are in Paris for the World Cup Final. Whilst a gallant and brave performance, a demoralising disallowed try and some lack of discipline and BAM, the final is lost. Now our nation’s hopes of a great victory fall to the young rookie Lewis Hamilton, with a second place position on the starting grid in Brazil for the last race of the season. Things quickly go wrong as Hamilton falls to the back of the pack with car problems, finishing the race in 7th, resulting in a Raikkonen race and championship win.

It seems I was lucky enough to have the pleasant distraction of going to Leicester for the weekend for Samantha’s birthday, drawing me away from such shattering realisations. So whilst England lost — left, right and centre, I merrily drank wine, ate Risotto and sampled fine Hotel Chocolat delights. It seems I was lovingly spared this time around, gifted with a wonderfully relaxing long weekend. On this occasion I am thankful to have missed out on all the sporting commotion.

Here it is. My spangly new flat, complete with computer desk and leather sofa…

… TV, Wii and plant …

… a table and another sofa thing …

… door and drawers …

… bedroom and double bed …

… a spangly tiled bathroom …

… and checkered floor for chess …

… kitchen with microwave, toaster and washing machine …

… fridge, freezer, cooker …

… and acres of worktop space …

… and finally my well constructed desk!

Hoorah!

Whilst not looking for jobs or houses I turned on the TV, linked it to an AV output from the PC and watched some X-files or Twin Peaks to fill me up on my mystery-weirdness fix for the year. I am about half way through season 2 of Twin Peaks now. Agent Cooper is my hero. Anyway, moving onwards. With a job confirmed and a start date of September 10th I had 3 weeks to arrange viewings, partake in viewings, make a decision and sort out all the fine print, on a single solitary residence. I arranged six viewings, two in Welwyn Garden City, two in Hatfield and two in St Albans for the bank holiday weekend in August.

I can’t be bothered to find pictures of all of them, and to be honest, I want to forget a few of them, they were that awful. In fact the last one we saw needed a light on in every room in order to see anything… this being at 2 pm on a cloudless day with the sun high in the sky. It was also disgusting with a shoddy door, the whole thing was tacked onto the back of a house — they wanted £625 a month for it!

Here is the second best candidate — a one bedroom ‘mini’ house. This was in walking distance from where I work and was a strong contender at £650 a month. Although in the end we decided the nearby amenities weren’t great and living in Hatfield wasn’t the nicest of options.

My third arranged viewing for a studio flat in Hatfield fell through, and in that spare hour we roamed the streets of St Albans, popping in every estate agents we came across on London Road. Eventually one such agent had two apartments we could look at straight away, one just (the day before) coming back onto the market after a previous deal had fallen through. The first of these was an atrocious annex in London Colney, it was damp, smelled of wet and was pretty much a shed. We left (the family and Sam) as fast as we possibly could. The second was a one bedroom flat for £725. This was like a breath of fresh air. It was clean, spacious, light, secure, well-appointed and very close to both rail stations, the town centre, a supermarket and retail park, a large park with golf course et al. and a bus route to get into work. It was perfect except for the price. We continued looking at our other appointments — except for one cancelled two-bedroom viewing which nastily clashed with a much needed toilet stop on my part. The flat was always on our minds and at 3pm we decided that I should go for it — and cancelled any further viewings, the extra price was decided reasonable for the distinguished improvements that it offered.

Having settled that matter we spent the afternoon drinking in a nearby pub, watching the football results (which were also amicable). I remember having a lovely large glass of Newcastle Brown Ale, before moving on to Wetherspoons to have Steak for dinner. It was a nice evening all around. We were there for the weekend, so on Sunday we had a picnic in Verulamium Park — right next to my new flat. Crispy fresh baguette, pasta and salad selections and a Mars bar to cap it off. Activities also included “playing catch in the park”, buying expensive chilli chocolate, a tour of the lake, excitement over the kiddies water park feature, remote control boats and Ye Olde Fighting Cocks pub. Then we headed back to Bristol, with Sam going north. I would move in on September 3rd, the next Monday.

In the week following I spent some time learning Java, managing my websites and frantically sorting out the huge deposit and one month’s rental payment (£1800) to be made available in only four working days (bank holiday issues) in cleared funds! That was a laugh. On the Friday I watched Knocked Up at the cinema with Mum and Stu, post scrumptious Chiquito Lazy Boi starter. I also watched the Bristol Rovers vs. West Ham game on Sky as well as a number of the England vs. India ODI’s, including the stunning 8th wicket partnership of 99 runs to seal a win, which we celebrated whilst eating chips on the way back from visiting my Aunt (avec graduation photos).

With only one car the packing needed to be ruthless and precise. Fitting a computer, tv, all the clothes I will need for a number of months, crockery, cooking pans and utensils, duvet and sheets and any additional entertainment I decided to bring was akin to those crazy Christmas toys that involve arranging shapes into a cube.

* Chocolate Muffin Break *

Mum and I arrived in good time via M4 and M25, signed the contracts, picked up the keys and moved in, with Sam quickly behind us with her odds and ends and a much needed set of drawers. Then we set about with the ickle things — arranging internet and phone installation, sorting out water, gas and electricity, television license, finding myself a computer desk, filling my cupboards with food (Sainsbury’s is very expensive!), unpacking and making myself feel at home. Mum left the next day, to return to work, it was a sad goodbye, and I had that melancholy feeling all day.

I think that is enough of the tale, I have now been here ten days and obviously the internet has been installed (20mbit, woo!) and once again I have spent too long writing this, it is late and I must go to bed to get up for work tomorrow. All I have left to say is thank you so much to Mum, Sam and Stu — your help was invaluable, I couldn’t have done it all without your help.

2nd Year ( 81.4% average, 20% of degree)		Credit (CATS)	Mark (%)
CG203	Systems and Control	15	85
CG204	Signal Processing and Communications	15	94
ES21J	Analogue Design	15	81
ES21L	Applied Linear Algebra	7.5	92
ES21Q	Design of Measurement Systems	7.5	70
ES21R	Digital Design	15	80
ES21T	Electronic Systems	7.5	79
ES22E	Software Development	15	92
IB229	Starting a Business for Engineers	7.5	58
PX258	ULSI MOS Devices and Technologies	15	70

3rd Year (85% average including 7.5 over CATS, 40% of degree)		Credit (CATS)	Mark (%)
CG351	Digital Signal Processing	15	75
ES316	Analogue and Digital System Design 1	15	91
ES327	Project	30	78
ES335	Communication Systems	15	86
ES372	Automation and Robotics	15	86
ES379	Finance and Accounting	15	88
ES390	VLSI Design 1	15	83
PX317	New Concepts in Electronics	7.5	74

4th Year (89.3% average including 30 over CATS, 40% of degree)		Credit (CATS)	Mark (%)
ES312	Systems Modelling and Simulation	15	85
ES330	Control 1	15	92
ES410	Group Project	30	75
ES425	Engineering Business Management 1	15	76
ES436	Directed Reading for Electronics	15	78
ES462	High Integrity Systems	15	87
LL130	Learning Chinese 1	30	82
PX400	Future Electronics	15	72

Overall Degree calculated as: 86%
First Class Honours

This final year was spent in Redfern campus accommodation, with old friend Steven and new flatmates Jo, Madhumita and Robert. It has been a great year. Here is a short but happy-memory inducing list. Ten pin bowling — both real and Wii based, massive marathon video game conquests (Burnout Revenge, Katamari, Bomberman, Wii Sports, Red Star), birthday celebrations, the adventures of Bobby Green and Snowy Bob, talkative fridge magnet nonsense, watching Planet Earth, fridge and freezer space mayhem, the rotting celeriac, Madhumita’s bell ringing and superstitions, the donkey-film fiasco (and the associated eeyore jokes), New Year celebrations, Christmas decorations, Madhumita’s quotes and blue tac sculptures, outings to Zizi’s and Piccolini’s “I could be a vampire — but you’re vegetarian”, eating two meals at once in Wetherspoons after Oceans 13, sharing artsy fartsy films with Jo, going on walks around Heronbank (to my secret pond), taking trips to the perfect Arts Centre Cinema (£2.50 student ticket for films such as Zodiac, This is England, Infamous and others), buying bargain £3 DVDs from the now defunct Fopp, juggling in the kitchen (3 ball, 4 ball, mill’s mess, 5 on the floor), the faulty Xbox 360 issues, completing that Mars EBM assignment, Future Electronics “big time” and “for sure”, kitchen visiting sparrows, woodpeckers, rabbits, squirrels and a single fox, Warwick Art Centre’s tuna jacket potatoes with salad garnish, my internet ban and resulting scrubs marathon, basement lab concrete slab testing for hours on end, painful all nighters on 300 page project report and poster, my poor tummy and appendicitis, rewarding revision marathons (and missing the Bristol Rovers promotion), learning mandarin chinese, the lunar eclipse on the night of Steven’s birthday meal and wii competition, watching Liverpool knock out Chelsea on HD projectors outside in the garden after feasting on a BBQ, reading Graeme’s friday evening “weekend joy” texts and laser/smell of burning eye stories, eating fresh French baguette and Camembert after returning on a long hard bike trip to Tescos, the mounting rust problems my bike suffered as a result of being left outside in the rain, the magpies attacking the bin bags, the “cost-cutter” chime, the incredibly wet summer, playing Frisbee on the green outside, watching films with the TV at the foot of the bed, watching the cleaner rotation as ours was off sick again, building up recyclable skyscrapers in blue bags, playing corridor golf with the plastic golf set and Steven losing his ball under my bed, playing long range corridor darts and skittles, being solemn as Madhumita rushes away for the last time, doing that 1000 piece puzzle on top of my drawers, buying fans and creating custom made wasp nets, seeing Madhumita play Halo, boiling up the kettle and having a nice coffee and croissant breakfast before starting revision, playing Scattergories and LOTR Risk (too geeky?), rearing my grape found caterpillar to a full fledged moth, indoctrinating Sam in the ways of BSG, taking down my posters for the last time, Jo’s regular parsnip-carrot and mince meal, Steven’s toad in the hole and chips, Roberts plastic cutlery and balloon antics (see: Madhumita’s cupboard), Madhumita’s smelly night time thing and yoghurts left in the microwave, the 2 for £3 tesco pizzas that got me through, weekend trips to Leicester to visit Sam where we would shop at Fenwicks or on the off chance go to Riley’s or cook something wonderful and inspired. And taking pictures for the last time as I pack up the car and prepare to go home.

Let’s look at some of the good moments from the season:

What a Goal!

And another against City.

The Rovers support at the JPT final in Cardiff.

Road to the Playoffs.