The Chapman Zone Dave’s Blog

I should state for the record that most of these photos were taken by my good friend, Mr Kyle.

This batch is of last years Scout Summer Camp.

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I found out today that my current post is almost certainly going to come to an end in March 2010, and I will have to move to a different department.

I have already spoken to my old boss about maybe going back and doing what I did in 2001, but at the next level up - they have not mapped out their plans yet, so I will have to wait a few months to see if that has any potential. At least he didn’t laugh in my face!

So, what’s in store for Dave? Will he secure a promotion before being stuck in a really boring department (it is a Statistics office after all), or will he find something elsewhere? Or will the photography bear fruit and lead him to pastures entirely new?

Watch this space!

….coz I’ll probably forget to blog about it when it happens!!!!

It’s funny how one’s enthusiasm for a particular thing ebbs and flows over a certain time period. I had two weeks off over Christmas, and not once did I post anything on this blog. It never really entered my head…or if it did, it was so far down the list of priorities it never stood a chance.

I always take two whole weeks off work over Christmas (when permitted) - I feel it is important to take a decent length break away from the routine of the day job, to recentre oneself, to remind oneself of what it is that really matters in one’s life. (I’m going to stop saying ‘ones’ now (its poncy), and flit hapharzardly around the 1st and 2nd person narrative.) Get up, go to work, come home, cook food, go out, come home, go to bed, repeat. That’s fine if you are doing a job that really matters to you on a personal level - if you are a craftsman, healer, musician, teacher or some other calling that you can really feel proud to be doing for a living. For your work to be your life would be a good thing. Because of the sheer amount of time most of us spend at work, it is easy for the job to become the centre of your existence, where the mind travels to when idle, what you go to bed thinking about, and wake up the same way. Most of us aren’t lucky enough to feel truly engaged in what we do for a living. Sure, we turn up and try to do a good job, to take pride in our work and derive some measure of satisfaction from the day, but when we stop and think about it - about what it is we are using up a massive portion of our life doing - we find that we don’t really care too much for the choice of vocation.

Sure, work is merely a means to an end for most of us, a way to pay for our lives. Problem is, this job that takes up so much of our lives, rules our life, for all of our other plans and dreams and schemes have to fit in with our work commitments. Work becomes the centre of our existence, and for some it even becomes the end itself, not just the means. Take the professional, working all hours to climb the ladder, telling himself that he is trying to improve his standard of living, so that he can afford all the thing for his children that his parents could not. He works dawn till dusk, kisses the boss’ backside, embraces the company line, all the bullshit politics become his mantra - what will he feel at the end of his life, or when he wakes up one morning and discovers that he has missed his children growing up? All that work, all that stress…..what was it really for?

…what was it really for…….what was……what the hell was I supposed to be talking about?

Oh yeah, taking time off. A beauty of being a civil servant is that you get all your bank holidays off (and if anyone reading this begrudges me this right - f*ck you. Direct your anger to those that have taken this right from you, try to lift yourself and your colleagues up, instead of trying to bring total strangers down to your level of misery, you petty minded little sadist.) So anyway, the upshot is that I can take two weeks off work at the cost of only six days annual leave. So I took off two weeks. It’s great, to totally break that routine for an extended period really wakes you up.

So what did I do with my time off? Long story short - I spent most of it at the Scout Hut. We’re (Tiffy and I) doing the work ourselves to the hut, since we’ve been screwed over for long enough. We did a chunk of it in the Summer, but now we’ve got the double glazing in, and the heaters are sitting in boxes waiting to be installed, it’s time to get the damn place warm again. Every day, except for Christmas Day and New Years Day, I was down at that hut. The first few days did not go according to plan, as Tiffy decided that the wiring for the lighting system was so screwed up that he had to replace the whole affair. The place is ridiculously bright now - all the lights work for the first time in years!

After that was done, we got back to the system of ripping out old fibreboard, cleaning up, masticking the air gaps, building the stud wall, padding out with insulation and putting up plasterboard. The plan was to get the heating up and running over the break, but alas, we did not acheive this lofty aim. We have been down every weekend since, and are getting closer…

Although I was knackered from these two weeks, I am glad I spent my leave this way. It’s nice to go from a job where you spend every day on your arse looking at a computer screen, to actually grafting and making something real, and having direct control over your progress. Besides, Tiffy is a fun guy to work with! I should put on the record that he did much more work than me over this period - I was more his assistant than anything.

The only downside to this project (apart from getting glass fibre insulation all over myself) was that I missed most of the Pancake Eating Freaks recording sessions. They went back into The Old Blacksmiths Studio to record all the new tracks they had written since the demo was recorded. I was able to go to the last few hours of mixing on the Sunday, and very impressive it is indeed. Especially good is the intro to ‘Condoms & Ricecakes’ which I will be advocating as the album opener (not that my vote carries much weight - they certainly know their own minds, the Freaks!). They’ve come a long way, and apologies guys if this sounds patronising, but I’m really proud of them. I’ll save the full on, emotional speech for when they secure their record deal…

Did I say “all the new tracks they had written”? I lied. I came into the mixing to discover that they had not recorded my favourite track of theirs - ‘Wannabe’.

No, not the Spice Girls track. After much harrumphing and hoohaa-ing, I offered to pay for an extra day in the studio so they could get this track down. Fortunately, after I had put the deposit down, Kyle said he would go halves with me, which is a relief as I do not have a massive amount of money left in the bank! I could cover it, but it would be a squeeze. Troggie offered to muck in as well, but I have not had a chance to speak to him about it since that day.

So Monday is a day off work, and we’re all going up for the day to make some music. Well, the lads are going to make the music - the only music I will make on the day will probably be from my bottom.

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Woo hoo!!!

Only six months late for these pics! I want to get the Wedgewood pics out a bit quicker, coz I reckon theres a few good ones in that batch…

After all that wailing and gnashing of teeth this weekend, I have finally sussed out what I was doing wrong when I tried to put my photo gallery up on the website.

Hopefully I will be able to prove this by linking to the photos, but I have to get the naming system just right first…

Next up is to write a menu page, so I can group the subjects and individual galleries together. Either doing this in HTML or (more likely) using Dreamweaver in WYSIWYG mode!!!!

Thank you Collin, your teachings were not all in vein!

It’s to promote their new album!!!!!!!!!!!!

……..pleasure overload…………………..!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

…………must leave work immediately and play some SB9 xtra loud in jubilant celebration……………..

Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god! Oh my god!

Spocks Beard are back in the UK this year!!!!!!!

July 2nd at the Carling Academy, Islington.

Must buy tickets now!!!!!!!!!! (£17.50 by the way)

Anyone else wanna go?

Stupid f***ing, w*** faced, sh** brained, ar** holed, b*ll*ck busting internet bloody html shagging ftp ARSE!!!!!!

I f*cking hate not knowing what I’m doing!

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I’m having a play with JAlbum, to see if I can get some of my photos up in a method that I’m happy with. Don’t really know what I’m doing!!!

…so this may not work

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