Dom's Rambles

As you may or may not know, a couple of weeks ago I threw a party to thank all the people who have provided me with such invaluable assistance in writing Down & Out in Sheffield & Lincoln (and who had also gracefully tolerated my borderline obsessive preoccupation with the thing over the past couple of years). A marvellous time was had by all and Scott Watkinson, the former Friday night at Rock City DJ, absolutely excelled himself in keeping the anthems coming non stop for the entire evening. We also managed to demonstrate - and beyond any shadow of a doubt, as the above secretly shot video will attest - that there is no more tragic a sight than that of people in early middle age getting drunk and enjoying themselves.
That said, I did find it hard to relax at first and kept looking over my shoulder in anticipation of a lynch mob of Jägermeister swigging classic motorcycle enthusiasts and/or a similarly outraged gang of effete, burned out musos with no sense of humour turning up to give me a good going over.
I also had an extremely hard time relaxing whenever I took a piss.
When I booked the venue, back in February, the original intention was to have hard copies of the finished product available on the night. However, circumstances conspired to make this a little unfeasible. The thing will now be available at the end of June - and for the following reasons:

• I’m still waiting for permission to reproduce several bits I lifted off various websites.
• Due to a recent bout of severe financial embarrassment I haven’t been able to afford to register as a publisher and get an ISBN number sorted out until this week.
• Over the past couple of months I’ve had an absolute deluge of e-mails from people who have happened upon the website and have provided a wealth of new anecdotes and such which it would be criminal not to include - like the one about 'Sally' turning doughnuts all over her school sports field on the day she passed her bike test and then giving me the blame for it when she was threatened with expulsion by the powers that be who had witnessed her (you certainly kept that one quiet)!
  Similarly, having recently become reacquainted with Malcolm (aka Mikki), I need to see what he has to add to the story and the opportunity to sit him down and pump him for all he’s worth hasn't arisen yet.

Anyway, check the gallery page for some shots of the party courtesy of Carole and Hazel – expect more when other people get around to sending me their photos (hint, hint Jim and Steve).

I just noticed the video seems to have lost quite a bit of definition during the conversion to YouTube format so you can download the original here.

posted by Dom  # 1:05 PM