I have memories, clouded by sorrow

I am developing a new found respect for my friends who study or studied history, upon discovering that all history books (based on my representative sample of two, of course) are written like essays. Names are thrown about assuming you already know who they are, references are made to events later in the chronology as if to prove that the author understands something rather than to explain what has happened, it seems to arbitrarily switch between chronological narrative to wider discussion and back again, and so on. Definitely written for peers rather than novices, despite the "very short introduction" title on the book I'm currently reading. So yeah, if you put up with that for 3 or 4 years, well done.

I still have a bit of a cold, dating back 11 days. It's annoying that the actual illness aspect comes and goes within 2 or 3 days, but I'm left with the coughing and sneezing for the next few weeks.

I wish they'd stop putting things up in the square in town. Whether a German market, or an ice rink, or now a great big Ferris wheel, it seems to have been almost permanently occupied for the last 3 months at least. I just want to walk through the middle of the thing but you can't.

Dark Tranquillity play here again on Thursday. That should be good fun, but it'll not live up to Primordial. It's slightly unfortunate that they fell in the same week. After that, I don't know if there are any concerts I want to see until festival season.

Got back on Friday evening, had time for a swift shower and food preparation/consumption before heading back out again. I had a good night, generally. One of my favourite tracks - "House Of Sleep" by Amorphis - got a very welcome airing, especially after I asked for it at the other metal night last month and it wasn't played. It was a bit strange just having myself and sebby6 on the dancefloor and a couple of dozen people looking on, wondering what the hell the song was. That used to happen a lot.

It wasn't a very pleasant night on an interpersonal level. Bizarrely, I almost got into a fight before I even got fully into the venue. While I was still paying the entrance fee, a guy approached me, pressing up against my shoulder and leaning in unnecessarily close.

Him: "what's your name?"
Me : "why do you want to know my name?"
Him: "what's your name?"
Me : "why do you want to know my name?"
Him: "what's your name?"
Me : "If you want me to tell you my name, you should give me a good reason for it."
Him: "what's your name?"
Me : "I'm not going to give you my name unless you tell me why. now leave me alone." I was getting a bit pissed off by now.

Various semi-veiled threats ensued on his part, including him rather ridiculously suggesting that I was causing a problem. To this, I gestured around the room at the 15 or 20 people already in there and said, "these are all my friends. if you're going to start something, you're going to get killed." Possibly a slight exaggeration, but there you go.

Then, he asked if my name was Dan, and mumbled about how he comes here all the time (as if that should mean anything to me at all), and that he thought I was a guy called Dan. (Yes synphony, no doubt he meant you.)
I said I wasn't called Dan. This was repeated 3 times because he claimed not to hear me each time. Eventually he said, "I just wanted to know if your name was Dan". I replied, "and I said I wasn't, so that's the end of it."
"You should have just said your name wasn't Dan in the first place."
"I did say that, but you weren't listening."
"Yeah, you're probably right."
At this point, I think it was confirmed that he was indeed just after a fight. I think it was also about this point where markachu came over to check if everything was alright, and the guy left me alone, for about 10 seconds, before coming back to 'apologise'.
"You should shake my hand, or it's going to get nasty"
I replied, "I'm not shaking your hand. You pissed me off."
Repeat 3 times, as before.

I was somewhat intimidated since he was significantly heavier-built than me, but he was also much more drunk, having fallen once on his way up the stairs behind me, so I probably would have had a decent chance of beating the guy if necessary. Besides, there was no way I was backing down. I'd rather get hurt and then have my friends proceed to beat the shit out of him, than acquiesce and encourage him to continue acting like that.

Again, Mark came over and said something to the guy, a little more forcefully. Eventually this guy seemed to need to go and talk to the DJ and that seemed to be the end of it. Later on I heard that some moron who'd been giving people trouble had been thrown out; hopefully it was him.

The rest of the night passed reasonably ok, apart from unnecessary politics on one hand, and the stupid punks who thought they'd make amusement for themselves by throwing things at people, and then barricading the door behind them as they left, forcing shallowthing to perform some sort of dodgy reach-around manouevre to let edenapocalypse and himself out at the end. People like that who derive their fun from annoying and inconveniencing others should be taken outside and kicked repeatedly until they learn the error of their ways.

The next day, I went shopping, and moronic activity continued. An idiot walked right in front of me while I was waiting in a queue as the next to be served, and asked the assistant some prices of items he was interested in. Then he asked him to check to see if they had a certain product in store. The assistant did so, came back, and said "We don't have any up here, but there might be one in the shop window downstairs, if you go and ask." The moron hesitated, as if confused by the extravagant vocabulary employed, before replying, "uhh, so what are you telling me?" "You have to go downstairs and ask" came the remarkably patient reply. The idiot turned back to browsing a shelf, and then I got served. Except then, the aforementioned fool turned back to the attendant and asked him to put something aside for him, and then asked him to check a price for him. While that attendant was busy serving me. What a fucking cockjockey.

At a different shop, I bought a copy of Europa Universalis III. This apparently allowed one of the assistants to win a bet with another, who had gambled on them not managing to sell even four copies of the game. Mine was apparently number four. (Europa Universalis III is a historical strategy game and therefore of little interest to anybody except... well... it's of little interest to anybody.)

Last night, I went out to Rock City, since it's much more enjoyable when you're trapped in Warwickshire all week by way of comparison. It was reasonably fun, although there were a horde of trendies in one room for the first part of the night, presumably having come from a gig in one of the other rooms, and they were doing a lot of the traditional shrieking that I associate with that demographic. They were also all jiggling around to the pop music in a manner I can only correlate to the plight of a victim getting tasered. I had my advice sought on home recording by one of the students I know, which is nice as I have little idea of what I'm doing either, but being asked lets me pretend that I do for 10 minutes or so. kingamj tried to stop me leaving at the end but spazzhammer created a cunning diversion so that I could slink out unnoticed. At least, it worked out that way.

Yesterday, I went to harass _arnamentia_ and introduced her to the leading academic, Professor F. J.Lewis, Professor Emeritus of History at All Souls College, Oxford.

Today, I am back at HMP Leamington. Expect a report on Day 6 later today or early tomorrow.