Quarantine Blog - Day 10

We're onto double figures! So Sunday was not fun. All self-inflicted so I am by no means seeking out sympathy, but if you’re willing to give any it will be greatly appreciated. The good news is, Saturday to Sunday morning was probably the best uninterrupted sleep I’ve had all year. Presumably it was more unconsciousness than sleep, but I still enjoyed it more than any other so far. But I won’t drag on about, as I know sleepless night are not specific to me. On the subject of things that may or may not be specific to me, here are a few thing that really grind my gears:

1. People saying they didn't get enough sleep last night. 8 billion people on this planet didn't get enough sleep last night Chris, you’re not special.

2. Charity collectors. Now I don't mean little ol Doris’s collection for the poppy appeal. I mean these guys who look at you and smile a mile before you approach them. First off, do not assume my emotional response to a smile will be a welcoming gesture towards you. I offer change to get rid of them, but no, they want to set up a direct debit, in the street, outside Pret a Manger. I'm sorry but I can’t afford my current direct debits, I can’t justify £20 a month on the hedgehog appeal. Most of the organisations that do this are profiteering off the charitable donations, which is more than morally questionable. Yes ‘some’ money is going to a good cause, but on the other, your boss is buying a helicopter.

3. Not getting my food on a plate in a restaurant. Meat on a bit of used pallet wood, Chips in a mini deep fryer basket. Why’s this still a thing? When the craze 1st came, it was pretty nifty and unorthodox. But the novelty has worn off. More for practicality reasons when eating. 1st thing I do with the chips is empty them onto the plate or slate. There is no need to re-invent the plate, I come to you to eat, not to marvel at your cutlery and kitchenware. I also know how hard out is to get red meat stain off a chopping board, I feel for the kitchen porters. 

The reason for Sunday’s atrocities were due to our Saturday’s Festivities. We decided that we would do a house pub crawl. We’d seen others do this during long down, whereby each room in a house would become a pub. We decided that we’d each take a room and name it ourselves. We would create a playlist that was specific to that pubs theme and we’d need to have a game we could play while in that pub. You’d have a drink that you’d be able to serve, and you could create any other pub rules that you may wish. Each pub would get 45 minutes before we’d stagger to the next one. There were only 5 pubs, but I do not remember the 5th. 

Pub 1 - A Clock Don’t Work Orange

This was mine during office hours it had been renamed Quiet Zone 1, for more private calls, outside of this it was the Home Cinema Room, due to its Massive TV. Saturday Night It was a sports bar. Cordially named ‘A Clock Don’t Work Orange’ for its clock that doesn’t work and its orange I had placed in front of it. It was a sports bar, because my dearest Southampton were playing Leicester City. Football, football, foooootball. I had two games. The 1st was linked to my music playlist, whereby my patrons would have to give me the correct word that connects all my songs. Time. I had classics such as: Time After Time by Cyndi Lauper, One More Time by Daft Punk and Waka Waka (This Time For Africa) by Shakira. My other game was ‘A Night At The Earlswood Races’, A card game that imitated a horse race. The 4 aces would act as the Horses and I’d set up a race course using other cards as a straight or furlong. Each competitor would bet on a horse to win and the currency was drinks. ‘2 drinks on Spades’ etc. For the horses to move, the landlord(myself) turned over the other cards in the deck and each suited card meant the correlating horse could move one, to get over a furlong it would need to be a picture card of that suit. If your horse won, you gave your drinks to somebody of your choice. Clubs had a fantastic night and was the hot favourite, winning 4 out of 6 games. Diamonds had a disaster not winning a single race, but that didn’t stop one idiotic patron(my brother) flogging that dead horse. 

Pub 2 - The Dagger and Spoons

Named for its eerie dagger hanging above the door and the pub’s theme of spoons, not Wetherspoon, but the king of cutlery, the spoon. The playlist were songs that had at least one mention of a spoon either in the title artist or song, I assume it was a difficult task of finding good music on this theme. The game was a game of spoons. If you haven’t played this then essentially there are 3 spoons on the table and you you have to get 4 of kind in your hand to able to collect a spoon. You can only collect cards from a pile to your right but can only keep 4 cards in your, any disposed cards go to your left which creates the next persons right hand pile. As soon as somebody grabs a spoon anybody can grab the other 2. Pure Danger. Broken nails, broken hands, broken friendships. If you didn’t have a spoon you would then have to drink a bit of Cheeky Vimto Light (Port and Lemonade). 

Pub 3 - Pub 3

This is where my memory started to blur, hence why I cannot remember what this pub was called. Technically it wasn’t really another pub as we just moved places and stayed in the Dagger and Spoons. But there was different music, I couldn’t tell you what it was, but I’d assume Electric Light Orchestra. We played the card game Shit-Head, honestly I cannot be bothered to explain the rules because it takes too long, but please just accept we had fun and drank a lot.

Pub 4 - Paris Plants (I made this up now, because I really started to struggle with my attention span at this point of the evening)

In our Yoga/Workout/Horticultural Room we had a pub created by Monsieur Cris, the theme was France and before we were allowed entry we had 1 minute to make ourselves look as French as possible. The music was a cool jazz(I think). We could only drink wine at this pub, which is perhaps the catalyst for my feeling awful on Sunday. The game was perhaps my favourite of the night. We would each take it in turns to be a life model to be drawn by les patrons. The winner would be spared a drink. The subjectivity of art itself caused controversy over each result. Perhaps the liquid confidence clouded my judgement, because upon seeing my drawings in the morning, I should not have been shouting as to why I should have won each round.

Pub 5 - Chinese

All I remember is we got Chinese food at midnight and I threw a Guernsey press into my brother’s eye. Unfortunately I saw this Chinese re-appear only hours later.

Sunday when I did manage to get out of bed, I spent my time watching 4...4 games of average football, including a Scottish premier league game. I can’t wait to get outside.