Gathering 10, Pre-Season Friendly

Well, now that the Men in Black at Channel 4 have seen fit to finally tell us
when season 4 is starting, we can now start gearing up for our first in-season
Gathering, and how else would we do it but with a pre-season friendly?

So, it's the end of June, it's Newcastle, therefore it's wet, cold and totally
unsummer-like.  This being the case, what better place to be than in a nice
warm pub, with a freshly pulled pint and a bunch of chums?  OK, so I can think
of a few places I'd rather have been, but since there's no chance of me ever
getting into such places, the pub will do just fine.

By quarter past seven, the "hardcore four" (me, Janet, Ian and Keith) had
arrived.  Ian then promptly showed off his almost total ungrasp of TV trivia
by failing to win anything on the Radio Times quiz machine.  Look Ian, when the
machine spits out your money right at the start, take it as a sign and leave
well alone :-)

About 5 minutes later, Andy "The Man" T arrived, to a square of applause.  Why?
Well, given that he'd just found out he'd got himself an upper second degree,
a certain level of congratulatory noisemaking seemed entirely appropriate.
Congrats Andy!  Just a shame that the ending of your degree also means you're
leaving the area... one more Gatherer leaves us for pastures new (and probably
warmer).

Although he's proven himself to be a clever so and so, Andy still managed to
prove his complete lack of culture by nipping across the road to get some
McNuggets.  No, McNuggets aren't the sign of an uncultured yobbo, but McNuggets
with KETCHUP are...  what's wrong with barbecue sauce, eh!  I dunno, Durham
University must do strange things to its alumini ;-)

Amazingly, not only were we managing to stay pretty much on-topic this evening,
the city was as well.  Remember the ending of Parliament of Dreams, with the
long lineup of religious people?  Well, we had pretty much the same here too -
all evening there was a steady stream of people in religious garb walking past
the pub.  Don't ask me what was going on, after the Toon Army invasion last time
I'm just letting the world outside the pub do what the hell it likes, I'll just
sit back and enjoy the show.  Speaking of which, the incredible shrinking
policeman made an equally amusing distraction...  with street theatre like this,
who needs to make their own entertainment?

Well, all good things come to an end eventually, and 9:15 saw the departure of
Andy, for presumably the last time.  Boo hoo...  Just to make the separation
even more painful, he whipped out a camera and proceeded to steal our souls.
I dunno Andy, bad enough you leave us, but forcing us to have our photos taken
as well, that's just too much {:-)


Now that we were over halfway through the evening, the alcohol in our systems
was definitely taking effect, and things started to degenerate ever so slightly.
A quite shapely young laydee wearing a rather figure hugging pair of jeans
led us to contemplate many things, from which we thought that a "Thong for
Europe" competition might be a good idea, and that "my jeans are too tight,
and I've forgotten how to dance".  But another couple of pints later, even
this was outdone by the thought that if Kosh is "always" here, does that explain
why he has wings...  And does that mean Claire Rayner is Morganna le Fey?


And so, eleven o clock came, poked its head round the door, then continued down
the road, leaving us to weave our wavering way out of the pub some 15 minutes
later.  Though it was another quiet little Gathering, it had more of a positive
vibe to it than G9, which bodes well for the next one, which should be quite
special, since not only is it the 401 Gathering, it's also the 1st Anniversary
Gathering!  Two reasons to attend for the price of one, what a bargain :-)

See y'all next month
Chris

Back to the Gatherings page