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2002-07-23 Entry: "Bohemian Rhapsody"

Wednesday - two days to go and I'd only packed one case! Okay, so I'd sorted out most of what I was taking (and the heap in the middle of my room was growing steadily), but I hadn't had time for a couple of things that I wanted to get out of the way before the packers came the next day.

Unfortunately events conspired against me - Wednesday turned out to be the night my friends finally decided to see me off.

Friday was supposed to be my leaving drinks. Lunchtime was supposed to be work people, followed by a general invite to all and sundry for the evening. However, lunch saw a good turnout from my team, but a showing of 1 from the rest of the department. I assumed (stupidly) from this that the evening would be better. And obviously (considering there were only four of us - Rich and two guys from work) I was wrong. I did manage to consume rather a lot of alcohol though. Amazingly, I escaped the hangover the next morning, but still blew productiveness out of the window by seeing Scooby-Doo (Ms. Gellar, Mr Prince Jnr, and the animated dog vie to be the worst thing in it).

Anyway - due to the lack of appearance Friday, two of them at least managed to organize something for Wednesday evening. I was a bit dubious at first as it was supposed to be going to see some band play in Reading.

So after dashing around like a madperson having only been given 45 minutes warning of departure, Michael arrived and we sat and waited for Sarah.

When we eventually depart, I'm given the bombshell that Dylan may be reading poetry where we're going, but my estimation improves greatly after a test reading in the car. It wasn't that I was all that concerned about Dylan's poetry being bad, just the thought of poetry in general - I've never been a big fan (read "No, the pain, the pain") and although it probably has its place in the literary scheme of things, I tend to rate it up there with Sun journalism for things to subject prisoners to to make them talk.

Arriving at the 3Bs, and seeing as things haven't kicked off, we grab a beer and sit outside in the sun - a good plan except for the huge sunshade on the table and the bitterly cold breeze blowing.

After catching up on what everyone is doing work-wise, we gave up on the external venue and moved back inside, where things were just about getting started - it turned out that it was "Bohemian Night" so after presuming they'd finish the night with the Rhapsody (which pretty much got the response it deserved), we got down to listening to variable music and equally variable poetry (which at least was amusing in places).

Now, I thought the night would be hard - mainly as I've had the biggest crush on Sarah for practically ever. Which tends to be a problem when she's seriously involved (and has been for about as long as I've had the crush). Strangely though, it was fine - no romantic longing of any sort... I'd guess that in the time since last we met (which is probably a year or more although I couldn't say exactly) my tastes have changed (or something), but considering my usual modus operandi (falling hard, fast, and not really getting over it) I didn't think it was possible. So that was nice!