The Man Who Came In From The Cold

Now I'm back on track, I can tell you what I've been up to this week. The second biggest thing occurred on Wednesday, when I took Sheffield University Archaeology Society up onto a bleak moorland. I arrived ahead of the students and watched as Colin disgorged them from the minibus. He then did a quick about face and sped off into the distance wittering on about some lecture he was supposed to be giving. On a Wednesday? The only day that Sheffield University students don't have lectures? A likely story! He was most likely found staring at Plum Jam in a farm shop for the afternoon. I was on Broomhead Moor under the guise of teaching the students archaeological drawing, it turned into an exercise in separating the wheat from the chaff. Despite being told repeatedly that it would be FUCKING COLD, most of them turned up with only t-shirts and shorts on, along with plimsolls and no socks. I, however, was wrapped thermally in a Heater Body Suit. We filed up onto the moor and I gave brief instruction on how to draw Tumuli in an archaeologically suitable manner and set them about drawing their own burial mounds.

That's a pile of shit! Rub it out and start again!

After about two hours most of them were turning blue, so I took them on a walk about to warm up. We gazed at the prehistoric features of the moorland that Tim had pointed out to me the week previously and I bullshitted them about Bronze Age cemetery siting and intervisibility with the landscape. Thank God none of them knew anything about it, otherwise they would have caught me out... Then it began to snow.

Snowblind!

Up in the moors the snow settles pretty quickly and the poor lambs were having to wipe two inches of snow off their drawing boards every few minutes. An end was called to their suffering and we packed up. Using my expert tracking skills I led the party back to my car where we waited for Colin to return. And we waited. And we waited. Until eventually I had to leave as I was giving a lecture on the Great War in an hour and needed to prepare and feed myself. At that stage we'd already been waiting two hours for Colin, an hour longer than his agreed time of arrival. I hotfooted it to the pub and scampi and chips, this time with salad and no peas. This banquet fit for a King was followed by me delivering what can only be described as a powerhouse performance in front of a packed house. I gave a lecture on the Archaeology of the Great War and the adoration was such, I was carried from the room on the shoulders of the audience amid a standing ovation. Men and women alike were moved to tears from the emotionality of the circumstances. I got twenty quid as well.


But.... The best thing to have happened this week was the arrival of Midnight At The Pylon Cafe by Daniel Lee Salter. It is a compilation of Danny's Pylon Cafe website forum that several of us contributed to for six years (I'd link it, but it was closed down long ago). It's a trip down memory lane for those of us involved and a fascinating insight into the minds of dysfunctional Rotherhamites, scarred by years of unemployment and addled by hallucinogenic drug usage. A must for every bookshelf! I received my copy on Wednesday but couldn't pick it up until Thursday (when I was hoping to God Darren hadn't received his copy and would be harping on Facebook about how he was the first person to read it...). But, Heaven be Praised! Even this delay meant that I was the FIRST PERSON IN THE WORLD TO TOUCH AND READ THE BOOK, including Danny himself!

What you gon' do with all that junk?
All that junk inside that book?
I'ma get, get, get, get you drunk,
Get you love drunk off my book.

The other things that happened this week were I worked for Big Andy where he made me wait for him in a poly tunnel for TWO HOURS, while he fucked off to Skipton on a beano. And Lauren had her 'finishing the Barbican report' drinks. Yadda yadda yadda.