Excuses, excuses - and an offer

Apologies for the distinct lack of activity round these parts of late - it's been pretty much unavoidable, though.

Since the last post, put up on Thursday, I've:

- spent a weekend in honour of my 30th quite literally out of my mind in the company of 28 other self-destructees in a five star and awesomely hard-to-find bunk barn / youth hostel in mid-Wales (sample comment from the online directions, to be said aloud in a deep foreboding voice: "The most common mistake is to believe that nobody lives this high and lose faith"...);

- felt very unwell and decided that sambuca may not be my friend after all;

- visited my old place of work;

- made a bit of a half-arsed attempt at Christmas shopping;

- enjoyed a very tasty beer battered fish and chips at a joint leaving lunch for two colleagues in a country pub;

- attended the work Christmas party at Oxford United's Kassam Stadium, hoovered up free wine, marvelled at the chocolate fountain and the effect of the opening bars of 'Come On Eileen' on unspeakably drunk colleagues, and written it all up for the company newsletter;

- played football in near-Arctic conditions - still not quite able to feel my toes, though unfortunately I can feel my finger, still throbbing from being scalded by steam from my exceedingly lazy microwaveable dinner;

- written so many Christmas cards my arm aches.

Tomorrow night (ie Thursday) it's straight to London for another big night out, this time at the Cittie of Yorke (with its great beer and furnace heating) for someone's birthday. Yes, on a school night.

And then it's over to Cardiff on Friday night for the Oyster party, and then more Christmas shopping, football, mince pies, mulled wine and the pub on Saturday.

But I promise when I come back that there'll be a couple of gig reviews, plus some thoughts on the Shuffleathon CD, at very least.

And to make up for my absence, how's about an offer? I've put together the annual SWSL Best Of - this year a double CD. If you're interested in either a hard copy or just the electronic files, drop me an email to silentwordsspeakloudestAThotmail.com with your postal address (if you'd like a hard copy) or a request to see the tracklisting. Can you tell I've been at the Christmas spirit again?