Comedy and Con Men

Its been really busy here the last week or so. All the UNi students who are in town are on holiday so they have a lot of free time and people here get a lot of time off for Christmas and new year. That leads to a lot of people going out drinking on the weekend. Lots of people.

I've kind of been out of it too. I'm finally over whatever it was that I had for the last week and a half. Last week on my time off all I did was lay in bed. Just got myself rested up and healthy. Feeling good now. Other than that, not a lot of note has really been going on here. Even though things have been really busy, there hasn't been a lot of out of the ordinary stuff going on. Things have been going smoothly, which is really nice. I guess I've had my hand at trying to get the bitter casks done right and I'm getting closer. The last few times I've made mistakes, but they'll all been different ones. Not quite sure what that means to tell the truth.

The one thing that does stick out in my mind from the bar happened earlier this week. I was serving a two guys, only one of which bought anything. That should have been my first clue he was up to something. After he gets his half pint, he asks if he could trade some change in for a bill. I said sure so he gives me the money and I get him a bill. He then tries to hand the bill I just gave him and tell me take the money he gave me and give him a twenty. Seriously. He spent a good five minutes trying to convince that I should essentially double his money. I can't believe that actually works.

On my much abbreviated time off this week I went out and did some Secret Santa shopping. We're doing a gift exchange amongst the employees so I had to go out and try and find something. I got something I would have liked so I think it should turn out alright. I just sort of wandered around Covent Garden until I found something that caught my fancy. After that I sat down in a pub for some lunch and to do some writing before going to pick up a book for myself. I went and got the Tales of Beedle the Bard, the short set of stories that Rowling put out. I really enjoyed them. She has a great knack for writing and making a world cohesive.

That was just the beginning of my Potter day though. That night I went to a play called Potted Potter, which did all the Potter books in 70 minutes. These two guys were pretty good. It was set in a really small stage and they were pretty interactive with the crowd. That, and they ad-libbed a lot. For example, at one point one dressed up as a golden snitch and was being chased around the stage by a couple of 8 year old girls. He was turning and got brought down hard by the girl. As in she slammed him to the ground. Pretty funny. Or at a later part the lights went out and one of the guys somehow got his hands on some chocolate cake. I don't remember what the gag was supposed to be, but apparently the cake had gone a bit bad. Great stuff.

Now this week and next week are going to be really interesting. This weekend we're all working crazy shifts to try and cover all the time we need. Its going to leave a little short when it comes to cleaning up on the weekend though. Not quite sure how that's all going to work. Next week might be interesting too, though it could go a couple of ways. Quite a few people have asked for time off, so we might be working quite a few shifts or at least more than normal. We might also be getting Christmas and Boxing day off, which would be really nice. We're going to close as soon as we can on Christmas Eve. I don't think we'll be getting a normal day off in there, but if we can get a couple off at the end of the week that should be good.

Enjoy you white Christmas back home.