Alex Harries's diary

(The tooth is out. I'll refrain from posting the picture of the remains since there's little point apart from the "ewww" factor which you could probably find easily enough elsewhere on the 'net...!)

It's Friday night. It's 6pm. Somewhere in the Balearics, Pete Tong is going out to the world live on air, playing - almost certainly - to an adoring crowd of sun-kissed Ibiza clubbers gearing up for possibly their biggest Friday night out of the year. It reminds me of something I wrote last summer, and I reckon it's almost time for me to pop my Ibiza cherry - anyone want to tag along? (I'll need someone to carry my records... ;o) ).

Meanwhile, back in reality (or at least, "Portsmouth-without-the-students"), I'm sitting in the Union preparing to babysit a sound system for The Listening Company (you may not know the name, but you've probably dealt with them on the 'phone at some point in your life, whether you like it or not...!) while six hundred-or-so Italian summer language school kids get fed and watered by our catering bods, upstairs in Lux.

Although I can't say I enjoy the music - apparently it's going to be a fairly rocky night - I do enjoy the babysitting work I do with UPSU Ents. Usually I work the Friday night babysit in Lux and CO2, which for the last year or so has also seen me on the decks for a brief spell most nights (my apologies to anyone unfortunate enough to have had to listen to me playing on abusing the soundsystem on a Friday night - who'dathunk I've been bedroom DJing since I was fifteen, a good 7 years ago. And yup, I'm really that old mature .... no, I definitely meant old).

Sadly, for me at least, I don't know whether I'll be able to play in the Union at all next year, as the line-up on most nights is being "tweaked" (as happens every year). I don't know if anything is changing or not, but the bosses will naturally be taking an ever closer look at how things are run on the nights to make sure things are at their best, and naturally having a relatively unknown person behind the decks like myself might not exactly thrill them to bits. I don't know; this is just speculation.

In any case, the whole point of this post is simply that October can't get here soon enough - Pompey's pretty dull during the summer, so short of me managing to escape the country and get out to Ibiza, or hooking up with some house music lovers, or even moving into Fabric London, I'm probably just going to have to become a workaholic to pass the time until the fun begins again (along with, of course, the small matter of my much-delayed final year of my degree needing attention then as well - argh, work!).

Ah... Boss has just informed me that TLC want a karaoke machine running tonight. So much for a quiet one...(!)

P.s. big thanks to a friend of mine, who shall remain nameless, for the text last night - while I was doing some laundry - letting me know she and her friends had just blagged VIP guest list at Ibiza's Amnesia. I spent the rest of the night drafting plans for an escape tunnel from my house to the White Isle...

An upda...

(More off-topic rambling...)

Apparently, teeth have feelings of compassion...

In about an hour, I'm going to be making the short journey over to the School of Professionals Complementary to Dentistry (or, "The Dental School" for anybody not paid to answer their 'phones - how on earth their secretary can say that mouthful - pun intended - in under a second is anyone's guess...) for the purpose of having two wisdom teeth out. Ouch...

I was booked in to have these teeth out later this month, but one of them (which I managed to crack quite neatly in half chewing on un-popped popcorn a while ago) started hurting a lot a couple of days ago.

"No problem" I thought, dosing up on an unhealthy amount of ibuprofen (and ignoring the complaints of my vital organs). But then the wisdom tooth directly below the broken one started hurting through the painkillers. And for no apparent reason whatsoever. I kid you not, it's almost like the little enamelled gnasher had decided (in some spirit of brotherly compassion for it's injured sibling on my upper jaw, no doubt), "I'm going to cause you a lot of pain, just because you broke my friend."

Gash.

So it's off to the dentist with me. I'm hoping to be able to come back to work afterwards and get on with work, but some how I suspect I might not be in any position to be getting on with anything other than curling up in a ball and crying like a baby as the anaesthetic wears off.

Of course, this means one of my main vices - endless tea and coffee drinking - is off the agenda for the time being, as well. Oh great...

(Abnormal service will be resumed shortly.)