If anyone can tell me what this is, or where I took it, I'd be very impressed.

So the people who do my printing took me out to the the races in York on Wednesday. I told my boss they were having an 'open day' rather than specifying that they were actually taking me to the races, and I've been avoiding him since then in case he asks me how it all went.

How it all went was they broke out the champagne on the train to York and didn't let up until the end of the day. The box we had was pretty amazing- not only right by the finish line but permanently stocked with food, snacks and drinks- in fact there was a waiter who kept refilling my glass without asking. I think they were trying to get us drunk but I've no idea why.

The races themselves didn't really interest me. I like horses a lot but the whole place reeked of upper-class ridiculousness (several people arrived by helicopter). I saw maybe five women the entire day, but the place was jam-packed with fat rich white guys making £16,000 bets. I myself made a £5 bet on every race. Most of the people in my box were spread-betting across three different horses but I always bet on the nose- I felt like if I spread-bet I would telling at least two of the horses I was betting on that I didn't think they were going to win- and if you're not going to get behind your choice, what's the point?

I went down to look at the horses on parade before the race, and one of them neighed at me, which I took to mean "Bet on me, I'm going to win." As it turns out, neighing is actually horsey for: "Don't be on me, I'm a big dead loser." I also was quite excited to see that one of the horses was being ridden by D. Nicholls, but sadly D. Nicholls seems to be about as good at riding horses as he is at betting on horses ridden by his namesake. So no big wins for me I'm afraid, although free food and alcohol is always a big win as far as I'm concerned.

I wasn't originally going to tell ya'll about this because frankly it's not a story that puts me in a particularly good light. However it had a kind-of odd epilogue yesterday which has prompted me to reveal all, in spite of my shame.

So the other week Ade and my two wonderful flatmates all went to see The Pipettes (who were delightful, as always- if you haven't seen them, do check out their video). Aiden and I stopped off at an ATM in Golder's Green to get some casho. We both had vodka IRN-BRUs in our hands (this is my drink of choice for tube journeys- I don't know why), and each went to a different machine. So, I stick me old card in, punch in the old PIN number, £40 please.

While I'm waiting for my card to come back, some pimply motherfucker in head-to-toe white tracksuit with some insanely retarded bling steps right up to me, and says:

"Have you got a PIN for me?"

I say: "What?"

He repeats: "Have you got a PIN for me?"

I say: "No. Now step back from the machine."

He laughs and steps back, goes and stands with his mate next to the crossing. I was a bit distracted by all this so I took my card out of the machine and hurried along my merry way to the tube station. You may have figured out which highly important step in this process I missed out on by now, but I myself didn't twig to the error until it was my round at the bar, and was more than a little suprised to discover that my wallet had no money in it...because I'd never taken the money from the machine.

Now I'd love to say that this guy pulled somekind of Derren Brown inspired chicanery on me. I'd even feel less stupid if he was just distracting me while someone else took the money. But that's not the case. The guy was just being a jerk- I saw him walking across the street as I left the machine. He didn't take the money, I was just an idiot. It's not the first time. And it wasn't that I was down £40, I would have spent it anyway- it was that my own stupidity was the cause of it.

Anyway I chalked it up to dumbness, beat myself up a bit for few minutes, readjusted my budget, no harm no foul. And that would have been the end to a fairly uninteresting story, except that yesterday I got this letter from my bank:

Pretty cool, huh? Except here's the thing: I didn't dispute anything. I didn't even mention to my bank that I'd been an idiot and left £40 in the machine. They just figured it out for me. Isn't that neat? A friend of mine said she thinks that if the money sits in the machine for a few minutes, it retracts back inside, which does explain things, but who would have thought £40 could sit unmolested on Golder's Green High Street?

I'm struggling to find an aphorism that suits this situation. Fortune favours the indifferent? Good things come to those who don't really bother? It's just nice, is all.

d

ps- in related good luck news: price I paid for my Radiohead tickets? £32. Price they're currently going for on eBay? £215. Not that I will profit from this information, but it's nice to know.

Here's a meme, nicked from Pix some long time ago and then promptly forgotten about until now. Head on over to flickr for an annotated look at my bookshelf, and feel free to add any notes you feel are appropriate.

The thing is, though, I don't like holding onto books once I've read them. In fact, if I think they're any good, I usually do my darndest to give them to someone else and insist they hand them to someone else once they're done, as I almost never read books twice and I dislike having possessions in general (particularly books as they're such a pain to transport for little gain if you've already read them). So what you see on my bookshelf is actually all the books I haven't managed to give away yet, for whatever reason. So it's not really a great representation of my reading habits/personality, since it's just all the dregs left in the sieve after you've washed the literary potatoes.

Still,

This is cool. Grok, the band that I am in, has been asked (yep, they came to us, we didn't even lobby for it) to play at a live music festival. I am in a little bit of shock about this. I mean, we've only played before a live audience twice, we don't have any songs, and we practice maybe twice a month if we're lucky. We seem to have fallen ass-backwards into a gig that most bands would fight tooth-and-nail to get a hold of.

Er, not that I don't think we're worthy. We kick ass.

Anyway the Secret Garden Party sounds awesome. Superior to your run-of-the-mill festival-in-a-field because it's held in a loverly garden with trees and a lake and ducks and things (check out some of the photos from last year, it looks great) but also because tickets are limited to 5000 so it's more about the music than getting stood on by millennial hordes.

It's from August 18th to August 20th, you have to come for the whole time, and it looks great. And tickets are limited so get yours now, I say!