At last, a day off... plus The Dresden Dolls at the Concorde

Yesterday was my first day off in ten days, my first day off since returning to work from suspected glandular fever... I say 'suspected' as I still haven't been given the results of my blood test. When I called the other day there was simply a message on their screen asking me to make a 'non-urgent' appointment with my doctor. Non-urgent or not, that suggests to me that they found something amiss... hmmmmm...

We received some other rather worrying news this week, in that our flat has suddenly been sold by our landlord... thankfully I spoke to our new landlord yesterday and he seems like a sound chap and reassured me that he was more than happy to keep with the same tenants (he's also bought the two flats above and below us) so it doesn't look like we're being kicked out onto the street just yet! Phew! What this does mean is that we now have to change letting agencies, and the murky practice of tenancy renewal fees has reared its ugly head once again. I've now discovered that Cambridge (our former agency) have deducted three lots of renewal fees from our deposit, when we had the understanding that we weren't going to be charged after our first tenancy renewal... typically the guy who told us this has now left the company, so it's our word against theirs. I hate tenancy renewal fees - £40 for updating their database and sending out a couple of letters? It's a f***ing disgraceful practice. My only hope is that we can work out a deal with Halls (our new agency) since their office is literally two doors down from where Steve and I both work.



Yesterday evening I met up with Andy and we checked out The Dresden Dolls at the Concorde. I was going on Courtney's recommendation but had never heard any of their music before, or really made much of an effort to read up on the band, aside from seeing them described as a mix of "punk, burlesque and cabaret"... with a name like The Dresden Dolls I kinda expected an all-girl troupe, but in fact they're actually just a duo with a female singer on piano and her fella on drums and occasional guitar. That was a bit of a surprise! Musically they were pretty interesting, starting with a solid half dozen songs including a cover of War Pigs and the sold out crowd were certainly voicing their approval - they really seem to have established a cult following over here. In the latter half of the show my attention started to wander a little, but this was mainly due to the sight of the cute merchandise girl who was stood on a chair wearing the shortest of short skirts... and who then proceeded to cup her breasts and compare them with her female colleague. Less entertaining were the loud mouthed drunks who seemed to surround us as the show went on and were really starting to piss me off by the end... grrrr! Anyway, all in all it was a good night out and it's probably just as well I didn't continue boozing afterwards as it's been a sh*tty day at work today.