GDFAF Day Off

The GDFAF Day Off was spent indoors watching a DVD.

The Living Room, compared to other rooms in the house, is quite comfortable and cozy, but unlike The Bedroom it’s not designed for sleeping in. With a capacity of about 40 it’s a good place for a small party or gathering and while it only has seating for eight there’s plenty of floor space if you want to slum it. The sofas are very nice, soft but with a firmness that helps the back. Of note is the very strange wall paper on one wall which looks like it was made of the skin of a furry beast but in fact is some bizarre flocking experiment gone horribly wrong. Also of note is the quarter hourly chimes of the Bournville Carillon which, until you get used to them, can be rather disconcerting. There’s also a drum kit and a smattering of guitars should you desire an impromptu jam session and a rather absurd quantity of books, but we weren’t here for such things.

We were here to watch a DVD which given the paucity of such things in this establishment was a bit a challenge but we settled on working through the four disk edition of Lord of the Rings : The Return of the King, specifically the Appendices. I’d actually seen these before in a different living room and from a different box of DVDs but, given the nature of digital duplication, the performance was pretty identical (if slightly smaller). I was struck by how the audio/visual entertainment system in this Living Room was similar in layout to the small gig in that all the machines used to create the entertainment were on show with many cables visible.

I broke my “no drinking at gigs” rule by having many cups of tea during the performance but thanks to the episodic nature of the RotK appendices we were able to pause for toilet breaks with no major disruption. The informal nature of the event allowed for a fair bit of discussion about the amazing level of detail and passion that went into the production and statements such as “this sort of thing should be the normal way of working” were heard. There was also much laughter at the absurdness of Sean Astin, as is to be expected.

By approximately 2am, and having endured one and a half disks worth of extras (I didn’t keep a track of how long this took) we decided to call it a night before getting to the endless back slapping and “we’re fucking marvelous, aren’t we” moments, but over all it was enjoyable stuff.

The Living Room is a good place to go when you’re feeling a little tired and want to chill out in a place that doesn’t have a computer in it yet is not The Kitchen or The Outdoors. It somehow facilitates conversation well in a manner quite distinct from a motorbike ride and thanks to the judicious use of radiators and curtains remains fairly toasty into the early hours.

I think I’ll definitely be returning to The Living Room again in the future.

Next week has been figured out. If you want to join me check the Upcoming.org page. I think Acoustic Ladyland on Tuesday could be the killer gig, but who can really tell.