Well, the last couple of days haven’t exactly been fun, feeling lethargic as hell yesterday, which was due to a lack of sleep rather than alcohol, 6 hours sleep in 48 hours isn’t good for your health I tell you! But today was the annoyance for me, on Saturday it was mentioned to me by the catering manager that things have been going missing from the storeroom and fridges, which I though nothing of at the time. But today I was accused pretty much of stealing, obviously not in so many words, but that’s the way I interpreted it, I may be wrong, but I doubt it. What happened was that I looked in the fridge for my sandwich provided by the company as that’s where they normally live until consumed, when the catering manager’s voice says “what do you think you’re doing in there” – and without thinking I replied looking for my sandwich. But when I thought about it, she obviously thought it was me stealing stuff from the kitchen. Why on Earth would I steal something petty worth a few pounds risking my livelihood, even if it was me stealing, I wouldn’t be stupid enough to do it when other people are in the kitchen, let alone the catering manager. Also today I find that I am working full days Monday to Friday, so I will need to work eight consecutive days, then Saturday off, and back on Sunday, but I wasn’t having that, I am taking Sunday off as well, I’ll need two consecutive days off after working eight days in a row! I really need a holiday; going to try to book two weeks off in February, near the end would be good as I wouldn’t have to worry about work for the “drink the Phoenix dry” piss up on Saturday 25th to send the venue off into the afterlife in style!
Speaking of the Phoenix, the general lack of reaction to the news that the Phoenix will be closing it’s doors has been underwhelming to say the least, seems that no-one gives a fuck about the Phoenix or live music in Plymouth, which really pisses me off, seems that Plymouth really is a load of self absorbed people that don’t give a fuck about anything other than themselves, JFKs and fucking myspace, there are a few people that are the exception to that rule (you know who you are) who do make the effort to go to gigs and generally support the ‘scene’ but 30 or so people don’t make a scene, which is why I think that Leslie, Helen and the Phoenix crew need to be commended for sticking with a ‘dying’ scene for so long, even more annoying is that many of the ‘Phoenix’ bands have deserted it for other venues that will drop them without thinking, and they wont have the Phoenix to fall back on this time! What annoys me even further is that people have been slagging off the Phoenix for their sound equipment after the news that it will be changing hands, assuming that the new owners will want to keep it as a live music venue. The Phoenix sound system isn’t great, but with talented engineers it can sound reasonably good, its never going to be great because of the acoustics, it will only sound good if tens of thousands of pounds are thrown at it, the whole place needs acoustic treatment, the bar needs to be moved to a more suitable position as does the sound desk, but Leslie wouldn’t pay out for the improvements and I don’t blame him one bit as he hasn’t seen any return on his investment in the Phoenix, so why throw good money after bad! After the Phoenix shuts down I will very likely just disappear off the scope completely, maybe even pull the “Plymouth Music Scene” website off the web when the domain name expires next year as there isn’t really a scene to warrant it now! I feel so disillusioned with everything at the moment, maybe its time for a change, maybe get out of Plymouth completely, there isn’t an awful lot keeping me here!