SEMC Wake

The end of life party took in the Scholar, then onto Dukes for the main part, and then onto Baa Bar. I'd prepared for this party by making some jelly for the first time ever - lime jelly made with tequila, and lemon and orange jelly both made with vodka. It went down with some better than others I have to say, but I was very pleased with the result, and I was in the Scholar at 5PM handing some out. There were already a few in when I arrived, and quite a few arrived on the train shortly afterwards. We stayed there for an hour or two for some warm up drinks (some didn't need too many as lunch time hadn't been wasted) and it seemed to be pretty much the usual Scholar crew with some additions.

Next stop was Dukes, and we seemed to be amongst the first there too, and took the chance to get some food before things got too busy - duck pizza, if I remember, a first for me and not bad actually. People seemed to keep arriving all evening and there were groups of SEMC staff all over the place. Dukes was well and truly taken - even outside there were a couple or more groups and it was a fine enough evening to make the most of that. There were also a few people there, who, like me weren't actually at SEMC on the last day, having left a while ago, but who still wanted to say good-bye. SEMC was a great place to be; highly stressful at times, managed (from Sweden) by obstinate lunatics at times, and sometimes bloody difficult to actually reach owing to the fragility of the local motorway networks, but it was still the best place and the longest place I've worked. It also had the most girls too, which is not to be sneezed at in this industry - it is very male dominated.

The third venue is much more hazy. The Baa Bar on Deansgate locks was where quite a few of us went after Dukes closed. This seemd to involve a lot of shots, with 'mini mexicans' figuring largely, as well as others like 'traffic lights'. I'll perhaps add more to this section as I remember it or as it gets passed back to me from others who were there :-) The photos here were taken relatively early in Dukes, and don't really reflect the number of bad heads that were evident next day.

At least most people seem to have used Facebook or LinkedIn to keep in contact and within these 2 networks there have been a host of groups set up to make it even easier to stay in touch. What did we do before these? It's similar to the "what did we do before mobile phones" question. It will be great to stay in touch with everyone though, and this is the first opportunity these types of sites have had to prove their worth in my lifetime, so we'll see. It seems a few have now got new jobs, although not most obviously. Of those that have, many have had to accept contracts in London, or have even taken permanent roles there. And therein lies one of the sad things when a major employer in an area closes. The sudden dumping of a lot of people with the same skills set, particularly in a recession means that poeple inevitably end up leaving that area, at least in the short term. A few have even left or plan to leave the country.

There were a couple of other unexpected bonuses afterwards too, including another new Facebook connection which cheered me up in the aftermath...