My second full day alone. I don't know if I'm being over-dramatic about this, but I really just have no tolerance for my own exclusive company. It's just...pointless. Another morning of making my own breakfast and lunch and finding my own way to work. At least it's the last weekday until she's home.
Luckily, my lonely tedium is set to come to an end today, as Tim is coming up from Brighton to visit for the weekend. After work I head into town to meet him for a couple of drinks at The Cock. As ever on an end of the month sunny Friday everywhere is pretty busy and there's a huge crowd standing around outside the pub. We grab a pint and join them to catch up for a while.
After two drinks we're both pretty hungry so decide to head back toward Turnpike Lane to get a Jashan curry (best curry in N8, without a doubt) and some beers and take the party back to my house. The ultimate aim is to play a few games of FIFA10 (which I haven't done against a human for absolutely ages) but after putting away my Lamb Rogan Josh and watching a few Louis C.K. videos on YouTube, Alex pops round and helps us dispose of the booze in front of the telly. Over the next few hours we watch The Thick of It, some Dave Chappelle stand up and bits of Jonathan Ross on the TV.
When Alex makes her way home sometime after midnight, Tim and I get cracking on FIFA10. We play a few tight matches and the results bounce back and forth - but essentially I'm too drunk to pay much attention to the scorelines and focus on not embarassing myself against a guy I've been playing football games with since FIFA Road to World Cup 98. How far we've come!
Saturday 29 May 2010
Thursday
I wake up on my own, and am unimpressed by the current arrangement. It's perhaps an indicator of how well looked-after I am when K's around, but it's a real struggle to get going in the morning when there's no one there chivvying me along. I have to haul my own sorry arse out of bed after (luckily) remembering to set an alarm last night, but still sneak in the short snooze period that I'm not usually allowed - before making my own lunch for the day which involves defrosting bread, chopping cheese and all sorts of other appallingly dull tasks to complete before I can sit down with a piece of toast and FourFourTwo magazine. There's nothing fun about making your own lunch - usually K makes me a nice sandwich and there's an element of surprise there when I pull it out of my backpack come lunchtime. When you've made it yourself, there's just soggy, tedious disappointment.
This all sounds rather sad, doesn't it?
Work is stressful today as the everyone-being-away situation is compounded by others calling in sick and suddenly our office of 11 has become an office of 3 - which doesn't really work. As it is I have plenty to get on with which makes the day trundle on at a nice speed, but it's not really tenable, and Jess (as our manager) is getting understandly stressed out.
In the evening I harbour vague plans to head to the Kings Head for some comedy, but can't really find anyone to go with so decide to make it another sensible night in. I sit and do some writing for The Book for a while which feels good as I really haven't shown the industry I should have towards the project so far.
By 9pm I'm done with staring at computer screens for another day and move to the living room to watch Adventureland, the latest film from the director of Superbad (which I loved). It's the story of a young guy who's all set to go off to university in New York, but whose dad loses his job meaning that the family can no longer afford to send him. Instead he gets a job at the local theme park with lots of other mostly ove-educated, overqualified young people. It's a "romance-at-a-shitty-job" kind of film, which, since Clerks, is not a rare thing, but it's the sort of film I like and, like many people, can relate to having had many, many retail type jobs as a student and having been considerably overqualified for all of them. It's nice, and definitely worth a look.
This all sounds rather sad, doesn't it?
Work is stressful today as the everyone-being-away situation is compounded by others calling in sick and suddenly our office of 11 has become an office of 3 - which doesn't really work. As it is I have plenty to get on with which makes the day trundle on at a nice speed, but it's not really tenable, and Jess (as our manager) is getting understandly stressed out.
In the evening I harbour vague plans to head to the Kings Head for some comedy, but can't really find anyone to go with so decide to make it another sensible night in. I sit and do some writing for The Book for a while which feels good as I really haven't shown the industry I should have towards the project so far.
By 9pm I'm done with staring at computer screens for another day and move to the living room to watch Adventureland, the latest film from the director of Superbad (which I loved). It's the story of a young guy who's all set to go off to university in New York, but whose dad loses his job meaning that the family can no longer afford to send him. Instead he gets a job at the local theme park with lots of other mostly ove-educated, overqualified young people. It's a "romance-at-a-shitty-job" kind of film, which, since Clerks, is not a rare thing, but it's the sort of film I like and, like many people, can relate to having had many, many retail type jobs as a student and having been considerably overqualified for all of them. It's nice, and definitely worth a look.
Thursday 27 May 2010
Wednesday
Today K leaves for Barcelona. She's got an evening flight so we say our goodbyes in the morning and both head for work. It's slightly strange - she's back on Monday but this will be the first time we've been apart for more than a single night for around 18 months, and, sadly, the first time I'll really have had to look after myself and find my own entertainment for a long, long while.
I get home after work and make myself dinner and not much is different - even if I did buy a couple of bottles of comfort wine from Iceland on the way home, just in case - as I make dinner and pour myself a glass. I realise at this stage how well she has me trained, as I wash up straight away after dinner and settle down in front of the computer for a while. In days gone by I would have left the washing up until about 40 minutes before she got back on Monday, surrounded by beer-can ashtrays. Not any more - I'm domesticated now, you see.
I am almost instantly bored, however. I have no tolerance for my own exclusive company - I exist too much in my head and end up watching YouTube videos, standing up in the middle of the dining room. Why sit down when there's no one to talk to? I can feel myself going insane already, so I have another glass of wine and mooch until it's time to watch part two of Money at 9. It's very enjoyable, like the first part, though I guessed the twist pretty early on - Vincent Kartheiser's creepiness is easy to pick out after three seasons of Mad Men - and thought the ending was wrapped up rather too quickly, but it's another nice piece as part of the BBC's 80s season, and I suppose I'll probably read the book now too.
After Money I flick to Film4 to watch Synecdoche, New York; a film I've been keen to check out since it was at the cinema as I've always enjoyed Charlie Kaufman's films - particularly Being John Malkovich and Adaptation. As a Kaufman piece, Synecdoche doesn't disappoint: it's very self-aware and post-modern, and there's a few nice surreal touches here and there (the burning house being the most obvious one, as well as the impossible size of the warehouses). Philip Seymour Hoffman is also great, as always, and always seems to be at his best playing slightly tormented, broken, sexually pathetic characters - my favourite performances of his are probably in Happiness and 25th Hour, though he's still great in his bit part as Lester Bangs in Almost Famous.
When the film finally finishes - Film4's massive breaks once again making the film feel far, far longer than it actually is - the bottle of wine is empty and I stumble through to an oddly empty bed to crash out.
I get home after work and make myself dinner and not much is different - even if I did buy a couple of bottles of comfort wine from Iceland on the way home, just in case - as I make dinner and pour myself a glass. I realise at this stage how well she has me trained, as I wash up straight away after dinner and settle down in front of the computer for a while. In days gone by I would have left the washing up until about 40 minutes before she got back on Monday, surrounded by beer-can ashtrays. Not any more - I'm domesticated now, you see.
I am almost instantly bored, however. I have no tolerance for my own exclusive company - I exist too much in my head and end up watching YouTube videos, standing up in the middle of the dining room. Why sit down when there's no one to talk to? I can feel myself going insane already, so I have another glass of wine and mooch until it's time to watch part two of Money at 9. It's very enjoyable, like the first part, though I guessed the twist pretty early on - Vincent Kartheiser's creepiness is easy to pick out after three seasons of Mad Men - and thought the ending was wrapped up rather too quickly, but it's another nice piece as part of the BBC's 80s season, and I suppose I'll probably read the book now too.
After Money I flick to Film4 to watch Synecdoche, New York; a film I've been keen to check out since it was at the cinema as I've always enjoyed Charlie Kaufman's films - particularly Being John Malkovich and Adaptation. As a Kaufman piece, Synecdoche doesn't disappoint: it's very self-aware and post-modern, and there's a few nice surreal touches here and there (the burning house being the most obvious one, as well as the impossible size of the warehouses). Philip Seymour Hoffman is also great, as always, and always seems to be at his best playing slightly tormented, broken, sexually pathetic characters - my favourite performances of his are probably in Happiness and 25th Hour, though he's still great in his bit part as Lester Bangs in Almost Famous.
When the film finally finishes - Film4's massive breaks once again making the film feel far, far longer than it actually is - the bottle of wine is empty and I stumble through to an oddly empty bed to crash out.
Tuesday
The heatwave finally breaks today and I can actually sit comfortably at work and get on with whatever it is I'm supposed to be doing. The office is incredibly quiet what with all the bosses away in New York for a book fair - and while in some cases this would let us slack off a little bit, it's actually a relief from all their half-baked nonsense ideas and a chance to catch up with the tedious but inescapable admin stuff that has been badly neglected lately.
Back at home later, I start making dinner for K - she's off to Barcelona tomorrow so I thought I should make it a treat, by crafting some home-made spicy potato wedges and getting the griddle out to do some tasty burgers and onions. OK, so it's not the classiest or most complex meal in the world - but it turns out to be bloody tasty and I'm rather proud of myself.
Later on we watch the fourth episode of Luther, which is sticking with the formula I described last week - in that it's very well done for a British cop drama and Idris Elba is brilliant, but occasionally strays into far-fetched territory and doesn't seem to have the balls to let go of the viewer's hand in the same way something like The Wire does. Tonight's storyline is a disturbing one though, and not in a nutty-vampire-with-a-frozen-woman-on-a-boat way like last week.
Back at home later, I start making dinner for K - she's off to Barcelona tomorrow so I thought I should make it a treat, by crafting some home-made spicy potato wedges and getting the griddle out to do some tasty burgers and onions. OK, so it's not the classiest or most complex meal in the world - but it turns out to be bloody tasty and I'm rather proud of myself.
Later on we watch the fourth episode of Luther, which is sticking with the formula I described last week - in that it's very well done for a British cop drama and Idris Elba is brilliant, but occasionally strays into far-fetched territory and doesn't seem to have the balls to let go of the viewer's hand in the same way something like The Wire does. Tonight's storyline is a disturbing one though, and not in a nutty-vampire-with-a-frozen-woman-on-a-boat way like last week.
Tuesday 25 May 2010
Monday
Now this is a hot one - compared to this, the end of last week in the office was an ice-cold treat. The radio is saying 30C in London today which is frankly ridiculous - don't they know it's only May? The fan goes on straight away when I get to work but all this really does is batter the top half of my face with warm air and ensure that every time I get up to go to the printer I have to leave my little wind tunnel and creak through the engorged atmosphere like everyone else. Even going for a fag is uncomfortable and I find myself smoking quicker just to get out of the heat.
Luckily the weatherman also says that the heatwave will break tomorrow - so I get my head down and just try to get through it, which makes the day go quicker (as does the fact we have no bosses in this week, freeing us up to actually get on with stuff) and pretty soon I'm back home, catching up with episodes of David Mitchell's brilliant video podcast. I also run the hoover round and peel some potatoes before K gets home - sucking up a little bit before she heads to Spain on Wednesday without me. I need to make sure I'm missed!
Later on we start watching Saving Private Ryan on Film4, a movie I haven't seen for years but one which stands out as just about the only war movie I like - I find gun battles and discussions of tactics in the mud incredibly tedious, plus find it hard to be bothered to tell actors apart when they've all got the same helmets on - thanks to some decent performances from Tom Hanks and Matt Damon. However, the length and frequency of the commercial breaks on Film4 stretch the already epic-length movie to an unconscionable 3 and a quarter hours, so by 11.15 we've given up and gone to bed. K hadn't seen the film before - but seems tired enough to accept my vague description of the final hour.
Luckily the weatherman also says that the heatwave will break tomorrow - so I get my head down and just try to get through it, which makes the day go quicker (as does the fact we have no bosses in this week, freeing us up to actually get on with stuff) and pretty soon I'm back home, catching up with episodes of David Mitchell's brilliant video podcast. I also run the hoover round and peel some potatoes before K gets home - sucking up a little bit before she heads to Spain on Wednesday without me. I need to make sure I'm missed!
Later on we start watching Saving Private Ryan on Film4, a movie I haven't seen for years but one which stands out as just about the only war movie I like - I find gun battles and discussions of tactics in the mud incredibly tedious, plus find it hard to be bothered to tell actors apart when they've all got the same helmets on - thanks to some decent performances from Tom Hanks and Matt Damon. However, the length and frequency of the commercial breaks on Film4 stretch the already epic-length movie to an unconscionable 3 and a quarter hours, so by 11.15 we've given up and gone to bed. K hadn't seen the film before - but seems tired enough to accept my vague description of the final hour.
Monday 24 May 2010
Sunday
Up pretty early today. K's little brother stayed over last night having been at Twickenham for the first day of the IRB Rugby Sevens, so we get up and all have breakfast together. Having done park drinking and pub drinking and caught an awful lot of sun (I am appallingly semi-pink in the bathroom mirror when I go for a shower) I'm not feeling 100%, and with temperatures set to top yesterday's I am ready to stay in for much of the day.
K takes her brother back to Twickenham this morning for the second day, so I spend much of the day mooching around and playing video games. At 3pm I resolve to take my book up to Ally Pally and sit and read in the shade - encumbered by that great British need to make the most of the sun because you never know when it'll go away for another six months. I end trying to jump from shade patch to shade patch and make it as far as Priory Park before I abort the Ally Pally mission and walk back through Hornsey. I'm out for a little over an hour and it's literally as much as I can take today.
Into the cooler, more civilised evening, Alex pops round and the pair of us wander over to The Tollgate - where they have Old Rosie on tap for under £3. We'll only need a couple of these, so we drink slowly and eventually get chatting to a completely rat-arsed old Irish woman who feels the need to interrogate the pair of us in an inimitably amusing drunk Irish way. She asks us what we each do for a living, and as Alex and I always do in this situation, we invent new lives and personalities for ourselves. We've done this a lot before - not to be cruel or take the piss out of the person we're talking to, more just to see who can keep a straight face and see what mythology we can invent for each other. In the event I'm a successful sports writer and she's a talented, dog-obsessed painter. After a while though, the old lady becomes tiresome and repetitive and we make our excuses.
I grab a bottle of wine for the neglected K on the way home and we sit and watch the first part of Money, the Martin Amis adaptation starring Nick Frost. It seems very good - part two is on Wednesday night.
K takes her brother back to Twickenham this morning for the second day, so I spend much of the day mooching around and playing video games. At 3pm I resolve to take my book up to Ally Pally and sit and read in the shade - encumbered by that great British need to make the most of the sun because you never know when it'll go away for another six months. I end trying to jump from shade patch to shade patch and make it as far as Priory Park before I abort the Ally Pally mission and walk back through Hornsey. I'm out for a little over an hour and it's literally as much as I can take today.
Into the cooler, more civilised evening, Alex pops round and the pair of us wander over to The Tollgate - where they have Old Rosie on tap for under £3. We'll only need a couple of these, so we drink slowly and eventually get chatting to a completely rat-arsed old Irish woman who feels the need to interrogate the pair of us in an inimitably amusing drunk Irish way. She asks us what we each do for a living, and as Alex and I always do in this situation, we invent new lives and personalities for ourselves. We've done this a lot before - not to be cruel or take the piss out of the person we're talking to, more just to see who can keep a straight face and see what mythology we can invent for each other. In the event I'm a successful sports writer and she's a talented, dog-obsessed painter. After a while though, the old lady becomes tiresome and repetitive and we make our excuses.
I grab a bottle of wine for the neglected K on the way home and we sit and watch the first part of Money, the Martin Amis adaptation starring Nick Frost. It seems very good - part two is on Wednesday night.
Saturday
It's a properly hot one this morning - with the early morning 5live forecast suggesting that London will see 26C before the day's out. That's a little hotter than I like it, what with my thick, unyielding Scottish blood and all, especially when K and I traipse down to Harringay for the big shop. We head off early enough that it's not overly unpleasant, though - and by the time we're back it's noon and time to consider more fun events in the sun.
After lunch and the 30 Rock season finale (which is great, as ever) we head up to Priory Park, picking up a couple of cans on the way, with a rug to sit in the sun for a wee bit. We're shortly joined by the usual Crouch End rabble and soak up, frankly, too much sun in a short time. At around 3, K heads off to Notting Hill for a daytime gig with Faye, and I make plans to get to a pub - firstly to escape the sun, and secondly to watch the Championship Play-off Final between Blackpool and Cardiff.
I meet Will and Alex at the Hope and Anchor at four - having missed the first half of the football and, amazingly, five goals. I learn that Blackpool have come back from 2-1 down to lead 3-2; and while sitting in the park was fun, we seem to have missed the best of the action this final has to offer. Still, it's nice to sit and chat to the pair of them and after the game is finished (Blackpool holding on to the 3-2 scoreline and finding themselves the smallest club ever to have played in the Premier League with Ian Holloway in breathless, emotional triumph - a nice result) we move to the unglamorous but perfectly serviceable beer garden, where we're joined by the rest of the gang from the park.
The football is not finished for the day - tonight is the first Saturday Champions League final, in which Inter and Bayern Munich will take to the Bernabeu pitch to vie for the title. Happily, shortly before kick-off the bar staff emerge from the pub and affix a brand-new flatscreen telly to the outside wall, presumably ready for the World Cup next month. Truly, this is now the pub that has it all.
The game is not a particularly inspiring spectacle - hardly a classic, as they say - and Inter win 2-0 thanks to two goals from Diego Milito. Inevitably, the post-match coverage is almost entirely about Mourinho, mostly to do with him becoming only the second manager to win the title with two clubs but also because of his likely departure to Real Madrid this summer. In the end, Inter have been the best team this season and almost certainly deserve their long-awaited European title (and, from a Chelsea perspective, it's possible to take heart from having been knocked out by the eventual champions!).
After lunch and the 30 Rock season finale (which is great, as ever) we head up to Priory Park, picking up a couple of cans on the way, with a rug to sit in the sun for a wee bit. We're shortly joined by the usual Crouch End rabble and soak up, frankly, too much sun in a short time. At around 3, K heads off to Notting Hill for a daytime gig with Faye, and I make plans to get to a pub - firstly to escape the sun, and secondly to watch the Championship Play-off Final between Blackpool and Cardiff.
I meet Will and Alex at the Hope and Anchor at four - having missed the first half of the football and, amazingly, five goals. I learn that Blackpool have come back from 2-1 down to lead 3-2; and while sitting in the park was fun, we seem to have missed the best of the action this final has to offer. Still, it's nice to sit and chat to the pair of them and after the game is finished (Blackpool holding on to the 3-2 scoreline and finding themselves the smallest club ever to have played in the Premier League with Ian Holloway in breathless, emotional triumph - a nice result) we move to the unglamorous but perfectly serviceable beer garden, where we're joined by the rest of the gang from the park.
The football is not finished for the day - tonight is the first Saturday Champions League final, in which Inter and Bayern Munich will take to the Bernabeu pitch to vie for the title. Happily, shortly before kick-off the bar staff emerge from the pub and affix a brand-new flatscreen telly to the outside wall, presumably ready for the World Cup next month. Truly, this is now the pub that has it all.
The game is not a particularly inspiring spectacle - hardly a classic, as they say - and Inter win 2-0 thanks to two goals from Diego Milito. Inevitably, the post-match coverage is almost entirely about Mourinho, mostly to do with him becoming only the second manager to win the title with two clubs but also because of his likely departure to Real Madrid this summer. In the end, Inter have been the best team this season and almost certainly deserve their long-awaited European title (and, from a Chelsea perspective, it's possible to take heart from having been knocked out by the eventual champions!).
Friday
Another hot day is in the offing - so it's a good day to dispense with wearing jeans to work. Whenever I might moan about my job in any way, i should remember how lucky I am to have a "proper" job where I'm allowed to where whatever the hell I like to the office. I pity the guys who have to put suits on before squeezing onto the tube, or heavy uniforms or leather motorcycle jackets and helmets. I, on the other hand, cruise up to work in shorts, t-shirt and trainers and am allowed to make myself as comfortable as possible before getting down to work. That's a very nice thing - though I'm always reminded of my mother telling me repeatedly when I was a scruffy teenager "one day, you'll have to dress smart." Hasn't happened yet, has it mum?!
I get home from work in the evening and find that, as K has a gig to go to tonight and various other friends have dates and prior engagements, I'm at a bit of a loose end on a beautiful Friday night. This is not the sort of night I want to sit in watching TV - but nor, I suppose, is it the sort of night I want to spend indoors in a central London pub or gig venue.
In the event I send out a few plaintive texts and find out that Mike is having post-work drinks in Soho, so I make plans to head there and crash his particular party. Standing on Wardour Street outside The George, I meet a couple of the staff of Mike's magazine and we chat pleasantly about the usual guff over a couple of rounds of Kronenbourgs. The plan, at one point, becomes to head to the Big Red - but instead hunger takes over and I decide to head home for a spicy pasta dish at around 10.30, really rather merry. I'm in bed long before K gets back, managing to have made even a quiet evening out of a nice Friday night without plans.
I get home from work in the evening and find that, as K has a gig to go to tonight and various other friends have dates and prior engagements, I'm at a bit of a loose end on a beautiful Friday night. This is not the sort of night I want to sit in watching TV - but nor, I suppose, is it the sort of night I want to spend indoors in a central London pub or gig venue.
In the event I send out a few plaintive texts and find out that Mike is having post-work drinks in Soho, so I make plans to head there and crash his particular party. Standing on Wardour Street outside The George, I meet a couple of the staff of Mike's magazine and we chat pleasantly about the usual guff over a couple of rounds of Kronenbourgs. The plan, at one point, becomes to head to the Big Red - but instead hunger takes over and I decide to head home for a spicy pasta dish at around 10.30, really rather merry. I'm in bed long before K gets back, managing to have made even a quiet evening out of a nice Friday night without plans.
Thursday
The weather is rapidly becoming brilliant this week - the sun is out and the forecast is for something like a proper heatwave at the weekend. As ever, the sun being out causes the office to heat up to a point approaching the unbearable; there is an air conditioning unit of sorts there but it makes a noise like an abused oil tanker and makes so little effect on the temperature of the room that it's almost sarcastic. It probably cost thousands of pounds as well. Instead I stick on the fan on my desk for the first time this year and make do with a simulation of properly-circulating air. All any of us are aware of is the hum (both audible and olfactory) of hot computers whirring away at each other in the dust. Lovely.
Happily, there is a barbecue planned at Ant's tonight - at which I've arranged to meet K armed with booze by 7.30. I grab some wine and beer on the way home from work and have a couple of drinks before I head out, dancing around the kitchen giddily to circa-2001 UK rock bands on Spotify and even drinking a refreshing JD and coke so as not to use up all the beer. I wander over to Crouch End in the heat just after 7 (having switched to shorts for the occasion) and am more or less the first person there. We get the barbie going and people drift among us in the garden where we sit and chat until around 11 when an aggravated neighbour pops his head over the fence and suggest we knock the party on the head for the evening.
We take the neighbour's advice and K and I wander home, tired and bloated. It's starting to feel a bit like summer, this.
Happily, there is a barbecue planned at Ant's tonight - at which I've arranged to meet K armed with booze by 7.30. I grab some wine and beer on the way home from work and have a couple of drinks before I head out, dancing around the kitchen giddily to circa-2001 UK rock bands on Spotify and even drinking a refreshing JD and coke so as not to use up all the beer. I wander over to Crouch End in the heat just after 7 (having switched to shorts for the occasion) and am more or less the first person there. We get the barbie going and people drift among us in the garden where we sit and chat until around 11 when an aggravated neighbour pops his head over the fence and suggest we knock the party on the head for the evening.
We take the neighbour's advice and K and I wander home, tired and bloated. It's starting to feel a bit like summer, this.
Thursday 20 May 2010
Wednesday
As ever, going out on a weeknight proves unwise and I feel less than brilliantly prepared for what is still a massive pile of work to get through this morning. During the day it gets increasingly hot and stuffy in the office, meaning that when I'm proofreading and hence looking straight down at the desk, my heavy eyelids begin to close like one of those dolls that "goes to sleep" when you lie it down. It's not the most comfortable day - but it passes, like all the others.
I get home and get to work making dinner - a sausage-based bolognese type thing (something of a signature dish these days) with mushrooms and onions and the like, while watching even more 30 Rock. For some reason it takes almost two hours just to cook, eat and wash up - so by 8pm I'm exhausted with the kitchen and head to the living room to crack on with my Manager Mode season on FIFA 10, which hasn't had my undivided attention in recent weeks.
K gets home later and we put last night's episode of Luther on the iPlayer. This is the BBC's new cop-drama series starring Idris Elba (Stringer Bell from the Wire) and with a nice supporting role for the brilliant Paul McGann (I from Withnail and I). The dialogue's a bit cheesy in places, as tends to be the case in these British dramas, but Elba is great and the story tonight is creepy and well-executed; if just a little silly.
I get home and get to work making dinner - a sausage-based bolognese type thing (something of a signature dish these days) with mushrooms and onions and the like, while watching even more 30 Rock. For some reason it takes almost two hours just to cook, eat and wash up - so by 8pm I'm exhausted with the kitchen and head to the living room to crack on with my Manager Mode season on FIFA 10, which hasn't had my undivided attention in recent weeks.
K gets home later and we put last night's episode of Luther on the iPlayer. This is the BBC's new cop-drama series starring Idris Elba (Stringer Bell from the Wire) and with a nice supporting role for the brilliant Paul McGann (I from Withnail and I). The dialogue's a bit cheesy in places, as tends to be the case in these British dramas, but Elba is great and the story tonight is creepy and well-executed; if just a little silly.
Wednesday 19 May 2010
Tuesday
Tonight there's the launch of a new, fortnightly free comedy night on at The Constitution in Camden. It's not a pub I've been to before, but Alex spotted it in Time Out and suggested that we go. It's a nice evening and I get the tube to Camden Town for 7PM and we wander down to the pub. The Constitution is a friendly-seeming, old-fashioned kind of place (wobbly tables, dartboard, non-gastropub, non-cocktail-wankery - just my kind of place) with a decent beer garden and the "venue" in cellar.
We get down there early and take up a table in the corner. It's funny how the seats in comedy clubs fill up in totally the opposite direction to any other form of live entertainment - the very front seats with the best view stay empty right until the last moment, such is everyone's fear of being picked on by a vicious comedian or compere. I'm not particularly worried about this, though when the compere comes on (a very nice lady who seems like she's from Spain, as well as a little awkward) I become, like everyone else there, very self-aware.
The mood takes a long while to get going - this is probably the result of a few factors. Firstly the fact that it's free, meaning that a few people who just aren't that bothered about the night have clearly wandered in. Secondly, the acts on tonight (there are around 9 or 10 of them) are all either very new comics or are trying out new material, so the night is not without its excruciating moments. There are a couple of very weak acts ("Have you seen the tortured-looking men in Primark? They look like they'd rather be in Guantanamo Bay" - ugh) but a couple are great; including one Russell Brand-esque guy in a tweed suit telling a very funny story about wanking in a graveyard.
The night finishes triumphantly with a man who looked to be at least in his eighties, in a three-piece suit, calling himself Ray Presto (brilliant) telling old-fashioned puns and one-liners (he also does close-up magic, incidentally). It's very surreal, and most of the laughter in the room is either nervous or confused - but he seems to be having a great time. Afterwards we sit in the beer garden and chat with the organisers a little bit, congratulating them on what has been a good night - and, as ever when I go to these things, I resolve to get to more comedy nights in the future.
We get down there early and take up a table in the corner. It's funny how the seats in comedy clubs fill up in totally the opposite direction to any other form of live entertainment - the very front seats with the best view stay empty right until the last moment, such is everyone's fear of being picked on by a vicious comedian or compere. I'm not particularly worried about this, though when the compere comes on (a very nice lady who seems like she's from Spain, as well as a little awkward) I become, like everyone else there, very self-aware.
The mood takes a long while to get going - this is probably the result of a few factors. Firstly the fact that it's free, meaning that a few people who just aren't that bothered about the night have clearly wandered in. Secondly, the acts on tonight (there are around 9 or 10 of them) are all either very new comics or are trying out new material, so the night is not without its excruciating moments. There are a couple of very weak acts ("Have you seen the tortured-looking men in Primark? They look like they'd rather be in Guantanamo Bay" - ugh) but a couple are great; including one Russell Brand-esque guy in a tweed suit telling a very funny story about wanking in a graveyard.
The night finishes triumphantly with a man who looked to be at least in his eighties, in a three-piece suit, calling himself Ray Presto (brilliant) telling old-fashioned puns and one-liners (he also does close-up magic, incidentally). It's very surreal, and most of the laughter in the room is either nervous or confused - but he seems to be having a great time. Afterwards we sit in the beer garden and chat with the organisers a little bit, congratulating them on what has been a good night - and, as ever when I go to these things, I resolve to get to more comedy nights in the future.
Tuesday 18 May 2010
Monday
There's an awful lot to do at work this week, to the extent that it seems slightly incredible that it'll get done. But it will - it must. As such, however, everyone is slightly on edge and the gradually warming weather is not doing nice things to what is always a pretty stuffy office.
After a cloudy start, by 5.30 the sun is blazing and it's suddenly a beautiful evening. Before we moved so close to my office, I used to love walking the 35 minutes home from work in weather like this, listening to podcasts and chuckling away to myself. Today, to get a little of that back and clock up a bit of much-needed exercise, I decide to walk home via Alexandra Palace, so head from the office up the steep hill from Alexandra Park Station. It's a bit of a slog up the hill and I have to abandon my hoodie (sticking it in my bag, not abandoning it completely) and I am instantly reminded of how great the view is from up here. You can see all the way across the city, easily picking out, from left to right, the O2, Canary Wharf, Tower 42, 30 St. Mary's Axe, the BT Tower, and of course the whole of Hornsey/Crouch End laid out below you. It's pretty spectacular, but I begin heading down again straight away, towards Priory Road and home.
All the while I'm listening to The Bugle podcast - the immensely enjoyable political satire/surreal nonsense show by John Oliver and Andy Zaltzman, which I've listened to every week for almost two years now. I get home at around 6.30 - so a nice hour's stroll - and get to work sorting out dinner for K & I, knocking together my now-signature home-made chilli con carne burritos. Delicious they are, and afterwards we are so stuffed there's little to do but crash on the sofa and watch The Royal Wedding, a so-so one-off drama on BBC2 as part of their 80s season, followed by Derren Brown Investigates, in which he visits a part-laughable, part-sinister training course who claim to offer sight to the blind through some sort of mental projection or something. Oddly, though, they refuse to prove their abilities. Funny how that happens quite a lot with people with "psychic powers" isn't it?
After a cloudy start, by 5.30 the sun is blazing and it's suddenly a beautiful evening. Before we moved so close to my office, I used to love walking the 35 minutes home from work in weather like this, listening to podcasts and chuckling away to myself. Today, to get a little of that back and clock up a bit of much-needed exercise, I decide to walk home via Alexandra Palace, so head from the office up the steep hill from Alexandra Park Station. It's a bit of a slog up the hill and I have to abandon my hoodie (sticking it in my bag, not abandoning it completely) and I am instantly reminded of how great the view is from up here. You can see all the way across the city, easily picking out, from left to right, the O2, Canary Wharf, Tower 42, 30 St. Mary's Axe, the BT Tower, and of course the whole of Hornsey/Crouch End laid out below you. It's pretty spectacular, but I begin heading down again straight away, towards Priory Road and home.
All the while I'm listening to The Bugle podcast - the immensely enjoyable political satire/surreal nonsense show by John Oliver and Andy Zaltzman, which I've listened to every week for almost two years now. I get home at around 6.30 - so a nice hour's stroll - and get to work sorting out dinner for K & I, knocking together my now-signature home-made chilli con carne burritos. Delicious they are, and afterwards we are so stuffed there's little to do but crash on the sofa and watch The Royal Wedding, a so-so one-off drama on BBC2 as part of their 80s season, followed by Derren Brown Investigates, in which he visits a part-laughable, part-sinister training course who claim to offer sight to the blind through some sort of mental projection or something. Oddly, though, they refuse to prove their abilities. Funny how that happens quite a lot with people with "psychic powers" isn't it?
Monday 17 May 2010
Sunday
K, as I might have predicted, is not feeling too well this morning. I hardly jump out of bed either, to be fair, but we spend the morning lazing around on the sofa. She is, sadly, unable to eat - meaning that I get her breakfast sausages and stick Apollo 13 on the DVD player.
It's been in my head for a few weeks as I have been reading Andrew Smith's brilliant Moon Dust; a book examining the hows and whys of the Apollo program, while catching up with some of the 9 surviving men who walked on the moon between 1969 and 1972. Smith describes the Apollo program as the "last great act of optimism in the 20th century", which is a fascinating thing to investigate. Apollo 13 is a very good film, and I haven't seen it for a couple of years. It still seems mad to me that it ever really happened - and that it all just stopped 15 years before I was even born.
After the film I watch the Monaco Grand Prix, which, despite being Monaco, is rather dull save for a couple of early smashes and Mark Webber wins a fairly processional race by a long way. By the end of this, however, it is clear that we should probably get dressed and leave the house - so we go for a walk up through Priory Park towards Crouch End. It begins to rain when we get there, so after a look around the excellent Oxfam bookshop there and picking up a nice-looking steak pie for dinner, we scuttle home trying not to get too drenched.
While dinner cooks we finally finish off season three of Mad Men - and what a finish it has. The last episode is truly exhilirating television from start to finish, and the penultimate episode dealing with the assassination of JFK is pretty brilliant too. Season four starts in July, and it will be weird to have to watch it week-by-week rather than in indulgent chunks. But it's nice to have caught up with everyone else all the same.
It's been in my head for a few weeks as I have been reading Andrew Smith's brilliant Moon Dust; a book examining the hows and whys of the Apollo program, while catching up with some of the 9 surviving men who walked on the moon between 1969 and 1972. Smith describes the Apollo program as the "last great act of optimism in the 20th century", which is a fascinating thing to investigate. Apollo 13 is a very good film, and I haven't seen it for a couple of years. It still seems mad to me that it ever really happened - and that it all just stopped 15 years before I was even born.
After the film I watch the Monaco Grand Prix, which, despite being Monaco, is rather dull save for a couple of early smashes and Mark Webber wins a fairly processional race by a long way. By the end of this, however, it is clear that we should probably get dressed and leave the house - so we go for a walk up through Priory Park towards Crouch End. It begins to rain when we get there, so after a look around the excellent Oxfam bookshop there and picking up a nice-looking steak pie for dinner, we scuttle home trying not to get too drenched.
While dinner cooks we finally finish off season three of Mad Men - and what a finish it has. The last episode is truly exhilirating television from start to finish, and the penultimate episode dealing with the assassination of JFK is pretty brilliant too. Season four starts in July, and it will be weird to have to watch it week-by-week rather than in indulgent chunks. But it's nice to have caught up with everyone else all the same.
Sunday 16 May 2010
Saturday
Up late to laze around watching a bit of telly before Green Lanes-ing it for the big shop. K is off for a haircut in Muswell Hill so I decide to do the same - even though my salon is my own kitchen, using clippers and a shaving mirror while watching 30 Rock with one eye. It works for me.
At 2.30, K heads out into town for Big Nick's birthday drinks at The Green Man, while Alex comes round to watch the FA Cup Final with me before I, too, go to The Green Man. The match kicks off at 3, and we, armed with a couple of cans, watch Chelsea hit the post an almost sarcastic number of times in the first half (Salomon Kalou with the miss of the season from six yards, while Didier Drogba actually slapped the post in frustration after tapping an effort onto the stick from no distance at all). In the second half, Pompey are awarded a penalty - which Kevin-Prince Boateng takes woefully and is denied a goal by the legs of Petr Cech. The deadlock is finally broken by Didier Drogba (who else, with his cup final scoring record!?) with a long-range freekick that, yes, hit the post on its way in.
After a nervy last few minutes the historic Chelsea double is complete - and it feels rather surreal, perhaps because, in playing Portsmouth for the second trophy, winning it never really felt in doubt. Either way, I watch JT and the rest lift the trophy and then hop on the tube to Oxford Circus.
The Green Man is relatively quiet when I arrive, but for the party of people I am there to join. Needless to say they're all completely hammered and I am long, long way behind. It's clearly the fault of the Green Man Special - a vicious little cider that seems to be about the most effective amnesiac available over the bar today. I am a little miffed and left out, and in my relatively sober state find it just that bit harder to listen to people's rambling stories, or laugh my head off at better-in-the-pub jokes.
I do my best to catch up though, and by 8.30 I've had a couple of Addlestone's and am quite happily chatting to a few dejected Pompey fans who've turned up outside. Unfortunately, K is rather the worse for wear - so I am required to bundle her onto a tube and take her home rather than stay out. It's fine, I reason - I'll just go out again after I've dropped her off. When we get back at 9.30 and K passes out, I suddenly can't be bothered to go out at all - especially when I notice that Die Hard is on ITV. Alex comes back round with pasties and scotch eggs (nice one) and we watch the rest of Die Hard, then Die Hard With a Vengeance, then the end of Breakfast Club. A slightly surreal end to a Saturday night at the pub, really.
At 2.30, K heads out into town for Big Nick's birthday drinks at The Green Man, while Alex comes round to watch the FA Cup Final with me before I, too, go to The Green Man. The match kicks off at 3, and we, armed with a couple of cans, watch Chelsea hit the post an almost sarcastic number of times in the first half (Salomon Kalou with the miss of the season from six yards, while Didier Drogba actually slapped the post in frustration after tapping an effort onto the stick from no distance at all). In the second half, Pompey are awarded a penalty - which Kevin-Prince Boateng takes woefully and is denied a goal by the legs of Petr Cech. The deadlock is finally broken by Didier Drogba (who else, with his cup final scoring record!?) with a long-range freekick that, yes, hit the post on its way in.
After a nervy last few minutes the historic Chelsea double is complete - and it feels rather surreal, perhaps because, in playing Portsmouth for the second trophy, winning it never really felt in doubt. Either way, I watch JT and the rest lift the trophy and then hop on the tube to Oxford Circus.
The Green Man is relatively quiet when I arrive, but for the party of people I am there to join. Needless to say they're all completely hammered and I am long, long way behind. It's clearly the fault of the Green Man Special - a vicious little cider that seems to be about the most effective amnesiac available over the bar today. I am a little miffed and left out, and in my relatively sober state find it just that bit harder to listen to people's rambling stories, or laugh my head off at better-in-the-pub jokes.
I do my best to catch up though, and by 8.30 I've had a couple of Addlestone's and am quite happily chatting to a few dejected Pompey fans who've turned up outside. Unfortunately, K is rather the worse for wear - so I am required to bundle her onto a tube and take her home rather than stay out. It's fine, I reason - I'll just go out again after I've dropped her off. When we get back at 9.30 and K passes out, I suddenly can't be bothered to go out at all - especially when I notice that Die Hard is on ITV. Alex comes back round with pasties and scotch eggs (nice one) and we watch the rest of Die Hard, then Die Hard With a Vengeance, then the end of Breakfast Club. A slightly surreal end to a Saturday night at the pub, really.
Friday
The morning after a day spent that hung over is always a rather nice one. Colours are sharper, people in general less eminently murderable, and even my slow-as-molasses computer at work can't make me especially angry. There is a lot to do today, and this week's work looks like stretching well into next week - but it's nice to have a substantial amount to get done. It makes the days go quicker, in any case.
After work, as K is at a gig, Will stops by and we head to Crouch End for a drink. I haven't seen him since the football season ended so it's nice to have someone to chew the whole thing over with. We go to The Queens, but as it's pretty busy and the garden is being refurbished, we start to make a little Crouch End crawl of it and go to the Harringay Arms, a pleasingly old-man-type pub, complete with bench down one wall and copies of the local CAMRA newsletter lying on the tables. They're also showing the Swindon v Charlton League One play-off semi-final, so it's nice to have one eye on something too.
After the Harringay Arms we wander up to the Hope and Anchor to have a couple of cheap pints, nick sausage rolls off their buffet (I can't remember the last time I went there and there wasn't free food) and play bar billiards. Still the only pub I know that has a table, it's nice to play a game you don't get to play often, and I like the way the old fellas jump in with advice as soon as they see two young lads working out how to play it. Tonight, I destroy Will, twice racking up over 1000 points.
Afterwards we sit in the garden talking about the old days and the new days and generally getting involved in a couple of delicious Kronenbourgs. A nice, low-key start to the weekend.
After work, as K is at a gig, Will stops by and we head to Crouch End for a drink. I haven't seen him since the football season ended so it's nice to have someone to chew the whole thing over with. We go to The Queens, but as it's pretty busy and the garden is being refurbished, we start to make a little Crouch End crawl of it and go to the Harringay Arms, a pleasingly old-man-type pub, complete with bench down one wall and copies of the local CAMRA newsletter lying on the tables. They're also showing the Swindon v Charlton League One play-off semi-final, so it's nice to have one eye on something too.
After the Harringay Arms we wander up to the Hope and Anchor to have a couple of cheap pints, nick sausage rolls off their buffet (I can't remember the last time I went there and there wasn't free food) and play bar billiards. Still the only pub I know that has a table, it's nice to play a game you don't get to play often, and I like the way the old fellas jump in with advice as soon as they see two young lads working out how to play it. Tonight, I destroy Will, twice racking up over 1000 points.
Afterwards we sit in the garden talking about the old days and the new days and generally getting involved in a couple of delicious Kronenbourgs. A nice, low-key start to the weekend.
Thursday
Unsurprisingly, I wake up with a huge unbelievable bastard hangover. Drinking that much, that quickly, on a schoolnight, with co-workers, is just not particularly clever. K is unimpressed and rightly unsympathetic, especially when I tell her all the same things I told her when I got home and interrupted the TV program she was watching. She leaves for work and I am unable to do much other than sit staring at the clock, waiting for my turn to leave the house too.
A couple of years ago, at the Frankfurt Book Fair, my colleague Jess and I - under extreme pressure to perform professionally in a stuffy, overlit exhibition hall the morning after an extremely heavy session of hotel-bar schmoozing with various publishing types - decided that we wouldn't moan, or complain, or even acknowledge the fact that we had hangovers. It was, in the event, rather a good coping mechanism in that we wouldn't let each other admit defeat and collapse onto a table or other such surface - and it became known as The Frankfurt Method. It is this method I plan to employ at work today, hopefully managing to actually get some work done through The Fog.
As it happens, the day is predictably horrible but does, as these things do, eventually end. Unfortunately I have another book launch to attend straight after work, which involves getting the tube to Russell Square and walking to the Cartoon Museum. It's a nice evening and the walk through this rather glamorous and leafy part of the city makes me feel better - but as soon as I have a glass of red wine I feel fairly profoundly ill and decide to make my escape, unnoticed. At least I said hello to all the appropriate people. I think. Never again? Probably not, eh?
A couple of years ago, at the Frankfurt Book Fair, my colleague Jess and I - under extreme pressure to perform professionally in a stuffy, overlit exhibition hall the morning after an extremely heavy session of hotel-bar schmoozing with various publishing types - decided that we wouldn't moan, or complain, or even acknowledge the fact that we had hangovers. It was, in the event, rather a good coping mechanism in that we wouldn't let each other admit defeat and collapse onto a table or other such surface - and it became known as The Frankfurt Method. It is this method I plan to employ at work today, hopefully managing to actually get some work done through The Fog.
As it happens, the day is predictably horrible but does, as these things do, eventually end. Unfortunately I have another book launch to attend straight after work, which involves getting the tube to Russell Square and walking to the Cartoon Museum. It's a nice evening and the walk through this rather glamorous and leafy part of the city makes me feel better - but as soon as I have a glass of red wine I feel fairly profoundly ill and decide to make my escape, unnoticed. At least I said hello to all the appropriate people. I think. Never again? Probably not, eh?
Saturday 15 May 2010
Wednesday
Tonight there are a couple of book launches to go to. The first is near Euston, so me and Jess jump on the tube after work - but not before I pick up a possibly-dubious egg mayo bagel from a cheap bagel place on Wood Green High Street. The book to be launched is a novel published by a young company called To Hell With Publishing, who we've just taken on. They also now have their own shop, which features not only the original counter from Malcolm Maclaren's sex shop (it's made of car parts for some reason) but also lots of pages from books pasted on the walls with wallpaper paste.
It's a nice event and we have a couple of drinks and a chat - but we slink off early to get to the second launch, which is in the champagne bar on the top floor of Waterstone's flagship store on Piccadilly. This book is published by Franc Roddam (best known for directing Quadrophenia) who is a very nice man - especially as he has provided an open bar serving more or less whatever you could want; and as much of it. I partake of rather too many glasses of red wine, as well as a couple of beers, and stand around happily chatting to Jess, Paul, Andy and Deborah from work. Melanie Sykes (1990s Boddington's advert) is also there, for some reason - telly related, probably.
After what must be around 7 glasses of wine, the others suggest another drink at a cocktail bar in Soho. I agree, despite being resolutely not a cocktail bar sort of person. We go there and I have a profoundly unwise whisky and Coke while Andy, Jess and Paul enthusiastically get stuck into the sort of drinks that you're supposed to have there - i.e. the ones that take about 20 minutes to make and cost an unimaginable amount of money. I nip out for a fag and talk about UK hip hop to the bouncer - I have literally no idea what I was talking about, naturally.
I eventually make my way home at around 11.30, wanting to get the tube rather than do a night-bus on a school-night type end to the evening, and wander drunkenly and circuitously towards Oxford Circus tube. Fun book launch nights like this are when I remember how much I enjoy this job - even if I do go for it on the booze a little too much. Whoops.
It's a nice event and we have a couple of drinks and a chat - but we slink off early to get to the second launch, which is in the champagne bar on the top floor of Waterstone's flagship store on Piccadilly. This book is published by Franc Roddam (best known for directing Quadrophenia) who is a very nice man - especially as he has provided an open bar serving more or less whatever you could want; and as much of it. I partake of rather too many glasses of red wine, as well as a couple of beers, and stand around happily chatting to Jess, Paul, Andy and Deborah from work. Melanie Sykes (1990s Boddington's advert) is also there, for some reason - telly related, probably.
After what must be around 7 glasses of wine, the others suggest another drink at a cocktail bar in Soho. I agree, despite being resolutely not a cocktail bar sort of person. We go there and I have a profoundly unwise whisky and Coke while Andy, Jess and Paul enthusiastically get stuck into the sort of drinks that you're supposed to have there - i.e. the ones that take about 20 minutes to make and cost an unimaginable amount of money. I nip out for a fag and talk about UK hip hop to the bouncer - I have literally no idea what I was talking about, naturally.
I eventually make my way home at around 11.30, wanting to get the tube rather than do a night-bus on a school-night type end to the evening, and wander drunkenly and circuitously towards Oxford Circus tube. Fun book launch nights like this are when I remember how much I enjoy this job - even if I do go for it on the booze a little too much. Whoops.
Friday 14 May 2010
Tuesday
Today (well, this evening) David Cameron becomes the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. After five days of talks and dealmaking, a coalition government is formed between the Conservative Party and the Liberal Democrats, triggering Gordon Brown's resignation as Prime Minister and David Cameron's almost instant arrival at number 10.
I flick the TV on when I get home from work just as a podium is being wheeled out of 10 Downing Street in front of the massed waiting media. At around 7.10, BBC1 is taken over by the BBC News Channel (shame, One Show fans) and the irrepressible David Dimbleby introduces Gordon Brown's resignation speech. The speech is genuine, heartfelt and I actually feel a lump in my throat when he turns to look at his wife in his inimitably awkward way and announces his intention to focus on being a husband and a father. Both husband and wife, unsurprisingly, look like they could do with a long lie down.
The rest of the evening's coverage is compelling - from watching Brown being driven the short distance to Buckingham Palace to tender his resignation to the Queen, then losing his police escorts on the way out and running straight into rush hour traffic, then Cameron arriving so quickly after and giving his first speech before being applauded into number 10. As Dimbleby says, it's an incredibly British transition of power - so understated, yet steeped in the history of this country's unwritten constitution. It's just how things are done. And watching it feels momentous.
Despite not getting the election result I hoped for (and voted for), we are certainly entering interesting times - and if we must have Cameron as PM then this is probably the best way to have him; tempered by the Lib Dems and unable to force through any nasty, divisive Tory ideas. I'm a bit concerned by talk of a 5-year fixed term and a 55% majority requirement for a vote of no confidence in the house (Labour and all the other parties combined couldn't achieve this against a minority Tory government, for example) but then maybe this won't happen.
Either way, for someone who was 12 when Blair and New Labour swept to power, it's an exciting thing to witness - Labour have been in power for as long as I can really remember what politics was (though I do remember doing John Major impressions to make my parents laugh when I was younger - precocious, Have I Got News For You-watching idiot that I was). It will, if nothing else, be interesting to support the opposition for few years.
I flick the TV on when I get home from work just as a podium is being wheeled out of 10 Downing Street in front of the massed waiting media. At around 7.10, BBC1 is taken over by the BBC News Channel (shame, One Show fans) and the irrepressible David Dimbleby introduces Gordon Brown's resignation speech. The speech is genuine, heartfelt and I actually feel a lump in my throat when he turns to look at his wife in his inimitably awkward way and announces his intention to focus on being a husband and a father. Both husband and wife, unsurprisingly, look like they could do with a long lie down.
The rest of the evening's coverage is compelling - from watching Brown being driven the short distance to Buckingham Palace to tender his resignation to the Queen, then losing his police escorts on the way out and running straight into rush hour traffic, then Cameron arriving so quickly after and giving his first speech before being applauded into number 10. As Dimbleby says, it's an incredibly British transition of power - so understated, yet steeped in the history of this country's unwritten constitution. It's just how things are done. And watching it feels momentous.
Despite not getting the election result I hoped for (and voted for), we are certainly entering interesting times - and if we must have Cameron as PM then this is probably the best way to have him; tempered by the Lib Dems and unable to force through any nasty, divisive Tory ideas. I'm a bit concerned by talk of a 5-year fixed term and a 55% majority requirement for a vote of no confidence in the house (Labour and all the other parties combined couldn't achieve this against a minority Tory government, for example) but then maybe this won't happen.
Either way, for someone who was 12 when Blair and New Labour swept to power, it's an exciting thing to witness - Labour have been in power for as long as I can really remember what politics was (though I do remember doing John Major impressions to make my parents laugh when I was younger - precocious, Have I Got News For You-watching idiot that I was). It will, if nothing else, be interesting to support the opposition for few years.
Thursday 13 May 2010
Monday
This, thanks to wedding-holidays and bank holidays, is the first Monday I've been at work for three weeks - and it's a bit of a shock to the system. Contemplating a five-day week is something I've got used to avoiding, and now it seems an impossibly long stretch of time to spend going to work.
OK, so maybe it's not that bad. I catch up with a few things and the day passes mostly pleasantly. At home later, I stick on some 30 Rock - which, by the way, I'm realising the brilliance of more and more: it's immensely watchable and very "light" television, while being witty, satirical and every line well-written. I just can't imagine a British studio sitcom being this sophisticated or this sure of itself. Plus in Britain there would be a studio audience and we'd end up with something as tame and uninteresting as The IT Crowd or The Persuasionsists.
Anyway, while 30 Rock is on I knock together a sausage bolognese dish for K ready for when she gets back, then we get back to watching series 3 of Mad Men. There are some crazy episodes in this season and I can't help but think Don Draper is setting himself up for a massive fall - but still great television.
OK, so maybe it's not that bad. I catch up with a few things and the day passes mostly pleasantly. At home later, I stick on some 30 Rock - which, by the way, I'm realising the brilliance of more and more: it's immensely watchable and very "light" television, while being witty, satirical and every line well-written. I just can't imagine a British studio sitcom being this sophisticated or this sure of itself. Plus in Britain there would be a studio audience and we'd end up with something as tame and uninteresting as The IT Crowd or The Persuasionsists.
Anyway, while 30 Rock is on I knock together a sausage bolognese dish for K ready for when she gets back, then we get back to watching series 3 of Mad Men. There are some crazy episodes in this season and I can't help but think Don Draper is setting himself up for a massive fall - but still great television.
Wednesday 12 May 2010
Sunday
Today is the last day of the 2009-10 Premier League season. At 4pm, every team will be playing - but, as ever on the final day, there's only one or two games that actually matter. If Chelsea beat Wigan, they win the league for the first time since 2006 - ending Man Utd's run of titles and denying them the opportunity to take Liverpool's all-time league title record away from them. If Chelsea fail to beat Wigan and Manchester United beat Stoke, United win the league. Both teams are at home - and both are likely to win. Needless to say, I'm nervous about the Wigan game. This morning, they feel just like the sort of team who will pop up and make it 1-1 in the final minutes. They have, after all, beaten Chelsea 3-1 in the reverse fixture this season.
But before all that, it's time to go elephant hunting. As part of a major outdoor art project, hundreds of decorated fibreglass elephants have been dotted around London - each with a different pattern by a different artist, and all in the name of elephant conservation in Asia. Having checked the handy online map and checklist, we head into town to see how many we can spot. We walk first to Trafalgar Square where there are a few dotted around in between the square and Whitehall, then up to Leicester Square which has an elephant on each corner. We walk up through Piccadilly Circus and down Piccadilly to Green Park, where we sit and have lunch - having stumbled across a huge number of elephants. There are three or four separate 'herds' here, each with children clambering all over them and having photographs taken. We end up walking up to Hyde Park having seen around 40-50 elephants - all in all a nice bit of public art and a good excuse for a walk around the city.
It's all killing time though, really, and we get home in time for the 4pm kick off. In the event, I needn't have worried. Chelsea are a goal up after 8 minutes through Nicolas Anelka and win a penalty after 20-odd to allow Lampard to make it 2-0. By this point, even though United are also 2-0 up at Old Trafford, the chances of a Wigan comeback are very slim - especially since they lost a player for the penalty.
Cut to the final whistle and Chelsea have won, by a staggering 8 goals to nil - their biggest ever Premier League win, taking the goal tally for the season to 103 (also a record) and Drogba delivering a hat-trick to secure his Golden Boot for the season. And, of course, ensuring that Chelsea are champions.
Not being in the pub or having been drinking, I'm not really sure what to do with myself. I settle on having a couple of beers and phoning up Dad to gloat (he's a United fan) - and watching the scenes from Old Trafford I am reminded of one beautiful fact: there is nothing, nothing better than thousands of sad Man United fans. Thousands of happy Chelsea fans is good too, obviously.
But before all that, it's time to go elephant hunting. As part of a major outdoor art project, hundreds of decorated fibreglass elephants have been dotted around London - each with a different pattern by a different artist, and all in the name of elephant conservation in Asia. Having checked the handy online map and checklist, we head into town to see how many we can spot. We walk first to Trafalgar Square where there are a few dotted around in between the square and Whitehall, then up to Leicester Square which has an elephant on each corner. We walk up through Piccadilly Circus and down Piccadilly to Green Park, where we sit and have lunch - having stumbled across a huge number of elephants. There are three or four separate 'herds' here, each with children clambering all over them and having photographs taken. We end up walking up to Hyde Park having seen around 40-50 elephants - all in all a nice bit of public art and a good excuse for a walk around the city.
It's all killing time though, really, and we get home in time for the 4pm kick off. In the event, I needn't have worried. Chelsea are a goal up after 8 minutes through Nicolas Anelka and win a penalty after 20-odd to allow Lampard to make it 2-0. By this point, even though United are also 2-0 up at Old Trafford, the chances of a Wigan comeback are very slim - especially since they lost a player for the penalty.
Cut to the final whistle and Chelsea have won, by a staggering 8 goals to nil - their biggest ever Premier League win, taking the goal tally for the season to 103 (also a record) and Drogba delivering a hat-trick to secure his Golden Boot for the season. And, of course, ensuring that Chelsea are champions.
Not being in the pub or having been drinking, I'm not really sure what to do with myself. I settle on having a couple of beers and phoning up Dad to gloat (he's a United fan) - and watching the scenes from Old Trafford I am reminded of one beautiful fact: there is nothing, nothing better than thousands of sad Man United fans. Thousands of happy Chelsea fans is good too, obviously.
Tuesday 11 May 2010
Saturday
After finally getting some sleep, I get up refreshed on Saturday morning and ready to face the weekend. We faff around a little in the morning and then head to Sainsbury's for shopping duties, before avoiding the rain by getting the bus back. The weather is pretty disappointing for the time of year - sort of cold and drizzly and really not behaving like the May April promised us.
Accordingly, we're making it a bit of a rainy-day Saturday. After lunch we get the tube to Highbury & Islington and walk down Upper Street to the Vue Cinema in Angel, intending to see Chris Morris' new film, Four Lions. We pay for our tickets and head for the small screen they point out to us and take our seats. We sit through the unremarkable trailers, the only interesting thing being the girl two rows in front of us who has, as "snacks", a full multipack of Sainsbury's Basic's crisps and a full 1 litre tub of Basics ice cream - into which she has broken up a massive bar of chocolate. Nice.
So the trailers finish and the BBFC certificate pops up - confirming the film to be the venerable Hot Tub Time Machine. Hmm, odd, we think. Why would they put the wrong certificate up? As Hot Tub Time Machine in fact starts, we check our tickets and find that we have in fact been sold tickets to Hot Tub Time Machine. Sounds a bit like Four Lions, doesn't it?
We run out of the screen and head for the counter to have our tickets swapped and get back into the correct screen at the other end of the building - just in time to watch all the trailers again. Brilliant.
The film, in the event, is great - as I probably expected. It's not nearly as edgy or even controversial as anyone in the media might have suggested, and simply follows the story of four hapless, misguided, radicalised young Muslims from Sheffield as they prepare for a suicide attack on London. It's full of great slapstick laughs and the usual smattering of Morris-isms, and actually has a few punches to the gut later on in the film. Four Lions is one of those films that can be held up as evidence that, when it comes to dealing sensitively and thoughtfully with "big issues", comedy can often be the most effective tool.
Accordingly, we're making it a bit of a rainy-day Saturday. After lunch we get the tube to Highbury & Islington and walk down Upper Street to the Vue Cinema in Angel, intending to see Chris Morris' new film, Four Lions. We pay for our tickets and head for the small screen they point out to us and take our seats. We sit through the unremarkable trailers, the only interesting thing being the girl two rows in front of us who has, as "snacks", a full multipack of Sainsbury's Basic's crisps and a full 1 litre tub of Basics ice cream - into which she has broken up a massive bar of chocolate. Nice.
So the trailers finish and the BBFC certificate pops up - confirming the film to be the venerable Hot Tub Time Machine. Hmm, odd, we think. Why would they put the wrong certificate up? As Hot Tub Time Machine in fact starts, we check our tickets and find that we have in fact been sold tickets to Hot Tub Time Machine. Sounds a bit like Four Lions, doesn't it?
We run out of the screen and head for the counter to have our tickets swapped and get back into the correct screen at the other end of the building - just in time to watch all the trailers again. Brilliant.
The film, in the event, is great - as I probably expected. It's not nearly as edgy or even controversial as anyone in the media might have suggested, and simply follows the story of four hapless, misguided, radicalised young Muslims from Sheffield as they prepare for a suicide attack on London. It's full of great slapstick laughs and the usual smattering of Morris-isms, and actually has a few punches to the gut later on in the film. Four Lions is one of those films that can be held up as evidence that, when it comes to dealing sensitively and thoughtfully with "big issues", comedy can often be the most effective tool.
Monday 10 May 2010
Friday
Clearly, staying up until almost 4am on a weekday is not particularly clever - even if it is for something as important and rare as a general election. The fact that the election has resulted into a confusing and inconclusive hung parliament doesn't help the feeling of tired dislocation - usually, you wake up on the morning after election day and you know who the new prime minister is, for better or worse. In this case, we are left with mere probabilities amid talk of coalitions, deals and further elections within the year. It's the sort of thing that first came close to piquing my interest in British politics when studying history at A Level - I think Ramsay MacDonald may have been the first tale that stuck in my head.
Work is, predictably, a bit of a fog of sleepiness and not particularly productive, especially given the necessary second window open showing BBC live updates and rolling News Channel coverage.
The plan after work is to head into town for a few Sam Smith's drinks at The Cock, but first I stop off at The Tollgate for a swift jar with Alex, who is on her way home from the shops. Hoping that a little booze might give me a second wind, I am nevertheless exhausted for most of the evening and can attempt only the most basic conversation. If this is what happens when I stay up a mere four hours after my normal bedtime, it's probably good that I do most of my weekend drinking during daylight hours.
We head home early as K gives in to my protestations and order a takeaway pizza from Papa John's before finally, wrecked and broken, heading to bed.
Work is, predictably, a bit of a fog of sleepiness and not particularly productive, especially given the necessary second window open showing BBC live updates and rolling News Channel coverage.
The plan after work is to head into town for a few Sam Smith's drinks at The Cock, but first I stop off at The Tollgate for a swift jar with Alex, who is on her way home from the shops. Hoping that a little booze might give me a second wind, I am nevertheless exhausted for most of the evening and can attempt only the most basic conversation. If this is what happens when I stay up a mere four hours after my normal bedtime, it's probably good that I do most of my weekend drinking during daylight hours.
We head home early as K gives in to my protestations and order a takeaway pizza from Papa John's before finally, wrecked and broken, heading to bed.
Thursday
We get up early and head down to Willoughby Methodist Church to cast our votes before work. Having never received polling cards, we turn up to the church hall hopeful that we are in fact registered properly - and it takes a few minutes of flicking through the pieces of paper on the table to find our names and get our ballot papers. It seems crazy that a general election in 2010 can be run so primitively - and it turns out later in the day that there has been chaos in other constituencies where people have queued for hours and even been turned away from the polling stations. Don't they have touchscreens in the US?!
Work passes fairly smoothly and afterwards I get the tube to South Kensington to meet K. The National are playing at the Royal Albert Hall and we have free tickets, but first we head for some dinner at a place called Cactus Blue, where we have a voucher for 50% off their tasty-looking Mexican food. As it happens the food is very nice, but after they sneak a £4 bottle of mineral water onto the bill and whack a 12.5% service charge on there we barely save any money and I leave feeling a little ripped off.
No matter, as we walk off the fajitas on the way up to the Albert Hall. I've never been here before, and it's certainly an impressive piece of ostentatious Victorian architecture - though it seems oddly intimate when we get to our seats on the first tier above the stalls. The acoustic diffusers on the ceiling are cool too.
The National come on just after nine and, while looking a little overwhelmed by the venue and a bit awkward with the rows of seated fans staring at them, get into their stride over the course of the next hour and sound wonderful by the end. They're truly one of my favourite bands these days and while it's another weird place to see them (the last one of their gigs I went to was at the Royal Festival Hall) or indeed any other rock band, the gig is fun and we head out into the night at 10.30 to beat the crowds back to the tube.
When we get home at around 11.30 the first election results are coming in and we sit down with a bottle of wine to watch the coverage, first on Channel 4 with Charlie Brooker and David Mitchell, then at 1 switching to the traditional Dimbleby-Paxman-Robinson programme on BBC1. Like most election programmes, it is incredibly compelling viewing - especially this year as none of the results coming in seem to point to a winner, with the exit polls predicting a hung parliament. After the wine, K goes to bed and I switch to Jack Daniel's and Coke to keep myself awake - but finally succumb to exhaustion at 3.45, little the wiser to the result of the election.
Work passes fairly smoothly and afterwards I get the tube to South Kensington to meet K. The National are playing at the Royal Albert Hall and we have free tickets, but first we head for some dinner at a place called Cactus Blue, where we have a voucher for 50% off their tasty-looking Mexican food. As it happens the food is very nice, but after they sneak a £4 bottle of mineral water onto the bill and whack a 12.5% service charge on there we barely save any money and I leave feeling a little ripped off.
No matter, as we walk off the fajitas on the way up to the Albert Hall. I've never been here before, and it's certainly an impressive piece of ostentatious Victorian architecture - though it seems oddly intimate when we get to our seats on the first tier above the stalls. The acoustic diffusers on the ceiling are cool too.
The National come on just after nine and, while looking a little overwhelmed by the venue and a bit awkward with the rows of seated fans staring at them, get into their stride over the course of the next hour and sound wonderful by the end. They're truly one of my favourite bands these days and while it's another weird place to see them (the last one of their gigs I went to was at the Royal Festival Hall) or indeed any other rock band, the gig is fun and we head out into the night at 10.30 to beat the crowds back to the tube.
When we get home at around 11.30 the first election results are coming in and we sit down with a bottle of wine to watch the coverage, first on Channel 4 with Charlie Brooker and David Mitchell, then at 1 switching to the traditional Dimbleby-Paxman-Robinson programme on BBC1. Like most election programmes, it is incredibly compelling viewing - especially this year as none of the results coming in seem to point to a winner, with the exit polls predicting a hung parliament. After the wine, K goes to bed and I switch to Jack Daniel's and Coke to keep myself awake - but finally succumb to exhaustion at 3.45, little the wiser to the result of the election.
Thursday 6 May 2010
Wednesday
Tonight there will be a book launch celebrating former-Rolling Stones and Grateful Dead tour manager Sam Cutler, specifically his memoir, You Can't Always Get What You Want. As the book is published by one of "my" clients, it falls to me to arrange bits and pieces of the event, as well as travelling down to Notting Hill to sell copies of the book and generally help out. The first part of that is this afternoon, when I head to NatWest in Wood Green to collect change for the float.
The bank is absolutely packed, and I find myself 20th in line. It's a good thing I'm in there "on business" rather than trying to squeeze a bank trip into a lunch break or the like. When people ask the staff what's going on, the curt answer is "oh, it's because of the bank holiday". The fact that that was two days ago - and that bank holidays happen regularly enough that you'd think a bank should be able to recover from their own holiday - doesn't seem to register here. I stand in the queue for 40 minutes before finally getting hold of the coins I came in for and heading back to the office to make up a couple of posters and make sure everything else is in place.
After work I head home to stick a shirt on in an attempt to make myself a little more presentable. The venue in Notting Hill (Beach Blanket Babylon) looks like a bit of a swanky place so I feel it might be a good idea to make even the tiniest effort in this department. I jump on the tube at around 6 and after trudging up from Notting Hill Gate through some of the posher residential parts of this city (and man, the posh people look a bit weird around here - it's all a bit Stepford Wives) I arrive at the bar a little late and a little hot and flustered.
The place is just as posh as I'd expected, gaudily decorated with crazy paintings and presumably expensive gold-edged furniture. It is very much "not for the likes of me", but it's nice to step into places like this once in a while. We set up our little bookstall and meet Sam Cutler, who turns out to be a very charming guy with that look about him that suggests he's seen and done a few things in his time. The place starts to fill up and Claire and I start to sell books to everyone who comes in, while overseeing the signing of the books.
The most notable guest? Well that would probably be Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page, who strolls in to whispers and nudges from the elderly-rocker crowd (I am the youngest person here by at least 20 years) and happily poses for photographs with everyone who asks. There are other crusty musician types around too, but I fail to recognise any of them, ignorance-of-youth style.
A young Lithuanian waitress keeps bringing me glasses of red wine, so by the time we are packing up I'm a little drunk - but I am sure to get Sam to sign a dedication to K in one copy of the book, in which he writes: "To K, I've taught Mat a few rock n' roll tips, he'll be much better in bed now, get ready for a crazy ride! Sam Cutler".
Great work.
The bank is absolutely packed, and I find myself 20th in line. It's a good thing I'm in there "on business" rather than trying to squeeze a bank trip into a lunch break or the like. When people ask the staff what's going on, the curt answer is "oh, it's because of the bank holiday". The fact that that was two days ago - and that bank holidays happen regularly enough that you'd think a bank should be able to recover from their own holiday - doesn't seem to register here. I stand in the queue for 40 minutes before finally getting hold of the coins I came in for and heading back to the office to make up a couple of posters and make sure everything else is in place.
After work I head home to stick a shirt on in an attempt to make myself a little more presentable. The venue in Notting Hill (Beach Blanket Babylon) looks like a bit of a swanky place so I feel it might be a good idea to make even the tiniest effort in this department. I jump on the tube at around 6 and after trudging up from Notting Hill Gate through some of the posher residential parts of this city (and man, the posh people look a bit weird around here - it's all a bit Stepford Wives) I arrive at the bar a little late and a little hot and flustered.
The place is just as posh as I'd expected, gaudily decorated with crazy paintings and presumably expensive gold-edged furniture. It is very much "not for the likes of me", but it's nice to step into places like this once in a while. We set up our little bookstall and meet Sam Cutler, who turns out to be a very charming guy with that look about him that suggests he's seen and done a few things in his time. The place starts to fill up and Claire and I start to sell books to everyone who comes in, while overseeing the signing of the books.
The most notable guest? Well that would probably be Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page, who strolls in to whispers and nudges from the elderly-rocker crowd (I am the youngest person here by at least 20 years) and happily poses for photographs with everyone who asks. There are other crusty musician types around too, but I fail to recognise any of them, ignorance-of-youth style.
A young Lithuanian waitress keeps bringing me glasses of red wine, so by the time we are packing up I'm a little drunk - but I am sure to get Sam to sign a dedication to K in one copy of the book, in which he writes: "To K, I've taught Mat a few rock n' roll tips, he'll be much better in bed now, get ready for a crazy ride! Sam Cutler".
Great work.
Wednesday 5 May 2010
Tuesday
Back to work after another long weekend and straight into a week of catching up and preparing for our next month's sales kit. There is plenty to do that's dull and time-consuming - though I suppose time consumption is what I'm after in the long run. There's nothing worse than having time drag in a silent office, the working day can feel interminable.
At least 11 minutes of my day is consumed on the phone to Haringey Council chasing up my polling card for Thursday's general election. Friends and colleagues who live in the area seem to have had theirs ages ago; and while I know you don't actually need the card itself in order to vote, I do need to know where my polling station is. I am placed in a lengthy queue to speak to someone in the Electoral office - but when I get through they are very helpful and happy to confirm that both K and I are correctly registered and that we should just turn up on the day.
In the evening, we watch the much-praised recent British film An Education, having downloaded it on the back of a raft of recommendations. It tells the story of a 16-year-old girl at a posh school studying hard to get into Oxford, who meets a dashing older man who introduces her to a world of glamour and romance and trips to Paris and so on. As she gets more involved in his life, her schoolwork suffers and she contemplates throwing away her education to be with him - seeing him as a shortcut to the life she wanted after university anyway. I really liked it - it's one of those films that are just impeccably well-made, with no extraneous detail and extremely efficient storytelling.
The central performances are brilliant and Nick Hornby's screenplay is typically witty and believable. Funnily, it's a very similar story to last year's Fish Tank, a film I loved, albeit a very middle-class retelling of the tale. In short, though,it's just nice to see great British films still being made, especially at a time when our television drama is being massively overshadowed by the US.
At least 11 minutes of my day is consumed on the phone to Haringey Council chasing up my polling card for Thursday's general election. Friends and colleagues who live in the area seem to have had theirs ages ago; and while I know you don't actually need the card itself in order to vote, I do need to know where my polling station is. I am placed in a lengthy queue to speak to someone in the Electoral office - but when I get through they are very helpful and happy to confirm that both K and I are correctly registered and that we should just turn up on the day.
In the evening, we watch the much-praised recent British film An Education, having downloaded it on the back of a raft of recommendations. It tells the story of a 16-year-old girl at a posh school studying hard to get into Oxford, who meets a dashing older man who introduces her to a world of glamour and romance and trips to Paris and so on. As she gets more involved in his life, her schoolwork suffers and she contemplates throwing away her education to be with him - seeing him as a shortcut to the life she wanted after university anyway. I really liked it - it's one of those films that are just impeccably well-made, with no extraneous detail and extremely efficient storytelling.
The central performances are brilliant and Nick Hornby's screenplay is typically witty and believable. Funnily, it's a very similar story to last year's Fish Tank, a film I loved, albeit a very middle-class retelling of the tale. In short, though,it's just nice to see great British films still being made, especially at a time when our television drama is being massively overshadowed by the US.
Tuesday 4 May 2010
Monday
After the excesses of Saturday and Sunday, this bank holiday Monday is destined to be a quiet one - and accordingly K and I have plans to stay in and make our way through the beginning of Mad Men series 3 while she stitches together a felt doll version of herself for the 'StitchLondon' competition at the Science Museum.
We do leave the house, once - to walk to Wood Green so K can buy materials, and we wander through the various clothes shops and gathered nutters as one is wont to do in N22's Shopping City district.
We have some lunch and laze around watching TV for most of the afternoon. Ghostbusters 2 is on so we half-watch that, and when the eighties movie bug has got us we put the Spaceballs DVD K picked up for £3 on and I very nearly nod off. It's not nearly as funny as I remember it - but you probably have to be a certain age of New York Jewish comedy fan to get all the little jokes. John Candy is still great though.
After waking myself up by making a very spicy Tikka Masala, we get into Mad Men and race through four episodes. The third series shows no signs of flagging and the show is still as consistently mesmerising as ever. The only thing that annoys me slightly is the introduction of two typical Englishmen-in-a-US-drama characters, who are terribly well-spoken and sit drinking cups of tea while the American ad men drink whisky, bemoaning the lack of a "decent pub" in Manhattan. Hopefully they don't dip into parody - especially in a show where the characters are usually so well-drawn and believable.
We do leave the house, once - to walk to Wood Green so K can buy materials, and we wander through the various clothes shops and gathered nutters as one is wont to do in N22's Shopping City district.
We have some lunch and laze around watching TV for most of the afternoon. Ghostbusters 2 is on so we half-watch that, and when the eighties movie bug has got us we put the Spaceballs DVD K picked up for £3 on and I very nearly nod off. It's not nearly as funny as I remember it - but you probably have to be a certain age of New York Jewish comedy fan to get all the little jokes. John Candy is still great though.
After waking myself up by making a very spicy Tikka Masala, we get into Mad Men and race through four episodes. The third series shows no signs of flagging and the show is still as consistently mesmerising as ever. The only thing that annoys me slightly is the introduction of two typical Englishmen-in-a-US-drama characters, who are terribly well-spoken and sit drinking cups of tea while the American ad men drink whisky, bemoaning the lack of a "decent pub" in Manhattan. Hopefully they don't dip into parody - especially in a show where the characters are usually so well-drawn and believable.
Monday 3 May 2010
Sunday
Today is the birthday of K's sister Lucy, so we make sure she has a nice cooked breakfast and a few presents to wake up. I give her the newly-published paperback edition of Richard Dawkins' The Greatest Show on Earth - a book I have read around half of in hardback, but keep finding the thing too heavy to read in bed and too bulky to take on the tube. As a result, I bought two copies at Sainsbury's yesterday in the hope that I can finally finish the very interesting book in a handier format. The hardback will just be for show, I suppose.
Another of Lucy's presents is the film Avatar on DVD. Having been suspicious of the gimmickery of the 3D cinema experience, I had made sure to avoid the film when it came out last year, but since it's now become the highest grossing movie of all time by some distance, I feel I should probably watch it - so we stick it on after breakfast.
I am surprised to find that it's very enjoyable indeed - the effects are obviously very impressive and, unlike in certain other effects-based films, it's easy to forget that nothing on the screen is real and, apart from the indoor scenes with real humans, there aren't even any shooting locations. The story is predictable but there are some nice details, particularly in the design of the animals and some of the human technology, as well as the practicalities of having humans pilot the organic Avatars. In short, I'm shocked to realise that the film has probably been unfairly slagged off by those I've talked to - though I still feel that the 3D stuff would be unnecessary, and that I haven't missed anything by not watching it in that format.
Just as the film finishes, Alex comes round and we head to the Hope and Anchor to watch the Liverpool v Chelsea game, which is a 1.30 kick off and, potentially, a title decider. I'm a little nervous about the game but, thanks to goals from Drogba and Lampard, Chelsea win 2-0 and remain in control of the title race. I still refuse to be particularly comfortable about it all - they still need to beat Wigan at home next Sunday; exactly the kind of fixture we've ended up drawing in the past when points were needed. We shall see - but either way I leave the pub feeling much more relaxed than when I entered it.
Joined by Will, we walk down to The Kings Head to meet K and her sister who are having lunch and sampling a range of guest ciders. I keep it classy and order a pint of Red Stripe and we chat happily while the girls eat. By 6.30 or so we've all had enough of the pub - so head back to our house via the Co-Op to finish off our left-over wedding booze (which includes a few beers, a bottle of Jack Daniel's and a bottle of champagne) and play a bit of Scrabble. Over the next few hours we're joined by Nick, Rich, Helen and Ant - leaving a nice round number to play with four teams of two.
But not before Will and I have brought back the old days with a game of the BBC Match of the Day quiz game. I got this for Christmas in 2006 and we spent many hilarious nights testing each other's esoteric football knowledge, accompanied by a ridiculous electronic scoreboard containing such sound effects as "That's a yellow card for sure!" and "The flag stays down...it's a goal!". Getting it out of the box after at least three years of neglect is great fun - except that the batteries have half-destroyed themselves over this time and make the poor commentator's voice sound frightened and pained. And really funny.
Another of Lucy's presents is the film Avatar on DVD. Having been suspicious of the gimmickery of the 3D cinema experience, I had made sure to avoid the film when it came out last year, but since it's now become the highest grossing movie of all time by some distance, I feel I should probably watch it - so we stick it on after breakfast.
I am surprised to find that it's very enjoyable indeed - the effects are obviously very impressive and, unlike in certain other effects-based films, it's easy to forget that nothing on the screen is real and, apart from the indoor scenes with real humans, there aren't even any shooting locations. The story is predictable but there are some nice details, particularly in the design of the animals and some of the human technology, as well as the practicalities of having humans pilot the organic Avatars. In short, I'm shocked to realise that the film has probably been unfairly slagged off by those I've talked to - though I still feel that the 3D stuff would be unnecessary, and that I haven't missed anything by not watching it in that format.
Just as the film finishes, Alex comes round and we head to the Hope and Anchor to watch the Liverpool v Chelsea game, which is a 1.30 kick off and, potentially, a title decider. I'm a little nervous about the game but, thanks to goals from Drogba and Lampard, Chelsea win 2-0 and remain in control of the title race. I still refuse to be particularly comfortable about it all - they still need to beat Wigan at home next Sunday; exactly the kind of fixture we've ended up drawing in the past when points were needed. We shall see - but either way I leave the pub feeling much more relaxed than when I entered it.
Joined by Will, we walk down to The Kings Head to meet K and her sister who are having lunch and sampling a range of guest ciders. I keep it classy and order a pint of Red Stripe and we chat happily while the girls eat. By 6.30 or so we've all had enough of the pub - so head back to our house via the Co-Op to finish off our left-over wedding booze (which includes a few beers, a bottle of Jack Daniel's and a bottle of champagne) and play a bit of Scrabble. Over the next few hours we're joined by Nick, Rich, Helen and Ant - leaving a nice round number to play with four teams of two.
But not before Will and I have brought back the old days with a game of the BBC Match of the Day quiz game. I got this for Christmas in 2006 and we spent many hilarious nights testing each other's esoteric football knowledge, accompanied by a ridiculous electronic scoreboard containing such sound effects as "That's a yellow card for sure!" and "The flag stays down...it's a goal!". Getting it out of the box after at least three years of neglect is great fun - except that the batteries have half-destroyed themselves over this time and make the poor commentator's voice sound frightened and pained. And really funny.
Saturday
It's rare to wake up on a Saturday without a hangover - but of course it's very nice. We have a leisurely breakfast and I watch Football Focus while K heads down to Waterloo to drop her brother off. There's a really rather moving piece on there about the Bradford City fire in 1985 that took place two weeks before the Heysel disaster and claimed the lives of 56 people. It's not something I knew much about beforehand - I can only assume that Heysel has traditionally overshadowed Bradford in the history of football disasters - but the BBC's coverage is tasteful and genuinely affecting.
After Focus I head to Sainsbury's to meet K, and when we've properly stocked up on food for the week it's off to The Queens to meet some of the various boys and girls. We have a couple of pints and even win a free round of drinks after collaboratively cracking a code pub-quiz style and spelling out the special May bank holiday message. Later we make our way to The Bull on Upper Street as it's Helen's birthday and a special area has been reserved upstairs. The weather is atrocious and we're a little late (having been reluctant to leave The Queens in the rain) as well as being well on the way to drunk - but it's nice to see everyone there and the pub isn't too busy.
However, by 10ish both K and I are probably done for the evening, so we wander back up Upper Street to Highbury & Islington tube and make for home. Getting home early is nice - despite getting into a row over a blown fuse in the kitchen which I drunkenly and angrily fix so we can heat up a pizza. I also make the mistake of heading to bed with the key still in the door - effectively locking K's sister out of the house when we'd said she could stay over. Whoops.
After Focus I head to Sainsbury's to meet K, and when we've properly stocked up on food for the week it's off to The Queens to meet some of the various boys and girls. We have a couple of pints and even win a free round of drinks after collaboratively cracking a code pub-quiz style and spelling out the special May bank holiday message. Later we make our way to The Bull on Upper Street as it's Helen's birthday and a special area has been reserved upstairs. The weather is atrocious and we're a little late (having been reluctant to leave The Queens in the rain) as well as being well on the way to drunk - but it's nice to see everyone there and the pub isn't too busy.
However, by 10ish both K and I are probably done for the evening, so we wander back up Upper Street to Highbury & Islington tube and make for home. Getting home early is nice - despite getting into a row over a blown fuse in the kitchen which I drunkenly and angrily fix so we can heat up a pizza. I also make the mistake of heading to bed with the key still in the door - effectively locking K's sister out of the house when we'd said she could stay over. Whoops.
Saturday 1 May 2010
Friday
After work I get the tube to Waterloo to meet K and her little brother who's up to visit. It's his 15th birthday next week so we're taking him for some dinner and to see Iron Man 2 at the IMAX. In truth I'm far more excited about seeing the film than he probably is - but the tube journey is a hot, stuffy, uncomfortable one and the Victoria Line train sits at Kings Cross for ages which ends up with me being 20 minutes late and in a foul mood. The plan is to go to Burger King in Leicester Square (in the absence of any nearby restaurants with any space and the fact that their new Angry Whopper burger is officially Iron Man 2 branded, don't you know) so I grump off across the footbridge to Charing Cross with K and her brother in tow.
We get to Leicester Square and order our burgers - double Whopper with onion rings and jalapeno peppers, really rather hot and pretty tasty - and I'm feeling immediately, predictably better. I apologise to K for being a dick and we walk back through the rain towards the IMAX.
It's easy to forget just how big the IMAX is - the last time we were here was for Watchmen last year - and there's that rather fun buzz when everyone is waiting outside the auditorium to head in and be staggered by the sheer size of the screen. We have great seats about halfway up on the right and the trailers get me fully in the mood for the film. I had loved the first Iron Man and would go as far as to say it's my favourite Marvel movie - Downey Jr. makes Tony Stark a properly three dimensional character and gives the whole enterprise a bit of warmth and charm to enjoy beyond the fighting and explosions.
The second one turns out to be very enjoyable too - though has nothing of the exciting novelty of the first, which is hardly the film's fault, I suppose. The effects are great, the lines are still fun and the only problem seems to be that it goes on a little long and tries too hard to fit in new characters and "fan service" type references to the film's comic book heritage. Mickey Rourke is great as Whiplash and the scene where he attacks a motor race in Monaco is probably the film's highlight.
We head home at about midnight - but not before a raging tramp gets to scream "give me a cigarette you fat cunt" at me charmingly on the way through the subway - totally shattered and conspicuously sober for this time of the week. That's what happens when you hang around with 14-year-olds I suppose.
We get to Leicester Square and order our burgers - double Whopper with onion rings and jalapeno peppers, really rather hot and pretty tasty - and I'm feeling immediately, predictably better. I apologise to K for being a dick and we walk back through the rain towards the IMAX.
It's easy to forget just how big the IMAX is - the last time we were here was for Watchmen last year - and there's that rather fun buzz when everyone is waiting outside the auditorium to head in and be staggered by the sheer size of the screen. We have great seats about halfway up on the right and the trailers get me fully in the mood for the film. I had loved the first Iron Man and would go as far as to say it's my favourite Marvel movie - Downey Jr. makes Tony Stark a properly three dimensional character and gives the whole enterprise a bit of warmth and charm to enjoy beyond the fighting and explosions.
The second one turns out to be very enjoyable too - though has nothing of the exciting novelty of the first, which is hardly the film's fault, I suppose. The effects are great, the lines are still fun and the only problem seems to be that it goes on a little long and tries too hard to fit in new characters and "fan service" type references to the film's comic book heritage. Mickey Rourke is great as Whiplash and the scene where he attacks a motor race in Monaco is probably the film's highlight.
We head home at about midnight - but not before a raging tramp gets to scream "give me a cigarette you fat cunt" at me charmingly on the way through the subway - totally shattered and conspicuously sober for this time of the week. That's what happens when you hang around with 14-year-olds I suppose.
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