Will crashes round at our insistence - last time he was over for drinks and larks he walked all the way home to Neasden like some sort of mad alcoholic - and in the morning we enjoy omelettes and a bit of 30 Rock. Will's never seen it before so it's nice to introduce someone new to a show that's still criminally unheard-of in this country. He heads home before long and I play a wee bit of FIFA while K potters. She's off to the Ben & Jerry's Summer Sundae festival today on the promise of free ice cream and a number of lacklustre indie bands, leaving me with the afternoon to myself.
After popping into Wood Green to buy a cork pinboard from Wilkinson's (K has wanted one in the kitchen for a while now and I thought it'd be nice to have one up on the wall for when she got back) Alex comes over and we decide to head into town to have a wander around the British Museum. We've both been fairly recently, but the section of Richard Herring's book I'd been reading in bed this morning mentioned going there to see the Lindow Man - a brilliantly preserved body excavated from a peat bog. This meant we had something specific to hunt for.
We take the tube to Russell Square and after I dare Alex to run up the 175 stairs that I almost blacked out on once we walk through the warm sunny square towards the museum. The place is absolutely crawling with tourists (as one would perhaps expect on a sunny Sunday in July) so we have to file in, but eventually we find ourselves in the upper galleries looking for the British history section. We manage one whole circuit of the building with no Lindow Man to be found. At this point I'd mainly been referring to him as Peat Bog Man - we thought it'd be funny if it was actually just a security guard called Pete Bogman who'd managed to become part of the museum folklore - so I admit defeat and get my phone out to Google the British Museum website and find the correct room.
Eventually we find the exhibit - which we had in fact walked cluelessly past several minutes before. To be fair to us, it does just look like a dark corner of Room 50, the lights needing to be dim in the interests of preservation, but the mysterious man's story is very interesting - he certainly didn't have a very nice death. It's also nice to have been led here on a whim, inspired by a comedian's biography, and reminds me how amazing it is to be able to just 'pop' to the British Museum when you live in London.
After finding Pete Bogman we're both pretty hot and thirsty, so we walk along Oxford Street and head up to the Green Man, where we sit and have a nice pint before heading home. I get back and read a little more of How Not To Grow Up before K gets back and we have a delicious dinner of chicken Kievs (that feels like it should be capitalised, but I'm unsure), new potatoes and broccoli.
Later, egged on by the various TV folk we both follow on Twitter, we watch Sherlock on BBC1 - the 90-minute first part of a three-part adaption of Sherlock Holmes stories set in modern day London. Holmes, played by Benedict Cumberbatch, is great fun to watch as he is in almost any incarnation (though admittedly I haven't yet seen the Robert Downey Jr. version) and I remember just how much I like watching detective stories; despite never bothering to read them. Martin Freeman is also excellent as Dr. Watson, and as the episode finishes I'm already very much looking forward to the next one.
Tuesday 27 July 2010
Saturday
Despite the relatively small amount of booze we consumed last night, we both wake up feeling a little rough, but with a long lazy weekend ahead of us (or ahead of me at any rate) there's no real reason to worry. After breakfast we potter for a while, watching the venerable Ace of Cakes on the Good Food channel - which is, to all intents and purposes, exactly the same format as Miami/LA Ink, substituting cakes for tattoos. Luckily we both like cakes and tattoos (fancy that?), so the viewing experience changes little.
At around lunchtime we're finally feeling well enough to crack on with the day's usual house-admin stuff, wandering down the Passage to Sainsbury's and getting the bus home with an enormous amount of food - before preparing a delicious egg salad sandwich (which will forever remind me of the opening scene of The 40 Year Old Virgin - what a perfect weekend activity) and doing a bit of hoovering.
A little later I get on Facebook and discover that my younger brother has foolishly broken his arm - in what he terms, under the photograph of his bandaged limb, as a "volleyball accident." I give him a call to probe for further information and discover that he had in fact been trying to kick a volleyball net which was on the ground into a heap, and slipped over. It adds to his long list of lame semi-sporting injuries (a few years ago he broke his wrist as a result of standing on a stationary football), and serves as a grim reminder that no member of my family should ever approach any sort of sporting arena. The closest I have to his laundry-list of pathetically-shattered bones is the one and only day I went to a summer Soccer School in Rochdale and received a football full in the face within five seconds. My fledgling career as a combative, Mascherano-style holding midfielder ended that day, in approximately 1992.
In the early evening K heads off to a gig in South London, leaving me with no particular plans for the evening beyond sticking Watchmen on the DVD player and going round the corner to buy some cans of lager. I give Will a call and suggest he come over so we can go to the pub - but when he finally pitches up at 9.30 there seems little point in trekking all the way to Crouch End and so we just grab a tin each and watch the usual Saturday-evening string of comedy panel shows. Mock the Week is, as ever, acceptably funny, as is Would I Lie To You? and Have I Got News For You and on and on. Eventually we stick on Team America - one of my favourite American comedy movies ever, I would say - which Will and I had actually seen at the cinema together years before - and I fall asleep way before the end. A rock 'n' roll Saturday night? No - but I managed to get through a whole Saturday having spent a grand total of £5. Now that's unusual!
At around lunchtime we're finally feeling well enough to crack on with the day's usual house-admin stuff, wandering down the Passage to Sainsbury's and getting the bus home with an enormous amount of food - before preparing a delicious egg salad sandwich (which will forever remind me of the opening scene of The 40 Year Old Virgin - what a perfect weekend activity) and doing a bit of hoovering.
A little later I get on Facebook and discover that my younger brother has foolishly broken his arm - in what he terms, under the photograph of his bandaged limb, as a "volleyball accident." I give him a call to probe for further information and discover that he had in fact been trying to kick a volleyball net which was on the ground into a heap, and slipped over. It adds to his long list of lame semi-sporting injuries (a few years ago he broke his wrist as a result of standing on a stationary football), and serves as a grim reminder that no member of my family should ever approach any sort of sporting arena. The closest I have to his laundry-list of pathetically-shattered bones is the one and only day I went to a summer Soccer School in Rochdale and received a football full in the face within five seconds. My fledgling career as a combative, Mascherano-style holding midfielder ended that day, in approximately 1992.
In the early evening K heads off to a gig in South London, leaving me with no particular plans for the evening beyond sticking Watchmen on the DVD player and going round the corner to buy some cans of lager. I give Will a call and suggest he come over so we can go to the pub - but when he finally pitches up at 9.30 there seems little point in trekking all the way to Crouch End and so we just grab a tin each and watch the usual Saturday-evening string of comedy panel shows. Mock the Week is, as ever, acceptably funny, as is Would I Lie To You? and Have I Got News For You and on and on. Eventually we stick on Team America - one of my favourite American comedy movies ever, I would say - which Will and I had actually seen at the cinema together years before - and I fall asleep way before the end. A rock 'n' roll Saturday night? No - but I managed to get through a whole Saturday having spent a grand total of £5. Now that's unusual!
Friday
For tonight's richly deserved Friday night entertainment, Mike suggests an evening in The Tollgate - which suits K and I as it's just across the road and, being a Wetherspoon's frequented by only society's most wretched specimens, serves irresistibly cheap cider. I had planned to meet Mike there at 7, before K and a couple of others turned up at 7.30, but Mike is held up, meaning I get a chance to sit inside (no seats outside, more's the pity) and watch the place slowly fill up with sad-looking old men, younger men with white paint on their trousers, young women wearing gold jewellery and skint studenty types (a bit like me, I supposed) who were willing to wait at the long bar as the skeleton staff attempt to put together something approaching a Friday night.
The staffing situation is a problem, actually, and when the time comes to buy my round I end up waiting a full fifteen minutes for one of the two barmaids to finish shuffling up and down in pursuit of a glass...some ice...some vodka...some coke...the till...the customer...the till...the customer again - it's excruciating viewing when all you want is a glass of cider to help yourself tune out from this Wetherspoonsian madness.
OK, so it's not that bad - and by 10pm it's K, Mike, Tim, Ant and myself around a table merilly bantering and getting surprisingly smashed on Weston's Organic. K and I decide to make a move, but not before stopping at the off-licence to get a 2 litre bottle of Strongbow (£3.49 of undeniable quality beverage), for which we are reduced to paying in 5ps, such is our combined change situation. Tonight, it must be admitted, has not been a high water mark in terms of classiness, but it's nice to get home on a Friday night after a walk of 30 seconds, having spent only around £10 for a perfectly pleasant evening. We pour ourselves a glass of Strongbow (I suppose we at least didn't just pass the bottle back and forth) and sit down in front of the TV to watch Rev, a new BBC sitcom starring Tom Hollander which seems very funny - though that may just be the cider chuckling.
The staffing situation is a problem, actually, and when the time comes to buy my round I end up waiting a full fifteen minutes for one of the two barmaids to finish shuffling up and down in pursuit of a glass...some ice...some vodka...some coke...the till...the customer...the till...the customer again - it's excruciating viewing when all you want is a glass of cider to help yourself tune out from this Wetherspoonsian madness.
OK, so it's not that bad - and by 10pm it's K, Mike, Tim, Ant and myself around a table merilly bantering and getting surprisingly smashed on Weston's Organic. K and I decide to make a move, but not before stopping at the off-licence to get a 2 litre bottle of Strongbow (£3.49 of undeniable quality beverage), for which we are reduced to paying in 5ps, such is our combined change situation. Tonight, it must be admitted, has not been a high water mark in terms of classiness, but it's nice to get home on a Friday night after a walk of 30 seconds, having spent only around £10 for a perfectly pleasant evening. We pour ourselves a glass of Strongbow (I suppose we at least didn't just pass the bottle back and forth) and sit down in front of the TV to watch Rev, a new BBC sitcom starring Tom Hollander which seems very funny - though that may just be the cider chuckling.
Monday 26 July 2010
Thursday
The plan had been to go for a swim this evening, what with the new healthy regime in full swing and all, but after K has had a bit of a crappy day at work and the rain starts to fall at around 5pm, we make the considered decision to sack off the swimming and go to the cinema instead.
We have a quick dinner when K gets home then head up Wood Green High Street towards the Cineword cinema in Shopping City. I've lived in this area for over two years now, but have never tried out the local Cineworld - ridiculous, really, given its proximity to my house and the fact that it's £3 a ticket cheaper than the Vue in Islington that we usually prefer - but I'd always feared it would be pretty horrible, and had heard testament to that effect. However, tonight we had a complimentary ticket obtained from K's sister, meaning that we'd only pay for one adult ticket between us.
We headed for the 8.45pm screening of Toy Story 3 (in 2D, of course; not being fans of the gimmicky cash-in fad of 3D cinema - much to the surprise of the guy behind the counter), meaning that we got the smallest screen in the place with the bare minimum of children. Perfect for watching a kid's film in peace, really. I've been a huge fan of the Toy Story series since the beginning (and even now it's hard to imagine that I was only 10 when the first one came out) and am a bit obsessive about Pixar in general, building my Blu-Ray collection around them exclusively - so I'm plainly excited about seeing the third and final instalment as we take our seats in the front row.
Much like the opening scene of Toy Story 2, the beginning is almost tongue-in-cheek epic, visually, suggesting the vast leaps the animation technology has taken since 1995. In fifteen years, CGI animation has moved from the charming if uncomplicated designs of Woody and Buzz to a world where every texture and every object looks and feels exactly right - the different weights of the materials represented in the Toy Story world have clearly been obsessively researched and calculated. This all creates an immensely satisfying realism to the way things move - but also adds to the knowing humour of the complex and downright clever situations Pixar create for their characters to deal with. Much like Up and Wall-E, the last two "original" Pixar movies, Toy Story 3 absolutely oozes class, charm and elegance - never patronising its young audience or making its older audience cringe with embarrassment. This is not an easy thing to accomplish.
By the end I have a huge smile on my face, reflecting on the fact that I have literally grown up with this series - aged 10 for the first one, 16 for the second and 25 for the third - and its nice to see a 15-year story arc put to bed. I think I want the Blu-Ray already.
We have a quick dinner when K gets home then head up Wood Green High Street towards the Cineword cinema in Shopping City. I've lived in this area for over two years now, but have never tried out the local Cineworld - ridiculous, really, given its proximity to my house and the fact that it's £3 a ticket cheaper than the Vue in Islington that we usually prefer - but I'd always feared it would be pretty horrible, and had heard testament to that effect. However, tonight we had a complimentary ticket obtained from K's sister, meaning that we'd only pay for one adult ticket between us.
We headed for the 8.45pm screening of Toy Story 3 (in 2D, of course; not being fans of the gimmicky cash-in fad of 3D cinema - much to the surprise of the guy behind the counter), meaning that we got the smallest screen in the place with the bare minimum of children. Perfect for watching a kid's film in peace, really. I've been a huge fan of the Toy Story series since the beginning (and even now it's hard to imagine that I was only 10 when the first one came out) and am a bit obsessive about Pixar in general, building my Blu-Ray collection around them exclusively - so I'm plainly excited about seeing the third and final instalment as we take our seats in the front row.
Much like the opening scene of Toy Story 2, the beginning is almost tongue-in-cheek epic, visually, suggesting the vast leaps the animation technology has taken since 1995. In fifteen years, CGI animation has moved from the charming if uncomplicated designs of Woody and Buzz to a world where every texture and every object looks and feels exactly right - the different weights of the materials represented in the Toy Story world have clearly been obsessively researched and calculated. This all creates an immensely satisfying realism to the way things move - but also adds to the knowing humour of the complex and downright clever situations Pixar create for their characters to deal with. Much like Up and Wall-E, the last two "original" Pixar movies, Toy Story 3 absolutely oozes class, charm and elegance - never patronising its young audience or making its older audience cringe with embarrassment. This is not an easy thing to accomplish.
By the end I have a huge smile on my face, reflecting on the fact that I have literally grown up with this series - aged 10 for the first one, 16 for the second and 25 for the third - and its nice to see a 15-year story arc put to bed. I think I want the Blu-Ray already.
Thursday 22 July 2010
Wednesday
The summer seems intent on wearing on - and while there was some small suggestion of rain on today's weather forecast it seems that the sun will just keep on beating down on London. I'm not moaning about it - except when it makes the office an uninhabitable space - but I can't understand people who live in hot, sunny countries all year round. It's like Bill Hicks' routine about people who live in LA calling up their friends in New York when it's snowing on the East Coast: "What you doin' buddy? Snowed in? I'm out buying a pool!" "What are you, a fucking lizard?!". I just don't think humans - particularly not Northern European humans such as we in London - have evolved to properly function in these conditions. We need bracing winds and light drizzle to reach our optimum performance.
Anyway it hits around 26 degrees today, which isn't the hottest it's been in recent weeks, but with our incredibly noisy air conditioning unit on and two fans blowing in my general direction, I at least manage to ignore the lack of proper air con and the stifling lack of oxygen. I'm doing a lot of catching up on work this week, which is good, and it feels like I might actually be getting on top of the workload by the end of the week. A rare occurence indeed. Later in the afternoon one of our accounts department pops out to Iceland and buys Soleros for everyone - which leaves most of us grinning and a little giddy for the rest of the working day.
In the evening I catch up with a little writing while preparing a nice bolognese dish for when K gets back. I also download and check out the latest Futurama episode which is far from a classic - this new series has been very up and down and probably just needs to find its stride again; but the 'EyePhone' episode was great. When K gets back we spend a little time on various Dorset Council websites researching possible wedding venues. Reading the handy 'Your Dorset Ceremony' booklet makes it all feel very real (though I'm already pretty certain I don't want to get married in a place called Blandford - not the most evocative name ever is it?), but actually provides a lot of decent information and checklists to work through.
Later on, after catching up with Shooting Stars and Mitchell & Webb (which has just the one brilliant sketch about a man with a tiny office) we put on In Bruges, a film neither of us has seen before but thought was worth taking a £5 punt on from Sainsbury's at the weekend. It turns out to be very good indeed - with Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson and Ralph Feinnes all putting in really decent performances. Bruges is a brilliant, oddly exotic backdrop to the story of two Irish hitmen hiding out for two weeks after a job that went wrong, with Feinnes playing their psychotic English boss. There are some really good bits of dialogue - and some great swearing - and it's all paced very nicely. Go watch it, I'd say.
Anyway it hits around 26 degrees today, which isn't the hottest it's been in recent weeks, but with our incredibly noisy air conditioning unit on and two fans blowing in my general direction, I at least manage to ignore the lack of proper air con and the stifling lack of oxygen. I'm doing a lot of catching up on work this week, which is good, and it feels like I might actually be getting on top of the workload by the end of the week. A rare occurence indeed. Later in the afternoon one of our accounts department pops out to Iceland and buys Soleros for everyone - which leaves most of us grinning and a little giddy for the rest of the working day.
In the evening I catch up with a little writing while preparing a nice bolognese dish for when K gets back. I also download and check out the latest Futurama episode which is far from a classic - this new series has been very up and down and probably just needs to find its stride again; but the 'EyePhone' episode was great. When K gets back we spend a little time on various Dorset Council websites researching possible wedding venues. Reading the handy 'Your Dorset Ceremony' booklet makes it all feel very real (though I'm already pretty certain I don't want to get married in a place called Blandford - not the most evocative name ever is it?), but actually provides a lot of decent information and checklists to work through.
Later on, after catching up with Shooting Stars and Mitchell & Webb (which has just the one brilliant sketch about a man with a tiny office) we put on In Bruges, a film neither of us has seen before but thought was worth taking a £5 punt on from Sainsbury's at the weekend. It turns out to be very good indeed - with Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson and Ralph Feinnes all putting in really decent performances. Bruges is a brilliant, oddly exotic backdrop to the story of two Irish hitmen hiding out for two weeks after a job that went wrong, with Feinnes playing their psychotic English boss. There are some really good bits of dialogue - and some great swearing - and it's all paced very nicely. Go watch it, I'd say.
Wednesday 21 July 2010
Tuesday
Tonight is the launch of the book The Canal by Lee Rourke, an English author whose book is published by one of our US clients. As such, we have a rare opportunity to be involved in the launch - and Jess has put together a very promising-sounding little evening of drinking, chatting and general launching at the To Hell With Books 'bookshop'-thing near Euston station.
I head home briefly after work before heading back out to the tube and make my way to Euston via Tesco - after a concerned Jess phones me to request that I bring emergency backup plastic cups. The tube is hot and busy, as ever, and escaping Euston station is made more difficult by the weird bus station arrangement they have, as well as the presence of an idiotic woman crouching down in the middle of the street to take a photograph of a ladybird with her iPhone. It's the rush hour, for goodness' sake! I also come across a guy who's probably well-known around here, wearing a square cardboard helmet and big pieces of card like paddles over his hands. He is, predictably, shouting nonsense at the commuters who pretend to ignore him. I can't make any of it out over my headphones.
Having traversed this surreal landscape for no more than two minutes, I arrive at the small shop triumphantly wielding my backup plastic cups and possibly frightening some of the other party guests with my exuberance. It's very stuffy in here - so I grab a beer from Georgie and after saying a few quick 'hello's, head outside for a cigarette and to meet my other colleagues, who are arriving one by one. I have a nice chat with one of our American clients about the various ineptitudes of our respective governments and the increasingly terrifying hegemony of Apple Computer.
Later, Bill gives a nice speech introducing the author who then reads a passage from his intriguing North London-based novel, before engaging in a interesting interview with journalist Stuart Evers. The people are naturally thirsty again afterwards, so I jump behind the bar for a little bit to serve (mostly) white wine spritzers and the last of the beers. I have a couple more bottles and cups of red wine than is perhaps advisable - but it enables me to natter away with former colleagues and the amusing Manc bloke who seems to hold the keys to the building. I also say a quick hello to Lee himself - which, briefly, managed to involve the song Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others by The Smiths.
I head home at around 9 and catch K in a bit of a tizz over various wedding issues, but after a bit of a chat and a hug all is well again, meaning we can hang out and watch the awful Dating in the Dark for a bit before bed.
I head home briefly after work before heading back out to the tube and make my way to Euston via Tesco - after a concerned Jess phones me to request that I bring emergency backup plastic cups. The tube is hot and busy, as ever, and escaping Euston station is made more difficult by the weird bus station arrangement they have, as well as the presence of an idiotic woman crouching down in the middle of the street to take a photograph of a ladybird with her iPhone. It's the rush hour, for goodness' sake! I also come across a guy who's probably well-known around here, wearing a square cardboard helmet and big pieces of card like paddles over his hands. He is, predictably, shouting nonsense at the commuters who pretend to ignore him. I can't make any of it out over my headphones.
Having traversed this surreal landscape for no more than two minutes, I arrive at the small shop triumphantly wielding my backup plastic cups and possibly frightening some of the other party guests with my exuberance. It's very stuffy in here - so I grab a beer from Georgie and after saying a few quick 'hello's, head outside for a cigarette and to meet my other colleagues, who are arriving one by one. I have a nice chat with one of our American clients about the various ineptitudes of our respective governments and the increasingly terrifying hegemony of Apple Computer.
Later, Bill gives a nice speech introducing the author who then reads a passage from his intriguing North London-based novel, before engaging in a interesting interview with journalist Stuart Evers. The people are naturally thirsty again afterwards, so I jump behind the bar for a little bit to serve (mostly) white wine spritzers and the last of the beers. I have a couple more bottles and cups of red wine than is perhaps advisable - but it enables me to natter away with former colleagues and the amusing Manc bloke who seems to hold the keys to the building. I also say a quick hello to Lee himself - which, briefly, managed to involve the song Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others by The Smiths.
I head home at around 9 and catch K in a bit of a tizz over various wedding issues, but after a bit of a chat and a hug all is well again, meaning we can hang out and watch the awful Dating in the Dark for a bit before bed.
Tuesday 20 July 2010
Monday
It's a beautiful day and despite being trapped in the office for the majority of it, I endeavour to make a little bit of the evening by eschewing the opportunity to play FIFA all night and walk up through Priory Park to Park Road for a swim.
I arrive at around 6.30 and find that while the pool isn't that busy, there's relatively little of it dedicated to actual swimming. There's a lesson going on in the far lane (and when I say "lesson" I mean kids floating around on big bits of foam - nothing wrong with that, but what are they learning here?) and "free swim" in the nearside half of the pool, meaning more kids. The lane in the middle is very narrow, and suffering from a pretty severe traffic situation.
I join the train of exasperated people shuffling up and down the pool, everyone stopping dead at each end and bunching up, waiting for the best time to set off again. It's not particularly pleasant - and in the end the only thing motivating me to keep on swimming is awkwardness, or rather the fear of awkwardness. That's what I'm swimming away from; the prospect of standing in 3 feet of water with six other people, trying hard not to accidentally touch any of them or make eye contact.
The pool doesn't get any quieter, so eventually I leave in frustration after just half an hour. It's still really nice outside though, so I stop for a drink and a cigarette in the park and watch a middle-aged man wrestling with a bee - at one point even taking his shirt off to fling it at the poor creature.
I get home in time to enjoy some delicious curry with K and have a quick shower, before catching up with some writing and, eventually, allowing myself a little time with the XBox. I also start reading Richard Herring's How Not to Grow Up, which - while Christ knows I don't need to read any more of his output - seems to be a little more interesting and personal than his blog and at any rate keeps me reading for 50 pages in one sitting.
I arrive at around 6.30 and find that while the pool isn't that busy, there's relatively little of it dedicated to actual swimming. There's a lesson going on in the far lane (and when I say "lesson" I mean kids floating around on big bits of foam - nothing wrong with that, but what are they learning here?) and "free swim" in the nearside half of the pool, meaning more kids. The lane in the middle is very narrow, and suffering from a pretty severe traffic situation.
I join the train of exasperated people shuffling up and down the pool, everyone stopping dead at each end and bunching up, waiting for the best time to set off again. It's not particularly pleasant - and in the end the only thing motivating me to keep on swimming is awkwardness, or rather the fear of awkwardness. That's what I'm swimming away from; the prospect of standing in 3 feet of water with six other people, trying hard not to accidentally touch any of them or make eye contact.
The pool doesn't get any quieter, so eventually I leave in frustration after just half an hour. It's still really nice outside though, so I stop for a drink and a cigarette in the park and watch a middle-aged man wrestling with a bee - at one point even taking his shirt off to fling it at the poor creature.
I get home in time to enjoy some delicious curry with K and have a quick shower, before catching up with some writing and, eventually, allowing myself a little time with the XBox. I also start reading Richard Herring's How Not to Grow Up, which - while Christ knows I don't need to read any more of his output - seems to be a little more interesting and personal than his blog and at any rate keeps me reading for 50 pages in one sitting.
Monday 19 July 2010
Sunday
Another early, dehydration-induced start. I feel weak, but K looks in no state to move much further than the sofa and the soothing, fuzzy Sunday morning TV feast of Something for the Weekend - complete with its often-decent guests and completely inept presenters. Louise Redknapp might be the thickest person who's ever been allowed to talk on TV, with the possible exception of her husband. Watching the poor mite try and engage with the very sharp Chris Addison on the topic of moon landing conspiracy theories is excruciating.
When we're both feeling slightly more human, we head down to Sainsbury's in the hot sun, before thankfully getting the bus back with the heavy shopping. Shortly afterwards, Nick arrives once more (he left his bike here yesterday) and Tim pitches up with his exciting birthday present: a brand new stunt kite. The four of us head out, making for Alexandra Palace and the promise of its altitude providing a decent amount of wind. The first spot we settle on is disappointing - maybe one lacklustre gust every couple of minutes. We walk over to the main slope in front of the palace and entertain the various gathered families and sunbathers with another display of ineptitude in the face of an only-slightly-breezy afternoon.
Finally we walk all the way down the hill and find a nice patch of open ground - and a lot of wind. Soon we're all taking it in turns flying and lauching the impressive little kite; and it occurs to me when I've got the thing 20 feet above me that I haven't ever really done this before - at least not properly. I have vague memories of stretching a bin bag over a bamboo frame at primary school and running down the playground with it, but I don't think I've ever actually succeeded at flying one. It's a nice feeling, and while it's a profoundly pointless activity all told, I have lots of fun with it.
Soon it becomes apparent that we've been out in the sun for too long - and K and I walk home past Priory Park with the promise of chilli burritos (my new signature dish) for dinner.
When we're both feeling slightly more human, we head down to Sainsbury's in the hot sun, before thankfully getting the bus back with the heavy shopping. Shortly afterwards, Nick arrives once more (he left his bike here yesterday) and Tim pitches up with his exciting birthday present: a brand new stunt kite. The four of us head out, making for Alexandra Palace and the promise of its altitude providing a decent amount of wind. The first spot we settle on is disappointing - maybe one lacklustre gust every couple of minutes. We walk over to the main slope in front of the palace and entertain the various gathered families and sunbathers with another display of ineptitude in the face of an only-slightly-breezy afternoon.
Finally we walk all the way down the hill and find a nice patch of open ground - and a lot of wind. Soon we're all taking it in turns flying and lauching the impressive little kite; and it occurs to me when I've got the thing 20 feet above me that I haven't ever really done this before - at least not properly. I have vague memories of stretching a bin bag over a bamboo frame at primary school and running down the playground with it, but I don't think I've ever actually succeeded at flying one. It's a nice feeling, and while it's a profoundly pointless activity all told, I have lots of fun with it.
Soon it becomes apparent that we've been out in the sun for too long - and K and I walk home past Priory Park with the promise of chilli burritos (my new signature dish) for dinner.
Saturday
I wake up early, as is often the case when I find myself the wrong side of a few beers these days. It's looking like being a nice day, and after a quick breakfast K and I head into Wood Green to do some early morning shopping before the freaks come out around lunchtime and swarm Shopping City with their unsettling, zombie-like presence. K picks up assorted little sundries in the market hall and Wilkinson's, but we soon end up at Argos to make the main purchase: a new vacuum cleaner. Our previous one died earlier in the week, and as it had been left behind by the previous tenant it was up to us to replace it, rather than the landlord. Having only lived in rented accomodation that provided vacuuming equipment (usually Henry-based, for that studenty, anthropomorphic touch), this was to be the first time I've ever actually owned one.
After finding a decent-looking bargain in the Argos book of treats, we head back home so I can give the floor a much-needed suck. Sadly, I find myself greatly enjoying the new suction power at my disposal - and manage to fill my new best friend's cylinder straight away.
Domestic delights taken care of, Nick comes round and we head out towards South London, where Mike and his girlfriend Sarah are celebrating her birthday at the Lambeth Country Fair in Brockwell Park. Not a regular traveller south of the river, it takes a little while to find the place through a combination of tubes and overground trains - but once there it seems to be a pretty major deal; closely resembling a more West Indian-influenced version of K's dad's country fair, in fact. We climb up the hill to find our friends and settle down near the sheep shearing and the owls to drink a couple of cans of cider and take in the view. Before long, K and I head off in search of the bottles of Chucklehead cider that everyone seems to be clutching, then head up to the 'main arena' to watch a rather impressive jousting show - all choreographed to the stirring tune of the Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves soundtrack.
Later we wander back down the hill and all chip in on some more Chucklehead, before the Fair finishes and we return like homing pigeons to the more comfortable surroundings of North London. We had heard about a new "rock" pub in Tufnell Park called Aces & Eights, so were determined to check it out - even as a possible engagement party venue. It's directly opposite the tube, which is handy, but seems a little short on character. It's possible that this is just because it's only newly opened, but we're not overly impressed and so take a short bus ride to Holloway Road to the more familiar, well-worn aesthetic of the mighty Big Red.
Things get hazy here - especially after Nick (the big idiot) insists on buying a round of sambucas for the assembled party (now down to four of us, including Tim). Soon, K and I are feeling worse for wear and head towards the waiting 29 via the handily-placed bakery. It's been a long time since we've been to Big Red, and it's nice to see the place in full, friendly, Saturday night flow. Even if I have, once again, left it feeling completely sick.
After finding a decent-looking bargain in the Argos book of treats, we head back home so I can give the floor a much-needed suck. Sadly, I find myself greatly enjoying the new suction power at my disposal - and manage to fill my new best friend's cylinder straight away.
Domestic delights taken care of, Nick comes round and we head out towards South London, where Mike and his girlfriend Sarah are celebrating her birthday at the Lambeth Country Fair in Brockwell Park. Not a regular traveller south of the river, it takes a little while to find the place through a combination of tubes and overground trains - but once there it seems to be a pretty major deal; closely resembling a more West Indian-influenced version of K's dad's country fair, in fact. We climb up the hill to find our friends and settle down near the sheep shearing and the owls to drink a couple of cans of cider and take in the view. Before long, K and I head off in search of the bottles of Chucklehead cider that everyone seems to be clutching, then head up to the 'main arena' to watch a rather impressive jousting show - all choreographed to the stirring tune of the Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves soundtrack.
Later we wander back down the hill and all chip in on some more Chucklehead, before the Fair finishes and we return like homing pigeons to the more comfortable surroundings of North London. We had heard about a new "rock" pub in Tufnell Park called Aces & Eights, so were determined to check it out - even as a possible engagement party venue. It's directly opposite the tube, which is handy, but seems a little short on character. It's possible that this is just because it's only newly opened, but we're not overly impressed and so take a short bus ride to Holloway Road to the more familiar, well-worn aesthetic of the mighty Big Red.
Things get hazy here - especially after Nick (the big idiot) insists on buying a round of sambucas for the assembled party (now down to four of us, including Tim). Soon, K and I are feeling worse for wear and head towards the waiting 29 via the handily-placed bakery. It's been a long time since we've been to Big Red, and it's nice to see the place in full, friendly, Saturday night flow. Even if I have, once again, left it feeling completely sick.
Friday
Tonight K and I are off to see Stewart Lee, Richard Herring, Josie Long and Edward Aczel at Bush Hall in Shepherd's Bush. I ordered the tickets back in January, ridiculously, having seen Herring plugging the gig on Twitter and his blog at the time. It only dawned on me shortly afterwards that the gig wasn't for another 6 months, and all four of these comics would no doubt be gigging loads of times in the intervening weeks. Either way - by the time tonight finally rolls round I'm excited about getting the chance to see all of them. Apart from Ed Aczel, that is, who I hadn't heard of before.
After work I get the tube to Shepherd's Bush and meet K, who has taken the overground from work. We wander around the terrible shiny nonsense that is the new Westfield shopping centre with a vague plan to get something to eat, but with less than an hour before the gig is supposed to start, I'm reluctant to get a seat in a restaurant and risk missing the start - so we squabble briefly before just going to the pub instead. Here we meet up with Ellie and Mike, who are coincidentally also going to the gig. After a couple of pints we make our way down to the venue - which isn't what I was expecting at all. The name had put into my head a "proper" theatre, whereas this reminds me more of the school hall in Crouch End where we went to watch the pantomime at Christmas. No problem, of course - just not what I was expecting.
We grab a seat at the back (unlike the unfortunate 20-something guy with his mum on the front row getting ruthlessly humiliated by Richard Herring - who goes to a comedy gig with their mother!) and enjoy Herring MCing before the first act. I thought it last time I saw him, at the Lyric last year, but it's quite weird to see the guy in the flesh having spent much of the last year or so reading his blog and listening to his various podcasts. It's odd to think how much I actually know about his life and what he's been up to. But then that's the interesting thing about his blog project, I suppose.
Ed Aczel is very funny - if a little hard work - in that his act is entirely made up of him quietly analysing "how to do stand up" and charting the gig's success on a flip chart. I find myself concentrating intently, half-unsure as to whether there'll be any conventional material at all. There isn't; which only makes his surreal act funnier.
The first half of Josie Long's act is in character as a sort of chavvy, East London girl who also happens to be an astronaut giving a Q&A talk on her space adventures. It's a fun idea, but I think she's more fun as herself - and the moment when she breaks character is one of the highlights of the evening.
After another interval, Herring introduces his one-time comedy partner Stewart Lee. Lee's another one I've wanted to see for a long time - though I'm never quite sure why. I loved Fist of Fun (though I still can't quite believe I was in primary school when I watched it) and have been aware of him since, and appreciated that he's definitely one of those "comedian's comedians" who is immensely well-respected within his own profession. I suppose I've always just known he's good. However, I didn't really care for Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle when it was on TV - though the stand up bits were occasionally great I thought the sketches were just unnecessary; and K and I often ended up turning over before it was finished.
Tonight though, it really is exciting to see him. He exudes confidence in his material, even when he's doing his thing of stretching a joke on and on and on - something to do with his grandad liking crisps, I think - and when a woman walks out right at the moment of his final punchline he handles it in a very funny and sarcastic way.
When it's all over it's getting pretty late and I am surprised to find myself feeling really drunk - having a pint in each interval has definitely caught up with me. We head back north and resist the temptation to have a greasy, expensive takeaway in favour of a tasty sandwich back home.
After work I get the tube to Shepherd's Bush and meet K, who has taken the overground from work. We wander around the terrible shiny nonsense that is the new Westfield shopping centre with a vague plan to get something to eat, but with less than an hour before the gig is supposed to start, I'm reluctant to get a seat in a restaurant and risk missing the start - so we squabble briefly before just going to the pub instead. Here we meet up with Ellie and Mike, who are coincidentally also going to the gig. After a couple of pints we make our way down to the venue - which isn't what I was expecting at all. The name had put into my head a "proper" theatre, whereas this reminds me more of the school hall in Crouch End where we went to watch the pantomime at Christmas. No problem, of course - just not what I was expecting.
We grab a seat at the back (unlike the unfortunate 20-something guy with his mum on the front row getting ruthlessly humiliated by Richard Herring - who goes to a comedy gig with their mother!) and enjoy Herring MCing before the first act. I thought it last time I saw him, at the Lyric last year, but it's quite weird to see the guy in the flesh having spent much of the last year or so reading his blog and listening to his various podcasts. It's odd to think how much I actually know about his life and what he's been up to. But then that's the interesting thing about his blog project, I suppose.
Ed Aczel is very funny - if a little hard work - in that his act is entirely made up of him quietly analysing "how to do stand up" and charting the gig's success on a flip chart. I find myself concentrating intently, half-unsure as to whether there'll be any conventional material at all. There isn't; which only makes his surreal act funnier.
The first half of Josie Long's act is in character as a sort of chavvy, East London girl who also happens to be an astronaut giving a Q&A talk on her space adventures. It's a fun idea, but I think she's more fun as herself - and the moment when she breaks character is one of the highlights of the evening.
After another interval, Herring introduces his one-time comedy partner Stewart Lee. Lee's another one I've wanted to see for a long time - though I'm never quite sure why. I loved Fist of Fun (though I still can't quite believe I was in primary school when I watched it) and have been aware of him since, and appreciated that he's definitely one of those "comedian's comedians" who is immensely well-respected within his own profession. I suppose I've always just known he's good. However, I didn't really care for Stewart Lee's Comedy Vehicle when it was on TV - though the stand up bits were occasionally great I thought the sketches were just unnecessary; and K and I often ended up turning over before it was finished.
Tonight though, it really is exciting to see him. He exudes confidence in his material, even when he's doing his thing of stretching a joke on and on and on - something to do with his grandad liking crisps, I think - and when a woman walks out right at the moment of his final punchline he handles it in a very funny and sarcastic way.
When it's all over it's getting pretty late and I am surprised to find myself feeling really drunk - having a pint in each interval has definitely caught up with me. We head back north and resist the temptation to have a greasy, expensive takeaway in favour of a tasty sandwich back home.
Friday 16 July 2010
Thursday
Tonight, after enjoying possibly the hottest Thai red curry mankind has ever dared to unleash on the world courtesy of K and her curry-paste-alchemist sister, we sit down to watch Rounders. At least, I sit down to watch Rounders - K is far more entertained by her new phone, which is like a baby version of my new phone. The fact that it happily does Facebook and Twitter is enough to ensure only cursory attention on the 1998 Matt Damon movie. But no matter - it was my choice of film anyhow.
Rounders is an odd one. Despite its relatively heavyweight cast (for 1998) of Damon, Edward Norton, John Malkovich, John Turturro and Famke Janssen of GoldenEye fame, it's a film that relatively few people I know have even heard of, let alone seen. I think I managed to see it in around 2001 via my new college friend Joe, who had spoken highly of it and mentioned that it was on Sky Movies at least once a week. He wasn't wrong - on either count, actually - as it turns out to be a really fun movie.
It focuses on two hardcore poker players - one, Damon, who puts himself through law school by hustling Texas Hold'em games before losing it all on one hand with Teddy KGB (Malkovich with a brilliantly silly Russian accent and an Oreo fixation) and the other, Norton, who is a highly-skilled cheat prone to getting the shit kicked out of him. One review on Wikipedia suggests that it's a pretty standard 'sports movie', with the story helping the characters from poker table to poker table. It's not a bad assessment, but the real joy in the film is the insight into the (possibly fictional) high stakes underworld of gangland poker clubs - tackily-dressed Russian mafia guys in 36-hour sessions over cigarettes and vodka is quite an appealing, noir-ish image.
I'm no poker player - in fact I'd go as far as to say I actively avoid card games; I can never remember the rules (is three of a kind better than two pair? What's the difference between a flush and a full-house?) and have never been a fan of gambling in any form, nor bluffing or any of that agressive, deceptive game playing. More of a Scrabble man. But I do enjoy the way the film treats the game's jargon, its high-tension moments and the swings from glory to crushing despair.
It's just weird that Rounders has had what Wiki always calls a 'mixed reception'. I can't see much to hate about it, but maybe it was just released at the wrong time. Poker certainly seems to be more popular now than it was ten years ago, what with all the online jiggery-pokery (it's not called that, but should be) and I don't seem to remember seeing it on TV in this country a few years ago either.
Anyway - that's my review of a 12-year-old film that I've seen several times and no one else seems particularly bothered about. Maybe I should do one of these every week?!
Rounders is an odd one. Despite its relatively heavyweight cast (for 1998) of Damon, Edward Norton, John Malkovich, John Turturro and Famke Janssen of GoldenEye fame, it's a film that relatively few people I know have even heard of, let alone seen. I think I managed to see it in around 2001 via my new college friend Joe, who had spoken highly of it and mentioned that it was on Sky Movies at least once a week. He wasn't wrong - on either count, actually - as it turns out to be a really fun movie.
It focuses on two hardcore poker players - one, Damon, who puts himself through law school by hustling Texas Hold'em games before losing it all on one hand with Teddy KGB (Malkovich with a brilliantly silly Russian accent and an Oreo fixation) and the other, Norton, who is a highly-skilled cheat prone to getting the shit kicked out of him. One review on Wikipedia suggests that it's a pretty standard 'sports movie', with the story helping the characters from poker table to poker table. It's not a bad assessment, but the real joy in the film is the insight into the (possibly fictional) high stakes underworld of gangland poker clubs - tackily-dressed Russian mafia guys in 36-hour sessions over cigarettes and vodka is quite an appealing, noir-ish image.
I'm no poker player - in fact I'd go as far as to say I actively avoid card games; I can never remember the rules (is three of a kind better than two pair? What's the difference between a flush and a full-house?) and have never been a fan of gambling in any form, nor bluffing or any of that agressive, deceptive game playing. More of a Scrabble man. But I do enjoy the way the film treats the game's jargon, its high-tension moments and the swings from glory to crushing despair.
It's just weird that Rounders has had what Wiki always calls a 'mixed reception'. I can't see much to hate about it, but maybe it was just released at the wrong time. Poker certainly seems to be more popular now than it was ten years ago, what with all the online jiggery-pokery (it's not called that, but should be) and I don't seem to remember seeing it on TV in this country a few years ago either.
Anyway - that's my review of a 12-year-old film that I've seen several times and no one else seems particularly bothered about. Maybe I should do one of these every week?!
Thursday 15 July 2010
Wednesday
Any sort of plan I had for today, work wise, is scuppered by the catalogue I find on my desk when I arrive this morning. It's a catalogue, presumably aimed at amateur and professional mechanics, exclusively advertising books advising the reader on how to rebuild small-block Chevy engines, set up the suspension on their stock car, evaluate the performance of their 1983-1996 Porsche 911 - and, of course, the seminal work, 'Fastening and Plumbing'. It seems we're taking on this collection of handbooks for American cars and engines - so my job today is to look through all 40+ of them and get them enrolled on our system. I'm only really looking at the titles and the authors - but I swear I'd be much more confident when presented with a faulty Mustang engine by the end of the day than I was yesterday.
I get home, completely weary of the intricacies of classic American engineering, and get myself some dinner as K is at another gig. I then spend the next four hours or so catching up with this blog - on which I have been behind by at least a week since going to Berlin. Using the hastily scrawled notes I've found time for over the last 2 weeks, I write 9 days' worth of entries - which leaves me incredibly tired and thoroughly sick of the minutiae of my own life.
I am pleased I've kept this blog up though - with an entry for 123 consecutive days as of this one - as it has meant I've been writing, if only self-indulgent accounts of my life from day to day. And I think I can continue to keep it up, as long as I don't stop for a few days again and force myself into a belated, marathon session of typing.
As a reward for covering a week and a half of my life online, I allow myself to carry on with my XBox World Cup qualifying campaign, in which I am valiantly attempting to take a woeful Scotland side to South Africa. After a defeat to Macedonia and disappointing draws with Iceland and Norway, it's not looking good; or at least it wasn't until a historic 1-0 win over Argentina in a friendly at Hampden Park. Friendly or not, it's a result which, upsettingly for some to consider, has me dancing round the living room like I was Siphiwe Tshabalala.
I get home, completely weary of the intricacies of classic American engineering, and get myself some dinner as K is at another gig. I then spend the next four hours or so catching up with this blog - on which I have been behind by at least a week since going to Berlin. Using the hastily scrawled notes I've found time for over the last 2 weeks, I write 9 days' worth of entries - which leaves me incredibly tired and thoroughly sick of the minutiae of my own life.
I am pleased I've kept this blog up though - with an entry for 123 consecutive days as of this one - as it has meant I've been writing, if only self-indulgent accounts of my life from day to day. And I think I can continue to keep it up, as long as I don't stop for a few days again and force myself into a belated, marathon session of typing.
As a reward for covering a week and a half of my life online, I allow myself to carry on with my XBox World Cup qualifying campaign, in which I am valiantly attempting to take a woeful Scotland side to South Africa. After a defeat to Macedonia and disappointing draws with Iceland and Norway, it's not looking good; or at least it wasn't until a historic 1-0 win over Argentina in a friendly at Hampden Park. Friendly or not, it's a result which, upsettingly for some to consider, has me dancing round the living room like I was Siphiwe Tshabalala.
Wednesday 14 July 2010
Tuesday
As part of my latest vague attempt to attain a slightly better level of fitness, I have resolved to start swimming again regularly - something I tried for a while during my ill-fated gym membership days towards the end of last year - but gave up after getting frustrated with the pool being so busy after work and the long, cold trudge from work, to the pool and home again. K, however, still goes once a week and so, since she's not going to the women's only session this week, we arrange to meet at Park Road Leisure Centre at 7.30.
I head home first and grab a quick snack before walking up to the Centre. K is a little late due to the general rubbishness of the tubes, but eventually we are inside just as the lane swimming session is starting. I have a little trouble with lane swimming - mostly due to the fact that I'm not the strongest swimmer and the fact that, being terribly unfit, I can't keep up the whole 'getting to the end and turning round and setting off again straight away' thing. I definitely need to get my breath back after every couple of laps - especially at the moment when I'm so out of practice.
Nevertheless, I join the weak and elderly traffic in the slow lane and potter up and down for 45 minutes, while K streaks back and forth as if merely to taunt me. By 8.30 we're both pretty much done and ready to head home - so we get dried and changed and head back down the road. I feel knackered (and slightly concerned that my swimming technique is so poor that I've just buggered my neck) but pretty good for having worked out a bit. Mostly though, I'm hungry - so when we get back in time for the new series of Shooting Stars and That Mitchell and Webb Look and I'm tucking into some top-notch fish fingers, all seems well with the world.
I head home first and grab a quick snack before walking up to the Centre. K is a little late due to the general rubbishness of the tubes, but eventually we are inside just as the lane swimming session is starting. I have a little trouble with lane swimming - mostly due to the fact that I'm not the strongest swimmer and the fact that, being terribly unfit, I can't keep up the whole 'getting to the end and turning round and setting off again straight away' thing. I definitely need to get my breath back after every couple of laps - especially at the moment when I'm so out of practice.
Nevertheless, I join the weak and elderly traffic in the slow lane and potter up and down for 45 minutes, while K streaks back and forth as if merely to taunt me. By 8.30 we're both pretty much done and ready to head home - so we get dried and changed and head back down the road. I feel knackered (and slightly concerned that my swimming technique is so poor that I've just buggered my neck) but pretty good for having worked out a bit. Mostly though, I'm hungry - so when we get back in time for the new series of Shooting Stars and That Mitchell and Webb Look and I'm tucking into some top-notch fish fingers, all seems well with the world.
Monday
This ludicrous weather thing seems to have had a word with itself and in a funny way it's actually nice to walk to work in shorts and t-shirt when it's barely 17 degrees and spitting with rain. We have a quick meeting this morning to discuss what's on the agenda for the week and it dawns on me that I still have rather a lot to - a lot that was delayed by last week's slightly bigger thing. Again, though, it's nice to have a good chunk of stuff to get stuck into and, eventually, cross off the unwieldy to do list.
After work there is a leaving do for one of our sales reps, so a fairly large group of us meet in the Shisha garden at the Duke of Edinburgh for the best kind of beers: those bought out of petty cash. Various falafel and hummus type foodages are brought out of the kitchen and Susie and I chatter mostly about weddings - since hers is a few months before ours, all being well - and our various, divergent plans. I also discover that she met Britain's strongest man, Terry Hollands, at a hippy tea party at the weekend. This is terrific news - to know that I am only two handshakes away from one that could probably crush me.
I make my excuses pretty early, as I had arranged to meet Alex at the Salisbury on Green Lanes to have a crack at their pub quiz. The Salisbury is notable for being the first pub I went to having moved to London back in 2008 - it being local to the house I stayed in briefly. I haven't really been back there since moving out later in 2008, so drinking there and smoking on the step outside the front of the pub brings back lots of strange memories. My life is certainly very different than it was the first time I stood there - despite having the same job and basically living in the same area again.
The quiz, as they often do, starts out easy and gets ridiculously hard. I am most pleased with guessing that 'an unpleasantness' is the collective noun for a group of ravens in the collective nouns round - but less pleased that I didn't know that 'a skulk' refers to a group of foxes. We get a couple of decent answers and feel mostly pleased with ourselves - but end up finishing around fifth in both parts of the quiz, out of a room of 16-or-so teams. You can't win them all, it seems.
We walk home up Green Lanes and, funnily enough, bump into K as she returns from the gig she's been at. Alex says goodnight and K and I head home for a very late bite to eat before bed.
After work there is a leaving do for one of our sales reps, so a fairly large group of us meet in the Shisha garden at the Duke of Edinburgh for the best kind of beers: those bought out of petty cash. Various falafel and hummus type foodages are brought out of the kitchen and Susie and I chatter mostly about weddings - since hers is a few months before ours, all being well - and our various, divergent plans. I also discover that she met Britain's strongest man, Terry Hollands, at a hippy tea party at the weekend. This is terrific news - to know that I am only two handshakes away from one that could probably crush me.
I make my excuses pretty early, as I had arranged to meet Alex at the Salisbury on Green Lanes to have a crack at their pub quiz. The Salisbury is notable for being the first pub I went to having moved to London back in 2008 - it being local to the house I stayed in briefly. I haven't really been back there since moving out later in 2008, so drinking there and smoking on the step outside the front of the pub brings back lots of strange memories. My life is certainly very different than it was the first time I stood there - despite having the same job and basically living in the same area again.
The quiz, as they often do, starts out easy and gets ridiculously hard. I am most pleased with guessing that 'an unpleasantness' is the collective noun for a group of ravens in the collective nouns round - but less pleased that I didn't know that 'a skulk' refers to a group of foxes. We get a couple of decent answers and feel mostly pleased with ourselves - but end up finishing around fifth in both parts of the quiz, out of a room of 16-or-so teams. You can't win them all, it seems.
We walk home up Green Lanes and, funnily enough, bump into K as she returns from the gig she's been at. Alex says goodnight and K and I head home for a very late bite to eat before bed.
Sunday
I wake up really early, and sit in front of the computer for a while catching up on the blog while everyone else sleeps on. At around 10, consciousness finally returns to the entire flat and K's sister heads to the shop to get bacon and bread to make a necessary breakfast. We watch Tim Lovejoy make an arse of himself trying to keep up with the always-brilliant wit of Vic and Bob on Something for the Weekend before K and I reluctantly make our usual trip down the Passage to Sainsbury's.
It's hot, but the cool of the supermarket air con is welcoming despite the place being full of terrible inconsiderate bastards also doing their shopping. Afterwards we consider lugging our cargo on the bus as we normally would, but the traffic situation is not encouraging and we trudge back up the Passage again. We get back to the house just in time for me to join the British Grand Prix at around the mid-point, by which time any intrigue there might have been (Vettel off at turn one! Drops ten places!) is long gone and Mark Webber strolls to a decent victory at Silverstone. As much as I want to be excited by Formula One, the old rule still applies: the only bits you need to watch are the first five laps and the last two. The rest is usually predictable.
One thing I am excited about, however, is the World Cup Final. I pass the time until it starts in the usual pottering kind of way, and by having a nice walk through Priory Park and Crouch End before K's sisters have to leave. The game is all set up to be a bit of a classic - and I'm in the happy position of being content to see either team win (though there is a sense that it'd better if Holland lifted the trophy, being the 'underdogs' and all). However, a classic on paper rarely materialises - especially when it's a cup final.
The match turns out to be a pig ugly, cynical affair - which, while intriguing, is hardly an advert for the 'beautiful game'. The Netherlands have clearly set out to stop Spain playing, and attempt to accomplish this by kicking their players as hard as they can, as often as they can. In Nigel De Jong's case, the kick is straight to the chest of Xabi Alonso - and he's incredibly lucky to stay on the field. English referee Howard Webb hands out 14 yellow cards during the game, including one red after Johnny Heitinga picked up a second booking. Webb has a good game, all told - struggling to control a game that seemingly wanted to end up 7 vs 7 and basically end up as an affront to the very idea of beautiful football. Van Bommel, in particular, is a disgrace.
The game stays goalless for 90 minutes, and so becomes the second World Cup Final in a row to head to extra time - during which Andres Iniesta (yes, that little heartbreaking bastard) smashes home a half-volley to make it 1-0 to Spain in the World Cup for the fourth match in a row.
The final whistle goes amidst predictable Dutch indignation - but Spain truly deserve this one, not just for being the best team at the tournment (it's a close one between them and Germany) but because Holland have been so cynical and ugly in their attempt to win it today. It's amazing watching the Spanish fans and players celebrate, and the predictable scenes of ecstatic mayhem broadcast from the streets of Madrid.
The BBC (no one watched this on ITV, did they?) end with a rather nice District 9-themed end-of-tournament montage - and it's all over. For another four years. And football's all over, for over a month. It's cruel, really.
It's hot, but the cool of the supermarket air con is welcoming despite the place being full of terrible inconsiderate bastards also doing their shopping. Afterwards we consider lugging our cargo on the bus as we normally would, but the traffic situation is not encouraging and we trudge back up the Passage again. We get back to the house just in time for me to join the British Grand Prix at around the mid-point, by which time any intrigue there might have been (Vettel off at turn one! Drops ten places!) is long gone and Mark Webber strolls to a decent victory at Silverstone. As much as I want to be excited by Formula One, the old rule still applies: the only bits you need to watch are the first five laps and the last two. The rest is usually predictable.
One thing I am excited about, however, is the World Cup Final. I pass the time until it starts in the usual pottering kind of way, and by having a nice walk through Priory Park and Crouch End before K's sisters have to leave. The game is all set up to be a bit of a classic - and I'm in the happy position of being content to see either team win (though there is a sense that it'd better if Holland lifted the trophy, being the 'underdogs' and all). However, a classic on paper rarely materialises - especially when it's a cup final.
The match turns out to be a pig ugly, cynical affair - which, while intriguing, is hardly an advert for the 'beautiful game'. The Netherlands have clearly set out to stop Spain playing, and attempt to accomplish this by kicking their players as hard as they can, as often as they can. In Nigel De Jong's case, the kick is straight to the chest of Xabi Alonso - and he's incredibly lucky to stay on the field. English referee Howard Webb hands out 14 yellow cards during the game, including one red after Johnny Heitinga picked up a second booking. Webb has a good game, all told - struggling to control a game that seemingly wanted to end up 7 vs 7 and basically end up as an affront to the very idea of beautiful football. Van Bommel, in particular, is a disgrace.
The game stays goalless for 90 minutes, and so becomes the second World Cup Final in a row to head to extra time - during which Andres Iniesta (yes, that little heartbreaking bastard) smashes home a half-volley to make it 1-0 to Spain in the World Cup for the fourth match in a row.
The final whistle goes amidst predictable Dutch indignation - but Spain truly deserve this one, not just for being the best team at the tournment (it's a close one between them and Germany) but because Holland have been so cynical and ugly in their attempt to win it today. It's amazing watching the Spanish fans and players celebrate, and the predictable scenes of ecstatic mayhem broadcast from the streets of Madrid.
The BBC (no one watched this on ITV, did they?) end with a rather nice District 9-themed end-of-tournament montage - and it's all over. For another four years. And football's all over, for over a month. It's cruel, really.
Saturday
Today is the day I have to finally cut the cord - by killing my iPhone and sending it off to be recycled. It's been by my side for a long time now and not a day has gone by that I haven't used it and been thankful that I have it. The maps app has got me out of a lot of sticky situations; I've checked Facebook and Twitter on it god knows how many times; games like Doodle Jump, Paper Toss, Peggle, Vector Runner and - most recently - my beloved Angry Birds have made tube and bus journeys fly by. But now I'm plugging it into iTunes and hitting 'restore factory settings'. Not even a whimper, and it's dead.
I pop my deceased friend into the jiffy bag provided by O2 and walk up towards the post office in Wood Green. K has gone out with her sister to visit some sort of craft fair in Bethnal Green, leaving me free to spend the morning pottering. The queue in the post office though, is massive - so I give up on the idea of sending my phone off by recorded delivery and just dump in the post box instead, trusting the surprisingly-large-amount-of-money I've been promised for it to the regular mails.
I wander back home through Wood Green's many lovely shops and attractions, to meet K and her - now two - sisters back at home. We begin preparing to head over to Crouch End for Tim's birthday BBQ by having a quick shandy and liberally applying suncream. The walk is a hot one, and by the time we get to the house all I want to do is sit in the shade and drink beer all day. Luckily, no one is planning to stop me from doing this.
Rich and Susie, our housemates from last year, are there - and it's nice to see them after so long to catch up. The whole group of us also manage to get a little drunk and overenthusiastic about making mine and K's wedding into a Back to the Future-themed event, with Mike acting as a Marty McFly-style vicar and involving, of course, a Delorean wedding car. It's been my dream, literally since I was five years old, to one day own or even drive a Delorean. Could this be my only chance? I can't see K going for it in the cold light of day, to be honest.
I pop my deceased friend into the jiffy bag provided by O2 and walk up towards the post office in Wood Green. K has gone out with her sister to visit some sort of craft fair in Bethnal Green, leaving me free to spend the morning pottering. The queue in the post office though, is massive - so I give up on the idea of sending my phone off by recorded delivery and just dump in the post box instead, trusting the surprisingly-large-amount-of-money I've been promised for it to the regular mails.
I wander back home through Wood Green's many lovely shops and attractions, to meet K and her - now two - sisters back at home. We begin preparing to head over to Crouch End for Tim's birthday BBQ by having a quick shandy and liberally applying suncream. The walk is a hot one, and by the time we get to the house all I want to do is sit in the shade and drink beer all day. Luckily, no one is planning to stop me from doing this.
Rich and Susie, our housemates from last year, are there - and it's nice to see them after so long to catch up. The whole group of us also manage to get a little drunk and overenthusiastic about making mine and K's wedding into a Back to the Future-themed event, with Mike acting as a Marty McFly-style vicar and involving, of course, a Delorean wedding car. It's been my dream, literally since I was five years old, to one day own or even drive a Delorean. Could this be my only chance? I can't see K going for it in the cold light of day, to be honest.
Friday
A while ago, K's sister bought tickets to Vinopolis - a fun-sounding wine tasting place near London Bridge. You're given vouchers to try a number of different wines and spirits from around the world, as well as a short introduction to how properly to taste wine. It's pretty much tailor made for a semi-classy outing catering to Hen dos and the like - as indeed it was for Ellie's hen do, which K arranged back in April. Then, however, as well as back when her sister bought tickets, K found herself too hungover on the day in question to be able to face drinking wine and spirits in an organised fashion - hence the tickets are left over for tonight.
I meet K at London Bridge tube at 7.30 and we walk through Borough Market towards Vinopolis. We queue for a while amidst the gathering, dressed-up 'rah' types; the kind, unlike me, you would expect to see around a wine bar. I feel happily, obviously under-dressed for the occassion, as is normal, and manage to please myself by failing to fit in at all.
After a while we're called through to a small amphitheatre which is packed with lots of people each clutching a glass of white wine. A young woman talks us through the various techniques to judging wine - looking at the colour from 45 degrees, detecting smells (something I've never really believed in; oh, so it smells like freshly cut grass, cinnamon and peanuts to you does it? Funny, because there were only grapes in the bloody barrel) and sucking air in through your lips to open up the flavour. This is all fine, and I would certainly like to be able to appreciate really good wine using these techniques. The only problem here is that the white wine they've given us tastes like your standard cornershop piss - and sucking air through it just seems...sarcastic.
Never mind - after the short talk we are let loose in a series of chambers built into the railway arches. Each chamber has a table of wines corresponding to a different part of the world - unsurprisingly the most prominent at the moment is the South African one - and you hand over one ticket to try one wine. My experience is hit and miss - no one's fault but my own, obviously - and manage to have about two decent ones (I think one was Californian) and three that were pretty nasty. I also try a 15-year old Glenlivett single malt whisky which is pretty serious stuff.
After an hour or so we leave, feeling a little unusual for having drunk such a strange mixture of drinks in a short time, and walk up through St. Pauls towards Holborn on our way home for dinner. We get back and cook a tasty fresh pizza and crack open a couple more drinks, while waiting for K's twin - who is up for the weekend - to arrive.
I meet K at London Bridge tube at 7.30 and we walk through Borough Market towards Vinopolis. We queue for a while amidst the gathering, dressed-up 'rah' types; the kind, unlike me, you would expect to see around a wine bar. I feel happily, obviously under-dressed for the occassion, as is normal, and manage to please myself by failing to fit in at all.
After a while we're called through to a small amphitheatre which is packed with lots of people each clutching a glass of white wine. A young woman talks us through the various techniques to judging wine - looking at the colour from 45 degrees, detecting smells (something I've never really believed in; oh, so it smells like freshly cut grass, cinnamon and peanuts to you does it? Funny, because there were only grapes in the bloody barrel) and sucking air in through your lips to open up the flavour. This is all fine, and I would certainly like to be able to appreciate really good wine using these techniques. The only problem here is that the white wine they've given us tastes like your standard cornershop piss - and sucking air through it just seems...sarcastic.
Never mind - after the short talk we are let loose in a series of chambers built into the railway arches. Each chamber has a table of wines corresponding to a different part of the world - unsurprisingly the most prominent at the moment is the South African one - and you hand over one ticket to try one wine. My experience is hit and miss - no one's fault but my own, obviously - and manage to have about two decent ones (I think one was Californian) and three that were pretty nasty. I also try a 15-year old Glenlivett single malt whisky which is pretty serious stuff.
After an hour or so we leave, feeling a little unusual for having drunk such a strange mixture of drinks in a short time, and walk up through St. Pauls towards Holborn on our way home for dinner. We get back and cook a tasty fresh pizza and crack open a couple more drinks, while waiting for K's twin - who is up for the weekend - to arrive.
Thursday
Tonight is the launch of the Moomins Cookbook - a Finnish cartoon-inspired recipe book published by one of our clients - at the Books for Cooks bookshop in Notting Hill. The day's been overcast and reasonably cool up until it's just about time to leave work, but around 5 the cloud clears and the sun shows it's spiteful face - causing the temperature to seemingly jump by about ten degrees. I head home to grab a quick bite and head back to the tube. Crossing London from North to West at rush hour is a headache at the best of times, but this evening I find myself on the Central Line at 6pm absolutely pouring sweat and grinding my teeth. The packed tube seems to grind its way through a fug of underground heat the short distance to Notting Hill Gate, and by the time I emerge into the still oppressive heat of West London's swankiest little market district, I'm in no mood to stand in a tiny bookshop sipping red wine.
I walk down Portobello Road listening to DOOM (not the subtlest music to chill oneself out to) and arrive at the shop before most other people I know. I squeeze in, past the person in the giant Moomin costume - and Christ, how hot must he have been! - and grab a refreshing bottle of Lapland beer from the publisher, with whom I say a nice hello. It's too much to stand in the shop for long, though, and after mopping my brow with a Moomin-branded napkin I take refuge outside. A few others from work show up and we have fun chatting about the book and eating some sample Finnish delicacies. Most of them involve fish, of which I'm not much of a fan, but I partake of the strange cheese-on-toast-with-nuts thing and sup a couple more Nordic lagers.
After a few fun photo ops with the Moomin and watching the passing Notting Hill-types come up to say hello too, Georgie, Jess and I make our excuses and nip for a quick pint around the corner. As I mentioned last week, we don't get a lot of time to do this - so it's good to sit down outside of the office and chat about things other than work. Both of them are cycling back to East London, so I let them get away after a drink and trek back up to Notting Hill Gate tube. I'm acutely aware of my sweaty, dishevelled state by this point, and look forward to getting home and maybe even changing my t-shirt.
When I get home, K is in the living room drinking wine with Faye - so I grab a leftover beer out of the fridge and join them for a natter, continuing to swelter all the while. I love the summer, but this heat is just no fun in the concrete and tunnel-based heat retention system that is London.
I walk down Portobello Road listening to DOOM (not the subtlest music to chill oneself out to) and arrive at the shop before most other people I know. I squeeze in, past the person in the giant Moomin costume - and Christ, how hot must he have been! - and grab a refreshing bottle of Lapland beer from the publisher, with whom I say a nice hello. It's too much to stand in the shop for long, though, and after mopping my brow with a Moomin-branded napkin I take refuge outside. A few others from work show up and we have fun chatting about the book and eating some sample Finnish delicacies. Most of them involve fish, of which I'm not much of a fan, but I partake of the strange cheese-on-toast-with-nuts thing and sup a couple more Nordic lagers.
After a few fun photo ops with the Moomin and watching the passing Notting Hill-types come up to say hello too, Georgie, Jess and I make our excuses and nip for a quick pint around the corner. As I mentioned last week, we don't get a lot of time to do this - so it's good to sit down outside of the office and chat about things other than work. Both of them are cycling back to East London, so I let them get away after a drink and trek back up to Notting Hill Gate tube. I'm acutely aware of my sweaty, dishevelled state by this point, and look forward to getting home and maybe even changing my t-shirt.
When I get home, K is in the living room drinking wine with Faye - so I grab a leftover beer out of the fridge and join them for a natter, continuing to swelter all the while. I love the summer, but this heat is just no fun in the concrete and tunnel-based heat retention system that is London.
Wednesday
Tonight K feels the full force of just how boring I can be when not only is there a World Cup Semi Final on TV, but when I also have a new toy to play with. After work I fanny around with DoubleTwist - which is a Mac OS way of getting music and videos and the like onto an Android phone (something Mac OS really, really doesn't want to let you do, it seems) - which works, but is incredibly slow at importing my playlists, podcasts and bits of music from iTunes. I suppose this is the price I pay for trying to escape Apple, while remaining a faithful OSX user. I'd still rather struggle through with this than use Windows though, for sure. I get enough of that at work.
When K gets home and cracks on with with some really rather delicious-smelling sausage and mash for dinner, I move to the other room to watch the beginning of Spain v Germany. This is the game that really should have been the final, had that been possible. Spain are, without doubt, the best collection of players at the tournament and probably the only team that can boast world class footballers right through the squad. Germany, though, have probably played the best football of any team in South Africa, and without any real pre-tournament star players to speak of.
The game begins much as both of these teams have played in their previous five games; Germany using the pace of their youthful team to try and exploit weaknesses in Spain's careful passing play. As with a lot of matches this year though, this one really fails to ignite - and it falls to Carles Puyol to score a header from a set-piece (of all things) to settle the game 1-0. Spain are through to the final and will meet Holland, meaning a number of things. It means that there will be a new name on the trophy, with neither of these big European sides having won it before. It also means that, for the first time, a European team will win the World Cup outside of Europe. And finally - and most inexplicably - it will be the first time Spain and Holland have ever met in a World Cup Finals or a European Championship! How on Earth has that happened!?
When K gets home and cracks on with with some really rather delicious-smelling sausage and mash for dinner, I move to the other room to watch the beginning of Spain v Germany. This is the game that really should have been the final, had that been possible. Spain are, without doubt, the best collection of players at the tournament and probably the only team that can boast world class footballers right through the squad. Germany, though, have probably played the best football of any team in South Africa, and without any real pre-tournament star players to speak of.
The game begins much as both of these teams have played in their previous five games; Germany using the pace of their youthful team to try and exploit weaknesses in Spain's careful passing play. As with a lot of matches this year though, this one really fails to ignite - and it falls to Carles Puyol to score a header from a set-piece (of all things) to settle the game 1-0. Spain are through to the final and will meet Holland, meaning a number of things. It means that there will be a new name on the trophy, with neither of these big European sides having won it before. It also means that, for the first time, a European team will win the World Cup outside of Europe. And finally - and most inexplicably - it will be the first time Spain and Holland have ever met in a World Cup Finals or a European Championship! How on Earth has that happened!?
Tuesday
My giddy anticipation of my new electrical toy-gizmo has not abated overnight, obviously - and I get to work having received an email more or less confirming that the courier would be arriving to present me with my new smartphone at some point today. Getting things delivered to work is always fun - and means that Dan, the guy who passes out the post, must notice the expectant glances he gets as he walks around the office like a slightly sad Santa.
The hours of the day tick by and I crack on with my order form project-y thing, while discussing various tedious spreadsheet-uploading techniques with Jess - but also periodically checking the DHL parcel tracking website like some sort of drug-starved maniac expecting a shipment of heroin. The site says that the parcel reached the Enfield depot at 2am, and left with a delivery driver at 7am. The parcel is now 'out for delivery'. I'm frightening myself with how excited and impatient I am. It's just a phone, for fuck's sake! But it's a new toy!
At around 2.30, the door buzzer goes and I hear Dan come in with my signed-for handset. Brilliant! I immediately, and recklessly, begin ignoring work while I stick the battery and my SIM card in so that I can charge the phone ready to play with when I get home. Don't want to get it home and then sit staring at it charge for three hours do I?! Needless to say everyone in the office looks at me sadly, as if I must have the mind of an infant.
I get home (finally!) and grab some dinner. Luckily for K she's out swimming this evening so I'm able to geek out on my own, downloading music to the memory card, arranging my apps and widgets and (painstakingly) adding my contacts to the new phone. In the background I half-watch Holland knock Uruguay out of the World Cup - notable mostly for Van Bronckhorst's stunning strike after 18 minutes that meant things were always going the way of the Dutch. The score ends 3-2, with a vague hint that 3-3 might have been possible when the ref lets play go on for a full five minutes beyond the ninety - and Holland are deservedly in the final.
The hours of the day tick by and I crack on with my order form project-y thing, while discussing various tedious spreadsheet-uploading techniques with Jess - but also periodically checking the DHL parcel tracking website like some sort of drug-starved maniac expecting a shipment of heroin. The site says that the parcel reached the Enfield depot at 2am, and left with a delivery driver at 7am. The parcel is now 'out for delivery'. I'm frightening myself with how excited and impatient I am. It's just a phone, for fuck's sake! But it's a new toy!
At around 2.30, the door buzzer goes and I hear Dan come in with my signed-for handset. Brilliant! I immediately, and recklessly, begin ignoring work while I stick the battery and my SIM card in so that I can charge the phone ready to play with when I get home. Don't want to get it home and then sit staring at it charge for three hours do I?! Needless to say everyone in the office looks at me sadly, as if I must have the mind of an infant.
I get home (finally!) and grab some dinner. Luckily for K she's out swimming this evening so I'm able to geek out on my own, downloading music to the memory card, arranging my apps and widgets and (painstakingly) adding my contacts to the new phone. In the background I half-watch Holland knock Uruguay out of the World Cup - notable mostly for Van Bronckhorst's stunning strike after 18 minutes that meant things were always going the way of the Dutch. The score ends 3-2, with a vague hint that 3-3 might have been possible when the ref lets play go on for a full five minutes beyond the ninety - and Holland are deservedly in the final.
Monday
Back at work, I discover an enormous mountain of Brand New Stuff to do. A new client of ours will require their own special brand of attention (plus their own 200-title order form) and I have been chosen to provide said attention. Lucky me, eh? It is, however, nice to have a bit of a project to work on rather than picking at bits and pieces that are part of the usual cycle or are reluctant to ever really get done.
For most of the day though, I find myself excited about my new phone being delivered. I know it's unlikely to arrive today - having only ordered it last night - but O2 have gone and given me the DHL tracking number, which I am compulsively sticking into their tracking website, to see just how close the new toy I hadn't even thought about buying 24 hours ago is to being in my sweaty palms.
It is at times like this I am reminded of what a tech nerd I can be when I want to be - and how overexcited the prospect of new toys can make me. I read the 9-page HTC Desire review on Techcrunch, just to make sure that I know everything I need to know when it comes. I look up the best Android apps to download to replace my beloved iPhone ones (and hopefully avoiding rebuying the same apps again). Yes, it's all very exciting - though I'm just a little unsure that I've done the right thing, particularly when my iPhone-worshipping little brother calls me a "disgrace" on the phone, and when I learn that Angry Birds isn't available on Android yet.
For most of the day though, I find myself excited about my new phone being delivered. I know it's unlikely to arrive today - having only ordered it last night - but O2 have gone and given me the DHL tracking number, which I am compulsively sticking into their tracking website, to see just how close the new toy I hadn't even thought about buying 24 hours ago is to being in my sweaty palms.
It is at times like this I am reminded of what a tech nerd I can be when I want to be - and how overexcited the prospect of new toys can make me. I read the 9-page HTC Desire review on Techcrunch, just to make sure that I know everything I need to know when it comes. I look up the best Android apps to download to replace my beloved iPhone ones (and hopefully avoiding rebuying the same apps again). Yes, it's all very exciting - though I'm just a little unsure that I've done the right thing, particularly when my iPhone-worshipping little brother calls me a "disgrace" on the phone, and when I learn that Angry Birds isn't available on Android yet.
Sunday
I wake up with a truly colossal hangover. It's no doubt a mixture of the heat, the questionable overall quality of the lager at the Hope and Anchor and the fact that I'm a bit of an idiot - either way I feel dreadful. I manage to drag myself out of bed and over to the computer as I'd planned to have a super-futuristic video chat with Andy on Skype at 10.30am (so that it would be a reasonable 7.30pm for him in Brisbane). I struggle through the conversation slightly as I'm pouring sweat and Christ knows what else through my forsaken glands - and don't quite get round to what I had planned to chat to him about. We do, however, chat happily about the dismal events of the World Cup and his temporary flat in Brisbane which all sounds great. However, no matter how long I spend video chatting to someone I know well who happens to be on the other side of the world - particularly in this fragile state - I won't quite believe it. What a time to be alive etc.
After hanging up on Andy, K and I get our act together and jump on the tube to Waterloo, as Ant has invited us to come along and see a flying robotic penguin float around the auditorium of the Royal Festival Hall. It's really rather impressive - as is the robotic jellyfish that rises and falls in time to the soothing ambient music playing into the enthralled hall. It takes a little of the sting out of my headache, as does the nice walk around the science fair taking place in the downstairs part of the building.
After leaving the South Bank Centre we get on the tube and head back north to Euston, where we make our way to the Wellcome Collection gallery, to check out the 'Skin' exhibition that's recently been installed. It's a curious mix of art and science - in equal parts grotesque and beautiful. My favourite things are probably the Victorian anatomical drawings, which I always find myself thinking would make brilliant tattoos.
Seeking even more culture after our stroll around the Wellcome Collection, K, Ant and I head down the road to the British Library to see the Magnificent Maps exhibition - another great free one. There's a good selection of stunningly detailed maps from the 1600s up to today, as well as a very funny map of London done in biro which picks out the socially significant aspects of each area. We enjoy picking out 'Shaun of the Dead filmed here' where Crouch End should be.
After the cultural onslaught and with my head still pounding, K and I make our way home for dinner. Later in the evening, I find myself browsing the internet for iPhone 4 upgrade deals - and find myself facing ridiculous upgrade fees and a general feeling of Steve Jobs waiting at the end of a tube down which I'll happily chuck all my money. In something of a rash move (for me) I quickly flick over to the O2 site and order an HTC Desire - a very well-regarded, non Apple smartphone - to replace my iPhone 3G. Friends know me as a vocal iPhone advocate (one of the really annoying ones); and now I've turned my back on it for at least the next 18 months. Scary times ahead!
After hanging up on Andy, K and I get our act together and jump on the tube to Waterloo, as Ant has invited us to come along and see a flying robotic penguin float around the auditorium of the Royal Festival Hall. It's really rather impressive - as is the robotic jellyfish that rises and falls in time to the soothing ambient music playing into the enthralled hall. It takes a little of the sting out of my headache, as does the nice walk around the science fair taking place in the downstairs part of the building.
After leaving the South Bank Centre we get on the tube and head back north to Euston, where we make our way to the Wellcome Collection gallery, to check out the 'Skin' exhibition that's recently been installed. It's a curious mix of art and science - in equal parts grotesque and beautiful. My favourite things are probably the Victorian anatomical drawings, which I always find myself thinking would make brilliant tattoos.
Seeking even more culture after our stroll around the Wellcome Collection, K, Ant and I head down the road to the British Library to see the Magnificent Maps exhibition - another great free one. There's a good selection of stunningly detailed maps from the 1600s up to today, as well as a very funny map of London done in biro which picks out the socially significant aspects of each area. We enjoy picking out 'Shaun of the Dead filmed here' where Crouch End should be.
After the cultural onslaught and with my head still pounding, K and I make our way home for dinner. Later in the evening, I find myself browsing the internet for iPhone 4 upgrade deals - and find myself facing ridiculous upgrade fees and a general feeling of Steve Jobs waiting at the end of a tube down which I'll happily chuck all my money. In something of a rash move (for me) I quickly flick over to the O2 site and order an HTC Desire - a very well-regarded, non Apple smartphone - to replace my iPhone 3G. Friends know me as a vocal iPhone advocate (one of the really annoying ones); and now I've turned my back on it for at least the next 18 months. Scary times ahead!
Sunday 11 July 2010
Saturday
It's a beautiful Saturday morning, and after getting the usual Big Shop done, we head to Crouch End to meet up with some friends and check out the Haringey Carnival. After meeting the group at the King's Head we walk down to Park Road to get a space on the road for the parade, which we are reliably informed will be coming this way. The street isn't busy so getting a space isn't hard, but sure enough we're soon watching a marching band, a collection of floats containing various young "Miss"es from around London and the South-East and a slightly unwieldy-looking lorry housing a lively school steel band.
It's all a little low-budget, to be honest, but then these things probably aren't as popular as they used to be - and it's a bit of fun for us idiots clutching beer cans by the side of the road, sweltering in the oppressive early-July heat. When the procession has finally gone by, we walk down Palace Road towards Priory Park to visit the steam fair. It's clearly attracting far more interest than the parade - as it's a properly authentic steam fair with complete with impressively old-looking rides and funny painted artwork offering far more thrills than the century-old attractions are probably able to provide. K and the others go on a couple of rides, but as they're the spinning-round based carnival rides that really don't do anything for me other than make me sick and dizzy, I abstain and hold the bags like a mum at Alton Towers.
After leaving the steam fair, we walk up to the Queens to sit in their beer garden for a while, and to catch the end of Germany v Argentina on my iPhone. Germany unceremoniously dump Argentina out 4-0, an impressive result and one which whets the appetite for a potential Germany v Spain Semi Final, should the Spanish prevail over Paraguay later tonight.
A few more folks turn up, and it's nice to see them all - especially as this is the first time we've seen a lot of them since we announced the engagement. Cue a lot of questions about the proposal and our plans for the wedding, and of course a lot of cooing over K's ring from the girl contingent.
Having had our fill of the Queens' prices and hospitality, we change venues and head for the cheaper Hope and Anchor up the road - again taking up residence in the outdoor section and generally being happy and noisy. One amazing moment comes when a couple of the lads foolishly order "Ladyboys" from the bar - a reference to a scene in the first series of I'm Alan Partridge where Alan orders a pint of lager with gin and tonic and Bailey's 'chasers' (oooooh, Ladyboys, etc), so we happily watch them try and digest a predictably disgusting collection of drinks.
Later the Spain v Paraguay game comes on the TV, so we move inside to keep an eye on it (despite few of the assembled group really giving a toss about the game), which, despite a mad few minutes in which both sides miss penalties, is a fairly turgid game - Spain ending up 1-0 winners. Playing as they are in this tournament, it's hard to get that excited about Spain. While they clearly have the highest quality squad in South Africa, they're certainly not playing the highest quality football.
It's all a little low-budget, to be honest, but then these things probably aren't as popular as they used to be - and it's a bit of fun for us idiots clutching beer cans by the side of the road, sweltering in the oppressive early-July heat. When the procession has finally gone by, we walk down Palace Road towards Priory Park to visit the steam fair. It's clearly attracting far more interest than the parade - as it's a properly authentic steam fair with complete with impressively old-looking rides and funny painted artwork offering far more thrills than the century-old attractions are probably able to provide. K and the others go on a couple of rides, but as they're the spinning-round based carnival rides that really don't do anything for me other than make me sick and dizzy, I abstain and hold the bags like a mum at Alton Towers.
After leaving the steam fair, we walk up to the Queens to sit in their beer garden for a while, and to catch the end of Germany v Argentina on my iPhone. Germany unceremoniously dump Argentina out 4-0, an impressive result and one which whets the appetite for a potential Germany v Spain Semi Final, should the Spanish prevail over Paraguay later tonight.
A few more folks turn up, and it's nice to see them all - especially as this is the first time we've seen a lot of them since we announced the engagement. Cue a lot of questions about the proposal and our plans for the wedding, and of course a lot of cooing over K's ring from the girl contingent.
Having had our fill of the Queens' prices and hospitality, we change venues and head for the cheaper Hope and Anchor up the road - again taking up residence in the outdoor section and generally being happy and noisy. One amazing moment comes when a couple of the lads foolishly order "Ladyboys" from the bar - a reference to a scene in the first series of I'm Alan Partridge where Alan orders a pint of lager with gin and tonic and Bailey's 'chasers' (oooooh, Ladyboys, etc), so we happily watch them try and digest a predictably disgusting collection of drinks.
Later the Spain v Paraguay game comes on the TV, so we move inside to keep an eye on it (despite few of the assembled group really giving a toss about the game), which, despite a mad few minutes in which both sides miss penalties, is a fairly turgid game - Spain ending up 1-0 winners. Playing as they are in this tournament, it's hard to get that excited about Spain. While they clearly have the highest quality squad in South Africa, they're certainly not playing the highest quality football.
Friday
Tonight is K's little brother's last with us, and after a busy week we decide to stay in - with wine for the grown ups and a wee bottle of cider for the underage guest. After some dinner we stick on the Uruguay v Ghana quarter final match. It's been a horrendous two days without football until this game; after the World Cup had weaned me onto three games a day and even four at the end of the group stages, it seems impossibly cruel to have suddenly cut off the flow completely for a big chunk of my working week.
In fact, "impossibly cruel" is the order of the day in terms of the end of this game. Ghana, the last African side still in the competition and in fact the only African team to have escaped the group stage, find themselves at 1-1 against Uruguay at the very end of extra time in Johannesburg (we're talking 120+1 here) when the ball pings around the Uruguayan goalmouth until it finds a Ghanaian head to send it goalwards - whereupon Luis Suarez sticks his hand up and stops the ball from crossing the line. Suarez is sent off for handball, which he doesn't seem particularly bothered about - after all, his team were milliseconds away from exiting the competition - and Asamoah Gyan steps up to take the penalty.
Crushingly, he opts for power and the ball pings off the crossbar; sending the match into an actual penalty shootout. Unsurprisingly, given that they were one penalty kick away from becoming the first African team to ever reach a World Cup Semi Final, they are hardly composed in the shoot-out, and Luis Suarez and co go through.
It's genuinely heartbreaking, and the scenes of Gyan and his teammates crying their eyes out - Gyan himself seemingly barely able to stand - are hard to watch, and will remain as potent memories of the drama of this World Cup and the importance it's had for Africa as a footballing continent. Pele said that an African side would win the World Cup by the year 2000 - wrong, but I'm sure he and everyone else would have gladly have accepted a Semi Final by 2010 instead. Not to be, however.
Mike and Ant pop round for the closing stages of the match, and join us in the oohs and aahs of the final minutes. A bit gutted after the game, we take our minds off things by playing a bit of Scrabble, which K's little brother scores for us in between games of Angry Birds and Doodle Jump on my iPhone. After the game (Mike won, me second) we sit around and drink a little more. K's brother soon tires of us and heads into the other room to play Facebook on my computer - or whatever it is teenagers do online now - and the guys eventually head off around 1am.
In fact, "impossibly cruel" is the order of the day in terms of the end of this game. Ghana, the last African side still in the competition and in fact the only African team to have escaped the group stage, find themselves at 1-1 against Uruguay at the very end of extra time in Johannesburg (we're talking 120+1 here) when the ball pings around the Uruguayan goalmouth until it finds a Ghanaian head to send it goalwards - whereupon Luis Suarez sticks his hand up and stops the ball from crossing the line. Suarez is sent off for handball, which he doesn't seem particularly bothered about - after all, his team were milliseconds away from exiting the competition - and Asamoah Gyan steps up to take the penalty.
Crushingly, he opts for power and the ball pings off the crossbar; sending the match into an actual penalty shootout. Unsurprisingly, given that they were one penalty kick away from becoming the first African team to ever reach a World Cup Semi Final, they are hardly composed in the shoot-out, and Luis Suarez and co go through.
It's genuinely heartbreaking, and the scenes of Gyan and his teammates crying their eyes out - Gyan himself seemingly barely able to stand - are hard to watch, and will remain as potent memories of the drama of this World Cup and the importance it's had for Africa as a footballing continent. Pele said that an African side would win the World Cup by the year 2000 - wrong, but I'm sure he and everyone else would have gladly have accepted a Semi Final by 2010 instead. Not to be, however.
Mike and Ant pop round for the closing stages of the match, and join us in the oohs and aahs of the final minutes. A bit gutted after the game, we take our minds off things by playing a bit of Scrabble, which K's little brother scores for us in between games of Angry Birds and Doodle Jump on my iPhone. After the game (Mike won, me second) we sit around and drink a little more. K's brother soon tires of us and heads into the other room to play Facebook on my computer - or whatever it is teenagers do online now - and the guys eventually head off around 1am.
Saturday 10 July 2010
Thursday
After a few days away and a long-ish first half of the week doing mostly sober activities, it feels like a long time since I've just sat in a pub and chatted the evening away over a couple of pints. Sure, we had beer in Germany - but that was special occasion beer. Tonight I'm craving the mundane.
And if it's mundane, beautifully simple entertainment I need, I look no further than my friend Will. Uni housemates for three years, we have a long and merry history of doing just this - taking up position in the sort of pub designed for men far older and (usually) far scarier than ourselves and debating (almost exclusively) the ins and outs of the current global football situation as we see it.
Tonight, since I haven't seen Will since the first evening of the World Cup, I'm looking forward to chatting about the tournament with someone, other than the podcast boys, whose interest in the game isn't exclusively limited to the World Cup and whichever team they happen to have drawn in the office sweepstake. We grab a couple of cold Kronenbourgs in the beer "garden" of the Hope and Anchor and discuss a tournament which has been, up to the current pre-Quarter Final stage, mixed in quality but not lacking in drama. We also spend a little time on the woefulness of England and the relative merits of teams who are actually able to get on with the game and play football in a tournament like they've actually done so before.
Will also offers his congratulations on the engagement, which is nice, and I offer my suggestions for the outfit I'd like to see his 6'4'' gangly skeleton parade around in on my wedding day. I think I finally settled on Lederhosen.
And if it's mundane, beautifully simple entertainment I need, I look no further than my friend Will. Uni housemates for three years, we have a long and merry history of doing just this - taking up position in the sort of pub designed for men far older and (usually) far scarier than ourselves and debating (almost exclusively) the ins and outs of the current global football situation as we see it.
Tonight, since I haven't seen Will since the first evening of the World Cup, I'm looking forward to chatting about the tournament with someone, other than the podcast boys, whose interest in the game isn't exclusively limited to the World Cup and whichever team they happen to have drawn in the office sweepstake. We grab a couple of cold Kronenbourgs in the beer "garden" of the Hope and Anchor and discuss a tournament which has been, up to the current pre-Quarter Final stage, mixed in quality but not lacking in drama. We also spend a little time on the woefulness of England and the relative merits of teams who are actually able to get on with the game and play football in a tournament like they've actually done so before.
Will also offers his congratulations on the engagement, which is nice, and I offer my suggestions for the outfit I'd like to see his 6'4'' gangly skeleton parade around in on my wedding day. I think I finally settled on Lederhosen.
Wednesday 7 July 2010
Wednesday
A while ago there was a campaign by an organisation called Stitch London, asking people to make miniature doll versions of themselves to be exhibited at the Science Museum. K entered, of course, fashioning a cool little mini K from various materials - her twin sister doing the same. Tonight is that exhibition, taking place as part of the Science Museum's adults-only 'lates' night.
I head home after work and grab something quick to eat, before jumping on the tube to South Kensington. On the way I carry on reading The Greatest Show on Earth, feeling that Richard Dawkins would probably be pleased that I was reading his book on the way to the Science Museum. I arrive and meet K and her little brother who, despite being officially too young for tonight's entertainment is, fortunately, over six feet tall - so no problem there.
We buy a beer - and what a joy wandering through a museum with a bottle of Becks on the go is - and explore the various exhibitions. Not much is different about the museum other than the pounding soundtrack, but it's nice to have an excuse to be here.
We eventually discover the doll exhibition, and K's doll has happily been placed alongside that of her twin. Having snapped a celebratory photo - it's not often you get something in a major museum - we leave, getting handed an inexplicable bottle of Lucozade as we pass through the door.
I head home after work and grab something quick to eat, before jumping on the tube to South Kensington. On the way I carry on reading The Greatest Show on Earth, feeling that Richard Dawkins would probably be pleased that I was reading his book on the way to the Science Museum. I arrive and meet K and her little brother who, despite being officially too young for tonight's entertainment is, fortunately, over six feet tall - so no problem there.
We buy a beer - and what a joy wandering through a museum with a bottle of Becks on the go is - and explore the various exhibitions. Not much is different about the museum other than the pounding soundtrack, but it's nice to have an excuse to be here.
We eventually discover the doll exhibition, and K's doll has happily been placed alongside that of her twin. Having snapped a celebratory photo - it's not often you get something in a major museum - we leave, getting handed an inexplicable bottle of Lucozade as we pass through the door.
Tuesday
After work the girls in the office suggest a drink down at the Duke of Edinburgh on the corner of the street our office buildings is on - to briefly celebrate me and K's exciting news, but also because we don't do this sort of thing nearly enough. The Duke of Edinburgh was closed for renovation two years ago when I first started working at the company, but I was reliably informed that the pub, the closest one to the office by a long way, was a bit of a spit-and-sawdust shithole at any rate.
It finally reopened last year under new management, but a lot of people in the office were still reluctant to check it out. It seemed to offer the same Turkish food that you get at 90% of the cafes and bars in Wood Green, as well as a new outdoor Shisha bar - neither of which, I must say, particularly appealed. But eventually last year a group of us bothered to check it out - and it's actually a perfectly decent pub. There's a big garden with, yes, plenty of sweet-smelling hukkahs about the place, but also a big outdoor telly and even blankets for when the girls inevitably get cold.
So it's taken quite a while to get the rest of the department to even consider coming here for a drink - but here we are, and it's rather nice. As ever with these after work things, though, everyone has places to go and people to see - and we only manage the one before heading off our separate ways. The fact that it's not payday until tomorrow puts a bit of a dampener on things too.
I get home and spend the rest of the evening relaxing - mercifully, given the exertions of the last week - with K and her brother, while watching a little of the Spain v Portugal game - the last of the second-round games before the quarter-finals start on Friday - which Spain win 1-0. While it's not nice to see any team dumped out of the World Cup, it actually is nice to see Portugal get knocked out. There's nothing like a sad, frustrated Cristiano Ronaldo to lift the mood of a Tuesday night.
It finally reopened last year under new management, but a lot of people in the office were still reluctant to check it out. It seemed to offer the same Turkish food that you get at 90% of the cafes and bars in Wood Green, as well as a new outdoor Shisha bar - neither of which, I must say, particularly appealed. But eventually last year a group of us bothered to check it out - and it's actually a perfectly decent pub. There's a big garden with, yes, plenty of sweet-smelling hukkahs about the place, but also a big outdoor telly and even blankets for when the girls inevitably get cold.
So it's taken quite a while to get the rest of the department to even consider coming here for a drink - but here we are, and it's rather nice. As ever with these after work things, though, everyone has places to go and people to see - and we only manage the one before heading off our separate ways. The fact that it's not payday until tomorrow puts a bit of a dampener on things too.
I get home and spend the rest of the evening relaxing - mercifully, given the exertions of the last week - with K and her brother, while watching a little of the Spain v Portugal game - the last of the second-round games before the quarter-finals start on Friday - which Spain win 1-0. While it's not nice to see any team dumped out of the World Cup, it actually is nice to see Portugal get knocked out. There's nothing like a sad, frustrated Cristiano Ronaldo to lift the mood of a Tuesday night.
Monday
After a busy, busy few days, I feel less that refreshed going back to work. Added to the fact that its still inhumanly hot in London (whatever happened to those brilliant, rubbish 16 degree summers?), I feel like falling asleep on my desk almost instantly. Luckily the expected stack of pointy, ugly emails hasn't quite materialised and it's fun telling the girls in the department that K and I got engaged while we were away. My colleague Susie is also getting married next year, so we get to compare notes on proposals and vague plans; while I'm careful not to appear to be stealing her thunder!
I get home later and start to get a lovely curry on the go in preparation for K getting home with her little brother, who is here to stay while he does work experience at K's record label. After dinner K and I take the biggest step of all - in a very 2010 way - and 'officially' announce our engagement on Facebook. This involves K changing her relationship status, then me getting an email asking me to confirm it. There's no going back at this point - this is as close as you can get to telling the world these days. Almost everyone we know are big Facebook users and it's instantly striking that while you can joke about how much this one website pervades everyone's life, it really does matter nowadays. Scary.
Anyway, the announcement goes through and both our profiles explode almost instantly. I get to use the "hilarious" Facebook status I've had in my head for a while ("Mat Rodger...liked it so he put a ring on it") - which, in a matter of minutes, becomes the most commented-upon status I've ever had; which is probably to be expected given that I haven't really had much more momentous news to post. We spend the rest of the evening checking the lovely comments that our friends and family are posting online - and probably making K's little brother sick with the cloying sickliness of it all. But we don't care!
I get home later and start to get a lovely curry on the go in preparation for K getting home with her little brother, who is here to stay while he does work experience at K's record label. After dinner K and I take the biggest step of all - in a very 2010 way - and 'officially' announce our engagement on Facebook. This involves K changing her relationship status, then me getting an email asking me to confirm it. There's no going back at this point - this is as close as you can get to telling the world these days. Almost everyone we know are big Facebook users and it's instantly striking that while you can joke about how much this one website pervades everyone's life, it really does matter nowadays. Scary.
Anyway, the announcement goes through and both our profiles explode almost instantly. I get to use the "hilarious" Facebook status I've had in my head for a while ("Mat Rodger...liked it so he put a ring on it") - which, in a matter of minutes, becomes the most commented-upon status I've ever had; which is probably to be expected given that I haven't really had much more momentous news to post. We spend the rest of the evening checking the lovely comments that our friends and family are posting online - and probably making K's little brother sick with the cloying sickliness of it all. But we don't care!
Monday 5 July 2010
Sunday
The cricket starts at 10.45, so Dad is round from Rochdale to pick me up at 9.30. We say a quick hello and goodbye to Sam, who made it back at 3am, and head towards Old Trafford. We're planning a full day sat out in the sun, so luckily Dad's brought along a spare sun hat and some suncream - dads eh? - as well as a selection of high quality homemade sandwiches and a few bottles of Diet Coke.
We park at Old Trafford football ground - which still looks like a crazy, unwieldy structure to me, even though I haven't been this close to it since I was a kid - and walk up towards the cricket ground with the gathering masses. Most are in England football shirts, what with the Germany game this afternoon (and we are mostly expecting half of them to leave the cricket at 3pm - I would be tempted!) and various others wear the usual idiotic costumes 'barmy army' types seem to like.
The cricket starts off pleasantly - watching it is so different to football, the experience is so passive, like birdwatching or something; and everyone is chatting away. It's a very relaxing sport to watch on a summer's day, which is exactly what had appealed to me about this particular trip.
Come 3pm though, and the desire to watch football is agonising. I know it's a huge game - and I try to get TVCatchup to work on the iPhone, but to no avail, presumably because everyone else there is trying the same thing - but I'm also enormously confident that it will be rubbish, and that England will lose. Instead I focus on the cricket - in which England are doing rather well, having bowled Australia out for 212 in 46 overs - but listen for the murmuring updates of kids with portable radios.
It's soon apparent that England have gone 2-0 down early on; and there's an audible sigh of relief from those who have stayed to watch the cricket. But then a huge cheer goes up as England get first one, then (apparently) another goal back! These are easily the largest cheers of the day, making for something of a surreal atmosphere inside Old Trafford.
As it turns out, England's second goal was (erroneously) ruled out, and Germany go on to win 4-1. Another World Cup ends dismally for England, then - the inquests will begin. I, for one, am just relieved to have avoided the terrible heartache of it all for once.
We leave the cricket early in order that I can make my train back to London, annoyingly missing an exciting end to a match which England do, in fact, go on to win. The journey isn't too bad and I treat myself to a Burger King along the way - but the streets and public transport are littered with the miserable, the angry, the drunk and the sunburnt.
We park at Old Trafford football ground - which still looks like a crazy, unwieldy structure to me, even though I haven't been this close to it since I was a kid - and walk up towards the cricket ground with the gathering masses. Most are in England football shirts, what with the Germany game this afternoon (and we are mostly expecting half of them to leave the cricket at 3pm - I would be tempted!) and various others wear the usual idiotic costumes 'barmy army' types seem to like.
The cricket starts off pleasantly - watching it is so different to football, the experience is so passive, like birdwatching or something; and everyone is chatting away. It's a very relaxing sport to watch on a summer's day, which is exactly what had appealed to me about this particular trip.
Come 3pm though, and the desire to watch football is agonising. I know it's a huge game - and I try to get TVCatchup to work on the iPhone, but to no avail, presumably because everyone else there is trying the same thing - but I'm also enormously confident that it will be rubbish, and that England will lose. Instead I focus on the cricket - in which England are doing rather well, having bowled Australia out for 212 in 46 overs - but listen for the murmuring updates of kids with portable radios.
It's soon apparent that England have gone 2-0 down early on; and there's an audible sigh of relief from those who have stayed to watch the cricket. But then a huge cheer goes up as England get first one, then (apparently) another goal back! These are easily the largest cheers of the day, making for something of a surreal atmosphere inside Old Trafford.
As it turns out, England's second goal was (erroneously) ruled out, and Germany go on to win 4-1. Another World Cup ends dismally for England, then - the inquests will begin. I, for one, am just relieved to have avoided the terrible heartache of it all for once.
We leave the cricket early in order that I can make my train back to London, annoyingly missing an exciting end to a match which England do, in fact, go on to win. The journey isn't too bad and I treat myself to a Burger King along the way - but the streets and public transport are littered with the miserable, the angry, the drunk and the sunburnt.
Saturday
We take advantage of the fact that check-out time isn't until noon and our flight not being until 4.30 and sleep in late again. I nip down to the bakery and buy our briefly-regular croissants from the corner bakery - take that 11 euro hotel breakfast - while we potter around the room packing and watching the German TV coverage of the build-up to tomorrow's England v Germany second round match. It's probably for the best that neither of us can understand a word of it.
When it finally comes time to leave, we walk our familiar route up through Potsdamer Platz towards the Brandenburg Gate, and along the long, straight road towards Alexanderplatz. The heat is already stifling and with bags to carry we make sure it's a steady trudge - managing to take in some really interesting architecture we would otherwise have missed. Annoyingly it's hard to work out what much of it is, save to say it's mostly massive and rather beautiful.
We get to Alexanderplatz and take a seat by the fountain - where we had sat when we arrived on Wednesday afternoon. We've covered a lot of ground since then - and, I suppose, our lives have actually changed quite a lot in the space of three days. Having said our goodbyes to this fun city, we jump on the airport bus and start to make our way home.
The flight is just as smooth and pleasant as on the way out, and we even get some extra free booze from the staff on board (I think, mainly, because we were sat at the back of the plane and they wanted to get rid of the stock). When we land, I engage in a bit of a race against time as I leave K on the tube and head for Euston. Since I have to be in Manchester tomorrow for the England v Australia ODI cricket match, I had (perhaps unwisely) booked a cheap train up to Manchester for tonight, right after we land. The Victoria Line is busy, as is Euston, but I arrive in good time and manage to buy a bit of dinner and a couple of cans of Stella for the journey.
Too exhausted to read much, I drink and listen to a few podcasts - finally arriving in Manchester at around 10.15pm. Manchester city centre on a Saturday night is absolutely not a pleasant place to be; full of horrible chavs staggering and shouting between the various shitty pubs and nightclubs - it's a northern city cliche come to life. Despite the animals, I decide to use my walk to Sam's bar to pick up his house keys to call Mum and tell her about the engagement. She is suitably thrilled and we talk for a while as she guides me, from memory, through a city she lived near around 15 years ago.
I meet Sam outside his bar - I'm not allowed in because I'm wearing shorts - and grab his keys and directions to his flat in the south of the city. The bus takes absolutely ages, mostly weaving through the same scary Mancunian bastards I had to dodge on the streets, but finally I arrive at his flat and crash out on the reclining leather sofa. It's hard to believe I had woken up in Berlin this morning with my new fiancee, and now I'm in a student flat watching Futurama, trying to sleep over the traffic noise. But here I am.
When it finally comes time to leave, we walk our familiar route up through Potsdamer Platz towards the Brandenburg Gate, and along the long, straight road towards Alexanderplatz. The heat is already stifling and with bags to carry we make sure it's a steady trudge - managing to take in some really interesting architecture we would otherwise have missed. Annoyingly it's hard to work out what much of it is, save to say it's mostly massive and rather beautiful.
We get to Alexanderplatz and take a seat by the fountain - where we had sat when we arrived on Wednesday afternoon. We've covered a lot of ground since then - and, I suppose, our lives have actually changed quite a lot in the space of three days. Having said our goodbyes to this fun city, we jump on the airport bus and start to make our way home.
The flight is just as smooth and pleasant as on the way out, and we even get some extra free booze from the staff on board (I think, mainly, because we were sat at the back of the plane and they wanted to get rid of the stock). When we land, I engage in a bit of a race against time as I leave K on the tube and head for Euston. Since I have to be in Manchester tomorrow for the England v Australia ODI cricket match, I had (perhaps unwisely) booked a cheap train up to Manchester for tonight, right after we land. The Victoria Line is busy, as is Euston, but I arrive in good time and manage to buy a bit of dinner and a couple of cans of Stella for the journey.
Too exhausted to read much, I drink and listen to a few podcasts - finally arriving in Manchester at around 10.15pm. Manchester city centre on a Saturday night is absolutely not a pleasant place to be; full of horrible chavs staggering and shouting between the various shitty pubs and nightclubs - it's a northern city cliche come to life. Despite the animals, I decide to use my walk to Sam's bar to pick up his house keys to call Mum and tell her about the engagement. She is suitably thrilled and we talk for a while as she guides me, from memory, through a city she lived near around 15 years ago.
I meet Sam outside his bar - I'm not allowed in because I'm wearing shorts - and grab his keys and directions to his flat in the south of the city. The bus takes absolutely ages, mostly weaving through the same scary Mancunian bastards I had to dodge on the streets, but finally I arrive at his flat and crash out on the reclining leather sofa. It's hard to believe I had woken up in Berlin this morning with my new fiancee, and now I'm in a student flat watching Futurama, trying to sleep over the traffic noise. But here I am.
Friday
Today is the day I ask K to marry me.
This hasn't come out of nowhere - although for obvious reasons I haven't mentioned it on the blog before in order to maintain the surprise element (and it is, I suppose, a suprise proposal; while we've talked and joked about 'when we get married' before, I don't think she's ever got to the point where she's been expecting it!).
Having said this, a keen blogo-detective could have found certain clues. In this post, when I mention talking to Alex about 'big things', this is when I told her - the one friend who knew - that I was going to pop the question in Berlin; and marks the date when I really, finally made my own mind up. And on this Saturday, Alex and I went shopping for the ring in Islington, having had to fob K off with some mysterious ruse as to why we were disappearing off without her on a Saturday afternoon. Sneaky, eh? Oh - and reading that one back, I may have also drunkenly told Aidan Moffat that I had bought an engagement ring that afternoon. His reaction? No memory of it. Ah well.
Anyway, we get up late this morning having completely ruined ourselves in the previous two days. Berlin had been done to destruction, so confident in the belief that we had covered most of the tourist ground, we decided to allow ourselves a 'chilled-out' last full day in the city. I put on the second pair of shorts I'd brought (the ones with the ring already folded up in the pocket) and we head out of the hotel at around midday. K has buggered her feet and is really suffering - so after a couple of grumpy U-Bahn rides we end up in the area of bars and various interesting-looking buildings we had seen briefly on Wednesday night. Trying hard not to do too much walking (though it's really hard in this city) we stop for a while at a small cafe and tuck into some currywurst, after which we stroll around the streets checking out the cool graffiti on the walls of the crumbling old housing blocks.
The only other bit of Berlin we haven't seen is Prenzlauer Berg, a supposedly posh section of the city that includes the Volkspark Friedrichshain; the potential proposal venue I was thinking about steering us toward before dinner. Unfortunately the bit of Prenzlauer Berg we end up in is basically a long straight road - so K stops to get some rubber things that we hope will fix her feet, albeit temporarily. We also find a decent, cheap-ish Mexican restaurant to grab some lunch in.
Now clearly aiming for the park, we hop on the tram (and complete our set of bus, U-Bahn, S-Bahn and tram for the fictional Berlin public transport i-Spy) and travel a couple of stops down towards it. At this point I'm mostly just hoping that the park is nice - at least a little nicer that the rather scruffy Tiergarten - but we stop at a petrol station to get a couple of beers to take with us.
After strolling through the, in fact, very pleasant Volkspark, past the lovely fountains and nice-looking beer garden in which families are relaxing, watching the Brazil v Portugal game, we find a nice place to sit down. After a couple of swigs of beer and, confident that I can properly get her attention, I ask the all-important question.
No, I didn't get down on one knee (this is the first question everyone asks, apparently). This is because we were already sitting down - but also because I don't think I could have pulled it off! Yes, she did get a bit weepy (in fact I had to go and get a second load of tissues). Happy? Incredibly.
We spend the rest of the evening drinking beer and chatting excitedly - as well as taking tons of photos of the ring, with K and I in various silly poses. Looking back at it now, I don't think it could possibly have gone better.
This hasn't come out of nowhere - although for obvious reasons I haven't mentioned it on the blog before in order to maintain the surprise element (and it is, I suppose, a suprise proposal; while we've talked and joked about 'when we get married' before, I don't think she's ever got to the point where she's been expecting it!).
Having said this, a keen blogo-detective could have found certain clues. In this post, when I mention talking to Alex about 'big things', this is when I told her - the one friend who knew - that I was going to pop the question in Berlin; and marks the date when I really, finally made my own mind up. And on this Saturday, Alex and I went shopping for the ring in Islington, having had to fob K off with some mysterious ruse as to why we were disappearing off without her on a Saturday afternoon. Sneaky, eh? Oh - and reading that one back, I may have also drunkenly told Aidan Moffat that I had bought an engagement ring that afternoon. His reaction? No memory of it. Ah well.
Anyway, we get up late this morning having completely ruined ourselves in the previous two days. Berlin had been done to destruction, so confident in the belief that we had covered most of the tourist ground, we decided to allow ourselves a 'chilled-out' last full day in the city. I put on the second pair of shorts I'd brought (the ones with the ring already folded up in the pocket) and we head out of the hotel at around midday. K has buggered her feet and is really suffering - so after a couple of grumpy U-Bahn rides we end up in the area of bars and various interesting-looking buildings we had seen briefly on Wednesday night. Trying hard not to do too much walking (though it's really hard in this city) we stop for a while at a small cafe and tuck into some currywurst, after which we stroll around the streets checking out the cool graffiti on the walls of the crumbling old housing blocks.
The only other bit of Berlin we haven't seen is Prenzlauer Berg, a supposedly posh section of the city that includes the Volkspark Friedrichshain; the potential proposal venue I was thinking about steering us toward before dinner. Unfortunately the bit of Prenzlauer Berg we end up in is basically a long straight road - so K stops to get some rubber things that we hope will fix her feet, albeit temporarily. We also find a decent, cheap-ish Mexican restaurant to grab some lunch in.
Now clearly aiming for the park, we hop on the tram (and complete our set of bus, U-Bahn, S-Bahn and tram for the fictional Berlin public transport i-Spy) and travel a couple of stops down towards it. At this point I'm mostly just hoping that the park is nice - at least a little nicer that the rather scruffy Tiergarten - but we stop at a petrol station to get a couple of beers to take with us.
After strolling through the, in fact, very pleasant Volkspark, past the lovely fountains and nice-looking beer garden in which families are relaxing, watching the Brazil v Portugal game, we find a nice place to sit down. After a couple of swigs of beer and, confident that I can properly get her attention, I ask the all-important question.
No, I didn't get down on one knee (this is the first question everyone asks, apparently). This is because we were already sitting down - but also because I don't think I could have pulled it off! Yes, she did get a bit weepy (in fact I had to go and get a second load of tissues). Happy? Incredibly.
We spend the rest of the evening drinking beer and chatting excitedly - as well as taking tons of photos of the ring, with K and I in various silly poses. Looking back at it now, I don't think it could possibly have gone better.
Friday 2 July 2010
Thursday
Much against our natural impulses, we get up early to shower and wander down to the corner bakery for cheap croissants. The plan is to visit the Norman Foster-designed glass dome on top of the Reichstag building, which is free and hence the guidebooks recommend getting there either early in the morning or late in the evening.
We walk the same route through Potsdamer Platz and the Sony Centre as we had the previous afternoon, both suffering slightly with yesterday's aches and pains as well as the soaring temperatures - but we finally arrive at the Reichstag at a decent time. We are, it seems, not quite early enough though; the queue already stretches around three times longer than the '30 minute wait from here' sign. We decide to try again later this evening, when we won't have to queue in the blazing sunshine, so we walk away from the enormous parliament building towards the heavily-wooded Tiergarten and its odd-looking Chinese bell tower.
As most of the park is fenced off for the FIFA Fan Fest (big screens to watch the World Cup matches on) we end up reaching a bit of a dead end before long, so we decide to turn on our heels and walk towards the massive TV Tower; which dominates the skyline almost everywhere you turn and is as potent a symbol of East Berlin as I can have imagined from reading books. It must have looked fairly terrifying to West Berliners when it went up in the 1960s.
It takes at least an hour to walk to the TV tower on a route that takes us through Museum Island, a collection of incredibly impressive old buildings whose entry fees we baulk at; particularly because neither of us can really imagine walking round a museum in this oppressive heat.
We buy our tickets and head up the lift to the observation deck of the tower - which gives us predictably stunning 360 degree views of the surprisingly compact centre of Berlin, as well as the trains coming and going from the Alexanderplatz station below us.
On returning to ground level, we get our first S-Bahn train (the overground one) out of the city centre towards the Olympiastadion; a piece of undoubted sporting history, having hosted Hitler's 1936 Olympics, and more recently the 2006 World Cup. Walking up to the gates it is undoubtedly a piece of Nazi, Roman-fetishising architecture; but it's scale and impressive bulk is still very impressive. Unfortunately we are unable to go in for a nose around, as the site is closed for an AC/DC concert that evening (we had noticed a hell of a lot of AC/DC t-shirts around; we had presumed it was due to the Germans being such renowned rock'n'roll animals), so we hop back on the S-Bahn to the next stop which hosts, seemingly exclusively, another Nazi spectacle in the Glockenturn (clocktower). This enormous concrete tower is only 3 euro to get into, and so we see Berlin from the sky for the second time. It affords an amazing open-air view of the Olympiastadion and the city centre in the distance, and is actually a much more rewarding experience than the 10 euro TV tower.
Finally we drag ourselves back into the centre via the Hauptbahnhof; an amazing multi-storey train station and quite a feat of transport-hubbery; where we visit a small supermarket to buy bits and pieces for a planned picnic in the Tiergarten. By this time, as should be obvious, we are completely shattered, so by the time we find a decent little patch of grass (not the nicest park, in truth) to eat and drink in, we're more than ready for the rest.
Partially re-energised by chorizo, cheese and Berliner Pilsner, we make our way on foot back to the Reichstag to try again at the Dome. The queue is shorter, albeit made up of a typically obnoxious tour group of American teenagers, so we decide to bear with it and finally get to the top. When we finally get up there - and see Berlin from above for a third time today, the dome is indeed impressive, and there's a fair buzz around as the spiral walkway to the top makes the other people there giddy and excitable. K and I lie down at the top and look at the sky - me basically feeling unable to move another inch.
The plan for the rest of the evening is to try and find somewhere pleasant to sit and drink; so the guidebook recommends a nice canal-side beer garden near the Zoo. We duly get on the U-Bahn again and find - to our horror - that the beer garden is a long, featureless walk from the Zoo station (and actually very close to another, much handier S-Bahn station. Cheers, Lonely Planet!) so by the time we get there K is exhausted and furious - but that first pint doesn't half taste good. Somehow we find it in ourselves to get home, despite almost missing the last U-Bahn at 0030, and collapse, instantly unconscious in our hotel bed.
It's safe to say, I think, that at this point we've done tourist Berlin absolutely to destruction. We're both looking forward to a more relaxed day tomorrow - and a much-needed lie in.
We walk the same route through Potsdamer Platz and the Sony Centre as we had the previous afternoon, both suffering slightly with yesterday's aches and pains as well as the soaring temperatures - but we finally arrive at the Reichstag at a decent time. We are, it seems, not quite early enough though; the queue already stretches around three times longer than the '30 minute wait from here' sign. We decide to try again later this evening, when we won't have to queue in the blazing sunshine, so we walk away from the enormous parliament building towards the heavily-wooded Tiergarten and its odd-looking Chinese bell tower.
As most of the park is fenced off for the FIFA Fan Fest (big screens to watch the World Cup matches on) we end up reaching a bit of a dead end before long, so we decide to turn on our heels and walk towards the massive TV Tower; which dominates the skyline almost everywhere you turn and is as potent a symbol of East Berlin as I can have imagined from reading books. It must have looked fairly terrifying to West Berliners when it went up in the 1960s.
It takes at least an hour to walk to the TV tower on a route that takes us through Museum Island, a collection of incredibly impressive old buildings whose entry fees we baulk at; particularly because neither of us can really imagine walking round a museum in this oppressive heat.
We buy our tickets and head up the lift to the observation deck of the tower - which gives us predictably stunning 360 degree views of the surprisingly compact centre of Berlin, as well as the trains coming and going from the Alexanderplatz station below us.
On returning to ground level, we get our first S-Bahn train (the overground one) out of the city centre towards the Olympiastadion; a piece of undoubted sporting history, having hosted Hitler's 1936 Olympics, and more recently the 2006 World Cup. Walking up to the gates it is undoubtedly a piece of Nazi, Roman-fetishising architecture; but it's scale and impressive bulk is still very impressive. Unfortunately we are unable to go in for a nose around, as the site is closed for an AC/DC concert that evening (we had noticed a hell of a lot of AC/DC t-shirts around; we had presumed it was due to the Germans being such renowned rock'n'roll animals), so we hop back on the S-Bahn to the next stop which hosts, seemingly exclusively, another Nazi spectacle in the Glockenturn (clocktower). This enormous concrete tower is only 3 euro to get into, and so we see Berlin from the sky for the second time. It affords an amazing open-air view of the Olympiastadion and the city centre in the distance, and is actually a much more rewarding experience than the 10 euro TV tower.
Finally we drag ourselves back into the centre via the Hauptbahnhof; an amazing multi-storey train station and quite a feat of transport-hubbery; where we visit a small supermarket to buy bits and pieces for a planned picnic in the Tiergarten. By this time, as should be obvious, we are completely shattered, so by the time we find a decent little patch of grass (not the nicest park, in truth) to eat and drink in, we're more than ready for the rest.
Partially re-energised by chorizo, cheese and Berliner Pilsner, we make our way on foot back to the Reichstag to try again at the Dome. The queue is shorter, albeit made up of a typically obnoxious tour group of American teenagers, so we decide to bear with it and finally get to the top. When we finally get up there - and see Berlin from above for a third time today, the dome is indeed impressive, and there's a fair buzz around as the spiral walkway to the top makes the other people there giddy and excitable. K and I lie down at the top and look at the sky - me basically feeling unable to move another inch.
The plan for the rest of the evening is to try and find somewhere pleasant to sit and drink; so the guidebook recommends a nice canal-side beer garden near the Zoo. We duly get on the U-Bahn again and find - to our horror - that the beer garden is a long, featureless walk from the Zoo station (and actually very close to another, much handier S-Bahn station. Cheers, Lonely Planet!) so by the time we get there K is exhausted and furious - but that first pint doesn't half taste good. Somehow we find it in ourselves to get home, despite almost missing the last U-Bahn at 0030, and collapse, instantly unconscious in our hotel bed.
It's safe to say, I think, that at this point we've done tourist Berlin absolutely to destruction. We're both looking forward to a more relaxed day tomorrow - and a much-needed lie in.
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