Back in the office I am greeted by the horrendous sight of 91 emails downloading into Outlook as soon as I load it up. The dramatic effect is lessened by the realisation that most of them are ignorable - but it's clear that there's work on; and the morning meeting leaves no one in a particularly good mood. A crappy day in the office unfolds, though I take heart from the fact that while it feels like a crappy Monday, it is in fact a crappy Tuesday. Four-day weeks really are the way forward.
During the afternoon Alex calls me to announce that she has, against all odds, spent the day enrolling for the Ph.D course she's ummed and ahhed about since she got back from France - and that she feels the need to celebrate. Having planned to keep a low profile this week what with payday looming and a boozy couple of weeks behind me, I promise only to pop out for a bit later in the night to toast her newly exciting future.
First, though, is the matter of the shopping. The house is bare since we've been away, so I head down the passage at 7 to meet K off the tube at Sainsbury's. I get started on the hunter-gathering before she shows up and we agree to indulge in a new kettle (who said this blog wasn't exciting, eh?) seeing as they're all reduced for the students. Back at home K cooks a lovely dinner of chicken kievs and mash, before I head out to meet Alex just after 9.30.
We sit outside the front of the Toll Gate and she clues me in on her plans for the next four years (which, impressively, are completely different and yet well marked-out than they would have been had I asked her this yesterday). At one point we are joined by an inebriated Irishman celebrating his 25th wedding anniversary with his entire family, inside. Touchingly, he tells us about his son's wife, who is expecting a child having lost two in pregnancy in the last couple of years, and how he's praying to St. Anthony for this one to go well. Cliched drunken Irishman he may be, but he spreads some warmth on the chilly forecourt of the Toll Gate before staggering back inside to argue the toss over a pint of Guinness. Of course he does.
Wednesday 29 September 2010
Monday 27th September
Our train back to London isn't til 12, so we take our time in getting up and leaving Jim's house. He's off to work hours before we even stir - so we said our goodbyes last night and catch Steph for a quick seeya on our way out of the door. The weather's not great, but we wander up towards the cafe where I met my parents for breakfast the other week and on the way go past the cemetery where my grandparents on my dad's side are buried. I haven't been here for a few years, so I suggest to K that we head in and try to find the grave. I impress myself by remembering almost exactly where it is, and I tell K a little bit about that side of the family before we head off again. I'm also impressed by the fact that the grave is almost directly opposite that of the Labour politician Robin Cook, who died a few years ago.
We walk up to the cafe which, like last time, is closed as we approach. No matter - I suggest heading across the Meadows towards George IV Bridge, which is packed with exactly the sort of caff we're both in the mood for. Despite the cold, drizzly weather, it's a nice walk, though we pay the price for indecisiveness and missing cash machine opportunities; we're at the Royal Mile before we find money and at Cockburn Street before an acceptable cafe presents itself. We order a couple of sausage sandwiches and sit reading the paper for a little while.
With an hour or so left before the train leaves, we head across Princes Street and poke about in Fopp, where I pick up Fish Tank for a fiver (planning to watch it later tonight when K is at her dressmaking course) and K gets a couple of books. We walk West along Princes Street, stopping to look at the mock-up of the proposed tram, which seems impressive but still, oddly, it's hard to imagine them ever actually trundling up and down in the shadow of the Castle.
We catch the train in good time and I spend the almost-five hour journey doing some writing and watching a couple of episodes of Louie while K finishes knitting a bobble hat. We get into Kings Cross bang on time (usefully prior to the rush hour) and we're back home by 5.30. K heads off to Finchley for her course and I stick the film on while pottering about the flat. It's nice to be home.
We walk up to the cafe which, like last time, is closed as we approach. No matter - I suggest heading across the Meadows towards George IV Bridge, which is packed with exactly the sort of caff we're both in the mood for. Despite the cold, drizzly weather, it's a nice walk, though we pay the price for indecisiveness and missing cash machine opportunities; we're at the Royal Mile before we find money and at Cockburn Street before an acceptable cafe presents itself. We order a couple of sausage sandwiches and sit reading the paper for a little while.
With an hour or so left before the train leaves, we head across Princes Street and poke about in Fopp, where I pick up Fish Tank for a fiver (planning to watch it later tonight when K is at her dressmaking course) and K gets a couple of books. We walk West along Princes Street, stopping to look at the mock-up of the proposed tram, which seems impressive but still, oddly, it's hard to imagine them ever actually trundling up and down in the shadow of the Castle.
We catch the train in good time and I spend the almost-five hour journey doing some writing and watching a couple of episodes of Louie while K finishes knitting a bobble hat. We get into Kings Cross bang on time (usefully prior to the rush hour) and we're back home by 5.30. K heads off to Finchley for her course and I stick the film on while pottering about the flat. It's nice to be home.
Tuesday 28 September 2010
Sunday 26th September
I sleep in surprisingly late - maybe I just expect to be shouted at to get up early because I'm at home? - but still get up in time for another huge breakfast. This one is a bit more trans-Atlantic, involving pancakes, bacon and scrambled egg in a tasty combo, though I forego the maple syrup. The rest of the morning involves the continuation of the Scrabble tournament, in which I manage to finish fourth with about the same amount of points that saw me finish first last night (though the scores are notably higher across the board than they were after a few bottles of wine) - so that's disappointing.
Later on we jump in the car and head over to Peebles to visit my grandmother, whose new flat I've yet to visit. It's another long, winding journey and a couple of us feel a little carsick by the time we arrive in the super-heated flat, but we relax for a bit and amuse ourselves by playing with Granny's electric armchair that can help you stand up. I imagine her falling asleep on the button and waking up mid-flight as she is catapulted out of her seat. She confirms that this has, in fact, almost happened on a couple of occasions. These are the risks one takes with technology, I suppose.
After Jim and I have constructed Granny's new wheelchair she bought from the internet, we take her out for a stroll along Peebles high street and down to the river. It's another cold but nice day, and Peebles is rather pretty. I have fun wheeling the chair down steep hills and up the other side; but I perhaps wouldn't want to be the one under my control.
After a nice piece of cake we head back to Gattonside to prepare ourselves for the big Sunday roast (once again watching Man vs Food in psychological preparation) which is once again amazing in both its quality and sheer scale. My brother is, as ever, tormented by the chef and goaded into eating his own weight in beef and roast potatoes. I give up early - but still manage a huge piece of apple pie and custard before we retire to the living room.
We say our goodbyes at about 10.30 and hit the road in Jim's car heading for Edinburgh. The roads are quiet and the journey goes quickly, but the sheer amount of food and booze in my stomach makes the whole thing less than completely comfortable, so K and I do our best to fall asleep on each other in the back seat. When we finally roll into the city about an hour later we crawl up the stairs to Jim's flat and hit the sack - fully fed and watered after a lovely weekend in the country.
Later on we jump in the car and head over to Peebles to visit my grandmother, whose new flat I've yet to visit. It's another long, winding journey and a couple of us feel a little carsick by the time we arrive in the super-heated flat, but we relax for a bit and amuse ourselves by playing with Granny's electric armchair that can help you stand up. I imagine her falling asleep on the button and waking up mid-flight as she is catapulted out of her seat. She confirms that this has, in fact, almost happened on a couple of occasions. These are the risks one takes with technology, I suppose.
After Jim and I have constructed Granny's new wheelchair she bought from the internet, we take her out for a stroll along Peebles high street and down to the river. It's another cold but nice day, and Peebles is rather pretty. I have fun wheeling the chair down steep hills and up the other side; but I perhaps wouldn't want to be the one under my control.
After a nice piece of cake we head back to Gattonside to prepare ourselves for the big Sunday roast (once again watching Man vs Food in psychological preparation) which is once again amazing in both its quality and sheer scale. My brother is, as ever, tormented by the chef and goaded into eating his own weight in beef and roast potatoes. I give up early - but still manage a huge piece of apple pie and custard before we retire to the living room.
We say our goodbyes at about 10.30 and hit the road in Jim's car heading for Edinburgh. The roads are quiet and the journey goes quickly, but the sheer amount of food and booze in my stomach makes the whole thing less than completely comfortable, so K and I do our best to fall asleep on each other in the back seat. When we finally roll into the city about an hour later we crawl up the stairs to Jim's flat and hit the sack - fully fed and watered after a lovely weekend in the country.
Monday 27 September 2010
Saturday 25th September
The four of us get up early and eat a modest feast of Tesco croissants, drunkenly purchased last night, before heading out to the countryside to see my mum and stepdad. The weekend there is likely to take the form of a Man vs Food eating challenge - such is the stepdad's devotion to quantity in the kitchen - so we don't want to fill up too much before hitting the road. We jump in the car around 10.30 and head out of Edinburgh towards Gattonside, a small village near Melrose, in the Scottish Borders. The journey is enjoyable in Jim's car, especially due to the fact that the sometimes-used alternative bus is a surefire sickness-inducing vehicle; winding down the narrow lanes of the A7 at gut-churning speeds yet still somehow taking about six months to reach its destination.
We arrive safe and sound at around lunchtime, just in time to take delivery of a couple of the most enormous (and delicious) breakfast rolls ever constructed - featuring sausage, bacon, egg and fried potato. A breakfast/lunch like that needs significant walking-off, so after watching a chunk of the disappointing and very-12.45-kick-off Man City v Chelsea game (City win 1-0 through a Tevez goal, ending the 100% start to the league but changing little at the top thanks to Arsenal going down 2-3 at home to West Brom later today) we head across the Tweed towards Melrose.
The few other people heading the same way as us on this beautiful, autumnal afternoon, are also on their way to the Melrose v Glasgow Hawks rugby match in the centre of the village. I've been to a game here a couple of years ago; and while I'm no rugby fan, it's a beautiful setting to sit and watch some live sport, with the Eildon hills in view. Melrose seem to do well against Glasgow and run out convincing winners (again, I know so little about rugby that my match report doesn't even stretch to remembering the score).
After the match we walk up through Melrose and down past the ruined Abbey on the way home. We don't have long to sit around before dinner is served, but we pass the time by slobbing around in the living room and trying in vain to complete the Scotsman crossword.
Dinner is predictably massive (involving chilli nachos, ribs, chicken wings and fajitas in delicious abundance) and there is plenty of wine to go around for us younger revellers. After a game of Scrabble and the mandatory X-Factor viewing, the parents head to bed while K, Jim, his girlfriend Steph and I finish one last bottle before bed. Life's nice out in the country - especially with a trained chef on hand and a house full of booze and food!
We arrive safe and sound at around lunchtime, just in time to take delivery of a couple of the most enormous (and delicious) breakfast rolls ever constructed - featuring sausage, bacon, egg and fried potato. A breakfast/lunch like that needs significant walking-off, so after watching a chunk of the disappointing and very-12.45-kick-off Man City v Chelsea game (City win 1-0 through a Tevez goal, ending the 100% start to the league but changing little at the top thanks to Arsenal going down 2-3 at home to West Brom later today) we head across the Tweed towards Melrose.
The few other people heading the same way as us on this beautiful, autumnal afternoon, are also on their way to the Melrose v Glasgow Hawks rugby match in the centre of the village. I've been to a game here a couple of years ago; and while I'm no rugby fan, it's a beautiful setting to sit and watch some live sport, with the Eildon hills in view. Melrose seem to do well against Glasgow and run out convincing winners (again, I know so little about rugby that my match report doesn't even stretch to remembering the score).
After the match we walk up through Melrose and down past the ruined Abbey on the way home. We don't have long to sit around before dinner is served, but we pass the time by slobbing around in the living room and trying in vain to complete the Scotsman crossword.
Dinner is predictably massive (involving chilli nachos, ribs, chicken wings and fajitas in delicious abundance) and there is plenty of wine to go around for us younger revellers. After a game of Scrabble and the mandatory X-Factor viewing, the parents head to bed while K, Jim, his girlfriend Steph and I finish one last bottle before bed. Life's nice out in the country - especially with a trained chef on hand and a house full of booze and food!
Friday 24th September
K and I are off to Scotland for the weekend to visit my family and generally relax a bit. We have a few errands to run before we head to Kings Cross to get the train – notably one which involves me walking into Wood Green to buy some new jeans, and stopping by Maplin to get a headphone splitter meaning that we can watch films on my laptop together on the train. We do eventually get underway for 11am, though, turning up at an incredibly busy station to pile onto a fully subscribed train. Weirdly it's even busier than when I went up for the bank holiday weekend, and our reserved seats are inconveniently placed one behind the other. I get some writing done in the first hour or so, before I move next to K when the person booked next to her doesn't turn up.
We plug in the headphone splitter and put on Get Him to the Greek – which I downloaded just before we left. I'm not the biggest fan of Russell Brand by any means, but he seems to excel at playing people exactly like himself and is a nice change from the usual Englishman you see in American films. Jonah Hill is great as always and P.Diddy is even good as the scary record label owner. We both have to stifle a few laughs (literal LOLs, almost) so as not to disturb the rest of the train carriage, and find that the film is almost exactly the right length to see us to the end of the 4 ½ hour journey.
We get off the train in Edinburgh and are instantly surprised by how cold it is (though I do take the opportunity to make fun of K for being a soft Englander) while we wait for my brother Jim to pick us up. We head back to his flat and dump our stuff so we can head out for a walk around the city and find some dinner. It is definitely cold – but it's a sunny autumn day, so we dawdle over the Meadows to George IV bridge. I am struck by how unusual it is these days to be in Edinburgh twice in such a short period of time, but also by how different the city is outside of the festival. It is, it must be said, nice not to have to see John Bishop's face on every poster on every street corner.
We all get a little peckish and so head to The Tron for one of their burger-and-a-pint deals (I opt for the cheese, bacon and onion ring-topped Scream burger) while we sit and catch up. We move on shortly after, stopping off for a quick drink at the Brass Monkey – one of my favourite pubs during my brief stay as a student in Edinburgh around 7 years ago. The pub fills up quickly and everyone looks a little weary already, so we decide to head back towards the flat via The Meadows Bar, a rather nice little pub not far from the Commonwealth Pool. We end up staying here longer than we expected (thanks to the tantalising ItBox and the deceptive easiness of the early rounds of their Pub Quiz game) and only end up making a move for home at a respectable 10pm. Back at the house we drink a little red wine before retiring exhausted – we're up early tomorrow to head to my parents' house in the Borders, so proper rest is definitely called for.
We plug in the headphone splitter and put on Get Him to the Greek – which I downloaded just before we left. I'm not the biggest fan of Russell Brand by any means, but he seems to excel at playing people exactly like himself and is a nice change from the usual Englishman you see in American films. Jonah Hill is great as always and P.Diddy is even good as the scary record label owner. We both have to stifle a few laughs (literal LOLs, almost) so as not to disturb the rest of the train carriage, and find that the film is almost exactly the right length to see us to the end of the 4 ½ hour journey.
We get off the train in Edinburgh and are instantly surprised by how cold it is (though I do take the opportunity to make fun of K for being a soft Englander) while we wait for my brother Jim to pick us up. We head back to his flat and dump our stuff so we can head out for a walk around the city and find some dinner. It is definitely cold – but it's a sunny autumn day, so we dawdle over the Meadows to George IV bridge. I am struck by how unusual it is these days to be in Edinburgh twice in such a short period of time, but also by how different the city is outside of the festival. It is, it must be said, nice not to have to see John Bishop's face on every poster on every street corner.
We all get a little peckish and so head to The Tron for one of their burger-and-a-pint deals (I opt for the cheese, bacon and onion ring-topped Scream burger) while we sit and catch up. We move on shortly after, stopping off for a quick drink at the Brass Monkey – one of my favourite pubs during my brief stay as a student in Edinburgh around 7 years ago. The pub fills up quickly and everyone looks a little weary already, so we decide to head back towards the flat via The Meadows Bar, a rather nice little pub not far from the Commonwealth Pool. We end up staying here longer than we expected (thanks to the tantalising ItBox and the deceptive easiness of the early rounds of their Pub Quiz game) and only end up making a move for home at a respectable 10pm. Back at the house we drink a little red wine before retiring exhausted – we're up early tomorrow to head to my parents' house in the Borders, so proper rest is definitely called for.
Thursday 23rd September
Today is the regular Publishers Publicity Circle (PPC) meeting in central London, where book PRs meet to hear talks from journalists, editors and, in today's case, folks from the telly. I've not been to one before – usually preferring not to bother travelling into central during the day – but it's certainly my turn this month, so Jess and I jump on the tube around midday. The weather is appalling, and when Jess accidentally leaves her umbrella on the tube we huddle together as we struggle up Charing Cross Road towards Foyles. There's another reason why I've always been keen to avoid the PPC meetings, one which becomes startlingly apparent as soon as we arrive at the huge bookshop's top-floor gallery: that everyone (bar me) who works in book publicity is short, blonde and female. And I really do mean virtually everyone – in a room of around 60 people I can count maybe one other guy. It's weird, and it makes me wonder quite how the worlds of publishing and PR seem to end up so predominantly female.
The speakers today are pretty interesting, at least – we get to hear from the guest booker from The One Show (who seems to do a hell of a lot of work) as well as producers from Sky News, Newsnight and The Culture Show. We take down a few names and email addresses and get out of the room before the dull-looking sandwiches and desperate PR networking begin. Luckily the weather's brightened up, and by the time we get back to the office at 3 my four-day week is almost over.
This evening I've planned to meet up with Tim in town, as I haven't him for a while (and probably won't again as he's off to Australia fairly soon) and he's killing time in London before heading off to Stansted for an early flight to Gothenburg. I head into town for the second time today and meet Tim at Oxford Circus, before we head up to The Cock for a beer. The place is busy, so we take refuge in the upstairs section and catch up for a while. Hunger soon sets in so we head off to Tortilla – a tasty nearby burrito place – before heading towards Tim's Baker Street bus stop and settling in another Sam Smith's pub. His bus is due at 11.30, so at around 11 we say our goodbyes and I head for the tube. It's weird to think I'll probably be married by the next time we meet up – and that for a short while my two oldest friends will both be on the opposite side of the planet from me.
The speakers today are pretty interesting, at least – we get to hear from the guest booker from The One Show (who seems to do a hell of a lot of work) as well as producers from Sky News, Newsnight and The Culture Show. We take down a few names and email addresses and get out of the room before the dull-looking sandwiches and desperate PR networking begin. Luckily the weather's brightened up, and by the time we get back to the office at 3 my four-day week is almost over.
This evening I've planned to meet up with Tim in town, as I haven't him for a while (and probably won't again as he's off to Australia fairly soon) and he's killing time in London before heading off to Stansted for an early flight to Gothenburg. I head into town for the second time today and meet Tim at Oxford Circus, before we head up to The Cock for a beer. The place is busy, so we take refuge in the upstairs section and catch up for a while. Hunger soon sets in so we head off to Tortilla – a tasty nearby burrito place – before heading towards Tim's Baker Street bus stop and settling in another Sam Smith's pub. His bus is due at 11.30, so at around 11 we say our goodbyes and I head for the tube. It's weird to think I'll probably be married by the next time we meet up – and that for a short while my two oldest friends will both be on the opposite side of the planet from me.
Wednesday 22nd September
Tonight is the launch of a graphic novel called Dance by the Light of the Moon, which tells the story of a Belgian woman's love affair with a Togolese man seeking asylum in her country. There is to be an interview and a q&a at Bar Music Hall near Old Street, so I head home briefly before heading to Old Street on the overground. This isn't a route I use often – but immediately I curse myself for having not done, given the faff of changing trains at Kings Cross on the tube, while the overground carries me to Old Street in something like 15 minutes. There's not too many of us coming from the office, but I've arranged to meet our new intern at the station so she has some company at her first launch with us.
We head through the hipster nightmare that is Old Street and find the bar after a couple of wrong turns – though I am surprised to find that it's a bar I've been to a few times, both for launches and just for fun. Clearly their name is just not memorable enough. We meet up with the publishers and a couple of folks from work, while making sure to nick a couple of beer vouchers to use at the bar. The interview starts shortly after – with the author being interviewed by UK comics supremo Paul Gravett – but annoyingly the bar seem unwilling to turn the music down in the building, meaning that the author, even with a microphone, struggles to be heard over the pumping soundtrack and the increasingly raucous birthday party taking place nearby. Either way, the talk is interesting and seems to generate a fair bit of interest in the book, so all is well. We spend the rest of the evening standing around chatting with various folks from work and otherwise – as well as attempting to direct a student on Fresher's Week to a nearby pub that might be better suited to his budget. We're not paying for our drinks, I explain, but if I was I wouldn't be here.
It starts to get late so we head back to the tube station – stopping to get a dodgy burger from a dodgy kebab shop – skipping over the massed drunks and tramps of this less-than-picture-postcard part of the city.
We head through the hipster nightmare that is Old Street and find the bar after a couple of wrong turns – though I am surprised to find that it's a bar I've been to a few times, both for launches and just for fun. Clearly their name is just not memorable enough. We meet up with the publishers and a couple of folks from work, while making sure to nick a couple of beer vouchers to use at the bar. The interview starts shortly after – with the author being interviewed by UK comics supremo Paul Gravett – but annoyingly the bar seem unwilling to turn the music down in the building, meaning that the author, even with a microphone, struggles to be heard over the pumping soundtrack and the increasingly raucous birthday party taking place nearby. Either way, the talk is interesting and seems to generate a fair bit of interest in the book, so all is well. We spend the rest of the evening standing around chatting with various folks from work and otherwise – as well as attempting to direct a student on Fresher's Week to a nearby pub that might be better suited to his budget. We're not paying for our drinks, I explain, but if I was I wouldn't be here.
It starts to get late so we head back to the tube station – stopping to get a dodgy burger from a dodgy kebab shop – skipping over the massed drunks and tramps of this less-than-picture-postcard part of the city.
Tuesday 21st September
After a heavy few days of partying, it's nice to be back in the normal day-to-day – if only for a couple of days until we head to Scotland on Friday. In dire need of exercise, we endeavour to get our swimming routine back on track, so I head out towards Park Road pool at around 7 to meet K at 7.30. It's getting noticeably dark in the evenings now, so I walk through Priory Park cautiously, sure that we won't be able to walk the same way back, completely unlit as it is. You never know when some evil dog or rabid Crouch End drug fiend is going to leap out of the bushes and maul or knifecrime you. I get up to the swimming pool and wait a little while for K's bus to turn up. I'm a little concerned to see almost everyone get off the previous bus and pour into the leisure centre – especially because the place is tending to be really busy at this time lately.
Sure enough, when K turns up and we head in, the guy behind the counter informs us that the pool is “really, really busy” - which must be the case as they're unlikely to want to turn people away. We could technically go in; but I can imagine the frustration of trying to actually swim already, so we decide. A bit annoyed, we settle on walking home the long way round, heading towards Alexandra Palace and walking along Hornsey Road back to Turnpike Lane. K sorts out a delicious curry dish and we catch up on Mad Men before bed.
Monday 20th September
Back to work then, and as we have a new intern to toast and it was Susie's birthday recently, we decide as a department to head out for some lunch. There used to be a few decent restaurants around the office – but most went bust during the recession and decent food in Wood Green is as rare as you'd probably imagine it is. The girls have mentioned, though, that the nearby Asian community centre is offering chicken thalis for only £4.00 – and while I'm highly sceptical of how nice these could really be, I am assured they're well worth ago.
We troop over to the centre and queue up outside their office to pay our money and get our names written down (not sure why) before taking a raffle-type ticket over to the kitchen to grab a stainless steel tray with various compartments. There are also stainless steel cups to drink water from. The nice old ladies serve up rice, veg and chicken – along with a strange sweet pudding (which goes in the middle of the tray, meaning that by dessert I've clearly dropped lots of rice and curry sauce into it). The food turns out to be very nice – but I struggle with eating from the metal tray and perceived authenticity of the food. It's cheap for a reason, but it does the trick and we have a nice chat with our new intern before heading back to the office.
Later on I head home and spend the evening hanging out with K's sister while K is out for the first week of her evening dressmaking course. We decide to wait for K to get home before dinner (not til 10, but then I have had a big curry for lunch) and amuse ourselves by eating nachos and watching yet more Man vs Food in the interim. K finally gets home and we get involved in some serious chicken fajitas and drink some red wine to celebrate K's sister's last night in the UK before heading around the world.
We troop over to the centre and queue up outside their office to pay our money and get our names written down (not sure why) before taking a raffle-type ticket over to the kitchen to grab a stainless steel tray with various compartments. There are also stainless steel cups to drink water from. The nice old ladies serve up rice, veg and chicken – along with a strange sweet pudding (which goes in the middle of the tray, meaning that by dessert I've clearly dropped lots of rice and curry sauce into it). The food turns out to be very nice – but I struggle with eating from the metal tray and perceived authenticity of the food. It's cheap for a reason, but it does the trick and we have a nice chat with our new intern before heading back to the office.
Later on I head home and spend the evening hanging out with K's sister while K is out for the first week of her evening dressmaking course. We decide to wait for K to get home before dinner (not til 10, but then I have had a big curry for lunch) and amuse ourselves by eating nachos and watching yet more Man vs Food in the interim. K finally gets home and we get involved in some serious chicken fajitas and drink some red wine to celebrate K's sister's last night in the UK before heading around the world.
Sunday 19th September
After a big party like last night's, today was always going to a bit of a quiet one. All three of us get up feeling a bit rough and are happy to potter around the house for the majority of the morning. K's sister makes dresses, K does some breakfast and I stare blankly at the telly (mostly watching Man vs Food which now seems to be on more or less all day on Good Food – contradiction in terms though the channel name is). We eventually get our act together and trundle down the passage for the Big Shop and stop in the usual shops for a poke about along the way. I wearily roll the trolley around Sainsbury's while alternate twins run up and drop stuff in – the hangover is really kicking in under the supermarket's bright lights.
We get home and have a quick lunch while I finally manage to fiddle around with my netbook to convince it to stream the Man Utd v Liverpool game from some obscure Chinese sports channel – which seems to have some sort of system where viewers opinions are displayed as scrolling text throughout the match; thank goodness that doesn't happen here. The quality is good though, both in terms of the feed and of the football – especially Dimitar Berbatov's stunning overhead kick for United's second. Utd win an entertaining match 3-2 and Liverpool's miserable start to the season continues. Ah well.
In the evening K knocks up a delicious roast dinner and we sit around watching Gervais and Merchant's recent film Cemetery Junction – which turns out to be very enjoyable and predictably well-observed. Most of the real highlights involve Gervais' turn as the lead character's dad, but also the cafe worker who had previously appeared as an obsessive fan in Extras. Its central theme of wanting to escape your small home town and forge your own path in life is universal and certainly not unusual – but it's dealt with in an honest and not-especially soppy way that feels considered and heartfelt.
We get home and have a quick lunch while I finally manage to fiddle around with my netbook to convince it to stream the Man Utd v Liverpool game from some obscure Chinese sports channel – which seems to have some sort of system where viewers opinions are displayed as scrolling text throughout the match; thank goodness that doesn't happen here. The quality is good though, both in terms of the feed and of the football – especially Dimitar Berbatov's stunning overhead kick for United's second. Utd win an entertaining match 3-2 and Liverpool's miserable start to the season continues. Ah well.
In the evening K knocks up a delicious roast dinner and we sit around watching Gervais and Merchant's recent film Cemetery Junction – which turns out to be very enjoyable and predictably well-observed. Most of the real highlights involve Gervais' turn as the lead character's dad, but also the cafe worker who had previously appeared as an obsessive fan in Extras. Its central theme of wanting to escape your small home town and forge your own path in life is universal and certainly not unusual – but it's dealt with in an honest and not-especially soppy way that feels considered and heartfelt.
Saturday 25 September 2010
Saturday 18th September
Tonight sees a mega-combination party taking place at Big Red, celebrating our friend Big Rich's birthday, K's sisters going off travelling and – of course – mine and K's engagement. In preparation, I manage to spend the bulk of the day doing absolutely nothing, save for nipping out to Tesco's to grab bread and bacon for the hungover twins, before making them a pretty exquisite fry-up. There's also the small matter of the day's football, which I am surprisingly allowed to follow on Sky Sports News in the afternoon, The bigger teams don't play until tomorrow, and Arsenal are in an evening kick-off against Sunderland, so there's relatively little to get excited about from the day's results, though Newcastle do manage to spring a defeat on Everton, who are having an utterly torrid start to the season.
We head out to Big Red for around six, where people have already started to gather in anticipation. We had been worried that this might be a tad early to start the party – but of course our friends are an eager bunch; plus Big Red serves those delicious nachos that can bring people down here at any hour of the day. We come armed with a mighty cake, crafted by K's sister – an enormous, three-layered, star-shaped cake in red, white and blue sponge that wouldn't look out of place on Man vs Food. Luckily there's a lot of people here to help out with it, I suppose. More and more people turn up as the night goes on and we're given lots of nice cards – Mike even goes the extra mile and arrives with a racist snowglobe from York (a classic engagement present if ever I saw one). I also, oddly, bump into someone I had been friends with at school in Folkestone and therefore haven't seen in over ten years. It's odd seeing someone after this long, in that while I recognised him instantly he is clearly not the 15-year-old boy I last spoke to. We have a nice chat though and I make sure to say goodbye properly when we head off.
Unusually for me on a Saturday evening, an early start doesn't mean an especially early night – as K and I find ourselves still standing as the time approaches 1am. We head home via the all-night bakery and stock up on pasties and steak slices, before jumping on the obligatory (and joyously free) 29 bus. I am reminded of an earlier conversation with Alex, in which we observed that the 29 bendy bus (on which it is laughably easy to get away without swiping your Oyster card) was Ken Livingstone's truly socialist gift to London before departing. He knew full well that no one would pay for a bus where it wasn't properly monitored – and sneakily created free travel for all (between Trafalgar Square and Wood Green, anyway). No wonder Boris wants rid of them!
We head out to Big Red for around six, where people have already started to gather in anticipation. We had been worried that this might be a tad early to start the party – but of course our friends are an eager bunch; plus Big Red serves those delicious nachos that can bring people down here at any hour of the day. We come armed with a mighty cake, crafted by K's sister – an enormous, three-layered, star-shaped cake in red, white and blue sponge that wouldn't look out of place on Man vs Food. Luckily there's a lot of people here to help out with it, I suppose. More and more people turn up as the night goes on and we're given lots of nice cards – Mike even goes the extra mile and arrives with a racist snowglobe from York (a classic engagement present if ever I saw one). I also, oddly, bump into someone I had been friends with at school in Folkestone and therefore haven't seen in over ten years. It's odd seeing someone after this long, in that while I recognised him instantly he is clearly not the 15-year-old boy I last spoke to. We have a nice chat though and I make sure to say goodbye properly when we head off.
Unusually for me on a Saturday evening, an early start doesn't mean an especially early night – as K and I find ourselves still standing as the time approaches 1am. We head home via the all-night bakery and stock up on pasties and steak slices, before jumping on the obligatory (and joyously free) 29 bus. I am reminded of an earlier conversation with Alex, in which we observed that the 29 bendy bus (on which it is laughably easy to get away without swiping your Oyster card) was Ken Livingstone's truly socialist gift to London before departing. He knew full well that no one would pay for a bus where it wasn't properly monitored – and sneakily created free travel for all (between Trafalgar Square and Wood Green, anyway). No wonder Boris wants rid of them!
Friday 17th September
Today marks the start of the final weekend before K's sisters head off travelling around the world, so her twin turns up on our doorstep (literally) when I get home from work, armed with lager and huge bags of possessions to be hauled around the planet. She and K are off to a gig tonight, but we sit and have a little dinner before they head to Islington. I'm left alone for the majority of the evening, so I muck about on the internet for a while and watch a bit of telly.
There's precious little on so I flick to the Xbox – and while continuing to take Russia to World Cup glory (bouncing back from a 1-1 draw with Greece in game one to beat both Mali and Paraguay 3-0, finishing as group leaders and setting up a tasty Cold War grudge match with the USA in the second round) is fun for a while, I start to veer into dangerously-bored territory. I put the DVD of Catterick on – but realising that the quality of the series dwindles slighlty towards the end, I'm once again bored, listless and unsatisfied. I send out a hopeful text to Alex, wondering whether she'll be on her way home from the opera any time soon and would she like to hang out. Worryingly, this ends up in my second 11pm invite to the Tollgate in three days – and even more worryingly, I grasp the opportunity eagerly.
We sit there for a little while as neither of us have much cash – but I can at least reflect on the fact that last night I stood around drinking champagne at an exclusive Soho rooftop bar, hobnobbing with people probably far more important than I – and tonight I'm in a grim, bleakly populated Wetherspoon's opposite a row of curry houses in North London. I'm like bloody George Orwell or something.
There's precious little on so I flick to the Xbox – and while continuing to take Russia to World Cup glory (bouncing back from a 1-1 draw with Greece in game one to beat both Mali and Paraguay 3-0, finishing as group leaders and setting up a tasty Cold War grudge match with the USA in the second round) is fun for a while, I start to veer into dangerously-bored territory. I put the DVD of Catterick on – but realising that the quality of the series dwindles slighlty towards the end, I'm once again bored, listless and unsatisfied. I send out a hopeful text to Alex, wondering whether she'll be on her way home from the opera any time soon and would she like to hang out. Worryingly, this ends up in my second 11pm invite to the Tollgate in three days – and even more worryingly, I grasp the opportunity eagerly.
We sit there for a little while as neither of us have much cash – but I can at least reflect on the fact that last night I stood around drinking champagne at an exclusive Soho rooftop bar, hobnobbing with people probably far more important than I – and tonight I'm in a grim, bleakly populated Wetherspoon's opposite a row of curry houses in North London. I'm like bloody George Orwell or something.
Thursday 16th September
Tonight is the launch of a new photo book in which a British photographer, Jason Bell, has documented people from the UK who have relocated to New York and become successful – so some celebrities and others who've done well in business and so on. The photographs themselves are being exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery, so after getting home and making a slapdash attempt to make myself look a bit smarter (i.e. putting a shirt on) I hop on the tube and head for Leicester Square. The gallery is busy and music is playing as the museum-evening events start, and it takes me a while to actually find the exhibition I'm looking for. It turns out to be a small, but popular, affair tucked away around a corner – so after quickly taking in the photos and failing to recognise anyone, I wander around the adjacent rooms for a while waiting for my colleagues to turn up. Thankfully they make an appearance before long, and after saying a couple of hellos we have a look around the BP Portrait Award exhibition – which is a pleasant-enough mix of painting and photography; though the prevalence of hyper-realistic photo-style painting bothers me a bit. I don't understand why painters would try to ape the style of photographs, other than to show off their ability to do so. I am, as is often the case, later told that I'm merely being ignorant.
After the gallery, we are invited to a rooftop bar at a private members' club on Shaftesbury Avenue. It takes a little while to find, as I suppose members' clubs should do – as it is a mostly anonymous door. The door, however, leads to floor after floor of bars and restaurants, which we scramble through to reach the rooftop bar. The bar itself is deceptive – all seems normal when we walk through and take a glass of champagne, so it takes a while to realise that there's no roof. Luckily it's a clear night – and we spend a very nice couple of hours chatting and drinking champagne. We head out to grab some food before long, though, stopping at a place called Soho Joe's for a decent, cheap pizza before the girls demand fine ice cream from a well-known fancy ice cream place. I abstain – Honey, Coffee and Ricotta ice cream? Not for me, thanks.
It's nice to spend some time out with colleagues catching up and talking out things other than work for a change, but the night wears on inevitably and we all make sure to catch the last tube home to bed.
After the gallery, we are invited to a rooftop bar at a private members' club on Shaftesbury Avenue. It takes a little while to find, as I suppose members' clubs should do – as it is a mostly anonymous door. The door, however, leads to floor after floor of bars and restaurants, which we scramble through to reach the rooftop bar. The bar itself is deceptive – all seems normal when we walk through and take a glass of champagne, so it takes a while to realise that there's no roof. Luckily it's a clear night – and we spend a very nice couple of hours chatting and drinking champagne. We head out to grab some food before long, though, stopping at a place called Soho Joe's for a decent, cheap pizza before the girls demand fine ice cream from a well-known fancy ice cream place. I abstain – Honey, Coffee and Ricotta ice cream? Not for me, thanks.
It's nice to spend some time out with colleagues catching up and talking out things other than work for a change, but the night wears on inevitably and we all make sure to catch the last tube home to bed.
Wednesday 15th September
This week the Pope is in the UK for a state visit – and while I don't usually get especially upset about things like this, I'm really uncomfortable with the fact that someone who is responsible for such a huge amount of misery and suffering in the world is invited to this country and given the red carpet treatment. He shouldn't even be afforded a state visit – he is not a proper head of state (elected or otherwise), and, as Stephen Fry eloquently puts it in his Intelligence Squared debate on the subject, it is an accident of history that the Vatican is considered a state at all. Regardless, he is here on holiday as a guest of the Queen, at a cost of around £12 million to the taxpayer (laughable given that the Catholic Church is the largest and richest religious sect on the planet) and we are all encouraged to be in awe of the Pontiff and feel honoured that he's chosen to even set foot on our little island.
Well, bollocks tothat. This man is the head of a church who discourages – on penalty of going to hell – the use of condoms by the poorest and most vulnerable to AIDS people in the poorest and worst-educated parts of the world. He also actively believes in keeping quiet the crimes of paedophiles in his organisation, a problem so unbelievably widespread it's difficult to mention Catholic priests in most company without a remark or joke relating to child abuse being made almost instantly. Of course, Catholic priests are by no means all child abusers, but the fact that systems are in place within their church to help them get away with it beggars belief in 2010 and in a huge, supposedly charitable Christian organisation. As I mentioned, Stephen Fry says it so much better than I could in his Intelligence Squared speech – so watch that. All through today and the rest of this week, I will feel conspicuously disquieted that my government is kissing the arse of a man with blood on his hands. And who accuses atheists of being just as bad as the Nazis. Charming man.
Arsenal are playing Braga in the Champions League tonight, so Alex pops round and we stick the game on ITV1 – spirits raised by the wonderful Champions League music and the very ITV sound of Clive Tyldseley talking us through the action. It turns out to be an entertaining match – as we sit sipping red wine, Arsenal romp to a 6-0 win with some lovely football on display (particularly when Marouane Chamakh stabs home a brilliant team effort close to goal. After the game we flick over to BBC2 to watch Mad Men, when K – on her way home from a gig – calls to say that she's popping into the Tollgate to meet up with Lloyd and Ed before closing time. Naturally, we get ready and cross the road, and while it's odd going to the pub at 11pm it's nice to sit and chat for a while and get a couple of jars in before the bell rings. It is, though, a school night – so K and I at least head home at a fairly reasonable hour, while Alex stays out with the boys and gets trollied in the local gay bar til 3am. I think I've made the right choice here.
Well, bollocks tothat. This man is the head of a church who discourages – on penalty of going to hell – the use of condoms by the poorest and most vulnerable to AIDS people in the poorest and worst-educated parts of the world. He also actively believes in keeping quiet the crimes of paedophiles in his organisation, a problem so unbelievably widespread it's difficult to mention Catholic priests in most company without a remark or joke relating to child abuse being made almost instantly. Of course, Catholic priests are by no means all child abusers, but the fact that systems are in place within their church to help them get away with it beggars belief in 2010 and in a huge, supposedly charitable Christian organisation. As I mentioned, Stephen Fry says it so much better than I could in his Intelligence Squared speech – so watch that. All through today and the rest of this week, I will feel conspicuously disquieted that my government is kissing the arse of a man with blood on his hands. And who accuses atheists of being just as bad as the Nazis. Charming man.
Arsenal are playing Braga in the Champions League tonight, so Alex pops round and we stick the game on ITV1 – spirits raised by the wonderful Champions League music and the very ITV sound of Clive Tyldseley talking us through the action. It turns out to be an entertaining match – as we sit sipping red wine, Arsenal romp to a 6-0 win with some lovely football on display (particularly when Marouane Chamakh stabs home a brilliant team effort close to goal. After the game we flick over to BBC2 to watch Mad Men, when K – on her way home from a gig – calls to say that she's popping into the Tollgate to meet up with Lloyd and Ed before closing time. Naturally, we get ready and cross the road, and while it's odd going to the pub at 11pm it's nice to sit and chat for a while and get a couple of jars in before the bell rings. It is, though, a school night – so K and I at least head home at a fairly reasonable hour, while Alex stays out with the boys and gets trollied in the local gay bar til 3am. I think I've made the right choice here.
Tuesday 21 September 2010
Tuesday 14th September
Cancelled evening plans mean a mean trudge home through worsening rain - but the promise of a tasty dinner and a quiet night in with K. There is also the small matter of the opening matchday of the Champions League - the greatest football competition on the planet (though you only remember that again when the World Cup has fizzled out) and intriguing games for Man Utd v Rangers and Spurs v Werder Bremen. The gods seems to be conspiring against me tonight re keeping track of them though, when some arcane BBC rights deal scuppers my attempt to listen to the United game on the radio through their website, and K's obsolescent DAB radio craps out on me when I try to switch to non-online forms of radio.
I suppose I could get the other radio from the bedroom or try and rig up some illegal online feed of the game - but it's only Man Utd and I shouldn't have to go out of my way. And they're only playing Rangers - another team I feel little other than antipathy for since my year spent living in Scotland, sharing a flat with an obnoxious, moronic, disgracefully racist Glaswegian who happened to support the blue half of the city. Celtic had my default support in Old Firm terms from that day on.
I give up on trying to follow either match - but keep an eye on the BBC live text feed for all the games. The thrill of the Champions League can wait until tomorrow when it comes to ITV; and at any rate it doesn't seem like I've missed much as Utd and Rangers play out a turgid 0-0 by all accounts - Ferguson's team seemingly unable to break down a dour Rangers defence. Being the sort of football fan who wants to see every game but doesn't have Sky is tough - especially when you can't justify being in the pub every Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday (and even Thursday if you're including Europa League games). I may have to look further into the world of peer to peer streaming - even if I do violate some sacrosanct UEFA rights deals. Poor Michel Platini.
I suppose I could get the other radio from the bedroom or try and rig up some illegal online feed of the game - but it's only Man Utd and I shouldn't have to go out of my way. And they're only playing Rangers - another team I feel little other than antipathy for since my year spent living in Scotland, sharing a flat with an obnoxious, moronic, disgracefully racist Glaswegian who happened to support the blue half of the city. Celtic had my default support in Old Firm terms from that day on.
I give up on trying to follow either match - but keep an eye on the BBC live text feed for all the games. The thrill of the Champions League can wait until tomorrow when it comes to ITV; and at any rate it doesn't seem like I've missed much as Utd and Rangers play out a turgid 0-0 by all accounts - Ferguson's team seemingly unable to break down a dour Rangers defence. Being the sort of football fan who wants to see every game but doesn't have Sky is tough - especially when you can't justify being in the pub every Saturday, Sunday, Tuesday and Wednesday (and even Thursday if you're including Europa League games). I may have to look further into the world of peer to peer streaming - even if I do violate some sacrosanct UEFA rights deals. Poor Michel Platini.
Monday 20 September 2010
Monday 13th September
Today, I am reliably informed while idly clicking around Gizmodo as I often do on my lunchbreak, is the 25th anniversary of the release of Super Mario Bros. in Japan. This not only confirms that 1985 was one hell of a year, introducing to the world as it did Mario, Back to the Future and, well, me - but also that I've probably been playing Mario games for around 20 years. I've owned more or less every major iteration of the games and while I've never been particularly brilliant at them I've remained a huge fan ever since my brother and I shared a Christmas present in the thrilling form of a NES, packaged with Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt on one giant grey cartridge.
This was definitely the event that made me a lifelong Mario fan. My dad bought me a SNES at some point in the early 90s when my ambitious-but-not-that-great Sega Game Gear was stolen from his car (brilliant deal for me, eh?) meaning I could play Super Mario All Stars (which, to the uninitiated, comprised of Marios 1 (classic), 2 (a pretty rubbish remake of some unrelated game from Japan) and 3 (one of my three all-time favourite games). Later came the N64 and Mario 64 (another of my three favourite games ever), which I lost myself in for a long, long time. And while I enjoyed Super Mario Sunshine on the Gamecube (which is much better than people think, actually) I've never really played a game the way I played Mario 64 since. Being a grown-up now might have something to do with that, but then last Christmas my brother Sam and I almost laughed ourselves sick playing New Super Mario Bros. Wii in two-player mode - so the affection I feel for the series is way beyond nostlagia. Having said that, watching the Nintendo highlights video on Gizmodo makes me long to be immersed in one of these games again (and no, I haven't really had a chance to play either of the Galaxy games yet) - and wallow in the unforgettable iconography of the series.
Inspired, I get home from work and suggest to K that we play a little New Super Mario. Bros Wii (long and unwieldy though its title is) to celebrate the big man's anniversary. This always seems like a better idea beforehand - as we virtually come to blows no more than 10 minutes into playing. Still, it's nice to know Mario's still there - and growing up alongside me.
This was definitely the event that made me a lifelong Mario fan. My dad bought me a SNES at some point in the early 90s when my ambitious-but-not-that-great Sega Game Gear was stolen from his car (brilliant deal for me, eh?) meaning I could play Super Mario All Stars (which, to the uninitiated, comprised of Marios 1 (classic), 2 (a pretty rubbish remake of some unrelated game from Japan) and 3 (one of my three all-time favourite games). Later came the N64 and Mario 64 (another of my three favourite games ever), which I lost myself in for a long, long time. And while I enjoyed Super Mario Sunshine on the Gamecube (which is much better than people think, actually) I've never really played a game the way I played Mario 64 since. Being a grown-up now might have something to do with that, but then last Christmas my brother Sam and I almost laughed ourselves sick playing New Super Mario Bros. Wii in two-player mode - so the affection I feel for the series is way beyond nostlagia. Having said that, watching the Nintendo highlights video on Gizmodo makes me long to be immersed in one of these games again (and no, I haven't really had a chance to play either of the Galaxy games yet) - and wallow in the unforgettable iconography of the series.
Inspired, I get home from work and suggest to K that we play a little New Super Mario. Bros Wii (long and unwieldy though its title is) to celebrate the big man's anniversary. This always seems like a better idea beforehand - as we virtually come to blows no more than 10 minutes into playing. Still, it's nice to know Mario's still there - and growing up alongside me.
Sunday 19 September 2010
Sunday 12th September
K is still away so I get up and head to Sainsbury's to do the Big Shop solo - though luckily I've been left a detailed shopping list and as such I am supremely focussed and impervious to impulse buys (except maybe that two-pack of scotch eggs), bringing the shop in way below average. K won't be pleased that I got away with a cheap one, but then she doesn't have to lug the whole lot back home on the 141 does she?
I get back and make a bit of lunch before sitting down to watch the Italian Grand Prix - which, like many Grands Prix lately starts off promisingly before settling into a predictable procession, with Lewis Hamilton's second-lap crash causing the only change between the front few rows from start to finish. I suppose no one says Formula 1 is always guaranteed to be exciting, but much like test cricket I can't help but feel that the format is flawed slightly. It's clearly aimed more at the sort of nerds that understand what car telemetry means, rather than people like me who just want to see loads of overtaking and smash-ups.
The next sporting appointment of the day is Birmingham v Liverpool on TV - which requires a visit to the Hope and Anchor. Alex pops round and we walk over to Hornsey together, with Will - legend has it - on his way later. Mike and Rick are already in attendance and both notably nursing severe hangovers from the night before. Mike stares at a poorly-chosen pint of Guinness for a while before daring to tackle it; but either steels himself or is driven to drink by the dire football on offer. The two teams play out a dreadful 0-0 draw at St. Andrews (meaning that Alex and I are deprived of the veritable goalfest we enjoyed yesterday) and we find ourselves sat in the pub with nothing else to do. I cheekily suggest a pint of the dreaded Old Rosie at the Kings Head - and am surprised to find my suggestion cheekily accepted - even by the exqusitely hungover member of our party.
We wander down to the Kings Head and take our seats and start doing increasingly unwise rounds - but fuelling that sense of naughty Sunday drinking that has presumably brought everyone else to the pub at this time. By 11pm it's definitely time to leave after a fun evening with Mike, Will and Alex - and I even find the time to call K in Dorset to warn her and her younger brother of the dangers of Strong Cider. She, predictably, finds this very funny.
I get back and make a bit of lunch before sitting down to watch the Italian Grand Prix - which, like many Grands Prix lately starts off promisingly before settling into a predictable procession, with Lewis Hamilton's second-lap crash causing the only change between the front few rows from start to finish. I suppose no one says Formula 1 is always guaranteed to be exciting, but much like test cricket I can't help but feel that the format is flawed slightly. It's clearly aimed more at the sort of nerds that understand what car telemetry means, rather than people like me who just want to see loads of overtaking and smash-ups.
The next sporting appointment of the day is Birmingham v Liverpool on TV - which requires a visit to the Hope and Anchor. Alex pops round and we walk over to Hornsey together, with Will - legend has it - on his way later. Mike and Rick are already in attendance and both notably nursing severe hangovers from the night before. Mike stares at a poorly-chosen pint of Guinness for a while before daring to tackle it; but either steels himself or is driven to drink by the dire football on offer. The two teams play out a dreadful 0-0 draw at St. Andrews (meaning that Alex and I are deprived of the veritable goalfest we enjoyed yesterday) and we find ourselves sat in the pub with nothing else to do. I cheekily suggest a pint of the dreaded Old Rosie at the Kings Head - and am surprised to find my suggestion cheekily accepted - even by the exqusitely hungover member of our party.
We wander down to the Kings Head and take our seats and start doing increasingly unwise rounds - but fuelling that sense of naughty Sunday drinking that has presumably brought everyone else to the pub at this time. By 11pm it's definitely time to leave after a fun evening with Mike, Will and Alex - and I even find the time to call K in Dorset to warn her and her younger brother of the dangers of Strong Cider. She, predictably, finds this very funny.
Friday 17 September 2010
Saturday 11th September
Big date. I wonder if writing it will ever feel possible without that twinge, the wince of collective memory. Hard to believe it's been nine years - but then I've said that every 9/11 since 2002. The tenth anniversary looms, too.
K is off to Dorset this weekend to teensit her little brother while her parents are away on holiday. Before she heads off, I go to Tesco to stock up on bread and bacon for a farewell breakfast - which goes down a treat. We flop around and catch up on a bit of telly while K packs and gets ready to go. My plans for the day, to start with, revolve around football, feeling that I haven't managed to watch enough of it as I would have liked by this stage of the season, so Alex and I have arranged to meet at The World's End to catch the 12.45 kick-off match between Everton and Man United.
We come out of the tube at Finsbury Park and head to The World's End (my favourite pub in London for watching football, despite often being packed to the rafters with Gooners), remembering instantly that Arsenal are at home this afternoon, meaning cash-only, plastic cups and the aforementioned Gooners in abundance. The atmosphere is great though, since everyone bar one foolish man is supporting Everton - and when they take the lead early on they receive the loudest cheer I've heard for a while; this despite the fact there probably isn't a single Toffees fan in the house. United's quick equaliser is greeted by a muffled hooray from the single Man U fan in the corner - he doesn't make another peep all game.
United manage to get to 3-1 with half an hour to play and the game looks dead - until stoppage time rolls around and Everton, astonishgly, pull two goals back in as many minutes and the remaining folks in the pub (those who haven't wandered off to the Emirates) go mental with delight. 3-3 the final score, and Alex and I contentedly head off to grab some lunch.
We eat at the nearby Sunshine Cafe (a former favourite of K's and mine, when we lived in the area last year) before walking up to Crouch End for a mooch about the shops and a pint in the Queen's. We sit here for a while before I'm suddenly overcome by tiredness (starting too early, I think - Sky's fault for such a ridiculous kick-off time) and so we head back to mine for wine and telly. As we arrive the BBC have just started showing Burnley v Preston North End (with the presumably grumpy Alex Ferguson in attendance to see his son, Darren, now Preston manager). This one turns out to be a cracker too - and another one to upset the Ferguson family. Just like his dad's team, Preston lead Burnley 3-1 going into stoppage time, whereupon Chris Iwelumo goes mental and helps his team make the score 4-3 at the final whistle. Alex and I seem to have done well today - two TV games, 13 goals.
We watch X-Factor as is now grimly customary, and - enthused by the amount of Shane Meadows stuff on TV recently - watch Dead Man's Shoes before Alex heads home and Match of the Day comes on. Not quite the hard-partying, rock 'n' roll Saturday I had in mind, but very enjoyable - and there's always tomorrow, eh?
K is off to Dorset this weekend to teensit her little brother while her parents are away on holiday. Before she heads off, I go to Tesco to stock up on bread and bacon for a farewell breakfast - which goes down a treat. We flop around and catch up on a bit of telly while K packs and gets ready to go. My plans for the day, to start with, revolve around football, feeling that I haven't managed to watch enough of it as I would have liked by this stage of the season, so Alex and I have arranged to meet at The World's End to catch the 12.45 kick-off match between Everton and Man United.
We come out of the tube at Finsbury Park and head to The World's End (my favourite pub in London for watching football, despite often being packed to the rafters with Gooners), remembering instantly that Arsenal are at home this afternoon, meaning cash-only, plastic cups and the aforementioned Gooners in abundance. The atmosphere is great though, since everyone bar one foolish man is supporting Everton - and when they take the lead early on they receive the loudest cheer I've heard for a while; this despite the fact there probably isn't a single Toffees fan in the house. United's quick equaliser is greeted by a muffled hooray from the single Man U fan in the corner - he doesn't make another peep all game.
United manage to get to 3-1 with half an hour to play and the game looks dead - until stoppage time rolls around and Everton, astonishgly, pull two goals back in as many minutes and the remaining folks in the pub (those who haven't wandered off to the Emirates) go mental with delight. 3-3 the final score, and Alex and I contentedly head off to grab some lunch.
We eat at the nearby Sunshine Cafe (a former favourite of K's and mine, when we lived in the area last year) before walking up to Crouch End for a mooch about the shops and a pint in the Queen's. We sit here for a while before I'm suddenly overcome by tiredness (starting too early, I think - Sky's fault for such a ridiculous kick-off time) and so we head back to mine for wine and telly. As we arrive the BBC have just started showing Burnley v Preston North End (with the presumably grumpy Alex Ferguson in attendance to see his son, Darren, now Preston manager). This one turns out to be a cracker too - and another one to upset the Ferguson family. Just like his dad's team, Preston lead Burnley 3-1 going into stoppage time, whereupon Chris Iwelumo goes mental and helps his team make the score 4-3 at the final whistle. Alex and I seem to have done well today - two TV games, 13 goals.
We watch X-Factor as is now grimly customary, and - enthused by the amount of Shane Meadows stuff on TV recently - watch Dead Man's Shoes before Alex heads home and Match of the Day comes on. Not quite the hard-partying, rock 'n' roll Saturday I had in mind, but very enjoyable - and there's always tomorrow, eh?
Friday 10th September
The plan is to head out for a meal on Green Lanes tonight with Alex and her friends Duley and Will. I get home from work and faff around for a little bit before heading out towards Tottenham and the couple's new flat. I arrive before Alex does (who is apparently on her way over by bicycle) meaning I have the slightly awkward task of ensuring I'm in the right place and ringing the doorbell of people I'm friends with but not close enough to to actually spend time in their exclusive company. Nevertheless they are very welcoming and I sit in their very nice new flat with a beer and catch up. Alex is not far behind, and we spend the next couple of hours chatting and watching YouTube videos on a laptop connected to the TV. My computer isn't linked to my living room TV - but if it was this is all I would ever do. We watch the latest viral video that's been flying around Twitter all day (the 'Being a Dickhead's Cool' East London pisstake) which leads on to Flight of the Conchords songs and Weird Al Yankovic's excellent R.Kelly spoof, 'Trapped in the Drive-Thru'. By this point time has flown by and if we're really planning to get dinner anywhere we had better get a move on.
We head out and Alex chooses to bring her bike to the restaurant for reasons known only to herself, but it's fun walking past Downhills Park towards Green Lanes with her cycling alongside - though odd to be walking past my old street which I haven't seen since moving out almost two years ago. By chance we are heading for the same restaurant I went to last Thursday, Antepliler, so I fully intend to try something a little bit more interesting this time round. We share starters and enjoy some tasty courgette and yoghurt thing, along with some sort of lentil kofte items - none of which I can properly describe but all of which was tasty. After some chicken wings for main course (far better than the lamb I sampled last time) we sit and drink the booze we brought in while being entertained by the chatter of our fellow diners.
By the time we finish it's almost midnight, so we stroll up Green Lanes with Alex and Duley (considerably drunk by this point) taking it in turns to ride facing the wrong way on the front of Alex's bike, predictably crashing into innocent people also heading home from a Friday night out. With safety in mind, I make sure to walk home at least 20 yards ahead of them so as not to be associated with their antics, should they make an enemy of one of Wood Green's many violent types.
We head out and Alex chooses to bring her bike to the restaurant for reasons known only to herself, but it's fun walking past Downhills Park towards Green Lanes with her cycling alongside - though odd to be walking past my old street which I haven't seen since moving out almost two years ago. By chance we are heading for the same restaurant I went to last Thursday, Antepliler, so I fully intend to try something a little bit more interesting this time round. We share starters and enjoy some tasty courgette and yoghurt thing, along with some sort of lentil kofte items - none of which I can properly describe but all of which was tasty. After some chicken wings for main course (far better than the lamb I sampled last time) we sit and drink the booze we brought in while being entertained by the chatter of our fellow diners.
By the time we finish it's almost midnight, so we stroll up Green Lanes with Alex and Duley (considerably drunk by this point) taking it in turns to ride facing the wrong way on the front of Alex's bike, predictably crashing into innocent people also heading home from a Friday night out. With safety in mind, I make sure to walk home at least 20 yards ahead of them so as not to be associated with their antics, should they make an enemy of one of Wood Green's many violent types.
Wednesday 15 September 2010
Thursday 9th September
The section of the day before I get home from work is mostly uninteresting today - bar the unusual fact that I manage to genuinely slip on a banana skin on my way towards the flat. This has, I believe, never happened to me before (I'd probably remember such a cartoony event, wouldn't I? Like being hit with an anvil) - and while I don't exactly go arse over tit I am, if nothing else, startled. Startled enough to immediately tweet about it at any rate.
Later on K and I watch the first episode of This is England 86 - Shane Meadows' four-part sequel to his brilliant film of (almost) the same name. Shane Meadows is without doubt one of my favourite filmmakers, with Twentyfourseven, A Room for Romeo Brass, Dead Man's Shoes and This is England among the most honest, funny and exquisitely photographed movies I've ever seen. Meadows has an eye for what makes England England - which is perhaps why This is England is his best loved and most popular project. His talent for spotting acting talent and grim-but-beautiful locations, as well as his use of subtle musical cues to tug at the heartstrings is unlike any other director, certainly in this country. I also have a strange soft spot for the accent found in Meadows' home region (with Paddy Considine the best example of it) - a strange mix of Yorkshire and Brummy that makes me smile every time I hear it.
I have mixed feelings about the TV series existing at all - maybe feeling that a sequel isn't necessary on this occasion, wanting my experience of the movie (which brings me to tears every time I watch it) to remain untarnished - but as soon as it begins it's nice to see the characters and locations all over again, albeit with haircuts and fashion updated for the three years that have passed in the story. The humour and bleakness that makes Meadows' work what it is is still there; and while this first episode doesn't offer anything in the way of conclusion, it suggests that the series is really going to go somewhere.
Later on K and I watch the first episode of This is England 86 - Shane Meadows' four-part sequel to his brilliant film of (almost) the same name. Shane Meadows is without doubt one of my favourite filmmakers, with Twentyfourseven, A Room for Romeo Brass, Dead Man's Shoes and This is England among the most honest, funny and exquisitely photographed movies I've ever seen. Meadows has an eye for what makes England England - which is perhaps why This is England is his best loved and most popular project. His talent for spotting acting talent and grim-but-beautiful locations, as well as his use of subtle musical cues to tug at the heartstrings is unlike any other director, certainly in this country. I also have a strange soft spot for the accent found in Meadows' home region (with Paddy Considine the best example of it) - a strange mix of Yorkshire and Brummy that makes me smile every time I hear it.
I have mixed feelings about the TV series existing at all - maybe feeling that a sequel isn't necessary on this occasion, wanting my experience of the movie (which brings me to tears every time I watch it) to remain untarnished - but as soon as it begins it's nice to see the characters and locations all over again, albeit with haircuts and fashion updated for the three years that have passed in the story. The humour and bleakness that makes Meadows' work what it is is still there; and while this first episode doesn't offer anything in the way of conclusion, it suggests that the series is really going to go somewhere.
Tuesday 14 September 2010
Wednesday 8th September
Another night in as K is off to her friend's house for early warming purposes. I meet up with Alex at the Tollgate for a bit on the way home, catching up on chatter while she catches up with her emails on their surprisingly decent Wi-Fi connection. Before she's done she asks if I need to check anything- clearly forgetting that (slightly sadly) I spend around 8 hours a day at work on the internet, quite a bit of the evening and have it handy on my phone at all times. I genuinely wonder how different my life would be if I was one of those disconnected people - and wonder if the gulf between those of us online at all times and those people who have no interest in Twitter, Facebook, blogs and "all that" will soon grow completely insurmountable. Were it not for the internet, I wouldn't have my job, I wouldn't have met my fiancee nor would I be writing this or anything I've written in the last couple of years. Weird.
As I'm being left alone again tonight and having spent last night sat inside sober while K went out and got trashed (eventually bowling in at 2am) I decide to pick up a couple of cans on the way back to the house. There's not a lot to do so I play a bit more FIFA and catch up on a little blogging. At 9pm More4 start showing Richard Dawkins' brilliant series The Genius of Charles Darwin, which I'd enjoyed a lot when it aired last year, but this time they're showing it as one big three-hour evolutionathon. I still find it enormously fascinating, though I'm a bit weary by the time it ends at midnight and K comes back into to find me lying on the sofa grumbling about insane creationist science teachers and bizarre Australian preachers.
As I'm being left alone again tonight and having spent last night sat inside sober while K went out and got trashed (eventually bowling in at 2am) I decide to pick up a couple of cans on the way back to the house. There's not a lot to do so I play a bit more FIFA and catch up on a little blogging. At 9pm More4 start showing Richard Dawkins' brilliant series The Genius of Charles Darwin, which I'd enjoyed a lot when it aired last year, but this time they're showing it as one big three-hour evolutionathon. I still find it enormously fascinating, though I'm a bit weary by the time it ends at midnight and K comes back into to find me lying on the sofa grumbling about insane creationist science teachers and bizarre Australian preachers.
Monday 13 September 2010
Tuesday 7th September
A nice moment comes this morning as I'm flicking around the internet and discover that my first article for twofootedtackle.com has gone live. I wrote it last night in a fit of inspiration around the plight of Wayne Rooney and the media's continuing obsession with sportsmen as role models. I wrote something similar for the now-pretty-much-defunct Who Are Ya?! when the John Terry/Wayne Bridge story broke but remixed it and thought a bit more about the way we like to think about the footballers we admire. The link to the piece goes up on Facebook and Twitter and people say some nice things, which is always a bonus, and it feels good to have something read by a lot more people than I'm used to.
The rest of the day passes and in the evening I head home to look after myself as K is out at a Mercury Awards party, celebrating the fact that one of her label's bands (The xx) have been nominated. I sort out some dinner and play a little FIFA World Cup (I can't wait for FIFA 11), attempting to take Russia to South Africa for reasons I don't fully understand. Tired of virtual football, I put Radio 5 Live to listen to England taking on Switzerland in the Euro 2012 qualifier (they seem to stroll to a 3-1 which includes an impressive goal for Darren Bent; though it's hard to know that for sure not having seen the goals) before watching the end of Sky Sports News's coverage of the Scotland v Liechtenstein match - as Scotland grab a late, late winner to ensure that they avoid one of the most embarrasing results in their meagre footballing history. Phew.
At 10 I flick over to watch the Mercury Awards announcement - and sure enough The xx win. Sure that K's party is likely to get messier and go on later, I give up on waiting up for her and just loll in front of the telly aimlessly for the rest of the evening. Tuesdays are good for this.
The rest of the day passes and in the evening I head home to look after myself as K is out at a Mercury Awards party, celebrating the fact that one of her label's bands (The xx) have been nominated. I sort out some dinner and play a little FIFA World Cup (I can't wait for FIFA 11), attempting to take Russia to South Africa for reasons I don't fully understand. Tired of virtual football, I put Radio 5 Live to listen to England taking on Switzerland in the Euro 2012 qualifier (they seem to stroll to a 3-1 which includes an impressive goal for Darren Bent; though it's hard to know that for sure not having seen the goals) before watching the end of Sky Sports News's coverage of the Scotland v Liechtenstein match - as Scotland grab a late, late winner to ensure that they avoid one of the most embarrasing results in their meagre footballing history. Phew.
At 10 I flick over to watch the Mercury Awards announcement - and sure enough The xx win. Sure that K's party is likely to get messier and go on later, I give up on waiting up for her and just loll in front of the telly aimlessly for the rest of the evening. Tuesdays are good for this.
Friday 10 September 2010
Monday 6th September
The working day starts rudely and in a massive rush as the courier I had booked to collect a package from the office decides to turn up five minutes before I actually arrive there - meaning that not only have I not even prepared said package or found out the address it was going to, but that my poor colleague Jess has to handle the whole thing while I'm still walking to work. Nightmare. Fortunately the rest of the morning is marginally less hectic and I even find time around lunch to head into Wood Green and buy Kick-Ass on Blu-ray, which has just been released today. It's a film both K and I really enjoyed when we were lucky enough to go to a press screening of it in Soho back in February-or-so - but the screening was so far ahead of the film's release that it seems like ages and I can barely remember what actually goes on.
I get home and get dinner sorted before K gets back from work. Having chatted and eaten and whatnot we put on the latest Mad Men (which actually starts showing on BBC this week; hopefully meaning more fans will realise the extent to which the series is getting stronger and stronger all the time) before breaking out the Kick-Ass Blu-ray. As soon as the menu screen comes up I remember everything I had liked about this film - the attention to detail in the music, the irreverent, sweary dialogue and the ballsy, graphic violence. Nicolas Cage is amazing (a rare thing these days) as Big Daddy and Hit-Girl is a brilliantly cartoony character. We watch the film with the lights down and the sound up - and that's really the only way to see a movie like this. What's also fairly great is that it's an almost entirely British movie - based on a UK comics-writer's book, written by a British screenwriter and starring a British actor, albeit playing an American and set in New York City.
I nip out for a cigarette later and am instantly reminded of the man next door - who was found dead in his flat last Tuesday. This is because, for some reason, whoever had been in the flat after his body was removed turned all the lights on - and no one's been back to turn them off. Standing in the garden or even in our kitchen it's obvious that every light in his flat is on, creating a fairly eerie atmosphere and reminding me that while he could have been in there for a long time unnoticed, his flat is impossible to ignore now - at least when it's dark. The seen-too-many-horror-movies part of me expects to see ghostly figures moving around behind the frosted glass of his kitchen window, but it hasn't happened yet.
I'm not sure if there's anyone we can call about it or even if it's a real problem, but I expect someone will have to go back there at some point. In his own way (and not in a hippy, Jesus-y kind of way) I suppose he hasn't quite left yet.
I get home and get dinner sorted before K gets back from work. Having chatted and eaten and whatnot we put on the latest Mad Men (which actually starts showing on BBC this week; hopefully meaning more fans will realise the extent to which the series is getting stronger and stronger all the time) before breaking out the Kick-Ass Blu-ray. As soon as the menu screen comes up I remember everything I had liked about this film - the attention to detail in the music, the irreverent, sweary dialogue and the ballsy, graphic violence. Nicolas Cage is amazing (a rare thing these days) as Big Daddy and Hit-Girl is a brilliantly cartoony character. We watch the film with the lights down and the sound up - and that's really the only way to see a movie like this. What's also fairly great is that it's an almost entirely British movie - based on a UK comics-writer's book, written by a British screenwriter and starring a British actor, albeit playing an American and set in New York City.
I nip out for a cigarette later and am instantly reminded of the man next door - who was found dead in his flat last Tuesday. This is because, for some reason, whoever had been in the flat after his body was removed turned all the lights on - and no one's been back to turn them off. Standing in the garden or even in our kitchen it's obvious that every light in his flat is on, creating a fairly eerie atmosphere and reminding me that while he could have been in there for a long time unnoticed, his flat is impossible to ignore now - at least when it's dark. The seen-too-many-horror-movies part of me expects to see ghostly figures moving around behind the frosted glass of his kitchen window, but it hasn't happened yet.
I'm not sure if there's anyone we can call about it or even if it's a real problem, but I expect someone will have to go back there at some point. In his own way (and not in a hippy, Jesus-y kind of way) I suppose he hasn't quite left yet.
Wednesday 8 September 2010
Sunday 5th September
Today it's K's turn to get up early - and I am startled to wake up without her by my side. I loll around for a while, unplugging my phone to lazily flick through Twitter, Facebook and the BBC site, finding little of any interest on any of them. Eventually I get up properly and we put Friday's episode of Roger and Val Have Just Got In on the iPlayer. After the relentless sadness of last week's episode, we are both hoping for something more uplifting from this episode - mainly because the series started so lighthearted but also because it's hard to imagine the story getting much more bleak. As it happens this week's episode is a bit of both - mixing the elegant, carefully crafted coupley banter with stark references to the great hopes the pair had lost and hinting gently at how empty their lives really are. I hope lots of people are watching this series (and fear that they are not, due to the fact that it's on BBC4 on Friday nights) as it's one of the best-written, most subtle and economical sitcoms I've seen in a long time - by turns heartbreaking, pretty, poignant and brilliantly funny.
After Roger and Val we head down the passage to do the weekly shop - something we haven't done together for a few weeks now, what with both of us having been away rather a lot in the last month or so. The weather holds and all goes well, meaning we're soon back home having a little lunch before this afternoon's activity. What with K now having a bike for a while, the plan is to head out on a shortish bike ride (the idea had originally been to have a picnic but neither of us fully trust the gathering clouds not to explode at any minute) around our small corner of North London.
I haven't been on my bike for a shamefully long time, so before we go I get it out and pump the tires up, tighten the handlebars and oil the chain. We shuffle both the bikes out of the flat, past those of our neighbours, and head the wrong way down our street towards Crouch End. We cycle up through Hornsey and I'm instantly reminded, by way of my struggling legs and lungs, that it's been a while since I've been cycling. We cruise down through Crouch End broadway then up towards the old railway path that takes us down towards Finsbury Park. From here we head across Seven Sisters Road towards Clissold Park. A few spots of rain threaten to ruin what by now is a very enjoyable ride, but it soon stops and we take a break at Clissold's temporary cafe for a drink.
Feeling rested, we cycle down Church Street through the posher part of Stoke Newington and loop back via a small market that K is interested in checking out. Having tried some fancy chocolate and cooed over some of the DIY art, we hit the road again and head back through Clissold Park and Finsbury Park before we get back to Crouch End and stop off at the Oxfam Bookshop. By this point I'm pretty tired, but pleased with the 10 miles we have under our belts. We head back through Priory Park and home - where we rest up for a while before dinner.
After a few days of pretty hard partying it's nice to do something a bit more healthy - plus the home made enchiladas I craft for the both of us later on taste all the better.
After Roger and Val we head down the passage to do the weekly shop - something we haven't done together for a few weeks now, what with both of us having been away rather a lot in the last month or so. The weather holds and all goes well, meaning we're soon back home having a little lunch before this afternoon's activity. What with K now having a bike for a while, the plan is to head out on a shortish bike ride (the idea had originally been to have a picnic but neither of us fully trust the gathering clouds not to explode at any minute) around our small corner of North London.
I haven't been on my bike for a shamefully long time, so before we go I get it out and pump the tires up, tighten the handlebars and oil the chain. We shuffle both the bikes out of the flat, past those of our neighbours, and head the wrong way down our street towards Crouch End. We cycle up through Hornsey and I'm instantly reminded, by way of my struggling legs and lungs, that it's been a while since I've been cycling. We cruise down through Crouch End broadway then up towards the old railway path that takes us down towards Finsbury Park. From here we head across Seven Sisters Road towards Clissold Park. A few spots of rain threaten to ruin what by now is a very enjoyable ride, but it soon stops and we take a break at Clissold's temporary cafe for a drink.
Feeling rested, we cycle down Church Street through the posher part of Stoke Newington and loop back via a small market that K is interested in checking out. Having tried some fancy chocolate and cooed over some of the DIY art, we hit the road again and head back through Clissold Park and Finsbury Park before we get back to Crouch End and stop off at the Oxfam Bookshop. By this point I'm pretty tired, but pleased with the 10 miles we have under our belts. We head back through Priory Park and home - where we rest up for a while before dinner.
After a few days of pretty hard partying it's nice to do something a bit more healthy - plus the home made enchiladas I craft for the both of us later on taste all the better.
Tuesday 7 September 2010
Saturday 4th September
I leave a desperately hungover K in bed and get up super-early, heading to Tesco for much-needed bread and bacon. I even come home and cook the breakfast myself, such is my heroic status this morning. We watch a bit of rubbish telly and faff around for a while in the morning before K heads out to run a few errands. I occupy myself by beginning to re-fill the cupboard under the stairs with the things we were forced to remove by the gas company when they came round to move our gas meter. There is a Tetris-style awkward rectangular logic to filling the cupboard (which is a weird shape and has some odd nooks and crannies) but I am pleased to get a few extra things in there that had been bugging me. The gas men also managed to make a bit of a state of the carpet, so I hoover around the place, being sure to finish before Football Focus comes on and K comes home to make lunch.
The plan this afternoon is to head into town on a cultural trip - having earlier in the week vaguely planned to check out the Churchill War Rooms, but also because "Apple-F" Mike and his girlfriend, Sarah, have suggested going to see the on-the-way-out forgery exhibition at the National Gallery. We get the tube to Leicester Square for about two and find Mike and Sarah sitting on the grass outside the Gallery - where we join them for a few minutes before heading into the labyrinthine gallery. We eventually find the exhibition on the lower basement floor, and find it to be an interesting insight into how paintings are updated, restored and forged. It's a very text-heavy show and the paintings themselves don't do a lot for me, but it does get me thinking about our approach to preserving that which we consider to be beautiful or valuable - even if that preservation involves intervening on the work whose creator we so admire. Perhaps, sometimes, it would be better to let the art of old decay and disappear naturally. There'd certainly be more room in the galleries.
After wandering around the gallery we walk through Trafalgar Square (stopping to check out the ship in a bottle currently on the Fourth Plinth) and across to St Martin-in-the-Fields church to have a look around the crypt, accessed through an incongruous glass cylinder adjacent to the church building. In the event the crypt is not much to see - it's mostly a big cafe, from what we can tell - but there is an exhibition of potential future Fourth Plinth designs that you can vote on.
Later we walk down Whitehall, past the humble entrance to Downing Street and the Foreign Office towards the Churchill War Rooms. This had seemed like a great idea - but by the we get to the door the price of entry seems a little too steep for us and we elect to go for a little walk in the park instead. Tomorrow is Boris's 'Skyride' event, a mass bike ride through the centre of the city, and much of this part of town is taken up by preparations. It's all fairly interesting though, and after sneakily stealing ten minutes of sitting down on the scattered deckchairs (running away when the man who collects the money appears on the horizon) we head away from the park and back to Trafalgar Square.
We stop in at The Chandos, a surprisingly nice Sam Smith's pub between Trafalgar Square and Leicester Square, and have a couple of pints - before getting on the Piccadilly Line and heading to Holloway Road. We've been invited to some sort of art launch at the Islington Arts Factory which involves a friend of a friend of friend, but the venue seems to have no one on the door and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of red wine in plastic cups. It seems like a crazy policy to me, and sure enough the place is rammed with people, but we stick around until around 9 chatting and bumping into fellow freeloaders pretending to be interested in thoughtful illustration.
The next port of call is The Big Red, where I finally get my chilli nachos and a couple more pints, before it's time to call it a day and K and I stop by the inexplicable all-night bakers on the way to the bus stop.
The plan this afternoon is to head into town on a cultural trip - having earlier in the week vaguely planned to check out the Churchill War Rooms, but also because "Apple-F" Mike and his girlfriend, Sarah, have suggested going to see the on-the-way-out forgery exhibition at the National Gallery. We get the tube to Leicester Square for about two and find Mike and Sarah sitting on the grass outside the Gallery - where we join them for a few minutes before heading into the labyrinthine gallery. We eventually find the exhibition on the lower basement floor, and find it to be an interesting insight into how paintings are updated, restored and forged. It's a very text-heavy show and the paintings themselves don't do a lot for me, but it does get me thinking about our approach to preserving that which we consider to be beautiful or valuable - even if that preservation involves intervening on the work whose creator we so admire. Perhaps, sometimes, it would be better to let the art of old decay and disappear naturally. There'd certainly be more room in the galleries.
After wandering around the gallery we walk through Trafalgar Square (stopping to check out the ship in a bottle currently on the Fourth Plinth) and across to St Martin-in-the-Fields church to have a look around the crypt, accessed through an incongruous glass cylinder adjacent to the church building. In the event the crypt is not much to see - it's mostly a big cafe, from what we can tell - but there is an exhibition of potential future Fourth Plinth designs that you can vote on.
Later we walk down Whitehall, past the humble entrance to Downing Street and the Foreign Office towards the Churchill War Rooms. This had seemed like a great idea - but by the we get to the door the price of entry seems a little too steep for us and we elect to go for a little walk in the park instead. Tomorrow is Boris's 'Skyride' event, a mass bike ride through the centre of the city, and much of this part of town is taken up by preparations. It's all fairly interesting though, and after sneakily stealing ten minutes of sitting down on the scattered deckchairs (running away when the man who collects the money appears on the horizon) we head away from the park and back to Trafalgar Square.
We stop in at The Chandos, a surprisingly nice Sam Smith's pub between Trafalgar Square and Leicester Square, and have a couple of pints - before getting on the Piccadilly Line and heading to Holloway Road. We've been invited to some sort of art launch at the Islington Arts Factory which involves a friend of a friend of friend, but the venue seems to have no one on the door and a seemingly inexhaustible supply of red wine in plastic cups. It seems like a crazy policy to me, and sure enough the place is rammed with people, but we stick around until around 9 chatting and bumping into fellow freeloaders pretending to be interested in thoughtful illustration.
The next port of call is The Big Red, where I finally get my chilli nachos and a couple more pints, before it's time to call it a day and K and I stop by the inexplicable all-night bakers on the way to the bus stop.
Friday 3rd September
Today at work is an absolute packet of bollocks (to quote Malcolm Tucker) as everything that ends up in my inbox is not only a total distraction from the things I'm supposed to be getting on with but also a major hassle involving dealing with some of the people I least like dealing with. I hit frustrating dead ends all day and cop some flack for mistakes that were never mine. It's infuriating - and luckily K promises me a hug when I get home (even though it'll have to wait as she's going out to meet a friend tonight). After two nights out in a row, though, I'm more keen on a night in with a couple of cans and idly watching the England game.
However, I get home with my tinned Friday night entertainment and have a chat on the phone with K - who makes it clear that in fact rather than meeting just one friend tonight, she is in fact off to one of my favourite pubs to meet a bunch of our mutual friends. Still not intending to go out, I have a little fun by pretending to be horrified not to have been invited out - and announce that I will be recording a video statement to put on YouTube, telling the world how hard done by I am. We get off the phone, and foolishly I decide that it actually would be fun to record said YouTube clip - so I sit in front of the mirror and spout sulky messages to my fiancee while filming it on my phone. Is this a normal thing for someone to be doing at home, on their own, on a Friday night? It's very hard to be sure. The clip is out there somewhere, as grim evidence.
Having wasted some time faffing around with YouTube, the football starts on ITV1 as England begin their Euro 2012 qualifying campaign again Bulgaria at Wembley. Spirits are, as the limp World Cup performance guaranteed, not particuarly high - but England start brightly and take the lead after only a couple of minutes. They look far more inspired than they ever did in South Africa and go on to win 4-0 thanks to a Jermain Defoe hat-trick and a solid performance by Joe Hart; who is so comfortable in goal for England that it seems ridiculous that we were even talking about David James and Robert Green for the World Cup, much less selecting them.
I sink a couple more beers in front of the football and catch up with a bit of blog writing, after which I decide to put on Beverly Hills Cop, one of my favourite films of all time and part of one of the three 80s/90s Holy Trilogies (Back to the Future and Die Hard being the others, of course) of thoroughly enjoyable cinema. I also decide to tweet a little commentary while watching - hopefully providing some entertainment to whichever of my followers are online at the time and proving beyond doubt the fact that I have no capacity to entertain myself in a reasonable fashion.
K gets home shortly after midnight, steaming drunk, and lies on the sofa regaling me with stories of her night out - at which point I play her my grumpy YouTube video (which thankfully raises a giggle rather than anger or mere pity) and go straight to bed.
However, I get home with my tinned Friday night entertainment and have a chat on the phone with K - who makes it clear that in fact rather than meeting just one friend tonight, she is in fact off to one of my favourite pubs to meet a bunch of our mutual friends. Still not intending to go out, I have a little fun by pretending to be horrified not to have been invited out - and announce that I will be recording a video statement to put on YouTube, telling the world how hard done by I am. We get off the phone, and foolishly I decide that it actually would be fun to record said YouTube clip - so I sit in front of the mirror and spout sulky messages to my fiancee while filming it on my phone. Is this a normal thing for someone to be doing at home, on their own, on a Friday night? It's very hard to be sure. The clip is out there somewhere, as grim evidence.
Having wasted some time faffing around with YouTube, the football starts on ITV1 as England begin their Euro 2012 qualifying campaign again Bulgaria at Wembley. Spirits are, as the limp World Cup performance guaranteed, not particuarly high - but England start brightly and take the lead after only a couple of minutes. They look far more inspired than they ever did in South Africa and go on to win 4-0 thanks to a Jermain Defoe hat-trick and a solid performance by Joe Hart; who is so comfortable in goal for England that it seems ridiculous that we were even talking about David James and Robert Green for the World Cup, much less selecting them.
I sink a couple more beers in front of the football and catch up with a bit of blog writing, after which I decide to put on Beverly Hills Cop, one of my favourite films of all time and part of one of the three 80s/90s Holy Trilogies (Back to the Future and Die Hard being the others, of course) of thoroughly enjoyable cinema. I also decide to tweet a little commentary while watching - hopefully providing some entertainment to whichever of my followers are online at the time and proving beyond doubt the fact that I have no capacity to entertain myself in a reasonable fashion.
K gets home shortly after midnight, steaming drunk, and lies on the sofa regaling me with stories of her night out - at which point I play her my grumpy YouTube video (which thankfully raises a giggle rather than anger or mere pity) and go straight to bed.
Friday 3 September 2010
Thursday 2nd September
K's twin sister is coming to visit tonight, as she's off travelling in a couple of weeks and is donating her bike to K while she's away. As a result, this afternoon she is getting off the train at Waterloo and heroically cycling all the way to Wood Green. I get a call from her at around 4.30 to say she's outside my office, so I take her my house keys under the assurance that she's going to get some cans of beer on the way home. Anticipating the fridge being nice and full, I head home an hour later and join her in watching the double-whammy of inexplicably compelling student television that is Come Dine With Me and Coach Trip. Come Dine With Me tonight features a transsexual and an apparently heterosexual sweet shop owner chatting up a skinny northern man, which Coach Trip sees the introduction of two idiot South London yobs and the continued existence of the two worst giggling moron girls ever. Strangely, neither show manages to enrage me into smashing the TV - but it's probably for the best that we're due to head down the road to meet K for dinner in a few minutes.
K's picked a highly recommended Turkish restaurant for a nice dinner tonight, and we're joined on the walk down there by our friend Lloyd - who, it must always be noted, bears the most uncanny resemblance to Woody Harrelson. The restaurant, the unpronouncable Antepliler, is also bring-your-own-booze, so we stop off to pick up a bottle or two of red before we head in. It's amazingly busy, but luckily K already has a table for us and we get served fairly quickly. We have a bit of a mezze starter including spicy Turkish sausages and some rather tasty hummus, then I opt for a lamb shish kebab for the main course. The food is really tasty, if a little bland - the shish is just lamb and rice, after all - but the best part of all is that the waiter forgets to charge us for two of the main courses and we get ourselves a bit of a bargain.
After paying we walk back up Green Lanes to the Salisbury - the first pub I ever went to as a Londoner and a little bit of my London history - and enjoy a couple of pints of their peculiar Czech lager. An odd man from Nottingham starts to chat to me about my favourite places to go in London, and I'm ill-prepared to engage him in meaningful conversation. On the way home I beg to have a go on Lloyd's bike - confirming the fact that I've probably overdone it for a second night. We get home and the girls have a final drink, while I admit that two nights' partying has caught up with me and I head straight for bed.
K's picked a highly recommended Turkish restaurant for a nice dinner tonight, and we're joined on the walk down there by our friend Lloyd - who, it must always be noted, bears the most uncanny resemblance to Woody Harrelson. The restaurant, the unpronouncable Antepliler, is also bring-your-own-booze, so we stop off to pick up a bottle or two of red before we head in. It's amazingly busy, but luckily K already has a table for us and we get served fairly quickly. We have a bit of a mezze starter including spicy Turkish sausages and some rather tasty hummus, then I opt for a lamb shish kebab for the main course. The food is really tasty, if a little bland - the shish is just lamb and rice, after all - but the best part of all is that the waiter forgets to charge us for two of the main courses and we get ourselves a bit of a bargain.
After paying we walk back up Green Lanes to the Salisbury - the first pub I ever went to as a Londoner and a little bit of my London history - and enjoy a couple of pints of their peculiar Czech lager. An odd man from Nottingham starts to chat to me about my favourite places to go in London, and I'm ill-prepared to engage him in meaningful conversation. On the way home I beg to have a go on Lloyd's bike - confirming the fact that I've probably overdone it for a second night. We get home and the girls have a final drink, while I admit that two nights' partying has caught up with me and I head straight for bed.
Wednesday 1st September
More stress and tedium at work and I find myself with a rather severe case of spreadsheet blindness - flicking from left to right across vast swathes of empty cells, trying manfully to piece together the significance and correlation between sterling prices, Dollar prices and page numbers. I don't think I exaggerate when I say it's the most boring, most difficult and least rewarding work anyone has ever done; and by 3pm I've got such a bad headache that I text Alex just to doublecheck that we're still going to go out and get drunk tonight. Luckily, the game is still on.
I get home and make a quick dinner - making sure to leave some out for K who won't be home until after Alex and I are off to the pub. We haven't really spent any time together for over a month now, not since her birthday, so it's nice to catch up when she pops round and we head over the bridge towards Hornsey. She's been on holiday to Poland and interning at a company who restore old paintings, while I've got a few stories of my own - so we're chattering away well before we get to the Hope and Anchor. We take a seat in the garden and natter and smoke and giggle at the usual array of esoteric in-jokes we've developed for ourselves over the last few years (which essentially alienate us from any larger social group) as well as (thank Christ) even talking about footbal for a while - something I very rarely seem to get to do these days.
We head inside when it gets too cold and try to buy drinks way past closing time. Undeterred, we walk all the way back to Turnpike Lane to try and catch last orders at the Tollgate; but alas, though the many sad old folks in there still have full pint glasses, the bar itself is shut. Much like the birthday scenario, we end up back at hers with a couple of glasses of wine - and, once again, it gets very late very quickly and I end up strolling home at a ridiculous hour for a school night. K is unimpressed - but mostly unconscious. I will make hasty amends in the morning.
I get home and make a quick dinner - making sure to leave some out for K who won't be home until after Alex and I are off to the pub. We haven't really spent any time together for over a month now, not since her birthday, so it's nice to catch up when she pops round and we head over the bridge towards Hornsey. She's been on holiday to Poland and interning at a company who restore old paintings, while I've got a few stories of my own - so we're chattering away well before we get to the Hope and Anchor. We take a seat in the garden and natter and smoke and giggle at the usual array of esoteric in-jokes we've developed for ourselves over the last few years (which essentially alienate us from any larger social group) as well as (thank Christ) even talking about footbal for a while - something I very rarely seem to get to do these days.
We head inside when it gets too cold and try to buy drinks way past closing time. Undeterred, we walk all the way back to Turnpike Lane to try and catch last orders at the Tollgate; but alas, though the many sad old folks in there still have full pint glasses, the bar itself is shut. Much like the birthday scenario, we end up back at hers with a couple of glasses of wine - and, once again, it gets very late very quickly and I end up strolling home at a ridiculous hour for a school night. K is unimpressed - but mostly unconscious. I will make hasty amends in the morning.
Tuesday 31st August
Back to work then, feeling ever so slightly the worse for wear after forcing myself through last night's wall of tiredness. The bank holiday has meant that there's little piling up of work to get on with, but what's there needs to be done by the end of the week - and when there's only four days to do it tensions are slightly higher in the office and tempers fraying. A bit of a shouting match between the Big Bosses shortly after lunch sours the atmosphere in the office and in the end it's nice to get out at the end of the day. And I'd been so relaxed, too.
After work I head home, negotiating the seemingly-permanent gas works all along the street and tidying up after the workmen who have apparently been trampling all through the house and rearranging things in our cupboards. There's nothing missing - I'm pretty sure the landlord's been here too - but one of our kitchen windows seems to now be busted and our drying washing has been dumped unceremoniously on the dining room table. Cheers, guys. Well worth it to have our new dubious looking metal pipes poking out of the front door and snaking up the wall.
After dossing around the house for a bit, I head up to Park Road to meet K for this week's swim. Without much hanging around (and after a little banter with the unusually friendly lady behind the counter about my Back to the Future t-shirt) we head in and I manage a Herculean 42 lengths. It's very odd to feel myself getting slightly better at this week by week, but a lot of tonight I feel like I'm swimming on anger and annoyance - there's a family in my lane who swim one length, all stop at the end for a chat and then eventually get going again. The only reason I'm doing so many lengths is because they give me no room to stop and get my breath back. Maybe misdirected rage is my own internal personal trainer.
We head back around 9 and grab a quick dinner before finishing off the Battlestar Galactica mini-series. For the most part I'm still undecided as to how good it is (though I'm assured by various sources that the actual series is much better) but the cliffhanger at the end has me hooked. It's been a long time since I got into anything properly sci-fi so I'm looking forward to getting deeper into this.
Just before 11, we notice ambulance sirens lighting up the street outside along with assorted voices. We think little of it until the doorbell goes. I take a look out of the window and see a youngish guy in no discernable uniform, and K sends me out to the front door. It's hard to know what to expect in a situation like this, but when the man introduces himself as a police officer and asks me whether I know our next door neighbour at all, it becomes sadly obvious what has happened. I don't know our neighbour at all, but have seen him around and know that he's very old and clearly not very well. As it happens he's been found dead in his flat today, and the police are conducting routine inquiries to try and gauge how long he has been there. I've no idea how long it's been since I've seen him - it could be two weeks or two months - and I feel a little sad that I can't be of more help. These things must happen fairly often to old people living in flats on their own, and it's scary to think how easily people can pass away without anyone noticing - especially in a huge, anonymous city like London.
After work I head home, negotiating the seemingly-permanent gas works all along the street and tidying up after the workmen who have apparently been trampling all through the house and rearranging things in our cupboards. There's nothing missing - I'm pretty sure the landlord's been here too - but one of our kitchen windows seems to now be busted and our drying washing has been dumped unceremoniously on the dining room table. Cheers, guys. Well worth it to have our new dubious looking metal pipes poking out of the front door and snaking up the wall.
After dossing around the house for a bit, I head up to Park Road to meet K for this week's swim. Without much hanging around (and after a little banter with the unusually friendly lady behind the counter about my Back to the Future t-shirt) we head in and I manage a Herculean 42 lengths. It's very odd to feel myself getting slightly better at this week by week, but a lot of tonight I feel like I'm swimming on anger and annoyance - there's a family in my lane who swim one length, all stop at the end for a chat and then eventually get going again. The only reason I'm doing so many lengths is because they give me no room to stop and get my breath back. Maybe misdirected rage is my own internal personal trainer.
We head back around 9 and grab a quick dinner before finishing off the Battlestar Galactica mini-series. For the most part I'm still undecided as to how good it is (though I'm assured by various sources that the actual series is much better) but the cliffhanger at the end has me hooked. It's been a long time since I got into anything properly sci-fi so I'm looking forward to getting deeper into this.
Just before 11, we notice ambulance sirens lighting up the street outside along with assorted voices. We think little of it until the doorbell goes. I take a look out of the window and see a youngish guy in no discernable uniform, and K sends me out to the front door. It's hard to know what to expect in a situation like this, but when the man introduces himself as a police officer and asks me whether I know our next door neighbour at all, it becomes sadly obvious what has happened. I don't know our neighbour at all, but have seen him around and know that he's very old and clearly not very well. As it happens he's been found dead in his flat today, and the police are conducting routine inquiries to try and gauge how long he has been there. I've no idea how long it's been since I've seen him - it could be two weeks or two months - and I feel a little sad that I can't be of more help. These things must happen fairly often to old people living in flats on their own, and it's scary to think how easily people can pass away without anyone noticing - especially in a huge, anonymous city like London.
Wednesday 1 September 2010
Monday 30th August
I'm up early again - partly because my brother wakes me to say goodbye as he heads off to work at something ridiculous like 6am (teachers really do have it tough, don't they?) and partly because the sun warms this room so efficiently as soon as it rises. I can't be bothered getting up quite yet, especially as my train back to London doesn't leave until 11.30, so I read for a while and flick the laptop on to read various blogs and catch up with the football news. It seems we won again on Saturday (2-0 v Stoke City) and I'm so unsurprised that I'm in danger of getting bored of the efficacy of my own team. That can't be good. Maybe we need to lose a couple on the bounce now to keep things interesting.
I finally get my act together at about 9 and tidy up the fold-out bed before saying goodbye to my brother's girlfriend and wandering down the stairs towards the Meadows. It's a beautiful morning and I've got quite a bit of time to kill, so I take my time and stroll through the city reflecting on what an amazing place it is and all the different things it's meant to me over the years. Up to the age of 18 it was the city where my grandfather lived and we'd visit him in his flat most years, going out to the swings in the Meadows in the summer, the Tattoo at festival time and the pantomime at Christmas. The smell of the brewery takes me back there every time it wafts across my path (and it's sad that, apparently, it's not going to be around much longer).
Then, when my Grandpa died, I had fallen in love with Edinburgh properly and promptly applied for university here, which I started in 2003. The course wasn't the right choice, alas, but I spent a formative 9 months living here - in a terrible flat surrounded by OK people but doing some exciting things from time to time. Now, 6 years after I moved away, Edinburgh is just the place where my brother lives and where the festival happens - and while every location has some strange memory from either my childhood or early adulthood, it all seems oddly distant and unreal, like it was someone else who'd been here before.
I walk along George IV Bridge and get a sausage sandwich for breakfast from a cafe, sitting on a bench at the top of Victoria Street to eat it. I really do have a lot of time to kill - so I dawdle down Cockburn Street towards Rose Street to go to Fopp, with a vague plan to get my stepdad a birthday present. Given that it's a bank holiday in England, I know I'll also need to post it before I go - so I get the present and detour to WHSmith to get a jiffy bag and stamps before posting it in the station. Rather pleased with my efficient present-work, I head to the train platform with half an hour to spare and sit waiting patiently where my carriage is due to stop. It's clear, even this early, that the train will be busy - as is to be expected with hundreds of performers no doubt returning to London today - but secure in the knowledge that I have my seat booked I refuse to be panicked about the potential sardine-can nature of the journey.
I take my seat and the train leaves on time - meaning I can get the laptop set up and blog my last few days. I soon get tired of typing, however, and decide to put a film on to watch. I only have a couple on the hard drive but I load up Superbad as it's always watchable and is surprisingly long for a comedy movie. I do find myself fast forwarding the slightly visually rude bits though, mainly to avoid offending the sensibilities of the old lady sat next to me (particularly as she appears to be reading some sort of religious scripture).
We arrive into Kings Cross shortly after 4pm and I scramble through the busy bank holiday tube system to get home in good time. I'm back by 5 and, feeling that it's a slightly weird time for both of us to be home together, K and I decide to go for a walk. We stroll up towards Priory Park and up to Park Road, before heading back along the Broadway via Tesco to grab a bottle of wine to have with dinner. Back at home - already feeling rather tired by this point - K puts together an amazing dinner of chicken fajitas, and after a couple of glasses of wine I'm totally ready for bed. Unfortunately it's only 9pm, so we put on the DVD of the Battlestar Galactica mini-series I stole from my brother's house (expecting little but finding it rather entertaining) and finally submit to exhaustion somewhere around the second hour.
I finally get my act together at about 9 and tidy up the fold-out bed before saying goodbye to my brother's girlfriend and wandering down the stairs towards the Meadows. It's a beautiful morning and I've got quite a bit of time to kill, so I take my time and stroll through the city reflecting on what an amazing place it is and all the different things it's meant to me over the years. Up to the age of 18 it was the city where my grandfather lived and we'd visit him in his flat most years, going out to the swings in the Meadows in the summer, the Tattoo at festival time and the pantomime at Christmas. The smell of the brewery takes me back there every time it wafts across my path (and it's sad that, apparently, it's not going to be around much longer).
Then, when my Grandpa died, I had fallen in love with Edinburgh properly and promptly applied for university here, which I started in 2003. The course wasn't the right choice, alas, but I spent a formative 9 months living here - in a terrible flat surrounded by OK people but doing some exciting things from time to time. Now, 6 years after I moved away, Edinburgh is just the place where my brother lives and where the festival happens - and while every location has some strange memory from either my childhood or early adulthood, it all seems oddly distant and unreal, like it was someone else who'd been here before.
I walk along George IV Bridge and get a sausage sandwich for breakfast from a cafe, sitting on a bench at the top of Victoria Street to eat it. I really do have a lot of time to kill - so I dawdle down Cockburn Street towards Rose Street to go to Fopp, with a vague plan to get my stepdad a birthday present. Given that it's a bank holiday in England, I know I'll also need to post it before I go - so I get the present and detour to WHSmith to get a jiffy bag and stamps before posting it in the station. Rather pleased with my efficient present-work, I head to the train platform with half an hour to spare and sit waiting patiently where my carriage is due to stop. It's clear, even this early, that the train will be busy - as is to be expected with hundreds of performers no doubt returning to London today - but secure in the knowledge that I have my seat booked I refuse to be panicked about the potential sardine-can nature of the journey.
I take my seat and the train leaves on time - meaning I can get the laptop set up and blog my last few days. I soon get tired of typing, however, and decide to put a film on to watch. I only have a couple on the hard drive but I load up Superbad as it's always watchable and is surprisingly long for a comedy movie. I do find myself fast forwarding the slightly visually rude bits though, mainly to avoid offending the sensibilities of the old lady sat next to me (particularly as she appears to be reading some sort of religious scripture).
We arrive into Kings Cross shortly after 4pm and I scramble through the busy bank holiday tube system to get home in good time. I'm back by 5 and, feeling that it's a slightly weird time for both of us to be home together, K and I decide to go for a walk. We stroll up towards Priory Park and up to Park Road, before heading back along the Broadway via Tesco to grab a bottle of wine to have with dinner. Back at home - already feeling rather tired by this point - K puts together an amazing dinner of chicken fajitas, and after a couple of glasses of wine I'm totally ready for bed. Unfortunately it's only 9pm, so we put on the DVD of the Battlestar Galactica mini-series I stole from my brother's house (expecting little but finding it rather entertaining) and finally submit to exhaustion somewhere around the second hour.
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