So, I intended in my previous entry to mention our trip to the Cadbury chocolate factory, on the 13th. David and I were trying to find something nice to do for V-Day, and he came up with the idea of a chocolate factory tour. I'd not been on a factory tour since going to the Tillamook cheese factory when I was eight, so I was game for the idea. And, as I've seen Charlie and Chocolate Factory, I was pretty sure what I was in for.
As if.
So, we shlepped on Virgin Trains up to Birmingham and spent the morning wandering around the centre of town.
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=birmingham&sll=53.800651,-4.064941&sspn=17.969195,32.255859&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Birmingham,+West+Midlands,+United+Kingdom&ll=52.486165,-1.899197&spn=0,359.98425&z=16&layer=c&cbll=52.479133,-1.902768&panoid=cLcrkqjYtEBsi_h5PnfcVQ&cbp=12,300.92,,0,5
Robin is from Birmingham, but doesn't like to talk about it much. Could it be something about the number of pinched, in-bred looking faces, Jesus-freaks, and general flotsam and jetsom that seemed to be wandering about? Birmingham was, officially, the first city in the UK to be designed around the car, which means that the city centre (I have to do British spelling, btw, or the website grumps at me), at street level, is laid out in the general spaghetti fashion that is so popular outside of North America (ie., no pattern whatsoever), with the addition of huge viaducts everywhere, packed with traffic. This, combined with the rather high level of empty stores, makes for a very strange place. There is a huge market right in the middle of everything (http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Birmingham_Wholesale_Markets.jpg) selling just about everything you could possibly imagine. All was happy and fine until we got to the rack of skinned sheep's heads, sitting among brains, tripe, hooves, entire legs, and things I'm not entirely sure what they were - I wasn't very hungry at that point. ;-) We also went up in one of those huge Ferris wheels they plop into state fairs and whatnot. David, Mr. Totally-Afraid-of-Heights was less than entirely pleased that the glassed-in car was, well, very glass. Oh well. Like big dummies, we spent £10 on pictures of us looking like dorks.
So, we took the local train down to Bournville, a leafy suburb of Birmingham (purpose-built by Cadbury, apparently). As we got off the train the first thing I noticed was that the air smelled like chocolate. So far so good! The Cadbury factory itself very much resembled a huge, old fashioned, Midwestern school building - all red brick with playing fields around it. Cadbury World, here we come!
http://www.cadburyworld.co.uk/CadburyWorld/Pages/CadburyWorld.aspx
The reality is, well, a bit more of a very small version of a chocolate-themed Disneyland done with some chewing gum, a shoe lace, and a little bit of tape. OMG, what an amazing bunch of schlock that was! £11 each to wander around inside a corner of the factory, surrounded by horrid children, listening to various Cadbury propaganda films (my personal fave was the one showing how cocoa is produced - the bits shown in Africa are all in black and white, and look like they are about 75 years old - the bits in the UK are all in glorious colour. PC police on line 1!). There was a little ride that we went on - very much Small World but with little dancing brown turdlike things that I think were supposed to be cocoa beans. We got to peak into a corner of the wrapping plant (we weren't actually allowed inside the factory itself, for 'Health and Safety Reasons'). But yeah - well done them for getting us to pay that much to wander around a cheaply done set and learn all about how fabulous they are! Still though, we did get some free chocolate, and I will admit (secretly) that I had a great time. I neglected to mention the takeover by Kraft while I was there... ;-) Next stop, on our schlock tour of England, is Legoland!
Anyway, not much else. It remains grey and miserable (though it is a lot warmer), and my bike really needs to be washed - the brakes are screaming like banshees at the moment. It doesn't make one look very cool when one pulls up to a light and the pigeons all take off b/c of the noise. Sigh.
Suppose I should do a little work now.
Grumble whine...
Thursday, 25 February 2010
Tuesday, 23 February 2010
Oy vey...
Once again, a huge amount of time has passed without me bothering to write anything here. I suppose part of that is because I've actually been busy at work lately - several very big mapping jobs. I still want a better paying job, but at the moment they seem few and far between, so looks like I'll be here for the immediately forseeable future. Annoying smoking man is behind me, coughing up a lung. I've been to that now for over a year and a half, and have resisted throwing a brick over there. I think that shows admirable restraint.
It's cold and grey and generally horrible out. Apparently it's been the coldest winter in 30 years or something - Britain really ain't a cold country. The palms, eucalypts and acacias dotted around town don't seem to be terribly worried. Actually, I was thinking the other day, there is a Canary Island Date Palm at one of the roundabouts (http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=lambeth+bridge,+london&sll=53.800651,-4.064941&sspn=17.969195,32.255859&ie=UTF8&hq=lambeth+bridge,&hnear=London,+UK&ll=51.495011,-0.125184&spn=0,359.9685&z=15&layer=c&cbll=51.494909,-0.125142&panoid=7G5tqRo01oP7GDFwbuRdkQ&cbp=12,171.25,,0,5) that I noticed recently actually has a trunk on it. When I first lived in London, in 1996, there was no trunk - shows both how slowly it grows, and the fact that I've been around these parts, on and off, for a while. There are, however, no huge palm trees in London. I wonder if that is because it wasn't the fashion to plant them before fairly recently (I can hardly believe that, given the Victorian's obsession with all things tropical), or that it just wasn't warm enough until recently for them to survive the winter? Interesting question.
Anyway, after several months off, I've started back with long distance cycling. I went out for a 62 mile ride on Sunday, out through the hilly suburbs south of London. I got absolutely dumped on with rain, after which the temperature dropped, resulting in some very numb tooties on my part. Wooly socks are no match for downpours, especially when one's Gore-Tex lined shoes just pool the water inside.
At some point this spring, preferably before April, David and I have to do our citizenship - I think the only two things holding us back at this point are the forms themselves (very very long and tedious), and the cost, which is pretty astronomical. But, the thought of it getting even more astronomical might actually spur us on.
Right - I've got a map to finish. And, as usual, I will say that I will try very hard to do this more often - interesting things happen, and I have interesting thoughts (well, I think they're interesting anyway), and I never get around to writing them down, and then poof, they are gone.
Oh, and person sitting behind me now is eating a pear. Very loudly. What is it with people being gross and annoying in public places? I want a laser cannon and I want it now.
Blah.
It's cold and grey and generally horrible out. Apparently it's been the coldest winter in 30 years or something - Britain really ain't a cold country. The palms, eucalypts and acacias dotted around town don't seem to be terribly worried. Actually, I was thinking the other day, there is a Canary Island Date Palm at one of the roundabouts (http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=lambeth+bridge,+london&sll=53.800651,-4.064941&sspn=17.969195,32.255859&ie=UTF8&hq=lambeth+bridge,&hnear=London,+UK&ll=51.495011,-0.125184&spn=0,359.9685&z=15&layer=c&cbll=51.494909,-0.125142&panoid=7G5tqRo01oP7GDFwbuRdkQ&cbp=12,171.25,,0,5) that I noticed recently actually has a trunk on it. When I first lived in London, in 1996, there was no trunk - shows both how slowly it grows, and the fact that I've been around these parts, on and off, for a while. There are, however, no huge palm trees in London. I wonder if that is because it wasn't the fashion to plant them before fairly recently (I can hardly believe that, given the Victorian's obsession with all things tropical), or that it just wasn't warm enough until recently for them to survive the winter? Interesting question.
Anyway, after several months off, I've started back with long distance cycling. I went out for a 62 mile ride on Sunday, out through the hilly suburbs south of London. I got absolutely dumped on with rain, after which the temperature dropped, resulting in some very numb tooties on my part. Wooly socks are no match for downpours, especially when one's Gore-Tex lined shoes just pool the water inside.
At some point this spring, preferably before April, David and I have to do our citizenship - I think the only two things holding us back at this point are the forms themselves (very very long and tedious), and the cost, which is pretty astronomical. But, the thought of it getting even more astronomical might actually spur us on.
Right - I've got a map to finish. And, as usual, I will say that I will try very hard to do this more often - interesting things happen, and I have interesting thoughts (well, I think they're interesting anyway), and I never get around to writing them down, and then poof, they are gone.
Oh, and person sitting behind me now is eating a pear. Very loudly. What is it with people being gross and annoying in public places? I want a laser cannon and I want it now.
Blah.
Wednesday, 20 January 2010
Frothings, rants, and general blather...
Ah – a lull at work (ie., no bosses around), so I can actually write a bit. It’s cold and grey and crappy out, but at least there is no snow and ice.
So, not surprisingly, I’ve been thinking lots about Haiti over the past week, and, in particular, thinking about what a complete tits-up disaster the country is, how that has come about, and what can be done to fix it. One of the guys I work with, a Ghanaian, made a really interesting comment the other day – he said that the best thing that the NGOs could do right now, as they do their work saving the country, is to work with each other to ensure that it at least looks like the Haitian govt has some control over the matter, as this was the only way that there was ever going to be any respect for or trust in the govt after such a humongous calamity. Unfortunately, this won’t happen, as most of the NGOs have their own (often competing) agendas. (See http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/mark-steel/mark-steel-consider-the-risks-before-you-send-your-cash-to-haiti-1873076.html for example...). There was an interesting clip on the BBC the day after it happened. It showed fresh-faced, all-white, young, American missionaries boarding a plane to go back home. This one girl, maybe late high school age, said to the reporter, “It was really scary!” Yes, honey, I’m sure it was, but it’s a good thing now that you can board a plane and go back home, leaving everyone else there to deal with the mess. I’m not saying I have the slightest desire to be anywhere near Haiti right now (or ever), but it just struck me that these self-same people, there to save the souls of the heathens living in sin, bugger off back home the minute that their presence there might actually be useful – saving people for real, in the flesh! I wasn’t very impressed, and I have a sneaking suspicion that neither was the BBC producer who slotted that bit into the news report.
In other Haiti related news, our dept has decided to launch a money appeal. All very well and good. The webpage has a nice little message on it about how the dept wants to raise blah amount of money, and a link to go to some pictures – most of them, not surprisingly, rather disturbing. Perhaps even more disturbing is the fact that these pictures are interspersed with pics from the dept Xmas party, including one of me going for the buffet table. There is a minor riot brewing in the office I think – how could anyone think that was in good taste???
Anyway…
I’m picking up my bike today, with the third frame in two years. The second frame cracked in exactly the same places as the first. The woman at the bike store said that Marin frames have had loads of problems. Supposedly, they have put the newest frame on the bike (which has been pretty substantially changed). I wrote a suitably aggrieved letter to the company, and if this one bites it I’m going to write letters to every bike magazine and bicycle forum I can think of. I should have just gotten a penny farthing.
Decided to push back my citizenship a bit until I can finish paying off my credit card. I don’t actually need to get citizenship at the moment – I just want it. It is extremely expensive though – not very helpful for getting one’s debts under control. Poo.
Not a lot else at the moment really – things have been pretty dull, which I guess is not necessarily a bad thing. The days are getting slightly longer, which is most definitely a GOOD THING. Oh, we’ve seen a few movies lately. Saw Wolverine, which was complete crap, but at least fun (though, really – if they are trying to substitute New Zealand for the Canadian Rockies, they really should get rid of the arrows on the wrong side of the road!) We also saw Mary Poppins again, which I’d not seen in years. I still love that movie. (I probably always secretly wanted to be Mary Poppins). That was actually the first movie I ever saw in a movie theatre, with Mom and Grammie. I really didn’t have a hope in hell of ever being a heterosexual! Embarrassingly, I think it also has something to do with my very early interest in England, and how I ended up in this silly little country (though that has more, directly, to do with Jennifer and I running into some hunky Scots with amazing accents at a hostel in Vancouver in 1992…). I digress… We also watched Up, which is probably one of the cutest movies I have ever seen – I very much recommend.
Oh, last thing – it looks like I’m going to be helping David schlep his crap down from CT to AL in a U-Haul in April, stopping off at a wedding along the way (a wedding full of rabid, right-wing Repubs! How fun – I can’t wait!!!). We’re probably going to pick Robin up in Richmond, VA, and have a big gay drive down south (shades of Priscilla in a U-Haul?). We’ll have to endeavour not to end up on the news…
And that’s about it for the mo… I should probably do some work now. How dull…
So, not surprisingly, I’ve been thinking lots about Haiti over the past week, and, in particular, thinking about what a complete tits-up disaster the country is, how that has come about, and what can be done to fix it. One of the guys I work with, a Ghanaian, made a really interesting comment the other day – he said that the best thing that the NGOs could do right now, as they do their work saving the country, is to work with each other to ensure that it at least looks like the Haitian govt has some control over the matter, as this was the only way that there was ever going to be any respect for or trust in the govt after such a humongous calamity. Unfortunately, this won’t happen, as most of the NGOs have their own (often competing) agendas. (See http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/mark-steel/mark-steel-consider-the-risks-before-you-send-your-cash-to-haiti-1873076.html for example...). There was an interesting clip on the BBC the day after it happened. It showed fresh-faced, all-white, young, American missionaries boarding a plane to go back home. This one girl, maybe late high school age, said to the reporter, “It was really scary!” Yes, honey, I’m sure it was, but it’s a good thing now that you can board a plane and go back home, leaving everyone else there to deal with the mess. I’m not saying I have the slightest desire to be anywhere near Haiti right now (or ever), but it just struck me that these self-same people, there to save the souls of the heathens living in sin, bugger off back home the minute that their presence there might actually be useful – saving people for real, in the flesh! I wasn’t very impressed, and I have a sneaking suspicion that neither was the BBC producer who slotted that bit into the news report.
In other Haiti related news, our dept has decided to launch a money appeal. All very well and good. The webpage has a nice little message on it about how the dept wants to raise blah amount of money, and a link to go to some pictures – most of them, not surprisingly, rather disturbing. Perhaps even more disturbing is the fact that these pictures are interspersed with pics from the dept Xmas party, including one of me going for the buffet table. There is a minor riot brewing in the office I think – how could anyone think that was in good taste???
Anyway…
I’m picking up my bike today, with the third frame in two years. The second frame cracked in exactly the same places as the first. The woman at the bike store said that Marin frames have had loads of problems. Supposedly, they have put the newest frame on the bike (which has been pretty substantially changed). I wrote a suitably aggrieved letter to the company, and if this one bites it I’m going to write letters to every bike magazine and bicycle forum I can think of. I should have just gotten a penny farthing.
Decided to push back my citizenship a bit until I can finish paying off my credit card. I don’t actually need to get citizenship at the moment – I just want it. It is extremely expensive though – not very helpful for getting one’s debts under control. Poo.
Not a lot else at the moment really – things have been pretty dull, which I guess is not necessarily a bad thing. The days are getting slightly longer, which is most definitely a GOOD THING. Oh, we’ve seen a few movies lately. Saw Wolverine, which was complete crap, but at least fun (though, really – if they are trying to substitute New Zealand for the Canadian Rockies, they really should get rid of the arrows on the wrong side of the road!) We also saw Mary Poppins again, which I’d not seen in years. I still love that movie. (I probably always secretly wanted to be Mary Poppins). That was actually the first movie I ever saw in a movie theatre, with Mom and Grammie. I really didn’t have a hope in hell of ever being a heterosexual! Embarrassingly, I think it also has something to do with my very early interest in England, and how I ended up in this silly little country (though that has more, directly, to do with Jennifer and I running into some hunky Scots with amazing accents at a hostel in Vancouver in 1992…). I digress… We also watched Up, which is probably one of the cutest movies I have ever seen – I very much recommend.
Oh, last thing – it looks like I’m going to be helping David schlep his crap down from CT to AL in a U-Haul in April, stopping off at a wedding along the way (a wedding full of rabid, right-wing Repubs! How fun – I can’t wait!!!). We’re probably going to pick Robin up in Richmond, VA, and have a big gay drive down south (shades of Priscilla in a U-Haul?). We’ll have to endeavour not to end up on the news…
And that’s about it for the mo… I should probably do some work now. How dull…
Friday, 1 January 2010
Y2K and a tenner...
And, well it's 2010 - woohoo! We had about 10 people over last night for food and a vast amount of alcohol (luckily, no one was sick or had to be put to bed! I suppose we are all just getting too old and responsible (giggle)). We all piled up onto the roof just before midnight to watch the fireworks being shot off from the London Eye (and numerous other locations), and to clunk together our fancy plastic champagne glasses. Five or so minutes of fireworks were enjoyed, and then we decided it was actually rather cold (and it had started to snow), so we all piled back inside and sat around the rather crispy Christmas tree. People wandered off by about 2 or 3am and the three of us bundled off to bed. Or, rather, David ended up falling asleep on the sofa, I actually went to bed, and I think Robin wandered off in a general bedward direction. This morning (and I say morning in the loosest possible way), there may have been some hangovers to be nursed (not bad ones though, thankfully), but, all and all, a complete success.
And - I think we officially ceased to be white trash today because we no longer have a sofa, shrink-wrapped and under a tarp, living on the roof. Our landlady refused to store any of the (really crappy) furniture this place came with, and we sure as hell weren't going to store it (mucho expensivo), so, we've used some of it, one of the mattresses went off to a friend's and has since disappeared (i.e., got thrown away), and now we are down a sofa as well. We decided it would be cheaper, in the end, just to get some crappy sofas to replace them rather than pay £75/month to keep them in storage. Anyway, we decided to get rid of the sofa b/c the roof started to leak (unrelated to the sofa), and we have a roofer coming out to fix things. It seemed like an opportune moment to get rid of the thing. So, I called the council, which is coming tomorrow morning to pick it up from the front yard (OK, we're still white trash b/c we now have a dead sofa sitting in the front yard). Problem was, the sofa was sitting on the roof, three floors up, and the stairway down is very narrow - no way to get large things down without getting the downstairs neighbours to open their doors so we can back up into their flats. We thought about a variety of ways of getting the sofa down - winching it down using a hose or whatever. But, in the end, David and Robin just gave it the old heave-ho off the back of the building, and I stood at the bottom to catch it, I mean, to make sure there was nothing important that it might hit. Fingers crosses, prayers said, they launched it off the top of the building and it landed with a rather loud crack (but in one piece and without breaking any windows or fences) into a bramble pile. Thank God for brambles! And then we hauled it around the back of the building, into the front yard, where tomorrow morning the council is to come haul it away to make park benches or Volkswagens or something out of it. We hope. If that fails, there is a large housing project next door to here with a big trash area and I'm sure they wouldn't notice the addition of a big, dead sofa... ;-)
So yeah - that's the big excitement so far for 2010 - sofas falling from the sky. It's a brave new world...
This just in - a case of 'you know you live in a gay household when...' Robin has been chatting with some potential love (of the moment) online. Rather abruptly, he marched over here (as I'm eating dinner) and said, 'Do I have a hairy buttcrack?' Apparently, that was on (or off) Mr. Online's checklist... Oh the things we do for good friends...
And - I think we officially ceased to be white trash today because we no longer have a sofa, shrink-wrapped and under a tarp, living on the roof. Our landlady refused to store any of the (really crappy) furniture this place came with, and we sure as hell weren't going to store it (mucho expensivo), so, we've used some of it, one of the mattresses went off to a friend's and has since disappeared (i.e., got thrown away), and now we are down a sofa as well. We decided it would be cheaper, in the end, just to get some crappy sofas to replace them rather than pay £75/month to keep them in storage. Anyway, we decided to get rid of the sofa b/c the roof started to leak (unrelated to the sofa), and we have a roofer coming out to fix things. It seemed like an opportune moment to get rid of the thing. So, I called the council, which is coming tomorrow morning to pick it up from the front yard (OK, we're still white trash b/c we now have a dead sofa sitting in the front yard). Problem was, the sofa was sitting on the roof, three floors up, and the stairway down is very narrow - no way to get large things down without getting the downstairs neighbours to open their doors so we can back up into their flats. We thought about a variety of ways of getting the sofa down - winching it down using a hose or whatever. But, in the end, David and Robin just gave it the old heave-ho off the back of the building, and I stood at the bottom to catch it, I mean, to make sure there was nothing important that it might hit. Fingers crosses, prayers said, they launched it off the top of the building and it landed with a rather loud crack (but in one piece and without breaking any windows or fences) into a bramble pile. Thank God for brambles! And then we hauled it around the back of the building, into the front yard, where tomorrow morning the council is to come haul it away to make park benches or Volkswagens or something out of it. We hope. If that fails, there is a large housing project next door to here with a big trash area and I'm sure they wouldn't notice the addition of a big, dead sofa... ;-)
So yeah - that's the big excitement so far for 2010 - sofas falling from the sky. It's a brave new world...
This just in - a case of 'you know you live in a gay household when...' Robin has been chatting with some potential love (of the moment) online. Rather abruptly, he marched over here (as I'm eating dinner) and said, 'Do I have a hairy buttcrack?' Apparently, that was on (or off) Mr. Online's checklist... Oh the things we do for good friends...
Tuesday, 29 December 2009
It should have been a Monday...
So... One of the inherent problems of sleeping in for a few days is that when one does have to go to bed early, to get up early the next day, one can't sleep. Meaning - I was back to my usual state of zombietude this morning. I was supposed to take my bike in to get a few things worked on, only to discover that the back tire had gone completely flat (after talking about flat tires yesterday with the woman at the bike store - I should know better!). That meant a lot of farting around, waiting for the 0954 train into London (not allowed to arrive before 10 with a bike) - I figured that they might as well just fix that while they were fixing everything else. I get more flat tires - with supposed puncture resistant tires as well! What I clearly need is a (very fast moving) slave out ahead of me on the road, clearing up glass and other pieces of debris. I think that is a very good idea - one more thing to aspire to once I become queen of the universe.
The rest of the Xmas mini-break passed rather without comment. In a way, I was actually happy to go to work today, as I was getting so bored. However, we did watch District 9, which I enjoyed, and Avatar, which I absolutely loved. I think I might have a new, blue boyfriend now (along with every other gay man and 12 year old girl... Sigh). David and Robin and I went, along with Robin's porn star/rent boy friend (who apparently has the hots for me). There is something very satisfying about watching someone whose entire persona is built around being a super-macho dominating sex object blubbering like a girl at a screen full of CGI. (I really am a horrible person, I suppose, but there you go...). Actually, I like the guy - I just find his whole schtick amusing - still though, it pays well.
I ventured to Selfridges last night in search of underwear. (Very exciting!) Unfortunately, underwear were not on sale (of course!), and I think the entire populations of a small country and one or two mini-galaxies were dumped in there for the after Christmas sales. The horror, the horror.
And not much else really. Oh, I suppose I was going to make some snide remark about how convenient it was that some numbnuts came from Yemen just about the time that the US decides to expand its warmaking in that general direction, but I would hardly be the first to say that, so I won't bother. Plus, I would probably end up on a list of people who don't like mushrooms or something (which I don't).
The rest of the Xmas mini-break passed rather without comment. In a way, I was actually happy to go to work today, as I was getting so bored. However, we did watch District 9, which I enjoyed, and Avatar, which I absolutely loved. I think I might have a new, blue boyfriend now (along with every other gay man and 12 year old girl... Sigh). David and Robin and I went, along with Robin's porn star/rent boy friend (who apparently has the hots for me). There is something very satisfying about watching someone whose entire persona is built around being a super-macho dominating sex object blubbering like a girl at a screen full of CGI. (I really am a horrible person, I suppose, but there you go...). Actually, I like the guy - I just find his whole schtick amusing - still though, it pays well.
I ventured to Selfridges last night in search of underwear. (Very exciting!) Unfortunately, underwear were not on sale (of course!), and I think the entire populations of a small country and one or two mini-galaxies were dumped in there for the after Christmas sales. The horror, the horror.
And not much else really. Oh, I suppose I was going to make some snide remark about how convenient it was that some numbnuts came from Yemen just about the time that the US decides to expand its warmaking in that general direction, but I would hardly be the first to say that, so I won't bother. Plus, I would probably end up on a list of people who don't like mushrooms or something (which I don't).
Friday, 25 December 2009
Xmas in a silly land...
Well, I'm sitting here next to the world's most organized Xmas tree (all blues and whites and silvers, thanks to Mr. Hyper Anal Retentive David ;-), feeling a little bit bloated and a little bit tiddly (thanks, in part, to Robin's mulled wine, which would likely take the paint off the walls). We just finished watching '9', which, if you want a nice, normal, non-freakoid movie is not the movie to see, bathing in our post-Christmas glow.
We had a fairly low-impact Christmas Day - slept in until 1215, then farted around here for a while. Eventually we all cycled into town to Balans Restaurant, where 8 of us packed into a rather small restaurant with rather a lot of screaming queens to pay £65 for Christmas lunch. The food was, admittedly, a bit mediocre, but the company was good. We did manage to not consume too too much, as we had to cycle home (thanks to no public transportation and all of us feeling like tightwads and not wanting to pay 3x normal cabfare home).
And, get this - last night I actually went to midnight mass - voluntarily, at St Paul's Cathedral - and, most importantly, I was not struck by lightning (though the dean did suggest that anyone using a mobile phone during the service would, in fact, be struck by lightning - I liked him). I have to admit that I kind of liked the service, though I was a little surprised to have to stand for nearly the entire time - apparently the Episcopal (American Anglican) church has wussfied a bit, given that most of the service is sitting! They had a real boy's choir - I'd never actually heard a real boy's choir before, and an organ that would blow the roof of lesser buildings. The funny thing was, even with thousands of people inside (they had to close off the building to more entries), you could barely hear people singing - I think because most people were just sort of quietly mouthing the words, rather than belting them out. And, of course, being a bit tourist attraction, there were numbers of people who just wandered out during the middle of the service. I'm sorry - I'm not that terribly religious - but have some respect - it's not there for entertainment purposes only - if you start on a church service, as far as I'm concerned you're there for the long haul unless they start sacrificing virgins or something of similar magnitude. Anyway, we felt slightly superiorr to everyone afterwards - all those silly people waiting for buses that weren't going to come (no buses on Xmas) as we pedalled off into the night. Oh, and the Bishop of London, who reminded me a bit of Gandalf, what with his silly hat and staff, said 'Happy Christmas' to us as we waited to cross at the light, after the service (we waited for the light to change... ;-)
So, that was Christmas Day. I do miss being back in CA on Christmas, but I still enjoyed it a lot... Tomorrow is Boxing Day, and the beginning of the after Christmas sales... Must hide credit card...
Oh - milestone I jusr realized was past without much fanfare... I've now lived here longer than Minnesota, which means I've lived here longer than anywhere since I left San Diego at age 9... And I still can't fake an English accent worth a crap... Irish, however, I can pull off pretty well - I suppose b/c Irish English is so much closer to American English. Hmm...
We had a fairly low-impact Christmas Day - slept in until 1215, then farted around here for a while. Eventually we all cycled into town to Balans Restaurant, where 8 of us packed into a rather small restaurant with rather a lot of screaming queens to pay £65 for Christmas lunch. The food was, admittedly, a bit mediocre, but the company was good. We did manage to not consume too too much, as we had to cycle home (thanks to no public transportation and all of us feeling like tightwads and not wanting to pay 3x normal cabfare home).
And, get this - last night I actually went to midnight mass - voluntarily, at St Paul's Cathedral - and, most importantly, I was not struck by lightning (though the dean did suggest that anyone using a mobile phone during the service would, in fact, be struck by lightning - I liked him). I have to admit that I kind of liked the service, though I was a little surprised to have to stand for nearly the entire time - apparently the Episcopal (American Anglican) church has wussfied a bit, given that most of the service is sitting! They had a real boy's choir - I'd never actually heard a real boy's choir before, and an organ that would blow the roof of lesser buildings. The funny thing was, even with thousands of people inside (they had to close off the building to more entries), you could barely hear people singing - I think because most people were just sort of quietly mouthing the words, rather than belting them out. And, of course, being a bit tourist attraction, there were numbers of people who just wandered out during the middle of the service. I'm sorry - I'm not that terribly religious - but have some respect - it's not there for entertainment purposes only - if you start on a church service, as far as I'm concerned you're there for the long haul unless they start sacrificing virgins or something of similar magnitude. Anyway, we felt slightly superiorr to everyone afterwards - all those silly people waiting for buses that weren't going to come (no buses on Xmas) as we pedalled off into the night. Oh, and the Bishop of London, who reminded me a bit of Gandalf, what with his silly hat and staff, said 'Happy Christmas' to us as we waited to cross at the light, after the service (we waited for the light to change... ;-)
So, that was Christmas Day. I do miss being back in CA on Christmas, but I still enjoyed it a lot... Tomorrow is Boxing Day, and the beginning of the after Christmas sales... Must hide credit card...
Oh - milestone I jusr realized was past without much fanfare... I've now lived here longer than Minnesota, which means I've lived here longer than anywhere since I left San Diego at age 9... And I still can't fake an English accent worth a crap... Irish, however, I can pull off pretty well - I suppose b/c Irish English is so much closer to American English. Hmm...
Monday, 21 December 2009
City Buried by Massive Snowstorm - Drifts 1.5 inches deep - Life Grinds to a Halt!
Well, so, you'd think that the fiasco of London falling over and dying for several days last February after six inches of snow would have convinced the local governments that, hmm, maybe we should salt more than once this winter, especially because salt dissolves in the rain and washes off the roads. This might be particularly important, seeing as how, apparently, molasses, which sticks the salt to the roads (who knew?), has gotten more expensive this year, so the governments are cutting back in these times of austerity. You'd think that, but you'd be wrong. We got a whopping 1.5 inches of slushy snow this evening at rush hour - well-predicted by the Met Office, and what happened... No gritters, no salt trucks, no plows. Nada. The streets turned to skating rinks, people slipping and falling all over the sidewalks, trains delayed and cancelled, airports closed, and don't even get me started about the Eurostar. Apparently there are 100000 or so people stranded here and in France after 6 trains got stuck in the tunnel for hours and hours with no food or water, and little air. So, one trains goes into the tunnel, shorts out, and gets stuck. They send in another. Another short circuit (apparently the 'wrong kind of snow' melting and screwing up the electronics in the warm tunnel). Six trains are sent into the tunnel, and they all get stuck. Sounds a bit like continuing to send things down the toilet once it gets plugged - doesn't work well.
The British are blaming the French. The French have called for an investigation. Eurostar has apologized by saying that, basically, shit happens, deal with it. And all this right after Copenhagen, when the leaders of the world all collectively laid down and died. Apparently the Kool-Aid was tasty. Sigh.
Anyway, tomorrow morning should be interesting once the slush freezes overnight...
I kind of thought today might be a ridiculous day. I woke from a dream that I had taken the hovercraft (as one does) to Morocco for the day - Marakesh, to be exact. In my dream, Marakesh had moved down to the coast, and the port, well, the port resembled the Disneyland Small World ride, except that everything was in shades of brown. I passed through customs (where they were all wearing red jackets) and suddenly realized I had to pee (nothing unusual there! ;-) I decided I didn't feel like paying 30 dinars for the privilege (apparently, the currency is actually the diram, so not bad) - so I trecked up a hill to use a tree. In the process I stepped in a cow pie. I was just washing it off my foot when my alarm went off, and I thought, Oh dear God this is not going to be a good day...
And then I was nearly killed by a dumpster. There I was, walking along the street, talking on my phone, minding my own business, when some numbnuts in a van backed into a dumpster, which rolled across the sidewalk and crashed into my elbow (which hurt!). I had some pleasant and polite words with the driver about his lack of care and attention, and then continued on my way, sure that a piano would fall out of the sky or some other such sillines.
Sigh.
Oh, the highlight of the weekend (another weekend of no cycling, thanks to the crappy icy roads) was seeing 2012. That was a bag of popcorn and bag of candy movie, with 30 minutes of commercials beforehand! That was definitely a record. Anyway - plot holes I could have driven a continental plate through, but what fun - lots of things blowing up and Los Angeles falls into the ocean! What's not to love? My fave stupid mistake - Woody Harrelson standing at the rim of the Yellowstone supervolcano, next to a sign saying Elevation 2726 (or some such) feet/ 976 (or some such) meters. Um, hello, perhaps that should actually be 2726 meters? There ain't no part of Wyoming below about 3800 feet, never mind 2726. Dur!
And that's where babies come from... ;-)
Cereal now - more exciting news to come, I'm sure.
The British are blaming the French. The French have called for an investigation. Eurostar has apologized by saying that, basically, shit happens, deal with it. And all this right after Copenhagen, when the leaders of the world all collectively laid down and died. Apparently the Kool-Aid was tasty. Sigh.
Anyway, tomorrow morning should be interesting once the slush freezes overnight...
I kind of thought today might be a ridiculous day. I woke from a dream that I had taken the hovercraft (as one does) to Morocco for the day - Marakesh, to be exact. In my dream, Marakesh had moved down to the coast, and the port, well, the port resembled the Disneyland Small World ride, except that everything was in shades of brown. I passed through customs (where they were all wearing red jackets) and suddenly realized I had to pee (nothing unusual there! ;-) I decided I didn't feel like paying 30 dinars for the privilege (apparently, the currency is actually the diram, so not bad) - so I trecked up a hill to use a tree. In the process I stepped in a cow pie. I was just washing it off my foot when my alarm went off, and I thought, Oh dear God this is not going to be a good day...
And then I was nearly killed by a dumpster. There I was, walking along the street, talking on my phone, minding my own business, when some numbnuts in a van backed into a dumpster, which rolled across the sidewalk and crashed into my elbow (which hurt!). I had some pleasant and polite words with the driver about his lack of care and attention, and then continued on my way, sure that a piano would fall out of the sky or some other such sillines.
Sigh.
Oh, the highlight of the weekend (another weekend of no cycling, thanks to the crappy icy roads) was seeing 2012. That was a bag of popcorn and bag of candy movie, with 30 minutes of commercials beforehand! That was definitely a record. Anyway - plot holes I could have driven a continental plate through, but what fun - lots of things blowing up and Los Angeles falls into the ocean! What's not to love? My fave stupid mistake - Woody Harrelson standing at the rim of the Yellowstone supervolcano, next to a sign saying Elevation 2726 (or some such) feet/ 976 (or some such) meters. Um, hello, perhaps that should actually be 2726 meters? There ain't no part of Wyoming below about 3800 feet, never mind 2726. Dur!
And that's where babies come from... ;-)
Cereal now - more exciting news to come, I'm sure.
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