So long....Nov.
Mood:  lyrical
Topic: Elisabeth's Entries

Calm, calm, calm...taking time to feel calm is sooo beneficial.

We're having a quiet night at home.

An open letter to Sally
Topic: Stephen Says
Dear Sally,

Today Elisabeth and I went to London to see Michael Palin talk about his newly published diaries. Elisabeth made sure she knew the address to Logan Hall and I made sure that we had supper to take on the train and bought the tickets ahead of time. We arrived on time (early, to boot!) and I even realized that it was general seating so we hung around, got good seats and sat about 6 rows from the front.

Huzzah! We planned ahead and liked it. Our lives were so stress free that we went out for a cheery pint and a chat afterwards (As opposed to the stressful, unwinding rant at the pub that we usually have) and we are happy.

We will plan ahead in the future tonight was so pleasant that I want all my evenings out to be this stress free.

Yours,
Stephen

***
Okey dokey, good natured sarcasm aside, Sally's recent comments actually spurred us to Plan Ahead (note: capitals) and today was very pleasant and relaxing as a result.

Also in attendance the the do was a mister John Cleese! So now we've seen 3 of the Python's live so watch out misters Idle & Gilliam, we're gunning for you!

It was shocking how Mr. Cleese was swarmed with autograph seekers the moment he took to his seat. Proof that I never want to be famous if I'm not even going to be able to see a friend of mine give a talk.

Tomorrow:
Me = In London training to be a better manager
E = It's her performance review at work. Yikes!

Organized
Mood:  happy
Now Playing: Raindrops on Roses
Topic: Elisabeth's Entries
Stephen is STILL on annual leave! I've been back to work 3 times now, and trying to keep a calm head. It's always different showing up to work after a holiday, than right before you go on one.

But I'm combating the temptation to let work stress me out, but periodically taking big breaths and small breaks.

Last night we saw Casino Royale...we had high hopes for the film as there has been positive reviews, and tags like "Best James Bond film in 20 years... or even..." and actually, it feels like one big capitalist commercial. The action sequences were few and far between, and I'm sorry ladies, but Daniel Craig didn't do it for me. I like a Bond who looks effortlessly sexy and charming. Craig looks like the type who will spend more time at the gym than with a lady.

But Stephen can fill in the rest. I must go to WORK now.

signing off....

...and Stephen signing on:
My thoughts of Casino Royale:
Too damn long. It it had wrapped up after the poker match with, I don't know, a chase through the casino, some shooting, a stunt or two and then Bond killing the baddie and getting the girl, I'd have considered it a pretty good Bond flick and a return to the days of Timothy Dalton.
(Damned with faint praise, perhaps?)

Instead they dragged the movie out for an extra hour to show us an excrutiatingly embarassingly bad love story and a 'climax' in Venice that basically ripped off Don't Look Now (I truely was expecting to see a dwarf killer pop out at some point and cut someone's throat) all so that we could watch a CGI building tip over and sink.

I mean, I'll have to think about the movie and maybe see it again to appreciate it but the action sequences were way too long (With no real build up to them or rising stakes that would have made them interesting and, let's be honest, now that everythings done with computers, I really don't find them that thrilling anymore - Compare Bond and the burned dude running up the crane in this movie to the cliff scaling in For Your Eyes Only and I challenge you to say that Casino Royale's stunts were more exciting. But I digress...).

Anyway, the makers of The Bourne Identity must be happy because this is basically a knock off of that film. I also agree with Elisabeth about Daniel Craig's muscles and lack of personality. Oddly enough, this was the same complaint (sort of - Dalton's Bond was clearly spending more time being suave & debonnaire than pumping iron in the gym.) made about Timothy Dalton and, I think once the Hollywood hype machine dies down(The same machine which now says Pierce Brosnan's Bond flicks were too over the top and silly when, in fact what they really mean is that his last one sucked [I did - thanks to the hollywood hype machine trying to salvage Hayley Berrie's carreer and putting Madonna {I mean, fucking Madonna?!} into the mix]. They omit that the other 3 were actually quite good and I consider The World is Not Enough to be a top-5 bond movie that sort of seamlessy combines Connery & Moore era Bonds.), people will have the same complaints about him.

In conclusion, I ask you dear reader, why is it that, ever since Lord of the Rings, every damn movie that comes out of Hollywood has to be 2 1/2 hours long and the first part of a trilogy?
Yawn.

Hanging Out Hungover
Mood:  lazy
Topic: Elisabeth's Entries

Last night we celebrated the birthday of the South African spitroasting queen with all of her South African friends. We were the only non-SA people there. I learned how to say "Ja" and "Howzit" and "Laquer"...not sure of the spellings though.

We drank, ate yummy food, and danced the night away...or until it was too late to catch our train back. So we crashed at theirs, and were treated to chocolates on the pillows, croissants and coffee in the morning, and a ride home...such hospitality!

Today we're very "delicate", and have holed ourselves in the apartment with jugs of water, a paper, and pizzas.

On a side note: how's it possible we're less than a month away until Christmas?

Blah
Topic: Stephen Says
Today's a pretty crap day - it was dark and rainy all morning, brightened up in time for us to pop into town for a shop and has gone all wet and dark again.

E&I overdid it a little last night after her gig night at the Y-pod. We went out with some people for drinks at the Holiday Inn and infiltrated an office Christmas party; joining the suits for a waltz, conga and embarassingly bad rendition of YMCA. There was some other dancing too, but I'd rather forget that it ever happened.

So we feel grotty and are off to Elisabeth's Spit-Roast Queens birthday party where we will have to muster some energy for another lateish night. (I always seem to be hung over when we go to their place.)

I suspect that tomorrows plan of action will involve a lot of spacing out.

Ye Gotta Laugh
Topic: Stephen Says
Elisabeth sort of did this last minute thing and booked tickets to see Top Girls in Greenwich earlier this week. She figured (correctly, I'd like to add) that if we're going to live in England, it was the one play that we absolutely needed to see with a proper British cast.

The show started at 7PM and Greenwich is pretty out of the way and we were going to try a new route so time was going to be tight when she got back from work.

I did my bit and heated up the curry so we could eat as soon as she walked in the door, she left work at 4:45pm to make sure that we were in good time and, at 5:15 the freak out started:

It came to light that we had no idea when the train from Waterloo East to Greenwich left/arrived or how long it took and it was suddenly revealed to me that E thought it would take about an hour and 20 minutes to get there (plus walking to the station plus finding Waterloo East plus finding the theatre) meant that if we left the flat instantaniously, the earliest that we could possibly arrive is at 7PM, assuming public transport actually functioned properly.

We charged out of the flat, charged down to the station, bought the tickets and got lucky that the direct train to Waterloo was delayed and we could catch it right away. It proceeded to get delayed again and again and we got onto the train pretty much at the same time as the other train direct to Waterloo pulled into the station.

A moment of quiet reflection on the train and we pulled into Waterloo and stormed over the walkway to Waterloo East where the train to Greenwich was just pulling in and we thought Success! We've done it! Mission accomplished!

We got to Greenwich at twenty to seven, left the station, consulted the map and walked briskly to where it said the theatre was only to discover that Elisabeth had, in fact, printed off a map that led to a pub and had no idea where the theatre was or what its name was and, in the rush to leave the flat, we'd both left our mobiles behind and we couldn't call my friend who lives in Greenwich.

So we charged down the street towards a large building with bright lights which Elisabeth decided looked suitably theatre-like. It turned out she was close - it was a cinema but she was able to get directions to the theatre from an usher and we charged off again got to the theatre, got our tickets, got to the lobby and noticed that it was very, very empty with only 4-5 people milling around sipping a glass of wine. We sat and lamented that there weren't many people going to see the show and as our blood pressure returned to normal, I started to wonder why there were no ushers or people handing out programmes...

...and it turned out that the bloody play didn't start 'till 8pm and we had an hour to wait.

So we went to the pub and I had a beer and Elisabeth had a gin and tonic and we realized that next time we see a show we should know certain things like where it is and when it starts.

We're seeing Michael Palin on Tuesday so let's see if we've learned from our mistakes.

And as for the play, it was very, very good.

This made me laugh.
Topic: Stephen Says
It's also scary that there are lobby groups like this that acually exist. Click here for a very cool e-mail exchange.

Sizzling and Cracking
Mood:  happy
Now Playing: Beatles- Love
Topic: Elisabeth's Entries
The Beatles "Love" cd--well we have only listened to it on our bottom of the line Packard Bell cd player that is positioned very close to the floor in a corner of the room.

Somehow this is not how the album was conceived to be listened to. For someone who is a bit more familiar with the Beatles catalogues (this morning Stephen said..."I didn't know the Beatles did 'Here Comes the Sun' "

Mostly, it's lovely to have a fresh sounding collection of Beatles songs without knowing which song is coming next, or is even on the same album.

Last night we went out for drinks/dancing with Stephen's co-workers and had a nice time. I only had 1 drink and proud of it. My self control is almost out of control.

Today I have a 2 hour driving lesson, and then down at the YMCA.

That's about it.

Financial Funnies
Now Playing: The Beatles - "Love"
Topic: Stephen Says
What do you do on your annual leave? Well if you're Stephen & Elisabeth, you do your banking.

First off, I don't know if this is really old and I just haven't noticed or if it's new and high-tech but I brought a bunch of pennies in to be counted and there's a machine that does it for you! Drop'em in a pan, flip them down a slit and the machine jiggles them around, tallys then all up and credits your account. Fun. I will be saving all my change from now on so that I can make a monthly trip to the magic change machine.

On another note, we topped up our ISA's (UK equivilent to RSP's) and Elisabeth challenged the bank guy about why (as we found out today) I've got the best credit card you can get and she doesn't. Turned out that there's no good reason (Though it's somewhat inexplicable how I qualified for it) and that I don't have the best credit card, I've got the second best and now qualify for the best one. I smell sexism here (And so does Elisabeth) so the journey to get E better credit continues...

Mister Bank Guy also realized that we've a)got good jobs, b)are not in debt and c)have savings, so he desperately tried to sell us lines of credit and loans, etc. which was exciting for a time because it would have meant that we could have gotten enough for a mortgage but, had we have done that, we would then, ironically, loose positive points b&c and just be a bunch of schmucks living in debt. So we left the bank before it could try and find another way to rip us off and bought the new Beatles CD.

My review: Yawn. Danger Mouse did a much better job a few years ago, pity the album was deemed illegal because in 10 years time, The Grey Album will be considered a classic that set the bar for Beatles remixes and "Love" will be sold for 99p in the bargain bin.

doing stuff
Topic: Stephen Says
Yesterday we sort of hit London. We ended up not going to the textile fair (Not museum like I posted yesterday) because it was 5 pounds to get in which was kinda weird. I mean, would you go to the mall if you were charged a fiver just to gain access to the shops?

So instead I spazzed out and became argumentative (Thanks to being generally tired from Saturday night) and we finally went to the V&A Museum after an overlong ride on the train and yet more shenanigans with the Tube.

It was my first time to the V&A and I've got to say I wasn't very impressed. It's basically a museum that has all the discards from the British Museum. By and large, not very exciting (or fun) with a few really interesting jems and a great display of British fashion which is ripe for mocking.

Had a lovely late lunch at Gino's Pizza Pomadoro - a loud, gaudy italian chain that makes deeelicious pizza. Quite reccomended although I couldn't understand why our waitress kept apologizing to us for being Italian. It's refreshing to have an Italian waitress in an Italian restaurant - most waitresses in Italian restaurants in London are Polish. Maybe that's what she was apologizing about - for not being Polish.

Milled around Chelsea for a while and found a nice pub to while away the time before our concert only to get surrounded by posh Chelsea youth vacuously talking about their hopes and dreams (To date someone rich), future plans (Get extentions put in their hair) and other topical topics (Clothes, shopping and sundry other idiocies).

Cadogan Hall has the look and feel of a church hall but without the church. It was a bit dismaying walking in and seeing all the posh Chelsea men being generally posh and Chelsea-like at what was ostensibly a Zappa concert.

Norma Winstone's opening was generally disappointing. She did an interesting cover of Leonard Cohen's Sisters of Mercy and was good at scating but she didn't seem to actually want to be performing or be enjoying herself.

Colin Towns, on the other hand was utterly fantasic. Mark (Or Jenn), if you're reading this, Elisabeth thinks that you would really like what we heard. (Hey Jenn, hint, hint, Christmas is coming). Anyway, here's a link for the album in question which also has a couple of the songs they played available for listening. Fun stuff.

Anyway, eventually got back to Woking and I'm now caught up on sleep, being the useless old fart that I have become.

E&I are having a domestic day of relative quietness although she's been really manic this morning and is doing a lot of tidying which is kinda freaking me out because I just want to drink coffee and space out. There's a birthday party to attend in the pub this evening but, otherwise, it's Rancho Relaxo.