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!
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.
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.
saga Topic: Stephen Says
Last night was a bit of a saga. I was able to meet up with my fellow Neurosis fan with ease at Woking station and we trained into Waterloo with ease and in good time, entered the tube system and headed to the northern line only to be told that someone had just jumped infront of the train at Camden Town and that the whole line was shut down.
We managed to cut diagonally across London and got to Euston where we were told that a bus could take us to Camden Town and then we'd have to catch a replacement bus service up to Kentish Town where the concert was being held. We waited for about 15 minutes only to notice a sign saying that due to industrial action our paticular bus wasn't running this weekend.
It was here that I embarassed myself and called a local Londoner, looking for transportation advice. I also received a call from work because someone had taken an overdos and the new staff member couldn't get hold of management (Little did he know that time the super-management team was stuck at Euston station trying desperately to get to a concert they were now 1/2 an hour late for) and my partner in this mess had lost his travel card so I was reduced to slipping it back to him once I'd enter/leave the tube and then wait around for the card to reset its self so that he could go through.
Crisis: Around this time I also lost one of my lovely Italian mitts.
We decided it would be easier if we took the train to Highbury/Islington and then caught the Silverlink to Kentish Town West but, when we got to Highbury, realized that we would need to buy another ticket for the Silverlink because, for some reason, the Silverlink is designed to gouge commuters even more. So we went back to Euston with a plan to catch a cab.
At this point, with the underground a complete mess, taxis were hard to come by and we waited a further 20 minutes until we could catch one and got to the concert an hour and a half late.
Luckily, we had only missed the 1st supporting act and the 2nd one was winding down. It was a New York metal act called Tastes Like Babies/ We Eat Babies/ Something Something Babies. They were pretty crap - to show how metal they were, the bassist 'forgot' what label they were on (yeah, right...) and the female vocalist strutted around downing shots that looked remarkably similar to Pepsi and, while dressed all metal with her grungy metal hair and grungy metal clothes and all her tattoos, she'd taken the time to shave her armpits. Not very metal if you ask me.
She embarassed herself at the end of Neurosis' set, diving into the audience and then pushing past us through the crowd being helped by someone while clutching her face. Hmm...
Anyway, Neurosis was really fantastic. Basically an hour of 3 men screaming at you while being bombarded by a wall of sound with no one in the audience dancing, just headbanging and shaking their fists in rythm to the music. Their video show was very cool but I only really started to get into the show when I stopped paying attention to the stage and just got wrapped up in the music.
Gratuitous video imbedded for you to taste the pleasure (Sorry for the cheezyness of it, though):
After the show, we left hoping that the tube was running again but of course it wasn't, so we picked up a couple of cans of beer and headed down to Camden Town to hopefully get on there, which we did and then packed into an overcrowded tube and were acosted by 4 very drunk Irish men who, upon discovering I was Canadian, broke out and sang the whole damn version of Blame Canada and then did a disturbingly good impression of South Park Canadians, floppy heads and all. Then they tried to sexually olest me and steal my scarf.
At Waterloo station, the trains were a mess but we got lucky with one and headed home. (Sorry, I'm getting tired of blogging so I'm going to wrap things up) My friend was going furher and would have had to have taken a replacement bus service but his wife was lovely as always and picked him up at Woking.
In conclusion, Great concert and public trasport here ess-you-see-kay sucks.
We're off to London again today to go to a textiles museum and see a very different concert to the one I was at last night. Bye.
...And just to be really obnoxious... Now Playing: ...and you will know us by the trail of dead - So Divided Topic: Stephen Says
I've just wrapped up my Christmas shopping and writing all my Christmas cards. When I get around to posting them, on the other hand, is another matter...
Toucing Base 2 Now Playing: Nomeansno - Dance of the Headless Bourgeoisie Topic: Stephen Says
I'm feeling pretty fulfilled today. Just got back from the Woking Mental Health Fair where we had the best display and, to be honest, if I may toot me & my collegues horns, were the most professional there. It was fun being corporate and networking and actually knowing a lot of the people at other stands nd knowing what I'm talking about even.
Wow. Working a steady job means that you network and know stuff. Who'da guessed.
I feel very professional and managerial right now. I also refrained from sticking a box on my head this year. (Maturity!) I might pop a picture up later if I get around to it. (Though I probably won't.)
Excuse me now while I enjoy a glass of wine in out new decanter. (Makes cheap wine taste less cheap.) (Got it for 3.50 at a charity shop marked down from 7.50.) (Which means it would probably retail for about 750 pounds.) (But would be marked down to 350 pounds at a Debenham's blue cross sale.)
Okay, I really must go. I'm feeling full of myself so I shall go and irritate my wife and not you, gentle reader.
