THE YULETIDE BLOG

Ahh, Christmas - that special time of year when the entire Christian world enthusiastically sets about attempting to attain the physical dimensions of a Lancashire sow by ingesting the caloric equivalent of a well-cooked-and-seasoned 2-year-old child (the other, other white meat) in one day. Bless Coca Cola and the poultry farming mafia for making it the event it now is.

Here in London, the full-time whistle has finally blown on the panic-stricken sale-mongering of the big retailers, leaving the streets largely empty and the population largely underwhelmed. Contrary to first (slightly desperate) predictions, there wasn't any snow on Christmas Day to distract everyone from their ballooning mortgage debts and smaller-than-usual pressies. It was nippy, but the sun shone for most of Christmas Day and today, Boxing Day. Someone must've known I'd decided to walk from my place in London Bridge up to Hackney and back and taken pity on my naive optimism.

Apart from the disgraceful bleating and pleading from M&S, Harrods, Tescos, Woolies and co., the lead-up to Christmas here seemed rather un-eventful. It was like the news and current affairs seemed to slow down in direct proportion to the number of residents bleeding out to warmer climates to escape the red-and-white Christmas saturation of every aspect of English life. Maybe it was just me, but London seemed almost quiet. Ye gods.

So, after finishing early at work, Christmas Eve saw me kicking back in the early afternoon before my Chrissie phone calls to home, sipping on a tall, ice-choked glass of Cap'n Morgan and coke, nibbling on my Tescos Christmas pudding (which bore a striking resemblance to Winston Churchill), with the flat to myself after my housemate scrambled away to Bermuda, immersing myself in the amazingly-satisfying tv smorgasbord on offer.

Embarassingly, a small, persistent, Clark-Griswald-like corner of my being relishes Christmas and all its trappings. So being able to flick through what seemed like every single Christmas movie ever made at my leisure was like sneaking a guilty little treat from the fridge of someone you're housesitting for. Forbiddenlicious.

There was also a plethora of other stonkingly-good-but-embarassing stuff on, like both versions of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the Dr Who Christmas Special, music channels with The Top 50 (insert phrase here) Songs of All Time, you name it. There was even a Christmas panto starring Ronnie Corbett, which I had to watch for 5 minutes just to remember how truly awful panto is (Ohhh no it isn't! Ohhh yes it is! Ohhh no it isn't! Sheesh. Some wine with that cheese?).

Christmas Day I trekked over to my friend's place in Hackney, a good hour's walk (no public transport, and taxis were asking for your first unborn child and a weekly percentage of your salary). Great stuff with the empty footpaths though, loved it - an empty London when the sun's out is a sight to see. Zhera and Mark cooked up a storm of mouthwatering canapes and roasted goodness while I dutifully quaffed the wines I'd bought over and joined in on eye-wateringly-bad Moulin Rouge duets. Oh, and started off like an absolute demon at Jenga before turning to water in the final two rounds. Finished up with swollen bellies and magic cocktails that seemed to empty almost as quickly as they were filled. Great Xmas Day all round.

Now, for New Years' Eve........ is it illegal to do nothing for New Years Eve if you're in London? Someone the other day suggested with a straight face that here in Londinium they quietly drag such fun-dodgers away and they re-appear on Jan 1st "re-Neducated". Bah. Bollocks to that. You can stick your 30pound taxi fares and 50 pound cover charges right up your London Eye as far as I'm concerned. Ahem.

Hope you've all had a suitably calorie-saturated Chrissie - let me know if you're doing anything utterly mind-blowing to bring in the New Year. Maybe I'll be inspired to try and break my run of 4 rubbish-to-average NYE's in a row.

CROYDON IN THE NEWS

Well who would’ve thought Croydon was such a wild’n’crazy place? There’s been two, count ‘em, TWO national-news-worthy events here in Costa del Croydon in the last 7 days. And they don't even involve murders (Croydon's having a break from those this week, apparently - something about it being too cold to hold a knife for too long, or something). The locals must be in a veritable frenzy of excitement at getting their rooftops on the box in relation to something other than mugshots……ummmm........

Event # 1: Croydon Councillor Quits After IRA Past Revealed

One of Croydon’s Tory Councillors quit in spectacular fashion last week after a punter at one of Council’s public hearings outed her as being an ex-IRA provisional. Apparently the smug gentleman in question referred to Councillor Maria Gatland by her maiden name mid-rant, then corrected himself by saying he was confused after reading a book she’d written under that name when she was a young’un (cue smirk from punter). Turns out Councillor Gatland was up to her neck in it with an IRA gun-smuggling crew in the ‘70’s and wrote a tell-all book after she broke up with one of the men in the crew and left the whole nail-bombs-‘n’-Guiness thing behind. She go bye-bye very quickly once that little doozy came out. Good to see the Tory Party maintains a strict policy of checking the CVs of all those applying for Party membership, ey?

Event #2: TeenyBoppers Riot At Croydon's Fairfield Hall

Any of you heard of “The X Factor”? If not, it’s basically yet another tv programme from the same cookie cutter as the rest of the “Australia ’s Got Emotionally-Challenged Teenaged Singers Who Can’t Write Their Own Material”-style "talent" shows. Anyhoo, The X Factor producers put on a live show at Croydon’s Fairfield Hall (across the road from my work building) Monday night, and we could hear the screaming of the crazy-eyed fans from the 18th floor at work (through double-glazing) when their favourite plucked'n'primped demi-gods turned up.

The X-Factor producers were out front whipping the crowd into a frenzy (they're not top of the pops in The Bill's books right now as a result), but Fairfield had sent out flyers suggesting the show was free when in reality tickets were needed. Management had also underestimated the power thousands of temporarily-insane young moppets could generate when stimulated by too much advertising, bland pop music, hormones and Red Bull, and kept the doors shut as the keening masses watched They Who Cannot Think For Themselves enter the building. Cue ugliness.

The underage mob got their first unwanted taste of what a Sepultura moshpit is like as large sections of their ranks turned into those zombies from 28 Days Later and tried to storm the barricades in a desperate attempt to keep their Objets du Lust in sight. The paltry handful of security guards on duty immediately got on the blower and ordered up some bacon ala kevlar, who, upon seeing the rabid Children of the Corn they were facing, immediately called in THEIR crowd control specialists. Much of the video footage shot by cameramen silly enough to get near the front of this puzzling mass of insanity looks strangely similar to scenes of starving Bangladeshis or Somalians at the UN food trucks – just with shinier hair, better clothes and more tears.

The damage: Epileptic fits, broken arms and ankles, stomach injuries, asthma attacks, panic attacks, lost berets, hurt feelings, smeared eyeshadow etc etc. A heavily pregnant woman had to be extricated from the tidal wave (one might ask what the hell she was doing there at all) suffering bruising and severe loss of dignity. A handful of screechers had to be taken to hospital suffering sundry broken nails and ruffled bouffants or thereabouts. Apparently some sections even Threw Down and got stuck right into a good old-fashioned, Barbies-and-lip-gloss-at-ten-paces brouhaha, as “feral girl-gangs” got Naomi Campbell on each other with their diamante-studded nails and Hello Kitty phones. Outstanding. If only I’d had the binoculars, I could’ve provided the BBC with a slap-by-slap commentary from my desk.

One thing of note I did see from my lofty perch was the giant, menacing secondary wave of uniform-clad local schoolgirls sweeping across the plaza at 4pm like a phalanx of blazer-wearing Berserkers to fling themselves bodily into the heaving pile of flesh and North Face overcoats that was the "line". They've been described by many in the crowd as being foaming-at-the-mouth wild animals and the cause of much of the trouble. Where's Jamie Oliver when you need him?

Rumours also abound that perhaps the X-Factor judges engineered the madness to dilute the bad press from a contestant's kinky s*x tape that's just been released (much to the delight of Clearasil-dodgers nationwide). A course of action which would be like trying to make up for a 20-vodka-shots-and-arrested Friday night by having a Saturday night doing lines of coke off a public toilet seat in Kings Cross. Probably not going to improve your situation.

News from me - not much. Certainly no inflammatory crowd-baiting or Mick-outing, that's for sure. Went out to yet another centuries-old pub and then a swanky new nightclub last Friday night for a friend's birthday, but sadly there were no papparazzi-worthy moments of hedonism or controversy to be had. I did, however, meet Shane Warne's Biggest Fan In The World - he was my taxi driver on the way home. I didn't get a word in edgewise. Not one.

Cold here, -2 degrees last night, and everyone's dog-miserable or sick or both, dagnabit - so give me the lowdown on some funny stuff that's been happening in your vicinity. Or I'll tell people you all belong to a cult that sacrifices cuddly kittens to Steve Urkel.

Hope you're well!

LIFE BACK IN BLIGHTY

Great Odin's raven, could it really be a week-and-a-half since I bag-of-chalked back in the Roger from New York already? Where'd that go? I'm so shocked I'll be using cockney rhyming slang for the next few paragraphs.

Well, to sum it up, I've not done much but horse-and-cart about at work trying to catch up with thousands of urgent emails so that I don't end up on the Adrian Mole. That, and trying not to spend more than an Ayrton Senna per day (less than a Lady Godiva would be even better) as the ol' cab rank's a bit empty, and taking the dancing bears instead of the lift to try and regain some fitness, seeing as I haven't been near the Benny Hinn for weeks now (not keen on losing any more pieces-of-eight, y'feel me, guv'na?).

Oh yeah, and today I had my first court appearance for work. Had the distinct pleasure of being verbally skewered by a Tom Sawyer with a habit of constantly fiddling with his orchestra stalls as if he had a bad case of the Sandy McNabs. Well distracting, let me tell you. Didn't help that the policy base I was working from is completely up the Gary Glitter - more holes in it than a fishing net. I needed a Porta-Hole to throw down and disappear into.

Other than that I don't have much more wooden pews, personally. Coming up, I've got to find a titfer' for a dress-up birthday Moriarty next Friday night. Also have a weekend in Malta in January locked in (thanks fam! top Xmas pressie), as well as 2 weeks in Sri Lanka in February (should be an unbelievable lemon&lime, can't wait).

Right then, enough self-amusement. Here's what else has been happening here lately:

NEWS

You Say Recession, I Say Depression

In a sure sign that the Four Horsemen of the Financial Apocalypse are thundering down the final straight, retail behemoths Woolworths and BMI (homewares) both announced today that they're skint, the banks have called in all their debts and they're officially going under. 135,000 jobs or thereabouts gonnnnnnnnnnnne. The response from the government to the slavering feeding frenzy that is the UK's media was: "No bailout".

Oh, Thank You Darling

Alistair Darling, the UK's Chancellor of the Exchequer (that's publicschool-ese for Treasurer, don't you know, old bean) did the political equivalent of tempting a lost, hungry racehorse into his barn with sugarcubes this week by slashing the VAT. The government's publicly-stated reason for doing so is to keep all those rotund little Prada-consumers shopping their vacuous brains out leading up to Xmas and thereby avert an absolute economic disaster. I call it a blatant grab for votes in the next election and a desperate attempt to stop the villagers taking up the pitchforks and torches.

Do More, Damn You! With Less!

What a shock - more recession news. PM Mr Bean.... sorry, Gordie Brown made the suggestion that all the UK's local governments must make over 1.5 billion pounds' worth of "efficiency cuts" before the end of the financial year. Because the local governments are so flush with cash right now. And they're operating so efficiently right now too. An example for illustration: My floor at work seats 110 people and has one scanner. Which only works if you give it a good belting and look menacingly at it. Guess I'll be nipping out to the local internet cafe for all my scanning needs next year. If I still have a job.

Arctic Monkeys

Sunday just gone saw snow on the rooftops south of the Thames, and it's getting that cold again now and for the rest of the week..... with rain every day. Just capital. It's been so cold in the mornings the last two days that I daren't stop moving while outdoors in case the hoarfrost gets at my appendages. Walking to the train station this morning it was so cold I went cross-eyed and my Hampstead Heath felt like they were going to drop out. Did I mention it was getting a tad chilly here? I may be forced to ....(shudder)... go shopping for more warm clothes. I feel like taking a shower after saying that.

And Finally, The World's Most Thrilling, Unbelievably Mind-Blowing News

Yes, in what must surely be the entertainment industry's signing of the century, the new Cinderella pantomime coming out for Xmas here in London has announced it's top-billing star...... STEVE GUTTENBERG!!!!!!!!!!! That's right kiddies, the international acting wunderkind, mesmerising star of such epic and avant-garde opuses as the Police Academy trilogy and........ well, he's taken time out from his gruelling schedule of occasional guest star spots, infomercials and checking his answering machine to bless the good folk of London and the world of panto with his megawatt starpower. I, for one, am absolutely lost for words to describe the extent of my excitement.

Okay, I'm well Kerry'd, so I'll say toodle-oo for now. Hope you're all well :)

NOO YAWK? FAWGEDDABOUDIT!!

Right then, the trick here is how to tell y'all about everything I did and saw in my 7 days in Noo Yawk without this turning into something resembling the complete works of Shakespeare. Hmmm. Dot points always seem to go down a treat, so here ya go.

THINGS I DID / SAW / EXPERIENCED IN THE BIG APPLE:

• Stayed for the duration of my trip in Spanish Harlem with my Aussie mate Scott, who's a bar manager uptown. His apartment tower also houses an opera singer and a classical violinist, who would each practice at volume every second day or so - fantastic, so New York.
• The Veteran's Day Parade (complete with hundreds of big, loud, hilarious skinhead NYFD fireys)
• 5th Avenue (the whole thing)
• The vast NBA Store (great for watching classic old games on their big screens)
• The Empire State Building observatory
• The Museum of Natural History
• The Met (for about 15 minutes before it shut!)
• Central Park and the surrounding avenues with their ultra-pricey real estate and flocks of poodles to match
• Macy's and Bloomingdales (yawn - they're just shops, people)
• The USS Intrepid aircraft carrier museum
• The Circle Line Boat Cruise right around Manhattan (if there's one thing I'd recommend if you've only got a few days in New York, it's this - you get to see the amazing change from downtown to the forested northern tip of the island and the gorgeous 300-ft Pallisades cliffs across the Hudson River and everything inbetween, with commentary)
• Grand Central (did a free tour, guided by a guy who is Les Murphy's American cousin, I swear! Fantastic tour, too)
• The Madison Square Garden all-access tour (not too bad - plus you get $20 Knicks tickets if you show your pass after the tour!)
• Two, count 'em, two New York Knicks basketball games - great atmosphere, upgraded our seats on our own initiative each time..... ahem.
• Times Square (about 25 times - involuntarily!)
• Two ultra-famous outdoor basketball courts that hosted players like Kareem Abdul Jabbar and Dr J in their youth and after they'd turned pro, not to mention hundreds of other NBA players who've come along each summer to pit their skills against the uber-talented streetballin' New York locals. Rucker Park (Harlem) and The Cage (Greenwich Village).
• The Cathedral of St John the Baptist up in Harlem (3rd largest in the world)
• Explored Harlem in its entirety, and basically every single neighbourhood south of Harlem - Hells Kitchen, Greenwich Village, Little Italy, Chinatown, Tribeca, Soho, Wall Street and the Financial District, the East Village, the Lower East Side, etc etc. No idea how many km's I racked up, but it was plenty, I'm tellin' ya. Went just about everywhere on Manhattan.
• Even went out to Queens one night, but that was a mistake - the only subway I got wrong the whole time I was there!

And here's the best part - I did it all on just over $350USD. Yep, the free accomodation with Scott (cheers mate) knocked the cost of living way down, but all this talk about New York being expensive is loco, esay. Food is ultra-cheap, so's the public transport if you get the right MetroCard, and how many handbags and shoes do you REALLY need to buy when you're there? Get out of the McBland I-could-be-in-any-city-on-Earth chain stores and go find the real stuff, people. Not to buy, to experience.

And the people. New Yorkers rock. This may come as a wee surprise to those of you who know how anti-American I am, but I was out on the streets from early morning til sometimes after 8 or 9pm and it was non-stop politeness (genuine, mind you, not the saccharine Disney stuff other Yanks sometimes lay on), cheerfulness, vibrancy, comedy, friendliness and flat-out helpfulness the whole way. I could easily spot the New Yorkers from the "other" Americans too - something about the out-of-towners seemed a bit harsher and they stuck out once they opened their gobs.

The only other place where I've had so many offers of help from strangers on the street is Seoul, but New Yorkers are funnier and far more gregarious than South Koreans (hmmm, looks like Captain Obvious just entered the conversation). Not that I was always getting such offers, mind you - one day I got asked for directions by 5 different people at different stages of the day, because apparently with my blue-and-black-striped scarf (thank you soooo much, Li'l Shakes) and the way I was walking ("You walk like you MEAN it", a gigantic black dude told me) I looked like a local. Curiouser and curiouser.

Harlem was a whole 'nother level above the rest of the city though - I had more hilarious / interesting / helpful / genuine random conversations with strangers of all ages in 4 hours walking around Harlem as the only white face in sight than I did the rest of the week, and the week was full of such encounters. Even got to talk town planning and Marxism for about 20 minutes with a homeless dude outside a diner I'd just left. I ain't going to be trying that here in London, let me tell ya.

Anyway, to sum up, I did New York on the cheap, the weather turned bad halfway through, I had the flu grinding me down every single day I was there and I still had one of the best damn weeks of my life. New York is easily my second-favourite place on Earth outside that big white place down the bottom end, no beg-your-pardons. I could easily go back and live there tomorrow if only those damn visas weren't so hard to get. If you've never been, get yourself a $25 seven-day unlimited MetroCard, get a 2- or 3-day New York Pass to get into as many of the above touristy things as you can manage, and you'll be laughing. So, who wants to meet me there in May?

NEW YORK PICS

San Francis........uh, I mean, Brookly Bridge

Almost courtside at Madison Square Garden, New York Knicks -v- Dallas Mavericks.

Operation "Free Seat Upgrade": successful. Yassssss. Scotty and I about 16 rows back from halfcourt.

NBA action: Knicks -v- Mavs. Da Knicks lost in overtime dough, dose bums.

"The Cage" basketball court in Greenwich Village, freezing cold and windy as hell!

At the world-famous Holcombe Rucker Memorial Park basketball court in deepest Harlem.

End of Autumn in Central Park.

Bethesda Fountain, Central Park.

Children's Sculptures, Cathedral of St John the Baptist.

Inside the Cathedral of St John the Baptist (largest church in USA, third largest on Earth).

Cathedral of St John the Baptist, Harlem.

Madison Square Garden, Knicks - v - Oklahoma City Thunder.

Think you can figure out where...

American Express' memorial to the 11 staff it lost in the World Trade Centre disaster.

USS Intrepid flight deck and midtown Manhattan.

New York icons, London weather.

Subway recovery.

Scott's gang at the college bar.

Dinner at the Seinfeld Diner.

Madison Square Garden Tour (getting set up for the AC/DC concert in the background).

Grand Central Main Concourse.

Grand Central Terminal (not a station, apparently!)

Empire State Building

Empire State pidgeons

Veteran's Day Parade

Pugs: patriotic

Veteran's Day Marching Band, Flatiron Building, Madison Square Park

DORSET - ZHERA'S SURPRISE 30TH WEEKEND

Just quickly - I went down to the south coast county of Dorset the weekend before I took off to New York for my friend Zhera's surprise 30th birthday weekend getaway with all her friends (as organised by her hubby Mark). Great weekend. The car I was in only just arrived as Zhera and Mark's cab pulled up, so we had to sneak into this big country cottage out in the middle of nowhere right past Zed as she stood flailing about in the driveway with her blindfold on - we came running in the back door just as the first "Surprise!!" calls erupted, just in time. Phew. The rest of the weekend was markets, beachside cliffs, gobsmacking food (we all paired up to do a different course per pair for dinner saturday night) and too much wine appreciation. Great way to spend a weekend!

DORSET PICS

DUBLIN, HALLOWEEN, JAMES BOND & THE CHIEF

Well well, a brave new world's dawned upon us, with The Cool Drink of Water trouncing Grandpoppy Maverick in the race to become Grand Poobah of the Free World (plus the USA, which is officially a corporate arm of Sony these days, I believe).

It was quite the spectacle here last night and this morning, with thousands of expat Yankees partying the night away in American-themed bars, clubs and function rooms all over London until the dawn, when the new Prez was ushered in with bulletproof glass either side of him and higher expectations than JFK. Indeed.

I've walked into some difficult jobs here and there, but never one where two neo-nazis wanted to ice dozens of people like me and then string me up as well, all while wearing....... white top hats and tails. Actually, if that's not the funniest goddam story I've heard all month I don't know what is. "Hot damn, Cleatus! Y'know wha' we all should dew?! We shed put ohn some fancy clothes like what that there Colonel Sanders yewsed to and go get us some guns from Mama's shed and go shoot that uppity Barrack Osama!" "Hooee Billy-bob, y'all's smarter'n a raccoon in a trashcan - they won't never know it was us in those gitups!". White supremacy at its weirdest.

Anyhoo, since my last visit to this little online soapbox, I've been to Dublin and back (see piccies below). My first night there was Halloween, so of course lining up at the Ryan Air desk was fun. One gentleman was sporting a very fetching full wetsuit-n-goggles ensemble already; even better, Customs let him on the plane wearing it. Huzzah for officials with a sense of humour.

So, to Dublin - the city of gorgeous women and hilarious blokes. First day/night in Dublin I:

• Took a quick look around Dublin's main streets;
• Sourced a doctor's labcoat for my costume after directions from a canny marketstall owner (if you're lost in any city, go to a market for directions - my hit rate is perfect so far);
  Stumbled across the Sinn Fein bookstore (complete with authentic burnt-out building behind it);
• Met my mate Matt at a proper non-touristy pub for some sweet-tasting pints of Guiness - not a single headbutt to be had. Obviously Milwall fans only go to Spain on their holidays;
  Checked into our hotel and worked our magic on our blood-soaked doctor's outfits for the evening. Desk staff were goggle-eyed when we walked downstairs and through the lobby to the front door;
• Wandered round the streets and a few bars, meeting Aussies and Seppos and trying to think up new lines for everyone who wanted a go on our stethoscopes. When in doubt - "I concur". When trying to get through crowded sections - "Emergency! Step aside please! Emergency!". Seemed to work a treat;
• Spent half and hour in the packed scrum outside the tickets-only nightclub venue for the evening, gawping at the amount of effort and sophistication the Irish had put into their costumes - those people love a good dress-up. And never in my life have I seen so many gals poured into midriff-top / micro-tutu / knee-high-socks / 5-inch-heels combos in one place before. Helped that they're all far easier on the ocular in Ireland than in the UK, too;
• Met Matt's four Irish lady friends once they arrived at the club, had a fun night talking rubbish and dancing like big dancing things. Home in bed by 4am-ish.
  Of course my bank (HSBC for anyone wanting to avoid similar near-catastrophes) tried desperately to completely shanghai the weekend by locking off both my credit card AND my debit card for no goddam reason (I gave them a reaming yesterday and they had nothing), but I'd been burnt once before (see St Albans post) so I'd already withdrawn a wad of cash before I left the UK. Getitupye', HSBC.

Next day (Saturday) I:

• did the tourist standard, the world-famous Guiness Brewery Tour. Wasn't too bad, very comprehensive and it brought home just how influential Guiness have been globally (Guiness Book of World Records ring a bell?). And if I could have a pair of forearms like those coopers (barrel-makers for those of you younger than 70) did back in the day I'd be well pleased with myself - all they needed were corncob pipes and a can o'spinach in the back pocket to complete the image. Not the blokes to challenge to an arm-rassle. Or shake hands with after they'd had a few pints o' the black stuff.
• Walked around for hours trying to get mobile phone fixed as that, too, decided to chuck its toys out of the cot and stopped working, as I was supposed to meet up with Matt later that day. No go.
• Did the Dublin Castle tour instead (With Real Viking Ruins!), plus a few more of the sights. Still an okay day because Dubliners are leagues friendlier than Londoners and funny as hell.

Sunday, flew home, dumped stuff, changed and went to the new Bond movie at The Odeon in Leicester Square with some of the English friends. Does anyone disagree with me when I say Quantum of Solace was bleaker and tougher than the last one without as much fun in it? Still enjoyed it but the latest Bond incarnation is far more of a headkicker than ol' Roger "Camper Than Julian Cleary" Moore's version was, that's for sure. Anyway, following the flick the friends showed me some nifty bars and I FINALLY got to have a nibble at The Garrison GastroPub directly across the road from my place. And yea verily, it was good.

Tonight, it's Guy Fawke's Night, and as I sit here in my flat typing this stream-of-consciousness-style I can hear cracks and pops and thuds and the occasional window-rattling, car-alarm-triggering boom all around me. Was invited to Clapham Common to throw double bungers around and no doubt lose an appendage, but was just way too tired from consecutive-nights-beyond-count on the go. That's one thing I'm finding here - there's always something you have to do / take care of after you leave work, and most of the time it ain't related to socialising, dagnabit.

Next week, to break that contemptible cycle, I'm away in New York, so probably won't post anything while there, but fear not, the mindless drivel shall continue the week after. With rubbish photos of New York to accompany it too. I can almost hear you all drooling onto your workpants in anticipation. I expect nothing less. Hope you're all well.

More Dublin Piccies

Tea, anyone?

Dublin Castle

Underground river in Dublin Castle


Guiness Brewery waterfall

Three guesses......

DUBLIN HALLOWEEN '08

Prep Time

Another successful operation

Knock-off time at Dublin Memorial Hospital was always eagerly awaited

Australian medical staff: incompetent

Random London bits #2

You can always spot an Aussie labourer in London because they're the ones wearing boardies and wifebeaters with their fluero vest in 1-degree temperature.

One of the more interesting things about London when it gets cold so far: walking through carparks in the morning and seeing cars carrying a nice, chunky 30cm-thick frosting of ice on top, making them look like giant cupcakes with tyres. Yes, you get it other places in the world quite regularly, but it surprises even Londoners when it happens here.

The matched-pair pub names here continue to impress. The Slug and Lettuce, The Horse and Gentleman, the Hound and Hares, The Barrowboy and Banker etc. Am on the lookout for The Knee and Groin, The Chav and Shiv, The Priest and Altarboy and The Banker and Bonus.

Loud Eaters on public transport - you have ABSOLUTELY got to be kidding me, right?!? Every single day I get some too-self-absorbed-to-care w*nker sitting next to me on the train who's trying desperately to get as much oxygen into their mastication as possible. If I can hear you, I damn well know you can hear yourself. Seriously, shut your goddam mouth when you're chewing 30cm from my ear, Gobsworth, before you choke.

On the complete opposite end of the spectrum, I saw a wild fox not 10 metres from me lazing on a patch of lawn in a housing complex tucked behind a shop and between industrial sheds in the midst of the busiest, most built-up part of Croydon last Wednesday (aptly called Fox Hill). Ol' Basil Brush got up after awhile and trotted to his burrow under the hedge that formed the lawn's front boundary. Amazingly cool unexpected experience.

Off to Dublin on Friday morning for Halloween and the weekend. Dress-ups should be interesting in the cold snap hitting Ireland and the UK right now.........

ST ALBANS

Tudor houses - drunken

St Albans Cathedral



Oldest Pub in the UK (apparently) - Ye Old Fighting Cocks

ST.ALBANS - THE TRIP WHERE NOTHING WORKED

Had one of those trips this weekend. Decided to check out St Albans, a small city/large town approximately 25 minutes north of London and a place with a wonderfully varied history. The Romans joined in the farming-and-brewing fun with the locals in AD43 and transformed the existing village into England’s third biggest city (called Verulamium), then Queen Boudiccea and her All-Singin', All-Plunderin' Iceni from just up the road gave the Romans the big thumbs-down and included St Albans in their "Hadrian Sucks" Tour of England, kicking three shades of living tripe out of the place before heading on to give Londinium an even bigger Hows-Your-Father.

Being the Soviet Empire of world affairs that they were at the time, the Romans quickly regrouped and put a stop to all that silliness with some swift sword-work and quickly rebuilt everything Boddy had destroyed, but better. Before they took off from Verulamium in Ad 410 to attend to a few worrying matters in their own backyard, they gave England their first-ever Christian Martyr, a Roman soldier named Alban (hence the current name) who sheltered a Christian priest and converted on the sly, then got the chop when his buddies got suss. Must've been his reluctance to come along to the orgies. Anyhoo, he got the ol' 8-Inches-Too-Low Haircut and once Emperor Constantine told the Romans they were all Christians a bit later, hey presto, cue shrine-building, massive numbers of pilgrims and lots of inn-building as well (one of which, Ye Olde Fighting Cocks, apparently started serving up the ol' Loudmouth Soup to the thirsty travellers in AD912, making it the oldest pub in England).

After the Romans exited stage left, the Saxons came through, then the Normans . A wacking great abbey, the biggest in Europe at the time, was built at St Alban's shrine to attract even more money........sorry pilgrims. The first draft of the Magna Carta was even drawn up there. More interesting stuff came after that; the town played host to two Red-versus-White matches, otherwise known as the War of the Roses. A king of France hid in one of the pubs for all of about 5 minutes before being hauled out and given a jolly good seeing-to. A local got dragged off to London and toasted for not worshipping God the right way (Queeny was Catholic, y'know), which put all sorts of noses out of joint. Oliver Cromwell even sampled the delights of Ye Olde Fighting Cocks at some stage there too. The people you see at your local nuclear sub sometimes, ey?!

The place kept growing due to its location on the north road from London, but had its population swiss-cheesed by WW1 (of the first 100 locals who joined up, not a single one survived, and apparently every officer from St Albans was killed in the first 15 minutes of the Somme offensive. Yep, the first 15 minutes. Nasty stuff). In WW2 St Albans gave shelter to lots of the London kiddies who were getting sent away from the nightly Herman Goerring London Redevelopment Extravaganza, and the local factories built the famous wooden-framed Mosquito fighters. St Albans was even a hub of intelligence work - so much so that they fed the Nazis false information that persuaded them to bomb the bejeesus out of areas south of London instead of north. Talk about looking after your own backside.

After Dubya-Dubya Two the joint grew even more rapidly, as every other place did. Lots of Oh-My-God ugly buildings and suburbs went up very fast before anyone could stop and think about what they looked like, and the town got its first highway as well, further fuelling growth. They’ve hung onto most of their valuable old buildings though, unlike Brisbane (thanks again, Sir Joh, you miserable rat-b*stard - Expo 88 doesn't make up for the State Government building on George Street , in my book). Today, St Albans is a nice enough place, with a fab Roman museum, nice countryside, a bit expensive but it does the trick if you're after a simple weekend out of London without wanting to go too far.

Anyway, onto the reason behind this week’s blog title. The weekend seemed pretty straightforward - unplug and jettison from London for an entire weekend, without going too far or spending too much money, get to see some countryside and nifty architecture to boot. Little did I know. Saturday morning The Fates descended on me with their ethereal jackboots and decided to give me a kickin'. It went something like this:

(1) Forgot umbrella (in my defence, it WAS 6am and pitch black and I WAS still half-snoozing as I hit the streets to London Bridge Station). Tone was set.

(2) Kings Cross station staff couldn't tell where train to St Albans left from. Passing Dutch backpacker thankfully provided necessary information. Sweet Lord preserve the Dutch for their fine cheeses, liberal attitudes and extensive travel experience.

(3) Hotel wasn't at address provided and no-one in entire town of St Albans had ever heard of it. This included shopkeepers, cab drivers, posties and local constabulary. Made smiley-sheepish-friends with 41 locals (kept count after first 5) trying to find someone who'd heard of Hotel St Albans. No dice. Felt like the guy in The Twilight Zone episode who wakes up one day and everyone's started speaking another language.

(4) After hour-and-a-half of trudging arctic, frost-laden dawn streets and approaching people sporting Lost-Tourist-Apologetic-Smile (painfully aware that if in Albania or Hungary doing same I would've been bundled into a van by large men with no necks and lots of heavy jewellery and sold into slavery to a magnesium magnate far earlier in the piece) admitted defeat and checked into Comfort Inn for 60 pounds. Debit card wouldn't work. Could see expression on clerk's face changing from compassion at tale of woe to that unsettling blankness that suss service staff slip on while their brains calculate how long it would take the Bill to arrive, so quickly brandished remaining fistful of cash and was efficiently ushered into warm, sterile, blandly-pleasant McRoom to dump backpack and hit the streets.

(5) Got to first sightseeing destination, whipped out camera….... deader than John McCain's election prospects. Despite being on battery charger all Friday night. Fists were shaken skywards at the Fates. Unwise choice.

(6) Attempted to get to bottom of banking problems at ATM - no luck. Went to branch to have thrombo at them and possibly lay smackdown, where an emotionless android dressed in bank's uniform droned that three transactions made in first week of October had just been put through yesterday and that account was overdrawn. Emotional soundtrack in head went from punk to Slayer, before remembering that it was possible for bank staff to transfer some of savings over. Visions of Rent-a-Tourist schemes and street-corner begging receded. Hit sights once more.

(7) Rest of the day went well until deciding to do solo pub-crawl of sorts. Note: St Albans has copious amount of pubs for a place that size, all claiming to be even older than my jokes. Romans had malting crews in St Albans back in the day, and its been prolificly serving up pints ever since, apparently. Decided to hit them all in one afternoon, just for something new, having half-pint at each and striking up conversation with friendly sorts at each stop - just like earlier on but with less mutual confusion and head-scratching. Until that point Fates must've been off having bite to eat or torturing kittens or whatever they do when they're not messing with yours truly. Final score was:

Historic Pubs Visited: 6
Total Units of Alcohol Consumed: 6
Total Conversations Attempted: 9
Total Conversations Achieved: 0

Must've been my incredibly intimidating appearance.........uh huh. Stopped at Pub #6.

(8) Sunday - after a shufty at the surprisingly-good St Albans museum and some countryside, went to Tourist office to join guided walking tour, but it started raining and office..... was shut. Despite the lovely old dears spoken with day before saying to come along and pay at start of tour in morning. Started laughing maniacally on Tourist office steps. Hit Pub #7.

I shouldn't make out like the whole weekend was bad the way Michael Bay movies are bad, though. St Albans has some stunning Georgian and Tudor streets (the black'n'white buildings that lean like a drunk at closing time, for those not familiar), and those pubs I mentioned, plus a massive market that's been jumping since the 9th century and a back-story that a history geek like me couldn't resist. Just make sure you've got cash and a booking at a hotel that actually exists in this dimension.

AUTUMN ANTICS

Yass, it's Autumn here in London and don't all those piles of leaves look sensational as a big thumb-on-the-nose to the glass'n'steel-loving architects' broad concrete plazas and suddenly-cluttered clean lines. Get a bit'a nature in ya, Jones Lang LaSalle.

Ahem. Anyway, quick updates. This past week I:

(1) Went on a Jack The Ripper Walking Tour through Whitechapel (last Thursday night) to catch up with my uni friend Lucy. Good stuff, even if chatting about holidays and work comparisons didn't quite gel with disembowelment and entrails-over-the-shoulder talk sometimes. Was appropriately cold and dark, lots of gruesome photos from the actual crime scenes (the last victim was seriously Done Over - yeesh) and the guide was entertainingly self-deprecating. Even better - I didn't have to do the tour with the two hard-core, fully-sick-bro Melbourne wogboys still stinking from their first Contiki tour of Europe and talking like everyone gave a sh*t about their single-brain-cell opinions - they were waiting for the other tour. Bet that was fun for everyone else in their group. Mine was great, sans Aussie d*ckheads. Next time: The Vampire Walking tour.

(2) Sampled my first match of "footers", Crystal Palace - v - Barnsley, courtesy of cheap ticket through work (Crystal Palace is in Croydon Borough so they're our local team). Interesting. Got to go to a rough-as-guts local pub in the dingy part of town and have a pint with the full-on diehard Palace fans before the game - funny and disturbing at the same time.
They loved me when they found out I was an Aussie because one of Palace's midfielders is from Oz (and from that second on I was praying to the Ghost of George Best that the Aussie didn't score an own-goal).
On a night when the Chelsea dreadnaught was up 5-0 at halftime and Milwall's finest went the knuckle on the visiting Leeds fans (just to give their foreheads a rest, perhaps), Palace trounced the wallowing Yorkshiremen 3-zip. Still not a soccer fan, but it was fun to be there at the match to see everything that went on around the game.
Weirdest bit: Meeting one of the lads from the pub after the game, big 40+-year-old guy, who showed me his palms, both split down the middle and bleeding from all the clapping he was doing. No, that's not an exaggeration. Mr. Into-It had burst open his own palms. See what I mean about hoping the Aussie didn't own-goal?
Best bits: walking up the tunnel into the lower stands just as the teams walked on and the crowd burst into the team song as one. That, and watching the substitutes warm up with agility drills on the sidelines. Those lads are quicker than a Yank to a buffet. Mind-boggling footwork. Pics in the post below this one.

(3) Went for a stroll out my front door and up the road to the Tate Modern art gallery (yep, pics below as well). Great walk it is too, past Hays Galleria, HMAS Belfast, London Bridge ("Still Getting You There Since Hadrian!"), The Clink Museum, The Golden Hinde and easily the best percussion busker in the entire universe (embodied, in this instance, by a young skatepunk dude sitting under an archway playing a wicked array of plastic buckets, cans and a cymbal laid flat on the ground - I'm going back with my video camera next time, he was off-the-dial-good). Have already talked about the Tate in my previous post, so shan't waffle. 'Tis good. You should go. Or look at its website. And did I mention it's 10 minutes' walk from me? Ja. I bask in your envy.

BOOKED:

This weekend in Hertfordshire, staying in St Albans. Roman ruins, England's oldest pub (one of the contenders, anyway), country markets, no traffic. I feel relaxed just writing about it.

Next weekend in Dublin for Halloween. As you do. No idea what to expect. Pumpkin pints, perhaps.

Weekend after that I can't say yet as it's a surprise for a friend organised by their partner and they may read this, but it's goooooood.

Shall report more on those as I go. Piccies are possibly an option too. I'll leave you with the best bus ad campaign to hit London since I got there. No pics, just these words on the sides of double-deckers:

"There's probably no god. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life."

Off you go, then.

WALK TO THE TATE MODERN

St Paul's Cathedral TATE MODERN
MILLENIUM BRIDGE AND ST PAUL'S CATHEDRAL
EVERYONE'S TALKIN' TATE