Oh Monday, how do I love thee? Not at all, actually. I have no love for the Monday. And the (bitter, evil, dawn of a new Ice Age) cold weather is making Mondays even worse. Even though I am all moved in to my lovely new flat, and sharing with a sane person (which is really important, much more than people think), as yet, we do not have heating. Yep, that’s right, and it was minus 8 last night. We’ve got some of those little electric heaters, which you can sort of hover over and warm one body part at a time, but it’s not the same. Mostly it is ok, but getting out of bed when it is still dark and stepping onto a cold floor – that’s not so good. Also, although getting into the shower is ok, it’s hard to get out, because you know that as soon as you turn the taps off, you will be covered in goosebumps. On the plus side, I’ve noticed I get dressed a lot quicker – less of the standing in front of the wardrobe and pondering over the perfect ensemble, and more of the grabbing the nearest jumper and shivering into it.
Despite all these odds against it, (the weather, the comfy bed, the weird dream I was having about buying a samurai sword; for what purpose, I don’t know), I did make it into work, and at least I had a good weekend, the memories of which are keeping me warm as I sit here, typing in fingerless gloves, hunched over a cup-a-soup, much like Bob Cratchit (a modern-day, über-glamorous, female Bob Cratchit, but you get my point) . So what happened this weekend? Well. S is back from India! Hurrah! And her boyfriend managed to pull off a surprise ‘welcome back’ party for her on Saturday night. We went to Elk in the Woods bar in Angel, which was very nice, if a bit tricky to find. They serve lovely food and they even have lovely bar staff, which is always a refreshing change. Also saw Sho, and went to the pictures – saw Mrs. Henderson Presents, which is a lovely film, with Judi Dench and Bob Hoskins, about the original Windmill Theatre in Soho, which kept going through WW2, with a nude review and variety show – very popular with the soldiers on leave, less so with the then prime minister. At one point, Judi Dench’s character makes a speech, and she is just so damn good, that she only had to make her voice break on one word and I found myself in tears. She’s just that good. We went to the Crown and Goose in Camden after that – they have a real fire in there! Sat as close as we good without becoming a combustion hazard.
Much of Sunday morning was lost to a quite gentle hangover, which only troubled me with a headache, and requested that I stay in bed ‘til at least 1.30pm. I think I got off lightly. When I did drag myself out of bed, I managed to go to a little arts centre that Amy told me about, which is literally round the corner from my new flat. Some of the art was actually quite good, which I hadn’t been expecting, and there was also music, and a Turkish woman gave a speech all about London as part of some ‘ephemeral cities’ project. It was all rather good. Would be fair to say the day improved when we left there though, and sojourned to the pub across the road, for a couple of brandies and a satisfyingly large stone-baked pepperoni pizza. Almost forgot it was Sunday evening, and that the dreaded Monday was approaching. Came home to find that Red had been to Ikea (on a Sunday! Is she mad?) and my new wardrobe is in boxes waiting to be assembled. I think it will be a while before I am up to attempting that. All in all, a good value weekend, but I still don’t feel any better about it being Monday. Damn you, Monday.
Monday, November 28, 2005
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
What the cool kids are listening to...
Went to a concert recently, to see Hard-Fi – they were amazing. They rock. They sounded great and there was a really cool atmosphere at the venue, and a good time was had by all. Highly recommended. I brought Sho along as there was a spare ticket. I had no idea at the time how much this was going to cost me in the long run…
The following week, she tells me she has got the tickets to see Jamie Lidell. I’d not really heard of him, but agreed to go – she came to my rock concert, after all. Jamie Lidell himself is pretty cool – he sings and is kind of jazzy and bluesy, BUT he throws in the occasional hard, pounding dance and electro beats into his songs at odd moments, which seemed a bit unnecessary to me, but the rest of the crowd seemed quite happy, so when in Rome, etc. However he didn’t come on stage until around 10ish. Before his appearance, we had to endure 2 support ‘acts’. I kept trying to tell myself to keep an open mind. Okay, this isn’t my usual kind of music, but maybe I could just go with it – try something new, you know? Yeah, right.
The first support act was fairly inoffensive. True, he was just playing monotonous, deafening dance music from a little set of spot-lit decks in the corner, and it was impossible to tell when each song had finished, because they are all mixed together, but I could just about handle him. The rest of the crowd had clearly experienced this kind of thing before, as they seemed to instinctively know when to clap, despite the music sounding exactly the same throughout his seemingly endless set. Anyway, he eventually left the stage, to rapturous applause – mainly from me, I was very keen to applaud him exiting the stage. I remember thinking to myself, well, at least that wasn’t too bad, and now we’ll have the main act, and we’re getting closer to when I can leave the building. Oh, folly, folly, how wrong I was.
This is when the second support act took to the stage. A very short Japanese guy ran onto the stage and screeched ‘Hello London people!’ into the mic a few times. He was joined by another guy, who went and stood by the decks. Predictably, a repetitive, loud techno beat started to issue forth from the massive speakers. I braced myself. Then the little Japanese guy took centre stage and just began to yell, really loudly, not to mention tunelessly, into the microphone. That’s all he did. He just kept yelling. Then he mixed it up by screaming. Then he stopped (but the beats didn’t), and stood on the stage nodding his head in time to the ‘music’, and a recording of him yelling was then played back over the track. Then he put a big, pink, floppy hat on, and repeated the yelling and screaming combo. I thought that my ears were going to start bleeding. And it was relentless; their set seemed to go on forever. I’d gone way past trying to keep an open mind at this point. I surreptitiously rummaged around in my bag for my phone to check the time, and my hand closed around my pen. I briefly thought about stabbing myself in the eye to make it all stop, but then I reconsidered; I’d die, but not quick enough. Then I started running through a string of possibilities in my head, like, could I set off the fire alarm? Could I engineer a power cut? Alas, the crowd was too dense for me to try either of these actions. I was in for the long haul whether I liked it or not.
When they finally left the stage, to some applause, and to my great relief, some booing (I wasn’t alone; other people thought they sucked too, including Sho), I was ready to go home. But, Jamie Lidell was yet to come on! After the support act ordeal, he could have come on and strangled a cat and I would have applauded wildly; anything would sound good after that. As I said, he was ok, but his set was marred by the trauma of what came before, for me anyway. The whole thing was exhausting.
Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer live acts to play instruments and sing. I know, I’m clearly not down with the kids, but I’d rather be the girl at the rock show 'cos I like my music with guitars, goddammit! Rock on.
The following week, she tells me she has got the tickets to see Jamie Lidell. I’d not really heard of him, but agreed to go – she came to my rock concert, after all. Jamie Lidell himself is pretty cool – he sings and is kind of jazzy and bluesy, BUT he throws in the occasional hard, pounding dance and electro beats into his songs at odd moments, which seemed a bit unnecessary to me, but the rest of the crowd seemed quite happy, so when in Rome, etc. However he didn’t come on stage until around 10ish. Before his appearance, we had to endure 2 support ‘acts’. I kept trying to tell myself to keep an open mind. Okay, this isn’t my usual kind of music, but maybe I could just go with it – try something new, you know? Yeah, right.
The first support act was fairly inoffensive. True, he was just playing monotonous, deafening dance music from a little set of spot-lit decks in the corner, and it was impossible to tell when each song had finished, because they are all mixed together, but I could just about handle him. The rest of the crowd had clearly experienced this kind of thing before, as they seemed to instinctively know when to clap, despite the music sounding exactly the same throughout his seemingly endless set. Anyway, he eventually left the stage, to rapturous applause – mainly from me, I was very keen to applaud him exiting the stage. I remember thinking to myself, well, at least that wasn’t too bad, and now we’ll have the main act, and we’re getting closer to when I can leave the building. Oh, folly, folly, how wrong I was.
This is when the second support act took to the stage. A very short Japanese guy ran onto the stage and screeched ‘Hello London people!’ into the mic a few times. He was joined by another guy, who went and stood by the decks. Predictably, a repetitive, loud techno beat started to issue forth from the massive speakers. I braced myself. Then the little Japanese guy took centre stage and just began to yell, really loudly, not to mention tunelessly, into the microphone. That’s all he did. He just kept yelling. Then he mixed it up by screaming. Then he stopped (but the beats didn’t), and stood on the stage nodding his head in time to the ‘music’, and a recording of him yelling was then played back over the track. Then he put a big, pink, floppy hat on, and repeated the yelling and screaming combo. I thought that my ears were going to start bleeding. And it was relentless; their set seemed to go on forever. I’d gone way past trying to keep an open mind at this point. I surreptitiously rummaged around in my bag for my phone to check the time, and my hand closed around my pen. I briefly thought about stabbing myself in the eye to make it all stop, but then I reconsidered; I’d die, but not quick enough. Then I started running through a string of possibilities in my head, like, could I set off the fire alarm? Could I engineer a power cut? Alas, the crowd was too dense for me to try either of these actions. I was in for the long haul whether I liked it or not.
When they finally left the stage, to some applause, and to my great relief, some booing (I wasn’t alone; other people thought they sucked too, including Sho), I was ready to go home. But, Jamie Lidell was yet to come on! After the support act ordeal, he could have come on and strangled a cat and I would have applauded wildly; anything would sound good after that. As I said, he was ok, but his set was marred by the trauma of what came before, for me anyway. The whole thing was exhausting.
Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer live acts to play instruments and sing. I know, I’m clearly not down with the kids, but I’d rather be the girl at the rock show 'cos I like my music with guitars, goddammit! Rock on.
Friday, November 18, 2005
I'm back!
Yes, you can all rejoice and be merry as I return to the cut and thrust world of blogging once more. I know, I know, I’ve been away for too long, but honestly, moving house, not quite the breeze I was hoping for. So anyway, back to business. I have, as you may have gathered, moved house. I’ll just type that again because it feels so good: I’ve moved house.
Yes, I managed to flee the evil clutches of Tall One and Short One, making my escape in a transit van with all of my worldly possessions crammed into the back. It was a close run thing however; on the morning of my planned escape, I found a hand-written note outside my bedroom door. I will speak plainly with you; it consisted of stern stuff, this note. Not only was it riddled with grammatical mistakes, which are shocking enough before breakfast, it also accused me, in plain language, of stealing 4 drinking glasses from Tall One. There was not a shred of diplomacy in the content of the note – there was no implication that I might have mistakenly taken her glasses, oh no, just a bald accusation of theft.
Well, it so happens that the glasses in question were already packed, nestling amongst several layers of newspaper and sundry kitchen equipment in one of my many cardboard boxes. It also happens that the glasses in question are in fact, mine. MINE. Many responses ran through my mind, as I stood with the note clutched in my hands, just outside my bedroom, hovering in the liminal space between the much-debated and much-maligned pre-ordained shower-rota times. Many of these responses carried variations on a theme i.e. I wouldn’t touch your crap with a barge pole, you insane bitch/you can stick your glasses where the sun don’t shine, you insane bitch/write me another note and I’ll stab you in the eye with your own biro, you insane bitch and so on and so forth. In the end, however, I decided to go with ripping the note to shreds and then not mentioning it, to see if she would have the nerve to confront me on this glass issue face to face as it were. So the subject never came up, naturally, and I left the house with the allegedly contraband glasses.
Strangely, since I left, my headaches and chronic neck pain have almost completely eased off. Curious, no?
Yes, I managed to flee the evil clutches of Tall One and Short One, making my escape in a transit van with all of my worldly possessions crammed into the back. It was a close run thing however; on the morning of my planned escape, I found a hand-written note outside my bedroom door. I will speak plainly with you; it consisted of stern stuff, this note. Not only was it riddled with grammatical mistakes, which are shocking enough before breakfast, it also accused me, in plain language, of stealing 4 drinking glasses from Tall One. There was not a shred of diplomacy in the content of the note – there was no implication that I might have mistakenly taken her glasses, oh no, just a bald accusation of theft.
Well, it so happens that the glasses in question were already packed, nestling amongst several layers of newspaper and sundry kitchen equipment in one of my many cardboard boxes. It also happens that the glasses in question are in fact, mine. MINE. Many responses ran through my mind, as I stood with the note clutched in my hands, just outside my bedroom, hovering in the liminal space between the much-debated and much-maligned pre-ordained shower-rota times. Many of these responses carried variations on a theme i.e. I wouldn’t touch your crap with a barge pole, you insane bitch/you can stick your glasses where the sun don’t shine, you insane bitch/write me another note and I’ll stab you in the eye with your own biro, you insane bitch and so on and so forth. In the end, however, I decided to go with ripping the note to shreds and then not mentioning it, to see if she would have the nerve to confront me on this glass issue face to face as it were. So the subject never came up, naturally, and I left the house with the allegedly contraband glasses.
Strangely, since I left, my headaches and chronic neck pain have almost completely eased off. Curious, no?
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