Some very scary stuff happening right now. I’m fine here; feeling very fortunate that I’ve not been anywhere near the incidents.
Archive for the ‘me’ Category
London explosions
Thursday, July 7th, 2005Paris in the spring
Thursday, June 16th, 2005Ah, it’s summer, isn’t it?
Took the gf on a surprise trip to Paris for the weekend. We got on the Eurostar which did a quick and effective job of shunting us from Waterloo to the Gare du Nord, where we found that navigating the Metro was relatively easy as long as you can tell your nord from your sud. The hotel was easy to find, and turned out to be pretty swanky (thank the lord!).
We had a wander around the Palais du Luxembourg, the market outside St Sulphice, then up to the islands and the Notre Dame. Had dinner in a little bistro that gets pretty good reviews where I had an astonishingly good steak, and enjoyed the Americans at the next table arguing with the waiter about decaffeinated coffee.
Next day was spent having a look around the inside of the Notre Dame, the Louvre and finishing off under the Tour Eiffel. The Notre Dame was an amazing experience but unfortunately not a pleasant one. Firstly, they were allowing tourists to tramp through while they were performing mass – if I ran the place I would shut it for a hour of peace – but worse still: the tourists that were there were talking, clomping up and down and taking hundreds of photos with flash! Quite apart from the fact that the flash gun won’t do you any good, it gave a religious ceremony an atmosphere that was closer to a football game, or a film premiere. One older asian chap was actually taking a flash photo of the congregation, which I thought was a bit off.
The Louvre was very large – I like the antiquities, reminded me of the British Museum. Eiffel Tower was quite tall 
Overall: an excellent city, thoroughly recommended. It’s one of these sorts of places that really lives up to the stereotypical view of itself; it really is a relaxed, beautiful place full of cafes, churches and flowers. Would visit again!!!
Biketastic
Wednesday, June 8th, 2005Cycling to work
Decided to bike into work today. The gf has been stealing my bike and cycling to her place of work 2.5 miles away most days, but Wednesday is her day off. As it was a beautiful day, and as I’d been woken up at 5.35am by my pager, I figured I may as well beat the rush and cycle in the 18 miles from Surbiton to Canary Wharf. Got packed up and off by 0630, and navigated the 18.35 miles in one hour, twenty-two minutes and fourteen seconds. Average speed: 13.3 mph.
Not too shabby, I hope. I realise that the cycle couriers amonst us will be scoffing at my pitiful efforts but it’s still faster than the average speed of inner London traffic.
Following trends started a mere three months ago, here is the map of my route:
Surbiton to New Malden Fountain roundabout via the back roads, along Burlington Road to the junction with the A3 where we go left and over the overpass. Whizz along Kingston Road until you get to Merton, when the road eventually branches left at Collier’s Wood station. Up past Tooting, Balham, Clapham Common (wave at the ducks on the pond), Stockwell, Oval, Kennington. Be very careful around the whirling circle of death and uninsured drivers that is Elephant and Castle, following signs for the A3 and on towards London Bridge. Over said bridge (eyes right for the more scenic Tower Bridge) and take a right onto some random City road, which joins the road leading past the Tower of London. Disembark briefly and cycle the wrong way along the pavement of Short Street, then cross at the pedestrian/bike crossing onto the cycle path next to the DLR. Follow this all the way along past interesting street murals and the locks and warehouses of Limehouse. Do yet another dodgy maneuver to get over onto the road leading down to the underground roundabout by Canary Wharf and onwards, then take a left at the traffic light roundabout, and then under Heron Quays to the bike racks round the back of my building.
Bonus points to anyone who steals my bike, as they will have been able to work out where it’s parked. It’s a blue Specialized ex-MTB, secured with one of those locks you can open with a bic biro. Although if you could let me know, so I don’t have to get changed at the end of the day?
Please sponsor me!
The hidden motivation is that I’m doing the London to Brighton bike ride – a pretty hefty 58 mile trip from Clapham Common to Brigton seafront, taking in lots of countryside, the M25 and a couple of pretty unpleasant hills.
The ride is for charideee, specifically the British Heart Foundation, which funds research into heart disease as well as educating people and providing specialist life-saving resuscitation equipment.
So: if you would like to sponsor me, feel free. The site linked uses WorldPay, who I’ve found to be generally fine and non-spammy. If you’re not keen on that but you still want to sponsor me, mail me and we can sort out another form of money transfer.
New house (part 2)
Friday, May 6th, 2005So we’re getting ourselves sorted out. The most important part (broadband access) is now set up so I can get personal email again; if you want to mail me use the usual address (or use the one at the bottom-right of each page).
There are more photos of the house in various states of chaos here.
This weekend: finish the kitchen and buy some lightshades! Who would have thought that decorating a new house could be so exciting 
New House
Thursday, April 28th, 2005Apologies for the long gap in posts. I’ve moved to a new house and so lots of time has been spent organising, packing, moving, unpacking and starting to decorate. We’re getting there.
If you know me in the real world and would like my new address, give me a call. My personal mail address is not available at the moment, so please use my work email address.
We also have a nice Japanese Maple in the garden:
Fun-filled
Thursday, April 7th, 2005Had a fantastic weekend actually doing stuff, which was nice…
- Friday night was going out to meet some of my gf’s work mates in a pub in Kingston
- Saturday afternoon was spent having a wander around Surrey, a brief route near a village called Puttenham.
- Saturday night was into town for some beers with a work friend whose wife was celebrating her birthday
- Sunday lunch was spent at Bank Aldwych which was very pleasant
- Sunday afternoon saw us tripping over to the V&A for an exhibition called “International Arts & Crafts” which was pretty interesting, lots of still-modern design and art. Also fascinating to see how the movement spread throughout the world, particularly the Japanese section.
- And finally, Sunday evening was off to the Comedy Store to see the Players do their thing. We were lucky enough to have Paul Merton again who is fantastic at this – he really enjoys it and loves to break the rules of the games, breaking the fourth wall and so forth.
So there you go. That’s the entertainment for this year; nothing else of excitement will happen.
Weekend
Tuesday, March 8th, 2005Good morning!
Saturday morning: Sometimes you get the feeling that you haven’t quite thought things through. Earlier in the week I had arranged to go and measure the interior of a house that we are hoping to buy shortly – at about 10.30am on Saturday morning. (At which point I expect the housing market to crash and burn. I’ll let you know when the deal gets signed so that you can be prepared.) Also, my gf’s parents, who are very nice people, were staying for the weekend.
The combination of
a) being very drunk the night before
b) having to get up at 9am
c) trying to be polite to the gf’s parents
is not a good one. <sigh>
Hmmm, that would make a good photo
Went round Kew Gardens in the afternoon, sheltering from the occasional hail in the various huge greenhouses. We were aiming for the orchid displays which are in the Princess Di Conservatory at the moment – and pretty impressive they were too. Orchids are genuinely special flowers (although I don’t quite understand the obsession) and it was interesting seeing all the different varieties. Annoyingly I think they spent quite a bit of their budget setting up vast displays of the same (presumably common) orchids which got a bit overpowering. Despite that it was hard to resist the urge to wander round taking millions of close-ups photos of the flowers.
The other thing which was getting on my nerves was the number of other photographers with better gear than mine… but it’s about the talent and experience, not the equipment! Now all I have to do is get some more talent and experience…
Househunting, Watching, Reading
Friday, January 28th, 2005Househunting
I am trying to buy a house. Yes, I am perhaps a bit foolish, but I’ve finally got to the stage where I can afford somewhere I would (vaguely) want to live. I have enough savings for the deposit. And I think that house prices aren’t going to crash, which is a great shame.
First place I saw last night was pretty good, actually – enough space, goodish location, relatively nice kitchen/bathroom and the place seemed to be sturdy enough. According to the guy showing us around, “the neighbours are quiet, the guy next door is pretty quiet – although actually he’s dead now.”
Watching
Team America: World Police – not enough (good) jokes.
Reading
The Girl Who Played Go (Shan Sa) was interesting but ultimately felt very cold. I’m not sure if it’s an artifact of the translation or of the original, but I found it hard to care about the characters and never really felt involved in their story. The narrative tone always felt emotionless and a depressing ending made it a bit unsatisfying.
Ratings for these are, as ever, here…
Watching/Reading
Wednesday, January 19th, 2005Watching: Finished the LOTR extended edition last night. Still very good and I think the extended edition (while butt-numbingly long) does benefit a lot from most of the additions. I still think we need less Gimli-based humour but there you go.
Currently on my to-watch list:
* Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
* Spirited Away
* House of Flying Daggers
* Closer
* The Others
* Solaris
* Team America – World Police
* Garden State
* Napoleon Dynamite
In approximately that order.
Reading: Working my way through the second trilogy by Robin Hobb – “The Liveship Traders” – which is generally very good. There’s rather too much reliance on politics for the plot and some of the characters change unconvincingly (an annoying brat whose only concern is petty rivalries and romance suddenly turns into a mature young lady who sacrifices herself for the good of the family, for no apparent reason). However, overall it’s really fun, there’s a good bit of pain and suffering for added spice and it ties into her earlier trilogy (the Assassin’s Apprentice etc). Apparently the third trilogy develops the same world and backstory so I’m looking forward to that.
Inbetween the two trilogies I’m trying to find something good and non sci-fi/fantasy. I’m considering White Teeth which is allegedly very good, and Jonathan Strange (which is tending towards the fantasy, but there you go) – alas, only available in hardback at the moment.
Merry Christmas
Friday, December 24th, 2004Just to say Merry Christmas and a happy New Year to anyone who I’ve not been in touch with – hope you have a fun time and get lots of presents!