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Thursday, November 30th 2023

I went, I saw and I conquered!

And some pictorial proof above from the top floor of One Canada Square and with even more thanks to everybody who contributed; 48 floors and 1031 steps later we have (so far) raised £470 for the Felix Project, and with a bit more to come in yet! For the stats fans, I did it in twelve minutes and twenty three seconds and I have no idea how either. The promise of mince pies, crisps and beer at the top played it’s part.

It’s been a lively couple of weeks, with the stair climb spliced between the Chemical Brothers at the start of the month (OK, but I left early after giving up trying to see past the six foot four bloke who wound up immediately – and I mean nose-between-his-shoulder-blades immediately - in front of me no matter how often I moved), a good few cinema trips including more Nicolas Cage, and the highlight last weekend with my enduring favourites Prodigy, all the way up at Ally Pally.

I think it’s ten years at least since I last trekked up to AP, but it doesn’t get any quicker or easier for anybody who doesn’t live within a few minutes’ walk and having jumped up and down a lot for almost two hours at the end of an already-long day I then had the monumental pain in the arse of a ninety minute journey to do the six miles home. It was still worth it, even if I was more tired the following day than I was after the stair climb.

Christmas is creeping up on us all; I will provisionally be here and available until end of play on Thursday 21st December and then back from Friday 29th/possibly late afternoon Thursday 28th if all goes according to plan (if I get to it I’ll stick the Christmas hours page up too). This does not mean I will be sitting around the flat in my work clothes with everything primed for bookings any more than I do the rest of the time – the ‘now?’ brigade have been out in force this week, and be assured it will get you nowhere. I would include a reminder for Adultwork users to just try reading the bloody page properly and then you’ll likely get what you want, but as ever, there is just no point.

I also managed a trip over to the West End to see the Christmas lights and Selfridge’s windows; a lengthy ride on the 139 bus and a lasagne at Waterloo later I was definitely ready to get festive. A free mince pie workshop at Bread Ahead followed last Sunday, and this coming week includes the Felix Project Carol Service and the tree lighting over at Trafalgar Square (availability permitting) – I will endeavour not to burn out too early, but given that I spend most of the actual day on the sofa eating my body weight in pretty much everything, Christmas activities need to be worked in in good time.

*this is the point where Song Of The Week goes on my normal blog, so as I can't post videos here I'll reclaim the space here to apologise for the squares on the Leadenhall Market photo above. People (verboten) are under them, for anybody who was wondering*

More soon! The heating is definitely on…

Wednesday, November 1st 2023

and (as promised) the winner is...

...Grazer! All hail the fat bear Queen!

The annual cinema-fest which makes up October is at an end, and with a side trip to the opera too! Despite the appalling weather, I wasn’t going to pass up a half price ticket to the opening night of La Traviata at the Coliseum, especially when the finish time coincides neatly with the nearby Itsu’s daily half price hometime sale. Sushi for everyone!

Film highlight of the month has certainly been Late Night With The Devil (which will hopefully get some distribution so I can see it again), although FrightFest's Halloween offering managed a few crackers over last Friday night and all day Saturday. I even stayed for the last film instead of bailing and was glad I did, even if it was mostly to try and avoid the rain (had I left early I would have avoided the Central Line night tube though, so it was all a bit academic in the end and Soho on the nearest Saturday to Halloween is pretty good value in itself, after all).

Training for the Santa Stair Climb continues despite the endless rain; the stairmaster at the gym will never be a favourite of mine and I won’t be sorry to see the back of it, but as anybody familiar with the Felix Project will know it’s for a very good cause. Thank you again to everybody who has donated – I’ll be getting some far more enjoyable exercise on Saturday courtesy of the Chemical Brothers over at the O2 – it’s been far too long, and I cannot wait. Bring on the lasers!

This week has also seen the traditional pre-Christmas clearout and eBay sale/charity donation/recycling drive get properly underway; all was going splendidly until Lego decided to mock and torment me by releasing the brand new Natural History Museum set early. A combination of two of my favourite things is going to be seriously difficult to pass up, even if it means having to build it on the floor just for the space (and having just disassembled the Palace Cinema I do have a little bit of room), so some avoidance of Lego related anything will be the modus for the next few weeks. Or I could just jog my memory by looking at my AMEX bill.

My plans this weekend mean a bit of availability on Saturday for a change – let me know! Next week may be hit and miss for reasons beyond my control, but I’ll do my best and in the meantime, I’m going to have yet another crack at some new pictures if the sun comes out again – getting up in daylight over the last few weeks after weeks of the alarm going off in pitch darkness has been delightful, even if it won’t be for long. C’est la vie (and the onset of Autumn Proper suits me just fine in every other conceivable way, to be fair).

Halloween is done with, the clocks have gone back (so the blinds are being drawn at 4pm) and I will be doing a lot of hibernating – come and join in!

More soon…

Sunday, October 8th 2023

stairs, premieres, & very fat bears...

And it’s October! I began the month with a visit to the Lookout at 8 Bishopsgate, one of the newest ways to take a long ride in a lift and with a lovely view (although sadly not of my building, unlike the Walkie Talkie’s Sky Garden); the viewing gallery at the Twenty Two has opened since which is higher still, but fifty floors up is fine to be getting on with.

No stairs were involved either on the way up or the way down so an impromptu rehearsal for the Santa Stair Climb wasn’t on the cards, but I can live with it. Training continues and the total raised so far is now over £250 – to everybody reading who has contributed, it makes a huge difference (and to anybody who hasn’t – I will point out that I’m going to Canary Wharf so you don’t have to). If nothing else I’ve rediscovered my love of the spin class, which is a bit like clubbing during the day and for the middle aged (coincidentally daytime clubbing is exactly what I will be doing the very day before the Santa Stair Climb, timings being what they are).

The 2023 London Film Festival began last Wednesday, but due to various spanners in the works and general annoying circumstances I’ve yet to see a single festival film! I will be getting straight into the spirit of things starting tomorrow with a two film day; dashing between different venues to make a second (or third) festival film has always been one of the fun parts and I’ve yet to mistime it, although getting from the BFI to the Ciné Lumière in South Ken on forty minutes a few years was a very close call (I made it, but only just).

It may yet be a three film day since my second venue is the Prince Charles Cinema, and if I’m walking out of there around half past eight I may as well give my Cineworld Unlimited card a flex. I had idly planned rounding off the evening with the chirpy-but-nasty Saw X, but after deciding to down tools early on Friday I’ve both already seen it, AND followed it up with apple pie and custard in the café a few minutes away which cost less than an ice cream would have been at Cineworld – result. The LFF itinerary for the rest of this week is mostly evening screenings and I’ll be here on Saturday too, so business will be pretty much as usual if a little earlier for the daily cut offs (definitely on Tuesday, at least).

Apropos of nothing in particular, over in Alaska it turns out that Fat Bear Week is drawing to a close – with heartfelt thanks to the person who drew it to my attention and brightened up my day. My vote has stayed with Grazer (bear 128), but only the fattest bear can triumph, and I will be following the results with keen interest (I promise to announce the winner here; I sincerely hope the prize is salmon). [Unfortunately - as ever - I can't include a link with the details on here so it's all a bit redundant, but there's one on the proper blog for those with the sense to go to my site and find it].

More soon! I’ll see you on the red carpet…

Thursday, September 14th 2023

well, that was odd...

Or alternatively, it seems that both I and the folks at the London Film Festival decided to be properly prepared after the catastrophic ticketing failure last year – yay!

Last Wednesday morning at roughly 08.30hrs I decided to assemble food and drink for the next hour or two, make myself comfortable on the sofa and log into my BFI account in preparation for the waiting room I’d read would be taking over the site from 9am, and on my phone – waiting room screen as expected. On the laptop, however; still browsing films at 09.58, and after pressing Refresh – with not a little apprehension – a second after 10am I was in immediately, and after a brief timelapse because of the disbelief, tickets and seats were chosen and everything booked and paid for by 10.06.- result! The LFF runs from the fourth to the fifteenth of October and tickets for non members went on sale yesterday, I think.

Having had enough of sitting around being eaten by mosquitoes in a flat hotter than the sun (only visitors get the benefit of the aircon as a general rule, such is the electricity cost, although I will admit to having cracked on Friday evening just to get some sleep without feeling as if I’d been locked in the sauna), I decided some affirmative action was required and took myself off to the O2 on Saturday afternoon, where Cineworld is huge, food choices are plentiful and the aircon is nothing short of brutal. The pints of iced water were a helpful addition too after the Cornetto I got from the corner Tesco Express – sadly the Calippos were long gone.

Past Lives is my hands down recommendation for this week unless the heat has meant difficulty sleeping for a few nights; in this situation I would point you to The Nun 2, a box-ticking franchise addition so woefully dull and pedestrian I nodded off for a good fifteen minutes and didn’t miss a thing. In Nun 2’s defence, I only picked it because I haven’t been in the X Screen (a wraparound affair where the picture is on the left and right hand walls as well as the front; Jaws would be fabulous) before, and it finished at a convenient time for me to head over to Wagamama for some ramen, green juice and lollipop prawns before the much better Past Lives started at eight o’clock.

For those unfamiliar with the dystopian wonderland that is Canary Wharf, that’s a bit of it on the bottom left photo at the top. The pointy-topped building slightly to the right of the middle is One Canada Square, and I will be getting a much closer look at it in roughly nine weeks time when I will be heading up forty eight floors of stairs for the the Felix Project, a London charity which collects and redistributes surplus food around the city, reducing food waste (and as somebody who used to work for our favourite high street store with it’s popular food hall, trust me that there is a lot of it) and alleviating hunger. The reason I don’t work Monday daytimes is because I’m one of the people volunteering there to help them do it.

The Santa Stair Climb is a way to help a bit more; vans cost money, kitchens cost money, even fundraising costs money! So without preaching or banging on about it any more [and as I can't post links here I can't really be any more expansive - there are a couple on Proper Blog which this is copypasted from, for those able to read my profile that far down], anybody who would like to sponsor me (consider forty eight floors, over a thousand stairs, having to go to Canary Wharf) and help some people have some dinner before they go to bed while truckloads of good food is saved from landfill, let me know. You don’t have to book to do this.

Training so far has involved incline sprints, lots of weighted lunges, squats and donkey kicks, barre and spin classes and (predictably) just the one attempt at running up the ten flights of stairs in my building in thirty degree heat before giving that one up as a bad job. More vigilant readers will have spotted that my pre-event warm up will in fact be an all dayer at Fabric on the which starts just shy of twenty four hours prior, and should give my legs a proper stretch. It’s a good job I’m a trooper.

More soon! The stairmaster at rhe gym beckons...

Monday, September 4th 2023

I don't care what the weatherman says...

The heat and humidity has been back and with it my nemesis, the London mosquito. Thankfully I spotted the vicious little bastard before it could do as much damage as last time (when an onlooker could be forgiven for thinking I had a dose of the chicken pox), but I have still been well and truly chewed. If anything the worst part was having to keep the bloody windows shut.

It’s been an eventful couple of weeks again, and I have still not seen Oppenheimer. I have seen Blue Beetle in the 4DX screen (which always seems like a fun idea; unfortunately my dodgy back means I come out feeling like I got a working over from Anthony Joshua, and not in a good way), Theater Camp (their spelling) and Barbie again, plus a couple of classic repeats in The French Connection and In The Mood For Love, one of my all time favourites and one which thankfully pops up a couple of times a year in the ping pong between the BFI, the Genesis and the Prince Charles cinemas. Plus FrightFest! Twaddle as always, but still an unmissable weekend (plus a good way to keep the rain off and eat nothing but peanut butter sandwiches, Greggs sausage rolls and Baskin Robbins three days in a row).

After all that, this next couple of weeks will be peaceful! The nights are drawing in, the very early signs of Autumn are showing and it can’t come soon enough for me – the London Film Festival tickets going on sale is an unofficial marker, and I will be online at ten on Wednesday morning hoping that we don’t have a repeat of the BFI website disintegration from last year. If we do, I will also be online at ten on Thursday morning.

The next few months activities are now pretty much fully organised (such is life for the gainfully self employed with astromomical rent); I have the film festival, a ballet and an opera, gigs, daytime raving at Fabric with Clockwork Orange and baking a pork pie (amongst other things) at the Bread Ahead bakery school’s Christmas Workshop in December. I’ve been trying to get on a (any!) Bread Ahead workshop for months, so the 50% off 10th birthday code was an ideal kick up the arse to sit and wait when they went on sale rather than just cross my fingers while all the places filled up.

In eyebrow news, mine are settling down nicely after my top up and the subsequent sprint down Whitechapel High Street with a pirate hat made hurriedly from the Evening Standard on my head to keep the rain off – is there a single day it hasn’t rained? So anybody who visited early last week will be glad to know I no longer look like Angry Birds.

More soon! I'm here all week...

Tuesday, August 15th 2023

think pink!

And it’s August already! July has flown past with a whoosh of theatre trips (unusual for me, although they would be less so if we had a few more flamenco festivals), blockbuster films and – finally – some cooler weather; lovely though having central air is, paying for it is not fun.

The Cineworld Unlimited card has been doing some seriously heavy lifting with Elemental, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (even if you skip the film, Spotify the soundtrack), Talk To Me and naturally Barbie, which I first saw the day after release at a sold out Genesis cinema resplendent in pink, bar a small enclave headed to see Oppenheimer in Screen 2 (no mid century suits and hats were in evidence, sadly).

Despite my Unlimited card I have not seen Oppenheimer, since three and a half hours in a cinema seat makes my back hurt and Christopher Nolan is ~~a pretentious cunt~~ really not my cup of tea. I may change my mind when it’s the ITV2 Bank Holiday film and I don’t have to leave my couch, where subtitles are freely available for those who might like to engage with Nolan’s dialogue but lack the hearing of a bat – far more my speed and also on the war theme was Cabaret at the KitKat club, which is well worth a visit and also includes free schnapps for the drinkers. Knowing all the songs helps immensely (probably not with Oppenheimer), and I will never knowingly turn down a chance to wear sequins in broad daylight.

Last weekend saw Pokémon Go Fest in London, the only time the in-person event has ever been to the UK and an opportunity to get out on foot for an entire weekend – yay! Unfortunately I chose the Saturday afternoon for my ticketed visit to Brockwell Park and thus spent a fair bit of the afternoon cowering under trees trying to keep my phone screen dry enough to play, but all things considered it was well worth the sore feet and dead batteries; 22,000 steps and 17km or so later I staggered back to the bus stop a happy sausage with my new catches safely stashed to pore over later on. A pack of four yum yums (retro!) on the bus helped.

Back to business and I’m pleased to say that my ongoing problem with early arrivals has greatly improved of late, although I’m well aware that I’ve jinxed myself by pointing it out. Needless to say that when one door closes another opens, and my current bête noire is the slow but inexorable increase in visitors who ignore my clear directions to the lift on the way in and instead take it upon themselves to use the stairs, thus passing every other flat in the building before mine. For the love of God, please stop it.

When you arrive at my door I will tell you over the phone where the lift is before I do anything else, because if I leave it until you’ve rung the buzzer I will be bellowing it down the intercom which I would prefer not to do. Equally, and strange though it may seem, I would prefer you didn’t run into my neighbours or the people who clean my building – not because they’ll look at one random bloke and immediately think ‘oh, the person in Flat X must be a prostitute because a man is going in there’ but because if you are the third or fourth random bloke to do so that day/week, well, they just might. We don’t ask you to do X, Y and Z for shits and giggles – there is always a reason, and the sort of arrogant, entitled bellend who thinks my reasons are not important is not welcome in my flat. Just. Use. The. Fucking. Lift.

If you have a pathological fear of lifts, book somebody else. If you like running up steps (and I do too), book somebody else who works near Angel tube and you can run up the longest escalators on the underground. Problem solved, everybody happy. And if you deliberately troll me and decide to use the stairs anyway, good luck with your service; obviously all providers are on top form when you behave like a twat.

Phew – I know, but it’s been a long week. The upcoming one is looking promising indeed both weather and availability-wise, so cinema tickets and lift-phobias permitting, get in touch!

More soon...

Tuesday, June 13th 2023

2023: heatwave #1

Every year around this time the same thing happens, and I’m forced to try and think of a blog title I haven’t used before to indicate that the temperature has risen above around 25 degrees; frankly it’s so warm today I can’t be arsed. When I’ve finished languishing on the settee watching Pokémon Go videos on YouTube and organising my Lego sets, I really ought to make some lists.

Given the increasing heat and following a busy weekend, I’m looking forward to a relaxing few days after having ~~been traumatised by~~ had the privilege of attending a preview of Episode 3 of the new Black Mirror series; ‘Beyond The Sea’ last night at the BFI. The five new episodes will be available on Netflix from Thursday morning and there will be no spoilers here in the meantime, suffice to say that Black Mirror has been a favourite of mine since the Channel 4 days and anybody who’s seen it will have a pretty good idea of what to expect. Still; fucking hell, Charlie.

Harrowing entertainment aside, the longest day of the year approaches; I had mistakenly thought that was last Wednesday after waiting an hour and a half in the V&A’s online ticket queue when the latest batch of Chanel exhibition days went on sale, but as a veteran of the overnight FrightFest pass queue in Leicester Square (and more lately the queue to pay my respects to the late Queen – the standard to which all future queues will be held) an online one has no fear for me, and at least in this instance I could queue without even getting out of bed. Good times.

The onset of sunshine also reminded me that I have not yet made my regular pilgrimage to the opticians for contact lenses, which I buy a pack of every year in ~~desperation~~ theory so that I can wear my (many, varied and some expensive) sunglasses on bright days, before remembering that they don’t suit me, I can’t see properly in them and will likely use three or four pairs at most on special occasions before consigning the rest to the recycling box in SpecSavers. The last time I wore contact lenses was to see Prodigy at Brixton last July – an extremely sensible decision given the likely fate of any loose objects at a Prodigy gig – and a pair to wear for the Chemical Brothers would be similarly handy, so that’s a job for an upcoming weekend. I still took the Prodigy ones out on the bus home; why are they so bloody uncomfortable?

Back to the present day, and between visits to my adopted balcony once the sun has moved over I will be kicking about at the flat as usual until Friday afternoon; the aircon is working (praise be!) and all is well. For now, it’s back to the iced tea and Lego while the countdown to Thursday morning continues…

More soon!

Monday, May 29th 2023

here comes the sun!

And it’s back to the grind after what should have been the final of the seemingly endless long weekends, the first of them consisting mostly of spreadsheet building, database caching and general faff with my website after it decided to fall on it’s arse for no particular reason. Thank you, website.

Respite (of sorts) came in the form of the Prince Charles cinema whose gruelling Bank Holiday Wong Kar Wei marathon was a joy in every way apart from the physical; my eyes have settled back into normality but my back took it’s time (thank you, co-codamol). The coronation is also well and truly over and done with, which means having to pick my way around loosely gathered mobs blocking the pavement to look at the Walkie Talkie on their way to the Tower every time I want to go anywhere is over for another few weeks, and hopefully the same can be said for the escalator-standers; my normal calm and serene disposition is tested to it’s limits by this (and I know I’m not on my own). That said, I spent the whole of that actual weekend at the beach – yay!

Summer is almost upon us; the air con has now been on twice and the urge to get out and about rather than spend every evening on the sofa in front of Springwatch is well and truly back. A trip over to the Natural History Museum to see the Titanosaur has been a recent highlight, and was followed up by some serious Eurovisioning after a big stock up from my new local M&S at Moorgate; the Saturday afternoon yellow sticker madness was in full swing and carried the rest of the evening along nicely, even if Finland were definitely robbed (and anybody who didn’t see the BBC’s BSL interpreter was equally so).

In the spirit of supporting local cultural goings-on I also have upcoming tickets to flamenco and ballet at Sadler’s Wells, Cabaret – the one with a capital letter, which I managed to get a rare sensibly priced seat for – and a BFI preview of one of the new Black Mirror episodes, all spread over the next few weeks. With FrightFest and Pokémon Go Fest in August things are definitely looking busy! Thankfully my job means that I get to lie down a lot.

Back to this last weekend and another Bank Holiday – the opening of a new Lego store is always a cause for celebration and I wasn’t going to pass up a chance to combine it with a few hours at Battersea Power Station, which most will know has come a long way since it’s derelict (but still lovely) state in 2013 when I visited for Open London. A queue of less than two hours passes in no time with Pokémon Go and a big bag of Maltesers, and after a good look round including examining the custom build pictured at the top (14,500 bricks!) my far more modest mission (there's a picture on Proper Blog - we only get one here) was accomplished.

I also bought the soon-to-be-retired London skyline build which now sits proudly on top of the TV stand (this helped me avoid whipping out the credit card on impulse for the giant Eiffel Tower that would barely fit in my flat), and whilst I didn’t try the glass lift to the top of the north west chimney (one queue per day is enough) or hang about long enough to check out the cinema listings and make a day of it, I had a good stroll around to look at the restored BPS exterior and even managed to sit outside on the grass for a good half hour before complaining about the sun and bogging off home to get on with the unboxing. Next time I’ll remember to take my Factor 50, a nice packed lunch and a book.

To the week ahead; it’s business as usual until Thursday pm – other commitments plus the lack of trains on Friday have necessitated yet another long weekend, for me at least. As far as I know it’s also school holidays, so for reasons already detailed above I will be retreating to (and staying in) my flat most of the time once I’m all direction-ned out, so for anybody fancying a wander over, fingers crossed.

More soon! And that includes the photos that I’ve now been taking and deleting, planning and putting off and generally buggering about with for months…

Tuesday, April 4th 2023

the end of an era...

This week I am in mourning (sort of) for my local M&S on Fenchurch Street, which finally closed it’s doors for good last Friday. I first went in to buy myself a huge and mood improving bed-picnic in the food hall the first time I ever worked in the Square Mile (2011 or 12 maybe?) and completely ballsed up my dates; the amazing bargain price for the hotel was something of a Pyrrhic victory when we consider that I booked it the week between Christmas and New Year when the entire neighbourhood was deserted. Ahem.

Thankfully I managed a good stock up before the doors shut for the last time, and as a consequence can barely get into my kitchen for blue corn tortilla chips, Welsh cakes and the luxury hot cross buns, plus a myriad of oddbod fridge stuff that was reduced to clear so they didn’t have to move it. There were some varied combinations over the weekend, right enough; I did also manage to knock a black forest cake together on almost entirely from cupboard, fridge and freezer stuff which cheered me up no end, so now I just have to work out where I’m now going to buy my bloody bread from.

Other victories this week included managing to get a Chemical Brothers ticket for the O2 in November before they sold out – it’s been far too long! The last time I was at the O2 arena was a good eighteen months ago for the Ministry Of Sound 30th birthday thing, which coincidentally will be almost two years to the day earlier than Tom and Ed take to the stage in November. Even taking into account Fatboy Slim and Prodigy on consecutive nights last July, it has definitely been too long.

Back to this week and the Easter weekend is approaching; as if anybody needed to be told, I don’t work Bank Holidays (and even if I did, would you want to pay double time?) and will be having a pleasant and lazy time with TV, Pokémon Go and chocolate. There was a great deal of charging about last weekend thanks to neverending errands, and whilst a half hour spent sitting amongst the hyacinths at the Royal Exchange after a walk around the City’s sculpture trail ~~catching pokémons~~ revived me no end and I may well do it again soon, I have no plans at all to be perpendicular for the duration of Saturday and Sunday at least.

Easter Monday brings the Wong Kar Wei all dayer at the Prince Charles which means I won’t exactly be exerting myself then either bar my regular up-escalator run at Leicester Square, which I’ve always done despite it being an absolute bastard. I also always run up the even longer one at Angel (thankfully for my knees, I don’t often go to Angel although as the only decent-sized M&S in the vicinity is now at Moorgate, I won’t be too far away at least a couple fo times a week).

So the sun is shining and a short week is on the cards! Easter egg chocolate awaits (sadly the cake is long gone), and a bit of R&R is hopefully forthcoming for us all - I’ll be here until Thursday evening and then persona non grata until next Tuesday, when I will be a person who spent the entire previous day in a seat at the PCC. It could go either way.

More soon…

Sunday, March 26th 2023

the arrival of spring...

It’s been busy! The extra-long puffa coat which makes me look like a Dalek is (probably) put away for another year and the average daily temperature has very much taken a definite turn for the better. Leaving aside the occasional blip hopefully it’ll be full steam ahead until Easter, when appalling weather is guaranteed under the Bank Holiday Act (thankfully the Act also includes the requirement to have an array of dodgy old films on TV for the duration, so with that and the chocolate the weather isn’t important).

The warm weather has offered a few more chances to get out and about for the purpose of sitting in a dark room, and I am currently taking any opportunity to run up to the Genesis where all films (in all screens, including the ones with the little armchairs) are £5 per ticket until the end of the month. The Prince Charles is also keeping it’s end up with Fantasia on Tuesday (with a look at the Ramadan lights on the way home) and a couple of marathons well worth the ticket price; the previously mentioned Bong Joon Ho all nighter is preceded a few days before by the Wong Kar Wei all dayer on Easter Monday, classic Hong Kong cinema being the perfect way to spend a Bank Holiday.

The original plan for last weekend was a trip over to Kew to see the Spring flowers – including my annual quest to find the best place to look at cherry blossom in London – then sanity prevailed and I will be leaving it until a far quieter weekday. It will definitely be soon; crocuses wait for no man (or woman) and a nice peaceful train ride with a book, a sandwich and a can of Irn Bru will amp up the outing even more, but in the meantime an evening walk along the South Bank with Pokémon Go and a packet of Maltesers was a very fair substitute.

The annual punishment that is the clocks going forward an hour means the onset of lighter nights which will make a change when it comes to the sustained after hours Pokémon playing necessary to progress to level 46 (which will mean nothing at all to most but is a deeply serious matter to me); the wandering about outside in the rain paid off last Friday evening outside Fenchurch Street station with an unexpected visit from the beautiful Routemaster bus pictured while I was battling something or other next to a skip. I was delighted to see that the buses are available for hire but sadly only with a driver; the chance to take the controls of a vintage bus and razz around the Square Mile unbridled by passengers, routes or timetables would be worth it’s weight in gold, but not terribly sensible (especially given that I don’t have a driving licence). Maybe one day.

More soon, and all is well for the week ahead – yay! Bedtime yoga beckons, and I haven’t even had my tiramisu yet.

Monday, March 13th 2023

small objects of desire...

And the above is possibly the most exciting and desirable photograph I have ever posted online anywhere; I should point out that no tomatoes are kept on the premises overnight (or for any length of time beyond that which it takes me to eat them), just in case anybody was getting any ideas.

The past few weeks have brought plenty more by way of excitement and new things to do, despite the onset of Spring definitely taking a back seat these last few days and the temperatures falling all the way back down again. At least the snow is pretty even if my electricity bill won’t be.

I have been to (in?) a soundbath, which included an actual proper gong as well as singing bowls and more tinkly/boingy/generally noisy things; this was added onto my yin yoga class as an extra relaxation aid although an hour was a bit much as it turned out, and whilst I settled down with all the best intentions my attention wavered before the halfway mark after getting a bit cold and being unable to avoid turning my focus to the apple pie I had in the fridge. Probably best to stick to spinning, at least at tea time.

In the where-did-the-time-go category, the twentieth anniversary of Oldboy, heralded a very fitting first visit of the year to the Prince Charles cinema, since I last left at around quarter past eight on New Year’s Eve. More are already booked, including a Bong Joon-Ho all nighter which I will need to survive until the end to see Parasite again; many peanut butter sandwiches and cans of Irn Bru will be required. Korean entertainment has loomed large in the popularity stakes recently and no one could be happier about that than me, even if I will never be on Physical 100 for as long as I keep on with the apple pies.

The vigilant will have noticed an increase in Saturday availability of late, and this is likely to continue for at least as long as the trains continue to be an expensive, time consuming pain in the arse – not least this very evening when a power failure earlier meant multiple cancellations and standing all the way to Kings Cross as a result, although I’ll get a refund at least. I have never looked forward to getting on the Northern Line quite so much, partly because of the opportunity to finally sit down for ten minutes but also because it afforded my first chance to check out the long-awaited new Bank station entrance at Cannon Street – yay!

Every other weekend is the current MO, and whilst I like a Saturday morning lie in as much as everybody else, there’s also a lot to be said for making hay while the sun shines (plus when the sun is shining at this time of year it’s really bloody cold, so it makes sense to keep warm in any practical and available way). Plus I can just go back to bed whenever I like, because weekend.

Back to the week ahead and I will be here throughout; I have contingency plans ~~Luther on Netflix~~ in the event of quiet spells in and out of the strikes and crap weather forecast, and a bit of peace and quiet won’t hurt. I may even (finally) get the new bloody photos done.

For now, I will soon be settling down to watch the Academy Awards until silly o’clock. Let the mad dresses and even madder speeeches commence!

More soon...

Tuesday, February 14th 2023

nobody's perfect...

Well I couldn’t pass up a chance to immortalise the best final words of any film!

An unexpected free ticket for a Valentine’s Day trip to watch Some Like It Hot at the BFI presents as good an opportunity to do so as any, hopefully preceded (or followed, or even possibly both depending on how hungry I am) by dinner somewhere nearby, which means one of my old Waterloo haunts (realistically either Ping Pong or Black and Blue) unless everywhere is horribly full and Option 3 – a mini-rampage around the M&S at Waterloo Station – is invoked. Any or a combination will do me fine; no massacres, please.

After the energetic goings-on last weekend (and for anyone who wants to know, I made it round in under an hour despite a dodgy earbud and a few lapses in concentration to have a bit of a wave), the February half term week is upon us! This is a traditionally peaceful and non-hectic week which may or may not provide me with the opportunity to catch up on some housekeeping and admin, as well as a planned wander down to the National History Museum to see Dippy now she’s returned for a visit.

One of my earliest memories of London is seeing the dinosaurs (and the blue whale!) at the NHM some forty years ago, and it will be nice to catch up – I still have my much-prized balsa wood model from the shop, albeit with a few less-than-crucial bits missing. I may even head back over the river for a walk round Battersea Park, a look at the new BPS shops and a ride in the chimney lift followed by a ride home via Battersea Power Station Station; all of this is working on the assumption that I’ll be able to stop watching Physical 100 on Netflix for longer than the time it takes to get more sofa food and make a brew. Yeah, right.

Meanwhile, it’s still only Monday and I’ve already had a trip up to Angel, one of my favourite old stomping grounds and home of both my optician and one of my favourite cinemas; sadly I didn’t have time to call in at the Screen On The Green as my Pilates class beckoned, but a reminder that I still have a chunk of Everyman gift voucher to spend was handy. Maybe this weekend, since I’m in town anyway!

More soon! The week ahead beckons, for those of us still here and not getting in everybody’s way at the UK’s many travel hubs or pissing people off in the tourist towns. I’ll be here all week…

Saturday, February 4th 2023

run the world...

And whilst a trip to Canary Wharf wouldn’t be ~~anybody’s~~ most people’s first suggestion when deciding where to round off birthday activities, the Winter Lights Walk provided a fitting end to mine, even if wandering around the ever-dystopian cityscape for an hour and a half in the dark (and in January) didn’t sound like a great idea on paper. But I have never and would never pass up the opportunity for a ride on the DLR, and after as leisurely a stroll as the temperature permitted I was very glad I gave it a chance.

This week – as annually demonstrated by the snowdrops at the bottom of the Walkie Talkie – has reverted back to almost-Spring, thankfully for the heating bills! Despite the conditions, tomorrow brings my first London Winter Run for three years and with it the accompanying prayers for cold dry weather (I think the last time I did it it was minus 2, which was perfect) and no shenanigans from my dodgy back, or at least nothing that a couple of decent painkillers and a Crosstown donut or two won’t fix.

I have have had a couple of mini practices as well as my usual week-in-week-out regime at the gym, not to mention three weeks of Hyrox training which has by turn made me want to cry, puke and jump up and down (and there’s another nine weeks to go) so fingers crossed for a personal best. That would be the personal best I always plan to aim for, and then get overexcited on the day and lose at least a minute or two waving at spectators and hi-fiving giant huskies and penguins on the way round, but by then it never matters. The ~~completely unnecessary but wholly enjoyable~~ carb loading has started in earnest, and will likely continue for a couple of hours yet.

The week ahead is looking straightforward but busy; I will be setting off earlier than usual on Friday and there are a couple of evenings out in the offing, but the remainder of the week is all as it should be. After looking on in horror at the prices of first Madonna and now Beyoncé tickets, nights in are likely to be the norm for a while, although the posters for the ABBA thing out at Stratford are drawing me in every time I get on the Northern line, and I suspect resistance is futile (plus I have many sequinned clothes that don’t get aired often enough AND it means another ride on the DLR. Hmm). Maybe once it warms up a bit more…

This week's title (as well as linking nicely to the trip out tomorrow), was going to be a celebration of the shiny tickets I had to see Queen B herself, but not at those prices – long standing blog readers will remember that I already had my turn almost ten years ago (back when £4.80 for a plastic pint was outrageous to the point of barely acceptable), so I will be gracefully sitting this one out and the song can stay anyway in the spirit of tomorrow. And neither of us have aged a day!

More soon! And I will try to leave the huskies alone this year.

Sunday, January 22nd 2023

end of a (half) century!

And Happy Birthday to me!

In addition to being both my birthday and Chinese New Year, today is apparently National Hot Sauce Day, National Polka Dot Day, National Blonde Brownie Day and the (inordinately twee-sounding) Celebration of Life Day, but I didn’t find these out until just now, so the brownie will have to wait until I’m next passing Konditor. C’est la vie.

The last few months of my forties have definitely been some of my better ones; seeing Prodigy at Brixton Academy on a July evening so hot I wound up dancing in running shorts and a bra just like we did the nineties ~~only without the gear~~. Also without the broken collarbone I sustained falling off a speaker stack the first time I saw Prodigy in 1992 (when I was nineteen, and thankfully more bouncy than I am now). Hopefully they’ll be back soon, although Lord alone knows what’s happening with Brixton.

Other highlights include the pork pie from Mrs King I bought at Borough Market on Thursday 22nd December and had already demolished by bedtime on Christmas Eve (it was not a small pork pie), ditto unexpectedly finding out that I live in palatial luxury, rather than a lovely but otherwise unremarkable 1 bed flat – admittedly with aircon – a discovery made when viewing other ‘luxury apartments’ in the same price range a few weeks ago. But my favourite thing without a doubt, has been my gym. Worth every penny of the (not inconsiderable) membership fees if only for the means to wash my hair somewhere with a water softener, and throw weights around without being glared at by Serious Weight Training Men. And less than five minutes’ walk from my front door!

Not that I’ve spent much time there this weekend; I decided to start early with a Friday night walk over the bridge to check out the new(ish) Everyman cinema at Borough Yards and Babylon, which turned out to be even longer than one of my favourites of last year – Elvis, which took me two attempts to get through without falling asleep (the 8.30pm start was a definite rookie error). Despite Babylon having no plot, wafer thin characters and some seriously woeful ~~rippings off~~ homages I thoroughly enjoyed it, and this is bearing in mind I hated La La Land to the extent that I kept my coat on for the first twenty minutes in case a sharp exit was necessary to avoid wasting any more of my life on Damien Chazelle than I already have. The setting (including superior toilets, presenting the German Gymnasium and The Wolseley with some stiff competition) definitely helped, as did the hot dog and ice cream sundae delivered to my armchair.

A scant twelve hours after getting in, I was on my way up to Farringdon station armed only with my Oyster card, a bottle of Evian and a reliable pen for the TfL treasure hunt – yay! This also took me through Paddington, Edgware Road, Baker Street, Great Portland Street, Euston Square and Kings Cross St Pancras looking for clues; since the latter is the only one I’ve spent any amount of time in, many exciting discoveries were made and after a couple of hours exploring I was finished, answers checked and ready to claim the bounty that is my new Love The Tube shopping bag (above). Hopefully there will be more events – there were plenty of others joining in and after a pit stop at the big M&S on Moorgate (which also gave me a change to try out my new bag) I was back by four o’clock, and asleep on the sofa after a mug of tea and a couple of scones by five. Result!

At the time of writing, I’m preparing to head off to Trafalgar Square for some New Year celebrating and a dragon or two – possibly. After a late night on Friday, over twenty thousand steps yesterday and given my advanced age, the sofa and well stocked fridge may turn out to be the best birthday options after all. The clothes are on, the water bottle is filled and the bag is packed, but the wavering has started. Update next time.

More soon! One way or the other I have dumplings to get on with, whichever way it turns out.