Don't you just hate it when you leave the house on the way to work and forget to take your sounds with you!! This is exactly what I did this morning, leaving my new Creative 1gb MP3 player (by the way these are really great, I'd totally recommend them to anyone thinking of buying a smallish MP3 player and I'm glad I didn't get the iPod Nano considering the screen problems that they are having) sitting on the dresser, so instead of being treated to the sweet, soulful melodies of Metallica, Black Label Society or The Datsuns etc I was subjected to the low frequency rumbles and onomatopoeic 'clack' of the train track
Thankfully the carriage I got into was rather full, now normally I would be complaining about this sort of thing, as I hate being squished up against some overweight oaf smelling of B.O. However, the Gods were smiling on me this morning as I had the fortune of being squished (well standing at close proximity really) next to a rather pretty lass, for the duration of the journey. We shall see how the Gods treat me on the return journey home this evening.
The moral of the story: maybe I should forget my sounds more often.
Friday, September 30, 2005
Thursday, September 29, 2005
Out On The Tiles
So I had my first proper night out in ol’ blighty last Friday. Had a couple of drinks after work and then proceeded home, I just love how (they have toilets on the trains over here). Got home and the flattie (we shall call her Gem – not her real name) asks if I want to come down to the Slug and Lettuce for a few drinks with some of her friends. Now, money is tight at the mo’ so I said ok, but I don’t want a big one as I can’t really afford it and I’m also going to the first ever A1 Grand Prix qualifying day tomorrow, so I put £10 in my pocket and do the unthinkable and leave all my cards at home!!.
So anyway we trundle down to Putney High St and have a couple of pints while waiting for Gem’s friends who duly turn up. Drinking, chatting, laughing etc etc until closing time 11pm - I still can’t get used to this un-Godly early hour.
So then someone suggests going round to The Fez bar and carrying on (the pubs close at 11pm but the clubs stay open much longer), so we roll on round there and I almost didn’t make it in as there’s an £8 cover charge and of course I don’t have enough cash or anyway of getting any. Luckily one of the group lends me a tenner and I’m in.
Now I didn’t even know that any clubs existed in Putney so I’m just amazed as we head down underground and this huge expanse confronts me with light-up dance floor and all (about ten times as big as the one they had at Barneys). Next things there’s a drink in my hand and there’s dancing to be had.
An couple of hours of this and a few more drinks in my hand (though not out of my pocket) and we’ve had enough, so we head out for takeaways and then Gem, her friend and I are off home – so much for my quiet night. We’re all a little bit tipsy and my frozen pizza in the freezer sounds like a good idea, although then the chips that we’ve had kick in, and we flag the pizza idea., probably a good thing – “don’t drink and fry”.
Anyway that was my Friday night, don’t you just love those off-the-cuff nights that turn out great?
So anyway we trundle down to Putney High St and have a couple of pints while waiting for Gem’s friends who duly turn up. Drinking, chatting, laughing etc etc until closing time 11pm - I still can’t get used to this un-Godly early hour.
So then someone suggests going round to The Fez bar and carrying on (the pubs close at 11pm but the clubs stay open much longer), so we roll on round there and I almost didn’t make it in as there’s an £8 cover charge and of course I don’t have enough cash or anyway of getting any. Luckily one of the group lends me a tenner and I’m in.
Now I didn’t even know that any clubs existed in Putney so I’m just amazed as we head down underground and this huge expanse confronts me with light-up dance floor and all (about ten times as big as the one they had at Barneys). Next things there’s a drink in my hand and there’s dancing to be had.
An couple of hours of this and a few more drinks in my hand (though not out of my pocket) and we’ve had enough, so we head out for takeaways and then Gem, her friend and I are off home – so much for my quiet night. We’re all a little bit tipsy and my frozen pizza in the freezer sounds like a good idea, although then the chips that we’ve had kick in, and we flag the pizza idea., probably a good thing – “don’t drink and fry”.
Anyway that was my Friday night, don’t you just love those off-the-cuff nights that turn out great?
Sunday, September 25, 2005
A Sight for Saw Eye
The London Eye at night - at 130 metres high it is the largest observation platform of its type in the world.
Friday, September 23, 2005
Can't Buy Me Love, or an LP, but a Laptop and an MP3 player, now that's a different story
So I've joined the eAge. I splashed out and bought a laptop and an MP3 player on the weekend and now have to find some way of paying for them :-( On the upside I'll now be able to Blog on a regular basis, and on another positive, if I leave the EU within 90 days of the purchase I can claim the Value Added Tax (VAT) back, so I may well take a trip outside the EU for a weekend as I figure the refund will pay for half the trip.
So I spent most of Sunday filling up the laptop with music and have been traveling to work accompanied by most of my (or G's really) favourite sounds. Ahhh life is good, I now look down upon those prehistoric, soon to be extinct species, to which I recently belonged, that still lug around their CD players. Now, if I want to change albums I simple reach into my breast pocket and flick a switch, ahh the joys of technology.
As for the CD, will it go the way of that long forgotten beast, the cassette (does anyone remember those)? Well time will tell, but I think not, in the near future anyway, but this brings me to another point, if the CD does become obsolete we will lose an extremely important non-aural part of music - the cover art. Now, ever since the downturn in vinyl sales this has never really been the same, and for those of you old enough to remember, (or having bought second hand LPs (Long Players, for the ignorant) at bargain prices when their naive owners rushed to be rid of them at the onset of the binary music revolution) I'm sure that you would agree that there really is nothing to compare with the cover art on a Gatefold (or single sleeve) LP, the colour and attention to detail contained within them just doesn't exist anymore, and ahhh that sweet smell.
Now we all know that we shouldn't judge a book by it's cover, but really, you could just tell that Houses of the Holy by Led Zeppelin was a masterpiece simply by gazing at the cover, in the same way that you could tell that you should steer well clear of anything with Nana Mouskouri on the cover. What can you do now? The "folder art" in Windows just doesn't give anything away and forgive me for being a bit old fashioned but there's just something about having a "Side 1 and Side 2", to listen to.
And what about getting your album signed in store when you buy it, or at a concert (you'd be hard pressed to get more than two signatures on an iPod Nano), which brings me to my final and most cutting point - does anyone really care anymore? Well maybe if you've read this far you still do, but in a world where a ringtone becomes number one in the charts you are probably one of the few.
So I spent most of Sunday filling up the laptop with music and have been traveling to work accompanied by most of my (or G's really) favourite sounds. Ahhh life is good, I now look down upon those prehistoric, soon to be extinct species, to which I recently belonged, that still lug around their CD players. Now, if I want to change albums I simple reach into my breast pocket and flick a switch, ahh the joys of technology.
As for the CD, will it go the way of that long forgotten beast, the cassette (does anyone remember those)? Well time will tell, but I think not, in the near future anyway, but this brings me to another point, if the CD does become obsolete we will lose an extremely important non-aural part of music - the cover art. Now, ever since the downturn in vinyl sales this has never really been the same, and for those of you old enough to remember, (or having bought second hand LPs (Long Players, for the ignorant) at bargain prices when their naive owners rushed to be rid of them at the onset of the binary music revolution) I'm sure that you would agree that there really is nothing to compare with the cover art on a Gatefold (or single sleeve) LP, the colour and attention to detail contained within them just doesn't exist anymore, and ahhh that sweet smell.
Now we all know that we shouldn't judge a book by it's cover, but really, you could just tell that Houses of the Holy by Led Zeppelin was a masterpiece simply by gazing at the cover, in the same way that you could tell that you should steer well clear of anything with Nana Mouskouri on the cover. What can you do now? The "folder art" in Windows just doesn't give anything away and forgive me for being a bit old fashioned but there's just something about having a "Side 1 and Side 2", to listen to.
And what about getting your album signed in store when you buy it, or at a concert (you'd be hard pressed to get more than two signatures on an iPod Nano), which brings me to my final and most cutting point - does anyone really care anymore? Well maybe if you've read this far you still do, but in a world where a ringtone becomes number one in the charts you are probably one of the few.
Thursday, September 22, 2005
Green With Angry
So I went and exorcised my demoncratic right to vote on Friday from half a world away. I left work at lunchtime and walked briskly to Bank tube station, jumped on a tube to another station and made my way to Piccadilly Circus ("what a crappy circus", points awarded for guessing the movie quote) and then to NZ house. It seemed like every Kiwi in London had the same idea as I was confronted by a large, slow moving queue and after voting (two ticks for National - a tactical vote to try and do anything to keep the Greens out of power, just don't get me started on them and the little bubble world that they live in, ohhh they just get me so angry!!!) and reversing the afore mentioned travel method (using "Green" transport, ha ha) I arrived back at work an hour and a half later, the only problem being that I have an hour for lunch. Not to worry though, nothing a few minutes working late didn't fix. Had a beer with the people I work with and then met up with The Clownman. A couple more beers, some quality conversation and a couple of hours later and I was back at Bank Station heading home. I really have lost my beer tolerance I came home and fell asleep almost immediately, a far cry from all those epic nights at Barneys (RIP).
Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Working and Playing
Hi everyone
Yes I'm still alive in case you were wondering, but am back to reality now with having a job and rent and bills and all, so that's why I've been a bit quiet lately (and also the fact that I can't access my personal email from work). I'm working for an insurance underwriting company called Limit in central London, not far from "The Gherkin" for those of you who know that building. Click below to see a pic if ya want
http://www.citythemes.co.uk/
It was only meant to be for a week but I started on the 8th of August and it's now mid September so I must be doing something right. It's not the most stimulating (or the highest paying) job in the world - filing, scanning, archiving etc but it's nice to do a job with not much responsibility for a change (although I certainly won't want to do it forever) and it came along at just the right time, as the finances were getting pretty thin.
I work from 9-5 (what a way to make a living) with an hour for lunch, which I often have down opposite the Tower of London. I stumbled across this by accident one day when I first started work, I just started walking to try and find a nice spot to sit down and have lunch at. I finally found a bench and sat there reading the paper, when I looked up I saw a large bit of old stone wall (about two stories high and about three metres wide) which I correctly figured must have been part of the old London Wall. I then gazed further afield on to "an old building", which took me a moment but then I clicked as to what Iwas looking at, having only seen it in pictures before, I was staring at the Tower of London. It's this kind of experience that makes London such an awesome place to live.
I've been doing a bit of domestic travel, mostly around London but I went up to Lancaster (a small city with a population of 46,000, top North West of England) about a month back, with some friends and we met up with some other friends that we'd made on the Scandi trip. Jane, who lives in Lancaster, looked after us for the weekend and drove us up to the Lake District which was great. The weather was perfect and we went to William Wordsworth's grave site, and bought gingerbread from the world's oldest gingerbread shop and then sat in bracken covered hills in the sun and ate a picnic lunch. Then we drove around these tiny country lanes skirted by stonewalls - very picturesque before heading back to Lancaster. We went out that night and then saw a bit more of the city the next day before hopping on a train back to London. The trains are great, it only took 3 hours to get from London to Lancaster and they are really nice and new and travel at 160kph with banked turns even. It's quite amazing actually that you can be in London, a city of 8 million, and then within about 30 minutes be out in the countryside which is very scenic.
I've done a few more touristy things as well. Craig, Marsha and I went to Kew Gardens (400 acres of gardens, history and culture) a few weekends back, and then on the bank holiday Monday I caught up with some other friends (Big Mal and Bridget) and we did an open-top bus tour of London (it's really very compact) which included a Thames River cruise (not on the bus) all for £16. It was such a nice, clear day that we did the London Eye as well. As you can imagine we were fairly exhausted after 8 hours of all this in the hot sun.
As for things that I have planned, well Big Mal and I are going to the inaugural round of the A1 Grand Prix at Brands Hatch and will be proudly supporting the New Zealand team (I've requested a silver fern flag from home so hopefully it turns up in time, hint hint). Just click on the links below if you want further information:
http://www.a1gp.com/main.php?hf=Yes
http://www.a1teamnzl.com/
Besides this I have a British friend in Birmingham, yes another one I made on the Scandi trip, who is going on a working holiday toAustralia in October. So I'm keen to head up there for a weekend and take advantage of his local knowledge before he jets off. I'm also going to catch a few concerts over the next few months, the amount of acts that tour here is just unbelievable and there is something on every night of the week so I won't ever get bored (or save any money) that's for sure.
So yeah that's me for another email, I'm sure you've all been suffering withdrawal symptoms from my lack of emails lately (yeah right) (I miss Tui billboards), so until next time keep cool till after school.
Ian
Yes I'm still alive in case you were wondering, but am back to reality now with having a job and rent and bills and all, so that's why I've been a bit quiet lately (and also the fact that I can't access my personal email from work). I'm working for an insurance underwriting company called Limit in central London, not far from "The Gherkin" for those of you who know that building. Click below to see a pic if ya want
http://www.citythemes.co.uk/
It was only meant to be for a week but I started on the 8th of August and it's now mid September so I must be doing something right. It's not the most stimulating (or the highest paying) job in the world - filing, scanning, archiving etc but it's nice to do a job with not much responsibility for a change (although I certainly won't want to do it forever) and it came along at just the right time, as the finances were getting pretty thin.
I work from 9-5 (what a way to make a living) with an hour for lunch, which I often have down opposite the Tower of London. I stumbled across this by accident one day when I first started work, I just started walking to try and find a nice spot to sit down and have lunch at. I finally found a bench and sat there reading the paper, when I looked up I saw a large bit of old stone wall (about two stories high and about three metres wide) which I correctly figured must have been part of the old London Wall. I then gazed further afield on to "an old building", which took me a moment but then I clicked as to what Iwas looking at, having only seen it in pictures before, I was staring at the Tower of London. It's this kind of experience that makes London such an awesome place to live.
I've been doing a bit of domestic travel, mostly around London but I went up to Lancaster (a small city with a population of 46,000, top North West of England) about a month back, with some friends and we met up with some other friends that we'd made on the Scandi trip. Jane, who lives in Lancaster, looked after us for the weekend and drove us up to the Lake District which was great. The weather was perfect and we went to William Wordsworth's grave site, and bought gingerbread from the world's oldest gingerbread shop and then sat in bracken covered hills in the sun and ate a picnic lunch. Then we drove around these tiny country lanes skirted by stonewalls - very picturesque before heading back to Lancaster. We went out that night and then saw a bit more of the city the next day before hopping on a train back to London. The trains are great, it only took 3 hours to get from London to Lancaster and they are really nice and new and travel at 160kph with banked turns even. It's quite amazing actually that you can be in London, a city of 8 million, and then within about 30 minutes be out in the countryside which is very scenic.
I've done a few more touristy things as well. Craig, Marsha and I went to Kew Gardens (400 acres of gardens, history and culture) a few weekends back, and then on the bank holiday Monday I caught up with some other friends (Big Mal and Bridget) and we did an open-top bus tour of London (it's really very compact) which included a Thames River cruise (not on the bus) all for £16. It was such a nice, clear day that we did the London Eye as well. As you can imagine we were fairly exhausted after 8 hours of all this in the hot sun.
As for things that I have planned, well Big Mal and I are going to the inaugural round of the A1 Grand Prix at Brands Hatch and will be proudly supporting the New Zealand team (I've requested a silver fern flag from home so hopefully it turns up in time, hint hint). Just click on the links below if you want further information:
http://www.a1gp.com/main.php?hf=Yes
http://www.a1teamnzl.com/
Besides this I have a British friend in Birmingham, yes another one I made on the Scandi trip, who is going on a working holiday toAustralia in October. So I'm keen to head up there for a weekend and take advantage of his local knowledge before he jets off. I'm also going to catch a few concerts over the next few months, the amount of acts that tour here is just unbelievable and there is something on every night of the week so I won't ever get bored (or save any money) that's for sure.
So yeah that's me for another email, I'm sure you've all been suffering withdrawal symptoms from my lack of emails lately (yeah right) (I miss Tui billboards), so until next time keep cool till after school.
Ian
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