Bumping into friends in London

KERRAZY, went to London last weekend and it was smashing, and we bumped into good chums Ralph and Linda and baby Astrid in GAP, what are the chances of that? OK, we had already arranged to meet up with them earlier that day at Pain Quotidien, which was also very nice, but then to meet again was a coincidence. We did both have discount vouchers for GAP, I think everyone in the country did last weekend, it's all gone a bit crazy. We really did need to buy some baby clothes as christmas presents though, so we do seem to have genuinely saved 30% there.

Rest of the trip was great too, went up early on the train, shopped a bit. Hamleys was absolute chaos, an escalator broke down and the store was at a standstill, crowded like a moshpit. Thought about shouting "FIRE! FIRE! EVERYONE OUT!!!", but thinking about it now that would not have helped anyone. Met Emma for lunch in [fg]Soho Thai[fg], we even booked, but there was only one other table occupied. Very good food though, delicious. Went almost straight from there to Pain Quotidien for coffee, then shopped a bit more, then stopped for a mulled wine in The Crown and Two Chairmen, and reminisced about the time we saw a Ricky Gervais standup gig there. Ambled gently back towards Charing Cross, and stopped for our now semi regular London dinner of Pizza Express near the station. Splendid again, not as good as lunch but Pizza Express is always reliable.

Great weekend, looking forward to doing it all again. Busy at work this week, but planning an ace weekend out with my folks this weekend.

Still going through my CD's, with a view to getting rid of them all, it's a very slow process. Some of those I thought might have some value now seemingly don't, like Terrorvision's Thrive EP, so I'm probably just going to bring them to work, say £1 each (apart from the first Darkness single) and charity shop the rest :-( It's the end of an era but it will clear some space.

2008 :: Comment / reply

Thursday: Day of disappointments

Three pains in the arse yesterday. Firstly Sky came round to install Sky+, and then went away again saying they can't do it as they don't think we own the wall where they need to put the dish. SO, got a letter from the chair of the freeholding company to say it's cool, and they will have to come back. ALSO heard back from the company we were going to order the pool table from, and although they charged for delivery and then again for installation, they say they will leave the table on the ground floor. Our flat's on the second floor, not sure the people downstairs would appreciate it. So, today we're ordering the pool table from Kingswood Leisure. It's going to be 255Kg, so finding someone to install it in our second floor flat has bumped the price up, but it's still less than I thought they'd be when I first started looking...

Was expecting 3 disappointments out of 3, as our carpet was being fitted. Will they have laid the wrong carpet? In the wrong room? The wrong way up? On the walls? No David J Payne saw us alright, we're complying with our lease at last!

Been reading a rubbish book too "Robinson Crusoe" by good old Stokey boy Daniel Defoe. Were there no spell-checkers in the 17th century? Haven't enjoyed it much, so have given it up. On to Wilkie Collins' The Moonstone now, which is very good, reads like a Sherlock Holmes so far... Also very good, got given the promo for Red, White and CRUE today, it's another greatest hits from Motley Crue, ACE!

Hmm, still slightly TORN between pool table colours, will fake beech look more rubbish than fake mahogany? The most rubbish look would be a squished downstairs neighbour through a pool table shaped whole in our floor, I hope the flat can cope with the weight. It's only like four people my size doing a conga, if the floor can't cope with that then I can't be expected to take responsibility...

2005 :: Comment / reply

Oasis @ Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms

I was there at The Wedge, ace gig, and I really do remember this one, unlike the Nirvana @ Birmingham Hummingbird one I wrote up the other day...

Found this bit of text from an NME interview, written by Simon Williams, quoting the band talking about their stay at the Holiday Inn North Harbour (now the Marriott).

"It's a stupid place to put a pool, innit?" frowns Liam. "It was just asking for trouble putting us in this hotel." "It's true," nods Noel, wisely. "Those plate glass windows are just saying, 'THROW A CHAIR THROUGH ME!'" In fact, were it not for a bar bill totalling £150, the odd bruised band member and some suspicious chinking noises emanating from a large black bag being heaved through the foyer out to the van, you could almost convince yourself that nothing had happened. Really.

1994 :: Comment / reply