Author: Kruse

Champs

Kruse Leave a comment

A week of no gigs.  That was a good time.  Relaxing, a night of the old binge-drink, a weekend of rugby semi-finals, and just a good ol’ time.  But that was then, now we’re in the dark days.  Five weeks of no more respite than two days off at any time.

It started with Band of Skulls – some straight-talking no-nonsense garage rock.  In a venue which is more commonly used as a gay nightclub.  So yeah – walking into an underground cavern, with posters advertising all sorts of half-naked men oiled up, and the X-Factor rejects for some reason – to watch some strut-rock was kind of odd.  And then standing in a mob trying to get to the bar – with people complaining about service, and trying to push in front of each other like some crazed junkies, was great.  An annoying woman next to me constantly talking to me, assuring me that she’d make sure I was served straight after her (despite joining the mob after me) – and then haranguing the barman (while I tried as hard as I could to distance myself from her).  Ahhh – my faith in humanity, if not completely lost a long time ago, died a little bit that night.  Anyway – the gig.  Firstly I thought the sound was crap – but then I walked out from under the mezzanine, into the main area – and everything sounded much much better.  The band wasn’t particularly charismatic or anything – they just did the job.  Stand there, play some songs, and make some clumsy efforts at showmanship.

And soon thereafter, the weekend.  Which consisted of getting up very early on Saturday morning – walking to Kings Cross/St Pancras, and catching a train over to France.  For if I can’t be in New Zealand for a NZ-vs-France Rugby World Cup Final – where better than in France?  Got into Lille at about midday – perfect for a leisurely stroll into town, find my hotel to check-in and drop off my very small daypack, and then a wander around town.  Had some mussels marmite – and soon discovered that “marmite” seems to refer to the pot, and that I wasn’t actually getting mussels cooked in malty tar.  Wandered about some more – researching likely spots to watch the rugby the following morning, sightseeing, and shopping.    I discovered a fashion label named “Eden Park” – complete with NZ flag, a rugby ball motif, and the number 10 emblazoned on most items.  I was tempted to buy the shoes (the first items I saw) – but they were bad shoes.  Eventually, when I discovered what seemed like the French Harrods – I discovered the whole Eden Park range – and bought some gloves.  Refrained from the jeans, with their trademark back pocket detailing taking the form of half an oval – remiscent of a rugby ball perhaps.  Crazy frenchies.  Did my normal “wander around for an hour unable to decide on a restaurant” – before finally selecting an expensive seafood joint, and ordered the “little of everything the chef wants to give you” option, and a bottle of red wine – just to show them I can be unconventional too.

The next morning – I awoke, and ignored all my research of the previous day – instead walking for a while, into previously unexplored area – searching for “the bar district”.  Which I quickly found, like a messenger pigeon returning home.  And then, walking past several big showy bars – I spotted a television screen through a small grimy window, of a small grimy bar.  Sold.  I entered a small dark and dingy room, with a handful of barstaff looking at me in surprise, and one or two obvious ‘locals’.  I took a pew at the bar, had a coffee, and waited for the game to start.  One barmaid loved the All Blacks shirt – and decided to support the All Blacks then and there.  Unfortunately, she seemed to only be there to set up for the day, and then left – leaving me alone in a slowly growing crowd of French.  By the time the game started, the pub had laid out a free breakfast (french bread, coarse pate, brie, ham, etc – not bad fare), and the pub was full of Les Bleus supporters, with quite the festive atmosphere.  I got a few curious glances, but nothing more.  And I think any New Zealander knows how nervous I was at that moment – I was downing pints of beer at a furious rate, unable to help myself.  The haka, the French counter to it (which I loved, and brought massive cheers from the locals) – and then the game itself.  Well – we all know how that went.  The head in hands when Cruden fell on the ground.  A couple of stifled cheers from some of the less well-mannered Frenchies came with that, but then the majority of them applauded in the right spirit when he left the field.  Overall, it was quite a good crowd – much like most crowds, generally a good bunch, with a couple of dicks who do things like cheering an injury, or booing when an opponent is lining up a kick.  Half-time, and I sensed that mood of the crowd had changed from “let’s go watch the All Blacks win, festival-type atmosphere” – to, “hell, we’ve got a chance to win this, and win the World Cup”.  And of course, my own feeling mirroring that, going from “yeah, let’s watch us win while in France, that’ll be a laugh” – to, “Oh no, not again, not again, no no no”.  And the last ten minutes – with everybody white-knuckled, just willing somebody to drop the ball, or hold onto the ball, or anything, just don’t lose this bloody thing.  The only way I can find to describe that whole hour – from the start of the 2nd half through to 20 minutes after the match – is through cliches.  Relief.  Monkey off the back.  They may be cliches, but they are just so apt.  Or to point you to a forum on The Silver Fern – which, along with the comments afterwards, I read yesterday – with something approaching a tear in the eye.  And then I watched a video which a comment pointed to – and yeah, that tear became fully fledged.  I don’t think anybody but a New Zealander will understand quite I mean – or why “just a game” could mean so much. More cliches are needed really – rugby’s embedded in the country’s psyche, it’s our national obsession, etc etc.  I’d always thought of them as empty meaningless cliches, too simplistic to really be true.  But, even though it’s depressing to admit, they’re true.  But that’s not as important as it used to be.  Because we did it – we knocked the bugger off.  We can watch the All Blacks again, with the attitude of it being a pleasurable distraction, not with a desperate need to win a trophy.  And soon, we can look forward to 2015, when we become the first team to defend the championship, the first team to win it 3 times, the true Champions.  Or not – we can lose, and we’ll shrug, without that devastating heartbreak of 2003 & 2007.  Maybe.  And I think the average New Zealander will be a nicer person now, without all that angst.  The only dark lining to this silver cup, is that the country is almost certain to be governed by the actual eye-gougers, the real dirty players, the actual Bleus Terribles with aspirations for nuclear power in New Zealand waters, for another three years.

Anyway – that was a lot of words to describe a game of rugby, coming from somebody who has traditionally shunned such things.  So onwards, with only a small (well, not really so small) portion of myself wallowing in the glory of 4.5 kilograms of gilded silver.  I eventually left the pub, once I felt comfortable that I could walk without falling to my knees with relief.  Walked back to the main plaza of Lille – taking congratulations from a couple of random passersby.  And sat in the sun, my back to the central fountain, reading a book.  Of course – I had partaken in quite a few pints during the game – and when I rejoined that book a couple of days later, I discovered that I had little to no memory of the majority of it.  But  I read my book, Silver Fern proudly displayed on my chests, sneaking into McDonalds to use the toilets every 20 minutes, daring somebody to even try and burst my bubble.  Nobody did.  I eventually made my way to a restaurant for some more mussels, a couple of leisurely wines – and decided it was time to make my way to the train station.  I was kind of right, but very nearly wrong.  As in, I got to the station, but they told me I was too late.  Until a nice man spotted the All Blacks shirt – and told me to follow him.  He then essentially led me through back passages, forced the customs guy to stamp my passport without filling out the necessary documentation, and led me straight onto the train.  Sacre bleu – how gracious can somebody be in defeat?  So – many many thanks to France, for making my visit as good as it could be, for really turning up to the final, for being – well – French, and for eventually letting us win.  And don’t listen to the trash-talking cheap media – we all know they’re scum.

And then, sadly, I was back in Ingerlund – my head still spinning from the mornings events, and the beers/wine.  Got a little lost finding my way home – but got there in enough time to drop my stuff off, send some drunken text messages trying to get people to join me at a gig that night – but eventually made my way to north London all alone.  To watch Michael Franti & Spearhead.  This was at Koko, which is only surpassed by Royal Albert Hall as being the most awesome venue.  And of course, I can’t watch a gig without some red wine – so I slowly became even more intoxicated, making my memory of the gig rather hazy.  But from what I do remember – it was fairly good.  Michael Franti was barefoot, and walked into the crowd on multiple occasions, and maybe even invited the crowd onto the stage for the last song?  Or maybe my brain made that up in a desperate attempt to please.  I do remember him giving some good solid hippie speeches, and my drunken brain coming to the horrible realisation that there was no way good old fashioned hippies, and the current protests – would ever really change anything, and that what was actually needed was a worldwide catastrophe – natural, man-made, or even just social – so that society could be rebuilt from the ground-up.  And even then, I’m sure that human (animal) nature would eventually result in the same self-centred society we have now.  (Read the previous with emphasis on the self-pity and hypocrisy).  Oh – and after checking youtube videos – there were also giant yellow balls.

Monday morning – I went to work.  Apparently – because I haven’t been fired or reprimanded.  But to be honest – my head was still in quite the daze, and I have little memory of Monday at all.  But I had two days to recover, before the glut of gigs started again.  Wednesday – it was a group of scots named Sons And Daughters.  A gig which was originally scheduled for Heaven (the same venue as Band of Skulls) – but was moved to Dingwalls, where we saw Don McGlashan last year (or year before?).  I suspect this was due to poor ticket sales – as Dingwalls is much much smaller – and even then, it was a very sparse crowd.  But it was a good set, nice songs – played with just enough crowd banter, etc.  Terrible bar service – really really terrible.  And it reminded me that whenever I head to Camden, I think I would quite like to move there.  Until I spend half an hour there, surrounded by the terribly pretentious twats, and realise that no – nice to visit, wouldn’t live there.

The following night – the only band (to my knowledge) named after MacGyver’s employers – the Phoenix Foundation.  Again – a rather sparse crowd – which I thought strange.  Kiwis usually love to flock out in droves to see any homegrown talent – and these guys are also doing rather well in their own right as an international act.  But yeah – very limited crowd – which allowed Justin and myself to get much closer to the stage than our grumpy old man “bloody kids everywhere” mentality usually allows.  I was already rather drinky after work drinks – and then the barmaid seemed to dislike how much wine a standard “large” pour actually was – so insisted on essentially doubling it – serving me red wine in pint glasses, nearly full.  This was at the Garage – so if anybody is heading there, look for the short fairly pretty barmaid, and order a wine.  In fact – I believe I have a gig scheduled for there next week.  Sweet.  Back to the music – yeah, really good.  If you haven’t checked out the latest album – Buffalo – you should do.  It is really good, an excellent maturation of these guys who have been “gestating” (a word I picked up from somebody else’s review of them) back in New Zealand for some time.

And that has been my week.  With more of the same (minus the overnight jaunt to France) scheduled for this week.  And next week.  And the next.  And the next.  Oh, what a life.

(edit: I realise some of the above got a little over-emotional, and particularly over-political.  Maybe one day I’ll give a full accounting of my political views.  I hate people who say “right-wing are scum”, “hippies are stupid”, etc – without any reason to backup that view.  That is just social-attitudal racism.  So maybe, one day when I’m bored, I’ll attempt to justify my views.  I still feel guilty after telling certain members of my family “If this country votes in John Key, I will leave – and not come back until New Zealand wakes it’s fucking ideas up”… and then realising that every single one of them was going to vote National.  Yeah – um, sorry for that.)

Arts & Rugby – co-existing

Kruse Leave a comment

How many people would regularly attend both the Royal Albert Hall & the Walkabout?  Not many.  If any.

Okay – “regularly attend” is a bit of an exaggeration, but there has been a fair bit of juxtaposition over the last couple of weeks.  Although I’ve only been to the Royal Albert Hall once – that wasn’t enough so I did just today book two more evenings there, and have vague plans to attend some kind of classical music thing there in April or so.  And I have been to the Walkabout twice over the last month, I think – which was more than enough.

Since last time – I saw Snoop Doggy Dogg.  That was… , well, it was Snoop – live.  I went to the O2, had dinner at a french restaurant while waiting for the gig to start – and seriously thought that Snoop was in the restaurant as well.  But eventually I realised I was just being a racist – “all braided-hair tall lanky cool-as-can-be african americans look the same to me”.  But anyway, had myself some nice moules mariniere and wine, before entering the Arena.  Tried to buy myself some Snoop ‘merch’ – but ended up with a ladies t-shirt.  So ladies – if you wear a size “L” – and want a Snoop ‘skinny whitey’ – let me know.  I then discovered that the O2 serve full sized bottles of wine, even if they are plastic.  So got myself some red red wine to go with my gangsta rap, and proceeded to sip on that, while reading my ebook.  Then some drunk, and I suspect really rather drugged, couple came up and molested me.  Somehow at the end of that, I lost a rather large glass of wine – which gave me justification to buy another bottle.  And then Snoop D-O-double-G came on.  I had a pretty sweet seat – but of course as soon as the Doggfather came on stage, everybody stood up – so I had to as well.  Although I did retake my seat on a few occasions, usually to have a bit of a relax while he was playing one of his many tracks which were preceded with “this one is for the ladies”.  But yeah, overall – a pretty sweet gig, exactly what I expected/hoped for.  Snoop being Snoop, doing some classic hits, and a couple of covers.

And that brilliantly ridiculous night set the tone for the next week.  The next morning – I woke up at about 5am (so a total of 4 or 5 hours sleep since downing a couple of bottles of wine) – to head to the pub, to watch rugby.  I managed to watch both quarter-finals on that morning, although my memories of the actual games are a little blurry.  At one point, the barman did suggest I have a coffee or something instead of another beer.  And told me I wasn’t allowed to sleep there (I was just trying to get 10 minutes of rest between games).  But eventually – both games over, and I got in a taxi to head to work.  Yep – there was some kind of super-emergency brewing, with the CIO taking a personal interest, and the Vice-President of Operations in the office – and a guy who was brought in for the day because “he’s the guy who writes books on this stuff” – and me, after a night of Snoop, very little sleep, and a morning of rugby & beer.  But eventually I was more useful than the specialist brought in, which unfortunately meant he left at about 3pm, while I was stuck in the office until 8pm.  And eventually left, very very tired.  And as yet, unpaid for the day.

But I struggled to get a little sleep that night – before getting up the following morning at 5am, to again go watch some rugby.  This time though – heading to watch it with Dom in his living room, all civilised like.  But where does one get a taxi from at 5am?  Well – if you’re me – then you live around the corner from one of the most famous nightclubs – Fabric – so I figured that at 5am on Sunday morning, there is bound to be taxis there.  And yes – but also many drunk/? people – so I walked past, feeling unable to join any queue/group of such people.  And then down the road – a voice called out to me “taxi!?”  “Yes”, I thought – “taxi” is what I need, but “taxi” is not what you are.  For in a small private car, a dodgy guy was calling out to me.  But I figured, yeah – sure.  I got in, and quickly but subtly made it known that I was not actually a half-awake uncoordinated drunk/? idiot on his way home.  Although I was actually a half-awake uncoordinated blurry mess for reasons solely relating to waking up 5 minutes ago – I managed to insinuate that I was not an easy mark.  But it all turned out alright – the guy drove me to Dom’s, even put on the rugby game when it started, and we had a chit-chat regarding that – and he seemed alright.  So yeah – I fully recommend getting into an unlicensed-taxi/strangers-car in the wee hours of the morning.  And leading on, after that potentially disastrous situation dissipated, the two rugby games were also successfully negotiated – although again, the details are all a bit blurry.  I’m really rather happy that the semis & final are at much more civilised times.

Sunday morning out of the way, I headed home – had a nice nap, and then headed off to Hackney for some live music – Iron & Wine doing an acoustic gig.  Luckily – some very nice quiet acoustic folk.  In fact – for about half the gig, I stood at the back, next to the bar – for easy access to the wine, and enough light to read by.  And the other half – took my seat, and watched the nice man with the beard (which seems to accentuate rather than distract from his forehead” play his guitar and sing his nice songs.  All terribly civilised – in fact, too civilised for the nice man, who continuously complained about everybody being too quiet and polite.

And then it was Monday – which would normally be a welcome rest.  And it nearly was, except my current client had started to go nuts, trying to get me to do as much as possible before they kicked me out the door.  And then that night – I was to see Iron & Wine again – this time the “full-band” performance.  Which he had promised to be a heap louder and more raucous.  Which I was curious about – because I don’t think having additional supporting musicians, and electric instruments, are going to transform quiet folk songs into stadium rock.  And sure enough… the full-band performance was still good, but kinda bizarre – with a lightshow, and Sam himself seeming to think he was playing some kind of loud rock show – while playing all these slow quiet (but nice) songs.  All in all – I probably could have skipped it, after seeing the acoustic one.

And then, Tuesday.  Another day of struggling through work, and then my first ever time at Royal Albert Hall – to see Spiritualized.  Which I wasn’t sure about – not having listened to the music for years.  But I think I grabbed the tickets just to get to see Royal Albert Hall.  And yeah – not disappointed.  Not the best seats for watching the show – right up the top – but good for just getting an overall view of the hall itself.  And the gig – started off slow – good enough that I wasn’t disappointed – and initially even quite impressed, but then not much else.  Jason ‘Spaceman’ sitting on a stool, playing the songs – with  a backing band and a full chorus or two supporting him – and some quite good lighting effects and what-not.  All quite good – but it become slightly ho-hum through the middle, with quite a few slow songs (I think he played the entirety of his new album?).  And then the encore – wow.  Pretty sweet.  Just song after song of good music, a great show, and just an incredible atmosphere.

After Tuesday, comes Wednesday.  Wednesday was a nice relaxing day of work, fencing, gig.  Work included (from memory it was this day) – a vendor coming in to do an installation, the day after having been accidentally forwarded an email (by my project manager) in which I referred to this guy having “wound me up”.  So yeah – that was a nice delicate situation.  Then fencing – where I had to protect myself from being stabbed by an epee.  And then quickly rushed home, and off to the local little gig venue to watch We Were Promised Jetpacks.  Who despite their terrible name, aren’t actually too bad.  They are one of the current glut of good indie-rock bands pouring out of Scotland.  The lead singer looks like a chubby petulant child – with a mouth that looks like you could drive a bus right into it when he yells.  By this time, I just stood at the back, watching all the pretty young things in their “twee” clothes with disdain.  But yeah – good gig.  I suspect the lead singer really is a petulant child – and I suspect he is going to get chubbier – with people raining critical acclaim upon him before he’s ready, and generally just turning him into a dick.  But decent gig anyway.

And that was the last gig for a while – which was actually quite the relief.  Until I remembered work drinks on the following night – which were substantial.  And then rugby on both Saturday & Sunday mornings.  But that all went off without too many hitches.

And now it’s this week – and a whole new exhausting chain of events has started – but that can wait until later.

Warm-up to Gig Season

Kruse Leave a comment

Still trying to get back into a boring old routine, after all that disruption with Madrid/Paris – but not quite managing it, what with fencing lessions, getting sick, and assorted other excuses.  And there’s not much chance of that changing – with two months jam-packed with gigs scheduled.  Yep – starting Friday, I have currently got 23 scheduled gigs over a 60 day period.  Oh yeah.

But to warm up for all this – there was Black Joe Lewis & the Honeybears.  I can’t remember how I discovered these guys – but it is amazing music.  I ended up taking a workmate to the gig – and normally I feel a whole heap of trepidation taking somebody along to a gig, when they haven’t heard of the band.  But with this – I had no fear, for I’m pretty sure it would be impossible for anybody not to find this music infectious, happy, and just as cool as all shit.  And I was right – she loved it.  It was a relatively small gig, at the Jazz Cafe – which I hadn’t been to before.  And now I really want to get a restaurant table for a gig there, that would be sweet.  Anyway – the gig.  These guys still aren’t as well-known as they will/should be – so can’t find any actual video footage, but I reckon you can tell just from the music what it would have been like.  Do it – listen to them.  If they aren’t being thrashed on Triple J already, they soon will be – and are a certainty to be in the top 100.  The first album – Tell ‘em What Your Name Is, a must-have.  The second – Scandalous – is quickly growing on me too – especially the title track.

So yeah – overall, an excellent gig, with excellent music – and has got me all excited for the remainder of the year.  And in between all those gigs, I’ve got to win the fencing tournament, get my motorbike licence, and start a new job if my boss can find something for me to do (current client is kicking out all contractors – finally figured out they were going broke by paying dozens and dozens of project managers, etc – so have fishtailed, and just cancelled all projects, contracts, all travel, etc.  Next year, they will try to start everything up again – and maybe realise that it’s cost them more to restart everything, then if they’d just continued – but just getting rid of the tonnes of dead-wood).

Commuting Around Europe

Kruse Leave a comment

So – I figure the best time to write about my most recent jaunt into Europe is while I’m fully regretting it.

I’m currently trying to write the documentation to support the work I did the other week.  And I hate writing documentation.  Even writing the kind of document which I would want to receive (ie: a list of specific stuff.  This was set to that.  This: 1.  This: 23.  This: 100.  Reading it: Perfect – all I need to know on a single page.  But writing it: what order do I put it in?  What’s the most logical tree structure?  Aaaarrgh!)  Sorry – mind is frazzled from trying to write my most hated of documentation – long wordy descriptions of what should be short one-liners – and with screenshots.  Oh – now you’ve got me started on screenshots.  I view screenshots as the vice of the lazy documenter, and the crutch of the incompetent reader.  Unfortunately – I’ve been specifically requested to include screenshots.  Hence my presumably imcomprehensible rambling about this shit that you certainly don’t care about.

Anyway – all this started with my trip to Madrid last time.  And then two weeks ago – another trip.  This time – a ridiculously early train to Paris.  Straight to the office, work until late.  Then to the hotel.  And my room has a balcony (ish) with a view of the Arc de Triomphe.  (And really, no offence, but where did the French borrow the nerve to build a monument to Triumph?)  But anyway – a rather long day – and that pretty much just set the scene.  Essentially a week of spending 16 hours a day with work colleagues – who aren’t even my own work colleagues, and for whom english is not their first language.  Which would normally be all fine – but with me having very little sleep already – it was just that slightly too tiring to cope with for an entire week.  Anyway – enough whinging.  First day ended with some bieres and what-not.  And the next few days – long days in a small office in suburban Paris – miles away from anywhere – then back into central Paris to drop off bags, and then head to random places for dinner.  Who has a few days in Paris – so decides to travel all the way across town to a burger restaurant?  But I managed to escape eating a burger – and had steak tartare instead.  All good.  And crepes.  And I saw the Eiffel Tower, and Notre Dame, and things like that.  I would nearly cross Paris off The List – except I was too tired to enjoy any of it – and I didn’t see the Louvre.

Oh – and I managed to watch some of the opening rugby matches – streaming over internet.  A lot of my screenshots (grumble grumble whinge whinge) – are great – each showing two monitors, one full of nerd-action, the other with a snapshot of the morning’s rugby.  And the other light-hearted aspect which will hopefully counter-balance the above crazy ramblings – was the exchange of language between myself and my spanish workmates.  I taught them the word “cleavage” – (by special request – with meaning conveyed with a lot of hand gestures and imitation) – while they attempted to teach me – well, some terrible terrible phrases.  Which I was too tired to remember – sadly.  I remember what they meant – and I just don’t know what to think about a culture which would say things like that.

But finally – it was Monday – with a lovely 6am flight to Madrid.  Where I headed to my hotel, thinking I would just be able to leave my suitcase there, and head to the office – and check-in later.  But no – they let me check in at 9am or so – which allowed me to have a shower and head to the office.  Which shouldn’t have brought me so much joy – but I’m pretty sure I would have fallen asleep at the desk otherwise.  But yes – two more days in Madrid – this time out in the suburbs – and then finally back to London.  On a 5am flight – landing at London City airport – just in time for a taxi straight to my ‘usual’ client – and get in at 10am, in order to help a vendor who’s come in especially for the first big piece of work on my current project.  And yeah – I wasn’t particularly “on the ball” that day.

But that’s what you get when you’re some kind of jet-setting business traveller like myself, I guess.

Oh – and did I mention that immediately after work on my day of return – I then headed off to my first fencing lesson?  Luckily we didn’t get given any solid time with epees, foils, sabres, or the such on that night.  But I made up for it the next week – when I knew that we would be handed our first swords – by having a few wines beforehand.  This behaviour was correctly summed up with the comment “You’re a retard”.  It wasn’t my fault – there were work drinks to welcome/farewell somebody visiting from India.  Who doesn’t drink.

Hmm?  Yes – I’m attending fencing lessons.  En guarde!

Spain, Sun, Shopping

Kruse Leave a comment

Well – I didn’t get much rest before I had to head to Madrid.  And the flight to Madrid was at some ridiculous early hour – and I had to crawl out of bed at something like 4 or 5 – after about four hours sleep.  But, managed to get to Madrid – and did a few days of work.  It didn’t go all smoothly – but a few issues are good to prove that it was worthwhile bringing me in.  If everything goes smoothly, then people think – “Not much to that, I could have done that myself”.  So after three long days of being stuck in an office, and leaving just in time to find food (had rabo de toro one night – bull’s tail – very good), then get sleep – it was the weekend.

So, I checked out of the hotel which work had organised – and checked into another one – slightly cheaper, and with a pool.  Then rushed into town to find an Irish pub showing the rugby.  Because what else would you do in Madrid other than sit in an Irish pub watching the All Blacks?  Anyway – after that disappointment – I walked around town, checking out all the major sights.  Banco de Espana – pretty impressive.  Mercado de San Miguel – very busy, but looked like it would be a decent time with a few hungry people – just heaps of boutique food/drink stalls crammed into a relatively small glass box.  I saw the statue of the bear leaning against a madrano tree – which is apparently the symbol of Madrid.  I don’t know why, and I am scared to research it.  So I decided to leave this inexplicable thing – and had lunch in the Plaza Mayor.  The Plaza Mayor is rather large – with restaurants lining 3 of 4 sides.  Back in the olden days, I believe that it had rather more interesting stuff going on – bullfights, the Inquisition, etc.  But now – just a heap of restaurants, and the most bizarre buskers/artists I’ve ever seen.  Such as these two – who I had to avoid every time I walked through the square, because my poor little mind really struggled to get to grips with what I was seeing.  That video only really showcases the man dressed as baby, which thankfully i only saw in action twice.  The glitter dog/goat thing though – that was nearly always going, and loved to set-up next to whatever restaurant I was eating at.  It is essentially a woman sitting on a stool underneath a cloak of glitter, with a wooden goat/dog head – operated by hand – which can open/close it’s mouth making a wooden clacking sound.  Really, really not cool.  So after some gazpacho, paella & vino – I fled.  Went and checked out the royal palace – which I believe is the largest in Europe?  Maybe?  It was pretty big anyway.  I then just wandered aimlessly – and stopped for a few cervezas at a small dodgy taverna.  Then kept wandering – and came across the status of Miguel de Cervantes, which I had wanted to see, but had forgotten about.  Cervantes, if you don’t know, wrote what is considered to be possibly the best ever Western literature – Don Quixote, the man from La Mancha.  (I was rather pleased to find my spanish workmate was actually from La Mancha.  I probably should start calling him Quixote – or even better, Sancho.)

Eventually I limped back to the hotel – my feet complaining about their sudden re-introduction to jandals being in the form of an 8 hour walkabout about Madrid.  Some cervezas, a mixto, and then some tapas – before calling it a day.

The next day was started with a few hours poolside.  Ahhh – sun, how I have missed thee!  Eventually, I figured I should eat something – and brains slightly addled by sunshine, I decided to forgo all nearby convenient food – and headed back into the middle of town – to Plaza Mayor again.  Sat down, had some good food, some good wine, and got freaked out by the glitter-goat/dog again.  So – moved to another restaurant, where I just sat in the sun with a book, and drank cerveza after cerveza – trying to ignore the silver goat-dog which turned up soon thereafter.  Eventually fled to a side street where there are no crazy buskers, just normal accordian playing buskers – and had some more paella y vino.

Monday morning – I figured I was well justified to just sit around the hotel until it was time to head to the airport.  And where better to sit around the hotel, then in/beside the pool?  So – checked out, and spent several hours at the pool.  Eventually figured I should get moving – maybe have some lunch before heading to the airport.  So sat down for some lunch, cervezas con limon, and reading my book.  Until I realised I was probably leaving the whole airport thing a little too late – so headed to the airport.  Turns out I was right – I was indeed leaving the airport thing a little too late.  Turns out the combination of my watch being about 8 minutes slow, my cutting it close, and (I’m sure of it) the staff closing check-in slightly early – I had definitely missed my flight.  So – I queued up to buy a new flight.  Eventually got to the front – and the nice man tells me – nope, no flights.  So what about business, or first-class, or something?  Nope – no flights.  What about tomorrow.  Nope – no tickets available.  Everything completely sold out.  So I head to a different terminal looking for other airlines, or internet cafe to look for flights.  Found a coin-operated internet machine (with certain keyboard keys which don’t work – making things that much more difficult) – and confirm that the only flight I could get that evening was via Switzerland, and cost over £1,000.  I seriously considered it for a moment, and then realised that it was also a total journey time of 18 hours – so I was pretty screwed anyway.  Flights for tomorrow – I could fly the maligned EasyJet for around half a monkey (or a string of ponies).  Tried to book that, and a hotel – and discovered this was nigh impossible with malfunctioning keyboard.  So I just took the first hotel bus I saw (having seen during my hotel search that it did indeed have a pool) – and requested a room.  Sweet – checked in, booked a flight, emailed work to not expect me in the next day, and headed to the pool.

Next day I followed the same pattern as Monday – except I played things a little safer.  I had a free shuttle to the airport, and I had booked it, so somebody was bound to remind me I should be moving – and I had breakfast so that my judgement was slightly better.  Otherwise – exactly the same – got up, checked out, headed to pool, sat in sun reading, with occasional cervezas and dips in the pool to cool down.  Eventually I headed to the airport, and was rather glad I’d left some extra time to check-in, etc.  Because this was my first experience of EasyJet – and I see now why they have an option of paying extra to get “speedy check-in”.  Manged to make it through though, bought some whisky, had some quick lunch & cervezas (I suspect subconsciously trying to miss my flight again) – and then boarded our flight.  Ugh – EasyJet.  For those who don’t know – EasyJet don’t allocate seats.  I don’t know if that somehow reduces costs (I can’t see how?) – but yeah, it doesn’t make for a pleasant experience.  Luckily – travelling by myself, I didn’t care too much.  And then the EasyJet beverage service – where you have to buy snacks and/or drinks.  I figured I had some spare euros, and I might as well get rid of them – so yeah sure, some cerveza por favor.

And eventually got back to London.  And how depressing was it to hear english voices again?  Correct – very.  And stupid people making a mess of the immigration queues.  Stansted airport – not well designed for english/EU people who can’t follow instructions as to what door they should go through.  Thereby making a huge mess of the area which is reserved for us nice civilised non-EU passport wielders.  Eventually got through, and got a train into town.  (I forgot to remark upon how the Madrid metro really shows up the London one.  It has the advantage of being newer, so could learn from the mistakes of London – but still – it was just so… clean, big, not crowded.  But still smelt like nasty things in places).  Got back to Barbican, sat down in my local pub for some fish’n’chips and vino, and then finally crawled upstairs for some sleep – ready for work the next day, and the inevitable ‘ribbing’ from missing a day due to pool/cerveza/tardiness.

It took me a few days to get back into work mode – just 3 .5 days of sun and pool had really removed me from this whole office/work mindset.  But eventually it returned.  Not cool.  And then it was time to finally man up and go shopping.  None of my clothes fit, my shoes are old – so yeah, I did a shopping day.  Ended up walking home looking like a caricature of an overladen shopping nut – carrying a total of nine (I think) shopping bags.  And that didn’t include my new suit, which I left behind to be slightly altered.  Went and had a barbeque on Bibby’s boat – finding it difficult to buy supplies on the way as apparently there had been an EDL march during the day.  (For those who don’t know who the EDL are – that’s a good thing.  They shouldn’t be acknowledged in any way).  But Bibby, Jess & I sat outside overlooking the Thames, and Tower Bridge, making chit-chat until we were all yawning.  My chit-chat was of an even worse standard than usual – my brain being completely fried from spain/sun/shopping.  So now I’m just hoping (sort of, not really) that I don’t shrink much more – because then I’d have to do this all over again.  Makes one regret ever getting fat in the first place.

A Busy Week

Kruse Leave a comment

So, it’s Monday afternoon, and I haven’t exercised, or even had significant free time, since last Tuesday.  I have, however, crossed London from side to side, again and again – with people loving to have events which could so easily have been geographically handy – but instead just happening to be the opposite.  Wednesday – I’m working east-ish, so Justin forces me to Covent Garden for drinks and dinner.  Thursday – I’m working in Covent Garden, so Jess invites me over to Shoreditch for dinner and a gig.  Friday – I’m working in Covent Garden – but with a gig to go to in Hammersmith, so Justin organises his fundraising party in Shoreditch.  Not cool.

But yes – drinks with Justin on Wenerei were all right.  His birthday, innit?  Some beers, then some wine, and some moroccan food – all good.

Thursday – a wee gig by a band I’d never heard of.  Jess had stumbled across them recently at Field Day – and decided they were worth checking out again.  The Bookhouse Boys.  Even Wikipedia has never heard of them – only having a listing for their namesake, the secret society from Twin Peaks.  But yeah – they’re pretty good.  Dirty swingin’ rock and roll, as I could have guessed from Jess taking a shining to them.  As well as discovering new music, I also discovered a new venue – the Old Blue Last, which is a tiny, tiny place – just a room above the main bar – but which is apparently rather good for playing up-and-comers, and occasional surprise appearances by more commercially successful acts.  So yeah, good to know.  And the Bookhouse Boys, yeah – good enough for me to grab their album.  Well worth a listen.

Friday – a horrible horrible day at work, running through a ‘practice run’ for some upcoming work – and not doing too well.  But eventually I managed to give up, and leave the office – just in time to rush home, drop off all my stuff, and then head to the Hammersmith Apollo – get myself a wine, find a decent spot, and watch the Roots take the stage.  And this they did, led onto stage by Damon “Tuba Gooding Jr” Bryson – with a giant wrap-around tuba.  Which is, as I later found out, actually called a sousaphone.  But yeah – first guy onto stage is a guy in a hoodie, with a giant wrap-around-the-body tuba, and he is rockin’ it.  Obviously very pleased with himself, and fair ’nuff.  I can’t find many videos of the performance – except for a couple including one of my favourite songs, and possibly one of the more well-known songs?  So I can’t show the amazing duelling drums, guitar solos, covers, improvs, etc, etc.  But I must say – Sweet Child of Mine, covered by the Roots, is indeed oh so sweet.  Anyway – raced out at the end, then went ALL the way across town to Shoreditch, to have a couple of drinks with Justin – who was getting people to donate money so he could go on holiday.  Which has given me oh so many ideas.  Well – just one really, which is to get people to donate money so I can go on holiday.

Saturday – I was actually really rather hungover.  But still drunk.  So tried to have a big breakfast, and then gave up – and headed to the pub.  And soon remembered what it is like with the drinking on top of the drinking, and the impaired judgement, which causes more drinking and not eating when one should, which causes further impaired judgement – and oh the vicious cycle.  But anyway – I survived.  Watched rugby, oh so much rugby.  Oh so much rugby – and I won’t bother reviewing that – I could certainly not compete with the oh-so-well-respected Rattue.  But afterwards we had more beer and thai food, which was excellent – followed by a movie.  This was the first time I’d been to the movies since, well – last time Justin dragged me along to a movie based on a comic book – which would have been Watchmen, way back in March 2009.  And within minutes, I was a seething ball of anti-capitalist liberal commie rage, wanting to riot.  It had been so long since I’d actually seen a commercial – and all of a sudden I was sitting in front of a giant screen showing thunderously loud commercials.  And they are terrible!  Bad enough to riot against.  But I’m lazy, and eventually the movie started… and that was merely bad.  Captain America.  Worse than Thor?  Maybe.  I thought I was being well restrained, but apparently some snorts of derision were escaping, as Justin kept looking over.  Sorry Justin.  I was apparently missing the irony.

Then it was Sunday, and after a day of machismo rugby and ultra-patriotic superhero action movie – it was Caro’s turn to decide on activities.  And we went to the Saatchi Gallery – to look at some art.  Plenty of art – some of it made with horsehair and blood, some just made from cars wrapped around poles, and all that jazz.  My favourite was the room which was just a giant pool of oil.  Or something.  Because it took me ages to figure out what I was looking at.  I actually thought we were looking down through a film of Gladwrap (clingwrap) to an empty room down below, which I thought was odd.  But after a while I realised that what I was actually seeing was the reflection of the ceiling – in the shiny top film of a pool of oil.  Yeah, rather odd.  After that we wandered about a bit more, tried to do some shopping – with mixed success – and then headed to Covent Garden for a couple of wines in the sun.  And then we were met by Mary – so it was off to eat mussels, drink beer, and make chit-chat.  More beer followed more beer, and I eventually got home late last night, all tuckered out.

And that was about it – my week of never being home.  Now, I have two days of being at home (hopefully) – before I head to Madrid for a few days.  Three days of work, then I’ll stay on for the long weekend, maybe pick a fight with some bulls.  Then a week or two of normalcy again, maybe, before heading to Paris for some more work.  Yay – finally getting out of London again – even if it is to just sit in an office in some other country.