Author: Kruse

Getting my festive on…

Kruse Leave a comment

Has been a fair bit of the ‘festive’ or ‘jolly’ season going on recently.  Tuesday evening – am invited to a work function for a project which I’m not actually working on.  But – I go, and I have a few drinks – then leave relatively easy to walk the 5 minutes back to my apartment (have I mentioned how much I love my new location) to meet my new landlord.  He seems alright – except he’s a project manager.  And, unfortunately, I’m a bit prejudiced against project managers.  But – he reckons he used to do a bit of real work too, in fact – in my own field.  And his email address is a reference to a very very nerdy mathematical concept that I had to look up – so maybe he’s not all useless.  Anyway – we agreed that I was in fact useless, and that he would do all the decision making regarding replacing the venetian blinds – and then we parted ways.  Him – off to a presumably much large accommodation somewhere, and me back off to the work function – a brisk 5 minutes walk away.  I love central city livin’.  And then eventually the party kinda fizzled out, so I returned home again.  And thinking “I’m a little intoxicated – probably due to no food – but wonder if I will have to fit in an episode of some TV show, or even a short movie – to pass the time before I should go to sleep?”  And then realised that it wasn’t even 9pm.  I was really quite intoxicated, and home already – well before 9.  Not good.

And then it was Thursday – which had two functions.  First – a small one in the afternoon for all the people sitting in my proximity at my current client.  Just stayed there long enough for a few drinks – but even within those few, somehow managed to mix my drinks.  Not a good start.  But – did manage to avoid being forced to accept a ‘Secret Santa’ gift.  I used the premise that I’d let it go, in case they were short of gifts per people.   Sweet.  And that was all good – I left fairly early to walk past my place to see if any parcels had arrived today (having ordered a fair bit of stuff off the internet, in line with my new policy of trying to save for a big trip next year) – on the way to my 2nd function.  Because I can do that now – just go for a walk, past my place, and then onto the next function.  I love my location.

Anyway – next function was my actual company’s function.  And somehow I managed to get a little tipsy before we even left for dinner.  Also – managed to put my foot in my mouth good and proper.  It’s a long story – and I’m not sure I can really shorten it without losing some of the subtleties of the causes and possible ramifications of my conversation – but something like: a manager at my client had a discussion with about a job opening.  During this conversation, he intimated that he’d already asked my manager about the possibility of hiring me, but my manager said no chance – and of course it would be illegal for the client to hire me without agreement of my company.  So – I thought I’d clarify to my boss that I had had no part in this, and that when I’d had hints about this possibility a few months ago – I’d actually clearly stated that I wouldn’t be interested.  But – when I start telling my boss this, he claims to have never heard anything about such a proposition.  So now – I start explaining profusely that a) the client wasn’t actually trying to steal me, and had accepted that such a move couldn’t happen; and b) that I had honestly thought the client had already discussed this with my boss, and I wasn’t actually just telling him this in order to gain leverage with asking for more money.  All this, of course, while we had both already had a few drinks – so quite possibly my claims of innocence sounded too repeatedly insistent.  But – anyway, I guess all I’ve done now is create a situation where I can’t bring up the question of renumeration again for a while without looking like a mercenary bastard who actually did use the scenario for my own advantage – but on the other hand, when the renumeration question does come up again naturally, hopefully this does actually stand me in good stead.  Or something.  I don’t really know.

Oh – and I got a little off topic there – so, let’s go through the rest of my bad decisions that night.  So, I’m pretty much drunk before dinner.  Dinner comes out, I try to over-correct my earlier faux-pas by making a point of talking technical (read: talking nerd) to a techie guy held in high esteem by my boss, in front of my boss.  During this time, I’m mixing margaritas, wine, and probably whatever else was going (I think at least one mojito at some point).  And then Fred goes and buys a bottle of champagne.  Of course, I have one taste of it – against my better judgement – and then I’m off to the bar.  Where, for some reason, I decide to buy multiple bottles at once.  I don’t know if I was trying to cut down on trips to the bar, or what, but I arrived back to workmates carrying an ice bucket with 2 bottles of Veuve.  What – a – dick.  Also – I have a vague memory that at some point I pretty much cried on the shoulder of my team leader(?), confessing that I had had some personal stuff going on this year, and pretty much whinging about that for a while, without telling her what it actually was.  Idiot.  And then eventually escorted one of the ladies home – made sure she got home safe, and then suddenly realised that it was probably me that actually needed an escort home.  Because my mind’s logic went “I love my location! I can walk home from here!” – without ever actually bothering to figure out where I was.  And I just started walking.  And it was cold, and in the snow, and very slippery.  Finally I realised that I had absolutely no idea where I was, or where I was going – but I kept going.  And had the idea of calling somebody to ask for help.  So – I dug out my phone – and instead of starting up Google Maps on my phone, which would probably have been fairly helpful – I instead called Australia.  And had a very long conversation to Australia, on my workphone (which I have had hints about not being strictly ‘kosher’) – while stumbling through random streets.  And then a woman tried to befriend me.  This woman, once I’d convinced her that I wasn’t looking for anything other than my house – which I was most certainly going to enter alone  – was actually quite nice.  She led me for quite some time, until we found a main road – where I think she assisted in hailing a taxi for me.  And when, at some point, I mumbled into my phone something about “a midget black 50-year-old prostitute” – she wasn’t at all offended.  And when I asked her “Actually – where are we?”, to get her response – “Soho, dear.” – she merely smiled and nodded when I accidentally blurted out “So I guess that explains, well…. you… then, doesn’t it?”  So – I finally got home, and can’t remember if I have my midget friend any money for her assistance – but I hope so.

And then it was Friday.  And that’s when the problems really started.  Friday – it snowed some more, and was very very cold.  And I was still rather unsteady on my feet from the previous night.  And Dom had his leaving drinks.  I had a few wines, and I think I was in relatively good shape when I left the pub as early as 5pm.  But after the first couple of cartoon style “Whoa – there go my feet in the air, there I go landing straight on my arse, and that’s the back of my head hitting the concrete” – I was most certainly not thinking clearly.  And it was a vicious circle.  The more I hit my head, the less steady I was, and the more likely for it to happen again.  And it did happen again.  And again.  And again.  By the time I got home – I just had vague memories of wandering through central london, attempting back somersaults every 20 metres or so – and I think on at least one occasion, landing on my arse in the middle of the street, but somehow having enough awareness to immediately roll into the gutter to avoid being hit by a giant red bus.  I really was a mess.  I’m not sure what people must have thought – I probably looked like a circus clown doing tricks most of the time – and a completely drunken city wanker the rest of the time.  The truth, of course – being in the midst there somewhere.  I eventually reached home – and proceeded to make calls to Australia again.  Not realising, of course – that this evening it was very very early, and therefore the time difference was not being so generous to my drunken calls.  But – I managed to get Elise to agree to talk to me, only realising the next day that it must have been very very wee hours of the morning for her.  And midway through talking to her, I discovered a massive blood stain on my elbow.  I must have landed on my elbow during one of my spectacular fails – and cut it open pretty good.  A very large blood stain on my shirt had appeared, with blood actually dripping out of it.  Elise talked me through putting the shirt in the wash straightaway – which I’m thankful for, as that shirt came out the next day without any sign.  I also managed to fashion a rudimentary bandage for the elbow.

And then it was the weekend.  And I was mildly concussed, with a nonfunctional left arm.  But – managed to have a spot of yum cha in Chinatown, followed by a couple of hours at an open mic night at a blues bar – and then back to Chinatown for dinner.  And in the middle of all this – got a call from the nightclub I’d been at on Thursday night – they’d found my coat.  I hadn’t mentioned that previously, had I?  I left my very nice custom-made coat at the venue on Thursday.  So all my antics on Thursday & Friday nights had been without my normal additional layer of protection.

And Sunday – I did nothing.  Leading to today – when I made the decision to wear my brown boots to work.  My brown boots look utterly ridiculous with my suit – but they have tread.  And I’m willing to suffer looking ridiculous, to save one more crack to the head.  Even with sturdy treaded boots – I still had a few moments of panic on the way to work this morning when the feet slid a little.  There is no way I’m wearing my polished wood / leather soles on the snow ever again.

City-livin’

Kruse Leave a comment

Two gigs since the last update – within two days of each other.  First – The National.  Probably the gig I’d been most looking forward to – as they are definitely in my top 5 artists just now.  If you don’t know of them – definitely check out the albums Boxer & Alligator – as a start.  Absolutely brilliant albums from start to finish.  Anyway – the gig.  Justin had bought the tickets for this one.  And when we got there, we discovered he’d accidentally bought seated tickets in the Circle.  Oops.  But – I was fine with that – had actually considered buying a single seated ticket to one of their other gigs in order that I could sit back and enjoy.  And the gig – yeah, pretty good.  I think I rank it up there – but probably mostly because I just enjoy the music itself so much.  And – they did do one song completely unplugged acoustic-stylez – which was pretty sweet.  Oh – and they didn’t do my favourite song.  Which I was absolutely gutted about.  But – it highlighted the fact that they have so many excellent songs – they didn’t really need to play any filler – and still missed one of their best songs.  But – apparently they did play it the next night.  Bastards.  And the previous night, they had special guest Sufjan Stevens.  Us poor suckers on the 2nd night – nothing.  Except this, and this, and this.  I had actually forgotten, he did a stage-dive into the crowd.

And two nights later – it was the Arcade Fire – at the venue formerly known as the Millenium Dome.  But now named after a goddamn mobile phone company.  But despite the venue being pretty much a glorified shopping mall (I even got an email a week before, suggesting I turn up several hours early and do some shopping, have dinner, etc) – the gig was alright.  I’d accidentally bought 7 tickets – but managed to get 4 others to tag along, so wasn’t too out of pocket.  The venue was fairly large – but we managed to stake a spot fairly central, with a decent view.  Which made me furious when I noticed my eyes kept drifting from the perfectly visible stage up to the giant TV screens.  What is it about a shimmering screen that acts as a magnet to one’s eyes?  The new opiate of the masses.  Anyway – the Arcade Fire.  I’d heard very very good reports about their live acts.  And, although it might have been the booze, or the TV screens, or the large venue, or lethargy – but I was a little disappointed.  To be fair – it was a pretty good gig.  But – just not exceptional.  The only thing that stepped it up from a bog-standard gig was the drummers – who occasionally went absolutely bat-shit (that video clip is rather mild compared to some of their antics – at one point one drummer was holding a drum above his head while the other one just laid into it).  Anyway – here’s a clip of them doing No Cars Go, and Wake Up.

So – those were the gigs recently.  Last ones for the year, I’m pretty sure – and I might draw up a list of all gigs this year, in some kind of ranking order.  Because I like lists.

Other than rock’n’roll – these last 3 weeks have also consisted of watching little Malkie grow up a bit, and then moving house.  It was amazing – in the three weeks I spent squatting in Caro’n’Dom’s spare room, I reckon Malachy went from just lying there and waving his hands randomly – to semi-coordinated grabbing at stuff.  Did make me a fair bit wistful about all the stuff I’m missing with little Meiken back in NZ, and Shainee & Tylah.

So – I moved out.  And into my own place, in the city.  EC1 – central as.  Central as what?  Well – 5 minutes walk from St Paul’s Cathedral for starters.  So – if I finally manage to reconcile my issues with religion (which I would quite like to do, being the original opiate and all that – I just need a labotomy to remove my logic bit) – I’ve got quite an impressive church on my doorstep.  Also – a 15 minute walk to my current client site.  A 25 minute walk to my head office.   Which all adds up to… no more tube.  By all that’s good – that’s good.  Awesome.  I still get excited when I remember that I don’t have to catch the tube home after work.  I can just casually stroll through the masses of selfish pushing londoners who are trying to get underground as quickly as possible, through the hundreds of people barging their way past their fellow man to get into Liverpool Street station, and I’m home.  It’s actually not that bad – once I get past Liverpool Street Station, it’s relatively sensible.  And whenever I go for a wander, I still constantly see some shop or another, and think “sweet – I’ve got that just around the corner”.  As they say: “Location, location, location”.  I’m loving it.  Nearly worth my paying exactly double the amount of rent I used to.  The only problem is – I’ve got a choice of 6 gyms with squash courts to choose from.  And I’m no good at choices.  Which means I haven’t signed up to any of them yet.  If there had only been one – I would have signed up last Saturday, and I’d already be a buff gym-monkey.  But as it is, I am still an overweight wino with a hangover.

Anyway – if anybody wants or needs my new address – let me know.  If it’s to send me gifts to celebrate the birth of our lord, the baby jeebers christ – then let me know that too.  Because then I probably won’t give you an address.  Because I haven’t bought gifts for anybody – and I don’t want any gifts turning up making me feel bad.  I tried to buy some stuff yesterday – but the website went all broken, and I failed.  And then I hung my head, and haven’t rebuilt the courage to retry, or come up with new ideas.

One bad thing about my new place…  apparently I don’t get a phoneline, and therefore any of the internets, until mid-January.  So – I’ve got that excuse for lack of communication at the moment.  But I probably will risk the wrath of the finance department by making a few calls on the 25th – so if you want such a call, let me know where you’re likely to be on that day – yeah?

My own plans for doing something later this month consist of probably heading up to Edinburgh on the 22nd or 23rd – maybe spending the 25th volunteering at some kind of organisation doing dinner for folks – so I can act all self-righteous when people ask me “what did you do for Christmas?”  Oh – I’m looking forward to that.  I reckon being the schmarmy prick who says “Oh – not much, just worked at a soup kitchen for the needy” is probably going to be even better than the schmarmy self-satisfied “Oh – yeah, I’m a diver.  I go diving.” schtick.  Maybe – I guess I’ll find out soon enough.  Speaking of which – just bought my first piece of diving equipment.  Mostly so I can display it in a prominent place in my flat.  To prove that I’m a diver.  Because I’m a diver, you know?  (One has to play the part when living in Central London.  The part, of course, being a complete and utter douchebag.)

Oh – and by the way, I’m now ‘published’.  I realise that none of you will actually want to read what I’ve written – and if you do, you’re nuts.  It really is very very boring, and it turns out that the strategy that I’m proposing has actually already been done by lots of other people, and my idea isn’t particularly innovative at all.  Dumb.  Anyway – I’ve got a ‘whitepaper’ to my name.  So hopefully now google searches of my name will no longer predominantly return pictures of me in a gorilla/chicken/long-johns/kaftan/Evil-Knievel suit.  Speaking of which – does anybody have a decent photo of me which doesn’t fit into the category of costumed and/or drunk?  I’m struggling to find any such photo – and the marketing people would like a photo for my bio.  I’m thinking this one is the closest to appropriate.  Anyway – if you’re having trouble sleeping – you can take a look here.  And you can send me as much criticism as you like.  Pen has already gone over it with her editor’s eye, and found it lacking.  And I’ve got plenty of issues with it myself – all of which means I probably will end up writing another one, which will make the boss happy.

Down & Out in Turnpike Lane

Kruse Leave a comment

“Micheal Kruse is a riot as an homeless man who insinuates himself into the household of…”

Right – that’s a bit of an in-joke, but to anybody who has read the NZ Skywatch synopsis of the Nick Nolte/Bette Midler classic – yes, I’m homeless.  And I’ve managed to crash at a lovely generous couple’s place.  But no – I didn’t nearly drown in their pool.  And to those who haven’t seen Down & Out in Beverly Hills – don’t bother googling for the quote I’m referring to – it seems the only use of it on the internet, ever – was actually by myself.

Moving on… moved out of Balham on Saturday.  Which mostly served to remind us that another year of our life had passed.  And also made me officially homeless.  So – moved some stuff into a storage place, and then took the essential stuff with me to crash in the spare room at Caro’n’Dom’s place.  Which they kindly agreed to, despite my asking only 4 days prior.  Not much notice at all – and when I arrived, I discovered they were also midway through repainting their lounge – so they’d already lost one room, and I was about to lay claim to another.  So – very very generous of them.  Anyway – after I’d seperated all my stuff into “will need over the next 2 or 3 weeks” – and “won’t need until move into my own place” – I figured, the two sections should really be titled “stuff I need” – and “stuff I don’t need”.  And realised that I have once again started accumulating ‘Stuff’.  Which I shouldn’t do – it’s just dead weight.  I daydream about getting rid of all stuff – and going proper homeless for a while.  But am a coward, and like some of my Stuff.  So will just look forward to my next backpacking-type trip as a proxy.

So – moving out of Balham has been the main event of the last couple of weeks – but also managed to squeeze a couple of gigs in.  Shapeshifter, all the way from Aotearoa – played a great gig, with Tiki Taane fiddling the knobs and what-not.  Although Justin & I spent the whole gig glancing with contempt at the young kiwi kids which comprised the vast majority of the crowd.  How DARE they be so fresh-faced and naive?  Not like us hardened embittered London veterans.  Meanwhile, Bibby had lost us within 2 minutes of entering the venue – and I believe spent the entire gig right up the front dancing around with the young ‘uns.

And next on the agenda was the Black Keys.  I had bought 4 tickets for this – and 4 tickets were exactly what I had in my pocket when I arrived at Brixton Academy.  For some reason I’ve decided to not sell tickets to scalpers anymore – so I entered the venue with 4 tickets in my pocket.  And thought about taking up smoking again, just so I could leave the venue, have a cigarette, and then re-enter with another ticket.  Thumbing my nose at the “no-reentry” policy.  Really sticking it to The Man.  Full-on rebellion.  But – I didn’t.  Instead, I stood at the back, supping on my red wines – feeling rage at the age of the majority of the crowd.  These are only kids!  How do they even know of these guys, one of my favourite bands?  I then defended them in my head, by thinking that they are actually a fairly new band – and that maybe these kids had more right to be here than me – the old creeepy guy standing in the shadows at the back.  But… NO – the Black Keys have been around nearly 10 years!  These kids were still learning the primary colours when the Black Keys first came out.  How dare they stand in front of me, with their youthful good looks, smooth skin, full heads of hair?  Little shits.  And that argument, of course, won in the end – so I glowered at these kids from my shadow in the back – while the Black Keys put on a bloody good show.  Really really good in fact.  I can’t remember if I’m missing some gigs from my memory just now – but I would rate the Black Keys as maybe just below Grinderman as regards the best of this year’s gigs.  And I do mean “maybe”.  And “just”.  And all the rest of it, I guess.  But – good stage visuals.  Simple, but strong – hence super effective.  Good music – great sound and just enough impromptu to make a good live show without becoming meandering noise.  And – the best use of a disco ball I’ve ever seen.  To be fair – until then I’d considered every use of a disco ball as being terrible.  But this was good.  So – the best.  And – a backing band which only came out to play the stuff from the new album – so usually it was just the two of them on-stage.  And this reminded me – both these guys & the White Stripes are essentially 2-man bands – yet have made some of my favourite music of the last decade.  Hope more people follow the example – and use actually good writing, and simplicity – to create sweet sweet music.  Oh – and the Walkmen opened – and I was keen to see them too, so that was sweet.  A pretty stock standard rock gig – but can’t expect much more from a supporting slot.

That’s all for now.  Got a couple of gigs coming up – the National, and then the Arcade Fire – both occurring around the time I am hopefully moving into my new place.  So – another hectic few days coming up at some point.  And before then – I’ll be spending my evenings entertaining the small Caro-Dom offspring – Malachy.  I spent last night reading a book to him – but pointing out how the book was wrong about some things.  You should NOT touch the octopus.  You should NOT touch the tiger.  And I guess you can touch the helicopter – but not the top bit.  What are these books trying to do?  The octopus is a clever, tricksy, dangerous creature.  In a way – it’s like 8 snakes, with a giant brain attached, yeah?  Not cool.  And tigers – yeah, cute and all – but essentially a big cat with attitude.  And cats are generally moody little brats.  So yeah – touch a tiger, but if it bares it’s teeth, or looks annoyed in any other way – get out of there.  Or – follow my example, and just find yourself one or more tiger cubs.  Drugged and sleepy, if possible.  All in all – don’t anybody worry, I’ll be setting Malachy on the right path, regardless of what these irresponsible books suggest.

Egypt

Kruse Leave a comment

Went to Egypt a couple of weeks back.

And I realised I have become incredibly blase about travelling.  I have an international flight in the early afternoon – and I don’t start packing, or thinking about packing, or anything at all – until several hours before.  And when I got there, there was absolutely no sense of anticipation, trepidation, wonder, or anything.  The hawkers, taxi drivers, etc – became accepted and normal as soon as I stepped off the plane.  All of which made me think I definitely need to go somewhere completely different – and that is why I’m definitely going to North Korea next year.  In fact, I might book a trip this afternoon – to force me into it.  And by jeebers, I’ll be crossing fingers that the leadership changes hands while I’m there.

Anyway – Egypt.  Regardless of my suddenly realising I had a stupid blase attitude towards the general process of travelling – Egypt was still cool, and definitely worth a visit.  It’s got these big things made of rock – in a pyramid shape.  And statues and temples and tombs and what-not, all over the shop.  Plenty of them.  Oh – and I read a book which reckons it was the centre of the last human civilisation, set up by Noah.  Or something like that.

So – how did the whole trip happen…  Well, managed to pack a couple of backpacks with enough technology and clothing for such a trip – watched some ‘Arry Potter – and then headed off to Heathrow.  Ate some terrible, terrible airport food, bought some more technology – Ben bought 1.5W of portable speaker power, while I opted for a mammoth 5W.  My choice got mad propz from the store clerk.  Ben’s did not.  And then we got on the plane, where my personal entertainment system worked pretty well, allowing me to watch a selection of movies and television shows.  Ben’s did not.

We arrived in Cairo at about midnight, and accepted one of the first taxi drivers to offer his services.  This was the first point where I realised I’d been so blase about this trip that I hadn’t bothered to do any research whatsoever.  I had no idea of what was an exorbitant taxi fare, or if there were alternatives to taxis.  But – I earn the mighty British pound – which is 8 times the strength of the weak Egyptian pound – so let’s act like careless tourists!  We got to the hotel – a nice sanitary soulless Holiday Inn, booked with my loyalty points, for convenience for our first night.  Of course – I hadn’t actually booked it for this night, but the next.  But went to the counter, just to let them know we were there, and that could they please let us know at what time we could check-in for the following night (hoping against hope that they would let us effectively check-in a day early).  “Yes sir, we’re fully booked out currently – but as you’re a Platinum member (I’m a Platinum member, you see) – I’ll make sure that as soon as somebody checks out, we’ll make the room and let you know.  And – here’s a complimentary bottle of water each, and follow me to the bar, would you like a complimentary drink?”  Sometimes, I love being a “Platinum member” more than I realise that it makes me a dick.  Mostly just watching my friends’ faces as I’m being treated like some executive wanker.  Anyway – we accepted this free drink – and had our first taste of egyptian beer.  Not good.  Our first experience of Stella raised fears for the following two weeks.  But, I struggled through mine – and then we wondered what to do for the following 10 or so hours.  I came up with the bright idea of leaving our stuff, and heading to the pyramids to watch sunrise, seeing as we were up anyway.  That was a grand plan – so we proceeded to sit around waiting for an appropriate time to go do this.  And got more and more tired, and started to realise that age may have caught up with us.  It was no longer quite so easy to stay up all night.  And eventually, we found a couple of couches hidden away somewhere, and lay down for a quick short kip before we needed to head to the pyramids.  And then the time rolled around when we should really start moving.  And we did not.  And then it was about 9 or 10 am – and the hotel manager came and found us – and told us he had a room for us.  Sweet.  A bit of form filling, etc – and then we had a nice big room with 2 big beds – and we did some more sleeping.

And then, realising that we were completely useless, it was pretty much assured that nothing was going to happen that day – other than recuperating after only 1 day of our trip.  Yes – pathetic.  But – it turned out alright – we dithered about eating – eventually doing some of the internet research we should have really done before we left – and then had a swim and food at the hotel pool.  And organised a tour through the hotel for the next day – thereby removing any impetus for action or decisions from ourselves.  This proved to be a recurring theme for the rest of the trip.

So – the next day, we arose – I had breakfast in the executive lounge (yes – wanker) – and then checked out, and met Muhammed – our tour guide for the day.  The plan was to see the Cairo Museum, pyramids, sphinx, and then go to train station and head up to Alexandria.  A good plan – making the most of the day, after completely wasting the previous one.  And the plan was executed well.  We headed to the museum, where we saw lots of stuff.  Mummified crocodiles, mummified bulls, statues, boats, etc.  And then the one airconditioned room which held all of the stuff that Tutankhamen was wearing in his tomb.  And yeah – that guy liked to accesorise.  And his death mask – pretty sweet.  The museum is definitely worth visiting – just for that one room.  After the museum – it was decided that this would actually be the best time to head to the train station, and buy some tickets.  So – did that, and got my first look of Cairo train station (named Ramses) – currently under renovation.  I’m sure named after such a guy as Ramses, the station will be great when it’s finished – but at present, one walks over, under, and around construction materials and rubbish.  And later on, it was another time where I thought – “Why didn’t I find that strange?”    But – we got our tickets anyway.  And then drove out to the pyramids.  And driving on the ring road, was probably the first time we got a proper view of how vast Cairo is.  It’s just this big sprawling concrete mess – with ridiculously tall minarets popping up all over the place.  And then – I happened to look out through the windscreen to see the tops of the pyramids towering over a hill.  Sweet.  We bought all necessary tickets, including those to go inside the two larger pyramids – and entered the site.  And yeah, the pyramids are big.  My favourite fact about them used to be that the largest one, Khufu’s, was the tallest man-made structure in the world right up until the Eiffel Tower.  Built in around 2500 BC – and stayed the tallest right up until only 120 years ago.  The architect’s gotta be pretty happy with that.  Correction – that was my favourite pyramid fact.  Until I read Pyramid, by Tom Martin.  Which taught me that they were actually built by the previous iteration of human civilisation – possibly by Noah? – and that they are actually part of a giant power plant, which harnesses the power of Earth’s rotation.  All powered by the Benben stone.  Fact.

So yeah – they’re big.  But not particularly roomy.  We went inside the two larger ones – Khufu’s & Khafre’s – and there wasn’t really much interior design going on.  The tunnel to get to the main living (appropriate term?) area in each was rather narrow and low – making the constant 2-way traffic rather difficult.  And then one reaches the end – and you figure out this huge pile of rock is actually a studio/bedsit.  With no kitchen or bathroom – presumably communal facilities outside.  But – lovely high ceiling, and well insulated.  To test out how much room there really was – and whether one could have a party there – I performed the standard test.  A woop-woop-woop.  Successful.  And then I tried out the bed.  A single, and not particularly comfy.  Still – <insert joke about sleeping like the dead, or some-such>.  Ha!  Anyway – altogether, rather claustrophobic – and very hot when dressed up nice with suit and tie.  So – we exited, did a spot of break-dancing, and went for a nice relaxing camel ride.  The ships of the desert, but with no onboard bar.  Our camel man forced us into several hackneyed poses in front of the pyramids, making it look like we’re picking them up, or some such.  Why?  Why do people do that?

Anyway – off to the sphinx.  Not as big as I expected – but still, bigger than anything I own.  Yes – even the ego.  So – we took some clever trick photographs – looking like I was giving it a hongi.  Why?  Why do people do that?  And then – off to lunch.  ‘Authentic egyptian food’, apparently – with our guide and driver.  And yep – pretty good.  My soup was better than Ben’s – but they were all pretty good.  And after lunch – we headed back to the train station, feeling sorry for our guide who had constantly been helpful and chatty, but visibly confused by these two tourists who seemed to find absolutely nothing interesting.  We both did feel rather guilty.  We were interested.  And I loved the pyramids.  I’m just too lazy to show any reaction.  Sorry.  So, I think he was quite relieved to be rid of us.  And we were at the under-construction train station.  We took the oppurtunity of having plenty of free time to buy tickets for the sleeper train from Cairo->Aswan in about a week’s time – having drawn up an itinerary for ourselves by this point.  And were lucky that there was a cabin available – as most people book these a month in advance.

And then we were in Alexandria.  With a little sleazy kid that had befriended me on the train (not reciprocal) – by talking about the bunces, and how a russian prostitute told him he was good in bed.  (From the context of the conversation monologue – a ‘bunce’ is a girl of loose morals.  A girl you could find at a bar, and dance with – perhaps more – but not a prostitute.  I think.)  Anyway – this chap followed us, constantly talking – trying to make me promise that we would meet him the next day, and have lunch at his place – maybe go to a party with some bunces afterwards.  Seemed rather upset that I wouldn’t promise, and kept mumbling “maybe”.  “But you can trust me Kruse!  You trust me don’t you?  I trust you Kruse.  You’ll call me tomorrow yes, and we have lunch at my place – then maybe a party, or go to your hotel room and drink champagne?  I trust you Kruse.”  I didn’t betray his trust.  In that I never made the promise.  But eventually he gave us directions for the street we needed to walk down – and he headed off, fully expecting that he would be hosting us for lunch the next day.  I hope he didn’t brag too much to his bunces about his whitey friends coming around.  Anyway – his directions were good.  Unfortunately, we were not so good at understanding/following them – and we spent quite some time walking in the wrong direction – lost in Alexandria at about 11pm.  But eventually asked for help, and had a posse of guys trying to understand where we wanted to go.  Once again – got good directions, followed them for a while, then nearly got lost again – when a car came screeching up, and some of the chaps who had been giving us directions turned up to put us back on track.  And we got to our hotel.  Checked in, got the 2nd to last room – 5 minutes before a group of 3 turned up.  But the owner asked them if they were American.  They were.  And then suddenly the owner remembered that the other room had been booked out by internet booking.  Brilliant.  And even more brilliant – a booze store on the very corner of our street.  Having been nearly 24 hours since the last alcohol – we bought up some beers, deciding to try some brands other than Stella – and sat on the seafront having a few quiet bevvies and deciding that we liked Alexandria.

Alexandria was indeed good.  The next day, we walked back to the train station – in a straight line this time.  A 15 minute walk, rather than the 1.5 hours we’d taken the previous night.  Bought some train tickets for the next day back to Cairo – and then headed off to see tourist stuff.  Wandered through some alleys and what-not, as I remembered reading this was a very poor and dirty part of town.  But – all good, and we found Pompey’s Pillar.  Had a look at that (good pillar by the way), and then wandered off to find the Catacombs of Kom es-Shouqafa.  Which are only about 2 blocks away.  But, we got lost – and walked back and forth several times, attaching a similarly lost american girl to our group, then down some very small dusty alleys – before a local chap told his son to lead us there.  And it turned out to be exactly where I thought it was.  Honestly.  So – the catacombs.  Pretty sweet, I guess.  Not to the same extent as those in Lima – but not bad.  Bribed a guard to show us into a different tomb which wasn’t open to the public – but not really worth it.  The main catacombs were definitely the best, although the bottom level is flooded.

And then – we decided to walk back into town, to maybe get some food, and head to the library.  After a few blocks though, the american seemed to get a little edgy, and said goodbye, while hopping onto a tram.  Not sure why.  Anyway – we kept wandering down random streets and alleys, assuming we would at some point hit the coast, which we could then follow along to wherever we wanted to go.  Except, we eventually figured out that – exactly like the previous night – there was a 90 degree difference between the direction we thought we were heading, and we were actually heading.  But – walking’s good for you.  And we eventually found the corniche – and did indeed follow this along.  Stopped for a beer – and then headed onto the library.  Alexandria used to have a rather large library, you see – until Julius Caesar accidentally burnt it down.  A version of events I find highly unlikely.  I suspect that Julius was actually frustrated that the library didn’t have a copy of the Millenium trilogy by Stieg Larsson translated into roman for his Apple Tablet – and in a fit of pique burnt it down with his Zippo brand lighter.  But – it burnt down one way or the other – and Alexandria has decided, finally, to have another go at having a library.  And they seem to have not lost the knack.  Quite a nice library, although we just checked it out from the outside.  But lots of crazy zany architecture, little quirks such as sundials – which are a lot more complicated than I ever suspected; and a swimming pool – which is guarded, unfortunately.

And eventually – it was evening.  And starving.  So – started wandering around town again – looking for food.  We did rather well at not finding any – until a delicious smell found us.  We followed this into a small, very local-type restaurant – and ordered whatever they had.  And eventually it arrived.  One very large plate of liver each.  I’m not sure you’ve ever seen two more downcast people than Ben & I realising we’d just ordered a huge plate of liver each.  Not cool.  I ate one piece – and then rearranged the rest to look like I’d eaten a decent chunk.  I think Ben managed two pieces, and rearranged his plate also.  Then we left, before anybody could offer a doggy-bag.

The next morning – we left Alexandria.  Train back down to Cairo – a taxi to the airport, and checked in for a flight to Sharm el Sheikh.  Being whitey, we were automatically upgraded, and given tickets to the executive lounge.  Arrived in Sharm a little while later, and haggled a van to take us up to Dahab.  Our driver seemed to be drunk and/or stoned – but drove us up there quickly, while singing along to the radio.  And then bragged that it was a 1.5 hour trip, but we’d just done it in under 40 minutes.  He also took us to a hostel, which we didn’t want him to do – looking for a kickback.  Fortunately, the place he took us to was actually really good, and we took it.  We also booked a diving course through the hostel – mostly so that we wouldn’t have to think or decide on what/when to do each day.  We then went for dinner – and ordered a selection of seafood.  Which came out presented on a massive tinfoil sailing ship structure.  With candles in tomatoes and onions, and all manner of madness.  Beer was the only thing that allowed us to comprehend what we were seeing.

And then we spent the next three days learning to be divers, and battling our way through the restaurant hawkers each night when looking for dinner.  During, and after, the first day of diving – I really didn’t think I would make it through.  But by about halfway through the next day, I was fooling around 15 metres under the water – making jokes, and accidentally spitting out my precious oxygen by laughing – but not even dying.  And at the end of it, I was amazed and confused my the fact that I actually enjoy it.  And might do some more – now that I am a certified open water scuba diver.  I’m positive that any of you who have ever seen me around water would not have expected that, yeah?  I sure as hell didn’t.

After our last day, we proceeded to get our instructor really rather drunk.  Along with a few of the other instructors and general other hangers-on around the hostel.  And felt a little sad that we had to leave the next day.  When we first turned up, the hostel manager obviously thought we were a waste of time.  Turning up one afternoon, booking a diving course – not having enough cash for anything – getting drunk while watching the instructional video, sleeping in, etc, etc.  And as we left, I think he hadn’t changed his mind that much – except he won’t underestimate our ability to get stuff done, despite being ridiculous layabouts, again.  And our ability to pay – I think he was genuinely surprised when halfway through our drinking binge, I actually managed to present enough cash to cover everything.

And the next day, managed to get up fairly early.  Had breakfast, juices, smoothies, milkshakes, etc – and then hired some snorkel kit – to go out for some poor-man’s-diving, and finally make the most of my waterproof camera.  Took some nice boring photos of fishies, coral, etc – and generally just spent a couple of hours swimming about – before packing our stuff, and heading back to Sharm airport.  Once again – whitey automatically gets upgraded, and entry to the executive lounge (which actually consists of a voucher for a cup of coffee at the cafe).  And eventually, back on a plane to Cairo.  Get to Cairo – find a taxi driver, head to the train station – and then get on our sleeper train.  Very different to the sleeper trains in China – this was our own little cabin, with two bunk beds which fold away.  Very Agatha Christie, and nice enough – until I went exploring, and discovered that the restaurant/bar/lounge car did not sell booze.

Over the last couple of days, we had also been corresponding with Petra from Aswan Individual – which is “not a travel agency” – but a “network, founded by a tourist”.  Pretty much – a group of tourist type services, which Petra has met over the years – and created a network with a website to help people do stuff.  Quite a good idea – especially for two guys who will go to extraordinary lengths to avoid making decisions or organising things.  So – we’d given Petra a rough idea of what we wanted to do, and left everything else up to her friends.  And they came through.  We were met right outside our train carriage by Waleed – who then took us straight to a hotel.  Checked into that – and then Waleed took us to introduce us to Mustafa.  Mustafa took us on a little boat ride (not a felucca as we’d expected – but we were too tired to really care) – and then for a walk around Elephantine island.  His mother had also cooked us a meal – which was very very good.  The soup seemed to be Fish-Fins(Newtown) salt-lemon-pepper flavour, somehow.  If you’ve never had Fish Fins from Newtown – trust me, this is delicious.  And then came the mistake.  Trying to force Ben into something new, I insisted that he deal with giving some money to Mustafa’s mother.  This went terribly wrong.  We thought we were giving a tip – so Ben tried slipping her 40 pounds.  In fact, we needed to pay for the meal – and the “normal price” was apparently 50 pounds each.  So – some embarassment there.  And sure enough, our little trip was suddenly cut short – and Mustafa delivered us back to Waleed.  And we discovered that we also needed to pay Mustafa, but didn’t have enough money.  Embarassment again, but we borrowed some cash of Waleed, and all good.  We were now due to go see some little dam, and maybe a temple – but we’d been falling asleep throughout the boat trip – and it was generally agreed that we just go back to the hotel and rest.  So – spent the afternoon resting, a couple of wanders around Aswan – and then I had a cheeky half at the Black Horse, before picking up some takeaways on the way home.  Just like a proper London geezer, innit?

And then it was midnight.  Which was the start of the next day.  So – we got up – and went downstairs, where Waleed was once again waiting.  I don’t know if that little guy sleeps, or what – but he was always the same little smooth Teflon guy at all hours.  We had ourselves a car and driver – in order to join the military convoy out to Abu Simbel.  Slept most of the way, instead of singing Convoy – which will probably remain one of my biggest regrets.  But – we got to Abu Simbel in the wee hours of the morning, along with thousands of other people.  For today was one of only two days in the year when the sunrise would shine right inside the Great Temple and illuminate the sculptures on the back wall.  Ramses’ birthday, in fact.  So – there were a lot of people – most of whom had organised this more than one day previously.  After getting our tickets, and not joining in the considerable niggle which was occurring in the ‘queues’ – we quickly made our way to the actual temples, hoping to not miss the actual moment.  But – there were already a thousand or so people there – in what may or may not have been a queue.  We joined this, but nothing was happening – so walked around taking photos instead.  And some of the photos we took necessitated us joining the small group of people who seemed to be milling around the entrance.  Which, in hindsight, may have actually been the start of the queue.  In any case – soon the sun rose, and the people started filing into the temple.  The officials there were hustling everybody through – as the ‘solar phenomenon’ would not be in effect for very long.  We got caught up in this group of people at the front of the queue – and obediently filed through the temple.  And as we left – we saw a television set-up outside to display the event for people outside.  The sun had already moved on, such that only about one half of one statue was illuminated any more.  I reckon the full effect was only present for about 10 minutes – and that we were 2 of about 100 people who had actually seen it.  So – approximately an hour after we had been vehemently cursing “queue-jumpers”, we had effectively become queue-jumpers ourselves, and reaped full benefits.  So… children – don’t jump queues.  But – regardless of the occasion, and the dancers and festivities and whatever – the temple itself would have been worth visiting any day of the year.  In other words – you don’t need to wait for Ramses’ birthday to go visit him.  And how many chances do you get to be part of a military convoy?  Speaking of which – the said convoy then reformed – and we sped our way back to Aswan, without being attacked by any fighter jets or anything (Ben had a dream on the way down that the convoy was attacked by fighter jets.  It turns out that my dreams are premonitions.  Ben’s are not.)  Back in Aswan, Waleed once again met us, and took us to our boat.  Waleed had organised a cruise up the Nile to Luxor for us – and had apparently managed a last-minute cabin on one of the “finest cruise ships on the Nile”.  Not really sure how much of this to believe – we arrived.  And, yeah – it was actually a mighty fine ship.  And looking it up afterwards – was indeed a 5-star boat – and we had a cabin on the top deck, which is usually the most expensive.  And we were paying a fraction of what everybody else on the boat was.  Ha – suckers.  So – we enjoyed a buffet lunch, and then I went for another wander around Aswan.  I had ripped my only pair of trousers at the pyramid when breakdancing – so needed something to wear to dinner.  My first foray was unsuccessful – instead buying a nice white dress and some books.  But – I went back for Ben, and we went for another walk – including a cheeky half at the Horse.  And then – we discovered a bazaar.  And there, I was able to replace my suit – while also buying matching shirts for myself & Ben.  And with that, we were able to return to the boat, via buying some beer&wine under-the-counter from a convenience store, and dress appropriately for dinner, where we were in fact remarked upon by a fellow passenger.

Suddenly, a relatively relaxed day.  Slept in, so missed the first stop – but did go ashore to see the temple at Edfu.  While all the other passengers filed off and onto a bus, we were left alone to go haggle ourselves a horse and carriage.  And off to the temple we went.  And a very fine temple it was.  Big.  I spent a fair bit of time just walking around some of the rooms running my hands over the hieroglyphics.  Not sure if I was allowed to do that.  But – there’s a helluva lot of them.  Ben & I had started thinking at this point that maybe the Egyptians were a little crazy.  In the head.  Rode our horse-and-carriage back to the boat – in time for a quick swim before lunch.  And in the evening – nicely dressed for dinner once more (showing up everybody else on the boat, to be honest) – and then I tried the local wine.  Not as good as their temples and stuff.

So now we were in Luxor.  Checked out of the boat – but left our stuff there.  Went to look at the Temple of Luxor – where one old man whispered at us tonelessly “How are you.” – followed later by another, or perhaps the same, elderly gentleman pointing at me, curling one arm up in a bicep-showing muscle-man gesture – and stating “Ramses”.  All of which had us rather confused – on top of the ridiculous number of shinxes which apparently line the old road between two temples – for several kilometres.  And then we went to the Temple of Karnak.  And then I was totally and absolutely convinced that the Nile was tainted with some kind of drugs several thousands of years ago.  There is just no need to buld this stuff.  No need.  Maybe the pyramids and Edfu I can understand.  Or Karnak & Abu Simbel.  But – the whole lot?  Who builds this stuff?  Stark.  Raving.  Mad.  So – once we got sick of this last proof of insanity – we headed back into the middle of town.  And had some beer.  But didn’t order food, because of the loud cockney woman.  Instead, went to next restaurant – Sindbad.  A pub crawl was in the making – but an elderly chap somehow managed to talk us into a romantic evening on a felucca, watching the sunset.  With some beers.  Back on land – things became very hazy very quickly.  There was an objective-less meandering which turned into a mission to find an Irish pub – because that’s what you do in foreign countries; there was talking in irish accents while pushing through crowds of whitey – thereby creating false impressions of other nationalities; then a wandering back to Sindbad; and then ordering food, but asking for it to wait until we went back to the boat to pick up our stuff; and then managing to pick our stuff up from the boat, and somehow refraining from one last swim for old time’s sake; then I think there was a return to Sindbad, with some eating, some drinking, some taking and giving of offense, and some howling at the moon.  And then there was a taxi to the airport – which we had somehow pre-organised.  And at the airport we checked in.  But drunken whitey doesn’t get upgrades.

Soon, or not so soon, one can’t be sure – somehow we were back in Cairo – but it was midnight, and our flight was at 7am.  So we finished the trip in the same style we started it – absolutely exhausted, sneaking a nap in inappropriate places – in this case, the small cafe in the airport.  The very same airport, I must add, which constantly wins the Worst Airport on the website sleepinginairports.com

Then we were back in London.  I can also add that during this trip – we each read the entire Millenium trilogy by Stieg Larsson.  The Girl Who Played With Fire – and that lot.  If you haven’t read it yet – you probably should.  Only so that you understand one or more in-jokes in the above narrative which I typed out on my HP Compaq desktop.  Not because it’s any good.  Because it’s not.  As alluded to previously, I also read Pyramid by Tom Martin.  Tom Martin lives in Oxford.  And I also read C by Tom McCarthy.  C is nominated for the Man Booker prize.  The others are not.  And finally, I read some short stories by Naguib Mahfouz.  He wrote much better stories than the two Tom’s or Stieg.

That was my holiday in Egypt.

‘Tis, apparently, the season to be jolly

Kruse Leave a comment

Okay – it’s now October, a month which is represented in numerals as double-digits.  However – September was still a single-digit month.  And it was in September that I first noticed some disturbing signs.  Chook came home, claiming to have seen evidence of decorative lights being installed on streetside telegraph poles.  But – there was the possibility that these were for some local festival.  And then I go to our local supermarket – where they have on sale… jeebersmas puddings and advent calendars.  Okay – I have long been sick of the backlash against the backlash against the backlash against…. etc etc … against jeebersmas.  And the whole “they start putting up decorations earlier every year” – and all that.  But – I honestly believe I have never seen advent calendars for sale in bloody September before.  And that’s all I’ve got say on that subject – hopefully until next August.

So – it seems that once again I’ve neglected to “tell the world about the trivia in [my life]” for over a month, which should keep Geoff Boycott happy at least.  But for anybody who likes to pretend to be interested – it seems that when I last babbled, it was immediately prior to several events.

Firstly – dinner with Lyn Ward & beau at The Ivy, followed by Oliver.  Both of which were pretty good.  Food at The Ivy was pretty much what you’d expect – no more, no less.  Fairly good food, fairly expensive prices, fairly attentive staff.  So – a fairly pleasant experience overall.  And then Oliver.  It was my first show, despite having been in London for quite a while now – and I wasn’t disappointed.  I didn’t really know what to expect – but the singing, acting, dancing etc – pretty good.  But the set(s) – that was amazing.  I was impressed – and I very rarely admit to being impressed.  As soon as the underground set was somehow presented to us – wow.  Anyway – was rather tired by the end of the evening – and left Lyn & John with not much of a farewell, realising later that I probably wouldn’t see them again until I next visited NZ.

But I needed my sleep – as the next night was Secret Cinema.  A kind of immersive cinema experience.  Except that sounds remarkably wanky.  So – best way to describe it – is to describe my personal experience, I guess.  I knew the whole concept is to go somewhere and watch a movie – but you don’t know what the movie is beforehand.  We had been told only that we should arrive at Alexandra Palace dressed as bedouin, or arab, tribesmen.  Tribes-people.  So – we did.  And on the walk from the train station to the actual Palace complex – we passed camels, donkeys, soldiers hiding in the undergrowth, dancing girls, etc – and a general theme of tribesmen coming together for a war or some such.  At this point, I think all doubt that the movie would be the obvious choice – Lawrence of Arabia – had disappeared.  Then – we entered Ally Pally itself – and the initial foyers were set-up with desks, pool tables, etc – with dozens of people dressed in colonial english army uniforms – hustling about pretending to be busy.  I got pulled aside by somebody claiming to document the “new arrivals” – and had my photo taken.  And then some other ‘english officer’ turned his nose up at us, and loudly said that he was off to the officers mess, as there would be “better company”.  etc etc.  All quite well done.  Then – entered the first hall – which was more of the bedouin side of things – live music with belly dancers (some complete with snakes – why why why?) – backgammon boards, cushions, etc.  There was also a sideroom which had walls painted as the desert horizon, the floor had been covered with sand, and had a guy riding a camel around in it.  And eventually – we entered the main hall, where there was a little show put on of Lawrence arriving and speaking to the four tribal leaders – and then we watched the movie – lying down on cushions we’d liberated from the previous hall.  And a long, long time later – managed to catch the last train back into London.  Definitely keen for more Secret Cinema events, I think.  Here is the official footage of the one we went to – but there are plenty of others there too.

I think the next event after Secret Cinema was Modest Mouse – with a pair of Osbornes.  That was pretty good too.  Excellent live show, in fact.  I think some expectations had been lowered after Wu Tang – but with Modest Mouse, considering the music can be quite “noisy” even when produced and tweaked for an album – the live show was extraordinarily audible, or understandable, or something.  Where’s my vocabulary gone?  What’s the equivalent of ‘legible’ for audio?  Audibly legible?  Anyway – I could undertand lyrics, recognise songs – and both the light show and band’s theatrics were manically understated, fitting the music perfectly.  If that makes any sense.  If it does make sense to you – I suspect you might be crazy.

And then there was King Kapisi.  That was also rather good.  A very small venue – but a very energetic and chatty Kapisi.  Good, no-nonsense Aotearoa Hop-Hip show – followed by somehow being in the bar after closing time – and Kapisi walking into the toilet and having a urinal-chat with me.  Which somehow continued until we left the urinal – and I was standing uncomfortably in the middle of a near-deserted bar, while Kapisi gave me life advice.  Chris, as we dispensed with his royal title early on, did get me to admit that “I run that shit”.  He forced me to give myself big ups.  And eventually – I managed to sneak away, leaving the King Kaps to move on and spread his goodwill and cheer onto the next person needing an ego-boost.  Unfortunately, I squandered my newfound self-confidence extremely quickly – spending the next 24 hours tearing down all that nasty self-respect, and turning up at work on Monday in a sorry sorry state.

Which lasted all week – until Ben returned from Europe – and, quite accidentally, Friday night turned into a repeat of the previous Saturday.  But – I hade to pull myself together on Saturday – for Saturday night I went to Grinderman.  Which – I didn’t really know what to expect.  Partly because I was still so dopey from the previous night.  But – Nick Cave woke me the hell up.  Without a doubt, the best gig I’ve been to this year.  Read my comments on the Modest Mouse show above, but remove the ‘understated’.  The music, the band, the light set-up – all absolutely manic.  Pure, raw energy – with Nick Cave running around the stage, leaning into the crowd – and generally terrifying the poor guys who had to make sure that everything on stage was where it is supposed to be.  Because after Nick Cave ran through – nothing was where it used to be.  Every minute, somebody would be crawling out onto stage, to untangle the mic cord from where it had somehow been wound theree times around an amp; or retrieving a mic stand from where it had been thrown – or putting the keyboard back on it’s stand.  Absolute madness.  And once again, somehow ended up being in the midst of the after-party – which had warm beer.  Terrible terrible warm beer in plastic bottles.  But – hung around for a short time – and Jess got a hug from Nick , before I shook his hand and congratulated him on a fine performance.  And then bolted for the door before he could sneer at me, which I’m sure is what would have been next.  I can’t imagine Nick Cave convincing me that I actually run that shit.

And that’s been the last month.  Coming up – not much.  Probably heading to Egypt next week – so may be another month before I write.  But – I expect that anybody still reading this only check it monthly now anyway.

Oh – and I’m writing a technical whitepaper to be published soon.  Maybe I’ll post a copy of that up here too.  Just to prove that I can write something even more boring, if I put my mind to it.  I need some ideas for a title by the way.  It’s kind of about using Oracle RAC to accomplish server consolidation – rather than the usual de facto method of virtualisation.  Ideas?

BAU

Kruse Leave a comment

So – it’s been over a month since I last purged the minutae of my life onto this page.  There must be lots to catch up on, right?

Well – all I can think of is that I’ve started trying to see more live music.  But – August was a terrible month to begin – and the only things I managed to see were: Don McGlashan (small venue, but perfect really); The Herbaliser (didn’t know what to expect – but really good show, and amazing venue); The Black Seeds (yet again – but always good, had a few drinks with Barnaby before the show again – so can claim to be one of those “I’m-with-the-band” dicks); and the Wu-Tang Clan (terrible show – but had to do it).  Actually, once I started listing those out – there were more than it feels like.  Some of those must have been in July, and maybe even before the previous post – as I’m sure I haven’t seen anything for weeks.

But – I’m thinking the next update I write will probably consist of a series of reviews.  For I’ve got lined up:

  • Tonight – dinner at The Ivy, followed by Oliver – with Lynette Ward & Her Man
  • Tomorrow – Secret Cinema (look it up on YouTube – the clues I’ve got thus far are that we have to dress as Bedouin – and something about rebellion/uprising.  I’m thinking Dune?) – with Justin, Marty, & the cool kids
  • 8th – Modest Mouse – with Ben, and hopefully 2 others – otherwise I am once again selling tickets at a huge loss to dirty scalpers
  • And then there’s nothing booked until October – and actually, looking at my spreadsheet (yes – I have a spreadsheet) of upcoming gigs, not much interesting happening until October.  What is it with August/September & live music?  Too many festivals – preventing real gigs?

Anyway – that’s all that’s been happening.  Possibility of some travelling soon, but also possibility of work being very demanding, and taking itself far too seriously for my own good.  Publishing “whitepapers” and what-not – including research at a data centre in Farncombe, a much longer commute than normal.  The timing of everything at the moment is terrible.  One project I’ve got on my plate, they keep giving me false-starts – so I cancel any plans making plans of travelling to cater for it, then it gets postponed at the last moment.  Not cool.  And another one which may start at any time – and I definitely want to be available for the start, as it’s a project I want to do.  And yeah, now this whole writing a whitepaper thing – which is rather a priority for the company, and which may mean any request for a week or two off might be prioritised fairly low.  But – we’ll see how we go.