London and Shitty Estate Agents
It was no thanks to the idiot(s) at the estate agents, but we finally got into our new flat yesterday. And, following Sal’s spur of the moment decision to hire a large transit van yesterday, it’s now full of stuff too.
“This is a staff announcement: Would Santa Claus please return to his grotto. Santa Claus to his grotto please…” (overheard in Southport dept. store)
Merry Christmas all…
Rejecting once again the living hell that is the West Coast Main line on a Friday evening, I chose to return home to Southport for Christmas by plane, just like I did last year. Rather predictably, it took me longer to get from work to Heathrow than it did to get from Heathrow to Manchester, but that wasn’t my favourite example of the ludicrousness of modern cheap air travel: On arriving at the airport, I paid almost £5 for a packet of sandwiches and a small bottle of water, and it occurred to me later on, as I was accepting the free sandwich and beer on the plane, that, at airport prices, I’d almost recouped the cost of my £11 plane ticket in food alone.
The only other aspect of my journey home worth a mention is the fact that the crew on that particular flight might just have been the campest flight crew I’ve ever been attended to by. Then again, maybe that’s just what happens when you spent the previous evening watching the Christmas special of the utterly fabulous Queer Eye for the Straight Guy.
Moving, just keep moving…
This lunchtime, after much queueing and some rigmarole in the bank, we finally obtained the necessary funds in the appropriate form (your handy choice, from the estate Agent that likes to say “no, you can’t write us a cheque”, of either a wad of used fivers or an IOU scrawled in Eddie George’s blood), and signed up for our fab new flat in London’s-trendy-Islington ((c) the daily mail). We move in a week on Monday, and I can’t wait. Mainly it’s for the much reduced commute, but I also expect that, living somewhere like that, I will be practically falling over celebrities every time I go out of the house. Frankly, if I’m not best mates with Dido by the end of the month I’ll be asking for my money back.
Middle-aged Telegraph Reader
I’m a worried man. Yesterday, I returned home to find two items of junk mail waiting for me. Now normally I would just put this stuff in the bin and think no more of it, but I was disturbed by the type of people who have started writing to me. One letter was from The Daily Telegraph, who wanted to tell me about their latest wine offer. I don’t think I’d read their nasty right-wing rag if you paid me, much less buy wine off them, but worse awaited me in the second item of mail, which thanked me for my interest in over-50s holiday specialists SAGA, and offered me a questionaire to complete so they could send me the brochure that best fits my needs.
How did this happen? What box did I tick (and on what form) to indicate that I was some kind of right-wing 50 year old? How could the junk mail industry get their targeted demographic so wrong–have I been buying the wrong sort of things on my reward card? Has the big computer in Ken’s living room that tracks your Oystercard travel been registering some activity of mine that betrays my advancing years? Have I been buying the wrong sort of stuff off Amazon? (If you liked this, you might also like… over 50s holidays!)
I need to know.
When I mentioned this to my dad, he said something along the lines of “oh well, only 24 years to go”. Somehow that didn’t make me feel any better.
It’s got nothing to do with your Vorsprung durch technic, you know
Shrugging off the nasty cold that’s been bugging me ever since returning home, but which thankfully seems to be on its way now, I headed over to the Brixton Academy last night to see Blur for the second time this year. On the whole they were very good, choosing to play more of a greatest hits-y set than they did when we saw them at the Astoria back in March. Obviously there was still no Graham, so no Coffee and TV, but they did play a whole pile of stuff off Parklife (like Bad Head, This Is A Low, To The End, Girls and Boys), along with the likes of Tender, For Tomorrow, She’s So High and The Universal. All of which made the few songs they did play from Think Tank (as well as Trimm Trabb–why?) sound a bit average. But, the highlight for me would have to be the appearance of Phil Daniels during the encore for both Me, White Noise (the hidden track off Think Tank), and, fantastically, Parklife. Wonderful.
…Vulture Street, which was named after the street in Brisbane where the album was cut…
BBQs attended 4, BBQs assembled 1, beautiful sunsets 2, hot air balloon trips 1, rainy days 1, sunny days at least 15, loops of Qantas radio channel 7 on which I heard the same 3 Powderfinger/Alex Lloyd songs at least 10, thousand miles flown over 20, photographs taken 181, bottles of champagne 3, bottles of wine too many to remember, longneck bottles of VB far too many, weddings 1, kangaroos lots, quiet country towns 2, dramatic coastal roads 1, games of tennis 1, posh hotels 2
Ah well, back to reality then I suppose. Roll on Christmas…
