Wherever next?

I'm moving house soon. But I don't know where! There's a nice place in Streatham (I didn't believe it at first, but I'm assured there is), and I'm looking on Friday. I'll keep you posted. There'll be a housewarming, but it's tiny, so it'll probably just be me. Photos will be available online of me drinking myself into a coma, on my own.

Ok, since Alec asked so nicely, I'll try

I'm currently staying with Ben and Emma, two good friends of mine. Ben I know from school, we were in a horrendous rock band together, which was, in fairness, an excuse for drinking and partying. Emma is Ben's fiancee, and one of the nicest people you're likely to meet. Both are enthusiastic rugby enthusiasts (I love tautology) and fanatical rock fans (ditto). We were watching Sky, channel 454 - Kerrang. Ben said to Emma 'I'm so pleased you like rugby and rock!'

When we went on the swamp tour, we took the bus back to the French Quarter, and Braunwin said 'We should get drunk tonight'. And we did, and we watched some excellent jazz (it may not have been excellent, as we were drunk), and had a great time.

I'm so pleased Braunwin likes drinking and jazz.

Today Brixton, tomorrow the world, the following day, um...

It's official - loungewalrus.co.uk has conquered the world! I've had hits from every continent, with the stats showing activity in the UK and Finland (oddly), Australia, Singapore (thanks Michelle), Brazil (thanks Mel), the US and Canada (including, frighteningly, a hit from the US Military) and Mauritius, spuriously linking the site to Africa. I'll be more satisfied when someone on the mainland reads my site, but I'm just pleased to have covered all the contintents (though I bet you've all managed this ages ago). If anyone happens to be kicking around on Antartica, I'd be very grateful if they'd look me up!

Beware of the gator

And the swamp tour! How could I forget the swamp tour... We were herded into a boat and driven round one of Louisiana's most famous swamps. We even saw a gator! It was around 3ft long, and generally tiny, and can be seen in this photo, next to an emormous rat (a Nutria, apparently). There was a tree there, I forget what sort, but their roots grow out of the water again, and look like stalagmites, and they hollow out and generally look spooky. Apparently this particular tree was the one that they dumped Tom Cruise's body by, in Interview with the Vampire, and also an old trading post for Moonshine (so called because the night was when they moved it around).

Then they gave me a turkey neck to eat. It looked distinctly like a proverbial appendage on a horse, but considering the alternative was hot dogs, I went with the meat that looked like horse cock but wasn't, rather than the opposite.

My mother, on the other hand, wasn't a tailor...

... and Asda sewed my new blue jeans, to my shame. And we didn't find the house of the rising sun, but we did find Lil Dizzy's Cafe on the corner of North Robertson and Esplanade Avenue. It's a great place for breakfast, a fantastic place for lunch, and the best place in New Orleans for Sunday Brunch. And the owner was so helpful, he even drove us to the local church when we asked where one was! It had only been open three weeks, but we went a total of four times during a week in the city.

On one occasion, a lady asked after my HSBC satchel, saying 'High School Baptist Church?' to which I replied 'No, it's a bank, Hong Kong Singapore Banking Corporation' (is that right?). 'She turned to her friend and said 'HE says it's some Hong Kong Singapore or something.' Glad I was spreading the word...

No such thing as a free pudding...

On the Sunday night, we arrived just before the doors closed at the Alexandria, on Rochester's Main St. We were welcomed, given some wine (which I passed as ok, but which was terribly corked: but the waitress looked terribly upset anyway, and I didn't want to cause a fuss) and some pitta, and ordered what was essentially an enormous glorified kebab. And it was delicious. Then we stayed for coffee, and during coffee, the nice lady brought us a free dessert! That was delicious too. All in all, an excellent meal, and almost made up for the occasion, which was my last meal with Braunwin until she comes to London.

It was a vast improvement on the previous meal, which was at a Hard Rock Cafe in the town of Niagara Falls. Not awful, per se, but generic. Good nachos though.

Paying for one seat, getting .75

I haven't told any interesting stories about my holiday yet. I'm going to rely on jogging of memory from Braunwin a little, but the first one happened after I had left, so Braunwin wasn't there. I arrived at check-in and noticed I had the option of changing my seat. So I did, to one that had an empty seat next to it (at the time of changing...). I was quite pleased when I arrived on the plane and discovered the seat was still empty. I sat down for about 10m,the seat was still empty. Then, after a small child had made a welcome announcement - "Welcome to jetblue. We're glad to have you. (mutter in the background) Thankyou for flying JetBoo" - the largest man I have ever seen lumbered down the aircraft. I feared the worst. I was right to do so. I spent the rest of the flight with my left arm on my right side, looking out of the window, in an attempt to suggest that I didn't mind being pressed against the side of the plane. I was on the verge of asking him for $20 for the proportion of my seat that he had used, but in the long run, I felt the damage to the image of my country that would cause was probably worth more than the damage I'd save to my wallet. Or possibly the damage I'd cause to my face....

All gone to look for America

I found it, it's about 3300 off the coast of Ireland. It's got some pretty interesting stuff on it too - I took photos of some of the best bits. See this page for details. It's not good to be back per se, but it's a relief to have found that everything is still working here at work.

Next trip in August perhaps?

PS: Incidentally, I've linked to this page for people to let me know what they think of the photos. If the comments below, should any appear, make no sense, that's probably why

Won't you come along with me.....

... I love that Basin St Blues song.

A while ago I sent a description of my typical working day to Braunwin, and, as I won't be having a typical working day for a week or two now, I thought I'd share it, so next time I'm here I can smile and think about all the things I'm missing. I've edited it a little though, especially the stuff directly between 9 and 6.

I'll be in the US until 16th. Watch this space if you find that even remotely interesting.

---

7am - wake up, pretend I don't have to get up for 30m.
7.30am - stop kidding myself and get the hell out of bed
7.40am - leave house
7.49am - catch the 7.47 to Highbury & Islington, and change for Kings Cross
8.16am - depart Kings Cross, cursing the name of Thameslink for their platform antics and general inability to run a train service.
8.40am - e-mail, stick some token post on blogger
9am - take off coat so it looks to the other people in my office like I'm working

(I have deleted the bit about work, as it may be taken seriously, which would result in me being fired.)

6pm - leave on the last toll of 6, catch train at 18.17 (usually about 5m late, curse you Thameslink!) then take the Victoria line back to Highbury & Islington, and walk home from there in a vague nod to the notion of exercise.
7pm - get home, cook food or wait for food to be cooked, settle in front of TV with large glass of something or other. Usually red something or other.
9pm - notice I'm tired, but realise that going to bed will mean I'll miss the end of a fascinating documentary on Marmots, or possibly an episode of Friends.
10pm - Switch on Playstation, play until 11pm
11pm - think "oh, well I've got 8 hours, I'll be fine
1am - finally get to sleep
3.20am - wake up for no reason
6.30am - finally give up the attempt to get a decent nights sleep