The last week and a half

So then Braunwin arrived at Gatwick on Tuesday, and I had been up since 5am, and she arrived at 7.40am or thereabouts. And it was all very emotional, though we managed to make a few backhanded remarks by the time we reached the car, so it was nice to know little had changed! We went home and watched An Everlasting Piece, and on Wednesday we went to the Science Museum, and we watched The Big Lebowski in the evening. And we went ice skating in Streatham, and had a picnic on Tooting Common and dinner with Ben and Emma on Thursday, and on Friday we got up early to go to Stonehenge. In the afternoon we went to a garden party, and then we drove to Lincolnshire. We spent Saturday wandering round the village, went to church in Bourne and joined my granny and aunt for a cup of coffee afterwards. We went to Grantham's Blue Pig for a drink in the evening. We sailed on Sunday, and went to my uncle's 40th that evening, and spent Monday doing very little indeed. Tuesday was spent in Alton Towers and I'm at work now.

This is just a list of things that have happened so I don't forget. I'll try to write something a bit more entertaining tomorrow.

London show fails to impress barman - 11.7.05

From http://www.sigur-ros.co.uk/tourdiary/

the photos and video clips are on their way. in the meantime, here's a nugget from a conversation we overheard between two barman at somerset house last night:

"sigur ros? more like sigur toss. it sounded like a car alarm."

Apologies

I think I might have underestimated the severity of the situation. I had a series of ver yminor explosions, killing two and injuring a couple of hundred, mostly minor injuries. As it turns out it looks closer to 50 people dead and maybe eight hundred injuries.

It's not a world changing event (except, of course, for the people who lost relatives and friends with no warning) but it's still a demonstration of how fragile the comfort in which we live can be.

It's the end of the world as we know it...

...and I feel fine. As usual the situation, which has tragically killed a handful of people and injured around 200, has been blown out of all proportion. This is an attack on innocent people in the heart of the city where they live and work, and it's very sad, but the reaction seems to have been pretty extreme. My condolences to those people who lost people, or who know people who lost people. I don't mean to trivialise the issue, I'm merely annoyed at a media who want every scandal to end in -gate, every terrorism story to end in 9/11 and every potential conflict to be hailed as 'World War 3'. And the tube will be running again by tomorrow morning at the latest.

I guess it's always the end of the world we know and the start of something new - thus is the nature of time. I guess that goes hand in hand with Michael Stipe's usual pseudoscience, such as his recent insistence that he is vibrating at the speed of light. He is, but we all are.

Urbandictionary.com doesn't like me

Sob....

To continue a sickening list of people who are nice to me

Dad just came down from Lincolnshire with my brother's car. We were trying to fix the car over the weekend, and we broke it, so it was just fixed today. Works fine now. I'm still quite astounded that he'd drive 100 miles to drop off a car for me - I was planning to meet him in Peterborough or something. It was an opportunity to briefly show him the place where I work, though I think I rushed it a bit. Sorry about that, Dad.

The car itself is courtesy of my brother, which is also very kind. Thanks, Luke.

A week is a long time in notpolitics

Braunwin arrives in a week. I'm not sure if it's seemly for boys to blog about this sort of thing, but 4 months is far, far too long to be away from someone you love. Though if it weren't for my warm-hearted employers (who read this occasionally, thus the crawly nature of the last clause) I wouldn't see her more than twice a year, and that would be no fun.

The tricky bit is figuring out what we're going to do for three weeks. Not because London doesn't have three weeks worth of entertainment, but because we've already been invited to a wedding, a garden party and a surprise birthday party, and I intend to drag her out to the Ealing Jazz Festival as much as possible, and we want to see museums, music things, and sit by the river and in the parks, and all sorts of other things. And go to Alton Towers. And when I start to think about when we're going to do it all, three weeks doesn't seem nearly long enough.

Live8 - a major traffic inconvenience

I arrived home last night and my father asked if Hyde Park was on Regent's Street. It is. Tonight, at 7pm, Dad leaves for a shop on Regents St, and will arrive just in time to meet the crowds leaving the concert. I'll let you know how he says it goes.

In the meantime, we've already seen McCartney, U2, Dido, Youssou N'Dour, Coldplay, Richard Ashcroft, the Stereophonics, REM, and now Kofi Annan says "This is really the United Nations. The whole world has come together for the poor, on behalf of the poor and the week, I say thankyou." Nice to hear. July 8th will show whether it makes a bit of difference for those 8 guys it's in aid of. And it'll still make for poor traffic conditions either way.

"I'm just Miss Dynamight-y-eee". When are the Floyd on?!

You fell over! You fell over!

I did indeed...



Here's me covered in mud after watching a pretty entertaining set from Hot Hot Heat. Walking out of the swamp that the Other Stage had become, I lost my footing one way, and my other foot was completely unable to recover. I fell. Thankfully nothing important was in the line of fire - my face took most of the impact. The only real casualties were my pride and a Panama hat I had purchased in Tesco the week before.

The people I sprayed with mud as I flailed in a fruitless attempt to right myself took it very well. I guess by that stage everyone was resigned to the fact they were going to be covered in it by the end of the weekend. Not as resigned, however, as this man.



Pictures courtesy of www.paulcroft.me.uk.