Ooh, it's gonna take a montage, MONTAGE!

Happy New Year!

Here it is, finally, at long last, the eagerly anticipated and long overdue update to my blog. In fact, it's been well over a month since the last posting, so please accept my apologies if you've been here more than once hoping for some fresh meat but instead leaving unsatified. This one's for you.

As a tribute to the excellent Team America World Police I saw a couple of weeks ago at the UGC Shaftsbury Avenue cinema, I'm going to try to sum up my recent goings-on in a pseudo montage style. Ok, strictly it isn't a real montage by definition but humour me, please.

Friday 17th December 2004
Got invited along to a friend of a friend's birthday, starting at the rather lame Long Island Ice Tea Bar, and moving onto the "interesting" club NYT. It felt like there should be much more attitude than there was, but despite the fact there was only a handful of us there it was actually alright. Fairly pricey, lots of youngsters about, most notably a young version of Bill from Bill and Ted who was mastering the ultimate pout along with the girl he was dancing with, clamped together.

The morning after I had a call out of the blue from a friend who just happened to be in London. Like most of my friends, Mike was convinced I lived in London, which I don't, but I do tend to spend a lot of my weekends there staying with friends. So we met up with Jon, also from my home town, and caught up with our goings-on over lunch before talking a tediously long wander around Oxford Street and eventually through Covent Garden - not my idea of fun on a Saturday near Christmas with my bag-o-stuff to carry around.

After a well deserved pint at the trusty Maple Leaf, we said our goodbyes and I headed off to Borough to help set things up for Dave and Suz's Xmas Party. It was relatively pointless that we spent quite some time cleaning the flat, re-arranging the loung furntiture, tastefully placing some tea lights, putting on a fabulous spread of food and getting some quality music sorted. Ultimately the night was to get very messy indeed. As the guests started arriving we got straight into a drinking game involving playing cards and far too much alcohol for that early in the evening. It was to set the pace for things to come.

By the time everyone had arrived the ice was well and truely broken. It didn't take long for someone to work out that there was an equal number of lads and lasses, and so began the Battle of the Sexes - first Kerplunk, then Charades, and finally Twister were all played head-to-head with increasingly competitive and rowdy participants. Explaining what comprised the majority of the evening in a single sentence does not really do the occasion justice, but to be honest it was all pretty hazy.

Eventually people started leaving. For the hardcore remainder came an initiation into the game of Zoom Schwartz Profigliano, and a brief but destructive tangerine fight.

Sunday 19th December. The morning after the night before. After a cursory attempt to hoover up the multitude of snack remnants from the floor (without even thinking of how to counter the sticky residue of the recent tangerine fallout) we decided that a Sunday lunch at the nearby Roe Buck would sort us all out. And it did, helped further by the excellent guitar/singer duo's repartoir, including a jazz version of Jingle Bells. Nice.

I returned to work after a fantastic weekend, knowing that I only had two days left before my holiday began, and only 9 hours until the project's Christmas party. We started with several drinks at Tiger Tiger's Tiger Bar before taking a stroll over to Quaglino's. The food and environment were both excellent, but the fact that as we left I realised that I'd missed my last train home was a bit of a problem to say the least. Good job I know someone in London who doesn't mind being woken up at half past midnight to a phonecall from me begging for somewhere to stay...

I flew up to Scotland from Heathrow to Glasgow airport, and took the opportunity to make a start on The Zombie Survival Guide, an early Christmas present given to me by someone who had seen how enthusiastically I'd talked about zombie films on a previous occasion. Apparently she just had to get it for me. I travelled on Wednesday 22nd, giving me plenty of time to do all my shopping in it's entirity just before Christmas, as is tradition. My favourite purchase was a FLAP clock from Habitat for my cousin's amazing new flat, although I think the poker set was most appreciated.

If you're like me, and think the game Cluedo is a complete waste of time and utter pap, then at least give Cluedo: Passport to Murder a go if it'll keep your hosts happy. It's actually bearable to play, although doesn't look anywhere near as fun as Advanced Cluedo Crusade.

I finally managed to see my cousin Marsha play along with local Callander band Full Steam Ahead, fiddlin' and a singin'. Very good it was too. They played a good and varied set, but my favourite had to be their rendition of Dueling Banjos. With no banjos. Genius.

Having previously been introduced to threadless.com, it was now time for me to visit some of Andrew's other favourite t-shirt shops. CAKE was full of cool stuff, not least the bottle of beer that was readily offered to me by the friendly man there just after I entered the shop. It made it easier to buy 2 rather expensive but very cool t-shirts. Next up was Twisted Generation which despite the prior warnings I was still amused at the tiny selection on display. Still, I came away with a bargin sale item, so a successul outing overall.

To thank Peita and Andrew for their hospitality, I took them to Salsa for some rather excellent Mexican food. And we took photos of ourselves jumping over puddles.

I returned to work on Wednesday 5th January 2005 to find out that my project was coming to an end. It came as a bit of a surprise but at least it meant that I wouldn't have to commute to Reading every day. Also, we received some belated Christmas presents from the management for our work over the months before: a bottle of Laurent-Perrier champagne, and an HMV voucher (quickly spent on a David Bowie CD and Waynes World DVD box set.)

The three-day work week was soon over, and on Friday 7th I had been invited round for a small gather in Mortlake. Although I couldn't understand the hosts' obsession with Moomins, I nodded approval at their appreciation of Led Zeppelin and Steely Dan.

For whatever reason, I'd decided to stop shaving over Christmas, and by now my facial hair had gone past the designer stubble stage and had developed into a full on beard. It was never my intention to keep it, but after several favourable comments (mainly from females I shamefully admit) I decided it might be worth keeping it. That wasn't to say I wanted to look like a member of ZZ Top, so I needed to keep things under control. That's where the annual Boots gift voucher from Gran came in. Buying a beard trimmer isn't as easy as you'd think; there's quite a range of different products to choose from with the usual advertising crap to confuse the hell out of you. But, after some deliberation I became the proud owner of a Philishave TurboVac.

I went to see House of Flying Daggers which was great fun, not least the gratuitous bean flicking scene. Now I need to see Hero. And Crouching Tiger... again. Is it wrong to like watching Chinese people beat the crap out of each other?

I saw an advert for "Pizza WOP". You can't blame me for thinking at first it was a blatent racial slur before I realised it stood for Wood Oven Pizza. ah. (See the end of this Guardian article.)

The following week I attended the 40th IEE Appleton Lecture and Dinner and a YMB meeting the following day.

Liverpool played Man United on Saturday 15th, so that was an excuse to meet up with Rich, Paul and Ben at the Red Lion in Soho. On my way I got my first ever proposition from a prostitute and actually in the pub was sure I spoke to a pimp, although we debated that he may have just been a serious jazz man.

After the match we wandered off trying to decide what to do, and agreed on a trip to Tate Britain via the Apple store - it is to Internet Cafés what WHSmith is to libraries, full of tourists checking their e-mail accounts and kids blasting rock music out of the iPod demo units.

We took the tube to Pimlico and used our man-powers of direction to find the poorly signposted art gallery. As nice as it was to wander around, and it was certainly something different to do than my usual Saturdays, I didn't really think that much of what I saw. The exceptions were La Mitrailleuse by Christopher Richard Wynne Nevinson, and a Bed made of bread, by Antony Gormley (of Angel of the North fame).

It was funny to hear about Rich getting told off for taking photos. We tried to work out if the café area was also copyrighted... Here's one of Ben and I, beard and all.

The following week I took my Uncle out for a belated birthday meal at his (and now probably my) favourite Japanese restaurant, Ikkyu. I hadn't seen him for a while, so it was great to chat and catch up, drinking some very more-ish Plum wine, keeping one eye on that dodgy Steven Segal film The Glimmer Man, and taking it in turns to play a few riffs on the Telecaster.

I had no idea that the next morning I'd be taking the boat to work from Greenland Pier to London Bridge. It was so cool! And it certainly beat the rush and crush of the underground.

Friday once again. A perfect excuse to meet up with friends I hadn't seen for ages (Dave, Rich, Craig, Caroline, and Graham), forget to have dinner, drink Stella, then go for a curry after last orders.

So that brings me up to last Saturday, 22nd January. A 12" Meatball Subway helped with the hangover, and then I got stuck into the long overdue task of decorating my bedroom which took the best part of the rest of the weekend. And now it looks cool.

phew.

Posted by Jim at January 29, 2005 05:29 PM