life

it was very wet this morning. i became invincible and unafraid of anything by taking my glasses off and walking to work unable to see clearly. it was a bit weird to begin with, but i soon got to enjoy the freedom.
unfortunately, i did step in a lot of puddles and got splashed by lots of passing cars as i did spot these usual obstacles in advance.
here is the first thing you see when you leave paddington station on a wet morning. the whole of london glows red because of the steak house neon. there’s probably some metaphor for blood and meat there but that would be too clever for me.

i don’t watch TV or movies much. but occassionally i will. i’m probably way behind the times on this, but Little Britain on BBC3 is extremely excellent. it’s also about to be shown on BBC2 on Monday nights for those in the UK.

(photo from BBC website)
last night jane and i hired Being John Malkovich. it only took us 4 years to get round to watching it, but it is completely fantastic, particularly the first quarter when it’s completely random.
as for music, esther discovered she likes the Beta Band today and i rediscovered the Brian Eno’s Nervenet album.
we watched a documentary on Robert Wyatt last night and that was fantastic too.
yeah for music, tv and films.

i started the day with a trip to the emergency doctors to get some more antibiotics and eardrops for my canal infection. i prefer infections in my ear to where i used to get them, but there can hardly have been a clear two months in the last three or four years when i haven’t been on antibiotics. i’m nuclear kid.
i collected my prescription then popped in to Waitrose to get a paper. whilst i was in there i thought i’d check out their offers on beer as i’d drunk all my honey dew the night before to wash down my pain killers.

i got talking with a chap at the beer counter who only drank Newcastle Brown Ale. this bloke was definately a biker type so i talked to him for a while then made my excuses.
i said “good bye, hope you have a good day” but he said nothing. as i turned the corner i heard him shout after me “be careful mate”. did he mean this along the same lines as “take care” or did know something i didn’t ? needless to say i took the utmost caution for the rest of the day
(paul daniels lives by and the lovely debbie magee (his wife) is often spotted in this same waitrose. she wasn’t there today though)

oh dear. all new top of the pops is as bad i expected it to be. new does definately not equal good in this case. i am gutted. the website is a bit better though
and i’ve got another ear infection. boo !

update: so what was so wrong with it in my opinion ? well, there was too much messing about, chatting with the stars and general pointless smiling. and all the bands on the program were of the manufactured variety. the only nod towards good music was a short clip of The Darkness on tour in America.
it used to be the case that TOTP would bring you a variety of bands playing back to back with a mix of pop/rap/indie/rock/whatever else so you never knew what was going to pop up next and it made it exciting. for me at least it seemed to have sold out.
i guess the fantastic Later has taken on the role of the muso’s music show in the UK so they can afford to aim the main TOTP show at the teeny market. seems a shame though.
Interesting the second half of the new TOTP on BBC3 (digital) was much better but i think this was because it had better bands on.
i’ll give it a few more weeks and see what happens.

here is a luxury old fashioned toilet we saw in a museum.

we went to some friends house for a meal today which was excellent. esther and kezia went under the dinner table to worry their dog, fudge. i had a lovely photo lined up with kez, esther and fudge. it would have been great. then they all moved. as animals/kids do.

the conversation proved too much for one fellow diner:

and our the host resorted to showing the kids how to do lego properly:

today i plan to log my consumption. i’ll update this entry throughout the day.
breakfast 6.15am:

* multifruit juice
* gerbil museuli (peanuts, sunflower seeds and some other nuts i don’t know the name of)
* Calcium and Chromium supplements
* Mug hot water
sugar rush 8.30am:

* bottle Ribena
* Big Mars Bar
Drink

* another hot water
Leaving do lunch (13:30):



4oz(actually) Ostrich and Cranberry burger, fat chips (‘fries’ to the international audience), 2 off 1664 beers, cookie and ice cream cake and a mug of hot water (too hot to drink)
Conference Call Mint (15:30):

Commuter Beer (17:30):

Both of these half pints were free as a result of the Government’s ‘Beer for Commutters’ scheme. (actually it was a London Pride beer promotion which had something to do with Rugby).
Arrive home (19:15) snack

mmmm – crisps (‘chips’ to the international audience)
Evening Meal at Heather and Clive’s



Tomato soup, fizzy lemon drink, chicken, sausage, stuffing, runners (fresh from the supermarket, not the garden), carrots, crumble and custard, hot water, mini mars bar and fancy ‘big eye’ truffle. All cooked by Heather and tasted mighty fine.
Final supplements

Multifruit juice, garlic, copper, eradicin forte, fish oil and bedside water
I really didn’t expect today to go like it foodwise. i don’t usually eat at a restaurant during the day and we don’t usually get invited out to be fed so fantastically. I also don’t usually drink much alcohol – the leaving do during the day and free commutter beer were special events today.
but then everyday is different, so perhaps i don’t have a typical dietous day. how interesting (or not)

ah. just seen concorde fly over my house. last day tomorrow. probably won’t see it as will be at work, so was nice to say goodbye. i was too slow to get my camera – it moves quite fast you know (concorde, not my camera)
here was an earlier spotting of it.

another non event happening day working from home. my home office is loads less interesting than the streets of london. the lack of people and gloves make sure of that.
i did hear one comedy thing this morning. Esther proclaimed loudly “it’s eaten one of my chap’s Bible’s” (her ‘chaps’ being her favourit beany toys).
“what has ?” I asked
“the house” she answered.
scared ? i should be.

hoorah. back home. but now to bed. more stockholm remnants to be posted tomorrow ….

it turns out the hotel i’m staying in has recently recruited a complaints manager as they are having so many people complain about the state of the hotel at the moment ! hehe. my letter has been emailed …

they’ve even started wripping plaster off outside my room !

there is a fantastic outside museum thing in stockholm. i wasn’t convinced it would be any good, but thought i should go there this afternoon (so i did).
it has lots of authentic old swedish dwellings, and is one of those fancy living museums where people demonstrate what they actually did.
it also has some animals in. here is some people being filmed watching the bears. i suspect the film crew were hired by the bears so the people could see how the bears felt being watched all day. it seemed to have back-fired as the people weren’t bothered.

here is one of the bears (and a fox)

and here is me outside an authentic dwelling.

Go to skansen if you are in stockholm. it’s excellent and really cheap !

here is a nice swedish phone box for your enjoyment

carpet doesn’t fit leaving little carpet nails sticking up:

smell of sewage in bathroom comes from here:

chipped sharp bit of tile in the bathroom:

hotel under wraps


a welcoming entrance

i came to stockholm 5 or 6 years ago. at that time i was collecting pictures of doors. what a strange chap i was back then. here is a door:

stockholm has lots of great doors. they are very big on doors. big on big impressive portals.

pretty street in stockholm old town. taken with a cold, but steady hand

i won’t go in to details of my toilet experiences on the plane, but here is a sign i saw. not a clue what it means

here is a cardboard box in heathrow airport marked “fire safety equipment”. I guess they hope the cardboard will burn first and let the fire fighting equipment loose. it’s a cunning plan …