Second Thoughts
Posted: Thu 21 April, 2016 Filed under: 1BEM, Charity, Cynicism, Domestic, Five Year Plan (now Ten), London, Stupidity 1 Comment »As I wrote a while back, I’ve signed up to the NSPCC’s “Climb the Gherkin” challenge in about eight weeks’ time. It involves walking (or, if you’re a lunatic, running) up the 38 flights of stairs inside the Gherkin in London to get to the top.
It’s fair to say, I’m having some doubts and second thoughts about the wisdom of it. It’s a lot of steps…
I’ve looked it up – because I’m an idiot – and now know that it’s over 1,000 steps to the top, and that’s making it all a bit real. There’s a lot of me to lift up that many steps, and really not many places where you can get to train or prepare for something like that.
I’ll still go, and I’m sure I’ll complete the challenge. It’s just that it might destroy me along the way…
London Weekend – Faustus and stuff
Posted: Sun 17 April, 2016 Filed under: 2015/16, Domestic, London, Reviews(ish), Travel Leave a comment »This weekend was another London trip, although spread over two days rather than one, which made life a bit less chaotic than usual.
The primary reason was to see Faustus at the Duke of York’s Theatre. A friend of mine had got tickets, and as part of my 2016 mission to see more stuff and so on, I went too. I know the basic idea of the story of Faust, although I’ve never read it, so had that as a basic idea of the play, but no idea of what else to expect.
As it turned out, it’s a very good production – if also very strange. I liked a lot of it – but admittedly started off thinking “This is garbage”, although I did reassess that quite rapidly. It’s got a whole lot of interesting ideas and propositions within it, so it’s an interesting production.
Other than that, the usual large-scale wandering around London, reconnecting bits of geography I hadn’t seen in a while, and generally doing a fair bit of walking, as well as everything else. As it was a weekend away, I decided to stay in a (far more expensive than usual) hotel in the area, which I’d eaten in before, but not stayed in.
All told, a thoroughly decent weekend, and much enjoyed. I should try this culture thing more often…
Foggy Roads
Posted: Wed 13 April, 2016 Filed under: Domestic, Driving, Fog Leave a comment »After the gig on Monday, the drive home was one of the nastiest I’ve had in a long time – all the roads were covered in super-thick fog, which made the entire endeavour a lot tougher and slower than it would usually be. Thankfully, it was all a route I know really well – without that, I think it would’ve been even slower and I wouldn’t have known where the hell I was at any point.
The fog was so thick, in general I could only see about three cats-eyes ahead of me, so the concentration was ridiculous the entire way.
The other plus was that the roads were a lot quieter than they could have been – although the great majority of the people who were out were desperately bad at driving in fog, which really wasn’t ideal.
Still, it all passed peacefully and without any extra nastiness, so that’s got to be a bonus. It could have been so much worse along the way…
Fish, Aylesbury Waterside
Posted: Tue 12 April, 2016 Filed under: Day Trips, Domestic, Gigs, Reviews(ish), Thoughts, Travel 1 Comment »Last night, once I’d finished work I drove over to Aylesbury for a gig. Fish, the ex-lead-singer from Marillion was back in their home-town, and performing one of their classic albums, Misplaced Childhood, in its entirety for the last time, on a tour called “Farewell to Childhood”, because it’s the 30th anniversary of it being released.
I’ve liked Marillion – well, I liked the Fish-era Marillion – since their start, so seeing this gig was always going to be a good one. It’s just a pity it had to be in Aylesbury. Understandable, but a pity all the same.
First of all, I’d forgotten just what a benightedly scabrous shithole Aylesbury is. By the time I got there (just before 6pm) it was pretty much all closed. It’s always been a boil on the arse of Civilisation, and never seems to improve, no matter what the planners, developers and town-centre managers do to it. It’s an unremitting dollop of shite.
I truly don’t know what kind of sins you’d have to have committed in previous lives in order to deserve living in Aylesbury, but they must be truly epic ones.
Anyway, the Waterside Theatre itself is really nice. I’d not been before, but it really impressed me, and is back on the list of places to see stuff. Again, it would be even better if it weren’t in Aylesbury, but there we go.
The gig was thoroughly enjoyable – my brain refused to store who the support act were, which is a disappointment, as I’d like to make sure I don’t see them again by accident. But once Fish and his band came to the stage, it was all good. They started with playing a number of tracks from Fish’s solo career (which, admittedly, I’m less familiar with – but I’ll be rectifying that) before playing the whole Misplaced Childhood album, and finally closing with a couple of other crowd favourites.
I really enjoyed it – Misplaced Childhood isn’t my favourite Marillion album by a long chalk, but it was still a good gig.
All told, a good evening – despite the location…
Mysterious Delivery
Posted: Thu 7 April, 2016 Filed under: Domestic, Weirdness Leave a comment »On Monday, I came home to a mysterious delivery from Amazon.
It turned out to be a DVD box set for a British TV series I’ve never heard of (from the year before I was born) – but only the episodes that still remain, so all of Series 1, and about half of Series 2 and 3.
There was no note, no delivery, nothing.
So I’ve no idea who ordered it and got it sent to me, or why. I’ve mentioned it on Twitter and Facebook, with no responses, and so it’s all just a bit weird.
Going Back
Posted: Wed 6 April, 2016 Filed under: Day Trips, Domestic, Driving, Looking Back, Thoughts, Travel Leave a comment »When I went back to Reading over the weekend, I also took the opportunity to stop off in Bracknell.
There was a vague kind of logic/sense here, in that I expected Reading itself to be solid, through having road closures etc. going on for the half-marathon itself, plus usual Sunday shoppers and so on, so it made more sense to get to somewhere else, and then train into Reading. I knew Wokingham station’s car-park is a bit of a cluster-chuff at the moment, so I went for Bracknell instead. And as things turned out, that worked really well.
Of all the places I’ve lived, Bracknell was probably the one I liked least. (I just tried writing ‘the most least-liked’, but that’s a phrase to make eyeballs bleed) I’m not a great fan of most of the area – I don’t mind Wokingham and Windsor, but the rest I could happily never really visit again. So it was also a chance to see if Bracknell had improved at all, or if I still disliked it.
First things first, there’s a whole new roundabout and housing estate on the approach to Bracknell, which was quite a surprise. I’d thought I knew where I was going – and I kind of did – but that did come up as a bit of a shock. (Even more so, as it also didn’t come up on the SatNav) I can’t imagine the driven commute between Bracknell and Wokingham/Reading was any fun at all while all that was going on.
Other than that, there’s a lot of regeneration work going on in the centre of Bracknell, which I didn’t get the chance to have a proper look at. It wasn’t that high in my priority list – mainly because I’m still pretty sure nothing short of flattening it and starting again will do anything positive for the place.
Obviously I didn’t get to see all of Bracknell, but then, nor did I massively want to. The bits I saw were more than enough to convince me it’s still a scabrous shitpit, and definitely somewhere I’d never want to go back to for anything more than a couple of hours. In that context, it’s fine – much more than that kind of timescale, though, and it just becomes some kind of self-inflicted torture…
Negative Company
Posted: Tue 5 April, 2016 Filed under: Charm School, Day Trips, Domestic, People, Stupidity, Travel Leave a comment »On Sunday, I travelled down to Reading, lending immoral support to a friend who was running the Reading Half Marathon. (and did bloody well!) It was her first time running it, and I was at the end of the last hill of the run, on one of the main junctions. As it was, I got to stand next to a couple who were the most unremittingly negative people I’ve listened to since my grandparents were around. *Everything* was bad. (I bet they read the Daily Mail. And agree with it)
Highlights were :…
“Well, I won’t be pleased for her if she’s running it this slowly” and “These people in fancy dress are just detracting from the seriousness of the race” Yes, they seriously said that – and with no sense of humour whatsoever.
However, my absolute favourite was her saying to him “What’s the next time marker?” and he responded “The last one was 1hr 55, so the next will be 1hr 60” (or two hours, as it’s known to most sane people) and said in all seriousness, not a stupid comment like I’d do. Pompous bellend.
The finale was when other people appeared and stood in their oh-so-precious sightline, to which he tutted loudly, and complained (loudly) about how some people were so selfish, it was outrageous, just turning up and standing in front of others. (Bear in mind that they could’ve moved forwards too, due to there being loads of room. But no, that would’ve been far too understanding)
I think my “muttered” comment of “Well, you could always fuck off” may* (*bloody well was) have been heard, as they tutted and sodded off quite soon afterwards.