All Or Nothing

Just found this on youtube. I’d forgotten just how much I love this song…

You’ve Killed My Scooter!

I’m all aches and pains today after an impromptu bit of road-surfing on the way home from the gym yesterday. Coming round the corner (in the rain with visor down) onto London Bridge and starting to accelerate over the bridge, when I suddenly encounter a couple of large solid plastic road dividers which, rather than divide the road lengthways, have decided to turn ninety degrees and block off a whole lane of traffic. Ten inch wheels are no use on wet roads, and although I managed to brake and start to turn to avoid the obstacle, the slowness of my braking (due to the wet road and white line combinations all around me) meant I hit the corner of the divider and wiped out.
Cue my right-hand (and only) mirror smashed to bits, my front fender bent all out of shape, bits of my scoot all over the road, front forks twisted - and me with a sore hip and sprained wrist. While black cabs manouvered around me and continued on their way, a couple of bystanders came across and moved the obstacles before anyone else hit them (too little, too late if you ask me) and a bloke on a pizza-moped stopped and helped me wheel my injured PX125 to the roadside.
Luckily, old-skool Vespas are hardy beasts, and with a little cajoling and twisting of the forks back into a respectable shape (at least: pointing forward) she was up and running again and I was able to continue home; some weird noises coming from the smashed mirror stalk, but otherwise road-worthy.
Ouch.

The Final Camping Trip Of The Year?

The weather is getting progressively worse and with each weekend we’re moving further and further away from pleasant camping opportunities. So this weekend H. and I decided to go on a one-night camping trip. Basic criteria for a site had to be: near a wood or a forest for rambling opportunities, and less than three hours drive away. After scouring the web and looking through various Guardian/Observer camping supplements collected throughout the year, we settled on Christchurch camp site near Coleford in The Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire (officially 2hrs. 55mins journey time) . I believe (and my cousin J. might be able to confirm or deny this) that this is the very site I stayed on with the aformentioned J., his mum J., and his father J. around 27 years earlier… which was weird.
Saturday morning being what it is, we finally set off sometime around midday, and arrived before 4pm: still early enough to get our tent pitched in daylight and get some shopping in for a BBQ etc., but a little too late to go a-rambling. By the time we’d BBQd and finished off our wheat beer/red wine, it was dark, wet, and cold; alcohol helps though. H. steadfastly resisted my pleadings for her to accompany me on a nighttime walk through the forest looking for wild pigs with torches, and instead we drunkenly played on the campsite playground: restricted to 10 year olds and under during daylight hours.
On the Sunday we arose, ate our breakfast of poached eggs (poached eggs and coffee take a very long time to cook on campinggaz in the wind) and beans with coffee and packed up - and were ready to leave the site by 11.30. We drove up to Symond’s Yat and took some nice pictures of the rock and riverside. By the time we arrived at Puzzle Woods it was raining heavily: the woods were also closed for a ‘private party’, so we continued on to The Clearwell Caves; an abandoned Iron mine deep beneath the ground. The strange thing about this abandoned mine, is that it comes across as just that: once you pass the ticket office you wander down into the mine, past assorted abandoned tools and equipment, following rail tracks, and never see another person until you reach the surface again. Heavy machinery and smaller tools lie abandoned all around, and it looks for all the world as though someone has one day shouted out ‘everybody out! we’re turning the place into a tourist attraction!’, downed tools and left. Health & Safety would have a field day, I’m sure.
On the way out of the caves, things start to tidy up and you realise that this is the section of caves where concerts are sometimes held; there is a makeshift bar area hewn out of the rock, and a small platform forms a stage. Apparently local ‘legends’ EMF held their ‘Rave In A Cave‘ here in November 1990, and it’s easy to image what a fantastic venue for a concert this would be.

The drive back to London (estimated by TomTom at 2hrs. 30m) took around four hours through heavy traffic and even heavier rain. A long day that felt even longer following a mostly sleepless night in a tent.

Winehouse @ MOBO Awards

They said it would happen, and it has!

Car Crime

After getting home last night, I thought I’d take a run up to Leytonstone to get some shopping in and pick up a sprinkler to look after the newly seeded ‘lawn’. Unfortunately, my car was not in the same condition in which I’d left it. Although locked, the driver’s door was severely bent out of shape; the contents of my glovebox (which was closed), about a dozen CDs and an A-Z, were lying relatively neatly on the passenger seat; and the fusebox cover beneath the steering wheel had been removed. All that was missing was about £2.30 in change which I’d kept in the glovebox for snack and newspaper emergencies.

After a relatively sleepless night last night, broken regularly so that I could peer out my window at my car with semi-open driver’s door, I phoned around a couple of garages and finally put the car into a dubious eastern-european body shop in Bow. The figure they’re charging matches more or less exactly to my insurance excess (ie. quite a lot), so I won’t be making a claim.

Two things about this stick out: One, what is wrong with my Gram Parsons, Elvis and Lee Perry CDs anyway? Two, for the sake of two pounds fucking thirty, I would have come out and unlocked the car for them so they wouldn’t have to have put the effort into fucking up the door in the first place. Toe rags.

Oh, and thanks to whoever closed my car door and piled my stuff neatly on the passenger seat. I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t have been the crackheads who opened the door in the first place.

Last Week

Quite a busy week last week, so busy in fact that I couldn’t give up any time to write about it on my blog.

Tuesday: H, J, B. and I headed into Brixton after work to catch The Beastie Boys at the Carling Academy. It nearly all went horribly wrong when J and B got went to collect their tickets (we already had ours) only to find that there were no tickets waiting for them, and worse: there was no record of them having bought tickets either. As the gig had long since sold out this could have brought the evening to a swift end. Fortunately the Gods of Rap were smiling upon them, and somehow they were deemed worthy enough to be allowed to buy some replacement tickets. A pain in the wallet no doubt, but that was a worry for another night. We all had a really good night. J and B somehow managing to bump into some fellow aussies within moments of getting through the doors (how *do* they do that??) and lots of drinkage, buffoonery and general shenanigans followed. H. was a little disappointed that the Beasties didn’t play the *only* track of theirs that she knows (’Fight For Your Right…’), but enjoyed it all the same.

Friday: H. and I returned to Brixton Academy to see The Jesus and Mary Chain. It was supposed to be ‘a surprise’, but I do tend to have my finger on the pulse of such things so knew what was coming pretty much from the moment I was told to keep the night free (about two months ago). J. and B. were (allegedly) supposed to be coming along too, but had somehow managed to avoid buying tickets in time. Either way, and despite a rather lacklustre Evan Dando in support, we both had a really good night. H. even remarking that she enjoyed it more than the Beastie’s gig (she didn’t know *any* JAMC tracks at all). meanwhile I got all misty eyed at ‘Happy When It Rains’ and ‘Darklands’.

The weekend was spent pretty much entirely in the back garden. I’ve decided I’m bored with the ‘woodland glade’ look that I had going on. Bark Chippings = Cat Litter round this neighbourhood, and it also meant that although the garden looked very ‘lovely’, it wasn’t getting used fully. So it’s all getting grassed over. I’ve slashed and burned all the shrubs, small trees, vegetable patch and filled in the pond (the frongs were carefully relocated next door). I did mean to take before, during, and after photos; but forgot to do the before shot. Here’s a during photo.

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Listening to: Television Personalities - Where the rainbow ends

More Great Gym Pr0n

The videos they’re showing on the big screen in my local gym seem to be getting dodgier and dodgier… Last month I mentioned this lot. Now September brings ‘Destination Calabria’: guaranteed to keep you on that running machine for an extra three minutes. Not sure what all the laydees down the gym must think about it though…

The Beginnings Of A Lawn…

Not much going on this weekend for a change, although for the mother’s benefit, it is probably worth mentioning that I did awake on Satyrday morning with a hangover. It’s Matt’s birthday on Monday, so we were, erm… celebrating.
After a late start I dropped a whole bunch of stuff off at the charidee shop then went to Asda to buy dressing gowns so that the new flatmate doesn’t have to look at me (or H.) wandering around in our respective pants.
On Sunday I dug up 95% of the garden, removed and filled in the ‘pond’ and began building a bonfire with the bits. I’ve decided to grass over much of the garden ’cause it’s nice lying on your own grass. Tree bark might look pretty, but it also has the nasty side effect of being used like cat litter by all the neighbourhood moggies and hides any number of surprises, which, in turn, means the garden is little used beyond the ‘patio’ area.
I meant to take before and after photos, but I forgot, so it’ll just have to be an after photo - which I’ll upload as soon as I’ve taken it.