http://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/Daily, weekly life in E9 and essex. Part of the British Blog Directory en-UKMokoFeed10http://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/http://data5.blog.de/design/preview/17/473dcfd66560b820cd01b3cefcc4ef_160x200.jpghttp://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2007/03/27/better_off_without_religion~1984301/tag:eastendlife.blog.co.uk,2007-03-27:/2007/03/27/better_off_without_religion~1984301/Tue, 27 Mar 2007 12:17:46 +0200 <p>Strange calendar quirk today. It's Mr Keith's birthday (hurrah! cake!) but this evening we're off to one of those Intelligence-Squared debates, which was a christmas present <em>to</em> me <em>from</em> Mr Keith in the first place. Anyway it's quite exciting as it's called "We'd be better off without religion" and speaking for the motion is Richard Dawkins, while against it is Roger Scruton, who are two people I can both froth with pleasure agreeing with and two minutes later shout with anger at the level of my disagreement. I seem to have travelled full circle from my kneejerk, teenage "all religion is shite" feeling, through a genuine love of gentle Anglicanism, only to hit my head against a couple of things: the church's recent decision to make a name for itself by being shitty to gay people again, and the scientific training I can't get away from (Dawkins fuels this of course). In this current state of mind I'm in no mood to listen to someone like Roger Scruton telling us that we have to respect religious belief because it's been around for a long time (like the cold virus? Another link to Dawkins!). So I'll probably vote for the motion. I think Mr Keith will vote against so not for the first time we'll cancel each other's votes out. These debates are fantastic.</p> <p>Last night we went to see Boeing-Boeing at the theatre off Haymarket.<br> <a href="javascript:window.open(" title="boeing boeing"><img src="http://data2.blog.de/media/731/1279731_25c19e18ef_s.jpeg" alt="boeing boeing" vspace="5" hspace="5"></a><br> I never learn, do I? Just because every newspaper review gave it top marks and said it was the funniest thing ever seen, just because it's populated by people revered as great actors, just because I'm sat in an auditorium filled with middle-class people laughing their guts up, doesn't mean that the entertainment will raise as much as a flicker of a smile on my stoney hard face. It was <strong>dreadful</strong>, absolutely awful. Don't waste your money on west end theatre ever Graeme. Until the next time I read a sequence of fab reviews and think I should go. </p> <p>Off to the London dungeon as soon as I finish this and get in the bath so I'd better go! </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2007/03/27/better_off_without_religion~1984301/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>richard-dawkinswest-end-theatrehttp://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2007/03/27/better_off_without_religion~1984301/#commentshttp://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2007/03/27/title~1984198/tag:eastendlife.blog.co.uk,2007-03-27:/2007/03/27/title~1984198/Tue, 27 Mar 2007 12:00:18 +0200 <p>Might come back here -- it's handy being able to blog from any location, even if I don't have iWeb with me. </p> <p><a href="javascript:window.open(" title="bonus pic -keith and chris atomonium both younger"><img src="http://data2.blog.de/media/681/1279681_fef608071d_s.jpeg" alt="bonus pic -keith and chris atomonium both younger" vspace="5" hspace="5"></a> </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2007/03/27/title~1984198/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>coming-homehttp://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2007/03/27/title~1984198/#commentshttp://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2006/02/04/we_re_moving~534549/tag:eastendlife.blog.co.uk,2006-02-04:/2006/02/04/we_re_moving~534549/Sat, 04 Feb 2006 19:45:19 +0100 <p>Keith got me iWeb for my birthday so I'm going to write my blog there in future. </p> <p><a href="http://web.mac.com/graemearcher/iWeb/">http://web.mac.com/graemearcher/iWeb/</a> </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2006/02/04/we_re_moving~534549/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2006/02/04/we_re_moving~534549/#commentshttp://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2006/01/14/on_belle_and_sebastian~469966/tag:eastendlife.blog.co.uk,2006-01-14:/2006/01/14/on_belle_and_sebastian~469966/Sat, 14 Jan 2006 14:46:16 +0100 <p><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/belleandsebastian.jpeg" border="0" alt=""></p> <p>There's a new Belle and Sebastian single available on iTunes - Funny Little Frog, it's called, and it's wonderful. Of course. I am not quite at the stage of saying that I don't trust people who don't love Belle and Sebastian; but I'd find it impossible to fall in love with them. What's the appeal I wonder? </p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/530.jpg" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/530_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a></p> <p>All pop music's crap innit, so why does some of it gel so neatly with your life philosophy; how do some groups work out how to merge tunes with harmony with instrumentation to the extent that you can't imagine living without them? It's taken me decades of course to admit I'm like this, I had to climb over the wall of the western canon before I could admit to liking murder mysteries for god's sake and music weren't no different. Now my heart pierces every time I hear the trumpeter joining in a Belle and Sebastian song. And their lyrical work in Tigermilk is shockingly good: particularly if you're a gay boy from the west of Scotland, particularly if the part of the west of Scotland you come from is called Ardrossan and has a hill in it called "Castle Hill" which the band quite clearly refer to in one of the Tigermilk tracks. (They're not gay by the way, it's something more subtle than that sort of direct link). </p> <p>[My favourite line at the moment in pop music is courtesy of Franz Ferdinand -- in that very good song "Walk Away" they sing that when the ex lover walks away "Radio 4 is static" - a line sung in such anger! It took my breath away. That's me that is.]</p> <p>There's something to do with nostalgia I think. I also love "Michael Caine" by Madness, despite liking neither Madness nor Mr Caine's ouevre (particularly). But its minor key melody transports me back to innocent Graeme; Graeme who was still interested in learning about the world, Graeme whose hopes hadn't been crushed or optimism turned into dirty, necrophising sceptic cynicism. And there is a beauty in the timing of the "My name, is Michael Caine" mixed in with the tune that's just joy. </p> <p>Belle and Sebastian though. Born to me in the misery of a broken heart - gifted to me by a colleague called Andrew - gosh how they speak to me. "I was feeling fine; I was happy for a day in 1975. I was troubled by a dream that stayed with me all day in 1979. My brother had confessed he was gay; it took the heat off me for a while. He stood up with a sailor friend, and made it known upon my sister's wedding day". Bliss. </p> <p>Bliss of course that speaks to me. And I think that's the existential point (fnarr - no really). We're all alone and we'll all die alone - pretty shit universe at times innit? But if you come across a pop band that seem to be addressing your own personal drivers and demons, well then - you're no longer quite so alone. I'm not saying it's as good as falling in love (which clearly addresses the same existential angst) but it's along the same lines. And thanks to Belle and Sebastian, my universe is just a little more crowded with like-minded souls. </p> <p>Here's my current embarrassing iMix: <a href="http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPublishedPlaylist?id=656281">http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPublishedPlaylist?id=656281</a><br> (Go on - buy "The Stars of Track and Field" - 79pence, and you will know everything you ever need to know about me. "You liberated a boy I never rated, now he's throwing discus for Liverpool and Widnes"). </p> <p><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/images.jpg" border="0" alt=""></p> <p><a href="http://www.belleandsebastian.com/home.php">http://www.belleandsebastian.com/home.php</a> </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2006/01/14/on_belle_and_sebastian~469966/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>belle-and-sebastianhttp://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2006/01/14/on_belle_and_sebastian~469966/#commentshttp://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2006/01/08/farewell_drunken_ginger~452450/tag:eastendlife.blog.co.uk,2006-01-08:/2006/01/08/farewell_drunken_ginger~452450/Sun, 08 Jan 2006 18:56:30 +0100 <p>Normally I draw the line about talking about politics on my blog, but really, this Kennedy scandal/leadership crisis/end of crap party is just too good to miss. Let's not waste time crying for Caesar, he lied and lied and lied to everyone who asked him about his drink problem but at the last election still thought himself fit to be, well of course not prime minister, but he was ready to overtake the poor, tired old Tories. I would feel sorrier for him if he hadn't always affected such a lofty moral stance whilst enacting the 21st century electoral version of the Nazi-Soviet pact - the ridiculous siding of the party of Gladstone with the anti-war movement, an electoral alliance with the LEAST liberal forces in British society, in order to take seats from ... anti-war Labour leftwingers. The man's tactics stank, as did his breath for most of the time, if what we read today is true. </p> <p>Anyone who's engaged in hand to hand electoral battles with LibDems will excuse me for gloating here - but the rest of you, I know, will have no direct experience of the towering slag heap of sanctimony that best describes most liberal activists and won't understand how someone, especially one of the non-nasty Tories, can despise the LibDems so much. </p> <p>Of course there are decent, centre-right liberals in existence; it's just that most of the realistic ones joined the Tory party in the 1980s. (Like: hello!). I'm not sure how to describe the economic side of Mrs Thatcher's government without recourse to the phrase "19th century manchester liberal". But there are precious few real liberals left in the LibDems - more on the Orange Bookers below, who are the exception - the LibDems are a sort of care-in-the-community project for empty-headed, tax-and-spend twits like that nonentity from Brent or the beyond-parody ghastly Simon Hughes. If you live in London you may remember Simon Hughes; he was the last pathetic liberal candidate for mayor. He was also -- and this I find a really fine exemplar of everything that stinks about the LibDems -- first elected to parliament in a quite astonishingly viciously homophobic campaign, ran against Peter Tatchell who was about the first ever openly gay parliamentary candidate. I'm saying nothing more about the sheer stinking hypocrisy of that candidate running that campaign. Any Tory out there who's run against a liberal won't be surprised. </p> <p>OK so that's the left wing part of the LibDems dealt with; and if that was all there was to them they wouldn't bother me any more than any other group of semi-demented marxist clapped-out losers. But all parties are coalitions: our (Tory) party is basically a coalition between two main strands of thought: the liberal/libertarian wing, and the social conservative wing. Theirs is essentially a coalition between left-wing idiots and free-marketeers liberals. Of course it's more complicated than that, and these days most of us say some cliche like "I'm an economic and a socially liberal conservative" without understanding the first thing about what the term "liberal" implies in that context. Basically, a conservative thinks that no one single generation has the right to alter the society too much; there is an unwritten contract between ourselves and those who come after us, so it behoves us to preserve all that is best in our culture. A liberal thinks that "society" consists of a series of contracts between the individual and the state, eg I pay my tax, you give me a schooling, of course it quickly becomes messy and horrid, eg a conservative in these terms is much more likely to support gay marriage than a liberal; what's in it for the state? Anyway I digress...</p> <p>Which means that the centre-right libdems must overlap intellectually and probably emotionally with the liberal conservative wing of my party. And in the 1990s, when the Conservative party decided to have a collective breakdown and appeal to no-one other than the disgusting Simon Heffer, there must have seemed a time to new intelligent politicians like Nick Clegg and Vince Cable that the most likely vehicle for getting centre-right thinking into power was through the LibDems, not the unappealing Conservatives. I can totally understand that thinking - with my tribal loyalty hat on, it used to frighten me - but guys! That was before we Conservatives got to the precipice, looked into the abyss, LISTENED to uncle Michael Howard, had a long lie down in the dark and calm room, and woke up in time to vote for David Cameron to be our new leader. There is now no vehicle for centre-right liberal thinking anywhere outside of the Conservative party; and the decent centre-right libdems must know this (why else aren't they going to challenge Sir Ming Caretaker Campbell for the leadership now?). They must have the courage of their convictions and walk away from the left-wing student politics of Hughes, Teather, Taylor et al., and come and make common cause with the decent Tories who are rejuvenating our party and making it ready for power again. The student union lark of the LibDems is over guys: come and join a serious electoral force, and help us rid Britain of this rotten, self-obsessed, sectorial government. </p> <p><a href="http://www.libdems4cameron.com/">http://www.libdems4cameron.com/</a></p> <p> <small> <a href="http://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2006/01/08/farewell_drunken_ginger~452450/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>charles-kennedydavid-cameronlibdems-for-cameronlibdemsliberal-democratscharlie-kennedyhttp://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2006/01/08/farewell_drunken_ginger~452450/#commentshttp://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/12/27/christmas_day~419548/tag:eastendlife.blog.co.uk,2005-12-27:/2005/12/27/christmas_day~419548/Tue, 27 Dec 2005 15:44:43 +0100 <p>How can it come on so fast every year? I mean, it seems like only last week that DFS had a sale on - but last night on the telly there was A NEW SALE at DFS, just for Christmas. I noticed that they sacked Katie Mellifluah or whatever 'er name is though. Oh! A new DFS ad means it's Christmas time again, blimey that come round quick too, it seems like only yesterday I was lying in the bath, not laughing AT ALL at the News Quiz chortle-fest summary of the year, yet here I am again, same crap soft left sneery jokes at everything not first printed in the Guardian, oops that's not the Christmas spirit is it, no! This is!</p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/DSC00534.jpg" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/DSC00534_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a></p> <p>Last year we went a bit mental and decked out our tree with about three hundred of your earth light bulbs. This year we left one packet in its box and placed it in the centre of our Purves&Purves (how much?!) coffee table, delivered just in time for Christmas, thank god, I don't know what I would have done this year without Purves&Purves - no DFS-style sales there, no, neither are there any foot-rests attached to any of their sofas, nor indeed are there any sofas you'd wish to recline on.</p> <p>[My first glimmer that gay men in London may not quite be all they wish you to believe they are came courtesy of Purves&Purves. I did once drink in that funny pub that was behind Bethnal Green Rd on the council estate, the Duke of York, where there were rarely more than 5 customers so conversation tended to flow freely. I once had a ferocious argument with a skin-head (I know that by definition I myself am a skin head, but I mean that this person had bedecked himself in a very obvious "I am a hard skin head" type style), anyway I was probably drunk so I didn't back down, was quite nervous on the lonely walk home that night in case this hard man set about post-pub discourse - anyway about 3 weeks later I wandered into Purves&Purves just as the aforementioned skinhead, now revealed to be a soft furnishings salesman, bent over backwards (fnarr - insert own dirty joke here) to be pleasant to the Habitat-types that throng Tottenham Ct Rd. My lesson was, look, I don't mind skin heads, nor do I mind furnitures salesmen, it's just that you need to keep an eye on the gap between your self-perception and that which others have of you - such a gap exists with everyone, in most of us it's just wide enough to be amusing - in some it stretches into tragedy. Anyway I digress.]</p> <p>I think Santa had come because the mince pie was eaten! Keith swears blind it was nothing to do with him</p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/DSC00542.jpg" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/DSC00542_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a></p> <p>but I'm not TOTALLY convinced. After we opened our presents - I am now officially a PC-gamer widow, as well as the best giggabyted apple (c) endowed consumer in the UK </p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/DSC00612.jpg" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/DSC00612_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a></p> <p>- we observed the important annual event of taking crusts and nuts to the birds and squirrels in Victoria Park. Was a REALLY beautiful day</p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/DSC00546.jpg" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/DSC00546_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a></p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/DSC00566.jpg" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/DSC00566_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a><br> (nice arse mate)</p> <p>and all the geese, swans and squirrels seemed as ever grateful. It always makes me laugh, right, the Regents Canal in our park in E9 - I think it's beautiful - it runs all the way through London to the Regents Park and onwards into W3 (I think? W2? one of the W postcodes anyway) where, I think merely by dint of the fact that it has left the eastend behind, it becomes "little Venice". I mean, it's the same bleedin' canal innit? Why don't they call Maida Vale "Hackney's Estuary"?</p> <p>The same thing happens with the wildlife. If you go to Green Park and look at the geese and such, and if you are my age-ish, you will hear a Johnny Morris type voice in your head saying "Eugh, h'ai d'you doo?", ever so posh, whereas - and I am in no doubt about this - the squirrels where we live, well, if they were just a little more humble and nervous-critterish, I wouldn't complain to be honest. They come stomping up at ya, all "oi! where's my bleedin' nuts mate - none of them salted malarkey neither, alright?"</p> <p>After a mild perambulation, which my groaning waist attests is the only exercise that I've had in the last 72 hours, we came back and cooked enough food to feed [insert own mildly nonPC allusion here] well, gosh, more than Keith and I, could manage:</p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/DSC00584.jpg" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/DSC00584_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a><br> - da guvnor's ate enough now right?<br> <a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/DSC00591.jpg" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/DSC00591_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a><br> -no more wine for Graeme</p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/DSC00590.jpg" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/DSC00590_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a><br> --that's more like it!</p> <p>After all that there was nothing to do except lie back and relax and think how lucky how lucky how lucky we are.<br> <a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/DSC00599.jpg" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/DSC00599_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a></p> <p>You can see all our photos by visiting the homepage at<br> <a href="http://homepage.mac.com/graemearcher/PhotoAlbum15.html">http://homepage.mac.com/graemearcher/PhotoAlbum15.html</a></p> <p>-- hope your Christmas was as much fun as ours, and best wishes for 2006. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/12/27/christmas_day~419548/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>regents-canalsquirrelsgraeme-archerchristmas-2005victoria-parkhttp://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/12/27/christmas_day~419548/#commentshttp://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/12/26/gareth_and_andrew_s_civil_partnership~417128/tag:eastendlife.blog.co.uk,2005-12-26:/2005/12/26/gareth_and_andrew_s_civil_partnership~417128/Mon, 26 Dec 2005 15:00:18 +0100 <p>December 21st, 2005</p> <p><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/_thb_wedding14.jpg" border="0" alt=""></p> <p>I feel like I've really written everything that I can say about this! On the Conservative Home website:</p> <p><a href="http://conservativehome.blogs.com/platform/2005/12/graeme_archer_l.html">http://conservativehome.blogs.com/platform/2005/12/graeme_archer_l.html</a></p> <p>and in my letter to the Daily Telegraph!</p> <p><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2005/12/23/dt2301.xml#head1">http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2005/12/23/dt2301.xml#head1</a></p> <p>-- I think that says it all! Let there be love, let the love in, love is the strongest and the best thing about being human. </p> <p>Here's a link to my homepage photos from the big day:<br> <a href="http://homepage.mac.com/graemearcher/PhotoAlbum14.html">http://homepage.mac.com/graemearcher/PhotoAlbum14.html</a></p> <p><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/_thb_wedding06_amend.jpg" border="0" alt=""></p> <p>Merry Christmas. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/12/26/gareth_and_andrew_s_civil_partnership~417128/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/12/26/gareth_and_andrew_s_civil_partnership~417128/#commentshttp://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/12/17/archers_hit_greenwich~394465/tag:eastendlife.blog.co.uk,2005-12-17:/2005/12/17/archers_hit_greenwich~394465/Sat, 17 Dec 2005 18:51:33 +0100 <p>Evening All. </p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/Cafe-after-swim.jpg" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/Cafe-after-swim_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a></p> <p>Not JUST Archers actually. Actually only two Archers come to think of it. Two Archers, a Robertson, a Stalker and a Pannell. Sounds like a cross between a medieval fiefdom and an artillery. Well we hit Greenwich, though not as hard as the poor souls we saw stumbling onto the ice rink and flying to their nemesis, in the shape of a sore bum on cold ice. </p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/DSC00380.jpg" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/DSC00380_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a><br> -- this is us, enjoying the cold winter sunshine, filtered through the elegant rigging of the Cutty Sark. </p> <p>And your starter for ten: why are we so interested in the Cutty Sark? Do you know, for years I thought it was something to do with Francis Drake. Eventually I cared enough to read the sign outside it. It's a tea clipper! It brought tea to London! </p> <p>Obviously, tea is one the most important fings in da world innit, but even so. All those poor schoolchildren being marched around a tea clipper. </p> <p>Greenwich is looking magic just now. Some places are more suited to Christmas than others aren't they? The Broadway Market this morning -- very Christmassy. Greenwich last Saturday -- especially with the ice rink:</p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/DSC00381.jpg" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/DSC00381_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a></p> <p>-- very Christmassy. Bethnal Green Road, which must have spent, ooh, 2 of your earth pounds on its decorations -- not very Christmassy at all. </p> <p>We had a lovely time with the family. Well Shazza, blood's ficka dan wa'er, innit? </p> <p>Now the countdown to Christmas begins. We put the tree up this afternoon</p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/100_0075.jpg" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/100_0075_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a></p> <p>actually I'm cheating - this is a photo from last year. I think it's looking even BETTER this year as we've learned from the mistakes of our much-maligned youth, and dressed the boughs in a more simpler, yet more eleganter, manner.</p> <p>X factor final! To think that when I began this I thought I would hold forth on geopolitical issues. Now all I care about is that SHAYNE wins the X factor. This is now a faaamlee position, since Keith lost Brenda to the fickle electorate last week. </p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/Flash--Flash-(040).jpg" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/Flash--Flash-(040)_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a></p> <p>Somehow we struggle on! </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/12/17/archers_hit_greenwich~394465/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/12/17/archers_hit_greenwich~394465/#commentshttp://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/11/27/and_then_they_were_numb~342175/tag:eastendlife.blog.co.uk,2005-11-27:/2005/11/27/and_then_they_were_numb~342175/Sun, 27 Nov 2005 20:32:56 +0100 <p>Our bums, that is. (That were?). Our bums were as numb as numb-bums know how. Why? We went to the THEATRE of course. To see this:</p> <p><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/ncast_tara.jpg" border="0" alt=""></p> <p>Otherwise known as "And Then There Were None", the fantastic (according to the online publicity) new production of Agatha Christie's masterpiece, currently labouring away in the Gielgud in the West End.</p> <p>Frighteningly, one of the pre-publicity tags used for this production comes from a current member of the Metropolitan Police CID (Don't Shoot!). She couldn't work it out, according to the strapline. The mind boggles.</p> <p>Actually it wasn't too bad. But I really can't "get" theatre. I've never seen anything which didn't consist of upper middle class d*ck-heads over-enunciating their lines. That's a lie; I grew up in Glasgow and was constantly (thanks to your taxes subsidising student life) exposed to the agitprop horror of 7:84 ("84% of the country's wealth is owned by 7% of the population" blah blah - most of which ended up funding their left wing drivel, though apparently they didn't take umbrage at that) and the never-ending slew of anti-society drivel from "The Citz", aka the Citizens Theatre, stuck on the edge of the Gorbals like a wart on the side of a dead toad. Quite without a doubt, the worst evening I have ever spent was being locked up with Giles Havergal's egotistical version of "Travels with my aunt" whereby the Graham Greene book was turned into an opportunity for four grown "men" (I use the gender loosely) to scream falsetto impressions of women. I can't remember a thing other than the dull ache of the pain, and it ended my love affair with Greene in its tracks: if that was what Havergal made of his literature, I must have been mis-reading it badly. </p> <p>However in the West End it's the middle classes that rule. This is partly my fault: the memories of Glasgow keep me away from anything more experimental than thrillers what I've read, with memorable faces, on Shaftesbury Avenue (oh! but I'm forgetting "closer" ... more in a bit). So I shouldn't be surprised at what I get should I? Yesterday 4 of us coughed up <strong>106 of your earth pounds </strong>(plus 20 nicker for three gins, two tonics, one lemonade and one diet coke - airline sized cans) to be squeezed into dwarf seats that were placed about 30 cm directly under the theatre roof.</p> <p>Note to Those Who've Read This Before: YES, there were several dozen extremely fat people, this time with extra-large sports bags (why?) squeezed next to, behind and directly in front of us. </p> <p>What of the actual play? This is one of Christie's few masterpieces in me 'umble, and it astonishes me that it could be made so bad. Ten appallingly bad ac-tors, including</p> <p><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/ncast_rjon.jpg" border="0" alt=""></p> <p>fwah-fwah'ed their way through a very poor production. The teasing ending of the actual novel was destroyed. I won't say how in case anyone's taking their aged relatives to see this as a "treat". If you DO have to go and see it, within 30 seconds you'll be squirming at the particularly bad acting from this:</p> <p><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/ncast_scrane.jpg" border="0" alt=""></p> <p>but take heart! As I whispered in Keith's ear, his character's the first to croak, so you won't have to put up with his simpering, squealing, over-acting twitching for long - it just feels like an age. </p> <p>Oh! "Closer". Well. A long, long time ago a geeky young statistician fled back to the UK after a too-long sojourn in Italy. Why he decided to drive back from Italy to Harlow, accompanied by a Spanish physicist, is a mystery we shall draw a veil over and <strong> never speak of again </strong>. We decided to go and see "Closer" which is still referred to in hushed tones by newspaper drama reviewers. All I remember - other than "how does a sexually naive-to-the-point-of-virginity geeky young statistician manage to get rid of this physics geek" - was boredom, four dull middle class folk moaning about their love life to the depressed ranks of the coach tours arranged in the audience. "Further", "Farther" and "Too far away to see or hear" would have been better than "Closer". </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/11/27/and_then_they_were_numb~342175/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>west-end-theatreand-then-there-were-nonecitizens-theatre7-84http://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/11/27/and_then_they_were_numb~342175/#commentshttp://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/11/20/on_being_abroad~324104/tag:eastendlife.blog.co.uk,2005-11-20:/2005/11/20/on_being_abroad~324104/Sun, 20 Nov 2005 22:19:05 +0100 <p>The thing about being abroad is that you feel your thoughts more loudly and more intensely. You also feel the oddity of being an alien so sharply. It doesn't matter how kind individual people are to you, you're always the foreigner. Walking down the Via Mazzini last Thursday evening I felt more of an external observer of life in a northern Italian town than would have been the case had I been watching a Channel 4 documentary.</p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/Image035.jpg" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/Image035_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a></p> <p>"Aren't you lucky?" is the phrase most often offered up when people ask the second question about my work ("Where are you based?"). And it seems churlish in the extreme to respond anything other than positively. After all, I'm comfortably over 1000 points on my BA card, which means I'll retain that little silver sliver of plastic tied to my laptop bag that whisks me through airports and into "executive" lounges, even if I'm travelling Ryanair to Gran Canaria. Even if I'm dressed like a chav. </p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/Image017.jpg" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/Image017_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a></p> <p>[As as aside -- something that irritates me beyond belief -- snooty behaviour from my fellow business class travellers. When I get onto the foldy-down BA beds on the transatlantic flights I'm bouncing around like I've won the lottery. I see plenty of different behaviour from fellow passengers, who can be quite demanding over the provision of hot nuts (sic), extra cushions and the all important wash bag. I often feel like commenting - though of course I do not - "calm down mate - none of us could afford these seats if we weren't being sent by our companies"]</p> <p>But I don't enjoy it, I enjoy nothing about the experience of not being at home. I hate walking around trying to find something to do to fill the downtime. After work you have very few options: go back to your hotel room and work; go back to your hotel room and listen to music/watch BBC World ("coming up in the next 15 minutes, everything we've just said, with perhaps just a shade more soft-left insinuation running through our editorial line"); go to the hotel bar and talk about work with all the people you were at work with all day. Or you can walk around town, and fulfill the role you're expected to play: the solitary foreigner, sat alone at a pavement cafe, pretending not to notice the joyous young lovers round about you and keeping your eyes in your very obvious paperback. How long can you make a plate of nibbles last?</p> <p>At some point you're going to have to eat. I have nothing against dining alone - this is Graeme, for god's sake, if I objected to eating alone I would have perished a long time before I met Keith in 2004. But different cultures will view you differently. Maybe bias? -- but my feeling is that Italians not only dislike having to give up a table in the pizzeria to a solitary diner, they actually pity you for not having company. I've done it long enough to be able to brazen it out now, but it's never a comfortable experience. Be resigned to being served last, and disdainfully, is my advice to anyone who finds themselves in my position. </p> <p>Or you can join the groupfest of the contingent from work, take over a pizzeria and spend another two hours discussing work. </p> <p>Walk down a busy street by yourself, and you're like an invisible atom - all round you come whirling molecules, joined and functional, spinning and moving and living. I just walk in a straight line back to the hotel room, shut the door and fire up the iPod. </p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/Image004.jpg" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/Image004_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a> </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/11/20/on_being_abroad~324104/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>veronatravellinggraeme-archerhttp://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/11/20/on_being_abroad~324104/#commentshttp://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/11/13/midnight_ghengisman_gets_typing~303522/tag:eastendlife.blog.co.uk,2005-11-13:/2005/11/13/midnight_ghengisman_gets_typing~303522/Sun, 13 Nov 2005 03:23:20 +0100 <p>Insomnia, eh? Who'd have thought that of all the things you'd reverse your opinions on about getting older, not-sleeping would be at the top of the list. I remember lying on a mattress on the floor of friends' bedrooms in the Innocent Years, vying with one another to prevent sleep from taking over. Now I chase the frightened rabbit of my tiny hormonal sleep secretor around my frenzied brain and straight out the door and bang into the face of an oncoming truck. Why am I only tired around 2-5pm? Which part of the world ought I to be living in? Would it be a good idea to see a GP? Oh come on don't make me laugh. A DOCTOR? In Hackney? Well of course [modest cough] there are doctors around but none of the useful ones. </p> <p>Trucks figure a lot in your imagery when you live on Victoria Park Road. Thank you Essex for deciding en masse to buy the biggest, clankiest trucks you can find and then to drive them into central London via Victoria Park Road every morning at 5. Usually when I'm just falling asleep, when the timid bunny creeps coyly back into bed with my weary body, only to be jerked away again by Builders-R-Us on their way to their first Skip Meet of the day. "Like yer skip, mate". Oo-er I bet all sorts of things goes on in those skips.</p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/Flash--Flash-(048).jpg" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/Flash--Flash-(048)_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a><br> --another reason why I envy Keith, he can sleep whenever he wants!</p> <p>Actually there is a GP practice which I think is still taking patients in Broadway Market. I shouldn't have written that, there will be a queue camped outside it tomorrow morning. The trouble, of course, is that to register you are expected to turn up on Monday afternoons. On Monday afternoons, I'm usually at work. What to do, what to do. I can't believe this makes me sound like a New Labour politician, one of 'em was on the news blethering on about it the other day weren't she, though my solution is probably different to hers. I'm going to take a wild stab and guess that the New Labour solution was something to do with taking more of our money and sluicing it around health authority bureaucracies in the hope that some of it will finally drip onto the front line, like sewage seeping through the ceiling. My somewhat different approach would be to pay doctors directly, so they rediscover that they're providing a service, not dispensing divine justice via their state-funded prescription pads. Ooo, oo's bitter then? I should crawl back into my skip. But when I lived in Italy I used to hand over 20,000 Lire (about eight of your earth pounds) to see a GP and it put a really interesting dynamic in place between physician and patient. You realise, of course, that if I'm ever selected to represent the natural party of government in an election, some NuLab researcher will dig up this entry and tell the electorate that I favour charging the poor to get access to health care, but of course I'm not saying that (and since the poorest in our society pay the highest proportion of their income in taxes, this is effectively the system we currently have). </p> <p>No but HONESTLY this awful government. I'm going to be really magnanimous and not enquire icily where all the soon-to-be-reborn Tory voters have been the last 7 years. Better the sinner repenteth or whatever. Just rejoice! The parapace of Big Blair is shattered, but not smashed - like when you drop a boiled egg onto the floor and it thuds onto its arse. It's useless to you, and it's starting to smell, but it's still unmistakeably THERE. Just like the home life of our own dear prime minister. What I'm looking forward, what I will relish in an almost unsavoury manner, is when Dave C as our leader generously offers to help the prime minister the parliamentary support he will need to get some of his timid market reforms passed. </p> <p>Most people's politics move incrementally, don't they - mine oscillate wildly over a 24 hour cycle. Like a political superhero (or villain) - "by day, he was a mild-mannered liberal Tory of the one-nation school; but when night fell he became Genghis-Man, home to all manner of right-wing views". Or something. </p> <p>Time to try and find the sleep bunny. This is what happens at work when I don't sleep the night before:<br> <a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/Flash--Flash-(010).jpg" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/Flash--Flash-(010)_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a></p> <p>Palatial beds on offer in New York City!<br> <a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/DSC00312.jpg" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/DSC00312_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a> </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/11/13/midnight_ghengisman_gets_typing~303522/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>tony-blairgpsinsomniahackneydavid-cameronhttp://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/11/13/midnight_ghengisman_gets_typing~303522/#commentshttp://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/10/25/vote_for_graeme~260782/tag:eastendlife.blog.co.uk,2005-10-25:/2005/10/25/vote_for_graeme~260782/Tue, 25 Oct 2005 17:45:06 +0200 <p>Albeit in a strictly limited sense. That is, vote for Graeme if you are a fully paid up member of the Hackney South Conservative Association, and will be in the Community Hall, Brougham Street, Hackney at 7pm this evening. </p> <p>Yes it's that time of year again when I face the selectorate of the local association and ask - nay, beg! - them to allow me to serve another year on the executive as Deputy Chairman - Brackets Politics Close Brackets! Last year's vote was on a knife edge! That is, there nearly weren't enough members present to make the AGM quorate. But this year I'm taking NO CHANCES and have been hitting the streets of Hackney to drum up support:</p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/29-04-05_1831_01.jpg" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/29-04-05_1831_01_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a><br> Vote For Graeme as Deputy Chairman (Politics) - if you know what's good for you. </p> <p>The canvassing seems to have been paying off - I bumped into this bloke out on the stump in the Broadway market, singing my praises!</p> <p><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/0--238337-00.jpg" border="0" alt=""><br> -- David Cameron says: Vote for Graeme to enact the change we need to reconnect with the future of our upward, optimistic, freedom-loving, outward-looking, always changing party that's always upwards and never sideways and twirling, twirling, TWIRLING to the stars! Darling!</p> <p>Still I'm not sure it's going to work. I'm expecting a late swing from these pesky new members. They apparently get the right to ask what the current office holders have done during the last year. I'm not sure I approve of this, since on consulting the constitution, I find that I was supposed to deliver at least 3 "Conservatives Here" leaflets in each of the borough's wards which means I should have delivered approximately 180,000 leaflets in the last year. I did put out 10 or so for Andrew the other night and am hoping that will count (note to socialists: is this a bluff? or a double bluff?! Ha ha hahahhahaha ha).</p> <p>Apparently one of these new members rang the current chairman the other night to say s/he was interested in applying for the post - but how much money would s/he get paid? </p> <p>Apart from the clue being in the name "voluntary" association of loyal Conservatives - these following are what you can expect to receive as an office bearer:</p> <p>(*) The chance to spend all your free time and time that isn't free just now, actually, darling, climbing up and down towerblocks - ALL OVER HACKNEY AND SHOREDITCH!</p> <p>(*) The chance to mumble "erm, no, I haven't done that" while going red in front of a room full of people who are more committed than you are. </p> <p>(*) The chance to spend hundreds of pounds on desktop publishing software (see, I really DID mean to do it) only to find that your Apple software is unreadable by the rest of the local party, all of whom use PCs. Naturally. </p> <p>All this and more can be yours! We asked this woman if she'd like to join the executive tonight:</p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/judith.jpg" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/judith_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a><br> -- and she emigrated!!</p> <p>We asked these chavs oo were aht aving a larf if THEY would like to join the exec tonight:</p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/meankeith.jpg" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/meankeith_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a><br> -- and they said:<br> "No way. And make sure you've got my dinner on the table before you go out cavorting with these Tories"<br> and<br> "Oh alright then".</p> <p>Remember darlings: Socialism doesn't take the night off because it looks like it might rain. And neither must WE! (that's the end of my speech for tonight, what do you think?). </p> <p>Hackney Conservatives: serious about getting rid of the rubbish Labour council; winning by-elections in the Hackney Labour heartlands -- see this New Statesman article for details:<br> <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/200510170004">http://www.newstatesman.com/200510170004</a><br> -- but most of all enjoying ourselves!</p> <p>love Graeme<br> PS vote for me tonight<br> PPS Vote for DAVID CAMERON in the leadership ballot. Remember to check the surname. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/10/25/vote_for_graeme~260782/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>graeme-archerhackney-conservativeshttp://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/10/25/vote_for_graeme~260782/#commentshttp://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/10/23/eventually_david_cameron~254516/tag:eastendlife.blog.co.uk,2005-10-23:/2005/10/23/eventually_david_cameron~254516/Sun, 23 Oct 2005 03:22:57 +0200 <p>The first two nights it was almost amusing having jet lag worse than I've ever previously experienced it. Now that it's nearly 2am on Sunday morning the joke is wearing off. I've drank my herbal tea and I've taken half a packet of Nytol (max dose 1 tablet per month) and I've even been to bloody Ocado and done enough shopping for a month and I still feel more awake than anytime since birth. Maybe this is never going to stop! Keith's great advice was to try and stay up all night, so I'm like death tomorrow, I'm not exactly sure how that's supposed to help. I think it just gets me out the bed so it's twitch-free. </p> <p>Lovely day though. We re-installed the exploded kitchen contents from the spare room (aka "corridor", I can't believe I once met someone in a pub who rented the spare room in this flat before I bought it, but I did, I can't remember what he looked like (was that manky pub on the council estate behind Bethnal Green Road) but I hope he was tall and skinny as else he may have found it hard to breathe out, oh and not having any possessions whatsoever would have been useful too) into the new kitchen, well! WHERE to put the pots and pans to make eveyrthing supra-optimal! Then walked to Fat Cat in Bow Wharf (see eastendlife passim) for another veggie burger, walked back along the Roman Road where I AGAIN managed to not buy one of the adorable kittens from the pet shop, what sort of a heel am I (isn't that a song? what sort of heel am IIIIIII, I let the kittens CRRRRRYYYY? or summat) then bought paint in the paint shop for the kitchen wall and ceiling, then I cooked a Thai green (quorn) curry ... then I woke up again. </p> <p>We were watching the X factor earlier, ohmygod I've actually got to the age where I see Saturday evening telly. Life is like a parabola innit, or actually no a cubic curve is better, very young watched saturday telly, then early adulthood, no way would I watch telly ever, I was like, Oh No, I Don'T Have A Televisual Receiving Apparatus Actually, No Room What With Housing The Western Canon in my manky student bedsit (I could have been a student!), then the Italian interregnum where every bloody hour I wasn't at work was spent watching Sky pre-digital so you had to phone up to activate it and you weren't supposed to have it if you were abroad, so you had to get your parents to ring up from the UK pretending to be you, but the Sky Operative would say "can you see Channel 1 now?" and since this was also pre-mobiles your parents would have to say "oh excuse me" and hang up, ring you to check what you could see, then ring back Sky Operative and say "oh sorry, I dropped the phone, yes we can see Channel 1" to which the Operative would say "and now, can you see Channel 2" at which point your parents would wish you hadn't signed up for the 57 channel option. </p> <p>The long and short of it is that I love watching Saturday evening TV now, it's funny laughing at the Xfactor acts (Shane or Brenda to win, please) and if that sounds too crass, I honestly DID watch the MORE4 documentary on the grim horror of life in North Korea, which must win me a "35 but still acting like a Radio4 dork" award no? </p> <p>Maybe David Cameron and David Davis could turn this hustings period into an X factor type act? Ha! As if I wasn't just working up to this from the start! If David Cameron and David Davies were acts on X factor, how would they appear? </p> <p>Dave C would obviously be Shane, and the runaway winner. Everything any party needs to defeat the horrors of socialism is contained within one striding shiny fresh fantastic bloke-yet-posh body. See<br> <a href="http://www.cameroncampaign.org/">http://www.cameroncampaign.org/</a><br> for details.</p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/head_image.jpg" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/head_image_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a></p> <p>Hurrah for Cameron. I'm sick of a couple of things:<br> (*) I'm sick of losing elections to snake oil salespeople who are ruining everything that's good about Britain while actively ennervating what's bad<br> (*) I'm sick of right wing Tories pretending that all we have to do to win office again is shout an ultra pure right wing message to the electorate ever more loudly. </p> <p>Like, what's to dislike about a centre-right agenda? The last manifesto had it all: better police, cleaner hospitals, lower taxes, less Europe -- only oddities from the 1970s actively dislike that agenda -- but the current Conservative brand is so TOXIC that even when opinion poll participants first of all signal a majority support for any one policy, when they find out it's Tory policy the support vanishes! </p> <p>So we don't lack ideas, policy etc. What's wrong is the party image itself. The change IS the change, doh. And the Davies/Fox/Tombstone/Isn't-Maggie-Still-Leader wing just don't get it and they never will. </p> <p>So guess who I'm going to vote for? </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/10/23/eventually_david_cameron~254516/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/10/23/eventually_david_cameron~254516/#commentshttp://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/10/21/life_in_the_big_apple_moves_very_fast_an~250338/tag:eastendlife.blog.co.uk,2005-10-21:/2005/10/21/life_in_the_big_apple_moves_very_fast_an~250338/Fri, 21 Oct 2005 02:37:41 +0200 <p>Who sang that? I can't remember. Why is it 1am and why can't I sleep even with 50mg of an antihistaminic sleep aid swirling around my gut. Yes it's my old friend Jet Lag. Everyone else I know is immune. Even the people I know who do get some always say "it's only bad when you're going from west to east, when you come back home it's easy", well it's not easy for me, I feel wider awake than I did all day even though I made myself not fall asleep in the mid afternoon. I ruined a perfectly good dinner with Keith and two friends by being too tired to keep up with the conversation ... came home by 10 ... went to bed ... and ping! Woke up. </p> <p>So stop moaning about jet lag and put the time to some good use, or at least to A use, write your blog, the blog that was going to transform your life, honestly I had daydreams that I'd be sampled by national newspapers and end up on Parkinson's (rather than with it), when in actual fact the only responses I've had in the last month were (1) a spam ad being posted as a spurious comment (now deleted) and (2) Matthew saying "why do you write that drivel?" or words to that effect. I got the feeling he was trying to gently help me see the error of my ways. Split infinitive! That it should come to this. </p> <p>Last Thursday Keith and I went to New York for the weekend - I had to work on Friday but we had Friday evening - Monday evening to ourselves. It was a really great weekend. I'm never going to be one of those people who is passionate about New York - I'm too died-in-wool adopted Londoner for that - but we did have a really good time. We transposed our favourite activity - the Mooch - from Hackney to Harlem (well, OK, not Harlem, more the Guggenheim Museum) and it seemed to fit really well. </p> <p>We were more than usually lucky with the weather, when we arrived the entire tristate (get me) area seemed to be on the verge of being washed away, what is it this year with north America and bad weather, honestly it does sort of put our "it's a bit chilly today" in perspective doesn't it, anyway, the streets were basically flooded with stair-rod rain on Friday. And true to dour, pessimistic Scotsman form (you can take the boy out of scotland, but you can also remove all traces of Scottishness from him too actually, dead easy - get on that train to Euston and keep RUNNING! Don't look back! Remember Lot's wife!) I assumed that the entire weekend would be a washout, with us stuck on the 17th floor of the W hotel Union Square watching cabs being washed into the Hudson. Actually it stopped raining and we had great weather. Lookee here siree:</p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/DSC00297.2.jpg" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/DSC00297.2_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a></p> <p>-- this is me in a very sunny Central Park. </p> <p>I think I enjoyed Central Park the best, what a lovely place. We met this band of musicians:</p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/band.jpg" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/band_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a></p> <p>OK, when I say we met them, I mean I said "can I take your photo" while Keith threw some dollars into their hats. </p> <p>Something I don't like about New York is its grid system. Here I go again, ain't London just bleedin maaarvelous with its organic ancient windy (as in twisty, not as in too-many-vegetarians) streets. I just felt New York is a bit "shuffle shuffle shuffle wait" as you shuffle up a block and wait for the lights to change. Here is me in a windy (as in blowing a gale, not as in twisty or vegetarian) street looking up at the Manhattan skyline:</p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/windy.jpg" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/windy_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a></p> <p>while here is Keith dominating it, Land Of The Giants Style</p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/keith-giant.jpg" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/keith-giant_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a></p> <p>We did all the ancient touristy things, ie we went to Macy's and bought shoes, I don't think I heard anything other than English accents in there, I also had an epiphany about coffee and why it's dreadful there, the espresso culture hasn't penetrated YOU SEE (shouting now) so all the coffee is filtered like what you used to get in the '70s here (don't get me started, at least we had deodarant then and most people were washing daily, not like the 1950s nirvana the Mail is always on about) and this was actually proved to us by two things. One, a really horrid coffee in Macy's, which did lead to a very handsome picture of Keith though:</p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/macy--s-coffee-shop.jpg" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/macy--s-coffee-shop_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a></p> <p>and, secondly, this Illy art gallery-come-espresso-bar we found while wandering in SoHo, where the lassie serving the coffee (more elaborate than the Japanese tea ceremonies which I remember were a staple of Blue Peter Flies The World from my youth) explained that espresso coffee was still quite a new concept so Illy were running this posh bar for a month or two to introduce the joy of proper coffee to new yorkers -- check us out here</p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/coffee.jpg" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/coffee_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a></p> <p>Great city, great company, great weekend! </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/10/21/life_in_the_big_apple_moves_very_fast_an~250338/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>espresso-coffeegraeme-archernew-yorkhttp://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/10/21/life_in_the_big_apple_moves_very_fast_an~250338/#commentshttp://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/10/08/victoria_park_10k_blackpool_tories_and_s~223489/tag:eastendlife.blog.co.uk,2005-10-08:/2005/10/08/victoria_park_10k_blackpool_tories_and_s~223489/Sat, 08 Oct 2005 19:31:46 +0200 <p>What a week. Brief rundown of events: Sunday morning 2 October up at the crack of dawn to eat Alpen and a banana for the first time in a decade and then to Victoria Park to run a 10K race for a rainforest somewhere or other. Was very worried when my number arrived as it was 900 and something - I had been hoping that about 10000 people would enter, as it's >5 years since I ran 10K in yer actual race conditions. I'm not going to cause Paula Radcliffe any worries as it took me 58 minutes but I was very very pleased to finish in less than an hour! I will definitely do more of these, I always loved running and Sunday itself was a lovely day. </p> <p><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/run_01.jpg" border="0" alt=""><br> Run! Run! Like you've never run before!</p> <p>Thanks, as ever, to Keith :-0) who cheered me on and puts up with all my rubbish pursuits with patience and support. </p> <p>Then immediately after the run I got on the train to get up to Blackpool for this year's "Beauty" Contest of a leadership-election-gone-like-crazy Tory conference. I didn't take a single picture of Blackpool - I really tried hard to like this northern town, but to be honest the signs of a people gripped in lives of quiet desperation made me feel really sad. And the folk outside the conference looked sad too. </p> <p>What can I say about the week? I went up a fervent Clarke-ite - I couldn't give a stuff about his views on Europe anymore, I'm just sick of losing elections to the rancid vipers of the Labour party. However I can feel myself swinging like an iron filing near a magnet in the direction of David Cameron. The man is so fundamentally decent, and surrounded by nice people. I hope I get a chance to vote for him, and I'm pretty sure I will. </p> <p>One man who will not have enjoyed conference week is David Davis. His speech was beyond parody. Actually it was a parody, a very good one, of Every-Dull-Inhuman-Tory-Speech-You've-Ever-Heard-And-Never-Warmed-To, dealing unpleasantly as it did with prisons, immigration etc. Very important issues, but gosh wouldn't it be nice to hear we Tories talking about something else? Something warm and optimistic about, actually, what a bloody good place Britain is to live in (sorry if that sounded Blairite). </p> <p>My favourite bit of the week was also probably the naughtiest. My mate the supreme commander of Hackney Conservatism (Cllr Boff of this parish) and I went to a lunchtime fringe meeting because I knew that Tim Montgomerie, who runs the wonderful conservatives.home website, was speaking. Tim made very thoughtful comments about the need for a social inclusion agenda for the party - his great theme this, and one that has changed me from a liberal Tory to a social one I think - however, also on the panel were Michael Gove MP and Mary-Anne Bighead who both write for the Times.</p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/100_0281.JPG" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/100_0281_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a><br> --Cllr Boff with a Hackney City Farm sheep, even though it doesn't have a vote (don't give New Labour ideas though). </p> <p>Now I don't like the Times, it's one of those papers with "smug" written all over it. And I've never been a fan of either Gove or Bighead, even though the former is a Tory MP (in Surry!) while the latter provides such excellent material for Private Eye that I ought to be grateful for that much. I can't even remember much of what they said, something straight out of New Labour Crapspeak about getting more and more young people into Universities and ending "gated communities". I suspect their views on gated communities might be a bit different if they lived somewhere like Hackney, and I think the same thought must have occurred to Andrew, because before I knew what was happening he was on his feet excoriating the Times Twosome about their smug, middle-class, paternalistic attitudes. He got a small cheer from the audience; Gove tried to patronise him and I found myself giving vent to a cry of rage. Not very coherent for once, but it was very enjoyable. Later we had a row and then made up with two nice Surry councillors who tried to convince us that really, they did know about social deprivation, and that Gove spends a lot of time with gypsies. I like that image, of a pin-striped MP dancing gaily (hush your mouth!) over the Surry heathland.</p> <p>Left on Thursday and managed to get to Manchester airport for a flight to Verona for Friday, and didn't get back until late Friday night. What a week. Was exhausted on Saturday but on Sunday we took a colleague and friend from GSK out for an east end pub crawl. The Hare still wins! The Hare is the best pub in the east end! </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/10/08/victoria_park_10k_blackpool_tories_and_s~223489/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>david-davisdavid-cameronblackpooltory-conferencehttp://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/10/08/victoria_park_10k_blackpool_tories_and_s~223489/#commentshttp://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/08/30/doesn_t_everyone_love_a_man_in_uniform_a~151755/tag:eastendlife.blog.co.uk,2005-08-30:/2005/08/30/doesn_t_everyone_love_a_man_in_uniform_a~151755/Tue, 30 Aug 2005 16:20:29 +0200 <p>I can't believe it's not butter, erm, no I can't believe there are only 4 shopping days left to Christmas, no, that's not right either, what can't I believe? Camels and needles? What I can't believe is how long it is since I went to see Blood Brothers ("Blood- BRUTHers! BLOOD! BRO-THERS!!!" etc) and I wrote a blog entry.</p> <p>Maybe there's a fatal flaw in blogging, other than for professional writers - and of course a professional writer is unlikely to seek recourse through a blog to practice writing. It is this: when I've not very much to do, I have hour upon hour to witter into the ether(net); when, however, I get to experience what others call "a life", I tend not to want to tap away at the apple when I finally get home.</p> <p>Since ("dee-dum, dee-dum, dee-dum ... BANG! BLOOD! Broth-" etc), we've had two lovely and busy weekends which I'll write about when I can upload the camera photos, because an entry without a photo is dull isn't it. To fill the gap, here's a photo I was sent by the almost shockingly wonderful man Frank, showing I think the 2_3 squadron (of the signals I am guessing, and in Swanage, I'm guessing even more. I'll ask Frank for more details and post them).</p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/a.-2-_-3-Sqn-on-Shore-Rd-IMG_7720_1.jpg" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/a.-2-_-3-Sqn-on-Shore-Rd-IMG_7720_1_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a> </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/08/30/doesn_t_everyone_love_a_man_in_uniform_a~151755/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/08/30/doesn_t_everyone_love_a_man_in_uniform_a~151755/#commentshttp://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/08/22/in_stentorian_voice_tell_me_it_s_not_tru/tag:eastendlife.blog.co.uk,2005-08-22:/2005/08/22/in_stentorian_voice_tell_me_it_s_not_tru/Mon, 22 Aug 2005 19:15:47 +0200 <p>OK I admit it- Blood Brothers was quite good. Actually very good. Though I sniggered quite a lot at the wailing guitars at various points of the drama, and I thought some of it was a bit filthy for a family audience. But Keith says I'm a terrible prude. The main thing is we had a very special lovely night out - and only £8.40 of your earth pounds for two minging gin and tonics in the theatre bar - no wonder no-one goes to the west end. Also: why is it every time I go to the theatre it contains the following:</p> <p>1) An enormously overweight bloke wedged into the end of my row (no jokes please)<br> 2) Three ghastly shrieking middle-class adolescent females<br> 3) A drunk family from Essex screaming at each other in the interval?</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/08/22/in_stentorian_voice_tell_me_it_s_not_tru/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/08/22/in_stentorian_voice_tell_me_it_s_not_tru/#commentshttp://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/08/16/24_hours_from_blood/tag:eastendlife.blog.co.uk,2005-08-16:/2005/08/16/24_hours_from_blood/Tue, 16 Aug 2005 20:04:17 +0200 <p>What? Not real blood (well I hope not) - in 24 hours time I'm going to have my musicals cherry popped (is that too dirty?) when Keith and I attend our first London Musical: Blood Brothers.</p> <p>In many ways this is another example of how I fail at being a gay man. Thirty-five years of age and the most I can point to is some light opera on my iPod ("pa - pa - pa - pa - pagino" etc). However, Keith has a theory that we'll enjoy Willy Russell's Blood Brothers, though I'm not so sure, as we were both convinced that Willy Russell was actually that ex-Private Eye, Cambridge foolights sketch bloke, wossisname, William Rushton, something like that. Now we find out that this is by the bloke that wrote Educating Rita, which I hate, and Shirly Valentine, which I not only hate, but sends me into paroxysms of Ultra-right-wing morality fits (how DARE she leave her poor husband in the lurch! and she's friends with a PROSTITUTE! She doesn't deserve Greek-fisherman-induced sexual pleasure, she deserves an ABSO etc). So we shall see.</p> <p>It's all part of our week of celebration: on August 20 it will be one year to the day that Keith arrived back in the UK from Saudi Arabia. There is the irony that I begged him to come home because I didn't think it was safe out there, only for the no.26 bus we take to Liverpool St to be targetted in the failed (thank god) bomb attempt on the 21st. But celebrate we shall. </p> <p>I'll report back later in the week on how the musical goes, but I will admit that I don't foresee a future spent at the theatre door. At least I hope not. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/08/16/24_hours_from_blood/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>blood-brothersshirley-valentineeducating-ritawilly-russellhttp://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/08/16/24_hours_from_blood/#commentshttp://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/08/14/sunday_wrote_mr_kipling/tag:eastendlife.blog.co.uk,2005-08-14:/2005/08/14/sunday_wrote_mr_kipling/Sun, 14 Aug 2005 16:59:45 +0200 <p>... and while none of our nephews came to tea, the following definitely did arrive:</p> <p>1) Six packets of chocolate biscuits, to be consumed with<br> 2) REALLY poor scifi choice from our local DVD shop (another blog on its own, that one) and<br> 3) Yet more rain.</p> <p>What on earth has happened to summer? We set off after lunch-in-bed (bacon sandwiches for Keith, vegetarian sausages for me, very good if you like marmite wrapped in cardboard tubes, and who doesn't?) for a lovely summer stroll along the canal to Islington, where regular readers (me) of this blog will recall we intended to see some Hollywood summer blockbuster like The Island or War of the Worlds, having decided not to revisit wasted student youth with Black Narcissus ("Sister Clodah! Sister Clodah! you SLUT" etc - see yesterday's entry for details).</p> <p>After about a hunner yards the rain started lashing down so we turned back via the DVD shop and the chocolate heaven called Spar in the Broadway market. What would you do without half-price boxes of manky, out-of-date, chocolate biscuits on a rainy sunday afternoon?</p> <p>We blasted open the doors to the DVD shop with our phasers set to stun. OK, we wandered in. What to choose at the Broadway Market DVD shop? With its extensive collection of Japanese animation ("a cartoon!"), walls groaning with something called "video tape", really, REALLY loud atonal "music" blasting away, a small floorspace which is carpeted with screaming, expressive toddlers, all called things like So-feeah, Taaahmsin and Joe-caahsta, with parents who are surely younger (certainly thinner) than I am wandering around in a perpetual daze of exhaustion - well, what else to choose, but something called "Soylent Green"?</p> <p>Soylent Green is some '70s dystopian diatribe about the evils of pollution leading to folk eating one another, but only after they've been euthanased and reconstituted as green plasticy biscuits (so I wonder again about the Spar next door). Featuring a mirthless Charlton Heston and an embarrasingly diminished wossisname from gangster films (Edward G Robinson), it was hard to see what was happening, because as with all 70s films the exposure was turned to black. Have you ever watched Invasion of the Bodysnatchers, the Donald Sutherland version? I haven't either, though I've tried often, peering at the murky screen and wishing that the producer had agreed to pay the electricity bill. </p> <p>At the end of the movie I wept with the sheer moving sadness of the inhumanity of it all. Well I would have done were I not busy eating another chocolate biscuit. Actually I think we giggled quite a bit. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/08/14/sunday_wrote_mr_kipling/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>broadway-marketislingtoncharlton-hestonedward-g-robinsonsoylent-greenhttp://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/08/14/sunday_wrote_mr_kipling/#commentshttp://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/08/13/summer_call_this_summer/tag:eastendlife.blog.co.uk,2005-08-13:/2005/08/13/summer_call_this_summer/Sat, 13 Aug 2005 18:07:20 +0200 <p>So we're sat at home in the near-dark - it's a quarter to five on a Saturday afternoon in mid-August! - while outside the wind is blowing gales through our garden. That wretched tree is still in the garden, of course, testimony to my failure to get to grips with getting a new garden built. I don't know, you watch The City Gardiner (OK you probably don't, as you probably have a life) - and it looks so easy, you just get some cheeky geezer in for 4 days and the total cost is about thirty of your earth pounds and before you know it you've got dozens of friends round drinking a decent white wine with them all in awe at your trendy bit of city space. Well not if you're Graeme Archer you don't, if you're Graeme Archer you spend years umming and awing about what to do, you have rows with ex-boyfriends about what to do with the tree (Graeme: I want rid of that tree, Simon: don't you dare get rid of that tree, I know what you're like, you'll end up living in a concrete box) until Keith arrives and gets a grip. Then you make a garden designer swear blind that he understands the total budget you want to spend, only to have him eventually come back with an estimate that's >60% higher than that budget, so you get dis-illusioned, head to Plymouth for the weekend and have lunch in a new garden that cost about thirty of their earth pounds to have done and took just 3 days to complete.</p> <p>Before the winter came back this afternoon, we went to the Broadway Market for a haircut and lunch. I dunno about that market, it's ALMOST successful but there are a few tat stalls starting to filch their way in, selling tat basically, but on the other hand there are more and more Islngtonians wah-wahing their way about, showing off a disgusting amount of their underwear as they do. Islington is THAT way, and no, we do NOT require any more people in Hackney wearing crochet hats, "not in my name" badges and showing off their rectums everytime they stand up and sit down (which they do everytime another Islingtonian turns up so they can wah-wah optimally). </p> <p>The Organic Baby Food lady has gone, but Andrew swears that she wasn't driven out for economic reasons, but in order to have a(n organic, presumably) baby. Hats are no doubt even now being crocheted all over Stoke Newington in preparation. </p> <p>I THINK we saw Dean dressed up as a clown at the market. I am hoping that we didn't, but Keith said the clown who was stomping about had Dean's distinctive stomp. At least it wasn't Andrew. </p> <p>We were going to go and see Black Narcissus at the NFT, but I dunno, it's a bit bloody studenty innit. I think I spent enough hours of my life in the wretched Glasgow Film Theatre pretending to enjoy weeks of French drivel (two men, one woman, she played the violin and was blind, one of the men played the cello and nobody said much, they just ran their fingers along concrete walls and smoked, moodily) to NOT HAVE TO DO THAT ANYMORE, no? Anyway I've seen Black Narcissus it's rubbish. So I think we'll see War of the Worlds or The Island instead. </p> <p>(If you haven't seen Black Narcissus, here is a plot precis: Sister Clodah! Sister Clodah! Oh that's right you were always a SLUT weren't you! You slut! Don't you go NEAR that bell! OOh! There's a MAN outside! The End). </p> <p>In an idle moment I thought I'd get Adobe Photoshop to have a play around with our (i)Photos.... do you know how much it costs?! >500 quid! They're aving a larf ain't they. Most of my photos are taken with my phone and are blurry shots of me and Keith on various trains, so I doubt Photoshop would be worth the money ... nevermind I'll download some free widgets instead...</p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/graeme-the-engineer.jpg" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/graeme-the-engineer_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a><br> -- me being an engineer with Keith's gear. </p> <p>Why won't they hurry up and bring back Doctor Who?! What on earth are you supposed to do on a Saturday afternoon without Doctor Who?! I met some WRETCHED gay doctor who fans yesterday afternoon. Bloody typical, I should know the Don't Talk To Strangers rule in gay bars by now:</p> <p>Why You Shouldn't Talk To Strangers In Gay Bars<br> 1) They will think you want to sleep with them<br> 2) They will be furious with the world and will take it out on you<br> 3) They will snarl, and I mean snarl, when you mildly disagree with whatever crappy soft-left drivel they use for conversational openers<br> 4) "Which part of Scotland are you from?" "Hackney"<br> --- I might come back to this in a future blog and expand it a bit. </p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/Flash--Flash-(032).jpg" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/Flash--Flash-(032)_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a><br> --- the opposite of Talking To A Stranger in a Gay Bar -- talking to a mate -- much more worthwhile!</p> <p>Anyway before the snarling got too much for me I did wangle a bit of gossip about the next series -- Sarah Jane Smith is coming back, with K9, and there will be more cybermen than you can shake a stick at.</p> <p>Time for tea I fink<br> Gxxxx</p> <p> <small> <a href="http://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/08/13/summer_call_this_summer/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>garden-designblack-narcissusdoctor-whograeme-archerislingtongay-barsbroadway-markethttp://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/08/13/summer_call_this_summer/#commentshttp://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/08/08/happy_birthday_to_yooooooooou/tag:eastendlife.blog.co.uk,2005-08-08:/2005/08/08/happy_birthday_to_yooooooooou/Mon, 08 Aug 2005 17:00:54 +0200 <p>Friday (wrote Mr Kipling, no actually it's Graeme, back from heat-soaked Philadelphia, and VERY behind with the blog and, well, everything basically, but that's another story, anyway where was I? oh yes) Friday and since there was an R in the month of COURSE it found Keith and I heading for the Plymouth train. Yes I know this blog is called "East End Life" and the first entry said I would write about Hackney, Bethnal Green and maybe even 'Arlow in me favourite 'ome from 'ome ie Issix, however, I reckoned without Mr Keith and his amazingly busy family (or "fam-lee" as we say round here, as in "you've gotta stick wiv yer fam-lee Shazza, cos blood's ficka dan wa'er, innit?"). </p> <p>Actually, the 70th birthday of one's mother is probably quite a good reason to visit your home, even by my miserly reckoning, so off we went.</p> <p>And here's the happy birthday girl, getting to grips with the cake</p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/DSC00066.JPG" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/DSC00066_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a></p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/DSC00063.JPG" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/DSC00063_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a></p> <p>Had a great meal at "The Mill", which is (to my almost near-solitary experienced mind) a miracle, given that there were some 5 children in the party. Actually I don't know where this prejudice about children came from in me, probably totally to do with the NOISE you can't quite handle when you're an only child and visit your friends who were constantly fighting with older/younger sisters/brothers -- honestly I do remember it was a relief just to get back home, and to close the door in my room and settle down with a nice Russian novel. So I'm learning with all this family-exposure type thing that I was wrong, children are actually quite good fun, especially if you can teach them to sneak up behind Keith and prod his lower back just where it sends him into incapable spasm (though I did get a row from the parents for that).</p> <p>Next day, Sunday, we went for what is becoming (shamefully to Keith and I for never returning the hospitality) the usual humungous amounts of food at disgustingly stick-thin Wendy and disgustingly fit Robert's house We did have a good time:</p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/DSC00010.JPG" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/DSC00010_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a></p> <p>-- though Keith did his best to hide it in photos like this one:<br> <a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/DSC00037.JPG" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/DSC00037_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a></p> <p>Also on Saturday we bought a new camera, since I managed to break Keith's perfectly brilliant Kodak, so it was a good excuse to replace it with a ridiculously over-optimised Sony thing, which will be used to snap the faces of happy friends and families, ie we'll use about 0.0000001% of the capability we paid for. Never mind. As Haddaway so nearly sang, "What is camera SPECification?/ don't hurt me/ no more" or something. </p> <p>We also wandered around the Barbican and the Hoe (as in Plymouth Ho! actually no, that's not true, I'm thinking of Westward! Ho! or wherever - how ridiculous to come from somewhere with an exclamation mark in its name - though on second thoughts it's probably just a tad nicer than coming from Hackney, where the exclamation mark is in the face of people seconds after you've told them where you live) - now, have you ever been to the Barbican? No not the stuffy 1970s concert hall hidden behind Liverpool St and pretending to be part of Islington (though secretly I'd love to live there (not Islington, the Barbican EC1 that is) but Plymouth's Barbican - home of the NATIONAL acquarium (as Keith never fails to remind me, that tank thing with a few squid next to the Saaaaaaatchi Rubbish Museum of Tat on the South Bank is just London's aquarium, not the NATIONAL acquarium, which resides in Plymouth (it's very good, but all I can remember from when we visited was the knee pads on a man laying a carpet, they were about a metre thick, it was like he was walking on stilts on his knees)). There are also MANY MANY shops selling art, some very good.<br> And lots of fish for some reason, mmmmm, fill yer lungs you scabby wee city dweller. Stop retching at the back! No it doesn't really smell of fish. You ought to visit, it's really really nice. </p> <p>I think everyone at the birthday party had a great time - you can see all the photographs at<br> <a href="http://homepage.mac.com/graemearcher/PhotoAlbum10.html">http://homepage.mac.com/graemearcher/PhotoAlbum10.html</a><br> -- enjoy!</p> <p><img src="/img/smilies/icon_smile.gif" alt=":)" class="middle" border="0"> </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/08/08/happy_birthday_to_yooooooooou/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>http://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/08/08/happy_birthday_to_yooooooooou/#commentshttp://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/07/23/philadelphia/tag:eastendlife.blog.co.uk,2005-07-23:/2005/07/23/philadelphia/Sat, 23 Jul 2005 17:30:04 +0200 <p>Tomorrow morning I'm off to Philadelphia for a week, for work. So today is spent updating the iPOD so I've got enough books and music to listen to to help get over the horror of not being at home with Keith in London. Back at the end of the week, I'll try and take some photos of what is a great city actually. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/07/23/philadelphia/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>philadelphiahttp://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/07/23/philadelphia/#commentshttp://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/07/18/shoreditch_parade_17_july_2005/tag:eastendlife.blog.co.uk,2005-07-18:/2005/07/18/shoreditch_parade_17_july_2005/Mon, 18 Jul 2005 18:26:24 +0200 <p>Cllr Andrew Boff is one of the most gifted political thinkers of his generation; further, it is a scandal that Hackney is the London Borough with NO swimming facilities thanks to the rubbish Labour council; further it was a lovely warm weekend and Shoreditch had a street parade.</p> <p>Who could review these three facts without forming a near syllogism which would conclude "So Hackney South Conservatives would take part in the Street Parade wearing teeshirts advertising their opposition to the closure of Haggerston Baths and dance for 3 miles round Hoxton, followed by a donkey and a sheep from Hackney City farm, shaking their booty to Abba (supplied courtesy of the utterly fabulous London Cycle Network"? Certainly we could not resist. </p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/100_0284.JPG" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/100_0284_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a><br> -- the intrepid Conservatives, Here!</p> <p>I will admit to a certain sense of trepidation when we arrived at Andrew and Gareth's and found what our colourful, street parade costumes would look like. I was even more concerned that Gareth, a committed socialist, was helping produce the banners. </p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/100_0267.JPG" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/100_0267_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a><br> -- what the best dressed Tories were wearing this summer!</p> <p>However, this trepidation turned into downright sick terror when we actually arrived at Hoxton Street. The street party was being entertained by a rapper DJ, and the only other parade participants were a nursery school, dressed as sunflowers, the London Cycle Network, dressed as (and singing) ABBA and Hackney City Farm (a donkey and a sheep, who came as themselves).</p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/100_0268.JPG" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/100_0268_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a><br> -- Cllr Boff leads the way (as ever).</p> <p>The terror - I could see the headlines in the Hackney Gazette "Tories trample on kids' parade" - turned rapidly, instantaneously, to joy once we actually started down Hoxton St. The rapper saluted our presence - "welcome to our guests from Hackney Conservatives - spend that money wisely" - a reference to our teeshirts, decrying the rubbish Labour council's appalling decision to spend upwards of £64 million of your earth pounds tarting up the town hall, rather than spending the money where it is most needed (did I mention that Hackney doesn't have a swimming pool? that youth services are under threat in Shoreditch? that car parking "services" are a nightmare?). Clearly, even if people aren't naturally Tory, they ARE more than ready to hear an alternative message to Hackney Labour's municipal diet of despair and failure.</p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/100_0270.JPG" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/100_0270_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a><br> -- the whistle came from Lesbian and Gay pride - we really MUST do something about our hetero-quota.</p> <p>It was something that was repeated as we made our way - dancing, to Abba, no really - round Hoxton. The banners - the fantastic banners - got a positive reception everywhere.</p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/100_0283.JPG" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/100_0283_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a><br> -- what do we want? An end to municipal socialism. When do we want it? NOW!</p> <p>So we danced our way round and ended up, sweatier but happier, with a few pints at the George and Vulture. Is there a local Conservative Association out there who can beat us for our determination to get our message over: the Conservatives are Here! And they're fighting for Hackney. Has any other deputy chairman- brackets politics - been waved to by a pearly king and queen? I rest our case.</p> <p>You can see the full extent of our sweating at the homepage<br> <a href="http://www.homepage.mac.com/graemearcher/PhotoAlbum9.html">http://www.homepage.mac.com/graemearcher/PhotoAlbum9.html</a></p> <p>Next year we'll probably be in panto at the Empire! </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/07/18/shoreditch_parade_17_july_2005/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>shoreditchhackney-south-conservativeshackneyconservative-partyshoreditch-paradehttp://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/07/18/shoreditch_parade_17_july_2005/#commentshttp://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/07/15/letter_to_the_spectator_on_bayes_theorem/tag:eastendlife.blog.co.uk,2005-07-15:/2005/07/15/letter_to_the_spectator_on_bayes_theorem/Fri, 15 Jul 2005 14:52:58 +0200 <p>I doubt it will be printed, so here for posterity is the letter I sent to the Spectator this morning, with my, umm just maybe, too pedantic review of a book review:</p> <p>Dear Sir </p> <p>I've spent years being almost physically frightened by Philip Hensher's intellect and erudition. So forgive a letter which is perhaps better suited to the Private Eye pedant's corner. In his review of "Freakonomics" by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, Philip claims that the authors' enumeration of risk is faulty: </p> <p>"Levitt claims, for instance, that a swimming pool in your back garden is 100 times more likely to kill your child than a revolver in your desk drawer. Actually the number of deaths is more like two-to-one; you have to factor in the number of guns in America versus the number of swimming pools before the claim makes sense". </p> <p>Philip (I think) is confusing marginal and conditional probabilities. The probability of interest is conditional: given that I have a pool, how likely is my child to die? (Versus: given that I have a gun, how likely is my child to die?). The marginal probability is: how likely is my child to die in a pool, regardless of whether I own one or not (which would usually be estimated as "no. of children who died in a pool divided by no. of swimming pools" - which I think is Philip's point). You can't make conditional inference about your child's risk without considering how likely you personally are to have a pool (or gun, and given that I'm writing from Hackney, this would probably be the more relevant calculation, Hackney council spending all its time closing down what few swimming facilities we once possessed). </p> <p>I'm not making any defence for the authors of what seems like a very silly book (nor do I know to which probability they refer), but this confusion is I think sometimes referred to as the "Prosecutor's fallacy", because it confuses probability of guilt given evidence with the probability of evidence given guilt. You don't have to think very far back in our legal history to see a fairly stunning misapplication of the probability calculus, as the General Medical Council has just admitted. </p> <p>The manipulation of conditional probabilities to make proper inference about hypotheses started with Bayes Theorem - you can visit the tomb of the Rev Thomas Bayes in London's Bunhill Row cemetery, where the fantastic and knowledgeable gardener will take you straight to the spot. Thomas Bayes should be one of our celebrated national heroes. As luck would have it I visited last Friday, and am attaching a picture of the very tomb. </p> <p>with very best wishes,<br> (Dr) Graeme Archer </p> <p>and here's the very picture! </p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/thosbayestomb_01.jpg" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/thosbayestomb_01_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a> </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/07/15/letter_to_the_spectator_on_bayes_theorem/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>conditional-probabilitythomas-bayesthe-spectatorbayes-theoremhttp://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/07/15/letter_to_the_spectator_on_bayes_theorem/#commentshttp://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/07/14/keith/tag:eastendlife.blog.co.uk,2005-07-14:/2005/07/14/keith/Thu, 14 Jul 2005 13:57:09 +0200 <p>Today's blog is for Keith. He will know why. On 7/7 he unthinkingly put the safety of others before himself. That's typical of him. </p> <p>Have you ever found yourself fallen in love? That's a line from a Belle&Sebastian song. Well, yes, I can answer, yes I have found myself in love. I can even tell you the date that it happened: 4th March, 2004. That was when I couldn't hold out anymore and had to start being honest with myself: that despite my years of training and despite straining every sinew in my body against it, I had falled in love with Keith Lesley Pannell. </p> <p>In retrospect, what a ridiculous fight. I know now that Keith always achieves his objectives, and thanks be, he had made winning me one such objective.</p> <p>It was not the most prospicious of beginnings. I was on holiday in Gran Canaria, staying in a gay resort. Have you ever stayed in such a place? Imagine all the worst aspects/contestants from Big Brother, then imagine yourself locked in with them, and set the temperature at upwards of 40 degrees C. Oh, and you have to imagine that you're also at least 3 stone heavier than (with one exception) everyone else there. Then add a sound track of screaming; constant, nervy screaming, with a lack of beer or indeed any escape. </p> <p>SO there I was, plonked by the pool, trying to keep my tummy hidden under a towel, feeling stupid for agreeing to come, reflecting that even at 34 I was way too old to be in such a place, resolving never to go further than the Radio4 bandwidth from Hackney again, when I saw him. </p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/Dartmoor-may-2004---4.jpg" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/Dartmoor-may-2004---4_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a><br> -- on his beloved Dartmoor.</p> <p>He was so handsome, sat with two friends outside their villa, drinking (I thought) endless diet coke, just quietly watching the rest of the complex. I thought I'd never seen such a handsome man. I can't type "fworr" but I'm afraid I was having that sort of thought inside. So somehow I suddenly lost all my "gosh but I'm so different to the clientele here" type feelings, and thought, oh well, you're on holiday, go on, try and attract his attention. </p> <p>There was nil eye contact, I mean NIL. I swam up and down the pool past their villa, up, down, up, down, greeting I think every other inhabitant of the island over the next couple of hours, up, down -- nothing from this solid, handsome man, not a flicker.</p> <p>Oh well never mind. Get changed, meet mates at the bar to go our for dinner ... guess who's standing there, on his own. I struggled to get out "would you like a drink?" - he probably heard "wurr wurr wurr wurr drrrrink?" (I forget how scottish I actually sound, in my head it's all BBC received pronunciation) and he shook his head: "No thanks. Just waiting for my friends". Well that was definitely it then no?</p> <p>But when his friends came out they had a bit of a confab and then the big man approached again. "Would you like to meet for a drink after dinner?" he asked, politely.</p> <p>Reader, I married him.</p> <p>Well not quite then and there but in effect, yes then and there. I always thought that falling in love would be a gradual matter. I had no idea it overwhelms every particle in your being, changing everything, instantly.</p> <p>We had a great time that holiday. I found out that his background was as impressive as his appearance: 16 years serving his country in the RAF, and the previous 8 years working for BAe in Saudi Arabia. </p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/Eddistone-lighthouse-(Plymouth-Hoe)---4.jpg" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/Eddistone-lighthouse-(Plymouth-Hoe)---4_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a><br> -- in Eddistone lighthouse on Plymouth Hoe.</p> <p>We endured a few months of separation, Keith flying back from Saudi as often as poss. Eventually - I think he'd decided this from the go - he resigned and moved back to London so that we could be together. On 20 August 2004 we began our life together at Victoria Park Road and I know, like I've never known anything before in my life - there's no mathematical theorem I believe in with such certainty - that God loved us enough to bring us together, and together we will be for the rest of our time on Earth. </p> <p>I used to live in an empty box; Keith has built us a home, a loving home, the centre of our world, where we can be at peace and share our love. I used to BE an empty box; Keith has filled me with joy and laughter and the warmth that comes from being a real human being. There aren't words, certainly none available to me, to describe how he makes me feel: that he's the first thought in the morning and the last at night, that I love him with a fierce protective passion, that sometimes I get dizzy just thinking of the enormity of this wonderful, capable, handsome, thoughtful, protective, caring man deciding that I was good enough to be his ... Keith: I love you, I love you today and I'll love you forever. </p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/two-can-play-at-that.jpg" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/two-can-play-at-that_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a><br> -- the famous Devon cream tea gets made short work of. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/07/14/keith/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>keith-pannelllovehttp://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/07/14/keith/#commentshttp://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/07/13/david_david_or_liam/tag:eastendlife.blog.co.uk,2005-07-13:/2005/07/13/david_david_or_liam/Wed, 13 Jul 2005 19:09:27 +0200 <p>This is a bit of a cheat because I'm just copying over my latest entry to the toryleadership blog, at the utterly fantastic site <a href="http://www.conservativehome.com.">www.conservativehome.com.</a> It's alive with discussion about who the next leader of the Conservative party should be and of course I can't keep my gob shut. What's below is my response to a posting about how Liam Fox, David Cameron and David Davis performed at a meeting of "socially concerned" Conservative MPs. You can read the original posting at<br> <a href="http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/2815455">http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/2815455</a></p> <p>and this was my response</p> <p>This was the meeting I was worried about a few weeks ago, thinking it was going to herald some right wing daily mail type (I don't know why I use that "daily mail" shorthand since I do read it and like it but you know what I mean) teeth gnashing about how ghastly britain is and how much better it would be if we could only unpick all those 1960s reforms and return to a 1950s world where no-one had deodarant and everyone was happy in their place. Do you ever think that about the 50s by the way? That it must have been a horrid smell since hardly anyone showered every day. So at least it seems we were spared that.</p> <p>Am not surprised that David Davis performed poorly, since it's only confirming that nascent feeling I've had about him since the start, ie basically a good bloke but not an intellectual giant and not a brilliant communicator. (I do want to point out that I like him, this is a subtle shade of differing opinion type thing).</p> <p>What does "lightweight" mean re David Cameron? That he is smiling and optimistic about life? We could do with some of that Reagan type optimism.</p> <p>.. and here's a snap of me in Hoxton at last May's election:<br> <a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/28-04-05_1911.jpg" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/28-04-05_1911_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a><br> <blockquote></blockquote> <p> <small> <a href="http://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/07/13/david_david_or_liam/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>david-cameronconservativeliam-foxtory-leadershipconservativehomedavid-davishttp://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/07/13/david_david_or_liam/#commentshttp://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/07/11/our_lives_go_on/tag:eastendlife.blog.co.uk,2005-07-11:/2005/07/11/our_lives_go_on/Mon, 11 Jul 2005 17:23:58 +0200 <p>Liverpool Street felt very odd today. We are determined to carry on, that is obvious, as though everything is going to be fine. It's true that this is the best risposte we can offer. But there's a (to me anyway) definite wariness in the air, a heaviness like that which comes before a thunder storm. When I got to Harlow this morning I felt rotten, it is definitely hard to focus on work (and it's good work, important work), because though not directly affected, the atrocity cannot help but make you consider the random allocation of life and death. All of which is to say I found it hard to think about experimental design and that my mind keeps returning to the torment and terror of those who were in the blast. </p> <p>I mean, it's not as though dozens of people aren't struck down randomly every day. It's the added horror of the calculation on the part of the perpetrators I think. I don't know, I'm probing actually to work out how I feel. It's wrong to say that it was frightening to be on a bus and a tube this weekend, but it was noticeabley different, and - I keep coming back to this word - there is a wariness evident in how we look at one another.</p> <p>I think it was wonderful that the 60th anniversary celebrations for WWII happened this weekend. But I think we will need a specific memorial day in London for 7/7. And there's me, quite definitely one of those people who are more inclined than not to sneer at the mention of phrases like "closure". Well. </p> <p>So on Wednesday the garden designer is coming to show us his plans for our square space of back garden. I think I made him groan by mentioning the City Gardener. What I meant was: something with hard surfaces and as little foliage as possible, and zero maintenance, that looks beautiful and adds at least 5K to the house value. I mean, how hard is that?!!!! </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/07/11/our_lives_go_on/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>garden-designlondon7-7liverpool-streethttp://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/07/11/our_lives_go_on/#commentshttp://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/07/09/7_10/tag:eastendlife.blog.co.uk,2005-07-09:/2005/07/09/7_10/Sat, 09 Jul 2005 11:52:47 +0200 <p>I see that the media have named Thursday's events as "7/7". What a terrible day. Everyone will remember it through their lives I think. </p> <p>I was at work in a 1x1 and noticed my mobile kept vibrating - when I finally listened to the messages (like everyone, I received multiple texts and voicemails saying "are you OK?") I was just confused. Something must have happened so I logged onto the bbc website. Then I think I was in total panic mode, I slammed shut my laptop and fled the office, I rang a Harlow cab firm (who superbly didn't quibble the request to take me all the way back into London) and went straight home. The drive down the M11 in the driving rain, trying to get hold of Keith, was prob my (very minor compared to others) worst point of the day. I kept getting through to the hotel reception but wasn't being connected to Keith, and of course the mobiles weren't working in London, and all I'd managed to take in from the brief viewing of the bbc website was that the City had been targetted in multiple bomb attacks. So was very very scared until I finally got Keith. </p> <p>He went straight into his training. 16 years in the RAF and 8 in Saudi Arabia give him skills and a mindset to cope with this sort of thing which I just lack. Unlike me, he didn't panic, but took off his engineering hat and put on a security one. He and a colleague were checking everyone entering the hotel with metal detectors. (Unbelievably, after it was over, he told me that some people complained about this!). </p> <p>I got back to the flat and - again like everyone I imagine - began working through all the messages, letting friends and family know that both Keith and I were fine (though I continued to be very worried about Keith, whatever I said to people, since the big elephant in everyone's thoughts was that there might be another spate of explosions). Then I contacted all the friends in my phonebook. Mercifully, everyone we know is OK.</p> <p>The irony of the day for us: Keith's friends in Saudi Arabia (which I had begged and begged him to leave) ringing to find out if Keith was safe, in London. </p> <p>The miracle of the day: of course the emergency services were remarkable - but what made me feel specially proud, lump-in-the-throat proud, was the bus, train and tube drivers. In a dramatic demonstration of what makes Londoners special, all the transport system came back online within 12 hours of the atrocity. Less than 10 hours after the bombs went off, Keith was able to walk through a functioning Liverpool Street station (which had already started taking people back home), and I was able to get on a no. 26 bus from Hackney Wick that would go onto St Paul's and the Strand and Waterloo. </p> <p>We met at Hackney Road and went to Columbia Road, home of the famous flower market, and met Paul (who works in Bloomsbury), Dave (who had managed to get home from Stevenage) and Lou (who works in Wapping and was flying home to Florida the next day to see his family). I think we were probably babbling. The Royal Oak was full and at first glance you would think it was a summer Friday evening atmosphere. When you tuned into the conversations you could hear the relief, the near smell of joy at being alive and safe, and here and there the shock thawing into anger. </p> <p>There are lots of cliches about London aren't there? "We can take it", the spirit of the Blitz, etc. On Thursday I realised they are cliches because they are true. I also realised that I cannot even begin to conceive what the Blitz must have been like, because 4 small bombs reduced me to a state of near terror. I always look at the blue placque on Bethnal Green tube entrance, commemorating the people who died in the panic during WWII trying to shelter from the guns they heard in Victoria Park. I'll have just a tiny bit more empathetic response to it in future. </p> <p>Like millions of people in this city, I choose to live here, I consciously organised my life so that I could come and live here. I love this city, it has been part of my psychology for as long as I've been adult, and no terrorist filth will drive me out. I think that goes for all of us. </p> <p>Anyway the next day I went to Keith's work with him, just because I didn't want to let go. I walked back through Smithfield and the Barbican. The best remedy for the shock was at Smithfield - the meat market was in full swing. Nothing's gonna stop us now! Here are a couple of pictures, from the morning of the 8th in EC1, and from the evening, when we went for a sail down the Thames. </p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/100_0212.JPG" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/100_0212_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a></p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/100_0205.JPG" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/100_0205_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a></p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/100_0216.JPG" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/100_0216_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a></p> <p><a href="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/100_0237.JPG" title=""><img src="http://data1.blog.de/blog/e/eastendlife/img/100_0237_small.jpg" border="0" alt=""></a> </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/07/09/7_10/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>london7-7bussmithfieldhttp://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/07/09/7_10/#commentshttp://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/07/05/verona_again/tag:eastendlife.blog.co.uk,2005-07-05:/2005/07/05/verona_again/Tue, 05 Jul 2005 14:15:13 +0200 <p>Getting ready - at home - for a trip to Verona (for work). I should take the camera and try and get some pictures. Just purchasing Handel's Messiah and a new book off iTunes for the trip. Gatwick airport in the middle of summer, mmm, bound to be fun. </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/07/05/verona_again/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>veronagatwickhttp://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/07/05/verona_again/#commentshttp://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/07/02/random_good_things_about_life_1/tag:eastendlife.blog.co.uk,2005-07-02:/2005/07/02/random_good_things_about_life_1/Sat, 02 Jul 2005 23:45:14 +0200 <p><img src="/img/smilies/icon_arrow.gif" alt="=>" class="middle" border="0">The Matthew Passion (the Bach version, not that generated in onlookers when Mr C rolls up for canvassing on his bike).</p> <p><img src="/img/smilies/icon_arrow.gif" alt="=>" class="middle" border="0">Harlow cab drivers. Actually cabbies in general. </p> <p><img src="/img/smilies/icon_arrow.gif" alt="=>" class="middle" border="0">iPod, no really, how did I cope with life before it. Just holding it makes me feel more peaceful. Am I a geek?</p> <p><img src="/img/smilies/icon_arrow.gif" alt="=>" class="middle" border="0">Being old enough not to care about being a geek anymore.</p> <p><img src="/img/smilies/icon_arrow.gif" alt="=>" class="middle" border="0">Hackney South Conservative Association. You don't know anything about the Conservative party till you've spent a night canvassing with us. We usually don't know anything about the Conservative party either, after we've rolled out the pub. (For people who DO know -- see <a href="http://www.conservativehome.com">www.conservativehome.com</a> (as well, of course, as <a href="http://www.hackneyconservatives.com">www.hackneyconservatives.com</a> - new members welcome, especially straight males or females, we really do need to do something about that quota - see one of our political parties at <a href="http://homepage.mac.com/graemearcher/PhotoAlbum4.html">http://homepage.mac.com/graemearcher/PhotoAlbum4.html</a> )). </p> <p><img src="/img/smilies/icon_arrow.gif" alt="=>" class="middle" border="0"> Summer. Yesterday was the first of July. Saw my first office worker of the year being pushed out of Hamilton Hall - the fool! Didn't she know that Hamilton Hall on summer Friday afternoon's is for BUILDERS ONLY! </p> <p> <small> <a href="http://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/07/02/random_good_things_about_life_1/#comments">Comments</a> </small> </p>conservative-partyhttp://eastendlife.blog.co.uk/2005/07/02/random_good_things_about_life_1/#comments