Conspicuous Consumption

It seems that I picked the wrong day to go to the cricket. Friday was a washout and yesterday was a historic, if confusing occasion. In years to come, when the topic of ball tampering allegations arises and people ask what I was doing when Pakistan became the first Test Nation to forfeit a game by refusing to take the field for the final session, I can say “I wasn’t there.”¹

No, yesterday, a great deal of time and energy was expended wandering around the West End making purchases that I didn’t want to make on Saturday². The initial impetus to hit town was to pick up a couple of comics and stuff from Forbidden Planet³ but a side trip into Fopp yielded a number of CDs (It seems that Universal are issuing re-mastered ‘best of’ double CD collections from their many labels, so I acquired one each of Steppenwolf and The Velvet Underground for a fiver each. This not being quite enough to satisfy, I also picked up, after many years’ hemming and hawing, Janis Joplin’s Greatest Hits, something by the Chilli Peppers for Elle and another CD that quite remarkably escapes me for the time being. My memory is clearly shot; it’s less than 24 hours ago.

Both Planet and Fopp were excruciatingly warm and it was a very dehydrated pair that wandered into Blackwell’s on an abortive book finding mission.

The bonus, of course, is that once we realised that we were running ahead of time, we wandered off the Marks and Spencer⁴ where I managed to pick up a new and much needed bathrobe amongst other things. This is fantastic – it is a hoodie bathrobe and with very little adjustment could be made to look like a Jedi cloak. Fantastic.

These are not the bath oils you are looking for.

I need a lightsabre.



¹And this remains so true for many historic and potentially historic events. I’m never there.

²The Plutons were in Aquarius and the auguries were all wrong. Plus, I didn’t want to drag purchases round the Barbican during Hayden and Maisie’s reception.

³From whence it is proving impossible to obtain a TARDIS USB hub, a cyberman or even a cyberman keyring. I ask you, what king of Geek Emporium is that?

⁴Dude, am I fashion trend setter or what? Marks and Spencer…!

Conspicuous Consumption

It seems that I picked the wrong day to go to the cricket. Friday was a washout and yesterday was a historic, if confusing occasion. In years to come, when the topic of ball tampering allegations arises and people ask what I was doing when Pakistan became the first Test Nation to forfeit a game by refusing to take the field for the final session, I can say “I wasn’t there.”¹

No, yesterday, a great deal of time and energy was expended wandering around the West End making purchases that I didn’t want to make on Saturday². The initial impetus to hit town was to pick up a couple of comics and stuff from Forbidden Planet³ but a side trip into Fopp yielded a number of CDs (It seems that Universal are issuing re-mastered ‘best of’ double CD collections from their many labels, so I acquired one each of Steppenwolf and The Velvet Underground for a fiver each. This not being quite enough to satisfy, I also picked up, after many years’ hemming and hawing, Janis Joplin’s Greatest Hits, something by the Chilli Peppers for Elle and another CD that quite remarkably escapes me for the time being. My memory is clearly shot; it’s less than 24 hours ago.

Both Planet and Fopp were excruciatingly warm and it was a very dehydrated pair that wandered into Blackwell’s on an abortive book finding mission.

The bonus, of course, is that once we realised that we were running ahead of time, we wandered off the Marks and Spencer⁴ where I managed to pick up a new and much needed bathrobe amongst other things. This is fantastic – it is a hoodie bathrobe and with very little adjustment could be made to look like a Jedi cloak. Fantastic.

These are not the bath oils you are looking for.

I need a lightsabre.



¹And this remains so true for many historic and potentially historic events. I’m never there.

²The Plutons were in Aquarius and the auguries were all wrong. Plus, I didn’t want to drag purchases round the Barbican during Hayden and Maisie’s reception.

³From whence it is proving impossible to obtain a TARDIS USB hub, a cyberman or even a cyberman keyring. I ask you, what king of Geek Emporium is that?

⁴Dude, am I fashion trend setter or what? Marks and Spencer…!

I shall have my revenge

Miracleman trounced by Superman

Google Fight, as relayed by caffeine_fairy. Something less than meaningful for Monday afternoons....

I shall have my revenge

Miracleman trounced by Superman

Google Fight, as relayed by caffeine_fairy. Something less than meaningful for Monday afternoons....

Wall's End

This morning, on the way out home and to work respectively, Miss Furtle and I encountered a man acting rather suspiciously and with some puzzlement by the gate that leas into the Athenaeum Club. As we crossed the road he wandered down the passageway that leads no-where except to our door. I stood and watched a while and then went back to challenge him.

He was, he said, a builder and that he had been asked to fix the wall that was busily crumbling away next to the gate (Journals passim). Fair enough, he mentioned enough buzz words to make me believe him so I went to work.

I return home this afternoon to find that the entire wall has disappeared along with the rubble of the collapsed portion, though the rather sad-looking gate has not. I quite like it open as it is and hope that it never gets rebuilt - though I expect that it will. As it stands there is nowhere for specky disaffected youths and other pimpletons to hide whilst smoking their illicit substances, drinking cans of beer and relieving themselves in the open air.

It is much better the way it is.

In other matters, my memory kicked in while I was coming home. That other CD is the Best of Dr Hook though apparently not his Medicine Show.

Wall's End

This morning, on the way out home and to work respectively, Miss Furtle and I encountered a man acting rather suspiciously and with some puzzlement by the gate that leas into the Athenaeum Club. As we crossed the road he wandered down the passageway that leads no-where except to our door. I stood and watched a while and then went back to challenge him.

He was, he said, a builder and that he had been asked to fix the wall that was busily crumbling away next to the gate (Journals passim). Fair enough, he mentioned enough buzz words to make me believe him so I went to work.

I return home this afternoon to find that the entire wall has disappeared along with the rubble of the collapsed portion, though the rather sad-looking gate has not. I quite like it open as it is and hope that it never gets rebuilt - though I expect that it will. As it stands there is nowhere for specky disaffected youths and other pimpletons to hide whilst smoking their illicit substances, drinking cans of beer and relieving themselves in the open air.

It is much better the way it is.

In other matters, my memory kicked in while I was coming home. That other CD is the Best of Dr Hook though apparently not his Medicine Show.