Further ramblings of a self-made pauper

Back at work after a good, if short, Easter break.

We didn’t do much on Friday, beyond potter around and do a little cleaning. Largely we concentrated on winding down for the break and waiting for deliveries from Amazon (I am now the proud owner of a pair of 8x40 binoculars for bird watching – on the assumption that we actually do go bird watching. I have an RSPB book of British birds, too).

Saturday we wandered into the West End for a mooch around. We popped into Gosh on Brewer Street, but although I nearly bought something, I decided my reading list is already too long and needs culling first. Furtle decided that the next volume of Tintin compact stories would be best bought from Amazon. So much for us supporting the high street, eh?

We went from there to Old Compton Street, where we visited in turn, The Algerian Coffee Store and Gerry’s Wines and Spirits from where respectively we stocked up on speciality coffee beans and I acquired two bottles of ‘Oude Genever’ (one from either end of the dry/sweet divide), which I have been dying to try for some time. We then met up with Alix and jfs for a meal at the Brasserie Zédel just off Regent Street for a French meal. It’s my second visit and Furtle’s third. Highly recommended Art Nouveau style brasserie, with a small cabaret club and cocktail bar, all below ground. At ground level is a similar style if small, café, which gives no real hint about how large the place is. It isn’t cheap, but neither is it a rip off.

The evening was spent baby sitting for our neighbours, who had a rare opportunity of a night out. So we watched a movie on the iPad and rad for a bit.

Sunday saw us driving up to Chelmsford to visit the in-laws. A visit to the local followed by dinner saw the afternoon away and faced with an evening sitting doing very little, Furtle discovered that the local ice hockey team, the Chelmsford Chieftains were playing the Streatham Redskins, so we went to see that. Furtle has been hoping to get to see some ice hockey for ages and this seemed to be just the job. It turns out that not only have Chelmsford won their league, but Sunday night’s game was the second of a two-leg cup final. Chelmsford went into the game with a healthy 7-2 lead and won 10-3 on the night, which made it all rather comprehensive.

I must admit to enjoying it, despite reservations beforehand. I can’t pretend to have understood many of the nuances, or why certain things were penalties and others weren’t. Ice Hockey seems to be rather more about speed and aggression rather than nuanced tactics, so I doubt my ignorance made much difference.

Had the Chieftains had any remote concept of merchandising, I probably would have bought a replica jersey, but I was saved the expense. I know they’re available, people in the crowd were wearing them, but I assume they are only available from local sports shops. They were certainly not in evidence at the ice rink.

Monday saw us drive up to Audley End to meet friends and have a wander around. It’s the place where the duck kept pecking my boot last year, trying to get be to feed him. It was a bit too blustery this year and the ducks were wisely elsewhere.

Next weekend, we’re thinking about visiting RHS Wisley, but for now I’m back in the office.

Dreary, My Dears. Dreary.

Despite the best intentions I seem to have allowed some time to pass by since I last updated. I guess I’ve just got out of the habit.
So where are we and what have we been up to?
Primarily, I guess, the news is that we took the first week of February off work and took the opportunity to go to Stockholm for a few days on the run up to my birthday. Last year I didn’t really celebrate my birthday on account of Mum dying, so this year I wanted to do something and I’ve been trying to persuade ellefurtle for some time that Sweden is a nice place to visit and that Stockholm is a major European capital where they do more than shoot stray elk and eat pickled herring.
The other reason I fancied it was to go during winter when hopefully the waters around the archipelago might be frozen and there would be some snow lying on the ground. Even on the rare occasion we get a proper winter in the UK – particularly the south, it is so seldom as to be noteworthy when the mercury drops to anything close to the seasonal average for Southern Sweden. I spent a fair while during January monitoring the weather in Stockholm and was gratified to see it varying between -7˚c and, when the wind was in the north, -20˚c. We hit Amazon and various other retailers and ensured that we had appropriate gear for the cold weather – not arctic quality, obviously, but certainly warmer than normal UK clothes – and prepared for the trip.
Of course, it rained before we got there, didn’t it? Temperatures rose to UK winter cold, which is positively balmy for the region. The snow melted and the sea and lakes thawed. By the time we got there, there were a few sheets of ice bobbing around in the harbour and we did find one sheltered corner where it hadn’t melted, but by and large…
It did snow on our last night, so we did manage to get out and have a taste of proper winter, albeit briefly.
Annoyingly, the only flights, or at least the only reasonably priced flights with airlines we are prepared to entrust our lives to, go from Heathrow terminal 5. I’d never used that terminal before and it turns out that it is pretty good and rather easier to use than I recall being the case with the other four. Nonetheless, it is still the ultimate drag getting across London by rail ands tube from Ilford (coming back was worse) and if I ever get to be in a position to decide these things, there will be flights from City Airport, so there.
The flight itself was unremarkable – unlike the pre-Christmas trip to Prague, we left on time and were not cramped into tiny seats – this flight was BA, the other was Czech Airlines. (We are never flying Czech Airlines again, unless it is a straight choice between them and Ryanair). Passport control at Stockholm Arlanda Airport was easy enough, though it is clear that Schengen, if not dead, is coughing up blood. Baggage reclaim was simple enough.
I had prebooked a return ticket for both of us on the regular bus/coach service. Unfortunately the driver was disinclined to accept the e-tickets on my iPhone, so we were left stranded until the next bus arrived. That time was spent in discussion with equally baffled information staff who couldn’t see the problem, followed by me trying to look something up on a Swedish computer, where the default language for everything was, naturally, incomprehensible to me. In the end we just waited for the next bus and that driver, having tried and failed to scan the bar codes, just punched in a couple of numbers on his keypad and let us on.
We arrived a little later than anticipated at the City Terminal in the city centre, where we were met by our friend, Niclas, who walked with us to the hotel, Hotel Victory on Gamla Stan – the old town area of Stockholm, on its own little island. We checked in and then wandered out to find beer and food.
Anyone planning to visit Stockholm could do far worse than book the Victory. It is one of a small chain of three, all based on Gamla Stan and all nautically themed: ours after Nelson’s flagship, the others being the Lord Nelson and the Lady Hamilton, respectively. Our room was small but cosy and it is the only place I’ve ever stayed where they provided the guests a small decanter of port gratis every night as a night cap. There was also unlimited, albeit make it yourself, tea and coffee available. Each room is named for a Swedish naval captain and the whole place is filled with antique bric-a-brac with a nautical theme.
Stockholm in the winter is remarkably quiet – or at least it was while we were there. The amount of traffic on the road felt more like a reasonably prosperous north midlands market town and down by the harbour, most if not all of the tours/bars etc were closed for the season, lending a similar air to off season in many a British seaside town. Away from the harbour, though, it was much busier. We only made a couple of museums – the Vasamuseet – the purpose built museum holding the restored remains of the Vasa, a warship that sank in the 17th century (and one of my favourite all time museums, by the way) and the Nationalmuseet, which is a mixture of local history from Viking times onwards with some natural history thrown in.
We avoided the Nordiska Museet, as it features aspects of Nordic (primarily Swedish) life etc and we thought it sounded worthy but tedious. We decided to leave the remaining museums until Monday, only to find that Museums in Stockholm do not open on Mondays. And the Army Museum is closed until the summer for refurbishment.
Nonetheless, plenty to see and do and lots of good walking to be had.
I think next time we go there, it will be in the summer so that we can take boat trips out and about, but I’d like to go again in winter, but when the winter is behaving itself.

During the Christmas Holidays Furtle and I bowed to the cultural imperative and wandered along to see the new Star Wars movie. She was looking forward to it more than I was, I mean the original trilogy would have dominated her childhood in a way it missed mine by a number of years. I was 18 when the original came out, and I’m pretty sure I never saw Empire Strikes Back or Return of the Jedi at the cinema. Well, nit until the late eighties when they showed all three back to back at the Prince Charles off Leicester Square. My main memory of that event is blinking in surprise that it was still daylight when I exited the cinema, and being barely able to stand upright as my legs were so stiff. Left to my own devices, I should probably have waited for the DVD release, or watched it on telly in 4-5 years’ time.

I think I watched the prequel trilogy at the cinema. I know I watched one of them there, but I can’t remember which. Liverpool were busy coming from 3-0 down to win the European Cup on the same night, so you can probably work it out from that if you’re so minded. I’m not.

Anyway, Furtle was clearly more excited than I was at the prospect of seeing the seventh film in the franchise. I’m not done with franchise movies by a long chalk, but this is an idea that goes back 40 years and I have a feeling that someone should come up with a new franchise. For what it’s worth, I think the same about Trek and I used to be an enormous Star Trek fan. The Marvel Cinematic Universe hasn’t paled for me yet, but it has its fair share of duds and I’m not sure how much longer they can milk it before it is clear that someone needs to call it a day. I suspect the first time they recast one of the main characters will start the unravelling. The Hulk is a special case; most of the time he’s just CGI anyway and we can safely quietly pretend the solo outings never happened. They neither add to nor subtract from the overall narrative.

But back to Star Wars.

Maybe we left it too long and allowed the media hype to get to us. Maybe we were so jaundiced by the quality of the prequel trilogy that there isn’t quite enough goodwill left to prop the franchise up. I don’t know. What I do know is that while I wasn’t actually bored by the film, I did spend a lot of it yawning mightily and we both left the movie feeling rather flat rather than elated.

Visually it was right, but the pacing was off – too much catch up plot and not really time to develop it. I know that it is inevitable that the movie should centre around and showcase the new characters, and rightly so. The Old Guard is getting a little long in the tooth and the Star Wars universe needs its generational change. But I didn’t feel the chemistry, or any particular strength of acting from the younger characters. The movie only came alive for me when the older characters were on screen and I think that might have been nostalgia more than anything.

Of course there was also THE THING that happened. THE THING should have waited until midway through the next episode in my opinion; it felt too rushed.

I probably need to se it again at some point, to appreciate it better, but at the moment, six out of ten is the best I can muster.

Happy New Year, mes amis. I see that I’ve managed to go an entire month without posting, which is clearly remiss of me.

Must do better.

So, what’s happened since November? Christmas and the New Year Break, obviously. Today is my first day back and I have to say (and this will come as no surprise to you) that I would really be pretty much anywhere else but here, but as usual there are bills to pay et cetera and so forth.

Christmas itself was quiet – we stayed at home and hid from the world, though we did have colonel_maxim over for two nights, which was good (we got the band back together). Apart from (over) feeding and watching Doctor Who and a couple of other telly progs, we didn’t actually do much. On the 27th we went to ellefurtle’s folks for a second Christmas with her side of the family. Being a couple of days after the actual day, it meant the pub was open properly, so we took advantage of that for a couple of hours while Elle’s Mum wrangled the duck, which was stubbornly refusing to cook at the anticipated rate.

For New Year itself, we simply hid. We did nip out to buy a few essentials – the place was, and to an extent still is, stuffed with seasonal fare, but we needed bread and other staples (and, of course, cat litter. The little blighters are just digestive tubes).

Earlier in December was rather busier. Right at the beginning of the month I attended the eighteenth Annual GASP weekend – that’s eighteen years we’ve been mooching off to Norfolk (mainly) for pour long weekend of lads-only boozing and gaming (the actual event has been going a few years longer, but used to be held in North London, when three of the crew had a house large enough to accommodate us all).

I managed two whole days back in the office before we slipped off to Prague for a few nights for the Christmas Markets. I’ve never been to the Czech Republic before and was rather surprised – in the Old Town at least – at just how Anglicised everything is. By which I mean that even the shop names were in English. In fact, other than the currency and the fact that they drive on the right, it might almost have been a very old and ornate city in England. This was a bit disappointing, though I still enjoyed the trip. Last year (um… 2014), we went to Heidelberg in Germany, which is smaller, but I think the compactness helped, at least from the point of view of the Christmas markets. Prague was rather more widely spread and that, together with the unseasonable weather meant that it felt rather less Christmassy than I’d hoped. Nonetheless, we enjoyed ourselves immensely and I think we will go again, though perhaps not at Christmas.

The weather was weird though. I managed to wander around in tee shirt and jeans much of the time – though the locals felt the need to wrap up- as it was so mild (it did get chilly at a couple of points, so I was glad of my sweatshirt and, once, my coat). Clearly Central Europe doesn’t get as cold as we’ve been led to believe. I need to check the average and projected February temperatures for Stockholm as we are intending to go there in early February. That’s somewhat further north, so it might actually be chilly up there.

Right. Better get on and do some work. I’ll try to update more often. Honestly.

November already, huh? And for today at least, it’s actually feeling autumnal: it’s seasonably misty and cool and there are leaves on the floor. The weekend was more like summer with rather shorter days, which I guess is just as well as my sister and niece were down in London staying with us for three nights.

We didn’t get around as many places as we’d hoped as my sister has a great deal of trouble with her knees (one is a still- healing knee replacement), so what walking there was, was very slow. Add to that the fact that neither she nor my niece seem to have the remotest idea of just how big London is, well…

Anyway. Among the highlights were a trip on the river bus and a trip to the theatre.

The river bus might not sound like much, but given the aforementioned mobility issues coupled with the need to get from Ilford to the West End on both the Friday and the Saturday, it is a very good way of seeing a lot of London sights without actually doing anything – and the view from the river tends to be rather better than that from buses or street level generally, where you are stuck in the canyons between buildings (though on the right day, in the right weather, that can have its charm, too). That went down very well, I think. On the Friday evening, we disappeared up to Leytonstone, and had a couple of drinks in the Luna Lounge, before taking them to what is probably Furtle’s and my favourite restaurant, The Olive for a Turkish meal. I think they enjoyed that, though it’s hard to tell: at times I fear that my sister is adopted, as she and her family all seem to be resistant to spices and flavour (Mum wasn’t so bad – she’d give most things a try, but Dad’s default was always “I don’t like it” even if he’d never tried something before (we always found the best way was just to feed stuff to him and tell him about it later). Certainly this was an issue when we ordered in a Chinese on the Saturday while we watched a movie and it wasn’t apparently, ‘as good as the choice at home’. I’ve had both and it is, so Ner.

Still, while I’m not sure what my niece thought of the Turkish food beyond finding the sausage too spicy, the halloumi not to her taste, not touching the bread and avoiding the humus and restricting herself to the grilled chicken (she wasn’t fond of the yoghurt and tomato sauce on my Chicken Iskander, either, so there wasn’t much flavour on the go for her.), I think my sister was pleasantly surprised.

On Saturday we went to see Agatha Christie’s ‘The Mousetrap’, famous largely for being the longest running production in history (now in its 60th year). Barbie and Sarah enjoyed that, which is good. It was fun, theatre has to be truly awful not to be able to find something to enjoy, but I have to say that the plot wasn’t the strongest of Christie’s stories and perhaps because it was set in the early 1950s, there was cheese and ham in the performances in equal measure. Nonetheless, it was enjoyable, though I think now I’ve seen it, it can probably stay seen, for another few years, at least.

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As a completely unrelated side note (other than the fact it was this weekend), we have finally put the batteries in the cat flap so that we can unlock it and have it react to the chips in the cats’ necks.

The cats have been allowed out before, for short periods under strict supervision, but now we are letting them come and go as they please. At the current rate of in and out, I suspect the batteries will not last the full 6 months, but then, I expect that will calm down a little once the novelty has worn off.

It took a couple of goes to get them to work out what they were supposed to do, but they turn out to be surprisingly quick studies. Peploe? took a little longer to get it right, but I think that is more down to the fact that it’s a relatively snug fit for him to go through the tunnel. Once he got used to it, he was fine.

While they were denied access to the rest of the house beyond the kitchen as usual last night, they had the opportunity to wander outside to their hearts’ content but still come back in for the warmth of their beds and in theory, a snack, though they do tend to scoff the lot when it’s put out for them.

They were already outside when I got up and went down this morning, but it didn’t take long for them to come back in and bounce on Furtle, who was still snoozing in bed, having booked the day off.

Hard to believe that we have had the Moogs for four weeks come Thursday lunchtime. This means that we will be taking them to the vets for their booster shots at the weekend. I foresee that our reputations in Catdom will then be mud at least until we next feed them.

 

We are hoping that a month of living in the Gin palace will have accustomed them to the place and that they now regard it as home. This is important, because we want to start acclimatising them to the outside world, primarily the back garden. To begin with, we will only let them out when we are around and without feeding them first, so that they have an incentive to come barrelling in for their dinner. It might be time, too, for a little classical conditioning. We have a little bell. I think we should start ringing that every time they get fed, so that we can use it to call them back (if they are not wandering too widely) at night. They will still have the cat flap if they want to get out, of course, but some manner of calling them home will be useful.

 

We are worried that the Moogs will be rather too curious about the main road out front, so we will be semi fortifying the fence and gate at the side of the house, so that they are encouraged to go into the gardens behind the house and not out onto the street. That said, if they want to go that way, there is no real way of stopping them. It probably doesn’t help that they are very inquisitive, being only a week or two past their first birthdays. On the other hand, it doesn’t take much to spook them, either. They don’t like the ceiling fan or the vacuum cleaner, so hopefully the traffic out front will deter them. The main problem is likely to be at night, when it is quiet, so I suspect (forgive the hint of a pun), that we will have to play it by ear.







a series of photos of the brutes largely because velvet_the_cat asked.

The tabby is Peploe? And the black looking but actually very dark brown one is his sister, Moneypenny. They are the same age, but she is about half his size.

I have been a fan of King Crimson since about 1971 when my then best friend introduced me to In the Court of the Crimson King, the band’s influential debut. In the intervening 44 years they have had their musical ups and downs between numerous line up changes and hiatuses (hiati?), but with some notable exceptions, they have produced more music that I like than they have that I don’t.

When they toured the UK and Europe regularly, I was too young to get to see them and later, never had the money, opportunity or passport (or confidence to wander off abroad solo even if I had got a passport) to see them play live. Then they seemed to either be in hiatus or touring only in the US or Far East. To be fair, who can blame them? For some reason progressive rock has become the one musical genre that dare not openly speak its name in the UK. I accept that fashions change and that at its height prog was remarkably pompous and self-regarding, but similar things can be said of other styles that may now feel dated or unfashionable, but which retain at least the glow of nostalgia

I digress. The point is, I assumed after 44 years of enjoying their music, that I would never see them play live. About 12 years ago, I attended 3 gigs by the 21st Century Schizoid Band (reviewed on this very journal), a band made up of ex-Crimso Alumni plus Jakko Jakszyk and thought that would be as close as I ever got.

But I was wrong. They are currently in the middle of a world tour and I got tickets for their gig at the Hackney Empire on Monday 7 September. All the result of an idle internet search after Furtle had scored tickets for UK’s farewell tour back in March (possibly noted in LJ, possibly not).

So there we were: Hackney Empire to witness the latest line up, a seven piece including no fewer than three drummers. I didn’t recognise all the numbers they played, but there were enough from what I (and I believe most Crimso fans) regard as their golden era to keep me happy. The three drums set up gave me some pause for thought before the gig, but it worked. Not every song required three sets, so the middle drummer doubled up on keyboards, while Pat Mastelotto provided “percussive layering” from time time to time (by which I mean he wound up a clock into the microphone, hit metal thingies and riffled aluminium foil into the microphone). I don’t quite know why, but it worked.

At other times the three drummers played related, but different rhythms that provided a rather richer tapestry (!) before coming together for some quite pulsating output where they each played the same riff.

http://i1.cdnds.net/15/06/618x381/music-king-crimson.jpg

Set List:
Walk On: Monk Morph Chamber Music (Pre-recorded outro to Islands)
1. Larks' Tongues in Aspic, Part One
2. Pictures of a City
3. Radical Action (To Unseat the Hold of Monkey Mind)
4. Meltdown
5. Hell Hounds of Krim
6. The ConstruKction of Light (Instrumental)
7. Level Five
8. Epitaph
9. Banshee Legs Bell Hassle
10. Easy Money
11. Interlude
12. The Letters
13. Sailor's Tale
14. One More Red Nightmare
15. Starless
Encore:
16. Devil Dogs Of Tessellation Row
17. The Court of the Crimson King
18. 21st Century Schizoid Man

Personnel:
Gavin Harrison, Bill Rieflin, Pat Mastelotto, Tony Levin, Mel Collins, Jakko Jakszyk, Robert Fripp

Today is our last day in work before we take a fortnight off and to say that I am de-mob happy is an understatement. That’s true for Furtle, too.

Tomorrow we are scooting off to Shrewsbury for a couple of nights. I made the tactical error of mentioning at Mum’s funeral, that the only time these days the extended family gest together is for sad occasions. The hatchings and matchings are largely done; we are mainly left now with prospective despatchings. My sister took my words to heart and has organised a clan gathering for Mum’s side of the family, a large and scattered group, many of whom are complete strangers to me, and an equal number, acquaintances at best. Still, over all it’s a good thing, though I very much expect that we will limit our participation to the evening part of the event, otherwise it will be 9 or so hours in the pub and I don’t think my liver can take that, much less the finances.

After we have done Shrewsbury, we are driving up to Buxton in Derbyshire on Monday. We will be spending the remainder of the week exploring the Derbyshire Dales. Four nights in Buxton, followed by two in Hartington, with the last day spent at the Chatsworth Country Show.

I am hoping for cool, sunny weather. We propose to do a fair amount of walking and I have even equipped myself with a pair of Nordic Walking Poles to try and take some of the strain off my poor, knackered knees. I’m also hoping that we can do some relatively flat walks along the paths that follow abandoned railway lines. I am happy to do a couple of extra miles for the benefit of a relatively flat route. Last year we did a knackering six mile walk up and down and it nearly killed me; I am just too out of shape for that, so distance over the flat is better. The walking poles should help with a little cardiac benefit, too.

Once we get back to Ilford a week on Sunday, there isn’t much planned other than snoozing, though we have tickets to see King Crimson on the Monday night at the Hackney Empire. Now THERE’S a band I never thought I’d get to see live. Prior to this, the nearest I managed was the 21st Century Schizoid Band 10-11 years back.

I have just confused the Hell out of a barista by proffering £10.20 to pay a £5.10 bill. I really just didn’t want a pocket of change…

It was quite fun to watch: he rang up the items, took the money without particularly thinking and then lost it when the change came back the same as the price. Cue much checking of till roll and receipts to see what he’d done wrong. If only I’d had a 10p piece instead of a 20p all that existential angst could have been avoided.

The coffee is only adequate anyway.

The die is cast, we are getting a cat.

Possibly two.

Left to my own devices, I shouldn’t have obtained one, but ellefurtle has wanted one for ages and since I don’t actively object…

When we had all the redecorating work done, we had a cat flap installed then, so after that it was only a matter of time. A woman came over from the Celia Hammond Animal Rescue on Friday, while Furtle was working from home, to check that we are fit and proper people to take on one of their rescued Moogs. It seems that we are, though it was recommended that we do something with chicken mesh to make it harder/impossible for a cat to bolt on to the road, over the high gate from outside the kitchen door. It’s a territory thing, apparently, since we can’t stop them without sealing off the whole garden, so it means channelling them away from the street and making it more likely that if spooked outside the house they will burst in through the cat flap.

We are picking the animal(s) up on Sunday (once we have chosen it/them). Apparently Celia Hammond herself will be there as well and we have been forewarned that she is an expert at emotional blackmail, so I shall have to wear my cylon head if we are to avoid acquiring an entire brood of the things.

Yesterday we spent the afternoon at RHS Hyde Hall, but not before we had stopped in something that is not, but should be called Petsaurus. It didn’t take long to come away with my bank balance £100 lighter and we still have other stuff we need to buy before the interlopers arrive next weekend. Amongst other things we have acquired a very long scratch post in the vague and (probably) futile hope that the cats will use that instead of the chesterfield to sharpen their claws.

I am now about to cane my credit card further on Amazon, for more cattish stuff.