Wednesday, December 07, 2005

trip to london, part 1 (nicky p stylee)


Brick Lane Restaurants
Originally uploaded by davidcharding.
so yesterday i brushed my teeth for way too long, i got a bit distracted and kept brushing and brushing absent mindedly and then the toothbrush was covered in blood. i can't believe i did that. i've done it once before but that was with an electric toothbrush.

so I worked in the pub on Friday night, which now involves an extra hour of real ale and belgian speciality beers for entheusiastic old men. and then Rosie and Daniel came into the pub after it was closed and i was sitting up at the bar with a pint of winter solstice and they had been to see the nightmare before christmas and were tripping and so rosie performed her five different kinds of whistle for my bosses and discussed beef jerky suppliers and daniel elaborated on how chef had told him that in australia the sun burns away the ears of farmers and dogs and cats have their ears amputated to save the pain of them later burning off; "get in quick.. ten years head start". we were going to go to the victory for a drink before three o clock due to its new late opening hours but as we stood on a traffic island half way to crossing to the lit up steps we sang "this is halloween" to each other and then it suddenly tipped down with rain so we thought more of it. anna has a picture of a mole emerging from the ground on her wall.

the next morning we got up early and went to sainsburies and bought mushrooms and bread and butter and hoops, and had a cup of tea and cooked breakfast and then went to the spar shop and saw matt and then went to the station and went to london.

we had a bottle of lilt on the train and it's the first time i've drunk lilt for about eight years but somehow it tastes familiar.

on the train we planned our sightseeing for the weekend. so as we alighted at victoria we got a map for the tourbus, and went to go to embankment in order to stroll along the river thames and possibly see areas that feature in the film four weddings and a funeral.

"Is it raining? I hadn't noticed."

but as we stepped out of embankment underground station there was a massive march about climate change, and within minutes of smoking a rolly and watching the march we were set about by brighton vegan cider waving masses, and then we saw erica who invited us to come march with them, but we had too much sightseeing to do. shame on me.

and colin jumped on our back and then they all marched on and we watched for a bit and then we wandered through the streets and went to trafalgar square

PHONE MAST DAVE IS THIRTY

where there are much fewer pigeons and instructions not to feed them, and wee tiny seagulls far from the sea. it rained but fortunately we had a classy wooden handled executive umbrella and we saw the lions

and then after trafalgar square we went down to see the houses of parliament and westminster abbey and saw the march march past once again, and then we decided that as it was raining, we should go somewhere indoors, and so eating peanuts on the underground we went to the british museum.

in fact we got very lost on the way to the british museum and somehow ended up walking away from it and past the bank of england and the london school of economics and gordon brown lying in the street, glass eye twitching

but eventually we found our way there past 19th century oriental booksellers and japanese hot table cafes. a massive circular centre library with blue padded desks and great walls of books and doorways that look like shelves of books. then an incredible room which contained great tall sculptures of wood and totems and a doorway in the shape of an eagle on top of a lesser eagle with horns on top of a baleen whale, whose mouth formed the doorway. and cheery papau new guinea faces, and dancing carnival suits, and flying wooden creatures. there were also many rooms with other exciting things, including ancient models of cows and whales and birds.

once we left the british museum, there were two kids who also had to leave because it was the last straw, but we went to a cafe and had a pot of tea, and then set off to find brick lane and ollie gimp. after wandering the streets around liverpool street station for a bit, we eventually found brick lane, where a man lured us into a resteraunt and we were soon eating curry and bringing our own wine. behind us, a quiz show was being filmed, whilst the statement of greatness from Prince Charles (who shares a birthday with boutros-boutros ghali, but there is a 26 year age gap! fancy that!) played repeatedly over the music system. a fine meal it was. leaving the resteraunt, we phoned ollie gimp, who met us outside the vibe bar, and took us to an upstairs bar for hip young things, where we bought cans of beer and saw skater ollie's poem on the wall and we exchanged pleasantaries and gossip with gimp over pounding house music. we meet evá, who is dating young ollie gimp, but then she sets off to go somewhere else. somehow we end up going to some kind of benefit gig where we drink bass shandy and find our way into the abandoned house in stanmer park, where we stay on ollie's big fold-out-bed-sofa, one of two

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