Bag of Rocks

yeah, that’s what i did this morning. i got up and went to covent garden to watch random groups in fancy dress run around a small obstacle course whilst holding a christmas pudding (similar, but somehow more disgusting than, fruitcake). then we went to good old four seasons and had a legendary chinese lunch.

all sorts of debauchery is coming along, katie’s visit was ae and i managed to ring mysefl dry most of this week with the exception of a few glasses of wine at wednesday’s christmas movie fest, which included my first use of crackers…these are weird things you pull apart and tehy pop (not v loud) and have shitty treats inside…eg, rachel got a shoe horn. and those wierd hats english people wear at christmas.

so next week erin comes in on monday and then we take off for portugal on thursday. four days of insanely heavy drinking will follow and i dont even want to know what kind of messiness will ensue. we return sunday and hit camden for the fratellis show on monday and then she leaves wednesday. i’m tired just thinking about it.

been watching ‘life on mars’ which is on bbc america i think. highly recommend.

except there is: the Nag’s Head in covent garden. you may remember this as the pub at which i snogged a random whose mouth was ice cold. freakishly ice cold. yikes. anyway he of course emailed me 30 times and made me regret ever looking in his direction but that is not the point of this story. the point of this story is that we were in the nag’s head, which is super touristy due to its location in covent garden, and suddenly the sound of, i swear, SO MUCH broken glass came from the back. everyone went silent, the music went off. and we heard this shrill ‘ get oooouuuttt, get ouuuutt’. suddenly this rather slight (but deffo very drunk) guy comes through the crowd, covered in blood. it wasn’t his though, from what i could tell. we never did figure out what the hell happened.

later i went out for a smoke and the guy had been done in again. this time the blood was his and it was all down his shoulder and his face was well swelled. the cops and ambulance had arrived.

despite trying to go home and go to bed all week, i went out every night. gotta love this town.

coming soon: katie and gill visit and shit goes awry!

in this lifetime, one is faced with a variety of conundrums. why is there 10p in our toilet? why does my street smell like american pancakes and maple syrup at 1045? why did i go out to dinner in kensington, end up at some random party in green park and take a taxi home for £20? what are the repercussions of england’s 2-1 win over germany in a friendly tonight? what does conundrum actually mean? why is it so hard to type ‘available’? how come it’s difficutl to understand that accommodation has two cs and two ms in it?

the fact is, we’ll never really know. even if we have an iphone (which we don’t) to look up the answers. speaking of which, some lady here has her wandering i on a new macbook and it wont be long before desire overcomes logic and she buys one anyway. hopefully after they’ve debugged it.

tonight was my night off, but when you go for a sly one with a coworker and the MD pops into the pub and invites you out for dinner with lots of other peopel you work with, the time is right to say ‘why, yes, i’d love to’.

last night was engagement drinks and while the original plan was to go for one i found myself drunkenly scarfing down papadom in my kitchen having what i can only imagine was a retarded conversation with my housemate before going to bed and waking up, yet again, promising myself i would come straight home, eat a heatly meal and go right to bed.

the thing is, when you kick off every week with monday beers and make it through your toughest two days on a hangover, thursday and friday are a sinch no matter wha tyou do. but i’ve got friday drinks with work and a pub crawl birthday on saturday, not to mention bestest friends coming late next week and plans for austrian debauchery followed by roller disco, it all becomes a little intimidating. sometimes i just want a day on supercouch and a shitload of rain.

further, i’m broke.

you wanted more blog, here it is. dirty, boring, drunk, but mostly spelled correctly and beautifully punctuated.

ok i finallyfound the box to check to force people to log in to comment. sorry that’s annoying for you guys but i can guarantee it’s not as annoying as me having to delete 30 comments a day.

you’re all clearly on pins and needles wondering how sherwood forest went. it was pretty good but nothing flash. we went on a nice long walk in Clumber Park taht ended in us thankfully getting a lift from some nice people which prevented us having to uncertainly walk 3 miles back to the hotel on the Leicester Road in the dark. speaking of dark, the power also briefly went out.  that was fun.

we were so exhausted from walking we stayed in the room and watched Brewster’s Millions (still owe you for that one, katie) and splash and then some quiz thing with jimmy carr. had an awesome steak pie and roast potatoes. mmm.

and yesterday we forked over £30 to come back early and Star Wars (IV) was on ITV1, followed by the Long Way Down, Top Gear (which is on BBCA and i highly recommend) and a west wing. a blissful weekend indeed.

will there be monday beers? only one way to find out.

i’m attempting to get back on this horse. the amount of shit spam comments i get every time i post is kind of putting me off though. anyway. it’s mostly been booze and football and too much curry and i’ve definitely gotten chubbier. found a new bus route to work that actually reduces my amount of walking per day to about 10 minutes which is not gonna help that situation. it gets dark at 4 and it rains a lot.

this weekend my housemate, bec, and i are taking a tzoo deal to some tiny and apparently not entirely interesting town in nottinghamshire. the plan is long english walks, long roast dinners and a few pints down the pub. (liverpool v bolton at 1245 tomorrow may really derail the walking plan but fits in well with pints.) there will be photos taken i’m sure. plus wcs receives her first-ever professional massage.

headed to guilemots (who are playing some weird show where they do a live score to short films) at the Barbican next week so will be good to finally get out and see live music again.

despite what many, many (ignorant) british people say, the restauarnt Wahaca is not exactly Mexican food. it all looks vaguely like mexican but it just ain’t. i really, truly believe that no matter how hard you try, you just can’t make mexican food (or bagels) here in england. it’s sad but true. i need to just load up on burritos when i go back to the US.

hey look at me posting a post!

ok i’m not sure what the hell just happened. i wrote a whole long post and now it’s gone.

so short version: i’m headed to nottingham tonight for a weekend spa break (courtesy of tzoo). we’ll see how thsi works out. the plan is walk through sherwood forest (yeah, i’ll look for robin hood) and have some good country pub time. my plan also includes liverpool v bolton but ‘m not sure how bec will feel about that. although she owes me for making me watch X Factor last week.

there was so much more the first time, but you’ve got the sad second version now.

funny story: i was squeezing a plum to see fi it was ripe and boy was it b/c a shitload of plum goo shot all over me. i look like i’ve received a possibly fatal wound to the shoulder.

hey there. last night i went to the recording of this show for BBC radio 4. it was funny. i had to pee most of the time. andy zaltzman (of The Bugle fame) was one of the panellists. chuffed!

but i’m gonna tell you any waaaay.

it’s 10am on saturday and shaping up to be london’s nicest day. i am sitting in our decrepit garden waiting for photos to upload to flickr. i am also doing my laundry. i can’t tell you how satistfying it is to just put your shit in the washer and be done with it. it’s nice out, so i’ll hang it all up out here so it can immediatly absorb the sooty london air.

so far things are going well. i’ve got a bank account but i can’t access it, i’m overdrawn on my US account (what’s the most logical thing to do after moving? book a week holiday in greece, duh) and i have 2quid in my wallet. and no food. so that might be something to deal with today.

i dont know what else to say aside from i’m already driving people crazy here by talking about how insane it is that i am back and  how lucky it is that we work with such a fun (albeit drunken) group of people.

so i dunno, that’s it. the photos are going to flickr now so you’ll be able to see them shortly. i haven’t taken any of the house yet so you’ll still have something to look forward to.

but i’ll give you £1 if you dont think this one was worth it.

i know i haven’t said much lately, but it’s mostly because i’m either scraping myself out of bed or scraping myself off the bar floor. how’s my liver? call on 0800 659 865.

yeah so margaritas are the order of the day. mmm. i hate tequila.