06 August 2004
Well, I want to write up my splendid trip to the US now, but I see my diary is hopelessly out of date. Here is a quick updater to get things moving:
Tongs picnic - 22 July 2004
Eager for a picnic together before I flew off to the states, the Tongs met up in St James Park with bags full of shopping and plenty of cider and wine. The very moment we laid out this vast feast the sky began to darken and the temperature dropped. "It's going to rain," Fergal squawked, "quick everyone, back to the Tardis." Alas, I wanted to finish eating my piece of goat's cheese and urged them all to stay put "until it gets really serious". This it did within two minutes, and the remainder of the picnic was spent utterly drenched under a tree, picking at soggy baguette and sodden chicken. Still, the goose liked it.
Bonus etymological note: the term "picnic" was not in widespread use until the nineteenth century, however earlier references exist back to the seventeenth century. It most likely derives from the Old French "piquer" (to pick/peck) and the Germanic "nique", meaning "a worthless thing". Thus picnics were originally fashionable pot-luck social affairs, not necessarily held out doors.
Numidie - 20 July 2004
Abi, Darien, Clare and I met up at Numidie so that Clare could introduce her new beau, Tim. Now, Clare is well known for her preference for dating nerds (and here I use the term 'nerd' very distinctly from the word 'geek'). In fact, bar Seamus it has been something of an obsession for her. With this in mind I would say Tim is more than ideal for her.
Numidie was splendid. I had the rabbit, which was delicious, and topped it off with Tim's gin whilst he was in the toilet.
Su's house cooling Party - 17 July 2004
We met for wine fun in the Horniman, and played silly games. We got very drunk and got told off by the barman, and then went to Su's party where I met lots of fun people like Dan, Su and Silk, but was too drunk to do anything about it and so went home, twisting Olivia's ankle in the process.
Spider Man 2 - 15 July 2004
After the atrocity that was Spider Man, I was really sceptical about going to see Spider Man 2. Still, one never knows when he might peel off his spandex suit and so I went along anyway, expecting the worst. It is always nice to go to a movie with low expectations and then be blown out of the water, and so going with low expectations and then being mildly pleased is a good second. The sequel is superior to the original - in that it seriously doesn't suck at all - and apart from the fact everything in the film was largely the subject of ridicule in the pub afterwards, I think I enjoyed myself.
Trip to Oxford - 11 July 2004
Helen invited us all to Oxford. We went. We didn't punt because it looked like rain, so we sensibly had a picnic instead. We played Isaac and Isobel, and the Angela Lansbury Game. I developed an excellent version of Isaac and Isobel called Isaac and Ishmael, but it turned out the rules were the same, only I'd written them from the point of view of the remaining players, rather than the POV of Isaac and Isobel.
For the benefit of my 80 year old self, here are the rules of Isaac and Isobel: Player Isaac names a quality; Player Isobel names a second quality. Remaining players must name an entity which has both qualities. Winning player, as judged by Isaac and Isobel, is permitted to nominate himself Isaac or Isobel.
5 July 2004 - Flight of the Conchords
We went to see this act at a bar in Great Portland Street, and although the bar was dreadful the Conchords were utter whack. I may even have hooted occasionally. As this was just an Edinburgh preview, to test out new material, the whole thing tapered to a halt when said new material ran out halfway through. Still, I strongly urge you to put a wig on them.
4 July 2004 - party in the park
A bunch of us went to Greenwich park to celebrate Arkansas's birthday by seeing all the musical instruments in the world being played (minus the cello and the piano). Olivia's friend Norbert, or Herbert, or Norman, or someone with one of those really boring sounding names was playing. Despite an energetic walk up the hill, and the occasional cloud burst, it was a very pleasant way to get both drunk and fed. Afterwards we strolled across the plague pits to visit Helen's new flat, where we drank some very nice wine and discovered that Helen was tutored by Professor Uberschlonger, and that Ben Elton had bled to death at the very end of his own novel.
I walked home alone through Greenwich park and stumbled across some guys playing with a dirtboard, soaring wildly down the hill in front of the observatory. Short of a vacation to New Zealand, dirtboarding is the most feasible way of enjoying snowboarding during the summer months. I was desperate to try it out, but was also so desperately drunk I couldn't walk straight, and so was obliged to move safely on. Still, this did not stop me cycling home.
3 July 2004 - new games
Saturday was spent at the Arkanhaus playing games. Once it became apparent that all of his games were either too boring or too complicated to comprehend (Cosmic Encounter being played for two full rounds before it transpired we'd completely misunderstood the rules, and that all of the cards would inevitably end up in Lani's hands). We decided to invent our own:
Rolf Harris' Celebrity Challenge: each player draws a portrait of a famous celebrity (examples used are Shakespeare, Marvin Gaye, and Estelle Getty & the Wolf). You go round in turns showing your picture, and people write down who they think it is and grade the picture on artistic merit (between 1 and 14). You then repeat the round, this time saying who your picture was and collecting your points for artistic merit. If players guess your picture correctly, they are awarded 11 points. Hilarity does not ensue. Nor does Rolf Harris.
Splishy Splashy: this game is exactly as it sounds. Players write down two random sentences for each of the other players in the game, and then number all of their sentences randomly in ascending order. They are then distributed to the allocated players, and you go round clockwise reading them out in reverse numerical order. Hilarity - or at least, alcoholism - ensues.
Whatever the fuck: you make a meal by putting whatever the fuck you like into a pot until it's all hot. Salsa? Chinese marinade? Absinthe? Whatever the fuck!
1 July 2004 - Numidie fun
The tale of Numidie is a sad one. Once a great ancient Mediterranean civilisation stretching across the northern coast of Algeria, all that now remains of the empire is a small bar in Crystal Palace. Initially empty but for Abi, Darien, Clare and I, the place gradually filled up with increasing numbers of gnarled, Algerian types wearing berets and moleskin trousers. Suddenly and without explanation a party broke out; I understand Algerians always celebrate Thursdays. I was in the thick of it when the action started - half way across the dance floor to the toilet - and became embroiled in an Indiana-Jones style adventure, dodging elbows and rolling bellies. For the rest of the evening the four of us lurked in the corner avoiding the frivolities, nursing a glass or five of Croydon's finest red table wine, tucking into free hula-hoops.
I cycled home and saw two foxes fucking, and so started angry monkey calls to make them stop. Unfortunately, due to the relative speeds of said foxes and said bicycle, and the steep nature of unsaid hill, by the time I had started my monkey call the foxes were many feet behind me and had been replaced by a rather startled looking man at the bus stop. Still, I could tell from his eyes he won't be fucking any foxes soon.
28 June 2004 - Siben
Siben popped in on his way to Seattle, and I introduced him to two of the quieter of the bots, Olivia and Darien. The following morning, once the ringing in his ears had gone away, he thanked me for my hospitality and set off on his adventure.
26 June 2004 - Spim
Spim came round for both lunch and dinner. After two or three pre-lunch gins and tonic we realised we couldn't possibly make it to dinner without falling over, and diverted ourselves to the local museum to help pace things better. The Horniman Museum is a sinister Victorian place, full of moth-eaten animals peering out from inside antique glass cases. More sinister yet is the mezzanine level where the dissections are displayed. Kittens smile out at you from behind the glass, their bellies split open and guts and nervous systems carefully spread out beneath them, annotated in Victorian hand.
However, it wasn't all Zoo of the Damned, and we went into the new music room, in which every conceivable instrument is laid out according to relative similarity - effectively illustrating musical evolution, just like the previous gallery had illustrated the evolution of animals. By 'every conceivable instrument' I am not exagerrating: it included a vase, a hat and a huge black pipe which - the helpful sign noted - was built by a bishop and made such an unpleasant noise it was only used in religious ceremonies.
Needless to say, this diversion was not ultimately sufficient to stop us from becoming impossibly drunk. As an emergency measure we introduced a new policy of only occasionally sipping wine, to "top up" rather than accelerate our drunkeness. This showed the kind of extraordinary optimism one only experiences when drunk, and we immediately pushed ourselves off any reasonable scale. We blacked out around 2am and woke up the next morning unable to eat any of the splendid foods we'd bought for breakfast.
21 June 2004 - Derren Brown
I went to see Derren Brown - Live!, for no particular reason than it wasn't a sunny day, and the pubs would be full of riff raff chanting at the soccer anyway.
He was very impressive. In a "clairvoyance" section (which he admitted was not mystical), he had a woman from the audience correctly guess that his friend who died in 1995 was called John, was born in Brighton, wanted to be a sports journalist, spent his year out travelling in Canada, and had a father who was a lawyer. Mind, I guessed it all right too - Derren later explained he had been feeding us small clues throughout his performance which led us to these conclusions (although Madeleine had Grenada, not Canada. I guess they sound similar). Despite stating it was all done through psychology, the woman still freaked out on stage and left it in tears. The age of reason is only ever one conjuring trick away from chaos.
He then chose a guy at random from the audience, and looking away, and purely by holding his hand guessed that his aunt had died this year, and that she lived in Asti, and looked like Ronnie Corbett, and that she shouted at the telly a lot, and that together they'd spent a lot of time bottling something (though he didn't get that it was passata). This wasn't so explicable.
There were lots of other tricks involving him knowing which number we're mostly likely to choose from a given range, or our tactics when hiding a coin in one of our hands, or the picture you're mostly likely to draw when told it can't be a tree or a stick man. These were all more ordinary, but I think I preferred them since at least there was the interest of learning how he did it.
Tim and I also saw him hide a card and pull some more out of his sleeve whilst trying to read the message from the ouija board, so he can't be accused of using sleight-of-hand on many of his tricks. He's crap at sleight-of-hand.
Yeah. So. Maybe I'll watch his tv show now.
18 June 2004 - riot goin' on
Today I had a crowd of two hundred people pointing and chanting at me, saying "Shame on you, shame on you". Cripes!
It seems our office is next door to the Child Support Agency, and there are rather a few myopic fathers out protesting today.
17 June 2004 - Backyard Comedy Club
So I went to the Backyard Comedy Club with Madeleine, Phil and Tim and it was splendid, and we must go back some time. I have nothing more to say on the matter.
15-16 June 2004 - course
When I told Lani I was going on a training course this week, she asked what I'd be learning. At the time I had no idea, but can now exclusively reveal we were taught:
1. How to emerge from the undergrowth of a forest, startle an elderly women as she walks her dog, and then demand she tells us where the manhole cover is;
2. How to build a skyscraper whilst balancing on a see-saw;
3. To wander blindfold through a forest, seeking out a specific tree trunk;
4. How to herd ducks up a slide using sheep dogs; and
5. The joys of scones, jam and a nice cup of tea.
We also also had plasma screens in our bedrooms, which I found was a wonderfully opulent way of listening to Radio 4.
12 June - my house party!
An army of Bots attended my house of Mexican food and wine. The official purpose of the party was to watch the splendid movie Office Space, however there were so many of us, and we were so raucous, that no one could actually hear what was being said. Except perhaps Maria upstairs, since we had the volume on 51 notches (full).
11 June 2004 - Taking Back Sunday
Although five of us had bought tickets to see the splendid American band Taking Back Sunday, people dropped out one by one until just Seamus and I remained. We drank a polite can of beer and watched as TBS did their thing. Having only heard them on CD before, and thought them to be a rather polite punk/ska band, I was surprised to find the lead singer suffered from acute spasmosis and couldn't let a second go by without running around, waving his arms and throwing the microphone up in the air. By the end I wasn't sure what I admired the most: the music, his singing, or the fact he still hadn't run out of energy.
Although it was a thoroughly good evening, I was a little conscious of the average age of the room; at one point the singer cried out "So I hear you've all just finished your GCSEs, then?" Um, well, just finished a report on Ukrainian corruption, actually.
In other news, I bumped into Alexx en route to the Astoria. Alexx is the only person I ever bump into at random in the street, which is a good arrangement as I never see him otherwise. We went shopping for Darth Vader mugs (his motive remains unclear), drank some beer and then grabbed some sushi. Which is to say, Seamus and I grabbed some sushi whilst Alexx stared with wild incomprehension that anyone on this beautiful earth would want to eat raw fish. Until that day I had no idea such people still existed.
Tongs picnic - 22 July 2004
Eager for a picnic together before I flew off to the states, the Tongs met up in St James Park with bags full of shopping and plenty of cider and wine. The very moment we laid out this vast feast the sky began to darken and the temperature dropped. "It's going to rain," Fergal squawked, "quick everyone, back to the Tardis." Alas, I wanted to finish eating my piece of goat's cheese and urged them all to stay put "until it gets really serious". This it did within two minutes, and the remainder of the picnic was spent utterly drenched under a tree, picking at soggy baguette and sodden chicken. Still, the goose liked it.
Bonus etymological note: the term "picnic" was not in widespread use until the nineteenth century, however earlier references exist back to the seventeenth century. It most likely derives from the Old French "piquer" (to pick/peck) and the Germanic "nique", meaning "a worthless thing". Thus picnics were originally fashionable pot-luck social affairs, not necessarily held out doors.
Numidie - 20 July 2004
Abi, Darien, Clare and I met up at Numidie so that Clare could introduce her new beau, Tim. Now, Clare is well known for her preference for dating nerds (and here I use the term 'nerd' very distinctly from the word 'geek'). In fact, bar Seamus it has been something of an obsession for her. With this in mind I would say Tim is more than ideal for her.
Numidie was splendid. I had the rabbit, which was delicious, and topped it off with Tim's gin whilst he was in the toilet.
Su's house cooling Party - 17 July 2004
We met for wine fun in the Horniman, and played silly games. We got very drunk and got told off by the barman, and then went to Su's party where I met lots of fun people like Dan, Su and Silk, but was too drunk to do anything about it and so went home, twisting Olivia's ankle in the process.
Spider Man 2 - 15 July 2004
After the atrocity that was Spider Man, I was really sceptical about going to see Spider Man 2. Still, one never knows when he might peel off his spandex suit and so I went along anyway, expecting the worst. It is always nice to go to a movie with low expectations and then be blown out of the water, and so going with low expectations and then being mildly pleased is a good second. The sequel is superior to the original - in that it seriously doesn't suck at all - and apart from the fact everything in the film was largely the subject of ridicule in the pub afterwards, I think I enjoyed myself.
Trip to Oxford - 11 July 2004
Helen invited us all to Oxford. We went. We didn't punt because it looked like rain, so we sensibly had a picnic instead. We played Isaac and Isobel, and the Angela Lansbury Game. I developed an excellent version of Isaac and Isobel called Isaac and Ishmael, but it turned out the rules were the same, only I'd written them from the point of view of the remaining players, rather than the POV of Isaac and Isobel.
For the benefit of my 80 year old self, here are the rules of Isaac and Isobel: Player Isaac names a quality; Player Isobel names a second quality. Remaining players must name an entity which has both qualities. Winning player, as judged by Isaac and Isobel, is permitted to nominate himself Isaac or Isobel.
5 July 2004 - Flight of the Conchords
We went to see this act at a bar in Great Portland Street, and although the bar was dreadful the Conchords were utter whack. I may even have hooted occasionally. As this was just an Edinburgh preview, to test out new material, the whole thing tapered to a halt when said new material ran out halfway through. Still, I strongly urge you to put a wig on them.
4 July 2004 - party in the park
A bunch of us went to Greenwich park to celebrate Arkansas's birthday by seeing all the musical instruments in the world being played (minus the cello and the piano). Olivia's friend Norbert, or Herbert, or Norman, or someone with one of those really boring sounding names was playing. Despite an energetic walk up the hill, and the occasional cloud burst, it was a very pleasant way to get both drunk and fed. Afterwards we strolled across the plague pits to visit Helen's new flat, where we drank some very nice wine and discovered that Helen was tutored by Professor Uberschlonger, and that Ben Elton had bled to death at the very end of his own novel.
I walked home alone through Greenwich park and stumbled across some guys playing with a dirtboard, soaring wildly down the hill in front of the observatory. Short of a vacation to New Zealand, dirtboarding is the most feasible way of enjoying snowboarding during the summer months. I was desperate to try it out, but was also so desperately drunk I couldn't walk straight, and so was obliged to move safely on. Still, this did not stop me cycling home.
3 July 2004 - new games
Saturday was spent at the Arkanhaus playing games. Once it became apparent that all of his games were either too boring or too complicated to comprehend (Cosmic Encounter being played for two full rounds before it transpired we'd completely misunderstood the rules, and that all of the cards would inevitably end up in Lani's hands). We decided to invent our own:
Rolf Harris' Celebrity Challenge: each player draws a portrait of a famous celebrity (examples used are Shakespeare, Marvin Gaye, and Estelle Getty & the Wolf). You go round in turns showing your picture, and people write down who they think it is and grade the picture on artistic merit (between 1 and 14). You then repeat the round, this time saying who your picture was and collecting your points for artistic merit. If players guess your picture correctly, they are awarded 11 points. Hilarity does not ensue. Nor does Rolf Harris.
Splishy Splashy: this game is exactly as it sounds. Players write down two random sentences for each of the other players in the game, and then number all of their sentences randomly in ascending order. They are then distributed to the allocated players, and you go round clockwise reading them out in reverse numerical order. Hilarity - or at least, alcoholism - ensues.
Whatever the fuck: you make a meal by putting whatever the fuck you like into a pot until it's all hot. Salsa? Chinese marinade? Absinthe? Whatever the fuck!
1 July 2004 - Numidie fun
The tale of Numidie is a sad one. Once a great ancient Mediterranean civilisation stretching across the northern coast of Algeria, all that now remains of the empire is a small bar in Crystal Palace. Initially empty but for Abi, Darien, Clare and I, the place gradually filled up with increasing numbers of gnarled, Algerian types wearing berets and moleskin trousers. Suddenly and without explanation a party broke out; I understand Algerians always celebrate Thursdays. I was in the thick of it when the action started - half way across the dance floor to the toilet - and became embroiled in an Indiana-Jones style adventure, dodging elbows and rolling bellies. For the rest of the evening the four of us lurked in the corner avoiding the frivolities, nursing a glass or five of Croydon's finest red table wine, tucking into free hula-hoops.
I cycled home and saw two foxes fucking, and so started angry monkey calls to make them stop. Unfortunately, due to the relative speeds of said foxes and said bicycle, and the steep nature of unsaid hill, by the time I had started my monkey call the foxes were many feet behind me and had been replaced by a rather startled looking man at the bus stop. Still, I could tell from his eyes he won't be fucking any foxes soon.
28 June 2004 - Siben
Siben popped in on his way to Seattle, and I introduced him to two of the quieter of the bots, Olivia and Darien. The following morning, once the ringing in his ears had gone away, he thanked me for my hospitality and set off on his adventure.
26 June 2004 - Spim
Spim came round for both lunch and dinner. After two or three pre-lunch gins and tonic we realised we couldn't possibly make it to dinner without falling over, and diverted ourselves to the local museum to help pace things better. The Horniman Museum is a sinister Victorian place, full of moth-eaten animals peering out from inside antique glass cases. More sinister yet is the mezzanine level where the dissections are displayed. Kittens smile out at you from behind the glass, their bellies split open and guts and nervous systems carefully spread out beneath them, annotated in Victorian hand.
However, it wasn't all Zoo of the Damned, and we went into the new music room, in which every conceivable instrument is laid out according to relative similarity - effectively illustrating musical evolution, just like the previous gallery had illustrated the evolution of animals. By 'every conceivable instrument' I am not exagerrating: it included a vase, a hat and a huge black pipe which - the helpful sign noted - was built by a bishop and made such an unpleasant noise it was only used in religious ceremonies.
Needless to say, this diversion was not ultimately sufficient to stop us from becoming impossibly drunk. As an emergency measure we introduced a new policy of only occasionally sipping wine, to "top up" rather than accelerate our drunkeness. This showed the kind of extraordinary optimism one only experiences when drunk, and we immediately pushed ourselves off any reasonable scale. We blacked out around 2am and woke up the next morning unable to eat any of the splendid foods we'd bought for breakfast.
21 June 2004 - Derren Brown
I went to see Derren Brown - Live!, for no particular reason than it wasn't a sunny day, and the pubs would be full of riff raff chanting at the soccer anyway.
He was very impressive. In a "clairvoyance" section (which he admitted was not mystical), he had a woman from the audience correctly guess that his friend who died in 1995 was called John, was born in Brighton, wanted to be a sports journalist, spent his year out travelling in Canada, and had a father who was a lawyer. Mind, I guessed it all right too - Derren later explained he had been feeding us small clues throughout his performance which led us to these conclusions (although Madeleine had Grenada, not Canada. I guess they sound similar). Despite stating it was all done through psychology, the woman still freaked out on stage and left it in tears. The age of reason is only ever one conjuring trick away from chaos.
He then chose a guy at random from the audience, and looking away, and purely by holding his hand guessed that his aunt had died this year, and that she lived in Asti, and looked like Ronnie Corbett, and that she shouted at the telly a lot, and that together they'd spent a lot of time bottling something (though he didn't get that it was passata). This wasn't so explicable.
There were lots of other tricks involving him knowing which number we're mostly likely to choose from a given range, or our tactics when hiding a coin in one of our hands, or the picture you're mostly likely to draw when told it can't be a tree or a stick man. These were all more ordinary, but I think I preferred them since at least there was the interest of learning how he did it.
Tim and I also saw him hide a card and pull some more out of his sleeve whilst trying to read the message from the ouija board, so he can't be accused of using sleight-of-hand on many of his tricks. He's crap at sleight-of-hand.
Yeah. So. Maybe I'll watch his tv show now.
18 June 2004 - riot goin' on
Today I had a crowd of two hundred people pointing and chanting at me, saying "Shame on you, shame on you". Cripes!
It seems our office is next door to the Child Support Agency, and there are rather a few myopic fathers out protesting today.
17 June 2004 - Backyard Comedy Club
So I went to the Backyard Comedy Club with Madeleine, Phil and Tim and it was splendid, and we must go back some time. I have nothing more to say on the matter.
15-16 June 2004 - course
When I told Lani I was going on a training course this week, she asked what I'd be learning. At the time I had no idea, but can now exclusively reveal we were taught:
1. How to emerge from the undergrowth of a forest, startle an elderly women as she walks her dog, and then demand she tells us where the manhole cover is;
2. How to build a skyscraper whilst balancing on a see-saw;
3. To wander blindfold through a forest, seeking out a specific tree trunk;
4. How to herd ducks up a slide using sheep dogs; and
5. The joys of scones, jam and a nice cup of tea.
We also also had plasma screens in our bedrooms, which I found was a wonderfully opulent way of listening to Radio 4.
12 June - my house party!
An army of Bots attended my house of Mexican food and wine. The official purpose of the party was to watch the splendid movie Office Space, however there were so many of us, and we were so raucous, that no one could actually hear what was being said. Except perhaps Maria upstairs, since we had the volume on 51 notches (full).
11 June 2004 - Taking Back Sunday
Although five of us had bought tickets to see the splendid American band Taking Back Sunday, people dropped out one by one until just Seamus and I remained. We drank a polite can of beer and watched as TBS did their thing. Having only heard them on CD before, and thought them to be a rather polite punk/ska band, I was surprised to find the lead singer suffered from acute spasmosis and couldn't let a second go by without running around, waving his arms and throwing the microphone up in the air. By the end I wasn't sure what I admired the most: the music, his singing, or the fact he still hadn't run out of energy.
Although it was a thoroughly good evening, I was a little conscious of the average age of the room; at one point the singer cried out "So I hear you've all just finished your GCSEs, then?" Um, well, just finished a report on Ukrainian corruption, actually.
In other news, I bumped into Alexx en route to the Astoria. Alexx is the only person I ever bump into at random in the street, which is a good arrangement as I never see him otherwise. We went shopping for Darth Vader mugs (his motive remains unclear), drank some beer and then grabbed some sushi. Which is to say, Seamus and I grabbed some sushi whilst Alexx stared with wild incomprehension that anyone on this beautiful earth would want to eat raw fish. Until that day I had no idea such people still existed.
