Home
*poof* So many things happened since last update. Life is busy. Dan is busy. Overbusy, in fact: I'm really looking forward to September, when most of this nonsense will be behind me and all I have to worry about is writing up. And funding, but ... well, we'll deal with that when we have a minute.
This weekend, I went to London for Aquarion and fyrheafoc's housewarming in Hackney, north London. They live on the 17th floor of a rather nice building that can see most of London from the balcony, nice airy flat with slightly scary lifts. There were a few people there I know, and a Good Time Was Had By All. There was much frothing, and drinking, and we played "Eat Poop You Cats" (apologies for the style of the linked site, blue is not a good background colour...). I believe my phrase was the only one to make it around the entire group without being radically chinese-whispersed, which is kinda puzzling, but then it was a geek phrase and a geek group... *shrugs*
On Sunday, we went to Camden Market. Well, we meant to go to Camden Market. Instead, we went to an awesome art shop (Cass Art, in Islington) and Forbidden Planet, then went to Waxy O'Connor's for lunch. Waxy's is an irish pub in Camden, with a tree inside. It's on four levels, goes down forever, and serves great food. Well worth the visit, if you have the time and are in the area.
Then came the time to go home. This was trickier than it should be, because I was trying to get from Piccadilly Circus to Victoria, to catch a train back to Brighton. This is normally fairly simple, but complicated by the fact that of the three underground lines serving Victoria, two of them were closed for heavy maintenance and there was a football match on. In London. Involving Manchester United.
Man. U's fanclub is not small. I had to let three trains pass the hugely overcrowded platform before one arrived that I could get on to. When we reached Victoria, the contents of the previous trains was still on the platform, and we had to step out on to a packed platform. It took us about five minutes to shuffle the length of the platform, packed across the entire width and narrowly avoiding falling on to the track. I have to admit, my opinion of football fans went up a fair way there - no shoving, no shouting, just quiet, orderly, considerate shuffle-walking along the platform and up the escalators.
Still, good weekend. I've realised lately that I seem to treat weekends as days filled with NULL, and get all resentful if people try to make me do things on them, as it takes away my doing-nothing time. Since this is plainly ridiculous, I decided to treat this weekend as filled with a housewarming and good people, and it seems to have worked. The loss of my precious doing-nothing time doesn't seem to be a problem. Cool.
Never for. Whenever I hear the phrase "Transport for London", I always start thinking about serried ranks of zeppelins with great steel cables tied to prominent landmarks, and a glittering, deadly skirt of giant downward-thrusting jet engines around the inner London boundary (James Blish fans may substitute spindizzies if they prefer, but I've always been a zeppelin man). Tremors run through the City districts, and cracks appear in the walls of the deep-cut Tube tunnels. The horizon tilts perceptibly, and there's a sense of rushing wind as the great structure lifts off, a ribbon of foaming, pearlescent water connecting Transported London to the ravaged, miles-wide crater it leaves behind as the tiny section of the Thames within the City limits empties out...
I've been thinking too much about this little semantic anomaly, haven't I? Of course, whichever marketing drone came up with the name was referring to the body of people that make up the city, not the mere architecture, like the distinction between Church and church. Still, it's an interesting little deviation.
As you may have guessed from the meandering above, I went to London today. The original plan was to turn up for an 11AM start, then join an outdoor event that was supposed to be taking place till 5PM. It sounded like it was going to be a fair bit of fun, and it was an excuse to pop up to the Big Smoke. I was going to meet a few London!friends in the pub afterwards, it was a grand plan. Then I realised I was invigilating an exam this morning, finishing 2PM...
Long story short, what with various bits of transportation asshattery (ticket office at Falmer station closed, both ticket machines vandalised into uselessness, Victoria Line closed, etc), I finally arrived at my destination just after everyone had left, event over. *sigh* Still, have Travelcard, will travel. I visited Mornington Crescent, Mansion House, Baker Street and various other big-name stations, and went round the Circle Line two and a half times for no clearly apparent reason, then went to the pub to meet shiny people (said pubmeet having originally been arranged for 7PM).
Naturally, they had convened at the pub at about half-past 5, said pub (the Green Man near Great Portland Street station, rather nice) being only a couple of stops on the Tube from where I'd been at 5PM. So it goes. I met up with said friends, and we eated and talkeded for a bit, then headed off to our respective homes. Good day, even if I did get back to Brighton at half-past eleven.
Things learned: It takes about an hour to get to London Victoria from Brighton if you take the Longjump (this being the name I've given the train, since it bounds upcountry in long hops, stopping only at East Croyden and Clapham Junction on the way. Its counterpart is the Tigger, which stops at each station along the way and consequently takes more than twice as long). It also takes about an hour to get across London by Tube, particularly if you're not quite sure where you're going and the route you'd carefully planned in advance is utterly banjaxed by the line you were planning on using for most of it being closed for maintenance. It's a bad idea for me to go to meetings comprised of Couples and Me, because I tend to feel understandably left out, even if said couples are composed of Shiny People. This is yet another well-known side-effect of my slightly broken brain. Oh well. Anything else... sometimes the pepper-pot isn't jammed when it doesn't shake: it is, in fact, empty.
Oh yes, and I met Jeff Tracy in Euston station. Seriously. A class 57 diesel locomotive called Jeff Tracy was sat cooling down all alone at the end of one of the bay platforms as I passed through on my way to somewhere else. Cool.