T O T K a t - 2 0 0 6

Pretty

OK. So I'd forgotten how pretty this town is in the pinky/orange mist of a Summer sunrise.

Too damned early

Getting up before 6am. It's unnatural. And it is already warm enough to be outside with just a t-shirt on over jeans and sandals.

Housey

We attacked the house over the weekend. Hall, stairs, landing and porch. And it all looks so much better: brighter and cleaner. The hall and stairs are all white, with no vast expanses of dark, heavily varnished wood any more, and no dirty, greasy patches. Even the radiator is sparkly-white. The porch is all bright white too, except the door which is still bare wood but now with brass numbers on it as well as brass fittings. And the lino is up, re-revealing the orangey/brown quarry tiles underneath. Much nicer. I've even put my Weeping Fig in there to give it a bit of life. There's still the spare room to do and new carpet for the hall, stairs and lounge to get, but we're so getting there now. The place is almost pleasant!

Busy busy

Eh. We went to se Wheatus last Wednesday. The shame of it!

Actually, we were a little bit late when we arrived at The Marquee (Leicester Square) but there were technical difficulties during the band's sound check so it was all starting late anyway. The first support band were playing on the 5th floor. Mohair. They were _good_. I _liked_ them. Ohyes. We all shimmied down to the 3rd floor for the 2nd support act and the main event. All. There can't have been more than about 250 people there. Tops. Nice. JJ Ray, the second support band, were OK I guess. They barged past me to get onto the stage, and I just thought they were rude audience until they leapt onto the stage about 6 feet in front of me and got on with playing. Wheatus themselves were pretty good. Mmm. They were quieter than the support bands, much my ears' relief (and no tinnitus on the way home, never mind in the morning afterwards), and a lot less luvvie than most bands. I knew only one song of theirs, and one line of another one, but it didn't matter too much. I had a great time and because it wasn't rammed full I didn't overheat or get wound up by crowds of people pressing into me.

Robot Memage

Heh.

Aaaaaaaargh!

So, I went to this wedding yesterday... no, let me roll back a bit...

Three weeks ago, I thought I'd better get a dress for this black-tie wedding do this weekend. So I hit Monsoon. And I found a great dress, in green, that fitted and flattered but was the wrong colour. I wanted the "chocolate" version. So, I bought the brown one through the Monsoon web site. It arrived. I tried it on and had a bit of trouble with a sticky zip, but once it was up it was fine. So, cut to yesterday now. I put on the clever underwear, did my hair and makeup (yes, yes I'm a hypocrite) and put on the dress to finish off titivating. About 20 minutes later, the zip exploded. The handle was at the top, where it should be, but the teeth had unmeshed and my undies were showing. We had about 45 minutes before we had to head off to the wedding, so through my gnashing of teeth and wailing, J fought the zip handle down far enough for me to get out of the broken dress. At this point I almost gave up and said I wasn't going to the wedding, but then remembered that there is a Monsoon 5 minutes trot from J's flat. So still in my makeup, posh hair, posh shoes and sparkly costume jewellery, I threw on jeans and t-shirt and took a plastic bag, the dress and my wrap thingy and trotted off to Monsoon.

When I got there, a little red and out of breath, I said to the girl at the counter (they've re-arranged the shop and I was a bit disoriented) "I have to be at a wedding in town at 13:30, I've just put my dress on and the zip has exploded. I need a replacement. Now!" She called for the manager and I repeated that to her. She said "no way!" and I said "Yeah!" and I ran to see if there was another dress in the same colour and size. And there was! So I put it on in the changing room and headed back to the counter to fill in the forms, but... I had to take the dress off again so they could take the security tag out. Argh! Still, both times of getting in and out of the dress and no snagging zip this time. Anyway, tag removed, dress back on, form filled in and thanking the ladies of the shop profusely, I trotted back to J's flat to drop off my jeans, t-shirt and bra.

Only when I got there, I found that my heels had been rubbed raw by the backs of my posh shoes and there were chunks of skin hanging off. So "bloody big plasters" time. We toddled off to the station in good time to get to the wedding. Which was amazing.

The synagogue was candle-lit. The cantor(s) were hilariously impromptu sounding, but great. The Rabbi made some good jokes... "and Daniel has added £50 out of love" (to the price paid for the bride). There was a 4 day old baby there, and he was beautiful (and silent and asleep most of the time, but he had enormous deep-blue eyes when they were open for anyone to see).

The reception was marvellous! Champagne, Kir Royales, Bucks Fizzes and fruit juices alongside a smoked salmon cart where the guy was slicing pieces from a side of salmon and there were interesting breads, dill, lemon, capers, pepper etc to make sandwiches out of. Canapes were served on chess boards, clock faces, mirrors and all sorts of imaginative trays.

Dinner had dancing in between every course, the Israeli wine was yummy and the coffee at the end was the best I've had in a long time. Throughout dinner and the speeches, there were projectors which threw photos of the bride and groom onto screens on the wall. Then there was more dancing! And the band was _really_ good. The music during dinner started with "Sunshine of Your Love", followed by "Fields of Gold", then I'd swear it was some John Coltrane, then "The Pink Panther". For the dancing, there were singers... and some great numbers from the likes of Abba, Barry White and other cheesy greats.

We had a great time. I feel rough as hell today and me heels _really_ hurt, but I'm happy. And I feel very loved.

Lobster Pot

There's been a lot of socialising with other people and going out with other people and crashing out in between, so it was time to go for dinner as just us two. Finding a restaurant in London is a holy quest at the best of times; there are so damned many of them. I had about an hour to kill, so took a look on a restaurant finder that works by various combinations of style and region of cuisine, and location in town by area or tube station.

I found The Lobster Pot, while looking for fish restaurants in The City. OK, so it is actually in The Elephant & Castle area (closer to Kennington, which is handy), but just about counts as City. It is an Interesting place. You get buzzed in and greeted by young men from various French colonies, dressed in an attempt at Naval uniform (complete with the restaurant name embroidered on the breast pocket), the piped sounds of seagulls and fog-horns, and various bits of nautical paraphenalia on the walls. Oh, and fish actually in the walls. The menu is fabulous: a mixture of French, Thai and Creole flavours and a choice of lobster dishes up to a 1.5 kilo one to share. There are hoof dishes for those who are averse to fish, but that would be like having steak&chips in a curry house. There is also the 8 course mystery menu at £40 a head, which was quite tempting but we restrained ourselves.

J's starter of langoustines was pretty enormous and prettily presented. My smoked salmon was hot and reminiscent of the Bradan Rost at Loch Fyne; served with perfectly crunchy asparagus with a lime and mustard sauce. The main courses were a good size, tasty and came with a few mini vegetables which were not soggy at all. We caved in and both had profiteroles for dessert. These were served with a synchronised sauce pouring from the two waiters, which was just great. In fact, the service was just perfect throughout. All was timely and attentive, glasses were topped up sensibly so they were never empty nor aggressively full.

Chef did pop out to chat with the diners but as our table was foodless when he appeared, we didn't get a chat. He looked so French, with his jet-black hair and bushy moustache. We really enjoyed the whole thing and it was well worth the slight dodginess of the area and the price. I didn't begrudge the suggested service charge because the service was so good. I hope we'll go again. I would certainly recommend it to others. Mmm.

And another thing...

Why can't buses be made with seats designed for people taller than 5'4"? My legs don't fit for God's sake and I'm 'only' 5'7" (and a half!). Damned crappy public transport.

Oh bloody hell

When there are only two trains an hour, at half hourly intervals; why is it OK to cancel one with no warning and no good alternative? I'm tired enough as it is without having to prat about finding other ways home so bloody often.

Weekend of Birthdays

Birthdays, birthdays all around and not a... er... oh anyway. There were lots last week; Wednesday, Friday and Saturday. There was eating, drinking and merriment. And bowling. And Nandos.

Wah! Tired!

I haven't slept beyond 07:30 since 7th. And there have been a few late ones in there.

Could rather do with a lie-in at some point.

Still, for those of you who like Family Guy and haven't seen the meme yet:- Take On My Family Guy (requires sound and probably Media Player)

Phat with a ph! like wot the kids say!

Oh Mr. Bacon... with a pork-reference name yourself it might be prudent to be more careful in your use of the word fat. I mean, they are a little tubby, but they are luvvies.

Hacky, hacky catchee Oracle session stats

Heh. I write PL/SQL like I write Perl[0]. I am so not a coder.

([0] - by example)

Funny. Heh.

Seen on the train: a guy sitting opposite me, eating peanuts. Not funny? No. The packet of nuts has the message "Naturally LOW in Carbohydrate" printed on the front. Erratic capitalisation aside, no shit they're low in carbohydrate, they're rammed full of fat, though. Gah! Food packaging is silly and misleading in an ever faddier Western society. The proposed traffic light system on food packaging may have seemed nannyish, but I'm beginning to think a modified version of it isn't such a stupid idea.

Muh huh hah hah haaaa!

So I see a trail for the new series of the Catherine Tate Show (on a telly, on my desk, with the sound down) and I thinks "I wanted to watch that". So I ssh tunnel to TiVo at home and set a season pass for it. *beam* I love technology.

Management schmanagement

Too many people causing too much irritation. Too much inaction and excuses. And my wrist hurts.

I couldn't be certain...

but it does seem that the tube trains are a little less full than they used to be. Of course, it could just be the summer lull. Come September it'll be easier to determine. In the mean time, it's great to get a seat at Notting Hill Gate :o)

In other news, I've been interviewing for another engineer to join the team. It's been interesting (as opposed to Interesting). I think we'll be making a decision early next week when my manager has a gap in his diary to discuss it. The decision is pretty much mine, but he has experience in recruiting so he will make recommendations and suggestions. We'll see how it goes.

Tiredness

I had only the two beers, but fell asleep on the sofa, while watching TiVo's offering of cars going 'round from the weekend. Tiiiired. I didn't wake up yesterday morning too well either. I heard the alarm and was confused by it, managed to turn it off and went back to sleep; only to be woken half an hour later with "aren't you suppsed to be getting up?".

But I'm tiiiiiiiired! I so need a good, long lie-in.

Monday monday (baaa baa, baa ba-ba baaa)

Enjoyable weekend. Ohyes. Much food and wine and social, in a lovely location.

Didn't get to play with the District Line this morning, again, because of signal failures on Thameslink. *sigh* Maybe tomorrow.