Neglectful me.

I realised I've been somewhat neglectful of this blog - working full time, looking for jobs and doing Mitch's Honey do list means I don't get much time to write more, honest. So, in order to rectify this a little, I've got a pictorial catalogue of some of the things I've been up to over the last few months.

So, in no particular order:

I was joint best man for one of my oldest and best friends' wedding:


Mitch and I went to South London to visit my friend Stig where his daughters painted Mitch's nails, much to her, their and our general delight:


I went to the Falkirk Wheel! It was aces:


I'd wanted to go for ages and finally made it. It's powered by something like the equivalent of 8 irons plugged in. Or the same amount of electricity needed to keep Mitch warm.

I also went to Bergen and stayed with my friend Per down by the fjords. It was lovely. I also presented at a conference, but really that's an aside compared to staying at Per's house:



It was so fantastically dark at night that the window became a veritable mirror:


Per's neighbours had a nice hoose, but a wee bit remote for me:


Okay okay, I'll show you a picture of Bergen proper as well, since it is so pretty:


You can see the UNESCO World Heritage site just to the left of the picture there, it was pretty cook if a little rickety. Not really surprising given its age of course.

Mitch and I went to Brighton where we met up with her brother and his fiancee. Mitch looks pretty in black and white:


I adopted 3 cats. Well, I say adopted when I really mean looked after for a week through visitation rights. The one on the far right under the bed is called Sarah, the one with the arched back is called Stone and the other one is called Kans. We were best friends for a week. Probably because I could guarantee access to the dried tuna. No probably actually, definitely.


Duncan grew a ponytail and had me laughing like a drain:


My sister and her family came to see us and we went to the Natural History Museum and had a great time looking at all the animals:



We also went to St Andrews for a wee trip:




See, I have been busy!

Stevie Wonder.

So Mitch and I, as a consequence of the Bishop of her church's generosity, got to sit in a corporate booth and watch Stevie Wonder at the O2 arena on Tuesday night.

Our view of the stage before Not So Little Anymore Stevie Wonder hit the stage:


Here's Stevie doing his thing, doesn't he look good?


Aye, he's a showman for sure. Here he is again, right in the middle at the front of the crowd:


All in, I thought it was a great show although I'd have preferred if he'd played some of his early Motown stuff but it'd be churlish to complain given he played Living For The City, Higher Ground and Superstitious. I'd have killed to see him do Uptight though.

I should also note that all the way through Stevie kept referring to how he was voting Obama and that anyone with a vote should be doing the same. A sentiment I certainly agree with, but it made me think of the alternative. Isn't she lovely?

Andy Bevan I salute you.

For getting it so, so wrong.

Andy you see was, until recently, an employee of Lehman Brothers who worked in equity derivative finance. Andy received official word about Lehman Brothers' effective demise and his own redundancy yesterday and who did he feel sorry for? The MANAGING DIRECTORS! Why? Because 50% of their bonus was paid in stock in the company that is now worthless. Unbelievable. I'm finding it difficult to comprehend how you can feel sorry for people who have trousered millions from running a company who have filed for the largest bankruptcy in history. I guess that shows how Andy is a better person than me. Or delusional.

All here.

For sale.

Our first marital home here. What a lovely price eh? Sadly we won't see any of it as we are renting. We could live like kings (or a queen in Mitch's case) for that price in Scotland. We're off to look at a place just behind us but it'll be sad to move out, mainly because we both hate moving. Oh, and of course it's our first marital home. Och weel, such is life. Any takers?

THIEVES!

No not the Tories, although I am led to believe that Tory is gaelic for 'robber' (which may or may not be true, but apt nonetheless), but the scumbag that skimmed my bank card and trousered several hundreds of our hard earned out of our account. I knew living in London would bring with it all sorts of interesting experiences and I did think that having money electronically half-inched was a distinct possibility, but actually seeing the reality of your account being abused wasn't that much fun. In saying that, even less fun was the bank saying that since my card was present at the transactions (which it most certainly wasn't as it was in my pocket on my person) they couldn't consider it fraud. When I pointed out to them that my card was not present but a copy of it may have been they asked if I was sure I wanted to 'take it forward as fraud'? No no, just you let some criminal continue stealing our money, that sounds like a great idea to me. Where do these people get their crazy ideas from?

Things wot I saw in London over the last week.

I saw things, things I never thought I'd see.

Like a fat Richie lookalike:


And a man upside down in a bin (not really):


Then a giant gorilla hand/chair going into a doorway:


The gorilla hand came from a wee antique shop where Mitch and I have bought some furniture, but alas was far too big for our
humble abode sadly.

The things you see in the Big Smoke eh? Crazy days people.

I went for a wee walk.

Before I scoot off to the archives I thought I'd post you a wee link of a walk I took round Islington (apologies for the music, I like to listen to my iPod when walking, maybe it was a bit loud):



I know, you're thinking what I was thinking - how did they manage to put that pathway up? The answer? LADDERS! It's true, there's a wee shop on Hornsey Road that sells them. I couldn't believe it either! A nice wee walk though I'm sure you'll agree. I probably won't do it again though, it was a bit boring.

Tremendous Hair.

I woke up this morning looking like this:



There's a reason why I work from home mostly.

Caledonia bound.

This is Mitch and I today, sans the bad hair.

A photoblog of the Big Smoke.

The Hope Workers Cafe on Holloway Rd. I've never eaten there but I love the sign outside.



The view at sunset from Chez MacKenzie.



The front of Chez MacKenzie.



Stack at the Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green.



Me at the Museum of Childhood in Bethnal Green. I had to fight that kid for the right colour bricks. And his mum.



Mitch asleep while Stack and I built our names.



Melton Square out the front of Euston Station. Believe it or not but this picture is actually in colour and not black and white.



St Paul's at dusk. I love St Paul's, but then you knew that already right?



Shepherd's Bush H&C line station.



Camera stall in Portobello Market.



The erstwhile New Piccadilly Cafe by Piccadilly Circus. A lovely old London Cafe with formica tables and excellent tea. Daniel ate 6 sugar cubes in under a minute here for a pound. Happy days.



St Paul's again. I told you I liked it.



I think this is Baker St underground station but I'm not sure - can anyone confirm? If it is then it is my favourite underground station in London.

Noisy clowns.

There is a couple of brain donors outside working for EDF smacking what looks like a giant clamp with a sledgehammer against the side of their truck, which has been running now for 30 minutes, even though it is stationary. Have they not heard of global warming through air pollution? Nice to see EDF workers can take a gung-ho approach towards petrol consumption knowing full well the customer will end up paying for it. Ridiculous.

STOP PRESS! They've now started using a circular saw to fix the clamp. I'd almost put money on one of them injuring themself and/or the other.

Culinary delights.

FINALLY I've found a good place for curry in London. The bad news is that it takes a while to get out to Tooting Broadway, but still now that I know there is at least one place that is capable of serving a good curry (also cheap), I'll perhaps be more inclined to go out there for it. The place in question is called Masaledar and thankfully manages to do a Saag Paneer that actually tastes of something and doesn't have a watery, milky consistency to it. Plus it did amazing Peshwari naan and nice, non-dyed pilau rice. Not too shabby at all. Oh and for four of us the bill came to an incredibly reasonable 40 quid, and that with food left on the table no less. All good. Don't get me wrong, it was no Mother India in Glasgow, but for London I'm impressed.

That was on Friday, on Saturday we went along to Patogh by Edgware Rd with Freeman after trying and failing to get into Mandalay, a Burmese restaurant further up Edgware Rd. As disappointed as I was that we wouldn't be eating Burmese food, Patogh was a more than ample substitute. It didn't have much in the way of vegetarian options for main courses, but the special bread was one of the best breads I've ever eater. And I've eaten a LOT of bread in my time. It was so good I'd put it just behind a tasted slice of Mother's Pride plain loaf with loads of butter on it. Because NOTHING beats that bread. Still, Patogh was fantastic though. Well worth a visit. If only they'd do a vegetarian kebab though. Ach well.

What did I do on Sunday? I cooked a Moroccan chickpea stew in a tagine! Which was nice. In fact, I'm going to have some of the leftovers for dinner tonight I think.

Oh dear, I appear to have turned this into a culinary blog. See what happens when not a morsel of food has passed your lips by 4pm? I should go eat.

Oops.

In my last post I mistakenly thought I'd reached 100 posts when in reality I'd not. However, in my defence I came to the 100 post conclusion as a result of the dashboard feature on blogger which also counts unpublished posts. So there you have it, I have posts in reserve! Or something.

In other news, I've noticed something a little odd of late in London. Our power keeps cutting out - when I say keeps I actually mean 3 times in the last month or so. It's quite irritating. I was sat last night collecting and inputting data for Nigerian sterling proportions from the mid 1960s to the mid 1970s, as you do at 1am, when the power in the flat suddenly went out and various alarms started blaring. It was out for about 5 minutes before coming on again for 5 minutes then going off for 30 seconds before coming back on again. You'd think in the world's largest city at a time of low consumption there wouldn't be an outage surely? To be fair it did only seem to be my street but even still. Couple this with our water being cut off twice in the last month and I'm beginning to see the value in Mitch's insistence that we keep spare water. Not quite sure how I would be able to see with the water when the power goes out but at least it keeps me from being thirsty!

Joking aside, I can see the sheer volume of planning and maintenance that goes into utilities for a metropolitan area to keep functioning so it puzzles me all the more when these things are handed over to private companies to try and wrest a profit out of them. Surely infrastructural necessities for the efficient functioning of society - water, electricity generation and so on - should be under the auspices of government, or at least subject to governmental action such as reserving the right to transfer the ownership of provision of these utilities in the event of pre-determined and agreed targets not being met say, in order to ensure quality of provision is continuously at a level which allows society to function at its optimum capacity? More than x amount of work hours lost due to a loss in provision of y utility means the license automatically goes up for renewal. If targets are continually met and surpassed then the company receives a reward, like a reduction in tax on profits for example. Call it performance related pay if you will. That'd work right?

Oh good Indian curry, where art thou?

London, to my extreme surprise, does not seem to have good Indian curry anywhere! I've tried and I've tried and it's nowhere to be found. Like a noob I went along to Brick Lane only to be very disappointed. I took a recommendation from a friend who is married to a Hindu to try Bengal Spice on Holloway Rd and was very unimpressed at its pitiful effort of a Saag Paneer (not to mention disturbed that it made Mitch sick). I went along to Shah on Drummond St (apparently the home of some of the first Indian restaurants in the country) and was again unimpressed, staying on Drummond St I've also gone to Ravi Shankar's (rubbish) and Diwana which is probably the only one to receive pass marks out of the lot. And only because it is all you can eat for 6.99 and they give you platters instead of plates (I'm a tight Scot, what can I say?), although the food is pretty decent. I've also eaten at Rasa at a friend's recommendation, although admittedly not at the exact restaurant he recommended in Stoke Newington but in W1 instead. It was ludicrously expensive and my dish (a spinach and daal combination) was watery and tasteless. I've been to Khan's in Bayswater/Queensway which was not good either, although the decor almost made up for it- think of being in the jungle in a restaurant, but with no actual plants, only painted plants and bushes on the walls and ceiling and you've got an idea. Mitch liked it as it had a fairly astonishing selection of non-alcoholic drinks as it doesn't have a drinks license. I thought it was crap. I probably wouldn't have written this post if I hadn't had a curry from Mother India when I was back in Glasgow. Mother India and Glasgow in general has ruined me for curries in this city. Any one fancy bringing down a delivery of Saag Paneer, Peshwari Naan, Mushroom Rice and some Poppadoms with Spicy Onions when they visit?

St Pancras.

St Pancras reopened yesterday, so I went along today for a wee look with Richie and Duncan. It's amazing! The roof looks fantastic and there is a very good meeting of old and new in it. I was so impressed I took a bunch of pictures, primarily of the roof. It has self-cleaning glass you know. Why can't our glasses be made of self-cleaning glass?







I like St Pancras. Although the Baby Betjeman cafe was crap- no veggie breakfast and it took an age to get a tea and a coffee. Still, it wasn't like there wasn't an amazing example of restored Victorian architecture to gawp at while we waited. When life gives you lemons and all that...

Chucking Buns Across The Fence? Governmental Planning and Regeneration Projects in the Scottish Highland Economy, 1945-82.

324 pages.
107,358 words.
2665 paragraphs.
11,031 lines.
4 years.
6 homes.
2 broken relationships.
1 wonderful engagement.
3 cities.
4 conferences.
£83.60 in binding charges.
3 soft bound copies.
2 electronic copies.

As Gordon Ramsay might say, DONE!

London Traffic.

You all know how much London traffic sucks right? What's the answer? Well, as good as the Tube is, it is prone to delays due to all kinds of silly reasons. Primarily staff shortages if any of the announcements I cock my head to are correct. So what to do? Hmm, I think this might be the answer:

Constructive criticism.

On Friday night as Mitch and I were cutting through Marble Arch subway (not the underground) where we passed two jakeys (hobos for my American readership) sharing a bottle of vodka and a bottle of lemonade discussing the issues of the day. As we walked past one remarked to the other: "My darling, what are you doing with him? What is she doing with him? Makes me sick. I mean, come on! What a waste!" in perhaps the finest cockney accent this side of Dick Van Dyke. At first I thought he was talking to somebody else, until it dawned on me that it was us he was referring to us! It hadn't occured to me until Mitch started laughing before then going through the various other stages of grief- anger, denial, depression. Thankfully she stopped short of acceptance, otherwise I'd have been in trouble. She was all for going back and giving the gentleman in question a sermon (the other grief stage of bargaining if you will) on why she was with me, but I managed to convince her otherwise. I found it very entertaining though. It's not often I get my physical appearance assessed so brutally by jakeys. I think with that level of constructive criticism London will be good for me right?

Runnin'

Remember how I said I was on a treadmill? Well, it was to get a pair of running shoes. You know, for running. The things I do to get the right fit eh? Still, check out these bad boys:


Look, I even put 'em on!


Oh yes, I've been RUNNING in them!

And I looked like this before I went:


Sadly I don't have any photos apres running, but Mitch can vouch for me!

Slidin'

It has been brought to my attention (by Lorraine no less) that I've been neglecting my dear readers in not telling you all my exciting times in Londinium (I mistakenly called it Londonium in a previous post). As a result I have decided to rectify this with a rip roaring yarn about how I went sliding down the slides at the Tate Modern. This will of course include pictures of me and Mitch and even a VIDEO! Yes, I videoed myself going down the slide and you'll get to hear me giggling like a wee lassie as I go down. Stop sniggering in the back there.

So, we went wondering along to the Tate Modern, perhaps for the second time, to go on the slides. Just outside it has a great trees and light combo:


The Tate Modern looks like this at night:


It's terribly dramatic looking- it used to be a power station you know.

So after we queued up and got out tickets we were ready to go! So we wandered around the buillding for a wee while as I took photos of the glorious 10 second ride facilitator that awaited us.

Look at it! A wonder of technology!


It looked so good I had to go upstairs and get another picture:


So, once we had our tickets and got in the queue, we were almost set to go! It is so arty in the Tate that even the shadows of the slide looked good enough to photograph:


The slide itself is one of a number located on different floors, so naturally we went for the top floor slide the daredevils that we are! Look at how high it is!


Dead high. So, being the man in the relationship, I persuaded Mitch to go first so I could get a photo of her before she went. Nothing to do with me being scared either, honest.



Mitch claims that she was too tall for the tattie sacks we were given to go sliding in, contributing in no small way to her "thump thump thump" noises all the way down, resulting in the bored attendant looking at me and saying: "that's a slow one". I don't think she was talking about Mitch's mental faculties though, but one can't be sure (only kidding!).

I had to smuggle my camera inside my sleeve to get the following footage- they are very keen you don't take anything on your person when sliding these days. See the dangerous situations I put myself in for the avid readers of this blog?

click to watch Niall laugh like a wee lassie!

And of course, when you get to the bottom it's all over, bar the shouting. But you do get to land on the big comfy pillow things at the bottom.


Well, you did. Apparently they've now taken the slides away. Shan't be going back if that's the case- I'll be headed to the Tate Britain where apparently my Flickr show has been on display...