That christmas smell

I got in the lift at work this morning and the first the I noticed was that someone had taken a pine tree upstairs to one of the other floors. The lift had such a strong Christmas tree smell, i used to love coming home over the christmas period to that smell. I think of all the bright lights and christmas like stuff, I miss the smell of pine trees the most. Maybe I'll go and buy one of those pine scented spray cans (ha ha).

Al Pacino is going to be at Leicester square on monday night for the premiere of his new movie 'The Merchant of Venice', as he's my favourite actor I cant wait for the weekend to be over (thats a first), oh and Prince Charles is going to be there too. Hope you all have a hot, sunny Cape Town weekend!

Fable

I bought Fable on the weekend! For those of you who dont know what I'm talking about its probably one of the coolest Xbox games ever. It has however taken control of my life again as computer games have done so many times before (my mom will remember the days of me being glued to the screen playing Diablo... non stop). At least me being in London means nobody is around to see the terrible moods swings it puts me in, ha ha

Rugby & Chicago

I’m sure by now you all know how ‘well’ the rugby went on the weekend. As bad as it was Chris and I still enjoyed the game, we had planned to go and watch the game in the famous ‘Springbok bar’ but much to our disgust we found out it was closed, ‘not to worry’ said Chris, the ‘Bok bar’ is just around the corner. Now the Bok bar was open but they hadn’t paid their Sky subscription and therefore this meant no game! We met up with two English guys outside the Bok bar also trying to find a pub showing the game, so we went looking around but all we got was ‘Australia vs. Wales’, went back to the ‘Springbok bar’ and found two very nice ladies looking for the game too. All six of us then ran around in near rain conditions and found ‘The Maple leaf’, and yes you guessed it, it was a Canadian bar! And filled with English fans I might add.

Luckily the game wasn’t on for another 25 minutes, so Chris and I started on the Kronenberg (tastes better than Castle, sorry boys). The game got off to a very bad start and it kind of stayed that way until the end. At halftime Chris and I were both tired of standing and getting slightly concerned about the hardcore skinhead supporters next to us even though they had been quite friendly. We spotted the two (very pretty) ladies who we had met earlier sitting at a table right next to the big screen, they were from Joburg and were in London to bring the theatre production/musical ‘Chicago’ to South Africa. They brought ‘Fame’ to Cape Town a few months ago, I went to see that and it was very good (very professional I thought) so go and watch Chicago when it starts, it’ll probably be even better (they were also very nice people so that is reason enough to go and watch it).

Monday Madness

I woke up late this morning, I forgot to set my alarm last night, so I only got up at about 7:05, I’m normally at work by that time, managed to get in the shower (took about 1 minute) and dressed with bag packed by 7:20, got to the tubes, central line working well but reports of delays on the district line, got on the district (didn’t have a choice) at mile end, was going fine until the station between the one I get off at and the one before it, we ended up sitting there for about 30 minutes, which meant I got to work just after 8, luckily the tube being late is considered a valid excuse, as people can check up on that so not many people abuse the right to use it as an excuse. London does however have what I call a ‘late culture’ people are always late, it’s as if it’s just accepted. Anyways if this felt rushed it’s because I still do, but I’m slowing down now, all work is done and up to date.

ICE

Yesterday the weather was horrible, grey/black & overcast, pouring with rain (and not straight down either, it was kind of raining sideways, I guess because of the wind), so basically typical London weather, but it wasn’t cold.

Today however, the sun is shining, not a cloud in the sky, cooooool! (I thought) but then realised that it’s about 5 degrees outside. My face felt like leather by the time I reached the underground station this morning, it was so cold that my black jacket was too cold too touch, you know the big one that I always wear? Its like the ice had started forming on he jacket itself.

Other than the wonderful weather, everything is fine. I worked out the manual controls on my camcorder last night, so no more losing focus during night shots. It was really frustrating as I went to the premiere of ‘The Polar Express’ which is the new animated Xmas film starring Tom Hanks, (well his voice anyways) and the camcorder kept losing focus, I thought it was a manufacturers fault, but soon realised that when you’re using the automatic setting (ie filming for dummies) you don’t get the best picture, I only use the manual settings now.

You want get Jiggy Jiggy?

For a few seconds while walking through Soho the other night, I thought I was in Amsterdam. We were walking down this alley, with this elderly man in front of us, strip joints on either side of us, when this eastern european woman (wearing clothes that a woman of her age should not be wearing) grabbed this man by the arm and said 'You want get Jiggy Jiggy? £20!' (thats a eastern european accent put into text), I burst out laughing, luckily he was in front of me or else the woman may have grabbed me instead, at first he seemed tempted to have a look at what this woman was offering, but then yanked his arm back, politely declined and carried on walking, probably not his kind of strip joint. While this was happening, I noticed that an asian man was pulled into another strip joint type of place on the other side of the road, it was hilarious.

Ha! Blue Skies

I woke up this morning, and on my way to work was still half asleep so I didnt notice that there was the possibility of blue skies today. Got to work and guess what? Blue Skies almost as blue as back home! no clouds! how cool is that? Well I suppose its normal back home, but I seriously thought I was going to get grey skies for the next three months. I really love seeing blue skies and the sun, back home I couldnt have been bothered, I mean what for? We get it every day, even in winter.

Pizza

All of you back home probably take the worlds best pizza for granted as it is available to you whenever you want, unfortunately however 'Butlers' does not exist in London. Instead the UK have decided to lay claim to the worlds worst pizza! the pizza that you would buy in a restaurant or a pizza take away, is the worst tasting pizza you will ever have, im not going to go into details here. Luckily I have discovered Asda's (Pick n' Pay over here) frozen food and microwave meal section where i can pick up 3 pizzas for £3, not bad and they taste way better than anywhere else in London, but still not quite Butlers. So there you have it, my opinion on british pizza, in case you didnt get what i was trying to say, IT IS NOT GOOD, IT IS VERY BAD!

The micorwave meals are another story, they are edible, taste alright and i hope are healthy for me, there is a pretty big selection, anything from frozen cheeseburgers and chips, to chicken korma. I mostly eat the pasta dishes, they actually taste quite nice, but im just waiting for Ronald to come over so i can start eating properly, he can cook better than me, well actually i cant cook :)

The everlasting winter cloud has arrived...Ugh!

This was the one and only line in a text (otherwise known as SMS, silly British people always changing things) that I received from Chris this afternoon, I fear he is right as this cloud has been building up and looks pretty solid (as solid as clouds can be).

It hasn’t bothered me yet but I’m sure a few weeks without sun will. Oh well, guess I’ll just have to accept it as there’s kind of no alternative.

Went to Soho on the weekend, where all the freaks hang out…apparently. Funny thing is though, I didn’t see too many, told some people that I was in Soho on Friday night and they all went ‘Aw, you better be careful around there, strange people there you know, queers and all!’. I suppose that if you still consider the homo’s to be freaks then there were plenty, but if they don’t bother you much, then you’d be fine in Soho, don’t listen to all the horror stories. Its like the purple turtle spread out over an entire neighbourhood, the area is very alive, although I probably wouldn’t go out in Soho, clubs like ‘death disco’ and ‘the garlic’ (a really dark Goth club with candle wax all over the show) are considered the norm around there.

Hope you all have a good week

Cheers

No Im not going anywhere, Im talking about that old TV series, I watch it on my lunch break in one if the meeting rooms at work, the title song is really cool, never really listened to it until this afternoon, so what Im saying is go and listen to it!

Not much else really, watched 'Y tu mama tambien' last night. Its a mexican movie translated to 'And your mother too', it wasnt quite what I expected, but still quite good none the less, wouldnt recommend it to the senistive types though.

Anyways hope Cape Town is having better weather than London.

Timechange Nightmare

Im sure you are all aware of this stupid thing called 'daylight savings', on Sunday the entire United Kingdom had to put their clocks back by one hour to accomodate for the upcoming wintermonths. However after asking quite a number of Brits, not one could give me a good reason as to why this is done, the mornings are now lighter earlier (when most people are still sleeping) and the afternoons are darker earlier (when people aer leaving work). This means that when I get home at about 5 its pitch black outside, doesnt make any sense!

Other than that, all is well. London is still as busy as ever, people dont seem to slow down over here, everyones always rushing to get the tube, and walking at an abnormally fast pace (all the time) they may as well be running. I think all Brits should come to Cape Town at least once in their lives to see how things are supposed to be done! Just chill.

Blog no 1

hi all

this is my first blog, hopefully i will have regular updates, provided my life is interesting enough to have content to fill these pages.