almost witty

Random anecdotes and a little thought

Posts categorised London

Random London conversations

Mar 1

Posted by Andrew in London, adayinthelife

On the last Sunday night tube home, HyperHam manages to do the impossible and persuade a random stranger to talk to us by the simple expedient of pointing at a film poster on the tube platform opposite.

Through the conversation – which principally centres around the difference between horror films from the East versus torture porn from Hollywood, and how Eastern films have absolutely zero problem jumping from genre to genre in the blink of an eye – we also discover that:
- he and his girlfriend got so coked-up last night that she stormed out when he berated her for being unable to open a fridge door
- she’s attempted to make amends the day after by serving him ribs
- wearing a scruffy striped shirt and long coat is enough to make me look like a “City boy”. Which I wouldn’t mind so much if I hadn’t spent the last 20 minutes mildly discussing film, and I patently do not have the style or money to carry off the City boy look.

Honestly, if you want to provoke conversations with a stranger, carry an American around.

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“Put the f’king lotion in the basket…”

Dec 29

Posted by Andrew in Films, London, Music, adayinthelife

You may have seen a musical clip from the frankly genius idea of Silence of the Lambs: The Musical set to Lego:

Anyway, it turns out the musical is coming to London mid-January! Who’s with me? We can all wear night-vision goggles and adopt cod-Virginian accents! (or surgical masks and cod-posh-Welsh accents)…

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“Care to taste the wine, sir?”

Aug 3

Posted by Andrew in London, Me me me me me, adayinthelife

A Planeta/Carluccio's wine tasting

A Planeta/Carluccio's wine tasting

On the very rare occasions that I go to a posh pub or restaurant and someone else orders the wine, for some reason I am invariably asked if I’d like to taste the wine. To which I usually wait while the waiter pours a little into the glass, I sniff, swallow and generally nod my approval. If he’d poured blood, vinegar or urine into the glass instead, I probably couldn’t tell the difference.

Hell, there was one night back in my single Cardiff days, when I invited some young filly back to my flat after a drunken night out, and she asked if I had any wine in the house. I only had a bottle of white wine which had been opened a while ago, which I poured into a glass. She drank the glass, made a face, and left shortly afterwards. When I tasted the wine (waste not, want not), I was a little perturbed to find that it tasted more of vinegar than wine. Even I know that’s not the effect you want – and I hate the smell of vinegar anyway.

Plus I still have about six bottles of wine which have followed me from Cardiff to Llandudno to Manchester and London. Woe betide the next six people who invite me to a house party and tell me to “bring a bottle”. Because that’s what they’ll probably get…

So when an invite from Qype emerged for a wine tasting from the wide range of Sicillian wines by Planeta I thought I’d give it a go, and take the taste buds out for a spin. See if they could actually TASTE anything.
Read the rest of this entry »

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Arguing over parking spaces…

May 25

Posted by Andrew in London, adayinthelife

You’d have thought that a three-way confrontation in a West London housing estate on a sultry summer evening would be sparked over something important, like racist community action, or something. But not a blimmin’ parking space.

First of all, some background. I’ve part-owned my flat for about a decade – but the parking space is not outside my flat, it’s further down the estate opposite someone else’s house. Since I don’t own a car any more, I rent out said parking space to whoever wants it, for about £5 a day. So far, there’s been no troubles …

until today. Some building company wanted to park their Transit van there for a month, and offered me a lump sum which I accepted. When they finally arrived at said parking space, they pointed out that there was already a scooter there. So I suggested they just park in the space next to the scooter.

Oh no. These numbnuts MOVE the scooter to the pavement.

Cue three of today’s finest yoof angrily coming out of the house opposite, (understandably) asking what on earth is going on. So now I have to prove my ownership of said space – which comes as a surprise to the evil Curly Watts lookalike (complete with bottles for glasses) who owns the house opposite.

Unfortunately, I’ve never been very good at confronting the thieving yoof of today, so while I’m trying to remain calm, I’m probably slightly stuttering and quietly spoken. But the leader of the yoof gang gleefully informs me that I’m shouting, but then of course everyone else is shouting at each other. Oh, and for bonus points, he says I stink – which is as close as you can get to a racist insult without it actually being a racist insult. Hell, he might as well have said I stank of curry powder.

So all this took the wind out of my sails, but at the same time, the kids withdrew back into the house, with the Curly Watts lookalike threatening to beat us up. The owners of said Transit van are no longer sure that the parking space is safe, and thus leave.

So I’m left with a house at the end of the street that hates me, a parking space that I can’t really use for fear that one of them will vandalise anything that’s put there, and a reminder of my utter ineptness at dealing with the arrogant yoof of today. Just like the time in Cardiff when I confronted someone trying to steal my bike and HE CARRIED ON BREAKING THE LOCK WHILE I WAS THERE.

Just another random muggy spring night on my housing estate.

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Quality vs quantity

May 10

Posted by Andrew in London, Me me me me me




Borough Market

Originally uploaded by jo_evs

I ended up popping down to Borough Food Market (with ex-flatmate @ifenn), which has got to be a top spot for any foodie-loving people in Londoners. It was packed full of stalls selling top quality food at relatively high prices. There were stalls of seafood, eggs, coffee, muffins, granola – and there was even one stall dedicated to seasalt.

Yet, as I sniffed and tasted some of the various little delicacies that came out (for some bizarre reason, I didn’t have much of an appetite after eating a fishfinger buttie and chips – rookie mistake), I kept wondering whether the food was actually worth the price they were asking.

Sure, it tastes nice – but then so does the 2-for-1 Brie I just bought from Tesco’s. Sure, it’s better for the environment, but economically speaking, is a venison burger worth the extra £2 they’re asking?

And really, is there any difference? I’ve been suspicious for a while that my taste buds are slowly dying off, and I’m reasonably sure if anyone subjected me to a blind taste test between, say, Tesco’s Value Burger and a £10 Gourmet Burger Kitchen burger cooked the same way, I’m not 100% sure I could tell the difference.

Is there any way of improving or testing your taste buds?

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“Give me my pizza or I will f**k you up”

Apr 2

Posted by Andrew in London, adayinthelife

was the phrase that I heard shouted in the street below.

Being unable to resist the temptation to look, I twitched the curtain and saw two women – one elderly woman in her 50s wearing tracksuit bottoms and a young girl in an all-pink tracksuit – confronting a helmeted pizza delivery man. It would seem that they had been waiting for their pizza for over an hour and were extremely angry that the man would not give them their pizza.

So while shouting phrases like “Don’t you f**king touch my daughter” (who had the said pizza), they chased the pizza delivery man down the street, and pushed over his motorbike. At some point, presumably happy that they had the pizza, they allowed the pizza delivery man to motorbike away, and went back inside their house.

Two minutes later, he biked back and parked at the far end of the street. I have no idea why.

Just another random spring night in West London!

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Brewing London beer…

Mar 16

Posted by Andrew in London

Roll out the barrel A while ago, thanks to a sudden Twitter from Annie Mole, I found myself invited to a Qype event of a brewery tour and ale tasting, washed down with some oysters.

The directions from Clapham Junction took me to an anonymous industrial estate – aside from the sign at the front proclaiming Sambrook’s Brewery, there was nothing to indicate that there was a brewery inside. No pipes, no steel tubing, no huge plume of smoke, nothing.

Inside, aside from a presentation and tasting room, the entire space was dedicated to the arcane art of brewing, although it seemed more like a scientific slaughterhouse than a brewery farm – hosing everywhere, a grey concrete floor, and huge steel tankers. Fortunately, the master brewery took us through the process of turning hops (which tasted nice), malt (which tasted terrible), yeast, and London water into a freshly-brewed beer. Of course, it also takes a few other ingredients – including sturgeon swimbladders to make the whole thing clear – but otherwise, they use all-fresh natural ingredients for a natural brew. Which you could tell in the final test product.

After that, as if drinking one fresh beer wasn’t enough, we made the long trek to the warm and welcoming Westbridge, where the landlord Charlie took us knowledgably through a variety of beers and ales, all washed down with some lovely oysters. With the interesting titbit that you should only eat oysters when there’s an ‘R’ in the month, so I’ve only got a month left to find more oysters in London…

Unfortunately, I’m not someone who can describe what they like, I just know when it hits my taste buds whether I like it or not. And I didn’t taste a single terrible thing all night. If I happened to live or work within striking distance of Battersea, the Westbridge would definitely be a high contender for my favourite local.

During all this, I was surrounded by the glittering taste buds of London’s blogerati, which seemed to include beer genius James Cridland, anniemole, londonelicious.com and hollow legs, who is painstakingly trying to recreate Chinese recipes from her childhood. I really must develop my tastebuds sometime.

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Snow – a review

Feb 2

Posted by Andrew in London, adayinthelife




A lonely snowman

Originally uploaded by almost witty

Finally, after many many years of complaining about the lack of snow in my life, I unbelievably woke up this morning to find a great blanket of snow all over London. Aside from the cold, I almost bounded out of bed and actually left home early to try and make it to work on time.

With the buses and tubes not running at the morning, there was a steady stream of people walking around, throwing snowballs and shouting at their friends (mostly Australians, oddly) and the odd foolhardy driver driving very slowly trying to get to work that way.

It took me 60 minutes to walk the 1.5 miles to work – partly because I kept taking photos enroute. Fortunately, I managed to find some forgotten snow boots from 2003, which came in very handy considering there were some women walking in stilettos. Very unhandy.

The walk home was much less enjoyable, since by then London had woken up and the clean pristine snow had become slushy brown muck. An attempt to head into Central London was constantly thwarted by cancelled buses and trains, so I eventually headed home past London schoolkids throwing snowballs and then fighting each other afterwards, resolving to go back out later for the Twitter London snowball fight.

Then I got in, had a cup of tea, put my feet up and unsurprisingly, decided not to go back out. So I didn’t get time to build a snowman, or really make a snowball – but there’s always next time. Maybe tomorrow?

Now I’m off to look for quintiessential pics of London in the snow. Any suggestions?

Oh – and see how many of these snow-related phrases you uttered today with English Snow Bingo!

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Snow! In! London!

Feb 2

Posted by Andrew in London, adayinthelife




02022009572

Originally uploaded by bbccouk

Woo-hoo!

I took quite a few photos last night, because given the general ability of snow to avoid me, I was quite fearful it’d all disappear overnight. Not to worry, I woke up today to a glorious winter wonderland of snow everywhere, and in the 60 minutes it took me to walk to work (a mile and a half away) I took lots of pics – which are alas all still stuck on my digital camera.

Still, all this snow finally unleashed my festive spirit and brought out the bouncy bouncy Tigger in me. I’ve been hoping for proper snow for YEARS and now it arrives – in London too! It couldn’t get much better! I’ve got ski boots (from that ill-fated ski-ing trip of 2003), a digital camera, a coat, it’s not too cold and I’m in no rush to get anywhere. It’s going to be great!

I’m probably going to go offline today to take more! pics! of! the! snow! (that is, if the transport chaos that is London allows me) but in the meantime, this is what it looks like at work. And of course, people are already hard at work on Dalek snowmen and lots of other photographs!

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Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!

Feb 1

Posted by Andrew in London

Finally, after five years complaining about the lack of snow, we have snow! The snow outside as at 9pm GMT, on Sunday 1 February 2009 in West London. It’s not much, but hopefully it’s a start!

Snow in W12Snow in W12

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