Yesterday was Lou and Chris' wedding. I've known Lou since the first year at University, now 10 years in the past, and she's known Chris for as long. Ah, bless. A nice, simple traditional sermon held in a church cold enough for your breath to steam. Bad enough for the congregation but even less fun for a bride wearing an off the shoulder silk number - Lou definately went slightly purple at times, although don't think her tears of happiness froze on her cheeks.

After the service Jon and I partook of the first part of Lord of the Rings. Wow. An amazing film that kept me entranced for pretty much all of its 3+ hour length. Visually it is stunning, but what really kept me locked in was the quality of the acting. Ian McKellan as Gandalf was outstanding, a wonderful mix of worldliness and caring demonstrated with the slightest of facial movements. The stories been tweaked and trimmed a bit to fit better with film but it's basically all there. Go see it... now!

Today is the first of many large Christmas meals at home. I feel that I need to get out and go for a long run but it is currently about -100 degrees outside! Ah for a gym in my basement here as well as in Williamsburg! Guess I'll just have to work harder on my gut in the new year, I've lost weight but not from the right places! I think most of it's due to my hair falling out and my brain atrophying from lack of serious use.

Labels: friends

Just got back from a tiring but fun day trip to Calais with G'ette and Simon. Had to get up at the unearthly hour of 5.10am (GMT while I'm still in EST - yep, that means 12.10am) to drive down for an 8.30am ferry from Dover. Brought back many fond memories of my last trips over to France which were oh so long ago - yes dear ones, probably before the Ecu was even spawned from whatever twisted mind it came.

Much delights were to be found in the French hypermarche - wine, chocolate, wine, cheese, wine and of course cheap stationary. Did I mention the wine? Also got the chance to experience how British mobile phones actually work in other countries, and the difference in service levels between French and New York restaurants. Very.

Now I'm just completely exhausted having only really had about 10 hours sleep since Monday morning... Somehow managed to fit a trip in to see Blue Jam at Riverside Studios in Hammersmith. Chris Morris of Brasseye fame wrote this sketch play and it shows. Very bizarre but often extremely funny. Enjoyed it immensely until halfway through when I realized that part of me was not enjoying the contexts - for example a woman getting a plumber in to 'fix' her baby that has been dead for 4 days. This has since lead to many discussions about whether it's right to laugh at this stuff or not, or whether it's fundamentally wrong/unhealthy/whatever. I was reminded of a sketch show I went to see just under a year ago in New York (Kiddies/Pumpkin Corner or something like that - the name escapes me). The last sketch was highly disturbing and left a very bad taste in the mouth, discussing child abuse between disabled siblings. Living in New York has definately changed my sense of humour, is that a good thing or a bad thing though? Answers on a postcard please.

Oh, and on which note, Grand Theft Auto 3 (PS2) is a really enjoyable game - very clever, highly addictive and well done. The main character runs round town carrying out gangland tasks and stealing whatever car he fancies all to earn more money/success. You have to question though whether sleeping with a prostitute to raise your health levels, and subsequently pummeling her to death to steal the money back is healthy for your mind. And you know the kids play this.... God I'm getting old!

Labels: Family, france, travel

There are some weekends you just want to rewind and start over again. Just because they went so hideously wrong that you can't even take it in in retrospect. This was one of those weekends. Ah well, nothing I can do except try and learn from it and see what happens I guess. Never been very good at that - but there's always time to learn.

Meanwhile I have to pack and get ready for my Chrimblemas trip back to the UK. I'm going to try and take an initial load of crap back to ease my later exodus from New York, but I've got to get it all the way over to Newark - which is a pain in the proverbials from Billyburg! No cheap Virgin flights from JFK though. Oh well. Maybe I'll go do some last minute shopping to pass the time.

Found out today that if you have over 3000 GBP in savings you're not eligible for UK unemployment (sorry "Jobseeker's Allowance"). That's so crap. Not that 53.05 GBP a week goes very far anyway. I think I get more than that a week in interest from my bank!! In NYC you get $400 a week for up to six months - no wonder noone's been rushing to get a new job. Ah, the fun and games of being unemployed in a country where you have no legal status. Sigh.

On a more exciting note though - yesterday I went for my first trip to Saint's Alp Teahouse. Here, in neon tinged sterile surroundings, amidst many local Asian students, you can enjoy such delicacies as Coconut Milk Tea, Kumquat Lime Juice and the wonderfully blue Taro Milk Tea. Most of these are very similar to milkshakes, but what makes them all the more fun is the little balls of gelatine they stick in the bottom. Each of these is about the size of the tip of your little finger, perfectly fitting into the over-large straw they give you with the drink. An amazing experience as you suck up sweet milkshake and then chew on the little ball that sticks to your teeth.

Well the mince pies turned out just luverley. Made two batches - one with a sweet pastry and one savoury. The savoury pastry also turned itself into a rather nice quiche! All very exciting - I'm turning into a right house-husband... now all I need is a rich wife to support and I'm sorted.

And big shout out to Laureano who was inspirational in decorating my tree - he came up with the cool tree headpiece (safely non-religious in a weird flowery way) and also the concept of ribbons shooting out from the tree to the ceiling. If I had a digital camera then I'd show you. Not only that but he also risked life and limb by climbing up my step-ladder to attach the ribbons. What a guy! And yes ladies - he is single...

After many years of wondering who actually own matthewhobbs.com I've finally found out. Matt Hobbs. Now this is an assumption, as the pages are actually devoted to Matt and Nicky's wedding (no mum, I didn't get married and not tell you, it's someone else) but at no point could I actually find mention of his surname. The conclusion is pretty obvious though isn't it? It transpires that this wedding actually took place in Sandhurst, not that far away from where I used to live in Camberley (about 5 miles), so the guy obviously doesn't live that far from my old family home.

So what I hear you say. Obviously 'Hobbs' is just very common in the south of England. Well no. Last time* I checked on Google for 'Matthew Hobbs' it returned 10 pages of results, and another 10 for the shorter 'Matt Hobbs'. Most of these pages are actually in America. So the chances of the other Matthew Hobbs that bought the domain living that close was pretty slim. Guess it must be me from a parallel universe...

In the meantime I shall have to sit comfortably at matthewhobbs.net, which in itself is pretty darn strange as I haven't paid Network Solutions for 4 months now. Go figure.

* About 2 seconds ago for the sake of this blog-note.

Labels: internet, It's All About Me

Had a luverley lunch in Florent with Tricia today, in some of the spare moments she had between the rigours of an extreme programming project. Extreme programming, for those of you who don't know, is where you write code with two people - one person doing the actual typing, and the other just watching and thinking about whether it's the right way to do it. One of the side effects of this, apart from being extremely tiring, is that you have to all work at the same time - so Tricia ends up with a very short, pre-defined lunch hour.

During this lunch I had a realization - next year is palindromic. Yes, 2002 is the same backwards as well as forwards. For some reason this got me very excited but for why I'm not sure. Perhaps it's because this is the second palindromic year I will have seen, the last being 1991, and the next isn't until 2112 with the one before that being 1881. Strange how your mind can fixate on these things.

Today was also the first day of the Internet World show in New York. This was highly unimpressive, with absolutely nothing managing to catch my eye. Even the quality of the free crap they were giving out was mediocre at best. Ah, for those halcyon days of mundo VC cash making for piles of cool branded toys. My old friends AccuWeather were there so I had a quick chat with some of them, as well as hanging out around egg solution - Jon's company that makes a panoramic lens for digital cameras. Their stall was regularly the busiest which was very impressive given how quiet the show was.

The subject of bank balance addiction also arose. A friend of mine now absolutely must check her bank balance online every morning without fail. I used to be much the same with ATMs, constantly checking my balance before I took any money out. Luckily I'm not more blase about it all, but checking your transactions online is a great way to feel more in control of your finances. When another friend told me of a scam happening on the west coast with HSBC members I was able to immediately check that my account was OK, which it was. Very comforting. Also extremely useful when you have a bank account in a foreign country...

ps, I now have some new pastry recipes to try out. This will be aided by the purchase of some proper butter rather than the usual, plastic American crap that most delis sell. Add 'butter' (and other unhealthy snacks) to the list of things I like about Britain!

Well my first batch of mince pies taught me to roll the pastry a lot thinner! I also need to go shopping for a proper baking tray for them rather than trying to get a cheapo aluminium (pronounced 'alum-in-um' over here of course) muffin trays to work. Nowhere near as nice as the ones from Myers of Keswick but they contain a lot more love, and of course grubby fingerprints.

I've also discovered that I now have enough airmiles from Virgin to fly to Hong Kong and back, or South America. Wow. I found that out while I was trying to book a flight back for Christmas. As I watched Orbitz and Expedia the flights got progressively more expensive. 'Tis the season to be flying to the UK apparently. I was also faced with the quandry that if I follow through with my current plans of travelling come February I only have a few short months left in New York. This means I wanted to try and spend the minimum amount of time back in the UK and consequently I'm not staying there for New Years. Unless I change my mind of course... I normally do. Or do I?

Labels: englishman in new york, food, travel

An interesting article in BBC online today, discussing what it actual means to be British. For me at the moment it means trying to work out how to make mince pies without forking out $5 for a jar of mincemeat from Myers of Keswick, or buying their individual mince pies at $1.50 a pop (even if they are infinitely superior to Tea and Sympathy's similarly priced offering). It transpires from a quick search of the web that mincemeat takes at least two weeks to ferment, plus it also requires suet - another Brit-only ingredient that I would have to buy from Myers of Keswick anyway. Maybe next year I'll get my act together in time to do that!

So what else defines 'Britishness' to me? Sense of humour or self-deprecation. TV without adverts. Old children's shows like the Flumps and Bagpuss. Windy, over-crowded roads that everyone drives along like they're at the Grand Prix. Rugby. Marmite and all the other types of jams and preserves we thrive on. Fish and chips, and not the soggy, soft shite they do at Salt and Battery here in New York - but cheap, solid white fillet and big chips just about less than solid in the middle. Appreciation of a well thought out and fair queuing system. Cheering for the underdog, or Richard Branson even if he is actually quite successful, but only because he's had his fair share of dramatic fuck ups. Cheeky chaps like Robbie Williams, and darker ones like Michael Caine. Celtic roots. Hiking wonderful green hills and mountains with dark forbidding clouds constantly gathering ahead of you. The Queen mum, but mostly for her love of horse racing and being a right old character. Formulaic 'old style' pubs and the wonderful feeling you get just after actually finding a proper old pub but before you get stared down by the locals.

That'll do for starters anyway.

Labels: englishman in new york

Spent another fun afternoon wandering round galleries. This time it was centered around the galleries on 24th Street between 9th and 10th (as opposed to the completely different 21st St galleries). The highlight was the Richard Serra exhibition at the Gagosian - an huge cavernous space where I'd last seen Damien Hirst's exhibition. This time the usual Hirst carcusses were replaced by immense curves of iron plate, each twice as high as me and 2 inches thick. The sheets, if sheet is the right word for such thick chunks of metal, are curved around in on themselves forming spirals you can walk through. The feeling is for all the world like walking down steep sided thin crevasses carved in cliffs by streams. The overall feeling was one of intense awe and also serenity, as if the structures had been there forever. I got home to a phone message from Laureano saying that I should go to this exhibition immediately - how right he was.

Richard Serra's organic work far outshone my usual favorite Anish Kapoor, exhibiting at the Barbara Gladstone gallery. Ever since I first came across Kapoor at the Ottawa museum of modern art I've been a great fan. Unfortunately all of the subsequent works I've seen have not reached the same level of emotional impact that the first pieces (including the Three Witches) made on me. Tim took some pictures which I'll try and put up once he sends them to me.

Helmut Newton had a collection of around 20 of his large scale pieces (each around 6 foot by 8 foot and costing $30,000 - I bought two for christmas presents, darling) just down from the Gagosian. The feeling of the gallery was intensely intimidating, it was pretty much the only gallery where the staff wore suits. The pictures were classic Newton, although I did get to wondering if my mum took a picture out of a plane window when it was landing whether it was worth as much? It would probably be better anyway.

Tim, my companion for this gallery trip, was highly amusing in Tracy Moffat's Fourth exhibition. This is a collection, as Tracy herself kindly explained to us as she passed through on the way to the gym, of photos taken of the TV during the Sydney olympics with the athletes who came in fourth highlighted. Tracy went to great lengths to qualify that one of the guys who had come in fourth then was now World Champion. Anyway, what was amusing was that when we got there Tim made some disparaging (and loud) comments about Tracy's talent, having done some work on a recent shoot that cost her $1/4 million just to hire Pier 59 for a few days. He then noticed that she'd walked in and wandered over to say hello, as I stood there wondering if she'd heard him. Apparently not. Ah, New York life.

Other brief mentions - an exhibition of 100 classic prints had some wonderful shots in, including one of Bjork. The Imogen Cunningham show at the John Stevenson Gallery was also wonderful, and interesting for the contrast of the original, faded shots against new prints that Imogen's son had done.

Labels: Art, celeb spot

After a ridiculous length of time I have now got DSL! Huzah! So expect some more blogging from me (although I'm sure the reality will be the same as it ever is) over my new high speed connection. Smashing.

Spent a happy day yesterday cycling round lower Manhattan checking out galleries and reminding my arse what it feels like to cycle. It's still remembering now. It was a beautiful day - I was cycling in a t-shirt even though it was the start of December and didn't ever really feel cold. Manhattan is such a great cycling city. Everything moves in one direction so you can be more sure where things are and the roads are wonderfully wide. Compare this to London where everything is small, curvey and it's normally pissing down.

Saw some great photos - Elger Esser's ethereal landscapes, Todd Hido and Tim Davis with extremely similar approaches to hyper-real shots of houses, and Collier Schorr with 'modelled' pictures of people in German army costumes. All this on one street next to the Dia Center. Then I dropped down the west side cycle path down to where they were loading the remains of the WTC onto barges to be ferried away. It is slightly disconcerting how you can be cycling down the path as if nothing has happened and then suddenly it transforms into a major excavation site. Sometimes I still feel like I haven't really taken it all in yet.

Labels: Art

Went to see Amelie last night. This is a truly wonderful movie and unlike anything I've ever seen before. It's done by the same guy who did Delicatessen and The City of Lost Children, so it's visually stunning and very much a modern fable. So wonderful indeed that I didn't hold the fact that Pam had not bought cup cakes for Ann and myself against her for very long... honest, Pam. Anyway, the colours were amazing, the shots beautiful and the story was captivating - go see it now.

Labels: movies