Tag: Family

Brockham Burnfest 2010

Last night we partook of the annual burning man festival, you know, the one were we torch the effigy of a terrorist rather than the one involving lots of techno-hippies in a desert. As with last year we ventured out of the safe harbour of London down to the small country town of Brockham, home to one of the largest fires and firework displays in England.

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The Earliest Christmas Shop Ever

Amazingly I’ve already done pretty much all of my Christmas shopping… In fact at this very moment packages are speeding their way back home to my family in England – fingers crossed they arrive safely! The hardest part of shipping stuff home for Christmas, other than getting it done a month in advance, is filling out the customs form. In theory they want exact details of every item, including not only its price, but also its weight. Given it was hard enough fitting everything in to sensible size boxes and packing to minimize damage risk, the added task of weighing everything individually was beyond me. In fact it was a near miss on my customs form when I wrote ‘Pot’as one line item, before realizing the second meaning and quickly adding ‘..tery’. Good to know I’m on the ball sometimes.

Merry 30th November everybody!

Fromage

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!