Day 47-57: London - Billericay - London

Highlights

• A Simple Answer by Grizzly Bear
• The Southern Blain exhibition by Tim Noble and Sue Webster
• Brixton - Feeder and the Dogstar

So after a few blog attempts over the past few weeks (which I abandoned after falling asleep when reading them back), I'm admitting defeat that my life job searching from a Bermondsey flat is no where near as entertaining as my travelling experiences. To sum it up, I've eaten quite a lot of eggs and soldiers, I've been on the Jubilee line a fair bit, I've watched tons of Masterchef and listened to Grizzly Bear's new album more times than is healthy. A longer summary than you'd probably like of days 47-57:

Day 47

Saturday morning started with Coffee Club. Hayley had given me some grief about the ridiculously wholesomeness of our weekend routine ('You've changed, man. You've changed') so I was hyper-aware of all the yummy mummies and daddies bounding about with their off-road buggies. I must have found myself in the way of at least 15 different buggies in the hour we stood around Monmouth coffee and Maltby Street. It's a middle class new parent hot spot. Ellen recognised a few of them from the colloquially named 'Milk Cafe' (the new mum Bermondsey breast-feeding club). After the Gridley-Sticklands had left to go to Bristol, we walked up to London Bridge and past Southwark Cathedral with Phil and Ellie. Ellie regaled us with a story about the love triangle amongst her 7 year old class (shy Alfie suddenly wanted Freddie's girlfriend Louella, so Freddie punched him. Prop-ah romance, innit). 

We popped into the Tate Modern shop to buy Abbie's nephew Theo a present. Theo, 7 year old chess, maths and top trumps genius, who was having a birthday party the following day where the party focal piece was an exotic animal man and his 15 pets, INCLUDING a Komodo Dragon which (minor but non essential Skyfall spoiler alert), if the new Bond film is in any way accurate, generally EAT people. Presumably the party will finish with 15 pets and three less children. I walked back along the river and spotted this cool display (see photos below. The second looks only slightly odd). I think it's to hit home the fact that whilst we have all these norms and expectations of modernity and cleanliness around going to the toilet, a lot of people round the world would just rather a little privacy and they can't even get that. The screens on the front show videos of faces to indicate the idea of going to the toilet whilst on show, and the white cubes are made up of small bathroom tiles.

I then caught the train to Lakeside to meet my Mum and Sister for Christmas shopping and then went home to Billericay. My parents were hosting dinner for a couple they've known for years, Bev and Ray. Mum met Bev on her first job when she was 17, so they've known each other for about 35 years. I find that sort of commitment to a friendship pretty impressive. It's almost as good as my Mum's pen-friendship with Penny in Australia who she's been writing to for about 45 years and has seen only once. 

Day 48
As is standard for a visit home, we went on a family car trip to Hyde Hall, which is a Royal Horticultural Society garden and centre near Chelmsford. If you like the outdoors, it's a good afternoon out and has some beautiful grounds. There are some children's info boards around the gardens so you can learn about bee keeping and wild fruits if that sort of thing floats your boat. My parents are members and so go inside quite often, but this time we only went to the cafe and shop, which is housed in a cool Grand Designs-style building: 

It sells a lot of local wines and chutneys, so I bought some Tiptree jam (supporting local jam factories since our school trip to Tiptree Jam Factory in 1999). Later in the day I walked up the high street to see what had changed since I'd last been in town. Presumably in the momentum of Britain's victorious summer of cycling, there's now a cycling shop instead of a sweet shop (though no business seems to last longer than 6 months in that space so I can't imagine it'll still be there when I go back) and Stewarts Wine Bar on Western Road, which has changed it's name about five times in as many years, is now called Vetro. Yeah, I'm sadly not kidding. I presume it's a mix between Vintage and Retro. 

Mum cooked a delicious nut roast for dinner as a run-through of what I'm apparently getting for Christmas. Christmas Day will be about 6 months to the day of not eating meat, so a good get-out if I wanted to revert to meat eating. But seriously, this nut roast is better than any turkey I've ever eaten. 

Day 49

I played 1hr 20 of Squash with my friend Vikki at the LA Fitness in Brentwood. I had convinced myself I'd bump into one of TOWIE pumping iron or working on their abs, so was a little let down when it was just a lot of yummy mummies on treadmills. We realised the court was empty after our session so decided to keep playing for as long as possible. I could feel the muscle ache after about an hour, but like squash heroes we ploughed on. God.

Day 50

I woke in complete agony after the squash. It hurt to get out of bed/laugh/cough/move. I somehow managed to dress myself, made my best attempt at a shower and went to meet an agency in the afternoon. Afterwards I had a walk around Regent Street/Oxford Circus and then went to Blain Southern on Hanover Square to visit this free exhibition by Tim Noble and Sue Webster (my photo below):

What I liked most about it was the idea that if anyone else was wandering around these artists' studios, they'd just assume these items were a selection of waste products, or they'd declare it modern art as it stood. It's only when you add the light that it turns into the intended art. Definitely influenced by the (now slightly overplayed?) Kevin Bacon EE adverts, I watched his 'The Woodsman' in the evening on my Kindle Fire. It's good. I imagine it didn't hit hard enough to win any awards, but I felt the subtlety of the story actually went in its favour. I'd recommend it.

Day 51

It was Hayley's 25th birthday, so I joined her and her friends for drinks in the Water Poet near Spitalfields. It's a nice pub though I now wince every time I'm charged £4.50 for a glass of house wine in the UK. A lot of wincing at this pub. I miss Budapest prices. I won a game of pool with my sweet pool skills, though it helped being paired with someone I imagine probably competed in youth snooker competitions. I bruised my knee on a table (there's a reason I mention this) and caught up with an old friend from university, Jason. He's now working as an assistant at a private Psychiatrists office, but has previously worked at a high-security institute and really has seen the worst parts and effects of humanity and human action. Having only just seen The Woodsman, his comments on the treatment of Paedophiles felt appropriate. He said that ultimately, you can't hope to change their preferences. They've developed in a way that means they are attracted to pre-pubescents, and so the only means of treatment is really instilling a discipline in them to not act on their impulses. Any treatment methods which are said to cure are ridiculous, as it'd ultimately be no different in trying to make a heterosexual gay and a homosexual straight. It's not possible.

Day 53

I met my school friend Lucy for coffee at Westfield in the morning, and we talked about her boyfriend Rik's recent success at making a bed frame from scratch. I mean, completely from scratch. It was just a few lumps of wood pre-Rik. He even made a table with the cut-offs. See it and weep, all you people who struggle even to put up an Ikea flatpack. I'm sure his services are for hire if anyone needs anything made. 

I went to see Feeder at Brixton with Joella in the evening. It was amazing. They've not lost it. Well they have a bit. Those two 2012 albums aren't the strongest. Yeah, two. Neither of which are Greatest Hits. But the show was good. Spotify lists them as a British pop-metal band. I don't think that's true anymore, but definitely with some of their older stuff. One of their best tracks is 'Emily' (listen here). The venue was filled with a comforting crowd of late-twenties, slightly beer bellied men and women. Lovely stuff. I followed it up with a trip to the Dogstar in Brixton with James and Matt. A lot of fun. I'd recommend it for a night of dancing and beer. It was playing Prince as we entered and then flittered through a selection of Rihanna, some club stuff and just a general danceable mix.

Day 54
I was supposed to be meeting Gurk, as she was over from Berlin for one night only. It was a wet day. I headed out of the house late in the evening, jumping over a pile of rubbish with what I imagine looked like a nice ballet pirouette. I can't quite work out what happened next, but I presume in my arrogance at the jump a few seconds earlier, I was overconfident in my stride and next thing I knew I was lying on my front, face mushed to the ground, hands grazed and a nasty sting in the same knee I'd bruised earlier that week. I limped the ten metres back to the flat on a twisted ankle to discover I was bleeding quite a lot from a nasty cut on my right knee. I sat feeling sorry for myself the rest of the evening, trying to find the most dramatic angle I could for a photo of my wound.

Day 56
I bought my weight in plasters/wound supplies. The guy in boots must have thought I was looking after a ward of burn victims.

Day 57
I met my friend Jack for drinks in the city (My housemates don't believe he's real as they haven't met him, but I swear he's a real friend, Abbie and Tony. I haven't made him up). He works for RBS and must be the company's main redeeming feature. He's just more interesting and intelligent than most people in general, let alone bankers. We talked about Europe and got a bit drunk in one of the rare nice pubs in the city, which I think is called Kings Stores.

A selection of other photos from the past few weeks (apologies for any blur/poor quality. They're all taken on a Blackberry, not known for it's creative abilities. 100% Instagram-free though):