Jimmyz Night Club in Monte Carlo

When it came to finding an after party, the Italians led the charge by drunkenly jumping into their minibus and driving dangerously to a night club several miles away called Jimmyz. They took a Dutch girl with them and for this reason both the Dutch and UK teams (or at least the UK boys) were motivated to follow (romance is not yet dead). After walking a very long way we all got to Jimmyz on foot and didn’t appear to be dressed right. The set was like one out of James Bond and I felt that my knee length dress was about a metre too short. Thankfully there was a separate night club downstairs for us plebs. However, we’d overlooked the Italian’s terrible taste in music; the club’s only redeeming feature was the free cloakroom and I felt inclined to leave (along with the other girls - the boys were staying. Their work was not yet done). This part actually worked rather well because we were mistaken for upper class guests attending (as luck would have it) a conference hosted by a car hire company and so our ride back home was free.

There was no sailing the next day due to lack of wind. The Dutch were happy because it meant they won; the Italians not so much because they were cheated out of running finals, which they might have won.

I see this as Karma. And this happy ending concludes the #ClareInMonaco series.

For the full story:

1. We went to the Russian Christmas market for ice go karting...
2. ...then went for a night out in which we found 100 euros on the floor...
3. ...a funny  old man was encountered...
4. ...not everyone made it home...
5. ...Then we had another night out in which we worked hard to further the UK's international relations...
6. ...secret Santa happened after dinner. Dutch style...
7. ...and that brings us on to the after party.

If anyone's interested in hearing what happened with the Dutch girls...well I'm not entirely sure, but I can tell you that there was a kiss at the airport and they stayed in touch. Aww.

They say international athletes bond at sporting events. Now we know why.

The first surprising thing about Monaco is that it is built on an incredibly steep slope. From the marina you can see right to the edge of the city simply because everything is built on top of each other. This was to prove a challenge to the ladies on our second evening there because we were required to get dressed up in black tie and that requires high heels. We tackled this problem in a pragmatic manner and carried spare pairs of shoes instead of handbags.

All eight international teams assembled in the yacht club de Monaco. Our boys had disrupted the seating plan so as to have as many Dutch girls on our team table as possible. The rest of us played a minor role in match making and the more we drank the more ambitious we got. We started with simple actions like suggesting that all the ladies moved 2 seats to their right before pudding (thereby ensuring that the right people were sat next to each other). Then when free wine had been liberally served to everyone present, the pudding arrived and turned out to be a variation on fruit salad, some people weren’t interested in eating it and so the game of passing a 2-inch slice of banana around the table from mouth to mouth was instigated. You might think, as I did, that this would never catch on, but the initiator of the game was sat right next to the wannabe couple and so uptake was alarmingly strong. By the time 3 people had done it no one else had an excuse not to join in. Watching people with a banana poking out of their mouth seemed funny but we did get it round the circle without any compromising incidents. No sooner had I breathed a sigh of relief then, to my horror, our instigator picket up a floppy bit of mango and declared a new round. Would the Dutch girl go for it? Why yes she would. The wannabe couple found it very easy to do this but everyone else had more in the way of personal space issues. By the time the mango got half way round to me, my stomach muscles were exhausted from laughing at them all in their awkward efforts to transfer the mango from one to another. My moment in the spotlight came of course. I found it a moderately sobering one. I was faced with a grinning Dutchman, with a beard and a piece of limp mango dangling from his teeth at significantly closer proximity than you’d ever expect to see such a sight. There’s really nothing to be done but to dart in and get the metaphorical hot potato moving on as fast as possible.

After the meal and a few other formalities, the evening’s entertainment was announced: Karaoke. This was something that no one felt inebriated enough to do, which is funny considering they felt ready to pass a mango around between them. It did eventually get off the ground though in rather a spectacular fashion as the Dutch girls were coaxed onto the floor, seated comfortably on chairs and then made distinctly uncomfortable when the British boys, clutching microphones (and lunging wildly), energetically serenaded with 'you've lost that loving feeling' in an admirable recreation of that famous Top Gun scene. Unfortunately I'm not sure the girls got the reference.

When the party ended, no one wanted to go home (I think it’s because a night never feels complete until there’s been dancing. Singing doesn't count) and for that reason I’ll have to put together one final post to explain how it all ended.

#ClareInMonaco

It's a city on a very steep hill

Hungover like a Monegasque tourist

The morning after the night before, Monaco was cold, full of rain and we were tired. We were made painfully aware of the fact that we were primarily in the town to compete in a sailing competition, when our alarms went off promptly at 8am. The girls were lacklustre, but the boys even more so as they had all woken up in our hotel, without a beautiful international sailor in sight.

Having said that, our team was in a better state than some, as three competitors had been arrested the night before. It sounds like a cliché but an Englishman, an Irishman and an Italian walked out of the bar (told you it sounded clichéd), they had been distracted by some bikes and [allegedly] decided to steal one. Unfortunately the bikes had been parked outside a police station and while their drunk efforts were not strong enough to prosecute them for bike theft the 3 amigos were extremely surprised to learn that it is a criminal offence to be drunk on the streets of Monaco and so they were promptly locked up until such time as they were fit to go free.

This was considered highly entertaining by those who made it safely had to the Marina the next day (particularly those who still had a full team of sailors). We soon saw the Italian girl safe, well and (more importantly) sober but the Irishman didn't appear until 4pm! He was obscenely grumpy at this stage. This is largely because it transpires that police hospitality does not extend to feeding their short term guests. Even basic provisions like toilet roll and water are only given on request.

Sailing did not go well for us that day. It rained torrentially and I couldn't help thinking (while shivering violently) that I might prefer to be in the UK. With a sedentary hobby (board games might be nice). Indoors.

It might sound like this would be a good place to end this sequence of stories from Monaco – everyone has learnt a valuable lesson and is ready to go home. However, what we really needed was to get a grip!!! This was a 3-day event and we were only half way through.

#ClareInMonaco

The old man of Monaco

The band in the club played covers of other peoples’ songs and did so incredibly well. It all started with Avichi and we were reassured from that point forwards. At one point I realised that the guitarist was playing his instrument behind his head. It amazed me as I’ve never seen this done anywhere more proximal than youtube before but this chap was lose enough to touch. Despite the expensive drinks, Monaco wasn't all bad.
However, the real star of the show (beyond the Dutch guy upstaging the band by standing in front of them and with his truly epic air guitar) was an elderly man who seemed to be by himself. He was probably about 75 years old and was tearing up the dancefloor. When it came to getting low he was just as able as I was! Dressed in a shirt and tie, I couldn't work out if he was a rich tax evader or a cute old granddad. I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and humoured him but in hindsight I think he probably had a bit of cash to burn as you can’t get hip, joint and knee replacements like that on the NHS!

#ClareInMonaco

Welcome to Monaco

Our big night out in Monaco got off to a bit of a false start, when we wondered into a Russian themed marquee full of line dancing bingoplayers by mistake. Our next choice of party was much better, not least because the Dutch team were there and our boys took an instant liking to the Dutch girls. It’s probably worth explaining at this point that we were primarily in Monaco for a sailing competition, where there were 8 international teams of 8 sailors, each composed of 4 men, 4 women.

Meanwhile, us English girls were entertaining ourselves on an empty dance floor by seeing how high we could kick. This predictably ended up in one of us falling over as the floor was covered in a good deal of highly slippery confetti. As we bent to pick her up, Jenny spotted a 100 euro note on the floor. I've never seen a €100 note before in my life and in Monaco they have them just lying around!

This discovery was presently reinvested in a round of drinks for us all (well, the 6 of us that were present). We only got €24 change for this and so politely explained to the barman that there’d been a mistake, perhaps he hadn't realised we’d given him a hundred euros (after all, we probably don’t look like the sort to be in possession of one).  He gave us an apologetic smile and turned to the till as if to get more change, then with a grin and a flourish, whirled round, produced the receipt, (confirming that 6 drinks had indeed cost €76) and said “Welcome to Monaco!”

#ClareInMonaco

How not to tackle a Christmas dinner

This week my London housemates and I celebrated Christmas together. There’s 4 of us in total (may as well introduce my cast up front!): Me, Tim, Taz and Sally. (These are pseudonyms so even if you’ve met us in real life you’ll need to go with the flow here).

If I’m honest it got off to a slow start. Firstly I couldn’t get away from the office and then I took a detour via 2 Tesco stores to find one that wasn’t sold out of mulled wine. When I did get home at 7:30 I found that the housemates had also take the same precaution on hearing that I was struggling to source this essential item and we therefore had 3 bottles between 4 of us (and 2 more bottles of mull-less red as backup). The worrying thing is that we drank most of it!

Tim had been in charge of the shopping. He was in trouble by the time I got in because the other 2 housemates had had a chance to review his purchases. I thought he’d done a marvellous job but Taz (who has an onion allergy) wasn’t so pleased as Tim had brought home pickled onions, sage and onion stuffing and an onion marinaded turkey. After all this storming, it transpired that Taz loves stuffing and so was prepared to eat it anyway. He anticipated that his stomach would be pretty upset the next day so he’d be having a pretty uncomfortable journey home for Christmas on the train the following day (as is everyone sat near the toilet compartment) but it would be well worth it. It took 2 hours for the food to cook but at least 3 of us were more than entertained with our pickled onions and Christmas tunes. When it was it was time to dish up we had an absolute mountain of food. I was quite impressed by this but even more so to learn that one of us (Taz) can carve!

It  looked even bigger in real life...

That was 3 days ago now and I haven’t yet recovered. I haven’t eaten a proper meal in 3 days! I’m not sure what’s wrong with me! I love food! I’m never not hungry. I usually eat on principle, just to exercise my right to do so three times a day. I went into work the following day feeling rough, and thought it might be a hangover. But no hangover lasts this long, not at my age, and not after a Thursday night. I’ll admit we did get a little tipsy, but we overcooked most of the wine to the point where it had no alcohol left in it. Even at the end of the night no one was drunk (although I did get to the point where some words got a bit muddled and I asked repeatedly if there would be icing on our mulled wine. I meant Yule log and was infuriated that no one could answer me!) My next theory was that I had food poisoning. This was backed up by a message from Tim in the morning telling us that he’d had to make an emergency stop off the train to go be ill. For a while I gleefully thought I’d found my solution (at least I wasn’t hungover, that would be unprofessional) and then I realised that I didn’t feel ill, just totally unable to eat. At some point that afternoon I felt a bit peckish so I got a bunch of grapes, had one, and then found this lone grape had done the job. Maybe its old age – maybe this is how all old people feel after eating a meal the size of a small chest of drawers!! But surely if that were the case one of them would have mentioned it.

Last night at about 9:30pm I thought I might be hungry again and so made a little light supper. As I did so I drank a glass of water. I shouldn’t have. It filled me right up. THIS IS RIDICULOUS!

The thing is, if I'm feeling funny, I can't wait to hear how Taz's train journey went!!

Merry Christmas!

A glimpse inside St Helier Hospital this Christmastime

This weekend I went to see mum in hospital. She tells me that no one in her ward is really ill (something to do with their campaign to all get sent home in time for Christmas). As if to prove it, on the eve of my visit all the patients decided to have a pyjama party in which they wore their PJs, sat in their beds and collectively watched strictly come dancing while shouting at the screen. The beautiful (heart wrenching) irony is that they spend all day in pyjamas confined to beds anyway.

I was relieved to see that she looked relatively chirpy when I arrived and as we got chatting she told me that her biggest problem was the extremely uncomfortable stent* in her hand that was administering intravenous antibiotics (not ill are we? It’s not many people ill enough to receive intravenous antibiotics that consider a stent to be the most of their problems, bless her).

As if in perfect demonstration that she’d regained her usual character (even if not health) we did manage to talk non stop for several hours, only interrupted once by a lovely lady in the bed opposite who was exceptionally pleased to tell us that she’d just discovered that the sterilising wipes could be used as make up remover. I’m not 100% sure that disinfectant is something that should be put in one’s eye, but in the absence of certainty I didn’t want to bring her cheerful demeanour down by saying so. This lady has been in hospital for over a month and her muscles have wasted away. I assumed she was planning to go home for Christmas too but didn’t like to ask.

What really struck me was that at such a difficult juncture in their year, all the patients were so cheerful (staff too!) It made me think about all I had to be grateful for. It also made me want to come back on Christmas day to personally make sure that everyone had a friendly visitor! Before I left mum confided that she was planning to go home in 2 days time, but “the consultants don’t know yet”. However, I’m very happy to say that much to our surprise it didn't take that long and she was released the very next day.

That said, if anyone did ask me to go and do some St Helier Hospital cheer spreading on Christmas day, I wouldn’t need asking twice!

* For anyone happy enough to have no use for such vocabularly thus far, a stent is a little tube which in this case was sticking out of the back of mum's hand. It allows the doctors to attach a drip to it on a daily basis and saves them the trouble of having to pierce the poor patients anew every time they wish to do so.

Sinterklaas is coming to town

First of all, let me set the scene. A couple of weekends ago I was in Monaco for a sailing competition (which I’ll admit is not as glamorous as it sounds) and we were all gathered for a black tie dinner on the Saturday night (also not as glamorous as it sounds, I’ll justify this in a future blog post one day). There were eight international teams there (each made up of 8 people: 4 males, 4 females) and it was early December, which as I was soon to learn, is coincidentally when the Dutch celebrate Christmas.

I was alerted to the fact that it was time for the secret Santa, just after dinner, when a handful of gingerbread flew through the air and hit me in the eye. It had been thrown by a very tall elf. I was surprised then to catch sight of ‘Sinterklaas’ and realised he was to be joining us. Visually he looked like a cross between Santa and a cardinal, with a little more emphasis on the latter. He was also very tall, spoke with a Dutch accent and when his hat fell off, which it did regularly (due to the quantity of wine consumed), you could see blond hair underneath.

The Dutch team tried to explain to us who this fellow was. Apparently in Holland they have this chap who visits all the good boys and girls on the first weekend of December. In the past it was said that he removed naughty children in his sack, but now he’s more inclined to use the sack to bring presents to well behave ones. He is an arch rival of Santa Claus and they have a fight the following day after which Sinterklaas goes back to his house in Spain…or something like that*. No one was very sober at the time and so I thought the explanation might make more sense the following day. It didn’t.

Apparently in Holland they don’t really go in for present giving, they focus more on the writing and giving of poems and so this is what we all had to do. A secret Santa of poem giving. Some of the poems were great, some were terrible and some teams technically had the distinct advantage that they had a member locked in jail for part of the day who were therefore able to apply themselves fully to the task of poetry writing. Nevertheless, the most awful poet was Eddie who introduced his masterpiece with the melodramatic explanation that he’d written it during his “incarceration” and then he proceeded to read out the shortest and least sensical poem of the lot while the opportunistically formed Free Eddie Party heckled throughout with drunken shouts of “Free Eddie!” (It was apparently much more satisfying shouting this now there was the man himself to shout it at). Once the poem was finished, it was loudly remarked that, after a day behind bars, he should have come up with something better.

Over on the UK team, we had drawn Rome in the secret Santa and had also struggled to write our poem. When it was our turn to send a representative to go and sit on Sinterklaas’ knee (good old Benjie) we explained that it would be an ‘interactive poem’ and was to require audience participation. It was also the type of poem that had a repetitive theme. I was impressed at the way Benjie sold it. The Rome team would be required to come to the front and the name of the poem was ‘I have never’…you may be familiar with it. It went down a storm.





* For anyone interested in finding out about Sinterklaas through a less confused lens. Here's a link to a well explained page. It does not however explain the fight between him and Santa Claus. I have yet to get to the bottom of that!

Also if you're interested in seeing the full story of that Monaco trip, it's accumulating here #ClareInMonaco

This is how Russians celebrate Christmas in Monaco. Apparently

First off I'd better explain the reason for the sudden drop in the quality of picture - my phone smashed today when I dropped it on the ground and the protective cover flew off. I feel a bit nervous about using it in case I get shards of glass in my fingers (it's not a clean break at all) but did risk it in order to photograph this doodle. As you can see, even the camera is not happy!

This is to be my first Chirstmassy post, inspired a couple of weekends ago when I was in Monaco with a team of 7 other Brits for a sailing competition (it isn't half as glamorous as it sounds but you’ll have to take my word for it). One of the highlights of the event was being able to explore the city in the evening. In particular, at the centre of town there is currently a fantastic Russian Christmas market, which we liked.

So many Russian dolls

All in all I'd say that Russian markets don’t feel that different to German ones only there are Russian dolls everywhere and very few tourists. It’s hard to be sure if the dolls are there due to the Russian influence or because that is what the Monegasques think defines Russia. What is for sure though is that the wicked tartiflette (basically potato, bacon and cheese cooked together and then grilled with yet more slabs of thick cheese melted generously on top) which we all had for dinner was almost certainly very French, although I expect it will soon be adapted as the national dish of Scotland. At least the for the cosmopolitan folk. It was gorgeous in a slightly guilt ridden way.

The star of the fair was the ice go carting. After walking the same streets as the F1 drivers during the day we were keen to get behind the wheel ourselves. It was an experience that did not disappoint. Just like when you drive on icy roads, the go karts have no grip on the track. The really fun thing about it is the way in which you spin out at corners. If you’re particularly unlucky you’ll find you’re than in everyone else’s way, maybe facing the direction of ongoing traffic (which is slightly more alarming because then you can see how much of a nuisance you’re being!). There is nothing to be done at a time like this but laugh. I think my helmet may have muffled me as I spent about 50% of my time laughing. I eventually worked out that the trick to a faster lap time is to drive slower and spin off at fewer corners. This is a bit of a boring lesson, so once it was established I returned to practice my my 'tail spin'. I’m happy to say I never did learn to get this under control and so it remained fun.

Ice Go Karting

After a few mulled wines on the trackside (because that’s probably a classic Russian tradition) we were ready to find a party and so followed some music we could hear playing to a marquee (I was by now clutching a chocolate coated banana, (another great Russian Christmas classic, probably) not because I was hungry but because I wanted to find out what it tasted like. It was delicious but I found it very difficult to eat because my teammates were so amused by its phallic appearance that I was only prepared to put it in my mouth when no one was looking, which wasn't very often since there were 8 of us in the team.) Anyway, as I was tantalised by this wretched banana that I couldn't eat, the rest of the team were intent on experiencing the Monacan night life. As mentioned, we had followed the sound of music to a big marquee. We trouped inside (me still clutching my banana) and were somewhat aghast to find a bingo hall with 4 middle aged people line dancing on stage wearing cowboy hats. It’s a very foolish looking person that can’t find a party in Monaco! With this top of mind we very quickly set out to leave the Russian market and all those Russian bingo-playing line dancers, to find a proper night club in the good old town (with very little banana left - what a good distraction!). 

A party such as that which followed deserves a blog post in it's own right. In fact, the whole trip probably deserves a series of posts in it's own right. I will therefore endeavour to bring you the stories of this trip to Monaco in it's entirety before the new year (potentially even upgrading the picture quality at some point) using #ClareInMonaco to tie it all together. 

Aqua aerobics at Virgin Active

I was supposed to be having a day of Christmas card writing and sleep when I got a message asking if I might like to come to a fitness centre instead (of course I would). My friend (Jess) had got 2 induction sessions at Virgin Active which meant that we could use all the facilities for free as long as we pretended to be interested in becoming members (although if I’m honest, when we learnt that there’s a 90s disco dance class in which they turn the lights out and give everyone glow sticks, we very nearly were interested).

It felt a bit voyeuristic being shown around the gym while feigning enthusiasm. My favourite part was spotting a woman on a leg exercising machine while totally engrossed in a novel from the waist up. What we really wanted was for the tour to be over so we could go swimming.

Eventually it was and, once changed, we shuffled out of the changing rooms in our brightly coloured bikinis (feeling a little self-conscious because all the serious gym-goers were in black one-piece costumes manufactured by speedo). More awkwardly still, we found we’d shuffled into the wrong room and were standing in a busy stairwell. The place was like a maze! You don’t really want to be lost in your swimwear though, it’s quite a compromising time to walk into inappropriate rooms. Someone pointed us in the right direction which was relatively helpful and (after another unintentional foray into a deserted corridor) I followed Jess into the pool room. She was looking over her shoulder, talking to me and reversed straight into a very toned, good looking Asian guy wearing nothing but a small towel around his waist. He seemed alarmed but I thought it might make my day.

After doing the obligatory few introductory lengths in the pool we spotted an aqua aerobics class a few swim lanes over and decided to join in. A lot of the ladies were taking it very seriously but we were not (perhaps me least of all because I had left my glasses in the changing rooms, couldn’t see a thing and was making up a good 60% of the manoeuvres). Our instructor didn’t seem to mind though – I suppose as long as she sees a lot of happy ladies exercising enthusiastically then the class is a success. A new level of glee was reached when ‘good Christian men rejoice’ came on and it was announced that we were to do some sort of barn dance/ceilidh. I can’t get enough of those on land let alone in the water! As it turns out, this is not an easy thing to do in a swimming pool as you move at half the speed owing to the water resistance, which in turn means it takes twice as long to correct your mistakes (which should be numerous, or you’re not having enough fun). There was a lot of splashing and a lot of giggling (from one particular dance pair, who couldn’t believe their luck at ending up in a swimming pool barn dance). Whenever the dance allowed us to get close enough, we'd continue our conversation. The conclusion of which was that when you reach an age whereby you can no longer muster an enthusiasm for clubbing, you go to aqua aerobics classes instead. This fulfils a basic human need to laugh and dance at the same time.

You might think it would have been funny to be a fly on the wall during this scene, but there’s a group of middle aged men on exercise bikes who went one better than that. One wall of their gym is made of glass and overlooks the swimming pool. I do find that slightly weird, but it’s hardly worth worrying about.

After this strenuous class we went to the sauna. I didn’t think I liked saunas (the air is so hot it’s almost dense and so they make me feel claustrophobic) but once inside I changed my mind. I actually found the sauna quite a funny place. It reminded me of the London underground. Everyone sits in extremely close proximity but we all do so in silence, as if no one else was there. Only in the sauna they’re all wearing speedos (going one up on the underground) and of course no one comments on the weirdness of the scenario. The steam room was a bit better in this sense and seemed to feature wearers of longer shorts. But the bubble pool was best of all.

Christmas at Portsmouth Historic Dockyard

There are few things that please quite so many senses at once as a warm cup of, deep red, spicy smelling, Christmassy tasting mulled wine. It's a shame the thing doesn't make any noise - then it'd have all 5 senses covered!

Portsmouth historic dockyard was so full of Christmas this weekend that whatever your trigger, you couldn't help get into the Christmas spirit. Rosie, Cara and I went round the Christmas market buying ill advised Christmas presents (Cheese - What a terrible idea! Now I'm going to have to keep it in the fridge (which I share with 3 others) until late December. Probably gift wrapped); we were buffeted by flurries of fluffy white snow (which ranged from a light dusting to an intense blizzard depending on how near to the snow machine you were); we also listened to some sea shanties; saw all sorts of characters attending the fair in Victorian dress, including street urchins singing songs from Oliver and a couple of French sea admirals swanning about (it was as if there were a finite number of costumes in the box and all had been used on this occasion including the 'Scottish orchestra' outfits). Come darkness we got lost in a maze of aromatic Christmas trees beautifully adorned with fairy lights which led us to the ships.
It would have been foolish at this point not to take the opportunity to walk around the Mary Rose (which I was disappointed to find isn't actually fit to be trodden on as it sunk in rather a spectacular fashion a long time ago in not the kind of way that can be restored). However by the time I left I was quite convinced that the recovery of said ship may have been the most significant archaeological  find since the pyramids (although it's questionable whether these were ever lost in the first place). In particular I was fascinated to learn about the process by which we can work out who someone was based on examining their skeleton - apparently we can recreate a facial likeness good enough for friends and family to recognise in 60% of cases (which puts Bones into perspective for any fans of the TV series). I was considering the way in which the likeness of one reconstructed man was felt to be particularly good because he had an outstandingly distinctive nose, which is silly because skeletons don't have noses, when all the screens in the museum shut down in a not-so-subtle hint that it was time to leave. What a shame, now I'll never know where reconstructed noses come from.

This disappointment did not last long as we were distracted by the prospect of a ride on the merry-go-round. apparently Rosie had never been on one before. It was all a merry-go-round should be, only maybe brighter, faster and generally better (or possibly I just went to lower budget fairs as a child).

As I left it was getting dark. So for the first time I noticed that someone (horrendously brave and good at climbing inadvisable objects) had arranged fairly lights in the shape of a Christmas tree in the rigging of the Victory. It looked beautiful in the dark night. Portsmouth 1, Oxford Street 0.

All in all, I've decided that Christmas should start as soon as possible because it's the best part of winter. Nowadays I've come to realise that the run up is more fun than the day itself and so should be embraced as such. Also, no one serves you mulled wine in January, even though it's cold, so you have to make the most of it when  you can get it. Let's all throw ourselves into the Christmas spirit now!

What marks the start of Christmas for you?

It was all a merry-go-round should be, only maybe brighter

Someone had put Christmas lights in the rigging of the Victory

Specsavers are trialling a new way of boosting customer confidence

If the first trip to Specsavers was odd, the second one was at least as surprising. When I went to pick up my glasses little did I know that the sight of me in my new frames would be the least of my worries.

The guy that was fitting them for me was clearly not an optician himself, maybe an aspiring one. He was chatty though, what was my name, how old was I, what were my hobbies…(Crikey, he’s been well trained in making small talk. I tried to help him out by returning his questions)…where do I work, am I single? (Shit,) If I’m honest (which I am), then I am single. “Oh,” he said, “I’m surprised”. How on earth am I supposed to respond to that?! Here are a few options:

          ‘Oh yes, I’m surprised too’

          ‘If you knew me you wouldn’t be surprised’

          ‘No really, I prefer it that way, it’s more convenient’

I hate to say it but I went for the latter. I just didn’t have time to think of anything better! If anyone does know what the correct answer to this question is I’d love to know! I left pretty rapidly after this, which was unfortunate as I was there for a reason (to get my glasses adjusted to fit my face) and forgot about it in my haste to leave. Within 24 hours I was forced to admit that this was an important part of the process and now I have to book a repeat appointment for the following weekend. This is super awkward.

In need of a laugh? You should've gone to Specsavers

When it comes to opticians, I’d like to think that I’ve seen the lot. However, my first and only eye test at Specsavers proved me wrong. It was quite the most bizarre eye examination I’ve ever had. I spent a very long time in various waiting rooms, the most entertaining of which I shared with a smartly dressed and highly charismatic young man claiming to be from Specsavers’ head office. He was in the unfortunate position of feeling very important but not being recognised by any of the branch staff. It seemed a shame to cut the conversation short when my wild-eyed optician eventually called me in. However, the specialist was also a funny man in his own right. For a start, his eyes pointed in remarkably different directions, which they are perfectly entitled to do, but it is not necessarily a reassuring quality in an eye specialist. His other outstanding quality was his kindness which he demonstrated by giving me clues when I couldn’t read the letters on his letter chart. I was actually struggling to read rather a lot of them, this is partly because of my shocking eyesight and partly because the man from the waiting room had reappeared. He was diligently miming out (utterly random) letters to me through the glass in the door (which were in no way connected to the letter chart). Every so often he would wander off (presumably to cause mischief elsewhere) but would always reappear. I’d like to say I resisted the urge to laugh out loud when I saw him. I didn’t. My mirth in no way bothered the optician who ploughed merrily on.

I stopped being amused when I was told I’d need new glasses – no aspect of my experience so far has given me the impression that any part of their system is competent to actually manufacture something complicated (such as glasses). The heretofore generally oblivious optician noticed my sadness, and demonstrated his kindness once more by trying to cheer me up: Apparently I’m a "special patient" and that’s why it will take so many attempts to get my prescription right. If that's the best reassurance they can manage my glasses are doomed.

Passive aggression like I've never seen it before

There comes a time when the girls have to leave the office, go get pizzas and  let off some steam. It's for the good of our health and stops things getting bottled up. It's fair to say that morale is pretty low in the office at the moment - we've put our hearts and souls in and now there's nothing left. What interested me was the extent to which this was beginning to show in ridiculously trivial ways, none more so than Jade, (the type of  hard working person who was probably top of every class at school). She was about to go into a [somewhat tyrannical] management meeting and so, in a kind of advance retaliation she resolved to eat as much garlic as she could. Pizza express were only too happy to oblige. We had garlic bread, garlic oil and garlic butter on our dough balls - it was great!

As anticipated, what wasn't so great was the management meeting itself. It alarmed me to hear that both of them had spent the meeting crying! Jade, because she'd been been criticised for an hour. And Martha (the boss), in case her unborn child grew up to be like Jade!

The garlic was fine, but now everyone's crying, this is getting ridiculous.

I'd be a climbing star by now but life gets in the way

My weekend got off to an amusing start on Friday night when I failed to go to bed at a sensible time. I was just settling down at 1 am when Tim (my housemate and honorary brother) came bounding in, extremely drunk, wanting a hug. He took off his trousers (as everyone knows you can't get into bed with trousers on) and jumped in. I had a hug and heard all about his evening. Then, after being allowed to play me just 1 Coldplay song (against his better judgement as there really were a great many he thought I ought to hear!) he got out of bed, realised how drunk he was, picked up his trousers, then picked up my trousers and was preparing to put them on when he caught sight of my bra, which had been put on the chair underneath them. This terrible sight filled him with horror and so he left immediately. In the morning I put on my jumper, went downstairs, and climbed into his bed to see if he was hungover yet. Luckily he was still drunk and so agreed to come climbing.
Reflecting on this trip, I definitely think that our technique is starting to improve, even if the difficulty level of walls hasn't. We've set ourselves the challenge of doing a 'blue' or 'salmon' coloured route by Christmas (they're equivalent levels). The trouble is that people tend to put on weight at Christmas time, which then makes it harder to climb walls. A healthy eating binge has been suggested in order to conquer this as soon as possible. It's either that or we could progress by turning up without hangovers on a full nights sleep. Hmm, the 'body of a god diet' starts here.

National benevolence is confusing HMRC

It’s so hard to tax my car! It’s almost as if the government don’t want me to (actually, this is probably true, then they can fine me for not having done so). It may not help that all my post comes to me via my parents' house and so has to be rerouted. This could be how I came to miss all the reminder letters. Their online service was the obvious way to renew my tax disc, but as is always the case with HMRC, I couldn't login because they (as always) had posted me some set of essential and confidential number that I couldn't find. Then on the phone I was told that the code I’d (by then) received wasn't the code I’d received (which it obviously was, as I wouldn’t have got it any other way). It was due to expire within 24 hours of the call anyway so I went to the post office to speak to a real human and they told me they couldn’t do anything unless I could prove ownership of the car. WTF?! As if I’d go to such great effort to tax someone else’s car!! What kind of crazy benevolent culture do HMRC think we live in?! It must be nice in the UK tax HQ.

Fancy dress is temporary. Unless you're from Plymouth.

One of the other things that made me laugh this weekend was Plymouth university, who decided to dress up as Native Indians. Freshers and graduates alike had all put a lot of effort in to look the part and as a group their turnout was fantastic. Actually, if anything, they had put in too much effort, as they had decided to decorate themselves with henna in order to create the right tribal effect. In the morning they found their arms, legs and (in some cases) faces were stained black and are now due to stay that way for at least a month. If only they had any skill (/modest sobriety) at applying their patterns in the first place their predicament might now be slightly better. As it is, I think there are going to be some awkward young graduates at work right now!

Henna done right. It's pretty hard for a drunken novice to emulate.

Beware Ginger Wine

Oh good god, I have woken up with a terrible hangover. It’s not the usual kind, I have no headache but just feel violently sick. There’s a (frankly quite detestable) person running around outside with a microphone calling everyone in for bacon sandwiches as part of the camp site wake up call. I don’t think I could keep one down! I blame it all on the curious ginger wine I had last night. It seemed like such a good idea at the time - a 13.5% bottle for £3.50. Last night I described it as "one part benylin and one part firework". Now I would probably summarise it as ‘spicy sugar syrup’. This tells me that it probably has an extremely unpleasant laxative quality. I really hope I’m wrong.

Here it is. Now you know what to avoid.

Not all Scientists are created equally Sexy

Last night at the university windsurfers' reunion we all dressed up as sexy scientists. The boys’ interpretation of this was to wear lab coats with alarming degrees of nothingness underneath. Christo was by far the worst as he was wearing leopard print boxers, a stick on moustache, an Einstein wig, an Anne Summers 'flogger' and a type of ladies underwear I’ve never seen or heard of before – it was like a pair of tights that were semi opaque, came up to his arm pits, had shoulder straps and no crotch (presumably to help female wearers go to the toilet – not so helpful for Christo though who found his manly parts all came through the hole, which acted like an inefficient tourniquet). The boys who had been planning to go out looking respectable almost all changed their minds when they saw Christo and so the ladies were called on to provide enough provocative items of underwear to transform them. We obliged and soon the caravan was full of, um, what had better be described as ‘alarmingly sexy scientists’. The girls meanwhile went out in little black dresses under lab coats and enjoyed the warmest, most practical, evening we’d had in a long time. It's nice to turn the tables every once in a while!

I can't show the boys out of consideration for public decency!

Argentinian cuisine : proceed with caution

After work I went to see Bill at an Argentinian restaurant called Moo on brick lane. I don't think I've ever had Argentinian food before so I was quite excited. I ordered something off the menu called Salachichi* or something like that, reassured by my trusty mantra that it's always a good sign when you can't pronounce what you're ordering, it means you're expanding your food repertoire. I was vaguely expecting something classically Argentinian that was to come with guacamole (which now I come to think about it, should have made me suspicious, but didn't). What then arrived was a VERY large sausage! It looked distinctly German (an unexpected cultural influence to be sure). The type of low grade knockwurst that could be vegetarian and you wouldn't know. I'd also misjudged the sides and ended up with both chips and mash. I can no longer remember what part of ordering unknown items off menus is sensible!

*Turns out it's called a 'Salchicha' - I looked this up in case any aficionados judged me!

The Mysterious Dorothy

When Tim (my housemate & honorary brother) and I went to ‘Dorothy’s Caribbean’ we did joke that the restaurant might be the front for some kind of shady operation because it has opaque windows. This offhand comment suddenly seemed more likely when we got inside and found that the owners of the establishment had no idea how a restaurant was supposed to work! As we walked in, the good lady herself was sat on the wrong side of the bar watching TV. It was far from obvious that we could buy food, but upon asking we were told that indeed today was the first time in 3 weeks that Dorothy was serving food, owing to the fact that the roof had been leaking. Then we learnt (unwillingly) about the history of her roof and the cultural heritage of her landlord. Tim tried to steer the conversation back on track by asking what our options were but she totally missed the point - apparently one option was a solicitor but she felt it was a bit expensive. After this, I tried again and asked (very unambiguously) what was on the menu. She looked a bit confused but offered us jerk chicken. We agreed. She then took the initiative to ask if we wanted a small portion. I asked how small is small, to which she responded by holding up a large box saying it was large. It’s tough to know how to proceed from here but somehow we did eventually get the boxes full of food. As she gave them to us she asked if we wanted them heated up. WTF who goes to a take away for cold food?! To speed the process up we said we’d do it ourselves at home and asked her how long to heat it up for. Of course she didn't know. We laughed to ourselves as we walked down the street. It was almost as though no one had ever ordered food there before. She didn't know what to do. Definitely this was the operating front for a drugs cartel. We stopped laughing when we got home and put the thing in the microwave and the possibility of food poisoning occurred to us. We re-cooked that chicken so well. Nervously giggling once more at the absent aesthetics as we dished up. But then we had a change of heart when we tasted it. Dorothy actually knew her stuff after all! It was a huge plate of very spicy Caribbean goodness and highly evident that Dorothy was a great cook. We even agreed we’d be happy to go back.


Then again, if I was going to get my mum to front my drugs cartel, I'd probably make sure she could cook too.

I'm ready to start a culinary revolution

Follow my blog with Bloglovin

This evening I stayed extremely late at work. This is not because I was actually working. Granted I did have meetings until 7.30pm but then our charming receptionist had sorted me food, so I took it up to my desk and found that Rachel was still in the office. She was the only one there. I think we may have spent the next two hours ranting at length about the world (and that was before work started!) I did learn something great though. At the time I was totally failing to eat spiralized courgette (the difficulty being that each thread is a minimum of 10km long. It is therefore significantly less dainty to eat than spaghetti) Rachel commented that she uses scissors at home. Horay for office stationary! So I gave it a go, with a fork in one hand and scissors in the other I could cut tendrils short right before putting them in my mouth and this new method worked rather well. If anything I would class it as an 'extreme success' having made the whole process much more dignified, or so I thought, until I realised that this was not what Rachel had meant to recommend at all. She was surveying the (possibly barbaric) scene with an air of horrified politeness (imagine watching someone eat spaghetti with a pair of scissors!) All she'd meant to say was that it ought to be chopped before serving. Nevertheless, at this point I was so thrilled with my own efficiency that I carried on regardless (well, if she is going to be polite about it...) But it made me think - we should introduce scissors to the standard cutlery set! Just think how it would revolutionise noodles, stake and unwieldy burgers if people could eat them with scissors.

Surprised by my drunken self

I got an email at work today from a chap I don't know called Mark. Apparently I'd given him my company email address (not sure why!) on Saturday night while quite drunk and he also appeared to be under the impression I'd instructed him to use it in order to start a game of noughts and crosses. Better still, he clearly felt some need to tell me that his name wasn't Hector (I didn't like to ask why!) It's just not the sort of thing you expect to catch up with you at work on a Tuesday afternoon! I think maybe I put 'noughts and crosses' next to my name in his phone as a reminder of who I was as we had just played a game on a big toy set in a children's playground (which is where the (now not so literally located) house party had ended up). Looking back, the fact that I then asked to borrow his jeans in order to climb a large plastic palm tree, before magnanimously giving him my dress in exchange when he agreed, probably made me a little more memorable still. I hadn't thought of that. Remembering this, I put my cross in bottom left. It's the least I could do.

The most upsetting cinema trip

One of the things I enjoyed most today was going to the cinema with the girls to see Suffragette! Our age means we get in for £5 at the Barbican and so we basically couldn't go wrong from there. To my disappointment the film turned out not to be feel good comedy as I'd expected (like Made in Dagenham) but an emotional roller coaster that had us laughing and then crying to such an extent that I began to fear for the safety of my contact lenses. We all came out with very different opinions of it too. Rebecca and Tash felt a sense of righteous indignation and believed that it was a film everyone ought to see. However I had a number of issues with it. Firstly I felt that the main characters marriage wasn't very convincing. It fell apart so easily. Secondly I wondered why our heroine kept going to feminist meets when she didn't believe in the cause at first - that behaviour made her life very complicated! Third I wondered whether they glamorised violence a bit and overplayed the roe of media attention. After all, if violence really was all that effective then the IRA would be respectable by now and if press  coverage were that big a deal then fathers for justice would have justice by now. I kind of felt that there was more story that didn't get told. Yes a woman died in front of a racehorse but (aside from the question of whether the rider survived) it's not clear how this translated into votes then or my ability to buy a cinema ticket using my own money today. Tash says that's the point, the story isn't over yet. To be fair, that's one thing the film did really well. There was so much we wanted to talk about afterwards and I've been thinking about it all week. It's struck me that since the film industry is one of the most unequal industries today, this is an ironic meta study of inequality. In fact I've found the film so thought provoking that I've started recommending it to people. This in itself is a great reason to see it.

Casual Sunday fancy dress

I'm waiting for some friends at the station and I've got an excess of luggage. My bags have had to contain outfits for Paris on Thursday, day in the office Friday, windsurfing gear for Saturday, house party Saturday night and I also picked up a Roman centurion costume for a future occasion. There's no space in my bags and so I've had to carry my helmet on my head as I just can't fit it in any other way. I've got some very funny looks at London Waterloo - If only they understood where I'd been then it wouldn't seem so strange.

People watching on the bus

There's pandemonium on the buses. The bus is late running and the bus behind it has now caught up. The first bus that I am on is so full that the elderly are having to decide who is the most elderly and therefore worthy of a seat. The bus goes past the hospital which has only added to the confusion as people on crutches are having to decide of they need a seat more than the most elderly of elderly...Chaos!

Needoo Curry House

This evening after work we were supposed to go to the increasingly famous curry place Tayyabs. It's in the 'up and coming' backstreets of Whitechappel. They feel pretty rough but I suppose that this must be what brick lane was like before it 'up and came'. However, I spoiled all of our plans by not managing to leave work on time. It was 7pm before I got away and by the time I arrived, Tayyabs, which by now has a reputation for itself, was full, with queuers loitering between the tables. As such we went to the spin off restaurant around the corner. Needoo was apparently founded by a rogue waiter after an altercation at Tayyabs. From the outside it looked so seedy that we nearly didn't go in but it was by now so late that we were hungry enough to risk it. All in all I'm glad we did. There were no people queuing in awkward places, the service was exceptionally fast and there was giant cutlery mounted on the wall which amused me. If anything the food was actually too authentic as Sam and Joe struggled with the spice. All the dishes were said to be 'medium' so there was no way out for the faint hearted, unless you are preprepared order from the less authentic 'chicken tikka masala' section of the menu, which no one was. We speculated that even the mint sauce had a kick to it and had to call in emergency yoghurt. I personally quite liked it but must admit that the level of spice did stop me from comparing the 4 dishes we'd ordered as they all tasted of 'robust heat' to me. In a nice way. Sam disagreed, but then he had begun an affliction of wild heat-induced hiccups.

Posh kebabs?!

I was so tired by the time I left work this evening that I couldn't decide what to do about food. I even texted mum to tell her this, which is a reflection of the extent to which I totally wasn't functioning! (This also made me worry (briefly) about the content of the emails that I'd been sending before leaving the office!) Anyway, I ended up going to get a 'posh Kebab' at a shop called Chifafa. This is something I've been meaning to try for a while - There is everything intriguing about an oxymoronic concept like that. The problem is that I was then too worn out to develop a comprehensive opinion on the matter! The 'medium' level of spice was significantly more lively than it was mediocre and I'm not sure if I can ever feel indulged while eating meat wrapped in bread - it's not really that far removed from a glorified sandwich. On the other hand it was significantly better than the kebabs I was served in Istanbul at the weekend; the meat was properly BBQ-ed and it wasn't served out of a polystyrene tray but a foil wrap (like any self respecting burrito). No one could accuse it of being a greasy late night option for desperadoes (not least because the shop shuts at 9pm).  This synopsis seems to have covered everything but taste. The problem is that I like eating, most things taste good to me and this was no exception. Certainly it was good enough to go back another day. In my wretchedly tired state I then slipped into some sort of philosophical stupor. Can a kebab ever be up-market? Is it really enough to put good quality ingredients in or is it by nature a squalid supper. Then, even if it is posh, is it ever any good?! I never did answer these questions, I think they may be the basis of hardcore philosophy. The next time someone tries to draw me in on politics or God I'm going to ask them if they think a kebab can ever be posh. That'll stump them!

Hello Blog

I have decided that life is too funny not to be recorded in some way and so I'm going to start a blog (every laugh is better shared, right?) It'll be full of the doodles & diary entries that I scrawl on my commute to work. I've been writing a diary since I was about 14, but it's only recently that I've re-read them and found the content amusing (teenagers can take themselves very seriously!)