My Friends & Me

I spoke to my dear friend Akash last night... It's so refreshing to talk to someone who actually listens to you, especially when that someone is a guy.

It's good to hear him centred. We talked a while, and he confessed he was doing his happy dance... That's what a friendship should be about, complete and utter honesty. The guy's like the fucking Dalai Lama. His levels of spirituality and ingenuity are something that I can only aspire to... His philosophy, perfect. And he doesn't walk around with his head stuffed up his own arse looking for the light switch.

I did fear for a while that he might have to go back home to South Africa... But I think things are looking up on that front.

I also spent some time speaking to Mum. It's not often we talk these days... well, we do, but it's not often we talk. So that was nice. She's a little less spiritual, but she's happy and God help her, she deserves it.

And then I spent a long time talking to Danielle. How blessed am I to have a girl like that in my life... someone who actually makes me smile, makes me laugh like a small child without fear of anything. It still surprises me that we can talk so much and never run out of things to talk about or say to each other. That's something pretty special, I reckon.

So that's me for today. I'm feeling lucky. I've got great (the best) friends. I've got DM. I've been in a good mood for an unprecedented 5 days in a row (which is pretty much unheard of in recent times), and things are going well.

I hope it's the same for all of you.

Peace,

Chris

Me & DM vs London!!!

Song of the Day: End Over End - Foo Fighters

Album of the Day: Kill Your Own - Hundred Reasons

Huge Honourable Mention to: The Badger Queen, of course!

Equally Huge Honourable Mention to: Akash... My Dalai Lama. (seriously, his blog is www.akashom.blogspot.com. Go learn, mortal.)

Quote of the Day: "Yes, the Dinosaurs were killed off by Gingivitis."

Hello hello!

So, I recommend that you take a seat and maybe even get a long cold drink, because this is going to be a bumpy ride – and at no point do I want you to get left behind, faithful reader!

It’s taken me a while to get this posting up… And the reason for that is I’ve had a lot to digest and I wanted to do the whole of last weekend a decent amount of justice…

“Get to the damn point, Jensen!” I hear you cry.

Well, if you’d let me speak, I would.

“Sorry.”

That’s ok. Anyway, I had an absolutely amazing weekend of unparalleled joyousness! Yes, yes I did.

For this weekend my extra special super friend Danielle came to London for a weekend of Magical Joy and fun and laughter – the story of which is contained herein!

Friday

Friday arrived, bright and warm. Fresh from England falling over the hurdle of beating the mighty (sic) Trinidad and Tobago and a new haircut, I left the house full of the joys of spring. Or, at the very least, of early summer. To the Central Line, which promptly suspended itself.

This of course meant I had to fight the ignorant masses for a space on the bus, to get to Stratford, to get to Waterloo… Eventually about an hour late…

But what was I late for?

That’s right. The arrival of one of the specialest people on the planet. One Danielle Menage, or the Badger Queen to you. I snuck up on her in the train station, and it was here, at this point, that the weekend began!

After trekking all the way back to Leytonstone to dump Danielle’s bags of STUFF and THINGS, we headed off in to London, and our first destination:

The Natural History Museum!!

I’ve always loved this building – but sharing it with the Nage was truly special… I learnt a lot that day. For example – Skeleton Monkeys CAN fly, they had to nail the T-Rex to the floor to stop it from charging people, and that buttons are simply there to be pressed. Also, the biology section smells of disinfectant, and there is a huge floating baby of doom. Oh, and it was Gingivitis that killed off the Dinosaurs. Well, that or Cricket.

Nells bought a Dodo from the Gift Shoppe. “Hullo, I’m a Dodo. I’m exctinct”.

So yeah. We made some memories.

But for all the fun and joy – the Natural History Museum isn’t air conditioned. BALLS. And we were getting very hot indeed.

So off we wandered.

To where?

Seriously, if you don’t stop interrupting this story, I’m never going to finish it!

We went to the:

Tate Modern

They’ve just finished the re-hang here – and by golly it’s amazing. I’ve been there so many times it actually begets belief – but to finally go there with someone who appreciates and understands art was a true breath of fresh air.

I directed Danielle to the Rothko room – Rothko is her favourite artist – and was quite happy to sit there in silence, listening to her, while she talked about this genius painter, and what she did for her A-Level art, and how it scared people… It’s so inspiring to be with creative people, especially around a building like that.! And what meant so much to me was that she listened to my opinions on the art there, and that she would talk to me about it too.

I felt quite embarrassed at times – because I’m fascinated by the art of Architecture – and I truly am very deeply in love with London and its buildings – and to talk to someone else who is interested in that and talks to me about it…

Well that just made me soar above the clouds.

After a couple of hours in the Tate, we decided to wander home, where I cooked for Danielle and then took her to what I imagine was the most daunting part of the weekend… we went to the:

Heathcote Arms

Where Danielle was introduced to the Motley Crew known only as my friends – Adam (my younger, better looking brother (haha), Zoe, Colin and Tom. We played pool, we got drunk, we played a silly bowling game! AND Word Up!

This was all washed down by a long walk to the off licence to buy late, illegal booze, and then back to my flat.

It was a heavy night – but my friends loved the Nage and have all talked about her pretty much non-stop since. That was the most important thing to me – that they all got on! AND she’s yet to meet Akash and Llew! Crazy!!

So, to bed (well, Lounge Floor) with a heavy head… and then in to:

Saturday

So, Nelly decided it would be a good idea (after having gone to bed at 3.30am) to get up at 10 past 9 and destroy my peaceful slumber. Now, she’ll tell you that I woke her up – so shall we just leave it that we woke up each other?

OK, we will.

Anyway, after a couple of hours sitting on the sofa with fuzzy heads, watching cartoons and eating croissants with cheese and bacon, we showered and headed off to Central London with the sincere intention of going to the London Dungeon.

However, the hangover and the heat became to much on the Jubilee Line, so off we had to get. Timed quite nicely, actually, as we ended up in Canary Wharf where we were able to marvel at the architecture.

As a little aside – Canada Square may be the best example of why I love this city. Yes, it’s a centre of capitalism and economics – but damn it’s beautiful. It’s all clean lines and beautiful buildings. And you can stand amongst these skyscrapers… And number One is simply gorgeous.

Eventually, we got ourselves back on the tube and headed off to London Bridge to go to the Dungeon.

Where our plans were scuppered.

Because the London Dungeon costs about a million pounds to get in to and the Queues were MAHUSIVE. So off we wandered up to the Embankment, to have a go on the London Eye.

Similar story here, huge Queues. We’ll come back to it later.

So we walked along the Embankment to Charing Cross and up to Covent Garden, where we wandered around the shops and generally getting very excited at the prospect of Paul Frank and David & Goliath & Quiksilver stuff.

We sat outside a shop while Nelly ate an Ice Cream and basically put the world to rights. One of the things that I love about Danielle is that she tries to see every viewpoint in order to inform her opinion… So yeah, in your face Animal Rights people, and Abortion Activists – and Hunters!!!

ARGH! I forgot to tell you about the

AQUARIUM!

I’ve been wanting to go to the London Aquarium for Blady ages, and finally got the chance to go. We went because we both like fishes and it looked nice and cool and air conditioned, so we reckoned we were on to a winner – and we were! There were some really cool fish, and I heard over the tannoy:

“Come and see our Octopus lecture!”

So off we ran! And we found it – and I was stunned at the lack of knowledge about Octopi. I mean, I’m not a leading expert but I’m pretty damn sure that neither was the guy giving the lecture.

So off we went.

But the place Blady rocked, and we ran around, waving at the little wormy guys, the strange floating piranha fish and the SHARKS! SHARKS are cool and brilliant! And it also turned out we’d seen the same programme on the hunting habits of the Great White Shark on the Discovery Channel. Thumbs Up!

We had a second go at the London Eye but to no avail – we will book it online and try again, DM!!

And then back to my flat (via crap breakdance troupes and a really long walk), where we ate Pizza (and didn’t drink Super Bock), and stayed up until the wee small hours of the morning talking about music (damn, the girl has good taste in music) and songs and me reading the things I’ve wrote out to her and books and everything… And we also watched the Amazing film “The Boys” which was an embarrassing experience for me!

Before we went to bed (Danielle decided for some reason that she was going to sleep on my highly uncomfortable sofa) we played a bit of a word association game… And from now on I shall always link:

LEAF with POTATO.

And then to the land of nod – interspersed with being kicked by DM and her doing impressions of a mouse with a plastic bag.

Anyway,

SUNDAY

Broke, bright and warm. This would be the last day Nelly and I would spend together on this fantastic weekend.

We had to wake up early as I go to teach on Sundays, so up we got and off we went to Croydon.

It gets a bit hazy here as I was teaching and poor old Danielle sat outside waiting for me. But bless her for doing that.

I tried to get out as much as possible to see her, and ended up finishing at 3.30. I had the fantastic news that I would now have an extra 2 hours of Danielle – so we traipsed back to the flat where we ate big sandwiches, and funny little feta and herb things while watching Family Guy and generally Chilling Out!

And then I had to take DM to meet Terri in Newbury Park for their long journey home. I’m no good at goodbyes, so I grabbed a hug from DM and then yelled

“Go! Just Go!”

And then waited til the car drove past so I could wave her away.

When I got back to the flat I found that DM had left 2 fivers in my room to pay me back for some of the weekend – which she didn’t have to do! But that was sooo sweet of her – and has bought me lunch this week! So thanks DM, that really made me smile!

I can’t believe it’s

THURSDAY

Now, and it’s taken me so long to do this. I’ve been blown away – I had such a good weekend!! I don’t know what it is about Danielle – maybe it’s the fact she makes me smile and laugh, maybe it’s the fact we’ve got so much in common, maybe it’s the fact she’s just, well, Danielle… But it was an incredible weekend and a time I will never, ever forget. Unless dementia kicks in, but I’m pretty sure that won’t be my fault!

I’ll tie this up just by saying – Thanks, DM. Oh, and:

MAKING MEMORIES!!

Lots of love to all of you,

Chris x x x

Me vs Parsley vs Pope Benny

Song of the Day: History - Funeral For A Friend

Album of the Day: Stadium Arcadium - Red Hot Chili Peppers

Word of the Day: Exponentially

Right.

I’m back and it’s rant mode GO.

Let’s get the shitty stuff out of the way first. I read in the paper today that there’s an initiative to help 20,000 people in London buy houses! Great news, or so you’d think. In fact, it’s helping 20,000 people who are on the waiting list for council accommodation make it easier to buy a place. So, it’s helping key workers. What about people who are NOT key workers who REALLY want to buy a house, or even a flat? Who’s helping us? No-one, that’s who. The base rate put upon us by the (good old) Bank of England is exponentially rising (quarter on quarter), with the result property prices are going up and up. Yes, of course there should be help for key workers to help them buy homes – I’m not questioning that – but the fact remains that young professionals are often priced out of the market and are forced to throw away vast amounts of cash on rent.

Which the Bank allows – which is odd when you consider that with my rent I could pay a fairly decent mortgage – but can’t get a mortgage for that amount.

All I want to do is buy a house. But with the crippling state the housing market is in at the moment, I can’t see it happening any time soon. My mother’s solution?

“Get a nice girlfriend and buy a house together?”

Oh, that’s handy mother. A real quick solution there.

Hmm. Shall we move on?

Point two of the day:

WHAT’S THE FUCKING POINT OF PARSLEY?

But enough about that, I think you’re all with me on this one.

This week, the Catholic Church has issued its (seemingly) yearly attack on Homosexuality, Same-Sex Marriage, Contraception, Abortion, Looking at People Funny and Farting.

Or, as I like to think of it, Pope Benedict’s New Nazi Party Manifesto. They may as well put “Are you queer? BURN IN HELL!”

Is it any wonder that hordes of people turn their back on the church year on year? There are homosexual Catholics out there who (I’m sure) would love dearly to be openly welcomed in to the fold rather than derided as outcasts. But then the spirit of inclusion hasn’t ever really been the Catholic thing, has it?

You do know that Pope Benny was a member of the Nazi youth?

I really won’t talk about religion any more.

Seriously though, what is the fucking point of Parsley?

I have only one more thing to say:

Dance as if no-one is watching you,
Sing as if on-one is listening,
Love like you have never been hurt.

Which is something I think we can all learn from.

Peace chickens, xCx