Retro Shopping
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Retro Shopping, including retro shopping in my blog, and retro shopping in Folkestone.
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Mar24
Hope you've all had as good an extended weekend as I have. As is usual when I've been off for a few days and not written up just went on immediately, I'm starting to forget it all. We're up now, on the last day of our five day break and I have a few minutes computer time, so I'm making a few notes while I'm processing some video from The Cure and trying to get hold of The Colour Of Magic.
Thursday
We started off for London about midday, nice quick easy train journey with Dom and Jen, nice to be getting the train for pleasure, not like having to commute on it. We had vouchers for free main courses for Wagamama, so into Soho in the rain. Food was better than it has been recently in Canterbury I think. Then to a pub, can't remember the name of it though it's a Nicholson's so I can track it down, that'll be The Crown, Brewer Street. Didn't realise they were part of such a monstrous chain of other brands, though it certainly feels like a pub themed venue inside, but they do have proper beer so I'm not complaining. We contemplated the best time and way to get to Wembley, in the end it was just head down in the rain to Picadilly and we're on our way. Wembley seems a long way out but if you catch the right Metropolitan line tube you're there in no time.
Our hotel was fine, despite the ropey reviews on tripadvisor. I'd not recommend it unless you were going to Wembley, and the decor is maybe a bit dated, but the bed was comfortable and big, the lifts worked, the bar was open, it was fine. Cheeky drink in said bar before the gig (as there are just no pubs around there) and into the gig.
Didn't see any of the support band, just got in in time for the start of the gig. Pretty amazing show all told, I have got a few songs on video and some pics to upload, the sound and the atmosphere were great. You'll see from the media (I have yet to upload) that we were about ten or fifteen rows back from the front, apart from the bit were Dom disappeared to the front, dropping our five pints on the way... At this point Clare objects
That's not what happened and you shouldn't say that as he will read it. He went into the crowd, then came out again, then went to the bar and thought he'd get us all drinks, then couldn't get back to us all with two pints in one hand and three in the other, so he ended up giving them away.
I was adding colour to the story, that's how I'd rather remember it, it's simpler. Don't you really want to picture someone struggling to the front of the moshpit with five pints?
Setlist was approximately as we thought from previous gigs:
plainsong, prayers for rain, a strange day, alt.end, a night like this, the end of the world, lovesong, to wish impossible things, pictures of you, lullaby, from the edge of the deep green sea, hot hot hot!!!, please project, the walk, push, friday i'm in love, inbetween days, just like heaven, primary, a boy i never knew, shake dog shake, never enough, wrong number, one hundred years, disintegration,
E1: at night, m, play for today, a forest,
E2: the lovecats, let's go to bed, freak show, close to me, why can't i be you?
E3: three imaginary boys, fire in cairo, boys don't cry, jumping someone else's train, grinding halt, 10:15 saturday night, killing an arab
We met someone with a setlist during the gig, but "Killing an Arab" was written as "Killing Another", I wonder why? In case the list fell into the wrong hands and looked like a racist murder plot? You could work the last encore into one story certainly, not so sure about "The Lovecats" though.
Here's three songs in a row from the set, the only complete songs I videod on my little camera. First Walking On Sunshine Why Can't I Be You from my spot in the crowd. It looks like the opening credits to "Never Mind The Buzzcocks" but the sound is OK, and gives you a feel for where we were and how they were sounding:
And Three Imaginary Boys:
Also Fire In Cairo:
They played for about 3 and a half hours, it didn't feel like it though. We had one more drink back at the bar (I was on lager all evening, unheard of, this is why I don't go to gigs any more). I have about a gigabyte of video, hope it won't take me too long to edit it into watchable youtube chunks. Don't stay in waiting especially though, the visuals are not impressive, but you can experience where I was in the crowd and hear the tunes.
Friday
Nice lazy start to the Friday, didn't have to check out until midday. We'd already had more action than most weekends and this one hadn't officially started yet. We shopped first, well we went to Selfridges and Clare got pissed off with me not being helpful, so she left me in Starbucks to sit and read while she tried to shop, then we walked round Carnaby Street (which is really nice now), had lunch with Emma in a Thai place near there, did some retro shopping, afternoon coffee in the brilliant Pain Quotidien and then trained back home.
The rain and snow wasn't quite so bad, and we'd arranged to meet pa-in-law for a drink, so we headed to Chambers for their traditional Easter Ales Festival. Not that busy when we got there, and not the traditional festival crowd, but a great range of ales and ciders anyway. Can't remember what I started off with, something nice anyway, but second beer was a "Haba-beer-o" special edition chilli beer. Was sceptical, but it was brilliant, a strong savoury chilli taste to it, and a little bit of heat too. Instead of flitting from ale to ale rating them as I went, I stuck to this one for the rest of the evening. Well, it's a limited edition, you don't know when it's going to run out, or if I'll see it again.
Spoke to the landlord, he recognised me as having the quiz team name Folkestone Gerald and asked if it was me that wrote it. He didn't look like he wanted a fight, and I don't think there's been anything objectionable for ages, so I 'fessed up, and he said he loved it. Probably just for all the favourable mentions of Chambers, well here's another. Chambers is brilliant, you should go there, best pub in Folkestone by a mile.
Saturday
Up early for house hunting. Saw a lovely place in a different area of Canterbury, 3 bedrooms, garage, conservatory, shed, everything. Top of our budget and I don't think we can compete with other buyers really, I'm sure it'll go soon. If it doesn't, we'll think again. Then saw another place over by Canterbury West, not the nicest street and a bit unloved. Nice and cheap for a three bedroom place, but unfortunately no room to put even a single bed down flat in the third bedroom, so a no-no for now. Third property, the agent was late, it was snowing, really really cold, I spoke to the office and told them not to bother. I'm sure the owner was in the property while I was waiting outside, but not responding to my knocking. Didn't have double glazing, and I could really only think about temperature that day, so it's a right off.
Had lunch somewhere between these viewings at Pizza Express, and got our favourite table looking onto the river. Even in the freezing rain and sleet people were still doing the boat tour, and pausing by our window.
After lunch, Clare had a hair appointment so I amused myself with more shopping and a brief stop in The Brewery Tavern where they also had a beer festival on. No festival punters in site, no-one even manning the temporary bar with the dozen guest ales lined up on, not really a festival vibe at all. Probably not advertised well, it's a nice place, not one you'd associate with real ale so I don't suppose they'd have had much walk up trade apart from me.
Bus home, too cold and wet to consider going back to Chambers really, so we got a Chinese takeaway and stayed in.
Sunday
Free lunch! Round to the in-laws for dinner, very nice. Still not sure what's going on with the sale of their house, everyone seems to be lying to them at every turn. They've officially handed their notice in on the business, and so resigned themselves to not selling it, but still other people in the chain seem to think that it ought to go through as normal. I hope it does, we'll find out now within the month.
Another night in. Clare was meant to be going out with her brother, but it was freezing at wet again and a night in mostly watching TV Lost: meh. Number 1 Ladies Detective Agency: meh. Both a bit weak I thought. Not sure what to think of Lost at the moment, they do seem to be drifting more into the realms of the supernatural, though I guess the writers won't decide until the very end whether they want to go this route or not, and they can easily change things that happened in the past, and "back explain" things. Getting fed up with it, wish they'd not string it out so much. It's sure to fizzle out before we get to a conclusion at this rate, maybe that's the plan.
Today
A bit sad that it's over. We still have most of the day ahead of us, no great plans except for regular Sunday chores like shopping and cleaning, making and eating chilli, and watching some TV, hopefully the aforementioned The Colour Of Magic (that was exclusively on Sky One yesterday).
Back to work tomorrow, still, a short week.
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May30
Or, rather, from Miami, or even (by the time I write this up) hello from England, Miami sends its regards. Just BACK from a trip to the US of States to visit Clare's bro and sister-in-law in the pan-handle bit of the Americas. Tiring flight over to Miami. I am not a good flier at all, and nine hours plus an hour's delay is too much for me, hope we have the wind with us on the way home.
Our hosts live in a fabulous tenth floor corner appartment in the Venetia building (I think) and so we get a free holiday in the proper hot heat. There's a balcony running right round, and the whole shebang overlooks a bay and marina and things, the view is quite spectacular. Our first day we went to Lincoln Road to find dinner and had our first humungous American feast in Nexxt. This has the biggest menu around, so there would be food for all of our special dietary needs, and was a hit. Lincoln Road is lively and eccentric, an enjoyable place to hang out.
Next day, first full day of our holiday, a trip within a trip, to Key West. This is the Southernmost tip of the Southernmost tip, and a big long drive on slow roads, but we broke it up with a couple of stops. First a roadside distraction of tarpons and pelicans, these are mostly tame but hungry aggressive buggers that you can feed, and if you'renot careful they'll feed on you. This is a place called Robbie's and like a few places we saw in Key West they have a live webcam set up - if you were tuned in at the right time you could have seen us being fed on.
Next stop Duck Key for our dolphin encounter. This is quite a fancy resort were we'd booked a swim with dolphins, and it was just fine. We had a little lecture first on the sea and how to take care of it, then into the water with these mighty beasts. It was just the three of us (being slightly off season, post spring break and pre summer) and there were six flippers with us, ranging from about three years to over thirty - I didn't realise dolphins lived so long. It wasn't the emotional experience I'd heard about, but glad I've done it, and have some pictures.
Key West is a real party town, the sort of place Americans go to let their hair down, it's hard late drinking and lots of fairly shops. Tacky, but fun. We went in lots of bars that I will try and find the names of later, some of these had webcams too so if we were organised we could have phoned you and you could have seen us drinking. A few of the bars have live music and comedy and it was of a Roy Chubby Brown type standard with songs called "Fuck You" and "Fat Ass Bitch". Certainly felt a bit redneck in at least one bar, and it felt unusual for me the blackest man in the place. I didn't carry on drinking back at the hotel like Clare, Emma and Kev, so I managed to get up for a nice relaxing breakfast reading USA Today - the other three looked and smelled of death by the time they'd struggled out of their pits. Not sure if it is like me, or not like me, to be the first to bed. Anyway, Key West is well worth a visit, look forward to it if you're off on a Carribean Cruise, I expect you are...
Saturday, WHOPPING night out, did a few hotel bars, a club where a friend of a friend was DJingand ended up cool indie dancing at Buck 15. This was my favourite night out of the week, though it nearly ended in drunken disaster. Two of the wives bounded up to the DJ booth to ask for some 'Jovi a little too enthusiastically, and basically smashed the whole place right up. Music was off for about forty five minutes, and we were not at all popular.
Since here (there, hmm, excuse the mix of tenses I wrote up some of this in situ) we have eaten a humungous amount, there's lots of vege choice here, possibly we've been helped out by having locals with us to assist. We've had most types of food that's been on offer so far, and large portions of each. I stocked up with vegan treats in Wild Oats, a Fresh and Wild / Planet Organic type place, but I've brought some of it home as I had no difficulties eating out everywhere. This might be the chain that is taking over one of our chains, don't think I made that up...
One day we hit the beach proper style, trunks on, in the water, everything... we'd only been splashing about for twenty minutes or so when I noticed lots of people were stood at the water's edge looking in just a short way down the beach. Then I realised there was no-one in the water down that way too. Then people starting shouting and running and trying to get out of the water, a rapidly emerging Mexican wave heading our way - what could we do but start screaming SHARK! SHARK! EVERYBODY OUT OF THE WATER!
I can't remember if I ran out and left Clare in the sea, probably. As it turns out, she was safe, we all were, the coastguard appeared with a quad bike and a megaphone repeating "That is not what you think it is", the massive fast moving shadow beneath the surface of the water was apparently some more friendly tarpons.
Clare and our fellow traveller (and flatmate of old) Emma have been playing tonnes of Pacman, old school stylee, on a plug in TV game of Kevin's. It's a [froogle]Namco retro game[/froogle] number, with authentic arcade action, amazing to think that it's got the equivalent of five old arcade boxes in the base of the joystick. Gameplay is all, and this is fun, so much so that they've each bought one to take back. I hope they'll work OK on a UK type TV, or there might be tears.
I'm not much of a fillum buff as you may know, but while here we did catch TWO movies in the same day. First off, to the cinema for The Davinci Code. I hate trips to the cinema generally, but we did well this time, getting a comfy row of the best seats in the house, and there was none of the usual irritations of UK cinema, no whooping kids etc. The film wasn't at all as bad as I'd been led to believe, it was enjoyable, though the story itself is nonsense. The film, the book, and the tale they're based on have enough little factual bits in there to give the impression that the whole is more truthful and substantial than it is - real people, real things, mostly undesputable, so when small bits of rubbish are dropped in that the bigger bits of rubbish are built in, you might not notice. Also where there little messages and subtle visual messages in the film too? Was Silas' body laid out in a particular way for a reason? And that Victor Hugo poster? Are these clues left for us? Or are you just a mental if you read too much into this? It's entertaining enough, don't take it seriously. Bible-tastic. Let me re-write this later, I'm sure I have a point worth making. Hmm this site points out more of the rubbish. Second movie was The Weather Man btw, cool in a downbeat kind of way.
Did a bit of a blitz of clothing purchasage in Urban Outfitters... seemed to take a little while to warm up - when we first went in the door I was disappointed, everything was a bit crappier than I remembered, but then we got some great bits. My vintage style Lynyrd Skynyrd shirt has drawn positive comments from random strangers in the street. Do they not go in that shop? You could all have one of your own! I know we have one in the UK but everything's less than half price in the US versions. Hmm, the other option is that people were gently mocking me...
Went to the Dadeland mall, via some outlying shops... bro-in-law Kev took us there in the car to check out some local shopping action. First stop wsa possibly Target, a superstore that sells everything imaginable, where we picked up a couple more gifts, then on to Container Store. This place only sells storage "solutions" but it really is fabulous, not just boxes and things as I first suspected but all sorts of DIY type things relating to keeping your house in order. I can't do justice how cool it was, maybe I'm just a nerd for that sort of thing, but I loved it. Been looking for a thing to go inside our cupboards and organise all the stuff that's on the floor for AGES, and not been able to find anything like I wanted, or even explain to anyone just what I was after, but this place did the deed. Not sure (at the time of writing, 7.30pm on Tuesday) how I will get all this stuff home...
Next onto the mall proper, usual suspects for stores I suppose, but some great places like Brookstone for gadgety type things (like Sharper Image but a bit cooler), Arango for chic designer houseware type things, and some big smart department stores like Saks and Nordstrom. Didn't get much for ourselves but bought gifts for other people in each of these.
Spent one night eating drinking playing pool and bowling at Lucky Strike bowling, this was great. We ran up a huge tab and just about killed Kev - he's been in America too long, he just can't keep up the drinking pace any more. Lucky Strike is a bit of a celeb hangout apparently, but that's probably the LA branch of it, we saw no-one of note.
To get our quota of tackiness up, we did a "duck tour" of Miami, this is an amphibious type vehicle taking is on a round round the town. It was fun for us, but I've no doubt embarrassing for a local like Kev with all the audience participation. Look, there are some people on the beach, everybody quack! There are the houses from Scarface and Miami Vice, quack! Here's where Giani Versaci was gunned down, QUACK QUACK QUACK!
Our last days felt a little more subdued, though we still ate and drank lots more. We had another meal in Nexxt (not quite as good as the first time) and then boldly headed off to find boozing action on our own. Cafeteria took too long to serve us to hang about and The Playwright was a bit rubbish (and while I'm being negative, Miami is no place for pedestrians generally, bah) but Sushi Samba was nice and quite swish (think I got that right, we ate in a restaurant with a similar name too, Sushi Siam) and then Finegan's Way had a band on and was just the sort of place I'd been hoping for.
Flight back was fairly dreadful, a badly behaved toddler screamed all the way home, with headphones in I got a couple of hours kip though. I did get to go through one of the new explosives scanners - it blasts air over you then picks up particles from around you, to tell what you've been in contact with or what you have in your pockets. Clare missed this treat... Great to be met at the airport, good work Jim, and then we spent the day unpacking, winding down, and watching TV. Even took in a couple more films, Walk The Line and The Truman Show, both actually great. Maybe I'm getting into movies again. Our plants all survived our week away, the Pacman game works fine, and the picture frames we bought are filled and looking good. Welcome home us.
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