Jeez,

Went out on Friday to see a load of mates i know from uni. Some of them live in London but I don't see them that often because they're on the wrong side of the river. Anyway they don't seem to have slipped out of uni habits and I think that's partly why I don't see them that often - they're a bad (good?) influence on me.

Things were much the same this weekend. I went along because it was a mate's birthday. He'd hired out a bar so we all got fairly muntered in there till 2am then went back to his (about 20 of us).

To avoid going into specifics let's just say it went on 'til the following midnight. It's not something I do often but it was damn good fun. We spent most of yesterday in the pub where about half of us trailed off throughout the day. The remaining eight of us kept on going and we finally got some much needed food at about midnight in a Kurdish restaurant.

I'm sure I'll pay for this at some point early next week (so please excuse me if there's a slightly negative, depressing blog entry) but apart from that, I'm feeling OK today, if a bit distant. The only real wound of the weekend occured when I kicked over a kettle that had just been boiled and had been left camouflaged (at least to my, less-than-beady-at-that-time, eyes) among cans of Stella. Most of the hot water poured over my left foot that was in a sock but no shoes. It fucking hurt...

I spent the next 20 minutes with my foot in the bath under the cold tap, then had it bandaged up. When I had a look at home last night, it had exploded into multiple large blisters. As a result I'm walking with a bit of a limp. Oh well, only myself to blame. I hope it doesn't scar too much.

GR64.

I suppose that, with hindsight, it's obvious that I would start this blog with a regular frenzied update about everything i'm doing, then trail off to a rate of more occasional updates. This is also probably a good thing because my day - to - day life is rather samey (see log on Monday, September 15, 2003, part 2 - though notably, I've not drunk any beer so far all week). So there you go; this way hopefully you'll not get as quickly bored.

OK then, what's been happening? Well, not an awful lot. The weather's become very suddenly much colder and that (combined with the fact that my new bike has started to feel like it's falling apart), has meant that I've been back on me old mate The Tube the last two days. The amount of will power that getting on one's bike in early the morning requires increases sharply when it's freakin' cold too.

Oh yeah, the girl at work: I think my madly in love statement (Fri Sep 19) was a bit OTT. I'd now class it as mild intrigue. I must have been feeling emotional or something the other day. You'll be glad to hear I'm back to my stiff upper lipped usual self today.

GR64.

You know when you half listen to, and subsequently ignore, the morning weather forcast ? Hmmm.... Riding home in my shorts and t-shirt was less than pleasant...

GR64.

I just spent two hours fiddling about with the CSS of this page. That's the code that formats the text (colours, fonts, position and stuff) for those who don't know. Why do I do these things? It's only fractionally better than before. I think I must just like wasting time.

Oh yeah, you can now email me, using the link at the top right.

Hey ho, tomorrow's Friday and my housemate is DJing at a fairly big club in London. It's his first gig there so I'm going to go down and drink a few over-priced beers and listen to his set with some friends. Just one day at work to deal with in between. I think I should start going to bed earlier. Working on this blog doesn't make feeling knackered in the morning worthwhile.

GR64.

I've never kept any kind of diary before. The act of doing so (and reviewing my entries so far) has made me realise quite how cynical I really am. I dunno, I just derive great pleasure from that slant on things. I do have fun too, honest! Hey, check this site out. The wankometer is quite good. It detects all that business bullshit language that I so hate.
..............................................

Night in on the programming tonight. Rock and roll baby... I got the game scoreboard thing finished so tonight I'm working on a nightclub's website. I'm the first to admit - I find this sort of thing satisfying. Does that make me a geek ? A total one ?

Tonight's soundtrack: Tom Middleton : The Sound of the Cosmos - highly recommended listening.

GR64.

Morning! I'm working over at the HQ of one of the UK's largest retaillers today, in central London. Our company has a contract to provide people to work on their website, and someone's away today so...

Let's just say, "It's corporate." One of the most annoying things is that I'm used to a free run of the net and my computer, wheras here everything's locked down - you can't install anything, you can't look at anything, you can't even access your desktop settings to turn off the annoying corporate messgages screensaver.

Anyway, nothing exciting to report...

GR64.

Well, my brother's not having much luck: He's been in London for under a month, moved to a place about ten days ago, and last night was bitten by a rat in his bedroom! The phrase not ideal springs to mind. I'd heard that rats could be a problem in parts of London but I'd never have thought that one could get into your bedroom and want to bite you. He said it was crawling on his chest when he woke up then went down the bed and sunk it's teeth into his toe.

The place looked OK (i.e. it was clean and tidy) when I helped him move in. I guess it was a very cheap area to live but you don't expect serious rodent infestations for any price now do you ?

Nedless to say, he's never going back there, so he's back round at mine on the sofa for the time being... Oh, and yeah, he's working at a hospital so a doctor had a look and said it was just a scratch and he didn't need a booster tetanus injection.

Oh the joys. Some good news soon, honest! At least I'm OK!

GR64.

Cycling too and from work is a bit of a nightmare. The traffic in London, though not as bad as it was before the congestion charge was introduced, is a 'hazard' to say the least. No one ever leaves any space by the kerb for cyclists to pass so you end up being forced to weave through the traffic (at which point everyone accelerates without checking their mirrors) or onto the kerb to fight through it.

What's in some ways most insulting is the nature of the 'cycle lanes' that they've introduced. At best there's a 30 metre strip on the road leading up to the junction, where there's a space in front of the stop line. However this space is mostly populated by motorbikes. However, far more common is a short lane painted on the pavement that promptly ends at a driveway or bus shelter. So, right, I'm supposed to stop my bike (doing the "I'm stopping" arm signal of course), dismount, carry my bike onto the pavement, get back on, start riding along, then stop again, wait for a gap in the traffic (which is driving right up to the kerb), and finally continue up the road. Yeah right. I mean it would be fine if the lane was half - a - mile - or - so long, but at best they're about 30 metres long.

...And (while I'm at it), I then turn into a park and decide to ride along the river, to avoid the dangerous, lead and CO producing traffic, and I promtly get reprimanded by the parks police for riding my bike in the park - it's pedestrians only! Maybe I should just give in and go out and buy myself a big MPV to drive (alone) to work in like everyone else seems to do. One with bull-bars on the front in case any cyclists get in my way i think...

I dunno, you try to do some good... I mean I'm not anti - car or anything, I used to drive and loved it (until I moved to London and hit gridlock), but I just think everyone could be a little more considerate, and the government could build some proper cycle lanes.
</rant>

GR64.

A new personal cycling-to-work record: 34 minutes...
... but why is it that when you make the effort and get into work early your boss is never there to see it ?

GR64.

Just went to see Belleville Rendez-Vous at the cinema. Very funny, very strange - I recommend it...

No beer today - this is a good thing.

Shit - I just heard that two of my friends, back in my home town, ended up getting attacked on Saturday night (along with several other people) by some guy who did a real Jekyl & Hyde act after drinking too much beer at a house party. Apparently he kicked down some doors, punched several people and tried to push his thumb into my mate's eye. He ended up getting restrained, arrested and is now in police custody, and now claims not to remember anything.

My friends had to be taken to hospital, one of whom had had his arm bitten... All quite frightening stuff. It begs the question, had this guy done anything like this before and if so should he really have been drinking ?

It's a dangerous world out there. Maybe that's why David Blaine is hiding in a box up a crane ??

GR64.

I've developed a new computer programme to define my lifestyle:

10 print "work, beer, sleep, ";
20 goto 10


GR64.

Today was really rather great. Met up with two friends (a couple) and their mate from back up north, got a tasty lunch then went round many bars in Covent Garden and Soho. Drank several cocktails, and then went onto some Belgian beers. Nice... I much prefer drinking at a leisurely pace throughout the day to the friday-night binge sessions. For a start I don't end up falling asleep so easily. Had I started this blog a few weeks earlier, I would have reported one evening when I got home five hours later than planned due to falling asleep on the tube and waking up somewhere in Essex. Let's just suffice to say "It wasn't the best".

Work in the morning then (ya...y), and I'm getting there by pedal power. Guess I'd better get some sleep.

Out,
GR64.

Ughhh. Well, last night was a bit... different. It was at a posh bar that had been hired out by a an old school-mate of my brother. She appears to now have lots of very wealthy friends. There were rose petals sprinkled on the seats - i.e. these crazy kids weren't exactly 'keeping it real'. We paid £20 in return for free drinks, which, naturally, ran out fairly early on.

I basically got drunk, chatted to a few people, failed to pull any girls, danced a bit to an ok-ish DJ then bought myself another drink (admittedly a double vodka and redbull) that cost me £9.50 and 25 mins queuing time. I then pomptly decided that I didn't want it anymore and so stumbled out onto the street where I, nicely, found my night bus home waiting. Got home about 3am.

Anyway, off to meet some friends for - hey get this - some *beers* and sunday lunch. Rock on.

GR64.

The photo-taking didn't go as well as planned - everyone decided to descend on the South Bank as I arrived on my bike, so I was somewhat caught up in the 1MPH tourist crawl. Got a few nice shots but I think next time I'll go find some older, more delapidated areas as they make for more interesting photos.

One of the morning's highlights was a street performer who went by the name "BUDGIE-MAN". Utterly bizarre bearded bloke. He sang songs about how he's "...a very very budgie man..." and the like, while budgies perched obediantly on his fingers. He also explained that it took, "...years of leaving his hand in the cage at night with all the lights off...", to train his feathered friends. O....K then. He did pull a bit of a crowd - maybe I'm in the wrong business.

Out to a party tonight, somewhere expensive out west. Could be good, could be rubbish...

GR64.

So - What's this Blogging thing all about then? Seeing as I work in the web industry, I thought I'd better find out what all the fuss was about. I decided that the obvious way to do this was to set up my own blog, though at present I've no idea WHAT I'll write in it or WHO the hell will read it. We shall see...

GR64.