Sunday 09 June 2013 – London
Another week has passed and still no joy on the job front. I did have a recruitment agency call me on Friday which was very exciting, however it seems I was missing one key skill – I am of course only assuming this as I was not contacted again even though the agent said he would. This is a very frustrating process, even the agencies which profess to be different – read better, than the others are just crap at communicating with applicants. Anyways, rant over and I will keep calm and carry on as the English say.
The weather was pretty good for most of the past week, sunny but with a cool wind, but it did mean I went out every day for a decent every day, not that many were visually very exciting and though I took my camera with me I didn’t use it that much. I even squeezed in another run amongst the mega walks, it was only moderately less awful than the last one.
On Tuesday night El and I went to see one of my current favourite New Zealand pop bands, Popstrangers, playing at Cargo in Shoreditch. They were third on the bill supporting Splashh, a band made up of NZers, an Aussie and an Englishman. There was a good crowd there for a Tuesday night and I liked the venue. I did feel for Popstrangers as the sound was awful for them – very sludgy. The sound was great for the second band and for the first half of Splashh’s set and then it went to sludge again, not sure why. Splashh were pretty good and I would see them again. The lighting was poor so I only took a snap or two of Popstrangers and then gave up and enjoyed the music.
The highlight for Wednesday was taking a walk up to the Southbank Centre – about thirty minutes away and picking up these, needless to say I am looking forward to this show!
On the way back from the collecting tickets I watched these guys making a sand piano on one of the small spots of sand on the Thames side.
On Thursday morning I Skyped my mum and youngest son back in New Zealand, it was the Skype since I left three weeks ago and it was lovely to see them both and catch up on some home news. I was very excited to be walking to Gosh! Comics in Soho as my favourite street artist phlegm has just released a book of his sketches and Gosh! is the only stockist in London. It took me about an hour to walk in and it was a perfect day for a long walk. While in Soho I visited the Photographers Gallery to check out the recent exhibitions, still not my cup of tea ! however the gallery is great and I will continue to visit regularly.
I had arranged to meet El for a walk and lunch in Regents Park so strolled up there next, past this abandoned pub with its ” A little pub with a big welcome” sign, I guess big welcomes was not what the punters wanted. I am constantly surprised at the amount of closed pubs – even in the centre of town.
I met El at the far end of Regents Park, back on the Regents Canal and we pretty much arrived at the meeting place at exactly the same time.
We had lunch in the park and then walked back to her office in Camden, strolling past some very expensive central London real estate, even the vicars have Ferraris….
(actually, it is probably not the vicar’s car…)
We passed a couple of bits of graffiti on the way into Camden, given its iconic ‘edgy’ status I am always surprised there is not more here, council by-laws prohibit it I am guessing.
I then caught the train home, knackered after a very long walk, but very excited to have a good look at my book. The cover is wonderful.
On Friday I did another mega walk, I started at Little Venice, sort of where the Regents Canal blends into a couple of others and a centre point for canal boats. It was a nice sunny day and a good day to be strolling again.
I walked back into west end and up to Covent Garden as I was after a decent day bag back pack, carrying cameras and other things in a shoulder bag for long periods is giving me sore back, time to try something else. I had the worst pub lunch ever in Covent Garden and then walked home. I went up to El’s after work and we popped down to the local boozer, the Rose and Crown, to see one of her friends cover band play. It was a fun night.
Saturday we walked down through Walthamstow Market to the marshes near the canal, it was another nice day to be outside, looking over the canal to Clapton, I like how the little old pub sits amongst the newer architectural monstrosities of the estate.
The rest of the weekend passed sans-camera. El and I took her youngest son (15) to see the new Star Trek movie in 3d, I enjoyed the movie, not so much the 3d…. One of El’s out of town friends was in town for a gig and staying the night so Sunday we all had breakfast in a local cafe and then went into Kings Cross to the British Library to visit the Propaganda exhibition being held there. It was OK, I would liked to have seen a few more of the classic propaganda posters from around the second world war and early cold war period, but it was interesting non-theless.
Sunday night had the start of the French TV series “The Returned”, I was really looking forward to seeing it and was not disappointed at all. Moody and brilliant, looking forward to watching it all.
Where is Phil now? 