Blog - Saturday, 20th May 2006

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Saturday, 20th May 2006

Category: Diary. Posted: 2006-05-20 23:59:59 BST.

Most of today was spent gimmering around at home. I spent a lot of time sorting out my finances. I started to work out how much money I'd lost over the past day or two with the FTSE100 falling so much, but didn't like the way things were looking, so stopped! While say at the computer, I logged onto MSN, and Cherryboy was logged on. After a while Cat logged on, as well. She was onshore in an internet cafe, and it was really nice to chat to her, all-be-it brief.

During my gimmering, I listened to Money Box, and the Now Show on Radio4. Zoe rang during the Now Show (thank god for Freeview, I could just pause the radio while I spoke to her). The Now Show explained a few things that Rossy didn't explain the previous night. It turns out that the BBC hasn't paid its Entertainment License fee since 1967, so has been doing live shows illegally since then. Top of the Pops only went ahead, because the audience was full of BBC employees, who were paid to be there, so there was no need for an Entertainment license.

Also, during the week, a man went for a job interview for a job in the BBC's IT department. He was waiting at the reception, dressed smartly. At this point, a BBC producer came out, expecting to meet somebody to be interviewed on BBCNews24 about something important, and this bloke in reception was sat down in the studio, on live TV, and expected to answer in-depth questions about something that he knew nothing about. How embarrassing for all concerned. I think that was what the short fat black man from Jonathan Ross was all about.

Anyway, I was going to meet Emily and Zoe for a bit of Brick Lane curry action. We'd arranged to meet at Liverpool Street at 6pm, so I was just going to get a train to Ealing Broadway, and then get the Central Line to Liverpool Street. My only problem, was what kind of ticket to get. I knew that with a Network Card, a Travelcard cost £6.40, and I also knew that with an Oystercard, two singles between Ealing Broadway and Liverpool Street cost £2 each way. That meant that if a return from Langley to Ealing Broadway (with a Network Card) cost more than £2.40, then I should buy a Travelcard. It's very difficult being a tight-wad - all these decisions that I've got to make.

On the way to Langley station, I saw a yellow Mini, and a VW Beetle, in a garage. Do these count if they're not in a Mini or VW garage? I think we need a clarification of the rules. I got to the station with plenty of time, only to find that the ticket office was closed. Not a problem - I could use the Permit to Travel machine. I put my hand in my pocket to get out some money, but I had no coins. Gimmeration. There was a woman using the ticket machine, who obviously didn't have a clue (to be fair, it didn't help that the buttons on the ticket machine were very faded), so I had to help her. I explained what the ticket machine did, and what the Permit to Travel machine did. She had enough change for her, and her mate, to use the Permit to Travel machine, but not enough to give me any coins. I therefore had to use the ticket machine. Not a problem, all I needed was a return to Ealing Broadway. The machine asked for £2.90, so I put in a tenner, and out came my change and my tickets. Gimmeration, the woman had confused me. I'd spent so long sorting her out, that I'd forgot that I didn't want to pay more than £2.40 for my return ticket!

I wasn't sure how this Oystercard malarkey was going to work at Ealing Broadway, because I didn't have to got through any ticket barriers to get from the train to the tube. As I walked from one to the other, I saw an Oystercard validation machine. I tried to swipe the Oystercard, but it didn't work. Either the card, or the machine, was faulty. My money was on the card, since it had failed on a few bus journeys into work (leading to some free journeys). I didn't want to miss my train, so just got on it anyway. When I got to Liverpool Street, my Oystercard didn't work at the barriers, so I needed to see a ticket guvna. He let me through the barrier (another free journey), and told me to go to the ticket booth.

There was a long queue at the ticket booth. This didn't impress me, since I had totty waiting for me in the no-smoking part of the Wetherspoons. I got to the front of the queue, only to find out that I needed prove of address before he would give me another card. Not needing to prove that I'm over 18, I don't carry my driving license around with me, so he gave me a form, and told me that I could travel on the tube if I showed the form and a broken Oystercard (another free journey), and that I should get a replacement when I could show proof of address to a tube station. Gimmeration, why couldn't he just take my card, and get a new one posted to me? Fortunately, I had the foresight to have a spare Oystercard, just in case.

After all this, I went to find the Wetherspoon's. I knew roughly where it was, so went out of the exit that I thought was the correct one, and couldn't figure out where it was. I could see a Cornish Pasty Company van, but no pub. I asked some bloke next to me where the pub was, and he said that he didn't know of a Wetherspoon's near the station. I thanked him, turned around, and saw the Wetherspoon's just next the the pasty van! Fortunately, the girls were inside. They'd had a nice day, including shopping, and walking around HMS Belfast. They seemed almost asleep, so I had to use my sparkling wit and personality to wake them up! I got a quick round of drinks in, and we set about putting the world to rights. There was a couple snogging on the next table. How rude! How was I supposed to perve, when she had her tongue down some bloke's throat! Having said that, I was with Zoe and Emily, so didn't need to look anywhere else.

After we'd finished our drinks, Zoe navigated us to Brick Lane. We went a long way around, but got there eventually. I'd warned the girls that all the restaurants would have people outside hassling us, so they weren't too surprised when we arrived. As soon as we got close, we were being hassled, but walked past some restaurants because we wanted to eat in Brick Lane itself. We walked a bit further, and a bloke started trying to persuade us to go into his restaurant. He reminded me of JumpingBoy from Sharm, so we had to go in. The restaurant opposite was quite keen, with at least 3 blokes outside, but we went with JumpingBoy. Inside the restaurant, we ordered our drinks, but he had to get his mate to serve us, because he didn't understand what Emily and Zoe meant by Southern Comfort!

The restaurant was called Spice Brick Lane, and the logo was written in a pseudo Sanscript fount. I was impressed. The food and service was excellent. The mattar panneer was good, but not quite up to The India's standards. During our meal, we realised that JumpingBoy2 was really slack - he just sat on a chair inside, and jumped outside when he saw people walking along the road. It seemed to work really well.

There was totty on the next table, but she started smoking. She was trying to be considerate to the bloke she was with, by holding her cigarette away from him. Unfortunately, that meant that we got all her smoke! Roll on next year! Before we went, I had to nip to the loo. I really hate public toilets. I wash my hands after going to the loo, but then have to use the door handles that everybody else, who probably haven't washed their hands, has used. The toilets in this restaurant were even worse, instead of having either automatic or push taps, they had turn taps. That meant I had to turn off the taps myself, after having washed my hands. I felt suitably dirty.

When the bill arrived, I realised that we had three chocolates, and this would cause problems. I wasn't going to have my chocolate, which meant that there were three chocolates between the two girls. I called the waiter over, explained the problem, and he brought three more chocolates. Top man. Zoe said "But I always have your chocolate", followed by Emily saying "But I always have his chocolate"! On the way out, JumpingBoy2 gave us a business card, but I complained that it didn't have the pseudo-Sanscript writing on it. He took it away, wrote 20% discount on the business cards, and gave them back saying "I want to give you something special", and also gave me a flyer with the pseudo-Sanscript writing on it. I was impressed, until Zoe pointed out that they'd taken 20% off the bill anyway. As we were leaving, the blokes from the restaurant opposite, no wanting to miss an opportunity, tried to get us to go into their restaurant!

As we were walking back towards Liverpool Street, we were discussing Mel and James's wedding. Zoe suddenly got all excited, realising that she had somewhere to wear the outfit that she'd decided to buy in the morning. That really made me laugh, and I didn't even stop laughing to have an argument with some woman who was fairly well dressed, smoking a cigarette, who came up and started begging for money because she was living on the streets.

We found a nice, fairly quiet, bar to have a drink in before we called in a night. I got really confused at the bar. There was obviously some kind of theme to the bar, and it was serving German beer, so I assumed that it was a German theme. I looked at the clock, the analogue part of the clock said 9:20, and the digital part of the clock said 05:20. That wasn't German time, so what was going on? I asked the barman, and he just looked at me as if I was weird. Zoe explained that 05:20 was the date (bloody Americans, why do they have to write the date the wrong way around?). The pub did some nice cocktails, including Cherrybomber, and Gramophone Cherry. We smiled as we thought about Cherryboy, and Emily spent ages trying to take a good picture of the cocktail menu. She then tried to transfer the file to me by Bluetooth, but my phone wouldn't accept it, saying that the phone was out of memory. She therefore sent it as a multi-media message. I'm sorry for the quality of the picture, but it's only 7kB in size. Zoe asked about surfing the 'net using her laptop, infra-red, and her mobile, so it all got a bit technical by the end of the evening.

On the tube (which I didn't have to pay for), there were three very camp, presumably gay, blokes opposite me on tube. They started off talking about Michael Douglas, but they couldn't remember the name of a particular film. "Downfall", I said, which reminded them that it was called "Falling Down". They then started talking about the Eurovision, but I tried not to listen, because I didn't want to find out how badly we'd done until I watched in on the TV. They mentioned the Swedish entry (ooh-err), but I didn't correct them, and tell them that it was actually the Finnish entry (ooh-err). I was amused to then hear them talking about, and starting to sing, "I am the Music Man", and then the lesser-known "I am the Mimic Man".

At Ealing Broadway, I was surprised to find that the Oystercard reader that I'd tried to use before was out of service, so it was my card AND the machine that weren't working earlier on. The train from Ealing Broadway to Langley was delayed a bit, but that gave me more chance to perve at totty. There were two black girls. One with blonde hair (which seemed strange on a black girl), and a coat that came only to the middle of her thighs, and no skirt to be seen. The other with blondish hair (looked a nicer a colour than her mate's hair), a coat that came to her ankles, but very sexy shoes. I desperately wanted to know what she had on underneath the coat, but never found out. My phone's battery was too low to take any TottyCam pictures.

When I got off at Langley, there was a bike on platform, with beer bottles next to it. I just ignored it, and walked up the stairs. I turned around to look at the bike, and saw a few pokey little kids running back-and-forth, across the railway tracks. The nearest phone box was about 5 minutes away, so I called the police from there. I was sure whether I should call 999, or not, but decided to let the police decided whether it was important or not (as we'd been taught to do when we visited the DDRC in 2003).

Walking back from the train station, I didn't see NakedHoldingTodgerInWindowMan, but I still had to look inside the windows, just in case there was totty there. There was a risk of seeing NakedHoldingTodgerInWindowMan, but I couldn't miss out on totty!

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