Operation Ratcatcher : Destination The 'Dam

BEDFORD ROAD: It doesn't bode well for our young heroes


the birdman of Amsterdam,


a flying Scotsman,

the leader of the peloton,

French,

and CC.
In the beautiful city of


canals

bicycles,

Technicolor houses,

and sunsets.

After a 45-minute flight, fortified by cheese and bacon baps on BA

they started the morning in fine song

and finished the afternoon in tune.

The following day, after massive Dutch pancakes and revivers, it was time to see the sites.

The world famous flower market,

the Rijkesmuseum (which is largely closed but still costs
the regular 8 Euros),


and even hired a paddle boat (Ed. It seemed like a good
idea at the time.).

That evening they visited The Supper Club, carbo loading for the night ahead with a five course blind menu that included such delicacies as beef fillet with foie gras, chicken in truffle oil, a $5 shake, sea bass and poached quayle egg. With four bars of energy they were up to face the best the city could throw at them.

When the adventurers got home they found

another quester had entered their lair


lucky for them the heroes were five dapper lads as witty
as early Woody Allen.

Having taken the best the seedy metropolis could throw at them, and bested it, Saturday saw our heroes

contemplate their triumph.

THE END

But it would be remiss of me to conclude this post without a fitting tribute to that unique individual whose departure we were there to celebrate. In the words of Mr. Thomas Love Esq., have you met my friend...?

What's Wrong With the World

BEDFORD ROAD: It's official. God hates fags. Now some of you may think the Almighty Creator has bigger things on his mind - say the thuggish demolition of Gaza and Lebanon by Israeli terrorists - but not according to the good (and morally privelidged) people of Westboro Baptist Church.

Back on the Street

BEDFORD ROAD: Coming home from Amsterdam, with its picturesque canals, charming architecture and permissive locals, I find a police report on the table and a hole in one of our back windows. The estate's troupe of Junior Chavs have been piffing the odd rock at our windows for a while now and it seems like one of them finally succeeded in cracking the glass.

It's just wonderful to be back.

No More Nights

CANARY WHARF: To celebrate my last night in the prison that is my current employment I thought I'd post a couple of pictures of the sunrise from a couple of weeks ago. Enjoy.

PS. Two nights later a paper warehouse went up in flames across town in Bow and as the sun rose, smothered by thick grey clouds, we could watch this inferno licking the sky and recalling, in miniature, the great fire that threatened the dome of St. Pauls.

Some Photos of Tonights Picnic

Your Emo Name

CANARY WHARF: Nothing to do this evening at work. It's my last night in the Wharf so I'm surfing the web and I found this . It generates your Emo name for Myspace.

I've taken the liberty of coming up with a few. Mick Tucker's is "xSobbingxTearsx", mine is ".somber.in.havoc.", kate gets lucky with ".drowing.in.isolation.", while the original Captain Emo Walshey scores with "rueful for suffering".

I have so much time to waste I feel like Uti (rhymes with footy).

Actually, returning to the earlier discussions we had post-Death Cab about emo check this link out .

Last Friday Night

CANARY WHARF: Libby was house sitting the other week so me and Jaq went around for drinks. We got drunk. How drunk...


This drunk

Guildford

Sunday in the Home Counties

CANARY WHARF: Finally got out of town for some clean air on Sunday. Went down to Surrey with Chris calling in at his parents place to pick up a car before going for a drive through the countryside. We visited a lovely park with winding trails, ferns and thick vegetation and even scaled a tower that had views all over the home counties, including the 26 miles back to Canary Wharf. Next stop was Guildford where we took in the charming high street (do I sound like a travel journalist for a rural newspaper?) and the remains of a Norman Castle.

Saturday was a quiet day, basically just went walking along the canals from Queens Park to Little Venice. We were going to go all the way up to Camden but it started raining at Little Venice so I thought it prudent to make my way back to Brixton. Saturday night I hosted a BBQ which gave me an opportunity to make a Waldorf Salad, a Spicy Corn Salad and the piece de resistance, an incredible Key Lime Pie.

Now I've just got one more night to go of the Adfero gig and then it's of to trendy Shoreditch. Amsterdam this weekend, I can hardly wait.


In the Home Counties even the bogans are posh!




Quaint Surrey



Alien landing zone!



Your intrepid blogger

Proportional Mathematics

CANARY WHARF: It's been a big week for the finest failed baseball team owner in Texas. After teaming up with his hi-falutin mates in a "big country" (was it Russia? was it China? was it Canada?) he was able to indulge his preference for hippity-hop speech, receive a funky new sweater from his Limey lapdog and even deliver some off the cuff remarks (and we can only imagine how witty they were). We also got a remarkable insight into US foreign policy. Now if only we can get Syria to stop this shit... But he has dispatched his walking orthodontic commercial to the region so the problem should be solved as quickly as you can say Iraq.

Forgive my sarcasm but it's been a fortnight where I've spent my waking hours aghast at Ehud Olmert's ability become acting Prime Minister of a belligerent war mongering rogue state while failing to grasp the fundamentals of mathematics. Now let me get this straight, 10 and 1 are basically the same thing. Not really that surprising coming from a nation of Holocaust survivors who insist that the only way to solve the problems with their neighbours is murdering them from afar with hi-tech US and British supplied missiles. Now if only we can get Syria to stop this shit...

Thailand Photos

CANARY WHARF: I was bored at work the other day (I've been training three new staff members and basically swanning around avoiding responsibility) and searching for stuff about Thailand and I came across these pics. For those of you interested Railay beach was one of the places I stayed last November and the hill top wat featured in these photos was the one I had to battle the monkeys to scale.

Anyway if you're interested in seeing photos (not mine) of some of the places I visited click here .

Weekly Update

CANARY WHARF: Not much to report this week but Ian's been over from Bristol prior to take up some flight training at the Florida flight school responsible for training Saudia Arabia's fundamentalist finest so there's been an extensive calendar of BBQ's programmed.

We had one of the hottest days of the year on Wednesday and, having been given the day off, we jumped on the Tube and headed down to Tooting Bec to visit the Lido. Unfortunately several thousand people shared our idea and we were greeted with a particularly grim queue and a pool attendant who helpfully informed us that "Those of you who have been waiting a long time, may still be waiting a long time, in a long time."

I was heartbroken and crestfallen. Unlike Brisbane where, should disaster strike one swimming spot, there are several hundred others to choose, London it seems, does not brim with the same aqua possibilities. Instead I went to Battersea Park, opposite the Chelsea Embankment, and lay under a tree catching the river breeze and trying to pretend, with my eyes closed, that I could taste the salt in the breeze. It kind of worked.

The other news of note would be that I went down to the Common on Tuesday night and trained with South London's finest Aussie Rules team, the Clapham Demons. While being no superstar, I proved to myself that I still have a safe pair of hands and a half decent kick. I think I'll train with them for the rest of the season and then join next year.

And finally on the job front, more of the please be patient, we will have an answer for you soon scene.

As always readers, paka.

That's Not A Snake, This Is A Snake

CANARY WHARF: No wonder they were impressed by Crocodile Dundee. Check this out from the Scunthorpe Telegraph.

I can't imagine their response if, like at St. Ita's, a kindly parish priest was required to come and occasionally fetch carpet snakes out from the back of the classrooms.

Great Moments in Sports Journalism

BEDFORD ROAD: Now some may say this is obsessive but it seriously fucking annoys me. This morning I pick up the Metro on the Tube. It's worth pointing out, to my Australian audience, that the Metro is a standard bearer of nothing, save declining standards of journalism, however, their cricket coverage this morning suggested that England may have approached their declaration tentatively because they only had four recognised bowlers. Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't cricket orthodoxy generally dictate on four recognised bowlers?

So they came on this morning, let their opening bowler and second changer scratch around for three quarters of an hour and then declared. The result... a draw.

Listened to Sam Cooke all day and saw Pirates this evening. Arrrrgh!!!!

Which One of You Bastards Called This Pommy Bastard a Bastard?

BEDFORD ROAD: I worked today so, while the sun beat down outside, I hid inside, drenched to my elbows in newspaper ink listening to Radio Five Live's coverage of the G8 Summit. (Can it really be a year since they promised to end African poverty?) But when I did get home I decide to take myself up to the Coach and Horses for a Coke and watch some of the First test versus Pakistan. I've seen precious little cricket this summer, and even less worth watching.

True to form England were woeful this afternoon as they scratched around against some dreadful fielding behind the bat and a barrage of offline bowling. Queensland's third best wicketkeeper (maybe the fourth?) scratched around for twenty overs for his ten. In search of what? Confidence? And Strauss who was on a hundred was content to edge one through third man for four every couple of overs.

England wont regain the Ashes and certainly deserve never to win another Test series again. Except, maybe against the West Indies at home or Bangladesh beneath sea level.
This country couldn't care less about cricket and knows even less about the game. Instead of letting Harmison and Hoggard try and take a couple of early wickets and unsettle the Pakistanis overnight we had to watch two idiots scratch around batting for a draw. And the papers tomorrow will be full of praise for their resolute play.

Fucking rubbish! Give me Kerry O'Keefe and McGrath at the WACA anyday.

Boring

BEDFORD ROAD: Kate has been at me to update the blog because it's a little bit boring since everything's so antiquated. Kind of like my life really. I rented Season 4 of the West Wing last week and that, combined with working nights, has meant I've done little else all week.

The other day I did come home from work, go for a jog blasting Cold Chisel and then up to a coffee shop in Clapham Old Town. It was a nice day. And last night I was playing football on the common and I got recruited to join an AFL team. But I think that was because they thought I was English and they have a quota to fill.

The other highlight of the week would have been watching a paper warehouse in East London burn. As the sun was rising we could finally notice that the sky was filled with smoke. Looking beyond the smoke, behind several buildings, we could see great tongues of fire licking out of the darkness. It was not altogether unlike those famous pictures of the Great Fire when the dome of St. Pauls is threatened.

Anyway my good readers, I hope this hasn't bored you.

paka

On A Tuesday

BEDFORD ROAD: I finally tracked down this Christie Moore song Dad used to play years ago. It's about a fire in a night club in Ireland and the subsequent refusal to adequatel compensate the families of the victims. For some legal reason it had to be pulled from Christie's mid 80s album Ordinary Man. I'd forgotten what it was called but with the help of Wiki (doesn't Encarta just seem like an odd curio of a naivie time now?) I tracked down the song name and then Soulseek, after a couple of days, delivered me the song. The problem was that it wasn't as good as I remembered it.

Down another path entirely, I am much more interested in the State of Origin when we win it, pity about the Bledisloe and down with Italians. I'm finding the Tour is filling the void in my post-World Cup life but despite this being the third year I've watched it, I still don't think I'm any closer to understanding it. Still it's good to see Robbie win the sprints and we get the same feed over here that SBS gets, like a slice of Vegas in my living room.

Could I Be the Next Haile Gebrselassie?

CANARY WHARF: Last year it was surf, sun and Sydneysiders, and while it was a lot of fun, it ended with a thermometer up my bum. This time the heat seemed more oppressive, particularly with limited water stops and race organisers who deigned to have us stand in the baking sun for forty minutes waiting to start, but after setting a cracking pace running past Hyde Park and Buckingham Palace I found my rhythm along the riverbank and managed to finish in an extremely impressive (by my own humble standards) 58:34.

I am rambling about the 10K London Run which prides itself as one of the leading 10K events in Europe, unfortunately it seemed to have been organised by a team of baboons on crack. Not only did we have to walk for a k and a half from the baggage drop off point to the start, we then had to wait for more than thirty-five minutes to cross the start line. Then while running, at 11:00 in 30' heat, they decided we'd only need three under stocked water points for 30,000 people. And to add insult to injury after staggering up the finishing straight, with a gnawing fear of a repeat of the thermometer incident, I had to walk another k and half to the water point. I can just imagine the looks of open mouthed incredulity on the faces of the organisers when the coroner asks them if they feel any responsibility for some poor dead runner. Luckily nobody did expire and I eventually made it to a water point.

On a better note it was great to stagger up the Embankment with the site of Big Ben and Westminster coming into view. And I got to stutter across the bridge like a bedgraggled zombie extra in 28 Days Later. A special big thanks have to go to Jacquie for coming to support. It really was better than doing the whole thing anonymously.


The proof is in the pudding

I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here

BEDFORD ROAD: Went to the Pirates 2 premier yesterday. Well not the film but we went to Leicester Square to see something. I wasn't sure what and it turned out to be not a lot. While hordes of teenyboppers had been cramming into the square since the early hours of the morning, by 4 in the afternoon the red carpet walk was hidden by barricades and police. They do erect a big screen though and we watched Orlando, Johnny and Keira on that.

The sudden, fleeting, isolated hurricane we were hoping would gather around Ms. Kneightley failed to materialise. But you can enjoy my rather lame pictures.

Just Who Is Supposed to Save the Queen?

BEDFORD ROAD: So England seems to be in mourning. The flags still hang limply from the council estates and little poles on Astra's but the fight has gone out of the country. Somewhat predictably they seem to have lost interest in the whole tournament. Which probably makes the whole thing kind of meaningless for them. I even wonder if they realise it goes longer than two and a half weeks.

We had a wicked barbecue on the weekend but Frank Lampard's pathetic penalty really put a dampner on the whole thing. And now poor Frank thinks the criticism is a little harsh. What I would say is: "You don't get paid £120,000 a week [not a typo] to play football, you get the money so idiots like me can put shit on you for whatever reason we decide."

Anyway I spent the rest of the weekend hanging out with the Norf London Massif, none of whom are England fans so were all happily free of the Blighty Blues.


Two bored girls at a BBQ

Norf London Massif

If you see the one on the right wearing oversized headphones tease him - he likes it!