Yearly Archives: 2005

Sarah Jessica horse features might be on to something; Sex in the City is a whole lot better than being stuck in the city.

Today I was back down in London again for a couple of quick meetings when the nutters struck again. First I knew of it was when I went for some lunchtime shopping, and decided to pop up to Nike Town at Oxford Circus for a quick look at stuff I couldn’t really afford. In the shop all was well, but when I came back out the corner of Oxford Circus was getting pretty crowded. I hung a left and cut into Top Man for a quick gander in there, none the wiser.

When I emerged a whole line of buses are blocking the view of the other side of the street due to a bit of a traffic jam. This isn’t exactly unusual for Oxford Street on any given day other than Sunday, so I was oblivious to what was going on until I’d weaved my way through the traffic to cross the road. There I saw the Underground staff with their day-glo waistcoats, squinting in the sunlight, some guarding the shuttered station exits and others just standing chewing the fat.

For a reasonably clever guy like myself it didn’t take long to put two and two together, realise it was a Thursday, two weeks since the previous terrorist activity, and get a picture that something must have happened somewhere on the Underground network.

I made my way back to the lobby of the building where my next meeting was, and they had Sky News projected onto the wall. Man, if that channel becomes any more americanised in its hyperbole–rich coverage they’ll have to charge for it in dollars. “We can neither confirm, nor deny that explosions have taken place at Warren Street…” – so instead you’ll speculate wildly and raise the concern of the general public in some cheap ploy to garner viewing figures?

Anyhow, I left the Sky “news readers” to it and my meetings continued during the afternoon until just after four o’clock. Even then, three hours after the incident, I found the traffic grid-locked and the Tube suspended. In short – going nowhere fast.

Our follow up to the 5k Challenge was the Sefton Park 5 Mile Run, and I don’t mind telling you that it was bloody torturous. First lap wasn’t pleasant, and the second lap was bordering on downright self cruelty. Five mile runs, it turns out, fall right into the “bollocks to doing that again” category of events that include crashing into a wall on my mountain bike at 40 miles an hour, and running out from behind a bus.

Graeme produced a leaflet for a 10K in October when it was all over, but the way I felt at the end of the five miler he’s lucky I didn’t have the energy left to stick that leaflet where I wanted to!

There are some pictures in the gallery for those interested. Oh, the humanity.

Cousin Iain had suggested spending a few days in London on the weekend after my birthday a couple of months back now, so I’d been looking forward to it for weeks. Although the terrorist bombings the week before made me slightly apprehensive, I was determined not to let the tragedy get in the way of something we’d been planning for so long. To let them affect our way of life is to let them win, right Tony?

As it turned out, other than it taking a little longer than normal to get places, I needn’t have worried at all. Iain met me at Euston station and we made the quick trip to Islington to meet Jess at Chandler Gooding, before enjoying an hour or so of good banter until Jess had to make for home.

Iain and I met up with Andrew at Angel, then headed back to Iain’s flat from Euston, where I collected my left luggage. Despite my tiredness and the heat of the evening, by the time myself, Iain, Binnie, Andrew and Mark were sitting in a bring-your-own-beer indian restaurant that evening, the great food and the good company made for a top night.

On Saturday things kicked off in earnest, and after a trip to a nearby cafe for coffee and a snack, we set off to the small park at Brook Green to play some football and frisbee. All the running I’ve been doing recently didn’t translate at all into the quick burst fitness required for football, so with the heat I was literally gasping for breath in no time. The rest of them seemed to cope okay, though, so I must need to get fitter.

Charlie, a friend from WipeoutZone, came to meet me during the afternoon and his addition to the group evened up the sides, so we split into teams of three for more footie once I had my second wind. It was a good laugh, but I’d stretched and strained so much by that point that I was hobbling for the rest of the day.

We went back to Iain’s via Tesco, buying odds and ends for the barbeque we were having at Emily’s as well as getting busted by a security guard for trying to take pictures by the beer shelves. Strict lot those Tesco cops. The brief stop at Iain’s allowed the others to play some Pro Evo while Charlie and I played Wipeout Pure. I say played, but I was merely there to make a noise while Charlie was around the other side of the track in the lead. In the end I felt happy with two victories out of 12 – it could have been worse!