London Weekender (Part II)

If you haven't read the previous entry, you probably should, because this picks up where it left off, even if it is written 12+ hours later.

So, where was I? Oh yes, people pretending not to be titilated. Well, I think I've said all I can on that subject, so I'll move on to the account of Sunday. Given that Alison and I had talked about the issues of titilation and perving that were raised by the play, it's not all that surprising that I found it exceptionally difficult to wake up on Sunday morning.

Oh! But there was also the collapsing bed incident! Alison and I had the luxury of SiS and SBF's housemate's room while we were staying, since he was away for the weekend. This meant we got to sleep in a proper bed instead of (as is usually the case when we stay there) an inflatable camp bed. Saturday night, Alison and I both sat down at the end of the bed, chatting idly, when suddenly the end of the bed jolted downwards. One of the legs had apparently given way, and wasn't particularly fixable. In the end the bed was popped up with some bar-bell weights, and all was well, but it was quite alarming, and quite funny, and unfortunately not dodgy at all.

And back to Sunday morning.

For reasons of amusement SBF had bought The News Of The World to read over breakfast. As usual, it was full of the usual sensationalised crap derived from friends selling each other out to make a quick buck from a saucy story. The tasteful (if a little sensationalised) article about Alex from Fame Academy coming out and the positive reactions from her family was ruined by the banner across the bottom which said "...And in case you missed it yesterday, here's a picture of Madonna snogging Britney!", along with said picture. Cackness.

I'm not going to say anything about the whole Madonna/Britney thing except to point out that none of the pictures of the incident give conclusive proof that tongues were involved, and without tongues it's not a snog, it's just a publicity stunt. As far as I'm concerned the fact that Britney and Christina were performing together was bigger news. And yes, I would've much rather seen Christina than Madonna as the one snogging Britney. Oops, I got a whole paragraph out of "not saying anything except..." LOL.

Then we headed out. Our destination today (today being Sunday at this point, for those still lost in the idea of Christina and Britney snogging) was the Tate Modern. We got the tube to St. Paul's so that we could walk across the Millennium Bridge (the one that used to wobble) to get to the Tate. At this point I went into full tourist mode, taking a load of pictures of the bridge, St Paul's Cathedral, and the big black inflatable outside the Tate Modern.

That was one of the weird things about the whole weekend, Friday and Sunday in particular. Because I grew up on the outskirts of London I hardly ever did the tourist thing there except as a small child. Doing the tourist thing in the part of the world where you grew up is strange. The whole idea that you're now a visitor because you now live elsewhere is in itself pretty weird, but the tourist thing on top of that just makes it stranger.

Incidentally, a light lunch in the Caf� at the top of the Tate cost almost as much as the Thai meal from the night before.

We went round the fifth floor of the Tate Modern. There were two big exhibitions (or should I say collections) on that floor (as seemed to be the case with most) with a few separate exhibits scattered in between. I didn't think much to it all. Of the whole floor, there were something like three exhibits I liked. The rest was just pants. And the video of a naked guy beating himself up and occasionally smearing his nether regions with something or other was just, well, bizarre and disturbing. All in all the entire thing did very little to dispell my perception that the majority of Modern Art is all weirdass shit that just goes to show that if you talk fast enough you can sell anything. I'm not necessarily saying it's really like that, but it sure as hell seems that way from where I'm standing.

As we wandered along the South Bank after leaving the Tate, I was ready to leave London. I'm sure that someone has at some point used the clich�, "If you're tired of London, you're tired of life" but that is, not surprisingly, just another stupid clich�. I'd personally reckon on it being more accurate to say, "If you're tired of London, you're tired of London". We had a drink outside the National Film Theatre and then headed back to SiS and SBF's house.

Here is as good a point as any (apart from the point at which I forgot it when writing yesterday's entry) to mention what SiS got Alison for her birthday. In addition to the cool Cookie Monster/Elmo hybrid t-shirt and the strange but cool feet within a foot soap holder thingie, SiS got her a pair of big furry dice for her new car. These are kitsch and ridiculous, in a semi-funky and pseudo-ironic kinda way. They are also impractically large to be able to drive with when they're dangling from the rear-view mirror.

And so we headed home. As Alison drove us out of Central London on the M4 I was tired and dozey. For a change of scenery Alison had decided to use the A404 to cut across to the M40 instead of the duller yet more direct M25. She "woke" me up as we were passing junction 10 to check that J10 wasn't the one we needed. "Nah, it's the next one," I said. The only problem with this statement was that it's only the next one if you're heading in the opposite direction. Alison is normally a fantastic navigator so I won't rib her for missing the turning. As it happens, J13 facilitates a fairly easy cut across too, via Oxford. Obviously it's a little farther to go, but if you will miss turnings you should expect to travel a little further. In the end it took us about two hours to get back, which was more or less what we were expecting anyway, so it didn't really matter. All that remained then was to eat and then ease ourselves back into the idea of going to work in the morning.

There's not a lot to say about today. I haven't been working that hard because there's not been much for me to do. I have a launch to prepare for, and acceptance testing to get pushed through in advance of that, but it does seem to be proceeding slowly but surely.

Oh, and I also have a telecomms provider to chase up about ceasing their services. They don't seem to interested in disconnecting me. I'm sure this will change when they discover I've cancelled the direct debits.