Yesterday, Concorde made its, like, 7th “death march” up the Thames and onto Scotland, and Kate asked me if I wanted to go watch it. Curious as to what kind of spectacle it would make, I popped down there to have a look.
It was a big event; many, many people by the Westminster and Lambeth bridges. As they parallel parked the gigantic, wasteful, polluting, inefficient and ultimately failed aircraft, emblazoned with Scottish flags and other pagan iconography (this is a joke, Scottish people everywhere), I wondered if I could raise any appropriate comparisons to the magnificent house behind it… but then decided that I didn’t quite have the degree of wit or political know-how for it. Suggestions on a postcard.
All the same, it made for some interesting photos. The plane says “Concorde in Scotland” and the lift which raised it off the barge is clearly marked “Abnormal Load Engineering”, which I found amusing for some reason. Read the BBC’s report here. I think calling it “history in the making” was hyperbole much, though.
[Listening to: Absolutely (Story of A Girl) – Nine Days – Away From The Sun (03:06)]
I’m not a massive sports fan. Point of fact: the first time I ever spent an entire day in a pub was about a month ago, for the Wales-Scotland encounter in the Six Nations. It was a lot of fun; I sat with Daf and some of his mates at the Isaac Newton in Cambridge and cheered the Welsh onto their victory.
This weekend saw a reprise; the England-France game on Saturday (supporting England, despite a constant stream of insults from Rachel, an England fan, who’d decided that my support of Wales at any point in my life was unfounded and absurd), and the Boat Race on Sunday evening.
Unsurprisingly, the England game left me largely nonplussed (I think anyone who wears those skin tight tops deserves to lose, but both teams couldn’t, so…), but Cambridge’s victory in the boat race had me very happy. Standing on the bank near Hammersmith bridge, whooping and cheering and very definitely feeling the underdogs – Oxford seemed to have about 80 times as many supporters on the banks as we did – I finally began to understand why people support teams and follow sport.
I don’t intend to start doing it in any way – quite apart from the sport I play, I have enough hobbies… but it was an interesting experience nonetheless.
[Listening to: Zak and Sara – Ben Folds – Rockin’ The Suburbs (03:14)]
It is easily thought that kebab-store grilled meat suffers from limiting gradations of quality – all well below good. I, however, had the fortune to wander into this place – Kebabish, subittled ‘we thrill to grill’ – just up from the Bakerloo line stop of Edgeware Road tube – where they, you guessed it, grill excellent meat to put into freshly baked bread. It’s a good pitstop: I had there what is perhaps the most accurately and delightfully named ‘kebab roll’ in the Universe. £2 well spent.
It’s fantastic. Kebabalicious, one might even say, should one be inclined.
…one would imagine, to the setences one can generate when trying to be truly imaginative with the English language; it’s for this reason that people like Martin Amis and Salman Rushdie impress me; they have literary flair. What I find amusing, and what my Mum, who’s an Academic Socio-Linguist (is there any other kind?) finds interesting, are the kinds of quasi-sentences that just pop out when you least expect them.
For example, the other day (ok, ok, it was yesterday at the pub and this is all part of the great napkin-blogging enterprise), a friend (ok, it was Tom) enunciated the following words: “Google Weebl badgers find.” Although this made limited sense to me, “Google” as a verb does; so, following the recommendation of Mr Phillips, I ended up visiting a site where I did, indeed, find badgers. In fact, it’s an interesting song about badgers and mushrooms that to me was vaguely reminiscent of 2 Unlimited’s ‘No Limit’.
The makers of the English language may decry our efforts to be inventive with the language, but I largely applaud it. Not anything that leads to the badger site, though. That gave me a headache. Little buggers.
At the pub last night (it was an entertaining evening, many things happened in addition to my realisation about the flying v (? – see below), conversation with Tom, Damo & Richard led to many blog-inspring ideas. Worrying, really, that I manage to occasionally see conversation and real life as inter-blog time filling. Last night was a minefield of bloggable material, which will materialise on the site over the course of today.
This napkin provides the minutes of our meeting, insofar as subjects I wish to blog upon. No doubt Tom will blog on others. Oh, and in a moment of Catatonia and Tiger-beer-inspired genius, Tom came out with this lyric: “I put horses heads, in people’s beds, because I… have a blog.” Outstanding.
I figured out where the mental image of the flying v came from. This ad, on the london underground, badly photographed on the way back from the pub last night (but which you’ll recognise if you’ve seen it).
Along with the recent news that Eric Clapton is selling his guitars made me think of his black and white classic beauty – so I merged the two in my head and had a b&w flying V in my dreams. It’s a relief to have worked it out. I thought, briefly, that my subconscious was rebelling against everything good and true.
Yesterday, Concorde made its, like, 7th “death march” up the Thames and onto Scotland, and Kate asked me if I wanted to go watch it. Curious as to what kind of spectacle it would make, I popped down there to have a look.
It is easily thought that kebab-store grilled meat suffers from limiting gradations of quality – all well below good. I, however, had the fortune to wander into this place – Kebabish, subittled ‘we thrill to grill’ – just up from the Bakerloo line stop of Edgeware Road tube – where they, you guessed it, grill excellent meat to put into freshly baked bread. It’s a good pitstop: I had there what is perhaps the most accurately and delightfully named ‘kebab roll’ in the Universe. £2 well spent.
…one would imagine, to the setences one can generate when trying to be truly imaginative with the English language; it’s for this reason that people like Martin Amis and Salman Rushdie impress me; they have literary flair. What I find amusing, and what my 
At the pub last night (it was an entertaining evening, many things happened in addition to my realisation about the flying v (? – see below), conversation with 
I figured out where the mental image of the flying v came from. This ad, on the london underground, badly photographed on the way back from the pub last night (but which you’ll recognise if you’ve seen it).