The quiet weekend

Visited my local for the first time on Saturday morning, a little pub called the Mitcham Mint. Never expected much, and was completely satisfied. The decor is reasonable and the Guinness was very good, but I found myself mixing with a lot of English men who were busy drinking bitter and whinging about the state of English cricket. I was cheering their collapse quietly, it seemed the safest thing to do. It seemed to me that everyone there was named 'Fark', thats what the incredibly large man with a bad skin condition was calling everyone he saw. 'Hey, faaaaaarrrrrkkkkkk!'. He was only quiet when he stopped to shovel more food into his gob, it was quite a performance, one that saw me leave after a pint.

Then visited the pub that Rossco recommended in a previous comment. Despite the review, the place was half full of Aussies watching the cricket. This lasted until the innings break, when the television was changed to the racing. As soon as that happened, loads of dark looking people appeared from the shadows and shuffled their way towards the lonely television clutching piles of betting slips. Once that happened the place lived up to its reputation.

The pub after that looked quite fancy from the outside, but was just as bad on the inside. There was only one other person there, a wiry guy with a lot of tattoos who sat at the bar and stared at me with a little grin on his face, most disturbing. About halfway through my beer an asian girl came into the pub armed with a sackful of pirated dvds that she was selling on the cheap. As I was looking through them she said 'I have this', and shoved a wad of pornos under my nose. Went back to the Mint after that and found that the cricket had been replaced by the football. Had a pint with fark, fark and fark before going home and ironing. It seemed the best thing to do.

Queensland seems like a very backwards sort of place this morning for one reason only, that being that your average Joe or Liz simply isn't trusted with fireworks. Thats very different here, my local convenience store sells them for quite a reasonable price. If that doesn't seem dangerous enough, it is forbidden to set off fireworks in public places, like parks, leaving pyros with no choice but to do so from the safety of their tiny backyards.

Saturday night was Diwali, one of the big hindu festivals of the year. My area has a large Indian population. And so with ads on the radio telling you what to do in case you were hit by a firework in the eye, most of my close neighbours were setting off full blown fireworks in their backyards for about 5 hours on Saturday night. If that doesn't get you here for a visit I don't know what will.

See ya

8 days after monday

Have just arrived at work. Had a bit of a sniffle this morning so blew my nose onto a tissue. Discovered that there were flecks of dirt mixed into the snot. The last time I remember this happening was at a big day out many years ago. It was a great festival, I remember that it was stinking hot and really dry. 70,000 others were also there, the jumping and moshing on the dry dirt of the parklands created something of a dust problem, eyeryone was reporting similar nasal problems. No one seemed to mind, it was a great concert, side effect only add to the story really. The train ride this morning probably won't be quite as memorable for the mass of humanity squeezed onto the carriages.

Thats not to say that there isn't fun to be had on the tube, no-sir-eeee. The other night I stood up to get off at my station, Streatham Common. Out of the corner of my eye I saw someone looking at me. It was a little Indian fellow, all of 5 feet tall, very skinny and with an oversized red dot on his forehead. He was looking at me alright, he had a very intense expression which was aimed in my direction. I looked at him, at which point he said in a broad cockney accent "go on then, p*ss off". It was really very comical, I giggled and got off the train without further incident.

And such is life at present, continuing day by day.

Monday

2 weeks people, 2 weeks. That’s really not that long! I’ll tell you whats happening if you want, but its not going to be that interesting.

Look, everything is great. The house is fantastic, flatmates are excellent, although it wouldn’t have been hard to top the last flatmates. As yet, neither of the girls have had their father over to give them a ‘special massage’. Jo is a budding opera singer. She has a terrific voice which is really loud. Helen is a hyperactive pharmacist who insists on spending Sunday nights watching period dramas. I’ve watched a couple of episodes of Jane Eyre. Its like a Mills and Boon novel set in Ye Olde England. Honestly, I think that shows like that set back the cause of feminism by a couple of centuries. The women are all submissive gold diggers who bow and scrape before their masters, who are rich and cocky. I did suggest to the girls that we should model our house along the Jane Eyre lines. Jo and Helen would then have to refer to me as ‘sir’. When speaking about me to each other I would become ‘The master’. They would cook and clean for me and generally compete with each other for my affections. Thankfully they took the suggestion into consideration, even if it was a brief consideration. Just went back to making them tea after that.

So yeah.

Very few stories to tell I’m afraid, very few interesting stories anyway. No photos to show you, work computers are ancient and have all had their sound cards and ISB ports deactivated. Work is as uninspiring as always, have nothing to do at the moment, but am obliged to be here so that they’ll pay me.

Hope you are all well.