touche 08.07.2006

saturday, abig day in the eyes of the world,a day organised by sir bob,andigot to experience it even though that experience was similar to placing atvscreen in your garden alongside the bbq,getting 55000 screaming english speaking hoolgans to join you,and a gazillionn potty loos an arms stretchaway .i dunno,i cant say that now ive seen any of the bands that performedlive.but what made up for the day was the sick little cheese and tomato and cucumber baguete,a classy piece of culinary wizadry if you ask me,althoughit was lacking a dash of pepper,which i prepared pre-boarding the tube tosouth kensington. i bubble wrapped that little nasty with bananas,apples andsome seriously great pretzels.wowon sunday i decided i needed to spend some loot,being big sale time,theremust be something for the chaito man to get his hands on,lo and behold,hecame home empty handed. but next weekend is another weekend,and i shall overcome.ah what a crazy day today has been.it all started when i donned the mickeymouse t-shirt i bought at euro disney today,munched a cherry yoghurt and 2toasts, packed my lunch-a can of tuna,a massive wholewheat baguette,tub of coleslaw,an apple and a tin opener as well as a 5page editorial on PutinsRussia and headed for the uber tube.oh what a dandy day it was to be. so impreparing to read my 5 page editorial on 'Putin's Russia' which i had pickedup off the last tube the night before- that night before was spent having acouple of uber expensive,bleached, french beers in picadilly circus, whenanannouncement over the train PA tels us that 'this train has been redirected,those travelling to Bank need to disembark this train and pickupanother train'. so im thinkin 'gsus f**ing christ,im trying to read howvladimir is screwing over russia and now i have to hop tubes,bollocks'. so iget off at camden with a gazillion inmates and to the next platform wego,which was like ten people deep. i waited initially like a decent humanonly to see people behind me squeezing into the already tightly packed tubes,then i thought' f**K all you pommie bastards,this next train,the 3rdone id waited for, is mine,all mine-and so it was,unlucky for the chick whowas perched under my pits-he he(just kidding,i bought a couple of Status deos from back home,theyre an absolute dream).my mind then harked back tosouth africa and the joke about them taxis- 'black taxi,theres always spacefor one more' .so im chilling on the tube having a lag to myself,so i thought id chat the lad next to me ,so i say,'hey what a lag, yesterdaylondon wins the bid-supposedly with an efficient transport system-todaythatsystem resembles a heap of shyte'. so he sorta smiles to acknowledge me...5minutes later he starts talikng in a russian tongue-all my goodhumourwasted. anyhoo it came to pass that before every tube stop the driver wouldbelt out that 'due to power failures we wont be stoppping at this station'.that continued beyond my station too,eventually we're let off atlondon bridge which is about a tiger woods drive away,and let me tellyou,tiger woods was stroking that ball real far this day.but it was somewhatsurreal when all us inmates burst out of the tube station like a melonbeingsquashed and all the seeds are just spewed out of the innards of that sweetmunchable melon. there were gazillions of moaning pommies on the streets,thesky was way over cast,everyone was now just moving to their destination butin droves-extremely surreal.my sense of this city now is that its extremely rapid,extremely harsh,no-one really gives two shytes about you.like i ask this little chick atthebus station,'sorry can i assume that all these bus numbers pass throughthisstation,so she looks up at the bus sign and says,'no you can assume thatonly THOSE buses pass through this station',so then i interjected and said,'well then thats not an assumption,but fact.'(just a wee aside)anyhoo i eventually got to graft like 30 minutes late,and only then did myflat mate fone me and tell me that some supposed levis-tshirt,calvin klein wearing Al Qaeda lunatic place a bomb in the tubes.anyhoo it was now time to get home,and oh lord a mission indeed.for somereason i walked to an area not very different from the hallowed turf ofhilbrow,gsus i was scared,i almost shed a tear,then thought of me mum's spaghetti bolognaise.anyhoo after trudging through the rain,passing areallycool tshirt shop,i eventually hopped on any bus and asked the bus to takemenear to camden from where i could possibly get home,a good bus driver indeed.he told me when to 'alight' the bus.(i dig the word alight). and sothrough my wee journey, i met a dude from PE,a surfer ddude at that andtogether we made our way home.me and Casey shared a greatexperience,hopefully he'll teach me to surf one day. stay well my far flung and not so far flung friendsa memoir from an indelible ladthe chaity man