Ciaran’s Omnipurpose Blog

The clocks went forward today - usually this means absolutely nothing because we’d usually sleep in the “extra” hour. But we were feeling virtuous, so off to Brick Lane Market and Columbia Road Flower Market we went!

Usual procedure: get up at six, slide into yesterday’s clothes, skip breakfast, motor on down to the technical college near the flower market, park and let the fun begin!

Not forgetting, of course the obligatory morning coffee. This time we made the mistake of going to a swanky place behind the flower market - we were the first customers of the day, but they weren’t too pleased to see us and take our money for some reason.

In any case, we stocked up on some lovely cut friesas, poppies and “yellow things”. We also picked up some very healthy looking rosemary and lavender for the coming spring - an aromatic garden awaits us (in fact we were so good that we planted them already)!

After loading the car, we headed into the Market itself, which had just woken up. It was now about 8am, and this is a good time to visit since there aren’t many crowds and most things are open.

No visit to Brick Lane is complete without nipping into the Beigel Bake, and we got some breakfast in there. Now, every time I go to the Beigel Bake, I get a salt beef beigel. Like getting a hangover, I swear each and every time I won’t ever do it again (cilck the image for a close up):

Is it still beating? What bit of the cow is that anyway? What are they trying to hide with all that mustard?

I’m probably being unfair: I’ve had plenty of great salt beef beigels from there, and I always buy a big bag of fresh ones and Rebecca swears by the salmon and cream cheese ones, but this time I felt my arteries harden as I looked at the the flesh sandwich in my hand.

Still wolfed it down, though. That’s a few extra minutes on the treadmill for me, I guess.

Brick Lane’s a lot more gentrified these days. A lot of the buildings have been restored, although there are still quite a few derelicts here and there. I’m sure they’re worth a bomb.

In a way it’s great to see the regeneration happening, but some of the charm is disappearing as the junk shops that really did have occasional steals are getting replaced with the loitering DVD-vending crowd.

I think I let the side down.

March 17th is St. Patrick’s Day, a commonly-observed feast day in the UK, mainly due to the fact that it allows the rank-and-file to celebrate it as they would do any other normal day - to get very drunk. I didn’t get drunk, at all, but I did have a very pleasant lunch with my dad at our local favourite restaurant in East Molesey.

For a giggle, Guiseppe served a short pint, which was funny at the time, but the photo of the event is still pretty dramatic, even now.

So I headed off to Nev’s afterwards and since we were both a little bit unadventurous and had blown our budgets for the week, we had a few beers at his place. Lovely, malty beer. Unfortunately, it was alcohol-free.

So I let the side down, but had no trouble getting up the following morning for Mother’s Day, at least…

How productive are you?

Is your second home a desk?

Do you put the hours in?

Are you passionate enough about your job?

Will you go the extra mile?

Maybe these people are committed and passionate. Or maybe they’re just terrified about getting sacked. Or maybe they’re burning the candle at both ends: doing charity work maybe, or training for a triathlon.

But then the news tells us that we work the longest hours in Europe and we’re not necessarily the most productive either.

So now that we’re all on this hamster wheel, consider this: We’re running to keep still.

That’s right - I’d say we’ve been a little conned by the social revolution. Now both partners work, and earn potentially twice that of one partner, but prices have increased as well. The combined income’s only enough to keep a roof over their heads and feed themselves.

We’ve progressed in some ways, but have we really progressed? We’re now bottom of the UNICEF league tables for industrialised countries. When you’re heading home feeling absolutely shattered, how cheering is it to know that although you’ve worn yourself out at work, you’re still letting down your kids?

We were like kids this morning as we peered out of our bedroom window to see whether the Met Office and the very cold night before had lived up to their promise of snow.

We weren’t disappointed. The snow was a couple couple of inches thick. We’d also taken the precaution of getting up at 6am to try to beat the inevitable transport chaos.

It was pretty precarious getting to the station, but it was beautiful.

At Harrow on the Hill Station, two workers were shovelling snow, whilst four stood and watched.

I waited 40 minutes for a train, which was announced as the last train into London for the morning due to a faulty train at Wembley Park. This train was packed and I very nearly didn’t bother getting on. On the way into London, there was a small scuffle in the carriage. People were tired and some were tense.

Coming home wasn’t as bad as I’d feared. This was mainly due to just giving up on the Circle line to get home and just walking part of the way.

Reminds me of the gag: “In Soviet Russia, tractors do not break down. How absurd to think otherwise! How we laugh as we plow the fields with our bare hands”.

We woke up this morning, at the usual 6:30am, to a beautiful snowy view of our garden. There was good inch of snow covering the green borders, the pond and the herb boxes. This would have been a great opportunity to go back to bed and rise later in the morning to drink our now-famous (at least amongst our friends) coffee, eat some good cake and look out upon the beautiful snow.

Unfortunately, like millions of others in and around London, we had to go to work.

So, pulling on our clothes and then pulling on some more clothes over our clothes and not forgetting to pull some more clothes on after that; and then gloves, we headed outside.

Due to a tight schedule that evening, we needed to drive to the station that morning, so we got into the car. Although it was now daytime outside, it was night-time inside the car because a huge drift of snow blocked out all the light. We managed to get in with only a minimum of snow falling into the car. Well satisfied, we next had to work out how to clear the side windows of snow. Rebecca opened her window and the snow fell away from the car. I opened my window and the snow fell into the car. Go figure.

We got five feet away from the house and were stuck in a traffic jam on the Hill. Yes! On the Hill! Incredible!

Such is the power of snow in the place known as “Great Britain”.

We reversed the five feet back into our parking space and started marching towards the station. On the way, Harrow schoolboys frolicked in the snow and pelted each other with snowballs in a mixture of bravado and bloodlust.

This blog is nothing if not obvious: the station was heaving. The status boards flagged all tube lines as either severely delayed or suspended. When I finally got to Baker Street, this was the sight that greeted me:

Such is the power of snow in the place known as “Great Britain”.

Still, in the evening, we went out and drank a Margherita and a Hemmingway in Cafe Cafe. Things felt a damn sight warmer and nicer!

Such is the power of cocktails in cold weather.

I’m sorry I haven’t updated this blog for such a long, long time.

Lots of things are in flux for me and work is extremely busy. I’m trying to keep away as much as possible from computers as well.

So I’ve had a bit of time to try to think about things, and spent a good bit of time the other night looking across Harrow on the Hill’s rooftops and staring at the London skyline. You can’t make it out from the photo, but you can see Wembley Stadium, the “Erotic Gherkin”, Canary Wharf and a whole lot of other landmarks from this vantage point.

The clouds were also incredible. It was very cold and windy and they seemed to flow and reform very quickly. Sometimes I could make out faces in the clouds, as if they were trying to communicate with me, and give me guidance.

My lovely cousin Christina and her lovely partner Christoph got married at a grand civil ceremony in Wiesbaden.

They got married at the Kurhaus, in an opulent wooden-gilt room in the Kurhaus. It was an unsurprisingly short ceremony, disturbed only by some loud music from a TV company doing a soundcheck across the hallway. We, of course, all applauded when they were pronounced man and wife, and their toddler son, Jakob, clambered onto a chair and bounced up and down clapping in delight. It was all too cute for words.

We then moved into another room for the reception, which was supposed to be a Kaffee und Kuchen (traditional German Coffee and Cake) session, rather than a grand 5-course banquet. Still, the traditional Sekt was in full flow and my rusty german was oiled quite well. It was so good to catch up with the family. I really don’t get over there enough…

Christoph made a good speech and his sister arranged a load of children to sing a few songs about Christoph and Christina; how they met etc. We stuffed our faces with cake, more cake, nibbles and Sekt. Some of the more hardcore lot, like Berthold, Gabi, Tobi, Monica, Betti and us saw the some of the evening through at a nearby restaurant. Betti, Rebecca and I later hit an evening Christmas market, where we ate roasted chestnuts and drank mulled wine.

The whole thing was a bit of a blur for me and Rebecca. We met up at Heathrow after work on the Friday night. Jumped on a plane and flew to Frankfurt. My mum was staying at the same hotel, so a nightcap, early start and frantic shopping before the wedding followed. We were back on Sunday afternoon after a lovely weekend!

I met some london-dwelling online buddies last night at the Bankside Bar near London Bridge. We met online playing a game called Planetside, which has been going since mid-2004. The game stresses teamwork in order to win, and I’ve met many people through the game.

From left to right: Matt (Morgy), Me, Jason (Darkstalker) and Arron (Arron).

Despite the fact that we met online, our conversation was not limited to online things, even if it did veer that way occasionally.

Many people cite the stereotype of a spotty teenager sat in front of a computer with no life. This might be true in some cases, but not all. What’s obvious is that I’ve met some nice, like-minded people online, and we’ve taken this offline as well.

Plus, I consider it a far more stimulating and social medium than gormlessly sitting in front of the TV. I’m interacting with people, using my brain and socialising. I also keep it in balance with the other commitments in my life.

Ten years ago, people who surfed the web were regarded as “geeks”. Now it is mainstream.

Five years ago, people who dated online were regarded with pity as “losers”. Now it is mainstream.

Currently, people who game online are attacked with negative stereotypes. A recent discussion on the BBC “Have your say” forum threw these attitudes into relief. I think these media are the future.

Why?

Well, with richer graphical interfaces, passport profiles etc. I think maybe one day, the whole web will be represented using concepts from online games.

But back to the evening at hand. We got quite merry, had a good few laughs and vowed to meet again soon. Who knows if that will happen as soon as we hope, given the nightmare of getting around London and our respective busy diaries, but I’m sure we’ll try!

Rebecca’s sister Dinah turned 30 on Saturday. The theme was supposed to be Celebrity Come dancing, but no-one really paid any attention to that! Rebecca and I turned up in some kind of cross between Celebrity Love Island and I know not what.

Some people even arrived as “An unknown, waiting to be discovered”. In other words, they hadn’t bothered to think of an outfit.

I’m not sure whom Dinah was impersonating with her shocking pink candy tracksuit and blonde fright-wig, but she looked every inch the chav starlet, and that’s what counts, isn’t it?

Dinah’s house was jam-packed. You could barely move for the people trying to get it on in the lounge as the DJs played some funky tunes. Caz, who was also celebrating her birthday, had brought her new dog with her and he was frantically trying to avoid getting stepped on, tail wagging like mad…

It really was testament to the huge amount of friends that Dinah has.

There were some gatecrashers too. I passed three girls as they came through the front door and said “hello”. They introduced themselves as Bree, Kylie and Sheila. Guess what - they were Australians! After asking me where I was from (Answer: “London”), they asked me if the whole party was full of English people as they wrinkled their noses.

I was inclined to point out that it is hard to avoid English people in England and if the English had got used to meeting English people maybe they should give it a go.

Unfortunately, I was inclined to say this with hindsight - I’m always cleverer after the event!

Another contributory factor to this jam-packing was that people came from very far away: Rukeya came down from Leeds, Jeremy and Helen came down from Cambridge. And I thought I was making a Herculean effort going to the party in Croydon from Harrow!

You can see the full glory of our fancy-dress frolicking here: Gallery.

Were you at the party too? Leave a comment below!!

On Saturday, we met our friends Amy and Phil to visit Battersea Power Station. Apart from the usual lateness in getting out of the house, I was unfortunate enough to step in some enormous, steaming dog crap. This delayed us even more, but we got there in time for some beautiful views of the station in the autumn sunlight, trying not to get lured into Battersea Dog’s Home.

As ever, Amy and Phil were great company. We queued for a short while to get in because there is a limit to the weight the structure can support, but this gave us ample opportunity to photograph low-flying planes next to the impressive chimneys.

Immediately inside was a tank! It appeared that some monstrous force had crushed the barrel of the tank. It turned out that the tank was nothing more than a sculpture and that some tourist had decided to swing off the barrel, crushing it in the process.

The inside of the power station is like something from 28 Days Later: lots of biology overtaking the old technology. Grass is abundant on the floors of the station and birds soar between the chimneys, which you can see thanks to the absence of a roof. It is eerie and beautiful. Surrounding the power station is a vast wasteland. I haven’t felt this dwarfed and exposed since standing in Alexanderplatz in Berlin.

There was an art exhibition featuring the work of Chinese artists. It was very strange and included a wall made out of rotting apples and some rather amusing animations.

You can see photos from the visit here.

You can see a satellite photo of the Power Station here.