The website is live!
(and as promised; here is the London Line Dancing article I wrote)
July 2008
Monthly Archive
Thu 31 Jul 2008
Wed 30 Jul 2008
If you just can’t get enough bloggin’, you can check out the Spoonfed blog which contains an annoyingly large number of posts by me (like, most of them - although hopefully that will change soon). The Spoonfed official blog is here:
http://blog.spoonfedflavour.com.
Remember that time I wrote an article for Spoonfed and was going to post the link here? That might happen soon! We might actually have the new content (including my review of the line dancing class) on the site in a matter of days (*knock on wood*). I’ll post the link when that happens.
Tonight I’m going to see The Waifs, a band that I absolutely love (they’re an Aussie folk/rock/country band), with my flatmate Ann. Should be a good time and made even better by the fact that tickets are free (thanks Spoonfed!). Catch you after the show!
Wed 30 Jul 2008
This weekend instead of hitting the shops or holing yourself in a club basement, make the most of it and head for the skies. A wonderful weekend itinerary to make the most of the soaring London skyline.
I am so impressed by this itinerary and even if you’re nowhere near London you should definitely check it out (link below) and digg this story. Although price-wise this weekend is a little beyond me, the idea behind it is fantastic. Honestly - the weekend starts off with either a zeppelin ride over the Thames (£200 for the cheapest, 30 min ride) or if you’re watching your wallet, a ride on the London Eye (£33 for the champagne trip) and goes from there. It includes penthouse parties, rooftop restaurants and more. I think I might try to hit a few of these suggested venues this weekend myself… although some how I don’t think I’ll be making it on the zeppelin ride.
Tue 29 Jul 2008
Alright, this might make me late for work but I’ve decided it’s been far too long since I did a proper update.
Picking up where I left off after last night’s teaser; I went down to Kent after work and stayed with Kathryn’s boyfriend’s family. Their house is in a stunningly gorgeous are of the country, with lots of wide fields (the ones nearby were wheat and berries so the whole area smelled amazing too).
The weekend was fairly low-key. We were lucky that the weather was the best it had been in ages. The family with which I was staying had a pool, and a lot of space outside where we set up croquet and badminton games and spent most of the day out in the sun. On Saturday morning, Kathryn and I took their golden retriever, Rollie (short for Roland, not because he’s fat) on a really long walk through all of the fields. There are public walking paths that take you along the outsides of these farms and it was so nice just to be out walking around. That afternoon, we went shopping with Ollie and Tom for the 18 people who would be there that night for dinner (between ourselves, Ollie’s family, his other friends who were coming and his sister’s friends) and got enough meat and produce to feed a small army. The evening consisted of eating, enjoying the last of the sun, and playing Lego Indiana Jones on the Wii (a surprisingly fantastic game). I headed up to the guest room where I was staying to get to sleep early as I was exhausted.
The next morning, we went swimming in the pool before lunch and then for lunch went to the really cute local pub.
Which, if you can’t see from the picture, is called the Spotted Dog. It overlooked the whole area and all of the open fields.
After lunch, we had to head back to London (much to my disappointment). It had been such a fun, relaxing weekend.
Kent is really a beautiful area and beyond the natural scenery, there are so stunning houses (castles really) as well. They are either private homes or public buildings (one was a school) but they sort of sit overlooking all of the fields and every so often one will just appear around the corner. The house in which I was staying was much more reasonable (although still quite posh) and although I didn’t take a picture of their home; this was their neighbor down the road:
It was also really nice to be around a big group of people my own age and everyone I met was very nice.
Monday evening, Mimi convinced me and her friend Julie who was visiting from the states, to take the commuter boat down the Thames. This is nothing like the Perfect Commute that I took (with free drinks and food) but is actually a legitimate commuter method that stops at a number of piers up and down the river. The boat was fairly small, and packed with people, but it was such good weather that it was nice to be out on the water. The three of us then went to this amazing Thai restaurant before meandering back towards home. I got back fairly late but just beat the thunder storm which finally cleared some of the muggy air out of the city. Hopefully today will be a little cooler; it’s not so enjoyable to have perfect summer temperatures in a top floor flat and office!
Speaking of which, I’m now well behind this morning and must get everything ready to go. Today (fingers crossed) should be the day we launch the new site so try to go take a look!
Mon 28 Jul 2008
Once again I’ve been slacking off in my blog posting. I have, however, been busy. After work on Friday, I rushed to the London Bridge train station to meet Kathryn, her boyfriend Ollie and his friend Tom where we all took a train down to Ollie’s family’s house in Penshurst in Kent. The weekend was amazing and I promise to do pictures and a full recap later today or tomorrow. Hope everyone is well!
Mon 21 Jul 2008
One of the problems of living in a city with such a developed underground transportation system is that one tends to become quite knowledgeable about certain areas of the city, with absolutely no clue as to what’s going on in between. For example, I feel quite at home in the west end of the city, just north of the river, and just east of the city proper. Other than that, I can sort of muddle my way from tube stop to tube stop.
This was hit home as I met up this evening with my friend Kathryn for dinner near Covent Gardens; arguably one of the places I should be able to figure out the most easily as it’s particularly touristy. She took me on a walk through the absolutely gorgeous part of town where all of the barristers have their home-away-from-home (little studios near the courts so even if they live in the country they can be in the city for important cases). I had no idea that area was there.
Kathryn and I had a great dinner at this little Greek place and then walked through Leicester Square where there were all these big setups getting ready for the European premiere of Dark Night tonight (for which I sadly did not have tickets. Or see Christian Bale. How disappointing). All in all, though, it was a great night!
Sun 20 Jul 2008
Remember that time that I was going to update my journal more frequently so I wasn’t stuck doing massive weekend-long posts verging on novel-length? Yeah.
This weekend has been absolutely fantastic which is great as the work week was less than thrilling (as would be any week spent in front of a computer although we are SO CLOSE to actually launching the website – and about time too!). Wayyy back on Thursday night, I had a long chat with Ann about her main hobby singing in a Bulgarian Folk Choir (she’s from Norwich and about as English as you can get). It’s actually quite a famous choir and does a lot of touring which is one of the reasons she’s always away on the weekends. What was interesting, however, was the thrilling background and meaning of the songs she sings. Almost exclusively, the traditional Bulgarian songs are about socks and sex and with some frequency, both. It is, I’ve been told, one of the most meaningful gifts you can give to knit a pair of socks for someone and the sex comes from being part of a country that’s so often at war (the idea being enjoy the time that’s not spent dying). I’m going to reserve judgment on the validity of these claims until I actually travel to Bulgaria but it makes quite a good introduction to their culture. Additionally, their style of music sounds a bit like someone standing on the top of a mountain, trying to contact someone on a mountain quite far away without using any notes lower than a high C. In other words, loud, high pitched and staccato. Somehow it still manages to be quite pretty.
On Thursday night, or, rather, very early Friday morning, we had a bit of a rude awakening at about 4:30am when there was a bit of rather nasty vandalism at the flat next door. I hear shouts and breaking glass but unfortunately what kept me up the rest of the night was the coming and going (and loud talking) of police officers trying to sort out the mess. I live in one of the safest parts of London – I’m not remotely concerned. It was also clearly a targeted attack of vandalism and no one was hurt. It was a bit like watching a fire. You feel bad and watch in horror but are secretly just glad it’s not you. It also doesn’t make you feel any less safe. I was mostly annoyed about losing half a night of sleep.
Saturday morning I lazed about a bit then got my act together to get to the high street near my flat to do some proper shopping. I had managed to destroy approximately 1/3 of my clothing by washing them with a dark shirt the first week in my new flat so I was starting to wear though my remaining clothes. That, in addition to the fact that I had just gotten my paycheck meant that I was well overdue for some shopping. I called up Mimi and she came to join me which was not only a ton of fun, she also is a great shopping buddy. She helped me find some cute dresses that will be good work/out and about clothes. The rest of Saturday was pretty low key – I chatted with Debbi for a while, and my mom, but had an early evening so I could get up early the next day and go to Brighton.
Today, I left around 9am to make the 90 min or so trip to Brighton, the seaside resort town. I wasn’t really sure what to expect; I knew it was a popular destination for both tourists and UK residents and the weather was nice so I expected it to be quite crowded. I could see the sea as soon as I came out of the station. The Brighton Pier and seaside reminded me quite a bit of Santa Cruz. It was very alike in the fact that it had a number of amusement rides on the pier and lots of artists stalls along the beachfront.
But I wasn’t really interested in being on an amusement ride or buying knicknacks. What I was really looking forward to seeing was the Royal Pavilion. The Royal Pavilion was built out of an old farmhouse where George IV (King of England from 1820 to his death in 1830) had a pleasure palace built in an Orientalist style. The effect is absolutely stunning. It clearly draws its influence from Middle and East Asian architecture and art, however it’s reasonable to expect that none of the architects or artists who worked on the palace had ever traveled to the East so all of the work is quite idealised and romanticised. The outside was spectacular:
Unfortunately I wasn’t allowed to take pictures inside but I have never seen such an amazing building interior. It was everything you would imagine from a splendid palace but the Asian influenced opulence made the whole thing incredibly surreal. There was a great walking tour recording that they issued for free with admission and so I got a complete history of the palace as I walked through. On the second floor, they had converted one of the private rooms into a tea parlour which led out onto a second floor balcony. I had packed a lunch to save money but decided I couldn’t pass up the chance to get some tea, scones and clotted creame on the terrace of the Royal Pavilion overlooking the gardens.
After I finished the tour of the Pavilion (which is no longer owned by the royal family but by the city of Brighton), I went out to the gardens where a small orchestra was playing a concert. The weather was amazing and I had brought a book, so while I waited for the art museum next door to open (at 2pm on Sundays) I listened to the music and read in the sun.
I then visited the art museum which was next to the Pavilion. I was immediately struck by the unique curation of the exhibits. Normally, objects are arranged by period or date. Here, there was an absolutely wonderful display on Love and Furniture which were arranged together so well. It started with some really modern bedroom furniture and modern art and love songs then moved back in time through Victorian era furniture, art and traditions of courtship. It was a really fantastic museum.
By the time I finished at the museum, it was nearly time to catch my train back to London. I had a nice chat on the train with a French Canadian woman who had been stuck for a 12 hour layover at Gatwick (an airport about 40 min south of London and about 20 min away from Brighton) and had gone down to the sea for the layover. I had wanted to try out a dance class in my area this evening but by the time I got back, I was quite tired and ready to relax and blog about my weekend :).
Fri 18 Jul 2008
I’ll do a proper update this weekend, I promise. As per usual, there’s not a ton to say when I’m just going to work every day :-). But I did want to link to this article - IMVU was the company I worked with for about a year (on and off) and I still sort of feel as if I work for them. I miss the people there a lot and the culture was great. I hope I’ll end up back there, or at least working with some of the incredibly creative team members from the company. In any case, IMVU recently had their big launch to a lot of press fanfare (hurray!) and not two weeks later, Google announced their entry into the 3D Virtual World’s internet space with their product Lively. There were a number of rumours circulating about the fact that Lively is not much more than a knock off of IMVU, supported by the idea (confirmed by IMVU’s CEO Cary Rosenzweig as mentioned in the article below) that a former IMVU cofounder defected to Google to help build Lively.
I’ve got to say, having Google as competition makes me a bit nervous, but IMVU has always had a very solid following of people who might be turned off by the idea of joining a network produced by a big cooperation. Also, look at Orkut - Google’s response to the social networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace. It’s no where near as big or as well known.
Suffice it to say, IMVU has their work cut out for them with Google as competition. But they have quite a head start and just because they don’t have a swimming pool, full gym and smoothie bar in their office doesn’t mean they can’t kick some Google butt.
read more | digg story
Wed 16 Jul 2008
So you’ve had a miserable day at work, the ‘Man’ is constantly on your back and the to-do list seems endless. Take a break from it all and enjoy the chance for the perfect commute.
Get a ride on the William B from Canary Wharf at 5:30pm, which will take your along the Thames, through Chelsea to disembark at Putney by 8:15pm. Free tickets avail.
I’m really hoping I get a ticket for this, although I’ll have to leave work early to make it there for the ride. It sounds like a lot of fun. Basically, next Wednesday, a promoter for an alcohol company is sponsoring a free cruise after work down the Thames - it starts about 45 min from my office and ends about 20 min from my flat (with a two hour cruise in between). In addition to just an awesome event over all, I’m sure it’ll be good for networking. All those City Boys. 
read more | digg story
Mon 14 Jul 2008
Yesterday I met up with Vori for tea which was so so nice but I had gone on a long run with Mimi in the morning and I think I got horribly dehydrated as by the time I met up with Vori I had the most awful headache imaginable. I hope I wasn’t too terrible to be around - she’s so nice and she invited me to join her bookgroup which she will be starting with some other friends. Perfect for me - I love to read and I love to talk about reading.
After I excused myself and my somewhat out-of-it behaviour (do to the headache) and made it home to feel ill for the rest of the afternoon, I made some dinner, drank about 10 gallons of water, and started to feel a bit better. By early evening, I was fine again which was great as Ann, my flatmate who had been in Wales all weekend, got back and we decided to visit this local pub about which we had heard really great things. It was so nice! We had Pimms (no strawberries, though) and just chatted.
Then we went home and had the cake I had made earlier that day (it came out much better than I expected!) with some tea and it was very very nice. All in all, what with Doctor Who, seeing Vori, cake and lots and lots of tea, it was a wonderful weekend!
Pictures of cake:
