Home » Archive by category "London" (Page 29)

Cost and Value

21 Sep 2008

One of the most challenging parts of living post-college is sorting out what I need, when I need it, and how much it’s going to cost.  The static costs of housing, council tax, bills and travel card are easy.  Weekly or monthly, I know when I need them, where to get them and how much I need to have in the bank.  The trouble really comes with little things – like dishwashing soap, or toilet roll, or a warm sweater.  Things you don’t realise you really really need until you’ve run out and you don’t have any extra in the cupboard.

One way I’ve tried to solve this problem is to make a list on Sunday of everything I’ll need for the week in terms of groceries and just go shopping once during the week.  This has meant that not only do I plan out my menu ahead of time (nice when I don’t get home until 8pm on an early night and just want to eat immediately) but I also don’t spend as much on things I might or might not use.  Today, in addition to my grocery shopping, I knew I absolutely had to get some autumnal clothing as the summer things I brought with me are just not going to cut it much longer.

With a goal of getting at least two sweaters and a pair of nice, but comfortable, closed toed shoes for less than £100, and also doing my full week’s worth of shopping, I set off for High Street Kensington, about a 10 minute walk from my flat, to see what I could find.

I came back with two sweaters, a long-sleeved t-shirt, a white undershirt for the sweaters, a belt, nylons, and a pair of shoes without going over my £100 preset limit.:

Then, with my premade shopping list, I set off for Waitrose (where I got meat and fish – it’s sort of the Whole Foods of London.  Except that there is a Whole Foods but it’s not as popular) and Tescos (the Safeway of London – or possibly a step down.  Good for fruits, veggies, cheese, bread, milk, the basics).  Want to see what £35 split between posh supermarkets and Tescos looks like?

I’ll have to run out at some point this week to get some more lunchable stuff, so I didn’t quite succeed in cutting my shopping down to one trip a week, but overall, I’ve got dinners, breakfasts, most lunches and, best of all, cold weather covered.

Chessboxing

21 Sep 2008

Right, well, I’m not going to give a full recap as you will all just have to read my article on Spoonfed but wow. Chessboxing was fun.

To alleviate any fears – I (somewhat disappointingly) didn’t get to hit anyone but (probably for the best) no one hit me. It was a lesson, not a competition so I got a lot of boxing training and got to rail on a punching bag. I also got chess training and won a game of chess (to be fair, my opponent didn’t entirely remember the rules so in being distracted by that she didn’t really have a chance to focus on strategy). It was ridiculously fun and I’m even considering going back but that’s all the info you get for now.

Except this morning I am too sore to function – I woke up at 6am and all I could think about was finding someone to give me a massage. Those options being limited, I took some ibuprofen and went back to sleep for four hours.

(By the way, the entire time, I couldn’t get this song out of my head. Bonus points to anyone who knows this movie:)

If you want to find out more about chessboxing as a sport, visit the official Great Britain Chessboxing homepage. Or, if you want to try out a class for yourself, visit the Spoonfed listing for London Chessboxing.

Andrew Lloyd Webber, Superstar

20 Sep 2008

Brilliant, so after a week I finally got YouTube to upload my video of last week’s concert in Hyde Park to celebrate Andrew Lloyd Webber’s birthday. To be fair, the fact that they were so far off on the date (even the man himself pointed out that we were all there about six months too late) had more to do with the fact that the massive stage from the BBC Proms in the Park the night before was going to be unused that Sunday and they had to fill it with something rather than the fact that BBC Radio2 and Andrew Lloyd Webber aren’t Facebook friends (honestly, how did we remember anyone’s birthday without Facebook?). In any case, I have to admit that I didn’t much mind who we were celebrating or what they’d be playing because I was going to see John Barrowman present.

Mr. John Barrowman is a television and stage actor who just happens to be one of the most fantastic characters in the Doctor Who universe and so I couldn’t pass up a chance to see him present the show, and sing. In my excitement to see the dashingly attractive (unfortunately gay) and talented John Barrowman, I had actually forgotten how much I do enjoy most of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s music.

Ann and I, along with her co-Girl Guiding leader Ellie, packed a delicious picnic dinner (more difficult than you might imagine when Ellie is gluten-free, Ann is vegetarian and I like meat and bread) a bottle of wine, and made our way to Hyde Park. The concert area was enormous and we were quite far back but thankfully they had set up giant screens. Effectively, I was just watching the event on TV, but it was a lovely night and being outside, with all the other people at the event, was quite fun.

I was also amazed at the other stars who were in attendance that night – of course I hadn’t looked much farther down the playbill than John Barrowman’s name when I was reading about the event, but Joss Stone (the blurry person in white in the video below), Idina Menzel (the less blurry person singing “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina”) and a bunch of people from the reality TVs shows here in Britain to find people to play the West End roles in Joseph and Oliver.

I had a great time, actually a lot more fun than I expected. The music was fun, everyone was having a good time, and I hope Andrew Lloyd Webber felt rather proud of himself when 3500 people all stood up and sang “Any Dream Will Do.” Happy birthday Mr. Webber. Thanks for some wonderful music.

You know, after the fact, I realised that I had recorded mostly the songs from Evita which is my favourite ALW music but were not the best performances of the night.  If you’re so inclined, there are so pretty bad quality (like mine!) videos of the performance of “Light at the End of the Tunnel” from Starlight Express which might have been my favourite song of the night.

Speaking of birthdays… I have a flatmate who’s got a birthday soon….

Friday Night Recap of the Week

19 Sep 2008

Just a quick recap of some of the things I mentioned over the last week but never followed up on:

  • The Colby in the City Alumni event was wonderful and, of course, I neednt’ have worried.  I was a bit nervous when I first got there as I met up with four other Colby grads who all worked in investment banking (one of them with Lehmans) and were understandably stressed about their jobs but I had no idea what they were talking about… but then we found out that the rest of the group, which included half a dozen more Colby students, a handful of people from Bowdoin, one girl from Bates and some other NESCAC alumns were on the other side of the room.  With no disrespect meant to bankers, I quickly left the doom and gloom of their conversation and met some incredibly interesting people with whom I hope to meet up again soon.
  • I don’t have any good foodie photos from this week as I haven’t made anything that special but I’ve been introduced to an amazing website which hopefully will lead to more food pictures and recipes.  It’s called Super Cook and allows you to insert the ingredients you have in your kitchen and it gives you recipes that match what you have.  Will probably be most useful for finding useful ways to get rid of my rapidly expiring perishables.
  • My friends Sarah and Steve will be returning from Sydney and their wedding on Monday and I’m so excited to have them back! Dancing just wasn’t the same while they were gone and I skipped more classes than was strictly necessary blaming lack of sleep but it definitely had something to do with the fact I disliked going alone.
  • Busy, busy week at work but lots of exciting things happening at Spoonfed including a series of university newsletters that give events, deals and freebies to students of the different London schools.  First one should be out the week after next.

Tomorrow I’m off to chessboxing which is a class where you are taught chess skills and boxing techniques, then matched up against and opponent to play 4 minutes of chess alternated with 3 minutes of boxing.  You win with a checkmate or a KO.  Don’t worry the whole thing is instructed and it’s more about mental and physical fitness then punching someone out.  I’ll give a brief recap here but I’m writing a full review for Spoonfed which should be live early next week.

Also coming soon, the recap of Andrew Lloyd Webber’s birthday in the park before I forget about it completely.  *Whew* what a week!

Martha Blogs?!

19 Sep 2008

Alright, first of all, how did I not know this? I’ve been telling everyone I wanted to be Martha Stewart when I grew up since I was 16 and doing event planning and decorating for Kiki’s Candy Bar in Palo Alto (I’m sure somehow that life goal translates to internet marketing).  But, even better than The Martha Blog itself is the fact that she’s hosting a blog contest to find other bloggers with interesting content and stories.  Of course, as an internet marketer I can see this quite clearly as a ploy to get backlinks and traffic and… damn it Martha, again you beat me with the elegant yet simple solution to a problem that plagues our every day lives (except now it’s not “what on *earth* do I do with all this potpourris I have lying around” it’s “how do I get traffic to my blog.” How times have changed).

In any case, thanks for the tip off from Aunt Wendy, and glad to hear that she is enjoying my blog and thinks it’s worth entering in to Martha’s competition.  If you have a blog of your own, you should check it out!

**Just a quick note, last weekend I did go to Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Birthday in Hyde Park (ignoring the fact his birthday was in March) and have been trying, without luck, to upload a video before I actually blog about the event.  Now that I’m pushing a week since it happen we might have to deal with a video-less recap.  We’ll see if YouTube cooperates today.