I’m not entirely sure how I became de-facto Michael Jackson correspondent for Spoonfed but once again I found myself at a flashmob for the dead King of Pop. This time, a group had gathered at Trafalgar Square to try to break the world record for the most people to do the Thriller dance at one time. Although they were no where near breaking the record, it was a pretty spectacular showing and I’m proud to say that I got some incredible photos and video footage of the event. Take a look:














This weekend brings with it another Monday Bank Holiday and the annual event, the Notting Hill Carnival. This Caribbean influenced festival sees all of Notting Hill transformed into a heaving, music-filled, dance party with Rio-like costumes, floats loaded with sound systems to rival most nightclubs and half of London in attendance. Last year I missed this essential London carnival, instead doing a bus trip through Wales for possibly the most polar opposite experience possible. This year, I won’t make the same mistake and will be making my way to the Carnival on for either Sunday or Monday’s festivities.

Some things in particular I am looking forward to:

– Enjoying a major London event that is a 15 minute walk from my flat (seriously, this is a big deal – very few things happen in West London).
– Authentic Caribbean food. ‘Nuff said.
– Amazing music. From electro to pop to reggae, the sound systems are apparently as varied as the costumes.
Notting Hill Carnival After-Parties. As big as the days themselves, these parties range from an extended public party to secret events in local pubs and houses.

In any case, expect a full recap post-Carnival fun with pictures of course! We’ve been gearing up for the Festival at Spoonfed and one of my co-workers has put together the essential Notting Hill Carnival Beginner’s Guide which, while useful, won’t be quite as helpful as just tagging along with him (and his multiple years of Carnival navigation experience). If you’re on Twitter, you can follow everyone’s comments from the event on the hashtag #nhc09.

Happy Bank Holiday Weekend!


Going to Greece

Have things been slightly slow at The Top Floor Flat blog? It does seem a bit fluffy around here lately. I haven’t been on any trips lately and a spat of uncharacteristically sunny weekends has meant that my exploration of London has been limited to pretty much exploration of a particular bit of grass in Holland Park from the vantage point of my brand new picnic blanket.

But things are about to get exciting again as I take off for Greece in a few weeks time. Ten days of sun, sea and Greek island hopping will mark my first major trip in quite some time, and my longest to date. A flight into Athens gives me just a few hours to explore the city before an early morning ferry delivers me to Mykonos for two days, then Paros, followed by Santorini then finally two days on Ios before it’s back to Athens and London.

Although I am traveling with a tour group, the trip is actually quite free form with the ‘tour’ organising the transport between islands, providing information on the country, islands and best things to do and some excursions for the group but most of the time available for my own plans. I’m looking for all the Greek advice I can get related to my four island stop off points and would love to hear some recommendations for what to do an see in each place.

Of course, Greek island time will most likely lend itself more to sun bathing, wine sipping, olive oil dipping and the like so I won’t be too ambitious. I am incredibly excited for my trip and well in need of a vacation. This one looks to be absolutely ideal.


Londoners on the whole aren’t generally a very chatty bunch when it comes to public interaction. Avoiding eye contact on the Tube, hiding behind brollys on the streets, blocking the next seat on the bus with bags are just a few of the litany of avoidance tactics one might discover in this fine city. So when someone joins in an overheard conversation one can be sure that it’s related to something very good or very bad.

Unfortunately, Saturday night seemed to be a list of the highly amusing but very bad. I left the flat shortly before 22.00 to meet my friend for a drink pre-Lord of the Rings all-night marathon. As I stood alone on the train platform, a rather nervous-looking young man approached me. With some trepidation I stuck my nose further into my book (as I mentioned I was unused to being spoken to while on public transport) but to no avail.

“Excuse me, I need to ask you a question.”

I eyed the stranger non-committally. He continued.

“Imagine you’ve just signed the agreement for a new flat. You’re moving into a place where a group of other people already live.”

Nod from me.

“Then, one evening, you show up unannounced to move some things in. You find them all sitting around a table that is covered in while lines of powder and discover you’ve moved into a drug den.”

I burst out laughing and the man looks a little hurt but also seriously confused. The train arrives.

I make a slightly useless comment about having no idea what I would do in that situation and hastily board the train wondering if I had just imagined that exchange.

Twenty minutes later, I’ve nearly recovered from the unexpected interaction and have found my friend Basheera at Feng Sushi on the gorgeous, neon-back lit London Southbank. A significantly disappointing tuna maki roll later I, hyperbolelessly point out that it was in fact the worst sushi I had ever tasted. A moment later:

“Excuse me,” says the man sitting next to us. His female partner is staring dejectedly at the plate before them. “Did I just hear you say this was the worst sushi you’ve ever tasted?”

Nod from me. Two random conversations in one day – this must be some sort of London record.

“Our sushi is unedible. It tastes completely off. I thought it was just us.” He leans towards me conspiratorially. “Will you have the nerve to refuse to pay?”

“Probably not,” I admit although at the same time I am wondering what sort of damages I might get from the restaurant if I get food poisoning.

“No,” he sighs. “Me neither.” This seems a rather shame given that it looks like he’s already spent about ten times more than I have on the inedible sushi.

A tense exchange with the hostess (who does not take kindly to our constructive criticisms) and the rather wise decision on the part of Bash and myself to bail on the Lord of the Rings marathon (yes, you heard it right, I didn’t end up going after all of that) later, the two of us say goodbye on the busy walkway outside the restaurant.

“Do you like cider?” she asks. Of course.

“Well the event I was at earlier today was sponsored by a cider manufacture and I have a bunch of bottles in my bag. Would you like one?” Of course.

A rather surreptitious transfer of bottles takes place and only after the exchange do we realise how dodgy we must have looked.

“It’s ok, no one was watching,” insisted Bash. We look around at the people seated at the outdoor tables across from us who are staring intently at us.

“Oh well,” I sigh. “At least we’ll give them something to talk to each other about.”


Where’s Meaghan?

I have, in the last week, received two pointed emails regarding my lack of posts here on The Top Floor Flat so I feel I should take a moment to explain myself. After all, 10 days without a post is a bit of a record and when my flatmate’s mother (Hi Rosemary!) begins to wonder what’s happened then I know it’s time to get my blogging act together.

Over the last 10 days, I have been dealing with a number of technical issues which, while annoying, have been brought on by some incredibly exciting steps for me personally. First, I’ve sold the company I founded in college, DormWise. This has been a goal of mine for a while and now that the deal is all but finished, I’m absolutely thrilled with how it’s worked out. The site transfer isn’t 100% done but once it is, I’ll be doing a little profile on the (very friendly) guys who are taking over DormWise (lucky them!). Additionally, I’ve been working on another very exciting project (also web 2.0 related) that hopefully will be released in early September. I realise that’s quite vague but this one is going to be a lot of fun and I don’t want to ruin the surprise.

The upshot of both of these things has been that I needed a new server for my remaining sites (The Top Floor Flat, Techettes and my new project) while shedding the DormWise site and server. Not exactly the most complex process but painful enough that the server transfer took a few days longer than anticipated and both this blog and Techettes suffered a bit of down time. It’s thanks entirely to my fantastic hosting service BlueHost that we’re all up and running again normally and I can, for example, come back to post about such important life updates as Lord of the Rings all-nighters.

So, thanks for the emails, I’m glad you missed me! Stay tuned for some exciting announcements and more general chatter from The Top Floor Flat.