Wednesday 28 September 2011

26'C. September 28th. London is hotter than Benidorm. Probably.

I always thought how funny the French are on the Riviera. August 31st,
it's 30 odd degrees and everyone is speedoed-up and on the beach,
gallicly shrugging as they sip their rosé. September 1st, it's 30 odd
degrees, the beaches are deserted and everyone is in trousers, coats
and hugging their cafés-au-lait as if winter is upon them.
It's not the changing of the seasons (and the tides of the sea) which
dictate their choice of attire but the date. I never understood this
mentality and they never understood mine; wearing shorts as I did
sometimes as late as December.
Fast forward a few years and the English summer finished in early
September. Well, the English summer actually consisted of a hot
couple of days in April, one in June and a nice long weekend in
August. Not a bad haul this year. For about a month, the heating has
been on on the buses, trains and tubes of London and the commute has
been jumpered and coated.
So, despite being warned of an Indian summer and having time to plan
appropriate attire, why do I find myself on a centrally-heated tube,
trousered and jumpered-up, wishing I was on the Riviera where these
temperatures are more at home?
I shall rue this situation as I hug my cappucino.

Monday 26 September 2011

Basel

The 8 minute taxi ride for 35 Swiss Francs was a fair introduction
and warning as to quite how expensive this place is.

One mediocre fried 'char' (apparently it's English) with cabbage and
potatoes plus a cordon bleu (pork stuffed with cheese and ham) and
three beers came to 90 CHF (approx 70 quid) for two of us.

We decided against the desert menu.

Now sitting in my ridiculously overpriced hotel room watching French
M6 before a 12 hour day with our 'special' Swiss clients tomorrow.

The waterfall power shower makes it all worthwhile though.

Bed now. Early start tomorrow. Home in the evening. Cannot wait.

Sunday 25 September 2011

Oh point five

It'll become one point oh at some point when I am happy that I know what I am doing. We're still in testing stages at the moment.

All best intentions... what did I write last time? Something about writing something every day is the best way forward? So, anyway, one week later...

Oh point four

?!

Oh point three

...

Sunday 18 September 2011

Oh point two

Nothing to see here. Carry on about your business.

Oh point one

OK, bear with me. Just getting to grips with the whole blogging thing and using this site. Seeing as I have told nobody of its existence, I don't know that anybody is able to find, let alone want to read this. To be honest I wouldn't bother.

When you start a new journal or a new diary, you want the first entry to be significant, poignant, interesting and perhaps humorous. The type of entry where anyone reading it will chuckle knowingly to his or herself and will instill a desire to read more. I'm not convinced that this first entry is going to live up to expectations and for this I apologise.

However, to anyone reading this I have some comments: Firstly, thanks very much for finding this post. I have no idea how you ended up here but thanks for making the effort. Should you wish to make further efforts, perhaps there is some sort of tool that allows you to make comments to this post and perhaps you would like to reveal the voodoo magic you undoubtedly employed to end up here? Only if you can be bothered though.

Secondly, what the hell are you doing reading this? I don't wish to antagonize the very few people who have found this but have you seriously nothing better to do than read this? I appreciate that you are probably of the opinion that despite you have nothing better to do than read this, I must have even less to do as I am the one spending time writing it. To this, I respond: fair comment. Let's speak no more of this and call it a draw.

So I guess I need to write a little about my intentions with this blog. For years I have wanted to write and have told many people - friends, family, strangers, interviewers, a strange woman who appeared to maintain her sizeable stature to maximize the available flesh and to allow for as many tattoos as possible - that one day I will write a book. I've even bought books on how to write books and one day I intend to read them. I've been saying this for at least 6 or 7 years and, with the exception of one foray into working out the structure to a story with a twist which would transfer directly to a blockbusting, record-breaking, straight to VHS movie, I have made very little progress.

I saw an interview with Stewart Lee in that program where Robert Kryten Llewellyn drives folks round in his Prius interviewing them whilst driving round the streets of - presumably - their local town. Otherwise it would be celebrity kidnapping rather than a talk show on the road. Anyway, the one I saw had Stewart Lee on the streets of Edinburgh and they got to talking about blogs and how Stewart was one of the pioneers of blogs and how he tried to write something every day. Doesn't have to be much, just an observation or two about something from his day. He said that the posts are not always funny or worth reading but sometimes they are worthwhile and amusing. He also said that the discipline of writing a quick note about his day increased his writing speed, succinctness and story-telling ability. So that's what I am trying, too. I may have to work on the succinctness.

Oh, and if it wasn't Stewart Lee then it was Stewart Maconie. One of them anyway.

Right. Oh point one: done.