Through the Bagel Hole - Part III
Jul. 31st, 2007 05:07 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lupestripeLONDON - 23rd JULY
Last time out our band of intrepid explorers negoitated the dangers of a London furmeet and survived the searing heat of the Brighton Badlands. They had overcome the wrath of ex-girlfriends and the feculence of Southwest trains before they checked in to their palatial hotel suite (okay standard room in the Hotel Ibis, Euston) for three more days in England's swinging capital. So enjoy the adventures of two plucky young wolves as they tour around the city, meeting old friends and introducing some new characters too! It's like the Fast Show only nowhere near as funny...
Last time out our band of intrepid explorers negoitated the dangers of a London furmeet and survived the searing heat of the Brighton Badlands. They had overcome the wrath of ex-girlfriends and the feculence of Southwest trains before they checked in to their palatial hotel suite (okay standard room in the Hotel Ibis, Euston) for three more days in England's swinging capital. So enjoy the adventures of two plucky young wolves as they tour around the city, meeting old friends and introducing some new characters too! It's like the Fast Show only nowhere near as funny...
Monday
It was the pneumatic drill that woke me. Or perhaps Wolfie's snoring. Either way it resonanted through my head like a ferret through a toilet roll and there was nothing I could do to blot it out. If it was up to me then workmen would work more socialable hours - perhaps 1pm-5pm or something rather than the God-foresaken hour of ten o'clock on a Monday morning. At work I would have been listening to the fire alarm test at this time, which is often preceded by some woman over the tannoy alerting us to the fact the fire alarm is about to go off. At a much louder volume than the alarm itself. My view is she should be employed to actually be the fire alarm, with models of her mounted on every wall throughout the office. Suffice to say management dismissed my idea as "unworkable". They just don't know a good idea when they hear one...
Either way it prompted us to get up and head towards Camden - the nexus for emos, goths and those who believe they are being different by assimilating themselves into an already accepted cultural group. Having negotiated the Northern Line out of Euston (am I the only one who doesn't understand the bizarre system they have there? My view is to choose the opposite of what the signs tell me to do. That always seems to work for some reason) we arrived at Camden and into the welcoming busom of someone who can only be described as a painted mannequinn in leather. Many more were to follow.
I like Camden. Indeed I like markets in general because of the life that surrounds them but Camden Market in particular is a favourite of mine. Yet whilst taking Wolfie around there for the first time I couldn't help but feel how tame everything was, and how all the shops seemed to sell EXACTLY the same stuff. Still we saw some very pretty dresses and the food market at the far end of the High Street, selling cuisine of many different cultures at vastly inflated prices, was a fascinating hubb of tastes and smells that alleviated my disappointment slightly. There were also some good quirky T-shirts (I do like the Hitler: European Tour 1939-1945 one even though it is historically inaccurate) and a fair few items (dresses and chains in particular) that I wouldn't mind buying if I had an infinite source of money. I did manage to stump up the princely some of £2 for some gorgeous purple eyeliner meanwhile, before being pestered by a man from O2 trying to sell me some new mobile phone minutes. The conversation lasted twenty minutes, the shopkeeper of the stall I was talking in got increasingly irate, and still I got nowhere. Shame really, I could do with some more free texts.
After our Camden forray we decided to head to London's heart and to Soho. This was largely a new experience for me - I had visited Camden on numerous occasions but beyond a few bars I had never really ventured into the heart of London's gay capital. I say gay but it is also one of London's party districts and it was not as open as Brighton had been, much to my surprise. We had a look around most of the seedy shops in the area (I must admit I was expecting more of them in all honesty) and we mosied around soaking up the atmosphere but I thought Soho, at least at four o'clock on a Monday afternoon, was lacking something. The highlight for me was running into a group of chavs down an alleyway that was flanked by two gay sex shops who kindly pointed out to me that I was gay (like I said before - blue nailvarnish, doggy collar, no shit Sherlock). Wolfie and I responded to this in our own inimitable style...
When I had met Baggy in Cambridge a fortnight previously, I had arranged to meet him at Stansted for seven so our stay in the heart of the bustling capital had to be somewhat curtailed. Knackered, Wolfie and I headed back to our hotel room to sleep (it may have had something to do with the bottle of red wine we had shared earlier in the day in an Italian restaurant), which caused us to miss our train. So a slightly peeved panther met us nearer to eight o'clock than seven. The journey to Stansted on the uncreatively named "Stansted Express" was one lacking in any real event really apart from our open and mutual mastication of cheese. Sadly when I asked the trolley man if he had any cheese on his trolley all that was returned was a blank stare. I was somewhat cheesed off by this. You just can't get a hunk of plastic marketed as Edam for love nor money these days...
We met Baggy at the airport and then flew to Bermuda for a short holiday, the three of us donning some hideous shirts that looked like someone had puked on them in the palatial air of Stansted public bogs. Okay, no we didn't we sat in a pub in a nearby village and watched the local houses gradually become more and more flooded as the rain torrented down. But it was like Bermuda albeit in the hurricane season. With perhaps less heat and even less Lilt.
Catching up with Baggy was great fun, we discussed life, love and fur, before we were interrupted by the barmaid who inquired as to why I was wearing nail varnish. I had no real answer to that one - it's just something I enjoy doing - but she seemed strangely sated by my weak response. That may have been because she quite clearly fancied Wolfie, a fact made plain by her continual ruffling of his head fur throughout our conversation. Oh and for all you Peroni fans - they had everyone's favourite Italian beer in this pub too (sorry I can't remember the name of it by the way) - and it was chilled to perfection! Or at least it was a little bit chilly.
Upon our return to London we wandered aimlessly around Soho once more. We had hoped to take in a show but some of the gangster-looking people concerned us and we didn't know what was reputable and what wasn't. So we opted for a meaty foot long instead. Sandwich that is as we visited Subway on our way back to our hotel. And so ended another busy day in the land of Lupe. Tomorrow we will find out what to do with an overactive fur whilst I will show you how to deal with those cocktail stains that will just not come out. Until then...
It was the pneumatic drill that woke me. Or perhaps Wolfie's snoring. Either way it resonanted through my head like a ferret through a toilet roll and there was nothing I could do to blot it out. If it was up to me then workmen would work more socialable hours - perhaps 1pm-5pm or something rather than the God-foresaken hour of ten o'clock on a Monday morning. At work I would have been listening to the fire alarm test at this time, which is often preceded by some woman over the tannoy alerting us to the fact the fire alarm is about to go off. At a much louder volume than the alarm itself. My view is she should be employed to actually be the fire alarm, with models of her mounted on every wall throughout the office. Suffice to say management dismissed my idea as "unworkable". They just don't know a good idea when they hear one...
Either way it prompted us to get up and head towards Camden - the nexus for emos, goths and those who believe they are being different by assimilating themselves into an already accepted cultural group. Having negotiated the Northern Line out of Euston (am I the only one who doesn't understand the bizarre system they have there? My view is to choose the opposite of what the signs tell me to do. That always seems to work for some reason) we arrived at Camden and into the welcoming busom of someone who can only be described as a painted mannequinn in leather. Many more were to follow.
I like Camden. Indeed I like markets in general because of the life that surrounds them but Camden Market in particular is a favourite of mine. Yet whilst taking Wolfie around there for the first time I couldn't help but feel how tame everything was, and how all the shops seemed to sell EXACTLY the same stuff. Still we saw some very pretty dresses and the food market at the far end of the High Street, selling cuisine of many different cultures at vastly inflated prices, was a fascinating hubb of tastes and smells that alleviated my disappointment slightly. There were also some good quirky T-shirts (I do like the Hitler: European Tour 1939-1945 one even though it is historically inaccurate) and a fair few items (dresses and chains in particular) that I wouldn't mind buying if I had an infinite source of money. I did manage to stump up the princely some of £2 for some gorgeous purple eyeliner meanwhile, before being pestered by a man from O2 trying to sell me some new mobile phone minutes. The conversation lasted twenty minutes, the shopkeeper of the stall I was talking in got increasingly irate, and still I got nowhere. Shame really, I could do with some more free texts.
After our Camden forray we decided to head to London's heart and to Soho. This was largely a new experience for me - I had visited Camden on numerous occasions but beyond a few bars I had never really ventured into the heart of London's gay capital. I say gay but it is also one of London's party districts and it was not as open as Brighton had been, much to my surprise. We had a look around most of the seedy shops in the area (I must admit I was expecting more of them in all honesty) and we mosied around soaking up the atmosphere but I thought Soho, at least at four o'clock on a Monday afternoon, was lacking something. The highlight for me was running into a group of chavs down an alleyway that was flanked by two gay sex shops who kindly pointed out to me that I was gay (like I said before - blue nailvarnish, doggy collar, no shit Sherlock). Wolfie and I responded to this in our own inimitable style...
When I had met Baggy in Cambridge a fortnight previously, I had arranged to meet him at Stansted for seven so our stay in the heart of the bustling capital had to be somewhat curtailed. Knackered, Wolfie and I headed back to our hotel room to sleep (it may have had something to do with the bottle of red wine we had shared earlier in the day in an Italian restaurant), which caused us to miss our train. So a slightly peeved panther met us nearer to eight o'clock than seven. The journey to Stansted on the uncreatively named "Stansted Express" was one lacking in any real event really apart from our open and mutual mastication of cheese. Sadly when I asked the trolley man if he had any cheese on his trolley all that was returned was a blank stare. I was somewhat cheesed off by this. You just can't get a hunk of plastic marketed as Edam for love nor money these days...
We met Baggy at the airport and then flew to Bermuda for a short holiday, the three of us donning some hideous shirts that looked like someone had puked on them in the palatial air of Stansted public bogs. Okay, no we didn't we sat in a pub in a nearby village and watched the local houses gradually become more and more flooded as the rain torrented down. But it was like Bermuda albeit in the hurricane season. With perhaps less heat and even less Lilt.
Catching up with Baggy was great fun, we discussed life, love and fur, before we were interrupted by the barmaid who inquired as to why I was wearing nail varnish. I had no real answer to that one - it's just something I enjoy doing - but she seemed strangely sated by my weak response. That may have been because she quite clearly fancied Wolfie, a fact made plain by her continual ruffling of his head fur throughout our conversation. Oh and for all you Peroni fans - they had everyone's favourite Italian beer in this pub too (sorry I can't remember the name of it by the way) - and it was chilled to perfection! Or at least it was a little bit chilly.
Upon our return to London we wandered aimlessly around Soho once more. We had hoped to take in a show but some of the gangster-looking people concerned us and we didn't know what was reputable and what wasn't. So we opted for a meaty foot long instead. Sandwich that is as we visited Subway on our way back to our hotel. And so ended another busy day in the land of Lupe. Tomorrow we will find out what to do with an overactive fur whilst I will show you how to deal with those cocktail stains that will just not come out. Until then...
