I went to Harrods. It was full of stuff I don’t want selling at prices I can’t afford. It was also packed with people searching for bargains. It’s bloody scary when an item is discounted by £100 and it’s still expensive. The women’s shoes and accessories section was on the verge of turning into a riot. Only a few well placed security guards kept things vaguely under control.
That was pretty boring, so I walked around to Oxford Street, which is full of big shops. I heart Selfridges. I went to this organic beauty place and had a 30 minute facial treatment. It was so nice and I think I needed it because travelling has been making my skin go mental. I visited the Oxford Circus Top Shop. It claims to be the biggest fashion shop in the world, and that’s probably right. It’s huge and possibly as exciting as a circus.
I accidentally walked down Carnaby Street. It’s really ordinary, just a street filled with top end clothing chain stores. Not a pair of false eyelashes in sight.
First I made my way across the Thames and went on the London Eye/Millennium Wheel. When I was heading to the line to buy the £11 ticket, two old ladies stopped me and asked if I wanted one ticket because they had a spare. “You can have this for half price… or free.” In retrospect, I should have given her £7.50, but it was so sudden and unexpected that I just said thanks and took the ticket.
As a karma payback of sorts, the Wheel was rather boring. It’s almost like when you’ve seen one large city from a height, you’ve seen them all. But this at least had the attraction of being in a giant Ferris wheel. Though I was stuck up there as the wheel made its 30 minute rotation which such people as the man who video taped his family queuing and the lady with the big arse who always seemed to stand right in front of me where I was sitting.
Next I went to the Saatchi gallery. OMG HAWT. It was so excellent. I’m totally enamoured with the work of Damien Hirst. I used to think that the animal parts in formaldehyde were just silly “my five-year-old could do better” kind of pseudo art, but actually seeing it up close is bloody impressive. Seeing a cow sliced up and preserved in tanks of formaldehyde does made sense. The [thing] I liked the best was a room filled with used motor oil. There was a metal passage leading to the centre of the room. Walking in there meant being surrounded with a perfectly smooth, almost mirror-like reflection of the half of the room above the oil. It was beautiful.
Then I toodled along the Thames to the Tate Modern gallery. I made a £2 donation to make up for the Wheel freebie. The Tate’M was full of so much good art. I really liked one Jackson Pollack painting (”Summertime”, I think). There is a room dedicated to The Bricks, three groups of bricks by [an American artist] (They have a proper name, I just can’t remember it). When it was purchased for £6000 in 1976 it caused a furore because it’s just a pile of bricks. So along one wall was a selection of press clippings, a timeline, cartoons and other things relating to the public reaction to the bricks. I stood against a wall and while I was listening to the audio guide I watched people entering that room. Most people glanced at the bricks then spent a bit more time looking at the information display. Hardly anyone spent more than a few seconds looking at the bricks. After I looked at the bricks for a while they started to look like pebbles in a stream. Therefore, I am superior to the general public.
London still sucks, but I’m worming my way in.
I’m in London. I’m staying at a hotel in Piccadilly Circus. The streets are full of tourists. This interweb place is shitty. I’ll write more when I’ve done something to write about.
At the moment all I can think about is Cameron from UK Big Brother. Oh dear.
I visited the James Joyce Museum today. It was raining and my shoes aren’t waterproof, so by the time I had walked from the train station to the museum, I was squeaking with moisture. The museum itself was ok, but the effort taken to get there didn’t equal the delights of the museum. I should just shut up and read “Ulysses”.
On the way back the train stopped at the Landsdown Road Station which is right next to the Landsdown Road Stadium where Westlife are playing tonight. As the train approached the station I could hear the sound of some fellows singings. As the train got closer I realised that I was listening to Westlife singing an a capella version of the Backstreet Boys’ song “I want it that way”. The vocals were crystal clear and in perfect pitch and harmony. It sounded – and I really do mean this – angelic. It lifted the spirits of the train passengers on this grey and miserable day. The train took off just as the song ended. Brilliant.
Tomorrow I am going to London!
Ok, first I must get this out of my system. OMG, it is rumoured that two housemates from each Big Brother house in the UK and Australia will very soon do a swap. OMG OMG OMG. The UK Big Brother house needs Regina. The Australian house would hugely benefit from Tania to inject some of her Tania-ness into the niceness.
Today I went to the Guinness Storehouse. It’s not actually the brewery itself, but a building that used to be part of the brewery and has since been converted into a very styley exploration of the making of Guinness and the associated cultural elements. Ya ya ya, it was all very good, but the most important part is that at the end of the tour you get a free pint of Guinness. There’s no faux Irish pub – instead there’s a really clean moderne bar at the top of a building that gives splendid views of Dublin.
I also went on a guided tour of [an old prison]. It was bloody interesting. The most interesting part was the courtyard were many pro-republican political prisoners were killed by the British less than 100 years ago. The area was marked with a black cross and the Irish flag. It made me want to join Sinn Feinn or something.
Then I found Windmill-bloody-Studios. It’s covered with pro-U2 graffiti. It’d write more about that, but Henry Rollins said it much better, many years earlier.
Other than that, Dublin is really cool. Wish yiz were here.
I spent the last couple of days in two small Irish towns, Rathfriland and Enniskillen. These were only visited because some of my ancestors used to live there. Having visited these places I now understand why they left. Boring little village, boring little town. Then there was the potato incident, of which we shall not speak.
Today I visited a [thing] which is a 5000 year old burial chamber on a hill. On the winter solstice the sun shines directly in it. I got all claustrophobicish and didn’t like being in it.
But now I’m in Eire, Dublin to be precise. It’s really choice here. There’s a McDonalds and a movie theatre. The Guinness factory tour awaits, as does the Oscar Wilde and James Joyce places.
Oh yes, for all interested parties, I shall be going to London on Saturday and leaving the following Thursday.
And how about those changes to the Commonwealth working visa thing? Now the age limit has been extended to 30, so I could do the big OE thing after all. And I could work in my profession (whatever that is).
I’m in Belfast. Oh God, it’s bleak. The Special Olympics are being held in Ireland and the American team is staying in Belfast. [joke deleted].
I went on a bus tour this mornin’. As well as driving past the historically significant buildings, it also drove through a Protestant neighbourhood. The locals have painted the kerbs red, white and blue and Union Jacks hang across the streets. There are lots of murals with stuff like “Northern Ireland Will Always Be British” and the equivalent of notorious south side posses, etc. The Catholic neighbourhood the bus drove through was much the same. There was a high rise apartment block that the British army use as a lookout (and surrounding graffiti calling for it to be demilitarised), a remembrance garden for the dead and the Sinn Fein headquarters.
In early July the marches take place. This is when the Protties go on a march to celebrate something to do with something Orange. The historic march route takes them through Catholic neighbourhoods, so sometimes shit gets fucked up. The bus passed an empty lot filled with stacks of tires and wood, which apparently will be burned to celebrate the Orange thing.
I’ve figured out how to pronounce my surname. Excellent.
Oh, and I went on a boat tour down the local river. The Titanic was build here so the old dry dock and bits were pointed out. Westlife are playing tonight at the local arena. OMG.
Also, why the Hell was Jon voted out of UK Big Brother? He was the most interesting housemate. (Yes, yes, I’ve got a dual Big Brother addiction).
I went to Leicester yesterday. My interweb friend Dave showed me a few pubs. I had a brilliant time.
On the way back I had a genuine “panic on the streets of Birmingham” moment. Yeah, walking around a strange city trying to find a train station that’d supposedly get me to Worcester in the middle of the night.
When stuff goes wrong with the British train system and delays occur, it stuffs everything up, but when it’s running smooth it’s an amazingly excellent way of getting around. It’s sad that New Zealand’s passenger rail system is so minimal. Oh, I weep bitter tears for Tranz Rail.
Oh, I was pleasantly surprised when Dave said he hadn’t heard of the Datsuns. (”But… but… they’ve been on the cover of the NME! They’ve been on “Top of the Pops”!”) Then I realised that the bloody Datsuns were just another cool-in-London band who’ll soon be uncool when the next cool band comes along (and I suspect such a band may have already come along). I’d rather put my money on Daniel Bedingfield.
Yesterday I accidentally stumbled across the site of the Hacienda. I knew it was so because even though the building which housed the legendary night club has been demolished, in its place an apartment building is being constructed. The apartment building is named The Haçienda. Its slogan is something like “The party’s over. It’s time to go home.” Yellow and black faux safety stripes adorn the advertising boards.
Oh, you wanna know what’s very fashionable right now? Burberry. I can’t stand it, but everywhere I look is bloody Burberry. I think it’s popular with young people who have a job but live at home with their mum, so they have a lot of cash to spend on crap.
I just looked out the window and it’s grey and miserable and raining. I wasn’t too impressed when I arrived in Manchester and everything was lovely and sunny. But now today feels more like the lyrics to a Smiths song.
I was walking down a road nearby when I noticed that there were lots of old buildings, then suddenly there was a section of new buildings, then back to the old. It turns out than in 1996 a massive IRA bomb exploded. Fortunately no one was killed. Just like after the German bombing in World War 2, the damaged areas were rebuilt and everyone got on with business. That’s why Manchester is so cool. Really bad stuff happens to it, but it gets on with life.
Righto. I have a bit more sightseeing to do and/or a train to catch.
Oh my God, yes, I’m in Manchester.
I’m so excited. I arrived here yesterday, and I’m going tomorrow, so I’m going to have to pack in a million things today.
Yesterday I went to Urbis, which is a museum dedicated to cities. It was brilliant (see, I’m in England, I just described something as “brilliant”). It was about all the horrible things that make big cities great. One wicked (ditto) thing was an ID card maker. It takes a photo of you, you enter your name, age, location, likes, dislikes and it makes an ID card which you get to stick up on a big wall filled with hundreds of other cards. Ah yes, part of me is stuck in Manchester forever.
I’m considering doing a Smiths pilgrimage, but I don’t know if I can be bothered finding my way out to some suburb to look at something Morrissey had something to do with once. It’s enough fun just being in Manchester, seeing signs pointing to Rusholme, Ancoats, and other places immortalised in Smiths lyrics.
I’m currently at the Museum of Science and Industry, which has free admission and free internet access (sweet as). Oh yeah, yesterday I walked past the Hard Rock cafe. There were a bunch of posters up on the wall advertising various features of the restaurant. There was one poster of a Manchester born musical artist amongst the ads: Mick Hucknell from Simply Red. I mean, really, with Manchester’s incredibly rich history of excellent bands and artists, why pick the ginge? If the Hard Rock cafe had a poster of Bez up I’d go there for sure.