The Good Life

When I left Australia the three things I knew I would miss the most were my family, friends and my doggy Keiser. In the four months I've been gone so far I have been so fortunate to have met so many amazing people, struck up some friendships that will definitely last a lifetime and now have a 'family away from home'.

Carms, Pointi, Jen, Kat, Cheyne, Jade, Jaden, Dean, Chris, our new partner in crime James and our extended family - as much crap as we all hang on each other if anything ever happened to any of us I'm sure we wouldn't hesitate in doing whatever we could to help each other. Hell I'm sure even the staff at The Baring and our new pals @ The Hen & Chickens Theatre Bar would step up if necessary!

So - to those of you back home, rest assured I am surrounded by possibly the best safety net a girl could ever hope for. Believe me, you need it here! Now if only Keiser could catch a plane over here I really would feel complete. Though I'm not so sure she would cope with the squirrels.

The weekend that was...

Friday Night

Pointi and I had a taste for Turkey so headed to Mem & Laz on Upper St in Angel for the best pide this side of the English Channel, Efes and vodka lemonade - shortly joined by Chris who had temporarily escaped solitary confinement in Paris to visit for the weekend. After we felt completely full and slightly drunk we headed to The Warwick on Essex Rd to meet Jen, Kate, Ahmed, Kat and Dean. A lovely random time was had by all; booze, laughs, cutlery and terribly cheesy tunes.

Walked home at 1.30am and Chris, Pointi and I were all enjoying our goodnight cigarette on the front step when our very wealthy 36 y.o. Scottish neighbour Colin (the eligible bachelor of Wilton Square) comes out to wave his friend goodbye. We were all quite merry so started chatting and next thing he's invited us in to his place for a drink! Whilst our houses look identical on the outside - his place beats ours 2,567,037 to none. Talk about decked out. So we all trapse down to the kitchen to find he has every possible drink you could imagine wanting to drink - it was surreal but lovely! And ice galore. I settled for Magners whilst the others enjoyed various other beverages including Bacardi if memory serves.

I don't quite know how this happened - but Chris left at some stage to crash next door and Pointi and I carried on talking crap and listening to the expensive Bose soundsystem with Colin in the kitchen until 5.30am!!!!! Apparently I'm the first neighbour he's partied with in the 8 years he's lived in the Square. My housemate Kate was quite jealous!!!!!!!!!!

Saturday + Saturday Night

Most of you won't believe this - but Pointi was actually up and about before me!!! She had been home for a quick nap and was back at mine by about 11am ready and raring for a quality day. After the minimal sleep we'd had this was somewhat of a pipe dream... As time wore on the actual plans for the day minimised considerably.

What we did manage to do: Chris, Pointi and I walked 30 seconds to the Baring to order a Magners (breakfast of champions) and some stodge to soak up last nights Magners. Finished that and had another Magners. Walked to the off license - got another Magners - drank that as we walked to Essex Rd. Dug for some gold in this amazing second hand music shop called Flashback. Came out a very happy camper and headed to the nearest pub The New Rose, and ordered - you guessed it - another Magners! This pub was actually incredibly cool with some amazing screen print artwork. Will definitely be going back there.

At this point it started raining and we had to head home so my hair wouldn't go too curly! Feeling quite jolly after all the Magners, we somehow managed to get ready to go out that night to celebrate Kate's birthday at The Redchurch. A very cool bar in Shoreditch. Had a ball, was really quite tipsy by the end of it.

I honestly don't know how it took us 45 minutes to walk there and only 25 minutes to walk home (which included a quick photo shoot with a vacuum found on the street) - but I was mighty glad to see my pillow and duvet by that stage.

Sunday

Woke up incredibly early, being the sicko that I am, and went on a mammoth walk around Angel. Was great to get some fresh morning air after all the booze consumed over the weekend! James, Pointi and I headed to Hampstead Heath and met up with Jaden. We'd never been there before so it was cool to check out a new part of town... Found a nice pub near the station and had some drinks, then headed to the Heath. You should have seen the size of some of the swans, these things are on hormones I'm telling you... Was really quite a nice day so we just lazed about and talked politics and life and enjoyed 1 litre bottles of Magners.

The clouds rolled in and some light rain - enough to scare us out of the park... Got the train to Highbury and popped in to The Hen and Chickens Theatre Bar - had been there once before but this experience was far more enjoyable. Apparently there was no late show happening that night so the barman checked we hadn't planned on coming for that. I promptly informed him that we were actually there to put on the late show - all we needed was some themes from him to ensure we put on something suitable. The themes he gave us: alphabet spaghetti, Twister and for the life of me I cannot remember the 3rd!!!!! Had an absolute cackle there with the staff until it was finally time to go home.

Pointi and I found an Indian shop that was still open and finished off the weekend with some hot chips and daal - good combination if you haven't tried it!!!!




And sleep...

Second UK Premiere a.k.a. Blagger to Bragger

I think I love my new job. Despite working some loooong hours this week - the perks are priceless. My amazing boss gave me his tickets to the Miami Vice premiere last night! Thankfully I was able to take a little friend along with me this time (Jen), and I didn't have my backpack this time - rather the loudest shoulder bag imaginable complete lime green swirling designs... We all know how I hate being different.

This premiere was obviously higher up the rungs than the last one I went to - Colin Farrell & Jamie Foxx are not the classiest of blokes but their street cred is worth more than all of Lindsay Lohan's credit card bills put together and multiplied by 37. There was a huge blue carpet entrance with palm trees shipped in especially for the occassion, a zillion photographers, camera crews and crazed fans.

Jen and I wandered down while Colin Farrell was being interviewed, I'm sure they would have caught us on film giggling in the background. He is actually quite cute in real life.

The movie itself was what you would expect of a Mi-Ice (to quote Mr Foxx) flick - but I quite enjoyed it anyway. And was really impressed that the director and principal actors all sat down and watched the film with us. Usually they just do an introduction and make their way to the after party.

We had passes to the after party but due to weary bones and early starts the next day we opted for a quick voddy in Piccadilly Circus and hit the road.

Onwards to the weekend...plans as follows;

Friday night: Chris is flying in from Paris for the weekend so we're all going for drinks @ The Warwick and The Embassy on Essex Rd in Angel - usual suspects; me, Pointi, Jen, Chris, hopefully Kat, Dean & Kate.

Saturday: really want to check out Portobello Market

Saturday night: It was my groovy housemate Kate's birthday this week so we are headed to The Redchurch for beverages.

Sunday: Fingers crossed Kandinsky exhibition at the Tate Modern.

Till then...xxx

Nice one, cheers

I just had one of the best weekends I've had since arriving in London. Very unexpected as I had expected to be feeling like my right arm missing with Carmel currently in Italy!! (Carm's it would have been 100%, without a doubt, the best if you were here!).

One of the biggest driving forces to get me over to this city was the music. Sam Toucan follows his nose, I follow my ears. Indie & drum and bass have been two of my biggest passions ever and the majority of what I really love in each was born right here.

My favourite drum and bass label - Hospital Records - hold monthly nights all over England + Wales called 'Hospitality'. In London they generally alternate the nights between Herbal in Shoreditch (about a 25 minute walk from my house!) and Heaven in Charing Cross. I had stupidly been holding out to attend one of these nights until my future husband - High Contrast - was playing at one, and then when he did I was sick and couldn't go!

So I bit the bullet and headed off to Herbal on Friday night, check out the line up/ price etc - some of you will be incredibly jealous I'm sure!

Fri, 21st July 06 - Hospitality

Line Up
Downstairs
London Elektricity
Danny Byrd
Sparfunk
Tomahawk
MC Wrec
Upstairs
Zac Vibes
Chris Goss
From: 9:00 pm/
Door: £5 B4 10pm - £8 After

Danced my toosh off - Danny Byrd rocked the house - had a little chat to my good mate Tony Coleman (London Elek - the man responsible for this amazing label) and we somehow swindled our way into the private party room upstairs for a while (think that was Pointi's good work - but she wouldn't remember!!!!!). It felt so amazing to actually be living out one of my dreams. Surpassed all expectations. And the fact I got to share it with such amazing friends made it all the more special. To quote the beloved High Contrast 'music is my life'.

Needless to say we felt a bit under the weather on Saturday - but Mother Nature finally came to the party with a little light rain however the mugginess was unbearable. We struggled for a few hours over horrible 'calming' tea (since discovered it was best before Sept 05...I highly doubt it though) before heading out for a walk along the canal near my house and into the first canal-side pub we came across - The Narrow Boat. A few hairs of the dog (oh, that makes me miss Keiser...) later and we felt MUCH better. Well enough to wander to the good old The Baring to tackle a few Magners!! A lovely day of booze, great conversation, smiles and finished off by a game of rude word Scrabble.

Sunday was our lovely friend Jen's birthday. She chose to celebrate by heading to the Greenwich Film Festival for a day of fun and a screening of Ferris Bueller in Greenwich Park - smashing idea if I do say so Jen. After a delay of a few hours (due to everyone being hungover and just plain lazy!) we finally made it to Greenwich via a walk to Highbury, 2 x tubes, 1 x light rail and a significant walk up a hill!

The theme of the day was 80's. Crazy performers dressed up as 80's aerobics nuts, cheerleaders, geeks and football players kept the British entertained for hours. There was a very wrong 'circus' set up and a TeleKinema tent - containing a message I am still yet to figure out... I doubt I will ever care to learn. The event was sponsored by Stella Artois so everyone got stuck into that, but I actually behaved myself.

There was 80's movie soundtracks being mixed all day and played at decent volume levels, the symphany orchestra played a movie medley - lots of fun for the whole family (except it was an 18+ event). The movie didn't start until 9.30 and due to the long journey home a few of us left at this time - pity we didn't get to see Ferris but with a full day of work ahead of me the next day it had to be done.

As it turned out I woke up with almost no voice anyway - always an indication of great weekend!!

Squeakily yours,

Ren xxx

A bag is a bag is a bag

This is definitely the week for rants. By george the British haven't stopped during this heat wave the city is currently experiencing - and as a good friend told me the other day, if you can't beat them - join them.

My particular rant today stems back to my environmentalist roots. I'm absolutely GOBSMACKED at the lack of recycling, the indecent amount of packaging surrounding your purchases and the sheer volume of plastic carry bags dished out willy-nilly whenever you buy something - even if it's just one can of drink!

Of course I refuse a carry bag wherever humanly possible but I'm seriously thinking of starting some sort of email campaign to get London to think green. Obviously email is the best tool for this kind of campaign as it has a far greater potential to reach the wider community (due to people not being able to keep off the 'Forward' button) and it eradicates the use of paper (unless you are one of those imbecile that prints out every email you receive to read it, and then throw it in the general waste rather than the recycle bin).

I have two examples of London Environmental Blasphemy I'd like to share with you today, both incidents occurred during my lunch break.

1) I had to buy a bag to replace my recently departed and at the point of purchase, the chick put the new bag into a plastic carry bag... No need for me to continue with this one - I'm sure you can join the dots and figure out my response for yourselves!

2) There is a lovely little cafe/ takeaway chain called Eat in Soho Square who dish up some decent salads - but they are covered in the thickest plastic containers which makes me a little sad to begin with. I go up to purchase one and they go to put it in a friggin paper BAG, along with not 1, not 2 - but 3 serviettes - and a plastic fork... I asked them to take it out of the paper bag, and told them 1 serviette would be ample, and that I didn't need a fork as I would be taking it up to the office where I could use proper cutlery that could be washed and reused again and again.

I shouldn't be too harsh on either of these establishments individually - as it is just common practice in London. But I think I've been pushed to my limits and I really have to take some action.

Any of my old Village mates would know how fussy I was about recycling in the office - I cry almost daily at some of the practices in the Fox office - or lack of I should say...

I feel much better getting that off my chest.

[/rant]

xxx

Money grabbing thieving landlords

**Warning - rant ahead**

Carms - if I ran into that Polish geezer and his 'everything is perfect right now' routine, I'd gladly sock him one in the left temple for you. Raaaah - I have to move out of my lovely new flat due to the filthy scoundrel landlord wanting to increase the rent by 16%. You would think there would have been some sort of promise to paint the peeling walls, re-tile the bathroom, upgrade the old-ish carpet in order to warrant this massive price hike. But no. Zero, zip, zilch.

My housemate drafted up a very professional return letter with various reasons as to why this increase was completely unreasonable and we received their reply yesterday - which equated to 'no, forget it'. There were not even willing to look at slightly reducing the increase - it's a joke!

So now - after just one short month - I have to start the long and hideous battle of finding another flat.

Goodbye afternoons of drinking Magners in the lovely leafy square, goodbye lovely double windows in my room that allow me to enjoy the square and the amazing trees, goodbye spacious room, goodbye lovely housemates who now know I'm a little bit different!, goodbye creepy dude in the red jacket that sits in the square from when it opens till it closes, oh yeah and all the other freaks from the yellow building, and most importantly - fare-ye-well to the good old Baring and all of the wonderful barmen there, it was extremely real!!!!!!!

Wow all I seem to be doing this week is bidding farewell to my treasures.

Lucky a little something else has come into my life to keep me smiling ; )

Onwards and upwards, soldier on, chin up - and all that crap.

xxx

Ode to my iPod

You came into my life just seven short months ago
A bright shiny white brand spanking beauty I had no idea how to use
We battled through together and soon became the best of friends
Together we saw the amazing sights of Turkey, Holland and England
And you played just the right track at just the right moment each time
We trudged through hours of plane and bus rides
You helped me get to sleep at night with 78 Saab
You helped me through home sickness by throwing out a little home grown
You learned to appreciate my beloved Bloc Party would stay on high rotation
We lived and breathed London with The Doves
And those amazing playlists we put together…

“Only the good die young”

R.I.P

Crazeeeeeeee

If there is one thing I’ve noticed, it’s that London loves a bandwagon or a darn good craze. Below I have listed a few that I have noticed in the short time I’ve been here;

The Flag – during the World Cup there was barely a car on the road without two flying national flags attached to the roof, seemed to be the louder the stereo in the car, the larger the flags they were flying. Pubs were absolutely decked out to the max. Houses everywhere proudly displayed the flag out of windows, on flat posts – wherever they could be flown. Funnily enough the day after England were knocked out, no flags to be seen.

The ‘Short Tie’ – this current phenomenon sweeping the nation (well at least all school children and wannabe trendy types) is just plain wrong. They tie their school ties so that there is only about 5cm of tie showing, where they hide the rest I do not want to know.

The Pink T-Shirt – Pointi is currently on the case with this one, investigating the mens ‘pink t-shirt’ craze that has blinded British men from true fashion, and reality somewhat. There is an underbelly of evil in this craze also and we have found the ‘pink tshirt + collar up’ scenario increasing at a disturbing rate.

I’ll keep you updated on more crazes as they come to hand – don’t worry, I’m sure you won’t have to wait too long.

Jackpot!!!

So there we are - Carmel, Pointi and I - sitting in my backyard on a Sunday afternoon having a few lazy Pimms and lemonade (coz that's what you do on a Sunday afternoon I have learned), when Carmel got this itch to have a game of pool. Off to the local, The Baring (pronounced bear-ing), we headed. The Baring is so close to my front door it could be considered dangerous to my health. As we wandered over the road we noticed people upstairs already on the pool table. I suggested we just head up there anyway and intimidate them until they leave.

We grabbed some Magners on ice, which is seriously the most delicious cider I've ever tasted, and headed upstairs to 'intimidate' the pool table hogs. The hogs turned out to be a hilarious father and son (Bill and Lee) out for a Sunday afternoon bevvie/ pool session. We took it in turns to play with them - well, Pointi and Carms did, as the son and I kicked ass and won 3-0!!!!!!

When the others couldn't take losing anymore (hahahaha) we sat down and they starting telling us stories which were so entertaining we were almost crying with laughter. Lee actually took bronze, silver and gold for his stories. Bill did alright too and even Carms had the table in hysterics for a while there!

Lee then tells us he is a band promoter and is good mates with Primal Scream, Pete Doherty, Matt Goss (remember BROS???? haha), Skin from Skunk Anansi - and the list goes on and on and on. All these folk live around Islington too. So after I told him he's my new best mate he's offering to take me and the girls to Reading Festival, as long as we don't mind going with Primal Scream - yeah right!, and making plans for all these gigs and meet ups with celebs... Yeah my head is still spinning!!!! Plus he's offered to keep an eye out for work for me in the industry!

I actually woke up on Monday morning (with a nasty Magner's hangover and very glad I didn't have any work on) and really thought it had all been a dream. But then I saw Lee and his brother kicking a football in the square last night so I popped down and sure enough it's all happening and very real!

My smiles are getting bigger each day I spend in London.

Righty-o that's all I have time for today but I'll report in developments as they come to hand!

xx