Tube drivers with humour
On the tube just now… This tube will attempt to stop at all stations. This will be going to … stopping all stations except for Cannon Street (pause) due to a lack of complete interest. How can you not have a laugh at that?
Goodbye Marlow
It’s been about nine months since I’ve been based out in Marlow in Buckinghamshire. It’s not particularly the easiest of places to get to involving both the tube network, Chiltern railways and a taxi to finish it off but it’s been a great team and some interesting work. I’m leaving the project with mixed feelings, definitely glad I won’t miss the commute though will definitely miss other aspects.
Like these views from the hotel that I’d been staying at particularly with the wonderful weather lately. It’s based by a lock, directly opposite a church dotted with headstones nestled amongst well kept jade green grass.
It certainly makes waking up a much easier task…
Comments(1)The Living End at Koko
Wednesday night saw a huge number of antipodeans (and others) descend upon Koko to watch Aussie rock band, The Living End. Good doesn’t really begin to describe how the night went. It helped that they had some really decent support acts, including Tellison and I think the other people were called To The Bones. Both served to warm up a full house audience on all floors.
We stood fairly close to front of stage, close enough to be pushed around and jump around in some of the audience, but far enough not to be involved in the crazy antics that probably happens at most of The Living End’s gigs. They did an awesome job cycling through plenty of their classic tracks across their five albums, as well as a number from their newest, White Noise which I can highly recommend.
It was definitely a high energy audience, fuelled by an equally high as energy band churning out some amazing tracks. Everyone was friendly, made happy with the great tunes and the only people that ended up dragged out of there were those that were crowd surfing their way to the security at the front of stage. An awesome night that probably left most people pretty sweaty and satisfied.
(Picture above is linked to the original source and that you can tell that I didn’t take with my camera phone).
Friday Pub Lunches Are Pretty Good
Particularly with the run of weather that we’ve been having. Here’s where we went for lunch at Cookham Dean:
We can definitely recommend having a leisurely lunch at The Jolly Farmer as well. Life in the UK is pretty good…
Weekend in York
Last weekend I finally headed up to York to visit a couple of friend Toni and Claire who have been living up there since late last year sometime. I’d promised to visit them sometime this year and finally got a weekend that worked for all of us. It was great seeing both of them and they were fantastic hosts for the weekend.
Getting to York was surprisingly easy. Even though it’s very close to the north most part of England, it only took two hours to get there from Kings Cross station via one of the National Express trains. I booked my tickets in advance but didn’t really get a super cheap fare but at least I managed to reserve my seats which made a huge difference heading up there on a manically busy Friday evening at Kings Cross station. Better yet you get to choose what sort of seat you had, including whether or not you have a table and powerpoint (helpful to plugin in if you need to charge your phone or laptop!)
Yorkshire is, of course, well known for its tea and there are plenty of places to choose from to sit and have a pot. Fortunately Claire knew the best place to go in York… Bettys Cafe Tea Rooms. It was obviously popular with locals with lots of “ladies lunching”, as well as quite a few groups of tourists. We waited outside in a queue for a table upstairs and it didn’t take too long as they seemed to have enough turn around.
One of the other significant places to visit is the York Minster, apparently the largest gothic cathedral in Europe. Regardless of whether or not their claim is true, it certainly is impressive and the £6 is worth walking around inside. They even have a huge tower that you can climb up for a marginal cost but we decided to skip it with the queue not looking like it was moving and stretching quite some distance inside.
We also visited Harrogate and it took me a while to make the connection with the Harrogate Spa Water that you sometimes see around. The country is absolutely gorgeous with large lush green fields all over the place and very clean tasting waters. It was a great place to take Claire and Toni’s energetic labrador for a walk and a place to socialise with many other dogs. We couldn’t help but stop and laugh (and take a photo) of the following on the way back:
It was a great weekend to spend in the country and well worth heading up there for a weekend break. It certainly beat the crazy rush to get to airports and then arrive late in some European country. Oh, and it didn’t seem so grim up north.
Eskimo Joe at Koko
Wednesday night saw Australian band, Eskimo Joe take to the stage at Camden’s Koko. I love the venue having been here multiple times but I didn’t even know about the other floors that tower high above. We ended up in the JD lounge on the top most floor where you need to pass through a menacing leather bound door that make it looks like some sort of private members club. On the way back from the toilets, I passed a couple who looked cautious about entering and was about to turn around when I told them that it was fine and open to everyone. Unlike other venues with multiple floors, you still got a great view of all the action down on stage.
I can barely remember the name of the support act. It was a bloke from Leicester who had a decent voice but played some fairly average tunes. He played about five or so songs before handing the stage over to Eskimo Joe who came on at quarter past nine. Having seen them several times back home, what always impressed me about them is that they made some decent effort to connect with the audience and chat such as giving a bit of a brief background to some songs without turning it into some sort of soppy lecture. They always joke between themselves and seem pretty down to earth. As an example, their lead singer, Kavyen apologised to the entire audience when he realised his fly wasn’t done up somewhere through the set. None of this dashing off stage or anything like that.
Eskimo Joe played a great selection of plenty of songs mainly from their last two albums, and a handful of newer ones that will be coming out for their new album in a couple of months. What struck me about their newer songs is that they sounded very retro, very 80s-like and you can see that they’ve been experimenting with their sounds. Even their third album compared to the previous two was a lot moodier and sombre than the upbeat tunes you’d find on the first two.
It was a nice mid-week break to go and watch some live music. Particularly listening to some live music from a band that I enjoyed listening to when I was back home. It seemed like the very heavily anti-podean crowd enjoyed them just as much.
TheKua.com Rating: 8 out of 10
Deep Cut at The Tricycle Theatre
Last Monday I went along to one of the final screenings of Deep Cut on show at The Tricycle Theatre in Kilburn. I’d never been up to Kilburn before, so had a bit of time to walk around the high street and grab a bite to eat. There seemed to be far too many kebab stores for my liking and didn’t really have that much time so ended up having dinner at Nando’s instead. The other places along the high street made me think how different the modern, bright and artful Tricycle Cinema and Theatre seemed slightly out of place. Anyway, on to the play.
Deep Cut focuses on the story behind a series of apparent “suicides” at the Deep Cut Barracks between 1995 and 2002. The play focuses particularly on perspective from the family and friends of Cheryl James, one of the officers who died during this period and the anguish, puzzlement and anger they went through seeking proper closure on Cheryl’s death. The play does a great job at presenting all the details behind their story, the unanswered questions, and the frustrations of a government system that failed to apply due diligence in what appears like a simple cover up.
We sat in the second row from the front, but since the theatre probably only fits a hundred and fifty, I’m pretty sure everyone else felt the same way that I did. The combination of the moving dialogue and the clever way that they pieced the story together really made me feel for the family, and particularly concerned with the way that the other parties involved failed to repeatedly apply due consideration over a series of events.
It’s a shame that this play doesn’t continue for a while more, although I’m glad that it did get a fair amount of press coverage from newspapers like The Guardian.
TheKua.com Rating: 9 out of 10
Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence
As part of the Anime Season showing at the Curzon cinema, I went along to see the screening of Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence a couple of weeks ago. The first Ghost in the Shell is a classic cul movie and although I don’t really remember what its story line was about, I do vaguely remember some of the characters.
As part of the festival, a lady told us a few points to focus on throughout the movie, and described some of the events and thinking that lead to the 2004 release of Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence. Sure enough, many of the points she listed hit true to their mark. The movie is superbly visual, almost to the a point where it is cloying with its oversaturated colours and the soundtrack is unnervingly haunting, adding to the overall atmosphere of the movie.
The storyline follows the same robotic investigator from the first movie, although this time he is partnered with a new human investigator after the apparent demise of his first partner. Their investigations follow a set of related murder cases involving a specific type of robot model doing the murdering and then committing suicide afterwards, both apparently violating well known rules of robot law. I won’t go into any other detail because I think the movie does a much better job of uncovering the details behind the murders and their origin.
I’m glad to have seen this movie on the big screen. I can hardly imagine the sounds and rich pictures having as much impact on a much smaller TV, or in a home environment. I’m not sure the movie will be for everyone, particularly those not interested in watching anime movies but I still think it made a pretty good movie.
TheKua.com Rating: 7 out of 10