Good things, and how they come in three…

Or, you know, four. Sometimes two, sometimes five. But three is sort of what I’m going to stick with. Well, three point eight seven, fair enough.

Yesterday was my second night of my little trip to London, and I wanted to get the most out of my time here, so another return ticket for the city centre was bought, and I was on my train. I did three/four things last night, each on its’ own deserving of a small bit of joyous remembrance, together, they ruled. I’ll split my evening up for you.


“If this bookstore had tits, I’d marry it”

First thing I had my tiny little paper-and-letters-loving heart set on was finding Foyles. The most famous bookstore in London boasts four massive floors of stacks, with a claim to having the most titles on sale in Britain. Now, I don’t know about that, but shite, what an enormous amount of books. And how to tackle this? Do you browse, decide and go back for the books you want? Do you grab what you can and let the cashier sort em out later? Do you set up a bunk-bed in a forgotten corner near the coffee-shop and move in permanently?
Obviously, that last option would’ve been my choice anytime, but since I promised my housemate to go sailing in Holland this weekend it wasn’t the most workable option. She’d have forgiven me, without doubt, but still, I decided against residency.
I opted for walking up to the fourth floor, and working my way steadily downward, picking up what I deemed interesting enough for purchase. I set myself a limit of £ 100.00, which amounted in my estimation to something like ten to twelve books, depending on prices. This might seem to be a bit of a wide spread, but I really, reaaally do love books, and even at the current exchange rate I come out cheaper this way than buying the same books in Holland. (10 pounds is about 15 euro, but a ten pound book here would set me back about 20 euro in Holland, so I win)
So there I was, joyfully making my way past philosophers, fantasy, horror, DVD’s, CD’s, coffee table books, and I was in heaaaaven. Grinning, clutching my growing stack of books in my arms as were they so many cuddly toys.
Lovely books. I ended up with nine books and a DVD, totalling 103 pounds and change. I had pop culture, queer horror, entertainment, religious explanation, retelling of legends, general “ book”, graphic novel, comic fantasy and a semi hard-on and a sense of druggedness brought on by the subtle Viagra of dust and paper.
In short, I was happy. (The DVD sucked puppies, by the way, crap movie. But still, happy)
On to the till, where I needed to convince the girl behind it that I was going to be able to configure my new friends in such a way that they would all fit into my bag and I was not going to make use of the British/American tendency to pack every single Item in it’s own plastic bag. Foyle’s. I came, I saw, I came, I shopped. Grandness.


Puppet sex

With a considerably heavier bag hanging of my shoulder, I decided I wanted to see a show. I usually don’t go to movies or suchlike on my own, but they have a running performance of Mama Mia here, and I saw that with my ex-boyfriend a while ago and I wanted to wash the taste of him from my ABBA experiences. Thusly, I bought tickets for a completely different musical.
Quite unsure how that happened, actually, but I was standing at the box office, wanting a ticket to Mama Mia, and I actually bought a ticket to Avenue Q. Interesting choice, but a good one, as it turned out.
On a related note, I was patiently standing in line, last in a line of two, when an American family walked in from the street and asked me if had been there first or if they had been. Since I walked in right after the woman who was at that point being assisted at the counter, I felt pretty confident in saying I was in line before them. This met with general agreement, and then with blatantly cutting in front of me. Politely so, and with a semi-acceptable reason, but it was still strange. They were apparently late to their own show and couldn’t find the theatre. That’s fine; ask someone who knows, by all means, and yes, you can go ahead of me, no problem. But do not ask me if I was there first, if you are going to cut in line anyways.
So, the Americans proceeded to interrupt the (actually very cute and friendly) guy helping the customer and asking him how to get to the theatre. They came to him, because apparently they bought there tickets at that place yesterday, although they had another agent there then.
So he did a good job in multitasking, quite impressive really, while he booked the current customers tickets he simultaneously sketched the American’s route on a map of the area, effectively providing service to two clients at once. I was impressed. Obviously, work in customer service long enough and these things become the norm more than the exception, but I can still appreciate it being done well, one professional to another, so to speak.
Then…disaster struck. Well, disaster… the phone rang. Now, the ticket agent needs to do his job, and pick it up, but that would give him three client-points of entry, all requiring hands, and most people only have about two. So problem.
So he quickly finished the map, told the Americans where to walk to, apologized for the inconvenience to the line, and picked up the phone. No worries as far as I could see, the Americans had there directions, the woman at the counter was buying tickets for another date, and I still had a good forty minutes before my show was going to start.
Apparently, my assessment of the situation was wrong. The American started making trouble. I still don’t really know why, but he did. Started spouting abuse and threats to the agent, who had, as far as I could see, actually done everything possible bar shutting the shop and personally walking them to their theatre. And it escalated, nicely. The agent very subtly mentioned their show was about to start and that it wasn’t his fault that they were late. The American responded to this that they had gotten lost. The agent said that this was out of his hands but that he needed to take this call. The American started the abuse, the agent asked him to piss off. More shouting, more requests for off, and how to bugger it. It was grand. In the end, the Americans left, the agent apologized again to the line, finished the call, and on things went.
It was a shame the boy had resorted to impoliteness himself, but really, I couldn’t fault him anything.
I bought ticket, asked him where I could find the theatre, he did the map thing again, and I went in search for my evenings entertainment.

And entertainment it was. Avenue Q is a bit of a Sesame Street parody, a musical with puppets and “real” people. They don’t go for the kind of realism that the Street does though, the puppets are worn on the arms of the puppeteers, who also provide the facial expressions the puppets can’t. A nice combination of live-action and puppeteering, and very well pulled off I must say. The fact that the puppeteer/actors were actually very cute didn’t hurt the proceedings either.
The show is about Princeton, a puppet recently graduated and moving into a street that has a few human puppets, a few humans, and a few monsters. Monsters being a subset of society, apparently. The fact that monsters are seen as inferior to humans and human puppets allows for one of the best songs in the show; “everybody is a little bit racist”.

This should give you an idea about this thing. Gloriously politically incorrect, very irreverent and truly, truly funny. There is a song about a character wishing to give a lesson to a kindergarten about the Internet, which is interrupted by one of the others with the words “for PORN” in every appropriate place. (“The internet is a high speed network””FOR PORN”, “the internet is used for the sharing of information””FOR PORN”) and there is a scene with puppet sex. No full frontal puppet nudity, but still, definitely sex. And not the crass Team America way either, just healthy, fun, drunk puppet sex.
I think the best characters are the Bad Idea Bears. Incredibly cute and bubbly bears that nonetheless give bad, bad ideas. (“You could look for a job, or get BEER!”, “More drinks, More Fun! Yaaaaay” and one of the best: “its ok you don’t want to hang yourself now, but we are going to leave this rope here, JUST IN CASE”)
They are super.

Very very good show, I hate going to these things on my own but this was a good decision. I hummed a few of the songs on my way back to my hotel and generally felt good about things, as I do still. I hope this show will come to Holland, but if not, I’ll make sure to get friends to London to see it again. It ends in traditional semi sappy goodnaturedness, but that’s ok, sometimes. I can recommend this show to anybody, but you do need a bit of a dirty but open mind to get the most out of it.


“If this restaurant had a dick, I’d cheat on the bookstore with it”

After all that excitement, it was time to grab something to eat and get back to my hotel, after all, it was a school-night and the alarm was going to go off in the morning.
So I decided to look up a little Thai restaurant I had dinner in last time I was over here, because dinner was good then.
I made my way to Liverpool Street Station, walked up Middlesex and entered my preferred place of mealage.
A small, one room restaurant, light wood tables and chairs upholstered with red or yellow leather. The ceiling is exposed tubes and plumbing, but painted black. The walls are cream, decorated with golden wood carvings. On the ceiling are three light fixtures, two large yellow suns, not turned on, and a red ribbony thing with lights along the centre. Most of its lamps have burned out. Seven were working last time I was here, only five now.
I get a table, and order a Thai curry with roasted duck, cause, well, I like duck.
And like it is not strong enough a word.
So my meal arrives swiftly and friendly. A plate with a bowlful of steamed rice, sleepily dreaming to itself of whatever rice dreams of after being steamed. It looks so white and fluffy it’s nearly apologetic, as if it wants to make up for the rest of the meal, without actually checking if a make-up is necessary, which is a shame, as it isn’t.
The other bowl placed in front of me is filled with a murky yellowish liquid, steaming arrogantly to itself. This stuff apologizes to nobody, and it makes no claims on humility. It is yellow, milky, and it smells like the fall of a decadent civilization. Spices, curry, the meaty smell of roasted duck all lift up from the uniform and still surface as the ghosts of mermaids.
I ladle a good bit of the milky yellowness on to the pile of rice, which soaks up the liquid and leaves me looking at lychees, green peppers and roasted duck, naked without their protective camouflage.
Because I don’t want to make them uncomfortable, I spoon my way in there.
And I die. This is an incredible meal. The duck is moist and sweet, the lychees are fresh and give a very rich flavour to the dish, and the peppers are nice and crisp, and spicy enough to keep things interesting. The rice is steamed to perfection and after its initial bashfulness now wants a piece of the textural action, and the rest of the ingredients gladly give it the leeway it desires.

A great meal, finished off with a melon ice cream which is fresh and sweet and exactly what one would wish for in weather like this. I pay my bill, have a nice conversation with the waitress, get complimented on my English, which is always nice, and make my way to the hotel.


3.8 End of the evening

As it is really, really warm here and I had just had some nice spicy food I didn’t really see myself going to sleep yet, and since there is a DVD player on my laptop I opted to watch a movie. First, Bollywood and Vine, cross-dressing romantic comedy that tries, and that has its charming moments, but really, not a good movie. Ah well, can’t have everything, right?
I switched over to Urbania, a movie I had been looking for for a while, starring Dan Futterman in a sort of urban legend/revenge movie. And actually, it’s quite good. Dan plays a gay man who is trying to get over the loss of his lover, but we don’t really find out if the loss is due to a death or a break up, but the hints point towards death. He is travelling the streets looking for stories. Asking people to tell him theirs and him telling them others. Cut-scenes give us a take on well known urban legends. The baby left on the car roof, the stolen kidney, the microwaved dog.

I like Dan Futterman; I think he is a very good looking man in a way that keeps him normal and human. I haven’t seen much of him, mostly sit-com work and series, and as such I have never really thought of him as much of an actor. Now, I need to reprise my opinion. He puts down the role he is given incredibly well, managing to convey recognizable and complex emotion with simple facial expressions. He is sweet and kind, but lost, and menacing, and vengeful but we never find out really how vengeful until the very end, where we are left a bit unsure of what happened. Other actors are quite good as well, with the exception of Alan Cummings, who does fine with the material provided but mostly delivers a standard time-filler performance.

I can’t say that this is a complete step in my night, because my laptop-power ran out at a few minutes before the end of this movie. I am going to try it again tonight, we’ll see. I got all I needed from it, and I’ll be watching it at home soon enough I’m sure.
Then, I showered to get the days sweatiness of me, dried my hair, and went to bed.

One more night here, I gathered there is an after-work drink tonight, I’ll see what I’m going to do afterwards.

For now, I can only say:

Grtz,
Kevin.