Night On Brick Lane

I went to a place called "Verge" (on Brick Lane) last weekend. It was pretty nice. He's a picture of their menu.


We opted for taking the scenic route back to Liverpool Street station. On the way we found this building that was set up to flash different colours. It was pretty weird. Unfortunately I was talking into being in the picture and I'm too lazy to crop it.


I had my first experience with a London night but. It was super packed for the first part of the trip but we made pretty good time. I know it's blurry and grainy and horrible but it's the best I could do.


I'm still alive AND I haven't been stabbed yet. I read in the paper today that they are going to start marketing a bulletproof sweatshirt for the urbanites. I don't plan to invest.

News Flash

This was a story on the free newspaper you pick up at tube stations.

I left the image full size so you could read the article if you wanted to.

Red Rooster

One of these things is not like the other. One of these thing just isn't the same. Can you spot it?

Who do they think the are fooling by putting it between the Red Bull and sugarless Red Bull. I admit it could probably fool someone that lacks all 5 senses and is not familiar with energy drinks. Even then I'm sure it would still be a tough call. That doesn't seem like a very profitable demographic to be targeting. They copied Red Bull right down to the last detail and still managed to do a terrible job. As if naming the drink "Red [animal]" wasn't enough they ripped off the tag line too. The original, "Energy Drink," has been swapped for "Stimulation Drink" à la Word-right-click-synonyms. Way to raise the bar!

At least they went with an appropriate animal, roosters do wake up and can be red. Although, to be honest I would probably buy a drink named Red Platypus just for the amazingness-factor.

Also: Note the slightly larger cans of Red Bull on the left self. That isn't an optical illusion those are bigger and therefore packed with more energy. But still not quite as much as Power Thirst.

Making Pasta

I had pasta for the past three nights to use up my ground beef. It is really cheap, really easy and really seems like something I will be eating quite a bit of. Hopefully I make it more interesting, but I had a few good trials. Here's a picture of it in progress.

See, I wasn't kidding about the people at the Design Museum. It looks like they actually made an event for the scarf-wearing Artistes. I'm not sure if that ranks above or below Star Bucks screenplay writers on my personal scale of Contempt to Hate. Once I consult with Alex I will let you know. I present Glam Night Knit Night: "BE GLAMOUS, BE CHIC BE COSY AND BE SEEN." BE AFRAID!

"Dress code: party frock or cardy." (Seriously)

I'm too busy to make stuff like this up. I will not be attending.

Update: After some deliberation I have decided that it is better that the Design Museum ropes these people and keeps the streets clean and safe. I salute their efforts.

NIN

Over here that stands for National Insurance Number. It's a number I need to give my employer so that the government can take money from me more efficiently. I'll barely have a chance to use it as it takes about 8 weeks to arrive but I shouldn't have to apply for it again.

On my way to the government office where I applied for it, I saw a building that looked like it had exactly the same style as the Palais de Congrès in Montreal. On my way back, I had to fight for sidewalk space with a bunch of pigeons. This picture doesn't do them justice because some of them waddled off before I got my phone out but here they are.

Christmas Meals

I'm just catching up to pictures from Christmas because I'm lazy. The pictures aren't too spectacular because it was a cloudy day and there wasn't much light in the kitchen but here they are anyways. Simon (someone sharing the flat) showed me how to make St. Helena curry with lamb - traditionally they use goat at Christmas. That isn't to say that I will be able to make it properly but he gave it his best shot. It was really good so I hope I do get the hang of it. Here it is cooking on the stove right before we ate it.


Here it is on my plate as I was eating it. With a trusty Dr. Pepper close at hand.


On boxing day he made pea soup. I was supposed to be a part of that cooking lesson too but I wasn't awake. Happy Holidays.

The Grand Tour

One of the people I'm sharing my flat with had some free time last weekend and took me on a walking tour of Central London. Get your Tube maps out, pay attention and try to keep up!

I'm going to start it off with a picture of me, because I love myself so much and not because I promised my parents I would. I'm standing outside a high street store on Oxford street. Now I know where to bring people shopping when they come.


Wait what's this! The same picture again? Double the pleasure double the fun! Can you spot the difference? (Excuse the lazy Photoshop work please, I didn't feel like putting too much effort into it.)


You probably spotted something by now - and you're right. That is what I would look like if my neck wasn't 13 feet long. No time to pat yourself on the back though, we're moving right along to Covent Garden. I'm not sure how to explain what this place is. It is a permanent market with a roof, but it's also like a shopping mall without heating. The safest thing is probably to shift the job of describing it onto someone else by linking you to the most factual source of information to ever exist, ever. Ever.


We found a fair in Leicester Square. This is a full-on ultra-cheesy, Yuletide, carni-run, hypen-ated, barf-fest of rides and stalls. Conveniently that makes it the sort if thing I'd be embarrassed about if anyone back home knew I walked through. Thankfully no one bothers to read my blogs so the secret is safe with my trusty friend: The Internet (or to Alex: Interwebz).


I present the saving grace of Leicester Square: An actual Hägen-Dazs store. I didn't notice the creepy guy in the window above the take out sign until I went to post this. I hope you enjoy the fruits of his (slave?) labour designing delicious ice creams.


Can you tell what 'town' of London this is? On an unrelated note, no one seems to own any dogs. Seriously though, those chickens (I hope) creep me out.


You may be asking yourself why I took a trip to Time Square part way through my walking tour. If you are, please re-evaluate your ability to recognize giant advertisements on buildings. This is actually Piccadilly Circus and it wants me to buy lots of stuff.


This is in Trafalgar Square. I specifically chose the photo where I was the least visible. You're welcome. In the background you can see a nice fountain and behind that you can see a giant Christmas tree. It's Norway's way of saying "thank you" to the British for being on the winning side of WWII. It is a pretty huge tree. It's hard to tell in the picture but it's almost twice my height (or roughly three times the length of my neck).


I had to postpone my audience with the Queen because it was getting dark and I wasn't interested in being swept away by the ghost of Christmas past. I'll go back with Dr. Egon some time and sort things out. We made our way to North Greenwich to go to the O2, which (apparently) suffered from problems similar to the Big O. It has a suspended, soft-shell (read: paper) roof and was a huge waste of tax payer's money (until it was sold to private owners).


This is another picture from the O2. There's some text that snakes around the inside of those bubbles. Attractions at the O2 include a skating rink inside that looks like a dusty carpet, a movie theater that has some claim to fame which I've forgotten, a bunch of restaurants with ridiculous queues and a King Tut exhibit which I'll be seeing about 5 months and 10 days from now.


And that's the kind of day it was Saturday, December 22nd, 2007. For some of you, your local CTV News is coming up next. I'm Scot Murray. For all of us here in the National Newsroom, goodnight.

Private Party for a Dead Frenchman

I became a member of the design museum the last time I was there and they sent me an invitation for this 'private event' via email. Congratulations, Design Museum: The black on yellow got my attention. You win this round.

I got to see a lot of 1950s chairs, desks and prefab houses. The best parts were a house that was built into a mountain and a conversation that went from Tin Tin, to a model house, to Stargate SG1, to Richard Dean Anderson, to MacGyver, to making fun of the cultured, artsy scarf-wearing brigade of scenesters that stood around drinking wine next to the museum shop.

Iron Man

I am an absolute failure at ironing. I bought an ironing board yesterday which helped a lot until my iron went crazy and started leaking water. The board has a convenient little rest at the end for my iron. It also another convenient feature: being really poorly made. I expected it to be awful, but not this awful. It stands a little higher than my knees, but that's alright because it gives me a reason to iron sitting down. It absolutely refuses to fold up nicely, but that's alright too because I'm sure I could get it to fold if I pushed hard enough (assuming it didn't snap in half). The real reason this is an abortion of a patent is that it hasn't made me a professional ironer. I'm thinking of buying a blazer and wearing a massive tie so that my shirts won't need to be pressed. This weekend is going to be the deciding moment in my away-from-home-ness where I'm going to battle the evils of wrinkles with my steam machine. Tune in next week for the exciting conclusion. Same bat time, same bat channel.



Sadly I don't think an bat-anti-wrinkle-spray exists...OR DOES IT?

Bonus link: Here's something I found while searching for the that spray.