Brighton Crock

a.k.a. Megan and Chris' Romantic Day Out In Brighton...

 

After the excitement of family Christmases, we went hell for leather to make the run up to New Year's at least as memorable. Terese and I had already had the idea of going to the Tate Modern to whizz down the water-free tubes on the 27th, and were pleased when Eugene and megan came along too. While we waited in the pub for our tube-sliding time slot to arrive, Megan suggested a trip to Brighton. Now, I'd never been to Brighton before and strangely became very enthusiastic. I can't think why. So, on the Friday morning we were off at the crack of 11am, armed with swimming costumes and serious attitude. And after spending about 2 hours stuck in traffic, we finally arrived.

 

Unfortunately the bad weather hadn't left. In the rain Brighton looked a lot like Blackpool. This is not good. We pushed through the crowds of shoppers, wandered through the Royal Pavillion (above) and finally hit the pier and the pebbly beach.

The pier was filled with the usual rickety fun-fair rides, slot machines, snack bars and arcades. Given the rain was spoiling all our fun, we had to make do here, and managed to spend about £10 pounds each catching teddies, trying to follow dance routines, shooting zombies and hammering guinea pigs back into their holes. Megan was particularly proficient at this and in the space of 60 seconds had accumulated her own slightly scared-looking fan club.

 

Once we'd reached our peak with the indoor entertainment, we wandered to the end of the pier and back down to the beach, Megan enjoying the sea air, and me complaining about the salty smell and wondering where the gays had gone. And we briefly considered swimming in the cold rain. We only considered it briefly as we realised it would be rather silly, after all, there was nowhere to put our bags.

After a quick wander around the nicer shops and the bits of Brighton that made it much less like Blackpool we decided all that was left to us would be to go home. Via Sainsbury's where we stocked up on chocolate and cookies and fizzy cola to help our evening go with a caffeine buzz.

The only way to end our romantic day out was to watch a beautiful, gentle, romantic comedy. So we watched a film about young lovers who follow their hearts and dreams to try and change the world for the better. Heathers is truly an inspiration...

Disgusted from London.

Dear Daily Mail,

I was disgusted to see the further erosion of Britain's Christian heritage today when I visited London with my parents. My poor parents, who have paid taxes all their lives, came into the west end to see the Christmas lights that I had wildly described to them only to be hugely disappointed. Not only had House of Fraser switched off its Christmas barbecue-party lights display, but John Lewis had removed its illuminated Christmas trees from its shop front. And to make things worse, Debenhams had removed their "Christmas at Debenhams" logo from the shopfront. I can only imagine it is because the word offends someone. I am appalled and disgusted. And also, I am confused.

Please can you tell me whose fault this is? I don't think its the Gays' fault, as they like sparkly shiny things, and Elton John's already had his Civil Liberty so there's no-one else who would need lights in such volume. It seems too trivial to blame it on the Moslems, and what would the pro-abortion lobby want with Christmas lights? Which only leaves two options. Number 1 is, of course, the Eastern Europeans. But the EU doesn't expand until next week, so we can't blame Romanian Gypsies for stealing the lights to sell door to door, and the Bulgarians are all going to Italy anyway, so perhaps it's option 2- those raving loony Environmental protesters who think the world is going to end and that if we continue to eat all the fish and drink all the oil, and generally do the bare necessities for daily living, we'll condemn our children to a lifetime of sandier beaches and warmer temperatures (and this is a problem how?).

Please provide guidance and appropriate moral outrage,

Yours faithfully,

Disgusted from London.

Winter comes to London.

Finally, after what seemed like weeks and weeks of saying, "ooh, it's really warm today! How unexpected!", we finally found ourselves saying, "ooh, it's really, really cold today!" What makes this even stranger is that there was a huge sigh of relief as winter finally arrived, and we could put the prospect of a horribly warm and comfortable Christmas behind us. It also brought with it a traditional London fog, which untraditionally decided to spread itself across much of the country. Well, it's Christmas, and Christmas is a time for sharing.

With the return of Dhanusha and Megan from New York and Cannes respectively, we went out for a night on the tiles. And on the paving, and in a restaurant and a bar. It was very good, but as we left to make our way home, I was rather alarmed to notice that the Centrepoint building had faded away to leave its sign lingering, alone and lost in the mist.

 
And given that the lights shine so lovely in the misty moonlight, it seemed like a good time to do a review of the Christmas lights. So here you are, London lights 2006...

Lights review, round 1: the streets

1. Carnaby Street
 
Carnaby Street has gone for a homely look, and taken it one step further by making sure the hard of sight can enjoy their lights by plugging in oversized bulbs. Onlookers have commented on their looking like low-energy bulbs. This is good as the London lights this year have been hit by complaints that they are paid for with taxpayers money (untrue) and there have been demands that all of the lights be switched off because they are responsible for the destruction of the environment and global warming (obviously 300 fairy lights being left on overnight for two weeks will do more damage than the lights and electrics being left on in London's office blocks year round. Durr.)

2. Regent Street
 
Regent Street has gone further to prove the point of environmentally friendly lights by recycling last year's efforts. This is understandable as the lights are paid for by the shops lining the streets. Unfortunately these lights lose their Greenpeace award by going wholesale for corporate sponsorship- the pretty blue lights are adorned with pictures of plasticine snails and toads from some kid's film or other. And it leads the dullards who think their tax dollars are paying for the lights to think that the council's earning cash-dollar-bling hand over fist.

3. New Bond Street
 
Money, money, money. If you walk a block or two from Bond Street down New Bond Street, you'll find many of the really upmarket shops in London. Hence why I rarely get further than 20 yards down here. Now, people always say that rich people stay rich by taking care of their money. This could be translated as they stay rich by being tight. And New Bond Street does go some way to prove this. The lights are simple and pretty but a bit small. Although there's no sign of toads and slugs, so that's a blessing.

4. WINNER! St. Christopher's Place
 
St. Christopher's Place is a lovely little restaurant quarter off Bond Street. The square and its connecting streets offer al-fresco dining of Italian, Afghan, Turkish, African, Korean and numerous other cuisines from around the world. And in keeping with the intimate, European feel of this often wildly busy square, the lights are slogan free, traditional yet modern and eye-catching, and fit well with the narrow alleys and cobbled pavements. You may have guessed, but I like these ones.

5. New Molton Street
 
New Molton Street has possibly gotten it wrong. Blue lights, yellow stars, modern design. But upright? Upright? There is something un-Christmassy about this. Full marks for effort, but surely that lights should straddle the street is a major point in design of Christmas lights. Bah humbug? Perhaps.

Lights review, round 2: Oxford Circus department stores

1. John Lewis
 
A strong opening effort from John Lewis. 3-d Christmas trees of wintry blue lights. Only spoiled by being glued to the front of an ugly building, but it does a good job of drawing your eyes from what's behind.

2. House of Fraser
 
Possibly overheard in Head Office in November:
"Oh shit, we forgot to commission an award winning Christmas lights display for our flagship store in London. What can we do? How can we cover this up?"
"I know! We've still got those outdoor lights from the rooftop barbecue in summer. Well just hang them down the front of the shop and if anyone asks, we'll say they resemble 'snow'".
Perhaps they resemble the snow as it falls on the Lebanon- i.e. not much.
One word: crap.

3. WINNER! Debenhams
 
Red as a holly berry and bearing its own calssically-styled Christmas logo, Debenhams is by far my favourite. Ugly building? You can't see it. Budget? All spent (possibly for the next ten years). Impact? Maximum. Well done Debs.

Up the lady garden path...

Yesterday morning saw a potentially embarrassing situation as my Ma embarked on a rather risque course of conversation at 9:45am. We were watching 'Less Than Perfect' on ABC1 when the adverts came on. Amongst the adverts was the one for LaCoste pour homme (where someone whispers "style on skin" repeatedly and a rather dishy man wanders, naked, around his flat. I think it was the first time my Ma had seen this advert.

"Did you see that? A naked man on tv at this time of the morning! They showed his bottom!", she exclaimed.
"I would choose that moment to look at the newspaper", I replied, pretending to never have seen said advert and dishy man's bottom before. And then Ma displayed a rare moment of feminist anger: "well, they'll only show a man's bottom but they'll happily show a lady's front bits".
"There's not really much to see"
"I don't think that's true."

This caused me a problem. How to express my point without being vulgar.
"Well, Ma, a woman's Lady Garden is often obscured by dense foliage."

End of conversation.

Strange anniversary.

It was 5 years ago, December 19th 2001, that I quit nursing. At university I gained a Bachelor of Nursing degree having studied to become a qualified mental health nurse and a qualified community psychiatric nurse. The last year of the four year degree was a year of community nursing, holding a caseload of patients. It was varied, it was challenging, and above all it was rewarding. By 1999 I was working on an acute psychiatric ward with 22 patients, some detained under the mental health act, and working with 2 other staff each shift. In 2000 I moved to a locked ward (I spent much of my training in a similar environment) of only 6 beds where the patients were at the height of their illness, either suicidal at the peak of depression, or continuing to attempt to leave the hospital, refusing treatment, or being a danger to themselves or others. The patients lives were often in ruins. Their illness had lost them friendships, frustrated their families and in many cases left their lives in a static state or worse, in a downward spiral. Due to their illnesses, many patients were more vulnerable than ever, behaving sexually or aggressively, or often living their lives in fear of the delusions and voices that haunted their every waking moment. As a nurse it is your duty to protect these people. To protect them from exploitation and promote their own dignity. Often you are protecting them from behaviours brought on by their illnesses, and frequently you have to work in a team of nurses to stop one patient's aggression affecting others' recovery in hospital.

To do this you need the support of management. You need adequate staffing and you need appropriate training in techniques to safely restrain and manage violent and aggressive behaviour. You need the best tools available to try and give the patient the best care possible, to try and help them through the acute phase of their illness without them having to face aggression, intimidation and fear. You need a team of staff who feel empowered to work as a team to bring the best to the patients.

This is why I left nursing. I worked alongside some brilliant staff, particularly in my last year. Mismanagement from above the ward level continually undermined what we were doing and it often felt like we were being bullied and harrassed. For large periods of my time there, a demoralised staff felt unable to offer patients the best possible care. In the end, I had enough. I went on holiday in November 2001. On the train from the airport I thought long and hard. I wasn't happy. I'd felt harrassed by management for close to two years (I took one sick day in 18 months and they told me they wanted me to move to the community as I they thought I wasn't happy) and having been assaulted by patients in September and October, I decided it was time to leave that hospital. And then, on the 13th December, in my last week there, I was in charge of the ward when three patients became aroused, distressed and two of them quickly became aggressive. Despite our setting off the unit-wide alarm system, only three staff came from other wards to help, of whom only 2 were trained to manage aggression and violence. The result was that I and another staff nurse were assaulted (I was dragged backwards down a hallway, punched repeatedly and kicked when I eventually fell to the floor) and I was powerless to make the ward safe for the patients or the staff. This could have been avoided. The outcome should have been better for the patient and the staff. I had personally spent two years voicing my concerns to the management. And so on the 13th December I decided to leave nursing. On the 19th December it was over.

I think about returning frequently. It wi a rewarding job where you can really help people out in times when they can least help themselves. But to do that you need the system to help you. And with Mental Health Care being mismanaged so badly it frequently doesn't help anyone.

Naughty naughty!

Oops. I've been naughty. I've forgotten to update my blog for a couple of weeks. And it's nearly Christmas. There's my excuse of course- it's nearly Christmas! The past few weeks have been extremely busy and also extremely quiet, so here's a brief round up. With pictures of course.

  

This collage of bizarreness gives no clue to what was actually going on here, but this was kids playing with neon lightsabres in a park in Farnborough. We were in Farnborough the last weekend of November for the switching on of the Christmas lights. The lights, it transpired, were remarkably unspectacular. But then the real reason we went to the place was because Justin and his mate Chris were playing at the switching on ceremony.

 

Here they are in action. Fortunately they were good, so we didn't have to be polite when we praised them afterwards. And even more fortunately they drew a bigger crowd than the children's magician who'd preceded them.

  

katie discovered the joy of mulled wine and proceeded to drink as much of it as she could (all proceeds to some old ladies with an urn) and Megan watched in envy as she was driving. Matt and I instead enjoyed the 'snow' (soap foams- cleansing and fun).

 

As I tend to do these days, I wandered around through the backstreets of London while on my way home. And found some more sculpture. I would have gotten a good picture of the cast iron farmer and his herd, but a security guard was heading towards me (as they seem want to do recently), so I packed up my camera and wandered off nonchalantly.

The following week was a bit frenzied, with nights out including a booze fest with Dorothy Brody, and an unintended all-nighter with Terese. We met in London on the Friday for drinks, headed to Trash Palace, danced for hours until the place closed (3am?) and then I took the nightbus home. The nightbus offered it's usual menu of unexpected changes and, ahem, 'interesting' people (including one nice man who seemed slightly unfamiliar with reality as he sat on the wrong bus, told me in jest that he was going to bully me and then asked me for cash and cigs and told me his romantic problems- him: "I wan't a girlfriend, but I can't find a girl", me: "Where are you looking?"

Then on Saturday it was down to business as Tiger and Youko arrived form Japan. Saturday night I met them and Tim and Keiko in Soho and we ate Indian in Covent Garden bfore drinking in Holborn. On Sunday I met them in Kings Cross to make sure they got the correct train to Edinburgh. On Tuesday we met in Holborn to eat Italian in Oxford Street and on Wednesday we took in Camden Market, Carnaby Street, Oxford Street, Soho, Covent Garden and Neal St., Leicester Square, drank in Brewer Street and ate Turkish off St Christopher's Place. It was a major shopping and sightseeing trip, and I think they'll be needing a good rest. Evidence? here's Tiger and Youko in Carnaby Street:

  

And here they are in Covent Garden:

 

Since they've gone I've become Mr Scrooge and have grudgingly been plodding about this business that is Christmas. The last week was almost event free, bar a lovely dinner at Tim and Keiko's last weekend, numerous abortive Christmas shopping trips and a trip to Lyn's this weekend. The coming week promises to be busier as Dhanusha, Megan and Eugene return from overseas and shopping must finally be done. And there's still the Christmas cards to write (insert expletive here).

So that's it for now. Except that I finish work this week and will thus be looking for something other than running, painting and waffling to fill my time. If any of the three people who read this have any work going, I'm available at cheap rates...

Times when it's good to speak Japanese (Part 1):

At Kings Cross station, seeing Tiger and Youko onto an Edinburgh-bound train.

Some very fat women wander up behind us. Tiger starts taking pictures, seemingly of the roof of the station.

Me to Youko: 「太い人の写真を撮っていますか」or,
"Is he taking pictures of fat people?"

Youko: Ha ha!

But then there's the payback, when a fat person decided to sit between me and another fat person on the train. I spent the journey sitting precariously on the edge of my seat worrying that any sudden jerk or bump would send me toppling into the aisle...

1:07:54

is the time it just took me to run 8.5 miles in my lunch hour. I am rather pleased.

I am also walking like a cowboy and aware that I had slightly more than a lunch hour. Oops...

Get this party started.

Indeed.

Marks and Spencers is one of Britain's most loved shops with a long history of quality clothing, delicious foods and dodgy menswear. It has long been a staple of tradition, refusing to open on Sundays until long after everyone else did, refusing to accept credit cards becuse it would increase the prices of their products (again they eventually had to give in) and until recently all of their clothes were made in the UK (which meant production costs were high and profits were low). This changed in the last few years so that M&S could compete with other clothing stores such as H&M, Gap and TopShop.

In the last few years, M&S has been struggling as sales have dropped and its image has suffered badly. But this is no more, largely due to a brilliant autumn advertising campaign which has peaked with a hugely talked about advert. The advert is hugely British, featuring London landmark Tower Bridge, 60's supermodel Twiggy and the crowning glory of it all, Dame Shirley Bassey. Singing a Pink song. Only people familiar with Shirley will recognise the madness and genious of this, but here it is for you all to enjoy.



The only downside in the whole thing is that the song is not being released commercially as a single. It would most certainly have been a big Christmas hit.
But well done M&S!

Contaminated?

Big news in Britain now is the case of the Russian ex-spy who has died after being poisoned with pollonium, a radiactive element, at a sushi bar in London. "Gosh!", I thought. "Sushi!", I thought. "Yum", I thought. And then realised. "oh!" I thought. And then I didn't think again. Until today when I ate sushi from Itsu having had to calm my boss's nerves before we tucked in (not only were we eating at Itsu which is clearly death-defying, but we were also risking life and limb by trakking to Canary Wharf, the home of many a paranoids' terrorist attack nightmares). Not that sushi really has anything to do with anything, but this morning I woke up shattered, having had a horrendously active dream which left me wondering if I too had been in someway contaminated.

And, Lord!, this dream was a belter.

I was on holiday in South America (which looked rather like Tokyo) in a swish hotel (radioactivity-free may I add). I was walking down the street with 2 friends I've not seen in 10 years, when I spot a group of troublesome sorts behind us. So I quickly dump my wallet and keys on a drinks stall outside a convenience store (this would be safe in Japan) and then the group kidnaps me but kindly lets my 2 friends come along. As they dump me in a disused pool (billiards) room, I tell Graham (school friend) to call Sanchez (??) to pick up my wallet and keys, and, as he leaves, the gang starts boasting about how much money they've stolen from my 4 (??) bank accounts using my debit cards, and I laugh, "yeah, right!", in the knowledge that Sanchez (who? anyone?) is taking care of them. So I escape and run back to the plush hotel which now seems to be possessed by evil things. And my parents are there too, but fortunately we're in separate rooms. It's very fortunate, because in the next moment in my dream I am experiencing night paralysis, and a Japanese samurai is on top of me, attempting to molest me and I am protesting (yes, I was surprised too), but it finishes after a small tussle (no change there then). Straight away I'm on the phone to reception to report that I'd been kidnapped and subsequently had an attempt made on my modesty by a ghost (??) but reception aren't answering, so I sunter down to reception (which happens to be full of business people and rich folk having meetings) and make a show of myself by berating the staff for not answering my phone when I was making a cry for help. And all the posh folk and business people start exclaiming that they've noticed funny things going on and within seconds have grabbed their belongings and evacuated the hotel leaving papers scattered and things broken in their wake. Even the staff go. Only I'm left. And my parents. So I go to their room, the atmosphere around me becoming increasingly menacing and strange, and bang on the double doors to their room. Noises come from the room at the other end of the corridor, so I bang some more. My very relaxed parents open the doors. I hurriedly explain to them the need to leave, and they start to pack their bags at which point there is a whoosh and a bang on the doors. White goo starts to ooze in through the gaps at the top and the bottom of the doors. "Hurry!", I tell them, but the goo pushes in. So I must take action. Direct action. I step backwards. Further back. Then run at the door. Fast. Faster. Shoulder forward. BANG! The double doors swing open and the white things lands on the floor. What is this thing attacking me and my family?

Is it the troublesome sorts from earlier back to finish the job?

Is it the randy samurai ghost?

No.

It's a five foot tall, star shaped brie cheese (of course!??). And it's angry. It lunges at me, grabs me (it has arms, hands and a face of course) and we wrestle, until I manage to flip it out of the window. Of the fourth floor. And I watch it fly through the air and splat on the street below, the life draining out of it's piggy cheesey eyes, the soft centre squelching out from within it's crusty exterior.

And shortly afterwards I wake up with the urge to go vegan again.
What does it all mean? (Part 3,982).

Autumn in the city...

It seems we've officially had the warmest autumn since the 17th Century (possibly the warmest since 1731) but by the time you leave work at 5pm the night sky is well and truly settled in. And that lends itself well to socialising, so Wednesday saw an abortiive attempt at dinner with Silvana. Thursday was a night in the pub with Megan, Mandy and Terese and Friday was a quiz and karaoke (or rather, Singstar) night at Roland and Katrina's. Finally on Saturday I carted my Japanese food stuffs to Lyn's to cook dinner for four which went rather well. So after all the activity, I spent a relaxing Sunday wandering around London's Hyde Park. And taking pictures.

  

Momiji is of course huge in Japan. As in popular, not meaning that the leaves are large. And in the UK we don't really have the Autumn festivals to celebrate the changing of the leaves. So this is my own private appreciation. I spent much of the time telling my camera how much I love it because it always takes such purdy pictures.

  
 
  

Alright ladies, line up for your photo. That's it get ready, *click*
 
Hang on... WHERE THE HELL IS NUMBER 4?

  

Now girls, that's more like it...
 
  

 

My new boyfriend is very shy and rather fearful that his belongings will be stolen. So he carries them everywhere in a suitcase and a bin liner. Gosh, we miss Japan's coin lockers...
  
  

What happened once I got off that bloody train...

Well, having spent all that time wondering if livestock were going to continue throwing themselves at trains, if the heat would dehydrate us all tot he point of death and if we'd ever leave Wigan station, I finally made it to Lancaster. And spent the weekend with Suzanne, my old flatmate from Manchester.

  

We spent what was left of the evening catching up on gossip and news and discussing old uni friends and work colleagues, and then on Saturday morning had a wander around the town. This is Lancaster castle. And it's still in use, as a tourist site, a prison and a court. Lancaster coucil knows how to makes its tax dollars work...

  

Suzanne was very patient as I took pictures of the autumn leaves and the old stone buildings.

  

This is Lancaster Priory. It's not Catholic. But it is rather nice. It sits on a hill looking a bit drab and unloved, and then you go inside.

  

Other than Christmas I don't make it to church very often these days (i.e. I don't go), but this is the second one I've been in as a tourist since I left Japan. As you can see, it's lovely.

After our stroll we headed back to Suzanne's to wait for Helen, her baby daughter Erin and Claire to arrive before heading out to lunch in the Burroughs, a rather swish restaurant where we sampled vegetarian black pudding for the first time. As real black pudding is made from pig's blood and oats (or something), it was always going to be interesting to see what they would put in a veggie version. It stopped being interesting when it tasted like shake'n'vac.

Maxine joined us, and after lunch, with Helen and Erin heading home, we relocated to a pub to celebrate Maxine's birthday. We had a few drinks and ended up spending the night in chatting, laughing and generally having a good time.

In case a cow had escaped from suicide watch I decided I should head home early-ish, but not before catching up with Suzanne's Mum and Dad which is always good fun- I don't know anyone who travels as much as they do.

The train ride home was not, of course, without incident, as most of the toilets were broken, and I pressed the automatic door-open button only for a rather embarrassed young lady knickers round her ankles, to wonder aloud why the lock hadn't worked. And Virgin trains managed to surprise me again. The train arrived in London 10 minutes early...

Another trip...

another Virgin Trains experience.

I board the train and, after a rather manner-free interruption from a man who claims I'm sat at sit at his allocated seat (I was- the seat reservations signs were switched off and a young lady was sat in my spot), sit at my seat, and soon am aware of how hot I am. "Has my cold gotten worse?", I wonder, thinking that it's only me that's rather more than toasty. And then there's an announcement over the tannoy- the train in front has broken down and is being inspected, and we'll be held in position until the problem's been rectified and the train has moved on. This is really no cause for anguish or concern. It happens so often it should be accounted for in timetables. So we're 25 minutes behind schedule. And then the ticket inspector comes along. He alone was the saving grace of this journey- if he'd given us any more information we'd have been privy to his inside leg measurement, favourite underwear and childhood trauma. He tells us that the computer systems are broken in this and the next carriage, so the heating is running wild and the reservations system has decided to have a rest. And we all let out a collectively knowing laugh of "here-we-go-again" without realising that there's more to come.

It seems Virgin trains is working in partnership with an un-named agency to make it's customers have an even more memorable experience. Thirty minutes later and we're at a stand-still again, and the tannoy system is beeping again. Poised for a rundown of the Ticket-inspector's daily dietary intake and plans for Christmas, we are infact told there has been an incident a few trains ahead in Leyland, just before Preston. A bull has decided to play chicken at the wrong moment. Any ideas of an impromptu Virgin staff railside barbecue are put to rest as it as announced that the bull is still walking and a vet has been called. And possibly also a scrap metal dealer as it seems bulls are stronger than Virgin trains.

After a further half-hour stop at Wigan we are finally back on the move, albeit slowly so that we just shunt any more suicidal livestock of the tracks and finally arrive a mere 1 hour and 20 minutes late into Lancaster. This journey will remain in my memory for a long time, alongside the 12 hour journey to Manchester when the signals froze, the heating broke down, and the shop ran out of water for hot drinks an hour after our December 27th deparure (it was well into December 28th before we arrived). Virgin really do strive to make it a night to remember.

Love for...

 

Nao chan! I received a parcel yesterday and it contained lots of new winter chocolates from Japan, as well as lots of favourites. Thank you Nao chan!