Category: South African in London

Views of the booze

Having been in Manchester for Pride 2010 last weekend, and being aware that today is the first day of autumn up in the northern hemisphere, just got me wondering: does Pride always come before the fall?

I also have been thinking about the amount of drinking that was taking place at Pride over the weekend, and it seems that binge-drinking is something of a national sport in the UK. I decided I would blog about that today and, quite fortuitously, I heard this on the radio news this morning:

More than 1,500 men and women are admitted to hospital every day because of alcohol, a report reveals. The figure is 65 percent higher than only five years ago, while drinking is to blame for around 15,000 deaths a year. More than 400,000 brawls, burglaries, sexual assaults and other crimes are also fuelled by alcohol each year, the study shows. Read more at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1307850/Drinking-puts-1-500-hospital-everyday-increase-65-years.html#ixzz0yHSPVh00

Quite sobering, really, when you think about it. Not that the young chap I saw over the weekend in Manchester would really be bovvered. He was standing with a group of friends, clearly having fun and enjoying a sherbet or two. At one stage, I looked at him and thought he had leaned down to pick up something next to his feet. However, he didn’t pick anything up, and he didn’t stand up straight again (excuse the pun). It was as though he had been on his way to doing that and then forgot. Both of his hands were hanging down near his knees, his knees were bent at 45 degree angles, and he looked up at his mates and continued chatting to them!

Another time, a few months back, we were walking back to our flat from an early evening outing. We stopped to take some pictures of the dock near where we live, which looked pretty awesome with the backdrop of Canary Wharf under a full moon. I happened to notice a young guy, dressed in a suit, “standing” a little way behind us. He was in his cups, to say the least, but he honestly looked like someone who was overacting being drunk! He was standing there, looking at his phone, and it looked like his phone kept disappearing from view. He was standing at about a 45 degree angle to the ground, and kept swaying and even hiccoughing! Then when he eventually started to walk, it was like he was walking on a heavily veering boat. He was walking alongside the dock and really, if there weren’t bollards and chains there, he would have ended up in the water! And every now and then he walked like he was climbing over something – it really was very funny! Not sure how he knew where home was – maybe he was checking his satellite navigation on his phone!

You couldn’t make it up! It’s funny on one level, but quite tragic on another.

A serious, but not-so-serious, Sunshine signing off for today!

Pride, prejudice and peeing in public

We’re just back from a bank holiday weekend up north.  In Manchester. A city of old and new. Traditional and modern. Beautiful and ugly. Well-conceived and total disasters. You could say the same of the architecture.

It was great to have a break from the dreaded job-hunt, and to be soaking up some northern sunshine with some friends for a few days. I was in blogger bliss, watching everything going on around me, eavesdropping like you can’t believe, and soaking in the northern humour that is in such great supply. Everywhere you go.

We watched the Manchester Pride 2010 parade through the city centre on Saturday, and walked through the market area and on to the live entertainment area. My eyes nearly popped out of my head at some of the sights and some of the T-shirt slogans I saw (If you think my attitude stinks, you should smell my a***), but it was an amazing and significant celebration for so many. We saw drag queens, bears and muscle marys and everything in between; loads of flesh and plenty of flesh we wish we hadn’t seen. More fake tan, false eyelashes, hair gel and cargo pants than could sink a ship. People standing up for their rights, and others who could barely stand up at all.

Manchester trams provided a great source for loads of my entertainment. We were sat on a tram home on Saturday, behind a mum-who-had-just-turned-40 and her two teenage sons. After loudly snooting down her nose at the new, public, plastic urinals that had been installed on the pavements next to the tram station – I guess to stop drunken people relieving themselves on war memorials, which has happened in the UK of late – her elder son let her down with, “Mum, how can you complain about that? You washed your shewee* in the dishwasher!”

Understandably indignant, she justified, “But I had rinsed it first. I just wanted to sterilise it in the dishwasher.”

“Remind me to eat off paper plates tonight, Mum,” her son said.

As we were on our way home from Manchester Pride 2010, most of the tram commuters were wearing the tell-tale purple Pride 2010 wristbands, and hear what at our mum-of-the-year had to say, as the tram passed the Bridgewater Hall: “’’oo was it I sor there the other day? John someoneorother? Whatsisname again? The queer one?”

I also heard a young guy in central Manchester say, as he emerged from a newsagent, empty-handed, “I’ll not buy anything from him. He doesn’t speak English.”

And as we trammed into the city centre yesterday, to catch our train home, a bunch of less-than-sober youngsters, aged about 14, gave an interesting, expletive-filled reflection on life, friendships and the future of the British nation. As we passed a cheap hotel, one of the youngsters piped up: “Ooh. You know, we could all go and stay there for a tenner. It’d pay for our room, food, everything.”

His friend joined in the conversation with, “Ooh. I loove food.”

We also visited the Lowry theatre complex, home to the work of Lawrence Samuel Lowry, a northern artist famous for painting scenes of life in the industrial north during the early 20th century. He had a distinctive style of painting and is best known for urban landscapes peopled with human figures often referred to as “matchstick men”. While we were there, I had the pleasure of an impromptu dance lesson: a delightfully sprightly octogenarian was giving free dance lessons in a coffee shop at the Lowry, and I learnt the 1920s London Stroll! What fun!

I really loved Manchester. It’s dead loovleh! It is an interesting city, is home to a not-too-shabby football team or two, the people are very friendly, the accent is just woonderful and the architecture is truly outstanding.  Despite what everyone says about the weather up north, we enjoyed mostly warm sunshine and blue skies. It doesn’t get much better than visiting a new city with good friends and enjoying a whole bunch of new experiences. Add in a backdrop of inane conversation, and I’m pretty much in seventh heaven.

Sunshine signing off for today!

*Shewee: a  portable urinating device that is a moulded, water repellent plastic funnel that allows women to urinate whilst standing or sitting and without removing clothes.

Bad memories make good stories

Ok, so sometimes we’re going to get it wrong. Horribly wrong. Like we did a few months ago when we bought tickets and went to the wrong show.

How could we have done that? We asked ourselves over and over. But we’ve learnt – and we won’t make that same mistake again. We’ll just make new ones. No doubt.

A few months ago we saw an ad in one of the free magazines you get at the tube stations (those are fab sources of information, by the way!). The ad was for a “one night only” performance of SpiroGyra, in a cool old church building venue in North London, the Union Chapel. Does it get more hip and trendy than that? Well, maybe at the 100 Club. But not much more.

We really thought we’d stumbled on a well-kept secret; tickets were only twelve quid each and we managed to book them quite easily. No, we didn’t even start to get suspicious at that stage.

We headed off on our journey across London to make sure we got to the Union Chapel good and early. Seating was not pre-booked so we thought we’d be ahead of the masses fighting to get a good spot near the front. Our suspicions were still not aroused when we arrived and discovered that there were six people ahead of us in the queue. And, to be honest, about that number of people behind us. Even when the show started.

We went in, found brilliant seats in the second row, and waited for it all to begin. A very shy and diffident MC welcomed everyone (all 12 of us), and introduced the first of the three opening acts. As he shifted his weight from foot to foot, and read from his trembling script, we started to get the idea that this evening might not be all we had expected. Low-key was not a bad thing, though, we convinced ourselves.

Even when one of the opening singers responded to an audience “whoop” by extending her arms, palms facing the audience, and said, quite annoyingly, and eye-rollingly teenage-ish, “What?”

I have to confess that the opening acts were excruciating. Each one of them. But we kept our chins up and thought it would be worth the wait. And imagine being one of a handful of people to see this amazing jazz fusion outfit? In London? One night only? Shu – all fired up with renewed enthusiasm, we managed not to yawn and shift in our hard seats too much for the next hour or so.

So, all the small fry were out of the way, and the inordinately bashful MC announced that the moment we had all been waiting for was now upon us. Drum roll please, as the stage was prepared for SpiroGyra. Our hearts sank, just a little, as we watched representatives of each of the opening acts – now all donning a variety of weird wigs – take their places on the stage. And on came SpiroGyra. A single gentleman. Wearing a purple dreadlocked wig. Made of wool. He began to sing and drum, accompanied by the previous “artists”. That sick, sinking feeling overwhelmed us, as we looked at each other, and realised we were at the wrong show. Big time.

We realised that the chap in front of us who had flown in from Romania had seriously specially flown in to see this singer. The front-row audience were seriously exchanging LPs (yes, not CDs) of this singer’s music. And we had come to the wrong show.

Our strategy was to get out as soon as we could. We planned our getaway – bear in mind we were in the second row of a very meagre audience, and leaving the venue would never be subtle. But leave we did. And quickly. And we ran to the tube station as fast as our legs would carry us. We welcomed the open arms of the tube like long-lost lovers. We sat down on the tube and laughed till the tears rolled down our cheeks. What were we thinking?

Immediately we got into our flat, we googled what we had just seen. And, having a look at the fine Wikipedia print, noticed something that might have alerted us at the outset:  This article refers to the British folk band. For the American jazz fusion band, see Spyro Gyra…

I heard an expression once that bad decisions make good memories. I’ve added my spin on that for the title of this blog. And now I have a new one: wrong spellings make bad concerts.

Sunshine signing off for today! We’re off to Manchester for the bank holiday weekend!

Everybody’s stalking at me

Being a huge fan of live music, I have been to quite an array of concerts around London. It is SO exciting to see old and new talent in action. But I have encountered a new beast in the London jazz clubs and music venues that I don’t like at all: the stalker.

My naieve, bobbing up and down joy has a few times turned to distress as I’ve realised the extent of the hero worship I see around me. And it is really quite disturbing.

We went to a small, intimate jazz club in Chelsea last month, to see one of our favourite artists whose music we have loved for many years. He is a local hero, a fantastic musician and we had looked for opportunities for some time to see him perform live.

We read about a forthcoming gig, and applied to be eligible to buy tickets. I got an email a few days later, letting me know I’d been successful and could buy tickets.  Being the over-exuberant, highly enthusiastic person that I am, my email reply was more than a little effusive. Something along the lines of YAY – YAY – YAY – YAY! Remember, I’m from abroad!

When we arrived at the venue, we gave our names to the attendant at the door, and as she led us to our seats, she said, “Ooh, front row seats tonight!” Our table was literally the closest you could get to the artist without actually sitting in his shirt pocket. So close we could look up his nose. Not that we did. Or wanted to.

My husband attributed our seat allocation directly to my enthusiasm.

Two women came to sit at the table next to ours. Equally close, but without the nostril opportunity. They couldn’t breathe. One of them had to hold on to her chair to stop herself falling over; she then managed to get herself into her seat, fanning herself with the menu to stop herself hyperventilating. I am not exaggerating. I know that I am prone to, but my husband would tell the story the same way.

She tried to mouthe the words, “I.Can’t.Believe.He’s.Going.To.Be.Right.There.” but the sounds evaded her overwhelmed self. She pointed at the microphone stand. She put her hand to her mouth. She pointed at the microphone stand. She held her heart, she fanned herself further, and then she called the entire address book in her mobile phone to tell them where she was sat.

For a while I bounced along in innocent solidarity with their excitement. Hell, I hadn’t seen him before and look where we were sitting! When our neighbours had calmed down to a panic, I said, “This is so exciting, innit?” (Maybe I’m exaggerating the London-ness, but bear with me.) “Have you seen him before?”

“BEFORE? We only saw him last night in Essex,” said one of them, down her hyperventilating nose. This surprised me (the last night part, not the nose), so I said, “Wow, that’s amazing.”

They then went on to tell me they had met each other at one of his concerts, and that they had both been to 25 to 30 of his concerts around the country. They only ever go to his concerts, nothing else…  and I thought WTF? (which means Why The Fanaticism?)

The claws came out when one of the waitrons put the artist’s water bottle AND glass on our table; and even more so when I ventured to speak to the artist at the beginning of his second set. I told you that I have this compulsion to say I’m a Saffa, well … he was thrilled to meet us and told us he loved SA, and shook our hands. The two neighbours leant over to our table, faces frillied with envy, and told us NEVER to wash our hands again … seriously.

I also discovered – at the half time break – that the majority of punters there that night were seasoned fans who followed this artist everywhere he went. On Facebook. On Twitter. On discussion boards. To concerts. Everywhere. They know where he lives. Where he went to school. Who his family members are. His every move. I was seriously disturbed.

After the show, his band hung around in the pub, had drinks and a bit of a natter. The headline act was instantly missing from the venue. I am not surprised, and quite glad – who knows what would have happened to him.

And that hasn’t been my only exposure to that level of fanaticism. We’ve been to a number of live concerts and have come to recognise the fine line over which fans step; it’s really not a pretty sight. Downright scary, that’s what it is.

I don’t want to lose my innocent joy and excitement at seeing wonderful musical talent – old and new – while we’re here in London. And I don’t think I will. Calling myself a huge fan of anyone? I don’t think so. It’s not at all what I mean.

London and some odds

The nation is all in a frenzy. The British Prime Minister and his wife, fondly known as SamCam, have given birth to their fourth child. A daughter. Three weeks early. The question on everyone’s lips: what will they call her?

Something that I have found really amusing, living in the UK, is the national obsession with – or propensity for – gambling. You can place a bet on anything. Obvious ones like who’s going to win the World Cup – along with millions of permutations of who will meet whom in which stage and what the scores will be and who will score the goals and who will be in the starting line-up – and then the not-so-obvious ones of which WAG (wives and girlfriends – of professionally footballers) will be photographed on the beach in South Africa first. You can bet on reality TV programme results, election results, what’s going to be the Christmas Number One, and now, you can bet on what the Camerons are going to call their baby.

She was born in Cornwall, and the PM hinted that she might have a Cornish middle name. Which sent the bookies crazy with opportunity. Now they are flooded with changing odds over the first name: Angelina (40/1), Ivana (40/1), Kammy (66/1) and Maggie (33/1). The favourite is Isabella (8/1) and my personal favourite, although it has the longest odds, is Beyonce (150/1). Can you imagine? They must be having a laff!

Jokes are flying backwards and forwards about Nick Clegg having the final say in what her name should be, the fact that she’s a ConLib baby, that the odds are 100/1 for Clegg to be asked to be the baby’s godfather, and I’m just waiting for Clegg to announce – in true coalition love-in style – that he and his wife are expecting twins. Cameron and Clegg have been described as “the biggest double act since Morecambe and Wise” and I suspect Clegg will have to have his one-upmanship on this!

So for me it’s back to the job of job hunting now, ho hum! It sure is a scary time to be in London – what with budget cuts, global recession, global warming, the ConLib government, Ultimate Big Brother and now we don’t even know what babyCam’s name is. Stressful? You bet!