cardboard cutout

Our house is made of cardboard. Either that or the bricks have holes in, which allow sound to travel magically through it. This was all well and good when my dad possessed only a starter-kit for the amateur guitarist. Alas he has now in all his elderly wisdom upgraded to the obesity amp. The thing is enormous, and the Fender sign and long line of little dials appear to mock me with their shiny new-ness. Bastards. I guess I’ll spend this weekend at Homebase getting the necessaries for sound proofing my room.

I’m escaping the house a lot lately. Finding my own place is proving tricky, so running away is my temporary solution. Requirements for said place of own, are basically that it needs to be a bargain, but preferably the kitchen should not be in the bedroom. This, it seems, is a pretty big ask in the city of London. Bah.

Escapes include Paris last weekend and up up and away to the north of England this weekend. Paris was of course entirely fabulous, a bit of a university reunion, our trio harking right back to the dynamics of old. Prancing about the city is always fun, I really love it there, it has a glamour about it, that we went to many lengths to ruin. My travelling companion and I astonished the French with our eating and drinking capabilities. The novelty of French cheese and wine could not possibly have worn thin in 3 days, so much so that we single-handedly stunk out public transport from Paris back to London, bags bursting with the stuff.

Anyway, after New York and now Paris I’ve become obsessive about moving abroad. I keep being tempted to move to Paris, with friends holed up in the city already. Then again, I don’t speak French, at least not in a way that is comprehensible to people living in France, minor problem! The plan is to get my rear end out of Britain by 2012, that way missing the joys of London public transport during the olympics and giving me some kind of goal. Both very, very good things.

all star banker

'Workers in the city are being advised to dress down and postpone non-essential meetings amid fears that they will be forced to run the gauntlet of protesters'

The above is an extract from an email sent to employees of a London bank last week, prior to the G20 summit and organised protests taking place from today. Do not yee worry, I'm not here to discuss politics, lets leave that for another day. 

I'm privy to the above because a banking friend happened to forward the message, I didn't think twice about the email. My place of work is on the outskirts of nowhere in West London, and we tend dress down. However, at approximately 7:42 this chilly spring morning, I was reminded of the aforementioned warning. Commuters know well the routine of the journey they make, and are used to seeing many of the same faces day in and day out and more to the point, many of the same suits. Imagine my amusement when a few of the faces turned up, with their suits nowhere to be seen. 

One of my favourite suits, because he bears a resemblance to a certain sex and the city character, looked like he had fallen straight out of bed into Topman, where he was swiftly spat back out onto Platform 1. He stood there, lit from above by a stretch of sunlight, looking down at his mobile phone. The effect was quite endearing really. The sunlight obviously didn't make looking at the phone easy, but made it look like it was the first time he had encountered this particular piece of technology. Either that or he had abandoned his blackberry for the day, and the retro Nokia was part of the 'I'm normal like you' disguise? The rest of the outfit consisted of casual corduroys and some fresh-from-the-box converse all stars. 

I'm also curious about this 'gauntlet' they'll be running. If you've ever been down to London's financial abyss, you'll know there is little there, apart from some quite nice architecture, some rather big banks and I think The Independent newspaper office is knocking about too. Personally I think it's a lot of hype about a lot of nothing, other than the gauntlet it will be interesting to see how the G20 miraculously solve all our current crises with their overpriced discussions. I'm inclined to think that the protests and summit are unlikely to achieve anything. A number of 'stop the war' protests are taking place, while at the same time troops being removed from Iraq - a marginally futile exercise. I don't need to ask what the real cost of the summit is, I expect an intern at one of the nationals is furiously doing sums on my behalf.

After all I didn't see Obama or Sarkozy in their all stars this morning.