February 2005 Archives
After much deliberating and a couple of trips around Brick Lane / Spitalfields and over to the furniture emporiae of Tottenham Court Road we've finally settled on two armchairs to add to the sofa in the lounge of Ben Jonson House.
We've decided against getting a matching pair, or trying to make the chairs and sofa look like a suite, and have gone for a chair each from the SIT range at Little Book of Furniture (don't bother if you can't bear to wait for the irritating flash movie to load....) shop in Spitalfields:
Phil: Cube chair in a brown suede finish (no link because of the marvels of flash)
Mary: IT chair in polished brown leather (no link because of the marvels of flash)
I've just set up and done my first photo printing with the Canon Pixma IP4000 I got as my leaving gift from Simmons & Simmons, and it's fantastic!!
Set up was painless (once Phil had raided his box of "cables and stuff" to dig out a USB cable to connect the printer to my Mac) and I've just printed off 5 copies of this photo to send to the porters in the picture.
The quality's great and I'm going to spend the rest of the afternoon playing around with the various settings. Well, I would if the printer came with more than a photo printer paper sample of more than 5 sheets.....
A long overdue purchase for my eMac, which came with a bog standard, albeit aesthetically pleasing mouse: a scrolling, right-clicking mouse, courtesy of Saitek, by way of MicroAnvika.
And soooo easy to install - just plug in and play. Bliss.
Oh dear. Oh dear. Oh dear.
What were they thinking?
Season Two, Episode 4: The New Era, as screened this afternoon on C4 - Marissa's cockernee stylee baker boy cap, with green velvet derriere bow, waistcoat over white puffy-sleeved shirt, and Rupert-the-Bear/golfing-closet-of-shame checked trousers.
Sadly the looks-lovely-but... The OC official website from Fox won't let me link to anything, so you'll just have to go and find the gruesome evidence for yourself.
Phew - you're saved the trouble, but not the trauma.
Thank heavens for the internet.
I've been getting my photos up online, slowly but surely, over the past couple of weeks. Next step: set up my S&S leaving pressie photo printer, and to print off the best. In the meantime, here is my day by day pictorial record of the Exodus trip, Delhi to Kathmandu: 22 January to 5 February 2005.
5 February: Kathmandu - Thamel and the Rum Doodle 40,000 ft bar
4 February: Kathmandu - Walking around Thamel, Durbar Marg and Durbar Square
3 February: Kathmandu - Pashupatinath hindu temple, Bodhnath tibetan buddhist stupa, Swayambhunath "Monkey" buddhist temple, Thamel, Durbar Square and the Kumari, Giovana's birthday
2 February: Chitwan to Kathmandu
1 February: Chitwan - Elephant breeding centre (Elephants there, canoes back)
31 January: Chitwan - Dawn safari, Canoe trip, Elephant briefing, Tharu village visit
30 January: Bhairawa to Safari Narayani Lodge Ghatgai, Chitwan, and our first elephant safari, traditional Tharu dancing
29 January: Adieu India, Namaste Nepal
28 January: Varanasi
27 January: Allahabad, Village school visit, Vindachal Temple Mirzapur, Chunar Fort, Boat ride down the Ganges, Barry's and Maria's birthday
26 January: Taj Mahal, the Red Fort at Agra, Fatepur Sikri and the Magadh Express
25 January: Jaipur - Albert Hall, Palace of the Winds, Amber Palace, Jaipur Old City rickshaw ride
24 January: Delhi to Jaipur - En route, Narain Niwas Palace Hotel, Jai Singh's Observatory, the City Palace
23 January: Delhi - Gandhi's tomb, Gurdwara Bangla Sahib sikh temple, New Delhi
22 January: Delhi - Humayun's tomb, Lotus baha'i temple and Qtub Minar
Other links:
- Trip details on the Exodus website
- Pre-departure planning
- Trip reports: Interim report from Varanasi, part 2
January 2012: Following fotopic's demise, I've uploaded my photos for this trip onto Flickr: Delhi to Kathmandu, January/February 2005
Phil and I went to see Richard Herring's one man show The Twelve Tasks of Hercules Terrace last night, and the £4.60 (ouch) return tube fare to Hammersmith was worth every penny.
It was a last minute decision, and I'm v glad that we decided to stir our stumps and head west to the Riverside Studios. Not only did we get to enjoy a very funny show, but we had plenty of time for a tasty meal beforehand, courtesy of the very fine Riverside Cafe/Bar. We almost ran out of time for dessert though, which would have been the second time that particular ill-deserved, non-dessert disaster would have befallen us at the Cafe/Bar..... Top tip: order pud well in advance of when you think you'll want it!
But back to the main attraction - Richard Herring, and his twelve tasks....
Phil introduced me to Warming Up a while back, so some of the material in the show was familiar. But seeing the writer in action and delivering their own work changes everything. For starters, I'd thought RH was rather taller than he is (Sorry!), and as he recounted the background to his taking on Hercules Terrace, and the Twelve Tasks, the self-depreciating humour of Warming Up became tinged with the sadness of reality: the tasks were a means of working through a period of depression, not some juvenile jolly jape.
Go see it, and discover the joys of CNPS - there's another whole sub-culture out there, just *waiting* to be discovered.....
LONDON RUN OF THE TWELVE TASKS OF HERCULES TERRACE:
February 8th - 20th February 2005 (not 14th) at 9pm
(except 13th and 20th Feb at 5.45pm, 11th and 19th Feb at 7.30pm)
Riverside Studios, Crisp Road, Hammersmith.
Box Office telephone: +44 (0)20 8237 1111
The Safari Narayani Lodge was a lovely place to relax and to do safaris by elephant and canoe into the Royal Chitwan National Park, where we saw rhino and crocodiles. We also go to enjoy traditional Tharu dances and a visit to a local village where Kirsty and I were kept busy giving swings.
The drive to Kathmandu was beautiful, even if it featured a few frightening sheer drops as we climbed from the enchantingly named Mugling (fresh spicy samosa, 6 for 30 nepali rupees) along the Prithvi Highway into the high Kathmandu valley.
We couldn't go to Pokhara - a combination of the Maoists declaring a No Travel day, and putting a bomb under one of the main bridges on the road to Pokhara. So no views of the marvellous Annapurnas, and no treks :(
I loved Kathmandu - the Royal Singi Hotel was in a great location in Durbar Marg, close to Thamel, to old city and the amazing Durbar Square. And there is Kasthamandap Bazaar just over the road: a great quasi-department store, with a food hall-cum-Woolies in the basement.
We had a great day of informative tours with our local guide Suresh, starting with the hindu temple at Pashupatinath (I didn't know that Nepal is the only hindu kingdom, although buddhism and hinduism do seem to blend easily for most nepalese), then the tibetan buddhist stupa at Bodhnath with its busy courtyard and beautiful sunshine lighting up the golden spire, and prayer flags fluttering in the breeze. Our last stop before lunch as the monkey temple of Swayambhunath, with its golden stupa and temples on a hilltop with views over Kathmandu and towards the mountains that encircle the valley.
After a great lunch al fresco in the Dechenling Beer House garden, where I had my first taste of Everest Beer, Suresh let us wander through Thamel and down through streets busy with the activities of daily life, before giving us a fascinating guided tour of Durbar Square, including an appearance by the Kuamri, the living goddess.
The rest of our time in Kathmandu was freetime, mainly spent wandering the streets of Kathmandu, and trying not to buy too many souvenirs....
I want to go back to Nepal sometime, all the more so after Michael Wood's The search for Shangri-La programme yesterday. Not sure when though.
All telecoms were off during the week we were in Nepal, but once in Kathmandu we go to see BBCWorld reports telling us that "people who can are fleeing the country" and occasionally saw groups of armed soldiers hanging around on street corners, but other than that you wouldn't have known that the King had just made another step towards increased despotism.
One of my least favourite ways to spend a Saturday afternoon.... writing another letter to Jewel in the Crown about why Hazel and I are seeking a refund for the holiday we bought from them, staying at the half built, not quite 'Le Meridien' yet, Kovalam Beach hotel. Judge for yourself: brochure vs our reality.
Typically Jewel in the Crown's response to my letter of complaint arrived the week after I left on my between jobs trip to northern India and Nepal, and when I got back I also found Donna's letter with copies of her equally unsatisfactory correspondence with Jewel in the Crown.
So I've spent my first Saturday back in the UK, at the end of my first week in a new job, writing to Jewel in the Crown. Again. If anyone ever hears me considering a swanky package holiday ever again, please remind me of this unhappy experience.
I've emailed Pauline to see if Jewel in the Crown are being equally unrepentant to all three of us, and I'll have another look at Which?'s website, to see what they say about package holiday horror stories, and Citizens Advice Bureau's AdviceGuide to see what we need to do to take our complaint to the small claims court.
I'm not quite at that stage yet, but it will depend on Jewel in the Crown's next response.
.... wasn't nearly as scary as I'd built it up to be in my overactive imagination, despite the distractions of India and Nepal. That said, it does feel really weird to be the newbie and to be somewhere that has some elements that are really familiar and others that are totally alien.
This morning was given over to a general induction, including an overview of the firm, security briefing (another glorious photo on my pass/the intranet) and some basic IT training. I spent the afternoon exploring the intranet and setting up Outlook (hurrah!). I have DMS training tomorrow, and (probably) laptop training on Thursday (flat screen monitor and laptop come as standard!), and *then* I'll probably have to do some real work!
Northern India was overcast, squalid and frustrating.
Nepal was sunny, clean and in a state of emergency.
After the tortuous return flight from Kathmandu (the killer stage being the 6 hour stop over in Abu Dhabi - home of the world's most uncomfortable airport seating - from 9.40pm to 3.30am), it's been a nice but weird day back in London. Phil met me at LHR, which was really really lovely, and once back in the Barbican and after unpacking and starting the washing marathon we headed over to Warwick Avenue for a very tasty lunch at the Prince Albert Pub and Formosa Dining Room, organised by Tom Coates.
Time for a bit of a veg session now catching up on all the telly Phil's videoed in my absence (USA-tastic: The OC! The West Wing! Desperate Housewives!). Then I'll think about getting my stuff together for day 1 at Norton Rose...... Sorting holiday pics will have to wait a while.