Well it’s goodbye Birmingham and her lovely punters, and sadly far too soon! Since the cab ride to New Street station this morning was the first time I had left my accommodation following my arrival on Sunday, any thoughts of exploring the place (or even a Balti) were knocked quickly into shape. I will just have to come back.
In this vein, huge apologies to those who had trouble getting through on the phone (whilst I will be back, I will be staying elsewhere and not just for this reason as the troupe of visitors will know) and slightly less enthusiastic ones to those who did only to be mystified that I was not once available (much less ‘free’) in the next fifteen minutes. Go. To. A. Parlour.
After walking through the door a scant four hours ago to happy fishes, leftover curry and an unprecedented pile of junk mail for a non-election period, I have industriously emptied Suitcase 1 (Work/Large) and begun the less-than-challenging task of packing Suitcase 3 (Non-Work/Tiny) for Champney’s, the core requirements being toothbrush, clean knickers and a cossie. Suitcase 2 (Work/Middle) sits patiently waiting for the Isle of Man preparations to begin upon my return, although a substitution may yet take place depending on food arrangements; longer-standing readers will remember a similar trip to Douglas a couple of years ago just after the TT racing, and if half as much fun is had this time around I won’t be complaining at all.
The phone is off and will remain so until Tuesday next week (meaning texts will not be seen either, particularly since I’m not taking it with me); emails will be checked in a timely way and replied to as appropriate but quite possibly not over the weekend. As for tonight, it’s going to be an early one without even a single episode of Breaking Bad.
More when I get back (and have possibly gone again)! Meanwhile, my dressing gown awaits…
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.…or nearly that; sadly Friday’s blazing sunshine and soaring temperatures (that led me to skulk, fugitive-like in a shady corner of Cardinal Place with my packed lunch to avoid getting seriously frazzled) were nowhere to be seen at London Bridge at 8am on Saturday morning, meaning that the open-air viewing platform at the Shard was Off Limits For Health And Safety, and all yoga had to be practised some three levels down on the 70th floor instead for fear of slippage.
A fabulous time was still had (I don’t believe it possible for the London skyline to look dull no matter what the weather or even the setting, as the view from the toilets demonstrates) and even though the actual yoga had to stay under cover, we were all permitted to run up to the open air platform and have a look, or at least (in my case) hurriedly snap a few pictures and then turn a bit giddy when a gust of wind hit and run back down again – I wonder how many saw the Tour de France pass by from the 73rd floor yesterday afternoon?
For those in the yoga-know, I managed Dancer pose on both left and right sides without falling over for the first time ever and this prompted a mini-celebration by way of a full English with tea and real sugar on the way back across town to pack up and set about getting home, fortunately without too much of a scrap at York (although the easily-avoided Harrogate platform was still three deep with those off to catch the end of the Grand Depart) in good time for the football; by way of a sidenote I can highly recommend the huge kebabs from La Plaza on Falsgrave Road, ordered as emergency measure when extra time became apparent, delivered promptly and to the door in twenty minutes or so without any whiny phone calls, and about as good a kebab as I suspect anybody has ever had.
Next London visit will be the Pre Frightfest trip from 17th to the 21st of August (or the morning of it at least) and whilst location hasn’t yet been decided, my Waterloo digs are looking likely as it’s been a while; all will be revealed. Back to this week, and Other Business brings me to Leeds for a little bit of Thursday afternoon and then all day Friday and Saturday morning – yay! It’s been a while, and availability is dwindling fairly sharply so get in touch! The building work back home continues and Scarborough availability is as limited as ever, but I will be back for most of the rest of the month bar the occasional day out – as ever, the way to find out is text or email.
On with the evening’s pre-football preparations – it’ll all be over by this time next week! Fortunately my most favourite programme of last year Utopia returns for another series on Channel 4 and the keen eyed of Scarborough would do well to pay attention since bits of were being filmed just down the street from this very apartment a few months back, although not when I was in it. Possibly the only time this year when my Record Entire Series button will be employed and highly recommended (and if it turns out I missed out on a chance to meet Neil Maskell I will be seriously pissed off).
More soon! After the Nando’s, McDonald’s (including Diet Coke, the shame), fry up and mega-kebab of the last few days, it’s back to the drawing board fridge-wise and I will be persevering with all things raw, green and virtuous for the rest of the week, until Saturday afternoon in York, at least. Wish me luck…
After a fairly exhausting week having lots of fun dashing about north of the border, I’ve been back for a week of gentle recovery having fought my way through the festival hordes at Waverley station; not being a theatre person I had no idea about the event when I organised the trip (fitting it conveniently around the end of the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, another favourite city) and it’s testimony to the usual Edinburgh hotel prices that whilst I noticed it was steep, it wasn’t outrageous enough to warrant further investigation and I count myself lucky in retrospect to have found anything at all…
My turn for the annual entertainment-a-thon in the form of FrightFest approaches this coming Thursday evening, and availability on the preceding days in Victoria is dwindling steadily; hopefully the temperature will be a little easier to cope with than the other week. I’ll assure everybody now that I’m at least back in a real hotel, thank God. Please note that bar occasional checks, the work phone will be off from the lunchtime of Thursday 21st August and not back on again until Wednesday 27th at the earliest – callers will find this one out when they ring, but for the benefit of texters I won’t get your messages. As ever, email, please!
Watching twenty six or so horror films (plus associated introductions and Q&A sessions) in four-and-a-bit days can be gruelling stuff indeed (although deciding between the Saturday early evening offering and the Doctor Who premiere a few yards away at the Empire was more so, particularly for a dedicated Peter Capaldi fan) but by way of refreshment after a very long few weeks it always does the job – this year’s event boasts (amongst others) a guest appearance and Q&A by Robert Englund to introduce a thirtieth anniversary screening of A Nightmare on Elm Street, which makes me feel not only very old, but also glad that mobile phones were not around at the time – having been twelve by the time it arrived in our local video shop I doubt I would have got any sleep at all for most of the ensuing year from staying awake all night texting after watching it from behind the sofa with classmates (which we did many, many times after muchas begging of various people’s older siblings to rent it out for us). Happy days.
As promised, exciting progress is afoot back in Scarborough, and I look forward to announcing new incall arrangements soon! Hopefully by this time next month at least; local punters will be glad to hear that same day and half hour bookings will not only be on the cards, but newbies will be welcomed and a special day rate offered too – hooray! I might even put the kettle on, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Whilst this will mark a distinct downturn in the seemingly endless and increasingly tiring charging about, non-local folk need not fear – I will still be visiting, just less often, and Londoners will barely notice a difference at all! Ditto New Yorkers – the next of my twice-yearly-ish visits is sneaking up fast and will hopefully provide a perfectly-timed respite from the shenanigans here (and if not, between the High Line, Shake Shack and Century 21 I can hardly say I won’t be trying).
Well I’ve been terribly lax once again, I know, but after an enormously tiring few weeks (and an even more chaotic one to follow shortly) I can now announce the provisional start date for the new Scarborough incalls will be Monday 6th October – yay!
The time since the last update has been spent packing up anything useful, clearing out for recycling anything which isn’t and donating or eBaying (with not inconsiderable success) the things which are useful, but not to me. I have found items I saw last when moving house, clothing I thought was long gone – my much-mourned black chenille hat that I was convinced I lost on an outcall to the St Pancras Novotel (as was) in 2008 being a highlight – and an inexplicable mountain of assorted (and almost entirely unused) sex toys from various online/Ann Summers shop sales which have all been packed up for recycling at the very worthy sex toy recycling scheme known as Rabbit Amnesty, run by the nice people at Lovehoney for a few years now and handy for getting rid of all manner of small electronics which shouldn’t be binned but that nobody really wants to take to the local tip. In addition to creating drawer space and responsibly getting rid of hard-to-get-rid-of rubbish, points are awarded for every item sent including even a couple of old remote controls I found, three old routers and an old set of digital kitchen scales – yay!
Needless to say, the changes indicate a serious reduction in dashing around the land with my work suitcase on my back like a nomad – the last five or so years of being away from home and fishes almost two weeks out of every month exploring towns, cities and islands has been lots of fun for the most part, but the more expensive and tiring it gets, the less inclination I have to do it and I want to put my feet up for a bit. That said, Londoners won’t notice a thing – I’m not changing tack that much…
Obviously what can go wrong will in the meantime (if it hasn’t already, which shortens the odds somewhat) and nothing is cast in stone, but that’s the plan. I will be gradually editing the website, various directory profiles and other ads but the major changes are the clearest ones; same day availability for the first time in years, and opportunities for new visitors for the first time in a good few months! My new venue is central (very), cosy (OK, smaller) and discreet (winces, but at least I can spell the much-overused word properly) and the smell of paint will soon be gone. I’ll actually have more than two sets of clothes to choose from and as many towels as I want without having to phone somebody to ask for them, plus there’ll be special daytime rates to celebrate too – watch this space!
I did find chance last weekend for a liver-and-wallet-punishing day out at York Beer Festival complete with a kebab finish, and a run down to London a couple of days later by way of a break, partly as a cash-gathering mission (and a successful one too, with some charming new acquaintances made) and partly to pop up to the ECP and hear from the Canadian sex worker activists who successfully won a Supreme Court ruling to have the prostitution laws (and Canada’s were very similar to our own) repealed, and how the fight to have this implemented is going now the spectre of the Nordic model looms large. As far away as Canada may be, it’s one to watch (along with similar shenanigans from those just across the water in Northern Ireland, and not forgetting Ireland itself) and was all inspiring stuff (and from ordinary prossies too) but it had been a long day and I faltered a short while before the end, making haste back to the Northern Line for snails, sea trout and a spot of live jazz with Charlotte at Brasserie Toulouse Lautrec before bedtime. Recommended.
As far as this week goes, there’s nothing much to report – the phone is off (and I do mean off) and will be back on possibly towards the end of the week, but more likely from Monday morning on the 6th. If anything does cause a massive trip-up, you’ll see it here first.
Fingers crossed for next week! And to the ever-patient local folk, see you soon…
Although not without a few hiccups leading to a couple of days delay, an afternoon of intensive IKEA flatpack construction that nearly resulted in the skip up the road filling up far faster than anticipated (in the event, the beneficiary was the till at the local off licence) and no less than nine fourteen-or-so hour days in a row of cleaning, building, decorating and airing out, but I can now report that I’m finally settled in to what’s best described as most of a flat and as of last Wednesday incalls are happily up and running – yay!
It’s been very hard work and involved some serious horror that would rival anything on the bill at FrightFest, but my new shiny new Scarborough base is coming along in leaps and bounds – the really tough bits are out of the way, the bags are unpacked and everybody so far has been gallant enough not to mention the lingering smell of paint, bacon (fried daily in an attempt to mask the paint) and leftover Dominos. The paint will be around for a while yet (and God alone knows who comes up with the names; I can’t be the only person who feels a pillock even opening the tin of something called ‘Urban Obsession’ just to slap it on the bog walls) but all is ticking over nicely and the new routine of getting up, getting dressed, going to work and going home again rather than trying to second-guess the hotel cleaners schedule, fathom out every imaginable model and design of shower without getting my head drenched and decide which branch of the bank would be the best bet (based on what I want for breakfast on the way) is relaxing in the extreme even allowing for the new-flat chaos.
Just in case there was a risk of my getting too comfortable, my second trip of the year to New York is creeping up fast; it should be warmer than last February but nowhere near as dry, and I suspect I will be needing my wellingtons – full details overleaf on the usual page! London follows for a couple of days on the way back, and then it’s home again from the 10th November until the Big Christmas Trip.
A very brief update for now, but a proper one will follow soon as the settling in continues (and when my broadband is connected).
Well after all that (predictably pre-drafted on Thursday evening and auto-published in the name of common sense) it turned out that sadly the R&R, for the first time in five years or so, was not forthcoming on this occasion thanks in no small part to Champney’s executive decision somewhere along the line to replace whatever was responsible for providing their wifi service with a boiled potato (probably).
This was bad enough on its own, but when exacerbated by a complete and blanket lack of any peace and quiet anywhere on the premises outwith the wifi connection (anybody fancy being shut in a building in the middle of nowhere with loud-voiced strangers who talk incessantly about nothing in particular apparently to fill up the silence which is the whole point of being there in the first place? No?) all was irrevocably lost. Even holing up in my room like a fugitive in my quest for a noise free zone didn’t help once the cleaners started slamming doors just to the right of my bed (and continuing their conversation throughout, despite eventually being at opposite ends of the corridor said room was in the middle of) and I finally threw in the towel when the window cleaner started crashing about at the window to the left – if it sounds like a bad joke, be assured, it also felt like one.
Take all that and raise it an almost total lack of any mobile signal so even my back up O2 portable hotspot was completely useless and we, or at least I have a problem, although fortunately one which like so many others was easily solvable by bursting into tears of incandescent fury and frustration in the privacy of the toilet before composing oneself, mentally waving goodbye to the cash and rapidly bogging off home for hot chocolate and Netflix. I can paint my own bloody toenails anyway.
I should probably point out that I can manage, if admittedly not very well or for very long, without The Internet provided I know about it beforehand (in much the same way as I can manage quite happily without TV, newspapers and more than happily without the telephone), but to promise and then fail to deliver is, like any other goalpost-moving, not cricket. Thankfully three days on and after some real, bona fide relaxing at home in my bunny slippers with Mackie’s ice cream, American Horror Story and appropriately silent fishes I am well and truly bright eyed, bushy tailed and resolutely back on form. And I even got the freezer defrosted!
Preparations for Christmas are well underway with the shopping, incredibly, nearly all done (including personalised cards from Scribbler, who have taken up residence on the Quidco Unlock 50 Quid special offer page) and present wrapping will commence at a leisurely pace soon if for no reason other than to get it out if the way. For a very pleasant change and because for once I don’t have a couple of week-long trips to pack for followed by half a dozen trains and planes to catch between now and the day, I might even leave it for a week or two – yay! I’m not quite sure how festive the flat will wind up, but I’ll think of something.
Anyway, all systems go here until Wednesday 17th – new photos and the Christmas Hours page on the way too!
…and it’s show over for a week (nearly); as most will suspect, I’m not really here! At the moment the trusty auto-publish kicks in, I’ll hopefully be peacefully ensconced in front of the TV anticipating the turkey and After Eight induced stupor which awaits rather than battling the East Coast main line with the other Christmas travellers – as at the time of writing. I may well be sprinkled with bits of shell and brazil nut and satsuma mess that missed the bin, and will certainly still smell a bit of garlic after the homemade-houmous-a-thon of Tuesday lunchtime. Well it isn’t that often I get to do it…
It’s been a lively couple of weeks to say the least, but lots of fun – yay! I have sung along at the Prince Charles cinema, accidentally seen a mariachi band in Camden (unmissable, as it turned out) and eaten three KFC original recipe meals in five days. I have seen lots of Christmas lights and windows, made lots of new friends and discussed everything from Newcastle United’s 2004-05 season back four to whether or not nutella should be kept in the fridge (it shouldn’t) and the finer points of installing a Raspberry Pi. And now I’m having a well earned rest.
As is prominently plastered everywhere I could be bothered, I will be back in the new(ish) Scarborough pad on Monday 29th, and all who need some festive time-out are welcome as ever – there’s even chocolate! Monday and Tuesday will be business as usual with Wednesday yet to be decided – it may turn out to be a duvet day, or it may not (or it may be a duvet day at the flat where people can join in) but either way for now the very best wishes to all. I’ll see you on the other side!
And hello from Douglas! It’s not sunny, although it was (yesterday) and it’s still far from the spectacle which greeted me on Wednesday afternoon; that is, one of driving rain, gale force winds and bent over palm trees at the airport. It was also the only time I have ever arrived and had to wait over half an hour for a taxi, leaving me frozen to the marrow and in dire need of a hot bath and a cupasoup.
Despite the slightly bumpy start I settled in nicely soon after, helped along as ever by the friendly local folk (very friendly too – it must be the cold) and my suitcase stash of After Eights, oddbod Quality Streets and Mini Cheddars left over from Christmas; on a 15kg weight limit, sensible packing is the order of the day, after all. It’s by now my last full day and having had a lovely time as usual, home and flat are calling and I will be back bright eyed and bushy tailed on Monday morning ready to crack on with a few hastily-made New Year’s resolutions, mostly those involving the steam stripper, lining paper and generally making a mess.
Other tasks for the coming weeks include a variation of the Money Saving Expert no-spend challenge (and for anybody who’s feeling thrifty yet has never ventured onto the MSE site and it’s forums, if you can avoid the really psychotic suggestions it’s well worth a look) which involves keeping as much of your cash as possible firmly in your purse by using up what you’ve already got. My total spend for 2015 – nine days in – is a could-be-bettered £37.63, but given that £20.00 went on the bloody airport taxi and £10.00 on my (regular and prebooked) manicure which henceforth I will be doing myself, not bad! A full thirty pence, regrettably, went on the ladies toilets at the station but since no alternative facilities were available and I’d saved the best part of a tenner by bringing turkey sandwiches, bottled tap water and leftover Pringles with me for the journey, a balance was deemed to have been reached. That said, next time I’ll be pre-investigating the immediate vicinity for likely department stores.
The prospect of eating everything in the house because it’s part of A Master Plan has cheered me no end, and at least as much as the Great Wardrobe Clearout planned for an (and possibly more than one) upcoming Sunday afternoon – the last one turned up items including my beloved ox blood Doc Martens, the eye-wateringly expensive scarlet cashmere cardi bought in Paris six or seven years back (and which will be familiar to a few folk reading) and a Vivienne Westwood striped frock I’d worn precisely once and, to my shame, completely forgotten about. Plus (and as I’m probably making sound like far more of an Aladdin’s cave than it is) the usual cheap T-shirts with the inexplicable small holes and the (explicable) pizza marks that won’t wash out, and which are now – in the spirit of thrift – destined for the duster bag in the case of the white ones, and for the rest, a still-at-the-planning-stage rag rug – yay!
The likelihood of some seriously terrible weather setting in fairly shortly is increasing (given that it’s under two weeks to my birthday I speak from experience), but the travel is now over and done with until the next London trip in early February and whilst I’ll be taking incalls in Scarborough daily as we’ve all started getting used to, I won’t be hurrying down to the flat for 9am on the truly wild days. It’s always an idea to give me a good few hours warning anyway, but from next week on, anybody wanting an appointment beginning before 12 noon will need to let me know at at least an hour in advance and preferably more – it’s not just so I can get myself there but to give the thermostat a fighting chance to achieve a temperature anybody would want to get undressed in.
Next update (including the resolutions) soon! Some quick commiserations to Blyth and AFC Wimbledon whilst I’m here, and a thank you for keeping us entertained; in the absence of the mighty Scarborough Athletic from the upcoming FA Cup fourth round, I’ll be getting firmly behind Cambridge United on the 23rd (finally – Friday night TV worth watching!) So onto the packing it is and I’ll be heading for home tomorrow; there are a couple of slots still available in the morning even allowing for a Saturday lie in, but it’s probably worth getting in quick. I don’t know when I’ll be back, but I can never stay away for too long!
And a quick hello from a small but adequately heated corner of SW1V, where I’m briefly camping whilst I wait for my hotel room to get the OK (quite what those responsible do to every room in the hotel that makes them all suddenly and simultaneously ready at 3pm and not a second before is a mystery that has puzzled me for years – if anybody knows, by all means spill the beans). Fortunately my just-ended journey down to London Victoria was otherwise without hitches (obviously it was the right kind of snow today) and I post from the cafe over the road.
As you can see, I’ve still not quite got the hang of doing picture collages on the tablet, although it’s not as if I don’t have any (and the snow which greeted me upon pulling the curtains in Scarborough this morning would have been the very thing, but unfortunately I was too concerned about my slipping, tumbling over and rolling about in it to think of putting the camera on). Therefore my annual birthday onion bhajis will have to suffice for now – the celebrations stretched over almost a week in the end, starting with some superior haggis, cloutie dumpling and a singsong with Frank Sinatra at Boisdale’s Burns Night Hootenanny in Canary Wharf (recommended, especially if your idea of adventure is wandering around Docklands on a cold January night looking baffled and trying to find the might-as-well-be-a-secret entrance door) and winding up last Friday at the equally celebratory (but far cheaper) Tikka Tikka on Castle Road as can be seen above. Phew.
Back at HQ it’s been time for a spot of wallpaper stripping (and what a joy it is to have two half-finished flats to get on with instead of just the one) after giving myself a kick earlier in the week; irrespective of how quiet the middle bits of January and February can be, sitting about in my pyjamas eating Snack-A-Jacks and watching Event Horizon does not constitute work even if I am doing so in the work flat. With that in mind the decorating is back on track at last (plus, moving about a bit now and again is warmer). The boiler is still holding up too, although that’s a story for another day.
Availability for the next few days is scattered – give me a call! I will be around until Saturday lunchtime, and then back in Scarborough bright and early on Monday, weather permitting.
More soon. I think I heard somebody flick the Rooms Are Ready …Now!!! switch.
And hello again Scarborough! As local folk will know, it’s been my first day back at my city pad after having spent the majority of the last three days lying on the floor eating Easter eggs and listening to OK Computer.
After returning from the busiest London trip in some time (and with far and away the best weather too – see pics!) a break was needed, not least because an early start followed by a morning spent throwing some odd shapes for the oft-mentioned new pictures left me (my back, mostly) feeling a little like a box of broken biscuits. Ah, it’s great getting old.
I did manage enough free time to bask happily in the Spring sunshine beneath the London Eye along with about five hundred others who had the same idea, embark on an epic Ping Pong-a-thon with fellow kumquat mojito fan Daisy and nearly get thrown out of my hotel before even getting in it having completely forgotten that my credit card had been cancelled after somehow being intercepted, cloned and used online to book mini cabs in Hungary (I think, since my Magyar is not what it might be) – oops. Still, I had such a lovely time I’ve been terrifyingly organised and already sorted the next couple of excursions; all being well I will be back at my other favourite haunt two minutes from Victoria Station and roughly equidistant with Nando’s on Wednesday May 20th and playing nicely until the Saturday lunchtime (23rd). Hopefully the weather will hold, but if not I’m thankfully never short of ideas for things to do indoors.
Anyway, more updates on the new pictures in due course but suffice to say and without wanting to be tediously cryptic, the end result is not going to be what everybody thinks it is. Since the also-previously-mentioned new website is coming along in leaps and bounds (it has now been Seen To Work On An iPhone, despite a large part of me finding it difficult to care whether any device whose name begins with a lower case ‘i’ accepts it or not), the plan is to have everything done and dusted for the start of next month – yay! Obviously, best laid plans and so forth, but it’s all exciting stuff and I now even know what a widget is. I will still not be joining Twitter.
For now, I’ll be here in Scarborough until Thursday lunchtime next week before heading off to Scotland and Edinburgh’s Filmhouse for Dead By Dawn – some classics beckon this year, and not only in the downstairs bar. In the meantime availability will be as standard, but if the sunshine continues as forecast (and after a thwarted attempt at a trip to the beach on Sunday when the rain stopped only long enough for me to buy a 99) I’ll be out and about like any other sane person who doesn’t have to sit in an office all day, and a bit more notice than usual might be a plan.
Well it’s been a lively few weeks to say the least. By way of a caveat I should say that this is now the sixth draft that I’ve sat down to write and not had time to finish – sorry!
The (mostly) lovely weather from a fortnight or so ago now seems to be back with a vengeance, its previous visit lasting long enough to bring out all the usual instincts to jump on the bus for B&Q and get cracking with the home improvement shopping but not long enough to actually get many of the enthusiastically planned improvements done, or at least the outdoor ones. I do have a new letterbox, some upgraded flooring and the very early stages of a hanging basket – you have to take what you can get. Plus the town centre is still bearable as unlike Scotland, the school holidays haven’t started yet and I could even photograph the window display in our new(ish) sweet shop undisturbed upon spotting it on my way to Marks & Spencer.
Preparations for London next week are getting underway; I will be back in Victoria for the last time in a while once the work on the Underground station starts on July 6th – further ahead and my next visit in August will be firmly back down by the river! The usual agonising British Summer Packing Conundrum of how to have something to wear for every eventuality where clothing is required when the weather is threatening temperatures of 80+ with thunderstorms and pouring rain, is in full force. Thank God for my oxblood Doc Martens, which go with everything.
The entry below from *cough* weeks ago saw me having just returned from Victoria, and also speculated that the FrightFest queue may be cancelled which indeed it has – a visit to Leicester Square is certainly on the cards next week (I’m hardly going to pass up The Long Good Friday at the Prince Charles Cinema) but the queue itself is taking to the internet for this year at least, meaning that the Saturday morning will still probably not be available although as nobody seems to know for definite whether the tickets go on sale at ten am or twelve noon (which pretty much summarises what happens every time anybody tries to buy or sell tickets for any FrightFest event online), at the moment it’s anybody’s guess. Fingers crossed for my perfect seat in the FilmFour screen, as carefully pinpointed from the row directly behind it where I happily pitched up last year. I’m not saying which one it is, just in case…
I’m back in Scarborough provisionally for the remainder of July, but taking into account the very busy June a mini-break is in the early stages of planning, even if it’s just a tentative return to Champneys. I will be phoning for an update first after the train wreck of my last visit (which regular readers will remember led to me leaving a day early and missing both a dinner and a breakfast – serious indeed) but if they’ve got the wifi working properly and banned the most boring bastards in the universe from talking loudly in the nice quiet lounging area I’ll chance it, although it’s a coin toss which was going to be the harder to get right. Human nature being what it is, my money’s on the wifi.
As it’s the weekend and this is really just a brief update to prove I’m still alive, it’s back to it for now – new and unexpected ventures beckon! These include the news this week that I’m doing my own tax return for the first time this year due to my dashing accountant being unexpectedly and unavoidably indisposed, my inherent laziness precluding me from looking for another one and (thanks to my all-encompassing OCD) I already have the spreadsheets. How hard can it be? I built a website, ffs.
Image may be NSFW. Clik here to view.…or nearly that; sadly Friday’s blazing sunshine and soaring temperatures (that led me to skulk, fugitive-like in a shady corner of Cardinal Place with my packed lunch to avoid getting seriously frazzled) were nowhere to be seen at London Bridge at 8am on Saturday morning, meaning that the open-air viewing platform at the Shard was Off Limits For Health And Safety, and all yoga had to be practised some three levels down on the 70th floor instead for fear of slippage.
A fabulous time was still had (I don’t believe it possible for the London skyline to look dull no matter what the weather or even the setting, as the view from the toilets demonstrates) and even though the actual yoga had to stay under cover, we were all permitted to run up to the open air platform and have a look, or at least (in my case) hurriedly snap a few pictures and then turn a bit giddy when a gust of wind hit and run back down again – I wonder how many saw the Tour de France pass by from the 73rd floor yesterday afternoon?
For those in the yoga-know, I managed Dancer pose on both left and right sides without falling over for the first time ever and this prompted a mini-celebration by way of a full English with tea and real sugar on the way back across town to pack up and set about getting home, fortunately without too much of a scrap at York (although the easily-avoided Harrogate platform was still three deep with those off to catch the end of the Grand Depart) in good time for the football; by way of a sidenote I can highly recommend the huge kebabs from La Plaza on Falsgrave Road, ordered as emergency measure when extra time became apparent, delivered promptly and to the door in twenty minutes or so without any whiny phone calls, and about as good a kebab as I suspect anybody has ever had.
Next London visit will be the Pre Frightfest trip from 17th to the 21st of August (or the morning of it at least) and whilst location hasn’t yet been decided, my Waterloo digs are looking likely as it’s been a while; all will be revealed. Back to this week, and Other Business brings me to Leeds for a little bit of Thursday afternoon and then all day Friday and Saturday morning – yay! It’s been a while, and availability is dwindling fairly sharply so get in touch! The building work back home continues and Scarborough availability is as limited as ever, but I will be back for most of the rest of the month bar the occasional day out – as ever, the way to find out is text or email.
On with the evening’s pre-football preparations – it’ll all be over by this time next week! Fortunately my most favourite programme of last year Utopia returns for another series on Channel 4 and the keen eyed of Scarborough would do well to pay attention since bits of were being filmed just down the street from this very apartment a few months back, although not when I was in it. Possibly the only time this year when my Record Entire Series button will be employed and highly recommended (and if it turns out I missed out on a chance to meet Neil Maskell I will be seriously pissed off).
More soon! After the Nando’s, McDonald’s (including Diet Coke, the shame), fry up and mega-kebab of the last few days, it’s back to the drawing board fridge-wise and I will be persevering with all things raw, green and virtuous for the rest of the week, until Saturday afternoon in York, at least. Wish me luck…
After a fairly exhausting week having lots of fun dashing about north of the border, I’ve been back for a week of gentle recovery having fought my way through the festival hordes at Waverley station; not being a theatre person I had no idea about the event when I organised the trip (fitting it conveniently around the end of the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, another favourite city) and it’s testimony to the usual Edinburgh hotel prices that whilst I noticed it was steep, it wasn’t outrageous enough to warrant further investigation and I count myself lucky in retrospect to have found anything at all…
My turn for the annual entertainment-a-thon in the form of FrightFest approaches this coming Thursday evening, and availability on the preceding days in Victoria is dwindling steadily; hopefully the temperature will be a little easier to cope with than the other week. I’ll assure everybody now that I’m at least back in a real hotel, thank God. Please note that bar occasional checks, the work phone will be off from the lunchtime of Thursday 21st August and not back on again until Wednesday 27th at the earliest – callers will find this one out when they ring, but for the benefit of texters I won’t get your messages. As ever, email, please!
Watching twenty six or so horror films (plus associated introductions and Q&A sessions) in four-and-a-bit days can be gruelling stuff indeed (although deciding between the Saturday early evening offering and the Doctor Who premiere a few yards away at the Empire was more so, particularly for a dedicated Peter Capaldi fan) but by way of refreshment after a very long few weeks it always does the job – this year’s event boasts (amongst others) a guest appearance and Q&A by Robert Englund to introduce a thirtieth anniversary screening of A Nightmare on Elm Street, which makes me feel not only very old, but also glad that mobile phones were not around at the time – having been twelve by the time it arrived in our local video shop I doubt I would have got any sleep at all for most of the ensuing year from staying awake all night texting after watching it from behind the sofa with classmates (which we did many, many times after muchas begging of various people’s older siblings to rent it out for us). Happy days.
As promised, exciting progress is afoot back in Scarborough, and I look forward to announcing new incall arrangements soon! Hopefully by this time next month at least; local punters will be glad to hear that same day and half hour bookings will not only be on the cards, but newbies will be welcomed and a special day rate offered too – hooray! I might even put the kettle on, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Whilst this will mark a distinct downturn in the seemingly endless and increasingly tiring charging about, non-local folk need not fear – I will still be visiting, just less often, and Londoners will barely notice a difference at all! Ditto New Yorkers – the next of my twice-yearly-ish visits is sneaking up fast and will hopefully provide a perfectly-timed respite from the shenanigans here (and if not, between the High Line, Shake Shack and Century 21 I can hardly say I won’t be trying).
Well I’ve been terribly lax once again, I know, but after an enormously tiring few weeks (and an even more chaotic one to follow shortly) I can now announce the provisional start date for the new Scarborough incalls will be Monday 6th October – yay!
The time since the last update has been spent packing up anything useful, clearing out for recycling anything which isn’t and donating or eBaying (with not inconsiderable success) the things which are useful, but not to me. I have found items I saw last when moving house, clothing I thought was long gone – my much-mourned black chenille hat that I was convinced I lost on an outcall to the St Pancras Novotel (as was) in 2008 being a highlight – and an inexplicable mountain of assorted (and almost entirely unused) sex toys from various online/Ann Summers shop sales which have all been packed up for recycling at the very worthy sex toy recycling scheme known as Rabbit Amnesty, run by the nice people at Lovehoney for a few years now and handy for getting rid of all manner of small electronics which shouldn’t be binned but that nobody really wants to take to the local tip. In addition to creating drawer space and responsibly getting rid of hard-to-get-rid-of rubbish, points are awarded for every item sent including even a couple of old remote controls I found, three old routers and an old set of digital kitchen scales – yay!
Needless to say, the changes indicate a serious reduction in dashing around the land with my work suitcase on my back like a nomad – the last five or so years of being away from home and fishes almost two weeks out of every month exploring towns, cities and islands has been lots of fun for the most part, but the more expensive and tiring it gets, the less inclination I have to do it and I want to put my feet up for a bit. That said, Londoners won’t notice a thing – I’m not changing tack that much…
Obviously what can go wrong will in the meantime (if it hasn’t already, which shortens the odds somewhat) and nothing is cast in stone, but that’s the plan. I will be gradually editing the website, various directory profiles and other ads but the major changes are the clearest ones; same day availability for the first time in years, and opportunities for new visitors for the first time in a good few months! My new venue is central (very), cosy (OK, smaller) and discreet (winces, but at least I can spell the much-overused word properly) and the smell of paint will soon be gone. I’ll actually have more than two sets of clothes to choose from and as many towels as I want without having to phone somebody to ask for them, plus there’ll be special daytime rates to celebrate too – watch this space!
I did find chance last weekend for a liver-and-wallet-punishing day out at York Beer Festival complete with a kebab finish, and a run down to London a couple of days later by way of a break, partly as a cash-gathering mission (and a successful one too, with some charming new acquaintances made) and partly to pop up to the ECP and hear from the Canadian sex worker activists who successfully won a Supreme Court ruling to have the prostitution laws (and Canada’s were very similar to our own) repealed, and how the fight to have this implemented is going now the spectre of the Nordic model looms large. As far away as Canada may be, it’s one to watch (along with similar shenanigans from those just across the water in Northern Ireland, and not forgetting Ireland itself) and was all inspiring stuff (and from ordinary prossies too) but it had been a long day and I faltered a short while before the end, making haste back to the Northern Line for snails, sea trout and a spot of live jazz with Charlotte at Brasserie Toulouse Lautrec before bedtime. Recommended.
As far as this week goes, there’s nothing much to report – the phone is off (and I do mean off) and will be back on possibly towards the end of the week, but more likely from Monday morning on the 6th. If anything does cause a massive trip-up, you’ll see it here first.
Fingers crossed for next week! And to the ever-patient local folk, see you soon…
Although not without a few hiccups leading to a couple of days delay, an afternoon of intensive IKEA flatpack construction that nearly resulted in the skip up the road filling up far faster than anticipated (in the event, the beneficiary was the till at the local off licence) and no less than nine fourteen-or-so hour days in a row of cleaning, building, decorating and airing out, but I can now report that I’m finally settled in to what’s best described as most of a flat and as of last Wednesday incalls are happily up and running – yay!
It’s been very hard work and involved some serious horror that would rival anything on the bill at FrightFest, but my new shiny new Scarborough base is coming along in leaps and bounds – the really tough bits are out of the way, the bags are unpacked and everybody so far has been gallant enough not to mention the lingering smell of paint, bacon (fried daily in an attempt to mask the paint) and leftover Dominos. The paint will be around for a while yet (and God alone knows who comes up with the names; I can’t be the only person who feels a pillock even opening the tin of something called ‘Urban Obsession’ just to slap it on the bog walls) but all is ticking over nicely and the new routine of getting up, getting dressed, going to work and going home again rather than trying to second-guess the hotel cleaners schedule, fathom out every imaginable model and design of shower without getting my head drenched and decide which branch of the bank would be the best bet (based on what I want for breakfast on the way) is relaxing in the extreme even allowing for the new-flat chaos.
Just in case there was a risk of my getting too comfortable, my second trip of the year to New York is creeping up fast; it should be warmer than last February but nowhere near as dry, and I suspect I will be needing my wellingtons – full details overleaf on the usual page! London follows for a couple of days on the way back, and then it’s home again from the 10th November until the Big Christmas Trip.
A very brief update for now, but a proper one will follow soon as the settling in continues (and when my broadband is connected).
Well after all that (predictably pre-drafted on Thursday evening and auto-published in the name of common sense) it turned out that sadly the R&R, for the first time in five years or so, was not forthcoming on this occasion thanks in no small part to Champney’s executive decision somewhere along the line to replace whatever was responsible for providing their wifi service with a boiled potato (probably).
This was bad enough on its own, but when exacerbated by a complete and blanket lack of any peace and quiet anywhere on the premises outwith the wifi connection (anybody fancy being shut in a building in the middle of nowhere with loud-voiced strangers who talk incessantly about nothing in particular apparently to fill up the silence which is the whole point of being there in the first place? No?) all was irrevocably lost. Even holing up in my room like a fugitive in my quest for a noise free zone didn’t help once the cleaners started slamming doors just to the right of my bed (and continuing their conversation throughout, despite eventually being at opposite ends of the corridor said room was in the middle of) and I finally threw in the towel when the window cleaner started crashing about at the window to the left – if it sounds like a bad joke, be assured, it also felt like one.
Take all that and raise it an almost total lack of any mobile signal so even my back up O2 portable hotspot was completely useless and we, or at least I have a problem, although fortunately one which like so many others was easily solvable by bursting into tears of incandescent fury and frustration in the privacy of the toilet before composing oneself, mentally waving goodbye to the cash and rapidly bogging off home for hot chocolate and Netflix. I can paint my own bloody toenails anyway.
I should probably point out that I can manage, if admittedly not very well or for very long, without The Internet provided I know about it beforehand (in much the same way as I can manage quite happily without TV, newspapers and more than happily without the telephone), but to promise and then fail to deliver is, like any other goalpost-moving, not cricket. Thankfully three days on and after some real, bona fide relaxing at home in my bunny slippers with Mackie’s ice cream, American Horror Story and appropriately silent fishes I am well and truly bright eyed, bushy tailed and resolutely back on form. And I even got the freezer defrosted!
Preparations for Christmas are well underway with the shopping, incredibly, nearly all done (including personalised cards from Scribbler, who have taken up residence on the Quidco Unlock 50 Quid special offer page) and present wrapping will commence at a leisurely pace soon if for no reason other than to get it out if the way. For a very pleasant change and because for once I don’t have a couple of week-long trips to pack for followed by half a dozen trains and planes to catch between now and the day, I might even leave it for a week or two – yay! I’m not quite sure how festive the flat will wind up, but I’ll think of something.
Anyway, all systems go here until Wednesday 17th – new photos and the Christmas Hours page on the way too!
…and it’s show over for a week (nearly); as most will suspect, I’m not really here! At the moment the trusty auto-publish kicks in, I’ll hopefully be peacefully ensconced in front of the TV anticipating the turkey and After Eight induced stupor which awaits rather than battling the East Coast main line with the other Christmas travellers – as at the time of writing. I may well be sprinkled with bits of shell and brazil nut and satsuma mess that missed the bin, and will certainly still smell a bit of garlic after the homemade-houmous-a-thon of Tuesday lunchtime. Well it isn’t that often I get to do it…
It’s been a lively couple of weeks to say the least, but lots of fun – yay! I have sung along at the Prince Charles cinema, accidentally seen a mariachi band in Camden (unmissable, as it turned out) and eaten three KFC original recipe meals in five days. I have seen lots of Christmas lights and windows, made lots of new friends and discussed everything from Newcastle United’s 2004-05 season back four to whether or not nutella should be kept in the fridge (it shouldn’t) and the finer points of installing a Raspberry Pi. And now I’m having a well earned rest.
As is prominently plastered everywhere I could be bothered, I will be back in the new(ish) Scarborough pad on Monday 29th, and all who need some festive time-out are welcome as ever – there’s even chocolate! Monday and Tuesday will be business as usual with Wednesday yet to be decided – it may turn out to be a duvet day, or it may not (or it may be a duvet day at the flat where people can join in) but either way for now the very best wishes to all. I’ll see you on the other side!
And hello from Douglas! It’s not sunny, although it was (yesterday) and it’s still far from the spectacle which greeted me on Wednesday afternoon; that is, one of driving rain, gale force winds and bent over palm trees at the airport. It was also the only time I have ever arrived and had to wait over half an hour for a taxi, leaving me frozen to the marrow and in dire need of a hot bath and a cupasoup.
Despite the slightly bumpy start I settled in nicely soon after, helped along as ever by the friendly local folk (very friendly too – it must be the cold) and my suitcase stash of After Eights, oddbod Quality Streets and Mini Cheddars left over from Christmas; on a 15kg weight limit, sensible packing is the order of the day, after all. It’s by now my last full day and having had a lovely time as usual, home and flat are calling and I will be back bright eyed and bushy tailed on Monday morning ready to crack on with a few hastily-made New Year’s resolutions, mostly those involving the steam stripper, lining paper and generally making a mess.
Other tasks for the coming weeks include a variation of the Money Saving Expert no-spend challenge (and for anybody who’s feeling thrifty yet has never ventured onto the MSE site and it’s forums, if you can avoid the really psychotic suggestions it’s well worth a look) which involves keeping as much of your cash as possible firmly in your purse by using up what you’ve already got. My total spend for 2015 – nine days in – is a could-be-bettered £37.63, but given that £20.00 went on the bloody airport taxi and £10.00 on my (regular and prebooked) manicure which henceforth I will be doing myself, not bad! A full thirty pence, regrettably, went on the ladies toilets at the station but since no alternative facilities were available and I’d saved the best part of a tenner by bringing turkey sandwiches, bottled tap water and leftover Pringles with me for the journey, a balance was deemed to have been reached. That said, next time I’ll be pre-investigating the immediate vicinity for likely department stores.
The prospect of eating everything in the house because it’s part of A Master Plan has cheered me no end, and at least as much as the Great Wardrobe Clearout planned for an (and possibly more than one) upcoming Sunday afternoon – the last one turned up items including my beloved ox blood Doc Martens, the eye-wateringly expensive scarlet cashmere cardi bought in Paris six or seven years back (and which will be familiar to a few folk reading) and a Vivienne Westwood striped frock I’d worn precisely once and, to my shame, completely forgotten about. Plus (and as I’m probably making sound like far more of an Aladdin’s cave than it is) the usual cheap T-shirts with the inexplicable small holes and the (explicable) pizza marks that won’t wash out, and which are now – in the spirit of thrift – destined for the duster bag in the case of the white ones, and for the rest, a still-at-the-planning-stage rag rug – yay!
The likelihood of some seriously terrible weather setting in fairly shortly is increasing (given that it’s under two weeks to my birthday I speak from experience), but the travel is now over and done with until the next London trip in early February and whilst I’ll be taking incalls in Scarborough daily as we’ve all started getting used to, I won’t be hurrying down to the flat for 9am on the truly wild days. It’s always an idea to give me a good few hours warning anyway, but from next week on, anybody wanting an appointment beginning before 12 noon will need to let me know at at least an hour in advance and preferably more – it’s not just so I can get myself there but to give the thermostat a fighting chance to achieve a temperature anybody would want to get undressed in.
Next update (including the resolutions) soon! Some quick commiserations to Blyth and AFC Wimbledon whilst I’m here, and a thank you for keeping us entertained; in the absence of the mighty Scarborough Athletic from the upcoming FA Cup fourth round, I’ll be getting firmly behind Cambridge United on the 23rd (finally – Friday night TV worth watching!) So onto the packing it is and I’ll be heading for home tomorrow; there are a couple of slots still available in the morning even allowing for a Saturday lie in, but it’s probably worth getting in quick. I don’t know when I’ll be back, but I can never stay away for too long!
And a quick hello from a small but adequately heated corner of SW1V, where I’m briefly camping whilst I wait for my hotel room to get the OK (quite what those responsible do to every room in the hotel that makes them all suddenly and simultaneously ready at 3pm and not a second before is a mystery that has puzzled me for years – if anybody knows, by all means spill the beans). Fortunately my just-ended journey down to London Victoria was otherwise without hitches (obviously it was the right kind of snow today) and I post from the cafe over the road.
As you can see, I’ve still not quite got the hang of doing picture collages on the tablet, although it’s not as if I don’t have any (and the snow which greeted me upon pulling the curtains in Scarborough this morning would have been the very thing, but unfortunately I was too concerned about my slipping, tumbling over and rolling about in it to think of putting the camera on). Therefore my annual birthday onion bhajis will have to suffice for now – the celebrations stretched over almost a week in the end, starting with some superior haggis, cloutie dumpling and a singsong with Frank Sinatra at Boisdale’s Burns Night Hootenanny in Canary Wharf (recommended, especially if your idea of adventure is wandering around Docklands on a cold January night looking baffled and trying to find the might-as-well-be-a-secret entrance door) and winding up last Friday at the equally celebratory (but far cheaper) Tikka Tikka on Castle Road as can be seen above. Phew.
Back at HQ it’s been time for a spot of wallpaper stripping (and what a joy it is to have two half-finished flats to get on with instead of just the one) after giving myself a kick earlier in the week; irrespective of how quiet the middle bits of January and February can be, sitting about in my pyjamas eating Snack-A-Jacks and watching Event Horizon does not constitute work even if I am doing so in the work flat. With that in mind the decorating is back on track at last (plus, moving about a bit now and again is warmer). The boiler is still holding up too, although that’s a story for another day.
Availability for the next few days is scattered – give me a call! I will be around until Saturday lunchtime, and then back in Scarborough bright and early on Monday, weather permitting.
More soon. I think I heard somebody flick the Rooms Are Ready …Now!!! switch.
And hello again Scarborough! As local folk will know, it’s been my first day back at my city pad after having spent the majority of the last three days lying on the floor eating Easter eggs and listening to OK Computer.
After returning from the busiest London trip in some time (and with far and away the best weather too – see pics!) a break was needed, not least because an early start followed by a morning spent throwing some odd shapes for the oft-mentioned new pictures left me (my back, mostly) feeling a little like a box of broken biscuits. Ah, it’s great getting old.
I did manage enough free time to bask happily in the Spring sunshine beneath the London Eye along with about five hundred others who had the same idea, embark on an epic Ping Pong-a-thon with fellow kumquat mojito fan Daisy and nearly get thrown out of my hotel before even getting in it having completely forgotten that my credit card had been cancelled after somehow being intercepted, cloned and used online to book mini cabs in Hungary (I think, since my Magyar is not what it might be) – oops. Still, I had such a lovely time I’ve been terrifyingly organised and already sorted the next couple of excursions; all being well I will be back at my other favourite haunt two minutes from Victoria Station and roughly equidistant with Nando’s on Wednesday May 20th and playing nicely until the Saturday lunchtime (23rd). Hopefully the weather will hold, but if not I’m thankfully never short of ideas for things to do indoors.
Anyway, more updates on the new pictures in due course but suffice to say and without wanting to be tediously cryptic, the end result is not going to be what everybody thinks it is. Since the also-previously-mentioned new website is coming along in leaps and bounds (it has now been Seen To Work On An iPhone, despite a large part of me finding it difficult to care whether any device whose name begins with a lower case ‘i’ accepts it or not), the plan is to have everything done and dusted for the start of next month – yay! Obviously, best laid plans and so forth, but it’s all exciting stuff and I now even know what a widget is. I will still not be joining Twitter.
For now, I’ll be here in Scarborough until Thursday lunchtime next week before heading off to Scotland and Edinburgh’s Filmhouse for Dead By Dawn – some classics beckon this year, and not only in the downstairs bar. In the meantime availability will be as standard, but if the sunshine continues as forecast (and after a thwarted attempt at a trip to the beach on Sunday when the rain stopped only long enough for me to buy a 99) I’ll be out and about like any other sane person who doesn’t have to sit in an office all day, and a bit more notice than usual might be a plan.
