dom.blog

After having their original London travel plans scuppered by Covid back in 2020, last month we were finally able to welcome our New York friends (and regular companions on European jaunts) Mike and Melissa to the city. Melissa came armed with a list of food recommendations from a friend, and happily our inaugural pub dinner at The Mayflower was able to tick off both ‘fish and chips’ and ‘sticky toffee pudding’ in one outing. Later – partly because Mike got confused about the currency exchange situation and thought we were still in the Liz Truss era – we also enjoyed fancy dinners together at Rovi and Dishoom.

Our other big outing together (unless you’re counting the Bakerloo line) was to see Hadestown, a musical retelling of Orpheus and Eurydice which was recommended by my colleague Annie and has actually been floating around for many years without quite entering my consciousness. In case you’re unfamiliar with the Ancient Greek myth, Orpheus is a musician in Ancient Greek mythology who loses his wife, Eurydice, after she is bitten by a snake and dies. (Well, this is what I learnt in my children’s illustrated book of Greek myths as a child. In some tellings, Eurydice only steps on the snake because she’s fleeing from a satyr who is half-man, half-goat and fully obnoxious.)

In this musical the journey to the underworld is a little more interesting, as a desperate Eurydice bargains her life away to Hades while Orpheus is simply too distracted by his music to make enough money to survive. Either way, a grieving Orpheus uses the power of his music to travel to the underworld and persuades Hades and Persephone to let him take Eurydice back to the world of the living. The answer, surprisingly, is yes… as long as he doesn’t look back at Eurydice on his journey until he’s made it out of the underworld. Orpheus takes the deal and is almost back home when he faces a crisis of confidence and turns around to check that Hades hasn’t tricked him. Fleetingly, he sees Eurydice behind him for one last time before she is pulled back forever.

As you might imagine, both Randi and I find this moment incredibly frustrating and exchanged a mutual look of exasperation in the theatre when it happened. The game theory is not exactly complicated:

But this irrationality is Orpheus’s fault, not that of the musical, which was lots of fun despite the inherently downbeat ending. For me, the central couple were a little outshone by the secondary characters such as Hades and Persephone, and my absolute favourite performance was the messenger god Hermes. This role was played in the West End by Melanie La Barrie, and it’s a little jarring on the Broadway album to hear it in a man’s voice.

Awkwardly, the show also includes a song from Hades entitled “Why We Build the Wall” which feels like a painfully unsubtle anti-Trump statement, even though the writer is at pains to point out that it was written back in 2006 and wasn’t intended as a reference to Trump at all. Still, Hades in this musical is a brutal industrialist – ransacking the natural resources of the planet and exploiting the labour of the masses – and in general it’s done well, even if sometimes it teeters on the brink of becoming a generalised anti-industrial critique. And I’m always suspicious of anti-industrial critiques becoming performed in expensive West End theatre shows.

Anyway – back in this industrialised land of the living – some of our other exciting London outings during this jam-packed weekend included a trip to the Crystal Palace dinosaurs and an impromptu stop at Gordon’s Wine Bar! Hopefully we will get a chance to see them in New York in the not-too-distant future, especially as I discovered that they now live near the New York Transit Museum…

Talking of transport, the following weekend Randi and I were back in Crystal Palace for the open day of the restored Crystal Palace Subway. This was a beautiful Victorian walkway linking the old Crystal Palace High Level station (closed 1954) with the actual Crystal Palace itself (burnt down 1936) and it was very cool to see how much work has gone into the space. That evening, completing the theme, we headed off to the London Transport Museum to see The Truth About Harry Beck, a strange two-handed play about the inventor of the Tube map (sorry, diagram) and his wife Nora. It’s a bit of a sad story, with an obsessive Harry losing all credit for his design, which is also told brilliantly in Jay Foreman’s video. But there are also lighter moments of audience interaction, and the relationship between the pair is very sweet overall.

September also included Reema’s birthday tapas (including her super-cool mother and aunt) and a weekend away to stay with Randi’s friends Andrew and Mark, who live in a village about a 20 minute drive from Nuneaton. Their house, which is the kind of massive classically-inspired renovation project they feature on Grand Designs, is so incredibly tasteful and beautiful I felt obliged to change into a buttoned shirt when I arrived.

By a great coincidence, I happen to be reading The Odyssey at the moment, so having Andrew on hand as a fully-trained classicist to answer all of my stupid questions was incredibly helpful. We were also fed with Mark’s delicious homegrown vegetables fresh from their garden and taken on a tour of where the Battle of Bosworth Field took place. This is no more my area of history than Ancient Greece, but helpfully the partisans of Richard III have placed their own signs around the site to lament his loss of the crown to Henry VII. It’s unclear to me why they still feel they have a dog in this fight.

This basically wraps things up for September. In my next post, I’ll catch-up with our October travels!

Hello blog! I’m typing this on my delightfully fresh new laptop, which – thanks to the really decent longevity of my former laptops – now joins an impressively short list by becoming only the fourth I’ve ever owned. It’s also my first non-Intel laptop, using an Arm-based processor instead, and the good news is that Windows now does a decent job of emulating most older software so making the switch is pretty seamless.

The big exception is supposed to be gaming, and although I’ve never done much of that, the process of setting everything up did make me think “hmm, but what game would I even want to play anyway?”. And then it hit me: Crash Bandicoot. I have a childhood memory of staying up all night with my sisters at someone else’s house – I forget whose – watching them play Crash Bandicoot on PlayStation and being quite envious that we didn’t have a video game console at home. But surely now, with an exciting and expensive machine from the far-future sitting in front of me, I might finally be able to play it? And the answer is… yes! It turns out the series was remastered a few years back, including for PC, and my Arm laptop is able to pretend to be an Intel laptop cosplaying as a PlayStation without any complaints. Of course, I am obviously quite rubbish without all those childhood years to practice, but while Randi’s been in South Africa on a work trip over the past week I’ve been having a great time smashing boxes and jumping over things.

It didn’t take Randi and I quite as long as this to crack open the Dominion: Empires expansion we were gifted a few years back, but now that we’ve had more weekends together we’ve finally had time to play a few games, and it’s been really fun diving back into Dominion and – in this expansion specifically – wracking up debt to buy new and exciting cards. We also had an indulgent tapas dinner together at Good as Gold in Brockley, which Randi had been eyeing, ordering almost twice as many dishes as the more restrained couple next to us. I’ve also been able to enjoy watching Doctor Who all over again! (Memo to the universe: there’s no law saying that Doctors are term-limited to three seasons, and I’d be very OK with Ncuti pushing the boat out here.)

For the August Bank Holiday weekend we went to see mum in Exmouth, where Randi felt an influx of holiday vibes and suggested that the three of us take a cycle ride together along the river to Topsham for a drink. As only a very occasional cyclist I was still slightly nervous on the way there, even though the route is almost entirely along a quiet cycle path, but fortunately it turns out that having a pint is immensely relaxing and I enjoyed the ride home with a lot more breezy confidence! (Note: this is not driving advice.) Shout-out also to the pub in Lympstone where we broke for a very enjoyable dinner on the way home, before quickly taking to our bikes to avoid losing all the light completely.

On Sunday we reverted to our feet for a circular walk around Otterton, and then settled in for the evening to watch Nyad – a biopic about distance swimmer Diana Nyad who successfully made it from Cuba to Florida on her fifth try in 2013, aged 64, after an initial attempt back in 1978. There’s very much a Steve Jobs-like quality to Nyad, which means you can either sit back and admire the incredible achievements – and sheer force of will – or you can start to unpick things by noting that she sometimes treats other people very badly, and isn’t always completely truthful about her accomplishments. To be clear, I don’t think this is a problem we need to stress out about: the world does need people like Steve Jobs and Diana Nyad, and even if there are a lot of grey areas around the events of 2013 (Guinness World Records later renounced its certification of the record as an ‘unaided’ swim, not that you’d know from the film) nobody disputes that Nyad is an incredible athlete who made it through shark-infested waters after swimming for over two days straight.

Other recent things have included a fascinating conversation with fellow QPCS alum Munnawar (in which we definitely went way, way beyond the scope of what the phone call was supposed to be about), serendipitously catching some of the Paralympics opening ceremony with Tash and Cormac (after buying nine Magnums, to make a point) and catching dinner with Bronwen and Josie at the Honor Oak.

With Randi, I also finally watched Mean Girls. It’s been a least a decade after I first said something like “hmm, I should actually watch this film so I can appreciate all of the memes better” and by this point half of the fun of watching a teen comedy from 2004 is laughing at all of the many, many things which would no longer be deemed acceptable in 2024. (Hey, that’s the nature of comedy, after all – for something to be funny it normally has to lie somewhere on the boundary of good taste.) But it was good. I endorse Mean Girls, at least the original, although I do not endorse serving school lunches in brown paper bags.

Without Randi, I also followed Katie’s recommendation and watched Ecstasy of Order: The Tetris Masters. As you might deduce, it’s a documentary about a group of people who are really, really good at Tetris. What’s interesting is that the whole thing is self-consciously inspired by The King of Kong film from a few years earlier (which I also watched recently) but the people taking part in this one have clearly taken notes and don’t want to come over as “cheats, sycophants or sanctimonious self-appointed referees” (©Me). Instead, for the most part the Tetris community comes across as much more supportive and lovely than those Donkey Kong bros.

Finally, I’ll leave you with this fortuitous last-minute meeting of the ways at Casa Tua, James’s spiritual home near King’s Cross!

For our first truly post-election weekend, Randi and I… (…drumroll…) headed straight back up to Midlothian for a celebratory campaign party for volunteers. But, weirdly, we weren’t required to spend the rest of the time knocking on strangers’ doors to ask who they were swithering between. Instead, we stayed with Katie and James on Friday night so that the parkrunners could parkrun together in Vogrie Country Park on Saturday morning. Then, Kira joined us from Glasgow for a very quick dip in the Gladhouse Reservoir! Kudos to her magic water shoes which made it a lot easier to run into the water. This brief adventurism was followed by a good gaming session of Cartographer (in which my art style was described as ‘abstract’) and Wingspan (where I did a lot better than my first attempt).

We headed back to London on Monday night, for which I splurged and bought us first class tickets on LNER so that we could see what we had been missing all this time. It’s probably a good thing I waited until the end, because now I have a taste for the luxuriously wider seats, alcoholic drinks and homity pie, so I’m not entirely sure what will happen next time I need to travel to Scotland. In the meantime, back in London we finally made it back to the Bush theatre to see My Father’s Fable after my family WhatsApp chat was all ablaze with praise for it. True to form, the play was gripping and excellent, stirring up the audience reaction into shock and horror as the villain became clear.

It’s been (*checks blog*) six years since I last saw my cousin Jonah, Staci and their kids, so it was great to see them all again at Carolyn’s in the middle of their somewhat eventful holiday. The next day, before trying and failing to give blood, I did “the most you thing ever” (©giantlawnmower) and visited a photography exhibition about Silverlink trains. In case you didn’t grow up in North London during the Siverlink era, these were the worst trains ever, and I visited mostly as a cathartic ritual to ensure the dead would stay buried. That said, there is something weirdly nostalgic about seeing photos of kids who I could have easily been at school with.

There is a bit of bullshit politics involved: if you buy the book (which I did) you learn that the route was “something of a metaphor for New Labour’s ambivalence”, which is hard to fit with the fact that it was a New Labour government which abolished the Silverlink franchise, cleaned everything up, staffed the stations, replaced the trains and generally transformed the whole thing under the London Overground. So then you’re left with a vaguely chin-stroking sense of “but maybe bad things are actually good” vibe (something something gentrification) which is fine until you’re waiting on a cold platform for a train which never shows up. No, the truth is simpler: bad trains are bad, and they should stay confined to historical art exhibitions.

To continue the cousin theme – we were also visited by Julie and Daisy, who we took out for an Indian meal at Sparsh along with Tash and Cormac. Poor Julie had been horribly misled by Google Maps on a journey to the other road in London with the same name as ours (exactly the scenario which Catherine and AJ feared could happen when they visited, to be fair) but thankfully they still made it in time for a lovely evening together.

Now that (a) it’s proper summer and (b) we actually have a nice garden thanks to Pierre’s efforts, Randi and I have been diligently watering the lawn and somewhat diligently cutting the grass. We’ve also been making great progress on our backlog of other to-do list tasks! For example, I made us watch the two-part Agatha Christie adaption of Murder is Easy from Christmas (a bit disappointing) while we caught up with Randi’s birthday by way of a return visit to The Waterside Inn for a long Saturday lunch. OK, sure, this wasn’t the most original birthday gift in the world but that didn’t make the three Michelin star tasting menu any less sumptuous, and – just like last time – we followed it by a delightful walk along the river to Windsor before getting the train home.

Meanwhile, Randi’s birthday surprise for me was a fabulous combination of basically all over the above: The Murdér Express! This immersive theatre combined a delicious three-course meal and cocktails onboard a ‘train’ (to the sleepy French village of Murdér where nothing bad could ever happen, see?) while a 1920s era comedy murder mystery played out around us. It was just a super fun night and I also really enjoyed our table companions.

I also had the chance to make use of the cheese vouchers gifted by Katie – albeit after a significant amount of hemming and hawing over which cheese to order – while Randi and I also manged to catch up with Matt and Laura (and meet Fred!) in their garden one sunny Sunday afternoon. A week later, we also joined one of our irregular but beloved reunions at London’s pioneer provider of Chicago deep dish pizza, Japes, along with Steve, Soo-Jin, Simon, Fleur and their kids. The absolute best part of this whole day – aside from the pizza, obviously – was the discovery that Randi’s personal battle with the chef last time seems to have translated into one item being permanently struck off their menu. We were surprised they didn’t have a warning photo of her at the entrance.

And finally… it’s the Olympics! I really enjoyed the opening ceremony with its procession of boats down the Seine, and have caught a decent amount of athletics and swimming in the evenings. But I’m especially happy that I took the opportunity to grab some tickets back in May 2023, and also that a one day there-and-back on the Eurostar didn’t seem like a totally mad idea to other people either. So, on Tuesday, Randi and I woke up very early (and crossed our fingers that the 5.26 from Catford wouldn’t be cancelled) to join mum, Tash and Cormac at St Pancras for a school trip to Paris!

I had prepared myself for big crowds and long queues, but in fact most of Paris was incredibly quiet: clearly a combination of the usual August holidays plus those not excited about the Olympics just leaving town. We arrived with enough time to pop down to see the Olympic cauldron balloon – sadly not flying during the daytime, but still impressive – before heading over to the Paris La Défense Arena for two quarter final matches in the women’s water polo.

And like a true sports journalist, here are my contemporaneous, unedited Olympic water polo notes:

To explain: yes, having just picked ‘water polo’ from the limited options available without much thought during my online session back in May 2023, it turns out that I had actually been imagining water volleyball all this time, and it wasn’t until we took our seats in the stadium that I realised there was no big net in the middle. But not to worry! Water polo turns out to be lots of fun too, albeit it’s more entertaining when two closely-matched teams play (such as Italy vs. Netherlands) rather than the total annihilation which Spain inflicted on Canada. We also loved the ‘Monet inspired’ lightshow over the pool before they started, and in general the atmosphere around the games – just like London in 2012 – was so warm and lovely.

Shockingly, we were able to secure a table at a nice restaurant just opposite the arena after our session ended, enjoying a long French meal together before catching the last train of the night back to London and some long-awaited sleep. Thank you for such a great Olympics experience, Paris!

This is a blog post in three parts, starting with my final pre-election week in London (which already feels like a lifetime ago!) before I headed up to Midlothian. Monday kicked off with Andrew and some very sweet strawberry cider after work, over which we marvelled at the looming scale of the likely Conservative defeat.

The next evening I was thrilled to welcome Christian, Erica and their two kids to our local area and enjoy a meal outdoors at the Perry Hill pub. Christian is Catherine’s brother and we’d never actually met in person before, so in addition to all the stimulating conversation it was great fun to listen to someone with a very similar sibling version of Catherine’s voice. Also, despite this visit coming at the end of a long trip, Christian was still game to push a double buggy up Blythe Hill so that we could all enjoy the view before sunset.

Later that evening I popped over to see Angela’s new flat, and the following night I spent a wonderful couple of hours with Bill in the pub at King’s Cross before his train home. I felt a little bad because I had saved up about seven years’ worth of questions to put to Bill for our next 1-1 conversation, so it may have felt more like an interview than a relaxed after work chat, but it was lovely to see him and I learnt a lot on all sorts of topics – from the SDP to LLMs by way of Wittgenstein.

On Friday night it was my turn to catch a train from King’s Cross, as I headed to Scotland to help out with Labour’s campaign for Midlothian in the final week before the general election. This was a pretty intense period of all-day door knocking as we tried to speak to as many voters as possible about Kirsty, although one of the most rewarding things was the number of people who said “I’m voting for Kirsty!” before we’d even had a chance to speak! This is all thanks to the incredible campaign which Kirsty, Randi and an amazing volunteer team have been running for the past year or more, and it was gratifying to see it pay off.

Other highlights included Feargal Sharkey’s visit to the constituency to lend his support to the campaign (OK, not particularly exciting for me personally, but others were very enthused to see him!) and then a very long shift leading a team of canvassers on polling day. But the best part, of course, was having the privilege of attending the count itself. As someone who has always loved politics, especially the drama and traditions of a British election night, it was obviously exciting to be there in person, taking part in sampling and looking out for any stray votes in the wrong pile. It was also a reminder of how lucky we are to have a functioning democracy, which – in the end – comes down to anonymous ballot papers, treated equally seriously no matter who cast them or for which candidate.

Around 3.30am we had the official declaration – although the result was clear from early on – and I know everyone in our team was incredibly proud to watch Kirsty give her acceptance speech. This also meant we could finally relax and celebrate the national picture which we’d all seen from the moment the exit poll was released at 10pm!

Thankfully Randi and I could take it easy the next day and barely left the sofa, with Katie making an impromptu visit around lunchtime with some freshly made baps. Finally, on Saturday we headed back down south to King’s Lynn for the third part of this post: Cat and Brian’s wedding!

Happily, we had booked into the same hotel as Josh, Anna and Cora for Saturday night so got to enjoy a meal together (and prove to Cora that Randi is still a real person) before getting a full night’s sleep and then heading to Pentney Abbey for the wedding on Sunday. It’s a truly beautiful venue, with all the history which travelling Americans deserve if they’re going to be forced to visit the UK, and after a wonderful ceremony – first time I’ve seen a poem read at a wedding by its actual published author – we basked in the sun playing lawn games before dinner. (Well, strictly speaking, we watched as Randi and Christa challenged each other on the wedding-themed crazy golf.)

After an evening of roasts and rainbows, plus plenty of dancing, we retired to our fancy tent on the campsite. The whole day was perfect, and I’m so grateful that Cat and Brian were able to include us and co-ordinate the scheduling of their wedding with Rishi Sunak to avoid an unpleasant election clash. Thank you guys!

Finally, on Sunday we shared the train journey back to London with Amy and Craig – and reminiscing about Groupon days gone by – before Randi finally got back home after six weeks in Scotland. In some ways, we’re both sad that the campaign is over as we both got to work with some truly inspiring people. But thanks to their hard work, there’s now a hell of a lot more for the country to look forward to. Onwards!