This morning I wandered downstairs in our new apartment for a morning cup of tea, stuck on the BBC’s Olympics coverage (thanks but no thanks, NBC) and watched Britain beat Canada in a game of women’s rugby sevens. Which was great for three reasons: patriotic fervour, warm memories of London 2012, and the fact that thanks to Jen and my trip to Wellington I now appreciate (and largely understand) rugby sevens.
But to rewind: new apartment! After two great years of living with Billy, last weekend I successfully moved a full 1.3km away into a new place with Randi and our flatmate Amanda. And very nice it is too.
New home!
Our first guests were Jason and Carrie, with whom we played the Would I Lie To You? board game in boys vs. girls teams. You can guess who won from the pictures below.
There was a master strategy. It just didn’t work.
No comment
Last weekend we also saw Star Trek Beyond with Todd and Carolyn, which was great company (obviously) but a disappointing film. There were plenty of enjoyable moments for existing fans, but not enough overall to elevate it from standard action movie sequences if (like Randi) this was your first exposure. My much more successful attempt to indoctrinate Randi into my childhood favourites has been the Robot Wars revival, which we’ve been watching on Sunday nights with great enthusiasm. 3-2-1-ACTIVATE!
It was also great to have lunch with Carolyn’s friend Beric as he reached Chicago on his American road trip, as it was to catch up / argue about market failure with Alex at Oyster Bah. After a bit of a theatre dry spell we also saw This Beautiful City – a musical exploration of mid-2000s evangelicals in Colorado Springs – performed by the ATC’s youth ensemble and produced by the ever-wonderful Grace Cannon. (I write that with some resignation as her Chicago leaving party is next week.) Last but certainly not least, last night Randi and I went out to celebrate her new job… hooray!
The restaurant pretends to be in Santa Monica, but we’re definitely still in Chicago
The weekend before last, Randi revealed her birthday present to me after I had been too rubbish at anagrams to figure it out in advance: a murder mystery weekend at Mont Rest Inn, Iowa! This is a wonderful B&B in its own right, painstakingly rebuilt after a fire. My favourite feature was probably the miniature world’s fair diorama, complete with little binoculars for closer inspection. (I spotted the Boots at the back along the British high street, naturally.)
We were also lucky enough to visit while the owner was paying a visit, and during the tornado warning (“get on the lowest floor possible”, the TV alert announced, before switching to a flash flood warning which instructed us to “seek higher ground”) we accepted her offer of shelter in the basement. It didn’t take long to realise that, just like last time, we were in a strongly Democratic B&B, with mementos from the visits of past presidential candidates on the walls. Lobbying is totally overrated: if you want to meet powerful politicians, just open a B&B in Iowa.
Austin Powers meets Michael Gove
For the murder mystery itself, we were assigned characters and costumes with the other guests, and learnt the basic outline of the case, before settling down to a scrumptious meal to discuss who might be to blame. This is a bit of a mistake in the format, really, because the food is so delicious (freshest salmon ever?) that it’s hard to stay focused on catching the killer. Especially when the killer turns out to be one smug looking Randi Lawrence. So yes, she escaped justice without facing a single accusation.
They also do themed nights without any murders: this table was set for the Titanic
The next morning we stopped by the Maquoketa Caves State Park, which is distinguished by an extensive series of caves to wander through. (Top tip: the wandering is much enhanced by the thought that you’ve bought a fresh pair of shoes and socks to change into later.) An unusual park and highly recommended!
In the caves
Still in the caves
Escape from the caves!
Finally, on the way home, we were only about 15 minutes shy of being these people. Darn.
Just slightly late for this photo of a collapsed Blue Line station to be interesting
Welcome to Tokyo!
I’m just back from Japan – the only country with its own emoji silhouette – after a short but productive work trip. As such, I didn’t have much time to do touristy things or take touristy photos, but I did manage to squeeze in visits to Yoyogi Park and the Shibuya crossing. I guess the stereotypes about Japan are obvious, but worth repeating anyway: people were wonderful and friendly, the trains and the subway are unsurprisingly fantastic, and bowing is woven into all social interactions. I liked it.
As a bonus, Robert and Julie – most notable for their Smoking Adapters travel blog – were kind enough to take me out in the evenings, and together we sampled lots of Japanese food (excluding anything with tentacles) from their favourite Tokyo spots.
One thing I wasn’t quite so thrilled about were the earthquakes. Over lunch with Vivek on Tuesday I experienced my first ever earthquake – nobody around us batted an eyelid – and then the next morning I was lying in bed when terra firma became noticeably less firm again. That’s not cool. We use the expression “on solid ground” for a reason. Although it is reassuring to see animated videos on the subway explaining how earthquake-proof it is.
With Kenji, Robert, Julie and Kosuke
There was a lot of this
A pretty accurate depiction of Tokyo’s wonderful subway system
Outside the Imperial Palace grounds
Side note: flying with United is usually a ‘perfectly adequate’ type of experience, but on the way back home they served up a katsu curry like they had actually read my mind and extracted its deepest wishes. Much appreciated. I also did my usual catching up on recent PIXAR films by watching The Good Dinosaur, but thought it was… well, ‘perfectly adequate’, but nothing great.
Today’s utterly unhelpful and unconnected post title is brought to you by the delightful discovery that it is possible to listen to a cover of Shut Up and Dance in Spanish! So go do that right now.
Since coming back from London, the top priority has been been finding a new apartment (check) followed by persuading someone else to live with me and Randi (check), filling out apartment-acquiring paperwork (check) and persuading utility companies that I am a real person (in progress*). In the meantime we said goodbye to Todd and Carl from Groupon (if I weren’t so reserved, I would just crawl under a table and weep) and Catherine from Chicago (ditto, although since she’s going to war to fight the Trump nightmare, it’s also comforting).
Racing for the galaxy with Jason, Carrie and Randi
Also: Lauri and Calvin both had birthday parties, plus Randi and I had consecutive weekends with Jason and Carrie to brunch and play Race for the Galaxy. It’s an excellent card game which Katie got me for my birthday and, despite initially seeming like the most complicated thing in the world, is actually very easy to pick up and play. (Not so easy to beat Jason and win as of yet, but I’ll keep trying.)
Not being people who watch a lot of films, we were slightly at a loss for next steps after deciding on a whim to watch ‘something’ last weekend. After lazily searching for ‘IMDB top movies’ (not really giving the collective wisdom of the crowd much to work with) we ended up with 12 Angry Men, which is a justified classic and makes me impatient to be called for jury service. (Note to the UK: I’m willing to fly home for it.) Jason tells us there’s a Chinese remake – 12 Citizens – in which students at a law school hold a mock jury trial as part of a Western law class. Take that, dramatic tension.
Tomorrow I’m off to Tokyo! ??
(*Sure, it’s slightly annoying to spend one lunchtime queuing up at the sole open counter of an ‘alternative financial services‘ establishment, just for the privilege of paying a registration fee and having my passport scanned. A registration fee to be paid in cash, note, which requires use of the cashpoint in the corner for a $2.75 surcharge. But whatever, it’s a one-time thing. It’s much more sobering to be stood behind folks who are just there to cash regular cheques and buy regular bus passes. It’s obscene, really, to have a financial system which makes the act of using money more expensive for those with least to start with.)
By dint of an unusually straining-at-the-seams backpack – already to blame for some unhappy compromises, most notably the abandonment of two whole boxes of Creme Eggs – I have been forced to carry my laptop along as hand-luggage. Which means, in a silver lining sort of way, that I can start writing up my trip home before I even reach America again.
The Cambridge table at Caroline and Charles’s wedding
The initial anchor for this visit was Caroline and Charles’s wedding in York. They have many, many beautiful photos of their own, but suffice to say it was a beautiful wedding with delicious food, the best first dance selection I have ever seen (Everybody Wants To Be A Cat) and a fancy fireworks display. More importantly, they both looked incredibly happy together, so congratulations!
I woke up the next morning to find myself with no hangover but instead a year older, and spent my birthday morning exploring York (OK, mostly exploring the Railway Museum) with Randi, Katie and Randi’s parents. Then we used the real, actual railway to get back to London, sans Katie, and have dinner in Willesden Green together with my parents, Tash and Randi’s brother Alex. Got that? Good, because the next two weeks were a bit of a blur of working during the day and then shifting combinations of family and friends by night.
Families
One very special meeting was with Jack and his amazing parents, Abbi and Paul, a few hours after he was born at St George’s Hospital. Later on in the trip, we also met Josh and Cindy’s beautiful baby, Isaac, who is a few months older and has learned the twin tricks of smiling and gripping people’s fingers. It was so wonderful to see them both and I can’t wait to watch them grow up.
Last time I was in London I didn’t get a chance to go to the Tricycle – a grave omission – but we made up for it this time around with The Invisible Hand. The synopsis (American banker, Nick Bright, held hostage in Pakistan) made it sound a lot grimmer than it actually was. It’s actually a surprisingly funny play, as Nick is forced to play the market to try and raise his own ransom. A few nights later, we also introduced Randi’s family to the ever-reliable News Revue for some temporary relief during Friday’s grim post-Brexit blues.
Our Harry Potter tickets
But the best stage performance of the trip was, not surprisingly, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. I’d been excited about seeing this ever since I snagged tickets on a tense morning back in October, but given the circumstances, it was perfect timing to leave the real world and be transported into JK Rowling’s creation for a combined matinee plus evening showing of Parts One and Two. They rightly implore the audience to keep all of the play’s secrets, so I will do, but it was utterly magical. And the staging alone changed my expectations about what is possible in the theatre.
On top of the (crumbling) world
Wasn’t supposed to take a photo of this. Sorry.
In blatant thievery of my sisters’ ideas, Randi and I also booked tickets to climb the O2 one night. (As it happened, the last time I was here it was still the Millennium Dome.) Their instructional briefing makes it sound like a feat of endurance, but actually, it’s easier than climbing a flight of stairs. And it’s funny, because while I’m sure the view would have been lovely on a bright, sunny day – or majestic on a clear night – the slightly apocalyptic air of grey clouds and light rain was equally evocative. Especially since you can’t really see much of London from the top, but you can feel like you have a bit role in an action film.
Food, unevenly distributed
In the Sir Colin Campbell
With dad, Daryl and Ermila
I have a very long list of other engagements over the last two weeks, including drinks near my old Highbury home with Clark where we celebrated with newly-minted respectable homeowners Cat and Matt. Simon joined me and Randi to complain about Corbyn, update us on his own scandalous life, and plan our upcoming American adventure. I finally saw Oliver and Abi’s flat and enjoyed its proximity to Italian food and wine, ate something like my third burrito of the trip over lunch with Christa (which is absurd, I know) and confirmed – over more drinks – that there is no issue about which I wouldn’t want to hear Melissa’s opinion. (And, y’know, maybe argue about it a little.) Not to mention snatching an hour with Daryl and Ermila, whiling away a night with Josh and Anna in a joyful little pub on Kilburn High Road where an enormous Irish folk band take up most of the space, and having a very brief and unscheduled reunion with Alex Trafford who lamented that my last blog post had made him miserable. Sorry!
Photo courtesy of Villy, Randi’s friend who accompanied us to the London Transport Museum
Also huge thanks to my family for organising lots of things with the common theme of stuffing me with food: a big gathering at Maggie Jones’s, a great dinner one night at Andrew and Bonnie’s, and one of my grandparents’ famous teas. But I want to conclude with a few more London landmarks which I deployed this year to continue brainwashing Randi:
- The London Transport Museum. Obviously.
- Dinner on Brick Lane. One of our many Indian dinners, of course, but the only one where you can start to smell the spices as you approach.
- A long-awaited sighting of North London’s many, many foxes.
Rainbow! Metaphor!
Helen on Getting ready for some adventures in China: “Enjoy China! Look forward to hearing all about it. A young woman who worked on our ‘casuals’ staff whilst going…” Apr 4, 12:34
