Tom's Regular Travel Update #1 - Page 4

London Mk 2

Then I got back to London, and my comfy couch in Chris's flat. Here are some things I have done or seen in the UK since I got back from Spain -

  1. FA Cup
  2. Night Clubbing
  3. Watching TV
  4. Cheese Rolling

FA Cup

My brother Chris works for the Football Association over here and he occasionally gets some free tickets for games and stuff. So me and him and some friends went to Cardiff, Wales to see the FA Cup final. I would like to point out that our tickets were in fact free, but if you didn't get them free you would be paying up to £800 ($NZ 1 million) for a ticket. It was fun, although I didn't really know much about the teams that were playing. It was Arsenal vs some team called Manchester or something which I think might have been a new team.

Anyway, the funniest thing that happened during the game was when Chris bought a hotdog, but before he could take a bite of it the sausage slid out of the bun onto the ground. Then everyone nearby in the crowd chose that exact moment to turn and look at him, and they all laughed and I laughed too. I took a photo of the bun but it didn't turn out too well. So here is a photo of Hayley Westenra singing the British anthem instead -


Hayley Westenra on the right of the other two

Then the Arsenal boys lined up for me to inspect them. Did I mention that the tickets were free?


This is the bit where they sang for me

The game was quite interesting, except there weren't any tries scored and they generally didn't put much stock in rucks and mauls, instead concentrating on their kicking game. Oh and they had a penalty shootout at the end, in case you missed it because your budget Sky TV service cut to a Swimsuit Model photo shoot before the game finished.

Night clubs

I've been out to a few places in London. The craziest was probably Ministry of Sound. For a start, it cost £30 ($NZ450) to get in (but it was some special birthday thing or whatever). Then they had big metal detectors -


Note the girls' line on the left. We got them back later on with the loos, mwahaha

And people patting you down for drugs or something, and once you get inside it's £4 for a beer and £3 for a water. And no-one was picking up the bottles and glasses on the dancefloor so it got covered with broken glass during the course of the night. HOWEVER they did have these crazy 'Cuban Brothers' breakdancers that were pretty cool except they stripped to their underwear -

  
Cuban brothers at start of act, and at end

When we got out about 8am, we wandered to a friend's flat and on the way I saw this street sign -

Which reminds me - there are so many weird placenames around London. Here are some more -

TV

Someone may have once told you that British television is classy and quality and all that. I would like to make something clear - this person was a dirty filthy lier that hates you. UK TV is made up entirely of the following 10 types of programs -

  1. Music specials about ABBA and Take That, or the 500 greatest Robbie Williams covers of all time
  2. Reality shows featuring Z-grade celebrities like Rebecca Loos. Also Ron Jeremy.
  3. Antiques shows that are nowhere near as good as Antiques Roadshow, wherever that got to. E.g. 'What's in my attic?' Uhh... nothing worth making a TV show about?
  4. Home makeover shows
  5. Repeats of American Sitcoms
  6. Documentaries about WWI and WWII - apparently even Germany now thinks the UK spends too much time talking up their victories
  7. Live Infomercials
  8. NZ documentaries like 'Motorway Patrol' and 'The Filth Files' which they play on the travel channel for presumably top-secret reasons
  9. The brand new UK version of the Jerry Springer show
  10. And of course Coronation Street and its ilk

At least the adverts are okay. Well, should I say they WERE okay, until that scourge of humanity the 'Crazy Frog Ringtone' was unleashed, to be advertised relentlessly in every possible ad break ever for a month solid. And counting.

Cheese rolling

Britain isn't just all about football hooliganism and tripe. No, there is also cheese-rolling. Chris and I spent ages trying to convince other people to come along, but we were only able to attract three others (katie, mike and grubby if you were wondering). So we popped over to Gloucester, to Cooper's Hill, site of one of the more English of English activities. To summarise for those few people who haven't seen it on 'Idiots caught on camera' or similar TV shows, it goes like this -

  1. Official rolls large wheel of Gloucester cheese down a 45 degree grassy slope.
  2. 15 cheese enthusiasts try to catch the cheese. Although because the cheese is round and they are not, at least not at the start of the slope, the cheese always beats them to wherever it is going, be it the bottom of the hill or a crowd of spectators.
  3. Said enthusiasts then fall over and over again because the slope is really bumpy and steep.
  4. The first person to the bottom of the hill gets to keep the cheese. The second place getter gets £5 and third place gets £3.
  5. Then the paramedics move in.
  6. Repeat about 8 times.


The slope of much cheese-related suffering

We got there too late to participate, so we just watched instead. Highlights were -

There was one low-light, which was when a girl wearing a large NZ flag tied to her head came dead last in the women's race by about 20 seconds. She didn't tumble once. Chris suggested that someone run out and stick a couple more stars on the flag, but we didn't have any stars handy.

Anyway, I have a year to get all pysched up before the next event, and get prepared enough to get there on time, so if anyone else is keen to roll down a hill chasing a cheese next year, save the last weekend of May and get to England.

What I'm up to now

I am probably travelling with Astrid as you read this, somewhere in Europe. I have a good-as job lined up in London starting in a couple of months but I might not take it as I am trying to get a dream job working for a game company.

More Random Photos from London


One random day on the top of friend Claire's flat


So that's where Creed ended up after their greatest hits CD


One day I saw this Mobility scooter gang outside Chris's flat.
I think they were drunk and looking to cause trouble

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