My friend Barney is currently on his gap year, but rather than faff about in an impoverished third world hell-hole, he’s done the wise thing, and taken a gap year travelling around Britain (I told him to give Birmingham a miss to make sure that he definitely avoids hell-holes). He’s been in London for the past week, so on Wednesday, I went down there for the day to meet up with him, just for the fun of it.
As you might have noticed – I liveblogged a lot of it on Twitter and my blog’s sidebar.
I met up with him in Trafalgar Square, where, as it transpired, were some sort of St George’s Day celebrations – whilst this display of patriotism obviously sickened me, I was delighted to spot Giles Dilnot from the Daily Politics doing a live OB.
Anyway, after a wander around London we eventually ended up the Sir John Soane museum – he was the architect who designed the Bank of England and loads of other stuff. What was unusual about it, was that aside from it being a small museum (it was Soane’s old house), you had to wait outside for someone to let you in, and then had to sign in, which made it feel all the more exclusive.
You could tell it was an old house – the walls were caked in tat, like all of the paintings and old Roman stuff he’d collected. There was a bit towards the back where there were loads of old Roman head statues overhanging a drop down to where there was some sort of old sarcophagus – it was unbelievably tempting to push them off, but somehow I managed to resist the urge.
After this, and a brief jaunt to the British Museum, we headed to the spiritual home of PKMN.NET meet-ups (this is how I know Barney), The Rocket, where we met up with Mushroom (or “William” as he’s also known). He was somewhat startled when I phoned him and asked if he wanted to go to the pub, considering that both Barney and I both live over 100 miles away from London, in different directions.
After this we headed to another pub, which was something of a personal triumph for us. Only a couple of people reading this will appreciate the significance that we found “The Shakespeare Pub”! On previous trips to London, we’ve (well, I’ve) consisted failed to find The George Inn, which is thought to have been Shakespeare’s and Charles Dicken’s local pub. Considering we were there on April 23rd, it seemed particularly relevant, as it was not only St George’s Day, but Shakespeare’s birthday and death day. It was literally the most relevant place in the world to be at that time.
(Wearing someone else’s hat doesn’t mean that I endorse St George’s Day or the volkisch concept of ‘patriotism’.)
After leaving this pub, we ended up encountering some Morris Dancers just before heading to the pub next to The Golden Hind – the, er, fourth pub of the day, which was the other spiritual home of PKMN.NET meet-ups. Barney bought four pints of a specific drink just to get a free St George’s Day hat. Just goes to show that marketing works.
The Morris Dancers were appalling, have a watch of this:
I had an excellent day yesterday – I went down to London to meet my nerdy mates from my other website. Here are some exciting photos of me looking really popular in the company of other people:
Chris, Lottie, Barney, Kyron, Ant, Me, Sam, William, Shark, Kat and Dan. Not pictured: Katy.
Dan bothering a mime.
It being Easter, we thought we should respect the religious aspects, and celebrate Jesus’ death by recreating Leonardo’s Last Supper.
As luck would have it, Barney looks a bit like Jesus. And Sam looks a bit like Mary Magdeline. And I played the part of Judas. The other apostles were perhaps a little less enthusiastic.
Spending about eight hours with me is difficult enough for anyone, really. Unfortunately, William’s Jamesomalley tolerance was slightly less than eight hours, so he ended up punching me.
But it was fun. I may have another tale to tell about this in a few days.
On Saturday, I went down to London to go to the pub with some of the people from my other website who are old enough to get into pubs. It was most excellent, because it means I’ve got 90 photos on Facebook like this, which make me look really like a really popular and easily likeable person:
Adam, Rex, Shark’s hand, Me, Dan, Steffan and Sam. Not pictured: Katy, Matt, Chris, Barney, the ghost of Christmas past.
It was also excellent because I got to meet my friend Matt for the first time – after knowing him online for very nearly seven years:
Despite being in London, we didn’t do anything particularly touristy – we just went to three pubs and a Pizza Express like locals may do, largely ignoring the spectacular views of central London around us.
As the day went on, things got progressively louder, culminating in a drinking game in the last pub (which didn’t really work on me, as I wasn’t drinking alcohol), and Barney, Dan, and Sam getting approximately very, very, drunk. They’d been drinking since 11am, having gone to a pub at Liverpool Street Station before meeting the rest of us, so by 9pm, weren’t walking in a straight line. This meant that me, being sober (I’m straight-edge), and Katy (who I’d dragged along for the day), who was only tipsy, had to try and guide them back to their train stations so they could get home.
People came almost literally from all over the country – we had people who’d come from Scotland, Wales, East Anglia, Kent, the south coast – almost everywhere really. My friend Jeroen, who’s from the Netherlands, had even given up a day of his holiday in London to meet us all.
Nearly everyone who was there.
Being the webmaster and technically the owner of a major website has its perks. In the afternoon, when we were all in Hyde Park, my fellow administrators and I managed to persuade a couple of the lesser proletariat to go and buy us drinks. The other interesting thing was that because I’m the webmaster, the bloke at the top, I sort of assumed the leadership position. I was making executive decisions about where we should go and where we should go and so on.
Jeroen, Mike, Me, Steffan and Terry – the PKMN.NET Administration team.
It was when I was speaking to the group as a whole and leading people to a spot in the park that I realised that I had created an army. I’d re-iterate that it was amazing, but I fear that it could be (correctly) interpreted that I was enjoying the power trip and megalomania more than I was the meeting people.
Most of the gang lasted until Leicester Square.
After the “official” meet in Hyde Park, about fourteen of us took a trip to Leicester Square to acquisition some food, before (at my command) heading to Westminster via Trafalgar Square. It’s not a trip to London if you don’t see Big Ben. It wasn’t until we were sitting in an underground bar in the former Greater London Council meeting (just across the Thames from Parliament) that we realised we were missing someone. Whoops.
We found him eventually though. As the evening went on it ended up with seven of us, the most hardcore of the gang going to another pub near Euston station – which coincidentally, was a Scream pub. In other words, the same brand of pubs I go to all of the time – and it was just like the ones in Leicester, with its stacker, video jukebox and pool table. The only difference was that it was charging London Prices.
The train journies wern’t entirely straightforward. There was some dodgy looking types who boarded the train at Leicester, who insisted on standing near to where I was sitting. At the time I was playing on my Nintendo DS, listening to my iPod, and lighting a cigarette with a £50 note, so I was under the impression that they would have liked to mug me. They didn’t, thankfully.
The train between Nottingham and Stockport was operated by Central Trains, who, unlike the futuristic Midland Mainline use older carriages, and cruise at a speed of approximately two miles per hour. This wasn’t the only problem… the train was packed. Its hard to explain just how busy it was. Not only were all of the seats taken, but in the aisle down the middle of the carriage, hundreds of standing people were crammed in struggling to breath. In fact, according to this document on the EU website, is recommended that pigs to slaughter get 55cm^2 of space when being transported in under three hours- I don’t think that the people standing one the train got even that. And they weren’t even being slaughtered.
It wasn’t all doom and gloom though. I ended up playing multiplayer New Super Mario Bros against a woman who I believe was named ‘Jeni’, and another guy for about an hour and a half whilst the train slowly made its way towards the birthplace of the industrial revolution. As soon as we’d figured out what we actually have to do on multiplayer mode, I think its fair to say that I won slightly more often. I’m quite worried that Jeni was actually quite an important person- she is the manager of a band. So I hope I havn’t missed my chance to negotiate a multi-million-pound recording contract by playing computer games instead.
As the train grinded to a halt in Stockport station, and after being essentially sexually harassed on trying to leave the train passing through a suffocating mass of people, I met Mike, who was waiting on the platform, ready to start the next leg of the journey.
We had to catch a bus from Stockport, from just ouside the famous massive viaduct. The journey was entertaining because it seemed to perpetuate every northern stereotype imaginable. I overheard a conversation where a man was talking about avoiding the ‘old bill’, I saw grim post-Industrial chimneys and buildings, quaint non-franchise shops, cobbled streets, and the sky was grey. It was on the bus that I remembered that northern service industry staff are rude, ugly people. At least when talking to southerners like myself, wearing my suit made of gold, speaking the Queen’s English, flaunting my material wealth and knowledge of science and the arts. The bus driver did little more than grunt at me when I asked for a ticket.
I felt a bit like a celebrity. It was weird being recognised by people you don’t know. Its even more weird when they react slightly stunned and then ask you for your autograph. Seriously. I met three people who frequent on the website I first put together six years ago. I got to discuss tedious moderation issues in real life, and things, which was a bizarre experience. When we mentioned my friend and fellow-PUK-admin Jeroen, it was somewhat unusual to have to say “Yeroon”, as that’s how its pronounced, when it reads a bit like “Jer-owen” to my ignorant English eyes. Like how I don’t know how to pronounce ‘non-sequitur’, as I’ve only ever seen it written down.
My main concern was that I’d bump into one of the many people over the years who have been banned from PUK for various reasons, and would end up getting punched. Or worse still, potentially having to engage them in polite conversation whilst carefully overlooking the fact that I’ve banned them and insulted them in the past. A bit like if I were to talk to David Cameron, after everything I’ve said about him on this blog.
Thankfully I was safe- the only violence incident was when Mike kicked me after I called him ginger, and implied that being ginger makes him an inferior person.
The journey back was much less eventful. I had space to breath on the train, I read The Economist, there were 8 football fans singing loudly on the Midland Mainline leg of the journey, including a harmonic rendition of ‘In the Jungle’, or whatever its called. The only really noteworthy thing was back at Stockport station when I tried to ask a member of staff for information.The CRTs displaying departures and arrivals did not have enough information on them, such as what platform trains will be on, so I approached the ticket booths in a near-deserted station. There was no one in the queue, and just a woman sitting at the desks looking bored. I weaved my way through the barriers that define where to queue, and just as I reached the end, despite being the only customer in the building, the ticket woman glanced at me and said “Next Please” as dismissively as she could- which seemed rather pointless. “Please could you tell me which platform will the train to Nottingham be going from?”, I asked as politely as I could. “One” she grunted, before looking away at the wall.
I went back to the desk in something of a panic a few minutes before my train was due, because the monitors were telling me that the train was only going to stop at “Norwich”. Once again, she said “next please”, despite a still deserted foyer, and when I asked her if the train was going to stop at Nottingham, she yes “yes” disdainfully, before once again before looking away in what I assume was disgust. Way to service your customers!
It was a good day overall though. Watch the video.
.JPG)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.JPG)
.JPG)
.JPG)
