Recipe

[I meant to post this about the weekend.]

Have picnic lunch on Regent’s Park grass, then stroll through the park taking in London panorama on Primrose Hill. Leisurely consume several pints and packets of addictive pork scratchings over the Sunday papers in a pub with jazz band and immensely endearing bulldog. Add good company in the form of Alec and Matt.

Stir and serve on Sunday.

Enjoy.

[Can you tell I am trying not to write an essay?]

Living The Plan

On Tuesday, I had a great time out with Benny at Singapore Sling (Hainanese chicken rice, kangkong belachan and chin chow!) and Vinyl Addiction (whoever was DJing there the night of Tuesday June 3, you played one of the most enjoyable sets I’ve ever heard, but unfortunately despite telling you so, I never got your name. Anyway, you rock.)

On Wednesday with Russ I ate sushi in a park and loved the Saatchi Gallery. At night I met Zakir, Chris and Ben (three friends from Singapore on fleeting visits to London) and realized halfway through my jerk chicken that apart from these three lovely chaps there are still many more friends in Singapore I will be having equally good times with when I get back, which gave that dastardly departure depression a sizable whack.

Today I had dinner with Alec on the pavement outside Thai Metro and some good cider in the Fitzroy Tavern and missed him dreadfully the minute we said good night.

When I was not doing all these things, I was attending classes, researching an essay, studying my arse off, not eating or drinking enough, cleaning the flat, feeling generally run-down.

I think the plan outlined yesterday is still fundamentally sound. I just have to figure out how to live this hard without fraying at the edges.

23F ISO Almost Happy Ending

I guess you could call it some sort of epiphany. It came on Sunday while I was at mass, as important realizations often do. People who know me may have sensed that I’ve been hearing the clock ticking quite loudly these days, that there is an ever-growing sense of dread in me about the return to Singapore that I increasingly fail to beat back. But on Sunday something changed, subtly. Vague clouds of negativity parted, and I started to feel as if I just have to decide what I want out of these last few months here, and then get sorted and make it happen.

I want to put a decent amount of work into studying for the final stretch of this Masters, because it would simply be stupid to do so well all my life and then flop at this last hurdle out of sheer disorganization. I want to spend time with dear friends I’m going to be leaving, and I want to have studied hard enough on those days so that our time together can be then spent free from study-based guilt or stress from me. I want to spend time with London so I can leave with enough memories of her to last me the years away. I know I can make all this happen if I just decide to stop being lazy.

I want a good ending. I think happy is unlikely, although if it happens I obviously won’t try to convince myself otherwise. I want to leave knowing I lived my life in England to the full right up to the very end, not just by whim or happenstance, but by design, verve, and doing the right thing by myself and everyone I’ve loved here.

Rollerblading/Jerry Sadowitz

Somewhere between the ages of fourteen and now, I learnt fear and became a crap rollerblader. Six hours of rollerblading in Hyde Park on Saturday, and not once did I dare to attempt a jump, my right cross-turns were pathetically tentative, and minor terrain changes like stepping off curbs to cross roads rendered me pussy-footed and nervous.

But long straight stretches still felt like flying, and taking off the skates still brought that old sensation of disappointment and flat-footedness. I’d love to pick up skating again, but I have too little time left here and too much heat rash in Singapore. Sigh.

We returned the skates, noted degrees of sunburn (Brian: considerable, Alec: noticeable tanning but no burn, me: just a deeper shade of yellow), and headed to the pub to rehydrate before going to Soho to watch Jerry Sadowitz do card tricks and be incredibly offensive. The above link describes how he once won a bet with fellow comedians by going on stage and saying “Nelson Mandela, what a cunt.”

A blazing day.

Random summer-based meanderings

Random summer-based meanderings:

  • If you’re fat, for God’s sake dress to suit your shape. Fat legs in short skirts are repulsive. I know some angry fat person is going to chew me out for this, and say everyone should be able to wear whatever the hell they want and comments like mine are exactly the sort that perpetuate unhealthy body images in women etc. but yo, I have a flat chest and a big arse, so I don’t wear cleavage-baring tops or hotpants, it’s that simple.
  • Why are people in Tube station lifts unable to understand the principles of proper lift-space distribution? The people who enter first are virtually lolling around on deckchairs while the people who enter last have to become intimately acquainted with each other’s bodily crevices. Not nice on a hot day.
  • Do you think I could rig up superhuge loudspeakers on hot-air balloons all over London and play Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger simultaneously on all of them just so everyone could experience its stereo perfection, and possibly it would stimulate the economy with its inspirational message or at the very least have everyone doing the robot? No? Cynics.

Lazy Bank Holiday

A Bank Holiday weekend, and my first weekend in a while of actually doing nothing, as opposed to hanging upside down in fairground rides in Brighton, or climbing hills in the Lake District.

Lazy breakfast (and I do mean lazy – it ended at 3!) on Saturday in Goodfellas Deli on Lamb’s Conduit Street. Watching jawdropping feats of inline skatery in Hyde Park, remembering that old love and resolving to go skating some time soon; resolving to also bring Alec so as not to be the crappest skater in the park. Dinner and brief foray into Eurovision madness (I liked Norway) before heading out to meet Russ for Breakin’ Bread at the Rhythm Factory, which had mouthfuls of goodness (a spate of classics I never get tired of, including Sound Of Da Police and Witness; also, watching breakdancers always fills me with awe) among larger morsels of tedium (a bit too much jazzy/funky old skool which could get monotonous for me, some of the less successful attempts in the open-mic MCing session); all in all, a good club night, though not the best I’ve had.

Lazy breakfast (and I do mean lazy – it ended at 5!!!) on Sunday. Mass, dinner, and the rather harrowing Kids, which I was glad to finally have watched, and was not disappointed by, but will never watch again.

A break from tradition on Monday, where breakfast was somewhat earlier so we could get to Kew Gardens in good time for maximum tweeness. Lying on the grass after lunch, somewhere in between picking an insect off Alec and straining to understand Ada or Ardor, I fell asleep. Later in Richmond, we rowed on the Thames and ate on a barge and were very happy.

And today back to work.

Richard II, Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre London, 2003

Theatre at the Globe is not self-evidently a transcendental experience.

If you’re budget-conscious like us, you take the £5 tickets in the pit, where you get the best view in the place but have to stand for three hours. If it rains, you can’t use your umbrella, and if you don’t have some other waterproof covering you buy the theatre-issue plastic poncho which is extremely unglamorous and makes you very unpopular with the people around you due to the rustly noises you make while trying to wrestle it on. You then stand completely motionless in your cling-wrap prison until you can buy some overpriced tea in a paper cup at the intermission to clasp in your hands in the hope that it will warm your cold-stiffened body.

You are watching an all-male, all-authentic-practices production of Richard II. All the costumes look ridiculous. The men dressed up as women still look like men dressed up as women, despite the feminine mannerisms they take on. You miss the famous speech about England because you are wrestling with your poncho.

You should be miserable, but you’re not. The parting kisses between Richard and his Queen are heart-wrenchingly tender, and you’re transported beyond the cross-dressing, make-up and Adam’s apples to the simple acceptance that this is a man and woman in love. You have finally seen the great Mark Rylance, and are not disappointed by his subtle, many-textured Richard. Time and time again you are struck by the enduring power of Shakespeare’s words and wit today, and the ability of the cast to communicate this to us despite their lack of microphones and the occasional overhead helicopter.

As the company performs an ending dance, you vaguely note as you clap your hands sore that, again, they look ridiculous to your modern eye. None of it matters. In the midst of your euphoria, you are gripped by a sudden sadness, the same one that recurs every time you feel that surge of love for this blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England: you are leaving soon.

Snippets: Brighton, Calla Gig, Lake District

I have no time to write properly about the weekend in Brighton. It was great cheesy fun. Deep fried donuts and silly screaming on the rides, chilly sea winds, warm man, the sky on fire at dusk.

I have no time to write properly about the gig I went to on Monday at the Water Rats. Three bands: Mogul, The Bookoo Project, Calla. I was there to see Calla, expecting whispers and buzzing strings and bluesy moodiness. I got pulsing walls of sound and emphatic guitars. Worth far more than the £4 the gig cost, and also every penny of the two albums arriving soon in the post.

I have no time because it is now 3 AM. I have spent the last few hours giving my room a crash course in cleanliness. My sister arrives from Singapore at 6 AM, and we get on a train to the Lake District four hours later. (Note to self: some time before then, pack.)

So see you all on Monday, then, and have a good weekend. I expect mine will be muddy.

From Scratched-Up Shakespeare To Sonic Youth

The Bomb-itty Of Errors on Friday was truly, dare I say, da bomb. Shakespearean rhyming couplets adapted for rap with an on-stage DJ scratching, beatboxing and grooving right along with the performers. Four guys playing a multitude of characters, including women, to hilarious effect, especially when quick scene changes were involved. Bawdiness, and some random suggestions of animal lovin’. “MC Heidelberg” complete with ringlets and prosthetic nose. A plethora of pop cultural references, almost reminiscent of the Beastie Boys in Paul’s Boutique. The only rolling Shakespeare does in his grave to this should be a headspin.

Afterwards I somewhat unnerved the waitress at Misato when I suddenly realized what they were playing on the restaurant’s piped music and shrieked “Oh my God! This is Sonic Youth!” in the middle of ordering myself the teriyaki salmon bento. With background music like that, I couldn’t help but enjoy the meal and should add, for the benefit of those that click on the review link above, that service was efficient and friendly despite my little geeky outburst.

Kanina Moment

I got called a cunt yesterday.

I was walking home with Gwen from our customary Wednesday night post-IP-law girlie dinner (which Alec calls the Short People’s Club for some offensive reason of his own). A big black man waiting at a bus stop turned as we passed and said, quietly but distinctly, “Cunts.”

I was obviously not going to make an issue of it, since I wouldn’t have stood a chance in a brawl even if I scratched eyes and pulled hair (maybe if I kicked groin though), and we ignored him and kept walking. All the same, part of me desperately wanted to turn around and shriek “SI MI LAN CHEOW? KA NI NA BU CHAO CHEE BAI!” but that would have been descending to his level. Or perhaps considerably lower. Hokkien is the best cussing language ever.