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at , posted by Xian, 0 Comments

I’m sitting here staring
At a long ride home
Typing and not caring
That I’m here alone

I’m here and just waiting
To get me a drink
Typing and just trying
To sleep and not think

(Adjusting to time differences isn’t fun)

And now, we resume our regularly scheduled (yet irregularly updated) programming.

My previous post was, if I’m not wrong, after getting back from Avenue Q. Which leaves two days to blog about (three, considering that this will only get posted after arriving in Singapore. Fortunate then that the flight hasn’t been delayed.) (strangeness with tense: apologies. Blogging in the present about the past for publication in the future: odd)

Avenue Q. That was good. Funny, politically incorrect, adult, lewd, and obscene, still managing commentary on its themes. Wait, I’ve said that. So, Avenue Q… walked Leicester and Covent Garden…back home to sleep… wake up.

Slept in the next day if I’m not wrong. Crap I am wrong. And I need to stop relying on “If I’m not wrong” as a crutch. After Avenue Q was Sunday, so no sleeping in. Waking early to cycle four miles to church instead. At least we didn’t walk/jog/run. My observations all point to my brother’s church (All Souls) being an Anglican church. Replete with organist, violinist, cellist, flutist, pianist, hornist, and conductor. Grand, old building, grand old traditions as well. It was certainly different, especially in the songs they sing and the manner in which they have corporate prayer. The choice of songs evoke a greater reverence and awe of God, worshipping him for who He is, and not because of how we feel. Their manner of corporate prayer, where the minister/leader prays and the congregation finishes with an “amen” is, in my humble opinion, indicative of a greater tradition of officialdom and rigid hierarchy, where members are less responsible for their faith, and church leaders more so.

Following church was, of course, the most likely event that proceeds church. Lunch. Mmmmmmmmmmm. Lunch in Chinatown constituting “beef in black bean sauce with green peppers and onions on rice” and “crispy noodles with watery egg sauce on triple roast”, with my brother and friend Wesley (whose name evokes the hero of “The Princess Bride” every time I hear it. Apologies to you Wesley, if you ever read this and are offended. You are a very nice person)

Post-lunch activity: shop at Lillywhites—the sports and apparel store with year round up to 70% discount sales. Marketing gimmick it may be, but 70% off £29.99 Pierre Cardin shirts is most satisfying. Wanted to get Karrimor shoes at £20 but decided against it.

Purchases made, we proceeded home, rested for awhile, and then cycled to the Emirates Stadium. Tickets for an Arsenal v Liverpool match are going to be sold out at least two months before the match, and resellers would probably charge two hundred quid apiece. And one would probably need to have contacts. Which we most certainly did not. Although walking around the stadium on a huge match day is rather an experience.

But there’s always another kind of experience you can get in England. Namely, standing in a pub watching football, next to a drunk, vulgar (to the extreme) Arsenal fan. Who becomes so predictable it’s funny. Examples:

Referee appears on the TV
Fat fan, beer in hand: Wanker!

Gerrad appears on the TV
Fat fan, beer in hand: Cheat! Cheat!

Robbie Keane appears on the TV
Fat fan, beer in hand: Wanker!

Suddenly out of nowhere
Fat fan, beer in hand: And **** that fatboy Frank Lampard as well!

I won’t be going into more details about the match here, for the sake of brevity and my (very few) readers. On then, to the next activity. Christmastime dinner at another of my brother’s friend’s houses. In the East Side, south of the river, 11km from Highbury. Or was that eleven miles?

Note to self: asparagus wrapped in ham, a Portobello mushroom with cheese, some mash, a little pasta, the tiniest hunk of roast beef and a few slices of roast chicken can make one inordinately full. Or perhaps it was the Ferreo Rocher, Ben and Jerry’s, and the cheese and butter cookies. Because there’s nothing better than chasing a Christmas dinner down with ice cream, cookies, chocolate, and a four hour discussion on extravagance, ideals, propriety in worship (I think), and who knows what else. Slept over, at 2am.




Monday (how totally unoriginal and uninspired a subheading)\

Woke up in a bed not my own. Check.
Eat breakfast in a house when the owner’s out. Check
Discover bicycle tyre is flat. Check
Push bicycle 2-3 km to a gas station. Check
Reinflate tyre and cycle to Westminster. Check

Discover there’s an entrance fee to Westminster Abbey and decide to not come back at evensong because it would be a waste of time to go for a service and sit when the primary aim is to sightsee. Check.

That pretty much sums up Monday. Except for the sushi buffet for dinner. But it wasn’t worth much mention. Oh right, packing. Wait, what? Packing is worth more mention then a sushi buffet? It most certainly is not. So I won’t even mention it at all. Strikethrough all mention of packing.

And, since waking up, I’ve taken the Tube to Heathrow (the first time on public transport in two weeks. Propulsion not dependent on muscle power for the first time in two weeks, discounting aircraft. I’m not sure what I’m trying to illustrate; it’s probably my incredulity that it took that long to get a ride on the Tube. And at how expensive it is)

Airport, check in, luggage check, passport control, machine scanning of shoes, walking through shops to before realising that I’m cutting it close, getting into the enormous queue at the gate. Old hat. Except for the SHOE SCANNING. Past the perplexing scans, we get to the aircraft. Namely, the one I’m in. The one I’m blogging in as I wait for the lunch I will eat before proceeding to sleep in an attempt to maintain sanity and preserve time for gift preparations and card writing after I arrive in Singapore.

~Pause for sitting in aircraft with nothing to blog about~


Posted at home, 9.52am, 24/12/2008 Intended to post at changi, but forgot. Heh.

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