Beautiful Stranger

Published on Tue 10 Nov 2009

So I was a bit concerned that I wouldn't end up doing anything extravagant this week, but rest easy - my friend Andy had a spare ticket to see England play Australia at Twickenham on Saturday. The transport there is a bit ridiculous because everyone goes from Waterloo on incredibly crowded trains, and Twickenham station empties out directly onto a moderately busy road. Eventually the police just gave up and stopped the traffic. It's an impressive stadium though when you get there - much better than Wembley I thought.  

Also, before the match began, they had a girl suspended from a balloon and an old guy in a big coat with a flag. There were some people dressed as zebras too but I couldn't be arsed to take a picture of them.

I don't really care all that much about rugby, but it's dead exciting when you're there - they put so much effort into trying to get the ball just a little bit further forward, and Jonny Wilkinson doing his thing was something I didn't think I'd get to see. Good day.

Andy had been to a Big Lebowski party the night before as The Stranger, and, for reasons that still aren't entirely clear to me, was keeping his moustache on.

Despite that, it was my week's worth of facial hair that got the abuse from a couple of semi-friendly Germans we met on the tube after. I'm obviously a born victim.

I was back in Barkingside before the match and saw this Ilford Recorder newsstand that made me laugh on a couple of levels. But mostly the way the mention of their virtual motor show looks as if it's a clarification of the headline.

On Friday lunchtime I went to see a Boo Hewerdine gig at ARU - they have a free concert every week and apparently the music students get credit just for going. And the only one that I know still didn't show up. This week's show is by a theremin virtuoso. I'll not lie to you, I'm tempted. Anyway, Boo was really good (despite not playing 16 Miles, and not that much off his new one), though gigs in theatres seem a bit wrong to me. Give me a shabby room with a wooden floor and no seats any day. Or the Union Chapel.

On Thursday I got to sit on the roof of a triple-parked narrow boat and watch the fireworks on Midsummer Common, which were excellent. Much better than last year. Though I had had an amount of mulled wine by the time they started. My favourites were the ones that filled the entire sky with gold dust, and the ones that consisted of two concentric blue circles, the inner one appearing about 5 seconds after the outer one. Clever stuff. I took some sparklers along but there were plenty there already, so I still have them on my living room table. I'm trying to decide if it's tragic just having a little sparkler party in the garden on my own or if I should save them for Christmas or something. I bloody love fireworks.

I played a few songs (specifically, Wasted on the Young, A Stone, and Closure) at The Cornerhouse on Sunday but I didn't enjoy it. Just when I was feeling a bit better about playing too. Andy and Cat Green Bike were both great though (I've always wondered what a zither was - they sound lovely), so it was good that I went, and we managed a decent amount of quiz machine milking - turns out Trivia for Dummies 2 isn't such a bad game after all. God, to think of all the time I've wasted not playing it over the last couple of years...