Dom Davis (The Blog)

I’ve written before about how dangerous all this nature I walk through on my way too and from work can be, but Friday provided a reminder of just how deadly it can be.

I was on the final leg of my walk in, a part where there are some rather old and large trees, when I found the path blocked. A rather lathe bough (branch just doesn’t cut it here) had broken off the tree at some point in the last 14 hours or so, and come crashing down on the path.

Oh, you’d have to be phenomenally unlucky to be caught out by this event (unless you precipitated the event by swinging on the soon go be shed bough) but something that size is going sting if it falls on you.

7 hours later the council had cleared the area leaving just the ruddy great gash in the side of the tree as evidence of the event. I wonder what caused it since there wasn’t any high winds or inclement weather Thursday night.

Shopping in London is not a pleasant experience. Yes, all the flagship stores are there, but then so are 60 billion people, most of them tourists. Once I moved to the Suburbs of London I ceased going to Oxford Street very often, preferring instead to shop at Bluewater, which is a far more pleasant experience.

When I moved to Colchester both London and Norwich were pretty much equidistant, but Norwich was much nicer so I’d go there for shopping that I couldn’t so locally. These days I work in Norwich so it’s a bit of a no brainer that I still shop there.

Last time I was at Oxford Circus was one of my visits to the Apple Store there which, to be honest, involved surfacing from the tube, heading directly to the Apple Store, getting what I wanted and heading back down the tube again.

The last time I was at the Tottenham Court Road end of things was… God, whenever it was Appocalyptica played the Astoria. At least 2 years ago, probably 3. It was also dark then and I didn’t take much notice.

Today Jason and I took a stroll down Oxford Street from Tottenham Court Road to Oxford Circus. It’s an absolute dump. The massive Virgin Megastores above the tube is dead. Since Zavvi went tits up they’ve obviously not been able to re-let the space. The lack of such a huge anchor store that end shows and other businesses have closed down. The work for Crossrail has made the crossroads and surrounding area a building site which doesn’t help. They’ve also demolished the Astoria!

This last nugget of information came as a bit of a shock to Jason and I. We don’t cope with change very well and while we were prepared on a logical level, if not an emotional one, for the loss of the Virgin we had no idea that one of Londons iconic venues had gone. I was forced to pause and ask “er… where the fuck did the Astoria go?” A question Jason was, it turned out, ill equipped to answer. He had also only just discovered that Lonely Plant has closed, moved or otherwise ceased to operate from it’s usual location and I think it was all getting a bit much for him.

As we neared the Oxford Circus end of things the old Oxford Street began to surface more. The new crossing that allows pedestrians to walk every which way is very swish but the whole area is beginning to look tired. Will be interesting to see if the end of the recession and the arrival of Crossrail gives it the facelift it needs. I guess I’ll find out next time I go, whenever that’ll be. In the mean time: we’d like our venue back please.

Dear Bank Account…

…actually this weekend poses little threat to you. Not when you consider some of the other things I’ve done to you. Remember the olden days? We’d go out to that pub that did cashback but didn’t use an electronic card system and I’d be all “Yeah, Orange Hooch and £50 cashback” and you’d be like “Noooo! They’ll hit me with more charges, you’re already past your overdraft limit!” and I’d ignore you and you’d get all stroppy and bounce my rent cheques?

Just don’t get all shirty and decide that, just because I don’t usually take out money from a cash machine in the middle of London at 3am, that you’re going to “protect me from fraud” and decline the transaction. You may think it’s hysterical, but it wasn’t funny last time you did it and it won’t be funny this time. Trying to tell some call centre worker in India that you need money for a taxi and not being able to get any is highly fucking inconvenient while pissed is not fun.

Actually, to be on the safe side I’ll get the money out in the morning.

Lots of love,

Dom

Dear Body,

You may have noticed over the past few days that I have been letting you have things like sugar, caffeine and alcohol, albeit in moderation. While you are welcome to view it as a reward for shedding so much weight the reality of the situation is I’ve just been reminding you of those things before Saturday hits.

The good news is that alcohol, which I know is your least favourite of the three, will likely be done in moderation. You will probably have to cope with ‘drunk’, possibly over the course of some hours in the evening, however, I will try to avoid ‘pissed’ and ‘shit faced’, partly because I know you’ll make me pay for days afterwards and make the journey home a waking hell, but mostly because I want to go clubbing afterwards.

Yes, you’re being subjected to an all nighter so brace yourself for epic levels of sugar and caffeine from about midnight onwards. There’s very little you can do about it short of putting me in hospital, and we both know that turns out bad for both of us so there is very little point trying it. If it makes you feel better just consider what crap everyone else is subjecting their bodies to in order to keep going that long. Yeah, doesn’t seem so bad now does it? Besides, you like sugar.

There is also likely to be sleep depravation and, ideally, I’d like continuos operation from 8am tomorrow until midday Sunday. From 8am Sunday you’re welcome to enter a semi-autonomous state and I have secured the wherewithal to provide you with easy to digest entertainment so don’t get all pathetic and try to pass out on me. If you really can’t cope with that then there are alternatives but I think, in the long run, you’re best off just assuming no sleep. It would be an idea, therefore, if you knuckled under and got a really good nights sleep tonight. I shall provide a reasonable bed time tonight plus a chance to lie in and snooze tomorrow.

Perform well and I shall reward you with proper curry and a nice relaxing day on Monday.

Lots of love,

Your Brain

The iPhones biggest Achilles heel is the rate at which it can run its battery flat. To be fair this is a problem with all smart phones but iPhones (or at lest my iPhone) tend to be in constant use¹. At full whack you’re powering various aerials (wifi, cellular, bluetooth, GPS), a lovely high res backlit screen and a fairly beasty (for a phone) processor. Battery time is counted in hours, not days. Even with half the aerials turned off and data access limited to Edge (slower than 3G, but uses less power and is fine for email and a little bit of surfing) I would expect to have to charge the phone overnight with normal usage.

On Saturday I may need the phone to last me upwards of 28 hours without charging and have it as my main source of entertainment for 8 of those hours. Those numbers don’t stack up so I am going to need to call on outside help. Thankfully there are devices whose sole purpose in life is to sacrifice their battery to recharge the iPhones battery and I will be purchasing one of these. I have two options, an bigger one that does up to 4 recharges on a single charge of it’s own battery or one that will effectively give you 3 hours extra usage before being exhausted.

The bigger one does sound tempting, especially given I have many hours trapped in a pressurised tube coming up but I’d need to see how bulky it is. After all, it’s not like long haul aircraft are devoid of alternative forms of entertainment and having the phone in airplane mode does help conserve battery so I’d hate to be hauling round half a brick for the sake of a few more games of Bejewled Blitz.

Unless the large battery is properly pocket size I’ll be plumping for the small one. It can keep the phone topped up on the journey down, get left in the hotel to recharge and then be used to keep the phone alive on the way home. Should also give me 6+ hours of gaming on the plane which, coupled with fitful attempts at sleep and the inflight entertainment system, should be fine.

They say mankind is 3 meals away from barbarism. For me it’s more 8 hours away from a 3 pin plug.

¹ A typical days usage would be check Email, Facebook and Twitter in the morning, 1 hour+ of listening to music on my commute into work, 45 minutes of surfing the web or reading on the train to work, 15 minutes of blogging while walking to work, various texts during the day with up to 4 more hours of listening to music, another 15 minutes of blogging while walking home and listening to music, 45 minutes of game playing or watching TV on the train home and some Facebook, web surfing and game playing at home during the evening. Not forgetting my entire calendar is on there plus various todo lists so the phone will beep at me at various times to remind me of things I need to get done. It’s little wonder I keep a charging cradle at work too

So after a fun day shopping and a rather top notch steak at Gouchos a tired Zozo and I headed home. We arrived on platform 11 at 18:55 and about 45 seconds for the 19:00 train, got as far as the rear engine car and had people blowing ‘the train is about to leave’ whistles. That’s right, if you’re 2 minutes early for a train you’re late and they won’t let you on, whereas they can be 10 minutes late and that still counts as on time.

Not to worry, we had reserved seats and it’s not like it’s a rush hour train from London on a weekday with no seat reservations printed… OK, so maybe it was. Not wishing to have them shut the doors on us and declare us not early enough not to be late we hoped on in the first class section, walked through a packed train to the carriage where are seats were supposed to be, sighed and sat on the floor in the vestibule outside the toilets. I’d forgotten how miserable my old commute could be.

We pulled into Colchester 4 minutes late (on time), allowed a bunch of people off and nabbed their seats. Since NXEA are running rolling stock from the dawn of rail travel (window down, lean out, open door) there are no plugs so my phone, which was already on low power mode and down to 10% battery (my iPhone is my life, running out of battery is not an option), couldn’t be charged which reduced me to reading The Zozos celebrity magazines over her shoulder for the first half of the journey. Seat secured I was able to pull out the laptop and sacrifice it’s battery to charge the phone, a job that it’s performing admirably.

This whole lack of plugs thing is going to be a big issue over the weekend. Bringing my laptop just to serve as a spare battery and mobile charging station seems a bit extreme (I was kind of hoping to just shove smalls and travel toiletries into a pocket and not bother with a bag at all). NXEA trains don’t even offer power in first class (or free tea and coffee, or indeed anything other than a wider seat that’s broken so it won’t move from the fully reclined position making it uncomfortable to use the table) so stumping up for weekend first isn’t going to help. I may see how much a battery pack for the phone will cost me, or maybe try and get a trip down in a cattle truck. I bet they’ve got plugs. I’m just glad I didn’t pay full whack for these tickets.

It turns out Camden doesn’t do mornings at all on a weekday so I buggered off to other parts of London to perform errands, see friends and eat food. Recharged and refreshed from a lovely meal I didn’t pay for (the tastiest kind) involving raw dead fish, no rice and some very tasty chops I returned to Camden in the afternoon to find it alive and kicking.

First stop Cyberdog to spend far too much on tshirts for Saturday (couldn’t decide which I wanted, got two), and to wonder what The Zozo would look like in some of the girlie tee’s they do (hint: damn hot!). Pressing purchases done I then set about looking for a present for The Zozo, and some hoodies for me, all the while wishing The Zozo was with me because there’s a load of clothes I’d love to have bought her (or at least seen her in ). In the end I settled for a bizarre hand made animal thing for The Zozo because I’m always worried about buying the wrong size with clothes. I also located a couple of hoodies for the stag do which were appropriately alternative yet suitable for general wear should the claims of “high quality” actually turn out to be true and they last for any length of time.

Having handed over more money than I’m comfortable admitting for very few goods (at least the stall holders in the market are cheerful about ripping you off) I headed to Lock 17 by the lock to remind my body what alcohol is (I won’t be drinking too much on Saturday but it’s still going to be a bit of a shock to the system so best to cushion that), check my email (to conserve battery I’ve had my phone running in a low power mode and been quietly downloading emails over a slower connection during the day to read at my leisure later) and blog about the day (resplendent with many unnecessary sentences in parenthesis making a single line last a paragraph) while waiting for The Zozo to finish her exams.

By my watch she’ll be done in 5 minutes which gives me enough time to finish my drink, toddle over to London Zoo and meet her before heading out for dinner with her.

All in all a good, if expensive day

Long ago I used to live within easy striking distance of Camden. It’s been a haunt of mine for both shopping and going out for a long time and it’s good to be back, albeit as a tourist.

Due to The Zozos exams we were up and about at 6:30, dressed and breakfasted by 7:30 and enjoying the rather nice view from the balcony doing last minute revision while London slowly woke up.

I’d dropped The Zozo off by 9ish and was back in Camden after a nice walk along the canal from London Zoo by 9:15.

From days of yore I know that Camden does very early mornings. Many a time I’ve walked it’s streets at 3, 4 or even 5am, normally drunk, normally talking to a bunch of strangers while waiting for a night bus or taxi. It would appear, however, that Camden doesn’t really do normal mornings. Not on a weekday at least. The Market stalls are still being set up, Cyberdog is shut and I am sat in Costa, enjoying a hot chocolate and waiting for Camden to wake up and provide me with shopping opportunities.

Now, if there was only somewhere I could charge my phone…

The Zozo and I are off to the big smoke tonight for a day in London tomorrow. For me this involves a trip round the market in Camden, lunch at Canary Wharf and dinner at Gauchos. No such luck for The Zozo. I’ll be dropping her off tomorrow morning so she can’t sit some exams and offering what moral support I can before galavanting off and doing much less stressful things.

It’s not all bad for The Zozo as the trip to Gouchos was her request as a reward for making it through an otherwise crappy day (there’s something about exams that automatically make the day crappy). She’s also not seen the room we’re staying in tonight.

Now I’m a daft sod who likes making big gestures and I thought what better way to make sure you arrive at the exam refreshed and relaxed than to have a good nights sleep before hand. And how better to get a good nights sleep than in a penthouse suite overlooking Camden Lock. OK, so it’s a Holiday Inn (we needed to be close to where The Zozos exams are, and I’m not working in The City any more to be affording hugely flash hotels), but it looks nice from the pictures and I’m expecting a better than average view from our balcony. Hopefully The Zozo likes the surprise.

For some reason known only to itself my body has decided that the latter part of the train journey into work (and, it would appear, the walk into work) should be done in a state of mild panic. Not the “Oh crap, I’ve got exams today”¹ type of panic, and definitely not “Oh crap, I get married soon”². No, this is a much more immediate “I’ve forgotten something important” thing. No idea what though and, after wracking my brains (and searching my todo lists), I can only conclude that my Spidey Sense has misfired and will now taunt me mercilessly for the next few hours. Either that or my subconscious really does know something I don’t and, rather than doing something useful about it like flashing a memory into the conscious brain it’s just going to jab the adrenaline button. Personally I blame Monday. Regardless of the real reason there is bound to be a Monday behind it, lurking.

¹ Although The Zozo has some this week, so it could be referred panic.
² I’m actually looking forward to that I’m much more worried about the hours in a metal tube 2 days later.