1111th
Nov

It’s been a busy past few days for me as I’ve had a friend over to stay and it feels like we have been over the whole of London! On Tuesday we went to the Olympia for the Doctor Who Experience and I’m glad we went during a weekday as it meant we had a lot of time and space (hah) to look over everything. It started off with an interactive adventure where you join the Doctor on a mission to find his TARDIS and stop the Daleks, and it really was so much fun. I am not ashamed to say I pushed a child out of the way so I could help pilot the TARDIS.. After it has finished you get to look around an exhibition filled with props and costumes from the old and new series, and we spent a very long time just enjoying it all. Once that was over it was the cursory trip to the gift shop where I delightedly bought an eleven doctor mini figure set to go with my larger figures at home, plus a few pencils and badges and the like. We took the overground to Shepherds Bush and spent some time wandering around Westfield where I got to indulge two of my shopping favourites: MAC and Lego. I picked up a nice MAC holiday gift set and a Lego Harry Potter set, plus some Lego keyrings for Christmas presents. Once we had exhausted all our money we went upstairs to the cinema and saw The Ides of March, which I enjoyed a lot despite the fact it was some kind of political thriller.

The next day we went on our customary trip of Camden and because I couldn’t find a pair of converse that I wanted to buy, I decided to get my tragus pierced instead. It seemed logical in my head. Not much pain anyway, and I’m very pleased with my new bit of metal. After that we headed to Oxford Circus where I tried on a lot of things that looked terrible in Primark, and bought some more toys and Lego in Forbidden Planet because I cannot help myself.

On Thursday we decided to be a bit cultured so we stopped by the Museum of Natural History. It was weird to walk around because I have bits and pieces of memories from childhood visits, and of course all the dinosaur skeletons seemed so much smaller. We had fun taking photos of the weirdest things we could find and sending them to another friend. We did try to visit the V&A museum afterwards, but got bored quite quickly so we went to Hyde Park instead for some hot chocolate by the lake. All too soon it was over, and there ended my touristy visits of London for another few months.


Trying on the sorting hat in a Harry Potter pop up shop in Harrods.


Massive lego portrait

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115th
Nov

Last night I went to see Patrick Wolf at the Roundhouse, and it was a lovely evening for a number of reasons. Firstly, I had somehow won a meet and greet for before the show, so I eschewed the queue in order to huddle with a small group of people by the entrance to be let in early and meet the man himself. It was a bit of a strange setup with Patrick standing over by the merch stand, and the rest of us stood in a nervous bunch while we waited to go up one by one. I got my ‘The City’ vinyl signed and had a quick photo before I skipped out of the venue and back into the queue. I’m not great with meeting my idols so I kept the chat to a minimum, which suited me fine really! When I got back outside, I discovered that an old friend was also there for the gig and so I joined her and we spent the evening catching up.

The gig itself was the usual audio treat I have come to expect, with a nicely varied setlist and a wonderful backing band, but the stage setup was also a nice surprise. They had made use of the large Roundhouse space with a giant hand-drawn backdrop and some eclectic props scattered amongst the varied instruments. Add in Patrick’s penchant for over the top outfits and it really was quite the spectacle! I also got quite close to the front so I have some decent compact photos for once. I think this was a very grand, fitting gig to end the Lupercalia tour, although I’m certain that I won’t have to wait long before the next Patrick Wolf gig.

Setlist:

Armistice
Time Of My Life
Time of Year
The Bluebell / Bluebells
Pigeon Song
House
The Gypsy King
The Bachelor
Tristan
Accident & Emergency
Godrevy Point
The Days
Get Lost
The Future
The Falcons
Together
——————-
Bermondsey Street
The Magic Position
The City


(I like how much he had to bend down next to me!)

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113rd
Nov

I have a busy week next week as a friend is coming to stay, so we will be indulging in a lot of shopping, pubbing and museum-going. We’ve also booked tickets to the Doctor Who experience, which I am very excited about, and I’ve managed to get more tickets to see Never Mind The Buzzcocks being recorded! I’m hoping we’ll have a better guest host than last time, when we got the atrocious Tim Westwood.

I’m also very excited about tomorrow as not only am I going to see Patrick Wolf at the Roundhouse, I’ve also somehow won a meet and greet with him! I have no idea what I’ll say, but I’ll take my camera along and something to sign and hope for the best.

This week I have mostly been enjoying my new lovefilm subscription with lots of streaming films, and planning a redesign of my website. It’s looking good so far although there is still a lot of work to be done. We’ve also upgraded our broadband to 50Mb fibre optic so that’s something to be looking forward to as well.

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1131st
Oct

It’s Halloween, my favourite time of year! As is now tradition, we made our friends throw a party at the weekend so we could get dressed up and drink copious amounts of alcohol. I threw together an outfit the week before with an ebay wig and a cheap dress from the ASOS sale, and my brother and his friend dressed as another double act, although a lot less funny than their Batgirl/Supergirl combo from last year!

Here is a selection of the best and worst photos for your viewing pleasure.


Me as bride of frankenstein, Nik as me!, my brother as Luigi, Nev as Mario, Jen as a pirate wench


Creepy doll


Pacman and a ghost


Skeleton and a pumpkin


Papa Lazarou!

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1126th
Oct

My October gig extravaganza came to an end last night with an excellent performance by Miles Kane at the Electric Ballroom.

Before that however, was Bombay Bicycle Club at Brixton Academy last week. I am pleased to announce that the stage is back to normal, so the weird flattened out thing they had going on when I saw DFA1979 must have been temporary. Bombay Bicycle Club were supported by Dry The River, a band whom I have heard much about, but have never heard their music. They were fairly pleasant folky indie, and although I won’t be clamouring to buy their latest album they still helped the warm up the crowd and pass the time before the main act. Bombay Bicycle Club took to the stage shortly after 9pm and managed to play a staggering 20-song setlist. Considering there were only two tracks on offering from their acoustic ‘Flaws’ album, they managed to get through most of the material from their other two albums, which surely left even the most die-hard fan feeling as though they had gotten their moneys worth. Not only do they play well live, but they also really get into the music and engage with the fans, something that a lot of indie-folk bands tend not to do. It adds an extra dimension to the songs and the crowd seemed to be absolutely loving it. I was extremely pleased with the selection of songs and the closer of ‘What If’ had everyone dancing and cheering long after they had left the stage.

The setlist was:

Shuffle
Your Eyes
Dust On The Ground
Bad Timing
Open House
Leave It
Lights Out, Words Gone
Rinse Me Down
Ivy & Gold
Evening/Morning
Beggars
Cancel On Me
Lamplight
How Can You Swallow So Much Sleep
Magnet
What You Want
Always Like This
The Giantess/Emergency Contraception Blues
———————————————
Still
What If

Miles Kane was performing two sold out nights at the Electric Ballroom, in support of his debut album ‘The Colour of the Trap’. The audience was largely made up of older people and so it didn’t really start to fill up until after 9pm, which meant we could get a nice spot close to the front before the support act, Folks, came on. Folks were largely forgettable and after a few tracks we found ourselves waiting impatiently for Miles Kane to take to the stage. It was a good performance, although fairly short as he only had his album and a few covers to rely on. The two covers (Jaques Dutronc and a more obscure Beatles track) mostly went over my head, but the rest of the set was more memorable. The highlights of course were ‘Come Closer’ and ‘Inhaler’ which got the biggest crowd reactions of the night and Miles proved that he is a solid performer and well worthy of all his praise.

Setlist:

Better Left Invisible
Counting Down The Days
Rearrange
Before It’s Midnight
Kingcrawler
Happenstance
Take The Night From Me
Quicksand
The Responsible (Jaques Dutronc cover)
My Fantasy
Colour Of The Trap
Telepathy
Woman’s Touch
Hey Bulldog (The Beatles cover)
Come Closer
———————————
Inhaler

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