Part the Second - Tuesday.
Sep. 28th, 2005 07:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mad_andyBig day. Shopping - about the only time I enjoy it is with the girls, because they never, ever take the piss or get fed up with me - and then the gig.
Now, it had been decided that we would dress up for the gig. We were, after all, on the guest list; I'd never been on a really truly hactual guest list before so it was going to be a very special event. Thus I did not screech too loudly when it turned out that sleeveless Maiden shirt and ratty cargo pants were not allowed...
Still, as the bloody corsets still hadn't shown up I was at a bit of a loss. The Fuck You boots were a given. OK, fine, my PVC trousers would go with them. Tops? Hmmm. Solution?
Find something when shopping!
Brilliant.
So after we'd got up, got dressed and, in my case, hung out the window for a cigarette (I wasn't the only one, the windowledge was scarred to buggery with fag burns) we set off in search of several things.
1 - The tube station. Okay, Jaynie and Mandy knew the way so cool. Just a bit o' walking.
2 - Breakfast. Crap, but I hate hotels with no bar or restaurant.
3 - Tea. Can't live without it.
4 - Phil.
Hey, we'd managed to catch him before in Starbucks so why not again? Except Jaynie's phone squawked just before the line dived underground and we were told to bail out a stop early. Looks like a certain someone had changed his routine.
No worries. We now had a little more info and knew where we were going which is always a bonus. Piled out of the tube station and waited for K; now me, I'd been too many damn minutes without a cigarette so that was my first order. Leaned on the wall and watched the world go by, admiring the mature plane tree that graced the entrance to the Victorian building; they used to be the only trees that would survive in the capital, due to their habit of shedding bark in patches, dropping pollution and poisons with them. These days, of course, the range of species you see is much wider; as we'd been walking to the tube station I'd noticed all sorts growing beside the tube line that parallells the road.
The usual ash, bramble, rowan and sycamore, sure. But oak and beech flourished next to exotic acacia, blackthorn scrambled up the slopes next to hawthorn which tried to outdo elder in its autumnal bounty of berries. Japanese knotweed, eliminated across most of the country (it's a non native and a massively prolific plant), still hung on in clumps here and there. Nettles poked dried seedheads above the riot of growth, hazel worked its twigs into a thicket and birch arched graceful above it; poplars punctuating the scramble with their elegant, upward pointing branches and god alone knows how many other species weaved through it all. I was impressed. You could hear birds in that lot but not see them; large nesting boxes had been nailed to some of the bigger oak trees and unless they grow blue tits to impossible sizes in the capital then they looked to be for some sort of raptor, or maybe owls.
Amazing, really.
So there stands I, eyes kind of unfocused, thinking about food and enjoying my smoke. It never occurred to me to look up and down the street, check out what the shops on either side were while the four of us waited for our German companions - and the foolishness of this will become clear shortly.
Kerstin and Silke caught up, and as per usual I hung back to follow the others to the local Starbucks...
... which was about twenty feet away on the other side of the newspaper stand. And Phil was sitting outside, watching the traffic and finishing his coffee.
There are days, my friends, when I wonder how I manage to put my pants on the right way round, let alone anything else.
Phil couldn't stay long; things to do, stuff to sort out, as you might imagine. He spoke to us all, though, and made us promise to stand at the front and make a lot of noise. Much snorting and 'well, duh' type noises were made until he remembered that we didn't know the words to the songs. So you can't sing loudly, can you? he said.
We'll just make very loud noises in time with you, I replied, and he laughed.
All too brief stalking session over with we went to find a place for breakfast - a little Italian restaurant that specialises in full English breakfasts. I know, I had to ask a couple of times but it is and it does and by god it's good. Filled up with tea and bacon and soss and eggs and-- you get the picture.
You wouldn't believe how many antique shops there are in that area of London. Our eyes were always being caught by something shiny, or elegant, or a sleek form or classic figure - and that was before we got anywhere near the shoe shops.
First stop?
Covent Garden.
I love Covent Garden. It's a jumble of tat and class, hideously expensive snobbery or cheap and cheerful tourist junk. Shiny and bright, different colours and languages all clamouring for attention, street theatre and pubs and advertising for shows and people chattering and you can smell junk food and tea and coffee and stale fag smoke and incense--
The senses, in short, are assaulted. And the best thing to do is relax, lean back and become part of it all, absorb the noise and flash and rumble and notice what you can, pass by what you can't.
I do tend to wander along in the wake of whoever I'm with, and take delight in noticing the little things. A weed hugging the edge of a paving slab, a pigeon courting his mate on a rooftop, someone drinking coffee and waving their arms in defiant animation, lost in a little world of their own.
All that aside, we still had a mission. Sharon went to get corn plasters in the chemist, K went for chocolate, Accessorize beguiled us and Monsoon defeated us with top prices for average goods. We were hunting a chap that Jaynie had bought a suit from; he'd sent it to her on approval and she needed to pay him. Wandering along - trying not to get lost - we strolled past the upmarket bit, the arty bit, and found the market where the clothing stalls live. And whilst she went off to find this chap I wandered into a stall that sold Chinese style clothes, brocades and golden silver thread, scarlet dragons and chrysanthemums, all the colours of the rainbow and just about every design you can think of.
I loved it, and passed a very pleasant few minutes fingering the garments and wondering, a little wistfully, if they had anything in my size. There was some black, too; a jacket caught my eye, braid and net, three quarter length and (oh frabjous day) in my size. Thirty quid. Sorted.
Why a jacket, when I had my faithful leather? Because I'd been sweating my bollocks off - so to speak - since I'd got off the damn bus, and fancied not doing so that evening. One item down, just a top and a handbag to go.
Stop sniggering at the back. Even I need something to carry my fags and my wallet in.
Around the stalls, brath almost stolen by the elegance of the skirts and tops that Jaynie's little man made; handkerchief hems, colours wistful and muted but flickering like the jewels in the tail of a peacock, mist over meadows, braid catching the light and patterns that flattered and floated.
Sharon bought a skirt, but I loved the lines and sighed over the colours and moved on.
Cheap jewellry, gold and silver and hand crafted titanium, angels with glass wings and your name in wire. Metal signs and wooden carvings from all over the world, staring with wide eyes at the confusion of cultures that surrounded them in their temporary home.
We all bought. The chap came back to the stall with the brocades, and he helped me wriggle into a few different items; we found one that fit me - black with red piping - twenty quid, sold. I don't think he really understood why I wanted a top with no sleeves; I tell you, I didn't sit through all those hours putting myself in a Happy Place while an artist dug holes in my skin with ink and needles just to cover those places up. And I don't care how bloody pretty the fabric is.
Still no shoes for Silke, however. The insole of her smart black ones were beginning to disintegrate and thus we hit the trail once more with but one objective in mind - shoes!
My goodness, have you any idea how many shoe shops there are in that area?
We trooped round them, we looked, we poked, we prodded. We tried on. We clumped up and down shops - well, I clumped, everybody else walked and (when I was noisy enough) laughed - looked at designer gear and sucked our teeth in horror at the prices. And between shoe shops there were a thousand other businesses, and places to eat and places to drink, an astrology shop and a place that imports tea, narrow roads between tall buildings and cobbled streets and taxis that honk and delivery vehicles that roar.
And over it all we talked and laughed and shouted, took the piss and made sly comments, bounced from window to window with have you seen - ? and look at this - ! and you must be mental and oh, that's nice! and how fucking much?!
Course, my day got capped when we were given directions and I confidently proposed that we were getting close to the Astoria. I have to say, I thought it unlikely as my sense of direction is so bloody awful that if you consistently did the opposite of my gut reaction you'd be right more often than not but you know something? I must be getting used to that bit of London because lo and bloody behold I was right...
On Tottenham Court Road there is (yet another) Starbucks. It's a handy place to meet up if you're going to hit Forbidden Planet (not a patch on what it was) or the Astoria (bloody magic venue); also, when you've lost the European third of your group and know that they can navigate by the smell of coffee it's a bit damn handy.
And there we regrouped, had a drink, set out once more.
Long story short: I found a handbag, and a long troll down Oxford Street produced the shoes everybody wanted, several more patches from Metal Militia (drat the place) and four very sore sets of feet.
Thank goodness we only had a few stops along the central line... and then a good twenty minute walk. Dammit.
London buses to the rescue... as soon as cigarettes had been lit, naturally. I think of it as a Summon Public Transport spell.
At least when we got back to the hotel the lifts had been fixed... but as usual, we'd overstayed at the shops and were running out of time; we were supposed to be at the venue for seven, and it was almost five.
Did we make it in time? Were we forced to stand at the back and weep? Was the band any good? Will she ever stop fucking rambling and get to the bloody point?
Find out in the next post, eh?
Now, it had been decided that we would dress up for the gig. We were, after all, on the guest list; I'd never been on a really truly hactual guest list before so it was going to be a very special event. Thus I did not screech too loudly when it turned out that sleeveless Maiden shirt and ratty cargo pants were not allowed...
Still, as the bloody corsets still hadn't shown up I was at a bit of a loss. The Fuck You boots were a given. OK, fine, my PVC trousers would go with them. Tops? Hmmm. Solution?
Find something when shopping!
Brilliant.
So after we'd got up, got dressed and, in my case, hung out the window for a cigarette (I wasn't the only one, the windowledge was scarred to buggery with fag burns) we set off in search of several things.
1 - The tube station. Okay, Jaynie and Mandy knew the way so cool. Just a bit o' walking.
2 - Breakfast. Crap, but I hate hotels with no bar or restaurant.
3 - Tea. Can't live without it.
4 - Phil.
Hey, we'd managed to catch him before in Starbucks so why not again? Except Jaynie's phone squawked just before the line dived underground and we were told to bail out a stop early. Looks like a certain someone had changed his routine.
No worries. We now had a little more info and knew where we were going which is always a bonus. Piled out of the tube station and waited for K; now me, I'd been too many damn minutes without a cigarette so that was my first order. Leaned on the wall and watched the world go by, admiring the mature plane tree that graced the entrance to the Victorian building; they used to be the only trees that would survive in the capital, due to their habit of shedding bark in patches, dropping pollution and poisons with them. These days, of course, the range of species you see is much wider; as we'd been walking to the tube station I'd noticed all sorts growing beside the tube line that parallells the road.
The usual ash, bramble, rowan and sycamore, sure. But oak and beech flourished next to exotic acacia, blackthorn scrambled up the slopes next to hawthorn which tried to outdo elder in its autumnal bounty of berries. Japanese knotweed, eliminated across most of the country (it's a non native and a massively prolific plant), still hung on in clumps here and there. Nettles poked dried seedheads above the riot of growth, hazel worked its twigs into a thicket and birch arched graceful above it; poplars punctuating the scramble with their elegant, upward pointing branches and god alone knows how many other species weaved through it all. I was impressed. You could hear birds in that lot but not see them; large nesting boxes had been nailed to some of the bigger oak trees and unless they grow blue tits to impossible sizes in the capital then they looked to be for some sort of raptor, or maybe owls.
Amazing, really.
So there stands I, eyes kind of unfocused, thinking about food and enjoying my smoke. It never occurred to me to look up and down the street, check out what the shops on either side were while the four of us waited for our German companions - and the foolishness of this will become clear shortly.
Kerstin and Silke caught up, and as per usual I hung back to follow the others to the local Starbucks...
... which was about twenty feet away on the other side of the newspaper stand. And Phil was sitting outside, watching the traffic and finishing his coffee.
There are days, my friends, when I wonder how I manage to put my pants on the right way round, let alone anything else.
Phil couldn't stay long; things to do, stuff to sort out, as you might imagine. He spoke to us all, though, and made us promise to stand at the front and make a lot of noise. Much snorting and 'well, duh' type noises were made until he remembered that we didn't know the words to the songs. So you can't sing loudly, can you? he said.
We'll just make very loud noises in time with you, I replied, and he laughed.
All too brief stalking session over with we went to find a place for breakfast - a little Italian restaurant that specialises in full English breakfasts. I know, I had to ask a couple of times but it is and it does and by god it's good. Filled up with tea and bacon and soss and eggs and-- you get the picture.
You wouldn't believe how many antique shops there are in that area of London. Our eyes were always being caught by something shiny, or elegant, or a sleek form or classic figure - and that was before we got anywhere near the shoe shops.
First stop?
Covent Garden.
I love Covent Garden. It's a jumble of tat and class, hideously expensive snobbery or cheap and cheerful tourist junk. Shiny and bright, different colours and languages all clamouring for attention, street theatre and pubs and advertising for shows and people chattering and you can smell junk food and tea and coffee and stale fag smoke and incense--
The senses, in short, are assaulted. And the best thing to do is relax, lean back and become part of it all, absorb the noise and flash and rumble and notice what you can, pass by what you can't.
I do tend to wander along in the wake of whoever I'm with, and take delight in noticing the little things. A weed hugging the edge of a paving slab, a pigeon courting his mate on a rooftop, someone drinking coffee and waving their arms in defiant animation, lost in a little world of their own.
All that aside, we still had a mission. Sharon went to get corn plasters in the chemist, K went for chocolate, Accessorize beguiled us and Monsoon defeated us with top prices for average goods. We were hunting a chap that Jaynie had bought a suit from; he'd sent it to her on approval and she needed to pay him. Wandering along - trying not to get lost - we strolled past the upmarket bit, the arty bit, and found the market where the clothing stalls live. And whilst she went off to find this chap I wandered into a stall that sold Chinese style clothes, brocades and golden silver thread, scarlet dragons and chrysanthemums, all the colours of the rainbow and just about every design you can think of.
I loved it, and passed a very pleasant few minutes fingering the garments and wondering, a little wistfully, if they had anything in my size. There was some black, too; a jacket caught my eye, braid and net, three quarter length and (oh frabjous day) in my size. Thirty quid. Sorted.
Why a jacket, when I had my faithful leather? Because I'd been sweating my bollocks off - so to speak - since I'd got off the damn bus, and fancied not doing so that evening. One item down, just a top and a handbag to go.
Stop sniggering at the back. Even I need something to carry my fags and my wallet in.
Around the stalls, brath almost stolen by the elegance of the skirts and tops that Jaynie's little man made; handkerchief hems, colours wistful and muted but flickering like the jewels in the tail of a peacock, mist over meadows, braid catching the light and patterns that flattered and floated.
Sharon bought a skirt, but I loved the lines and sighed over the colours and moved on.
Cheap jewellry, gold and silver and hand crafted titanium, angels with glass wings and your name in wire. Metal signs and wooden carvings from all over the world, staring with wide eyes at the confusion of cultures that surrounded them in their temporary home.
We all bought. The chap came back to the stall with the brocades, and he helped me wriggle into a few different items; we found one that fit me - black with red piping - twenty quid, sold. I don't think he really understood why I wanted a top with no sleeves; I tell you, I didn't sit through all those hours putting myself in a Happy Place while an artist dug holes in my skin with ink and needles just to cover those places up. And I don't care how bloody pretty the fabric is.
Still no shoes for Silke, however. The insole of her smart black ones were beginning to disintegrate and thus we hit the trail once more with but one objective in mind - shoes!
My goodness, have you any idea how many shoe shops there are in that area?
We trooped round them, we looked, we poked, we prodded. We tried on. We clumped up and down shops - well, I clumped, everybody else walked and (when I was noisy enough) laughed - looked at designer gear and sucked our teeth in horror at the prices. And between shoe shops there were a thousand other businesses, and places to eat and places to drink, an astrology shop and a place that imports tea, narrow roads between tall buildings and cobbled streets and taxis that honk and delivery vehicles that roar.
And over it all we talked and laughed and shouted, took the piss and made sly comments, bounced from window to window with have you seen - ? and look at this - ! and you must be mental and oh, that's nice! and how fucking much?!
Course, my day got capped when we were given directions and I confidently proposed that we were getting close to the Astoria. I have to say, I thought it unlikely as my sense of direction is so bloody awful that if you consistently did the opposite of my gut reaction you'd be right more often than not but you know something? I must be getting used to that bit of London because lo and bloody behold I was right...
On Tottenham Court Road there is (yet another) Starbucks. It's a handy place to meet up if you're going to hit Forbidden Planet (not a patch on what it was) or the Astoria (bloody magic venue); also, when you've lost the European third of your group and know that they can navigate by the smell of coffee it's a bit damn handy.
And there we regrouped, had a drink, set out once more.
Long story short: I found a handbag, and a long troll down Oxford Street produced the shoes everybody wanted, several more patches from Metal Militia (drat the place) and four very sore sets of feet.
Thank goodness we only had a few stops along the central line... and then a good twenty minute walk. Dammit.
London buses to the rescue... as soon as cigarettes had been lit, naturally. I think of it as a Summon Public Transport spell.
At least when we got back to the hotel the lifts had been fixed... but as usual, we'd overstayed at the shops and were running out of time; we were supposed to be at the venue for seven, and it was almost five.
Did we make it in time? Were we forced to stand at the back and weep? Was the band any good? Will she ever stop fucking rambling and get to the bloody point?
Find out in the next post, eh?
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-09-28 10:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-28 11:21 pm (UTC)Hopefully it went well! Can't wait to hear how you tell it... and definitely need pics with the top and jacket.
no subject
Date: 2005-09-29 03:15 am (UTC)The corsets STILL haven't arrived? Damn. I have a nice tarty black and red number I could have sent over...
It turns out there's a Starbuck's in the arena where Lepp are playing next month...a tarty blonde guitar player's natural habitat. Heh. And his little Celtic sidekick, too.
Can't wait to hear more, you're killing me with the suspense!
no subject
Date: 2005-09-29 01:30 pm (UTC)Wot? I didn't snigger. It was more like a surprised kind of grunt. [wide grin]
The details are awesome. I especially loved this: "...staring with wide eyes at the confusion of cultures that surrounded them in their temporary home."
no subject
Date: 2005-09-29 07:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-29 07:31 pm (UTC)*Pounces in excitement*
Hey babe!
And yeah... it's what a writer does, y'know. Stands there staring into space making up flash sentences in their 'ead. Clever bastard, wot?
*Hugs again*
You're 'ere!!!! *Grin*
no subject
Date: 2005-09-29 07:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-09-29 07:41 pm (UTC)