Boy on the bike, what are you like?

Saturday is spent in Euston, a utilitarian rather than glamorous place. Jo is moving to Enfield which necessitates a stop in Euston, moving a few boxes, then retiring to the Bree Louise for beer in the sunshine. Move onto Euston Rails The Doric Arch so that everyone else can get the football scores (and I can read the paper), then to a sort of faux-Italian version of Pret a Manger in the Euston "piazza" for sandwiches and cake and finally to Drummond Street for South Indian vada and dosa. An unremarkable afternoon but one of the best, full of conversation and beer and friendness.

Sunday, we cycle down to the Hackney hinterlands to brunch at what looks like it used to be an industrial estate caff (there is hand-scrawled sign in the bin offering pies 'n' pasties) but now is an East Londonista place complete with Sunday papers, cinema seats, and the true sign of the fashionable coffee drinker: flat whites. I reckon Homerton is the new Dalston (Chatsworth Road, as well as having a coffee shop, a deli and a yummy parents' children's toy shop now sports a mysterious looking place called Luminaire, dripping with wax and chandeliers). Nearby is a lock-up for ice cream vans - who knew such a thing existed?

Sunday is also the Gillespie Festival in Islington - we've been going to this since we lived in Highbury because it's a charming local space and I love fetes with tombolas (the worse the prizes are, the more I want to win a packet of supanoodles, 5 crayons or some liquorice allsorts) and bric a brac and home made cake stalls (it's not so much Victoria sponges nowadays as pastel cupcakes and slices of rocky road). However, Jo has been volunteering there for a while and thus has turned it into JoFest! and inveigled her friends to perform, Heike with the Hackney Secular Singers doing rather lovely covers of punk rock songs (Heike used to be in glamour choir, The Heard, before the lead chorister started an alt-career with Groove Armada) and also Ricky Spontane who, with their very exuberant singer Richard, like to rock the party .

Before Ricky Spontane are Blackstock Road who also played in a shambolic daughters-of-the-organisers kind of way last year, but this time they're actually pretty good, a kind of Lily Allen if she did Green Day-esque indie rock rather than reggae lite. Better than anything I did aged 15, put it that way. Their dad films them on his mobile phone. At least, I hope it's their dad. Also before the Spontane is the result of the raffle - prizes donated by local businesses. First prize is a meal for two at Pizza Delique. Second prize: meal for two at Small and Beautiful, Third Prize: large fruit basket from local greengrocers.... until we're down to twelfth prize: dog and cat food from local pet shop, thirteenth prize: service wash from local launderette. The vicar, reading out the winners, manages to keep a straight face throughout (I suppose reading the Bible aloud is good practice for this). We get our free stuff from Islington council (tea-towel, reusable bag) and listen to local MP Jeremy Corbyn's impassioned plea to storm City Hall and oust Boris Johnson sign the petition to get a lift in Finsbury Park station.

Afterwards, avoiding the dreadful blues-rock band fatally injuring "Too Hot to Handle", we retire to Alice and Steve's with plenty of two-for-£9 wine and sit eating pub salad in their garden. We play a game in which you name three actors and other players have to guess the film. David's is the best - Will Ferrell, David Duchovny and Milla Jovovich* and Dan's is the worst - Bruce Willis, Toni Colette and "that kid who was in The Sixth Sense".**

Steve launches his attempt at claiming the Eurovision crown for England with a song that goes: "Ooh, ooh Pompidou, English boys, mod disco". It's pretty good: I think Albania would give it douze points. Also, it turns out that at Allan's BBQ, I actually volunteered to join Dan's new musical project, S Cock 7, as Rachel Stevens(on) Cock, although this memory is somewhat lost in a sangria haze. Reminder of this fact seems to inspire other people to join tool and, as we can't actually remember who was in S Club 7 except for Rachel Stevens, the racist one, the fat one and the token black one, it turns out that new members, as well as being Racist Cock, Fat Cock and Token Black Cock, have to adopt the monikers Ginger Cock, Scary Cock, Sporty Cock and HfromSteps Cock, although Baby Cock is kept back for when Dan forms S Cock Juniors, although he doesn't think that "in the current political climate", it's going to be possible.

* Zoolander
** The Sixth Sense

Boy on the bike, what are you like?

Saturday is spent in Euston, a utilitarian rather than glamorous place. Jo is moving to Enfield which necessitates a stop in Euston, moving a few boxes, then retiring to the Bree Louise for beer in the sunshine. Move onto Euston Rails The Doric Arch so that everyone else can get the football scores (and I can read the paper), then to a sort of faux-Italian version of Pret a Manger in the Euston "piazza" for sandwiches and cake and finally to Drummond Street for South Indian vada and dosa. An unremarkable afternoon but one of the best, full of conversation and beer and friendness.

Sunday, we cycle down to the Hackney hinterlands to brunch at what looks like it used to be an industrial estate caff (there is hand-scrawled sign in the bin offering pies 'n' pasties) but now is an East Londonista place complete with Sunday papers, cinema seats, and the true sign of the fashionable coffee drinker: flat whites. I reckon Homerton is the new Dalston (Chatsworth Road, as well as having a coffee shop, a deli and a yummy parents' children's toy shop now sports a mysterious looking place called Luminaire, dripping with wax and chandeliers). Nearby is a lock-up for ice cream vans - who knew such a thing existed?

Sunday is also the Gillespie Festival in Islington - we've been going to this since we lived in Highbury because it's a charming local space and I love fetes with tombolas (the worse the prizes are, the more I want to win a packet of supanoodles, 5 crayons or some liquorice allsorts) and bric a brac and home made cake stalls (it's not so much Victoria sponges nowadays as pastel cupcakes and slices of rocky road). However, Jo has been volunteering there for a while and thus has turned it into JoFest! and inveigled her friends to perform, Heike with the Hackney Secular Singers doing rather lovely covers of punk rock songs (Heike used to be in glamour choir, The Heard, before the lead chorister started an alt-career with Groove Armada) and also Ricky Spontane who, with their very exuberant singer Richard, like to rock the party .

Before Ricky Spontane are Blackstock Road who also played in a shambolic daughters-of-the-organisers kind of way last year, but this time they're actually pretty good, a kind of Lily Allen if she did Green Day-esque indie rock rather than reggae lite. Better than anything I did aged 15, put it that way. Their dad films them on his mobile phone. At least, I hope it's their dad. Also before the Spontane is the result of the raffle - prizes donated by local businesses. First prize is a meal for two at Pizza Delique. Second prize: meal for two at Small and Beautiful, Third Prize: large fruit basket from local greengrocers.... until we're down to twelfth prize: dog and cat food from local pet shop, thirteenth prize: service wash from local launderette. The vicar, reading out the winners, manages to keep a straight face throughout (I suppose reading the Bible aloud is good practice for this). We get our free stuff from Islington council (tea-towel, reusable bag) and listen to local MP Jeremy Corbyn's impassioned plea to storm City Hall and oust Boris Johnson sign the petition to get a lift in Finsbury Park station.

Afterwards, avoiding the dreadful blues-rock band fatally injuring "Too Hot to Handle", we retire to Alice and Steve's with plenty of two-for-£9 wine and sit eating pub salad in their garden. We play a game in which you name three actors and other players have to guess the film. David's is the best - Will Ferrell, David Duchovny and Milla Jovovich* and Dan's is the worst - Bruce Willis, Toni Colette and "that kid who was in The Sixth Sense".**

Steve launches his attempt at claiming the Eurovision crown for England with a song that goes: "Ooh, ooh Pompidou, English boys, mod disco". It's pretty good: I think Albania would give it douze points. Also, it turns out that at Allan's BBQ, I actually volunteered to join Dan's new musical project, S Cock 7, as Rachel Stevens(on) Cock, although this memory is somewhat lost in a sangria haze. Reminder of this fact seems to inspire other people to join tool and, as we can't actually remember who was in S Club 7 except for Rachel Stevens, the racist one, the fat one and the token black one, it turns out that new members, as well as being Racist Cock, Fat Cock and Token Black Cock, have to adopt the monikers Ginger Cock, Scary Cock, Sporty Cock and HfromSteps Cock, although Baby Cock is kept back for when Dan forms S Cock Juniors, although he doesn't think that "in the current political climate", it's going to be possible.

* Zoolander
** The Sixth Sense

Coren vs the women

I like Victoria Coren. She wore a pink duffel coat and talked about words. She beat the boys at poker. She made a fairtrade porn film. She wants older chicks on the telly. Why then, does she make out that the reason she started playing poker was because gurlz are rubbish and eat Highland Toffee bars?

"Boys show off and tell jokes, and shout when they're angry. They don't smile and ask personal questions, then bitch behind your back and share your secrets with the class.

Boys say what they think to your face. Bit harsh, sometimes, but straightforward. "

I imagine some of those boys might have wanted some smiling and personal questions when their marriages broke down and they couldn't speak to their male friends about it because men only "shout when they're angry", and don't talk about their feelings. I was at a party a few months back and, in response to a man talking about walking across Brooklyn Bridge on his own in the snow at dusk, his male friend said: "Sounds romantic if you'd been there with someone. Wasn't your girlfriend supposed to go with you? Oh, she dumped you didn't she". Very straightforward.

Girls may talk about you behind your back, but their front is nothing compared to what boys have to do. In the horrid hierarchies of school, girls may have to tell the most popular girl they love her hair and the way she dresses (and then slag her off in the toilets, a reaction to this enforced leadership) but boys have to suck up to their alpha-kid far more, laugh at his jokes, pick on who he picks on, buy the same trainers without that outlet of bitching behind his back. They have to believe it. Women may feel they have to compete with clothes and so forth, but men have to compete with their lives - who earns the most, who drives the best car, who dates the hottest woman. Women are far more likely to self-deprecate, to make out their lives are a bit rubbish in order to make other women feel better about themselves. Men are far more likely to do the opposite.

Coren vs the women

I like Victoria Coren. She wore a pink duffel coat and talked about words. She beat the boys at poker. She made a fairtrade porn film. She wants older chicks on the telly. Why then, does she make out that the reason she started playing poker was because gurlz are rubbish and eat Highland Toffee bars?

"Boys show off and tell jokes, and shout when they're angry. They don't smile and ask personal questions, then bitch behind your back and share your secrets with the class.

Boys say what they think to your face. Bit harsh, sometimes, but straightforward. "

I imagine some of those boys might have wanted some smiling and personal questions when their marriages broke down and they couldn't speak to their male friends about it because men only "shout when they're angry", and don't talk about their feelings. I was at a party a few months back and, in response to a man talking about walking across Brooklyn Bridge on his own in the snow at dusk, his male friend said: "Sounds romantic if you'd been there with someone. Wasn't your girlfriend supposed to go with you? Oh, she dumped you didn't she". Very straightforward.

Girls may talk about you behind your back, but their front is nothing compared to what boys have to do. In the horrid hierarchies of school, girls may have to tell the most popular girl they love her hair and the way she dresses (and then slag her off in the toilets, a reaction to this enforced leadership) but boys have to suck up to their alpha-kid far more, laugh at his jokes, pick on who he picks on, buy the same trainers without that outlet of bitching behind his back. They have to believe it. Women may feel they have to compete with clothes and so forth, but men have to compete with their lives - who earns the most, who drives the best car, who dates the hottest woman. Women are far more likely to self-deprecate, to make out their lives are a bit rubbish in order to make other women feel better about themselves. Men are far more likely to do the opposite.