Death begins at 40
May. 18th, 2013 12:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
millionreasonsOn Wednesday, I went for a pre-birthday curry with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
richardbajor, who I have known since I was 18. We struck up a correspondence after he sent me some Vote Labour stickers before the ill-fated 1992 election. Noble failures, that's us.
On Thursday, I was 40 and yet, surprisingly, the world didn't end. We went to London Zoo because I've never been there before. There were macaws that looked like dowager duchesses, cheeky macaques, ponderous gorillas, lazy lions, Dalston monkeys with moustaches, lolloping giraffes, beautiful coral bits, playful penguins, a very pretty serval, a shimmery peacock. I preferred the areas where the animals weren't behind glass, where you could walk amongst them: the aviary, the butterfly tunnel, the Rainforest section, the yellow monkey enclosure. There was also a nocturnal area where, due to the disco lighting, I thought badgers and cats'd be dancing together, but it was more goth (bats 'n' rats). I also realised that all animals whose name begins with an 'a' are really ugly: aardvarks, ant-eaters, alpacas, armadillos. The tapirs aren't much to look at either. At the meerkat enclosure, there was a tunnel that you could crawl through and have some facetime with Aleksandr and his gang but they weren’t playing. However, Dave crawled further on and came face to bum with an aardvark. They reminded me of the weirdly evolved motos in Will Self's The Book Of Dave.
I also liked the historical bits - the original Victorian tropical aviary, with hand operated machinery, the first penguin pool (that I think inspired all those penguin games), the original gorilla house, now housing a smaller animal. Whereas there were a lot of animals there that are not endangered (camels, llamas, pigs), the zoo did at least admit its 19th and early 20th century mistakes and I'm glad that there were no unsuitable animals (elephants, polar bears) housed there.
Unusually for my birthday, it was warm and sunny - until we started to walk back to Camden, when it promptly started to hail. We caught the bus to N1C, i.e. the bit behind King's Cross, and had a meal in Caravan. Pretend cheese-monger Alex James said that he celebrated his 20th birthday with drink, his 30th with drugs and his 40th with food. Well, I did LSD in Crewe on my 20th, two bottles of wine in Spitalfields on my 30th and goat's curd with roast beetroot and pea shoots in King's Cross on my 40th.
On Friday, I had my birthday treat, which was two hours of karaoke at Lucky Voice. Many songs were sung and I discovered that I much prefer duetting and group singing to solo balladeering, although I did have a good go at Dream A Little Dream Of Me, Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow, The Lady Is A Tramp and I Have A Dream. Dave and I did Jackson by Nancy and Lee, Dave and Dom did a pretty good PJ and Duncan and Claire made an exellent Axl Rose, whilst Heike played inflatable guitar on Sweet Child O'Mine. We finished with a rousing chorus of Livin' On A Prayer, which went acapella as the karaoke machine cut out because the two hours were up, and so we went to the pub to eat Dave's kitsch kirsch cake and drink wine and hear stories. Kicked out at closing time, some folk were up for a night-cap, but I wanted to go home because I'm now old and can go to bed early whenever I want with impunity.
richardbajor, who I have known since I was 18. We struck up a correspondence after he sent me some Vote Labour stickers before the ill-fated 1992 election. Noble failures, that's us.On Thursday, I was 40 and yet, surprisingly, the world didn't end. We went to London Zoo because I've never been there before. There were macaws that looked like dowager duchesses, cheeky macaques, ponderous gorillas, lazy lions, Dalston monkeys with moustaches, lolloping giraffes, beautiful coral bits, playful penguins, a very pretty serval, a shimmery peacock. I preferred the areas where the animals weren't behind glass, where you could walk amongst them: the aviary, the butterfly tunnel, the Rainforest section, the yellow monkey enclosure. There was also a nocturnal area where, due to the disco lighting, I thought badgers and cats'd be dancing together, but it was more goth (bats 'n' rats). I also realised that all animals whose name begins with an 'a' are really ugly: aardvarks, ant-eaters, alpacas, armadillos. The tapirs aren't much to look at either. At the meerkat enclosure, there was a tunnel that you could crawl through and have some facetime with Aleksandr and his gang but they weren’t playing. However, Dave crawled further on and came face to bum with an aardvark. They reminded me of the weirdly evolved motos in Will Self's The Book Of Dave.
I also liked the historical bits - the original Victorian tropical aviary, with hand operated machinery, the first penguin pool (that I think inspired all those penguin games), the original gorilla house, now housing a smaller animal. Whereas there were a lot of animals there that are not endangered (camels, llamas, pigs), the zoo did at least admit its 19th and early 20th century mistakes and I'm glad that there were no unsuitable animals (elephants, polar bears) housed there.
Unusually for my birthday, it was warm and sunny - until we started to walk back to Camden, when it promptly started to hail. We caught the bus to N1C, i.e. the bit behind King's Cross, and had a meal in Caravan. Pretend cheese-monger Alex James said that he celebrated his 20th birthday with drink, his 30th with drugs and his 40th with food. Well, I did LSD in Crewe on my 20th, two bottles of wine in Spitalfields on my 30th and goat's curd with roast beetroot and pea shoots in King's Cross on my 40th.
On Friday, I had my birthday treat, which was two hours of karaoke at Lucky Voice. Many songs were sung and I discovered that I much prefer duetting and group singing to solo balladeering, although I did have a good go at Dream A Little Dream Of Me, Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow, The Lady Is A Tramp and I Have A Dream. Dave and I did Jackson by Nancy and Lee, Dave and Dom did a pretty good PJ and Duncan and Claire made an exellent Axl Rose, whilst Heike played inflatable guitar on Sweet Child O'Mine. We finished with a rousing chorus of Livin' On A Prayer, which went acapella as the karaoke machine cut out because the two hours were up, and so we went to the pub to eat Dave's kitsch kirsch cake and drink wine and hear stories. Kicked out at closing time, some folk were up for a night-cap, but I wanted to go home because I'm now old and can go to bed early whenever I want with impunity.
