Weekend end
Jun. 5th, 2011 09:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
millionreasonsFriday, to the Euston Tap, the tiny pub inside a war memorial at Euston station. Everyone stands outside. It's Mike's birthday and various Venn diagrams of indie folk are here. The winner of Masterchef is behind the bar, although the pub serves pizzas rather than Smoky Lime and Jalapeño Marmalade, Avocado and Butter Bean Mousse. Allan shows me the scenic view of the cliffs and coast from his new house in Ilfracombe - you can't get that in Homerton, he tells me. A drunk looking man pushing a woman in a stolen hospital wheelchair with drip attached wheels past. You can't get that in North Devon. I ask if there is any gossip or scandal from the recent trip to the Primavera festival and am told a very juicy titbit, but only half of the story. It's an indie super-injunction, no-one will tell me the name of the other person involved. Someone else tells that me she missed a hen night because she didn't want to do the Dirty Dancing class, which makes me guffaw.
The Euston Tap is a great pub, but the toilet facilities are sexist-bordering-on-illegal: there are two toilets, one is for men, the other is unisex which means that men get to use both and women become second class bog users. Later, I have a mini argument about this on Twitter with someone from the Tap who says that they (he) didn't make the unisex toilet girls only because what if men want a poo? I think they could hold it in just as women are holding it in whilst men behind them in the queue use the toilet before they do.
Saturday, to a talk at Foyles Bookshop by Badaude. I had got it into my head that the event was a tour of St Giles, with reference to the rookeries and slums and a general history of the area. Instead, it was a talk about being a tourist in one's own city with reference to Walter Benjamin, Lucy Honeychurch, Andre Breton, surrealists who never got out of bed, Gérard de Nerval and his pet lobster (there is a race between a mechanical lobster and a mechanical turtle; David operates the lobster and wins by losing), flaneurs and flans and Baudelaire, before taking us 'round the corner to Greek St with various members of the audience wearing awful tourist accoutrements (London scarf, union jack bag, My mum went to London and I all I got was this lousy t-shirt t-shirt, fake policeman's hat) to stare at people in restaurants, take photos of random objects and look at pretend maps on our phones. All slightly odd, but in the words of Mick Garvey from Benidorm; "It was free!" Afterwards, we go to Liberty's and have afternoon tea which was pretty nice but had a very poor sandwich to person ratio, kind of like the 2:1 toilet ratio in favour of men at the Euston Tap.
Sunday, we attempt to go to the seaside without the bother of leaving London; Whitstable has decamped to the South Bank with beach huts, ice-cream and indie music. Just as at the seaside, it is raining. Unfortunately, the risk of rain doesn't seem to have occurred to the "organisers" of Hutstock, although eventually everyone is moved into the foyer of the Royal Fesival Hall which is doubling up as a creche with lots of out of control Jemimas and Oscars running around, unsupervised, whilst a Ceilidh band play "shanties", and a group of sub-Puppini sisters play risque mash-ups of Mr Sandman mixed with Ernie, the fastest milkman in the west (the dads love the references to "creamy loads") and Smiths songs in the style of George Formby (yes, it was amusing - for half a song) whilst we wait three hours after the advertised billing time to see the Lovely Eggs. At 6.30, we, and they, give up, they've been bumped off the bill and have to drive back to Lancaster. Hutstock, you couldn't organise a screaming child on an over-crowded bus in rush hour. Pathetic.
The Euston Tap is a great pub, but the toilet facilities are sexist-bordering-on-illegal: there are two toilets, one is for men, the other is unisex which means that men get to use both and women become second class bog users. Later, I have a mini argument about this on Twitter with someone from the Tap who says that they (he) didn't make the unisex toilet girls only because what if men want a poo? I think they could hold it in just as women are holding it in whilst men behind them in the queue use the toilet before they do.
Saturday, to a talk at Foyles Bookshop by Badaude. I had got it into my head that the event was a tour of St Giles, with reference to the rookeries and slums and a general history of the area. Instead, it was a talk about being a tourist in one's own city with reference to Walter Benjamin, Lucy Honeychurch, Andre Breton, surrealists who never got out of bed, Gérard de Nerval and his pet lobster (there is a race between a mechanical lobster and a mechanical turtle; David operates the lobster and wins by losing), flaneurs and flans and Baudelaire, before taking us 'round the corner to Greek St with various members of the audience wearing awful tourist accoutrements (London scarf, union jack bag, My mum went to London and I all I got was this lousy t-shirt t-shirt, fake policeman's hat) to stare at people in restaurants, take photos of random objects and look at pretend maps on our phones. All slightly odd, but in the words of Mick Garvey from Benidorm; "It was free!" Afterwards, we go to Liberty's and have afternoon tea which was pretty nice but had a very poor sandwich to person ratio, kind of like the 2:1 toilet ratio in favour of men at the Euston Tap.
Sunday, we attempt to go to the seaside without the bother of leaving London; Whitstable has decamped to the South Bank with beach huts, ice-cream and indie music. Just as at the seaside, it is raining. Unfortunately, the risk of rain doesn't seem to have occurred to the "organisers" of Hutstock, although eventually everyone is moved into the foyer of the Royal Fesival Hall which is doubling up as a creche with lots of out of control Jemimas and Oscars running around, unsupervised, whilst a Ceilidh band play "shanties", and a group of sub-Puppini sisters play risque mash-ups of Mr Sandman mixed with Ernie, the fastest milkman in the west (the dads love the references to "creamy loads") and Smiths songs in the style of George Formby (yes, it was amusing - for half a song) whilst we wait three hours after the advertised billing time to see the Lovely Eggs. At 6.30, we, and they, give up, they've been bumped off the bill and have to drive back to Lancaster. Hutstock, you couldn't organise a screaming child on an over-crowded bus in rush hour. Pathetic.
