Half time with Chelsea leading and a couple of beers under my belt. Life is good in my seat at The Bridge tonight.
Update: Blues thrashed them tonight. Great win 4 zip!!!
What an amazing concert! Jose Carreras performed a virtuoso set. Patriotic night
We’re on the lookout for flats. We’ve been so spoilt where we’ve been living. A few places to see this weekend so fingers crossed something comes up.
Well you probably would of guessed by the title but i’ve picked up an iPhone. Love it. Adding my blogging app from the app store was so easy and I did it from the phone to boot!
Well as you would of guessed – it’s raining this morning and I’m sick of it. For those of you Australian’s lamenting about rain in your part of the world spare a thought for the English who I now understand why they a) talk so much about the weather and b) moan/whinge a lot – because it rains quite a lot.
But all of that being so – Katherine, our friend Donna, and a crew of people I’m sure I will know by the end of today are heading to the O2 Wireless Festival in Hyde Park headlined by Fatboy Slim. Despite the rain and the potential for mud in the park I’m sure we’ll have a cracking time.
Had a fantastic time on Saturday. After a good start by John Mayer, Sheryl Crow really suprised me. She can definitely sing and play guitar. I never realised how catchy her songs are.
Can I just say Clapton was vintage.. He played all the old stuff (but not Sunshine of Your Love). He pulled out a cracking version of ‘Cocaine’ and then at the end John Mayer and Sheryl Crow came back on stage to play Crossroads which rocked.
Fantastic night. We’re off to do it again next Saturday to see Fat Boy Slim – bring it on!
Off to see Eric Clapton in Hyde Park.
Hey Hey.. Hey Hey baby Hey!
Oh yes Sheryl Crow and John Mayer are playing too.
Katherine and I headed to the new Wembley Stadium on Friday night to see the Foo Fighters. What a massive show! 86,000 people in the stadium for a 2.5 hour set that ranged from their old stuff, new stuff, and acoustic stuff. Dave Grohl has still got it. I’ve seen videos of Queen, Led Zepplin and Van Halen – the Foo Fighters have the same ability to hold a stadium on their every word/scream/riff. It’s just unbelievable to watch. The are the definition of rocks stars and they know it.
If you are into this sort of music I definitely recommend you seeing one of their shows.
Oh my – last weekend we had a lot of fun. If you get the chance – get to Norway. Just a really clean, organised part of the world. I didn’t realise that Oslo is a small city of just 500,000 people in total.
We spent the first day after arriving early on a British Airways flight leaving from the new (and now functioning) Heathrow Terminal 5. Landing at Oslo and catching the Airport Express Train to Oslo Sentral was all too easy. I started to get a feel for prices when my one-way ticket was NOK160 (roughly £16).
Early on Saturday we got into our hotel right in the middle of the city. After dropping our bags in a modern room we hit the streets of downtown Oslo. The first thing that surprised both Katherine and I was the lack of cars. Clearly it is seen as a privilege to drive on Oslo streets because no one is on them. Public transport is everywhere and I find out that it’s sister city is Melbourne – hence the familiar tram. I feel Oslo’s tramway layout is better in that the tracks run in the lane closest to the curb, with each stop constructed as what Melbourne terms a ‘super’ stop. We tried to get to the Munch museum before it closed to see the recently returned ‘Scream’ portrait – only to find that ‘summer’ opening hours haven’t started yet. We ended up walking the botanical gardens.
Saturday night we had a really nice meal (thanks Katherine) at Aker Brygge. I don’t drink a lot of champagne but Moët and Chandon is a nice drop. After dinner we headed back to the hotel and stumbled upon a really cool club that happened to be on the same street as our hotel – bonus. I don’t know how to say this subtlely but it’s true – Norway would be a single guy’s paradise.
Sunday was tourist day. After a visit to the very engaging Nobel Peace Centre, we toured the Fjord. A massive expanse of water. I want a beach house here. It really warmed up on Sunday while I hear South-East England was miserable. We came back to the hotel for a snooze that ended up being a full-on sleep. We ended up getting out after 9pm for dinner to find out that most Norweigan’s eat ‘early’ around 6pm. It’s funny the difference between the Scandinavians and the Spanish in their eating habits. Oh yes it was still light at 9:30pm – I’d hate to live here in winter.
Monday started well with a visit to the Vigeland Sculpture Park where Katherine and I had field day taking photos. Just so much going on in that park and the weather was perfect for photography. We gave ourselves plenty of time to catch our flight and our Airport Express Train didn’t let us down. The same can’t be said of British Airways. Unfortunately the plane was a late arrival into Oslo and meant that we missed our landing ‘slot’ at Heathrow. I’ve never seen a captain front the passengers but what he said was first class and had me feeling sorry for him and the crew by the end of it. The thing that struck me was the lack of morale within the crew about their airline. With comments like ‘we may not get many things right’ had me a little concerned about the state of affairs at the national flag carrier. We ended up landing at 8:15pm delayed by 2.5 hours. We were home by 10pm and straight to bed – one long day!
From all my history lessons and reading of World War II tails I never realised that Dover kept a very big secret within it’s beautiful white cliffs overlooking the English Channel and the west coast of France.
Arriving by train from London Victoria we found ourselves in Dover after about an hour and forty-five minutes. It is one of the few English towns where street signs are posted in English and French. We headed up to the Dover Castle that sits atop the white limestone cliffs. A really interesting medieval castle but even more interesting is that during the Napoleonic wars some ingenius Englishmen dug into the Limestone to create massive underground tunnels. Under the command of Admiral Sir Bertram Ramsey these tunnels were extended. Three miles of tunnels for planning, command, housing and medical facilities fit into this maze. It is quite amazing and the tour is fantastic and I recommend doing it. The Dunkirk evacuation was planned and commanded from here totally in secret.
You can’t take any photos down there and it was a shocking day weather wise so the photos don’t do the place justice. Nonetheless a great day trip.
