Si & Des’ stuff…

Hi everyone. Sorry for the titantic-sized gap between posts — it’s been visitor season here in London and the old web page has been a bit neglected. So, here are some photos and read on for the goss.

Music
We’ve been to a lot of concerts in the last couple of months. First up was Dave Matthews Band in the Wembley Arena; pretty awesome. I think there’s one photo in the set, but for some audio and video check out these Youtube clips.

Next up we went to the Hyde Park Calling concert which is an event that takes place on three stages in Hyde Park. Think of it like the Teddybear’s picnic in Hagley Park but on growth hormones since birth. And with more rock and roll. And less songs about pirates. It was huge! We got there to see a group called Captain play who were pretty snazzy. Then off to the main stage to check out the big acts, namely Crowded House and Peter Gabriel. It was fantastic to hear Crowded House, back together again, in Hyde Park. Amazing too was the huge number of people around us who all knew every single word. Rock on, Antipodeans! In the last fifteen minutes of their set the rain came and drenched us. Normally you have some polite, gentle spitting rain to warn you that it’s time to put your jacket on. Oh no, not in London. By the time you’ve got one arm in the jacket, you’re already so soaked to the skin that any attempt to finish the manoeuvre is purely symbolic.

After Crowded House was Peter Gabriel who, it must be said, wasn’t very good. The average audience age doubled as he came onto the stage. We stuck around for about three songs before deciding that we just didn’t care enough. I have his greatest hits CD and I can listen to that while dry. But all-in-all, a rock-tastic day out.

Most recently we went to see Live Earth, the big Climate Change awareness concert that was held simultaneously across the world in various major centres. We saw it at Wembley and it was pretty huge. Here’s the noteworthy acts we saw: Genesis, Duran Duran, Damien Rice / David Gray, The Beastie Boys, Spinal Tap (!), Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Metallica, Foo Fighters, Snow Patrol and Madonna. Oh, and Paolo Nutini (who gets a hyperlink for being awesome). It was huge and yes, there was a lot of stating-the-bleeding-obvious Climate Change prevention techniques on offer but I think it came out positive. The most amusing bit was when they announced: “We are now going to turn off all the non-essential lighting in the Stadium for one minute”. Why was it funny? All the lights to the alcohol tent were left on. You may take our lights… but you will never take… OUR PALE ALE!

Anyway, that’s about it for the music. You should check out some of the Live Earth concerts if you’re interested.

Visitors
We’ve had many people come to stay with us and it’s been great. Des’ mum came over first and stayed before we all headed off to the wedding in Ireland. At the same time our flatmate, Julia, was hosting her sister, Sonia. After Sonia we had friends of ours, Mary and Charles, to stay. They have gone on to settle in Wimbledon and Mary now holds the record for the fastest job application turnaround of anyone I know. Hired in three days or something. Nice work. After them was Tim McLennan, tripping across Europe and purchasing tasty red wine (thanks Tim!) Finally, Clinton partook of our comfy blue airbed o’doom on his victory journey to Dublin.

But now the airbed has been deflated, stowed away again in the cupboard, awaiting the next hardy visitor. Could it be you?!

Other bits
England got flooded a bit over the last fortnight. This sucked pretty bad for a whole bunch of people. Me, I just got the afternoon off work when the office foyer was flooded. Myself, one of the testers and a senior developer were up to our knees in water outside the office, buckets akimbo, bailing like mad for about twenty minutes. Good times. The beers were on the boss, which was nice.

Des is on holiday having just accepted a full-time position at a school in central London. We’ve started going for runs in the morning around Clapham Common. This morning we ran for about 10 minutes with a squirrel. I’m hoping for a fox next time.

Friday night we went to see “Spamalot” on the West End with Dan, Alex, Mary and Charles. It was brilliant. Fantastically well done and a good time was had by all. Definitely a must-see when visiting this fair city, visitors-to-be.

Hmm, what else… Looks like we might be moving flats in a few weeks but before we do we’re going to try to get up to Edinburgh to see Jarred in the fringe festival. Then off to Dublin at the end of August to visit Hayden and Liz and some of our friends. Then up to Edinburgh again mid-September with the long-lost McGowans to watch the All Blacks decimate the Scots in the World Cup.

Right, that’s enough for now – go enjoy the photos and send us some email. What’s been going on back home?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 31st, 2007 at 11:51 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.