Flaxen hair and tiger stripes

Flaxen-haired beauty

I needed to do some shopping today in Amwell Street. On the way I met this flaxen-haired beauty holding court over the doorway of a florist’s. I doubt whether you could climb up her hair, however…

Reflecting on antiques

Yes, it’s that antiques shop again. This time it’s reflecting the pub instead of the church. Maybe you can make out the name of the pub and it’s (deliberately) sinister logo: Filthy McNasty’s Whisky Cafe. “Filthy’s” is well-known for hosting rock bands, some of them before they became famous. Legend has it that Kate Moss pulled pints here before she became famous (if you regard her as famous).

Resistant flamingos

Everything changes, even in Amwell Street. This shop has been a florist’s and a cafe. I think it was the local Post Office before local post offices were massacred. Today it’s a… Well, what? Is it a gift shop, a secondhand bookshop with political leanings…? Time may tell. If the flamingos know, they’re not saying.

(What do you mean, “Go in and ask”? That’s far too easy…

Stanley bowing out

This is another mysterious site. It has been locked up for as long as I can remember. Is Stanley Racing a chain of bookmakers? This one hasn’t been making books for a long time. It now seems to be being taken over by a plumbing company. I’m sure anything that brings extra life and vitality to Amwell Street will be welcome.

My namesake

Here’s a close-up of the tiger I showed you on Saturday. He’s nicely detailed with blue eyes and white teeth. Actually, his expression reminds me a little of Freya. Give him a camera and a black hat and he’d be my perfect alter ego!

Fans on Sunday

Under angel’s wings

Today, Sunday, has been another fine hot, humid day, the sort of day when you don’t feel like doing much. But so what? It is Sunday, so with one exception we can do what we like!

Angel Inn

After a leisurely rising, we went to the Angel Inn for an omelette and chips, and then betook ourselves to the N1 Centre. We were heading for Borders because on Saturday, Tigger had seen a book she fancied and today had decided to buy it. Borders was not yet open so we waited around. Notice the sky in the picture. We did later get a few drops of rain.

And the exception? Oh, well, that’s that’s the duty we faithfully perform every Sunday. No! Not church! Sainsbury’s!

We have spent the remainder of the day resting with the electric fans going. Tigger watched DVDs and I read, snoozed and did sudoku. It’s important to learn how to relax in this life and I think I have graduated…

Night, night, all!

Dude, where’s my leccy?

Tinderbox Cafe

We started today in relaxed mode. Well, we have been out and about a lot recently. When the doorbell rang, it wasn’t altogether a welcome surprise.

“Hello… hello… helllo…,” I shouted into the door-phone, all to no avail. It seems that there are still a lot of people who don’t understand door-phones or can’t be bothered with them and stubbornly ring the bell and expect you to come to the door.

Tigger spied a workman in a hi-vis jacket going from door to door so I reluctantly made myself decent and went out. By this time he was next door so I had to go over to him.

“Power’s going off,” he said. “In about half an hour.”

That would have been it had I not pressed for more information: “Why, and how long for?”

“Emergency repairs,” he replied, pointing vaguely toward road works I had noticed on the way home yesterday. “About an hour and a half.”

If EDF had already dug up the road the day before, then they have no excuse for notifying us so late and in such a slovenly manner. It’s quite disgraceful.

Wings and…	…halo
The N1 Centre at the Angel

We had planned to go out for brunch so that’s what we did. Just as we were about to leave, the power went off. In the street we met an agitated man who enquired if our power was off too. He had been on the Internet when “everything had gone”. We explained about the ring on the doorbell but he looked blank: either his bell doesn’t work or the chap in the hi-vis hadn’t got that far.

Tinderbox interior

We had brunch at the Angel Cafe in St John Street and then retired, with newspapers, to the Tinderbox Cafe in the N1 Centre. The Tinderbox has a nice terrace (see the “…halo” picture above) but we preferred to sit under the arcade where it was cooler.

When we felt it was time for a move (but not quite time to go home to a flat without power) we had a look around the shops in the N1 Centre. I am always drawn to Borders, mainly because they usually have a lot of books at bargain prices and I have some book tokens saved up.

Everything I know…

Even though it wasn’t going for a bargain price (it’s selling too well for that…) I bought this book by the excellent philosophy writer, Mark Rowlands, whose recent opus, The Philosopher and the Wolf, is the most remarkable book I have read for a long time.

The first book by Rowlands that I read was The Philosopher at the End of the Universe, the lay person’s guide to some of the basic problems of philosophy. The book is a tour de force as its subject-matter is easy to understand yet rigorous, and the whole thing is done using themes from films! If you have the least interest in philosophy (or even none at all), you should read this book.

When we returned home, it was pretty warm. Our flat holds the heat, which is good in winter, less so in summer. The thermometer said 26°C.

“It’s been at the same position for days,” says Tigger. “Has it stopped working?”

Well, there’s one good way to find out: put it in the fridge! We did and here is the result:

Refrigerated thermometer

Yep, it’s working (The white tiger is a Father’s Day gift from my son.)

Leaving it a bit late…

This is the Golden Lady of Harrow. She is rather beautiful, don’t you think, especially when the sun is shining on her. She dances end­less­ly on the façade of Hygeia House, across the road from the bus and Metropolitan Line stations.

Golden lady

I am showing her photo again because we were in Harrow today. Tigger had been sent to her firm’s Harrow office for the morning and I went to meet her at the end of her shift at 1:30pm.

On a “Harrow day”, we usually go for a nice lunch in Harrow or Pinner and perhaps take a bus ride somewhere but today we went straight home with a sense of urgency.

This was because we are off on our next jaunt on July 11th for 7 nights and hadn’t yet made any arrangements. We hadn’t forgotten we were going away but I think we had somehow got the dates confused in our minds and hadn’t realized how soon it was. So we hurried home and started looking up hotels on the Web.

Our intended destination lies in the north-east of England. I don’t know whether some special event is happening in the area on July 11th but we soon found that none of the hotels we tried had any vacancies for that day. We began to broaden our search but without much success. We looked at Scar­bor­ough, Whitby, Newcastle, York and Leeds. We tried our usual cheaper hotels and then moderately priced ones; we tried changing the dates; but all to no avail. We had left it a little late…

In the end, we had to bite the bullet and accept paying more than we usually do. At least this got us into our intended destination, rather than an alternative, and we will enjoy a little extra luxury for once.

Having booked the hotel, I was anxious to buy the train tickets. It’s no good having a hotel reservation (and paying a deposit) if you can’t actually get there. We waited until 7pm, hoping it would be quieter then, and went down to St Pancras. There was a long queue in the ticket office, so we went across to Starbuck’s and sat there with our drinks, watching the queue. When it became shorter, we dashed across and joined it.

I was right to insist on buying the tickets straightaway: there were no more cheap fares on our preferred train so we had to settle for the 7am. Ouch! But the main thing is that we did get tickets.

At the bus stop, we found a gentleman whose unstable gait and euphoric smile seemed to indicate that he had been heavily indulging in some intoxicating substance. He was trying to attract the attention of the drivers in the taxi queue but they all ignored him.

Eventually, he came across to us and spoke to Tigger. I couldn’t hear what he said or what she answered and just then our bus came. Once aboard, Tigger reported the conversation:

“Pointing at you, he asked me ‘Is he your husband’ and when I said yes, he replied ‘Shame’ and wandered off.”^*

Make of it what you will.

So which was our intended destination? It is one of the towns named above. Here are a couple of clues: first, this town is known for attracting Goths (members of the subculture, not the ancient Germanic tribes); secondly, it was featured as a destination for Richard Wilson in the BBC’s series Britain’s Best Drives. There, I bet you’ve got it.

There are no prizes but if you feel like filing your answer, you are welcome to do so in a comment.

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^*We are not actually married but I suppose Tigger felt a short answer was simpler in the circumstances.

Questions… questions…

Questionable Romford

On the way to Norwich, our train stopped at a station whose name I unfortunately no longer recall. (I ought to get one of those modern cameras that have built-in GPS.) We were amused to look out of the window and see this sign.

What the heck does it mean? The station was not Romford and the sign seems to be asking whether the train is for Romford. But it’s obviously a permanent sign so are they reminding staff to check every train to see if it is going to Romford?

If anyone knows the answer, please let me know. Obviously spurious answers will also be acceptable as long as they are funny.

Boom! Boom!