O, I do like to be beside the sea

Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to Danda!
Happy birthday to you!

Hip hip hooray and all that.

As you’ve probably guessed, it was Danda’s birthday yesterday so, in true birthday style, we ran off to the beach for the day. And it was glorious. The weather stayed warm enough to spend all day walking around but breezy enough to not be uncomfortable.

The day started with fancy lunch. I love a fancy lunch, as some of you may already know. I love fancy lunching. I love Michelin stars. I love pretty food.

This lunch did not disappoint.

It started with bread, after which we were presented with calf’s tongue with piccalilli. Did I ever mention how much I love the free extras at nice restaurants?

We had the same starter, a leek and potato soup with white truffle cream. My goodness, do I love a truffle! I love a truffle. I went crazy for this soup. It was really really good with some of the fresh bread dipped into it.

Next up, Danda’s main was mackerel with mashed potatoes, spinach and tomatoes.

Mine was a confit duck leg on a bed of lentils and bacon with cavolo nero and thinly cut, fried potatoes.

It was easily the best duck I’ve ever eaten. It was so soft and fell off the bone without any resistance at all. The skin, which I worried about because it can be quite fatty and disappointing, was crispy and beautiful. The jus was fantastic too. I just ate and ate and hoped it would never end. Sadly, it did so off we went, out into the daylight, to seek our next adventure.

We found it on the Brighton Wheel, looking down at the seaside town from the sky.

We then went for the longest walk ever in search of the Naturist Beach. O, what? Wait. I mean. I meant. I didn’t mean we went looking for it. I meant we were walking and then we saw it. By accident.

There was one bloke with a cap on chatting to a fully dressed couple and that was it. Disappointing.

We headed out to the marina to see what fun could be had there.

There were a lot of generic could-be-anywhere shops near the marina so we decided to wander back to the beach but not after spotting an amazing ‘5D’ ride thing that we just had to go on. It was one of those rollercoaster simulator things and it was really good. We got given 3D glasses and were splashed with water or blown with wind. It was fast and furious and I yelped quite a lot!

We finished the day by splashing about in the water and lying on the beach looking at the sky.

A return to Chat

This is long overdue and I apologise to those of you who have been waiting patiently for it. It’s time to review this week’s Chat magazine.

It’s difficult to know where to start really. The cover has got some real gems. Check it out.

‘Fag-butt torture’?! Brilliant. There’s just something really catchy about that. The main problem with this title, though, is not its catchy tag line but the fact that, when you read the story, there’s not a fag butt in sight! They obviously edited that bit out but forgot to tell whoever was getting the front cover ready. There is literally no mention of fag butts in the story. None. And yet the front cover promised me some fag butts! Disappointing. I very rarely read a story unless it contains some fag butts.

Ah. Now this is a good one. When looking for my favourite magazine on the shelf, I spotted this funny, oddly proportioned face and something about cement and knew I’d found Chat. O, the perils of using a dodgy unqualified plastic surgeon.

I love how the inference here is that she arrived in Florida, in the airport or whatever, and she got off the plane, passport in hand, to have a lovely beach holiday. But when she got to passport control they recoiled in horror at her weight, disgusted by the thought of her on their beaches, flaunting her overweight body for all to see and psychologically damaging children for life.

“Too fat for Florida”. That’s what I thought I was going to read. Those Floridians can be harsh, I thought to myself. Poor woman, being told she can’t come in because of her weight.

And then I read the story, which really should have been titled, “I Couldn’t Fasten My Seatbelt On A Ride In Florida And A Man Had To Help Me.” Yeh. That was all. Of course that was all. She just couldn’t fasten her seatbelt on a ride.

At first I didn’t know whether the two things were connected – “Turn your hero into Lego” and “Win a life size statue of your child.” It turns out they are, implying that one’s hero is their child. I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with that as such, but your average six year old is unlikely to have achieved the things an adult of fifty probably has. I mean they’re barely getting to grips with their times tables. They’re still punching their friends in the playground to settle disputes. And giggling at the word ‘boobs’. Personally, my hero, a man called Clive Stafford Smith, has got a lot more going for him than any child I know.

And yet, I am invited by Chat to turn my hero (my child) into a life sized Lego statue. I mean, really? Really?

Surely by the time you’ve built it, it’s no longer life sized because children grow quickly? And why, why on earth would I want a Lego statue of my child. I already have my actual child. I don’t need a Lego body double.

Check out the Lego family! Now imagine it just chilling in your front room. After the initial novelty of having a Lego family watching TV with you, I imagine it’d be a right pain. And a bit scary if you went downstairs for a glass of water in the night.

Wow, guys. That was just the front cover! I’m going to stop there and let you digest everything that’s been discussed today. Tomorrow we’ll delve inside the magazine to find what treats await us there!

Falling off my bike whilst barely moving

My first big fall happened whilst moving at almost no miles an hour, on a pavement, with no-one around. My friend Joe and I were cycling to his home in Reading so had just set off on our epic adventure early in the morning. My bike was newish and I was itching to give it a trial run on a long ride. I was having one of those monthly spacially unaware days (women, you know what I mean) and as I cycled around a little bollard thingy on the pavement at a dead end road with no cars or pedestrians, I just went a little too slowly to stay upright. Something about my spacial unawareness made me totally unable to cope with the situation at hand and I just wobbled slowly toward the bollard, crashed the front wheel sideways into it and fell on the ground. The brake was broken for the whole ride and I grazed my leg.

The next falls were all after I’d had different pedals fitted and had started wearing cleats, shoes that have little blocks on them which click into a space on your pedals. The fall I had whilst cycling in the busy centre of London was because I hadn’t yet worked out how to get out of them while moving slowly uphill. It’s harder than you think because of your weight being on them. So as I got to a red traffic light, I couldn’t unclip and I fell, in front of the dozens of people waiting to cross the road and looking uncertainly at me to see if I’d stop and let them across. I was going no miles an hour. There were no cars. There was no almost-collision. I just went slower, slower, slower, right down to a halt, then fell off on to the ground. The handle bar turned sideways and stabbed me in the boob so I had a bruised boob for weeks afterward. And people really looked strangely at me. Someone hurried over and asked if I needed help but I just brushed her off, rather gruffly and stalked off, pushing the bike, mega embarrassed.

The next fall was similar to this. I was cycling slowly uphill so couldn’t unclip and was cycling with a friend who had looked down to adjust his gears and drifted sideways into my path. I braked, a natural reaction to stop the inevitable crash. But I hadn’t unclipped. So I fell in the opposite direction and really bashed up my legs, hitting the curb. My friend didn’t even realise any of what had happened. He just looked down to change his gear then looked up and I’d fallen on the ground.

Another time I had a plastic bag with some stuff in but I had a new bike with very short handlebars. As I turned a corner, the bag swung into the spokes and stopped my wheel dead. I tried pushing down on the pedals to keep moving but I ground to a halt then fell sideways into the road. To onlookers it must have looked very stupid. I turned a corner, stopped, then crashed to the floor. Again, no-one was around, no cars, no pedestrians. Nothing had jumped into my path. I just fell on the ground.

Maybe this is why I am not the world famous sporting star you probably all expect I should be by now.

Quick one

There has been a work related emergency so I don’t have time to write a proper post. So I will just tell you quickly about something I did recently.

A friend gave me tickets to a CocoRosie gig he couldn’t go to at the Royal Festival Hall….

It was so good and the seats were right at the front. There was a guy beatboxing and he was phenomenal.

After the gig, I went on a ridiculously high chairoplane. It was 67 metres high!

Fabulous views over the Thames and of the London Eye. I was totally up for it when I saw it. It looked like great fun! We were going up and up and I was loving it! Unexpectedly, when it reached the top, I froze. I just held onto the seat very tightly and stayed very still.

Wierd. I’ve skydived, bungee jumped, etc etc. Heights don’t bother me. So I don’t know what happened there.

Anyway, that’s what I did the other night.

Told you it’d be brief.