A Bank Holiday weekend in the UK, so the weather was extremely mixed.
On Friday a bunch of us from work went to the new-ish oriental buffet, Tuli on Tooley Street. It’s underneath the railway arches and has made great use of the space – it’s light and airy and feels modern. The food was decidedly average – exactly what you’d expect from an all-you-can-eat chinese buffet – and didn’t really seem to live up to the image that they were trying to present. Maybe the teppanyaki or sushi options would be more interesting if we ever went back as a smaller group and/or in the evening.
Saturday was the Crystal Palace Overground Festival and Lettice and I braved the drizzle to take a look. Spread out round all three sides of the triangle were stalls selling exactly what you’d expect from the good people of Crystal Palace – cupcakes, handmade greetings cards and antiques. There was also music and kids’ activities going on. With the events spread out both geographically and temporally, coupled with the poor weather, it all seemed a bit difficult to get into the spirit of things. Maybe if it’s sunny next year we’ll make the slightly longer trip up from Croydon.
And then round to miss_newham‘s for the annual Eurovision party. Alcohol, scorecards, yelling at the telly, and some truly dreadful music. I seemed to be the only person who liked the Albanian entry; the winner of our voting was Greece, which matched the winner of the UK phone vote so we must have been in tune with the national psyche. Not sure why the UK bothers entering – everyone hates us and we always enter rubbish songs. Ben Dalby’s Doctor Can would have been a better entry and some sexy nurses would surely have garnered a few votes.
There’s a new art gallery in West Norwood – The Portico Gallery is very close to us and full of a wide variety of pieces in varied styles and media. I’m rubbish at writing about art (“and everything else,” yells the audience) so there’s not much more to say except that that’s where we were on Sunday afternoon.
On Wednesday night I attended the preview of a new exhibition, Dinosaurs Unleashed, on Oxford Street. It’s a slightly surreal experience seeing life size animatronic dinosaurs backdropped by the office blocks and department stores of central London.
I’ve already written about it on the Visit London blog and you can see more photos on Flickr. And, in a isn’t the internet cool moment, this morning I was added as a Flickr contact by the workshop who produced the dinosaurs and you can see behind the scenes photos of them being made.
Launched a new site today for the first ever London Restaurant Festival. There’s also a blog and twitter. If you’re in or near London in October and like to eat then check it out.
Today was the 10th anniversary of my first date with Lettice. Back in 1999 we went to see The Matrix in Streatham. Today we had an adventure to celebrate.
First up was the Robot Zoo at the Horniman Museum. Did you know that it took three people to drive a chameleon?
Then we did a bit of shopping. Lettice bought beads and I bought Doctor Who books.(About Time 3 2nd edition is 500 pages long and has an end note about the Chuckle Brothers, how can you not want it?)
If you missed James May’s plasticine garden at Chelsea you can now see it at the Royal Festival Hall.
Then we went on the London Eye. Yes, we live in London. Yes, we work in London tourism. Yes, it’s been open for nine years. No, we hadn’t been on it before.
Then there was yarn shopping. Followed by Yo! Sushi (between you and me, the County Hall branch is always nice and quiet in the evenings and only a short walk from the heaving, 45 minute wait to be seated, restaurants along the Southbank).
Anyway, I’ll do a proper image post either tomorrow or on Monday, in the meantime there are pictures on Flickr.
I don’t normally do the celeb spotting thing, but I’ll just point out that today I passed Vic Reeves in Forbidden Planet. And it was only two or three years ago that I sat next to him in Yo! Sushi at Victoria.
Two people who live in London cross paths twice in busy public places. Shock.
Busy day yesterday. Google releases Street View for the UK so offices all over the country ground to a halt, Microsoft release IE8 and I do a pub quiz for the first time in ages. Came fourth out of thirteen teams (and the winners had twice as many people as we did).
In a moment of madness I decided to walk from the office to the pub. According to Google Maps it was 5.2 miles (the route) and they estimated it would take 1 hour 47 minutes – I ended up doing it in 1 hour 30 minutes and lost a couple of minutes when I turned the wrong way in Peckham. I always get lost in Peckham, I don’t know why, it’s just one of those things.
The stretch along Old Kent Road is a bit grim and there was a steep bit towards the end (the clue’s in the name of Forest Hill Road). That’s the problem of walking from central London outwards – it starts flat and then inevitably gets steeper.
But it certainly gave me a good thirst by the time I reached the pub.
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miss_newham‘s for the annual Eurovision party. Alcohol, scorecards, yelling at the telly, and some truly dreadful music. I seemed to be the only person who liked the Albanian entry; the winner of our voting was Greece, which matched the winner of the UK phone vote so we must have been in tune with the national psyche. Not sure why the UK bothers entering – everyone hates us and we always enter rubbish songs. Ben Dalby’s Doctor Can would have been a better entry and some sexy nurses would surely have garnered a few votes. 
cheerful
hungry
