SKINT!! It's gonna be a quiet month...

Well, I've paid my rent, got a travelcard and I think I've covered all my bills 'til next payday but I seem to only have £20 to last me 'til then. And that's three weeks away. Not happy!

Wed 2/11 - Bugger all to report. Due to being skinted I did a little overtime then came home and played cards with Gaz and James.

Thurs 3/11 - Strange evening. About a week previously I received a phone call regarding one of the many competitions Alice and I entered at the Daily Mail Ski and Snowboard Show at Olympia a couple of weeks ago. Alice also received the same phone call but it seems that as she lied (straight to hell!) and told them that she lived with her partner she fitted their demographic requirements and was offered a free holiday in return for coming down to their offices and giving them the chance to flog her a timeshare.

It turns out her live-in partner of the last three years was me. Now I don't remember much of that but I'm up for the free holiday so there's us, sat in these slightly seedy offices just off Regent Street surrounded by other couples, blatant salespeople and disinterested flunkies. Alice is fretting about them rumbling us and so making up details such as what colour we want to paint the bathroom in order to appear more convincing. I'm thinking what a laugh this is that we're such frauds and that they're gonna even attempt to sell us timeshare. We're told that we're going to see a two hour presentation and we're ushered to a table with our own personal arsehole, sorry, salesperson. We're there for all of 5 minutes when a big ugly walrus of a man wearing far too much tacky gold jewelry sits at our table. He introduces himself as the boss of Costa Del Ripoff Holiday Club and starts talking about himself being a man of respect. At first I think we've been rumbled and are about to get a lecture on deception but it turns out that he just knows he's not gonna get a sale out of us and so is offering us the chance to take the holiday and run. I tell him it's a good idea 'cos I think we all know it would've been a waste of everybody's time. Alice and I hit the pub and check out the voucher they've given us. It turns out the 'free' holiday costs £50 each for two of us and £200 each for anybody else. There's a choice of two destinations, Tenerife or the Costa del Sol, both very far from my first choice of holiday destination, and there's a bunch of terms and conditions about when you can go etc. So it's looking unlikely we'll take the holiday but they did give Alice another voucher for a TV/DVD combi so all is not lost.

Fri 4/11 - Average day at work, quick beer afterwards, then meet up with a bunch of people in Brockwell Park to watch some pretty decent fireworks. Everybody filters off afterwards and Alice, Jimmy, Nick, Declan and I end up in a nice pub in Herne Hill sampling their crazy European beers and talking about peas (don't ask, funny at the time). Jimmy, Alice and I head on to Fujiyama's for some nosh then head home. Quietest Friday night I've had for a while but lack of funds mean it'll probably be that way for the next few weeks.

Sat 5/11 - I go to work all day and spend seven hours doing what would've probably taken our recently sacked wiring people about one and a half. Meet Alice briefly in the afternoon for a coffee and to meet and give her a second opinion on her potential new housemate. His name's Gregoire, he's very French but seems a nice guy. In the evening Alice and I go to Alexandra Palace to watch more fireworks. Bump into a couple of Alice's old colleagues on the train and meet up with Jo and her cousin and her husband when we get there. Head back to Jo's new gaff for Chish and Fip's, checking out Tim and Dave's new place on the way. I go home just as they head out to The Telegraph. This not being able to go out business is gonna really get on my tits.

Sun 6/11 - But at least it means I'm up fresh and early this morning. I have a strong body clock and rarely like to lounge around in bed once I'm awake unless there's a good reason. So I'm sat in my front room, before 8am, on a Sunday. Most bizarre. I hear a weird noise out the window, have a look, and there's a guy sat on some crazy little antique-looking tricycle with a spluttering engine at the lights outside my window. Nutter, I think, what's he doing riding around on that at this time on a Sunday morning? I go back to reading a magazine and hear another similarly spluttering vehicle pull up. I look again and a couple of really, really old cars pass by. More keep coming and I watch about 200 of these crazy old vehicles that look like motorised prams go by. I shout out to one of them asking where they're going and they say Brighton. I have a quick Google and it turns out it's the Royal Automobile Club's annual London to Brighton Veteran Car Run. Apparently it's the world's longest running motoring event. Quote from above website: "The annual event takes place on the first Sunday of every November and commemorates the Emancipation Run of 14 November 1896 which celebrated the passing into law of the Locomotives on the Highway Act, which raised the speed limit for `light locomotives' from 4 mph to 14 mph and abolished the requirement for these vehicles to be preceded by a man on foot."

It looked brilliant!! Made my morning. There were all sorts, mostly open topped and laden with people, some quite grand with plush leather seats and polished brass fittings, some really tiny and miraculously moving at all, some kicking out cloads of smoke, one that was steam powered and had a guy at the back loading coal into the boiler, quite a few that needed someone to get out and give them a push start when they stopped at the lights and one that stalled and had to be crank started. Quite a few people were dressed the part with driving hats, gloves and goggles and I think I saw Michael Winner driving one of them. I took loads of pictures with my phone which are all here.