BAFTA, Guinness World Record, Gumball 3000 - WHAT A WEEK!

Told so many people about this that I've gotta write it down. About time I started the old blog up again anyway...

Sunday 22/4/07 - our whole company went to the BAFTAs and WON ONE!! For "Best Sound in a Fiction/Entertainment program" for a program we did for the BBC called "Tsunami: The Aftermath". It was at The Dorchester on Park Lane, we were all penguin suited up, and it was really bling do and a wicked evening. Bit pissed off at falling asleep on the night bus home and waking up in Croydon mind you!

Monday 23/4/07 - there's a West End stage show on called 'Spamalot', based on Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The people running the play organised the "World Record Coconut Orchestra". 4300 of us played along to "Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life" in Trafalgar Square. Quite surreal and special. I'm now proud to say I'm a Guinness World Record Holder!

Tuesday 24/4/07 - Boring!

Wednesday 23/4/07 - Jen came round. Brought me a mankini. Damn I look so hot in that! And she signed the forms for my Canadian Passport Application.

Thursday 24/4/07 - Got a call from Mei-Ling Ryder, the Marketing Manager of the Extreme Sports Channel telling me I'd won a competition from their website for which the prize was a ride IN A FERRARI FOR THE UK STAGE OF THE GUMBALL 3000 RALLY ON SUNDAY!!!! YEEEE-HAAAAA!!! If you haven't heard of this, it's a 3000 mile rally round Europe, mostly entered by millionaire Playboys in supercars 'cos it costs about £40k to enter.

Randomly went and saw 'The Twang' and 'James' (remember them?!) that evening at Brixton Academy 'cos Alice had a spare ticket. Was surprised how good James were and how many of their songs I remember. OH YOU THINK YOU'RE SO PRETTY- EEE-EEEEEE-EEEE! Catherine came round after.

Friday 25/4/07 - Few beers after work with the old Soho Studios crew, was supposed to be going out for Becky French's birthday but lightweighted it and was in bed by 1.

Saturday 26/4/07 - Went down to the Sofitel - my second five star hotel in a week! - to register for the Gumball. Met some of the people from the Extreme channel, drivers, and press and got given a load of freebies like clothes, trainers, sunglasses and other random tat. Saw some of the cars parked up outside. Very exciting!

Met up with Kate and went to the Natural History Museum to see the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition which was, as always, wicked.

Popped round Tim, Dave and Sleepy's very briefly for a bit of bbq action.

Met Adinah - damn she's looking hot - and went to the Gumball launch party! Started off with the Extreme Channel lot in the Sports Cafe in Piccadilly, blagged some free champers and marveled at the tackiness of that bar. Then went on to The Trocadero where the main party was. It was really weird. It was in this massive space and full of blingers. Weird atmosphere and Fun Lovin' Criminals, who were supposed to play, never turned up. We caught the end of Hexstatic who everyone was ignoring and had to make do with Towers of London who I actually thought were pretty cool. Yeah they're try-hard punk cnuts but I like that!

The whole thing was so much fun though 'cos Adinah and I went on a rampage just bullshitting millionaires!! We were so full of shit, it was hilarious, and they were believing us!

At about 2am we blew that joint and got a rickshaw to Egg club. Adinah had a go at driving it, don't think there's much of a career in it for her though. Egg was messy. We got mashed and spent a lot of the time in the garden, chatting shit to randoms. Left well after daylight and went to Spitalfields market with the intention of buying bikes but somehow ended up with finger puppets and a massively appropriate T-shirt saying 'My other ride is your sister'.

Sunday 27 /4/07 - As much as it pained me after such a WICKED night, I had to leave Adinah and get back to the Sofitel for the main event! 120 of the most badass supercars imaginable lined up on Pall Mall. Check out http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2611&l=c21c6&id=508520702 for a few pics.

After hanging around for hours, feeling rough as hell and soooo glad of the freebie shades from the day before, things finally kicked off. At 4pm, with the streets lined with thousands of people, all 120 cars, including Bentleys, Lamborghinis, Rollers, Ferraris, Porsches, even three Bugatti Veyrons (the world's fastest production car!), fired up their engines. The noise and the buzz was phenomenal!!!! I was in the passenger seat of a 2006 Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorina F1 (604bhp, same V12 engine as the Enzo, just over 200mph top speed, £180k, BEAST!). Check it out:


The guy just getting out of it in the pic is it's owner and driver, Chris, a really sound guy who owns the company that owns the Extreme Channel and a bunch of other stuff.

One by one the cars pulled up to the start line where each one was announced before starting off. As we drove off it became apparent that the thousands of people lining the streets were actually tens of thousands. There were so many people crowding to get in they barely left space wide enough for the cars. It was amazing! Everyone had cameras and was shouting at us to "REV IT!!!!". Even Chris, who's super-minted and must have seen some mad stuff in his time, was blown away by it.

When we got through the main throng , which went most of the way down Piccadilly, and the road opened up a bit, I got the first taste of the acceleration of this car. JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!!!!! Ah, I'm buzzing just remembering it and I was screaming at the time! So, so phat.

The route went right through town which meant the traffic sucked but it was so cool to see the crowds. Jaws were dropping everywhere as these cars went through. People in cars we passed were leaning out the windows with their camera phones, non-Gumball cars were chasing us, it was mental. We had a bunch of rudeboys in the phattest Bentley I'd ever seen following us around, music blaring. They were loving it.

As we got out of town and on to the motorway, I've never seen so many traffic cops! They were everywhere. Unfortunately, this meant we couldn't fully see what the car could do but we hit 120 at one point and damn did we get up to that speed fast!! The crowds were still out all the way to Folkestone and the Channel Tunnel. On every bridge there were people watching and waving, some of them even with home made Gumball banners!

We saw some guys in a convertible BMW who'd been chasing the race get pulled over and one of the Gumball Porsche 911's have a proper blowout of their rear left tyre. Fortunately they made it over to the hard shoulder ok.

When we got to the chunnel I had to hand over the co-pilot's seat to Chris' mate Mark, who was to join him for the rest of the journey. Oh my god I was buzzing. And I can't believe how much fun those boys are gonna have throughout the rest of that rally. As we pulled up to the Eurostar ticket machines, Maximillion Cooper, the organiser of the whole event, pulled up next to us in his Jaguar XJ220. Of course I had to tell him how wicked the whole thing was and commend him on his good work!

At that point I jumped into one of Chris' other cars, an £80k Porsche Cayenne, and was driven by top dude Charlie back to Brixton and home. Of course from there it was straight to the pub to recount the whole adventure and listen to my mates explain how, to stop my head swelling too much, they'd put my phone number on several filthy adverts in the 'lonely hearts' section of a popular listings website. Which explained some of the very unusual calls and texts I'd been ignoring that day...

What a day!

And there's still more! For the next part of the prize Extreme are gonna fly me out to Berlin for the checkpoint party when the Gumball passes through there on Friday! Life is so sweet.

Spanish classes, Sam's award, George's voice tape

Wed 18/1 - Went to my second Spanish class (countries and numbers today), went home, wrote up my Spanish notes, went to bed. Woah! What a crazy day!

Thurs 19/1 - Gave blood in the afternoon at my local donation centre just off Oxford Street. They actually let me donate this time as I wasn't hung over like last week! That evening I went to my third Spanish lesson (More numbers and phrases relating to booking a hotel room), then went for a few drinks with some of the guys from the course which was nice. Was expecting to get very hammered very easily as I was a pint of blood down but seemed to be ok!

Fri 20/1 - Crazy news today about a whale that had got very lost and was swimming up the Thames!
Was a little hungover, possibly due to giving blood yesterday. Had an average day at work then went for a few drinks in the Slug and Lettuce with work peeps then went and met Alice and three of her old nursing colleagues on Tottenham Court Road. From there, Alice and I headed to Koko, a big club/live music venue which used to be known as Camden Palace. They were holding a club night run by the music magazine NME at which there were rumours that the band of the moment, The Arctic Monkeys, were supposed to be playing as special surprise guests. Will, who recently started at work as a runner, and his girlfriend Emma (think that was her name?) were there as well. Unfortunately the rumours were unfounded, an ok band called Secret Machine played instead, but it was still a pretty good night.

Sat 21/1 - Stayed at Alice's and headed straight from there into work. Spent 10 hours rewiring a load of equipment in Jungle transfer. Was planning to head to a house party held by Adam, another runner who got fired for "not smiling enough"! I didn't get home 'til 9:45 though and by the time I'd eaten and showered it was midnight and I was too knackered to face the hour and a quarter journey up to Hackney so just stayed in and got that horrible 'missing out on a Saturday night' feeling.

Sun 22/1 - Was woken up by Sam who won an award last night for Nat West Area Manager of the Year or some such bollocks. He was deservedly well chuffed and it means he's going to Athens for some massive award ceremony/piss up at the end of March. As usual he was on a "Get up! Let's get pissed!" tip and he turned up shortly afterwards with his ex-boss Julie. We had a couple of beers at the house then headed to The Effra. Sam's misses, Jo, turned up later and we all proceeded to get quite smashed which culminated in us doing handstands up the wall off the pub then throwing food at each other in Fujiyama's. I had made plans to go and see the last day of the Turner Prize exhibition at the Tate Britain but they obviously went out the window. That evening I rinsed out James and Gary at Texas Hold 'Em for the first time then blew my winnings on vodka.

Mon 23/1 - Average day at work but in the evening my old school mate, George Saunders-Singer turned up to record a voice tape. I'd seen that he'd updated his profile on Friends Reunited recently and he'd added that he'd started doing voiceover work. I'm keen to learn how to actually use the studios rather than just maintain them so invited him down to record a free voice tape. A voice tape is basically a demo tape for voiceover artists, normally they are charged £200 for the privilege but as I'm learning and George is a mate I said I'd do him a freebie. We did 99 takes over seven different adverts. Can't wait to edit that lot down! When I left there I bumped into another of the runners, Andy, on Oxford Street and we went for a pint. We passed Dubbs, another post-production house where Ellen works and saw her sat drinking with some of her colleagues so dragged her along too.

House Party, Norton, Constant Gardener, Pillow Fight Club, King Kong

Sat 17/12 - Had a big house party at ours. The turnout was a little disappointing, nobody came up from out of town and a bunch of the people who'd been out the night before were too lightweight to party again but there were still enough people to have a good craic. We kitted the flat out with a whole bunch of decorations, set Nadine's decks up in the front room and made a vat of mulled wine that was pretty horrible but people still drunk it!

Sun 18/12 - The party went on 'til well into daylight the next day when Tristan, boyfriend of Gary's mate Karen, suggested we head on to a club in London Bridge. It took us a while to find the place which was called Jack's Club. They had some sort of filthy Psy-trance night on. I was finding it quite amusing at first, the level of filth and munted people all around, but after a couple of hours of listening to what seemed to be the same thumping tune it got a bit much so I made a move home. Spent the rest of the day lounging around and watched Bad Santa in three parts because I kept dozing off.

Mon 19/12 - After a rather dazed day at work I turned down René's offer of going to see a preview of the new Woody Allen film, Match Point, with a q&a by Allen and Scarlett Johansen afterwards. Instead Nadine and I went round to Alice's for some mulled wine and nibbles as Vicky was visiting and Alice had invited a load of her old uni mates round. After a little while Nadine and I shot off, met up with Ellen, and went and saw my colleague Adam's band Norton at The Borderline. They were pretty good. Unfortunately, Adam's recently been sacked, apparently because he doesn't smile enough and therefore wouldn't be engineer material! I think it more likely that it was just because our MD, Ebbs, had taken a seemingly irrational dislike to him.

Tues 20/12 - Just went for a couple of drinks with Tim, Dan, Nick, Laura, and Anthony at The Lounge.

Wed 21/12 - Another fun (!) day at work then a busy evening. Tim helped me drive the decks back round to Nadine's then went and met up with Tom for a very quick Yaki Soba at Fujiyama's. After that headed to The Ritzy to watch The Constant Gardener, very good film about how big pharmaceutical companies use African tribespeople to test dodgy drugs on. Unfortunately I had to have a little snooze in the middle of the film as usual but, you know, I got the gist of it! After the film Aaron met us in the foyer and we went for a couple of pints in The Prince. Tom mentioned he may be off to Cuba for a couple of weeks in the new year and I got to thinking that I may join him.

Thurs 22/12 - Had the afternoon off work to head back to the dentist for more pain! She reckons I should have two wisdom teeth out. The choice is, get it done for free at Guys hospital by students or pay to get it done by pro's - with anaesthetic! - at another hospital. The problem is my last dentist x-rayed my jaw and showed me that the roots of my wisdom teeth go off at right angles in my gums, meaning it'll be a messy process to extract them. Might go for the anaesthetic option! The dentist also suggested I let her refer me to a specialist who may be able to operate on my jaw. Can't make up my mind. The option of being able to eat and speak better is definitely tempting but involves fairly major surgery and a whole lot of metal work in my mouth for a long time. What to do!? Maybe Canada has better (and possibly free!) dental care. Gotta look into that.

Apart from that, the evening was awesome. Jiggy came round 'cos I'd recorded a Radio 3 program off the BBC website's "Listen Again" section for him. It was a recording of a Carol Service at St. John's Chapel in Oxford that his Dad's girlfriend's son had sung in. Will doesn't like her too much so I think it was a good way of getting her a pretty novel present without actually spending any money on her!

We went for a quick pint then I headed off to Covent Garden to meet Alice, Vicky, Caroline, Kim and a couple of their mates for Pillow Fight Club!! There must have been about 200+ people who responded to emails sent out by some random nutters who organise these things every now and then. Everyone turned up at Covent Garden Plaza with a pillow and at 18:47 precisely (again! see Mobile Clubbing post) everyone started battering the crap out of each other. It was hilarious! I had taken a pillow and acquired another one off the floor and felt like someone out of Braveheart or some such film, trudging through the battlefield, taking out anyone in my way!As we were leaving I hit Alice then realised my pillow must have touched the floor and brushed through something that smelt like tramp! Cue much whingeing from her for the rest of the evening.

We headed back to Brixton to meet up with Nadine, Donna and Ed to watch the new King Kong remake. Awesome film! Starts off slowly then builds into a complete rollercoaster of a movie with the heroic posse getting attacked from all sides by the craziest CG monsters imaginable. Thought the crazy tribal people that try and sacrifice the heroine to Kong were a bit of a dodgy racial typecast, but maybe that was just me. Great film though, I even managed to stay awake through all 3 hours of it (with the help of a couple of Pro Plus)!

Ludes, March of the Penguins, Director's Half Cut, Fatboy Slim

Mon 12/12 - After work, met up with me old mucka Eveleigh and just sat in a pub off Oxford Street, catching up.

Tues 13/12 - Been feeling knackered and like I haven't had any time to myself so took the day off work to have a rest and try and do lots of proactive stuff, such as scan the jobs websites for better paid positions and fill out my damned Tax Return. As is always the way though, the day flashed past before I'd noticed it, with me achieving very little except recording off a bunch of the vinyl Tom had given me for The Director's Half Cut on Thursday. I was also bastardising a version of the Queen's Christmas speech from I think 1973, the year it was first televised. I was rearranging it so she said rude things (hope that's not treason!) and cutting it up with The Sex Pistols' "God Save The Queen". In the evening I met Will and we went to see a band called The Ludes at The 100 Club on Oxford Street. Will had wanted to check the venue out 'cos he was thinking about going there for New Years Eve with Jen. He decided against it though as the whole place felt far too much like a pikey student union bar. The Ludes were wicked though, I think they could go far.

Wed 14/12 - Met up with Rupe again and went to see March of the Penguins with Kelly, an old uni friend of his, at The Screen On The Green, a really nice little one-screen cinema in Islington.

Thurs 15/12 - Tonight was Tom's night, The Director's Half Cut at the South London Pacific bar again. This time the theme was Christmas! Humbug! Once again the little fancy dress shop on Berwick Street sorted me out with a pretty good costume. I had a black PVC Santa suit with "Bah Humbug!" written across the furry band round the hat. It wasn't as good as my Rambo costume last time though, especially since the trousers were very sweaty and constantly fell down. The night went ok. I was doing the music and sound effects for the theatrical parts again. There were more people there than last time but quite a lot of them were students on the piss who had no interest in the performance stuff and just wanted to dance.

Fri 16/12 - Went to see Fatboy Slim at Brixton Academy. Phat night. A load of peeps came round for a few drinks beforehand. The whole gig was in 'Palookavision' which meant everyone was given some crazy glasses on the way in that made holographic smiley faces appear around any bright point of light. Fatboy's DJ booth was a giant video wall, at least 20ft square, with the centre section recessed and that's where the decks are so as he's playing he's got all these crazy graphics moving all around and behind him. All of this, together with Fatboy dropping all the usual big tunes, made for quite a show.

Xmas party, Prodigy, Mobile Clubbing, K*nt and the Gang, Chemical Brothers, Narnia

Fri 2/12 - Had our work Christmas Party at the Soho Hotel. 'Twas a fairly lavish affair. Even if the wall paper in some of the rooms reminded me somewhat of The Shining. Or maybe that was our beloved MD. We had a very nice dinner followed by some fairly bullshit speeches then all opened the secret santa presents we'd bought each other. The most popular of which was a long cane that someone had bought for Flip. We moved into the dimly lit Moroccan style bar next to the dining room and much caning ensued!

I left relatively early before everyone got too hammered and it got too boring and cliquey. I went to meet Toby and Karina who were up for the day as Karina had had an interview with Storm, the modelling agency. We went back to the hotel so I could scrounge them a free drink then went to one of the dingey little Spanish bars off Oxford Street. After a few tequilas we wandered around 'til we found a little Greek place where the entertainment was singing, dancing and an awful lot of plate smashing. Kate came and met us and I went back and crashed at hers.

Sat 3/12 - Met Toby and Karina again for a couple of lunchtime beers at The Lock Tavern in Camden. Had a wander round the market then left them to head home to chill out for a bit. A bunch of the regular London Monkeys came round for a few drinks before we headed off to see The Prodigy at Brixton Academy. Cracking night, mental moshpit, Audio Bullys and Pendulum supporting.

Sun 4/12 - Had to be at work at 9am! Only to let the builders in which wasn't too bad as they were two and a half hours late and I spent that time snoozing on the sofa and getting paid time and a half for it.

Mon 5/12 - Tubs was up for a training do so met up with her for lunch then again in the evening when me, her, Alice and Jo went to a crazy thing called Mobile Clubbing. Basically this is a flash mob, where somebody comes up with a crazy idea, advertises a time and place via the internet and a bunch of random people turn up and do it. The idea for this one was that people would be waiting on Villiers Street between Charing Cross Station and Embankment Station. At 18:47 (to be precise!) everyone would switch on some form of personal stereo and start dancing to whatever music they chose. It was hilarious!! There must have been about 100 of us all bopping away to different tunes. One guy was rocking out with an inflatable guitar, loads of passers by were looking bemused, some joined in, a load of chuckling drivers passed through. I changed tunes several times to keep it varied, switching it up with a bit of everything from Metallica to Burt Baccarach to De La Soul. Great laugh.

Tues 6/12 - Met Jiggy for a pint after work then Joe, Flip, and Andy came along and we went to a night called Tourettes at The Heavenly Social on Great Portland Street. This was to see an amazing act that Joe had told me about called Kunt and the Gang. Kunt is a bloke in some Y-fronted thermal underwear and his gang is a glove puppet called Little Kunt. They sing beautiful songs such as "Wank the Dog". Pretty wrong but hilarious!

Wed 7/12 - Night in!

Thurs 8/12 - Worked late, then went home and played Texas Hold 'Em with my housemates James and Gary.

Fri 9/12 - Few beers with work people in the Crown and Two Chairmen, the work local, then went home. Quietest Friday night in a long time!

Sat 10/12 - Lazed around the house all day then got a call from Caroline, arranged to meet her for a drink that evening when she randomly offered me a ticket to go and see the Chemical Brothers with her and her mate Kim at the Academy. Awesome tunes and a mental light show, my only slight niggle being they didn't play Sunshine Underground :-( Was gonna head to my old housemate, Ben's house party afterwards but I spoke to Gary who was on his way back from it and said it was fizzling out so I gave it a miss and we just went back to ours and got mash-up there instead.

Sun 11/12 - Had a rehearsal for Tom's next "Director's Half Cut" night, which all went very smoothly. Met up with Alice in the evening and went to see The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe at The Ritzy. Thoroughly enjoyed it, found it quite moving - felt like I was gonna cry about half a dozen times throughout the movie. The only worrying thing about it was that Mr. Tumnus came across as a bit paedo!

Jo's Party, Shy FX video, Red Bull Rail Grind, Alien Autopsy, Ben's Photo's, Roots Manuva, Mozart by Candlelight

Oh my days! Life's been fun recently. Been keeping very busy:

Fri 18/11 - Went and saw some 'goth metal' band called My Dying Bride, at the Astoria with Joe. Apart from one girl in the crowd, we were the only people not wearing head to toe black. Lots of long hair, tattoos. and head banging. Quite amusing. Then headed back to Brixton for Jo's house party which was all good. Got mashup 'til the early hours of the morning with two Kiwi's, Kristin who works with Jo and Alice and her roommate Sean.

Sat 19/11 - Invited them back to mine for a cuppa at about 11:30 the next morning but we couldn't get in because they were filming the new Shy FX and T Power video in my hallway. Gary was producing and assistant directing. Went for a wonder round the market to kill time until we could actually get in the door to find about 30 cast and crew milling about the house. My bedroom was being used as the makeup parlour so I spent the day lounging around on my bed and chatting with all the random people getting their makeup done. Went to the Dogstar in the evening with Alice for Mark's birthday but due to getting no sleep the night before I lamed on heading to a warehouse party in Peckham with Joe.

Sun 20/11 - Helped Adam out preparing some of the food for the video shoot which was continuing at the K Bar, a little club in Fulham I'd been to a couple of years previously to renovate the sound system with Thunder Ridge. Tom gave us a lift out there and I had a little boogy as an extra so you might just see me at the edge of the screen somewhere - I'd probably edit myself out though to be fair! Left there and headed to Trafalgar Square for the Red Bull Rail Grind. This involved a massive ramp being built outside the National Gallery, with eight teams from around the world competing to pull the maddest stunts on four rails in front of 8000 people in a fenced off Trafalgar Square. Was an awesome event and I eneded up back in the hotel room of Matt from work's cousin who was captain of the All Star Girls Team and one of Canada's best boarders. She sorted us out with tickets to the after party which was a 1000 person affair at Heaven. We saw the likes of Killa Kella (rocked it), Test Icicles (midget bass player with massive, er, instrument) and the Mitchell Brothers (great lyrics). Top night.

Mon 21/11 - Relatively quiet night. Just went to a preview screening of Alien Autopsy, a Brit comedy coming out next summer and starring Ant & Dec. Actually quite enjoyed it despite those two twunts. Was invited by Kate but she couldn't make it so just met up with her housemate Becca. They'd been extras in the film as it was produced by Ealing Studios for whom Becca works.

Tues 22/11 - Another fairly quiet one. Met up with Celine for a couple in the White Horse then headed out to catch up with Ben at his new place in Clapham. Spent ages getting jealous over his photos of the three months he's just spent travelling round Europe. Lucky get!

Wed 23/11 - Quite a show going on in Agent Provocateur just round the corner from work in the afternoon. Where they normally have a couple of mannequins in the window in hot lingerie, they had two real girls writhing around, one of whom was a contortionist. Traffic stopping stuff! Went to see Roots Manuva at The Forum with Kate, her brother, and Michael that evening. Ended up crashing at Kate and Becca's in Shepherds Bush.

Thurs 24/11 - Very pleasant and relaxing evening. Went with Alice to see the New London Soloists Orchestra play Mozart by candlelight in St. Martin-in-the-Fields church on Trafalgar Square. Struggled to stay awake to be honest 'cos I was knackered and it was so chilled!

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.