Seven weeks since my last trip overseas with work: same project, different continent.
Work
Johannesburg Treadmill Running
My first run in 6½ weeks! Away in Sandton, Johannesburg, South Africa on business so after a 12 hour day with a Client, I decided to hit the treadmill in the Park Inn by Radisson
Toronto Don Mills 6k
-1.1°C and -6°C with windchill with a sprinkling of snow, mixed in with manflu. Still nice to get out before a long day ahead.
On the Betty Sutherland Trail
Seoul Stroll
After a flight in from London to Seoul and having been up for 22 hours now, I thought I’d brave the -2C to +2C temperatures to see what my mapped out 7km run would be like this week. “Hellish” is the answer: the first 2.7km is pretty much all uphill gaining some 500ft and just when I started coming back down, I discovered that the back part of the route was under hard-packed ice and snow. Ah…
Protected: I Liked It, So I Put A Ring On It…
December So Far…
Well November ended on a high: whilst up in Norfolk for the weekend, I took Amy – Jack baled out at the last moment – to see London Grammar play the Open in Norwich and very good they were too (as expected).
I was also impressed in particular by one of the support acts: Josh Record, who may or may not use my suggestion of “Geoff” for the title of their presently unnamed track. Or not.
Tuesday of the following week and I was back off to Canada; Toronto this time to speak at a major exhibition (people actually had to pay to see me speaking). This time, it was a morning flight so I arrived at lunchtime EDT . Straight from the Airport via our offices to check the venue out for the following day, then off to the hotel to do a quick shower and change and back out for the evening: dinner at the Toronto Maple Leafs where their top player, Phil Kessel, celebrated his career 200th goal after scoring against the San Jose Sharks. Very enjoyable evening.
Wednesday and it was up early for breakfast and meeting colleagues before heading down to the convention centre to do my thing. A quick drink afterwards – bought for me by an ex-pat British lawyer (I didn’t have time to get her name) – then off to the airport for the red-eye to Heathrow.
Friday I had the day off: I was heading down to Gloucester for the PurplePort social. Great fun with lots of drink and chat: Katra was memorable for touching my face all evening looking for (non-existent) plastic surgery scars and Ali was memorable for not falling out of her corset despite all odds!
After breakfast, I headed back to London … via Bourton-on-the-Water where I lived when I was a little boy and we’d come back to the UK from Malta. I’d been taught our address parrot-fashion as we all do with our kids, so I popped it in to Waze on my iPhone and headed there. It was still as I remembered it, bar the houses that had been built behind the bungalow. Off into the village centre which was as I remembered it for a coffee and a walk around.
More of the same the following week – another seminar to give in London – and then the following week was fabulous, starting with the Placebo gig at Brixton on Monday 16th with GT. Really, really good they were too and it was nice to see GT after a few weeks.
Later that week, in Crawley at a Client’s, I dropped the RX-8 off at the nearby dealer to see if they could sort out the headlight washers: hitting a pheasant at {cough} MPH had split and lost the thick hose that feeds the headlight washers. They have had to order-in the hose which will be a massive £380 fitted! Expensive car, this one. Then back on Thursday evening for the company Christmas Dinner Cruise along the Thames, during which I gave a younger colleague a pep-talk about his forthcoming new baby and how he shouldn’t envy my lifestyle. He didn’t go home that night, apparently. So much for mentoring…
Friday I had the afternoon off as a friend, NT, was coming to stay at mine for the weekend. I picked her up from the railway station and we stopped off at London Bridge to pick up my car from the office where I’d left it overnight. As it was a lovely day, I took her up the Shard – fnarr! – before heading home. A lovely steak at Gaucho that evening. Saturday she wanted to do some shopping for her kids so we went up to Camden; tapas and t-shirts. Saturday and it was off to Le Pont de la Tour for dinner from their tasting menu. Excellent nosh.
Then into the Christmas Week: Christmas Eve was peculiar as due to the storms that hit the UK, I was one of the first into the office and it remained that way until mid-morning when just a few made it in. Drinks and snacks at the pub and then home. Christmas Day and I’d been invited to GT’s for what was a lovely Christmas Dinner including her fabulous Cheesy Chestnut Roast. Feeling bloated, I headed home to an early night before heading up to Norfolk for Boxing Day and the first of two defeats this week for Norwich City.
New Year’s Eve beckons now – after a shoot I have planned tomorrow with Marlyn Lindsay – and my plans include a possible NYE at Slimelight. I did wonder about grabbing a last-minute flight to Moscow to see the New Year in with Manuel and Angelo (friends from Route 66) but flights are stupidly expensive for what would be a one-night stay!
Movember
Well, November has been an interesting month…
I decided to join in with Movember again this year: fundraising for men’s mental health. A good cause. But yes, I end up looking more ridiculous than usual and hating the annoying slug festering under my nose! At least tomorrow I can shave the bastard off or at least trim it right back!
Tonight, I’m supposed to be going to their Gala Parté at the Roundhouse Camden, but I came down with a heavy cold this week which is on its way out – thankfully – but is on my chest right now, so I can’t really be arsed. And I’m a little bit down at the moment, if I’m honest, but shh! That’s our secret, right?
Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself.
The 6th was the Bring Me The Horizon gig at Brixton. A good one, if I’m honest, although the band’s lead singer was a knob trying to look big in front of the predominantly young, female, screaming audience. More noise from them than from the stage.
That Friday it was the PurplePort London Social: it was good to meet up with some photographers and some models, including Sakura Star who’d previously said she was keen to work with me on a somewhat noir bondage and fetish project going forward: she has some excellent work on her portfolio already.
The next day it was off up to Norwich to see Norwich City beat West Ham United and thereby save Chris Hughton from the dole queue for a little longer…
The following week was fun at work: I was put forward for a major commission in Canada without my knowledge so I had a meeting planned with my boss – the owner of the business I work for – which never happened as we’d heard that I was needed in Chicago for a meeting which was then cancelled at short notice as they’d gone with a local company instead of ours. So that’s parked for another day…
I had a couple of days off that week to recharge and the Wednesday was a good opportunity to have one last thrash on the Sprint before winter sets in. I headed off down to Sussex, for a “Bigboy Breakfast” at Wesson’s Cafe, stopping off en route to get a warning for a dodgy numberplate as it’s too small, apparently. Oops! Must order a legal one: the bike never came with one because the vanity plate came later. The that night it was off to the O2 to see Vampire Weekend and Noah and the Whale in concert. GT and I stayed for three songs, it was that rubbish…
At the weekend, GT and I were off to an 80s party in the evening: her goth’d up (more so than usual thanks to crimping her hair) and me with a poodle perm wig, Frankie Say Relax t-shirt, white linen trousers and some horrendous white canvas shoes. A late one at that, DJ-ing from my iPhone with some 80s tracks. And then there was the Sunday…
GT had a race first thing in the morning, so while she was gone I got up, bathed and had a coffee. When she got back I made more coffee and joined her in the bathroom whilst she had a post-race bath. I told her there was something wrong: I felt she wasn’t that in to me any more – we’ve been seeing each other for nearly 3 years now on an irregular, regular basis – and that it’s become more pronounced since she was promoted, working longer hours with shifts, etc. GT agreed that she seemed to have no time to put in to a relationship these days to make one work, so we agreed to split up rather than just going through the motions. We then spent the afternoon shopping in Kingston and had dinner before I left.
The following weekend was all about gigs and bikes: on Saturday it was off to the NEC for Motorcycle Live. A chance for me to buy some new Goretex Alpinestars SMX Plus bike boots in black for next summer’s Austrian Eurothrash. It was also great to bump into Emma Kate Dawson for a chat and a catch-up.
Then on the Saturday night I saw Queens of the Stone Age at the Wembley Arena and as I had a spare ticket – I always buy two out of habit – I invited Sakura Star along as I knew she was at a loose end having just split up from her bloke. She showed me some great photos that another photographer had taken of her in a fab leather and feather dress which are now on her profiles having got clearance from the designers and we had a few drinks before the gig. QOTSA were excellent and SS was good company.
Then on the Sunday night it was off to the Hammersmith Apollo with GT to see the Pixies who were also absolutely superb.
Last week was busy: London, Birmingham and Manchester with lots of different hotels and lots of travelling. And there’s more to come soon when I pop over to Toronto to speak at a major event.
At least that should keep me busy and my mind off relationships past, present and future. In the meantime, I’ve booked next year’s holidays to Fuerteventura with my ‘kids’ to go with the Austrian Eurothrash.
Busy, eh?
Well that was a week and a half!
Or actually just a week! It started with a visit the week before from one of our Non-Execs to have dinner with a bunch of us to tell us about the Canadian market that he’s helping us get introduced into. I found out that a colleague and I had been included in a proposal for a Client that we were hoping we’d win. It was useful too for me to meet him as I was heading out to Vancouver to do a seminar to some potential Clients the last week of October…
…and so it transpired: I was out – economy class – after work on the Tuesday. The plan was to do the 9.5 hour flight, ‘regain’ 7 hours due to the time difference, meet our Americas President and the Non-Exec for drinks, etc. Sadly, a four hour delay on the tarmac at Heathrow put paid to that. At one point, the pilot told us that we might miss the last flight slot. That would have caused serious problems for us as I was the only one with the virtual reality/augmented reality stuff loaded onto an iPad. We were on the tarmac long enough for me to watch the first two films from the decent selection of recent titles that I enjoyed:
- Alan Partridge – Alpha Papa
- Fast and Furious 6
- Iron Man 3
- Now You See Me
- World War Z
So after the long flight, I landed at Vancouver, went through customs and out the other end to get a courtesy bus to the Hilton … which took a little while. By the time I checked in it was 1.30am local time, so a quick decaff and then it was bedtime. Up at 7.00am to get ready for breakfast with my colleagues and it was off to downtown Vancouver for a meet and greet and then do my thing, which went down very well with lots of interest.
Back to the airport to do some catching up on work e-mails using the work presentation MacBook Pro Retina rather than my shite work laptop before an evening flight home … overnight, landing at around midday. Films on the way home were:
- A Good Day to Die Hard
- Pain & Gain
- Zero Dark Thirty (though I didn’t get to see the last half hour, so looking forward to that on Sky next week)
I stayed up until late Thursday night to try to get back into the swing of things. 6 hours’ sleep in 3 days.
Friday and it was in to the office for a catch up and to be told that yes, I’m back out to Toronto in December … and in the meantime, there’s that proposal I was included in which seems to be coming our way. So next week it’s Chicago (and possibly Toronto).
Friday night and it was off to the Roundhouse at Camden with friends to see the Cult who were really, really good.
Saturday evening there was a party in Epsom to go to, so another late night.
A lay-in on Sunday was much-needed before lunch and shopping and then heading back to the Roundhouse in Camden again to see Lacuna Coil who were excellent!
Phew!
Reflective
Work’s been quite hectic of late, as has my social life (which is no bad thing, of course).
Friday and I was off up to Soho and the Jazz After Dark to catch up with a mate, the excellent James Gillespie, who was over in the UK from Fuerteventura to play a few gigs on a whirlwind visit. Really good to catch up with him and his partner Jess plus a few other people I’d met at the Rock Island Bar as well as a few of James’ family members. Lots of drinks as always – ciders, spirits and shots! It was a great night out and even being grabbed in the bits by a friendly transvestite on my way home didn’t faze me!
Saturday and I was up bright and early to go and look at a house in the next block from mine in the same Crescent: a fair sized house for me with an even nicer garage which has the potential to double as a photographic studio due to its size and the high ceiling height for backdrops, lighting rigs, etc. We’ll see.
The it was off to see GT for lunch and an afternoon watching three hours of “Django Unchained” – spaghetti westerns reinvented for the 21st Century. Then it was off for another excellent curry at Cinnamon Spice.
A nice lay-in on Sunday before heading to Covent Garden for more retail therapy at Dr Martens with GT before I made my way home to pack and change to get to Paris by Eurostar and my hideously expensive but comfortable hotel.
A long day Monday in meetings and giving presentations to the MD of one of our larger Clients, made more difficult by a streaming cold {sigh}. Drinks in the Eurostar Business Lounge obviously help you care less.
Finally back home; my cabbie is also riding down to the Pyrenees this summer, apparently…
Working from home today so that I didn’t spread the sniffles; I took the opportunity to cancel a couple of remaining credit cards having cleared all the balances over the past few months. There’s something cathartic about doing this and cutting up the old ones. They were a safety blanket for me at times over the past years but with the potential to bite back, so it was good to cut them up and cut off more past times. More ties with the past severed for good.
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