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ventaThis weekend saw me doing something I actually very rarely do - being vaguely sociable and chatting to people. Friday night was the Apocalyptica gig to which practically everyone in Oxford seemed to be going, and we managed to precede it with noodles and follow it with ice cream. Why is it that I never think to go to G&Ds [Oxford café which is open late, serving ice cream, hot drinks and snacky bits]? Particularly since the new(ish) one down St Aldates really isn't that far away from my house. I like the place, I should go more often.
I'd like to claim that Saturday was active, dynamic and revolutionary, but actually it involved![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
davefish, keris, ChrisC and I turning into complete vegetables in front of the Kerrang! music channel. Which gave us time to chat, and some little moving pictures to stare at when tiredness took over. Keris turns out to be a bewildering mine of pop trivia. I am sadly not down with the cool kids, and had to have it explained to me who half of these popular beat combos are.
Sunday I actually was active and dynamic, if not quite revolutionary, and took on Hampstead Heath withspindlemere.
Hampstead Heath is large and sprawly, and utterly unnavigable (in my opinion). Fortunately, Spindlemere seemed to have brought his sense of direction with him (and his encyclopaediac knowledge of nice pubs), and had a map with which to tame the area. The map had regions rather frighteningly labelled things like "Sphagnum Bog" and "Duelling Ground", both of which we endeavoured to give a wide berth.
We found a hill garden, which, rather diappointingly, turned out to be a garden on a hill and not a small plantation of embryo hillocks and bonsai mountains. We found a bewilderingly large and complicated pergola, which seemed to have complicated paving sections which were just asking to have mytserious occult symbols chalked on them at dead of night (flaming brands optional). We found The Hollybush in Hampstead (not much of a challenge, since even I knew where it was) and The Spaniards Inn some distance over the heath. The Spaniards Inn is very haunted, and has written reports from pyschic investigators to prove it - not to mention some resident pyschics called Shirlee and Howard. I don't like the idea that a name influences a personality, but somehow I just can't bring myself to take a psychic called Shirlee seriously.
Pintwatch raised its nose cautiously above the parapet, and had some Adnam's Broadside, and some Charlie Wells' Bombadier. Both of which are great, and shouldn't need reviewing because they're sufficiently ubiquitous than anyone who cares ought already to know what they're like. Pintwatch also managed to munch its way through the best part of a pound of pistachios without losing its dignity and throwing the shells around, which is something of a first.
The heath starts getting a bit baleful after dark, so we scurried off back to the safety of Spindlemere's kitchen for tea and cake. Oh, and Swiss Cottage has the best escalators in the world.
Anyone who's ever travelled, er, anywhere on the underground will doubtless be familiar with TOX•03. I originally started spotting the TOX•03 tag on various flat surfaces down the bottom end of the Piccadilly line and surrounding areas. After a while, I realised that actually, pretty much all of the underground was affected, and started (for my own amusement) seeing how far afield I could spot the tag. It's a very boring tag, I concede, and daubed around with little regard for aesthetic effect. But, to me, no more offensive than a blank wall would be.
On Sunday, on a wooden door on Hampstead Heath, I actually saw a TOX•01 tag, suggesting that the game's been going on for a lot longer than I knew. Spindlemere mentioned that he thought (and he is indeed correct) that TOX had spent some of last year locked up, thus explaining the lack of •04 tags anywhere. Has anyone seen any ? Has anyone seen an •05 ?
All of this reminds me that I'm due to go on a graffiti round up of East Oxford soon. I paused last night to take photos of a great stencil of Kurt Cobain which someone has put on the white wall near my end of Howard St. Has anyone else spotted any new stencils anywhere ?
I'd like to claim that Saturday was active, dynamic and revolutionary, but actually it involved
davefish, keris, ChrisC and I turning into complete vegetables in front of the Kerrang! music channel. Which gave us time to chat, and some little moving pictures to stare at when tiredness took over. Keris turns out to be a bewildering mine of pop trivia. I am sadly not down with the cool kids, and had to have it explained to me who half of these popular beat combos are.Sunday I actually was active and dynamic, if not quite revolutionary, and took on Hampstead Heath with
spindlemere.Hampstead Heath is large and sprawly, and utterly unnavigable (in my opinion). Fortunately, Spindlemere seemed to have brought his sense of direction with him (and his encyclopaediac knowledge of nice pubs), and had a map with which to tame the area. The map had regions rather frighteningly labelled things like "Sphagnum Bog" and "Duelling Ground", both of which we endeavoured to give a wide berth.
We found a hill garden, which, rather diappointingly, turned out to be a garden on a hill and not a small plantation of embryo hillocks and bonsai mountains. We found a bewilderingly large and complicated pergola, which seemed to have complicated paving sections which were just asking to have mytserious occult symbols chalked on them at dead of night (flaming brands optional). We found The Hollybush in Hampstead (not much of a challenge, since even I knew where it was) and The Spaniards Inn some distance over the heath. The Spaniards Inn is very haunted, and has written reports from pyschic investigators to prove it - not to mention some resident pyschics called Shirlee and Howard. I don't like the idea that a name influences a personality, but somehow I just can't bring myself to take a psychic called Shirlee seriously.
Pintwatch raised its nose cautiously above the parapet, and had some Adnam's Broadside, and some Charlie Wells' Bombadier. Both of which are great, and shouldn't need reviewing because they're sufficiently ubiquitous than anyone who cares ought already to know what they're like. Pintwatch also managed to munch its way through the best part of a pound of pistachios without losing its dignity and throwing the shells around, which is something of a first.
The heath starts getting a bit baleful after dark, so we scurried off back to the safety of Spindlemere's kitchen for tea and cake. Oh, and Swiss Cottage has the best escalators in the world.
Anyone who's ever travelled, er, anywhere on the underground will doubtless be familiar with TOX•03. I originally started spotting the TOX•03 tag on various flat surfaces down the bottom end of the Piccadilly line and surrounding areas. After a while, I realised that actually, pretty much all of the underground was affected, and started (for my own amusement) seeing how far afield I could spot the tag. It's a very boring tag, I concede, and daubed around with little regard for aesthetic effect. But, to me, no more offensive than a blank wall would be.
On Sunday, on a wooden door on Hampstead Heath, I actually saw a TOX•01 tag, suggesting that the game's been going on for a lot longer than I knew. Spindlemere mentioned that he thought (and he is indeed correct) that TOX had spent some of last year locked up, thus explaining the lack of •04 tags anywhere. Has anyone seen any ? Has anyone seen an •05 ?
All of this reminds me that I'm due to go on a graffiti round up of East Oxford soon. I paused last night to take photos of a great stencil of Kurt Cobain which someone has put on the white wall near my end of Howard St. Has anyone else spotted any new stencils anywhere ?
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no subject
Maybe you need an icecream badger to say "Eat Ice Cream !" ?
no subject
Date: 2005-02-01 10:15 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-01 10:24 am (UTC)I wonder if the Cobain stencil is the same one that appears by the park in Newbury...
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Date: 2005-02-01 10:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-01 10:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-01 11:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-01 01:12 pm (UTC)There used to be a really nice cafe in the coach house of Kenwood House. Good coffee and cheesecake :)If you like architecture the house is worth a look.
I don't recall seeing any TOX tags when I lived there ... But may be they've not been around that long ;)
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Date: 2005-02-01 04:12 pm (UTC)I found myself in the Little Trendy Street branch of G&D's last weekend with
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Date: 2005-02-01 06:57 pm (UTC)Eh ? Sure I moved to Oxford. About ten and a half years ago.
Where on earth did you think I lived (or are you mistaking me for someone else?) Or making some elaborate joke I haven't got yet ?
I guess the atmosphere on LTS is better, but I just associate that branch of G&Ds with never being able to get a seat and there never being quite enough space for the people who want to be in there.
WTF?
Date: 2005-02-02 12:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-02 12:18 am (UTC)Re: WTF?
Date: 2005-02-02 10:05 am (UTC)What's your excuse for knowing him ?
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Date: 2005-02-02 12:40 pm (UTC)Ooo, I'll have to take a look, but they'll have to be something special to beat those I found on the rocky hillside of Enoshima island in the south of Japan.
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Date: 2005-02-02 12:45 pm (UTC)How about "Swiss Cottage has, according to my limited experience and narrow-minded taste, the best escalators on the London underground"?
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Date: 2005-02-02 08:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-03 08:49 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-03 09:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-02-03 12:14 pm (UTC)