Entertainments

[juliet]

kitty_goth & I were delayed by an accident on the M40 meaning that the Ox Tube was slower than usual; so by the time we'd arrived, had dinner, & had a couple of pints with my friend Richard in the Gloucester Arms, we didn't actually reach the Randolph till around 2200. This was, in fact, about right timing, though - got in a couple of hours of wandering round in Posh Frock & mask (cheers angelmine for mask-loan!), danced for a bit (and then remembered that Posh Frock, whilst v nice, is not all that when it comes to, ahem, retaining one's modesty when dancing energetically, i.e. e.g. viz. Escaping Breasts. Oops), and then sodded off home when they finished the music at midnight. Posh Frock can now go back into retirement for another 4 yrs or whatever, I suppose.

marnameow & I went round to visit dr_meg & angelmine & chat about assorted & various things; then later on we decamped to St R for a bit. I stayed for nice curry before heading back home to spend the evening watching Princess Mononoke with Pete. Which is v good indeed & I thoroughly recommend.

Sunday featured me learning to snowboard, hurrah! Well, OK, starting to learn to snowboard. Ben, Simon W & I went up to Milton Keynes, where they have XScape which has pretend real snow inside. Most bizarre. I spent 3 hours learning to go down a hill backwards, and then forwards, and also from side to side. And fell over a lot. My arse still hurts (I would note at this point that all possible jokes on this matter have already been made by Pete & Ben. Often repeatedly). It was, however, Much Fun, and has confirmed me that I will be boarding rather than skiing in Saas Fee in Feb. Much less likelihood of buggering further my already buggered knees. Further 3-hr session in a couple of weeks, which should get me up to able-to-get-down-slope-alone stage before Switzerland. Whoosh!

I had a DAY OFF on Monday, hurrah. So I stayed in bed, & then watched silly film & knitted. Have finished my lovely furry jumper, and lo! it is lovely and furry. Then off to see PWEI, who kicked enormous amounts of arse. Hurrah for the Poppies. I do not like the Shepherds Bush Empire much, though. They need to either move the bar all the way to the back, or reduce their capacity by 10%; and carpet the floor. I spent the latter half of the gig expending far too much energy trying not to fall over, growl. Still a bloody fine gig, though :-) [bounce bounce]

Yesterday a nice chap came round to put concrete all over the floor; today he is putting Marmoleum (lino stuff) on top of that. This is v exciting, no, honest. As a result the kitchen smelt funny so P took me out for dinner. Splendid. The Italian round the corner is really quite nice.

Many of the above activities involved Trains. Trains are ace. I point you at this post here of dogrando's where he recommends mailing your MP about the Railways Bill, under discussion tomorrow.

Comments

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

Well, probably. You know me, I'd just do it, but in fairness they're not too bad for inter-urban services, it's local services they cut corners on because they're not profitable in most places.

[fluffymormegil.livejournal.com]

I use the X2 and the X5. They went through a period of repeatedly making the service worse for me over that combination of services.

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

Oh well, my Councillors manage to get to meetings on them. Well, more the X4 I suppose. The X6 is similarly hopeless, partly because the money which could be spent on decent bus connections for those kind of journeys is being spent making it cheaper for commuters to dart around the country on trains.

Step one, abolish national rail enquiries and route everyone to the integrated journey planner, so that for instance my friends in Oxford realise it is an hour and a bit and six quid return to come and visit me, not over two hours and thirty quid return.

[fluffymormegil.livejournal.com]

Step one, parallel process: persuade Stagecoach to improve late-night service so that cross-Midlands daytripping by bus is feasible.
Idle thought: Has the state of the art in concrete roadways improved to the point where they're not desperately noisy?

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

The former will happen once we build enough houses to make the numbers stack up, which should happen within the next decade. The latter - erm, I don' think roads are noisier than railways, no. Also you can plant trees at the side of roads in a way that the railways people try to stop you doing with railways. I mean, buses aren't often cancelled because of leaves on the tarmac, are they?

[fluffymormegil.livejournal.com]

I was speaking of concrete relative to tarmac, rather than relative to rail.

[beingjdc.livejournal.com]

I used concrete metaphorically, you can use whatever hard surface you actually want as far as I'm concerned.

[fluffymormegil.livejournal.com]

Umpteen occasional trips from Worthing to Salisbury convinced me that although concrete roadways are much sturdier than tarmac, they're also much noisier, which makes me picky about the difference.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

Not really, as far as I'm aware. To make it quiet you really have to make it squishy, and then it's just tarmac and you may as well have stayed in bed.