October 23rd - 29th 2006
Sunday Canary Wharf
Saturday Jumbo-sized
Friday Amsterdam
Thursday Traffic
Wednesday Isle of Dogs
Tuesday Butt-boat
Monday Amsterdam
Sunday 29th October
Canary Wharf, Summer 2006
Saturday 28th October
Elephants to be put on contraceptives
I don't remember where I read it now, but I can't help feeling the thoughts that ran through my brain when I saw that headline say rather more about my mind than is safe to mention.
Skating straight past the obvious interpretation without even considering it, my immediate reaction was to imagine some kind of branding exercise: they put doves on pills, so why not elephants on contraceptives? (Dim visions of some African anti-HIV campaign in there, too, I admit.)
On slightly more mature reflection, several nano-seconds later, I found myself thinking: well, better that than vice-versa; not a good way to start the average elephant-keeper's shift.."Today, Simpkins, you will be putting these on those...
And after that, several minutes later and for several weeks since, I find myself caught in a mental loop trying to work out how the opposite of what was meant actually means what it was meant to mean in the first place: contraceptives on elephants on contraceptives on elephants...
It's just me, isn't it? (Too many drugs too early in your life aren't necessarily a bad thing. But they are definitely a Thing.)
Friday 27th October
Amsterdam, Autumn 1996
Thursday 26th October
In our old, increasingly-lamented, offices we had a smoking room.
(Within my memory, indeed, once the rest of the paper had gone home for the night we used to light up at our desks - until the anti-smoking Nazis put a stop to it; God knows what they'd have made of the habit I heard about, long before my time, of skinning up in situ.)
The smoking room worked very well for me: it provided an invaluable source of soft data - aka gossip - and, later in the evening, provided an invaluable haven to which I could retire with a pen and some paper to ponder executive decisions that I really didn't want to have to make surrounded by a baying horde of underlings demanding assistance, guidance and support.
None of that nonsense in the new office, of course. It's a non-smoking building. ('Building', furthermore, defined - with complete absence of logic - as specifically including our capacious front-steps.)
A cigarette break, for me, used to be a useful alternative way to employ myself productively for ten minutes or so. Now, on the other hand, it requires me to absent myself from anything remotely work-connected for a considerably longer period of time.
Much longer. There's a thirty-yard walk across the office, the climb up two flights of stairs, the trip down in the lift to a position just a few yards away from the foot of the stairs but on the other side of an inoperative security door, a further 30 yards to the top of the escalator, and then a full 40 seconds descending two storeys to ground level.
(And you may not think 40 seconds very long - until you've spent them on an slow escalator with nothing but blank walls to look at.)
Once down the escalator, it's a further 20 yards out onto the street. And not just any old street.
Sticking staunchly to my vow not to reveal too much about my employer, I can't tell you which street. Just imagine a seething Venn diagram of Mad, Foreign and Ugly, where the ones who aren't trying to flag you down with free newspapers are trying to bum a 'spare' cigarette or some small change, interspersed with wild-eyed visitors from abroad who bear down on you with their wheeled suitcases, only to screech to a halt demanding, incomprehensibly, directions to the precise spot on which they are standing.
In the rain.
Wednesday 25th October
Isle of Dogs, Summer 2006
Tuesday 24th October
Butt magazine's decision to get into bed with Horse Meat Disco in order to celebrate their recent anniversary seems to have paid off, resulting in a trip down the Thames that, judging by the press coverage, looks set to be listed as Gay Party of the Year: bountiful beats and beautiful people on a thankfully buoyant boat (Marchioness, anybody?).
I thought it was good, rather than great, if I'm honest - given the twin hosts I guess I was expecting something truly spectacular, compared to which 'perfectly pleasant' seems a little lame.
All the usual suspects were there: MLF (My Little Fancy), MBBW (Most Beautiful Boy in the World) and MNH (my Next Husband), plus a generous splattering of George&Dragon types; attractive men, most of them, plus a fistful of proto-rent-boys (who probably have MAs in astro-physics if one did but know it).
I guess part of my minor disillusionment was that it would have been nice to cop off, and I didn't, sob.
It's a long time since I've been on a boat-trip (the last one I went on etched in my mind the salutary lesson that the thing about boats is you can't leave if you're bored) but this was, at least, never boring - except, perhaps, for my companions, when I insisted on giving a house-by-house commentary as we steamed past Wapping and Limehouse.
I took my camera, of course, and had high hopes that we'd at least get to the Thames Barrier - as indeed we did, and considerably beyond - but the dark of the night and the tremor of the boat meant that pretty much everything was out-of-focus, and not in a nice way. (You've seen most of the two or three shots that were even halfway good, though there's still one up my sleeve for later.)
I spent a lot of time on deck, watching the riverside flow by. Always intriguing to try to match the view from the river with places that you only know from the front (too intriguing for at least one party-goer who attempted to make conversation as we passed Silvertown by asking "Is that Chelsea Harbour?"; I fought the urge to reply 'You're not from round here, I take it.")
Much excitement as we sailed by Greenwich and everybody crowded to the rails to see the Meridian line streaking through the sky ("What on earth is that?" "It's a laser." "Oh. Coooool.")
I even managed to be interviewed by some (presumed renegade, cable) tv people who, to their credit, persisted in interrogating me about Butt magazine even after became clear that, to my shame, I've only ever seen one issue.
I wonder if I'll ever see that interview? On balance, I rather hope not...
Monday 23rd October
Amsterdam, Spring 1994
......previous week
