Wet weekend
Oct. 31st, 2005 09:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
altarielThis weekend we went to Glasgow to see Robert Plant at Barrowland on Saturday night. It was fucking brilliant. Even the support act was fantastic. I am still slightly dehydrated, unlike the rest of my immediate surroundings.
We stayed at the City Inn, where I'd stayed for WorldCon. In addition to its charms, the City Inn supplies free porn. It's a bit like in that episode of Friends: "Cookies and porn! You're the best mom ever!" The City Inn also supplies mini chocolate digestives. Our taxi driver on the way to the hotel told us that Hallowe'en is a particularly popular celebration in Glasgow. I don't know if this is true or not, but I do know I've never seen a queue stretching out well onto the street outside a joke shop before.
Glasgow was wet, but not as wet as our house is right now. An hour and a half before I was due to leave to meet Mr A. at the station, the pipe leading to the hot tap in the bathroom sink began to flood onto the bathroom floor. A short but intense farce followed, which will only reach its final act this afternoon when the plumber puts in his appearance. (Water supply was stopped over the weekend, but there's still been yet another flood through the bathroom floor into the kitchen.)
Our train on the way up was an hour late, thanks to a broken-down Virgin train in front of us. The driver of our (GNER) train made sure we were reminded it was a Virgin train, every time he gave us updates. The train back on Sunday was incredibly full; I think some people must have ended up standing the whole time between Edinburgh and London. We only got seats by pushing over old ladies (not true).
I polished off the end of Kafka's The Trial, Selected Poems of Carol Ann Duffy, The Finishing School by Muriel Spark, and the end of Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet (due back at the library on Friday, oops). Also a first novel by Spencer Jordan, Journeys in a Dead Season, which intercuts between two narratives, one of a shell-shocked captain doing a walking tour around bits of Leicestershire in 1922, and a prisoner on remand in the present day, waiting his trial for a series of attacks on young girls. The historical sections were much, much better, and I wish he'd just written that book.
We stayed at the City Inn, where I'd stayed for WorldCon. In addition to its charms, the City Inn supplies free porn. It's a bit like in that episode of Friends: "Cookies and porn! You're the best mom ever!" The City Inn also supplies mini chocolate digestives. Our taxi driver on the way to the hotel told us that Hallowe'en is a particularly popular celebration in Glasgow. I don't know if this is true or not, but I do know I've never seen a queue stretching out well onto the street outside a joke shop before.
Glasgow was wet, but not as wet as our house is right now. An hour and a half before I was due to leave to meet Mr A. at the station, the pipe leading to the hot tap in the bathroom sink began to flood onto the bathroom floor. A short but intense farce followed, which will only reach its final act this afternoon when the plumber puts in his appearance. (Water supply was stopped over the weekend, but there's still been yet another flood through the bathroom floor into the kitchen.)
Our train on the way up was an hour late, thanks to a broken-down Virgin train in front of us. The driver of our (GNER) train made sure we were reminded it was a Virgin train, every time he gave us updates. The train back on Sunday was incredibly full; I think some people must have ended up standing the whole time between Edinburgh and London. We only got seats by pushing over old ladies (not true).
I polished off the end of Kafka's The Trial, Selected Poems of Carol Ann Duffy, The Finishing School by Muriel Spark, and the end of Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet (due back at the library on Friday, oops). Also a first novel by Spencer Jordan, Journeys in a Dead Season, which intercuts between two narratives, one of a shell-shocked captain doing a walking tour around bits of Leicestershire in 1922, and a prisoner on remand in the present day, waiting his trial for a series of attacks on young girls. The historical sections were much, much better, and I wish he'd just written that book.
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no subject
Date: 2005-10-31 10:11 am (UTC)thanks to a broken-down Virgin train in front of us
I'm having a fit of giggles at the idea of a train full of broken-down virgins. Ahem. Stop it.
As for the house, aaarghh! You don't have much luck with the plumbing there, do you? It's not *that* long since you got the kitchen ceiling fixed after the previous fun and games. I hope it hasn't done too much damage. Do you have any water at all at the moment, then? Fingers crossed that the plumber turns up and sorts it out!
That was a good lot of reading. You've put me in mind of various Duffy favourites, now...
no subject
Date: 2005-10-31 11:25 am (UTC)We have no luck in this house with anything, I think, but floods have been more frequent than fire, thank god. We do have water, I'm just not putting the washing machine on yet...
Two seven hour plus train journeys do let you get through a lot of books!
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Date: 2005-10-31 01:26 pm (UTC)Sorry about the water and hope it didn't put too much of a dampener on proceedings.
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Date: 2005-10-31 01:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-31 02:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-31 02:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-31 04:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-31 03:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-31 04:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-31 12:01 pm (UTC)Selected Poems of Carol Ann Duffy
I've got that on the go at the moment too
no subject
Date: 2005-10-31 01:56 pm (UTC)Too Much of Water
Date: 2005-10-31 02:01 pm (UTC)About your inundations: Oh, as usual, dear. I guess I'm sort of Othello about houses--we call these creatures ours, but not their desires.
Re: Too Much of Water
Date: 2005-10-31 02:22 pm (UTC)Re: Too Much of Water
Date: 2005-10-31 10:04 pm (UTC)Regards
Joanne
Re: Too Much of Water
Date: 2005-10-31 10:27 pm (UTC)It's very good to hear from you :-)
Re: Too Much of Water
Date: 2005-11-01 06:26 am (UTC)I'd wave a virtual wand to get that fixed for you too, but it seems to be sending out the odd luridly-coloured spark and that's all. I think I short-circuited it when hoping for a Melbourne Cup winner in the office sweepstake :(
And I'm very glad you enjoyed the concert in Glasgow, seeing as I didn't mention it before. You had to get something out those days that was worthwhile, or so I reckon.
Regards
Joanne
Re: Too Much of Water
Date: 2005-11-01 11:06 am (UTC)And we had a great time in Glasgow, and I decided it wasn't worth worrying about whether or not the house would flood.
Re: Too Much of Water
Date: 2005-11-02 07:16 am (UTC)I'm glad to hear that. Water is so, well, wet!
Some messing about with my bathroom (is long story involving a change of property manager) is meant to be happening soon, so I'll be crossing my fingers that I won't be rejoining the ranks of the inundated :(
Oh, and as you can see, I've taken the plunge and become an lj user. You can tell me I'm mad later, probably when you've recovered from being added to my, as yet, very small flist...
Regards
Jo
Re: Too Much of Water
Date: 2005-11-02 10:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-31 04:14 pm (UTC)Thanks, it was a lot of fun! :-)
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Date: 2005-10-31 04:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-31 04:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-10-31 06:27 pm (UTC)Sorry about the inundation, but glad to hear that the concert was brilliant.
[reposted to fix unfortunate typo]
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Date: 2005-10-31 07:18 pm (UTC)The concert was worth a flood :-)
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Date: 2005-10-31 06:38 pm (UTC)Your list of books read makes me feel very inadequate. :)
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Date: 2005-10-31 07:20 pm (UTC)Your list of books read makes me feel very inadequate. :)
:-( It shouldn't - I read very badly, often hardly more than skimming. I wonder how much I really take in.
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Date: 2005-10-31 10:42 pm (UTC)Education for Leisure and Before You Were Mine are really rather splendid, but I haven't been particularly enamoured by some of her other stuff.
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Date: 2005-11-01 11:05 am (UTC)