Spring is Back! Strand-on-the-Green

This post is going to be about Spring ... and how it came back this weekend.

< -- If you are a middle-aged wo/man with big glasses who wears an oversized tweed jacket, then please skip this part and go back to reading Noam Chomsky's The Responsibility of Intellectuals -->

Friday night, I was meeting Syn after a rrrreeally long time and we had a minor argument / discussion over whose fault it was that we had not met for so long. Bad weather, work (mine), exams (hers) were all blamed. We were supposed to have a totally girly night, watching He's just not that into you but Syn was late (blaming a friend whose girlfriend had just broken up with him and he phoned and talked and talked and talked - therefore it was HER fault - the ex's, not Syn's) ... are you still with me? Anyway, the ticket queues in Leicester Square were sooo long that we decided to go for dinner, to ehm ... Chinatown again. And the good news is that I have a new favourite Chinese place to eat, actually Taiwanese. It's called Leong's Legend Continues ... and it's on Lisle Street and I can't find a website for it. The decor is really nice, sort of like "slaughter-house meets country Bungalow in China" and they have some real authentic food on the menu like Noodles with Pig's Trotter but I suppose you could always just go for a Spring roll (told you this post was about Spring, no?).

After our delicious meal, which was definitely bigger than it should be, given my expanding waistline, we went for a drink at Oxygen, where I blagged free entry and a "First class" stamp on my wrist - very proud of these new skills. This place, again, had some interesting decor (nice lights), but I can't help myself, all nightclubs / bars in London just seem dirty to me. So either I need to stop wearing my contact lenses or drink more shots. Syn definitely thought that drinking more shots was the way forward for me, since I told her that alcohol always makes me sleepy and maybe I'm not drinking the right stuff. We spent the rest of the evening dream-talking about travelling and becoming a Bohemian.

Although I love London, I am toying with the idea of moving to Prague, renting an apartment, walking down to the local antikvariát every day (second-hand book shop, really, but antikvariát sounds so much more romantic as a word) ... and buying 10 million dusty books and just reading them for the rest of my life and drinking so much coffee that I never have to sleep. Syn seemed to totally get me, which is why I like her! We also spend a bit of time bitching about non-single people and watching some woman have a fight with some man. I admired that woman's ability to vent her emotions in public, really. I can never do that. To give you some useful information about Oxygen - it's a bar conveniently near Leicester Square, spread across three floors,with a quieter (but packed) section upstairs and a noisier section downstairs ... they serve, like all bars, booze!

<-- The Intellectuals can read from here on again, since the rest of this post does not contain any information that could interfere with my sensible girl image. -->

Saturday was such a glorious Spring day that I could not possibly be stuck inside the house, so I walked down to Strand-on-the-Green, sat on a bench and read a book. (I am still trying to read my way through Gregory David Roberts' Shantaram - 936 pages - intense!) I am not going to go on and on and on about how pretty it is down there by the Thames, so I will just upload these pictures, which speak for themselves!
And sitting here on a bench underneath these trees, I realized that I don't need to move to the country because I can have it all here in London.


The next lucky person who will come to visit me in London is definitely being taken for a drink at one of the pubs here.

And this picture just makes me giggle and reminds me of the ducks that used to walk around our flat when we were students, up in Birmingham. We lived near a canal and used to look at those ducks from our kitchen window, thinking ... DINNER ... If only we could be bothered to kill it and plug the feathers. (OK, we were poor and lazy to cook back then, surviving mostly on noodles.) And just in case you wonder, yes I know the difference between a swan and a duck. But a dead bird on a plate is a dead bird on a plate.

This house here at Strand-on-the-Green is up for sale and it's telling me that I need to start purchasing lottery tickets promptly!

Just before sunset, during what is known to photographers as the golden hour, I took a stroll around Chiswick and went to take some photos of this Russian orthodox church, which always makes me want to ask - What are you doing here in this neighbourhood?!

Enjoy Spring, daaahlings! Go outside! Now!

Zee Carnival, aka Bollywood Comes to London

At the weekend, I went to check out the Zee Carnival in Kensington Olympia - it was a trade show / cultural event organized by the Indian satellite TV network, Zee. The biggest attraction was Shahrukh Khan, who is like God in Bollywood and has starred in all the big movies, alongside co-stars like Aishwariya Rai, Amitabh Bachchan, Abhishek Bachchan, Karina Kapoor and so on. In the last couple of years, his big hits included Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi, Om Shanti Om, Chak De! India and Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna.

I simply love the title song from Chak De! India - the radios in Delhi used to play it all the time when I lived there, so there wasn't a day when we would drive to work without hearing it! So I shall feel the need to bother you with it here... it's a movie about an Indian girls' hockey team and no, I have not seen it.



So you can see how seeing Shahrukh was a major event for me! He turned up, said Thank you Thank you Thank you many times and gave many autographs, although the crowd waiting for him was massive, so I did not get one. But he looked extremely sexy. The only problem being that he is married and kind of old too. This sparked a little debate with my friends -after all, George Clooney is old too and who cares about that! Women all ages, all over the world, drool over Clooney's pictures. So age doesn't matter. For men. Because I am struggling to come up with the female equivalent of Clooney. Is there a older woman (say 40-60) who enjoys the same sex-appeal status as Clooney? Don't think so! Even with all the cosmetic surgery that we have available these days. (Or perhaps because of it?)

Anyways, here are some pictures of the man.

Apart from Shahrukh, there was a fashion show organized by the Asian Woman Magazine, with some nice formal Indian fashion, dancing and also Bollywood lookalikes. The "Amitabh Bachchan" appearance was priceless! Some of the male models were pretty hot too (and the girls as well but I care about that considerably less). The fashion show was a slight consolation for the fact that the upcoming London Fashion Week is out-of-bounds to mere mortals. I love fashion! So at least I am trying to follow all the happenings online. Like this TimeOut article about Daphne Guiness.
Here is the Amitabh Bachchan lookalike. In case you don't know who Amitabh Bachchan is, he is the guy whose autograph the Slumdog Millionaire kid (Jamal) gets, after jumping into a pile of shit! (Priceless scene, too.)Hot, no?
Such a simple chiffon saree, yet so elegant!

I love the colours of this saree btw. So funky and modern.

The only annoying thing about the Zee Carnival was the number of stalls that were simply advertising mobile networks or travel agency services and various completely non-relevant things like Join the Police, Join the Army and so on. I did not pay 10 quid entrance fee to be harassed by marketing people ... I was also slightly annoyed that the Indian cooking demonstration was mostly in Hindi and Punjabi, as my knowledge of both is rather limited. (Good thing I at least know all the ingredients in Hindi, like aloo and mirch and chawal and jeera and elayichi and saag and dahi and so on!) OK, so the audience was mostly Indian but we are in England for chrissake. There were also some music performances, reportedly Rishi Rich, Juggy D and other famous Indian acts but I did not have the chance to hang around for those ... which could have been fun! All in all, not such a bad way to spend a day but if you want a slide of some Indian action, the London Mela in the summer is a better option (and it's free).

Bring the dancing street cleaner back!

The departure of a popular dancing street cleaner is causing upset in Chiswick. Ziggy Dust, a Polish street cleaner and a local DJ, has had to leave the country after being beaten up by a bunch of racists.

Here are some of his frolics on YouTube...

Bring him back! What a shame ... What a shame, London. I thought better of you.

Love on the street

Valentine's Day is coming up and all the shops in London seem keen to remind me. (Me, single me! But I suspect anyone with an income is good enough for them.) There are signs of luv luv luv everywhere you look.

There are these beautiful beds in the shop window ...

It makes me want to come in through the glass and snuggle up in one of these beds ... and destroy the mattress ... and have a good time doing it ... jumping up and down like you do on a trampoline ... with the two men I love ... spooning them both... Ben and Jerry. (This may be an old joke ... but maybe I could at least try a new flavour?)

And the hairdresser has a big heart ...
And even the cute dress shop declares its LOVE.

Now, in case I have any secret admirers who secretly read this blog and secretly love me - what I really really want for Valentine's Day is this t-shirt from cafepress. It's not romantic enough, I hear you say? SO WHAT!
And here is my present for you, a cute song.

Chinese New Year in London

Nobody reads my blog. I swear! Despite all the search engine optimization tricks I tried. (Not that many, really.) So today, instead of bothering to write stuff, I will just upload these pictures I took at the weekend during the Chinese New Year celebrations here in London. I had to stand on the edge of a fountain in Trafalgar Square to take them, risking to fall into the freeezing water - so you'd better commend my efforts by writing something nice in the comments section. Thank you very much.