Aaron Around The World - Massive Attack!

Waitangi Day for those who don't know commemorates a significant day in the history of New Zealand. On February 6th, 1840, the Treaty of Waitangi was signed between the native Maori people and the white scum that had arrived from Europe some time earlier, and made New Zealand a part of the British Empire. Every ex-pat Kiwi celebrates Waitangi Day no matter where they are in the world, and this year a group of us took part in what's known as the Circle Line Pub Crawl hehe. The Circle line Tube covers 27 stops in a loop through central London, half of which are part of the Waitangi day celebrations. The idea is to hit the closest pub to a Tube station, smash one back, get back on the Tube, head to the next station, and so on and so on until you've run out of stations, or run out of consciousness ;) Kick-off is 10am at Paddington Station which is bloody handy for me since it's only a 20-minute walk away from my flat! Not everyone is up for hitting the piss at this hour though, so the numbers were fairly thin to begin with. Check out the New Zealand goodies on the right: Twisties, Bluebird chips, K Bars, Mellowpuffs, etc etc. - ahhh fuck I miss 'em!


Massive Attack are a British music production duo (formally trio) who formed way back in 1988. Their genre is trip hop and electronica, and they often work alongside co-producers and guest vocalists. Awesome :)


Music aside it was a pretty bloody good visual display as well. Over the course of the two-hour set a myriad of things flashed across the back of the stage, mostly highlighting and mocking current events.


For example, there has been a lot of hoohar here over the last several months about MP's claiming expenses for absolutely ridiculous shit such as beach towels and bird houses. In one case, some arsehole was claiming for repayments on a mortgage that didn't exist, and in another some arsehole was claiming for rent on a house he actually owned!

		Awesome!


So yeah it was a brilliant show, and these guys (along with Martina Topless-Bird above) are touring Australia and New Zealand during March if anyone is interested :)


Another week of work in Gloucester beckons, and on the way down to collect the hire car I found this - a massive impromptu street party and cars doing laps with flags waving and horns blaring. In this country that means only one thing: someone won a game of soccer. And sure enough, Egypt won the African Cup of Nations today 1-0 against Ghana, so every Egyptian and his flag flocked to Edgware Road (nicknamed Little Cairo, among other things). I guess there's not a lot else to do on a Sunday night hehe.


This has been my last full week working in Gloucester for the time being so it'll be back to cooking my own meals hehe. This week my workmate and I had massive Italian pizzas in what used to be a massive church back in the day but is now a restaurant, and some good pub grub with the locals!


This random little pub is in the tiny little village of Cranham, buried in the hills above Gloucester. Aside from the light outside the pub, there wasn't a single streetlight anywhere hehe. Everyone in these places are locals, and aside from the fact I was taking photos they immediately spotted the foreigners hahaha!


Good pub grub aside the best thing about these little villages are the little roads (very little). Screaming along these things at upwards of 100km/h, well, it's fun ;) Too bad it's winter though as this is a really nice area (the Cotswolds) but it's a bit hard to appreciate it in the dark.


Tonight we found another little pub (complete with animals) in another little village called Brockhampton (also no street lighting), and it has the smallest Wikipedia article I've ever seen hehe. This joint does a pub quiz once a month and tonight just happened to be that night, so we joined in and we were shit hahaha, although there was a New Zealand-related question in there :) And yet again, narrow + hilly + winding roads = fun times!


Everyone turns up in their Kiwi best: sheep...		Pukeko...		The 4 Square grocer...


Ngawha Prison hahaha! There were a lot of folk wearing stubbies and jandals in the 4-degree weather too.		Something to quench eight people's alcoholic thirst at once...		And this hehe!


Thousands of Kiwis do this every year, so of course there's a lot of spillage out onto the streets, much to the bemusement of passersby.				Well that doesn't help - the whole line was bloody closed.


With the Tube not running, there were large parades of us Kiwis walking between stations and pubs.		Does that look like anything to anyone? ;)


By lunchtime the crowd was huge, and well liquored up ;) There were plenty of cops around to keep an eye on things, but to my knowledge there were no incidents at all. We're Kiwis you see, we don't go around looking to pick fights over stupid shit such as football like a pack of fuckwits (cough England cough).


At 4pm in Parliament Square (most commonly seen covered in protesters) there is a Haka performed by whoever wants to get involved. So the thousands all swarm there and then disperse to the final couple of pubs. Katie and I got back home about 7 I think, tired from the early start, and pretty well trollied (well I was). A decent dinner, and a few gallons of water and fruit juice later, I woke this morning needing the biggest piss of my life but felt fine :)


Another gig tonight (been going to a lot lately!). This isn't who Katie and I were here to see - this was just the opening act: Martina Topley-Bird and her ninja friend who despite looking like something straight out of Mortal Kombat is frickin' awesome on the drums!


Hooray for Saturdays! Hooray for Katie having a work car! Hooray for getting out of London! Hooray for hot sunny weather, umm yeah! This is the little village of Goring, some 80kms northwest of London. Not much to it really, but it sits right on the River Thames about the third of the way along its length.


Two weeks ago today I set out to ride along the Thames Path in west London to see how far out it goes. Well it turns out I'd have been gone for a bloody long time, as I've since learned the path stretches right along the river's 350km length hehe.				Ignorance is bliss.


Anyway this was who we were here to see - Massive Attack, who've just released a fifth album advertised here at the Tube station.		There was about a bloody 40-minute wait between Martina departing stage-right and Massive Attack deciding it was time to start, but nevertheless it was definitely worth the wait!


Anyway the point of the trip was for Katie to go for a run, and me to go for a burn along the river.


So while Katie Gump was running, I was ripping up the muddy paths and getting caked in crap.				We passed by a lot open fields (none of which had crop circles - this area is known for having a few)...


Churches that looked like they were a few hundred thousand years old...		And some bewildered wildlife.


Apparently I wasn't the only one having fun in the mud.				There's a tyre under there somewhere.


From nice smooth asphalt, to thick mud, to bogs - the Thames Path has a little something for everyone ;)				I'd really like to know how some people earn their money!


I took some photos...		And eventually the sun came out and we got one of those gorgeous golden sunsets after getting snowed on when leaving London.


About 15kms from where we started we found more civilisation, and I left Katie in a pub while I burned it back to Goring on-road (and up some friggin' big hills) to fetch the car.


I love having a bathtub ;) I had to shovel a good five handfuls of mud, grease, and plant life out of the plughole before the water would drain away hahaha!