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Saturday, 22 May 2010 - London Sevens - in a toga!

So after boozing it up until quite late last night, I was woken at about 6:30am this morning by a screech of brakes followed by the familiar crunch of carnage, and then a bit of yelling and so forth - fantastic! This happened at the intersection some 100 metres down the road, but I guess even when asleep my ears are attuned to this sort of thing hahaha! These two were coming in opposite directions; the Land Rover going straight through the intersection and the Audi about to turn right thereby crossing the Rover's path. However, for whatever reason, the Audi didn't give way and got rammed. The dude in the funky red shirt there was the driver of the Rover and was really ranting and raving. The Audi driver (dude in the cap) was foreign and I later learned not even insured to be on the road (a major no-no in this country). The red shirt was telling me "This has fucked my whole week, I only work one day a week and now it's fucked!" "Oh right, what work do you do mate?" "I sell antique goods at Portobello Market" - hmm, must be a lot of money to be made in that if he only needs to work one day a week.

After I'd had enough of that there wasn't a lot of point going back to bed as I had to be up early anyway. The London leg of the IRB Rugby Sevens World Series is this weekend at Twickenham, spread across both Saturday and Sunday. Chris came up with the idea of going dressed in togas hahaha, so out came the bed sheets, some foliage off the tree out back, and we were set! First stop, the supermarket to grab some piss water that the British refer to as beer.				Another accident this time outside the supermarket hehe. Just a minor nose to tail with more ranting and raving; I seem to attract these things.

On the bus en route to the train station.				Duncan has always been self-conscious of his nipples.

McDonalds to line the stomach (Alex has always been proud of his nipples), then it was off to Twickenham!

11am and the crowds were starting to build. As you can see, we were hardly the only ones in costume by this point so people had stopped looking at us funny like they were back in town (not helped by the constant "Hail Caesar" to everyone who walked by).

Twickenham Stadium - the largest rugby union stadium in the UK, the fourth largest stadium in Europe, and able to seat 82,000 screaming drunk morons.		Just like ancient Roman times I bet.		We played a bit of musical chairs throughout the day but started in a great spot at the southern end of the ground.

Look at the weather! 25 degrees, not a cloud in the sky all day, no breeze - bloody perfect! By the way, for those who don't know how rugby sevens works, check this out. Incidentally, sevens has been played at the last three Commonwealth Games with New Zealand taking the gold medal on all three occasions. In terms of this competition, the London Sevens is one of eight legs in the annual IRB Sevens World Series which started in Dubai last December and finishes up in Edinburgh next weekend. This is the 11th year the World Series has been played with New Zealand winning eight of the last ten hehe.
The Welsh were warming up in front of us and giving a salute to the English.		Not long thereafter they took to the field to face us, and were demolished 43-5.

Just some of the myriad of costumes around: Austin Powers...		Spidy with Catwoman in the background there...		Buzz Lightyear to the rescue (Woody was around too)...

The Incredibles...		More togas...		And Death.

Oh and cheerleaders, but they were real hehe.

Oh yes, the ladies do like a man in a toga ;)		New Zealand vs. Portugal later in the afternoon - another drumming.
It's now Sunday night as I write this, and to everyone's surprise the bloody Australians won this leg (their first since 2002) beating South Africa in the final, and New Zealand came in third overall. On to Edinburgh.
I came home afterwards to find the cavalry out front again at an address across the street that they all piled into just last week.		Ambos pulled some bird outside with ripped trousers and covered in blood, but at least she managed to light a cigarette. Sounds like there's a bit of ongoing domestic violence over there. Never a dull moment.

Tuesday, 25 May 2010 - Flight of the Conchords!

Anyone who doesn't know of Flight of the Conchords has been living under a rock, so I won't bother with introductions. They're touring Europe at the moment and a group of us went to see them in London's Wembley Arena tonight.

Only a few people turned up as you can see, and check our seats out - fourth row from the front, sweet as!

These two are friggin' talented with the myriad of instruments they can play. Among other things we had the recorder...		The pint-sized piano...		And the whatever this is - a very funky-sounding electric thing :)

They were also joined by the "Christchurch Symphony Orchestra" which has suffered from extreme budget cuts hahaha!		Even Dave from the show made a brief appearance!		David Bowie track - spot the costumes hehe.

After a brilliant show they did a bit of a one-on-one with the crowd at the end, and Bret went for a surf. Then it was off to join the crowds all piling back to the Tube station.

Friday, 28 May 2010 - Drive through

On the way to work on the bike this morning I turned a corner to find three fire engines stuck in traffic with lights and sirens blaring - brilliant! So I caught up and chased them for a few minutes as they weaved through the traffic at around 50km/h to this hahaha! No idea how this happened, but the cafe was closed and I don't think anyone was hit or injured.
Yup, she's really in there.		The owners of the cafe (who I suspect live above it) were wandering round in their pyjamas hehe. Probably looking forward to the insurance payout.

Friday, 28 May 2010 - Birthday trip - woop woop!
Yes, I am getting older! I'm turning the ripe old age of 28 next umm Tuesday (June 1st), and will be celebrating with a bit of mountain biking in the Swiss Alps in none other than Interlaken! This will be my third time in Interlaken but I haven't had the opportunity to do any real mountain biking around there. Karen is coming with, and as well as a day in Paris en route to Interlaken we'll be heading up to Berlin, Germany for a few days as well, one of which will be spent road-tripping across the Polish border to a couple places I picked at random on Google Maps hehe. So y'all have a good week etc. :)

Sunday, 6 June 2010 - And now I'm 28

We saw someone jump off the Eiffel Tower, I flew over my handlebars in the Swiss Alps while Karen just plain fell over sideways on her bike, we ate a lot of wurst in Berlin, and got eaten alive in Poland (and would you believe everything is very Polish in Poland?). All that, and more, coming up next week some time once I get done with the photos :)

Wednesday, 9 June 2010 - Road wars

I left work tonight at 6pm, and within about five minutes hit a lot more traffic than normal which on a fine day such as this is usually indicative of something going on, and sure enough. This is the big five-road roundabout in front of Trafalgar Square, and it was chocker with motorbikes doing their best to cause a major traffic jam. As you can see below, they were succeeding hehe. This was a protest against a parking tax for bikes introduced by Westminster Council about 18 months ago. A similar protest took place here a year ago although there were far more bikes involved on that occasion.

Some pretty nice bikes turned out for this.		After they'd had enough there was a rousing speech, and arrangements made to do the same thing at 7:30am tomorrow morning hahaha! Bit early for me, I don't get out of bed until 8 :)
And the action didn't stop there. All hell broke loose on Oxford Street as I was approaching Oxford Circus. About a dozen cop cars, close to a dozen fire engines, and half a dozen ambulances had packed the streets with lights and sirens blaring. One of the fireys told me it was some 'minor' chemical incident and nothing to worry about hehe. FYI, 30 emergency vehicles blocking central London is nothing to worry about :) Nothing came of that and I got bored and continued on. As I approached Marble Arch a few minutes later, half a dozen unmarked cop cars came flying around the corner in front of me also with lights and sirens and blaring. I chased them for a bit but it was getting late in the rush hour and traffic was waning so they got away from me - bugger. I eventually got home at 8pm, two hours after leaving the office hehe.

Thursday, 10 June 2010 - Paris, Interlaken, Berlin, and Poland, all in a week
Photos and stories and whatnot from my little birthday trip last week here :)

Saturday, 12 June 2010 - God defend New Zealand

Toast Festival is an annual festival held every September in Clapham Common, south London. It takes place over a Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and one of New Zealand, Australia, or South Africa is 'toasted' on each individual day. However, this year a special 10th anniversary of Toast was thrown for New Zealand - sweet as!				Hehe spot the tomato sauce squeeze bottle!

I'm not really sure why, but there is also a polo match between England and whatever nation is being toasted on the day. The final score today was 6-5 to the Poms (I didn't even know New Zealand has a polo team!).		Live music was provided by The Feelers, a rock band formed in none other than my home-sweet-home of Christchurch way back in 1990.

New Zealand pies - ahhhhh!!! Nowhere, and I mean nowhere in the world does a pie like New Zealand - even these had to be imported.				Spit roast New Zealand lamb, oh yeah!

And to cap it all off, there were a few stalls selling all the Antipodean classics (which I alone ended up spending about £30 on hehe): Shapes, Grain Waves, Twisties, Gingernuts, MallowPuffs, Milo, Pixie Caramels, Minties, Peanut Slabs... the list goes on and on, and of course there had to be chocolate fish :)

We even got to blow Skippy to bits hahaha!				Poster in the food stalls. Fuck New Zealand is beautiful, and you should all go see it!

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