New Year's Thieve

Scottee's Camp was the most entertaining piece of theatre I went to last year, combining modern cabaret with old time music hall - but on a housing estate. OAP hip-hop, Dickie Beau and hula-hoop dancing.

So, when Scottee announced he was putting Camp on for New Year's Eve, we jumped at the chance. It was a great line-up to see the new year in with, and immediately solved the night - no need to invite friends round, no need to stand in a club telling each other What Fun We Are Having while reaching for another drink.

We got there at 9.30 to find things hadn't kicked off yet. There were a lot of balloons and Bourgeois and Maurice DJing. We sat down and waited for things to start.

By 11pm, there were even more balloons. And that was it.

"I'm bored," said the people next to us. They drank a bottle of cava glumly and left. Some of us were passing the time throwing balloons at each other. Other people were taking What Fun We Are Having selfies to reassure themselves (Reasselfies?). We were thoroughly bored. It was like being at a wedding with strangers and no sugared almonds. But, surely, at any moment...

A woman materialised at our table. "Hi. Are you having a great evening?"
"Yes," we replied politely.
"Oh that's great, great," she said. And then a tiny pause. "Thing is, I've got some emergency VIPs, so I'm going to need your table."
Being nice, and British, we stood up without a murmur. But we were furious. There were so many ways of handling that. But that was basically "Fuck off plebs" with a smile.

So, we were standing. In a room full of balloons. With nothing happening.

We left. Given that the cloakroom was somewhere in Narnia we didn't storm out. We sort of progressed. Like Gloriana. If she was having a really bad night and Essex hadn't texted her back.

As we left, we passed a man in an office. I wondered about quietly telling him what a disappointing time it had been. But as I did, an "I Work In PR And Events" Woman swished up to him.
"How's it going?" he asked.
"Oh gawd," she rolled her eyes. "You know. People."

We went home and saw in the new year watching 30 Rock and getting very drunk. It was marvellous.

Return to Bolgoslavia

8 years ago I went to Budapest. It was a holiday after a fairly exciting/gruelling few months of work. I had an interesting time - especially waking up one morning to discover I'd been copied in to an email from the person I'd left in charge of my project: "So everyone, this has happened. I'm ccing James who'll deal with it asap."

I was in the curious and delightful position of having to apologise for something that had happened while I was on holiday. And sort it out. Asap. From a hotel lobby using very slow internet. Ah well.

Eight years later, and I really was there on holiday, and it was actually lovely fun. There are two kinds of places that you visit on holiday. Firstly, the places where you immediately imagine living there. Secondly, the places that you go "oh, yes, this is fun, but that's fine."

Budapest is a probably a very exciting place to work. But, a bit like Amsterdam, a tourist can have a great weekend there and not feel they need to go back in a hurry.

I did find myself in an Aldi. People who mutter that Aldi is like a third world supermarket haven't lived till they've visited one in Budapest. There wasn't quite a turnip on a plinth saying "this week's star prize", but my god it was dreary.

I came away with a delightful looking salami with sliced mushrooms in it, but my friend Tim refused to let me open it till he'd waved google translate on it. Turned out it was pressed pig brain, and the mushrooms were the spirally bits of... bits of... *retches*. If it had turned up in a posh London restaurant we'd all have applauded. As it was, we left it at the back of the fridge for the cleaner.

One delightful Communist hangover was the service in the delightfully named "Marquis du Salade". Your waiter would take your order. A few minutes later, the owner would appear. "I see you have ordered Number 13. A wonderful choice. Very wise. However, I would recommend Number 15."

"I'd really like Number 13."

"Number 15 is much the better option. I'll bring you that."

Number 15 was, of course, marvellous. And I suspect what anyone walking through the door would have got.

Slightly decrepit elegance clings to Budapest like the mist from the rivers (and yes, that is the river that the Viking River Cruises Sponsors Mystery Drama On ITV floats along). We were staying in a flat that was like a small stately home, with a vast chandelier in every room. Even the bathroom. We made it to the outdoor baths, where, after a barefoot run on subzero marble past ancient statues, you got to plunge into water warmer than a washing machine tackling tough stains. Carved fish blew steam at you. Men with the bodies of trained killers frolicked. Yes, it was marvellous.

Also notable was the RyanAir "departure lounge":

Yes, that really is a shed. With grills, no frills. Your plane awaits you, cattle.

It's dead gym

My gym just died. It's been a slow and lingering thing. The death of a thousand towels.

When I joined in 2007, it was a fun little gym in the hotel around the corner. It bustled, but with the cosy bustle of a popular newsagent.

A couple of years ago they changed their direct debits. My accountant pointed this out. "What's this?" he asked. "Who are Debt Finance Ltd? Is this a loan?". That was a worrying sign. The recession was partly to blame - they had nearly a 1,000 members, but only about 200 ever came in. This was, it turned out, not an unusual statistic. People happily pay for gym membership because it makes them feel better about themselves. At some point during the recession, suddenly that £30 a month seemed like a luxury.

I offered to put leaflets through the doors on my block, but the gym owner gave me a look. "We don't really want that sort... you know..." as though I lived on an estate full of poor white trash just dying to combine their crack habit with cardio.

Last year, the gym had about 100 members. Which seemed enough to keep things ticking over. But you'd notice a few things. First equipment broke down. Then it started to disappear. Then the soap dispensers went. And finally the sauna became a chilly wooden box (a particular shame, as I was once delightfully molested in there).

A week after the water cooler stopped working, men turned up with tape measures. I've worked in enough doomed offices to know what that means. A week later the personal trainers vanished like memories. First went Costas (huge arms, smelly protein shake poos). Then the nameless hulk with the tattoo of a Buffy the Vampire Slayer on his shoulder (sadly, a naked Buffy). And finally lovely Manel and Daria. And then a notice appeared "We are closing forever at the end of the week".

In some ways this is a sad thing. But change is good. Turns out there's another gym down the road. It's a fiver more, but it's huge and has lots of equipment. And all of it works. Even the sauna (crosses fingers and waits for a prince).

Seminar

"Seminar" is one of those words. At university it frequently means 8 hung-over people mumbling through Anglo-Saxon translations. But, in the wider world it really seems to mean "Faux Intellectual way of describing a Scam."

We've a "Pop-Up Shop" in our street. It sells nasty perfume and miracle weightloss liquid. Innocuously silly. Until it put up signs saying "FREE SEMINAR: Earn more cash for xmas!". You just know what this means - some poor sods are going to be going door-to-door, plaguing their friends with nasty perfume and diet water.

A few years ago I was looking to buy a flat in Cardiff. One seemed incredibly cheap and I emailed to ask for more details. The next thing my phone rang: "We would like to invite you to a seminar about..." I hung up.

You just know what it is. A small group of earnest people, some taking dutiful notes. A snake oil salesman.

Our local snake oil salesman is at least wearing his nasty perfume. The problem is, it's clearly intended for ladies, so he smells like an aunt's toilet.

My Fear of Cycling

It's been a bad week to be a cyclist in London. The daily deaths are not just upsetting - they're selfishly frightening. I'm now worried every time I get on a bike. This is not a good thing.

There are two Really Bad kinds of cyclist. There are the 12 rare lycra dicks who sail through red traffic lights, scattering pedestrians while roaring slogans from Gladiator.

And then there are the Timid Cyclists. I'm now one of them. We hesitate at junctions. We hold up traffic with our uncertainty. We dart from lane-to-lane like disillusioned voters. Occasionally (if you're me) we keep up a constant chant of "ohgodohgodohgodohgod.". We're not reassuring to share a road with.

I'm not just spooked by statistics (although the internet tells me this is a thing). I find cycling in London really scary. I've been doing it in London since last century and, despite it getting more popular, it's not getting any nicer.

A lot of it is to do with Junctions. They're terrifying. Here's Bow Roundabout:

Let's have an aerial view of Old Street Roundabout:

It is every bit as terrifying to cycle around as it looks. Bafflingly, a lot of road redevelopment seems to be encouraging turning every junction a bit Hunger Gamesy.

You may well not know what "Euston Circus" is. I always used to call it "the slightly grim bit at the top of Tottenham Court Road". Until they started digging it up to build this:

Ignore the architect's trees. They've taken away most of the lane markings. The bicycle crossing. And replaced them with a free-for-all. Over the last 18 frightening months, I'd assumed this was work-in-progress. Nope, that's it. According to TFL this makes "the area greener, safer and more user-friendly... and improves facilities for cyclists."

Try cycling through Euston Circus. Maybe it'll get easier as traffic gets more used to it. But currently it's four lanes of confused and jostling traffic trying to work out which way is Camden. And somewhere in amongst it are cyclists, desperately hoping they've got the right lane and aren't about to be undertaken by that bus. Oh, no, we are. And now I'm in the middle of the Euston Road in the wrong lane and hello lorries.

I used to laugh when I saw Japanese tourists pedalling Boris Bikes on the pavements of Oxford Street. Now I'm tempted to join them. 

October

Did anything happen in October? I've suddenly realised that I'm having to backfill an entry for a month that seemingly never was.

A lot happened in October, some of it jolly lovely. I guess the oddest thing was, for an event, getting to work at a superclub. You know, one of those London dance barns. Actually, everyone was quite lovely. But still - so chic, so swishy.

I was sat in the soundbooth. Near me was an exotic creature wearing pleather trousers and a peach jacket with hair a few years ago I'd have challenged Mr Topper to recreate. He was filling us in on the difficulties of buying good cocaine in an Italian City.

"They sell all their drugs on roundabouts. They drive round them all night. So you flag them down like a taxi and then you go round and round while you do the deal." A pause long for an eyeroll. "It's exhausting and dizzying."

They then moved on to talking about how another club was trying to copyright a type of music. Which sounded insane, even to me.

The curse of cheap flights

The problem with cheap flights is that they can be so early. This, obviously, seems fine at the time. And then, at some point, you realise that you'll probably need to get up at 4. Which is okay, only your plan of going to bed at 10 with cocoa becomes a little bit midnight with wine.

And then, all of a sudden, your life is what it must be like having a toddler. Only with the horror of getting abroad.

Most of the time it goes all right - but we got Hamburg wrong. We should have napped as soon as we got to the hotel. Instead we wandered blearily around all morning before crashing just after lunch. We woke up at 6, groggy, went out for one drink, then lurched back to the hotel and had an early night, sleeping in so that we missed the chance to go on a boat/bus or walking tour. We walked to a bridge and then left.

At some point, more by luck than anything else, we found the giant miniature railway exhibition. Which was amazing. But we were off our heads on sleepiness so just ran around giggling. Even trains were a bit wasted on us.

An Important Message From The Police To Women

An important message from the Police - please pass to all the women you know.....

This actually happened a few weeks ago on the NEWPORT PAGNELL SERVICES!!!

It was early evening, and a young girl was watching the television at home. Her parents had left her alone, and she heard a strange noise coming from the television set. Soon she was sucked into a portal into another dimension. When her parents called the police, they told the family "Get out of the house, immediately, as the Beast is coming". This just happened to a girl last week. Please be careful when buying your house, and ALWAYS make sure it is not built on an INDIAN BURIAL GROUND to prevent this from happening to you. Tell others. This may save a life.

Something similar to this happened at the Aldi in Newport recently, but luckily the cashier was a trained spirit guide. Please be aware of what's going on around you.

FROM THE MET POLICE
In light of the recent murders at Grover's Mill, I think it is important to read the following info for your own safety. Things WOMMEN should know to stay safe:

1. if a Martian War Machine confronts you, DO NOT APPROACH IT WAVING A FLAG. It is probably more interested in Pastor Nathaniel than you, and it will go for the priest first. RUN LIKE MAD IN THE OTHER DIRECTION!

2. Tip from HMS ThunderChild: Do not use weapons on the Martians. They are no better than bows and arrows against the lightning!

3. if you are being hunted through a maze in winter, hide by retracing your steps. Jack won't be able to see what you've done. This can save lives.

4. Women have a tendency to go into car parks after shopping, pilates, visiting nail salons, etc. DON'T DO THIS! A predator could be watching you and this is the perfect opportunity for them to ask you to help them carry a sofa into an unmarked van. Do not do this!!! If asked, IT PUTS THE LOTION ON ITS SKIN

5. A few notes about getting into your car in car park:
a) Be aware: look around you, Check the passenger side floor for midgets with knives (this has happened)
b) Do not use your car for having premarital sex. Especially not if it is Hallowe'en.
c) If a man with knives for hands is sitting near your car, you may want to get guard/policeman to walk you back out. They will most likely die first. IT IS ALWAYS BETTER TO BE SAFE THAN SORRY.

6. NEVER say the Candyman's name more than twice.

7. if you're babysitting and the phone rings, DO NOT ANSWER IT. The killer is already inside the house.

8. if the terminator has a gun and you are not under his control, ALWAYS RUN FOR THE NEAREST TRUCK! However, even if you run him over, you will not hit a vital organ and the terminator will only keep on coming.

9. As women, we are always trying to be sympathetic:
STOP IT! It may get your blood drained. Count Dracula, the serial killer, was a good-looking, well educated man, who ALWAYS played on the sympathies of unsuspecting women, He walked with a cane, wore a cloak, and often asked if you could hear "the children of the night".

10. Another safety point:
A woman was recently in an escape shuttle near Nuneaton. She thought she was in there alone and then noticed her cat was behaving strangely. Thinking quickly, she was able to save the life of herself and the cat by ejecting the alien lifeform into space. By thinking quickly and using common sense she was able to save a cat's life.

A candle is not dimmed by lighting another candle. Send this to any woman you know who may need to be reminded that the world is out to get them.
Someone will always send this kind of batshit scaremongering nonsense on thinking that hey, it's better to be safe than sorry.

Also, if you don't forward this on within SEVEN DAYS a creepy Japanese girl will kill you.

Alas, our Underground City is closed

I took my boyfriend to Turkey. This was a test. Of what, I don't really know. There are some places that, once you discover, you can't stop talking about - Glasgow in the rain, the shores of a Loch, a clean toilet in India... and pretty much all of Turkey.

I prepared carefully. I got a Turkish teacher to try and get my Turkish working again. She tried. She failed. I was, as ever, fine in restaurants, if everyone spoke slowly.

But still - Turkey was very Turkey. Our first hotel claimed to have a private beach. It turned out to have no electricity and be a mile inland, so we just wandered around. My boyfriend saw a hotel in the grounds of an old Roman temple. How wonderful, I thought, but not for the likes of us.  "Can we stay there?" he asked. And so we did.

We went to Cappadocia. I'm now too old for a nightbus to Cappadocia and can't believe I used to do this with my parents when they were still in their 60s. The seats are more comfortable, the children are better behaved than ever, but they turn the lights on more. Just when you finally think that some sleep will come, they slam them on, and you're in a petrol station in the 1970s being shouted at by a large woman smoking by a petrol pump. She's your driver. So you get off and go for a walk.

Cappadocia is still the best place in the world. And the oddest. A geographical oddity that is soaked in cash. They have neat pavement. The young men drive sportscars. There's a lidl (only they call it Bim, pronounced "bum"). Travel a few miles in either direction and you get "the real Turkey" - villages where life goes on pretty much as normal, with thousand-year old buildings neatly turned into cattlesheds. But the tiny village of Goreme is still awash with tourists. These are farmers, so they're used to dealing with cattle. Kindly and humanely the cattle are loaded into white vans and taken to wherever they can be milked of some more of their cash.

Numan's hotel was run by Afghan refugees. To think of all the horrors they'd been through in order to sit around listening to tourists discussing which hot air balloon trip to take. We did, by the way, do a hot air balloon. It was a terrifying hour with each of us worrying the other was about to propose. 

Mostly, I just love it there. I love living in a cave. A cave with plumbing and wifi, with a balcony with the best view in the world, that you can sit on at night and read books while the valley gets on with being the most beautiful thing on Earth. "Oh, just try it in Winter," said Numan. Well, I think I'd like to.

Being in my 30s, I now can't go on holiday anywhere without wondering what the property prices are. Turns out, a decade ago, you could buy a cave complex for a steal. Even now, my London flat could get me a 30-room cave. That's room for a lot of trains sets and cats. It's practically an underground city.

Talking of underground cities, I wanted to show my boyfriend one of the ones "off the beaten track". Because that's simple tourist snobbery. The best way seemed to be to go to a town and get a cab. We went to the town. We stood in a car park. We asked where the taxi rank was. The car park attendant shrugged and phoned his dad.

So it was that we became a Family Outing To The Underground City. Dad and Youngest Son in the front. Boyfriend and me in the back. "Do you speak English?" the dad asked in perfect English. This turned out to be the only English he knew. He was taking us to the next village which, last time, had had an undergound city. We got there. Passersby shrugged and smiled "Alas, our Underground City is closed" (to be boring, the Turkish word for "alas" is "maalesef" which does the job very well). And so it was. You can, it turns out, padlock an underground city. Why, I don't know. Maybe the man with the key was on holiday.

It doesn't matter, we said. These things happen. It's all fun. We laughed. But Dad and Youngest Son did not laugh. We can, Youngest said, take you back. Or, there's another underground city... And so we bombed on into the middle of nowhere. Valleys came and went. Street signs gave up. Little ladies toiled in the baking afternoon at empty fields while their husbands sat in tea gardens. And suddenly, carved into the cliffs were a nest of roman tombs. Little perfect temples. Just there. Next to a tea garden. And a handpainted sign saying "Undergound City".

And it was perfect. Being led round an underground city by a man who, by rights, should be running his tea shop, but really wanted to show off his ancient wine press. These things are good.

Travelling with a vegetarian in Turkey was either the best way to get ripped off, or a delight. We gave up on proper restaurants with their oily, thoughtlessly rude waiters and instead were oily and thoughtlessly rude to puzzled chefs in small canteens. Suddenly Turkey stops being expensive. You can still get a meal for two for about £6 and not want to eat for days. And I got very good at quickly picking the meat out of the broad bean stew and giving it to a cat. This is the best thing about Turkey - every restaurant has a cat. If it doesn't, don't eat there. Cats know.

Istanbul I got wrong again. I think if I lived in Istanbul, I'd enjoy it. As a tourist, I get Istanbul wrong like some people get email wrong. Half of it was closed. The other half was crowded - even the Cistern is unbearable now Dan Brown's mentioned it. I can't get it right. I once tried to get a taxi to a chic club near Taksim. I ended up standing on a roundabout. Yes, I'd tried to go clubbing on a roundabout.

When people say "Leaving our holiday was the hardest thing about it" they often mean it fondly. But with Istanbul it's true. They have a direct tram to the airport (you have to change five times). And even then, Ataturk Airport has won an award - it's the least punctual airport (outside China). 38% of planes leave on time. Several hundred flights a week are cancelled. You can buy a bottle of vodka in duty free for the same price as two cups of tea. And it was very, very tempting.

Of course, the boyfriend wants to go back. He fancies studying the sufis, going to a caravanserai, and going along the Black Sea. I think that'll be marvellous. I'm already looking forward to ordering meals very slowly.

The 25 Simple Steps To Buying Theatre Tickets Online

Is there any worse online booking experience than buying Theatre Tickets? It fails the GCSE French usability test. Namely, is the actual experience as easy as it would be in a basic French textbook?

MOI: Bonjour. Avez-vous deux billets por Mercredi?
THEM: Oui. Neuf francs, s'il vous plait.
MOI: Voila. Au revoir.

Here is how it goes.

1. BEHOLD OUR THEATRE WEBSITE FRONT PAGE. We have BELLS and we have WHISTLES!
   
2. [a long time later] Congratulations, you've finally found a page about the play you want to see.
   
3. [you've had shorter relationships later] You've found the “Book Tickets” button.
   
4. You select the night you'd like to see the play.
   
5. [You may now find yourself on someone else's website entirely. Lucky you]
   
6. Select the type of ticket you want. No, not that type, stupid.
   
   
   
   
7. You may not want to select a seat, but don't worry, we've turned our theatre into a flythrough of the Death Star. You must now steer through the stalls in order to find your two seats.
8. Keep an eye on the colour code. LIGHT GREY means available. SLIGHTLY LIGHTER GREY means unavailable.
   
9. Done?
   
10. Oh, those seats weren't available after all. TRY AGAIN.
    
11. Okay. Would you like to pay?
    
12. Fine. We'd need you to register. No, I know you only come here every ten years, but we need you to register.
    
13. Uh-Oh, looks like we made you register last time you came to see a play here in 2001. We need you to remember the password.
    
14. Don't worry, we've emailed it to you.
    
15. Email turned up? Good. Sadly, we'll need you to choose a new password before you go any further. To confuse you next time you come here.
    
16. Hello again. You're now registered.
    
17. There we go. Now, I'm afraid you'll need to repeat steps 4-11. See you in a bit.
    
18. Would you like to receive our email newsletter? It doesn't matter what you click, you'll receive it anyway.
    
19. Nearly there. Would you like to contribute to our Dry Rot Preservation Fund? We've thoughtfully added that on top of the ticket price. If you don't want to pay, please play Checkbox Battleships. Meanie.
    
20. Oh. And here's a booking fee. Of course there is. We've got to pay for that CG modelled Death Star somehow.
    
21. You've not read our terms and conditions, but we're going to make you say that you have. Liar.
    
22. And we're done. Now over to your bank and their 3D Security Thing.
    
23. Here's your booking code. Copy that down. And bring along your card.
    
24. For someone on the night to shrug, ask for your surname and hand you your tickets.
    
25. Alternatively, why not spend the evening in with a Take Me Out marathon? It's less painful.