east end

Last night we were walking back home from the cinema, talking about the film and the feelings it had created in us.

Passing through a quiet street I thought I heard a knock.

We stopped to listen.

Knock knock.

It was coming from inside. Behind a closed door.

“Hello?”

More knocking. We tried to push the door open but it did not move. A hand came through the letterbox.

My flatmate peeked through the little hole on the door, where the hand was sticking out and a female voice asked her to help.

“Open the door, please”

Pushing was no use so she requested the trapped lady to move away from the door.

A hard kick and the door swung open.

The trapped knocker was sitting on the corridor floor undoubtedly grateful for our help.

We wished her good night and continued our journey home.

“Must say I have never kicked a door in before.”

First time for everything. I guess.

off road

I had my first ever off road race on Saturday. And it certainly was not the last one.

My alarm went off in the early hours of the morning, but somehow gobbling down a bowl of porridge took us a fair bit longer than expected and we finally arrived to the coastal Devon location after the official registration time had already closed. Luckily this did not prevent us from taking part.

The list of equipment that we were supposed to carry would have been sufficient for a polar expedition but unfortunately the organisers were adamant when it came to safety procedures. Hence I had shopped for an emergency foil blanket, which only barely fitted into one of my pockets. I was not willing to carry a back bag for such a short distance.

It was a glorious day – sunny and warm. In the middle of February.

We took off.

Already in the first kilometre there was a stream, which was too wide to jump over. Serious test for my new cortex shoes. Wicked.

Mud.

Rocky uphill.

Rocky downhill.

Flat, up, down, through mud, down, up, through another stream, over a fence, back in the forest, along the gorge, against the wind, my, more mud, even more mud, and another fence….

Already at an early stage I had passed all my female competitors but struggled taking over the men. Idiots. Wouldn’t let me past.

Last downhill and I was struggling. Steep, steep fall. And up again.

I crossed the finishing line more than 10minutes before the second lady and on the 12th place in the whole race. I was gutted. I still had steam in me so should have pushed it into men’s top 10. How much better would that sound.

We had to dash off before the prize ceremony but was made aware that the prize involved money. Wicked. I had just been paid to do something I have no problems paying to do. Fantastic.

For the rest of the day I was raving. Ecstatic.

Running had just been taken to a completely different level. Unlike on the road, every step was an achievement and a task of its own. And the scenery.

Why road race? Why indeed? When you could be playing in the mud and having fun.
And the next one is….must investigate.

when fun is free

My job is hardly exciting. I mean it is interesting and I certainly stay up to date on current world events, but exciting would still not be the word I would use to describe my daily tasks. Especially as the current crisis is turning into something possibly worse than the Great Depression I would even dare to argue that my job is sometimes rather monotonous. Numbers, even inflation keep going down and down and down.

Surely they should have hit the bottom by now?

Well they haven’t and hence I have had to develop alternative methods to keep myself amused in the office.

My latest one is sport terminology. I pick one country and one sport and turn the economy of that country into that sport. Formula 1 is a good one. A good sport that is, and so is football. Then in my analysis I make sure is describe economic events as if they were a game.

It is quite challenging.

Sometimes I run out of games. Well there are lots of games to choose from but I can hardly justify using time in the office on learning the rules and terms of a sport I don’t know.

Then I use saying. I pick a saying I want to use and make sure it fits the analysis.

Today’s one was “stuck between the rock and a hard place”.

I have sometimes pondered if the people reading my articles ever notice my little game and if they do, what they think.

I wonder.

At any rate, when one currency claims its nth pole position I rally.

But I am overly concerned whether the central bank will be able to parry the investors’ attack.
Maybe tomorrow is golf’s turn.

rentals

For a long while now, well basically since we moved to our East London mansion, we have been trying to find a video rental place. It as obvious, from the numerous bags we saw floating around, that one of the big chains had a store not too far away but we had failed to locate its precise coordinates.

Saturday night, my bother and I decided it was cinema time. We walked over to the nearest cinema but unfortunately neither of the two films we wanted to see was showing anytime soon.
We walked down the nearby road, which is known for its wild social scene, in search of a bar or lounge where we could spend our waiting time.

My brother disregarded my first two suggestions and as we walked further I noticed a little, curious looking shop. With lots of films.

And independent video rental store.

The place was cosy and had two floors worth of films organised were organised not only according to their genre but according to the director.

Mainstream, French, Spanish, Asian, American independent…you name it.

We spend a good while going through the DVD’s until picking out one we both preferred over to the once showing in the cinema.

I went to the front desk and asked to register. The girl looked at my ID and said “oh I see, a Finn. Don’t see why we should be speaking English then”.

The rest of the rental process and registration was then comfortably conducted in Finnish. This is what I call a wonderful discovery.

And my brother: good service.

the meridian

My brother came over for the weekend, with a mission to find a pub that was on the Meridian line. I had never heard of this pub, nor had my English and London friends, but even still the boy was determined.

On Friday night, after I had finished work we started our quest.

We first took the tube to the DLR and then the DLR to Greenwich.

But then what?

We started off from a nearby bookstore assuming that one of their many books on London would tell us about this apparently famous or infamous pub.

Nothing.

As the observatory is in the middle of Greenwich park, which like all London parks closes in the early evening during the winter, we could not trace the whole line starting from the top of the hill.

We decided to follow the beam. There is a bright green laser line passing through the sky, just there where the other side is 0°east and 180° west. Starting from the river towards the park we walked with our heads bent and necks hurting from the feeble attempt of not missing the trail.

Nothing.

And then. A dead end.

Standing there puzzled we noticed a bronze line on the sidewalk. AND a placate on the wall stating that we were standing on the Meridian line.

But there was no pub.

Several photos later we concluded that the freezing temperatures allowed us to be happy with any pub. After all we had seen and photographed the line. Several times.

Kings arms.

Sounded royalty.

Apparently the pub was located in the possible residences and neighbouring residences of some King of England, who is known to have ruled the country at some point in history with a good or bad track record.

The exact details seemed a bit blurry. Probably because, other than the word King in the name of the pub, the place had nothing to do with royalty.

But it did provide warmth, beer and food.Mission completed. I presume.

iplotting

My ipod has now for months been showing signs that it is time for it to retire. I can hardly remember the times when I could take it with me in the morning, put it away while at work and still listen to my favourite tunes on my way home.

In addition to the dead battery my most recent earphones broke. Someone had left them lying on the floor and this made me step on them, which they obviously could not deal with but the cut them in half. Nothing a bit of sticky tape would not fix but rather annoying nevertheless.

I have been eying a replacement shuffle for some time but only yesterday I managed to take this decisive step, go into the shop, pick up a packet holding my new company, walk to the till and pay for it. Funnily enough, this major purchase did not send me to a personal bankruptcy. Far from it. The snip was not much more notable than that of a take away coffee (City prices).

Last night I then had to fill up my newly acquired toy with music. This should not be a difficult task considering that I have well over 11,000 tunes on my laptop, ranging from rave to reggae and hiphop to pop, not to mention all the golden oldies.

But there was nothing. After a long selection process I have carefully picked up four and put them on the ipod. The several minutes they could possibly fill with music would not be much of a run and hence I had to find another solution.

My flatmate’s laptop.

I waited until she finally made her way home and asked to borrow her precious, even if rather temperamental holder of sacred information.

Finally, after hours of pottering, which all took me way past any reasonable time to go for a run I had finally managed to pick out the songs I could possibly imagine listening in the coming weeks. Or days. Or at least hours.

But a good purchase nevertheless.