Eri Minoura Over

A few weeks ago Eri visited from Japan. Was great to see her, and over the two weeks she stayed in London we had lots of fun. Here are a random selection of the photos from that time.


Eri.. at 7:15am. It's a first.


Her gelati scanners quickly located the ice-cream


Post ice-cream happiness


Chomping in Pret


Tourist in the London Rain


The survivors of the Cy Twombly exhibition


Dinner on my balcony



Contemplating Jake and Natsuko


Teletubbies lawn


Eri... berry!


Eri... beery!


Na-chan and Jake



Waitress!


Spanish stepping


Cool


Tourist


Streaky sky


Who doesn't like Bacon?


Synchronised lunacy


The Eriberry pose


Attack dog


Eating the inheritance


Nomad wandered in from desert


More berries


Fetching


Muuuahh


No boquerones


Is it a cake?


Yes it is


The band


Concentrating on the task in hand


Tick tick tick


Round and round


Banksy Alley


Entangled affairs


What day is today?


At Eri's Mecca - Marine Ices in Chalk Farm


Chopping the locks


Happiness with the soon to be Mum and Dad


Drowning in Richmond


Muse

Was sad to see her go, but there's always next year! Dewa mata-ne Eri-berry! x

Carnival and Costa

Didn't make it to Notting Hill Carnival this year. Did however visit the Carnival del Pueblo, supposedly Europe's largest Latin American festival.



Unfortunately the weather was terrible. What is going on with London this summer, it seems like the more exotic the event the worse the weather. Poor old organisers.

Anyway, the Carnival parade runs down Walworth Road, where a couple of days later a teenager is accidentally shot to death by rival gangs. Nice. Anyway, the carnival is good, like a mini Notting Hill, but with more of a focus on South America rather than the Caribbean. Float after float of Bolivians, who would have thought there were so many of them in London?! Cue piles of ultra-cute kids dressed up in traditional costume.


Why don’t they shut the whole road?!



Plenty of Peruvians and Bolivians, along with some Chileans and Brazilians.



Music provided by large conch shells on wheels with speakers inside them. Inventive but not quite up to the sound systems of W11!






Strange instruments



Strangest sight of festival - someone turning a bicycle into a Llama! Kinda like an over-grown tea-cosy really..


Llama bicycle


Spicy dancing


The rhythm section

Inside the park there were lots of food stalls, selling empanadas and other Latin fare.


Yum

Then we discovered… the Churros stalls!



Churros are thin donut-like strips that one dips in a thick chocolate sauce.


They don’t last long


The stage

Most of the stage PA was in Spanish, with a smattering of English. Multicultural London, this is what it's all about, chicos!


Performances


The rains start again..

With the rains coming down, we leave the festival and head out to have a few beers in pubs back towards civilisation, wrapping up at the Fire Station next to Waterloo.


Elaine and Costa exchanging suspicious glances

The Great British Beer Festival 2008

The Great British Beer Festival. Always a fun evening, with several hundred – 450-800 depending on the year – beers to be tried from around the UK and from abroad. The key to it is going with a bunch of friends so you maximise the number of beers you can try. This year Will and I got into the trade show which is from 12-5pm on the first day, Tuesday. This is when the Champion Beer of Britain for the year is announced after the judging panel makes its decisions.


Will with Will’s Dad

Unfortunately, it became apparent that arriving at the venue (Earl’s Court) at 2:30pm was just way too early. In the past I’ve always gone after work, and this, I’d say, is the sort of time you want to arrive – say 6pm. This limits drinking time to 5 hours, more than enough!


Line the stomach

In addition to the beers there are stalls selling beer paraphernalia and good t-shirts. I resisted (being sober at this stage!).


Breakfast drink


T-shirt sizes, medium up to dart player

We roved around trying a few South Eastern beers first. Next up Adrian and Brendan arrived.


UnusuALE beers


Wilson

The bars are organised by region, so for example all beers from the North East will be in one section. Food is spread about the place, the highlight being the pork scratching pile!


Mountain of pork scratching


I can’t believe it’s not..

Chris showed up soon after.


The gang

Disappointingly the Champion beers were all off whilst we were there. Plenty of other choice though. I went looking for Eccleshall’s Top Totty. It seemed to not be present this year, until I discovered the brewery was now called Slater’s (renamed according to their website). Top Totty still there, and as good as ever!


Barrels of goodness

Usually I don’t drink anything from the major breweries – the festival is about discovering local beers from other regions you wouldn’t normally have access to, but passing Greene King I noticed they had an Abbot Special Reserve tap. My goodness..!


Abbot Special Reserve. A pint of the stuff

Abbot Ale is what I call the “Stella of the Ale World” – it has an effect on you disproportionate to its alcohol content. And here was the Reserve! I announced to the group that I was having a pint of this, a cheese platter, then going home to sleep. I checked my watch.. 8pm!


Cheese platter

As I ordered it, the chap serving me remarked that he hadn’t had many requests for a whole pint of Reserve tonight! Surprisingly though, it picked me up, and so we ended up staying till closing time!


Will and Chris


International guests


Choices choices

Next, for some unknown reason, though I suspect Will had something to do with it, we found ourselves having a half each of two American strong beers, both 12% ABV. Mine was Dogfish Head’s Palo Santo Marron, and Will had Smuttynose’s Wheat Wine.


American beers, not all like making love in a canoe!

These tasted as you’d imagine. Mine was very dark, burnt tasting, and strong as hell. Will’s was lighter but still close to undrinkable.


It’s got to that stage of the evening

Of course, they had to be finished. Especially as last orders was called.


12%... here we go..


It’s not good. Not at all pleasant!

That finished, we grabbed a pint for the road, then polished that off before being booted out.


Home time

Of course, going via Edgware Road, we call in on my late night dive bar, where Will gets a Saudi chap coming on to him, blowing him kisses across the bar. On the bus home from there he asks a girl what % gay she thinks he is. 60:40! The end of a good night. Might want to buy some more heterosexual clothes tomorrow, Will!

Oyster Fun

Warning: this is a rant about the London transport payment card, and as such is of limited interest to those outside the capital (or indeed within, the less kind may suggest)!

Background to story: I had an Oystercard before going travelling. Quite a low serial number too (couple of thousand), which I was quite proud of (being a geek). It had an auto-top up set up for West Hampstead station (I now know that it was just the initial setup that happened at WH). Anyway.. I’m back from travelling, and a couple of weeks ago it topped up at St. John’s Wood, which at the time I thought confusing. Another time, it topped up randomly (apparently on the bus I later discovered). All a bit strange. Then when I tried to go through the barriers at Heathrow T5, it rejected my card. Given all the trouble with the system recently I ignored it and used one of my spare PAYG cards. It then didn’t work on the bus today. So I tried to log in to the website, and it tells me to call their 0845 number, which I do.

Story: After a multitude of automated choices, I get through to a chap. It turns out..

1. Because the credit card that the auto-top up was linked to had expired, I had not paid for the last two top-ups
2. The fraud team had investigated, and tried to get in touch with me, but..
3. All of my contact information was out of date on the website, partially because the site wouldn’t let me in anyway!
4. Without being able to contact me, they had put a block on my card.
5. The chap said technically I could just default on the card and they wouldn’t pursue it, but I of course wanted to do the right thing, so offered to pay..
6. So he says the way this has to be done is two separate payments of 20 pounds to cover the two auto-top ups.
7. Then, they can release the 21 quid or so already on the card to me. Fine. So I give him card and he does this.
8. So will he now unblock the card? No, he can’t, the card is useless now and can’t be reactivated! Bin it! So I've just spent 40 quid to get to 21 quid.
9. Where does the credit go then? He’ll send it to my other PAYG card, but it won’t appear on there for a few days, and at a specific station (i.e. annoying).
10. At my request, he’ll send it instead to my credit card, which I had to hand over for the third time.
11. Can I get the 3 quid back for the card? Apparently not, as allegedly I never gave a deposit for it (I am sceptical about this but have no memory or evidence to prove otherwise)
12. So new Oystercard for me..

All this was a 20 minute phone call to an 0845 number. Not helpful with my exorbitant Orange bill (switching as soon as contract is up). Maybe I’ll make an Oyster magic wand to use instead of the blue card.

TFL I shall be watching for tube delays like a hawk with a refund form in its talons!