Month: April 2006

Blue Man Group – London

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Blue Man Group

I took a picture of this bus on one of my first days in London, after my move, in the beginning of March. Already there I noticed the face of this Blue Man on the bus. And these blue faces popup on several places in London, in the underground, in cafe’s, in cinemas. Just the fact that their faces are so incredibly blue was enough reason for me to put them on my (long) “must-see” list. And today somehow ended up being the day where I saw them : The Blue Man Group, in The New London Theatre in Covent Garden.
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Voicilicious

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After the NI interview I had to get to work. Yes, life is tough in London.

I went back to Tooting Bec tubestation, and placed myself in front of the small window of the Information/Assistance desk. My eyes met the friendly eyes of the Assistance man. I asked him how I could get to Croydon the fastest way, back to Victoria and a fast train from there, or could I maybe take a train from Balham, the closest National Railway station ?
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Morningtrain

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Stationsign
“Is this today’s newspaper?” he asks, picking up my Metro from the seat beside me.
A young boy, 14-15 years, baseballcap, trainers, asks me politely.
“Is it yours?” he asks.
“Yes, but you’re welcome to read it.” Kids reading the newspaper, good thing, stimulate it.
“Oh, I’m sorry about that.” He gave me back the paper.
“No go on, no problem!” I smiled at him.
He took it, and started reading.

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A minor The Girl postcard newsflash

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The GirlThe GirlThe Girl

Mainly for readers in Denmark :
I just got confirmed from Go-Card that The Girl cards 1 + 2 haven’t been out in any cafe’s yet !
The Girl has only been enjoying McFlurries (as she adores Icecream) in the MacDonalds restaurants in Denmark until now.

On Thursday (2 days from now) the cards will be printed for Cafe distribution. And they will be distributed to The Cafe’s in the coming 2 months.

Sorry to all of you who have been looking out for The Girl in The Cafe’s ! I didn’t really know that MacD was so far ahead in receiving the cards.

So – have a look the coming weeks, if you want to meet The Girl In The Cafe. I have to say : I still think it’s incredibly cool that The Girl is going to be in the Cafe’s. And I would still like to hear from anyone who spots her in a Go Card stand. A picture of it would be ultimately cool !

TGITC NI

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Warning Sign
Warning sign

– Do you work round here?
– Yes.
-Interesting?
-It has its moments
A lot of paper.A lot of pens.

That immediately came to my mind, when I entered the Toothing Jobcentre Plus Office (cool name huh?) to have my interview to get a National Insurance number. (Needed to be able to pay incometax – why do I want that in the first place ?)
But after a lot of questions, digging in my past, and a lot of pens and a lot of papers, well they always end up asking the obvious question : “Why did I come to London ?”
And everytime someone ask me that – I don’t have a clear answer. Not one than fits on a form like that anyway. As the real answer being “Ehrm, well I saw this film, and, bla bla bla bla bla, and I got a hunch that London could be a funky place to live, and so – here I am.”

See I am probably never going to get a NI number with an answer like that. So the answer ended up being “To Work”. Gosh, how boring. And I know it isn’t true.
But she seemed to be satisfied with this answer, and looked through all the papers, proving I was the girl, and saw my bank note. “Ahhh, HSBC bank” she said.
“Yeah” I said, “so would it be possible to get an NI number with “42” in it?”

It will take them 8 weeks to decide if they are going to give me an NI number or not. Did I overdo it with the “42” ?

The Girl came home

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The Girls in the Cafes
The Girls in the Cafes

I admit that it is a bit crowded in my room at the moment, with all The Girls. But how cool to come home from work, and to find The Girl number 3 in my mailbox. This postcard was the very first drawing I made, a sleepless night in January. And so many good things have happened since then.
I redid the card for the postcard version, and this card is definetely one of my personal favorites.

(A BIG thank you to Gocard for sending these postcards all the way to London).

Minor update Oh I forgot to say that I actually sold my flat in Denmark this week. Which makes a very nice connection to the sleepless night in January, as I had just started selling my flat there. It has taken a long time, but nevertheless, things are going as planned. And the girl is home. In London.

Macky Mack

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Billy Mack is macky

From the official UK slang dictionary:

1. Mack vt macked;mack.ing or mack.in’
1: to flirt with, make passes at “That fool macked on me!”
2. to make out with – syn get busy, get down, get your groove on

2 Mack (noun)
1. a male adept of sexual attraction – syn hotpepper, pimp, playboy – a mack daddy, a mackier mack
1 b: the newest, most fashionable
2: sexual activity “i need to get my mack on”

It took me exactly 4 weeks (slow I know, I am out of practise, but still) to mack my collegue, the one controlling the company jukebox and therefor controlling what music we get to hear here, as follows:

I get him a cup of English tea, with milk.
He plays me Christmas is all Around by Billy Mack.

Very Macky indeed.

Microhappiness indeed

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“Hopefully it won’t take long before we’ll see a show with this guy on the London West End. He surely has talent.”
The Guardian

“More yak, less bull”
The Evening Standard

“Moving, funny, and an absolute original. And where did he get that cool outfit?”
The Daily Mirror

“.. and a cd with all the songs from the show was included in the price. Best value for money.”
The Financial Times

“Far better than Vogon poetry, and a totally outerspace experience …”
The Magrathea Daily

Yak Attack

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Guards at Buckingham Palace
Guards at Buckingham Palace

It is a very weird idea, but tonight I will be in a theatre in Utrecht to see him, yes one of these tickets is mine. I think it’s going to be good. Not only the theatre, but also a few relaxing days with family, after a hectic startup period in London.

Won’t be much writing here during the weekend I think, so here’s a picture with lots of men in lots of uniforms to look at, while I am away.

Enjoy you Easter Holidays, and to you dear London:

I’ll be home on a Monday,
somewhere around noon,
please don’t be angry,
I’ll be back with you real soon.

(Little River Band)

Google Calendar – funky

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I was waiting for it, the Google Calendar, and now it is here. I have been a big fan of Google Mail, compared to Yahoo mail, I like the clean Google interface. And even though Google has ads on their system too, it doesn’t look as ugly as Yahoo. And the design of the Google Calender is slick, and it works very fast.

I hadn’t expected Google Calender to come this fast, and therefor I recently started using 30 Boxes, which is definetely a good alternative. There are actually a few options from 30boxes.com which Google should incorporate in their product : tagging your events, and the possibility of importing an RSS feed.

Googles Calendar on the other hand looks very nice, the print options is good, it is going to be integrated with Google mail (or is already?), and it is going to be interesting if they can get companies, cinemas etc. as far as offering their events as Google calendar events to be added to your calendar. That would really be smart.

You can also share your calendar. Now I won’t share my personal calendar with you, but as you can create several calendars, I have made a seperate one for events in London, which I already made shareable, and maybe will incorporate on this site. (Yes you can somehow get an RSS feed out of your Google calendar).

The calendar is really fresh, as I have seen several changes to the interface already, seems like Google is constantly tinkering still.

I don’t really know why I am raving about Google in the first place, as my website still isn’t indexed by them after nearly half a year. Losers !

(If anyone needs an invite to Gmail, let me know. It’s needed to use Google Calendar).