2009, Week 4

It seems that I've got into the habit of starting my weekly diary by moaning about the weather, and there's no change this week. It absolutely freezing. Colder than a cold thing in a freezer. I guess that means it's colder then than frozen peas. What a crap metaphor. Then again it doesn't help that I was walking around Bristol on Saturday night in a t-shirt getting blasted by the 'Siberian' gales. It was like having someone throwing frozen peas at you. Oh i give up...

I've become slightly obssessed with Twitter, having to check up on who I'm following at least every hour. I'm pretty sure it's one of those crazes that everyone will do a few months and then give up, like Tamagotchis, Myspace or being nice to each other. I'm current stalking following Graham Linehan, Stephen Fry (who isn't?), Peter Serafinowicz, Charlie Brooker and Jonathan Ross who are all pretty active.

We went to see Flic and Martin in Bristol this week. Half way down the M42 Jen realised that I hadn't replaced my tax disc and my current one was due to expires that day. Being the pathetic worrier I am I immediately assumed that if I got caught my car would be crushed, they'd put 6 points on my license and repossess my house. I had to pull into the next services, panic a little, breath, and then ring my Dad to convince me that everything was going to be OK, which of course, it was.

As soon as we got to Bristol (late) we were off to the city centre for a mini pub crawl. We start off at Goldbrick House a multi-story cafe/bar/restaurant. Each floor seemed to have a bar and with all the stair cases it was all a bit reminiscent of Relativity by Escher.

OK, that made me look more cultured then I am. What I actually thought it looked like was that bit at the end of Labyrinth when Bowie's chasing Jennifer Jason Leigh with his crystal balls, which I knew to be influenced by some mind-fuck picture. Talking of which, I vividly remember my Doctor having Ascending and Descending by Escher on his office wall. I'm guessing that it was intended to reflect the ongoing carousel of patients that is the medical profession, that how ever hard he was to work, he's really fighting a loosing battle against nature. Basically, he was saying 'everybody dies' in pictorial form, which is a pretty dark statement for a GP's office. Or maybe he just liked fucking with kid's heads with weird optical illusions.

Back to Goldbrick House. I had the first of a few weird toilet experiences in the pub. I went in to a cubical and started having a cheeky cubical wee when I noticed that my stream was not making the normal splashy noise. After checking and adjusting aim, I noticed that the toilet bowl was full of ice. This threw me. Is this normal? Maybe it's a mechanism to stop splash back? I then started questioning whether I was actually in a toilet, thinking that maybe I was actually as close as I'd every be to literally pissing in someone's champaign. Despite convincing myself that it was a real toilet after I finished I sheepishly ran out of the toilet hoping no one saw me.

This has lead to the weirdest Google search I've done in a long time. It turns out that ice cubes in urinals can provide a 'continuous flush' effect; ice cubes in bars tend to have more bacteria than toilet water and there is a myth that if everyone flushes 3 icecubes down their toilet it will cause a snow day. No word on icecubes in toilet bowls though.

Next pub was Llandoger Trow, famous for influencing Robert Lewis Stevenson when writing Treasure Island. We got asked for cash by randoms twice in the pub, the first a homeless 'need money to get to hostel' type and the second a charity collector selling badges. We reckoned that the second guy was also a homeless, guy, just one with a plan. Although the effort of creating a charity (who's patron was Jo Brand, he told us, nice embellishment), ID lanyard and a collection of attractive metal badges probably would of cost more then the quid I gave him. Ha, idiot!

Then came the second weird toilet experience. I walked into the toilet to be confronted by 10 men all cheering on one fella with his trousers round his ankles pissing into a urinal five feet away. As usual I assumed the 'play with phone until weirdos go' position.

Next up was Start the Bus, which seemed like a cool place and had Hoegaarden on tap (whoop!). Disappointingly the trip to the toilet was without event. lame. We had some food in Pizza Express, where
the second or possibly third weird homeless guy of the night tried to take my seat whilst I was in the toilet (OK, you can probably tell by now that I have a bladder the size of a Panda Cola bottle).

Finally we went to the Hatchet Inn an alternative pub orginating in 1606 (The pub that is, not that it started being alternative in 1606*, don't think there were many tudor emos).

After getting back to the flat we played a bit of Guitar Hero world tour with dual guitars. I haven't been so drunk in a long time, probably years. I remember thinking that I couldn't see the screen so I put my glasses on. Because I still had double vision I decided that my glasses were broken (?) and sat about a foot away from the screen and proceeded to fail everysong because I arrogantly kept setting it on expert. What a douche. Awesome night though.

CNPS: 12 (how many people have a number plate with 13 on it?)

* Not actually tudor period, that finished three years earlier. Plantagenet Era didn't sound quite so good.