Le Peri

Le Peri

2.95Gbp

2/5

since bought a new watch strap...

Right, first I shall apologise for a prolonged absence...

Tonight/today's tipple is Le Peri, pear cider. I think I weighed in at 7.5% alc/vol and came in a handy 1.5L bottle. Unfortunately it begin a habit of drinking on the train after work drinks on Friday, with the goal of being in a mood to dance to bad music in Egg. (East Grinstead, I've been here long enough to start making my own names up for things...) safe to say, it's never worked, only made the bike home in the dark far more dodgy.

Having started working I've had to learn to get up early and bike 6kms uphill to the train station, then it's an hour on the train to London. Not the most exciting trip in the world and getting a wee bit painful as the weather cools and the sun goes to bed earlier...

On the upside works good. It's great being in London, around London Bridge, where the Normans attacked the English (then Anglo-Saxon) successfully in about 1000ad after taking Harold's eye out at Hastings. In a funny way Hastings isn't to far from the Row, so maybe tomorrow on the way to work I'll pretend to be a Norman, (or not, as that guy from the Naked and Shameless beat me to it...)

In-between work drinks I've been brushing up on my British history which has been great. I've learnt that England has been conquered many times, firstly the Romans, then Germans/Danish (Anglo-Saxons, and some Jutes) followed by the French (Normans) (that as far as I've got...). Reading adds a nice sense of history, in what is a country that it not short of the stuff.

When I'm not reading on the train, or getting real good a Bejeweled I take to wondering why "on-peak" train tickets cost more than there "off-peak" look-a-likes. Ya'see, on-peak trains are always full of passengers, so are more uncomfortable and according to economies of scale they should be cheaper to run (the ol' Pak'n'Save "we buy big, you save big policy"). I think at the end of the day, people going to work is a captured market, as one must be at work on time, an the private rail companies can charge what they like, but I'll stop there before shit' get politicool (reading far to much of the brilliant Private-Eye magazine)

Green Park, where lepers were buried

On Saturday, unfortunately waking up in Forest Row and not a floor in London feeling hungover, I went and knocked off my errands in London (after the aforementioned 1 1/2 hour trip in and another 30mins on the tube). It was a nice day and decided I would get a pint and came across an unusual problem I find in London. It seems that whenever I feel like a beer I can never find a suitable pub. Usually the place is full of them, but not when your thirsty it seems. On the upside I got to go for a nice walk trough Green Park, I've heard it got it's name through someone trying to pick up the kings missus by bringing her flowers from there (the Palace is next door), and so the king ordered all the flower removed. As much as this makes for a rather lovely story, I can't find it verified anywhere, Wikipedia just says that it's where they dumped bodies and where the occasional robbery happened and I'm sure still does...

Incidentally the Queens house...

While still on the way to a pub a noticed again how much the sky is never really blue in London. The sky, when not grey is forever criss-crossed with vapour trails. It's something that I've never noticed in EnZee, most probably because there simply isn't anywhere near the amount of planes, that said, these guys disagree with me and would have a mind explosion if they zipped from Kingsland to this Hemisphere....

Anyway, I eventually found a sufficient pub and had a beer and compared it to the Le Peri big bottle o' cider. Safe to say the beer was much nicer. The cider was sub-par but represented very good value for money, or "piss for pounds" but otherwise wasn't all that good. To be quite honest it took me a while to work out what it was, and only found out that it was cider when reading the label on the back...

there's a guy at work who used to pull their tails for  LOLS.

Looking back onto that night I drank the pear cider, (well actually looking back onto the photo from that night), I found the above gem of a fox hangin' in the Sainsbury's car park. Having now seen a badger and a rather flat rat on the bike to the station today, my wildlife hunt is coming along pretty well.

In a final note for now the upside of living in the country is that you get nice sunsets. I'd happily trade the sunsets for a divey flat in the meanish streets in London (not Peckam, Old Kent road obviously hasn't improved much since monopoly was invented), but getting a flat is a bit of a challenge. They come and go so fast that you need a bit of luck it seems to get one, but alas that is a tale for another day.

Chem-Trails over th' Row

Supreme Burger Meal

Supreme Burger Meal

3.49Gbp

3.5/5

Yup, hash brown as-well

Something greasy was what I was after and something greasy was what I found. The above value meal came from a knock off KFC not to far from the Elephant & Castle tube stop. I went there thinking the market might be on and maybe get some more knock off products (namely an Iphone case) no such luck.

Had had a pretty decent day, the weather was pretty good at Mr Lanham had told me that the Notting Hill Carnival was going down, so figured what better a day to zip in to London.

Upon getting there I had to use my cunning to work out a way to get to Notting Hill, as the nearest tube stop was closed. I managed to make it but didn't really know where I was going. Unfortunately I didn't see Hugh Laurie either. In fact in my time over here my star spotting has been a write-off, I mean, I was never good, but all I've come up with is a guy, who looked like a guy on TV in Liverpool (so said my great Aunt) on the train and today managed to see a  slightly crazylooking lady being pushed  in a wheel chair who had a striking resemblance to Susan Boyle, possibly it was her and celebrating the paralympics?

BACK TO THE STORY of the carnival. I followed some crowds there and the party was pretty good. It was kinda like a street party over the whole suburb, which was very cool, with live music and drinking on the street. The drinking part inspired me to go to a dairy to get a couple of beers, I didn't have to walk far but getting back turned out a bit loltastic.

Having opened my first beer, and drinking thirstily, I turned out of the street and figured I was walking in the right direction to get back to the Carnival,. Unfortunately I had more than opened my second beer when I realised I was well off course, by the time I was on my third I was walking through a somewhat crowded Westfield mall drinking, with another can in my hand. I felt a little out of place. There's a point I must have crossed when drinking in the street on a Sunday afternoon began to feel a wee bit inappropriate. Probably as soon as I left Notting Hill... On the upside, it's not really that out of place here; a guy drinking on the street, as booze is fairly available, so no one was looking side ways or nuttin'...

Bauhaus

ANYWAY, after stocking up with another couple of beers from the Supermarket in the mall, I set my compass and made it back to the Carnival which was pretty good times. There must have been about a billion people and everyone was having a bit of a groove to the steel bands in the rare London sun. Think I had bought a couple of the fairly  average "Red Stripe" beers, it says it Jamaican, but is brewed by Diago I think, who brew Fosters, and it tastes just as good as the Australian Classic...

Wrong side of town for a riot ,officers... Brixton's on the other side of the Thames,

BRIEFLY, before marrying up this nonsense with the food in question, I wish to explain my initial surprise at how big Fosters is here, It's like one of the most popular beers here. A quick bit of research tells that Fosters isn't big in its Australian home no more, as it really doensn't have a place in their market (VBs working class and Heinken is for the office clerks spose toothy's is in the middle?) but over here it's branded as fairly working class and it's sponsorship in prominent at major sporting events. Either way though, it tastes pretty blah.

At the end of the day I was hungry for something unhealthy and feeling a wee bit guilty for not doing my errands I had missed on account of drinking, and knock off Dirty Bird was the winner. The meal wasn't too bad, I think the real K-Fry does it better, but this was cheep, if you excuse the pun, and filled the space desired.