It had been almost 14 years since I last stayed in London. Well not strictly true I had spent a few nights in London since then but part of a medivac journey doesnt really count
London is one of those places I love to visit but would hate to live there. 16 years ago I spent about 4 months working in the west end of London. It involved working there 5 days a week and returning home to weekends which really meant getting in late on a Friday night, doing the washing and drying clothes on the Saturday and then packing for a Sunday night flight to be at my desk for 9am on the Monday. Not much of a life really and sounded a lot more glamourous than it actually was. After a month or so I tried to work 12 hour days monday to weds so I could get home earlier and when the offer of a permanent job came, I was never so glad to turn a job down in my life. Yes I spent time in some great hotels and got the opportunity to eat in some great restaurants but after a while all you want to do is go back to your hotel room and get room service and watch tv.
So I spent some time away from London but would always get over sometime during December, if for nothing else than to take a wander round Harrods and splash out a little.
Id organised this trip to go over and do some quick coffee meetings with some of my London clients. Its odd but I worked for a client in London for over 4 years and it was a good relationship with the client but we never met once in that period and I realised that this was the norm with my current clients so thought Id make an effort to press the flesh. I know I was probably asking too much to get the chance to go round and do some stock photos as it would be totally weather dependent and booked a month in advance it was pretty much a see how it is when you get there trip. If all else failed I’d go to a few exhibitions and I might even do some tourist stuff.
The way the flights worked out Id arrive after dark in London and had pretty much the first evening to myself. The question was then do I take in a show, go for a wander, go to the cinema, veg out in the hotel or… …well to cut a long story short I ended up at Chelsea for a champions league game. A great chance to get some quick street food which looking back on it I wish I’d missed. Not long after returning from Hong Kong where the street food there had sort of spoiled me So when I couldnt decide if the bap had more bread than the sausage I knew Id made the wrong choice!
Still the game was a good result for Chelsea and when the great Fernando Torres was introduced at 80 odd minutes it was time for me to leave and get a quick train home. Turned out to be a great move on my part, with delays, breakdowns and so on it took over an hour to get across London. How on earth are they going to hold the Olympics?
When I worked in London one of my bosses was one of those typical London bosses, when he invites you out for Lunch, it is of the liquid variety. I learned this to my cost one Friday afternoon when I went out with him and a load of the senior managers. After 4 pints I couldnt remember what my name was but I do remember the whole pub laughing when I kept saying ‘no seriously lads, what are we having to eat’. I have no idea how I ended up back in Belfast that evening. The guys had always said that if I was ever in London looking a pint at 6am that I should get myself down to Smithfield Market. Under the market theres a pub called the cock and as long as you order breakfast you can get drink as well. Now as a light drinker the pint didnt really interest me but rather the opportunity to get a fryup that would choke a horse and be made up of every meat under the sun. I waited 14 years for that fry and can I say it was worth the wait. I would thoroughly recommend it and get yourself down to the Smithfield Meat Market (London City Markets) if you ever get a chance. If you are a social networking afficionado (I occasionally use twitter and use facebook for family and friends) then please dont send a message to everyone you know saying that you are enjoying a breakfast at the cock. Innocent enough until some so called friends leave the ‘breakfast at’ part out of their requoting. Sigh!
Seeing as it was such a ridiculous time in the am and the sun was just coming up I headed down over the river for some early morning city views. Going past St Pauls I got a first glimpse of the Occupy London protest and the ‘ring of steel’ around the London Stock Exchange. Lets be honest I remember some of the rings of steel thrown up here in Northern Ireland,so a few crash barriers and fat lads in dayglo jackets doesnt constitute a ring of steel London.
I do have to say it was an absolutely beautiful morning and whilst cold was probably one of the best Ive ever seen there. I would have mostly stayed there in the summer when at times the heat is oppressive, I remember coming out of an air conditioned office one day for lunch only to stay in the revolving door and go and get crisps and cola from the vending machine.
I spent most of the morning wandering in and around the City hoping to set upon some bankers and give them what for but they must have all been sitting in their office, banking, or something like that.
I had a fair idea of the types of photos I wanted so took a wander up around Westminster and in and around Whitehall. It was a good opportunity to try out some of the travel technology Id first tried at my path to enlightenment in Hong Kong. I had downloaded a london transport app, a tube map, walking and guided tour apps and was using google maps to navigate. Despite having an engineering degree and a masters in electronics this felt very weird. Id always travelled everywhere with a map and found it strange to be standing in Trafalgar Square and then finding the nearest highest ranked pub lunch within 100 yards. Sure enough my facebook and tripadvisor friends didnt let me down and I ended up in the excellent porter house just off covent garden. Of course only after Id sat down and ordered did I realise it was an Irish pub and just across the street from Rules where Id unsuccessfully tried to book a lunch.
I then made almost a fatal mistake, I decided to go for wander up round Regent Street and then Oxford Street in late evening a couple of weeks before Christmas. Only the previous weekend the police had closed Oxford Street because there were just too many people in it for safety.
Im sure it was nowhere near that now but John Lewis is an odd place to sit and have your dinner, like a bad comedy sketch Id tried to get in somewhere to sit down and made the mistake of trying to navigate through shops when I found myself outside the John Lewis Cafe. With the glories of trip planners, sat nav, tube maps I worked out that it would be a hundred yard dash to Regent Street tube station and then only one change to my hotel.
Ok so I’ll admit it Im chicken and I bottled out and went back to the hotel to watch the football on tv. Theres only so many shopping crowds you can brave before it takes its toll and if its this bad now, whats it going to be like come the 2012 Olympics?
Well its nearly that time of year again.
The 40th birthday celebrations are now behind me and its time to turn into a grumpy old man. Well not quite.
Its a mad time of year the roads are full of idiots making their way into ‘the big smoke’ for their annual pilgrimage to stand in a queue in Argos or just to drive round roundabouts or double park in the main streets and roads. Its time to go to the 24hr supermarket and see people stocking up for the third world war which will consist of shops being closed for no more than 48 hours.
Last year I thought I’d get my Christmas food in, bread and milk because I sponge off other people for Christmas dinners, at an ungodly hour so went down to the 24 hour tescos at 3:30am. There wasnt a selection box or turkey drumstick to be had. Obviously in the four hours before Id missed the impending meteorite strike warning and felt a bit of a social outcast walking past loads of people saying ‘excuse me I’ve only bread and milk’ as I went through the hoardes of two trolley people (i.e. bought so much they had to get two trolleys).
Apparently this year will be an ‘under tree’ year. In other words the bankers have stole so much of our money we can only afford to put things under the tree, not round them or in 50 inch plasma sized boxes beside the tree. I think this is a good thing. Leaving religious implications aside for a minute when I see bad tempered people shouting at each other in traffic, banging shopping trolleys into each other and generally almost coming to blows over that last car parking space I think do we really need this, I’ve seen more minor car accidents, more instance of people shouting at each other and so on in the last week than at most other times of the year. People here are generally considerate, will smile back if you smile back (in a non Im about to cut your head off type of way), but in this season of goodwill it tends to go out the window and it shouldnt.
Ive been as commercial as anyone else but where has all this pressure come from? Has it always been there? I was talking to some friends today who said, yes it has been. I saw an ad on tv tonight which said the first family fight at Christmas day is at 10am and the first children scolded was at 11am. They’ve obviously never met my mother. I think we were ‘scolded’ before we even woke up!
Like birthdays, Christmas seems to be a time for children, rubbish. Last night a couple of kids hit my front windows with snowballs. I put my boots on, put my coat on and thought about going out to shout my head off. ‘clear off you young ruffians’ or words to that effect. I have to say the kids were shocked when I hit one of them on the head with a snowball when they started pelting next doors windows.
I await the child protection police and the SWAT team to lock me up in Guantanamo Bay for 4 million years. I know Obama is closing it but thats just for Al Quaida, grown adults who hit kids with snowballs have their own section of hell reserved for them. I hear people my age complaining about kids doing exactly what we did at their age. Difference now is you cant give them a boot up the arse or hit them with snowballs because they have ‘rights’. Now I’m not advocating holding them down and breaking their kneecaps (well maybe not most of the time) but nothing put the fear of God up me as a kid as some adult hitting me a slap round the head and then telling my parents who instead of discussing my rights with me would also slap me around the head and not let me out for days.
I heard a quote from I think it was a comedian who said that when does a snow forecast go from ‘brilliant, snowmen, snowball fights’ to ‘I’ll never be able to make it into work’. Whatever day that is its a sad one.
Oh yeah Christmas. Bah Humbug. And what is it with Christmas Cards. I dont do the whole ‘Christmas Cards’ thing. Yes I know hitting kids with snowballs and now no Christmas Cards puts me somewhere between Pol Pot and Adolf Hitler but let me explain.
Its not the environmental aspect, its not the keeping the Royal Mail in business aspect either, its the whole idea of the thing.
I remember my Dad going through the early December ritual of getting out the address book and sitting down with maybe 200 christmas cards writing until he got hand cramp to people we’d once said hello to holiday. I voiced my concerns to him one year when I had my own house and he asked if I’d done my christmas card list and I said I didnt believe it in, two days later I got a card from him and family to me and family. But I am your family you eejit!
I’ll tell you what sums up Christmas Cards to me. Ive been living in my house now for about 14 years, the people who had it before me had it for at least 6 years. In my first year I got a Christmas Card for the previous but one owner. Every year since, apart from one Ive got the same card addressed to the same people. Now they havent lived here for at least 20 years! Why on earth would you send a card to someone you havent spoken to in over 20 years? To make matters worse there was a years hiatus. Maybe they had found out the people had moved, I didnt know. Then the following year, different handwriting but from the same part of the country. It was from the daughter of the original people. Now maybe the original senders had died and the daughter had inherited the Christmas Card list I dunno but that for me sums up Christmas Cards. Yes, I know its good to receive, yes I know its good to send but come on.
Now. Im not a complete scrooge. My train of thought is that if you have the time to write a christmas card, even at the 2 seconds a card my Dad seemed to write them at, you have the time to pick up the phone and say hello. I make a point of trying to visit everyone on what would be my christmas card list in the period early December to mid January, if I dont, I give them a quick call.
I have to say though this year I received an e-card from a client through a charities website, what a good idea! I might go against the grain and look this up for next year.
Now I’m not trying to give the impression that Im bah humbug, far from it, I just think that we’ve lost sight of the human interaction, the bonding, the idea of giving and receiving. This can also mean time, not just money or presents. Spending time is much more valuable than spending money and hopefully economic conditions mean people start to realise this. Sometimes the how gets emphasised more than the why. Two of the main things I learned from my dad were.
1. Theres no such thing as having too big a tv
2. A Christmas tree can never have enough lights.
Every year the search for the broken bulb ritual would take place, all the kids sitting on the floor screwing and unscrewing bulbs until finally the lights would come on, or as dougal in Fr Ted says ‘ on, off, on, off, on…’ Its not until later in life that this ‘tedium’ meant that we all sat round in close proximity, no tv, no texting, no nintendo ds, no nothing and worked towards a common goal. A couple of hours just sitting round talking and laughing and telling stories. Often the fixing of the lights was never achieved so it was off to Woolies the next day for another 3 sets of 120 lights to replace the one set of 120 we hadnt fixed. Another 2 sets ‘just in case.’
With my led never blow sets of lights we’ll never have that again and the odds of getting people to just sit and stare at the lights for a while is slim.
Putting the Christmas Tree up is a ritual and one I have to admit I havent always observed, when I havent put it up with some bah humbug excuse like ‘I’ll be away most of the time’ or ‘too busy’ or some other such pathetic excuse, even putting it up for one day always seems to be magical, seems to add warmth and light to a room. Even if its just one of those wee stick on trees you get for cars, theres some sense of achievement. Oh sorry left out point 3 from my dad, you can never have too big a christmas tree.
Ok you can. A load of years ago a very good friend of mine broke his leg in an accident before Christmas, he always had a real christmas tree but as his leg was in plaster he couldnt get one himself and wondered if I could get him one. Of course I could, the honour of getting someone elses tree!
I applied my dads principle of buying the biggest tree I could get (within budget of course). Naturally it was too big to fit in the car and it was back in the days of army checkpoints across Belfast. So when you are stopped by a British Army soldier at a checkpoint and he asks. ‘What is in the boot’, you do fear for the whole English race when even a blind man on a galloping horse can see the 9 foot christmas tree sticking out of the back of it. He didnt see the funny side of it when I pointed it out. Luckily enough the policeman did and I left with my teeth intact.
20 mins it took us to get the tree in the front door only to find out that the tree was two feet taller than the ceiling height. Suddenly that soldier didnt seem soooo stupid after all.
My mate told me not to worry as he would just saw two feet off it. Of course being an engineer he measured the height difference and marked it off on a measuring tape.
10 mins and a lot of sawing later he reappeared with the tree.
It was inch perfect, floor to ceiling allowing for floor fixings, perfect height.
He was so proud of himself that it did pain me to say that traditionally you take extra height off the bottom of the tree, not the top. It looked like it was just growing through the ceiling with no space for the angel. Still not to worry, I’m sure the army would offer him a job.
Not having kids of my own my loft is usually the repository for all my nephews, godchildren, pseudo relations kids Christmas presents. Im often called for ‘sticker’ or ‘battery’ duty. (putting stickers on things or putting batteries in them. Yes I’m often the one to blame for wendy houses being partially assembled upside down, toy motorbikes with the wing mirrors on the wrong way round or in the worst case scenario a radio controlled truck with the all the stickers on upside down because thats how I was reading the instructions. So kids, if you are reading this some of your presents have been in my loft since August and if I dont look carefully enough, some of them will also be there next August.
11:30pm on Christmas Eve to 1am on Christmas morning is a magical time to be driving. If you havent ever experienced this then I thoroughly recommend it. The roads are full of cars with half built bikes, dolls houses and various other large cardboard boxes hanging out the back of cars. Good job the checkpoints arent there any more, I’d hate to have to explain half the stuff sticking out of rear windows, sunroofs and tailgates.
Dont ever drive the period 6am-9am on Christmas morning as the roads are full of new bikes, scooters, skateboards, radio controlled cars etc.
I started my photographic ‘career’ working in santa grottos in shopping centres/malls. It taught me very little about photography and a great deal about dealing with people and about people. In the country grottos kids wanted toy tractors or dolls and the city kids wanted mobile phones and makeup!
Its very easy to knock christmas and although not seeing sunshine for 8 weeks of the year (on the road before sunup, in a grotto all day and leaving after sun down) isnt good for the physical health it can be good for the soul.
Every year I said I would never do it again (stopped about 4 years ago) as it was too much hassle and the side benefits of every kid you know knowing you worked with Santa have worn off as they got older. It used to be great, I would get everyone I knew to come to my grotto to get their photo with santa and told their parents that if the kids played up to ring me and I would tell santa. I’d even santa programmed into my mobile so even in July if kids were messing about I’d hit speed dial!
Its tough work, its a great way of refining workflow and its a great way to learn if you are suited to social photography, its a stressful alien situation to a lot of parents and kids and its your job to get the best photo possible, we all have seen santa photos of kids crying but it gave me one of the best moments of my photography career which has made up for one of the worst.
Id stopped doing press shifts around Christmas, I was sent out on one job not knowing what it was, it was the week before Christmas and met a reporter at this house. Turns out it was to interview a family who had rang the paper about the dangers of quad bikes. They had bought their teenager one for Christmas and being a teenager they had taken it out of the garage and taken it for a spin late at night. They lost control, hit a tree and were killed. Walking up that drive I saw the mother through the window taking the decorations off the christmas tree. Ive seen some things here in Northern Ireland but its funny that that image is one that stays with me.
Its why I stopped doing that and started doing more of the Santa Grotto stuff so one particular time a father came in and asked if we could widen the entrance path which we did. A couple of minutes later he came in with a girl aged about 8 in one of those ventilator wheelchairs. I got her turned round and got Santa to come out to her, took a few photos with Santa leaning down and printed off one whilst Santa spoke to her. I handed the photo to the mum and she burst into tears and ran out of the Grotto. I didnt know what to say but the Dad said to excuse them and he wheeled the young girl out.
He came back a couple of seconds later holding the photo. He explained that his wife was very happy with the photo, it was the first they had of their daughter smiling and that this was her last christmas and that she only had a couple of months left to live. He was in tears, I was in tears, Santas beard was getting very wet indeed.
Whenever I get stressed in shops or traffic at Christmas, whenever family issues get annoying, whenever it seems like too much hassle or too commercial I think of that wee girl and her family. I hope they had a good one.
Well not quite – but it is my birthday later in the week, its that time when you have to consider parties, visiting friends and trying not to book work for days you know your eyeballs will have difficulty looking at anything other than the back of your eyelids.
Oh and Im 40 this week. I dont subscribe to the ‘having to do a big thing’ rubbish, thats just for people who dont do big things as a matter of course. Although I have booked a trip to South America for a month in Jan/Feb. Id have went if I was 40, 39, 41 or whatever.
This all sounds a bit bah humbug but when I explain that my birthday is a week before christmas some of you out there might sympathise.
When you are 9 having a birthday a week or 10 days before Christmases is like having your birthday and christmas all rolled into one… oh hold on its not like that at all, it _is_ that.
Its far enough away so that you get two sets of presents and you can stretch your birthday cards out long enough so that they are still there with the christmas cards.
Its great.
Then you get to job age, you are invariably working, if you want to go out for dinner or a club or something then its a nightmare, places are either booked up or the service is competing with loads of christmas parties and you may as well sit at home. I have to say though I have only really been out once to dinner on my birthday that I can almost remember, japanese and very nice it was too although I think the sake bill for the two of us came to more than the dinner.
Then as you get a bit older, all your friends have jobs so you have to make your ‘do’ a friday night or a saturday night and if this coincides with the last friday or saturday before christmas then thats just a nightmare, people giving you the ‘oh thats my works christmas do’. So yes youd rather go out with the boring bunch you work with than me, cheers. Having said that it probably explains why I ended up moving jobs with my friends so many times that we all ended up working in the same place. I dumped this lifestyle 10 years ago now though so they just play the same old card.
Back in my twenties I would ring people up and say ‘party at my house’. The answer was usually ‘what time’, the inference being that short notice of an hour or two was all that was required.
Now in the 30s babysitting rotas have to be accommodated, flowcharts produced and people get peed off when you havent finalised details down to the hors d’oeuvres (whatever they are) a month in advance.
Speaking of food, bring your own used to just mean vodka jellies and a plate of cocktail sausages or sausage rolls from wherever, now its marks and spencers party nibbles or tescos finest, it all goes down the same way in a handfull at 3am.
Thats if anyone stays out to 3am any more, babysitters knock off at 11pm and most people are worn out with a half hour on the wii never mind dancing to the wee small hours.
I dont miss the waking up to see what got burnt the night before, who is lying dead on my sofa and having to put wellies on to wade through the pools of sick in the toilet and kitchen.
Speaking of which you know you are getting old when a couple disappears into your bathroom for a half hour and who later emerges looking absolutely shattered, only to find out one has been retching into the big porcelain telephone to God and the other has been holding their hair back. 10 years ago they would have been, well you know…
A couple of years ago I almost lost the will to live at party this time of year, the blokes were as usual standing in the kitchen talking about cars and bikes and various sports injuries whilst the women were in the living room watching the x factor. I mean come on like, sports injuries? I have you all beat.
For my 30th birthday party some kind soul hired me a stripogram. Part of the show was for me to take a rose out of her ample bosom with my teeth. No real spectator sport there but at the time I was on crutches with a leg injury that could go either way so in the days before youtube I had to have 6 guys at the party grab me by the belt and shoulders and lower me down in a horiztonal position as she lay on the floor. I think they had an ambulance on standby.
It was funny though at the end when she had to sit on my knee put my head in her chest and read me some story which for the life of me I cant remember – dunno why. As she went to sit down on my knee over 40 people screaming ‘not that one!’
Maybe birthday parties arent that bad after all, pass me another vol au vent with a whiskey chaser.
