Pain and Gain

It was a boys night out as The Boy and I headed off to the cinema.  First we walked round the gadget store looking at all the wonders of modern technology before heading to the Mexican street food stall for steak fajitas.  Lovely and disgusting at the same time.  The Boy bought me a present...those marketing folk are clever aren't they?

We went to see Pain and Gain which was hilarious.  Perhaps for all the wrong reasons as it was based on the true story of bodybuilders who kidnapped a man and tortured him until he signed over all his assets, including the secret ones he had stashed in Bermuda.  As ever it could probably have done with a few cuts, was played for laughs, but it was good entertainment and definitely one for The Boys.

When we headed home I took this picture of the Tube Map made from Lego for Steve

Being on crutches seems to be catching on...everywhere we turn someone seems to have broken one or other of their lower limbs.  This was Brighton last week

It may have been wrong to suggest these are Up's crutch friends.

It's supposed to be quiet at the moment, with the last gasp of summer holidays.  Hence this pub in Bermondsey Street.  1 o'clock on Friday when it would normally be heaving, it was thus

It also means that all the people who don't usually, and indeed shouldn't, drive to work.  In most cases I think they must have left their brains on holiday.  No wonder that riding my motorbike has been a little hair-raising this week.  Yesterday I had to brake so sharply as (yet another) car turned in front of me.  I left half the Malaysian rubber plantation output on the road, and my bowels ended up in my mouth.

Abuse

"I take you to things where we are the youngest and you take me to things where we are the oldest"  said The Cat's Mother as we sat in a hyper-trendy pop up bar and eatery on the side of the River Lee in Hackney Wick on Friday night.  Imagine just how awful was the ritual humiliation of The Boy who had been dragged there kicking and screaming after a late afternoon at the cinema watching Matt Damon in Elysium.



It's a load of old hocum-pocum nonsense, but quite fun, even if The Cat's Mother spent most of the time with her face hidden behind her hands.  Certainly not up to the standards of District 9 which was also created by Neil Blomkamp on a much smaller budget plus some gratuitous interspecies prostitution which hasn't reappeared in the new film.  Fortunately.

Anyway, the bar was very lovely.  I was very comfortable and had a lovely meal of ribs.  I'd have stayed all night, but probably rightly The Cat's Mother insisted we left after one drink.

I had coffee with a journalist who writes for the FT, Wallpaper and Monocle as well as others today, and she tells me that Hackney Wick is so last year, and the really fashionable hotspot is Peckham.  Obviously she knows not what she's talking about, even if the high street there is filling up with trendy bars, cafes and odds & sods shops.  She puts my liking of 'pioneering districts' down to having spent too long in Warwickshire and Sussex in my 20's.  She may be right on that particular point.

I rather like this picture of a Praying Mantis who looks as though he is cycling home...I think it comes from a new book by the woman-abuser Saatchi.  But don't quote me.

Does he take sugar?

I never thought I would have cause to thank Tony Blair, but the events of the last few days have given me cause to thank him enormously.  After all it was his duplicity, manoeuvring and down right lies that had persuaded MPs to vote for war with Iraq; now his antics are on public display, it caused MPs to think twice about bombing Syria back to the dark ages.  So thanks Tony!  Everyone a winner.

Aren't mobile phones clever these days?

I took this picture...once upon a time it would taken bags of skill and expertise...this took me but a moment to do.  Is that dumbing down?

You may have noticed in the Brighton post a picture of the women's cricket match which just looks like a bunch of ants on heat.  It's not a video, technically it's not even a gif (whatever that is)...it's just a series of stills pulled together like an old movie film.  I took some more...on the phone it plays at proper speed, but I think it's quite fun as it appears here

Anyway, sometimes I use it to make phone calls

There's been some debate in the last week or so about whether The Paralympics have had any effect on attitudes to disabled.  One of the little stories that went around last year was about the young child who turned to his mother on seeing a the pirate Long John Silver and said he must be an athlete.  Who knows whether it was true or not?  It would be naive to think that attitudes have suddenly changed, but you would hope there would have been a measurable shift in attitudes.  When we were in Brighton, there were a couple of occasions when UP, who is still in plaster from his fall a couple of months ago, was being pushed around in a wheel chair.  Sure enough at Brighton Pavilion, the staff ignored him when asked whether there was a wheelchair route, preferring to speak to The Boy who was doing the pushing...."We don't have a lift, would he be able to go up the stairs with your help?"   That wasn't the only occasion and I guess must mean that attitudes are so entrenched that people with a disability still have a long fight to stop prejudice.