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Birthday Parties part 2
Yesterday was the biggest gathering of friends to date. Twelve people were duly invited for food and booze in London, 8 people duly showed up, which was a pretty good return :)
First step was the movie. I was the only person who went in the end,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
thalinoviel mistiming things a little and not being able to get to the Odeon on time. I was both impressed and unimpressed with the Covent Garden Odeon. First off, they had no hot dogs on the go (boo!). But then they agreed to cook one for me (Yay!). Then the lady in charge of the counter buggered off and was never seen again, leaving one girl to man the till for confectionery, the popcorn counter AND keep an eye on my hot dog (not good!). It quickly became clear that the hot dog was going to take a while to cook, it being the largest hot dog for the price I've ever seen. Seriously. For the same price I pay in Stevenage Cineworld for a regular hot dog, I got a dog that was roughly the length of my forearm. Impressive.
Anyway, when it became clear I might risk missing the start of the movie, the girl who had taken over said she'd bring the hot dog to me! Well, I wasn't convinced, but duly toddled into the cinema and settled down. Blow me if she didn't bring the hot dog as promised. Good service. So I'll let 'em off :)
The movie I saw was "Sideways". Absolutely brilliant film, one I'm convinced would be a shoo in for Best Film Oscar in any year that Martin Scorsese wasn't competing. The cast are uniformly superb and the story is both hilarious and touching, with a really sweet ending that makes you go "Aww!" without being unsatisfactory or too saccharine. Brave Alexander Payne and may you at least win the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar cos you deserve it (he's already nabbed a BAFTA).
Coming out of the movie I had just enough time to saunter down to The Salisbury, where I found athalinoviel and awaited the rest of the arrivals. Everyone eventually showed except for Ayo, who'd been trying to reach me but didn't have my mobile number! (She subsequently left a text message with Rik - she was a bit under the weather, poor lass.) There was then much happy Mitchy squeaking as I was given some lovely pressies. Julian and Helen gave me a box of chocolates *drools*, Moira and Mark gave me a microphone for the PC and three beautiful water glasses with the cutest engraving of a cat on the sides. Last, but not least, thalinoviel gave me a Diana Wynne Jones hardback, "The Merlin Conspiracy". Hurrah!
There was scampering over to Porters, where after a shortish wait for our table, there was the usual moaning and groaning as people tried to whittle down their choices for food. I settled on the Smoked Mackerel Parfait, followed by Wild Boar and Sage Sausages with Horseradish Mash. Deeeeeelicious! Yet again, I had no room for dessert!
We eventually waddled out around 10.30 and duly had the required "So who's going back to what station?" conversation. We deduced that 6 of us were heading to Covent Garden, and that Rik and Carol would say goodbye here because they were heading south. We then made our way to King's Cross, where Moira and Mark headed off to Liverpool St. Station. Jools and Helen had to get back to Cambridge and they got to Kings X just in time to catch the 11.07, which was handy. I said goodbye to them there and headed back to the Underground, because there was going to be Complications in getting home.
When I bought my ticket that afternoon, I'd noticed ominous warning signs all over the station about maintenance work. To my deep displeasure, there would be no trains between Finsbury Park and New Barnet after 5.30pm, meaning to get home, I'd have to get to Finsbury Park, catch a bus to New Barnet, then another train to WGC. *sighs* We were wondering if Jools and Helen would have problems because they had to get back to Cambridge which further north on the same line as me. However they were fine, so I assume their trains were being routed on the Hertford loop. Thinking about it, what I should have done is go with them as far as Stevenage and then just catch a train south to WGC, but at the time, I was worried there might not be any later trains from Stevenage going south. Ah well. In the event, it was fairly painless; there was a bus nearly ready to leave just as I got to Finsbury Park; we got to New Barnet just as the next train was due to go, so all in all, it added only *ponders* maybe 45 minutes to my normal journey. So not too bad.
There was a minor bit of unpleasantness at WGC when I got into a push/shove/near fisticuffs with some spaced out/smashed out of her tree moron at the taxi rank, but it wasn't anything serious. It would have been even more minor if the cabbie had had the brains to drive off a bit faster. Dolt. Anyway, by 12.30 I was home, tired but very happy.
Today, I will be seeing Troodler and later,thalinoviel is feeding me Chocolate Cake o'Evil. There's football to watch and rugby to tape. *sighs happily* This has been the best birthday weekend I've had for years.
l
First step was the movie. I was the only person who went in the end,
thalinoviel mistiming things a little and not being able to get to the Odeon on time. I was both impressed and unimpressed with the Covent Garden Odeon. First off, they had no hot dogs on the go (boo!). But then they agreed to cook one for me (Yay!). Then the lady in charge of the counter buggered off and was never seen again, leaving one girl to man the till for confectionery, the popcorn counter AND keep an eye on my hot dog (not good!). It quickly became clear that the hot dog was going to take a while to cook, it being the largest hot dog for the price I've ever seen. Seriously. For the same price I pay in Stevenage Cineworld for a regular hot dog, I got a dog that was roughly the length of my forearm. Impressive. Anyway, when it became clear I might risk missing the start of the movie, the girl who had taken over said she'd bring the hot dog to me! Well, I wasn't convinced, but duly toddled into the cinema and settled down. Blow me if she didn't bring the hot dog as promised. Good service. So I'll let 'em off :)
The movie I saw was "Sideways". Absolutely brilliant film, one I'm convinced would be a shoo in for Best Film Oscar in any year that Martin Scorsese wasn't competing. The cast are uniformly superb and the story is both hilarious and touching, with a really sweet ending that makes you go "Aww!" without being unsatisfactory or too saccharine. Brave Alexander Payne and may you at least win the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar cos you deserve it (he's already nabbed a BAFTA).
Coming out of the movie I had just enough time to saunter down to The Salisbury, where I found a
thalinoviel and awaited the rest of the arrivals. Everyone eventually showed except for Ayo, who'd been trying to reach me but didn't have my mobile number! (She subsequently left a text message with Rik - she was a bit under the weather, poor lass.) There was then much happy Mitchy squeaking as I was given some lovely pressies. Julian and Helen gave me a box of chocolates *drools*, Moira and Mark gave me a microphone for the PC and three beautiful water glasses with the cutest engraving of a cat on the sides. Last, but not least, thalinoviel gave me a Diana Wynne Jones hardback, "The Merlin Conspiracy". Hurrah!There was scampering over to Porters, where after a shortish wait for our table, there was the usual moaning and groaning as people tried to whittle down their choices for food. I settled on the Smoked Mackerel Parfait, followed by Wild Boar and Sage Sausages with Horseradish Mash. Deeeeeelicious! Yet again, I had no room for dessert!
We eventually waddled out around 10.30 and duly had the required "So who's going back to what station?" conversation. We deduced that 6 of us were heading to Covent Garden, and that Rik and Carol would say goodbye here because they were heading south. We then made our way to King's Cross, where Moira and Mark headed off to Liverpool St. Station. Jools and Helen had to get back to Cambridge and they got to Kings X just in time to catch the 11.07, which was handy. I said goodbye to them there and headed back to the Underground, because there was going to be Complications in getting home.
When I bought my ticket that afternoon, I'd noticed ominous warning signs all over the station about maintenance work. To my deep displeasure, there would be no trains between Finsbury Park and New Barnet after 5.30pm, meaning to get home, I'd have to get to Finsbury Park, catch a bus to New Barnet, then another train to WGC. *sighs* We were wondering if Jools and Helen would have problems because they had to get back to Cambridge which further north on the same line as me. However they were fine, so I assume their trains were being routed on the Hertford loop. Thinking about it, what I should have done is go with them as far as Stevenage and then just catch a train south to WGC, but at the time, I was worried there might not be any later trains from Stevenage going south. Ah well. In the event, it was fairly painless; there was a bus nearly ready to leave just as I got to Finsbury Park; we got to New Barnet just as the next train was due to go, so all in all, it added only *ponders* maybe 45 minutes to my normal journey. So not too bad.
There was a minor bit of unpleasantness at WGC when I got into a push/shove/near fisticuffs with some spaced out/smashed out of her tree moron at the taxi rank, but it wasn't anything serious. It would have been even more minor if the cabbie had had the brains to drive off a bit faster. Dolt. Anyway, by 12.30 I was home, tired but very happy.
Today, I will be seeing Troodler and later,
thalinoviel is feeding me Chocolate Cake o'Evil. There's football to watch and rugby to tape. *sighs happily* This has been the best birthday weekend I've had for years.l